What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies?

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xxx1993

What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies?

Post by xxx1993 »

I can only think of Mad Max: Fury Road and Mission: Impossible - Fallout being such examples.
Last edited by xxx1993 on Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Mischief Maker »

Edit: nevermind, I misinterpreted the question.
Last edited by Mischief Maker on Sat Apr 30, 2022 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Sima Tuna »

What, you mean something that's very overrated but still pretty good? Terminator 2, maybe. Or Aliens. I think both films are fun but far inferior to the original movies. But that's just, like, my opinion man. And one that most people apparently don't share.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

Sima Tuna wrote:What, you mean something that's very overrated but still pretty good? Terminator 2, maybe. Or Aliens. I think both films are fun but far inferior to the original movies. But that's just, like, my opinion man. And one that most people apparently don't share.
Yeah, something like that.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Mischief Maker »

Sima Tuna wrote:What, you mean something that's very overrated but still pretty good? Terminator 2, maybe. Or Aliens. I think both films are fun but far inferior to the original movies. But that's just, like, my opinion man. And one that most people apparently don't share.
Chris Nolan movies in general.

They demand so much of the audience but deliver so little in return.

The Dark Knight is his best because it requires zero mental gymnastics to follow the plot between the action scenes.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Austin »

Haven't seen it in a long time, but maybe Equilibrium?

T2 and the like are pop-culture phenomenons and household names. They'd be more analogous to things like Metal Gear and Call of Duty.

While Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga are well known and generally well regarded within the shmup community, the mainstream would still see them as niche.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Sima Tuna »

Ikaruga is still pretty much the only shmup the mainstream will recommend or shill for, outside of Gradius and R-Type. Sort of like how a lot of people only knew about "cyberpunk" on the context of The Matrix movies. Or knew about Arnold movies because of Terminator. How many people will say "hell yeah, Running Man is my favorite Arnold movie!" Terminator 2 gets/got shilled to fuck.

Likewise, you'll never hear a mainstream reviewer say, "fuck yeah, Guwange is my favorite shmup! It's way better than Radiant Silvergun!" The mainstream (reviewer/journalist) tastes with regard to shmups are very, very narrow. Not just what they like, but what they're even willing to try.

More so than with film critics, in my opinion. I think film critics and reviewers are a little more open to checking out those less-known films and approaching them with sincerity. Of course, the "kusoge" mindset still affects older films. There are people who genuinely think any kaiju movie is just jank kusoge. That opinion is not always helped by latter-day films which cater to this mentality. I suppose the greatest compliment I can give to shmups is that nobody ever sets out to deliberately make a shitty shmup. Plenty of films are deliberately made be shit (which defeats the purpose of "so bad it's good" when it's cynically "bad" in a sad attempt to drum up business.) But I digress.

Ikaruga is still mega overrated imo. I remember back during the gamecube era, when all the game journos could talk about was ikaruga. Playing it now, it's not at all the kind of thing I enjoy. I'd rather play some aca raiden 1. I can respect if you like Ikaruga. Not trying to shit on the game. But I don't think it's remotely in the running for best shmup ever.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Sima Tuna wrote:How many people will say "hell yeah, Running Man is my favorite Arnold movie!"
As a side note, the original book is far, far more interesting and nuanced than the movie. The movie's lame by comparison and I highly recommend everyone read the book instead. The movie essentially strips the original plot to the bone in order to turn it into an easily marketable action flick.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

If we take the question to be "THE mainstream go-to mention for an apex example of a genre, which is actually just okay", then I'd probably call it as The Dark Knight. It's absolutely fawned over relentlessly and is basically fine. The trouble is the nuance which is stripped out is that shmups are niche whereas action films absolutely aren't - there are tonnes of great action films the mainstream will talk about (Aliens/T-2/Die Hard - they're not lazy crutches, they're legit great action films), but basically no shmups except your Ikarugas and maybe Touhous (if the commentator is feeling obtuse). In that sense, can you really even have "an Ikaruga of action films"?

In fact, as tired as "OMG The Dark Knight is amazing" is "Aliens/T-2 is inferior to the first film". Can you even compare them without basically pitching genres against each other? Aliens and T-2 are stellar examples of action films, but saying the original is better is like trying to argue that a great coffee is better than a great lager.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

I wasn’t going to include superhero movies into this topic, but okay.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by BulletMagnet »

I'm no film fanatic, but I'd wager that most superhero flicks could be considered a subset of action movie.
xxx1993

Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

In that case, I’ll add Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame to that list.
Spoiler
Infinity War even ends with half of the world’s population wiped out and Endgame ends with one of the main characters sacrificing himself to defeat the villain!
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

Austin wrote:Haven't seen it in a long time, but maybe Equilibrium?

T2 and the like are pop-culture phenomenons and household names. They'd be more analogous to things like Metal Gear and Call of Duty.

While Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga are well known and generally well regarded within the shmup community, the mainstream would still see them as niche.
Speaking of which, have you also seen its spiritual successor, Ultraviolet? Same director, has the same actor (William Fichtner), and features similar protagonists with similar fighting style.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

BulletMagnet wrote:I'm no film fanatic, but I'd wager that most superhero flicks could be considered a subset of action movie.
Yeah, not sure what else you would classify them as really.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Mischief Maker wrote:Chris Nolan movies in general.

They demand so much of the audience but deliver so little in return.

