Ninjago TV Series Review: Season 2 (Serpentine)

[fishers64]

And here's #2. 

 

* * *

Episode 1: Rise of the Snakes

And the great story begins…with a bunch of boys in a room eating pizza and playing video games. I think this is quite a daring way to re-begin a story based on the Ninja actually doing some real Spinjitzu, although it does provide something that the target audience of the show will relate to instantly.

 

Also: product placement.

 

Also: implicit sarcastic commentary on obvious product placement, which is hilarious.

 

Notice that all of the other four ninja – red, white, black, and blue – are in the picture with the green ninja. This counts as foreshadowing. Also the green 5 on Lloyd’s outfit – he’s the green fifth ninja (also the fact that Lloyd is introduced at the same time as the Green Ninja prophecy is a nod to the savvy).

 

And then Wu slips up, says that none of them are the green ninja, and then channels it into talk about power levels. (I never thought that any of the original four was the green ninja, and in hindsight in was pretty obvious why. And I thought the green five was weird, but didn’t put it together. I was in the camp that thought Nya was the green ninja. But anyway.)

 

If you haven’t caught on already, Kai is supposed to be the brainless one. Generally.  Also overly ambitious and running off sans plan. It’s a tradition from Bionicle: fire types get no respect. Always.

 

Episode 2: Home

 

This episode begins with a poke at the last episode. In that, Sensei Wu looks out at the training course for the ninja first, then looks in the TV room. In this episode, Wu looks at the video game room first, then finds the ninja in the training course.  

  

"Of course not. Everyone knows that cuckoo birds are not indigenous to these forests."

 

Weird how the “Mud newt” looks like fish.

 

Episode 3: Snakebit

 

This is your standard well-crafted parent humor episode. It’s also rather standard in a lot of other ways. Still, not every episode of every series can be expected to be weird or heartwarming in specific ways.

 

What I like about this part of the series is that it is incredibly focused. Each episode focuses intensely on a specific theme, and uses every subtle detail it can to refer back to the theme. Snakebit is a prime example – every opportunity possible is used to reference the “respect your parents” message.

 

This actually grows out of the messages of “Home” that is “Home is where the heart is.” It’s almost a flip side: Zane is guided by fantastic things in the absence of parents (or rather, his “parents” guide him through strange means) whereas Jay is told to respect his literal parents.

 

Like the Lego Movie, positive parent themes abound.

 

Episode 4: Never Trust a Snake

 

Okay, first off: How did Zane get the vision? On the first viewing, it’s just a fantastic Ninjago thing. But Zane is a robot. So there’s a message that Zane and the falcon shared. Maybe Zane’s dad programmed the message to be sent, or even hit the button himself. But that would mean that he would have access to the data of both the falcon and Zane, through the Ninjago equivalent of 4G. Anyway, fun things to speculate about.

 

This episode does a double theme. The first is the title – blind trust =bad. The second – “The best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend” actually flies in the face of the first, because trust is required for friendship. So you can laud this as wonderfully complex storytelling or slam it as ambiguous and contradictory. Personally I like it because it truly means to be careful how you judge people. Lloyd misjudged the Fangpyres and Pythor to his severe detriment; the ninja misjudged Lloyd multiple times, first as a threat, and then as a friend.

 

(Of note: in the first meeting of the snakes, the Fangpyres and the Hypnobrai “defeat” the other tribe by becoming friends, and in the same moment, Lloyd’s trust in the Fangpyres is shattered. This brings the complex theme-ry together neatly without disclosing Sensei’s riddle until the end, and the rest of the episode just serves to bring the two themes apart so the audience can see them and then tie it in a knot again.)

 

Pythor:  “I’m sorry, my appearance can have an unsettling effect on people.”

 

That improved with his time in the Great Devourer, I’m sure.  Frankly, the extent of Pythor’s treachery with the rebooted series is now incredible. I have no idea why he wanted to unleash the Great Devourer, as that would be nuts, but maybe he wanted an appearance change. In any case, apologizing for his appearance is characteristic Pythor. He’s such a gentlesnake.

