Has there ever been a cartoon that had such unbounded potential, such indispensibility to a network...

Has there ever been a cartoon that had such unbounded potential, such indispensibility to a network, and such unfettered creative liberty allowed to its creators that resulted in such a disappointing & unfocused product as Adventure Time?

AT occupied such a supremely privileged position as a flagship program that they were untouchable, the golden goose of CN, and what did they do with that status? Stakes? Arcs that end almost as soon as they begin who are overwritten & forgotten the next moment? They had a panoply of distinguished professionals willing to work with them in every aspect of the show, voices, animating, writing. They had every opportunity that a cartoon creator could dream of and the result was Breezy

Other urls found in this thread:

adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Mushroom_War
youtube.com/watch?v=4MBRy-aMEBM
youtube.com/watch?v=O_M03VxWlMs
youtube.com/watch?v=F2k7Jf9xO3g
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Steven Universe

nah, it had AT to thank for helping pave the way you retarded autist

genuinely can't tell if you hate the show or love it either, and that fucking worries me

SU addressed the main problem of AT, that being the plot goes somewhere and plot points don't clumsily disappear.

>jello
Discarded

This analogy doesn't work as well as you think it does.

Oh look guys! It's the same thread we have every day. How unique and special.

He spoke the truth about Gravity Falls.

Not quite yet but it's getting there.

Composition division fallacy

Did you not see Islands you faggot? Even then plot points have been continuing, did you not see Jelly Beans Have Power and Elemental?
>bringing up an episode from 3 years ago
Is this supposed to be relevant evidence?

AT is past its window of relevance. You're talking about plays made during garbage time.

But the pacing is horrendous with long stretches of episodes ignoring the plot and not really going anywhere. Character development I feel has also been have what can only be described as "One step forward, two steps back" with stuff like Pearl "getting over" Rose just to be obsessed with a look a like couple episodes later or Peridot and Lapis being best buds out of nowhere.

What plot points get dropped?

It not being popular shapes how you feel about the show?

they made up for Breezy I guess

took awhile

anyway I think AT proves that unlimited creative freedom might not be good. but then again the writers are feckin idiots, and afraid of change for no reason I can discern.

difference being people are going to remember adventure time after ts gone
steven universe is going the korra way, it wil live on as shitposting and nothing else

its not as much about 'being popular' as it is about having squandering an opportunity that you can't get back

The problems that you begin to rectify in Season 9 do not absolve the repeatedly bungled opportunities in seasons 3-7 when their cultural capital was at its peak.

Korra is fairly popular though.
For the wrong reasons maybe, but saying everybody forgot about is plain denial.

Sup Forums hates Skyrim, do you think that's unpopular too?

Islands wasn't bad but it was still a waste of potential. It was really the one subject they shouldn't've status quo'd but they did.

I haven't watched AT since the beginning of season 5, but I plan on going back and getting through the whole thing from the beginning so that I'll have caught up when the series ends. I doubt that I will end up liking it any more, but I get the feeling that it's such an important cartoon for our cultural moment that it's worth understanding in its entirety.

You say it like AT introduced the idea of ongoing plots to Western animated shows and SU perfected it. Are you all actually underage or have you just somehow forgotten everything that came before AT?

I was only using SU as a reference in comparison to AT, what are you on about

Not him but
>You say it like AT introduced the idea of ongoing plots to Western animated shows and SU perfected it.
The user didn't remotely say any of this.

How so?

Such as? Even then, events 3 years ago affect the show now in no way at all, so they are in fact irrelevant.

What plot points disappear?

>events 3 years ago affect the show now in no way at all
That's part of my point. AT was in a position that comes once in a thousand years and the result was 4 straight seasons of unfocused mess that left no great mark.

>the sugar zombies
>copping out on Jake having to take care of his kids
>we still know nothing about the Great Mushroom War
>where are all the humans
Even if they did it now it's been 7+ seasons. Maybe I should've said it's been dragging ass with its plot points

Finn meets other humans and decides he wants to leave, and they also don't feel like leaving? And his mother is conveniently loaded into a computer? lol okay

I mean it's backstory, but how can you call that a 'plot' if it doesn't change anything or anyone.

No, it becomes irrelevant to the show because things have progressed. Bringing up Flame Princess and Finn's break up saying their relationship is irrelevant to the show now, not because it's poorly written, but because they're now friends.

