Entry 126: "Epic Mickey" Pt. 1

Should that not be "Disney's"?

Dear Internet,

                I have wanted to play "Epic Mickey" for some time now.  I had actually gotten hold of it after getting "Epic Mickey 2."  I did not play it, nor have I.  It would not make much sense to play the sequel without seeing how the original played.  The studio that developed the two games under the ownership of Disney, Junction Point Studios, has got one notable fact about them that I want to keep in mind while playing this game.  The studio is closed.  Shortly after releasing "Epic Mickey 2" to lackluster sales when compared to the original, Disney closed the studio.  It is no real secret that the sequel had gotten mediocre reviews and lackluster sales as compared to the original.  However, it is important that ratings only go so far.  If two million or more people played the original, yet there was something that halted them from scooping up the sequel right away, what was it?  Was there something so bad but hidden about the original that stopped people from wanting to play the sequel?  Or was the sequel such a step down that it pushed away any proportional sales from occurring?  I will try to find out.

                "Epic Mickey" follows the adventure of, would you guess, Mickey Mouse, the most iconic Walt Disney character created.  Mickey, however, is not the first character that Disney created.  Among those characters was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.  Sadly, time has not looked favorably upon Oswald or many other characters within the Disney cast.  As Mickey and the other characters rose to fame, others fell into obscurity.  Within the narrative of the game, there exists a place made for the forgotten characters to live and be happy.  Years ago, Mickey came across the world and accidentally created the Shadow Blot, a menacing creature made of paint and paint thinner.  In his poor attempt to undo his actions, he destroys the world for the forgotten, making it a wasteland.  Years have passed, and Mickey is the popular character that he is today.  He is then suddenly captured in the middle of the night and brought to the world he had destroyed.  The Wasteland is a half decayed landscape where rivers of paint thinner run like industrial waste.  Thankfully, Mickey does have two abilities that he can use to find his way back home.  He can create with paint or destroy with thinner.  Before he can go home, he must explore this world and find the mysteries that abound.

                The game has got a pretty simplistic plot for itself.  That is how it should be.  You cannot expect a Mickey Mouse game to have as many twists and turns with double faced characters as an episode of "Law & Order" if you want kids to be able to follow it.  Mickey screws things up, runs away, and has to fix the mistake years later.  If anything, this mischievous attitude is more in line with his oldest character designs.  It is no surprise that his actions are similar if not exact to that in "Fantasia."  In both "Epic Mickey" and the musical short "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Mickey interacts with the magic of the wizard Yen Sid until disaster takes hold.  At least in "Epic Mickey," he has to live and even undo his actions instead of only being chastised.  There are a few problems with the story so far.  It is almost too scant.  There is a mad scientist and of course the Shadow Blot.  These characters are explained to be present but their roles other than being "the bad guys" has yet to be explained.  Mickey is thrust into this other world along with the player, but they are told to keep moving further with little information to go on.  Sure, we know he is in the Wasteland but with a straightforward hour long tutorial level, the game does not do well in setting up the world from the viewer's perspective.  We are dropped too quickly.  Hopefully, the slow but steady progress through the land will unravel the complexity of the world that I hope there is.

                The world of the Wasteland is dark and foreboding.  I even sometimes have quite a lot of trouble finding my way because the game is so black.  The ground and possible gaps that I must jump over just merge together into one single dark shape.  I think this might have more to do with my display settings, so I cannot mark it off.  Going back to the screenshots of those moments proves that my display settings are calibrated incorrectly.  This does not mean that the game does not create a shadowy landscape.  The Wasteland is already one of the most depressing and gloomy environments that I have come across.  Wrecked and abandoned amusement park rides rust as they fall apart in the open air.  Bushes and hedges are missing entire segments that have been erased by turpentine with topiary of characters missing hands and heads, creating images of dismembered flora individuals.  Lakes of paint thinner sit idly by, awaiting the poor soul that should fall in, doomed to have their colors washed away like acid eating flesh.  A giant Swiss Army knife lunges at Mickey with corkscrew, scissors, a chainsaw, and a plunder that tries to pull his heart through his chest.  And all of this is just in the tutorial level.  Afterwards, the player must traverse a mountain of old Disney memorabilia that has decayed and rotted to the point that it is a landfill of one-eyed dolls and faded fan-membership badges.  It is a horror-ridden landscape that chills me to the bone.

