Ben 10 Reboot Review

I've been a long time fan of Ben 10.  I've been a fan of it since series 1, and it was one of my favorite shows to watch as a kid.  The adventures of a ten year old kid with the power to turn into aliens on an adventure across the US, how can you not fall for that concept?  But while I like the show, I will gladly admit CN is milking it for every cent it can get them, what, with there being three sequel series, four movies, at least ten video game, and now a franchise reboot.  While would have prefered a Lucky Girl anime or Ben 10,000 spinoff, with how crampted the continuity got, the show needed a reboot.  However, with what this reboot sets itself up as, they really should have chose one of the other two.  So since I've done a few reviews with my journals so far, let's see what these two episodes have to offer and see if this reboot is off to a good start so far.  We'll be looking at the episodes Waterfilter and The Ring Leader.

Let's start with the intro.  Honestly, it reflects how I feel about these episodes perfectly.  It's boring.  Even ignoring the Ben 10 intros we've had in the past, this is boring.  For those of you who haven't seen it, it's just the countdown of aliens at the end of the original Ben 10 intro, and it just says 'Ben 10' every third alien.  Though it does give you a chance to see and hate all the aliens new designs, for instance, Stinkfly went from being a giant insect with four eyes coming out of the side of his head with a large stinger wearing a full body suit to what looks like the new design for Killer Moth.  I'm not kidding, he looks like a guy in a bug costume.  The only interesting part of the intro was the moment at the start where where meteor presumable holding the Omnitrix hurdles towards earth.

Waterfilter starts with Ben, Gwen and Max arriving at...  Niagara Falls.  I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the gang's already gone there in Back with a Vengeance.  I know this is supposed to be a continuity reboot, but this series doesn't explain how Ben got the Omnitrix, or even what the Omnitrix is, so it's clearly meant more for returning fans.  So it clearly needs you to remember the original continuity to get what the show is about.  The news of the waterfall excites Ben and Gwen tells him to let her judge his ideas because he has the impulse to...  Cannonball any body of water no matter what size?  Okay, I know Ben was impulsive in the original series, and had a tendency to not think things through, but that's a level of stupid we have never seen him display, in any series continuity other than this one.  The fact that it wants you to know about the original series continuity is starting to strangle this episode.  Ben rejects this advice and claims that nothing goes wrong when he listens to his 'Ben-tuition.'  That word-play(If you can even call it that) is not funny and there's more evidence to the contrary.  Ben then sneaks out at night, goes CannonBolt, and does the expected to the closest body of water.  When he's heading back to the Rustbucket, a rock shifts out of place under the water and a creature comes out.  And then we get a joke that's admittedly kinda funny.
The gang wakes up the next day to find a tentacle destroying everything.  Ben readies his Omnitrix and notices a new alien symbol.  And this leads to a problem with the entire series:  Why were any of the aliens locked?  If the Omnitrix's purpose was truly to allow aliens to experience being other aliens, why would any transformation be locked?  Deciding he wants to test out his new form, Ben turns into Water Hazard.  I mean Water Hazard on steroids.  I mean we're trying to hide the fact that this alien is pretty much Water Hazard.  I'm not kidding.  This new alien, named Overflow in case you're wondering, has so much in common with Water Hazard they might as well be the same species.  Color scheme, check.  Water powers, check.  Exoskeleton, as one joke in the episode points out, check.  Hell, he's even from the Andromeda Galaxy according to his facts sheet.  Which reveals that the people working on this show forgot how the series worked, because Ben only had access to the alien species from this galaxy, and needed to sample aliens from other galaxies.  Hell, he didn't even have all the lifeforms from this one.  What I'm saying is that Fasttrack was a better alien, at least they changed it from velociraptor XLR8 to a humanoid cat.  As for the fight scene, it's about as good as a series focused on comedy with animation that's a cross between Clarence and Dan Vs. can get.  I'm not gonna be captivated by the fights if you stop for a gag every punch.
The Monster controlling the tentacle then begins to head upstream and Ben is bummed out about how he lost, and Gwen says...  That she's glad Ben's safe?  Okay, when does this series take place?  In the original series, when Ben and Gwen were ten, they had this sort of rival sibling relationship, where they would take every opportunity to snark at each other but cared about each other deep down.  I'm not surprised that Gwen's happy Ben's alright, I'm just shocked that she openly admitted it.  Are they airing these episodes out of order and this is after some form of character development?  What am I saying, I don't see a series like this having anything of the sort or a canon that needs to be viewed in chronological order.  They follow the monster to Lake Erie, where it starts to replicate.  Ben decides to take Gwen's advice, and Gwen tells him to turn into...  Okay, I'm just gonna call him what he looks and sounds like.  He turns into Fiery Buddy.  But as he knocks one down, two more come up.  They grab him with is tentacles, and let go because Fiery Buddy is made of fire.  Oh, wait, that's what would have happened if this show new what it was doing.  Instead, they drag him into the water, and Gwen laments on how she should have seen that coming.  Farther proof this this show isn't meant for fans of the original.  In the original series, Gwen was Ben's contrast in many ways.  One of them being that Gwen was more intelligent.  This should have been the first thought that occurred to her.  So who is this series meant for?  It can't be for fans of the original with how it messes up the characters, butchered the designs and made carbon copies of already loved aliens, a point of criticism brought up against Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, which Omniverse remedied.  But at the same time, it can't be for new viewers with how reliant it is on viewers having seen the original.  Ben changes back and calls for Max and Gwen to reel him in, but they're been overrun by the tentacles.  Kinda would have liked to see that scene.  Gwen tells Ben to use his Ben-tuition, as it was actually her that got them into this mess by making Ben doudt himself.  Except for the fact that Ben would most likely have done the same thing if Gwen hadn't told him to let her guide him through those decisions.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happened.  Ben goes Overflow, and starts laying a beat down on the monsters.  Meanwhile, Max pulls one of them onto land, and they discover that as soon as they make contact with land they shrivel up.  And here I though Ripjaws was weak on land.  Gwen then tells Ben to do what he does best, and Ben preforms a cannonball that splashes them all out of the water.  They then have what I assume is to be a heartwarming scene between Gwen and Ben as Gwen apologizes for 'causing' the whole fiasco and Ben admits that Gwen's filter is right sometimes.
Yeah, this was a really poor episode, writing was extremely poor, character designs are bland, and as a problem with the whole series, the animation does not work.  So let's look at Ring Leader.

