Emerald Coast Con 2015

This past weekend was the first-ever Emerald Coast Con. It’s technically an all gen gaming convention but it mostly focuses on retro gaming. There was a vendor room, a free play arcade room, a retro console room, a panel room and then a giant tournament room with all kinds of fighting games and shooters were being played.

I happened to win a free weekend pass on Facebook months ago, but was only able to attend the show on Saturday. That worked out fine for me because The Game Chasers and The Gaming Historian were both doing their panels on Saturday. I don’t like crowds, so after getting there around 10:30am and hanging out and seeing the Game Chasers panel and buying a few games, I was pretty exhausted and ready to go home.

Jay, Billy and Melvor from the Game Chasers

Most game vendors there were selling NES, SNES and Genesis games. I’m not up on all the prices, so I probably got ripped off a bit, but it was all in the spirit of supporting the gaming community and the event itself was being put on for charity.

I didn’t take many pictures. This was a decent but small event but I hope it was profitable and there is as second year. This area can definitely use more events like this. With the success of the all-geek PensaCon, I’m happy to see my town of Fort Walton Beach get it’s own geek con.

Here’s what I bought:
Undoubtedly, this is the big prize for me. While I don’t have my NES anymore (left it and all my games behind by accident after breaking up with a girlfriend), I was more than happy to buy a COMPLETE IN BOX edition of TMNT II: The Arcade Game on the NES. One of my favorite games of all time and it includes two extra stages that aren’t in the arcade game.

Another big score for me was picking up Baseball Stars. Another of my favorites. Just need the box now! The only thing I didn’t like was that the vendor I bought this from was pretty shady. He had a box of manuals that were separate from the games. I found the game and was looking on the off-chance the manual was in there. When I brought my items to buy, he says “Oh, you found the manual”. Of course the manual cost me extra.

I don’t think I’ve ever played this game. I know it’s pretty terrible. I only wanted it because it’s Rambo and I love Rambo / Sylvester Stallone. It was only $5.

If you ever had a NES, you probably had twenty copies of this mini poster. They came with virtually ever game. Funny how now it feels like something I need to own after having so many as a kid back when I felt they were worthless.

Anyway, that’s all I bought. I’m hoping for bigger names and more vendors next year. I’d like to see some action figure vendors brought in!

Halloween Hot Wheels!

After a stressful day at work, I headed to K-Mart where I knew they had all of their Christmas decorations out. I needed to be among Star Wars ornaments, white rotating fake Christmas trees, holiday appropriate hand towels and bronze stocking holders in order to sooth my soul and find peace once again.

My hike through their Christmas section lead me to the toys where I found two Hot Wheels not like the others…

Pensacon 2015

The second annual Pensacon was held this weekend in Pensacola, Florida and I was lucky enough to be able to go on Saturday morning. As someone who deals with anxiety issues and general anti-socialness, I didn’t plan on spending all day there but just a few hours.

First off, I’m really happy there is a convention like this in the area for fans of comic books, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, etc. to gather together. Any time there’s some type of event going on in my region, it usually involves country music or seafood: two things I couldn’t care less about.

Pensacon features the usual convention fare like gaming tournaments, costume contests, celebrities panels, artists alley, photo ops/signings, plus a large assortment of vendors selling things like steam punk gear, leather goods, Pokemon plush dolls, trading cards, comic books, movie posters, old video games, toys, vinyl records, jewelry, t-shirts, artwork. It was crazy how many vendors there were and how much they had to sell. One item that really stuck out to me was a vinyl copy of the Doctor Who serial ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ from the Tom Baker era and it featured the original voice cast from those episode. It was $30, which is about the going rate for it online as well, but I didn’t pick it up. One very cool toy I saw was the original G1 Galvatron from Transformers. Used, but complete and in box for $150.

Action figures I own that suck.

