You Will Cry 2021!!! Part 2

 A list of jokes of movies from the 2nd half of 2021

I'm going to make you watch Paw Patrol: The Movie. You will cry that the lame knockoff of Rescue Bots was so popular that it ended up having a movie. Man, why did this get a big movie but material they stole from didn't?

Hmm, a preschooler show about non-humans being rescuers that helps people in need. This came out in 2011, two years before it's copycat came around. For shame Paw Patrol for coping off of this, for shame.

Note-I'm joking about Paw Patrol ripping off of Rescue Bots. I was aware of Rescue Bots long before you started seeing Paw Patrol all over the cereal aisles. I never watched Rescue Bots but I knew it was part of very loosely connected universe of Transformers shows, comics, and games. I repeat, very loosely. I found out some issues I had questions about the timeline was resolved in of all things, a preschooler show like how many years does RID15 take place after Prime or that Grimlock in RID15 when by a different name back in the day, which totally makes him a separate Grimlock from Fall of Cybertron.

Over the years, I see Paw Patrol merchandise everywhere and jokily pretend to others that I'm jealous of Paw Patrol's success while the Transformers spinoff becomes forgotten and airs only on some channel that you need to spend extra money on.

I'm going to make you watch Shang-Chi...You Will Cry...That after three attempts...They still can't get The Mandarin's skin color right.

Everyone who grew up with this Iron Man cartoon definitely knows that the Mandarin has green skin. How dare the MCU ruined our childhoods. You think they learn after the 1st time but no, they did it three times already.

Note- There was one Iron Man show in the 90s that has his iconic nemesis with green skin. If you read the comics or see anything else that features him, he doesn't have green skin. It was a bizarre choice that came from this 90s cartoon.

I seen people out there who seen at least one incarnation of a popular franchise and they act like they have decades worth of knowledge and make themselves look like fools for complaining about their one particular version isn't in the big major motion picture. So maybe there are Green Mandarin fans out there crying?

Back in the early 2010s, Iron Man 3 heavily hyped up that his iconic foe from the comics, The Mandarin was making his big screen debut and the trailer showed him to be as a legitimate threat for Tony Stark. Unfortunately, it turns out the Mandarin is a goofy actor reading his lines while the man calling the shots was a some dude in business suit who engineered a middle eastern terrorist group from from a western computer lab.

There was a short film afterwards that showed the goofy actor in prison and it told us that there is a real Mandarin out there and the computer nerd took inspiration from the ancient mythical man. Fast forward to 2021, we finally got to see the man himself.

I think the problem is The Mandarin is a tricky villain to adapt due to him originally being based on a dated Chinese stereotype from decades ago. I think Marvel been somewhat trying to change a bit by making him bi-racial and toning down the stereotype in the comics, or skin green in the old cartoon(which is dumb), or avoiding having him East Asian in Iron Man 3(which failed).

*warning major spoilers, skip to the next entry to avoid spoilers*

1. You will cry...That 007 is a black woman

Ok, I can handle a blond Bond, or a young pretty boy Q, but making 007 into a black woman is going too far. How dare ruin James Bond.

2. That Biofield dies right after he's introduced.

What!? Bond's iconic foe dies in one scene and there 2/3s left of the film's runtime? Well time to leave the theater then.

3. The ending

*again major spoilers, I already warned you earlier*
4. That the credits say James Bond will return despite he's dead.

Wait, what you mean he returns? Didn't he die just then? I mean what, did he slipped under a magical dumpster and it sheltered him from the missiles? Did he did a transfer his Katra to another before his body died? Was his body thrown in a Lazarus Pit? Did he literally live only twice?

Note #1- James Bond was retired since the previous movie. When he came back, he found out the person that holds the title of 007 was a black woman named Nomi.

It seems people vaguely heard early reports about a female black 007 and went fan rage, thinking James Bond himself been heavily re-imagined or something.

Note#2- Biofield did die 1/3 in the movie but it sets up a whole new villain. It does seem disappointing he shows up and dies suddenly.

Note#3+4- The movie did in a surprising manner killed our hero at the end.  What's funny is that the end credits flat out said he will return, despite killing him. They may meant that they may reboot 007 or go back to the original timeline. Daniel Craig's Bond was set up to be a self-contained timeline.

They didn't bother to stop Thanos.

Seriously, get off your lazy butts. Also, isn't Thanos considered a Deviant? The monsters that your assigned to stopped?

Note- The whole net joked that they didn't get into the affairs of the world shattering events, unless it's Deviants that's messing stuff up.

In the comics, Thanos' race is complicated. He was born from two Eternals but had the Deviant gene and born all purple.

You cry...that they milked another sequel.

Note- There been a several Home Alone movies over the years after the 2nd one. Alot of them were not good and went straight to video with no promotion. I never heard anything good about them and they sound like quick cash-ins.

1. Forget watching 20+ Marvel movies but now you have to watch 2 separate Spider-Man films series that take place outside of the MCU. That's more stuff to add to the binge watch.


2. Also Matt Murdock made a cameo, requiring that you to watch all of the shows that originally aired on Netflix.

Wait, I now have watch 3 whole seasons of Daredevil to understand this cameo? I thought the Pre-Disney+ shows weren't canon to the MCU. Oh gosh, do I have to torture myself by watching Iron Fist?

3. That they are copying off of One More Day. One of the worse Spider-Man storylines from the comics.

You mean the story that ruined my OTP. 1st Star Wars Episode 9 pull from one of it's infamous comic stories, now Spider-Man?

(The lizard is missing in pic)

4. There is 5 Spider-Man villains.

They still haven't learn from Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man 2. Their film series ended on a bad note when they had too many villains. Man, this movie is going to suck.

5.That 70s Spider-Man isn't in it

Or Japanese Spiderman don't show up with his giant mech.

What!? Man, nobody came to see No Way Home to see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. We wanted the guy from the forgotten 1970s series that everyone forgot about. Also wouldn't be it cool to see Japanese Spider-Man coming in and summon his giant mech into battle and give all five enemies a run for their money.

6.That the Venom cameo means nothing

What!?  Ever since I saw Venom got transported to Tom Holland's world, I thought I be seeing an epic showdown. What a letdown.

Note#1- You kinda need a checklist on what to watch on the MCU movies but now, we're seeing characters from films series that been long rebooted.

Note#2- 

Once upon a time, there was a group of shows on Netflix that was very loosely set within the MCU. I repeat very loosely. The only references to the MCU is the Kingpin's company helping rebuild NYC after "The Incident" or gangsters found special bullets made from metal that's "out of this world" that came from the "The Incident". There was also mentions of Supermax prison that was seen in Civil War. The Incident was another name for Loki's invasion of NYC.

After several years, alot shows that's sort of connected to the MCU were immediately cancelled because Disney+ was coming around with new shows with actual direct connections to the movies. Daredevil was unfortunately one of them.

I joked in the past that Infinity War and Endgame was going to have all these characters show up and confused the viewers as they make 50 thousand references to their shows. I also joke that random upcoming MCU movie/show would resolved the cliffhanger of Luke Cage being a mafia boss or explain Danny Rand's new energy guns since the chances of any of these stories being wrapped up is very small.

Daredevil and Killpin is now being welcomed into the main portion of the MCU. It's possible you may not be required to watch all the Netflix shows and basically give these characters a fresh new start as a new jumping on point.

Note#3- This movie sort of follows the infamous One More Day story but done better.

In the comic events of Civil War(which the MCU movie is loosely based on), Spider-Man unmasked himself to the world. Problem is, his enemies now know who he is and planned to attack his love ones. Aunt May was shot and showing no signs of recovery. 

The Marvel version of the devil called Mephisto appeared and offer Peter that he will save Aunt May and restore his secret identity if he gives up his marriage to MJ. They agreed and his years of marriage was magically erased from existence. Peter and MJ remember but not the whole world around them.

Everyone hated this direction. Marvel's higher ups thought Spidey be better off being a single man despite him being married for decades. Also MJ was preggers and was magically aborted. It took 10 long years to finally get them back together. Also, people would say that Peter would make the responsible choice and let his aunt die because it was her time instead of making a deal with the devil.

The movie was a million times better on the story. He went to his friend and ally, Dr. Strange, not the devil. It was to restore his secret identity because Spidey and his friends were bullied and denied their collage scholarships. It wasn't done to simply make Spidey single.

Note#4- These the complains from the previous Spider-Man movies. I think the main problem with the 2nd Amazing movie wasn't too many villains, it was way too many storylines and set ups for later films because The Rhino was only around in the last 5 minutes.

The good thing is all the villains stories were already establish from previous films and they more or less have the same predicament and working together. A dozen villains can work in a film if they are together in a group, not three villains that are completely separate from each other and all their stories getting rushed through and crammed in.

Note#5- This was clearly a joke about 70s and Japanese Spider-Man appearing. Most people has forgotten the show from the 70s and it's not worth watching. The Japanese show is good for a laugh and all but I don't know if they can get the original Japanese actor and he may not speak English.

If anything, what we got was already awesome. Who would thought we see Tom Holland's Spider-Man working with his predecessors and seeing the villains played by their original actors again after everything got rebooted over twice.

Note#6- The post-credits of the 2nd Venom movie have him fell through a portal and see the news reports of Spider-Man's identity exposed to the world and it seems it was setting them fighting. Well the post-credits of No Way Home have Eddie Brock drinking at a bar and hearing the history of the MCU from the barkeep, and then he suddenly vanished back to his home dimension.

All that set up was nothing more than a tease. There be no epic showdown between Holland's Spider-Man and Tom Hardy's Venom. A piece of the symbiote was left behind but I don't know if this will lead to anywhere.

Update on an old Ninja Turtles article about William Hung

https://chrisnumber1.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-times-4kidsfoxbox-screwed-up-ninja.html

In my old article above, I mention how William Hung, the infamous singer from American Idol hosted the FoxBox. At the time, I couldn't find videos of Hung and I had to rely on links to old forums from back when these shows were airing.

As of recently, I found Toon Along! YouTube channel and it contains several clips of bad singers.

Here's a link to YouTube channel of Toon Along!

There is one video of the Turtles about to listen to William Hung performing She Bangs. I seriously hope they were being sarcastic about his singing.

