>>99805166Gravity Falls could qualify as a "flawed masterpiece" hadn't it the flaw of being the dullest franchise in the History of cartoon franchises. Seriously each episode following the Pine twins and their pals from the mystery shack as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of after effects, all to make mystery unmysterious, to make action seem inert.
Perhaps the die was cast when Alex vetoed the idea of focusing on paranormal stuff; he made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody, just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for his Twitter account. Gravity Falls might be anti-christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-Xfiles in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.
>a-at least the characters were good though"No!"
The lines are dreadful; the characters were terrible. As I watched, I noticed that every time a new character might have been useful to the plot it was instead turned into a comic relief.
I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that happened. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Hirsch's mind is so governed by pop-culture references and dead memes that he has no other style of directing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Gravity Falls by the same Pendleton Ward. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these manchildren are watching Gravity Falls at 18 or 22, then when they get older they will go on to watch Adventure Time." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you watch "Gravity Falls" you are, in fact, trained to watch Adventure Time.
