Why the Winx Club Specials Suck script

Intro:

When Nickelodeon acquired the rights to Winx Club back in the long-forgotten year of 2010, the show at that point had been through four seasons and two feature films, seeing the titular characters graduating from Alfea College and becoming young adults. And with the co-produced season 5 on the horizon, Nickelodeon had to burn through all that content quickly.

And so, the plan was simple: get through the first four seasons and the first movie in one year beginning in June of 2011, all leading up to the world premiere of season 5 in August of the following year. What about the second movie? Uh… we’ll butcher her later, but she’s not important right now. Or ever.

To accomplish this, Nickelodeon - with their own voice cast comprising established actors and celebrity picks (the latter for obvious marketing tactics) - would dub seasons 3 and 4, and the first movie, and dole them out as quickly as possible. What about seasons 1 and 2? Well, we’re not dubbing them - we’re butchering them.

Rainbow produced four one-hour specials recapping the stories of the first two seasons, with the first three focusing on season 1, and the fourth trying to cram all of season 2 into 40 minutes. The audacity of the season 2 slander is staggering.

So all of this was to give new viewers the bare essentials, hoping the sparkles and saturation would hook them into following along. I’ve talked about my issues with how Nickelodeon rushed out everything pre-season 5 before, but the marketing behind the first four specials was actually impressive. They went hard on the advertising to get you to watch, and having watched the 4Kids era end unceremoniously with season 3, I remember being so excited to see Winx Club back on TV.

At the time, little me was going through it, so I was clutching onto these specials for dear life. But now looking back on them, I have to say… these specials do not hold up. The idea of watching just these four specials and not the original seasons they were based on? Absolutely not. They’re basically just a SparkNotes recap of the plots without actually capturing the magic of why people fell in love with the show, especially in regards to the character writing.

So today, we’re gonna talk about my problems with these one-hour specials, and how they were lowkey red flags for what a mess the Nick era was about to be.

Now without further ado, let the chaos commence.

A Haphazard Translation:

When creating condensed versions of an existing story, care has to be taken to ensure that you not only honor the existing plot and convey it well, but you also don’t lose the spirit of what people enjoy about the original. It’s akin to other forms of adaptation, where you can’t just do one-to-one translations and expect your work to function in another medium.

While the mediums aren’t all that different here, having to condense an entire season of 26 episodes, totalling about 9-and-a-half hours of content, into just three hours… or more likely a little over two hours, if you remove time for commercials, is daunting. It’s definitely doable so long as you focus on what elements are the most important, finding new, creative ways to show them that can appeal to both new and existing viewers.

These specials, though? Um… yeah, they’re just haphazard copies. They take the original scripts, and even the original shots, and just lazily reproduce them with flasher, sometimes literal Flash-style animation (which we’ll touch on later). It feels less thoughtful, and more just trying to sand down all the “filler” to get to the bare bones plot. And when your work is haphazard, you’re bound to lose a lot of what people actually liked about the original.

Because of how much ground there is to cover, all four specials move at lightning speed, barely giving you any time to situate yourself and become familiar with the cast. There’s nothing wrong with a fast pace, but it’s comically fast here. You barely get any time to get to know Bloom and Stella, and all the other characters just quickly whisk by, even the other Winx.

So season 1 is split into the first three specials: Bloom’s Destiny, Revenge of the Trix, and The Battle for Magix. Each is split into four acts, since - ya know - this was the era we still watched TV, so it’s cut in a way to naturally allow for commercial breaks. Act 1 covers episode 1, where Bloom meets Stella and has an encounter with the monsters chasing her.

Act 2 is episode 2, where Bloom and Stella arrive at Alfea, and we meet Flora, Musa, Tecna, and the Trix. Sidenote: wild that Musa never got to introduce herself in the original in any version, but she does here. It’s like… the one thing these specials did right besides the music.

