Unlicenced Lawyer: Sonic's Buddies at 3:36 PM

Thanks, sonicthehedgehogbg, for this image. You forgot Fang the Sniper.

So, Sonic's been  a topic lately. What, with the whole 2 new Sonic games

announced.

But there's something I noticed on the trailer to Sonic Mania, the

throwbackies of throwbacks who couldn't  be more of a throwback if it

actually zapped us into 7 year olds all over again: The cast.

The trailer boasts 3 playable characters: Sonic(yeah, no duh), Tails and

Knuckles. Which, while seemingly an offhand remark about the nature of

this game, I interpret it another way.

You see, for the longest time there's been a consensus among many: That

Sonic sucks because there's just too many characters. Somewhere after

Sonic and Knuckles, Sega went overboard with Sonic's friends and

frenemies, when they should have stuck with Sonic.

To me, this is their way of saying "We learned."

However, I must say that that people, even if they don't realize it, don't

hate Sonic's friends at all.

How did we first play as Tails? Well let's take a look.

Did you notice it? The stage played exactly as the normal Sonic 2 stage,

but now you are Tails. You run from left to right, collect rings and fight

a boss. They later gave Tails the ability to fly.


Tails still collects rings while running from left of the screen to right,

but now has abilities that open different  gameplay options.

What about Knuckles? Well, Knuckles is the same. 

Knuckles can glide and

climb, but other wise it's still the same gameplay, same speed same

everything. In fact, playing as Sonic felt kind of vanilla, now.

Comparatively, this is the first time you played as Amy in a mainline

Sonic Series.
Amy's gameplay is kind of survival horror, but also not any damn good.

Even compared to the 3D Sonic action of the same game...


It's a departure. In a way, you kind of have to admire that Sega tried to

innovate on it's most popular franchise, but it...fucking blew up on their

face several times.

Here's our introduction to Big the Cat.

If such a thing  as an  opposite to "run really fast, avoid enemies and

collect rings" exists, it's probably "sit still and fish." Big could be played by Robert Downey Junior and you still wouldn't like him after that. Although...

Feel true fear.

So obviously by Sonic Heroes everybody "hated" Sonic's allies, and wanted

to clear them away. Who does the Sonic fandom like from those years,

though?


Meanwhile, in portable land, Sonic's supporting cast had new additions

like Blaze The Cat and Cream The Rabbit.

Eventually, Sega tried to put the thing by making Sonic The Hedgehog, a

reboot that focused exclusively on Sonic.

And...and Shadow, naturally.

And they had some left over telekinesis game engine, so they put in Silver

the Hedgehog from the same alternate dimension Blaze is.

Wow, way to miss the point of rebooting something. That's like if Batman Begins was nothing but Jim Carrey rubbing Batman's bat nipples.

So to recap: It is my belief that the hate for Sonic's friends is a

symptom of Sega's  failed gameplay experiments being used on new

characters. If Big The Cat had been playable in Sonic and Knuckles, maybe

they'd be boasting 4 characters instead of 3 in Sonic Mania. The same trouble with failed experimental gameplay also occurred with the older characters and Sonic himself, but nobody blamed the characters because we'd seen them work at some point.

I think Sega SHOULD give these characters a chance again in the future.

Not all of them at the same time, obviously.  I'm not even saying they aren't... well, hard to like. Just...if you can make a good

Sonic game and make their gameplay stick closely to...Sonic, I don't care

if you put in Bark The Polar Bear, Sticks the Badger, Rotor the Warlus, or Ray The Flying Squirrel.

Unlicenced Lawyer : Van Damme's Guile at 9:46 AM

There once was a time, then a Street Fighter movie did not exist. Not a single one. There were not enough cartoons and animes and comics about Street Fighter to fill a Wikia. There was no Alpha, no Ex, no "Assassin's Fist" and certainly no "VS Tekken". There was only "2", 12 characters whose lives as far as we knew revolved solely around hurting each other in.

Ok, there might have been some.

In that world, full of optimism and potential, the announcement of a Street Fighter movie did exist. Back then, we weren't "tired" of remakes and adaptations(I guess with the record breaking millions these adaptations are making now, you could argue our tiredness can only carry us so far.) A Street Fighter movie was not a horrible suggestion: it was the alternative to no Street Fighter movie.

So the movie was made in 1994. They made some...choices with it. Some of those choices do not sit well with the most hardcore fans, who's clinging to a "sola interactiva" philosophy is as commendable as it is ill advised.

"They ruined T. Hawk!" yelled no one.

