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Originality, even when it’s forced, is a rare and wonderful thing these days. Sometimes it comes about due to the constraints of budget or equipment. Sometimes the expectations or demands of a client or superior change. However it happens, if a production can manage to recover, even if it goes in an entirely new direction, the result is usually at least interesting, if not decent. The Emperor’s New Groove is more than decent, being an atypical Disney movie and, in my humble opinion, one of their most fun.

The story is set in an ambiguously ancient Mezzo-American empire, whose current head honcho, Kuzco, is something of a spoiled selfish jerk. The teenaged tyrant is looking to build his new summer home (complete with water slide) on the hilltop currently occupied by a small peasant village. His plans distract him from the machinations of his ancient witch of an advisor, Yzma, who conspires with her large and somewhat ADHD-afflicted handyman Kronk to poison Kuzco and usurp his empire. Unfortunately for Yzma, Kronk grabs the wrong vial and instead of dying, Kuzco is turned into a llama. The polymorphed potentate is dumped on a cart belonging to Pacha, leader of the village scheduled for destruction. In order to get back to his palace and regain his throne, Kuzco needs to work with Pacha, who will only help the emperor if he agrees to build ‘Kuzcotopia’ somewhere else. Hilarity ensues.

Originally, this was going to be a far more typical Disney musical, called Kingdom of the Sun. They had a Prince & the Pauper storyline, Sting was lined up to do the songs, everything was going swimmingly. The production began to suffer, however, when the team tried to find ways to make the story more original. Test screenings didn’t go well, and the two directors assigned to the project by Michael Eisner ended up working on two different films, with one leaning towards drama while the other aimed for comedy. When the more drama-minded director left the production, Eisner threatened to shut down the production entirely. While the animators were assigned to a Fantasia sequence, the writers and remaining director gave the film a serious overhaul. The result was The Emperor’s New Groove.

Think of the jaguars as very angry investors. But what the hell do they know?

Opting for an entirely comedic experience, the movie plays a lot more like something out of Warner Brothers than Disney. There’s no romance save the relationship between Pacha and his very pregnant wife, all but one of the in-movie songs were cut (which made Sting very upset), and the typical Disney cute animal very spitefully tries to get Kuzco eaten by a pack of hungry jaguars. A particularly Looney Tunes moment is in the third act when Yzma and Kronk are in a dark room, and all we can see are their eyes in an entirely black space. You’ll know what I mean when you see it.

One of the most brilliant decisions made was to cast David Spade as Kuzco. His performances in the various comedies he’s been a part of over the last decade or so have been somewhat hit and miss. Emperor’s New Groove is the former. Spade is very good at being a shallow jerkass, and channeling that into the shallow-as-a-thimble Kuzco is a stroke of genius. The small ensemble cast is, in fact, effective on all sides. John Goodman’s Pacha is very charming and endearing, Patrick Warburton launched a great voice acting career due to his turn as Kronk, and Yzma wouldn’t be anywhere near as enjoyable or the jokes to which she’s subjected as funny if her voice wasn’t coming out of former Catwoman Eartha Kitt.

One might even say she was “purrfect” for the role.

Combining this great voice work with some of Disney’s finer hand-drawn animations and quite a few lampshades being hung on the typical fare from the studio creates a very funny movie that still manages to be endearing in places. We see an actual friendship develop, the characters are memorable, the story moves a great clip and none of the jokes overstay their welcomes. In terms of both comedy and animation, this movie does everything it needs to do right not just right but very well.

Even if you don’t have kids, I’m willing to bet you’ll find The Emperor’s New Groove an amusing and refreshingly quirky romp from Disney’s animation studio. It fits well in just about any Netflix queue, whether you’re a fan of comedies in general or need a change of pace. It’s always interesting to see, over the course of a narrative, a complete jerkass grow and change into… well, a slightly more tolerable jerk. Which is part of the reason Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, in my opinion, works as well as it does.

…What? You haven’t seen that yet, either? Why are you still sitting there?

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

This is going to be another one of those posts that’s as much a reminder to myself as it is to anybody else. During my abortive attempt to catch this morning’s train, my iShuffle offered up a song I haven’t heard in a while – KMFDM’s “Megalomaniac.” Even more so now than years ago when I first heard it, there’s a bit in the lyrics that seems to speak directly to me:

In the age of super-boredom
Rape & mediocrity
Celebtrate relentlessness
Menace to society

It’s difficult for me to think of anything more relentless than an idea, especially in the creative mind. The flashes of inspiration that prompt the creation of a work or series of works often extends beyond the original framer of the idea into all sort of permutations. The idea of being out of control, even in a creative sense, is very frightening for some people.

Yet the idea does not go away. A creative mind can struggle to ignore it or put it behind them as they do something responsible, but it’s there. It sits. It waits. And every so often, it rattles its cage. It won’t be ignored for long. It’s relentless.

It’s an admirable sort of relentlessness, in my opinion. The idea doesn’t give up. We shouldn’t, either.

Courtesy Terribleminds, make with the clicky-clicky

I was going to put this off until tomorrow. I was thinking of putting up my entry to Chuck’s contest as late as possible. But I can’t. I’m way too inspired, way too charged, to hold onto this that long. He set the word limit at 1000, so I guess my hope is to deliver twice the story in half the verbiage. That is to say: this is 500 words, and it’s all about doing laser. And rocking your face. Enjoy.

The most amazing thing I’ve ever seen on stage is the Wendigos. These guys that write songs based on odd search engine terms, and not every song they do catches the imagination of an audience. Most of the people in the stadium that night were there for the headlining band, anyway. But as they launched into their last song, ‘I Wanna Do Laser,’ something started happening. It was like night and day. Just a minute before people were wondering what the hell ‘Oatmeal Boat Canvas’ was all about. But the pulsing groove of that final song, the utter unfettered desire to live life, zap through obstacles, fucking DO something, was infectious. It rolled through the crowd like a plague of awesomeness, a sick fetid cloud of the unbelievably cool.

Chuck, the frontman, is rocking the mike. Thirty thousand people are getting into the groove of the song. After the first couple verses, the last two lines are grabbed by the audience who begin shouting it along with Chuck’s singing. In the middle of the song’s bridge, Chuck runs towards the back of the stage, towards the drum kit. His drummer, Larry, looks like he’s facing down a charging rhino. Chuck very nearly kicks Larry in the head as his foot heads for the bass drum pedal. He starts pounding out the beat of the song, which is how the bridge in the studio recording goes into the last verse, but Chuck has a different energy. His eyes are wild. Sweat is flying off his beard. He brings the mike up and shouts.

“My beard come so fat!”

He raises his fists in the air. The response from the audience is immediate, loud and boisterous.

I WANNA DO LASER!

“My beard come so fat!”

I WANNA DO LASER!

“My beard come so fat!”

I WANNA DO LASER!

Over and over again. The rest of the band stops playing. It’s just Chuck, pounding his foot down on that pedal and giving the prompts, communing with thirty thousand brand-new Wendigos fans. Larry and the others walk off stage. Finally, after a good two minutes of this orgy of joie de vivre, Chuck steps off of the pedal, and says it one more time.

“MY BEARD COME SO FAAAAAAAAT!”

I WANNAAAAAAAA DOOOOOOOO LAAAAAAAAAAASER!

The arena explodes. People are screaming. Chuck walks out to the front of the stage, looking around.

“Where’d everybody go?” Chuck looks off-stage. “You buncha pussies! Don’t YOU wanna do laser?”

He turns back to the audience, who are laughing, applauding, crying for an encore.

“What about YOU? YOU STILL OUT THERE??”

The voice of the crowd is like a wave. It washes over the stage and Chuck just stands there basking in it. He turns and looks to the band the Wendigos opened for. He’s grinning like a madman, white teeth shining out of the sweat-soaked tangle of his beard.

Steven Tyler turns to Joe Perry, looking like he just got kicked in the gut.

“Shit. We gotta follow THAT?”

Okay. Here’s my nerd card. I’m turning it in.

I was aware of MC Frontalot before last week. I knew there was something called ‘nerdcore hip hop’ but since I don’t, in general, listen to hip hop as a whole, I was only aware of it and its artists on the level of intellectual curiosity. I appreciated the fact that folks not unlike myself were using the style to write songs about things other than pimpin’ one’s ho’s and squeezin’ one’s gats ’til their clips be empty.

Then Rachel told us about the best night she ever had in her entire life.

I took her suggestion, tried out some of Front’s tunes, and now I hang my head in shame for not being a fan of his before now.

This is a revelation not unlike the one I had when Portal made me aware of Jonathan Coulton, who is now working on getting some of his songs into Rock Band. I for one look forward to singing “Code Monkey” and “Re: Your Brains” next time we have a get-together with more than three people. Anyway, Front’s music does something that I really appreciate when it comes to hip hop – he eschews the usual trappings of swearing and themes related to cops, drugs and loose women, focusing his clean, intelligent rhymes on gaming, science fiction, blogging and other nerd-friendly topics. Two things about this statement: I’m not implying that rappers are unintelligent as a rule, and I know Front occasionally gets pissed about stuff. Like people blogging about their dogs.

I’ll fully admit that Front isn’t going to appeal to everybody. He’s focused on a demographic that’s familiar with the differences between console generations, the nuances of Havok physics, the debate between Next Generation & Deep Space Nine fans and the reasons why neo-conservative picketers calling themselves ‘teabaggers’ is so hilarious. Then again, chances are, you fit this demographic if you’re a regular visitor of this blog (which, hopefully, isn’t the kind Front’d hate on).

