Now then comic book fans you'll know that i've already reviewed the original X-Men animated series and well I found out that the series had a pilot episode. This episode is infamous for alot of creative choices especially what accent they give to the ever popular Wolverine but i'll get into that later on in the review because trust me I have alot of thoughts on this so here is my review of Pryde of the X-Men.
The plot of the pilot is Magneto is broken out of prison and somehow tries to take over the world. Yeah the plot of this episode isn't it's strongest suit in fact there's alot about this episode which isn't good. Not helping the plot is the fact that it's so freaking rushed I get that this is a pilot episode and thus they wouldn't know if they were getting more episodes but it would have helped if they picked a story which would fit in perfectly with a twenty two minuet time frame the story they go with here is better suited to being a two or three part episode.
Starring in the pilot is a young Kath Soucie as Kitty Pryde , Alexandra Stoddart as Dazzler , Michael Bell as Cyclops , Andi Chapman as Storm , Ronald Gans as Juggernaut , Alan Oppenheimer as Blob , Neil Ross as Nightcrawler , Earl Boen as Magneto , Pat Fraley as Pyro , Dan Gilvezan as Colossus , Patrick Pinney as Wolverine , Susan Silo as Emma Frost , Fred Flintstones boss Mr. Slate as Professor X and Frank Welker as Toad and Lockheed.
How do I describe the acting in this pilot they got alot of good actors infact alot of them are voice acting legends but tho there not given much to do. The same thing can also be said for the rest of the actors there acting isn't that bad but it could have been better and alot of that comes down to the script I honestly feel that if the script was better then the acting would have been better.
Now let's talk about something that this pilot is infamous for even tho it wasn't first done in this pilot and that's the fact that they give Wolverine who is Canadian an Australian accent. Now this was done because among many things the success of Crocodile Dundee but it doesn't make sense since the character like I said is Canadian so why they chose to make this change is beyond me heck even when the show was in product the Australian fad was dying out anyway.
Now like the animated series this series uses a new mutant to introduce the rest of the crew in this case it's Kitty Pryde. This honestly isn't a bad idea since it's a good way to introduce all the characters in a short amount of time but tho the difference is in the animated series Jubliee wasn't an annoying character Kitty or at least this version of her spends a good amount of the episode whining about anything and everything I honestly just wanted her to shut up for a few minuets.
Now this is something that will please fans of Dragonball and Sailor Moon but the animation for this pilot was done by the great Toei Animation. For a pilot the animation is honestly really good in fact i'd say it's the best part of the whole pilot and alot of that comes from the fact that the budget for the animation was pretty freaking high so they put in alot of effort into making the animation look good it's just a shame that they didn't do that for the rest of the pilot.
This pilot also has narration from the late and great Stan Lee and as much as I love me some Stan Lee he just wasn't needed in this pilot. I don't even know why they chose to have him act as the episodes narrator since it's only twenty two minuets long and there's not that much story so it would be pointless to have him in the episode at least in my opinion.
One thing that was very apparent all throughout the pilot is the fact that it seems alot more dumbed down when compared to the more mature X-Men The Animated Series. On the one hand I can see why I chose to make this more for kids since that's where cartoons where when this thing came out in 1989 but on the other hand by making it more geared towards kids they also ignore some of the more mature undertones that the franchise is known for.
Another change that was made in the pilot is the opening and the opening theme song in my opinion the theme song in the actual series is far better but tho the theme used in this episode isn't that bad. Don't get me wrong it's still pretty bad because it doesn't get you excited for the show at all if anything it feels like a generic 80's kids action show theme and not something worthy of the X-Men so i'm glad that they changed it when the series was eventually made.
Also feeling pretty dumbed down is the action I know that that's a weird thing to say but I say it because of the fact that alot of the time during an action scene when someone goes to throw a punch they'll cut away for no reason. By doing that it makes it hard for me to fully judge the action since you can barely see it and for some reason the show thinks that Cyclops's powers can work through a helmet which if you've read even a single issue of the X-Men comic books or even seen one episode of the animated series you'll know that that's not the case.
Overall in terms of how pilots go this is very rough around the edges you can see where the series would have gone if it was picked up which as well know wouldn't happen with this pilot. That said however it's only something i'd recommend watching if you want tot see what the X-Men animated series could have looked like and so this pilot gets a 5 out of 10 from me.