I’ve lost some, broken some, traded some and probably even have thrown some away but I still have a decent collection of action figures from when I was a kid. While browsing through my tub of figures, I was sadly reminded that not all action figures are created equal. Here’s an assortment of action figures that, from day one, I knew sucked.

For the most part, they didn’t suck because they weren’t cool looking but because their designs left very little room for any action at all.

Doctor Doom
Marvel Super Heroes, 1990

Doctor Doom! Classic Marvel villain! One of the best comic book villains ever deserved better treatment than this. Admittedly, it’s a very cool looking figure, which can’t be said for a lot of Toy Biz’s early Marvel toys. There are a few things wrong here though. Number one — his arms don’t bend at the elbows. Granted, this wasn’t too uncommon during this era but it drives me crazy to see an action figure who has to walk around like a mummy.

To make it worse, while he can bend his legs at the knees, HE CAN’T BEND HIS LEGS AT THE WAIST. Well, okay, he could if not for that stupid skirt they gave him, which blocks all mobility.  Yes, his arms have free range but won’t bend at the elbow but while he can bend at the knees he has no range of motion with his legs. Maybe the designers thought Doctor Doom was a robot and could just shuffle along like C-3PO.

I guess he can do some yoga. Cobra pose, anyone?

At least his “power driven weapons” action feature was kinda cool. You crank that little handle on the back and his right hand starts turning. His accessories were a drill and a rotor wheel (of course, I lost both many years ago). I’ve never known Doc Doom to run around like he’s the killer in Slumber Party Massacre, but okay. He usually just casts spells, shoots lasers and sends robots after people.

But with these accessories he can help your with your home improvement and then fan you off after a hard day’s work!

Masters of the Universe (The Live Action Motion Picture) DVD Review

Masters of the Universe
2009, Warner Home Video
Original Release: 1987, Cannon Films

Special Features
Feature-Length Commentary by Director Gary Goddard
Theatrical Trailer

Do you remember walking through the movie theater in 1987 and seeing this…

?

I do! YES! A live-action version of Masters of the Universe! But wait… That’s gotta be He-Man but why does he look like he belongs in a Mad Max movie? Why is he holding an assault rifle ?! Why is the gun more prominent than the Power Sword ?!

Yes, I remember seeing that poster and instantly feeling a mix of joy and doom. I was extremely happy that a live-action He-Man movie was coming but just by the teaser poster alone I already was not liking how they were going to be portraying the world of Eternia. Oh yeah… Eternia. Didn’t really feature as much in the movie as we He-Man fans would’ve wanted, did it?

That is probably my one biggest gripe about the movie — how can you have the very first Masters of the Universe movie and then not set the entire film on Eternia? Granted, the movie is a goofy cheesy ’80s movie no matter what but taking the majority of the film to Earth in the year of 1987  extremely dates the film and isn’t what people wanted to see. Maybe something like that could’ve been done for a sequel but for the initial MOTU film? Nah. Keep it on Eternia.

Given that Cannon Films was usually very budget conscious, my theory is that they built the bare minimum set pieces that they could for Eternia (basically Gwildor’s hut and Skeletor’s throne room) and then filmed on location in Los Angeles because it was cheaper to do that than having to build even more set pieces. So that’s why we ended up with the story of He-Man & Co. ending up on Earth. To be fair though, I think this movie was probably had one of Cannon’s biggest budgets. Wikipedia states $22 million but in the director commentary Gary Goddard states they had a $17 million budget at a time when most movies had $6-8 million budgets.

 As you can see from of the artwork, they were really going for a Star Wars vibe right down to getting Drew Struzan to do the artwork. Great artwork though and it does a great job of making the movie look amazing. Even Skeletor’s soldiers (something he didn’t have in the cartoon) look like Storm Troopers except their armor is black and their helmets appear to be that of Imperial Gunners.