Act 3 is episode… 7. Okay, so we’re just cutting a bunch of episodes already. And then Act 4 concludes the special with episode 10. Details and plot points in these episodes are altered, like having Bloom’s first transformation be in the Magical Reality Chamber. By having her transform at the end of this first special, it helps to make it feel like a milestone in her arc of learning to be a fairy. It’s not very compelling, but it’s at least a competent change.

Then there’s Revenge of the Trix, which covers the middle of the first season. Act 1 adapts scenes from a bunch of different episodes: Bloom’s dreams of Daphne from episode 9, as well as Riven being hypnotized into working for Darcy; and Bloom visiting home and learning she’s adopted in episode 13.

Act 2 covers Faragonda foreshadowing her knowledge of Bloom’s past from episode 15, and then all the shenanigans in episode 14 of the Trix trying to deceive Bloom into thinking she’s a witch so they can steal her magic. Act 3 focuses on episode 17, with Bloom discovering her love interest Sky has been secretly engaged, and then getting away with assault of a royal in front of a crowd. And Act 4 concludes with the Trix attacking Bloom when she leaves Alfea, revealing her origins and stealing the Dragon Flame.

So on paper, this functions well enough. The first special focuses on Bloom being introduced to the Magic Dimension, and the second focuses on her unraveling as she searches for answers about who she is, ending with her dark night of the soul.

The third special, The Battle for Magix, then focuses on the remaining episodes of the season. However, we don’t have the Winx go to Bloom’s homeworld of Domino to search for answers. That’s cut, and instead it just covers Bloom’s failed mission at Cloudtower, and then her recovering the Dragon Flame to kick the Trix’s asses.

And yeah, again, it functions well enough. But it’s all just focused on plot and not much else. Bloom has lost a lot of her original characterization and charm, which we’ll cover in the next section, but the other girls? Forget it. They might as well be lamps with how little they matter in all this.

And another change I don’t get… the Sky and Brandon stuff. So in the original season, these two switched identities and names. They explained the in-universe justification for it in season 2, but in season 1, it was mostly to give Bloom extra trust issues, and also because romantic drama. So Bloom thinks she’s in love with Brandon, the cute, down-to-Earth squire of Prince Sky, but it turns out he is Prince Sky.

But in the special, that’s… gone. Along with the actual cute conversations and chemistry that make Bloom and Sky endearing in the first three seasons. Yes, it’s messy, but it’s also cute, and not unbearable like it is from season 4 onward. Though Sky is still cheating trash. That’s just facts.

And in this adaptation, we lost so many great moments and episodes: the beginning-of-the-year dance where the girls go dress shopping; their class trip into the Blackmud Swamp; Stella’s date with disaster; the Winx sneaking into Cloudtower to get back Stella’s ring (actually the whole ring thing got cut, which… okay then); the Rose Festival where Riven turned on the others, and where we learned more about Musa and Stella.

We also lose the iconically violent Downtown Magix Brawl, Flora making potions with the help of the water nymphs, the Miss Magix plot… actually thank God we cut that. Also cut was the cute plot of the girls resisting the urge to cheat on an exam, resulting in an iconic jazz sequence of sneaking around a kitchen, and arguably the most memorable episode of the season: the Nightmare Monster!

Yes, it’s necessary to cut a lot of this, but it’s important to remember that audiences tend to gravitate more towards character moments than they do plots. That’s true with Winx especially. Yes, the plot is solid, especially in those first three seasons, but what made audiences love it - in addition to unique art style, iconic fashion designs, and memorable transformations - was the characters.

By removing all these storylines, and even scrubbing the episodes that they kept to their bare essentials, the characters are hollow imitations of their original selves.

And then… season 2. Oh, poor season 2, you never get any love. So, season 2 is a deeply underrated season of Winx Club, which I covered in an old video you should totally watch. But basically, season 2 is extremely character-driven. It focuses on fleshing out the existing cast of characters, as well as introducing new characters like Aisha, Lord Dark, the pixies, and more.

The plot is honestly the least important part about season 2. What makes season 2 great and incredibly necessary to making Winx a memorable show is its character writing, and its dedication to cute, lowkey moments.

