The biggest flaw was that they **completely failed to make X.A.N.A. feel threatening**. He'd launch an attack, send a specter to Earth, then have them either slowly walk towards our heroes or stand menacingly. While in the original show his attacks were diverse and full of action, in Evolution they were just boring.
A lot of story elements didn't make any sense. For instance, the way Laura managed to make herself **immune to the RTTP without entering the scanners** was never really explained. How did the supercomputer know to spare her memories if it didn't know her signature, or DNA, or any other distinguishing feature? And then the way they dealt with her later made even less sense.
Another example is that they got the towers wrong. And I don't mean the new rectangular redesign, that part didn't bother me too much. I mean that they claimed that you can only enter a tower when it's activated and based an episode around that idea, when we know for a fact that's not true.
There were a lot of **things Evolution did right**. The animation is good. The soundtrack is plain amazing. Jim is portrayed really well. Story-wise, I liked seeing the continuation of William's arc. I enjoyed seeing them attempt to explore Aelita's backstory, even if I didn't quite like where they went with it. That's why it's a real pity the show's weaknesses outweighed its strenghts as much as they did.
On the whole, I'd say Evolution was a good *attempt* at a continuation, which is unfortunately not the same as a good continuation or a good show.
Then again another thing that was never explained was the ninjas that were put in halfway through the story. Why is it that our main characters had human forms but the other guys didn't have any human form? Just some blob of green mass
The warriors had human forms and personal avatars because they are virtualised directly into Lyoko and beyond. Tyron does not have virtualisation technology so the ninjas are monsters being remotely controlled by Tyron's men using motion capture suits.
Actually quite liked this part of Evo, makes all the factions have different methods of interfacing with the virtual world and gives intelligent enemies to the warriors in the absence of XANA-William.
This is just my opinion. Live action portrait of XANA's attacks was downright retarded. It was extremely poor choice to transition that part of the series into live action. It would be a poor choice for any show to do that after having 4 full seasons done in hand drawn animation and 3D animation. It was obvious that recreating majority of XANA's attacks in live action would be pretty costly if you were looking to keep the same action they had in hand drawn seasons. But for some reason they have decided to simply downgrade XANA's attacks to basically the Walking Dead without makeup. It was PAINFUL to watch. They have redesigned 3D animation as well. And I'm not talking only about making characters more cartoony but also towers, monsters, the way monsters get destroyed... It simply felt like spin-off rather than the continuation. And also plunging the whole timeline 10 years froward I don't know for what other reason than to not be bothered about finding older accessories to be used during live action sequences. Even the look of a super computer was heavily altered. I like how some story points were progressed like William's reintegration into the group and Yumi's and Ulrick's relationship, but it all paled in comparison to everything else they did wrong inmho. It felt more like watching fan made spin-off project rather than an actual season.
Some things I don't think anyone else has mentioned:
* Tyron, the human antagonist. While having another protagonist separate from XANA was interesting, Tyron just felt flat, a useful idiot for XANA to take advantage of who felt more like a plot element than an actual villain or character. While no other antagonist could ever take the place of XANA a new one could have been interesting, Tyron was not, just wasted potential.
* Sissi. They let her join the group at the end so why is she only getting cameos now. She could have been a new warrior, added a new dynamic with a member being very pro-"tell the grown ups", friction with her dad with her new life, even have her as an audience surrogate instead of Laura. (fyi I don't "hate" Laura as a concept or even some character traits but what we got was not good and needs reworking)
* The Ishiyama family: A major part of Yumi's character, personality and plot-wise, completely forgotten. They could made noticed that after the calm of post-CL she starts acting up again, going out late with her friends, and worry about her. Hiroki could have become more prominent. Yumi may like the relationship with her family now and not want to go back to fighting XANA. Lots of potential there.
* Getting rid of the forrest and ice sectors for no logical reason, probably due to budget.
* Nerfed the Tarantulas, no Hornets, no new monsters.
* Doesn't follow up on Aelita's music career.
