Is Ben 10 As Great As We Remember? - Part 1 | A Complete Review of OG Ben 10

i remember ben 10 from when i was a kid it was one of those shows where i never managed to catch every episode but whenever i saw one that was on well it was ben 10 time baby at this point though it's a classic animated series well at least the original is still i only have vague memories of my time with it so i figured hey why not watch the whole thing now but there's a question i need to answer is this show really that great has it held up to the test of time so i'm going to go through every episode in the original series discussing what i like and what i don't like in the hopes of answering that question so it's time for some ben 10 but first it's time for this video's sponsor bespoke post bespoke post is a subscription box service that allows you to try out cool new products each month they've got clothes kitchen appliances drinks outdoor gear and you get the picture and using their preference quiz it's super easy to figure out which items are right for you now bespoke post sent me 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trip with grandpa and gwen about these characters personalities and the basics of their relationships and of course about the omnitrix itself which for most would probably be the show's biggest selling point i mean it's hard to overstate how brilliant this concept is how couldn't a kid find the idea of transforming into one of 10 aliens to fight bad guys at least somewhat cool it's natural to choose your own favorite think about how awesome it would be to use this device for yourself and well you get the picture plus since the watch has a timer and sometimes doesn't do what ben wants that injects some clear conflict into the show will ben be able to improve with it will the finicky watch fail him at a crucial time basically there are just a lot of obstacles related to this watch that ben will need to overcome anyway out of all the things we learned though ben's personality is probably the most important for the show's wider story after all this is the guy we're going to be stuck with for every episode so we need to know what kind of person he is and why we should root for him and this episode does a fine job of showing us just that because ben despite being a little bit of a brat seems to have a good heart and want to do the right thing of course he has a problem though he's too weak so if he wants to help others he'll need to become stronger and as we see when he goes back to hang up these bullies at the end of the episode he now has the strength to do just that however at the same time he's using this awesome power for something relatively minor to basically get petty revenge so there are some questions will he learn how to properly use this power for good will he use it for himself will he be careless or will he become better because of this power of course then there's ben's relationship with grandpa and gwen as far as gramp is concerned it's simple ben likes him a lot but we don't get too much beyond that for them though we do get the first of the series of sketchy grandpa moments where he clearly knows too much about aliens of course that means there's some plot-related stuff going on with grandpa gwen gets a bit more here though as this uptight counter depends more lacks personality needless to say they argue a lot so need to grow and learn to respect one another more as the series progresses honestly though even at this early point their bickering is one of my least favorite elements of the show it's extremely repetitive and lacking in humor my main hope is that they will either develop out of this fast or that the show finds a more clever way to go about this but i do appreciate this one thing about gwen which is that even at this early point she isn't only being reduced to someone ben needs to rescue nah even though she's obviously far weaker than him she jumps in and helps where she can it makes her far more likable and engaging than she would otherwise be because this way she doesn't just feel like an accessory to ben instead she's her own character who i want to learn more about finally the alien fights themselves these are a lot of fun seeing what each of these different powers can do how ben uses them again it's just a great way of hooking the audience because each of these aliens unique abilities are easy to understand but also significantly different from one another it helps that each of these transformation sequences are great they look painful like he's genuinely morphing into a totally different being it's obvious that they put a lot of effort into these all this is to say that none of the fights here felt repetitive or dull i was too busy learning about each of these aliens for that to be the case in the end this is simply a really solid start to ben 10 and i hope it'll be able to keep up this level of quality in the next episode episode 2 begins by establishing its main conflict for ben after all even though he saves all these people from this fire once he turns back into human he doesn't get respect from the authorities and no one even knows all the good he's done outside of gwen and grandpa needless to say this is an easy conflict to get behind i mean how couldn't this be at least a bit frustrating unfortunately though i can't say i'm a fan of how the episode handles the conflict from there see we're introduced to dr animo a scientist who's living in squalor eventually we learned that he was doing super sketchy experiments on animals and failed to win an award he really wanted from here characters like gwen and eventually ben himself draw direct comparisons between animo and ben as though they're similar because they want recognition but this dynamic falls apart pretty quickly because they aren't all that similar from the get-go dr animo's research was messed up but ben is doing good things so yeah they both want recognition but it comes from such a different place that it never felt like there was really much