Cartoon Reviews: Ben 10 Ultimate Alien

I started this blog mainly as a way to review and discuss Cartoons, TV shows and Movies. Main topic being cartoons.

Pros

I honestly think that writers,producers on the show had it tough, they had to follow the successful footsteps of Man of Action all the while creating their own thing. Given that the original was so good its no surprise that there were many who believed that this series could not live up to the expectations, however I believe that there were many good things about this show which is what I will be discussing in this section.

Overall

Most of what I have to say about UA is the same as what I said about AF. The problem I had with Alien Force is that it was just so serious all the time, each and every episode... Season 3 actually fits a lot more with UA; Ben's more chilled out, the invasion is over, more episodes during the day, etc... UA was definitely a lot more light-hearted and Ben is more like his old self.


Characters: Some of the new characters I liked, some were not as great.

Heroes:

Ben: I think they realized they made Ben a little too mature and serious in AF and that a lot of the original fans missed the more childish Ben. This Ben was less serious which was good, but they also made him a little too arrogant in my opinion. At least its explained why he turned so arrogant, it did get somewhat annoying after a while.

Gwen: Gwen pretty much the same as in AF, it was cool getting her own episode in "Its not easy being Gwen" , also pretty interesting seeing her and Ben fight in that one episode.

Kevin: I honestly liked Kevin even less in UA cause he is healed but then goes crazy again. Its really hard for some people to see someone who is a villain start being one of the main heroes. Kevin never had any sort of redeeming qualities in the original, he was ruthless, and so it doesn't make much sense to me that he turned good. I do get the whole energy absorption explanation, but still...



Other: The five new aliens were cool, they were pretty much neutral though.



Villains


Diagon: Just an evil, all-powerful inter-dimensional being, clearly based on Cthulu. Not much development other than wants to take over / destroy everything.

Vilgax: It was pretty cool how Vilgax betrayed and absorbed the Diagon, not much else though. Also kinda funny how he tried to temp Ben into erasing all evil. He himself is an evil warlord but I guess was willing to sacrifice himself if it meant no evil.

Captain Nemesis: Its cool to see a former hero turn bad, esp one that Ben looked up to. Cool 'Iron Man' type villain. Also pretty personal hatred of Ben.

Other: Will Harangue was clearly J Jonah Jameson , it was interesting , I wished they explained more of why he hated Ben though. It was also cool seeing Zombozo come back and while going after Ben's family was totally his style, he just wasn't as scary as in the original... Got to also see more of Charmcaster and glad they showed she has a soft side. Adwaita was also a cool villian, really interesting to see an alien use magic. Inspector 13 also a really cool villain.


Girls
Gwen has a new look again, still looking hot. Not a huge fan of the way they treated Ben and Julie. They should've honestly balanced her out more as well like she could be both the nice and sweet while being sometimes competitive. It showed them having relationship problems but I wished it showed them working through it. Jennifer Nocturne was really hot and really just a young actress stereotype. Eunice was probably my favorite girl to come out of this series; she was really hot, sweet, and best of all she was a genetic variation of Gwen, which in my mind means that Ben is also attracted to Gwen (I honestly think the writers did this to make Bwen fans happy cause that's the closest the show was gonna get to Bwen). Elena is also back which is great, kinda like her as a frenemy. Sunny was also hot, but wished they were a little more creative in her design, she looks exactly like Gwen except different colors... Young Verdona from the Moonstruck episode was also quite the looker back in the day.


Critiques 

I wasn't a fan of Ben becoming a famous super hero. Like the secret identity thing was never a huge part of Ben 10 , but he at least had a secret identity.
Being able to go ultimate whenever he wanted was a little too powerful for me, like why didn't he just use his ultimate forms all the time then?


Favorite Episodes:

Hero Time: Like I said Captain Nemesis was a great villain. Introduced us to the Jennifer Nocturne and we got to see Ben and Julie's relationship grow a little.

Reflected Glory: JT and Cash are characters from the OS and its fun to see them occasionally appear. They once again get what's coming to them.

Where the Magic Happens: Got to see Gwen and Charmcaster getting along, and see Charmcaster's character develop more.

The Transmogrification of Eunice: This episode introduced us to the lovely Eunice. Also got to see the return of Sunder which was cool.

Revenge of the Swarm: Showed the movies are canon and Elena finally appeared!

Its Not Easy Being Gwen: Finally a Gwen episode!

Moonstruck: This was the only flashback episode which showed how Max became a plumber, and how he and Verdona meet. Nice action combined with young Verdona...

Simian Says: Got to see an alien home world, got to see Eunice again and see her in action.

Catch a Falling Star: Captain Nemesis and Jennifer Nocturne return. I gotta say when shows that are primarily for kids/teens have the balls to do a dark episode like this and show darker / more real life elements I have a lot of respect for them. The show itself doesn't have to be dark or anything, but it doesn't shy away from necessary / realistic elements just like how Young Justice did.

Heroes United was also a great episode, but I consider that a Grex episode so I'll talk about that one when I review it.



Pretty good show overall, but could've used more stand alone episodes with less serious threats.