Ducktales Reboot - First Impressions

Ducktales is a series that was a little before my time, I've seen maybe a dozen episodes over the years as well as the movie, but I'm hardly an expert. That being said, I have very much been looking forward to the brand new reboot series as everything from the production and marketing has been incredibly strong. It was clearly made by people who not only love the original series, but also the multitude of comic books that the series was based on in the first place. So, with the hour long pilot finally airing, was it everything I expected it to be? Yes...But I reference that in both good and bad ways.

Starting off with the characters, this is already an instant improvement over the original series, even the most hard core of fans will admit that the three main leads Huey, Dewey & Louie were never the strongest characters. They were fairly bland, generic kids with nothing to distinguish one from another apart from the colour of their shirt. This series has instantly fixed that. Huey is the goody two-shoes boy scout, Dewey is the impulsive adventurer and Louie is the laid back schemer. Even more so is Webby (Who I'll talk more about later) and Mrs Beakley, again going from generic good hearted people into energetic action stars. The only two that haven't been altered that much is Scrooge McDuck and Launchpad, but that's also because they clearly had the most personality out of the original line-up, and not much needed changing. One big new change is the inclusion of Donald Duck as a main character, which excites me for multiple reasons. One: It's just nice to have one of the main Disney Trio get the spotlight again, because despite Mickey, Donald & Goofy being the face of Disney, they really haven't been in that many stories these days-outside of Kingdom Hearts per se. Not only does Tony Anselmo return-the voice of Donald for over 30 years now-but he's still his easily agitated, always screwed over duck that we love. But more than that he's...adorable?? Yeah, the biggest take away I got from this episode was Donald being a loving uncle to the triplets, worrying for their safety, showing co-workers pictures of them as babies, it was actually quite precious.

The animation is also a major positive going towards the show. One of my biggest gripes with the animation style most cartoons use these days is everything looks so goddamn flat! Even in shows I like such as Gravity Falls, Rick & Morty, Bob's Burgers, there's no dimension to anything! Every shot, every angle, every background here had dimension. On top of that, the style of the series is very reminiscent of the older comic books, similar to how Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes would use "Ditko Bubbles" in reference to their source material, this show has done the same thing, letting audiences know where the main inspiration comes from, and that this isn't just going to be a retread of the original series.

Not being around during the Disney Afternoon era meant there were a lot of references made in this episode that I didn't get, mostly relating to Darkwing Duck, Talespin and Goof Troop. All of which make sense, Darkwing Duck is already confirmed to appear in the show eventually, Talespin being a series about a pilot means I could see him being an old friend of Launchpad for a future crossover. Then with Goof Troop being a series about Goofy raising his son Max, I could definitely see Goofy & Donald raising their kids together and that thought just makes me already happy for when that episode comes. Also there was a reference to Lupin III for some reason...I'm not upset about that, in fact that makes me quite happy, just a random reference to put in.

However, as I said, I had expectations going into this show both bad and good, and this show lived up to all of them. What were the bad? Gravity Falls. Yeah, I'm not the first one to make this comparison, but this series is very clearly taking a lot from Gravity Falls. Most notably through Webby being just like Mabel. She's easily excitable, loud, adventurous, even has a damn grappling hook, and Kate Micucci-though a very funny actress-sounds like she's doing a Kristen Schaal impression. I could also say the idea of kids born on the same day going to live with their grumpy uncle and go on supernatural adventures is...something the original series did anyway, so the comparisons aren't fair there. The introduction of a mystery involving a missing member of the family however! Heck, it's even the same company 'Toon Boom Animation' animating the series. Now to be fair, if there was ever a show to take inspiration from, Gravity Falls is a very good choice, and one of Disney's biggest hits in recent years, so it makes sense that they'd want to try and hook that audience as well as the nostalgia crowd.

So, overall, this was a strong pilot, in many ways, it's stronger that the original Ducktales, in other ways it's just as good as the original series, and most importantly, I can see pretty much everyone enjoying it, whether they be full grown adults coming for the nostalgia, or little kids being introduced to the franchise for the first time.

-Danny