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We had just managed to forget the terrible live-action Powerpuff Girls show that was canceled before it made it to air, but it looks like production went far enough that a trailer got put together for it. That trailer, thankfully, was sealed in the bowels of the Earth until this week, when it finally surfaced online. As bad as the leaked script made the show sound, the trailer proves that this is the one show we’re thankful to Warner Bros. for canceling. 

We know – we’re as surprised to be defending a Warner Bros. decision as anyone else. We’re still salty over the company pulling the plug on the reportedly brilliant Batgirl and Looney Tunes Coyote vs Acme movies to get tax write-offs, but in this instance, they were right to cancel Powerpuff. The live-action reimagining of the Powerpuff Girls cartoon was always doomed to be bad and yet, somehow the trailer makes it seem worse than we ever imagined.

After being locked away for so long, we didn't expect to ever see any footage of the canceled Powerpuff Girls series. That is, until the trailer leaked online. It keeps getting taken down due to copyright issues but a quick Google search will turn it up because nothing ever truly goes away once it is online.

It isn’t just the questionable logic of making a live-action show about the Powerpuff Girls in the first place. We honestly think that there is a story to be told in a bunch of childhood superheroes who grow up with a host of neuroses. Like child actors but with laser eyes. However, if this trailer was anything to go by, this was the worst way to go about it.

The CGI is appallingly bad even by CW standards. The shots of the girls flying almost look like a parody of a superhero movie. The dialogue is wooden (what the heck does “The Darkness is returning” even mean?) and everyone’s performance is like they’re phoning it in on a collect call from prison. Not even Donald Faison, who I usually find charming and funny, can lift it. There is also a really awkward joke that feels like it is implying that Bubbles became a sex worker before revealing that she does weird meet-and-greets on Hollywood Boulevard.

So, yes. We still think Warner Bros. is bad for canceling things simply to get a tax write-off. Movies like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme deserve to be seen and judged on their merits rather than used to make a bunch of already mega-rich investors slightly richer. However, in the case of the poorly conceived and executed live-action Powerpuff Girls series, they were right to destroy it before it was released into the world. If this trailer is anything to go by, they’ve done the world a favor.

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