A Troll in Central Park
An animated film made by Don Bluth.
Stanley is a weird troll. He is kind, he is gentle, he loves flowers, and he has a literal Green Thumb that makes plants (talking, dancing, singing plants, to boot!) grow wherever he touches. As punishment, instead of just turning him to stone, the queen of the trolls decides to banish him to a place that is a nature lover's worst nightmare -- New York City! While hiding out in Central Park, he meets a boy and his little sister and takes them on an adventure that's 50% Tastes Like Diabetes and 50% Nightmare Fuel.
All in all, a very strange ride.
The film had a budget of $23,000,000 and only grossed $71,368 domestically, which is less than a third of 1% of its budget. It currently holds 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Tropes used in A Troll in Central Park include:
- 0% Approval Rating: Apparently what starts happening to Gnorga and Llort when the trolls learn of Stanley's punishment failing.
- Alliteration: Whoever writes the headlines for the "Wursta Times" is fond of this trope.
- Aerith and Bob: Gnorga, Llort... and Stanley?
- All Trolls Are Different - This one can make magical flowers grow.
- Exclusively Evil: Trolls besides Stanley and perhaps the King
- And I Must Scream: The final fate of Gnorga, who is turned into a rose bush by Stanley and planted in the palace garden in Troll World. Also happens to a bat she turns to stone during her Villain Song, despite the film clearly stating that being turned to stone is equivalent to death.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: The trolls celebrate Gnorga's defeat at the end of the movie, including her husband.
- Anti-Villain: King Llort is a Villain in Name Only.[but how?]
- Applied Phlebotinum - Stanley's Thumb apparently can do ANYTHING in this movie if he can dream hard enough.
- Ax Crazy: Gnorga.
- Badass: Also Gnorga. No, really. Or as close as you'll get to one in a movie like this.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: The mindset of every troll except Stanley and perhaps the King.
- Beam-O-War: A Thumb War, actually.
- Big Applesauce: New York was supposed to be the one place Stanley couldn't possibly enjoy himself.
- Big Damn Hero: Stanley, who saves Rosie via his flying boat just before the final battle.
- Captain Obvious: "Punishment isn't supposed to be nice! It's supposed to be punishing!"
- Card-Carrying Villain: Gnorga
- Changed My Mind, Kid: When Stanley appears to save Gus at the end.
- Completely Missing the Point:
Gnorga: "Worse than death? Slow and painful?! Does that look like MISERY to you?"
Llort: "It looks nice, very nice, don't you think so, shnooksie poo?"
Gnorga: "Yes, I think so! That's precisely what's WRONG, YOU MORON!!!"
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience/Dark Is Evil/Light Is Good: Stanley is easily the lightest-coloured of all the trolls in the film.
- Conspicuous CGI: The puppet theater from BLAM mentioned above.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment - Stanley's exile
- Deliberately Cute Child: Rosie, ye Gods. She's also Cute but Cacophonic.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When Gnorga finds out that Stanley is happy in New York, she goes OUT OF HER WAY to travel to Earth and turn him to stone like she wanted to in the first place. Handwaved by a newspaper article stating that Stanley's surprisingly soft sentence has caused Gnorga and Llort to lose their authority in the eyes of the people.
- Disney Acid Sequence: Which actually manages to take up quite a sizeable chunk of the entire movie.
- Disney Death: Rosie, in style of Disney Villain Death
- The Ditz: Llort
- Everythings Nuttier With Squirrels: A small squirrel Stanley meets has a minor subplot.
- Evil Is Hammy: Gnorga, oh so very much. This trope is her entire personality.
- Evil Laugh: Gnorga does this constantly.
- Evil Overlooker: Gnorga and Llort on the poster pictured here. They're less prominent in the image than most examples, though.
- It feels delicious to be so vicious!: Gnorga says this during her Villain Song.
- Fat and Skinny: Gnorga and Llort, respectively.
- Fake American: The parents, who for some reason are voiced by none other than Jonathan Pryce and Hayley Mills. They don't do a very good job of it.
- Fate Worse Than Death: What Llort inaccurately insists Stanley's exile to Earth would be.
- Fill It With Flowers: This is Stanley's dream.
- For the Evulz: Again, Gnorga
- God Save Us From the Queen: Even her husband celebrates her demise.
- Green Aesop: Apparently the entire world should be covered in flowers and plants, whether the rest of the world likes it or not.
- Green Thumb: Stanley, literally. Gus at the end.
- Inverted with the other trolls: their thumbs turn stuff into stone
- Gross Up Close-Up: "What do we have HERE?"
- Hanging Judge: Inverted by Llort, who, for no apparent reason, goes to great lengths to prevent Stanley from being turned to stone.
- Heel Face Turn: Gnorga briefly mentions being afraid that other trolls might do this if she doesn't make an example of Stanley
- Heel Face Revolving Door: Llort. Throughout the film he seems to be against killing or stoning anybody, but instead suggests a Fate Worse Than Death for Stanley. In the middle he does everything he can to stop Gnorga from going to Central Park to kill Stanley, but once they get there he actively helps her capture the children. And at the very end, he seems to be happy that his wife has basically been killed.
- Henpecked Husband: Llort, the King of the Trolls.
