What other great super hero animal need their franchises restarted?
Restart all these franchises now, Hollywood!!!!
Via Deadline
Cartoons via BigBlogComics
What other great super hero animal need their franchises restarted?
Restart all these franchises now, Hollywood!!!!
Via Deadline
Cartoons via BigBlogComics
It’s Discount Puppet Explosion 411! Two teams battle to review B-movies.
In this episode, Team Jawesome gets animated in their discussion of The Little Panda Fighter (Ursinho da Pesada), which just happens to be better animated than the film itself! See this Brazilian animation imitation that strives to be Kung Fu Panda but without everything ever that made Kung Fu Panda a good film. Vídeo Brinquedo (Toyland Video) brings the thunder (the Teddy Thunders!) of their Pixar knockoffs and now will reap the lightning of Team Jawesome. Watch the video that survived two hard drive explosions to get edited months later! Be a survivor and watch Pancada dance his way into your brains, slowly driving you mad as the untextured animation becomes worse and worse. But will Johnny Mustache accept Sleestack Jones and Mongo’s choice? Or will Team Jawesome be one step closer to being blasted to the Moon?
2010
Directed by Sam Liu
Written by Greg Johnson (screenplay) and Greg Pak (comic)
Planet Hulk is a storyline from the Incredible Hulk series where our favorite giant green monster gets rocketed to another planet, where he becomes a slave, a gladiator, a rebel, and finally a king, smashing things all the while. It was very popular, for good reason, because it was freaking awesome! It spawned sequels, spin-offs, and this DTV animated film. The storyline was mainly written by Greg Pak, or Robot Stories fame. Planet Hulk brings about memories of stories such as the John Carter of Mars series, Gladiator, and Conan the Barbarian. If you have the time, I highly recommend reading the story, collected in graphic novel form. It helped get me back into reading comics for a while, which was pretty difficult to do thanks to Marvel ruining things with stupid Spider-clones and crap.
The DTV film which is the subject of this review differs from the original story in several ways. One of the main differences is the fact the Silver Surfer is nowhere to be found, instead replaced by Beta Ray Bill (which is pretty random, sort of like the Silver Surfer’s original appearance in the story!) Surfer’s non-appearance is apparently due to licensing reasons. The story is also missing the Warbound Brood character No-Name, so I guess all those Brood fans will be disappointed. As the film is not so long, the story is sped up and most of the last act is hurriedly paced, even if I hadn’t of read the original story it would have felt rushed. Along with that, many subplots die by the wayside. Finally, the tragic ending of the original storyline does not occur, probably due to them wanting to end the story on a positive note and leaving the rest for a possible sequel. Hulk may be green, but Marvel wants the other green, money!
So since I loved the original story so much, that probably means I hate this version? Not quite. Despite over-simplifying it to the point where much of the flavor is removed, the same basic story is there, and there is plenty of fighting action. There are numerous scenes with the Spikes, which show someone involved in the DTV production really liked zombie movies. Parts of it are actually creepy/scary in a way they fail to be in the comic. I didn’t hate this version, I actually liked it, but I’ll be keeping the graphic novel instead of the DVD on my bookshelf.
There are numerous cameos in the audience, including Pip the Troll, Gamora, Adam Warlock, a Skrull, Star-Lord, and some guy hiding behind the Red King who might be Grandmaster. So if you are that guy who loves Grandmaster, this is the film for you.
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2009
Directed by Roy Burdine and Lloyd Goldfine
Turtles Forever is the 25th Anniversary celebration that brings together different branches of the Ninja Turtle franchise in a way that is not only a good story, but a fun reference to the past 25 years of the franchise. Both people like me, who grew up with the older cartoon in the 1980s and the more modern fans who were raised on the modern cartoon will have plenty to make them smile.
For those of you who never really watched the modern TMNT cartoon, it is a slightly more realistic take with less crazy stuff and more actual deaths. Though they still have a bunch of wacky adventures and aliens and all that fun stuff. The Turtles still have the same basic personalities but they are less over the top.
When the 80s Turtles show up, their voices are different from the classic voices (due to union issues, IIRC) but they have the same animation. There are plenty of Easter eggs – including Tokka and Rahzar in it! We also see Irma and unmutated gang members (including unmutated Bebop and Rocksteady) back in the 80s Turtles’ universe. There are lots of other references to the old show, including the 80s Turtles finding all sorts of ways to use the terrain to take out bad guys instead of directly attacking them.
This is dubbed off of a TV broadcast because I am cheap and the DVD isn’t out yet! For purposes of this review, we will refer to the 1980’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as 80s Turtles (80s Leonardo, 80s Donatello, 80s Raphael, and 80s Michelangelo) and the modern TMNTs by their regular names. 80s Shredder will be referred to as such, and Utrom Shredder is the modern version. 80s Splinter and Splinter. Any other random characters (like 80s April O’Neal) will follow the same pattern. Isn’t that easy? So let’s begin. First up is the Roll Call:
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2006
Directed by Davis Doi
Written by John Doolittle
AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, no… NOOO! Not more Bratz movies! Okay, the live action one wasn’t terrible, but the cartoon ones are simply awful. And now we have them in Muppet Babies form! Yes, instead of teenage girls dressing as slores with giant eyes, now we have two year olds dressing as slores with giant eyes. What wonderful toys for your young daughters!
We need an update as to the status of The Bratz toyline since out other two reviews. Bratz was the center of a lawsuit where Mattel filed suit against MGA for infringement claiming the Bratz concept was developed by employees of Mattel who were still working at Mattel at the time. Mattel eventually won, and it was announced that the Bratz line would be pulled from store shelves after the Christmas 2008 season (the ruling was appealed and the Bratz line will be on shelves at least through 2009.) In 2009, Mattel came out with the Moxie Girlz line, which is an attempt to replace the Bratz. But then more lawyers showed up as artist Bernard “Butch” Belair declared the Bratz design was stolen from him and he sued both Mattel and MGA. Bernard “Butch” Belair claims to be from Brooklyn, NY, but I have it on good authority he is from West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where he spent most of his days…
The Bratz Babyz line was brought in as part of the Bratz strategy of flooding the market with everything Bratz in order to suck up every last cent from Mommy’s pocketbook. Bratz Babyz were epecially designed to hook young girls before they can even form complete sentences into the world of Bratz. They also were the target of several criticisms over the Bratz Babyz toys, including the “Babyz Night Out” fashion pack, the “Brattoo Parlor” playset (where your three-year-old can give herself a tramp stamp tattoo!), and the Big Babyz toys wearing what looks like thongs (but is just some plastic molding designed to prevent their skirts from riding up.)
This was the first Bratz Babyz movie, followed later by Bratz Super-Babyz, where the babies are superheroes.
Hey, that stuff was far too serious! How many of you were truely interested in the history of the Bratz Babyz franchise? Really? Well, all of you are freaks.
Bratz Babiez does us the disservice of not saying who voiced who in the credits. It’s like they are mocking me, personally. Damn you, Bratz Babiez!
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Is it sad I know these four main characters without cheating by now? They all have a pet or something, including Cloe’s pig with wings, Yasmin’s frog, Jade’s cat, and Sasha’s rabbit.
aka Mini Moni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibouken!
2002
Directed by Shinji Higuchi
What in the name of all that is holy did I just watch?
This film is BONKERS! Members of the JPop group Mini Moni work at a bakery, and get turned into cartoon characters who have to fight an evil queen who hates cake. It’s full of trippy musical numbers, CGI weirdness, and more sugar than Frosted Flakes. And, like Frosted Flakes, it is part of a complete breakfast and is GRRRRRR-reat! First we’ll try to explain Mini Moni and JPop groups from the Hello! Project in general, and then jump into the film.
Mini Moni is a spinoff of Morning Musume, one of the biggest rotating lineup girl bands in Japan. Morning Musume is the flagship group of the Hello! Project, which is responsible for unleashing hordes of JPop singing super cute acting Japanese girls upon the nation. The juggernaut Hello! Project contributed most of the cast of Yo-Yo Girl Cop and contributes the entire cast here. Besides this being an excuse to explain the departure of one member of Mini Moni and the joining of another, the movie also introduces a new underage group named 4KIDS, the four members (Sugaya Risako, Hagiwara Mai, Suzuki Airi, Sudou Maasa)would later become members of Berryz Kobo and °C-ute. I am not making any of these band names up. (Sugaya and Sudou are now members of Berryz Koubou; Suzuki and Hagiwara are members of C-ute. )
Mari Yaguchi had an idea in 2000 for a subgroup whose members were 1.5 meters (4 ft 11 inches) in height or shorter, and they soon picked up Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji to join. The fourth member was Mika Todd, who is not native Japanese and was added to give them some international flavor. Mini Moni gained some notoriety for acting crazy during their media gigs, including grabbing people’s butts. They are also popular on the internet for their show being the source of the Dramatic Chipmunk image. The group eventually disbanded in 2004. A great loss to the music world, indeed.
Here, we have an adventure where Mini Moni is turned into little CGI girls, meet magic fairies, fight an evil queen who hates cake, befriend a refrigerator, and try to get back to their bakery in time for it’s second anniversary. So basically it is the Gone of the Wind of the JPop world. And it’s insane. Completely insane. Get a bucket, your brain will melt.