I never got into this franchise as a kid. Is it worth watching?

I never got into this franchise as a kid. Is it worth watching?

You could just watch the original series and be satisfied. Everything after that is optional. I like Omniverse personally but I'm not too fond of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien which bridge the gap between Omniverse and the original series.

Just don't watch the Reboot though. For the love of god.

Don't watch it for the stories. Just watch for the cool designs and cartoon violence. AF/UA was a coming of age cartoon for people who liked Timmverse, but ended up being a dull, boring mess. Omniverse fixed what AF/UA left by nearly retconning it, and bridging itself more with OS

IT STARTED WITH AN ALIEN

Was definitely cool as a kid. Not sure if it would hold up seeing it for the first time as an adult, but it's worth a try.

It's "when an alien device did what it did".

Yeah well, what it “did” was stick itself upon his wrist with features that it hid.

You’d think that an advanced alien technology would be able to tell the difference between humans, blood relation or not.

I actually watched it for the first time as an adult with my son, and was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. I originally expected a monster of the day type thing, but got instead a decently sized rogues gallery.

It’s not a masterpiece by any means, but it’s a fun series that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

I can’t quite say the same about UAF. That one was a slog to get through. I liked it well enough in the early to mid range episodes, but UA really kicked itself in the balls by not really adding anything of value. No art shift, no lasting changes to the Omnitrix (as the “ultimate” addition wound up being tossed at the end of the series), and no more fun. You could argue that Albedo made an interesting villain addition, but half of his problems came from Ben not taking a minute to help him get changed back into is original form.

OV had its problems, and they probably could have shifted the monster party episodes to the theoretical road trip sequel we should have gotten, but it’s still well worth a watch despite the drastic art change and Ben being a smug shit again.

Watch the OS and maybe Alien Force, drop at Ultimate Alien and Omniverse they’re not worth watching,

Omniverse is great
Sadly you need to watch Alien Force and Ultimate Alien

>Omniverse is great
ehhh, I never really cared for it, I don’t like the Haremshit, or the intolerable as hell Ben, or fact that it goes out it’s way to retcon the good stuff from Alien Force as well, like Simian’s implied death, that shit was prettt fuckin’ bitchin, or it’s tonal shift.

Not necessarily

That's what the wikis are for

I realize I'm in the minority, but I like Alien Force way more than the original series. That one never clicked with me as a kid/teen and I only went to revisit it after I had started watching AF and was liking it. I do like the original now but I still prefer the tram dynamics in AF, and I like the artstyle and alien designs better (well for the most part).
I won't defend UA because it is a huge mess with a slog of a middle. Still some worthwile moments but overall the weakest to me.
I'm very mixed on Omniverse. On the upside, it's never boring like UA, it gives more screentime to alien species and characters, Rook is great. On the other hand, I dislike almost all redesigns of old characters in the new artstyle, most of the retcons og UAF stuff don't sit well with me (and while I understand a lot of people feel the same about UAF retconning the original series, Omniverse's retcons feel like a desperate attempt of recapturing the original's charm and popularity, and ring very disrespectful in the wake of Dwayne's passing), I don't lile Gwen and Kevin getting sidelined and I despise what was made of Julie due to how jarring it is after how UA ended. On the toçic of girls, I dislike bringing Kai Green back and forcing a pairing that was alreadly weirdly forced in the original (as the girl was barely in it), especially since Ben had better options in Omniverse itself.

>I realize I'm in the minority, but I like Alien Force way more than the original series.
Honestly, if Alien Force hadn’t been so trigger happy with the Retcons, I might feel the same way. I enjoyed the darker tone, and I had always enjoyed the Sci-fi influences and magical adventures over the Capeshit influences whiling I was watching the OS, and Ben being serious during the Highbreed arc did far more than anything else to making it seem like it was a big freaking deal. But the shit themselves in the foot by getting rid of a lot of the cool stuff from the OS instead of trying to design plots around it, like the Not!XCOM Plumbers clashing with the Space cops over some shady shit they do or “borrowing” xenotech, or being responsible for most of the mutants that Ben saw in the OS, possible including Kevin. It is still my second favorite of the Ben 10 series.

