I'm David, welcome to my brain. Here I write to not only show that I can but to share my opinions on various topics. Mostly Video Games, Anime, Movies and Tokusatsu. Though I am open to suggestions and never afraid to admit when I'm wrong. Have a good time in here and be sure not to mess with my memory, it's bad enough as it is.
When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.
Ok, lets get this out of the way right now.
Yes the Happytime Murders seems to have taken more then a fair bit of inspiration from this season 1 Family Guy joke about childhood puppet icons in a gritty crime drama. But where this was a four minute gag The Happytime Murders is at least an hour and a half long but thankfully doesn't overstay its welcome. Though given the length I still feel it honestly could have gone a little bit further in terms of the comedy. But what we have is more then serviceable as far as a high concept dirty comedy is concerned. Not bad for what's essentially Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixed with Let my Puppets Come. (Yes that is a real movie.)
The premise is that this is an alternate universe where Puppets are fully sentient but are considered second class citizens. But hey on the plus side there's apparently no human racism because it doesn't matter who you are, as long as you're not a puppet you're good. Our main character is a Puppet PI named Phil Philips (played by Bill Barretta) whose brother was a cast member on a groundbreaking puppet sitcom called the Happytime Gang that is about to be released for syndication. But the original cast members start getting killed off once by one, including Phil's brother so he's recruited by the L.A PD as a consultant to solve the case. But he has to deal with not only normal puppet discrimination but also his bitter Ex Partner Connie Edwards (Played by Melissa McCarthy) to solve the mystery before any more of his old friends die.
The initial premise has a fair bit of comedic potential and some of the gags are out there yet grounded so that we can see the parallels between the Puppets situations and how it correlates to the real world. Also the fact that these normally depressing and disgusting acts are being done by Henson quality puppets adds to the absurdity and the humor. I'm not going to go into too much detail but I will say this, after this movie you'll never look at cows the same way again. Either way this has childhood puppets doing fucked up shit, basically a Robot Chicken movie. Though not quite as hilarious as that show but then again I guess we could have just been spoiled by shows like Robot Chicken for a long time, maybe if this came out in like the early 2000's this movie might have been seen as groundbreaking but as it is it's still a Funtime regardless.
But some critics who really didn't take too kindly to this movie have even gone on to call this "The Worst Movie of all time". Now I'm not naming names but really, the worst movie of all time? Worse then Manos the Hands of Fate (Non MST3K version), worse then Gerry, worse then Cyrus, worse then the Castle of Fu Man Chu, worse then North, worse then anything produced by Happy Madison or Pure Flix? Yeah ok, no no no no no no that is 100% bullshit. This is just a dirty comedy, not every movie with the slightest hint of subversion has to be this biting gripping social commentary.
Though the critics at least have to admit that the puppetry in this movie is top tier. I haven't seen a whole lot of puppet based entertainment as the rest of my body of work would indicate but I recognize good craftsmanship when I see it. With a combination of Green screen and actual puppets this movie really convinced me that these puppets were really moving of their own accord, essentially a modern update of Bunraku, though admiringly with the green screen and CGI helping it is kind of cheating but still has the same principal from what I can tell. Especially with some of the more physical comedy bits I could hardly tell there was a puppeteer on set. Sure it's not the same with every shot with a puppet in it where you could easily guess where the puppeteer is hiding but definitely with the more complicated sequences you can see the genuine Henson talent behind the strings.
Besides I'll always take actual, physical props that the actors can interact with over unconvincing, cheap CGI any day. Also keep in mind at the time of writing this article I saw BlacKkKlansman in the same week that I saw this movie, I've got more then my fair share of social commentary for a while. From what I can tell you this is just what the Doctor ordered after watching something that close to home. When I read these main stream critic's complaints I'm reminded of something that another subversion of childhood icons said.
It reminds me of one summer day in the park. I was having just a delightful picnic with my good friend Orville. And I said to him, I said, 'Orville, I...I have a story.' And he said to me, 'What's the significance of the story?' And...I said to him, 'Orville, not every story has to have significance, y'know? Sometimes, a...y'know, sometimes, a story's just a story. You try to read into every little thing, and find meaning in everything anyone says, you'll just drive yourself crazy. Had a friend do it once. Wasn't pretty. We talked about it for years. And then not only that, but...you'll likely end up believing something you shouldn't believe, thinking something you shouldn't think, o-o-or assuming something you shouldn't assume. Y'know? Sometimes,' I said, 'a story is-is just a story, so just be quiet for one second of your life and eat your sandwich, okay?'
Though the more I think about it I can't help but think that the critics who slam this movie are continuing the joke of the movie. Namely the discrimination against puppets. I mean think about it, the puppets are treated like dirt all throughout the movie, especially with Phil in regards to his backstory and now we have real life critics tearing this movie, the first mainstream R rated Puppet movie (as far as I know) to shreds because not a freaking Muppet movie or some crap like that, I honestly can't help but think that that's the case. Now like Mr Hippo said I could be reading too much into this but I can't help it; it just kind of makes sense to me. Either way with the reception this movie's gotten I wouldn't be surprised if it emerges as some sort of cult movie or something, kind of like UHF or Buckaroo Banzai.
I could honestly be wrong about all of this but again I'm just an average dude trying to tell everyone to ignore the critics and see a movie where puppets make dick jokes for god's sake. Now don't get me wrong sometimes critics are 100% right, but not every movie the critics slam is a Michal Bay Transformers movie sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and judge it for yourself. You can listen to my advice or you can flat out ignore me, either way it's all up to you as long as you've seen it and judge by your own perspective. This might not have been the intent of the Happytime Murders but that's what I got out of it. Next week we'll be finishing up my review of Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final, look forward to it.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
The Happytime Murders is owned by Brian Henson, Black Bear Pictures, Henson Alternative, STX Entertainment H.Brothers and On the day productions. Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation. Five Nights at Freddy's is owned and created by Scott Cawthon.
When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.
Oh goody more Kamen Rider Gaiden films to cash in on the last Kamen Rider season/ fill any left over plot-holes. Now these aren't all bad all things considered I mean the best that I've seen so far is still Drive Saga Chaser which I covered around when it came out.
However the other two Drive movies; Mach and Heart are a bit of a mixed bag. The Gaim ones were pretty decent as well with the best being in my opinion the special for Kamen Rider Knuckle, highlighting a character that really didn't get a whole lot of narrative focus in the main show. Dukes was at least vital for setting up a possible ongoing threat for the Armored Riders past the events of the show, and at least we get to see Duke in a non Energy Rider form. Baron and Zangetsu's specials were entertaining in their own rights.
While the worst of all the Gaiden specials is the Kamen Rider Specter special, but then again almost everything related to Ghost sucks like the Poltergust 3000 so at least its consistent with the show. As expected there's three movies for Ex-Aid, arguably one of the most popular recent Kamen Rider series though instead of the three focusing on one character they each focus on two and today we're looking at one of the worst riders on the show and the ongoing saga of Pepe Le Pew and his formerly jailbait charge. Now of course since this takes place after Ex-Aid spoilers are going to be unavoidable so here's the warning and off we go.
