So yeah… there is really no need to painstakingly keep track of what episodes we are reviewing… this is a series of about 26 episodes, which lasted only one season and… yeah.
So criticism before we talk about the actual episode. If this first episode I watched is any indication of the rest of the series? It’s a hit and miss proposition. The voice talents are fine. They do a good job for the characters. Much like with the new cast of voices for My Little Pony Generation 5? (Tell Your Tale and Make Your Mark) I am not disappointed in the lack of the high end talent voicing the characters. This is fine.
The animation is… well… look at it for yourself. It’s passable. But it feels kinda wonky too. It’s not a complete departure, like the difference between The Croods and the Croods Series (which completely shifted the animation style AND the voice talents except a few who made it from the movies to the series). But in that case it feels more like the transition between My Little Pony A New Generation to Tell Your Tale.
This series feels like the transition between My Little Pony A New Gneration and Make Your Mark. It’s kinda the same animation style, but just downgraded from theatrical to streaming.
My biggest hang up is, once again, the storytelling. Much like with the earlier reviewed mutant pumpkins? This story felt like it was filled with entirely too much padding, and could have been told in half the time. This is…. maybe a 20ish minute episode? And it could have been told in a more conceise 11 minute episode. It’s an ok story… but it could have been at least trimmed and kept all the meat intact while getting rid of the fluff.
An alien device has landed in Australia, and the team is sent to investigate. The machine steals the energy that gives Susan her Giant Woman super size, and transfers it to an ant which attacks the monsters. Dr. who is not Hugh Laurie figures out how to reactive the device to take back Susan’s powers from the ant… but the device self destructs before they can transfer the energy back to Susan.
Meanwhile another, more mother like ship, arrives at the HQ of Team Monster, and it is commanded by a single alien that passes itself off as friendly. EXCEPT it kinda goads the monsters into attacking it because… reasons.
The monsters are kinda kicked to the curb and fired… wait. How do you fire the genetic creations you employ to protect the Earth from alien invasion? And apparently word of their failure has reached the nearby Not Area 51 towns near their old base… because not even the diner from Dr. Who’s horribly animated one shot story where David Tennant goes to Area 51 wants to hire these out of work monsters.
HOWEVER the President, whose one and only trait is that he’s a self centered wimp who cries like a wimp (and makes women very angry at him), he gets himself locked into the alien’s spaceship and somehow triggers the ships auto defense systems which starts attacking everyone at the base.
Yeah. I guess we didnt need Susan (the monsters have returned to help save the President… how did they notice? The large explosions made by the attacking spaceship were not hard to miss) to open one of the doors in the ship, only to find that this so called Friendly Alien sent the probe that stole her powre earlier. By now it’s obvious that this alien is not quite on the up and up.
So he saves the President from a room whose floor is a presssure sensitive trap. Then “drops” the President on said floor… so that he could trigger his own ship’s self destruct sequence that is suppose to destroy half the world. Also why are you so smug, Mr. President? When the alien says half the world? He means the half you are standing on… stupid.
Anyway this plan does not work. Why? Because this might beEpisode 1 and this would kinda end the series fast if it worked. Also because it seems the power stolen from Susan earlier seems to be connected to the same energy used to power this ship’s hyperdrive engines. So when the ship’s power core goes critical it’s power is all absorbed into Susan, as the last of her old power in her body feeds off the energy released by the blast and fully restores her growth powers.
But that is not all. Apparently the same energy she absorbed modified her powers in turn, now giving her full control over her ability to grow and shrink at will… which we didn’t see used in that last Special we looked at with the Mutant Pumpkins but whatever.
So what was the alien’s big plan… I don’t know. This took so long that by the time the episode reached its climax I stopped caring about what the reason was. Nor do I suppose it matters since this didn’t last long enough to actually build upon this plot… or maybe it did. We will see…
But yeah. This first outing into the series upgrades Susan’s powers, giving her full control over her abilities to grow and shrink. Years before Disney and MARVEL Studios greenlit Ant Man, and he became Giant Man in Captain America Civil War and Avengers Endgame. So… yay? It gives the people who do Rule34 fresh fodder for Susan… never mind.
And that is that. Our first foray into this Monsters Vs. Aliens series. A first outing episode which… was ok. But nothing to communicate to your hive mind intelligence back in the Delta Quadrant. Sigh. Anyway this is from the Cloning Around DVD, which I guess is the first DVD of the series. This has just under 3 hours of content…
So let’s see. If all the episodes are 22 minutes each, then this DVD has… 9 episodes? 8 on a good day? What. I’ll say maybe 8 or so. Which means… I don’t know. Anyway come back tomotrrow and I’ll subject myself to another episode. Maybe next episode will be a bit more interesting than this one.
Maybe. I have no great hopes for the review but we shall see… tomorrow.
Pop Goes the Darke Raven 