My thoughts of Trinity Blood and it's short lived relationship with Bleach

 

Trinity Blood was 24 episode show about vampire hunters from the Vatican. The show aired in 2005 in Japan and premiered here in America on Adult Swim in 2006. On the same day, something else premiered.

No it has nothing to do about washing clothes.

Bleach is show about magical grim reaper swordsmen that slays soul eating demons.

Back in the day, everyone was comparing the two shows and saying what was better. It's funny since the two shows are completely night and day. One is a battle shonen about battling supernatural spirts and the other is a dark gothic post-apocalyptic fantasy from graphic novels. 

I mean people did compare Bleach to Naruto back in the day and still to this day, which makes far more sense to compare than Trinity Blood since the other two are the same genre. They were part of the Big 3, popular, and printed on the same magazine company. Well that and One Piece but at the time, One Piece wasn't as popular in America at the time for one good reason.

The 4kids dub ruined One Piece from getting popular

It's more popular nowdays with a 2nd, more popular faithful dub, plus we're in the age of legal streaming, meaning everyone can easily watch the newest episode straight from Japan.

Yeah, back in the day lot people did compare the vampire show to the one that has nothing to do with laundry. I think the funniest argument I ever heard is that Trinity Blood is better than Bleach is because the vampire show is full of hot attractive males while Bleach has no hot attractive males. I'm not joking.

However this was said when the Substitute Soul Reaper arc was airing(The 1st 20 episodes).

Heck, even back then, despite the show known for hot attractive ladies that's full of fanservice, we only had Orihime and you think she was the odd one out for being the only one with big boobs at the time. So it was fairly early to judge the show based on how much eye candy there is.

However fangirls opinions did change when Adult Swim did get around the Soul Society arc and they started crushing on the captains and lieutenants. Tho it was funny watching them as they started getting attached to the sweet innocent man known as Aizen who sadly got brutally murdered. Then 30 episodes later, he's miraculously alive.

And he ended up as one of the main villains of the show. Fangirls' feelings were all conflicted that their sweet innocent man was evil.

So did I enjoy Trinity Blood?...Ehh, not really. I tried to enjoy it but it barely grabbed me. The only I was starting to get hooked was the last few episodes that had the child pope get kidnap and then the main character named Abel fights his evil twin bro(take a guess of his name) showed up and killed the main character, then Abel comes back from the dead and fights his bro as the epic battle is starting and then....*sighs* We had a random timeskip where the MC and this good vampire kid go off and swear to kill the evil bro.  Yeah, it ended the most anti-climatic way possible. Oh and the female lead/possible love interest named Esther is crowned queen.

Not only I didn't enjoy the series but it ended on a sour note. You can tell I'm enjoying the show less and less.

The final rolling credits also said in memorial of the author of the series. The guy who wrote novels that the anime is based on passed away during the development of the anime adaptation. At the time, I heard something about one of his friends will pick up from where it left off or something. Even tho I was never got into the series, I thought it was a good thing to the Trinity Blood fandom that it was still running and I actually believed this for years.

While Bleach was getting out of it's prologue arc and entering it's epic Soul Society arc. Trinity Blood was over, so what replace it?

An another slow-paced anime about vampire hunters with the word blood in it's title.

Blood+ was sort of better than Trinity Blood. The problem is the 1st 15 or so episodes were down right boring. The main character and her adopted brothers did nothing but wander in circles as the show moved at snail-paced. Later on, the cast expanded, the actual villains were introduced, characters got developed, we finally got a grasp of backstory instead of annoying vague flashbacks to Vietnam(I'm not talking about the war) The show was actually getting interesting, then there was a big epic show about to happen on a boat and...It timeskip a whole year and they never go back to what happen on the boat. Well it did ended and wrapped up everything nicely but I still wouldn't recommend the show, it took a while to start becoming interesting.


I could never understand why Adult Swim would have these shows were paired with each other. That be like going to your local theater and comparing your mainstream movie action flick with a documentary, or a romantic comedy, or a slasher film.

Unfortunately, even Bleach ended up hunting vampires in a long drawn out 50 episode filler. You could skip it since it's non-canon filler and not worth watching in the slightest. The only redeeming part is the dub snuck in a jab towards 4kids' "jelly donuts". The problem is certain filler characters hang around a little bit in the canon material.

I have seen some people out there, just randomly hating on Bleach and I don't mean constructive criticism, I mean down right hating hating. Making excuses it's the worse anime of all time and it's the worse of the Big Three because of it's fillers.

Ok, first off, there are far worse anime out there. Back then, Bleach was arguably the best anime at the time in comparison till Adult Swim finally started airing Code Geass, Death Note, FMA:B.

Also don't give me that excuse Bleach is the worse of the Big Three due to fillers. The other two has fillers as well. Bleach gave us the Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc, one of the rare moments I actually enjoyed filler while everyone rolls their eyes on Naruto's infamous Ninja Ostrich, also their manga was over for years and they kept adding filler for no reason.

