Top 5 national flags I consider the worst, ugliest or most uncreative imaginable

As a flag enthusiast it was easy falling in love with the most beautiful national flags (which includes Australia and New Zealand flags), all because there are so many totally uninspired, lazy and ugly ones. So many countries never took the effort to make their design stand out and make them look like any other existing flags that have been around for ages. And then there is the bottom of the barrel, that are beyond ugly. Since everyone has their own lists and taste (some people actually like the flags I am going to describe), I thought of describing my own five. Now don't worry here, as I wont include state flags, city flags or other flags, so the notorious Liberian county flags won't get a mention now. Country flags only, and those that are officially in use to date.

Number 5: the flag of Singapore

The current design of the Singapura has put me on the wrong track for such a long long time, assuming it was an Islamic country. But how could I tell, the crescent and stars look exactly like that in any other Islamic flag with this symbol in it. It was adopted in 1959 and I don't think it was a groundbreaking design to replace the former colonial flag. I don't like most flags with crescents in them, but including this in a terrible weak design make the atrocity levels hit through the roof. Just look at it; two horizontal bars in red and white, like Indonesia, Poland and Monaco. That's it, colonial flag out, the design that everyone wanted in, mission complete. As it was halfway down the 20th century, there was enough time to come up with a more original design. As it appears so, the already super dramatically run-of-the-mill, anything but spectacular same design of the Indonesian flag came 14 years before. And surprisingly,  the moon and the stars were later added to avoid getting mistaken with Indonesia, which is even more odd considering Indonesia are their southern neighbours.

Number 4: the flag of South Sudan

South Sudan is the worlds youngest new nation and they should welcome us with a groundbreaking new flag. I was really stunned when I saw the outcome. Now first things first. African nations follow the colours of the Pan-African flags that mostly consist of red, green and gold, but also black. It is no surprise that many African flags have these colours in them. And that's perfectly understandable,  the problem that I have with these designs is that they look like blatant copies of existing flags that have been around for many centuries, years and years and years in other continents before they were given an opportunity to design a new flag. And when they ran out of ideas they simply started copying each other. Take a look at the flag of Mali that seems exactly the same as the flag of Guinea, they just switched the order around. To add a bit of variety, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Cameroon added a trite tiny star. This doesn't look very pretty or creative in any way, but that's not to say I dislike them all. I think the Togo flag is pretty awesome though. By no means original, but cool enough to make it the best Pan-African flag around.

Now the flag of the republic of the Sudan looked very much like any other flag in the Middle East, I guess because of interconnectedness with Arab nations with the same flags of which the current design was based. Well, now that the south of Sudan has declared themselves a new nation as late as 2011, (flag was already adopted in 2005), I expected a crafty new designed spectacular marvel that we could add to our long history of world flags. Because after all, in these modern times you have special developing tools at your disposal, and access to all the historical records and knowledge in the world as well as professionals who are experienced in creating the most successful designs. In this day we no long have to sew and colour our flags by hand, but in this day and age we can print the most complex colours and designs in factories with state of the art printing equipment.  Anndd here it is, this is the result. It blew me away.



This abomination looks like it wasn't even designed by a human brain, as if the input some feed into a computer and let the computer randomly design and take patterns from existing flags and mix it all together. I don't get it. All countries in the world already have a flag for centuries and now new nations are given a chance to design something new that other countries don't have and you do exactly that! Copy other countries flags! Adding insult to injury they thought it was necessary to push the limit of colours to six, meaning that trying to understand what the colours stand for make the flag not only horrible in a visual way. The South Sudan flag now looks like a template of Kenya's with a Chevron and a star plastered over it. And even stars aren't very original anymore. That's not to say there isn't a single African flag I like, I do think Botswana's and Eswatini's look amazing. So yeah that's right, it's not called Swaziland anymore. Did you know that, I bet you need some time to get used to the new name. African countries are grandmasters at changing names, but not so much at designing good looking flags.

Number 3: the flag of Vietnam

After the war was over, north and south unified. So, I later found out the south had their own yellow flag with three red stripes in them and the north a yellow star on a red field. Sadly, they never designed a new flag from scratch and simply went with the flag of North-Vietnam, which is the most boring flag I can ever think of. There is not much to look at, and when you want to find out if the colours mean something in particular, then it wouldn't fare much better as the colour red represents struggle and bloodshed. I would say that's more reason to not have chosen this awful flag and the flag of South-Vietnam looked miles better in comparison. Couldn't they have created a flag that combined the yellow and red stripes, or merge the two flags into a good one, or at least a different type of red and yellow? When I discovered all the flags of the world as a kid, this was already my ugliest and most boring flag out of all of them and that hasn't changed much in thirty years. It could only be overtaken by any ugly flags that have been made recently.

fun fact: Despite its simplistic and very minimal looking design, the star on an empty field has been invented a century before Vietnam even created their flags. The big star flag was already in use for the Belgian Congo, West Florida and the "Bonnie Blue Flag" of the Confederate States. Even Somalia, who have the exact same flag, predate the Vietnam flag by 1 year if you don't count the exact shape of the star.

Number 2: the flag of Myanmar

Can it get worse than the flag of Vietnam? Yes, and the Vietnam's was already very bad. Behold, look out world, for the new flag of Myanmar. The old flag looked alright, what was the need to have it changed in the Lithuanian flag + Vietnam. I can't help it but seeing there is a star shaped hole in the flag. Do you see it too? They seem to have used theses colours before in the 1940s, but it was already in use by Lithuania's in the 1910s. They weren't allowed to use their colours again until the breakaway from the Soviet Union, but come on now. The new Myanmar flag was created in a time of the smartphone! Yes, that's right. Their new design is from 2010, barely a decade ago. They couldn't think of anything else?

Tie: the Maldives / Mauritania

Since they have much in common they both deserve to be in the number 1 spot. They both look hideous and appear to bear striking similar features. Let's analyze the Maldives flag first. The tiny island nation of the Maldives adopted their flag in 1965 when they gained independence from the UK. And with a population of that was likely of half of 400.000 back then, a new flag to represent their new nation was desperately needed. It was designed by the sultan Abdul Majeed, who died thirteen years before, so that goes to show that they didn't take much effort to get into the design room and come up with some smashing ideas.

Now I think we can all agree here, I read a lot on the Internet, and I've seen the flag of the Maldives  included in many top-ugliest flag lists. The red doesn't go well with green. Usually flags with green and red get around that by adding white or black, but this is beyond ugly. The surrounding border isn't seen in a lot of flags today, but since they chose red for the border it makes the flag look awful. And why is Islamic faith predominantly the main focus in the design? Is that the most important in the country? Not freedom, peace, justice, progression, achievement, harmony, natural wonders, but only Islam?? Apparently the Maldives has a history that spans over 2500 years. That's quite a long time. Why not add something from that time in the flag that has historical value, like an artifact or a relic? Why not legacy, heritage, pride, something symbolically, like a stylized emblem of something very native to the Maldives which can only be found in this archipelago. But no, it's just Islam. Done. No more questions please. Now there are three colours consisting of gold, green and red. Green usually represents Islam in any other Islamic flag, but here it was based of the earlier noted pan-African colours, which means the green represents something else. Now according to information I've found, the red stands for the willingness of the people to prize their blood, to defend their territory.

Let's now look at the 'new' flag of Mauritania. This flag looks so very similar to the flag of the Maldives that it's almost unreal. I always thought this flag is the most hideous flag I've ever seen, but they adjusted it very recently to make it even uglier. Since 2017, yes >>>that's only three years ago<<<, they thought it was essential to "update" the flag with two red bars. Why the red bars? I couldn't believe it, when I found out that the red means exactly the same as the flag of the Maldives. Namely, the willingness of the people to fight to the death for this country. Which means that these flags are very violent! If they can change the flag with the drop of a hat, why not completely redesign the flag? A unique landmark of Mauritania seems to be eye of the Sahara, wouldn't that be the best reason to include that in a new flag? Or anything else besides Islamic faith? Anyway, which of the two flags is the worst? At one hand the Mauritania flag looks at least a bit better when it is hanging vertical, but on the other hand it was updated in 2017! And the red bars now make it look even more awfull in sphere shapes pictograms. Which means you are the worlds biggest loser, or the biggest winner, depending how you look at it.

 

One more thing, one more thing. I find these news articles very amusing, in which they act like the recent flag update is their biggest achievement in the past hundred years. 

voorbeelden van opmerkelijke woorden die iedere Nederlander gebruikt, niet per definitie fout zijn en je toch vaak tegenkomt

Niet mijn bedoeling om op alle slakken zout te leggen, slechts een artikeltje over enkele woorden die jij vrijwel zeker zo uitspreekt of gebruikt omdat we het niet beter weten. Dit hoeft dus niet fout te zijn. Niet per se, althans. Laten we eens beginnen met het eerste voorbeeld:

zonnebrandcreme

Kijk eens goed naar dit woord en probeer te raden wat er vreemd aan is.  Zou het wellicht zonnebrandcrème moeten zijn of zonnenbrandcreme? Zonnebrand is juist de schade die langdurige blootstelling aan sterk zonlicht aanricht en die wil je absoluut voorkomen. Correcter zou dus zijn anti-zonnebrand. Valt het ook op hoe weinig dit woord te horen is? Hetzelfde komt ook vaak voor bij het woord stressballetje waarbij ik aanneem dat je juist van de stress verlicht wilt worden!!

