YMMV / Trolls

Find your mileage place.

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Main franchise and first movie:

Main franchise

• Adaptation Displacement: Trolls is the first adaptational DreamWorks Animation franchise to notably avert this trope. Although there's a decent amount of completely original DreamWorks movies and franchises, such as Madagascar, Bee Movie, Monsters vs. Aliens and Megamind, a great bunch of people are unaware that the most successful ones like Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon were based on earlier works. Trolls is more recognizable, since many people already know about the troll dolls (especially when they appear in the first three Toy Story films, made by the main competitor), and those who don't are likely to familiarize them too.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: It may seem weird at first that Cooper is considered a troll despite looking nothing like one, until you realize that giraffe trolls actually exist◊
• Awesome Art: The franchise's overall art style is pretty creative with its handcraft-like appearance. The 2D animated media, especially TrollsTopia, get an additional bonus due to their surprisingly smooth animation.
• Base-Breaking Character: Poppy has been one since the franchise's beginning. She has fans who love her energetic, optimistic and kind personality, and detractors who consider her an annoying ditz who only causes more trouble than good for her Tribe and doesn't care about bothering others in the way.^{Cited examples in the first film include}Letting the rest of the Pop Trolls use Branch's bunker as a shelter without his consent, and being too obsessed with getting Creek back, which ends up biting her back when Creek shows his true nature. This carried further on in World Tour, where her fans thought her mistakes in that movie were simply due to her pressure of being the new Queen of the Pop Trolls, while the detractors complained that she hadn't learned anything from the first film, bringing only more trouble for Branch and her friends, with some thinking that she was Easily Forgiven because she ended up bringing peace to all the Troll Tribes.
  • That said, many find Poppy much better and far more bearable in Band Together, which is helped by the fact that Branch is the lead of the movie. You can tell she learned the lessons from the previous movies and her overly optimistic views help support Branch whose character arc is about opening up. It also helps that she's fiercely loyal to Branch and reassures him that she's staying by his side no matter what. And while she does push Branch to slowly reconnect with his brothers, she understands that it's not as straightforward as she assumes, helped by her own B-Plot with Viva.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A weird example. Since Trolls World Tour was considered a massive step-up from the first film, some people like to pretend that the first movie never happened. It helps that there's no Continuity Lockout, since the events of the first movie practically don't really matter in the second, asides from Poppy becoming Queen of the Pop Trolls, Branch getting his happiness back, and Creek no longer being part of the Snack Pack, with Gristle and Bridget only having a cameo in The Stinger.
  • As such, some fans like this are likely to also ignore any episodes of Trolls: The Beat Goes On! that feature Bergen characters, since while they were quite recurring in the show's first two seasons, they're almost absent in the following six, only briefly appearing at best. The sequel series Trolls: TrollsTopia has them completely out, with the exception of Gristle, and mentioned them just once via a game in the episode "Darlin' Dos".^note Val's reaction to Gristle's appearance, although logical since the other the Troll tribes wouldn't know about the Bergens, was actually intended to be a nod to their absence. The only Bergen to make a major appearance in Trollstopia is a new one named Barnald.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Branch being Deliberately Monochrome is supposed to be a bad thing. He reverts back to blue and green at the end of the first movie, since he Took a Level in Kindness. Fans of the franchise generally think he looks better and more unique when he's gray. Some are frustrated that there isn't much merchandise for this version. The following media after the movie seem to have partially reversed the change, as Branch still appears notably blue, but has the grey tones mixed in.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Although they don't comprise a majority of the Trolls fandom, some fans are also into the Pixar movies Inside Out and Soul, due to them featuring similar expressions when it comes to emotional changes and metaphysics. It's stronger in the latter's case, as it has a focus on music and like Trolls World Tour had to be released on VOD due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Most don't have a habit of crossovering Trolls with those movies, though.