We open two years after the main series concluded with the God Dan Kuroto at his mansion (would you expect less from this guy) auditioning to be the new That guy with the Glasses by rambling on about how he's going to, of course try to kill the Riders. According to Hiiro they not only somehow lost track of the guy but he also stole the Bugvisor and Proto-Gashat that he squirreled away. Ok how did this happen? He was kept in only one place you could literally have one guy watch him as he was stuck in Poppy's console under lock and key, what did Kuroto escape while the guy went to take a dump?! I imagine that it went a little something like this.
But they've got bigger concerns then a deranged Kamen Rider with a dangerous god complex and a personality more akin to Daffy Duck then God. Thanks to the combined efforts of Taiga, Hiiro and Kujo ER is steadily working to not only curing all strains of Gamer Syndrome but are also close to restoring everyone who lost Kamen Rider Chronicle, including hopefully Hiiro's girlfriend Saki. As Taiga and Nico are wrapping up another day in the clinic Nico's past comes calling in the form of one of her old gaming rivals from America, Luke Kidman. But just before he finally gets that restraining order he clearly wanted he shows symptoms of Game Syndrome and collapses in pain.
Meanwhile at the hall of Justice, er I mean uh this place, whatever.
Hiiro and Kujo are meeting with the head in charge of the project, Dr Saiko Yaotome.
EVIL, obviously evil! I mean whenever a new character is introduced in these specials odds are good that unless we see them in trouble in their first scene, they're evil.
Dr Feelgood tells Hiiro and Kujo that her team has a bold idea to restore the lost people, by using Bugsters. Now don't worry this isn't like ADAM replacing cells with unstable steam versions; according to Feelgood the reason why completed Bugsters retain their hosts memories is because their genes still exist within the Bugster in a broken down or divided form. So instead of Bioshock pseudo science, the movie is going with Assassins Creed pseudo science in that memories are encoded into our DNA. Now keep in mind, Feelgood's an expert on Gene therapy, more like JEAN therapy right guys?! Shut up that was funny!
After Hiiro turns down a dinner date with Dr Feelgood he runs into Saki. And no this isn't a static barely alive facsimile like what Chronos did; this is the real Saki restored from the Drago Knight Hunter Z Proto-Gashat. But she disappears before Hirro can confirm it is her. After the title card we follow up on Hirro indulging his sweet tooth. (Note his actor Toshiki Seto hates sweets, after apparently eating too much chocolate and got a nosebleed afterwords as a kid, casting can be a bitch.) Afterwords he runs into Saki again who confirms that he's not seeing things. But she's got herself a new boyfriend, unfortunately it's this cartoon.
Ren Amagasaki AKA the Lovelica Bugster AKA a Kilgrave you can barely take seriously.
Hiiro is of course confused and horrified at this since last time he saw him he was begin permakilled by Chronos and last he checked people die when they're killed.
Actually he did get better since after Chronos used Reset Ren and Saki were restored by an outside force, I'll give you a minute to guess who. But now that Saki's hooked up with this pink creeper Hiiro puts the pieces together, he knows a brainwashing job when he sees one and transforms into Kamen Rider Brave Fantasy Gamer LV 50 to fight Ren who in turn pulls out a Bugvisor to assume his Bugster form. But there's one detail Hiiro forgot, since Lovelica is a Bugster from a dating sim game, physical attacks won't work on him allowing Pinkie Pie to kick Brave's ass. Ren also has Saki pour salt and lemon juice on Hiiro's wounds by saying that all he did was for nothing before they leave him to stew in his failure.
Back at Taiga's clinic Luke is slowly dying due to his infection from Lovelica and Nico doesn't want anything to do with him since he's basically a reminder of how she used to be. However there's no Lovelica vaccine so in order to save Luke they have to kill Lovelica. Back at CR Hiiro talks to Emu and Poppy about the investigation into where Kuroto ran off too, but nothing's come up. Though Emu might have a clue, during the events of the Kamen Rider Para-DX Hyper Battle Video he and Parado cleared a puzzle game Kuroto created and figures that that game was a trap to give him enough time to escape.
Get used to seeing this whenever Kuroto's involved it's basically his exclusive version of "there's a simple explanation for that" in being used to explain how and why he does half the shit he does.
Speaking of; back at his mansion Kuroto lays out the terms behind Ren and Saki's restoration. He unlocked her data from the Proto Gashat and cultivated Ren's virus in Luke but like Cinderella unless Ren can become complete before midnight the next day he and Saki will be reduced back to data and disappear. Though it looks like he might have to worry about that end as Luke being the creepy stalker fuckstick that he is, well Nico can't stand the sight of him. After Hiiro has a walk down memory lane about his and Saki's relationship Tiaga pulls out the one thing he can use to get past Lovelica's defenses, the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat. He tries to transform into Chronos with it but since it requires a perfect immunity to all strains of the Bugster virus to use it it causes severe pain to him and he blacks out.
The next day Kujo calls out Hiiro to give him information on the Kuroto investigation that according to eyewitnesses they saw someone rather interesting and gives him a map of the locations Lovelica was seen at. But before Kujo can offer assistance Nico calls Hiiro for help with Taiga hemorrhaging blood all over the place trying to control the power of Chronos and he runs off. After an interesting conversation between Kujo and Feelgood Hiiro makes it to the clinic where he learns why Taiga was trying to do this craziness, develop the perfect Antibody not only to defeat Lovelica, but restore Saki to atone for his failure to save her in the first place.
Hiiro doesn't want Taiga to kill himself over this and tries to assuage his concerns by going after Lovelica himself but Taiga knows that only Cronus can disable Lovelica's defenses so he ambushes Hiiro and fights him. The two are barely standing after the encounter but Taiga leaves and after some melodrama he steals the Bugvisor 2 from Poppy. Though this is suicide since only Bugsters or a Patient Zero can use that driver otherwise it could be fatal to normal Gamer Driver users. Nevertheless before midnight Taiga manages to find Saki and Lovelica and using the Bugvisor 2 finally manages to become Kamen Rider Chronos and engages him managing to negate his anti-volience defenses and his brainwashing on Saki, but eventually his body collapses under the strain of Chronos and powers down, the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat flying away from the driver.
Thankfully he has a tag team partner, Hiiro transforming into Legacy Gamer Lv 100 becomes a literal knight in shining armor and finally kills Lovelica. After he and Saki have one last heart to heart, midnight strikes and Saki fades away again until the Knight can finally awaken her from her spell of endless sleep. But this isn't where our story ends as with Lovelica's death Luke is cured and he and Nico decide to return to America to settle their beef once and for all. Also this was all according to God Dan Kuroto's plan, he got what he wanted from Lovelica, Taiga's Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat. Now that it could be used to attain the power of Chronos it can be used to reproduce the Master Gashat. So Brave and Snipe ends with Kuroto using the new Master Gashat to restore his father, Dan Masamune with the help of his accomplice Dr Feelgood!