 

Episode 5: Can of Worms

 

With the “Samurai” thing, it becomes really obvious that Wu is using appeals to prophecy and ancient Legend not because prophecy and ancient legend actually exist to explain the phenomenon, but because everyone expects him to know everything. In short, he’s making stuff up.

 

Also, why does Zane pull out the Sacred Flute when surrounded? That’s an okay idea if he thought that stunning them with the flute would get them out of there. I guess he underestimated Pythor’s reach. Never a good thing to do.

 

If you look closely at the Samurai, you’ll see Nya’s bracelet.  It’s basically an open secret thanks to the set anyway, but knowing the secret doesn’t hurt this sequence nor the sets that follow – it actually makes them more funny.

 

Episode 6: The Snake King

 

Nobody can handle all of the Golden Weapons’ power at once, so why does having them in a bag not fry Nya or Kai? I guess the bag means that they aren’t contacting all of them at once, so they get off the hook.

 

This is one of the funniest episodes if you know who the Samurai is – all of the boys are getting beaten by a girl. Classic. Also, Jay’s attempt to figure it out is hilarious regardless of whether or not you know. There are plenty of “tells” by Nya and other related things if you know to look for them.

 

We get to, in a surprise, see Nya’s true potential before any of the others. Ladies first.

 

Episode 7: Tick Tock

 

In the class of blatant foreshadowing, the first thing we see in this episode is: gears. Lots and lots of gears. We wrongly attribute it to the clock instead of Zane, but you know. Also: everyone likes gears, so that’s definitely the way to start this famously amazing episode that everyone likes. GEARS.

 

Oh, this episode is about Zane, not Jay. Start over.

 

In the class of blatent foreshadowing, Zane stays underwater for a ridiculously long time, which is justified in the fact that robots don’t need to breathe. He even pets a fish for fun.

 

Now, I’m going to stick my tongue out at this episode for two reasons. First, aside from the robot (which looks suspiciously like C3PO), and the treehorns, everybody loves Zane. Which makes everyone overlook the fact that this episode actually has three plot threads:  1) Zane, 2) Pythor, and 3) Wu.  Which means that in reality this one is headed for Dark Destiny and Reign of Shadows territory.

 

Secondly, aside from Zane, neither plot thread is really very interesting. Fortunately, neither of those two plot threads is given much screen time, so we ignore it – which makes the latter feel tacked on as an excuse to extend the story for a few more minutes, and also for your “suspense ending”. Pythor knows where the Fang Blades are and Wu ran into Garmadon! SUSPENSE.  

 

Also, I generally like aspens, and they tend to be beautiful things, even in the dead of winter. So that aspen-like legs with that incredibly ugly body is…unique, I guess…but it sends the wrong message about the trees. Although the story gets points for realistic portrayal of the real aspens: they really do live at higher altitudes.

 

The “inside” of Zane as shown here is different than in the rebooted series – although that’s probably the fault of the reboot, not this episode.

 

And, if you can design a hidden tree fortress and a robot to protect it, can’t you design a door lock?

 

Episode 8: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

 

Alright, now let me establish this: everyone loves Zane, but I don’t like Jay. For one thing, he’s a womanizer. Second, lightning was canonized in Bionicle as a female element, yo, so it was technically our idea, but when Lego scrapped Bionicle, they made two guys who controlled lightning, which is basically giving BZP no respect. And third, both of those lightning guys, Surge and Jay, are incredibly annoying. The third thing probably has personal bias since I ramble too and it is not a redeeming quality, but whatever.

 

All of these things just make this episode more hilarious.

 

What isn’t funny is how Nya ends up in the supporting role, but I suppose that comes with the territory. Whatever happened to that crowning moment of heartwarming in the rebooted series? Also, Jay’s heart rate could have been raised by impending death instead of what actually happened, or it could have anyway, but no excuse for lazy writing. And how did nobody notice the burning ring of fire? And whether the ring would have actually killed them is debatable…although I think it could have been bad.

 

It’s still a heartwarming episode, as all the True Potential ones tend to be, but I don’t like this one because it comes at Nya (an otherwise strong female character)’s expense. Out.

