YMMV / Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

• Abandon Shipping: Prior to the film's release, Ruby/Chelsea was a popular ship due to their contrasting personalities and their prep/nerd dynamic. The theory that the trailers were deliberately misleading people into believing that Chelsea and the Mermaids were conventionally evil, only to pull out a Bait-and-Switch and reveal the conflict is more nuanced, added fuel to the shipping. However, many fans would immediately jump off the pairing after the film came out and revealed that Chelsea was actually the adult Queen Nerissa in disguise, therefore a lot older than Ruby, as well as irredeemably evil. With that said, this action wasn't universal, as many decided to continue the ship anyways either by arguing that Chelsea must still be mentally a teenager, as she never stops acting like one and was confirmed to have originally been Nerissa's daughter for the majority of the film's production, or by completely ignoring the twist and last act of the movie altogether.
• Accidental Aesop: There's no need to go big to invite someone to prom. Just ask if they're interested.
• Adorkable: Ruby. Even the people who didn't like the film agreed that she is a cute character.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Ruby hanging up a call from Connor. Is it because she didn't want him to know her whereabouts, or simply she's no longer interested to invite him to prom anymore since she wants to resolve the conflict between the krakens and mermaids? Or it could be that she was afraid to talk to him because after Gordon's video went viral, she heard him calling her "A real life monster" (even though he didn't knew that was her)?
• Ass Pull:
  • While Chelsea being Nerissa the whole time was confirmed to have been an incredibly late decision during production, it could still be argued that it was reasonably foreshadowed in the final film when Chelsea shows hesitancy meeting Agatha. However, the reveal that mermaids as a whole don't age has zero foreshadowing and is contradicted hard by the statues of mermaids shown in the film earlier with much more adult proportions compared to Chelsea/Nerissa.
  • Chelsea repeatedly shows expressions of concern for Ruby's well-being, notably when they talk in the restroom and when Ruby runs off after her first panic attack (with Ruby not even looking at Chelsea). Word of God states Chelsea could have genuinely related to Ruby and this could have meant her character to be more layered but none of these moments amount to anything substantial even after the reveal that she was Evil All Along and is treated as such purely to validate Grandmamah and Agatha's claims that mermaids are pure evil.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Rise" by Freya Ridings: an uplifting pop tune that perfectly encapsulates Ruby coming to grips with herself. She performed the song live for the first time at Dreamworks’s Glendale campus during the movie's prom-themed launch party. She later re-recorded the song for her live album Blood Orange (Live At The Apollo).
  • "This Moment" by Mimi Webb: A bouncy, upbeat song that plays during Ruby's first swim in the ocean and describes the sheer joy and freedom she's feeling in the moment. The song co-written by Ari Leff aka Somersault Sunday or Lauv, who unbeknownst to fans of Ruby, at the same time wrote and perform the song Steal The Show for the acclaimed Academy Award nominated film Elemental (2023).
• Base-Breaking Character: Queen Nerissa. Many consider her a waste of potential who would probably be better off if she wasn't the Big Bad, as it leads to a Broken Aesop about judging a book by its cover. Not to mention the trailers giving away her identity, making the "reveal" underwhelming. Others find her a rather cool villain in spite of this, with her battle against Ruby, Agatha, and Grandmamah in the climax standing out.
• Broken Aesop: A core conflict for the Gillmans as a whole is them having to hide who they are to the much fearing humans of Oceanside which gets resolved with the humans embracing them and the driving antagonistic force in this conflict, Gordon, realizing the error of his ways and even apologizing on camera for his words and actions regarding Krakens. While this could suggest a message about embracing people who are different and not judge them immediately on a surface-level, it falls apart because it's proven Ruby herself should've judged Chelsea simply for being a mermaid even after she had saved her life. Had Ruby judged Chelsea not for her own actions and blindly believed her family that mermaids are all evil with no nuance whatsoever, she and her loved ones wouldn't have been placed in any danger near the end of the film.
• Cliché Storm: When you take out the whole "krakens versus mermaids" angle of the movie, it comes across as a fairly standard Coming of Age Story with a slice of chosen one: you have an awkward protagonist moving to a new town, meeting many characters along the way, go through a few growing pains — literally in Ruby's case — before they turn out to be part of a royal family who act as protectors of humanity against certain threats.
