Courtesy of BingeSociety Youtube channel, from The Way Of The Dragon (a.k.a. Return Of The Dragon), perhaps one of the most famous fight scenes in cinema history as the late great Bruce Lee takes on the late great Chuck Norris.
Other people can have their Chuck Norris Facts or share the Walker: Texas Ranger memories or his many, many Cannon-helmed action films, but to me, this is peak Norris… even if he ended up losing the fight.
R.I.P Chuck.
Star Trek is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. The original series first aired in 1966 and has been on a roller coaster ride of sorts since that time, having seen multiple motion pictures, feature films, and animated projects under its belt. It has ridden the wave of fan support that produced a multitude of side material such as novels, comic books, interactive games, action figures, starship models, and other things. And it currently has a hit show on the Paramount+ streaming service. It should be a great time for Star Trek.
“Oh, but here comes crusty old Dave to rant and rave about how the current product sucks and how he misses the old days.”
Well, you’re half right. I do miss the old days when I actually looked forward to new Star Trek shows and movies. You’re kinda wrong about the show sucking, though. I’ve yet to see Starfleet Academy – never been big on young adult fare and me being a not-young adult anymore doesn’t help matters either – but I’ve heard generally favorable things from those who have. It’s hard to be invested in a franchise whose future seems to be in a state of flux, what with all the rumors surrounding ownerships and mergers. Will there even be new Star Trek after this current crop ends? Should there even be new Star Trek at this point?
Continue reading “THE BITE COMMENTARIES #15 – Star Trek Through Apathy”
There was another idea that I was toying with, but this was the most tasteful.
Due to a family emergency, today’s scheduled stream is postponed for next week. Sorry.
I’m doing you a solid of sorts by putting this one up early. Next Friday’s though… tough one.
Star Soldier did a solid by sticking with what worked for the series. Aerofighters, on the other hand, went in a different direction… and effectively killed the series. Yes, they called the recent one a reunion, but it’s more like a revival of a long dormant brand that probably should have stayed dead if I’m being honest… but, hey, the more nostalgia you can dig out of mothballs, the better… allegedly.
Anyway, there may or may not be one more N64 game before we close out the month depending on how things turn out over the weekend. Honestly, I’ve been under the weather as of late and also there are other issues at work. I am hoping that things work out where we’ll have some sort of stream as scheduled, but if not, I’ll cook up something else in the interim and move the live show for another time.
So your new MMPR comic thing is going to be a time jump thing where the Rangers are older, doing their own thing, but have to get back together to fight off against another Rita Repulsa type thing who isn’t actually Rita Repulsa, but a knock-off Rita because… fuck.
You know, I’ve soured on the Boom stuff after the whole Shattered Grid thing. It felt like reading someone’s shitty fanfiction, except you actually had to pay money for it. And I’ve read a lot of shitty fanfiction; I’ve written a bunch of shitty fanfiction. And you know what? I actually didn’t mind that Prime series because, hey, it’s trying something different and that’s what they needed was a new take on familiar material since that’s all they really want to do is take the toybox, shuffle these things up, and mash them up in a new narrative that isn’t bound by what came before. I was fine with that. Hell, just the fact that they dragged the VR Troopers out of mothballs and actually made a compelling series out of them gave me just a little bit of hope that maybe – just maybe – Boom was going to deliver a genuine quality Power Rangers series.
And then that gets shitcanned in favor of this pseudo-future thing where they redesigned the costumes to look like shitty dollar store knock-off toys. They produce a preview for a story that doesn’t inspire much hope it’s going to be offer anything new to the table. It feels like rehash and change for the sake of it rather than… why am I even bothering?
The really sad thing is that Boom already had a viable MMPR product that could be expanded upon. It’s called The Return. There’s no reason why you couldn’t cook up a deal to have OG Pinky Amy Jo Johnson, Matt Hotson, and others get together and whip up a follow-up to that series, especially since that last issue left the door open for further adventures. And look, I’ll be frank; The Return is the best thing to come out of Boom’s Power Rangers comic output in years. It was a good, solid reunion story, the art was fantastic, the characters were fleshed out, and it felt like a fresh take that was both familiar and new. If you had decided to make a new series that continued where The Return left off, hell yeah, I’d be on board with this.
This thing, on the other hand? I’m not exactly sold on it. It feels like a rehash with liberal needless changes made for the sake of changes. Not to mention, aren’t people sick and tired of more MMPR rehashes? Granted, it’s the one with the most mainstream recognition. It’s usually the first thing anyone thinks of when the words “Power Rangers” come up, but I also hear talk about how they need to move on from this or that or whatever the case may be.
Yeah, anyone remember Samurai? Anyone remember Megafarce? Rehashes of Mighty Morphin in all but name and even the ones after that basically reuse elements of MMPR (no more unique morphing calls, some variation of Go Go Power Rangers in the theme song, etc.). Even when they’re not doing MMPR, they’re still doing MMPR. You simply cannot get away from it.
