Note: This review contains spoilers.
We are saturated with nostalgia at the moment, and if your eyes didn't roll at that statement then you probably haven't been reading about that saturation. It is just as popular to complain about nostalgia as it is to revel in it, complaining about returning properties while at the same time campaigning for them to return. If it sounds like no one knows what they want, that is probably true. With the internet (did your eyes roll again?) we can now reconnect with things we liked when we were younger and find whole communities dedicated to the most niche of properties. There is an irony to it, a modern displacement of time where we create this collage of different cultural fractures from various time periods (particularly that of the last several decades) while at the same time unable to truly relate to the constantly confusing and overwhelming present. It is addressing a complex present with a newly complicated past.
From this birthed two new reboot films from previous Nickelodeon TV shows: the classic Rocko's Modern Life and the cult classic Invader Zim. In both films we find characters addressing time passing and a new world of gadgets and corporate control, albeit from completely different angles. Rocko plays entirely into the nostalgia angle, both criticizing the want for its existence while acknowledging "okay, so long as I can do something different with it." Rocko and friends crash back to their home of O-Town from floating in space for 20 years, and are immediately overcome with the rampant improvements in technology, new trends such as energy drinks and dubstep music (about six years too late to really be biting commentary, but I'll give them some slack), and the need to accept others through the lens of modern gender politics. I was skeptical going into the Rocko reboot both from being a huge fan of the original series and from the fact that I wasn't sure in our nearly-post-satire society whether any of this could work or if it would all come off as dismissive mean-spiritedness like a lot of more conservative satire tends to be in this day (if I am being as tolerant as humanly possible, that is, since a more apt word would be "hateful"). But Rocko surprised me, just as it did back in the 90s. Rocko cannot parse the modern landscape of O-Town, and quickly retreats to his house to avoid it all and watch his favorite cartoon show, only to realize it has been off the air for decades, and that the creator of the show went on a walkabout to find himself. Rocko, along with some external motivation about how it will save the economically collapsing O-Town, decides to find the creator Ralph (son of Mr. Bighead, Rocko's neighbor) and convince him to bring back the show. When Ralph is finally found, it turns out Ralph is now Rachael, and the show becomes about trying to get Mr. Bighead to accept his daughter and embrace the winds of change (a literal character who tells them literally this). When the show finally comes back to air, Rocko is horrified to find a new character was added, and that his beloved show is different. Although it is an extremely small bit at the very end of the movie, the irony of Rocko's position on the new episodes feels the most important in the context of modern reboots (although the full and unflinching embracement of trans people - and making it core to the plot, no less - was absolutely welcome and one of my favorite aspects). Rocko is just as frustrated and confused with nostalgia as it is good at finding angles on the modern world. The Rocko remake never reaches even close to the heights of the original run's satire, but it does better than most of its ilk coming out right now. Rocko sees a return as a way to look at why we need a return in the first place, while embracing the fact that maybe it is okay, so long as you don't use it as a way to avoid what really should concern us.
Invader Zim takes a far more jolly look at things, something that should parse as contradictory if you've watched any Invader Zim in your life. Invader Zim wants none of your nostalgia cravings, not allowing itself to make any references or cameos that aren't absolutely necessary to the plot. In the intervening years since the show was foolishly canceled by Nickelodeon, Zim has been waiting in a toilet in his house so that Dib, his arch rival obsessed with stopping his incompetent attempts at world conquest, will grow fat and cannot interfere with phase 2 of his plan. No one ages, and how much time passed seems to be more of an impressionistic thing rather than literal, something exacerbated by the fact that Zim has always felt quite futuristic, and so seeing Zim playing with a smart phone feels the exact same as one of the gadgets everyone had in the original series during the early 00s. When Zim finally emerges from hiding to confront a fat and atrophied Dib, he has forgotten what phase 2 of his plan originally was. Thus ensues Zim freaking out trying to remember, Dib getting back in shape, and Zim eventually realizing the futility of his job on earth since the Almighty Tallest don't really give a rat's ass about him. Zim's eventual plot toward world domination comes later in true Invader Zim fashion, full of violently impulsive consumerism and an inability for anyone to realize what is going on at any given time. Zim wants to tell a modern Zim story, as though the show never truly left, not a nostalgic ferry ride through What We Missed.
Both shows do a good job recapturing their original feel, with only Zim really feeling like it has quite a bit different. Zim's art style has been updated some, which is weird since nothing has ever felt like Jhonen Vasquez's style since the show was on air. Most of the updates are small, with Gaz, Dib's sister, looking cuter and rounder rather than so angular, and with most of the colors made much lighter and full of pop rather than dark and drab with accents of bright purples and teals. It was something I found distracting throughout the film's running, but only because I really wanted this to feel like that dark, disgusting show I grew up with. That said, it was never really a big deal. Zim hasn't been outright dead since the cancellation of the show, continuing in comic form for about a decade now, and this show feels much more like that. Another change coming from the comics is that the Dib family is no longer this internal hate machine, where now Gaz actually does care about her brother (even saying so at one point, in probably the single tonal misstep in the entire film, which is still a good track record) and his father is unintentionally absentee rather than outright forgetting his existence. One of the major conflicts of the film comes from Dib and Zim both wanting acknowledgement from their parental figures. For Zim it is his bosses the Almighty Tallest and from Dib it is his father, who just wishes he would focus on science rather than the paranormal. It was jarring having a morality twist to an Invader Zim outing, where Dib and his father have a heart to heart about whether he is a disappointment or not (he's not). I'm mixed on whether I appreciate this or not, feeling as though Zim's nihilism has softened up too much, but at the same time realizing maybe we don't need the early 00's nihilism anymore.
These shows have a place in modern culture partially because, despite their popularity over the years, it feels like their messages where never really heeded in the first place. Both take an aggressive stance against consumerism and the avoidance of real life (or, in the case of Zim, that real life may not be worth it after all), but currently these issues are worse than ever. We feel a want for these properties to come back because we want them to tell us again what we already know. I enjoyed both films, but I can't help but wonder what the use of having these issues addressed again will have when we apparently aren't paying attention. I'm not saying we should live our lives based on a couple of cartoons, but I am saying that isn't it ironic that we want two shows that tell us our wants are more than a little gross or unhealthy, that we need to move away from blind consumerism and into something else, when our response is always going to be to consume everything they have to offer? Maybe there just isn't anything properly scathing these days, or maybe it's only a minority of people who really love these shows and they just want to share it with everyone else. I don't know. Nor do I know which world I would consider the best. Do I want to embrace the chaotic neutral of Rocko or do I want to accept the nihilism and bleak worldview of Zim? With Zim's newfound empathy, I'm leaning on that one. But anyway, they're pretty good cartoons.
Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling
6.5
Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus
7.0
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