Hello everyone! Since this is a blog where I'll be recapping episodes of the cartoon series Code Lyoko, I wanted to get right to the action rather than begin with a boring introduction post. However, for those of you who are new to the series or need a short refresher, here's the plot synopsis (from Wikipedia), altered a bit by me to avoid plot spoilers:
Code Lyoko is about a group of five boarding school students
enrolled at Kadic Junior High School in suburban Paris: Aelita
Hopper, Jeremy Belpois, Odd DellaRobbia, Ulrich Stern, and Yumi
Ishiyama. The students travel to the virtual world of Lyoko — which is found in a
supercomputer housed in the basement of an abandoned factory near the
school — to fight against a deadly multi-agent system named Xana.
Now with that, let's virtualize right in and take Maria von Trapp's excellent advice to start at the very beginning: Garage Kids.
Released in 2001 by the French cartoon firm Antefilms, Garage Kids was the pilot of what was originally meant to be a series of the same name. It eventually evolved into Code Lyoko, and introduced many of the same concepts - a virtual world in a hidden supercomputer in an abandonned factory, an element in the virtual world which threatens the real world, and virtualizing humans into it so as to fight. It introduces many of the same characters as Code Lyoko (which henceforth I will often just refer to as "CL"), such as Yumi, Jeremie, Odd, and Ulrich, and even a few minor ones like Millie and Tamiya (more on them in later posts). And like CL, it uses 2D animation for scenes set in the real world and 3D CGI rendering for scenes set in the virtual universe. However, Garage Kids noticeably leaves out Aelita and even Xana (the sinister element of the virtual world is simply referred to as an "exuberance" by the creators), and the virtual world isn't even called Lyoko - it's called Xanadu. So with that in mind, let's recap Garage Kids:
Paris, France - The trailer begins with a bang (literally) as a thunderstorm rages over the French capital (more specifically, the La Defense commercial district, whose skyscrapers are used as a backdrop in the opening scene). After a couple shots of rain pouring down into the Seine and forked lightning flashing threatningly over the skyscrapers, we cut to someone's bedroom/study. Suddenly, the computer monitor on the desk flashes on, displaying the sillouhette of what looks like an exotically mutated mushroom superimposed on a glaringly white background. No sooner does that appear than featureless black shadows (which look like The Blob if it was composed out of petroleum and old tar - I just call these shadows "ghosts") begin leeching out of the monitor, the speakers, and the keyboard. They cascade over the top of the desk and drip down onto to the floor, where their finger-like projections quickly spread out and cover the entire area.
Unnamed Boarding School, Paris - Next Day - We see the exterior of a boarding/junior high school that honestly looks more like a small office park, with a grassy, tree-lined campus and a modern art sculpture on the plaza in front of the building. A yellow school bus pulls up to the bus station in front of the school's gate. Out of it steps Odd, a purple-loving new student with crazy spiked-up blonde hair with a purple splotch in the middle, and Kiwi, Odd's Whippet/Bull Terrier mix. The scene then cuts to Jeremie's dorm room, where he and Odd sit opposite each other on their beds. After Jeremie comments that Odd is a newbie and Odd introduces himself, Jeremie introduces himself as well as Ulrich, who stands over by the window in a rather emo fashion and simply nods to acknowledge Odd's existence (This is also the part where we're first treated to the audio dubbing into English, which honestly sounds like it was done in five minutes by a bunch of 6th graders with thick French accents speaking into Windows Movie Maker). Jeremie then comments on Kiwi, saying he looks stupid. Odd, inexplicably dropping into an Asian-ish accent and appearance, scolds Jeremie, saying the Kiwi is sensitive and can get aggressive when insulted. As if to make a point, he thrusts Kiwi into Jeremie's face to scare him. It works, and Jeremie recoils back against the wall with a freaked-out look and one of those giant anime sweat-drops coming down his face. Jeremie asks if it's true that Kiwi is aggressive (despite the goofy look on the dog's face), to which Odd replies snidely "Nah!" and moves Kiwi out of the way to flash his trademark "I just made a really cheesy practical joke!" grin. Ulrich facepalms and shakes his head in disbelief.
