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matt_zimmerAlso reviews for the season finale of The Barbarian And The Troll, and the latest episodes of Spidey And His Amazing Friends Shorts, and Muppet Babies.
Pacific Rim: The Black "From The Shadows"
It is only the first episode and things like this can change. But I can make an easy prediction: I am not going to like this show. Is this what all Netflix tie-in cartoons are to big franchises? Vastly inferior kiddie versions? First Jurassic World, now this.
I don't want to spend all day griping at that (it hasn't earned it yet) but I'll point out the two biggest problems and why I think the show is gonna suck, and are why I think the first episode was awful.
1. The animation is terrible. The computer generated 2-D combo has looked absolutely awful since the MTV Spider-Man cartoon introduced it, and it's basically the ONLY CGI animation technique that has never improved in the meantime. It must be a cost-saving method, because the results are terrible to look at. The colors of the moving characters in actions scenes are all dark and muddy, and the dullness of the colors almost always makes it difficult, if not impossible, to correctly read the action on the screen as it's happening. For a cartoon based on Pacific Rim of all things? That is a freaking deal-breaker! I don't even CARE about the monster battles, and even I know this specific medium cannot sustain that specific premise.
2. I'm not saying any of the actors from the films are going to win Oscars (and neither were the scripts) but the characters there each had distinct personalities and brushed up against each other in a superficially fun way at least. There was also very many humorous moments. These kids are emo drips and the story is deadly serious and no fun. The actual plot is slow-moving and boring. It's everything I feared the movies would be before I saw them and was relieved to find out they weren't.
I don't feel much like going further beyond that for this episode because any other flaws I noticed are certainly going to be recurring, and maybe something better brought up in an episode featuring them more heavily. I will say I liked exactly one thing. Hayley says at the end that it's all her fault and she got all those people killed. I like that her brother Taylor refuses to deny it to make her feel better. I think her brother is an emo twerp. But the fact that he's not giving her cover for such a costly mistake that killed everyone in their current lives they care about says that he may be a drip, but he's not a worthless one. He's probably earned his drippiness along the way at some point.
But the rest of the episode was outright awful. *.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Into The Black"
This explored an interesting idea about the Drift that I sort of wish the movie had talked about. But knowing every person's secrets is not necessarily a good thing. You will also know all of their embarrassing thoughts and faults, and as Hayley learned here, might learn that the person doesn't actually like you or blames you for something. Remember "The Drift works both ways" so if you get the good with understanding a person, you also get the bad. I don't much like this series (and I didn't much like the episode) but I like that idea.
Curious about the guy on the Pacific Corp posters. Something tells me he'll come up again.
Better than the first episode, but I still didn't like it much. Still slow, boring, and badly animated. **.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Bogan"
That was... unpleasant. *1/2.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Up And Running"
It was better. But the problem is that Mei is such an unlikable character that she is hard to root for.
But this was the first good(ish) episode. ***.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Escaping Bogan"
I didn't like the ending, but everything else was good.
I'll tell you why Shane is losing. He's all stick, all the time. Somebody disappoints him? Kill them. He has no good people left because the best committed the unforgivable sin of not being perfect. That's no way to manage a team of people, heroes or villains. And the reason he's boned is that he has no friends left or people who WANT to be loyal to him. Why should they? After all Joel sacrificed for him, that's what he got. And if he hadn't sentenced the kids to death, they could have worked this out and he might even have gotten what he wanted. It's the fact that he's asking regular people to do monstrous sociopathic things which is why he's getting pushback and people leaving.
No lie. If Richter hadn't be killed, he still would have had a shot. Two sociopaths are double the trouble. Now? As the ending shows Shane can still do a lot of damage, but he has no prayer of either winning or getting what he wants. Simply because he is bad at his job. ****.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Boneyard"
This being set seemingly so far past Uprising makes me very concerned about the state of the Earth for any upcoming movies. Unless the series isn't canon. It might not be. Guillermo del Toro has nothing to do with it. It can probably be easily ignored if there's another film.
No guesses from me about about Boy's deal at this stage of the game. I'd probably be wrong.
Pretty good. ***.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Showdown"
We sure it was the Precursor who created the Boy / Kaiju? If it was, Boy probably wouldn't be as loyal to Taylor and Hayley as he is.
Can he switch back to human form? The half-Kaiju ninjas at the end suggest he can.
I think this season was too short and ended too abruptly. It's nice we're getting another season and continuation but I feel this season itself is very unsatisfying leaving things here. ***.
The Barbarian And The Troll "Come Together"
Because it's puppets, the action in the climax doesn't land properly. But even though it's puppets, the pathos still does, so I'm good.
"Hellion" is okay on Nickelodeon puppet shows.
Not sure how I feel about Sharona being queen but I'd rather it was her than Brendar.
I like Brendar's brother saying he was on a quest for his own personality. Good dig at himself and the writers there.
