DreamWorks originally bought the film rights to the Troll Dolls brands in 2011 before purchasing the franchise itself in 2013. Started with the 2016 movie of the same title, the franchise released a bunch of media during its first few years, including a sequel movie, several shorts, TV series and specials, merchandise products from a number of different brands, and many books and comics, as well as a couple of short-lived app games, a museum experience in New York City and a live show across the United States known as Trolls Live!. While the franchise received mostly mixed opinions and criticism at first, it quickly became a Cash-Cow Franchise, and its popularity has been increasing since the release of the second movie. A third film was released on November 17, 2023.
According to sources since the second film's release, the production and release of 4 more feature films has been discussed by some staff, including movie voice actor Justin Timberlake.
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Trolls media:
Animations
Feature films
- Trolls (2016)
- Trolls World Tour (2020)
- Trolls Band Together (2023)
Short films, series and specials
- Troll 2 Troll promos (2016)
- Trolls Holiday (2017)
- Trolls Holiday shorts (2017)
- Trolls: The Beat Goes On! (2018-2019)
- Ask Poppy (2018)
- Trolls: Pump Up the Party! (2018-2019)
- Tiny Diamond Goes Back To School (2020)note
- Trolls: TrollsTopia (2020-2022)
- What They Got Right (2020-2021)
- Trolls Scrapbook Stories (2021-present)
- Trolls: Holiday in Harmony (2021)
- It Takes Three (2023)
Books
Literature books
- Follow Your Art (2016)
- Trolls: The Junior Novelization (2017)
- Rock'N'Troll Collection (2017)
- Poppy and the Mane Mania!
- Branch and the Cooking Catastrophe
- Biggie and the Disastrous Dance
- Guy Diamond and the Rainbow Roundup
- Trolls Holiday: The Junior Novelization (2017)
- Trolls: Tales from Troll Village (2017)
- Poppy and the Parade Problem
- Biggie and the Big Misunderstanding
- Branch and the Party Rescue
- Satin & Chenille and the Fashion Show Disaster
- Trolls: 5-Minute Stories (2018note )
- Trolls (Treasure Trove Story)
- Hug! Dance! Sing!
- Drop the Beat!
- Pet Problem!
- Everything that Glitters is Guy!
- Out of Branch's Bunker
- The Sound of Spring
- Happy Troll-O-Ween!
- The Legend of Hug Time (2018)
- Too Many Cupcakes! (2018)
- Mad Libs (2019)
- Trolls World Tour (A Little Golden Book) (2020)
- Trolls World Tour (A Big Golden Book) (2020)
- Trolls World Tour: The Junior Novelization (2020)
- One Big Party! (2020)
- In Harmony (2020)
- Trick or Trolls (2020)
- Rainbow Of Colors (2021)
- Gift Time! (2021)
- A Different Groove (2021)
- Glitter Party! (2021)
- Dads Rock! (2021)
- Let's Work Together (2021)
- Tiny Diamond's First Day of School (2021)
- We're All Awesome (2021)
- Happy Trollsgiving! (2021)
- Happy Trollmas! (2021)
- Holiday in Harmony! (2021)
- Trolls Talent Show (2021)
- Let's All Sing Together! (2022)
- Sweet Dance Party! (2023)
- The Sweetest Paper Doll Book (2023)
- Countdown to Trollsmas (2023)
- Trolls Band Together (A Little Golden Book) (2023)
- Trolls Band Together: The Junior Novelization (2023)
- Family Harmony (2023)
- Trolls graphic novels (2016-2018)
- Hugs & Friends (2016)
- Put Your Hair in the Air (2017)
- Party with the Bergens (2017)note
- Brain Freeze (book 1) (2017)
- Brain Freeze (book 2) (2018)
Other books
- The Art of Dreamworks Trolls (2016)
- The Art of Dreamworks Trolls World Tour (upcoming)
- The Art of Dreamworks Trolls Band Together (2023)
Other media
Video games
- Trolls: Crazy Party Forest! (2016; closed in 2017)
- Dreamworks Trolls Pop (2018; closed in 2021)
- Funko Pop! Blitz (2020; limited time event)
- Trolls: Remix Rescue (2023)
- DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing (2023)
Notable merchandise
- Trolls magazine (issued 2017-present; has covered Trolls, Holiday, World Tour and "Band Together")
Theme Park Attractions and Events
- Kung Fu Panda Adventure (2018) note
- Trolls Village (2018; closed in 2019)
- Trolls: The Experience (2018; closed in 2019)
- Trolls Live! (2020; closed in 2022)
- Trolls Hug Time Jubilee (2023; closed in 2024)
- Trolls Trollercoaster (opening in Summer 2024) note
The Trolls franchise provides examples of:
All spoilers will be unmarked ahead in these examples. You Have Been Warned!
