I recently watched the first 2 episodes of Ultimate Spider-Man and I can honestly say that I have never wanted to STOP watching a Spider-Man cartoon before in my life... until now.
I have been a big fan of the Spider-Man comic series for many years and have liked almost all of the cartoon iterations of him, but this one just hurts to watch. I understand that Spider-Man is supposed to be a smart-mouthed teen who likes to make jokes while fighting crime, which is my favorite part about the character, but this show just takes it to an extreme. The show feels like a very awkward mix of Family Guy, Teen Titans and The Emperors New Groove... NONE of them in a good way.
I think one of the biggest problems for me was how much the story was broken up by all of the "cut away" scenes. There would be an action scene going on, or a scene with meaningful dialog and it felt like every 5 seconds, they were shoe-horning a stupid "this is almost as bad as the time I..." joke, much like in Family Guy; The problem with this is that it broke up EVERYTHING that was happening in the show. The reason that Family Guy is able to get away with doing "cut away" scenes every few seconds is because that is what the show is all about. You don't watch Family Guy for the story or the action, you watch it to laugh at the jokes, which can actually be funny because they aren't being aimed at children. I understand that Spider-Man is a show made for children and I get that the characters aren't going to be nearly as serious as they are in the comics, but I feel like this was just too far from the source material for me to enjoy it.
Another thing that bothered me was how just a few years ago we had, in my opinion, one of the best Spider-Man shows to date, Spectacular Spider-Man, and it was canceled in only it's second season. I had really high hopes for Ultimate Spider-Man to fill the void that Spectacular Spider-Man left, but it just didn't deliver at all.
I guess I should address the animation for the show as well, while it looks good in still shots, much of the action gets... fuzzy? A lot of the time it looks like they got lazy while animating the action sequences and just decided to make everything blurry so it looked like he was doing something really cool, but all that it did was give me a headache. The character designs are good and they COULD look great, but it just seems like they got lazy with animating them; Yet another reason why I think that Spectacular Spider-Man did it better, the animation was much smoother.
As far as the voice acting on the show goes, they all seem to have done a really good job... with what they were given to read. So much of the writing in this show just seems so forced; It seems like they thought that the more jokes that the shoved in and the more that they made it like Family Guy, the better that it would be... because, hey, people like Family Guy, right? Now, You may be asking "why was Spectacular Spider-Man so much better" and the most honest answer that I can give you is that it seems as though Marvel actually put a lot of work into Spectacular Spider-Man. I'm not saying that they didn't put a lot of work into Ultimate Spider-Man, but it's much harder to see in this one. The character designs in Spectacular Spider-Man may not have hit all of the right points for some people, but I really enjoyed it. The action in the show looked really good and it was easy to follow exactly what was happening, because you didn't have a bunch of blur that you had to try and see everything through. The story for Spectacular Spider-Man was your standard Spider-Man fare, but while it was a show essentially for kids, it also appealed to many adults as well. The show had its serious moments along with its really funny ones, which is what I think Spider-Man is all about. It took all of the things that were great from the 90's Spider-Man show, like the stories and the great scripts and coupled them with great animation and some really talented voice actors to give life to the characters.
I really wanted to like Ultimate Spider-Man, but I just didn't. I feel like if this show was about just another teen superhero other than Spider-Man it would have been much more forgivable, but for it to take such a dump on such a beloved character, it is just really sad to see. Now all that I can do is hope that the new Spider-Man movie can really bring something good to the table.
I have been a big fan of the Spider-Man comic series for many years and have liked almost all of the cartoon iterations of him, but this one just hurts to watch. I understand that Spider-Man is supposed to be a smart-mouthed teen who likes to make jokes while fighting crime, which is my favorite part about the character, but this show just takes it to an extreme. The show feels like a very awkward mix of Family Guy, Teen Titans and The Emperors New Groove... NONE of them in a good way.
I think one of the biggest problems for me was how much the story was broken up by all of the "cut away" scenes. There would be an action scene going on, or a scene with meaningful dialog and it felt like every 5 seconds, they were shoe-horning a stupid "this is almost as bad as the time I..." joke, much like in Family Guy; The problem with this is that it broke up EVERYTHING that was happening in the show. The reason that Family Guy is able to get away with doing "cut away" scenes every few seconds is because that is what the show is all about. You don't watch Family Guy for the story or the action, you watch it to laugh at the jokes, which can actually be funny because they aren't being aimed at children. I understand that Spider-Man is a show made for children and I get that the characters aren't going to be nearly as serious as they are in the comics, but I feel like this was just too far from the source material for me to enjoy it.
Another thing that bothered me was how just a few years ago we had, in my opinion, one of the best Spider-Man shows to date, Spectacular Spider-Man, and it was canceled in only it's second season. I had really high hopes for Ultimate Spider-Man to fill the void that Spectacular Spider-Man left, but it just didn't deliver at all.
I guess I should address the animation for the show as well, while it looks good in still shots, much of the action gets... fuzzy? A lot of the time it looks like they got lazy while animating the action sequences and just decided to make everything blurry so it looked like he was doing something really cool, but all that it did was give me a headache. The character designs are good and they COULD look great, but it just seems like they got lazy with animating them; Yet another reason why I think that Spectacular Spider-Man did it better, the animation was much smoother.
As far as the voice acting on the show goes, they all seem to have done a really good job... with what they were given to read. So much of the writing in this show just seems so forced; It seems like they thought that the more jokes that the shoved in and the more that they made it like Family Guy, the better that it would be... because, hey, people like Family Guy, right? Now, You may be asking "why was Spectacular Spider-Man so much better" and the most honest answer that I can give you is that it seems as though Marvel actually put a lot of work into Spectacular Spider-Man. I'm not saying that they didn't put a lot of work into Ultimate Spider-Man, but it's much harder to see in this one. The character designs in Spectacular Spider-Man may not have hit all of the right points for some people, but I really enjoyed it. The action in the show looked really good and it was easy to follow exactly what was happening, because you didn't have a bunch of blur that you had to try and see everything through. The story for Spectacular Spider-Man was your standard Spider-Man fare, but while it was a show essentially for kids, it also appealed to many adults as well. The show had its serious moments along with its really funny ones, which is what I think Spider-Man is all about. It took all of the things that were great from the 90's Spider-Man show, like the stories and the great scripts and coupled them with great animation and some really talented voice actors to give life to the characters.
I really wanted to like Ultimate Spider-Man, but I just didn't. I feel like if this show was about just another teen superhero other than Spider-Man it would have been much more forgivable, but for it to take such a dump on such a beloved character, it is just really sad to see. Now all that I can do is hope that the new Spider-Man movie can really bring something good to the table.