Season 9
Excalibur Vs. Raiden
Being a sponsored bonus episode coming almost immediately after a rather unexciting mid-season finale, Excalibur Vs. Raiden is simultaneously unique and easy to forget. Truth be told, I wish they took some notes from the more unique analyses we got here, but I'll talk about that another time. More notable for our purposes is that this was the first full-length fight DA did for the show. Despite the lukewarm discussion leading up to the episode, there was some excitement about that.
I remember the reception being positive, but not to any crazy extent, and my thoughts were of the same mold. Rewatching it again, that holds true. Really, the fight is most notable for being the only one where Wiz and Boomstick pull some dirty refereeing. That seemed to have a somewhat split reaction at the time, given it set a precedent for that happening in other fights. After the Macho Man Vs. Kool-Aid Man debacle, that was an understandable concern.
But with this being a bonus episode, off-the-cuff in-universe and a rare time where Wiz and Boomstick are really at each other's throats, I've always felt it was an entertaining scene. Its rare we see the in-universe mechanics of a fight simulation come into play, and it kinda helps the corpo episode feel less by-committee. To be honest, I'd like to see something like it happen at least one more time.
Bit of a tangent, but seriously, when else am I going to talk about this fight?
Looking at DA's work, it's an interesting outlier, and I mean that in a good way. The moment-to-moment moves are fairly detailed, yet the pacing and speed of both fighters continously escalate. Most of his battles lean on the former area, and I'd only say his last particularly emphasizes a fast flow. Excalibur Vs. Raiden feels exceptionally well-rounded on a techincal level, while still packing DA's usual strengths of using 3D space and absorbing camera-work.
Barring Raiden's trio of cringeworthy reference lines, my big gripe with this fight is how Excalibur gains the advantage and eventually wins. When Raiden first breaks his sword, a jetpack just flies in out of nowhere, and then Excalibur suddenly has Glaxion (the absolute-zero laser). Then Raiden breaks it again and stabs Excalibur, who seems screwed until The Lotus starts "surging" his power systems. This is treated as a pseudo-transformation with electric powers, but to my knowledge no-such thing happens in Warframe. If it does, they don't even hint at it during the analyses.
The final clash is shot well and backed by a good climax in the track, but structurally its completely off. Excalibur shoots Raiden's blade to freeze its rapid molecular cutting-power, which would allow him to finally chop through it. Instead, Excalibur just outspeeds Raiden's swing and doesn't get hit at all, despite DB saying Raiden had a slight speed advantage. The explanation also makes a big-deal about Warframe power levels being way higher than Raiden's and past what his High-Frequency Blade could reasonably cut through. Questionable logic aside, this fight doesn't show that reasoning at all. Raiden shatters Excalibur's sword, cuts through the shields fairly quick with Ripper Mode, gets another sword-break and then stabs him.
You could definitely argue a lot of these issues are more on the storyboarding, but DA is ultimately the guy animating them. The fight already changed a good-bit from the storyboards, so I can't ignore what are fairly glaring inconsistencies. Just because the fight isn't 1:1 with the research doesn't mean it should totally contradict it. Great action can only be so good when the writing doesn't add-up.
Score: 6/10
Michael Myers Vs. Jason Voorhees*
Oh boy...
This is the first 'drama' episode I have to cover. I'm gonna save that side of things for the end, and just talk about the fight we got first.
The set-up is really good. Crystal Lake on Halloween night is a wonderful setting-merger; I really wish the show did more like it. The PoV shot further absorbs you into the atmosphere; not quite being able to see the blade go into our first (on-screen) victim adds to the killer's inhumanity, and serves the more visible function of obscuring their identity. If you're paying attention, you'll realize we're in the Shatner mask and see the killing-motion is a lot more knife than machete. Whether its a surprise or not, Michael stealing Jason's kill adds a nice spice.
Once the combat starts...things go downhill. Michael moves like Naruto in the initial scuffle, which is out-of-place to begin with and even weirder considering he moves like usual immediately after. In general, the first conflict has janky movements and stabs without much impact, both visually and auditorily (barring the first when Jason gets pinned). Michael's chase of the next counselor is by-the-numbers, and not in a good way. That is, until he lands an axe swing and the guy somehow runs 15 mph to a car. Again, Michael doesn't feel like Michael.