for ben to actually learn from animo to me this conflict would have worked much better if we knew that animal's research had been for the greater good that he only fell off the deep end when he didn't receive his award that would have made him a far more compelling villain but it also would have done a better job of reflecting ben's struggles beyond that the episode attempts to highlight ben's choice between rescuing people and being rewarded for his actions with the sumo slammer card he wants throughout the episode he steals an attempt to get it he tries to ask for it as a reward after he saves a grocery store and he eventually has to choose between the card and saving a man's life and i didn't buy into this conflict because when you're saying save someone's life or get a collectible card the answer is so abundantly clear ben doesn't become a better person to me because he makes the right choice here he simply maintains a baseline level of basic decency i think this moment would have been stronger if maybe this person he was rescuing now was someone who had previously disrespected him that way ben would be making the choice to rescue people regardless of them ever having a good opinion of him regardless of recognition and as far as i can tell that's the point of this conflict maybe i'd be a bit more forgiving of this somewhat weak moral lesson if i liked other elements of the episode but i didn't ben and gwen's bickering still isn't any better and beyond that some of the fight scenes are significantly hampered by gwen's screaming i know that sounds like a small complaint but man oh man did it distract me again then there's animo who's an incredibly bland villain and outside of a couple cool cuts there wasn't much to keep my interest really the only thing this episode truly had going for it was that i got to see some new aliens unfortunately i feel pretty similarly about episode 3 as well here ben starts off by pranking gwen and then no one believes him when he actually sees a monster in the water so it seems like we're getting a typical boy who cried wolf lesson however after he meets the sailor who wants to catch the kraken the lesson moves in a bit of a different direction after all then ben ends up protecting the kraken creature and realizing that it isn't inherently violent so to me that lesson is more along the lines of don't fear something just because you don't understand it which is a fine enough lesson regardless of that though i really don't care much about the lesson a good tv show doesn't need some moral message to entertain me but again there isn't much else here that i find all that enjoyable first the friends of fish are basic villains with equally basic motivations personally i think i would have found this conflict far more interesting if we had spent more time focused on them maybe it could have been that they truly believe that they're doing the right thing that the kraken is insanely dangerous something like that which would hone in on this concept of fearing things you don't understand second there's gwen who at this point has been reduced to little more than an exposition dumper and a damsel in distress so i'm hoping that'll change real soon my biggest problem here is really simple though the last two episodes have spent too much time focusing on the action of these conflicts now i've got no problem with action in fact it makes sense that the show would put an emphasis on this with all these aliens to use but i'd rather trim down some of these scenes and have more time to explore the characters that way the action wouldn't just be cool it would be emotionally engaging because i would be invested in the conflict between ben and the villain and then we have episode 4. here ben goes to visit his aunt vera who he is not interested in seeing why because our boy ben seems to really hate old people other than grandpa i guess like this boy can't stop himself from badmouthing the elderly this summer was supposed to be about fun not hanging out in some old lady's place their idea of excitement in this place is probably watching the grass grow why do old people's houses always smell like somebody's cooking socks or something coffee as a candy is this some kind of joke it's attack of the old people i gotta get out of here ben you snuck out aunt vera was hurt ah she's old she'll forget now i know that being a brat is part of ben's character but magnifying it like this having him be such a jerk to someone for seemingly no reason it is a very bad look and it made me really hate this little guy before he was a bit annoying sometimes but now i'm wondering what on earth his issue is but you know what the show at least has to have an arc for him of course it will big ben is going to come out of this a better boy right right no not at all see instead of ben eventually acknowledging his mistakes he gets involved in this big plot where aliens are mimicking the elderly and going to eat them so he spends pretty much no time with aunt vera rescues the old folks and then he's leaving and vera says i hope you weren't bored to tears which ben replies it turned out better than i thought on its own this sounds like he might have learned something but don't let the show fool you he only had fun because something entirely unrelated to anfiera which in fact got him away from aunt vera happened to happen i can't tell if this is a way of shoehorning in a moral lesson to fool the audience or if this is actually supposed to be an arc for ben but this is a special kind of stupid to me the obvious way to handle this would have been to have ben warm up to vera maybe she does some cool things maybe she was a plumber like grandpa i don't know just something right now it feels like the writer's throwing this all people suck am i right kids kind of thing because they thought that's how kids think now i don't know about you but most kids i know don't dislike old people i've legitimately never seen this from a kid i don't know what's going on here's what i would have