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The Amazing Digital Circus - Western Isekai that probably will become Hazbin Hotel killer
There was probably a general narrative outline in advance with the finer details getting ironed out with each new script. Like when you're writing a superhero story, you know the hero and the villain are gonna fight at the end, and the hero is probably gonna win, but you hammer out everything else as it goes.
I don't think he even has a narrative outline, I get the impression that he just has character bios and some scene ideas. I only have a few episodes left but so far character "growth" in this series for the most part is just learning about their irrelevant human background and them briefly coping with their particular mental illness before being largely forgotten in favor of status quo. There is no real direction in the narrative.
I watched the finale and I didn't expect much given that this baby's first surreal cgi shitfest, but I wasn't expecting a slide show telling us about how everyone is living their out dreams. Especially since I always felt the "who are we?" mystery was a lower priority throughout the series, behind "can we leave?" "who will abstract?" "What is the circus?" all of which was answered really early on in the episode. Jax being the focus was fine because nobody else (besides maybe Kinger) had anything else going on, but I feel like everything that was revealed was heavily inferred so it wasn't a surprise. Undoing Cain's death was cowardice and it was the only consequence I was interested in seeing how they dealt with. Jax being fucking dead wasn't undone, so good on them for keeping it a little gritty. It's undercut by Cain's humiliation ritual montage tho. The final shot of them remaking the circus to be perfect reminded me of the Matrix "perfect world" speech.
Pomni's biggest contribution to the story was listening to Kinger say he likes the dark, forgetting, and then remembering it like 5 episodes later.
I watched the finale and I didn't expect much given that this baby's first surreal cgi shitfest, but I wasn't expecting a slide show telling us about how everyone is living their out dreams. Especially since I always felt the "who are we?" mystery was a lower priority throughout the series, behind "can we leave?" "who will abstract?" "What is the circus?" all of which was answered really early on in the episode. Jax being the focus was fine because nobody else (besides maybe Kinger) had anything else going on, but I feel like everything that was revealed was heavily inferred so it wasn't a surprise. Undoing Cain's death was cowardice and it was the only consequence I was interested in seeing how they dealt with. Jax being fucking dead wasn't undone, so good on them for keeping it a little gritty. It's undercut by Cain's humiliation ritual montage tho. The final shot of them remaking the circus to be perfect reminded me of the Matrix "perfect world" speech.
Pomni's biggest contribution to the story was listening to Kinger say he likes the dark, forgetting, and then remembering it like 5 episodes later.
Honestly I was pretty happy they got the "SOMA LOL" thing out of the way because it was fairly clear already. I did not understand the Scratch thing. Did Caine bring him back? Was that the past or a copy of the circus?
One of the arguments I've seriously seen in its defense is, "Well, we don't know that the office was abandoned! Stop asking unimportant questions! That's not what the story is about!"
These people legitimately don't give a shit about anything but their troon validation.
Imagine, instead of recap of the series and padding out the screen time with ep 8, the movie started a 1:1 copy of that clip.
All the NPCs from the previous episodes exclaiming "Caine is dead", while forming a line to attend the funeral. The protagonists standing around the open grave, quiet and confused, witnessing the casket being hurled into the void.
I don't think he even has a narrative outline, I get the impression that he just has character bios and some scene ideas. I only have a few episodes left but so far character "growth" in this series for the most part is just learning about their irrelevant human background and them briefly coping with their particular mental illness before being largely forgotten in favor of status quo. There is no real direction in the narrative.
And i am someone who enjoys less mature cartoons, i just dont feel the need to lie about it by pretending theyre more mature than they are. This shits reminding me of bronies saying my little pony was actually secretly for adults. Atla has war, genocide, child abuse, etc, steven universe has queer shit, gravity falls has body horror, adventure time has mental illness arcs and infinity train has existential dread. Theyre all also very much still kids shows.