I think remember hearing about Trinity Blood being a compressed adaptation, that it needed to be 3 or 4 times longer than the 24 episode series we got. Maybe that was the big problem with the anime adaptation? I admit, there were too many mysteries. When I saw the anticlimactic ending, I looked up the Wikipedia page and learn a whole ton of info that was never said within the show itself.


There were a few cool side characters that I like. One was this cool robot that works with the good guys while this other is a confirmed prisoner and he's helping out while getting his prison sentence reduce.(Think Suicide Squad but without the headbombs) It seems there was alot untold story about these cool side characters.

I do know the 1st episode introduce this girl and she was never seen again. Did she had a follow up in the novels?

Who knows, if the show got properly adapted, I might enjoyed it. For all I know, it be Bleach did a quick retelling of episode 1 and did the entire Soul Society arc in a episode or two.


Now the past month, Bleach had the biggest of comebacks in recent history when it's final arc is now getting animated and becoming the most hyped anime of the year. I wondered if the other 2 of the Big Three were jealous of Bleach's big comeback as it was airing it's filler-less new season while they are playing their shows at either snail-pace, or loaded with fillers.

Then I wonder if Bleach's other, lesser known rival was filled with jealously and shaking their fist to new anime. However it's TB has long been forgotten since then and only have a small cult following since the show ended. Bleach has also ended for some time and but it still has a large fanbase.

Heck, most don't remember TB but I'm sure it's fans were reading it's new light novels. I don't know if they are still comparing this fanbase to Bleach.

Well this was the surprising part as I was looking it up after so many years, Trinity Blood died with it's author. The scene where Esther is crowned queen was one of the last scenes from the novels. The author's friend, he didn't write anymore novels to continue the story. He just published some notes in a book of what would of happen if the author never died and how the story would continued from where it left off.

So there be no way a season 2 of the anime would come out because there isn't anymore material.

Now there is one thing that continued, the manga adaptation. It was planned long before the author's death and it started shortly after he died. In 2018, it got to the part Esther is crowned and just simply ended there. So yeah, all you guys got is some fan translated book that only had notes of where the story would of go.

I actually feel sorry for the fanbase. It's not just a simple 24 episode anime that didn't get popular over the years, it's a sad depressing story that barely got off the ground. It had a compressed adaptation that ended on a cliffhanger and you can't even read up the source material what happen after. You could read the manga but even that would that would end abruptly at a certain point. You could read the novels before the author's passing but I found that only few of the light novels were officially licensed and brought here to America. There may be some fan translations for the remaining novels out there but I don't know.

It's sad, to find out the series died with it's author.

FMA Sequels

 

I pretty much explain my previous feelings of the 1st movie in another post.

It shoved 30 storylines into one little movie and somehow made some random minor dude as the main villain from the train robbery episode.

I found out the past few months that they released two sequels on Netflix. I went ahead and watch the 2nd movie and it was "Better-ish".  I only saying that because it mostly adapts episodes 13 through 26, which is kinda a small handful of episode rather adapting and grabbing random story points from the source material.

There were a few bits here and there that got adapted. The movie starts with a very quick adaption the train attack story that was only present in the 1st show but skipped in the 2nd show. The only difference was they saved Fuhrer King Bradley instead of Major General Halcrow. Also instead of meeting Maes Hughes, they met with Ling Yao and his gang.

Behold, an actual Asian character played by an Asian instead of Asians wearing wigs and having German names.

Also him and Winry's dub voices are the only returning voices from the tv shows. I heard Ed and Al had their original voices in the 1st movie but I guess Netflix waited months to quietly release it's dub because I didn't know the 1st movie had a dub track when it 1st came out.

Anyways, back to the train attack.

The guy on the right is Major General Halcrow aka the *main villain* from the 1st live-action movie

Both the 2003 show and 2008 show were adapted from the manga or comic. The 2003 show quickly got caught up and made up new storylines partway. When 2008 was made, the story from the manga was almost done but since it's been half a decade and the 2003 show was still fresh in our heads. They sort of speed through was was already told in the 2003 and skipped certain parts that didn't really matter.

The terrorists attacking the train episode's main purpose was to introduce Maes and Roy who were major characters. The terrorists never appeared again and the Major General was pretty much forgotten aside a minor cameo. So I have no idea why they made him the main villain in the 1st film.

Unlike the live-action movies, the 08 show did a far superior job of having 1st 12 episodes being an adaption with some stuff cut down and trimmed but still successfully told a great story that ran through. The way the movies done it is just jump point to point, making sure at least everything is in the movie but told so quickly it's confusing.

There are two main antagonists of the movie. One is the Homunculus, artificial created beings whose names based on the 7 deadly sins and there's this guy.

This man is called Scar. He's a survivor of the losing side of the war and becomes a serial killer, hunting down military alchemist.

The entire movie is mostly focused on this guy. In the original story, he slowly becomes an anti-hero, realized his murderous ways caused harm, even to innocents. He did end up working with the good guys as they all find out the war that started in his homeland was the result of an 300 year old conspiracy.

The movie does try to compress his entire character arc into the entire movie but believe me, it's not as laughable as some of the stuff I saw in the 3rd movie but yeah, he goes from murderer, to started to realized he he caused harm to innocents, to somewhat being forgiven by his enemies and started to work with them in one whole movie.

Here's a few comments about the casting.

 

Instead of a little girl, Mei Chang is a full grown woman

Alex Louis Armstrong is suppose to be a ridiculous character and he even looks ridiculous in live-action. Some things can't translate from animation to live-action. The 1st pic, we're laughing with it because he's goofy and over the top while the 2nd pic, he's we're laughing at it since he's look ridiculous for the wrong reasons. Also he's not too muscular. He's just some dude that does work out at the gym but no where like a big bodybuilder type.

Kimblee is a recurring villain who is heavily hyped in the flashbacks to the war but in the movie, he never appears after the flashbacks again, even in the 3rd movie. All this hype for nothing.

One thing I will praise besides the set designs is the whole scene

The scene where the main hero's love interest finds a gun and nearly goes gun crazy on her parents killer but he snaps it out of her and slowly pulls the gun from her hands. He tells her hands help deliver a baby and help attach metal limbs to people who lost their organic ones.

I like this scene for two reasons, one, because I hated how the 03 ends and left them divided in different universes and it was nice to see an actual romance scene. Two, the movie could of shoehorn the entire story of her help delivering the baby but it didn't. His line about saving lives means the list of patients he saw earlier that needs automail aka metal limbs to replace their missing ones and it was only seen in half a second. There was no shoehorning whatsoever. Just a half a second scene that don't interrupt the narrative of the movie and ends up fitting with this moment.

Now oh boy, on to the 3rd movie which is a pacing nightmare. It adapts episodes 29 through 64 all in a two hour movie.

There are episode that done in like less than two minutes and then move on to the next. There is no time to breathe. It just jumps point to point. It hurries up, tell a certain story in 2-3 minutes and then jumps to the next scene.

Remember Ling, the Asian actually playing an Asian. Well I need to explain the homunculus, Greed.

The man know Greed is a rebellious man who ran away from the other villains and started his own gang in a city. Later Wrath killed most of the gang and captured Greed. His body was boiled down and turn into a stone.

Later on, Ling was captured and turned into a homunculus with Greed's stone. It took over his mind and became the new Greed. It didn't have memories of it's past life as a rebellious gang leader.

Also, Ling came to our heroes' country to find the secret of immortality to help his country's emperor but as they were forcing the stone into his body, he was told he was going to become "immortal", so he easily gave in to be possessed.

Throughout the story, Greed's memories of his past life will surface and end up joining alliances with the good guys and Ling started to sometimes take control of his body. It's based like Brock and Venom sharing a body. At the end, Greed sacrifice his life to save everyone, including Ling.

Well in the movie, Greed 1.0 doesn't appear and makes they make offhand references he was rebellious in his previous life. Ling easily gives in to become a homunculus and this was commented by our heroes. The good guys flee the villain's lair, literally five minutes later he meets up with the good guys at house and he said something like, "Don't worry, I'm back in control and Greed is on our side."

Also it is jarring Greed still sounds like Death the Kid instead of Prince Schneizel/Steeljaw/Snow Villiers because in the show, when Ling became Greed, they got a different voice to play him unless Ling takes control of his body. That be like Venom is using Tom Hardy's regular voice.

The beginning of the 3rd movie also introduced Izumi Curtis who was Ed and Al's teacher and randomly gets introduced, meets the brothers' dad, gets her missing organs magically heal from his alchemy, and then moved to the another scene. She only shows up again to help to help the Armstrong siblings to fight Sloth at the end. It's kinda pointless this late in the game to introduce her, tell her entire tragic story why she has missing organs, and then make her show up.

That entire arc where our heroes travel up North to the border of the country in Briggs, all told in a few minutes. They hurried up meet Armstrong's sister, encounter a very obvious cheap CGI Sloth, go underground and learn the villains goal to transmute an entire country. All this in a few minutes with no time to breath.

At one part of the movie, Ed and Al were for some explained reason were separated(unless you watched the show). They meet Fuhrer King Bradley's son(and Gluttony) and instead of making an big epic reveal of his true nature as the Homunculus, Pride, he was all like, "BTW, I'm Pride".

In the middle of the battle, he randomly decides to devoured Gluttony. Gosh, this entire scene is a way too rushed.

Their rapidly regeneration abilities were fading out and he straight up eats his ally to recover but they don't explain this in the movie.

They did the entire final arc, "The Promised Day." The arc where our heroes raided Central Command and attack everyone, killed all the Homunculus, and defeated their Father and stop his plans to attain godhood. Pretty much everything from that arc was adapted, except that every major scene was done in a minute or two. I feel I like I'm watching a Michael Bay action scene where it's all too fast. If you watch the movie with no idea of the show, that's exactly like that. You be wondering whose who and who killed who. The only difference is no shaky cam or explosions.

Tough characters like Sloth went down in two or three hits. Even if you never seen the show, you think a behemoth that's 3 meters tall wouldn't go down in three hits. I mean heck, the 1st movie had Ed and Roy figuring out the Homunculus have a limit of how many times they can regenerate and it show Roy burning them down over and over.

So yeah, this movie is a complete nightmare. It's faithful to the source material but instead of creating a story based on it, it more like cherry picked the best scenes of the show and turn this into a live-action recap aside a few differences like killing off Dr. Marcoh in the 1st movie, forgetting Kimblee, or the cutting out the Chimeras. 

I think I mention it once but the CGI looks fake. I know I don't except it to be a high-budget Hollywood film but you know, it still look animated.

Despite it being set in a fictional world similar to Germany, you got Japanese actors in wigs and dyed hair unless they are from the FMA's version of China. Something similar happen to the Attack on Titan live-action movie where's it's also based on a fictional version of Germany with a ton of Japanese actors. However, at least they sort of have a sort of have an excuse, that movie pretty much made up it's own lore since it was made far back when that show was in it's 1st season, meaning it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan. Also their token Half-Asian never said within the movie that her mother came from a far away land. Also never wore wigs. The only problem is they have European names, which is weird.

If there some positives I say for the FMA movie. The sets and locations look great.

Transformers Distribution

Introducing this best episode that came out of this abysmal Transformers show.

I posted a mini-rant as a prelude to this article. It basically describes my feelings on this show. You don't have to read if you want.

Last time, the Decepticons have invaded Cybertron, recruited combiner teams, got powered up by a mystical Super Energon, and filled the planet with a toxic gas that's harmful to Autobots. What will this week's episode deal with the conflict? Well nothing actually.

Now here's the problem with the plot of the episode, we suddenly got into some into weird non-canon filler that doesn't fit with the plot that was going on with the gassed-up Cybertron. The thing is that in Japan, this episode aired at a different timeslot that was promoted as a special episode to celebrate the 500th episode milestone of the various Transformers series that got produce. That's cool that this hyped up episode but here in states, it was aired as a regular episode with no promotion what so ever. Can you imagine what went through people's heads?

Anyways, the episode starts with the Decepticons discussing why the lights are off before the scene switches to a completely different area and they never discuss this again.

Okay, that was completely random with the episode starting it like that. It's a reference that's lost to American viewers.

Basically, that scene is meant to be based on pic above that's only available in the Japanese version. Before the episode starts, Optimus tells the viewers to watch the show in a well-lit room. I guess they don't want a repeat of that infamous moment from Pokemon that caused thousands of kids to have seizures.

In Japan, it's a funny skit of the Decepticons and the lights but in English, it's just some weird out of place scene.

Anyways, the next scene shows Hot Shot and Rodimus at a arena.

We got two separate characters that are loosely based on Hot Rod

Hot Shot is the typical impulsive youth who matures later on and became leader for a short time while Optimus was briefly dead.

Rodimus is a man in the same colors as his G1 counterpart and has a high command position.

Their eneimes, Tidal Wave and Mirage

Tidal Wave transforms into an aircraft carrier and later got "Upgraded" into Mirage. Maybe it's like computers, where they used to be the size of your entire wall long before days of being handheld devices. Mirage had a total guy on guy crush on Galvatron but due to poor rushed dubbing, they couldn't 100% censor it. Remember, this is a kids show on CN, not some edgy anime for teens and adults. 

They jump at it and...It's over. They cut straight to the aftermath where the Hot Rod wannabes defeated them.

We got these robo maid catgirls as announcers and referees for this tournament. Yes, I know how ridiculous this is. In the pic above, their comparing their crushes, Hot Shot and Galvatron. Yes, this is totally happening.

2nd Fight starts

With Optimus Prime and Wing Saber.

Wing Saber had a mini-character arc of having a vendetta against one of the Decepticons but when he got upgraded with a new body that combines with Optimus, this character arc was forgotten. Typical Energon.

They fight against old man crain truck Landmine, and dune buggy trash-talker from the streets yo, Cliffjumper.

(In the sub, Landmine is confused by Cliffjumper's pure Engrish of saying, "Check it out, yo!". Honestly the dub completely rewrote this scene to trash talking. It's not a big deal, at least it's not a confusing mess like everything else)

They quickly combine and totally pwned the other two and they said, "Hey, we're not ready yet!"

Then we got this image. It may be some what confusing since this is meant to be based on the eyecatch or commercial bumpers in the Japanese version.

I know when Anime is aired on a American network station, they cutdown down whatever to fit the runtime(Opening, Ending, post credits omake, etc)

I bet those who 1st saw FMAB on Adult Swim are surprised of the loud voice during the commercial bumpers when the rewatch the series.

However I doubt Energon's DVDs/streaming stations included the eyecatchs, so the joke is kinda lost regardless. The English version could of not included these fake eyecatchs.

We got a dozen more fake eyecatchs throughout the episode, I'm not going to show all of them.

3rd fight is the lame idiot truck Ironhide(nothing his G1 version), and the cool awesome 2nd-in-command of the Autobots, Jetfire

They fighting Scorponok and Alpha Q

Scorponok was one of the several well developed people that got brainwashed into Megatron's loyal goons and his character arc didn't go anywhere and stayed brainwashed, just like Starscream and Demolishor. Gosh I hate this show.

Jetfire was telling Ironhide their upcoming fight be easy and somehow, a spring sound effect was heard in the background. The thing is we be hearing this often throughout the episode and the sounds like a joke was made but there was no joke seen. I knew as I was watching the episode, there was a joke that didn't get translated right. The fact I didn't have to watch the subbed version to figure this out on 1st viewing downright shows how flat out terrible the dub is. Gosh I hate Energon.

