Only if you’ve been living under a stone, you must have heard about Fate: The Winx Saga, the live action remake of the popular animation series of Winx that hit Netflix a few days ago. When I first heard about it, I was super hyped. But then I watched the trailer and saw some shots from the show, and I felt all my enthusiasm drain out of my body. I told myself: I’m not going to watch this shit show. However, everybody around me told me to just go watch it – supposedly it’s very addictive and like Riverdale a very big guilty pleasure. So how do I feel about it now?
Just in case you have missed it, Fate: The Winx Saga follows the Winx girls (in a slightly different composition) going to Alfea, a school for fairies. It’s not as colorful as the original show. It’s more modern, darker and for an older target audience. If you are curious, check out the official trailer. It has those typical Riverdale and Sabrina vibes.
The girls
In the trailer, you will spot one big change immediately: there’s no Flora and there’s not Techna. Instead, there is Terra (replacing Flora, you will find out she’s her cousing) and there’s Aisha, who, in the animation series, doesn’t show up until season two. Besides that, characters have been white washed. It’s obvious that Flora was based on a Latino woman, yet in this trailer, she’s white. However, they did choose an actress with a different body type, which I think is good. But white washing? Naah. Please don’t. I also don’t understand why they had to remove Techna. Even after watching the show, I still don’t get that decision.
The clothes
I think we can all fully agree upon the fact that whoever did the costumes of Fated: The Winx Saga isn’t close to the age of the girls. The clothes are weird, kind of boring and sometimes even very ugly and chosen without much thought behind it. The thing I loved about Winx was the fact that their clothes actually worked perfectly good with their personalities. In this show, it feels like they thought: oh yeah – let’s give the girl with the red hair only read clothes. Come on, why?
The storyline
Although I did recognize a lot from the original show, this live action takes another path. Bloom is still from earth and still adopted (no spoiler), but some other details have changed. Some for better, some for worse. I can’t give away too many details, or I will spoil the show for you. But it was quite interesting to see all the decisions they made. Most of them were chosen to make it a little darker – a little more Sabrina-ish. And that, I liked!
Guilty pleasure
I started watching the show on Friday evening. I have to be honest and tell you that it took a lot for me giving the show a chance. But I’m glad I did. Once I put aside the idea that it was a show based on the original Winx, I started to kind of like it. A LOT. It is super addictive, they made it more mysterious, more dark and there were a ton of plot twists. The show is full of lies, and that makes it super interesting. I will pray for some of the actors to be better in (hopefully) season 2, but over all I am (once again) here for it.
So in short: Fated: The Winx Saga is only loosely based on the original animation show. Once you’ve put that behind you, you’ll start to love all the scheming, the awkward romance and the dark magic that Netflix has introduced. I hope to see more magic in the next season, as we’ve only seen tiny parts of the girls’ power and the Other World. Netflix – please confirm season 2?!
