Rage4Media #85 - Space Jam: A New Legacy (4Media Reviews 8th Anniversary)

It’s been a full year since I last did a rage review. Am I becoming a calmer and more rational person? No, I’m just very busy and don’t have the time to invest in longer reviews, especially since I’m instead doing longer series retrospectives as well. Hence the more erratic schedule of late for which I apologise. That and I choose to reserve my anger for media that really deserves it.

Yes, you will do nicely.

In spite of the fact that Disney owns… almost everything under the sun they’ve shown some restraint when it comes to self-indulgent crossovers. Not to say they’re non-existent, there’s a whole Simpson’s Marvel Crossover and the Ducktales Reboot has references to all the Disney afternoon cartoons, oh and there’s some minor references in Free Guy, but nothing quite at the same spectacle as having say a whole bunch of their properties show up in Lego form. [Editors note: This was written before the Chip and Dale movie came out]

When it comes to self-indulgent crossovers, Warner Brothers is King. The Lego Movie and its sequel are prime examples of the kind of thing I’m talking about, it’s not surprising they were the ones who did the adaptation of Ready: Player One. A story built on the premise of a self-indulgent crossover. But of all the self-indulgent crossovers, none are as big or as self-indulgent as… wait, Space Jam 2?

There have been attempts to get a sequel to Space Jam off the ground since the first one’s success. It was announced in the 2010s that a new basketball super-star LeBron James would be the basketballer in the film. But what really kicked off production for the film was the launch of the streaming service HBOMax. A Streaming service that holds most of the Warner Brothers films.

The original Space Jam was a feature length version of a shoe commercial, so the idea was formed to make a feature length HBOMax commercial for its sequel. Or at least that’s how I envision it was conceived. I can’t imagine it was because they thought they could make an entertaining movie from this idea.

So how bad is this film? Well, let’s take a look.

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective: Titans Season 2 Episodes 12-13

After a month-long break, we’re back with Titans and we last had 2 of the series’ stronger episodes back-to-back, can it end on a strong note, let’s find out

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 10-11

We’re back with Titans, and seriously, there are 4 more episodes to go. Rule of thumb, if a show wants to tell one continuous story, it should do so over no more than 6 (at a stretch 8) episodes. If it’s a mystery story, I’d drop that to 3 episodes. There are exceptions, of course, Daredevil seasons 1 and 3 managed to be riveting over 13 episodes and I’m excluding stories that tell smaller stories whilst weaving in a larger one, like Young Justice or the like. And Hell, Doctor Who Flux managed to be a confusing mess in 6 episodes and likely would’ve done better with more time. But enough preamble, let’s take a look at the next 2 episodes of Titans and see if something actually happens in them.

Netflix (HBOMax) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 8-9

So, we’re continuing season 2 of Titans, and so far the quality has been decidedly meh, can you believe we’re half way through at this point but it feels like almost nothing has happened. Still, the strongest episode this season so far was the flashback and we’re starting this retrospective with part 2.

Reb00t 1t - Zack Snyder's Justice League Part 2

And we’re back with another dose of the Snyder Cut and a likely rather scattershot set of viewpoints around the changes made here. Unlike with previous reboots discussed here, a lot of material was in the original, the original I have already reviewed and the plot in this film is pretty much the same. It’s hard to determine exactly how successful the Snyder Cut has actually been. It’s certainly created a lot of buzz, and the more positive reception certainly helped but because it’s been released on a streaming service the value it creates will be dependant on how many subscribers it brings on and retains. And 2021 has been a big year for HBO Max with all of its big cinematic releases being placed on the service for free for a few weeks at time of release. This was an attempt to reclaim something as Covid has drawn audiences away from traditional theatres.

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 6-7

So you remember in what turned out to be the concluding episode of season 1 they teased Superboy and Krypto. Well, we’re at episode 6 of season 2 so finally they decide to actually deliver on that tease, right as they have a big cliff-hanger to deal with.

Reb00t 1t - Zack Snyder's Justice League part 1

OK, we’re looking at a different kind of reboot here. After Batman v Superman planted seeds for a Justice League, Zack Snyder was hard at work on the project and had done most of the filming for it, sadly it was interrupted by the tragic death of his daughter and he left the project to grieve and I hold no ill will toward him for that.

Still, that takes time and they needed alignment in the actors’ filming schedules and various other issues to continue filming, there were already difficulties with the product we ended up with, hence Supes’ awful CG chin to remove the facial hair for Mission: Impossible. So I get why WB handed over the reins to Joss Whedon. The problems were many-fold, WB execs wanted the film out so they could get their bonuses, he was also under pressure to lighten the tone based on reception to Batman v Superman. And no, I’m not defending Whedon acting like a piece of crap on-set, Ray Fisher has come out with some rather disturbing on-set stories with both Whedon and Geoff Johns mentioned by name as perpetrators.