#-H
- Adaptation Title Change: The franchise's title is a shortening of "Troll Dolls". Justified in that the title species from the toyline are actual living beings in the franchise.
- All Trolls Are Different: The title characters are small
Ugly Cute beings designed after the Troll dolls. Most can move, stretch and shape their hair, as well as change its color as a form of defense and camouflage (in the latter case, their entire bodies can go completely grey too). The trolls of different tribes also have distinct physical differences, some diverging quite a bit from a general humanoid body plan. Overall, these Trolls fall on 0 in the sliding scale of troll size.- The Pop trolls were the only known Trolls up until the second movie; before that, they were simply referred to as "Trolls". They have diverse colors and most live a cheery, carefree life. Their correspondent music genre is Pop, and they have some variants like Glitter Trolls (who have their bodies covered in glitter and are normally naked) and Fuzzlings (who are basically normal Pop trolls with their head, torso and arms cropped out).
- Before the second movie, some merchandise and supplementary media also divided the Pop trolls into "families", based on their appearance or likings. Both Glitter Trolls and Fuzzlings had their own families.
- Rock trolls are mostly similar to Pop trolls, but with messier hair, angular features and muted colors in grey tones that make them look like they're literally carved out of stone. Their genre is Hard Rock, with some inclusion of Heavy Metal as well.
- Country trolls are like centaurs in body structure, though their upper part is still very similar to that of Pop trolls with beigetone colors. Their genre is Country, and they have a Wild West-themed culture.
- Classical Trolls are small, golden-skinned, glittery and winged, resembling cherubs. They have gems in their navels, which have the same pastel colors as their hair. Their genre is Classical, and their culture involves an emphasis on beatific aesthetic.
- Techno trolls live underwater and are like mermaids, but they can also float through the air. They have features and markings so angular as to resemble pixels, most signified by a pixelated heart on their chests, with bodies that can move as smoothly as a synth or as erratic as a dubstep mix. Their bodies also glow in bright neon colors, with their hair resembling fiber optic wire. Their genre is Electronic (referred by the name of the "Techno" subgenre in the franchise itself).
- Funk Trolls are the most open to other types of music as their princes are respectively also into Hip-Hop and Pop, showing their appreciation of highly eclectic sources. They're also the most alien compared to every other kind of troll, as they're modeled after the Troll giraffe toys; they have long limbs in either a quadruped or biped body structure and are covered in fur. Following this their tribe has the most advanced, sci-fi like technology, their entire kingdom housed in what's basically a terrestrial spaceship with futuristic devices like tractor beams and floating platforms.
- There are other smaller tribes (commonly known as "subtribes" by fans) of trolls for additional kinds of music, which consist of members spun off from the main tribes. The only subtribe from which its members' origins are known is Hip-Hop, coming from Funk and Pop heritage. Even though the heritage of the rest of the subtribe members is unknown (being merely referred in supplementary material as coming from a location known as the "hinterlands"), they all physically resemble Pop trolls.
- The current subtribes are Hip-Hop, Smooth Jazz, Reggaeton, K-Pop and Yodeling.
