Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@ThanosReXXX Pixar's now an offshoot of Disney, with near absolute self-autonomy, and their writing and animation have been above the standard of modern filmmaking for over 25 years. For me they've perfected the recipe of what goes into a truly high quality film.

And it's not the amount of money a traditional Illumination movie makes that irks me. It's the shockingly pathetically low amount of effort going into these movies that does. I saw a video by "I Hate Everything" (who despite the name is a chill Englishman), about the movie Sing, and near the end of the video he made a montage of every single appearance for the exact same crocodile. And all these crocodiles aren't even the same characters, we see them as contestants, prisoners, chauffeurs, audience members, and random people in the street. In one shot where the camera goes through a crowd of hundreds the same crocodile guy appears about five or six times IN THE SAME SHOT.

Another point IHE brings up is the idea that the characters are all animals, yet they behave like normal humans in a city. So why make them animals? It tells us, me at least, that the design and writing team were lazy and had no desire to make a good movie, only one that brought in the money. And as silly as YouTube comments can be, one comment I saw on that video really made me think. There's a scene where a character dances in a supermarket, and this comment points out that there's a meat section in there somewhere. That's dark.

The company also really kisses the Minions' feet and I find this deplorable. They took over the franchise that created them and have more screentime than the main characters in the Despicable Me movies... who actually HAVE some inkling of humanity.

I've seen this video a few times and I can really recommend it. Has some bad language but it made me laugh much more than any Illumination film ever will.

@ThanosReXXX It's a shame JJ has this kind of rep. It began with Star Trek and then he revived and killed Star Wars in under five years. The Force Awakens had some serious potential to be a new beginning for the series but it ended on such a predictable note that any kind of fanfare the series could have gotten was overcome by fans' complaints.

I can't see it ending well for Your Name in the US. Damned if you do and not damned if you don't. They just have to find a way to respect the film and make it worth existing. Imagine if they went and brought in Makoto Shinkai. That would acquit the US side of things of any wrongdoing since the original creator's doing it. Realistically that won't happen but I wonder how they'll do it.

And Ghost in the Shell.... oh boy that wasn't good. Bad enough they signed a big name like Scarlett Johansson, but the fact that she wasn't Japanese meant she would have been criticised regardless of her acting performance. I do realise that Liu Yifei isn't the most loved by Hong Kong as of late due to her comments supporting police brutality, but she could have done it if they wanted someone who could have played "MK" well. She... did Mulan. I can't tell if she did okay or if she did awful but she did it.

@Anti-Matter Well, it was kind of an on-rails shooter. It had a bit more freedom of movement than those usually have, but these were short segments, mostly. A lot was indeed on foot, and you could also use a tank when on the ground. There was a similar type game for the DS as well.

@TheJGG Fair enough about Illumination. To be honest, I never really looked that far into it. I just treat 3D animated movies as a simple popcorn time moment: brain cells on a low setting and just enjoy the ride. Usually they aren't very intellectually engaged anyways, and often times filled with cheesy comedy, so low brain settings are mostly all that's required.

And as for that video: I honestly don't know if I'll watch it, because I don't like people that nitpick or dissect EVERY little bit there is to find. If things are glaringly obvious, then fair enough, but there's a point where people need to stop complaining and get on with their lives. I've seen SO many YouTube channels that are only about complaining and things that are wrong or shouldn't be done. All of that sounds decidedly glass half-empty to me, and I'm the exact opposite.

Concerning Abrams: I always used to consider myself to be a sci-fi fanatic, and the biggest Star Wars fan alive. But then, as I grew older, I learned that you couldn't be if you also liked Star Trek, because "Trekkies" and other sci-fi series' fans don't mix, apparently. Silly humans...

So, ultimately, I decided to distance myself of these kinds of idiots, and just to enjoy what I want. As such, I also don't have as many issues with the newer Star Wars movies as most of the more invested crowd have, some of whom even recite entire chapters of the apparently official book sequels who did the original story far more justice. Well, no offense, but I don't give a rat's @ss about all of that.

The movies were well worth watching in my opinion, even though they did have some annoying scenes, which even I couldn't avoid noticing. But I never decided to pick up my torch and pitchfork over it, and just shrugged it off the minute I walked out of the cinema. No hurt feelings whatsoever that they did "my" series a grave injustice or anything.

Same with the Marvel movies. Screw the purists, these aren't the comics, it's a separate, cinematic universe. Otherwise, we'd now still be running Avengers origin stories and epic sagas of Thor and the Hulk. Mind you, I would have LOVED to see that, but you just can't capture almost 70 years of comics series into a set number of trilogies, especially if you want to keep some cohesion and also want to keep the general audience, who knows nothing about the comics at all, interested and captivated. Get too nerdy and you'll lose those. And that's important because unfortunately for the purists, the general audience is the biggest money maker...

On a side note: whatever else can be said about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies, I personally find the cast VERY well chosen, and if anything, at least the actors themselves try their damnedest to do the originals justice.

And perhaps he's getting a bit too much flak for them anyways: it's not like every previous Star Trek movie was a massive success either. In fact, they're infamously known for having the odd stinker among them every other movie. I believe the order was good, good, bad, good. Or something to that extent. Maybe even bad, good, bad...

