Episode 3 - "The Krakken"

Plot:
Today we will be spending 90% of the episode in brown grey swamp water, which I think is the biggest issue with the episode. When they do the underwater scenes in bright blue the show looks really nice, but they over do the saturation of grey to the utmost degree. I feel this is probably the reason I look back unfavorably on this lakeside adventure.

We open up on Ben messing around with Fourarms pretending to be a lake monster to scare Gwen, only to be attacked by a real monster the moment she turns her back. This could have been taken as a boy-who-cried-wolf kind of scenario where Ben isn't believed due to his prior pranks, but thankfully they play it much less heavy handed than last week's moral messages.

Quickly we are introduced to Captain Shaw, the hired boatman taking Ben and Max on a bonding fishing trip. He is given the Scooby-Doo treatment of being seen to be a mental, shady, creep, obsessively talking about hunting the lake beast, similar to that of Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. Luckily enough Ben is desperate to prove himself so their shared obsession with the beast makes him an ally from the start, as opposed to having to make him join later with friendship or stupidity.

The other characters this week pop up very quickly in the form of eco-protectors, generic rich looking people trying to "save" the environment! Suddenly as soon as they rock up the Krakken decides to come out mid-day time for the first time in hundreds of years for countless witnesses to see, attacking the docks.

Here we see the next major mechanic of the omnitrix come into play, Ben getting the wrong alien at random moments regardless of specifically and carefully choosing the right alien. Seeing an underwater threat Ben cleverly calls out for Ripjaws (whom he must have unlocked and named off screen).  We even see that he chose him and didn't slam down the watch randomly, yet for some reason he gets given XLR8.

This is the first major example of an error, but Ben manages to use the super speed to adapt to the water, running on water to begin his assault on the Krakken, but not before evacuating all tourists from the area, something more modern super hero stories could learn from. The monster steals something from the eco-guys and takes it to the ocean floor.

Ben still wants to hunt down the threat, so at midnight against Gwen and Max's orders he snuck out to Captain Shaw's boat and stowed away on a midnight diving expedition to find the stolen loot and the creatures base.
The pair find the crate was stolen eggs, that the mother-Krakken was stealing back from the eco-people, who were secret poachers!

Ben and Shaw get caught by these thieves, and Ben is forced to use Stinkfly to escape them. Ben is shocked to find that Stinkfly can't fly barely at all when he is wet, the first of many biological weaknesses the show must teach Ben about his transformations. This is a pretty exciting chase scene and is made more intersting with the threat to Stinkfly's wings.

The pair regroup with Max and gwen and assualt the makeshift stronghold the poachers have in the abandoned dockyard, shortly followed by the Krakken. The result is a three way fight between the robot-suited poachers, Ben finally debuting at Ripjaws, and the mother Krakken desperate for her eggs.

The fight is rather impressive, shifting from land to underwater, each party stealing the eggs constantly and getting a beating for their effort. After Ripjaw's savaged the suit the Krakken attempts to murder the poachers, however Ben shows his heroic resolve in saving even the theives from the angry mother. The poachers are left to the police and the monster sails off into the sunset with her eggs, another happy ending.


Alien of Focus:
Surprisingly for a water episode I think XLR8's first real use, outside a cameo, by Ben outshone Ripjaw's rather impressive fight. XLR8 showed the ability to both walk on water, and create typhoons with his super speed, these being the early signs of it being one of Ben's most versatile aliens.

Final Thoughts:
Surprisingly, going against my childhood memories, this episode wasn't that bad. I think my view of Ripjaws as a dull generally useless alien was overshadowing the details of the episode. It handled Ben fairly well, and I'm glad they didn't hammer home any moral lessons like last week, Ben making up for his joking with actual hero work rather than silly lessons.

Rating:

Plot: 4/10 - Rather bland plot, basic twist of the evil monster actually being a maternal mother wasn't that surprising with the introduction of the shady looking protest group. Well executed attempt to make the captain seem more guilty than he really was though.

Characterisation: 7/10 - This was a very Ben focused episode, with Gwen and Max avoiding the main plot mostly, however it did a good job establishing Ben's ability to use aliens growing, learning that some have crippling weaknesses (Stinkfly's inability to fly wet for example) and reacting to getting the wrong alien quickly and efficiently.

Humour: 6/10 - Solid one liners from Ben, this episode's introduction of Ben dialing the wrong alien was amusing, an important introduction to the mechanics of the show.

Action: 8/10 - Very solid three-way fight scene between Ripjaws, robots and the Krakken, actually winning a little respect for Ben's generally worthless fish-form.

Villain: 4/10 - Eco-defenders are annoying at the best of times, but the fact they were secret animal poachers did them no help, overall just dull bland human characters.

29/50

Next Week: Episode 4 "Permanent Retirement"

Alien DNA Sample 001 - "Heatblast"

Species: Pyronite
Debut Episode: Episode Debut: "And Then There Were 10"
Current Biography:

After initially obtaining the Omnitrix, Ben messed around with the buttons until he triggered Heatblast. Getting carried away playing with his fire ball technique he caused a forest fire, spreading panic until Grandpa Max and Gwen located him.

Using his power to cause a second fire to starve the initial outbreak of oxygen under Max's instruction he managed to contain the damage. 

Ever since this initial use Heatblast has become one of Ben's favored aliens, being one of the ones he uses most also makes him one of the few he unlocks the true potential of later down the line.

We next see Ben using Heatblast to save a mother and son from a burning building. This shows clearly that Ben has progressed as he had learned one of Heatblast's alien abilities to absorb fire into himself, rather than causing the fire to grow greater.

After stopping the arsonist thieves in their escape however Heatblast times out and leaves Ben to face the criminals alone until the police arrive at the scene to arrest them


Learned Powers:

Ben has learned basic fireball throwing as Heatblast, with reasonable accuracy, being able to hit trees on target over a medium range, and a moving car from a long distance. While fairly small they packed enough fire power to cause a large scale forest fire and a major car crash.

Heatblast has also been shown to be able to absorb fire from around him, first shown when rescuing a family from a burning building.

Shown Weaknesses:
Heatblast if put out will lose his ability to fire his heat projectiles until he relights, this can be done easily with a fire extinguisher.

Ben's lack of control over his own fire once shot could be seen as a weakness, however his new ability to absorb fire counteracts this somewhat.

Omnitrix Updating Alien DNA List

Here will be the list of all the aliens unlocked and debuted by Ben as of the latest episode currently analysed. If they have had their spotlights done there will be a direct link to their Bios.

Heatblast

Episode Debut: "And Then There Were 10"

Alien Profile: Alien DNA Sample 001 - "Heatblast"

Wildmutt

Episode Debut: "And Then There Were 10"

Diamondhead

Episode Debut: "And Then There Were 10"

XLR8

Episode Debut: "And Then There Were 10"

Greymatter

Episode Debut: "Washington B.C."

Fourarms

Episode Debut: "Washington B.C."

Stinkfly

Episode Debut: "Washington B.C."

Ripjaws

Episode Debut:"The Krakken"

Episode 2 - "Washington B.C."

Plot:
Today's episode sadly is a teaching episode, with Ben being forced to learn modesty for his hero work, whilst also fighting a giant frog and bird.

We open on a scene of Ben using Heatblast to save a mother and son from a burning building. This shows clearly that Ben has progressed since last episode, learning one of Heatblast's alien abilities to absorb fire into himself, rather than burning down the world around him.

However Gwen realises that this was just a distraction so the thieves that robbed the house could escape. Making chase in their RV (named the Rustbucket), Ben brutally obliterates their car with fireballs, forcing them to crash straight into a wall. Amazingly they don't die on impact.

