Summary
Although it’s James Gunn’s cinematic adaptations that most audiences first associate withScooby-Dooon the big screen, the best version was actually released several years prior.Scooby-Doo on Zombie Islandis an excellent animated adventure that follows the gang as they travel to a distant island called Moonscar, where they stumble upon a deadly secret that leads to them battling zombie pirates for survival. It’s one of the lesser-known adventures in the franchise, but that doesn’t stop it from being thebest Scooby-Doo movieto date.
There have been several different iterations ofScooby-Dooon televisionand film, and each new version brings a unique animation (or live-action) style that effectively keeps pushing the franchise into the future. It’s one of the longest-running cartoons despite switching up its style every few years, and each iteration continues to push boundaries. However, it turns out thatScooby-Doohad already mastered the formula 26 years ago, with the strongest combination of animation and storytelling that it’s ever achieved.
Scooby-Doo’s Adult Show With 39% On Rotten Tomatoes Is A Reminder To Watch This Much Better Reboot
The latest addition to the Scooby-Doo franchise has failed to win people over, but it acts as a prompt to watch a superior entry from 11 years ago.
Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island Is The Franchise’s Best Movie (By Far)
None Of The Others Have Managed To Reach The Same Heights
Despite the charm and nostalgia thatmakes James Gunn’sScooby-Doomovies so popular,this animated adventure is truly the pinnacle of the franchise. It features everything that makesScooby-Dooso popular: the jokes are funny and plentiful, the character dynamics are compelling, and the mystery at the heart of the story is genuinely interesting and difficult to solve. Particularly in the serialized format,Scooby-Doocan often struggle from being too predictable and formulaic - butthis movie completely dismisses those criticismswith a complex, intriguing story.
Scooby-Doo On Zombie Islandwas the first direct-to-video movie in the franchise.
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Islandalso features one of the best voice casts in the franchise’s history. Alongside the regular voices of the Mystery Incorporated gang, the movie also features vocal performances from Mark Hamill as Snakebite Scruggs, Jim Cummings as Jacques, and Tara Strong as Lena Dupree. This makes for one of the strongest supporting casts inScooby-Doohistory, with each actor bringing something unique to their character that makes them memorable and enhances this movie’s plot.Scooby-Doovillains can sometimes be forgettable, butZombie Islandensures that criticism is never raised.
Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island’s Animation Was Breathtaking
In addition to the exceptional voice cast and complex storytelling,Scooby-Doo on Zombie Islandalso features some hugely creative visuals that outshine almost everything else in the franchise. Likemost of theScooby-Dooadaptations,Zombie Islandadopts a completely new animation style to distinguish itself from the others, and that immediately proves to be a great decision. From a technical standpoint,Zombie Islandis arguably the most well-constructed film in the series - the level of detail on display in every single shot is overwhelming, adding to the factor of rewatchability that’s so important with family cartoons.
AlthoughNetflix’s upcomingScooby-Dooadaptationis going down the live-action route, the varying animation styles have always been one of the series’ most impressive features. The way that this story has survived through countless different visual forms is unmatched, and every so often, the creators stumble across a style that blends perfectly with the narrative they’re trying to tell.That’s exactly what happened withZombie Island, and it’s rarely been replicated since then.
I Wish Scooby-Doo Movies All Looked As Good As Zombie Island
It Would Solve Many Of The Movies' Flaws
WhileScooby-Doohas proven to have a certain level of longevity when it comes to the TV shows and movies, they’re not all as beautiful and technically proficient asZombie Island. In fact, there was even a modern sequel to this story namedReturn to Zombie Island, but it failed to live up to expectations - and the change in visual style was most likely the biggest reason for that. The animators really struck gold with the original, and there’s an argument to be made thatthey simply should have stuck with that stylein the years afterward.
Scooby-Doois always trying to reinvent its visuals, but the franchise would possibly have found more success in the modern era if it had simply replicated theScooby-Doo onZombie Islandstyle that was so popular. There’s a level of nostalgia associated with the movie that the animators easily could have capitalized on, but instead, the series has refused to stick to one particular visual medium. There are advantages to this decision - namely, every project looks different and it never feels repetitive - but it also means that onlysomeof theScooby-Doomovies replicate that same magic.
