Everything GREAT About Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken!

Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken! Better than Turning Red? Better than Luca? Let's discuss! Sorry, I meant let's get kraken! Here's everything right with Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken!

CinemaWins Socials:

[XLR]

i will say i would have liked chelsea ACTUALLY being nerissa's daughter but there is lso a "oh god" moment of a grown adult manipulating a teenager for their own gain

[BatAmerica]

I feel bad for the animators of this film. Not only did they have such passion for the storyline in their interviews and DVD commentary, but Ruby Gillman also has a beautiful style that matches the energy of Puss In Boots with the textures of How To Train Your Dragon.

[Zhon]

One of the things I really appreciated about this movie that you didn't touch on is that Ruby's design feels properly monstrous when she goes full kraken. She's not a more "cute and cuddly" version because she's the protagonist. There's a lot of movies where the main character becomes a "monster" but the actual design doesn't match because the film is afraid we won't relate to them anymore.

[Alfie_chat]

I'm so glad that everyone in the comments is giving constructive criticism about the film instead of being outright mean and rude

[thederpiestofderps]

3:36 god I've never seen someone put this into words so perfectly

[ArcadeProductions]

Our boy married his high-school sweetheart??? 1, 000 wins added to the counter!

[pedanticat]

Ruby Gilman is a fun movie but if you look into the deleted scenes and early concepts, we were robbed of a much better movie. I actually just made a whole video about it on my channel.

[hiveemperor]

I related to Ruby a crazy amount when I first saw this film in theatres. I came to it thinking it would be forgettable but man, I can’t get it out of my head now almost a year later. While I am disappointed that some things never made it in, I loved the film a lot. Just a very sweet and relatable story. Plus Ruby is an adorable cinnamon roll and I enjoyed seeing her whenever she was on screen.

[cramerfloro]

I really didn't like this movie at all. However, the theatre we were in was almost entirely empty, with only a few kids in there. And their excited ramblings about the cool "kraket!" Made the whole thing so worth it!

[mdizzle]

I saw this movie once, I liked it. Then I heard people were hating on it because it wasn't like Puss in Boots so I felt bad for it and saw it a second time. Both times in theaters, no regrets. It is currently part of my Netflix "My List" which I use as a favorites list.

[ThomasFisher-jrbn]

As much as I like the movie, I think the Nerissa twist brings the whole thing down.
Not only was Chelsea more interesting as Nerissa's daughter like in earlier drafts, but the Nerissa twist also proves Grandmamah's boarderline racist view of Mermaids completely right.

They only made this change so Agatha wouldn't have blood on her hands, but there are other ways they could've worked around this.

"Archiveofourown" User Thatdude21 came up with a decent way to work around Agatha being a murderer.
After Nerissa was defeated, she was banished by her kind because they didn't want to fight the krakens in the first place and she eventually gave birth to Chelsea after her banishment. One day, she would catch Agatha putting the Trident in the volcano and tries to retrieve it, but the strong currents in the volcano kill her and Chelsea, now traumatised by the horrific death of her mom, makes it her goal to avenge her mother and liberate her kind.

If they went with this approach, Agatha at the very least wouldn't be directly responsible for the death of Nerissa.

This is a duplicate comment in case the original doesn't resurface.

EDIT: Thatdude21 also rewrote the climax and made it more interesting, here's a somewhat condensed version of his climax.

Ruby doesn't stop Chelsea by destroying the trident, but by telling her that her kind didn't want to fight the krakens and they exiled Nerissa for forcing them to fight and Nerissa was also selfish for trying to the trident back without thinking about what would happen to Chelsea if she died trying to get the trident and she could've also started a new life on land with Chelsea. Ruby even gets Grandmamah to admit she might've been unfair in her judgement.
Chelsea starts breaking down and tries to kill Ruby in a fit of rage. Ruby lets her guard down in a risky move to prove that Chelsea isn't a monster. Chelsea raises the trident and after what feels like an eternity, brings it down towards Ruby. She comes within a few feet of stabbing Ruby, but she can't bring herself to do so. She suddenly forces her arms down and starts crying.

Ruby and Agatha comfort Chelsea who tearfully admits that she just wants to hug her mom again but she can't. Agatha and Ruby hug Chelsea and even Grandmamah rests her hand on Chelsea's back feeling rather shameful about her view on mermaids.
Afterwards, Chelsea becomes disgusted by the trident and hands it to the krakens so they can dispose of it. They use their laser eyes to destroy it and Chelsea shrinks back to her normal mermaid form.

After Ruby picks Chelsea up, Chelsea apologises for all the trouble she caused, but Ruby, Agatha and Grandmamah admit that if it weren't for Chelsea, Ruby wouldn't have gotten the chance to embrace who she was and the rest of the family got to patch things up even if it took getting their butts kicked and almost losing their lives.
After that Chelsea starts leaving before Ruby blocks her because she feels that she doesn't belong there, but Ruby disagrees and after thinking for a moment she asks Agatha if Chelsea could stay with them. After Agatha asks the other family members if it's okay and they agree.

