User blog:Berrybrick/What's wrong with Nexo Knights?
Rant today.
I know what you are thinking. "Why, Berry, do you do this to yourself?"
Because in this day we have a lot of things competing for our attention. And I guess that I just happen to be hard to please. And I make bad choices. Because when I could have been watching something that I actually like, or working on one of my projects that never seem to get done, or getting a good night's sleep (because it was late). I'm not here to pretend that I am smarter or that I have better taste than you or anything, but when something bothers me, I want to know why it bothers me.
And Nexo Knights bothers me.
If you happen to like the show, I am not judging you. If I were, I would say so.
Anyway, per Soupperson's idea, before we get to the show, I am going to take a quick look at the theme itself.
When rumors first started to apparate, they said that it would be a castle theme with steampunk technology. Which sounded cool. What we got is more cyberpunk.
Which is really meh. I'm just not into that stuff. For what they are though, the sets are generally okay. Stingy on the minifigures, but okay. The monsters are actually pretty good. And the hero minifigures aren't bad. The entire theme isn't bad, it's just the setting. It just doesn't capture my imagination. It feels phoned in and lifeless like the G2 BIONICLE. It's not Ninjago where you've got WWII skeleton bikers fighting lightning ninja tornadoes or Elves with all of its crystals and colorful leaves or even Chima with its lush environments and floating mountain and animal architecture. Knights in spaceships just seems to be the sort of thing that anyone could have come up with. And as far as the sets go, it is executed very well. Especially the monster stuff. But it's another ruff and tumble battle machine theme. Couldn't they have done something like medieval-era technology, but had the setting be on some extraterrestrial planet with alien characters and quirks to the design? That wouldn't be too similar to Star Wars, would it? If this were a smaller side-theme like Ultra Agents or Monster Fighters, I wouldn't take issue, but this is supposed to be a big bang like Ninjago and leave an impact on kids.
And I guess I'm just a little disappointed. There's nothing really wrong with it; not the sets anyway. As we'll get to, the show exacerbates these problems. But the theme is okay. It just isn't for me.
And so, I had no interest in the show. But then Cartoon Network went and uploaded the first three episodes to YouTube, so I took a look. And now here is a look at my look.
Our characters are:
- Clay: The leader. Who has fun by training and planning and getting two hours of sleep and not having fun and stuff. Honestly though, he's probably the most likeable character. At least because he is the only one who calls Lance out.
- Apparently he is from the country though? Somehow that seems like something that could be interesting--maybe if "the country" means Arcadia and he would be out of it with all of the technology, but neh. They don't do anything with that detail.
- Lance: The narcissistic one. Everyone feeds his ego because his armor is shiny (yes, really). Not funny. Extremely unlikable.
- I just might ship him with Clay to bug people though. There are a couple of lines between them that I really want to share because they are just so beautiful out of context, but they are so suggestive that I can't.
- Macy: The girl who, get this, likes to fight. I know, I can't believe it either. Unless it's her teammates. Then she goes team-mom, but I guess because she inherited her father's backbone, she just tells someone else to do something instead. And if Axl is too busy thinking about food, oh well.
- Aaron: "Awesome. Like awesome awesome." Not because he is awesome, but because he says "awesome" in every line. Writers seem to forget that he exists half the time, and when they remember, it's because they want to sell how cool everything in this world is.
- Axl: Food. Because he is big. Get it? The only line I caught which had nothing to do with food was about not liking to read.
- Jestro: The Not-Joker. He actually seems like he could be an okay character, but most of the time he just has long scenes with lots of unfunny dialogue where the Book of Monsters is telling him what to do.
- Robin: I think I missed who he and Ava are supposed to be exactly. I don't see the need (especially for both of them), but as far as kid characters go, he's okay. A little annoying, but not Scrappy-Doo.
- Ava: Every time I hear her speak, all I can think of is Velma Dinkley and oh gosh what is it with the Scooby comparisons? Eh. She's probably my favorite despite that. It's nice to have a kid character that isn't trying too hard to be funny or cute or anything. But again, she's sort of redundant; this cast is too big.
- Merlok: Trying to be Dumbledore. Is not. So he tries to be Gandalf. Is still not.
- The Book of Monsters: You know, a sentient scary book that likes to scare people is kind of a fun idea. But we don't really see him as that, more as Jestro's obnoxiously abusive shoulder devil who has to spell out everything for him.
- King Halbert: Macy's father who doesn't want her to be a knight. Whereas her lack of backbone is a result of bad writing, his is intentional. Basically imagine imagine The Little Mermaid if every exchange between Triton and Ariel went something like "Ariel, I don't really think you should...." "But daddy, please!" "Okay, I guess". Gah, I'm more tired of feminist kings than I ever was of the "wise, old" type.
- Queen Halbert: Who is competent. And fights in a dress. This is even more shocking than how Macy likes to fight. I don't think my worldview can take it. Prejudices breaking down...bile turning into...rainbows....
