Okay, so we all have seen Dora the explorer when we were young, we used to follow this cartoon which gave us some good memories. Recently on Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Awards, the first trailer of Dora and the Lost City of Gold was released.
The teaser was the first real look at Paramount Players and Nickelodeon’s live-action Dora the Explorer movie. Look, it is entirely possible that the film will do well when it opens on August 2 merely because; Dora is a character whom at least some demographics might want to see in a live-action movie and secondly the cast is filled with a murderer’s row of Hispanic actors and actresses that makes this a kind of demographically-specific event film. But then again this trailer did not appeal to those who would want to see a faithful Dora the Explorer movies. This however making it a little bit “cooler” or making her look a bit old will do absolutely nothing to entice audiences who had no interest in a Dora the Explorer movie. Rather than just making a somewhat faithful live-action variation of the iconic cartoon, it would appear that director James Bobbin and writers Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson (an admittedly promising line-up of talent) are neither crafting a faithful adaptation or an all-in adventure movie that happens to involve a young girl.
It’s a little odd that they aged Dora up to around 17-years-old and yet had her keep the wardrobe associated with her seven-year-old self. Even ten-year-old Dora wore a slightly aged-up outfit. Isabella Moner looks like a teen dressing up as Dora the Explorer for Halloween. More frustrating is how the teaser seems to refashion our title character into a clumsy and “look before she leaps” trouble-maker who gets sent to a big-city high school for character building. Nobody who wants to see a Dora movie wants to see her aged into a teenager and “taken down a peg.”
I’m pretty sure no one who actually wants to see a Dora the Explorer movie wants to see one where she’s essentially penalized and condemned by her parents. We need the old Dora back who can pull any random object out of her talking backpack and will solve any problem with or without your help.
If you still haven’t seen the trailer, have a look:
