Trolls

***Trolls*** is a 2016 American 3D computer-animated musical comedy film based on the dolls created by Thomas Dam for his Good Luck Trolls franchise. It is the first film in the DreamWorks Trolls franchise. It was directed by Mike Mitchell with co-direction by Walt Dohrn, produced by Gina Shay, and written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, and Erica Rivinoja. The film stars Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Christine Baranski, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Russell Brand, Jeffrey Tambor and James Corden. It revolves around two Trolls on a quest to save their village from destruction by the Bergens.

The film's first teaser was held at the Licensing Expo 2015. Produced as the 33rd full-length animated feature by DreamWorks Animation, the film was released on November 4, 2016, by 20th Century Fox; it followed the production of DreamWorks' previous *Trolls* concept. A sequel, *Trolls World Tour*, was released on April 10, 2020.

The movie was the launch of the main "DreamWorks Trolls" brand, and is one of the two Trolls Doll-related brands DreamWorks currently holds licensing for, the other being the "Good Luck Trolls" brand, the flagship brand for the Trolls licensing. The *Trolls* movie also marked the re-branding and re-introduction of the Good Luck Trolls franchise as a whole, after its decline since the early 1990s, being the first successful attempt to bring back the brand since the Troll Doll craze in 1992-1993.

## Synopsis

DreamWorks Animation’s TROLLS is an irreverent comedy extravaganza with incredible music! From the genius creators of SHREK, TROLLS stars Anna Kendrick as Poppy, the optimistic leader of the Trolls, and her polar opposite, Branch, played by Justin Timberlake. Together, this unlikely pair of Trolls must embark on an adventure that takes them far beyond the only world they’ve ever known.

20 years after the Trolls escaped from the Bergens, who eat Trolls as they believe it makes them happy, Princess Poppy throws a party that attracts the attention of banished Bergen Chef, who captures her friends. Feeling responsible, Poppy enlists paranoid disgruntled survivalist Branch to go along with her on a quest to save Troll Village's population from the Bergens. Their king, King Gristle Jr., plans to serve the Trolls to his kingdom, oblivious to the romantic infatuation towards him by the scullery maid Bridget.

## Plot

The Trolls are small colorful creatures who live in an almost perpetual state of happiness, singing, dancing, hugging, and having fun all day. However, they are discovered by the Bergens, large, ugly miserable creatures, who can only feel happy by eating a Troll. The Bergens imprison the Trolls and eat them every year on a special occasion, called Trollstice. The Trolls, led by their king, King Peppy, with his baby daughter, Princess Poppy, escape through tunnels on the day of Trollstice, when Prince Gristle was going to eat his first Troll. Enraged, Prince Gristle’s father King Gristle Sr. banishes his Chef, who was in charge of preparing for Trollstice. Chef promises to leave and find the Trolls herself.

20 years later, the now-adult Poppy is retelling the story of how they escaped to a group of young Trolls from a scrapbook. She tells them that she plans to throw a big party to celebrate the Trolls' escape, despite the warnings from the over-cautious and egotistical gray troll, Branch, that loud parties will attract the Bergens. A Troll named Creek, arrives and tells Branch to start being happy instead of being grumpy; Branch refuses. At the party, Branch's warnings come true, when Chef sees the fireworks and kidnaps Poppy's friends Guy Diamond, Biggie with Mr. Dinkles, Fuzzbert, Smidge, Satin & Chenille, DJ Suki, and Cooper, along with Creek, despite Poppy trying to rescue him and Peppy.

Alone inside the bunker, Branch looks at a bunch of homemade party invitations, indicating that he appreciates Poppy's offers of friendship, has an unrequited love for her, and that internally would like to have fun with the rest of the Trolls. Poppy goes to Branch for help, but he refuses, stating he has 10 years worth of supplies in his Bunker and plans to hide. To convince him to go along with her, she brings the other Trolls into his bunker to hide them; with these many Trolls, Branch complains that the supplies will only last a short while. Poppy goes on a rescue mission alone. When she gets into trouble, she's saved by Branch, who thinks she won't make it if she goes alone and wants his bunker back, all of which is Poppy's predictions. Poppy and Branch interact on their journey with each other, with Poppy failing to understand Branch's point of view and Branch finding Poppy annoying. At night, they settle down but Poppy's singing annoys him; he says he likes silence, to which she performs The Sound of Silence in response; this ends with Branch throwing her ukulele in their campfire.

At Bergen Castle, Chef returns with the Trolls and tries to re-instate Trollstice. This is part of her own plot to overthrow Prince Gristle, now King Gristle. She gets her job back and Gristle is in awe of the idea of being happy.

