Unlicensed Lawyer: Pokemon rights

Okay, that is one metal Pokemon logo, Peta. Credit where it's due.

Some of you have taken to comparing the act of Pokemon battles, as seen in the multimedia success Pokemon, to cockfighting, a practice mostly illegal in the U.S.A., yet still practiced in it's most darling territory, where I happen to live. In fact, those comparisons are bordering on "not funny anymore".

I am not gonna guess what you think of cockfighting, although I'm guessing a good amount  of you think it's somewhere from "that's not nice" to "that's a barbaric ritual that doesn't belong in the 21rst century". I'm not gonna try to defend cockfighting, but I am going to become an unlicensed lawyer for Pokemon battling.

See, most of you have not considered  that Sinnoh, Johto, Kanto and the rest have different social histories from us, and most of those come from the fact that they have creatures that can shoot fire and water and thunder scattered all over the land.

I mean, think about it: We tamed the bull and put him to work fields, we tamed the dogs and used them to protect our homes: how would we have reacted  if we had somehow tamed a horse that can shoot fire or a psychic duck? Every element of our society would be completely different.

There's no guns in this world for the most part, because who needs guns when you can  summon an invincible penguin that can waterbend? Knocking  a guys Beedrill makes him be at your mercy. I bet war is not fought with hosts and swords, either.

And we would have had to do this long before we had the slightest concept of  human rights, as living in the world of Pokemon seems to be unreasonably dangerous. Maybe you've never been to a rural area and have no idea how common "tall grass" is. But in this  world, walking into it means certain death.

Like a hellish fusion of Australia and the African Bush, , walking into an untamed area  means that every animal within hearing distance wants to kill you. But whereas in Africa it might be a gagoon biter or in Australia it might be dingoes, Animals that LOOK dangerous, here even squirrels, sparrows and caterpillars  want kill you and eat your remains.

My Photoshop powers increased 10 fold since ou last match.

You where walking in the woods, minding your own business on your way to your nephew's birthday party. You didn't walk in looking for trouble, but you found it:  You are face to face with a bear, and you need to preserve your own life. But if instead of having a rifle, that even at close range might not be enough for you not to become bear chow, what if you could draw YOUR OWN BEAR, and have it fight instead? Would you consider the option? Could that even be more humane?

What if you KNEW that every 1 to 11 steps a bear will without any doubt charge you. Would THAT be reason enough to  have a defense bear of your own? Would you need six bears to survive a relatively short  trip unscathed?

What's worse is that Pokemon are no innocent victim's of man. No. Pokemon are actually proven to have conscious thought on a level where they understand  humans a good amount of the time. Sometimes they even work together to screw over wayward kids, even when it's animals you don't think that's cooperate. Don't you see? They aren't attacking because it's their natural instinct and they feel threatened or hungry. They know what they are doing: mobbing the shit out of some dumb kid because HOW THE HELL IS HE GONNA STOP THEM?

Okay, you're just a blue wrestler with a lizard for a head. You can't be claiming no animal rights.

Cockfighting? When was the last time  a rooster killed a child by shooting thunder at it and laughed?  If Pokemon are as smart or more than people, then they too should be judged by their actions equally, and be found  guilty of being...well...monsters!

This world doesn't have Pokemon fight because it's fun. They have Pokemon fight because it's the only way to survive in this world. Pokemon  subjugation by humans is the alternative to human subjugation by Pokemon. It's as essential for human civilization as  the wheel or vaccines or electricity. Did they elevate it to a spectator sports? Well, did we not do so with martial arts?

 Most of us are lucky to never having had to fight of a wild animal for sheer survival of self or kin.  Even Grisly Man , who considered being eaten by bears an honor, tried to fight back when the most obvious  possible thing that could happen to him and those  dumb enough to hang with him happened. In the Pokemon world there is only certainty that death follows those that don't have Pokemon. And most of us don't know what that's like to be passing judgment.

