Animated Fridays: How The Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended

At YouTube, there seems to be a team of Flash animators that exclusively do cartoons of how movies should have ended. It does double duty as a parody and movie criticism. Bonzer! They’re The Official How It Should Have Ended Channel, and they have quite a lot of offerings on YouTube, where they spoof things from Ocean’s 11 to Braveheart.

I came across the “How Spider-Man 3 Should Have Ended” at the forums on agonybooth.com. While humorous, at 6 minutes I thought it ran a bit long and was a bit too nitpicky. (And it’s not really how the movie should have ended, but how the movie should have been.)

No, my favorite is the short bit about the Lord of the Rings movies. Now … why didn’t the Fellowship come up with this plan? I can imagine Tolkien in his grave slapping his forehead over this. Enjoy!

Animated Fridays: Shockwave’s Lament

I’m changing the title of the feature because I wanted to showcase things other than just something that’s a music video. Trust me: I’m an AMV junkie, but some of the best mash-ups I’ve seen aren’t exclusive to scoring animation clips to music.

This video, “Shockwave’s Lament,” is almost a year old, but it cracks me up every time I watch it. It was created by Dr. Smoov. He famously created the equally humorous “The Rude Awakening of Optimus Prime,” the one where Optimus is a complete jack-hole to all the Season 3 Autobots. He also has created several other entries, his latest being the Soundwave-centric AMV called “Decepticons Superior.”

However, I think that “Shockwave’s Lament” may be his best work. It’s probably the most accessible video for non-fans; previous knowledge of Transformers history isn’t necessary. All you need to know is that Shockwave can’t shoot with sh*t. Dr. Smoov does a great job with all the voices (and does a spot on imitation of Frank Welker’s Starscream voice); it’s so well done that they may as well be the original voices of the cartoon characters. Oh, and there’s a cameo appearance by the Female Autobots, a bonus.

The hell of it all is that I watched a few old Transformers episodes with Shockwave, that lovable faceless wonder, and he does strikes me as really being this pathetic. Anyway, enjoy!

NOTE: The video clip contains quite a lot of profanity, but nothing you wouldn’t see in a PG-13 movie.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights and … Spaceball: The Animated Series?!?!?

Last night, after dinner, my girlfriend and I watched Robin Hood: Men in Tights on DVD. Now, if I know you cinephiles, the first knee-jerk response is “Definitely not Mel brooks best. You’re better off watching The Producers, Blazing Saddles, or Young Frankenstein.” And, in this case, you would be wrong. I have seen those three movies. Yes, those earlier movies are technically better and more revolutionary, but there are times when you don’t want to watch a movie to do a mental thesis. Like when you’ve had a hard day and you just want to kick back and eat ice cream.

And yet, I still think Robin Hood: Men in Tights is one of the best movies Mel Brooks has made. It’s great just to crash and shut off your mind for a while to be entertained and to laugh merrily. Robin Hood: Men in Tights succeeds by being totally and utterly goofy. No overabundance in crazy dialogue twists or over-reliance on stupid pop-culture parodies. Robin Hood is pure vaudeville. It’s a collection of actors and comedians having a grand old time and performing silly sight-gags — basically the most recent inheritor of the Three Stooges School of Humor.

And now, in retrospect, and years of Scary Movies and Scary Movie spinoffs, Robin Hood looks frightfully brilliant. And kids these days seem to love it to. I talked to a 20-year old who said that it was his favorite Mel Brooks film. (He also said that he didn’t like Blazing Saddles. Sigh. Don’t worry, he’ll grow up.)

Transformers Animated: Footage from the San Diego Comic Con ’07

This link was first brought to my attention from this WordPress site, but I felt compelled to do a direct YouTube link on this site anyway.

Transformers Animated

‘Nuff said.

EDIT: Apparently, Dave Willis ALSO posted this on his Shortpacked Livejournal. Dear God I am slow. Well, check out his site anyway for a cool new strip about the Transformers movie.

The saga of a mop-haired girl and a top-hatted man

My girlfriend sent me an email of this animated production from the Vancouver Film School. It involves a love-sick girl and a guy in a boss top hat. She sighed about how sweet the video was. I said, “If some girl sat next to me at a bus station and started playing the violin, I’d sorta unconfortably ignore her.” The moral of the video is obviously that inner beauty is more important than outward beauty, but the only image I got is an art student pining away with a fantasy of “Oh, if they only knew what I could really do, then they’d fall madly in love with me!”

Ultimately, who’s right? You be the judge:

The Vancouver Film School Presents: “Polka”