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Fleeing an attack on her home planet by the warriors of
the Beast Planet, Princess Tekla crash-lands her small starship
on the Planet Ice, arriving barely in time to warn the ruler
of the planet, King Cryos, of the imminent danger posed by
the Beast Planet hordes. While on planet Ice Tekla meets Graveheart,
a humble but courageous miner from the Planet Rock, and the
two of them team up with King Cryos and vow to fight to protect
Planet Ice and the adjacent planets of Rock, Fire and Bone
from the Beast invasion. As the epic interplanetary battle
progresses, Tekla, Graveheart and Cryos are joined by a small
band of like-minded warriors determined to rid the once-peaceful
universe of the devastating threat to their galaxy...
Also
known as War Planets, the first season of Shadow
Raiders contains all 14 episodes on two discs. Anyone
thinking that this series looks, stylistically, a lot like
ReBoot will probably not be surprised to learn that
Shadow Raiders was created by the same company - Mainframe
Entertainment. Like ReBoot, this
series uses CGI animation to tell the epic tale of a small
band of diverse characters fighting against a common enemy.
There
are a lot of nods to Star Wars throughout this first
season - including a scene that borrows heavily from the attack
on the Death Star in Episode IV: A New Hope. There
is even a direct quote borrowed: "I can't shake 'em!"
There is also a ship that looks incredibly like the silver
ship from Episode I: The Phantom Menace as well as
some spacecraft that look a little too similar to Boba Fett's
Slave 1.
Each
of the first few episodes introduces the other planets and
rulers. Graveheart and Jade from planet Rock, Cryos and his
daughter from planet Ice, Pyrus from planet Fire and, my personal
favourite, Femur from planet Bone. Femur
is the ruler of planet Bone, and is a bit of a spineless character
who is out for himself. Like a short, fat Gremlin, he's the
one that is likely to do the wrong thing.
The
first four episodes rattle along at an okay pace, but the
introduction of each of the main planets does seem to take
its time. Episode 4, Bad to the Bone, sees the introduction
of the inhabitants of planet Bone and at long last some much
needed humour is injected into what was previously a rather
dry series.
I
thought it was interesting that the main hero is not actually
the ruler of his planet. Graveheart is just a lowly worker
on planet Rock. Oh, and while I remember... Is it just me?
Or does the ruler of planet Rock look like Lennin?
What's
interesting about this series is that at the start none of
these planet's get along. In fact, for centuries each race
has mined all of the other planets in order to steal their
resources. So, at the start of this series there is no real
bad guy (although the Beast are seen as the villains even
though they just do the same as the other planets in order
to survive.) - they'll all been pinching the resources of
each others planets.
Episode
6, Mind War, illustrates how our new main hero, Graveheart,
is actually a bit naff when it comes to making decision and
it is down to Cryos to step in and save the day. This episode
also sees Femur being tricked for the second time by one of
the Beast rulers. It was good that the writers hang him out
to dry for being so stupid.
In
episode 7, J, accuse, Graveheart's friend from planet
Rock is under suspicion for murder. The evidence is overwhelming,
but Graveheart defends her saying that Jade would only ever
kill in self-defence. However, in Mind War, she was
willing to kill Tekla in order to destroy the Beast woman
who had taken over her body. So it sounds to me like Jade
would indeed kill someone if it suited her.
Episode
11, Uneasy Hangs the Head, would have worked a little
better if it had been included a little earlier on. And, it
suffers from the fact that it includes quite a few clips from
previous episodes.
Bonus
extras include DVD-ROM content featuring the original shooting
script for each episode.
While,
on the whole, this series is enjoyable I did find that some
of the episodes didn't quite keep my attention and I ended
up nodding off on more than one occasion. But as entertainment
for the kids, this is pretty entertaining.
Nick
Smithosn
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