Motorcity!!!!! (and also the Tron cartoon I guess...)

I'm gonna get killed for placing these shows together, but I think it's a bit fitting. Two dystopian action shows from spring of 2012 with amazing casts that aired on Disney XD and feature savvy young people going up against oppressors.

One of them just happens to be good and the other happens to suck.

I've never really been into Tron. My only knowledge outside this show is from Daft Punk doing the music for Legacy and footage from Kingdom Hearts 2 (Which reminds me. I have seen the storyboarded KH cartoon pilot and I found it a biiiiiit goofy. More so than the games.) That being said, I'm not as certain about Tron as a whole, but Uprising sure does use the computer stuff as little more than aesthetic, replacing words like "person" with "program" and not really considering much else.

1:56 PM · Apr 15, 2021 "oh i abhor the plot"
2:16 PM · Apr 15, 2021 "hey hey question uhhhhh if tron's programming got fucked up why did the programming that makes him tron stay in tact god i hate whatever this is doing"
3:25 PM · Apr 15, 2021 "like i get what they are trying to do but the whole computer theme brings it down sooooooo much"

And sometimes, that can be really fun! I think the problem is that Tron takes itself far too seriously for me to get much out of it. 

Meanwhile, Motorcity gets a little more in touch with its setting, a futuristic Detroit set in a sort of hypercorporate future where society is controlled by one big monopoly. I admittedly don't know as much about cars as I do about computers and programming, so I can't say much about the accuracy there, but Motorcity is a lot more loose and fun than Tron is. We have a ton of goofy characters like Tooly, Texas, The Duke of Detroit. But let's talk about the characters in Tron first.

They... uh.... aren't exactly that memorable. We have our protagonist trio: Beck, and his two friends who are in love with each other and one of them is Mandy Moore. We have Tron, who is the most memorable character by virtue of brand recognition. 

8:09 AM · Apr 21, 2021 "It just occurred to me I dont really see some archetypes I saw in 90s Disney. There’s no weird dad who wants to date a monster which was surprisingly common in late 90s Disney"
8:16 AM · Apr 21, 2021 "Is tron a weird dad"

And there's Paige, who's one of the villains, but has a bit of a sympathetic side. She was probably my favorite character in the show, but at the same time, two years down the line, I really don't remember her.

3:18 PM · Apr 15, 2021 "this is gonna be one of those shows where i hate the best friend characters and i think the protag falls flat....."
3:24 PM · Apr 15, 2021 "this show is just kind of cringe i think"
2:27 PM · Apr 19, 2021 "beck gets high for the first time"

I actually rewatched Motorcity in order to have a clearer head about it, because this is the show I rated number one, and I wanted to talk about why, and honestly, the characters are a big part of it. Worth noting, I haven't watched this show in at least five years before getting back into it, but doing so felt like reconnecting with old friends.

8:06 PM · Apr 6, 2021 "y'all i've been wanting to tell you how much i appreciate motorcity so much. like it's such a great show and you don't expect it going in. it's got a lot of relatable characters and tropes i enjoy. also it has mark hamill but as a good villain"
8:12 PM · Apr 6, 2021 "idek what to say except watch motorcity. i dont wanna spoil a single fucking thing about it there's so many good things i think it's kind of fucking amazing to go into blind. all you need to know is that there is clean dystopian detroit and underground rebellion detroit and CARS"

Every single major character in this show is amazing, be it because of their backstory and character development, or because they're just so entertaining to watch. Hell, there's a character who shows up in the middle of the series, is ordered to melt his face off by a character, blames a different character for this, and then has a vendetta against said different character for the rest of the show. The characters are that great. In fact... I don't think there's a single character in Motorcity I dislike. Like if I had to rack my brain, I would have to say I'm not the biggest fan of Kaia strictly as a villain, but I still love her as a character. And the Terra have a really sympathetic backstory. Honestly, a lot of characters do. You have Mike, who was raised to essentially be the world's bestest child soldier for the villain, Abraham Kane, only to realize he wasn't actually protecting anyone and that he was hurting people, and trying his best to make up for that. You have Dutch, a normal guy who moved down to Motorcity to express himself. While his parents up in Deluxe support him, his younger brother was a bit disappointed and ended up working for Kane. Honestly, "Reunion" was a super good episode and I wish we could have seen Darr more than once.

Speaking of family, hohoho, Julie... Julie is a double agent living up in Deluxe working as an intern for Kane, but she's also Kane's daughter, something Kane keeps under wraps.

If you've been reading this blog enough, you might have caught on to the fact that I love family dynamics. The Castillo-Flores Family, The Proud Family, The Duck Family. Well, Julie and Kane are no exception. Honestly, if it wasn't for Heinz Doofenshmitz, I might argue that Kane started that sort of trend of the villain who loves his daughter more than anything. On Julie's end though, he's the man she's fighting, but she still knows he's her father, and spends so much time in the series trying to get through to him to no avail. And Kane gets frustrated about this sometimes. It's a lot of fun. Honestly... "Like Father, Like Daughter" is a really good episode in this regard, showing how similar the two are and the roles they play on their respective sides. I fucking love it.

Chuck and Texas have little going for them in terms of backstory, but I still enjoy them a lot. Chuck in particular is a really good character dealing with anxiety and amaxophobia. Despite cars being a central point of the show and representing freedom (I'm sure people would disagree with this take but let's let it be for now), he still spends a lot of time fucking terrified while being in them, and learns to drive during the show. Texas... is not that deep. But he is funny. He's sort of the self-absorbed dumb muscle of the group, but, you know, Mike likes him, so they ought to keep him around. Most of his episodes are more comedic, but I think they help set a mood for the show!

And of course, there's also Claire. While not an official Burner, she's Julie's best friend and often helps the crew out. She brings a sort of materialistic viewpoint to the show, because she likes living under Kane. She likes all the gadgets and materials Detroit Deluxe has to offer, and she's not super big on Motorcity. In fact, living there for the rest of her life is one of her biggest fears!

And even outside the Burners and Kane, there are a ton of great characters. You see a bunch of the gangs in Motorcity, like the Skylarks, the Momma's Boys, the Amazons. And of course, there's the Duke of Detroit. He's fucking great. If you haven't seen the show, just imagine Dee Snider acting like the world's biggest slut. That's the Duke of Detroit.

Honestly, the voice direction isn't something I usually take notice of, but I really enjoy it here too! You get the idea that each of the Burners comes from their own sort of world, and are coming together, just from the voices! And needless to say, the animation is fucking great too, but I think everyone and their mom has talked about the animation at Titmouse.

Really I think the tone of Motorcity is what sets it apart from Tron, and the characters are what set it apart from every other Disney show (including Tron). Sure there's story and animation, but seeing the characters in it, and how they bounce off each other and drive the humor... That's what really makes this badass show go above and beyond for me.

Overall Rating for Motorcity: S Tier

Overall Rating for Tron Uprising: D Tier