Rebooted (Suits)

The third season of Lego Ninjago introduces ... well, between two and four sets of robes, depending on how you count it. Look, let's just start with the robes we all agree count.

The first of these sets of suits would be the Techno robes, given to the ninja by Cyrus Borg in "The Surge" to protect them from the facial recognition software the Overlord had installed in all of Borg's machines and, presumably, the Nindroids.

Now, unlike any previous sets of gi, the appearance of these robes drastically differs from ninja to ninja, with only a single exception: Jay and Cole share the same "type" of robes, so to speak. Outside of these two, the only unifying feature of the Techno robes is their face mask, a feature shared with many other sets of robes the ninja wil wear in the feature. Being fully honest, I hate the fact that these suits look so different. If there were some kind of cohesive theming tying them together, such as the emblem of their Honor robes, dragon symbols on the Legacy robes, or straps of the Digi robes, or simply a general aesthetic like the Resistance or Island robes, they'd look much better. As things stand, however, they're just all over the place. Furthermore, the blank leg pieces even makes the individual robes less interesting to look at, particularly when contrasted with the overly detailed torsos. And why does Zane's robe place the emblem representing his heart on the wrong side of his chest? Lastly, there is the fact that Lloyd's robes, while reflecting his golden power, fail to represent the fact that he is the golden ninja at this point, not the green one. Full score? 1/10. They're that bad.

 

Now, the other set of robes, used during "The Titanium Ninja" by most of the time, but during all of Project Arcturus by Lloyd, is the Stone Armor.

Quite unlike the Techno robes, this suit goes hard! The simpler design, owing to a lack of leg printing, actually works on these robes, as the torso has a less intricate design. Really, it's just a piece of armor over a simple and unremarkable gi in each ninja's color, with only Zane standing out, as two extra straps across his chest hold the armor in place. Honestly, it just works. The grey beautifully contrasts the bright colors each ninja wears. These suits are clearly bulky, and the show acknowledges it. The entire point of the Stone Armor is to act as, well, armor. The sole complaint I have with them is that, once again, Cole is clad in the unappealing combination of grey and black he keeps ending up with. Unlike his previous robes, however, the shiny metal still stands out against his black gi, making it more appealing to look at than his ZX and elemental robes. Being fully honest, I think this set of robes deserves a perfect 10/10. It's a shame we never got to see them again ...

 

The next question is, do the golden versions of the Techno robes count? And what about the spacesuits? To settle this question, I am going to introduce three qualifications all sets of robes must pass, unless they exist in physical form, in which case they immediately qualify.

One: They must be meaningfully different from each other. Pallette swaps like the singing outfits from "The Royal Blacksmiths" still fulfill this requirement, the spacesuits do not, as only small the color of tiny dots on their chest is different.

Two: They must be worn outside of battle. The Stone Armor was still worn at Zane's funeral, for example, and the Techno robes were the default outfit for the first six episodes of this season. The golden versions of the Techno robes are only a brief power-up during a single battle, so they do not count.

And finally: They must not be a disguise. Think of the Stone Warrior disguises, or the musician outfits. Those do not count.

 

But, that tangent aside, let us tally up this season's score. 4 plus 1 plus 10 ... divide by three ... Oh, it's 5/10. Mediocrity! How wonderful! Certainly better than the score the season would have gotten without the Stone Armor. 

Rebooted (Season)

Season 3, huh? Alongside season 13, it has the second shortest runtime of all seasons, beaten only by season 10, which is more of a movie than a season. Still, as we'll come to see, Master of the Mountain managed to tell a solid story in the time it was given, so surely Rebooted must have fared similarly, no?

Well, that's ... debatable. When you ask people for their least favorite season of Ninjago, they'd usually answer with Hands of Time, Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu, or Crystalized. Some would also offer Skybound as a candidate, but that season has just as many defenders as detractors, making it more divisive than the other seasons, which are generally agreed to suck.

In my own humble opinion, however, Rebooted is the season that most earned the spot of "Worst Pre-Movie Season". I'll have to rewatch season 11 to see if it is worse, so I can't say it's the worst season of all just yet.