Personally, I don’t care. If they want to do MOAR MMPR, then have at it. Would be nice if they tried something else… in fact, they did try something else and it was good, but now it’s ending because… fuck knows.
Eh… whatever. Doesn’t matter. Going to bed. Bye.
So the Saudis now own a bit of Capcom… or rather their Public Investment Fund owns a bit of Capcom, which adds to their list of video game stakes including EA, Nintendo, Activision/Blizzard, Take-Two, and others… and also they own SNK wholesale. That’s the controversial one because that apparently means Fatal Fury gets real-life soccer players and anus-relaxing DJs with funny accents as “guest” fighters. So does that mean we can’t enjoy Capcom games anymore because they’re partly owned by folks from a country who has a spotty history with human decency? Do we boycott them the same way we boycott SNK… or is it just business as usual?
My answer is… meh.
Continue reading “Whom You Hate And Refuse To Support… Or Something”
Kind of last minute while also at the same time sort of lingering in the backlog and bucket list of reviews that desperately need to get knocked off. And this one’s nice and quick, too.
Oh, and Star Soldier continues to underwhelm on Nintendo. Oh goodie.
“But WAIT!” you yell, “What about Star Soldier R, which you are?”
To which I say, “You mean the WiiWare one? The one you can’t get anymore?”
Exactly.
For those keeping track of your WCW events calendar, this is indeed the go-home show for Uncensored ’96, a generally horrible PPV event featuring one of the worst ego-stroking main event cage matches in history: the Doomsday triple-decker cage match pitting the Mega Powers of Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage against the Alliance To End Hulkamania, which comprises EIGHT or more VILE VILLAINS… or something.
Look, I did the write-up years ago on this thing. I have no desire whatsoever to watch it again. All you need to know is that Hogan goes over… because that works for him, brother.
In the meantime, we still have this show, which opens with Giant and Loch Ness battling out in the entryway while Lex Luger comes out for his scheduled TV title defense that is rendered a countout win because either Giant or Loch Ness never made it to the ring… shouldn’t the match be thrown out if that’s the case? Not that it’d matter because Luger would still call it the fastest title defense of his career. Hell, him NOT having a match would actually given credence to that since he’d have a title defense that lasted about zero seconds.
Steiner Bros. defeated Public Enemy in a pretty fun brawl that saw a table or two get broken… which is then followed by Arn Anderson jobbing to Brother Bruti or Booty Man or whatever the fuck he’s called this week… good lord, this gimmick sucks. The High Knee… as in heinie? Even Russo would gawk at that shit, guys. And then the Road Warriors defeat the Nasty Boys in another fun brawl before we get the main event of Hogan and Savage against Ric Flair and Kevin Sullivan, which ends with Brian Pillman running in and being followed by the return of ZEUS of No Holds Barred fames and some guy called the Final Solution, who turned out to be Jeep Swenson, who played Bane in that Batman & Robin movie that nobody liked apparently. And then the heels cut a promo to end the show.
Hey, the two tag matches not involving the Mega Powers were kinda fun and even Luger celebrating his non-title defense was kinda funny, but this Hulk Hogan jerk-off session to build towards the biggest BJ main event is dreadful and I hated every moment of it.
Happy St. Patty’s Day. Enjoy your green stuff today.
Anyway, this was last week’s State Of The Blog thing that’s since been downgrade to a plain ol’ site update. Feeling sick the previous week and also some other stuff I had to deal with. A new video schedule was revised and updated on the March SotB post, which you can access on the sidebar. TLDR; the big Vania reviews are now set for April, while this month has more Tetris… exciting stuff, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, WCW Nitro Musings will continue on as scheduled… nothing else wrestling related on the horizon. For those who didn’t catch the Elimination Chamber musings last weekend, please do so because that’s about the extend of modern WWE as you’re going to see covered. I figured I’d comment on the Cody title win from last week until I realized that I’m past the point of actually caring about this Mania card and anything I’d say would be just random words on a page… which is pretty much what this is to begin with, but I’d like to say something worthwhile whenever I write (or type, in this case) words. Would be nice.
On a final note, I guess I should congratulate Joe Hendry on winning the NXT championship. I have a feeling that’s as far as he’s go before he ends up on the midcard doing jobs to The Miz or Logan Paul after they strip away everything that made the guy special in the first place. How ironic that the guy who used to run NXT when it was a really good show is somehow the same guy who can’t get me excited about CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns… which we already saw LAST YEAR (to an extent, but still…)
Enjoy your St. Patty’s Day, kids.
P.S. On a proper final note, I finally got around to fixing all the links in the Bite commentary page. Now if you want to hear my hot takes from 2002-2012, those links work now. Not sure why you’d want to, but it’s easy to go back and point and laugh. Have fun, I guess.
dtm666 