#karate man and built to scale just being their sequels

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

ds' remixes are great but they're also really funny to me when it comes to their themes like. remix 2, 3, 4 and 7 all have consistent, identifiable themes (tropical, whatever "spaghetti western" is, love/romance/however you describe it, and clouds respectively). remix 1, 5, 6 and 9 retexture most of their games but i have no idea what their themes are. and remix 8 doesn't bother at all-

[trailercourt-blog]

TRAILER COURT 11/14/17 - INVASION U.S.A. (1985)

Hate me if you like, but I’m a conservative, so I like violent right-wing fairy tales. I dig war movies, westerns, martial arts movies, and flag-waving, bare-knuckled action flicks. It’s not about racism or xenophobia, as some would have you believe, but rather simply about exaggerating real-world dangers to cartoonish levels so there is a clear cut distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. That way, the gun battles and kung fu fights provide a definitive catharsis which rarely happens in real-life conflicts. It’s not that I wish the real world was more like the movies. I simply enjoy venting those real frustrations in safe, satisfying ways that make facing the ugly world outside the theater just a little easier.

The 1980s was a decade of right-leaning comic book action at the multiplex, and no one kicked more ass or took more names for freedom & the flag than 6-time world karate champion Chuck Norris. Click the link above for the trailer to one of Chuck’s most famous, profitable movies...

I wish I could say the movie INVASION U.S.A. was as good as the trailer used to sell it. Despite having a great exploitation premise, a director known for unrepentant celluloid carnage, the incomparable Richard Lynch as the lead terrorist, and a whole bunch of Grade A Prime Chuck, the film is disjointed and uneven. We never get the sort of large-scale battle scenes we’re hoping for, and the final showdown between Lynch’s Rostov and Norris’ Matt Hunter isn’t big or bloody enough to really pay off after all the build-up. It’s a reasonably entertaining picture, but not the all-time trash classic it could - and should - have been.

The trailer, however, is magnificent. Showcasing the film’s best moments, it promises the sort of all-out anarchic spectacle that fans of RED DAWN and the DEATH WISH sequels dream about. The idea of a whole army of Russian, Cuban, and Arab fanatics intent on blowing up shopping malls & tract homes being thwarted at every turn by the blazing submachine guns & flying roundhouse kicks of a man so tough he was born in a log cabin he built with his bare hands is simply sublime. Based on the trailer, this shouldn’t have been a movie; it should have been a 19-film franchise that outgrossed every other film of the 1980s combined. If only INVASION U.S.A. could have lived up to the delicious promise of its hard-hitting preview.

But that’s often the way with movies this rich with potential for greatness. So Reagan-loving old farts like me will just have to be content with the brilliance of the trailer, and fiery, wistful daydreams of what might have been. 

-Don Jeffrey Krouskop

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

ds has the best sequels tbh. i mean a lot of them suck if you judge them based on, like, how different they are from the original (built to scale 2, the dazzles 2, rhythm rally 2, lockstep 2, karate man 2, glee club 2, munchy monk 2). but also they're still great i love them. <3

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

i love how much unused stuff megamix has. especially cuz like. with stuff like all the karate man cues being in the game n micro-row 2 having its cues in the game you could make the argument they're just remnants from fever. but then there's stuff like the tiny robots from fillbots 2 being fully moddable. marching orders n night walk having sprites from their sequels that aren't just directly taken from tengoku (it's also interesting with marching orders because the squadmates never do the pointing cues). apparently fever built to scale 2 has some amount of unused data (also might just be a remnant but still neat). there's just so much stuff n it's really interesting to me.