So that was Ex-Aid another Ending Brave and Snipe and it did work to give some closure to Hiiro and Taiga regarding Saki and how they both failed to save her as well as Taiga returning the favor for Hiiro saving his life back in the main series. The return of Lovelica can be a bit head scratching as the full effects of Cronus' reset is questionable, even in the main series it just seemed like something the writers pulled out of their asses to keep the plot going, though with what little is explained about reset it certainly is plausible, especially with God Dan Kuroto's programing capabilities. The Nico and Luke subplot was a bit unnecessary since we already got some development for Nico and adding this old rival of hers into the mix was unnecessary, though it probably worked better then just infecting some random person with Lovelica's virus to get this whole thing started.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is owned by Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Python (Monty) Pictures and EMI films.
Caught up? Good moving on, after the Pac-Man fever was cured a very familiar man with a certain ring observes the city and starts to form a plan. As for our villains Zaizen learns firsthand that just like Jack from BioShock maybe rewriting your DNA on a whim isn't exactly the smartest idea in the world. Yet instead of turning into something out of a David Cronenberg movie he says he got exactly what he was looking for. Have to admit though, first time Plasmid's a real kick from a mule, but there's nothing like a fist full of lightning an't it? Back at CR both Alan and Makoto are in recovery while Kagami's barely holding on himself from the slugfest to the point where Taiga offers to take over while he gets some rest.
Takeru's still suffering from Hatena's virus and Emu's gone straight into the self-doubt cycle. Poppy tries to shake him out of it but to no avail while Kiriya asks her why Emu can become Ex-Aid if he didn't undergo the compatibility surgery, but we'll answer that later. Back at Zaizen's base Shinnosuke and the Police have the place surrounded, but before Zoolander can unleash the full power of Magnum on them Haruto uses his magic to sweep the cops away into the Corn-fields. Zaizen tells the captive Tougo that he'll be their first test subject for their grand experiment, to become the Ultimate Life FOR FUCKS SAKE THIS AGAIN!? Yep our main bad guy for this movie is yet another Dr Moreau type asshole who wants to "perfect humanity through evolution" by screwing around with DNA.
So he wants to turn humanity into Edgelord versions of Iron Man? Somewhere Charles Darwin is trying to eat his own beard, maybe Takeru could check and see; he does still have his Eyecon as far as I know.
But Iron Man needs War Machine so he gets to work on converting Tougo into another monster like him when Zoolander and Haruto come in and Haruto offers to join their little Science club from hell. But when Zoolander tries to object Haruto points out that he got rid of the cops with no problem and Mr "Can't turn left" over there wasn't up for the job, and Crimson Dynamo says, "sure the more the merrier" and accepts. Back in CR Takeru gets a call from Shinnosuke who tells him the location of Zaizen's hideout which sends him up and running after finding out he and Akari have only 8 hours left before the Virus kills them, and in Takeru's case again. After one of Takeru's speeches Emu manages to crawl out of his self-doubt cycle and tells him he's not doing this crazy shit on his own and suits up while the other prominent players make their own preparations.
Emu and Takeru make it to the hideout and Haruto lets them right on in as part of his plan, after confirming that he's Kamen Rider Wizard of course since these two never met Haruto, nor did Shinnosuke so he couldn't tell them he was on the up and up. The three Riders crash the party and Hatena sends some Foot Solder Bugsters to back the Models up. While showing of more of Sakamoto's awesome fight choreography Shinnouske shows up to help out the Riders.
Shinnouske recognizes Mongo as the one who pulled that Ice T and starts seeing red. Yet not even Shinnosuke's best "I am a Man" punch can even tickle him, also free tip, don't bother shooting him it'll just make him mad. The four Riders are cornered by Zaizen and his goons when all of a sudden we get a good old fashioned case of Deus Ex Fructus as Fruit Jesus himself Kamen Rider Gaim literally crashes the party. And he managed to bring Krim along because he's Fruit Jesus LOL, in any case Shinnosuke can transform now so great we have five Kamen Riders against five evil nut jobs. So both sides do their respective transformations and the fight is on. Wizard gets to humiliate Zoolander again, Drive settles the score with Mongo, Ghost and Ex-Aid take on Hatena and Dynamo respectively which just leaves Gaim to take care of Valentina.
While Drive, Wizard and Gaim finish up their fights with little to no trouble once they used their final forms that doesn't work out well for Ghost as all of his forms are completely useless against Hatena. (But then again Mugen sucks out loud so no surprise there.) But before Hatena can put Takeru down again the movie pulls a Gosei and gives Takeru A BRAND NEW POWER UP RIGHT OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE!!! Noubunaga drags Takeru inside of his Eyecon and tells him that he, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu have decided to fuse together, because of reasons.
Thus creating another Movie Exclusive form for Ghost, Tenkatoitsu Damashii.
But you must be thinking, "wait this Bugster was able to overpower Ghost's Final form there's no way this brand new form could do the job that his most powerful form failed to do right?" Well if you are asking that then you must be new to Tokusatsu so in case you are, whenever they introduce a new form, it's an automatic win condition for that fight logic be damned. So with this brand new, untested and undoubtedly weaker new form, Ghost kills Hatena in no time flat, thanks Yogurt! Ghost then goes after Crimson Dynamo and accidentally reads his memories revealing that he was the one who extracted the original Bugster virus from Emu 6 years before. During Dynamo's unholy beat down of Emu he gets an idea, to give him a taste of the same hell he and his minions experienced, so he inserts the Proto Mighty Action X Gashat into Emu's Gamer Driver along with his normal Mighty Action X Gashat to make him OD on the Bugster Virus and send him to the Game World.
But that's where Dynamo made his mistake, since Emu is Patient Zero and his Bugster (Parado) is still around he's still infected with the original strain. So all that did was give Emu a home-brew, bootleg esq version of the Mighty Brothers XX Gashat (in other words a temporary preview of his then upcoming form) so he transforms into Ex-Aid Double Action Gamer Level XX and he and Ghost finish of Hatena and Dynamo for good. So we begin to warp things up with Takeru and Akari's Game Syndrome being cured, Tougo being saved, the Riders congratulate each other on a job well done, Takeru dies for what was it the 6th time now?
But as expected he pulls through, (yet doesn't lose any braincells despite his body dying so once again science can go suck on a railroad spike) and everyone's happy. So the movie truly ends with Kuroto and Parado gloating how their plans are coming closer to fruition thanks to the information they got from observing Zaizen's activities, not the least of which being that Kuroto finished two new Gashats. The first is Pac-Adventures, the second is a new game for Parado, Perfect Puzzle one half of the Gashat that makes up Kamen Rider Paradox.
So that was Kamen Rider Heisei Generations and despite some bumps in the road this was a pretty good movie. Like a lot of the really good tie-in movies the events of this story actually are followed up on in the main show but that's not what makes a movie good (though it is a nice touch) nope the characters are on point, don't contradict their portrayals from the main show and some even show their lives have developed once they've hung up their belts. We see Takeru going to High School and move on with his life, Shinnosuke working for his wife and new baby and Haruto, continue to be one of the most boring Kamen Riders in recent history by having yet another plain sugar donut. You notice that I didn't mention Gaim but that's because we didn't see Kouta (mostly due to his actor Gaku Sano not being able to make it to filming so they had to use stock voice clips of him, wait they really couldn't just get him into a booth to churn out some new lines?)
