It's subpar, meaning some good things, some bad. When I watch something, it's with a view to execution of craft. At the end of the day, this revival series can't hold a candle to the original, which was way more well-researched and well-written. The modern dialogue is primitive at the very least. You can see just about everything that's coming without thinking too hard. Lots of cliches. But I will say the animation is shiny and pretty at times. And when the meat of the story is revealed, the series can even be entertaining.
Some slight spoilers ahead.
Drawbacks:
Casting was lazy. The only three voices that are remotely close to the original are Zia, Sancho and Pedro. They're enjoyable to watch. The rest range from wow-that's-way-off to wow-that's-really-annoying. Esteban is played by a grown woman, and it's obvious. Tao is just noisy and brash, and his bird, the adorable fluffy little companion we grew to love, is now oh-my-great-goodness the worst! And he's inserted everywhere for no reason whatsoever.
The characters don't feel 3-dimensional to me anymore. In the original, they had depth, each with their own failings and fears. In the new version, I feel the writers simplified quite a few of them for the sake of easier writing, so now they're just basic versions of what they used to be. Tao and Mendoza suffered the worst in this downgrade, then Zia.
Zia was intelligent and so adorable in the original. Now she's typecast in the typical female role, somehow perpetually getting lost from the group and becoming romantically entangled with new boys in each adventure. Kind of silly. To spice her up they gave her telepathic powers? Really? No. Lazy screenwriting.
Mendoza in the original was a boss kind of guy. Just watching him and hearing him talk you knew he knew what he was talking about and you had confidence in his character, even if you didn't quite trust him until the end. He's now been downgraded to the stereotypical "hot" guy who's just there for decoration basically. He looks tough, but, ironically, he's usually the one getting knocked out or something. And I cannot with the new love interest they gave him. That subplot is just cheesy and cliche. He's a little hard to watch, knowing what he used to be.
Tao, my friends, is the worst failure of this comeback. He lost a lot as a character. I actually liked Tao in the original. He was quiet and independent, distrusting for good reasons. He made you love him. He's now just an annoying, frankly pig-headed and self-centered little child that somehow has backtracked from his having learned to trust Mendoza in the original to now forgetting all of that. (So the ending of the first series doesn't matter to him anymore?) That's just lazy writing, imo. His baseless suspicions lead him to make some pretty stupid (and backstabbing) choices. Besides that, he now is presented as being jealous of the limelight the chosen children have, believing that the Mu people, of which he is a descendant (and this fact he reminds us of constantly), should have picked him. His jealousy is directed mainly towards Esteban, and we find him going so far as to sabotage some of their key adventures because of wishing he was chosen. Side villain much. (Also, weren't his ancestors called the Hiva people in the original? Why the name change? Ok.)
The villains are token villains, unless they're meant to be something more. I'm talking endless, and very annoying, evil laughs. The role these guys play is your generic filler for each episode until the true story finally starts taking off. It's a slow start.
I give it four stars for the ending. All in all this series, while being very, very predictable and a bit of a chore, does get a bit interesting if you stay for the plot twists, surprise endings, etc. For me, though, it's unfortunately a miss mainly, with some bright spots.
Some slight spoilers ahead.
Drawbacks:
Casting was lazy. The only three voices that are remotely close to the original are Zia, Sancho and Pedro. They're enjoyable to watch. The rest range from wow-that's-way-off to wow-that's-really-annoying. Esteban is played by a grown woman, and it's obvious. Tao is just noisy and brash, and his bird, the adorable fluffy little companion we grew to love, is now oh-my-great-goodness the worst! And he's inserted everywhere for no reason whatsoever.
The characters don't feel 3-dimensional to me anymore. In the original, they had depth, each with their own failings and fears. In the new version, I feel the writers simplified quite a few of them for the sake of easier writing, so now they're just basic versions of what they used to be. Tao and Mendoza suffered the worst in this downgrade, then Zia.
Zia was intelligent and so adorable in the original. Now she's typecast in the typical female role, somehow perpetually getting lost from the group and becoming romantically entangled with new boys in each adventure. Kind of silly. To spice her up they gave her telepathic powers? Really? No. Lazy screenwriting.
Mendoza in the original was a boss kind of guy. Just watching him and hearing him talk you knew he knew what he was talking about and you had confidence in his character, even if you didn't quite trust him until the end. He's now been downgraded to the stereotypical "hot" guy who's just there for decoration basically. He looks tough, but, ironically, he's usually the one getting knocked out or something. And I cannot with the new love interest they gave him. That subplot is just cheesy and cliche. He's a little hard to watch, knowing what he used to be.
Tao, my friends, is the worst failure of this comeback. He lost a lot as a character. I actually liked Tao in the original. He was quiet and independent, distrusting for good reasons. He made you love him. He's now just an annoying, frankly pig-headed and self-centered little child that somehow has backtracked from his having learned to trust Mendoza in the original to now forgetting all of that. (So the ending of the first series doesn't matter to him anymore?) That's just lazy writing, imo. His baseless suspicions lead him to make some pretty stupid (and backstabbing) choices. Besides that, he now is presented as being jealous of the limelight the chosen children have, believing that the Mu people, of which he is a descendant (and this fact he reminds us of constantly), should have picked him. His jealousy is directed mainly towards Esteban, and we find him going so far as to sabotage some of their key adventures because of wishing he was chosen. Side villain much. (Also, weren't his ancestors called the Hiva people in the original? Why the name change? Ok.)
The villains are token villains, unless they're meant to be something more. I'm talking endless, and very annoying, evil laughs. The role these guys play is your generic filler for each episode until the true story finally starts taking off. It's a slow start.
I give it four stars for the ending. All in all this series, while being very, very predictable and a bit of a chore, does get a bit interesting if you stay for the plot twists, surprise endings, etc. For me, though, it's unfortunately a miss mainly, with some bright spots.