The next morning Branch and Poppy arrive at the tunnels, one leads to Bergen Town and the others to certain death. Cloud Guy appears, annoys Branch to chase him, and both Trolls are led by the cloud to Bergen Town, where they see a crowd of miserable Bergens.

Once inside the Bergen Castle, Poppy and Branch witness Creek getting force-fed to the now-King Gristle Jr. by Chef, but Poppy remains hopeful that Creek survived. Poppy and Branch find the rest of the captured Trolls being guarded by a scullery maid named Bridget (perjoratively called "Idget" by Chef). Poppy discovers that Bridget is secretly in love with King Gristle Jr., and offers to help her get a date with him while trying to confirm if Creek is alive.

While setting Bridget up for the date with a musical number, Branch refuses to sing and triggers an argument with Poppy, revealing that, as a child, his grandmother was captured and got eaten while trying to save him, because his singing compromised his location to Chef. Branch's complete guilt over his grandmother's death caused his color to turn from blue to gray.

After Poppy comforts him with a hug, Branch decides to help Bridget and the Trolls, though he still refuses to sing. Bridget, disguised under the name of "Lady Glittersparkles", gets her date with Gristle Jr. at a roller rink and arcade restaurant, and Gristle Jr. asks her to be his "plus one" at Trollstice. Poppy notices Creek being held captive inside the jewel adorning Gristle's mantle.

Having helped Bridget, the Trolls attempt to rescue Creek from Gristle's room and take his jewel, but discover that it's empty. The Trolls are then captured by Chef, and Poppy gets shocked to discover that Creek sold them out to the Bergens to spare himself from being eaten. Creek lures out every Troll from Troll Village (via Poppy's cowbell), and they're captured by Chef and the other Bergen cooks. With all the Trolls captured, thrown into a pot, and soon to be eaten, a heartbroken Poppy becomes sad and falls into despair after she had been betrayed by her crush, and loses hope as she and all the other Trolls turn gray.

Branch, even though he's gray, tries to sing "True Colors" for Poppy to cheer her up, and also confesses his love for her. Poppy, after regaining her colors and realizing Branch actually cares for her, joins in his song as this makes him happy and he shows his True Colors. As the two dance and sing together, the other Trolls get a sense of renewed hope and regain their colors.

Bridget frees the Trolls from the pot, willing to sacrifice herself. Poppy cannot bring herself to abandon Bridget after her sacrifice that is sure to doom her life, and with Branch and her friends, shows the Bergens that Bridget was Lady Glittersparkles, and that it's not necessary to eat Trolls to be happy, and they too, can find happiness within themselves.

The vengeful Chef refuses to accept the peace and tries to kill the Trolls, but is knocked into the pot and sent rolling out of Bergen Town. Chef is set on fire with Creek, who was still in her fanny pack. Both species celebrate, bringing new life to the town and renewing the life of the Troll Tree. Poppy is then declared queen of the Trolls, and shares a hug with Branch.

In a mid-credits scene, the pot Chef and Creek are on stops rolling. Chef prepares to eat Creek herself, but they soon find out that they're on top of a hill monster, who opens its mouth and eats them both.

## Cast

### Trolls

* Anna Kendrick as Poppy and "Anxious Troll Child"
	+ Iris Dohrn as Baby Poppy
* Justin Timberlake as Branch
	+ Liam Henry as Young Branch
* Jeffrey Tambor as King Peppy
* Russell Brand as Creek
* Gwen Stefani as DJ Suki
* James Corden as Biggie
* Ron Funches as Cooper
* Aino Jawo as Satin
* Caroline Hjelt as Chenille
* Kunal Nayyar as Guy Diamond
* Walt Dohrn as Smidge, Fuzzbert, Karma and Tunnel Troll
* Quvenzhané Wallis as Harper
* Ricky Dillon as Aspen Heitz
* Meg DeAngelis as Moxie Dewdrop
* Kandee Johnson as Mandy Sparkledust
* Grace Helbig as Cookie Sugarloaf
* GloZell Green as Grandma Rosiepuff
* Mike Mitchell as Darius
* Emmett Mitchell as Keith and Anxious Troll Child
* Nina Bakshi as Bini Troll & Nora Troll
* Zoë Crawford as McKenzie Troll
* Riley Crawford as Sean Troll
* Ollie Mitchell as Olley Troll

In some versions of the movie, Harper is referred to as "Painter Troll", while Aspen, Moxie, Cookie and Mandy are left unnamed despite their voice actors being credited as having spoken lines.

### Bergens

* Christopher Mintz-Plasse as King Gristle Jr.
* Zooey Deschanel as Bridget
* Christine Baranski as Chef
* John Cleese as King Gristle Sr.
* Mike Mitchell as Chad, Captain Starfunkle, Vinny the Phone, Card and Wedgie Bergen #1
* Curtis Stone as Todd and Bergen Guard
* Rhys Darby as Bibbly
* Walt Dohrn as Wedgie Bergen #2
* Phoebe Dohrn as Bergen Girl

### Other

* Mike Mitchell as Barnebis
* Walt Dohrn as Mr. Dinkles and Cloud Guy

## Production

The production of *Trolls* came after previous development of a DreamWorks Trolls film was abandoned.

### 2013

In May 2013, DreamWorks *Trolls* was noted to have been pushed back for a year to November 4, 2016. The same month, DreamWorks Animation announced that Mike Mitchell and Erica Rivinoja has been hired as a director and screenplay writer to "reimagine" the film as a musical comedy, which will present the origin of the Trolls' colorful hair. On June 17, 2013 it was confirmed Netflix and DreamWorks made a deal to bring 300 hours of animated content to the service provide from the movies *Shrek*, *Madagascar* and *Trolls*.

Lead artist Timothy Lamb was brought onto the project in 2013.

In the same year, Dark Horse comics released a second wave of licensed blind bag Good Luck Troll Dolls.

### 2014

On June 16, 2014, Anna Kendrick joined the cast to voice Poppy, a princess.

Trademark activity was quite notable in late 2014 and early 2015, even without character name trademarking being accounted. On July 17, 2014, the first logo related to the movie was trademarked. DreamWorks had continued to go with the early name of DreamWorks Trolls on November 13, 2014. Both of these versions had prototype logos filed with them.

The name "DreamWorks Trolls: Cupcakes and Rainbows" was filed as a trademark on December 3, 2014. The logo included in this version bares resemblance to one of Poppy's hairstyles in early concept art, and was likely related to the confirmed TV Series for *Trolls*, later confirmed to be titled *DreamWorks Trolls: The Beat Goes On!*. The show was confirmed by one of its animators Jim Mortensen, being worked upon parallel with the movie.

### 2015

The name "Good Luck Trolls was filed on January 14, 2015 and another logo was made. However, it's unknown if it is related to the moviem as DreamWorks would later release a separate brand of Trolls merchandise with that name under the umbrella branding of "Dreamworks Trolls".

On September 15, 2015, Deadline.com reported that Justin Timberlake will voice a character named Branch. The full cast announced their respective roles via announcements on Twitter on January 6, 2016.

### 2016

Director Mike Mitchell and co-director Walt Dohrn presented footage from the film at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International.

On January 28, 2016, a teaser trailer was released on YouTube.

On February 4, 2016, DreamWorks trademarked the film under the term "DreamWorks Trolls" for toys and playthings, clothing, children's books and downloadable software. This also confirmed they had gone with the name "DreamWorks Trolls" as a name for the movie.

In April 21st, 2016, trademarks for the movie were made for lotions, toys and playthings and food items.

On June 29, 2016, the film's first trailer was released online.

### 2017

Trolls was released on Digital HD in January 24, 2017, and on DVD and Blu-ray in February 7, 2017.

## Success and Critical Response

The film itself grossed over $346 million in cinemas and made a profit of $19 million. The rest of the money grossed was taken up by its price tag of $125 million, while its global P&R costed $105 million. It made a further $170 million from TV revenues.

By February 2021, *Trolls* made over $343 million in box office sales, both domestically and overseas, and another $71 million on home video sales, including DVD and Blu-Ray.

Despite its commercial success, there was still much criticism towards the movie upon its release, often being compared to Sony Pictures Animation's two *The Smurfs* animated films released at the time; one of the common cited advantage that the movie over them had was less Canon from its source material to rely upon. The cast was noted by *Forbes* reviewer Luke Y. Thompson to be one that would not appeal to the target demographic, but a wider "hipper" audience. He said that the movie was badly timed with *Doctor Strange* being released at the same time.

The movie was praised for its trippy experience and excellent setting. The Bergens were compared as being a cross between Gargamel from *The Smurfs* and the Blue Meanies from *Yellow Submarine*, while the Trolls were seen as Prozac that the Bergens popped to feel better. The film's world was described as "reassuring" and "unsettling". Story-wise, it was described as following the typical plot formula that DreamWorks was criticized for constantly using during the 2000s, but with a few twists.