Not all of the discarded merchandise is unrecognizable.

                The game's imagery does not stop with just the landscape.  The enemies are made of black and green paint.  They are not solid beasts with a bone structure and organs.  They are morphing sentient blobs that do not stop even when you blast them with a face full of paint thinner.  Some of these creatures do nothing but sleep until you happen to run by.  Then they explode into a giant mess, ceasing to exist.  Their only purpose is to exist as living mines, waiting for the chance adventurer to happen by so they can expand past the breaking point, taking anything nearby with them.  If that is not scary enough, take the passive and friendly characters for a turn.  At least two characters so far have been veteran characters from the early black and white era.  Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow make appearances in their black and white designs rather than their "House of Mouse" era formats.  They try to remind Mickey of their past performances, each one having a scattering of photographs of themselves from their acting days.  Some of these photos are cropped showing that their appearance in those cartoons were as background characters, sometimes not even being fully in the shot of the camera.  Mickey apologetically does not remember them.  They made such a little impression of Mickey that he cannot even tell that he had worked with them despite their importance to his own rise to fame.  The Wasteland is not some sort of retirement home for old cartoons, where they go to live out their final years in some comfortable conditions.  It is where the neglected and the outcast go.  It is a cross between a graveyard and limbo.  

I do, Horace.  I do.

                It is amazing to me that "Epic Mickey" did not get some sort of Disney censor that wanted to pull back the amount of nightmare fuel that the game has.  Most likely, the game is already pulled back from an even more terrifying version.  A search for "Epic Mickey concept art" is enough to make goose bumps form.  Then again, perhaps I am reading too much into the world of the game.  I may just be letting my imagination run off away from me.  Yet, that is precisely what a good game should do.  It should excite the imagination and let loose the wonders of the mind.  I only hope that I am not kept up all night by such dark wonders.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Entry 125: "Parasite Dolls"

Dear Internet,

                "Parasite Dolls" is a three episode series that comes from an already popular franchise.  Specifically, it is the latest and last animated piece of the "Bubblegum Crisis" universe with emphasis on the AD Police section.  Considering that nothing short of a spinoff non-canonical light novel has come forth in the last ten years, it can be safe to assume that nothing is going to be done with the series anytime soon.  That does not mean that the franchise went down the drain due to quality or lack of sales, but what do I know.  This is the first time that I have come close to this series.  Thankfully, "Parasite Dolls" is a series that can be viewed independently of everything else in the series.  There need be no prior information concerning the "Bubblegum Crisis" universe to understand the episodes.

                The episodes follow Buzz Nikvest and the other agents of the Branch department of the AD Police.  Branch is a secret part of the AD Police who is able to operate without much of the red tape that the AD Police has to cut through.  Primarily, Branch deals with rogue Boomers, an intelligent android that is able to mimic human behavior despite not experiencing emotions themselves.  While the Boomers are generally programmed to protect and aid the human population, there exists a growing problem where Boomers have been found to be going wild and killing humans.  In the three episodes, Buzz and Branch tackle three specific cases.  The first has to do with a series of malfunctioning Boomers that all go wild at the same each week.  The second is the case of a mysterious Boomer that is killing other Boomers that specialize in prostitution.  The third episode is Branch's final case.  Within these three segments, "Parasite Dolls" creates a cyberpunk adventure that is both brutal and thought provoking.

