Captain's Blog, Stardate: 7030.03
A review of Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy

Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy is the suspenseful coming of age tale of a young Danny Fenton and the consequences of cheating, with a superhero twist. It is set in a normal urban city, Amity Park, and its future, a post-apocalyptic nightmare. The story is likewise a complex interplay of fantastic and mundane, but the tone is serious. Danny Fenton is a normal kid, except he’s half ghost. He is condemned by the Observants, ghostly overseers of the past, present, and future, because he is to become the most powerful evil ghost on the face of the planet. The Observants are sworn to never interfere in the timeline; however, their friend Clockwork has no such oath. Clockwork, a spirit with the ability to control time who isn’t what he seems, disagrees. He thinks Danny Fenton can be saved, and he’s willing to bet the future on it.

This movie gets us a good look at Danny objectively from Clockwork and the Observants. It, unlike many superhero movies, and even some regular movies, allows us to see the hero’s flaws just as clearly as his strengths. Metaphorically speaking, we aren’t looking through emerald glasses at the Wizard; we’ve taken them off and are seeing that the “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” isn’t as wonderful as he let on. We begin with a view of the post-apocalyptic future, and the ruthlessness of Dan Phantom, Danny’s future self, attempting to destroy what’s left, including ghost hunter Valerie Grey, one of Danny’s allies. Then, we cut to the mundane present, Danny’s class being lectured on the C.A.T., Amity Park’s Career Aptitude test. Danny is especially under pressure, as his sister, Jazz, got the highest score in the history of the C.A.T. Clockwork decides to put Danny through a gauntlet of sorts, and test him. He sends Box Lunch, future child of Danny’s ghostly enemies the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady, to challenge Danny. The ensuing battle ends at the Nasty Burger, where Danny, remembering something a worker who failed the C.A.T. said, uses an ectoplasmic blast to overheat a tank of Nasty Sauce so that it would explode, defeating Box Lunch. This knocks over a still connected oven, moving it closer to another tank of the sauce, slowly upping its temperature. This comes into play later. In the fight, he accidentally phases through Mr. Lancer’s briefcase, getting the answers for the C.A.T. stuck to his back. After the battle, Danny notices this, and decides to cheat. This is the point where we take off the emerald glasses. He, Tucker, and Sam, his friends who are the only people who know his secret, find the medallion that was tethering Box Lunch to the present. Then, Clockwork sends another future ghost to fight Danny. This one is defeated too, but Danny, who was in the ghost’s grasp, and his friends who were trying to pull him out are teleported to Clockwork’s lair when the ghost’s medallion falls off. They see on Clockwork’s time portal Dan Phantom, destroying Amity Park with a power Danny doesn’t yet have, a sonic “ghostly wail.” Here again, we see a glance of Danny’s faults, as the first comment he makes is, “What is that, some kind of ghostly wail? What a cool power!”, quickly augmented with , “if it weren’t being used for evil,” after his friends display dismay at the comment. They escape into the portal after figuring out the medallions’ function during a fight with Clockwork, who lets them go, saying “…let’s see if you have what it takes to face that future.” In the future, they learn during a confrontation with the future Valerie Grey that they die right after the C.A.T.’s. This is followed by the personification of Danny’s flaws, Dan Phantom, who, as we learn during the battle, is essentially an insane person grieving the death of everything and one he ever loved. His family and friends were torn away from him in an accident at the Nasty Burger, leading into a chain of events that leads to Danny having his ghost half separated, and then combined with that of his archenemy, leading to his existence. However, he is determined to keep the timeline intact, for otherwise he wouldn’t exist. Also during the battle, he fuses Danny’s medallion inside Danny, and Tucker and Sam escape to the present. He disguises himself as Danny, throws a bound Danny into the Ghost Zone, where ghosts reside when they’re not haunting anything, and goes to Danny’s past to preserve his life, his existence. He displays Danny’s determination to a fault, resorting to violence with his own sister after she tells him she knows about his ghost half, and that he was going to cheat. Dan reveals himself to her, does the traditional villain revealing his insidious plans monologue, and knocks her out, trying to make her think it was a dream. She attaches a note to one of her parents’ ghost hunting tools, a high tech “boo-merang” that is locked onto Danny’s ecto-signature. Ten years in the future, the note finds Danny in the midst of his enemies, about to get pummeled by almost every ghost he’s come into contact with. Danny learns the ghostly wail, defeating his enemies. He is forced to turn to his archenemy’s future human self, who uses his technology to rip the time medallion out of Danny, so he can prevent the awful future. Meanwhile, Dan has cheated and caused Mr. Lancer to set up a meeting with his parents at the Nasty Burger, where the tank of sauce from earlier is still heating up. Jazz exposes Dan as the ghost he is, and he traps them near the tank. In the end, Danny shows up, defeats Dan and stops the horrible future, with help from Clockwork.

The main conflict is external, though is a reflection of Danny’s internal conflict on cheating. The external conflict is between Danny and Dan. When Danny finds the future, he doesn’t want to cheat, but Dan does. This is a mirror of his earlier inner conflict, but has the opposite resolution, as Danny wins. Danny is the conscience, and Dan is the rationalization for wrongdoing. Danny’s morals after he sees the future do not waver. He is determined to right the wrong, and to save his family. He is our beacon of light to Dan’s shadow. Dan believes that Danny is “such a child” for his morals.

The main theme here is the future can be changed. It starts with Lancer’s “The future is not carve in stone, people!” and ends on Danny’s “I guess the future isn’t as set in stone as you think it is.” Undeniably, you controlling your destiny is a main theme, and it is very much pointed out as such. Clockwork’s speech sums up this: “The Observants see time like they’re watching a parade, one thing after another passing by in sequence right in front of them. I see the parade from above, all the twists and turns it might, or might not, take.”

The Ultimate Enemy is a well written TV-movie. Danny’s mundane and fantastic problems dovetail perfectly. Butch Hartman, Danny’s creator, has made a well crafted hero, who watchers can identify with. We’ve all been tempted to cheat. An action movie with a softer side, The Ultimate Enemy is a great movie as a whole, and an excellent bit of character development for Danny.