Ben 10 (New Series)

At least the Rooters plot was good. It helps that the plot was about forcing in retcons (by way of memory erasure and conspiracies), and that it didn't shoot itself in the foot by doing so like the Time War plot did. It was still transparent, but it built a good story out of it.

It still makes Aggregor's existence and all the references to Osmosians totally out of place, though, even if they tried to handwave it.

True, I'm not even sure what's sillier, that Rooters fooled entire space into believing that there is an entire race with their own planet out there that no one saw before, or that they thought that this was the best thing they could do to...I guess keep Osmosians like Kevin all to themselves.

BTW, I recently got into Dr Who and now it makes the whole Time War deal even more annoying.

At least the Rooters plot was good.

Yeah... no. Sorry to be a killjoy again, but I strongly disagree. I will admit it wasn't quite as much a mess as the Time War plot, but that's not saying much. The Rooter's plan made absolutely no sense, they had one of the worst cases of Bond Villain Stupidity I have ever seen in a cartoon and even their goal was nonsensical (the argument of killing someone for being too powerful doesn't exactly work when that someone can be de-powered just by figuring out a way to remove his watch).

BTW, I recently got into Dr Who and now it makes the whole Time War deal even more annoying.

Oh? How so? I am genuinely curious (I watched Dr Who as well).

edited 13th Oct '16 2:30:12 AM by Theokal3

You know, you people asked page ago, if it's better for for show to be bland or bad. To me, I always thought that we can't get hurt too badly if we fall from the chair, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't climb high ladders or even build planes. This is why I put Worlds Unite above Worlds Collide.

Let's not pretend that Alien Force doesn't have some garbage that needs to be excused: Plumbers turning into space cops, Kevin's redemption that isn't even properly explained till next show, bad romance, worse aliens, I could go on. So that's how how I saw Rooters: excusing flawed motivation, you get badass villains. Excusing forced retcons, you get shocking revelations, conspiracies and tense flashbacks.You get sweet new monster forms for Kevin, touching ending, cool fights. So, I approached reboot with the same amount of forgiveness. And it gave me nothing in exchange.

Honestly, one of many reasons I don't like Time War arc, that its just not entertaining. Yes, you can list numerous flaws in each season finals, but they had long Khyber/Zed v. Ben/Rook duel, Malware blowing up a moon, Incurseans taking over Earth, simply bunch of stuff happening! Time War gave us...Ben fighting Exo-Skull after he stole some junk for the upteenth time.

And this underwhelming, disappointing, anti-climactic mess dares to rip off name from Time War, the greatest event in Dr Who history. Event that changed everything, event that is too big to be actually shown. And in their version it was just some boring asshole trying to take over the work, with no warfare to it's whatsoever.

edited 13th Oct '16 4:58:13 AM by Sunchet

Everything about Kevin's backstory in the Rooters arc was gold (except, maybe, for Gwen and Ben inexplicably knowing about energy madness as kids and Kid Gwen and Kevin having an odd ship tease moment), and since that was the meat of the arc imo it saves the arc from being terrible on its own.

It is transparent and involves throwing out a lot of continuity on the assumption everyone was just lied to, which is terrible, but the plot itself it's not bad. As a sci-fi spy conspiracy bit, it was pretty good. I just wish we got more flashbacks over the course of AF-UA-OV that dealt with Kevin's crazy supervillain days (or the fallout from them) and not Kevin's Lovable Rogue Han-Solo-with-superpowers days. The only other one I can think of is the prison episode.

edited 13th Oct '16 9:24:43 AM by KnownUnknown

worse aliens

I kinda disagree, I feel most aliens in AF were actually pretty good. Yeah, I know, they had combinations of powers from previous aliens, but honestly it didn't bother me; it's perfectly credible that several aliens in the Universe would have similar powers, and frankly they were unique enough to be cool of their own. Only in Ultimate Alien did the alien really start to suck (Andromeda Five aside). On the other problems you list on the other hand... yeah, you are absolutely right.

Now, as for what you say on the rest... yeah, you are completely right. For all the criticisms I throw at Omniverse, they at least had big things happening and were ambitious, even if the execution was clumsy at best. I'd lie if I said I wasn't shocked to see the Inkursean invading Earth or Malware blowing up Galvan B. I guess this is why you dislike the reboot so much? Because it does nothing big and just contempts itself with vaguely reproducing the Original Show in lesser quality?