 

Episode 9: The Royal Blacksmiths

 

One positive point for this episode (and 8) is that they integrate Pythor’s POV more smoothly with the ninjas’. 8 had the other 3 ninja characters tacked in, though – 7 and 8 suffer from too-many-characters syndrome a good deal.

 

Episode 9 solves this problem: every one of the ninja and Pythor and the snakes are all woven seamlessly into the plot. A dance competition lends itself well to lots of characters. Therefore we don’t have the swinging camera problem.

 

Also, good blend of the opening theme and the dance/fight.

 

Episode 10: The Green Ninja

 

And now the The Green Ninja is…not Kai. Everyone can be excused for thinking that his theory from the last episode is correct, but the thirtieth rule of critical reading is this: never trust a character’s theory. So game over.

 

The second thing is: how did Kai know he was wrong? The guy who is the most crazy actually ended up being right. Of course, it took the longest for him to get it – the others didn’t have that as an obstacle.

Also, let’s face it: Kai has the coolest power. A flying fire shield. Sweet.

 

Episode 11: All of Nothing

 

This episode starts a tightly wound continuity that leads to the release of the Great Devourer and its defeat, which everyone knew would happen. This episode makes an attempt to trick the audience into thinking that this intuition was wrong, and exchanges it for another one: Of course the ninja will win. So it can make two cliché answers both true at once.

 

Doesn’t Fangpyre venom terraform metal anyway? And why did the snakes attack the exact person who was programmed to defeat them, as opposed to the opposite? I suppose the correct ninja headed straight for the correct set of snakes, but I suspect PLOT might have been at work as well.

 

And I suppose the Anacondrai’s special power is turning invisible, which everyone seems to forget about. That could explain why that particular breed was so terrifying to the others: an invisible army of half of them could sneak up behind you while you were battling the other half. In yonder case, Pythor’s ability is not well emphasized, so when he does use it you forget that he has, and that he has a reason. It also doesn’t make sense for a leader to vanish much, which makes the whole thing ironic.

 

It’s also confusing because he could have used that power to have avoided being eaten by the Great Devourer in the first place, but it explains why he doesn’t appear after the Devourer is destroyed: invisibility. 

 

And the ninjas just got ninja’d.

 

Episode 12: Rise of the Great Devourer

 

A reminder that all stories are games of seconds, inches, and character mistakes.

 

“You’re now leaving Billund” sign lol.

 

And many people have rightly pointed out that the ninja forgot about their weapons that turn into vehicles. So they did.

 

Episode 13: Day of the Great Devourer

 

As you might expect, this is one long “RUN! FIGHT!” episode. If the golden weapons can turn into vehicles, I imagine that all four can turn into one, and Garmadon used that. Or he used the Earth scythe to tunnel into the ground and used the subway system to walk out.

 

Kai gets a comeback in here: he’s rallying the team, even when everyone else wants to give up, which is him not being wrong like he has been all season. In the end, they need Kai.

 

As for the fight, it’s splendidly executed, and we all really wanted to see a fight at this point.

 

Final Thoughts

 

This honestly is my favorite season of Ninjago, since it contains the largest amount of mystery and character development. Three mysteries were set up and resolved, the main antagonists remained convincingly evil and dangerous. Other surprising reveals developed Lloyd from an ineffective antagonist (he caused lots of trouble, but he didn’t really get what he wanted) to an uncertain being on the side of good.

 

Lord Garmadon (as is typical for Lego) was developed quite strongly as well, moving from an enigmatic force of darkness to a villain sympathetic to the audience. And the ninja all get developed out in spades, especially Zane…and Kai. Every single character in the story has changed by the end, except for the snakes, and nobody really cares too much about them. (Lego gets major points for concentrating the focus and development bits on Scales and Pythor, smoothly avoiding the “too many characters” problem.)The Great Devourer is destroyed, of course, but other than that.

 

Because of this, season 2 strikes me as the entire series’ high point. While the seasons following aren’t necessarily bad, they tend to be patched together, have episodes clearly meant as filler, or more forced.

