|
Nebakenezzer posted:I've heard of tales of the unexpected thanks to the old ricky gervais podcast; I feel like the title is promising more than it can deliver
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 19:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 09:45 |
|
|
I've been a bit distracted lately by real life and Flash Gordon, the filmation cartoon. Flash Gordon as a pop culture reference is strange in that it was clearly an influence on a vast swath of later things, from Star Wars to Star Trek, early DND, and Christ knows what else. It is a tv show, however, that a friend described as having "mormon animation".  Our Hero at his most charismatic  Knowing this show's love of animation re-use, I'd bet you five bux we see the scene where these two kiss later.  This is the way people laugh in Filmation, it's consistent across time  I swear I didn't remove any frames here; this is how they animated Space Princess Aura throwing a spear. The dude in green is "Prince Barron" who does the tricky thing of possessing a French accent without having one.  "Come." "hup----!" It's a show that brings out the purile gif maker in me, simply because mocking what goes on feels like a waste of time.  Example: this is how well designed Ming's robots are. A few episodes later, we see these tin honkeys immersed in water and functioning. Flash [OOOOOHHHHHHH!] is uniting the many factions of the planet Mongo to bring down Space Emperor Ming the Merciless Blizzard style (IE uniting a bunch of factions who hate each other to take down a bigger existential threat) and every new place they go to, there's a space princess who wants to gently caress Flash as soon as she lays eyes on him, or Flash and his band are enslaved. Sometimes both. Also the amount of times Dale (Dale Arden being Gordon's Earth girl) is forcibly married off is-------well, I guess it played differently in its day, now it is a bit weird. Aside from that Dale's main job is to fume as the latest space hottie attempts to bang the Earthman  It's not that she lacks moxie, it's just it rarely gets animated  Also Flash is always dragging her when they run  Here Princess Aura attempts to seduce Flash on her peltbed, ignoring that Flash's GF and this sulking Lion Man are literally right there  Ming is clearly a freak himself, as I see lioness-women, hawk-men-women, and a green skinned gal who might be a mermaid  Of course these human dancers are in the Hawkmen city...  The astral projector. Get it?!  She was killed, Flash was fine Ming the Merciless is his own trope - one that has taken a lot of different forms over the years. Europeans and North Americans created this trope of the fiendishly smart and totally ruthless Asian dude - I guess the idea being that somebody who adapted to western technology, science, commerce etc without all those deeply enshrined cultural values would be amoral and terrifying - true, as far as it goes. Ming is immortal and is described by one person as the best scientist in the universe which is quite a claim, but here, voiced by the VA who did the voice of Skeletor (?) he comes off as endlessly pissy and insecure. In fact, the only time there's good dialog thus far is in episode five, where Space princess Aura and a officer of Ming's fail to capture Flash Gordon. They report back to Ming, and Ming throws the officer into the slave mines as punishment, when suddenly Aura speaks up and calls Ming out on how petty this is, especially as Ming was abjectly defeated by Gordon in the previous episode.    Ming also as his zoom background has a Mosaic of himself  More clever money saving by skipping the bits that would let the action make sense  We need to economize animation frames so we can do the 'giant king chases Dale around the table' scene  "You know those green skinned girls you see? That's because Ming tapped that, or similar."  I like this Lizard-Woman who is sus of the slave. For some reason Ming's slave drivers are all identical lizard women, which could mean, well, something aside from economy in a better written series  Aura deploys the woke ray  In one of those weird moments of recognition, these green tentacle things are blind, and find their prey by sound. Very much like some Half-Life monsters, although those guys didn't look like sock puppets   This is how you steal a fishman's boat-sub-thing.  The first climactic battle with Ming happens in a control room that looks like an abandoned theater or casino  I don't know if they are Balinese dancers  The Bali wedding episode is wild all around. Here, Dale foils Ming by smashing something that isn't explained and we never see get smashed.  This is about 30 seconds before they are flash frozen in the pool, with the entire top sealed with ice. Flash's expression does not change.  Also the Bali wedding episode. Turns out if you keep a firm grip, you can just marry them!  The one thing I can give Filmation is that with its constant re-use of animation and generally crazy composition, there are rarely animation errors. Here is one, and I was saddened to discover Rasputin-smurf didn't in fact have a tiny, cloaked, hovering assistant  Dr. Zarkov is also from Earth, and announces his plan to follow Flash Gordon down the elevator shaft by diving in headfirst, then screaming "help me I'm falling! Save me Flash!"  Ten seconds later, he's bitten by a poisonous bat despite Flash causing a forest fire to drive the bats away  The last episode I saw had some echoes of DnD. Namely they encounter a Witch queen, who possesses such mind control powers she's basically a Mind Flayer. She kidnaps flash, then ERASES HIS PERSONALITY as he's identical to her lost King in appearance, Ming's old Master, King [ugh] Gor-Dan.    This is what mind control looks like, BTW.  They have, 10 episodes in, finally started doing multipart episodes, so we will see if things improve. Right now the Witch Queen is getting mind erased Flash Gordon to murder his friends. I'll keep you updated 
Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 19:46 on May 8, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 05:25
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:
Ahaha I love it in old cartoons when something is clearly rotoscoped and it sticks out like a sore thumb. I wonder what the source footage was
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 15:34
|
|
|
And yet, it remains Filmation's peak achievement.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 18:41
|
|
|
Madurai posted:And yet, it remains Filmation's peak achievement. Despite all my mockery, I do sort of get that. It's a continuing story, and there are flashes (if you pardon the pun) of interesting visuals. People die, if not characters. I have zero familiarity with anything previous of Flash Gordon, but I can only assume it is faithful to the earlier material.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 19:07
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Despite all my mockery, I do sort of get that. It's a continuing story, and there are flashes (if you pardon the pun) of interesting visuals. People die, if not characters. I have zero familiarity with anything previous of Flash Gordon, but I can only assume it is faithful to the earlier material. Faithful-ish. The original newspaper strips rambled all over, and much like golden age comics, did not give one singular gently caress about consistency.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 19:57
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:
One can't help but respect the power plays for their audacity alone.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 20:35
|
|
|
LashLightning posted:One can't help but respect the power plays for their audacity alone. Meh; I've told Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos many times that if they want my respect, they better start dressing like Serpentor
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 19:02
|
|
|
My one bit of bonus info is that the Voice of ZZ in Bots Master, Mark Hildreth, is also the person who voiced Hero Yui in Gundam Wing. I just find the coincidence funny.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 18:13
|
|
|
The Botsmaster 2: Enter the Ninjzz It's night, and Blitzy, Doc Wattson, Cook, and this muppet-like hand helicopter thing are in a closed grocery store, swiping food. The security can't be that bad, as Cook is actually being quite choosy about things like the cheese they are stealing. Well, I say stealing: once they have a full cart, Blitzy takes out some ZZ monogrammed stationary, writes a note to explain the theft, then pays in cash what they owe. It's only when Blitzy opens the cash register that she sets off the alarm. Blitzy runs for the door with the shopping cart, but like this was a GTA style sandbox game, approximately 12 police cars have spawned 144 police bots. When they run back inside, all the police bots open fire. Blitzy is unphased, as she called for an air evacuation, gets the domesto-bots to take the groceries to the roof, and then uses the muppet bot [called Freehand] to distract the police. The police bots meanwhile were just issued special instructions, that because "the subject is wanted by RM corp, the subject should be captured alive". Which, considering the subject is ten, you'd think would have been a flag already set? Anyway, Freehand first blinds the police bot optics with black spraypaint, then to defeat the backup radar, takes a roll of aluminum foil, and feeds it into its own rotor. Which isn't quite real radar chaff, but is close enough.  