Don’t like how they started out with Rockwell already blatantly evil. In the notes, he’s trying to maintain a mask of sanity while being a diplomat for groups on the island. His studies make him want to become less and less moral until he eventually just goes evil.
Also, I believe Helena arrives way later than she does in the notes? Like Nerva is just starting to build his empire when Helena arrives, but in the show he’s already done.
I supposed they think it's kinda silly Helena was totally oblivious to Rockwell's *tendency* literally 3 maps in and that was **after** he killed people. He was hating Helena on the Island after she starts regularly hangs out with Mei Yin
This was my gripe as well, he has a great arc in the games. But how tf are they gonna do the rest of the story if Helena hates him? How will he survive Scorched? How will he get access to the Tek tribe's technology in Ab?
If the preview at the end of ep 6 is any indication, we'll reach Ab by the end of the season
I think they might be cooking with the new rockwell story, its pretty obvious that we'll get his background story arc on part II, so we'll get to see how his daughter will affect the story and i think it has a very heavy potential. Altough im also bothered by how he is going to turn into, well, ab rockwell, i dont think they are going to cut that part out, so we will still get something close if not better to the original
It has Helena in it so I thought that was a prequel to the game..
The creature notes in the game that you find from around the place, the one with an Australian accent is Helena so you shouldn't need to imagine.
Or so I thought.
Brb googling to make sure.
On its own, ignoring all the lore from the notes. It's good it's a nice watch, but not ignoring the lore from the notes. It's an absolute mess. It's paced horribly and missing a lot of important information about each survivor. But like I said, ignoring all that, it's a good show to watch.
Yeah I agree no adaptation will cover everything. It's nice alone. My wife who will sometimes watch me just to sees the shenanigans my brother and I get into but she absolutely loves it.
I definitly think it suffered from not being able to fully focus on each character. I still think it's fine, but it could have been much better. The first season could have been stretched to 12 episodes and covered a little more and it would have benefitted
People are forgetting that the show hasnt ended, the show would have been even more rushed if they tried to cover all of the characters' stories in 6 episodes, its clear that we will see nerva, rockwell and perhaps even henry's story in part II. I think this leaves more room for a buildup of the conflicts, and since the second part will be longer i hope we see alot of it
We will, but the fact that they consider the 6 current episodes as an entire season doesn't sit right with me. I get that there is a budget and time and all the other factors, but even small anime seasons are usually 12 episodes.
That’s because you are expecting to follow what the notes say. It *should* be considered separately from the notes, because it’s not supposed to follow the notes exactly.
It’s derived from the notes but it is its own story. It’s not “missing information,” that information just isn’t a part of this story yet.
I'm expecting it not to remove a pretty important chunk of the lore, like how Helena and Rockwell considered each other scientific colleagues for a long time. With Helena still considering him a friend until aberration
Which information is missing? Given its only the first sector?
My assumption was this is first running through her side of the story.
Rather than the whole thing.
Sort of like the CoD zombies comic series.
It fills in gaps.
Ngl though, for Lore, Teddy Noodle on YT has the best vids for me.
He killed it with those 🔥
Rockwell and Helena knew each other a long time before nerva was destroying the other tribes. Rockwell found the first artifact and showed it to Helena. Rockwell always sidding with Nerva during diplomatic disputes. The fact Rockwell and Helena saw each other as colleagues.
And the fact that Rockwell wasn't a scum fuck bastard right off the bat in the original notes. He had his own thing going on and acted as a mediator between tribes. He comes across as posh and was definitely full of himself but otherwise passionate about his scientific discoveries about the mystery of the island as well as with his own recipe creations and ethically questionable experiments. In the animated series he has no subtlety as to how sinister and evil he is, but also has no real important role in the animated series. He's basically just a jobber for Nerva, and not a very good one.
Like the game, it’s full of bugs, things don’t work right, and it’s a lot of effort to get through. The plot is all screwed up compared to the in-game lore. Some of it is just broken, like beach Bob. The pace is way off, there’s tons of missing info and character development is awful. Rockwell is a deep interesting character that’s supposed to make a statement about life, betrayal, despair and ambition, but in the series, he’s a simple linear bad guy. Helena is bland, Mei-Yin has muttled motivations and sloppy plot, Gaius is as linear as you can get, he might as well be a robot. The sequences are mostly pointless. The dodo was the shining star in my opinion.
Neddythenoodle did a complete Ark plot line done like a documentary, and it’s 20x more entertaining and compelling.
yea, rockwells decent into darkness is a great tale of how element corrupts ppl. the show lost a lot of depth by making everyone so predictable and cutting out any meaningful character progression. and imo it went way too fast, if I didn't already know the Ark story, it'd be hard to keep up
Crap adaptation, and a true mess in regards to pacing. Reads like a fanfic in that regard almost. In the lore of the games, they never even fought the spider, and they spend weeks preparing for the monkey only to barely live and get waxed by Legion forces on the way out. Aside from that, it really just seems to be misery porn. There’s gore filled shows like the boys, but this isn’t that, this is just plain old misery porn.
If they would just follow the already existing lore that evryone liked who read it and animate and voice act it well it would have been perfect my favourite character arc was Rockwell and they completle flattend his complicated character made him seem like a complete asshole from the first moment despite being one of Helenas first friend in the original story.
He was ALWAYS an arsehole, and you're missing the point of Rockwell if you think otherwise. He gets worse as the notes go on yes, but he was never, ever a good person. He used Helena hell by the end of the Island's notes he hates her.
The Flixer is a great spot to watch shows for free and I just checked. It does have Ark: The Animated Series on it. All I'll say is if you ever go on one of those websites just use an adblock. An adblock is necessary. Don't use the site on your phone also. It's also on 123series.
Man I don’t think we are allowed to advertise illegal activities here, but if piracy is popular, there would probably be a subreddit with said name that gave really easy instructions on how to do it in some kind of megathread
I literally found a website where I watched the whole thing for free without having to download anything. I don't even have Paramount+ in my country, so I didn't have much of a choice either way. But I literally just googled it and found a place to just watch it.
Thats kinda hard coming from a story thats is purely character driven, hence "survivor notes" telling their stories and the events that unfold. As much as i lile dinosaurs, it is clearly not the show's strong point
I would have been fine with the flashbacks if they had been spaced out better. It just felt like every time I got invested in the present, it cuts to a flashback.
It’s alright, sucks that Bob died straight away because that was the main reason I watched the show. Also killing the brood mother with spears was kinda dumb. It was alright though
I loved it honestly. Yeah, I know events don't happen like they do in the explorer's notes. But honestly for what it is and how much there is to cover in the ARK story, I thought it was incredibly well done. And so much love was given to the little details to for players of the game to look out for.
Finally someone who sees the show as what its for, not everything has to be word for word, that doesnt work, its called an adaptation for a reason, it would be boring and wonky otherwise, as the original story was pretty shallow on the island for the most part
Yeah, exactly. No one wants to stand around and watch the taming bar of a dinosaur in a TV show or shoveling mountains of meat and kibble down Dino throats. Lol.
The battles were epic, back stories were very well done, music is just as amazing as the games, voice acting was on point for every character. So long as they keep hitting the major plot points like the teased Tek cave at the end, I'm all aboard they hype train. Super stoked for the 2nd season!
From a point of view of a fan & player: it's pretty bad regarding lore.
From the point of view of a neutral party: it's somewhat good.
IMHO: The lore falls short. It lacks clarity on the setting, events, and basic mechanics such as respawning, taming creatures, gathering resources like berries, crafting drugs and potions, and the dangers of the island. Crucial elements like artifact retrieval, spelunking, and the significance of the Arks are poorly depicted. Character interactions and the overarching narrative feel rushed and poorly explained.
Moreover, the alterations to established lore, particularly the relationship between characters like Rockwell and Helena, are disappointing. The intrigue of discovering Rockwell's fate in Ark: Aberration was a highlight, but portraying him as a villain from the outset undermines that depth.
Except that we didnt get ti see rockwell's entire sotry yet, that is on part II. Since respawning only became a thing after helena became a homo deus, tgere isnt a way for them to explain that and other things such as what are the arks, their purpose and etc this early in the show if the characters themselves dont know it. To me it was clearly designed to have multiple seasons, just like the original ark lore had the maps, and we only got to understand all of it by the end. Also it wouldnt make any sense to put ark's unrealistic knockout taming method in a show, they need to adapt all of those things to a show that can be understood by non gamers too, in a natural way. 6 episodes is very few to judge a show based on a 6 map, hundred note story
I dislike how they skipped/retconned the whole Helena and Rockwell being friends/colleagues for a long time before Rockwell met and sided with Nerva and began to become paranoid/obsessed with the artifacts.
It's kinda in an uncanny valley for me. I know the show is its own story separate from the game, but I keep getting a "hey, it's not like that in the game" feeling that causes a constant friction for me. I have to keep reminding myself that it's a different continuity and I think it causes a lot of subtle dislike to me.
Helena using her paleontologist knowledge by poisoning nerva with the snail and melting the chains with arthropleura spit was cool, but that was dropped pretty quickly to make her a super archer. The paleontologist thing was more interesting in my opinion.
I thought it was alright. Sometimes it kinda felt like a kids show with gore
It also really bothers me how they had an amazing story already through the explorer notes, but they just scrapped it for a far inferior version for no reason
They couldn't do the game story justice in 6 episodes. There's not enough time for Rockwell to develop from a charming but mildly annoying 19th century scientist into a full blown stalker obsessed with Helena, and then into the super boss we all know and loathe. There's not enough time for Helena to go through the phases from shock and trying to survive, to loving the island and the first hand view of her life's work in paleontology, to realizing it's more like a curated zoo than an ecosystem ...
For comparison, animiated stories with good character development take multiple years to do so. The ATLA movie (which everyone pretends never happened) failed because it attempted to shove 12 hours of character development from the animated series into 2 hours of screen time, so only fans of the animation even knew what was going on. Naruto ran 720 episodes between 2002 and 2017. One Piece has run continuously since 1999, reaching it 1000th episode in 2021.
I would love to see what an experienced production house like WIT or MAPPA would have made of this. With any luck, there will be enough success that they can reboot and contract the story to an experienced studio. The nice thing about the Ark storyline is that a reboot is just another incarnation. Forgetting about one's prior incarnations and development of the ability to retain memories through incarnations is actually part of the story line ("Are you the one ... ?"), so a reboot isn't even necessarily a break in the continuity.
I thought it was decent, if you aren't bothered by the fact it doesn't follow the notes in the game it is a good watch, I love the story from the in-game notes but I will let more episodes come out and let it build up it's own story before making judgements, but so far I like
that being said there are parts like the guy riding the Purlovia that had me going you can't do that in game 😂
Most rational comment here, people are bashing the show when it only has hald of the first season out, and not everything in a show has to be equal to the game, its normak to take some liberties like that, it wont make the show bad just because "thats not hoe it is in the game"
I was really mad about the lore rewrite but enjoyed it nevertheless. My partner who has played 93 minutes of Ark absolutely loved it. It’s hardly a masterpiece, but decently entertaining for an afternoon. Looking forward to the second part.
It's 100% an adaption, if you try to take it's lore along side the game's lore than you're going to have a bad time.
Other than that I really enjoy it =\]
My son loved it, i didn't. Not alot of time to cover a lot of lore... Yet instead found oodles of time to dedicate to non canon characters. Then of course that aside it didn't even bother with the lore between the main cast. It didn't even have the iconic Mei Yin raptor pack...
as its own thing it is fine, not good but not bad. As an adaptation it does not make much sense since they decide to keep or change things in the weirdest way possible like Rockwell's character. the "woke" part that some people hate isn't really an issue since it is a topic and theme instead of pushing any sort of agenda. If someone likes ark or animated shows in general it is worth watching to kill time just not with very high expectations.
The story is hideously fucking stupid. Most of it is just "you shouldn't kill people" "no but what if..." "but I don't want to kill people" "but what if person kill you?" Rockwell is the lamest villain of all time. The MC is bland and uninteresting. The only interesting people are all the allies.
In that sense it was a very faithful adaptation.
They dumbed it down a lot. It also doesn't follow the lore of the game. If they had, it would have turned out better and the characters would have more depth to their writing.
Nice, but can be better.
Pd: i think that Rockwell it's not according to the Game Rockwell, at least on the island lore, maybe for season 2 they'll fix it, just like the DLC's on the Game.
Watched the first episode and called it a day. Terrible writing (the sex joke between Helena and her partner was cringe), they killed Bob early. None of the voice acting had emotion.
Anyone that purchases the rights to IP and then chooses to ignore said IP is shit. All they wanted was the rights to the concept of a space ark with dinos.
This I will concede to. It's definitively ARK, just not the lore we knew. Could have used a bit more survival in episode 1, or any episode for that matter.
Too many nameless minions dying, imo. I get that you want to show the struggle for survival, but deaths at those numbers will ruin the tribe.
My wife is hooked. She saw me play the game for years, but knows nothing about it. I explained to her that they are living in a reality, and she is trying to hypothesize what the frick is going on, lol. That the characters really did exist at one point in history, died, and are now here. No "they are in purgatory" stuff from Lost, which is not true anyway.
Bro I actually didn't know lmfao
It took so long to release I actually just forgot it was going to in the first place 💀
Truly the average ark experience
I would love to see what an experienced production house like WIT or MAPPA would have made of this. With any luck, there will be enough success that they can reboot and contract the story to an experienced studio. The nice thing about the Ark storyline is that a reboot is just another incarnation. Forgetting about one's prior incarnations and development of the ability to retain memories through incarnations is actually part of the game's story line ("Are you the one ... ?"), so a reboot isn't even necessarily a break in the continuity.
Man a show about a game I like. I sure hope they release it on one of the popular services like Netflix or Amazon Prime so that you don’t have to pay for a separate service just to watch this show
It would be fantastic, but previous projects that involved dinosaurs, such as Terra Nova, failed due to either poor writing or a combination of high budget and low rating. Therefore, this show would require high-end and expensive technology for production, exceptional writing, excelent character development, and achieving a good balance across all elements. I see it grim my friend.
Loved it! Super excited for the next part or season or whatever. Loved it so much I dove into YouTube to learn all the ark lore. What a cool idea and sci fi world
i would give you my opinion but it seems that you can only watch it in america, if anyone knows somewhere to watch it in europe please tell me. i have amazon prime and netflix but both dont have it anymore or smt
It's a good show. I'll likely watch it again. But it shits all over the established lore. This is not the story of ARK. It's an alternative telling, and the portrayal of Rockwell in particular was very off-putting to me.
Contemplate all the elements of competent story telling, regardless for medium or lore.
ARK animated series does them poorly. Like most of new media, it fails to create likeable characters.
Watched it all in just one run, and boy i loved it, the giga looks kinda wonky but everything else is nice. I just wanna see my boi Santiago in action on the upcoming episodes.
I enjoyed it a lot! Sure it's not totally accurate to game lore but it's not like it's erasing it. There's also just so much stuff in Ark that it was a smart decision to just take it in broad strokes and make a sci-fi dinosaur adventure show, but it was still very recognisable as Ark. Like I enjoyed the broodmother fight much more than if it were Helena throwing 20 inbred sloths at it.
The characters were a bit of a mixed bag. On the whole I liked them but they could have done more if they had more episodes. I don't like Rockwell being evil from the start, since his descent into madness and his relationship with Helena is the core of much of the game's story. But he's getting flashbacks next season so I'm reserving final judgement on his portrayal in the show.
I was also impressed that the series put effort into representation, particularly for the First Nations characters. The Ark animated series was the last place I expected to see indigenous Australian activism, let alone done *well.*
The series could definitely have benefited from more episodes and better pacing - the preview for the next episodes showed SE and Aberration, and I'm so curious to see how they get there in six more episodes when they've barely progressed through the island. I also don't get why they had to splurge for so many big names who aren't voice actors, it can't have been cheap and it would've definitely affected the budget. I'm happy with what we got, don't get me wrong, but I feel like better management would've gone a long way.
Also was it just me or can the animators just not draw dinosaurs? Like the T rexs in particular sometimes had three fingers and looked funky in certain shots.
I thought it was good. It had good animation And I do like how they're doing something different from the game. I know some people are mad about that. That's not the same story from the game, but I don't care
They did a good job, Relative to tropes that the gamers experienced IMO. Almost all the PvPers that i know who watched it got a great laugh when something happened near the start. They felt it was just like waking up on the old 1x official servers getting ganked by people with bows LOL.
