Les Jetson: Le Film

My family bought the video one Christmas as a gift for my dad, who has been a Jetsons fan for years. Our whole family enjoyed the Jetsons Movie. Tiffany plays the voice of Judy and sings some really nice songs. I liked their attempt at a politically correct story. Besides, this film is the Jetsons! How can you not like that? ;)

I've been watching Jetsons The Movie for many years. It is one of my favorite movies. Out of all the movies that were based on Hanna-Barbera cartoons, I have to say that is one of the better ones. While it's not without it's problems/flaws, it's better than some of the animated films that are coming out today. I love The Jetsons. I love both the original Jetsons cartoon series and the movie. If it wasn't for the film, I wouldn't be The Jetsons fan that I am today. It's a very underrate film. The animation was good and very colorful. I loved that they mixed CGI with 2D Animation. The CGI may have not been the greatest but it was decent. I even loved the new characters like Judy's boyfriend, Apollo Blue, the Grungrees and the Robot Family. Plus this film has a great soundtrack. My favorite songs are You And Me, Staying Together and Home. The voice acting was good too and I even have to admit that Tiffany did a good job voicing Judy. She isn't much of an actress but she does ok. The story was good and decent but wasn't without it's flaws. Judy's subplot is one of the flaws in the story. I can understand her being upset about not going out on a date with Cosmic Cosmo but come on...she hardly knew him and he hardly knew her. It's stupid! I felt that Elroy's subplot with Teddy-2 (the robot boy) was done better. I don't hate Judy's subplot but I wish it was done a little better.

One of the things that the film did right was give The Jetsons friends. One of the things that The Jetsons television series lacked was friends for The Jetsons. Plus I wish that the film was longer so that The Jetsons could interact with their new friends/neighbors a bit longer and expand upon their new friendships (like Judy spending more time with Apollo and getting to know him better).

I still love this film even though it has it's problems and flaws. It's not the greatest animated film ever made but it's not horrible. There are worse movies out there and some movies deserve to be forgotten, but Jetsons The Movie (at least in my opinion) doesn't deserve to be forgotten. There are people who do love this film and I'm one of them. The film is still watchable, fun and enjoyable. The film has a good message about protecting the environment and actually does a better job with it's environmental message than some of the other environmental films that came after it. The film does stay true to the original television series and like the television series, the film does have it's warm and loving moments. It's a good film for the entire family and if you are an animation fan, I would give this a watch.

Plus I do know the story behind this film and how Judy's original voice actress Janet Waldo was replaced by Tiffany. While I said that I thought that Tiffany did a good job voicing Judy, I have to be fair to Janet Waldo since she voiced Judy for a long time and really loved doing The Jetsons. She was very hurt and heartbroken over the decision that Universal Studios made to replace her with Tiffany and I felt really sorry for her and half of me is mad at Universal for making that decision but I don't hate Tiffany or her performance as Judy Jetson. I still believe that Tiffany did do a good job. To be honest, I love both Janet Waldo and Tiffany as Judy Jetson. But one thing is for sure, Janet Waldo will always be Judy Jetson.

Big screen continuation of the 1960s cartoon series is alternately old-fashioned to a corny degree and modern in the most grating ways. All of the humor is like that of the old series, for those who are fans. I am not so it was like nails on a chalkboard for me while watching this. At least there wasn't a laugh track. The "modern" stuff added includes some environmentalist proselytizing and some truly terrible late '80s/early '90s style pop music. Tiffany and synth beats, folks. Yuck! Speaking of Tiffany, she was brought in to play Judy Jetson and replace Janet Waldo, the original Judy. She does an awful job. Of the rest of the cast, the original voice for Elroy, Daws Butler, had died before this so he had to be replaced. Sadly, both George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc also died during production. Overall, this is a corny stinker that's saved only by some nice animation. It's very colorful and fluid and I'll give it credit for that. But this is really just something fans of the old show will want to check out for curiosity's sake. I can't imagine anyone else liking it.

I like this movie because of the soundtrack and the adventure. "Maybe Love" is one of my three favorite songs in the movie (my other two favorite songs are "Stayin' Together" and "You and Me") all the songs in this movie seem to have an uplifting beat and I like to sing along to them. I also like to watch all of the adventures that the Jetsons encounter when they move to their new home. George gets a job to produce one million spacely sprockets and after many struggles with the grungies George manages to succeed at his job. Unfortunately for spacely in the end he ends up looking like a bad guy because he did not care if he was destroying the grungies universe, all he cared about was getting his one million sprockets. After Judy's heart was broken over Cosmic Cosmo going out with one of her friends (when he was supposed to date her) Judy found a new boyfriend (Apollo Blue, who was also a musician like Cosmic Cosmo) at her new home. Elroy makes a new friend also (Teddy 2)! When Teddy 2 scored on Elroy, Elroy became very angry with Teddy 2 (and vise versa) but by working together Elroy and Teddy 2 were able to become very good friends (especially when Elroy saved Teddy 2 form flying sprockets). The ending was extremely sad in my opinion, when the Jetsons had to return to their original home. I would definitely rate this movie a perfect 10 along with another perfect 10 for it's soundtrack!

I have a lot of nostalgia for The Jetsons. The cartoon was one of my favorites as a child in the 1980s. I don't have that same nostalgia for the movie or even remember when I actually saw it for the first time. I decided to watch it to see if I wanted to buy the newly released Blu-Ray version.

The Good: The animation is wonderful. The artists took the look right from the cartoon and gave it a boost for the big screen. The story is also nice and fits in with the world of the Jetsons. Daws Butler, the original voice of Elroy, sadly passed away before the movie was made but his replacement does a decent job. Otherwise most of the original voice cast is here, but more on that later. The musical score is well done, the iconic theme is heard throughout in different variations.

Not So Good: It always seems to come down to the voice cast when cartoons are turned into feature films. As I said most of the cast from the show are in the movie. Sadly Mel Blanc (Spacely) and George O'Hanlon (George) died during production and another actor finished their parts. I didn't notice this with Mr. Spacely but there are several scenes where George's voice was much different. I certainly don't blame the studio for this. But my biggest issue is what they did to Judy Jetson's character.

The original voice actor, Janet Waldo, recorded all her dialog for Judy only to be replaced by singer Tiffany. Of course Tiffany doesn't sound anything like the Judy we know and love, and the volume of songs make the movie feel like a vehicle for the singer's career. They should have kept Janet for the voice work and let Tiffany sing the songs, either as herself animated or just for the soundtrack. I would love to see the movie with Janet Waldo's voice restored but I'm guessing that is a pipe dream.

Summary: They did a lot of good things with the Jetsons movie but the studio screwed it up by replacing one of the iconic voice cast with a popular singer for the time. Maybe I'll give it another watch and change my feelings in the future.

Hollywood has kept this trend going with other cartoon properties. They just don't trust the property enough to let it speak for itself, they have to attach big name actors to it. Ugh!