The party escape via one of the big fighting gestalt bots Blitzy and Genisix whipped up between episode one and two. Back at the ranch, ZZ accuses Blitzy of being cavalier with this whole one man revolution thing. Kiddy, a bot permanently stuck at the age of five who I guess ZZ made for Blitzy when she was small, steals Blitzy's sandwich. Zib takes both of them to the robot foundry they apparently have at the house, and shows off two Gundam sized war machines already constructed by it. ZZ then shows responsibility by letting Kiddy and Blitzy play rock'em sock'em robots with them. (Blitzy's sandwitch is returned, but once again, Kiddie being stuck as a child is a strange choice ZZ evidently forgot about.) MEANWHILE At the top of the RM Corp towers, where LLP apparent has an executive office hanging with the required transparent floor, which is honestly pretty cool------  Dr Hiss shows of HIS new toy, a lion-like bot that can hunt ZZ by smell. Oh, and RM's total control of the media is busy painting Zib Zoolander as a monster (They control the TV, the news, newspapers AND magazines!) Ironically the one thing missing in this show is the internet.  Audio: Left, the dulcet tones of Lady Frenzy, right, unpleasant dentist suction sound Meanwhile, we get to see Ninjzz, A new BOYZZ built for combat. Only problem is (apparently) programming its fighting skills. ZZ gets Da'nerd (basically a living Clippy hooked into Wikipedia) to find the identity of “the greatest Ninja warrior who ever lived.” At this point I'd really like for ZZ to discover Ninjas didn't exist, but of course they do, and the greatest warrior of them all died in 2017. [Oh, this show is set in the grim darkness of the far future 2025.]  OK, this is a good gag, when De'nerd gets scared his tv face just locks into a still of him screaming The next day, in Dr. Hiss's stainless steel office, he joyfully informs VP Frenzy that ZZ has been detected by the lion bot, who's detection abilities are evidently much more long range than you'd think. Hiss says “It will be a lovely day!” now that ZZ can be captured or killed. We cut to the library, where ZZ, disguised as Albert Einstein, and Da'nerd scan a hologram for DNA. {Long story short, Ninjzz is getting programmed via “holographic DNA” from the ninja warrior, who will then have that warrior's fighting ability, and possibly that warrior's tragic allergy to cold medicine, as well.} Then, Dr. Hiss and his enormous robot dog enter the library. Our heroes run for the back door, and call Trip for a pickup. Unfortunately, Trip doesn't know where ZZ is. After running into traffic to flee the Robot lion, ZZ makes the unusually smart command decision to tell De'nerd to deliver the scan back to the hideout, and to tell Blitzy what happened. ZZ is captured soon after when the robot lion explodes through a wooden fence, allowing the RM's cyberpunk goons to get ZZ into the van. Back at the ranch, the news of ZZ's capture causes really, really shrill bot hysteria. Blitzy manages to bring the rec room to order, and loads the “DNA” into the Ninjabot. Ninjzz comes to life. Two blessed things, is that first Ninjzz has a fairly normal voice, and second, despite having been brought to life seconds ago, he takes command of the rescue, pointing to the competent Boyzz (Jammerzz and Tools, plus Trip) and two of the sports boyz. (ZZ at some point built sports playing robots. They play baseball, football, golf (!) and volleyball. They can lay their balls with ballistic force, or maybe they just get explosive balls, we'll see.) Oh, did I mention most of the boyzz have built-in rollerblades? They have built in rollerblades. The posse of bots break into the RM factory. The vollyball boyz distracts the gate guard 3Ms with a vollyball, and in a motion almost too fast to be animated, Ninjzz slits them up a treat with his energy katana. Meanwhile Dr. Hiss has ZZ in the palm of his hand, IE the hand of a very large bot. Lady Frenzy is trying the carrot approach: “rejoin RM and all is forgiven, plus maybe sexytime with me?” Dr. Hiss is impatient to murder ZZ. The good guys burst in, and the golf bot fires a golf ball right into the very large warbot remote Hiss is holding.  A 3d action sequence follows, where the RM 3As are knocked ten for six by the boyzz. I'd say more but the 3d scenes are basically a license to cheat action. All I can say is that Ninjzz slices the robot fist off with his light-ish sabre and the 50 ft fall to the floor doesn't injure ZZ.    Oh, and Dr. Hiss and Frenzy should be killed, but are not. The good guys escape (why'd you smash through the roof when the hanger door was wide open, anyway?!) and Frenzy tells Hiss and his lionbot to shut up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Winner: Ninjzz. There's being precocious, and then there's organizing a successful rescue operation when you are ten minutes old. Casualties: Zero Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 00:37 on May 12, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 00:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 09:45 |
|
|
PS> I don't know what the Karate Kid series was about, but if it were this, we'd ALL know what the series was about.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 00:40
|
|