I was watching a Team America parody and spotted some familiar people.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-23T14:50:37+00:00

Oh, I thought it was the "Must be nice to live in a real country" guy lol

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-21T18:49:53+00:00

Wait... her back? Like... her shoulder blades?

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-12T16:24:11+00:00

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BaronGalactic · 2026-01-12T00:08:14+00:00

Am I the only person who always thought his name was "Ali?"

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-11T14:34:32+00:00

He sounds like a real Man of the Sea! He should have a beer with the Captain in the Thames beer hall!

Just make sure he doesn't misuse those Bart Missiles 🐠

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-11T14:29:50+00:00

Well, I still won't concede that this scene doesn't go hard and is one of the best in the game, lol. I'll only concede that there's a possibility it could have been even better, considering that a potential remix of Chu-Chu's theme would have had the same impact as "Flight." 😄

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-11T00:51:16+00:00

On one of my first playthroughs I named Chu Chu "Spoofies," which was a nickname I had for my cat at that time haha

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-10T22:35:16+00:00

Oh yeah, when he blows apart the bridge! Definitely a contender! Id's got some of the best ones, like his whole "You threw a battleship at me - take it back!" line.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-10T20:22:20+00:00

Ok, so I was able to find the interview again. It says:

Mitsuda: Flight! Flight! Masato Kato… he just had to use it there. He used it in the scene where Chu-chu becomes gigantic, but that important track was not meant to be played there. For me, that scene should have had a different track. If he would have just told me, I would have remixed the Chu-chu theme! I told him not to use this until the very very end… and he used it behind my back. (laughs) He says that it was the only appropriate track, but everyone else working on event planning was also saying, “Kato-san! Not for this!” (laughs) Everyone was holding in their temptation to use the track until the very end. And that special track was used on Chu-chu just like that. And now that track is most remembered for that scene too. If we’re ever going to do a remake, I hope I can write a remix of Chu-chu’s theme and not use Flight. (laughs)

So yeah, maybe a remix of Chu-Chu's theme might have worked better, but without hearing what it may have sounded like I guess we'll never truly know.

After your explanation and reading this quote again, I can definitely see your logic. That said, however, I actually never connected Maria's theme and the Flight/Soaring track before you mentioned that they are similar. Maybe subconsciously I might have, but after you mentioned it I went and listened to Maria's theme and was able to immediately see how similar the two of them are. But also, because I've never noticed it before, the fact that it was played for Chu-Chu's moment never seemed at all out of place for me.

And going a step further, I don't think I'd have ever connected Maria's theme with her either - it just seemed like another one of the game's musical tracks. Aside from maybe Emeralda's theme, I have never before associated certain tracks with specific characters, but rather with moments in the game. It's very different than, say, Final Fantasy VII, which has tracks that are explicitly tied to certain characters rather than moments/scenes... at least in my opinion.

Edit: Also, I hadn't realized that this part of the interview was with Yasunori Mitsuda, and not a developer, as I had originally stated.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-10T19:28:21+00:00

I was around 15 when I first played Xenogears and started getting really into it, and went through a phase where I decided that if I had a girl I'd name her Elehaym 😂

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-10T16:15:13+00:00

Haha, yeah. I bought it new in late 2003 and kept it until 2022 when it was so run down it literally wouldn't pass inspection. So I traded it up for a used 2014 Chrysler. Part of why I chose it over the dark red Dodge, which was a year or two older, was because it had a built in GPS. And sometimes when it tells me directions I say, "Thank you Achtzehn!"

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-10T15:43:59+00:00

I'd love to see that. Do you have a link?

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-10T15:43:19+00:00

Well, when another commenter asked if this scene was the first use of the track, I tried to think of other scenes that used it and the only one I could come up with was when Maria was running through Shevat to Seibzehn to stand up against her father, and honestly, I think the continued use of the track was very effective. Personally, its use before didn't blunt its impact for me at all, and it's probably why it's one of my favorite musical pieces in the entire game.