The bastardization of season 2 is so egregious, it’s getting its own section, but The Shadow Phoenix is by far the worst special on all fronts. It fails at representing the strengths of the season it’s adapting, it fails at telling an enjoyable, standalone story, and it fails at introducing my queen Aisha. Disgusting.

Blander Characterization:

OG Bloom has a lot more going for her than she gets credit for. She’s a fairy-tale obsessed dork with her head in the clouds, who’s fiery and impulsive, especially in the 4Kids dub thanks to Liza Jacqueline’s performance.

Now I don’t wanna dunk on the Nick cast, especially cuz it’s a pretty strong dub overall, but the script and direction aren’t doing any of them any favors. Molly’s performance of Bloom is… fine, at times cute. But it doesn’t have any of the personality of Liza’s performance. Which… sadly is the case for most of Bloom’s English voices.

A lot of OG Bloom’s traits just aren’t present now, thanks to the less expressive animation, the direction on Molly’s performance, and the hollowed copy-pasted scripts. She feels more like the yassified, picture-perfect Bloom we’ve come to hate from season 4 onward.

Stella… is just kinda there. In the original, she’s a very blunt, over-the-top, but well meaning diva. She has a tendency to put her foot in her mouth, but she does love her friends fiercely, even if they annoy her. But those qualities are gone now. The specials just make her blandly fashion-focused, with no messiness to make her more endearing.

Not to mention that her parents’ divorce isn’t touched upon at all. It was revealed in season 1, and a big part of why it was so hard for her to open up to people, especially Aisha, in season 2, but the specials just skip over it entirely.

Flora, Musa, and Tecna might as well just be one character with how little they matter. They’re been reduced to their most basic stereotypes: Flora’s a soft, nature-loving hippy; Musa’s a music lover; and Tecna’s obsessed with rationality. They didn’t have much going on in terms of arcs in season 1, but they at least had cute, fun moments with each other that have been removed. They didn’t even include Musa’s messy crush on Riven. Like… gurl, it’s a mess, but at least it was something.

And because season 2 got butchered, Musa and Tecna’s arcs got cut completely. No mention of Musa’s mother’s death and how it’s put a strain on her relationship with her father, and no Tecna learning how to understand and express her emotions with Timmy. Flora’s crush on Helia remains, but is far less interesting this time around, feeling more obligatory than actually adorable.

Aisha? Oh my God, why did you even bother including her? Cuz she has NOTHING. In season 2, she quickly became the best written Winx, taking charge initially with the pixie-rescue mission and taking on Darkar, then struggling to adjust to being part of the Winx Club, since she’s been alone all her life and has a fear of getting close to people only for them to leave.

That’s, naturally, completely gone, and she’s just the generic new girl with nothing interesting going on. At that point, why even have her be a new girl? Just introduce her in the first special so she’s been here the whole time. She’d still have nothing to do just like the others, but at least she’d have actual screentime.

The Animation is Worse:

From what I recall, part of why Rainbow wanted to produce these specials was to update the animation of the first two seasons so it was on par with the quality of seasons 3 and 4, particularly 4. To which I say… gurl, your older seasons look infinitely better than season 4. Like, imma need everyone to stop assuming older media will look worse, and also to stop acting like season 1 came out in the Stone Age. It came out in 2004. Get a grip.

Really, “better animation” just means more sparkly, and more likely to make your eyes bleed. The goal with something like season 4 is to use bright colors and massive amounts of particle effects to draw toddlers’ eyes, rather than create something beautiful and artistically strong.

Sure, seasons 1 and 2 may look a bit rough, but they still hold up well, and arguably more than season 4 and all the seasons past it. And I’d argue they hold a lot more personality too. Characters are just way more expressive in seasons 1 and 2 than they are in the specials. And oh dear God… I HATE CGI Gardenia.

Winx Club has always used CGI for backgrounds, like Alfea Castle or Cloudtower College, but a lot of environments were also hand drawn in this very abstract, non-realistic style. Just compare OG Gardenia to Gardenia from the specials, which was just recycled from season 4. OG Gardenia has a very warm, earthy color palette, and feel homey. This new Gardenia is a CGI abomination with far too many colors.