>the sugar zombies
What about them?

>cop out on taking care of his kids
You guys were fucking crying that Jake and Finn would quit hanging out and many said they would drop the show. Even then that's inaccurate, as there are multiple episodes of Jake interacting and developing with his kids.
>that Graybles episode
>One Last Job
>The Diary
>Summer Showers
>Ocarnia
>Daddy Daughter Card Wars

>we know nothing
More like you don't pay attention
adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Mushroom_War

>where are all the humans
>he hasn't seen Islands
>he forgets about Betty

No, Finn went to the Islands for answers. He got them, and he had no reason to stay. His mom was about to die so she uploaded her mind to a computer. If you're going to wager Islands has ni plot you should go hang yourself

>No, it becomes irrelevant to the show because things have progressed.

They became irrelevant because they were poorly conceived. The writers couldn't see past the next episode so you end up with unsatisfying conclusions to every attempt at meaningful progression.

it is irrelevant if you think about how it could have gone. like, imagine if Finn and FP had stayed together and taught each other stuff the whole show (a la Steven Universe.) no, they have to break up and be on friendly terms because that's the lowest potential.

AT likes to resolve stuff in such a way as to minimize the impact of what happened. that's more the problem than outright forgetting shit. it's the minimization.

How so? You literally can't go back and watch saying Flame Princess's relationship with Finn is ruined with it being relevant, because they are now friends. That's due to progression. Not because it's a poorly conceived plan that no longer has say on the show. That's due to the episodic nature, not due to poor writing.

>how it could have gone
Stopped reading there, not everyone agrees with your head canon and this is just what YOU would have wanted, not what would have been best. Instead of judging the show om expectations you should judge it on what you got, because that's what really matters

We don't need answers to every question is my point. Just leave it unexplained if you can't think of much to do with it. The old show was wiser about this.

Islands was made because AT fans are trained now to expect answers, so we can't go without all of Finn's answers. But getting those answers had no effect on his life so he might as well not have known.

>That's due to the episodic nature
AT is only episodic when they want to be. The creators have been given free reign to do arcs if they so please. You can excuse poor writing on a constricting format when they're the only ones who limit themselves to that format.

Why does Mabel want to kill herself?

>had no effect on his life
He was literally crying about needing closure you fucking unbearable faggot.

Islands didn't even answer everything, it answered things that they left open. Where did the humans go? What happened to Finn's mom? These questions. Is Susan a human? There's nothing wrong with world building

>every show needs to be a consistent storyline following the story back to back each episode
Episodic nature is how the show is written, they're not limiting themselves in any way objectively because which format for a show is superior is entirely subjective.

boy I sure do love this argument.

if you have no expectations and no sense of how something could have been done better, you have no taste. it's impossible.

my observation is that everything AT does plot-wise is about playing things down. I only know that because I've seen other shows not do that.

>implying I'm saying have no expectations
Strawman fallacy, judging the show on what you were expecting results in introducing variables the show writers will never be able to account for. If you saw The Music Hole expecting for a rock band, the episode isn't shit because it did nothing to deliver on your expectations, you say it's shit because of what happened in the episode.

>you have no taste
Which is entirely subjective, taste is just what you prefer.

>arguing that the subjective is objective
That's some nice autism

I think the main problem with both of these is something I like to think of being called George Lucas Syndrome.

GLS is a condition which is as old as time itself in which any creative property or product has amazing potential and has achieved remarkable success. This proves their downfall as, said success, gives the creators, owners, or whomever more power and are less willing to hear or address problems in their show, as they believe "I am amazing and made this amazing thing. I will keep doing what I do without listening to Criticisms."

Then it's just a downward spiral of garbage, introducing the JarJars, the Mitachlorians, the badly made Ships, the Overabundance of unresolved plots, The well made ships crashing and burning, the Townie Episodes (granted I like some of those in SU).

Hell, a more recent and notable example of this is Korra. Riding off the success of ATLA they were given way too many freedoms with little to no checking of power for the creators as they had in ATLA.
Long story short; our best shit always had a heavy degree of freedoms restricted to the creators by other voices capable of giving decent criticism.


