Ultraman Episode #23: My Home is Earth
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:43 amThe Basics: An international peace conference is disrupted by a mysterious menace.
The Plot: One of the more serious episodes. The main moral dilemma here is that Jamila is an altered human seemingly driven mad by his transformation. While the basic idea of the plot is sound, in execution is kind of goes all over the place and never really lets the viewer think too much about all the possible implications of this scenario. That said...it's still a strong episode in terms of plot. It does suffer from a strong case of "lack of hows and whys", but it doesn't hurt this one as much as other episodes.
The Kaiju: I really don't like Jamila much. The static eyes ruins a lot of potential in terms of adding life to the creature. He's kind of goofy looking and has a really annoying roar. And its weakness is water....really? It sucked in Signs and it sucks here.
The Acting: Stronger than usual, but of course needed for the tone of this episode. Ide is particularly good...though some of his lines of dialogue seem totally out of place...like that bit at the end.
The SPFX: Generally good, with the exception of the Jamila costume...which suffered from the inexpressive eyes. The spaceship is nothing to write home about, but adequate. I liked the idea of invisibility due to speed.
The Other Stuff: Well...of course..Jamila is the biggest mystery..how the heck did he survive and get back to earth? I'd say aliens, but that's not quite clear....though that saucer he flew in isn't standard astronaut issue. If he somehow made that thing from scratch and got back to earth, he'd have to be a scientific genius, which the episode doesn't support. And what evidence does the Patrol have to think Jamila can't stand water? And for that matter...why does water kill him? If it has an acidic effect that'd be one thing, but the end of the episode has Ultraman basically super soaking him to death. And why is Ide upset at politicians at the end of the episode when it's clear that they had a hand in the creation of the monument to Jamila? Since the episode clearly states that what happened to Jamila was an accident, why would Ide be placing blame on anyone? Just odd dialogue at the end there...
The Plot: One of the more serious episodes. The main moral dilemma here is that Jamila is an altered human seemingly driven mad by his transformation. While the basic idea of the plot is sound, in execution is kind of goes all over the place and never really lets the viewer think too much about all the possible implications of this scenario. That said...it's still a strong episode in terms of plot. It does suffer from a strong case of "lack of hows and whys", but it doesn't hurt this one as much as other episodes.
The Kaiju: I really don't like Jamila much. The static eyes ruins a lot of potential in terms of adding life to the creature. He's kind of goofy looking and has a really annoying roar. And its weakness is water....really? It sucked in Signs and it sucks here.
The Acting: Stronger than usual, but of course needed for the tone of this episode. Ide is particularly good...though some of his lines of dialogue seem totally out of place...like that bit at the end.
The SPFX: Generally good, with the exception of the Jamila costume...which suffered from the inexpressive eyes. The spaceship is nothing to write home about, but adequate. I liked the idea of invisibility due to speed.
The Other Stuff: Well...of course..Jamila is the biggest mystery..how the heck did he survive and get back to earth? I'd say aliens, but that's not quite clear....though that saucer he flew in isn't standard astronaut issue. If he somehow made that thing from scratch and got back to earth, he'd have to be a scientific genius, which the episode doesn't support. And what evidence does the Patrol have to think Jamila can't stand water? And for that matter...why does water kill him? If it has an acidic effect that'd be one thing, but the end of the episode has Ultraman basically super soaking him to death. And why is Ide upset at politicians at the end of the episode when it's clear that they had a hand in the creation of the monument to Jamila? Since the episode clearly states that what happened to Jamila was an accident, why would Ide be placing blame on anyone? Just odd dialogue at the end there...