[Aanchir]

Interesting analysis. My thoughts:

• I don't think Sensei Wu's information about samurai was completely made up. Even though Nya is the only samurai we see in the series (not counting the stone army), it's entirely possible that at one point in Ninjago's history there were more Samurai.

  .

• I believe the trees in "Tick Tock" are supposed to be birch, not aspen, since the location in that episode is known as the "Birchwood Forest".

  .

• I wouldn't call Jay a womanizer. His flirting, after all, is painfully awkward and desperate. Even though he's clearly looking for love, romance is not something that comes naturally to him or that he's particularly good at. I also think you've overlooked one of the episode's key themes, which is that you should be honest with the people you care about. This is about as integral to Jay's character as Zane's mysterious past is to his — a lot of Jay's biggest conflicts involve him trying to hide things he's ashamed of from other people, whether it's his humble origins growing up in a junkyard, or his embarrassingly affectionate parents, or in this case his careless accident with the Fangpyre skeleton. And Nya is not immune to this either — keeping her identity as the samurai a secret between her and Kai, and not even telling Jay about the Serpentine threat at the amusement park, makes fighting the Serpentine a lot more difficult for everyone.

  .

• I don't find Jay annoying at all, but then again, I'm apparently a lot less easily annoyed by fictional characters than a lot of people — I wasn't annoyed by Surge or Kiina either. You do have to keep in mind that a loud and exuberant "class clown" character like any of these is often compensating for insecurities of their own.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Aanchir

[Toa Green Ninja]

This is still my favorite season of the TV series, primarily because I see the Serpentine as such fantastic antagonists. And, you did a great job reviewing it!

[randomreviewerbros]

This is still by far my favorite season, such a great plot and exciting episodes!

[Nidhiki of the Shadows]

Huh, I am actually kind of tempted to watch this show now, reading this analysis. Actually sounds really good. Didn't expect it to have so much depth so colour me surprised. The line never really captured my interest but from the sounds of it the foundations of storytelling from Bionicle are much more improved here.

 

I was also surprised to see how many episodes both this and Chima has. Very impressive.

 

 

-NotS

[Aanchir]

Huh, I am actually kind of tempted to watch this show now, reading this analysis. Actually sounds really good. Didn't expect it to have so much depth so colour me surprised. The line never really captured my interest but from the sounds of it the foundations of storytelling from Bionicle are much more improved here.

 

I was also surprised to see how many episodes both this and Chima has. Very impressive.

 

-NotS

Yep, the LEGO Ninjago TV show tends to be really good, especially by LEGO standards. And it's a full TV series, unlike the miniseries/TV specials that Hero Factory got. It's a big part of why the theme has been so successful, and a big part of the reason why I have such high hopes for BIONICLE's return. Despite what some people think, the LEGO Group can definitely still tell stories that appeal to kids without "dumbing them down".

 

I think the original TV special (Way of the Ninja/King of Shadows) and the first two seasons of the show are on Netflix and some other streaming services if you ever want to get caught up!

[fishers64]

They're all online too. If you want to pay for them, they made iTunes...

Edited October 25, 2014 by -Windrider-

[Torchbearer]

First of all, hardly Season 2. Season 2 was the entirety of Episodes 1-26.

Anyway...

Your comments on Episode 1:

Sensei Wu never stated none of them were the Green Ninja; he stated that none of them were near the level of the Green Ninja, and later stated that none of them would be the Green Ninja if they did not train. It was not an off-handed demoralization statement, otherwise it makes the next 9 episodes completely bogus over the fighting about who would be the Green Ninja. What Sensei Wu was saying is that they needed to train. Whoever came out as the best ninja would logically be the Green Ninja.

Your comments on Episode 2: Nothing I can comment on.

Your comments on Episode 3: Nothing I can comment on.

Your comments on Episode 4: Look, Zane isn't just a robot. If Zane was a simple robot, he would have no creativity (aka no great cooking ability), or emotions. Zane has been shown, even when he was more robot-y in the first episodes, to have emotions, etc. A love interest in PIXAL would be impossible if he wasn't human-like, and I'm well aware they retconned the whole "dream" thing in Child's Play. But Zane can do a great number of things that humans can do, it's just that he needed to grow into them.

