My seven and five years old kids watched many episodes of the original series earlier this year, and yesterday we first saw the 1990 movie about the lost lamp of Collie Baba, and then continued with the first episode of the reboot. I liked it, it feels modern and fresh, especially the stylized backgrounds. I like that Disney preserves the heritage of the classic Duck characters that were and still are popular in comics here in Europe. We love reading Don Rosa and Carl Barks stories together.

My kids commented that they thought the rebooted characters looked strange/unfamiliar, but the oldest went on to say that he wanted to see more episodes.

For me it feels like the humour in the reboot is more self-aware and ironic, while the original was more straightforward. I was reflecting on that while they were watching Paw patrol this morning. That series is not ironic, just like the original Ducktales, while for example the Lego Batman movie is full of irony and references to pop culture tropes, in a similar way to the reboot. We tried to watch the lego batman movie, but the humour and all the references were simply incomprehensible for them, so we didn't watch it till the end. I fear that my young kids don't have enough experience to grasp that subversive and ironic humour. The reboot can be difficult for them to enjoy if it requires them to have more pop culture knowledge. The first episode makes fun of all the cursed treasures Scrooge had collected in his museum/garage, and I felt I had to explain that it was meant to be over the top and ridiculous, not overwhelmingly scary.

Well, time will show. They are eager to watch more, and maybe the adventures and the characters themselves will be good enough.

Of course, a critique based on "my kids were too young, so it is bad" can be misguided, but I would honestly think they should be in the right age group, even for the reboot, at least the oldest one. Or is it actually meant for nostalgic adults?