  • There's also a good amount of overlap between the Trolls and Pitch Perfect fandoms, thanks to Anna Kendrick playing one of protagonists in both franchises, and their soundtracks heavily focusing on pop music (at least until the second movie in the case of Trolls). Skylar Astin and Ester Dean's involvement as voice actors also count as well.
    • Basically saying, any fandom of a live-action movie or franchise in which Anna Kendrick was involved can definitely count, especially contrasting ones like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Trolls was a success in its home country of the United States; while its theatrical run was somewhat overshadowed by Doctor Strange and Moana, it still made decent money and proved very popular with young children on post-theatrical platforms. But in India, the franchise is much bigger than it is in the United States. Its movies are among the most-streamed kids' films on popular Indian streaming services, and merchandise is sold almost everywhere.
  • The first film was also big in the United Kingdom, where it topped the box office for two weeks in a row, outgrossed Moana in ticket sales and has received exclusive merchandise, some of which notably has an art style similar to that of Trolls: The Beat Goes On!.
  • In Japan, The Beat Goes On! was a pretty large success too. A whole line of unofficial merchandise based on the show was released there.
• Periphery Demographic: Probably due to the involvement of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, this franchise has one among teenagers and young adults, who comprise the largest part of its fandom overall. By the time World Tour was released, Dreamworks took notice of this and called for cosmetics brands to produce merchandise for the movie.
  • One advertisement for World Tour was likely aimed at stoners due to it being released on April 2020 (4/20 essentially), with its bright colors and comedic tone being the main selling points.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Fans have made a number of names for their preferred ships.
  • Branch/Poppy = Broppy
  • Barb/Riff = Briff
  • Barb/Trollex = Barllex
  • Poppy/Barb = Parb^*along with the less common idiosyncratic name "PopRocks"
  • Branch/Hickory = Brickory
  • Branch/Hickory/Poppy = Brickoppy
  • Tresillo/Wani = Wanillo
• Strangled by the Red String: A variant pertaining Branch and Poppy, who are treated like a couple in the first movie after "True Colors" despite there only being one indication of any feelings between them beforehand (Branch telling Bridget to compliment Gristle's smile while looking at Poppy). There's some very mild Foreshadowing when it's shown that Branch has kept all of Poppy's party invitations over the years, but this can just as easily be taken as a desire for all the social life he cannot enjoy and not outright for Poppy's love. In general, the opinion that the movie would work better under the interpretation that they remained as platonic partners was interestingly popular at the time. The franchise after the first movie rectifies this trope, still treating Poppy and Branch as close friends and World Tour addressing how they truly feel for each other, rendering the "love confession" in "True Colors" completely platonic... until the ending, when they finally become an official couple. Fittingly, the time of the movie's release coincided with the overall opinion shifting to total shipping support between the two. This is reinforced by the Holiday in Harmony special which is focused on their relationship noting how adorable they are together. Band Together shows how natural the two are in a relationship especially with Poppy playing the supportive girlfriend to Branch.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: The entire franchise can count as this overall. It's not just the overall aesthetic, music, storylines and heartwarming moments, but also the fact that they're well combined with the humor and moments of awesome.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Say what you want about the franchise, the visual effects are pretty amazing overall. DreamWorks has never been this over-the-top cartoony and detailed with visuals before!