done instead see i remember being a kid and sometimes going to see relatives who i barely knew at the time it was pretty uncomfortable because i was a bit shy and i didn't know if these people expected me to remember them so maybe they could have honed in on that feeling have ben complained that he doesn't know aunt vieira or just be frustrated that he doesn't know how to connect with her despite trying that sort of awkwardness from ben as opposed to outright disdain for her would have made it a lot easier for me to connect to him fortunately episode 5 is a lot better with this one the villain from the first episode vilgax is back and he's sending three bounty hunters to collect the omni tricks from ben so now ben has a set of more serious focused foes to deal with like many of the other episodes this one starts by establishing ben's problem though he's training with grandpa to improve his skills he still isn't thinking things through in fact he nearly slices gwen to bits and he wrecks the rust bucket's fuel line and then he acts like a half-hearted apology is enough to make up for it all this is a sign that ben needs to learn to take the omnitrix more seriously and mature into this role that's been thrust upon him things quickly heat up from here as it's revealed that one of these bounty hunters named tetrax is only pretending to work for vilgax his real mission ensuring the omnitrix is in good hands which of course ben now needs to prove to him in the end he does just that using gray matter to strategically take down these foes from here ben earns tetrax's respect and all as well it's a basic but fairly convincing arc for ben and the first time i've felt that the show has done a good job of following through on one of its moral messages for ben on top of that we get a bit more of ben's positive personality traits with how concerned he is about protecting his family at the start he didn't comprehend how the omnitrix could hurt them but now he's forced to face the fact that so long as he has this power he will need to help protect them it's nothing crazy but this is easily the best episode since the premiere so will episode 6 be able to keep the quality up well it doesn't look promising because once again ben is using the watch for frivolous means so i guess that means we just reset some of ben's development now this is where some of you 10 heads out in the crowd might raise an eyebrow this fool you think he's watching an airing order not production order yeah this is one of these things where they aired them out of order from how they were produced i don't know why things do this but whatever no matter which of the orders you use this episode always comes after the fifth one whether it's one episode after a few my complaint still stands plus i prefer the airing order and this is my channel and there's nothing you can do to stop me baby anyway episode six yeah here ben uses the omni tricks to mess with this giant rubber band ball which releases this alien named megawan by the way fun fact the omnitrix was originally going to be called megawatt sorry enough getting off track but i'm probably getting off track because this episode is pretty freaking boring on a basic level i think the show is trying to draw a connection between ben's goofy antics and the megawatts so-called pranks but like with animo this connection isn't convincing like yeah ben can be a goof but he's not like this either way though this episode gets old fast because there's no compelling emotional element to this conflict it's just ben trying to stop these aliens running around engaging in fight scenes that at this point are starting to feel a bit samey plus grandpa's attitude is starting to get on my nerves his whatever way of dealing with ben's antics isn't helping anyone and i expect him to be a bit more responsible especially where the omnitrix is concerned then there's that backpedaling for ben's character which leaves me thinking the writers are fine with ben remaining as a brat through the whole series i mean i was more or less fine with him starting this way so he could grow but if this is going to be his baseline personality for the whole show if this is going to be how we try to get comedy in there honestly it's not funny for me and i want off this ride but that's where episode 7 comes in because episode 7 is the first episode of ben 10 that i really really like this one starts off similar enough to some of the others with ben using his watch for selfish purposes but then things change when he gets them booted from this hotel and grandpa is ticked for the first time we really see him disciplining ben of course ben doesn't take that well and he runs off which is when he meets kevin like him kevin has special powers and he's also a bit of a troublemaker quickly kevin encourages ben to use his abilities for himself and then this episode becomes hilariously over the top i mean when they try to steal a copy of sumo slammers it looks like the whole police force is coming for them choppers and all it's awesome and makes for a really funny action sequence however unlike many of the prior action sequences this one doesn't overstay its welcome instead ben and kevin go to the subway and kevin reveals his true colors a money train loaded with cash comes down this track so when it crashes into the oncoming passenger train blue instant jackpot hundreds of innocent people will be killed no pain no gain finally we have a compelling villain first there's this little friendship he and ben have where ben ignores some warning signs that he's a bad influence plus he's alone which is what ben thinks he wants at this point but that lonely existence doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be second they go to steal something but it's relatively benign in the grand scheme of things then kevin decides it's time for this and just because he wants some money sure he's far off from ben but this forces ben to reassess his opinion of kevin to become more heroic and responsible and to