Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles review - Ugly CGI Starship Troopers kid show

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This might just be the ugliest piece of Starship Troopers media.
But if you can make it get past the ugly CGI and the hours of boring, unimportant action then there's some fun moments and a couple of interesting Ideas.
Too bad that Roughnecks was never finished, the last arc was actually good.
Also it should have started with Rico's training, taking it's time introducing the characters and pacing itself a bit better.
Although, truth be told, a kid friendly TV show is perhaps the worst thing you could do with the Starship Troopers franchise.
Next up:
Something that isn't Starship Troopers related.
Wouldn't want to become the Starship Troopers Channel
Music used in order:
- BREED OST: comp05
- BREED OST: comp02
- BREED OST: comp07
- BREED OST: short 11
- Katawa Shoujo OST: Innocence
- BREED OST: comp03
- BREED OST: comp10
- BREED OST: comp11

[@beaker8706]

This is a 20 year old CGI TV series (released in 1999-2000). It was beyond ambitious for its time. Looking at it 20 years later & calling it ugly CGI is a disservice to the ground-breaking hard work put into it by the creators. While you're entitled to your opinion, personally I think it lacks perspective. Given the deadlines and technology available at the time this series was amazing. It was even watched and appreciated by animators at studios like ILM. Shows like this pushed the boundaries of CGI at the time, and paved the way for what we see today.

[@GnorriTV]

You're right, it probably looked fine for the time and perhaps it deserves some recognition for being one of the first CGI TV shows, but still the resolution is low, the night sequences hurt my eyes, the episodes are boring, the sound design is awful, and the story is left unfinished. I approached Roughnecks as a piece of Starship Troopers media, not as a piece of CGI history, and I agree that in this sense I might have done it a disservice, but it still doesn't change that the final product is pretty bad

[@beaker8706]

@@GnorriTV Then perhaps you should do more research into the subjects you're going to critique. Low resolution is the product of the time it was created The best, most expensive HD TV's at the time were only 720p (maybe). Go and watch it on an old CRT TV which is what 90% of homes at the time had. The series is unfinished because of time and budget constraints. Which is why they released clip episodes to fulfill their episode count contract. The finally was left on a cliffhanger in hopes of getting audience support to continue the story. (the best they got was a DVD release, which took enormous effort on the part of the producers) As far as the story goes that is much more a matter of opinion. It was bold for a morning US kids cartoon show 20 years ago. Serialization was not the norm (as is it today), and they took a lot of risks in their story telling. They gave the characters a good amount of growth and development (not the norm for a kids cartoon). Furthermore they touched on topics that go way over the heads of children. Regardless the shows were fun to watch and managed to appeal to an audience far large than just kids. It's okay that you don't think highly of the series. (Starship Troopers as a whole gets a lot of hate). However, I find this particular criticism to lack research and perspective. Your review comes off as "this show sucks, here's why." Personally i wouldn't even call it a review as you primary focus is to pick out all the bad parts of a 20 year old kids show.

[@beaker8706]

@@GnorriTV Part of what made the show fun to watch as an adult were its campier parts. Look up drinking games for starship troopers roughnecks. Carmen crashes a ship - DRINK. Someone yells BUGS!!!! - Drink. A gun malfunctions - DRINK. The show was far from perfect, but it was fun. It was created by a lot of people who cared deeply for the series and what they were trying to accomplish, and it shows. They created a kids show that could be enjoyed by adults. And here we are 20 years later still talking about it. That alone says something.

[@GnorriTV]

I've addressed half of the thing you said in my review, I even added a bunch of clips towards the end because I felt like, while the Show is a chore to sit through, the characters have their fun moments. This video is a review, not a retrospect or a documentary on the production, I've just decided to answer the question "is it worth watching today?" and no, it isn't. Sure, the characters are fun, well voice acted, and the cheesiness can be entertaining, but you have to sit through hours and hours of boring, relentless and stakeless action to get to these moments. As I said in the review this might have been good back then if watched episodically but watching one or two arcs a day made me miserable and literally hurt my eyes.

[@beaker8706]

@@GnorriTV I've long been a huge fan of the show (if you couldn't tell), and I appreciate you taking the time to make the review. (even if we have different opinions of it) It's wonderful that you enjoyed the voice acting (they had such a great cast). Scripts for kids shows aren't Shakespeare but you could tell that they had a lot of fun working together. (BTW the show's main cast would record lines together in the same room, instead of individually) I'm sorry that was your experience, and I'll agree some things don't age well. CGI is often one of those things. It also sounds like you might have approached the show in a way that doesn't sound very enjoyable. If my 1st exposure to a 20 year old show was to critically watch 10 episodes a day for 4 days, I might hate it too. Regardless of how good the show is, LOL. I hope you keep on making content, and really appreciate that you took the time to reply. :)

[@deaddropsd1972]

I loved this show !!! Of course it has aged. It’s CGI ... left unfinished is a ROBBERY!! Ugh. Garbage producers or Sony or whoever...

