Redakai DVD: Volume 2

Kohdok wrote:

COMP TITLES:
Bakugan, Yu-Gi-Oh!

SELLING POINTS:
Redakai is an action-adventure animated series that follows the success of other
brands such as Bakugan and Yu-Gi-Oh!

I knew their sales tactic was a comparison with Bakugan and Yugioh! It will never reach the status of either game the way they've made it and they should try making something original rather than ride the coat-tails of other, better series(Better yet, they control one of those better series, why not keep investing in it to keep it going rather than stretch their company so thin?). Do they really have no better way of promoting it beyond a comparison? The clear-stack gimmick was done with Hecatomb and it bombed as well and lenticular cards are cheaper than they are selling them for. How can they compare themselves to Yugioh when they aren't even competitively priced with it?

The "Special Features" in the WB 2-disc DVD is just a pair of trailers, one explaining the actual plot of the story(Something the pilot and every episode afterwards failed to mention. It turns out Conner Stax initiated the cataclysm that released Kairu Energy everywhere and caused all this chaos) while the other is basically the show's intro, only more excruciating. The promo card doesn't even have any foil printing. Trust me, you aren't missing anything.

Zair wrote:Personally I love the cards. I'm just a collector though so I don't really play the game. And did you mean that it costs less for them to produce the cards and then they go selling them for way more than they should be? If so, didn't know that. I will admit the products for Redakai are really overpriced. At Zellers in Canada (before all the 'sales' were going on) one power pack was $6.99. And I don't think the new X-drive figures have shown up in Canada yet. I heard they were selling for $7.00-$9.00... which is WAY expensive for one card and a small figure.. but w/e.

As for the first North American DVD release. I bought it online for $6.00 (free shipping) and I was VERY disappointed with the special features. Basically I thought there would be something new to find on it but there were those trailers I already saw online. Nothing new. Disappointed. I do like the show though. And I understand how much you hate the show Kohdok. I see your posts everywhere and watch your videos on YouTube. I like hearing what you think about it though.

I know, I was at least expecting some development notes(Like how Monsuno is doing "Monsuno Masters" segments with the creators) or a webisode, maybe some biographies, but nope, Toy Fair trailers...

Spin Master was too arrogant with this series, in my opinion. They clearly poured a LOT of money into this series with all of the technology, advertising, and animation, but didn't put enough into story-writing, consultation, and peripheral design, or at least not in the right direction. The animation is above-par and has few errors (Zane's teleporting neck in episode 24 being the most noticeable)
Classy...

However, the writing falls flat on its face. I'm sure you're familiar with: "Guys we've got to save the forest! Quick, start hurling FIRE everywhere!!" There's also an episode where the door of the X-Scaper freezes shut. Gee, if only one of them had the power to conjure swords of plasma or hurl tornadoes of fire that could melt the ice! I guess there weren't enough trees around to give them that idea... It's all style-over-substance. Then again, what do you expect passing this off to the creators of the deliberately-campy "Totally Spies!"?

But perhaps I should be more fair. What is it that you like about the series?

Redakaigirl wrote:The makers of Totally Spies made this? I did not know that. And I agree, if you put some much work into animation, I think the stroy should be just as good.

Kohdok wrote:

Zair wrote:Personally I love the cards. I'm just a collector though so I don't really play the game. And did you mean that it costs less for them to produce the cards and then they go selling them for way more than they should be? If so, didn't know that. I will admit the products for Redakai are really overpriced. At Zellers in Canada (before all the 'sales' were going on) one power pack was $6.99. And I don't think the new X-drive figures have shown up in Canada yet. I heard they were selling for $7.00-$9.00... which is WAY expensive for one card and a small figure.. but w/e.

As for the first North American DVD release. I bought it online for $6.00 (free shipping) and I was VERY disappointed with the special features. Basically I thought there would be something new to find on it but there were those trailers I already saw online. Nothing new. Disappointed. I do like the show though. And I understand how much you hate the show Kohdok. I see your posts everywhere and watch your videos on YouTube. I like hearing what you think about it though.

I know, I was at least expecting some development notes(Like how Monsuno is doing "Monsuno Masters" segments with the creators) or a webisode, maybe some biographies, but nope, Toy Fair trailers...

Spin Master was too arrogant with this series, in my opinion. They clearly poured a LOT of money into this series with all of the technology, advertising, and animation, but didn't put enough into story-writing, consultation, and peripheral design, or at least not in the right direction. The animation is above-par and has few errors (Zane's teleporting neck in episode 24 being the most noticeable)
Classy...

However, the writing falls flat on its face. I'm sure you're familiar with: "Guys we've got to save the forest! Quick, start hurling FIRE everywhere!!" There's also an episode where the door of the X-Scaper freezes shut. Gee, if only one of them had the power to conjure swords of plasma or hurl tornadoes of fire that could melt the ice! I guess there weren't enough trees around to give them that idea... It's all style-over-substance. Then again, what do you expect passing this off to the creators of the deliberately-campy "Totally Spies!"?

But perhaps I should be more fair. What is it that you like about the series?

Redakaigirl wrote:The makers of Totally Spies made this? I did not know that. And I agree, if you put some much work into animation, I think the stroy should be just as good.

Redakaigirl wrote:What is a camp factor?

Zair wrote:
Even though I mentioned a lot of the negative points about the show, I love it.

