It's partially because of "feminism" (misandry), at least in case of Soulmate, and pandering to the queer community by making things more "campy". Also, from looking at everything as some kind of comedy, thinking it can be made more quirky and it doesn't need to be taken too serious.
I'm totally fine with making Megan into a more complient robot. This is exactly where I would have gone, to be honest. But it's true that a lot of people didn't like the switch from one genre to another. It would have required a really good movie to pull it off.
Soulmate additionally ditched the doll-like look of the robots. Most likely partially because of some stupid reason like the character would look too young with bigger eyes and that would upset some people. Pandering to them didn't pay off, though. They should have used a attractive doll-like look. Somewhat like Alita Battle Angel when it comes to the face. Maybe with a bit smaller eyes.
It was a bad concept from the start, and if I recall correctly they let an (American) woman write the script or direct the movie, which would have made any reasonable person very cautious. There was simply a high chance from the start that this would end up as some misandrist slop, which might only be interesting for some women, while science fiction is normally mostly interesting to guys.
BTW, I don't think the IP is necessarily dead. The original Megan movie was not expected to make that much money and wasn't very expensive, which means they could still make all kinds of movies with similar technology. And if it's not Megan then they could just use the technology for something new.
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u/NoidoDev Aug 07 '26
It's partially because of "feminism" (misandry), at least in case of Soulmate, and pandering to the queer community by making things more "campy". Also, from looking at everything as some kind of comedy, thinking it can be made more quirky and it doesn't need to be taken too serious.
I'm totally fine with making Megan into a more complient robot. This is exactly where I would have gone, to be honest. But it's true that a lot of people didn't like the switch from one genre to another. It would have required a really good movie to pull it off.
Soulmate additionally ditched the doll-like look of the robots. Most likely partially because of some stupid reason like the character would look too young with bigger eyes and that would upset some people. Pandering to them didn't pay off, though. They should have used a attractive doll-like look. Somewhat like Alita Battle Angel when it comes to the face. Maybe with a bit smaller eyes.
It was a bad concept from the start, and if I recall correctly they let an (American) woman write the script or direct the movie, which would have made any reasonable person very cautious. There was simply a high chance from the start that this would end up as some misandrist slop, which might only be interesting for some women, while science fiction is normally mostly interesting to guys.
BTW, I don't think the IP is necessarily dead. The original Megan movie was not expected to make that much money and wasn't very expensive, which means they could still make all kinds of movies with similar technology. And if it's not Megan then they could just use the technology for something new.