But, like every other type of entertainment from my youth, those cartoons are long gone. Skull Island had so much potential: a look back at the history of Kong and his homeland, a new creative team promising new monsters, new characters to engage us and the type of action that can only be produced by high end animation. Where did it all go wrong?
I'm pretty sure Netflix bears a lot of the blame. They are heavily invested in the current-year storytelling tropes that have produced misfires like the live-action Cowboy Bebop.
The story is set in the 1990's and involves the survivors of two shipwrecks on Skull Island. Of course, the ships were sunk by a giant squid, but that's not the nastiest thing on the island. One of the main characters is that most horrific and repulsive of creatures: the Hollywood Girlboss. If you've seen any sci-fi/fantasy movie or TV show of the past eight years, you know the type. The female character who is smarter, stronger and more capable than any mere useless male. She can train herself to be a master monster killer from the age of 7, outswim a Godzilla-sized squid, train a man-eating carnivore to do her bidding and - somehow - find a pair of high-top cross-trainers to fit her 16 year-old feet despite being stranded on a island for nine years and thousands of miles away from the nearest shoe store. And she does it all with an unbreakable veneer of smug superiority, treating her male co-stars with contempt, mistrust and a blunt, brutal honesty that is supposed to "quirky" but merely leaves the viewer wanting to drown her in a bathtub.
Oh, and there's a second Girlboss in Episode 7 who can survive a thousand-foot fall without sustaining an injury and win a screaming match with KING KONG.
Any character is this show who is not a Girlboss is useless and helpless on the island. A scientist nearly gets eaten about four times because he's too busy admiring the natural beauty of everything on Skull Island that wants to eat him. A college-age teen boy who is supposedly an experienced sailor, doesn't tell his crewmates he walking around an uncharted ecosphere with an open wound until the inevitable infection nearly kills him.
This series even manages to make Kong unlikeable. In a flashback, he is seen smiling smugly as natives on his island genuflect before him, as if he thoroughly enjoys being their god. The next time I watch Godzilla vs. Kong, I am SO going to enjoy watching Godzilla stomp a mudhole in the grumpy furball. I never realized until now how much Kong needed that lesson in humility.
If you can get past the dreadful writing and cliched characterizations, you might be impressed by the design and the animation. Netflix throws money at its project and that money in on the screen here. The animation is solid and better than most of what is being produced by broadcast networks and cable stations. The design of the creatures and the effort put into the depiction of the biosystem on Skull Island is impressive. There are a few familiar creatures, like the Skullcrawler, but most of the creatures are new designs.
There are a few familiar actors in the voice cast. Cartoon workhorses Phil LaMarr and John DiMaggio are on hand, in a couple of bog-standard roles that don't take advantage of their considerable talents. Mae Whitman, the voice of Disney's Tinkerbelle, is also slumming as the main Girlboss. And Benjamin Bratt is there, probably to provide "name" value to the cast. They do the best they can with the weaksauce scripting but, let's face it, they're only human and you can't polish a turd.
The eight-episode first season ends with a lot of unanswered questions and a pronounced shift away from Skull Island. They didn't do enough in those eight episodes to make me care about the characters enough to want to continue following their journey. I'm going to go back and re-watch Godzilla: Singular Point. Also, Gamera: Rebirth is made in Japan, so there's a vastly decreased likelihood of obnoxious Girlbosses ruining my fun.
I'm pretty sure Netflix bears a lot of the blame. They are heavily invested in the current-year storytelling tropes that have produced misfires like the live-action Cowboy Bebop.
The story is set in the 1990's and involves the survivors of two shipwrecks on Skull Island. Of course, the ships were sunk by a giant squid, but that's not the nastiest thing on the island. One of the main characters is that most horrific and repulsive of creatures: the Hollywood Girlboss. If you've seen any sci-fi/fantasy movie or TV show of the past eight years, you know the type. The female character who is smarter, stronger and more capable than any mere useless male. She can train herself to be a master monster killer from the age of 7, outswim a Godzilla-sized squid, train a man-eating carnivore to do her bidding and - somehow - find a pair of high-top cross-trainers to fit her 16 year-old feet despite being stranded on a island for nine years and thousands of miles away from the nearest shoe store. And she does it all with an unbreakable veneer of smug superiority, treating her male co-stars with contempt, mistrust and a blunt, brutal honesty that is supposed to "quirky" but merely leaves the viewer wanting to drown her in a bathtub.
Oh, and there's a second Girlboss in Episode 7 who can survive a thousand-foot fall without sustaining an injury and win a screaming match with KING KONG.
Any character is this show who is not a Girlboss is useless and helpless on the island. A scientist nearly gets eaten about four times because he's too busy admiring the natural beauty of everything on Skull Island that wants to eat him. A college-age teen boy who is supposedly an experienced sailor, doesn't tell his crewmates he walking around an uncharted ecosphere with an open wound until the inevitable infection nearly kills him.
This series even manages to make Kong unlikeable. In a flashback, he is seen smiling smugly as natives on his island genuflect before him, as if he thoroughly enjoys being their god. The next time I watch Godzilla vs. Kong, I am SO going to enjoy watching Godzilla stomp a mudhole in the grumpy furball. I never realized until now how much Kong needed that lesson in humility.
If you can get past the dreadful writing and cliched characterizations, you might be impressed by the design and the animation. Netflix throws money at its project and that money in on the screen here. The animation is solid and better than most of what is being produced by broadcast networks and cable stations. The design of the creatures and the effort put into the depiction of the biosystem on Skull Island is impressive. There are a few familiar creatures, like the Skullcrawler, but most of the creatures are new designs.
There are a few familiar actors in the voice cast. Cartoon workhorses Phil LaMarr and John DiMaggio are on hand, in a couple of bog-standard roles that don't take advantage of their considerable talents. Mae Whitman, the voice of Disney's Tinkerbelle, is also slumming as the main Girlboss. And Benjamin Bratt is there, probably to provide "name" value to the cast. They do the best they can with the weaksauce scripting but, let's face it, they're only human and you can't polish a turd.
The eight-episode first season ends with a lot of unanswered questions and a pronounced shift away from Skull Island. They didn't do enough in those eight episodes to make me care about the characters enough to want to continue following their journey. I'm going to go back and re-watch Godzilla: Singular Point. Also, Gamera: Rebirth is made in Japan, so there's a vastly decreased likelihood of obnoxious Girlbosses ruining my fun.
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