With the nature of this reboot established
where it uses elements of the original series and shapes it into its own
appealing adventure, this episode’s potential for fun is made clear.The final result more than lives up to that
potential, coming off as a creative experience with a strong use of
character.
One of the Duck family’s
adventures leads them to a lavish expensive hotel located in the exotic city of
Macaw.It’s here where a tie to an
element of the original series is made when another uncle, Gladstone Gander,
approaches the family for help.He turns
out to be an interesting center for the adventure making good use of what the
world of DuckTales has to offer considering
his sparse appearances in the original series.
One advantage Gladstone’s appearance in this reboot has over the
original is a look at his dynamic with other characters.Being an uncle, one can’t help but wonder
what his relationship with Donald was like.Since Donald is featured more prominently in this reboot, this is the
place to get that answer.There’s a
major contrast with luck between the two with Gladstone always getting lucky
enough, particularly through always finding $20, while Donald is always stuck
with bad luck.For that it’s easy to see
some tension between the two, and it seems unbelievable that Gladstone is the
one who needs help.
As the family
explores the hotel, it becomes even harder to believe with the many cool things
it has to offer.There’s an enticing
floor show with elaborate water effects; Dewey bonds with a jade tiger; the
buffet temple is tempting and sumptuous; and Louie gets high class bonding time
with his uncle Gladstone.Even Scrooge,
who constantly belittles the amenities is partially swayed to stay at the hotel.
Then there’s consideration of Donald, the one
Gladstone actually needs the help of.Apparently, Gladstone’s luck is so good, he can’t lose at any game or
offer, and by extension, it means he can’t leave the hotel.This is further proven by mystical shackle
holding him to the hotel.Naturally, if
Donald is unlucky, this should mean he can actually allow Gladstone to lose and
be able to leave.In other words,
Gladstone’s good luck is actually more of a curse than a blessing, and it’s all
a work of a seemingly friendly hotel manager, Liu Hai.In reality, Liu Hai is actually an ancient
spirit who takes advantage of Gladstone’s luck by using his good fortune for
his own gain.
To free Gladstone, someone
must beat him in the ultimate challenge, an obstacle course made from the
material that makes up the hotel (which creatively turns out to be playing
cards).Scrooge offers to do it, but
ultimately Donald is chosen because he is a sure loser.Though it seems like all hope is lost, a
point is made by the nephews that Donald’s biggest strength is that he never
gives up no matter what’s against him.As it turns out, this accurate statement is what’s needed for Donald to
win the course.However, Gladstone still
turns out lucky because while he’s ultimately set free, Donald must stay in his
place.Even so, Donald being unlucky is
actually the better outcome because his bad luck ends up getting the casino
destroyed, and he’s set free by default.
By the end, this whole escapade is more or less something that just
happens, especially since Gladstone rarely shows up again (still more than in the original series though).Still, with great atmosphere, creative
challenges, memorable character moments, and interesting twists on concepts, it
all comes together as a strong adventure.
A+
Series Ranking
1.The House of the Lucky
Gander
2.The Beagle Birthday Breakout
3.The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest
4.Daytrip of Doom
5.The Great Dime Chase
6.Escape To/From Atlantis
7.Woo-oo
The next review shows the boys compete for the position of an internship with tech wizard Mark Beaks.
Next time, all reviews are on hold so this blog can cover the series finale of The Owl House.
If you would like to check out other DuckTales reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
As the spotlight remains on Fenton Crackshell,
this episode develops his love life.The
good intentions are clear, but the execution isn’t the best.
It starts with an impression that Scrooge and
his family will be the main focus when matters call for the eccentric genius of
Gyro Gearloose.He invents a robot maid,
Robotica, to help Mrs. Beakley when keeping house becomes too much for
her.After Robotica proves too
frightening, Gyro installs a chip to make her more emotional.When it comes to emotions, Robotica takes it
to an overwhelmingly flirtatious degree.This shows when she becomes infatuated with another duck-based robot,
Gizmoduck, the superhero alter ego of Fenton.
When expressing affection, Robotica is very unhealthy.She smothers Gizmoduck with extreme shows of
love causing a lot of discomfort, but she never lets up.It is clear that this is meant to be seen as
unhealthy, but it doesn’t make it any more comfortable from an audience
perspective.The sad fact is that Fenton
doesn’t seem to be much different from Robotica.He too goes very affectionate to his own love
interest, Gandra Dee, through elaborate gestures.Granted, it isn’t anything overly physical like with Robotica, but he is
still oblivious to how she feels.Still,
he’s a lot easier to sympathize with as his gestures don’t bring the same
discomfort.
