YMMV / Halloweentown

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Dylan really dislike magic as much as he says? Or was he simply trying to make his mother happy, and eventually became the mask? There are hints in the first film he actually likes Halloween and magic, such as being happy to see Grandma Aggie and enjoying the candy and costumes, and is hinted, like Marnie, to question why weird things happen to their family. This is semi-supported by the reveal in Return to Halloweentown that he secretly uses magic to read faster.
  • Because of Gwen's Aesop Amnesia, she is prone to this. Does Gwen really hate magic because it makes things too easy (suggested in the first film)? Or is it because she doesn't want the kids to eventually abandon the mortal world to study magic (suggested in the second film, but not as big an issue once the portal is open full time)? Or is it because Gwen knows the temptation of power and the risk of being used for that power, growing up as part of the powerful Cromwell witches (suggested in the first and fourth films)? Or all of the above?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In Kalabar's Revenge, Marnie mentioning how Gort's timeline looks exactly like Stephen Hawking's description of a non-stellar black hole. She has never been shown to have an interest in astrophysics or quantum science before this. Actually lampshaded by Luke:
  Luke: Your point is?
• Contested Sequel: Halloweentown High and especially Return To Halloweentown, which borders on flat out Sequelitis.
• Creator's Pet: Ethan was given a larger role and Promoted to Love Interest in Return to Halloweentown for the sole reasons of promoting the High School Musical films and attracting the fangirls from it, given that franchise has Lucas Grabeel in a leading role and was Adored by the Network at the time. Detractors do not like him one bit, and cite him as a reason behind the film's Fanon Discontinuity.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Benny. Being a taxi driver (and a very good skeleton animatronic) means he doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but he managed to make a lot of fans regardless.
  • Nancy, the wood nymph from the third movie, is an uncredited character with no lines. Nonetheless, her design and chipper smile make her memorable to a good chunk of the fanbase.
• Even Better Sequel: Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge's Sequel Escalation has led some viewers to call it the series' apex.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Due to Kal never returning to franchise after Halloweentown II, despite promising he would be back, a number of people have wondered, what if Kal did return? In addition, with the actors who played Marnie and Kal later dating and getting engaged in real life, what would happen if their characters, who had Unresolved Sexual Tension before Kal revealed he was evil, got together as adults?
  • Likewise, due to Luke's mysterious disappearance from the franchise after Halloweentown II, many writers wonder what happened to him and what would happen if he had been present in the later films.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A lot of fans choose to ignore Return to Halloweentown. Cited reasons include recasting the role of Marnie with Sara Paxton, giving Ethan a major role just because Lucas Grabeel is in High School Musical, and being released after Disney Channel entered Network Decay and started tailoring exclusively to tween and teen girls.
• Franchise Original Sin: Halloweentown High downplayed the series' fantasy elements, put a greater focus on the new characters, and transitioned from family comedy to teen comedy. It was easy to forgive here, however, since the actors being older forced them to make it about teenagers, the core of the original cast still returned, and the comedy still revolved around the monster kids' interactions with the human world as Fish out of Water, meaning that the supernatural elements were still a major part of the plot and humor. Return to Halloweentown, however, doubled down on the most divisive elements of its predecessor and fell straight into the Girl-Show Ghetto.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Kimberly J. Brown and Daniel Kountz eventually started dating after first meeting on the set of the second movie, reuniting for a Halloweentown-themed video for Brown's Youtube channel. In July 2022, they announced their engagement. Guess all that tension between Marnie and Kal wasn't just in the viewers' heads!
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • While filming the first Halloweentown, Debbie Reynolds introduced herself to the children as, "Princess Leia's mother", since her daughter, Carrie Fisher, played Leia in the Star Wars movies. After Halloweentown premiered, it took less than a year for Star Wars to finally start showing Leia's mother, although Debbie Reynolds didn't play her.
  • From Halloweentown High, Cody asks "they don't have malls in Canada?" when Marnie says that she's taking the "exchange students" to see a mall for the first time. Two years later, the world would find out that they very much do have malls in Canada.
    • Not to mention that the movie premiered the same year as an actual cartoon set in a Canadian mall.
  • A Disney franchise revolving around another realm in which all supernatural legends originate from with a focus on witches with the only way between realms being the use of a portal door. Are we talking about Halloweentown or the Boiling Isles?
