Scooby-Doo Monsters Unleashed

Now that, was unexpected.

It's like....good? It's like pretty good? Maybe because they actually took the 2 year gap between movies to seriously re-evaluate the last movie. Like every massive bomb point from the last movie has been significantly approved on. I actually laughed! It was really funny! I was shocked at how much I was genuinely enjoying myself. Okay so they do the usual but with some good and fun twists, Coolsville has just opened a museum dedicated to the closed cases of Mystery Inc. housing the costumes of all the villains from the shows but a new villain has appeared ready to tear Mystery Incorporated's reputation to shreds and re-animate the costumes as living monsters sending our gang into action once more. I get the feeling after the, ahem, less than popular first movie they decided to kinda go back to the roots of the show, the gang look very much how they did in the show with modern updates, they showcase several well known villains of the series, and honestly looking back the show Mystery Incorporated took some elements from this and built upon it incredibly so. The characters have gotten better, Shaggy and Scooby actually kind of question their silly personalities and try to be more serious, Daphne actually has character this time and Sarah gets to spread her wings a bit in the part which is really quite nice, Fred, oh Fred you actually were fun and great and to be honest and I'm probably going to kick myself in the ass for this but...I kinda got a Steve from Blue's Clues vibe from him you know kinda dopey but still likable and even funny, and of course my sun, my moon, my star lit sky Velma and ohhhh my lord she somehow got even better! And we have a new character played by Seth Green who really does give it his all and the relationship between him and Velma is adorable, and leads to um...an interesting scene. I mean, damn. But uh, yeah serious major upgrade for the characters and the writing has also been given more time and effort and it genuinely works, you actually do get the feeling they were having more fun with this movie probably because it's simple, clean, and enjoyable. So yeah, kind of a complete flip from last movie but I don't lie, the movie works. Sure it has a more crass joke but honestly 90% of the humor is just the dialogue. And the visuals aren't bad either, again going for a more practical feel with CG used sparingly, even though some of the monsters are completely CG you can tell others where legitimate costumes that were enhanced slightly so again I must commend the filmmakers on that. I feel it's more just a movie for the fans, you get a healthy dose of fanservice (You stop that line of thinking right now!), it fits more the classic characters with a smidge of depth, actually good humor, fun escapades, and a mystery that would feel right at home in one of the animated movies. So yeah I had fun, and if you got kids who really like Scooby-Doo or if you're a hardcore fan like myself this isn't a bad movie to see again.

So what the hell, we'll do one more since I don't really have a new movie to see for a bit and I'm actually in a good mood and hopeful for the next one, so join me tomorrow for the newest excursion into live action filmmaking, Daphne & Velma.

Scooby-Doo (2002)

Okay this actually warrants explanation. I hadn't the faintest clue what to do this week, and as I'm living my day to day Duder life I keep seeing these damn posts from a friend of mine about this movie. And the more I thought about it the more I needed to rant about something, and in fact I've been in this mood for quite some time so let's go!

