Hero Factory: Invasion From Below (Episode 11)

[Friend of Fire]

Ok, first off I don't know if I am in the right spot to discuss this. This is also my first review on this site.

 

This is about the newly released Hero Factory episode, Invasion From Below. I won't give away any spoilers if you were planning on watching.

 

The episode was released around this past Thursday, Feb. 6th. It is a standard 30 min TV episode. This is the first episode for Hero Factory done by ADVANCE and Ghost Animations, so there are several changes to the overall feel and flow. I really liked how they made the Heroes looked, and the blended in nicely with the original style of the citizens very well. Plus, we got to see a brand new location. Also, they tied into continuity very well with Breeze. I can't say anymore on this without giving away to much.

 

What I didn't like was the voice change that all the Heroes received. I know that it's a different company that made this episode, but come on. Nex has the Australian accent, not Surge. It was a little hard getting used to the new voices.

 

Also, in my opinion, there lacked an overall story flow. It seemed as if they got right into the battle with out trying to figure out what was going on in the first place. I mean, they had seven members from Alpha 1 Team, they could have easily split up to deal with the problem and investigate why the creatures attacked in the first place. With the exception of Brain Attack, which an unexplained extra-terrestrial attack on Hero Factory and Makuhero City, the members of Alpha 1 always did reconnaissance before, or during, the fighting. The episode seemed more about product placement then an actual story.

 

Overall, I give this episode an 3.5/5 stars. I would have given 4, but the voices just erked me too much. I would have been more positive about this, but then I would have gone and given away too much of the episode and what little story there was.

 

Here's a link to the episode: http://www.lego.com/en-gb/herofactory/videos/episode-11

 

[Black Six]

Moving to Media Discussion...

[ToaJaller77]

I'm gonna give my opinion of this in two words:

 

 

 

IT SUCKS

 

It was a toy commercial with genocide and lack of character. Speaking of which i'm convinced this is a reboot.

 

ADVANCE Failed. FAILED. LOOK AT IT ADVANCE. LOOK AT IT:

 

 

JUST LOOK AT IT.

[Aanchir]

ADVANCE Failed. FAILED. LOOK AT IT ADVANCE. LOOK AT IT:

 

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/11949722265_818c9ea971_z.jpg

 

JUST LOOK AT IT.

Actually, I think the faces look WAY better than they used to. They used to look like either skulls or people with oversized chins. Now, there's a simplicity to them that helps them look reasonably expressive without falling into the uncanny valley.

 

I enjoyed the episode. Beautiful visuals, fewer corny jokes than "Savage Planet", a nice adventurous story that gave Breez a great moment in the spotlight, and some fantastic fight scenes. The new voices didn't really bother me either. Pacing seemed a bit awkward at times, which wasn't helped by the lackluster musical score. And the script left some irritating unanswered questions (like whether or not the queen died). Overall, I wouldn't mind a new scriptwriter, but I liked it better than "Brain Attack".

[ToaJaller77]

 

ADVANCE Failed. FAILED. LOOK AT IT ADVANCE. LOOK AT IT:

 

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/11949722265_818c9ea971_z.jpg

 

JUST LOOK AT IT.

Actually, I think the faces look WAY better than they used to.

 

 

 

.........................

 

Freedom of opinion

[Aanchir]

 

 

ADVANCE Failed. FAILED. LOOK AT IT ADVANCE. LOOK AT IT:

 

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/11949722265_818c9ea971_z.jpg

 

JUST LOOK AT IT.

Actually, I think the faces look WAY better than they used to.

 

.........................

 

Freedom of opinion

 

Exactly. You're free to express your opinion, I'm free to disagree. Not trying to say that you ought to like the same things I do.

 

As an artist, I just have had an incredibly hard time drawing generic female robot characters based on the old hero templates. I had a much easier time with this new face template, since it's fairly androgynous, and not quite as creepy/inhuman as the Glatorian head with its angular jawline and huge nostrils.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Aanchir: Rachira of Time

[ToaJaller77]

 

 

 

ADVANCE Failed. FAILED. LOOK AT IT ADVANCE. LOOK AT IT:

 

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/11949722265_818c9ea971_z.jpg

 

JUST LOOK AT IT.

Actually, I think the faces look WAY better than they used to.

 

.........................

 

Freedom of opinion

 

Exactly. You're free to express your opinion, I'm free to disagree. Not trying to say that you ought to like the same things I do.

 

As an artist, I just have had an incredibly hard time drawing generic female robot characters based on the old hero templates. I had a much easier time with this new face template, since it's fairly androgynous, and not quite as creepy/inhuman as the Glatorian head with its angular jawline and huge nostrils.

 

I accepted your opinion. It was a joke.

[Lenny7092]

I like the episode because it has a lot of action. I like how the characters are designed in the animation. The Heroes' and citizens' blue eyes kind of remind me of the Autobots' blue eyes from the Transformers: Prime TV series, and their mouths move sort of like humans' when they talk. The Heroes look kind of like their 2.0 forms, which makes them look like constraction figures rather than minifigures. I like the animation, too. It looks exactly the same like the other episodes' animation.

 

However, there are a lot of things in the episode that I think would have needed to be improved on, and they are that:

1. Why four fingers instead of five in each hand? I mean, why not having any pinkies?

2. Stringer and Nex didn't appear in the episode, which is very disappointing. I mean, both of them are significant main characters in the Hero Factory storyline. They are funny, too. Stringer is one of the founding members of the Hero Factory and Nex is like Evo's twin brother and best friend and also Breez's lover. I had not seen them for a long time since the Breakout and Brain Attack episodes. So, why they didn't appear in the episodes. (Sighing) I miss them.

3. It's very sad to see a sapient species dying into a large genocide, infanticide, and almost complete extinction because of the Heroes killing the monstrous creatures and of one of the Jumpers accidentally causes it's own species' almost complete extinction.

4. It's also very depressing that the Jumper's accident caused the creature's mother, the Queen Beast, to think that she and her children have been betrayed by the Heroes, so the mother started attacking the Heroes for nothing. It would have been very nice if the Heroes and the creatures stay having peace with and not continuing having their grudge against each other, similar to how the Heroes interacted with the beasts from the Savage Planet and Brain Attack episodes, like being being friends, something like that.

5. There are a couple of unresolved things in the episode, which are the fate of the citizen, who is Evo's fan and got kidnapped by the creatures in the beginning of the episode, and the cocoon in the Heroes' ship at the very end of the episode.

6. Why new voice actors? I like the one from the first ten episodes better. Some of the voice actors make some of the Heroes' voices sound exactly as each other. So, why people that we don't know?

7. There is a lot of lack of character development. The Heroes are acting like complete soldiers.

 

Overall, I like the episode, but it is like a complete commercial. It also looks like a reboot. But anyway, still, the episode is epic and awesome!

[Voxumo]

You know this season of hero factory even the episode is just like the time Takanuva battled Makuta in Mask of Light. You have this small fighter having to fight a much larger enemy. Yet of course said 'david' manages to defeat his 'Goliath'. Although the actual episode itself was rather interesting and certainly informative.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Voxumo

[Master Inika]

IMO, this is by far the worst Hero Factory episode yet.

 

The stake-through-the-heart in this episode is the paper-thin plot. Every other Hero Factory episode has things going on. It lacked any of the few things I enjoyed about the other episodes:

 

1. Assembly Tower sequences. Even though they were obviously to advertise whatever new Heroes were out, they usually had great music and animation.

 

2. Meaningful character dialogues. I never thought I'd be wishing an episode had stupid jokes in them, but at least we saw a team dynamic.

 

3. A moral at the end. They were almost always too forced or poorly-presented (except Savage Planet, which I believe incorporated a moral very well). In this episode, however, the moral, which was executed almost as well as Savage Planet's, is undone for a cheap laugh. I watched the Behind-the-Scenes video and was unpleasantly surprised that they originally kept the moral, but decided to do away with it anyway. I disagree with ADVANCE that the bugs would have seemed too weak if they negotiated peace. Frankly, the ending is quite ethically unpleasant to watch.

 

Not to mention the change in voice acting (it's quite obvious that many of the VAs voice several Heroes) and how their personalities have basically been ignored. The animation also seems somewhat more artificial in this one. Particularly, when they hit substances (like Evo's crawler moving across the rock), it sounds like it's made of plastic. The only other time I can recall that was an issue was Ordeal of Fire, where is was only a problem a few times.