My Review of Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob
“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”
********* Contains Spoilers *********
I love anything medieval and especially if it has dragons, so I was super excited when this movie was announced! I enjoyed the movie and I think it is one of the better Scooby movies that has been released in a while.
The nod to The Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" (and also the "Gremlin on a Plane" episode from Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!) at the beginning of the movie had me thinking that things weren't going to be what they seem with this movie.
I do think it was predictable. Some of the scenes they showed leading up to the gang time traveling led me to believe that they weren't really time traveling. There also wasn't really a mystery. We know Morgan La Fey wanted the throne and that she would stop at nothing to get it. It felt more like the gang was in a dream while I was watching it.
The gang traveled to Norville Der Morgana, where Shaggy's ancestors were from, though we never got to meet any of Shaggy's family members. I would have thought that he had to have at least 1 relative in the town. It was kind of a missed opportunity.
Shaggy screaming like a girl was a really funny and an unexpected moment. I had to rewind that a couple times to watch it again and I laughed every time.
I really liked the flashbacks to the other Scooby series and movies when they were going back in time. The only thing I would have changed with that is I would have put them all in the correct order from newest to oldest to really signify them going back in time. While the movie is mostly kid friendly, I thought it was odd that they essentially drugged the gang and kidnapped them to make them believe they were going back in time.
It was nice to see Daphne take on all the male knights and take them all down. She was strong and fearless and it's nice to see her like that. It was funny when King Arthur called Daphne a non-man. In that time, women couldn't do anything that men could do, so for them to see a woman fighting would have been unheard of.
Velma used her brains to figure everything out, though there were times in the movie that I thought she was a bit naïve about what was going on. Fred got to come up with an anti-trap trap to get past Morgan La Fey's traps that she set. Shaggy and Scooby got to eat a lot of food in the movie along with King Arthur who also liked food.
Thundarr the Barbarian guest stars in the movie. He helps the gang get through the traps and rescue Shaggy. Thundarr The Barbarian was produced by Ruby-Spears Productions from 1980 to 1983.
I was happy to see they incorporated the Mystery Machine into medieval times as a horse-drawn cart. If you remember in the movie, Fred said Mr. HB sent the Mystery Machine to England for them, a nod to Hanna-Barbera I'm guessing.
I noticed a mistake in the movie. After the gang gets through the traps and King Arthur holds the drawbridge open for them to escape the castle, King Arthur is swallowed by the dragon. The dragon then puts a ring of fire around the gang. From the front, you can see the gang is all present - Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, Daphne and Velma. When the scene is shown from behind, Shaggy is replaced with King Arthur. Ooops!
The best lines in the movie were when Scooby said he was from Denmark. Daphne says "Well, you are a Great Dane after all!" and Scooby says "Emphasis on The Great! hehehehe" I thought that was a really cute and funny moment in the movie. I also liked that Velma referred to the gang as The Scooby Gang twice. Merlin said "It looks like you got yourself into a Barney" and then explained that he was referring to Barney Rubble.
Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob was a decent movie that had some funny moments and really had the gang using their best skills to work together to defeat Morgan La Fey, along with Thundarr the Barbarian. The medieval theme and the dragon made the movie much better for me, though I guess there will come a time that that will be played out in the Scoobyverse. It's a good family movie, for the most part, and I enjoyed it.