Though there were some flaws, Zaizen's plan was stock and generic in this genre though the execution of it was competent, unorthodox but competent. The three goons he had were physically strong but had rather stock personalities, hell we never heard their names spoken out loud though out the movie. Also yes we saw their names on Shinnosuke's files on them but they still didn't hear them so I don't care. Oh and also Takeru still sucks like a vacuum cleaner, his supposed final form wasn't enough to defeat the Hatena Bugster but an Eyecon composed of three spirits was enough to do the job even though Grateful couldn't scratch him?
Also if Chiaotzu gets a free Sundae when he died 3 times what does Takeru get when he dies 6 times? But aside from that the writing was competent and even the Pac-Man CGI was pretty damn good, like I said far better then that blight of an Adam Sandler movie since he actually looks like Pac-Man in this movie. So overall even if you aren't watching Kamen Rider Ex-Aid I'd still give this movie a watch just to see some shenanigans and really good fight choreography. Now what to do next time? Oh wait, next Monday is the 21st? My friends we will begin an expedition to the world of one of my all time favorite video games with a Lets Play in honor of its 10th anniversary.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Blazing Saddles is owned by Mel Brooks and Warner Bros. Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation. Bioshock is owned by 2K Boston, 2K Australia, Take-Two Interactive, Ken Levine, Alyssa Finley and 2K Games.
Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.
Yep Marty gets slammed into 1955 and into the barn of Old Man Peabody, the man who previously owned the land the twin pines mall was built on. The crazy coot thinks Marty and the DeLorean are an alien and its spaceship respectively so he tries to shoot him. Marty manages to get away but not without crashing into one of Peabody's two pine trees. Marty then tries to get his barrings and starts to think it might all be a dream, but when he sees the developing site for his neighborhood he starts to realize that maybe when Doc says he built a Time Machine and saw it send Einstein one minute into the future and saw exactly how it works and has visual and audio evidence that maybe he actually did get sent back in time, way to come around butt-head.
He tires to start the Delorean but a combo of a lack of gas and Plutonium means it ain't going any where so he ditches the Hazmat suit and hides the Delorean behind the sign advertising the eventual neighborhood and walks to Hill Valley. After some culture shock and whatnot Marty makes it to the Cafe and finds Doc's address from the phone-book and takes the page with him. He then decides to take a break by having a drink when a familiar scene plays out, he sees the younger version of his father being bullied into finishing Biffs homework. After giving the future mayor of Hill Valley some valuable ideas he chases after George.
He catches up to him climbing a tree with a pair of binoculars and as his Mom and he will say he's bird watching. What he didn't tell her and by proxy Marty that he was specifically looking for a certain type of Bird.
BOOBIES! What? The blue footed ones are supposed to be in California and Hill Valley is in California, though why they would be in a residential area so far inland is beyond me but then again that would probably be all the more rare to find them.
Yeah he's a Peeping Tom, though George I know a way to get your jollies without getting caught, with a little help from our friends at Ryan Industries.
Not only that but you'll never have to worry about Biff again with this little guy. Sure it might cause you to go Bat Squeak insane but then again hey I've seen what happens later and trust me you'll need all the help you can get Georgie boy. But George falls and is about to get hit by a car when Marty jumps in the way and saves him taking the hit himself. He wakes up in the room of a girl by the name of Loraine Banes who thinks that Marty's name is Calvin Kline since she saw the name all over his underwear, when she took his pants off, and put him in her bed and left said pants on her hope-chest.
Yep Marty is more then a little terrified by this situation, thankfully the sounds of his future Grandma calling for dinner breaks up the situation. After Marty gets the directions for Doc's place he makes tracks avoiding the lustful eyes of the teenage version of his mother.
So he finally makes it to Doc and explains his situation. However Past Doc doesn't believe him shock of all shocks and Marty doesn't make his case any better when Doc asks who the President is in his time and Marty says it's Ronald Reagan. But Marty finally gets Doc to listen when he recounts how Doc got the bruise on his head and the inspiration for the Flux Capacitor. He then takes Doc to the Time Machine and when he sees the Flux Capacitor and compares it to his sketch he's convinced and joins Marty's efforts to send him back to 1985. Marty hooks up the Video Camera to the TV and shows Past Doc the experiment recordings and when he sees the footage of Future Doc explaining that the Time Circuits needs 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to work he flips out and asks his picture of Thomas Edison where he's going to get that kind of power?
Well Doc I have a suggestion but it'll require a trip to New Jersey, a die hard fan of Edison and someone trained in hunting ghosts that doesn't operate out of a green van or works with a Great Dane.
He says that the only thing that can generate that much power is either Plutonium which is impossible to come by here or a bolt of lightning which they can't predict will happen. Except Marty pulls out the add for the Clock Tower and they see that on November 12 the Hill Valley Lightning storm will happen and a bolt of lightning will hit the Clock Tower at precisely 10:04 PM! So with this they can make preparations to send Marty back to the future!
However when Doc asks if Marty has interacted with anyone that day he mentions that he met the past versions of his parents Doc asks to see the picture of Marty and his brother and Sister and sure enough Dave's head is gone. Since Marty saved George from being hit by Loraine's Dad's car she never fell in love with him; the two never got together and thus their children including Marty are being slowly erased from history. So now before he goes back home he has to make sure he exists first, that might be helpful. The next day the two stake out the high school and find George.... unfortunately. Marty tries to set George and Loraine up but she's only got eyes on Marty, Doc figures the two only got together in the first place due to the Florance Nightingale effect. So now they have to get the two together in a different way and thankfully Marty remembers that the two are supposed to kiss during the enchantment under the sea dance on the same night of the thunderstorm.
Back to the Future is owned by Robbert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Stephen Speilberg, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Studios. Bioshock Infinite is owned by Ken Levine, Irrational Games, 2K Games amd Take-Two Interactive. Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama. Dragonball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star. Ace Ventura Pet Detective is owned by Tom Shadyac, Morgan Creek Productions, and Warner Bothers Studios. Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation.
Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.
IT WORKS! I managed to send this review one week back to the past just in time! I figured that everyone would be annoyed waiting for part two of the Back to the Future reviews so I figured that I'd send it back a week to the day Marty, Doc and Jen arrived at the end of the first movie. October 21st 2015. Now I get to make fun of how much they got wrong and marvel at how much they got right.
As I said at the end of part one we see the three pile into the
Delorean. However we get an extra scene of Biff stumbling on to their
take off. After the credits we do indeed confirm that they have arrived
in Hill Valley California October 21st 2015. First sign is that we can
confirm that Second impact hasn't happened and we thankfully don't have
to rely on those three screwed up nut job mech pilots.
Especially #2 there, she looks insufferable.
However Jen starts asking questions that she really shouldn't know so Doc uses a neuralyzer to knock her out. As the Delorean lands Doc said that he went to a rejuvenation clinic and had at least 20-30 years added to his life and hands Marty some future clothes, including power lacing shoes, size adjusting jackets and jeans which apparently all the kids wear inside out.
Well we have people who wear them halfway up their ass so close enough, still stupid just for different reasons.
