hello i need to complain about Slugterra: Ascension !>:(
i just rebinged one of my favorite childhood shows OAT these past few days and its been an absolute delight, although the show itself is admittedly not the best. With many faults (including animation and how each episode starts), i'd say it still holds up pretty strong despite being a lil old. its a fun universe to explore and the characters are enjoyable (except Pronto pmos a lot of the time), Eli is well written, despite being the overdone, awesome, can-do-it-all boy mc. The dynamic between the Shane gang is also nicely written, giving them a familial, sibling, feeling, and that aspect i really liked.
NOW when i first saw that Slugterra had recently been given a new spin-off (2022), i was overjoyed! like no way I hadn't heard about this despite how much i enjoyed the og when i was a wee baby?? well.... i could barely sit through the first episode. Here's everything I hate about it and why:
Firstly, the episodes themselves are incredibly short (only 4 minutes each). I can understand why, the incredibly low budget, but what I don't get is why not use that budget to make fewer, normal length GOOD episodes?? there was absolutely no need to make TWENTY EPISODES that are FOUR MINUTES EACH LIKE BRU take that energy into making like 10 good episodes??? i see one thing some people like about the show is the plot but each episode is centered around ONE TINY obstacle, genuinely episode 2 was them stuck in a web and then they got out. that's it. four minutes. its ridiculous. A good comment i found on reddit was that they felt they were waiting for the episode to end to progress in the plot, just to feel the same when the next one started. (sowwy lost the comment no cite) but i completely agree with them, getting through these short episodes gives me the same feeling of watching an ad before a youtube video starts, but its just an hour of more ads. Even though it's only 4 minutes an episode, finishing an episode still feels like finishing an episode ykwim?? so when you get through five episodes and they're still doing the same thing (cos its only 4 minutes), you feel like absolutely nothing has happened. the pacing is disastrous.
Although, the BIGGEST problem is the budget😭🙏 holy jesus is the animation ten times worse than the original series!!!! Now, I'm not one to glaze, the original animation was .. not the best.. but like guys cmonnnn it was of the timessss this was coachellaaa 2016 pls!! but even with being older, it still wasnt unbearable like Ascension is. The characters move stiff and the new models are SO scary plus the tiny slugs with the big heads??? HIDEOUS. Eli looks like Eli but if he got really.. ugly? like i can't put my finger on it but something is wrong. the original Eli looked cool and unbeatable, in Ascension, though, he looks straight up bad. like he LOOKS the same, same hair, same build, same clothes, but wrong. this is not just the usual way people complain about remakes of characters, its genuinely bad. And trixie doesn't look any better. Another thing I'm blaming on the budget is the new voice acting... i get it, its like 10 years later the original voice actors either grew older or don't wish to do it anymore, sure, but at least find people who aren't so?? weird?? they're like ALMOST close to the original... not almost original or close to the original, ALMOST close. Not only do they sound different, the voice actors aren't?? good?? they're not good VA's. and with the low budget, I'm not surprised. The writing is also horrendous, so when these, already bad, voice actors say these disgraceful lines.. it's just! not a great mix! the original had fun banter between the characters, it could be called corny (and it was) but it was still fun! This one though, just straight cringe. A good example of all of these problems is in "follow that flopper", there's a flashback when Pronto is bragging about his tracking skills and this flashback is... disgusting. It's not new animation, the flashback is just reused clips from the original show with new VA over Pronto's lines. Having JUST come out of watching the actual episodes the flashback is from feels uncanny. And to add to that uncannyness, reusing clipsss oh my glob😭 it switches from the horrid animation in Ascension to the better animation in OG and then back to Ascension😭😭did they think we wouldn't notice😭😭its wildly different😭😭saving a few bucks huh😭😭 Another thing caused by such a low budget is the fact that only half of the Shane gang is featured, only Eli and Trixie are in these episodes. Kord and Pronto? JUST VOICES. They "call" Eli and Trixie sometimes. AND THEIR VOICES AREN'T EVEN GOOD😭😭PICK A STRUGGLE OHH MY GODD a crazy thing they tried doing is fan service feeding into the ships of Eli and Trixie. this is blasphemy. they had a sibling dynamic in the original series. if Eli is shipped with ANYONE i could hear out Twist or Junjie, who i think had great dynamics and i would hear someone out who ships them but TRIXIE??? there's not one girl character in the show who had ANY potential hints of romance with Eli (maybe because hes FIFTEEN) but especially not trixie and the new fan service is heartbreakingly disappointing, which i can say for the whole of Slugterra: Ascension.
it sucks that the spin-off was meant to be a tester to see if there was still an audience for Slugterra, it makes me really sad thinking that its failure is why we don't have more slugterra. but if Ascension had succeeded, it probably would have meant more slop. more slopterra. so there's that, here's to disappointing assurance🍻