• Die for Our Ship: Connor is not a popular character among Ruby/Chelsea shippers due to his fairly bland personality, lack of screentime, controversial-looking character design, and his interactions with Ruby being thought of as having less chemistry than Ruby's interactions with Chelsea. As such, many shippers will either kill him off or disregard his existence completely.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Gordon Lighthouse is largely considered the only human with a significant role in the plot, entertaining fleshed out character (at least compared to Ruby's friends), and a design that doesn't fall in line with the Unintentional Uncanny Valley features associated with humans in the film.
• Epileptic Trees: Some speculated that the marketing was deliberately being deceiving when it comes to the conflict between the krakens and the mermaids, with some theorizing that while the trailer is presenting it in a black and white manner (with the krakens being good and the mermaids being evil), the actual film will pull a Bait-and-Switch and reveal the conflict to be more gray and nuanced. This did not turn out to be the case.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Although it's mitigated somewhat by the fact that the Trident of Oceanus has been destroyed, putting the mermaids at least at a disadvantage, and that Ruby and her family will start protecting Oceanside, nothing else is ever done to actually end the conflict between the krakens and the mermaids, something not helped by Grammamah's treatment of the mermaids as being Always Chaotic Evil and only able to be dealt with violently more or less being proven entirely correct in the end. Combine this with a town of powerless humans that is now likely to get caught in the crossfire should the kraken-mermaid conflict ever flare up again (whether through Nerissa escaping or other evil mermaids appearing) and it takes a bit of the sunshine-and-roses out of an otherwise happy ending.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Due to the Queen Nerissa twist being very contentious among fans, fanfics where Chelsea actually is Queen Nerissa's daughter (like she initially claimed to be and as was initially planned) rather than Nerissa herself and was just lying about being her mother for whatever reason are common in the fandom. Slightly less popular is the idea that Nerissa stole her daughter's identity and that a real Chelsea exists out there somewhere.
• Fandom VIP: D001, also known as Ruby Gillman Fanboy, managed to gain this status before the movie even came out, thanks to his continuous posting of the movie through his YouTube and Twitter accounts, sharing any advertisements and behind the scenes documentation he could find of it (including several that were never shared by any official DreamWorks or Universal accounts) and even creating a Discord server dedicated to it. Some people have pointed out that he did more of a job at advertising the movie than DreamWorks themselves did, further proved by the official DreamWorks account actually making a tweet thanking him for tweeting about the movie.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans choose to ignore the plot twist of Chelsea being a cover identity for Queen Nerissa, opting for Chelsea to be Nerissa's real daughter and genuinely seeking revenge on Agatha for her mother's death, which happened in an earlier draft before it was revised.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Ruby/Chelsea is shipped far, far more than Ruby/Connor, even with The Reveal that Chelsea is Queen Nerissa herself. Likely because Connor gets surprisingly little screentime in the film and his, questionable design, to put it lightly, being seen as less attractive than Chelsea by certain fans.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: There are many early storyboards that has Chelsea with a different characterization compared to the final film:
  • A storyboard draft done by Jon Magram for the movie showcased Chelsea and Ruby's relationship as being a lot more nuanced than presented in the film, where it's shown as a clear-cut black and white deal with Chelsea using Ruby to get what she wants, and then being revealed to be Queen Nerissa all along, with Chelsea being a real person instead of a disguise for Queen Nerissa and is truly her daughter seeking revenge for her mother's death. Even without considering how popular Ruby/Chelsea as a ship is, some fans still prefer this idea over the final product, liking the thought of the main duo's relationship holding a degree of nuance in a movie that's fairly clear in what's good and evil and what many considered a pretty done-and-tired execution of the "twist villain" trope.
  • Another draft by Darren Webb showcased a different version of the climax where Agatha confronts Chelsea and is shown to regret killing her mother when Chelsea calls her a "siren slayer" and tries to plead with her to stop. Some fans think this scene would have added some much-needed nuance to the "Mermaid vs. Kraken" conflict by giving it shades of gray in contrast to the final film's Black-and-White Morality, as well as add more depth to Agatha's character.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Given that they are animated films starring sea monsters who are disguised as humans, on top of having similarly cartoony styles, fans of Luca were quick to latch onto the film, with crossover art between Ruby and Luca being quickly made in the days following the trailer.
