Review: Speed Racer: The Next Generation
Nicktoons and Lionsgate Introduce the Sons of Speed Racer
May 28, 2008
The new cartoon from Lionsgate, Speed Racer: The Next Generation, appears to be a remake of the famous 1960s anime upon first glance. The opening credits roll to a sped up, metalled out version of the original Speed Racer theme song. The main characters are Speed Racer and X Racer, two teenage brothers attending a racing school, where Speed drives the Mach 6. Speed's roommate is reminiscent of Sparky, and he has a robot monkey named Chim Chim. The students train to rally race in a variety of environments using virtual reality with a 3D animation style allusive to Questworld from The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. Who wouldn't think it was a remake?
It's Not a Remake, It's the Next Generation
Keep watching. As teenage Speed enters the school's main hallways for the first time, he sees giant banners of 1960s Speed Racer and the Mysterious Racer X hanging from the rafters like one would see in a basketball arena. The headmaster of the school is none other than Spritle Racer, Speed's younger brother. (Mom and Pops Racer really must have hated their third son. They gave their first two sons cool names, and then named the third after drool.) Young Speed's school roommate is Conor, an obvious Sparky wannabe who is an obsessive Speed Racer fan. He dresses like him, has Speed Racer memorabilia plastered all over his side of the room, and even built a robot monkey named Chim Chim. He's just a restraining order away from being called a stalker. This show is definitely not a remake.
It's literally the next generation. Speed is an orphan who has nothing to tie himself to his parents except for a familiar (to the audience) red scarf and a strange key. X Racer is not only the most popular boy in school and the best race car driver, he is also Speed Racer's son. After a few strange occurrences, including one where Speed's mystery key leads him (literally leads him) to find the missing Mach 5 in the school's junkyard, Headmaster Spritle figures out that Speed is Speed Racer's youngest son. Before Speed Racer disappeared, he hid his second son to protect him. So at this point, the audience knows that Speed Racer is missing for unknown reasons, he hid one of his sons away for an unknown reason, and he has no creativity in naming his children.
In addition, the audience learns that Speed Racer had some environmental concerns. The mystery key shows teenage Speed a design for a car engine that uses an alternate form of fuel instead of gasoline. From this design, Conor builds the Mach 6: a car modeled after the Mach 5 but makes the hybrids of today look like the worst gas-guzzling SUVs. Enter the villain, Zile Zazic, a corporate tycoon who builds cars. He can't allow such an eco-friendly car to exist, so he devotes much of his time vowing to destroy young Speed and his Mach 6.
Fans of Speed Racer Will Enjoy the Next Generation
Speed Racer: The Next Generation has potential. The dialogue has its witty moments, the show’s creators even brought in Peter Fernandez to voice Headmaster Spritle, and the plot has some underlying intrigue as to what happened to Speed Racer. The show has made no mention of the Mysterious Racer X other than his picture on a banner in the school's entryway, but the banner alone hints that he may come into play sometime during the course of this series. What about Trixie? Is she the boys’ mother? What has happened to her?
Intrigued? Speed Racer: The Next Generation airs on Fridays at 7 p.m. EST only on the Nicktoons Network.
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