About a month ago, there was another anniversary of the first movie "Mortal Kombat". It's been 25 years now, and this production is still one of the best, and according to some, the best adaptation of games. And let me tell you that the farther from this film is released, the more I agree with the thesis of those whom I call "some". Sure, the movie was kitschy, most of the actors were so-so, but looking at the later attempts to translate the game into a feature film, it's Paul W.S. Anderson probably took the best image that has the most advantages. Although there are productions that are technically better, i.e. better craftsmanship, they often have fewer references to the game or deviate too much from them. I could call the better ones, for example, the first part of the movie "Resident Evil" or the fresh "Sonic". The director of "Mortal Kombat" from 1995 most efficiently transferred the game script and nuances, which a few years later came to be commonly called fanservice. My assessment is not based on the fact that I am a fan of this series of games - although I like this universe, I am not its fan-boy. On the other hand, I am a fan-boy of "WarCraft", which, although it had really nice effects, well-presented Orcs, was limping on other levels. The people's story sucks, their part of the script is lame and the pace of the movie is uneven, unlike the games where everything has arms and legs. Even despite the fact that only the third part was really successful in terms of the story. In the case of this fight, it is a bit different, it was not done seriously. From the beginning, the creators had a clear distance towards it, which can be seen in the overly depicted violence, a pretext story, and a few jokes from the film industry in the form of Johnny Cage, which the director expressed extremely accurately. It is not an image that I will remember with the same respect and love as, for example, the two parts of "Terminator", "Alien: 8th passenger Nostromo" or "Rocky 1 & 2", but I can certainly say that it is the most successful attempt to transfer games for the cinema screen.
And one more thing, the theme for this movie is a platinum masterpiece. Well, but what else to expect from the legends of electronic music, specifically the sub-genre New Beat? Lords of Acid is in a class by itself, music on an incomparably higher and stronger level than most of the younger colleagues. And how do you rate him? This is the best adaptation, do you judge it differently?
Do you remember the anime "Tosho Daimos"? I do not know what version you watched it in your countries, but in Poland, we watched the version with Italian dubbing, on which a Polish voiceover was imposed. Not only did we have a hopeless translation, but also some of the dialogue lines were not translated at all. As far as I remember, they didn't even broadcast all episodes with us. A few of them were omitted from the first broadcast and were added only on reruns later. At the time the anime made its debut on Japanese television, there was a real boom in anime with giant robots. A lot of them were created, most of them did not pass the test of time, some of them did not even go beyond Japan. In the minds of the western viewer, there were mainly "Tekkaman: The Space Knight", "Voltes V", "Mazinger Z", "Getter Robot", "Grendizer" and "Daimos" discussed here. I must have missed a few of them, forgive my ignorance, but these titles were so similar that most of them confused me.
Coming back to "Daimos", anime like "Mazinger Z" or "Voltes V" enjoyed particular popularity. The opening theme for this cartoon was a hit at Japanese nightclubs at one time, and it stayed on top of the charts for months. Well, these were the times when people enjoyed this type of music - it was no different in Poland at that time. In my opinion, this was the last time I saw Kazuya's adventures and the rest of 10 years ago. I don't plan to refresh this anime for the next 5 years because I don't feel like it. The plot is not so bad, but the anime suffers from the disease of many Japanese cartoons of the time. Lots of episodes during which little happened and the main character was forced to fight the so-called "monsters of the week". Opponents who were created haphazardly, as long as they jammed airtime. The canonical episodes were already very fun to watch, and the conflict between the inhabitants of the planet Baam and the Earthlings was really old. The same goes for the legendary opening and the extremely touching ending that I always cried about. What are your memories?