  • Also has one with Turning Red with both movies about a coming of age story with girls being humans (or apparent humans) transforming into monsters and a major battle with a giant monster^note concept art shows that the fight between Mei and Ming was originally planned to have both of them be kaiju-sized, one featuring Mei's mother and the other featuring Ruby Gillman's Alpha Bitch rival antagonist. The Lee family are Chinese-Canadians, while the Gillmans' outward weirdness is attributed to being "Canadian", helping strengthen a connection between the two films.
  • There also seems to be overlap with fans of My Life as a Teenage Robot as both have similar titles and premises about superpowered teenage girls protecting their home city. In fact, Ruby Gillman's own name sounds structurally similar to that of Teenage Robot's protagonist, Jenny Wakeman, as both names end with "-man", to the point someone made an animatic of the movie to the tune of Teenage Robot's opening song, and giving it a similar logo to the show with the title My Life as a Teenage Kraken!
  • Fans of Disney Channel cartoons like Amphibia, The Owl House, and The Ghost and Molly McGee seem to have taken a liking to the movie, with Amphibia fans in particular liking to compare Ruby and Chelsea's (initial) relationship with that of Anne and Sasha's, and unbeknownst to fans, one of that show’s former artists Arielle Rosenstein ended up working on the movie as a result.
  • Some fans of Sym-Bionic Titan have taken a liking to the movie as well, as there's quite a bit of fan art that pits Ruby against the monsters from that show.
  • A minor one also exists with The Amazing Digital Circus as well, mostly with fanart of Ruby as Pomni and Chelsea as Ragatha.
  • Some fans compared this to the short-lived 2D Adult animated sitcom Neighbors from Hell because The Gillman family have some things in common that The Hellman family did, especially are non-humans living on earth in plain sight and protect their world from incoming threats. Ruby had a crush named Connor, just like Mandy having a crush on Wayne Killbride. The only difference is that The Gillman’s came from the ocean, while the Hellmans came from Hell. It also helps that Pam Brady (who co-wrote Ruby Gillman) is the creator of the show.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Even though the movie was a flop, it still has its fans everywhere, but it was popular in Latin America, where many a fanart involving the movie are done in Spanish. In fact, in Mexico, the movie is still played in theaters all the way up to September 10th, which overlapped with the Australian release of the movie. That's how much the movie really did well in the region.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Some viewers criticized the short runtime because of the movie's fast pace, lacking of more intimate moments between characters or screentime for Ruby's friends and Connor in favor of other characters.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Before release, it's safe to say most of the people interested in seeing it was less because they found the plot of the war between Krakens and Mermaids particularly thrilling and more for Chelsea's existence being a very blatant Take That! to Disney, which led to some detractors of the company to get interested in the movie.
  • Ruby herself. A lot of viewers admitted to not care much about the plot or the other characters but to like Ruby on her own right, and even believe she makes the movie worth it. Her being cute and adorable (and Lana Condor doing her character really good voice wise) also helps.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Because Chelsea is a Corrupted Character Copy of Ariel and is positioned by the trailer as being the Big Bad, many fans have made jokes about Chelsea being an evil Ariel or alternatively, the original Ariel jumping ship to DreamWorks Animation as retaliation against Disney for casting Halle Bailey in the live action remake, but it backfired as The Little Mermaid became one of the top 10 highest grossing films of 2023, and gave Halle a nomination for the 2024 People’s Choice Awards.
  • "It's a skin condition!" ^ExplanationViewers have pointed out that despite trying to pass as human, Ruby still clearly has kraken qualities, primarily blue skin. Cue others jokingly responding with the same excuse the titular character in Invader Zim made when asked about his green skin.
  • A few have joked that Chelsea is actually the same mermaid that Fiona threw into the shark-riddled sea after she caught her kissing an unknowing Shrek during Shrek 2.
  • After news about the film's disastrous opening weekend box office revenue was revealed, memes began appearing depicting the characters playing different scenes from other movies, believing that people will buy it happened in the movie because nobody actually saw it.