As Fenton tries to get out
of this forced relationship, the story takes a contrived route.Gandra goes to a salon that also has
mechanical work for robots like Robotica.It’s very unbelievable that a place would function to serve both ducks
and robots and feels like this place was only set up for these two to
meet.They surprisingly form a solid
friendship bonding over their boyfriends and agree they should go on a double
date, unknowingly complicating things for Fenton.
Since Robotica is dating Gizmoduck and Gandra
is dating Fenton, it’s a problem since Fenton is both personas.This leads to such a double date at a
duck-themed amusement park where anything fun about the setting is undercut by excessive
awkwardness.Fenton has to switch
identities to please both girlfriends, but it simply can’t work since he’s two
alter egos at once, so he pleases no one.It’s going for a humorous approach, but his attempts never really become
funny.
In the process, there’s a lot
exposed about the weaknesses of Gandra Dee’s character, revealing she’s
basically nothing more than a pretty woman drawn as a duck.Her reactions to Fenton’s antics are very
standard annoyance, and also kind of fickle.She shows remorse over not getting enough attention after getting too
much of it, and when Fenton goes back to giving her a lot to make up for the
park, she rejects it.What even is her
deal?
As for Robotica, Fenton’s attempts
at pleasing both dates makes her think she’s being dumped, and like a toxic
partner, she sets out to blow up Gandra.With her friendship with Gandra proven toxic as well, Fenton protects
Gandra from a missile blow as Gizmoduck, making Robotica see she’s about to
blow up her love too.She ends up taking
the hit and is rebuilt to a more suitable persona.She may be a robot, but it’s still concerning
that she has to literally be rebuilt to come to a healthier conclusion instead
of doing so herself.At least Fenton
learns something from this by being more humble with his affection for
Gandra.
While there is solid moral value
throughout this story, the discomfort and awkwardness keep it from being as
engaging and entertaining as it could be.
C+
The Ranking
1.My Mother the Psychic
2.Allowance Day
3.The Land of Trala La
4.The Good Muddahs
5.Metal Attraction
6.Bubbeo and Juliet
The next review teaches everyone a good lesson about inflation when the boys use a device to duplicate their money.
Next time from the reboot is "The House of the Lucky Gander."
If you would like to check out other DuckTales reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
The political undertones of the
show have certainly given it an identity all its own.The tensions and unrest between frogs, newts,
and toads has been clear through some amphibians having bigger status and
better wealth than others.Much of the
series has shown the harsh results of this inequality, but now with this
resistance, they have a chance to come together and fight for a common
cause.However, just as the long in-development resistance is finally about to actually take action, there’s a
whole cartoon of how the political unrest is still a major issue.
Despite it being known for a while that all amphibians
were coming together to take down King Andrias, the frogs, newts, and toads
still aren’t keen on being a team.The
fact that the resistance has been in the works for a long time makes everyone’s
prejudices rather unreasonable, especially given what’s at stake.True, the best the others could do is
tolerate each other and working together is a bit much for mindsets such as
this, but it should be obvious what matters more.Things get even more hectic when Beatrix of
the toads and Tritonio of the newts arrive and while they agreed to fight with
frogs, they’re not inclusive to more amphibians.
With these matters getting out of hand, Anne
steps in to get frogs, toads, and newts to put their differences aside and work
together.All through the process, she
shows strong heart and consideration to everyone all while guiding them to
focus on the task at hand.For all of
Anne’s efforts though, the long prejudice between amphibians has very lasting
effects.All that happens through all of
Anne’s strategies is that Beatrix and Tritonio argue about their strategies,
and when Hop Pop of the frogs tries to intervene, they belittle and ignore
him.Then Anne suggests more physical
team-building exercises like amphibian knots, trust falls, and three-legged races to work off
the tensions.While there is merit in
these strategies, the different amphibian classes’ own stubbornness keeps them
from making any progress.If anything,
they end up wasting all their energy and fighting resources on a battle over
nothing.
Frustrations abound after this,
but luckily, Anne finally snaps from all this and unleashes her glowing blue
powers which is the only thing to get everyone to listen.Her overall message is that instead of
relying on her to settle things between them, they have to do that themselves
while she no longer bothers with them until they do.With how dense everyone has been acting in
such a dire situation, this show of emotions is easily earned for all
amphibians.
However, Anne is understandably
left upset that she lost her cool and failed to bring everyone together.Luckily, Sasha proves to be an understanding
friend as she consoles her, demonstrating great growth on her part, and that’s
not all.The leaders of the frog, toad,
and newt armies did manage to come up with a plan by following Anne’s advice of
settling things themselves, mostly from listening to Hop Pop’s plan for
once.Everyone works out a strategy that
factors in the strengths of every group, and it gets the full approval.They also get a quick
opportunity to put it to use with the ending featuring Mother Olm appearing to
tell the resistance that Andrias is going to start his Earth invasion
tonight.At this point, the build up is
finally over, and the audience knows that from here on, it’s nothing but
grandness in scope to bring an end to the series.
