Dude Popper (film)

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***Dude Popper*** is a 2021 English-language Swedish animated adventure fantasy comedy family film written and directed by Jack Pihl Wikström in his directorial debut, produced by his company JPW Pictures and distributed by Disney. The film stars the voices of Josh Brooks, Micah Hernandez, Saul Gates, Scott Collins, Peter Atkinson, Minch Grogu, Laura Smith, Will Johnson, and Rod Harrison. It is based on a character created by him around 2015. The film was released on July 30, 2021.

On release, the film received generally positive reviews, with praise to the characters, the voice acting, and the action, but slight criticism to some parts of the story and Dr. Evilkins as a character.

## Plot

The film starts with Dude waking up from his bed, ready for another day. He goes to his mother's kitchen to eat some breakfast, he then meets up with his best friend Wiggy and they go get lunch at the food diner, Dude later goes home and falls asleep.

It then shows two skeletons named Skeleton and Esqueleto (meaning Skeleton in Spanish), in a cooking show talking about Tacos. Bernie feels uninterested and switches the channel, from a Zombie romance to a dancing dinosaur singing the nopity nope song. Bernie expresses his opinion over current day channels due to this. Dude then greets Bernie and tells him that he'll be outside. While Dude is on a bench enjoying the air, he hears a woman scream and goes to check, it then introduces Dr. Evilkins harassing a yellow clay figure named Sarah. Dude then gets into a fight with Evilkins and successfully defeats him. After Dude goes back home, Evilkins gets up from the water and expresses revenge over him.

It then cuts to Bernie having had a strange dream and decides to get a glass of water. Dude returns and tells Bernie about how he defeated Dr. Evilkins. Bernie is worried over Dude and tells him to be careful, Dude dismisses him as being overprotective. Dude later apologizes to Bernie and they decide to do something else. Meanwhile at Evilkins' lair, he is planning his next plan, in which he decides to clone Bob. However after cloning Bob, The Clone decides to escape. This makes Evilkins furious. The Clone then meets Dude and Bernie after stumbling upon them on the street, after The Clone takes them to their house, and explains himself. When Dude notices that Evilkins is behind it, they decide to stop him.

At Wiggy's house, he is sitting in his bed and enjoying the air, he then hears his doorbell ring, he opens the door and finds Dude, upon hearing an offer to help Dude to defeat Evilkins, he joins in. Dude asks his mother if she could help, she tells Dude that she isn't good at combat, but gives him a healing bottle in case he were to be injured. When Dude and his company gets into the car, Bernie notices Dude is in the driver's seat, which he isn't meant to do as he is too young. Dude gets to the other side and Bernie starts the vehicle, Dude gives it a boost to make it go faster. In Evilkins' lair, Bob tells Evilkins that four people are searching after them. Evilkins tells Bob that he has come up with a perfect plan. When the heroes make it, Dude finds Evilkins and properly introduces themselves. After fighting, Evilkins gets defeated and is sent to the wasteland. Dude and his company celebrates their victory and get home eating.

In the wasteland, Evilkins is furious over having his plans fail twice. Then after the sand begins sinking them down, they find themselves in a burning Kitchen, where they meet Frightos, who is an advisor to The Devil himself, when they meet The Devil, he offers Evilkins all of Claylonia in exchange for Dude's soul. Evilkins agrees to the offer and they get sent back to his lair. In Dude's house, Dude decides to go out on a walk with Wiggy and The Clone, however after Dude and Wiggy get to the park they notice The Clone is not with them.

While searching for The Clone, they notice he is dealing with Bob. Dude attempts to save him but is shot by Bob's laser. They come to Bernie and tell him about it, Bernie tells them that they will be able to find The Clone if Dude and Wiggy are trained. At Evilkins' lair, Bob shows Evilkins the captured Clone and puts locked inside the machine, Evilkins taunts The Clone over refusing to answer where Dude is. After a long walk Dude and his company are finally at the location to be trained, where they meet Harold, who is an old friend of Bernie. When they finish training they continue the rest of their journey.

The Devil being aware of this, goes to Evilkins' lair and sees The Clone is captured. The Clone refuses to answer where Dude is. The Devil tortures The Clone and puts him into sleep. While Dude and Bernie are inside the car, Bernie explains how he met Harold at age 16 in 1976. Bernie became a wall painter at the same place Harold worked at. After that they went to eat Tacos, Dude pays 35 Vetsa for the orders. After 15 minutes they get their food to eat and move forward.

