Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series (2007)
10 episodes, approx 6 minutes each.
Each creator puts their own unique spin on the Lara character, which range from the wonderfully inventive (Keys to the Kingdom) to the piss-poor self-parody (Revenge of the Aztec Mummy).
None of them bother to waste time giving her any back-story or history. They assume that most viewers will already have knowledge of that from the games. The short format really doesn't allow for that kind of exposition, anyhow.
Brief (and biased) thoughts on each episode are below the cut, if you care to know more.
01-03. Keys to the Kingdom is a three-parter that's written and animated by Peter Chung, who I'm a big fan of and is, therefore, for me the best that the short series has to offer. If you don't recognise the name, Chung is the creator of the Æon Flux TV series (1991-95). He also did one of the better shorts in The Animatrix (2003) anthology and is responsible for the look of the anime series Reign: The Conqueror (1996-97).
If you enjoy his work, too, then his segment is highly recommended, even if you care nothing for Tomb Raider as a franchise, because the similarities between it and Æon Flux might be enough to float your goat. The storytelling, designs, and movements are all recognisably his. To be frank, his Lara is pretty much what you'd get if you put Æon in cosplay. There's a Goodchild type of character, and composer Drew Neumann provides the score. On the flip side, Tomb Raider game fans could just as easily criticise the episodes for the same reasons that I love it. YMMV.
04. Revenge of the Aztec Mummy's style is caricature with attempted comedy. It very much fits the template of what a 'web-series' was in its early days. It's very forgettable.
05-06. Angel Spit's script and animation are decent, and feels like it respects the established traits of the character more than the previous episodes, in part due to delivering the dual-wielding gunplay and stylised somersaults that Lara is known for during gameplay.
07. Lara Croft: Legacy sees the treasure-hunting lass on the trail of an ancient sceptre. It has a faux 'grindhouse' filter applied to the image and fuzzed-up sound, which masks the flash nature of the animation a little, but if it had deeper meaning or reference, I didn't pick up on it.
08. Pre-Teen Raider has child Lara getting up to artefact-related mischief at the Croft Academy. The kids' cartoon vibe makes a kind of conceptual sense, but it's tedious and uninspired.
09. Raising Thaumopolis involves an ancient 'key' that's been broken into multiple parts, a villainous gang that's searching for the same thing as the heroine, and a number of trials that must be overcome in order to win a prize. It's a scenario that would fit the game-world well.
10. A Complicated Woman has a trio of unsavoury types recounting their individual encounters with Lara in a kind of unreliable narrator situation that nevertheless advances one story. It presents itself as a 'motion comic' with the usual kind of transitions and onscreen sound effects. Personally, the motion comic format is something that I detest, so I struggled to finish it.
Actress Minnie Driver voices Lara in every episode. I wouldn't have put her on the list of candidates, but she does a fantastic job and if ever there's a feature-length Tomb Raider animation, she'd now be my first choice. Both Minnie and the series, in general, were good.
Further series of 'Re\Visioned' set to feature different video game characters were promised, but to my knowledge only the Tomb Raider one appeared.
[1] The full list of contributors (in episode order) are as follows:
Writers: 01-03. Peter Chung / 04. Brian Pulido / 05-06. Warren Ellis / 07. Brian Pulido / 08. Gail Simone / 09. Michael A. Stackpole / 10. Jim Lee + Christos N. Gage.
Animators: 01-03. Peter Chung / 04. David Álvarez / 05-06. Cully Hamner / 07. Ivan Reis / 08. Six Point Harness / 09. Louie del Carmen / 10. Jim Lee
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