Heatblast tries to do some intimidating while he has the thugs cornered, but the Omnitrix times out. Despite the police arriving to save Ben, they show him no respect, thinking he is lying when he says he stopped the robbery, leading to beginning Ben's downward spiral into greed for the day.

Meanwhile we are introduced to the first human Ben 10 villain, Dr Aloysius James Animo! He brings the science element of the show in full force. Having developed machines to control, grow and mutate animals, turning even a small frog into a devastating weapon, he poses a real threat to peaceful Washington DC.

While he eventually goes on to be one of my favourite more comic villains of the show he is fairly serious here, Ben obviously not having driven him over the edge yet. His importance in this episode is a parallel to Ben's greed for attention, Animo having gone insane after having lost a huge scientific award to his rival. For some reason he decides he needs to go to the supermarket to get something for his super weapon. The supermarket just so happens to be one that Ben is committing a crime in.

Ben has become obsessed with the Sumo Slammers card game that you apparently get in cereal boxes, his eyes being on the golden sumo slammer card. To do this he decides to abuse his alien all powerful device, to also turn into his smartest alien Greymatter (who for some reason doesn't see how stupid his plan was) and enters every single cereal box
in the store to steal the prize. Probably the worst debut of arguably one of the best aliens.

The consequences for this stupid, selfish action instantly come back to bite Ben when Animo and his giant frog invaded the shop, turning the pets into equally beastly monsters. Because of his messing around with Greymatter he was fully timed out, so is forced to man up and save Gwen and Max in human mode.

Here is the first example of basic Ben actually achieving something, managing to push a shelf on the newly giant mutated hamster and save the shop. At this point we see one of the biggest issues with the episode, because Animo makes a Washington BC pun whilst fighting Ben they instantly figure out where he will be heading next.

This is the point where the show may have needed a bit of a slowed down Scooby Doo-esque detecting sequence, where they found some clues, however as Ben 10 tries to normally keep the pace moving forward fast at all times this is far from common in the show.
Anyway the crew head to the natural history museum and find him, where a pretty cool fight scene ensues, Ben turning into Fourarms to fight a giant resurrected mammoth while Gwen and Max take on a giant bird with just a metal pole and winning for the most part.

However upon reaching Animo he escapes on his giant zombie T-Rex (which I have no idea what from the super market helped bring to life). Gwen is also captured by the bird and Ben attempts to give chase, only for time out to kick in, forcing him and Max to get in the RV. Yet again a massive stroke of luck happens when Dr Animo just happens to leave a leaflet from the award ceremony he lost right at the scene of the crime, allowing Max to suddenly realise he is going after his scientific rival.

Stinkfly manages to save Gwen from the bird's new nest atop the Washington Monument, with its very impressive speed and reasonable strength. Leaving the 10 year old girl and the 70 something year old man to yet again fight the massive bird Stinkfly races ahead to find Animo, about to feed his rival to the evil zombie dinosaur.


Stinkfly destroys Animo's device fairly easily which handily reverts all mutated monsters to their original form. A little too easy but there wasn't much more they could do with Ben stuck as Stinkfly, perhaps with Greymatter there could have been a cool technological element to the fight. At least they followed the rules of the Omnitrix, which is one of the most pleasing aspects of the original show that the many sequels fail to compare to.

This episode's most important introduction, aside from Animo and the new aliens, was the severity of the time-out function. While episode one was pretty lax when it came to the downsides of Ben's powers today really hammered home the issues with messing around with the watch outside of battle, as any moment Ben could need it and be forced to survive 10 minutes before the next DNA change.

Alien of Focus:
Surprisingly Stinkfly took this week's crown for alien MVP, despite Ben actually managing to get Fourarms when he wanted him. He has two fight scenes against both the zombie t-rex and the huge mutant bird and comes on top both times with his speed and strength. Fourarms put in a decent effort with the mammoth but he timed out before he could really do too much to stop Animo.

