The Smash Brothers - Series Discussion

[Divinokage]

Ya episode 8 for me was also the weakest part because it's like suddenly we are at FC:Legacy. There was no coverage for the entire 2007-2010 smash, Mango's history wasn't really talked about. =/ The brawl history is also very important which I felt like didn't get enough attention either.

 

[Papa+Stone]

I didnt know smasher were all huge *******. Maybe ill give this some thought

 

[nooga]

I didnt know smasher were all huge ****ies. Maybe ill give this some thought

What was the censored word?

 

[Accelerator]

@ MookieRah - Offensive gaming terminology is a touchy subject and I probably could have handled it differently. As Wes mentions in that specific section, everyone has a different upbringing and everyone has a different perspective on certain words. Naturally, in a male-dominated and predominantly young community, you would expect to find crass language which may alienate others. That shouldn't surprise anyone. The point of that section was meant to start that discussion, not end it. And it wasn't necessarily a joke to turn to the neutral word 'pwn' as an alternative (though in retrospect I can see why you'd think that's what I meant, given the jaunty music). It just goes to show that even the way you talk about the subject can make people uncomfortable.

I'm gunna go ahead and leave it at this. I don't want to **** this thread up with this argument. We've got a thread for this topic anyway.

 

[Papa+Stone]

Oh I said ******* there

 

[nooga]

lel fak u.

 

[MookieRah]

Naturally, in a male-dominated and predominantly young community, you would expect to find crass language which may alienate others.

Which is why, while I disliked interviewees using the words **** or gay, I understood that it simply documented their views.

As Wes mentions in that specific section, everyone has a different upbringing and everyone has a different perspective on certain words.

Because you and others have brought up Wes's viewpoint, I have quoted his overall argument here:
"It's all perception. If you let it hurt you, it's kind of your own fault, because everyone is branded to feel a certain way about certain words. But I guarantee that if everybody was brought up a different way" ... (there is a scene cut here for some reason) "words to me have different meanings."

That is a terrible argument. Words have meanings that are independent upon your upbringing and this is obvious because without that we wouldn't have language. Essentially he's blaming the victim here if something offends them or hurts them. Like I said before, a **** victim likely won't have the luxury of being able to "choose" whether or not that word affects them or not. Nor would someone who is gay, or a part of a minority. Also just because he personally doesn't care about who says the n word, that doesn't mean he can speak for every other black person that it's ok for everyone to use the word.

And it wasn't necessarily a joke to turn to the neutral word 'pwn' as an alternative (though in retrospect I can see why you'd think that's what I meant, given the jaunty music).

For starters, how is that not a joke? I really don't see any other way to interpret "And Now Back to the Rap... er Pwnage." set to this music as anything other than you personally thinking that this is something to joke about. You have two interviewees here talking about how this issue affects them on a personal level, and they talk about how bad it is for the community to be acting this way, yet you make the decision to encapsulate what they say with silly music and wrap it up in a bow that completely ignores and disrespects their viewpoints.

It just goes to show that even the way you talk about the subject can make people uncomfortable.

Not really, especially in a documentary. You should have stayed neutral in this and let your interviewees say their positions. This section would have been fine if it was simply professional, and not made in such a tongue and cheek way.

 

[Papa+Stone]

Lol ^^^^ that right there is proof of the divide between the thought process of nerds and black people. Regular people understand when and when it isnt acceptable to bring up these kinds of things, due to respect for other peoples feelings. But it wont keep them from being unphazed usually when **** or ghey sex is brought up like that. Also man its pretty silly that youd snap at this guy like that, youre touchy and whatever youre feeling is absolutely unintended, obviously he brought it up to shed light on the situation and maybe help show that mango wasnt intending to say that hbox literally enjoyed opening fresh cans of penis to put in his mouth. You simply are overreacting, even if you got ***** in school or jail repeatedly for being a woman or whatever it would have still been uncalled for. Also arent people with a competetive mindset have hulk like thick skin already like you put yourself into these situations where you constantly shatter peoples dreams and take their money. I figured people that loved to get rough and competetive and see their competition cry wouldnt be the type to be offended easily, especially by trashtalk, otherwise theyd go back and live with their mom where they can be sheltered from anything and everything and told that they are wonderful and beautiful
@amookie

 

[Heefe]

ehm so what?

