Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans 2019

At my latest trip to the local library, I picked up the latest DC Animated movie with the Teen Titans. I probably said this before when I reviewed the theatrical Teen Titans Go! movie but I’m generally a fan of Go! It makes me laugh, I like the meta humor that comes with it, and there’s plenty of other superhero properties so in general the humor that exists in Go! is different than pretty much anything else in DC. I’ve also more recently been able to go through some of the old episodes of Teen Titans and actually noticed that it was generally a lot less serious than I thought it was going to be. It’s much more serious than Go! but it has plenty of humor to go around. I also love alternate universe stuff and this takes things to an utterly chaotic and ridiculous level that I absolutely loved and I had so much fun watching this. And while there’s not really much of a surprise twist, this is a recent movie so here is your spoiler warning.

One of the first things to mention is how similar in a few ways this movie is to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV movie Turtles Forever. In that movie the then-current version of the Turtles team up with the Turtles from the 1980’s cartoon series and also end up meeting up with the Turtles from the original comic book. This definitely has shades of that including how the Trigon of Go! teams up with the Trigon from Teen Titans and the final battle involves well over a dozen different iterations of the Teen Titans including several real ones alongside various made up teams. It was especially fun seeing every one of the completely bizarre versions that Cyborg and Beast Boy speculate on early in the episode actually become visualized in the final fight.

The characters more or less feel like what you would be used to if you had come from either of the previous series. The overall style, structure, and comedy leans much more heavily towards Teen Titans Go! with plenty of meta jokes like a guy in the audience claiming that Go! ruined his childhood and a comment after a random song about how it was just there to pad the run time. The ’03 Teen Titans didn’t really get that much in the way of personality. They were just slightly more serious versions of the Go! crew and generally lightened up as the movie went on as you would expect. The titular fight was a lot of fun especially as Go! Robin was the first to be eliminated and basically the ’03 Titans were the overall winners.

The backbone of the actual plot of the film was an interesting touch too as it delved a little bit more seriously into the character of Go!’s Raven and her demon side. In this version she keeps the demon half of her psyche trapped away in the gem in her forehead, unlike other versions where it’s actually Trigon trapped in the gem as it was in Justice League vs the Teen Titans and that version also shows up in this movie although minus Damian Wayne’s Robin or Blue Beetle. We get to see Raven trying to forsake her powers including her constant floating and a brief period where she is completely sans-demon and extra cheery. But with most things, at the end things more or less go back to normal although Raven accepts her demonic half rather than trying to completely lock it away.

This wouldn’t be Teen Titans Go! without some bizarre elements and songs, unfortunately the songs weren’t anything to write home about. The brief song about the Whirlygog feels exactly like what they explain it to be afterwards: just a way to pad the run time. The song about them working together was decent but nothing too special. The more bizarre moments were what made this more enjoyable, especially the giant fight with Mr. and Ms. Claus and Raven eating all of the other Ravens to gain their powers to fight Hexagon after Go! Trigon ate ’03 Trigon to become a bigger and more multi-limbed (and assed) creature. It was a lot of fun, had a lot of laughs and just a touch of a serious story involving Raven. But mostly just the two Titans teams making fun of each other. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.