Adventure Time: The Complete Seventh Season
DVD Reviews | Jul 10th, 2017
Starring: John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Tom Kenny, Hynden Walch, Niki Yang, Olivia Olsen, Pendleton Ward
Created By: Pendleton Ward
Directed By: Various
Studio: Warner Home Video/Cartoon Network
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Finn and Jake are back for more zany adventures and mis-adventures with the release of “Adventure Time: The Complete Seventh Season” from Warner Home Video and Cartoon Network.
It may be a little odd for someone like me to jump into watching “Adventure Time” with the seventh season, but I never manage to catch it on television and never got around to purchasing or borrowing any of the earlier seasons to watch even though it has been on my radar for quite some time. I definitely have mixed reactions in regards to the show. On one hand there be a weird and interesting episode with some parts that might make me laugh and on the other hand there will be episodes that are a struggle to get through. The latter episodes usually involve the character BMO and are more abundant than the former episodes. I really thought that I would enjoy the show more but it seems like it’s played out for a completely different audience.
While I’m obviously not familiar with many of the ongoing storylines and characters leading up to season seven but from what I gather is that Finn (a human) and Jake (a talking dog with magical shape-shifting powers) reside in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo. There they go on magical adventures with their unique line-up of friends and enemies which include the Ice King, Flame Princess, Marceline the Vampire Queen and Princess Bubblegum to name a few.
I assumed that Finn and Jake are the main characters but season seven starts with a major lack of them as the first handful of episodes outside of the first episode “Bonnie and Neddy” focus on supporting characters. Princess Bubblegum and Marceline get the most screen time early on and leads up to my favorite story arc of the season, the Stakes story arc which follows Princess Bubblegum as she sucks out the vampiric essence from her friendly neighborhood vampire queen Marceline. That story arc had some really cool and interesting visuals and I was a fan of the vampire gang in which Marceline had to defeat once again. Episodes that focused on BMO and the Lumpy Space Princess were cringeworthy at best and were usually quite annoying. Towards the latter half of the season there were some interesting episodes with Finn and Jake such as “President Porpoise Is Missing” and “Blank Eyed Girls” but overall I found those episodes more weird and quirky then I found them fun and humorous.
One thing that I appreciate about the show is that the animation is painstakingly hand drawn. Even though the episodes run eleven minutes apiece, that is an amazing task for animation especially in the digital world of animation today. The stop-motion episode “Bad Jubies” was also a cool throwback to the days of claymation.
Having never watched an episode of “Adventure Time” before “The Complete Seventh Season” it makes me wonder if the show has become something different from its early days as is the case with a lot of TV shows or if season seven was some of the better material that the show has to offer to date. I would possibly look into some of the earlier season in comparison but as of right now, I wouldn’t consider myself much of a fan of the show. Maybe I just don’t get it or maybe watching season seven first leaves me in the dark in regards to the first six seasons…or maybe the show really isn’t as good as everyone else thinks it is.
Available on DVD on July 18th!
Features:
Animatics
Galleries
Song Demos
Making of “Bad Jubies”
Hyperlapse of “Bad Jubies”
Title Card Creation
Video:
Widescreen 1.78:1
Audio:
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
English SDH Subtitles
Bottom Line: There are some novel adventures to be had in the Land of Ooo but most of the secondary characters make viewing unenjoyable and there are a lot of episodes that just don’t seem to go anywhere or that lack humor. Weird isn’t always funny. It is chock full of extras and goodies that fans will certainly enjoy.
Running Time: 286 Mins
Rating: TV PG
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
