With their international dream cast set for a Legend of Zelda movie, one can pretty much imagine the interwebs. While the tweet itself was an advertisement for their charity livestream raising money for Charity: Water (the charity rocks, by the way), it was the comments that descended into disorderly debates about casting choices, animation styles, and even some terrorism accusations…
On to something nice and heartwarming: Currently, Zeldathon is holding a week-long charity event in aid of Charity: Water, which is for clean water initiatives. Since the cast members were streaming a lot of Zelda gameplay, plenty of discussions about the franchise go on during this activity, including the fun “dream casting” event. The charity event lasts until the 14th, so you would do yourself a favor catching them on Twitch. What with the cause and positive vibes, how do you say no?
Proceeding in the line of replies, apparently casting decisions and animation options are all there is to actually annoy. The comments section immediately devolved into a war almost immediately after PhillipJT’s seemingly most reasonable take: “The Zelda movie needs to be animated like the Mario and Sonic movies. Making it live action is a horrible idea.” Fair enough! Hyrule is a very stylised world that would likely be much better suited in animation rather than real life-. Uh, and things escalated from there.
Among other twists, accusations of Twitch being complicit in terrorism arose(??), there were creepy inquisitions about the absence of LGBTQ creators and streamers of color, with varied users demanding that certain streamers be banned. Someone else channeled that Twitch is “taking women’s spaces and opportunities” by… er, casting men in roles for a hypothetical Zelda movie? After this point, the thread quickly lost logic.
In one very peculiar thread, NRGTHD stormed off repeatedly telling people to shut up by commenting “Shhhhh I wasn’t talking to you” every single time somebody replied to their public tweet. Of course, Frosty Pixel snapped back saying, “IT WAS A PUBLIC POST YOU WERE TALKING TO ANYONE THAT SAW IT HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS HOLY SHIT,” which…
Subsequently, in between the madness, a little bit of the conversation managed to happen regarding the Zelda movie. Most gamers favor animation to preserve the game’s unique art style, so the question is… animation or live-action? There was then the question as to whether Zelda should be a woman, after somebody suggested for some odd reason to cast a man.
In the midst of the Twitter insanity, Zeldathon stays true to its charitable nature, having raised thousands for clean water initiatives at previous events; hopefully, this year will be no different. The streams feature speedruns, challenge runs, and deep dives into Zelda lore-all for charity. Alternatively, maybe they should be focusing on that?
Nothing about a Zelda movie entertains Nintendo; however, with the Mario Movie being a smash hit, the clocks are ticking. Whatever will happen, I hope that any remaining discussion will now be able to focus on how Hyrule will be translated to the screen, instead of any of the other extracurriculars. Meanwhile, for truly good Zelda appreciation, check out the Zeldathon streams, minus any of that extra unnecessary drama.
