Were The Hotel Transylvania Movies Any Good?

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I very much don't understand why they didn' t go for the more obvious setup with Johnny being afraid of his own mortality in the fourth one. Mavis is immortal and will never age whilst Johnny is human and will shrivel and prune soon. That could have been what motivated him to monsterfy himself, they could've used it to better explore Mavis and Johnny's relationship, anything really would've been better than what they did

Wait, is nobody gonna question the fact that Mavis still switched between her bat and human forms while pregnant? Like, how does that work for the baby?

I asked my sister “why is having a dead wife a turn on” and she said the following: “It’s not a turn on,it’s simply a girl feeling bad for the man”

I will say the one thing I really liked about the second movie and the series as a whole is that they never did a "Relationship conflict" with Johnny and Mavis (such as another love interest entering the picture). Instead they get married and have a kid in the first 10 minutes, seemingly putting such conflicts to rest. That's rare for an animated film.

I don't care what you say, Mark. No Adam Sandler movie will ever top "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry."

Fun fact: According to director Genndy Tartakovsky, he got the inspiration for Hotel Transylvania 3 after he returned from a "miserable" family vacation and took major inspiration for the film from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies, as the film would take place aboard a cruise ship.

Honestly. They could’ve easily kept the transformation angle. But rather than retreading the plotpoints of Johnny being accepted. It could have dealt with Johnny and/or Mavis making a decision on how to live the rest of their lives. Considering how Johnny would inevitably die while Mavis would likely only look to be in her 30s and his son would continue to live on well past his death. There could’ve been a conflict on whether or not Johnny decides to become a vampire via Mavis so the three can live for hundreds of more years together, or Mavis and Dennis shedding their vampire side to become solely human. I’m honestly surprised that was a concept that was never touched upon. Dealing with the theme of morality and death. It would've been a really poignant message. I had a huge idea for how I would've done it. I feel something with more depth would have been excellent for Genndy to do Johnny was completely fine in the first movie. Being the chill guy that served as an excellent foil to Dracula's high strung, commanding, overprotective personality. He managed to make Drac, and the other monsters see that the world didn't see monsters the same way as they once did, letting him and the others open up and not feel prejudiced. He and Mavis had a rather cute and believable relationship in the first movie. Johnny was so different to other monsters Mavis was around, so it made sense why she'd be drawn to him. Where Johnny really started to falter was HT2, where he never really felt like he had grown at all and matured to become a capable father. In the first, he was 21 and single, not really thinking about relationships. But when 2 starts with them immediately married and yet Johnny shows almost no signs of maturity or character growth between the two movies, it feels... like there was a lot more potential with Johnny. But he was just a consistent manchild throughout the quadrilogy. If I would have written the series out, I would have left the first movie relatively unchanged, maybe making Drac not warm up as fast to Johnny. The real changes begin with the second movie it deals with Johnny learning how to take initiative and mature as a character, possibly helping the hotel as an employee, further reinforcing the connection Johnny has with not only Drac, but the rest of the patrons of the hotel. All the while he and Mavis are still just boyfriend and girlfriend. This would likely be the movie I would have brought Van Helsing back, learning of the location of the hotel via the more publicity they had gotten by the monsters feeling more comfortable venturing outside the hotel more. Leading to an all-out human vs monster war at the hotel. A war between humans who still hate monsters, fearing they will overthrow the humans due to their natural advantages many of them have now that the monsters don't feel the same stigma. By the third movie, when Johnny and Mavis should have been married and Dennis should have been born. This is where Vlad comes in, wanting to see his new grandson. But he thinks Johnny (who he knows is human early on but isn't as concerned since he proved himself to be an ally of monsters in the previous movie) is an unfit parent, outright mocking him in front of everyone, and threatens to take Dennis away for his own protection, teaching him to become a vampire on his own. Now that Johnny has to prove himself, Johnny turns to Drac, Wayne (The wolfman) or his own father for advice on how to be a good father. Let alone being a human raising a half-vampire, it'd certainly come with its share of issues. (It could possibly lead to a lot of funny scenes of Johnny struggling to keep up with Dennis' fledgling and sporadic vampire abilities) The 4th is Johnny, now getting older, in his early 30s, realizing how Mavis now physically looks to be in her early 20s, realizes the weight of his current situation, being a human wedded to a vampire and raising a half-vampiric son. The idea of his wife and their son outliving him makes him depressed. He asks Mavis or Drac to convert him into a vampire, but he learns vampires can't transform people into vampires in this universe, another stereotype brought about by Hollywood. Vampires are simply a monster species. So, he asks Van Helsing if there's anything he can do to help. This could possibly be a way of adding the transformation ray back in. But the ray breaks making Mavis a human and Johnny a vampire. Giving the two their own new experiences living as the other species, with all the positives and negatives. Perhaps Mavis wishes to stay human, allowing her, and Johnny and Dennis to live without the risk of sunlight harming her, and it perhaps gives her more motivation to see the entire world with Johnny before they all pass. Johnny enjoys his powers thinking the idea of immortality is cool, he learns that while he will now be immortal, he also realizes that he will outlive his entire human family, something he feels is unfair. So, the two of them set off to recover the replacement crystal. Dracula has been fine with most other things Mavis has decided for herself, but the idea of her becoming human is a line he refuses to let her cross. He does not want her to die at such a young age, leaving him all alone. But throughout the story, Drac has to learn to finally let go and let her make up her mind. By the end, she chooses to remain human, so she can raise Dennis in a less chaotic environment and Johnny turns back to a human. Leading to a much less saccharine but still happy ending.

