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The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: In the Realm of the Condor (1996)
A brutal early episode and mistake for the show
In many ways REAL ADVENTURES is maybe best remembered as a odd little foot note in the history of Jonny Quest in general.
It also pretty much is notable for being the reason it killed any chances of QUEST being on TV ever again and this episode basically makes that point anymore clear.
The only female character is the entire episode is treated as being a "greedy!?" fortune hunter whose been after the legendary city of El Dorado for of course the gold inside it. Thing is surprisingly the Quest family doesn't care for that since there for searching for rather crazy scientist "uncle"who somehow become the leader of a strange tribe of bird worshipers basically these rather menacing giant condors.
One of which earlier in the episode were actively trying to kill Jonny!!!. Yes it was the first of there "save the animals" theme which also involved later on a killer elephant and a rampaging tiger both of which the Quest family treated like poor puppies rather terrible menaces.
The condors here are "gods" and makes for a rather uncomfortable scene in which the girl(Estella) falls to her death in some rocks bellow and the uncle then decides to let the condor gods rescue Jonny. I ended up feeling more sorry for the girl who were wouldn't supposed to care about(it doesn't help that she's animated to be in the same basic age range as Jonny and Jesse who think goddess doesn't show up in this episode) then the actual main character.
Estella's sudden forced "villainy" toward the end felt more like a sense of desperation and panic then anything else. Yet it she does ends up dead in the end(or near fatal injury) makes you realize as why the first season of this show was a bizarre stress test in terms of how much the writers were on the uncaring level themselves.
You know the first season was garbage when the uncle the Quest have been after basically said "It was a fate well deserved for her"
If any cartoon like that was on today it would be getting a lot more heat for how the heck they get away with such things like this in 1996. Even then the save the animals phase was completely forgotten(along with Estella and El Dorado)when the show started to really into the one thing that really shot this entire premise in the foot....
QUEST WORLD!
John Carter (2012)
Disney's John Carter of Mars: Best looked at as a Pre-Star Wars
The red planet Mars is under a fierce war between the nations of Heluim and Zodanga as red tyrant Sab Than(Dominic West)is given a strange power blue weapon by the leader of the mysterious order known as the Holy Threns Matai Shang(Mark Strong)meanwhile on Earth(Jasoom to the martians) former civil war army-man turned cowboy John Carter is forcibly drafted by U.S colonial Powell(Bryan Cranston)who tells him outright to fight the Indians but by first escaping his cell and then unknowing leading them into a group of Indians,one of them wounding Powell and upon both discovering a strange small carven which holds both gold and a silent guardian which try to kill Carter but upon shooting him the man utters the words of "Barsoom" before dying and uttering it sends Carter to Mars...
The scientist daughter to the great Jaddak of Heluim Dejah Thoris(Lynn Collins)has discover the power behind Sab Than's newest weapon which is some new form of energy called the Ninth Ray but not hearing a word of it Tardos Mors(Ciaran Hinds)tells her she would have to soon marry Sab Than in order to ensure peace between the nations but instead runs away and right into the arms of our hero and his large green captors the savage nomads known as the Tharks under the leadership of Tars Tarkas(Willem Defoe)who keeps getting underhanded by the brute Tal Haljus and the high priestess of the Tharks Sarkoja(Polly Walker)as well as allies of the tribe including Sola(Samantha Morton)and the guard dog to the baby Tharks Wooa,and soon after showing off his amazing jump skills(do the lesser gravity of Mars as opposite to that of Earth)by saving the princess and confronting Sab Than only briefly does he learn that he is on another planet,and only after both escape the city of the Tharks that they learn a little bit more about what the Holy Threns are planning,only in Zodanga does Carter get to learn the full sinister plans of Matai Shang can he be ready to save a planet is not his own...
