Post by Tea Rex on Jan 7, 2014 12:12:16 GMT -5
Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish Samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku!
Let’s talk about who our protagonist is for a moment. One thing that this show isn’t afraid of is a hero that makes mistakes. The entire premise of the show rests on a major blunder by Jack. Jack fought nearly won the battle, but paid no heed to his father’s warnings to watch for trickery and therefore left the world at the mercy of Aku. In a word, he was kind of foolish, and at the beginning of the series Aku’s monologue isn’t necessarily incorrect.
With episodes IV and V, we see Jack still making this same mistake as he explores the world of the future – acting before analyzing a situation. With the Woolies, Jack wrangles one of the enslaved creatures for its enemies and allows the blue guys to host him in the Woolies’ ruins (I call them Carls – they all SOUND like some annoying guy named Carl who sits two cubicles away from you and bitches all day). And with the human scientists, though initial contact was not so much blunder as accident, if Jack had paid attention to the humans as he fought he would not have allowed the automatic message fly back to Aku giving away his and the humans’ location. That’s not to say that Jack is incapable of recognizing his own failings. He works diligently to rectify his mistakes, both by helping to free the Woolies from the Carls and keeping the drones from destroying the human scientists’ ship. But he’s not a flawless man, not even when he’s throwing down.
Not only that, this is a hero who, though he seems to be at the top of his game, is constantly learning and adapting on the fly. As I somewhat touched on in the last review, usually television heroes for kids are in one of two camps – kids who are green and make mistakes due to their youth but ultimately save the day, or heroes who are at their peak condition facing baddies and throwing down with eventual success and lots of badass fights. Samurai Jack walks the line between both types of heroes. Jack is obviously good at what he does, given how quickly he can take out the Carls or a few hundred bug drones. But this is also a guy who is still out of his element. He may be able to hunt for wild boar and walk for days across the country, but he also still automatically assumes sentience only comes with being humanoid (see: the obviously shady Carls), and he still freaks the fuck out and screams throatily when he first experiences the extreme speeds of a jetpack. We’re watching Jack adjust to his new reality while also watching him unleash oily, explosive carnage upon his enemies.
Enough about Jack - on to the individual episodes. Both episode IV and V set up a number of tropes that run through the series. Episode IV is definitely the weaker of the two, though it has a few good visuals (love the opening scene and the Wooly wranglin’. You get the sense that Jack has been dragged by a few horses in his life). However, the setup is pretty standard, and eventually this story is told again and again in Samurai Jack – a group of people are being subjugated by some dicks, Jack comes in and frees them, sometimes they tell him where to go to find a magic portal. Some of these tales are pretty cool, but the Woolies are paint-by-number: Luddites attacked by Carls with electric shock tridents and an orb that takes away their bipedal abilities. An Elder who sets Jack on his path. Carls taken out via Samurai sword (NOTE: notice that none of the Carls actually face death-by-sword, a sign that they aren’t robotic. I think this is one of the VERY FEW episodes where Jack doesn’t hack and slash his enemy, because they are fleshy. I think, THINK, it’s because at the start of the show the animators had an idea of the robots being all droney and bug-like. But eventually even the robots start looking like alien beings and you aren’t really sure if they’re fleshy or not until Jack cuts them in half and their circuits spark). As a first exposure to the Jack-as-savior stories, episode IV is okay, but the writers get way better and more inventive as time goes on.
Episode V is far more interesting, both in the story itself, and what it tells us about this future. The scientists are the first humans Jack encounters on future earth, and they’re trying to get the hell off the planet. Not only that, they wear space-suits ALL THE TIME to protect from pollutants. The planet is apparently, from the point of view of a bunch of science-types, completely inhospitable to humans now. Aku has definitely won the battle when it comes to subjugating the original sentient species of Earth. Not only that, we get Aku’s monologue from Jack’s perspective (and see that he obviously thinks of his first encounter with Aku as a total fuck-up), we see Jack fly around with a jetpack, and we see a friggin’ samurai in a space suit wielding a katana vs. seemingly endless drones IN SPACE. It’s visually more interesting than IV, it has a more pressing problem to resolve, and the characters Jack needs to save are far more distinct (I love that rather stoic fellow with the nasal voice and the taped up glasses – what kind of shit has he seen that he can be so blasé about explaining their impending doom?).
This episode also sets up another common Samurai Jack trope – Jack is TOO GOOD to go back to the past. Throughout the series, Jack is given a number of chances to go back to the past, but there’s always a catch that could, possibly, cause someone in this present harm and so Jack ends up saving the day for them and ruining his chance to prevent this future from happening. I would say it gets repetitive, but it stays fresh because Jack’s response to his lost chances vary significantly as the show goes on, which I will get to when we hit those episodes. I have a feeling that the writers were aware of how hopeless Jack would feel to have his chance at finding his way home slip through his fingers again and again.
As the first two episodes past the pilot movie, it’s a strong outing. The Woolies were a bit bland, but the humans were interesting and dynamic. We see now that this Earth is a place where aliens outnumber humans and hostiles constantly crush peaceful peoples. And we see that Jack, while still making mistakes, is learning as he goes while slicing up his enemies. It’s a beautiful thing.
Stray Observations
Let’s talk about who our protagonist is for a moment. One thing that this show isn’t afraid of is a hero that makes mistakes. The entire premise of the show rests on a major blunder by Jack. Jack fought nearly won the battle, but paid no heed to his father’s warnings to watch for trickery and therefore left the world at the mercy of Aku. In a word, he was kind of foolish, and at the beginning of the series Aku’s monologue isn’t necessarily incorrect.
With episodes IV and V, we see Jack still making this same mistake as he explores the world of the future – acting before analyzing a situation. With the Woolies, Jack wrangles one of the enslaved creatures for its enemies and allows the blue guys to host him in the Woolies’ ruins (I call them Carls – they all SOUND like some annoying guy named Carl who sits two cubicles away from you and bitches all day). And with the human scientists, though initial contact was not so much blunder as accident, if Jack had paid attention to the humans as he fought he would not have allowed the automatic message fly back to Aku giving away his and the humans’ location. That’s not to say that Jack is incapable of recognizing his own failings. He works diligently to rectify his mistakes, both by helping to free the Woolies from the Carls and keeping the drones from destroying the human scientists’ ship. But he’s not a flawless man, not even when he’s throwing down.
Not only that, this is a hero who, though he seems to be at the top of his game, is constantly learning and adapting on the fly. As I somewhat touched on in the last review, usually television heroes for kids are in one of two camps – kids who are green and make mistakes due to their youth but ultimately save the day, or heroes who are at their peak condition facing baddies and throwing down with eventual success and lots of badass fights. Samurai Jack walks the line between both types of heroes. Jack is obviously good at what he does, given how quickly he can take out the Carls or a few hundred bug drones. But this is also a guy who is still out of his element. He may be able to hunt for wild boar and walk for days across the country, but he also still automatically assumes sentience only comes with being humanoid (see: the obviously shady Carls), and he still freaks the fuck out and screams throatily when he first experiences the extreme speeds of a jetpack. We’re watching Jack adjust to his new reality while also watching him unleash oily, explosive carnage upon his enemies.
Enough about Jack - on to the individual episodes. Both episode IV and V set up a number of tropes that run through the series. Episode IV is definitely the weaker of the two, though it has a few good visuals (love the opening scene and the Wooly wranglin’. You get the sense that Jack has been dragged by a few horses in his life). However, the setup is pretty standard, and eventually this story is told again and again in Samurai Jack – a group of people are being subjugated by some dicks, Jack comes in and frees them, sometimes they tell him where to go to find a magic portal. Some of these tales are pretty cool, but the Woolies are paint-by-number: Luddites attacked by Carls with electric shock tridents and an orb that takes away their bipedal abilities. An Elder who sets Jack on his path. Carls taken out via Samurai sword (NOTE: notice that none of the Carls actually face death-by-sword, a sign that they aren’t robotic. I think this is one of the VERY FEW episodes where Jack doesn’t hack and slash his enemy, because they are fleshy. I think, THINK, it’s because at the start of the show the animators had an idea of the robots being all droney and bug-like. But eventually even the robots start looking like alien beings and you aren’t really sure if they’re fleshy or not until Jack cuts them in half and their circuits spark). As a first exposure to the Jack-as-savior stories, episode IV is okay, but the writers get way better and more inventive as time goes on.
Episode V is far more interesting, both in the story itself, and what it tells us about this future. The scientists are the first humans Jack encounters on future earth, and they’re trying to get the hell off the planet. Not only that, they wear space-suits ALL THE TIME to protect from pollutants. The planet is apparently, from the point of view of a bunch of science-types, completely inhospitable to humans now. Aku has definitely won the battle when it comes to subjugating the original sentient species of Earth. Not only that, we get Aku’s monologue from Jack’s perspective (and see that he obviously thinks of his first encounter with Aku as a total fuck-up), we see Jack fly around with a jetpack, and we see a friggin’ samurai in a space suit wielding a katana vs. seemingly endless drones IN SPACE. It’s visually more interesting than IV, it has a more pressing problem to resolve, and the characters Jack needs to save are far more distinct (I love that rather stoic fellow with the nasal voice and the taped up glasses – what kind of shit has he seen that he can be so blasé about explaining their impending doom?).
This episode also sets up another common Samurai Jack trope – Jack is TOO GOOD to go back to the past. Throughout the series, Jack is given a number of chances to go back to the past, but there’s always a catch that could, possibly, cause someone in this present harm and so Jack ends up saving the day for them and ruining his chance to prevent this future from happening. I would say it gets repetitive, but it stays fresh because Jack’s response to his lost chances vary significantly as the show goes on, which I will get to when we hit those episodes. I have a feeling that the writers were aware of how hopeless Jack would feel to have his chance at finding his way home slip through his fingers again and again.
As the first two episodes past the pilot movie, it’s a strong outing. The Woolies were a bit bland, but the humans were interesting and dynamic. We see now that this Earth is a place where aliens outnumber humans and hostiles constantly crush peaceful peoples. And we see that Jack, while still making mistakes, is learning as he goes while slicing up his enemies. It’s a beautiful thing.
Stray Observations
- I love that all the Carls have the same voice. Whose decision was that? Good choice – they were infinitely more dickish with the same horrible nasal whine.
- The show usually has a light touch with the humor, but I laughed heartily at Jack’s jetpack installation – the scientists cowering in the trees, the worry-wort German guy sweating as he pushed the button, then patting Jack heavily on the back once the jetpack is in place. I wonder how many scientists experienced explody jetpack doom before Jack came on the scene.
- Okay, I thought it was a LITTLE lame that we didn’t see Jack fight the humans’ drones when he gets a handle on his space suit. I felt like the writers ran out of time or something.
- The scenes in space were great – I love that floating I Love Science coffee cup, or how Jack exits the ship by floating off into the void.
- Another great example of how good this show is at telling a visual story – that quick flashback Jack has of removing ticks with a smoldering stick.