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Powerpuff: Bringing Back Girl Power Like It’s 1999
Is a live-action reboot really such a good idea…?
Here’s my disclaimer: I was not a big fan of the original Powerpuff Girls that aired on Cartoon Network between the years 1998 and 2005. Whenever I did watch the show (which wasn’t often; I didn’t grow up with cable), I usually just waited for the anime block to come on instead. While the show was vibrant and distinguishable from other cartoons of its time, I was young enough that the novelty and nuance behind certain aspects of the show just completely went over my head most of the time.
Running on a tradition of banking on nostalgia (whether that’s through or the reboot of Charmed), the CW ordered a pilot for this pseudo-sequel where the kiddie superheroes have grown up and have had to cope with the traumas and consequences of their former lives as the girls to call when the world needed saving. The question on everyone’s minds, I’m sure, is this: can the transition from a tongue-in-cheek cartoon to a darker and moodier live-action look at “superherodom” really work? I mean, we already know how children’s cartoons may not be the best fodder for live-action mishandling: remember the outcries over Netflix’s Fate: The Winx Saga and, further back, the disastrous thou-dare-not-speak-its-name Avatar: The Last Airbender film?
