Ben 10 (New Series)

Ironically so does Ben.

Ben in the original series preferred the strength type aliens, so it's ironic that the Ben from the more comedy focused show has better sence.

OS Ben also didn't really lose aliens, he kept them as he progressed. Maybe he would've expressed some nostalgia had he lost some of his aliens that didn't creep him out like Ghostfreak (AF Ben probably didn't have the time to feel bad about those previous aliens). Only alien I could think of that he missed was Feedback.

Reboot Ben's used to strength aliens. It's because he encounters situations where strength doesn't solve everything, such as when some of the tech he's using could use an Upgrade, or when he meets old enemies who require his lost aliens, that he realizes he didn't get to enjoy those aliens like he should have and regrets it. His experience and practice with the watch is what makes him able to solve problems even when he's got limited options

So, it's been a while now since the Reboot came out, and it seems like it has managed to find its own identity by now. So I think it's a good time to ask: how do you guys rank it compared to the rest of the Ben 10 franchise?

I'd rank it, hmm...

UAF > Reboot > OV > OS

The reboot is definitely better than Omniverse. I can't compare it to the other three since I haven't seen them in a while.

I guess I'd rank it UA > OS > Reboot > AF > Omniverse.

I mean, I didn't hate Omniverse. I actually liked quite a bit of it, and some of its arcs are some of my favorite in the series. But it had a bad habit of shooting it's own successes in the foot, and by the end it was a mess.

I always saw AF as a good example of how not to do an arc based series: repetitive and tedious to get through, with bland characterization, albeit with a few gems here and there.

The OS and the Reboot are on a pair of scales for me. The OS had better stories, but you had to get past the fact that the principal protagonists were intensely unlikeable. The reboot pretty much turns that upside down: Ben and Gwen are more likeable than they've ever been, but the stories aren't all that great. Ultimately the OS' arcs and such beat it out, though.

UA has it's problems, but imo it has less of them than the others. Good arcs, the characters come into their own, nice twists, the new aliens are fun, the new villains are fun, etc and so on. It got more dark than it really should've at times, though.

I still think that every Ben 10 series is somewhere around average, though. None of them have ever been amazing. But none of them have ever been terrible, either.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 13th 2019 at 12:34:14 PM

My rank would be: Original Series=Reboot Series>Ultimate Alien=Alien Force>Omniverse.

I agree with all of you about Omniverse (and the other shows). But come on, be honest, you were just here for Rook and Malware. Or for Sebastian Evans II's score (sadly, for me, why nobody mentions his score?).

Uh. the Reboot appears to actually be pretty well-ranked. Opinions really did improve on it, apparently. I still remember the time where nobody was impressed by it. Kudos to Man of Action for managing to make a different take that still has its fans.

Edited by Theokal3 on Jun 13th 2019 at 2:00:48 PM

Well, I'll be Mr Unpopular Opinion and still say that I like reboot the least. I guess it's because I judge shows more by what's I like that what I dislike - I've enjoyed Justice League movie for one thing because stuff like Batman - and I can't find in reboot anything that hooks me. Yeah, the kids are nicer, so what? If I wanted to see characters being nice at each other I would watch Rescue Bots or something.

I don't know how I'd judge other series. I thought about it logically and I feel like each series has it strengths and weaknesses. It breaks some, it fixes some.

So your issue still is that you feel like this Reboot brings nothing new to the table? Not judging, just wondering.

Considering how much there's still flack nowadays, you're not Mr Unpopular opinion, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from it

It's just that I'm not enjoying it. I don't find characters to be memorable, I don't think action is cool, I think graphics are generic, stories aren't engaging and aliens lack that special charm that made them joy to watch.

My opinion on the reboot - that it’s basically the Ben 10 version of Marvel Adventures and is enjoyable for much the same reasons - hasn’t much had much reason to change since it started.

I still find it to be the worst show in the franchise. Whether or not it has managed to find an identity, that doesn't make up for its poor quality. I agree with Sunchet. The characters are not memorable. If anything, more harm was done to how the characters were implemented than good. Most of the returning characters are mere mediocre shells of their former selves and most of the new characters don't offer much either. The one character that was spared from this the most was Dr. Animo. That's probably my biggest issue with the reboot show. The characters overall are just...shit.

My second biggest issue is the story and writing. Again, I agree with Sunchet. The stories aren't engaging. I find that the writing is overall terrible and lazy. The pacing is usually not that good. Plenty of inconsistencies. Plenty of illogical moments. Most of each season is just filler. Season 3 has this issue the least because we're finally getting an actual over-arching plot. Often times it feels like the writers don't know what they're actually doing or haven't thoroughly thought about the consequences of what they're implementing.