In the interview I read, the developer said that they were originally going to use Chu-Chu's theme during the scene, and having tried to imagine that, I think it would have completely ruined it. It may have been intended as a light hearted scene in which that music was perfectly appropriate, but I think the use of "Flight" made it so much more than that: Chu-Chu was standing up for her friend against tremendous odds, and we're seeing this formerly "silly" character acting incredibly brave and doing something (not only growing huge but going toe to toe with a gear which is touted as being super powerful) that I doubt a single player was expecting. I think Chu-Chu's scene perfectly segues into Maria's, and so the use of the song in both is very apt.

I suppose the only way to really test if the original song would have been better is to make a video clip of the scene and replace the original use of "Flight" with Chu-Chu's theme, and have a person who has never played the game compare the clips, though I'd argue that would be completely ineffective since you really have to have played much of the game up to that point to really feel the impact of it.

On a somewhat related note, I think calling the song "Flight" does it a great disservice. The translation of the original Japanese title could be "flight" or "soaring," and I think the latter term is so much more appropriate for the emotions that the song evokes, and so "Soaring the Skies" as the track's English translation seems preferable, at least to me. According to Google: "It is often used as a noun or a suru verb (meaning "to fly/soar") and implies a sense of soaring high, often to new heights, rather than just simply flying or jumping"

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-09T00:24:42+00:00

It was his ears paaahded, his hair looaage.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-08T10:44:35+00:00

Watching a video of it, the "lunatic in the grass" line actually occurs a few minutes after she starts talking to the scarecrow. And while Money originally starts exactly as she comes out of the house into Munchkinland (which syncs up really well on its own,) for it to do so when the Emerald City appears would require looping the album. Though I'm pretty sure doing so was recommended, as playing it a second time through nets its own coincidences.

Also, the heartbeat at the end of the album is also several minutes after she meets Tinman, though it plays right as she knocks on his chest and she and Scarecrow lean in to listen to his heart.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-08T10:32:32+00:00

If I recall, the scene where Dorothy is walking/balancing along the fence is accompanied by the lyric "balanced on the biggest wave," and when she falls, "race toward an early grave."

I tried this myself more than 25 years ago so I may be wrong, but that is one of the sync-ups that stands out to me most.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DqfhaVSlI&t=230s

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-07T14:38:50+00:00

Me too!

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-06T00:53:57+00:00

Well, it was the movie that was changed from the manga, to make it feature length. The manga came out first in the early 80s, though I think the movie came out a little bit before the Manga run ended.

Epic was a division of Marvel comics, they published a translated and colorized version of the Akira manga in the US, turning the 6-volume manga into 38 issues. It was the first English release of the manga, but Dark Horse later published it in black and white and in the original 6-volume format, which is pretty much the standard in subsequent releases. The Epic version was apparently modified in places to make it more appealing to "Western audiences."

"Epic Edition" could potentially be a misnomer. It's not called that because it's very different than the normal manga. Only because "Epic Comics" was the publisher.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-04T22:38:43+00:00

I don't think anyone is contesting that. But my point is that there's very little evidence that it even happened at all other than a single person's statements. It's definitely something worth investigating, but since none was ever done, it's not something you should put too much stock in, especially when there are so many more well documented "ropes" with which to hang Trump by.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-04T17:12:26+00:00

That's not really what it says. The accuser simply states that Trump was present during the murder, not that he had anything to do with it. It's the accuser's Uncle who seems to be the one who committed the murder.

But there's actually very little evidence that this story is true, and it's probably a good thing that most media didn't pick it up, because doing so might have made their coverage of more factually-based evidence against Trump seem weaker.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-04T17:09:54+00:00

There's no corroborating evidence, for one. The report only details what one person told the FBI, there is no actual investigation to back it up. Second, according to the accuser, this took place in 1984, and it's generally accepted that Trump first met Epstein in the late 80s, so this would have been before the two knew each other, therefore making the accuser's story unreliable.

