Ark: The Animated Series

I loved the idea of these people getting sent to this strange dinosaur filled island from all these time periods, but the show doesn't really do a lot with that idea. The bulk of the series seems to be focused on this native american group that I just didn't find very interesting for long. Loved the idea at first, but I think they should have included more interesting characters from different time periods and locations. I found myself staring at my phone and losing track of what was happening far too often. I think there is still potential there that the show could tap into, so I'm not going to give it a totally negative score, but I think after these first 6 episodes I don't plan to watch any more to find out. It's too bad, because I do think the animation is great, and I like that they seem to have attracted so many big name actors. Although maybe some of that money should have been spent on better writers.

Nor was I aware of the game until I read some of the reviews, though I have to wonder if many of the performers who are also producers are fans of the game?

Just as a tale, it comes over as a cross between "Lost" and the Jules Verne classic "Journey to the center of the Earth" (choose your own favorite version of that one ! ), adding in the sub plots of how each character died to get to this clone of the "Savage Land" from Marvel comics.

As an animated adventure, it's reasonably well told, enjoyable to watch, a little gruesome from the violence level, though there's some predictability to the plot.

There's sure to be plenty of hate for the choice of a female protagonist and standard 'older white male' antagonist, ignore it, these characters could be any gender or colour skin and still work.

There's the odd line of fan service in-joke dialog too.

Overall I think the 7 to 8 out of 10 rating is well earned (the 1's and 10's are clearly the outlier scores that don't match the curve. Haters gonna Hate, and all that stuff.

It'd be nice if there's a season 2 in the works, and not just the teaser.

If you liked any of the programs or stories that this references, you'll probably enjoy this one too.

At the time of writing, IMDB has only 3 reviews: 2 are 10/10 praising everything, and 1 is 1/10 with complains based mostly on the perceived show's agenda. I would say the latter is a bit more honest, although main character being a lesbian woman of color is definitely not something that detracts anything from this show. I would even say, that inclusivity in this scope was done right: it's simply neither here, nor their, which is the whole point of inclusivity, in my opinion.

The show has quite a few problems, that may not necessarily be because of the agenda, although I do see, why it may feel that that's the root cause. For example, that 1/10 review complained about white men being shown as villains. That is somewhat true: in the 1st episode we see, I think, 4 men, if counting those with lines, and 2 of them are definitely villains, with a goal to conquer. But you need to keep in mind, that they are from times and places, where this was kind of normal, especially, when talking about the Roman guy. Roman Empire would not be as big as it got to be, if there were no people like that.

The problem with these characters is that they are... Flat. It does not look like they have anything to them besides desire to conquer and dominate, and the desire is there just because, and not because of some deep reason. In fact, the Roman guy is also shown relatively stupid (albeit not a complete idiot), which kind of contradicts an image of an actual Roman conqueror. Those were smart, arguably had more smarts than brawn, often time resorting to politics rather than actual war, despite what Hollywood wants us to believe.

There was also a kid, which did not mean much, and a soldier from 1944. The soldier seemed to be the most interesting character, to be honest, because he was shown first as somewhat rude, but then also not as avert to kindness, too. I mean, he did try to help the girl, too, although did not get a chance to do that properly, partially to the fault of that girl.

That's where I do agree, that modern agenda may be taking over a bit. Not because strong female leads are bad, no, because this particular character just does not make sense. She tried to off herself, before she appeared on the island. She had no idea, what happened, where she was, what were the rules of this new world... Nothing. She sees a human, and the first thing she does is give him attitude towards his joke (or probably half-joke).

But maybe this was first reaction, due to stress? No, not really. She was giving attitude to everyone. Instead of being weary of people riding dinosaurs and shooting arrows, she behaved... Almost cocky. And she even tried to "poison" her captor right away, in order to run away, because... She likes dinosaurs.

Like, really, that's her main characteristic. The main thing, that in the end makes her say "I will survive", even though she intentionally took too many pills before this. I was a fan of dinosaurs when I was a kid, and I would be fascinated to see them up-close, but in her situation, I (and probably most humans) would first think of how to survive. And not try to domesticate creatures around me. Which, by the way, is not how things work. A wounded animal will not bond on you just because you pulled out an arrow out of its side. It will definitely not run back to you, while you're in a place with dangerous predators.

It's not just unrealistic behavior of both humans and animals, that makes this show mostly bad. It's pacing is all over the place: it started really fast, but then it slowed down to almost a crawl, and then suddenly became fast again, when it was a great time to give some more exposition. I guess creators wanted it to feel "edgy". Animation is also inconsistent in quality, relying heavily on blur in certain shots.

The storytelling is bad, too. It relies heavily on flashbacks, which are thrown into us in small chunks every few minutes of the episode. It would have made way more sense to show all those flashbacks in the beginning of the episode, all in one chunk, and then start the island story-arc. Something that's been proven to work time and time again with lots of isekai stories. This could have allowed for proper pacing, too.

In the end, I do not recommend this to anyone, really. Unless, maybe you want something running in the background, or you find main character so hot, you just can't resist. I get that, but for me it's not enough. I have lots of other stuff to check out.

I am on episode 6, and so far every main characters, you'll witnessed why they are whom they are, and why they act the way they do. I've seen worse story arch's than this one, is this one unbelievably good? In short no, but it captures that essence. It keeps my attention and i am looking forward for the rest. If you are a fan you will love this. As for Animation the art reminds me of the last air bender. Story doesn't seem weak in my perspective, how every i don't criticize as much as most do since i am not the one whom produced it, only played the video game, so taking a video game that sorta has a story background and turning it into an animation with induvial character's and stories is a feat itself, why i rated this a 9 is because little kid in me always loved dino's and experiencing ark video game and plus watching this gave me nostalgia. Worth the watch.

I wanted to learn about this world and - more importantly - what the heck was going on?? None of that got explored in the first half of the season, and instead we were incessantly fed political commentary that was as trite as it was overbearing.

The most interesting characters were Rockwell and Nervus; I was disappointed with the rest - especially with how much they stereotyped John and Meiyin Li. And Helena, oh boy, is easily one of the worst Mary Sue's I've ever seen. When you have a character like this, it would at least be appreciated if you quit putting them in peril all of the time - there's no suspense - and it takes up screen time that could be better utilized.

Interesting premise, underwhelmingly delivered. Beautiful animation (in later episodes) but that's not enough to hold someone's interest.

FYI, I played them game. I 'know' what's going on, but I do not see how anyone else can possibly hope to keep up.

5/10.