                The narrative of "Parasite Dolls" is fast paced for nearly the entire length.  From the gunfights to the police work, the show does not spend much time sitting around.  On top of the action, the amount of information that gets handed to the viewer in both verbal and image format is quick and precise.  The information that is thrown at the viewer may be a bit much for some, but the best part of quick narrative is that it also knows how to be subtle.  Instead of handing everything explicitly to the audience, the show forces the viewer to think and come to the realization instead of requiring an explicit explanation.  Take the end of the first episode for example.  We learn about Buzz's wife who had died years prior.  However, we had seen a woman living in his home preparing a meal at the start of the episode.  In the last scene, we are able to figure out what had occurred off screen and what was the truth because we see the aftermath.  I would not like to say exactly what happens because it was such a smack to the forehead that I do not want to ruin the surprise.

                The art of the show has deep roots in late 80's and early 90's anime.  This era contained some of the most violent shows and had some of the most visually disturbing imagery of just about any other era.  Take my review of "Genocyber" for example.  Numerous people were killed on screen and off to the point that an entire ship was more blood and flesh than metal.  "Parasite Dolls" has its fare share of death and destruction.  The show knows how to use this imagery to its advantage instead of only suing it for shock value.  So not get me wrong, it uses the imagery for shock value, but it uses to illustrate a point.  While most of the broken bodies in the show are robotic, instead of making them inhuman on the inside to highlight their robotic nature, the show makes them appear as human as possible under the skin while remembering that they are metallic based.  When a Boomer is shot or torn apart, a humanoid skeleton is underneath with a metal piece for each bone.  When they are shot, black oil spouts out in place of blood.  If they are split in two, internal organs made from plastic spill out.  The show knows it can get away with more violence if it is towards non-humans but that does not mean that it has to make the audience unsympathetic to the androids.  The Boomers are characters despite not being humans.  With this in mind, the show knows how to make the audience care about the non-human characters.  It is a difficult tightrope walk that the show does.  If it depicts too much violence without taking time to portray the androids as character, there is no emotional bond between the character and the audience.  If the show takes too much time to foster that bond and leave out the violence, it halts the story and action to a standstill.

                The show's title is of course a reference to the Boomers and is the show's central theme.  It poses a few futuristic questions as to what makes a being human, like all cyberpunk stories do.  Instead of trying to argue that the Boomers are becoming human or that they are equivalents to human, the show firmly positions them as androids.  When they begin to think that they are human that usually signals that their demise is imminent.  If anything, "Parasite Dolls" is more of a showcase of the continual fall of man.  Remember: the show is about a police force, so they still deal with the criminal who is human.  Some of those criminals are barely human if you consider their crimes.  The only consolation that the viewer has is that the madmen of the story are still fictional as long as the technologies presented remain fictitious as well.

                I was able to watch "Parasite Dolls" with the original Japanese audio.   It sadly pointed out some aspects within the original that I find annoying.  There is a strange fascination that the Japanese have with the English language.  They interject it into their songs and daily vernacular.  The former only shows their ignorance of the language while the latter at least stems from borrowing technical words from the word's natural origin.  The opening song intermingles Japanese language lyrics with English interjections and phrases.  As a natural English speaker, these grammatical incorrect phrases grate against my ears because they barely make sense within the context of the song.  They feel more like buzzwords than the meaningful lyrics that the composer wanted them to be.  Within the show, a few English words are used, but at least they are borrowed words where there is no Japanese word to fit in.  However, a few English interjections do occur when a character shouts.  These feel more in line with the poor English lyrics as well.

You have to feel bad for the poor guys that ended up as the "Normal" policemen.

                "Parasite Dolls" is a good series, although, a bit short, which is a letdown.  The show does such a good job of world building and constructing a cast of characters that I wish there had been more stories.  More time would have been nice, but at the same time that might have distilled the narrative too much.  It tackles a number of topics, many of which I have not covered.  While the show does not do a poor job of it, I also feel that it at times feel a bit generic.  The animation is spot on, being both detailed and smooth.  It is worth a watch, but I am hesitant to say that it has great lasting appeal.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Epic Mickey".

Entry 124: "The Sword with No Name" (2009)

You are not getting more images than this today.