(In the sub, Jetfire told Ironhide to calm down since their opponents are a simulated program, then he turns to Ironhide and said, "BTW, I'm a program too." Ironhide shoot a confused look as the spring sound effect was heard)

Anyways, they clashed and Alpha Q got pushed out like a ragdoll. The two Autobots ended up defeating Scorponok.

4th fight is the calm sniper firetruck Inferno, and his upgrade form, Roadblock.

They fight against evil hacker Sixshot, and his brother, the sociopath killer, Shockblast(very loosely based on Shockwave)

Sixshot is happy to be next to his deceased bro, even if he is a simulated program.

The story is Shockblast try to overthrow Megatron and died. Sixshot came in later, believing Optimus killed him. Since this is Energon, Sixshot died not knowing whose his bro's true killer.

At least Dreadwing from Transformers: Prime had the same type of story arc as Sixshot but unlike him, he actually learns the full details of his bro's death and actually did something about it before dying. *Sighs*

Anyways, Sixshot gives a handshake to the two bots while Shockblast totally cheats and blasts them during the moment. They won the round. This is funny and totally in Shockblast's character.

5th fight is dumb monkey truck, Demolishor, and annoying yodeling truck, Snowcat.

Their characters from Armada who reappeared in the sequel. Snowcat was called Cyclonus before he got upgraded that came with annoying yodeling. Demolishor was a conflicted man who did serve with the Autobots during the 10-year peace but went back to the Cons when Megatron return due to his loyalty to his leader. Few episodes later, he got badly damaged, got rebuild and mindwiped, and acted like a dumb comic relief throughout the series. That's Energon for you. You see why I hate this show?

The comic relief Con face their opponents, who are rookie Autobots, Downshift(who looks like G1 Wheeljack) and Prowl. 

I need to explain that the show that's based on the toyline at the time had a gimmick where Autobots did a Powerlink and merge the two bots. One form the head and one form the legs.

Anyways the two Autobots powerlink and...

They both form the heads.

This was a funny scene since this is the only time in the entire show they get the wrong combination. I wish the actual main story had moments like this, instead of watching the Autobots be complete set of bores and follow the story of chasing Unicron, and repeat three times.

Demolishor and Snowcat wonder if they can powerlink and did a transformation combination scene. I was like, "Wait a minute, only Autobots powerlink? I don't think their toys can do this?"

Turns out they can't

Then we get a fake commercial bumper of them coping DBZ's Fusion Dance. I do find their failed attempt to be very funny scene.

The two Decepticons somehow won.

6th Fight is the Construction Team and the Destruction Team, fighting the Air Team.

The last 13 episodes introduce us to Energon's version of Combiner teams. However instead of 5 bots merging into one humongous bot, it's more like a slighter taller bot that splits into 5 components rather than 5 separate beings. Also instead of combining, the turn into beams of light that smash together into a slightly tall bot. Yeah, this was completely disappointing and they just boring 1-dimensional characters that showed up late in the show.

However, this special brought us the coolest most awesome scene in Transformers history.

Here's a link to this epic scene

They combine with the epic background music, the flashy over the top anime transformation sequence with flashy eyes, lightning in the background, cool poses, with wonderful cell-shaded 2D animation instead of the terrible lifeless 3D cheap CGI. They actually combine, not turn into pillars of light. Also this is the only moment where we see them in their robot modes. Another thing is this was never used in the many moments of stock footage you see 234 times throughout the show, so this was epic and special seeing this.

Anyways, the two bad guys won.

The 7th fight is the Hot Rod wannabes and Optimus and Wing Saber.

Optimus and Wing Saber combine into Optimus Wing Mode and the other two say "Optimus, sir!" and Optimus replied, "That's my name." *Insert spring sound effect*

So uh..What's the joke here?

Basically after combing, he said, "Call me Wing Optimus(or Wing Convoy)". Rodimus said like "Prime (or Grand Convoy)" while Hot Shot said something like, "Optimus Prime sir(or Commander Grand Convoy)." Wing Optimus made a sound like he told himself in his head, Um..Ok, Whatever. *Insert spring sound effect*

The Hot Rod wannabes took on Wing Optimus and they were getting pounded by the Autobot leader as he gave a maniacal laughter. Geez Optimus, when you became evil?

The two flame-colored bots manage to overcome their leader and defeat him.

8th match is Ironhide and Jetfire against Shockblast and Sixshot.

Sixshot totally pwned them by flitching his his antenna. He told them he hacked the simulation and it caused the two good guys to be paralyzed. They then blasted them out of the match.

Bulkhead who is a laughing geezer bot made a comment of the Autobot losing the previous round.

(Sub version breaks the 4th wall and saying he's only a cameo and not in the tournament)

Demolishor and Snowcat be in the 9th battle and they are against...

Galvatron and Starscream.

And it turns out he defeated Demolishor and Snowcat(Cyclonus)'s pre-upgrade forms in some unseen fight. Retroactively making the 9th battle actually the 10th.

