Remember When The Used To Make Cartoons About Movies?
During the eighties and ninties it used to be that no hit movie could exist without getting an animated spin off.
Some of them were pretty terrible like Ghost Busters or Beetlejuice. But other shows had terrific writing and became something of their own rather than just a short lived spin-off.
Men In Black is a great example, so is Batman The Animated Series.
It took the premise created by the film and took it to new levels, with a series they could become more intimate with the audience, exploring all sorts of scenarious with the characters. As a cartoon they could do things that just wouldn't work in live action.
I miss them, cartoons don't seem to get that respect anymore. Movie based cartoons are few and far between, The Invincible Iron Man was released earlier this year to preceed the live action movie coming out next year.
Transformers is getting an animated series but it's terrible beyond words.
Batman Begins is getting an anime movie but I'm not really a fan of anime.
And most original cartoons aren't that "original" either, I think the only good cartoons around now are Ben 10, Venture Bros and Dethklok.