The Smash Brothers - Series Discussion

[Comatose]

Samox, thank you so much for this.

I joined the community, along with a few of my friends, about a year ago, after playing smash casually for as long as I can remember. Im the oldest of 9, so there's always been someone to play with in my house, but with my recent competitive skill increase, no one close has the will to play with me anymore, and my competitive friends are all too far for me to reach on a regular basis, even being in the same town.

I was starting to lose hope for smash, particularly for my own smash "career," but this documentary has reinvigorated my love for smash, with all its inspirational stories and all this smash history that I wasn't around to withness.

As I write this Ive just finished watching episode 7. And I just want to say, to M2K in particular, your videos are what got me into competitive smash in the first place, and while you do think people out there think you're a "villain" of sorts, there are those who think the exact opposite. I've been your fan since day 1, and hearing your story only makes me want to root for you even more! (On a side note, if you happen to read this, I'd really like to play you the next time you're at a Long Island tournament. I saw you at my very first tournament, Crossfire II, but you're like a celebrity to me, so I was a bit afraid to come up and ask you to play, even when you came up to the group I was with and asked to play any one of us)

 

[SSS]

How did you make me feel these feels?

 

[ycz12]

I have one practical question and that's regarding the lack of exposure I feel it's getting right now. I was honestly really surprised that I didn't see it on Kotaku, Polygon, Rock Paper Shotgun, IGN and Gamespot yet. Since there's a remastered version coming up it might be that your waiting with that before you approach the big sites, it might also be that your taking a break and would like us to do the spreading for you. With the connections that have been made during and after EVO I'd expect some in here able to contact these major blogs and sites and I really think the documentary is worth sharing for them and deserves a way larger view count than it has now. Big forces in the community should really be pushing this!

Seconding this. Eventhubs and Shoryuken picking the series up was nice, but one of the big gaming sites posting about it would be huge. Samox, do you have plans to reach out to those guys?

 

[nehinbin]

I sent this to my friends who don't even play smash and they loved it.

 

[Wieners]

Are you going to release all the full interviews?

 

[Bones0]

After finishing the 1st ep I watched it all in one go, forget or cancelled any appointments I had that day and then went straight into following the big house stream (which was amazing!). It really was something special...

Just as a clarification, the issue with Armada's role was present from the very beginning of the documentary. I recall Samox stating how Armada would not be one of the main focuses of the documentary. Idk if this was a choice made for logistical purposes or what, but that's the case just so everyone knows. Personally, the later parts were definitely kinda disappointing, but that's not to take anything away from the project as overall it was still spectacular. I think the source of the problem is that more recent events are always harder to gain perspective on, especially if you aren't insanely familiar with the community already. It was hard, at the time, to notice the balance between Mango and Armada, and even now after Armada's "retired", it's still sort of up-in-the-air what role he played in Melee's history or what impact he will have in the long term. Maybe Mango will go back to his sandbagging ways having defeated Armada at Evo, or maybe his competitive fire will remain burning with his regained dominance over the scene.

I think it's also worth pointing out that Europe was far from the only subject to get short changed throughout Melee's history. I'm definitely no fan of barlw, and I only passively enjoy P:M, but even I thought they deserved a bit beefier segments at least if we're trying to keep each subject relative to their importance. This might just be a difference in views from Samox because he seemed to be focusing heavily on the players (it's called "The Smash Brothers" after all) and less on the progression of the community. Leaving out details on barlw/P:M and more importantly, barely going into the drama of the Evo drive, Nintendo stream-ban, and actual Evo event are all, to be perfectly honest, much larger oversights than the European scene. Hell, PP was barely even mentioned as a serious contender at all, which is weird when compared to Hbox who took up the vast majority of the Mango segment with emotional stuff that Mango would largely disagree with entirely. lol

I do wish Europe got its own mention because I think the scene deserves it, and I think even Samox wishes he could have added Armada as a totally separate "Smash Brother" in his own right, but it just doesn't seem like it was in the cards. Perhaps he considered delaying the release another 6 months-1 year to get quality stuff for Europe/Armada/Evo, but no one can possibly criticize him for not wanting to tack on another solid year of work on a project that had already gone on for 2. Maybe Samox will be able to touch on the subject a bit to explain, but idk how much artists (and this truly was art) like to "defend" or explain their work, so maybe he'll just let it be. Sometime in the future, it'd be awesome if Samox or someone else wants to pick up where he roughly left off (around Apex 2010 is where it started to get cluttered). If not, this community is more than capable of carrying on its legacy on its own. We'll just have to spread this documentary and let them know that we're still going and every day new chapters get added to the story that is Super Smash Bros. Melee.

