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Sep. 2nd, 2011
World of World War II 3
Sep. 2nd, 2011 08:51 pmThere really isn't anything worth reporting going on in my life, so I might as well get to some reviews:
Futurama: Overclockwise - With the fate of the show up in the air, the writers decided to come up with a third episode that could be the series finalé if necessary. And like "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" and Into the Wild Green Yonder, it deals with Fry and Leela's relationship. Not that it really matters, since their relationship seems like it'll be on-again off-again as long as the show is still going on, and it looks like there is another season in the works. I don't feel this one did much to affect the relationship in the long run. That said, it was an enjoyable episode, and most of it focused on Bender anyway. When Cubert figures out how to overclock Bender, he becomes super-intelligent, and even able to predict the future. Mom, determining that Cubert's tinkering violates Bender's license agreement, has him and the Professor arrested. Bender saves them, but at the cost of his new-found intelligence and power. I know Cubert has never been one of the show's more popular characters, but I think this episode did a good job of using him in a way where he never became particularly annoying. I do have to wonder how he's still a kid, though. If he was twelve in 3004, shouldn't he be an adult by the present time of the show (which is presumably either 3010 or 3011)? Oh, well.
Super Mario World: Ghosts 'R' Us - This is the first episode to feature Oogtar the cave kid, yet he's presented as if we should already know who he is. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder. Wait, the show was cancelled after this season, so I guess that's pretty much the same thing. Anyway, Oogtar is lost somewhere in the Enchanted Forest (presumably the same as the Forest of Illusion from the game), and Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and the Princess are looking for him. They run into a Magikoopa named Wizardheimer (or is it "Wizzenheimer"?), whose name is never pronounced correctly by anyone but himself. Didn't they steal that bit from Mel Brooks?
The wizard captures everyone but Yoshi, who runs away and finds Oogtar. He talks pretty much the same way Yoshi does, with bad grammar and a habit of referring to himself in the third person. Also, he plays tough, constantly saying he's not afraid of anything but constantly running away from danger anyway. Since Toad isn't in this series and Oogtar has the same voice actor, I get the impression they sort of intended him as a replacement, but I don't think he works so well in that role. He has his moments, though, I guess.
Yoshi and Oogtar go to the Magikoopa's haunted house to rescue their friends, but Oogtar is captured, so Yoshi has to overcome his fear of ghosts to save everybody else. I'm not sure why they made Yoshi such a scaredy-cat in this series, but it's true that he won't go into ghost houses in the game, so I suppose it's consistent behavior. After escaping from Boos in a chase scene during which a song that kinda-sorta resembles "Thriller" (which, by the way, was actually played in the Super Show episode "Count Koopula," although it's absent from the DVD release), Yoshi eats the wizard's wand and frees the others. Oogtar finds a key, which not only gets them out of the dungeon, but also transports them back to Dome City. How ridiculously convenient!
Captain N: Totally Tetrisized - A follow-up to one of the best-remembered episodes from the second season, "The Trouble with Tetris." Kevin and Simon are playing a riddling video game (yes, even though they can live video games, they still sit around and play them sometimes), and right away Simon wins, a garbled communication from Mayor Squaresly tells them that Tetris is in trouble again.
Kevin, Simon, and Princess Lana warp there, and find that what was once a bustling city is now a ghost town. The only visible buildings are the Chamber of Tetris and a new castle. Squaresly is hiding out inside the Chamber of Tetris, and tells the N Team that a villain called the Puzzle Wizard has conquered the world and turned pretty much everybody into Tetris blocks. He goes with the heroes to confront the wizard at his castle, and he turns out to be a flat guy made of puzzle pieces and wearing a fedora.
He plays games with his challengers, including asking Simon the riddle, "If you take two apples from three apples, chop them into four squares, what do you have?" This is obviously playing on the riddle to which the correct answer is "two apples" (because, well, that's what you took), but I'm not sure how the four squares figure into it. Not that it really matters, because the wizard cheats anyway. He turns Simon into a block and attempts to do the same with Kevin, but Lana finds her brother Lyle's ring, and combines its power with that of her tiara in disenchanting Lyle. They then use their combined power to take out the Puzzle Wizard and save Tetris, although we never do see it restored. Chalk it up to the even cheaper animation this season. It ends with a joke about how Simon's blockiness hasn't yet worn off, so they're using him as a doorstop in the Palace of Power. As Simon himself says, "Very funny, Captain N." While the crude style still gets to me, it was nice to see Squaresly again, and the Puzzle Wizard was a somewhat interesting new villain. We didn't see him for long enough to his personality to really be developed, but he has an interesting design. Anyone else who reads Captain SNES may recall that he showed up in that comic, and we find out that he sees his own cheating as an art form.
