On my mind: Batman hulks out, Merida x Violet at 5:22 AM

I can't write much lately. But I am using free software to create crude animations. Here's some of the ones that are safe for work.

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Here's one I've thought about awhile. How fun would it be if Batman suddenly Hulked out in front of Joker? Pretty Crazy, right?

I also made this. I ship this.

Riskcists at 8:45 PM

Racism! Movie! Casting! Hollywood! Social Issues! Click!

So...ahem...I'll start. Disney is now in a full on live action frenzy! After the apparent success of Malifecent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book and Pete's Dragon,  they've started announcing thinmgs left and right to be rehashed but with actors. Lion King(uh...live action?) Tinkerbell, Aladdin and even Mulan.

Which makes a bit of sense. China's a pretty big market right now and  Mulan is a known brand they can sell you. Mulan  is about as safe a bet as you can have.

And then you gone and done ruin it.

Rumor had it that Disney ordered an original spec script in which Mulan now teams up with a handsome white guy sailor on her way to defeat the Huns!  Which uh...sounds bad.

So a lot of people took to the webs in protest, hashtagging that shit until Disnerr swore that the cast to Mulan would be all Asian, which, as I recall, was not exactly the case in Mulan Prime, but it was a different time.

So, is Disney racist to want a little White meat with it's lo mein? Am I for saying that?

No, you see, Disney isn't a person, it's a business, no matter what Citizens United says.The only color they see is green. Is this a defense? No. Fuck Disney.

You see,  Disney working under the type of racially charged  assumption that, to put it some way, "ain't nobody gonna want to see a movie with Chinamans alone"  comes from a place worst than hate. It's cowardice. They aren't racists. They are riskcists.


You the this whole thing with the remakes and reboots and adaptations, it got it's start because studios wanted a sure thing.  During the late 90's and early 2000s they started to notice that utter garbage would make money if it had a brand name attached to it, because the economy was good, and you could afford to check out that adaptation of The Phantom on the odd chance they didn't bungle it this time. And sure, usually only when first released and not on home video, but apparently  nobody knows how profit works.

Thud Life.

Of course, this was in comparison to movies that wern't a brand name, which back then there used to be some of, but surely if Powder flopped and Jumanji didn't, then the movie's  inherent qualities and proper marketing and differing levels of Robin Williams had nothing to do with that.

Which leads to this: an era where every movie is a safe movie because every movie is based on something. Every movie is a huge tentpole, which is the only thing you lot will see. Summer movies are released yearwide,and everyone and they mama wants a cinematic universe.

Which means, of course, that a lot of those flop, because  people's ability to see movies is still limited by things like money or time, and even  with nostalgia factoring in, at some point it comes down to " movie or food". I mean I can't see 3 Avengers movies an 2 Star Wars Movies a year. Some people can't, I can't.


So again, if safe is what you want, a live action remake of a  90's Disney movie with overseas appeal and with girl appeal(A Disney Princess!) and boy appeal(huge battles and funny dragon!) is about as safe as you can get  without  crossing over Star Wars and Marvel.

BUT NOOOO! No, it wasn't safe enough! Clearly  you won't make enough moneh with just  THAT. we have to put a White guy in there, because otherwise, everyone will stay away from this story in droves.

And you know what really angers me? That it doesn't funking work. I mean, I'm hardly gonna say movies like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chunli, Dragonball Evolution, The Last Airbender and King of Fighters were gonna be great otherwise, but clearly  that helped nothing. Those movies should have been safe bets. Based on largely beloved franchises wit huge fanbases (and King of Fighters!)  with huge tentpole potential. Instead they fucked it up.


I watched  The Forbidden Kingdom, You should watch the trailer to that. "Jet Li...and Jackie Chan...FINALLY IN A MOVIE!" But then you watch it and the  it's about Michael Angarano doing an Asian version of  A Kid in King Arthur's Court. They just didn't have the confidence people would want to see a Kung Fu  movie starring the world's 2 most known Kung Fu names, so they threw in a White kid.


There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. A. Sure. Thing. You riskophobes.  There never was. Maybe Mulan is gonna flop, even if you turn have Mulan suddenly run into Darth Vader and Ironman. Maybe it'll be a hit.  You just have to make the best movie possible and hope it works.

 And may I add good luck with that Aladdin movie set in culturally appropriated Middle East and without the possibility if casting Robin Williams because he died. I'm sure THAT won't be controversial at all!

BGE investigates: Where the licensed games at? at 8:39 AM

So, as another nerdy year of movies draws to a close, there's a lingering thought on my mind: Where the hell where all the licensed games at?

It's not that there weren't games based on preexisting franchises out there. There was plenty of that. But, you see, as an old, not as directly in touch with current mainstream gaming veteran, I remember a time where "The Tie In game" was a necessary part of any big summer movie.