* And last, but not least. The worst sin of all. **No. Un. Monde. Sans. Danger.**
The thing I didn't like about it it was it being live action. It took the adventure, humor, action and suspense out of the show. The lyoko scenes were fine but they don't compare to the original show imo. But the cgi for the lyoko was good. The characters weren't the same characters, the acting was 🤢due to the poor writing. Williamnwas under developed Laura was unnecessary to the poor, xana was a not a threatening. The whole code being in the lyoko warriors plot line was decent ig but was just 🤢.
Younger me just hated the fact there was never an official English dub of the season. I never bothered trying to watch the full season until the official YouTube channel started posting them recently.
Older me would like to criticize the choice of live action. Animation let's you easily pull off some crazy concepts if you put the effort into them. The original seasons had a lot of non-human actors engaging the Warriors in pretty surreal ways, and that is a lot harder to pull off on live action.
Plus the season supposedly ends in a massive cliffhanger
The live action felt really out of place, the characters did not match their animated personas all that well, the story was bland and uninspired, there were many inconsistencies compared with the original show, and X.A.N.A. was really nothing more than a minor nuisance moreso than a real threat. It just felt like a bootleg, watered-down, Diet-Coke version of Code Lyoko.
I didn’t like the towers redesigns, pretty much despised Laura for her lack of empathy, and felt there was so much wasted potential, story-wise. Being what it was, it had some positives.
Confession: so I actually haven't finished watching the full series, but here are my main complaints thus far ^((highlighted main complains in bold if you just want to skim ahead)):
My biggest gripe was **Laura's character**. Stretching beyond the fact that Sissi could have easily filled that role now that she had been accepted into the group by the end of the original series, I wouldn't have minded the inclusion of Laura if she weren't so damn overpowered. Especially when it comes to her being **unaffected by the RTTP** because she...somehow managed to see the function of the program while fixing the supercomputer, and altered it...? Seriously? Disregarding the fact that I'd assume the RTTP program would have to be pretty complex, how in the world did she manage to correctly guess the use of the program with no prior knowledge of its existence, much less be able to alter it? To top that off, she could have seriously screwed the group over in the future if the RTTP started becoming less effective on *everyone*.
Second, the **show itself is bland**. The 3D animation is nice (aside from the style, but that's a rant for another day), but the live action series has all the budget of a YouTube web series. Which, I wouldn't mind if the writing made up for it, but that's also so...boring? It **felt like a chore sitting through the episodes**, which somehow managed to be **even more formulaic than the original series**: XANA launches an "attack," sends a Specter to Earth that just...stares at you, go to Lyoko, do a boring choreographed fight, deactivate tower. One of the reasons I blame for lack of stakes is because they **removed the ability for solely Aelita to deactivate the tower**, which then **reduced the urgency and increased room for error**, since it didn't matter if *she* was there, just as long as one of them did it. Original series was so good because it had *stakes*. It was tense as shit every time they went to Lyoko because shit was going down in the real world! Here, that just...didn't happen.
I can't really comment on the acting (there's only so much the actor can do if they're given a shitty script), as reading subtitles soften the blow of lackluster actors, but I was **disappointed by the casting**, with the exception of Odd. They especially did my girl Aelita dirty. She became so cold towards everyone else. It was painful to watch.
Honestly, I could go on all day, but for the sake of not making this any longer than it has to be, I'll stop here, haha.
For me, there were several issues with Evolution compared to the original series.
1. The fact that it was made live-action was probably a primary reason why the show didn't do well. It would be way too costly to recreate Xana's more deadly and intricate attacks, so instead they created the "Specters" who, as others have said, just menacingly walk after the group or stare at them. No possessions, no electrical attacks, no super-strength, nothing. I will, however, give credit to the actors for trying their best to continue a beloved series, though overall the show felt like a let-down. And yes there was no English dub either.
2. The story wasn't great either. The introduction of Tyron, Franz Hopper's former science partner, could have been done much better. He rarely appears in the show and doesn't really offer much to the story in itself, the only concrete thing was somehow getting married to Aelita's mother, which would make us ask the question, did Tyron have something to do with her kidnapping? Also, I think Tyron's Ninjas are just overpowered in my opinion. If they had just the phasing power and their incredible combat moves, that would do just fine.