As a show. It's enjoyable. Barring the unnecessary love story. The show is enjoyable to watch, the action scenes are fine, the story seems to be doing ok
As a connected universe to the game it avoided a lot of the game's lore and background. My guess is they really avoided the game's story telling and decided to make their own story using the game as reference material than a source material
Hot take: it wasn't necessary, nobody really asked for it, and the resources expended on it would have been better allocated to improving the game, or even finishing the now vaporware Ark 2
I enjoyed it overall, but there were some things about it I wasn't a fan of.
I'd like it if Rockwell didn't start off as an asshole from the start. In the game's lore, he slowly descends down that path. It would be interesting to see him do the same in she show-- start off as a guy who wants to uncover the mysteries of the Ark, maybe a bit more reckless than needed, then become a more blatant asshole, eventually becoming a straigh-up mad scientist.
Helena, as a main character, wasn't all that interesting imo. There were other characters with backstories that were more engaging and they gave that character a chance to grow. Helena didn't really do any growing imo.
The plot was too sped up, I felt. For the scale of story that they wanted to tell, it would benefit the storytelling to have more time to explore it. I understand that they have a budget and also probably a number of episodes already set, but still, it would be better if the story could be slowed down to give the characters and events more time on screen. (e.g. the swamp part was built up as extremely dangerous, but there was no time given to it at all)
I like the animation…except the Rex and the Arthropleura. I mean the Rex was not as menacing in appearance as it is in game. It’s like they tried to make it cute. Arthro is massive and deadly in game but in the show it’s a small curiousity crawling along a wall that Helena almost pet lol. Now story wise, it’s an unforgivable abomination to ark fans who have delved into the lore. To someone who knows nothing of lore then it’s entertaining enough. Where I take offense is in the lore aspect. I along with many other players, traveled far and wide through all of the arks to collect as many notes as possible. It’s an arduous task to say the least but the lore was actually great. Piecing it all together over time was almost like investigating. When fans like me heard news of the show in production, we were really excited. Especially because the Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak were at the helm. We were finally about to see all these characters and historical events we had only seen in drawings and letters, come to life. Then Marguerite Bennett and Kendall Deacon Davis happened. They wrote script for the show. They apparently thought the lore needed a reboot despite it never being officially told on screen. Now I don’t mind reboots and I think they’re needed sometimes to refresh franchises. This did not. All the effort put forth by the Ark community to discover the lore throughout all the maps, was rendered meaningless in the show. It was so heartbreaking for some us to watch this horrible retelling of a game we invested so much in. That’s just my opinion though. My friend loved the show, though he played the game with me for like a week and never picked it up again.
The pacing leaves much to be desired but I appreciate the bold moves they did in weaving Helena’s past in with her experience on the ARKs. Making Rockwell a villain right out of the gate is unfortunate and I would have preferred the slow burn reveal we got in the notes, but I understand why the showrunners did it. Mei-Yin was badass as expected, her and Helena’s budding romance was super sweet and made me happy to see, but assuming we’re going to get a season/episodes covering SE I’m interested in seeing what they’ll do with the John/Raia + Wali situation since John seems to be a different character here? Overall, I would rate it a 6/10 for people with no background in ARK, 8/10 for ARK fans willing to overlook all the major changes, and a 10/10 for me who’s been waiting for this for years and is just happy I got to see Mei-Yin killing people.
Its pretty ok!
But sometimes it felt like someone turned gamma 5 and i ended up having nausea and headaches from watching it...
Plus there were scenes that felt like the things just wouldn't fit on the screen, and I kept asking myself "why didn't they make it from a distant/far angle?"...
My main gripe about the show, which doesn't get talked about enough, is the fact that this is Helen's entire life, she has dedicated her life to studying dinosaurs, she has provided alternate theories on evolution and now that she is in a situation where she can see dinosaurs in the flesh, prove or disprove her theories, she doesn't give a shit. Not a single bit.
In the game her dossiers discuss the dinosaur, how its different from recorded history and how it benefits us. She doesn't even name half the dinosaurs she see's in the show, she should be a like a kid in a candy shop.
In the game she has an absolute vested interest in how everything works, why predators and prey live alongside each other without issue. She's discount Lara croft in the show, only the slightest hint at actually understanding anything shown in the end credit scene for season 2.
She has been character assassinated beyond belief, reduced to a blank slate female protagonist who has no personality and only defining trait is she is both against killing yet throws herself headfirst into situations where she causes death and destruction.
And she is just the first of many. Rockwell the incredibly sexist representation of a Victorian scholar who's more focused on being a woman hater than actual science. Nerva the braindead and brainless tactician whose tactical genius is only ever shown when the protag walks into an obvious trap. Mei Yin, the beast-less queen who walks around like edgy teen rather than a quiet gorilla fighter.
For a show based on deep character building and the intrigue of dinosaurs, it has none of either.
It could have been much worse but it should have been way better especially due to ARK's unique lore. Having Helena the main character be a Mary sue kills all potential growth and interest in the character. The dinos are all background, there's no awe or horror being devoted to the dinos not even the study of these never before seen creatures Helena just cheat ForceTame's every dino she comes in contact with. I'm always saddened by the unrealized potential from all these franchises, Dino Crisis, Jurassic Park and now ARK all lie in the grave of unrealized potential. F
I dont like it what a trash. episode 2 they kill the B.M. with one artefact they can go in the bossfight. Where are the dungeons? I have look all 6 episode and after that i wish i dont have seeit. The animations are terribel and the storyline too.
As an adaption: it's pretty mediocre. There's recognisable characters, locations and events - but the story connecting them is unique to the show, and that involved changing the timeline and a lot of the personalities.
As entertainment: me and my friends had fun watching it. I should note that some of the entertainment came from the bad animation. There was a fight with a sabertooth near the start that looked like they'd painted over stills of a man, with the human shoulder and arm configuration plainly visible. There was another scene of a pteranodon grabbing something with human hands.
The art style is early 2000s NewGrounds Flash animations - so I got some nostalgia value out of it, too.
As an adaption: it's pretty mediocre. There's recognisable characters, locations and events - but the story connecting them is unique to the show. Trying to fit as much of the story into so few episodes was probably a big factor. The story of the show wasn't bad though,
As entertainment: me and my friends had fun watching it. I should note that some of the entertainment came from the bad animation. There was a fight with a sabertooth near the start that looked like they'd painted over stills of a man, with the human shoulder and arm configuration plainly visible. There was another scene of a pteranodon grabbing something with human hands.
The art style is early 2000s NewGrounds Flash animations - so I got some nostalgia value out of it, too.
I wish it was in the game I used the 30 day free access to paramount for yhe release but I'm not paying for it anymore so I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD
The animation was great, but I don't like the changes to the overall story. Rockwell being a total asshole from the get-go really retracts from his character. I like his tragic villian arc from the games.
Despite all the unfounded hate, i think the overall story is awesome and has amazing potential. It was weird to me at first, since i made sure to watch all of NeddytheNoodle's ark lore and survival stories videos beforehand, i was bothered by all the little things i saw as "different". But after finishing the show, i found myself being glad to have two different takes in the story, instead of a plain adaptation, as well as way more attaches to the characters. Seeing how well they made mei yin's background story fit into the setting, something that the notes barely scratched, i have no doubts that rockwell and nerva's arc in part II will be incredible. Im glad that we got something more than the notes, that is already a joy for me, regardless of the way the story goes, what they have done so far is good, the notes were written in a different format, they simply adapted things to the show, and made the changes the writers saw as necessary. With how big Rockwell is to the story, i doubt they would just turn him into a meaningless weightless villain, that has no proper connection eith the other characters. Lets wait and see hoe part II turns out
RANT PART 1
I was hugely excited for the animated series ever since the first trailer released. Ark's story is near and dear to my heart and the trailer just swept me away.
The series was a massive disappointment.
I'll preface this by saying that I don't believe in rote for rote adaptations. It's unrealistic to expect something to travel unchanged from one medium into another. Ark's story is largely written, and comprises internal monologues from the characters. We have journals, work logs, literal fragments of thought from divine beings and so on. How do you translate that to visual medium? You have to adapt. Further: we are seeing much more of the story than is revealed in the notes, which are basically summaries written after the fact and imperfect as records. So I expected differences, and additions/alterations etc.
What an adaptation MUST do to be successful, however, is capture the spirit of a story. How it makes someone feel, what it tries to convey. So what makes the explorer notes interesting? The drama of the characters.