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Annotated Lyrics to The Ruber Song

Power!

Kids, if you are anything like I was when I was young, you've considered  working in animation. Here's a tip for all you aspiring animators: There's no deleted scenes in animation. You plan and plan and plan and then do. Improvisation costs far too much money, and any and all choices must be made before spending thousands inking leaves no one will ever see, or animating that Gay horse that's gonna get shot down by execs. What happens if you don't? Quest for Camelot is what happens.

You see, after the film had already basically been done, Warner Brothers decided it wasn't quite Disney enough. They scrambled to add songs, and edited the film to shit and really pissed off Celine Dione. And the Ruber song was born as song by Gary Oldman. Let my annotations say all that must be said about it's lyrics. If you must sing along...

Let's go back to War and Violence(Did I mention Ruber is the bad guy?)

I'm so bored with peace...and...SILENCE! (He's a regular Fender, that Ruber.)

Nights of evil, filled with fear (I think we get it, now, Rubs, baby.)

Your worst fear that's my i-dear of fun!(I don't want to mess with languages that aren't mine, but is there a rule to ending  EA words with an R in England? And should you really rhyme  a word that actually ends with R with one that is only pronounced as such?)

(talky bits)

Let darkness find it's sad ways. (But I thought YOU were gonna help darkness! You really are an asshole!)

Let's go back to the good old bad days.(The all or nothing days?)

No more foolish acts of kind-ness! (The Salvation Army killed his parents.)

Arrthurr and his kingdom...will be mine!(Okay. Wha...I thought this was all about bringing the darkness?)

(more talky bits)

Years from now, no one will bothar!

To recall yor good king Otharr!(And everyone will remember King Ruber the Crosseyed!)

Because all of this...will be mine!(Booo! Sell oout!)

THIS...WILL ALL...BE MINE!

I have a plan, it includes you!(You're gonna tell her, aren't you?)

You, Juliana will lead me to

Camelot! Where I will claim all that is miiiiine!( I lent Lancelot my lawnmower, and he's not takin gmy caaaaaalls!)

On the back of your wagons, my men will all hide!

You'll sit upfront, as the gates open wiiide!(This last two things could easilly be veiled threats of rape. Still, it's a good plan)

Now WATCH ME CREATE! MY MECHANYCAL AHMY! With priiiiiide! (WTF?)

With this potion! I got from some witches!(Some witches, you know. Not dropping any names or explaining why they gave this powerful potion to the biggest jerk in the world)

A drop on this chicken, and watch as it switches

Into a weapon I can use at will!(And when I drop it in my cock, it turns hard as metal too!)

Now this chicken! Can kill!(Bladebeak stats by movie's end: 0 kills, 3 defeats, 1 victory.)

Tadaaa! Behold! Blade-beak!(Ok, creative naming class is now closed.)

Hurry up and enter quickly! As I transform the meek and sickly! Into ironmen! With hands of steel!(But obviously not Ironmen(tm Marvel Comics) with hands of Steel(tm DC comics))

(Ruber continues to babble incoherently like a madman for a while, hile  his retarded henchmen jump into the pool of bodychangium they sing a Choir)

Bring on the darkness, bring on the gloom. (we like what he was singing early more! About the darkness and stuff)

We are the army of death and gloom.(So...you're gonna bring it, or do I?)

(Ruber again)

Only one will be revered! 

Hated, worshiped, loved and feared.("And army of death and gloom" tested badly with  focus groups)

I just want to say a few words: I, Me, MINE!

You were mistaken if you believed! Ruber was someone who'd crumble and leave! Well now I'm back! And I will be staying this timne!

I told tyou once!

I told ya twice!

Everything you see before you

Every last bit oof it!

Will! BE! MMIIIIiiiiine!

(Evil Laguhter)

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Golden Age is all the Rage: Moon Girl vs the Man Stealing Space Skanks

"Moongirl, help! They're getting on my pants!"

