Gen:Lock REVIEW

okay my patrons voted for this topic but it really wasn't thrilled with this choice because I honestly tried watching genlock before and I really hated it I'm a big advocate of the watch three episodes before judging a series line of thinking and that was really my intention but when jen locks first episode aired i tried watching it and i hated it so much that I just dropped the whole series right then and there but that's not really fair like I said you should try to watch at least three episodes before casting judgment the show that spends the first two episodes setting things up and establishing the characters so you can't really judge the show for what it really is trying to be until after you get your past all that setup so buckling everyone let's really dive into Jen lock this time around and really judge it for what it's worth so episode 1 starts with our hero chase introducing his girlfriend Miranda to his mom and his sister through a hologram system but bad news approaches and our heroes need to head out to help fight in the war as pilot fighters I'm sure the first thing you all notice is the animation because it's kind of bad it's clear the animation engine was built with the purpose of animating big machines because everyone moves like robots the characters are stilted and their facial expressions never fully sell their emotions after a while I got used to it but at first this is so jarring and bad for being the first scene of the whole show this is not very impressive or entertaining it doesn't even do a good job of establishing our main characters of Chase and Miranda if anything it does a better job setting up chases mom and sister which is pointless because oops they die and we never seen them again this is just not a good way to hook your audience okay what the hell is happening I've absolutely no idea what is going on a massive problem with the show is the fact that our centre conflict is never explained to us who are we fighting why are we fighting them what does this evil smoke crap do exactly why is any of this happening we then just dive into a 20 minute long fight scene and it's stupid rather than tell us anything about the world or the plot or better develop our characters they just hope this half-assed fight scene will be enough to sell the show also this fight sucks like this does everything they teach you not to do when creating a visual medium first of all I can't tell who's who the sunset color makes everything dark and orange looking at a glance I can't tell what ships are the good guys or the bad guys also I can't tell which ship belongs to which character is this Jesus ship is it his captains I don't know it all just makes the whole scene tensionless not to mention we didn't really get a good scene to set up any of our characters there's chase and Miranda and that guy this dude that boy I don't know who they are and while wearing their pilot helmets I can't tell them apart the only one I can recognize is chase and that's because he's known who isn't a white guy some of the fight goes on and the baddies show up with something that looks like it walked right off the set of horizon and everything looks bad but chase decides to sacrifice himself so the rest of his squad can escape four years later Miranda is still upset about it but has also started dating Browning boy over here suddenly there's a big meeting with dr. Weller who is voiced by David Tennant it's jobs dr. Rufus Willa es you know it's no secret genlock has a star-studded cast it was all over it's marketing Michael B Jordan Dakota Fanning Maisie Williams now no one does a bad job but their vocal performances he'll Dakota Fanning and Maisie Williams as performances are actually really good but if I had to gripe about any of them it would be David Tennant here like I said he's not bad he's just not really doing anything impressive he never quite nails that stuttering thing dr. Weller does now you don't think your health is the only thing being screened at your yeah well you your health the screenings do you I just don't understand why Artie would drop a ton of money to hire him when they could have gotten just as good a performance or better by using someone in-house Joel Heyman specifically comes to mind anyways dr. wyler says the Vanguard are doing a special science thing and the crew gets called out into a border patrol mission before we can go into greater detail so Miranda brownie and grumpy go on the field but get ambushed by the Union however suddenly two awesome mix show up and save the day once the team returns they question the commander and the doctor about the mechs they saw and Weller explains it's the new project genlock the two pilots he has are his right hand yes and to the surprise of everyone else chase so this is where episode one ended and it's so bad it's boring and absolutely nothing gets explained we spend so little time with the characters that I don't care about any of them why did we waste so much screen time on a shitty fight that doesn't even tell us anything about the characters and doesn't even show off the cool mix your advertising hell four of our main characters already even introduced to us yet instead we spend time with Miranda's boring team and Miguel there's never any kind of hook for the audience it doesn't show any promise or potential for the show to improve moving forward after only watching episode one it just feels like a cash grab not a passion project so we started episode two with the doctor explaining what gen lock is and how Chase is still alive see only certain people who are born with