| 2/9/2006 Remember those Africans who work in the kitchen at the hotel? I found out they're from Ghana. Not really important but I thought you'd like to know. But thinking about work: when I first started it was relatively easy to get up in the morning-despite it being 5:35. Why? The Sun was already up. For the past week it's been dark whenever I wake up, which makes me want to stay in bed a little longer. Don't worry, I never get up any later than a minute or 2. Good thing I leave in 2 weeks. Let's forget work now, I want to delve into the topic of 'Biker Mice From Mars'. On the video that has Wayne's World and both the Bill and Ted Movies (I downloaded the latter's soundtracks too, 'cos they're cool) there are recordings between recordings of TV shows Dad used to record for Nathan and I when we were young. Rediscovering the BMFM snippet the many fond memories of watching the show came flooding back and the voices were just how I remembered them. But I was so surprised at how macho, violent and downright silly the show was. It was awesome! I'm thankful I found an uploaded full first episode on Youtube and I was very surprised to find out a new version would debut on Bank Holiday. So after watching the first 3 episodes (I also watched a 4th earlier out of boredom) I can give my verdict: the new series is crap. There were promising points: the voices of the 4 main central characters were the same (Modo, Throttle Vinnie and Charley-although I'm not so certain the 'new' Charley has the same voice actor as the 'old' one), the director is the same, they respect the old storylines so Throttle loves Carbine and Vinnie loves Charley-as they should, they make this series a 'sequel' to the old one to stop lame re-dos, so the enemies are no longer Plutarkians. But they might as well've been! The new enemies are...Catatonians. LAME! Other bad points: you can't take Ronaldo Rump seriously enough as a villain-he's too cartoony, so's Hairball (who came up with these names?), the animation is somehow so bad it's worse than the 90s counterpart, perhaps even as bad as the original Transformers. How the animation has become that bad in the 21st Century is beyond me: everything looks strange and unreal and I see at least 3 mistakes per episode. The 90s counterpart managed to be more polished than that! And why are the bikes and those Catatonian robots CGI? CGI bikes look slower than animated-in bikes. In fact, the old series always gave a rush whenever the threesome rode along: the camera angles would look up, zoom in to the wheels, turn with the bikes sometimes, which drew you into the speed and the action: seeing them ride their bikes made me smile. (Okay, slight exaggeration) But in the new series, watching them ride on their bikes is just another thing that happens in the show. The zoom is too distant. And despite Charley being an important character, in the new series she's forgotten about half the time. She didn't even appear in one episode (when they were on Earth). And the scripting...in the old series the scripting was polished, flawless. You could tell the writers were having a blast; taking the mick out of traditional 'hero' flicks. But now it seems so forced or wannabeish. And the Mice seem to know way too much about our culture this time around; part of the fun of the old series was they only knew bits and pieces and it was hilarious what kind of impressions they got from what they learned. And going back to villains: Lawrence Limburger you could take seriously because in most episodes you could tell he was willing to do anything to get rid of the Mice and some of the things he did were very extreme, which sort of heightened the odds and kept you on the edge of your seat. And the soundtrack's different: the old series had a mostly Heavy Metal soundtrack, which gave the show an edge and hinted at the angst, while now it's so...'let's make it safe for the kids'. There were a special set of episodes, most notably 'Return to Mars' (I remember being drawn into that one) that were so angsty. Then there are my pet hates which don't really affect the quality of the show: I prefer the old crash helmets, I don't like Throttle's new bike (which is green-bring back good ol' black), Modo's bike looks stupid (2 back wheels? Come on!), they don't have sticking out buck-teeth anymore-fine if they wanted to tuck in the teeth this time around but the drawing style make the teeth look more like fangs. And Vinnie and Throttle look way too skinny for my taste. Generally, the old snippet alone sucked me into their world and I enjoy watching the snippet and first episode again and again. The new show has no energy, so I get bored while watching it. I'll end with different news. This weekend is the family reunion at Potshausen. This is likely to be the last year at Potshausen (a hamlet near Leer, North Germany) because the dorm facilities we like using are going to be closed. When first thinking about going Mum said she didn't want to go on holiday this Summer for 2 reasons: parents need to save up money for me and she didn't want to narrow chances of me getting a job. Dad kept the option open so he went with Nathan, who probably went so he could see his cousins (or particular favourites Rebecca, Benjamin and Johann). So me and Mum are in the house alone this weekend. Not bad really. I'm working for most of it so Mum usually has this quiet house to herself. |