There's plenty of deviations that I would not have done, should this have been MY Street Fighter movie. As many, the 20 years since have mellowed my views on it, perhaps nostalgia catching hold, but that doesn't mean we can't have a better version. However, I am here to speak on behalf of one of the movies most fought about elements, it's lead character  Guile, played by Jean Claude Van Damme.

It's easy to see why they would be angry. Of all the National charicatures in Street FIghter, Guile is easilly the harder to screw up: A big, American military man. Why they went with a guy with a heavy Brussels accent, we might never know. We do suspect it having to do with getting a big name in there. Yeah, they where obviously only thinking about only the almighty dollar. But what do we know about Guile? Well, he looks like this.

Wait a minute: American military, huge muscles...early 90s... things that were popular... people with jowls and pronounced chins...

If you think about it, it makes sense to think that, when trying to represent an "American" martial arts/stock character, Capcom's designers would look at what was popular in American Cinema, and nothing was more popular than Arnold at the time. You can accuse Capcom of being ripoff artists, and you'd be right about that. But not only where they not the only ones, but they where pretty good at it, too. They put John Matrix in the hair of some nazi guy from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and then boom! New character.

In this sense, Jean Claude Van Damme is the perfect choice for Guile:  a thickly accented action movie star. There's no way they would have gotten Arnold at the height of his career to play a big, cartoony setting like this, at a time where he was selling movies for himself. And besides, as far as having someone  doing stuff like this:

It makes sense to bring in a guy who can do stuff like this:

I say we have all been a bit unfair to Street Fighter: The Movie in this sense. Now, was giving Van Damme a moving speech a bad idea? Maybe. Was making his pants blue instead of Green a betrayal of SF cannon? Perhaps. Should The Boxer have been working for Bison and the Russian Guy have not been? Definitively.  Is the movie perfect? No. Is Van Damme the Worst Possible Guile? Not on your life, bud.

Now, who wants to hear about how I think Charlie should be played by Tom Cruise?

You know I'm right!

Unlicensed Lawyer: Pokemon rights at 1:24 PM

Okay, that is one metal Pokemon logo, Peta. Credit where it's due.

Some of you have taken to comparing the act of Pokemon battles, as seen in the multimedia success Pokemon, to cockfighting, a practice mostly illegal in the U.S.A., yet still practiced in it's most darling territory, where I happen to live. In fact, those comparisons are bordering on "not funny anymore".

I am not gonna guess what you think of cockfighting, although I'm guessing a good amount  of you think it's somewhere from "that's not nice" to "that's a barbaric ritual that doesn't belong in the 21rst century". I'm not gonna try to defend cockfighting, but I am going to become an unlicensed lawyer for Pokemon battling.

See, most of you have not considered  that Sinnoh, Johto, Kanto and the rest have different social histories from us, and most of those come from the fact that they have creatures that can shoot fire and water and thunder scattered all over the land.

I mean, think about it: We tamed the bull and put him to work fields, we tamed the dogs and used them to protect our homes: how would we have reacted  if we had somehow tamed a horse that can shoot fire or a psychic duck? Every element of our society would be completely different.

There's no guns in this world for the most part, because who needs guns when you can  summon an invincible penguin that can waterbend? Knocking  a guys Beedrill makes him be at your mercy. I bet war is not fought with hosts and swords, either.

And we would have had to do this long before we had the slightest concept of  human rights, as living in the world of Pokemon seems to be unreasonably dangerous. Maybe you've never been to a rural area and have no idea how common "tall grass" is. But in this  world, walking into it means certain death.

Like a hellish fusion of Australia and the African Bush, , walking into an untamed area  means that every animal within hearing distance wants to kill you. But whereas in Africa it might be a gagoon biter or in Australia it might be dingoes, Animals that LOOK dangerous, here even squirrels, sparrows and caterpillars  want kill you and eat your remains.

My Photoshop powers increased 10 fold since ou last match.

You where walking in the woods, minding your own business on your way to your nephew's birthday party. You didn't walk in looking for trouble, but you found it:  You are face to face with a bear, and you need to preserve your own life. But if instead of having a rifle, that even at close range might not be enough for you not to become bear chow, what if you could draw YOUR OWN BEAR, and have it fight instead? Would you consider the option? Could that even be more humane?

What if you KNEW that every 1 to 11 steps a bear will without any doubt charge you. Would THAT be reason enough to  have a defense bear of your own? Would you need six bears to survive a relatively short  trip unscathed?