I think most of the hate for Alien Force comes from people lumping it together with Ultimate Alien, in addition to the VERY rocky beginning AF had. These made terrible endcaps for a decent show and people tend to forget the good stuff in the middle.

Not gonna disagree with you about what they did to Julie, but honestly, she deserved SO much better than Ben. Every UAF episode that featured her always did so with a backdrop of Ben fucking up some how. Ben tried to get out of her tennis match, Ben made Ship upset, Ben fucked up and now she has to forgive him because hes the hero of the universe.

I feel like if they brought in Ship-as-armor sooner, she could have had a solo episode that didn't rely on Ben for conflict, and she could have also been a more active side character instead of just a prop for Ben to rescue or argue with for cheap conflict.

Ok boys, how do we fix pic related?

They were by far the worst part of Omniverse, worse than the Rooters retcons, worse than haremshit, and just barely worse than worse girl Kai.

Have them get eaten, preferably on screen.

Vorefags GTFO

While I would derive pleasure from it, I assure you it would be purely schadenfreude and not at all sexual.

the first series is pretty damn good.
its hit and miss after that.

You know it IS possible to fix shitty characters without simply killing them off, right?

No

>Attention-whoring Tripfag
>thinking his opinion means anything

IT STARTED WHEN AN ALIEN DEVICE DID WHAT IT DID

>Attention-whoring Tripfag posting his opinion
At least post something of value if you're going to attention whore

That is for when the characters have some sort of use underneath their point executions. Blukic and Driba do not. They serve no narrative purpose, and have no reason to exist in the first place.

Kai didn't either, but last thread I was in some other user wrote up a whole thing on how it would have been possible to fix her.

Kai has a purpose as the designated Girlfriend, all that they had to do was make her likable and girlfriend worthy. What is the purpose of of Blukic and Dribba supposed to be. It can’t be comic relief as Ben already fills that role. Perhaps you could make them Ben and Rook’s designated technicians, but then you would have to give them more gadgets and weapons to use to justify their presence and make them look useful.

From what I understand they were supposed to utilize the “bumbling inventor” archetype, taking the place of comic relief or technician wherever the writers felt it was appropriate.

As for Kai being “designated girlfriend”, I think you’re confusing her with AF era Julie, or perhaps maybe Ester. Kai was only featured in like three episodes st the very end. The entire rest of the series she was non existent. How can she have been the designated girlfriend if she wasn’t even there?

Apparently little Mexican kids can carry a series for fucking decades.
>Goddamn birthday parties at the park.

In that case make them more comics Gyro Gearloose, well meaning, but naive and a bit screwy, and Have them contribute their gadgets to missions more often, give them less focus and don’t ever try and have them carry a plot or even subplot on their own. Personally I would drop the comic relief angle, as it’s kind of unnecessary considering both how light hearted the show was, and the fact that protagonist is alread a Snarky quipping asshole

I feel like they were made into comic relief to give Ben somebody to play straight man against. Which could have worked, except that the way they wrote Ben, he just went along with all their shenanigans as if he didn’t know any better. “Oh sure, you can totally dick around with the Omnitrix, a device that can potentially destroy the universe if I’m not careful with it. Go ahead, give it a good whack. I’m sure nothing bad will happen at all!”

You’re probably right on making them more naive/eccentric being a good way to make them more likable. Certainly making them closet racists didn’t do them any favors, and just made them look stupid /and/ obnoxious.

I also would have dropped the Luhley romance triangle. She didn’t like either of them, and the constant hounding of somebody who hates your guts just came off as irritating.

>I also would have dropped the Luhley romance triangle.
Oh yeah I had forgotten that that was a thing... Why was that even a thing?

Because apparently those two needed something ELSE to bicker about.

Don’t get me wrong - Luhley was really adorable, and I liked her character whenever she showed up. What I didn’t like was part 1 and part 2 of the idiot brigade fighting over her every time she showed up. She didn’t like their attention. She was way out of their league (and not even in a snooty popular girl way either). She should never have agreed to date Driba, not unless they were going to give him some positive qualities that would make a girl want to date him.

I would say that Love triangles only work when all of the characters are likable and within each other’s reach, but to be honest, even then it’s kind of annoying. When have love triangles ever been good?

