Hari's Reviews
Asterix and the Falling Sky
Created: Sat Mar 20 17:09:19 2010 | Last modified: Sat Mar 20 17:09:19 2010
Rating: 
I got the latest album of the Asterix series, Asterix and the Falling Sky in hardbound recently as a birthday gift. This is presumably the last book of Asterix as well.
Uderzo has experimented with a different concept in this one. Aliens. Life from other worlds. And while being a thinly veiled tribute to Walt Disney and his cartoon characters (Mickey Mouse features prominently), this book really hasn't matched to even Uderzo's previous creations. It is obvious that the storyline wasn't quite strong in this one. The humour is missing too, somehow, although cartoon characters like Superman are parodied. I could identify very few of those dialogues which distinguish Asterix from the rest. And that speaks quite a bit about the album. Uderzo definitely does not have the talent for creating dialogues like Goscinny used to.
But the drawings remain as crisp and as beautiful as ever. It is quite a compliment to say that Uderzo's rendering of his chief characters have remained constant for quite a while now. Of course, by incorporating aliens Uderzo has also experimented with other kinds of characters who haven't really been seen in Asterix before. The theme could have really been expanded to make a good story - which was unfortunately missing.
Again, the little things which made Asterix and the Actress annoying can be seen here, although in lesser measure. It is a fact that quite a few of the characters have changed considerably since the last Goscinny book. Uderzo has developed some of them rather differently from what we're used to from the earlier ones. For example, the druid Getafix has been treated less and less reverentially ever since Uderzo has taken over the script writing. Also there are some unsatisfactory story sequences in this one, following the trend of the last few books. In other words, the sophistication is missing. All in all, I would say that this is a kids' book with plenty of action, aliens and fighting... I would give it a 3 out of 5 just for the illustrations which are as good as usual.