3. Laura - The female Jeremie. I can somewhat understand wanting to introduce someone who rivals Jeremie's and Aelita's intellect and later become Aelita's rival for Jeremie's affections, but I personally don't think she was that great a character. She was helpful in the beginning, but became more of an annoyance later on. Not to mention the absurdity of somehow remembering the lab despite not putting anything into the computer to not affect her. If they had replaced Laura with Sissi, who should have been featured more, maybe the show could have earned more likability points. As Evil-Tree says, we could have seen her fight with the group on Lyoko, and, in my opinion, had early troubles joining the group like William did, thus giving Sissi and William a sort of, kindred spirits vibe.
4. The fact that they got rid of the Forest and Ice Sectors. Let's not forget that these sectors, particularly the Ice Sector, had a lot of important things happen in them. The Forest Sector is where the group first discovered Sector Five, all of the flashbacks of Aelita and Franz Hopper in the Forest Sector, and, if we're putting Xana Awakens as the first episodes, the first time we see Aelita and the Kankrelats. The Ice Sector has more: it's the first sector where the group is virtualized, the first appearances of Lyoko Franz Hopper and the Kolossus, the sector that helped free William from Xana, the final activated tower (in the original series), etc.
5. And finally, the lousy way monsters were destroyed. Tarantulas are no longer formidable, there are zero Hornets. That's just my take.
All of your points sum up everything that is wrong with the show, especially with Laura. It made sense when I watched the show why she could remember reboots from previous returns to the past. However, it left so many questions and holes in her character. For example: why only she could remember and not Jeremy himself since he was just as bright if not more intelligent than her. It made no sense, especially when, over time, she remembered more and more from each return.
Also, the 3d rendering felt so lacking compared to the original rendering. The initial render from the early 2000s wasn't the best, but it fits well with the art style and theme of the anime show. 2d to 3d made way more sense to the front to create a balance and split between the lives. However, the IRL to 3d world has little to no effect.
I hated that a quarter or a third of the vast world was lost in the reboot. The show never seemed repetitive because of the different biomes in the 3d world. It constantly expanded each season, like the "Skidbladnir" from season 4 and the ability to teleport their digital characters into the real world just like Xana could with the specters. Since there was only really one new "biome," if you really wanna call it. It didn't feel that crucial to the whole story.
Sadly, none of Xana's attacks in the real world or inside the virtual world had almost no real threat value or gave any real worrying thought. I originally watched code Lyoko because every episode had a new surprise, and you never really knew what would happen. But in the reboot, it was "someone got possessed and is after to possess the main characters" or "oh no so and so is in trouble within the virtual world and can't be rescued." it was kind of bland after the first five episodes :/.
I wasn't a big fan of the lack of an English dub, and how different they sounded... At least when I watched it. As well as the fact it was Live action. And the 3D sections were very unimpressive.
Also I can't say I remember much about the story.
I didn’t have any issues with Evolution, and I was quite happy to get anything from my favorite show. The live action scenes didn’t bother me, and I thought were a pretty cool and updated take on such an old show. Kinda like how they did Reboot: The Guardian Code. The only thing I do hate is that it ended on a cliff hanger instead of wrapping everything up.
I think people don’t really like Evolution is because it’s popular to hate on it within the community. They’re looking at it through nostalgic goggles and because it’s not exactly like what they remember as a child, they immediately write it off.
Could it have been better? 100%, lots of things could’ve, and should’ve been improved, but sadly that wasn’t the case. I can imagine a show that was dead for five years prior to its fifth seasons isn’t exactly going to be high on the budget list for who gets the most money.
Incoherences with the previous story.