Actually you're right. I'm probably just too afraid to go coz I'd get my ass beaten! :D

 

[Praxis]

Questions:

What is being changed in the remastered version? Just minor fixes?

Have you considered making a condensed, two hour version of this? Would be fantastic to try to get it viewed as a mainstream documentary a la SuperSize Me or Fat Head, maybe even on to Netflix.

I'd love to show this documentary to a lot of friends/family, but I don't know that I can make everyone sit through all nine episodes. A condensed version would be nice.

 

[samox]

@ MookieRah - We are all (clearly) sensitive to different words. Humor is a great device to try and build bridges between people whose views and experiences differ. If I changed that jaunty music in the second text sequence to a simpler and less comical resolve (which I may do to avoid repeating this conversation) I think it may drive home the point that I was truly trying to make - everyone has different perspectives and we should try to be sensitive to that. BTW - I will totally pwn you in melee.

@ Praxis - The only changes in the remaster will be audio. Maybe a slight few changes to edits, not much though. As far as a condensed version, I have no plans to do that. HOWEVER, I am about to announce something that will enable someone else to do that relatively easily. Stay tuned!

 

[Alexo30]

Lets look at the numerous bright-sides of this wonderful documentary, not the very few negatives Stop being so critical(not going to name any names). Go make one yourself.

@samox Again, great job.

 

[MookieRah]

@ MookieRah - We are all (clearly) sensitive to different words. Humor is a great device to try and build bridges between people whose views and experiences differ. If I changed that jaunty music in the second text sequence to a simpler and less comical resolve (which I may do to avoid repeating this conversation) I think it may drive home the point that I was truly trying to make - everyone has different perspectives and we should try to be sensitive to that. BTW - I will totally pwn you in melee.

That would help, but it would still be immensely better to not address the issue with a joke at all. If you simply set the segment to different music and ended it with "and now back to the pwnage" or something along those lines it would be fine.

The point of that section was meant to start that discussion, not end it.

As long as the segment is taken seriously, it will convey that message.

 

[SwiftBass]

There is something that just resignates within me about the east point pictures documentary episode 5,6,7. Perhaps because I can relate the most... but I think it's something more than that. I think it was the prime of the scene. Talking about the meta and more importantly overall unity. The endearment of the community in the midst of the pits and falls of that era is what defines the community's resilience. That period is really when everything should have died. There were other hardships but none as great as in that era in my opinion.

 

[soma ghost]

Absolutely amazing so far! I've gone through episodes 1 - 5 and I cant wait to watch the rest.
This makes me want to be a bigger, or more involved part of the community. Cant wait to start (:

 

[TobiasXK]

MookieRah my hero

i made a bit of a post on this subject on another site, but i don't really want to echo too much argumentation here necessarily, so i'll just say that the segment shows a sampling of mixed player opinions on the subject and that by itself accomplishes the stated goal of showing that everyone has different perspectives. i do feel that it watches really weird, as is; since it's bookended with a joke, it almost comes across as "here are some player opinions on this matter, but this filmmaker thinks it's all just silly".

and yea, when i first saw it, i absolutely gave the documentary the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the film just wanted to touch on the subject and acknowledge that it is an issue among Smashers and then run back into the main narrative using a kind of bad joke as the transition back. but like Mookie says that doubt can be avoided entirely by changing the music and skipping the joke and just having the segment for what it is—a quick tangent acknowledging that that sort of language is a thing in the community and that people have their own opinions on it.

so just voicing my support for that possible change, since it was basically my one sour note in a wonderful documentary that i've watched like 3 times already with different non-smasher friends.

 

[KrIsP!]

Oh god mookie, why the **** do you think a documentary on the history of smash is responsible for educating and discussing the use of insensitive terms in gaming culture? There's other discussions of this in better places, I'm personally happy with how he handled it, people said words that immediately threw you off and he had 3 people touch on it quickly. The dude quit his job and used his own money to cover our history, there's no need for anything but that.

