Saturday, September 11, 2004

WATCHED SOME TELEVISION TODAY: And, as it happens, I also have a blog.

The Batman: The Time-Warner mass-mind's latest Batman cartoon debuted today, on Saturday morning and everything. Unlike Batman: The Animated Series and every DC show that followed it, it does not have the distinctive Paul Dini-Bruce Timm (I think those are the guys) character design. Rather, it has the Jackie Chan Adventures character design, a show I never really cared for, but not because of the character design--it just seemed kind of a useless entertainment. I mean, animate Jackie Chan? Isn't the point of Jackie Chan that he does all this crazy physical stuff? Once you animate it, it isn't exactly impressive anymore. But anyway--I do not have a problem with the character design as such. And it's only the first episode. But there isn't much there to grab me, but perhaps I'm not the target audience. This new Batman seems to be looking for an entirely new audience; it's a complete reboot, and there's nothing there for the aging geek audience to grab onto like there was with Batman: The Animated Series onwards, save the main character.

Justice League Unlimited: "The Greatest Story Never Told." Speaking of pandering to the geeks and being in the lineage of Batman: TAS--this was the JLU episode starring Booster Gold and they tossed a ton of Giffen-DeMatteis types at us--Dr. Light, Fire and Ice, Rocket Red, Elongated Man in his purple 90s costume. So there was the geek part. I have no idea how I would feel about this show if I didn't experience the thrill of recognition watching it, the same problem I have watching the X-Men movies with the Colossus and Shadowcat bit parts. Having said that, the characterization was great, as usual. This is early, nakedly self-interested Booster, before he became Blue Beetle's sort-of straight man--actually, they shared straight man duties. So he gets treated like the unserious superhero he is for the entire episode and winds up saving the day and getting the girl in his usual unserious manner. Billy West voiced his robot sidekick and maybe that's why it seemed they were going for a Fry from Futurama as a superhero sort of thing. JLU continues to rule.

I also caught a cold, went to work, drove my grandma home, and went to the shore and ate a huge plate of food. And I still have the blog to prove it.

No comments: