Deadlockoriginalfilms

I feel like it's possible to have a more nuanced conversation here, considering a lot of this merchandise uses high pressure limited stock fomo and gambling based sales tactics

They sell blind boxes so that whales will buy as many as possible to get the thing that they want and try to chase super rare items. You can't sell people the same item twice unless you put it inside of a box with a question mark on it and tell them they could possibly get something else this time if they're willing to gamble

They make ultra limited stock items with specialized designs so that people will panic buy

And having dedicated merch drops after every single episode can make you wonder how much merchandiseability is influencing the actual script writing process

I guess the classic example of this are the Phil Collins songs for Tarzan

Lose yourself by Eminem is one of the only movie tie in songs that I can think of that play regularly on the radio that name drop a character from the film they are promoting. (Ghostbusters probably being the second most famous one that I know of)

People saw that two out of the four episodes were really good, and the other two were """really bad"""", and came away with the belief that this was an impossible doomed project

It wasn't,

they basically had it figured out,

if it wasn't for covid, studio interference, and an extremely small episode count, this could have been a masterpiece. and even the show that we finally have is still pretty fun, with two outstanding episodes

but I have some questions,

questions that I haven't heard anyone else ask about the finale

This is a minor point, but why was 27 seconds of the digital circus finale just pomni and ragatha walking away from each other? It's 8% of the episode's runtime

In the theater I was like "hmm, ragatha is probably going to die at some point, so this scene SEEMS pointless now but on the second watch it'll hurt really bad, like this will be the last time we ever see them together. It's like how the berserk ending credits have a different meaning after you've watched the show".

No, I think it's just filler to get the episode to an hour. which is weird because it's an internet show so there are no runtime requirements to adhere to a network schedule, they could have made it any length they wanted.

Or maybe it's like one of those scenes in marvel movies that are engineered to have enough dead air that it will give the audience the opportunity to applaud when their favorite character does something

Or maybe it's like a joke, like targeted at the people complaining about how she hasn't had any development, like "oh you guys want more raggatha? Well here's a scene that takes up 8% of the runtime that's just her walking in a straight line"

I never could have predicted the discourse around the TADC finalie

My problem with it is that the actual literal plot is kind of gobbledygook, is poorly explained/doesn't make sense

But this kind of stuff is what I'm seeing instead

And the way that people who DO like it talk about it, reminds me of the way people talk about the later rebuild movies. Like the fact that there are autobiographical elements makes it so that the plot holes don't matter

Like with rebuild I'll say "this is kind of dumb, all the characters are acting stupid, misato is encoraging shinji to end the world to self actualize, now suddenly she's mad about it in the next movie because the guy who sexually harasses her died as a result? Also the characters are technically older but their bodys look the same so that they can keep drawing them naked but not get arrested. This anno guy clearly isn't a serious person" and they'll say "well it's smart because it's all a big metaphor for the fact the director didn't want to make the movie in the first place, and he's sad all the time", but I'm still like "the LITERAL plot should make some amount of sense

Caine is back. he can just do that. He also stopped being evil because he removed an orb, it's all good now don't worry about it. Wifi works like a battery. Pomni doesn't try to console jaxx when they walk away, even though they spent like 5 minutes talking about how they all need each other, they didn't even bother thinking of a reason why she couldn't like maybe her hands were full with her duties rebuilding the circus, she was literally just standing there

People on Facebook say it about everything they're nostalgic for. Longingly, lovingly

But I'm pretty sure "you had to be there" was originally an insult to a piece of art.

You're supposed to say that when it doesn't actually hold up if watched/played in the modern day

All right, content warning, this next section is where I have to actually say my real life opinions in order to improve my point

You didn't "have to be there" to enjoy Naruto part 1. I watched it for the first time when I was 20 in like 2017, and It's one of the best anime of its kind imo.

DBZ on the other hand seems like it's only really enjoyable if you started the series when you're 12 or under, when you have lower standards for what you expect from storytelling

You didn't "have to be there" to enjoy Star Fox 64 or Mario kart 64. I didn't play them until late high School and early adulthood, and imo they are still great games overall.

Halo 1 on the other hand seems extremely poorly designed. Me and my partner spent nearly an hour running around in circles in one section, because all of the corridors are exactly the same and the game lacks any conveyance as to where you're supposed to go next, (and he had actually played the game before, but he still didn't know where to go)

The people on Facebook will post collections of GameCube games or compilations of cartoon Network shows and unintentionally imply that this stuff sucks if you're not a nostalgia blind weirdo. NO, ACTUALLY SOME OF THE STUFF IS STILL VERY GOOD, STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE YOUNGER GENERATIONS THAT IT'S TERRIBLE

This is a very strange phenomenon, cuz it seems like for most of History people tried to force their kids to watch stuff that they grew up liking, now suddenly we are like "no, this was never good to begin with, but if you have the epic privilege of having been born at an exact point in time you will have access to wonder and whimsy beyond your wildest imagination. Too bad you were coincidentally born in a different decade, you pathetic creature, you were born with the fundamental deficiency of being able to understand Star Fox 64 😎" WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT