The Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One Retrospective

Well, everybody else is weighing in on this topic. I guess I don't feel like coming up with new material this week.

So the Marvel Cinematic Universe has completed its Phase Two with the release of Ant-Man, and they seem to be doing everything correctly, from a business model at least. Superhero movies are in this decade, in part because the special effects in film are sophisticated enough to convincingly portray literally anything, but also because in the 2000's out society really stopped feeling comfortable on a daily basis, due to due to the economy and the echoes of 9/11. In much the way that the MGM musicals gave our grandparents escape from the Great Depression, the superhero genre has granted us the jolt of hope that we've needed.

And when I say that, I don't mean any of us really think Thor is going to pop up at Denny's and defeat a giant robot (or whatever that was) for us. I mean it's given us something to talk about. Passionately. Optimistically. Our fiction doesn't change our problems but it may very well change our feelings about those problems and as such our approach to dealing with them. That's kind of powerful in a way.

Now I could be wrong, but it feels to me like the despair we've been having over the early years of the twenty-first century is getting better out there. Maybe not where we'd like it to be, and of course there are still major problems, but the feel of the world has gotten better. And that's obviously good. But I'm not inclined to talk about important things, because I'm a nerd. I've never connected to the world through reality. If things continue to get better, I'm wondering how much life the superhero genre really has left in it.

Sure the movies will always be there in the way that westerns are still made today. But westerns haven't been the in thing since, I don't know, Blazing Saddles? The fourth Fantastic Four movie (not Fantastic 4 4 sadly) has failed to attract an audience, demonstrating how the superhero film is no longer a sure bet. Case in point, the first Jessica Alba vehicle that nobody liked still tripled its 100 million dollar price tag at the box office.

So maybe we're starting to see the sun set on this period in cinema, which is really bad news for DC as they're getting to the party just as people are leaving. Marvel has plans through 2028 (no kidding), and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those get abandoned after Marvel's Phase Three, because I suspect we're all going to be a little superheroed out.

But we're here now and the celebration is still going on. So let's have a look at how we got to this point.

Iron Man (2008)

Yeah, I'm not doing MAD magazine spoof titles for this blog like I usually do, there are only so many ways you can abuse the word 'iron'. But this was the one that got the party started. Technically Blade unlocked the warehouse for us and X-Men set up all the tables, but the music didn't start playing until Downey Jr. came through the door.

Now let me confess this, I don't read comics. I don't keep up with them. The comic book industry doesn't embrace the casual reader, they expect you to commit. So I never got into them; one, because I can't afford the investment, and two, my brain just doesn't naturally go to the next panel it's supposed to focus on and that always keeps me out of the story. So I knew nothing about Iron Man. I thought, okay. He wears armor and uses the colors of the Tara High School Trojans. Whoop-dee-shit.

But of course, the first Iron Man did exactly what it needed to do in order to win the masses over, which was get the character of Tony Stark right. And Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. There could never have been a more perfect casting choice. Downey Jr. is an incredibly talented actor, with no training as an actor (so kids, stay out of school), and all things being equal he never needed the nonsense of a silly superhero movie. But all things weren't equal. His personal life had gone into some really dark places, and this role was the equivalent of the phoenix rising. Going into the opening weekend, Iron Man had respectability.

And it was great! It was one of the best origin stories ever filmed. And the funny thing is, the third act REALLY wandered off somewhere, and it didn't hurt the movie, because our final image was Samuel L. Jackson introducing himself as Nick Fury. And Jeff Bridges played a great villain, which again didn't add up to much in the third act but that was still not the point. It was a great movie!

How many movies can really drop the ball in their final act and still be great? That's pretty damned impressive.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

So it's a month later and we're still on a Tony Stark high when this movie happens. And I can already hear one of my friend's voices in my head going "Aw, come on, it's the Hulk man!" And yes, I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find something in this movie to get behind. Usually the proponents resort to "Well, it's not the Ang Lee movie."

The Ang Lee Hulk has its supporters as well, and it always entertains me seeing the back and forth about which movie was better. These are some really in depth, detail-centric conversations, that I can't help but admire. But I don't take a side, because the real conversation on the table is, which movie sucked less?

The bottom line is, the Hulk is just not suited to carry an entire movie by himself. He's good in bursts, or in the three act timing of a 45 minute TV show, like in the late seventies (still great, by the way. It's on Netflix). Probably what Marvel could have done differently was bring in Hawkeye for this movie in kind of a Jack McGee role, except he's following S.H.I.E.L.D.'s orders. That gives us a chance to get to know Barton before The Avengers and creates a little more good guy vs. good guy tension to feel like something actually matters for this film.

But hey, Downey Jr. makes an appearance at the end. So there's that.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Wow! Two years! Can you imagine Marvel pulling off a gap like that today? And I can just see Kevin Feige thinking, "Shit! We've got nothing until until next summer! Somebody get an Iron Man movie out the door!"

I get it. The MCU was a massive undertaking, and missteps were bound to happen, and when they did they were on the screen in front of millions. In retrospect though, this would have been the ideal placement for Captain America.

But that didn't happen. If this were a D&D campaign, Iron Man 2 would be the moment the Dungeon Master was out of ideas and randomly threw a powerful monster at the party just to create a battle. Apparently Mickey Rourke is a wandering monster. I was actually digging his character in his opening scene, but then he just started 'doing stuff' and sending out robots to attack (which is not something I've ever thought was interesting) and then entering the battle himself because we need to wrap this up.

But you know who was really great in the movie? Sam Rockwell. My God he was having fun playing Justin Hammer, trying SO HARD to be the main villain and not succeeding. It may not make for good cinema, but this is the true underdog story.

So let's talk Black Widow. I think she's a great character and her scenes in this movie are honestly what make it unskippable if you're hosting a Phase One Marvel weekend at your local library. There's recently been a lot of discussion about Marvel's spotlight on their female characters (as well there should be) and the lack of attention the traditionally 'boy's show' seems to be sharing with them. Black Widow merchandise is very hard to find, and I don't understand why. There's a damned market for it!

But the other topic that comes up is the lack of a Black Widow solo movie. I find myself a little mixed on this one. Marvel doesn't seem to want to do a Black Widow movie, and Venom's appearance in Spider-Man 3 is a pretty accurate depiction of what happens when the production team isn't on board with something. Unlike when Joss Whedon was really pushing for a Wonder Woman movie (which DC rejected), I haven't heard of anyone else in Hollywood really adamant about wanting to make the movie themselves. Nothing would be more frustrating than if Marvel gave in to the fans and gave us another Elektra. Basically, it's probably not going to happen, and it's unfortunate why. But other positive steps are being made elsewhere, such as the hit show Once Upon a Time and Marvel's Jessica Jones (in which I have the utmost confidence).

Thor (2011)

The whole MCU concept was only going to work if the character of Thor was believable, because this was the point of 'most likely to become silly'. Fortunately for half of Hollywood's bankroll, Chris Hemsworth went into acting.

Ken Branagh is a talented director. He's the only person who could ever have gotten me to sit through four hours of Hamlet. And he brought so many wonderful elements to this movie, from Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki to the whole look and flavor of Asgard. Of course I'm not entirely convinced said elements ever came together into a fully defined whole.

I certainly remember liking Thor but not really remembering much about it. Something about frost giants? And Jane is an astrophysicist? And Agent Coulson found Thor's hammer? Or wait, that was at the end of Iron Man 2. But there was that bit where Loki possessed a robot or something.

I guess it just wasn't a solid movie. A fun one, certainly, but if it wasn't part of the bigger picture I'm not sure I'd really understand what the hell I'd just watched. Thor on earth felt like a TV show pilot. Thor in Asgard came across as deleted scenes from another movie. It was like it was trying to be Richard Donner's Superman and Superman II at the same time. Not bad, just not amazing either.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Get to the damn Avengers already!

Like I said before, if Captain America had come out in 2010 and pushed Iron Man 2 into the following year, the pacing of the MCU would have been much stronger. As placed, Captain America comes off as "We HAD to make this movie before we got to the good one, so here it is".

The movie make for a decent period piece, and it might even be an entertaining one if it hadn't recycled sequences from Iron Man, Spider-Man, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine to get there. The biggest problem of course is with the character of Steve Rogers. It's hard to make him interesting. Much like Superman, Cap is a boy scout; a hero to aspire to but not really relate to. The ideals he stands for are positive ones but they don't make for good conflict unless they go up against a grey area where they're really challenged. Here, they go up against Hydra, basically the Nazis of Nazis. So, no grey area then.

Don't get me wrong, Chris Evans really is a fantastic actor. Out of all the Avengers, he's probably got the hardest job because his character is so inherently bland. How do you find your beats when going up against Downey's Tony Stark? Evans manages to find those moments without ever becoming not Captain America.

Perhaps the lesson here is that being a hero really is thankless.

Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

The fact that this movie holds together at all is an impressive feat. The fact that it's awesome is a testament to Joss Whedon's ability to handle ensemble casts.

I was most worried going into the movie that it was going to be the Tony Stark show, and while Tony drives the movie, he's still only one part of the whole. The core of the movie is S.H.I.E.L.D., even if they don't get the action in the third act. We'd seen the agency's involvement with world affairs, but we'd never seen the heart of it. The Avengers shows us S.H.I.E.L.D. working, failing, thriving, failing again, and finally being rescued. It's a pretty epic journey.

Man, Loki held his own against six superheroes. Marvel is hit and miss with its villains, but Loki is their home-run. It was a vital decision to give Loki at least one scene with each Avenger, and his conversation with Stark is as riveting as an of the action scenes. But of course Hulk steals the show.

Perhaps the big problem with the past two Hulk movies was that Dr. Banner ultimately didn't matter. It could just as easily have been Dr. Richard Kimble on the run from the government, the Hulk was what mattered to the story. In The Avengers Bruce Banner is more important than the big guy, which means that when the Hulk finally shows up it really counts for something.

The MCU was an ambitious project that racked up a total of one billion dollars in production costs over six movies. Of course when you see how the franchise took in 3.8 billion in the first phase alone it seems like a no-brainer, but that's a lot of cash changing hands on an untried model. It's always nice to see the powers take a risk that pays off, just like it's sad to see them overtap the well. Phase Three will be a sure bet, but after that it's anyone's game.

Be back here next week for my retropesctive of Phase Two and in 2019 for Phase Three.

Shows in Need of a Reboot: Ranma 1/2's Character Changes

Perhaps you're too young to have caught the first wave of anime dubs that hit the States back in the early-to-mid nineties, but the flagship title that every Blockbuster carried in bits and pieces was Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2. Canadian studio Viz Video handled the voice dubs and it was one of the very few shows that the anime snobs would admit to watching in English.

The (attempted) quick version: 16 year old martial artist Ranma Saotome is betrothed in a pre-arranged marriage to one of the three Tendo sisters, cheerfully oblivious Kasumi, deadpan snarker Nabiki, and martial artist Akane (the youngest). It's decided for him that Akane is the correct choice, and the audience agrees, but Ranma has less interest in girls than he does in removing the curse which transforms his body into that of a young girl who drowned over a thousand years ago, hence the title's '1/2' (you'll give up questioning it once the breasts start making appearances). The matter becomes more complicated once other females show up demanding that Ranma choose them for his bride, including spatula virtuoso Ukyou, Chinese Amazon Shampoo, and rich psycho Kodachi. Akane gets a couple of suitors herself. And stuff happens.

Ranma is to anime what Star Trek (the original) is to science fiction. There were better things that came before and after, but it's a series that still holds up on its own in spite, or because, of its flaws. See, when American students went over to Japan on the exchange program to learn about Japanese business techniques, instead of bringing back marketable strategies they crammed their suitcases full of anime; Akira, Dirty Pair, Outlaw Star, and all the violent porn they could get their grubby hands on. Ranma became the breakout star.

I recently (as of this morning) discovered this: Nightmare! Incense of Deep Sleep on Youtube, which was a 2008 special created for the 50th anniversary of Shonen Sunday, a Japanese manga magazine. Back in the nineties when I was into Ranma, I was really into Ranma. Then I guess I grew up or something, and Ranma went back into mental storage. But when I watched Nightmare, I felt a recharged fascination for the world Takahashi created.

So that got me thinking, if there were to be a reboot (and there's not, in case you think I actually know something) and the professional company in charge of said reboot happened to stumble across one of the Weird Al album reviews on this blog and thought "I bet this guy would have some ideas worth hearing about Ranma", what would I tell them over the seafood dinner on the private yacht that would inevitably follow? It never hurts to be prepared, so here's what I think I might say.

The humor needs to be more character driven. Takahashi's manga excelled at screwball hijinks, and some of that carried over effectively into the anime, but a lot of it didn't. The manga is hyperactive, which works for the medium. The anime was inconsistent in it's pacing, and I'm not talking about the natural oscillation of a story arc. A lot of times the show would slow when it needed to speed up and vice versa. It certainly doesn't need to match the manga's pacing because it's a lot easier to lose the audience. And it was the slower moments in the early seasons that created a sense of pathos that the manga never really had.

In fact, I thought the first two seasons were very good, and some of the early episodes of season three. But then the show became, and felt, episodic. The characters stopped developing. The "Will they or won't they?" became a rhetorical question, and literally nothing felt like it was being accomplished until the OVA era. And that frustration I felt over the characters I had grown to love was exactly why I'd moved on from them. But then I saw Nightmare, and I was reminded of why I'd loved the characters in the first place.

Here then is a list of the top nine character changes I would make if I were in charge of the reboot.

9. Nabiki

Who she is:

Nabiki is the middle child in the Tendo dojo, (owned by Soun Tendo) where Ranma and his father Genma are staying and freeloading. Nabiki is a year ahead of Ranma and Akane and usually watched the action from afar with amused condescension. She'll go where the action is where there's a bit of money to be made off the misfortune of others.

The problem:

Nabiki has no apparent martial arts ability, which means she's going to be stuck on the sidelines until the story requires someone to happen to have the problem solving object, which she always produces with a price tag. It's a single joke that wastes a really interesting character.

The solution:

Have Nabiki tell the story. The story is clearly Ranma's but Akane typically gets forced into the POV position for the audience, which means her effect on the story is limited and her appearances wherever the action happens to be taking place feel contrived. Nabiki would be perfect for this position. She already magically shows up on a dime, and as a storyteller her MST riffing would be most effective.

8. Ranma

Who he is:

Well...you know...the main character. The 16 year old boy of action who doesn't have time for romantic nonsense, even though he seems to attract it from four sources.

The problem:

It's not so much with who he is as it is with what's done with him. There's a point fairly early on where Ranma begins having Bugs Bunny's batting average, and that's when he stops being sympathetic. Ranma always wins. His fight with Mousse in season two is probably the last time there's any real tension, and that's only if you're rooting for Mousse.

The solution:

He needs to get his ass kicked once in a while. It may be a case of introducing a reoccurring character that Ranma simply can't defeat in a fair fight. The hero has to lose a few times, you know?

7. Happosai

Who he is:

Happosai is the founder of the "Anything-Goes School" of martial arts, which Ranma and Akane are both studying. He's also the elder and grandmaster, which means Soun and Genma both have to demonstrate respect to him. He's also an imp-sized pervert who spends the bulk of his time stealing women's undergarments.

The problem:

As I said, he's an imp-sized pervert who spends the bulk of his time stealing women's undergarments. Takahashi herself has said that Happosai is one of her favorite characters, and I guess I get it from a writer's point of view. It's always helpful to have a character that can shake things up at any moment. But this character is so utterly unlikable and unredeemable that I would go so far as to say that his introduction is Ranma's jump-the-shark moment.

The solution:

Screw him. I really can't think of any reason this character is in the show except to get girl-type Ranma's shirt off, and boy-type Ranma never has a problem finding an excuse himself. If the fans absolutely demand him, shame them first and then put him in only when it's necessary.

6. Kuno/Ryoga/Shampoo

Who they are:

Tatewaki Kuno is the kendo team captain and the school bully who Ranma defeats early on, and then again every other episode (usually with a single punch). Ryoga is Ranma's childhood frenemy who suffers from a condition that keeps him from ever being able to follow directions, thus making him perpetually lost. Shampoo is the strongest warrior of an Amazon tribe who was defeated in combat by Ranma (accidentally), and by law now has to marry him.

The problem:

Again, nothing is really wrong with the characters, just the over-reliance on certain aspects. Kuno is a semi-formidable opponent at first but then stops being any kind of threat. Ryoga can still give Ranma a good pounding but he has a one-sided love for Akane that he never reveals to her. He's also cursed to turn into a pig when splashed with cold water and Akane thinks said pig is her stray pet; which means Ryoga's sometimes sleeping with Akane and she doesn't know it. These elements get old fast. With Shampoo, it's a case of an undeserved amount of screen time purely on the grounds of her being the fan favorite character.

The solution:

Two things. One, plan the overarching story arc's endgame and make these characters' appearances count for more than throwaway jokes (and remember that Shampoo is on Ukyou's level, not Akane's). Two, develop these characters. Let them explore other interpersonal relationships with characters other than the two leads. What is Kuno took Ryoga under his wing just to humiliate Ranma? Does Shampoo ever feel homesick for her Amazon tribe? There are some wonderful possibilities.

5. Mousse

Who he is:

Mousse is the Chinese master of hidden weapons. Unlike the rest of the periphery cast, Mousse's affections are not aimed at the central couple but Shampoo, making him a wild card when used correctly. He's been in love with her since they were three years old, but she rejected his marriage proposal. When they were three. But it hasn't stopped him from trying to change her mind. He seems to think that by defeating Ranma, Shampoo will finally accept him as a suitor. Mousse is also comedically blind without his glasses.

The problem:

See, when he doesn't wear his glasses he always winds up talking to the wrong person or thing. So that's funny! Get it? Even on the eighty-third delivery! That NEVER gets old!!! But really, we've got bigger issues here. Mousse is the poster child for unrequited love. Shampoo rejects him. She tells him to go home. She beats the shit out of him and he still won't let it go. That type of humor was barely passable in the nineties. It doesn't work anymore. We can spend all night discussing whether Mousse is a stalker or Shampoo is an abusive tyrant, but the bottom line is that this doesn't work as humorous anymore.

The solution:

Mousse is still a great character. Whereas Ranma and Ryoga have a brotherly love for each other that neither will admit to, Mousse could actually make a great best friend to Ranma if the writers would allow it. We have to smooth some things out. It has to be made clear to the audience (and to Mousse as well) that Shampoo really does love him, but she's choosing the honor of her tribe over her personal feelings. And that has to be an ongoing argument between them about which is more important. Otherwise, the subplot is just too sad.

4. Ukyou

Who she is:

Out of all of Ranma's suitors (dressors?) Ukyou is the one who has as much claim to Ranma as Akane does, possibly more so. Ukyou's father arranged a marriage between Ukyou and Ranma through Genma, putting up the family's okonomiyaki cart as a dowry. Genma accepted and made off with the cart, leaving Ukyou behind, thus ruining her for marriage.

The problem:

Ukyou came to the party late. Out of all the 'suitor' characters she was the last to be introduced, a full season and a half after Shampoo had dug her cat claws into the fan base. It left her relegated to a supporting supporting player in other people's stories. She's also one of the most grounded characters in the series, for which there was little room once the level of ridiculousness had been established.

The solution:

It's a reboot, so we're reintroducing characters. Ukyou needs to be there from the beginning. As the series stands now, Akane begins her arc with a crush on Dr. Tofu (another character that becomes useless by the end of the first season). Transfer that to Ukyou, for when she's still posing as a boy (don't ask. It's already too complicated). With Akane being the boy-hater that she is, Ukyou would be the only 'boy' she feels is at all relatable. Then when it's revealed Ukyou is in fact a girl, and the deception directly involves Ranma, Akane's constant anger toward him would be a bit more founded.

3. Akane

Who she is:

Who do you think? The core of Ranma 1/2 is the relationship between Ranma and Akane. Of course they never actually get together, so if you're rooting for them you'll have to be satisfied with the fleeting moments where they almost admit to having feelings for each other and then pull away.

The problem:

Aside from the tediousness? Much of the time Akane doesn't even need to be in the story. And when she is there she always winds up taking a backseat to Ranma. And as much as I hate to say it, Ranma seems to have more chemistry with Ukyou.

The solution:

Akane needs to have her own life. Play up the friendship between her and Ukyou. Give Akane some martial arts action that Ranma doesn't have to bail her out on. With Nabiki running POV, make it as much Akane's journey as it is Ranma's. And just maybe try out the Akane/Ryoga pairing for a bit, at least giving it a chance to fail on its own.

2. Kodachi

Who she is:

The Black Rose. Kuno's baby sister. The rising star of rhythmic gymnastics with a pet alligator and a banshee cackle that echoes through the swirl of petals she leaves behind. Kodachi is in an extreme state of id. She doesn't take words for an answer, or actions. This self-proclaimed petite flower is purely in the now, where even hypocrisy can't reach. She's the storm, the typhoon, the fires of hell itself. She may have spent some time in Arkham.

The problem:

Not a damn thing.

The solution:

There's an untapped potential with Mistress Kuno that begs *strike that* demands to be explored. Exhibit A: When Shampoo, and to a lesser degree Ukyou, get too close to Ranma, Akane beats up Ranma. When Kodachi gets too close, Akane takes on Kodachi. Why the difference? Exhibit B: Kodachi is the only character Ranma is actually afraid of. So if she's so easily defeated, why is she still a threat? Well, I have a modest suggestion. As disinterested as Ranma is in girls, I think there should be some base-level attraction that he has towards 'the wrong girl' that even he doesn't understand. The series should never go full on M rating, but as in control as Ranma always is it would make complete sense that some unconscious part of him would experience a little sadomasochistic intrigue with the nutcase. And Akane would recognize it.

1. The Girl

Who she is:

We don't know. We only know what she looks like and that she drowned a century ago.

The problem:

Nothing really, aside from an awesome window of opportunity.

The solution:

Open the freaking window, man. If a curse can tie you as far back to the past as that, then something's got to be able to bring it into the present. One potential story arc is if somebody else falls into that same spring and takes a different kind of advantage of an alter-ego. Imagine what kind of crap Ranma could get blamed for. But much more interesting is if the consciousness of the girl who drowned began reawakening in Ranma's mind. What kind of person is she? What caused her to drown? Is there something she still wants in this world that Ranma can complete? What kind of opinions might she have about the guy who is now hosting her form? This would have to be a down-the-road story arc once some of the other plot threads were wearing thin, but it could really lead to an amazing journey.

Call me, Takahashi. I'm in it for the pure joy and I'm dirt cheap.


Addendum 12/27/2016: Strangely enough, this continues to be my most popular blog. I have no idea who my audience is, but I'd love a comment from you; just letting me know who you are and how you made your way to my page. Cheers! -Sean

My Top Ten Scooby-Doo Stories

It's been about a week since Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery was released, but I've only just managed to track down a copy of it. And what can I say? It was a bit of a bizarre entry in the Scooby canon. Any time the gang has a 'We meet somebody famous' episode, there's always the threat of too much time having to be allotted to the guest stars. And while KISS did admirably well for a new generation of audience (who probably has no idea who they are), the story was a bit of an oddity.

At the risk of spoiling it, a good chunk of the story is spent in a chemically induced hallucination, i.e. a drug trip. Totally not kidding there. Nobody deliberately takes drugs but the trip is there, in all of its family entertainment glory. If you're watching it with children you'll probably want a heads up for the conversation that may and should happen afterwards. But hey, that's rock and roll.

As for the rest of it, the animation is as stunning as the past several direct to DVD movies have been. The gang all gets their moments. And the combination of classic KISS songs with a prerequisite Scooby chase scene through the world's trippiest amusement park certainly rivals the bulk of music videos created today.

Overall, it's a decent film. If you're into KISS, definitely go for it. If you're really into Scooby like I am, then also go for it. If you're only kind of into Scooby then there's better stuff out there.

What kind of other stuff? Well, I'm glad I pretended you asked. Scooby-Doo has a 46 year and counting history of shows, movies, specials and miscellaneous appearances including the epic fan fiction Scooby-Doo's Unsolved Mystery written by yours truly, which happens to be available on this very blog site through this link. But let's say you only kind of like Scooby-Doo and you don't want to have to peruse through the whole library yourself just to find the good ones. I'm happy to say that you're in luck, because after a painstaking couple of minutes I've complied a list of ten Scooby stories that I feel just have something 'special' about them.

10. Scooby Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005 DVD)

This video was part of the second wave of Scooby DVDs, heavily influenced by the What's New, Scooby-Doo? series. I simply adore the TV show, but I have to say that most of the movies from this period felt like episodes that were needlessly padded out to fill an eighty minute plot. And this one is really about the same as the ensemble around it if it weren't for one detail; the use of Velma.

It's hard to talk much about it without spoiling the plot (an aspect of Scooby-Doo that has become surprisingly important in the recent decades). But I will say that there is a point in the film where the gang believes Velma has been killed.

It's a Scooby movie, so the handling of it doesn't become overly heavy handed, but it is in there. And the image of Scooby howling for her is still a bit haunting. When you think of Scooby-Doo as a franchise you typically remember the slapstick chase scenes set to peppy music and the plethora of tropes that have entered the population's vocabulary; and those elements are important to the series. But at its core, Scooby-Doo is a kid's franchise about facing something unpleasant and overcoming it. And this video shows a poignant side to Mystery Inc. in demonstrating how they deal with death.

9. Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy (2014 DVD)

You may remember last summer when this video stirred up a little controversy over Daphne's dress size ballooning into obesity. I think people made a bigger deal out of it that it was, but there were still a few bits that were worthy of concern. Obesity, and the way people whose bodies are obese are treated, are very important issues. It's possible that Scooby-Doo may have tapped into them a little deeper than they were prepared to handle. It's a fair discussion, but at the end of the day it's still Scooby-Doo. We don't exactly hold Fred Jones accountable for teaching kids about trespassing.

Moving past that, the best Scooby-Doo stories are the ones that could not have happened to any other protagonists, and Frankencreepy requires the Scooby gang be present. It's a double dose of homage to both the classic Universal film as well as the classic Scooby adventures. Once again Velma is at the center of the story, but the rest of the gang all have subplots targeting something about them personally. What can I say? It works a hell of a lot better than that damned 2002 live action movie.

8. Bedlam in the Big Top (1969 episode)

I really wanted to include a classic episode on this list, and Bedlam was the one that stood out the most.

Watching the old Scooby-Doo episodes is a bit like revisiting the classic Doctor Who series. It takes a bit of resolve to get through them. But here we are in the very first season, in a time before musical chase scenes and when Shaggy still actually had a bit of a spine. This was when Scooby-Doo was developing its own vocabulary and template. You can turn to What a Night for a Knight, Hassle in the Castle, or A Night of Fright is No Delight for better examples of a typical Scooby-Doo caper but Bedlam in the Big Top features a unique idea that I would love to see revisited. Namely, the fiend who coerces the gang into putting themselves into danger.

I have a theory that the quality of a Scooby story correlates to whether or not Daphne matters. And while this episode didn't exactly give her any development, she at least had some screen time. And there was something about the way Ghost Clown brought out a smile in her as she was being hypnotized that has always stayed with me. You have to wonder what kind of darkness she actually carries in her.

But the payoff in the episode is Shaggy. As a child I had very few characters I felt like I could relate to, and by default Shaggy was my guy. The Ghost Clown had already put Scooby on the trapeze and Daphne on the tightrope, but when he sent Shaggy into the lion's cage I felt this rare mix of concern and excitement. It was more than a little gratifying to see that Shaggy is the one who figures out how to defeat the clown at the end.

7. E-Scream (2006 episode)

What's New, Scooby-Doo? is probably the apex of the Scooby series. It seems like every one of its 42 episodes found a different trope to deconstruct, and it never got old. Clearly this show was created with a multi-generational audience in mind, as some of the mysteries are surprisingly sophisticated. You can't look at an episode like The San Franpsycho without wondering how the production team managed to cram a back story, a guest voice, multiple red herrings and three chase scenes into a mere 22 minutes.

Fred steals practically every episode, with veteran Frank Welker finding that sweet spot between no-nonsense leader of the old series and the buffoon of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Mindy Cohn has taken over as Velma and also find the perfect blend of classic enthusiasm and humor-potential snark. But it's Daphne who gets the most needed makeover. Grey DeLisle-Griffin's background in comedy invariably had an influence on the way her character was written. To this day Daphne's personality has yet to be nailed down, but DeLisle-Griffin is clearly having fun fleshing her out.

I could recommend just about any mystery in this series, but it's the finale episode that really breaks the mold. To say anything about E-Scream would ruin the fun. Suffice to say, it's telling just how vital each member of Mystery Inc. is to the show's dynamic; in that you can end a series with the dog's name in the title on a Velma-centric episode and it still feels right.

6. Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost (1999 DVD)

I'm sure there's a reason they sometimes put an exclamation point after Scooby-Doo in the titles of these things and sometimes don't.

This one came out on the heels of Zombie Island, which was really the home video that revived the whole franchise with an impressively animated foray into real supernatural occurrences. Witch's Ghost takes it a step further by bringing in Tim Curry as Ben Ravencroft, introducing the Hex Girls (who should have had a spin-off by now), and upping the ante of the Scooby formula. Twice.

First up is a romantic angle between Velma and Ben (wonder how that works out). Then of course there's the central mystery, which is spaced out carefully. And just when it feels like things are wrapping up there comes a bonus act. Again, it's hard to talk about the film without spoiling it. But it was an instant classic when it was first released, and it still works as a holiday tradition anywhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving; kind of unique.

5. Night of the Living Doo (2001 special)

Scooby-Doo has been parodied by everybody. Even House of Mouse did a nod to it on at least one occasion. But nothing has quite the gusto of Scooby and the gang lampooning themselves. There was a famous Johnny Bravo episode involving Mystery Inc. which escalated into one of the all time great chase sequences, but that was a showcase for Johnny Bravo first and foremost. Night of the Living Doo is pure Scooby.

David Cross is particularly brilliant flip-flopping between comic and straight man depending on the situation. Gary Coleman tries so hard to be the unwanted voice of sensibility. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy appears out of nowhere. And of course there's Mark Hamill, because Mark Hamill. It's the Scooby and the gang at their most irreverent.

It's a testament to just how strong these characters are that they can parody themselves and never stop being themselves. Hanna-Barbera created the show and followed it up with at least half a dozen Scooby clone shows, and none of them (Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, etc.) ever matched the iconicness of the original team. But when you can do self-parody and still walk away, that's pretty versatile.

4. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013 series)

Yep. The whole damn series. Sorry, but that's the way it goes when you ave an overarching plot that spans 52 episodes.

It wasn't their best series, but it was probably their ballsiest. There are certainly weaknesses. Fred's obsession with traps almost comes across as a fetish, and one that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. There's the animation shift in style, which honestly just takes some getting used to. And then there's the teen-aged relationship drama which got in the way more than it didn't. Velma and Shaggy dating? We all knew that wasn't going to end well.

But at the same time, this was the series that got to break the rules. When someone's feelings were hurt, you felt it. There wasn't a wisecrack that restored the status quo. When it was funny, it was What's New, Scooby-Doo? funny. But when it got serious, it got dark.

Season 2 in particular really took off the gloves. Bad things happened to good people. Tragedy struck. Likable characters were killed. This isn't your father's show about kicking the Creeper in the kneecap.

But this was ultimately Scooby's show. It was a fascinating character study to watch the cowardly Great Dane throw down the gauntlet when he was pushed over the line; and he was. There's an inner badass lurking beneath all of the whimpering and jumping into Shaggy's arms. If the cosmetic issues of the series kept you from giving it a chance, I'd really like to encourage you to try it again. There's a real gem in Crystal Cove.

3. Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001 DVD)

Okay, full disclosure: this is the lamest mystery the gang has ever taken for-freaking-ever to figure out. But that's not the point of this one. It's all about the romp through the virtual world, featuring (count 'em) three musical chase scenes.

The gang arrives via invitation to the anonymously named State University where their friend has invented a machine that transfers living matter into computer data a la Tron. Of course he uses this global changing technology to create a Scooby-Doo video game. But an evil virus that looks a little like Freakazoid's mannequin enters the real world and does some truly, unforgivably inconvenient things to the SU campus.

And here's the fun factor from the get-go. We know it's a real virus and not some janitor in a virus costume (?) which means Shaggy and Scooby get to dole out the biggest first act beating they've ever inflicted on the main villain. It's kind of gratifying.

Inevitably the gang winds up being pulled into the virtual world where they have to play through each of the ten levels of the game, collecting the box of Scooby Snacks that has been hidden about twenty yards away from their entry point. It's not a very good game. And while the 'anything goes' fantasy world is never fully realized, it still proves to be a lot of fun.

And then comes the final level where it really gets good. The gang encounters virtual versions of themselves, and Daphne (in probably her first real moment of character development) shows a subtle sign of not getting along with herself. We have a few surprise cameos from former monsters (What is it about the Creeper that makes his appearance so cool?) and multiple victories for the entire cast. And, oh yeah, the culprit turns out to be exactly who you think it is.

2. The Scooby-Doo Project (1999 special)

This was a series of about one minute segments parodying The Blair Witch Project that aired on The Cartoon Network and was then compiled into short film format. At the time Blair Witch was all the rage, and everybody was doing a send-up of it, but Scooby was the best.

The Scooby gang were all the 2D style drawings set to a live action background and a real Mystery Machine. The then-current voice cast all reprised their roles from Witch's Ghost including Frank Welker as Fred, B.J. Ward as Velma, Scott Innes as Shaggy and Scooby, and the much missed Mary Kay Bergman as Daphne.

This is an example of a parody that outdoes its source material. First off, the running time manages to hit all of the important beats of the movie without feeling rushed; Blair Witch should always have been a short film. Second, the insertion of the Scooby gang into the story somehow feels right. It would be harder to accept Fred and Daphne in a Paranormal Activity spoof, but Blair Witch was meant to be. Third, as funny as this is, it's also kind of creepy. To the best of my knowledge, this is Mystery Inc.'s only official venture into dark comedy. Their fate is left ambiguous.

1. Scooby Doo! Stage Fright (2013 DVD)

Okay, so why this one? What sets this above the rest of Scooby's misadventures? To begin with, the production team started with an inspired idea, take a classic horror story like The Phantom of the Opera and combine it with a (mostly) current pop culture phenomenon; in this case the American Idol craze. That's solid enough for a Scooby story, but then they got ambitious.

What we are treated to is a complicated plot borrowing quite a number of ideas (a famous Agatha Christie mystery comes to mind) carefully woven together. I can't risk spoiling the journey, but Stage Fright is one of their most cleverly crafted mysteries to date. And they still found time to work in a narrative that could only be a Scooby-Doo story.

It may be an overstatement to say this film has everything, but for the life of me I can't think of what they could have left out. Fred gets some Batman: the Animated Series styled action. Daphne gets some Meg Ryan. Shaggy and Scooby remind us that they do in fact have sleuthing abilities. And Velma gets all the best lines. The humor is sharp. The chases are choreographed. And we even have a couple of new songs to showcase the singing talents of DeLisle-Griffin and Welker.

The short version, Stage Fright is the new bar for Scooby's production staff to aim for, and it's going to be a tough feat. Just know I've got a box of Scooby Snacks here and I'm prepared to start distributing them.

Editorial: Who is Monty Python?

It was this time last year that the five remaining members of the Monty Python troupe presented their farewell performances at the O2. And while their body of work under the name 'Monty Python' essentially ended with 1983's The Meaning of Life, the team has continued to endure in various forms for over 45 years now. Acknowledging founding member Graham Chapman's death in 1989, the Monty Python team has actually existed longer without Chapman than with.


So what is it about this group of comedy scholars that just seems to continue to feel 'currently active'? Even in a performance of Spamalot involving nobody of the troupe, it still feels like Mr. Python is present and irrepressible as ever.


When you look at The Rolling Stones, a band that has been together since 1962, it somehow doesn't feel like the n factor that made them The Rolling Stones is present anymore. In the same way, The Beatles ended when they ended, a full decade before John Lennon's death. Monty Python is a curiosity that continues to thrive, even in spite of its own creators trying to shut it down.


To figure out how this strange creature keeps kicking, it may be necessary to understand what Monty Python is; no easy task. You could probably pose the question to a single member of the troupe twice in one day and get conflicting answers. You can't really nail down the Python anymore than you can nail down a solid definition of comedy, but that doesn't mean the attempt would produce nothing of value. So let's look at it.

The Larch's Seeds

You could make a case that much of Great Britain's current comedic sensibilities are a direct byproduct of World War II. When you look at the programmes which resonated so loudly in Europe that we heard it here in the States, there is a noticeable preoccupation with death. Perhaps this was also a reflection of the British Empire's decline, but when you look at the classic Doctor Who serials, there is a lot of death that nobody reacts to.

When you tie these elements into the teenage rampage of the sixties leading into Beatlemania, it's almost like watching the phoenix emerge from the ashes. Whatever rebelliousness was happening in British culture at the time also coincided with the emergence of television, a medium seeking out voices.

David Frost, a man who probably deserves both the praise and criticism he receives, inevitably emerged as the very face and personality of television. The Frost Report tapped the veritable Who's Who of British comedy writers who would go on to become the vital organs of the entire generation of comedy as we know it, including the future Pythons.

Eric Idle once identified John Cleese as the 'head' of Python, and Terry Jones as the 'heart'. Much of the creative tension between those two forces produced the epic flavor of surreal comedy that gave us the name Monty Python; absolute nonsense, yet somehow effectively defined by what the beast felt like it was.

