My utter disappointment with Moominvalley

If it wasn't already made obvious in my earlier post about my media consumption, Moomins hold a special place in my heart. The first book I read must have been Winter in Moominvalley. I've read all the books, I have all the VHS-tapes of the 90's Moomin series and I have almost all of the Moomin strip comic albums. I'm actually wearing my Moominpappa shirt while writing this. This means it is futile to disagree with me about Moomins, since I know just about everything.

Ok, not really, but now you know that I take this stuff seriously.

Because I'm familiar with both the comics and the original books, I know that Tove Jansson herself has told different versions of the same stories. This is why I'm pretty open minded about new Moomin series and films: it's fun to see what they come up with next!

With Moominvalley I was particularly optimistic, since there was a lot of resources put into it and the original concept art was amazing. The way they described the show, I was really rooting for a modern, but at the same time artsy rendition of the classic tales. I mean, the show seemed to have everything going for it!

However, my optimism started to fade once the first trailers came out and I saw the final look of the show. Then after the first episode aired all my hopes came crashing down. How did they manage to fuck it up so badly?

What's wrong with it?

Well, first look at the concept art:

And then look at the final product:

Seriously. What happened? What are these designs?! You couldn't even bother modeling the eyes, so you just put them in as a texture? I never thought I would see a moomin being completely dead inside, but here we are. The rendering looks like something from the 90s, and there's no trace of the atmosphere or dreamyness we saw in the concept art. Did they just not have the time to do it or did they use the entire budget for the concept art?

Also, the composition here seems really random. Why is Moominpappa hiding in the shadows? Not to mention Too-ticky creeping behind the roses. This is the title screen, and already I'm afraid.

At this point I'd like to point out that I'm not paying for Yle's streaming service "Areena" right now, so I had to watch all of this on YouTube. That's ok, though, I wouldn't use one cent of my student loans for this garbage.

The story

The first episode opens with a shot of the Moomin house, and right away the amateurish visuals hit you in the face. There's little to no background, making Moominvalley seem more like a desolate hell rather than a place of dreams and wonder.

Times are rough if this is what you get with 20 million euros.

There's not that much of a plot: the first episode is of Little My waking the Moomin family up to arrange some kind of a spring celebration. Not a lot is explained and none of the characters are introduced. It's certainly interesting to have Little My as the main character, but her character seems a bit mean. All she does is bother the Moomins!

She breaks things, too!

The show keeps frightening you with more bad models, and the amateurism is also apparent in the random camera angles that somehow make the Moomins look like the most intimidating family on the planet.

The freaky fingers are coming for you!

One particularly odd thing about this series is the way it adds interactivity to the play, assumably taking inspiration from the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch. Obviously I couldn't participate, but frankly I wouldn't have wanted to, since this part of the show looks tedious and adds nothing to the plot.

Like seriously, I couldn't care less about how many stripes are in Moominpappa's rockets or what colors he is using. Just show me the rockets when they're done, god damnit! I can't believe they used so much of the runtime for this nonsense.

So the party gets prepared and guests arrive. The celebration is a success(?) and spring has finally come to Moominvalley!

Fillyjonk has seen better days, I can tell you that.

Why god, why?

The show does have one merit: the voice acting isn't half bad, despite the terrible script. I was actually surprised at how many of the Finnish cast members from the 90s Moomin animation are involved. I could have sworn Matti Ruohola had died, but here he is voicing Moominpappa again. That's some dedication!

Other than that, terrible!

The reviews for the show are decent, which I can't wrap my head around. I guess it's hard to admit that a show with such a gargantuan budget could be bad. It's understandable, but delusional. We have to admit: a bad job is a bad job.

I recommend avoiding this show like the plague. But if you do want to watch it, you can do it for free on YouTube:

Oh well. "Leuka rintaan ja kohti uusia pettymyksiä!" as we say in Finland. This week's sketch is something a friend suggested for Inktober: Stinky hiding in a pile of twigs eating funnel cake.