We move outside, where Odd and Jeremie are walking down the arcade surrounding the school's plaza (where that modern art sculpture from before has inexplicably shrunk from being 1 story high to around 10 ft.). Odd comments that he really likes his new school, and asks if there are any hot chicks around (duh Odd, it's France!). We then see a Japanese girl dressed in all black swing a left hook. Ulrich leans back to dodge it, and after successfully doing so, gets back into a fighting pose. The Japanese girl stops to catch her breath and then swooshes out of the way to reveal Odd and Jeremie sitting on a bench behind her. Jeremie introduces her as Yumi, and states that she trains every day with Ulrich, so it would be a bad idea to get in her way. As if to make that point abundantly clear, Yumi picks up Ulrich and throws him violently on the ground and covers him so he can't get up, earning "Ow, that's gotta hurt" grimmaces from Jeremie and Odd. Yumi remains on top of Ulrich. Both are breathing heavily and, as they stare into each others' eyes, they begin to blush, thus setting up the complicated (to say the least) romance that would be continued in CL.
Oh wow, and this is moving along really fast because all of a sudden they're on the school's roof! No explanation of how they got up there, but it appears to just be a set-up for what happens next. A schoolbell rings and Yumi tells Jeremie to finish what he's doing or else they'll all be late to class. Jeremie, sitting precariously on the safety railing while furiously hacking away at his laptop, tells Yumi to cool it for just a second. Suddenly, his laptop makes a weird noise as the same silhouette from the night before appears on his screen. Jeremie screams and drops the laptop. As it lands on the roof, the same "ghosts" from the previous night burst out of the computer and shoot up into the atmosphere. Odd, sounding surprised but not scared, utters "Oh my God! What's that again?" Seriously? In addition to being the first and last reference to God in the entire CL franchise, for Odd to say "What's that again?" implies that he's seen this before, even though he's brand new at school and the implication is that these disturbances have been going on for some time. Perhaps that room in the beginning was Odd's, who knows. But what is certain is that this is the first of at least three lines of dialogue which betray the absolutely stellar quality of this dubbing! ;D But all is not funny, as the ghosts appearing from the laptop cause Jeremie to lose his balance and fall off the railing. Alarmed, Yumi runs to the railing and blinks. The lighting goes strobe as she does so, and all of a sudden Jeremie stops in mid-fall. Yumi, who clearly has telekinesis, then lifts Jeremie back up and, while holding him in mid-air, turns to face Odd (who now looks appropriately freaked out!) and asks if he can keep a secret. Cool music then kicks in! (Pirates, by Randy Edelmen, for anyone who's interested. Unfortunately it isn't the Pirates of the Caribbean theme!)
Renault Automobile Factory, Ile Seguin, Boulogne-Billaincourt (Parisian suburb) - Suddenly it's evening time as the kids run across the bridge spanning the Seine between the mainland of Boulogne-Billaincourt (the suburb of Paris that Code Lyoko subsequently takes place in) to the island (Ile Seguin) that sports the abandoned flagship factory of the French automobile firm Renault. Ulrich and Jeremie throw open the doors, and inside Odd looks around in awe at the pipes, wires, and large cylinders that presumably hold databanks for the supercomputer containing Xanadu (The factory clearly doesn't look like an automotive plant anymore - according to the creators, the factory was gutted and rebuilt by "The Professor," the mysterious mastermind behind Xanadu). We then see the tall cylinder holding the main part of the supercomputer, with a staircase leading up to three smaller cylinder (Scanners) on top. Ulrich climbs them and lets off his one line of dialogue in the entire five-minute pilot - a horribly mis-dubbed flub "I GO!" Jeremie sits down at a bank of computer screens underneath the cylinder. Yumi rushes to join him while Odd and Kiwi stand dumbfounded near an old couch next to the computer grotto (I guess the gang needs somewhere to crash after a hard mission! I probably would've added a mini-fridge stocked with Lipton green tea and donuts as well). Jeremie types commands into the computer for Ulrich's scanner to shut and virtualize him to Xanadu. In a flash, Ulrich appears in the garden-like Xanadu, looking like a cross between a Samurai and a back-up dancer for KC and the Sunshine Band (the comically poofy pants which make Ulrich look like he's wearing a pair of lacquered turnips around his legs were thankfully dropped for his virtual form in Code Lyoko). Odd, panicking, asks Yumi what's going on. Either Yumi ignores him or her voice suddenly drops before returning to normal, because what sounds like Jeremie answers Odd and explains that Ulrich is on Xanadu, an "artificial, digital world." As Jeremie explains, a panorama of Xanadu is given. Its visual style is influenced by the earthly paradise of Shangri-La (the peaceful Himilayan valley from James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon) and Chandu, the park-like