The Rugrats 2021

They rebooted The Rugrats. It’s now The Rugrats 2021. They did not need to do this.

The bastards killed Howard. What did he retweet that forced him to step down from the role.

I think Betty lives with Stu and Didi now. But that would mean Phil and Lil live with Tommy and I don’t think that’s ever clarified. We never see Betty’s house.

Chuckie has not one, but two nightmare scenes. The Rugrats 2021 intends to uphold the tradition of visualizing Chuckie’s budding childhood trauma.

I’m not sure why they changed Grandpa Lou so much. The new Lou would let you sit in his pickup truck and take a sip out of his beer, but the old Lou would make you kneel in gravel while holding a Bible in each hand. At first I thought this was meant to be a parallel to two different parenting styles – one has a family to train the next generation to be even stronger, the other has a family to better his own self. They’re basically Goku and Vegeta respectively.

But it’s probably because if Grandpa Lou fought in World War II he’d be like a hundred thirty. This means that someone else was responsible for Pearl Harbor in this Rugrats timeline.

You know what the difference between the two Grandpa Lous is? OG Lou shits all over Dummi Bears: The Land Without Smiles, and new Lou would get a tattoo of it on his ankle.

Susie has been radically re-characterized. She has been promoted to a primary Rugrat, so she’s like in every episode. That’s actually awesome. She used to be like a weird satellite character and she actually serves a role in the team, she’s the kinda smart one.

At the same time, she and Angelica were at approximately the same power level in the original show. They could speak to adults. Here, they powered Susie down considerably. She has become mute to the adult world. But I guess that’s okay because she’s a character this time around. Dil was not a character. Dil was a lump of warm flesh that was shackled to the babies as penance. His greatest contribution to the show was having a pulse. I don’t think Kimi had a role on the team.

Phil gains a new power. He is now the team inventory. He keeps everything in his diaper. Lil gains no new powers. Have they always had differing teeth or is that new?

Godslayer Tommy is back. Tommy squares up against a dinosaur and risked getting abducted. He would fight God and draw blood.

I’m glad the Rugrats 2021 continues to throw the babies into near-death situations every few episodes.

Tommy having a toy screwdriver instead of a real screwdriver is character assassination. The fact that Tommy had an actual screwdriver stashed away was symbolic of him being able to get shit past his parents and lead a double life, having adventures with his friends that Didi or Stu would never know about. Having a toy screwdriver means it was gifted to him, that his adventures are more discernibly encouraged by his parents. That takes away an entire angle of the Rugrats formula.

Who modeled Cynthia. The way the holes are positioned on her head implies that Cynthia’s hair is meant to look like that, and not be a product of Angelica’s abuse.

Why are there so many Dutch angles and high-angle shots and really tight shots. Angelica marries her cousin in one episode.

They have a dedicated theme song for when the babies go cause property damage. It sounds like Rugrats DOOM music.

In the original show we never see the adults witnessing the babies’ conversations. We weren’t supposed to know how they interpreted baby speak. But here, Chuckie is doing a monologue and Chaz is listening in and he interprets it as like baby noises. I guess that’s how it always was, but it’s so weird to finally see it visualized.

They kneecapped Charlotte so hard dude. She used to have shoulder pads and a really big phone. Now she’s unkind to her friends and she somehow still keeps getting invited to things. The reason she was so assertive in the original show was because she had to be to dominate in a male-oriented workspace. This time she comes of as unnecessarily vindictive.

There’s such a strange contrast in visual imagery. In one scene Angelica crucifies Cynthia and in the next you’re looking at the worst pea simulations ever put to the screen.

They gave Angelica a whip. She just drives up to Tommy’s house then starts doing donuts in his backyard. This is a recurring thing. The babies are almost killed multiple times as a result of it. Angelica uses it as a bargaining chip several times. Somehow every baby knows how to drive.

The show embraces the “false idol” symbolism that has always been attributed to Angelica (see: the statue of Angelica in the original series). Lil crafts a statue in her honor for a parade or something, and in one episode she gets a doll made in her likeness then she holds a funeral for it as it dies on-screen.

Angelica believes that she must be immortalized. Her parents enforce this notion through their gifts and affirmations. It symbolizes Angelica and her family’s materialism. Tommy does not feel the need to immortalize himself. He does not recognize his own reflection, as shown in the intro. Tommy does not know what he looks like. Tommy is unable to draw.

Angelica is able to count to three in this show. I don’t believe she was capable of that in the original. This means her power level increased by an unknown amount.

In one episode Chuckie walks onto an armed catapult and it takes the parents like thirty seconds to react. They see him on this thing, then they throw some banter back and forth and THEN Chuckie gets yeeted into orbit.

When I watch The Rugrats 2021 I do not see Tommy Pickles. I instead gaze into the sunken eyes of a man who was left to die days ago. This show is a shambling homunculus. This show has been a shambling homunculus since like Rugrats in Paris. Seriously, why are Tommy’s eyes so recessed. Why does Angelica look so tired.

Overall, I give it a five or six out of ten.