Looking back through my Rom cartridge collection in the Sega Genesis is like a mirror held to the big budget summer movies of the time. The Lion King and Predator 2 are there. Terminator makes an appearance. Every Batman movie had a game.

Now, back to the present, was is the Frozen game? Where was the Dark Knight Rises game? Where was the Avengers game? These are the big movies of the decade, and their presence in the game scene is basically nil!

Obviously there is a market. A...really fucked up market.

Where the hell is the Star Wars Episode 7 game? (#BoycottStarWars7) Every single prequel game had a game following the movie's backstory. And now, with the biggest Star Wars release in years, they can't muster up a game bout it?

Well, let's start with the beginning.  Back when gaming was a niche and graphics had less resolution than a lamppost, during the heyday of Atari, there weren't as many games based on Blockbuster movies, in part, because The concept of the Blockbuster was fairly new, and in part because no one knew exactly how to translate a big budget movie into a Pacman clone.

So we got weird things like China Syndrome(Based on a movie about trying to avoid a powerplant disaster) and E.T. (which is legendary in it's badness.).

After the industry fell, and rose up again thanks to Nintendo, the licensed  genre was reborn stronger. Now that the random experimentation and lack of graphics of the Atari days gave way to actual game genre's and distinguishable clothes and faces on characters , it made making games based on movies easier, and more profitable. What's a game based on Jurassic Park gonna be? A Top down shooter. What's a game based on Terminator gonna be? A light gun shooter. What's game based on Total Recall gonna be? Ehh....

Eeeeh...

Games became a part of the marketer's repertoire. Judge Dredd the movie  wasn't just there to sell you the movie, it wanted to sell you the toys, the soft drink, and yes, the videogames of Judge Dredd. There where multiple different videogames based on one of the licensed comic book failures of the 90's.

Over time, tie in games gained notoriety for being bad, rushed out products made on the cheap and incompetent compared to the standards of the time. They where not all bad all the time, but Tie in games didn't completely blow, everyone just stood around wondering why Golden Eye didn't make them fall over in pain.

James, stop masturbating and look behind you!

But critical reception did not deterr licenced games, since the ingenuity of them was the people who where buying them where operating under the influence of  what I call "The Batman Seal of Approval". Here's how it works. I walked into the toy store. I was checking out the games. I see this.

Jim Carrey doing the universal "Well, WHAT DID YA EXPECT" pose should have been a dead giveaway.

I don't even know what the game in this looks like. I'm 12. It's got Batman on the cover. Bruno Diaz wouldn't lie to me, would he?

So basically when the licensed tie in game was one of the worst things to happen to the player and the character and the genre, it could still skate on by on the promise of cool Batman action.

So what happened? Well, several things happened, I think. For one, gaming grew up, in a lot of the ways you might get by that. While in the past a ok action adventure  with a coat of Bram Stalker's Dracula on it might have been at least on par with all the other ok action adventures of the day, after 3D kicked in  and games started becoming more, well, cinematic, this games started meeting less and less of the expectations of people. Why would you play Alien Resurrection and 5th Element when you have perfectly playable Resident Evil and Tomb Raider on your plate?

Milla  Jovovich naked, videogames, lasers. They knew about that.

But so what, right? People who play this things don't read any magazines? Except they more did, now. As a core generation of older life long gamer started becoming the main demographic to be catered to, and these started becoming more and more informed thanks to the internet, it became harder to slip an unplayable piece of shit in there and coast on brand recognition.

And if all that hit the tie in game in the face, the rising cost of developing games managed to knock it down. With games costing as much as a movie, and being far less likely to make their profits back, it eventually shook the Tie In Game's "Sure Thing" status and threw it to the ground. NOTHING is a sure thing now in mainstream games. Even worst, the development cycle for games grew up longer than a movie's as well, meaning that the idea of "we'll just kick up a game, tie it in to our movie" went straight out the window.

Star Wars 7 doesn't have Star Wars 7: The Game. It has Star Wars: BattleFront, a preexisting series of Star Wars games(based themselves on the non Star Wars Battlefront games) that where fast tracked to meet the release of the movie with as Much DLC as possible. Man of Steel didn't have a full game of it. It had a mobile game.  Pacific Rim didn't have a full AAA game for it on stores. It had a XBLA type game. The Dark Knight movies didn't have games, but those Arkham games sure are about Batman, too!

Total Recall had...Ehhh

Could Tie Ins come back in full force? Well, if there was a reliable "Netflix of Gaming" type service that could be accessed by more people than can now afford (and are willing to have) expensive cutting edge consoles, it would make sense to put licensed games in there. In the same way Marvel/Disney can launch a TV series on Netflix knowing it will have an audience, it could launch  a beat em up that follows the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron if it knew that there is no high bar to entry.

In fact, the one part where Tie in Games still thrive is portable consoles, where development costs aren't company killing high and the audience can be relied on to be more than life long male gamer, and where even the fruitiest  of Disney Channel TV shows can still have a shot at brand recognition.

You Aren't Gonna catch ME playing this on my Xbox One! (Flexes)

I don't know how I feel about licensed games. On the one hand Mission:Impossible was some of the worst shit I ever played. On the other hand, when they where good, you really COULD feel like you where James Bond, or a T-Rex, or a Robocop. I think there's a lot of potential now that games are growing into more fleshed out narratives, for the immersion to fully kick in, for licensed games to truly be like playing the movie's story. It's just that this potential isn't being met by games trying to be arm candy to movies.

Bestgeekever to Boycott Star Wars, too? at 10:12 AM

"Supreme Picture of all time"? And you thought Ep7 had hype.

 So apparently a bunch of racists want to #BoycottStarWarsVII because it's in favor of White Genocide from what they can discern from the trailers. Can you guys discern for me who the lead is gonna be for that movie? Thanks in advance, I can't tell at all.

But anyway that's silly. That's why I'm joining them.

You see, I like Star Wars and all that good stuff. I would like for more things like that to be going on. But I have a problem. I already told you about the Trans Pacific Partnership and how it was bad and bad for you. Well, now the real shit has gotten out about it and boy is it really bad. It's everything bad BUT extending existing copyright for U.S. Well, ok, that, too.

Now, behind this dealy is, among other suspects, Disney. Disney, is behind Star Wars. I like Star Wars, but I have to take a stand. This deal would hurt us more than it would hurt me to not watch this movie on the big screen. I have to let Disney know that no, they can't just screw over  intellectual property worldwide and then ask us to pay for the screwing.

So I'm boycotting Star Wars Episode 7. Fuck it all, I'm boycotting Marvel, too. I'm boycotting this Disney properties. Not because what they do offends me or because they aren't being sensitive or being too sensitive. Because I don't feel comfortable supporting a company that is actively, literally trying to control the whole planet's freedom of expression.

I can't call my senator or congressman because Puerto Ricans don't get one of those. And I can't vote for the president. The only way I can vote is with my voice and my wallet, and you can be damn sure, I am using the ones I do have.

If this deal is ratified in U.S. soil, I am never, EVER, EVER again paying for another Star Wars or Marvel Product. If you are White or Black or American or not American, this concerns you. If You're going to boycott Star Wars, at least make it for a worthy reason. Something beyond simple canon getting thrown out or you being a massive bigot. Make it for something that is an actual abuse, is going to actually affect people's lives, and you will have no option around.

 

6 OTHER things you should stop if you're planning at 3:31 PM

In my NEEEEIGHTBORHOOOD!

I made a list last year, urging you to cease and desist certain dumbass actions and if it stopped you from making a new Mario game, then good. If it didn't, well then...is there still time?

As long as we're still here, I've got some more things I'll tell you not to do, but I'll secretly consider doing myself.

Disney Princess...stuff

FUCK YOUUUUUUU!

You know what makes most Disney Princesses great? Nothing. Most of them where fairly unremarkable protagonists to fairly dull and predictable stories...that aren't even that unique. I dare you to write a paragraph describing every Disney Princess without using the terms "young", "pretty" and "talking armadillo".

But Disney made all these princesses into a brand, and now they all live in a single unified Princess-verse, as a way to continue selling merch for movies older than all of us to little girls younger than us. And we've allowed these vapid airheads to continue their reign by constantly doing takes on them.

The Disney Princess as (something else) syndrome has covered The Walking Dead, Alternate ethnicities, As superheroes, as fat, as villains. as...

It just isn't fun anymore, you know? Stop telling me every time some two-bit artist re-imagines Belle.

Calling scandals (whatever) Gate

So Scandalous!

You know, before I was born a guy running for president had his team spy on his opponent in a hotel called Watergate. He had to quit being president or be the first president fuckin' getting kicked out.

It was known as the Watergate scandal. But to hear it now, you'd swear he got caught robbing water, because every single little scandal gets the (subject+gate) title. It's a nice way to put a a name on an event and to say it's big.

But if it's not as big as the time THE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA WENT AWAY, maybe keep the gate shit at home. Videogames? Not big enough. Nude leakes? Not big enough. Skull Girls? Bitch please.

Being unnecessarily amazed/appalled when Black people get the roles.

 

He's also British, and as far as we know, there weren't British people in Tatooine.

Ever since Ive been blogging, there's been been black people being cast in roles traditionally white. And it's been kind of the same thing. Some people want the character to be exactly as white as the original, others embrace the race changing, and then there's some politicals and racist.

In a way, I get it. Even the racists. But we've done this dance, and my feet hurt. John Boyega playing some guy in Star Wars isn't something groundbreaking or super pc. There's been prominent roles for Black people in all but the first movie, without even going into the voice of the best and worst of the series.

 

I mean, look at those guys behind Lando. Totally Black, some of them are.

 This isn't Star Trek. You don't have to make mental gymnastics to explain that a man can be black and also a Stormtrooper( or say,be disguised as one). It's no big deal either way. We're not gonna go into fits for every new black character in an old franchise, are we?

Trying to do a cinematic universe.

Ok, it's sad that he died, but he wasn't a good actor. Settled?

Sometimes I get a feeling if a movie with a guy who wears a top hat on his ass, movie studios would greenlight hundreds of movies with guys wearing all kinds of headwear on their lower regions because "that's what people want" or "that's what sells today."

So now that Avengers made Disney a bunch of money, Sony and Universal want some, but making filmic universes for Robin Hood and The Universal Monsters, which are gonna suck all the nuts. Wb is already knee deep into movie plans up to 2020, even though the last Superhero movie they did that didn't star Superman or Batman was Green Lantern.

And despite it being their one job, these execs can't tell why Marvel could make a movie about characters that, before Ironman, where B listers at best, and somehow made them make more money than proven sellers like Spider-Man and Superman.
　

While the Cinematic universe stuff did help, the inherent quality of the works is what made it all work. You can't just knock a half assed movie and expect everyone to show up for the spin off, just because you say your gonna make more. Buuuuuuuut I guess quality's a little too intangible to emulate, huh? Let's do the ass-hat things.

Unbooting things

Girth vs Lenght!

 
 Look, we all get a little iffy when stuff gets rebooted while all it's participants are still around. "Sean Connery's still around! No need for this Roger Moore fella to substitute him.

But once you reboot something, you don't get to go back. You don't get to make Arnie Conan again. You already made Momoa Conan. If it didn't work, that's the breaks. I think that's in the Bible and stuff.


 And Sony, which is rebooting things like it's Windows Vista up here, is actually pre-emptively rebooting it's all female Ghostbusters by announcing, before it even begins filming, that it's gonna do some kind of "The Original Ghostbusters thing", except with Egon is now gonna be Channing Tatum.

Just stop! STOP! You  had years to get the old crew back, and now they're all  old and dead and shit. You didn't! DON'T FUCKING GO BACK!

Saying someone was gay on your show (just offscreen)

Smells like contempt and chamomile.

 
 I don't want to get into the gay subject. There's nothing in there for a moderate, middle of the road, multiple angle looking guy like me.

But one thing I do want to say is, if you want to make a character in a book gay, go ahead and do that. Don't go ahead and make the character gay after the book exists like some coward, though.

I mean, what you imagine the fictional wizard or princess did doesn't get to be important unless it's jotted down or filmed. You don't get diversity brownies for making a character gay way after the series is over, when it's perfectly safe and everyone who otherwise wouldn't have done so has already bought it.

It's like if in Metroid, they never did get into how Samus is a woman except in interviews. "Shit, she's a hamster too. Did I just blow your mind with how PROGRESSIVE(TM) I'm being?"

You did not. It feels like a cheap cop-out to have it both ways. If it's not important enough to the character that he's gay, then why even bring it up? Maybe the character was a Catholic. Maybe the character was a space pirate. Or maybe you're pulling things out of your ass to get people to talk about it. I guess we'll never know!

Disney planning underwhelming sequel to overrated hit Frozen at 10:00 AM

Who put this thiiiing togetheeeeer? Meeeeeeeeeee...

In a shocking revelation, Disney recently announced it likes money and would go beyond what we'd imagine to get it, up to and including a sequel to that song Let it Go that had a movie attached to it.

If I seem like a pessimist about it, hear me out. I don't understand the Frozen Hype at all. It's not all bad, there's some good bits, but the one thing that kills it for me is the villain.  I'm sorry, but a bland Disney Prince being the villain might have seemed revolutionary while writing it, but it just makes for a bland villain. The stakes aren't there, the Freeze powers aren't used all that creatively. Elsa, perhaps ironically the actually interesting character, is kind of not the focus throughout the movie. I don't like it.

But obviously I'm in the minority, and now a sequel is being made. Hell, as far Disney doing   sequels to it's movies, let's just say it hasn't gone right yet.

All wrongs deserved at 10:28 AM

Reminder: Public Domain GameJam coming soon!

The 6 Other Disney Villains that need their own gritty origin story. at 12:22 PM

"Okay, you're motivation here is that you're not invited to a party and people have to fuckin' die over it."

This year sees the release of Maleficent, a movie where Disney answers the question nobody asked: How did the evil fairy godmother Carabosse Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty become the evil character we've all come to know? The satanic witch, in a reverse on the recent racebending Hollywood has had going on, will be played by actual satanic witch Angelina Jolie.