As for this part of the whole thing, there is
a lot of tension to sit through, and it’s hard to tell if it actually makes
sense after all that’s happened.However,
it’s all made watchable thanks to the exciting payoff it leads to, and one that
will continue into the remainder of the season.
A-
The
Beginning of the End
The process of forming the
resistance against King Andrias was long and not always great, but from here,
it’s nothing but grandness and excitement as it’s all put into action at last.Along the way are just about all of this
show’s greatest strengths in building character, atmosphere, tone, and
basically setting up huge and memorable events.It’s clear that this final stretch has the most heart and passion put
into it out of everything in this season, and it gets off to a very strong
start.
Just before the resistance takes
off is a welcome dose of character insight to provide the audience with an
integral background detail to the friendship of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy.It’s shown in a seemingly simple flashback of
them watching a movie at a sleepover, specifically a favorite fantasy action
film of Marcy’s.While she’s shown to be
really passionate about this several hours-long movie, Anne and Sasha couldn’t
really care less and promptly fall asleep when Marcy’s favorite part
comes.This might not seem like a huge
deal since that’s very common when watching a long movie, but it’s apparent how
Marcy feels about occurrences like this.Her two best friends in the whole world don’t share the same interests
as her, and never even seemed to attempt to properly understand and connect with
them.She was always left to experience
them alone even when her friends with her.Looks into the past like this are integral in really understanding the
motives and personalities of the characters, and this flashback is very simple
and effective.
This memory is also a vital piece
for a major matter on Anne and Sasha’s mind as the resistance takes off.The sheer size of it brings promise for grand
action almost half a season in the making. It’s all classes of amphibians as
well as other creatures like olms, mushroom zombies, and flying moths coming
together to achieve a common goal and are ready to bring justice at last.The grand potential is easy to see, but for
all its physical strength, the matters of the relationship of the three human
girls gives this epic display believable weight.
In addition to defeating King Andrias, Anne
and Sasha’s big matter at hand is saving Marcy, although there is something big
to consider regarding their friend.Sasha points out how messed it is that Marcy got them stuck in Amphibia
on purpose.Because of that, even if
they are able to save her, Sasha isn’t sure if their friendship can be saved as
well, being too affected by WHAT she did.Being as heartfelt as she is, Anne takes a far more mature and
understanding directive when it comes to Marcy and her past actions.She chooses not to be bothered by what Marcy
did and instead be mindful of WHY she did it.After all, they’ve all made a fair share of mistakes, and the wise thing
to do is accept that it’s part of life to choose the wrong thing.Among the mistakes Anne and Sasha made is
being neglectful of Marcy by not paying any attention to things that mean a lot
to her as shown in the earlier sleepover flashback.It might not excuse what she did, but having
the reasons for that in mind is key in understanding her, which is the healthy
way to go in life.It also helps that Anne knows
fromexperience that it’s worth forgiving others for their mistakes even if
they can hurt sometimes.
While it’s nice
that Sasha ultimately sees the value of Anne’s wisdom, her feelings on Marcy,
while making sense, contradict her stance on making mistakes a while back.Is it really legit that she could vouch for
two olms she didn’t even know before, but not do the same for one of her best
friends? Not to mention that Sasha has a history of also lying and doing things behind the backs of her friends and therefore should be seen almost as messed up as Marcy.It kind of questions Sasha’s
morals, but her overall feelings do make general sense given the magnitude of
exactly what Marcy did.Furthermore, it
doesn’t make Anne’s push to understand her any less impactful.
With that notable character-driven
layer at the center, the ensuing force of resistance is at its most
engaging.This is especially shown when
even Andrias himself is somewhat intimidated by the size of the army.It isn’t long before everyone is at the
shores of Newtopia and it’s remarkable to see how everyone puts up a good
fight.They take down many robot forces
through their own power, and it also helps to have the originator of the mind control mushroomson their side.Some
characters even get major closure in some regards, particularly Wally who’s
finally able to prove the existence of the Moss Man.
Of course, Anne, Sasha, the Plantars, and
Grime are the main players in all this as they break into Andrias’ castle to
save Marcy and retrieve the calamity box.Along the way, there’s a reveal of what became of Lady Olivia and General Yunan who are both fitted with mind control mushrooms and are turned
against this group.However, their
in-sync fight moves are counteracted by an exciting work of animation as Anne
and Sasha take them out via their own in-sync routine of dancing.Their high-energy utilization of their
favorite pastime allows them to dodge all of Olivia and Yunan’s attacks and
free them from their mind control.After
that exciting showcase, all seems well, at least from Anne and Sasha’s
perspective, but there is one thing they’re unaware of.