The action is at best decent but it doesn't go any further than that. Most of the time it's just ok and that's it. There's not really much that's done to make it interesting. Most of the action lacks tension and challenge as well. I do have an interest in wanting to make a Ben 10 game and if I somehow get that chance to do so once I get into a career in game design, one of the things that I wanted to implement is allowing players to combine the various abilities of Ben's aliens together kind of like a combo or something of the likes. For example, using Stinkfly to cover enemies in his slime and then switching over to Heatblast or Wildvine to ignite the slime to dish out explosive and fire damage. Another example is using XLR 8 to build up speed and momentum and then transforming into Cannonbolt and use that built up speed and momentum to increase the power of his ram attack. I think seeing Ben get creative and do stuff like that would be pretty interesting for a Ben 10 show to display.

The art style is...generic. That's it. I don't find it to be good because it looks too generic. It looks like every other modern Cartoon Network show and I know that Cartoon Network Studios can do better because they produced Samurai Jack season 5 and I recall that the visuals for season 5 looked great.

For my ranking of the Ben 10 franchise. I still say that the Original Series is the best show in the franchise. I find that it tackled the writing, story, characters, action, art style, etc. the best. Alien Force and Omniverse are pretty much tied for second and at best are both decent. They have their fair share of good moments but there's also plenty of moments with those two shows that holds back their quality overall. Ultimate Alien is mediocre. It has a lot of issues with its writing and characters. After the Aggregor arc, the show got at its most bland and boring really quickly and the series finale was both bad and anticlimactic. The reboot show sits below Ultimate Alien. My biggest disappointment with the franchise was that it missed by far the biggest potential and opportunity that it had to really stand out and become so great and that's Ben 10,000. I felt that the next logical step after the Original Series should've been to build up and go towards the Ben 10,000 direction. To take on a more personal conflict of Ben struggling to not become the very version of him that he didn't like.

Eh, personally I stand by my point that Alien Force is my favourite of the bunch. I will be fair and admit that some of the other shows did better than it in some areas (the Original Series had better designs for the most part, Ultimate Alien went through more complex and developped stuff, Omniverse for all my dislike of it actually did a somewhat better world-building when they weren't busy making stupid jokes and focusing on the wrong things, and even the Reboot at least gave us an interesting spin on Vilgax), but Alien Force had my favourite take on Ben, introduced plenty of my favourite aliens and concepts, and had the characters mature. Also it had Paradox. I do still like the Original series for introducing me to the show, but I feel it's overrated and was frustratingly refusing to fully exploit its potential; it always felt like Man of Action was holding back from actually developping it properly at times, whereas the sequels at least tried this. It also had an annoying tendency in some episodes to do Character Shilling for Gwen while abusing This Loser Is You on Ben.

Edited by Theokal3 on Jun 13th 2019 at 12:36:55 PM

To me, it felt more like the Original Series was building up it's potential, which, again, is the whole Ben 10,000 direction. That potential just wasn't fulfilled in any of the sequel shows. It's one of the reasons why I like the Little Moments fan fiction series a lot. It tackles that very direction. I also find that it does a lot of things so much better than the sequel shows. The prequel chapter, Stone in the River, introduces Paradox but takes a more mystical, mysterious, and magic-based side to him that I felt made him even more interesting and unique compared to the actual shows. Ben and Gwen's parents have so much more character and personality to them in Little Moments. The Plumbers seem more sinister and the way that the Plumbers' kids are built up and implemented is far better and more sensible than the actual shows. Just earlier today, a new side chapter was released that delves more into Max's past. On his last mission in Vietnam with the US Air Force before being transferred to NASA, Max shoots down an alien ship while also getting shot down himself and soon after his crash landing, Max meets Xylene for the first time and it triggers a snowball effect that eventually led to him meeting and forming a relationship with Verdona (who's 100% human in Little Moments) and joining the Plumbers and just overall changing his life forever.

Soooo in other words, you're loving the Original Show for what it could have been rather than what it actually was :p Seriously, though, I feel blaming the sequels for it is unfair. The Original Show had 4 seasons; aside from Omniverse, it was the longest running of the Ben 10 shows. They had more than enough time to properly do world-building, have important characters like Xylene re-appear more often or explain some of the stuff that actually needed to be explained; But Man of Action was too busy doing lots of pointless filler Monster of the Week episodes that brought nothing of value to actually focus on these (though at least their filler villains were better than the ones in the sequels for the most part). And that's not even getting into Aesop Amnesia. I can think of plenty of shows on the top of my head (Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Avatar: The Last Airbender...), including ones done by Man of Action themselves (Generator Rex) that managed to flesh out more in less seasons than the Original Ben 10 did. They had all the time to exploit the show's potential to its fullest, but willingly chose to stick to kid show as much as possible. At least the sequels tried.

But again, that's purely opinion-based^^

Edited by Theokal3 on Jun 13th 2019 at 1:20:55 PM

According to Wikipedia, the Original Ben 10 had 50 episodes, Alien Force had 46 and Ultimate Alien had 52. So they all had pretty much the same number of episodes to play with.

