The Powerpuff Girls Reboot: They're missing the point.

Remember that neat little show that came out in the late 90's? The one with the little girls flying around and beating up monsters and bad guys? Yeah, that one. The one on Cartoon Network.

The Powerpuff Girls. Yeah, that's the one. Well, did you know that they're not only going to bring it back, but they're missing the point entirely? Yep, a modern trend in cartoons today is pushing a social agenda, or making a deep story with an artistic vision. While that was also present in cartoons of old, now it's only become an obnoxious requirement for your show to have some merit amongst young adults today. Without going into another subject, let me break it down for you.

The original premise for The Powerpuff Girls was called The Whoopass Girls. It was a simple cartoon where three little girls whooped ass. That's it. The same applies to the final product, which was just that: Three little girls whooping ass. Now, while the show was something that little girls could watch, boys and adults could watch it without being on the same level as a brony or a fat loser with no life and a ponytail(They even had an episode based around this archtype, go figure). Girls liked the Powerpuffs, boys like me liked not just the girls, but the villains, monsters and the topic that was touched upon. The writing and delivery was also solid and as an adult, it only got better. Now as an adult, I like Buttercup myself, and she's the fine line between a girl and a boy. A character who both parties can relate to. She was definitely the 'boy' of the group without shoehorning that fact. The original show was well-received by boys and girls, and while the merchandise leaned towards girls, you could find something for a boy to enjoy. That's how you make a show: Something that all audiences can enjoy, even if you make the main characters girls.

That's my main problem with the reboot. They're missing the point entirely on what made the original show revered and liked. They're making it so that girls are the only focus here, and ignoring the boys who also grew up with it. I got a link right here proving this. I'll point out the one thing that caught my attention, but go ahead and give the whole article a read. In that article, Peter Yoder made this statement:

“With the original fans now young adults, we think it’s the perfect time to introduce a new generation to the girls and give moms of young daughters an opportunity to share their love for Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup,” Yoder says of the young Townsville, USA crime-fighting trio. “We believe there’s a big market for girls brands that offer an alternative to the traditional ones that have long been mainstays in the industry. And with its mix of action and comedy, The Powerpuff Girls fits that bill.”

With the original fans, you had not only girls, but boys and even adults. Now you're saying you're going to introduce a new generation of girls to the Powerpuff Girls when you mentioned the original fans, who weren't just girls. Hmm. Looks like you need to do some more research, Petey-boy. Fans of the original show aren't fond of this new direction. Fans of the original show have daughters AND sons who they likely introduced them to the girls via Netflix. They can keep watching the show on Netflix and ignore this show altogether. Let me go ahead and point out the problems with this show.

First, you go on and replace the girl's VA's, when the VA's themselves would have been willing to return, and have shown that they would have taken the chance. Then, you go ahead and get back every supporting characters their original VA's. How inconsistent. And the new voices aren't good. Blossom is fine, played by Amanda Leighton. She was always a bit boring, but nonetheless. Bubbles, was the cute sounding one. The puff that was the closest to an actual little girl. New Bubbles, played by Kristen Li, not only sounds completely off from Tara Strong, but she may as well be the Blue Powerpuff. And as for being cute...

Missing the point entirely.

But the worst one just had to be my favorite Powerpuff Girl. Natalie Palamides. She is the worst of the three, and it shows. Just watch.

She tries to be tough, but her vocal chords don't allow for it. It's not the direction, it's her. She can't do a tough voice without it sounding forced. And on another note entirely unrelated to Natalie, they're trying to push her as the "I'm not a girly girl" character, when you already knew she wasn't from the start. That was never a factor in the original show, and I can see them rehashing this princess nonsense with every male character. With that said, onward to the next point, the animation. There was a particular way to draw the Powerpuff Girls and Craig McCracken, the show's creator had a sheet on the do's and don'ts of their designs and the like.

Simple stuff, right?

Right?

Maybe not.

