Opinion Piece: The many faces of satire

This is something I probably should have done long before now, back when I was reviewing Kickassia, Suburban Knights and To Boldly Flee. For those who have read them, you'll know that I praised the films (overall) as great comedies, but that could be my enjoyment of satire. But at face value, there may be a lingering belief, does this mean that I enjoy movies like the Movie movies, and to that I say no. But why? Why is there a difference between To Boldly Flee and something like Disaster Movie?

First off, its the references. With To Boldly Flee, yes its satirizing many different movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, Men in Black ect, the same as the Movie movies. But at the core, they're still satirizing themselves. Jesu Otaku being electrocuted and becoming Edward from Cowboy Bebop as a example. With something like Meet the Spartans, there's no smart self satire, just crude satire of anything thats popular and, in particular, current. In To Boldly Flee, every reference has something to do with either the genre or the characters, whereas with the Movie movies, the humor is aimed at anyone who has watched the mocked films, often resorting to "jokes" that to many people, aren't funny as it is just a reference. There were ridiculous amounts of "jokes" I've seen in some of those Movie movies that got nothing out of me other then "really?". Now granted, there have been cases where the films got a laugh out of me, like the road marker signs showing which path leads to safety, and the other leads to death. That was funny for me as it mocks one of tropes in Horror films. With the Movie movies, it comes off as a mockery of the original source, even if the source movie was still being worked on at the start of the production, with To Boldly Flee, the only obvious, at least for me, reference that wasn't anything to do with the producers and actors was the mockery of S.O.P.A, and that was because it was an issue during the production for them as Internet Critics. Every other reference is, at least to me, more of a homage to the source material. Yes it makes it look comedic, but in a more controlled way then the Movie movies. The use of Mario Kart's Blue shell as a example: its absolutely stupid to see it in To Boldly Flee, but it still has the weight of the shell in the games. The dread on their faces, the way the shell moves, the way it behaves is very similar to the way it works in the Mario Kart series. If you've ever had the shell float over you when you were in the lead, about to win, you know the feeling of dread when you see it, the feeling when you process "there goes my victory".

A big problem I personally have with the Movie movies is the budget, or lack there of, in the production. You can tell these movies were made as cheep as possible, and to me its insulting. But I hear you asking "But these movies were also done cheep, why are you praising them and hating the Movie movies?" And the reason why is because the Chanel Awesome anniversary movies were never at a cinema. I can't walk into a store or my local DVD rental shop and borrow them. The movie movies are. I remember first herd of the Movie movies when I saw the Epic Movie poster at one of the nearby cinema's here, same as Disaster Movie. So to see that these films were put into cinemas is a genuine insult for me. For the anniversary films, I can forgive the cheep budget, and they make do with what they can, producing some great films with what they had. The Movie movies scream "We did this so that we can make more profit". It looks intentionally cheep which is why I find it disgraceful. I give the Bayformers films a lot of hate, but at least they look like they deserve to be shown in cinemas... whether they do or not is subject to opinion. This is going to sound like another contradiction, so feel free to raise any Objections. But while I haven't seen the film yet, I also don't have that problem with Spaceballs because it adds to the comedy factor. To see the Millennium Falcon as a glorified RV, I think its hilarious, Darth Vader's costume being massively over sized and on someone as pathetic looking as Lord Dark Helmet (think, feel free to tell me I'm wrong if I am) I find hysterical.

So why am I defending Spaceballs and not the Movie movies? Because Spaceballs is, in concept, similar to Young Frankenstein. Both films take aspects of their source material and add comedic aspects to it. What if the blind made accidents? What if the denial of characters like Igor was to such a extent, they had no idea about parts of their bodies? It adds a comedic edge to the original source material. That's what people like about Young Frankenstein, Airplanes, Spaceballs, what I like about the Anniversary films and what the Movie movies lack. Its also one of the reasons why projects like Video Games Highschool took off and why spoof animations like Batman eating a Hotdog keep getting views to this day. Anyway, that's it for now, tomorrow: The Pikmin shorts

Pikmin Shorts: A day in the life of something smaller then an ant

There are a lot of franchises made by Nintendo that don't get a lot of the spotlight. F-Zero, Kid Icarus, Metroid, and one of the more recent franchises: Pikmin (though not as bad as some of the above). Three games have been made for the series... and at time of writing I have not played any of them. I'm curious about the series and I intend to play the newest one, Pikmin 3. Recently however, three short films have been posted to the WiiU and 3DS eshops. So, for the last post before the start of the marathon, time to take a look at the life of the Pikmin.

Sonic Colours: Time to Reach for the Stars

Since Blaster's Reviews started almost a year ago, 100 posts have been written, with this one making post 100 and the 43rd Review... No this doesn't have anything to do with today's review, just thought you'd like to know a few stats in the lead up to the Anniversary.