Doc explains the situation to Marty, that his son Marty Jr gets arrested that night joining Biff's grandson Griff on a heist and gets put away for fifteen years, the next day Marty's daughter tries to break him out and she'll get put away for twenty years. This will start a chain reaction which will destroy Marty's family. So why doesn't Doc just handle this himself instead of showing Marty the future and potentially screwing up the space time continuum? Is it because he's supposed to be dead in 2015? Well i guess since he had no other confidants then Marty I guess he had no choice.
Doc tells Marty that to fix this he'll knock out the real Marty Jr while Marty Sr will go into the cafe 80's disguised as him order a Pepsi and when Griff shows up to ask if he's in or out to tell him he's out, no whatever happens and come back to the ally they landed in and wait for him. With his instructions Marty does his standard bewildered look of the new Hill Valley town square and sees how much is different. While there he sees a trailer for the newly released Jaws movie.
Though having seen said trailer I must call fowl since that's not the Jaws five that we got, nor did ours take place near fire island.
As long as Marty an Doc don't encounter a photo studio, a dude with horrible hair and a stupid pink camera or a guy in a raincoat telling them that said guy is a demon I think the multiverse should be fine.
Anyway Marty heads inside and after arguing with Max headroom versions of Regan and Ayatollah Khomeini he gets his Pepsi when a certain Butthead calls him out. Yep old Man Tannen points out Marty and remarks how much it sucks that he shares the same name of a complete loser. Apparently Marty is going to flush his life completely down the crapper, but before Biff can elaborate his dear grandson Griff storms in and drags Biff out to give another coat of wax on his hovercar. While that's going on two kids are trying to get a Wild Gunman machine working. Marty shows the two how it's done and wins the round in only three shots.
Oh go back to the shire you little halfling bastard! Once they head back to papa Bilbo's the real Marty Jr shows up forcing Marty Sr to hide behind the counter while Jr deals with Griff and his three rejects from Southern Cross. But Jr sure ain't no Kenshiro and folds like a cheap suit. Apparently the wheinus genes skips a generation in the Mcfly bloodline and dear Jr inherited his grandfather's milk toast nature.
Thankfully Jr gets tossed over the counter and Sr swaps in and tells Griff to piss off. Speaking of pissed if however Griff calls Marty a chicken which is his berserk button and Cyber Ansem making chicken noises with his Darth Vader chest plate thing doesn't help either.
Griff is about to smack Marty like a drum when he tries the old "what the hell is that!?" trick.
Oh shit this one's smart enough to figure it out! Now for his next impression, Jesse Owens!
Now we get a repeat of the first movie while Marty gets used to his new hover board. He manages to lose the three in the town pond but Griff pulls out the big guns, his Pitbull! The three hook on, Griff pulls out his whooping stick and flies after Marty. But before his head can get smashed in lake a Piñata he jumps into the water causing the four to go flying through the stain glass entrance of the courthouse. Marty manages to make it back to shore where and old man asks for a $100 donation to preserve the clock tower. $100 at least the economy hasn't gone that far down the crapper. They then see that the cubs beat Miami in the World Series. And that's when Marty get's an idea, an awful, wonderful, horrible idea. He heads to an antique shop and picks up a sports almanac that has sports info ranging from 1950 to 2000.
Doc then shows up to see the chaos that's unfolded while Biff comments that he hasn't seen a flying Delorean in 30 years, this along with seeing Jr walking out of the cafe 80's gets the hamster wheel in his head spinning. Doc says that since he used the sleep inducer on Jen there wasn't enough power to knock out Jr for an hour. But it turned out better since due to the hover board incident Griff and his gang will go to jail and the robbery will never take place. Thus history has been changed and the two can go back. However Doc then notices the sports almanac and acts like a bit of a hypocrite by saying that he didn't invent the time machine for gambling when he said right in the first movie that he was probably going to do the same thing Marty's planning on doing, maybe all this recent BS shifted Doc's priorities a bit.
As he prepares to throw the book out two cops find Jen in the ally and using her thumbprint think she's the present Jen and take her to her home where she's married to Marty. Doc says that they have to get her back before she learns too much or runs into her future self otherwise it could cause a paradox which could either cause the destruction of the entire universe or cause Roidmude 108 to gain its advanced state.
Either way shit's gonna get fucked up unless they do something!
Doc leaves the almanac in a trash can and as he and Marty leave Biff picks it up and decides to follow the two having overheard their entire exchange. Jen gets brought back to her home in hill dale which is not only a run down neighborhood but her life is a complete wreck, she married Marty out of pity and Marty himself is a washed out schlub who apparently got into a car accident with a man who owned a roles Royce who sued Marty for the damages as well as broke his hand in the accident which caused him to give up on his music and since Jennifer was too old to make a contract with Kyubey to fix Marty's hand he instead spent several years wallowing in self pity until he became the broken excuse of a man he is now. And all because somebody called him chicken.
So yeah Sayaka, look it it this way; instead of turning into a badass monster you could have ended up with someone resembling Prince Charming over here, dodged a bullet if you ask me.
Meanwhile Marty and Doc finally catch up to Jen and Doc instructs
Marty to stay with the time machine, of course foreshadowing Marty's bad
decision making he decides to follow leaving the time machine to be
stolen by Biff who somehow manages to get it working an takes him back
in time. Meanwhile future Marty gets called chicken by a coworker named
Needles and goes along with an illegal transaction over Skype. (Another
thing this movie managed to predict as far as I know) which gets him
fired over several faxes in a matter that couldn't be less subtle if Rip
Taylor and Alan Moore appeared from the screen, kicked him in the nuts,
handed him a pink slip out of an Uncle Sam hat and then flew out the
window while the Superman theme played from their asses as they flew
off. Though I'm pretty sure Alan Moore does that on Wednesdays anyway.
Jen grabs a copy of the fax from the closet she
was hiding in and makes for the door. Unfortunately she does run into
her future-self but thankfully instead of the universe ending or the
Paradox Roidmude showing up they both just faint. However old Biff
returns with the time machine, stumbles out and manages to hide while
most likely having a shock induced heart attack from all the crap he
pulled. Marty an Doc manage to get back to 1985 and set Jen on her porch
swing before dumping Marty back home. After some shenanigans Marty
slowly starts to realize that they may be in Hill Valley but they sure
aren't in Kansas anymore. He finds a newspaper and sure enough the date reads October 26th 1985. After learning that Mr Strickland's has learned the mantra of Zardoz,
he runs to the center of town where he finds that Fist of the north mad max judge dread happened. The place is over run by bikers, the sky is darkened and the court house has been turned into Biff's casino hotel. Marty wanders over to the adjacent museum and learns that Biff has accumulated his own financial empire by having an amazing winning streak winning at sports gambling and that he married Loraine.
Marty then gets knocked out by Biff's three goons and wakes up with his mother on the 27th floor. Biff then shows up furious that Marty should be in boarding school in Switzerland and that he got kicked out again. Loraine threatens to leave when he slugs Marty in the gut, but Biff demonstrates how much power he has over her by threatening to not only cut her off financially but also her three kids, and is content to have all three behind bars like Joey, one big happy jailbird family. After Biff and the three leave Marty asks how in the name of all that's sacred she could leave George for Biff. He asks where he is and she says that he's where he was for the last 42 years, oak park cemetery.