I've enjoyed the recent Star Trek Reboots, so I guess I'm not a purist ... I'm not sure you'd get total agreement among the fans of the older films as to which were the 'bad' ones, though

@BruceCM Well, there IS one general consensus: the ORIGINAL, untouched trilogy that started it all is the proverbial Holy Grail. Personally, I'd think that's taking it a bit too far, but I do still think that they hold up pretty well, even by today's standards. That's the nice thing about sci-fi: none of it is real, so it can't really be tested against time as much as depictions of daily life, which will of course be far more susceptible to suffering from outdated scenery, vehicles, fashion and utensils.

Oh, I'm just talking about the Abrams Star Treks .... Don't think there's much dispute about the original Star Wars trilogy being the best 3 of those, no

@Tyranexx Oh man, how could I forget about NSMB's minigames??? Those were awesome! NSMB was one of the DS games I played a ton of back in the day, alongside Mario Kart DS. Used to play that during my trips to school, lol. I still have my carts of Super Mario Land 1 and 2 from way back in the day, though they're the Player's Choice reprints. (Scott The Woz won't be happy to read that, lol.) I didn't get too far in SML1 as a kid, but since SML2 lets you pick what worlds you want to go to, I did play more levels in that back then. I didn't beat them until much later. And surprisingly enough, I didn't get SMB Deluxe until a lot later - I got the original cart from my retro game store some years ago.

Oh nice, we're both cat people! I have a cat that absolutely adores me! So he's a good boy. lol

@Anti-Matter Star Fox Adventures plays more like a Zelda game, actually. I remember you said that you're not too keen on Zelda games, so I'm not sure if you'll like it too much. As for Star Fox Assault, yeah it has both Arwing and on-foot stages. Personally, I hated the latter. I didn't like the game as a result, so yeah I liked Adventures way more than Assault.

@BruceCM Ah, my bad. See how I got those two series so easily confused? Purists would probably hunt me down and burn me at the stakes...

But yeah, I agree with you, in that they're enjoyable, if not quite all that we'd hope they'd be for a series reboot. But then again: I also wouldn't want to be the studio or the director, because the crowds are always SO hard to please, so I'd rather just stick to my role of average consumer, who's perfectly fine with taking his beer and his popcorn, and sitting back to relax and enjoy the movie...

Yeah, some of the fans (& they do seem to be the vocal ones) are impossible to please, @ThanosReXXX .... I'd certainly like to see if any of them could do a 'better' film, though! Not too familiar with his other stuff, so no opinion on those.

Been playing Super Mario 3D Land lately as it's been in my backlog for some time (when I got it, I was busy with other games). I never realized how many nods this game makes to Super Mario 3. Really liking these little nods to the game. I thought it was only the Tanooki suit.

@BruceCM Kind of reminds me of those sour pusses back in the day when the first Lord of the Rings movie was released. Yeah, sure, Jackson left out some things that were clearly mentioned in the book, but to his massive credit he did manage to make a near perfect cinematic version of a book that was until that point, always thought of as "unfilmable".

And as a multiple times reader and fan of the books I applaud him for it, because by now, I've seen the trilogy at least 8 times, and I still enjoy them thoroughly and I find them to be pretty darn faithful to the books. And as a non-purist, I have the objectivity to understand that even though he did manage to cram most of the book into a movie trilogy, that even he wasn't able to touch upon EVERYTHING mentioned in the books, because certain things described in books, or rather: the WAY they're described/incorporated in books just doesn't translate very well to the big screen, so some omissions are bound to happen.

Maybe not all of them, but most definitely part of these purists have a severe case of tunnel vision, and their logic is probably just something along the lines of "well, he already managed to get most of the book translated into a movie, so it shouldn't have been that hard to also incorporate those other 46 pages"...

Far as J.J. Abrams' other stuff goes, his best work can be found on TV or on any kind of streaming service you may be using. Here's a short list of the best series (in my opinion):

• Lost
• Fringe
• Alias (one of my personal favorites and Jennifer Garner's finest moment AND rise to fame)
• Person of Interest
• Revolution
• Felicity
• WestWorld

Some of his least successful series only had one season, but some of these too, are in my opinion still well worth a watch, and here are the two most interesting ones (again, in my opinion):

• Alcatraz
• Believe

@TheJGG
I like Venus by Reese Whiterspoon & Nick Kroll actually.

Yeah, Jackson did awesome work on the initial trilogy, @ThanosReXXX.... It's not usually like the fans actually know much about film making! I don't, either but I know to factor that in when I try to be a critic
Mind you, I've seen some of the nitpicking videos & they can be interesting, I just wouldn't get very worked up about most of the points made in most of them

@MarioLover92
Um... Maybe i use "Ratchet & Clank" word to describe the 3D Action adventure genre (Free roaming in 3D environments).
I never played any Zelda games but BOTW (only a few minutes then neglected) so maybe that made me didn't describe Star Fox Adventures like Zelda games.
But from Youtube video i watched, i felt confident enough to play Star Fox Adventures as i have played Ratchet & Clank quite a lot so i saw the similarities by free roaming in 3D environments.