Chelsea is overjoyed by this and Ruby brings Chelsea up to her cheek and Chelsea hugs her tearfully with Agatha and Grandmamah joining in. While Chelsea is happy to become a Gillman, she does want to wait a bit before she moves in because she wants to settle living on land first. Grandmamah even promises to search for the mermaids to tell them it’s time for a new peaceful era between the 2 species and invites Chelsea to the kraken soldier training classes after showing her impressive combat capabilites.

Agatha then tells Ruby that she won't lie to her anymore and she can still make it to the prom. Ruby takes Chelsea to the prom boat. Brill then arrives and is informed about Chelsea's adoption which excites him and he is embraced by his mother and sister to his delight. After Ruby and Chelsea arrive at the boat looking decked out, Ruby is applauded and Chelsea, who was worried about the students shunning her, is also given a hero's welcome. After patching things up with her friends, Chelsea tells Connor that Ruby actually save him earlier and Connor and Ruby start dancing together.

While that happens, Grandmamah catches up with Agatha and the rest of her family, including her son Sam. Meanwhile Gordon makes his apology video and becomes a kraken supporter. Back on the boat, Ruby is still dancing with Connor, Margot is dancing excitedly with Kayla, Bliss is dancing more slowly with Trevin and while Chelsea is dancing by herself she is still having the time of her life. All of them then join each other in a group dance and freeze. The dance is now a photo on Ruby's phone.

After scrolling through several videos of her family, we see the family in their car with Agatha driving, Arthur in the passenger seat next to her, Ruby sitting in the rear right seat, Sam in the middle and Chelsea on the left. They soon arrive at their destination where Agatha warmly welcomes Chelsea to the Gillman's home. Ruby and Sam guide Chelsea through the house and as she takes in the scenery and decor of the house in awe, Nessie suddenly catched her attention. Nessie jumps into Chelsea's arm and starts licking her cheek to her with Chelsea laughing gleefully. Ruby and Sam join in on the fun while Agatha and Arthur watch proudly.

When then fade to a view of Oceanside High. A couple of construction workers are placing what appears to be a circular plaque on the school's front. It has an illustration of Ruby in her giant form on it. Ruby, Connor, Chelsea, Margot, Trevin, and Bliss are walking up to the school. Suddenly they are stopped by Gordon parking his tour bus in front of them. Brill pokes his head out the window and tells Ruby that the Devil Whale has been spotted and is headed straight for the Kraken Kingdom. Ruby hands her bag to Connor and asks Chelsea if she want to follow her. Chelsea declines because she wants to focus on high school and jokingly says that the Devil Whale already has enough on his plate dealing with Ruby and a 2v1 would be overkill at that point. Ruby starts to run off, but then turns around to kiss Connor and starts running off again with Chelsea cheering her on. After landing in the water and becoming giant, she swims off to fight the Devil Whale as Grandmamah finishes the movie with her narration.

Grandmamah: "See? I told you, people! The ocean will always need a Kraken, and a Kraken will always answer the call!"

[annonymousannonymous]

I think it would have worked out better if the Gillmans claimed that they were from Greenland, because it's very Cold up there and Blue Skin seems to go well with the cold for some reason.

[jackalovski]

fun fact, some people can smell salt water, some cant, i'm one of the people that cant. it's like arsenic, some people can smell it, some cant.

[dalikolo]

Ruby Gillman, like the majority of Dreamwork’s (and even Disney’s) newest projects, is actually very fun and amazingly animated but instead of actually investing in proper commercials (instead of just spoiling the entirety of the movie in the trailers) they make mediocare trailers and use those as an excuse for not doing more projects like that! Strange World and Ruby Gillman are very fun and very pretty and should be appraciated instead of used as an excuse to abandoning more projects like them due to bad advertising...

[jf_kein_k]

It is a neat movie,
But I still don't like that last minute change they made by having Chelsea be Nerissa,
rather than her being Nerissas daughter who wants revenge because Agatha killed her mother.
Would've also fit into that perception and making your own decisions theme.

[stephendavis]

I'm pleased you pointed out the similarity to Turning Red, because it seemed to borrow from it in almost every department. By the way, this is a really good film in it's own right, but Turning Red is better in just about every department. Turning Red could make you laugh out loud, then break your heart in the blink of an eye. The two scenes, the Red Moon Ritual and the scene where Mei meets her Mom as a little girl are among the best moments I've ever seen in an animated movie. It is a seriously underrated. On the nose seems to be a regular criticism about TR's treatment of puberty, but it needed to be to break new ground to normalise sanitary towels, which are a necessary and normal part of a teenage girl's life. As I've said, this is a great little movie, but I consider Turning Red to be in a different class.

[Crimsonlegocustoms]

I hate that people hate this film. Even tho it has: great story, great characters, voice acting, and the biggest one, great animation

[WinterPhoenix]

Okay, you've got to do Everything great about The Bad Guys. You've done every film around it so pleaseeee

[davidpumpkinsjr.]

When he said people can't name other Jane Fonda movies, I was about to say "9 to 5", but then realized that was the only one I could name. Touché, Mr. Lee, well played.

[jesuscuellar]

I have made kind of a habit to rewatch this movie and Turning Red side-by-side after the idea ocurred to me when needing a movie-night to lift my spirits up.

The resulting experience now has me percieve both films as "spiritual sister movies" of a sort; together they are some of my personal comfort movies 😊