Now, you might ask yourself what this season has done to earn such heavy criticism. After all, it has Sensei Garmadon, who is more or less universally beloved, and Zane's death is deservedly considered to be one of the best sequences in the shows's history.

Tragically, I have to say that most of the characters feel out-of-character to the extreme, which is of course understandable, as it had been a year since the Hageman brothers last wrote for the show, but it is still very noticeable.

Jay, who was a dorky inventor that hid his pessimism and insecurities behind bad jokes was turned into a toxic and possessive jerk that's obsessed with Nya. While he already argued with Cole in the previous seasons, he has now come to genuinely hate the guy, even though they considered themselves brothers before. Any other aspects of Jay's personality have fallen to the wayside as soon as the love triangle plot began, and only the obsessive macho jerk remained, like a twisted parody of the boy we have come to love.

Cole, for his part, is less obessive and controlling than Jay when it comes to Nya, but still lost his caring and grounded personality, as he now engages in a childish feud with Jay, even when their lives are at stake. I'm more sympathetic to him, as Jay was the one who suddenly lashed out at Cole, but the old Cole would have attempted to settle the conflict, rather than escalating it.

Kai suddenly hates modern technology, which is very odd, but other than that he remained in character, which was actually very surprising to me. This had the side effect of making him into the most reasonable member of the group most of time, which was a very odd experience. By the time of the Project Arcturus, he's basically fully returned to his original personality, which was very welcome to me.

Zane is ... well, he's odd. And not in the sense he's intended to be. He is very close to his original personality, yes, but he's also more focused on his status as a robot. He is first fascinated by PIXAL because she is like him, and he frequently talks about probabilities or his mechanical body parts. This feels off to me, because the point of his True Potential was that it does not matter what his body is like, as he's still the same person. This makes it kind of strange that he initially falls in love with PIXAL due to her status as an android, when he should not care about such things. It is like Cole said in "Tick Tock", Zane is the same as his brothers, he just has more gears. Sadly, this season is the start of Zane being written ever more robotically, a trend which not only goes against his character arc, but also actively makes him less interesting.

I don't actually have a problem with Lloyd's characterization. He has little screentime compared to the other ninja, but the scenes we do get are consistent with what we have seen in the previous season.

Nya's character was mishandled particularly badly in this season, as she is reduced to a mere prize for Jay to win. Before, she was smart and confident, frequently being more effective at what she's doing than the ninja themselves, and her stubborness was both a strength and a flaw. Now, however, she constantly agonizes over whether she loves Jay or Cole and struggles to fight Nindroids even when she has her mech. Furthermore, Cryptor constantly talks down to her and belittles her ability as a fighter, but she never gets to prove him wrong and kick his ass. It feels almost like the Hageman brothers agree with Cryptor's gross comments? I know they probably don't, but that's why you need to pay attention to what you're writing!

Wu hardly appears due to spending most of the season in captivity or as an evil cyborg. When he is on the side of the ninja, he appears just as useless as before, however, so I suppose nothing really changed.

Pythor has also changed as a character, but that is a direct consequence of what happened to him, so I don't have a problem with him now prioritizing vengeance over conquering Ninjago himself. Yes, his season 1 version would have betrayed the Overlord, but he naturally progressed as a character, so I have no problem with it.

The Overlord is ... mostly the same. Hard to get a being of pure evil wrong, really. He seems weirdly obsessed with becoming the Golden Master, rather than just getting a body in general, but I suppose it makes sense he'd want to be strong enough to win against the ninja.

Now, there are some characters that stand out, those being Cyrus Borg, Sensei Garmadon, and PIXAL. All three of these characters are newly introduced, so there was no previous personality to contradict, which made them much more compelling than even the ninja.

Borg is perfect in the role of the haunted genius, having accidentally given the Overlord the perfect opportunity to return by building his tower at the site of the Final Battle. Throughout the season, he is determined to make up for his mistakes and help the ninja, despite the fact he is clearly terrified of the Overlord. After "The Surge", his body is permanently altered by the Overlord, which must surely be incredibly traumatic. His dream of technology solving all problems was twisted before his very eyes, and he was trapped in Borg Tower, a monument of his own foolishness, for years. Lee Tockar did a splendid job at portraying him.

Garmadon, aside from his odd characterization during the first half of Project Arcturus, deals with similar struggles as Borg. Just like the inventor, he too had lost sight of the balance in the past, leading to the Overlord being unleashed. Whenever he and Lloyd talk during their journey, his wisdom and love for his son become apparent immediately, but so does his stubborness. He fails to trust anyone but Lloyd, worried that they might seek to take the power of Creation for themselves. This distrust and stubborness are a natural result of his time as Lord Garmadon, who was the embodiment of all of Sensei Garmadon's fears.

Lastly, there is PIXAL. First, she was the Overlord's assistant, a role later claimed by Pythor. When Zane hacked her with his Techno Blade, she lost nearly all her personality and acted far more robotic than before. Despite this, her original personality occasionally came to the forefront, and by the time of Project Arcturus, she was back to her delightful polite yet sassy personality, making her more compelling. I cannot tell you what the actual reason behind these shifts is, but I have already discussed my theory in the individual reviews. I must say, however, that I consider her romance with Zane to be rushed and unneccessary. Perhaps cutting it out would have given us more scenes of her sassing the ninja. I would have loved that.

Lastly, there are the Nindroids ...

Now, I have never made it a secret that I consider them to be horribly disappointing. Due to the wak action scenes, they never seem like an actual threat, unlike the Stone Army the ninja faced one season earlier. Just think of how cool they could have been. They could have combined Zane's intelligence, Cole's strength, Jay's speed, Kai's agression and Lloyd's resillience Instead, we got Cryptor, the sexist and ableist arsehole that I wish Nadakhan would make disappear, and his band of disposable mooks. I will say, Min-droid was fun, simply because that guy got consistently beaten up and destroyed. 

With all major characters having been discussed, I think it's time I look at the plot. Or rather, at the plots. Because, honestly, it feels like this a five-episode season and a special, not one cohesive story.

Surprisingly, the quality of these stories is drastically different as well, to the point where I legitimately have to wonder if the first five episodes were even written by the Hageman brothers at all. The first arc can't even remember whether or not the ninja have elemental powers, and has two icky romance subplots, as PIXAL's consent is highly dubious and Jay, like Jacob from Twilight, suddenly turned into a possessive bastard during the third installment. At least there's no sexual assualt ...?

The third and fourth episode of this season are basically filler outside of Lloyd being captured, which makes things worse. You could jump from the power plant being destroyed to "Into the Digiverse", and not really miss anything.

Project Arcturus, meanwhile, is a tightly plotted story with a clear beginning and endpoint, and episodes that directly lead into each other. Only Nya, Jay and Cole are still majorly out of character, the action scenes are actually fun to look at, the music is gorgeous, Zane's death is tragically beautiful, the Golden Weapons, Temple of Light and Tornado of Creation provide continuity, etc ... 

Strangely enough, it is only in Project Arcturus that Zane actually feels like the main character of the season, as the first five episodes put more focus on both Jay and Lloyd than on Zane, despite him being the focus ninja according to the boxes. 

Speaking of boxes, let's talk Lego sets! Most of the sets are either ninja or Nindroid vehicles, with the only exception being the Battle for Ninjago City:

Now, this wouldn't be a problem under normal circumstances, however the ninja's vehicles only really appear in "The Surge", or "Codename: Arcturus" in the case of Kai's car, as, while they make brief appearances two other episodes, they are immediately destroyed both times. The Nindroid's three vehicles fare better, but still. If five out of nine sits only appear in on out of eight episodes, there's something wrong. The moon rovers really feel like they should have been featured in a set, as does Garmadon's monastary, Borg Tower and possibly the power plant.