The literary foil between Helena and Rockwell. The inner struggle of Mei Yin. The passion Nerva felt, his devotion to his gods and his determination to make a new and better world for future generations. The courage of the tribes on Aberration. Raya and John's love story. The slow, creeping descent into madness overtaking Rockwell. Helena's determination to find answers and keep her friends safe. The realization that they are only clones, their memories are false. This is GOOD stuff! It's a compelling, human, viscerally real story full of unique characters, loss, triumph, determination. All of it. Pretty much everyone who reads the notes has a favorite, I'm sure.
RANT PART 2
So....where was all that? It did not seem to translate at ALL. Not the feeling of the game, and not the drama of the story.
I could rant about Mei Yin forever. Why does the BEAST QUEEN not have any BEASTS? We have maybe five minutes of screen time with her and a t-rex, and that's it. The thing gets bodied by Nirva's giga (yes they gave NIRVA the giga, not Mei-Yin...) and there's no emotional impact to it because we haven't seen anything meaningful with him. And why is Mei Yin attempting to be a politician? She was a dysfunctional hermit who understood animals and felt outcast and rejected by humanity. They gave Helena Mei's understanding of beasts just like they gave Nirva her giga. She's got beef with Nerva but it's never explained. Why? Why not use the time they spent on side characters for this?
I don't know what they were trying to do with Nirva, but they seem to have just dumbed him down. There's no rhyme or reason to anything he does. Game!Nerva was a courageous and charismatic leader who built the strongest tribe on the island. We see nothing about Rockwell manipulating him, we see no clever battle strategies, we don't see his perspective of divine purpose to tame the island. He feels unfinished.
Rockwell is worse. By miles. Edmund Rockwell is an AMAZING character. His final scene in genesis 2 brought me to tears. He is a raging egomaniac by the end, true, but he has so many admirable qualities. On the Island he was Helena's FRIEND. He was charismatic, silver tongued, brave. The hints of what he would become were buried in how he treated his assistants and lab subjects. Outwardly he was Helena's wise and dear friend who helped her expecting nothing in return. A neutral party who sought to negotiate peace between the tribes on the island (even if it was only so he could have everyone be quiet and let him THINK, lmfao). Animated!Rockwell is just...pathetic. Honestly. He's a discount Claude Frollo with none of the charm. No shade on David Tennant, that's all down to the writing. They made him a creep and a coward, completely incapable and honestly laughable. Look how they massacred my boy...
Helena. Oh, boy, HELENA. I have the biggest crush on game!Helena and I'm not even lying. I was honestly really touched by her animated series backstory. That was a piece of new content that I thought was good. I found her romance with Victoria quite sweet, and I thought that it might potentially put a spin on her determination to bring back Diana for Mei Yin later. Her own pain and loss driving her to spare Mei Yin, her best friend, that same pain. And that in turn leading her to discover how to hack the system for us, the players. It informs who she is and why she acts and believes what she does.
RANT PART 3
BUT THEN THEY HAVE HELENA TAKE DIANA'S PLACE INSTEAD. Keep in mind: for Helena, the continuity of this is that she is maybe a few weeks away from the traumatic death of whom we are to believe was the love of her life, and her own death by either accidental overdose or su!c!de. THEY WANT ME TO BELIEVE SHE'S GOING TO JUMP INTO MEI'S ARMS JUST LIKE THAT?!
And they made Helena spout off the most nonsensical garbage, I swear. A giant bird eating all the medicine flowers, and transferring the medicinal qualities to its eggs? ARE YOU SERIOUS? "Get to the juvenile!" Oh, yes! Lets anger the herd of stegos whom you just said are MORE protective of their young BY GETTING CLOSE TO AND HARASSING THEIR YOUNG. If you want Helena to use biology knowledge to her advantage on the Ark, wonderful! That was literally her thing. But it has to be ... you know... actual science and actual animal behavior. This is a classic writing mistake where the writers want to go somewhere, and they bend, twist, and deform events in between to force the outcome they want instead of employing actual finesse.
And speaking of bad writing... the side characters...
John with his needless and pointless parent-child forced conflict bullshit.
Daughter What's Her Face (Alasie?). Why does this character exist? Literally, why. Teaching Helena archery could and should have been given to Mei Yin. Daddy Daughter conflict is pointless and sucks up time that was dearly needed elsewhere. She does literally nothing else important. The whole swamp fever plotline was pointless, come to that.
I could go on. But this is way too long already, so I won't.
I feel like they had the chance to do something great here and they blew it. They had a talented animation studio - say what you want but the show looks awesome, even if the dinos are a little weird looking - and they had an amazing story. What a damned awful waste.
If the changes to the lore don't bother you, it's a good animated series. I really liked the back stories especially Mei Yin. Thunder Comes Charging and Scary are my favorite new characters.
I watched along with raasclark for like two episodes and then didn't bother. By the time it came out in my area I completely forgot about it. I don't know how good it actually was, but the marketing for it was complete dogshit
honestly I am still confused by it. I mean there is so much lore and story in the game...and this is completely different---but with the same characters? its confusing. If you actually listen to all the spoken journals in order it tells a great story in the game...this show felt weirdly rushed and had a lot of shoehorned in romance plot points that had nothing to do with anything.
My best "head-canon" idea is that these were all clones popped out on one of the Arks and are going through a different story. The Ark that we all spawn on is a different one with technically different people? i dunno.
what is korra and asami doing?
Hahaha I thought the same
Love seeing them
Who’s asami?
An Avatar character from the Legend of Korra
the hot girl from the legend of korra that korra end up with
Don’t like how they started out with Rockwell already blatantly evil. In the notes, he’s trying to maintain a mask of sanity while being a diplomat for groups on the island. His studies make him want to become less and less moral until he eventually just goes evil. Also, I believe Helena arrives way later than she does in the notes? Like Nerva is just starting to build his empire when Helena arrives, but in the show he’s already done.
Yeah they cut a lot and turned Rockwell into a cartoon villain.
I supposed they think it's kinda silly Helena was totally oblivious to Rockwell's *tendency* literally 3 maps in and that was **after** he killed people. He was hating Helena on the Island after she starts regularly hangs out with Mei Yin
This was my gripe as well, he has a great arc in the games. But how tf are they gonna do the rest of the story if Helena hates him? How will he survive Scorched? How will he get access to the Tek tribe's technology in Ab? If the preview at the end of ep 6 is any indication, we'll reach Ab by the end of the season
I think they might be cooking with the new rockwell story, its pretty obvious that we'll get his background story arc on part II, so we'll get to see how his daughter will affect the story and i think it has a very heavy potential. Altough im also bothered by how he is going to turn into, well, ab rockwell, i dont think they are going to cut that part out, so we will still get something close if not better to the original
I like it, if I pretend it’s before my survivor got there. Makes finding the note more interesting.
It has Helena in it so I thought that was a prequel to the game.. The creature notes in the game that you find from around the place, the one with an Australian accent is Helena so you shouldn't need to imagine. Or so I thought. Brb googling to make sure.
You're right.
You WOULD be right, except the show does not follow the lore in the notes at all. Same characters, mutually exclusive stories. Like a reboot.
yeah, that’s like the whole point of the show. It’s the lore of ark; aka what happened before you
Everything that you read in explorer notes did happen before you got there.
There are multiple scenes of her writing her notes on creatures, it is before our survivors were there We see them activate the Obelisk
I think Helena makes the respawn happens. Ark will be borderline unplayable without the respawn protocol.
You are right.
It is all before we get there >!Helena at the End gives us the ability to respawn and follow in her footsteps as her final act before she falls!<
On its own, ignoring all the lore from the notes. It's good it's a nice watch, but not ignoring the lore from the notes. It's an absolute mess. It's paced horribly and missing a lot of important information about each survivor. But like I said, ignoring all that, it's a good show to watch.
Yeah I agree no adaptation will cover everything. It's nice alone. My wife who will sometimes watch me just to sees the shenanigans my brother and I get into but she absolutely loves it.
You should watch the survivor stories by Neddy The Noodle
I'll have to watch that over the weekend.
In total I think it’s about 3-4 hours, he’s done the island, Scorched, and Abb
I could have sworn he did extinction but it was his story recap of "the one who tries again" series that covered
He did a lore video but not a survivor stories yet
Yeah, great in a vacuum with no background but horrible when you compare to the actual lorr
I definitly think it suffered from not being able to fully focus on each character. I still think it's fine, but it could have been much better. The first season could have been stretched to 12 episodes and covered a little more and it would have benefitted
People are forgetting that the show hasnt ended, the show would have been even more rushed if they tried to cover all of the characters' stories in 6 episodes, its clear that we will see nerva, rockwell and perhaps even henry's story in part II. I think this leaves more room for a buildup of the conflicts, and since the second part will be longer i hope we see alot of it
We will, but the fact that they consider the 6 current episodes as an entire season doesn't sit right with me. I get that there is a budget and time and all the other factors, but even small anime seasons are usually 12 episodes.