Oxford vs. Cambridge

On the one side you had the Palin-Jones sketches, comprised of Oxford educated friends Michael Palin and Terry Jones. Their style tended to be right brained, with a strong sense of visual presentation, and a lot of off the wall ideas. Jones would go on to direct the Python films, and it was his passion for the overall feel of the show which molded the individual episodes into their own 'thing'.

What you can recognize the most in the Oxford boys on the Myers-Briggs scale is an overwhelming sense of intuitiveness. The Palin-Jones team could easily be credited with giving Monty Python his childish delight, be it innocent or naughty. Like a child, there is the thrill of discovery; a belief that if you peel back the layers of reality and let the silliness run rampant, the world will undoubtedly become a somewhat more amiable place.

That optimism was not present among the Cambridge chaps. Both of these men were taller, and had the look of the authority figures Monty Python would be lampooning, and perhaps by unconscious effect their sketches tended to be based on the humor of adulthood. Graham Chapman and John Cleese wrote sketches very verbally (well, Cleese did), concise and carefully structured. In Cleese's account, any sketch that started with an ordinary situation and ended with people screaming at each other was a Chapman-Cleese sketch.

I find this dichotomy in Monty Python to be particularly fascinating. Unlike the Oxford team, who welcomed a sense of chaos in its harmlessness, the Cambridge team seemed to show a genuine fear of that x-factor. Their beast behind the veil wasn't a whimsical creature, but a destructive force that could barely be contained.

There are legendary tales of Cleese and Jones locking horns. Probably each man represented an insurmountable obstacle to the other. But some wonderful things happened during that clash.

The Bridge Troll

I don't think Terry Gilliam would mind the title.

Gilliam was in a unique position, in that he never had to submit anything to the group for approval. He simply did whatever he needed to do to fill the time which had been allotted to him for an episode. Gilliam's animations may very well have rescued Holy Grail from losing the audience's attention span.

Terry Gilliam, with his college aged American sensibilities in the sixties, had a spirit of anarchy (which seems to continue into his seventies). There was probably no comedian more equipped to serve as the bridge between right brained Oxford and left brained Cambridge.

His animations may have represented (in its purest form) that stuff that made Monty Python who he is. It's significant that many of the crude cutouts Gilliam used were taken from respectable paintings and then crammed into a meat grinder. There was some real envelope pushing violence Monty Python got away with on television because of Gilliam. It was almost like a stream of raw material that flowed between Cambridge and Oxford; that creek where the Pythons came to play.

So I Became a Waiter

There's a reason I've saved Eric Idle for last. When you think of Monty Python, you probably remember the dead parrot, the silly walk (Cleese-Chapman contributions), the Spanish Inquisition, the Lumberjack song (Jones-Palin sketches) and the Gilliam animated title sequence(s). What of Eric Idle?

There's Nudge, Nudge of course and a majority of the Python songs, but it's a fair question (on the surface) to ask how needed Idle really was to the overall quality of the comedic entity. Well to skip a bit, I'm of the opinion that the whole reason Python worked the way it did was because of Eric Idle.

Watching several post-Python interviews with the surviving members, I keep hearing Idle being referred to as the most philosophical of the Pythons. So what the hell does that mean? Translated into comedy, Idle was the one who truly understood timing. His contribution came in the form of an intuitive ordering of structure; cutting this sketch off here, bringing this linking bit in, cutting to the animation and so forth. When the other Pythons spoke straight into the lens it was like they were speaking to the camera. Idle's eye contact felt like he was actually addressing the audience.

The Circus needed a ringmaster to actually function, and Idle may have taken the role on more selflessly than any other ringmaster in entertainment. Unlike David Frost, who was a master of looking like he had written the jokes he was telling, Idle really wrote his monologues and really understood the ambiguous reptile named Monty. In essence, Eric Idle served as the link between the chaos and the audience, and the pieces of Monty Python would never have held together without him.

And Now the Punchline...

The question of who Monty Python is remains on the table and it is doubtful anyone will agree with my answer, but here it goes. I believe Monty Python is the soul of comedy. Comedy existed well before the lads got hold of it and will continue to exist for as long as the human psyche has flaws. There was a living energy that flowed through the great comedians long before history was written down. It flowed through the Marx Brothers and the Muppets and the Satellite of Love. But in the late sixties, through the brilliance of six comedians in their top form who were touched so deeply by the muse, comedy was given a name.

And it had a much nicer liberty bell bong to it than Bunn, Whackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot.

Poetry Slam: With Six You Get an Apology

It's funny in a way, when I started this blog my intention was to go through the past couple of decades of stuff I'd written just to compile it all into a central location. But then I had to start doing reviews, and having opinions, and...well...you can see how it's been turning out.

Still, I thought it might be slightly fun and mostly stamina testing to look back on where I've come from as an attempted writer. Which mean I'm digging out the high school notebooks with all of the teenage angst ridden light verse.

In ninth grade, my English teacher assigned us a choice of poetry projects, and I opted to write a parody of a famous poem. I went with Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. I'm not strong enough to reprint my version here, but I credited the snow themed stanzas to another Frost poet named Misty.

What I learned about poetry, was that the conciseness of it allowed one to feel a sense of accomplishment over a completed half page of content. Over the next couple of years a few other opportunities to fulfill an assignment by poem presented themselves, and I dusted Misty off each time.

Writing through a fictional persona gave me a sense of freedom to be a little less judgmental of the end result (and it shows), but it also granted me a sense of quantity in developing a kind of style. I started off trying to write purely humorous pieces, or 'light' when the humor seemed absent from them. But as I was in my late teens and heading into the dreaded adulthood (combined with then-unrealized chronic depression) Misty became kind of the voice for any kind of expression I was able to find for myself.

Here is a little bit of what I wrote back then.

Opening Night

This is probably the first poem I wrote where I wasn't still trying to tie Misty to Robert Frost in some capacity. I have it listed as a 1989 poem which probably places me in spring of my eleventh grade year, right after we performed Hello, Dolly!.

No golden trophy compensates

A soul's undying feat

To strike the set undaunted,

To repel a roved repeat.

No silver medal inundates

The final chorus bow.

No blushing ushers rush to dab

The tired, furrowed brow.

Within the one who speculates

On finalized accord

And mocks the common dissonance

Is found the true reward.

I'm noticing two trends here that still affect my writing today, as well as my perceived 'quality' of writing. One is my gratuitous use of vocabulary words, even if they don't necessarily fit the context properly. The other is my basic love of internal rhyming.

When It's Over

This one is from 1990, following the Teen Theatre production of Godspell for which I was called upon to act, sing, dance and be crucified. It was probably the most intense stage production I've ever been a part of, having gone into it knowing literally nobody else in the cast and working so closely with them for as long as we did. After the production ended, it really felt like I was going through a breakup, and this poem (containing no fewer than three references to the soundtrack) was my way of giving the show an epitaph.

Last week I went out walking.

What else was there to do?

All the stress was over.

The tribulation through.

I stood beside a stream

Which flowed without a cause.

My memories were cluttered

With loneliness and flaws.

Day by day I came there

With willows by my side

Until I heard some laughter

And watched my grief divide.

I turned to find the laughter.

Whose joy could sing so free?

And as I turned I realized

The laughter came from me.

Neurosis

Yep, learned a new word in my high school psychology class. I must have still been hung up on Godspell where I opened this one with the beatitudes. Aside from that, I don't think anything really inspired this one except that I was a teenager, and as such I felt that the world around me was already functioning without a clear place for me.

Happy are those who are gentle and soft

For theirs is the bread that will leaven.

Happy are those who are heckled and scoffed

For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Happy are those who are blind to their pride

For they are the ones who will see.

