Ben 10 Reboot Discussion Part 1: Season 2
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@csgt I recently saw it. I thought that the writing was poor and the episode made Charmcaster look weak at the end. Plus, this episode is pretty much a copy of Couples Retreat from Ultimate Alien. There were so many elements that made both of these episodes really similar to each other. With the way that The Charm Offensive was made, it makes the plot look lazy and uncreative. Heck, even Charmcaster's new name, Heather, came from that very episode. In Couples Retreat, "Heather" is the name that Michael Morningstar incorrectly guessed when Charmcaster asked him what her real name was.
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@Tactical-Ochoa Yes, this episode was definitely MOA's own take on Couples Retreat.
There were many similarities, but I will talk about a few diffences that in my opinion actually made The Charm Offensive more enjoyable than Couples Retreat.
At least here it makes sense for Charmcaster to be manipulated by Morningstar, because it was her very first appearance and she was younger and still naive, unlike in UA where Charmcaster supposedly had years of experience and being played by Morningstar was a big character regression and made her look pathetic.
Now, let's analyse the developments we get from this episode. By the end of the episode Ben corrects Grandpa Max when he implies that Gwen is a helper/sidekick and Ben says that Gwen is a full-fledged hero. While in Couples Retreat, Kevin messed up, didn't trust Gwen to keep a spellbook safe, moved it from her house to his garage, which actually made it easier for Morningstar to steal it and then in the end of the episode... Gwen forgives him and concludes he's a good boyfriend just because he's not as bad as Morningstar. Gwevin crappiness at its prime. So when it comes to character development, I much prefer the character developments between Ben and Gwen in "The Charm Offensive" over the character "developments" (if we can call it developments) between Kevin and Gwen in "Couples Retreat".
About Charmcaster looking weak, well, in the end, even after she had been drained, she managed to overpower Morningstar, trapped him in her book and Ben and Gwen looked terrified of her, so I think she actually looked quite strong.
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@csgt Except in UA, it was the very first time that Charmcaster ever met Morningstar so no, it wasn't a regression in her character. It didn't make her look pathetic. It made sense that Charmcaster would be naive towards Morningstar in UA because he was completely new in her life.
As for the development of Ben and Gwen in the episode, it's pretty much similar, if not the same, as the Original Series episode, Lucky Girl. It's really just more copy and paste here.
Sure, Charmcaster did overpower Morningstar. Then again, it's not really that hard to do so anyways. Morningstar gains energy from people adoring him, which is why it's so easy for Gwen to resist him. She knows that Michael Morningstar is a terrible person. I explained this before in a reboot season 1 episode review. In actuality, Charmcaster overpowering Morningstar is not a notable feat to accomplish because of this very blatant weakness. I view Charmcaster as a weak character mostly because of her response to Gwen saving her. Very little to no appreciation for what Gwen did for her. Not even a simple "Thank you." Charmcaster just idiotically declares that she doesn't need anyone and that she still considers Gwen to be her enemy, threatening her before leaving. That's why I find Charmcaster to be a weak character in this episode.
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@tactical-ochoa So your actually saying that something was better in UA? Congratulations. Maybe its a little hope for you to see the light anyway.
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@mortie-10 What? Nothing in my previous comment stated nor implied that UA did it better. None of my previous comments on this page stated that. Maybe Couples Retreat is a better episode than The Charm Offensive. I don't know. Even if I do find that UA episode to be better than the reboot episode, you are a fool to think that making one correction to one of @csgt's points in regards to one character in one freakin filler episode that's so irrelevant to the main story of the show is going to be some stepping stone that's going to lead to me to start liking a show that's filled with so many issues that makes it such a terrible quality show.
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Uh, guys, I think you should check this out http://mellenabrave.tumblr.com/post/174385584270/so-because-of-a-discussion-i-had-just-now-i-looked
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@ungrateful-wolf So by the looks of this: Hero Generation was never Man of Actions idea, or did I misunderstand this?
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Apparently, Hero Generations was never even a thing. Maybe it was Alien Force's working title, but Toonzone gave that title way back in 2007.
The CN Upfront about it?
"another series in which Ben recruits other children to help him." Toonzone apparently misinterpreted it as Ben recruiting children to teach them to be heroes instead of what would be the Amalgam Kids and gave the audience expectations that were largely different from what Alien Force ended up being.
I don't even think MoA planned for a sequel considering they weren't involved in any of them. The "Hero Generations" thing was from Toonzone, but neither MoA nor CN ever talked about it or called it like that. We just had different expectations of what Alien Force was going to be -
@ungrateful-wolf This does sound a lot like speculation though. This Tumblr user doesn't really provide sufficient evidence to back her claim up. No articles, no interviews, etc. Just speculation. Yes, she does say that there's no other records on the internet but still. The best way to confirm whether she's right or not is to ask Man of Action themselves. In fact, I remember when Joe Kelly had an AMA on Reddit a couple of years ago, I asked him what Ben 10: Hero Generation would've been like and he said that he had to go back to his office to find it and dig it back out so that he could answer that. Of course, he never jumped back on to answer my question but if we were to take his word for granted here, Man of Action does have Ben 10: Hero Generation in their records. There was also that time when Duncan Rouleau stated on Tumblr that Man of Action did plan on making Kevin and Charmcaster anti-heroes, which they could only really do...through a sequel.
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@ungrateful-wolf Or I guess this Tumblr user is actually right.
https://twitter.com/Gabrielzm122/status/1002228303757914113Even though I stated that the best way to confirm whether this Tumblr user is right or not is to ask Man of Action themselves, at the same time, I find it weird that after over a decade of knowing that Ben 10: Hero Generation was Man of Action's sequel to the Original Series, this revelation comes out now? I'm still skeptical about what Man of Action said to that one Ben 10 Club user a while back during SDCC over how Ben and Gwen were actually originally supposed to be siblings instead of friends even though there are plenty of factors that contradicts that.
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@tactical-ochoa Hah! So your stupid Hero Generation thing was never a thing anyway. Im so happy.
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@mortie-10 It was never even my thing to begin with. Everyone believed that Ben 10: Hero Generation was Man of Action's sequel to the Original Series well well before I showed up on here. I'm pretty sure that even includes you.
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@tactical-ochoa Yeah, but you have been hyped about it from the start.
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@mortie-10 No I wasn't. I talked about it plenty of times in the past and I wanted to learn more about it but I wasn't hyped about it.
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@tactical-ochoa Refresh your memory dude. If it isnt the original series you are talking about, its Hero Generation.
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@mortie-10 Again, I just stated that I did talk about Hero Generation plenty of times in the past. You are the one here that needs to refresh your memory because whenever I'm not talking about the Original Series, I talk about many other Ben 10 related things; not just Hero Generation. You should know that yourself given that you posted comments on articles that I made (such as the ones about Professor Paradox, Julie Yamamoto, etc.) that had no connections whatsoever to Hero Generation. Up to this point, I don't even talk about Hero Generation anymore. From what I recall, the last time I ever fully talked about Ben 10: Hero Generation was on August 24, 2016 when I posted this very article: https://ben10club.org/topic/171/my-predictions-on-ben-10-hero-generation/1
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More of the Alien world shorts
https://youtu.be/jK1G0OgKM8k -
http://kimcartoon.me/Cartoon/Ben-10-2016-Season-2/Episode-25-Ben-Again-and-Again?id=84212
5 new episodes are now up on kimcartoon