When Horace mentioned he had two left feet and was missing a toe in the recap, I thought it would come up more, but he just mentioned he was missing a toe to the Swamp Queen once.
Here is something good and bad. I will be very shocked if this show gets a renewal and a second season. I am not sure, but no matter if it's ratings are good or bad, there is a LARGE chance they are terrible with kids. Kids of the age who are into Nickelodeon? There might be a stigma attached to watching a puppet show. They might immediately believe it's for babies and turn their noses up at it. That's why all of Henson's various tries at kids puppet shows with an actual narrative like "Brats of the Lost Nebula" bombed so quickly. I could be wrong. Kids today may have more sophisticated tastes than my generation, and might not immediately dismiss the show based on the medium. And truthfully, when I was a teenager, Dinosaurs was a big hit with kids my age too. So it's not out of the question.
But I still think a renewal is unlikely. So I'm very happy the season finale was relatively satisfying, and left us off on a good place. If there isn't anymore (and I don't think there will be) I think that's a pretty good stopping point. I will not be pulling out my hair over the lost opportunities. The show is great. But it might be a little TOO great to be popular with kids, who tend to actually really only respond to stuff of a MUCH lower quality in the writing. We'll see. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. But I appreciate the producers not screwing us over with a cliffhanger if it IS canceled. If it is, I'm happy with how things turned out. ****1/2.
Meet Spidey And His Amazing Friends "Rock-A-Bye Rhino"
Spin's powers are cool. ***1/2.
Meet Spidey And His Amazing Friends "Stop Doc Ock"
Didn't dig it.
I'll tell you why. Doc Ock calling herself evil hits my ear and my brain wrong. Everything I've learned about telling stories over the years is that you should almost NEVER have a villain do that. You get someone as self-aware as the Operative in Serenity, that's fine for him to describe himself as a monster, but almost all other types of villains believe they are the heroes of their own stories. This specific short tells me there is going to be something major about the series I don't like. Its views of morality and good and evil will be just as messed up as the cartoons from my youth, if thankfully much less violent. *.
Muppet Babies "Sam And The Skyscraper / Animal Too Loud"
Sam And The Skyscraper:
It's not every Muppet project that has Sam the Eagle repent and apologize at the end. This show is weird. ***1/2.
Animal Too Loud:
Reality check: In a real library? Statler and Waldorf would be considered FAR more ill-mannered than Animal and the Babies. If you are too loud in a library, you get shushed. You go to sleep in a library, you get kicked out. Don't ask me how I know that. ***.
Episode Overall: ***1/2.
Pacific Rim: The Black "From The Shadows"
It is only the first episode and things like this can change. But I can make an easy prediction: I am not going to like this show. Is this what all Netflix tie-in cartoons are to big franchises? Vastly inferior kiddie versions? First Jurassic World, now this.
I don't want to spend all day griping at that (it hasn't earned it yet) but I'll point out the two biggest problems and why I think the show is gonna suck, and are why I think the first episode was awful.
1. The animation is terrible. The computer generated 2-D combo has looked absolutely awful since the MTV Spider-Man cartoon introduced it, and it's basically the ONLY CGI animation technique that has never improved in the meantime. It must be a cost-saving method, because the results are terrible to look at. The colors of the moving characters in actions scenes are all dark and muddy, and the dullness of the colors almost always makes it difficult, if not impossible, to correctly read the action on the screen as it's happening. For a cartoon based on Pacific Rim of all things? That is a freaking deal-breaker! I don't even CARE about the monster battles, and even I know this specific medium cannot sustain that specific premise.
2. I'm not saying any of the actors from the films are going to win Oscars (and neither were the scripts) but the characters there each had distinct personalities and brushed up against each other in a superficially fun way at least. There was also very many humorous moments. These kids are emo drips and the story is deadly serious and no fun. The actual plot is slow-moving and boring. It's everything I feared the movies would be before I saw them and was relieved to find out they weren't.
I don't feel much like going further beyond that for this episode because any other flaws I noticed are certainly going to be recurring, and maybe something better brought up in an episode featuring them more heavily. I will say I liked exactly one thing. Hayley says at the end that it's all her fault and she got all those people killed. I like that her brother Taylor refuses to deny it to make her feel better. I think her brother is an emo twerp. But the fact that he's not giving her cover for such a costly mistake that killed everyone in their current lives they care about says that he may be a drip, but he's not a worthless one. He's probably earned his drippiness along the way at some point.
But the rest of the episode was outright awful. *.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Into The Black"
This explored an interesting idea about the Drift that I sort of wish the movie had talked about. But knowing every person's secrets is not necessarily a good thing. You will also know all of their embarrassing thoughts and faults, and as Hayley learned here, might learn that the person doesn't actually like you or blames you for something. Remember "The Drift works both ways" so if you get the good with understanding a person, you also get the bad. I don't much like this series (and I didn't much like the episode) but I like that idea.
