When I heard that Winx Club — one of my former childhood obsessions — was going to be adapted into a live action show, I was not excited.

Ten seconds of the Fate: The Winx Saga teaser trailer only solidified my indifference. Bland costumes and monotone British accents under an angsty soundtrack made for yet another subversive and edgy adaptation of a childhood classic.

The past few years have seen a number of similar live action adaptations of beloved, lighthearted animated classics, such as the Archie comics and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Unfortunately, these adaptations all suffer from the same lack of original identity. The problem with these shows is not that they attempt to radically change the source material into something new; it is that they severely misunderstand their primary target audience — fans of the originals. These adaptations are uninspired and encapsulate a shallow reflection of what it means to be a member of Generation Z: jaded and pessimistic, leaving no room for these shows to have any other sort of character.

Generation Z is growing up exposed to a cruel world. From the U.S. War on Terror and the Great Recession, to the internet, social media and the pandemic, this generation has experienced everything necessary to become independent, disillusioned pragmatists. At least, that is the narrative propagated by major news publications like CBS and The New York Times. Setting aside the U.S. centric nature of this view, it is crucial to note that this oversimplification of generational identity, while rooted in kernels of truth, reduces and normalizes the idea of jadedness as a casual personality trait. This perception of Generation Z is significant because it is used as a framework by entertainment platforms that create and curate content for the youth.

This is happening, at least, for live action adaptations. In a 2019 interview, Winx Club creator Iginio Straffi noted how the new show is “edgier and darker than what [fans of the original] can imagine after being used to the colorful world of Winx. The target is clearly young adults,” highlighting how the darker mold is meant to align with the generation that grew up watching the original. This is not a direction isolated to Fate: The Winx Saga. Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa also discussed how an Archie TV show evolved from a “being a coming-of-age show to a loss-of-innocence show” in an attempt to achieve popularity with their intended audience.

They acted on their promises: within the first 10 minutes, all three shows featured death under a dark, moody aesthetic. Fate: The Winx Saga and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina open with a gory murder, and Riverdale with a presumed death. Sure, murder is gripping and often leads to good television, but these repetitive, shocking and baiting openings feel so detached from the source materials to the point of being predictable and boring. Once again, it feels like a flat attempt to appeal to the presumed edginess of Generation Z, despite the fact that they are the same people who absorbed and loved the more upbeat source material. Why do the colorful fashions of Winx Club and bubblegum milkshakes of the Archie comics have to default into live action angsty gloom?

Both show creators were not wrong about the potential for these shows to attain popularity, as Riverdale is already in its fifth season and Fate: The Winx Saga snagged the top spot on Netflix’s top shows list. However, these shows fail to appeal to the fans of the original source materials, because they choose to capitalize off of a generational aesthetic of cynicism at the cost of originality. After I watched the Fate: The Winx Saga trailer, I got a barrage of video recommendations from Winx Club fans lamenting the remake’s dull, gritty aesthetic and thinly veiled attempt of being generic and angsty enough to sell. An interesting consensus from all these videos is how not many people find the darkness gripping and relatable. There seems to be a growing standard in television where darkness is equated to realism and lightness to escapism. However, this equivalence is not convincing. Life is not always serious, traumatic and intense. Often, it is fun and colorful. What Generation Z could use is that reminder in the entertainment industry, instead of the lackluster works that profit off of a generation’s desensitization to suffering.

Ultimately, as someone who grew up with the original material, these remakes tragically underwhelmed me and ruined my enjoyment of the 47 Archie comics I have stashed away on my bookshelf. The originals are by no means masterpieces, and can potentially be recreated for the better, but that opportunity was missed in favor of a grittier. Above all, through their dark aesthetic, these remakes fail to reflect the nuance of their target audience’s generation.