If you’ve been a fan of western animation in the past five years, odds are that you’ve
at least seen Rick and Morty, if not binge watched the entire series several times and
invaded a mcdonalds chanting lines from the show in an attempt to get a packet Szechuan
sauce.
I am personally not the biggest fan of the show.
It’s scifi cocnepts are a lot of fun, but due to the episodic nature of the show these
unique ideas are dealt with too fast for my liking, and I just don’t enjoy their use
of sexual humor.
In 2018 the show was renewed for a record breaking 70 episodes though, so there is no
denying its popularity.
Whether you like it or not, it’s going to be around for quite some time.
But nevertheless, I was still intrigued when I heard that the co-creator of Rick and Morty,
Justin Roiland, was helping co-create a new series called Solar Opposite, about a family
of aliens who move to middle America.
I am a huge fan of anything to do with aliens, so I felt I should give it a watch, even if
Rick and Morty wasn’t quite to my liking.
I had to wait a lot longer than expected unfortunately, as despite being announced as an original
series for FOX back in 2018, it was later shelved until Hulu picked up the show for
two seasons.
Despite this, I was still hopeful, as Hulu has sorely been lacking on good original animated
shows.
So after years of waiting, the time is approaching for the show to finally premiere on May 8th.
Of course I am not the best at waiting, and luckily I was able to get an early look at
the first season of the show so I could give my honest review.
So, what exactly is Solar Opposites- and is it a fresh concept, or is it just another
Rick and Morty?
Here’s my season 1 review!
Before I jump in, I just want to say that if you enjoy my reviews, please consider subscribing
and getting notifications for the channel!
I also recently reviewed the Midnight Gospel, so check that out after watching this!
Anyways, Solar Opposites is about a group of five aliens from the planet Shlorp.
Two adults, their replicants, and a pupa.
An asteroid hits their planet, and they leave their homeworld, Superman style, and find
themselves on Earth.
They are then forced to adjust to life in suburban America, and some of them love it
while others detest it.
Ultimately, they are simply biding their time to protect the Pupa, which is actually a living
supercomputer that will one day evolve into its true form and consume the entire earth
and terraform it into a new planet for the aliens.
By itself, this is a very interesting concept, especially with the pupa.
The entire premise is relayed to the audience via the opening theme, with the exception
of the true nature of the Pupa, which is elaborated on in the first episode.
One of the first things I noticed while watching this series is that the style is a dead ringer
for Rick and Morty’s, something people have been pointed out since stills of the show
started being released.
You could have a crossover between these shows and there wouldn’t be any jarring differences
between the character’s styles.
While I do like this art style, I do prefer when showrunners take a new approach with
each new show of theirs.
Even the small details such as their pupils having that fuzzy look and some of the distinctive
Rick and Morty mouth shapes are exactly the same here.
I believe this show should not have to be compared to rick and morty at every turn,
but this similar art style will not make that easy.
The voice acting doesn’t help either, as Roiland voices one of the main characters
in this show as well, an alien named Korvo, and the voice he uses is extremely similar
to voice for Rick unfortunately.
That being said, the show has nice animation, and despite how simple they are, I do enjoy
the appearance of the aliens.
The show delivers on its promise to explore alien life in juxtaposition to humans, with
the aliens not just having different cultural norms but also a unique physiology, they’re
not just humans with weird colored skin.
They are able to do things humans cannot, such as regenerate parts of their body, meaning
that they are always safe from the onslaught of gore that appears in most of the episodes.
Yeah, this show is very violent.
The show’s humor is derived from the aliens not understanding human norms, and them often
misinterpreting things that humans, particularly those of us in the west, accept as normal.
The show has a lot of pop culture references, something that often causes confusion and
humorous antics for the alien family.
Along with that there is quite a bit of dark humor, but I never felt like it was excessive
like I do with Rick and morty, and really adult animation as a whole.
Most of the episodes involve Terry and Korvo, the two adult Shlorpions, doing something
with their alien technology that ends up causing a ton of chaos, and them trying to reverse
it before the end of the episode.
Yumyulack and Jesse, the two younger aliens, provide the B plot, with most of their story
revolving around attending a human school.
The show also tries to tackle complicated topics, like gender politics, which I can
imagine will be pretty divisive among fans.
However, I do think this is a great show to tackle such things, as having aliens as the
main characters is a great vehicle to point out how strange or ridiculous human norms
can be.
For example, one of the aliens, Jesse, wears a bow, and because of that she expects everyone
around her to assume that she is a girl, which isn’t always the case.
Sometimes the show seems to dive a little too seriously into these topics like they
are trying to make a serious point, but it will often pull itself back and make more
jokes about the situation, so it sends some mixed signals.
The most consistent storyline throughout the season is the replicants’ human zoo.
As in, they literally shrink down anyone that annoys them and puts them into a series of
connected terrariums.
These humans are forced to learn to survive in what is basically a post-apocalyptic world,
and Jesse is pretty much their god.
What the show does with the shrunken people is truly amazing, and I can’t spoil anything
but let’s just say it’s really crazy.
Whether it be the reoccurring small humans or any of the aliens, I actually like all
of the important characters in this show, which is something I cannot say for Rick and
Morty.
The emotional arc for the season involves the aliens bonding emotionally as a family,
something that is implied to be odd to them as on their home planet they were simply assigned
to each other instead of forming a nuclear family the way we do here.
The show takes this idea to places that get surprisingly deep, something I did not expect
when I dived into this.
All in all, the show is very enjoyable for me, but what a lot of you probably want to
know is if this is its own show, or if it just feels like a knock off of Rick and Morty.
At first, it very much seemed to be the latter.
Korvo doesn’t just have Rick’s voice, but a lot of his personality as well.
He is able to create basically everything because of advanced alien science, hates almost
everything about his life on Earth, and doesn’t seem to care much for the others in the family
beyond his inherent obligations to them and what they are supposed to do for him.
The more I watched, however, the more I saw that he actually does care for Terry and the
replicants, even if they don’t really care about completing the mission like they’re
supposed to.
I suppose Rick does care for his daughter and grandson deep down, but I felt that it
takes a long time for that to come up in show, at least longer than it does here in Solar
Opposites.
The formula is very similar to Rick and Morty’s as well, with one of the aliens generally
creating their own problem using some scifi plot device, and everything being more or
less okay by the end.
One thing that makes this show different however is that unlike Rick and morty, where its two
humans traveling out in to space, it is just one group of aliens who are stuck on earth,
so in that way it almost inverts the narrative of rick and morty.
Rick and morty has the option of creating whatever alien planet they need to fit the
story they want to tell in any given episode, but Solar Opposites can only explore this
one alien family in juxtaposition to human life on earth.
The constraints of Solar Opposites means that the writers must work harder to be more creative,
and consequentially we get a lot more focus on the aliens since we already know Earth
and humanity in general, as opposed to whatever whacky new alien species rick and morty would
have us meet each week.
Since I’m a person that loves when a show focuses on developing its core characters,
Solar Opposites already has me very excited for whatever else is to come.
And thankfully we know a second season is already on its way, with each season consisting
of 8 episodes so far.
As of now, I can say I am a lot more excited for season 2 of solar opposites, than I am
for the return of rick and morty.
I know a lot of people are quite attached to Rick and Morty, however, so I don’t expect
everyone to immediately love this new show with it standing in Rick and Morty’s shadow
at the moment.
Some people who have taken issue with Rick and Morty are hoping that Solar Opposites
will be what Futurama was to the simpsons: something the fandom saw as largely superior,
the less popular under dog that is ultimately a better story… but as much as I do enjoy
this new show, I don’t think that is an apt comparison for what is happening here.
I think this series has a lot of potential, and is definitely more my style for a comedy
based animated show.
But the differences between the two shows are not enough to say this is the creator
trying something completely new.
If you loved rick and morty, you should give this a watch, as it has enough in common that
you may enjoy it.
If you didn’t like Rick and morty, I’d still say to give it a chance, as it nerfs
a lot of what I considered to be rick and mortys flaws.
I wasn’t quite sure when I watched the first two episodes, but by the end of the season
it had more than won me over.
And that pretty much covers my review of Solar Oppoistes season 1!
In the comments below let me know what you thought of the season once you get a chance
to watch!
If you want to help support the creation of more animation mini Hailey, consider giving
us a tip via our uTip page, or becoming a patron on Patreon!
Also subscribe and check out my other early reviews if you get the chance.
Thank you for watching and have an animated day!