Ah Sonic, the turn of the millennium has not been kind to you has it? Fluctuating sales, SEGA cutting jobs and for the foreseeable future, your home is going to be on Mobile devices and PC downloads. Its sad to say that the last good console game Sonic will be in for now is Super Smash Brothers for WiiU. A lot of people say that Sonic hasn't had a good game between Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Generations, but as you could probably tell from my review of Sonic Unleashed, I disagree. Sonic had 6 games on the Wii with the last game being Sonic Colours. Now I want to make myself clear with this: Yes, I know that there is a DS version, I've played that version to death. But I'm sticking to the Wii Version with this review as I want to cover Colours DS when I eventually review the other Dimps Sonic games. Time to take off at the speed of sounds, with the bright lights and colours all around. Time to review, Sonic Colours.

Video Games High School: The ultimate training grounds

This was a wired bit of curiosity for me. I first saw this at a gaming event, gave it a look... one week later I was caught up waiting for the next episode of the second season (bypassing my old school's proxy in the process as it had some stupid limitations...). I don't usually watch High School Drama's as when I think of those words in the same sentence, bad memories of some of my sister's favorite shows and movies return... But unlike those, this does have some actual effort in it, especially considering it was just a small cast and crew working on it. But for now, with the final season completed, time to review Video Games High School.

Harmony of Heroes: "So this is Yoshi's B. This monkey wants to hug him"

Its of no surprise that I'm a fan of the Super Smash Brothers series. Smash 64, Brawl, Smash 3DS and currently Smash Wii U (will review later on) have brought me hours of joy that I wouldn't trade for anything, whether it was alone, with friends or in small tournaments I went to. And while I wait for Project M to get a PAL version (still waiting guys... yes I know I can mod my Wii, I don't want to risk that (not to mention its currently put away)), one fan project caught my eyes. I came across this while I was checking if Project M updated and gave it a listen... and seeing as where I'm posting this, it should give you an idea as to what I'm doing. To close out the (unintentional) "Week of Fan Projects", Harmony of Heroes and its expansion, Harmony of Heroes: Final Smash.

Playlist Fillers: The Library of Overclocked Remix

One of the things I love doing is listening to remixes, to see just what people can do while still replicating the theme of the original piece. There have been remixers who have gained jobs doing what they love doing and seeing the fruits of their labor can be absolutely beautiful. To open this new mini series, lets start off with one of the biggest remixing site online, Overclocked Remix. A site dedicated to getting the fruits of remixers work out to the public. It's not a place you go for money, almost everything on there is put up by the creators for free and all based on Video Game music. To say that the expression "for the love of the work" applies is a massive understatement. For this, I'll be using the official torrent on their site (yes there is such a thing as official torrents) from October 15th, everything here can be found both in that torrent and on the site itself. I also want to stress that these types of posts ARE NOT and WILL NOT be Top X Lists. These songs aren't ranked and these posts are meant to help support the artists. With that out of the way:

Turnabout Musical: This is what happens when you hang around with a group of friends who like Ace Attorney

Over the years, as one uses the internet more and more, you start to become less and less surprised at thing. More and more glitches in Sonic 06: meh. People discovering a way to transfer Gen I and II Pokemon into Gen VI: its only happening now? A musical based on the Ace Attorney games: ... what? This was one of the things I genuinely went "this can't be a thing", as you can probably guess, it is a thing. Now for the purposes of this, as I haven't been able to find all the songs at time of writing (27/1/2015) nor an actual viewing of the musical itself, I'll be reviewing the Highlights CD which includes a decent portion of the songs. I will however revisit this when/ if an actual performance is shown.

BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn. Bye Bye Babylon, hello... RomeIn the desert?

The quest for the Ignika, the longest plot in the BIONICLE Story line from the first Generation. 3 continents, two universes, 5 years of story with plans for it to go on longer... Who knew you could have so much of a plot revolving around a Mask of Life. Three years of the story revolves around the return of Mata Nui, not only showing the intent of the mask, to bring Mata Nui back to life, but to awaken him from the sleep Teridax put him in during the Metru Nui Arc. For the full story on just what happened, Links to the years are here (2006 2007 2008). I recommend you do this though if want to know what the heck is going on during the rest of the review... or at least the set up. With that though, 4 years after Web of Shadows, its time to go to a new universe entirely... kinda... Time to learn of Bara Magna's past, BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn.

Opinion piece: Why I don't care about a character's gender

Something extra that I didn't think I'd do, but might as well throw my opinion into the mix.

This is something I see crop up more and more over the years as each entertainment medium evolves, that being the diversity of the genders in (insert medium here). Now while my view is slightly different for music, my view for film, television, books and games is exactly the same. I don't care about the character's gender.

Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows. "So when the sun goes down"... I really need to fix this note mix up...

While it won't affect this review, going to bring it up now, I hate spiders, of any kind. Its actually for that reason that I remember not liking BIONICLE 3 as much as the first two (and is also one of the two reasons why I avoid re watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to this day... I see you laughing there, any day you want to stop).

One of the problems with a prequel sequel is that it can take away any sense of shock value. While it works for Legends of Metru Nui as, at the time, you could be forgiven for not making the connection that the Toa Metru are the Turaga from the Mata Nui Saga. However this becomes a problem for Web of Shadows as it serves as the bridge between Legends of Metru Nui, and the start of the Mata Nui Saga, Quest for the Masks. I've probably already spoiled it there but encase you want to know how it does so, time for the review of BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows.