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Reviews
Pretending I'm a Superman: The Tony Hawk Video Game Story (2020)
The cultural impact of the Tony hawk Pro Skater franchise,
When I first heard about this crowd-funded independent documentary
I was expecting it to be a min-documentary uploaded to youtube for free.
When I heard it was a near feature length film with a $10-$15 price tag, ($5 rental)
I was pretty apprehensive, I mean much of this info's already online for free, right?
It was one of the later trailers that sold me on the film though, Seeing the production from the prescriptive of neversoft, Tony hawk and other pro's may make this worth the price.
I went 'All In', and bought the film, And I have to say I was very impressed!
It's not just the story of "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" the Video game even just the series as a whole.
It really goes into how it changed skate culture forever!
The editing and directing are fantastic, and it far exceeded my expectations!
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I do have a few minor gripes though,
First, I feel the pacing could be a little better in some spots, There's about a 18mins at the beginning, before they talk about the first game's development.
It sets up how skateboarding was back in the 70's 90's and early 90's, but I feel it could have been trimmed down a bit, or at least paced better.
Second, I wish they spent a little more time taking about the other entries in the series.
Most of the time is spent on the first game, Significantly less on the second, and by the time they get to even Pro Skater 4, we only get a few seconds.
Not even a mention on how systems like manuals and reverts effected design.
Or even what led to the dramatic changes between Pro Skater 4, and the underground series.
And while The motion control games are mentioned, there's Zero mention of Pro Skater 5, the HD collection for even the new 1+2 remake (remake was announced after this film began production)
And 3rd, it would have been cool to see more early development work or production prototypes, But I'd imagine after over 20 years, much of that may have been lost, or may be legally owned by Activision.
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But Again, it seems like the goal of this documentary was just to hear about how the game series began, and it's influence on skateboarding.
Reading the reports online is one thing, but hearing it first hand from those involved is another thing.
The team behind this did a fantastic job!
If you even have a passing interest in the 'Pro Skater' Series, You NEED to watch this film!
The Quest (2014)
Watching other people have fun.
Full disclosure, I'm not a huge fan of reality shows. (I don't hate them, I just don't watch many) but from the way this show was advertised, it looked to be a genre defying show, a medieval show with real people in it.
And no, I'm not taking points off, just for it being a reality show, I just don't really care for how the fantasy elements are handled.
-The story is painfully generic: find a number of parts of the thing, save the kingdom.
-the rules are not explained very well: how much can the players interact with the story outside of the challenges,(as shown in the 'should we escape' part)
basically despite their best attempts, the fantasy elements are nothing but a coat of paint on this show. it's a medieval styled reality show, and that's it. and aside from the very well made costumes, and well designed sets the only that sets it apart from similar shows, is the illusion of an interactive story. One that would be way more fun to play, then it is to watch. If you LOVE reality shows AND fantasy, you may find this interesting, but it's no where near good enough to change anyone's opinion on reality shows.
Scorpion (2014)
Tries to be a show about misunderstood smart people..
The writing of this show seems like they're really trying hard to make it about smart, socially adept inept people, and in that aspect it fails pretty hard.
what you get is a team of genius stereotypes, who go from finishing each others sentences, to "I can't work like this" in only a few seconds flat. Not from resolved issues mind you, but for when the 'plot' calls for it
Each of the characters are given a 'role' and with that a 'social problem' but they as stated before it seems to be a non-constant.
Aside from the characters (the main 'selling point' of the show) it ends up being similar to a 'police procedural' show.
The episode starts with a problem, and it's up to the team to solve it. And the problems them selves are pretty interesting. noting 'ground breaking' as of yet. but the progression of the case is done fairly well, even though they some times try to throw in some (pretty cheesy) character development,
Overall reasonably interesting show IMO, not worth waiting for each week, but worth watching on the official CBS site when you don't have anything else to watch.
A League of One: The Dwayne McDuffie Story (2012)
A Look at the life of a legend: Dwayne McDuffie
A 36 minute mini-documentary only available on the bluray of "justice league: doom"
We are given a overview of his life as told by the people who knew him, from his early life, to his work on "damage control" for marvel, then his work creating milestone comics, to his transition to the animation world, with his work on the TV shows "Static Shock" and justice league, and "ben 10 alien force".
We see interviews with the people who worked with him, and knew him best. and we find out all he had to work through for his accomplishments.
It's well worth the price of admission (buying the JL:doom bluray) to see this very well made tribute to the life that changed many other lives, the life of Dwayne McDuffie.