Remember how we all wondered who asked for a dark live-action “Winx Club” adaptation, well “Fate: The Winx Saga” is exactly the abomination we feared.
Rating 1/5
Based on the popular Italian animated show the “Winx Club”, Fate: The Winx Saga reimagines the fairies in Alfea in a more realistic setting with Bloom (Abigail Cowen), Stella (Hannah van der Westhuysen), Aisha (Precious Mustapha), Terra (Eliot Salt) and Musa (Elisha Applebaum).
The new students at the magical school have battle monsters that haven’t been in the Otherworld in 16 years.
When the initial promotional stills for “Fate: The Winx Saga” dropped, it faced a backlash from “Winx” fans since it didn’t resemble the original show at all.
Furthermore, many called out the show for whitewashing some of the characters, since Musa is coded as Asian and Terra, who replaced Flora, as Latina in the animated series.
However, after watching the show this is only the tip of the iceberg on a mountain of problems with the show.
First, the biggest problem with the show is its world-building.
Now, I understand from a storytelling perspective that when adapting something from one medium to another artistic licence is given. “Fate: The Winx Saga” basically takes everything that the “Winx Club” is known for and throws it out the window for no reason.
The result is a magical world that lacks any kind of magical wonder.
It really makes no sense in a world with fairies and monsters for the people inhabiting this world to drive around in normal cars and use normal smartphones.
Speaking of smartphones, in the first episode Bloom makes a video call to her parents on Earth. How? You’re in a magical dimension. Is there a cellphone tower that happens to connect to a completely different world?
Furthermore, during the first year’s reception, Dua Lipa plays in the background, but earlier in the episode Sky (Danny Griffin) has no idea where California is when he speaks to Bloom about her hometown.
There’s also a scene where Flora tries to do her make-up and when she fails she moans about not being Huda Kattan – former beauty guru influencer and owner of Huda Beauty.
The ways magic functions are also strange and take very little from the original series, with Musa’s power even being changed to being an empath for convenient plot reasons.
There’s also a throwaway line from Alfea headmistress Farah Dowling (Eve Best) – yes they kicked Ms. Faragonda out too for reasons unknown – about why fairies don’t have wings in this universe. Claiming they lost the ability. But again it makes no sense and was just a lazy way of telling us that we’re not getting transformation sequences.
Another big issue is the characters. Not a single character is likeable.
Our main cast has been written in a way that feels like they went on Twitter to find woke phrases to use in the show. Where patriarchy and mansplaining are thrown is because that’s how Gen Z kids talk in real life.
There’s another throwaway line from Terra where she mentions that Flora is her cousin. Meaning Flora exists in this universe, but for unknown reasons again she’s not apart of the main cast. I hope you can sense a pattern here.
All of the main characters are also walking stereotypes and tropes. Bloom is your fish-out-of water protagonist, Terra is every Hollywood stereotype of plus-sized women/girls, Stella is just a mean girl, and Beatrix is a cartoon villain.
The wardrobe and costuming are also such a let down, since one of the aspects of the show fans loved were the looks they gave the girls every episode, along with every new transformation. Where is the fashion? Where is the glitter? Where is the fun?
And while I understand from a filming perspective why they fused the Specialist’s Red Fountain academy with Alfea, it hinders the overall possibilities for exciting storytelling opportunities between the Winx and Specialists.
To hark back on the “why they are using normal cars” sentiment, one of the reasons the animated show was a joy to watch is because it had great intersection between magic and futurism. Which makes sense, since if magic has always been around, technological advances to aid in protecting the realm makes sense.
However, here we have to believe in a world full of magic they are at the same point with technology as the human world. Make it make sense.
This show really feels like it could exist even if you take the “Winx” branding off it and that’s the problem.
This doesn’t feel like a show that knows who their target market is. “Winx” fans will be annoyed since most the show’s lure is thrown by the wayside for no reason.
And casual viewers will get frustrated with the show’s inconsistencies and shallow characters and lack of adequate world-building.
I really hope if Disney decides to do a live-action version of “W.I.T.C.H” that they don’t do us dirty like “Fate: The Winx Saga”.
“Fate: The Winx Saga” starts streaming on Netflix from January 22.