You know, I finally realized why the characterization in Evolution is so weak, thanks to a friend of mine.
It's not just because the actors, bless their hearts, just weren't that good, or just because the dialogue was abysmal. It's not even just because they had their entire character development stripped from them. It's also all of these things, of course, but not only that.
In Code Lyoko, everyone was unique in their own ways. Without Jeremie, there would be no series. He was the one who discovered the supercomputer. He was the one who reawakened Aelita and XANA. He was the one who worked endlessy to bring Aelita on Earth, and he was necessary to the gang since out of everyone, bar maybe Aelita herself, he knew how the supercomputer worked the best. His raw intelligence, his flaws, his virtues made Code Lyoko into what it was.
Aelita herself wasn't a "female Jeremie", she was her own character who, yes, was super smart, but also had her own series of flaws and virtues that made her a better fit for the role of "action girl". And her being the only one who could deactivate towers also gave the series higher stakes- it's safe to assume that scanners have a cooldown and once you've been devirtualized you can't go back immediately, and at first, devirtualization meant death for her. If Aelita fell, thing that was a very real danger since she was XANA's main target for the entire series, and since she didn't have direct attack powers for two seasons, everyone fell.
Yumi provided a more balanced, "older sister" type of figure, both in Lyoko and on Earth. More agile than Ulrich, less so than Odd, stronger than Odd, weaker than Ulrich, she was also the one who tried to keep her younger friends from doing things excessively stupid, even if she still got her own moments of idiocy (she was still a teen, after all). Not only that, her status as a student who didn't live in Kadik provided her new obstacles to get past, and in fact we see her struggle to hide her "hero" persona from her parents.
Ulrich had clear self esteem issues. A melee fighter with one of the most op skillsets in the series, he doesn't shine nearly as much as he could, because he's trapped in his own doubts and family issues, thing that is also reflected in his relationship with Yumi. He's still, however, a sweet guy, who can be irrational at times but loves his friends dearly and always has everyone's best interest in mind- his relationship with William? Perfect example. He's jealous of William. He doesn't like him that much. He still, however, admires him and is grateful when the boy puts his life on the line to save them from a bomb, and admits that he would make for a fine Lyoko Warrior.
Odd was a joker, a wannabe casanova, and may appear stupid to others, but he wasactually fiercely protective of his friends and everyone in Kadik (case in point, him risking his life to save Millie and Tamiya, getting himself trapped into a crumbling building in the process), and his quick thinking and agility made him one of the best warriors in Lyoko despite his lack of super abilities like Yumi's Telekinesis or Ulrich's Triplication, to the point where he was one of the few who managed to defeat William in a 1v1. Odd's presence provided a more light hearted outlook to the gang- to the point that when he was the one getting hurt, seriously so, the series tended to reach its points of maximum darkness.
William, Sissi, Jim, Millie, Tamiya, Sam, hell, even XANA himself all were unique characters who had their own driving forces, flaws and virtues that helped them appearing to the audience as real people (or, well, entities in XANA's case). Evolution just kinda threw that out of the window. In Evolution, no one is special. No one is memorable except for Laura, and she is for all the wrong reasons. No one is necessary, because all Lyoko warriors can do the same things now, there is no real difference in ability (Ulrich only remembers he has abilities every now and then, same for Yumi who I don't think I have ever seen use telekinesis, the only ones who regularly use them are Aelita and William, and even then, Aelita only uses Flight and William refuses to use his Supersmoke properly). Code Lyoko presented us people who were special not because they could do cool stuff, but because they had their own ways to do that cool stuff. Now 99% of the group can deactivate a tower, and even Jeremie has been reduced to “one of the people who can operate the supercomputer”.
And, if we look at everyone’s personalities and interpersonal dynamics, again, they’re all interchangeable now. Yumi and Aelita are “the girls”. William and Ulrich are “the cool guys”. Even the jealousy dynamic (brought back and made even worse by awful writers who don’t know that character development and inconsistency aren’t the same thing) between Ulrich/Yumi/William has been doubled with the new addiction of Laura as a red herring love interest for Jeremie. They aren’t people anymore... they’re plot devices. To the point where the only character who actually feels alive from time to time is XANA, who got a few admittedly amusing scenes such as him flirting (???) with William and Yumi and getting into an argument with Odd and William via polymorphic clones, though I am 99% sure that the humour in those scenes wasn’t intended.