Here’s what I’m on about.

Are you smiling? Are you laughing? You better be.

It’s a frakkin’ nerd’s world, after all.

What isn’t awesome about this artwork? NOTHING THAT’S WHAT.

I, like Yahtzee, love Tim Schafer. We’ve taken turns talking about how great he is. I grew up on games like Day of the Tentacle and I adored Full Throttle. Psychonauts quickly grew on me (after my fingers healed up) and when Tim finally returned with Brütal Legend, I was very excited. Having played the game, I still think he’s a genius. The game, on the other hand, I’m a bit less passionate about, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun playing it.

Eddie Riggs is a roadie. He’s not a front man or a guitarist or anything of the sort. I mean, sure, the man can wail on an ax with the best of them and knows good music when he hears it – and cringes when he hears bad music – but he’s a roadie. He stays in the wings and helps a band look good. He can fix, build and do just about anything, but he never wanted to be in the spotlight. Until a spotlight fell on him, that is. Several spotlights, in fact, and a whole lot of set design. His near-death experience took him to another world instead of a hospital, a world of pure heavy metal imperiled the forces of darkness and the onslaught of screechy hair metal. It’s Eddie’s job to take command of the resistance and lead them to victory. The final goal of that victory, to liberate the world or blow it to smithereens, is kinda murky. Prophecies are like that.

Stuff I Didn’t Like

“C’mon. Just three little words. Say it. ‘Nickelback sucks.’”

• Unlabeled maps make the baby Jesus fume with rage. I’m not asking you to tell me exactly where everything is if exploration is one of your selling points, and I do love to explore. No – just tell me where things are after I find them. When I pass something, unlock a new area or catch sight of a landmark, jot that down on the map. It shouldn’t be that hard. Why am I only seeing Metal Forges and sidequests on the map when I bring it up? How does that help me?
• Likewise the in-game tutorials aren’t terribly informative. I had no idea how to unlock the various draconic gargoyle statue things littered around the landscape until I looked it up on a fan site. Nobody in the game told me what they were for or how to free them, just that I had to. And I still don’t know how to switch around the faces on Mount Rockmore.
• A lot has been said about the game’s RTS gameplay. As someone who’s played a variety of RTS games, from the original Command & Conquer to StarCraft, I had a few quibbles about it myself. The inability to see the battleground from above felt like a major hindrance, selecting individual units took longer than I felt comfortable with since most of the enemy was running up to pound my face into the nearest hard surface, and blending the third-person adventure controls with RTS controls felt hasty in its construction and shifting gears from beating ass to issuing commands broke the flow of combat somewhat. I don’t object to the existence of RTS in this game – just its execution.

Stuff I Liked

“Dig the wheels, baby? I got ‘em from this crazy mumbling dude in a dress.”

• That said, I love the idea of being with my troops during the battle. When I first heard General Lionwhyte wailing away as he floated there on his hair-wings, my first thought was to run over to him and shut his pasty whiny ass up. And that’s exactly what I did! No need to sortie other troops, I just zipped over and started unloading on him.
• The art direction of the world is pretty cool. It feels like the studio over at Double Fine is wallpapered with old Queensryche and Megadeth albums and that’s what the artists used to make this world feel awesome.
• The riffs you learn to summon your car, raise forges and do other things is reminiscent of color-matching in Rock Band and are satisfying to pull off, especially in the middle of a stage battle.
• I like Jack Black and I don’t care who knows it.
• Switching between the melee and ‘magic’ attacks you have is very smooth, and it makes combat more interesting.
• I like the characters. They’re not overly deep and complicated, but they’re cool and the voice acting is nicely done, which leads me to…

Stuff I Loved

“It’s a fucking robe, you fucking prat!!”

• Ozzy, Lemmy, Lita and Rob Halford. ‘Nuff said.
• Oh, you want more? The soundtrack will kick your ass. It is awesome. I loved zipping around the landscape in the Druid Plow rocking out to metal. Dropping the Plow into the middle of a fight and kicking on a different tune to pump you up more helps get through some of the tedious bits of the RTS engine. It did for me, at least.
• The bit at the beginning where you can choose the amount of swearing & gore makes me laugh every time. It would only be better if the censoring was in the style of Metalocalypse, laying guitar stings over the curses.

Bottom Line: Brütal Legend is one for metal fans and fans of Tim Schafer. Hardcore RTS fans, people expecting a sandbox game mixed with God of War or folks who can’t stand Jack Black aren’t going to enjoy this. I did, though. Rent it if you like badass music and a unique gameplay & story experience, buy it if you like the game after playing it.

And for the record, I was digging on the character of Lita more than Ophelia.

I’m not entirely sure why. Just something about her.