Oh God. Tis' a sad day when one has to talk about the live action Scooby-Doo movies. I gotta be honest, I ate this shit up when I was 7 years old seeing this movie in the theater and just thank your lucky stars my movie taste got better! And man did this movie age as fine as NSYNC, calling people "dog", and that weird stilted slow-mo effect that thankfully died. I have never seen a movie so dated in early 2000s (there's no better word for it) embarassment it's almost a marvel. Try and watch this movie without 1. Rolling your eyes, 2. Facepalming, 3. Drinking heavily, and PS. I've failed miserably at this game. I'm almost 1000% certain this movie was made to sell a soundtrack, and to be perfectly honest I only heard one song that was not white noise to my ears and I don't even know the name of it! Also fair warning, this might be my longest review yet due to MASSIVE retrospective viewing of the series, me, and my better ideas for the movie. So where do I truly begin? Well....how about the good stuff though brief they are. I actually gave Matthew Lillard a lot of shit for this movie but honestly looking back and giving him some real love for his voice over work recently in the series, he is a awesome Shaggy. He really does get the character down and his interactions with Scooby are easily the best part of the movie (except for that one scene that shall not be named), he's funny, gets the character incredibly well, and has the most believable and enjoyable relationship with Scooby than any other human being in the movie. I dig the use of practical sets and effects and they only really use CG if it's absolutely necessary, and I can't honestly give good grief over how Scoob looks, they adapted a 2D cartoon character who's very exaggerated and cartoony with the best CG they had at that time so they tried their best to make it work so I shall not shun the look of Scooby. However! The rest of the CGI euuuggghhh it needed more render time. Oh and that voodoo dude was absolutely great, it's like he knew what movie he was in and decided to just say whatever, and yet it's really funny and truthful at the same time, I wish we saw him more. Goodbye voodoo dude, you were a true joy in this movie! The true shining star of this whole movie from beginning to end is Linda Cardellini as Velma. Now if you'll excuse me I will shamelessly praise her for the next few longwinded sentences. Oh lord...we thank you for this actress and the outstanding potrayal of a lesser recognized and beloved character. She is glorious, she's witty and clever, she's funny and actually gives her all to this character, and oh sweet celestial beings she is ******* gorgeous!! I mean, damn Velms! Lord have mercy, someone get me a glass of ice water I'm about to overheat, mm mmm mmm. But enough about that, let's talk about the ehhhh things. Okay Mr. Screenwriter who if you look him up you will be dumbfounded as I am, I understand the changes you did for Daphne. I can even slightly appreciate it but you still done ****** it up! Okay so they get the supreme asskicking queen herself Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, literally off the set of Buffy and get her to be a black belt trained Daphne who is tired of being the damsel in distress. Which I personally never got, I mean you go back to watching those shows and honestly Daphne doesn't get kidnapped that much, hell no one gets taken captive more than Shaggy and Scooby so....whoops I guess! But they ruin her character. Now let's be real here, even as a hardcore Scooby-Doo fan, there's not that much character to the gang. You have the leader, the girl next door, the brains, and the comic relief. Now granted they built on that through now literally 50 years of show (wow), but they make her this ditzy valley girl almost useless chick. She kicks a door down and beats up one guy. Move aside Ellen Ripley, Xena, Wonder Woman, there's a new sherrif in these here parts!! Good intentions but absolute garbage delivery. Fred is bland, no disrespect to the actor, he just didn't have that much going for him but I will say that little foot stamp in the woods; priceless. And now we get to the bad. Joy of joys. Story time! So we pick up on the tail end of a mystery, the gang just got another crook and the police still condone vigilante justice from sleuth detectives maybe because they were endorsed by Pamela fraking Anderson!! I am soooo not making that up, Pamela Anderson is in this movie, probably just to reassure the audience that the nails in the coffin have been properly set. She's not even playing a character, it's just Pam as Pam in a nonsensical and completely pointless cameo. Whatever. Moving on. And are you ready for some buuullshit? The gang then decide they quit. Huuuhhhh?? Wha-wha-why? There