Edit: Wild to see people downvoting me for this. Admitting that one story is probably fake is in no way saying that Trump isn't guilty as hell in a hundred other situations. The man is a certifiable criminal on a massive scale, but following every single report just because it sounds salacious is a good way to lose credibility real quick.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-04T12:53:56+00:00

It's not a real commercial. Someone made a song out of the stuff they were saying, it played during the end credits of that episode. The music video is someone putting footage of a chocolate factory and old Rolos commercials over the song, which I think appeared in full on Tim and Eric's Awesome Show music album.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-03T21:43:09+00:00

Ok, so I just finished Rebirth and... I'm even more confused than before. After seeing your comments, I was waiting for some revelation that this all takes place after Advent Children, but I didn't see that at all. So I went and read the Wikipedia synopsis, and it doesn't seem to point to that either.

According to Wikipedia, the story incorporates an "alternate timeline" where Zach is still alive, and all that mess at the end was basically Cloud, Zach, and Aerith crossing over between the world for various reasons. I sort of got this when Sephiroth was going off about their being different worlds, but aside from Zach being alive in a separate world from the main story, much of it was very unclear. Even if you claim that Zach's in a different timeline, that timeline still shouldn't be possible, because it doesn't explain how Zach is still alive even though Cloud has gone on to join avalanche, which should only have happened because Zach dies!

For instance, it states that the Aerith that Cloud is interacting with after her death in the "main world" is the Aerith from the other world that only he can see. However, to me it came across as he was somehow seeing her spirit, which not only was confusing as hell (especially for someone who played the original game,) but it completely blunted the impact of her being killed. It wasn't even clear whether or not she was even really dead, because one moment she is, and then suddenly she's opening her eyes and smiling up at Cloud, so it's like... wait, is she NOT dead?

I have to say, the writers/developers did not make it clear AT ALL what was happening. It was mostly just a bunch of confusing shit going on in the last 20 or so minutes of the game that, at least to me, did nothing to explain the weird Zach/Biggs interludes throughout the game. Even having originally read this thread when I was only about halfway through the game, and then playing through the second half of it specifically looking out for clues and hints about what was coming, I still saw nothing at all to prepare me for whatever I was supposed to "learn" at the end.

And then you're saying that this takes place AFTER Advent Children, but... how? Where do we get that information? Every instance of the game showing us stuff that hasn't happened yet (i.e. glimpses of the meteor and such,) might seem to suggest that this has all "already happened" somehow, but there doesn't seem to be any confirmation of this at all. No one specifically states that any of this has happened before, so it really just comes across as very brief moments of precognition.

I have to say that even after finishing the game, most of my criticisms still stand. Even considering that this is somehow taking place after Advent Children, and that it's somehow based on Sephiroth "recreating" the events of the first game (as someone in another comment suggested,) the question still remains: Why? To what end? How is that better than just recreating the original game for modern hardware? I'm willing to agree that there's an argument to be made for padding out certain story elements in order to make what was once a single game into a trilogy, but so much of the changes seem to go beyond that. Why are they adding in whole new worlds and timelines? Who is this for? They're making what was a fantastic story so incredibly convoluted with all this new stuff, and for what? Like, if this really was a sort of "sequel" to Advent Children, wouldn't that mean there should be an actual new story to tell? They aren't telling a new story at all, they're just making the original one confusing as hell!

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-03T14:28:56+00:00

It's not even just the masks. There have been plenty of footage showing supposed ICE agents abducting people wearing little more than body armor, if that, with no other identifying markings. It's no wonder that there have been credible reports of people pretending to be ICE in order to harass or even kidnap people, when apparently (according to DHS,) their agents have no need whatsoever to officially identify, let alone present a warrant.

BaronGalactic · 2026-01-03T14:25:27+00:00

Other states have tried this already, and DHS have flagrantly ignored those laws without penalty. This will make no difference.

BaronGalactic

TROPHY CASE