Synchtube Tropers (Riff on Videos and Movies)

Looking to bring this discussion back into focus on media/fiction portrayals of high school...

The biggest break in reality I find in most stories involving high school/teen issues, especially movies and TV, is how much emphasis is put on the ages 14-18, as if that's the peak of human beings' lives. You don't even need the experience of a lousy social life in a real high school to know what a crock of shit that is as even the varsity football player, prom queen, and class president all have tremendous room for self-growth and maturity ahead of them.

It's just as bad, though, that much of the focus in high school media is placed on very particular groups, like the jocks/school teams, cheerleaders, etc. when they'd always be a clear minority of most any student body (outside of particularly small towns, at least). Certainly out of an average class size of a few hundred, not everyone can be Mr. Popular, and most students will generally be found out on the fringes or swept up in the fold and wondering what media and culture think the big deal is about the whole experience.

edited 4th Feb '14 12:20:30 PM by SeanMurrayI

Yeah, when I was a teen, I did look down upon my classmates for their way of life that I found stupid. One of my classmates who was always very nice to me, told me that my implied moral superiority upset people and made me look like a snob. I had always thought that drinking alcohol, using drugs, going for joy rides in cars (one classmate took his parents' car and crashed it, and I overheard him telling the story to someone else and thinking he was a giant dumbass), was just stupid. I still do, but years after high school was over, I wondered if I'd missed out on life while others were having it.

I think the kids who look up to the cheerleaders and jocks don't wonder what the big deal about the experience is, actually, but envy it, and movies like this (when done well) speak to them and their naivete. As for portraying the high school years as the peak of life, I think it's more for two possible reasons - aiming at a teen audience, and aiming at a nostalgic adult audience that has positive memories of those years.

edited 4th Feb '14 2:01:32 PM by BonsaiForest

I think a problem I had in high school was that, unless a teacher was really strict and/or I was genuinely interested in the class, I would somehow get away with regularly interrupting classes out of sheer boredom by saying the dumbest things that popped into my mind. In one class, a teacher asked us our theories on how the pyramids were built and I just blurted out, "aliens." In hindsight, I think it's weird how the other kids that did that kind of stuff tended to get in trouble or tested for ADHD, but teachers didn't seem to care when I did it. I guess since I tended to get good grades, teachers were more lenient with me and I regularly abused that for my own amusement.

@Morg: I'm pretty sure it's this quiz but be warned it has over 150 questions.

edited 4th Feb '14 12:28:51 PM by FingerPuppet

As much as people act like high school is so crucial, it's really only essential in that people begin to discover things that weren't known to them in the past and start to branch out socially. I highly doubt that much of anyone remembers much of their actual education from high school (unless said person actually cared about their education, but I won't go so crazy to suggest that).

And yeah, that's where I mostly became a cynic. People around me didn't give so much as a shit about important issues other than petty hedonism. Education didn't matter, ethics didn't matter, it was all just pleasure. Of course, what should be kept in mind is that the brain is not fully matured until the late twenties or so. The frontal lobe in particular is associated with much of more complex morality.

@Morg Sorry, I didn't see your message until someone replied to it (since you edited your message after I started typing mine).

I was officially diagnosed not with Aspergers, but with    autism   , the big bad one, back when I was a low-functioning 3-year-old who stared off into space, ignored people, didn't talk, and would rather spin the wheels of a toy car than actually play with it normally. So the quiz didn't tell me anything I didn't know; I just wanted to see how well-designed it is. It's undergone constant revisions and has numerous questions that didn't exist the first time I took it years ago. If you don't understand autism/Aspergers, some of the questions (e.g. "Do you get along better with people who are considered odd or different than mainstream society?" - paraphrasing here) are revealing.

4x High school stories that specifically try to target a "nostalgic adult audience", at least, use a dated setting and largely rely on facets of an older culture and news events that impacted an older generation. The Wonder Years, for example, may have followed much of its principal cast through middle school and high school throughout the show's run, but the nostalgic appeal was in reminding the Baby Boom generation of what it was like to grow up as an adolescent through everything that encapsulated the mid-60's thru early-70's, in which case the high school elements are, in many ways, a secondary issue.

I'd argue that most teen-driven media is principally for a teen audience, as you said, and a slightly younger pre-teen audience on which media instills expectations of high school before they're finally old enough to find out about it for themselves. Teenage bullshit like American Pie, for instance, is never targeted at grown adults, and the only such people who WOULD be likely to watch something like that for nostalgic purposes is somebody who had an impression of high school and emphasis on teen sex formed by the movie at a younger age.

edited 4th Feb '14 12:55:59 PM by SeanMurrayI

Interesting observation.

From the trailer btw, that movie looked very 70s to me, not 80s. Granted, I was born in 1981, but it still looked very weird and outdated. Makes me wonder if it's intentional (and it's not meant to be time-period specific), or if it's an example of Hollywood being not-quite Two Decades Behind.

edited 4th Feb '14 1:05:44 PM by BonsaiForest

At first glance, much of the production value seems very inferior to other early 80's productions and b-movies, but I have to say they certainly were able to invest in an ensemble cast that sounds decent/interesting on paper (at the very least), and the cinematography/shot composition looks like Oscar-winning material, in comparison to what we'd more typically find in 70's movies; frames are tight, camera movements are smooth, and the minimal action is well-composed.