 

[KishPrime]

I do remember that this was originally plotted to cover the time period from 2003 to 2007 or 2008, so I am guessing that the additional material was indeed somewhat added later. Based on how it's progressing for me so far, that is probably the majority focus of what is actually covered. Europe (and Armada) was simply not a major player at that time. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but I don't remember any of the Europeans who came over in that timespan getting better than 9th at a tournament. Mango would have fallen into the end of that timespan, and thus it would make sense to focus on him for a modern episode since he would be the only guy who had "been introduced" in the context of the documentary.

I'm only on episode 6, though I've peeked ahead a little bit, and I'm enjoying all of it so far. I am very curious how a non-Smasher would take it.

 

[Theftz22]

I loved watching this doc, the best parts were on par in my mind with professional documentaries. Wife really provided the voice of the series, and I feel that you really captured the characters of Ken, Isai, Azen, and PC really well. That said, some constructive thoughts:

Episodes 1 and 2 got really cheesy at points, and yes I did cringe a few times. I think episode 1 was actually the weakest of the whole series. I would not start non-smashers at that point if I were to show this to them. The narrator contributed to this feeling quite a bit, he was not to my taste. The name tags have already been commented on several times, it didn't bother me personally since I recognized the faces, but yeah they should be there. Putting them above the peoples' heads like a smash tag would have been an excellent touch. Finally, at the m2k episode and there on (mango episode plus final episode), I feel the series really lost a lot of its narrative structure. Up until then, the series did a good job at studying the person in question through the lense of what was happening in smash at the time. The series really was doing a great job at striking a balance between story and character study. The chronology of smash tournaments was shown quite clearly and worked cohesively into the film. At the m2k episode, it seemed that the doc shifted into a pure character study, and the narrative of what was happening in actual smash tournaments was lost. It definitely was possible to keep the balance, since m2k did dominate the time after the era of PC and KDJ and then mango dominated right after. These final episodes also felt really rushed, episodes 1-6 covered roughly the years 2003-2007, (4 y/6 ep) while 7-9 covered roughly 2008-2013 (5 y /3 ep). We can see that the rate of time covered per episode increased dramatically, and you could definitely see the effects in the jumbled narrative. I can understand wanting to cover the mango era and armada and evo and such, but it wasn't really worth it since the coverage of evo and armada felt fairly neutered, and I would have preferred either not covering them at all or expanding the project.

That all said, again I loved watching, and you really hit your groove in 3,4,5, and 6. Watching those episodes was pure bliss.

Lastly, when is that extra footage going to be emailed to the 50+ donors? Thanks again for this gift to smash community.

 

[Testem]

This documentary amazingly displayed the Smash community, and revived my love for competitive smash, even inspiring me to pick back up the controller and make a SmashBoards account! Im sure you inspired a lot of other smashers too, like myself! Great job!

 

[strawhats]

What I missed is how Europe and the US were kinda separated until Genesis 1 happened.
At least a little bit of Europe history (Amsah comeback vs Ek and then dominating the scene for a long time until Armada took over) would've been great

Amsah interview is extra footage for anyone who donated $25 if i'm not mistaken

 

[Zamoz]

Haven't finished watching these yet and it's been FOREVER since I was last on here. Never was any remotely significant part of the smash scene but it made me proud to know I recognized even a portion of what was said in this video.

Also 19:37 in episode 7 was the funniest thing I think I had ever seen about smash before now and I LOST it when that popped up. Well played!

 

[alucard.ec]

I had to get my account back, check online stores in China and I will be getting my controller during next week. Amazing amazing project. I will try to find some Melee players here in Shanghai. Thanks for this :D

 

[Battlecow]

Should've interviewed Mel! She entered 64 at FC. Interesting girl.

 

[B Link]

Are you going to release all the full interviews?

I'm interested in the full Isai interview. Kinda surprised at how samox condensed 3 hours into like 2 minutes

 

[Wiggins]

My name actually showed up in the credits. And while I'm super giddy over it, I'm kind of disappointed because my name is only there due to an error.

I pledged at least $50 bucks back when the kickstarter was up, but I didn't realize I WASN'T being charged until the kickstarter had actually ended. And when my card was charged, it was declined resulting in me not actually donating.

I'm wanting to be honest about it because if I end up getting a DVD, I will be extremely happy. But I will also feel extremely guilty.

So, in the off chance I end up receiving a dvd due to an error in the system, I will send you $100 to make up for missing the original donation drive.

