REVIEWS

Episode #52 - The End, Part 3 Original Airdate - July 16th, 2005 The stars are aligned. The sun is in eclipse. All of SLADE's labors are about to reach fruition -- and the Titans are about to face their greatest challenge ever. But is there really any hope of preventing the end of the world? Reviews by Stu, Bird Boy Media by Bird Boy

Titans Writers Written by David Slack Directed by Ben Jones Producer Glen Murakami Producers Linda M. Steiner, David Slack Music by Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis Casting and Voice Direction Andrea Romano Animation by Dong Woo Animation Co., LTD. Titans Voices Greg Cipes as Beast Boy Scott Menville as Robin Khary Payton as Cyborg Tara Strong as Raven Hynden Walch as Starfire Ron Perlman as Slade Kevin Michael Richardson as Trigon, Guard

Screen Grabs HD Screen Grabs Pans Sound Clips "It can and it will!" (MP3, 46kb) "You're still not funny." (MP3, 132kb) "On my planet, this is hilarious." (MP3, 179kb)

Note: The reviews by Stu are for each individual episode, while Bird Boy's review encompasses all three. Review (Part 2, by Stu) Certainly more interesting than part one, by a long way but still not as good as I originally hoped for. Teen Titans has been disappointing for a while, and episodes like this, hell, most of this storyline honestly just feels like padding until part 3. This review is for the individual episode (Bird Boy's review will feature his comments on all 3 parts of this story) so I'm honestly not sure if this story is going to be worth it yet. The visuals, easily Teen Titans strongest feature, fell a little flat here. I liked the designs, especially the 'evil' version of the heroes, Starfire in particular looked awesome but the red backgrounds were simply distracting. Much like "Revolution and" its Union Jack backgrounds, the red sky simply became an eyesore after a while. I've always liked the simplistic take that Teen Titans take with its visuals and its backgrounds were no exceptions but here… this episode probably ranks up there as one of Teen Titans ugliest, despite the animation reaching the show's typical, excellent standards. The beginning was awfully slow paced, and the episode didn't really go anywhere until Slade returned and The Titans discovered that Raven, God bless her, passed her powers onto them. Before this particularly cool scene, it was merely Robin jumping around the aforementioned ugly red backgrounds. Whatever one's opinions on the show may be (if you've read my previous views, it's give or take to me) one can't deny Slade's awesomeness. Slade is easily more entertaining that most of the cast combined and quiet frankly, pisses all over the rest of the villains on the show. None of them even compare in the slightest. Even JLU lacks a villain like Slade. He's that good at being bad. His motivation is finally revealed and he's finally unmasked. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'd suggest looking at the screen grabs, because nothing I say will explain just how cool the visual was. There's a low point to his inclusion in the episode however. After seeing it done a million times before, we still get "Robin and co vs. army of mindless villains". You get sick of it after a while, and for the end of the season, I was expecting a little better. Usually I finish with an overall comment, but I think I just said it in the paragraph above Review (Parts 1-3, by Bird Boy) This marks the end to the fourth season of Teen Titans; it’s certainly stronger than last season (which I still consider to be a pretty weak season). It doesn’t touch what season one and two did—it was still pretty fresh back then and I feel the show is running a bit low things to explore, in the area of overall arcs. A story this epic, deserves three parts—right? Sure, it’s about the end of the world, but in the grand scheme of things, part two really could have been a stand-a-lone episode. Raven was barely even in it (until the very end). Part one set everything up, with Raven knowing the big prophecy was about to all go down—it ends with her giving herself up. Part two, as previously mentioned, could stand by itself. I’m not saying it wasn’t a great episode—it probably was my favorite of the three, but it really served as more of a station for Slade and Robin to talk, than simply more about Raven. Part three is what wraps it all up. Unfortunately it throws in one of those “easy plot endings” that season three was victim to: Raven magically goes from being a little girl to her teenaged-self with long hair, simply by being determined that she’d defeat her father. Like Cyborg’s magical destruction of Brother Blood in season two, this just felt like a cheesy way out. Granted, there are not many more routes you can take and with Raven it’s a bit more believable, due to magic’s involvement. As an overall story, it was pretty sweet. We saw some great episodes that set the finale up (“Birthmark” and “The Prophecy”), with references to other episodes (“Sisters”, “Switched”, “Masks” and “Aftershock” among them) and the finale didn’t disappoint. The universe was borderline destroyed and the Teen Titans saved the day once again. It’s a great story and those who want plenty of action along with their fleshed-out characters won’t be disappointed. Teen Titans is one of the best action cartoons I’ve ever watched and with a fifth season on the way, hopefully it won’t disappoint. A strange thing I just realized now, while looking up the episode names that this story arc has referenced. In “How Long is Forever?” Starfire travels to the future, where she finds all the Titans much older and very alone. In this future, however, Raven and the universe still exist. Raven either wasn’t told about this or simply forgot; otherwise she wouldn’t have felt both helpless and hopeless when it came to fighting her father. Obviously taking that episode into account would lessen the impact on the story arc, but it’s just something I thought was worth mentioning. One thing that was unbelievably strong in this three-part arc was the music. I always notice the excellent work done in the series, but never quite as much as in these stories. The music really carried the story along. In part two when the Titans “evil” others come out of their bodies, you here wonderful hard-rock music that’s reminiscent of Batman Beyond. Without this superb scoring, these three episodes wouldn’t have been half as good as they were. All three of the series music writers (Lolita Ritmanis, Michael McCuistion, Kristopher Carter) were on board; McCuistion did part one, part two was done by McCuistion and Carter and part three was done by McCuistion and Ritmanis. Of them all, its obvious McCuistion deserves a healthy lump of praise for the recurring themes throughout the episodes, knitting them together. Carter brought the hard-rock sound to part two and Ritmanis did excellent work on part three as well. Animation was as solid as always in Teen Titans. No qualms, no real praises, it just flowed nicely along with the story. Sound and voice work was great as well, with Hyden Walch providing some great delivery on Starfire’s dialogue between Starfire and Evil Starfire’s battles and at the end of part three, where she uses the tofu bacon to imitate a creature from her home planet. Scott Menville continues his foray as the slightly pissed off, but still caring Robin and Ron Perlman doesn’t let up on the menacing tone of Slade’s voice. Kevin Michael Richardson voices Trigon and the voice fits the menacing design; the man has some range on him, voicing fathers (Static Shock), insane clowns (The Batman) and demonic lords (Teen Titans) and he does them all superbly. I’d recommend this story and season to any Teen Titans fan. Aside from a few poor episodes (“Cyborg the Barbarian” and “TROQ” come to mind), it’s been even more hilarious and action packed than previous seasons. Not one to be missed and I look forward to getting it on DVD.

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