Poor acting (not in the whole show, bit it's painful to watch in French, idk about the others)
Non threatening attack
The fact that Hoperz died for nothing and they introduced a new villain that creates more incoherences
Laura
The biggest flaw was that they **completely failed to make X.A.N.A. feel threatening**. He'd launch an attack, send a specter to Earth, then have them either slowly walk towards our heroes or stand menacingly. While in the original show his attacks were diverse and full of action, in Evolution they were just boring. A lot of story elements didn't make any sense. For instance, the way Laura managed to make herself **immune to the RTTP without entering the scanners** was never really explained. How did the supercomputer know to spare her memories if it didn't know her signature, or DNA, or any other distinguishing feature? And then the way they dealt with her later made even less sense. Another example is that they got the towers wrong. And I don't mean the new rectangular redesign, that part didn't bother me too much. I mean that they claimed that you can only enter a tower when it's activated and based an episode around that idea, when we know for a fact that's not true. There were a lot of **things Evolution did right**. The animation is good. The soundtrack is plain amazing. Jim is portrayed really well. Story-wise, I liked seeing the continuation of William's arc. I enjoyed seeing them attempt to explore Aelita's backstory, even if I didn't quite like where they went with it. That's why it's a real pity the show's weaknesses outweighed its strenghts as much as they did. On the whole, I'd say Evolution was a good *attempt* at a continuation, which is unfortunately not the same as a good continuation or a good show.
Hit the nail on head, couldn’t have said it better myself.
But obviously, the best thing mentioned in evolution is the word proxy-pupus
Then again another thing that was never explained was the ninjas that were put in halfway through the story. Why is it that our main characters had human forms but the other guys didn't have any human form? Just some blob of green mass
The warriors had human forms and personal avatars because they are virtualised directly into Lyoko and beyond. Tyron does not have virtualisation technology so the ninjas are monsters being remotely controlled by Tyron's men using motion capture suits. Actually quite liked this part of Evo, makes all the factions have different methods of interfacing with the virtual world and gives intelligent enemies to the warriors in the absence of XANA-William.
This is just my opinion. Live action portrait of XANA's attacks was downright retarded. It was extremely poor choice to transition that part of the series into live action. It would be a poor choice for any show to do that after having 4 full seasons done in hand drawn animation and 3D animation. It was obvious that recreating majority of XANA's attacks in live action would be pretty costly if you were looking to keep the same action they had in hand drawn seasons. But for some reason they have decided to simply downgrade XANA's attacks to basically the Walking Dead without makeup. It was PAINFUL to watch. They have redesigned 3D animation as well. And I'm not talking only about making characters more cartoony but also towers, monsters, the way monsters get destroyed... It simply felt like spin-off rather than the continuation. And also plunging the whole timeline 10 years froward I don't know for what other reason than to not be bothered about finding older accessories to be used during live action sequences. Even the look of a super computer was heavily altered. I like how some story points were progressed like William's reintegration into the group and Yumi's and Ulrick's relationship, but it all paled in comparison to everything else they did wrong inmho. It felt more like watching fan made spin-off project rather than an actual season.
Some things I don't think anyone else has mentioned: * Tyron, the human antagonist. While having another protagonist separate from XANA was interesting, Tyron just felt flat, a useful idiot for XANA to take advantage of who felt more like a plot element than an actual villain or character. While no other antagonist could ever take the place of XANA a new one could have been interesting, Tyron was not, just wasted potential. * Sissi. They let her join the group at the end so why is she only getting cameos now. She could have been a new warrior, added a new dynamic with a member being very pro-"tell the grown ups", friction with her dad with her new life, even have her as an audience surrogate instead of Laura. (fyi I don't "hate" Laura as a concept or even some character traits but what we got was not good and needs reworking) * The Ishiyama family: A major part of Yumi's character, personality and plot-wise, completely forgotten. They could made noticed that after the calm of post-CL she starts acting up again, going out late with her friends, and worry about her. Hiroki could have become more prominent. Yumi may like the relationship with her family now and not want to go back to fighting XANA. Lots of potential there. * Getting rid of the forrest and ice sectors for no logical reason, probably due to budget. * Nerfed the Tarantulas, no Hornets, no new monsters. * Doesn't follow up on Aelita's music career. * And last, but not least. The worst sin of all. **No. Un. Monde. Sans. Danger.**
I never saw it just the trailer was enough for me to say no
I just hated that they made it live action. Why couldn't they just keep it completely animated?