The reveal of the hard truths is very effectively dark.They find the calamity box on a pedestal and it looks like they’re all
set to take it and end Andrias’ reign.Then, like a cruel joke, they’re suddenly stopped by Marcy possessed by
The Core, or Darcy.Effortlessly, the multi-minded
entity catches Anne, Sasha, and all their comrades in their clutches, and just
like that, the resistance is defeated.Everyone else is officially basically out of commission for the rest of
the finale, not allowed to have the grandeur and pristine the main protagonists will
get.At least they provided a strong
show of force to get the main protagonists here.All the while, The Core delights in being cold and calculating, as well
as charismatic, which is to be expected coming from the body of someone like
Marcy.As a result, it’s both despicable
and kind of fun to watch as it belittles Anne and Sasha for being poor friends
to Marcy having picked up her memories after possessing her.It really drives home Anne’s points about how
much her and Sasha’s neglect over Marcy led to their major situation, further
showing consideration that all three girls are to blame.
With all the darkness unfolding, it’s
impressive that Anne does show notable cleverness to have things work somewhat
in her favor.The Core insists on
killing her, thinking that it will get the glowing blue powers she absorbed to
go back to the box, but Anne makes the strong point that this isn’t known for
sure.Maybe killing her will just cause
the power to disappear altogether.This
successfully prevents The Core from taking her life, but it still remains a
powerful entity.For that, this part of
the finale ends on a dramatic note as the music box creates a portal to Earth,
and all of Los Angeles witnesses the beginning of Andrias’ invasion.The audience, meanwhile, is left with great
suspense in how everything is to unfold.
The overall title is the best way
to describe this part of the finale where everything gets off to a very strong
passionate start.The action is
exciting, the atmosphere is well-realized, and the character conflicts are at
their high point and already make for an endearing relatable center.And the big part about all this is that this
final adventure has just gotten started…
A+
FanArt
Series Ranking
1.True
Colors
2.Hopping
Mall
3.Reunion
4.Marcy at the Gates
5.The
Core and the King
6.The Beginning of the End
7.Anne-sterminator
8.Olivia
and Yunan
9.Toad Tax
10.The First Temple
11.Froggy Little Christmas
12.Turning Point
13.Battle of the Bands
14.Barrel’s
Warhammer
15.Escape
to Amphibia
16.Anne vs Wild
17.The Domino Effect
18.The Third Temple
19.Toadcatcher
20.Prison Break
21.The Second Temple
22.Temple Frogs
23.A Day at the Aquarium
24.Mr. X
25.Anne of the Year
26.Contagi-Anne
27.The
Shut-In
28.Best Fronds
29.After
the Rain
30.Family Shrub
31.Fixing
Frobo
32.If You Give a Frog a Cookie
33.Commander Anne
34.The New Normal
35.The Dinner
36.Hop-Popular
37.Anne Hunter
38.Fight or Flight
39.Wally and Anne
40.Children of the Spore
41.Fight at the Museum
42.Friend
or Frobo
43.The Root of Evil
44.Grime’s Pupil
45.Sprig’s
Birthday
46.A Night at the Inn
47.Bessie
and MicroAngelo
48.Handy Anne
49.Scavenger Hunt
50.Lily Pad Thai
51.Dating Season
52.Anne or Beast?
53.Combat Camp
54.Little Frogtown
55.Cursed!
56.Thai
Feud
57.Newts
in Tights
58.The
Three Armies
59.Snow Day
60.Civil Wart
61.Maddie and Marcy
62.Stakeout
63.Croak and Punishment
64.Taking Charge
65.Flood, Sweat, and Tears
66.Bizarre Bazaar
67.The Plantars Check In
68.The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers
69.Wax Museum
70.Return
to Wartwood
71.Sprig Gets Schooled
72.Swamp and Sensibility
73.Trip to the Archives
74.Sasha’s Angels
75.Toad
to Redemption
76.Anne Theft Auto
77.Adventures in Catsitting
78.Hop Luck
79.New
Wartwood
80.Ivy on the Run
81.Night
Drivers
82.Quarreler’s
Pass
83.Hop Pop and Lock
84.Plantar’s Last Stand
85.Fort in the Road
86.A Caravan Named Desire
87.The Big Bugball Game
88.Fiddle Me This
89.Hollywood Hop Pop
90.Truck Stop Polly
91.Family Fishing Trip
92.Mother of Olms
93.Olm Town Road
94.Hop ‘Til You Drop
95.Spider-Sprig
96.The Ballad of Hoppediah Plantar
97.Girl Time
98.Breakout Star
99.Grubhog Day
100.Cane Crazy
101.Sprivy
102.Lost in Newtopia
103.Sprig vs Hop Pop
104.Cracking Mrs. Croaker
The next review is nearly an hour of action and character turning points on Earth in "All In."
Next time is more reviews of DuckTales.
If you would like to check out other Amphibia reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
