Catch more from Orange River on YouTube
As I go over in this week’s Clutter Report, I’ve been distracted all week with the cord cutting process, as we cut ties with cable/satellite altogether and go with ad-sponsored streamers. I do have a partially finished Jake & Leon but didn’t feel like half-assing it, so you’ll see it next week if something else doesn’t go wrong.
Tomorrow my dad ends our satellite TV service, so I should be able to get back to work as I won’t have to try to fit in a bunch of movies and still enjoy them. I did manage to bank a bunch of Finally Watched articles for the future, but this week I want to get back to normal operations…for a change this year. I have one partially done article and one I actually took notes on, plus if it’s still being offered on the free side I want to review the first episode of Batman: Caped Crusader to see if it matches my hopes or my fears. (Day later update: “episode 0” was just the trailer, not an actual episode.) Of course there’s the Chapter By Chapter review of Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders as that book is two chapters away from being done. That means most likely in two weeks the chapter reviews will be done, the book report will pop up at The Clutter Reports, and the next book has been chosen…though after the first one I’m not sure I’m ready for the sequel. We’ll see how that works out.
Have a great week, everyone.
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I hate trying to embed from the Internet Archive. In order to make it easier for you to see the video embed properly I have to lose the sidebar, which is part of site promotion, or I have to sit here all day messing with settings until I can get it to work. I don’t have time to mess with settings. So sucks to be me, as usual.
Mazinger Z is a 1970s Super Robot series from Japan. Aliens invade the Earth with giant monsters, one of the aliens is half man, half woman right down the middle like an old school carnival sideshow for some reason, and it’s up to teenagers to pilot giant robots and save the world because Japan.
In the 1980s, we Americans got Tranzor Z, a rework of the show to I’m guessing tone the violence down a bit and change cultural references to match what US kids expected. Before you get all mad, the anime itself toned itself down from what Go Nagai put in the original manga. In other words it had a lot more nudity. If that excites you I have two rather big volumes untranslated for sale over at The Clutter Reports.
I couldn’t find a decent copy of the original, and I usually like to have them both up for comparison and for the sake of the sub only crowd or those who prefer original to “hack dubs”, but that’s not in the cards tonight. Here is the first episode of the version I grew up with, though. Enjoy anyway and you can find the full series of this version at the Internet Archive.
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With Netflix and other Hollywood studios corrupting Japanese properties with their live-action remakes, Toho appears to be following the One-Piece creator’s lead (although technically they did it first) and setting standards for how the King Of The Monsters Should Be Depicted. Bounding Into Comics contributor JB Augustine reports on the “Godzilla Room”, where they assure any version of Godzilla meets the standards for what makes good Godzilla.
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Finally Watched week concludes with the second Sonic movie. The first movie, after changing out the character model the internet hated with one that was closer to the classic depiction while still working in the live-action world, gained a lot of positive support from game fans, but it also had to grab enough of the casual movie-going public who may not even know there was a game in order to do well. The fact that we’re talking about a sequel, another one is coming, and a spin-off Paramount+ series featuring one of the characters exists I’m going to guess they succeeded.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 still had the same issues of any sequel while still convincing fans they could properly interpret the game rather than slapping brand names onto someone else’s script, like sewing a Levi’s label onto a Chinese knockoff set of pajama shorts. I rarely compare a movie to its sequel because all I want is for the story to continue, not whether or not it was better…unless they do some major mistake of course, like Marvel Studios are doing now with their “adaptations”. How did they do with only two years between them?
RELEASE DATE: 2022
RELEASED BY: Paramount Pictures
RUNTIME: 2 hr, 2 min
RATING: PG
VIEWING SOURCE FOR THIS REVIEW: MGM+ Hits
STARRING: Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Jim Carrey, Idris Elba, and James Marsden
SCREENWRITERS: Pat Casey & Josh Miller (also story) with John Whittington
BOX OFFICE: $190,872,904 and $405,421,518 worldwide gross, according to IMDB
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $110,000,000 according to IMDB
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When you’re using actual panels from the comic as your cover, that’s not a good look.
Blue Beetle #50
Charlton Comics (July, 1965; still using the numbering from Unusual Tales for some reason)
“The Scorpion”
WRITER: Joe Gill
PENCILER: Bill Fracchio
INKER: Tony Tallarico
LETTERER: Sha-ro-ine
I’m used to some comics not listing the editor, but ignoring the colorist?
BW Media Spotlight 