 

Also, it wasn't the Falcon sending him a message. There was no way for the Falcon to have known so many details of the Green Ninja, I would just attribute the entire ordeal to the whole "balance" thing NINJAGO has.

 

Finally, I've given up on even bothering to understand Season 2's plot with all the stupid retcons they made in Season 3. Great, now Skales believes in ANYTHING he hears off the street and the Serpentine risked destroying the planet just to scare people below ground to save them from the Golden Master. Gee, I wonder why THAT was a bad idea. According to the original lore, Pythor awakening the Devourer was to get revenge on humans for trapping the Serpentine below ground, and thought that the Devourer was smart enough to accept Pythor as its leader but dumb enough not to question him. Fortunately, it was dumber than a bag of rocks.

 

Your Comments on Episode 5: Samurai probably existed in NINJAGO at some point anyway. Otherwise no one would have known what Nya was and forever more she would be known as Santa.

 

Your Comments on Episode 6: That's not True Potential. Hard to explain, but you'll have to trust me on this.

Your Comments on Episode 7: Jay's kind of dropped the whole "inventor" thing. They literally brought back a dead man to replace Jay with his, then killed him off again and brought in a second-hand Steve Jobs

Also, what reason would there be to have a door lock? Anyone who went into the forest would have likely been killed by the Treehorns, and if not the Treehorns then the Juggernaut.

 

Your Comments on Episode 8: No comment.

Your Comments on Episode 9: Eh, no comment

Your Comments on Episode 10: Kai didn't "know" he was wrong, he realized in the middle of the situation from seeing the need to help Lloyd.

Your Comments on Episode 11: Turning invisible wouldn't have saved him. At best, he could have turned invisible and tried to get away from Wu. Also, why does everyone always think that knee-jerk common-sense reactions are going to happen at every moment? Giant freaking snake just came up out of the ground, are you going to be pooping your pants or coming up with sane ways to react to this?

Your Comments on Episode 12: That sign said "Badlands" not Billund. At least, in my copy of the DVD it does.

Your Comments on Episode 13: No comment.

 

Good review, but you might want to fact-check next time.

[Aanchir]

First of all, hardly Season 2. Season 2 was the entirety of Episodes 1-26.

Not in the United States.

 

Technically, in Europe (and maybe also Asia?), Season One was the original two-episode TV special, and Season Two was episodes 1–26. But in the United States, the original TV special is not considered a part of any season, Season One is episodes 1–13, and Season Two is episodes 14–26. Episodes 27–34 are considered Season Three worldwide.

 

But because it took so long for the fan community (including me) to figure out the numbering differences between the United States and the rest of the world, a lot of sites including IMDB have an odd fusion of the American and international season numbering, in that they consider the original TV special Season One but also break episodes 1–26 into two seasons. It's a real puzzle, for sure.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Aanchir

[Torchbearer]

 

First of all, hardly Season 2. Season 2 was the entirety of Episodes 1-26.

Not in the United States.

 

Technically, in Europe (and maybe also Asia?), Season One was the original two-episode TV special, and Season Two was episodes 1–26. But in the United States, the original TV special is not considered a part of any season, Season One is episodes 1–13, and Season Two is episodes 14–26. Episodes 27–34 are considered Season Three worldwide.

 

But because it took so long for the fan community (including me) to figure out the numbering differences between the United States and the rest of the world, a lot of sites including IMDB have an odd fusion of the American and international season numbering, in that they consider the original TV special Season One but also break episodes 1–26 into two seasons. It's a real puzzle, for sure.

 

IMDB also lists fan episodes as real episodes. But anyway, at least from now on we won't have to deal with the weird numbering of seasons.

[Aanchir]

IMDB also lists fan episodes as real episodes. But anyway, at least from now on we won't have to deal with the weird numbering of seasons.

Well, like Wikipedia, IMDB is community-edited, so it's prone to that kind of issue, at least when it comes to "niche interest" shows like the various LEGO shows. Hero Factory got it particularly bad for a while.