Furthermore, a lot of the Nindroid's vehicles are physically unavalaible, as only the hacked version is sold. This especially sucks with the mechs, which are shown quite frequently in the first five episodes.

Now, considering everything I've watched, I'd say the first five episodes would have earned a two out of ten, but with the addition of Project Arcturus, I'd actually double that score to a nice 4/10 points! Yeah, that's still not a lot ...

The Titanium Ninja

 The episode that shook little me to the core! Get ready, everyone, because at the end of this episode you will be crying!

The ninja manage to build a small rocketship from the remnants of the Arcturus Rocket, but by the time they get back, the Overlord has taken over New Ninjago City with the power of Creation.

Donning Stonne Warrior armor for protection, the ninja attempt to feed the Overlord a shrinking pill, but Pythor intercepts it, getting shrunk instead. As the Overlord captures the ninja, Zane evades him and grabs onto the armor forged from the Golden Weapons. Using his own body, he channels the power of Creation from the armor to boost his powers, killing the Overlord, but dying as a result.

Still, his conciousness survived somehow, and the episode closes on him rebuilding his body at Borg Tower. 

Various Observations:

-Why are there random Nindroids on the conveyor belts? Won't they get in the way of the production of his golden armor? Did the animators reuse the shot from the end of episode 1 of this season and forget to remove the Nindroids?

-I'm a touch confused as to why the Overlord just lets Borg go. The guy's a genius, why would the Overlord want him to be able to help the ninja?

-And now Cryptor is ableist as well as sexist. Wow. You know, I suddenly have to urge to take my Cryptor minifigure and leave it dangling upside-down from somewhere.

-Garmadon admits that his previous behavior was wrong, which is great. I guess there's only so long you can take him out of character before he'll become too unlikeable.

-Of course Wu only offers an empty plattitude, but apparently it's enough to motivate Lloyd.

-The "Build-your-own-rocket kit" joke has a classic setup, but it's still funny.

-I like that every ninja contributes to their escape plan, even if I feel like it goes over too quickly. We only get one brief shot for each of the four original ninja, and that's it.

-Hold on, Zane's power source was located where a human would have their heart, no? So why is it now apparently on the right side of his chest?

-Additionally, I struggle to believe that half of Zane's heart would suffice to power a small rocketship, when we have already seen that it's output is less than that of human heart, since he was unable to use Spinjitzu without the other half.

-So the ninja use "elemental shields" to survive, which they can apparently only use when they have air ... What? Since when is that a thing? It's mentioned so casually, too, like we're expected to be familiar with the concept! I suppose we did see Kai do somehting similar when he obtained his True Potential, and Lloyd does frequently use his powers to form a shield, but for elemental shields to be treated like an established concept ... Well, it feels very odd, to say the least.

-The Overlord being able to wield the power of Creation itself certainly makes him more threatening, I have to say. The shift to darker colors is also a good move, as the episode feels more serious now. Also, it makes the ninja's powers stand out more.

-Having the team assembled like this is hype, even if Dr. Julien or Cyrus Borg sadly can't be with them.

-So the Overlord's temple has a sacred seal? It was clearly added by the Overlord, as it makes the temple resistant to the First Spinjitzu Master's power of Creation, but why would it be sacred? The Overlord is literally the embodiment of evil! Unless ... Perhaps my theory about him being a Source Dragon does have some merit ...

-Good on Nya for saving a civilian! Of course, she immediately gets downed by a single hit. She just can't win this season, can she?

-Since when does Zane hesitate to safe his family because it diminishes the probability of success? Remember the falcon back in "Island of Darkness"? Zane did not hesitate for even a moment to save his dear friend!

-You know, it's never confirmed, but I'm fairly certain the Overlord uses the Tornado of Creation in this scene. It just makes sense to me. When else have we ever seen a Spinjitzu tornado that is powered by Creation and capable of absorbing things?

-Seriously, Cryptor? Will you be able to go for a single encounter with a woman without calling her a "little girl" and doubting her fighting ability? It doesn't even make sense, here! Nya's arguably a better fighter than the ninja, given that she tends to get better results even without her powers. So sexism really is the only explanation for this behavior!