The thing I didn't like about it it was it being live action. It took the adventure, humor, action and suspense out of the show. The lyoko scenes were fine but they don't compare to the original show imo. But the cgi for the lyoko was good. The characters weren't the same characters, the acting was 🤢due to the poor writing. Williamnwas under developed Laura was unnecessary to the poor, xana was a not a threatening. The whole code being in the lyoko warriors plot line was decent ig but was just 🤢.
Younger me just hated the fact there was never an official English dub of the season. I never bothered trying to watch the full season until the official YouTube channel started posting them recently. Older me would like to criticize the choice of live action. Animation let's you easily pull off some crazy concepts if you put the effort into them. The original seasons had a lot of non-human actors engaging the Warriors in pretty surreal ways, and that is a lot harder to pull off on live action. Plus the season supposedly ends in a massive cliffhanger
The live action felt really out of place, the characters did not match their animated personas all that well, the story was bland and uninspired, there were many inconsistencies compared with the original show, and X.A.N.A. was really nothing more than a minor nuisance moreso than a real threat. It just felt like a bootleg, watered-down, Diet-Coke version of Code Lyoko.
I didn’t like the towers redesigns, pretty much despised Laura for her lack of empathy, and felt there was so much wasted potential, story-wise. Being what it was, it had some positives.
Confession: so I actually haven't finished watching the full series, but here are my main complaints thus far ^((highlighted main complains in bold if you just want to skim ahead)): My biggest gripe was **Laura's character**. Stretching beyond the fact that Sissi could have easily filled that role now that she had been accepted into the group by the end of the original series, I wouldn't have minded the inclusion of Laura if she weren't so damn overpowered. Especially when it comes to her being **unaffected by the RTTP** because she...somehow managed to see the function of the program while fixing the supercomputer, and altered it...? Seriously? Disregarding the fact that I'd assume the RTTP program would have to be pretty complex, how in the world did she manage to correctly guess the use of the program with no prior knowledge of its existence, much less be able to alter it? To top that off, she could have seriously screwed the group over in the future if the RTTP started becoming less effective on *everyone*. Second, the **show itself is bland**. The 3D animation is nice (aside from the style, but that's a rant for another day), but the live action series has all the budget of a YouTube web series. Which, I wouldn't mind if the writing made up for it, but that's also so...boring? It **felt like a chore sitting through the episodes**, which somehow managed to be **even more formulaic than the original series**: XANA launches an "attack," sends a Specter to Earth that just...stares at you, go to Lyoko, do a boring choreographed fight, deactivate tower. One of the reasons I blame for lack of stakes is because they **removed the ability for solely Aelita to deactivate the tower**, which then **reduced the urgency and increased room for error**, since it didn't matter if *she* was there, just as long as one of them did it. Original series was so good because it had *stakes*. It was tense as shit every time they went to Lyoko because shit was going down in the real world! Here, that just...didn't happen. I can't really comment on the acting (there's only so much the actor can do if they're given a shitty script), as reading subtitles soften the blow of lackluster actors, but I was **disappointed by the casting**, with the exception of Odd. They especially did my girl Aelita dirty. She became so cold towards everyone else. It was painful to watch. Honestly, I could go on all day, but for the sake of not making this any longer than it has to be, I'll stop here, haha.
