Pryde of the X-Men

"Pryde of the X-Men" was obviously an attempt to stay within the spirit of 1980s cartoons rather than bring the X-Men to life.

When considering the cartoons of the 80s, you have to think of the following things that EVERY hero cartoon (G.I. Joe, He-Man, She-Ra, early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Superfriends, Transformers, etc.) did. The word "hordes" was used at least 400 times in each episode of each cartoon to describe the villain's army (even if the "army' only consisted of 5 people). "You'll regret this!" was shouted by each villain once or more in each episode. Every battle started with exactly ONE (1) corny line of dialogue, uninterrupted, from each participant, and the battle would continue with no further voicings except screaming when hit, or sound effects.

"Pryde of the X-Men" is the story of Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat and how she comes to join the X-Men. There's no real complaints with any of the X-Men's portrayals in the show, except for Wolverine... why, why, WHY did they have to make him Australian? Colossus sounds like a Russian stereotype, Nightcrawler is German (and seems to be rather "interested" in Kitty), Cyclops is the boy scout leader type, and Storm doesn't talk. Oh yeah, and Dazzler. "Leave this to the Dazzler!" Classic. The powers aren't consistent with the comics, at least, not entirely. White Queen throws glowing spears of some sort, Magneto seems to have super-strength, and Dazzler seems to fire a conventional laser gun.

If you like 80s cartoons, watch this, but don't expect a solid book to screen translation. Stan Lee could've done better (and did, in the 1993 cartoon on Fox.)

This one shot X-men pilot episode had the best animation quality of any other Marvel cartoon then or since. Yes, the quality even rivals X-men Evolution. I prefer the mature look of Pryde's animation over Evolution's Disney look any day.

The Voice-Overs (Wolverine's Australian accent) have been panned quite a bit on this board. Wolverine's austrailian accent didn't bother me much at all and I collected the X-men comic for a while during the eighties. Even though Wolvie's accent was wrong, his temperment and intensity were captured perfectly by the Voice-Over. I'd Prefer Pryde's Austrailian Wolverine over Evolution's MUCH SOFTER Wolverine any day. Evolution's Wolvie just doesn't have the intensity or temperment; C'mon Wolverine as a teacher? Gimme a break. The other characters in Pryde were well portrayed.

The story line isn't that complex but it's not supposed to be. It's a pilot episode and therefore is meant to be more of an showcase of the format and characters of the cartoon than anything else. The plots surely would have gotten more complex had the series been picked up.

I can't help but think that Marvel missed an opportunity by not producing more episodes. Hmmmm... maybe the animation was too expensive because it was damn near movie quality. If the 90's series had Pryde's animation quality, we would have had a near perfect series. I've seen Pryde of the X-men several times and always wondered about what could have been. If you haven't seen Pryde of the X-men yet, don't listen to negative reviews and go check it out. It's definitely worth it.

Pryde of the X-Men is an interesting failure. On one hand, the animation is outstanding for its time. On the other hand, unless you already read the comic you wouldn't know what the heck was going on. And it's pretty gosh-darn stupid.

The animation, particularly the use of shadows and the particle effects, are impressive. I suspect Marvel had this animated in Japan, the style shows through. If not, the animators did a good job of emulating the efforts of most anime studios at the time. The characters all look cool and Wolvie has his brown costume (my favorite).

Unfortunately, nobody put much effort into cohering all those awesome battle scenes into a story. I mean, they didn't even try. There isn't a plot, things happen. Magneto escapes from the back of a tanker truck. Professor X introduces Kitty Pryde to the X-Men. Magneto and Juggernaut attack the X-Mansion. Not an X-Men fan? What I've typed got you a bit confused? Don't know who these people are or their relationships to one another? The cartoon won't help.

The script of a children's cartoon needn't be outstanding literature but it should at least put forth a minimum of effort into expounding on who everyone is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it. Take the more recent Fox X-Men series as an example. In the first episode, the X-Men save a little girl from the robots trying to capture her. You get to know everyone's name, their respective powers, and that they're the good guys. You get good action scenes and good exposition. Here, in Pryde of the X-Men, you get the X-Men yelling at a little girl and some other guys knocking over stuff while particle effects flash and swirl about the screen. Sure, it'll pique a kid's attention but after two or three episodes he's going to quit watching because he won't know what's going on. Yes, that does matter to children.

Perhaps the biggest failure of Pryde of the X-Men is the "subplot" (I wince at using any form of the word 'plot' in reference to this show) regarding Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is one ugly dude, he looks about like a cathedral gargoyle. Kitty is scared of him but later comes to realize that just because he's ugly doesn't mean he's evil. That's all fine and good IF HE WASN'T A TOTAL PERV! When he meets Kitty he reaches out to her (and I really hope this was unintentional on the animator's part) like he's going to grab at her breasts. He practically drools on her. Later, when he rescues a little girl from a fiery inferno (more particle effects!) he, well, puts his hands about her bum and her crotch. I remember that from when I was a kid, too. I wasn't scared of how he looked, I was afraid he grab me and talk soothingly to me while fondling my private parts. The way he acts, he's the last person you'd want your kids watching on a weekly basis. And his costume is apparently a red, v-shaped vest with nothing underneath. Brrrr.

All in all, good eye candy for its time but it lacks enough direction and coherence to keep even small children watching. That's probably why no one picked it up as a series. That and Wolverine's Aussie accent was really bad.

This cartoon is in keeping with X-Men continuity and characters other than Wolverine (wrong accent, too tall).

If you like the Evolution cartoon, which has nothing to do with either the comic books or the 90s cartoon, you probably won't like this.

If you follow the X-Men somewhat faithfully and like the 80s cartoon, and can ignore Wolverine's height and Australian accent, you'll probably like this.

I do. It is not perfect -- I miss Rogue from the later cartoon -- but it is fun and the animation is traditional, not lampoonish like the Evolution mess.

This forgotten late-eighties pilot showed promise but was never picked up as a series. Although the characterizations are annoyingly overwrought (in typical Saturday morning fashion), the adaptation was very faithful to the source material. The producers chose a mid-eighties line-up (Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, Dazzler, Kitty Pryde) and concisely setup the struggle between the two mutant factions while briefly outlining the comic book's continuity at that time. The only misfire was Wolverine's inexplicable Cockney accent (the character is supposed to be Canadian, not British). They even managed to include Lockheed, Kitty's ridiculous pet dragon. Not a bad job, and it proves that you *don't* have to extensively reinvent the comic (as was done with "X-Men: Evolution") in order to make it work on the small screen.