New Series: Sym-bionic Titan

[Mr Light]

I was only vaguely interested in seeing this show... until I saw the opening and it said "Genndy Tartakovsky" in the credits!!!

This is the guy who made Samurai Jack and the 2003 Clone Wars animated series!!!

The pilot was pretty good. There was definitely a beautiful cinematic scope to the entire thing. The premise is not the most original but it was interesting. I like the combo of the three characters. The visuals are great. The action was ridiculous and huge. I'll definitely keep watching.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The visual style was kind of surprising to me. Some of the character's faces reminded me of old cartoons like Gigantor. The city destruction was like that in Powerpuff Girls but it seemed kind of off in a show that isn't so comedic. I'm not quite sure of this one but I'm not ready to make a judgment call until I've seen more.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, it's definitely a Tartakovsky show -- or, to be more precise, a Bryan Andrews/Paul Rudish/Genndy Tartakovsky show. Very much an homage to '80s anime as well, even more so than usual for Tartakovsky. (Oy, now I've got that "Go, Dexter Family, Go!" song running through my head...)

I'm not in love with it yet, and I find some aspects of it a bit awkward, and I agree the sheer magnitude of the city destruction was excessive. Also I find the integration of the 3D-animated Titan with the very cartoony 2D to be rather incongruous, a clash of styles. I rarely like seeing 3D integrated into 2D; it rarely works well except in something like Futurama, where the visual style is effectively matched. That's not so much the case here.

However, the show has potential, and I've been a fan of Tartakovsky's other work, so it's worth sticking around for. Besides, it's got Tara Strong in the lead role, and I love listening to her.

 

[Mr Light]

Yeah I was pretty shocked when the fire monster blew out the entire center of the city! He just killed thousands of people in a kids show

 

[Christopher]

I think that in contexts like this we're supposed to assume that the occupants of those skyscrapers managed to evacuate with extraordinary speed and efficiency.

Still, the implication of death is there, at least. And I could swear that in the beginning, Lance blew up some tanks and we didn't see the soldiers jump out at the last second (although there were some where they did).

 

[Mr Light]

Second episode aired. I'm still liking this show. Even though this story was very domestic (they buy a house and go to the mall!) I still found it entertaining. I really love the old dad disguise of the robot

My favorite little bit was the bus driving through a highway that constructed right down the middle of the mile-wide bombed out crater from the previous episode. It was great continuity but also a fascinating consequence and image. There was something really stark and depressing about this highway just driving through this circular nothingness in the middle of a major metropolitan city.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, nice that there's actual continuity and all, but there's no way you could build a highway like that in a single week -- and would anyone want to? How would New Yorkers react if someone had proposed running a road through the middle of Ground Zero?

Also, modern buses generally don't have windows that open, and I've never seen a bus with a window that could open far enough for someone to jump through it (except as an emergency exit). And how convenient that the only open window on the bus was right next to the princess.

Nitpicks aside, it's an entertaining show, and it's interesting that, instead of doing the high school thing again, they contrasted the action with more domestic/suburban stuff like the pushy neighbor hitting on "Dad." Interesting that Octus has more than one false identity.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Second episode aired. I'm still liking this show. Even though this story was very domestic (they buy a house and go to the mall!) I still found it entertaining. I really love the old dad disguise of the robot

Oddly, I think the bit about dealing with the cougar next door was my favorite part.

Yeah, nice that there's actual continuity and all, but there's no way you could build a highway like that in a single week -- and would anyone want to? How would New Yorkers react if someone had proposed running a road through the middle of Ground Zero?

Well, maybe in a world where no one got hurt on 9/11...

Also, modern buses generally don't have windows that open, and I've never seen a bus with a window that could open far enough for someone to jump through it (except as an emergency exit). And how convenient that the only open window on the bus was right next to the princess.

I don't think you can nitpick the buses in a universe where a guy can catch up with a bus through his parkour skills.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, but it's the paradox of fantasy -- it's easier to accept the totally outre things than it is to accept inaccurate depictions of things from our everyday lives.

(Like, what was with the "lotion" scene? In every respect, from the staging of the guy squirting the sample toward Ilana to Lance calling it a "death spray," it was clear that it was written/storyboarded as perfume, yet for some reason they changed it to lotion. Was the concept of perfume deemed inappropriately sexual by the network censors or something?)

And I'm not convinced that nobody was hurt in the destruction. I mean, in that scene on Galaluna, General Modula quite unambiguously killed that last soldier with his bare hands, almost directly on camera, and the others were implicitly killed as well. Clearly this show is able to push the envelope further in terms of violence. (Perhaps having Clone Wars on the network has set a precedent for loosening censorship on other shows. On Generator Rex the same night, they went pretty dark too, with a monster being killed at the end and a klutzy date from hell being implied to have accidentally killed several potential boyfriends, all of it played for laughs.)

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^^ Yeah, I get you about the lttile things, I didn't use a great example though because that's like justifying the real life stuff in Smallville just because Clark has powers. It's more like the whole show seems to be a very cartoon kind of world.

The lotion is odd though and would certainly be more suggestive than perfume if you ask me. I don't know if it's one of those things where they think kids might imitate it? Certainly in that case lotion would be safer.