001. The Jellyfish Kid

[Jjs Goodman]

Release Date: March 4th, 2021

Where to Watch: Paramount+, Apple TV

Plot: A young SpongeBob is determined to catch his first jellyfish, so his friends do whatever they can to help him.

Clip: 

 

This is the series premiere of Kamp Koral, and a half-hour special. If you have Apple TV, you can already watch this. 

[BenPaz]

The full episode is out on YouTube so I watched it there. It was about as mediocre as I expected and the animation looked just as bad as it was in the other clips and such. When the rest of the episodes show up online i will definitely be finishing them though. Maybe out of some sort of weird obligation because this wasn’t a great first impression. I hope the show goes wackier like it’s expected to.

[Jane]

It's not awful. It has some funny dialogue and great character designs. I like a lot of the callbacks (Plankton's college fund, baby Pearl, Bubble Bass, Kevin the cucumber), and a lot of the poses and visual expressions are great. I forgot who said this; but earlier in the thread someone said KK's basically CG new Spongebob and that's basically right. I guess people who like the newer episodes might dig this. I don't care for them though, so it leaves me feeling empty.

 

...But it's still not very good. Aged down Spongebob is a stupid concept that goes against the idea of the series...these characters are childish adults, what's the point of physically aging them down? I know Dave said on discord the show's humor isn't aged down, but it felt pretty aged down to me.

 

The animation isn't very good. I applaud the team for trying their best to emulate the squash and stretch of 2d Spongebob, I think they did a great job on pushing the expressions like on the main show; but the lighting still looks garish and cheap. A lot of the character models look inadvertedly creepy. I understand translating a 2d IP like Spongebob to CG is hard, but Sponge Out of Water and Sponge on the Run look gorgeous and just about perfectly translate SB to CG. The art style could've worked; they just needed a much bigger budget. And Spongebob more than makes enough money to justify it; anyone who says otherwise is caping for Viacom.

 

Anyway, this went about as expected. I don't know why anyone would think this would be *unsavagely* awful, the newer episodes aren't half bad and a lot of the crew clearly put a lot of time and passion into the show.

 

I also don't think it not being that bad is justification for it not being that good either; or retroactively invalidating the (still valid) argument of whether Steve would've approved of KK or not.

[Jjs Goodman]

This was pretty mid and inoffensive. Not the worst thing ever like many dreaded by any means, but I doubt it'll be winning any detractors over either. For me at least, I wasn't bored or annoyed, so there's that. There were admittedly some cute and wholesome moments in it, and at least one gag I found somewhat amusing. But otherwise, there wasn't much of substance to it; "fluff" is the best way to describe the episode. The animation still wasn't too hot in some areas, for sure, but I'm adjusted to it better now after seeing it in motion I guess. Much like Sponge on the Run, I didn't mind watching this once, but I doubt I'll be in a rush to rewatch it either. If I had to grade it, I'd give it a light C. 

 

[Jane]

I just can't understand how everyone was dunking on this show, pointing out how just plain SHADY it is that Nick greenlit spin-offs, something Hillenburg was vocally opposed to, weeks around his passing; to getting pissy and bitching about how everyone who has an ethical issue with the idea being a sexist or being entitled or stupid, just because some of the crew started getting harassed and some of them talked about working hard on it.

 

I've never seen people flip-flop like this so hard before. Did anyone call people dunking on Transformers an asshole because some of the people who worked on it put effort into it?

Did anyone get mad at anyone who dared to shit on the new Tom and Jerry movie because the animation wasn't half bad and the artists worked hard on it?

 

Some idiots harassing Vincent and Pinkie, and the crew working hard on it don't invalidate the ethical issue of spin-offs being greenlit when a network's #1 show creator is dying and losing the ability to effectively communicate.

 

I've also seen people retroactively invalidate any criticism of the show because they explained the timeline inconsistency with Sandy; and because a lot of the storyboard poses carried over.

All that proves is the crew tried to make as good a show as possible during the circumstances, and that they care about the show. That doesn't automatically make the show good.

[SpongeOddFan]

So i just finished watching first eposode of Kamp Koral and i wasn't fan of the series in CGI animation, the characteres were has same voice cast as orginial show. i just don't feel this needs a spin-off to me imo. I just think it's just there. I mean yeah this episode wants to show us how Spongebob gets his first jellyfish  in the camp. i don't mind having camp setting for prequel before orginal series. I guess this episode is alright?

 

Although, i have nothing else to say, but i probably won't watch the rest of the series as it didn't work for me to enjoy i at all.

[Disneygirl97]

Honestly, I didn't care much for this new spinoff. 

I expected the voice actors to be the same from the movie, i dont see why they didn't cast them? 

 

[4EverGreen]

On 2/11/2022 at 12:59 PM, Disneygirl97 said:

Honestly, I didn't care much for this new spinoff. 

I expected the voice actors to be the same from the movie, i dont see why they didn't cast them? 

 

Because THEN Nickelodeon would have to spend TIME and money to TRAIN new kid actors to replace them once the kids inevitably got 'too' old to voice the child characters anymore, like what happens to anybody who voices one of the "Peanuts" characters, or the children cast in "The Amazing World Of Gumball".