"Islands" is an American animated miniseries comprising eight episodes from the television show Adventure Time, created by Pendleton Ward. It aired as part of the show's eighth season on Cartoon Network from January 30, 2017, to February 2, 2017. Adventure Time follows the adventures of Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), a dog with magical powers to change shape, grow and shrink at will. In this limited event series, Finn, Jake, BMO (voiced by Niki Yang) and Susan Strong (voiced by Jackie Buscarino) leave Ooo and voyage across the ocean to learn about Finn's origin. During their trip, they encounter various creatures, new friends, and several interesting islands. The trip culminates with a visit to Founder's Island, where Finn meets his biological mother, Minerva Campbell (voiced by Sharon Horgan), and discovers what happened to the remainder of the human race.
Islands is the second Adventure Time miniseries to have been produced, following Stakes, which aired in November 2015. Islands was preceded by the release of a graphic novel, which tied into the story and served as a prequel. The miniseries' story was developed by head writer Kent Osborne, series showrunner Adam Muto, story editor Jack Pendarvis, and staff writer Ashly Burch. Storyboard artists who worked on this miniseries include Sam Alden, Polly Guo, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Tom Herpich, Steve Wolfhard, Graham Falk, Pendleton Ward, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, Kent Osborne, and Adam Muto. Cole Sanchez and Elizabeth Ito served as the miniseries' supervising directors, and Sandra Lee served as art director.
Islands was met with critical acclaim, with many critics applauding how the miniseries further developed the show's characters. Additionally, the episode "Imaginary Resources" won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation at the 69th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards in 2017. Islands was released on DVD on January 24, 2017.
Plot
A large robotic craft arrives searching for Susan Strong (voiced by Jackie Buscarino), but the craft is dispatched by Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio). Princess Bubblegum (voiced by Hynden Walch) examines the wreckage and discovers that it is of human origin, which engenders in Finn the Human (voiced by Jeremy Shada) a desire to travel across the sea from whence the craft came and meet others of his kind; Susan, Jake, and BMO accompany Finn on his voyage. Initially, the journey is easy and uneventful, but after a series of mishaps, the group's boat is destroyed by a mysterious colossus, throwing everyone overboard. Finn subsequently wakes up on an island where the weather drastically fluctuates. After meandering around for awhile, he eventually encounters an old lady named Alva (voiced by Helena Mattsson) who does not speak English. Alva invites Finn to her home and shows her home movies of other humans who have since presumably died. Later, Finn and Alva encounter Jake, who informs the group that he does not know the whereabouts of either BMO and Susan. Finn and Jake eventually head to a futuristic island where all of society has hooked themselves up to a virtual reality simulator. BMO is revealed to have become the heroic leader of the VR people. Jake decides to go and destroy the generator powering the VR after BMO refuses to leave. Feeling bad for BMO, as well as the emaciated humans who emerge from the virtual reality simulator, Finn asks Jake to fix the generator, but BMO fixes it himself. BMO recognizes that if he remains behind, he will lose his friends, and so he, Finn, and Jake take a pod to the next island. It is on this stop that Finn, Jake and BMO find Susan, who begins to recall her long-forgotten past.