In Evilkins' lair, The Clone asks why Evilkins is evil, Evilkins tells The Clone his reason is because he prefers it, and sees no value in being good. The Clone attempts to get Bob to free him, but Bob says he won't as he needs to follow orders. In Bernie's car, Dude and Wiggy feel tired and decide to go to sleep. Bernie stops his car and sits at a rock thinking about the time he lost his brother, who also happens to be Dude's father. A flashback shows when Papa Popper had to sacrifice himself in order to protect Bernie, Mama Popper, and Dude. It is shown that The Devil killed Dude's father by taking his soul. Back to present day, Bernie mourns over his loss, and is unsure whether to tell Dude about it. He decides to not tell him yet. The next day, Dude wakes up wondering Bernie's sad frown. Bernie tells him it's nothing. Wiggy says that they should focus on their adventure.

In Evilkins' lair, Evilkins expresses gratitude over his machine almost being complete, as he managed to steal The Clone's powers. He tells Bob to send The Clone to his cell. At the cell, The Clone asks why Bob works for Evilkins. Bob explains his backstory, and it's revealed that he was captured by Evilkins after walking down a street and was forced to work for him for the sake of his life. The Clone encourages Bob to redeem himself and help The Clone escapes, Bob is hesitant at first, but after some courage he attempts to free The Clone. Only to land inside the cell, The Clone is not disappointed and manages to find a shovel, they manage to escape as they get down the sewer, they later get up and meet Dude, Bernie, and Wiggy in the car, The Clone and Bob explain the whole situation. Dude says that they'll need to hurry.

Frightos having seen what happened informs The Devil, he orders Frightos to stop the heroes. To which Frightos agrees. At Evilkins lair, he expresses fury over Bob betraying him. But is happy that his machine is about to completed with just one more piece. The heroes make it to Evilkins' now upgraded lair, but the doors are locked and require a password. They try with three different numbers, and they fail. Until Wiggy finds out the actual password and they manage to get inside. As they enter they find themselves in a place filled with button, Bernie warns them that a wrong button will collapse anything, Bob reminds them that he accidentally pressed on a wrong button. They escape the collapsing room and find themselves in the dark, Bob turns the lights on after the help of a torch and they find themselves finding Evilkins, who has successfully completed the machine. He tells Frightos to take them away to their cells, as the heroes get sent to their cells, they learn Frightos and The Devil secretly used Evilkins as a tool in order to conquer Claylonia. After Frightos leaves, the heroes mope over how they failed, until Dude encourages them to escape. They successfully escape after destroying the cameras.

Evilkins meanwhile announces his reign of terror in a broadcast, this worries several Claylonians. Meanwhile, Dude and his company manage to escape and destroy two android guards, Evilkins tells them that they're too late and that his machine will shoot its ray. One that is said to take all the souls of the Clay people, Dude tells Evilkins that The Devil is not to be trusted as he will backstab him. Evilkins doubts it and attempts to kill Dude with his laser, Dude manages to avoid it. Frightos attempts to attack Dude but is later pushed into the machine and killed by its electricity. This leaves Evilkins short of options, until he presses the button, which summons a Soul monster. It aggressively attacks Dude, until his friends come to help. Evilkins cowardly escapes, Dude goes to catch Evilkins while Bernie and the rest of Dude's company fight the soul monsters. The Devil seeing what's happening decides to do everything himself, he rises from the underworld and announces that he will destroy Claylonia. The soul monster wreck havoc and chaos across the land, even sadistically hurting an innocent Clay person.

Dude is later kidnapped into the underworld by Evilkins and The Devil, Bob manages to defeat a soul monster and leads his company down under. When Dude is sent to the underworld he immediately recognizes The Devil as the one who killed his father while he was an infant. Evilkins asks if he can get his title as ruler, to which The Devil responds with throwing him up in the air. The Devil later attempts at stealing Dude's soul until Bernie sacrifices himself as his soul gets taken. Dude in complete rage attacks The Devil, while Wiggy, The Clone, and Bob fight the soul monsters. It is later shown Bernie's soul is inside The Devil, while in there, he reunites with his lost brother and they both work together out of the body. As they manage to get out they give Dude the courage to slay The Devil with a spell, The Devil vows his revenge and ends up being destroyed afterwards. This also kills the rest of the Soul monsters and destroys the underworld.

After the reign of terror ended, everyone is cheering over their land being saved. While the heroes return home to Dude's house, Papa Popper gets to reunite with his wife. Bernie and Papa Popper end up reviving themselves, and the film ends with everyone eating dinner.

A post credits scene shows Dr. Evilkins landing inside prison after an officer asks where he was, the officer responds to Evilkins being in prison. Evilkins sulks over his defeat.

## Characters

Josh Brooks as Dude Popper, a young clay figure with magical powers.

Micah Hernandez as Bernie Popper, Dude's uncle.

Saul Gates as Wiggy, Dude's best friend.

Scott Collins as The Clone, a clone of Bob

* A whisper sound The Clone makes was provided by JPW himself.

Scott Collins as Bob, the henchman to Dr. Evilkins.

Peter Atkinson as Dr. Evilkins, an evil scientist plotting to take over Claylonia.

Minch Grogu as The Devil, the dark lord of the underworld.

