Little did we know the travesty against the franchise's good name we were about to witness. Peter Hewitt's Garfield: The Movie is a complete butchering of one of the most popular comics of our generation, so much so that I refused to even discuss it for years after. Sixteen years, to be exact, but I'm finally ready to break my silence. Someone has to do it. We've been quiet for too long, people. Here are seven things GTM got completely wrong about America's favorite fat cat.

... is much closer to Garfield's face in the comics ...

OG s**t.

... than what we see in the film.

Garfield: The Movie
I wouldn't even wish a face that dumb on Heathcliff fans.

To be completely honest, I found staring at the poster and wondering what a great Garfield movie would be like far more satisfying than watching the huge pile of garbage we eventually got. It's not just his face that looks weird, either ...

He may look a little extra floof in the promo picture above, but that's just because he's being cuddled. I'm the one who needed cuddling the first time I saw his gaunt frame in GTM, though.

Garfield: The Movie
Is this movie set in a lasagna-less dystopian future?

I worried that maybe he was sick, to be completely honest. I'd stop short of even calling that plump, much less fat. Hey studio execs: Not every star needs to be 12 pounds thinner than when you found them. Given how much Garfield hates diets (second only to Mondays: issue #2148) I think we can safely say that the cat himself would have hated his slim-down in this movie. Two paws way down.

Garfield started walking on his hind legs in 1981, due to a collaboration between creator Jim Davis and godfather of comics Charles Schulz. Does Peter Hewitt know better than Schulz? If so, I'd loooooove to see him create a multi-decade, internationally beloved comic strip/Christmas special. Well, we're all waiting, Mr. Hewitt!

Furthermore, the up-to-date reader of Garfield will notice that Jon has had a girlfriend for approximately one month since the character was created in 1978: Liz. Jon successfully kisses her once during this period, but this period is in 2006, well after the release of GTM. So, not only does GTM give us a Jon who kisses, that perversion of the character leaks back into the original source material like Nermal coming back from Abu Dhabi. Just one more reason to hate this abomination.

Compare that to one of the original characters we love, like Odie, who is a dumb dog; Jon, who is a sad man; or Liz, who is a mean lady. Gee, I wonder why they would force a bunch of extra, flimsy characters into the script. Could it be to sell more toys?!

ebay.com
Absolutely pathetic.

This was such an obvious and insulting cash grab that I almost didn't buy them. Also, the Stephen Tobolowsky action figure is poorly constructed.

Did we really need Garfield dangling out a 14th-floor window? Did we need him scrambling around air ducts, risking his life like a dumb dog? I think not.

Garfield: The Movie
Faaaaaaaaake!

What CGI allowed Peter Hewitt to do was to have Garfield having daring adventures outside the house, all around town. I've got news for Peter Hewitt: That's a Heathcliff movie. This proves that he misunderstands the Garfield property at its very core. Far less distracting than a CGI Garfield would have been simply dressing Bill Murray up in a full-body Garfield costume and creating a giant house set so that he looked cat-sized.

The errors go on and on: In this so-called Garfield movie, he moves around a ton for a notoriously lazy cat, he talks to himself instead of thinking to himself (did the director even read a single comic?), Odie's tongue isn't the same size as his body, and Arlene is a normal cat rather than a bright pink Guillermo del Toro-style nightmare creature with enormous teeth and eyes that take up half her head.

This is what a Garfield love interest must look like, no exceptions.

One wonders how Peter Hewitt could have messed up a comic so perfectly suited for the big screen (movies have three acts, and Garfield usually has three panels: HELLO??). Perhaps a British director just can't tap in to the quintessentially American spirit of Garfield. Perhaps Peter Hewitt just got the job because he's in some way related to Jennifer Love Hewitt. I don't know the answers. But I do know two things. One, we true fans can only hope that the franchise rights revert to Jim Davis so that we can reboot with the movie that Garfield deserves. Two, this film should have been released on a Monday.

Aaron Kheifets is an occasionally mustachioed comedian, writer, and director. You are allowed to follow him on Twitter, watch his videos, and look at his website.

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