is no setup to it, they're just like, "Op I quit, peace bitch!" and you have so not even earned this you don't even get a participation trophy. So they quit for mysterious reasons that even the screenwriter couldn't solve and we flash to 3 years later. Fred has been on a book tour, Velma has been working with NASA, Daphne has been training with Ra's Al Ghul in the Himalayas or some shit, and Shag and Scoob have been well...Shag and Scoob. And they all get invited to a, let me get this straight, a theme park based on some abstract weird creepy shit that I have no idea what it is, that is run by Rowan Atkinson who is completely wasted in his part (we'll get to him later) with help from an admittedly kinda creepy and memorable right hand man, AND a luchadore wrestler.....okay. And it turns out the theme park is secretly a cult where they summon a more fake looking CG bunny from Donnie Darko who can't survive in sunlight because of the Mogwai gene in them so they possess people's bodies as like this far out new sunscreen trick, are you with me so far? Oh and they steal people's souls like Shang Tsung did I mention that? This gets complicated so fast and the payoff is so not worth it! And this is where the movie completely falls off the deep end because it is so not Scooby-Doo. Now you might be saying no shit Dude they're fighting demons, but they've done supernatural stuff before and it worked in many ways. Witch's Ghost for example, they fought the ghost of a witch with the help of my taste in women-uh, I mean Thorn and that was awesome! And I can pin it down to 2, maybe 3 big points. The threat was dangerous, and these bunny demons are so not a problem and hold no threat, they are more slapsticky and cartoonish than Scooby. Now I'm not saying comic relief can't be done, there was a Wizard Of Oz reference and them threatning to baste a giant turkey in The Witch's Ghost but here there's no menace in any respect except that tatted up dude but he doesn't really do much and the comedy is insufferable with these creatures. Second, the whole reveal is the fact that the person who wants to summon demons, take over the world, and envelop the Earth in 10,000 years of darkness, is Scrappy-Doo. Hwhat??? And guess why? Come on guess. Throw out anything. You ready? You're not but here we go. He does alllll of that to get revenge on Mystery Inc. for dumping him because he was an annoying ****. News flash! You already won 3 years before this potdream began. Mystery Inc. disbanded, they quit, they left, they were done so may I ask whyyy you're doing this?? My head hurts now. Some would call this movie a mixed bag but there's so much stupid caked on layer after layer after layer, it just fails. You get a comedic actor like Rowan Atkinson and give him nothing to do, he got one laugh out of me and that is a crime in my eyes. And do you know who they wanted to get for the part? Tim Curry! And he said no! For the reason it had Scrappy in it because he's a big fan of the series (And come on no one likes Scrappy, even Cartoon Network throws Scrappy under the eighteen wheeler.) that's why he gave it 120 beautiful percent as Ben Ravencroft, but I suspect he didn't like the script either and got out. Oh my God, I almost forgot this and you need to see it with your own eyes. Okay go to the IMDB page of this movie and click on the images tab. Not only is there essentially an appreciation volley of Linda Cardellini but the very first image is not from the movie. I dare even say what you all will think, and state it is from a porn parody because well the site name is um...what's the word? Obvious. And that is clearly not Linda in the picture soooo, yeah. That was just something I noticed and had to tell you cause that got a massive kick out of me. Wow, how did we sink this low? To me, this hurts, to others it's just another subpar/bad movie. Scooby-Doo is my favorite cartoon ever, it means the world to me, pretty much made me the person I am today, and to see it go through so many phases and most of them being good it hurts. There's material you can work with here, build on the characters, you can keep the theme park premise but drop this bullshit demon stuff cause it really does not work in any way. Keep Velma the way she is, keep Shaggy and Scooby the way they are, give Fred....anything, give Daphne more than a breaking tradition damsel trope. Keep it simple in terms of plot, and complex in terms of character. I can always love you Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated. But this movie.....they betray me, they didn't keep their promise. They trick me, and, I don't care anymore. And we might as well do the second movie tomorrow cause I'm not talking about this series ever again for God's sake what the fu-

