Like all kids, I loved Scooby-Doo when at school. The classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons were some of the most iconic in the history of animation, and when it comes to movie appearances, there's many enjoyable if forgettable works, live action failures aside.
Mystery Incorporated's journey to Loch Ness in 2004 was one of my favourite animated flicks as a kid, and it's still a funny and zany little adventure to this day. As with all Scooby-Doo narratives, one must put aside reality and a large amount of common sense for the entire duration; however, at times, all your disbelief must be suspended to the point where it may be impossible to recover once the film is over...
- One of the Loch Ness Monsters turned out to be a giant wooden puppet thing controlled by Colin and Angus, done so as they wanted to scare away other athletes in order to win the games and because they found it amusing. However, when you witness the strength, agility, and sheer lifelike nature of the creature in previous scenes, to believe it is two teens controlling a bunch of logs decorated with a scary lizard pattern is just not possible.
- Adding to this, notice how when the disguised Colin and Angus first chase Shaggy and Scooby, they violently drop down from the Blake Castle cliffs into the Highland Games field, their Nessie machine thing totally unharmed after doing so. However, they are later tricked into falling down a small trap hole and, once they do, the entire thing is smashed to pieces. What happened there?
- On the subject of that, why did neither of them face any legal repercussions for committing these actions? They completely smashed apart a place of historical significance and architectural importance, as well as, you know, a family home. In the end, their justification is that they "enjoy a good ol' practical joke". In reality, I'm sure a gargantuan fine and lengthy prison sentence await, once the Judge gets his/her around how bizarre their actions were.
- Professor Fiona Pembrooke is equally guilty of these crimes, having created a mechanical submarine Loch Ness Monster of her own in order to convince Sir Ian Locksley that the creature is real. Once exposed, her actions are laughed off with the typical "meddling kids!" quote, when in actual fact they almost render her, like the teens, a domestic terrorist. She gets off quite easy with that.
- The technology used to create the submarine monster must've cost a fortune and taken incredible effort to build. However, it is never explained how Professor Pembrooke managed to create it. She must've done so herself, otherwise other people would've known of her plans. How did she do it? Where did she do it? How did she afford it? How and where did she perform test runs to ensure it ended up working to perfection without being noticed? The list of puzzling questions goes on and on here.
- We can say the exact same thing about the giant puppet Nessie made by Colin and Angus, but in some cases that's even less comprehensible, considering how much more difficult it must've been for them to successfully operate it in a believable fashion.
- When Shaggy and Scooby are being chased by Nessie for the first time, they somehow survive and are left totally uninjured after sliding down a huge cliff and crashing onto an open field in a ruined castle tower with no means of restraint or protection.
- It takes the other folks at Blake Castle a worryingly large amount of time to come to Shaggy and Scooby's aid when they are being chased by Nessie amongst the Highland Games field, considering all the smashing and roaring that was going on. They also completely ignore the partial destruction of the castle itself and somehow don't catch a glimpse of the enormous brown lizard walking away from the field towards the town. You'd think they might've done so quite easily if running all the way down from the cliffs beside the castle, with a perfect view of the field below them.
- Professor Pembrooke's land and sea models of Nessie have feet, are brown with bright red eyes, and have no fins at the end of their tails, which is surely not ideal when trying to prove to Sir Locksley that Nessie is real. You see, she wanted him to be convinced all along, so if her plan worked, he'd of course have a look at her photos - which show the creature as a greenish brown colour, with flippers instead of feet, and a tail fin. Even if Sir Locksley did believe her before the Mystery Inc. team solved the case, Pembrooke was always going to be exposed as her fake Nessie monsters look nothing like the small glimpses of the real creature in her photos.
Why am I bringing so much logic into this movie? Sometimes it's fun to see how different films would be if even a glimpse of common sense was present. While this film is certainly good fun, it perhaps at times just asks you to stretch your imagination a little too far. Such is the world of cartoons though really.
Thanks for reading!
