Titans

I don't know why, but Teen Titans never appealed to me. I'm not just talking about this show, I'm talking about the material in general. I think the biggest reason is because I didn't have cartoon network as a kid so I never watched the original cartoon series like every other kid I know. Even the episodes I did see, I don't think I was a fan of the semi-anime style at the time and regardless, I don't think I ever understood the team up that much or why it was appealing. Individually, a characters like Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven, and even Robin to a certain extent are interesting, but it never really made sense to me why these characters needed to team up.

On top of all of that, I really had no interest in this show. If you were following movie and super hero news in the lead up to this show, you'll know that the trailer for this show was just reviled among fans and non fans alike. And yeah... it's bad.

On top of THAT, it was a show that was airing on DC's streaming service, DC Universe. And there are a lot of people who didn't know that DC even had a streaming service. I'll talk a little bit about that later, but I just wanted to make it known I had to go searching for this show and I only ended up watching it because a friend said he wanted to talk about it with someone. Well I'm doing that and talking about it on here.

Titans is the story of the formation of the team most well known as the Teen Titans, but in this it is just the Titans (minus Cyborg because he's made it mainstream now). But mainly, this is a story about Dick Greyson (played by Brenton Thwaites) or his better known alter ego, Robin.

This show takes place after Dick has left his partnership with Batman. He is a cop in Detroit and wants to get away from that life, but he finds himself thrown back in this "dark" and "gritty" interpretation of this team's formation.

Dick comes across a girl named Rachel (played by Teagan Croft) who is on the run from mysterious men. Dick realizes soon that she has special abilities and he takes it on himself to help her, especially when he realizes that the system is both corrupt, and unequipped to deal with her special situation.

At the same time, the two of them come into contact with a strange woman who doesn't remember her past by the name, with strange powers of Kory (played by Anna Diop), and a teenage boy by the name of Gar (played by Ryan Potter) who has the ability to transform into a tiger.

Together the team comes together to protect Rachel, help her figure out her dark powers, and discover the mystery behind her missing parents.

And the result is... messy... very messy.

Right off the bat, they need to turn on as least one light in this show. Every joke about DC movies being too dimly light and having people fight in the dark is totally true in this show. Everything is so freaking dimly lit that it's almost impossible to figure out what people are doing, where they are, and why I'm supposed to care. There are a couple of points where they have flash lights and I'm asking myself, why are there absolutely no lights in this show?

But on top of that, the show goes out of its way to make itself the dark and gritty version of DC that is willing to go the extra mile.

Now I'm not opposed to dark and gritty. I think with the right writing, this could have worked. In fact there are a lot of points where I thought to myself, hmmm that is actually an interesting take.

But let's take a step back and think about the material. I had a friend kind of explain the Teen Titans to me and he said that essentially, the team is the sidekicks trying to prove themselves and help in situations that are too small for the Justice League.

From what I know/remember of the original cartoon series, I know it rode that fine line between comedic moments and really serious drama.

But whether it's that show with that fine balance or the new show that is total fluff and even some light hearted satire, both shows knew what the Teen Titans were, knew the limitations, but was able to break some of those limitations if need be. In fact, from what I know of the original Cartoon Network show, it did break those rules. There were a lot of edgy episodes that I think fans really connected to. So I understand why there is such a fan base for this property. I don't connect with it myself, but I understand how years of narratives about these characters would earn them such recognition from the fan community.

But Titans takes this team and forces a dark and "edgy" vibe down your throat without really earning any of it. It's like a movie being rated R or PG-13. Not every movie should be rated R. There are films that can do a lot with its story without going fully graphic or to the level that would get an R rating. And if you're going to bring something like the Titans to an R rated show, it has to be earned, and I really don't think this show earned it, especially in the main characters.

You would think the most interesting characters in a show called Titans would be the actual team. But I found myself just bored with Robin's inner turmoil, Rachel's emo kid antics, and the fact that Beast Boy has absolutely no reason to be in this group.

The only person I was really interested in by the end of the show as Starfire and even that felt weird. Essentially her being is transported into the body of essentially a prostitute. That's why you have the elaborate clothes and wig. But for a show that's going for heightened realism, it's kind of hard to do that with a character dressed like that, kids with unironic purple and green hair, and Robin.

Now to be fair, I wouldn't say there isn't ANYTHING I didn't like about this show.

While I wasn't interested in the characters, I wouldn't say the acting is absolutely terrible. Furthermore, there are small ideas that I did find slightly interesting like the secret organization that felt very cult like that was going after Rachel. It was boring a lot of the times, but at times I saw where they were going and thought there was something interesting there.

The last episode of the first season was probably the most interested I had ever been in the show and I swear, that entire episode could have been the entire series. It actually made me a little bit angry that that wasn't the whole series right there and if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

I just think the show didn't really make me care enough about these characters past one really good final episode (that I heard wasn't even the final episode because they moved the finale to be the first episode of the second season... so that sucks).

Honestly, the side characters they run across throughout the show were a lot more interesting and compelling compared to the core group. Throughout the show, the team is bouncing from one comic book cameo to another, again not really giving any time to develop the core group as characters, but those tertiary characters seemed a lot more interesting at the end of the day. I wanted them to hang out with the Doom Patrol more, I wanted to figure more about Donna Troy, or Hawk and Dove, or the weird brainwashed family that comes to murder them. Every other character besides the Titans were 100% more interesting than them and that's a huge issue with the show.

In the process of writing this, I had a friend explain to me what the origins of the Teen Titans were from what he knew because like I said, I'm just not familiar with the group. He explained that the Teen Titans were formed to help with smaller crimes that the Justice League couldn't be bothered with and was organized from the sidekicks, mainly Robin and Kid Flash. As the sidekicks proved themselves they were given more important jobs.

But that's not the story given here. So there are certain decisions that given the context of the show don't make a whole lot of sense, namely when people are in trouble and the only people that can help are superheroes, logically these people would call for help from Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, or other stronger heroes... not Robin...

And the show makes it very clear that those heroes exist in this universe. It wouldn't be a stretch that if Dick Greyson needed help, he could just call Batman. And I get it, there's bad blood there, he wouldn't call him unless it was an emergency, but in an effort to make this show feel important, they start off on a potentially world ending plot that it doesn't make logical sense why Batman wouldn't be called.

And I don't like using that argument, that why in a solo superhero film like Iron Man, that he doesn't call the Avengers. But when the main characters draw so much attention to those off screen characters, you do have to explain why they're not being called.

By the way, Batman is not in this show. There's a whole ton of references to him and there's some scenes where he's fighting, but there's no set actor playing Bruce Wayne, just stuntmen, so I don't count it. I don't know if that's going to change, but I almost feel like it has to with how much of an impact Bruce Wayne has on the development of Dick Greyson.

While I didn't have much of an interest in this show, when I was given the opportunity to watch it, I took it without hesitation because it does intrigue me because it is confusing to me.

This is a really fascinating time for superhero television because I think we have passed what could be considered a very small golden age window. Two or three years ago, superhero shows were crushing it on all sides of the aisle.

Marvel was releasing Daredevil on Netflix with more heroes on their way to eventually do a The Defenders series. Arrow and the Flash were at the height of their powers and only adding more and more big names to their line up.

But now things have changed. Marvel Netflix shows are being cancelled and don't have the draw or hype that they used to. I honestly don't hear as much about Arrow and the Flash that much these days. I know they're still going strong and doing giant cross over events with too many shows for me to count, but I just find it really interesting that DC is shifting gears towards a streaming service when that universe has been doing monstrously well.

I get that a lot of it comes down to business decisions. Original content is a lot cheaper than licensing these heroes out to the CW, and Disney is doing the same thing with their streaming service in the next few years.

But if the business decision is to bring those fans from the CW super hero universe over to the DC Streaming service, I find it very odd how they not only want to start from scratch but build this "dark" and "gritty" look at DC that fans have not responded to in movies like Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad.

They have to market the hell out of this show but also the DC universe streaming service to the world because I know very few people who actually know that that's a thing. But the only way they can do that is actually give a damn with these shows. It's not enough to have Robin just be able to say "Fuck Batman", I need to actually care about why he's saying that or why there's a show about him at all and Titans didn't do that for me.

I highly doubt I'll check out the second season. As long as I have access to the DC Universe Streaming service I'll check it out, but honestly, it's not off to a great start.

But have you seen Titans? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter, @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!