Dat terwijl iedereen toch zeker antibiotica, antidepressieva of anticonceptie zegt zonder anti weg te laten.

lastig

Er gaat geen dag voorbij of ik hoor dit overgebrukte woord honderden keren langskomen. Het woord lastig heeft inmiddels vele synoniemen gekregen, maar wordt tegenwoordig als vast woord overal wel voor gebruikt. Volgens mijn Kramer's woorenboek van de vijfde oplage van de negentiende druk te 1980 van de eerste druk uit 1946 zou lastig in de allereerste plaats: moeilijk of hinderlijk betekenen. Tegenwoordig wordt onder dit woord van alles en nog wat verstaan, zoals vervelend, storend, veeleisend, onaangenaam, gecompliceerd, welke slechts een greep voorbeelden zijn van de vele woorden die momenteel met lastig bedoeld worden. Dus, een beetje creatief zijn met je taalgebruik en variatie gebruiken in plaats van dit woord kan zeker geen kwaad.

zelf

een groot mysterie waarom zoveel landgenoten de taal optooien door het woord zelf achter elk verbum finitum te plaatsen. Wat is het verschil dan tussen 1) ik woon zelf in Bazel 2) ik woon in Bazel? Voorbeeld 2 volstaat volledig, natuurlijk woon je zelf in Bazel. Je kunt toch niet namens iemand anders in Bazel wonen? Ik snap uiteraard wat er mee wordt bedoeld, maar wat is de noodzaak van het woordje zelf dan? Als ik met deze trefwoorden op zoek ga naar voorbeelden op het internet, dan kom ik al meteen uit bij ene Jasper Smit die een liedje een titel geven heeft: Ik heb zelf iemand gepest. Ehh... wat zou eigenlijk het verschil zijn tussen ik heb iemand gepest of ik heb zelf iemand gepest? Kan iemand mij dit uitleggen? Kun je ook iemand pesten met de hulp van een ander iemand?

XL

We weten allemaal waar xl voor staat. En als je dat weet, waarom spreken we de x dan uit op zijn Nederlands? Hetzelfde gebeurt ook met de spelcomputer van Microsoft, de Xbox. Het is overduidelijk een Engels woord, waarom zeggen we met zijn allen dan "iks" in plaats van "eks"? Dat zou net zo raar zijn als je playstation uitspreekt als plee-station, met station klinkend als in treinstation.

arm uit de kom 

 

arm uit de kom is sowieso al fout. Het komt spordadisch voor dat men het heeft over arm uit de kom in plaats van schouder uit de kom. Echter betreft dit de beschrijving van een medische situatie in plaats van de verwonding in kwestie, deze staat bekend als ontwrichting of luxatie. Luxatie/ontwrichting van de schouder, of schouderluxatie / schouderontwrichting is dus het juiste woord.

50 procent

 

Net als met het woordje lastig is "50 procent" ook een populaire woordkeuze die je dagelijks hoort en ziet. Laten we eens een praktijkvoorbeeld erbij pakken en het eerste resultaat analyseren dat we op het internet tegenkomen:

-Aantal voertuigkilometers met 50 procent toegenomen

Nov 19, 2019 - Het aantal kilometers dat met Nederlandse motorvoertuigen per jaar wordt afgelegd is in de periode van 1990 tot en met 2018 met 50 procent toegenomen.

Ik vind het alleen al opvallend waarom 50 wordt genoteerd als een getal en het procentteken achterwege wordt gelaten. In zo'n geval is het 50 %  òf vijftig procent, niet alletwee gecombineerd. En waarom "vijftig procent" in plaats van gehalveerd of verdubbeld? Of een verlaging met de helft of toename met de helft? Procenten zijn voor mij indicaties dat iets moeilijk is in te schatten of in hoeveelheden uit te drukken, maar als het om iets zeer eenvoudigs als de helft gaat zijn procenten vrijwel onnodig. 

 
 

goed en beter

 

Ik hoor dit steeds vaker en ik vraag me af waar dit vandaan komt? Heeft er altijd al een overtreffende trap bestaan van bijvoorbeeld de infinitief opletten? Ik dacht dat opletten al de uiterste mogelijkheid was, je let op of niet. Als je goed opletten zegt, dan snap ik natuurlijk wat je bedoelt, maar is dit niet overbodig? Dan is er kennelijk ook nog beter opletten? Wat volgt daarna als verdere overtreffing? Best opgelet? Of nog veel beter opletten?

gruyere 

 

Mijn favoriete woord op dit lijstje. Probeer het eerst maar eens tien keer uit te spreken en klik dan vervolgens om de echte uitspraak te onthullen. 7 uit 10 dat dit als een verrassing aankomt! Ik heb zeer vaak mensen dit op een nep-Franse manier horen uitspreken. Er is natuurlijk geen enkele Franstalige die gruyère zegt met een scherpe g-klank als in Groningen, een dubbele rollende r en een lange vol uitgesproken e op het einde. Deze kaassoort is overigens vernoemd naar het plaatsje Gruyères in het franstalige gedeelte van Zwitserland.

 

paella

 

Dit is een vermaard Spaans gerecht dat zijn oorsprong kent uit de streek Valencia en dan moet je de echte Spaanse uitspraak ook weten. Waarom zoveel mensen waaronder ook Duitsers dit uitspreken als pa-el-ja zonder dat dit er ook maar een beetje staat is verwonderlijk. Voorkom dus dat je in het buitenland voor aap staat.

 

bodywarmer

 

Weer een weddenschapje doen? 10 uit 10 dat jullie denken dat dit een bestaand Engels woord is. Echter is dit alleen bij ons bekend. Bodywarmer is een Nederlands bedenksel, niet alleen zijn body en warmer twee losse woorden, Engelstaligen verstaan onder body warmer heel iets anders. Wederom, voorkom dat je in het buitenland voor paal staat.

bonusvoorbeelden: 

incheken is een geheel verkeerd nep-Engels woord dat in het Engels nooit gebruikt wordt voor het openbaar vervoer. Daar heet het tapping in/scanning in/touching in (off). Inchecken gebruikt men enkel voor hotels en vluchten. Ik had liever ook dat we het met zijn allen inklokken of aanmelden hadden genoemd, maar daarvoor is het nu veel te laat. The damage is done!!

Internationale reizigers zullen ook vreemd opkijken als ze ons woord tax-free zien. In het Engels spreekt men eerder over duty free.

 

van de vorige eeuw

Sinds de teller van 1999 overging naar 2000 begonnen velen ineens "van de vorige eeuw" toe te voegen aan hun zinnen als ze het over een jaartal hadden die begon met de getallen, 19--. De jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw klinkt overbodig. We zitten nog lang niet in de jaren tachtig van deze eeuw en het lijkt me ondenkbaar dat de meesten die dit roepen lang genoeg leven om 2080 nog te gaan meemaken. Als het nog verder terug is dan zegt men vanzelf het correcte jaartal van de eeuw erbij. Met andere woorden, we zijn niet achterlijk. Dat zou net zoiets zijn als dat je zou zeggen dat je een kaartspel speelt met een spel kaarten of dat een scheidsrechter fluit op zijn fluitje.

in hart en nieren

Is er niet iets raars aan deze uitspraak? Het lijkt alsof een sportliefhebber dit ooit heeft verzonnen en velen dit zijn gaan nazeggen. Is het niet gewoon met hart en ziel, in volle overtuiging of overgave, met lichaam en geest? Wat hebben de nieren er mee maken?

te allen tijde

 

Dit is een ouderwets synoniem voor de woorden altijd of op elk moment en omdat het stamt uit een tijd waarin er nog naamvallen werden toegepast heeft dit een verplichte vorm. Het woord is sterk verouderd, maar als het dan toch nog gebruikt wordt, doe dat dan wel op de juiste manier. Ik vind het behoorijk knap als het men lukt om het precies om te draaien naar ten alle tijden of ten allen tijden. En zelfs te alle tijde ben ik ook wel eens tegengekomen.

eurocent

Stel je koopt een nieuwe auto en je hebt hem inmiddels al twintig jaar. Blijf je dan na die tijd nog steeds zeggen dat je auto nieuw is? Toch zijn er nog steeds een hoop mensen die de centen eurocenten blijven noemen. Ik kan me niet herinneren dat er ooit iemand het had over guldencenten, echt niet. Daarnaast is het ook opmerkelijk dat het woord cent altijd in enkelvoud wordt uitgedrukt. Wel eens over nagedacht dat je het telkens hebt over vijftig cent en nooit vijftig centen?

vadsig 

 

vadsig betekent lui en traag, maar als ik moderne woordenboeken mag geloven betekent het nu ook voorgoed dat iemand dik of mollig is. De vanDale vermeldt dat bijvoorbeeld en andere online woordenboeken. Het is dan ook aan jou wat je bereid bent te geloven. Het betekent nog steeds loom, lui, slaperig of traag, maar als we het met zijn allen maar vaak genoeg blijven zeggen, dan krijgt het woord vanzelf de gewenste betekenis. Ik vermoed dat Hans Teeuwen dit woord ongekend populair heeft gemaakt. 