And this underwhelming, disappointing, anti-climactic mess dares to rip off name from Time War, the greatest event in Dr Who history. Event that changed everything, event that is too big to be actually shown. And in their version it was just some boring asshole trying to take over the work, with no warfare to it's whatsoever.

Couldn't agree more on that point.

... I am still shocked that I am the only one who seems genuinely concerned with how ridiculously nonsensical the Rooters' agenda and motivations are. I mean, seriously, why am I the only one bothered by this?

You're not. Being bothered by those doesn't mean I can't consider the plot as a whole decent enough regardless.

edited 13th Oct '16 9:57:57 AM by KnownUnknown

Besides, being obsessed to unreasonable degree is what villains do. From technical point of view, killing Ben was easier then finding rare tech powerful enough to remove Omnitrix, remove it and leave Ben without Asmuth's lackeys looking after then or even giving him a new one, all while keeping a low profile. And from motivational point of view, we're talking about guy who made disintegrator chamber for Ben, just be to sure he got him. Servantis is obsessed with his mission to almost Frollo levels.He didn't wanted half-measures, he didn't wanted good enough, he wanted that boy and his device gone.

And whether that makes much sense or not, that made him memorable and engaging character. Reboot is simply not memorable or engaging. I don't really want to keep criticizing before more episodes come out but...it has nothing. It's not a action show. I mentioned that plots are non-existent. Look at these pair of commentators from Iron Kyle episode.They had plenty lines, do you recall anything they said? Any jokes, even terrible ones? Yeah, humor is weak too.

About aliens...I like them, but it's hard not to see them as rehashes, some of their powers are a bit weird (clever name aside, Echo Echo's duplication and sonic power are a weird combo), and they're just a bit OP with Swampfire's regeneration, Echo Echo's duplication without weakness, that time Lodestar pulled himself together after explosion, etc.

I still think there are plenty of problems with Servantis methods (like how he could have just killed Ben normally and THEN destroy the body and his device), but we have already digressed on Omniverse so far, and it's mostly my fault. So I'll try to focus back on the reboot instead.

I will admit that from the little I have seen, this reboot seems really weak. It literally feels like if they took that small animation from the Original Series' intro and decided "Hey! Let's make an entire cartoon out of it!"

... Wow, now that I realize it, this cartoon is so bland it's barely possible to say much about it. No wonder we keep digressing.

Blander than Nu PPG?

You know these "Ugh, you guys are trying way too hard" moments in that show? Yeah, I would wish for them here. At least it would be something.

well yes. i found more enjoyment in that than when i saw the clips on the new ben10 reboot.

Well, it's official. It's blander than THE NEW POWERPUFFS. Abandon ship. Game over. We're done.

but then again, i might watch it fully i guess, not that i might like it. when looking back at ben 10, i never knew why i loved it so much.

Probably because the aliens were cool. Nothing wrong with that.

true, i did really like the aliens, especially heatblast .

edited 13th Oct '16 4:48:05 PM by ewolf2015

Of the little I watched of Ben 10, Heatblast was one of my favorites too.

I've always liked Diamondhead a lot.

I always liked Cannonbolt and XLR8. If I had the Omnitrix, I would probably morph into either one of them the first chance I got.

edited 13th Oct '16 9:14:26 PM by kablammin45

Since we're on the aliens, what are you guys' feelings on the redesigns in this reboot?

I wouldn't call any of them improvement but I'm warming up to them from what I've seen. Some transformation sequences are OK. I think I like best Overflow and Stinkfly. Flow is unique enough, I like moving animation of water and that he has expressive eyes. Stinkfly is obviously "cuted up" but he reminds me in good way of old school cartoon bugmen like Buzz-Off. Plus, his eyes look like pilot hat, emphasizing his role as lead flyer in watch.

On the aliens redesign, I don't know how o feel.

On one hand, Ripjaws is nowhere to be seen in the roster so I couldn't care less as my favorite alien isn't on the show.

On the other hand, the designs of the aliens in this show to me aren't really an improvement from the original (mostly due to how even more cartoony this version is compare to the slightly more realistic and more body horror style of the original). So I should be glad Ripjaws isn't in this take.

Ripjaws is nowhere to be seen

What's new?

Wasn't Ripjaws the most This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman alien? If so, what did you expect?

the only good thing done with this show, imo