- The Pop trolls were the only known Trolls up until the second movie; before that, they were simply referred to as "Trolls". They have diverse colors and most live a cheery, carefree life. Their correspondent music genre is Pop, and they have some variants like Glitter Trolls (who have their bodies covered in glitter and are normally naked) and Fuzzlings (who are basically normal Pop trolls with their head, torso and arms cropped out).
- Amazing Technicolor Population: While the Troll dolls already had technicolor hair from the very beginningnote , Trolls was the first related franchise to explicitly use this trope, as it changed the Trolls' skin and noses to vary in any color but the original beige.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The animal species in the franchise come in a wide variety of technicolor-based hues as well, particularly the ones based on real animals in the 2D animated installments.
- Animated Musical: Applies to most media in the franchise.
- Ascended Extra: A common trope in media outside the movies, where most supporting and minor characters get larger roles.
- Inverted in the case of Fuzzbert, who rarely appears outside the movies, and when he does it's mostly to pull out a joke or gag. This arguably happens to him in World Tour as well, where he's mostly present during the movie's early part but absent throughout the rest.
- Canon Discontinuity: Most of the 2D animated media like The Beat Goes On! and TrollsTopia isn't considered part of the 3D canon storyline by neither fans nor the staff working on it, instead existing as mere "secondary canon".
- Central Theme: Unity to support one another through even the worse of times. Many of the conflicts in the main movies are resolved through everyone coming together and supporting one another. This is best exemplified by the leads Poppy and Branch; Poppy wants Branch to be more expressive and open up to others becoming more happy during the course of the series while Branch wants Poppy to ground herself to make sure she looks before she leaps learning that things aren't always sunshine and rainbows, and that's okay. They ultimately bring the best out of each other and by extension everyone else by helping each other and simply being there for one another.
- Christmas Episode: Trolls Holiday and Trolls: Holiday in Harmony involve the celebration of Christmas-esque holidays. There's also the books Trolls Holiday: The Junior Novelization, Holiday in Harmony! (which are adapations of the aforementioned specials) and Happy Trollmas!.
- Color Failure: Happens to all the Trolls (in the first movie specifically, the Pop Trolls) near the climax of both movies.
- Dance Party Ending: Although Dreamworks used this trope for the endings of a number of their movies, both Trolls movies took it up to eleven by making the final plot events happen simultaneously with them, and extending the trope itself to the ending credits. The first movie's case also includes Deus ex Machina.
- Dangerously Garish Environment/Everything Trying to Kill You: From what was seen so far, the franchise's world is a brightly colored Sugar Bowl that appears to be made of craft materials, but also has harsh environments outside of the sapient species' settlements, filled with carnivorous flora and fauna that, while coming in different predatory levels, generally place the Trolls near the bottom of the food chain.
- Ear Fins: The Techno Trolls have a pixel-shaped version of these.
- Easily Swayed Population: Although not much of it is shown, it appears that most generic characters of all of the major species merely rely on the named ones in knowing what to do. This becomes especially obvious near the end of both movies.
- Fantasy Counterpart Appliance: For most trolls, it's much like the Flintstones but exaggerated. They regularly use ridiculously specialized natural plants and creatures in place of most technology. In The Beat Goes On it edges into Arbitrary Skepticism when Branch calls a flytrap looking plant on a remote island with the apparent purpose of swallowing trolls and spitting them out with a makeover evolutionary nonsense. Meanwhile they have flowers that can function as flashlights, beetles that can be used as mobile turntables, and flying bugs that can be used as boomboxes, complete with fuzzy organic looking mixtapes.
- In Trollstopia Branch himself uses a creature that's capable of acting like a security checkpoint booth, scanning a troll to determine if they have a picture ID on their person.
- Flying Seafood Special: Techno trolls are aquatic, but can breathe out of water just fine as they can float through the air.
- Averted in Trolls: TrollsTopia, which depicts them using their fins to walk on the ground instead.
