Anyone watching (or watched) X-MEN '97 on Disney+?

[Tawmis]

Please be sure to put anything about any of the episodes in spoiler tags, if you have.

[notbobsmith]

I haven't seen it. I'm genuinely curious about it though. While I liked the original series, I always preferred Batman. The animation in X-Men never looked good. But the reviews have been very good from what I hear.

[Tawmis]

I haven't seen it. I'm genuinely curious about it though. While I liked the original series, I always preferred Batman. The animation in X-Men never looked good. But the reviews have been very good from what I hear.

I loved the animation of the original X-Men: The Animated Series, lol. (Except the final season... the final season they went with another company for the animation and it shows... the final season of the original series, the animation, and even the stories were nowhere near as good... not even close).

The X-Men 97 is... far, far, far more ... colorful and saturated and... bright.

[notbobsmith]

I haven't seen it. I'm genuinely curious about it though. While I liked the original series, I always preferred Batman. The animation in X-Men never looked good. But the reviews have been very good from what I hear.

I loved the animation of the original X-Men: The Animated Series, lol. (Except the final season... the final season they went with another company for the animation and it shows... the final season of the original series, the animation, and even the stories were nowhere near as good... not even close).

The X-Men 97 is... far, far, far more ... colorful and saturated and... bright.

Yes the final season looked worse. But the rest of the show... I really didn't like the thick lines used for the characters. Also character movements seemed off and effects like explosions just looked cheap. I guess I'm comparing it to shows from the '80s. Transformers, G.I. Joe, Real Ghostbusters all look much better by comparison. Animation in the 90s seemed to get worse with the exception of shows like Batman or Gargoyles.

[Tawmis]

I haven't seen it. I'm genuinely curious about it though. While I liked the original series, I always preferred Batman. The animation in X-Men never looked good. But the reviews have been very good from what I hear.

I loved the animation of the original X-Men: The Animated Series, lol. (Except the final season... the final season they went with another company for the animation and it shows... the final season of the original series, the animation, and even the stories were nowhere near as good... not even close).

The X-Men 97 is... far, far, far more ... colorful and saturated and... bright.

Yes the final season looked worse. But the rest of the show... I really didn't like the thick lines used for the characters. Also character movements seemed off and effects like explosions just looked cheap. I guess I'm comparing it to shows from the '80s. Transformers, G.I. Joe, Real Ghostbusters all look much better by comparison. Animation in the 90s seemed to get worse with the exception of shows like Batman or Gargoyles.

Compared to GI JOE and TRANSFORMERS, back then, most animation paled.

[DeadPoolX]

But the rest of the show... I really didn't like the thick lines used for the characters.

It was more the light and shading that turned me off. All the characters looked there was a constant "shine" (for lack of a better term) on them or their outfits. It made for a somewhat strange and very unnatural look in a show that was going for realism in so far as character models were concerned.

Also character movements seemed off and effects like explosions just looked cheap.

The animation wasn't smooth at all. I think part of the problem here is that the design of the characters were modeled almost too accurately on their Jim Lee comic book counterparts. You can make drawings look incredibly detailed on paper, but once animation comes into the picture, you've got a problem with overly-detailed characters because those characters need to remain as detailed, but move in a convincing way.

Something a lot of people don't think about in regards to animation is how difficult it is to do basic things we don't think about in real life. For instance, walking or running. You might say that's easy to do, and if the characters are simplistic or very cartoony, overall you're right; however, with detailed humanoid characters, you've now got to animate something that approximates realistic movement, which includes balance and even musculoskeletal movement.

This is also why 3D characters in games either seem too "floppy" and move too smoothy or are move in a somewhat awkward and stiff manner: regular movement is difficult to do, especially when the characters actually lack muscles, tendons, ligaments, and a skeleton.

Our brains have developed in such a way that when we see something we're readily familiar with (humans, for instance, or even domesticated animats, like dogs and cats) we notice when even a relatively minor detail is off, even if we're not entirely conscious of what the problem is or couldn't effectively describe it.

I guess I'm comparing it to shows from the '80s. Transformers, G.I. Joe, Real Ghostbusters all look much better by comparison.

To be fair, those cartoons from the 80s (most of which I have very fond memories of) had their own share of problems, ranging from botching size (especially in Transformers), character colors, and failing to match key components to background cels.

The latter one is when you'd see something like a door that looked slightly different (usually a lighter shade) which was something the characters were going to interact with. The reason it was different was because the animators couldn't match the colors of the background cel and the panel.

Overall, I think the X-Men cartoon did a pretty good job of avoiding those issues.

Animation in the 90s seemed to get worse with the exception of shows like Batman or Gargoyles.

At one time, you could farm the animation out to a Korean studio and they'd work their animators to the bone for relatively little cost to the company hiring them. That started to change in the 90s when worker rights in Asia became a much bigger issue.

Batman: The Animated Series (and all assorted DCAU shows) were backed by Warner Bros. and Gargoyles was backed by Disney. Both companies had tons of money, whereas Marvel at the time didn't and had been hurting as a company for quite a while.

The costs involved in traditional animation is why you see it so rarely today (plus it's very labor and time intensive). Nowadays it's a lot easier, quicker, and less expensive to use digital animation. The downside is you start seeing animated styles that all look very similar and quite often weird or somehow unsettling.

[Tawmis]

But the rest of the show... I really didn't like the thick lines used for the characters.

It was more the light and shading that turned me off. All the characters looked there was a constant "shine" (for lack of a better term) on them or their outfits. It made for a somewhat strange and very unnatural look in a show that was going for realism in so far as character models were concerned.

In X-MEN 97, ya mean?

I get why they do it. It makes it more... catchy. More like... Avatar. Everything's bright and beautiful.

So that when something dark happens, it's very, very, very noticeable. And there's a few scenes that do this well.

Something a lot of people don't think about in regards to animation is how difficult it is to do basic things we don't think about in real life. For instance, walking or running. You might say that's easy to do, and if the characters are simplistic or very cartoony, overall you're right; however, with detailed humanoid characters, you've now got to animate something that approximates realistic movement, which includes balance and even musculoskeletal movement.

I'd say, running, over all, would be difficult to animate because of the way our bodies move and bend.
Unless it's a straight shot (front facing) because then you can skimp - but side view running, seems like it would be difficult.

Our brains have developed in such a way

Still not sure mine has developed...

[DeadPoolX]

In X-MEN 97, ya mean?

Actually, I meant the original X-Men animated series in the 90s. I haven't seen X-Men 97 since Maia and I stopped our subscription to Disney+ a little while back.