specific neurons or whatever are compatible with the gen lock system chase was confirmed to be incompatible so when they heard about his crash four years prior they did their best to save him his body's all banged up but he's still able to hologram himself around just fine it all you need is your mind to pilot the gen lock max okay cool now end of scene in the same place and the I hate it when shows do this I don't care about the science of our mix I just want to see some [ __ ] mix Miguel is like my favorite character at this point he's very endearing you uh lost weight the show is full of characters sit around and explaining things to each other they try throwing some humor help with these long boring scenes but it's just not funny well I was going to talk about what the Union would do to you but clearly your kernel is the bigger threat holding for laughs no no moving Oh finally we see the rest are cast Roland Cammy Kazu Valentina and Rob watching the opening there doesn't seem to be a mech for Rob so I imagine who need like a support kind of character like the person who sits at the computer and tells the heroes what to do his jokes have landed the best out of the episode so far so his character is one the most likeable at this point okay everyone who can he came what's up with the mad scientist here say I yes hi I get a basic idea of our characters personalities with the scene - yes it's harsh Valentina is cool cause II was Restless and Kami's excited a funny rainbow of personalities that episode one desperately needed Jason Miranda aren't doing so hot well with him learning about her dating brownie and her being upset that he's kept the fact he's been alive this whole time a secret the issue between them lasts for most of the season it's not terrible it's just something we've all seen before every time I Randa and chase her alone on screen I get kind of bored you could have waited like 10 more minutes Oh rob is a bad guy ooh I honestly wasn't expecting this the opening didn't seem to portray him as anything sinister and the fact his character has been generally funny and likeable up to this point convinced me of his facade good job this hand-to-hand fight is way more exciting than the fights from Episode one it helps that I've gotten to know these characters better so invested in who's winning or not also it's just a lot smoother and well-thought-out choreography Rob gets the doctor hostage and demands to be put into a gin Lock Mack chase finds out and certs himself into his own mech ready to fight Rob once he's inside the chant lock this is a really great scene it's tense and I was on the edge of my seat wondering how the mech fight would pan out on top of that the commander and doctor remind the audience that even if he gets into the mech his body would still be left behind there's so many different ways this encounter can go what will happen oh [Music] [ __ ] now there are some stakes to the show this shows us the science isn't completed yet and there's still a lot of work left with a gen lock project and it can't just be handed out to anyone if you're not born with the genes that make you compatible with gen lock then that's it for you episode three starts and the crew is rightfully a little upset they just watch the dudes face explode and now they're being asked to crawl into the same machine that turned him inside out Cammy loses the knotted game and takes her first step into her new body [Music] seeing how awesome it is to be a four-story tall super machine inspires the others to jump in as well the scene is probably my favorite from the season they learned to pilot their mechs by playing games with each other they played baseball and tag and capture the flag it's a fun and easy way for the characters and the audience to understand how the mechs can work on top of that this is a fun way to have the characters bond a little we get to see the personality start to shine and they're starting to build their friendships together this might be the smartest scene in the whole show and chase diving in to show them how someone whose experience could handle capture the flag also shows the audience the potential the characters have with using the gen lock pretty high praise for the scene I know unfortunately most of the rest of the episode is a drag genlock suffers from pacing issues every scene feels about two times longer than it needs to be if the scenes were tighter then honestly the show could have been four or five episodes long but in a better world that time saved by tightening the script could have been used to better develop the world or characters Episode four starts with Weller giving the team some vital info on the max there's this thing called uptime basically that can only spend a limited amount of time inside their mix otherwise they'll have their minds stuck in the machines honestly this stuff sounds like the mechanics for a video game and that's not bad I want that now it also gives the excuse to have the heroes get out of their mechs every now and then it gives them a chance to fight hand-to-hand and is also a factor that challenges the team so the team gets some time off and they're bored as [ __ ] and they're not allowed to leave the base so they end up deciding to hop into this world's version of the Internet and game together on the surface the scene might feel a little unnecessary but it's helping to show us how the team is continuing to bond with each other and it also gives us deeper insight on our characters the way they designed their avatars tells us a lot about their lives and personalities Candy's a cute