recognize that he was being selfish and foolish and that his family isn't there to stifle them they're there to love him and keep him on a proper path then there's the simple fact that kevin's powers are more interesting than any of the prior villains with how he can store some of the energy from the omnitrix and transform into aliens too still even though his abilities are in many ways stronger than ben's ben is able to defeat him with the help of his family but this ending isn't all sunshine and rainbows for the first time it feels like a conflict is properly carrying over from one episode to the next with ben accepting that he made mistakes and apologizing but grandpa telling him my trust is something you'll have to earn back all in all this episode doesn't just manage to have a more convincing arc for ben with a relatively competent moral lesson it's also simply a ton of fun it's got a fast pace a villain with a more interesting relationship to ben and a more extreme personality a bunch of different set pieces and we get to see bennett as most responsible and likable yet really i hope the rest of the show can take more cues from this one because this this was great fortunately the next episode actually maintains some of this change for ben so that's cool it looks like we aren't gonna make a habit of resetting them see up until this point ben has been really pumped about this watch there may have been a moment here or there we got annoyed with it but yeah those didn't really stand out and there was no doubt that he loved having it but now now with an increased sense of responsibility ben is left making difficult decisions because of the omnitrix because when grandpa gets hurt in a fight over the watch ben can't help but feel somewhat responsible after all if it weren't for him gwen and grandpa wouldn't be in danger so where in the last episode ben ran away from his family for selfish reasons now he runs away for selfless reasons he just can't stand the thought of his family being in danger because of him needless to say this is a massive development for him i mean in previous episodes he's made mistakes mostly based around obvious character flaws or him being a bit of a brat now though well this might not even be a mistake instead he's isolating himself for a noble reason however this is still a flaw for him because he's assuming this is only his decision as he says to gwen this is my fight my weird watch not yours gwen's response to this yeah but you're my weird cousin so he might want to run from them but grandpa and gwen have a say in it too i'm starting to kind of like ben maybe this kid is gonna turn out all right and the next episode keeps it up this time ben has to face his fear of clowns when zombozo steals away his family's life force so now where ben previously fled from his loved ones he's going to need to run headlong into danger and confront his fears in order to protect them all around this episode does a really good job of making zombozo creepy with freaky directing odd imagery frightening consequences and in particular solid sound design like it's hard to describe but the sound this laughter sucking machine makes it's really neat and somehow fits this idea perfectly actually this isn't the first time the sound design has been great everything related to the omnitrix is impressive and makes it feel very alien and distinct and in general the sound design really accentuates the action well but yeah in particular the scene where ben admits his fears to grandpa stands out to me it's a moment of unexpected vulnerability for the often obstinate ben and grandpa's response only makes this interaction better everybody's got their own crazy fear ben when i was a boy i was afraid of heights well enough was enough and i climbed to the top of the water tower sometimes you've just gotta scare the fear out of you here i'm getting a better sense of ben's closeness with grandpa that he would be willing to admit something he finds so embarrassing and of the motivation ben can find in his grandpa's advice clearly when it comes down to it ben really respects grandpa and grandpa respects him too either way this episode serves as a wonderful expansion for ben now he's using his powers for reasons i can fully get behind and becoming a better person because his family needs him fortunately the streak of solid episodes continues with episode 10. this one primarily focuses on ben and gwen's relationship and it's a good thing because 10 episodes into the series i'm in a serious need of a reason to care about these two as a pair right away we get a moment that might seem small at first but i think it's super telling see the gang is at the museum and as a guide is speaking gwen gets super excited so she starts rattling off the same information that the guide is already saying in response the guide gets passive aggressive with gwen and here when ben sees that gwen might be upset what does he do well he quietly makes fun of the guide and gets gwen laughing then later gwen is upset when ben is getting all the praise for being a hero even though she helped too so ben gives her one of the items he was gifted a little bit can go a long way and now i'm finally starting to see that they're growing closer together still ben's attitude is challenged in this episode when gwen gains her own abilities from this amulet and becomes a lucky girl for a bit they start arguing with ben saying that it's the charm doing all the work and her saying it's the watch in the end though when a villain is trying to steal away this charm gwen decides to destroy it and many others like it so even though she could have been more powerful she realizes that they pose too much of a potential danger basically her sense of responsibility overrides her desire to be seen as a hero it made me really appreciate her as a character afterward ben praises her decision and gives her the affirmation she needs again ben is changing significantly and i'm starting to really root for the little guy plus giving