"Ask Herbert. I wanted her to be called Marina. Marina Badguy, that's a nice name."

Sure enough, you'd think  this literal fairy tale character doesn't need any character expansion because it's been 55 years since the original and the whole point of it WAS that she was a depthlessly evil character. No, we gotta go out and see her  story so we can truly understand her actions in  Sleeping Beauty. We gotta find out she wasn't making a fashion statement with her horn-wrap, she was just covering her literal horns. We gotta know what kind of stupid fairy parents name their kid Maleficent.

So if we're gonna do this, let's do this, then. Here's some more DIsney characters that  need their origin story told as a way for Disney to continue marketing it's kid's cartoons to  grown adults, taking their nostalgia to the bank IM expand their narrative universe ever more into a rich tapestry.

Jaffar

Do you have one that doesn't talk like Gilbert Gottfried?

When  we first meet Jaffar, he's hypnotized his way to Sultan's Chief Adviser (Are you sure "advisor" is not a word, spell-check?), a position he's not quite satisfied with. Despite being fairly well off, he's desperate enough to seek a magic lamp in a cave clearly designed to turn away potential costumers.

What if he was once a young idealist who wanted to make a better Agrabah, shunned form society due to their fear of sorcery? In the end he caves in and decides that the corrupt monarchy of Agrabah can only be made to help people by being put in a trance.

Naturally there's some bad people who want him dead, but by the end they're all dead, and he's climbed his way up to vizier.  And then the Sultan's wife gives birth to baby Jasmine.  CUT TO CREDITS, OMG!


Fat Cat

Many Men...wish death upon me...

They're making a  Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers CG origin movie, even though I think the origin of the team  got pretty well established in the first episode of the cartoon. But whatever, I'm not gonna get caught dead watching  a Disney movie trying to out 'Munk Alvin and the Chipmunks.

However, what about Fat Cat, one of it's recurrent villains? He was a cat...and also a mobster!  This clearly calls for a movie about  a young kitten growing up in the violent slums and alleyways of Jersey,  coming up in the ranks of the brutal animal crime world. But, uh, in a cute, Disney CGI kind of way.

 Well it's either that, or Nilmnolm. And we all know those movies about wacky scientists have not made Disny any bank.

Helga Sinclaire

For the last time: I do not have a mosquito on my face.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire is one of those Disney movies that  gets lost in amongst discussions of the company's  movies. Existing right in the Decline of Disney's traditional animation features and  alongside the rise of Pixar's CGI, the character's in it certainly aren't getting lumped with The Disney Princess and Disney's Skylanders thing. We've even forgotten than Princess Kida actually IS the first black Disney Princess.

But I like it. I mean, not a whole lot, but it's decent.  The movie's characters are a who's who of  adventure movie tropes and stereotypes, including one Helga Sinclair.

A Femme fatale mercenary, she's equally at home dressing like Lara Croft and  dressing like a Noire film gal,  In the end of the film she get's thrown out of a balloon, and then  the balloon falls on her. Underground. So it'd take some narrative gymnastics to explain her further adventures, unless they take place in hell.

So naturally, we go back and explain that she once was lost in a mystical island and had to learn to be tough and avoid getting raped. Ripoff? Yes. But then, we're already talking about Disney and Atlantis, so...

Dr Anton Sevarious

I can't make this funnier. Look how happy he is to be sticking that grape juice into someone!

I'm surprised Disney hasn't  brought Gargoyles back in any meaningful way. Yeah, there's some comics and stuff. Talk to me when Goliath shows up in Kingdom Hearts.

I say the Gargoyles universe is complex enough to stand a few spinoffs. In a few short seasons they made a world where aliens, sentient Gargoyles, robots, and greek and norse mythology all coexisted.

It's bound to be weird to be a scientist in a world where Pan is real, and maybe a coworker of yours in disguise. But that's where Anton Sevarious lives.

Responsible for several pseudoscience things, including a clone of Goliath and a Mecha loch ness monster, Dr Sevarious clearly has seen some  some shit, and does not  give a shit. A lot of times mad scientists look like disheveled old men, claiming that they'll "SHow them all!"

Not Sevarious. He's down with anything.  Kevin Bacon for the part. The movie should just be about  this crazy ass super scientist who never turns down a challenge, and winds up filling New York with like, tentacle monsters and dinosaurs and shit.

And then he still don't give a shit.

The Stoner Turtle from Finding Nemo.

Dude, let's wasted and tie can wrappers around our necks!

Oh, what was that? The Turtle from finding Nemo was not high on drugs? Well,  what was it, then? What was it?