SonOfOgre wrote:

Zair wrote:
Even though I mentioned a lot of the negative points about the show, I love it.

I'm in the same boat. This series has quite a bit of stumbles, but I have seen worse, and it hasn't quite hit trainwreck status. Plus I've been on board with Marathon since the old school TS days, and I'm forever damned to support (most) of their endeavors. This might be their first shot at doing something that was supposed to be more serious and dramatic than their usual fare, and they're not quite sure how to do it. Hell, doing something with continuity was a step for them.

...God I hope they do character/team sidestories next season and flesh everyone out.

Kohdok wrote:They certainly can be. Recording sessions can take a long time, as the proper inflection and vocalization can require several attempts. Add in union regulations on how many voice actors can perform for how long and recording can be a real hassle.

Kohdok wrote:I'm honestly hoping the Imperiaz get a spotlight episode, as they are pretty much the only thing in the show that isn't a totally lost cause. Diara has the most personality out of anyone in the cast (and when the 2-d Valley Girl has the most personality in the cast, you have a problem) and I think that their infighting and diversity would make them much more interesting main characters than Team Stax. The cast of Cowboy Bebop certainly wasn't known for getting along.

Kohdok wrote:They broke the "No Attacking Civilians" rule in Episode 1 by punting rocks at people. Then again, that was the supposed pilot, but I'd have preferred seeing more ingenuity with the techniques beyond just attacking. And when you are in danger of freezing to death, what's a technique out of combat here or there? They haven't clearly laid out the rules of combat anywhere, so they can just pull them from the usual place whenever they want.

SonOfOgre wrote:

Zair wrote:
Even though I mentioned a lot of the negative points about the show, I love it.

I'm in the same boat. This series has quite a bit of stumbles, but I have seen worse, and it hasn't quite hit trainwreck status. Plus I've been on board with Marathon since the old school TS days, and I'm forever damned to support (most) of their endeavors. This might be their first shot at doing something that was supposed to be more serious and dramatic than their usual fare, and they're not quite sure how to do it. Hell, doing something with continuity was a step for them.

...God I hope they do character/team sidestories next season and flesh everyone out.

Zair wrote:It sounds like the people who wrote it just added on rules as they went along. Which isn't good. It leads to confusion and rules contradicting.

SonOfOgre wrote:Yeah, general consensus is that main characters need to be unGod-modded. ESPECIALLY now that Connor "floating island" Stax is back on the good team apparently. I was also hoping for Maya to flip, in which case good would prob lose more often for story purposes. This new character/team at the least can give me some new fan-canon material at the least, but hopefully they provide a bit more.
Wonder if they use team Bro for fillers now...

I doubt we've seen the last of "Rynoh the More-Fabulous-Than-Maximillian-Pegasus". Probably the one that really got me peeved is that Ky defeated Lokar in their first encounter. Really? They win, then they run away?

Kohdok wrote:

Zair wrote:It sounds like the people who wrote it just added on rules as they went along. Which isn't good. It leads to confusion and rules contradicting.

...Did you get what I meant when I said "Pull it from the usual place?"

As for Team Stax, I wanna see them get beaten. Badly. I cheered after they were utterly pwned in the first scuffle of Episode 24, but due to their contractual invincibility, I frowned at the end of it. I wanna see them actually lose an episode for once. They are annoying protagonists. The writers fail as writers for making me hate the protagonists!

There needs to be a bad guy group that-

* is diverse (For example: a rough girl, a con-man, and a samurai)
* is powerful (High-tier powerful, like the team in Episode 24)

and, most importantly:

* gets along and uses teamwork.

The thing is, while Team Stax is dense, the E-teens are practically braindead. A competent team that used good teamwork would bulldoze Team Stax. They need a real threat that they lose a major battle to.

I thought you meant that they just make rules up as they go along.
I was also happy when team Stax finally took a beating! But yeah.. didn't last long. And it'd be great to see a team like that.

Zair wrote:
I thought you meant that they just make rules up as they go along.
I was also happy when team Stax finally took a beating! But yeah.. didn't last long. And it'd be great to see a team like that.

SonOfOgre wrote:Oh Rhynoh...>XD I don't think he's quite at Pegasus tier though.
I'd miss Zylus, since he's my favorite villain after Diara. He's the OG dim guy of the series, and by your reckoning everyone else is inadvertently copying his style. I will admit that I'll smile when he manages to "outsmart" someone. Underdog victory I suppose.
The Black Kairu ep was Brottacor's first non-fillery ep, but one I kinda wished they held off on a bit more before they needed the inevitable scrape by victory over Lokar, especially via the Geese Howard method. 10 feels a smidge too early on, but if they were originally gunning for a 26 ep series, then perhaps they felt it was close enough to a halfway point.

SonOfOgre wrote:Oh Rhynoh...>XD I don't think he's quite at Pegasus tier though.

Kohdok wrote:

SonOfOgre wrote:Oh Rhynoh...>XD I don't think he's quite at Pegasus tier though.

His bad bromance makes him VERY close... he just needs some pink accents on his outfit to make it absolute.

Zair wrote:

Kohdok wrote:

SonOfOgre wrote:Oh Rhynoh...>XD I don't think he's quite at Pegasus tier though.

His bad bromance makes him VERY close... he just needs some pink accents on his outfit to make it absolute.