Friday, March 24, 2017

Best of the Best: 2007




Mario in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

Year: 2007
Movie: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Album: Metal Combat for the Mortal Man by Powerglove
Song: Blackbird by Alter Bridge 

So as already laid out in 2006, I finally got a Nintendo Wii in early 2007, and while I was initially hesitant about the dumb system name and the gimmick of motion controls, I was won over pretty quickly. The reasons I got it, over just getting a cheap Gamecube to play Zelda and other games on, were many. For one thing, they announced the "Virtual Console" service, which was going to allow you to (legally) download games from classic consoles like the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Master System, Turbo Graphx 16, etc. They were also going to have "WiiWare" games, which would be new digital titles, many of which would wind up being "retro" styled games, which is more more flavor. That alone was reason to be excited for the system. But another big reason, were games that were announced, such as Metroid Prime 3, Super Paper Mario, Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Kart Wii (neither of which would release until 2008), and various others.

That included, of course, the game pictured above, Super Mario Galaxy. Now while I was of course worried that the "waggle" controls many "hardcore" gamers complained about, might well ruin a perfectly good Mario game, and was otherwise not totally on board with the odd concept of running around little planetoids and having strange space gravity physics.....you know what? It worked out. The first Mario Galaxy was, in all honesty, a masterpiece of a game, with some genius (and sometimes devious) level designs, a brilliant soundtrack, neat little nods to older Mario games throughout, and a graphical presentation that rivaled the best that the system's HD competitors (PS3 and Xbox 360) had to offer. I'm fairly certain most outlets even voted it as Game of the Year 2007, and so do I. However, it must be said, that the one downside to the game, which is an added bonus you don't even need to experience: unlocking the ability to play Luigi after you beat the game once with all 120 stars. I have been quoted as saying, and to this day maintain, that playing MARIO, Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best games I've ever played, and playing Luigi....it's one of the worst games I've ever played. Let's just say he's hard to control, and leave it at that.






Spoilers.




2007, for movies, as I said in 2006, continued a gradual downward trend. Less and less movies that I was actually interested in seeing in theater, if at all. There was the okay but overstuffed and somewhat disappointing Spider-Man 3, completing Sam Raimi's otherwise brilliant trilogy on a somewhat awkward note. It was a GOOD movie.....but Marvel forced him to stick the character Venom into a story that didn't need or ask for him at all, and it just kind of became a mess. That and Raimi's nonsensical "Bad Peter Dancing" scene. Which was too bad, because the end to the Harry Osborn arc was (mostly) decent, and the Sandman was well cast and portrayed.

There was also a Simpsons movie, which was, unsurprisingly, a long episode of the show, more or less. It was fine, but nothing to write home about. There was also a Will Smith led adaptation of the story I Am Legend, twice before adapted by Hollywood in the 50s Vincent Price classic The Last Man on Earth, and the 70s Charlton Heston cult hit The Omega Man. Smith's version was surprisingly decent, mainly driven by his own character performance. There was ALSO the Nicolas Cage starring Ghost Rider film, which while Cage was not really the right casting choice for Johnny Blaze, the movie itself was one of the better early Marvel films.

But my choice for Movie of 2007, somewhat by default I suppose, simply because no other movie was especially BETTER than it, goes to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Not even the best entry in that series (up until now, my favorite entry had been Prisoner of Azkaban), it's still a solid film, and while he needed more screen time (because he's awesome), Gary Oldman's character Sirius Black experiences some major SPOILERS territory.  I think the film should have been a bit longer, just to facilitate more Sirius and Harry development, him being Harry' godfather and all, and also to give the Order itself more development, as it does come off a tad undercooked, and such an awesome underground resistance group deserves proper screen time.




Now that's an album cover.



As for music, well, while it IS still heavy metal, my album of the year goes to a band I discovered around this time, one of many video game tune cover bands (though arguably the best of them), a band from the east coast called Powerglove. They do almost strictly instrumental songs, and while most other game cover bands do fairly basic covers, strictly adhering to the source material, Powerglove has a habit of using the original music as a framework, and while still being incredibly faithful to the source, the kind of take it and run with it, and "paint their own picture", if you will. And they do that in spades on the album "Metal Combat for the Mortal Man", the title track of which is an amalgamation of both the Mortal Kombat movie techno theme, and music from the NES game Mega Man 2. That alone is brilliant, but they also have other great songs, like "Mario Manor", a bad ass Super Mario Bros. thrasher (if you can believe it), "Fight On", a song based on the music of the original Killer Instinct fighting game, and "Power, Wisdom, Courage", a Legend of Zelda based song, titled after the three mystical Triforces. And then there's my personal favorite, "Red Wings Over Baron", which is a medley of music from my favorite rpg game of all time, Final Fantasy IV.

As for song, the band Alter Bridge, who were the former members of Creed (minus Scott Stapp), had come along a few years before, and while I initially wasn't that into them, it was mainly because I was still bitter about Creed breaking up. But upon a closer look, I actually liked their music, and that became more evident on their second album Blackbird. There were several good songs on that album, and I considered it as a possible Album of 2007, but the title track most especially, is....in a word, gorgeous. One of the best songs I've ever heard, and that is truly saying something. It's certainly not a HAPPY song.....at all. It is very subtly about people who die before their time ("The static of this cruel world, causes some birds to fly, long before they've seen their day"). In other words, suicide. But the chorus especially, is just fucking soul-rending: "May the wind carry you home, blackbird fly away, may you never be broken again. Beyond the suffering you've known, blackbird fly away, may you never be broken again." As someone who has dealt with depression etc. for many years, as well as someone who has known people who died before their time, this song really hit home, and still sticks with me.

The bridge late in the song, I think, really seals the deal though, so I'll share it before moving on:

"Ascend, may you find no resistance,
Know that you made such a difference,
All you leave behind will live to the end.
The cycle of suffering goes on,
But memories of you stay strong,
Someday I too will fly, and find you again.
"

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