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

ds' remixes are so chaotic as far as graphical changes go, like-

remix 1: no consistency whatsoever. glee club's at like. a town or something. some of the tiles in built to scale glow on the beat (which is also used in built to scale 2). in fan club pop singer has a different hairstyle and the monkeys are pink and. yeah it's the most heavily changed game. and fillbots is. literally identical (apparently has different graphic files tho).

remix 2: the blue birds and captain blue bird aren't even blue. the shoot-'em-up guys are. coconuts. the moai kids have sunglasses? and the paddlers are 1. just on an island??? and 2. brown. that's it that's the remix. oh also in shoot-'em-up the moon has a space rabbit on it cuz the warioware reference quota has to be reached somehow. also the shoot-'em-up radio lady has an unused retexture and i just??? i'm too gay-

remix 3: or as i like to call it, the game's emo phase. the love lizards/güiro lizards are just in a purple area (with harsher lighting) as opposed to an orange one. the race in freeze frame's. a. boat. race? what- uh. the dazzles are wearing. shit what are those called- i don't think they're kimonos but i'm not sure. and idk what's going on in crop stomp tbh-

remix 4: despite being romance-themed, munchy monk and love lab literally don't fit this whatsoever; munchy monk's just. at a theme park/carnival/something. good for him i guess. and the love lab scientists are. at a park. i think. there's a fountain so- and drummer duel and dj school have p i n k and h e a r t s . oh also the djs have sunglasses for some reason. idk why but good for them i guess- also they're so fuckin' gay like dear god.

remix 5: again. no real consistent theme. the frogettes are just. on a different stage. and there's an audience. also their clothes are different (they put on shirts, good for them). dog ninja's at a stadium or something, how is this so exciting- u h the tiny ghosts have hats. for some reason. also the audience is different. and the synchrettes are boys. good for them-

remix 6: uh. green. the description says it has a spacey feel but idk what's spacey about rockers or karate man's retextures here- the space kickers have clappy trio wigs and also they're in. actual space. the background in karate man is v e r y dark blue and also karate joe has. hair. slash. a wig probably given space soccer. u h . the stepswitchers have glasses. for some reason. also the void is green instead. and rockers just has a different background. i think. their outfits might be slightly different idk-

remix 7: c l o u d s . fan club's in the sky and also pop singer looks adorable and has a pink guitar good for her, the dazzles is in the sky and they all have pink guitars good for them, dj school. there's clouds in the background and there's lots of blue (cuz that's this remix's color i guess)- u h . frog hop has clouds in the foreground. and brf is the exact same.

remix 8: only dog ninja actually looks different and i can't tell you what's happening there tbh. also for some reason rhythm rally and lockstep are specifically their sequels but blue birds is just. normal blue birds. hard to know for fillbots given that it's identical in fillbots 2 pretty much but like. who knows tbh-

remix 9: hoooo boy this one's a mess. moai doo-wop just uses its remix 2 textures, the chorus kids are seemingly in a spaceship, i don't know what's happening with space soccer, crop stomp's the same, the shoot-'em-up guys are. i got nothing. karate man is specifically karate man 2 for some reason, in splashdown the synchrettes are boys again and also the crowd they're performing for looks like the octopus guy from donk-donk, annnnd built to scale is just built to scale 2.

,,, yeah really don't know what they were on there-

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

ds' remix themes are kind of funny to me because barely any of them actually have a consistent theme-

remix 1 has. literally none. remix 2's tropical-themed and manages to keep that consistently. remix 3's "spaghetti western"? whatever the fuck that means? idk how freeze frame fits with it. at all- remix 4's romance-themed and by that i mean remix 4 drummer duel and dj school are romance-themed and love lab and munchy monk are just doing their own thing (also i've said it before but like. why are the djs wearing sunglasses in remix 4 dj school- why)- remix 5 keeps consistent colors and all the games have an audience but i have. no idea what the theme's meant to be. remix 6 is. supposedly space-themed? but space soccer and lockstep are the only ones i'd say even COULD BE space-themed. the only actual consistency is. the color green-

remix 7 is consistently cloud-themed to. varying degrees. those being "literally on a cloud" to "there's a cloud in the background/foreground" to "big rock finish"- remix 8's just speedy. that's it that's the theme. idk on remix 9 either, like. i think it's trying to be space-themed but moai doo-wop (remix 2 retexture), karate man (sequel graphics) and built to scale (sequel textures). aren't. also idk what shoot-'em-up's doing but god this' the laziest retexture i've ever seen-

,,, uh. yeah. i. only just now realized. that i wrote like two paragraphs about this- ,,, i have no self-control-