I'm not trying to "sweet talk" my way into getting a DVD, just trying to be honest about it. I don't even really deserve to show up in the credits, but god damn did it make me extremely happy when i saw it.

 

[Archangel]

Great stuff, Anybody have means of getting this to Nintendo? Specifically Sakurai? He NEEDS to see this.

 

[standardtoaster]

and he won't understand a word of it

 

[sephirothken]

Ken Hoang
Going to start Streaming and going over The Smash Documentary live once a week on Wednesday at 7pm Pacific Time in preparation for "The Ken Show" on VGBOOTCAMP.

I will be streaming on my twitch account along with answering some questions. If you have already seen the documentary feel free to tweet @sephirothken or #kingofsmash on twitter starting with episode 1.

1st stream will be airing this Wednesday OCT 16th. www.twitch.tv/skenny17, should roughly be an hour to an hour and 1/2 long.

 

[Zanguzen]

This was absolutely incredible, samox, thank you so so much.

 

[pelotaz0]

This makes me be proud of what i'm playing, of being a little part of this community. Really good job Samox, I really wanted to know the past of the game and the past of those unique players.
Regards from Spain.

 

[GunBlaze]

This makes me be proud of what i'm playing, of being a little part of this community. Really good job Samox, I really wanted to know the past of the game and the past of those unique players.
Regards from Spain.

Liked for Mister Sir Henry ************ avatar.

 

[Melomaniacal]

So, I just finished the series. I absolutely loved it, and especially the latter three or so episodes. I have only one complaint, though, and it's probably just due to my expectations being different from the vision of the series.

As a whole, the documentary felt inclusive. By that I mean it felt like it was really just meant for us. I like that it was centered on our history and players, but I wanted a stronger (stronger, not total) focus on our community as a grassroots culture and our players as people. I feel like our community is very unique and there is a lot more to be said about it. We didn't grow in arcades like many other fighting game communities, we grew in each others' homes. We got where we are today on our own, and we worked really hard to get here. Our history is important and interesting, but I feel as though there was too much match commentary/footage and simple recapping of events to be meaningful to someone outside of our community. I'm not sure if those outside of our community will be made to care about the stories being told (actually, I watched the first half of the series with a couple non-Smash friends and their impressions were exactly that: "it is well made, but why should I care?"). I wanted this to be a more meaningful exposition of what we are as a culture and as people, which I got a bit at the very end, but the bulk of the content was focused more on history and our top players as players, not as people. What does Smash mean to not just the few top players, but to your average tournament-goer? What does it mean to be a part of this community? What separates it and makes us so unique from other gaming communities? What makes this game and this community so important to us? These are things that were touched on briefly at best, and aside from moments in the last two episodes the series felt more like a shallow history lesson than an emotionally meaningful exposition of the underground universe that we call our community. Maybe I am wrong for having expected different, but I feel like there was an opportunity for something much more meaningful here.

Again, I think the series was incredible. As someone who has followed this community for many years, I loved getting the chance to see our history recapped by the most important figures in our community. The production and directing was incredible, and I was thoroughly impressed the whole way through. You've done an amazing thing for us and I couldn't be more grateful for all the incredible hard work and dedication you put in to this project. This will surely be a critical piece of our community and history.

 

[KrIsP!]

Simply amazed, I'm sure you'd love to go back to what you were doing and let this project breathe but with it being seen by esports and fgc players not only do I think you've helped the scene overall as well as giving us new players some amazing history, but you've definitely given us a part of smash history. I would love to see an episode 10 and 11 some years down he line for those you've missed, I realise those stories are still going on and there are other projects you want to do, but I would definitely be willing to donate more to a small continuation if you ever feel up to it again.

 

[samox]

@ Wiggins - don't worry about it. I'll take care of you.
@ Battlecow - that's ridiculous. I wish I'd known. Of course at that point the storyline was not yet set. Still hilarious though.
@ Weiners - I will release the bulk of the interviews, first to the special edition people and then eventually to the public.
@ ycz12 - I'm letting word of mouth do its thing for now, but yes, after the remaster comes out I'm gonna drive hard.

KEEP COMMENTING! I MAY ANSWER STUFF!

 

[Ryuker]

@ ycz12 - I'm letting word of mouth do its thing for now, but yes, after the remaster comes out I'm gonna drive hard.

Right since I send an email to the editor of Kotaku recommending him to watch this an hour ago, let's avoid any future confusion. Do you want us to recommend this to local and major international websites or do you want to take care of that yourself? And if so do you want us to wait for the remastered version?

