Madeline and her lack of understading on the Hunchback

I will give Madeline a little credit, and this pains me greatly, but they did give an interesting take on Quasimodo’s character. It was about how he treats others and not how he is beautiful on the inside. I mean it’s still emphasis on Quasimodo’s inner beauty but it’s said in a different way and I can appreciate that.

I also like the girl who plays Esmeralda. Danielle, as she is called, looks appropriate to the role. Though they never mention Esmeralda as Gypsy, so it’s moot point.

But my god how this episode fails to communicate the source material every chance it gets. It seems in a way a throw-away episode. I bet they were just trying to get Hunchback in before the Disney movie came out. Otherwise I’m not sure they knew Hunchback existed at all.

 

This episode seems to have a little bit of an identity problem. It really can’t decided if it wanted to focus of the Hunchback and its children-friendly theme, writing, Paris love or mud castles. I mean it does take 6 minutes to get a mention of the Hunchback. And the Hunchback-focus is phoned in at best.

Let’s tackle a big annoyance. The episode only focuses one two characters from the book; Quasimodo and Esmeralda. But Esmeralda is only mention because she was nice to Quasimodo. We hear of a Captain of the Guard which is Phoebus but his name is never stated. Other major characters do not exist in Madeline’s world.

Then there is the little instance of plot the episode indicates at that are just off or wrong. First, the play starts with Esmeralda in sanctuary and Quasimodo brings her food. It’s not like the episode just skipped to that scene since Ms.Cavell assures Mr. Dippetty Doo that it will get better. This should be at the end, if it was crap to this point it’s not going to get better.

The addition of the Captain was only to shoehorn in since they couldn’t otherwise. And it was to act as counterpoint to Quasimodo’s looks. Then we have Mr. Dippetty Doo swinging down to grab Esmeralda while they are both in Notre Dame. That’s just silly. These two instances are the only indications of plot from the book aside from being way off they are lifted from the movies adaptations and not the book.

Then we have Pepito learning to play Quasimodo because he apparently has a big heart. Pepito should have played Esmeralda with his level of selfishness, Oh wait, I forgot book-Esmeralda doesn’t exist here.

But in all seriousness Pepito doesn’t have an arc, he doesn’t seem to learn anything or reach any conclusions that was influence by Quasimodo. Mr.Dippetty Fucking Doo has to tell Pepito that Quasimodo is awesome. This just makes the episode really superficial and lazy. It’s really mind-numbing the lack of effort this episode has for the story. It didn’t celebrate Hugo’s work at all, it marred beyond recognition.

Next Time; the Stupid Song