Star Wars Rebels: Season 4

Rebel scum....

Okay, fine! The last season was good, I'm not so sure it's the best, I still say the 3rd season was the best but for the end of a series it was fine. I got to say though I was so concerned about an episode titled "Worlds Between Worlds" not only did it remind me of that stupid friggin' line from Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, but it introduces a premise that could severely destroy Star Wars but they showed restraint and they did the right thing. I do have complaints. Mainly down to one factor, they didn't go all out. Now what do I mean by all out? Simple, you go dark. You push the threat to the next level, you show people die, you touch on darker aspects of war. And while they kinda do that, they wimp out. I fully expected the entire Ghost crew to bite the dust, pull a Rogue One, everyone dies, the end. But they don't and it bugs the hell out of me. You never see these people again, so why not make their deaths powerful and memorable? That's what pissed me off the most, they couldn't kill people. I know this is for kids, but Clone Wars was for kids and people got straight up executed in that show! So why not show some heroes die or stormtroopers be cut to shreds by a lightsaber? What are they gonna do, pull the plug on your final season?? Go all out, push the characters to the limit, elevate the threat and the danger of not only Thrawn but The Emperor himself! Do something! I don't hate this show, I really don't but on the verge of the end you gotta go off the deep end. Beyond that factor, the season was good. It did not end the way I thought in any fashion, but it was a decent end to a good show. The story is good though, with Ezra and the Ghost crew taking missions for the Rebel Alliance and trying to liberate Ezra's planet of Lothal. Throw in good character moments, decent action, and a pretty um....liberty taking ending that will make some people happy but me, I'm just not feeling it. I'm happy Rex made it though! But Thrawn...it killed me. I am wondering why they brought in Rukh if they never intended of using him that way, but it was cool seeing him. Oh yeah, heavy underuse of Thrawn. Like, how dare you? He did have the most badass moment in Star Wars, more so than Vader in a long hallway in my opinion. Yes. I said that. I have such respect for this show and use of Expanded Universe content, which I am always thrilled to see so I can't be too upset. It's a very good show that kids will look back on 10 or 15 years from now and remember fondly, and how on Earth can I hate that? That is beyond awesome and cool to me! So the saying still holds truth in Star Wars, "For those who remember, for those who will never forget, and for a whole new generation who will experience it for the very first time.". I greatly enjoyed Star Wars Rebels and it is sad to see it end, but there will be more greatness in the future. Everything is proceeding as I have forseen....

Star Wars Rebels: Season 3

What the hell? This shouldn't have taken so long. They literally did a Christmas break, which I can fully understand, it lasted for nearly a month, fine. But then they had the gall to take almost a whole nother month off, and just to add insult to injury it was between a two part story. This series should have already been ended in either late February or early March. Not almost fraking April!!

Ugh, anyway following the kickass season 2 finale how does this hold up? Quite well actually, but really the sheer focal point of viewing this season besides the usual Star Wars fan ideology is because of Grand Admiral Thrawn. This is major to the hardcore Star Wars fan. Thrawn has been in Star Wars since 1991, but recently since Episode 7 was deemed Legends, it never happened it was just a tale. But now he's back, it was due to the season 3 trailer that I went out and bought The Thrawn Trilogy (Close to finishing the last book.) , and pre-ordered the new book Thrawn written by the man who created him Timothy Zahn. So going into season 3, I was expecting great things, what I got was a decent continuation of the story, with the same characters that had minor character development, and Grand Admiral Thrawn being just as I had imagined him. It was a good season, had only a few filler episodes maybe 3 or 4 out of 22 episodes, so not bad and even then they have an interesting factor in them, like seeing what looks like Dark Troopers but are really a cross between a super battle droid and a stormtrooper, and a similar ship to Dash Rendar's. Plenty of nice nods to the Expanded Universe are within this series. What kind of sucks though is, like season 1 the finale which is actually a two part ending, feels like just another episode. It wasn't this amazing, groundbreaking episode that would have reprocussions in the next season. It's just eh, we lost a bit but whatever. Nobody dies, nothing is truly resolved, and we're pretty much where we started at the beginning of the season. La dee da. Alright, good points! Thrawn obviously, Tom Baker as The Bendu was awesome because it's Tom Baker, that voice is just mesmerizing, and....that's it. Everything else is just okay. Except for Kanan's mask, I hate it. It does nothing, the design is wretched, it has no artistic or practical appeal to me. Other than that though, the season is just okay. Just watch it either for Tom Baker or Thrawn.

Oh, but we are not done yet. Our buisness in a galaxy far, far away has not yet been completed.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 2

Now it's kicking off.