- Four-Fingered Hands: All sapient species in the franchise have these.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Zig-zagged throughout the franchise. There are large predatory spiders that prey on trolls, but also smaller ones that happily sing along with their songs. The Pop Trolls were even shown to have a holiday where they're tickled by a swarm of them.
- Gang of Hats: World Tour establishes that the trolls we've followed up to that point are just one of many different cultures, all basing their culture around a specific genre of music. Poppy and her village are established to be the Pop tribe, with five other major tribes and an indefinite amount of "sub" tribes between them representing other genres.
- Gold and White Are Divine: The Classical trolls evoke this with their cherubic, beatific appearance and glittery golden skin. Their mountain village of Symphonyville has a lot of aesthetics that use gold accented by the white of the surrounding clouds.
- Halloween Episode: The books Happy Troll-O-Ween! and Trick or Trolls.
- Hammerspace Hair: In The Beat Goes On! and TrollsTopia, trolls are regularly shown to keep things in their hair, with more stuff that can logically fit. At one point, Biggie vanishes an object in his hands by wrapping it in his shorter than average hair. It's even established across the franchise that trolls use their hair as a playpen for children too young to walk around on their own.
- History Repeats: Both movies have a species finding out that something they thought they needed wasn't so necessary. The first movie had the Bergens learning they don't need to eat Pop Trolls to be happy, and the second one had the Troll Tribes realizing that they don't need the Strings to play music.
- Hollywood Genetics: King Quincy and Queen Essence have purple and blue fur respectively, but their twin sons Prince D and Cooper have a pink fur color.
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- Iconic Sequel Character: While the Pop Trolls have always been present since the franchise's beginning, every other Troll Tribe has only been around since the second movie, yet they're treated as fundamental to the franchise. The Techno Trolls are the most "iconic" in particular due to their Ensemble Dark Horse status.
- Jukebox Musical: All of their main movies are this. Their soundtracks consist of a combination of pre-existing songs (some of which are mashed up into medleys) and original ones. World Tour emphasizes it even more with the use of multiple music genres. Band Together has a bit more emphasis on the Boy Band craze
- Land, Sea, Sky: The Techno Trolls swim, the Classical Trolls fly, and all the other trolls walk.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler:
- Most merchandise from the first movie, as well as all media in the franchise released after it, shows Branch with his original blue hair and skin, which he turns to in the actual movie when he sings to save the lives of the other Pop Trolls.
- Likewise, plenty of promotional material and merchandise for Trolls World Tour and following media don't hesitate to show Barb's Heel–Face Turn at the end of the movie.
- Loads and Loads of Races: If every Troll tribe and subtribe is counted as a separate species, they, alongside all non-Troll sapient species seen in the franchise so far, would comprise more than 15 intelligent species. While some of the non-Troll species like the Bergens remain pretty normal, a lot of them are mythological humanoids and anthropomorphic nature elements, the most recurring of which are clouds.
- It doesn't help that there are also about 70 non-anthropomorphic animal species and 30 named plant species.
- Modest Royalty: This seems to be the rule for all the Troll Tribe leaders; most of the royal leaders, except the Funk ones, dress casually at all times.
- No Power, No Color: A Troll who has crossed the Despair Event Horizon will turn from their normally vivid colors to gray. This happens on numerous occasions in the films:
- In the first film:
- This happened to Branch as a child when his grandma was captured by Chef to be eaten in front of him, and he blamed himself for it. Unlike most cases, Branch didn't necessarily turn completely gray, which showed that he still had a sense of hope, as explained in the example below.
- At the film's climax, this happens to all of the Pop Trolls before Branch manages to rally Poppy to regain her hope and colors, inspiring everyone else in turn as well as himself.
- In Trolls World Tour, when Poppy destroys the Strings, every Troll and everything around them is rendered gray in a near-literal Darkest Hour, as they believe that all music is gone with them. However, thanks to Cooper and Prince D, they then realize that music was inside them all along and restore their colors. The Tribes doing music together also produces some rainbow results in the Rock Arena.
