CLASSIC ROBBY CAPTAIN PLANET REVIEW- The last episode?
9-20-2008
This is the last one I did, almost exactly 4 years ago. gotta admit, for a show that ended like 20 years ago, and was so godawful, I dragged a lot of rewatchability and entertainment value out of it.
[hide]Oh, I'd missed that oh so inspirational opening with the five special young people. Now, when the narration says "special", what does that mean? Is it kind of like the Power Rangers show (which actually came later) where Zordon recruited "five teens with attitude" even though those five kids were about the most squeeky clean on the planet? Or does it mean as in "Special olympics?" And I still don't understand why 4 of the planeteers get to be from nice lush junglees and countryside, (okay, Mati's forest is on fire, but still) while Wheeler is in the middle of a nasty pollution filled dark dystopian city of death and violence… melting roads into goo. So, when he LIQUIFIES the street, he must be making it pretty damn hot. Hundreds if not thousands of degrees in temperature. Surely when that traps the car int he opening, they're caught up in that tremendous heat and cooked alive instantly? I mean, even best case scenario for those guys, the molten concrete cools pretty much instantly, but it would totally harden right around them making it impossible for them to get out. Are they even criminals? or is Wheeler just showing off?
An oh good, its the first opening where Linka is still from Russia/the Soviet Union, instead of from Eastern Europe.
This episode was apparently written by three people, PLUS someone else was responsible for the teleplay. So wait, 3 people wrote it, then it took a fourth to write it for tv? This isn't a novel adaptation, its captain Planet. Wait, Pat Alee and Ben Hurst? Those guys were responsible for many episodes of the GOOD Sonic the Hedgehog saturday morning series! Allright guys, I have EXPECTATIONS now, I know you can write well! Or at least do a good bickering couple in Sonic and Sally, so I expect the same from Wheeler and Linka! (who are sooo sleeping together)
Episodes starts with potted trees on the beach, and each of the planeteers using their powers to help plant them. Quame using his earth power, that makes sense. But Wheeler using his FIRE abiliy? On the trees? to break the pots? FIRE??? on TREES? And now Linka is using her wind powers to toss the trees into the air! Fucks sake, they're just saplings, you guys can carry them and bury them with a small shovel! And now Gi is summoning the force of a nearby lake to help FLOOD the trees! Not water them or wet the ground, but to FLOOD them! Water levels far above the tree tops! God, for doing friendly enviornmental work, these kids are evil. And I'm only 20 seconds into the actual episode...
And suddenly, we reveal that there is a clearcut forest. I guess they were replenishing it or something. and it starts to RAIN on Mati and his monkey. Well, I guess that negates the whole point of Gi FLOODING the place 5 seconds ago. What, they couldn't look at the sky and tell it was going to rain? And now its creating a giant mud slide thats going to kill Matee! Unless they let their powers combine!
So, the other four, who are safely out of harm's way, (Heh heh. Harm's way. That's kind of like "Zarm's Way" which is another episode... wait...) try combining their powers in the sky. Except of course, Captain Planet needs all five rings, including Mattie's, who is currently being consumed by a mud slide! Seriously, the guy can't shoot his ring out of a closet, what makes them think he can concentrate while being buried alive in a sliding avalanche of mud? What was he even doing in the unsafe 2 second flash flood area anyway? These kids are evironmentalists, really think they'd be able to gauge that sort of thing and, you know, that its going to RAIN. Oh no! Well, I guess thats the end of Matee. Got his episodical burial out of the way early. did the monkey live? Oh wait, there's Captain Planet, damn.
Captain Planet saves Matee... by turning into a giant TORNADO. TORNADO in a mud slide! In the RAIN! (No, not the cowboy Bebop song... just, in the rain.) Thats already destoying all the trees in the area! And then gaia shows up and says to "Stop playing around and come back to our paradise island". Playing around? In the middle of a typhoon/rain storm/mud slide/tornado/deforestation that THEY apparently created? And then we're back on the peaceful island. Well, Mati's daily brush with death aside, that was pretty pointless.
Apparently they're going to be having an Earth Summit. Which is full of useless talking and never gets anything done. And suddenly, Gai has a he3adache as a meteor heads towards earth! Oh no, Sephiroth has summoned Metoeor, and Gaia is going to have to sacrifice her self into the lifestream by using a materia and... no, just a random comet heading towards earth giving Whoopi Goldberg a headache. How did they ever get Whoopi on this show anyway? And Levar burton for the matter. Just promised it was educational and good? I mean, she left eventually, so she must have realized it was stupid. But name to say tho. Whoopi. Anyway. big headache.
