(SPOILERS) The new Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has been highly anticipated, and highly theorized, which led to a sort of over-expectation (especially coming from Blumhouse in this context). I was personally looking forward to seeing how fan theories played out, and how cannon information was released. It was different than I was expecting, though it wasn’t unwelcome.
The first thing I noticed was the character choice and names. I was of course excited to see Mike Schmidt making the main character role. The storyline follows his journey as the security guard and his findings in the pizzeria. One main difference presented in the movie versus the games, is we see interaction between other humans and the animatronics. Specifically, Abby, who’s mentioned in the books. The animatronics are nice and friendly towards her in almost every instance, except for when Afton turns them against her.
The relationships between certain well-known characters don’t make sense in some respects. Vanessa being Afton’s daughter hasn’t been canon except for the movie, which isn’t necessarily set in stone. This would make Vanessa Cassidy’s sister, which hasn’t been talked about in detail enough.
Overall, the movie was great. I think they did a good job at paying respect to the games and the creator, but some creative liberties were taken to improve the entertainment quality of the movie. The entertainment quality could appeal to almost everybody, as the story is mostly contained in a singular movie.