Adventure Time finale discussion (spoilers, duh)

[Natemans]

Haven't watched Adventure Time since season 4 or 5. Went into this to see if I would be confused and was able to figure it out. Overall pretty good. Wasn't perfect, but did a good way to end the series.

Remember I was in middle school when this started and do thank it for its legacy to inspiring many cartoon creators.

 

[Natemans]

They need to show more reruns of Adventure Time, like seriously. Look, I actually genuinely like Teen Titans Go, but I have seen the Driver's Ed episode a bajillion times, but they almost never show reruns of Adventure Time or Stephen Universe (beside the Cat Fingers episode). These shows are so plot heavy so I feel very out of the loop and it creates this downward spiral where I don't watch the new episodes cause I missed the old episodes so when new new episodes come out I miss those too! (I am also severely behind on Steven Universe)

I remember when they used to do a bunch of reruns for Adventure Time back when it first came out. Same with Regular Show. I don't hate Teen Titans Go, but I'd like more variety in watching other shows. They even used to do a few reruns for Steven Universe and lately haven't done any.

 

[Elijin]

Of Finn's 4 nightmare figures, it was his father, the lich, I guess the bad side of Bubblegum, but what was the 4th?

Susan Strong...for whatever reason. Not too sure about why she's there.

She did start off as his first glimpse of hope he wasnt the only human, only to turn out to be a cyborg programmed to hunt him down and kidnap him. Only to eventually leave on her own, once she regained her full personality. There might be one or two hangs ups there.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

They need to show more reruns of Adventure Time, like seriously. Look, I actually genuinely like Teen Titans Go, but I have seen the Driver's Ed episode a bajillion times, but they almost never show reruns of Adventure Time or Stephen Universe (beside the Cat Fingers episode). These shows are so plot heavy so I feel very out of the loop and it creates this downward spiral where I don't watch the new episodes cause I missed the old episodes so when new new episodes come out I miss those too! (I am also severely behind on Steven Universe)

I remember when they used to do a bunch of reruns for Adventure Time back when it first came out. Same with Regular Show. I don't hate Teen Titans Go, but I'd like more variety in watching other shows. They even used to do a few reruns for Steven Universe and lately haven't done any.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I'm sick to death of this show and Cartoon Network's overwhelming obsession with it. But no, it's stupidly popular and it makes money so of course they're going to whore it out!

*SIGH* Can you tell I'm done with Cartoon Network?

 

[Saelune]

Of Finn's 4 nightmare figures, it was his father, the lich, I guess the bad side of Bubblegum, but what was the 4th?

Susan Strong...for whatever reason. Not too sure about why she's there.

She did start off as his first glimpse of hope he wasnt the only human, only to turn out to be a cyborg programmed to hunt him down and kidnap him. Only to eventually leave on her own, once she regained her full personality. There might be one or two hangs ups there.

...What?


Seriously, I feel out of the loop.

 

[Elijin]

Of Finn's 4 nightmare figures, it was his father, the lich, I guess the bad side of Bubblegum, but what was the 4th?

Susan Strong...for whatever reason. Not too sure about why she's there.

She did start off as his first glimpse of hope he wasnt the only human, only to turn out to be a cyborg programmed to hunt him down and kidnap him. Only to eventually leave on her own, once she regained her full personality. There might be one or two hangs ups there.

...What?


Seriously, I feel out of the loop.

More or less what I said, but...

Spoiler

Susan was born and raised in the human islands from the later seasons. They were a little facist, in a 'for your own good' way, so Finn's father tried to escape the island with Finn. Susan, who was an augmented human who served as police/guards/army with override switches for their free well, intervened and (baby) Finn ended up drifting off to sea alone. Finn's mother, who was the lead doctor and thus leader of the human city sent Susan to find her baby, but in the process, Susan was injured and rendered simple with no memory of who or what she was.

While sparring, Finn accidentally re-activated Susan's cyborg implants, which restored her mission directive to return Finn to the human colony. After some fighting, the cybernetic implant is destroyed and Susan regains her human intelligence, though her memories are fragmented or outright gone.

This serves as a catalyst for Finn and friends to depart on a journey to find the human colony and see if anyone is left. During that story, Susan remembers that she once narked on her best friend to the authorities, who then used her (overriding her free will with the augment) to crush her friends dream (escaping the human colony). On the colony she re-unites with her friend, dismantles the 'for your own good' facism and leaves Finn to travel with her original best friend.