little bunny thing she's still young and she's cute and small and that's why she's struggling so much with piloting the gen LOX mix she's used to being on short legs yeah as wears a hijab showing us she has a sense of tradition and maybe even a religious sense Kazu has a biker aesthetic see his rebellious side in Valentina appears as a man showing us that she's gender-fluid these aspects of their characters are necessary to know story-wise per se but they help to flush them out this is the first scene of the series that doesn't move the plot forward at all and we get to use this time to help our characters grow my biggest regret is how chases design is so plain that it doesn't really tell us much of his characters that we don't already know but that's also sort of the point he's simple streamlined and wears his heart on the sleeve and these aspects of their characters is reflected in their final mech designs yeah as is designed after the Huma bird from Iranian legends camis is shorter than everyone else's chases is simple and streamlined Kazu has the spunk frock bullhorns and while Valentina is mostly depicts her female style while inside the machines her appearance set of her male style another really great scene this is a great example of how to develop your characters [Music] okay this is cute unfortunately their times cut short due to an emergency mission meaning the team gets to use their genlock mechs in the field for the first time this encounter is a good look at our teams as different abilities Kazu charges forward almost like a berserker Valentina is good at sniping Cammy kind of sucks she tries to avoid shooting human targets and her aim is kind of off she's clearly flustered and struggling to use her mech to its fullest potential then this thing shows up seemingly another genlock mix that they'll dub emesis but you know I thought that name was taken but you know it's fine I guess [Music] all right so this is crazy kami is seeing the world as if her head is actually getting ripped off and her horrified screams put the sense of danger and dreaded me yes the upside is they don't really feel the pain but this is still a lot for someone to cope with nemesis has upgraded arms and bodies seem to be too much for kami and it looks like they'll be able to rip out camis neck heart fortunately the others show up just in time and fight them off this mindshare thing is important I wish it was established to us with a visual aid but this line will have to do next episode starts and kami is still clearly dealing with what she went through last time I like this we're developing more characters in just chase chase is primarily our main focus but setting time aside to have our other main characters develop is important to all the team develops a little bit but kami does get some extra focus and I like that if we try to have every character go through something big and important then the story would be bloated giving each character a fraction of screen time they really deserve just to make everyone get to do something kind of impressive and it makes sense that we would focus on kami she's young and inexperienced all the others have had some sort of military training or combat training but she hasn't she's clearly struggling to keep up with the others and it makes sense we would dedicate some time developing her in this aspect it makes me hope the following seasons would focus on the other crewmembers a lot more like how we have with kami this time so yes kami is struggling with her regimen and honestly it makes sense not only because she's not formally trained for combat but also because the default genlock mechs don't complement her fighting style her legs are too long so she's struggling just with walking let alone firing a gun or winning a fight kami hacks into her own mental code and manipulates her emotions to give her a ton of confidence unfortunately it makes her go a little buzzer and the others have to stop and take her out of her mech having the team actually talked to kami about war nightmares and coping with the stress of it is a nice touch just another good scene where we can clearly see the characters bonding not just a kami even though she is their focus but to each other in general most importantly dr. Weller also seems to take Candy's outburst to consideration and gives the team upgrades specific to each character it shows us he's not trying to make out one suit fits all kind of model and he is really paying attention to I would really hope the team yes gets an arm laser a new sniper rifle for Valentina Kazu gets a katana and kami gets drones that assist her was aiming dr. Weller is realizing he can't expect each of them to fight the same way so customizing each upgrade to fit the characters as fighting styles and personalities makes sense in universe kami was struggling with aiming in general rather than expect her to just become a master and using her guns give her a drone to help her out this way she won't be worrying about it and only a better help in combat Kazu was already charging in headfirst into their fights rather than have him bash up his mechs armor all the time give him a weapon to use instead and Valentina was already good at sniping give her even more range chase gets an upgrade to Miguel specifically went out of his way to the design a set of wings on chases mech she just hadn't been the same man you I told you Miguel was my favorite the team set out and realizes that the base that they were about to blow up has POVs inside including super scientist Henry who was voiced by someone and I love him but uh-oh