Dear Internet,

                "The Sword with No Name" is a 2009 South Korean romance film set in the late Joseon period.  A literal translation of the original title "불꽃처럼 나비처럼" would be "Like Fireworks, Like Butterflies" which makes sense with some of the films imagery and a lot more sense than "The Sword with No Name."   Specifically, the fictitious film takes place from around 1866 until 1895.  It is most important to highlight the fictitious aspect of the film within the same breath as the very real dates because the film tells of the very real Empress Myeongseong and her fictitious lover/admirer Moo-myeong.  

                The film centers itself around the two characters Moo-myeong, the bounty hunter who as a child had witnessed his mother being killed for practicing Catholicism, and Ja-yeong, the soon to be bride of the king of Joseon despite her obvious hesitations.  Ja-yeon decides to visit the ocean once more before her marriage to ease her mind.  Along the way, she comes across Moo-myeong, whom she asks for a boat ride down the river to the sea.  The man agrees, and both get close to one another during the trip.  After her marriage, Moo-myeong attempts to gain entry into the royal guard so that he can be closer to Ja-yeaong or even see her for that matter.  Even after proving his courage and entering into the guard, it is not for some time before he gets the chance to talk to her again.  Meanwhile, there is a political conspiracy that comes from the outside Japanese influence and from the old king and regent of Joeson.  The political side erupts and threatens not only Joseon's stability as a country but also the life of Ja-yeong.  It is up to Moo-myeong to save the queen while remembering both of their positions as ruler and subject.

                You can tell already that the film is a romance first with a history lesson taking back stage.  The dynamic of the two main characters is the constant string throughout the film.  In the beginning, we wonder if they are going to run off and she will not marry the king.  In the middle, we wonder if they are going to run off and leave the king.  In the end, we wonder much the same as in the middle.  The relationship between the two never gets more than platonic, although there was a night in a damp and cold cave that left me more than confused.  Despite this, or because of this, their non-sexual relationship the romance was for the most part done very sweetly.  You can see the devotion Moo-myeong has for Ja-yeong throughout the film.  His feelings do not stem straightly from shallow reasons like Ja-yeong's appearance or status.  He continues to strive to protect her with his very life for the entirety of the film.

                I will not even try to touch upon the historical accuracies of this film.  I will save that for someone much more knowledgeable in that department.  If you know your Korean history, the film's suspense filled scenes that risk the safety of the queen melt away in a moment.  It is like wondering while watching a biographical film about Julies Caesar if he is going to die on the battlefield.  If you have paid attention to that section of your history class in school, you do not have to worry about him until March comes rolling around.  If you know how the actual queen had died, then you know what to expect of the film.  The only question then for any sort of suspense is if Moo-myeong is going to die first.  His life is constantly in jeopardy.  Even when they return from the trip to the ocean, he ends up taking a few knives to his back in protecting her.  This leads into the action oriented scenes that dot the film.

                There is an immense portion of the film that is dedicated to action scenes.  Moo-myeong wields a weapon that looks like a cross between a butcher knife and a machete.  It is an intimidating weapon that he used in his life as a bounty hunter and continued to use while a palace guard.  It does seem out of place in the film, especially when he continues to wear it while garbed in a regulated uniform, but at least the film treats it with a purpose rather than merely having the weapon as a flashy object.  When he fights, he makes obvious use of the blade's unique design rather than using it as a longer bladed weapon.  The fights in the film are there most likely to amuse the boyfriends and husbands of the woman that had dragged their man to go see the film.  Thankfully, the film does not shirk away from giving its all to entertaining the thrill seekers in the audience.  The first major fight occurs between Moo-myeong and the master swordsman Noe-jeon, who is also the captain of the guard.  Their battle is quickly shifted to computer graphic assisted choreography.   This basically means that it becomes a fight between super-humans instead of being realistic.  That does not mean it is not entertaining.  The two men jump about two small boats on a lake, kicking and slashing to the point that the camera can barely keep up.  Only one other time in the film did I notice that the fight was heavily altered using computer graphics to make it more dynamic.  The second time was a little too over the top for my taste, actually melting away the setting.  What makes me hesitant to like the second time is the fact that there are witnesses to the fight.  The film can play off the first fight as being over the top because the two men are fighting alone, but since the second fight is being witnessed by a large group of people, the over-the-top action feel out of place.  It is still fun to watch it, but the gnawing problem hits the back of my head.

