Adventure Time: Come along with me (thoughts/opinion)
(Warning: this post contains my own thoughts and feels on the ending of Adventure Time, and Spoilers. So if you haven't seen the last episode nor like opinion, you know the rules:)
I want to start off saying I that while I did see the premier of Adventure Time when it first aired back in 2010, I didn't really keep up with the show much after Finn broke up with the Flame Princess, but I did keep a tab on the show and fandom (like I do with most shows) So, I have seen most of the mini-series, the "important-plot"episodes, and The Fionna and Cake episodes (of course).
With that being said I think I've seen enough of the show to get a good feel of what the finale was suppose to lead up to or at least what questions it was supposed to answer. After, Watching the finale twice and watching a video explain some of the stuff I thought I missed all I have to say is that...this finale was anti-climatic and left a lot of questions unanswered but I can't say wasn't expecting a ending like this especially for a show like Adventure Time.
The Good
I'll start off with the things I liked about this finale, before I talk about it's problems (because conductor, there's a few of 'em). The first thing I like about this finale is that Willow Smith voices Beth, the princess pup, she does a pretty good job at voice acting which makes sense since Willow said that Adventure Time was/is one of her favorite shows, and it was pretty cool to voice a character in the final episode. It's always nice to see one of your favorite celebrities voice a character in a show you like, especially nice for Willow,after she came out about her self harming, which she doesn't do anymore, thankfully. Onto the next point...
I liked how in the finale we finally got to see the Ice King return to normal, while a lot of people who didn't like the finale say that it wasn't really that special since we seen Ice King turn back to Simon before, but I really liked Simon as character and Betty and their story arch together. It was nice to see them reunite, even if it was only for a few mintues before Betty had to use the crown to fuse with Golb to keep Simon safe. Another, thing I liked how Betty and Simon were the ones trapped in Golb because Golb breaks down the layers of an object or person down their simplest form, and it makes sense because Betty and Simon are complex characters. While Betty and Simon don't get to be together in the end, it's shown in the montage at the end that Simon goes on a quest to search for Betty (like how Magic Man did for Margles) and it looks like Simon now lives with Marceline, so at least he got decent ending....for the time being.
A more misc. scene I liked was right after Betty used the crown's power to fuse with Golb, the crown fell on the ground and Gunther picks it up and Jake says "Jump him! he's gonna wish to be all space villain!" because he thinks Gunther's going to use the crown's power to turn back into Orgalorg but instead he uses it turn into the Ice "Thing" King and plays the drums.
Another scene I liked was earlier before in the Nightmare Realm when Uncle Gumball got his wish to be a princess, and turned PB into a dumb candy citizen. Uncle Gumball soon realizes that running a kingdom isn't that easy and PB realizes that candy people aren't really dumb, they can think normally they just have a hard time expressing their feelings and thoughts intelligently...
and the last thing I like about that finale is this scene alone because A E S T H E T I C S....
and Come Along With Me is a really good song on it's own. it's probably one of my favorites from of the show.
The Bad
Now, we move on the problems I (and a lot of other people) have the finale. One of the major problems is the whole conflict of the gumball war, while it's build to nicely and would be good contained in it's own miniseries. It's not a good enough conflict for a SERIES finale, but a season finale not a series. This mainly due to the fact that gumball wasn't really mention before in the early season, we had just learn that PB created Gumball and the others, so could have family in the recent mini-series. Finales are suppose to have high stakes for the characters and the world, with Uncle Gumball as the villain the only stakes I could see them ruling over the candy kingdom instead of PB.
This outcome would actually be interesting if it didn't already happen when the king of Ooo took over the candy kingdom earlier in the series, and Gumball isn't really treated like a big bad like how Orgalorg, The Lich, and Golb was treated in the show as Villain. Gumball was more on par with characters like the ice king, or the creepy heart dude when comes to villains he doesn't really serve as much of a threat. It was a real let down when his conflict with PB was all resolved in the nightmare realm and right after he and PB make amends before anything interesting happened he turns right back into a candy person.