-Stop it, Cryptor! Do we seriously only get a respite from your ancid eprsonality when we cut to the ninja? I hate this!

-Man, Borg's non-effective diet pill is locked away so tightly, you'd think the last Retsnom was sealed in there. 

-I love that Garmadon is actually excited over a diet pill. It's endearing.

-Borg confirming his insane plan with an enthusiastic "Precisely!" is golden.

-You know, if the shrinking plan worked ... What good would that do? The Overlord would still have the power of Creation, he'd just be tiny, too. This doesn't help in defeating the guy!

-So the plan ... is to give the Overlord a shrinking pill by making two old men play baseball. This feels really jarring and tonally out of place.

-Why is Nya getting curbstomped by Cryptor? She's taken out more Nindroids at once with nothing but a paper fan! Now that she actually has her armor, this should be child's play!

-Stop it with the sexist comment, Cryptor, I swear to god!

-Why is Min-droid just carrying a TV, a laptop, a keyboard and ... I think a game console? Is he a gamer? I thought if any Nindroid would be, it'd be the sexist arsehole.

-So the ninja want to use the armor of the Stone Army to protect themselves from the power of Creation ... when that power is the foremost weakness of the Stone Army. Did a guest writer take over for this episode and just not tell anyone?

-So the Stone Armor turns into a new sets of gi in a flash of golden light? I thought they belonged to the Overlord.

-The Serpentine helping to save the civilians is a hype moment, I have to say.

-You know, I just realized that it's implied the falcon kills Pythor off-screen. I guess by this point they hadn't planned to bring him back next season. Still, kind of dark, no

-Predictably, the Stone Armor fails to hold off the full power of Creation.

-Man, Zane's death ... I ... What can I say? The beautiful music, the flashbacks to Zane's life and his bonds with his family, the gentle smile as he accepts death, the pain in his voice as he struggles to speak - to exist for just a few more moments so his family can be saved ... It's probably the best thing I have ever seen on TV. Zane had always been my favorite ninja. He is the one I empathized with the most, and his death hit me hard. This quite honestly surpasses even many death scenes in more mature media, like Fate, Danganronpa, or Fire Emblem. Goodbye, Zane.

-Do you think, Zane's gentle acceptance of his demise, and happiness that he was able to save his friends, was meant to contradict the Overlord's thrashing and screaming? One faces death with dignity, knowing that his family will now be safe, thanks to his sacrifice, while the other struggles to hold onto life for the sake of endless conquest, reduced to helpless screams as he writhes in pain.

-Hallelujah, Cryptor is dead! He's frozen and shattered, so he's not coming back! Thank Sothis, I don't have to put up with the guy anymore. 

-Wow, Creation sure gave Zane's powers a boost. Understandable, really. Creation is almost  omnipotent, after all. The only thing it cannot do is destroy, but that's it.

 -It's unfair! Why do Borg and Kai have to give such good speeches! I'm tearing up again!

 -You can really feel everyone's grief and sense of loss. Jay can't think of anything to say, he doesn't even get possessive over Nya when she hugs Cole. Everyone mourns Zane. Just like the viewers.

-Whoa, the proportions of the guy behind Wu are ... really off, right? Just look at his head! It dosn't look like he's made of Lego!

-You know, I really feel Zane's survival shouldn't have been teased at the end of this episode. Having it jammed in like this just feels off. Like the writers were desperate not to end on a tragic note, but I think this just cheapens his sacrifice. Having him actually believed dead until the next season would have been a brave move, and I'm not sure Lego would have approved of it, but it would be much better from a storytelling perspective.

-Also, I would like to ask how Zane got into the systems at Borg Tower? Like, he's trapped in the systems and builds himself a new body at the end of the episode. Why? How does that work? It just feels like a deus ex machina. I could believe Chen having the remnants of his heart tracked down, and that being how his conciousness survives as he's given a new body, but this just came out of nowhere.