Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors Volume One | DVD Review

“Escape From The
Garden”

Space botanist Audric creates a magic plant that will end
starvation forever, unfortunately the universe has one of those pesky radiation
spasms that seem to be constantly plaguing our daily joie-de-vivre and mutates
his discovery into plants with–wait for it–evil brains! Accompanied by his
loyal medieval tin-plated gopher Oon, Audric runs with his tail between his
legs and hastily names these evil creatures ‘Monster Minds’. Self-proclaimed hydrocephalic
leader Saw Boss sits on a spikey throne and sends his evil plant army after the
fleeing duo. This little fable, by the way, is told in flashback fashion by
Oon, who makes it back to Audric’s son, out titular hero Jayce. Oon gives Jayce
one half of a magical root that his father whipped up which can destroy the
evil ones. Now Jayce and his aptly named Wheeled Warriors must find his father
who possesses the other half and save the universe from these water and
mineral-stealing maniacal plants.

Aiding in his quest is wizard-scientist Gillian (to be fair
Gandalf was already taken) who summons Jor-El a ring out from a bunch of
crystals that used to belong to the original leader of The Lightning League and
bestows it to Jayce, whose heart and purpose must be pure enough to lead like a
true leader, and whaddaya know!–it starts glowing! He IS the one! Eager to
start throwing a few punches at some evil plants, Jayce and the gang realize their
transportation is ill-equipped to do space battle. Luckily for them, Han
Solo Herc Stormsailor makes a pit-stop in his Millennium Falcon
Pride of The Sky ship near our fabled warriors and offers to give them a ride
in exchange for monetary compensation. Luke Jayce whines about not
having any money when Obi Wan Gillian offers some gold for his troubles,
and after a brief bout with Tourette’s, Jayce almost ruins the deal after
asking where they were gonna get said “gold” (which later turns out to be painted
lead, ol’ Gill has a few up his sleeve you’ll soon discover). Fortunately the
ship’s fearless captain was out of ear-shot, but if he had been this is the
part where the Gillster would kick Jayce in the shins and you would hear the
audience break out in hysterics. (Oh, and for argument’s sake, Oon is a solid
mix of R2’s midget stature and Threepio’s flamboyancy, while a novelty size
fish-riding little girl created from a plant by Gill & Audric named Flora
is Leia).

Our fearless crew are about to take off when the Monster
Minds attack! The heroes make short work of them and off they go into the space
sunset! There is this part where Jayce seems to be done for, but trusty Gill
reminds him of his telepathic link with his ring and Jayce becomes magically
enveloped in a window ala Phantom Zone glass prison from Superman II, then cuts
through those evil plants like a weed-whacker out for blood while zipping by a
vehicle that looks suspiciously like an AT-Walker.

The box cover offers a pretty straight-forward yet surprisingly dynamic group shot of our heroes with Saw Boss looming in the background, this would definitely grab my attention on the shelves. While the menus stay true to nostalgia my only complaint is that there aren’t any documentaries or interviews with the creators or writers. It’s always fun to have a little insight into why the show was never resolved, maybe we’ll finally get it on the 2nd volume.

Original Concept Art
:
While there are some interesting character sketches, the rest reveals the original title of the show which decided to steal from another fantasy classic, Jason & The Argonauts. Although now it feels like the writers were just trying to tap that elusive frat-boy demographic by abbreviating ‘Jason’.

Pop this sucker into your computer and get ready to print 2 scripts, the pilot “Escape From The Garden” by Haskell Barkin, and “Steel Against The Shadow” penned by Amazing Spider-Man scribe and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski.

While this cartoon had some usually crisp and fluid animation (it was after all animated in Japan) it takes someone who was enraptured by these characters as a kid in order to enjoy the full nostalgia of its dated-ness today (or someone who’s always wanted to incorporate together all the cool elements from Star Wars, Superman and… Little Shop of Horrors?) There are some notable character designs like Oon and Saw Boss, but the theme song alone sounds like a rejected track from any Honeymoon Suite album.

Like many cartoons during the fabulous decade that was the 1980s, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors followed in the footsteps of He-Man & The Masters of The Universe (the less successful footsteps) and was produced to promote its toy line, a deceitful one at that, with continuity being worlds apart where some of the toys didn’t even offer what you saw on the show. Thank God the fine folks at Shout! Factory specialize in digging up painful memories and offer us this 4-disc volume of this regrettable cartoon.

Movie rating – 2.5

Disc Rating – 2.5