 

[Accelerator]

Oh god mookie, why the **** do you think a documentary on the history of smash is responsible for educating and discussing the use of insensitive terms in gaming culture? There's other discussions of this in better places, I'm personally happy with how he handled it, people said words that immediately threw you off and he had 3 people touch on it quickly. The dude quit his job and used his own money to cover our history, there's no need for anything but that.

Seriously, there is a thread for this already. This is for discussing the documentary, not your feelings on language you deem offensive.

 

[samox]

New Update!

 

[nooga]

OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

 

[MookieRah]

Oh god mookie, why the **** do you think a documentary on the history of smash is responsible for educating and discussing the use of insensitive terms in gaming culture? There's other discussions of this in better places, I'm personally happy with how he handled it, people said words that immediately threw you off and he had 3 people touch on it quickly. The dude quit his job and used his own money to cover our history, there's no need for anything but that.

At what point did I say he needed to educate people on the issue? I simply took offense to the inclusion of a **** joke as something "significant" to the smash scene, and how he handled the segment discussing gaming terminology. At no point did I ever ask him to add anything, much less an entire segment regarding educating someone on these issues.

Also, you miss the larger point that this is going to be the face of smash to outsiders. There is a reason why a lot of the best smash commentators avoid this language, it's because they want to be taken seriously and professionally.

Seriously, there is a thread for this already. This is for discussing the documentary, not your feelings on language you deem offensive.

For one, one thread on this issue is a joke. You can't expect everyone to simply be "Man, he said ****, oh well can't criticize him because it's not on that one thread! " Secondly, this is legit criticism of this documentary. What I have posted is entirely within the topic of this discussion, and judging from the amount of likes I've received I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Besides, you guys are being hardcore hypocrites. You tell possible **** victims to "get *****", you use "gay" and "******" casually in a negative way, and you get mad at me for not tolerating it? Why don't you guys take your own advice and simply decide not to get upset with me and my posts. I mean, it is so easy right?

 

[Papa+Stone]

I personally try to limit things I say when I feel like i could potentially hurt someone and I fine if you and others are wanting to work towards a perfect tolerating society and what not, but until we get to that point people will have to acknoledge the slang of our generation and know the appropriate times to argue, just like how people could also learn when and when it isnt okay to say **** or gay. However it is never necessary to antagonize someone for using gay or **** when they are simply doing what people generally do these dats, and samox had no intention of offending anyone at all. Just like how you say he couldve handled the segment differently you yourself could have handled your complaint to him earlier in a different way as well, and hopefully avoid all thats happening now on this thread.

 

[ZeldaFreak0309]

Oh god mookie, why the **** do you think a documentary on the history of smash is responsible for educating and discussing the use of insensitive terms in gaming culture? There's other discussions of this in better places, I'm personally happy with how he handled it, people said words that immediately threw you off and he had 3 people touch on it quickly. The dude quit his job and used his own money to cover our history, there's no need for anything but that.

Ugh this is why I didn't want to bring this up despite feeling pretty much the same way that Mookie does.

I LOVED the documentary overall but you can love something but still be able to critique it. I shared this documentary with almost all my friends, but that bit in Episode 8 is pretty much the only thing stopping me from sharing it with co-workers, family, etc. Believe it or not nerd culture, as big as it is, is still a largely insular culture because of this stuff, and nobody outside of that culture is going to feel anything but annoyance and disgust when they hear '****' being thrown out so casually.

 

[Xx swift xX]

Travis knocked it out of the park!

I was actually coming to this thread to ask why there was no mention of Bach's montages or the Hub.
They were my only connection to the smash community when I was just a fledgling trying to follow all the
tournaments and players.

But I guess if you got Bach's approval...
Edit: Yea...I accidentally skipped an episode.


Oh, and Mookie is so incredibly right about the language segment. If you just change the music and text at the end of the segment, it would totally transform it. I'm not saying to do it for people being personally offended; I'm saying to do it for the good of the community. We want to be reflected in the most moral, accepting light possible. This documentary could be a huge breakthrough for smash. Let's make it a positive one.

 

[roxolid]

samox, you did a fantastic job with this documentary, and I'm so glad you decided to make it. Well done! Some of my favorite moments:
-Episode 1, when KDJ went down to 1 stock and then destroyed his opponent (great hook, especially for the people I've showed it to that don't know the game well)
-Anything wife said
-When Ken said something along the lines of "it sucked to lose, but mostly just because it was chillindude..."

