Oh wow, this one was remarkably shitty. I, as the kids may or may not say, can't even. Let's just
start with the number one thing on my--and surely
everyone's--mind throughout: Louie is the only one
who, given his given personality, would be likely to actually idolize
Beaks. So why do they instead fling the
personalities they've given Huey and Dewey to the winds for the sake
of a really lame plot? Mystifyingly ill-thought-out and half-assed.
Mark Beaks. Unless that name is a play
on "Mark of the Beast," I don't know what it's meant to be
parodying. Fortunately, I don't care. What I DO sort of care about
is that he's incredibly grating in a non-fun way, and all the social
media/tech billionaire satire is just incredibly limp. I WOULD say "Good thing he's apparently going to die horribly soon after the episode closes," but that whole thing just feels jarringly tonally off. There's the
germ of a good idea buried somewhere in here: Scrooge is, after all,
quite the anachronism in this day and age, so why not have a more
modern kind of plutocrat? But the way they've done it in this
episode really isn't good at all. It's boring and risible and bad.
Easily the worst yet. Bah.
Oh, and let's not forget about that
abortion of a subplot with Scrooge and Glomgold (actually, let's).
The episode ALSO amply demonstrates their inability to do Glomgold in
a remotely interesting way; I have ACCEPTED that the Barksian version
of the character is not really a thing anymore, but in that case he
should at least be formidable and menacing. Here he's just bumbling
and useless. Though I suppose I must admit that their glowering
contest at the beginning was slightly amusing. Also, is the fact
that Glomgold's beard is fake actually mean anything? Another
question I don't care about!
"Where did the sharks come
from?"
"I've got a great shark guy."
"I've got a great shark guy."
I liked that one except for forced interaction between nephews.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteYhe, I like how the episode started and the Falcon guy but that's about it (I guess I will gave it credit for being so colorful which was a nice change after so many night-center episodes, even Gladstone had black backgrounds for large portion)
Honestly this episode felt like a waste of some ideas with potential.
Glomgold and Scrooge just appear to hate Beaks cose he annoying them at the club with his talking and loud music remix.
But how but THIS :
Scrooge and Glomgold actualy realize Beaks is making money faster then them and the city is crazy about him and sort of become third real in their daily rivaly. They start ploting agianst him together.
Then the Falcon dude comes and try to destroy Beaks project but Huey and Dewey somewhat manage to get read of him for while which is the thing that give them their promotion. The media (as well police) starts wonder who was behind the sabotage. Both Scrooge and Glomgold are now suspcets and Huey and Dewey have to clear their names. Even the viewer is now unsuere is the Falcon guy was hired by Glomgold or not, who clame to be inocent.
At the climax we learn (as in the episode) that Beaks was behind it all as not only his project was fake but he was trying to frame Scrooge and Glogmold.
Woudn't that be a better, more interesting plot?
P.S.
Mark Bekas is ment to be play on short cathy names of Bill Gates and Steve Jobes, I guess.
Yeap, but that isn't neo-disney plotline.
DeleteWe don't really have enough interactions between Scrooge and nephews which is odd right? This show copies Gravity Falls... but Gravity Falls has something to do for every character... So far we had 3 episodes with Donald which is not only strange but painful.
I guess with Gravity Falls it was more easy as they only had five main character, of which Dipper and Mabel where the focus of each episode and Stan, Wendy and Soose where eaither part of the main plot or had some small episodic role/subplot (hell, many episodes didn't had Wendy at all) So it was more easy to balance on manin cast, while secondary characters and villains develop in their own pace and got bigger storylines and development in the secodn season.
DeleteWith DuckTales we have like six main characters - Scrooge+Donald+Huey+Duey+Louie+Webby or even eight if you count Lunchpad and Beakley. To balance this with all recurring charaters like Glomogold, Gyro and Beagle Boys it must be hard so I think it's normal some episode will drop few characters...
It do seams off-balance at the moment but at the same time as Is mention before Disney apereantly swich the order of the episodes (plus there was a Huey episode which was going to air after "Day Trip of Doom" that didn't air yet) and the more I look at the oryginal order the it feels way more balance and make more sence.
It's not that muchb balance as I keep wonder what other characters are doing while "event" is happening. Why wasn't Louie with Brothers and Scrooge in this episode? Is Donald looking for the job when they do stuff themselfs? There is no scene where one group waves hands to others to even show that they spend some time together.
