Earlier, I mentioned that Netflix had kicked off the interactive film genre with Puss In Boots: Trapped In An Epic Tale.
I loved the spin-off Puss In Boots movie, which gave me hope that it’s still possible to make the main Shrek movies good again. I have not watched the Puss In Boots Netflix show that this movie falls in line with, so will it entice me to tune in?
The first thing I’ve noticed, not having any familiarity to the show, is that no one’s role was reprised. Instead, everyone is voiced by a cast who does children’s animation as a tradition. Compared to even Dreamworks Trollhunters and the How To Train Your Dragon TV Series, the animation here is cheap as heck.
Textures are flat in areas that aren’t in some of Dreamworks. The fur on Puss-In-Boots does not look like it was naturally attached to the body, almost like a drafted test run to an animation build that’s almost half-way completion. Being that this isn’t running at 60 frames per second actually hurts the animation here much further.
I can sort of let that slideas the target audience for this show tends to be the extremely young crowd, ones who won’t remember this show as they get older.
It doesn’t do a bad job of who it’s set out to entertain, just being that Puss-In-Boots movie was great for all ages feels kind of a letdown at least for me to see a degrading setback. The story-telling though doesn’t help.
Puss In Boots claims valuable treasure from a gang of bandits, only to find a magical book inside that sucks him into the story once open. Boots is then confronted by the voice of a story narrator who tells him that the only way to escape the book is to find an ending to this ever-branching story.
This screenshot above was the most intriguing part to this 53 minute maximum custom TV episode. Frequently having the option to choose which path to follow onto the next scene, leading up to multiple endings is a novel idea that at least functions smoothly.
I really love what Netflix is doing with this concept, but for the first go at it, it’s just a demo. When you get right down to the story and humor, there’s nothing going on. Each choice you decide is one random gag after another, all of which could only be fun and funny to an extremely young demographic.
And if you were curious as to why this narrator constantly tries to torment Boots, you will have to hope that the choices you’ve made lead to that ending. You can go back and try different choices that you haven’t seen once completion, but it’s almost like why bother if you are older than 6 years old?
All of the endings are tiring and predictable as heck. I am slightly offended too because there was a choice I made where Boots had to go beastiality on a woman who looks like a cheap Maya model of one of my dear buds in real life, while this ugly-looking show tries to dub her the ugly chick.
That leads to another point, these viewer-driven choices are kinda BS. I’ve had a choice where Puss-In-Boots could have been the coolest Genie ever, but the narrator has to suck up to Boots whining and puts you on a scripted path so there’s hardly any coniqunces here.
What do I know? I’m a 22-year-old man watching what is pretty much this generation’s Aladdin show. It’s made to milk off of the Puss-In-Boots film’s success, much like the rest of the show probably is.
I could say that this is fine for the little kids, but honestly, there’s a lot of stronger Netflix Originals for young audiences and Dreamworks has been pulling this shtik for most of their feature films. I’d wait for Buddy Thunderstruck next month to hopefully create a better interactive experience.
For now, their first go is a lazy one, nothing more than an interactive demo.
Pond's Press 