Will Johnson as Frightos, The Devil's servant.

Laura Smith as Mama Popper, Dude's mother.

Rod Harrison as Papa Popper, Dude's father and Bernie's brother.

Rod Harrison as Marco, an orange Claylonian citizen.

Harold Davis as Harold, Bernie's old friend and trainer to Dude.

* Will Johnson provides Harold's younger voice.

Ryan Hamilton as Zed, a food owner.

Rhona Bruis as Sarah, a yellow Claylonian citizen.

Graham Sanderson as Wallace, Bernie and Harold's former boss.

The Soul Monsters voices were provided by Karen Hudson and Minch Grogu.

Rodrigo Vázquez as Esqueleto, a Mexican Skeleton in Cooking with Skeletons.

## Production

### Development

The idea of Dude Popper existed all the way back in November 25, 2015, when Wikström was 10 years old, where he created the character after using a white and black ball of clay, he made it a figure and randomly gave it the name 'Dude Popper', which led to him to world-build everything for the character.

Short films for the character were made that same year and 2016, which were three films, a fourth and fifth film were in production, and at one point more sequels would be made, however they were cancelled after his Teacher resigned from his elementary school, and as a result all of the original shorts have been lost.

In 2018, Wikström tried making a TV series with the characters, but it ended up being scrapped due to the slow production, and lack of motivation, a Swedish version was made around the same time.

Wikström would not touch the concept again until around late 2020 when he announced its production.

The film began production on January 1, 2021, with Wikström struggling to get a flowing story, at times he would lose motivation. Nonetheless, the film was completed on July 12, 2021,

## Music

The film's music was composed by Kevin MacLeod, with Plotagon tracks added for the scenes.

## Marketing

The film had little marketing, with most of it being done by people such as Jackster Does Plotagon, DBG Channel, Sammy Knight, as well as Wikström's father, Mattias.

## Release

### Theatrical

The film was originally planned to be released in May 30, 2021, but was later delayed two months later. After seven months of production, it premiered on YouTube on July 30, 2021. It was going to be paired with a short film based on Johan Althoff's 2016 Children's short story *Three Brave* (Swedish: *Tre Modiga*), however as of December 14, 2021, it has yet to be produced.

Wikström declared the film would not be receiving a sequel.

### Home Media

The film was released on Home Media by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on December 14, 2021.

## Reception

### Box-office

Despite the lack of marketing, the film was an instant box-office success, grossing $79.4 million domestically. it closed its weekend on December 1, 2021 with a worldwide number of $254,573,072, making it the second highest grossing debut film in Plotagon, behind LazyTown: The Movie by DBG Channel.

### Critical response

Critical reception for the film upon release was positive. Based on 53 assessments on the like-to-dislike ratio system, 96% of assessments were positive (51 likes and 2 dislikes).

In a Discord chatroom, DBG Channel said the film was "an impressive debut". He praised the characters and the action scenes. He gave the film an 8.5/10.

TheNinjaGuy said, "I expected a great film and I got it.". He gave the film a 7.7/10.

Sammy Knight said, "Your first film was actually a good one. It was a simple movie, which works perfectly fine for a debut, the story was good, I like the animation, and the characters see great development. Of course there's room for improvement, such as with the villain's development and motivation, but I like what has been provided." He gave the film a 7.8/10.

Jackster Does Plotagon called the film "the best first film I've seen from any Plotagon user to date". He praised most of the characters and action, but slightly criticized Dr. Evilkins' unclear backstory and motive. He gave the film an 8.9/10.

Other positive reactions came from ThePlotaGuy7, who praised most of the characters, the script, and the editing. He gave the film a 7/10. TRAVELLER gave the film an 8.7/10.

## Trivia

* This is the first Plotagon film to be directed by Jack Pihl Wikström.
* This is the second film where both Peter and Minch work together, after A Distant Fantasy.
* This is the first Plotagon film to be released in July.
* This is the first non-DBG Movies Plotagon film that is produced by Phil Grey.
* This is Josh's second film where he stars as the main protagonist, after *Jackster's Big Movie*.
* This is the first Plotagon film to be based on an original idea that isn't originally from Plotagon.
* This is the first Plotagon film not to be produced in an English-speaking country, with the country being Sweden, which is also the same country Plotagon itself was founded.
* This is the first Plotagon film to not have any humans in it.
* The film is dedicated to both Wikström's grand uncle named Conny Pihl, who passed away in 2020, and great grandmother Ulla Wikström, who passed away in 2021.
* The film was originally going to be distributed by SF Studios in Sweden, before Nordisk Film bought the rights and distributed the film across Northern Europe, while Disney handled international distribution.
* The film has the second highest premiere of a Plotagon film, with a peak of 25 people, with *Jackster's Big Movie* being higher with 31 people, 6 numbers higher than *Dude Popper*.