(Please note: this does not cover Justice League: Unlimited, the second part to this series.)
Over the summers, I tend to go into a child-like phase wherein I pretend I'm 9 years old and watching cartoons is still acceptable. During the summer I decided to re-watch some of the old Justice League episodes that I had seen plenty of times but I just couldn't stop watching. Prior to the month of August, it was still on Netflix, so I binge watched them before they went away.
To start, the animation in this entire series is top notch. Even though the movements are animated, it's sometimes hard to say, "Wow, you know that looks incredibly impossible for a human to do." The animation is very fluid, very smooth, and very visually appealing.
The plot, though at times very ridiculous once they start playing with the multiverse theory, is actually very well done. It tackles the struggle of the Justice League, with it's members including a Martian, a Kryptonian, an Amazonian, a speedster, a guy who thinks it's Halloween all the time, a bird lady, and a guy who shoots green lasers from his hands and eyes, being accepted by the public and allowed to exist. Not everyone is okay with this at first because of the obvious inability to stop them, but also because they have built a giant satellite with enough armament on it to literally blow up the Earth in a matter of seconds. In addition to this, as a secondary conflict throughout the entire series, the members of the Justice League all try to get along despite their differing philosophies. These two constant conflicts do end up providing quite a bit of entertainment, especially in the beginning of the series, with the conflict of getting along with one another adding for some much needed comic relief when comparing someone like Batman or Superman to The Flash.
The soundtrack, while occasionally not fitting at all and seeming very out of place, actually can produce some of the most epic moments a cartoon can produce. The soundtrack might be one of the only downfalls of this show in my opinion.
If going by the Be Reel scale, I would rank this series as a Good-Good. It is well made in the visual, plot, and even the audio department in most cases. In addition to this, maybe because I'm secretly still 9 years old at heart, I did and still do thoroughly enjoy the entire series. All 52 episodes of the original series.
In conclusion, if you're at the end of your high school years, freaking out because of the stress of applying to colleges, and mad at the world, there is no better way to de-stress yourself than hopping in the time machine to when times were simpler that is Justice League.
To see one of my favorite scenes in this entire series, watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a0pwb9NvFE&t=203s
Nate! Love the end-of-high-school childhood v. adulthood kind of approach that you take to analyze this series. Really logical and coherent way to distinguish between the subjective (i.e. the fact that YOU are at this stage in YOUR LIFE) and the objective (i.e. the merits of plot, conflict, comic relief, etc.). I like how your paragraph breaks are natural and based in logic rather than external factors (who started this myth that a paragraph is 5-8 sentences and no more/fewer? Absurd....). Great clip to include and an overall GREAT example of this assignment. Did you put a card up on the board in front of the class?
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