For these who like old fashioned sci-fi this film(and the original novel) get everything from a beautiful princes,the odd Martian wild life(the cute Wooa,the rhino look Thoats that ridden around as horses and finally the large dangerous alien gorillas known as the White Apes)great green warriors which seem to be savage cousins to the classic UFO Grey aliens,an evil arrogant empire and finally big battles that became the hallmarks of the original Star Wars trilogy as well the Flash Gordon serials(Sab Than does seems a lot like Ming the Merciless including wanting to marry the love interest of the hero) And for Pixar Director Andrew Standon's first live action debut does a pretty good job with following the novel's plot(as the the other screenwriters of Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon) including having the book's author Edger Rice Burroughs(Daryl Sabara)at the center of it as he reads his uncle Carter's interplanetary story from his diary,which in the end becomes more clearer as the film draws to a close,Collins as Princess Dejah is most defiantly my favorite in terms of Disney trying to do something of a live action Disney princess or at least since Kera Knightley's Elizabeth Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean series,and Taylor Kitsch plays a rather rough damaged goods hero whose almost kind like Han Solo except with more a tragic past that involved sadly his previous wife and child dying that makes him feel he shouldn't even get invoke with the martians and there problems until Dejah shows him that he does need someone worth fighting for,the CGI is really quite well done though the martian green men tribes of the Tharks and the Warhoons(who are shown during a great and brutal battle scene as he cuts them down with his two swords as it cuts to his tragic moment of burying his wife and child)Burroughs's green men of Mars seem to be something of an inspiration for the honor bound warrior race of Star Trek's Kilgons.
Its really the best Edger Rice Burroughs adaption Disney has done since there 1999 animated version of Tarzan and in some ways surpasses least some of the Tarzan films or even the 70s productions of Burroughs's At the Earth's Core and the Land that Time Forget and yeah for a PG-13 Disney film it is a lot more violet then the later Pirates of The Caribbean sequels but there is a lot of humor including from both Wooa and the captain of the Heluim navy Kantos Kan(James Purefoy)or how Carter is first indicated to way the Tharks treat there young in there dungeon nursery.
So overall i do recommend this Disney film ignoring the overall negative reviews its somehow getting(and i really don't know why since i actually liked this film and also reading the book the Princess of Mars)also its away better version then the low budget 2009 Asylum production that starred Antonio Sabato Jr as John Carter and Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris
Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Criss-Cross Conspiracy! (2010)
Batman is mad toward Batwoman in this episode
DC's new team up show "Batman:Brave and the Bold" has so far been really good and succeed really well with having Batman teaming up with such heroines as Catwoman(more of a great anti-heroine) Zatanna,Fire and Ice,Mera,Black Canery,Vixen,Mary Marvel,Elasti Girl(in a really sad episode)Huntress,Wonder Womanand of course Batgirl but when come time to do Kathy Kane/Batwoman they take a different idea for her in this episode,it starts with the Riddler robbing a lot of rich people of Gothem at a party before of course Batman shows up along with a young Robin,when Kathy(who the writers for some reason had completely changed her name in this episode)appears from there and ruins everything for Batman,including having the Riddler unmask her in front of the public
15 years later she comes up with the most bizarre revenge scheme possible against Edward Nigama by luring Batman to her mansion,she then works a spell(given by Felix Faust) to have her exchange bodies with Bruce,who then ties up and goes off to the Batcave to find Batgirl and Nightwing and talk them into finding Riddler for her meanwhile Bruce untied him(her)self and is forced to find Faust for helping undo the spell by finding Batman first
Kathy in Bruce's body gets herself captured and hungover a vat of acid and Bruce in Kathy's body fights alongside Batgirl and Nightwing against the henchmen and the Riddler(getting knocked by Barbara)as the spell is undone by Felix
In the end The Riddler and Felix Faust are as usual arrested by the Gothem police but in twist so is Kathy Kane with Batman telling her revenge is not the answer and now she has to pay her debut to society and he be waiting for her whenever she gets out and she said she'll do just fine(maybe she can hire Kate Spenser)
Overall i think i would never seen the likes of this episode again given the fact that they treated Batwoman in such a bad light as basically coming off as some sort of a villain,i know in the older comic books of Batman she just comes off as reckless As for Batman(this only time in this series were i think he comes off as just really not nice toward a female superhero) and the city of Gothem in this one episode,well once she unmasked the city justice makes her swear that she never puts on a bat-suit ever again but once she does(as Bruce is forced to act)then she becomes just as criminal as Riddler for some never explained reason(its a wonder that Barbara Gorden can have her bat-suit at all given the fact that Batman isn't chewing her out like he does Kathy)
These expecting the appearance of Betty Kane/Flamebird will be disappointed because she never shows up in this,now hopefully Batwoman could be written to come back in some future episode of "Brave and The Bold" also the voice of Kathy(Venessa Marshell)is pretty much the only thing i like about this episode given the fact that she also did Wonder Woman on "Justice League:Crisis on Two Earths", Mary Jane in the latest Spiderman cartoon and Black Widow on the Avengers