#and also exaggerate the issues that are there and act like the 'bad' sonic games are way worse than they actually are

[sonknuxadow]

i havent looked into pokemon scarlet and violet all that much but everyone is saying its a glitchy mess and ive seen people compare it to sonic frontiers saying sonic frontiers is boring and unfinished and glitchy like pokemon and like. What. you people clearly just hate sonic and wanna make fun of it at every opportunity because what the hell

[crusherthedoctor]

Infinite, Eggman, Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Silver

(I apologize for dumping so many characters in here, I just really want to hear your opinions on them!)

Let's see if I can think of a divisive opinion for each of them...

Infinite: I think he succeeds as a deconstruction of Mephiles-type villains, whether that was the intention with him or not. (I think it genuinely is, unlike what Flynn likes to say about Scourge being a "parody".) They could have admittedly done more with him, and you could argue that the focus on him took away much needed time for Eggman and his conquest, but despite all that, I still like the guy, and it's probably a secret act of mercy that he's apparently not allowed to feature in IDW.

Eggman: Obvious one incoming: I prefer Eggman to actually be a villain, and a competent villain at that. This should not be a controversial statement, but here we are.

Also, while Jimbotnik is still widely beloved, I'm aware that more fans have been getting vocal about their issues with this portrayal for his differences to Game Eggman... not me though. I still wholeheartedly love this portrayal, because I believe he's similar where it counts, and the differences that do exist work to said portrayal's benefit, even if they wouldn't work as well for Game Eggman. Compare that to something like SatAM Robotnik, where I just cannot see Eggman at all.

Shadow: I'm not convinced that the Vegeta!Shadow mandate actually exists, since he wasn't all that Vegeta-esque in Forces or even TSR. With all the discussions that have resulted from it, I don't think I've ever seen any proper confirmation that didn't come from the mouth of either Flynn himself, or someone else who coincidentally has a bone to pick with SEGA.

Also, I feel that even before ShtH came along and shoehorned Black Doom Ten Packs a Day Man into it, Shadow's backstory already veered a tad too close to inappropriate territory, namely with the way certain elements were executed. Maria getting capped by the military and Gerald being executed by them is a tad too specific for a franchise like this, compared to if Maria died to her illness, and Gerald blamed G.U.N. for cutting off the funding to his efforts to create a cure.

Sonic: Certain problems that people have with Pontaff!Sonic - namely making jokes when he should be getting serious - have existed long before Colours came along. It's one thing to argue that it became more frequent by that point, but to say it never happened at all in the previous games is pure nostalgic bias. Even Unleashed was guilty of this on more than one occasion.

I also feel that people have been exaggerating how morally grey Sonic actually is. Yes, he's willing to make tough decisions regardless of how he may be judged for them, like in Black Knight. But he's still unambiguously heroic, always striving to do the right thing even when it's not the easy one, and a legitimately nice guy all the same. Occasionally making hard decisions does not automatically make him an anti-hero.

Tails: Fans that say he shouldn't be able to do as much as the big guns (Sonic, Shadow, etc) because he's "just a kid" have been influenced too much by the DBZ era of Sonic. Like it or not, Tails is the Luigi of the franchise, and he deserves to be treated as such. He's proven that he can accomplish just as great achievements as the rest, with or without a super form.

Amy: I acknowledge the importance of Amy's crush on Sonic, but I also find it to be the least interesting aspect of her. I'm much more endeared by her interactions with other characters, her endless optimism, her much-forgotten skill with tarot cards, etc.

Knuckles: I don't think the plot needs to revolve around Angel Island or the Master Emerald to justify Knuckles' appearance, but I DO think you have to be more thoughtful about whether his appearance makes sense beyond "there's a bad guy, go stop them", compared to characters with more freedom like Sonic and Eggman. Otherwise you end up with an '06 situation where he's got nothing to do, and his most triumphant moment is going the wrong direction.

Silver: For the love of god, stop handcuffing Blaze to him. Pretty please?

As well as that, one reason why I've never been all that enthusiastic about Silver is because his entire schtick creates a massive roadblock with no easy solution. This franchise is no stranger to characters with similar hiccups (Knuckles and Angel Island, Blaze and her dimension), but it's taken up to eleven with Silver due to the time travel factor. Do you have him time travel to justify his presence every single time, in order to stop yet another threat that's destroyed his future, thereby making him look like the biggest failure ever? Or do you have him cut out the middle man and stick around in the present, and risk fans complaining about losing what made him unique?

There's a lot of clutter with Silver that I can't be bothered with, and on top of everything else... meh.