All of that is spread in bits and pieces over a bunch of different episodes.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

It was ... good? I must admit I did like the fact that it didn't go for the utterly saccharine such as with Betty and Simon actually never ending up together. How ultimately their poisonous relationship actually definitively ended ... with evidently Simon going on a trip to find her, but inevitably giving up and finding closure...

While I like how they had Shermy and Beth to give it a more of a bitter angle of accepting one's mortality, and ultimate meaninglessness in the face of an eternal ever-present ... I'm not sure why they went with an immortal BMO as narrator if they're going to then use them as if a near-death climax.

I'm kind of glad they didn't wrap things up and the show ended with more questions than answers as that felt truer to the spirit of the moral it presented. That life isn't tidy, things don't really wrap up, and everything just joins and melts into that manufactured haze of the unreality of our memories.

A good end to a good show of the Animation Silver Age that overarcingly provided much of what I like about this spate of kid's programming of the 2010s onwards. Having underlying adult themes of mortality, existentialism and madness...

Plus it allows for a darker twist on what may have really happened being that BMO is just being BMO and providing a strange mix of disjointed plot points. That the reality is that Ooo was actually fucked up, the Gum War actually did happen, much of Ooo was destroyed in the fighting, but BMO being BMO has just put an innocent and naive spin on it. Which is a nice possibility and makes far more sense when you actually think about it.

You know ... the fact that BMO asks: "Do you know about the Great Gum War?"

And as soon as they shake their heads... then proceeds to tell them a much happier tale about people even BMO can barely remember of where the war didn't even happen. Because what was the point of simply making them sad for finding a relic of his dead friend that even he cannot revisit completely?

Also bleeds into that existentialist bent once more that in the end it doesn't really matter beyond how such things come to inform your present. Which helps to underline what has always been a show about intimacy between people and their private thoughts and lives, regardless of the reality of passing hands on a clock.

I liked it. It's good an ending can tell us more about characters rather than simply focus on what is happening. Rather tying up character development than a narrative focus. It's not so much a goodbye to these character's stories ... it's a goodbye to their characters, regardless of the story. Which fits into a more tragically beautiful reading into the episode that they did, in fact, die in a war but the exact events of that are less important than the people involved.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

I liked that it recognised that a lot of things have ended...but at the same time things go on. The stories continue and the cycle wheels round again sooner or later

 

[Saelune]

Technically the real ending though

 

[ccggenius12]

Spoiler

Honestly, the only thing that bugged me about the finale was the kiss. Not that it happened mind you, it certainly fit for the characters, and they'd been hinting at it for a while. The problem I have is that frankly, it felt like the reason they did it was so they could say, "what're you gonna do, cancel us?" I would have been more okay with it if it hadn't happened in the finale is all I'm saying.

On the plus side, technically it's not over. This fall they're launching a canon comics series that picks up where the show left off.

 

[Worgen]

I liked it. It was a bit annoying how they had this big buildup to the war then didn't do anything with it, like it was rushed. Not really because I felt it needed to have the war itself but because we have this buildup of characters and I wanted to see how each one of them would handle the war, then they pretty much were ignored. Really just having an episode or 2 with some of the characters having a bit of a punchup or at least exploring how they handle the idea of the war would have turned a good ending into a really good one. I feel like a couple extra episodes with just some of the characters who would play a part in the war messing around or having minor punchups would have made things feel a bit better.

I did like how music was what was able to defeat GOLB. I view one of the few things humanity could really use to justify its existence to the universe, as music. So, well done. Also, yay PB and Marcy finally managed to be made canon.

 

[Saelune]

I liked it. It was a bit annoying how they had this big buildup to the war then didn't do anything with it, like it was rushed. Not really because I felt it needed to have the war itself but because we have this buildup of characters and I wanted to see how each one of them would handle the war, then they pretty much were ignored. Really just having an episode or 2 with some of the characters having a bit of a punchup or at least exploring how they handle the idea of the war would have turned a good ending into a really good one. I feel like a couple extra episodes with just some of the characters who would play a part in the war messing around or having minor punchups would have made things feel a bit better.

I did like how music was what was able to defeat GOLB. I view one of the few things humanity could really use to justify its existence to the universe, as music. So, well done. Also, yay PB and Marcy finally managed to be made canon.

