Space Jam 2

Is there a 5-minute summary of why the first Space Jam is apparently so disliked among this crowd of 10 or more people?

It's seen as just a cash grab based on a commercial from the early 90s. The character of Lola Bunny in particular is bland and was simply created to sell more Looney Tunes merchandise targeted towards girls.

Michael Jordan’s acting wasn’t great.

It might’ve just been me, but I remember as a 4 year-old watching the film in theaters, I was more interested in the prologue with Mike as a kid and didn’t care for watching an adult. The rest of the film then simply didn’t hold my interest, not even the cartoon parts.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 24th 2019 at 11:35:29 AM

Chuck Jones said it best. The whole movie should have been over in 7 minutes. Bugs would have figured a way to outsmart the aliens before they enslaved him and the other Looney Tunes, without turning to Michael Jordan for help. Boom end movie.

Another reason I don't particularly like Space Jam is it kinda followed the typical sports movie cliches almost to a T, without actually parodying them (which you'd expect Looney Tunes to do).

Also, the film is horrendously dated.

Also, Billy West sucked as Bugs Bunny.

The theme is kinda catchy though at least

In fairness, people have outsmarted Bugs before. And there apparently were little girls who grew up liking Lola so I guess it wasn't completely bad.

Edited by windleopard on Feb 26th 2019 at 10:52:14 AM

SpaceJam!Lola is the reason LooneyTunesShow!Lola exists. Space Jam was worth it.

Edited by Zeromaeus on Feb 25th 2019 at 6:40:55 AM

Even if it was (it wasn’t) do we need a second one? Was anyone, anyone asking for this?

I mean, while I'm happy someone's defending Space Jam 1 in some fashion, it's also coming from The Mary Sue that's almost entirely devoted to picking out characters like Lola and picking the good aspects out of them.

Lola might have been bland, but I was a 7-8 year old kid when I saw the film so I didn't really care. I didn't really expect her to be much more than a female counterpart to Bugs, and heck, characters like She-Ra became popular for similar reasons. I don't really see anything wrong with that.

As a little kid while I didn't watch Space Jam over and over it didn't seem all that different quality-wise from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to me. I might feel differently now that I'm older.

I don't think Chuck Jones was accounting for the fact that Bugs has been outsmarted in the past by the gremlin and at least twice by Cecil the Turtle. Granted, I suppose he wasn't alive for Wabbit where the premise involves Bugs being the straight man/Only Sane Man to Daffy of all people, but it certainly wasn't apparent to me at the time that Bugs should have solved the entire movie himself.

And let's face it - combining cartoons with NBA stars is far from the wackiest crossover we've seen in our lifetimes. Check out Eminem Meets The Punisher. If anything pairing an extremely bankable basketball player with some of the most well-known cartoon characters at the time was a stroke of genius, even if the execution was lacking.

Edited by Soble on Feb 25th 2019 at 6:06:05 AM

Space Jam was OK. Flawed, but enjoyable when I was young.

The main issue is also why it was so popular, the movie was a highly commercial movie pairing Michael Jordan with his Looney Tunes buddies rather than a proper Looney Tunes movie. The movie banked on Jordan's godlike status and as a result the Looney Tunes themselves are genericized to be just wacky rather than have their classic personalities. Bugs and Daffy are normally either rivals or Vitriolic Best Friends, but here they were more like Those Two Guys.

I don't even like sports but I remember loving Space Jam as a kid. Can't say for sure how I feel about it now though as I haven't seen it since I was a kid. Definitely don't think it needs a sequel though, especially after this long.

Their interactions throughout the films are certainly that of vitrolic friends.

Also, remember that they have a common enemy now so any rivalry would get put aside.

Edited by windleopard on Feb 26th 2019 at 10:44:35 AM

I wonder if we'll see lesser-known Looney Tunes characters like Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse. Probably not, but it'd be sweet. I also hope Gossamer is one of the players this time.

With Space Jam I've heard it described as a movie that was good for the specific time period it was made in, and is very much a time capsule of that era. However, it wouldn't necessarily work well in this time period.

Question: How popular is Basketball these days? Particularly in the US? I don't ever hear much about it, but maybe I just never hear about it.

Sonequa Martin-Green in talks to join.

Tbh I'm not so much interested in what basketball players or live actors are in the film. Moreso who the animators and voice actors are gonna be.

Obviously this will be the story of the first Chaos Dunk and the B-Ball Purge.

Apparently a few of the NBA's top stars may be on the sidelines for the sequel due to a rich sneaker contract rivalry.

Edited by brb1006 on Apr 10th 2019 at 11:47:04 AM

I thought most of its fans liked it in a So Bad, It's Good kind of way. Either that or nostalgia, in an “it was just fun” kind of way.

Anyone else think Looney Tunes: Back in Action is a better movie than Space Jam?

I know it's an unpopular take, but hey, Roger Ebert agreed with me!

I like both equally.

That opinion's probably unpopular because no one actually went to go see Looney Tunes: Back in Action, considering it was a huge Box Office Bomb.

While it's not a great movie, it's definitely a lot closer to the spirit of the original shorts than Space Jam was. It probably helped that Joe Dante was a huge fan of the characters, although apparently he had lot of problems with Executive Meddling during the making of the film.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Apr 13th 2019 at 1:31:28 PM

I saw 'Back in Action' in a theater... with a movie pass.

BIA I think is a better, more fun film than Space Jam, but it still has a Human-Focused Adaptation vibe that bogs down the quality.

Space Jam is pretty good, but I prefer Back in Action myself.