[egg-emperor]

(1/2) Honestly with IDW Sonic I was FLOORED by and absolutely adored Mr Tinker but like. Some of it feels really slapped in and extremely ignored. Hell the writing doesnt even feel clear on if they're trying to write "generic split personality," active amnesia or full blown DID and its frustrating, especially with how much of a backseat it took. And with Eggman I could see if they were going for "he's still exhausted after the last intense defeat and isn't fully motivated bc of it" but

Yeah, one of my biggest issues with the theories in mind is that if it is because he’s having trouble with Mr. Tinker still being able to surface, it feels late to have it suddenly come up now. They’re making it seem more like Eggman alone is the one making all the wrong decisions and mistakes for no reason, rather than Starline’s attempt at fully bringing his true self back being unsuccessful. If that does end up being the cause, they didn’t lead up to it very well at all.

If also considering the second theorized scenario, that his behavior has been some type of act to test Starline’s loyalty then uh, he’s certainly doing a great job at making it seem like he doesn’t give a fuck and that he’d rather just sit there and expect it to work out with zero effort. Even if not very likely, I would actually rather that be the case so the events of this plot aren’t at the expense of making him look like a total fool anymore.

If either of those concepts end up being a reality then in the very least it would serve as some type of explanation for his behavior and actions, so I’d like to see them try. I just want him to get his head in the game again in some way. Because at the moment it just seems like a bad exaggeration of how he overlooks aspects of his plans and feeds the misconception of him being incompetent and incapable of handling things himself, without the need of other villains having to step in to ‘show him how it’s done’.

I’ll admit that anxiously reading through it after the predictions of him being zombotified made it intense, especially since he almost did with how damn close to the victims he got. That would have been another big slap in the face to have his plan backfire on him like that again, but I’m still not feeling any better with the way things turned out without him being infected. After all that I’m really hoping this all turns around somehow, and that he won’t get anywhere close to the virus again aahgghghdfdgh

[kingtwelvesixteen]

Art is Subjective

I just realized that I went through like a Truth Gate and suddenly understood this incredibly common saying like a week ago.

Since different people have different skills they fundamentally experience any form of art in different ways. To use an exaggerated example: some dude who reads 20 hours a week is going to experience a book differently than an old blind lady who is also illiterate.

It goes into smaller bits as well with people just being better or worse at analysis, speed of reading, knowledge of writing techniques, (such that they start recognizing when the writer is doing them, thus fundamentally changing the experience in a way.) and there’s even the issue of the environment that the book is being read in changing the experience!

Loud music blaring, having a casual chat with a friend, on your bed at night, being drunk at the time you read it, etc etc etc.

A Personal Example: I am extremely good at video games. In Sonic Mania reviews, a lot of people complained about how if you game over you have to start the zone over from act 1 instead of act 2 and how bad that felt. Some even said things like “it completely ruins the game” and it led to a lot of frustration and complaints.

I literally never even knew that was a thing because I destroyed that game with like 93 lives left when I killed the final boss.

The experience of the people who game-overed in Sonic Mania was fundamentally different than mine. VERY different. You could even say that there is no one “objective experience” of playing Sonic Mania, only the objective experience of a particular individual PERSONALLY playing Sonic Mania.

Or in other words, it’s subjective.

[garloszeczek-blog]

What we liked most about Aladdin

Colourful figures in Aladdin is directed by guy Ritchie and it's the latest Disney live action remake. This time retelling the original 1992 animated classic of the same name. And it tells a story of a streetwise thief name, a Latin who comes across princess. I was very curious when I first saw Aladdin's trailer. Jasmine meets a genie and fights the evil Jafar. Seriously, though, before I get into the review of this movie has been met with so much online criticism because will Smith is blue.

And people just thought that was so goddamn hilarious. And I guess it does doesn't really look that good. Having seen the actual movie. I have some things to say about it, but yeah, it's not like Sonic the hedgehog where like, as soon as I saw the trailer, I wanted to actually burn all of my Sonic games in retaliation for the horrific thing that I was witnessing.

It wasn't like that. I still liked the original Aladdin. It's funny though, having actually seen the movie will Smith has the least of my concerns. If anything, he actually kept the movie more charismatic than it was whenever he wasn't on screen. The music was composed by Alan Menken. I can't really focus on the music and say the music is this great highlight because it's just the songs from the original.

Yes. There's some new material and yes, it's all good. But I'm just having a hard time getting excited about these Disney live action remakes, because it's essentially taking something we all love already and saying, Hey, let's look at it through this light. Sometimes that works. I really did like John fibrose the jungle book and the Cinderella film.

The cast, nothing special

Wasn't too bad either because those films, I can see how they could be real life. A boy in the jungle, there are animals. Yes. They talk and stuff. But at its core, I can picture that in real life. We've had so many adaptations of that story. Anyway, same with Cinderella. It's something I can picture in real life Aladdin.