                Within the film, there is a great level of political intrigue and conspiracies that take place.  They were confusing to me for much of the film.  It was only about halfway through the film that I fully understood what I should have.  This might have more to do with the how common knowledge of the timeframe is for the average South Korean as compared to an outside viewer than it have to do with the amount of information that the film gives out.  If this is the case, then I cannot strike it against the film.  I did, however, find parts confusing enough that I was lost for large amounts of time.  Eventually, I pulled together who was backstabbing who, but perhaps I might just be slow when it concerns Asian politics.

                Then there is Moo-myeong's origin scene.  The film opens up with Moo-myeong as a child witnessing his parents being killed for practicing Catholicism.  This is a harsh stain on the history of Korea, but the film paints it less as a crime against religion and more of an attack against Westernization.  This might be because this was the reason for the attack since through the film, the old guard is seen striving to keep Joeson free from Western influence.  The old king constantly fights with the queen about how she interjects Western ability and individuals into the inner court.  The film wants to makes sure that the clash of East meets West is the center point for the confrontation between generations and individuals.  This is all well and understandable, however, the fact that Moo-myeong is shown to having lost his parents in one of these clashes years ago is a big hole in the story.  I do not mean that it creates a hole within the narrative, but that it creates a hole in his character.  Other than the Christian name that his mother gives him, Johannes, and a cross shaped scar on his chest that is never explained, he has no connection to those that dies that night years ago.  He does not seek out some sort of vengeance or shown to have any sort of ill will towards those that killed his parent.  In fact, there is no connecting theme to his past to the events that occur elsewhere in the film.  It just dissolves instead of being a character trait.  At that point, there really is no reason to having him be born of Catholic parents or even parents who were "Westernized."  The persecution scene is there only to illustrate the level of resistance that Joseon had to Western influences, not add character depth to Moo-myeong.  

                "The Sword with No Name" is an average film.  It does somewhat OK with the romance, action, and suspense, but nothing great or memorable worth revisiting for a second time.  You might find a moment or two that is poignant, but it is surrounded by a lot of filler.  I should not make it seem like the film has got nothing going for itself.  The romance is handled very well, showcasing Moo-myeong's devotion and the conflict with Ja-yeong having to be queen to a king she does not love.  Instead of shirking their responsibilities, like flighty children, they act accountable, respecting one another and the duties of the other, even if that means denying themselves.  The film does this one thing well, but the rest was just average.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Parasite Dolls."

Entry 123: "The Monster X Strikes Back/Attack of the G8 Summit" (2008)

The Monster X Strikes Back/Attack of the G8 Summit

Dear Internet,

                Now, I on the right footing by watching the correct film today.  "The Monster X Strikes Back/Attack of the G8 Summit" is something of a sequel to the original movie.  I say somewhat because the only thing that the two films have in common is the shared monster Guilala.  Beyond that, there is next to no continuity between the two films.  Short of one joke about a Chinese knockoff spaceship named after the ship found in the first film, the monster is the only similarity that the two films have.  The second film also flips the genre it aims for completely upside down.  The original film was meant to be a drama, although how well it meant that goal can be questioned easily.  The second film is a comedy foremost with some political satire heaved heavily on the side.

