Jackie Chan Adventures

It seems like every couple of months I can't resist binging Jackie Chan Adventures, and in the midst of my current watching of episodes I did a forum search and found there wasn't a thread for it already.

So... here's one.

Great villains, great adventures, lots of mythology, and - one more thing -

I think this show really proved that oneshots don't necessarily have less attention given to them than arcs - they made sure all their unrelated episodes had fun, likeable characters and interesting locations. And the great humor didn't hurt too. And this show was good at doing characters I might have disliked otherwise in ways that made them likeable anyway.

There very little I can say I really didn't like about this show (though one of them is Valmont's Villain Decay - writing him as less important a villain after his time would've been fine, but damn did they drop the hammer on that guy - and another is probably the very existence of Strikemaster Ice and co.).

Of all the episodes, I'd say my favorites are Lotus Temple, the first J-Team episode, Black Magic and the Blind/Deaf/Mute episode. Though I like most of them.

Btw, anyone remember The Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest? Because there's a villain in one episode also voiced by Julien Sands who practically is Valmont, right down to the personality and appearance (though I suppose they're both made to look like their Sands somewhat). It's uncanny.

edited 26th Apr '13 8:47:19 PM by KnownUnknown

The series aired on Disney Channel in my country, a few years ago. I prejudged it, after I saw the commercial, as one horrible mistake of a television series.

Apparently, I missed out on a lot.

edited 27th Apr '13 7:57:46 AM by eternalNoob

Strikemaster Ice was a serviceable henchvillain. Preferable to the Enforcers certainly. Would have been better if they turned down the whole...thing he had...don't even know how to describe it.

Gotta say Tarakudo was my favorite villain.

It is certainly one of those shows where the concept sounds like a gimmicky 70's/80's cartoon adaptation along the lines of Chuck Norris Karate Kommandoes, but when you sit down to watch it you could rename Jackie Chan and it would have been a brilliant original story. The action was fluid, the comedy spot-on, it had memorable villains and the supernatural powers kept things interesting.

Shendu was the best villain but Tarakudo was such a refreshing change of pace that he certainly comes up a close second. It helps too that season four in general was a much higher quality in both story and Arc Villain than season three, Daolon Wong was only just threatening enough to make the story move along and unlike Valmont was more of a Butt-Monkey from the start. Strikemaster Ice was an interesting idea but I've always maintained you can get away with a lot by making a character competent, he was always more dangerous than the Enforcers and doesn't suffer from Villain Decay nearly as much.

I personally think the show Grew the Beard in the first season finale, it integrated all the talismans of the season into a fun action-fest and provided some great characterization by having Tohru do a Heel–Face Turn.

edited 27th Apr '13 11:08:00 AM by KJMackley

the show was good, but I will again team was going to be more of a thing. They only use one side episodes and that Anti J team what a waste of a good plot. All we're not focusing on the anti J team were focusing on Jade doing something so stupid and messing up the whole team.

I think I just channeled Mathew Buck.

edited 27th Apr '13 5:09:42 PM by HeroShepherd

I don't remember anyone in the Chang Gang being particularly interesting anyway, besides Chang himself. It was during (or close to) the fourth season by that time, so they probably thought playing it straight would be doing something they've already done a bunch of times already.

On a totally unrelated note, anyone else think Paco gets far more vehement hate than seems warranted? I mean, I understand the reasons why a person could dislike the character (just like I get the reasons a person could dislike Jade), but the extent to which he's disliked - especially for a secondary character - seems rather exaggerated.

Granted, I've come to notice that the hate for many Scrappies are exaggerated like that. We even have a thread about it still on the first page of the subforum.

edited 28th Apr '13 2:50:30 PM by KnownUnknown

There is a Never My Fault moment in episode, "Queen of the Shadowkhan" when the Enforcers pin the blame on their failure of stopping Jackie to the Shadowkhan.

Strikemaster Ice and company were exactly as stupid an idea as the skateboard boss in Tomb Raider. The first episode they were in as one-off villains was fine, mostly because they were there as comic rivals for the Enforcers, but bringing them on as full-time minions in the last season just to make it look more superficially HARDCORE was probably the worst move out of an already zombie season.

Before that though, the series was amazing. I remember watching the previews right before the show debuted and thinking it looked like the dumbest thing ever, then watching it and loving it.

IMO Paco deserves the hate he gets. I don't mind anything about his character in essence other than the fact that he was there as a foil to a character that didn't really need one, but in practice he was a completely ineffectual character that did nothing but be an annoying twat and repeatedly endanger the rest of the cast. There's a right and wrong way to do a tagalong kid, and that was pretty solidly the wrong way.

Also it's funny to see the fandom hate him so badly that they're more likely to ship Jade with a homicidal demonic bat.

edited 8th May '13 7:43:28 PM by Pykrete

I don't know about that. I eventually found Jade to be "an annoying twat" and way too intrusive of a rulebreaker, even given the nature of the character and the show.

