Ronja, la hija del bandolero

My favorite book as a child - I reread it more than five times and was deeply invested in the characters. I had the edition with Wikland's illustrations, and looking at them now brought back a wave of nostalgia. They were so vivid and full of life. When I found out that a series had been released, I was really excited, but not everything turned out smoothly.

I never expected that the series could be ruined this much by the actors - especially Ronja's father. He's supposed to be a fearsome bandit chieftain, but instead, we see a chubby man with kind, puppy-like eyes whose only abilities are throwing tantrums, looking pitiful, and waving his arms around. He even speaks like a gentleman. This is such a poor fit, so wildly out of place, that it completely breaks the immersion. His character is just a whiny, utterly foolish, and useless excuse for a... man, who doesn't command even the slightest bit of respect - and yet, for some inexplicable reason, the robbers do respect him. And he gets way too much screen time.

As for Birk - who, as one of the main characters, should at least have some charisma - the actor is a complete nobody with an empty filmography, a single facial expression, and a misaligned bite.

I've never paid much attention to actors in films before; everything always seemed more or less the same to me. But here, even I can see it's a total disaster.

The good parts: Ronja's actress does a decent job, and Lovis, her mother, feels like a real person - with emotions you actually believe in. She's the best character - level-headed, calm. Skalle-Per is also not bad.

All the other characters are just there - completely forgettable, failing to spark any interest or empathy.

The gnomes are horribly designed, while the wile-wings are OK. The nature shots, though - the mountains, castles, forests, waterfalls - are absolutely breathtaking. It's all filmed with a genuine love for nature, and the visuals are rich and vibrant.

The plot isn't particularly impressive. I remember the book being interesting to read, but here, it's mostly meaningless conversations plus the addition of a "bounty hunters" storyline - who, surprise, are all women and weren't in the original. This entire plotline is utterly pointless, dragged out, and leads absolutely nowhere. Every scene with these bounty hunters just made me want to skip ahead. Other than that, the series mostly follows the book's plot.

Overall, mixed feelings. But I'd still recommend giving it a try.

This show has ups & downs. The production looks amazing, the costumes were pretty good, it was well played, had some solid music, the intro is a vibe and some good cinematography too. But its just a terrible adaptation. The show doesn't focus on Ronja at all. Instead it focuses on Mattis' story and Kappa's. Kappa is an original character with probably most of the screen time. She is not likeable she doesn't do anything, her character is nothing at all but still this her show. Why? None of these characters are likeable. Bot even Ronja. She just feels like a normal 13 year old. Ronja isn't even a supporting character in her own show. The plot is boring, stupid and full of people who don't do anything. We don't see Ronja learning on the forest. We don't see Ronja trying not to fall into the river. Instead we got Mattis who is.... there and Kappa who is..... Also there? Plus who designed the Harpies!? They're just big birds with nipples! There's nothing scary or menacing about them at all.

This feels like I'm watching a theatre play based on the movie. And I'm pretty sure I've seen local amateur theatre with better acting.

There is so much of the dialogue that feels clunky and stiff. And it's delivered by some of the worst actors I've seen in a long time.

But it's so much more; gone is the charm, gone is the humour, gone is the magic. And the most glaring thing missing: The music.

It's just not Ronja without the music. It's so flat and boring with the new soundtrack. It sounds like they've gone to YouTube's open archive and just pasted in some license free music. It sound like most of it is just some dude with a synth and a "medieval fantasy" sound-library. It has no soul.

And that is how I feel about the entire show. It's just soulless, empty and flat.

This production passes the minimum requirements to be watchable, but the persisting impression is why they made it at all. A bit darker than the original movie, the tone is yet quite mild and the dialouge not far from the book.

After watching 3 episodes, I am still wondering, why am I watching this?

The darker angle, is bathing in poor acting and a sense of rushed production. Sometimes almost cliché driven with rather weak and not very well represented subplots and story arcs.

Production quality is on par with other low to mid budget fantasy shows, and is utilizing passable basic CGI and clever practical effects.

I will watch the rest of the season, but I am not looking forward to it.

Im swedish and grew up in the 80s so as any other kid I saw the Ronja movie, which means alot to me. I also grew up near a forest, not too different from the one in the movie. Ronja has so many things I love in a movie, a good story, interesting characters, medieval folk music and songs. In a northern forest with mythical creatures.

This new series was touching this in a few moments, a few seconds of passion here and there. It starts out pretty alright, but eventually I lost interest.

The visuals are great, music is good, many actors does a good job even with the occasional bad dialog from the writer.

Adding the bounty hunters, village chief or the food thief, didnt bring anything to the story at all. I dont mind them adding new characters like this, but it just felt like they were forced into the story and not properly cared for. The main bounty hunter seemed to have an interesting backstory, but since we hardly know anything about her I cant care less. Instead of adding more characters, why not add more depth to the ones that matter?

I would have absolutely loved this, if it was done with heart.