The dance party at the end of the movie made a lot of sense in Shrek as it was essentially a wedding after party. And it kinda makes sense in Despicable Me, because Gru wanted to see the dance recital he missed. Those are about the only warranted dance party endings.

I love of with films like Hotel Transylvania and Into the Spider-verse, Cgi is definitely going for more of stylistic 2d feel to it , which honestly conveys to me that the art of traditional animation in theaters isn't completely dead .

The conflict in the fourth film could've been a bit better if it was Johnny who actually went through an arc of becoming more responsible while he and Drac went on their adventure, and if the other characters agreed with Drac that Johnny's not capable of running the hotel instead of literally all of them getting pissed at him for it. I never really liked Johnny (even as a kid I thought he was kinda cringey) and yea I wouldn't give my hotel, aka my life's work, to him either he's a complete dipshit. he never changed since his first appearance despite 6+ years passing and him becoming a father. Also kinda weird they never addressed the whole elephant in the room of "Mavis will outlive Johnny" thing, especially after Drac remarried to a human himself.

Okay so let’s do some math… Mavis in the first movie is 118 and that’s an allegory for being 18. So she would be 18 in human years. 118 divided by 18 is 6.5 (rounded) the average human lifespan is around 75. 75 multiplied by 6.5 is 487 but some people live longer so let’s round up to 500-550. Even assuming that mavis will even age past a certain point she’s gonna outlive Johnny by around 425-475 years…

"This series has a huge online fan base." You mean MAVIS has a huge online fan base?

To me the stories and characters can be hit or miss but something I will ALWAYS enjoy about this franchise is the animation. Where others try to be more realistic with their animation, I've always appreciated the wacky and zany nature of HT's style.

I like how they just gloss over the fact that Jonny is going to die hundreds of years before Mavis

I have to at least give kudos to Brian Hull, the guy who voiced Dracula in the fourth movie, for getting a voice acting role in a mainstream film, since he's mostly known for his voice impressions on YouTube. He's real damn good at voice impressions, too, though I agree that in HT4 it felt more like he was trying to do an impression of Adam Sandler more than an impression of Dracula. Nonetheless, good for him, and I hope to see him improve and get more big voice acting roles in the future.

I feel they kinda screwed up with the 4th movie. Why not make Johnny a vampire? Then Drac and Johnny would know what its like to walk a mile in each others shoes.

Pretty sure Mavis is like over 100 years old. So she probably physically ages very slowly, Johnny has no excuses tho

"Apparently these movies have a huge online fanbase" Me: *Looks at Mavis* Yeah... Wonder why.

for the third film, why did they have drac have a second zing when there’s so much emphasis on the importance of the fact that it can only happen once in the first film - like it adds to the tragedy of drac being a widow, and also the stakes of johnny getting to be with mavis because they’re basically saying you only have one soulmate just seems like they were rewriting the story for convenience, but tbh that’s probably exactly what they were doing and it spawned a maybe 6/10 movie so oh well