 

But anyway, I agree! Here's hoping the makers of LEGO Ninjago don't screw with us again in future seasons, and continue to number them the same in all markets.

[fishers64]

Okay, you all would know better than I on the numbering. I watched all of these episodes online after they aired, so I don't know all the intricacies. I just needed something that would make sense for these reviews. 
 

Sensei Wu never stated none of them were the Green Ninja; he stated that none of them were near the level of the Green Ninja, and later stated that none of them would be the Green Ninja if they did not train. It was not an off-handed demoralization statement, otherwise it makes the next 9 episodes completely bogus over the fighting about who would be the Green Ninja. What Sensei Wu was saying is that they needed to train. Whoever came out as the best ninja would logically be the Green Ninja.

Erm, he says "none of you", then turns into the speech about training and power levels. Hindsight being 20/20, it counts as a slip of the tongue IMO. Now you can disagree on that if you like - it's not really a big deal.  
 

Look, Zane isn't just a robot. If Zane was a simple robot, he would have no creativity (aka no great cooking ability), or emotions. Zane has been shown, even when he was more robot-y in the first episodes, to have emotions, etc. A love interest in PIXAL would be impossible if he wasn't human-like, and I'm well aware they retconned the whole "dream" thing in Child's Play. But Zane can do a great number of things that humans can do, it's just that he needed to grow into them.

They retconned it? What?

Finally, I've given up on even bothering to understand Season 2's plot with all the stupid retcons they made in Season 3. Great, now Skales believes in ANYTHING he hears off the street and the Serpentine risked destroying the planet just to scare people below ground to save them from the Golden Master.

I don't understand. Stuff from season 2 was retconned in 3? If they did retcon something, I didn't notice it, which IMO is a good thing - the show is polished enough so if there was a retcon or two, it flew under my radar.

And I don't know how the first episode of season 3 proves that Scales believes anything he hears off the street. And the latter stuff about the Golden Master is in season 4, not 3.
 

Your Comments on Episode 5: Samurai probably existed in NINJAGO at some point anyway. Otherwise no one would have known what Nya was and forever more she would be known as Santa.

I'm not sure why a fictional male character from our universe would have anything to do with Nya.
 

Your Comments on Episode 6: That's not True Potential. Hard to explain, but you'll have to trust me on this.

If you can't explain it, I don't trust you.
 

Also, what reason would there be to have a door lock? Anyone who went into the forest would have likely been killed by the Treehorns, and if not the Treehorns then the Juggernaut.

Yes, but a reasonably secure door lock would have been cheaper and easier to design.
 

Your Comments on Episode 11: Turning invisible wouldn't have saved him. At best, he could have turned invisible and tried to get away from Wu.

I'm referring to after the Great Devourer was defeated and Wu was found alive. No one saw white Pythor slither away. Invisibility is likely why.

Also, why does everyone always think that knee-jerk common-sense reactions are going to happen at every moment? Giant freaking snake just came up out of the ground, are you going to be pooping your pants or coming up with sane ways to react to this?

Don't look at me, I 100% agree.
 

Your Comments on Episode 12: That sign said "Badlands" not Billund. At least, in my copy of the DVD it does.
 
Good review, but you might want to fact-check next time.

I do my best.

[Torchbearer]

• No he doesn't. Go watch it. He says "None of you, if you don't unlock your full potential"after Kai told Sensei they wanted to know who the Green Ninja was. Unless I'm mistaken, "none of you, if you don't" would imply there was a chance that one of them would be the Green Ninja. Of course, this was retconned into oblivion (like everything else!) by the idea that putting the Golden Weapons in front of any random person would reveal the Green Ninja.

The big massive retcon that came as a massive slap to the face for anyone that seriously followed the NINJAGO plot, the one that made a complete mockery of the Serpentine, erased an entire season's worth of content to an idiotic misunderstanding that made all the serpentine look like babyish idiots led by Pythor. The retcon of the Serpentine being warmongering tribes, now they believe in any fairytale they come across (INCLUDING Skales, which is completely out of character) that were never previously mentioned. It's far too late to be elaborating on back-stories, especially when you make dumb retcons like the Serpentine locking themselves underground (and in Pythor's case, with no food!)