First movie

• Adorkable: Bridget is quite shy and very awkward around her crush, but still very cute and likeable.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is the Bergen Head Chef a monster who wants power, or just bitter due to unjustly being banished for something that wasn't her fault?
  • Was Creek rotten from the start or did he simply succumb to death threats? His appearances in the The Beat Goes On! lean towards the latter.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Pretty much everybody predicted this movie would be a critical disaster and a box office disappointment, noting that the Troll franchise was too outdated, the premise was too unoriginal and the cast choices were too risky, not to mention that the movie itself was too obviously a desperate attempt from DreamWorks Animation. However, while it wasn't a meteoric success, the film received generally positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing $344 million worldwide against its $125 million budget. Eventually, it would end up becoming one of the most successful franchises in the studio's history thanks to incredibly high merchandise sales, a popular TV adaptation, and the rise of people streaming movies online giving the film a much wider audience of children. Case in point, from 2017 to 2018, it was one of the most-watched movies on Netflix, with history largely repeating itself upon its return in 2022.^note at least in the United States
• Base-Breaking Character: Branch in the first film is often a subject of this. Some consider him very relatable and sympathetic due to him losing his grandma to a Bergen and feel he is just afraid of confessing his secret feelings for Poppy and trying to be aware that the Bergens will find them. Others find him pretty unlikeable throughout the first half of the movie due to him ruining many of the trolls celebrations, being rude to mostly everybody that tries to make him happy, and even feeling like the way he says how his grandma died was cringe and thus find it hard to sympathize with him as a result.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Cloud Guy is a talking cloud for no adequately explained reason, and only exists to point Branch and Poppy into the right tunnel, but spends almost all his screen time messing with them, also for no explained reason. While he does come back, it is for yet another one of these where he interrupts their hug at the end and they shove him away, creating yet another Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
• Broken Base: The depiction of happiness vs. depression in general. The Bergens seem incapable of noticing they can be happy without eating a troll (despite Gristle and Bridget clearly displaying happiness at moments) and somehow no one noticed for 20 years. On the other hand Branch's depression is handled a bit better as it has a catalyst and talking about it with others is what helps him through it. If the beginning of the movie being any indication, Bergens have always had an odd standard for being happy.
• Cliché Storm: While it pulls them off fairly well, most of the story can feel like they're from a list of "Generic children's movie plot points". There's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold with a painfully on the nose Freudian Excuse who slowly becomes nicer over the film, while a love interest—who is never anything except a condescending Jerkass—is a victim of Derailing Love Interests when he makes a Face–Heel Turn. We also get a Cinderella Plot subplot played straight at every turn, though to be fair, the Cinderella subplot proves crucial to resolving the long-term issue with the Bergens by publicly showing the Bergens an alternate, non-Troll-eating route to happiness.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • A flashback is shown of the many incidents caused by Branch's paranoia of a Bergen attack. Birthday party? Knocks down the cake in panic. Wedding? Knocks down the cake again. Funeral? Knocks down the casket, causing the body to fall out. Made doubly so when the deceased troll and his widow being the groom and bride from the previous wedding sequence, and the groom originally being a clown for her birthday.
  • When the Bergens are singing about how they're all miserable, one is seen burying himself alive... with a "meh" expression on his face.
  • Cooper's best moment in the film is when he cracks a totally inappropriate joke while everyone else is letting Branch's tragic backstory sink in.
    Cooper: My uncle broke his neck tap-dancing once.
• Genius Bonus: Cooper's design is an allusion to strange custom Troll dolls some collectors make out of the real ones.
  • The original Danish title of "In the Hall of the Mountain King," of which "Hair Up" is a remix, translates directly to "Troll Hall." As a matter of fact, the King mentioned in the original song's lyrics was a Troll himself.
  • The Bergens are reminiscent to the trolls from Norse mythology, which were already the inspiration of the Troll dolls.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • When leading the trolls to freedom in the prologue, King Peppy constantly repeats the mantra of "no troll left behind", which Poppy goes on to use as Arc Words when she embarks on her own adventure. The third film would later reveal that some trolls were left behind the day the tribe escaped from Bergen Town, including Poppy's older sister, Viva.
  • Russell Brand plays the wise, sensible and serene Troll, Creek, who turns out to be a traitorous bastard. Creek's journey parallels Brand's, who started as a left-leaning pundit before become steadily more radical and right-wing, spreading conspiracy theories about COVID and the Russo-Ukrainian War, and later got accused of sexual misconduct.
• He Really Can Act: Comedian Russell Brand is downright sinister as Creek, especially by the time Creek drops his calm persona and joins Chef.
• He's Just Hiding: There's a handful for viewers that aren't buying that Creek supposedly died at the end of the first movie (his survival in Trolls: The Beat Goes On! supporting this case). Keep in mind that Poppy encountered and was nearly eaten by the very same monster that supposed killed Creek. If Poppy can survive being inside the monster's stomach, there's no reason why Creek can't survive as well, considering he has the very same hair ability.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The same year this movie came out, DWA debuted Trollhunters on Netflix—which is about as far from this movie as you can get.