Jason pulling the dude from his window is cool, and more importantly, nice payback for Michael's earlier kill-jack. Just as things pick up...we cut away to our final victim running, hiding, then obviously dying. Its a decent sequence in a vaccum, but completely kills the fight's momentum.
Jason and Michael's final battle and the kill are good, but only about half-a-minute each. In-total, the slashers fight for less than half the runtime. I don't really need to break it down any further than that. Spending some time for victim-chasing could have been cool, but the time wasn't managed well here. A fight that would otherwise have been at least decent falls firmly into the bad category.
Needless to say, a classic matchup that exists well-beyond the Death Battle sphere was fumbled. Thankfully, the community grew a spine on this one and let them know. I think people were often too harsh about the overall episode, but that's not the focus here. What I do have to bring up are the unfortunate production hurdles this one went through. Not too long after release, DA mentioned that in the midst of animating this fight, he had to deal with massive damage to his house and power outages from hurricane season, plus some heavy shit in his personal life.
The animation would've undoubtedly been better in ideal circumstances, but having looked at the storyboards for the first time to do this review, I was surprised to see how similar they were to the fight's structure. The lack of any major changes makes it fairly clear - as far as we can tell - that the production issues were squarely in the animation proccess itself, rather than the fight's general direction and format. And really, both of those latter areas are where the fight suffers most, and also the ones DA had a lot less control over.
These facets of the animation doen't erase its faults, but they do put a hefty asterisk on them.
Score: 4/10
*This one's in a weird spot regarding titling. Jason usually takes top-billing when discussing the matchup, but the Blumhouse trilogy led to Michael being more popular. The last film came out just a few weeks before this episode. Yeah, it was a let-down that didn't attract nearly as many eyes. What was Friday the 13th doing? Getting ready to announce a TV series that probably won't come out?
Season and Personal Average: 5/10
Season 10
Darth Vader Vs. Obito Uchiha
Star Wars Vs. Naruto: Electric Boogaloo. The only dedicated sequel episode among our lineup, though I'll mainly judge it on its own merits. This one was also the last fight to be shown at RTX, and nearly 2 minutes of the fight at that. Curiously, there was an added intro cut from the final episode. We see the Death Star orbiting Naruto's Earth and the moon under Infinite Tsukuyomi. I really wish they left it in; it adds some extra scale, and gives you a peek at the aftermath without confirming a winner. Either Naruearth is getting dusted, or Obito's got the Death Star under his control.
The first third is mainly just cool moments for Vader and Obito to flex their defenses; Vader powers through conventional assaults in typical fashion, Obito is able to let a lightsaber pass through him like it's nothing. Engaging, but it does feel like there could be more going on. The action picks up when we get the first mask break. Padme looks weird, but its very in-character for Obito to pick up on an emotional vulnerability and wedge it to gain an opening. Vader's retaliatory eye-crush - done with a very clenched fist - makes it clear things have gotten personal. Obito's melee combo looks pretty bad, but the Almighty Push Vs. Force Push clash does great with visuals and audio.
The Ten-Tails is extremely downsized, but its arm reaching above the cliffs and Vader staring down the Tailed Beast Bomb are both great moments, so I can mostly live with the scale weirdness. Said Bomb getting contained and then exploding also looks really cool...but what exactly happened there? Did Vader fail to control the explosion? If so, why does it get no-sold?
Ten-Tails Obito emerges with solid build-up, and we get a dynamic sword duel (Obito's staff cut stuff so it counts). The rotating camera spins at just the right rate; the viewer and Vader both just barely keep-up with Obito's rapid shifting of attack-angles. The lightsaber being able to clash with Truth-Seeking Orbs is another inaccuracy I can accept off artistic license. Again, rule of cool helps here.
Some stellar shading for Vader's eventual face reveal makes him really menacing, and his snap-Force Push on Obito is legitimately exhilirating. The TIE Fighter bit is goofy, but fun enough. Its weird that Vader gets a chokehold and doesn't really do much with it.
