What Are You Watching?

[Peanutbutter]

Any of you seen The Cuphead Show! on Netflix, yet? I binged all twelve episodes yesterday. I loved the game, and thought the trailer was good but the show exceeded my expectations. I won't give anything away yet, but the 2nd episode "Baby Bottle" is HILATIOUS! 


I hope the next batch of episodes is out soon.

[Avaitor]

I decided to give the Netflix He-Man show a shot. Not the Kevin Smith show that's supposed to be a continuation of the original, I picked the CG reboot instead. And it's honestly not bad!

It feels a lot like your standard post-Avatar action show, in that it wants to reach an older audience as well, but it has to add in lame jokes and some stock character building tropes to keep the kids entertained. But it's an easily digestible watch, and I do think that it hits enough of the themes it reaches for to consider it a pass. I hope that I don't get as bored of it as I did with Voltron, though.

[Peanutbutter]

I'll take at peek at both He-Man shows after I get done with my rewatch of Cartoon Network's 2002 version. Man, does it ever hold right the heck up. 

[Dr. Insomniac]

It feels a lot like your standard post-Avatar action show,

I thought that was what She-Ra was trying to do.

I saw a few episodes of the Kevin Smith show and got bored. The only thing that amused me was having Sarah Michelle Gellar basically reprise Buffy for the first time in years, while calling her Teela.

[Avaitor]

It feels a lot like your standard post-Avatar action show,

I thought that was what She-Ra was trying to do.

I was under the impression that She-Ra was more of a Korra wannabe, or maybe I'm just under that impression due to its queerness. To be fair, I only gave that one a few episodes before realizing that it wasn't for me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It feels a lot like your standard post-Avatar action show,

I thought that was what She-Ra was trying to do.

I was under the impression that She-Ra was more of a Korra wannabe, or maybe I'm just under that impression due to its queerness. To be fair, I only gave that one a few episodes before realizing that it wasn't for me.

I was too, and then I kept hearing the fandom hype it up as "the Avatar of our generation". And I didn't understand because I also watched a few episodes and didn't see it that way.

[Avaitor]

Wendell & Wild is pretty good, but I'm not the biggest fan of its story, or at least how dialogue heavy the film is. I'll always prefer Nightmare and Coraline's more economic storytelling methods, and will probably stick to watching them again.

Still, I'm glad that Selick got to make another gorgeous stop-motion film, and it's fun to hear Key and Peele back together. It's a shame that Netflix is largely burying it, but hopefully del Toro's Pinocchio will live up to the hype and will explain why they're doing fuck-all with this.

[Avaitor]

And I just saw GDT's Pinocchio during its brief theatrical run, and I can kind of see why Wendell & Wild is being ignored. This is definitely better, and I like how it goes for a different interpretation of the story than Disney's while remaining nearly as faithful.

I don't know if this will be my favorite animated feature of the year (the songs are honestly all mid at best), but it is the best I've seen so far and I think probably deserves the Oscar.

[Avaitor]

We don't have a dedicated Invincible thread? Note to self, rectify this when season 2 drops.

Anyway, I loved Eve's special. It was cool to hear Stephen Root, and the fight scenes had shockingly impressive anime influences that I think worked. Definitely has me ready for S2 to drop.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, they did a good job expanding and improving on her origin story from the comics. This whole series so far has been a vast improvement overall on what I found to be a pretty good but heavily flawed comic book series. It feels like Kirkman was able to revise and work out the kinks with thus telling, which is why I'm also excited for season 2 to drop as well.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Well, soon we'll see if those 13-year-old memories will resurface.

Unpopular opinion, but even though I think it's cool they got all the movie cast back, I kinda wish they got regular voice actors for this. Michael Cera just doesn't sound like Scott to me; he just sounds like Michael Cera. Same with more than a few of the cast, live-action acting and voice acting require different muscles that I think many actors and directors neglect to consider. Not everyone can be Robin Williams and master both.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Caught up on My Adventures with Superman, a series which confuses me greatly due to its airing on Adult Swim despite being about as kid-friendly as any other DC animated series that isn't Harley Quinn or YJ, if not more so (an out of place CW logo at the beginning of the latest episode added more to the mystery). And I have to say, this show's pacing is so hectic. There's no room for a breather or time for the characters to quietly contemplate. Like how at the end of the episode where Lois and Clark get into a fight over his identity and seemingly burn that bridge, they're on speaking terms again a minute into the next episode and their relationship mostly goes back to being affectionate by the end of that one. And then they throw a Legion of Multiversal Loises at me even though it hasn't even been 10 episodes yet. It's like the show has zero attention span, which is preferable to something like YJ expecting you to have the patience to see character arcs take dozens of episodes to move a single step, but at the cost of giving the story time to reflect on itself. Almost like the producers were afraid that this show would be cancelled after only a season so they threw in as much as possible.

[Avaitor]

Now that you mention it, you're right, the show's pacing is kind of hectic, and it has no business being an [as] series.

And the thing is, the show doesn't have to be so hectic, I think audiences are really clicking with it. Most shows that receive the kind of discourse it gets tend to be hits, and from what I can see, aside from a few weirdoes, people really seem to like the show's take on Clark, Lois and Jimmy. It could easily thrive as is even if it went down a step.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I assume they saw YJ getting canned again despite it apparently doing well in streaming numbers, remembered what happened to Beware and GLTAS, and got anxious.

And I guess CN having no kid-friendly action block meant it had to go to AS because there was nowhere else. Don't understand why they don't just remodel Toonami to be more of a primetime block and not late night to make up for this though (reminds me of the time I was watching an interview with the Dr. Stone dub cast, and one of them said that while they were excited to be on a Toonami show, nobody they knew was awake when it aired).

Also, the MAWS fandom oversold Parasite on me. They were acting like the show revitalized him in the same way Heart of Ice revitalized Mr. Freeze, and what I got was just evil Tony Stark turning into Shin Godzilla. Not that I didn't like this version, but Clark already has plenty of evil billionaires and giant monsters in his rogues gallery, and fans were acting like this brought something new to the table.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Saw the MAWS finale, and it still felt rushed. Maybe I'm subconsciously missing the Arrowverse, but this could've flowed a lot better if it was double the length. Could've added a lot more character moments instead of speeding through plot like it's a marathon race.