Marty goes and sure enough he finds his father's grave, he died March 15th 1973. That's when Doc finds him and brings him back to the lab (or at least what's left of it) and they theorize what happened. Somewhere in the past events have been changed leading to an alternate reality. Doc found some pretty damn big clues, the bag, the receipt the almanac came in, an the top of Biff's broken cane that he left behind when he got out of the time machine. That's when Marty puts the pieces together, Biff got the book, stole the time machine, went back an gave it to his past self creating this new timeline.
Now the only way to fix this world is to find out where and when Biff got the book from his future counterpart, so Marty decides to ask him. Marty finds Biff watching the shootout scene from "a fistful of dollars" and mentions something they need to discus, Biff at first thinks it's about money an tells him to piss off, but when Marty mentions the almanac it more then catches his attention. In his office Biff tells him that he got it on of course November 12 1955. He says that a crazy old codger with a cane appeared and gave it to him that so long as he bets on the winner he'll never lose.
He just vanished after that. Marty grabs a matchbook from
Biff's ash tray as Biff does mention one thing, that if an old man who
claims to be a scientist or a kid comes asking about that book, to put a
bullet between their eyes. Marty manages to get away and on to the roof
where Biff corners him with his pistol. Marty says that the cops
are going to match up the bullets in the gun, but Biff points out that
not only does he own the police but they also couldn't match up the
bullets that killed George. Marty then jumps only to land on the Delorean which knocks out Biff with the door and climbs inside and tells
Doc the details. As they prepare to make the jump Doc notes that the
time circuits are futzing up sometimes setting the destination time to
January 1st 1885.
The two then jump back to 1955 and get a plan
together. While Doc guards the time machine Marty will go into town,
find present Biff and tail him until future Biff shows up and gives his
younger self the almanac. Once old Biff leaves Marty will knock out
present Biff, take the almanac back to Doc torch the thing and this save
the future. However Marty has to be careful not to run into either his
past self or present Doc. Shouldn't be too hard right? Marty gets
some new clothes and starts tailing Biff. He finds him picking up his
car after whole fiasco with the manure truck where he says that nobody
can start his car but after his mechanic thinks there's a problem with
the clutch.
After he shows his lack of social graces with Loraine old
Biff shows up and offers to make him rich. Present Biff couldn't give
too craps until Old Biff starts the car which gets his attention. After
demonstrating that his book is the real deal Biff holds on to it
unknowingly locking up Marty who stowed away in the back of his car.
Marty calls Doc and tells him what happened. He'll make his way over to
Biff's place while Marty tries to get out. Later that night Biff
heads off to the enchantment under the sea dance with Marty still hiding
in the back with the almanac on his dashboard.
Doc just barely misses
them but manages to see his past self preparing for the experiment that
would send past Marty back to 1985. Hang on I just thought of something; if future Biff
changed the future by giving young Biff the book shouldn't this Marty be
from the future of that reality? And if so where did the time machine
come from if in the alternate timeline Doc was commuted to the nut
house? Were did it come from or does this operate on multiverse theory
where it isn't time travel but going between alternate realities created
by differing timelines? And if that's true then why isn't reality
tearing itself apart due to all of these overlapping timelines? Is
Elizabeth fixing this or do Marty and Doc find that the hill valley
lightning storm is actually Walpurgisnacht? HOW ARE THEY GONNA SAVE
HILL VALLEY THEN?! DEN-O? TIME FORCE? THE DOCTOR?! TRUNKS?! ANYONE?!
AAAAAAAAH!!!!!
Okay, after my little freakout Biff makes it to the dance an brings the almanac with him. Marty tells Doc over their walkie talkies where he is and continues to follow Biff outside where he sees Strickland take the almanac from Biff. He follows Strickland to his office where after some shenanigans and hypocrisy, Marty gets the almanac! But Biff is smarter then he looks and swapped the dust jacket of the almanac with a pin up book! Marty starts to panic over where Biff could be but sees out the window that his dad is about to pinch Biff out and rushes out. After seeing his old man knock Biff's lights out and seeing his past self walk back inside to set his story straight Marty walks through the crowd and after punching out Biff again steals the almanac.
After radioing in his success to Doc he gets chased into the gym by Biff's friends. They then see past Marty on stage and think that he's the one they just missed. Past Marty starts playing "Johnny be good" and the three are planing on jumping him which would cause past Marty to miss the lightning strike, never get back to 1985 an cause a paradox so Doc tells Marty that he has to stop those three at any cost without being seen by his past self or his parents. After some tense moments he manages to knock the three out and is on his way back but runs into Biff again. Marty's about to leave when Biff pressed the chicken button.
Marty then gets knocked out by his past self knocking him in the head with the door; Biff notices Marty has the almanac and takes it back so Marty and Doc have no choice but to follow him in the Delorean. After further cementing Biff's hatred of manure the two make it back to the Lyons estates development site and as the lightning storm starts Marty burns the book. He checks the matchbook he got from Biff's casino and sees it change back to the matchbook for his auto shop, meaning the timeline had been restored. However the Delorean gets struck by lightning and it disappears with Doc leaving Marty stranded, however a man shows up asking for a Mr Marty Mcfly. The man is from Western union and his branch was given a letter 70 years ago and explicit instructions to arrive at this exact location and deliver it to a young man matching Marty's description at this exact minute November 12th 1955.
Marty opens the letter and reads as follows, "Dear Marty, if my calculations are correct you should receive this letter the exact moment after you've seen the Delorean struck by lightning. First let me assure you that I am alive and well and have been living happily these last few months in the year 1885." Marty instantly knows it's from the Doc and rushes over to where present Doc is finishing sending past Marty back to 1985. Marty then tells Doc that he's back from the future and Doc then passes out as we close out part 2 with a look at the conclusion of this trilogy. Which we will cover next time, on time November 12th 2015, Let's go!
Back to the Future is owned by Robbert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Stephen Speilberg, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Studios. Drawn Together is owned by Comedy Central, Dave Jeser, Matt Silverstein, Double Hemn, and Rough Draft Studios. Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation. Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is owned by Saban Entertainment, Haim Saban, Renaissance Atlantic Entertainment, Toei Company, Ltd. and MMPR Productions, Inc. Zoolander is owned by Village Roadshow Pictures, VH1 Films and Paramount Pictures. Neon Genesis Evangelion is owned by Studio Gainax, Hedeaki Anno, Tatsunoko Productions, and AEsir Holdings. Zardoz is owned by John Boorman, and John Boorman productions (20th Century Fox).
Welcome back kids, time for the proper list. These are in my opinion the least liked to my personal favorite Kamen Rider Final Forms. We start with #16 and what I consider my least liked Final Form.