 

grill / grillen 

 

overduidelijk een geheel ingeburgerd Engels woord voor roosteren, maar het verbaast me waarom zoveel mensen het dan ook uitspreken met een harde g-klank als in goed en de l te verkorten zodat het klinkt als gguh-ril. Uiteraard houdt natuurlijk niets je tegen om ons eigen woord roosteren te blijven gebruiken.

te danken

 

Het is zo eenvoudig en toch gebruikt men alleen te danken en niet te wijten wanneer dat van toepassing is. Te danken gebruik je alleen wanneer het in een positieve context is. Het is aan jou te danken dat ik mijn vlucht gemist heb! Nou, graag gedaan.

vliegveld

Weddenschapje doen? Ik durf te wedden dat jij het eerder hebt over een vliegveld dan over een luchthaven en ik vermoed dat het bij ons zit ingebakken. In vrijwel alle Romaanse talen en in het Engels heeft men het over een aeroporto, et cetera. Ook in het Duits spreekt men over een Flughafen. Kijken we naar Scandinavische talen dan komen we bijvoorbeeld lufthavn tegen in het Deens. Alhoewel in het Zweeds we het woord flygplats tegenkomen. Komt ons gebruik van het woord vliegveld daar dan vandaan? Nou, zoals je weet is het Afrikaans een verouderde vorm van het Nederlands zoals die ooit bij ons werd gesproken, en driemaal raden hoe de Afrikaners het noemen: jawel, een lughawe. Is dit toeval??!!!

zie ook: elke luchthaven is een vliegveld, maar niet elke vliegveld is een luchthaven.

vinyl

 

vinyl is in het Nederlands een onbestaand woord en voorheen kende ik dit alleen als een soort vloerbedekking. Tegenwoordig is deze term overgewaaid uit de Engelstalige landen als vervanger van de langspeelplaten, lp's of gewoon platen. Net als in de guldentijdperk niemand sprak over guldencenten, hoorde ik het woord vinyl nauwelijks. Uitzonderingen daargelaten, dat waren de experts die het mooi wilden verwoorden net zoals een film in een zeldzaam geval een motion picture wordt genoemd. En als iemand het in die tijd vinyl noemde, dachten wij massaal huh??? Wist je trouwens dat de Duitsers hier een schitterend mooi woord voor hebben? Schallplatten. Prachtig woord, mijn favoriete Duitse woord is dan ook Schallplattenspieler.

ziekte van Lyme

Dit is een vervelend langdurige bacteriele ziekte waar ik het liever niet over heb. De ziekte werd vernoemd naar het dorp Lyme aan de oostkust van de VS en is dus geen eponiem. Is het wel eens opgevallen dat in het Engels men spreekt over Alzheimer's disease of Parkinson's disease, maar dat men dat niet doet met Lyme. Daar zit geen bezits-s aan vast. Het klinkt afwijkend als je Lyme ziekte of de ziekte Lyme zegt met het woordje "van" weggelaten. En dat is omdat dit geheel is ingeburgerd in onze taal.

Amerika

In mijn vorige voorbeeld had ik het over de Verenigde Staten en niet over Amerika. Het is natuurlijk niet fout om dat te zeggen. Toch verbaas ik me wel hoe vaak Nederlanders het hebben over Amerika. Zullen die mensen zich wel eens achter hun oren krabben als Amerika teruggevonden wordt onder de benaming United States? Of United States of America? En dat je Amerikaanse vrienden het telkens hebben over the US of USA?

De Nederlandse regisseur Dick Maas filmde in 1991 een vervolg op Flodder dat hij Flodder in Amerika! noemde. Ik heb natuurlijk wel begrepen dat Flodder in de VS niet zo lekker pakkend klinkt als Flodder in Amerika! en wat nog vreemder is dat de film in kwestie slechts plaats vond in New York stad, dus de suggestie dat we meer van "Amerika" zouden gaan zien was ook een beetje misleiding.

Vele Nederlanders spreken ook over Engeland, en dat ligt eigenlijk een beetje gecompliceerd..of zou ik moeten zeggen, lastig?? Klik daarvoor op deze webschakel. Alhoewel refereren aan Engeland of Schotland zeker niet fout is, zul je toch gaan merken dat ze het land het Verenigd Koninkrijk noemen; the UK, United Kingdom. In bepaalde gevallen beledig je ze zelfs als je een Schot of een Engelsman geen Brit noemt. Er zit zeker verschil in. Als ik op teevee sprekers hoor stellen dat het NHS een gezondheidsstelsel van Engeland is, dan is dat natuurlijk hartstikke vals. Andersom moet je ook oppassen door niet de vergissing te maken wat wel tot Engeland of Schotland behoort en wat tot het gehele Verenigd Koninkrijk. Het grootste meer van Engeland is bijvoorbeeld Windermere, het grootste meer van Groot-Brittanie is Loch Lommond in Schotland, maar het grootste meer van het Verenigd Koninkrijk is dan weer Lough Neagh in Noord-Ierland.

eh, nee...dat is de vlag van het Verenigd Koninkrijk

Britse vlag, Britse...

Neen!...Nee

Honduras

 

Weer een weddenschapje doen? Ik weet wel zeker dat jij dit uitspreekt als Hondoeras. Waarom? Je zegt toch ook geen Boelgarije? Tja, stel dat we deze naam op zijn Spaans uitspreken. Dan gaat die vlieger ook niet op, want Spaanstaligen spreken de h niet uit. Is het dan Engels? Ook niet, want Engelstaligen zeggen geen Hondoeras.

Milan / Ibiza

 

Na wat onderzoek heb ik ontdekt dat het de Italianen zelf zijn die hun stad Milano uitspreken als Milan, met een ie-klank als in het woord vies. Uiterst opmerkelijk is dan, dat wij in Nederland die gewoonte hebben overgenomen. Daar hebben we toch de benaming Milaan voor? Mie-lan, lijkt me echt niet nodig. Daarnaast noemen ook de Engelstaligen het niet zo, die spreken Milan uit met de i-klank als in vis en de klemtoon op de laatste lettergreep.

Een vergelijkbaar voorbeeld is Ibiza. Dit is niet alleen de naam van een Spaans eilandje in de Middellandse zee, maar ook van een motorvoertuigtype de Seat Ibiza. En onze ingeburgerde uitspraak van het woord Ibiza is uiterst merkwaardig te noemen. De Nederlandse muziekgroep the Vengaboys maakten zich in 1999 een beetje belachelijk door een liedje over Ibiza te zingen op een manier zoals geen enkele Spaanstalige of Engelstalige het ooit zou uitspreken. Niet voor niets werd er gegrapt, dat men zou zingen: "whoaa, we are going to eat PIZZA!, whoaa straight from the oven!"

hoe dan ook; hoeveel hadden jullie er goed?

New Sonic the Hedgehog movie trailer out and it looks very promising

OK, so as I finished my list of live action movie disappointments where I talked about the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie, only a few days later the revised trailer is released. I didn't have much hope after I saw the original trailer and usually executives never listen to the audience. Even if the feedback they receive to the first trailers are negative they act like they aren't aware of it and still push the movie no matter what. At first I was surprised that for once, a movie studio actually valued the opinions of the fans and this time promised to have Sonic redesigned which is why the new release date is now scheduled for next year. And here it is:

I didn't think it would matter much because changing Sonic wouldn't mean that they also reshoot parts of the movie. But piping hot greasy meatballs, this new trailer blew me away. Not only does Sonic look a million billion trillion times better as before, but now he also looks cool, cute and adorable. Thankfully he doesn't look as cocky as in the later Sonic video games, for example the notorious Sonic 06 (oh how I hate that video game). He looks so stunning to look at, that you won't feel distracted making it much easier to focus on the jokes and the story. I would even go as far as to say that if this would create a new line of merchandise, that I would purchase a stuffed Sonic doll on the conditions that he looks exactly the way he is in this movie. There are several references to the video games or Easter eggs that us fans recognize and appreciate. The first screens in the opening part of the trailer are clearly from Green Hill zone and it looks AMAZING. I wished the whole movie could take place in this Sonic universe, but if they could create it as good as this then it's fair enough. But more importantly, the rest of the trailer has changed as well. The story now actually looks interesting and the jokes are funny. I laughed loud once, and after rewatching I laughed more and more which is a sign that the movie gets better the more you see it. Jim Carrey still looks more like himself with a vintage mustache instead of the characteristic Eggman, but he seems fantastic so that stays a minor nitpick. And finally, they changed the music too which is now much better. A tune in the trailer is by JJ Fad -Supersonic from 1988. I grew up with this music, and I find this choice very clever perhaps a nod to his powers after collection all the chaos emeralds. Even the poster is now a huge improvement, even though I don't like as mentioned before, Jim Carrey looks too much as himself and very little like dr Robotnik. I haven't been to the cinema for years and I haven't had this itch to see a movie for a long time. And together with Joker & the return of the killer klowns in 3D (still not known much about the current status), this Sonic the Hedgehog is the only movie I am really looking forward to go see.