Clearly, a 60's inspired origin story is the way to go. How that turtle learned how not to be a square and chill out.  He started out a young hatchling, part of a conformist  turtle family, including a turtle dad with a crew cut telling him to go enlist so he can go to Vietnam...'s shore and fight crabs.  But soon, he discovers  Reefer Shore, a place where all the  arthropods  eat, like, nutrients from nature itself, man.

Pretty soon, he's bucking the system, and wearing dreads made out of algae. Come on, doesn't that sound like a better movie than "The continuing adventures of the forgetful fish."?

The Prince from Snow White

Hey, birdie. I claim Prima Nocta all up your cloaca.

As long as we're expanding on 2d carboard cutouts from old Disney movies, what about the nameless Prince from Snow White? The first in a long line of boring male love interests, the Prince just kind of wanders into the movie, being all charming and crap. You could just leave that there.

OR...or...you could Game of Thrones that shit.  Did you know how much murder and rape and slavery  and royal court politics have to happen before Mr Charming can just wander into scene and make out with a comatose woman? Well, now you will! With the new  SHowtime series, "Castle Charming". 

The Star Wars Expanded Universe just collapsed... at 6:06 AM

For  the a long time, this may be weird to believe, but Star Wars was sort of scarce. There where no new movies on cinema. There were no new videogames every 13 months. For a long ass time, we didn't know what had happened before  Star Wars: A New Hope (Then just Star Wars) or After Return of the Jedi. There were 3 movies, some dubious  spinoffs and that's it.

Fans where chomping at the bit, and Lucas knew it. Therefore, he sub-licenced many products that dealt with such history.  This stories became known as the Expanded Universe.It existed for fans who wanted to know more about the Star Wars universe, but where never fully official, and always at risk of being contradicted by the movies.

IT'S MY PICTURE, I CAN PAINT WHOEVER I WANT!

This is where Dash Rendar and Mara Jade lived. This is where every random bug in the Cantina scene had a storied purpose. This is where Lightsaber Crystals where built and where  Darth Revan and Darth Malak fought. This is where Sam Witwer helped Darth Vader. ANd now, they don't.

You see, Disney's moving along with the Star Wars movies, and it doesn't feel like playing nice to stories whose canonicity was established by levels, like a hurricane. And therefore, the Expanded Universe just became "Star Wars Legends". Basically, they didn't happen.

Sadly, this didn't, either.

I for one welcome the move. The new Star Wars movies cannot be beholden to  whatever was written a bunch of years ago to  appease rabid fans.  These stories, as good or as stupid as they can be, can't be the base for a new multimillion dollar franchise. Disney is right to say "You want to know what really happened after Jedi? Here's what REALLY happened, in the media format the original movies had. ANd here's our merchandize, based on that."

Star Wars isn't like Gargoyles, where you just know it's never coming back in full, and you continue it in comics. We all knew it was innevitable they make more movies. We want those movies to be good. But we can't expect them to be the official avatars of 3 decades of comics and books.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe just collapsed... at 6:06 AM

For  the a long time, this may be weird to believe, but Star Wars was sort of scarce. There where no new movies on cinema. There were no new videogames every 13 months. For a long ass time, we didn't know what had happened before  Star Wars: A New Hope (Then just Star Wars) or After Return of the Jedi. There were 3 movies, some dubious  spinoffs and that's it.

Fans where chomping at the bit, and Lucas knew it. Therefore, he sub-licenced many products that dealt with such history.  This stories became known as the Expanded Universe.It existed for fans who wanted to know more about the Star Wars universe, but where never fully official, and always at risk of being contradicted by the movies.

IT'S MY PICTURE, I CAN PAINT WHOEVER I WANT!

This is where Dash Rendar and Mara Jade lived. This is where every random bug in the Cantina scene had a storied purpose. This is where Lightsaber Crystals where built and where  Darth Revan and Darth Malak fought. This is where Sam Witwer helped Darth Vader. ANd now, they don't.

You see, Disney's moving along with the Star Wars movies, and it doesn't feel like playing nice to stories whose canonicity was established by levels, like a hurricane. And therefore, the Expanded Universe just became "Star Wars Legends". Basically, they didn't happen.

Sadly, this didn't, either.

I for one welcome the move. The new Star Wars movies cannot be beholden to  whatever was written a bunch of years ago to  appease rabid fans.  These stories, as good or as stupid as they can be, can't be the base for a new multimillion dollar franchise. Disney is right to say "You want to know what really happened after Jedi? Here's what REALLY happened, in the media format the original movies had. ANd here's our merchandize, based on that."

Star Wars isn't like Gargoyles, where you just know it's never coming back in full, and you continue it in comics. We all knew it was innevitable they make more movies. We want those movies to be good. But we can't expect them to be the official avatars of 3 decades of comics and books.

5 ways in which Avatar is not like Pocahontas at 10:57 AM

lol I are teh clevers!

Friends and friends of friends: criticism of the film Avatar is good and true. The 2009 film made the mistake of overpromising and underdelivering, and making 3D a "thing" we've had to "endure"since. We expected more from the director of Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic.

However, we might be wrong about SOME of it. There has been criticism of the simplest story, saying that it's nothing but Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and Ferngully in space. However, I think one of those is inaccurate. In truth, Avatar has more to do with The Last Samurai than it does with Disney's mid 90's Animated film.  Let me explain...

5) One's key character is female, the other one is Avatar

Do not scratch his belly.

Whereas both films present a clashing of societies, colonial exploitation, and the need to conserve resources, one of these is mostly played through the eyes of a native woman. Pocahontas, really is Pocahontas' story, as it begins in her village and shows her struggle with her force marriage and her need to be free and eventually throws John Smith and the settlers in there.

Avatar is the story of Jake Sully, who has a problem with not being able to walk and trying to do a thing his brother was doing, but better(i.e. not dying). Eventually  he enters the lives of Neytiri and the Na'Vi and kinda fucks it all up for them.

This is no mere difference of genders: one of the movies shows an outsider looking in, while the other is about the opposite. 


4) One softyifies the ugly past, the other sticks the ugly past into the future

In Avatar, evil corporation wants to evict a peace loving (but somewhat violent and reclusive) group of NaVi from their group so they can fully destroy their hometree and dig under for future-gold(because what the Unobtanium actually does is unimportant, it might as well just BE gold). At first this large, catlike beings can only cry in terror, but after  bringing aparently every Navi in the whole of Pandora,  they turn away the invaders.

Pocahontas has a less dark view of colonialism. The invading forces are mostly aloof, and do not even understand how to find what they are looking for. Roughly one of them is absolutely evil, and the rest is just a series of hilarious misunderstandings that can be surpassed if we just understand each other.

Racism is what gay, ugly, fat people do.

If the movies could be songs, Pocahontas would be You gotta care, and  Avatar would be Guerrilla Radio.


3) Avatar does not fear the War
The Climax of Pocahontas is preluded by a song called Savages, which exposits that natives and settlers disagree about each other, but agree that the matter will be settled effectively by braining the opposing group. Pocahontas races barefoot to  stop her father from executing the shit out of John Smith, and thus save both groups from a bloody conflict.

The Climax of Avatar features Jake Sully and his human friends aligning with the  Natives to essentially betray their own kind. Michelle Rodriguez dies, but I guess deep down, we knew it was gonna happen. Maybe they'll clone her here, too.

See,  violent conflict is a problem in both movies, but a solution in only one of them. Luckily those natives learned to trust the English settlers and everything went hunky dory for them!


2)The Romance is not as obvious in Avatar

"I'm afraid if I sleep here, your grandma will give me morning wood."

Both films feature starcrossed lovers from different, conflicted factions. Albeit only one of them has the outsider disguised as a native. However, the nature of the romance itself is different.

Pocahontas, perhaps because it is more geared toward the female audience, follows the legend of the Native American girl who fell in love with this foreigner, and was willing to die for him. For her, it is no mere matter of principle because there are feelings involved(also, her settlers are actually benign and the whole thing is a series of misunderstandings)

Avatar does have a romance, but it is not a movie about a romance. Jake Sully is shown the point of view of  the group, because he is pretending to be one of them until he stops pretending.

1) There is no assimilation in Pocahontas

So not only are we getting furry fetish, but foot fetish as well?

In the end of Avatar, Jake Sully has become one with the Na'Vi, and his doctor friend has litterally become one with the earth(or was it the other way? I haven't watched it lately).

On the other end of the spectrum, in Pocahontas the settlers leave(which makes them BAD settlers) despite being in the graces of the natives. John Smith leaves, too, even though he is clearly in love with the girl, making this whole damn thing a waste of time that cost a bunch of money and one life (but don't worry, he was kind of a jerk!).

In the other cited examples, the outsider with a heart of gold becomes one of the group, or doesn't do so because of tragic reasons(see, The Last Samurai). Because in the end, John Smith wasn't interested in the Colors of the Wind or becoming a Native American. In fact, he never even TRIES. All he cares is poking dat hunt ass his love for Pocahontas. But not enough to stay there.

5 ways in which Avatar is not like Pocahontas at 10:57 AM

lol I are teh clevers!

Friends and friends of friends: criticism of the film Avatar is good and true. The 2009 film made the mistake of overpromising and underdelivering, and making 3D a "thing" we've had to "endure"since. We expected more from the director of Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic.

However, we might be wrong about SOME of it. There has been criticism of the simplest story, saying that it's nothing but Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and Ferngully in space. However, I think one of those is inaccurate. In truth, Avatar has more to do with The Last Samurai than it does with Disney's mid 90's Animated film.  Let me explain...