She went over the line sometimes. But she gets at least a bit of a pass for not being useless.

I joke that he should have been evil Jade but other than that I don't care about him.

Tarakudo was easily the best main villain,...I do wish they had used more of The Monkey King though.

Paco was the one character I didn't like.

I remember when this came out on Kids WB and I watched it all the time,...until the Butt Mask episode,that's when I declared Jumped the Shark,...man I shoulda' watched Season 5.

Also Adult! Jade = Pure Awesome!

You didn't miss much. Season 5 just felt tired, and kicking out the Enforcers in lieu of Strikemaster Ice just made it worse. 4 was a good place to drop off.

Actually Season 5 was pretty good,I really wish they had gotten rid of The Enforcers earlier,...they should've explored them trying to be good guys more often.

It probably wouldn't have felt so tired if Season 2 wasn't 2/3 Filler,..really that Season never should've exceeded the Demons.

All those Filler episodes should've been made into their own seasons,a Monkey King Season,A J-Team season,...it goes on.

I feel like the Enforcers overstayed their welcome, but who they picked to replace them was worse than if they just kept them around for the rest of the series.

Spoken as a guy who rewatches the episodes a lot more than I should, I can safely say that Paco barely ever endangered the rest of the cast in the way he's often thought to - not to the extent that it could be referred to as "repeatedly." There was that one solid example with the Demon Mask (and hell, that happened to everyone in that season) and a few times in the Chupacabra episode (which... yeah), and that's about it.

In fact, one of the weaknesses of his character was that he was often (at least in the first half of the show) pretty much a single unit with Jade, he was pretty much a satellite character (attached to two characters no less, meaning he could do very little on his own). When she was doing something in episode Paco in it, he was usually there doing it with her being as about.

I mean, I can understand why someone would dislike either of them - don't get me wrong - but I never got the rationale between hating Paco and not hating Jade at the same time - given that the reasons people tend to give for disliking Paco are typically much stronger within Jade's character.

edited 9th May '13 9:01:28 AM by KnownUnknown

Season five managed a semi-decent full circle Grand Finale, but the whole story felt a lot more haphazard than the previous ones. There is no explanation for the demon chi other than the stars showed a bad omen and Uncle's chi magic skills was used more often as a crutch. I liked Michael Rosenbaum's vocal work but Drago was just a real step down from Shendu, Tarakudo and even Daolon Wong. I mean his base of operations was a junkyard probably no more than a few blocks from Section 13.

I think Paco works alright specifically as the Jade counterpoint to El Toro, but he didn't have much personality other than being El Toro's fanboy and Jade's rival. Jade often ended up as The Face of the J-Team as "Enter the J-Team" showed, having a way with interacting with people. And she has a tendency to fix her own mistakes if not the problems everyone else are having.

Does Jackie Chan himself do a good job as VA?

I really loved this show and sure it did lose a lot of steam around the 5th season but it was still a fun ride. I really think that season would have been better if they stuck with the time skip with that one filler episode that introduced Drago. Come to think of it, does anyone else find it weird that each main antagonist for each season(don't know about the Shadowkan mask guy)came from a filler episode beforehand?

edited 9th May '13 5:36:15 AM by FFmax

I read that Jackie Chan never voiced the animated Jackie Chan despite appearing as himself on-camera. I guess it's one of those situations where they base a show around some big star, but that star doesn't have time for a full TV voice acting gig or something? There ought to be a trope page about it by now.

He only voiced the grunts and things. Dude's a really busy man. The guy they got to do the talking was okay, though.

I liked the show well enough; I was already a longtime Chan fan when it came out, and it had plenty of clever ideas and characters. The only one I couldn't stand was Jade; she was the very definition of a Mary Sue, right down to having things like the Book of Destiny declaring her importance and her future self showing off how badass she was going to grow up to be, plus never learning from her mistakes, etc. In effect, the show was about her, with poor Jackie more as her sidekick. And yet this actually sort of worked because Chan has always been a humble star who works better off others, even in his own movies.

I do agree that the last seasons sucked, though, so I stopped watching them.

edited 9th May '13 7:27:07 AM by Sijo

I loved the show when I was a kid, and I watched all the episodes over Netflix last year, except some Season 2 filler, and I still really enjoyed it. I disagree with Season 5 sucking, but there was a noticeable drop in quality. It just feels like they were trying to rush through and finish the show. Still worth watching through.

Season 4 was ok. Tarakudo was possibly the most charismatic villain the show had, including maybe Valmont. Season 5?

...

Well, even though the villains were lacking and main plot was a little... eh... the episodes had their moments for sure. I'd still agree that it was a drop in quality, though.

edited 9th May '13 8:59:16 AM by KnownUnknown

Yeaaaah, final season had lame villains