Title: Cosmos Series Episodes 1-8 Company/Director: Impact Productions/Alberto Munoz Genre: Action/Anime Reviewed by MidbackMan Note: I watched Cosmos 9 before I even knew about these being on the net so that gave me a better idea of what to expect and may have changed how I wrote the review. These are basic rundowns of episodes one through 8. You may want to read them so you know what to expect and to find out which one's are the good ones. The Cosmos 9 review can be found on Review Central. Reviews: Episode 1: Forgotten Pasts The animation is slow and kind of boring. The movie isn't too long though, so you'll live through it. If this were given a more professional touch and/or a remake with better animation I'd download it in a second. The story and the ideas seem really cool and it makes me want to see more just for the plot. The voices were kinda low and weren't all that great. I couldn't even understand the robot's words. The scenes were all premade 3DMM scenes too so that added to it's boringness but I'm still interested in seeing more. There's one scene in this episode where a battalion of army types or cops, whatever, attack a giant robot and it's supposed to give a feeling of massiveness but the slow animation makes it seem piss poor and that brings me back to wanting a remake. The story is about a guy named Cosmos. He wakes up in an alley one day and doesn't know who he is or why he is being attacked by some robots. Blah blah blah, I thought the story was pretty poor at first but like I said, if you see more you will like it more. Seeing it from the start is where it's at, baby! Episode 2: The Beginning This movie is too bleeding short. Just like the first movie it doesn't give too much about the future of the characters or the overall plot but it's still a series and it can only get better (and of course it does). I would know that because Cosmos 9 was the first Cosmos I ever watched and it was WAY better than this. Since it's a series the plot stretches out and watching the entire group of films will of course make it more fun to watch. This short film just gives a very short piece of the puzzle. People may be turned off by midis and some premade scenery in the first couple moments when a flashback is done but it's still not a bad watch. The flashback, by the way, I thought was a really cool idea. The voices are still piss poor, though, which I almost forgot to mention. Episode 3: Morgan? First off, the music STILL drowns out the voices that are already too low. Secondly, this uses too much of Dissolve throughout the movie. The movie still moves really slow and is hella boring. This one should've been cut from the story. The scenery is getting better with every movie but the animation is still pretty slow and I did see one or two premade scenes. Sound effects of footsteps occur too fast and aren't at all appearing at the right timing and make it so much more boring waiting for a scene to end and having to wait for a character to walk off screen. This should've been edited way more. The entire thing is a flashback of the life of a new character that was introduced in the last episode. The flashback doesn't even end. The fact that I have no idea as to what was going on because of the crappy voices and the boring animation made this a movie I recommend skipping. Episode 4: The Decision The flashback story from the 3rd movie STILL isn't over. From what I could tell from the bad voices the new character became immortal; his sister is being taken care of by two witches; he got a book and a sword that was imbued with magical powers by a cool looking dude that made a small appearance in the first movie; and he got a new sidekick: A stupid purple bat/demon type guy that would make a cool sidekick in future episodes for this character methinks. I already want to see more of him. The ending of this movie is better with some good animation so if you have to see this movie just skip ahead to one of the last scenes. The rest is pretty boring stuff. Oh, and the story STILL isn't over as far as I can tell... Episode 5: Howl's End There's a lot of cheesy dialogue in this one. It's still a low volume but it SEEMS to be getting better than the previous episodes. Backfire, the new sidekick from the last episode is in this one and is a wisemouth dragon type thing. I still think he's really cool. This series would make a cool story for an RPG/Adventure type video game/TV Show, I'm sure. There is some cool new animation that wasn't present in the back episodes too. Music is still midi and there's still too much dissolve for my taste but at least the animation is good enough to tell what's going on. It's not exactly the Matrix but it's working good and is definitely better than the rest before it. The story is FINALLY getting somewhere! The mysterious evil wolves that plagued the past couple episodes are defeated in the end of this episode (oops, did I give that away?) and Cosmos (the main character, if you didn't know by now) made a couple new friends by helping them rid the area of evil. But of course, they can't help Cosmos with any of his own personal probles, that's for Cosmos to work on alone. I hope in the end Morgan and Backfire come back to help Cosmos against a prime evil (a little foreshadowing anyone?). That brings us back to square one: Who is Cosmos and why was he attacked? Oh, and where did he get the powers he's slowly learning about? I assume (and hope) more characters will appear that will also help out Cosmos if this is anything like the usual Adventure TV Show. I liked this episode. I can't wait to see more (if they're like this one)! I'm awarding this with Midback's Seal of Approval. Episode 6: Heavy Training Episode Six is interesting to watch. it's basically the same as the name says. Cosmos has a chance to follow the robots he met earlier in the first episode but the old man that appeared a couple times before telepathically to Cosmos guides him to his training grounds instead and trains Cosmos and you see him become increasingly stronger as time passes. It's not a bad episode. The voices and music are still bad but aren't necessary to the plot of this film. And I'm STILL sick of all the dissolves DAMMIT! I'm putting a BAN on dissolves RIGHT NOW! From now on NO ONE can use dissolves in movies more than twice per 5 minutes of film if they want me to review it! Episode 7: Power Unleashed This one finishes up Cosmos' training and Cosmos meets up with the robots he skipped for his training back in episode six. He meets a new robot who apparently isn't a bad guy and who is being held hostage or something because he ran away, who knows. I guess we'll find out in future episodes. Either way, Cosmos takes out the bad guys and even fights a NEW type of robot that looks really sweet. Once again, as in every episode thus far the voices are HORRIBLE and the music is midi. The scenery wasn't anything special but in the past few episodes I haven't seen any premade scenes. Like episode 6, I enjoyed this one too. Episode 8: Meltdown's Keep Wow, it's really cool to see how far this series has come. In 8 short episodes, Alberto Munoz' animation has drastically improved. I liked this one most out of the first eight episodes. It had some really cool scenery and animation. There's still a slight problem with the Director using dissolve (ugh) but it doesn't make this one much worse since it's not used as much as past episodes. Also, the voices have improved slightly but that's ever so slightly, I should say. We're STILL dealing with midis, too. But I still liked it a lot. I'm awarding it with Midback's Seal of Approval because I just enjoyed it that much! Bottom Line: Find out what episodes I liked the most out of the reviews and watch those or watch the entire series. They're not too long. Each is only a few minutes. Maybe the only one's I'd skip are three and possibly four. NOTE TO READER: As always if you agree or disagree with any of the opinions in this article please feel free NOT to take it up with MidbackMan or the management of Review Central since no one really gives a rats ass about what you have to say. That's why you're at this site. Also please understand that the technical scores do not always reflect the opinions of the review since the reivew is more aimed at how enjoyable the film was to the viewer aka me.