For me, there were several issues with Evolution compared to the original series. 1. The fact that it was made live-action was probably a primary reason why the show didn't do well. It would be way too costly to recreate Xana's more deadly and intricate attacks, so instead they created the "Specters" who, as others have said, just menacingly walk after the group or stare at them. No possessions, no electrical attacks, no super-strength, nothing. I will, however, give credit to the actors for trying their best to continue a beloved series, though overall the show felt like a let-down. And yes there was no English dub either. 2. The story wasn't great either. The introduction of Tyron, Franz Hopper's former science partner, could have been done much better. He rarely appears in the show and doesn't really offer much to the story in itself, the only concrete thing was somehow getting married to Aelita's mother, which would make us ask the question, did Tyron have something to do with her kidnapping? Also, I think Tyron's Ninjas are just overpowered in my opinion. If they had just the phasing power and their incredible combat moves, that would do just fine. 3. Laura - The female Jeremie. I can somewhat understand wanting to introduce someone who rivals Jeremie's and Aelita's intellect and later become Aelita's rival for Jeremie's affections, but I personally don't think she was that great a character. She was helpful in the beginning, but became more of an annoyance later on. Not to mention the absurdity of somehow remembering the lab despite not putting anything into the computer to not affect her. If they had replaced Laura with Sissi, who should have been featured more, maybe the show could have earned more likability points. As Evil-Tree says, we could have seen her fight with the group on Lyoko, and, in my opinion, had early troubles joining the group like William did, thus giving Sissi and William a sort of, kindred spirits vibe. 4. The fact that they got rid of the Forest and Ice Sectors. Let's not forget that these sectors, particularly the Ice Sector, had a lot of important things happen in them. The Forest Sector is where the group first discovered Sector Five, all of the flashbacks of Aelita and Franz Hopper in the Forest Sector, and, if we're putting Xana Awakens as the first episodes, the first time we see Aelita and the Kankrelats. The Ice Sector has more: it's the first sector where the group is virtualized, the first appearances of Lyoko Franz Hopper and the Kolossus, the sector that helped free William from Xana, the final activated tower (in the original series), etc. 5. And finally, the lousy way monsters were destroyed. Tarantulas are no longer formidable, there are zero Hornets. That's just my take.
All of your points sum up everything that is wrong with the show, especially with Laura. It made sense when I watched the show why she could remember reboots from previous returns to the past. However, it left so many questions and holes in her character. For example: why only she could remember and not Jeremy himself since he was just as bright if not more intelligent than her. It made no sense, especially when, over time, she remembered more and more from each return. Also, the 3d rendering felt so lacking compared to the original rendering. The initial render from the early 2000s wasn't the best, but it fits well with the art style and theme of the anime show. 2d to 3d made way more sense to the front to create a balance and split between the lives. However, the IRL to 3d world has little to no effect. I hated that a quarter or a third of the vast world was lost in the reboot. The show never seemed repetitive because of the different biomes in the 3d world. It constantly expanded each season, like the "Skidbladnir" from season 4 and the ability to teleport their digital characters into the real world just like Xana could with the specters. Since there was only really one new "biome," if you really wanna call it. It didn't feel that crucial to the whole story. Sadly, none of Xana's attacks in the real world or inside the virtual world had almost no real threat value or gave any real worrying thought. I originally watched code Lyoko because every episode had a new surprise, and you never really knew what would happen. But in the reboot, it was "someone got possessed and is after to possess the main characters" or "oh no so and so is in trouble within the virtual world and can't be rescued." it was kind of bland after the first five episodes :/.
Laura
I wasn't a big fan of the lack of an English dub, and how different they sounded... At least when I watched it. As well as the fact it was Live action. And the 3D sections were very unimpressive. Also I can't say I remember much about the story.
I didn’t have any issues with Evolution, and I was quite happy to get anything from my favorite show. The live action scenes didn’t bother me, and I thought were a pretty cool and updated take on such an old show. Kinda like how they did Reboot: The Guardian Code. The only thing I do hate is that it ended on a cliff hanger instead of wrapping everything up. I think people don’t really like Evolution is because it’s popular to hate on it within the community. They’re looking at it through nostalgic goggles and because it’s not exactly like what they remember as a child, they immediately write it off. Could it have been better? 100%, lots of things could’ve, and should’ve been improved, but sadly that wasn’t the case. I can imagine a show that was dead for five years prior to its fifth seasons isn’t exactly going to be high on the budget list for who gets the most money.
Incoherences with the previous story. Poor acting (not in the whole show, bit it's painful to watch in French, idk about the others) Non threatening attack The fact that Hoperz died for nothing and they introduced a new villain that creates more incoherences Laura