Ben 10 (New Series)

Doesn't really learn us anything of value.

Aside from the fact Ben still keeps the same watch in season 4 and doesn't get a change, even at the beginning of the season, and Ben himself doesn't get a new outfit either.

Sooooo the only new thing we know is that nothing really change. Yeah, nothing to be excited for.

I feel this reboot had chance to just go up and up but in the end... it still stayed within its comfort zone.

Disappointing, despite good aspects.

Guess the wait continues, unless it's gonna be permanently like this from now on or it's over for good.

I've decided to check 2 episodes of season 3, picked at random. (Billy Bajillions and Buggy Out)

They were...fine. It was kinda like watching third season of Alien Force second time around. With lowered expectations and not demanding this cartoon to be like previous shows, it's much more bearable.

On the other hand, title "Ben 10" is the only reason I'm even paying attention to this show. I can think of better cartoons that this one that I'm not even bothering to watch.

Saw Roundabout (actually, half of the first episode and the second one) today. Kevin’s Spanish voice actors are goddamn horrible. Dark Matter sounds like Wildvine and Thornblade sounds like Stinkfly. Kevin himself sounds like a bratty teen.

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot with the young Max and Phil.

"Kevin himself sounds like a bratty teen." Not sure if you're complaining or complimenting him there, that's exactly the energy they're supposed to channel when voicing that kid (aside from the edginess and maliciousness).

"They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot with the young Max and Phil." You bared it down a problem both the franchise has, and one I have with OV lol

Also

https://www.cartoonnetwork.co.uk/promotion/ben10tour

Still not as good as Seasons 1 and 2 of Alien Force.

Hey, ever heard that original series that pop-up edition episodes with various trivia? Well, here you go. Just pick Lots of it was retconned out but there is also surprisingly a lot that was carried over in next series. Also, XLR8's visor is organic, what◊.

*Sigh* I honestly preferred the theory based on the original show's small bio that Kineceleran were space elves without their helmets and that the Helmet was created by the Omnitrix. The helmet and visor being biological really stretch my suspension of disbelief even for this show.

Stuff like this is why I prefer to have establishing continuity and lore be kept in the shows/movies/games/etc. themselves. I don't prefer for creators to make statements outside of the show to establish continuity and lore. XLR 8's visor is organic? Yeah, no. Just...no.

I remember seeing another pop-up that someone pointed out on Twitter on how the Charms of Bezel are actually not magical at all and are really pieces of technology that looks like magic. I have a better idea, creators. Don't. Just...don't.

I don't mind if it's behind the scenes stuff, like how it stated how Gwen was originally not Ben's cousin but they decided to change her into being Ben's cousin to better justify her going on the road trip. That's fine. If it stated that XLR 8's visor was originally supposed to be organic but they changed that to not be the case, that's fine because it's not establishing canon. It's just behind the scenes trivia.

Edited by TacticalOchoa on Jul 11th 2019 at 7:50:43 AM

I think that the reboot has been generally better about supplementary material, at least with its Alien Worlds shorts, since they're easier to find and much less obscure than various Omnifacts.

Granted, it's just as likely that some of that material might be retconned out if it doesn't serve the story.

Yeah, speaking of the Alien Worlds shorts, I recently realized something about XLR 8. The XLR 8 episode of Alien Worlds established how Kinecelerans had to venture out to get their wheels so that they can have their super speed characteristic. Those wheels aren't a part of their genetic make up so why in the hell does XLR 8 have those very wheels whenever Ben transforms into him if Kinecelerans aren't even born with them?

The show still has plenty of inconsistencies and badly implemented lore and continuity as well. Shock Rock's species apparently being very fragile despite Shock Rock's durability himself. Kevin making the Anti Trix. The terrible implementation of most of the characters in the show. There's also lacking much of the great lore as well, such as the Plumbers. Sure, the lore and continuity is not an absolute mess, unlike the original continuity, so sure, it could indeed be better than the original continuity. I just don't find it to be that much better and in some areas (again, like the Anti Trix and the implementation of most of the characters, for example), it's even worse.

Regardless though, I rather prefer disregarding stuff like what the pop-up trivia and the many statements by many of the creators outside the shows established. My sentiments and standards are that if it's not established in the very source material itself, it's not canon no matter what others say. I don't mind about clarifications as long as nothing new is being added. I find that it helps keep things better organized and creates less confusion and prevents more inconsistencies.

Personally my problem with the Alien Worlds shorts, Omnifacts and other trivias isn't that they are potentially inconsistant with the show (which they aren't all), it's that they just feel like they're wasted. Like, if you're gonna go through the trouble of building all the fleshed out, unique lore giving each alien species a culture, planet and origin, why for the love of Alien X would you keep that stuff for trivias and shorts?! Just USE these damn things for the actual story and characters! Have a storyline about that awesome-sounding war on Petropia between various crystal-based species! An episode about a Kinceleran trying to acquire his wheels! An episode about Zs'Kayr's rule over Anur Phaetos! Do SOMETHING WITH THEM!