And some of these 'people' have in their subreddit tags that theyre 35 YEARS OLD. Like im not a big fan of kids but what the fuck is wrong with someone that theyre 35 and seething about seeing kids at the final episode of a tv-pg cartoon. What.
Buddy, you're at a theater. There's usually at least one annoying person at these big screenings. Just be glad you didn't share a theater with someone like this guy.
I'd say the issue is that the show ironically didn't put much focus on the Circus itself. Prior to the finale, only three episodes were actually about exploring how the Circus worked. The adventures themselves were mostly backdrops for character interactions with very little discussion about being trapped.
1.) Colorful, light-hearted slapstick comedy for kids, about wacky characters going on zany digital adventures. Basically like Reboot mixed with Looney Tunes, forget all the existentialist trauma shit and just make it fun.
2.) An edgier and more off-putting [but still fun] surrealist comedy with lots of dark humor. Basically like Popee The Performer or an Adult Swim show. Once again, don't even bother with any serious soap-opera nonsense, just focus on the comedy.
3.) Go all in with the IHMAIMS influence and just make a digital horror show for adults. No sappy therapy shit or fake softie "horror", instead put some effort into actually making the show disturbing. Use the "trapped in a VR world" horror premise to it's full potential. Kill/maim your characters, provide some legitimate stakes to keep them on their toes. Have STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPEN.
A Possible Fan-Made Alternative?
I stumbled upon this channel called "Duffy's Digital Circus", which is this fan-made Bizarro horror version of TADC. It's cheesy, but I also kind of like it because it's far more commited to the show's horror premise than Cooper could've ever bothered to do.
A story can't really be all grim and dark all the way, it needs a light in the dark, some hope, SOMETHING for the spectator to care about the characters and compare things to.
Made in abyss (despite the loli bullshit) has the discovery of exotic creatures and the draw of the unknown, of a world that's exotic and alien but still maintains a working set of rules governing it, it just pulls you in with morbid curiosity but the competent writing keeps you reading further.
WH40k has the stories of epic battles in the dark cosmos, where billions of untold tales unfold in a cacophony of gunfire and wails. Where as dark as "there is only war" goes, you enjoy every fight won and sing the praises of your god and race.
Casualties: Unknown has the promise of treating your expie better this time around, raise his spirits and reach new depths as you learn everything of these caves, despite knowing there's slim chances of it making it out alive let alone in one piece.
All of these go through undescribable pain and suffering but it's all worth it for everything else along the way, you can be depressed but you still need a heartbeat to not just flatline and detach from this story.
These videos you show just feel like misery porn, why should i give a damn about these characters in that video, if i didn't know who they were or didn't have at least TADC episode 1 to refer to?
This might work in isolation for a single video, but I can't possibly imagine it making it farther than 2 or 3 episodes.
A good equivalent to that I'm pulling from distant memory is "afton's secrets", a series of thepirateboy's videos. they're hardly related to FNAF for the majority of these videos but are meant to be about it while never letting go of the grim and edgy.
It gets dull after the second episode maybe, I faintly remember watching it all and telling myself it was the single worst waste of time I've willingly took part in, over some friend's recommendation.
More or less every movie has at the very least a happy starting point or a character who shows you promise of something better, something for you to go "we can still salvage it, there is good in this world I hope something doesn't happen that would irreparably kill that prospect".
That said, the show does NOT do that because it wants to create some levity and hope, there's just far too much of it and too little bad stretched thin. The writer and directors just didn't know what they wanted to do from the start and it shows. the buildup to episode 7's secret character just doesn't make sense in the way the dummy appears in previous episodes, it's just shown as some kind of ominous force.
When 99% of the fandom thinks THIS is somehow a good take on what's happening:
you should tell yourself you've just built up a character that's there to be ominous and haven't given them anything of substance, likely because you've been doing a scott cawthon and didn't have a plan for what it'd be.