I think in a few years, they should do an Adventure Time movie when Finn is an adult.

 

[Worgen]

I liked it. It was a bit annoying how they had this big buildup to the war then didn't do anything with it, like it was rushed. Not really because I felt it needed to have the war itself but because we have this buildup of characters and I wanted to see how each one of them would handle the war, then they pretty much were ignored. Really just having an episode or 2 with some of the characters having a bit of a punchup or at least exploring how they handle the idea of the war would have turned a good ending into a really good one. I feel like a couple extra episodes with just some of the characters who would play a part in the war messing around or having minor punchups would have made things feel a bit better.

I did like how music was what was able to defeat GOLB. I view one of the few things humanity could really use to justify its existence to the universe, as music. So, well done. Also, yay PB and Marcy finally managed to be made canon.

I think in a few years, they should do an Adventure Time movie when Finn is an adult.

Its been rumored there is a movie in the works for awhile now. It would be cool to have Fin as an adult in one, we still don't know whats up with the Prize Ball Guardians in the far future. On one hand I want more info, on the other, I would prefer they don't make PB a bad guy, which they do kinda flirt with.

 

[Worgen]

I liked it. It was a bit annoying how they had this big buildup to the war then didn't do anything with it, like it was rushed. Not really because I felt it needed to have the war itself but because we have this buildup of characters and I wanted to see how each one of them would handle the war, then they pretty much were ignored. Really just having an episode or 2 with some of the characters having a bit of a punchup or at least exploring how they handle the idea of the war would have turned a good ending into a really good one. I feel like a couple extra episodes with just some of the characters who would play a part in the war messing around or having minor punchups would have made things feel a bit better.

I did like how music was what was able to defeat GOLB. I view one of the few things humanity could really use to justify its existence to the universe, as music. So, well done. Also, yay PB and Marcy finally managed to be made canon.

I think in a few years, they should do an Adventure Time movie when Finn is an adult.

Its been rumored there is a movie in the works for awhile now. It would be cool to have Fin as an adult in one, we still don't know whats up with the Prize Ball Guardians in the far future. On one hand I want more info, on the other, I would prefer they don't make PB a bad guy, which they do kinda flirt with.

Iirc most of the post series future was revealed in some outer media like tweets and posts from creators.

For instance, the candy people are being protected from the mad king of the rainicorn pup kingdom's mad ruler

Likely it will be focused on in future comics

Ugh, I wish I didn't just pretty much binge watch the full series, now I want the comics but I don't like collecting comics.

 

[Saelune]

I liked it. It was a bit annoying how they had this big buildup to the war then didn't do anything with it, like it was rushed. Not really because I felt it needed to have the war itself but because we have this buildup of characters and I wanted to see how each one of them would handle the war, then they pretty much were ignored. Really just having an episode or 2 with some of the characters having a bit of a punchup or at least exploring how they handle the idea of the war would have turned a good ending into a really good one. I feel like a couple extra episodes with just some of the characters who would play a part in the war messing around or having minor punchups would have made things feel a bit better.

I did like how music was what was able to defeat GOLB. I view one of the few things humanity could really use to justify its existence to the universe, as music. So, well done. Also, yay PB and Marcy finally managed to be made canon.

I think in a few years, they should do an Adventure Time movie when Finn is an adult.

Its been rumored there is a movie in the works for awhile now. It would be cool to have Fin as an adult in one, we still don't know whats up with the Prize Ball Guardians in the far future. On one hand I want more info, on the other, I would prefer they don't make PB a bad guy, which they do kinda flirt with.

Iirc most of the post series future was revealed in some outer media like tweets and posts from creators.

For instance, the candy people are being protected from the mad king of the rainicorn pup kingdom's mad ruler

Likely it will be focused on in future comics

Ugh, I wish I didn't just pretty much binge watch the full series, now I want the comics but I don't like collecting comics.

My brother and a friend and I are watching one season a week, already watched 1 and 2. Im trying to find the snail every episode, but I am sort of too obsessed with it and feel shitty when I miss it, season 2 is much harder than 1. ('AT' is carved on a LOT of trees in the background btw)


Yeah, I don't bother with comics really, and I hate when canon is kept to comics outside the main media. I apparently am missing tons of Mortal Kombat lore cause I don't read some comics they made for the last 2 games.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Yeah, I don't bother with comics really, and I hate when canon is kept to comics outside the main media. I apparently am missing tons of Mortal Kombat lore cause I don't read some comics they made for the last 2 games.