This is why the Original Series always felt frustratingly like They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot to me. All this interesting lore they build around Ben, and instead of actually exploring it, the episodes were spent on thing like quarrels over who created Ben's favourite silly-looking Kangaroo superhero or some jackass using hypnotism to commit crimes. For all my complains about Omniverse, they at least tried to use that lore, albeit of variable quality, with Gourmand, the Anur system and the two Galvan planets. And Alien Force and Ultimate Alien might have usually gone in a completely different direction, but they at least made a genuine effort to expand the universe and make it richer. The Original series was more concerned with having crazy Silver Age-style stories than actually making a coherent interesting universe and using it.

Edited by Theokal3 on Jul 11th 2019 at 7:25:39 PM

"why in the hell does XLR8 have those very wheels whenever Ben transforms into him if Kinecelerans aren't even born with them?"

I'd argue why the hell Ben's aliens have clothes that aren't theirs or stuff like NRG's suit, but I'm not sure I could make a solid argument about a show where the main character can apparently turn into a living clock or a man made of diamonds.

With that said, for one, there's a new game on the UK website. For two, I caught this video by luck.

Suddenly Lego alien doesn't sounds so stupid, huh? But hey, maybe, visor is organic but helmet is not, huh? That...that would be kinda freaky, actually.

I got the "Bezel tech"◊ one. One of many that got retconned out, obviously. Yeah, I too have many reasons why I don't care much about stuff that isn't in the show, It's ok if it fills out the holes, like why Myaxx was in prison, but usually it just adds annoying random elements that we're supposedly should suddenly treat like unquestionable truth, like that stupid Sonic thing with two worlds. I'm still getting annoyed every time I see reference to Ventrilosquid and Decagon Vreedle.

BTW, I think XLR8 has wheels for the same reason NRG has his armor or Goop his anti-gravity projector. Also, the only thing I don't like about this Alien Worlds videos is implication that every kind of aliens, even Stinkfly and Wilvine's people use toyetic cars.

See, Theokal 3, I think that Original Series wanted to keep space as something bigger and mysterious. Besides brief time in Earth's orbit Ben only went to space for a movie and it was a huge deal. I always thought that sequels really "domesticated" the space, so instead of just dealing with alien heroes like Tetrax or criminals and invaders like Six-Six or Limax, Ben dealt with "ordinary" aliens, like Baz-l or petty alien crooks like Argit. This makes Omniverse flashbacks come of as insincere, because you couldn't imagine in original series store with alien food on Earth or Tennysons casually visiting Galvan Prime just to fix a minor problem.

But I have to say, checking these pop-ups really made me realise just how much they've domesticated the space. That they made alien encounters more casual and common to the point of making Rook Ben's partner is expectable. But this goes deeper.

Wildvine's species were portrayed as primitive monsters, but later we've got goofy hippie, Pax. Anur System sounded like nightmarish places, with Loboans being savage beasts and Ectonurites running the place. Instead, Halloweentown. Null Void? Now it has Plumpers there, prisons, and settlers. And these flying monsters turned out to be "guardians", keeping peace. Incarceon? Maybe corrupt, but hardly the deadliest place in galaxy. Heck, even addition of Plumbers made space more peaceful compared to first cartoon where the only law enforcers were literally 3 cheesy guys for space and minor, mostly inactive and racist group for Earth. Space really lost its bite.

That does raises a question that bothers me...I think Mcduffie really messed up when he said that Anodites arent in the watch because they're energy beings and dont have DNA. Yeah, you might make excuses that NRG is radioactive but not made out of energy (still kinda bull, but whatever) but how does Clockwork has DNA? Not to mention that Echo Echo was described by him as "living sonic waves contained in a suit made of silicon." And on that subject what separates Wildmutt and Wildvine from say, gorillas?

Edited by Sunchet on Jul 11th 2019 at 12:20:30 PM

Gorillas apparently can't reason like humans do, they aren't sapient. Well, that or they just can't speak it out with the right translator.

For Clockwork, he seems actually hurt when hit, I assume he's a biotechnological creature like Upgrade, except rather than a gooey being, he has organs and stuff in-between his gears inside his body. For Echo Echo, I theorized (nothing official) that as "living sound waves", his mind travels through the vibrations in air, like a living radio transmission.

Said vibrations would only have something akin to genetic material when gathered together in a place like, say, a silicon suit made specifically for that species. Once grouped all together, they'd have a "body" of sorts if the sound waves aren't dispersed anymore. Compare it to Alan in the Amazing World of Gumball, who has organs made of literal air, being a balloon.

