Netflix takes on the Italian cartoon series Winx Club with their live action remake called Fate: The Winx Saga. Many were excited yet nervous about what type of show Netflix would adapt from the classic 2000s series, and many were disappointed with the results.

The series definitely had the potential to become an amazing live action version of the cartoon, but Netflix disappoints with their version. I was sad to see that the cartoon I grew up watching has been turned into a complete mess compared to the original series.

Fate: The Winx Saga follows Bloom (Abigail Cowen) on her journey at the Alfea school for fairies, a magical boarding school that trains high school aged students all over the Otherworld. She meets her group of friends and learns more about her unknown heritage, leading to dark secrets being revealed as she gets closer to the truth.

Like Netflix’s many other live action adaptations, they decided to take on the “mature and darker” approach to the original light-hearted and colorful cartoon, making longtime fans like myself angry that we have to experience yet another show like the remakes Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The show is unable to achieve its own distinct look, making it look like every other Netflix-made show.

There is also the issue of white-washing two of the main characters from the original cartoon, Musa and Flora, whose original designs were inspired by Lucy Liu and Jennifer Lopez. Flora isn’t even a character in the Netflix series, as she’s been replaced by another earth fairy named Terra (Eliot Salt). Although she adds body diversity into the cast, the character is treated like a joke, making the casting rather pointless. 

The show has an interesting plot, with a proper amount of worldbuilding and the creation of a completely new angle to the magical school storyline. The plot focuses on the gap the older generations have created with the younger generations of fairies in order to protect them.

However, the characters are extremely unlikeable, making it hard to enjoy the show. The main friend group of Fate: The Winx Saga shows the group of girls being pitted against each other for no apparent reason. This is completely different compared to the tight-knit group always having each other’s backs in the original show. Instead of showing how women can be friends with one another and build each other up, the show doesn’t do a good job of writing a natural friendship between the characters. 

As someone who grew up with the show, I wish they had kept some of the brighter elements of the original, instead of making everything more “mature” in an effort to appeal to older audiences. I do think that the show would be much better had it not been announced as a Winx Club remake, since that made viewers have the expectation that it will be just like the original, which unfortunately is never the case with remakes.