Final Thoughts:

While far from the best episode very solid establishment of the hard parts of Ben's hero work, even if  way too heavy handed with the moral aspects. Another thing to note that I forgot to cover last episode is I really appreciate the almost painful look of Ben's entire genetic code being overwritten for most of the alien transformations, something the later shows failed to show quite so well, this was always a big part of the world building and realism element that appealed to me as a young fan.

Also it's important to note that Max says that chasing the huge bird reminds him of the old days before he retired. What kind of Plumber was he in his prime?

Rating:

Plot: 7/10 - Interesting idea and well executed, felt a tad convenient at times when the characters knew where to look based on very vague clues left at each scene. 

Characterisation: 4/10 - Very heavy handed with the moral message of Ben needing to stop wanting rewards and fame, however Animo's side of it was an interesting watch. Terrible handling of a super intelligent being like Greymatter when he isn't questiong a plan of petty theft for a trading card.

Humour: 5/10 - Some good Gwen vs Ben snarking matches, but had some poor toilet humour aswell.

Action: 8/10 - Very solid fight scenes, from Fourarms brutally beating up a mammoth, to the Stinkfly zombie t-rex and bird fights.

Villain: 8/10 - While Animo may have appeared a little cartoony here in his debut, they did a very good job conveying his mindset and backstory, making him one of the most significant and relevent human villains in the show in future episodes.

32/50

Next Week: Episode 3 "The Krakken"

Episode 1 - "And Then There Were 10"

This first episode of the original series Ben 10 is a perfect start to a classic show, that still holds up better than many of the shows to come out after it.

As this is the first installment it seems fitting to mention the nostalgic original theme song, it's upbeat tune combined with the wavering tunes reminiscent of classic alien horror films set the tone perfectly for the action packed alien adventure yet to unfold.

As the later episodes tend to focus on Ben learning a specific hero with greater skill there will normally be a focus on an alien every week, however this debut episode reveals 4 and builds upon all but Diamondhead minimally, so they shall only be briefly covered here.

This original show also has the best art style in my opinion of any Ben 10 product, it's comparable to that of Avatar: Last Airbender in terms of quality and consistency, and looking far more timeless then the bare basic reboot or even the often lifeless Alien Force and Ultimate Alien runs of the show.

Anyways into the actual episode 1 specific review:

Plot:
The first part of the plot quickly establishes the core aspects of the three main characters, Ben Tennyson, his cousin Gwen and their Grandpa Max. I was amazed how quickly and effectively they managed to achieve this whilst building up the setting.

Ben's shown to be a hero when the opening school setting sees him stand up for a bullied nerd, however as the show is keen to make clear he is totally hopeless at it, having him totally beaten down and humiliated by the bullies. However he is also presented to be trouble making and childish, shown in the fact the teacher held him behind at the end of his final class for throwing paper planes, making him a less perfect and thus more human character.

Whilst this serves as a way to establish Ben's more comic tone and his good will it also sets one of the golden rules of  Ben 10; "When Ben is in human form, he must be far from that of a super hero". This is one of the founding principles upon which the show is based, and while Ben often relies on his wits and quick thinking in the field whilst human it is normally just to keep himself alive, making times when he actually manages to save the day while human much more fulfilling and satisfying.

This brief look into Ben's life prior to the adventure ends with Max and Gwen arriving to begin their road trip across the whole of America. The road trips acts as the perfect device to allow for strange contained single stories to be built up. America especially adds to this as a setting, considering the culture of strange alien sightings and myths to explore each episode.

Gwen and Max are also strongly established through the episode, their opening scene clearly showing the state of the family upon the outset of their journey. Ben's excitement to go on the trip with Max, only emphasized by the brief glimpse into Ben's boring school life, conveys the strong connection the pair have, and in turn his fear that Gwen would spoil/change their annual trip only furthering the proof of his and Max's strong bond. Gwen's and his rivalry is instant, in what feels like a normal family feud.


