wrong reasons, then Star Force is great for all the right reasons. The Star Force anime series is a very accurate portrayal of the games, and considering the source material actually has some decent story, it transitions well to the cartoon. One of the many complaints about the game is that the dialog is really, really, really wordy. In this cartoon however, they have to edit down for time, bare minimum, so it's greatly improved in that regard.This cartoon aired in the US once on Cartoon Network with the episodes spliced together as a two hour movie. It was available to watch online from Cartoon Network's online anime collection, Jet Stream Toonamie. I am watching the dub for now, but save your groans because the dub is actually very well put together. The voice acting is decent and the music and sound effects are not butchered like in so many dubs. The dub features a different opening theme which is Orchestral in nature and sounds very good (I'll get to the J-Pop anime version when it comes up). There is one small problem with the dub though. You see, the original versions of the show in Japan were only 10 minutes long. In the US, most half-hour shows are about 22 minutes in length to allow for commercial breaks and the like. To work with this, the Star Force Dub episodes contain two shows at a time, but that leaves them with about three and a half minutes of empty space because the intro song is only shown once, and they had about two minutes left over anyway. So each episode begins with a slight recap of the last episode as well as a preview of the upcoming episode. It can be incredibly annoying, but I'm not exactly sure what Viz is supposed to do about it. They're stuck with the 22 minute format whether they like it or not, and they can't exactly go and draw up new content for each episode. So it's an inconvenience, but we'll live with it.
There's been a handful of small changes as well. The time frame between Geo's father's disappearance in the game is three years, but here it's only 3 months or so. I think this is because the shows writers want to lessen the severity of Geo's depression. In the game, Geo is practically emotionally dead when the game starts up, something I can tell you happens first hand with depression the longer it goes on. In this show, Geo is depressed, but it's in it's early stages with Geo maintaining a bit of hope, and perhaps some denial, about what happened to his father. This is a good approach for the TV show because the writers don't have enough time to get the audience to like Geo right away.
In the games, Geo is unmotivated, bitter and lonely and it makes him a lot less friendly and more rude. In the show, Geo is a little more upbeat. You can see his depression affecting him, but it's not as severe yet. This allows the writers to push Geo into the narrative situations faster since they don't have the luxury of breaking up the story with game play segments. Geo is also older when his father went missing, in the games Geo is about 8 years old when it happens. Losing a father at any age is devastating, but I think there is a hell of a lot less Geo can do to get over it at age 8 than at age 11, and in the game, he is emotionally stunted as a result of this. What I'm getting at here is that I understand the changes to make the shows narrative flow better.
Plot Synopsis
This episode is a combination of the shows "Fugitive Warrock" and "First Contact". The show starts out aboard the Space Station Peace, where top scientist Dr. Kelvin Stelar is attempting to contact alien life. The station establishes contact, but the aliens are hostile and the space station is seen exploding.
We fast forward three months later as Geo recounts the day when he found out his father had disappeared. He's quit going to school and mostly keeps to himself. He has no friends, but enjoys tinkering with gadgets and star gazing. One day, a girl from his class at Echo Ridge Elementary shows up at his door to bring him to school. Her name is Luna Platz and she's his class president. Luna figures that if she can bring Geo to school, whether or not he wants to go, it will make her look good politically, and help her in the up coming student body election.
Geo is resistant to go, but Luna's henchmen, Bud Bison and Zack Temple, attempt to force him. He escapes and runs off. He heads over to AMAKEN labs, a space research laboratory where a friend of his father, Aaron Boreal, works researching Electromagnetic Waves. Geo is interested in all the space technology there and wants to become an astronaut to find his missing father. Aaron tells Geo that he needs to start going back to school and start making friends, but Geo is convinced he doesn't need any friends. He later heads out at night to go star gazing.
Meanwhile a group of aliens on another planet have surrounded another alien (Omega-Xis). They want him to hand them the Andromeda key from which he stole. What Andromeda is, isn't explained just yet, but apparently it's dangerous and the alien runs off to Earth. In pursuit, one of the aliens chases after him and Omega-Xis and the other alien fight above Earth. Geo, with thanks to his fathers visualizer, witnesses the aliens fighting in the sky as beams of light. Suddenly one of the beams of light comes crashing down into Geo, unleashing a bright ball of energy. We see Geo's body take shape of a new mysterious form as he passes out unconscious.
Critique
This episode is entirely exposition setting up the scenarios to come. Star Force is an extremely complicated set up as it is, so I guess I can't fault them for it. Geo is about a fuck ton more sympathetic than Lan is comparatively to my last review. Let's face it, Geo has some real serious problems, where as Lan is just a big baby about, what is essentially, video games.
We've set the stage up pretty decently. Geo has his father issues, Luna and her friends are giant assholes, and space aliens are fighting over something. With a pilot episode, especially a serial series, the most important goal is to catch the audience's interests for follow up episodes. Good shows and movies have what is known as an "inciting incident" which gets the ball rolling on the plot. In this episode, it was the space station exploding, in NT Warrior, it was Lan's first Net Battle of the show. Which one of these sounds more interesting to you?
Boy... I need to lay off the NT Warrior hate. Anyway, Star Force starts up ok. My six year old cousin recommends it as well as the "Alien Mega Man."
Rating: Thumbs Up.
No comments:
Post a Comment