5) One's key character is female, the other one is Avatar

Do not scratch his belly.

Whereas both films present a clashing of societies, colonial exploitation, and the need to conserve resources, one of these is mostly played through the eyes of a native woman. Pocahontas, really is Pocahontas' story, as it begins in her village and shows her struggle with her force marriage and her need to be free and eventually throws John Smith and the settlers in there.

Avatar is the story of Jake Sully, who has a problem with not being able to walk and trying to do a thing his brother was doing, but better(i.e. not dying). Eventually  he enters the lives of Neytiri and the Na'Vi and kinda fucks it all up for them.

This is no mere difference of genders: one of the movies shows an outsider looking in, while the other is about the opposite. 

Narnia vs Riddick....GO! at 8:22 AM

Narnia vs Riddick....GO! at 8:22 AM

5 games that deserve HD remakes at 10:19 AM

AAAAH! CHEMTRAIL!

Recently I talked about the reaction that Sonic 2 HD remake some fans are making.  Personally, I think we may have had enough re-releases of Sonic 2 that I think a new one is unwarranted. 

But the fact is, graphic remakes aren't just the domain of fans with too much time in their hands. From Super Mario All Stars to Street Fighter Long name HD, it's not a new thing to take what we once new and resell it to us with shiny new visuals. It has picked up recently, thanks to digital sale of old games and how much piracy has made that unnecessary.

I think, though, there's some underrated gems that need to be redone in HD, if only for people to experience the joys they bring. Here's the list

Moon Patrol

Get a room, you two!

Moon Patrol is one of those games from the days Atari ruled the world and Arcades existed. In it, you, the player, controlled a futuristic  space vehicle around earth's least spyfull sattelite as you use your ships weapons, capable of firing forward and upwards, but never diagonally, in it's fight against, alien ships and rocks.

The graphical upgrades surely wouldn't be all that hard to do, but the theme ..that's where the awesomeness should be found.

Toki Denshou: Angel Eyes

It's the war of Arack, and I hope there's no exit strategy.

Before Tecmo and Tomonobu Itagaki found the perfect blend of Fighting and Boobs, with DOA, Tecmo released in Arcade and in Playstation 1 a game Featuring an all girl cast and beautiful 2d graphics. The game's characters are strange, from red headed westerner Mysterious Power and jumpsuit clad Highway Star to a Ninja Maid.

Sadly, the game languishes in obscurity, even though you may be able to download it from the PSN store. So many people are missing the game ingenious auto homing dash button and Mysterious Power's hilarious Engrish...

The game's one flaw, though, is it's blend of Prerendered CG models with the game's gorgeous anime style  hand drawn sprites. I guess the Devs felt 2D was going out of favor, and the game wouldn't sell, but the blend of 2d and 2d that used to be 3d does not work. I suggest redoing the prerendered models into full 3d ones. It'll still look awefull as hell combined with HD remade Sprites, but it'll look Better-awefull!

Mischief Makers

Marina and Prof Theo, offering their thoughts on full 3d movement.

Mischief Makers is a gem. One of Treasure's, well, treasures during the N64s early years, the game follows oddly names android Marina as she rescues her creator time and time again.

What this game did with the resources of it's time. Instead of going buckling down and going 3d like so many games where doing, Treasure instead created one of the most visually striking games since the last time they where at it. Not to mention the gameplay was fantastic. One stage you where hitching a ride on a missile, the other you wher ehitting a giant monster in the face with his own fist.

However, it's startign to show it's age. You can see the edges around th e prerendered elements. Rerender the prerendered and bring back the Beastector!

Disney's Aladdin

Wow.  What's the genie smiling about?

Disney's Aladdin was a cinema smash it. As such, Disney Partnered with Capcom to create a game based on the movie. Take note, younger readers: Usually Licenced games are bad, and this is true since the dawn of pixels; but everytime Disney and Capcom got together they kicked everyone's ass.

And you had to climb inside, too.  So it's true, then?

The old Aladdin game loosely retold the film's plot through platforming. And sure, the graphics looked nice. But we could make it go full quality Disney animation graphics.

Bad Dudes

Eerily similar dudes defend America's policy regarding Ninjas!

 Bad Dudes is a fairly unremarkable  beat-em-up that has in the last decade ascended to fame-infamy over 3 thing: It's ridiculous plot involving Ninjas and the US President, The way  measures street cred by capacity to rescue said President from Ninjas, the President's pitiful reward to two supermen who took out of their free time to rescue him and how which president it was depended on who was the actual president.

Real subtle, there, Dragoninja.

But the graphics of the game? Not that good. Beat em ups have looked a lot better since. An HD Remake of the game would be awesome. Plus, I heard there's a new President in town.

A Burger? Is that where my Taxes are going?