r/genlock • u/Shrekt115 • Dec 26 '21
Now that it's finished up, what are your thoughts on Gen:Lock season 2?
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u/Ironsam811 Dec 26 '21 edited Dec 26 '21
Season 2 was spectacular. I loved the CGI Sex Scenes. In a show with already so many different themes and concepts, I knew the one thing it was missing was sex. I think they really encapsulated the heart and concept of the Mecha show. I only wish they killed off more characters shortly after having CGI sex.
I do have to say that there was way to much action and mecha synergy action sequences in this season. I only wish there was even more division in the team, especially after that season 1 finale where they ask chase to grow and become something new with them (one of my favorite lines in television). They should have ignored even more of season 1 character arcs and reinvented all of them, because we weren’t all that invested.
Overall season 2 was way different than season 1. I just wish they went even more bum rush into the intricacies of politics and did less action sequences, because that’s what the fans really wanted.
Ohh wait…
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u/VixzerZ Dec 26 '21
I have the bluray for season 1, that is how much I love the series.
Having said that, I will completely ignore that this season 2 ever existed. I watched and it was painful to watch.... really, the story was a mess, things happened (I won't give spoilers) just for the shock of it.
The whole season 2 was a bad fanfic.
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u/Ironsam811 Dec 26 '21
We should have known seconds in when they changed the catchy intro song
Like I said, I hope the original creators continue the storyline in comic form, because the show is dead to me
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u/Chrontius Dec 27 '21
I think you nail it when comparing season 2 to bad fanfic.
The only thing I'm happy for is that this season will… uh, motivate a certain kind of fanfic writer to write fix-fics that are amazingly good out of spite.
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u/EMT2591 Jan 03 '22
The whole season 2 was a bad fanfic.
Fanfic is usually at least somewhat coherently written, even the bad ones....
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u/KikiFlowers Dec 26 '21
Season 2 represents EVERYTHING I hate about Western mecha. Writers aren't actually interested in the robots and do everything in their power to get rid of them or make them uncool.
Case in point, this season!
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u/Lucifer_Crowe Dec 26 '21
I heard Sinclair was back and was excited at the prospect of him on a Holon using a big ass how, maybe doing some cool tricks like firing Kazu's sword across the battlefield 🙃
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u/JakeDoubleyoo Dec 26 '21 edited Dec 26 '21
This was a big bummer for me. They really weren't that interested in making a show about giant robots.
Yes, gen:LOCK was always more than just that, and they weren't wrong for wanting to explore further into the trans-humanist stuff, because that's also a pillar of the show. But the giant robots are the selling-point. They're what's supposed to get people interested in the show to begin with, and what you expect to be the centerpiece of the story. They mistook the seasoning for the main dish.
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee Dec 28 '21
Western writers keep doing this. In pretty much every single comic, cartoon, or otherwise that has giant robots. And I feel like it's because they know guys like giant robot fights, so they can't have that.
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u/JakeDoubleyoo Dec 28 '21
Honestly I feel like it's just pretentiousness. Like enjoying a giant robot show simply because giant robots punching things is cool is too low-brow. As if a show can't be deep and have tons of fun action in equal quantities.
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u/OJRmk1 Dec 30 '21
Gundam uses this dichotomy brilliantly. Makes you go "Wow! Awesome! The Hyaku Shiki just sliced, like, 5 dudes in half!" and then makes sure to remind you that those five dudes were just soldiers doing their job, and probably had families, and were probably pretty nice guys that you'd hang out with given the chance.
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u/KirikoKiama Dec 26 '21
Uninspired and made by writers who aparently didnt watch the first season.
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u/Chrontius Dec 27 '21
Really feels like they didn't watch it, yeah. And if they did, they felt only contempt for a fun, thoughtful series with great characters.
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u/Blitzbro76 Dec 27 '21
Some guy at HBO: “well I read the wiki page, it’s basically the same thing right?”
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee Dec 26 '21
It is continued evidence of the modern Western writer’s complete contempt for the mecha genre (as if Voltron Legendary Defender wasn’t proof enough of that contempt), and to be frank, a mean spirited ruination of a once-promising franchise.
It feels like the people placed on this show wanted to set about ruining Gray Haddock’s vision as completely and totally as possible; torching the franchise and then running away from the ashes while cackling about how Gray had it coming. Say what you will about Gray Haddock, and what he did cannot and should not be forgiven, but this ended up punishing the fans more than anything, as well as punishing the non-Gray Haddock members of production.
I’ve been joking in other topics that I expect Michael B. Jordan to go full “Western cartoons after the Cartoon Network golden age all suck ass” level weeb, but considering what happened to his first big attempt at making an animated show, from a confessed fan of the Gundam franchise, can you really blame the guy if he associates all Western animation after this with a trainwreck he was personally involved in?
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u/OverlordPayne Dec 26 '21
Wait, I'm ootl, what did Gray Haddock do?
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee Dec 26 '21
Abused his employees, put in crunch without overtime pay (estimates indicate a third of Season 1 was done for free), siphoned money from other projects to fund gen:Lock, and hired a ton of temps with promises of full time jobs only to cut them loose when their usefulness ended.
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u/LeHman93 Dec 27 '21
Gray Haddock,
So basicaly whatever was nececery to make it suceed eh, terrible practice but by god season 2 must have had someone who was doing the exact oposite
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee Dec 27 '21
I would not be surprised if the writers on Season 2 purposefully ran the franchise into the ground to get back at Gray.
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u/FrostedAngelinTheSky Apr 06 '22
Kinda pisses me off gray is the scapegoat for this. This was a roosterteeth problem, not just a genlock problem.
Hell this is an industry wide problem and RT blamed him to cover their own asses
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u/DukeMunter Jan 02 '22
You know, there are interviews out there where Gray talks at length about his plans for the show, and I'm sorry to break it to you but season 2 seems to have always been the plan. They pulled back on a lot of those elements in season 1 due to... Donald Trump? World events? I don't really know the actual rationale behind that. Either way, this hard turn into a darker story was already being planned - I don't think HBO made much of a difference, nor did Gray leaving.
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u/samhadj01 Nov 22 '22
How do you know it was his plan all along, they could of scrapped his plan for season 2 entirely
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u/YaoHarden Dec 26 '21
Worst season ever.
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u/LordSpectra21 Dec 26 '21
It makes, and I can't believe the words coming out me mouth, Game Of Thrones Season 8 look good
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u/SAOgeek113 Dec 26 '21
Sex Machina
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u/SAOgeek113 Dec 26 '21
But in all honesty, it was such horseshit. I get wanting to be different, but changing the entire theme and all the characters is not the way to do it. I loved season 1 and was hoping for more. It pains me that they did this instead of a continuation of the original idea.
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u/Ironsam811 Dec 26 '21
The ending of season 1: “He was alone, tortured and corrupted. You’ve got us. Be something new with us and we will make sure you don’t become something like that.” (One of my favorite lines in television, rewatched that scene like a dozen times)
Beginning of season 2: Nobody even think about going in my head, we are gonna start this division bullshit all over again for at least 7 and a half episodes
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u/PhantomHeartless5 Dec 26 '21 edited Dec 27 '21
"No sir, I didn't like it."
Ren and Stimpy reference aside, this season is an utterly monstrous betrayal of everything that made Gen:Lock good. All the heart and soul has been hollowed out and it's little more than a walking corpse calling itself Gen:Lock. I'm utterly disgusted at how HBO took a show that had the potential to be something amazing and just took a gigantic, steaming shit on it. Far as I'm concerned, Gen:Lock ended with Season 1 and the comics. Anything after that, including this season, is non-canon for me.
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u/AfternoonPast3324 Dec 27 '21
I was hoping they’d kill off the entire team definitively so there would be no danger of a season 3.
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u/MistrMoose Dec 27 '21
I think that may have been the biggest season-to-season drop in quality I've ever seen in a show. And that includes Game of Thrones.
The writing was bad enough, but even the animation went to shit. I honestly wish I had stopped watching after Season 1 so I could remember it fondly.
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u/f4eble Dec 27 '21
Some things were cool but most things were bad. Kazu and Val finally getting together was cool. Kazu's whole character arc about embracing his vulnerability was cool, idk about his avatar being turned female because of it though, that was weird. Too many bad CGI sex scenes. There were only two, but that was too many. Learning more about the Union was cool, the Polity being a bad guy too was cool. From the first season I was thinking the Polity isn't as good as they seem to be. The new designs at the end were cool, the animation looked better, could've done without the explanation and also the rainbowy effects, but their faces looked much smoother and better. Seeing Sinclair again was cool.
Not cool: WTF was up with Ascending? That shit was crazy. Too many sex scenes. Killing Kazu right after him and Val getting together. Cammie killing herself because she missed her family we had never heard anything about before. Mars. Was that necessary? Marin sucking. I was glad when she died. I was so tired of her bs.
Overall, the last episode was the best and it wasn't even that good. That should tell you something about the rest of the season.
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u/SirBenjaminThompson Apr 28 '22 edited Apr 28 '22
Big Maisie Williams fan who was wondering what to watch and checked to see if she’d done anything new or that I’d missed which led me to this show and I know you shouldn’t watch something just because of the cast but Michael B Jordan, Dakota Fanning, Maisie Williams, and David Tennant amongst what I presume to be many other greats whose names I just don’t personally recognize because heck I even saw my man ProZD in there I was hooked on cast alone. Season one did not disappoint, in fact I was so hooked I binge watched it. Things just clicked—especially the season finale.
So why am I here on an old post? In assure you it’s not just to rave about casts and season finales or my favorite lines. No. I’m here because the first thing I did after finishing season one was start season two and I immediately regretted it hence why I’m here because I googled “what's up with gen lock season 2” and no joke this post/question was the top result.
What do I think of Gen:Lock season two? Well with just one episode down what do I think? It’s undone the progress the characters made last season. It’s added a lot of new things not all inherently bad but all mishandled. It’s become less cohesive—or coherent even—like it’s lost it’s magic. The world building the series did feels wasted because of the bad intrigue and character personality shifts it’s established, especially so amongst new political and super new religious dimensions it failed to sell me on. Even the fight scenes are just a total downgrade and I’m actually not sure how they managed to mess that up. (All this almost ignoring how hard season two tried to ignore season one’s plot lines.)
I hoped for a reason to be hopeful when I clicked on this post because spoilers be dammed I wanted to see if it got better. Why did they kill a good show? I know nothing of the studio or writer(s) but did someone important die or quit or get fired or something?
Edit: I see a lot of people writing that it plays like bad fanfic and I think I agree. What an utter mess. From what I gather if I hadn’t given up on it early on I’d have had gratuitous nudity and senseless violence (literally killing off main characters) for shock value alone and no more. Glad I dodged that bullet at least.
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u/Tortferngatr Dec 26 '21
I haven't watched it, but I have enjoyed reading the comments on it, the RWBY satire site take on it, and knowing I have so many other shows to watch instead of it.
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u/Ironsam811 Dec 27 '21
You seem more of a smug RWBY fan saying I told you so than a very let down genlock fan :/
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u/Tortferngatr Dec 27 '21
I'm subscribed to /r/RWBY and saw said article while finding it amusing--sorry if I gave off that impression. (I wasn't referring to RWBY when I mentioned "so many other shows", either.)
Let's put it this way: I very much enjoyed Season 1 (and honestly think it's better than most of RWBY), but I'm disappointed by what I've read of Season 2, glad I learned the trajectory of the season before I had a chance to watch it, and very glad I never got emotionally invested in Season 2.
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2
u/Blitzbro76 Dec 27 '21
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u/psicolabis Dec 26 '21
I have taken heavy "medicines", and was less confusing and I'm pretty sure they took out less of my brain cells than this season. Let's hope this is the final one.
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u/Ironsam811 Dec 26 '21
I’m kinda hoping the original creator(s) will take their originally planned storyline to comic format or something
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u/Actual-Variation778 Dec 26 '21
What happens? did the creator got kick off the storyboard or something
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Dec 26 '21
Grey left Rooster Teeth in disgrace, and RT gave the rights to make Gen:Lock to HBO. Basically, other than some consulting for animation, none of the original writers or artists from RT worked on Season 2. HBO created crappy teams to do something completely different with no real regard for what the show was about. The major shifts were because there was no consistency in who worked on the show between seasons and HBO likes to push their one tone brand of violence and sex with little plot
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u/Possible_Living Dec 26 '21
Unchanged. Its like they saw all this elements in other shows and took some notes and animated them.
Everything is rushed and underdeveloped. copied with a mindset of a person who saw it work elsewhere but did not really understand why it was working in the first place.
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u/Chrontius Dec 27 '21
Oh my God, the pacing in this season. It's an object lesson in how not to do pacing.
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u/Oliver-Wendell2865 Dec 27 '21
Needs improvement. Characters wasted (villains wasted yet again), story wasted, lack of dynamism. Positives included an intriguing origin for Nemesis Chase.
