Seriously, Infinity Train is the best American cartoon at the moment. The team has been disbanded, but they may get to make more if Book 3 gets enough traffic.
If not, it will be a shame but holy cow this is going to be a thing people stumble across for years and say, wait, why did I not know about this and why didn’t they make any more.
Episode six, here. It’s just awful. In the best way.
EDIT:
Also Rise of the TMNT has been canceled prematurely, after just two seasons. There’s still a movie coming, I guess, but otherwise that’s it. The animation world is a little shook at that, as it’s so widely respected as a high water mark for action boarding and choreography.
What exactly is Nick’s strategy here? Is it just not selling toys? While I’m old fogey turtle man that has some qualms with the characterization of the turtles and general plotting, the show it self is a phenomenal visual feast. What exactly does Nick gain from not showing something they already footed the bill for?
It wasn’t getting the ratings, from what I gather. People had been worrying about it for a while because it wasn’t pulling the way it was expected to. But then, cable ratings in general have been crashing the last few years, and it seems like Nick screwed around with its broadcast more than necessary.
Also the same fuckboys who made a stink over She-Ra’s reboot were very displeased that April was Black, and that half the cast was Black, and that the show was more stylized. Or, as they put it, CalArts Style. (Thanks for that too, John K.)
So Nick immediately followed its cancellation with announcement of a new, presumably more conservative, TMNT project. That I glazed over because I don’t really care through my current irritation.
Rise of the TMNT is also legitimately funny in a way I don’t recall any of the older shows really being but I’ll admit my memory is fallible.
No, it is. It’s smart, and warm. And it takes all these striking creative risks, that generally only enhance what it has to say. It may actually be my favorite adaptation, as much as I like the 2003 series.
does RotTMNT have casey jones or is its april just kind of a blend of old april and casey? i feel like i saw a clip where she enters battle with armed with sports equipment. i’ve always felt this was an underrated style.
To the best of my knowledge there’s no Casey Jones. There seem to be relatively few “classic” characters overall
My main gripes are how the turtles personalities kinda just blend together with a few specific things tacked on to their character sheet. They’re all just different flavors of party dudes in most episodes. I also don’t feel it does the best job trying to mix it’s elements as an action cartoon with also trying to be a bombastic comedy cartoon. Feels unfocused.
Splinter being a washed up kungfu movie star/secret hero is a fun angle but just feels off when he keeps going back and forth between warm caring dad and oafish layabout. I do laugh when he starts just calling the boys by their colors cuz that feels like any other parent trying to keep up.
The deal with the boys’ personalities, it can be a little hard to keep track of, like the nephews in the current DuckTales.
Mike and Don are pretty much the way one expects, especially Mikey. He’s pretty much the most consistent across all adaptations.
In most prior tellings (including Mirage) there’s this friction between Leo and Raph, where Raph feels he should be in charge, but he’s just so angry all the time that he can’t make any good decisions. Rise mixes that up, and goes, well, what if Raph were actually making the decisions?
So here Raph is sort of a Knuckles character. He doesn’t have as much of a chip on his shoulder as he sometimes does, but he’s still pretty bad at thinking things through. Which really changes the team dynamic, because their leader… isn’t useless, but isn’t very good at constructive action.
Leo, meanwhile, removed from responsibility, is cast as sort of a pretty boy. His whole motivation is to be self-consciously cool. And he’s a ham about it.
It’s a different take, that’s put a lot of people off. But I find it valid and interesting. And I feel it’s kind of weirdly consistent with the characters we know, if we just did a massive WHAT IF in regard to their roles and responsibilities.
The dialogue and relationships are the best part of the show. Like, this is actually a family. The Turtles talk to each other like brothers. Though the team is maybe less effective in this orientation, there’s a certain calm and functionality to their dynamic that we don’t often see.
And yeah, there’s no Casey. In the past, that was always a metric for me. Does it have Casey? Then it’s probably okay. But, like. This telling doesn’t need him. It doesn’t need a lot of the details. It ditches so much cruft that people might insist has to be there, and changes most of what’s left. But somehow in spirit it feels to me like one of the most faithful adaptations of the Mirage comics. Like, the story isn’t about the set decoration. It’s about something deeper.
Rise was incredibly good, for me due largely to how great the brotherly banter was. They actually felt like siblings for the first time ever. It was also legitimately funny, wildly creative, and every satisfying when it came to action.
I think part of the reason it didn’t do great was that, there’s still not a great way to watch it through Nick if you’re older than a teen. I wish one of these cartoon networks had a good streaming solution.
The boys are way more bumbling with Raph in charge, which leads to much of the comedy in the show, but they’re also kind of happier. Which is nice to see, after so much internal drama in some versions of the story.
Leo just feels like the biggest departure. He’s a little to laid back and self absorbed. I understand to keep the show light they didn’t make him some kind of stuck up “I would do it better” kind of guy but it just doesn’t feel like Leo if he doesn’t have tunnel vision missing the forest for the trees.
For some reason they uploaded every single musical number from Pop Team Epic in one video.
That first movie though. chefkiss.gif
lol
I have no special inside track beyond following a shitton of animators, but in light of the previously mentioned pissboys, this seems… maybe relevant??
I have always considered the Turtles low-key Black coded and was super pleased with that finally getting explored here a little. But, Internet Screamers have their own views.
yep, sounds like young justice again and for other good shows that found a market, just not the ones executives wanted.
That was a major reason offered for Steven Universe’s baffling schedule and long hiatuses. The “wrong” people watched the show, which meant they lost money every time they aired it, so once they realized there was no fixing this problem they limited the damage as much as possible by airing three episodes every six months on a holiday at some weird hour, when they’d not be making any ad money anyway.