#16 Armed Hibiki
Now I'll just keep this short since I haven't seen Hibiki and from what I was able to see from reviews it could have been good. But of course no matter where you are in the world, almost anything that's aimed at kids and tries to push the envelope will eventually be ruined by Soccer Moms. I personally see this form as the culmination of bad management by Toei in the face of complaints about Hibiki the show and its lack of toy sales. The two original writers of Hibiki were given the boot and replaced with the Japanese Frank Miller himself Toshiki Inoue; and his asshole protege Shōji Yonemura, who you would have recognized having wrote the piece of crap called Kamen Rider Taisen.
So yeah Hibiki looks like a mess, and this form and its introduction highlight that mess, one of Inoue's tropes is that he hates writing episodes to just introduce more toys, so he barely puts any effort into establishing them and just basically says "here's some new hunk of plastic for you to buy see ya I'm off for lunch". Apparently this form was obtained from some dangerous training from a quack scientist that would either increase an Oni's (Hibiki's term for Riders) powers dramatically or cause them to lose their powers. Now admittedly that kind of does fit into the modus operandi and themes of Hibiki that everyday you are constantly improving yourself in someway and that even once you master something you never stop training. But that's definitely an all or nothing scenario and to me it smells like a way to drum up some quick drama.
Oh but that's not just me saying that, apparently most of the staff working on the show including Hibiki's actor flat out hated the changes enforced by Toei, and if that doesn't say how bad a show's gone down hill I don't know what does. Hibiki Armed From, the culmination of bad show handling and skewed priorities. Also we're not done with Inoue just yet kids, the next three entries on this list were series that Inoue was involved with (some more then others) and let me tell you; the way some of these forms were handled; it shows.
#15 Ryuki Survive
Now, let me make this perfectly clear, just because Ryuki Survive Form is so low on this list; it doesn't reflect my opinion on the show. I say that because some people consider Ryuki to be one of the absolute worst Rider series. And I honestly don't see why. Because it went in a different direction from the rest of the series? Because there were too many Riders in it? Because the title character is an idiot?
Well let me give my opinions on each of the guesses. First, just because it's a formulaic kids show it doesn't mean it can't go outside the box and try something new? Second, the multiple Riders can give us different characters, motivations and can help show that not everyone who gets the power of a Rider is a good person; though on the other hand, too many characters can easily make a show feel crowded if there isn't enough time, focus, and character development to go around properly. As for Shinji, yeah the guy is a dolt, no denying that. If anybody knows why Ryuki gets all the hate please let me know.
Now for me to talk about Ryuki Survive Form, it's not very good in my books. Ryuki gets pauldrons that look like Dragreder's head (his contract monster and the source of his power), gold highlights on his armor, his helmet gets gold antenna meant to look like a dragon's whiskers and his Drag Visor becomes a gun that can turn into a sword. The pauldrons unfortunately don't look all that good in my opinion, it's the upturned shoulder pads that kill it for me; it just looks clunky. How Shinji even gets this form is underdeveloped too.
I mean we already knew that Ren got his survive card from Tezuka when he died and that he was planing on using it. But Shiro had to have known that Shinji would use that card against him and try to stop the Rider War when he gave it to him so what the hell?
Also we knew that there at least two other Survive cards out there since according to the design of the card Tezuka got from Shiro the cards we based off a bird and its two wings so we knew there were other Survive cards out there and that Shiro had them. So this form did have some foreshadowing and didn't just come out of nowhere unlike some other entries on this list.
But the question still remains, Shinji had no intention of participating in the war, in fact the only reason why he participated is to save people from the Mirror Monsters and stop the fighting between the Riders so why would Shiro willingly give a power boost to someone who he knows will not play by his rules? So a flimsy reason, somewhat average upgrades and a bad appearance, yeah #15 looks like a decent spot for Ryuki, sorry Shinji.
# 14 Agito Shinning
I have not seen this show, Ihoweverhaveseenreviewsofthisshow. I do not think I will like this show very much given the evidence I have seen. Everyone in the show is in someway an asshole, the main bad guy is a hypocritical idiot and it is filled to the gills with Inoue's tropes. But that's a topic for another day when I finally talk about Jetman. As for Agito, aside from the writing, characters and repetition of plot points I do like the designs of the Riders. Agito's Shining Form however is not one of them.
Now this form is supposed to be the true power of the Overlord of Light, the pinnacle of human evolution. Yet we've seen Riders before and after Agito that are far stronger then him. It's essentially Burning From with weaker defenses, faster and with his weapon becoming two swords instead of one long double bladed one. Though there are somethings about the design that I do like; the black under-suit does do its job of making the color on his arms, feet and chest; mainly silver and red pop.
The main reason why this is so low however is because this form, like the rest of his forms just comes right the hell out of nowhere; he just steps into the sun and BAM Final Form. Also Agito can only transform into this form in the sunlight, so if he ever needs to fight at night he's hosed. Agito Shining Form, the form of Ultimate Evolution or the form of the Ultimate Hippie? YOU MAKE THE CALL!
#13 Decade Complete
This suit is just plain old fashioned bad. Decade in my opinion was a very messy show with a very poor execution. Now I get the concept of Decade, a celebration of the Heisei era with a hero that can harness the powers of those who came before, however the writing was sloppy, the portrayals of the previous Riders ranged from boring to insulting and Tsukasa himself was an egotistical schmuck whose Photographer's eye really needed a monocle, contacts or glasses take your pick. This form like the rest of the forms that Inoue wrote just comes out of nowhere, the K-Touch needed to become Complete Form just happened to be held by the Dark Riders. How did it get there, who made it, why did the Dark Riders know to hide it, why didn't they try using it themselves, how did Tsukasa know how to use the damn thing? Say it with me kids, it's never explained!
As I said the design does not look good, just using the Final Ride Cards as Pauldrons that change to a specific Rider when one is summoned alongside Decade, also Decades' Card is just placed on his forehead with two glaring Magenta lines going between both of the eyes on the helmet no doubt obscuring Tsukasa's vision that's smart design work right there! Also not a big fan of the mostly silver color scheme with nothing aside from black and small traces of magenta to try and balance it out, it just doesn't work for me. Decade Complete From is a complete washout.
#12 Stronger Charge Up Form
The trope had to get its start somewhere, so why not in the Shōwa era? Yes the Final Form didn't start with Kuuga but with the seventh Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Stronger! While it was the first it isn't necessarily the best; but it did help to set up the tropes of what I believe a good Final Form should be. Power needed to defeat stronger enemies, check. Before Charge Up Stronger would have been reduced to scrap before the power of the Delza Army, hell if he had this power sooner he might have been able to save Tackle. But that's just a "what if" kind of thing and we really shouldn't dwell on these types of things right?
RIGHT? Though admittedly Stronger barely showed up in this thing so, good.
Power that comes at a great cost, check. See Charge Up may give Stronger greater power but if he doesn't power down from this form in less then a minute then he'll overload and kablam! Bye bye bug man. It fits all the criteria except for the "story-line significance" part of the Final From, he just got the upgrade from a random scientist that he apparently saved from Black Satan (the organization that Stronger fought against in the first half of his series and the ones who turned him into a Cyborg), real gripping story telling there kids. However while this Form is essential to the history of the franchise, I am just not a fan of the design, and that directly ties in with the design of Stronger, now I know that this was the 70's and the show was trying to innovate with the designs of the Riders but I just plain old don't like the design of Stronger. The size of the helmet, the eyes and football armor just doesn't work for me and adding big blobs of white and silver on it really doesn't make things better. Stronger Charge Up; strong enough to be #12 but not much else.