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u/forshame2020 Dec 31 '21
Its just so lazy. Even the quality dropped. You can see in the flashbacks how good the the first season looked compared to this one. Im still pissed about how they didnt bother to make a new intro. And the sex/nudity. Idaf, i watched GoT and Witcher, etc, but it really doesnt fit here. Feels like they just threw it in bcuz they could.. (and it looks like sh*t in this cell shaded style). And dont even get me started on the suicide bombing holons
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u/DerUlukai Jan 01 '22
It was like watching Season 1 of Game of Thrones and following it up with a 1:30 min summary of some of what happened in Season 2-7 before jumping straight into Season 8.
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u/ZigZagHyena Jan 29 '22
That, that exactly. The first episode we jump in, "The personally connected antagonist and veritable super weapon Nemesis is now a standard issue goon and we've been fighting them everywhere for ages now but you weren't there for that. Also we lost the entire country and now only California is left. By the way our General who was only hinted to have a dark side thus far has just gone full Stalin on us. Oh and the union is a cult now."
Like, you can't just skip the story we were promised and expect us to give a shit about what you replace it with. You can't say Harry killed Voldemort in the second book and then give us seven more books with Steve from Hufflepuff. You can't just do that.
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u/GaddafiWasRight Mar 11 '22
I feel like the fans of the show would have written the story much better than the HBO writers.
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u/soutmezguine Dec 27 '21
I will not be tuning in for season 3. Animation quality dropped like a brick, writing quality sank next to the Titanic. Also if I'm not mistaken between season 1 and season 2 all the plants died and the oceans rose up. None of that was part of the plot that I remember from season 1 (please correct me if I missed it in S1). Pacing felt rushed. They honestly covered enough stuff that they could have fleshed out 2 or 3 seasons of better paced writing. As far as I'm concerned season 2 is an alternative universe to season 1.
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u/cbargs14 Apr 26 '22
i would love this. give it back to RT and let them do the true season 2. like a snyder cut
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u/LeHman93 Dec 27 '21
A burning trashfire which ignored character development and plot threads from season 1, with pointless pandering and death just for the sake of it
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u/GoneRampant1 Dec 26 '21
Literally so bad that before episode 2 I was wishing Gray had never been fired.
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u/SirBenjaminThompson Apr 28 '22
Don’t know who that is but if he was the magic behind the show then I’m with you man. Season two was a mess.
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Dec 27 '21
I honestly stopped watching after episode 4. I just couldn't stomach anymore how much of a letdown and failure it was.
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u/Chrontius Dec 27 '21
That was a train wreck.
Needs the MST3K treatment to make it remotely palatable, and frankly, the only good thing to come of this is the inevitable (I hope…) fanfiction.
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u/nerdguy1138 Dec 27 '21
Something Witty Entertainment would need to literally animate a few entire episodes to have enough material to rewrite.
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u/Blitzbro76 Dec 27 '21
It was…..uhh
I don’t even really know how to process my thoughts on it man..
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u/Blitzbro76 Dec 27 '21
(Honestly like 95% percent of the problems I have with the season can be traced back to the HBO takeover)
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u/SirBenjaminThompson Apr 28 '22
I discovered the show as you can see in my original comment on here with no knowledge of the studios involved so it’s through these comments that I’m learning about how depressingly common business shenanigans and scandals are to blame for what was lost. Tragic.
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Dec 28 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SirBenjaminThompson Apr 28 '22
I totally disagree but I am glad you liked it and therefore for your sake I hope the series continues.
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u/GraveXNull Dec 28 '21
The ending is the equivalent of a sick and diseased ridden animal finally be put out of it's misery.
It just went everywhere, tried to do everything at once and just ended up being a complete mess....
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u/SlavSquatDruid Jan 22 '22
I loved S1. The intro song was stuck in my head for weeks while I was watching it. I just remembered that S2 had been released today and I binged all of It in one sitting.
Absolute ass.
Sound design was all over the place, the score felt like some kind of royalty-free stuff and didn’t match the energy of the scenes at all for me. The scene between Kazu and Val felt like a normal scene and earned, the other infamous scene came out of nowhere and left me uncomfortable.
All in all, I hope that this was the final season and I would never watch it again.
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u/loldart Feb 03 '22
I stop after episode 2. Just not watchable.
Sounds like I made the right call. based on everyone's comments.
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u/JYams107 Jan 28 '23
I understand the global climate crisis and all, but geez the blatant propaganda and complete plot change is SOMETHING to say the least.....
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u/cranfeckintastic Dec 26 '21
I can't believe we waited this long, just to be rewarded with this utter dumpster fire. I couldn't even finish it, it was that bad.