Live Action Movies: 30 years of excruciating pain

When I was a teenager, I liked video games so much that I couldn't tell if I was addicted. I enjoyed many games on personal computers and home systems, such as the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive. One of those game franchises was Sonic, which was the first Sonic game and included with the base system. Sonic was a great game, there were tons of video games that I liked during this period, but Sonic games always had pleasant spot in my memories for its fantastic music, that sounded so good that to this day I am playing these tunes on my piano. And to be honest here, there never was a good Sonic game after the first three on the Sega Megadrive as well as the first Sonic games on the Sega Master System II. Now, almost 30 years after the franchise started, there is a Sonic movie announced, simply called Sonic the Hedgehog. With a title like that, a Sonic player like me who played Sonic since the day it came out, expects a movie completely CG animated, taking place in Green Hill Zone with checkered landscapes, waterfalls, kaleidoscope flowers, roller coaster inversions, Flickies that Sonic had to set free and eight collectable chaos emeralds that could turn him into Super Sonic. Will all of that be included in the live-action movie adaptation? Well, -sigh- the trailer doesn't give you that impression, right? You know what, before we analyse the latest Sonic trailer let's take a look at some live action movies based on video games, (comic) books and Japanese anime/manga of the past 30 years:

Popeye (1980)

IMDB / votes: 5.2 / 27416

As a young child I always loved the 30s/40s short cartoons, but somehow also read the comic books that were most likely made in the eighties. When I saw sneak preview pictures in the magazines back in the day, it showed Robin Williams with his characteristic pipe and forearms. Popeye beating up punks, eating spinach which make battle ships appear on his biceps, while blasting steam through his pipe, there was no way this could disappoint!

However it turned out to be more like a musical drama than a live-action cartoon. Unfortunately, It doesn't look like that promising movie poster pictured above. I suppose they couldn't make the movie 114 minutes long with Popeye punching goons from the Popeye universe around, but this didn't look like the cartoons much. Popeye didn't even like spinach in this movie, that alone says it all. They did an average job making Robin Williams look like Popeye and Shelley Duvall like Olive Oyl, but Bluto looks like any generic unshaven fat man. Overall it failed to capture the real spirit of the cartoons. When I think back of this movie I don't hate it anymore and I will watch it again. I even enjoyed the odd songs such as Everything is Food, which is missing on the movie score album for some reason.

Now here is some stuff to watch out for. In the beginning of the movie, when Olive Oyl is showing Popeye his room, he ascends the stairs but the far end of his duffle bag seems to touch her mother's breasts as she quickly holds her hands up in front of them to prevent it from happening again. I always found this very out of place. Did that accidentally happen or was it a part of the script?

Most of the budget was spent on the set and here is Bluto literally tearing down half of the stage during the song "I'm mean". Aren't those props supposed to be expensive? A breakaway baseball bat alone can cost as much as a hundred dollars. I think this is easily the weirdest but also best part of the movie.

Garbage Pail Kids: the Movie (1987)

IMDB / votes:  2.6 / 7116

The Garbage Pail Kids trading cards series were a huge hit back in the eighties, say the abbreviation GPK and us kids knew what you were talking about. The drawings were fascinating and I have a big card collection to this day. Sadly here in Europe, the most countries at least, didn't get the standard card format but the smaller sticker in poorer quality. Discovering we didn't get the real US issues was  an immense revelation. The cards were hugely popular, so what did they do, make a movie of course!

OK, so I cut right to the chase, here is an overview of some of the problems I have with this live-action movie:
1) How could you possibly make an entire movie based on a couple of trading cards, which were still images of a variety of gags?
2) Why did the writers take the title too literally? The name was a parody on the Cabbage Patch Kids, which especially everyone in North-America was aware of, so why bring garbage pail cans into it?
3) Seeing that Valery Vomit was a chosen 'card' as a character, it means that they had so much to choose from as it was number 251 from the 7th series. These seven choices were the best characters they could build a story around?
4) Most of the humorous images depicted little kids, often as babies in nappies, upchucking & picking noses, mutilating themselves; gross out toilet humour. How could that possibly translate into a movie?
5) most of the character representation did hardly look like their card counterparts and instead look disgraceful. Most of the Garbage Pail Kids chosen for this movie, reminded me more of little Diego Maradona's. In the trading cards they always had puffy, round faces with spiky, yarn-like hair but these GPK here look more like evil goblins with nappy hair. As far as my knowledge goes the notorious Cabbage Kids infringement Lawsuit to prevent the likeness being used didn't happen until the 10th GPK series


The plot of the film seems to revolve around a bullied young boy who wants to be a fashion designer in a town where it is a crime to be ugly. He somehow ended up with a magician named Mancini where he meets the Garbage Pail Kids and eventually some girls that want to run a fashion show. I don't need to tell you the entire story to explain that the plot is incredibly stupid. Everything sucks beyond believe. The human actors have stupid movie names, the Garbage Pail Kids do nothing else besides pissing and farting and there is none of the humour you could find on the trading cards. They may as well have made the plot around the strip of chewing gum that came with every pack, that would have made more sense. With 2.6 IDMB rating it is no surprise that this live-action movie is notorious for being one of the worst movies ever made.


There's some stuff in particular that I found very out of place! In a terrible GPK movie yes, but hear me out. I always thought it was getting a bit racy, when the garbage pail kids start ripping the models clothes off during the fashion show. Some of the girls run around half naked and that girl in the pink bikini has quite a rack. I mean, why did they put that in a kids movie?

Masters of the Universe (1987)

IMDB / votes: 5.4 / 34501

The he-man action figures and the cartoon have always been a part of my childhood. I was actually crazy about the Transformers, but he-man would be a runner up. The toys were hugely successful and I think when the movie was released on VHS, it was also one of our first video store rentals.

A battle fought on the stars, now comes to earth. That's what the movie poster tagline says. That should come off as a warning, because the movie mostly takes places in our world. There hardly is any Eternia or Grayskull, but seriously that is the least of my worries. I wouldn't think it was too bad if He-Man characters were pulled into our modern society, but the real problem is that they introduce these stock characters from our time that are written into the story nobody cares for and in most live-action adaptation eat away half of the movie running time. No one cares about these unknown characters that aren't part of the He-Man universe! Why would anyone be interested in earth people you never heard of before, Julie, Kevin, their parents, Detective Lubic, because it's always the same. The characters that don't belong in our world are always protected by everyday earth people and then police are after them because they are suspecting aliens, and the earth people have to hide them away from the police. Same old, same old. Do filmmakers really expect that anyone is begging for these stupid side-plots that have nothing to do with the He-Man cartoons or is it simply an excuse to save on production costs? I mean, the more they make the movie about human side characters, the less time is spent on He-Man, special effects, costumes and backgrounds making him a background character in his own movie! I always thought this cartoon adaptation looks more like a Star Wars knock-off with a dash of Sword and Sorcery. Lots of characters from the toy figures or cartoon are missing, and I refuse to accept any excuses. I don't care whichever reason there was for these stupid decisions, why make Skeletor look like a Star Wars villain? Where is his typical devilish tone of voice and laughter like in the cartoons? I could go on for a while, but eventually I need to cut to the chase here. This movie adaptation scarred me for life as a kid. Back then I already knew it was a critical and a financial flop, and I don't feel bad about it. This whole movie just feels like it was done on purpose, you know the source material so why not stick with it?

the Witches (1990)

IMDB / votes: 6.8 / 32873

I never liked to read, and I still don't. However, there is only one author who could make me read. Novels by Roald Dahl were so fascinating that I wanted some of his books as birthday presents. I read his book the Witches when it was only five years old then. Roald Dahl had a special writing talent, he could come up with stories that attracted children because he knew how children would think and what their fears were. And that's exactly the case with his the Witches masterpiece. His late two books Matilda and the Witches, started of full of fun and adventure but its final conclusions were unexpected and depressing which in a way were a metaphor to children to realize that things in life aren't always what they seem and you can't always have it your way.

As you can already tell from the 6.8 IMDB rating, it's actually a good movie and a pretty faithful adaptation.The special effects and creature effects by no other than the great Jim Henson are outstanding. So, what's the problem then, you might ask? Well if you are a fan of the book, and if you are like me, and the ending made a devastating impression on you, then you are not gonna like what they did with this adaptation. Instead of staying a mouse for the rest of his life, the curse is lifted and Luke turns back into a human boy. That just kills the whole magic of the original story for me. According to Roald Dahl, he wasn't too amused with the alternate ending, and you can imagine why. They try to make a profit by turning one of Dahl's best books into a live-action flick and as a thank you or homage they change the best part of the story. If I was in his shoes I would feel offended.

Isn't it strange, that a Disney adaptation of Little Mermaid did the exact same change only one year before? As someone who was read the story to of the little mermaid before bedtime, that unhappy ending is what made the story so fantastic. It has deeper meanings in a way you could give it your own interpretation. What I also think did the movie no good are the character designs. Illustrations in the book were done by Quentin Blake and I always thought that they looked amateurish yet scary, but somehow they belong with that book and I will always associate the story with these images. Now take a look at the grand high witch, does she look anything like the googly eyed, skull-faced monstrosity as in the book?

The live-action adaptation of the Witches turns out not have been much of a financial success they were aiming for, and I think that serves them right. Isn't it a super creepy feeling that both Jim Henson and Roald Dahl died that same year?

NeverEnding story II: the Next Chapter (1990)

IMDB / votes: 5.2 / 22807

Here is another movie based on a world famous fantasy book. I want to cut a long story short, or else it will become a never ending story on its own. The first movie was a huge success, which was loved by many and the sequel was supposed to be based on the second half of the book. It didn't get made right after the first one, due to the original author filing lawsuits and thwarting as much as he could to prevent this movie being released, as to his view the movie adaptation excluded key elements and the true meaning of the story. So it took six years for the sequel to get made. And I imagine if he wasn't satisfied with the first movie, he would seriously get furious about this one. This sequel is very loosely based on the second half of the book, but managed to get it all wrong. It is big deception compared to the first movie and it has hurt my feelings so much that I wished I had never seen it. So basically I wished I could make a wish, like in the movie, that none of the sequels existed. As a result I would lose a memory, hopefully the memory of remembering how afwul this movie was.