#11 Fourze Cosmic States
Ugh this form and Rider, honestly I have a hard time deciding what's the worst Heisei Kamen Rider series from the ones I've seen so far, Decade or Fourze. Because just like Decade the biggest problem I had with Fourze was the ending which I won't spoil here, but just check out Fourze and prepare to have your barf bags on stand by. Now back to Cosmic States, this form allows Fourze to use the powers of all Forty of his Astroswitches (his collectible trinket/ power totems) which he can channel and combine through his chest plate for extra powers. Though he mostly just stuck to using the elemental switches as far as I can remember. This form also allows Fourze to generate wormholes which he uses to take out the Horoscope of the week in the void of space where it can be turned back to a normal human with no excessive area damage. Yeah just knocking out a normal human in Earth's Mesosphere should present no life threatening consequences what so ever. Look doofus if entering that high in a planet's atmosphere didn't work for Iron Man or Shepard what makes you think a normal human teenager would fare better?
Also this form is apparently only maintained by the stability of Gentaro's (Fourze's user) friendship with the members of the Kamen Rider Club. Yes, this form literally runs on friendship.
Yeah yeah call me cynical and what not but a form that runs on friendship and with a dude as stupid and annoyingly perky as Gentaro; yeah not gonna work for me. Design wise, like Stronger I am not a huge fan of Fourze's design. Now the rocket design I get because Fourze was designed around the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight in 1961 and the main themes of Fourze revolves around space. But were the eyebrows on the helmet really necessary? Some people have taken to saying that he looks like a retarded storm trooper, I wouldn't go that far, to me he looks more like a little kid mixed a NASA mascot with a PlayStation controller. Fourze Cosmic States, not even the most hardcore of bronies would accept this form at base value.
#10 Faiz Blaster Form
Now we're getting to the good ones; ironically with another Rider whose adventures I don't want to see. Faiz is another of those series that I have no intention of seeing, not just because of Inoue but for two more reasons, from what I have seen it just seems too mean spirited and spiteful for me to get any entertainment out of it. Also this particular series has the most despised character in the history of the entire franchise who almost always gets away with his crap. As I mentioned in the third part of my review of Kamen Rider Taisen; Masasto Kusaka is a human shaped turd and I refuse to withstand the sight or mention of him for more then is necessary. In fact, now is the time to introduce the Bastometer (TM) a meter that shows how much of a bastard someone is in my eyes and how they stand, from those who are likable because of how much of a bastard they are starting with Rusty Venture; to scum of the earth ending with Chris Brown.
And as you can see Kusaka is right in the sweet spot between George Swell from Silent Hill Downpour and Right from Toqger.
But enough about that, time to discuss Blaster Form which is definitely one of the cooler Final Forms. As the name implies this thing has a giant gun that can also become a sword, but it also has shoulder mounted Gatling guns and a jet-pack that allows Faiz to fly. Also his design is really good too; a nice balance of just four colors and I really do like the designs of the Faiz Riders with an smooth armored look that kind of reminds me of the first Tron movie. But the biggest problem with this form is just like with the rest of Inoue's writing when it comes to new forms, say it with me kids it comes right the hell out of nowhere! Yeah apparently the former head of Smart Brain (the Orphnoch's organization and the company that designed the Faiz Rider Gears/belts (whichever you want to call them I don't care)) was working on this and just decided to mail this to Mari (the one who got the Faiz belt in the first place) which relied on a Smart Brain satellite to unlock the transformation by beaming down to the belt, but if that's the case why didn't Smart Brain just destroy the satellite since they knew they didn't have the belt and.
Yeah if you stop to think about this, the writing really doesn't hold up, but I have a bit of a soft spot for this form and this is my list after all. Faiz Blaster, just managing to blast it's way to the top 10 despite Inoue's lazy ass writing.
#9 Wizard Infinity Style
OOOhhhh boy Wizard; I already know I'm going to have
some people after my blood after this, but such is the path I've chosen,
well showtime. Now for context as to my feelings about Wizard; at this
point in my life I was pretty much on my way to becoming a full fan of
Kamen Rider and was starting looking back on the earlier parts of the
Heisei era. However this was also the point in my life that I was in my
senior year at college so I didn't exactly have a whole lot of time to
watch the then running series at the time; Wizard. It also didn't help
that, well I just found Wizard to be rather boring and by the books in
terms of show format, I was really getting tired of the 2 parts episode plot
formula of the show and the fact that I found Haruto to be a rather meh
protagonist didn't help much either. I mean when the most memorable thing about the guy is the type of doughnut he eats there's something wrong here.
That said I do get the significance of this form. Haruto just had his inner Phantom; Dragon destroyed by Legion.
NO, Not that Legion.
So yeah his source of magic is destroyed and a uber-powerful Phantom is on the loose.
But he manages to restore Dragon with his resolve to never give up and
was reborn with this new form. Now in terms of fitting in the show's
themes of dealing with despair it fits in rather well. You've lost
everything, those that you cherish are on the verge of being lost to you
forever, do you just give up and become consumed by your inner demons,
or do you pick yourself back up and face the despair head on and;
through your own perseverance and the help of those around you find that ray of hope
that helps things turn out alright? Infinity style is the
personification of that notion.
I also like the symbolism behind this form. For starters, the crystal design. Since all of Wizard's other forms revolve around precious stones and those stones have ties to various magics since they come from the earth, some speculate that crystals help to draw in power from the earth to fuel arcane powers of wizards, warlocks, witches and other magic users. While the other four forms are based around precious stones, specific elements and areas of magic; crystals and thus Infinity Style draws their power from the most primal parts of the earth, for Haruto, his most primal instinct, hope. It's just that the crystal color is a tad bit overwhelming for my taste, and the dragon design for the other forms of Wizard is very diluted.
But his Axcalibur weapon is really cool, it's an axe that turns into a gun and can grow to giant size to chop enemies in half. He can even move the damn thing without having to hold it so he can chop enemies in the air like if Paul Bunyan became a psychic hibachi chef. Wizard Infinity Style, a great shining hope and a pretty decent Final Form. Next time I start to talk about my Personal Favorite Rider Forms.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Venture Brothers is owned by Adult Swim, Williams
Street, AstroBase GO!, World Leaders Entertainment, Noodlesoup
Productions and Titmouse inc. Grand Theft Auto IV is owned by Rockstar Games and Take-Two interactive. South Park is owned by Matt Stone, Trey Parker and Comedy Central. Sleeping Beauty (1959) is owned by Walt Disney, Walt Disney Productions and Buena Vista Distribution. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is owned by Gen Urobutchi, Studio Shaft, and Studio Aniplex. Silent Hill Downpour is owned by Vatra games and Konami Computer Entertainment. Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation. Austin Powers: Goldmember is owned
by Gratitude International, Team Todd, Moving Pictures, and New
Line Cinema. Mass Effect 2 is owned by Bioware and Electronic Arts.