 

[Lanceinthepants]

I was actually coming to this thread to ask why there was no mention of Bach's montages or the Hub.
They were my only connection to the smash community when I was just a fledgling trying to follow all the
tournaments and players.

But I guess if you got Bach's approval...


Oh, and Mookie is so incredibly right about the language segment. If you just change the music and text at the end of the segment, it would totally transform it. I'm not saying to do it for people being personally offended; I'm saying to do it for the good of the community. We want to be reflected in the most moral, accepting light possible. This documentary could be a huge breakthrough for smash. Let's make it a positive one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4vR-kdKDZ6M#t=415

 

[DerfMidWest]

personally, I enjoyed the documentary, but felt like it covered stuff it didn't need to and skipped over some stuff that was more important.

I think it would have been better if it stuck to the kind of dominant players in their given reigns (Ken, M2K, Mango, and Armada)
It also would have been great if Amsah were at least mentioned somewhere in there... since he was pretty damn important...

As much as I love PC Chris, Isai, KDJ, and Azen, none of them were ever clearly the best in their time. I didn't think they deserved entire videos to themselves.
M2K's section only really seemed to touch the surface of his dominance, because he really was unstoppable for a long time...
but his section really seemed to talk about mango for more than half of it lol.

And yeah... Amsah really needs to be in there... because he ran europe for a really long time.

 

[Accelerator]

At what point did I say he needed to educate people on the issue? I simply took offense to the inclusion of a **** joke as something "significant" to the smash scene, and how he handled the segment discussing gaming terminology. At no point did I ever ask him to add anything, much less an entire segment regarding educating someone on these issues.

Also, you miss the larger point that this is going to be the face of smash to outsiders. There is a reason why a lot of the best smash commentators avoid this language, it's because they want to be taken seriously and professionally.

For one, one thread on this issue is a joke. You can't expect everyone to simply be "Man, he said ****, oh well can't criticize him because it's not on that one thread! " Secondly, this is legit criticism of this documentary. What I have posted is entirely within the topic of this discussion, and judging from the amount of likes I've received I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Besides, you guys are being hardcore hypocrites. You tell possible **** victims to "get *****", you use "gay" and "******" casually in a negative way, and you get mad at me for not tolerating it? Why don't you guys take your own advice and simply decide not to get upset with me and my posts. I mean, it is so easy right?

Why does one topic need additional threads? One thread is sufficient for any topic at hand. This isn't really a legit criticism of the documentary either, you seem to be stressing over a few choice words that encompass less than a few minutes of what is a 4-5 hour long documentary.

I'm not even sure how I'm hypocritical, either,"You tell possible **** victims to 'get *****'; Are you serious right here? Like, should I start tip toeing around peoples feelings? Anything can happen to anyone at anytime. "Go get hit by a plane!', should I not say this? I mean, following your logic, I shouldn't because he's a possible victim of getting hit by a plane, I can't make light of his feelings! Rofl, I can't even handle this anymore.

 

[Xx swift xX]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4vR-kdKDZ6M#t=415

I stand corrected. I think I skipped that whole episode by mistake. Thank you for notifying me of my error.
I apologize for my incorrect accusations of negligence, Samox.

Watching the episode clears up so many things for me, hahaha. I was wondering why there was no mention of the Japan trip and the epic set vs Bombsoldier. I remember Soldier of Fortune was the combo video I showed all my friends to show them the high end of smash.

 

[MookieRah]

Why does one topic need additional threads? One thread is sufficient for any topic at hand.

Why do we need lots of topics in the character specific boards. I mean, one thread is sufficient for each character.

This isn't really a legit criticism of the documentary either, you seem to be stressing over a few choice words that encompass less than a few minutes of what is a 4-5 hour long documentary.

Yes, and it's completely valid criticism. I would share this to friends outside of smash and gaming if they removed those scenes, because while it may not be an issue to you, it is quite a big thing. As ZeldaFreak said:

Believe it or not nerd culture, as big as it is, is still a largely insular culture because of this stuff, and nobody outside of that culture is going to feel anything but annoyance and disgust when they hear '****' being thrown out so casually.