And the lack of thick outlines is also a notable thing missing. I've noticed this for a while, but it seems a lot of these shows have similar styles. The thin outlines, the round designs, the way mouths and eyes are drawn, it looks like we've hit a stagnation in animation. Even Teen Titans Go! manages to have a different style. Everything else looks like a rehash of the same show, and I partially blame Adventure Time for doing what it did and everyone else following suit. Bright colors and smooth animation don't mean a damn thing if your art style is busted. I despise those noodle limbs. I drew simple designs like that back in elementary and still do. You only need to make the limbs but so long and if you are going to do so, make sure the body fits with them. Look at Pac-Man and Bomberman for a good example of what I'm talking about.

Proper proportions, and so on.

 There's also a lack of violence. The original show was considerably violent, with blood and decapitations commonly seen. With this show, there's an increased use of lantern powers, and any hits are still shots, like the clip above. The whole appeal of The Powerpuff Girls were the three girls being cute girls beating up monsters and bad guys. Funny how such an empowering theme is absent here. You'd think these feminists writing the show would love to have that show up as much as possible. I dread the reaction if that Gamer Gator rumor comes to pass.

There's more and more being shown as it we near April and the show may have an audience for today's crowd, but for oldtime fans, this may not be the show we wanted. I'll watch it and see how bad it is, and I'll likely give the rest a miss afterward. And I reiterate my statement with Buttercup: Natalie, you can't do it. You just can't. You alone make me deduct points from this show. So, we're looking at a 5/10 at the very most.

Which means, this show is fucked.

***UPDATE 4/6/16*** 

I've watched it. And...

Everything I've said above still applies.

  ***UPDATE 4/21/16*** 
I've watched more of it. It sucks. The 'humor' aren't funny, it's void of any subject matter, substantial matter anyway and it's just a fuckfest of eye emotes, randomness and progressiveness. And on the note of being progressive and pushing a positive image for girls, guess who isn't in the reboot. I'll save you the trouble and put in quotes.

One character who didn't make the cut in the new "Powerpuff Girls" series? The mayor's red-headed assistant Ms. Bellum.

"We felt like Ms. Bellum wasn't quite indicative of the kind of messaging we wanted to be giving out at this time, so we sort of had her move on," Jennings explained. "And that was a good choice I think on our part."

The Ms. Sara Bellum character was the super-intelligent, capable and apparently beautiful woman (her face was never shown), who for some reason never rose above being the assistant to the generally clueless mayor of Townsville.

The reason she was never the mayor to Townsville was because she never needed to - she was that competent and well respected by everyone, including the Mayor to the point where she was more or less the decision maker and the Mayor, just the figurehead. She was attractive and a positive image for women, which unfortunately, the social justice warriors that are running the reboot seem to hate. I guess a woman can't be a positive role model unless she's fat, ugly or average. And that's the reason I don't intend to watch any more of it. Even better is Tumblr, the breeding pool for these type of insecure freebleeding feminists hates the show just as much as the rest of the internet. But then again, it's not about the show, it's about promoting an agenda. Why they had to use The Powerpuff Girls to do this is beyond me. Once more, all I can do is hope that Gamer Gator rumor is just that - a rumor. I leave you with this:

 A lovely example of the empowering message that the show promotes.

Let's talk No Man's Sky.

For this next post, I want to talk about No Man’s Sky.

What is it, you ask? It’s a game in which you explore the galaxy, if not the universe. This universe is comprised of eighteen quintillion planets. And I’m assuming that’s not counting the moons around each individual body’s orbit, which can also be explored. I was following No Man’s Sky for a while, only really picking up heavy interest around two weeks ago. Every planet is randomly generated via the game’s system, and with the engine that No Man’s Sky uses, the estimate is again eighteen quintillion planets. Even if everyone played the game in the entire world, there still would be a massive chunk of the universe unexplored. Wow. And it’s not just the planets, but what’s on them. The fauna, the wildlife, the aliens and fish even. The terrain, the oxygen/hydrogen levels, the weather and the color of the sky and grass. There aren’t any gas giants present, but that’s a very minor annoyance.