- In the first film:
- Orphaned Etymology:
- In the first movie, Cloud Guy asks for a high-five from Branch, despite both of them having Four-Fingered Hands.
- From the second movie onwards, K-Pop, since there isn't a Korea in the franchise's universe.
- Patchwork Map: To fit within the franchise's overall handcraft-like art style, most major locations in the Trolls world have completely different landscapes to each other, extending to just the borders.
- Pattern-Coded Eggs: As seen in World Tour, a Troll egg usually shares one physical trait with the baby Troll it hatches, represented either in the shell or occasional hair.
- The Performer King:
- All the Troll tribe leaders are also often the lead performers in their tribes' musical numbers. Poppy is usually just the lead vocalist, but the leaders of the other main tribes take it further by actually playing an instrument (e.g. Barb), conducting (Trollzart) or mixing (Trollex).
- King Gristle is also shown to have taken up keyboard recitals after the events of the first movie in Trolls Holiday.
- The Power of Rock: The Trolls' music seems to have a bit of magic in it.
- In the first movie, when Poppy falls and all the other Trolls to despair in the Darkest Hour, Branch brings them back to normal with "True Colors". The ending features a peppy song-and-dance number to Justin Timberlake's "
Can't Stop The Feeling!", which convinces the Bergens to not eat them anymore, and even restores the dead Troll Tree. - In the second movie, after it seems that Poppy completely destroyed music by destroying the strings, all the Trolls realize that music now comes from inside themselves. As this occurs, Poppy and the other tribe leaders get the entire crowd to start jamming out to "Just Sing".
- The third movie, Branch's old boy band Brozone is trying to achieve what is known as the perfect family harmony. A harmony so strong it can shatter diamonds. This is what's needed to free Floyd from his diamond prison. They achieve this by letting Branch take the lead as Brozone, Poppy and Viva all sing "Better Place" not by being perfect, but by being themselves.
- In the first movie, when Poppy falls and all the other Trolls to despair in the Darkest Hour, Branch brings them back to normal with "True Colors". The ending features a peppy song-and-dance number to Justin Timberlake's "
- Prank Gone Too Far: Mostly played with Cloud Guy, who deliberately makes his pranks result in this trope, but also occasionally with other characters by accident.
- Prehensile Hair: Most of the Trolls have this, though the Funk trolls don't do it as often as the other tribes. Techno trolls also rarely use their hair like this either.
- Recycled Title: In the Trolls Graphic Novels comic book series, the last two books share the title Brain Freeze, taken after the story of the same name, which, however, is only present in the second book. Not helped by the fact that the first one also has a scene of the story as its cover.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: A common trope throughout the movies so far.
- In the first movie, the Big Bad Chef has red eyes.
- World Tour has a downplayed case. Although Barb has a red eye color, and any Trolls turned into Rock Zombies gain glowing red eyes, the color in itself is rather used to represent the Rock Trolls.
- Shout-Out:
- Trollzart's name is clearly a pun between "Mozart" and "Troll". Adding to that is his official full name, "Wolfgang Amadeus Trollzart".
- King Trollex's name is likely another pun with Skrillex.
- Hickory and Dickory's names are a reference to the nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock.
- Solo Mission Becomes Group Mission:
- In the first movie, Poppy was willing to go on a trip to Bergen Town on her own to rescue her friends, even though she asked Branch for help before. Branch rejected the offer at first, but eventually joins her because he believes she wouldn't make it on her own due to her lack of skills (as well as Poppy sending the rest of the Trolls into his survival bunker basically forcing him to get out of it).
- The same thing between Poppy and Branch happens in Trolls World Tour. Poppy doesn't mind going alone again to travel through the other newly-revealed Troll kingdoms, as she now has a hot air balloon to travel safely. Branch immediately gets on the balloon just as Poppy sends it into the air.
- Plays out differently in Trolls Band Together. It's initiated by John Dory, Branch's long lost older brother. He initially went on his own to save their brother Floyd but they need their family band, Brozone, back together to sing the perfect family harmony. Thus John Dory needs Branch and the other members of Brozone to reunite to save Floyd with Poppy and Tiny Diamond tagging along.