SpaghettiOs nemesis is back and the team have to fight him off again okay remember when I said this line was important this is why get the shot gen-y pilots have the ability to mind-meld with each other since their thoughts are just floating around the same internet server as each other they have the ability to interact and benefit whether it's just being able to see through each other's eyes or even help out in combat I actually love this this might be the smartest element of the Jen Locke suits to me having them team up shows how much their friendships are growing their mind melting goes from being a quick second on screen to being longer and longer the more their bonds grow seeing the actual growth of their friendship is one of the strongest aspects of the series this also adds I must needed human element to the fights and since it's their whole body's dancing around in helping each other it's much more visually entertaining than just cutting - a person sitting in a cockpit only you and the other mica that talked like you what you supposed to sound like chase my biggest gripe with nemesis is how much distortion is on his voice I can barely understand what he's saying half the time subtitles wouldn't help but I watched this on Verve and there was no subtitle option so [ __ ] me I guess but yes the episode starts with the backstory of nemesis and how he was technically the real chase see after the crash the Vanguard made a backup save file of chases mind and stored it in the cloud the og chases mind was captured by the Union and became a corrupted file so now they're using their backups a file instead so let that be a lesson to you kids always save a backup of your important projects at first I rolled my eyes when I heard this is a direction they decided to go with for their villain but honestly it makes sense rather than [ __ ] some random enemy I don't know where let's make it a guy who's already considered their strongest pilot the characterization of the union is already underdeveloped don't waste time trying to write an entirely new villain two-thirds of the way into the season but it's bad news bears because nemesis is back again to attack their base directly the team does their best to hold them off but unfortunately there's just too many of them the union breaks through the defenses into the base and the team realizes that while their mix are indestructible the union could still kill them if they found their bodies inside chase stays behind to hold off nemesis while the others go back to get their bodies and find an escape route take it with my compliments oh my god did they just kill david tennant like I know I said his performance wasn't amazing but I still enjoyed the character unfortunately things get even worse after firing their mega laser if your face has a giant laser on it why didn't you start with that and a cloud of evil black dust engulfs the base along with everyone they've met so far so that sucks honestly once this happened my heart dropped all these B characters haven't really been developed or anything they at least offered some good moments specifically we've been shown how much they're friends with our team chase especially seeing this black cloud just engulfed them all was really a sad moment the team escapes but their spirits are low and unfortunately nemesis and the Union keeps finding them no matter how far they run to make matters worse chase is now hearing nemesis while he's in his mech Cammy figures out chases hearing nemesis and the Union keeps tracking them because of their jet lag suits meaning that can't get into their mix for an unknown amount of time this scene is the first real disagreement between our characters and also shows our heroes questioning what it is they're supposed to do keep working towards the gen lock program or abandon the project as a whole having our characters realistically look at their situations and even questioning the path they're taking is really good to have in your show it's called the darkness of the heart it's the point in the story where the heroes lose and they're real sad I'm giving so much praise for the scene because rooster teens tend to skip over this element in their stories in effects Julianne chase code phrase required um yeah so this robot is David Tennant now you expect them to pay that much to get this guy to record for a character just to off him in season one the only disability in life is a bad latitude holy enough so robot dude tells our team of the place they were planning on going after they finish their genlock training and with newfound hope the team heads off upon arriving they meet back up with Henry hell yeah oh yeah and Weller's ex-wife but whatever Henry no but seriously doctor ja and this dude mark I guess I agreed to help the team fix their mix not without some shade being thrown scammer McCloud Scottish activist EDA Casas Japanese SDF washout a latina Romana's which always say societal pressures Naza Mahmud Ronny he was responsible for outing her parents as intellectuals at least his Gillian chase Battle of New York where his mother and sister were lost over here has future bad guy all over him but finally the team gets to customize their max - look holy unique like how they are in the opening I can't lie I really like these designs everything we've been developing about our characters are reflected in these designs and I love it in so many measures I think I designed the mech just for aesthetic purposes regardless of who's piloting in having the genlock max so specific forecast is endearing and awesome Jimmy oh my god Miguel is alive yeah