And the specials, like season 4’s first few episodes, oscillate between hand-drawn and puppet animation. For those who don’t know, puppet animation entails creating 2D puppets, then rigging them for animation like a 3D model, so you don’t have to draw them over and over. Puppet animation can look great, like in Tangled the Animated series. However… it can also look terrible.

The first and third specials use puppet animation, and it just looks so cheap and soulless. The characters move like ragdolls, and there’s just no soul to any of these animations. And even the hand-drawn second and fourth specials don’t look that good. They just feel like yassified copies of their originals with way less charm.

And the effects are just… too much. Too many sparkles, too many particle effects, and they all just clutter up the frames. The newer animation, especially the fight scenes, lack the punch and timing of the original. And oh my God, they massacred the season 1 final battle. One of the best final battles in all animation… and you’ve reduced it to a shadow of its former self. Please, take your particle effects and LEAVE.

Oh, I might also get crucified for this, but I don’t like the new transformation sequences, for similar reasons as the animation as a whole. It’s just too focused on being flashy and spectacular, especially with how the girls flail in shots where they use the puppet animation. Even worse with Bloom’s where she goes between puppet and hand drawn. Aisha’s… Aisha’s is a hate crime.

Tecna’s is kinda cool with her martial arts, but it’s not enough to save it, and Musa’s is just so lazy. She’s literally just floating around musical notes. How dare you. Give her bag her giant walkable CD. The only one I like is Flora’s, specifically cuz of the effort that went into her breathing out flowers, then using those to make her wings, and then finally emerging from a flower fully transformed. At least Flora got something.

Oh, and this is very petty, but I find it VERY funny they wanted to “update” the older animation, and yet they couldn’t be bothered to change the aspect ratio of the specials, so it’s still in 4 by 3. Amazing.

The Music Slaps Tho:

I will say, the best part of these specials is unequivocally the soundtrack. The score is recycled from season 4, which I don’t mind. It’s nothing special, but it works well enough, and I do actually like the guitars they use for Gardenia.

The intro is a repurposed version of the season 4 theme song, “Winx Are Back.” Here, it’s meant to be a more generic intro to the Winx Club, and… it’s fine. I was OBSESSED with this as a kid, and I still really love Cymphonique’s vocals. But overall, it’s not all that impressive, especially compared to the original intro, “Under the Sign of Winx,” or the iconic 4Kids intro.

But then we get some great bangers from Elisa Rosselli and Maurizio D’Aniello. Admittedly, I need to do a better job acknowledging the talent behind these numbers, as while we all know Elisa because of her angelic vocals, Maurizio is a crucial part of their songwriting team.

They were the geniuses behind Winx in Concert, and when they create a song, they have a full vision for what story they want to tell. It isn’t just generic “We’re the Winx, oh think positive,” like it is in later seasons.

First up, “I’m Home.” Such a cute, wholesome song that perfectly captures what it’s like returning to a place where you feel safe. A place where you can be yourself, and rest knowing you’re accepted by people who know and love you. I especially love the softer vocals in the verses, accompanied by piano.

“Talking About Love” is criminally underrated. Surprisingly, it isn’t about romantic love, but just… love in general. How it’s present in all things, usually in what we take for granted. A smile, a sunrise, the rain, all that cheesy stuff, and you know my formaggio-loving self can’t help but enjoy it. The vocals here are especially divine. I adore Elisa’s range, both in her airy, higher register, and when she uses a raspier tone.

“All is Magic” is another favorite of mine. Personally, I kinda love the cheesiness of addressing the listener like they’re in Bloom’s place. That they’re a fairy, they have magic, and they’re about to be whisked away to another dimension. Plus Elisa belting in the choruses slaps.

“We Are Magic Winx” is… yeah, it’s technically a song about the girls being, in fact, the Winx, but I love that the song embraces the cheesiness in the lyrics, recounting the girls’ adventures, and I adore the production. I’m a sucker for how it starts like a song muffled through radio speakers before becoming clear.