If it was me, I'd have each episode starting from 3 or 4 have one segment where pomni tries to figure a way out, gathering information or finding more info about this world she's stuck in, or at the very least, scrap episode 7 and just sprinkle its contents through all previous episodes.
There was probably a general narrative outline in advance with the finer details getting ironed out with each new script. Like when you're writing a superhero story, you know the hero and the villain are gonna fight at the end, and the hero is probably gonna win, but you hammer out everything else as it goes.
I feel like he has the same problem I did when I tried to write fiction. He's got a few scenes that are important to him pictured in his head that he feels really good about. The problem is that these are usually payoff scenes, they need a lot of work put into the writing to get the audience to them. He doesn't consider that though, he just thinks "oh, something needs to come before it" and fills it with meaningless, meandering conversations and a series of short gag, all of which are just padding. He doesn't know how to write fiction. He doesn't understand that there's just as much work, if not more, in those smaller scenes that carry you through the story.
WH40k has the stories of epic battles in the dark cosmos, where billions of untold tales unfold in a cacophony of gunfire and wails. Where as dark as "there is only war" goes, you enjoy every fight won and sing the praises of your god and race.
The uplifting side of 40k is the tales of tenacity. Sure the guardsman is given a flashlight, butterknife, and body armor made of wet cardboard then told to charge at a literal demigod from a dimension he can not comprehend, but he will fucking do it. And if he can't kill it the shear weight of his balls alone will inspire others to follow behind until the job gets done. LONG LIVE OLLANIUS PIUS! Fuck any GW retcon that makes him anything other than a normal man.
Where i study, there's this guy who threw a tantrum because Netflix saved the K-pop movie Demon Hunters, saying it was the greatest sin of humanity. Seriously, he sounded like a five-year-old who never learned to take no for an answer, even though that same jerk was praising the movie The Amazing Digital Circus.
I can already picture him as one of those guys who made anti-K-pop edits in 2022.
I wanted to smash his skull in, I couldn't stand this guy anymore
I think an issue is Goose clearly wanted the last episode to take place in the “broken” Circus with Caine gone and the final big reveals and revolutions happen. And while there’s nothing wrong with that in theory, I think there’s way too much story contained within that final episode to be well told in only an hour. I think there’s way too should have been at minimum one more episode of them in the “non-Caine” circus. If you need a big hook for the final episode, cut it right before Pomni does the mind dive in Jax. Maybe take some of that stuff with Caine on his own into it.
I think I've come to the conclusion that Hazbin/TADC could be animated amazingly, have fun things in them, and still fall into the category of Hot Topic-slop. These people have never grown out of buying Nightmare Before Christmas merch and have pushed hard to make shit that fills the same niche. Musicals, dark themes, cartoony proportions and designs, characters with clown makeup. Nightmare Before Christmas wasn't ever meant to be Hot Topic-slop, but that's what it became. These people made their shows to appeal to that audience and route and it sickens me.
I think an issue is Goose clearly wanted the last episode to take place in the “broken” Circus with Caine gone and the final big reveals and revolutions happen. And while there’s nothing wrong with that in theory, I think there’s way too much story contained within that final episode to be well told in only an hour. I think there’s way too should have been at minimum one more episode of them in the “non-Caine” circus. If you need a big hook for the final episode, cut it right before Pomni does the mind dive in Jax. Maybe take some of that stuff with Caine on his own into it.
I think we needed to have several episodes of a post-caine circus. A big underutilized part of the series was the NPCs kept under control by Caine who needs to constantly reset them in order to prevent them from gaining sentience. With Caine not keeping them in check they will eventually develop into entities that are equal to the protagonists with a whole hosts of implications. Pomni can be really be friends with the lizard. The circus could be an actual society beyond the protagonists, Reviving Caine could mean damning NPCs to forever be subhuman forced to constantly be reset.
reflecting further, the ending is so over the top hateful towards Jax its hilarious
>Kinger kills Caine
>Jax gives up hope as a result and abstracts
>Jax forced to live in a tent for the rest of existence
>Caine isn't dead, he was just pretending (lol)
>Caine becomes a smol bean uwu and uses his powers to fulfill all the fantasies of the remaining cast but can't un-abstract someone
>"Have fun in your shitty tent Jax, we are going on adventures with our new BFF, Caine the AI."
