"Ben 10: Alien Force" Ben 10 Returns, Part One (TV Episode 2008) Poster

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10/10
Good start
benjamenwilson6 January 2021
Great star with some poroplems but its okey. to be .Not Perfect
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1/10
Bad start
maneyo2 May 2018
Warning: Spoilers
First off, these are terrible soccer players. Let's stand and watch while this guy runs past us and rely entirely on our goalie! And then they just disappear after Ben is lifted into the air! Where'd they go? Our first experience with lazy animators and definitely not our last.

Second, where's the Omnitrix? Why would hero-obsessive Ben take the Omnitrix off? How'd he get it off? And, importantly, when'd he get it off? It can't have been that long ago, considering his first reaction to being attacked is "Slap my wrist!" I also question Ben's logic when he's being attacked by the DNAlien. "Since I'm being attacked by something disturbing and seemingly very strong, I should run past the exit and hide under a table." Intelligent. And then we get our next instance of incongruity: when we see Ben ride up to the Rustbucket, both the windshields are broken. When Ben chases the DNAlien off with a fire extinguisher and not some Plumber tech, it has to smash through the windows! Magically regenerating windshields! Amazing!

And then Ben instantaneously knows where to find Max's message. Why? Because.

And then we find out that the Omnitrix isn't in a high-tech containment field designed to hide its energy but in a box. In Ben's closet. Because the most powerful device in the universe is entirely safe in a shoebox in a closet and absolutely no one will come looking for it, particularly the hardened felons from Incarcecon or the gladiators from "Grudge Match" who know full well the Omnitrix is in the hands of a human child. No one at all.

And it doesn't try eating Ben's wrist when he approaches it! That's... nitpicking, but still rather annoying.

Then we meet Gwen, whose hair has become very dull and not at all bright orange like in the original series. And it seems her chin has had a particularly bad run-in with a sand grinder. And she seems to project a stupidity field that makes supposedly competent fighters run headlong at her and punch blindly.

In this scene, we also apparently have Ben staring at his cousin's chest. Because they're cousins and have no sexual or romantic attraction at all. Obviously.

And then Gwen apparently disappears for an hour or so to change, as the sun sets in the meantime and Ben falls asleep in the center of a gym. That seems rather sexist.

"Hey, give me that watch!" "No way!" Best. Response. Ever. And do you know the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, such as trying to open a door that doesn't open.

And remember what I said about sexism two paragraphs back? Like I've said in my review of Gwen herself, her powers are pink now and revolve around projecting glass. And she likes wearing miniskirts while standing about four feet over everyone else.

Immediately following this, we get one of the bigger continuity errors between the original series and the sequels: in the original, not only were the Plumbers an Earth-exclusive organization designed to contain alien threats to Earth, they had been defunct for 20-30 years! This is best exemplified in the season 2 episode "Secrets". Not only does Max explicitly say the Plumbers were out of business, Phil also goes on about restarting the Plumbers, not rejoining them. In the sequels, the Plumbers are a still-active intergalactic police force comprised mostly of aliens, which is odd considering most of the original Plumbers were extremely xenophobic.

Plus, the guys in charge of the sequel treat the Omnitrix as any other watch, instead of the insanely powerful device that fuses with the DNA of its wearer, making it extremely painful to remove.

And then Kevin arrives. How the hell do either of these idiots know that it's Kevin? The last time they saw him as a human and not a mutated freak, he was a skinny, rough-and-tumble delinquent living in New York. For all they know, the guy in the green (everything is green in these sequels) car could be Jerry the milkman! And when did Ben ever learn Kevin's last name is Levin? From what I remember, Kevin only told him his first name and then his moniker, Kevin Eleven.

When it comes to a battle, Magister Labrid is the last one you'd want on your team. Instead of shooting the ground, shoot the guys trying to kill you! Surely you have some manner of non-lethal stunning weapons? And then the Forever Knights teleport behind them somehow, in spite of being in front of them originally.

I have to admit, the exchange over the Omnitrix right here is pretty funny. "Ben~!" "Watch~!"

Plus, no one has an ounce of battle sense here. You're villains! Just shoot them and be on your way! They're trying to kill you! Just shoot them and be on your way! Don't just stand around like you're having an amiable chat next to the water cooler!

Also, I don't believe the bullcrap about the Omnitrix becoming even more watch-like because Ben is more mature. Not only has he proven repeatedly that he's not, the original Ben 10,000 in the episode of the same name still had the original. You know, the hyper-obsessive Ben 10k who was ridiculously serious all the time? Yeah, according to these sequels, Ben 10k hadn't matured at all. Plus, all the malfunctions in the original either came from Ben's wrecking of the controls at the end of season 2 or from the safeguards Azmuth had built into the Omnitrix to make using the thing to its full potential nigh impossible.

And we get our first peek at the extreme blandness of the aliens, most of them remaining the same shape and size.

And Ben's already shouting the names of the aliens in the first few seconds even though he's never seen them before! "Hey, this one is entirely humanoid and might be plant-like, though the fact it's completely green makes it hard to tell! Obviously it has fire powers!" Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! A master of logic!

And then we get the absolute stupidity that is Kevin's new powers: instead of absorbing stuff like in the original, he can coat himself in whatever he's touching. It's not even absorption anymore! There is no ontological inertia, as what he's touching doesn't decrease in mass! And he doesn't become what he's touching, he coats himself in it. That apparently gives him superstrength, though it should logically decrease his strength since he would need to exert more effort just to move his arms.

We now arrive at the sheer impossibility of the relationships in this series. "Hey, this guy nearly killed us and used to revel in the idea of killing hundreds for a little cash! Let's immediately let him go and have him drive us somewhere unknown in his car! Nothing could possibly go wrong!" Plus, Kevin and Gwen immediately have sexual tension, which is impossible, considering Kevin never gave a crap about her before and nearly killed her multiple times. The 'relationship' between these two is based entirely around physical lust. Purest bullcrap.
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2/10
Disgraceful start to an otherwise alright series
Lojcs29 July 2022
I'd think the producers would have a sufficient budget and be passionate about it when that they're making a sequel to a very successful show, but I wouldn't know from this episode. I don't mean they don't eventually pull it off, but it feels like they made the first 4 episodes while still getting used to the style and vibe and never revisited them once they got good at it.

Apart from the first 5 minutes, the episode is missing all energy. Fight scenes are dull, exposition is blatant, there is no tempo in neither dialogues nor fight scenes and especially not when people talk during fight scenes. And cumulatively, there's way too much time where nothing interesting is happening. Characters and dialogues are bad. After the halfway point, the main crew forget they just met and start acting like they're in the middle of the season, except at the very end. The episode doesn't feel like it deserves the 20 minute runtime at all. They could've told the exact story in 10 minutes and it would be more fun too.

I liked the world building. That's about it for the positives.
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1/10
Video
talhakhalid-367719 September 2021
How to watch the episode. I can't watch any episode.
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