…or where “Hotel Transylvania 2” utterly fails. One big problem for quite some stories, in novels, in movies, or elsewhere, is that they have a clear message or something their main character definitely needs to learn, they work with it, they bring it to the forefront - and in the big climax, they just throw it away. That is what “Hotel Transylvania 2” does with Dracula’s arc and the big battle climax.
The first “Hotel Transylvania” was a good movie - not only ‘a good animated movie’ (an expression which for many holds the unspoken words ‘a good kid’s movie’), but a good movie in general. It presented a clear story, the characters (as far as they weren’t comic relief) were appropriately constructed to act out the story, and it had something to say about prejudices on all sides. Since the first movie ended with the marriage between Jonathan and Mavis - a human and Dracula’s daughter -, it stood to reason that the second movie would carry on with the story of them being married and be a family story again.
The conflict in the first movie is mostly between Dracula and Mavis with Jonathan being a catalyst of sorts - he’s the one who strengthens Mavis’ wish to go out and see the world. In the end, Dracula not only relents, but risks his health and life to bring Jonathan back to Mavis, accepting the human and respecting Mavis’ own wishes. While doing so, he also learns that humans no longer hate vampires and other monsters - he has fans who even help him reach the airport.
The conflict in the second movie is constructed around Jonathan’s and Mavis’ first child, Dennis. As the son of a human and a vampire, Dennis might or might not be a vampire himself, and Dracula, despite having come to terms with humans not being quite that bad, doesn’t want for his grandchild to be human. If Dennis doesn’t show any vampire powers by the time he’s reached his fifth birthday, he won’t get them at all, so in the weeks before that birthday, Dracula does all in his powers to ‘scare’ the vampire powers out of Dennis. Since this is both a children’s movie and a comedy, a series of shenanigans happens. On his fifth birthday, Dennis is still without powers and Dracula comes to term with his grandson being a human. He has learned that there are worse things than that and his beloved grandson will be his beloved grandson, no matter what. Then Dennis and his friend Wendy (one of the werewolf’s many children) get kidnapped, Wendy is injured while protecting Dennis, and Dennis turns into a super vampire immediately in control of all of his powers.
You see the problem with the description? Yes, it’s the last sentence. Without that, it would be a perfect story, but someone thought a great ‘huge bats against monsters and humans alike’ battle was what was missing from the story and put it in.
The story doesn’t need that battle. Apart from the conflict which comes from Dracula going against his daughter’s wishes, trying to turn his grandson into a vampire, there’s also a conflict between Dracula and his own father who despises humans far more than Dracula ever did. This, too, is resolved before the fight when Dracula stands up to his father, saying that his grandson is perfect the way he is - and his father relents. At this point, we could have had a great party for Dennis and, if he is supposed to be a vampire at all, perhaps a little hint, like a glint of small fangs as he smiles or a glow to the eye as he looks at the camera, that he actually does have those powers. Personally, I’d have gone with him being human and, perhaps, a younger brother or sister being a vampire. After all, nobody says Jonathan and Mavis can’t have more children.
Instead, a gigantic bat serving Dracula’s father kidnaps both Dennis and his best friend Wendy and when she tries to defend Dennis, she’s injured. Seeing her unconscious, Dennis tries to fight the bat himself and, during the fight, gains access to all of his powers at once, turning into some kind of super vampire. Earlier on, Dracula and his posse visited a summer camp for young vampires and we see how hard it is for them to control their powers - as we see in the first movie that it took Mavis ages to learn how to turn into a bat and fly. Not only does Dennis have vampire powers, he gets control of them all at once, which completely destroys the message that he’s okay the way he is, even if it’s not what other people - in this case his grandfather - wanted him to be.
The movie actually delivers a lot of subtle hints that both sides - Mavis’ and Jonathan’s families - have not yet fully accepted the couple. While Dracula wants a vampire for his grandson, Jonathan’s parents display the ‘I have nothing against X, some of my friends are X’ mindset behind which many people hide general prejudices.
Up to the battle, there are far more subtle ways this is turned around by Jonathan’s family meeting more monsters and by Dracula learning that his grandson is fine the way he is. Prejudices are laid to rest - when confronted by Dracula about his own hatred of humans, even Dracula’s father relents and accepts that his great-grandson is fine as a human, even joking that his own fangs are no longer his own now (fangs being one of the things Dennis should be sporting at five). This is such a nice way of tying everything together and the birthday party where humans and monsters have fun together could have served very well as the end of the conflict.
The battle wasn’t necessary, nor did it add to the story. It was merely someone thinking that there should be more action (although there was action before) and that a fight between huge bats and a team of humans and monsters was the best way to deliver it.
Learn from this and other bad stories. If you want to have a character learn something in a story or if you want to deliver a message, make sure the plot serves to highlight that, don’t let the plot actually destroy the message or undermine it. No matter what cool scene you can think up which would be great, if it interferes with the story you’ve told before, don’t add it - save it for another story where it fits better.
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