  • Ruby Gillman has since become a highly requested character for crossover games such as the unlikeliest of games Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 ^note which she got enough support from fans, to gain a support group, and DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing.
  • "You've become the very thing you swore to destroy!" ^ExplanationDue to this film using two of the most hated Disney styles of conflict in the form of both Generational Trauma as well as a poorly foreshadowed Twist Villain, people have begun using this quote to show their feelings on DreamWorks seemingly falling into the same traps that Disney has been.
• Memetic Psychopath: While Grandmamah is ultimately one of the good guys, her status as a controlling Blood Knight who hates mermaids (due to them being an Always Chaotic Evil species) has led some to paint her as a racist and genocidal kraken supremacist.
• Moe: Ruby. She is absolutely adorable, both in and out of her Kraken form.
• Moral Event Horizon: If impersonating as a teenager to manipulate a real teen wasn’t enough, Chelsea/Nerissa crosses it when she uses the Trident to attempt to murder Ruby (who's only 16), when she was no longer considered useful. This also extends to trying to kill Ruby's brother Sam for protecting her.
• Older Than They Think: Chelsea is not DreamWorks' first Expy of Ariel created as a jab to Disney, as Shrek 2 had Fiona throw a similar Ariel Expy back into the (shark-infested) sea after she caught her kissing an unknowing Shrek during the beginning of the "Accidentally in Love" montage. She is, however, the first Dreamworks Expy of Ariel that's a major character.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: The Ruby/Chelsea is generally referred to as Chelby.
• Preemptive Shipping: Despite the trailer presenting them as arch-enemies, some were quick to ship Ruby and Chelsea together after the trailer was released. It gained more popularity when a bumper short showed Ruby and Chelsea engaging in a comedic tug of war over the trident, making them appear to be friendly rivals rather than outright enemies. However, many fans would quickly drop the ship after it was revealed in the film that Chelsea was actually the adult Queen Nerissa in disguise, though this wasn’t universal, as many decided to continue it anyways either by arguing that Chelsea must still be mentally a teenager, as she never stops acting like one, or by ignoring the twist and last act of the movie in their entirety.
• Ron the Death Eater: Nothing in the movie contradicts Grandmamah's statement that mermaids are Always Chaotic Evil. While she is shown to be quite controlling and war-hungry, she also takes her duty to protect the oceans seriously. Some people exaggerate her flaws to portray her as a Racist Grandma or a genocidal supremacist. Which isn't helped given her desire to "crush the mermaids forever" after they had lost the trident, Brill himself casually calling her a warlord, and Agatha calling her out for fighting for the enjoyment of fighting in contrast to Agatha fighting to protect her family which puts Grandmamah's self-proclaimed claims of being a noble protector into question regardless of the film's intent.
• Rooting for the Empire: Despite the mermaids being an Always Chaotic Evil species, it's not difficult to find some who root for them, especially given that there aren't many mermaids in the current setting outside of Chelsea/Queen Nerissa, leading many to speculate that there are good mermaids off-screen. It doesn’t help that Grandmamah, the kraken most vocal against the mermaids, is shown to be quite controlling and war-hungry, which has led some to demonize her as a Racist Grandma or even a genocidal supremacist considering she wanted them all dead when they no longer had the one object that allowed them to even fight giant krakens to begin with and were confirmed by the director and co-director to genuinely have been forced into hiding after the war. The additional late change of making Chelsea and Nerissa the same person and that mermaids didn't age heavily implying the mermaid race as a whole are perpetual teenage girls didn't make things better.
• So Okay, It's Average: The consensus is that the film isn't bad, with critics praising the strong All-Star Cast's vocal performances, depictions of sea life and Oceanside's setting, the Gillmans' rubber hose design and character animation, along with its well-meaning messaging. However, its Cliché Storm-ridden Coming of Age plot, mediocre Twist Villain, and fairly generic humor make the movie seem pretty unmemorable. The feeling is reinforced by this film came in the wake of the much acclaimed and Oscar Nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and therefore suffers the comparison with its predecessor.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
  • A common criticism of the movie is how the plot incidentally takes elements from other animated movies and shows like Dreamworks’s own Neighbors from Hell, rival Turning Red, and many more, leaving mostly nothing unique other than the main characters being heroic Krakens.
