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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"The action is intercut with human scenes that seem dragged in kicking and screaming from another movie... If there is one thing everyone in Hollywood thinks they know for sure, it's that the three most important words in movie development are story, story, story. This is not a story: A group of inconsequential human characters watch animation."''|'''[[Roger Ebert]]''', [http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/06/the_fall_of_the_revengers.html regarding] ''[[Transformers (
So a [[Live Action Adaptation]] of your favorite childhood [[Funny Animal]] cartoon is coming out. You go to see it, and... what's this? Who's this guy? Where's the cartoon character? Why should we care about this guy? Can you move it along and get to the cartoon character now? Oh, there he is! And now they're back to that guy again. Looks like it's gonna be another
Family movies that are live action (and sometimes even animated) adaptations of cartoons that otherwise probably wouldn't work as a live action blockbuster, or actually ''would'', normally seem to focus more on a newer human character and his [[Romantic Plot Tumor|love life]], [[Demoted to Extra|rather than the character from the series the movie is adapting]]. More often than not, the plot has an [[Unlucky Everydude]] with a crappy job and a crush on his hot co-worker, having a run-in with the cartoon character of the day, or having said cartoon character as a pet. [[Hilarity Ensues]], and the cartoon character's hijinks somehow bring Everydude and his love interest together, and they live [[Happily Ever After]].
These subplots mostly, if not always seem to do with the unlucky new guy [[Romantic Plot Tumor|in love]]. This even applies to ''already existing'' human characters who never had a love interest, and are either given a completely new one, or they take an existing character and pair them up, accuracy be damned.
This is probably caused by a combination of the costs (both time and money) of CGI and the beliefs that a human character might be [[Most Writers Are Human|more relatable]] or that people want to see a love
Related to [[Adaptation Decay]], [[Most Writers Are Human]], [[Developing Doomed Characters]], [[Romantic Plot Tumour]], [[Just Here for Godzilla]], [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]], [[Demoted to Extra]].
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* The anime ''[[Sonic X]]'' during first two seasons has Chris Thorndike taking the spotlight and filling roles which in [[The Anime of the Game|the actual game adaptations]] were filled by Tails and Amy. This turned off quite a few fans as a result.
* Similar to the ''[[Sonic X]]'' example above, ''[[Kirby:
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Underdog (
* ''[[Alvin and the Chipmunks
* The first live-action ''[[Garfield (
* The ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' movie gave less screen time to the cartoon moose and squirrel than their traditional human villains and new human characters. Rocky and Bullwinkle are on a very small part of the DVD cover (pictured above) while the human characters are front and center.
* Two ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' live action movies.
** ''[[
** ''[[Looney Tunes: Back in Action]]'' introduces two human characters to team up with Bugs and Daffy and even gives them a romantic subplot.
** Additionally, a supposedly upcoming ''Marvin the Martian'' movie has been implied to follow this in its summaries.
* ''[[Masters of the Universe (
* Two [[Dr. Seuss]] live action adaptations (and one animated one):
** ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas (
** ''[[The Cat in
** ''[[The Lorax (
* ''[[The Smurfs (
* The title character of ''[[
* The 1932 film adaptation of ''[[The Call of the Wild]]'' focuses on the character of Jack Thornton, played by Clark Gable, over Buck the dog. In the book, he only factors into perhaps a third of the plot.
* Although the original is also about a human, the first ''[[Mr. Bean]]'' movie, ''Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie'' did something like this. The original series is simply about a near-mute, accident prone-fellow causing chaos and havoc wherever he goes, which tends to lend itself best to brief vignettes. The movie, of course, had to flesh this out, so it centred mainly on some American art expert who Bean stays with and his troubled relationship with his family.
* Some of the Muppet productions fall under this trope:
** Played with in ''[[The Muppets (
** Referenced when Jason Segel hosted ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', and The Muppets were upset that they weren't asked to host.
{{quote|
** In ''[[Muppet Treasure Island]]'', the main focus is on Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver, played by [[Tim Curry]]. Originally [[What Could Have Been|the "Jim Hawkins" part was going to be played by Rizo and Gonzo]] (being named Jim and Hawkins as two characters), before it was decided to make it into a [[Coming of Age Story]] with an actual human kid as Jim. And in ''Muppets Wizard of Oz'' Ashanti's amount of focus makes The Muppets themselves feel like an afterthought. In this case both are based on stories where the main characters were humans, and the trope is just a side-effect of staying faithful to the story. The more original Muppet outings, however, tend to avert the trope by including major human characters but keeping the focus on Kermit and the gang.
== Franchises ==
* While the 2007 ''[[Transformers (
** This trope was lampshaded in the first panel of [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=239 this] ''[[VG Cats]]'' comic.
{{quote|
** The show was similarly human focused since the Autobots were learning Earth culture through their human friends and exploration. Also, very few plots were because the Autobots stumbled upon a Decepticon plot, and Teletraan-1 intercepted human communications for possible Decepticon involvement.
* By default, every ''[[Digimon]]'' adaptation with the sole exception of ''[[
== [[Toys]] ==
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* A rare ''video game'' example in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]''. The [[Disney]] and ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' characters seem secondary to the original cast. Part of this is that Disney laid down so much [[Executive Meddling]] [[Teeth
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* A fully animated example is the ''[[Tom and Jerry: The Movie]]'', whose title characters take a backseat to a little orphan girl, in a plot that seems like they were trying to remake ''[[The Rescuers]]'' as a musical with Tom and Jerry thrown in as an afterthought.
* ''[[My Little Pony]]'' actually sorta inverts this trope. The original show had a human girl named Megan who helped the ponies in their fight against whatever apocalypse was threatening them at the moment. Most of the sequel series are [[Slice of Life]] series that focus solely on the ponies (it might be noted though that even in the original series, while the human girl Megan was nearly always around and involved in the ponies adventures, she was actually very seldom the main character of an episode. So all things considered, the ''My Little Pony'' franchise can be said to having avoided this trope so far).
** ''[[Pound Puppies]]'' has another similar inversion. The show originally focused on an orphan girl named Holly who helped the eponymous talking dogs, while her [[Wicked Stepmother]] served as the main villain. The remake now focuses mostly on the dogs.
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[[Category:The Millennium Age of Animation]]
[[Category:Derivative Works]]
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