Anyway, Eternia issues aside, it would’ve been nice to also see a bit more character depth. I guess the writers & producers just assumed anyone coming to see this movie already knew the backstory so we get thrown right into the middle of the action. That’s commendable on some levels because I know many fans of geek culture groan over “origin” movies but it still would have been really nice to see a live-action transformation of Prince Adam to He-Man. There is no mention of Prince Adam at all in this movie.

Even the Power Sword receives very little recognition in the film. He-Man seems to prefer using laser blasters. He holds it up one time towards the end of the film to yell “I HAVE THE POWER” but it’s too little too late and the moment is glossed over. The He-Man/Skeletor sword fight is pretty brief and lame compared to what Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader had done. In the movie’s defense, director Gary Goddard does that that due to time restrictions the final battle was not staged the way he wanted it and some portions of the throne room set went unused.

Another weird quirk is the absence of the typical MOTU villains. Sure, we have Skeletor, Evil-Lyn and Beastman but what about Tri-Klops, Merman or Trap-Jaw? The movie introduces some new villains: Blade (who almost seems like a stand-in for Tri-Klops), Saurod (a reptilian creature that reminds me of the Goombas from the Super Mario movie) and Karg (who reminds me of the late Ronnie James Dio). None of those three characters were ever on the TV show, which was canceled by this time anyway, but Blade & Saurod were given action figures.

On the Heroic Warriors side, I think they did pretty well: He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Teela and a captive Sorceress. They could’ve expanded upon that if there was a sequel and added Mekaneck, Stratos, Man-E-Faces, Ram Man, Buzz-Off and/or Orko. Speaking of Orko, even as a kid, I  always assumed Gwildor was meant to be his replacement in the movie. Upon listening to Goddard’s commentary, he confirms that by saying it would’ve been too financially & technically difficult to put Orko in the movie. So, they replaced a magician that always screws up and is played for humor with an inventor that always screws up and is played for humor.

Ultimately, the film was not a critical or financial success. Released in August 1987 (and I remember seeing it in Fort Walton Beach, Florida on opening weekend while visiting my grandparents), it made only $17 million total. Had it been released a year or two earlier (remember, the show had been canceled in 1985 and the toy line had been losing steam as well since it had no show to help promote it) and had it stayed more faithful to the fantasy-based cartoon/toy line rather than going in a sci-fi direction (that was inspired by Jack Kirby’s “Fourth World” comics from DC Comics) it probably would’ve done better.

Even though the movie kinda broke even or maybe even lost a few million for Cannon, a sequel was written and planned. Unfortunately, Cannon ran into financial troubles in 1989 and could no longer afford the MOTU license. The sequel’s script would later go on to be re-worked into Cyborg starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and when that movie was played on television it was sometimes retitled Masters of the Universe 2: Cyborg.

I think Masters of the Universe is a fun cheesy ’80s fantasy/adventure. It almost seems forgotten but I think it’s a real cult classic. Dolph Lundgren was a great voice (visually at least) for He-Man and Courtney Cox is cute as a button in her first movie role and plays her part well.

With plans for a new MOTU on the way, I’m sure a small spotlight will get thrown back on this movie in the next few years. I think the movie has been released on DVD twice. Once in 2001 through Warner Home Video but it was in a snap case. I made sure to order the 2009 edition because it features the standard DVD keep case which I prefer over the snap case that Warner Bros. well hell-bent on using for a number of years. Both editions have the same special features. My particular copy was made for distribution in U.S. & Canada so that’s why you see the film’s title in French on the cover.

I’m truly surprised they even bothered giving the movie a director’s commentary. You’d think something like would would’ve been made bare bones and then thrown into the $5 bin at Walmart. I usually never listen to commentaries but for this movie, I felt like trying it and enjoyed it.

Either DVD edition can be found for $6-8 and it’s well worth picking up for all He-Man fans. Sure, it’s not the MOTU we wanted to see but it’s a lot better than New Adventures of He-Man that’s for sure!

Buy the movie!