By shifting to the world of animation, Netflix’s upcoming Tomb Raider TV show can improve upon Lara Croft’s poor big screen adventures. One of the most iconic video game characters of all time, Lara Croft’s console career charts a course of dizzying highs and woeful lows. Tomb Raider II, for example, remains one of the strongest action-adventure games in PlayStation history, but Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness on the PS2 is an unfinished mess. Fortunately, Lara’s recent efforts have reinvented Britain’s most famous crypt-meddler. Launching in 2013, the trilogy of Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider has reestablished Lara as video game royalty.
The same can’t be said of Lara as a film star. Angelina Jolie fronted two Tomb Raider movies in 2001 and 2003, and while the sequel is generally considered an improvement, neither captured the qualities that endeared Lara to fans’ hearts as a PlayStation character. Alicia Vikander took over the iconic green vest for a 2018 reboot that found itself occupying more or less the same lukewarm waters as Angelina Jolie 15 years prior. A sequel to the Vikander movie is supposedly still in the works, but Netflix is now officially developing an animated TV series that follows the latest games, picking up after Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
While Hollywood hopes it’ll be “fourth time lucky” in the ongoing attempt to make a decent Lara Croft movie, the future looks brighter for the Netflix anime, with the Tomb Raider world far better suited to animation than live-action. The Angelina Jolie movies boil Tomb Raider down to generic action fare, and the supernatural fun that made Lara’s early games so appealing comes across as silly in live-action. Whether it’s Italian mobsters transforming into dragons or the resurrection of ancient biblical beasts, the Tomb Raider games inspire a sense of awe and wonder, but after transitioning to the silver screen, Lara was diluted into a budget Indiana Jones. The 2018 movie reboot followed the video games into grittier territory, but where digital Lara remains the absolute focus of her world, some reviews claimed Alicia Vikander was too often pushed to the side.
![Why Tomb Raider Is Better As An Animated TV Series Than A Movie](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Alicia-Vikander-in-the-Tomb-Raider-movie-reboot-e1521032407981.jpg)
Animation can help solve these issues. By eschewing live-action, the Netflix series is free to dive as hard as it likes into Tomb Raider‘s paranormal elements, since scenes that risk coming across hokey in a real world setting can be brought to life confidently and vividly through animation. Meanwhile, the TV format will keep Lara firmly at the heart of the story, ensuring things don’t devolve into a constant barrage of action devoid of the world-building and character work that first developed Lara into a fascinating video game character. Where Tomb Raider movies feel obliged to maintain a relentlessly frantic pace, a multi-part animated series can explore the light and dark.
Despite iffy responses to their Tomb Raider movies, both Jolie and Vikander received praise, but casting Lara Croft is a delicate business. The Netflix Tomb Raider series avoids that problem altogether by continuing the journey of a pre-existing Lara who fans are already very familiar with, and has already proved immensely popular. Since introductions are out of the way, the animated series can copy Tomb Raider‘ games by jumping straight to the heart of the story without building the character from scratch.
The great paradox of video game movies is that games offer an escape from reality, but live-action movies demand more realism. In pixel form, Lara’s world is inherently illogical, with her infinite supply of pistol ammo, all-purpose medi-kits and ability to make fearless, death-defying leaps. By necessity, Hollywood has tried to make Tomb Raider make sense, but hasn’t yet done so without chipping away at what makes the character interesting. Animation exists somewhere between the two, allowing Lara more creative license than a live-action film, but honoring logic more than the average video game.