  • A race of beings in a walled civilization live in constant fear of far larger creatures resembling uglier versions of themselves who seek to devour them to attain something they have that the giants do not. Sound familiar to the otakus?
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Oh, SNAP!" ^Explanation Mr. Dinkles' catchphrase.
  • "I think you look phat." ^ExplanationWhat Bridget accidentally says to Gristle when she is in her Lady Glittersparkles form.
  • "Because singing killed my grandma, OK?!" ^ExplanationSinging really did kill Branch's grandma by getting her abducted by Chef. However, the line is so utterly ridiculous that it eventually became a meme. This line itself has blown up in popularity since the start of 2021 following a certain tweet, becoming a minor snowclone with "singing" replaced with something equally ridiculous.
• Moe: Poppy is really cute, as are many other trolls.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Chef crosses this with her intent to get the all trolls eaten in order to take over the Bergen Town monarchy.
  • Creek crosses it by betraying his entire race to save his own skin.
• Narm: The reveal of Branch's Freudian Excuse that singing killed his grandma doesn't really punch you in the gut like the movie wants it to, especially if one were expecting it. Plus, it's not really possible to say "Because singing killed my grandma, OK?!", without sounding completely ridiculous. ^note While Branch meant that his singing unintentionally lured Chef into abducting Branch's grandma, resulting her getting eaten off-screen The line made it sound like Branch's singing is so terrible, his grandma died from it. It becomes even more ridiculous when, right after hearing this tragic line, Poppy immediately asks what song she was singing.
• Nightmare Retardant: Although Chef is already despicable-looking by herself, the movie makes some bland attempts to always make her appear scary whenever she shows up, especially it comes to the stereotypical storm and Evil Laugh, both of which happen when she speaks to the kidnapped Snack Pack members about her intention to overthrow Gristle.
• Signature Scene:
  • Branch revealing that singing killed his grandma.
  • The "True Colors" sequence.
  • The "Can't Stop the Feeling!" sequence.
• Spiritual Adaptation: This film was very much a reboot of Smurfs before the actual Smurfs reboot came out; the Smurfs are reimagined as a small, technicolor MacGuffin prey species in a (more or less) medieval environment with castles and kings, and instead of humans, we get another fictional species that looks like the ogres in that other Follow the Leader of Smurfs, the Gummi Bears.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise:
  • A lot of the products for the film (such as clothes, toys, etc.) show Branch's "True Colors".
  • The first doll ever released of Poppy, which came out in September 2016, spoils her gaining status as the queen of the Trolls at the end of the movie. The same wave of dolls also included one of Bridget in her Lady Glittersparkles disguise.
  • Creek is noticeably absent from the majority of merchandise, in a situation similar to Hans from Frozen (2013) where a secret villain doesn't get many toys.
• Stealth Pun: The trolls nearly were up the Creek.
• Strawman Has a Point: When Branch initially refuses to help Poppy rescue her friends, she argues that he has to by claiming "You can't say no! They're your friends!" But as Branch points out, it was Poppy's friends, not his, who were captured as a result of them dismissing his advice about not doing anything that might attract Bergens to their hideout in the first place. He doesn't so much consider them his friends at that point. While it would have been very altruistic for him to offer the rest of the Trolls his home and resources and gone to help, he's completely within his rights to say no. Especially when saying "yes" would mean going to find the very creatures he's spent his entire life avoiding.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Can't Stop the Feeling" sounds a bit too similar to The Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face". Some listeners have suggested that "Can't Stop the Feeling" was created specifically to be a G-rated version of The Weeknd's song, as it's been noted that parents were alarmed that "Can't Feel My Face" was very popular with younger listeners (even getting a Kids' Choice Award nomination) when it was a song about cocaine. Not helping matters is that both songs were coincidentally co-written and produced by Max Martin.
• Sweetness Aversion: With the constant emphasis on being happy, the overly bright colors and cutesy designs, and the fact that the Trolls have a scheduled hug time, this movie could come off as that to some. Animation Reviewers AniMat and Joey Tedesco even compared this movie to A Troll in Central Park and Care Bears. However, it's worth noting that the movie seems aware of this and often attempts to offset this, with Branch playing the cynical Straight Man, along with a surprising amount of Black Comedy.
• Tainted by the Preview: That teaser did not give a good first impression of this movie. It consisted of the male trolls except for Branch, as well as Smidge and DJ Suki, dancing to Silento's "Watch Me Whip and Nae Nae", which was popular the year prior.
• Ugly Cute: Gristle Jr. and Bridget are much cuter than all the other Bergens.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The film was made for children to watch, but some think that it contains subliminal messages about the dangers of becoming addicted to psychedelic drugs, which usually invoke a metaphor of inducing happiness (as in the Bergens seeing the Trolls as those drugs).
• The Woobie:
  • Branch becomes one when it's revealed why he is so cynical: While he was singing, it attracted Chef and his grandma sacrificed herself to save him.
  • Bridget gets a lot of abuse from Chef.

Other media:

• Trolls World Tour
• Trolls Band Together
• Trolls Holiday
• Trolls: The Beat Goes On!
• Trolls: TrollsTopia
• Trolls: Holiday in Harmony

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