Maybe I'm too old, but this new series is quite literally a parody of the original Ducktales. It has next to nothing to do with the original premises and all characters have been purposely changed to not even resemble the source material. That's the point, you say. Yes, I got that from watching the 8 released episodes.
The show is filled with pointless topical pop culture references and most of the voice actors perform all their lines yelling, making the overall plot incohesive and all the characters flat and alike, regardless of the star-studded voice cast. There's very little in ways of morals which the original show contained, so I'd call the storytelling irresponsible (as it's just face-value drivel) and generic at best.
All that said, OK, I wasn't expecting a continuation of the original show. I realize we live in modern times when people no longer tell stories that have a sense of adventure and traditional storytelling because everything must make something modern and completely irrelevant to the material a butt of jokes, most recently mocking Mark Zuckerberg in a very mean-spirited way (not a huge fan of Mark either but c'mon...).
The character design isn't horrible, I like what they've done with some of the characters- Webby is an oddball but a pretty convincing female and Mrs Beakley is some sort of secret-agent-like character. I guess I appreciate the appearance of terra-firmians, which was one of my less favorite of the classic episodes. I have no idea why they made Gyro Gearloose completely full of himself. The smartest, most talented people I know are not only humble, but self deprecating, just like the original Gyro. Huey, Dewey and Louie now have...well, not exactly distinguishable personalities, except they're all jerks surrounded by actually sort-of interesting disposable side characters. Scrooge partners with Glumgold? Is nothing sacred?
When they released the initial art of the titular characters in a Jeep driving through a Serengeti, I didn't expect entire episodes dedicated to social networks. The art spoke the same language the original series did, so these past 8 episodes are an unwelcome surprise to say the least. My point is that with all the decisions they made to change everything from what it used to be to what they changed it to, the show does absolutely nothing to stand out among the rest of the same shows full of yelling and topical references, denoting that the writers actually don't have anything of value to say other than ventilating their opinions on various modern issues. It's actually quite boring. I don't know about you, but I watched Ducktales as a kid because it was nothing like my life. This Ducktales is like everything you see walking down a street or channel surfing. By comparison, ANY of the first two original Ducktales' season's (before it turned to mush) is a better choice to watch. Or better yet, read some Don Rosa or Carl Barks instead.
I'm quite convinced this show won't stand the test of time...who will want to watch this twenty years from now? I'm not sure I want to watch more than the 8 episodes, but I loved Ducktales, and at least SOME of the episodes aren't complete garbage and manage to present their voice in a new and surprising way, thus barely making it worth watching (while doing everything to betray the source material).
Bottom line is, if you throw away everything that made Ducktales what it was, what are you left with? Not Ducktales, that's what.
