WHAT EVEN WAS THE POINT?!

WHAT EVEN WAS THE POINT?!

Rule of cool, babe.

>thinking that destroying him destroys the musical magic that is his spirit
Shameful, babe.

If he didn't tell Aku about Jack, then Aku would've never searched for Jack in the ruins, and the events of Episode 9 wouldn't have happened

To see him blow up, user. His death was funny and i am glad it happened.

mmbepis babe

What do you mean "What was the point"? His whole character literally existed to incidentally bring Jack and Aku together on the last minute where Aku manages to find Jack boning his clone daughter.

He is literally the catalyst that unites Jack's and Aku's final confrontation. That's a pretty big fucking point if you ask me OP.

>not enjoying episode 1
OP you have no reason to live

Penis

Genndy needed a reason for Aku and Jack to meet again after 50 years of avoiding each other so he came up with the idea of an assassin finding out Jack lost his sword earlier on but getting horribly crippled so that by the time he'd reach Aku to tell him about it Jack would already have his sword back. How did you not understand that?

Robots have no spirits, babe. Only nuts and bolts, babe!

I love Scatposting as much as the next user but he should have stayed dead after ep.1.

His impact as a character would have been more fulfilling than a plot device to get aku to confront Jack again

For the spinoff series of course

This. Basically everything that was built up in eps 1-3 slowly collapsed afterwards.

>Ashi was a plot device to get Jack out of depression
>Scatbot was a plot device to give Aku the message
>Scotsman was a plot device to free Jack next episode
>And people STILL defend it

It's beyond me, user.

It wouldn't be Samurai Jack without a crazy silly character.

What would be the point of him if he didn't serve as a plot device to get Aku to confront Jack again? That'd just make him be a random villain who got killed by Jack, which you can't waste time on in a 10 episode resolution mini-season. Having him be a random villain with no plot significance would be fine in the original seasons when things were more episodic, but in this season everything that lasts more than a second needs to serve the plot.

>plot devices are bad

I don't understand this meme. You're supposed to have plot devices in a plot.

>plot devices are bad

are you stupid?

how should it be then smart ass ?

...

I mean they can be good but this season did not do it right, when characters like Scatbot could be replaced with literally any other buffoon to deliver the message or Ashi that just fixes the entire conflict in 3 episodes then it's bad.

They aren't characters, they are just there to do their thing, move to plot forward and fuck off forever.

Plot devices aren't inherently bad. If you analyze narratives enough you'd find most characters are just that. The problem is how underdeveloped they feel.

Scotsman for example was only introduced once in a five minute scene and hasn't been seen or introduced since then, until incidentally coming back at the very final moment when he is needed. The execution is what's done bad, not the actual idea itself.

His point to the plot would have been the Elite Tuning Fork, a small point but would have been consistent with Genndy's minimalist ways.

His impact on the show in general would have to establish the growth from the old seasons, as a unique, goofy yet malevolent Robot villian that felt straight out of the early 2000s. And how this isnt that same exact show anymore, while also instantly resonating with long time fans in the introduction of the new series.

I'm pretty sure you can replace most characters with "some rando", user.

Nice buzzword though

>characters like Scatbot could be replaced with literally any other buffoon to deliver the message

Why is that bad? Are you saying it would be better if a different random character told Aku about the sword instead of this random character?

>or Ashi that just fixes the entire conflict in 3 episodes

I can't even parse out what this line means to comment on it.

>They aren't characters

He was plenty of a character. He was a robot assassin who used magical scat singing and had an interesting combination of being completely evil and willing to slaughter an entire village just to get Jack's attention yet also being Sammy Davis Jr. and chatting people up while making little jokes and saying babe every sentence. I don't see how you could make him more of a character than he already was.

No you cannot, retard. You probably wouldn't be able to replace Ashi for that matter (unless it's their other sisters but that doesn't count), it's just that she isn't a character that stands on her own, she is what the plot needs her to be so it moves forward, it's not good.

