Ben 10: Alien Swarm

[Christopher]

Anyone else catch this, the live-action movie based on the Ben 10: Alien Force animated series? It was okay, with some pretty good FX work and a decent story. The casting was pretty good; the three leads were fairly good physical and vocal matches for their animated equivalents, though the actress cast as Gwen (Galadriel Stineman) wasn't nearly as attractive. We only saw two familiar Omnitrix aliens, Big Chill and Humongosaur, plus a new one introduced for the movie, Nanomech. They were all fairly well done, better than the CGI aliens in the previous live-action movie. Big Chill in particular looked pretty cool in realistic CG.

This film didn't mesh with Alien Force canon as well as its predecessor did with the original series. There were some inconsistencies with the animated form. The Plumber organization is presented as more of an active concern, with Ben, Gwen and Kevin working directly for Max and being subject to strict "Plumber regulations," something that doesn't seem to be the case in the series, where the Plumbers are more of a strictly interstellar organization and the Earthbound version seems to have been disbanded. There's a Plumber HQ set that has no counterpart in the series. Ben and Gwen usually address Max by his first name rather than "Grandpa," and Kevin is addressed as "Kev," neither of which is the case in the show. Gwen makes no use of her shield power, instead firing purple bolts of energy; she does her "energy steps" thing once, but they're circular rather than square. And so on. All in all, it just felt a bit off. Normally it's to be expected that an adaptation in a different medium or format is going to be out of continuity with the original, but the first live-action Ben 10 movie was apparently canonical, so I expected this one to be as well.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I saw Ben 10: Race Against Time a few days ago and didn't like it, so I didn't finish it. This one looks better. I'll check it out on Saturday.

 

[Mr Light]

I only started watching Ben 10 AF with this new season so I'm not that familiar with it. I enjoyed the movie but I think I liked the first live-action flick a little more. I was a little pissed that Ben hardly ever transformed, didn't he do it a LOT more in the first one? Also the villain wasn't terribly interesting, though the nano-swarm attacks looked very cool. I was also confused by Max running this vast Plumber secret command.... without a single living soul there aside from him. Where was everyone else? And why did it seem like the trio were his employees? Also, where does this fit into the series chronologically? Between the Highbreed seasons and the new season? After the currently aired episodes? Or is it its own continuity? Was the first live-action in proper continuity? Because in both movies their favorite mode of transportation blows up, does that carry through into the series?

 

[Christopher]

^As I said, Race Against Time is considered to be part of the series canon, or at least that's what the show's executives said at a panel at the New York Comic Con a couple of years ago. It takes place between the two shows.

As for Alien Swarm, if it were in continuity, it would have to be at least after the first two seasons of the show, though it doesn't seem like it would fit between seasons 2 and 3, given that Ben isn't swell-headed about recently saving the universe, and given that Kevin's car gets trashed and Ben gets his own car, and given that Ben is promoted to head of the Plumbers, something that definitely isn't the case in the show.

In Alien Swarm, Ben is supposed to be 15. In this movie, he's evidently 16. He says he knew Elena three years ago and it's later stated that he was 13 at the time. And of course he has to be old enough to drive. So perhaps this film is meant to take place after the Alien Force series, i.e. in the future of where the cartoon currently is. Perhaps most of the inconsistencies could be justified if we assume that some changes happen in the months between the current season of the show and the movie.

 

[Mr Light]

But he immediately resigned as head of the Plumbers, so it didn't really happen. That was a little silly anyway, putting a 16 year old in charge of the interplantery police?! While he isn't quite the conceited prick he was in 3X1, he was still arrogant here, thinking he could go off and stop the baddie alone without anyone's help.

 

[Christopher]

^No, he didn't resign as head, he just "un-accepted" Max's resignation from the organization. Presumably that means Max will remain as second-in-command.

And as for Ben's leadership qualifications, in the show, he, Gwen, and Kevin are saving the world on their own all the time, without Max telling them what to do. In fact, that was a big point in Alien Force's second season (which was supposed to be its final season, though they decided to extend it): Max recognizing that Ben had proven himself able to take care of himself and didn't need Max to tell him what to do anymore. Come to think of it, that's probably the biggest inconsistency in the movie, since it would have to take place after that event occurred in the series. I just don't see any way that Max could go from "You don't need me anymore, you're ready to handle this on your own, so I'll devote myself to training these new half-alien kids" to "I'm the boss of you and you have to obey my every command!" There's just no way this story could take place in the Alien Force canon.