Tosho Daimos, all episodes. American dubbing -> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL57L44d7NVkUF4ebetw9NYbF-dDyAVCVn
Maybe I'm unlucky, but most of the stories I see on children's channels are noticeably weaker than the ones I watched at their age. Sure, the same could be said of my time, which produced tons of hard-to-see garbage to which adults reacted just as I do now. I am not saying that it used to be gold alone, and today there is only dung with a few exceptions. I'd be lying and I would definitely flatten reality too much. But it seems to me that the years from 1980 to 2005 were more abundant in brands that were better for the youngest and the slightly older ones. For example, DBZ or Batman TAS, which showed much better why you should make demands on yourself, be a good person and fight evil. Nobody was playing nonsense that the child could not watch something "because it is too brutal". Nonsense. While in fact the violence on television does harm to some extent and there is research for it, our ancestors saw much worse things. Well, until recently our parents saw "natural wonders" in the countryside and no one was particularly frowning. Unless he was a city dweller. Like it or not, violence is part of humanity and a person (small or large) will encounter it at some point. Either he will be unprepared for it and will not survive the trial, because he will be replaced by another who will not be afraid to follow it, or he will know how to deal with it. Especially since most boys are naturally drawn to compete, fight, and play war. If someone approaches it differently or doesn't turn it on, is it different or worse? Under no circumstances should it even be punished. It just breaks out of a common trend that most people follow in a self-giving and unforced manner. He would have to look for them or watch other cartoons, just that and that much. Coming back, there were series of fairy-tale and adventure series that were more colorful and better stimulated the imagination of the young man. There was not as much infantilism and translating too many things literally as in some of the cartoons I watch today visiting kids of all ages. Sure, it wasn't too complicated in the past, and there were also the examples I wrote about above. However, it seems to me that more was shown with the image. You could see right away what was right and what was wrong. The good ones were usually colorful, and it exuded warmth, kindness and controlled violence. The bad one had darker, cooler colors often looked hideous and displayed negative qualities, such as lies, deception or betrayal. After all, such a division is much better than putting coffee on the bench. The child has to start the thinking process in his head, connect the facts in a logical way, which makes these values more effective and more memorable. At the same time, showing things with an image deepens his imagination and perception of reality, which translates into creativity and may contribute to the development of tolerance in the future. For example - "Mysterious Golden Cities" or "Dreamstone".
And yes, this approach is probably due to my ignorance and ignorance. I am also aware that my approach to this topic is a bit too cursory. I'm sure there are still some suitable cartoons (see "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and others that I haven't mentioned) that I simply don't pay attention to because I grew out of them, I'm not their target audience and I don't have children of my own ( then, involuntarily, a person looks at products intended for the youngest). Nevertheless, as I can remember, the times of my childhood (late 80s, 90s and early 2000s) were rather richer and more varied in intriguing titles. I do not want to fall into the old grandfather syndrome, who says that "it used to be, and today's products are nothing", but on the other hand, you cannot ignore the fact that the 90s were the heyday of television for children and its best years. I just don't know any brand that would make it to the mainstream world as the most famous titles from my childhood.
Why did I write it? And somehow it inspired me when I found the episodes of "The Secret of Sagala" on wykop.pl. I do not know what it is like in the West and in the USA, but we, Poles, have had an incredible regression in creating series for young people. Sure, these were not always our original productions, usually the result of cooperation between two countries (the above-mentioned "The Secret of Sagali", "Wow" - both Polish-German co-production or "Spellblinder" aka "Two Worlds" were created in cooperation with Australians, or "Backpack Full of Adventure" - Polish-German-Finnish), but we had people who knew what and how. Sometimes there were fully native productions like "Star Pirate", but that was the minority. We did not have much capital and we had to use foreign money. Today we have more possibilities and theoretically better know-how, but when I watch Polish productions for children, it's hard not to get a cringe from them Maybe we will bounce back in the gaming industry because CD-Project and other gaming studios give nice prospects for the future I feel a little sorry for today's kids, they have unlimited access to pop culture, but the excess of the internet, electronics, other time clogs and overload with information and emotions is not very good. Well, that's a topic for another discussion.
The Mystery of Sagala all episodes ->