I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Ninjago is one of those shows that just kind of got into my brain when I was young. I only really saw the first two seasons at most back in the day (yes I count the 2011 pilot episodes, fight me), but I did eventually come back and become a semi-avid watcher. There definitely was a lot of potential, and some of that was even realised. It reminds me of Star Wars Rebels in a number of ways. It’s not incapable of delivering heartfelt and memorable moments, but it’s often tied down by its existence as “funni haha kids teevee show”.
And, because of that, new toys need to be made, new history needs to be uncovered, and due to certain issues like why the heck is Lloyd so young, we end up with this weird problem almost directly opposite to Bionicle where the timeline is way too absurdly small to fit all the events which supposedly occurred over this world’s history. It’s bloated, it’s weird. We have two underworlds, a billion different races from ancient times, and Wu going from 30 to 80 in the span of 20 years at most.
A lot of my attachment to the story, I must admit, is Zane’s pretty blatant autism allegory. That feeling of self-discovery and finding a sense of belonging in who you are was a beautiful message to a kid who had only recently begun that journey himself, so for me personally, I would definitely say the franchise peaked at the end of Rebooted… for… obvious reasons. They couldn’t even keep him dead for a season. I get it’s a kid’s show, but… christ. It is a bit disheartening.
Tournie was okay-ish, I honestly kinda liked the idea of all those other masters and stuff (which are almost never brought up again, bar like two) though it was kind of obvious that they were deliberately holding back on air and water for whatever reason, later revealed. And then Lloyd was possessed, and Garmadon died, wonder if that’s gonna last? I actually liked Sensei Garmadon tbh, he was chill as heck. And then… Skybound. Really compelling as an idea, but the ending made it quite clear that they were intending to somehow fix all this and then realised by the end that they couldn’t, so nevermind, it never happened at all.
Timeboiz was just boring, bland and horrendously unmemorable, I didn’t even know what to think by the end. Then Sons of Garmadon shows up, taking in the new Ninjago Movie artstyle. I tried to start watching and couldn’t bear it. And then I blink, and four seasons of television have just appeared, and apparently the First Spinjitzu Master was half Oni and half Dragon? Okay.
I can kind of understand the Bionicle fan mindset, but as someone who used to be invested in the franchise and since dropped off after it started drowning in its own canon? There comes a point where something just needs to be put to bed. We’ve been running in circles with the same set of characters doing the same things for nearly a decade’s worth of television, and the timeline is such a mess now that I doubt even the creators really have it all in their minds anymore.
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