Uh, no. I like the potential that the Original Series built up. As for the Original Series itself, I consider it to be the best show in the franchise for, as I stated before, having strong writing, story, characters, action, etc. Sure, the potential that I stated can be part of the reason why I like the show but it's not the overall main reason why I like the Original Series. There are many major factors that shows why I like the Original Series.

And there's already plenty enough world-building in the Original Series. That was one of the stronger aspects of it. That was something that I recalled that at least most people enjoyed about the Original Series and have that very sentiment on. I don't think characters like Xylene needed to make more appearances either. I think one of the intentions of the Original Series was to build things up for a sequel to tackle. It didn't need to answer everything because that would be done in the next show that followed up after the Original Series. The problem however was that the sequel shows didn't really do a good job of doing that. That's mostly, if not entirely, due to the people behind Alien Force and Ultimate Alien apparently not having even watched the Original Series, hence all the numerous retcons and continuity inconsistencies and whatnot. Alien Force couldn't even get the Omnitrix master control right. Sure, the sequel shows tried to expand further on things in the Ben 10 franchise. I just find that they often didn't pull through with it.

I had an amazing dream I was gonna gush about here until I realized none of it happened in the show (;_;)

According to Wikipedia, the Original Ben 10 had 50 episodes, Alien Force had 46 and Ultimate Alien had 52. So they all had pretty much the same number of episodes to play with.

Uh. My bad, I didn't take the number of episodes into account. Doesn't change my point however; 50 episodes was more than enough to flesh out the setting and character, and they didn't use it.

I consider it to be the best show in the franchise for, as I stated before, having strong writing, story, characters, action, etc.

Yeah, and that's where I kinda disagree. I personally feel the writing and characters were stronger in the sequels (except OV); the Original series had a lot of small annoying flaws such as Ben constantly having to re-learn responsibilities, Gwen suffering a lot of Positive Discrimination, Vilgax being a one-dimensional (albeit cool-looking villain) and so on; it's not a coincidence that all the sequels systematically started getting worse when they began trying too hard to emulate the Original Series. But I admit it's highly subjective here.

And there's already plenty enough world-building in the Original Series. That was one of the stronger aspects of it. That was something that I recalled that at least most people enjoyed about the Original Series and have that very sentiment on.

Not enough of it; these interesting bios on the toy aliens were never actually shown in-series during the Original Series era, the show focused more on introducing one-shot villains and aliens every now and then rather than actually fleshing out the stuff they already had, and tons of characters had their abilities never explained in-story. I still find it annoying that Omniverse, of all series, was the first to adress Ghostfreak's original identity (poorly, but still). Again, plenty of shows have done more in less time. And that's kinda my point really: the Original Show did just enough world-building to get you intrigued and show you its potential, but stopped at really accomplishing it.

I don't think characters like Xylene needed to make more appearances either.

Right, Max's alien girlfriend with a strong connexion to his past as well as the person who brought the Omnitrix on Earth in the first place didn't need to make more appearance. You'll forgive me for disagreeing.

It didn't need to answer everything because that would be done in the next show that followed up after the Original Series.

No. Pretty sure that show was intended to work as its own entity and sequels became a possibility only because the franchise was successful. But even if it was the case, it's usually not seen as a positive when an installment in a franchise willingly refuse to answer questions itself to keep things for a sequel. If I remember correct, that's one of the most common criticisms done in today's movies. That's not smart, that's just the writers being lazy and preferring to say "Eh, we'll do that later". It'd be excusable if they genuinely didn't have enough time and episodes for that, but again, 50 episodes. So please stop trying to move the blame to the sequels.

Alien Force couldn't even get the Omnitrix master control right.

Uh... pretty sure they got it correctly; Ben could switch at will between alien forms and didn't have a time limit.

Edited by Theokal3 on Jun 14th 2019 at 11:37:29 AM

Wolf, do it, please.

Well, it was random and won't make much sense if you don't know Miraculous.

Okay so:

I was in class, no biggie (beside the fact it was elementary). Then my class morphed into the protagonists' class in Miraculous. There was a parade outside and suddenly there was an Earthquake.

The characters looked outside and there was OV Ben who used the Omnitrix to turn Alien X. Except it was a new transformation sequence where his eyes and nostrils and pretty much any facial cavity turned green and the rest of his body was like Alien X's palette until his shape changed into OV Alien X.

Then, it was assumed he was akumatized. Considering he was only hovering and shooting blue fireballs, my guess is that Hawk Moth never watched UAF if he got the powers wrong.

Then the scene shifted into a restaurant where Ben wasn't akumatized anymore, and then Gabriel Agreste came by his and Marinette and Adrien's table. Marinette threw a knife at his chest, stabbing him.

I then dreamed that there was a "Ben 10 | Miraculous Ladybug Transformation" video on YouTube and that you guys were talking about this crossover.

then I woke up ;_;

... I'd watch that.