Trailer Talk: Dora and the Lost City of Gold

By Ram Charan and Khushi Shah

Trailer Talk is a feature where two contributors have a conversation about a highly anticipated film based on its previews and excerpts.  

Ram Charan: Hey Khushi, did you see the new trailer for Dora and the Lost City of Gold? It seems like the kind of movie you would be interested in, especially because of your interest in other Nickelodeon produced favorites such as Big Time Rush.

Khushi Shah: I have in fact seen the trailer, and I am really looking forward to seeing the movie. It is a really great throwback to a really big part of my childhood. Making Dora into something relatable for the older generation though does seem like it would be really difficult, so I hope they are able to pull it off.

RC: I am not entirely sure why such a film is even being produced. The new angle that they are taking in portraying Dora as an enthusiastic danger-inclined high schooler is pretty interesting but there seems to be no target audience. Watching Dora the Explorer is a part of my past I would like to distance myself from. Other more enjoyable kid-friendly classics that I would find more appealing as live-action remakes include The Magic School Bus. Dora’s transformation from a border-line competent Spanish speaker to a lost explorer searching for riches of a lost city, surprisingly enough without an Indiana Jones-style hat and whip, is jarring. By transforming her into a high schooler, Nickelodeon is banking on the hope that previous followers of the informative children’s show will be interested in reliving their past.

KS: I agree that they do not seem to have a target audience in mind while producing the film. The concept seems like something that would appeal to the older spectrum of teenagers, but the actual basis for the film is something that was originally meant for much younger audiences. They are probably are relying on nostalgia being the main attraction for the movie. In the trailer, however, they do a pretty accurate job of depicting one comedic alternative for what Dora would be like in the real world as there is already an animated show that features an older Dora living in the city. In the original show, she is an adventurous four-year-old who roams the jungle for fun and had never really had any chance to interact with the social inner workings of teenage society. Given her background, the movie trailer very accurately depicts some possible scenarios for her first day of school considering how much freedom she has grown up with. All the action that seems to surround her life in the movie shows just how much she craves the adventure she had because of her copious amount of freedom.

RC: Well, I have to admit that some of the action sequences are slightly exciting. While I did not find the core concept entirely captivating, Dora’s journey through the jungle to find her parents is going to be action-packed. The trailer opens with a scene where Dora tries to jump over a larger gorge, beneath which there is nothing shown. There are also more scenes in the trailer where Dora is running away with her friends from “bad guys.” As she dodges darts and other obstacles to bring her friends to safety Dora is shown to be an independent adventurer. This is not entirely in line with the show. She carries various supplies in her backpack, as illustrated through a rather funny scene: a security guard outside her local high-school pulls out a myriad of tools including a flare, which the guard ignites, a stick of dynamite, and an ice-pick.

KS: I am assuming that she would be used to be heavily prepared though, considering what her life was like before. She probably got herself into plenty of situations she wasn’t prepared for and over the course of time learned the importance of being prepared. She is also significantly older than she was in the animated show where she was four. In the movie, she is now roughly 15-16, so it’s expected that she has gained a lot more independence. How prepared she is for any scenario is a pretty good and comedic way of showing this independence that she gained.

RC: Her over-the-top readiness for high-school is one of the better aspects showcased in the limited two minutes and thirty seconds of footage provided for viewers in the trailer. Creating an image of Dora where she is an independent explorer may turn out to be a great idea, but you would need an audience who would want to revisit the Spanish-speaking phenomenon. I am not one of those people. If anything, I found Diego more interesting because they once had an episode in the show where they traveled back in time to the early Cretaceous period. As you know, I am a dinosaur fanatic, more so of those in the Cretaceous period.

KS: Well I guess everybody is entitled to their opinion. I think she would also have to be extremely prepared because of all of the action in her life. Aside from trying to jump over a broken bridge, she also swings across vines and does plenty of other things that may cause injuries. It’s no wonder she has a flare in her backpack in the scene where she was going through security for school. They also did a really good job of casting her because I can’t imagine very many young actors who could pull off the character. Dora is played by Isabela Moner who has a few pretty good acting jobs under her belt. The cast also features some other more famous people who I believe are very big assets to the movie. I think in terms of the cast, the movie did a very good job. They all suit the action portion of the movie pretty well.