  • In regards to the Turning Red elements particularly, several DreamWorks fans felt that DreamWorks were jumping on the Generational Trauma train that Disney started inserting into some of their 2020s films. Due to the Fandom Rivalry that arose in the 2020s between the two companies' fans, the DreamWorks fans were disappointed in what they thought as DreamWorks "becoming the very thing they swore to destroy".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Connor. He's introduced as an important supporting character in the first act, with Ruby trying to ask him to go to prom. But after Ruby saves him from drowning, Connor gets sidelined in favor of Ruby discovering her powers and the introduction of other characters like Chelsea, Queen Grandmamah, and Uncle Brill. He occasionally appears or gets mentioned, but he doesn't become relevant again until the third act.
  • Same applies to Ruby's friends: Margot, Bliss, and Trevin. They are pushed aside after the first act, and although they have a bit more screen time, they're mostly sidelined when Ruby starts to hang out with Chelsea.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Connor mentions how Ruby helps him as a math tutor. A scene with them resolving a math problem would've given Connor more screen time, and a proper pay-off to Connor surprising Ruby with his promposal written on a quadratic calculator, thanking Ruby's help. This would have also allowed Ruby to ask how he would feel if he knew about her real self, and Connor affirming he would still like her no matter what, thus making their relationship a bit stronger.
  • The underwater world of the krakens. We don't get to see much of it besides when Ruby first goes to visit Grandmamah and when Ruby trains to use her powers. After that, the world is just left as an afterthought.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The scenes under the ocean can be quite stunning to look at, such as Ruby swimming in the currents on her way to the Kraken Kingdom, the Kraken Castle itself and its murals, the bio-luminescence of the Giant Krakens, the squash-and-stretch movement of the Gillmans, and the cluster of currents that is the Well of Seas where the Trident of Oceanus is being kept.
• The Woobie:
  • Ruby Gillman herself. While she does have a small group of friends, she has a hard enough time as a Kraken trying to pass off as "human". Then she discovers, to her horror, that she can turn into a Giant Kraken — the kind that she and the humans have believed to be merciless monsters. Ruby's second uncontrolled transformation inadvertently causes collateral damage across the town, and she now fears what her friends and crush will think if they ever find out she's a "monster". This also causes friction with her mother, upon learning she knew about this the whole time, coupled with her grandmah wanting Ruby to take her place on the Kraken royal throne, even though she clearly doesn't want to, and she is nearly killed at one point by the Kraken-obsessed Gordon Lighthouse. Finally, just when it seems Ruby's not only made a friend in a mermaid (the Kraken's arch-nemesis) and found a chance for peace between the two races, this turns out to be false hope. Not only was said Mermaid just using her, but she was really the Mermaid Queen in disguise, who then proceeded to try and murder Ruby and her whole family. After all that, you just want to give poor, cute Ruby a big, Kraken-sized hug.
  • Connor. He nearly drowns in the ocean after a failed promposal that Ruby made a mistake on, and the girl he likes, whom he wanted to invite to prom, doesn't answer his messages or calls after the incident, due to his words earlier about calling her "A real life monster" within earshot. He's seen in the prom boat, depressed and lonely, removing petals from a flower while thinking about Ruby. Despite his short appearance in the story, it's not hard to feel bad for him.
  • Uncle Brill. His sister and her husband don't seem to take him well, seeing him more as The Load, and his mother, the queen of the krakens, doesn't allow him to join her hug with Ruby.
• Writer Cop Out: The movie hints that the conflict between krakens and mermaids isn't all black and white and there can be good and evil members of both, with Grandmamah expressing Fantastic Racism towards mermaids, Chelsea presenting herself as a friendly mermaid and developing a genuine-seeming friendship with Ruby, and Ruby trying to find some way to end the war between mermaids and krakens. This idea completely goes out the window when Chelsea is revealed to actually be the evil Queen Nerissa, in turn affirming Grandmamah's beliefs that all krakens are good and all mermaids are evil, and derailing the debate into a fairly basic good vs. evil conflict.

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