I've seen the kill get a decent bit of flack these days for being out-of-character. Realistically, yeah, Obito wouldn't kill Vader if he was in a dream world. I think most complaints on this are very hypocritical though. You could apply this to almost every face versus face episode, for instance, and that's rarely done. It's more just a byproduct of Death Battle's ruleset, so I really don't mind. Other than that, it's a unique kill done well. Kind of along the "showing respect" line, but in a way that actually makes sense, especially for a villain matchup.
The play-by-play should speak for itself; I think what we get is mostly good, with a few low-and-high points. My only big complaint is that we could've gotten a lot more to fill certain parts of the battle. For a longer fight - especially at the time - there's a good chunk where one or both fighters are standing around. It makes sense on each occasion, but there were some cool ability interactions we could've seen. Other than that, I like it. Reception for this one was similar to Obi-Wan Vs. Kakashi, and that goes for my opinion too...at least, for the standards I'm operating under. That one has similar highs animation-wise, but lags well-behind in writing quality.
Score: 6/10
Frieza Vs. Megatron
Refreshingly, there isn't a ton of context I have to mention when analyzing this one. The matchup and waiting period do have a lot of interesting history, but very little concerns the animation. There were some debates on the huge size difference and whether it would help or hurt the fight, a couple people saying DA's past experience animating Dragon Ball characters would help...that's about it.
Most of the opening since is dialogue-centric, but it does a surprisingly great job at establishing scope. The first shot sees Cybertron (and a fun locale drop) as the only notable sight until its blocked-out by Frieza's spaceship; handy metaphor for his goal and threat potential. Soon after, we get a few camera-cuts to Frieza and Megatron talking; they take-up most of the screen while floating in-front of their homes (Frieza's armada is basically a trailer park of doom). This is some really strong visual shorthand for what's at stake; each fighter's back is to their possession, and them consuming screen-space suggests they're very capable of destroying what the other holds. Special mention goes to the two sharp camera pulls we see with Frieza; the rapid acceleration paints him as the agressor in a striking way.
Frieza's supernova has great sound design when expanding, but the audio could've had more bass for it being launched. Hardly a big issue given Megatron is supposed to easily repel it - otherwise he'd have no chance against Frieza's transformations, even in animation land - but it's something that stood out to me even on the first-watch. Here's another pet-peeve I always had: Frieza transforms with his tail curled by his left leg. We cut to a close-up which mimics his FighterZ intro...including the tail curled around his right leg. Unless Megatron sat and watched him move it into position, it's a clear continuity error.
I know that was a lot for just the intro, but it's because I don't have much to say on the rest. Frieza's initial speedy assault on Megatron forces the latter to use his superior noggin (or chromedome), and it's decently fun to watch. Easily the best part is Frieza moving from background left to foreground right in an instant, then blurring out-of-frame to dodge Megatron's return mace-swing, and again to get behind him.
Problem is...this also makes the fight lose any tension. Megatron is decisively on the backfoot against Frieza before Golden even shows-up; briefly repelling him with a tank beam does nothing to convince you of his chances. Blasting himself towards the death ball and Frieza dragging the planet closer are awesome, but don't solve the underlying dilemma.
Thankfully, the climax does address what would otherwise be a crippling flaw. When Megatron realizes he can't outmuscle Frieza, he brings back some tactical accumen. After all, he saw the guy liked to talk, so let's keep him doing that, right? Just re-framing his dominance as a temper tantrum over lost forces buys time for the antimatter to get released. The ensuing fake-out almost got me and plenty of other people.
The death is good. Just mentioning that so I don't get asked about it.
And...that's Frieza Vs. Megatron. It gains some points for a strong opening and climax, loses some for about half of the fight lacking tension. Those pros and cons stood out to me more upon the re-watch, but this is the first one we've looked at where my opinion barely changed since release.
Score: 6/10
Season and Personal Average: 6/10
Let's call it here for now; I shouldn't have to explain that Season 11 brought a lot of changes to Death Battle, many of which are very relevant to DevilArtemis' work on the show. Talking about his episodes post-Kickstarter and my final thoughts will take-up the third-and-final part to this retrospective.
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