                The film begins with the G* Summit being held in Japan.  Eight heads of countries have come together to discuss a number of pressing world issues.  As the group continues their discussions, an unidentified object crashes into Sapporo in northern Japan.  From the fiery carnage, Guilala emerges and brings death and destruction to the city.  The eight take it upon themselves to rid the world of Guilala so that none shall live in terror and that their ratings in the polls will go up.  Meanwhile, two Japanese journalists stumble upon a secret cult of worshipers dancing for their ancient god, Take-Majin.  As they push their inquiry further, they find out that it was foretold since long ago that Guilala was to invade Earth.  Humans would be unable to stop the creature.  Only the god Take-Majin could stop the extraterrestrial monstrosity.  The only problem is that the hero-god is nowhere to be seen in mankind's darkest hour.  Will he appear in time to save us?

The chicken from outer space comes back.

                I have probably written a more dramatic summary than any moment of the film itself.  This is because the film takes itself very lightly.  It is a comedy first and a monster film second.  The center of the film's comedy stems from the antics of the G8 group.  Each of the world leaders is an overly stereotypical cartoon character.  The leader of France is a womanizer who ignores his recent marriage.  The president of the USA is an idiot that cares more about his chances of being reelected than stopping the monster.  The Russian leader utilizes spy tactics to get the job done.  So on and so on, the film lays on these stereotypes to make the audience laugh.  It works quite well because the film does not take any sort of serious jab at anyone in particular.  Even the prime minister of Japan gets made fun of, having to run off to the bathroom constantly throughout the film due to indigestion.

                Beyond the comedy found in the war room, the film makes sure to carry over the silly shenanigans to the Guilala scenes.  The Japanese are the first who attempt to combat the creature by aiming a high powered missile straight at the creature.  This ends up being a poor idea.  Guilala catches the missile before it makes contact and eats the weapon hungrily.  After this, the various other world leaders try one after the other to destroy the beast.  Each manner reflects the comical stereotypes of each country.  I will not ruin any sort of surprises because the effect and failure of each one is a great punch line to each joke.

                There is one major problem with the film.  It stems from the film's subplot or side-plot.  The two journalists take a considerable amount of screen time thought the film.  They find the secret shrine, interact with the mysterious villagers, and find out about Take-Majin.  It all adds up to a good level of exposition to let Take-Maijin appear from out of nowhere.  However, despite their importance to generating information so that the audience can see how the day will truly be saved, they do not really do anything that affects the plot.  Sure, they eventually join the ritual dance, but their dancing is not made clear to have been the tipping point to getting Taka-Majin to appear.  For all we know, the ritual dance would have summoned the hero-god without the help of the two journalists.  They are only there as some sort of audience avatar to see the attack of Guilala from eyelevel.

                The inability of the journalists to make a bigger impact upon the story is not the biggest problem.  The problem is that it acts too much as a cold contrast to the comical half of the film.  Whenever the film covers the G8 Summit, laughter abounds.  There are sly jokes on the side that can be missed and other outlandish ones that are enough to bust a gut.  When the film turns to the reporters, there are no jokes or any sort of silliness.  The tone of the film shifts to being dramatic.  It is not overly dramatic to the point of being a joke itself, but the effect is that the film feels split in two.  It feels like the film was written by two different people.  One wrote the G8 Summit half and the other concentrated on the reporters.  At least it seems that the G8 writer had done the final fight between the two giants.  While the contrast between the two halves are never enough to feel like the film is a pendulum moving in great swings from one extreme to the other, it feels like more of a missed opportunity for there to have been humor in both halves.  The only joke that even comes from the journalist half has to do with the funny dance that is in the ritual.  This joke gets old fairly quickly because of how often it repeats.

                "The Monster X Strikes Back/Attack of the G8 Summit" is a good film if you want to watch a world political satire film.  It is a great film if you want a comedy about government incompetence.  It is an OK film to watch a monster destroy the countryside.  It is very enjoyable even without having watched the first film.  That last bit is probably the most important thing I can say about the film.  The sequel is not a parody of the first, despite the amount of available material to make fun of.  It is a general fun film.  Not even the stiff acting of the English speaking actors can detract from the film.  If anything, the stiff and poor acting makes the scenes funnier a la "The Skeleton of Cadavra," a parody film about bad horror films of old.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "The Sword with No Name" (2009).