That's a little hard. We have this over the top, genie, the princess with her friendly Siberian tiger. You know, like it's kind of hard to picture some of these things in real life. And so that's a struggle. This film has because the movie is trying too hard to evoke the feel of the animation for one thing, the animated film.

Is 90 minutes. It's tight. It's contained, it's compact. It works. This film is two hours and eight minutes. There's a lot of new stuff and you can feel it. You can feel the story. Start to get stretched. And you can feel these characters getting stretched to the point where they don't have anywhere else to go.

One of my biggest concerns with the film though lies in the performances, namely the Aladdin character. At times, he feels like he's trying too hard to be like the animated version, that nervous, cute, anxious quality that Aladdin had in the first film where he was trying to be something he wasn't, that works in animated form.

Aladdin 2, or Aladdin replaying

But when you translate that exaggerated elements of performing to live action. It comes off very cheesy. And I felt that most of the acting in this film was very bland. Will Smith is fine as the genie. Once you get over the fact that you're looking at will Smith as this giant genie, he's actually the most entertaining part.

The film. In fact, when he wasn't on screen, I found myself. Relentlessly bored. As far as the other characters go, I would say Naomi Scott, as Jasmine gave the best performance, she felt like she was really trying with this role. The film is defined in the family category. And I'm sure the actor who portrayed Aladdin was also trying. I have nothing against these actors.

You guys know me. I actually, I really am uncomfortable. Speaking negatively about actors, because I know how hard their job is. And it always makes me feel icky every time I do it. But I really do think that most of the performances in this movie were very weak. The worst though is Jafar. And I've seen this actor in another film called what happened to Monday with Numi Repas it's on Netflix.

And he was really good in that movie. So, yeah. This leads me to believe that there was something about the way this film was directed by guy Ritchie that just kept everything very stilted and wooden it at times does feel like a low rent stage play version of Aladdin. Even down to the way it looks. The costumes look so clean and perfect.

Colourful figures in Aladdin

They don't look dusty or dirty. There's no sand or dirt on them. There's, there's a few scenes where they're, they're literally rolling around in the sand. That's different, but when they're walking around the city, they just look like they were freshly laundered. It kind of reminded me of Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull. Just Five Feet Apart didn't have such a great sound, but it could still move.

One of my biggest issues with that movie was just how clean and glossy everything looked. Whereas the original three, they just felt like they were shot in the backyard somewhere. They looked so, so gritty. This movie, everything looks clean. So relentlessly perfect looking that it really did feel like I was watching something shot constantly on a sound stage.

I never ever had that disconnect with reality. I always felt like I was watching something that was filmed, never got into the movie. There were some sequences that were entertaining. Most of them being really over the top Jeannie songs. It also feels like, like guy Ritchie may have been uncertain about how to approach them musical because some of the sequences were characters are singing.

Are just very bland. The camera just follows them around as they walk. And there isn't much movement. There isn't much flare to it. Every time Jafar was on screen, I honestly felt like laughing his look. He looked like he was in a power Rangers episode. I mean, he's got this big Cobra staff and there are just certain things that work in an animation and they just don't work in a live action.

Songs during Aladdin

Whenever you do a remake of something that was in a different form before four, you have to look at that and say, what. Works as a drawing and what doesn't, because just recreating what we liked in animation form clearly just doesn't always work. But in regards to will Smith, he had a major uphill battle with this character.

I'm sure he was probably horrified at the potential of, you know, inhabiting this character. There are a few Disney characters as renowned as the gene, and there are even less. As synonymous with their actors as Robin Williams is with the genie. Those two things are almost inseparable. I mean, Simba is probably a more famous character than the genie, but when you think of Simba, do you think of Matthew Broderick?

Probably not. But when you think of the genie, you think of Robin Williams, it's impossible not to. Does he trample all over that character? No. No, he's fine. It's just that you kind of have to get over the fact that it's. This giant CGI will Smith dancing around. It just, it doesn't always work when he plays himself, though.

I thought he was really charming and he did a good job in the movie. He's easily, honestly, the best part of the movie, which is funny because he was the most widely scrutinized aspect of it before. There are times where you can feel like the actors are trying to break free from whatever control they're under.

Who is the actor playing Aladdin

And they're trying to just be a little more lively, but for the most part, yeah. Some of the dialogue and some of the performances are cringe-worthy. The CGI is very noticeable and the sets look like sets. Is it as bad as the interim? I thought it was going to be, I guess not. I mean, the thing that everyone was worried about was probably my favorite part of the movie.

It's everything else around it, the stuff that people just assumed would be good. That I thought was bad. I'm going to give a Latin, a C minus guys. I just want to say thank you for continuing to watch my videos. It's awesome. I appreciate it. I, every once in a while, I just want to remind you guys that I really appreciate that you guys are here.