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Spider-Man The New Animated Series: Season One
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MTV tryed to be edgey. but most the time it doesn't work. For die hard spider-man fans only
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Computer graphic (CG) animation gives The Amazing Spider-Man - The New Animated Series (2003), a unique look, particularly when applied to a character who can practically fly, and routinely makes radical moves in three dimensional space. It may take a while to get used to the way Spider-Man and the other CG characters move and behave, but it is very easy to get caught up in the coolness of the visual presentation. Spidey and his foes are capable of wild moves, allowing for some intense action, and high energy battles.
The cartoon seems to pick up where Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) left off. Peter Parker, Harry Osborn, and Mary Jane Watson, are roommates attending college. Parker concentrates on his studies, and works as a freelance photographer for The Dailey Bugle. MJ is trying to further her acting career. And Harry (who again looks nothing like the original comics), is trying to come to terms with the recent death of his father, Norman (Green Goblin) Osborn, former head of the Oscorp corporation. Spider-Man is voiced by Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Mary Jane by singer Lisa Loeb, and Harry by Ian Ziering.
The kinds of adventures Spidey gets involved with vary widely. The original animated stories, draw only slightly from the character's classic comic past, with an emphasis on more modern themes and high tech aspects. The quality of the writing runs the gamut, from excellent to poor, but the high quality of the animation helps to make each episode an interesting watch.
'Sword Of Shikata' features both an cool story, and some fantastic fighting scenes with a female assassin skilled in use of the sword. 'Law of the Jungle' pays a slight nod to an original villain, as Curt Connors experiments lead to him becoming the Lizard. The CG version of the reptilian, moves like a Jurassic Park raptor. 'Spider-Man Dis-Sabled' has a shaky premise, but features Sable, another female assassin with a strong personality. Returning to the well, the female villain thing is featured again in 'Keeping Secrets', where Harry's new girlfriend is also a high tech thief. The best of the lot is probably the two parter 'Mind Games', where a pair of siblings with superior mental abilities, use their powers to convince Spidey to try and kill Kraven the hunter. It is nice to see a genuine Spidey villain featured, as it at least provides some kind of frame of reference, however slight. Something that is largely missing in the series.
The reworking of the origin of Electro in 'The Party', does not work well, and things get even worse, short circuiting in 'When Sparks Fly', when Electro returns with romance on his mind. Another miss is 'Head Over Heels', a nutty tale, where Peter's lab partner Christina is a babbling whack job, who's mind is warped in an accident, to fixate on Spider-Man.
The collection truly shines in the extras department, as the bonus materials include several featurettes, onscreen tidbits, and a plethora of commentary tracks. Headed by executive producer Morgan Gendel, and co-executive producer Audu Paden, the various tracks provide a wealth of background information about each episode, as well as general information about different aspects of production. You will get some understanding of things like, why the characters' wardrobe does not change, how faces are animated, and how MJ's hair moves. The decisions of the production team was subject to approval from Sony, MTV, and who knows who else, so getting things done was not always easy. In his commentaries Neil Patrick Harris proves to be a fun guy, and a Spidey fan as well. Marvel comics godfather, Stan Lee, lends his vocal talents to the project, and also appears in several commentaries. Lee, who always seems to be very much a kid at heart, expresses great enthusiasm and appreciation for the project, which he co-executive produced. Unfortunately the series was not renewed for a second season.
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Great season, lots of surprises, different from other seasons. Characters were 3-D and lots of fun. Well performing old and new villains. Love that Spidey!!!
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I saw a few episodes on mtv when it was first aired. I was intrigued and found out later they released it on dvd..i bought this cd like 2 years ago. Extremely good for any real spider man fans out there. I only gave it 4 stars because there is some adult content in the discs that may not be suitable for young viewers. Otherwise great spidey series. I loved how they added new villans and and still kept some of the old ones. I loved the animation and the moral dilemmas/struggles that peter parker had to go through as a college kid while balancing his dangerous alter ego life as spider man. Definitely worth buying.
The only unfortunate thing about this series is that it does not air on tv anymore. The series was cutshort before it could even began to bloom. I don't know why they cutshort such a great series..possibly due to lack of viewers. The two discs include all of the 13 original episodes that was ever aired on tv.
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This updated look for Spiderman is really impressive. The storylines are good and the spiderman action sequences is really impressive. Unfortunately, with a few modest changes I could of recomended this for everyone. I think it kinda has a PG TO PG 13 rating due to some mild sexual content and a few curse words MTV deciding to throw in . If the relationships stayed allittle more modest and the eliminated the very few curs words that existed this would be great fun for everyone. As an adult its perfectly fine and a great series but I know how much i loved spiderman as a kid with the old cartoons which this is really more action packed. However, the minor flaws cant be ignored for younger kids. Its a solid 4 stars and thats simply because this should of been fun for the entire family and with a few minor changes it would of been . I loved it and wanted more after viewing. Teen and above i would show but not younger kids .
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