No Gaia is using MAGIC HOLOGRAMS to show a Mateee's home, beatiful forest being torn up by OMG EVILTRACTORS! And here's the Statue of Liberty being covered by melted polar ice caps! (Considering there was a timetravel episode where Wheeler really DID do that, kinda silly to show it here...) And now, into the Lion King! Music theme and everything. I mean, Kwame's home town. Also being ravaged. Turned into an elephant graveyard. yawn Bet Linka and Gi get horibble futures for their beatiful towns too. Oh yup, there ist is, dried up ocean with dead dolphins. Gi notes "Oh no, its horrible." To which Gia replies "Yes, it is" in a total flat monotone. Wait, we doesn't get to see the horrible appocolyptic future for the Sovie Union? I mean, Eastern Europe? We did for the other four idiots... Oh well. And apparently, if the planeteers fail to go to this earth summit, the future leaders of the world will be... All the villains of the series, freakish polluting mutants that they are!
Guya is just showing the most horrible future possible "If the Earth Summit fails" And you gotta be sure the eco villains are already there." Because real environmental issues aren't enough, there have to be evil cartoony villains that love polluting sheerly for the joy of polluting. I realize thats the entire premise of the show, but its still stupid. Also, considering this is a two parter, I think its pretty likely they'll fail and deal with this worst possible outcome. Betting money in advance, any takers?
Oh god, thats right, they somehow got Ed Asner to play Hoggish Greedly. How sad... And... Lootin Plunder is... Sting. Oh god, its Zarm. I'd forgotten about Zarm. He's an evil space alien in a speedo that was a "big time villain" above and beyond all the series regulars. He's the character animated shows bring in about 40 episodes in when they realize the old threats are all laughable and easily beaten, and need a bigger badass that can hose them all and command them as minions. DarkWing Duck had Negaduck, and Aladdin has Mozenwrath and Mirage... This show gets... a guy in a cape, a speedo, and shoulder spikes. Sad that this is the show's most threatening powerful and credible villain. Somehow.
And apparently, while the other villains talk about "small incidental" polluting schemes, Zarm wants to have Guya killed. Yup, actual murder, see, he IS the badass villain. Sort of... "Destory Gaia, and you destroy them. (the planetters) Destroy them, and you destroy the earth, forever." Or something. God, they're doing a lot of setup here. Like 9 minutes in and all they've done is shown possible future tragedies. They never would have paced this episode like this if it weren't a 2 parter. Good thing they got their token near-death experiance for Mati out of the way early. Though I'm sure he can get trapped in mine cart before the end of the episod or something.
And now, the Earth Summit. Where all the nations of the world will come together for the first time. like the UN or something. And then meanwhile, back on Planeteer paridse island, Gaia is watching a couple dolphins having sex, and having another headache. And she doesn't like it!
And so ends the first youtube clip. onto the next one!
back at the Earth Summit, a politician has turned evil! Matee tries to use his crappy ower to find out whats wrong, and of course, can do nothing. So they follow the politician to a SPACESHIP thats just lyring there IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. Nobody sees this? And its got stormtrooper guards in front of ti too! Well, thats not obvious in any way, nosiree. Wheeler's solution is of course, set stuff on fire. Turns out the evil politician was actually, Zarm. with an evil body/mind swapping machine or something. Oh, I see, the villains are impersonating world leaders to cause pollution! Oii. Come on, making money is greedy and a true reason for wanting to pollute. Out of sheer greed, not out of sheer hatred. In that way, Lootin' Plunder, horrible name aside, is their most realistic villain. Except for the green suit and zebra stripes. Anyway. Evil imposters. This had BETTER end with Wheeler fondling some girl's boobs to see if she's the real one.
I'll repeat that, new paragraph. This had BETTER end with Wheeler fondling some girl's boobs to see if she's the real one.
And so the badguys kidnap more politicians one by one. Without noticing that the Planeers are RIGHT THERE in front of them. Oh wait, they did. And of course, Ma-Tee is the first one captured by Zarm. And Zarm STEAL Matee's ring! Magically. Making it grow to fit his much larger gloved hand.
And Zarm is so badass, he throwing red lightnign at a bunch of teenagers. with magical blue energy. And wow, his scheme really IS to just replace the entire senate with puppets. And also steal the planeteer rings. God, do the 2 parters ALWAYS have to end with them losing their rings? There was the time with evil rings and Captain Pollution... and... bleh. And they're creating a riot in the senate. I mean, Earth Summit. He's apparently making everybdoy feel sick by talking about pollution.