If you didn't notice it, I don't think you've been paying very much attention (not trying to insult you here). There's been far too many of them, subtle ones but ones that the instant the tiniest bit of critical thought is applied it rips the entire continuum apart. I've given up trying to understand why they do it when there are far better ways of introducing new concepts without breaking the lore.

Kai called Nya when he first saw her as Samurai X as Santa. He later changed his mind and made Nya out to be a giant robot with weapons everywhere   Venomari Venom is a great excuse to do funny stuff, and the plot doesn't break at all because of the nature of it.

True Potential requires an Elemental Weapon. True Potential is when one is completely at peace with themselves, and this unlocks their full abilities. The Golden Weapons had a concept of ownership, while Garmadon was using them to destroy the Devourer they still belonged to the ninja because they were "on loan", so to speak. When Garmadon took off with them, he then stole them and more or less acted as if he owned them, so thus the ninja's powers disappeared. This means that one cannot unlock their true potential without a Golden Weapon, they can come close, but they don't unlock the awesome form that is True Potential/NRG. Comments from the ninja on Zane unlocking his true potential confirm this, as for Kai and Cole.

It probably did have a lock. But why lock it? Julien was dying, Zane needed to get out without discovering that there was a dead person, and it's not as if a Treehorn can fit through a door. Juggernaut kills everything except ninja. So if it did have a lock, why even bother using it, especially when you're about to die? And even if it was locked, Samukai fixed that, and after seeing the Skull Motorbike blueprints I doubt anyone from the Skeleton Army would be capable of relocking it.

Can't disagree with you there.

[fishers64]

The big massive retcon that came as a massive slap to the face for anyone that seriously followed the NINJAGO plot, the one that made a complete mockery of the Serpentine, erased an entire season's worth of content to an idiotic misunderstanding that made all the serpentine look like babyish idiots led by Pythor. The retcon of the Serpentine being warmongering tribes, now they believe in any fairytale they come across (INCLUDING Skales, which is completely out of character) that were never previously mentioned. It's far too late to be elaborating on back-stories, especially when you make dumb retcons like the Serpentine locking themselves underground (and in Pythor's case, with no food!)

I accounted this to a perspective difference between the Serpentine and the surface dwellers. The snakes are villains, remember, and most villains have lies to justify their actions in one way or another. This one just happens to be handed down for a few generations.

 

And it doesn't make the snakes look like they are blindly following Pythor. Quite the opposite, actually - they think that they have a reason behind what they do.

 

If you didn't notice it, I don't think you've been paying very much attention (not trying to insult you here). There's been far too many of them, subtle ones but ones that the instant the tiniest bit of critical thought is applied it rips the entire continuum apart. I've given up trying to understand why they do it when there are far better ways of introducing new concepts without breaking the lore.

To be fair, I don't purposefully look for retcons or flaws when watching TV shows. I only point out flaws if they become evident above my efforts to logically justify them in-story.

 

True Potential requires an Elemental Weapon. True Potential is when one is completely at peace with themselves, and this unlocks their full abilities. The Golden Weapons had a concept of ownership, while Garmadon was using them to destroy the Devourer they still belonged to the ninja because they were "on loan", so to speak. When Garmadon took off with them, he then stole them and more or less acted as if he owned them, so thus the ninja's powers disappeared. This means that one cannot unlock their true potential without a Golden Weapon, they can come close, but they don't unlock the awesome form that is True Potential/NRG. Comments from the ninja on Zane unlocking his true potential confirm this, as for Kai and Cole.

I'll say that this is at least a decent theory. However, being at peace with oneself can happen regardless of whether one has a golden weapon, I would think. Otherwise the ninja would be dependent on the weapons for inner peace, and I don't like that idea much.

 

I like the "concept of ownership" idea for the Golden Weapons, though.

 

And fair point about the lock. That is why I ask a question; now I have the answer.