Good because episode 9 was shit

>Samurai Jack has too much plot

>which you can't waste time on in a 10 episode resolution mini-season
>implying they were thinking about using time wisely

There are so many scenes in this season that were absolutely unnecessary.

>Funny = character relevant to the plot
I'm not saying Scatbot isn't bland, I'm saying he literally only exists to move the plot forward, he doesn't have motivations, feelings a story or an arc, he's just Aku's minion #209201.

No there weren't. There were a couple seconds' long comedic relief scenes, but anything taking up five minutes or more without exception served the plot. You probably just don't realize how it all served the plot.

You can't consider for even a moment, that the plot is this way because of the character and not the other way around?

Funny that you bring up Ashi by the way, which could've been a variety of different characters as long as they stopped Jack from killing himself

Not that user, but as important as plot is, if you let plot drive the characters you get melodrama. A good drama has the characters driving the plot, a mediocre drama is half-and-half, a melodrama like a soap opera has the plot drive the characters.

It's unfortunate.
Drama: "Aku destroyed the last time portal, and this is having profound effects on Jack."
Melodrama: "Jack needs to be depressed now, so here he goes killing cute sheep so he can be tormented over it."

The problem is pacing. We couldn't get an episode to see how Jack is pained by the destruction of the last time portal, so we had to get that in-your-face scene about the cute sheep getting murdered.

>he doesn't have motivations

He has plenty of motivation. His motivation was to tell Aku about Jack's sword being lost so he can win his favor and get his body restored and probably also more money.

>feelings

His feelings are eagerness to tell Aku about the sword and persistent determination even though he's given several really horrible setbacks.

>a story

His story is how he went from getting decapitated to hopping on his head over to a boat to getting thrown off the boat to finally making it to Aku's castle to tell him about the sword only to then get killed by Aku because it took him so long to make the trip that now Jack has his sword back.

>arc

Not all characters should have an arc.

>jellyfish platforming scene
>scatbot on the boat
>ork army scene
>half of episode 9 wandering in the desert

It was just so the guy who impersonates Sammy Davis Jr's voice could get a paycheck. Seriously, how much work do you think he gets.?

>Have Scatbot call Aku in ep.1
>Manages to tell him jack lost his sword right before Jack knocks phone out of hand
>Reveal while phone is on floor that the call went to Akus Voicemail instead(its one of those troll voice mails)
>scatbot dies

>fastforward to ep.9
>Aku cant sleep because his voicemail machine keeps beeping and flashing from being full because Aku never fucking checks his voicemail despite being a lazy shit
>Aku begrudgingly checks it
>Hears Scats message
>Gleefully cheers, uses dark magic to revive and instasummon Scatbot
>Proceed with ep.9 as usual but now Scats' instadeath is way funnier

Fixed that for you Anons

Anyone else a bit disappointed when didn't get a villains of the week as cool and memorable as Scaramouch?
I was expecting Aku to send a new bad guy to kill Jack every episode in the beginning but I guess that would have interfered with Ashi's spotlight....

That's Spongebob's VA.

>that the plot is this way because of the character and not the other way around

>wait why are the daughters of aku so powerful despite of all of them dying in 1 episode
>oh because blue jack needs an excuse to push jack to suicide
>wait why is ashi the only one that survived the fall
>oh because she's the romance interest
>wait why is ashi meeting all these old friends of jack
>oh because she's gonna make him snap out of suicide
>wait why is ashi being part of an Aku cult relevant
>oh because Aku's gonna make her snap so Jack can give up
>wait why is ashi going with jack to get the sword when there's no way she could help
>oh because there's gonna be an orc army she has to defeat
>wait why is ashi suddenly in love with jack
>oh because otherwise Jack wouldn't have any gripes about going back to the past

Ashi IS the plot, not a character.

>We couldn't get an episode to see how Jack is pained by the destruction of the last time portal
You mean the first 6 episodes?

