Ben 10: Alien Force

Ben 10:Alien Force premiered a few weeks ago here in Australia and I'm really enjoying it. As a fan of Ben 10 from the beginning, I think it's a natural progression in the story. Unlike say Rugrats All Grown Up, for example, that simply made the characters older for the sake of it.

They wrote ten-year-olds rather accurately (and I would know,I have a brother that age). But now that the characters are my age I can relate to them and they're more interesting. Plus they are all drawn rather attractively. They can do things with the characters that they couldn't do before, such as the relationship between Gwen and Kevin (I especially love Ben's disapproval of it all). Plus they're on their own now, making their own decisions without Grampa Max helping them out.

I miss the old aliens, all of them had such interesting and unique designs. My favorites being Ghostfreak, Heatblast and XLR8 (don't you just love how they sound like they were named by a little boy?). Although I do like Big Chill, the rest of the aliens are unimpressive. But I think this new series is driven much more by plot than by the look of the creatures. Which reflects how Ben probably feels about having an Omnitrix at this stage. He's grown accustomed to it, the novelty of playing superhero has worn off and now he has responsibilities.

I hope this show runs for a long time yet, I hear there's even a live-action movie in the works.

The characters, action, and villains are way better in this. Gwen is hot in this and Kevin isn't a villain anymore. Ben's girlfriend is hot. This is one of the few good shows that are on Cartoon Network (who are they targeting anyway?). My favorite aliens that Ben is able to turn into is Big Chill and Humongosaur. My favorite episodes is the War of the Worlds second season finale. My least favorite episode is the one with Alien X. I don't see why Cartoon Network hyped Alien X up so much when Alien X is frozen for most of the episode and never appears again. I'm looking forward to the live action movie of this called Ben 10: Alien Swarm which looks way better than the previous film Ben 10: Race Against Time.

Not that Ben 10 was a bad show, because it isn't, as a matter of fact it is actually pretty decent even if some of the stories and characters were lacking at times. The thing is Ben 10: Alien Force is more mature and somewhat cleverer too.

The animation I think is more detailed this time around. The character designs are eye-popping and pretty unique. The music is also an improvement, it is funkier and more memorable, the theme song in Ben 10 was good but it is the sort of theme song you love or hate, this one was more to my taste. The writing is strong, the story lines are more complex and surprisingly clever and I agree that the characters are much more mature here, especially Ben who is more likable than he was in Ben 10. The villains are also more interesting and the voice acting is very well done and dare I say more consistent.

Overall, an improvement and a solid show overall. 10/10 Bethany Cox

The story of More Show was not appreciated. Okay Ben 10, the original that started in 2005, was great for kids, but this show is for these kids when they grow up. Great show starts from the story of the disappearance of Grandpa Max and the return of Ben and Gwen so well. And Kevin Levin cooperates with their worm enemy who has become their funny and cynical friend. The show mixes scenes, action, comedy, drama, and a little romance between Gwen, Kevin, or Ben and Jolie. In any case, the show is great. There is nothing wrong with it all. There are episodes in season three that are not worthy of existence, but this is the case for all shows. If you read this review and wonder if you would like to see this show, I will tell you that you will never regret it if you give it a chance.

Like I said about the original, it wasn't a masterpiece, but at least it was a very amusing show to watch, but I agree that Ben 10: Alien Force is more mature and clever. Ben and Gwen in the original series were developed seeing how they've treated each other despite them having annoying moments in the episodes. In this series, Ben has now matured dramatically and is now close with Gwen. In the original, Kevin 11 wants revenge on Ben for turning him into a deformed combination of his aliens from the Omnitrix. In this series, he has changed from bad to good and is now helping Ben fight off new evil doers along with old ones. And the part where Ben finally has a girlfriend named Julie was amazing and their romance was developed enough. That's it for the contrast of this show and the previous. The animation is pretty detailed and the character designs were unique with some new talented voice actors to make them likable. The new aliens from the now altered omnitrix (now a watch, which was totally cool) were amazing with their new super powers. The sci-fi action is amazingly intense and the stories for the show are much darker than the original thanks to its clever writing. Ben 10: Alien Force would always be recommended to fans as one of the greatest TV shows ever made.