Also is anyone in the community capable and willing to translate this to Japanese?

 

[the wizard howl]

some of the insights seemed forced or superficial but all in all it was a thrilling watch.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Wonderfully done, enjoyed it thoroughly.

We sat up there and talked forever! I was surprised only a few clips got used haha but that's not a complaint of course.

I found it extremely interesting that you had a segment on Azen without any footage of talking to him included. What a reserved guy....

And of course Isai episode OH MY GOSH what a wonderful episode!

All in all, thank you so much for putting this together man. I hope to see you around at events in the future, film project or not =)

 

[strawhats]

Ken Hoang
Going to start Streaming and going over The Smash Documentary live once a week on Wednesday at 7pm Pacific Time in preparation for "The Ken Show" on VGBOOTCAMP.

I will be streaming on my twitch account along with answering some questions. If you have already seen the documentary feel free to tweet @sephirothken or #kingofsmash on twitter starting with episode 1.

1st stream will be airing this Wednesday OCT 16th. www.twitch.tv/skenny17, should roughly be an hour to an hour and 1/2 long.

so glad you're back in our lives. Smash community too strong.

 

[Alexo30]

Shoutouts to samox. Great documentary. Watched all of it right after the first episode was released on #TBH3 pre-stream. Stayed up until 5am watching. As a Falcon main, always wanted to know more about this mysterious Isai that was said to have revolutionized Captain Falcon. Great job! We as a community need to spread the word and get "The Smash Brothers" known throughout the gaming community. #EVO14

 

[Ryuker]

I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but I don't remember any of the Europeans who came over in that timespan getting better than 9th at a tournament. Mango would have fallen into the end of that timespan, and thus it would make sense to focus on him for a modern episode since he would be the only guy who had "been introduced" in the context of the documentary.

I was hoping not to have to go into this as my comment on the disclusion of Europe wasn't so much about the practicality of it nor the validation of that deciscion but the emotional impact it had on me and I think every european after watching this. That's why I brought it up. I fully understand the practical reasons.

But let's be clear that sadly which continent held the better player during the main era this docu covers will always be up for debate since a proper confrontation never happened and we both won each battle on our own turf. That being said I think there were some good moments to properly introduce Europe, Europe deserves it and it's history could have tied in well especially leading up to Armada.

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I've made a quick summary of european history in a nutshell:

Mr Silver from the Netherlands, who started the whole competitive euro scene in his house, went to two TG's but obviously didn't win them. The Doug lived in Europe for a while and took his first tournament at MrSilver's house. After that he was quickly triumphed by Remen also from the Netherlands. While Captain Jack(CJ) came over and won two noteworthy tournaments, Ken never did. After beating EK from sweden CJ remarked that he thought EK was as good as Ken. When Amsah beat CJ and Remen (I can't recall which happened first) he started a winning streak across Europe acking to that of Ken. In the process he beat EK with a famous comeback that EK sadly never recovered from. It was only when Armada took over from Amsah and took the jump to USA and nearly won Genesis1 that we got a good indication. When Amsah did come over he got 3rd and beat Armada atleast giving us some indication that his sheik had a easier time vs peach in NTSC then in PAL. His results dropped after that. Armada took a few big nationals in the USA and a lot in Europe but then retired.
During his retirement Mango came over to Europe and won a big national against our current top player Ice but Armada showed clear signs against Mango in friendlies that he would have taken that, even though he didn't enter and we'll never know. Since Armada's brother badly wanted to go to EVO Armada came out of retirement close to EVO. Mango won and beat Armada atleast granting him and USA the crown for now.

If you read that you'll notice there's a couple of moments that Europe could have been introduced, it could have been when Mr Silver visited the TG's which would have been the proper way to do it but admittedly would have been a lot to cover to lead up to Amsah and Armada. The ideal moment that I expected was right after TG6 when CJ lost to Azen and went to Europe not shortly after with the remark he made about EK being as good as Ken. It could have been when Amsah made his famous comeback against EK after which he's winning streak could have been compared to Ken's but there would have been a gap.
Or when Armada came over and nearly won Genesis1, which is covered but it's covered so briefly and it isn't even mentioned that he came from Europe...

But I don't think it's worth debating this and instead we should be looking at a way to cover europe properly in the future and focus on spreading this documentary outside of this community to as many places as possible.