Furthermore, from the short plot synopsis I have on IMDb^note "Set in a senior high school class, J.J. pursues the girlfriend of a rival from a higher clique." and that shot in the trailer of Anthony Edwards sitting behind the wheel of a top-down convertible and wearing driving gloves tells me we can expect some sort of struggle between a lower-middle class teen and a peer coming from slightly higher wealth and privilege, and that's a fairly 80's theme, I'd say. A bit odd in a public high school setting, though.

Yeah, class differences and these kinds of social struggles are something that in addition to not relating to, I'd have a hard time understanding. I may have to sit this one out if only because I won't be able to understand it, and therefore riff on it. How do I make fun of an unrealistic or cheesy portrayal of something I don't even understand?

Hey, we riffed on Light Years without understanding it.

Well, it was sci-fi with themes that made sense in comparison to a real-life social situation that to me has always been beyond my understanding.

And here we go again! Happening now, we got more of Limbo of the Lost, new offerings from Everything is Terrible and Deeper Understanding, and more hilarious gundam anime. Then, at the top of the hour, we start High School USA.

You know where we at! http://synchtube.6irc.net/r/TroperCoven

Some of you may remember watching a South Korean Godzilla knockoff a few months back by the name of Yongary: Monster from the Deep; in case you missed it or simply forgot, here's the amazing German trailer for quick reference. All in all, it was a modest affair, and after it ended we concentrated our attention on other things.

However, as the story goes, back in 1999, and in the spirit of mid-late 90's Godzilla and Gamera films (including the Roland Emmerich Godzilla movie), a remake of this property was commissioned that The Other Wiki calls (without citation), "To date... the most expensive Korean film ever produced." With a low-grade CGI department, American actors, and an extra "G" added to the title, Yonggary (Reptilian in the US) emerged as a B-movie mockbuster fit for a new era.

Intriguingly, in 2001, an "upgrade" of the movie was released, complete with new scenes, a redone soundtrack, and revamped special effects. This version was poorly received but soon became the only cut of the movie available. Older versions from 1999, as it so happens, are believed to have been destroyed by the Korean studio in the hopes that the upgrade would have been a greater success.

And that's what brings us to this...

edited 5th Feb '14 7:43:19 AM by SeanMurrayI

Wow did they commission the SyFy Channel for the effects

You said it wasn't that terrible looking! This makes Reboot look like Toy Story 3.

Also, did you know there was a Double Dragon animated series? I found an episode hilarious in its clueless-ness, in which a kid becomes addicted to videogames and cannot distinguish reality from fantasy. Did anybody tell the writers that this moral kind of becomes insincere when it stars two men who can perform magic kung fu and summon dragons and stuff? Oh, and the fact that it's based on a videogame!

To go along with it, I found a spiel delivered by people in creepy costumes posing as poor old Winnie The Pooh and friends, attempting to enlighten us on the subject of child molestation. Now, I don't know about you, but Winnie The Pooh is right up there with Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood as things that simply should not be telling us about bad touching...and since they can't actually give children useful advice on how to avoid molestation (censorship and all that), it comes across as hamhanded.

edited 5th Feb '14 9:10:26 AM by Jinxmenow

I do remember the Double Dragon cartoon. Back when it aired on the USA network with the Street Fighter cartoon, a Mortal Kombat cartoon (seriously), and various other short lived series. The best thing that line up had was dubbed Sailor Moon, which isn't saying much.

And the Winnie the Pooh thing was called Too Smart for Strangers.

Oh my God

Oh my GOD

I know this is not really a movie per se, but holy fucknuts, Spoony's most recent review is just.... oh god. Unbelievable. I can't fathom this movie. I really really can't fathom it. It's just abysmal. Spoony is great, of course, the movie itself is beyond horrible.

I just need to share it. I need people to see this.

Here it is.

You can't really be surprised that a movie is completely unwatchable if Frank Stallone is the leading man.

Also, think long and hard on the fact that someone was paid to come up with the name Invasion of the Samurai Sluts From Hell.

edited 5th Feb '14 11:04:42 AM by AStrayBard

I'll admit that at the time I said anything to you about the effects as I was putting a playlist together, I only glanced at, maybe, the first 30 seconds of the trailer, but I know I directly compared it with SyFy at the time.

By the way, can I interest anyone in The Greatest Dancing Robot .gif of ALL TIME◊? So everyone else is aware, if anyone finds themselves with a compulsion to make .gifs out of our features, this web domain in particular—Giflike—seems to be the best at being able to convert youtube videos, especially videos over 10 mins long, like we're mostly accustomed to finding/watching.

EDT: I forgot to mention that it's required to register an account name at that website in order to "publish" any .gifs (and access them as such), but the procedure is as easy as on the Synchtube servers; you just need a name and password, and providing an email address is optional.

edited 5th Feb '14 11:27:37 AM by SeanMurrayI

Holy shit thank you so much you're a godsend

My first try at it.◊

edited 5th Feb '14 11:23:10 AM by Prometheus136

The gif you all wanted to see◊.

Fantastic.

You just made my fucking day! Thank you so much.

Me? I'm going on a roll with the one and only Starcrash. Might want to start setting aside a new post specifically for cataloging all our created .gifs next time we get to making a new page-topper.

• "Take My Revenge..."◊
• "FAHR! FAHR!"◊
  • The Last Part◊
• Neverending Sine Waves◊

edited 5th Feb '14 12:23:51 PM by SeanMurrayI

I've made a few juicy ones.

JOHN MCCAIN WHY?!◊

Take it awhey Rita baybee. Dat's COOL.◊

edited 5th Feb '14 1:07:59 PM by Prometheus136

Moving on to Uninvited now...

.gif 1◊

.gif 2◊