Sped Racing

One thing that really gets on my nerves are movies adapted from TV shows, made-for-movie TV movies are fine with me because they can be ignored and are usually merely an extended episode, but the cinema releases I absolutely hate.

out of the wikipedia list of movie adaptions of TV shows I liked the following cinematic releases:

- Firefly
- South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut
- Various Star Treks
- The Addams Family / Values
- The Fugitive
- Mission Impossible, the first one only

The rest are utter tripe, you can cram as many celebrities as you want into a movie, but if the story is based on a 30 minute sitcom you're in trouble to begin with. I stopped watching them a few years ago and I won't change my mind no matter what people say, this was at it's hardest point when Transformers was released.

Michael Bay is the Director Equivalent of a 12yr old forum user with a broken capslock key. Everything is big and important to him and him alone, and he must show people how cool his stuff is by exploding the fuck out of his sets. People were demanding I see this movie because it's "awesome" and "brings back the your childhood omg"... no

no no no

I enjoyed Transformers, Thunderbirds, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Scooby Doo when I was 6, and that's about it, now they're just dated cartoons with bad writing. There are no "cherished memories" of these cartoons for me, you know why? Because my cherished memories all involved my family doing something other than watching television. Your father sitting you in front of the TV because he doesn't want you to annoy him hardly warrants happy feelings.

I haven't watched the Transformers movie and I never will, and the latest movie to be added to that shelf will be Speed Racer.


Wait, let me fix that image for the fellas at home

That's better...

The trailer, which you can readily find on youtube (I'm not posting it), shows off the main characters and a hell of alot of anime-inspired car racing, ie ridiculous environments and silly gadgets. It's a mess of crap and pretty lights, and it left me groaning in dissatisfaction, like some kind of constipated bear.

Speed Racer is made by the Wackoffski brothers, the men famous for making one great movie, and two shitty sequels that drove all respect they earned into the mud. It seems that their latest big budget movie won't save their arses either. The 'star studded' cast consists of Susan Sarandon, well past her prime, Christina Ricci as the love interest.. much like her role in Monster I hope, and finally John Goodman, who judging by the trailer has given up acting altogether...


One amusing bit of trivia about this movie is that I know one of the lead designers for the animation, I first met Gabe Koerner on my friend's television screen, he was one of the main people they interviewed on Trekkies and he was a horrid nerd in all aspects. I abused him on an old website I used to co-run, and he left a message in our forum. Apart from seeing John English on average of twice a year, and that time Angry Anderson was at the beach, this is my only brush with a famous person.

Even if he is a dweeb working on shit movie....