I've heard that the most effective sci fi stories deal with our worries. Is technology advancing too fast? Are we ready for what's to come? Could aliens really be planning  to spirit away and bump uglies with our men? I guess in 1945 Sheldon Moldoff really tapped into that latent fear in Moon Girl #1's "Invader's from Venus".

The story proper begins in the aforementioned planet, where an alien species is discussing their predicament: they are running out of men! This species naturally is distinct from earth humans in nothing. Not even unhuman colors or pointy ears. Couldn't they be bugeyed, yet hot? Queen Nameless dispatches Erica, her confidant, and a squadron of other Venunites to  earth to bring more men, lest their species die off.

Did you reuse, reduce, and recycle them?

And so the girls are off to kidnap Earth's most precious resource. They just happen to land on the current hometown of vaguely Middle Eastern Superwoman Moon Girl. There, they observe Lionel Manning, really  The Prince, the son of Hercules, as he's winning a baseball game, even though he's just the coach, and he's supposed to be sort of undercover. But when he gets back to the bus it's totalled. I know what happened!

Sadly, no. Instead, all the bus patrons have been kidnapped.The big man gets jumped at by some ALFILFs, but he tosses them like an Apple Nano at a birthday Party. He gets threatened to be shot with a raygun, but, despite having probably never been shot with a raygun by rape happy Venusians,  he dismisses out of hand as futile. This senseless bravado impresses Erica, because I guess in her planet, you just let the guy take your money and then cry about it. Then he gets shot.

 

Sure, it's a paralizing effect, but it's  proof that, as the rare male adult sideckick to a female Superhero, Prince kinda sucks. And what's worst, when Robin gets caught he doesn't let Batman stood up for a date. At least, I like to think he doesn't.

Indeed, Claire Lune, Alias Moongirl, is wondering where he is, when she gets told the bus never gets there. Naturally, she super runs into the scene of Prince getting all caught, and starts beating the shit out of people.

 "I'm not using my helping fist, either!"

After a sufficient amount of ass is handed, she regains her man(and only her man). Luckilly for any of them who did not want to become an automatic semen dispenser for life(and seriously, why baseball.? Have you even seen a baseball player? They're either fat or on steroids) Erica has  a bit of a change of heart and turns back in hope of nabbing  The Prince.

wait, I like this panel, but it needs  some updating.

There, all happy. Hrmm. So Erica, who won't say she's in love has a new plan: shoot everyone with paralizing ray until they win.. Okay, here's a plan, you dumb wench: "I'm a really hot woman, but from space: We're taking volunteers who would like to hump us all day. No fat dudes." I mean, we've established they see us from space, why not just ask? What's wrong with saying: "our socierty is dying, and will die without the charity of your dickings?"

Still, I guess  Erica is thinking with her, erm...whatever. She and her crew surprise The Prince at a dance and try to paralize ray everyone. Moongirl...well, she kind of beats the shit out of them again. It's kinda brutal, actually.

Is anyone else seeing people getting feet stuck up their ass? Or is it just me?

Agreeing to let them go in exchange for the other prisoners, Erica and her friends agree never to come back with their planetwrecker ways. Moongirls wonders about how women must be glad none of them  galaxy ho's is trynna steal their mans.

And so it ends.

 

Naw, just kidding. they come back in Moongirl #6. What else could happen?

After the previous failiure of their paralizer ray based schemes, the girls have  new and devious plan: cause an earthquake, then while we're dealing with the aftermath, return to the exact same college and steal the same guys, but with hypnosis this time. I  guess the Rawley college  baseball somehow collected the ideal genetic specimens. 

Jeezus, girls. I know getting a man is aparently hard, but  you're just being overdramatic now.

We get a few pages of Moongirl stopping toppling buildings, then she runs into her boyfriend walking behind one of the alien gogo dancers. She immediately assumes the worst (that he's cheating on her, not that he's about to be taken off planet to the semen farms.) Of course, she quickly sees other people also following women and  backflips into the conclusion Erica and her girls are involved.

I don't know, girls. You don't seem to be taking this very seriously.

Moon Girl then of course, flips them like  the pages of a particularly fragile book.

Tet a tit.

Man, i think I found the recurrung theme of this Venusians.  Erica, unleashes her secret weapon of hypnotized men against Moon Girl, which against all publication history works.  Moongirl gets grabbed by the legs and arms, tied, and thrown into a ditch deep in the earth. But not in a Wonder Womaney way where you kinda get that the guy was getting off on it.

However, Moon GIrl unties herself and digs her way out, grabs the ship before it  flies away,  frees the men, and throws the ship out of control toward space. And, then, instead of closure...

Ma! Pa! Come quick, it's SHELDON MOLDOFF!

Do not take my tone to mean I think there's nothing worth salvaging here, Oh, no, au contraire, mon petit. I totally would revamp the  Wolfgirls from Venus into something.  Just, you know, maybe give them head-tails or something.

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The Tim Burton's wife game

Wigs are art.

I watched Les Miserables, and want to make a Scolding Review of it but…won’t. Even though there’s plenty to rip on on it, I simply won’t. But something wonderful came up with the movie, and I want to bring it up.

See, when strange, bighaired women came out to egg on Ann Hathaway’s character to sell her teeth(and way to cheat on toothless singing  Ann Hathaway, Hollywood), I jokingly asked my sister if Tim Burton’s wife had shown up when I wasn’t looking. But later in the movie she did show up.

And it got me to thinking…how do these appearances by TBW stack up in terms of associated elements? How Timburtonwifetastical is each of these? That’s how I came up with a system  to measure it. I call it the Tim Burton’s Wife Game.

Each element  is given a mathematical strength factor, meant to be added up to a total amount of points. You COULD play it as a drinking game, but as each of these are  usually all in evidence by the time Johnny Depp is eating her brains, It’d likely be a fast and heavy game of alcohol poisoning.  What are our factors? Let’s see.

Tim Burton directs the movie.

You don’t get much points for this because Tim’s wife is in all of his movies ever since they got hooked up.

Is TBW’s hair an unruly mess?

I thought this was a Tim Burton thing, but it shows up in a lot of her non-nepoticalapearances. And franky if she isn’t   going for the natural “just woke up” look, she’s bald or sporting a crazy hair hat. What’s wrong with just…hair?

Is she really pale?

I know the woman’s got a pasty complexion, it’s just that most of the time instead of playing around it, they go straight to making her more pale or having  highly contrasting black eyeliner.

Is the movie set in the Victorian years?

“Because I brought a whole truck full of corsets and giant black unseemly wigs and I don’t want it to seem  out of place.”

Is her character affably amoral?

I think I’ve only ever seen TBW as a straight up good character in Big Fish, where she was king of thought of as a villain. When she’s not straight up evil(Sleepy Hollow, Terminator Salvation), she’s generally not an aid to the heroes. Either way, she’s usually some kind of awful person but kind of charming enough not to be immediately hateable.

She dies a horrible death.

Perphaps due to her propensity for the other variables, her characters as a rule often die horrible deaths.This is especially true in her husband’s movies, where again, with exceptions like Big Fish, Planet of the Apes and Corpse Bride her characters have to die, and it’s generally nasty ways like  being killed by a vampire, having your neck cut and being dumped down a laundry chute or being kissed by Christopher Walken. Wait, that last one might not be horrible.

It is a musical/has songs.

Regardless of whether she sings, or just sits it out, TBW’s movies tend to gravitate towards theatricality. This means the odds are good this at least has some songs in it.

Let’s apply this on any film she’s in and see how that works. Let’s say…Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation racks a lowly.2 points, on account of small screentime. Surely she died horribly either because of cancer or because of the whole “nuclear war on robots” thing. But if it’s not in the film it doesn’t count.

Let’s go for something a little more recent.

