So there's a live action version of Winx Club and I think we need to talk about it.
As a huge fan of the original I was the most excited for the live action and couldn't wait to see what they would do for my favorite cartoon series.
After the cast was revealed I was so disappointed and couldn't understand how the original creator Iginio Straffi would allow such a wonderful, diverse, and female empowered series turn to whitewashing and toxic femininity.
So today I will be writing why I think we should hold on before clicking the play button on Fate: The Winx Saga.
Reasons:
#1 Whitewashing
One thing I love about the old cartoon is the diverse characters. I'm quick to dislike a show that throws in forced diversity and forced conversation about real life situations (Cough*Cough Season 5 of Winx Club)
With that in mind, I do love seeing everyone having a place but in Fate everyone doesn't.
Musa and Flora are no more the race they were depicted. Musa was based on Lucy Liu and Flora was based on Jennifer Lopez, each of these characters were based on Asian and Latin descent, furthermore Fate: The Winx Saga has changed that with a mostly White cast line.
Musa's actress (Elisha Applebaum) has the dark hair and the looks to be Musa but she isn't race Musa depicted as which is big bummer for fans who had a connection with the character because of that.
Like with Musa they changed Flora to a character named Terra played by Eliot Salt who is basically white flora with all the personality and everything just a different race and with a different name.
I have no problem with the actress and I do not condone the acts of the hate towards because of her body shape yet that's what everyone seems to believe everytime you mention disliking her as part of the cast.
I have nothing against her, her acting, etc but I dislike that the casting/ director's choice to cast someone who isn't of Latin descent as Flora and that they tried to change her character overall.
No matter what your opinions are on these actresses or characters in the original it's still not right to change their race when there's little diversity to this cast other than two black people.
#2 Removing Characters
There's six Winx Club member or seven if you count season 4. (Which I do)
There's Bloom, Stella, Flora, Musa, Tecna, Aisha/Layla, and later Roxy.
Wondering who did they removed? It's Tecna, she doesn't exist in the Fate version and some of the specialists too.
Tecna is a fan favorite, with her struggles to understand feelings and relationships, to her being the geeky, smart, and less girly girl character.
She's very interested in technology and mostly wears pants/less girly colors until later seasons.
Tecna was removed for no good reason and I can't help but be angry that the least problematically written character was chopped out.
If you're unfamiliar with the seasons Tecna is an original from the first season and onwards, roommates with Musa, and dating Timmy.
Tecna only had one fight with Timmy making her one of the least problem filled character in the series with Flora.
With everything I read about this show I feel as if they didn't want Tecna in it because they didn't have much for her as she stays in her lane like Flora and barely had drama. Furthermore I believe she's cut out due to not wanting to write her or she's not dramatic enough to have her around. But that's my speculation.
The specialists are also on this list of removing characters as most of them are gone.
Original specialists are Sky, Brandon, Riven, Timmy, Helia, and Nabu (Nabu is more considered apart of the winx after season 3 dialogue but him and the specialist hung out so do what you will with the information.)
In Fate, only Sky and Riven are returning names, because there's only four specialists and two I've never heard of. There's Sky, Riven, Dane, and Sam.
For me, at this point I'm beyond disappointed, I'm actually a huge fan of both the winx and specialist, I love the humor and how the characters behave around each other and they felt pretty normal together.
(The later seasons are debatable of the behavior between the specialist and the winx but it's up to your perspective.)
Either way they did the specialists dirty and that means Sky's first season plotline has changed which is a huge bummer.
The Trix are not making an appearance either in the Fate version.
The Trix were a large part of the original as the main villains, it's a shame that they won't be making an appearance.
While they won't be appearing, you're probably wondering "Who's the villains then?" Well, it's a lady I'm guessing a witch or an evil fairy who's named Beatrix. Yes I said BeaTRIX that's what they thought was really clever, and will be replacing Icy, Darcy, and Stormy. Like I said with changing characters with the specialists, that means we probably won't be getting Riven getting controlled to help the Trix and later getting his redemption arc helping them to escape cloud tower.
Photo by Netflix
#3 Different storyline
I wasn't expecting the exact storyline but I expected it to have some of the original story.
Though the story starts with Bloom learning she has powers and going to Alfea like the original story but takes a turn when the school isn't truly a fairy school. In Fate everyone doesn't have wings because of the dark and edger feel of the show. Fans of the original feel as if this was lazy and a cheap way of not having the girls "iconic" transformations.
The story doesn't in involve the witches so they changed it to monsters around the school called the "Burned Ones"
Winx Club never was about monsters but fantasy creatures like Nut who's an ogre and the witches also hired a troll that was in the first few episodes.
Like I said I expected change but without certain characters and memorable plot points from the cartoon there's hardly anything from the original to even call it Winx.
Photo by Netflix and Just Jared Jr
#4 Lore changes
In Magix there's three known schools. Red Fountain, Alfea, and Cloud Tower. Red Fountain is for the specialists, Alfea for the fairies, and Cloud Tower for the Witches.
With the changes of the story I have no real clue if Cloud Tower even exist in that universe.
Original specialists are Sky, Brandon, Riven, Timmy, Helia, and Nabu (Nabu is more considered apart of the winx after season 3 dialogue but him and the specialist hung out so do what you will with the information.)
In Fate, only Sky and Riven are returning names, because there's only four specialists and two I've never heard of. There's Sky, Riven, Dane, and Sam.
For me, at this point I'm beyond disappointed, I'm actually a huge fan of both the winx and specialist, I love the humor and how the characters behave around each other and they felt pretty normal together.
(The later seasons are debatable of the behavior between the specialist and the winx but it's up to your perspective.)
Either way they did the specialists dirty and that means Sky's first season plotline has changed which is a huge bummer.
The Trix are not making an appearance either in the Fate version.
The Trix were a large part of the original as the main villains, it's a shame that they won't be making an appearance.
While they won't be appearing, you're probably wondering "Who's the villains then?" Well, it's a lady I'm guessing a witch or an evil fairy who's named Beatrix. Yes I said BeaTRIX that's what they thought was really clever, and will be replacing Icy, Darcy, and Stormy. Like I said with changing characters with the specialists, that means we probably won't be getting Riven getting controlled to help the Trix and later getting his redemption arc helping them to escape cloud tower.
#3 Different storyline
I wasn't expecting the exact storyline but I expected it to have some of the original story.
Though the story starts with Bloom learning she has powers and going to Alfea like the original story but takes a turn when the school isn't truly a fairy school. In Fate everyone doesn't have wings because of the dark and edger feel of the show. Fans of the original feel as if this was lazy and a cheap way of not having the girls "iconic" transformations.
The story doesn't in involve the witches so they changed it to monsters around the school called the "Burned Ones"
Winx Club never was about monsters but fantasy creatures like Nut who's an ogre and the witches also hired a troll that was in the first few episodes.
Like I said I expected change but without certain characters and memorable plot points from the cartoon there's hardly anything from the original to even call it Winx.
#4 Lore changes
In Magix there's three known schools. Red Fountain, Alfea, and Cloud Tower. Red Fountain is for the specialists, Alfea for the fairies, and Cloud Tower for the Witches.
With the changes of the story I have no real clue if Cloud Tower even exist in that universe.
With the fairies not having wings they're basically spell casters at this point without wings, so why have witches?
One of the changes of the lore is the specialists have women in there ranks which wasn't there in the original. I'm all for women fighting but in the original lore of Winx Club, Red Fountain was young men training to be heroes/protectors for people who are wizards or young men in the magic dimension while other young women with powers went to Alfea and Cloud Tower. Women in Magix had their schools while the men had one. (There's other schools in different places in the magic dimension but they still don't have boys and girls going to the same schools at least it's hasn't been stated that they do in the first four seasons.)
I will say in my opinion that I liked the original idea for the schools, as not many shows of my memory actually showed all girl schools and all boy schools being in cartoons but I could have a bad memory.
Plus I really like the cute boys nextdoor thing they were going for in the original.
Plus I really like the cute boys nextdoor thing they were going for in the original.
Also let's say they added a female only Red Fountain, it still wouldn't make much sense either because most of the female characters they met in the series had magic and were going to a different school or one of the two I mentioned before. I get what the director was going for but the original idea for the specialists felt better and was unique for the lore. But other than my opinions it wasn't originally in the cartoon which shows they didn't care for the original lore and really wanted this to be completely different.
Adding on to this mess they added male fairies. Yes male fairies go to Alfea which angers me. Girls are star of Winx Club at an all girl school and sometimes ask for the help of the specialists but most of the time the spotlight is on the girls at Alfea which was cool for young girls and women like myself. In this day and age women still don't have much spotlight in shows and if they do it's gosh awful with catty attitudes and drama which is over used and I'm tired of it. That's why seeing this show breaking the original lore of an empowered girl school is heartbreaking to see. I still love shows like Totally Spies and Winx Club because it spotlights normal teenagers learning they have something special about them or them having a special job showing them they can do anything. Not many girl empowered shows do this anymore and it's devastating that Netflix and Rainbow would ruin something so nice and refreshing to see in tv shows even if it's an adult drama it's still devastating and didn't need to change.
Adding on to this mess they added male fairies. Yes male fairies go to Alfea which angers me. Girls are star of Winx Club at an all girl school and sometimes ask for the help of the specialists but most of the time the spotlight is on the girls at Alfea which was cool for young girls and women like myself. In this day and age women still don't have much spotlight in shows and if they do it's gosh awful with catty attitudes and drama which is over used and I'm tired of it. That's why seeing this show breaking the original lore of an empowered girl school is heartbreaking to see. I still love shows like Totally Spies and Winx Club because it spotlights normal teenagers learning they have something special about them or them having a special job showing them they can do anything. Not many girl empowered shows do this anymore and it's devastating that Netflix and Rainbow would ruin something so nice and refreshing to see in tv shows even if it's an adult drama it's still devastating and didn't need to change.
They also changed the girls magic from the original.
Their original powers were Dragon Flame, The Sun & The Moon, Nature, Music, Technology, and Waves, later Animals.
Fate change them to Fire, Light, Mind, Earth, and Water.
I'm a fan of originality so this is a let down. And why change Musa's powers?! Like that was so cool also that was a big part of her backstory and with her mother. Also she comes from a place called Melody which all the fairies are music based soo...
I'll also add of course that they changed Alfea's logo and the pink aesthetic for the edger approach of the series. That's it.
#5 The fashion
The fashion is horrendous. None of these girl look like the characters because of their outfits!
I talk about how cheesy the Power Rangers were in the early seasons making characters like Jason wear red all the time and Sky wear blue as his casual wear. How can Power Rangers make the characters look better than an high budget Netflix adult drama?!
So basically you get no original Specialists, no Trix, no transformations, and no color coordinated/character specialized colors.
I have nothing else to say on this.
#6 What critics say about it
As someone who hasn't watched it since it isn't out yet while writing it, I took the liberty to read some early reviews.
One reviewer for Polygon said
"It feels like the protagonists barely tolerate each other. Because so little groundwork cementing their friendships was laid, the teasing doesn’t come off as playful banter, but instead as catty and mean-spirited."
Also saying
"Young’s writers seem to think that evolving girlhood friendships means turning them into thinly veiled rivalries."
But ending by saying "But that arc would be more compelling if the characters were likable or interesting, or if they shared even half the bonds of their animated counterparts."
Next reviewer for Paste Magazine also mentioned the mean spirited ways of the adaption by starting the article with
"Netflix's Fate: The Winx Saga Adaptation Is an Insidious, Mean-Spirited Mess" and
"This gritty live action adaptation of Winx Club fails to sparkle or engage with social issues meaningfully."
Going on to say the same thing as the first reviewer mentioning how Terra was the butt of everyone's joke and poking at her weight.
As I said earlier fans have been defending the actress from this kind of hate in real life but as it seems the writing in the series is body shaming the character Terra which fans feared for the actress.
Den Of Geek reviewer said that with only 6 episodes didn't give it enough time to flesh out world of Fate and saying
Den Of Geek reviewer said that with only 6 episodes didn't give it enough time to flesh out world of Fate and saying
"Never quite living up to its ambition of being an adaptation for ‘adult fans’ of the original, Fate: The Winx Saga has the potential to hook younger viewers eager for a new fantasy series made solely for them."
"This show is certainly nothing like the original but since I didn’t grow up with it, I watched the first episode of Winx Club to compare. I’ve got to be honest: Winx Saga might be one of the strangest adaptations I’ve ever seen."
Entertainment.ie said
Entertainment.ie said
"In spite having a talented young cast ('Normal People' fans will be delighted to see Eliot Salt pop up), 'Fate: The Winx Saga' is too ridiculous and pointless to invest in, on top of the aforementioned revolting dialogue"
Full articles linked
Most of these I didn't see their rating but from their reviews it isn't looking good for Winx Saga. I will link each article and appreciate their early reviews as I enjoyed reading each of their opinions and will probably read more as more comes out on release.
Full articles linked
Most of these I didn't see their rating but from their reviews it isn't looking good for Winx Saga. I will link each article and appreciate their early reviews as I enjoyed reading each of their opinions and will probably read more as more comes out on release.
Overall: My opinions.
With everything I told you it's up to you to take the plunge and watch it.
It's 6 hours of watching so it's up to you to do whatever with your time.
But I on the other hand I won't be watching.
With everything I read and my love for the original I can't say I could even enjoy one minute of it, because in my opinion it's a disgraceful adaption.
I'll clarify again I don't dislike any of the actors or the actresses, I hope they continue to get roles and move up in the world but for Brian Young and his writing team they failed to create even a decent adaption.
The disrespect and the salt in wounds that they did to the original fans is ridiculously.
The massive changes, the missing characters, and the completely different storyline makes this worst than Dragon Ball Evolution and Netflix Death Note. I watched both and rather watch them again than watch even an episode of Fate.
You can't judge a book by it's cover but you sure can judge one by it's synopsis that's why I say to original fans of Winx Club I surely recommend not watching it as that's exactly what they want you to do to give them any kind of views to renew for more seasons which I rather not see that and hope in the future they hire someone else to make another adaption but actually follow the original.
And those are my thoughts.
How about you?
Have you watched Fate: The Winx Saga?
Are going to watch it?
Did you like the original before watching?
How did you like it if you did?
However you feel about it tell me about it no matter how brutally honest you are I wanna hear your opinions on Fate: The Winx Saga.
(Please no hate towards the actors and actresses, company, employees, fans, writers, or anyone associated with Netflix, Rainbow, Viacom, Fate, or any of the reviewers mentioned in this article.)
Thank you for reading and Fate: The Winx Saga will be be streaming on Netflix January 22th 2021.
All articles are linked in their name.
Article written and edited by Ashypaints
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