Speaking of villains, the actual villain Golb, the god of chaos who has been hinted and shown in bits throughout the later seasons is also another disappointment. Golb was summon by Betty when she was trying to figure out a way to get the Ice King back to normal, she wanted to use Golb's magic powers. While Golb seems threatening on paper, he wasn't really all that thearthing he just kind of showed up and literally left. He was weakened by the power of music, which gave Betty the time to fuse with him to make him leave, that's it. He didn't really cause that much destruction (ironically) that wasn't fixed or the characters just deal with it. This leads me to the next problem....
For Adventure Time Finale this doesn't have a lot action in it, people have been praising the finale for the character solving all their problem through conversations instead of resorting to violence (much like another show on CN). But this is ADVENTURE TIME we are talking about, the show that in its earlier days was known for and stood out for being highly violence and vulgar. There used to be a rumor that Adventure Time was actually supposed to be on Adult Swim, and Finn used to jump at the chance to smack a demon (literally!).
I know that music/songs are an important theme of the show and Finn has grown since then, and harmony is the opposite of chaos, but harmony isn't only in music it's also people working together for a common goal. You can have everyone fighting working together to make a giant music sword or something, something way more dramatic and cooler that just singing.
It feels like the finale was really pulling out all the stops to make the audience feel sad it was leaving, they spent way more time focusing on references and easter eggs than the actual story.
The finale spent way too much time on references and easter eggs, we didn't learn anything new in the finale that was fleshed out near the end. We already know that Fern feels inadequate to Finn, we already know that running kingdom is hard, we already kind of knew that candy people were somewhat intelligent, we already knew Golb was a powerful being, and we ALL knew Marceline and PB would get together by the end.
While I did enjoy the characters of Beth and Shermey they had good chemistry, but I really didn't feel like we got to know them well enough to say that they're are good predecessors for Finn and Jake, I know it's suppose to go with the theme of moving on and the fun never ends, but these two characters didn't even know about Finn or Jake before talking to BMO. In my opinion it would have been better if Sweet P was the next adventure, it would make sense if he like trained under Finn, and it would be a cool way to cement that he's done with past as the litch and turn around a new leaf. (also at the end you can see that he has a larger version of Finn's sword)
A finale (especially to a plot heavy show) is suppose to give the audiences a good amount of answers about the characters and the world, and/or a new perspective on the world and it's character, but finale doesn't do that we never get any answer to actual questions like why did the ice king get old episodes of Fionna and Cake streamed into head every night, what happened to marceline's mom, what events lead the end of land of Ooo a second apocalypse, what's up with peppermint butler, marceline's parents met, or even HOW DID ABRAHAM LINCOLN BECOME THE KING OF MARS?!! a lot of these (mostly) important questions are left unanswered.
Conclusion
The Adventure Time finale, while it does have it's good bits of character moments and easter eggs that basically all it is, it doesnt bring anything new to the table or answer any important questions it's just serving fan service and feels so people can go talk about it on social media about how nostalgic and sad they feel, it all felt so rushed. This is mostly due to the fact at the creator original idea for Adventure Time came from his love of D&D games and how anything can happen and anything goes there.
The show brought up and drop too many characters and sub plots to have a good satisfying story ending, it seemed like the people on the staff were having a good time throwing around ideas and characters but when the time came to give a ending they really didn't know what to do, and it's not like CN help all that much after season 5 adventure time lost of a lot it's view to show like Over The Garden Wall, We Bare Bears, and Steven universe. Once Teen Titans Go became a hit, the studio almost forgot about Adventure Time entirely giving it a weird scheduling and barely advertising new episodes until the finale. So, the crew did the best they could with a show like Adventure Time, while the ending isn't really happy as the current showrunner admitted in a recent interview saying that the ending shown in the finale that the Great Gum War ended seemly well, some events happen afterafter eventually lead to another war and another apocalypse. So, This ending is probably the best that show could have.
I can see why some people did like the finale and other's didnt, and I myself feel like there was something missing from the finale,but I can't ignore the impact Adventure Time had on CN and the animation industry as whole. Even though the show itself has ended, the adventures will always continue and the fun will never end in the hearts and minds of fans and in the comics.....