And according to the laws of sci-fi, sound can also become solid when loud enough, so maybe Echo Echo is just a living scream inside a can, with said scream also possessing inner organs made of sound. It's unknown how Azmuth can apparently sample that, but this show is weird enough I feel we don't need to dig deep in detail too much.

Also also, for Wildvine's species, the ones in Secret of the Omnitrix are NOT representative of the whole species. Floraunas are naturally pacifistic, those in the movie were mutated by Xenon's hostile environment and became a primal tribe. The reason they attacked Gwen was because they wanted to sacrifice her to their leader.

Was that mentioned in the original pop-up or was it another retcon?

I'd argue why the hell Ben's aliens have clothes that aren't theirs or stuff like NRG's suit

Actually, there is an official explanation for the clothes, which I personally believe applies to the suit too: the Omnitrix incorporates nanomachines that disassemble the clothes, then either store them or reconfigure them into something fitting for the new form.

As for the NRG suit... that's purely me, but I like to theorize that the Omnitrix is programmed to analyze's the wearer's home planet, then based on said planet equip the aliens with what it feels they will need to survive there. As such, it gives a suit to NRG because Earth has a lot of life forms that'd be harmed by radiations, an isolating suit for XLR 8 because the large quantities of water would mess with his static electricity, an Antigrav Device for Goop because Earth's gravity is heavier than his own home planet, and so on. Ripjaw doesn't get a breathing devices because Earth is mostly covered with water, so the Omnitrix assumes water will usually be nearby and doesn't feel the need to waste energy on a countermeasure.

like that stupid Sonic thing with two worlds. I'm still getting annoyed every time I see reference to Ventrilosquid and Decagon Vreedle.

I don't think I heard about these three. Could you explain, please?^^

See, Theokal 3, I think that Original Series wanted to keep space as something bigger and mysterious. Besides brief time in Earth's orbit Ben only went to space for a movie and it was a huge deal. I always thought that sequels really "domesticated" the space, so instead of just dealing with alien heroes like Tetrax or criminals and invaders like Six-Six or Limax, Ben dealt with "ordinary" aliens, like Baz-l or petty alien crooks like Argit. This makes Omniverse flashbacks come of as insincere, because you couldn't imagine in original series store with alien food on Earth or Tennysons casually visiting Galvan Prime just to fix a minor problem.

Okay, fair point. Space did feel like they wanted to keep it big and mysterious. Still felt frustrating that they didn't use that stuff more.

Wildvine's species were portrayed as primitive monsters, but later we've got goofy hippie, Pax. Anur System sounded like nightmarish places, with Loboans being savage beasts and Ectonurites running the place. Instead, Halloweentown. Null Void? Now it has Plumpers there, prisons, and settlers. And these flying monsters turned out to be "guardians", keeping peace. Incarceon? Maybe corrupt, but hardly the deadliest place in galaxy. Heck, even addition of Plumbers made space more peaceful compared to first cartoon where the only law enforcers were literally 3 cheesy guys for space and minor, mostly inactive and racist group for Earth. Space really lost its bite.

I admit some of these really irritated me, especially the Pax and Anur system bits (seriously, the bios on the Anur System were sooo much more fascinating than what we got). And Plumbers did lose their charm as space cops. Though if I may notice, some of the stuff they put in OV actually made the setting unintentionally scarier, what with world-destroying death rays now being available to every random shmuck. I still can't get over the fact that a guy could threaten to destroy Earth because one of its inhabitants was snubbing his daughter, and nobody raised a finger to stop him.

Basically in Sonic's case, Word of God is that the characters change between two worlds offscreen between the games, which is why some games have humans, and others don't.

I think it's just a weak excuse to ignore continuity, myself, since (again), this is apparently all offscreen and never alluded to within the games itself.

EDIT: Oh, and Decagon Vreedle and Ventrilosquid are aliens only mentioned through Word of God stuff, probably to get around being told they're not allowed to create more aliens.

Edited by Etheru on Jul 11th 2019 at 4:53:26 AM

Okay, thanks for clarifying :)

Stuff like this is why I enjoy the Little Moments fan fiction series so much. It implements Ben 10 lore far better than the actual shows. Along with Little Moments Rebooted (which is just the same story but with more expanded upon it) currently being worked on by the very creator of the series, another writer is currently working on a side story centered around the character, Bezel, and the civilizations, Atlantis and Logos, revealed in the Stone in the River prequel chapter. I have to say, that side story has a far better version of Bezel than Omniverse and I'm really digging the story's version of Atlantis.

I feel as if that's something that's really missing in the Ben 10 franchise. Magic-based lore. There has been such an overwhelming focus on Sci-Fi in Ben 10. They should really change things up and shift some more focus on the more magic side of things.

Well, to be fair, the show is primary scifi-focused; the magic stuff, while present, has always been more of a side thing. The fact they (admittedly stupidly) tried to make the Charm of Bezel advanced tech shows this.