everyone from the base is still alive oh except for dr. oiler yeah he's dead I like this decision not just because I was upset at the idea of all of them dying but also because it's probably a bad idea to scrub out 60% of the established characters in season 1 the gallon forms the team nemesis is in Chicago so they rush over to stop him once and for all nemesis now has even more upgrades and he can heal himself - oh [ __ ] sauce the team wants to Megamind melt against him but due to all their fancy new upgrades they're all reaching their uptime meaning they've got to get back to their bodies chase decides to stay meaning he's going to be stuck inside of his neck and he can't return to his human body he's like a ghost in the shell of a machine a ghost in the shadows is trying to hold off nemesis now seeing him inside their mind melt mo - but suddenly he gets help from the others from the base Miranda's there and district's nemesis and oh my god it's a new gen lock user who could it be it's Leon Leon who the [ __ ] is remembered grumpy the guy I mentioned once in the beginning of this review he's apparently genlock compatible to [ __ ] why he's gotten literally in the least amount of characterization out of the entire cast every other character would make more sense Miguel and Henry know the technology Miranda and brownie have character connections to chase that would make it personal ja and Mark built the technology with Weller why did the most tertiary character get a mech well I don't want to throw around accusations but I couldn't help but notice that crap he is voiced by gray haddock you know the guy who created the show it's just a little eyebrow raising is all anyways it works and the team cools off their uptime and rejoins to fight at full power the whole team is able to mine melt and kicks nemesis his ass downside nemesis implies it's a union made more copies of him but upside they want to find why ain't he waking up man towns working he sustained the wall of damage he may be in a coma he may not be in there at all [Music] so that was season one of genlock I'm gonna be honest I expected to really hate the show when my patrons voted on the topic I was a little bummed out about it and before actually watching I was gearing up to tear it apart in my review but actually I ended up really enjoying it so thanks patrons for suggesting it it does have a lot of room for improvement the comedy is nothing spectacular and the fact we never learn about our enemy is a huge hindrance for the story there's no real plot per se other than just war which isn't bad it's just like you know I would want a little bit more in a future Mexico but the real saving grace for the show is the cast I found myself quickly entertained by all of our main characters and even a good amount of our side characters won me over the growth of our teams as friendship is really well-written and fun to watch using their ragtag ensemble of personalities to their fullest potential really the worst thing about the show is that shitty first episode it's amazing how actually bad it is compared to the rest of the show it feels more like a 30-minute long trailer like it only exists to have characters say one-liners they'll sound edgy in the commercials they play leading up for the premiere but for being one long trailer it doesn't really do a good job selling the show it's the only episode available for non first members to watch on roosterteeth site however I doubt it would convince anyone to get the membership based on its quality its slaw was boring it's ugly and they really could have fixed it easily mixed episodes running - together in boom problem solved cut down the big dumb fights from the first episode and cut out the extra dialogue and explaining the science of the Mex and stick them together genlock has already been confirmed to get a second season and I might just want to check it out I'm curious how roosterteeth will move forward with the show and if they'll be able to improve the show and smooth out some of those rough edges I guess we'll just have to wait and see special shout out to my $10 patrons drunk and James Dodds and cool duck you guys are awesome alrighty thank you for watching that video I had a lot of fun with this channel I was I thought it was gonna hate it yeah as I said my patrons voted for this topic if you want to vote for an upcoming video topic you can become a patron any you know any tier will have you get the option to vote which is awesome but there's a lot of other cool things you can get if you get other tiers like C episodes the day early saying early clip of an upcoming episode see you could get like stickers and stuff it's all really really cool so yeah lots of cool of fun things to see go ahead check it out and yeah I want to hear your thoughts at kansai genlock did you watch it what did you think about it I know the animations weird I know I'm expecting a lot of comments about the animation but yeah I want to know your thoughts are you excited to 1st season 2 did you hate it I did you hate it if you did and you know but I want to see them in the comments below and I'll see you in the next one bye bye

Channel: The Judgmental Critter

Views: 18,205

Rating: 4.8899083 out of 5

Keywords: genlock, gen:lock, gen, lock, review, bad, ugly, animation, funny, cammie, chase, micheal b jorbad, maisi willaims, dakota fanning, valentina, kazu, weller, david tennent, doctor who, judgmental critter, judgemental, grey haddock, grey, gray, haddock, haddok

Id: Juy2DZgG5Vw

Length: 27min 8sec (1628 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020