Curious about the guy on the Pacific Corp posters. Something tells me he'll come up again.
Better than the first episode, but I still didn't like it much. Still slow, boring, and badly animated. **.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Bogan"
That was... unpleasant. *1/2.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Up And Running"
It was better. But the problem is that Mei is such an unlikable character that she is hard to root for.
But this was the first good(ish) episode. ***.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Escaping Bogan"
I didn't like the ending, but everything else was good.
I'll tell you why Shane is losing. He's all stick, all the time. Somebody disappoints him? Kill them. He has no good people left because the best committed the unforgivable sin of not being perfect. That's no way to manage a team of people, heroes or villains. And the reason he's boned is that he has no friends left or people who WANT to be loyal to him. Why should they? After all Joel sacrificed for him, that's what he got. And if he hadn't sentenced the kids to death, they could have worked this out and he might even have gotten what he wanted. It's the fact that he's asking regular people to do monstrous sociopathic things which is why he's getting pushback and people leaving.
No lie. If Richter hadn't be killed, he still would have had a shot. Two sociopaths are double the trouble. Now? As the ending shows Shane can still do a lot of damage, but he has no prayer of either winning or getting what he wants. Simply because he is bad at his job. ****.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Boneyard"
This being set seemingly so far past Uprising makes me very concerned about the state of the Earth for any upcoming movies. Unless the series isn't canon. It might not be. Guillermo del Toro has nothing to do with it. It can probably be easily ignored if there's another film.
No guesses from me about about Boy's deal at this stage of the game. I'd probably be wrong.
Pretty good. ***.
Pacific Rim: The Black "Showdown"
We sure it was the Precursor who created the Boy / Kaiju? If it was, Boy probably wouldn't be as loyal to Taylor and Hayley as he is.
Can he switch back to human form? The half-Kaiju ninjas at the end suggest he can.
I think this season was too short and ended too abruptly. It's nice we're getting another season and continuation but I feel this season itself is very unsatisfying leaving things here. ***.
The Barbarian And The Troll "Come Together"
Because it's puppets, the action in the climax doesn't land properly. But even though it's puppets, the pathos still does, so I'm good.
"Hellion" is okay on Nickelodeon puppet shows.
Not sure how I feel about Sharona being queen but I'd rather it was her than Brendar.
I like Brendar's brother saying he was on a quest for his own personality. Good dig at himself and the writers there.
When Horace mentioned he had two left feet and was missing a toe in the recap, I thought it would come up more, but he just mentioned he was missing a toe to the Swamp Queen once.
Here is something good and bad. I will be very shocked if this show gets a renewal and a second season. I am not sure, but no matter if it's ratings are good or bad, there is a LARGE chance they are terrible with kids. Kids of the age who are into Nickelodeon? There might be a stigma attached to watching a puppet show. They might immediately believe it's for babies and turn their noses up at it. That's why all of Henson's various tries at kids puppet shows with an actual narrative like "Brats of the Lost Nebula" bombed so quickly. I could be wrong. Kids today may have more sophisticated tastes than my generation, and might not immediately dismiss the show based on the medium. And truthfully, when I was a teenager, Dinosaurs was a big hit with kids my age too. So it's not out of the question.
But I still think a renewal is unlikely. So I'm very happy the season finale was relatively satisfying, and left us off on a good place. If there isn't anymore (and I don't think there will be) I think that's a pretty good stopping point. I will not be pulling out my hair over the lost opportunities. The show is great. But it might be a little TOO great to be popular with kids, who tend to actually really only respond to stuff of a MUCH lower quality in the writing. We'll see. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. But I appreciate the producers not screwing us over with a cliffhanger if it IS canceled. If it is, I'm happy with how things turned out. ****1/2.
Meet Spidey And His Amazing Friends "Rock-A-Bye Rhino"
Spin's powers are cool. ***1/2.
Meet Spidey And His Amazing Friends "Stop Doc Ock"
Didn't dig it.
I'll tell you why. Doc Ock calling herself evil hits my ear and my brain wrong. Everything I've learned about telling stories over the years is that you should almost NEVER have a villain do that. You get someone as self-aware as the Operative in Serenity, that's fine for him to describe himself as a monster, but almost all other types of villains believe they are the heroes of their own stories. This specific short tells me there is going to be something major about the series I don't like. Its views of morality and good and evil will be just as messed up as the cartoons from my youth, if thankfully much less violent. *.
Muppet Babies "Sam And The Skyscraper / Animal Too Loud"
Sam And The Skyscraper:
It's not every Muppet project that has Sam the Eagle repent and apologize at the end. This show is weird. ***1/2.
Animal Too Loud:
Reality check: In a real library? Statler and Waldorf would be considered FAR more ill-mannered than Animal and the Babies. If you are too loud in a library, you get shushed. You go to sleep in a library, you get kicked out. Don't ask me how I know that. ***.
Episode Overall: ***1/2.