'Course, the way to solve George Lucas Syndrome is can also be ruined by OVER criticisms and overlistening to criticisms, such as pandering to Tumblr, letting Corporate decide everything ((TTG, NuPPG))


Essentially we need a balance.

For this to apply you need to explain how it does, not just say it does.

>every show needs to be a consistent storyline following the story back to back each episode
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you can't excuse poorly conceived 'progression' on the episodic nature of the show when the creators aren't tethered to that format.

>Episodic nature is how the show is written
not really anymore. it's more like a million stories interrupted by "filler", that is, the continuity-free episodes the show used to be made of entirely.

they're at the point now that flashbacks and awkward spoken exposition are used when they're building on previous episodes. it's irritating.

>i can't excuse poor writing
I absolutely can because what defines poor writing is entirely subjective based on preference. Episodic nature is what adventure is, it doesn't need to be a one way storyline just so it can please you.

>you can't excuse poorly conceived progression when they aren't forced to be episodic
This implied they need to be a constant storyline for progression to work

why are people like you on Sup Forums

is your only concept of reviewing something "i like it" or "I don't like it"?

genuinely curious how you can survive the daily triggering

>filler
Stopped reading there, since you don't know, filler is what happens when an anime makes OA to fill up a season. They are episodes that have nothing to do with the media it's based off of. This term only works with shows that have an actual storyline. The only 'storyline' in Adventure Time is Finn and Jake in Ooo. The show just shows us their lives and occasionally the lives of others

No, but each to their own. Everyone is different and prefers different ways to entertain themselves. If some media fails to match your taste is isn't bad, it's not for you. What's more annoying is seeing people who believe their preference is the right one

>I absolutely can because what defines poor writing is entirely subjective based on preference
Oh you're one of those people who hides behind subjectivity to dismiss any criticism

that's why I put it in quotes -- it's a term everyone uses here and I clarified what it means.

but thanks for telling me you're too stupid to read.

No, I can acknowledge a critcism, but it's no longer a criticism when your claim is "Finn and FP should be together because that would make me happy." A criticism would be something like "Stakes having no meaningful ending resulted in it losing relevance to the rest of the show." But to go to say it's shit because of that is just your opinion

You're looking at things n a way that's too narrow. "Filler" as a term has been expanded on to include padding - things that don't really add to the story and only really exist to fill in time.

The Pokemon anime, for example, has tons of "filler" eps that don't contribute at all to the narrative, the characters or story, and are quickly forgotten about as soon as they pass. Even though Pokemon isn't based on a manga or game story (it's an original story that takes elements from the games), these episodes are filler in practice, if not by your definition.

>stopped reading right there
But the guy then explains why he used the term.

>continuity free
Tree Trunks quite clearly showed us Tre Trunks exploded, and this was explained later. Finn being a boom boom baby was no irrelevant. Things from season 1 do tie into episodes later.

Calling an episode filler doesn't work on a show that's episodic in nature doesn't work was my point.

It's not absolute shit like season 5, but it doesn't have the charm of seasons 1, 2 and possible 3.

Sounds like you're going down the road of arguing that every episode has "continuity" because like, the Candy Kingdom continues to exist and Finn still has a green backpack and such.

Nowadays some episodes specifically exist to forward some kind of arc, and others have some weak continuity references, and still others have neither.

I think part of the problem is that they finally settled down on a consistent art-style in season 4, but the art-style they chose was really lame and the animation was really stiff.

Though, I still don't know why the writing went to shit.

>charm
nostalgia

>writing went to shit
>hasnt seen S7 or 8

No, but the city ruins seen in Ocean of Fear don't go without why that is

> your claim is "Finn and FP should be together because that would make me happy.
Where did you get the idea I cared about autistic shipping? My only point is that if you, as a show creator, are going to open up a new story line and devote multiple episodes to telling that story just to give it an unsatisfying resolution because you couldn't think of a way to fit that story into the overarching narrative of the show itself, that's poor writing. When you do the same thing again and again, or advertise an episode as making some sort of substantial change to the show itself just to be thrown by the wayside at the very end of that same episode, that's poor writing.

If AT wanted to be entirely episodic and managed to be funny & inventive every episode, i'd welcome that. But they wanted to incorporate running story lines & narratives which always fell flat on their face as the unfocused show creators couldn't find a way to meaningfully fit these story lines into the overall structure of the show itself leading to a bad compromise between episode & continuity that was the worst of both worlds.

> "Finn and FP should be together because that would make me happy."
That's not what I said. It was merely a suggestion of something actually impactful.

I'm ok with them breaking up too. But Finn needed to be affected by it more than
>wahhhh I'm depressed

The backgrounds in season 1 were just a little bit of color and context. I'm confident there wasn't an intention to expand on the post-apo setting originally. But like everything else, it got mined for stories years later.

>stories for years

No, I haven't, after the Lich turned into a baby I decided not to give it anymore chances.
It's not nostalgia, I started watching it around 2013.

so you're admitting you can't recognize quality when you see it? nice to know.
a lot of the charm people talk about comes from Finn and Jake being stronger characters who opposed each other better.
youtube.com/watch?v=4MBRy-aMEBM
youtube.com/watch?v=O_M03VxWlMs

also it was way, way funnier with nothing to distract from the funny.

You might be the most pathetic creature I've ever seen. I hope you live a full life because that's a worse punishment than death could ever be, for you.

Thanks user, I sure appretiate tellings those means anons about how my show is actually good and just isn't for them :)

>tfw could have had tons more episodes like this one with adventures
>got romance/drama instead

The Netflix episodes were (objectively) a little better.

the argument is not so simple. we still have adventures but they don't feel so adventurous.

>"Stakes having no meaningful ending resulted in it losing relevance to the rest of the show."
Defenders would still throw a shitfit though

Things do disappear, like all the gem artifacts and stuff that had to do with gem culture on Earth in season one, but the main problem with SU is how lazily character development arcs tend to be executed and how certain plot points get wrapped up. I think Peridots redemption was the only one that was written well. The Sardonyx arc was handled like shit and was when the show's writing started to decline in quality. The cluster arc's conclusion was unsatisfying. Malachite was built up like she was going to be a much bigger deal than she actually ended up being. Lapis skipped through an entire character development arc when she came back and is now considered a cg, even though she hated and fought them multiple times before Malachite got poofed. The way they handled Jasper was also sloppy and rushed. Amethyst's arc was okay, even though it was all about her angsting over being a shit and being a bitch to everyone because she wants to beat her bully up, which is yawn inducing. Bismuth, Jasper, and the rubies all getting indefinitely shelved within a span of four episodes just so Steven could cry over not being able to help them for ONE episode (even though he and the cgs can still help Bismuth, didn't have to let Jasper corrupt, and can easily recover all the rubies to deal with them individually) and then move on as if nothing happened afterwards also seems like a lazy way to deal with Steven learning that not everyone is as ridiculously easy to redeem as the green midget

Eps that are supposed to answer major questions sometimes end up being kind of bad too, like The Answer and Three Gems and a Baby, and it's easy to feel disappointed after watching them because seeing how Ruby and Sapphire met and fell in love + how Pearl reacted when Steven was born was something a lot of people looked forward to

I could list off issues I think the show has with character flanderization and lack of development/growth (and filler), but this comment is already too long

We just saw the rubies in the latest episodes though.

You're an idiot.

>the sugar zombies
Creatures that were affected by the bomb or whatever calamity caused the world to "end".

>copping out on Jake having to take care of his kids
The kids aged up due to being half-dog and half-rainacorn.

>we still know nothing about the Great Mushroom War
Yes we do you fag.

>where are all the humans
Just explained in the Island mini-series.

Again, you're a fag. I haven't paid much attention to the show in years and still know these answers.

i know, so why don't they
>easily recover all the rubies to deal with them individually
why is it presented as if steven can't help them if that's what he wants to do

Because they went to save Greg? They said they were coming back for them.

>cluster arc
>conclusion

Are you pants on head retarded?

but considering the next two episode titles and descriptions, we can guess that it won't be happening any time soon, which is what i mean by them being shelved indefinitely and there not being much of a reason for it since he is capable of helping them now

I dunno, at least that gave us this moment.

youtube.com/watch?v=F2k7Jf9xO3g

>The kids aged up due to being half-dog and half-rainacorn.
well yeah that's the canon reason. but that is in no way related to the real reason it was written that way. I think you might be dumb if you don't get this concept.

The ending with Stakes wasn't the problem, it was how they wrote it.

People who believe that Marceline should've stayed human are legitimately retarded and missed the entire point of the miniseries.