 

[Redact]

big post about europe

The documentary was meant to cover grassroots melee in america, how it started in america, and how american melee went as a story and the best way to tell this was to cover the most influential players in america aka the big 7 shown in this, regardless of their standings internationally they influenced the amercian melee scene very heavily.

so your nice big post about what happened in europe and how it could have been included ect is nice and all, but thats not even the point of the documentary.

all foreigners mentioned and parts involving foreigners were included to show how they influenced the american scene, not how their own scene went.

I agree it would be nice to see the european scene and even maybe the japanese scene covered, but thats simply not what the documentary was aiming to do.

 

[Zamoz]

Finished watching everything last night. Rewatched episode 9 tonight. The end starting with the incredible speech from Hugs is truly inspirational and something any aspiring e-sports athlete would benefit from hearing.

Again, *incredible* job. Makes me wish I hadn't dropped from the scene after one miserable failure at the first local tournament I went to, haha.

 

[Jeapie]

I enjoyed the docu so much. Thanks for all the effort Samox and others and lets keep on sharing the docu on all social media!

@Redact: I see where you are coming from. The scene is about the scene in the USA and the development of the game in the USA.
I hope you are not being a douche by saying ` so your nice big post about europe`. Joeri is just sharing his opinion thats all.

I do feel like there should be more info or1 episode about how Armada gave alot of players extra motivation to practice/beat the worlds champ and therefore he changed the scene in the USA.

Whats done is done and i am very happy to enoy watching and rewatching the results.
I watched all episodes more then once and the episode about Isai really touched me. I hope he is doing well now ( and i hope he has found a girl ^^ )

Thanks again for making the docu

 

[Wiggins]

@ Wiggins - don't worry about it. I'll take care of you.
@ Battlecow - that's ridiculous. I wish I'd known. Of course at that point the storyline was not yet set. Still hilarious though.
@ Weiners - I will release the bulk of the interviews, first to the special edition people and then eventually to the public.
@ ycz12 - I'm letting word of mouth do its thing for now, but yes, after the remaster comes out I'm gonna drive hard.

KEEP COMMENTING! I MAY ANSWER STUFF!

I SWEAR TO GOD. I WILL CRY.

 

[pokemongeof]

Im only into Episode 4, and I am loving it! Thanks for making this!

Also, will u continue making more episodes?

 

[Knoxx]

After lurking the smash community for the past few years, I made an account just to post after watching the documentary.

It was literally the best thing that I have sat and watched in the past year. Inspirational, heartwarming, factual, you had all of it captured in the 9 episodes.

Just wanted to thank you and everyone who helped with the making of the documentary for an amazing film. Hopefully you can get this out there for everyone to see, I know I'll do my best to spread it around.

Thanks again samox, it was a great watch.

 

[Grey Fox]

Wow. Just finished. A M A Z I N G. This is Oscar-Worthy!

Dude honestly when I saw the trailer a couple years back and what clips you had released then, I thought it looked dumb. People were like oh melee doc omg this is gonna be awesome. I saw it and was like ehh kinda looks funny cause it just seemed THAT bad. BUT damn was I wrong! its soooo gooood! From the editing and just the stories and how you put everything together! It was funny, inspirational, and most importantly really touching to hear a lot of those stories told through the series. AND THE SUNSET THEME TO END IT ALL! <3 Home movies/Brendon Small and most of all <3 Melee!

 

[chriscapnz]

This documentary was inspiring and reminding ne why i joined the community and gave me my drive to get better again. I love you Smash Community

 

[sinth]

As a brawler I'm so happy to know that you edited the gameplay scenes so that they are presented more as highlights, rather than pasting entire matches in-between the interviews. It felt so much more digestible that way for me in terms of story pacing and I have a feeling it will really help open the documentary to a lot of non-smashers out there too, which I assume is partly a reason for a project like this to have begun.

The maps were great (lol where was japan though?) as were the rest of the diagrams, such as the animated brackets. I particularly liked the animation on the crew battle, as it pretty much made the difference there between my dad (yes I showed my dad this lol) understanding what was going on or not!

As a european I feel disappointed to have not seen any of Armada though. America and Japan were represented, and I understand that other players are also considered important, but at least a small showing from europe beyond that 'm2k and armada show' bit, would have felt more balanced in this retrospective look Smash history.

I will close by saying that I am now really really hoping this project will get all the attention it deserves, culminating in a sequel, showing Brawl, alongside a nice 30 min chapter on Project: M, which could be released just around the time of the Wii U entry for extra explosive attention. I'd donate for that, just like I had done for this project!

So stoked for the DVD this December!!!

 

[enCouRaging Bear]

little bit salty that dbr isn't really discussed cuz those videos brought me and i would assume alot of people into melee. came a bit late tho i suppose