summer capital of China built by Kublai Khan (Chandu's new accepted translated name is Xanadu). Jeremie tells Odd that they all don't know why Xanadu exists, but they know something is wrong with it. Ulrich, seemingly without direction, wanders around in a small waterfall grotto/garden, and begins to bend down to look into the waters of a large lake. Yumi suddenly yells through the computer's speakers to him that there's danger. Despite this, Ulrich still leans further down and his concentration (on his own reflection?) isn't broken until a huge wall of the black ghosts shoot up out of the ground behind him and form into a giant black blob. It lunges at Ulrich, who jumps out of the way. Ulrich begins jumping large distances, leaving a blue contrail behind him as he does. The ghost breaks into three smaller ghosts, which pursue him towards a large organic tower, the cables around its base resembling vines and tree roots. As Ulrich runs through a forest and super-jumps onto one of the cables, Odd asks why Yumi, Jeremie, and Ulrich go to Xanadu if it's dangerous. Jeremie replies that it's because Xanadu's exuberance threatens the real world. As if to make that point, one of the ghosts slams into the cable that Ulrich is standing on, destroying itself in the process as Ulrich jumps away. The ghost's impact violently shakes the tower, revealing the tower's connection with Earth, as an equally violent earthquake shakes the factory. Jeremie then alerts Ulrich that his saber is charged. Ulrich, standing on another cable, sees another ghost charging him. He pulls a katana (with a blade made of binary code) out of a sheath attached to to his turnip-pants. The ghost envelops Ulrich, but suddenly several cuts appear in the ghost, which then releases Ulrich, splits into several pieces, and falls apart. Ulrich, standing in a ritualistic pose after making the kill, opens his eyes and glares at the third on-charging ghost, which instantly changes course as soon as it sees his saber. Ulrich then chases it, jumping from cable to cable. The ghost then flies across the large lake from before, which Ulrich effortlessly hops across like a skipped rock. He pursues it to the top of a large mountain in the middle of Xanadu. From its peak, Ulrich looks down on another tower, this one being circled by numerous ghosts. Ulrich's eyes widen as the ghosts suddenly break off and beeline for the mountain. He drops down from the peak, taking shelter under a small overhang, while hundreds of ghosts stream overhead. Jeremie recommends pulling Ulrich out, as it's getting too dangerous, and Yumi responds with the brilliantly dubbed line "No wait to come back later!" Seriously, at this rate I won't be surprised if the ghosts send Jeremie an IM saying "All your base are belong to us!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg). She then tells Odd that both she and him are going in, and as she rushes towards the stairs, Odd just gives her a quizzical look. He does eventually follow her, and as he clumsily paws the insides of his scanner to figure out what the heck it is, the doors close and Jeremie virtualizes the two (Incidentally, all the scenes of virtualization in Garage Kids are reused in Code Lyoko). We don't get to see their virtual forms, however, as they virtualize on top of one of the towers, which is presented as being absolutely massive when compared to them. The shot then zooms out, revealing Xanadu as the sillhoutte we saw on the computer screens earlier - an island hosting 6 massive towers of different sizes anchored to a flat landscape below it by an intricate network of cables. The Garage Kids title appears over this scene, before cutting to a scene of Odd, apparently after the battle has been won, leaning out of his scanner after being devirtualized, panting (this is also reused in CL for when Odd is devirtualized).
The pilot plays us out with its ending credits, while the song Love Foolosophy by the British "alternative/acid jazz/funk/soul/disco" (according to Wikipedia) band Jamiroquai. And yes, they really do look like this:
While the song plays and the credits roll, images of the Lyoko gang doing things such as a pillow fight, sitting together on a park bench, or Jeremie and Odd pushing an embarrassed Ulrich and Yumi together, flash in front of a backdrop of the Renault factory. These images would later be used during the credits for CL episodes, but with a much better song (the CL theme by Noam) playing.
And so that's Garage Kids. It would've been much different than CL had it gone to air in this form. Interestingly enough, concept art released along with the pilot depicted animated characters would would appear. In addition to the basic Lyoko gang of Jeremie (who's hunched over like an ape in this picture), Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich, we also have Millie and Tamiya (two 6th graders who make appearances as secondary characters in CL) as well as a number of kids who didn't make the cut, including a French-African boy, a boy wearing a baseball cap, and a chibi-esque thing in a yellow shower cap which I swear is what Paddington Bear would look like if he were human. I wonder what his/her (I honestly can't tell) character would've been like if it made the final cut to CL?
Next post: Xana Awakens, Part 1!