The two dimwits think this is the perfect time to take their pent-up frustration against their leader. It cut to the aftermath and the two baffoons were defeated. Galvatron is mad that those two are wasting their time playing childish games. Not only that, but they dare to attack him.

11th battle is the two evil Combiner teams against..

Optimus Supreme.

It's Optimus combined with this version's Omega Supreme. An ancient giant guardian who came assisted the good guys.

The two evil combiners said, "Bring it Optimus!" "Anytime Prime." While the defeated Superior from the earlier battle told him, "Waste them Optimus!" Optimus told them, "Watch me!" *Insert spring sound effect*

Wait, there was a joke? Like where is it?

In the sub version, Optimus Supreme told them to prepare to die. A little extreme, your becoming a little too close to your face grabbing movie counterpart there.

The two said in awe of their opponent, "It's Prime(or Grand Convoy). The Autobot leader tried to correct them but then, Supereon said, "It's Optimus Prime, sir (or Commander Grand Convoy). Optimus Supreme(or Omega Convoy) made a sound and properly thought to himself, Nobody bother to get it right.

Back to the dub version, Optimus go against them and said, "I need to teach you guys respect!" He jumps in the air and shouted, "I AM YOUR LEADER!" and told them his name is Optimus Prime.

This is just random and doesn't make sense. Those are Decepticons, not a member of his Autobots. Why he shouting he's their leader and stuff. According to the sub version, he fed up their not going by the name of his combined form.

He then grabs them and ends the match by performing a suplex on them.

So the entire match is nothing but  missing jokes and weird yelling.

12th battle is the two flame color Autobots against

The two One-Eye bots

Shockblast goes into his satellite mode and fire but the two heroes knock them off course and got them to crash into the ground.

The two bros were bickering at each other and Shockblast in a fit of rage try to blast his own family member. 

However Sixshot wiggle his head antenna to hack the program to paralyzed his own family and the two Hot Rod knockoffs.

He then hack the program to remove the hologram of Shockblast and plan to attack our heroes.

They resisted it by powerlinking and turning into one bot. Sixshot asked how are they resisting and they answered, "You don't realized the true power of Powerlinking." Um..Ok, that line doesn't make sense. The battle ended with the good guys winning.

Well in the sub version of the fight, it's this.

Basically, the power of anime friendship bullcrap. How cheesy.

The two robo cat maids told Galvatron and Starscream their next match is against Optimus but Galvatron told them he isn't here to play these childish games. So the battle is skipped.

Now for the final round of the tournament. Hot Shot and Rodimus vs Optimus and Omega Supreme. 

Optimus jumps in the air and jumps on Omega Supreme' vehicle mode. A transformation scene is shown as Optimus and Omega combine.

And landed on top of the edge of the arena.

The victory bell rang and Hot Shot and Rodimus are the leaders because Optimus and Omega broke the rules and step out of the field.

"Pff, nobody told me about any ridiculous rules." said in a pouty voice. LOL

The two flame-colored bots are awarded trophies for there victory and they were told to fight in a bonus round. Their opponent is..

A very small Unicron who is not planet-sized.

He transformers and said, "Unicron, Transform!"

The only time Unicron ever talk for the show. He did grunts here and there. They brought back the same voice actor from Armada and just told him to say this one line. Well technically Unicron did speck through Galvatron when he possess him at the very end of the show but it wasn't his voice.

They battle the planet-eater and..

It shows the Hot Shot and Rodimus waking up in the real world and celebrating their victory from the game.

Their human ally Kicker(Yes, that's his stupid nickname) rolled his eyes on the whole thing. *Insert spring sound effect* Funny thing is that it's the only time this spring effect actually work in the English version.

 He said to himself, "You Autobots and your dumb games."

Me who saw this when it 1st premiered, "Shut up Kicker, I hate you and your stupid voice."

Me rewatching this recently, "LOL, it's wonderful to hear Light Yagami's awesome voice again. It terrible that you were stuck with an annoying sucky human character."

I totally loved this episode despite being part of the worse Transformers series. It's full of humorous moments and nearly everyone has actual personalities in this. I wished Energon was a comical series rather than a serious show where everyone is a bore and they blindly follow the plot. I also felt like this is the only time the writers bother to put actual effort in their writing.

Unfortunately, the best episode was ruined by the dub and messed good number of things. That sound effect kept being heard but there is no joke when it happen, the commercial bumpers, the joke about the lights. Also, it aired as a regular episode with no promotion. They could of rewrote some of the dialogue or edit out certain things that didn't made sense, but this is a horribly rushed dub, so what you expect.

I mean good gosh, the dub versions of Bleach and My Hero Academia did special fillers and they flat out announced and broke the 4th wall that they are special tie-ins to their animated movies and it wasn't confusing to their viewers.

I know we're in the age of simuldubs where a popular show gets dubbed in a few weeks but Energon is not that type of dubbing in the same exact detail. Dub companies are far more prepared for this while Energon just got 1st draft of the script, didn't even go through it properly, told the actors to hurry and say their lines and didn't proofread any errors. Also the animation is incomplete.

I admit I make a ton of typos on this blog but I'm just a regular guy. TV shows like Energon are meant to be done professionally.