DeleteActualy the entire point of giving the boys seprete personalities was so you can just focus on one. Huey didn't appear for example in "Great dime chase" episode but they where planing to feature him in (un-aird) third episode as cener character. So Huey would got his focus episode and then the next episode would just focous on two other nephews. Donald episodes appear to be spread more even in the oryginal order.
DeleteAgain - I don't have the same problem as you but at the same time I get the frustration, especialy when they air two episodes with no Scrooge in a row.
If Scrooge wold not appear (as plan) in episode 6 and then be absent agian in episode 10 it would be less noticable, but when he is absen in two episodes in a row it leaves an odd impression that the show is ignoring it's main character.
Apperently the next episode "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra!" is Louie/Scrooge/Lunchpad centric - and we finaly get some jurney to faraway land which is great to!
DeleteAtlantis was disapointing. I don't mean episode but adventure itself. Looks like writers don't like travels and mysteries like Barks did.
DeleteI didn't find the episode too hot either, but to be honest I rather like this version of Glomgold. He's neither the Barks version nor a "serious" villain a la Phantom Blot, but instead a phenomenally hammy mustache-twirler, and I think he's funny at it.
ReplyDeleteTo each their own, but this show marks the only time I've found Glomgold even remotely interesting or entertaining.
ReplyDeleteBarks's Glomgold was just a slightly eviller Scrooge, Rosa's Glomgold was one-dimensional as all get-out, the Glomgold of the old Ducktales show was utterly forgettable, and pretty much any other use of Glomgold I've seen has just been kinda bleah.
This Glomgold is at least so over-the-top he's amusing. When it comes to villains, I'll take "bumbling" over "boring" any day.
You took the words right out of my mouth. This was by far the show's worst episode yet.
ReplyDeleteGlomgold's characterisation here is a real missed opportunity. The character in the 80s show was pretty boring and uninteresting, but instead of rectifying that by attempting to actually give him some depth the writers have opted to just make him a parody of himself. I don't think it even works on its own terms because it doesn't make sense for Scrooge's Arch Enemy to be so dimwitted. It doesn't make sense for them to have this intense rivalry depicted at the beginning of the episode if Glomgold is so far below Scrooge's level.
Yesss this. I love Glomgold in the comics (even in the Dutch comics that can be summed up as 'so many missed opportunities...') but I can understand they need to do different things in a cartoon, sure.
DeleteBut even forgetting everything and just looking at him as a new character-
HOW is this guy a threat to Scrooge? 'You have tried to kill me numerous times and it's more annoying than anything' well nice to know the hero isn't even bothered by the main villain. great
Magica seems more like the main villain which I'm fine with but I think there might be a larger probem where Scrooge is just so superduperawesome at all times (A bit of a problem with rosa too...) he's just not... challenged...
Yeah, this episode was just not funny. Nor was it believable, for a bunch of reasons. I didn't believe the staring contest. I didn't believe the over-the-top Glomgold--as P.K. said, he's not convincing as an arch-enemy for Scrooge. I didn't believe DuckTales-persona Huey would idolize Beaks, especially not once he's inside the Waddle HQ and sees how the guy operates. I didn't believe Beaks as a character or his scheme. Just silly, unfunny parody. I don't think this plot would have been believable even in Darkwing Duck's more cartoonish universe.
ReplyDeleteTo add my perspective on the series so far, here's my review of the first several episodes: http://www.nerdhq.com/review-ducktales-2017-reboot-daytrip-of-doom-the-great-dime-chase-the-beagle-birthday-massacre-terror-of-the-terra-firmians-the-house-of-the-lucky-gander-and-the-infernal-internship-of-mark-beaks/
ReplyDeleteI think they got the closest to what Glomgold should be in this ep they have yet (and likely will)
ReplyDelete"I spent whole day obsessing over someone I don't like. Who am I, YOU?"
But that whole thing made no sense! Scrooge knew nothing about Beaks why would he want to get rid of him? And I'm fine with Flinty being an evil villain (even if he should still have DEPTH) but he's just so.... useless in this series. A one-note joke.
On the other hand I liked Beaks since he fell on the right side of annoying to me but it's subjective.
And I don't think Louie would idolize him they thought he had gotten where he was with hard work. I guess Huey just likes cool celebrities and innovators?
IDK. I liked Beaks well enough, Glomgold continues to be... not Flinty.
Can we expect the review of "Living Mummies" anytime soon?
ReplyDeleteBTW - Achile, will you put reviews of DuckTales episodes on your DuckTales blog? :)
Delete