• It Was His Sled: Kalabar being the main villain of the first movie is pretty common knowledge these days, if for no other reason than the fact that the second movie is literally subtitled Kalabar's Revenge (though Kalabar himself doesn't actually appear — his son Kal does).
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Lucas Grabeel and Olesya Rulin as Ethan and Natalie respectively in Halloweentown High, a couple years before some musical aired.
  • Finn Wittrock of American Horror Story fame is in Halloweentown High as Marnie's love interest, Cody, long before his career took off.
  • Aneesa the Genie from Return to Halloweentown would later star in another work involving a magical university.
• Riddle for the Ages: Fans tend to debate just what Gwen's costume is supposed to be in the second movie, usually cited as a goblin, monster, or even a more stereotypical Wicked Witch. Whatever it was, Disney sure got a lot of mileage seeing her turn into a real...whatever...during Halloween promos.
• Moe: Sophie, given her Cheerful Child moments, sense of eagerness about exploring Halloweentown, innocent use of magic, and how she gets along with all of her family members pretty well while the others have more frequent disagreements.
• Narm Charm: The cheesiness of the costumes, TV movie-level special effects, and strangely un-spooky, sunny world of Halloweentown are all part of the appeal of the movie for most fans.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Sara Paxton over Kimberly J. Brown? Yeah, no. Unfortunate for Sara, who does fine in the rest of her career.
  • Also Cody and Ethan for Luke from the first two movies.
• The Scrappy: Gwen Piper, for her continuous Aesop Amnesia in regards to her dislike of Halloween and magic.
• Sequelitis: Halloweentown High and Return To Halloweentown, mostly for changing the series in an attempt to fit the 'tween' demographic. Tellingly, when Disney first released Halloweentown on DVD, it also came with Kalabar's Revenge, but Halloweentown High and Return to Halloweentown were sold separately.
• Strangled by the Red String: Did Marnie and Ethan get together in the fourth movie for any reason other than Lucas Grabeel being in High School Musical? It doesn't help that Kimberly J. Brown herself has admitted thinking of Marnie's and Ethan's relationship in Halloweentown High as more of a mentor/student bond.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Halloweentown II left the door open for Kal to become a returning villain considering he still wouldn't accept the truth that his father was evil and that the Cromwells are trying to make him perform a Heel–Face Turn. He is never mentioned again after the second film. Kimberly J. Brown eventually wrote and directed a non-canonical short about Kal's whereabouts after Kalabar's Revenge, complete with Daniel Kountz reprising his character.
  • Luke, too, is never mentioned again after the first two films, despite Halloweentown High taking place immediately after Kalabar's Revenge, which he played a major role in. Considering the friendship/romantic subplot that had built up between him and Marnie, to just drop it without a word now that he and Marnie could see each other all the time feels like a waste.
  • The late William Piper, despite being the reason Gwen abandoned Halloweentown in the first place and, based on his one photo, not having died very long before the first film, is only mentioned a handful of times in the entire series. The audience learns little about him, or the impact he may have had on his wife and children — all we know is he met Gwen on Halloween and liked her witch "costume", that he taught Gwen the value of working for something without magic and that Gwen still gets upset when he is mentioned by the time of the first film. He could have had a much stronger presence as a Posthumous Character.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some viewers have suggested the fourth film might've worked better if Paxton played an aged-up version of Sophie instead of Marnie, citing that a time-skip would've justified the recasting, in addition to the original actress retiring. As Sophie didn't have much of a presence in the earlier films, the character was practically a blank-slate. It also would've made more sense for Dylan to keep an eye on his younger sister, as opposed to having a minor go to college and "babysit" his adult sister. In fact, Paxton was two years younger than Joey Zimmerman.
• Values Resonance: In the second film, there's some clear subtext about how dressing up in a Halloween costume that reflects a culture you don't fully understand is harmful to the people actually from that culture - the discourse around culturally appropriative costumes in The New '10s has made this message feel very salient.
• Viewer Name Confusion: Marnie, Dylan, Sophie, and Gwen are all legally Pipers, not Cromwells, since Gwen married a mortal man. Yet the characters are sometimes mistagged on social media, or even by some journalists, with their mother's maiden name. Justified, since the Cromwell lineage carries more weight in Halloweentown and thus comes up more often.

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