What's worse is that Pokemon are no innocent victim's of man. No. Pokemon are actually proven to have conscious thought on a level where they understand  humans a good amount of the time. Sometimes they even work together to screw over wayward kids, even when it's animals you don't think that's cooperate. Don't you see? They aren't attacking because it's their natural instinct and they feel threatened or hungry. They know what they are doing: mobbing the shit out of some dumb kid because HOW THE HELL IS HE GONNA STOP THEM?

Okay, you're just a blue wrestler with a lizard for a head. You can't be claiming no animal rights.

Cockfighting? When was the last time  a rooster killed a child by shooting thunder at it and laughed?  If Pokemon are as smart or more than people, then they too should be judged by their actions equally, and be found  guilty of being...well...monsters!

This world doesn't have Pokemon fight because it's fun. They have Pokemon fight because it's the only way to survive in this world. Pokemon  subjugation by humans is the alternative to human subjugation by Pokemon. It's as essential for human civilization as  the wheel or vaccines or electricity. Did they elevate it to a spectator sports? Well, did we not do so with martial arts?

 Most of us are lucky to never having had to fight of a wild animal for sheer survival of self or kin.  Even Grisly Man , who considered being eaten by bears an honor, tried to fight back when the most obvious  possible thing that could happen to him and those  dumb enough to hang with him happened. In the Pokemon world there is only certainty that death follows those that don't have Pokemon. And most of us don't know what that's like to be passing judgment.

Unlicensed Lawyer: Pokemon rights at 1:24 PM

Okay, that is one metal Pokemon logo, Peta. Credit where it's due.

Some of you have taken to comparing the act of Pokemon battles, as seen in the multimedia success Pokemon, to cockfighting, a practice mostly illegal in the U.S.A., yet still practiced in it's most darling territory, where I happen to live. In fact, those comparisons are bordering on "not funny anymore".

I am not gonna guess what you think of cockfighting, although I'm guessing a good amount  of you think it's somewhere from "that's not nice" to "that's a barbaric ritual that doesn't belong in the 21rst century". I'm not gonna try to defend cockfighting, but I am going to become an unlicensed lawyer for Pokemon battling.

See, most of you have not considered  that Sinnoh, Johto, Kanto and the rest have different social histories from us, and most of those come from the fact that they have creatures that can shoot fire and water and thunder scattered all over the land.

I mean, think about it: We tamed the bull and put him to work fields, we tamed the dogs and used them to protect our homes: how would we have reacted  if we had somehow tamed a horse that can shoot fire or a psychic duck? Every element of our society would be completely different.

Unlicensed Lawyer: Punisher(2004) at 9:23 AM

The Punisher has had more reboots than Batman. In the movies at least. Despite being decades younger than Batman, Marvel's gritty, lethal vigilante has been tried by studios more times than DC's gritty, less lethal vigilante. And oddly enough, it never has been as succesfull as to actually justify more. It's going on the fifth now, a T.V. series that has Frank Castle being a cop by day, and the Punisher by night.

Fans are never satisfied with these Punisher Movies. But studios just can't stop welcoming back Frank into our multimedia screens. This discrepancy is easilly explainable.

The Punisher is an 80s movie. You remember those. It's about the toughest motherfucker in the world, forced into taking justice into his own hands by that 80s Crime wave. Movies like Death Wish and Cobra sort of defined the genre. If you want to make Punisher right, you make an old Steven Seagal Movie and paint a skull insignia on his chest.

Thus, studios love the Punisher. A known franchise, with a built in base that only costs as much as your average squibs and explosions actioneer. No expensive customs or computer effects. No "getting the costume right". You don't even need a big action star name.You use the name "Punisher" to draw fans and the curious to your moderately budgeted action movie.



However, fans hate them, because, by and large, we aren't making that movie. The Punisher movies where certainly each something other than that core Punisher story where he hates crime and shoots people. I mean, yeah, he does that, but there's always a catch. The early 90s Dolph Lundgren movies completely ignored the title character's costume and had him ally with criminals. And I heard the latest one was an extremely weird and campy movie. But in my opinion, the 2004 movie starring Thomas Jane gets too much shit.

The movie changes Frank Catle's main setting from New York to Tampa, Florida, and the setting to his family's death from getting into a shootout unrelated to them in Central Park to getting a hit put on them on Puerto Rico(though I'm guessing that was also filmed in Tampa). Punisher's skull shirt is bought by his son on my Home Island, allegedly told it had some kind of mystical protective force. The guy who runs Hot Topic was just playing with you, kid.