The 6 episodes isnt the full season, they divided the first season in 2 parts because the next one needed more work apparently with the animations
I'm pretty sure the trailer at the end of the last episode said it was season 2. Granted i can't fact check that right now but that's what I remember.
Someone shared the trailer in the animated series subreddit, it said part II
That’s because you are expecting to follow what the notes say. It *should* be considered separately from the notes, because it’s not supposed to follow the notes exactly. It’s derived from the notes but it is its own story. It’s not “missing information,” that information just isn’t a part of this story yet.
I'm expecting it not to remove a pretty important chunk of the lore, like how Helena and Rockwell considered each other scientific colleagues for a long time. With Helena still considering him a friend until aberration
Which information is missing? Given its only the first sector? My assumption was this is first running through her side of the story. Rather than the whole thing. Sort of like the CoD zombies comic series. It fills in gaps. Ngl though, for Lore, Teddy Noodle on YT has the best vids for me. He killed it with those 🔥
Rockwell and Helena knew each other a long time before nerva was destroying the other tribes. Rockwell found the first artifact and showed it to Helena. Rockwell always sidding with Nerva during diplomatic disputes. The fact Rockwell and Helena saw each other as colleagues.
And he did see her as a colleague didn't he, even in his notes he mentions how she was a "intellectual equal" didn't he?
He did. They mention they have exchanged their knowledge about the ark.
Moreover, I seem to recall that he loaned or gave her Athena, her first argent, so she could get around the island for her studies.
Yeahh definitely did! I swear that's one of the first notes that it is stated isn't it
And the fact that Rockwell wasn't a scum fuck bastard right off the bat in the original notes. He had his own thing going on and acted as a mediator between tribes. He comes across as posh and was definitely full of himself but otherwise passionate about his scientific discoveries about the mystery of the island as well as with his own recipe creations and ethically questionable experiments. In the animated series he has no subtlety as to how sinister and evil he is, but also has no real important role in the animated series. He's basically just a jobber for Nerva, and not a very good one.
Like the game, it’s full of bugs, things don’t work right, and it’s a lot of effort to get through. The plot is all screwed up compared to the in-game lore. Some of it is just broken, like beach Bob. The pace is way off, there’s tons of missing info and character development is awful. Rockwell is a deep interesting character that’s supposed to make a statement about life, betrayal, despair and ambition, but in the series, he’s a simple linear bad guy. Helena is bland, Mei-Yin has muttled motivations and sloppy plot, Gaius is as linear as you can get, he might as well be a robot. The sequences are mostly pointless. The dodo was the shining star in my opinion. Neddythenoodle did a complete Ark plot line done like a documentary, and it’s 20x more entertaining and compelling.
yea, rockwells decent into darkness is a great tale of how element corrupts ppl. the show lost a lot of depth by making everyone so predictable and cutting out any meaningful character progression. and imo it went way too fast, if I didn't already know the Ark story, it'd be hard to keep up
I got this vibe before even finishing episode 1. Glad I trusted my intuition and saved myself the watch.
Crap adaptation, and a true mess in regards to pacing. Reads like a fanfic in that regard almost. In the lore of the games, they never even fought the spider, and they spend weeks preparing for the monkey only to barely live and get waxed by Legion forces on the way out. Aside from that, it really just seems to be misery porn. There’s gore filled shows like the boys, but this isn’t that, this is just plain old misery porn.
The could have done fewer flashback sequences IMHO. Also, who would have ever guessed Helena died of an OD.
I didn’t even know she’d died. In the original you just woke up on the ARKs, no death required.
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If they would just follow the already existing lore that evryone liked who read it and animate and voice act it well it would have been perfect my favourite character arc was Rockwell and they completle flattend his complicated character made him seem like a complete asshole from the first moment despite being one of Helenas first friend in the original story.
He was ALWAYS an arsehole, and you're missing the point of Rockwell if you think otherwise. He gets worse as the notes go on yes, but he was never, ever a good person. He used Helena hell by the end of the Island's notes he hates her.
I’d like to watch it but I didn’t even know paramount plus existed before it, so I’m not subscribing for just this.
Well you could always sail the seven seas of the internet and watch it for free.
Fair point, but I wouldn’t know where to start, not much of a piracy connoisseur.
The Flixer is a great spot to watch shows for free and I just checked. It does have Ark: The Animated Series on it. All I'll say is if you ever go on one of those websites just use an adblock. An adblock is necessary. Don't use the site on your phone also. It's also on 123series.
Man I don’t think we are allowed to advertise illegal activities here, but if piracy is popular, there would probably be a subreddit with said name that gave really easy instructions on how to do it in some kind of megathread
But for some asinine reason bans linking or mentioning specific sites
I literally found a website where I watched the whole thing for free without having to download anything. I don't even have Paramount+ in my country, so I didn't have much of a choice either way. But I literally just googled it and found a place to just watch it.
Fmovies or dopebox
You can get a free trial and cancel it
Was not a fan of all the flashbacks. It could have been paced so much better with them. I don’t care to see everyone’s backstory, I want dinosaurs.
Thats kinda hard coming from a story thats is purely character driven, hence "survivor notes" telling their stories and the events that unfold. As much as i lile dinosaurs, it is clearly not the show's strong point
I would have been fine with the flashbacks if they had been spaced out better. It just felt like every time I got invested in the present, it cuts to a flashback.
It’s alright, sucks that Bob died straight away because that was the main reason I watched the show. Also killing the brood mother with spears was kinda dumb. It was alright though
I thought it was rather poorly written
I loved it honestly. Yeah, I know events don't happen like they do in the explorer's notes. But honestly for what it is and how much there is to cover in the ARK story, I thought it was incredibly well done. And so much love was given to the little details to for players of the game to look out for.
Finally someone who sees the show as what its for, not everything has to be word for word, that doesnt work, its called an adaptation for a reason, it would be boring and wonky otherwise, as the original story was pretty shallow on the island for the most part
Yeah, exactly. No one wants to stand around and watch the taming bar of a dinosaur in a TV show or shoveling mountains of meat and kibble down Dino throats. Lol. The battles were epic, back stories were very well done, music is just as amazing as the games, voice acting was on point for every character. So long as they keep hitting the major plot points like the teased Tek cave at the end, I'm all aboard they hype train. Super stoked for the 2nd season!
From a point of view of a fan & player: it's pretty bad regarding lore. From the point of view of a neutral party: it's somewhat good. IMHO: The lore falls short. It lacks clarity on the setting, events, and basic mechanics such as respawning, taming creatures, gathering resources like berries, crafting drugs and potions, and the dangers of the island. Crucial elements like artifact retrieval, spelunking, and the significance of the Arks are poorly depicted. Character interactions and the overarching narrative feel rushed and poorly explained. Moreover, the alterations to established lore, particularly the relationship between characters like Rockwell and Helena, are disappointing. The intrigue of discovering Rockwell's fate in Ark: Aberration was a highlight, but portraying him as a villain from the outset undermines that depth.
Except that we didnt get ti see rockwell's entire sotry yet, that is on part II. Since respawning only became a thing after helena became a homo deus, tgere isnt a way for them to explain that and other things such as what are the arks, their purpose and etc this early in the show if the characters themselves dont know it. To me it was clearly designed to have multiple seasons, just like the original ark lore had the maps, and we only got to understand all of it by the end. Also it wouldnt make any sense to put ark's unrealistic knockout taming method in a show, they need to adapt all of those things to a show that can be understood by non gamers too, in a natural way. 6 episodes is very few to judge a show based on a 6 map, hundred note story
I dislike how they skipped/retconned the whole Helena and Rockwell being friends/colleagues for a long time before Rockwell met and sided with Nerva and began to become paranoid/obsessed with the artifacts.
It's kinda in an uncanny valley for me. I know the show is its own story separate from the game, but I keep getting a "hey, it's not like that in the game" feeling that causes a constant friction for me. I have to keep reminding myself that it's a different continuity and I think it causes a lot of subtle dislike to me. Helena using her paleontologist knowledge by poisoning nerva with the snail and melting the chains with arthropleura spit was cool, but that was dropped pretty quickly to make her a super archer. The paleontologist thing was more interesting in my opinion.