The other songs are… well, not even fine, they’re actually pretty good. They’re just not great. “The Power of Charmix” is a certified bop, and I love Kate Kelly’s performance. Same for “Goodbye My Friends,” even if its lyrics are aggressively on the nose. Still bitter “Heart of Fire” never got a full, proper release, I will complain about it ‘til the day I die.

Season 2 Got Butchered:

Once more, what makes season 2 great is how committed it is to characterization. Bloom gets fleshed out, allowed to be a bit more bad-tempered, exhausted, and messy, but it’s not just about her. Stella has to break down her walls, Flora has to overcome her shyness and confess her feelings to Helia, Musa stands up to her dad and follow her dreams, Tecna has to actually express her emotions and be vulnerable with Timmy, and Aisha has to overcome her fears to fully embrace being part of the Winx Club.

While the plot is season 2’s weakest aspect, that’s actually kinda part of what makes it work. By having Lord Darkar as a distant threat, and a plot revolving around retrieving parts of the Codex, it leaves all the focus on character interactions.

Have you ever noticed that in the episodes where the girls lose the Codex pieces at Redfountain, Cloudtower, and Alfea, it’s always in episodes where the girls are dealing with major interpersonal conflicts with each other, or with other characters? Or in Bloom’s case, with themselves. Without season 2, the characters and world wouldn’t feel nearly fleshed out enough to merit any more seasons.

So by focusing on just plot, the special eliminates what makes season 2 work. The pacing is at its absolute worst here. Act 1 shows us the Winx back at Alfea, then Aisha failing to save the pixies, Aisha immediately showing up at Alfea, her meeting the Winx (with Tecna still being absent, lol), Darkar breaking out the Trix, and the Winx entering Shadowhaunt to save the pixies and meet Avalon. All of that is just the first 14 minutes. They crammed six episodes into 14 minutes, and dear God, it’s terrible.

After that, the special just kinda meanders, haphazardly sewing different scenes from across the original season together, focusing mostly on Avalon’s, uh… fixation on Bloom. That’s really the only subplot they’ve kept here, alongside Bloom’s relationship issues with Sky.

Then it tries to wrap everything up with Icy stealing the one and only Codex piece from Pixie Village, and everyone rushing to save Bloom after she’s been corrupted by Darkar. They removed the real Avalon being imprisoned, so this has just been Darkar the entire time, which… I don’t like it, but that change is the least of this special’s problems.

It’s just all about Bloom now, and any likability she once had from the original is now gone. What was even the point of having this special if you were gonna remove everything that makes season 2 work?

And my God, Aisha got robbed. I will say it many, many more times, because they did her so dirty. She’s only really relevant in that first act, and afterwards, she just falls into the background. No story about her first friendship while she was locked away in her palace. No arc about overcoming her loneliness, fear of abandonment, or even her fear of the dark. She’s just… there.

We Did Not Need This:

Okay, so… why do all this? We’ve already established the animation was better in those original first two seasons, so why didn’t Nick just dub those and rush them out? They got season 3 out in like 2 months, so why couldn’t they just do the same with seasons 1 and 2?

Honestly, I’m not sure. It might just be part of how disconnected Rainbow is from what their audience actually likes about the show. But because seasons 1 and 2 were cut, and we lost all the aforementioned subplots, it’s part of why all the girls’ arcs got rehashed in season 5… well, that and bad, lazy writing.

Tecna’s dealing with her emotions in a watered down way, Stella’s parents’ divorce drama, also watered down, and Musa mentioning her dead mom… okay, Musa’s is actually tolerable. But it’s part of this issue where the Nick era basically wanted season 5 to be a new beginning, with the Winx eternally locked away at Alfea. So naturally, we had to get rid of all the development they had pre-season 5.

These specials fail because they don’t understand what made the original seasons they’re adapting work, and they suck out all of the magic. The plot is a worse, abridged version, and the characters are practically cardboard cutouts with how flat they’ve become.