A vast improvement over the first, season two of Rebels picks up on all the elements that they did fairly well in the first season. Our crew of freedom fighters have now fully joined the Rebellion and have begun to slowly form the basis of their operations, with the Empire always hot on their trail. The action has been upped significantly, the character development continues in some cases brilliantly, we get a few familiar faces this season that never ceases to make me happy, and the finale alone is what brought Rebels on the map for me. If you made it through the first season and thought it was good, by the end of this season you will consider it to be great. Pretty much the season finale to season two combined with the trailer for season three is what got me to watch the show, and once I got the backstory and re-watched the final scenes of the finale, it got ten thousand times better than it already was. I'm excited to watch season three, it's only I think maybe three or four episodes until the end of that so I timed my watchings perfectly. Hell, maybe even in a week or two I can fully review season three! One thing I have noticed though is the big bad of the seasons are surprisingly not in it often, the main oppressive force is the Empire as a whole. The first season had the Inquisitor which was a basic but still interesting villain that appeared throughout the first season but at the end of season one it is very clear who is taking the forefront of the villain role, and yet...he's in it for two episodes, the first and last episode of the season. That kinda sucks but I'm amazed they got the original voice actor for the role which is just the cherry on top of this sundae, but you can forgive it solely because of the duel at the end. I just hope they don't follow suite for season three, I want to see the Grand Admiral in action often, because if you know anything about the Expanded Universe of Star Wars then you can understand my concern for this character. But needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this season of Rebels much more than the last. I'm excited to start watching season three and if all goes well, you can expect that review before the end of this month.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 1

I didn't have high hopes, but by God it's not half bad.

So Star Wars Rebels takes place a few years before Rogue One (I love how I can say that now.) following a group of smugglers who slowly transform from mercenaries/smugglers to freedom fighters battling against the Empire and creating the spark of rebellion. So the story starts off with this kid Ezra he just lives his life on his home planet until he runs across this crew sabotaging Imperial supply routes and this crew is very unique in the Star Wars universe, we have a Twi'lek pilot named Hera who pilots their ship the Ghost, Kanan who seems to be the leader of the group and has a bit of a past to him, a Mandalorian explosives expert who is a young girl named Sabine, a Lasat called Zeb who is like if Wolverine was an alien in Star Wars, and their astromech droid named Chopper who is a bit of a wise ass. Ezra soon joins the team as they go through a mish-mash of different missions almost all around being a nuisance to the Galactic Empire. It has interesting and unique character development which appears every now and then, granting significant growth as characters and not just being like, oh yeah Hera's just a pilot and that's about it. No, they build on them slowly but satisfyingly. Now the story follows in direct correlation with the previous animated series Clone Wars, now it's not pertinent to watch Clone Wars but it does help in the long run with this series. Now one thing I cannot avoid talking about is the art design. It is like a love letter to Ralph McQuarrie who did all the conceptual art to the original Star Wars movie, the series could not adapt it more if it tried. And I have seen many of the conceptual artwork of the original movie, and I greatly appreciate the look of it all. Now I have to admit, I did not start watching Rebels until this week, I thought it was just a dumb kid cash in on Star Wars on the Disney Channel, but when I saw the trailer to season 3 and heard much fan talk about it I decided to take a look. It's a kid show without a doubt, whereas Clone Wars was aimed more towards early pre-teen to teenagers (I was a teenager by the time Clone Wars really took off) and yet I never watched that show until a few years after it ended, because I watched the original Clone Wars mini series that came out between Episode 2 and before Episode 3 even hit theaters and I thought it was an unnecesary remake. My God, was I wrong. So wrong. I apologize to Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network. So yeah, I wasn't expecting greatness but I got a decent show and it got really good a few episodes before the end of the season. If you like Star Wars or have kids that enjoy Star Wars this is a decent show to put on.

As of today I am almost finished season 2 and will have the review up next week. I won't do just one review a week when it comes to television shows, so no worries about lack of content but I will probably have to cut it back to two reviews a week. Yeah, material is running thin but not entirely gone. Merely a setback but it does not dampen my spirits, I shall persevere and continue bringing you more recommendations and opinions. See you next week.