Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely brilliant

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Pirates Of Dark Water should not be confused with the Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. Rather this was a brilliant cartoon that was well animated with excellently designed characters and an interesting plot. Ren is a young man in search of the 13 treasures of Rule, with the help of a magical crystal in the form of a compass and his fellow companions, Loz, Tula and Niddler, a monkeybird. However, they also have to contend with a one-eyed pirate named Sloth and his henchmen: they of whom are also after the thirteen treasures. It has a very 'exotic'/ eastern look and feel to it, the concept is original and imaginative and the story lines are intriguing. Pirates of Dark water was a combination of swashbuckling, high- sea action adventure with a bit of fantasy and sci-fi thrown in the mix as well. And from an animation company famous for producing cutesy cartoon shows such as Hucklebery Hound, Yogi Bear and The Flintstones to name but many, this is impressive stuff. The episodes are aired in the form of a continuation from one segment to another, as we join along and follow the antics of Ren, Loz, Tula and Nibbler in their quest for the treasures, and to prevent the dark water from getting to them and thus cause further havoc and destruction. Sadly however, we never got to see the completion of the attainment of the 13 treasures of Rule because the show was eventually cancelled in the end. This is very disappointing and thus, this particular issue and theme which was running throughout the series, was never resolved. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic cartoon full of intrigue, mystery and shall I add culture all mixed in and of which really worked well. Pirates of Dark Water was great fun, not to mention it was one of the best 90s cartoons around at the time. Great job Hanna Barberra I'd say!

I rented this on VHS, then bought the toys, then collected the comics, it was so good. I never knew there was a TV show until after it was gone and unavailable. I'd buy it on DVD in a second.The concept was fairly unique, dark water taking over the world and the hero going on a quest for magical items to stop its progress. It was like a fantasy take on pirates of the Spanish Main. The ships had really neat concepts, like the hero's ship which could glide for short distances, gigantic waterfalls in the ocean, and some sort of gas gun that worked by stimulating a living creature to produce knockout gas. The main bad guy, Bloth, had a ship which was actually a gargantuan carcass of a long dead sea creature, so it looked cool as well.It had the same set of characters as a lot of fantasy films, close to Star Wars, but the characters were amazingly three dimensional for a cartoon. Niddler was likable, but you were never sure he would be on your side when the going got rough, and not in a typical cowardly save-his-own-skin type of way, but a maybe-he-really-is-evil type of way.

I forgot all about this show untilll I saw it on Boomerang. Then I remembered the greatness. THe show was about this guy named Ren, and his two friends who are trying to find 6 treasures that will let them stop these evil stop called darkwater (kinda like intellegent oil). It had morals, and all that. Shame it was never resolved. A revival would be awesome... But if you want to see an ending, track down one of the copies of POD the video game, for either SNES, or Sega Genesis. I would say the Genesis one is better.

Out of the thousands of cornball, stupid and just plain boring 'cartoons' this one stood out. Great characters with imaginative backgrounds and entertaining stories. Unfortunately, the show's main plot was never resolved because it was cancelled. Most likely because there weren't any toys sold for it. :S Fortunately I happen to have the complete series "film" on videotape... :D If you ever get the chance to watch this somewhere (hopefully Cartoon Network will rerun and better yet- CONTINUE this series) please do! Enjoy!