Gritty Reboots
is a series of videos where various stories are re-imagined in the style of Darker and Edgier movie trailers.
So far, Gritty Reboots has done:
- Harvest Moon (more specifically Harvest Moon: Back to Nature)
- Pokémon Snap
- Calvin and Hobbes
- Goodnight Moon
- PBS (AKA PBS Meets The Avengers)
- Xbox One: A Space Odyssey
- Adventure Time
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Don't Starve
These videos provide examples of:
- Actionized Sequel:
- More like an Actionized Adaptation, if the Pokémon Snap trailer was actually the movie of the game as the trailer implies, it is a lot more action-filled than Pokémon Snap was.
- Adventure Time and Calvin and Hobbes play this straighter.
- Adaptational Curves: The Harvest Moon trailer features Ann played by a well-endowed actress (
who also plays the other female characters). In the actual game, Ann is notably petite. - Adaptational Jerkass: Karen in the Harvest Moon trailer is a lot more rude than in the actual game. She acts more like her Harvest Moon 64 character than her Back to Nature/Friends of Mineral Town version.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Invoked and Played for Laughs in the Harvest Moon trailer by making the Mayor the protagonist's Gay Option, complete with his name being listed along with the protagonist's canonical Love Interests.
- Adaptational Species Change: In Goodnight Moon, the Old Woman is a creepy humanoid, rather than a bunny.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Invoked to Mary in the Harvest Moon trailer. In the actual game, she's a Shrinking Violet and genuine Nice Girl. Here, she's heavily implied to be a Yandere and is clearly a Stalker with a Crush.
- The Old Woman in "Goodnight Moon" is depicted as a creepy, vampire-esque humanoid figure of mystery who menaces the protagonist.
- Adaptation Name Change: Inverted in the Harvest Moon trailer where Mayor Thomas is actually addressed/called/named Mayor.
- Age Lift: The 10-17 year old Finn is an adult in the Adventure Time trailer.
- Alien Geometries: In Goodnight Moon, the protagonist looks out the window of the room he's trapped in, and sees... himself, looking out the window, from the POV of the dollhouse which is in the room with him.
- Anyone Can Die: Given the series' premise, this isn't surprising, but Adventure Time is especially noteworthy; Lady Rainicorn, Lumpy Space Princess and Peppermint Butler are Dead to Begin With, Princess Bubblegum is slowly dying and Lemongrab is killed onscreen by Finn.
- Ascended Meme: The PBS trailer focuses on some of their central TV personalities teaming up to combat reality TV and give kids some real education. Shortly afterwards, PBS station Thirteen put up a series of subway ads deriding reality television and telling viewers to support quality TV. Coincidence? We think NOT!
- Canon Foreigner: The Harvest Moon trailer features a rival character for the protagonist who is not present in the actual game.
- Crapsack World:
- The Land of Ooo in Adventure Time has become this, with the residents suffering and dying as a result of rapidly diminishing magic.
- The heroes in PBS are prompted to assemble after seeing the world become less and less intelligent and willing to learn.
- Crisis Crossover: PBS is one for... well, PBS.
- Darker and Edgier: The central premise.
- Does Not Like Spam: Karen from Harvest Moon hates eggs and milk enough to smash them against the ground when she gets both as gifts.
- Eldritch Location: The room in Goodnight Moon is this. It's full of bizarre objects such as toy phones and dead cats, the pictures on the walls move, and when the protagonist looks out the window, he sees that it's a room in a dollhouse... a dollhouse which is inside the room, so when he looks out the window, he can see himself looking out the window...
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: Over the course of the Calvin and Hobbes trailer, Calvin is attacked or menaced a collapsing floor in his bedroom, monsters under the bed, oatmeal, dinosaurs, a mirror, killer snow goons, out-of-control plane and trains, and his own imagination.
- Fly-at-the-Camera Ending: Charizard smashes through the Pokémon Snap logo in its trailer, as it flies.
- Grimmification: Done with children's books like Goodnight Moon and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
- Heroic Sacrifice: What Finn intends to do in the "Adventure Time" trailer—detonating the Mushroom Bomb to bring the magic back, knowing full well that it will kill him and everyone else in the process.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Hobbes tells Calvin this when they wonder if the Devil is real.
- Human Popsicle: Marceline is frozen in the Ice King's fortress in the Adventure Time trailer, with the implication that Ice King put her there himself for some reason.
- Imagination-Based Superpower: Calvin's imagination has gotten so powerful over the years that it can manifest itself in real life, which is not a good thing as it is angry at Calvin for outgrowing it.
- It Can Think: Calvin's imagination in Calvin and Hobbes. It has gotten so powerful that it's basically alive—not only that, but it knows Calvin's growing out of it...and it's mad.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: What Calvin and Susie have to do to get Hobbes back in the "Calvin and Hobbes" trailer.
- Logo Joke: Sometimes the trailers will feature parodies of famous Vanity Plates:
- In the Harvest Moon trailer, the Gritty Reboots logo parodies the logo of Focus Features, complete with a blurred "R" in "Gritty" replacing the blurred "O" in "Focus".
- The Pokémon Snap trailer has a Gritty Reboots parody of the Universal logo.
- The Magic Goes Away: The main conflict of the Adventure Time adaptation—the magic is fading from Ooo and in the process all the magical people are dying.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: PBS brings together Carl Sagan, Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross, and Bill Nye.
- Mind Screw: The Goodnight Moon trailer is made of this.
- Milestone Celebration: Parodied in the Pokémon Snap trailer with "Celebrate the 14th anniversary"!
- Mythology Gag: The Harvest Moon trailer has Karen and the protagonist Pete name-drop as many titles in the game as they can.Karen: You're that city boy trying to get back to nature? It's a wonderful life out here.
Pete: Just trying to save the homeland. - Not Afraid of You Anymore: In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin makes good on his promise to torch the monsters.Monster: You have a flamethrower?
Calvin: (Summons a green fireball) Close enough. (Torches the monsters.) - The Oner: If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Old Woman who shushes the protagonist in Goodnight Moon looks very much like a vampire.
- Out of Focus: Elli and Ann are rarely shown in the Harvest Moon trailer despite being prominent Love Interests in the game. They, along with Mary, also do not have any lines, but at least Mary appears prominently.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mineral Town's Mayor seems to be this in the Harvest Moon trailer.
- Skeptic No Longer: Possibly Princess Bubblegum in the Adventure Time trailer—at the time at least, Princess Bubblegum's canon counterpart didn't believe in magic. Here, the world slowly coming to a creeping end as the magic fades clearly changed her tune.
- Unnamed Parent: Pete is outright introduced to the town as "Grandpa's Grandson". Grandpa's gravestone says "Here Lies Grandpa".
- Visual Pun: "What do they got in there? A Rhydon?" The protagonist of Pokémon Snap says this as he rides into the Pokelogical Reserve.
- Whole-Plot Reference:
- Xbox One is this for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- PBS takes its cues from The Avengers (2012).
- The main premise of Pokémon Snap and several scenes from it reference Jurassic Park.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Calvin has trouble with this, in the Calvin and Hobbes trailer. But as Suzy points out, maybe he wants what he imagines to be real...
- You Wake Up in a Room: This happens to the protagonist in Goodnight Moon.
