'The Smurfs' First Image Accompanied By News That Gargamel Has Lost His Appetite

Gargamel wants to capture Smurfs so he can eat them. That's just the way of things for the diminutive blue people. In exchange for living a relatively peaceful life in their carved-out mushrooms, Papa Smurf and his charges must remain constantly vigilant, lest the evil sorcerer finds their secret village and cooks up a dinner to remember.

In the upcoming "Smurfs" movie, directed by Raja Gosnell, it turns out that this is no longer the case. USA Today has a first look at the movie today, which includes an image (seen below), news of a Thursday trailer debut on Yahoo! Movies and new information about the story.

So there you go. CG Smurfs. They look fine. I'm not falling out of my chair for them, but I remain excited -- yes, really! -- for the movie. Gosnell gets a lot of flak for the work he did on the two "Scooby Doo" movies, but I found them to be surprisingly faithful to the spirit of the original series... save for some fundamental disconnects. Now I worry that the same might be in store for "The Smurfs."

The USA Today story describes the film's setup, in which Gargamel (Hank Azaria) finds the Smurf village, causing the little, blue beings to flee into a magical portal... which lands them smack in the middle of New York City's Central Park. They must then find a way to get back home, a challenge which is made more difficult when the black-robed sorcerer arrives in the Big Apple.

What I'm stuck on now is the reason for Gargamel's hunt. No longer does he wish to dine on the Smurfs. In the movie, the writers instead having him seeking out the little people because of their inherent magic; he wants to use them as charms to empower his own, fundamentally flawed magical abilities.

Producer Jordan Kerner said of the change, "We all wondered whether we would be making a family version of 'Sweeney Todd.'" To be fair, the USA Today story describes that statement as a joke. Unfortunately, there's no other justification offered for the change.

It just doesn't make sense. The original cartoon series was already made for kids, and there were no problems with Gargamel wanting to dine on Smurf flesh then. I'm all for making changes in the service of creating a better movie, but not at the expense of such a fundamental trope of the series.

Gargamel wants, and repeatedly fails in his attempts to, eat Smurfs. That's how it's always been and that's how it should continue to be. I'm still excited to see the movie, if only for the great cast that's assembled around it, but hearing of a change like this makes me wary that we're in for an almost-but-not-quite experience, a la "Scooby-Doo."

Tags hank azaria, raja gosnell, The Smurfs