Now, not every planet will be lush or vibrant. Most will be barren. Makes sense considering Earth is the only known planet with intelligent life (If you can call it that).  I look forward to mining those barren planets, though with the sentinels, the game’s equivalent of cops and police force lying about, you can’t do it too much, and you can’t really go around killing the wildlife you do encounter, even if they attack you. But I’m not exactly looking to kill everything in my path, though you are able to do that, with the equal consequences of your actions becoming present. Now, I’m a massive space buff, and a nature buff to boot, and this looks like a game that mixes nature, biology, space, and technology all in one. And it has a set release date, nearing late June of this year. Unlike another game people are comparing this to, No Man’s Sky looks to be unaltered and meddled with due to greedy publishers and touchy team members (Hint: The game I’m talking about is Spore. Now that’s a sob story).

But moving on, the footage shown recently allows you to trade with other explorers, mainly resources, minerals and so on. And trading will be a big way to obtain resources needed to upgrade your ship and suit. On top of that, you can also scan the surrounding area around you and classify wildlife, fauna and discover places of interest, ranging from an old station, a landmark or even a monolith with alien language inscribed. These monoliths allow you to learn a word or two, and use them in a phrase should you encounter life that speaks said language. Your choices depend on if you get in their good shoes or if they attack you. Each alien will be randomly generated with a basic body, limbs, features and color. As you get closer to the center of the universe, your main objective of the game, the life you encounter will be more complex and hostile. One piece of footage showed a giant ape-like beast in a snowy terrain, some stegosaurus in the 2014 footage, and in a desert terrain, a giant snake-like creature. It moved pretty fast.  One piece of footage showed a blue raccoon creature coming to you as if it were a tagalong while you were attacked. Perhaps you can play the role of a rescuer along with being a trader, pirate or researcher. 

Possible sentient life?

 Sean Murray IS being secretive about this game, and for good reason: Spoiling any of the major details would spell disaster for any game and people are still confused about what you’ll do in this game when it’s already been shown and said: You mine for resources with your gun, upgrade your ship and gun, find planets, explore them, upload your discoveries to an atlas and earn money, upgrade your suit for more treacherous planets, and basically do whatever you feel the need to do. Space is the last frontier we have yet to explore, and we won’t be doing so in this lifetime, but in this game we’ll be able to, and exploring whatever areas you’re allowed to or able to is enough to sell the game to me. And people are so hellbent on multiplayer, for what reason? Singleplayer games are fine, and it’s obvious Sean intended for No Man’s Sky to focus predominately on singleplayer, though he said you may meet up with another player as you play the game. I really don’t like how people are using that to attack the game or outright bash it. The last thing I want is to explore a nice, calm planet and run into another player who either kills me or acts like an ass for the sake of it, and I can’t even get away from them because they destroy my ship or kill a dinosaur, bringing attention to the sentinels. My experience with Splatoon is enough to determine wastes of life like that, and it’s not reaching to think all of the life you encounter in No Man’s Sky is more intelligent than the players you encounter in Call of Duty and other AAA shovelware.

The monoliths used to learn the language of the aliens you'll encounter.

What exactly lies in the center of the universe? You can see it as you explore the galactic map. It’ll take you a good while to get to the center of the universe, and you need the right ship to make it there. I’m wondering if it’s some type of message or maybe a serene, graceful world. Like a ‘heaven’ of some sorts. It’ll take a while to get there, nonetheless, and I intend on taking my sweet time playing the game. 

The game comes out in late June, and we’re only a few months away from seeing if it’s worth all of the anticipation and hype it’s gotten. I think it’ll be something to look forward to. It won’t be groundbreaking, or revolutionary, but it may scratch an itch I’ve been trying to get at for a while. And then again, it may be. We’ll have to wait and see.

A portal that takes you to another planet.

And the wait will be worth it.