Further on, the sound bite, sort to speak, is that a criminal is fake tortured by Punisher, and let go. The method, a pretend skin melting involving a blowtorch, an icicle pop, and a steak, is as unbelievable as it is silly, lead many to say:" hey, this isn't what Punisher would do! He would actually smelt the guy and then kill him!"

Now, I don't argue that this sillyness is not really what Punisher would do in most core Punisher stories. When Punisher gets silly, it usually involved Frankenstein, Eminem, or Archie. But the fact that it's not a page by page of a Marvel Knights book does not in fact make it a bad movie.

You see, way, I see it, whoever gets the writer or director job to Punisher usually goes: "Pfft! Why do we pay for a comic license for an 80s movie? I'm not making no 80s movie!". However, Punisher 2004 actually has a lot of that. It has a montage of Punisher getting himself ready and prepping his base.The Punisher's vehicle of choice is a big American Muscle car. Punisher actually fights "El Mariachi" and "Ivan Drago" in them!

The Punisher's method is less "Death Wish" and more " Count of Monte Cristo", as the Punisher, rather than try and get vengeance on a poorly cast John Travolta directly by shooting him in the head, let's the vices of the criminal family destroy him morally first. Sure, it's not very Punisherey, but he does push him into a skull shaped series of explosions at the end.



You see, you KNOW that the criminals aren't gonna kill Frank Castle. They aren't. The tension of the movie needed to be something other than whether The Punisher could take down the crime family, because indeed, that part of it seemed patently easy. But this movie examines the fact that Frank Castle is eternally grieving. That's a point most of this kinds of movies avoid. In most of these "avenge my family" movies, the guy walks off more badass and more complete after achieving their goal. Here, Castle puts a gun under his chin.

It's not an adventure, being the Punisher. He lost his family, and he can't fucking get over it. And he's decided he's not gonna get over it. He's gonna get even. But you're kiddin' yourself if you think he's not in intense agony.

So, yeah, it's not a perfect movie, and certainly not the blue print for a Punisher adaptation. And yeah, the villains are pretty bland and forgettable. And yes, he lets that one guy go. It's a silly action movie with some interesting characterization, peppered with homages. That makes it...what, the best Punisher movie so far?

Unlicensed Lawyer: Punisher(2004) at 9:23 AM

The Punisher has had more reboots than Batman. In the movies at least. Despite being decades younger than Batman, Marvel's gritty, lethal vigilante has been tried by studios more times than DC's gritty, less lethal vigilante. And oddly enough, it never has been as succesfull as to actually justify more. It's going on the fifth now, a T.V. series that has Frank Castle being a cop by day, and the Punisher by night.

Fans are never satisfied with these Punisher Movies. But studios just can't stop welcoming back Frank into our multimedia screens. This discrepancy is easilly explainable.

The Punisher is an 80s movie. You remember those. It's about the toughest motherfucker in the world, forced into taking justice into his own hands by that 80s Crime wave. Movies like Death Wish and Cobra sort of defined the genre. If you want to make Punisher right, you make an old Steven Seagal Movie and paint a skull insignia on his chest.

Thus, studios love the Punisher. A known franchise, with a built in base that only costs as much as your average squibs and explosions actioneer. No expensive customs or computer effects. No "getting the costume right". You don't even need a big action star name.You use the name "Punisher" to draw fans and the curious to your moderately budgeted action movie.



However, fans hate them, because, by and large, we aren't making that movie. The Punisher movies where certainly each something other than that core Punisher story where he hates crime and shoots people. I mean, yeah, he does that, but there's always a catch. The early 90s Dolph Lundgren movies completely ignored the title character's costume and had him ally with criminals. And I heard the latest one was an extremely weird and campy movie. But in my opinion, the 2004 movie starring Thomas Jane gets too much shit.

The movie changes Frank Catle's main setting from New York to Tampa, Florida, and the setting to his family's death from getting into a shootout unrelated to them in Central Park to getting a hit put on them on Puerto Rico(though I'm guessing that was also filmed in Tampa). Punisher's skull shirt is bought by his son on my Home Island, allegedly told it had some kind of mystical protective force. The guy who runs Hot Topic was just playing with you, kid.

Further on, the sound bite, sort to speak, is that a criminal is fake tortured by Punisher, and let go. The method, a pretend skin melting involving a blowtorch, an icicle pop, and a steak, is as unbelievable as it is silly, lead many to say:" hey, this isn't what Punisher would do! He would actually smelt the guy and then kill him!"