It starts with...  The unholy abomination that is Ben's Sumo player model as he beats Gwen in a Sumo Slammers video game.  He brags about it, and Max tries to get him down by saying that he just won in a video game and that he's not a real winner.  Okay, 1. Tell that to any of the professional gamers who go up against other people in video games as a sport.  2. Ben's pretty much a superhero who takes down villains every day.  I'm pretty sure he's a 'real winner.'  If he wasn't, the world would have been destroyed four installations over.  Saddened by this, for some reason, Ben laments that he wants to be a real winner, and then Gwen notices a sign for a wrestling match that they've probably been parked next to all day.  Ben then makes himself a costume and turns into Four Arms to join the fight as the 'Crushter.' That's not a typo, that's actually what he's calling himself.  Gwen points out that they'll notice he's an alien, so Ben tucks him lower arms behind his back.  Gwen then points out that fighting as Four Arms would be cheating, and Ben actually seems to care about that.  Well, if I can praise this episode on one thing, Ben isn't a shallow kid who would gladly cheat to get his wa-Oh, nope, Gwen brings up the fact that the fight has a cash prize and they go anyway.  Woah, Deja Vu, this episode feels like a rip off of Ready to Rumble.  Can I watch that episode instead?
As for the fighting tournament, what do you expect?  Ben effortlessly beats all the other competitors to the finals.  All within, let's say 8-9 minutes apparently as he doesn't change back in between.  Strange that the series that apparently turned up the comedy in the creators words wouldn't use the Omnitrix timing out, which was used for a few comedic moments in the original.  Ben goes up against the champion Iron Kyle, who has robotic arms.  And yet nobody seems to notice.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the people around the gang weren't this stupid.  Iron Kyle actually turns out to be a match for Four Arms, and he's forced to reveal his extra appendages, which everyone calls cheating.  Ben points out that Kyle had robot arms, and nobody believes him.  No wonder a ten year old needs to save the day in every state.
Ben eventually changes back and the judges consider it fair that ten year old needs to fight a cyborg and don't find what just happened weird.  Didn't Ben have a secret identity at this point?  Ben then gets flung out of the ring and needs to avoid getting hit by Kyle.  I'm not a big wrestling fan, but I'm pretty sure being flung into the bleachers is considered an out.  Ben eventually gets flung back into the ring and thrown into his corner, where he spits water on Kyle's leg, which starts sparking.  Ben then goes Overflow and dowses him in water, revealing that he's just a scrawny guy in a robot suit.  Kyle gets disqualified for using cybernetics, and Ben gets disqualified for using alien technology, despite that not being a problem a few minutes ago.  How they immediately knew it was alien tech, I don't know.  Also, what happens now?  Do the last two challengers they fought fight for the prize, or do they start the whole tournament over again?  After getting thrown out, Ben and Kyle start bickering about how the other cheated and apparently settle the whole ordeal with a few rounds of Sumo Slammers, which Ben wins.
Yeah, this episode wasn't any better.  It's a rip off of a much better episode from the original series, which just makes me want to watch the original, the writing's poor, and it just wasn't interested.

So yeah, the show's off to a rocky start.  But then again, Omniverse was too when it started airing.  It's art style was way to cartoony for my taste, they undid a lot of Ben's character development, and replaced beloved characters with a new guy.  But that series went on to make not just good episodes, but good arks(When they weren't trying to retcon retcons that is).  So I'll see where this show goes.