But what of the smile that's been wounded inside

With a rage disallowed to be free.

Yes, why is the world so determined to laugh

That it won't take the moment to cry?

Why do we bend our emotions in half

When they grant us the passion to fly?

Look at the pills we consume to escape

Being buried alive by repression.

Bribing a doctor to listen and gape

Brings us further in debt with each session.

Why must we wait for the angels above

To lift all of our stresses away?

All we require is someone to love

With no superficial display.

I want to care for a soul who is grieving.

No cover, no shield and no fee.

I want the world to have trust in believing.

But who gives a damn about me?

I know. It's so cute the way I've figured it all out, isn't it?

It's really interesting to me now to see the negative opinion I clearly had back then about therapy and mood stabilizing prescription drugs. For the record, I've seen many therapists since then, and I currently take depression meds. Also, my rhyming hypothesis about only needing love proved to be a bit unfounded, as I learned the hard way. Ginny (my wife, in case it's not self-evident) is the best thing that has ever happened to me. But within the first year of our marriage, my depression hit full force, and I wound up spending some time in a psych ward, where I learned quickly that antidepressants were not going to make me any less me. It turns out the depression was actually doing that.

Regardless, I'd like to mention that this poem was a bit of a milestone for me, in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever written an obscenity down. I'd avoided swearing for the first fifteen years of my life before finally starting to dabble with the 'television acceptable' words in tenth grade. But having written this poem DOWN (and in PENCIL no less) there was definitive proof that I was no longer the squeaky clean Cherub I used to be. I've gotten very versatile with profanity since then.

Song of the Spyre

We're still in 1990, but I've graduated by this point and I'm not exactly looking to the future with hope.

I don't know why I came up with this spelling of the word 'spire', but I wanted to create an alternate variation on the muse/guardian angel concept, possibly imagining the Spyre of the poem as Misty herself. By this point I was imagining her as new age goth-type, even if that wasn't a thing that had quite caught on yet. But she'd come full circle, what with me borrowing from Robert Frost again; although this time I'm not being humorous. On purpose anyway.

For the record, the last three words in this poem are yet another deliberate callback to Godspell.

Two roads in wood diverged, and I?

I just kept walking toward the sky.

And with the junction far behind

I pushed the two roads from my mind

And made a pathway of my own.

So wearily I went alone.

The endless trail proceeded dry

So much I had to sit and cry

Until a Spyre heard my plea.

She took my hand and walked with me.

And on we journeyed into night

With sky lit black and stars lit white.

She, to my ease, did not away

But sang instead, "You'll never stray

Alone in this horizon wide.

I'll always be there by your side."

Debbie Kicked Me

I really have no explanation for this one. Just know I'm three years into college, and it's inspired by an actual event.

One day, while I was thinking, rather casually, of anything that struck a chord in my imagination I discovered that my mind can operate in any fashion that I want.

And while I wandered in a daze of windows leading nowhere, candlesticks, and astroturf, and run-on sentences, I felt a sudden added pressure to my thigh that made my body jaunt.

I whirled around to face the culprit. Maybe I was loitering and someone in the building had the order to evict me.

But soon I came to realize, the only thing which had occurred was (did you read the title?) Debbie kicked me.

I'll never truly understand her reasoning for this. Perhaps her body had been taken over by a demigod.

I'd find it rather odd if this were true. But on the other hand, I guess I also find her rather odd.

I originally had the intention of continuing this poem into an epic about the various people in the world I'd look forward to kicking myself. But even my muse that had set this thing in motion jumped in and suggested I cut my losses and walk away from this one.

Star of Love

Last one for this blog. I'm still in college here, but every once in a while I've taken to trying my brain at songwriting, despite my lack of skill with any instrument. I obviously can't include the music that's meant to go with the lyrics here, but the song is meant to be sung as a kind of lullaby.

If I ever get In Vanessa's Room pulled together, this song will most definitely be on the roster (You can read more about that here if you're interested). Good night!

Star in the night

Dances set in flight

Whispering abound

Laughing to the ground

Glittering

The clouds and trees

And glistening the lake

Softly sighing

Through the breeze

That drifts into a wake

Star of love

You smile above

I'm gazing from below

Imagining

The distant worlds

You know

Shine on me

Your mystery

So far away you seem

But lay your head beside me while

I dream

Light in the sky

Reflections soaring by

Reaching for your hand

To be carried to another land

Swirling in

A lost design

Where rainbows chase the rain

Chanting muses

Still benign

For whether cast or vain

Star of love

Releasing dove

The magic that you bring

I wish upon you

Hold me in

Your wing

Play with me

In fantasy

And show me how to fly

And let me dive beside you from

The sky

Stream slumbers deep

Clowns and angels weep

Oceans everlast

But the dreams vanish fast

Time is still

But surging on

With visions out of sight

Shattered crowns

Can barely don

The mourning of the knight

Star of love

The wonders of

The streak

Of falling glow

That dimly trails

The journey where

You go

Think of me

In memory

The one who loves you free

But don't look back

There's nothing left

To see

A Good Game is Rare: The Rise and Fall of Monkey Mountain

Back in the SNES era of videogames there was a friendly/heated rivalry with Sega. It was the non-sports enthusiast's alternative to My Team vs. Your Team. This being the days before the internet, the rivalry was sorely limited to outlets like the magazine letters column and game store banter, but it was definitely there. My favorite example was on the underrated SNES game Uniracers, which would garner you a protest from the programmers if you dared try to use the name 'Sonic' as your avatar.

Suffice to say, Mario emerged as the mascot with the better career, and it looked like he was going to be unstoppable during his N64 period. But then Nintendo backed out of their deal with Sony and their disc based system. Sony, being understandably angry, decided to release their hardware anyway, and the Playstation was born.

The Nintendo/Sega rivalry carried over into the next generation, intensified by bad blood. For example, Sony's whole marketing strategy with Crash Bandicoot was to have the costumed character calling out Nintendo from the parking lot with a megaphone.

To make matters worse, Squaresoft had been one of Nintendo's biggest cash cows on the SNES, with the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, and the much beloved Super Mario RPG. But Sony worked out exclusivity with Square, which led to the Playstation only Final Fantasy VII (and this unprecedented love affair with boring, brooding Cloud Strife).

The N64 started hurting very quickly. Super Mario 64 was available right out of the gate, and was awesome. And Wave Race to this day remains the greatest jet ski game in history. But Zelda got delayed for over a year, and Nintendo's third party developers really had trouble with the cartridge-based system. The game library was noticeably sparse.

And then there was Rare.

Nintendo's primary ally in the nineties may very well have kept Nintendo in business. I've always wondered why Nintendo turned down the deal to buy out Rare completely going into the Gamecube. When you think of Rare, you think of the Rare of the nineties. And this week's blog is my personal experience with the game company from the United Kingdom who could do no wrong.

Until they did.

Every Secret of Monkey Island

We really have to start with the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. They had some hits prior to that, notably the Killer Instinct franchise, which for me (merely tolerating the one-on-one fighting genre) was random button bashing and a bunch of noise and B. Orchid. But it was the return of the iconic ape that really pulled you into this fantastic world.

DKC was a platformer, in the vein of the Super Mario Brothers series, but something about the jungle beat and the grunts that the reptiles made as you trounced them just made you feel the gorilla. Donkey had a personality now. He would occasionally mug the camera or beat on his chest like he was subtly hoping for the player's approval. He had a brotherly fondness for a Curious George type sidekick named Diddy. He endured the cartoony abuse from his elder. And when he saw his bananas were stolen he hung his head in sadness. Donkey Kong was a real character now.