Dark Shadows lost a lot of points by opting to be set in the 70s, and not casting  TBW as a pale flapper or something. It racks up 6 points.

Harry Potter 7-1  suceeds in gaming the system by 6 points as well. Had they not stretch the plot thin, we might have seen TBW thrown  into a magical thrash compactor or whatever it is that happened in the final movie.

The consummate Tim Burton’s wife representation, Old Tim somehow managed to game the system to put his wife as the second-to-third most important character in  musical about Victorian England murderers.  The movie pulls a bingo and wins 15 points, the highest score possible.

But what about Les Miserables?

10. My incapacity to tell what Victorian actually is keeps me from awarding the pts for Victorianism(doesn’t count if it’s in France, right?), but it’s still pretty strong.  I encourage you to use this here blank card and check out how other films in her filmography and see how they compare. And remember that one day she’s gonna get cast in a Transformer film as Black Arachnia, and you’ll remember me, who never once uttered her full name, and throw up a little blessing to my person.

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Anotated Super Mario Bros. Super Show Theme song

WAITTA...WHY DIDN'T YOU ADD MY FACE TO THE GRAPHIC? IT'S ALL ABOUT MARIO THE BIG STAR, INNIT?

Look, we're all wont to admit that sometimes things  can be a little stupider if you actually pay attention to them. When I was young I loved the hell out of some Super Mario Bos. Super show intro, even thought the language barrier kept me from understanding  what it was saying. But I got the point of this embarassingly old school rap: Super Mario Brothers are awesome, get daddy to buy you a Nintendo.

However, I decided now to look into these lyrics, and see what they're about. And they're just aweful. So throuroughly awful, in fact,  I must  go into excrutiating  detail of each verse and rhyme until I can unbreak them. Here it is. Follow along at home if you must.

We're the Mario Brothers(No good Hip Hop song ever began with "We're Blank". Even then, this is how lame parents rapped.), and plumbing's our game(It is? Seriously don't you want to rap about being famous adventurers?), we're not like the others who get all the fame("Other plumbers gettin' all the fame, son. We wasting our time collecting gold coins and shit") If your sink is  in trouble you can call us on the double(Goddamn you! Nobody's ever cared about the plumber aspect of your lives!).

We're faster than the others(Okay, tell me your stupid rates, then), you'll be hooked on the brothers(What?)

I said hooked on the brothers.(No, I heard you the first time. I mean, are you still talking about digging into my toilet or about the addictive qualities of Super Mario 2? Because I'm not sure I want to be "hooked"on getting my damn plumbing fixed))

You you're in for a treat so hang on to your seat(Toilet Seat?)

Get ready for adventure and remarkable feats. (Finally! Unambiguosly not about shit pipes!)

Y'all meet koopas and troopas, the princess and the others(Koopas and Troopas are the same! And way to alienate the shyguys and birdos that just happen to take a more central stage in this show!")

Hanging with the brothers you'll be hooked on the brothers!(Brothers don't let Brothers rhyme with themselves.)

 Yet again!(peet peet, peet, pee peet, peepeet pee, peet! Hey, no one ever said the Mario theme isn't catchy)

Hooked I say. (FASTER! STRONGER! MORE HOOKED ON A CARICATURE OF ITALIANS!)

Oooooh!

Let's go!

The Brothers(But not  like"ethnically Afro American peer" Brothers)

the Brothers(Even if this is being rapped by one)

the Brothers(Or maybe Mario and Luigi are not blood brothers.)

the Brothers.(Do Ital Americans call each other brother?)

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Michael Bay makes true on dumb jokes again, gets Megan Fox Ninja Turtles role

So it turns out Michael Benjamin Bay has welcomed back Megan Fox for the Ninja Turtles movie he'stotally just a producer for, a move I would not have made a joke about because it  would have seemed too stupid.

