Changes: Code Lyoko Evolution

Revision as of 16:18, 17 May 2020

Code Lyoko Evolution is the sequel series of the French animated series, Code Lyoko (2003-2007). It first premiered on December 19, 2012 in France and February 28, 2013 in the USA. It consists of twenty-six episodes. Unlike the original series, it consists of live-action for scenes on Earth as opposed to 2D hand-drawn animation, but still contains 3D computer animation for Lyoko. The soundtrack has been overhauled.

This reboot is also considered the fifth season of the Code Lyoko franchise.

Plot

One year after the events of the fourth season, Jeremie Belpois, Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama and Aelita Schaeffer return to their daily lives and routines at Kadic Academy. However, they soon find out that their old virtual archenemy, X.A.N.A., has been successfully reborn with even more strength and power than ever before. The Lyoko Warriors resume their former double lives in order to protect humanity from X.A.N.A.'s evil schemes once again. Joined by William Dunbar, who has finally been accepted as the sixth Lyoko Warrior, and an unreliable girl-genius named Laura Gauthier, the seven heroes are bent on unraveling the reasons for such a return and to exterminate the evil artificial intelligence that is threatening both worlds once and for all.

In addition to X.A.N.A., the Lyoko Warriors discover that they have another dangerous enemy, a mad scientist named Professor Tyron, who seems to be the one responsible for inadvertently returning X.A.N.A. to life. He commands the Ninjas, a group of several virtual human avatars in green and black-striped costumes to counter the Lyoko Warriors. In Tyron's lab the group also discovers Aelita's long-lost mother, Anthea Hopper-Schaeffer, and seek to discover why she is with their newest enemy and how to reunite mother and daughter.

In the cliffhanger, Ultimate Mission, it is revealed that Tyron has been married to Anthea for four years, and is now Aelita's legal guardian and stepfather. His only purpose of marrying Anthea was not out of love, but to get his greedy hands on her late husband's archives so that he could effectively create the Cortex region, which then the further evolved X.A.N.A. secretly inhabited to carry put its plans for world domination and destruction once again.

Differences from the Original Series

Weapons and Abilities

Abilities Used:

Creativity
Triplicate (only used in "Intrusion")
Super Sprint (only used in "Rivalry" and "Confusion")
Super Smoke
Cat Climb
Feline Execution
Enhanced Reflexes
Enhanced Balance
Flight

Weapon Upgrades and Modifications Used

Energy Slash (from William's Zweihänder)

Abilities Never Used:

Weapon Upgrades and Modifications Never Utilized:

Other Differences from the Original Show

A new recurring character, Laura, is the unreliable and frequently mistrusted seventh member of the team, but was eventually kicked out and had her memory successfully erased in Mutiny.
Abilities have an entirely different appearance and color. Such as, Ulrich's super sprint leaving a pale blue trail instead of pale yellow, and Aelita's strengthened creativity has a light blue aura without any angelic, siren-like sounds heard.
Jim looks a bit different. He is not muscular nor does he have a potbelly. He also doesn't appear as often as he did in the other seasons.
Kiwi never appears. His disappearance is explained in the episode Obstinacy: this time, he is staying with Odd's five older sisters - Pauline, Louise, Marie, Elizabeth, and Adele.
William and Ulrich eventually become good friends and "buried the hatchet" at the end of the fifth episode, Rivalry.
Laura creates a new love triangle between herself, Jeremie and Aelita.
The opening of the series has been drastically changed, including images and musical theme.
Herb and Nicholas are not present, although Nicholas is mentioned by Mrs. Hertz in the episode Chaos at Kadic when revealing test grades to the class.
Different 3D computer-animated software was used for the creation of Lyoko scenes. The Lyoko scenes are now more "cartoonish" compared to the original designs used in the original series.
The costumes on Lyoko are slightly altered.
The five Lyoko Warriors use a newly modified vehicle called the MegaPod, in order to travel in the dangerously ever-moving Cortex.
Yumi has a new weapon in addition to her Tessen Fans: the Bo Staff.
Odd, Ulrich and Yumi are freely able to deactivate towers until they lose their source codes.
The Ice and Forest Sectors are lost due to the long inactivity of the Supercomputer.
Others seem to act like they never entered towers before, as seen when Odd tried to deactivate the tower for the first time.
Sissi has only made two appearances in the live-action series rather than messing around with the Lyoko Warriors or trying to compete for Ulrich's attention like she used to. This could be explained as being due to her now being on more platonic terms with them as of the last episode of the original series, thus removing her motivation to antagonize them.
This series lacks spoken reference to the Subdigitals, however, they are not disbanded because we can see them on Aelita's social network profile page when she looks for her mother on her laptop in the episode The Trap.
Jean Pierre Delmas seems to have a fresh shave than his normally seen beard in the animated series. He is seen as a more younger version than his original design, resembling a French Michael Richards.
The character Samantha Knight has had her role in the series replaced by a new character, Samantha Suarez. They share the same role as Odd's love interest, but Suarez is merely an adaptation of Knight, not the same character.
Odd's hair on Earth is now dark brown, but still features his trademark purple streak at the front.
Towers have had a drastic redesign. They are now rectangular rather than cylindrical. They cannot be entered when not activated, with the exclusion of Way Towers.
Yumi is assumed to be a boarder by some fans as she can be seen going to the upper floor of the dormitory, where the girls reside, and she doesn't leave the school grounds with the rest of the day students as she normally has. However, in the episode Confusion, she mentions getting ready "at home" therefore leaving it a possibility that she is still a day student. Her parents and her younger brother have also been mentioned in the series.
The Sewers, as well as the manhole to them, have drastically changed.
The bridge to the Factory is never shown; though very far in the background.
After someone is devirtualized, it takes twelve hours in order to be virtualized onto Lyoko again. In the original series, it didn't seem to take that long to be re-virtualized, as shown in several episodes such as Missing Link, Cold War, and Lost at Sea.
Aelita's long-lost mother (who has blonde hair rather than bright pink) is revealed to be very much alive in this season, and the Lyoko Warriors strive to reunite mother and daughter after discovering her. She seems to work for Professor Tyron and believes that her daughter is dead.
Aelita stays on Earth more often during missions now; due to the fact that she is no longer the only team member who can deactivate a tower or collect important data. It is to be stated, however, that she still attends important missions on Lyoko.
The time period of the series was altered by ten years. While the original series takes place in the early 2000s, Evolution jumpstarts events by having them take place ten years later than in the original series. This was done to bring the series up to date with the year it was released in.
This was the only season to not feature any cutscenes since this season is live-action.

Production

It uses live action for Earth-based scenes and remains in CGI for Lyoko scenes. Twenty-six episodes of the show were aired on Canal J and France 4 in France. The season is estimated to have a budget of €5,600,000. Moonscoop has developed an extensive licensing and merchandising campaign around the IP including an upcoming live show to launch in Spain. On YouTube, several videos were released showcasing various elements of the show: "evolutions" of characters, the MegaPod, and others. A few teasers were also released, some of which are dubbed in English. For the United States, Code Lyoko Evolution was not picked up by Cartoon Network, but aired one dubbed episode on the channel Kabillion on February 28, 2013.[1]

Reception

Code Lyoko Evolution received mixed-to-positive-to-negative reviews. While the improved CGI animation was viewed positively by fans, reception to most of the other changes were either mixed or outright negative. Fans lambasted Laura Gauthier's character and had mixed views about the live-action shooting replacing 2-D animation in real life. Fans also criticized the casting choices and wooden acting of some of the performers. Aspects of the writing have also been criticized and it is generally seen as inferior to the original series.

List of Episodes

Ep. No.	Pro. No.	Name	Images	French Title	Airdates
1 (96)	501	X.A.N.A. 2.0		XANA 2.0	FR: December 19th, 2012 (Online) January 5th, 2013 (TV)
2 (97)	502	Cortex		Cortex	FR: January 5th, 2013
3 (98)	503	Spectromania		Spectromania	FR: January 5th, 2013
4 (99)	504	Mrs. Einstein		Madame Einstein	FR: January 19th, 2013
5 (100)	505	Rivalry		Rivalité	US: February 28th, 2013 FR: January 26th, 2013
6 (101)	506	Suspicions		Soupçons	FR: February 2nd, 2013
7 (102)	507	Countdown		Compte-à-rebours	FR: February 9th, 2013
8 (103)	508	Virus		Virus	FR: February 16th, 2013
9 (104)	509	How to Fool X.A.N.A.		Comment tromper XANA	FR: February 23th, 2013
10 (105)	510	The Warrior Awakens		Le réveil du guerrier	FR: March 2nd, 2013
11 (106)	511	Rendezvous		Rendez-vous	FR: March 9th, 2013
12 (107)	512	Chaos at Kadic		Chaos à Kadic	FR: March 16th, 2013
13 (108)	513	Friday the 13th		Vendredi 13	FR: March 23th, 2013
14 (109)	514	Intrusion		Intrusion	FR: March 30th, 2013
15 (110)	515	The Codeless		Les sans-codes	FR: April 6th, 2013
16 (111)	516	Confusion		Confusion	FR: April 13th, 2013
17 (112)	517	An Assured Professional Future		Un avenir professionnel assuré	FR: April 20th, 2013
18 (113)	518	Obstinacy		Obstination	FR: April 27th, 2013
19 (114)	519	The Trap		Le piège	FR: May 5th, 2013 (iTunes) December 12th, 2013 (TV)
20 (115)	520	Espionage		Espionnage	FR: December 13th, 2013 HU: July 27th, 2013
21 (116)	521	False Pretenses		Faux-semblants	FR: December 14th, 2013 HU: July 28th, 2013
22 (117)	522	Mutiny		Mutinerie	FR: December 15th, 2013 HU: July 29th, 2013
23 (118)	523	Jeremy's Blues		Le blues de Jérémie	FR: December 16th, 2013 HU: July 30th, 2013
24 (119)	524	Temporal Paradox		Paradoxe temporel	FR: December 17th, 2013 HU: July 31st, 2013
25 (120)	525	Massacre		Hécatombe	FR: December 18th, 2013 HU: August 1st, 2013
26 (121)	526	Ultimate Mission		Ultime mission	FR: December 19th, 2013 HU: August 2nd, 2013