To say that Dora and the Lost City of Gold isn’t what anyone was expecting would be an understatement. Based on the popular Dora cartoons shown on Nickelodeon and Nick Jr, Dora’s big live-action debut is a fun, feel-good ride that’s perfect for kids and nostalgic for older viewers. But just because the movie is child-friendly doesn’t mean it’s saccharine, since Dora’s movie is actually filled with some unexpectedly crazy stuff.
While many of these jokes and references may fly over the heads of children in the audience, sharp-eyed viewers may not even need a second viewing to find something that will either have them laughing or raising their eyebrows. Here are the 10 craziest things we saw or were inferred in Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
Alejandro’s Mercenaries Are Probably Dead
The Lost City of Gold ends on a happy note, where the good guys win and the main bad guy is imprisoned for his actions. The thing is, while Alejandro’s life-sentence under the guards of Parapata is confirmed during the ending montage, the fate of his mercenaries isn’t shown.
During the climax, Alejandro calls his men but Parapata’s soldiers (armed with crossbows) enter the temple instead, implying that they took care of the mercenaries off-screen. The only conclusion that could be derived from their absence is that the guards killed the mercenaries, leaving Alejandro alone in his Incan prison.
Dora’s Parents Have Names
In The Lost City of Gold, Michael Peña and Eva Longoria portray Dora’s parents Cole and Elena. The two are professors and archeologists, and it’s obvious that Dora inherited her love of exploring from them. In fact, it’s their search for Parapata that gets the movie started.
This may not seem like much but for the longest time, Dora’s parents were never named and were rarely seen in the original cartoon’s earlier seasons. This led to many theories about the show’s supposed dark lore, with some suggesting that Dora either had neglectful parents or that they were dead all along.
Dora Talks To The Audience
Dora the Explorer is an educational cartoon meant for preschoolers that teaches fun lessons by interacting with its audience. Dora talking directly to the audience has been a source of humor, since addressing an “audience” in real life is just weird.
The Lost City of Gold provides an explanation for this, with Dora’s penchant for talking to no one being dismissed as a phase by her parents. When older, Dora talks to viewers by vlogging her adventures with a GoPro camera. The latter is more plausible and less disturbing than having Dora excitedly talk to thin air.
Dora’s Hallucination
Since The Lost City of Gold is a live-action movie, viewers who grew up with the show weren’t expecting the cartoon’s style to show up. Amazingly, the old animation does return but in the strangest way possible.
When Dora, Diego, and Alejandro find themselves in a field of strange giant flowers, they breathe in the plants’ spores and get high. Everything they hallucinate is shown in the style of the original cartoons, with all of Dora’s animal friends showing up to say hi. Even her backpack and map come to life, making the spore-fueled trip both nostalgic and surreal.
The Cartoons Are Canon
There are many theories about the original Dora the Explorer that reimagine her adventures as a dying dream or a child’s overactive imagination. The movie all but confirms the latter, just without the darker subtext that edgy online theorists love to put on innocent children’s entertainment.
This explains her talking animal friends and the silly scenarios they found themselves in. However, this also retcons Dora and Friends: Into the City! which stars a 10-year old Dora in the city with Diego, since it’s implied that Dora visits the city for the first time in the movie.
Swiper the Fox’s Existence
Dora’s classic arch-enemy, the mischievous Swiper the Fox, first appears in the movie during her imaginary adventures in the jungle. Since the movie is relatively grounded in reality, it would only make sense that Swiper was just one of Dora’s childhood creations.
Thing is, Swiper reappears later alongside the mercenaries and even interacts with everybody. The movie never explains the existence of a masked kleptomaniac fox that sounds like Codebreaker from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, unintentionally turning Swiper himself into one of the biggest mysteries during Dora’s search for the lost city of Parapata.
Boots’ Pep Talk
Since The Lost City of Gold is mostly realistic, Boots doesn’t talk at all, even if Dora understands what his monkey noises mean. That is until Dora doubts herself and Boots decides to give his best friend a pep talk… by speaking with Danny Trejo’s voice.
The scene comes right out of the blue, surprising both Dora and viewers. Though Trejo’s cameo was spoiled by the movie’s marketing, hearing the gravelly voice of Machete come out of a tiny blue monkey is still one of the weirdest things to be seen in a movie released in 2019.
Dora Makes Poop Jokes
For all the jokes the internet has made about her series, Dora is still cherished by older fans as one of the purest and most innocent cartoon characters around. So imagine their shock when her big live-action debut is littered with a liberal amount of poop and fart jokes.
Granted, the movie was made for pre-teens and teenagers, but it’s just weird hearing Dora cheerfully sing a “poop song” and casually talking about the natural act of mating. Especially when the ones ensuring their species’ survival are a pair of poisonous scorpions on top of Alejandro’s head.
Dora Grew Up Into A Badass
For older fans, Dora will always be the adorable six-year-old explorer with a big imagination. She’s still the same energetic girl in The Lost City of Gold, although she took the “explorer” part of her identity to a whole new level.
Now, Dora is a hardcore survivalist who can easily traverse a deadly jungle. Not only is she knowledgeable in survival techniques and ancient civilizations, but she’s also lethal with a yo-yo. The latter was proven after she knocked out a mercenary with said toy – which is apparently the second time it happened to the guy.
Dora Is Socially Inept
In her cartoons, it was cute whenever Dora sang or broke the fourth wall. In live-action, however, these habits are weird at best and obnoxious at worst. The Lost City of Gold shows just how strange Dora would be if she acted like a cartoon character in school.
This is justified by her lack of interaction with kids her age during her childhood spent in the jungle, making her eccentric behavior make a weird amount of sense. Curiously, none of this is shown as a negative trait and is simply something Dora outgrows while retaining her undying optimism.