[@Xenolay]

I don't care how stupid this looks or how bad it was, I actually loved this show. I have all the seasons on CDs.

[@chill_will9816]

Go watch some Transformers Beast Wars or REBOOT, both CGI contemporaries of Roughnecks, and it'll give you a better appreciation for both the original quality of and how well Roughnecks has held up.

[@GnorriTV]

It might look better than other shows but it still literally hurt my eyes

[@Autobotmatt428]

Beast wars was better.

[@BioGoji-zm5ph]

I still enjoy this series.

[@kieslingsfilms]

To be honest. I watched this show when I was younger. But oh my goodness my eyes.

[@lealien9247]

I think because of the higher pixelation of modern day equipment manage to reveal its ugliness more frequently while old tv maybe broadcast it as 240p to hide its wonky stuff more.

[@MrNegiGen]

It looks interesting, since it's so goofy. That best of the worst compilation made me want to watch it...

[@GnorriTV]

It has its moments, but there's a lot of boring action between the cheesy stuff.

[@salokin3087]

This was cathartic to watch! I've watched some of your other videos and I can confidently say you're doing a really good job, well researched, humor isn't cringe and lots of good memes. I def see way more than 200+ subs in the future

[@GnorriTV]

Thank you, I'm sure I'll get there. Glad you like my stuff.

[@СергейСоболев-х4ч]

Shitty? Man, check out dvd release and try to open your eyes! Screenshot with original resolution: static.kino.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/roughnecks-the-starship-troopers-chronicles-1999-f-373.jpg The lightning is solid at least! Where are from you get this footage? No surprise that you don't like it. They're used vr headset with mocap to work with camera in digital enviroment, years before Peter Jackson! This show was a huge stepstone in cgi for the day. And thanks to Sony, no proper endind, lots of crunches and niche status, due to poor management and production choises. And soundtrack by Jim Latham - this stuff makes me into industrial genre of music. Yes, it's dated, but bad? No. Well developed characters with good arcs that stretched through, even godddamned love triangle, questions about duty, etc. - in a kids show? "Don't watch it" my ass. Lots of stuff from the book - skinnies, mechanized suits, weapons. Even if I'm totally disagree with you and thinking that you watch it through ass and half asleep, I can understand your point of view. To be honest, yes - old, dated and full of cheese. But memorable and still enjoyable, imo. And I appreciate your efforts to create this video. Cheers!

[@GnorriTV]

Interesting, the footage I've got was a DVDrip, and I couldn't for the life of me find something that looked better. What's your image from? Are you sure it isn't just a promotional screenshot and not from an actual episode? As for everything else I simply disagree, I said at some point that I probably wouldn't have minded watching this as a kid, but this review was part of a serie on Starship Troopers content, I wasn't trying to judge this as a kid show but as a piece of the universe. If there is somewhere a higher resolution footage then I'm truly sorry I used (and watched) the wrong one, but even then my main complaint is that the action is boring, without consequence and there's tons of it. Again, fine if you're a kid watching an episode after school but as an adult watching entire arcs at a time it was kind of miserable.

[@СергейСоболев-х4ч]

@@GnorriTV Yes, I inderstand. You're right. About screenshot - as I know, this is incompressed dvd quality - it's really better - true 720 instead of 480 like in almost of all internet releases, but you're maybe right - I found this in a thread, and this may be a promotional image. By the way, are you going to review Starship Troopers Terran Command when it releases?

[@GnorriTV]

Yeah the Idea was to cover every Starship Troopers title and movie culminating with Terran Command, but I've taken a pause from ST stuff. Maybe I'll review it on day one, maybe months later, I'm not sure but I do intend to cover it.

[@СергейСоболев-х4ч]

@@GnorriTV Sounds great! I'm looking forward to it! No matter what will you do with channel, good luck.

[@Autobotmatt428]

It was a good Idea but 3d animation was not ready for this king of show. Shows Like transformers Beast Wars were the exception then again they had a smaller cast and a proven crew working on it.

[@FernandaFernandes-cu5mc]

Caramba, como eu amava essa animação! Saudades s2

[@tamaster3567]

When you read kid show and Starship Troopers in the same sentence, you know it's gonna end tremendously bad.

[@jansandman6983]

when i watched this when i was a kid it was spectacular but damn can't believe watching this now,, its horrible XD what the hell?

[@GnorriTV]

Nah I'd have liked it too as a kid, kids don't have many standards

[@jansandman6983]

@@GnorriTV >:D

[@Jaruzelski95]

I loved this when i was a kid. Now i know better