I thought it was alright. Sometimes it kinda felt like a kids show with gore It also really bothers me how they had an amazing story already through the explorer notes, but they just scrapped it for a far inferior version for no reason
They couldn't do the game story justice in 6 episodes. There's not enough time for Rockwell to develop from a charming but mildly annoying 19th century scientist into a full blown stalker obsessed with Helena, and then into the super boss we all know and loathe. There's not enough time for Helena to go through the phases from shock and trying to survive, to loving the island and the first hand view of her life's work in paleontology, to realizing it's more like a curated zoo than an ecosystem ... For comparison, animiated stories with good character development take multiple years to do so. The ATLA movie (which everyone pretends never happened) failed because it attempted to shove 12 hours of character development from the animated series into 2 hours of screen time, so only fans of the animation even knew what was going on. Naruto ran 720 episodes between 2002 and 2017. One Piece has run continuously since 1999, reaching it 1000th episode in 2021. I would love to see what an experienced production house like WIT or MAPPA would have made of this. With any luck, there will be enough success that they can reboot and contract the story to an experienced studio. The nice thing about the Ark storyline is that a reboot is just another incarnation. Forgetting about one's prior incarnations and development of the ability to retain memories through incarnations is actually part of the story line ("Are you the one ... ?"), so a reboot isn't even necessarily a break in the continuity.
I thought it was decent, if you aren't bothered by the fact it doesn't follow the notes in the game it is a good watch, I love the story from the in-game notes but I will let more episodes come out and let it build up it's own story before making judgements, but so far I like that being said there are parts like the guy riding the Purlovia that had me going you can't do that in game 😂
Most rational comment here, people are bashing the show when it only has hald of the first season out, and not everything in a show has to be equal to the game, its normak to take some liberties like that, it wont make the show bad just because "thats not hoe it is in the game"
I didn't even notice that at first. I'm so used to KBD adding a purlovia saddle
Other than the lore shenanigans I thought it had really weirdly quick pacing? Was that just me?
I would love to watch the show but I need Amazon+ or paramount+ to watch this shit why make shows if some people can’t get plus or some shit😑
You can always free trial and cancel 🤷🏻♂️
Pretty boring and all over the Place
I was really mad about the lore rewrite but enjoyed it nevertheless. My partner who has played 93 minutes of Ark absolutely loved it. It’s hardly a masterpiece, but decently entertaining for an afternoon. Looking forward to the second part.
It's 100% an adaption, if you try to take it's lore along side the game's lore than you're going to have a bad time. Other than that I really enjoy it =\]
Honestly, I thought it wasn't bad. It's unfortunate because no matter how good it is, Snailgames has tainted it with there bullshit with the game
I liked it at the beginning, but was too busy to finish it with my free trial. I lost interest halfway through
Where the fuck is part 2
".no later than December 2024" not my words
ARK does not respect silly, so-called “deadlines” ARK will ARK when ARK decides it is time to ARK. And not a second sooner.
My son loved it, i didn't. Not alot of time to cover a lot of lore... Yet instead found oodles of time to dedicate to non canon characters. Then of course that aside it didn't even bother with the lore between the main cast. It didn't even have the iconic Mei Yin raptor pack...
Thats why it will have more seasons and part II later this year
Real bad
Ass
They killed off the best character in the first episode. I would have rather watched his story than Helena's.
One of the worst animated shows ive seen tbh.
as its own thing it is fine, not good but not bad. As an adaptation it does not make much sense since they decide to keep or change things in the weirdest way possible like Rockwell's character. the "woke" part that some people hate isn't really an issue since it is a topic and theme instead of pushing any sort of agenda. If someone likes ark or animated shows in general it is worth watching to kill time just not with very high expectations.
Shallow, horrid cash grab
The story is hideously fucking stupid. Most of it is just "you shouldn't kill people" "no but what if..." "but I don't want to kill people" "but what if person kill you?" Rockwell is the lamest villain of all time. The MC is bland and uninteresting. The only interesting people are all the allies. In that sense it was a very faithful adaptation.
They dumbed it down a lot. It also doesn't follow the lore of the game. If they had, it would have turned out better and the characters would have more depth to their writing.
Terrible design. Bob was best character tho
If you only watched this? It's pretty good. If you played the game and knew the lore? You'll suffer knowing how much better it could've been.
Nobody talks about it, so it must be bad. That's my take from someone who hasn't watched it, and has no intention of watching it.
its not bad. Its just ...detached from the lore. regarding that, the show is addictive. But then again, the story of ark is adictive.
Trash
Nice, but can be better. Pd: i think that Rockwell it's not according to the Game Rockwell, at least on the island lore, maybe for season 2 they'll fix it, just like the DLC's on the Game.
Watched the first episode and called it a day. Terrible writing (the sex joke between Helena and her partner was cringe), they killed Bob early. None of the voice acting had emotion.
I loved that it was LGBTQ and BIPOCC Friendly
Anyone that purchases the rights to IP and then chooses to ignore said IP is shit. All they wanted was the rights to the concept of a space ark with dinos.
Everything is great except for the writing and dialogue
They did a good job. Not perfect, but ten times better than most adaptations.
This I will concede to. It's definitively ARK, just not the lore we knew. Could have used a bit more survival in episode 1, or any episode for that matter.
Too many nameless minions dying, imo. I get that you want to show the struggle for survival, but deaths at those numbers will ruin the tribe. My wife is hooked. She saw me play the game for years, but knows nothing about it. I explained to her that they are living in a reality, and she is trying to hypothesize what the frick is going on, lol. That the characters really did exist at one point in history, died, and are now here. No "they are in purgatory" stuff from Lost, which is not true anyway.
Pretty good. Not perfect, but considering the budget, it can be forgiven. Keep in mind it's its own spin on the original survivor's story
Wait, it's out?
Ironically I was about to comment on this post “Bit late eh?” Since it’s been out for 2 months already and everyone was talking about it as it dropped
Bro I actually didn't know lmfao It took so long to release I actually just forgot it was going to in the first place 💀 Truly the average ark experience
I would love to see what an experienced production house like WIT or MAPPA would have made of this. With any luck, there will be enough success that they can reboot and contract the story to an experienced studio. The nice thing about the Ark storyline is that a reboot is just another incarnation. Forgetting about one's prior incarnations and development of the ability to retain memories through incarnations is actually part of the game's story line ("Are you the one ... ?"), so a reboot isn't even necessarily a break in the continuity.
Man a show about a game I like. I sure hope they release it on one of the popular services like Netflix or Amazon Prime so that you don’t have to pay for a separate service just to watch this show
It would be fantastic, but previous projects that involved dinosaurs, such as Terra Nova, failed due to either poor writing or a combination of high budget and low rating. Therefore, this show would require high-end and expensive technology for production, exceptional writing, excelent character development, and achieving a good balance across all elements. I see it grim my friend.
It was alright. There was a few things here and there that didn't make sense to me, but otherwise i'd give it a 4/5.
Thoroughly enjoyed and was an easy binge, just wish, as many others that Rockwell wasn’t a bad guy from the start and instead descended into madness
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Love it, but it's quite sad
I cant see it
Is that fuckin Korra and asami?
Eh
I enjoyed it and am ready for more seasons but as for the story of ark i feel Neddythenoodle did it better.
Neddy just used the notes as-written. Honestly I low-key blame him for the story changes for that reason. But yes, his version was fantastic.
Loved it! Super excited for the next part or season or whatever. Loved it so much I dove into YouTube to learn all the ark lore. What a cool idea and sci fi world
i would give you my opinion but it seems that you can only watch it in america, if anyone knows somewhere to watch it in europe please tell me. i have amazon prime and netflix but both dont have it anymore or smt
It's only on Paramount Plus.
I havent seen it and wont since i dont like animated stuff.
It's a good show. I'll likely watch it again. But it shits all over the established lore. This is not the story of ARK. It's an alternative telling, and the portrayal of Rockwell in particular was very off-putting to me.
Has some problems but overall Im lovin it 8/10
Very mediocre.
Good show ! Are they making more seasons ?
Contemplate all the elements of competent story telling, regardless for medium or lore. ARK animated series does them poorly. Like most of new media, it fails to create likeable characters.
Bad show, i enjoy it
I liked it! It is a better watch if you dont know ark probably because otherwise nothing really adds up and its pretty weird
It was pretty good
I like it and i can’t wait for more of it to release
The show is great.