Futurama: Overclockwise - With the fate of the show up in the air, the writers decided to come up with a third episode that could be the series finalé if necessary. And like "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" and Into the Wild Green Yonder, it deals with Fry and Leela's relationship. Not that it really matters, since their relationship seems like it'll be on-again off-again as long as the show is still going on, and it looks like there is another season in the works. I don't feel this one did much to affect the relationship in the long run. That said, it was an enjoyable episode, and most of it focused on Bender anyway. When Cubert figures out how to overclock Bender, he becomes super-intelligent, and even able to predict the future. Mom, determining that Cubert's tinkering violates Bender's license agreement, has him and the Professor arrested. Bender saves them, but at the cost of his new-found intelligence and power. I know Cubert has never been one of the show's more popular characters, but I think this episode did a good job of using him in a way where he never became particularly annoying. I do have to wonder how he's still a kid, though. If he was twelve in 3004, shouldn't he be an adult by the present time of the show (which is presumably either 3010 or 3011)? Oh, well.
Super Mario World: Ghosts 'R' Us - This is the first episode to feature Oogtar the cave kid, yet he's presented as if we should already know who he is. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder. Wait, the show was cancelled after this season, so I guess that's pretty much the same thing. Anyway, Oogtar is lost somewhere in the Enchanted Forest (presumably the same as the Forest of Illusion from the game), and Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and the Princess are looking for him. They run into a Magikoopa named Wizardheimer (or is it "Wizzenheimer"?), whose name is never pronounced correctly by anyone but himself. Didn't they steal that bit from Mel Brooks?
The wizard captures everyone but Yoshi, who runs away and finds Oogtar. He talks pretty much the same way Yoshi does, with bad grammar and a habit of referring to himself in the third person. Also, he plays tough, constantly saying he's not afraid of anything but constantly running away from danger anyway. Since Toad isn't in this series and Oogtar has the same voice actor, I get the impression they sort of intended him as a replacement, but I don't think he works so well in that role. He has his moments, though, I guess.
Yoshi and Oogtar go to the Magikoopa's haunted house to rescue their friends, but Oogtar is captured, so Yoshi has to overcome his fear of ghosts to save everybody else. I'm not sure why they made Yoshi such a scaredy-cat in this series, but it's true that he won't go into ghost houses in the game, so I suppose it's consistent behavior. After escaping from Boos in a chase scene during which a song that kinda-sorta resembles "Thriller" (which, by the way, was actually played in the Super Show episode "Count Koopula," although it's absent from the DVD release), Yoshi eats the wizard's wand and frees the others. Oogtar finds a key, which not only gets them out of the dungeon, but also transports them back to Dome City. How ridiculously convenient!
Captain N: Totally Tetrisized - A follow-up to one of the best-remembered episodes from the second season, "The Trouble with Tetris." Kevin and Simon are playing a riddling video game (yes, even though they can live video games, they still sit around and play them sometimes), and right away Simon wins, a garbled communication from Mayor Squaresly tells them that Tetris is in trouble again.
Kevin, Simon, and Princess Lana warp there, and find that what was once a bustling city is now a ghost town. The only visible buildings are the Chamber of Tetris and a new castle. Squaresly is hiding out inside the Chamber of Tetris, and tells the N Team that a villain called the Puzzle Wizard has conquered the world and turned pretty much everybody into Tetris blocks. He goes with the heroes to confront the wizard at his castle, and he turns out to be a flat guy made of puzzle pieces and wearing a fedora.
He plays games with his challengers, including asking Simon the riddle, "If you take two apples from three apples, chop them into four squares, what do you have?" This is obviously playing on the riddle to which the correct answer is "two apples" (because, well, that's what you took), but I'm not sure how the four squares figure into it. Not that it really matters, because the wizard cheats anyway. He turns Simon into a block and attempts to do the same with Kevin, but Lana finds her brother Lyle's ring, and combines its power with that of her tiara in disenchanting Lyle. They then use their combined power to take out the Puzzle Wizard and save Tetris, although we never do see it restored. Chalk it up to the even cheaper animation this season. It ends with a joke about how Simon's blockiness hasn't yet worn off, so they're using him as a doorstop in the Palace of Power. As Simon himself says, "Very funny, Captain N." While the crude style still gets to me, it was nice to see Squaresly again, and the Puzzle Wizard was a somewhat interesting new villain. We didn't see him for long enough to his personality to really be developed, but he has an interesting design. Anyone else who reads Captain SNES may recall that he showed up in that comic, and we find out that he sees his own cheating as an art form.