Of course it didn't hurt that the gameplay was solid, both satisfying and frustrating in all the right ways. And when DK stepped out of the spotlight for the sequel it opened up a position for Dixie Kong, one of the greatest (neglected) female game characters on consoles of the time.

Donkey Kong Country 2 is rightfully hailed as one of the most perfect games ever made. There were a lot of secret areas in DKC1, but 2 implemented a system to let you know whether or not you'd found them all, and gave you an alternate ending for the added effort. It's also funny, looking at Diddy and Dixie together. We know from the manual that they are dating, but nothing about their behavior indicates that except for the amount of comfort they have with each other. Even amidst hornets and phantasms trying to kill them, Dixie can't resist tasting the honey-lined walls she's climbing and Diddy has to put his hands up on the roller coaster of death.

Then comes Donkey Kong Country 3, which gets a bit of flack. Some of it is deserved. No gamer wants to deal with a damn baby. When Dixie takes a hit and starts crying, you want to put your arms around her, but when that God awful Kiddy Kong throws a tantrum you just want to drown his ass.

The gameplay is just as good as in its predecessor, and some of the level designs are truly creative. In fact, there's not really anything to complain about if you take the game as a solitary experience. It's when you compare it to DKC2 that the weaknesses start showing up. Mainly, while each individual level is fun in its own way, there's not really the sense of overarching mood that the past game had. In DKC2 you really feel like you're going in one pirate ship and out another, through a theme park and a beehive and back out. DKC3 comes across as a later season of a TV show you've invested in where the ongoing story arcs are abandoned in favor of a more episodic format. It's not bad, just a little disappointing.

Party Like it's 1997

If memory serves, Donkey Kong Country 3 was the last SNES game released to which anyone paid attention. Eyes were on Nintendo's newest system, which came out of the gate roaring and then stalled and stayed there. Rare rolled out a new Killer Instinct, but it wasn't until the following year that they started giving us their A-game.

First came Blast Corps, which is a gem of a concept that I haven't seen duplicated anywhere else. There is a computer controlled transport vehicle carrying a nuclear bomb, which malfunctions and has to head straight to a shelter before it explodes. Unfortunately, there are several towns worth of empty buildings in the way, and you have to bulldoze/shoot/ram them out of the way. It's the idea Michael Bay wishes he could have. The learning curve is easy, but the difficulty ramps up REAL QUICK. You're not meant to rent this game, you're meant to own it, and pull your hair out in frustration until that damned dump truck finally swings in the miracle arc without stopping.

And on the heels of Blast Corps came GoldenEye 007. Now I'm also not a fan of first person shooters, but I fully understand what people who are see in this game. On top of being a movie-to-game adaptation that people actually liked, the mayhem and death count really was fun. And that of course carried over into the multiplayer. It was just simple enough and complex enough to find that perfect balance.

And finally Diddy Kong came back with a Mario Kart emulation that added collection quests, an adventure element, and Lord knows how many challenges. What Mario 64 did for running around, Diddy did for driving. It was fun and it was hard, and so worth the effort. Of note was the appearance of both Banjo and Conker as playable characters before either of them had there own games on the market.

Dueling Banjos

The following year was Banjo-Kazooie, a title that looks like nonsense but may have been the most perfect 3D platformer ever created. It's been almost twenty years and this game is still great. I can't think of another game that feels as rewarding of exploration as Banjo-Kazooie. There are so many times where you're just going, "I wonder what's over here -oh, awesome!" Even the nuisance level Rusty Bucket Bay comes at the right time and is really not as bad as people claim it is. This whole game feels like one big Easter Egg hunt, quite literally when you finally go into hacker mode.

At the end of the game, Mumbo the shaman reveals that there is going to be a sequel, insisting that it is going to make Banjo-Kazooie look like a joke. So expectation were high for the sequel. Banjo-Tooie hit the shelves two years later.

Eh.

It probably had more fun bits than I remember, but the game just seemed to be more work than play. Fetch quests weren't satisfying anymore. It was more, "Oh wait, I can't open that door yet because I haven't hit this button on this other world, but I need that ability first and I've got to get rid of Kazooie and somehow get back on top of the mountain." The game was bigger, but Rare filled the space with tedium.

Part of the problem was that the developers were starting to throw all their tricks into each game. Hance, every Banjo-Tooie level has an obligatory first person shooter challenge, a vehicle mini-game, and way too many timed events. I'm actually convinced that Rare was beginning to develop a negative attitude towards gamers, as we were being given challenges to just keep us busy.

Striking the Kong

There were some other ttitles Rare released that people seemed to like, which I frankly haven't played. Jet Force Gemini got a positive response and was hailed as the spiritual successor to Blast Corps, while Perfect Dark filled the kind-of-next-GoldenEye void. And then there was Donkey Kong 64.

Dear God, I get exhausted just thinking about this abomination. Take the frustrating elements of Banjo-Tooie, having to swap characters out at specific locations, and then imagine it with five characters. It starts out fine, but it gets old by the second level. So since I've wasted too much of my life playing this game I'm going to sum up.

1. I like Tiny Kong, but why no Dixie?

2. Lanky was cool too. Chunky was unneeded.

3. They killed Wrinkly for no damn reason.

4. The best was when DK had to play his own arcade game. That's not a good sign Rare.

5. Holy hell Candy! Were you trying to one-up Lara Croft?

6. The DK Theme is stupid, but it is the greatest stupid theme song. Ever.

Rated M For Misuse of the Word 'Mature'

Fun fact about me: I NEVER throw video games away, or trade them in for that matter. I will probably never see Attack of the Timelord! or Quest for the Rings brighten up the TV screen in front of my Odyssey 2 again, but damn it, I'm holding on to those cartridges from now until the flying spaghetti invasion. But there is one isolated time I have ever considered returning a game to the store.

Conker's Bad Fur Day.

You know, it's honestly my fault. All the warning signs were there. The game was being touted as "Nintendo grows up" which in retrospect I take to mean "made it into...seventh grade?" Scatological 'humor' everywhere. Obscenities beyond gratuitous. Violence that was deliberately mean spirited. And my God! Chris Seavor's voice just makes me want to choke him so many times over. I hate this f**king game.

But it was from Rare, a company whose work I had respected, admired, and overlooked the monotony of when it happened. I thought, how bad could this game be? It was worse than I could have imagined. Conker's inability to jump, swim, or speak with any finesse still makes me want to pull my hair out. The game's movie parodies were essentially reference humor, so prevalent movies like Meet the Spartans. The rest of the humor was completely devoid of actual humor, apart from the one joke "I can't believe they said THAT on a Nintendo game!" told over and over.

And to make matters worse, this piece of shit developed a very loud cult following, of which I seemed to travel in the online circles. I still see this game pop up on "funniest games of all time" lists and I die a little more each time. It's not funny, it's just pushing infantile buttons; button mashing them even.

Memories of three amazing Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES can't trump Conker as the first game that comes to mind when somebody mentions Rare, and I'll never forgive them for that.

Stop 'n Swop

I played Star Fox Adventures on the Gamecube, which was Rare's final Nintendo hurrah. It wasn't bad, just not very memorable. I know Fox got shoehorned in at the eleventh hour, but the game was honestly mediocre already. Then Microsoft bought Rare, and, I guess they're still relevant.

Maybe game companies have creative peaks and valleys just like individuals. It seems like Rare honestly blossomed brightest with Banjo-Kazooie. For all I know, Conker may have been an intentional self-destruct button, because it really felt like they no longer cared about their players.

Today I feel about Rare the way I feel about that friend I was really close to in my younger days, but either they changed or I grew up and they didn't. It was a fun relationship while it lasted, and if Rare sends me a friend request I'll accept it. But I've no reason to comment on their posts.