Anyzaxxon, when I was a kid, the arcade games were really what it was all about. Paperboy, Tron, watching somebody else play Dragon’s Lair. These are where my memories truly remain.
So imagine my surprise (I think this is my catch phrase for all my InASense, Lost posts) when I visited Chuck E. Cheese after a long hiatus (it was my friends’ offspring’s first birthday), and this was their game selection?
It's a virtual jump rope game. And my fantasy?
The joystick placement made me feel uncomfortable. As did the Hungry Dragon's face.
"Canning Master" makes me think of "sodomy." As does "Mr. Brown."
Nothing too bad, I guess. But again with the fantasy?
NOTE: Everything that follows is my opinion… and it’s all fact.
Fantasy movies are geared toward the audience that longs to be whisked away, and that’s namely the pre-teens of this world. The reason why they are so susceptible: there’s still imagination (child-like wonder) remaining in their brains. Any adult that is too into fantasy films obviously has a mental/social disorder (hello PotHeads and Twihards)…
I’m not meaning to be mean. I’m merely meaning to get to the bottom of why fantasy films don’t do it for me anymore.
Growing up, I loved Clash of the Titans, TheBeastmaster, The Dark Crystal, Gremlins, Tron, The Princess Bride, and some movies had to deal with a Star War or a few. There were others that I couldn’t quite get into like Legend and Labyrinth, but I always felt they were more for the young ladies (for the record, The Princess Bride was being read to Kevin Arnold Fred Savage).
Outside of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (it’s insanely absurd and clever), when I was turning thirteen, Willow wasn’t even cutting it anymore. If I was going to like a dopey fantasy movie, it had something else going for it, such as my crush on Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands or me still being a fan of Steven Spielberg when he made Hook.
Let’s use The Neverending Story trilogy (yes there were three – and a TV show) to reiterate:
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
The first film released in 1984: AWE-SOME (hyphen added for pause worthy emphasis).
The second film released in 1990: (Avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis…)
The third film released in 1994: Really?! Highlights from an IMDB review:
I cannot begin to describe how awful this movie is… NES3, for lack of a better term, sucks. The storyline was as unimaginative and vapid as you could hope for… After the fart jokes and potty humor commenced, I just couldn’t take it any longer. My advice is don’t wast your time and ruin your childhood memories with this piece of refuse.
Now I don’t count superhero movies or animated films because they’ve almost attained the status of having their own genre. Outside of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, what do you have left to defend? The Mummy films? Van Helsing? (Not fair – those are mostly Stephen Sommers‘ pieces of crap.) Okay, then. MirrorMask? Eragon? Beowulf? Lady in the Water?! Stardust and Coraline were even kind of meh.
(SIDENOTE: I will give props to The Last Mimzy, The Bridge to Terebithia, and Big Fish for tugging my heart strings, 300 for being new, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean for the laughs. Am I missing any others?)
Ultimately, have fantasy films declined from being the shit to just shitty, or am I just getting old? I guess the proof will be in the pudding (sorry for the oldtimer-y expression) when the following films get remade or updated:
(FINAL SIDENOTE: I really, really, really, seriously hope that M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t fuck up The Last Airbender. I looooove that cartoon. That ended it’s run. On Nickelodeon. Just last year. Stop looking at me that way! I don’t have that serious of a mental/social disorder! Use this blog as proof!)
In honor, anticipation, and fear of desperate loathing for next week’s release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, here are some of the film’s stars in what could quite possibly be the best robot song ever…
I’m no fashionista. (I even felt uncomfortable writing that word.) I don’t dress in the latest fashions (if Target or Kohl’s ever become haute couture, I’ll be set). I don’t even wear a suit to formal affairs (I have my standard white dress shirt, random tie, black pants, and until someone called me out on wearing a certain vest to their wedding – a certain vest).
So please do not judge me as I judge another. My sisters always said it’s 10% what you wear and 90% your attitude (I think they borrowed liberally from another saying), but there was this guy at the bar that made some choices, and then some additional choices on top of those, and… well, let me explain.
First off, he was in mid- to late-twenties, and he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt bearing what I call “a Tron pattern.”
(Not So) Artistic Representation
Which on its own, I guess, would be fine and dandy (I shall never write that phrase again). But he could have worn something akin to this, instead:
Boba Swett...shirt
And he would have pulled off the look a bit better. But he also could have actually gone to this extreme like this guy:
Does he Master Controller to Tron?
Yet I’m not done. The sweatshirt was a few sizes too small, as it tapered and adhered to his arms. A bad choice on its own, but forgivable if he opted NOT TO WEAR THE HOOD. It was snug on his noggin, and seemed to pull up the shirt underneath as well.
So what? you might be thinking. He can just put down the hood. My response: then why doesn’t he pull up the back of his pants! He had them purposely draped below his gray boxer briefed bum, as his leather belt held them firmly there. My friend, Jess, thought he might not know, but I knew he knew. It was another in a long line of bad choices.
The coup de grace for me was when my friend Devin was doing karaoke of Lil’ Wayne’s “A Milli” (which is a dumb song, btw, with some of the worst lyrics… check them out after the jump). This too-small-Tron-hoodie-wearing, non-boxer-pants-sagging doofus jumped up to sing with him, and he couldn’t keep up! He ruined it for Devin. Oh well. Like I said, who am I to judge… in my 90’s X-Men tee and skaterboi jeans with the cuffs rolled up.
(SIDE RANT: What’s the appeal of Lil’ Wayneanyway? Is he big merely for the fact he may have been the first to integrate electronica with rap? Why couldn’t he be a nice, clean cut guy like Chris Brown, and get cozy with a sweetheart like Rihanna?)
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