@Anti-Matter The reason why people compare it to Zelda is obviously not because of Breath of the Wild, since that game came out much, much later than Star Fox Adventures. With Breath of the Wild, Nintendo chose a VERY different path, meaning that it is completely unlike any other Zelda game out there.

So, you need to compare it to the older Zelda games, and those are VERY similar in formula to any other 3D free roaming objective-based adventure game. Or actually: the other way around. Those games play much like Zelda games.

It's simply so that quite a few games have historically taken their queues from Nintendo. That's why there's also a thing as "Metroidvania", to indicate a side-scrolling adventure game.

Anyway, Star Fox Adventures most definitely IS a Zelda-like game, there's no denying that. It could have been something unique and quite different, but in this one unfortunate case, Nintendo put down their foot a bit too hard and the game utterly failed to gain a large following, because of the forced Star Fox format.

@Anti-Matter Damien wrote a feature (link) about Star Fox Adventures that features an interview with Phil Tossell, the game's lead software engineer. To this day, it's Rare's only GameCube title since Microsoft snapped them up about a year before the game released.

@Heavyarms55 I'm...not sure if you did mention on here what you did the night of Magikarp Community Day, but I'm sure all is well if it wasn't anything illegal. IIRC I was quite busy that day but did manage to land a couple of golden flopping fish.

I'm definitely keeping it as trade fodder. Heck, I'd trade you for a shiny Jigglypuff since I don't yet have one, but I suspect we're too far apart to take care of the distance trading Niantic is allowing right now. XD Unfortunately, most of my extra shinies are related to Cdays, so many people already have those. I did recently distance swap my last extra shiny Minccino for a Noibat though! I landed a ton during that event lol.

Agreed on the Switch's retro support (or lack thereof). I'm glad there's any at all, but Nintendo's NSO offerings could definitely be better. With the latest round of NSO announcements, I'd at least...heard of one. Seems like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel before moving on. Heck, I'd pay for a decent up-scaled port of a game I haven't played before. I wish they'd offer the best of both worlds: let Switch Online subscribers access a bevy of retro content, and also allow the titles to be bought individually for the crazy ones like yours truly lol.

@TheJGG It's on the list! Though admittedly my movie watching has been a bit sluggish these past few months....

On Illumination: I somewhat agree with you - the films of theirs that I've watched have been hit or miss - but I did enjoy Sing. Nothing too spectacular about it, but it was worth the discount Tuesday price at my local theater. They do overuse the minions way too much though. They were cute at first, but after awhile they became tiresome. Kind of like Nickelback songs on the radio when I was in high school.

@ThanosReXXX More good titles, you say? I've heard of a couple of them, specifically The Wind Rises and When Marnie Was There. I shall research them! Or just buy an entire box set of Studio Ghibli films....

@MarioLover92 I used to game quite a bit on the bus, when I wasn't studying or reading lol. Depending on the route that year, I could be on the bus for about an hour. I lived in the sticks as a kid, so you could do about anything without too much noise (except homework thanks to the bumps) once/until the town kids our driver was in charge of left/boarded the vehicle.

I did start down the path of retro cart collection a few years ago, mostly with Zelda titles, but I gave that up fairly quickly. The Virtual Console had a lot of what I needed and was, most times, more cost-effective than hunting down carts for a good price and scrutinizing pictures of them to ensure they weren't bootlegs lol.

I love cats! I really enjoy dogs too (and most animals), but at the end of the day I prefer felines. No pets of my own currently though; I'm not fond of the idea of any indoor pets, and an outdoor pet where I live would be a death sentence thanks to a busy road. Someone hit a large dog just up the road the week after I moved in.

@Tyranexx Oh no, that's awful! Poor dog... And yeah, I'm the same exact way, too. Although I'm a cat guy, I get along with dogs just as well!

And yeah, I'm also the same way with retro games nowadays. I like making sure that the game in question made it to the Virtual Console or Switch Online. They're much cheaper, and they're guaranteed to be the real deal. Though Nintendo Life did post a really good video on how to identify bootleg games, I much prefer the safer route with VC or NSO.

I don't know if any of you have interest with Beatmania IIDX, rhythm game from Konami, but i really have interest with that game despite i have ever tried several times on Arcade and i wasn't really good in finger tapping but still have big enthusiasm about playing Beatmania IIDX.

I have a plan to get Beatmania IIDX PS2 games and play them with Pop'n Music controller since they looks identical but with different button key size and amount
(IIDX = 7 keys + 1 Disc scratch, Pop'n Music = 9 buttons).
Having Beatmania IIDX at home with alternative proper controller is like a dream comes true to have Arcade at home especially during pandemic, i cannot go out to play on Arcade.

If you never know what the heck is Beatmania IIDX, check this video.

Beatmania IIDX is still exist until today. The newest version was Beatmania IIDX 28 Bistrover.

Raise your hand if you are also like Rhythm games from Konami. 🖐🖐🖐

@Anti-Matter I'm looking for retromania this month! The road warriors are playing and they're two I absolutely loved growing up.