''Elements'' (miniseries)

Elements is an American animated miniseries based on the show Adventure Time by Pendleton Ward. It aired as part of the show's ninth season on Cartoon Network from April 24 to April 27, 2017. Adventure Time follows the adventures of Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), a dog with magical powers to change shape, grow and shrink at will. In this limited event series, which itself follows the events of the Islands miniseries, Finn, Jake, and BMO return home to discover that Ooo has been turned into a veritable dystopia thanks to extreme elemental magic. Finn and Jake team up with Ice King (voiced by Tom Kenny), Betty (voiced by Felicia Day), and Lumpy Space Princess (voiced by Ward) to set things straight.

Elements is the third Adventure Time miniseries to have been produced, following Stakes (2015) and Islands (2017). The miniseries' story was developed by head writer Kent Osborne, series showrunner Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, and Julia Pott; Patrick McHale also contributed to the story for the episode "Cloudy". Storyboard artists who worked on this miniseries include Sam Alden, Polly Guo, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Steve Wolfhard, Graham Falk, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, Kent Osborne, and Laura Knetzger. Cole Sanchez and Elizabeth Ito served as the miniseries' supervising directors, and Sandra Lee served as art director.

Plot

Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), and BMO (voiced by Niki Yang) arrive back in Ooo and discover that their home and the areas surrounding it have been entirely converted into candy. They also encounter Fern (voiced by Hayden Ezzy), N.E.P.T.R. (voiced by Andy Milonakis), Shelby (voiced by Pendleton Ward), Lemongrab (voiced by Justin Roiland), Tree Trunks (voiced by Polly Lou Livingston), Mr. Pig (voiced by Ron Lynch, and Marceline (voiced by Olivia Olson) who have been converted into happily brainwashed candy people. A frightened Sweet P (voiced by Ethan Maher) is the only person who is still normal and directs the gang to a mysterious candy tower. The tower turns out to be Princess Bubblegum (voiced by Hynden Walch) who has become a large candy being and attempts to convert the gang into candy people as well. While BMO is completely transformed, Finn and Jake are rescued by Ice King (voiced by Tom Kenny) who takes them to the Sky Kingdom. As Finn and Jake look down, they discover that Ooo has been divided into four completely corrupted sections. Ice King then explains that, after Finn, Jake, and BMO left on their adventure, Ice King was visited by Betty (voiced by Felicia Day) who, frustrated over Ice King not remembering her, asks him out on a date. Betty recreates a restaurant from Ice King's previous life as Simon. When Ice King still can't remember his old life Betty drops him off back home and leaves him. Tiny Manticore gives Betty some advice; rather than trying to adhere to Simon, she should just reach out to him as Ice King due to her having changed as well. Betty returns to Ice King and they start playing together. Suddenly, Patience St. Pim (voiced by Lauren Lapkus) kidnaps Betty and begins using her magic to empower mind controlled Princess Bubblegum, Flame Princess (voiced by Jessica DiCicco), and Slime Princess (voiced by Maria Bamford), while Ice King flees with Gunter.

Finn, Jake and Ice King travel to the Ice World and break through the large ice dome covering the center of the land. They encounter Carroll (voiced by Cameron Esposito), from "The Tower", who was converted to Ice and is genuinely pleased with her new appearance. The gang eventually encounter a powered up, and rather withheld, Patience who seems disappointed with the outcome of the new Ooo. While she succeeded in empowering the other elementals they have relegated themseleves to their sections of Ooo as Patience had forced them to power up rather than allow them to do so themseleves. The gang rescue Betty and leave while Patience bemoans the new world to an iced Choose Goose (voiced by Jeff Bennett). Betty reveals that she can help them with the power of an alternate-universe version of the Enchiridion which Finn has, causing Betty to ominously laugh. Soon thereafter, Finn begins to break down due to stress. In order to calm Finn down, Jake tucks him and himself into a cloud, but it floats away from Ice King and Betty. The two find themselves floating in the middle of endless sky while another cloud with a door flies past them. The two play pretend barber to pass the time and end up getting to the roots of their worries. The cloud flies past again and discover that it is actually a lard. They use the lard to fly back to Betty and Ice King where the former has discovered a way to return the land of Ooo to normal.

Finn and Jake arrive in the transformed Slime Kingdom to retrieve Slime Princess' crown for her jewel. They run into Lumpy Space Princess (voiced by Ward), who is attending Slime Princess's roller skating party. The winners of the skating competition get absorbed into Slime Princess's whole being while the losers are caged up. Finn, Jake and Lumpy Space Princess enter, but lose, only to learn that by losing they still get absorbed. While Finn manages to grab the crown, Jake gets fully absorbed into Slime Princess forcing Lumpy Space Princess to save Finn, revealing in the process that 'her lumps' protect her from corruption. They are ejected from Slime Princess and forced to leave. Finn is saddened at the loss of Jake, but Lumpy Space Princess explains that Finn and Jake always win which inspires Finn to continue his mission. Sometime later, Finn, Lumpy Space Princess, and Gunter arrive in a radically altered Fire Kingdom. The inhabitants, which include Wyatt (voiced by Andrew Daly) and Lady Rainicorn (voiced by Yang), attack the heroes. Finn and Gunter try desperately to restrain their violent tendencies as it would allow the kingdom to corrupt them. Eventually the group find Flame Princess who has transformed into a dragon. When she swallows the jewel necessary to save Ooo, Finn gives into his violence and begins attacking Flame Princess, thus transforming into a fire person. Lumpy Space Princess, angered by the violence, yells at everyone to stop their fighting. The kingdom misinterprets her anger and decide to start a war with the Candy Kingdom. Cinnamon Bun (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker), who was unaffected by the corruption, frets that this is the end of Ooo.

Lumpy Space Princess chases Finn and attempts to turn him back to normal, but to no avail. Ice King and Betty try to intervene, but are swatted away by Flame Princess. The Fire Kingdom inhabitants 'fight' the Candy Kingdom inhabitants making Lumpy Space Princess upset. After eating some of Marceline, who is made of marshmallows, Lumpy Space Princess reaches out to Finn's hero heart by placing some of Princess Bubblegum onto him. Recalling happier times with Bubblegum, Finn returns to normal. Bubblegum then fires her candy powers into the air and converts everyone into obedient candy people, except for Finn who was protected by Lumpy Space Princess. Finn nabs the three jewels and gives them to Betty, but she betrays him and leaves him behind. Finn finds himself surrounded by the citizens of the Candy Kingdom. Meanwhile, Betty knocks out Ice King and reveals that she wants to use the jewels to go back in time and stop Simon from transforming into Ice King. Ice King, still oblivious to her plans accidentally ruins her spell causing her to get transported to Mars where she meets Normal Man (voiced by Kenny). Lumpy Space Princess rescues Finn from the candy inhabitants as Princess Bubblegum enacts her plan to convert the rest of Ooo into candy while Patience freezes herself again. Finn realizes that LSP's immunity means that she is the anti-elemental. Ice King arrives with the gems and Lumpy Space Princess is able to transform all of Ooo back to normal. However, Jake comes back resembling his shapeshifter parent. Despite this, Finn is glad that he is reunited with his brother.

Production

In late 2015, Cartoon Network aired an Adventure Time miniseries entitled Stakes during the show's seventh season.^[1] This was followed in early 2017 by a second miniseries entitled Islands, which aired as a part of the show's eighth season.^[2] On March 30, 2017, Cartoon Network announced that these two miniseries would be succeeded by a third, entitled Elements.^[3][4][5] This miniseries, along with Islands, had also been hinted at in 2015 (when head story writer Kent Osborne revealed prior to the airing of Stakes that the show would likely produce several more miniseries) and in 2016 (when Cartoon Network announced that "new episodes, mini-series, specials and more" would precede the series finale).^[6][7]

A comparison of two shots from the original Adventure Time intro sequence (left) to similar shots from the Elements intro (right).

Much like Stakes and Islands,^[8][9] Elements has a unique title sequence that was designed just for the miniseries.^[10] The new intro was storyboarded by Hanna K. Nyström and, much like the intros for both Stakes and Islands, was animated by Masaaki Yuasa's company Science SARU. The sequence was unveiled via the official Adventure Time Tumblr on April 3; at this time, the site noted: "Once again, we were lucky enough to feature a new intro animated by Science SARU for the upcoming Elements miniseries;"^[10] Nyström later called it "a treat" to storyboard the intro.^[11] Unlike the usual sequence which begins episodes of Adventure Time, the Elements intro features imagery reflecting the four primary elements in the Adventure Time universe. The theme itself is sung by Hynden Walch, the voice actress for Princess Bubblegum.^[10]

Head writer Kent Osborne, series showrunner Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, and Julia Pott contributed to every episodes' story; this miniseries marked Pott's first time writing for the series, and according to Pendarvis, she "parachuted in[to the writer's room] at perhaps the most mind boggling moment in the sweeping arc of the series just totally undaunted, and showed incredible spirit and ingeniousness that encouraged us to press forward.".^[12] Former creative director Patrick McHale also contributed to the story for the episode "Cloudy", as the plot for this episode was based on an unused first season episode (at that point known as "Cloud Story"), for which he had drawn a few rough storyboard panels.^[13] Storyboard artists who worked on this miniseries include Sam Alden, Polly Guo, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Steve Wolfhard, Graham Falk, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, Kent Osborne, and Laura Knetzger. Cole Sanchez and Elizabeth Ito served as the miniseries' supervising directors, and Sandra Lee served as art director.^{[nb 2]}

Cast

Felicia Day (left) guest stars in this miniseries, playing Betty Grof. The role had previously been played by Lena Dunham (right).

The miniseries features vocal performances courtesy of the show's regular crew: Jeremy Shada (who voices Finn the Human), John DiMaggio (who portrays Jake the Dog), Olivia Olson (who portrays Marceline), Tom Kenny (who lends his voice to the Ice King), Hynden Walch (who voices Princess Bubblegum), Ward (who voices Lumpy Space Princess), and Niki Yang (who voices the sentient video game console BMO in English, as well as Jake's girlfriend Lady Rainicorn in Korean).^[14] Polly Lou Livingston, a friend of Pendleton Ward's mother, Bettie Ward, plays the voice of the small elephant Tree Trunks.^[15][16] Jessica DiCicco voices Flame Princess, Finn's ex-girlfriend and the sovereign of the Fire Kingdom.^[17][18] Andy Milonakis voices N.E.P.T.R., a sentient robot who makes and throws pies.^[19] Justin Roiland provides the voice of the Earl of Lemongrab.^[14][20] Felicia Day also has a starring role in this miniseries, playing Ice King's fiancée, Betty Grof (in previous episodes, this role had been played by Lena Dunham).^[21][22] The Adventure Time cast records their lines together as opposed to doing it individually. This is to capture more natural sounding dialogue among the characters. Hynden Walch has described these group session as akin to "doing a play reading—a really, really out there play."^[23]

The miniseries also features several guest actors lending their voices to various characters. Hayden Ezzy plays Fern, Ethan Maher voices Sweet P, Ron Lynch returns as Mr. Pig, Lauren Lapkus reprises her role as Patience St. Pim, Dana Snyder lends his voice to the Life-Giving Magus, Cameron Esposito appears as Carroll the cloud woman, storyboard artist Tom Herpich voices Mr. Fox, Jeff Bennett plays Choose Goose, John Hodgman reprises his role as Elder Plops, Andy Samberg returns to voice Party Pat, and Andrew Daly voices Wyatt.^[21][24] Additionally, American singer and songwriter Kelly Hogan lends her voice to the song "Blue Magic", which plays in the episode "Winter Light".^[25] Throughout the miniseries, bBackground voices are provided by Grey Griffin, Maria Bamford, Steve Little, and Dee Bradley Baker.^[21]

Release and reception

Broadcast

Elements aired as part of the show's ninth season on Cartoon Network from April 24 to April 27, 2017.^[26] The miniseries premiered on Cartoon Network Australia on June 19, 2017 and concluded on June 23, 2017.^[27]

Ratings

The premiere episodes, "Skyhooks"/"Bespoken For", were collectively watched by 0.826 million viewers and they both scored a 0.2 in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic according to Nielsen (Nielsen ratings are audience measurement systems that determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States); this means that 0.2 percent of all households with viewers aged 18 to 49 years old were watching television at the time of the episodes' airing.^[28] In terms of viewership numbers, the miniseries hit a high with the second and third episodes, both of which were watched by 0.98 million individuals.^[29] The miniseries' final two episodes, "Hero Heart" and "Skyhooks II", were collectively viewed by 0.9 million viewers, and they both scored a 0.21 in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic.^[30]

Critical reception

Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club awarded the miniseries a "B" letter grade. He contended that the episodes helped to return the viewers to the land of Ooo and also to resituate and reconfigure the characters' central relationships. Despite writing positively of the plot and the first half of the miniseries, Sava contended that "the back half of the miniseries switches into a generic plot where the heroes have to collect assorted items in order to stop the Elementals, and it starts to get more repetitive with each chapter."^[31] With all of this said, Sava wrote that the miniseries "does great work reinforcing how important Finn and Jake’s friendship is for both of them"; he argued that this was best on display in "Cloudy", which he called "the simplest, quietest, and most affecting chapter of the entire miniseries."^[31]

Zack Smith of Newsarama awarded the miniseries an 8 out of 10 and wrote positively of the show's use of the event series format, noting that it allows for "a stronger sense of focus [...] with every episode giving the sense that the story is building to a larger conclusion".^[32] Smith also wrote that the miniseries was a "visual treat", and he applauded how it provided the show with an excuse to redesign almost all of its characters. With that said, he also wrote that the miniseries was somewhat of a "victory lap" because "there’s not a lot of forward momentum in the overall mythology of the show".^[32]

Zack Blumenfeld of Paste magazine praised the miniseries, declaring that Elements "is superior to and more cohesive than both Stakes and Islands, simultaneously a return to Adventure Time’s surrealist roots and an emotional step forward."^[33] Blumenfeld highlighted "Cloudly" as the miniseries' strongest episode, noting that it "give us flashes of the show’s old innocence [and] it also opens up a window into Jake’s inner life that we rarely see."^[33] Ultimately, he wrote that "the quality of the [series' previous] miniseries comes down to their emotional content, and Elements has that in spades. It’s a welcome sign of continuous vitality from Cartoon Network’s flagship show, and its urgency serves to remind us that we won’t have Adventure Time forever".^[33]

Episodes

Home media

The entire miniseries was released through iTunes on April 17, 2017.^[36] This release was notable because it marked the third time that Adventure Time episodes had been officially released before officially airing on Cartoon Network (the first instance being the release of the episode "Princess Day" on the DVD of the same name on July 29, 2014, and the second being the release of the Islands miniseries on January 24, 2017).^[37][38]

Notes

References