It could be treated like the IDW MLP comics which are solidly B-canon. The MLP novels are in a weird place of some being canon and some not... particularly when you throw in Equestria Girls.

That being said I refuse to accept anything but IDW's take on Sunset Shimmer's origins as being anything less than true canon. The only mindfuck involved as you can clearly see Twilight Sparkle as a filly in a background panel while clearly Sunset is clearly nearing the same age as Twilight at S1.

Honestly, unless the showrunners start dictating the narratives of the comics, something as convoluted as Adventure Time that *actively fucks with its own chronology* it's hardly important if it calls itself 'A' or 'B' canon, and ultimately it doesn't matter as to its quality.

I'd rather have IDW's Princess Luna regardless of whatever the show does doing her own thing in its own universe... particularly given she's (finally) getting her own spinoff in Nightmare Knights after Ponyville Mysteries ends.

Canon is less meaningful than good. I'm digging Andy Price's Ocean's Eleven vibe for one of the first issue covers ... and hopefully it keeps its theme of a collection of morally compromised former villains being morally compromised for a mission into the Dream World.

I would argue 'Come Along With Me' as it was depicted wasn't the canon ending. I'm willing to bet the real story is BMO is making it up, and the reality is that they do not want to depress themselves or the young adventurers telling them a story where most people died. That fits in far more what BMO would actually do, and the idea that BMO sort of saves the day with a song is merely that latent strange narcissism they display in addition to not wanting to confront the fact that Finn failed to find a diplomatic situation, the world suffered tremendously, but in the end all things are meaningless in the face of thousands of years of the ever-present slipping by into the haze of a false memory.

Unlike Mortal Combat .... AT was self-contained. The comics might be treated as 'canon' but to me it will just seem like 'B-canon' if it just picks up Finn and Jake just being Finn and Jake rather than actually dying in the Great Gum War.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'll never understand the obsession with dark Adventure Time plots, this ain't Game of Thrones. Are you self-conscience about liking a kid's show so you invent depressing dark versions of it to justify your enjoyment?

It's okay to like light things me amigo

Not really, though that is a real phenomena but frankly Adventure Time has dealt with these themes before. The whole Shermy and Beth thing kind of solidifies an existentialist bent in that if you take a long enough period of time one's legacy is little more than an apprehension of the past rather than anything tangible. Take for instance Shoko, Finn's prior life. Shermy and Beth is merely that and ultimately just as meaningless beyond Bonnie getting a relic of the past she no longer really needed and had already put well behind her. The biggest aspect of it was merely Finn getting to 'clear out his vault' momentarily.

Even if we take BMO at his word, something tragic has happened. They didn't create an all too saccharine ending, either.

The Finn sword and the fate of alternate incarnation of Jake in having to resurrect Prismo is pretty fucking bleak if you think about it. Lemonhope literally passes away in his bed after some unforeseen, unshown terribleness has destroyed both the Candy Kingdom and Lemongrad. It's not so much dark a concept, rather confronting the transigence of things is somewhat even hopeful. That regardless of what happened to Finn or Jake there is still going to be some form of Finn and Jake once enough years have passed.

Which isn't dark, but bittersweet at worst and hopeful at best. What would be a darker concept is if nothing remained of Finn or Jake after thousands of years. You see Sweet Pea walking around with a gigantic Demon Sword .... Finn's arm still manages to survive the eons, even long after BMO can truly even recall his name properly.

So some part of Finn and Jake's legacy lives on, but the message was that it's kind of inconsequential whether or not people even remember it. It doesn't matter. And that's not dark, it's actually kindof hopeful in a sense that it's merely relative. What would be a darker conclusion is that Finn or Jake were somehow immediately necessary to the passage of life on Ooo ... that by necessity they had to be remembered.

I'm inclined to believe that the Great Gum War happened, because honestly that is keeping in tone with the show and how it's handled BMO's commentary of the world as shown in the past. Also because the show has dealt with this idea of cycles of existence ... that if you expand the field of vision far enough things sort of enter this melange of chaotic birth, death, and rebirth again.