I know it’s not the best example, and it only happened for two episodes, but I actually didn’t mind the LoomaXBenXAttea thing they had going on. Was it /good/? Eh, that’s subjective, but I won’t argue if somebody says no. But I liked it well enough. And probably for the same reasons you listed - the characters were pretty likable, and nobody was out of anybody’s league. Plus the competitive banter between Attea and Looma was pretty fun.

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Well fair enough, but to be honest, I think it’s BECAUSE it only went on for 2 episodes that it was enjoyable. Most of the Love triangles that I find annoying are the ones that go on for too long: it may start out fun but it gets grating after a while.

That’s a fair assessment, but let’s be honest - just about anything becomes grating if allowed to go on without change long enough. In the case of love triangles, it’s the writeers dragging on the triangle beyond where it needs to be for too long that really causes them to go bad. A season or two of “who willl win the Benbowl?” wouldn’t have been terrible, as long as it ended after that, and he just picked one (or none!) and moved on. You could still have some underlying sexual tension between him and the unchosen one(s), as long as it’s understood that they didn’t win, and nothing will ever come of it.

Best ship in the series. Prove me wrong.

Is that actually canon or are you just getting my hopes up?

Sorry user, I’m afraid is just yanking your chain.

It is hella cute though. Myaxx deserves somebody who can make her happy.

>I never got into this franchise as a kid.
>as a kid.
Oh... it's that time.

Oh shit that emblem on Tetrax's arm is like the prototype Omnitrix symbol

A good choice, but not the best. Best is pic related.

derp. sorry about that. meant to quote

I liked the original, but Alien Force felt so boring in comparison.

>Kevin's power is just touching different substances and then punching people
>Gwen's power is just shooting generic energy blasts
>the episodes take place almost always at night
>Ben's personality is vastly different, then reverted to be closer to the original

>Kevin’s new power is just punching people

They could have done some creative shit with his absorption powers. They really could have. That one time he absorbed a tire was pretty bitchin’, but it was just that - one time.

I remember that he became Metamorpho later on, but by that point I was too disinterested in the show to keep watching.

Also, Vilgax jobbing to Diamondhead was ridiculous, even if Ben had been "practicing". Vilgax beat the shit out of all 10 of Ben's original aliens without the powers of 10 heroes or whatever he had, but NOW he loses because Ben can shoot some tiny ass projectiles? Hasn't he actually fought members of the Diamondhead race before?

>Also, Vilgax jobbing to Diamondhead was ridiculous, even if Ben had been "practicing".
Are you taking about During That Mortal Kombat fight? Because it looked like Ben just caught him off guard with that transformation.

He actually demolished their entire home planet thanks to Tetrax selling them out when he was young and a selfish dickhead. That was the story behind Chromastone.

That being said, I think was probably right about Vilgax being caught off guard. Ben has always been pretty good with Diamondhead, and it's likely that Vilgax hasn't had to fight a Petrosapien in a very long time in addition to not being prepared for Ben to use an OS transformation.

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As they say, start with the original series and move all the way up. Even the movies have some depth of emotion too. Don’t forget to online research in case there’s something that needs to be clarified. Chimchim cheroo. Good luck!

Original is still pretty good, I'd recommend watching as much of it as you can since it makes a solid foundation.

Alien Force and Ultimate Alien aren't really worth watching the whole way through, since there's plenty of retcons and abandoned plot threads alongside doom and gloom themes. A wiki trawl might be enough to get you up to speed.

Omniverse, despite the vastly different art style, is the best of the bunch. Any retcons they do smooth the previous series' irregularities out, and the simpler art style allows for more unique character design/themes (See Transformers Animated, also designed by DJW).

As of now the Reboot can be completely skipped. MAYBE the 4 part season 1 ender with Vilgax and master control, maybe the Animo one where Animo becomes part Rath, and some clips on Youtube of the Shockrock hybridized forms I guess? It's quite a thin film of enjoyment you'll be able to extract from it.

>Omniverse, despite the vastly different art style, is the best of the bunch.
That is objectively incorrect for multiple reasons, some of which have already been posted in this thread.

Also reminder that in the Ben 10000 episode in the OS, we see that Vilgax had been “Done in” with Diamondhead spikes.

Original series is awesome

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