And now, Hoggish Greedly and Duke Nukem are arguign about which one gets to have sex with Zarm first. I swear. They're having an actual laser beam fight to decide who gets to be with Zarm The radiation mutant easily takes on the fat pig guy. Who then goes over and tries to hug him. They are such gay freaks. And with that, the planeteers get their rings back, a mere like, 10 seconds after losing them. What was the point? I guess Zarm still has Matis?
And here Gi uses the word "Sayonara" despite never pepeering her dialouge with any "Asian" dialect before now. What the heck? I realize that we sometimes throw that around as a synonymn for "goodbye" because its cool sounding and we all fail to understand the nuance that the japense language prvides most of its words, but... Also stange that all 5 kids know perfect English to begin with despite being from around the world, now that I think about it, but maybe that was one of Gaia's "special" requisites. Or magic. Either way.
The Planeteers get to their ship, and they need to find Gaia! Except, she's already there! Which is a great trick, since she never goes anywhere. And she says "Hey, I need your rings guys, its the only way to stop Zarm." Yeah, sure, whatever. You'e obviously Zarm crossdressing. Yup Mati is the first one to realize its crossdressing Zarm. Zarm turns back to normal and flirts with Mati some. Zarm is totally gay. And so are his flunkies. Nothing wrong with that, just an observation.
And then suddenly Gaia appears to face Zarm one on one, and gets blasted by some orange juice. Well, the spirit of the earth herself going all out to fight an alien. This should be badass! And indeed, it is. Gaia unleashes a ... swarm of butterflies. Okay, maybe not so badass. Well ,then she follows it up with a nuclear blast! That should get him! Oh, and now a blizzard! She's kicking his ass! Thats what the full fury of the Earth should be like. She "sure is giving him a cold shoulder, hah hah!" But of course, this is a two parter, so I'm sure something is about to go wrong.
So, Zarm puts the planeteers in danger... by putting them into a tornado. Isn't that EXACTLY what Captain Planet himself did at the start of the episode? And it was considering "playing" then... Evil villain gloating, do you save the world, or the five annoying kids? Gaia of course chooses the kids. because they are oh so important and "special". Nevermind the other 6 billion people she has to choose from. And then Zarm bitch slaps Gaia with some magic kool-aid blasts. And somehow... turns Gaia into an old woman with grey hair. The planeteers cry at her becoming old.
And Wheeler feels up Linka to make sure she's real. No, not really, but that should be what happens. I said so earlier, didn't I?
And the...
THE END. Sure, it SAAAYS "To be continued", but, I think the spirit of earth turning old and dying while the villain gets to conquer everything, and the planeteers are all left crying, is a perfect stopping point. Much more realistic ending. I'll just let it end on that note and pretend there is no second part. Thats the series finale, neverminf the 4 or 5 seasons that followed this. THE END. Works for me!
...oh right. Public service announcemnet. About the Earth Summit of 1992! ...God this show is old and dated. Matee suggests drawing a leaf on a post card and sending it to your head of state to show you care about the enviornment. WAIT..... draw a leaf... on a dead sheet of paper. Draw a tree ON a dead tree? Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, and get your friends and schoolmates to do it too, because hundreds of people drawing leaves on postcards will make a difference. Of some sort. In 1992.
Oh hey, bonus second PSA! Cut back on military spending. Don't spend billions on national defense, but environmental cleanup! it, there's better things to do with money. Right, as an 8 year old, I'm sure to remember that message and make use of it. Much like the PSA about family planning and safe sex they had in another episode.
And now, catchy end credits! God, I can't believe that was written by Pat Allee and Ben Hurst. You guys worked on Sonic for crying out loud! You understood banter and character intereaction there! Just spent so much time showing a worst case scenario the whole episode. Whatever. Matee can be caught in random mud slides even 30 seconds into an episode, Gaia is dead, evil mutants who love polluting have replaced all our world leaders, a speedo wearing aline named Zarm is having gay sex with a nuclear rock guy and a pig guy, the world is doomed, the planeteers are sad, Wheeler is groping boobies, (Not really) and drawing a leaf on a postcard will help things... somehow. . The end.
It's the end of the world as we know it--and I feeeeel fiiiine....[/hide]
Anyone else notice my recurring joke of writing Ma-Ti's name different constantly? I'm not sure how intentional that was… I know it wasn't at first, that was just early morning delirium. But it became a thing later.
I might have another review or two that I did over the years, but they aren't clearly marked so I'd have to really hunt for them. The "final" episode seems like a good stopper though.