What Ever Happened to Artemis Fowl?

**Correction - Artemiss Fowl is available on Disney+ as of now!

The world of Artemis Fowl is a captivating blend of magic, technology, and criminal masterminds. From his humble beginnings as a 12-year-old prodigy to his daring , Artemis Fowl's journey has enthralled readers worldwide. Join us as we delve into the enchanting history of this iconic series, exploring its soaring heights, and very low, lows.

Thanks for the support!

Music:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Sources:

[sammcarthur]

One of the things that makes Artemis such an awesome character is just how driven he is. In a world of ten thousand 'chosen ones' he happens to the plot, not the other way around. The fact that he is a proactive, not a reactionary, protagonist is one of the many, many things that makes AF one of the best YA book series to this day.

[WildKat]

The saddest part of the movie adaptation, is that there are deleted scenes/trailer parts that show it was meant to more closely follow the book. Some idiot higher up decided to try and make it more "marketable" (aka make Artemis more a kid than a brilliant genius with agency), but that completely ruins Artemis as a character.

[pavel]

It’s like they deliberately tried to make fans angry with the „adaptation“.

The dead father - lives.
The first ever female fairy agent - has a female boss now.
The villain protagonist - just a kid, trying to save his father.
He hates sport and sun and is pale as death - loves surfing now.
The mother - irrelevant.

I saw the trailer and immediately thought: Percy Jackson and Eragon combined their respective weaknesses so the bullshit gets up to eleven. It is just sad.

[ArthurPhulusa]

I felt in love with this when i found it in my school's library. What this series needed was a proper animated release, either a movie or a series

[KuroyamiFukaikuro]

When I was a kid, I felt so disappointed that Minerva stopped being relevant after her single entry. It was refreshing to see a parallel character challenge Artemis on his own grounds somewhat. (Admittedly it's been a few years so I may be remembering some things wrong.) But I always felt Artemis needed more human friends, not just the Butler family.

[STWLandO]

For about 3/4 of the first book, Artemis is essentially a pure villainous character. Sympathetic in some cases, maybe, but a villain nonetheless. He is legitimately cold and calculating. He is less than a little bothered to actually hurt people - physically, psychologically, and emotionally - in order to get what he wants.

Butlers gun is not a briefly mentioned object - it is a carefully chosen and cherished Sig Sauer. When he fights the troll it is a violent event, by someone proficient in violence. His thoughts on the world are tainted by the violence and cruelty he had seen and inflicted. Yet are still shaped by the responsibility and growing care he feels for Artemis.

His mother's mental illness is vividly described in a disturbing manner. And despite all of the resources at his disposal, along with his incredible intelligence and resourcefulness - he is unable to help her even slightly.

Calling this book "Young Adult" was a stretch - and that's a huge reason of what got me so invested. Before this the most "mature" literature I had delved into was history involving the more modern conflicts of the USA, particularly WW2

THE MOVIE WAS SICKENINGLY BAD. It destroyed EVERYTHING the book did right. It changed the tone, themes, conflict, plot points, and most importantly the characters and their extremely important internal development and evolving relationships with each other. in my opinion it was the worst film adaptation of a book, and that's including the consideration of Percy Jackson.

[EmperorHomie]

Disney is what happened to AF. The major red flag was combining the first two books into one movie

[britishshock]

The fairy language at the bottom of each page, keep me looking thought the book for ages.

[johnwotek]

As a long lasting fan of the serie, here is my take on it. Beware, this zone is full of spoiler.

Artemis Fowl: the first book, probably the best in the serie. It is Die Hard meet Ocean 11 with fairies. Great pacing, great writing, litteraly the textbook exemple on how to properly use Chekov's gun. If you only have to read one, go for this one.

Artemis Fowl the Artic Incident: it's the one that made Artemis a hero in a more classical sense. It's not as thightly written as the first book, but it introduce the best vilain of the serie. It's the more "normal" of the books.

Artemis Fowl the Eternity code: this is probably the most important book in the serie, since Artemis get to actually be confronted by the consequences of his decisions and actions. It is what trully turn him from the bratty little shit that he is into a more mature and well rounded hero and cement his friendship with the fairy. It is cruelly taken away by the end, ressetting the former status quo. If Colfer main intent was to make a trilogy, I think that woud have been a rather poor idea considering what the character went through.

Artemis Fowl the Opal deception: is my favorite of the entire serie. It is simply the ballsiest of the serie. It kills off important character, leaves us on a bitter sweet ending that would have been perfect as the serie's ending, conclude Artemis character arc and use Opal Koboi in the best way possible.

Artemis Fowl the Lost colony: I think this is where the serie start to crack for me. That book is good in itself, but it suffer from what came before. It introduce stuff that make the lore a bit more complicated (like, seriously, Wing commander Vinyaya is, by that point, becoming a plot device that make the LEP structure very confusing) and I think it trully poorly handle the character of Holly, who slowly stop to be her own character and become more Artemis personnal muscle. While the demons and Minerva are trully wonderfull addition to the universe, the Lost colony is guilty of handwaving way too much obstacle on the path of the character. Holly isn't a LEP officer since last book? Vinyaya will reinstate her because Foaly like her. Ark Sool is still the LEP commander? Who cares? Trouble will replace him off screen.

Artemis Fowl the Time Paradox: time travel is always a very delicate thing and, frankly, Artemis Fowl completely jumped the shark with that tome. The good stuff from the lost colony will not be used or will be cancelled very early on, some important status quo element (like the rules to enter a human building) are been overulled between the books. Opale is shoehorned in the plot and is pretty much a parody of herself. The book could also make you think the ship between Artemis and Holly is now an actual thing which doesn't help. I think this is easily the weakest tome in the entire serie.

Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex: That book feels like a filler episode. Last book ended with an Opal from the past showing up to cause trouble in our time, capturing her should be the main priority, yet, we are being hickjacked by Artemis having a mental breakdown and by a new antagonist that the book treat as if everyone had read the bonus material "the Artemis Fowl files". I guess Opal can only be the antagonist of even tomes. It is overall enjoyable, but Colfer is trully repeating himself. Artemis struggle again with his morality and his capacity to open to his friends, a mentor figure dies again, etc...

Artemis Fowl the last Guardian: this is the last book in the main franchise and, let's just say there is a big "toy box effect". Everything litteraly explode (and, no, this isn't a hyperbole, the world is figuratively sent back to the stone age in a single shot), everyone is brought to fight it, Artemis even get a cool "Fowl mobile" and he get to cheat death itself while battling ancient goddess fairy warrior. It is enjoyable, but this felt more like the story a little would make with his toy, sending them everywhere in the room and feeling a sense of annoyance when come the time to put everything back in the box.

I think the big problem with the series is that Colfer didn't knew what to do with characters, especially Artemis and Holly after the Opal deception. They had resolved their arc in a rather satisfying and logical way. Artemis was now a real goodguy who started to use his genius for making a better world, Holly had left the LEP to do her own thing, because she couldn't deal with the hypocrisy of the instution, which became worse after the death of her mentor figure.

Artemis the good guy is mostly done in rather supperficial ways and we loose the super genius he was at book 6, from which he is pretty much a far cry of the mastermind we used to know. Holly, meanwhile, is reinstated and her beef with the LEP is pretty much handwaved in book 5 as if nothing ever happened.

Then, if you look at secundary character, the whole thing becomes more and more difficult. Mulch, who is often used as the ace in the sleeves of Artemis or Holly is more and more shoehorned in the story and more and more utilitarian.

The Kelp brother pretty much disapear. Grub and Trouble have always been nice foil to Holly and Root. Trouble was the very model of a LEP officer, efficient, courageous and by the book with a dash of bravado, while his little brother, Grub, was the incompetent, cowardly and contentious cop. Both were however loyal and well meaning, rising to the occasion, either by accident or by their strenght of character. They offered a nice view of what the rank and file of the LEP was like. By book 5, Trouble is basically turning into Root 2.0 and Grub is simply gone.

Honestly, after the opal deception, the only character whom trully benefit from further developpment are the Butler and the rest of the Fowl familly. Butler is confronted to his declining health, Juliet become the ace in Artemis sleeves during odds book (except in the 8) and Fowl Sr, Angeline and the Twin get show a rather wholesome story of redemption and turning good.

Foaly also benefit quite from the last 4 books of the serie, getting to be something more than the tech support guy. He gets a girlfriend, grows more involved into the LEP affairs and even get his own set piece at the end of the book, where he is alone and must solve his problem alone without anyone's help.

[NatsumenoKage]

I really think Colfer hit his breaking point with Artemis when Disney was having him come out for defense of the movie during the backlash. When he said this was the way the story was ment to be.

[seventhshinbi]

Artemis Fowl, The Last Apprentice (Spooks if you’re in the UK), and Skulduggery Pleasant were so peak to read. They defined my early teen years.

Grimalkin my beloved.

[ana_d_]

I loved these books as a kid, I even re-read them over the pandemic. I did hate that by the of the series it kept returning to Opal Koboi as the big bad, although Artemis shooting her in the face with a flare gun was badass. There was so much potential for other villains within the world, that pixie was so frustrating!

And I liked Minerva. She was fun, smart, spoilt, and such a great foil to Artemis. I know Colfer was setting her up as a love interest, but if he kept her as a friend and ally to the main group it could have really worked!

I never liked Holly x Artemis, it was weird. She was older than his parents. I've always wished she could have stepped in to be a big sister mentor role instead. Holly and Butler however...

I really loved the Bartimeaus books as well. They 're super underrated, and so good

[wilamblack]

My books as a kid: Artemus Fowl, 39 clues, a series of unfortunate events, Percy Jackson, Pendragon series, etc.

[nicholasbarton]

Whoa, never even bothered with the movie and it sounds like that was the right decision. Cool to know that about the Twin's series, I'll have to check it out - awesome job as usual!!

[sigiligus]

Read the first three or four books many many times as a child. Now that I think about it, they were like Light Novel’s in that they were basically like anime in book form.

[SamGarcia]

Artemis Fowl was my life. The first book I bought with my own money from the Scholastic Book Fair was Opal Deception.
I believe I did play the video game before, but I have a flawed memory, what I remember is some kind of fairy word search type thing using Gnommish, though that could be completely wrong. I do know I was trying to find an Artemis Fowl game while I was waiting at the library computers.

[SailorMya]

I will never understand "Hollywood" mentality... Producers see a product like a book or video game become popular and amass fans but when they go to make a movie or show they strip away the source material because it doesn't fit the cookie cutter movie/show formula they are use to! I'm happy to see some producers take that step back and letting the creative prosses flourish but when they are breathing down the necks of the writer/directors we get adaptations in name only because of all the changes they insist must happen... I have a feeling someone up the chain HATED that AF was the villain and insisted on this fundamental change that affected the whole story.

[antonjohansson]

The Opal Deception could've been the best way to end the series. A lot of character development coming to an end and a logical second half of The Eternity Code.

[KeeperOfSecrets-]

I remember reading this in like the 5th grade. I loved it.

[rubinelli]

I loved the first book, but the more sympathetic Artemis became, the worse the books came out. It was no longer him pushing the story forward with his plans.