Rotten Tomatoes has a rating of 75% and 67% from critics and viewers, respectively. Most reviewers noted that its trippiness and fun make it "hard to dislike", while others just flat-out disliked it for that reason among others. In spite of this criticism, general responses from parents and children were almost always positive.

## Related Media & Merchandise

*Trolls* helped contribute to 2016 being a very successful year with licensing of movie product tie-ins. The film's merchandise was a surprising success, and it was one of the bigger launches of the year. By the time approaching sequel *Trolls World Tour* hit, the franchise was worth $700 million.

As previously noted elsewhere, the original party featured early on was meant to be Poppy's coronation. However, this was changed late into production of the movie, and many early promotional material such as books like Sing With Us! and the 2017 Trolls Annual were released with that particular plot instead of the current one. Thus, the change of plot impacted early merchandise related to the movie.

In total, 10 major new merchandising partners were added to the production of supportive marketing of the movie.

## Trivia

* In the trailers, Branch is seen performing "Can't Stop the Feeling!" with the other Trolls, but still has his grey coloration for some reason. This was likely done to avoid spoilers.
* Unlike many other toylines that have been revamped from older decades such as *My Little Pony* or *Transformers*, the *Trolls* franchise has had virtually no past references to go by. The only other major project for the toyline was the animated series *The Magic Trolls and the Troll Warriors*. Meanwhile, *Trollz*, the only official "Trolls" cartoon prior to the *Trolls* movie, ran into numerous problems. According to The Art of DreamWorks Trolls, the lack of a background or story for the Trolls actually gave the filmmakers a lot of room to work with.
* One of the hints that Bergens can be happy without eating a Trolls is that the sheer thought of doing so makes Bergens smile. This is actually a note pointed out by Cinema Wins when they did their "Everything Great About Trolls" checklist and that Chef seemed to know they could be happy without Trolls.
* A lot of critics compared ***Trolls*** to the *The Smurfs* franchise. The world the titular Smurfs lived in orignated in 1952 from the Johan and Peewit comic, into which the Smurfs first appeared in 1958. They were given a spin-off comic of their own a year later, and eventually overtook *Johan and Peewit* entirely. The first Dam Trolls trademark was registered in 1959; the original Troll Doll is older than this, though the two properties were developed independently of each other, and at the time neither were popular enough to be known outside of their countries of origin.
* From the start of the movie when Poppy is telling the history of her people to the end when she is crowned takes place over the course of 4 days and 3 nights.
* Poppy's picture frames are a logic-based gag. The first image of Creek is small, but as she expands the frames, the photos of her friends get bigger and bigger, with Cooper's being double the height of Creek's and the twins (Satin and Chenille) being double the width, meaning that it would be impossible for her to have all the frames folded away behind Creek's.
	+ The frames would later appear in the background of Poppy's pod in *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!*, with a photo of Branch replacing Creek's.

## Taglines

> The creators of Shrek, invite you on a musical adventure, that proves one voice can change the world.
>
> Promotional tagline

> This is a story about happiness, how far some would go to get it, and how far we went to get it back.
>
> Tagline by Poppy

## References

1. ↑ https://www.rotoscopers.com/2015/06/08/first-look-at-dreamworks-trolls-revealed/
2. ↑ https://www.ibtimes.com/dreamworks-netflix-agree-bring-original-animated-series-growing-market-streaming-1310249
3. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/BMXjA6\_BfY0/
4. ↑ https://kastorskorner.com/toy-fair-2013-dark-horse/
5. ↑ https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Anna-Kendrick-Sing-DreamWorks-Trolls-43487.html
6. ↑ https://jimmortensen.tumblr.com/post/616883939405086720/how-come-in-trolls-branch-ears-are-pointy-but-in
7. ↑ https://ew.com/article/2015/09/15/justin-timberlake-trolls-voice-cast/
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 https://deadline.com/2020/04/trolls-world-tour-vod-box-office-movie-profits-universal-coronavirus-1202903913/
9. ↑ https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Trolls#tab=summary
10. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2016/11/04/review-trolls-plays-like-a-psychedelic-smurfs-spin-off/?sh=1f78bd547f15
11. ↑ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/trolls
12. ↑ https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/trolls
13. ↑ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/licensed-merchandise-sales-hit-2629b-2016-boosted-by-star-wars-1005108
14. ↑ https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/dreamworks-adds-10-trolls-partners
15. ↑ Branch is still grey.

## External Links

* DreamWorks Animation Wiki: *Trolls*
* Trolls Trollpedia: *Trolls*
* *Trolls (film)* on Wikipedia