The whole story was just leading up to Caine (an AI program) making friends and gaining the acceptance off the back of the now pointless death of Jax (the brain scan of a real person). Bravo Goose.
I actually find it quite interesting how these movies are becoming a "midnight madness" style screening, in the middle of broad daylight. It's like they're picking movies to treat the way that Rocky Horror Picture Show is treated: throwing shit at the screen, yelling jokes, singing along to the songs. Minecraft movie, now TADC apparently? Are there others?
Everybody knows that the movie theater is basically a dying breed. If "active participation" style screenings start being more of a thing for movies that aren't 20 years old, I wonder if it will actually revive theaters a little? I mean all these kids clearly aren't going JUST to see the movie. How much is a ticket now, like 20 bucks? I bet the people going for "the experience" would pay more for a special screening where it's encouraged.
Has any theater leaned into this yet to rake in profits or are they all just stymied and upset by all the popcorn and trash wrappers on the floor afterward?
Calling it; It's just gonna a copy of The Twilight Zone S3E14 "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" but like really really strung out with filler material.
Which is actually a really good episode of the twilight zone 11/10 recommend. Dunno about this show tho, it looks like the kind of content strategically designed to appeal to neurodivergent character fixations. But noticed some plot setup similarities.
As soon as I saw digital circus I immediately thought of this twilight zone episode. I was actually pissed at how similar the story is, just replace a bucket with inside a computer. Then to see how every character and reference is just a copy of something else :
Caine:
Jax:
Zooble:
Ragatha, Gangle, and Kinger are pretty obvious.
I highly recommend watching the twilight zone episode, I can't find a free version but this review by Doug Walker (calm down) does a good job of summarizing the episode and pretty much laying out every idea from the digital circus.
My personal grievance with both the character designs and the environment design is that it looks like it's from a baby preschool show, even though the show is supposed to be "mature".
It's not like in Happy Tree Friends where the kiddy art style is deliberately contrasted with shocking bloody violence to make it more funny - TADC is supposed to be dead serious.
That's how they got me. I thought it was gonna be a straight horror show and all the cutesy characters were meant to contrast all the darkness. Hell even episode 2 had promise with Gumigoo getting self awareness, and an existential crisis. By episode 3 it was clear this no this really is a kid’s show pretending to be an adult show,
This means that glitch tends to get people who are really stubborn and resistant to outside influence, and it's a matter of luck if that project is something truly amazing or just a spergatory passion project/trauma dump. Digital Circus is merely something that managed to pretend to be the former, only to reveal itself as the latter over time.
It’s honestly fascinating how many “creatives” feel entitled to use millions of dollars of someone’s else’s money, time and resources just to create a glorified therapy session. It makes me side with the executives that just want a product people will enjoy enough to be profitable.
Art can be angsty, and self expressive, yes. But if you are making something meant to be profitable you should make it enjoyable to the public first.
Indeed all Goosework did was hide it better and longer than most. But this really was yet another trauma dump show.
As soon as I saw digital circus I immediately thought of this twilight zone episode. I was actually pissed at how similar the story is, just replace a bucket with inside a computer. Then to see how every character and reference is just a copy of something else :
Caine:
I highly recommend watching the twilight zone episode, I can't find a free version but this review by Doug Walker (calm down) does a good job of summarizing the episode and pretty much laying out every idea from the digital circus.
Close, although I no longer have a link to it, Zooble was apparently based on some builder toy where you could make your own figures out of a bunch of oddly shaped and colored parts. Kind of like an abstract, full body Mr.Potato Head. GW probably played with it as a kid.