gwen an affinity for magic is great since that means she can eventually get more involved in the fights the narrative won't simply leave her behind all in all another solid episode that develops these characters and makes me care about them more meanwhile episode 11 doesn't do as much to build ben's character but that doesn't mean it isn't a fun time here when ben accidentally transforms into gray matter he can't transform back to normal to make matters worse he's kidnapped by an alien obsessed man who wants to give him over to this group called the forever knights so he can become famous and tell the world about aliens now this one doesn't show us anything we don't already know about these people but it doesn't need to because it's got plenty of other stuff going for it for example i think this is the first time the watch is being used in a creative way to bring out a conflict what i mean is that when you look at something like the omnitrix there are some what-if scenarios that might spring to mind one of the most obvious ones is what if ben got stuck as an alien so this is the show confirming that it's going to use the watch in various creative ways moving forward second this episode has a great pace where there's the a plot with ben and this alien obsessed dude and the b plot with grandpa and gwen looking for him it's super basic but that simple structure keeps both sides of the story interesting because we're never stuck with one set of characters for too long beyond that this episode isn't content to spin its wheels nah ben gets kidnapped then he's taken to the forever knights then it's revealed that the forever knights want to dissect him then this dude saves ben's life because he never wanted the alien to get hurt then they blow up the castle and escape there are plenty of different locations and set pieces to keep the audience engaged this is a great example of how sometimes a fast pace and a promising premise is more than enough to keep me engaged and the next episode keeps up the cool watch gimmicks see when ben gets a cold it's revealed that his physical condition as a human impacts the aliens it's another one of these obvious what-ifs that's simply entertaining on a conceptual level unfortunately though i can't say i enjoy this episode on any level beyond that the villain has pretty much nothing going on there's no real compelling character-based conflict there aren't any particularly exhilarating fight scenes and it doesn't have the fast pacing and variety the last episode had it's not terrible or anything like that but i just have nothing much to say outside of its sickness gimmick it's a very forgettable episode fortunately the season's final episode has a lot more going on because this is the point where the vilgax conflict comes to a head with vilgax making his move down to earth to get the omnitrix on top of that all of grandpa's sketchy hints about some alien related past lead to the reveal of his underground base and him being a certified cool man when he attacks vilgax additionally the watch starts acting up so that ben is rapidly changing between aliens with only limited control over which one he becomes needless to say this results in some neat fight scenes that are very fitting for a season finale with ben morphing and changing between each of these alien forms rapidly over this battle sometimes they put him at an advantage and sometimes they put him at a disadvantage keeping things fresh throughout and forcing him to use them in creative ways i do have one main complaint though and that's that though i like vlogs design i don't really know anything about him like obviously he's a bad boy and he's power hungry but what else who is vilgax i don't really know and this conflict would have only been better if there was something more to him if i knew what sets him apart from other basic baddies all in all regardless of this issue though this is a fun action-packed way to wrap up the season with every major character playing a part in fighting vilgax and protecting the watch i'll admit after disliking four out of the first six episodes i was nervous that i'd come out of this really negative but i've gotta say this season improved a lot over its run additionally it showed me that this show despite its episodic nature is willing to give these characters proper arcs basically ben 10 has managed to tap into some of the promise of its premise and i'm pumped to see how much they'll be able to pull out of this there's so much potential here and i think i've got a pretty good idea of why the show is so well loved and why this was a big part of many people's childhoods i honestly can't say that i found it great so far but i could easily see it becoming great if it keeps up the improvements the way it did this season but we'll get to that next time when i cover season 2. so if you enjoyed this video remember to subscribe to the channel so you'll be notified when that video releases either way thank you to my patrons thank you to you for watching i'm happy that you stuck around for the whole video and i hope to see you next time bye bye for now

Channel: Lowart

Views: 58,369

Keywords: ben 10, ben 10 review, ben 10 retrospective, ben 10 2005, OG ben 10, ben 10 alien force, ben 10 secret of the omnitrix, ben 10 movie, ben 10 intro, ben 10 soundtrack, best ben 10 alien, xlr8, heatblast, diamondhead, gray matter, ghostfreak, upgrade, ben 10 cartoon, ben 10 ultimate alien, ben 10 series ranked, is ben 10 as great as we remember?, is ben 10 great, ben 10 is great, man of action, man of action ben 10, cartoon network, 5 years later, ben 10 video essay

Id: CLNiMJg8FAM

Length: 27min 39sec (1659 seconds)

Published: Mon May 16 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/slayerhunterXD]

i mean i agree with him, but personally i don't think that Animo Should be more sympathetic, i like him as a crazy Villain tho or at least i don't think he is bland, i like his personality

[u/Cantthinkagoodnam2]

Yeah

[u/Standard_Ad9911]

Great video