Another week with no Family Guy to download. So I noted this random new cartoon pilot and took a look.
There are numerous quality animation these days, so I can’t be blamed for having certain expectations.
I can also understand that it’s a kid friendly cartoon. Teen Titans and Ben 10 are also kid friendly. And decent.
But Iron Man fell far short of any comparison to any one of its peers.
The animation is 3D. It’s got more polygons than Virtua Fighter, but the texture rendering is still Tomb Raider 1. And the background detail of a Garfield comic.
That’s the most ridiculous thing! Far too often, the characters will be talking / walking down the street or a school corridor and the background is completely bare. It looked as if Daffy Duck had walked out of the animation cel.
The camera does all these meaningless panning so you can see the character walk… with the same fluidity as Lara Croft. And in real life, have you ever seen anyone’s pupil *pan* from one corner of the eye to the other? The characters’ eyes move like airport security cameras, and it just draws attention to the inexperience of the director and animation team.
And this is just the animation gripe.
The premise of the series, is an alternate timeline where Tony Stark’s genius budded much earlier, and he has already developed his Ironman suit at 16yrs old. Obediah has killed his dad. And Tony goes to school with Pepper and Rhodes. They have adventures like the Hardy Boys. Only with bigger toys and a huge secret underground lab.
Very plausible. Hey, I want to see a highschool version of Batman and Robin too. That’ll be just RAD!
The script and the flow of the story? Is what I imagine Cicak-Man and Cicak-Man 2 is like. Simple. Cliched. Stupid. And almost satirical, except that the irony will be lost on the show’s target audience!
And here’s the best thing. Here’s the kicker. This is really good. And here it comes…
Ironman has a SailorMoon transformation sequence (refered to as the In The Name Of The Moon TV trope), but without the ultra-mini skirts.
I have nothing positive to say about this cartoon. Except to thank its existence, for this rant’s existence.