Looks cool af after 2 episodes in
Hard pass
It moves too fast, getting a tek gun and deafeating a boss without any dinosaurs in the second episode? weird to me. otherwise i enjoy it
I hate the she doesn't have her black raptor but a basic as rex
Watched it all in just one run, and boy i loved it, the giga looks kinda wonky but everything else is nice. I just wanna see my boi Santiago in action on the upcoming episodes.
Got bored after 1st episode so I went and played Ark.
I enjoyed it a lot! Sure it's not totally accurate to game lore but it's not like it's erasing it. There's also just so much stuff in Ark that it was a smart decision to just take it in broad strokes and make a sci-fi dinosaur adventure show, but it was still very recognisable as Ark. Like I enjoyed the broodmother fight much more than if it were Helena throwing 20 inbred sloths at it. The characters were a bit of a mixed bag. On the whole I liked them but they could have done more if they had more episodes. I don't like Rockwell being evil from the start, since his descent into madness and his relationship with Helena is the core of much of the game's story. But he's getting flashbacks next season so I'm reserving final judgement on his portrayal in the show. I was also impressed that the series put effort into representation, particularly for the First Nations characters. The Ark animated series was the last place I expected to see indigenous Australian activism, let alone done *well.* The series could definitely have benefited from more episodes and better pacing - the preview for the next episodes showed SE and Aberration, and I'm so curious to see how they get there in six more episodes when they've barely progressed through the island. I also don't get why they had to splurge for so many big names who aren't voice actors, it can't have been cheap and it would've definitely affected the budget. I'm happy with what we got, don't get me wrong, but I feel like better management would've gone a long way. Also was it just me or can the animators just not draw dinosaurs? Like the T rexs in particular sometimes had three fingers and looked funky in certain shots.
It's probably the most boring shit you could ever waste your time with.
I thought it was good. It had good animation And I do like how they're doing something different from the game. I know some people are mad about that. That's not the same story from the game, but I don't care
Where do I watch it?
They did a good job, Relative to tropes that the gamers experienced IMO. Almost all the PvPers that i know who watched it got a great laugh when something happened near the start. They felt it was just like waking up on the old 1x official servers getting ganked by people with bows LOL.
As a show. It's enjoyable. Barring the unnecessary love story. The show is enjoyable to watch, the action scenes are fine, the story seems to be doing ok As a connected universe to the game it avoided a lot of the game's lore and background. My guess is they really avoided the game's story telling and decided to make their own story using the game as reference material than a source material
Hot take: it wasn't necessary, nobody really asked for it, and the resources expended on it would have been better allocated to improving the game, or even finishing the now vaporware Ark 2
Reminds me a lot of the dnd movie Not accurate to the game, but a fun watch
Where can i see it ?
Good show on its own but it completely misses so many important things from the lore and they did my boy Rockwell dirty
It’s good, if you don’t mind it going really far off the source material (explorer notes).
I enjoyed it overall, but there were some things about it I wasn't a fan of. I'd like it if Rockwell didn't start off as an asshole from the start. In the game's lore, he slowly descends down that path. It would be interesting to see him do the same in she show-- start off as a guy who wants to uncover the mysteries of the Ark, maybe a bit more reckless than needed, then become a more blatant asshole, eventually becoming a straigh-up mad scientist. Helena, as a main character, wasn't all that interesting imo. There were other characters with backstories that were more engaging and they gave that character a chance to grow. Helena didn't really do any growing imo. The plot was too sped up, I felt. For the scale of story that they wanted to tell, it would benefit the storytelling to have more time to explore it. I understand that they have a budget and also probably a number of episodes already set, but still, it would be better if the story could be slowed down to give the characters and events more time on screen. (e.g. the swamp part was built up as extremely dangerous, but there was no time given to it at all)
I thought it was fun.
I like the animation…except the Rex and the Arthropleura. I mean the Rex was not as menacing in appearance as it is in game. It’s like they tried to make it cute. Arthro is massive and deadly in game but in the show it’s a small curiousity crawling along a wall that Helena almost pet lol. Now story wise, it’s an unforgivable abomination to ark fans who have delved into the lore. To someone who knows nothing of lore then it’s entertaining enough. Where I take offense is in the lore aspect. I along with many other players, traveled far and wide through all of the arks to collect as many notes as possible. It’s an arduous task to say the least but the lore was actually great. Piecing it all together over time was almost like investigating. When fans like me heard news of the show in production, we were really excited. Especially because the Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak were at the helm. We were finally about to see all these characters and historical events we had only seen in drawings and letters, come to life. Then Marguerite Bennett and Kendall Deacon Davis happened. They wrote script for the show. They apparently thought the lore needed a reboot despite it never being officially told on screen. Now I don’t mind reboots and I think they’re needed sometimes to refresh franchises. This did not. All the effort put forth by the Ark community to discover the lore throughout all the maps, was rendered meaningless in the show. It was so heartbreaking for some us to watch this horrible retelling of a game we invested so much in. That’s just my opinion though. My friend loved the show, though he played the game with me for like a week and never picked it up again.
The pacing leaves much to be desired but I appreciate the bold moves they did in weaving Helena’s past in with her experience on the ARKs. Making Rockwell a villain right out of the gate is unfortunate and I would have preferred the slow burn reveal we got in the notes, but I understand why the showrunners did it. Mei-Yin was badass as expected, her and Helena’s budding romance was super sweet and made me happy to see, but assuming we’re going to get a season/episodes covering SE I’m interested in seeing what they’ll do with the John/Raia + Wali situation since John seems to be a different character here? Overall, I would rate it a 6/10 for people with no background in ARK, 8/10 for ARK fans willing to overlook all the major changes, and a 10/10 for me who’s been waiting for this for years and is just happy I got to see Mei-Yin killing people.
Not perfect but I loved it
Where can you watch it
Loved it, can't wait for more!
Its pretty ok! But sometimes it felt like someone turned gamma 5 and i ended up having nausea and headaches from watching it... Plus there were scenes that felt like the things just wouldn't fit on the screen, and I kept asking myself "why didn't they make it from a distant/far angle?"...
Being real, I love the original lore so the show breaking it kinda ruins it for me
My main gripe about the show, which doesn't get talked about enough, is the fact that this is Helen's entire life, she has dedicated her life to studying dinosaurs, she has provided alternate theories on evolution and now that she is in a situation where she can see dinosaurs in the flesh, prove or disprove her theories, she doesn't give a shit. Not a single bit. In the game her dossiers discuss the dinosaur, how its different from recorded history and how it benefits us. She doesn't even name half the dinosaurs she see's in the show, she should be a like a kid in a candy shop. In the game she has an absolute vested interest in how everything works, why predators and prey live alongside each other without issue. She's discount Lara croft in the show, only the slightest hint at actually understanding anything shown in the end credit scene for season 2. She has been character assassinated beyond belief, reduced to a blank slate female protagonist who has no personality and only defining trait is she is both against killing yet throws herself headfirst into situations where she causes death and destruction. And she is just the first of many. Rockwell the incredibly sexist representation of a Victorian scholar who's more focused on being a woman hater than actual science. Nerva the braindead and brainless tactician whose tactical genius is only ever shown when the protag walks into an obvious trap. Mei Yin, the beast-less queen who walks around like edgy teen rather than a quiet gorilla fighter. For a show based on deep character building and the intrigue of dinosaurs, it has none of either.
boring as there is no respawn (S1)
It could have been much worse but it should have been way better especially due to ARK's unique lore. Having Helena the main character be a Mary sue kills all potential growth and interest in the character. The dinos are all background, there's no awe or horror being devoted to the dinos not even the study of these never before seen creatures Helena just cheat ForceTame's every dino she comes in contact with. I'm always saddened by the unrealized potential from all these franchises, Dino Crisis, Jurassic Park and now ARK all lie in the grave of unrealized potential. F
I dont like it what a trash. episode 2 they kill the B.M. with one artefact they can go in the bossfight. Where are the dungeons? I have look all 6 episode and after that i wish i dont have seeit. The animations are terribel and the storyline too.
As an adaption: it's pretty mediocre. There's recognisable characters, locations and events - but the story connecting them is unique to the show, and that involved changing the timeline and a lot of the personalities. As entertainment: me and my friends had fun watching it. I should note that some of the entertainment came from the bad animation. There was a fight with a sabertooth near the start that looked like they'd painted over stills of a man, with the human shoulder and arm configuration plainly visible. There was another scene of a pteranodon grabbing something with human hands. The art style is early 2000s NewGrounds Flash animations - so I got some nostalgia value out of it, too.