The show reveals a space battle that results in the Omnitrix's descent to Earth in brief cuts, however one of the things this show does that makes it stand out is have long running arcs and not handing everything on a plate to the viewer. The alien attacker known as Vilgax gets no explanation other than us knowing he wants "the Watch" (as Ben dubs it). We will have to wait and see to learn more about him, aside from the fact his body has been crippled and broken by the space battle, forcing him into a status tube.



Upon arrival at the campsite many character traits are established, such as Max's strange taste in food and Ben's disregard for warnings, as seen today where he wanders off into the uncharted woods alone. After a brief stroll a meteor from space attempts to assault Ben, and directly aims itself at him. After impact and a severe shock to Ben the all powerful Omnitrix is revealed, where it glomps and locks onto Ben's wrist.

This establishes golden rule two, "Ben cannot remove the Omnitrix by any means". This is important as from here on his having it will make him a target because everyone wants it, the irremovable nature acting as the only thing that stops the villain winning in many episodes.

Ben messes around with the watch, triggering his first alien, Heatblast, and a forest fire. Gwen and Max are shown to be the voices of reason and intelligence in their calm handling of the situation and quick acceptance of Ben's story. Grandpa Max seemed strangely unfazed as to the alien form. Meanwhile the change is used to show the true, more caring feelings between Gwen and Ben, with her recognizing him instantly by his mannerisms.

The watch times out after 10 minutes, another golden rule of the original show, Ben gets 1 alien, for 10 mins and then has to recharge. Due to the random nature of his alien selection the show is more about "How do I use this alien to solve this problem" as opposed to Ben being able to pick the right tool for the job all the time, often with comic effect. Further messing around with the watch causes him to become Wildmutt and this triggers Vilgax's Omnitrix hunting robots, whom he tries to destroy, before timing out mid fight. Gwen saves the weak human Ben, showing her dual role as an action character as well as the brains, as in any competition between human Ben and Gwen would almost always see Gwen victorious, with her advanced intellect and martial arts training.

A final huge robot comes to attack the park and Ben becomes Diamondhead to fight him, learning on the fly that he can redirect its laser attacks with his crystal structure, and using it to destroy the attacker. With some signs of Ben's acts of heroism now being viable the episode comes to a close, but not before Ben uses XLR8 to attack the bullies from earlier, bringing the whole first episode full circle showing his keen sense of justice despite his more troublesome side still being strong.

Alien of Focus:

As a debut episode we saw Ben have a number of fairly long turns with many alien forms, with recharge times not being too damaging so as to ease you into the series. Diamondhead was the one in the big final fight of the episode so he would probably count, but the most impactful debut was that of Heatblast as Ben's first transformation, showing the danger of misusing the Omnitrix.

Final Thoughts:

Really strong start to the series, many hints of what is yet to come, and plenty of things shown to grab your attention from the start. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this episode, as I normally dread the early episodes of shows I loved as a kid, but this did not fail to impress.

Rating:

Plot: 9/10 - Great idea for a series, an original take on the teen super hero idea.

Characterisation: 10/10 - Everyone is perfectly established and have hints of development by the end of the first episode.

Humour: 7/10 - Not the funniest episode but it didn't need to be, some great one liners though.

Action: 8/10 - Great first glimpse into the way Ben must adapt to different fighting styles with Wildmutt and Diamondhead.

Villain: 7/10 - Vilgax is hinted at very well to be a big threat later, perhaps it would have been more interesting for Ben to face some aliens rather than robots, but he needed to learn the basics somewhere.

41/50

Next Week: Episode 2 "Washington B.C."

Welcome to the Ben 10 Review hub!

Welcome to the Ben 10 Review hub!

Here I will be going through every single episode of Ben 10's original canon and painstakingly reviewing each one.

I may eventually do the reboot, but due to the outright disregard of the entire previous 4 versions of the show it's not likely.

Interspersed will potentially be Alien reviews etc, most likely when Ben has unlocked a fair few more for comparison.

I will do the live action movies at some point, I think only the second one is canon though, but the animated movie will definitely get a special review of it's own.

Here we go then!