There are a lot of interesting characters in The Legend of Zelda franchise. That is one of the reasons that people love coming back to various versions of Hyrule and its neighboring lands, as there’s always someone new to meet and have fun interacting with. To that end, one of the oddest and most “unique” creatures/beings we meet in those games is Tingle. Yes, the man who “wants to be a fairy more than anything” is something of an…acquired taste, and yet, he’s appeared in many games in the franchise. Could The Legend of Zelda Movie be next on that list? His creator sure hopes so.
If you didn’t know, Takaya Imamura was the man who created the design for Tingle and was with Nintendo until 2021. Tingle made many appearances during his time in the company and even had Japan-only games starring him! No, really, they made games starring Tingle. Yeah, it was weird. Anyway, in an interview with VGC, Imamura talked about Tingle’s time in the franchise, why we haven’t seen him recently, and whether he would be in the upcoming live-action movie:
“The Zelda movie has been announced, so I’m really curious as to whether Tingle is going to be in that or not. From my perspective, I would really love him to appear.”
So, he’s clearly on board with it. The question then becomes, who would play him?
“Masi Oka. You know the TV series Heroes? The Japanese character who goes ‘yatta!’, I’d like him to do it.”
That might sound like an “odd choice,” but you need to remember that Tingle’s whole “arc,” if you will, is that he’s a grown man who is dressed up in a fairy costume and wants nothing more than to be a true fairy. It gets a bit wilder in his solo titles, but we won’t delve into those too much.
So, should we see Tingle in The Legend of Zelda Movie? Honestly, that might be funny, but it could be seen as a bit of a “fan service” that doesn’t help the film. After all, if you have a film that is less than two hours, and you need to cram a whole game’s worth of story into it, are you really going to have time to focus on a man who wants to be a fairy? Now, as a cutaway gag? Sure, that could work. Anything deeper could cause problems for the film, though.
In the end, it’s up to the director, who has been rather mum recently on what the film will be like.