Some things to watch for: at the credits roll it will show the name of Heidi Wujek, So you know who's responsible for abominable costume designs like this:

If you are interested to know more about this sequel, I recommend you Mike's review who does a great job of explaining how the movie adaptation didn't follow the book as well discussing many bad segments in the movie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

IMDB / votes:  4.8 / 29115

Every kid back in the early nineties knew the turtles as its success was immense with toy figures,  merchandise, the darker comic books, cartoons and numerous video games. Besides that there were two live action movies starring athletic stuntmen wearing special animatronic turtle costumes which was a selling point of the movies. In 1993 the popularity of TMNT was dwindling fast. I was surprised when unsuspectingly a third live-action movie was announced. They most definitely were giving all they've got to bring the TMNT back to the audiences and this time, we were going to see Bebop & Rocksteady, Krang & the Technodrome and everything else we've missed since the first two movies. This is gonna be epic!

I am surprised to discover that TMNT III was shot on a bigger budget than the 1990 TMNT movie, but significantly less than the sequel. Still everything screams shoestring budget in this 3rd movie. The locations, fight choreography, special effects and turtle costumes all look very cheap or non-existent, was it all wasted on the annoying Corey Feldman? So as a lack of well spend budget,  we get cheap turtle suits, cringe inducing immature jokes aimed at eight-year olds, an uninteresting dull story and none of the characters from the turtles universe. Instead you get to watch some historical Japanese warriors on horses versus some European sea traders in Japan, or in reality forests of Oregon. Yeah, a movie about a vendetta between a samurai and a European nobleman, exactly the TMNT movie everyone was waiting for. I wouldn't be surprised if this was initially gonna be a dull samurai vs pirates movie, but with the turtles in it at the very last moment which could be a reason for the godawful cheap turtle suits. I take it that the producers were aware of this, and to mask this, they let them wear even more idiotic samurai costumes and bulky helmets so you couldn't see their face movements. Imagine how gawky and cheesy that looks while riding horses or during fight scenes!! It fails completely as a TMNT movie, as a samurai vs pirates movie and a time travel movie. Because it is very unlike Bill & Ted or Back to the Future, you won't be reminded of time time travel like these movies did. Watch those instead!!

Also what's up with the constant fainting which we have seen in movies 799 million times before now.  I can understand that Michelangelo faints because he was hit by a bat to his amphibian noggin'. But if feels so cheap, as if the writers were clueless how to advance the story.

Did the actor who played Michealangelo pass out according to what was in the script, or were these cumbersome costumes simply too heavy for him to get up and they let that in the movie? Explains why the stupid line: "help, I am a turtle and I can't get up!" was in the movie. Oh, shame on you, Corey Feldman!

Oooh, me is gonna pass out.. because scriptwriters didn't know what to next. So I just fall down, it's getting dark around me... nighty night!!

AVGN did a lengthy movie review way back in 2007 and if you have never seen it before, you have missed one of the best TMNT III reviews ever done. Disclaimer: profanity

Dennis the Menace (1993)

IMDB / votes: 5.7 / 52713

The original black and white TV show was way before I was even born, but I was familiar with the comics. And when I was a kid, a cartoon series ran between 1986 and 1988, during these years I even saw reruns of the original 1959 sitcom on television.

When this 1993 big movie production came out, I expected it to be very funny but instead it was very lame and childish. It puzzles me to this day why they always make live-action movies of cartoons/sitcoms/books/toys, that mostly older generations know, and despite that turn it into a blatant kids movie. To describe some of the jokes, Mr Wilson who wants to demonstrate the blooming of an exotic flower, but Dennis interrupts his audience by a few seconds, just enough for everyone to miss this key moment. Yes, that is our humour here. Definitely not true to it's original sources.

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Rating IMDB:  4.0 / 46152

Everyone knows the Super Mario Brothers. Everyone knows what SMB stands for. The only person on the planet who didn't know who Mario was, is Bob Hoskins.

This is a really bad video game into movie translation, and maybe the worst one ever made. A movie that is full of blame. Everyone who took part in this movie is accountable for this train wreck of a movie, but finds a way somehow to blame it on something else. Production problems, directing problems, problems on the sets, script writers claiming not to know how to write a story for a Mario movie, constant script rewrites, actors drinking hard liquor on the set and Bob Hoskins claiming he didn't know anything about the Mario character (who at that time was already more recognizable than Mickey Mouse). I suppose it's casual to accept any role in a movie without doing any research, what if he agreed to play an notorious dictator or something? And I don't want to hear any more excuses, it's bad enough if you think it would go over well with the fans by having actors to play Super Mario characters without any costumes or make-up, just make them look like every day humans and call them Iggy or Koopa. More you don't have to do, right? Mario and Luigi look like normal people, and as far as I know that's because they are, but don't they belong in the Mushroom Kingdom? What does this blade runner world have to do with anything? By 1993 there were already nine years of Mario games to use as story inspiration, what were these excuses again? Overall, this movie tries to be so different from the video games as thinkable, that it is almost art. This total garbage of a movie is already a pain in the back to watch and it is full of let downs, but to me the worst part is having to see Mario growling as a hoarse show wrestler with a sore throat. What were they thinking!? Charles Martinet, the famous voice of Mario, has been providing his voice to Mario since 1992 which is maybe a bit early to adopt as a recognizable Mario voice for the movie. But come on, everyone was expecting him to speak with an Italian accent! It's striking that they were seriously considering a sequel with that many production issues. Bob Hoskins says "I believe" as an obvious cliffhanger and it's followed up with a stupid after credits joke where one of these morons that played the Koopa-kids, looks more like Luigi today than John Leguizamo ever did in the movie!! [click here to see his face] Although, who knows, it might be done as a middle finger to the critics who panned this movie, so I guess the joke is on me. 

Cinemassacre did a brilliant in depth review on super mario bros. you should check out. Nearly profanity-free.

 

Street Fighter (1994)

IMDB:  3.9 / 62109

As an adolescent teen in the early nineties, the video game Street Fighter II was simply a part of my life. There were times when I couldn't focus on anything else, I skipped school just to play this game. Now video games would cost a small fortune at the time. The only video game system it was available on was the SNES and the game alone was priced at €115, even more converted to today's inflation. The only way to play the Street Fighter games was at friend's homes, toy stores and at the arcades.

1994 I still didn't have SNES, but Super Street Fighter II turbo was the latest game and when I found out there was a movie announced,  I broke out the champagne.  It looked awesome in the magazines, there was no way this could be bad and a small consolation for not owning the game.
 
Super Mario and Street fighter are both staples in our rich video game history. I must cut to the chase by saying both movies are very similar. They both make the same mistakes and again there is a laundry list of trivia that explain the interference of Capcom who owned the rights, the delay in filming, the devastating heat in Thailand, Van Damme being a difficult person to work with, Raul Julia suffering from stomach cancer during filming, so with the exception of Raul Julia's serious health problems, there are no excuses for anything, and I don't want to hear it. It may have been a financial success but that's no surprise as everyone wanted to see a street fighter movie. I remember I did see this movie three times, and each time I could not tell what this movie was really about. First it's a long drawn out story about JCVD and his UN soldiers..whoops I meant Allied Nations, which drags on and on and on until the movie is half over, and you start to look at the clock asking yourself if something is gonna happen or what, and then the fights start everybody fighting each other, illogical things happen such as Charlie turns into Blanka and Dhalsim goes from a full head of hair to completely bald in a matter of seconds, making it hard to see the wood for the trees and there is one final fight with Raul Julia, who was too sick and inexperienced to pull off any fighting moves. Instead of the impossible to beat villain in the video game, he turns in a human punching bag. It's such an incoherent mess and has so little to do with the video game you'll question yourself if this was intended as a mockery or a parody. How could they mess up a video game license this bad? All they had to do, is make the story revolve around an actual fighting tournament. Believe it or not, this was with the involvement of Capcom Japan who had a significant say in the production. You mean to tell me that they hired JCVD and then make the movie go into a different direction from all the tournament fighting movies he was famous for? You mean to tell me that they chose filming locations in Thailand, but didn't use them as a Sagat stage? It's ironic that Jackie Chan spoofed Street Fighter in a movie, called sing Si Lip Yan / City Hunter 1993, that is funnier to watch and has more ties with the video game and came one year before! Click here to see the scene.There is another Street Fighter movie called Chao Ji Xue Xiao Ba Wang / Future Cops 1993 that I haven't seen yet, but I bet it's much better than the official Street Fighter movie.  To wrap it up with a review you should watch, here is one which is almost twelve years old by now by Jedite1, be advised that he uses he lot of profanity.

Part I | Part II | Part III

So not only would that small parody portion in City Hunter on its own already be a much better Street Fighter movie, so are several other movies. Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger smashes up a car in Terminator 3? How I wished it was in this Street Fighter movie!