RC: Aside from the action, I also guess you brought up a good point about the cast. The cast carries a few heavy hitters, Michael Peña and Benicio Del Toro. I loved Michael Peña in The Martian and Ant-Man. In both films, he brings an element of quirky humor that adds to how watchable both the flicks are. In Ant-Man in particular, Luis, who is played by Peña, narrates a sequence of how he received a tip about a place to rob. This scene shuffles through different conversations where people speak through Luis’s voice, who talks in a very informal and funny way. Whether you call it a gift from the scriptwriters or Peña’s own acting talent, the scene plays out very well and showcases Peña’s ability to deliver dialogue well. Peña plays the role of Dora’s father and in a quick clip tries to imitate rave music. He delivers and is sure to be one of the best parts of the films. As for Benicio Del Toro, he is listed as Swiper in the cast. Del Toro is known for acting in films like Sicario and The Last Jedi. Both cast members are great actors and are sure to delight on the big screen. I am almost convinced to watch the film for Peña alone, but I am still having my doubts.

KS: Isabela Moner is a great actress in her own right. She was in Transformers: The Last Knight, so I guess she will be pretty prepared for the action portions of the movie. I’m confident her ability will shine through in the movie, even more so than it already has in the trailer. She will probably be used to working with the CGI as well, so I suppose that will make her scenes with Boots just that much better. I’m really looking forward to watching her performance in the movie.

RC: Among one of the worst aspects of the trailer, was the appearance of Boots. In a recent spate of produced films, Disney has tried a new method of reanimating famous classic films. It started with Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book. In the film, Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera all become staples in the real world. Bagheera and Baloo both gain shiny fur coats and menacing sharpened teeth and claws. Shere Khan, voiced by Idris Elba in the film, gains a fierce coat of orange and black stripes and resembles a very realistic tiger. The once animated films have been brought to the big screen again as live-action remakes. Based on the success The Jungle Book had brought, Disney has continued this process in bringing the 2-dimensional characters that we have all loved, to the 3-dimensional plane. Most recently, Disney released a new trailer for The Lion King.

KS: You are right in that Disney has made live action and CGI versions of their animated movies before, and that they are coming out with one that also has a really big focus on the wild. Disney’s The Lion King is a story about the circle of life and how a young lion cub deals with the trials of being a royal animal in a very Hamletish fashion. The new trailer which has just been released has done a rather fabulous job of making the movies animals look incredibly real. It’s easy to predict that the movie is going to be a huge success. It seems only natural that Nickelodeon would take a page out of Disney’s book at this point and animate the loveable monkey Boots.

RC: Dora and the Lost City of Gold is following in the footsteps of these films by reanimating Boots to resemble a realistic monkey. After one of the first scenes where Dora tries to jump past a rock ledge, she cries out, “I’m okay, Boots.” The camera then pans from Dora, who survived a miraculous fall of over 50 feet, to a surprised Boots. Instead of responding in English as Boots does in the show, he instead cackles and acts like a real monkey. This cements Dora as a more realistic character. By forcing her to become a high school student, the film seems to be setting itself up for failure. It is sure to use common tropes of a high school movie, and in the process would be isolating its probably young core audience if there is one at all. It also tries to make itself more believable by making Boots a real monkey. So many things are wrong with this film just in the trailer, and I am not sure whether it would be a sound film.

KS: I actually disagree, because if the movie is trying to situate a character like Dora to the real world, they could not get away with making Boots anymore true to the original character beyond him being a monkey. I suppose a small part of me did want Boots to be able to talk and actually wear boots, true to the original character, but I do understand that it wouldn’t really fall in line with what the movie is trying to accomplish. I think that they did a fine job tackling how they wanted to fit Boots into the movie.

RC: Despite the inclusion of Michael Peña and Benicio Del Toro, I am not convinced to watch this film. Better kids shows deserve live-action reboots over Dora. I am not very fond of the creative decision to make Dora a high school student, and I do not want to really re-live watching Dora at all. That being said, on a scale of one to ten, how excited are you for the movie? I am personally leveling around a two or three out of ten.

KS: I would actually say that on a scale of one to ten, I’m at a nine in terms of excitement. Dora was a really big part of my childhood and nostalgia alone is enough to get me to want to watch the movie. My dad even jokingly said that he was going to force me to watch the movie as payback for how much I made him watch the TV show when I was little. The trailer showed some pretty funny scenes as well, so the possibility of it being a genuinely funny movie are also pretty high for me.

[Sources: geektyrant.com, collider.com, ew.com]