Still, I’m not a huge fan of Snyder either, his take on Superman felt like a fundamental misunderstanding of the character and he drew on material that he also fundamentally misunderstood in Batman v Superman. He also began riling up fan interest in reviving his take on the film. I can’t understand the level of entitlement here, it’s not a good look and neither is the studio acquiescing to the tune of $70m? This film already had a ballooned budget thanks to all the reshoots.

Of course, with Zack it’s all about the artistic vision. How do I know he’s gone this pretentious route? This ‘movie’ has a 4:3 aspect ratio and is available in Black and White. There’s nothing wrong with an artistic vision however, but with a medium like film, it should be an entertaining product first and foremost and that’s the angle I’ll be judging it from. It’s also nearly 4 hours long so to protect my sanity, I’ll be splitting this over 2 reviews. They’ve nicely broken it into 6 chapters so I’ll try and stick with chapters 1-3 for this review, and 4-6 for next week’s review.

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 4-5

We’re taking another look at season 2 of Titans, the last season before the show moved to HBO Max

Netflix (HBOMax) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 episodes 2-3

Time to take a look at Titans, the show that is still going on for some reason. Season 2 debuted on the DC Universe app in 2019. Season 1 had some great moments but had a pretty dull story and all the edginess you could ever want. The season opener for this season I covered as a rage review, it spent the first half concluding the season 1 arc in a pretty poor fashion, and the other setting up the events of season 2 as Jason has joined the Titans and Deathstroke is ready to enact his revenge or something. Let’s dig in and take a look at what season 2 has to offer in earnest.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 23-26

We’re looking at Young Justice Outsiders one last time for the final run of episodes. As I write this the newest season, co-titled Phantoms hasn’t come out yet but it due to soon. [Time of posting the first half of the season has come out, and has its pros and cons]

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 20-22

Hope you enjoyed the last 3 episodes with the Outsiders, they do not have another mission until episode 24, in the meantime, we need to catch up with everyone else as we dive into episodes 20-22 of Outsiders.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 17-19

OK, let’s get back into Young Justice Outsiders and, in the 6^th of 8 reviews for the season, finally get to the debut of the titular Outsiders.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 14-16

OK, we’re back with the second half of Young Justice Outsiders and I decided to bite the bullet and buy the episodes individually, after a I got a voucher for some money off them. Part 2 was released a bit differently to part 1, episodes 13-15 were released in one block, episodes 16-23 were released weekly and episodes 24-26 were released as another block. I’m guessing it was trying to keep interest in DC Universe, and it kinda worked. Let’s see what the writers have for us this time

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 10-13

We’re back for another look at YJ outsiders, how will the first half of the season be capped? Let’s take a look.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 7-9

We’re back with another run of Young Justice, more episodes done from memory, with a little help from the wiki summaries so again things may be out of order or condensed. Sorry, I only have so much time for these.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 4-6

We’re back for another run of Young Justice and it’s happened again, I did the reviews then lost them, this time thanks to word glitching. I decided to have a go at doing these from memory and whilst the actual plot points are definitely from the episode, they may be a little out of order or condensed.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 1-3

 So, Young Justice Outsiders

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk about this show, the last time being way back in 2016, when I did an editorial one what I wanted to see from this show… and I’ll say I got 1/5.

My thoughts have shifted a little on Young Justice. It did an exemplary job in season one balancing the overarching storyline with its cast of main characters. By majorly expanding the team in season 2, it also really torpedoed the balance in favour of plot as opposed to character development, making certain characters feel like pieces on a chessboard. Outsiders, as I’ll explain, suffers from a similar problem, but I’ll get to that later.

What’s interesting is that fan demand and the launch of a DC streaming service lead to the announcement of YJ Outsiders in 2016, the show would ultimately be released in 2019, which is quite extensive gap, DC announced the show’s renewal literally days after the creators found out.

So minor changes before we get into it, James Arnold Taylor has taken over from Tim Curry as G Gordon Godfrey, who has also permanently taken over the role as the Flash from George Eads after voicing him in the season 2 finale. Could be a cost saving measure, voice actors are portraying multiple characters across the board this season, and there are other budget-saving measures as we’ll get into.

According to a source I can’t seem to find now, Logan Grove was likely off in the military at the time of Outsiders’ production, so Beast Boy has been recast with Greg Cipes reprising his role from Teen Titans (and TTG). And for what it’s worth he does a decent job.

I’ll be covering the first 13 episodes of the series now, with the hopes of doing the other half in the later half of the year. Part of the problem is that there’s no series purchase option on Amazon for the second half, if I wanted to buy the second half at present, I’d have to buy every episode individually and at £2.49 an episode (I live in the UK so HBOMax isn’t an option), I am not doing that.