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by El Squibbonator
Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:48 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

I'm hesitant to count IGPX as a Western series, since so much of its creative input was Japanese. And while Voltron: Legendary Defender may be American in origin, the Voltron franchise as a whole is not.
by El Squibbonator
Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:42 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Last Movie You Watched
Replies: 1979
Views: 354018

Re: Last Movie You Watched

Last movie I watched? The series finale to a certain 1995 mecha anime.
by El Squibbonator
Sun Jan 21, 2024 4:48 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

So I just found a discussion on Reddit about this exact topic, and what one of the commenters had to say was pretty interesting. I'm going to post it here: 1. There are two major branches of Mecha shows. "super robots" like in Gurren Lagann, and "real robots" like in Gundam. 2. W...
by El Squibbonator
Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:30 am
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

Mecha, I posit, is part of a larger supergenre that I tend to dub "combat avatars" that also encompasses magical girls, tokusatsu, power armor, and others like those; the aesthetic and thematic core of the story is the presence of a physically powerful fighting body, partially or fully se...
by El Squibbonator
Tue Dec 26, 2023 12:33 am
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

Discussions about its status as a truly successful franchise aside, Pacific Rim is still kind of an interesting case because it was created as a deliberate homage to classic mecha anime-- you can see references in it to Evangelion, Mazinger Z, Gundam and many others. It's worth noting that, despite ...
by El Squibbonator
Sun Dec 24, 2023 9:37 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

There was actually only one game, which was released in 2013 for the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3. As far as my point about being "prematurely ended" goes, there was a third movie planned, but after the sequel movie under-performed, those plans-- along with pretty much all other hopes to...
by El Squibbonator
Sun Dec 24, 2023 8:01 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

So with that in mind I don't accept OP's premise that mecha never really took of in America Transformers is a bit of an odd case. I've seen it argued that the reason Transformers succeeded, where so many other American stories about giant mecha have failed, is that the titular robots are treated fi...
by El Squibbonator
Sat Dec 23, 2023 6:56 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

Interesting. So-- aside from the works I mentioned in my original post, all of which were prematurely cancelled or otherwise unsuccessful-- have there been any truly successful Western mecha-themed TV shows or movies?
by El Squibbonator
Thu Dec 21, 2023 12:35 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

cyharding#942628 wrote: there were manga stories in Japan where a giant spider robot was laying waste to New York.


There were?
by El Squibbonator
Thu Dec 21, 2023 11:03 am
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Re: Breaking the American Mecha Curse

That explains why there aren't any now , absolutely, but it doesn't answer why the genre never took off in the United States during its formative years. The idea that dark and gritty is what sells in American film and TV is relatively new, and seems not to pre-date the 21st century, at least as far ...
by El Squibbonator
Thu Dec 21, 2023 2:40 am
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Breaking the American Mecha Curse
Replies: 21
Views: 2391

Breaking the American Mecha Curse

For one reason or another, the mecha genre never really took off in Western film and TV. There have been only a handful of attempts, none of which can truly be called successful. The first was Exosquad , which ran for two seasons and was cancelled at the beginning of a third. Later attempts included...
by El Squibbonator
Thu Dec 21, 2023 2:36 am
Forum: Live-Action "Shin" & Other Khara Projects!
Topic: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)
Replies: 1131
Views: 301965

Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

Japan's current political status with the States still there since post WW2 (a theme that's rather commonplace in Japanese fiction, feels like to me).


How so?
by El Squibbonator
Sat Sep 17, 2022 4:25 pm
Forum: Fan Works
Topic: Share Your EVA Fan Art Here
Replies: 1261
Views: 4560017

Re: Share Your EVA Fan Art Here

Are we allowed to post art we've commissioned in this thread?
by El Squibbonator
Thu Sep 08, 2022 9:49 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: [Film] The Trailers & Upcoming Films Thread
Replies: 1028
Views: 209655

Re: [Film] The Trailers & Upcoming Films Thread

Agreed. I want to say Lindsey Ellis did a video essay on this, but I can't find it right now. The thing about Independence Day is that it's an alien invasion/disaster movie with no underlying political message, which is something you could only really get from a period of American history when we th...
by El Squibbonator
Mon Jun 20, 2022 4:49 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: [Film] The Trailers & Upcoming Films Thread
Replies: 1028
Views: 209655

Re: [Film] The Trailers & Upcoming Films Thread

Since I am more of a Korra fan then I can wait it out especially if the Korrasami couple does hold out for the entirety of the film. Needless to say, I have always been a Makorra supporter: https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/avatar-the-last-airbender-is-getting-three-new-animated-films/...
by El Squibbonator
Sun Jun 19, 2022 5:46 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: [Film] The Trailers & Upcoming Films Thread
Replies: 1028
Views: 209655

Re: [Film] The Trailers & Upcoming Films Thread

So, Lightyear hasn't been doing too hot. It's brought in $85 million in its worldwide opening weekend, which compared with its $200 million budget isn't very much. One of the reasons I've seen suggested for this is that Pixar spent the last few years releasing its movie exclusively on Disney+, to th...
by El Squibbonator
Sun May 15, 2022 9:14 pm
Forum: Completely and Utterly Off-Topic
Topic: Your entertainment wishlist?
Replies: 230
Views: 81617

Re: Your entertainment wishlist?

Speaking of which, another thing on my "entertainment wish list" is a successful American mecha franchise. And I don't mean something like Transformers --I mean a series where the robots are piloted or otherwise controlled by humans. So far there have been only a handful of mainstream Amer...
by El Squibbonator
Sun May 15, 2022 9:08 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Jurassic World
Replies: 422
Views: 83275

Re: Jurassic World

The first Jurassic World was the only one I liked. Fallen Kingdom was too cheesy to take seriously, and while Camp Cretaceous is good, it's not the same as a movie. And if the leaks are any indication, Dominion is going to continue that trend.
by El Squibbonator
Thu Apr 14, 2022 5:37 pm
Forum: Film and Video
Topic: Jurassic World
Replies: 422
Views: 83275

Re: Jurassic World

A while back, on Reddit, a guy claimed to have seen Dominion in a pre-release test screening, and gave a synopsis of it. At the time, nobody really believed him, but a lot of what he said has lined up pretty well with what's been revealed since then in the trailers and articles. Here's what he said....

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