The amount of time that the problematic areas take up on the documentary doesn't excuse them from criticism. It just shouldn't be in there period, it's immature and unprofessional. The rest of the documentary is really good, which is why I'm not criticizing those parts.

I'm not even sure how I'm hypocritical

You tell others how they should feel on things and that if they are offended it is their own fault, yet you are offended at me taking offense to your actions. If you were true advocates of your own philosophy you would either A: grow up, or B: get thicker skin, as others have stated.

"You tell possible **** victims to 'get *****'; Are you serious right here?

I'm completely serious. **** is a very common occurrence. Statistically, lots of people on the smashboards are **** victims.

I also only advocate not using "****", racial slurs, and other forms of hate speech. Nothing more. That's an extremely limited pool of the overall english vocabulary to limit the usage of.

 

[Hot_ArmS]

I'm on my way to a tournament with my younger brother right now. He's never expressed interest in going to a smash tournament before but he saw the documentary and last night he came into my room asking if I wanted to take him to a smash tourney today.

Too good

 

[Caz1]

I really enjoyed this series. It was very well done, and I was constantly impressed by how professional it was.

Having said this, I have to say: every time an interviewee said "****" (and usually it wasn't just once, but more like 5-10 times in a short burst) I cringed. It doesn't personally ruin my day to hear someone speak like that, but it cements the idea that the greater public will never appreciate Smash. I can't imagine showing this documentary to someone who is not already part of a competitive gaming community in some way. I think that this documentary could have been an incredible opportunity to reach a larger audience, and the casual use of words like gay, ****, etc. really work against that.

Alright, with that off my mind...I still can't get over how good the documentary is as a whole. I recommended it to everyone I know that plays Smash, and unsurprisingly had multiple people recommend it to me. It's fantastic.

 

[swanized]

We've been getting a lot of newcomers lately in Montreal in part thanks to your documentary, our recent weekly tournament had 42 entrants. Thanks a lot!

 

[The Real Gamer]

Just finished watching the first episode... Best 20 minutes I've experienced all month.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

I feel Hatsune Miku was put into Ep. 3 as a special shoutout to me : ' )

 

[Ragequitbm]

Does anyone have a link to that crewbattle where Isai went ham?

 

[Vkrm]

What's that song in episode 8 at 7min 50 seconds? We should take that part of the episode and upload it separately as **** x 3.

 

[SauceySoars]

Not many of you guys here will know me (if any) but I am a member of the Halo community and run a large Competitive FPS console website & board that houses a majority of the Halo community ( Teambeyond.net/forum) and found this INCREDIBLE documentary on reddit. This was hands down one of the coolest things I have ever watched, its amazing how similar gaming communities really are.

One part that really hit home was when they said They went out and got Brawl during the midnight release, and realized it was not as good as Melee -and you saw a lot of players just stay on the older title. Seems like both the Smash and Halo communities have suffered from bad titles, being dropped from MLG, and were forced to either run grassroots tournaments or fade away. It was really awesome to see another big community overcome all kinds of adversity and still be able to keep their scene alive.

I really found myself "Connecting" with some of these guys in the documentary even though I have never met them haha. WIFE was my personal favorite from this documentary, he always kept it real. KoreanDJ seemed pretty awesome as well.

Anyways - just wanted to say this was amazing, the intro would give me nerd chills everytime.

 

[Wave⁂]

I don't really like the analogy Prog gives in episode 9 comparing Smash to jazz. It's been bugging me for a couple weeks now, just doesn't quite sit right.

Classical music isn't about playing notes from a sheet of paper. Anyone can just play the notes. Plenty of people can play the notes well. But far fewer people can play the notes well and bring life to them. To interpret the message the composer wrote, to express what the composer is trying to say, to express yourself, to speak to the listener. That is classical music. Just like in Smash, you are given a set of tools and rules, and you work with and within them.

 

[milligraham]

Here's what I think about Prog's jazz saying.

Traditional fighting games are like classical music because everyone knows the series' of inputs to get a KO most efficiently. As he said, the main thing you have to be careful of is making sure your execution is spot on.
Melee is more about the freedom to take all the moves and form your own combos. It has a greater emphasis on thinking on the fly.

I guess it's just a matter of opinion on what people think of the saying.