And the episodes:
- The Book of Monsters Pt. 1: My first thought with the robot vendors walking around and the newscasters narrating is a Medieval Times Restaurant 50 years in the future. Great. So we get a sort of sports center introduction to each of the team members because they are graduating to knighthood (which begs the question of where all of the seasoned knights are). Merlok and Jestro perform. Jestro gets embarrassed when he messes things up and the power goes out. The power going out frees an evil book bound in Merlok's library, which Jestro finds and evulz. Merlok sacrifices himself to stop Jestro and save Clay, who is there for some reason.
- The Book of Monsters Pt. 2: This starts off with a really bad recap contradicting the end of the last episode and, in my opinion, shining a bad light on Clay's character; if they made it a character flaw, I'd be into it, but his flaw seems to be "I was too busy breathing heavy that one time and Jestro got away. It also bothers me how most of the characters mourn Merlok. Clay, fine. Macy, fine. Axl, fine. Lance just goes "Eh, at least Jestro is gone too" which, yeah, he's supposed to be insensitive but he just gets away with so much. The king and queen are worried about who is going to give them advise now, and the news anchor is interested in who is going to provide entertainment for the kingdom in his place. What the heck? Nothing about heroic sacrifice or the joy he brought everyone? They are just worried about what the next big thing will be? If that were some sort of commentary about this world, great, but you know it's not. Ahem. Finished with the first five minutes. Anyway, Clay and Lance can't get along. Jestro turns evil in an underwhelming sequence that came out of nowhere and then attacks the castle. Merlok is revived as a hologram and gives the knights powers to stop Jestro.
- The Power of Merlok: Lance and Clay are still arguing. Merlok is having some issues with his conversion (don't worry--nothing character related, something about the hologram not functioning properly). Jestro and the Book of Monsters are having more of the same conversations about what it takes to be evil--think less Disney villain song, and more nagging wife in an unhappy marriage with an idiot husband (and then less Simpsons and more something not good) and you've got it. None of these plotlines converge in any interesting way; the characters just sort of end up together because good vs. evil and they needed to work the app game in; they could have some sort of power like "peace talk" or "quiet time away" for Clay and Lance. This episode is extremely toyetic (featuring the debut of the Fortrex--in stores now), but now that Jestro is out there being evil, we learn what is truly at stake with his rise to power: omelettes and Jacuzzis.
Now what do I say about this? Because I kind of want to rant about it. Maybe I'll save that for later. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just okay. But like, offensively okay.
The world is genuinely uninspired. Castle imagery, but every joke which isn't about food or narcissism or the king being inept or whatever seems to be a reference to apps and iPhones and modern technology. And it's lame. Because the show has this awful gimmick that at the climax Merlok will upload powers to the knights and the kids at home are supposed to whip out their phone and upload the power to their app. The show is buying into itself. The story sort of brushes against some things which could be legitimately interesting, what with everyone (sort of) freaking out when they lose power, or how after Merlok dies everyone acts like things will be better when something comes along to replace him. But no, it plays all of that straight. Granted, I can't see that working out much better than Chima's drug allegory, but without it, it's pure toyeticism. The stakes are first world luxuries. The characters are cut and paste. If you want to sell toys, go ahead, but it has to be for a story worth selling. And don't get me wrong. The sets are worth selling. It's this world and these characters that are not. I'm not a fan of Ninjago and haven't watched since the first few episodes, but even that had real stakes with Nya being kidnapped and the modern technology (phone lines in the rice paddies, skeletons on oversized motorbikes) were treated as jokes. But this just buys into itself. And I see that as something really sad. When they talk about Jestro destroying omelettes, I don't know if I am supposed to laugh or care (and being neither dramatic nor funny does not help). Like, my job is cleaning omelette pans and even I'm not affected in anyway. "Oh no, I'll be out of the job! How can I buy the Nexo Knights sets?" ;_;
Well, Berry, what did you expect?
BIONICLE. That's my theory for why Ninjago, Chima, and now this keep blending fantastic settings with futuristic technology. You can exist to sell merchandise, but at least try to make sure the merchandise is worth selling. Quality of the sets aside, this is not. Chima never bothered me this way, because even if it was bad, it at least tried to be something a little more. Elves might be saccharine, but did have a character dealing with grief and, even with that to the side, the world is at least immersive, it tries to provide an adventure, and some of the characters are actually multi-dimensional. To be fair, I'm not sure if Ninjago started out as any better than Nexo Knights and if this bothering me more than that ever did has more to do with the app play being intertwined with the story, or even because the Ninjago pilot at least had some memorable moments (whereas this does nothing). but I also don't feel at ease to disregard Ninjago when I have heard it at least has good character development, and I do know that its world isn't phoned in. Just the way that the characters are introduced rubs me the wrong way: Aside from Macy with her (terrible character of a) father and mother, we are told about their character rather than shown because You can collect them all!
Nexo Knights just seems to be full of terrible ideas from the ground up. Every part of it except for maybe Jestro that seems like it could be a potentially interesting facet appears to be by accident. And while it is far from the worst thing ever, I can't justify its existence on any level beyond selling stuff to kids and that business model with the addition of the apps being intertwined really irks me.
But, hey, if you enjoy it don't mind me. :P I'm not here to tell you what to and not to like;
just
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