Megan Fox, known for her role of "Mikaela", on the Transformer's movies, and being booted of those movies for comparing her director to  Hitler (Well, they both caused a lot of explosions and battles that could hardly be seen, okay?), is probably the least important she's been ever since "Jennifer's Body" tanked, and yet here she is, probably playing April O'Neil. Because really, what else is she gonna play, Krang?   During the inexplicable height of her fame (I mean, she's a model who got hired for a huge blockbuster. When did that equal "sexiest woman in the world?") I might have understood she getting again cast as the main female lead to an 80's cartoon franchise reboot as anything other than a barb on Bay's vocal detractors. But otherwise, it's a realization of the exact  jab those fans would have done. That Bay had to transcend a personal feud, and the fact that Megan Fox is just about out of the limelight only points out to what we've known all along.

Michael Bay hates nerds.

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Why the PS4 did not wow you

Are you not entertained?

It happened last week: Sony announced  it's fourth Playstation game console, the Playstation 4. A forgone conclusion, the announcement says that Sony's entry into the 8th generation of consoles will arrive in a few months, will allow players to share their game seamlessly with strangers and friends, will NOT shit over gamers with used PS4 games and WILL shit over gamers expecting to play games from their old PS machines without having to buy new digital incarnations of  them. The reactions have included a lot of mockery and snark that hasn't been seen since...well since the last Sony console release.

Personally, I'm gonna pass, like I did with Playstrations 0 to 3. It's nothing against Sony, I always  just like the other consoles better. Sure, the N64 was a miss, the Dreamcast was a miss, The Xbox had some faults, and the 360 had to be rebought about 8 times. But there's something about Sony's ways I just don't like.

But as for the other people without Anti-Sony supertitions, there might be something else going on. It's a new console, the graphics are really great, and there's some cool games coming for it. What's not to like? Well it's a problem with the way the industry has driven itself forward.

Let us remember the story of cinema, first. Movies used to be, at the very beggining, silent and in Black and white. For the record, this was over 100 years ago. Later still sound was added, and it was a pretty profound change. Later still came color. With sound and color, movies moved ever closer to looking just like real life. The techniques for what was onscreen also evolved, eventually surpassing theater.  By the time the late 1990s arrived, with digital color correction techniques, movies not only looked as real as the hands behind them allowed, but they used those palletes to sell the emotional underscored of the story.

In less than half the time, videogames have advanced at twice the speed. Where the early primitive games where rudimentary shapes that looked like clowns and balls and naked indian women because our imagination allowed, with no sound, we moved to interactive cartoons, and from there to crude poligonal people with painted drumsticks for hands, and yet from that into fully realized computer people gleefully setting the kitchen on fire. But then things stopped getting exponentially larger, because it was impossible.

Hello, Typo!

  

You see, each succesfull generation has used graphic upgrades as a selling point. This worked when the previous console's graphics looked like cubist paintings come to life, but now there's not that much more to jump. From 360/PS3/Wii to now, developers have been allowed to put onscreen whatever they've wanted. I'm not saying games looked just like real life. I'm saying there aren't any realistic limits. You can have battles with 100's of people onscreen, each with lavish detail. Graphics where the main hook, but now that graphics can't groow that much, people still expect them to. We've grown used to comparisons to Toy Story, Jusrassic Park.

Look at this Unreal 4 tech demo, featuring sweaty Liam Neeson killing Storm Troopers in Sin Cityduring a downpour while smoking a cigarette, and ocassionally turning into The Thing. It's prettier than what we have now, it is, but it's not that huge a leap from today's stuff. But should it be?

Movies can now show whatever they want onscreen, and whatever they can't they add with CGI. So can games. The difference in amount of stubles in hair is not  that much of a big deal. The fields that need to grow now are things like animation. Much like paintings, once the novelty of replicating the real world has faded, I suspect more visually abstract games will start popping up more frequently. PS4 did not wow you, but it's not because it doesn't look great. It does. It's that graphics are becoming less important all the time.

Or maybe you wanted to see the console, I don't know. 

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