And in a show that has had great episodes with little to no dialogue he just wouldn't shut the fuck up.

>when characters like Scatbot could be replaced with literally any other buffoon to deliver the message
That's kind of the point, instead of some generic goon that gets beaten easily by jack and runs to aku with the news, we got an interesting and funny character with some awesome fighting sequences, and who even was able to add a comedic subplot to a couple episodes. It's not about whether a character is replaceable or not, because most of the time they are, its about if they fit the place well enough to not be, and popular opinion is, Scaramouche was a very good character to fit the role. It'd be hard to come up with a better one

>jellyfish platforming scene

That was useful to the plot. Everyone would complain about the Ashi love interest even more than they already do if there wasn't a buildup of involvement between them through shared hardship.

>scatbot on the boat

Served to build tension on whether or not Aku would find out about Jack before he got his sword back.

>ork army scene

Foreshadowed Ashi's non-human nature and provided a kinetic parallel to Jack's spirit journey.

>half of episode 9 wandering in the desert

Building tension for his final conflict with Aku and serving as a metaphor for the solitude his mission has forced him into per his decision to abandon Ashi.

...

>unironic scat-haters in the thread
what the fuck

This meme needs to die

See
And

>everything that was built up in eps 1-3
wut?

comic relief for the first episode and a reason for Aku to appear in front of Jack in the last episode

Not everyone needs a point. There's no point in you existing either yet here you are.

Yes, what's your point? He's a secondary antagonist made for fun.

I'm saying he could've been better, in the Bounty Hunters episode they never come back yet they all had as much personality as Scatbot and a backstory. And it's 5 (6) of them in 1 episode instead of 1 in 8 episodes

>doesn't have motivations
Now you're just being obvious

Name them

He was in 3 episodes tho and had about as much screentime

Yeah I'm implying Genndy could've used his 10 episodes better if he planned to include that many new shit.

The bounty hunters had the whole episode just for them.

Well he's a robot assassin made for Aku, so if you can't figure out what his motivation is, you're either stupid, don't pay attention to the show or just a contrarian. He even says his motivations a few times

Those didn't show how he became pained over it, they just showed the consequences. What should have happened:
- first 3 episodes exactly as they were
- (let's ignore the next 3 episodes for the moment)
- episode 7 shows Jack's downward spiral, from the moment Aku destroyed the last time portal to a point where Jack is grizzled and tormented.

Instead we got Jack bent over in anger and the subsequent sheep slaughter. Instead of watching the character drive the plot, we watched the plot drive the character, with one character literally telling the audience how the other character feels.

That's melodrama.

>Well he's a robot assassin made for Aku
This is not a motivation, and many robots have shown to be sentient in the SJ universe so just saying "oh he was programed to kill Jack" doesn't count, Scatbot clearly has free will.

That's not fair. Episode 4 wasn't bad either.

is he going to have a talking penis head?

This would have been perfect.
Though, it was pretty funny to just see him swept under the rug so quickly after serving his purpose. That abrupt death had me in stitches given how pointless his role was and how better handled it could have been.

None of them were really

We simply needed more

So were those little goats evil or something?

>muh shallow grunt
>muh no backstory
Holy shit fuck off posers, SJ characters never have any backstory unless it's relevant to the plot.

>How come Jack can adapt to an enemy
>Why give Jack character development and explain why he has no trouble killing humans
>Only one other daughter could have survived the fall, and is yet to be seen whether or not she did. And if she did, she'd be in a different location from Jack and Ashi anyway
>Why would Jack bother meeting all of his old friends if he thought it didn't matter
>Aku could've made Jack snap with any potential love interest
>She didn't know she couldn't help him and there was no reason not for her to accompany him
>She always admired him, it's perfectly realistic for that to grow into love, especially when they're the only real company they've ever known for years

It's not "plot convenience" because you're a twat, user.

To make Sup Forums cry. Again.

Episode 5 sucked for me.
Some people hated episode 7, I can understand why, but I still enjoyed it for the most part.

But my god episode 5 was when we really got to see how fucked the pacing was.

Jack gets his original sword back from ghost Scotsman, uses it to defeat Aku.
Ashi starts dying.
Using her abilities inherited by Aku, she creates a time portal for Jack.
Jack does indeed go to the past, but instead of going back to his childhood, he goes back 2 hours and kills Aku at his tower, saving Ashi.

Scaramouch is also conveniently saved because of this, leading to a final gag at the end.

That's what he was made for.

plot device to get Jack, Ashi, and Aku all in the same place at the end of the second act.
It worked perfectly.

>tonal shift following a change in Jack's emotions = "falling apart"
>not staying true to the original source material
wew

characters drive stories user, that's sort of what they're for

You kind of disregard the "assassin" part, which is used in the series several times. The robot part is still relevant, he is sentient but he was still made with a purpose he will follow, kind of like ashi was, only difference is she was human so Jack saved her. He wants the to reap in the glory, rewards, power, and fame that would come with killing Jack. An immortal being with infinite power would be extremely thankful if you killed the only person who could defeat him

>inb4 but that's not a real motivation
He's evil, his motivations are greedy and selfish

To exclusively piss you off with his death. Genndy hates you the most, OP, and he knew Scaramouche's death would drive you to angry tears.

>Jack gets his original sword back

it's the same goddamn sword, the gods simply took it away when Jack became unworthy to wield it. Where are people getting this new sword bullcrap from?

I thought this post was being ironic but I scrolled down and to find out you didn't realize that things that make plot happen aren't bad.

S5 would be 10x better if Ashi was a robot.
Fuck fleshies.

>wait why are the daughters of aku so powerful despite of all of them dying in 1 episode
Because Jack has knowledge on how they fight from their first encounter, as well as having the element of surprise next time. Their numbers falling didn't help either.

>wait why is ashi the only one that survived the fall
Because he still felt guilt from killing the other sisters and justified for himself that Ashi could live since she was no longer a threat.

>wait why is ashi being part of an Aku cult relevant
Because she was an antagonist before?

>wait why is ashi going with jack to get the sword when there's no way she could help
She followed Jack in episode 5 after the campfire scene because she wanted to learn more. No reason to not follow Jack after she did her turn around.

>oh because otherwise Jack wouldn't have any gripes about going back to the past
Are you implying Jack doesn't care for the Scotsman and all the other allies and people he's met? It would literally make all help Jack did pointless if he went back in time.

You are twisting my words and what happened
>implying Jack didn't adapt to enemies before
>ignoring the fact that the daughters are clearly not strong enough to push jack to kill in the first place, let alone that he regrets it anyway later to justify keeping Ashi alive
>W-we don't know yet! I know we know what the last episode is about and that the next one is the last one but you never know!
>then why didn't he do it himself
>wrong, because ashi it's the only daughter of aku remaining
>let me have this assassin come with me for no reason other than to having unreasonable trust because she's gonna be my lover later anyway
>always
>hated him all of her life
>falling in love with the first person you ever meet
>even knowing what love is

Ashi was the conflict and the resolution to Jack's problems, the plot is her but herself doesn't have any other purpose but to be the plot.

>Because Jack has knowledge on how they fight from their first encounter
So then we are agreeing that Jack could've defeated them with preparation? (Which he had)
>Because he still felt guilt
>Ashi survived the fall because Jack felt guilt
>Because she was an antagonist before?
But it had no point either way, ashi became good nonetheless, she could've been a bounty hunter, a mercenary, etc. She's just a daughter because she needed to break in a later episode.
>Are you implying Jack doesn't care for the Scotsman and all the other allies and people he's met?
Yes? That's why he was about to kill himself.

Because the gods forged a new sword out of Jack's willpower since the old one was from his father you dunce.

After the first 3 every episode just keeps dropping off in quality. Everything is a jumbled mess of things going nowhere.