- Species Title: About creatures that are called Trolls.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: In the first movie, there is a short sequence in the middle of a musical number where Poppy is underwater but still singing without issue, not even any gurgling. In World Tour, Barb and her posse have no apparent problems opening their vehicles underwater, Barb herself having a clear conversation with King Trollex. In the 2D animated installments, this is of the second type; where everyone, sans Techno Trolls, need to at least wear a dome helmet to breathe underwater.
- Thanksgiving Episode: Trolls: The Beat Goes On! has the episode "Funsgiving", which involves a holiday based on Thanksgiving. There's also the book Happy Trollsgiving!.
- Toilet Humor: Glitter Trolls are capable of farting glitter. Downplayed in that it's usually not laughed at and has proved to be helpful for Glitter Trolls as a defense mechanism.
- Token Aquatic Race: The Techno Trolls are the only major underwater species in the franchise thus far.
- Truly Single Parent: Although there are Troll couples with children who likely reproduced sexually, this is the case with Guy Diamond giving birth to Tiny in the second movie. It's also implied with a number of characters who only have a single known parent.
- Vocal Dissonance:
- Smidge looks a little girl but has a raspy, Harvey Fierstein-like voice.
- Tiny Diamond is Guy Diamond's newborn baby son... but he has the deep voice of Kenan Thompson.
- Water Is Air: Zig-zagged. The 3D animated media rarely features characters underwater, and when such a scene happens, they're seen breathing normally without need of any equipment. The 2D media, on the other hand, explicitly has most of them wear breathing equipment in such situations (except the Techno Trolls, who can still breathe naturally), although it doesn't refrain from showing other illogical underwater events like fire bursting out.
- Whale Egg: The second movie reveals that Trolls are oviparous, being "laid" asexually from their hair.
- World of Technicolor Hair: The Trolls have a variety of hair colors and can change them at will. Some non-Troll species like the Bergens also have a number of such.
- You ALL Look Familiar: This trope is common throughout the movies and TV media, and mostly happens to generic background characters. In fact, some of the named minor characters actually have modified generic desings. However, the way this trope is played often varies from downplayed to almost averted, since the generic characters follow a random generation system with different variation levels for each installment.
- The first movie has a number of models for generic Pop Trolls, which are recolored for more design diversity, some of the cut characters use these designs or modified versions of them. There are more models for generic Bergens, though recoloration is still common. In particular, another model is specifically used for generic Bergen guards and cooks; Chad and Todd use an edited version of it, but they still look identical to each other asides from minor color differences.
- Chad and Todd's case was lampshaded in Holiday, where King Gristle Jr. fails to distinguish them to the point that he mixes up their names for a moment.
- The Beat Goes On! has more designs for generic Pop Trolls and Bergens, though recolors are made less common, and there's a notably large number of identical design cases for the former species.
- A named character with a generic design who's particular to note in the show is Gemma Fur, whose model has appeared for multiple generic characters seen at the same time, either with or without recoloring.
- In World Tour, most of the other Tribes show more generic design diversity than the Pop Trolls, the most diverse being that of the Funk Trolls'. The ones that express the least variation are the Classical and Techno Trolls; the only notable difference for the former is hair color, and the latter heavily relies on few models with many recolors.
- Named characters from the movie with modified generic designs include Carol, Sid Fret, Clampers, Growley Pete and Bliss Marina.
- TrollsTopia, like the previous TV show, has a larger generic design diversity for all Troll tribes. A notable new design variant is Rock Trolls with muscular bodies.
- The first movie has a number of models for generic Pop Trolls, which are recolored for more design diversity, some of the cut characters use these designs or modified versions of them. There are more models for generic Bergens, though recoloration is still common. In particular, another model is specifically used for generic Bergen guards and cooks; Chad and Todd use an edited version of it, but they still look identical to each other asides from minor color differences.
