Pryde of the X-Men

Pryde of the X-Men is an interesting failure. On one hand, the animation is outstanding for its time. On the other hand, unless you already read the comic you wouldn't know what the heck was going on. And it's pretty gosh-darn stupid.

The animation, particularly the use of shadows and the particle effects, are impressive. I suspect Marvel had this animated in Japan, the style shows through. If not, the animators did a good job of emulating the efforts of most anime studios at the time. The characters all look cool and Wolvie has his brown costume (my favorite).

Unfortunately, nobody put much effort into cohering all those awesome battle scenes into a story. I mean, they didn't even try. There isn't a plot, things happen. Magneto escapes from the back of a tanker truck. Professor X introduces Kitty Pryde to the X-Men. Magneto and Juggernaut attack the X-Mansion. Not an X-Men fan? What I've typed got you a bit confused? Don't know who these people are or their relationships to one another? The cartoon won't help.

The script of a children's cartoon needn't be outstanding literature but it should at least put forth a minimum of effort into expounding on who everyone is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it. Take the more recent Fox X-Men series as an example. In the first episode, the X-Men save a little girl from the robots trying to capture her. You get to know everyone's name, their respective powers, and that they're the good guys. You get good action scenes and good exposition. Here, in Pryde of the X-Men, you get the X-Men yelling at a little girl and some other guys knocking over stuff while particle effects flash and swirl about the screen. Sure, it'll pique a kid's attention but after two or three episodes he's going to quit watching because he won't know what's going on. Yes, that does matter to children.

Perhaps the biggest failure of Pryde of the X-Men is the "subplot" (I wince at using any form of the word 'plot' in reference to this show) regarding Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is one ugly dude, he looks about like a cathedral gargoyle. Kitty is scared of him but later comes to realize that just because he's ugly doesn't mean he's evil. That's all fine and good IF HE WASN'T A TOTAL PERV! When he meets Kitty he reaches out to her (and I really hope this was unintentional on the animator's part) like he's going to grab at her breasts. He practically drools on her. Later, when he rescues a little girl from a fiery inferno (more particle effects!) he, well, puts his hands about her bum and her crotch. I remember that from when I was a kid, too. I wasn't scared of how he looked, I was afraid he grab me and talk soothingly to me while fondling my private parts. The way he acts, he's the last person you'd want your kids watching on a weekly basis. And his costume is apparently a red, v-shaped vest with nothing underneath. Brrrr.

All in all, good eye candy for its time but it lacks enough direction and coherence to keep even small children watching. That's probably why no one picked it up as a series. That and Wolverine's Aussie accent was really bad.

Pryde of the X-Men. Not the WORST ten dollars I ever spent... but it sure wasn't X-Men the Animated Series. Putting together a good team wasn't enough to make this 25 minute cartoon a decent one. Staring, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Dazzler (yeah!), and the newcomer Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat), the X-Men go off to face Magneto, and attempt to stop him and his brotherhood from allowing a comet to strike Earth. While the movie flows very well, I just didn't think it had enough... "pizazz" to make it a truley interesting cartoon. For one, the characters were way underused. Cyclops, Storm, and Dazzler (yeah!!), each had about 4 lines. At least they didn't mention Cyke's family, Storm being a goddess, or Dazzler's music career, otherwise people'd be lost.

Animation was good in this -- almost had a manga feel to it, and when Dazzler used her powers it looked very cool. The voice talents were kind of thrown... Wolverine had an AUSSIE accent *shakes head*, Dazz sounded like a schoolgirl, and Colossus just sounded funny. Another bad thing is the fact Nightcrawler's costume was the same color of his skin. Heh... not all too plesant when you think about it.

The Brotherhood fight scenes were probably the worst parts of this movie . You know what I mean, that "one person takes on one guy instead of the whole team knocking him senseless in one strike". Dazzler takes on Pyro, team goes on. Wolverine TRAPS Toad (and for some reason stays behind), team goes on. Colossus takes on Juggernaut, team goes on! See the pattern? Although the beginning scene where the White Queen takes on the soldiers was a very cool scene. Have to give credit for that.

So basically, this movie doesn't have much to offer -- except if you're a BIG Shadowcat or Dazzler (yeah!!) fan like myself. But if you're a Dazzler fan, don't expect a great performance... and if you're a Kitty fan, expect to hear her whine like Kath Souice 's (voice talent of Kitty) Phil and Lil of the Rugrats.

Considering how old this is, Pryde of the X-men is not too bad. Particularly, the animation and artwork are at least as good, if not better, than the 90s animated series. The style of the art is actually quite faithful to the comic books. The voice acting was okay though the voice casting was a bit liberal; many of us have simply grown so used to the voice acting of the 90s cartoon that anything different seems odd, and even more recently we've been spoiled by fantastic actors like Patrick Stewart in the movies. The only bizarre (and arguably wrong) voice was Wolverine, who for some odd reason has an Australian accent.

Otherwise, the biggest weakness is the relatively weak plot and script. The plot seems rushed and a bit ambitious(the show is only 20 minutes), though it's hard to say what the creators' intentions were since this was the only episode made. All in all, Pryde of the X-men is a good watch for X-men fans, especially fans of the 70s and 80s rosters.

This one time deal left something to be desired. I remember this show coming on during the Marvel Action Hour with Robocop, Dino Riders, and something else, possibly Spiderman. X-men was made by Sunbow, the powerhouse of the 80's, so the voices were some of the same people heard in GI Joe. The story of is fast paced and reads like a comic strip with action left and right. The black bird looks better than the recent futuristic versions out there. They also stay very close to the comic unlike other versions. This one timer was probably just to promote the video game, but it should have been a series. Who knows what would've happened if it was a series, it sure would have been better than the newer versions now.

Why does everyone seem to hate this? Sure, the story was 100% generic, but it was definitely watchable. While the Saban cartoon that followed it around four years later was much more complex story-wise, its animation couldn't hold a candle to this one. If they were somehow able to combine this cartoon's animation with the stories of the show that came after this, we would have had a GREAT series.