Why bring back DA SAMOORAI and Demongo for like two seconds? Why have the Scotsman suddenly have an army and daughters and get turned into a ghost if nothing happens after? Why bring back scatbot after a perfectly contained episode and waste time hopping back to Aku just to get killed? How the fuck ashi can solo an entire fucking army with her bare hands? Even Jack needed traps and preparation to do the same. Why the fuck the mother just randomly shows up without any forewarning? Why waste an entire episode on some space prison shit? Why start the entire plotline about hallucinations and Omen and just abruptly end it because ashi does a little pep talk and 50 years of depression goes away? Why jack just magicks out another sword instead of an actual sword quest to get it back? Why mad jack just randomly disappears after getting a shit ton of screentime early? Why genndy thinks anyone gives a shit about his baboon headed waifu except waifufags?

I just wanted the story of a wandering samurai to finally end , not this shit.

16 was the superior robot head.

>"I understand now, I did not lose the sword, the sword left me"
>Asks the buddha guy where the sword is
>the sword

it's the same sword user

B-but then we wouldn't get the benis joke

The point was that they were innocent and Jack's anger led him to kill innocent creatures and become spiritually unbalanced.

How would Aku hear the message if the message was said before it was revealed to be a voice call? It would have to be after the beep

But the sword can only be used for good. It couldn't scratch Jack being wielded by Aku, why would it be able to kill little goats just because Jack lost his cool?

Wow, you don't understand the concepts of themes and continuity do you?

Save Jack the effort of getting to Aku, which would've probably taken a whole other episode or eliminate the Guardian call-back.

Cause it was not about the goats, it was about Jack. He thought he killed innocents or could have handled the situation better without getting stark raving mad.

>So then we are agreeing that Jack could've defeated them with preparation? (Which he had)
He didn't prepare. It was an ambush, he never suspected that after taking down that giant beetle bot that he would be assaulted by a group of assassins. His armor and guns are useless too since they're too fast and strong to be stopped by them.

What you're describing is exactly what happened the episode afterwards because he decided to strike from a hiding spot.

>But it had no point either way, ashi became good nonetheless, she could've been a bounty hunter, a mercenary, etc. She's just a daughter because she needed to break in a later episode.
Yeah. She became good because of her learning the truth.

>Yes? That's why he was about to kill himself.
You were saying that Jack would have difficulties with going to the past because of Ashi. If Ashi didn't exist he would still have trouble because of the thought of him undoing all the good he did. I wouldn't be surprised if he began getting hallucinations of the people from the future in a haunting manner not dissimilar from the ones he got from episode one.

Have Scatman angrily yell at Jack that he was trying to tell Aku that he lost his sword and the phone (barely) picks up on it

Like a buttdial

I'm talking about the sword itself. Jack said it can't be used to harm innocents, no matter the wielder's intentions. If they were innocent the blade should have bounced off of them like it had on him. As of now it doesn't fit the rules of the blade.

False. Remember back to the graveyard fight where we learn that Innocents cannot be harmed by the sword, but that this rule only applies when the sword is being wielded by the hands of evil.

Then again, Genndy has been known to retcon certain things so all of this speculation is useless.

Thats the point, retard. It was about Jack losing his faith. The goats were just fucking goats.

He's able to kill monsters and robots with it, also it was symbolism for Jack losing hope and becoming fallen Jack.

Monsters are evil and robots have no souls.

>I'm talking about the sword itself. Jack said it can't be used to harm innocents, no matter the wielder's intentions.
No, he said it can't be used by evil to harm good.

I concede the point. But...
>>Even I had forgotten that the sword was forged in purity and strength. It can only be used for good. In the hands of evil, it can never harm an innocent. And so, Aku, it cannot harm me...but it can harm you!
>>It can only be used for good
>>In the hands of evil, it can never harm an innocent
So can it only be used for good or does it stop working when someone evil is using it? Those two don't work together.