Season 2 of the TV Series... what a letdown

[Luftwaffles]

Yeah, this series was clearly made on a tiny budget, and it shows with some clumsy animation, stilted action, and painfully-obvious character model recycling. Plus we occasionally get weird little animation hiccups like this:


In case you can't tell, that character at the bottom right there appears to have some sort of duplicate eye floating in front of the character behind her. Just a few moments after this, she bends forward and the eye on her face just sort of converges with the eye floating in front of her. It's kind of unsettling.

But, again, considering the restraints they must have been working under, they did a far better job of making it work in Season 3 than they did with the first two seasons; the animation missteps aren't quite as noticeable here.

Well yeah, that's a pretty big animation mistake (if the scene isn't quick enough to actually notice the change, then it would distract me from pretty much everything else. And, on my case at least, it would only make me go "hunting" for more errors).

I don't know about you, but I feel that the animation drops entirely during night time... every time we are facing the dark, we can clearly see that what they did was to just "obscure" the models a little bit, instead of drawing them on night colors. It is a pretty effective technique to save costs, but it shows.

As for things I disagreed with, well... I assume that when you say "those guys trying to play a deadly game with the group were a bit pathetic," you're talking about the Gawtrybe squirrels, right?

Yes, I was never too good with names

I would disagree with you there if we were talking about their book counterparts, but, yeah, they are a bit pointless in the animated version, aren't they? You see, in the book, while the Gawtrybe themselves aren't particularly complex, their section of the story does actually serve to provide Martin with some character depth. There's a bit where Martin very nearly takes things too far after he defeats the Gawtrybe's leader during their big fight. It's a scene that shows that our hero is "fighting with anger" (or "letting his heart rule his mind," as the line goes in the book) just as his father warned him not to do when he passed on the sword, something Martin continues to do through the rest of the story until it ultimately leads to tragedy. But, of course, we don't get that in the animated version; he just sort of beats the Gawtrybe leader with little fuss. It's not nearly as interesting.

Well, it is not like if I think that the scene was a complete waste of time or anything, it is just that it kind of came out of nowhere and it didn't add up to the story in my opinion (it was actually kind of annoying). I also don't get why they couldn't do what they did on the book here... I don't think that it would have been considered "too violent" if it wasn't violent at all.

Then again, those guys do something kind of epic at the end of the series, but I feel like we could have done fine without the fight (even worse, if I remember correctly, the fight was cliffhanger that "connected" two episodes... grrr). But yeah, I agree with you; if it had done like the book, it could have been awesome.

[Feles]

personally, i feel the TV show never really held its own against the books(probably because i prefer more blood and gore in animation  ) but i was actually sad when i found out there was only three seasons

another glitch where constance is standing next to the prisoners of slagar in season 2

[Starla1431]

I was never a fan of the tv show. I didn't like how they changed a lot of things. Though, I honestly like season 2 better then the others.

[Matthias720]

I think the thing we tend to forget is that the TV show was aimed at the 7-10 years old demographic. The violence that is portrayed in the books had to be toned down to ever have a chance at being on the air at all, and even more so, nowadays. When I go back to watch the show, I try to put on the eyes of the kid I was when I first watched the show. I find that I can forgive many on the story conceits when I do that.

All this being said, I think season 2 holds up fairly well, considering Mattimeo is the second book in the series that Brian originally intended to be a single story for blind kids he read to. It may have flaws, but Mattimeo is a decent story that I still revisit because it stands on its own merit. Don't discount it until you have read it.

[SoranMBane]

I think the thing we tend to forget is that the TV show was aimed at the 7-10 years old demographic. The violence that is portrayed in the books had to be toned down to ever have a chance at being on the air at all, and even more so, nowadays. When I go back to watch the show, I try to put on the eyes of the kid I was when I first watched the show. I find that I can forgive many on the story conceits when I do that.

But the problem isn't that they toned down the violence, it's that they went so far with it that they often wound up crippling the emotional chords of certain scenes and talking down to their audience. It's entirely possible to make an animated action-adventure series of this sort be both dramatic and child-friendly (take Avatar: The Last Airbender, for example), all it would have taken is some clever editing and a bit more respect for their young audience.

[Matthias720]

I don't disagree with your points. ATLA did all of those things masterfully. However, keep in mind that the company that created the Redwall TV series, Nelvana, is known for educational programming geared towards a youth/pre-teen audience. Nickelodeon, however, makes content for all ages, and their experience covers a wider scope of entertainment, across multiple platforms. Basically, while Nelvana certainly could have ramped up the drama, it's not the kind of entertainment they are know for, and things could have ended up quite differently. Also, if Redwall had been made more dramatic, the show might not have ended up on certain TV stations, like PBS.

[Feles]

simply, the TV show suffers from the same problems that the Hobbit movies did, replace the good scenes for new ones that ultimately made it worse

[rrrrr]

I saw Season 1 (at least the first few episodes)

It was pretty good

I didn't get it at first though when they were doing Matthias's history

It was all good after

Season 2 looks interesting, though, I haven't read Mattimeo

[Gonff the Mousethief]

simply, the TV show suffers from the same problems that the Hobbit movies did, replace the good scenes for new ones that ultimately made it worse

I could go on and on about defending the Hobbit movies, but I'll hold it back. Just PM me if you want to hear my rant.

[Jetthebinturong]

Desolation is objectively terrible, do not even try to defend it. The other two are alright though.

[Lady Ashenwyte]

Desolation is objectively terrible, do not even try to defend it. The other two are alright though.

Wasn't the plot the company getting to Laketown and Bilbo talks to Smaug?

Back on topic, I think Season 2 wasn't such a huge letdown, but one must wonder how they managed to fop up a nice book like that.

[Luftwaffles]

Desolation is objectively terrible, do not even try to defend it. The other two are alright though.

Wasn't the plot the company getting to Laketown and Bilbo talks to Smaug?

Back on topic, I think Season 2 wasn't such a huge letdown, but one must wonder how they managed to fop up a nice book like that.

In all fairness, I think that I might have been a little harsher on this case than I probably should have been. But coming from Season 1 (where almost every episode was a highlight), this was incredibly weak.

Heck, I kid you not when I say that the only memorable character on this season -aside from General Ironbeak, that is- was that archer rat wearing camouflage whose name I keep forgetting... woah, what a perfect analogy  

[Hickory]

Greyfleck.

[Luftwaffles]

Greyfleck.

Thanks man, I keep forgetting those darn names... he was pretty cool, though.

[Edraithel]

I watched the series when I was around 6-8 after having read some of the books and from what I remember I enjoyed it as a kid but I went through and rewatched the series again and I cringe at some points because some of it feels so forced. I still enjoy it though and think it has it's good points. I know it's a kids show but even for that it's lacking. I will say it's better then today's kid shows.
My favorite female character from the series is probably Constance.