- Hufflepuff House: Gnorga mentions a "Goblin Ville" and "Gremlin Land" in addition to Troll World. Hell, Troll World itself counts, since the first ten minutes take place in it and it is never seen again apart from Gnorga's bedroom.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Implied by Llort's speech but never actually used.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Llort.
- Inferred Holocaust: The movie ends with all of New York being engulfed in vines and flowers. It's meant to be heartwarming, but ends up looking like some sort of supervillain takeover, or a scene right out of Life After People.
- "...you'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower..."
- So nobody else assumed this was another crazy dream sequence?
- Irony: Albeit very subtle irony. Before Gnorga is about to exile Stanley to New York, King Llort encourages her by saying, "Just think about what they'll say about you in the newspapers!" Later in the film, Gnorga is reading a newspaper with headlines reading, "SURPRISINGLY SOFT SENTENCE FOR STANLEY."
- "I Want" Song:
"Somewhere That's Green""Absolutely Green", actually. That one's a different story entirely.- Although both stories end with plants completely covering a major metropolitan city.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gus is, to be frank, a brat. However, he does care for his sister, and goes to rescue her from Gnorga even when Stanley is too scared to help.
- Karma Houdini: In a way, Llort, who becomes the acting ruler of Troll World at the end of the film, despite being entirely responsible for all the chaos that has happened (if not for him, Gnorga would have simply "Stoned" Stanley). He still gets bitten by the dog, but that's nothing new.
- Karmic Transformation: Gnorga is turned into a flower bush. She also briefly turns Gus into a Troll.
- Lighter and Softer: Arguably the lightest and softest film Don Bluth has ever made.
- Lonely Rich Kids - Gus and Rosie (particularly the former)
- Lovable Coward: Stanley until near the end.
- Magic Mirror: Gnorga's crystal lets her spy on anyone and zoom in on the sounds of children crying.
- Market-Based Title: Named Stanley's Magic Garden in international releases.
- Mood Whiplash: The sickeningly saccharine dream sequences that suddenly change into horror as Gnorga attacks to destroy Stanley's joy.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much
- No Accounting for Taste: Gnorga and Llort.
- No Ontological Inertia: Stanley's "Dreamboat" gradually disappearing as he turns to stone, and Gnorga's tornado magically taking away her and Llort when she is completely turned into a rose bush.
- "No Respect" Guy: Llort.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The parents are voiced by British actors and it's pretty easy to tell.
- Place Worse Than Death: What Llort insists Earth will be for Stanley.
- Punch Clock Villain: Llort
- Punny Headlines: The newspaper in the troll world is called the "Wursta Times".
- Psychopathic Manchild: Gnorga.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Used to ridiculous extremes when Gnorga and Llort not only go to Earth personally to kill Stanley, but do not bring any other trolls whatsoever.
- Running Gag: Gnorga's dog keeps biting Llort.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In at least one point, Stanley refers to troll powers as "prestidigitation" instead of "magic." This is even an inaccurate use, since prestidigitation refers to stage magic and not supernatural powers.
- Actually does make sense when you consider Stanley was trying to emphasize that Gnorga's magic is much more powerful than his.
- "Prestidigitation" is derived from the word for "finger"...perhaps it's meant to be a too-subtle pun?
- Sdrawkcab Name: "Llort" is of roughly the same subtlety as "Nilbog."
- Social Services Does Not Exist: The parents leave their kids with the housekeeper expecting her to babysit them. Housekeepers aren't babysitters.
- Screwed by the Studio: According to the IMDB trivia. Gary Goldman stated that the movie did so poorly at the box office was the fact that it was released without any promotion, and that release was limited.
- Spoiled Brat: Gus. A rich kid with a nasty temper, whom the Queen describes as being troll-like. He does grow out of it though.
- Stealth Pun: The newspaper Gnorga reads is named "Wursta Times."
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Llort whenever he tries to reason with Gnorga.
- The Napoleon: Gnorga, and how!
- The Stoner: Stanley's squirrel friend looks like this...
- Sugar Bowl: The movie REALLY loves flowers and dreams and stuff.
- Sugar Apocalypse: When Gnorga comes to Earth and destroys Central Park.
- Taken for Granite: Gnorga has a Black thumb that can turn anything into stone.
- Transformation Trauma: Gus getting turned into a troll, Stanley getting slowly turned to stone.
- The bat turned into stone by Gnorga seems to have felt quite a bit of pain...
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gus gives one to Stanley.
- The Renaissance Age of Animation
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Inverted; Llord is probably the least ugly male troll in the movie, while Gnorga...
- Reinverted considering how trolls see the world - she is probably quite a catch, while he....
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight - Near the end of the movie, Gus's father doesn't seem all that surprised when he sees his son sitting on the steps with a really detailed stone statue of a sad troll.
- The entire city gets overgrown with plants, without much notice.
- Gus's first reaction to seeing the troll and the dancing flowers: "This is weird".
- You'd think that there'd be more of a fuss over Central Park being completely devastated.
- Vile Villain Saccharine Show: Gnorga, compared to the rest of the film.
- Villain Song: "Queen of Mean"
- World-Healing Wave: At the end.
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