This is my second time writing this because when I tried to write it the first my laptop all of a sudden decided to have a reset.
So Ben 10 Ultimate Alien takes place right after where Alien Force left us. Everything pretty is the same except that instead of the Omnitrix, Ben now wildes the Ultimatrix which allows 6 of Ben's aliens which are Humangasour, Swampfire, Spidermonkey, Big Chill, Echo Echo and Cannonbolt to transform into their ultimate forms.
In terms of the Ultimate Forms the concept of what they were going for was interesting but how the executed it was very poor. As I have mentioned above that he only had access to only 6 of his Ultimate Forms and they were rarely used in the series. As result of this by the end of the series he only unlocked two more which were Ultimate Wildmutt and Ultimate Way Big.
However, I don't feel they were a bad thing or anything because some aliens such as Ultimate Echo Echo (who was my favorite by the way) and Ultimate Spidermonkey offered new looks and an expansion of their powers while some like Ultimate Cannonbolt and Ultimate Big Chill just grew spikes or had a diffrent colour scheme.
To be fair Ben had more character development in this version then in any of the other series dealing with apon multiple loses, death, rage, mortality and fame.
As it was created by Dwayne Mcduffie the writer for both Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, Static Shock and Ben 10 Alien Force. Just like Alien Force the animation and character designs were very. I also liked the new designs for the forever knights in season 3 a lot better then the ones which they had in Alien Force.
In terms of the bad as I have mentioned this on my Omniverse review this show did change a lot of the franchise as I have mentioned before Ben had a lot more character development in this show but what I didn't like was how they were going with it especially because I found him way too serious for example he nearly killed few characters because of his rage and if need be despite all the obstacle he faced and overcame Ben would slip back into his 10 year old personality. He would also end up using glitch moves such as Echo Echo fly and duplicating an object when holding it. Also what never made sense was Albedo being able to transform without an Ultimatrix's? Seriously?
Another problem which I noticed about this show was that the writing was very week when it came down switch with the story episodes and the filler episodes unwittingly, for example episode 11 season 1 where they are learning about the map of infinity which is season 1's half story arc and in they very next episode they are helping his childhood bullies (J.T and Cash) with their web show. However this was never really a huge problem until it came to the end of Season 1 because when it came to season 2 I feel that the writers already got board with the show and the creativity just dropped.
Creativity is another problem which this show lacked because Ben 10000 doesn't even transform into any aliens, when it came down to Kevin and Gwen transforming into Ben's alien. The alien appearance didn't change at all like how it did in that one episode in the original show when Gwen got the Omnitrix and the aliens had a female look. Anyone remember that? This in my opinion was a hit miss.
However when it came to the Diagon. That is when the writers decided to wake up and give some proper episodes but again the filler episodes weren't a bad thing but the writing and the creativity was very poor for example the episode The Mother of all verdels and The Eggman Combat was very silly and stupid. But episodes like Night of the living nightmares and The Perfect Girlfriend were very dark and scary for kids but still safe to watch. Also the final battle when Ben armors up with the sword Ascalon and when Vilgax merges with Diagon was too short because the fight was less then one minute. Find out the rest in the actual episode.
I wouldn't call this show too violent for kids because I know the next generation of kids will be stuck with garbage like Teen Titans Go! and Unikitty but some episodes might be a bit too much for younger kids.
One problem to mention voice actors. The voice actors were good but what didn't feel right was that they were relying on voice actor Dee Bradley Baker alot because he voiced majority of the aliens personality I didn't mind it but they shouldn't have overused him too much the same problem would have been with John Dimaggo and Yuri Lowanthal.
As my final summary the writing was the weakest of this show but way, way better writing then that horrendous Ben 10 reboot at least this show but care and effort into their writing compared to the reboot and I don't think Dwayne McDuffie aims at people who enjoy awful writing as one person on this site. I just think this is not one of his strongest projects.
Since this is likelihood me reviewing Ben 10 for the last time here is my scores for each of the shows:
1st: Ben 10 Omniverse 10/10
2nd: Ben 10 Alien Force 10/10
3rd: Ben 10 10/10
4th: Ben 10 Ultimate Alien 8/10
5th: Ben 10 reboot 3/10
I have reviewed all of them including the movies, if you want to read them they are all on my profile just like the rest of my reviews.
RIP Dwayne Mcduffie this might have not been your strongest show but it's defintly not a failure.
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