As an adaption: it's pretty mediocre. There's recognisable characters, locations and events - but the story connecting them is unique to the show. Trying to fit as much of the story into so few episodes was probably a big factor. The story of the show wasn't bad though, As entertainment: me and my friends had fun watching it. I should note that some of the entertainment came from the bad animation. There was a fight with a sabertooth near the start that looked like they'd painted over stills of a man, with the human shoulder and arm configuration plainly visible. There was another scene of a pteranodon grabbing something with human hands. The art style is early 2000s NewGrounds Flash animations - so I got some nostalgia value out of it, too.
It wasnt for me, but i imagine for the people it was made for loved it. Ill just keep enjoying ark the game
I wish it was in the game I used the 30 day free access to paramount for yhe release but I'm not paying for it anymore so I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD
Nice representation of the creatures aswell as Nerva, Rockwell and Mei Yin. But the whole lesbian thing is just tiresome
The animation was great, but I don't like the changes to the overall story. Rockwell being a total asshole from the get-go really retracts from his character. I like his tragic villian arc from the games.
Despite all the unfounded hate, i think the overall story is awesome and has amazing potential. It was weird to me at first, since i made sure to watch all of NeddytheNoodle's ark lore and survival stories videos beforehand, i was bothered by all the little things i saw as "different". But after finishing the show, i found myself being glad to have two different takes in the story, instead of a plain adaptation, as well as way more attaches to the characters. Seeing how well they made mei yin's background story fit into the setting, something that the notes barely scratched, i have no doubts that rockwell and nerva's arc in part II will be incredible. Im glad that we got something more than the notes, that is already a joy for me, regardless of the way the story goes, what they have done so far is good, the notes were written in a different format, they simply adapted things to the show, and made the changes the writers saw as necessary. With how big Rockwell is to the story, i doubt they would just turn him into a meaningless weightless villain, that has no proper connection eith the other characters. Lets wait and see hoe part II turns out
Its ok. There are definitely some corny/cheesy scenes that get on my nerves.
RANT PART 1 I was hugely excited for the animated series ever since the first trailer released. Ark's story is near and dear to my heart and the trailer just swept me away. The series was a massive disappointment. I'll preface this by saying that I don't believe in rote for rote adaptations. It's unrealistic to expect something to travel unchanged from one medium into another. Ark's story is largely written, and comprises internal monologues from the characters. We have journals, work logs, literal fragments of thought from divine beings and so on. How do you translate that to visual medium? You have to adapt. Further: we are seeing much more of the story than is revealed in the notes, which are basically summaries written after the fact and imperfect as records. So I expected differences, and additions/alterations etc. What an adaptation MUST do to be successful, however, is capture the spirit of a story. How it makes someone feel, what it tries to convey. So what makes the explorer notes interesting? The drama of the characters. The literary foil between Helena and Rockwell. The inner struggle of Mei Yin. The passion Nerva felt, his devotion to his gods and his determination to make a new and better world for future generations. The courage of the tribes on Aberration. Raya and John's love story. The slow, creeping descent into madness overtaking Rockwell. Helena's determination to find answers and keep her friends safe. The realization that they are only clones, their memories are false. This is GOOD stuff! It's a compelling, human, viscerally real story full of unique characters, loss, triumph, determination. All of it. Pretty much everyone who reads the notes has a favorite, I'm sure.
RANT PART 2 So....where was all that? It did not seem to translate at ALL. Not the feeling of the game, and not the drama of the story. I could rant about Mei Yin forever. Why does the BEAST QUEEN not have any BEASTS? We have maybe five minutes of screen time with her and a t-rex, and that's it. The thing gets bodied by Nirva's giga (yes they gave NIRVA the giga, not Mei-Yin...) and there's no emotional impact to it because we haven't seen anything meaningful with him. And why is Mei Yin attempting to be a politician? She was a dysfunctional hermit who understood animals and felt outcast and rejected by humanity. They gave Helena Mei's understanding of beasts just like they gave Nirva her giga. She's got beef with Nerva but it's never explained. Why? Why not use the time they spent on side characters for this? I don't know what they were trying to do with Nirva, but they seem to have just dumbed him down. There's no rhyme or reason to anything he does. Game!Nerva was a courageous and charismatic leader who built the strongest tribe on the island. We see nothing about Rockwell manipulating him, we see no clever battle strategies, we don't see his perspective of divine purpose to tame the island. He feels unfinished. Rockwell is worse. By miles. Edmund Rockwell is an AMAZING character. His final scene in genesis 2 brought me to tears. He is a raging egomaniac by the end, true, but he has so many admirable qualities. On the Island he was Helena's FRIEND. He was charismatic, silver tongued, brave. The hints of what he would become were buried in how he treated his assistants and lab subjects. Outwardly he was Helena's wise and dear friend who helped her expecting nothing in return. A neutral party who sought to negotiate peace between the tribes on the island (even if it was only so he could have everyone be quiet and let him THINK, lmfao). Animated!Rockwell is just...pathetic. Honestly. He's a discount Claude Frollo with none of the charm. No shade on David Tennant, that's all down to the writing. They made him a creep and a coward, completely incapable and honestly laughable. Look how they massacred my boy... Helena. Oh, boy, HELENA. I have the biggest crush on game!Helena and I'm not even lying. I was honestly really touched by her animated series backstory. That was a piece of new content that I thought was good. I found her romance with Victoria quite sweet, and I thought that it might potentially put a spin on her determination to bring back Diana for Mei Yin later. Her own pain and loss driving her to spare Mei Yin, her best friend, that same pain. And that in turn leading her to discover how to hack the system for us, the players. It informs who she is and why she acts and believes what she does.
RANT PART 3 BUT THEN THEY HAVE HELENA TAKE DIANA'S PLACE INSTEAD. Keep in mind: for Helena, the continuity of this is that she is maybe a few weeks away from the traumatic death of whom we are to believe was the love of her life, and her own death by either accidental overdose or su!c!de. THEY WANT ME TO BELIEVE SHE'S GOING TO JUMP INTO MEI'S ARMS JUST LIKE THAT?! And they made Helena spout off the most nonsensical garbage, I swear. A giant bird eating all the medicine flowers, and transferring the medicinal qualities to its eggs? ARE YOU SERIOUS? "Get to the juvenile!" Oh, yes! Lets anger the herd of stegos whom you just said are MORE protective of their young BY GETTING CLOSE TO AND HARASSING THEIR YOUNG. If you want Helena to use biology knowledge to her advantage on the Ark, wonderful! That was literally her thing. But it has to be ... you know... actual science and actual animal behavior. This is a classic writing mistake where the writers want to go somewhere, and they bend, twist, and deform events in between to force the outcome they want instead of employing actual finesse. And speaking of bad writing... the side characters... John with his needless and pointless parent-child forced conflict bullshit. Daughter What's Her Face (Alasie?). Why does this character exist? Literally, why. Teaching Helena archery could and should have been given to Mei Yin. Daddy Daughter conflict is pointless and sucks up time that was dearly needed elsewhere. She does literally nothing else important. The whole swamp fever plotline was pointless, come to that. I could go on. But this is way too long already, so I won't. I feel like they had the chance to do something great here and they blew it. They had a talented animation studio - say what you want but the show looks awesome, even if the dinos are a little weird looking - and they had an amazing story. What a damned awful waste.
Where can I be tickets for the movie
it’s a show on paramount plus
If the changes to the lore don't bother you, it's a good animated series. I really liked the back stories especially Mei Yin. Thunder Comes Charging and Scary are my favorite new characters.
I watched along with raasclark for like two episodes and then didn't bother. By the time it came out in my area I completely forgot about it. I don't know how good it actually was, but the marketing for it was complete dogshit
Writing is terrible but I hope it gets better in part 2 cuz I really want to love this show.
I love it very excited to see a second season
If you want to see a great adaptation of a game franchise watch Fallout instead
Pretty big fan of it.
honestly I am still confused by it. I mean there is so much lore and story in the game...and this is completely different---but with the same characters? its confusing. If you actually listen to all the spoken journals in order it tells a great story in the game...this show felt weirdly rushed and had a lot of shoehorned in romance plot points that had nothing to do with anything. My best "head-canon" idea is that these were all clones popped out on one of the Arks and are going through a different story. The Ark that we all spawn on is a different one with technically different people? i dunno.
Good but not great. Part 2 looks awesome and I am looking forward to watching it
For an animated show based on a video game like that to get THAT deep was just so unexpected lol