Welcome to bonus stage

Fist of the Northstar (1995)

IMDB:  3.9 / 2917

True story here, as kids we were wondering if the animators could ran out of red ink in the very early minutes of the running time. That's how to describe how bloody, gory and violent this anime from 1986 was. I am a huuuge Hokuto no Ken fan and still am today. There are manga books, anime movies, tv series, lots of merchandise and video games on Hokuto no Ken. Even though the tv series are from the mid-eighties, new Hokuto no Ken stuff is still being made in the past few years. This Japanese action hero is big, although I've always found Kenshiro a bit of a knock-off, with inspiration from Rambo, Mad Max and Bruce Lee, he still is a very original character on its own and in a way, I think he is way cooler than any super hero ever created.

Ok, for the record. I deliberately looked for these two pictures because at least the Japanese distributors tried their best they could to make the cover less insulting and made the live-action Kenshiro stand in the exact same fighting stance. But is it really Gary Daniels on the cover? If so where was he doing that in this laughable westernized adaptation of the 1986 anime movie? Most notorious is the scene where he beats a few goons up, who look nothing like the gangsters from the anime, and then pulls off his Hyakuretsu Ken or in plain English, his most seen hundred crack fist with a finishing punch. That last punch usually results in exploded heads. I've seen this part of the movie countless times, and it's the only part of the movie worth watching. If you are like me, and you are a long time fan of the anime / manga, than there is no other way to see this as a hilarious parody. Sadly, that's the only redeeming part of the movie. It is not completely terrible though and maybe a Hokuto no Ken movie (as a fan, you gotta call it by it's real name) you somehow expect a Hokuto no Ken live-action movie can't be made. Because if it were, then the Japanese would already have made one by now. It seems to have been written by Tony Randel who also did the directing, but I question myself if he really knew much about the franchise or did he watch the Hokuto no Ken movie one late night on television and said to himself. Hmm, let's turn that into a movie with just what I saw from memory and a notepad. That's the overall impression this movie gives me, because there is so much missing from the anime for which there is no excuse.

Below is snapshot from the movie Story of Rik-oh, which is a faithful live-action adaptation of a Japanese Anime of the same name, and look at that gratuitous graphic violence. He convincingly punches the top of someone's head off. Can you believe that an R-rated live-action movie that isn't Fist of the North Star actually looks more like the Fist of the North Star we were expecting to see?

the Phantom (1996)

IMDB / votes:  4.9 / 30861

I can be concise here, I don't know much about the Phantom. We used to make jokes about his purple spandex body suit, so much so that we couldn't take this seriously. How he might be the parody-hero and how anyone would ever go see this move. We were not the only ones. Apparently lots of people thought the same which resulted in a box-office bomb. Most striking is that Billy Zane, which I think is an awesome actor, signed a three movie deal as they were originally planning to make two sequels. After the movie flopped that idea was immediately scrapped. When I look back at this movie, it's no wonder to me why it tanked. It's incredibly boring and dull, in no way can that be faithful to its source material. For example, Phantom jumps from a bi-plane onto a horse. Where did they get that idea? That either has to be the slowest flying plane or the fastest horse on earth. And what I think is the worst part of this live-action attempt is that flops like these always get green-lit, but only one year later a movie I was really interested in gets cancelled during pre-production: Superman Lives! Oh boy, I would almost dash to the nearest cinema to see this even faster. And it would have been directed by the great Tim Burton, who pre-millennium only made awesome movies. But no, make way for the Phantom.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

IMDB / votes:  3.7 / 43605

If you loved video games in the early nineties, and Street Fighter II was one of your favourite games, then you played the Mortal Kombat games too, which was the only franchise that could seriously be the only competitor to Streetfighter II. Mortal Kombat spelled with a K, or simply two letters 'MK' were synonymous to ultra graphic violence and battles to the death.That's how massively popular the franchise became. Ripping out hearts, decapitating heads or pushing your opponent into a pit full of sharp spikes were some of its gaming elements.

I never had any desire to see any of the two Mortal Kombat movies, although I did see Annihilation in the cinema when it was out. It's obvious that they won't include any controversial key elements that it was known for. It is hard to believe that the spiritual fathers of the franchise were responsible for most of the script. I admit, to a point, it's understandable that you cannot turn this into a gruesome horror movie were you get to see bloody decapitations or people burst into flames, not if you want to attract as many kids as possible, so it's gonna be PG13. Umm, yes, but could they at least make it look like the games it is based on? There never have been any secrets that the original Mortal Kombat got its inspiration from other movies such as 1973 Enter the Dragon and 1986 Big Trouble in Little China, so why make the first movie look like a generic battle tournament in Thailand? Why does it have to take place in Asia, wasn't the tournament not being held in some sort of outworld or 5th dimension? Some characters didn't resemble their video game counterparts. Raiden looks more like a wise white wizard to me, probably so because Christopher Lambert was top billed and main star of the movie. At the end of the first movie it is clear that there would be a sequel. And that movie was made two years later in 1997. This time they didn't title it as a sequel but gave it a caption: Annihilation. This confused me enormously, because you couldn't tell what video game it was based on. The arcade version of Mortal Kombat 4 was already out that year. This is what Hollywood always does, either slap a very confusing, generic name on the posters or name the movie directly after its video game/book/comic title. To sum up what the 1997 Mortal Kombat movie looked like: it reminded me of the low budget ninja movies with very cheap special effects and use of blue screens. And no way: watchmojo has created a video about worst Ninja Movies which includes MK: Annihilation, isn't that striking? There are awkward, campy battles thrown all over the place, with no character development whatsoever, Shao Kahn even turns out to be Raiden brother, dun dun dunnnn! As bad as MK: Annihilation is, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think that someday all the bad effects and cgi will make it a movie so ugly it's almost art. There is no hate here. At least it feels more like a Mortal Kombat movie than Street Fighter was a Street Fighter movie.

Look at that CGI. As infamous as the man-eating meatballs in the Langoliers.

Finish him! Liu Kang wins, flawless victory, fatality. Actually, that picture below is from the awesome movie Story of Rik-oh which surprising looks more like a Mortal Kombat movie or fist of the north star movie than MK: Annihilation.

Now I have heard on and on constantly about a Mortal Kombat movie remake slash reboot but so far nothing much has been scheduled besides a plan for 2021 which will take a while to complete. Rumoured director is James Wan, known for the first SAW horror movie, but the creator of the franchise, Ed Boon, will also be involved. Over the years, the Mortal Kombat games evolved into body builder steroid pumped up fighter characters with 300x the violence and blood that make the first MK game look like a Mixed-UP Mother Goose fairy tale video game. Oh gee whiz, I wonder if this time, they get it right and make Mortal Kombat an R-rated horror movie that will be faithful to the current ultra-violent video games?? In other words, I won't be holding my breath.

House of the Dead (2003)

IMDB / votes: 2.0 / 35005

Japanese distributors did a great job making the movie poster look at least a bit tolerable

Today, I hardly play video games anymore. All of my best games have been made in the late eighties and early nineties. One rare exception are the House of the Dead light gun series of which the second installment was my most favourite by far. I have played that game so much until I almost turned into a zombie myself. I could tell you much more how much I love this game, but I need to cut to the chase here.

But buckle up as some of the worst directors of all time Uwe Boll has purchased the rights to shoot a House of the Dead live-action movie! Oh my, will it be as great as the games that I love so much? Will it include G,  James, Gary, Amy, the Italian city of Venice, Goldman's headquarters, the little devil Zeal and a chainsaw wielding monster with a sack over his head, the 4-headed dragon, the final monster the Emperor, who was also in the first game? I loved the endings in the video games of which there were multiple depending on your shot accuracy. My favourite is when Goldman jumps off a building and comes back as a zombie. I would say this already is enough material to work with. There was also a nifty zombie dance during the ending credits, will all of this be included in the movie? I would be ecstatic if only a bit of this was in the movie! First of all, just as with Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, the title doesn't imply what video game installment it is based off. It could be the first video game or it could be all three of  'em, as the third video game was released in 2002, only one year before this live-action adaptation.

It appears to be none. The only tie-ins to the video game is the Curien name, which you won't hear until the end of the movie and the SEGA logo, as well as some senseless intercut images of the first video game. That's it. Instead, the plot revolves about a bunch of party people who want to attend a rave on a remote island infested with zombies, the 'ordinary' party people somehow become martial artists, micro biologists and crack shots with arms. Let the 2.0 rating on IMDB be a warning, it's an even lower rating by a higher amount of votes which could be a result of fans who hate this movie. And to add insult to injury is that Uwe Boll apparently has claimed that the reason why it didn't look like the video game because it is supposed to be a prequel to the video game series. Yeah, sounds totally credible. You purchase some expensive rights and what you do with it turn it into a generic zombie-movie, of which there are a dime a dozen. 2.0 on IMDB is a rock bottom low score, it's even worse as a horror movie then it is as a video game adaptation, if what I just said made sense. And it even got a sequel, which calls itself House of the Dead 2 but has less to do with the video games than the previous Uwe Boll movie!! Can you believe that?? They came up with an alternative title: House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim, implying that it's different from the video game as some sort of excuse. After all these years I can't get over this. If you make a movie and you call it House of the Dead 2, you naturally assume it to be based off the House of the Dead 2 video game, not a second one or sequel in the movie series!! This is so stupid, if you insist to make the zillion^th zombie movie ever made, why can't it be its standalone movie title?!

 this female floats in mid-air for absolutely no reason and sends off a shotgun blast that turns into multiple smaller rounds, all of the bullets hitting only one zombie that was also floating in mid-air

La Gran Aventura de Mortadelo & Filemón (2003)

Mort & Phil: The Big Adventure 2003
IMDB / votes: 5.2 / 3069

There is a comic I really love called Mortadelo y Filemon, although that's what it's called in Spanish. In other regions they are known as Clever & Smart, Mort & Phil, Paling & Ko to name a few.  What make this comic stand out is its hilarious "Loony Tunes" humour of which both goofy secret agents get blown to pieces or become human punching bags. Mort had a special ability to disguise himself in everything you could imagine. He could disguise himself as a banker or a chimney sweep by changing costumes, but also as animals or inanimate objects! Often they had to experiment professor Bacterio's weird inventions, which often caused more harm than good. The comic is so funny, that even the depiction of humans, pets, buildings was enough to make you burst with laughter

So you can guess it was like a dream come true to see this comic come to life that have been around since the late fifties as one page cartoons and later as full comic books. Will it be as hilarious, will it capture the spirit of the many comic books that were funny in every panel? I remember I saw this movie as soon as I could get my hands on it in 2003, which is now sixteen years ago and I have forgotten almost everything. Everything as in, no way do I want to see this movie again. The characters look like their  comic counterparts, that's the main thing, although it wouldn't be super hard to cast two bald men as the main protagonists. What I do remember is that I didn't laugh a single time and it was super disappointing. They made a sequel five years later known as Mortadelo y Filemón. Misión: Salvar la Tierra (2008) with the same actors. This time, I didn't have the slightest interest anymore in seeing this. The lower scores for this movie on IMDB 3.6/555 speak volumes, if the first one was already bad then I hate to discover why this one is even worse. There eventually was a faithful CGI adaptation in 2014 Mortadelo y Filemón contra Jimmy El Cachondo, and thankfully it was good. I also must say that I didn't enjoy many of the later comics, the cartoon or the many video games.

Garfield (2004)

IMDB / votes:  5.0 / 73708

I love almost everything with Garfield in it, I've read the comics, seen the cartoons, had toys as a kid and Garfield school diary's when I went to high school, my later girlfriend even had a complete collection of the early pocket books. I have also read the "grouchy, fatter" early concept Garfield comics. You can imagine our excitement when a Garfield movie was announced and we couldn't wait to see it. I was expecting the dry humour from the comics that has Garfield making comments about Jon Arbuckle, Odie,  and all the characters of the Garfield universe. For example: Jon says, I have looked evil in the eye and laughed! Garfield says, you drank milk that was past the sell-by date. Har har har! Moving on, when this movie was over not for a second did we have the sense we were watching Garfield, more along the lines of -Socks the cat, saves Poochie the dog- what they may have originally had in mind and changed it very last minute when they found an opportunity to milk more money out of a generic pets movie by slapping the Garfield name over it.  I would almost be sure about it, because none of the characters, if present, resemble their comic book counterparts. But that's not the least of its problem, it is the story that is completely dull and uninteresting. Odie gets missing and Garfield comes to the rescue, that's all, and make it juvenile and silly, like toddlers and kids are its only audience. See a pattern here of what they always do? Take a franchise that is known for sarcastic, dry wit, by people that grew up with in the 1980's, then make it a kids only movie. Why do they always have to do that?  A funny thing: it took me some years to realise that Jon and Garfield couldn't communicate. It's only the reader that can see what Garfield thinks.

I love Robot Chicken's dark, sarcastic cruel humour and this skit in particular had a gloomy, totally unexpected pay-off, so much so that I could still sense a bittersweet aftertaste a few days later. Who knows, maybe this short video was their middle finger to that Garfield movie travesty. 

the Dark Diamond (2004)

or locally known as Suske en Wiske en de Duistere Diamant
in other countries known as  Spike and Suzy, Luke and Lucy, Willy and Wanda or Bob and Bobette
IMDB / votes:  4.7 / 461

I don't need to say much here because I wasn't a very keen Suske and Wiske reader. It's hard to give a small summary, because the comic has been around since the fifties and there have been made many episodes. The comic gained so much popularity that cartoons have been made, as well as merchandising and video games.

The live-action movie seems to be based off episode 121 in the comic book series and for its short 85 minutes of run time I couldn't stand to watch this. A tad over the median of the movie duration I gave up watching because I couldn't take it anymore. It is not a great story, and I miss the typical humour of the comics. also the main character Lambik doesn't act the way he does in the comics. He is absolutely not the noble, witty, and a tad narcissistic gentleman as he is in the books but comes off as hyper as if he were there for comic relief. And at some point in the movie he even appears without his trousers on, yes exactly what we want to see.

Devilman (2004)

IMDB / votes:  4.0 / 978

I was introduced to the Devilman anime in 1993 and loved it. So much that to this day it is still my second most favourite anime ever made, after Hokuto no Ken. It was an extremely violent, bloody, fantasy-monster story, especially for it's time, that consisted of two volumes that belong with each other. The Birth from 1987 and Demon Bird from 1990, although the story is based on a manga series from the early seventies.

With a live-action adaptation in 2004, I had extremely high expectations of it. Oh boy, a real live-action Devilman movie? There was no way that it could be bad?! I don't remember anything from this movie since the fifteen years ago when I saw this movie. It was incredibly dull and overall a bad anime / manga live-action movie adaptation. In no way am I going to watch this movie again, stick with the amazing anime movies of the late eighties.

Doom (2005)

IMDB / votes: 5.2 /101197

If you had a PC in the early nineties, then this four-letter word will be associated with a household name in video game history that was groundbreaking at the time and controversial for graphic violence and satanic imagery. Although I enjoyed Wolfenstein 3D a tad more, as well as several FPS games based on that same Wolf3D engine, I played Doom II first and then Doom in that order. This was because I didn't have the money for a very powerful computer with a maximum capacity of computer memory requirement and even then it didn't run smoothly if there were too many enemies on the screen . Another crazy aspect of this game is that the music was outstanding, with a selection of heavy metal background "midi" tunes inspired by Pantera, Alice in Chains and what not, sounded so awesome, that we purchased a pricey Gravis Ultrasound to get the best music quality out if it and hear the tunes in its full glory. These are some fond memories I will never forget.

I think I hated this Doom movie even before the movie eventually was theatrically released, which according to rumours only lasted one week. There just was no way it could be turned into a faithful live-action movie, not even with all the fascinating story lines of the first two games. A repeated mistake is that the title is always a lie. According to some resources that I checked, the Doom movie is based on the 3rd video game which is something that confuses us gamers of the time so tremendously. Couldn't they have added a caption to the title, make it stand out from the classic first two games? But oh, I get it, if you just call it Doom 3: terror on mars as a standalone Doom movie it's simply not as catchy and it would not attract the general audience especially those who don't know anything about this juggernaut of a a video game. And those who have nostalgic memories will see it anyway. Also I am not too familiar with Doom III, as it came quite late like more that ten years after Doom I & II, but as far as I know the movie doesn't follows the story line of the 3rd Doom game accurately, or at all. Like most live-action movies based on video games, they all heavily fail for the same mistakes. The biggest mistake of course having little to do with the two first video games and with too many key enemies missing. It's also very dull as the 1 billion^th Aliens knock off and of course you gotta have atrociously bad acting, stupid lines that are nothing short of poetry. Then there are all the scenes that are too dark too see anything, which they did deliberately. It has nothing to do with atmos or making the movie scary, they were just too lazy and it's lame. Just don't believe their lies. The only thing worth seeing was the short FPS segment, but you might as well play the video game instead then. I am wondering why they always make terrible live-action movies of video games that I grew up with and played a lot. Why do they always want to ruin my childhood memories?? Can't they do that with video games I never liked or played, Diablo, God of War, Metal Gear to name a few?

One more thing; as of the time of writing it has brought to my attention that there is currently a new direct to video Doom sequel named Doom Annihilation released just this year, and this month. I don't think adding the caption 'annihilation' to a title of  a video game based movie is a smooth move, because no one has forgotten about Mortal Kombat Annihilation yet. What I've heard so far, that this one is sooo bad, that it makes the 2005 Doom with the Rock look like a master piece.

A review of the Doom reboot. Doom: Annihilation 2019 by GamerThumbTV

 

Transformers (2007)

IMDB / votes: 7.0 / 574939

As a wee child in primary school, I answered to a question of the day: what would you do if your were blind and what would you miss the most?  I told him that I would miss the Transformers cartoons and that made the teacher chuckle. I know it comes off as silly, but it's through the eyes of a very young kid. This was because the Transformers were the best toy line and cartoons I could ever wish for. As I said before, I liked transformers the most, I was fascinated by toy robots that could change into race cars or jet fighters and needless to say that I also dig the cartoons and the Transformers movie of 1986. Transformers was the best idea ever made for me as a kid, I wouldn't know what I would play with if I grew up in any other period than the eighties.

When the Transformers live-action movie made their debut in the cinema in 2007 I was immediately skeptical. By that time, I had already painfully hurt myself by watching live-action movies for the last two decades, so not only was I wary, I also expected it to be completely different from the generation I & II cartoons. It is often regarded as a million dollar franchise that keeps people pouring into the cinema, and there are currently six transformers movies including Bumblebee. I can't tell if these are any good since I have always avoided these movies like the plague. I am so afraid my childhood memories will be crushed that I even refuse to see bits of the movie that are played in short youtube videos. So for instance say Watchmojo publishes a top-ten about most lucrative franchise movies ever made and unexpectedly Transformers would be on that list, then I am willing to pull the power cord out of the electrical outlet in case I am not fast enough to shut the video off. There is no way the classic transformers could translate faithfully into a movie. Again, I never saw or refuse to see any of the movies, but looking at the 2007 movie toy line of the past decade almost none of the robots actually reminded me of how they were in the cartoons. It may be so that Bumblebee never transformed into a Beetle anymore because of modern times and licensing issues or something, still that is no excuse to change most of the major Transformer characters. Another thing is that these movies are known for roller coaster ride action, gravity defying, excessive use of CGI and lengthy film duration, seriously some of them are almost three hours long. Is that really necessary for these type of films? Do movie goers have nothing better to do, or will they complain that movies under three hours are way too short? And also very importantly, when I look at the billing it says Shia Lebouff, Josh Duhamel, Megan Fox. Don't you think there is something out of place with that? The stars should have been Optimus Prime and Megatron, or Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, it now looks like that the Transformers are background characters in their own franchise. I haven't seen the movies, to repeat myself again, but I expect that most part of the movie screentime will be spend on human actors as the movie leads and I don't care two hoots about that. Bottom line, I will move heaven an earth to avoid these movies.

Smurfs (2011)

IMDB / votes: 5.4 / 78768

The Smurfs franchise has always been big but let's just say that when I grew up, there was a long running tv series which lasted almost ten years. I owned a few of the original early comic books, pictures above is the very first one I ever read(!), that told the tale of the smurfs in its early days, there was only brainy and papa smurf. Yes, you read that right, there was no smurfette, no handy, no lazy, no clumsy and more and more characters would be introduced as the franchise became more popular. The wasn't a period in time when the smurfs didn't sell and in later years several video games based on the smurfs were made.

I don't want to say much because at this point I'm getting tired, I mean when I saw the beginning of this movie a few years ago on Netflix. After years and years of enormous live-action disappointments I didn't care much for a smurfs movie. But I still expected it completely CGI and that the story took place in their own Smurf land. I didn't even want to see this movie if it was rumoured to be good, so you can imagine how reluctant I was to push play. And again, they had to bring the Smurfs to New York City and most of the characters are played by human actors. Why did I expect anything else??? It is the same, again and again, over and over. Even though it was Hank Azaria playing Gargamel, who I didn't recognize quickly enough, I stopped the movie. I am a big fan of the Simpsons voice actors, but the same old Garfield approach ruins it completely. I mean what was left of my willingness to see this stupid movie, because it is by no means a good movie to put it delicately. And again, why would I expect it to be good?? The smurfs don't look the way as I remember them from the countless drawings that have been made in half a century, more like hideous garden gnomes. A serious offense that they keep making is titling this movie the solid name the Smurfs implying that it will be true to the comic books or the cartoon. Couldn't they have called it the Smurfs in NYC or the Smurfs 2: in Paris. Yup, no surprises here. Even though the first movie was bad they had to make a sequel which again had to take place in the real world, with unknown actors that eat up half of the screen time so they can hide the smurfs as long as possible, same old same old.

Astérix et Obélix: au Service de Sa Majesté (2012)

translated
Asterix and Obelix: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
but officially titled
Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia
IMDB / votes: 5.3 / 12256

Look, an iconic Abbey rd. crossing meme, that hasn't been done a million trillion zillion times before!

I was a keen Astérix reader and since the eighties I've read all the first 25 comic books over and over in several languages. Astérix has always remained popular and since then many video games have been made and four live-action movies. When the idea of a live-action movie was launched I thought it was a blast to see, but at the same time very skeptical as well because in no way would it be possible to bring the slapstick fights and the distorted characters with ginormous noses, chins, forearms, chests and feet into a movie with real actors. What you're gonna do, let everyone wear nose props and forearm prosthetics?  And you didn't have to be genius to tell it wouldn't work. The first three movies were OK and meh, but I never heard of the fourth one until very recently. Why would that be, maybe because not that many people outside France knew about it?

There are two ways to make a good live-action movie. Either you stick close to the source material or you add your own creativity. The problem with the latter is, that is has to be good! And what did they do? Ditch all the funny jokes, and replace it with their own stale ones. Most of the clever quips I expect to see from the original comic seem to be absent, instead they had to make Asterix just the same height as Obelix and turn him into a douche, Jolitorax (or Anticlimax as he was called here, get it?) does look more like a Celt or Pict and they had to incorporate a part of the story of a different comic book into it, Asterix and the Vikings. It seems that most of the jokes can only be understood if you're French and some of the characters speak with a thick English accent, which I don't get because I don't speak French. Overall it seems like it suffers from the primary mistake, turn a franchise that generations are familiar with and turn it in a very childish kids movie.

This is anything but something I expect from the Asterix and the Brits live-action movie translation. I am dead serious, that isn't in the comic. So why is this here, in a children's movie??

I am mind blown why they put this in the movie. Anyone on this planet who thinks this is funny?? If I showed you this picture alone, would you have guessed it was from Asterix and Obelix? Moreover, I needed eye bleach to get this image off me.

Gaston Lagaffe 2018

also known as Gaston and Gomer Goof
IMDB / votes:  4.2 / 600

Gaston has been around since 1957 and was still big during the eighties when the cartoonist André Franquin, who also created Spirou and Marsupulami, produced Gaston comic books and several gags were brand new at that time. I loved the hilarious, goofy and surreal style of humour of a young lazy office junior who constantly sleeps during company time and invents all kinds of crazy contraptions that gets himself into trouble such as musical instruments that can cause entire buildings to collapse. The running gag is that his manager and an important businessman are trying to sign contracts, but they always come up short after negotiations.  Gaston is somehow always able to mess this up and the deal's off, even when the contracts are (about to get) signed. I cannot do this justice with my concise description, if you aren't familiar with Gaston or Gomer, you are simply missing one of the funniest one page cartoons.

Now after describing how all those comic books turned into rocket fuel for nightmares, it will come as no surprise that I refuse to see this Gaston Lagaffe movie. Very similarly to Mort & Phil, Spike & Suzy and so on, I don't think it can be translated into a good movie. So far the votes on IMDB don't show a good sign, as the current score is disastrously low. I guess as a Franco-Belgian production it's only known locally, so not that many people are aware it exists. What makes it even more scary, is that more of this Belgian cartoonist has been turned into a movie. My goodness, seems that Spirou which I described above has a live-action movie since last year, Les aventures de Spirou et Fantasio (2018). The current score isn't in its favour to put it mildly, with 3.8 out of 388 votes. When will they ever learn! And of course, just stay away from it and read the comic books if you don't want your sweet childhood memories destroyed.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2020

 

So will Sonic the Hedgehog be the next terrible flop on the list? The next horrible excuses for a film that ruin our childhood memories? Judging from that awful trailer, I don't have any hopes. It looks completely pathetic. At least all the other movies in my list of childhood tortures, they all had convincing trailers. In this trailer, everything looks bad. Why would anyone ever want to see this? Please watch the video below of Dave Cullen's first impression of the trailer. I couldn't have said it better.

So when I finished watching the trailer I felt like thirty years of the same old trite mistakes are rolled into one movie. Why is it, that it always has the same old nonsense no one is asking for? Why do they always ignore the source material and come up with their own bad ideas. Let's take a look of a bunch of my aforementioned complaints and see if they are here too:

Based on a franchise that is at least a generation old, but despite that downgrade it to immature levels so it will only appeal to eight year old kids? ✔ 
Will bear a Sonic the Hedgehog title so the suggestions will rise that it will either be based off the first video game or the entire franchise, but will turn out neither to do with anything? ✔
Character in modern times / our world? ✔
Story nothing to do with source material? ✔
Characters missing (tails, knuckles) or don't look anything like source counterparts? ✔
Completely unknown actors that eat away half the movie's screen time, and so Sonic himself becomes a background character in his own movie? ✔
Garfield / Smurfs like CGI so actors are interacting with thin air? ✔
At least one major billing of a big Hollywood actor that would convince you see the movie? Jim Carrey, ✔
Stupid jokes we have seen a billion times before, for example that Sonic yells, human actor yells, both scream joke, this was even in the Smurfs movie, ✔.

Oh, my goodness! This is even more dreadful than all the movie experiences I summed up above.  I don't believe it anymore that they make the same mistakes and then complain afterwards, that they had the right ideas but someone was interfering, couldn't get the rights, not enough budget (WHICH IS FF'N ESTIMATED AROUND 90 FF'N MILLION!!! SO MUCH MONEY THROWN IN THE GUTTER FOR SUCH A HORRIBLE-looking MOVIE!!), Jim Carrey claiming he didn't know who Sonic was, et cetera! Could it just be that is all a part of the plan to ruin our childhood memories? Please check out Arlo's first impressions of the Sonic trailer which he completely nails. I agree 100% with every letter he says. I think his video is well done in such a way, that I watched it several times. And you know what that would mean, that his review is already than this miserable trailer.

Note that these are only a small selection of an endless laundry list of bad live-action movies, there are countless more such as the Flintstones, mr Magoo, Inspector Gadget, the Last Airbender, DragonBall: evolution, Tekken, Double Dragon, almost all of them, including everything Uwe Boll has ever made, are horrible disasters. So at a certain point, like fifteen years ago I stopped caring for these live-action movies that keep making the same mistakes. How about you?