Pinocchio 3000
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 Who in their right mind would think this was a good idea?!
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Pinocchio 3000 (also known as P3K) is a 2004 Canadian-French-Spanish computer animated film produced by CinéGroupe, Filmax, and Anima Kids, and released by Christal Films, it is based off of the story, Pinocchio.
Plot
An old inventor named Geppetto creates a robot, named Pinocchio, as his son. Meanwhile, an evil mayor named Scamboli is building a technological city called "Scamboville" to get rid of nature. He also hates all children, except for his beloved daughter, Marlene. When Marlene expresses concerns to Scamboli about there being no space for children to have fun, he sets out to make a kids-only theme park called "Scamboland".
That night, Geppetto and Spencer the Penguin are preparing to make Pinocchio come to life. But Scamboli has seized control of the city mains to light up his theme park for the Grand Opening, so, Geppetto has no choice but to steal his electricity. Suddenly, Scamboland has a power outage and the children leave. After Pinocchio comes to life, much to his family's delight, Cyberina the fairy appears. She decides to grant Geppetto's wish to turn Pinocchio into a real boy if he learns about right and wrong.
The next morning, Pinocchio is walking his way to school with Spencer when he meets up with Zach, Cynthia and Marlene. Marlene challenges Pinocchio to an Imagination game, hosted by Cyberina. Marlene wins the game, but Pinocchio, who believes he's done better than Marlene, snatches the medal from her. As he runs away, he comes across Scamboli's robotic henchmen, Cabby and Rodo, who take Pinocchio to see Scamboli. While they talk to each other, Pinocchio says, "Life would be great if kids were more like us", sparking an idea in Scamboli's diabolical brain.
With the true opening of Scamboland, he makes Pinocchio into an attraction, but when Geppetto gets word of this, he tries to convince him to come home. While Pinocchio performs at a concert, Scamboli kidnaps Geppetto. Afterward, all the children board a roller coaster ride called "A Whale of a Change", which transforms all of them into "Scambobots". Meanwhile, Pinocchio gives Marlene her medal back and befriends her, and they spend the night together at Marlene's private garden.
As they awaken the next morning, Marlene is crestfallen to find that Scambobots have destroyed her garden. Hearing Pinocchio laughing at her dismay, she gives the medal to him and revokes her vow of friendship. But Pinocchio, realizing that he had accidentally helped Scamboli, leaves to find his Dad. He returns home, but finds that his father isn't there, but Spencer is. He tells Pinocchio that he went off to get him, so they head off to find him, only to find Scamboli turned Geppetto into a robot to kill Pinocchio. After Spencer blinds Scamboli with his camera and steals the remote that controls Geppetto and the other Scanbobots, Pinocchio and Spencer hide out in the "Tunnel of Danger" ride, where Scamboli manages to trap them. Marlene arrives and helps Pinocchio to avoid the tunnel's many dangers. However, Scamboli incapacitates Marlene, so he can kill Pinocchio with a laser gun. Pinocchio uses the medal to shield himself from the laser, causing the beam to reflect back at Scamboli and destroy his weapon. Meanwhile, Cabby accidentally gave Geppetto the remote that controls all Scambobots, getting them fired. Geppetto then commands the robots to get Scamboli.
Scamboli attempts to escape in Cabby's shuttle, but is caught by a Scambocop. It tosses Scamboli inside a shuttle and flies down to the Whale ride. Pinocchio, Geppetto, Marlene and Spencer go to turn the robots back into children. Soon it's Geppetto's turn, but Scamboli presses a button to stop the machines. Pinocchio goes inside the whale and tries to fix it. Pinocchio finds the out-of-reach button. But Scamboli starts to attack him. So he begins to tell lies about how great Scamboli's personality is. This caused Pinocchio's nose the reach long enough to hit the button, causing the carts to start moving again and Scamboli gets caught in the ride. Pinocchio then realizes that everything was his fault. Cyberina appears, Pinocchio tells her that he has learned about Right and Wrong and turns Pinocchio into a real boy and Geppetto back into a human. Suddenly, Scamboli, turned into a robot, appears and Marlene was shocked. Cyberina borrows Cynthia's "Funbrella" to make sunshine and bring all the plants Scamboli has destroyed. It ends with Spencer taking a picture of Pinocchio, Geppetto and Marlene.
Why It Turns Yourself into a Donkey
- Poor and really ugly character designs, especially on Cyberina and Mayor Scamboli.
- In one scene, Marlene wins a game that involves using more imagination, and Pinocchio actually calculates that he used more. Marlene still somehow wins.
- The film is extremely unfaithful to the original story.
- The idea of taking a classic historical fairy tale and turning it into futuristic / sci-fi story, while an intrestind idea on paper, has already been done in Treasure Planet which was based on Treasure Island, not to mention that turning Pinocchio into one isn't a good idea.
- Which basically is kind of a rip-off.
- Unlike in other adaptations, Pinocchio is a robot and not a puppet made of pine, kinda ruining the point of his name who is PINocchio.
- Pinocchio basically learns nothing about right and wrong at the end and is still rewarded.
- The "save the trees" message is pointless, as there is still plenty of plant life in the film.
- Geppetto as a robot somehow retains his own free will, while the other people turned into robots don't. It is unknown how.
- While the CGI animation is fine at times, it looks really outdated, even for 2004 standards, which can be dated by the early 2000s.
- It heavily rips off Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom) or even the 1940 Disney classic.
- Despite being 83 minutes, the pacing is not very good.
- Not all of the characters are developed.
- The humor isn't that great.
- It's indeed produced by the infamous Canadian company CinéGroupe that bought you the infamous nightmare Mega Babies, we're not joking so what do you expect.
Redeeming Qualities
- The backgrounds are nice.
- The CGI animation is great even if it looks dated by the early 2000s as mentioned above.
- Scamboli is a nice villain that wants to fix up his town.
- The voice acting is decent.
- The ending is surprisingly okay.
- The songs are catchy.
- Scambocop is funny & hilarious characters.
Reception
The film received extremely negative reviews by critics and fans alike. It currently holds a 3.9/10 on IMDb, and 24% of audiences liking the film on Rotten Tomatoes.
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