The Dark Knight is his best because it requires zero mental gymnastics to follow the plot between the action scenes.
From what I hear Tenet is his most challenging movie but it wasn't really all that challenging. I'm stuck somewhere between feeling bad so many flicks just spoon-feed everything, and not wanting to disrespect the audience for just wanting to zone out and enjoy. If anything, the hardest part of Nolan films for me is just the anxiety. Tenet's climax action sequence was pretty underwhelming though. Probably Dunkirk is my favorite of his works but I'm not going to subject myself to it again anytime soon.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:
Sima Tuna wrote:How many people will say "hell yeah, Running Man is my favorite Arnold movie!"
As a side note, the original book is far, far more interesting and nuanced than the movie. The movie's lame by comparison and I highly recommend everyone read the book instead. The movie essentially strips the original plot to the bone in order to turn it into an easily marketable action flick.
I wonder if the same is true of Die Hard versus the book original Nothing Lasts Forever. The synopsis makes NLF sound a lot more hard-boiled. However, Die Hard is just a totally different beast so it's not a direct comparison.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by evil_ash_xero »

BulletMagnet wrote:I'm no film fanatic, but I'd wager that most superhero flicks could be considered a subset of action movie.
Absolutely. Action/Adventure would be the genre most of them would "fit into".
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Mischief Maker »

Well then let me be the one to push the nuclear button:

The entire MCU.

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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by o.pwuaioc »

Austin wrote:Haven't seen it in a long time, but maybe Equilibrium?

T2 and the like are pop-culture phenomenons and household names. They'd be more analogous to things like Metal Gear and Call of Duty.

While Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga are well known and generally well regarded within the shmup community, the mainstream would still see them as niche.
Metal Gear, maybe, but the Call of Duty cinematic equivalent is Transformers or Fast and Furious.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

I'm hoping the upcoming Top Gun: Maverick might be the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies. I hear it's getting a lot of acclaim lately. And that's just the early reactions. I also would have considered The Expendables to be this, but it feels more like the action movie equivalent to either Super Robot Wars, Super Smash Bros., or Project X Zone.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by EmperorIng »

xxx1993 is, in my opinion, the Sand Scorpion of the shmups forum. Keep reaching for that rainbow, kid!
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by drauch »

It's definitely Die Hard.

I don't consider any of this MCU greenscreen superhero stuff in the same vein of the classical action movie, which is gunplay/fisticuffs against endless henchmen. Then there's mini-bosses and the eventual main bad dude. Basically the beat 'em up formula, ya dig. Action movies were rarely even two hours long, not these epics with "character development" or whatever the fugg with action in between.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by BIL »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:
Sima Tuna wrote:How many people will say "hell yeah, Running Man is my favorite Arnold movie!"
As a side note, the original book is far, far more interesting and nuanced than the movie. The movie's lame by comparison and I highly recommend everyone read the book instead. The movie essentially strips the original plot to the bone in order to turn it into an easily marketable action flick.
Just make sure to avoid any reprints / compilations with Stephen King's foreword, as it comprehensively spoils the ending. :lol: I ran afoul of this, but to the story's credit, it suffered no real harm; great read for sure. Also a real trip if you only know the movie. They're about as closely-related as I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and The Terminator.

If I remember right, the foreword is called "The Importance of Being Bachman" (as the story was originally published under his pseudonym of Richard).
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

BIL wrote:If I remember right, the foreword is called "The Importance of Being Bachman" (as the story was originally published under his pseudonym of Richard).
You know, I had a collection of the books he wrote as Bachman and I think it had a black cover? I definitely remember that foreword at the front of the book... but it's been so long that can't remember anything the foreword said. I don't have the copy at home, I think it's still in my parents' bookshelf. :lol:

If you're gonna write a foreword that spoils the ending, then really, you should warn people to read it last, i.e. make it a damn afterword.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Ed Oscuro »

drauch wrote:I don't consider any of this MCU greenscreen superhero stuff in the same vein of the classical action movie, which is gunplay/fisticuffs against endless henchmen.
I would feel more or less the same way, but this Corridor Crew breakdown of Shang-Chi - ESPECIALLY the bus sequence - had me rethinking my prejudices a bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9yhnMIpRS8

There is some great stuff going on in there. Yeah, I do like the old Jackie Chan stuff. But he suffered terribly for all of that, too, and nearly died doing stuff like jumping off a building (while yelling "I DIE," of course).

And also I have to say that RS/Ikaruga always have had the reputation, at least here, of being a lot more cerebral than the Mahvel movies' reputation. Has that changed or do people not agree? (Yeah, I know Rob did some good work in this area. I'm a scrub so even if I had an opinion it wouldn't count for much.)

Speaking of good books versus flicks: Soylent Green and The Mark of Gideon (OG Star Trek ep) really have nothing on the sense of dread evoked by J.G. Ballard works with themes on urbanization and overcrowding. The closest image I could evoke would be a bad dream of chancing upon a glittering white metropolis of the dead in a quiet forest flanked by split guardian angels and with bits of green starting to show on the shaded surfaces after only a few years...
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by ChurchOfSolipsism »

xxx1993 wrote:I can only think of Mad Max: Fury Road
The fuck, man. Fury Road is objectively one of the best modern action films, and whoever disagrees can expect some raised eyebrows from me at the very least.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by ChurchOfSolipsism »

Mischief Maker wrote:Well then let me be the one to push the nuclear button:

The entire MCU.

Image
You know, I have only seen about two thirds of all the Marvel films, but for a good half of the films I have seen, I came out of the cinema or wherever I watched them slightly confused - they have good character development, some of the dialogue is not just serviceable, but good and witty, the films have good flow, some of them (Antman for example) have a certain 80s-Spielberg-great fantasy adventure-vibe. All of which is not what anybody who has had to endure the decline of popular cinema in the last 25 years would expect. I almost hate admitting it, but I think many of them are good/ adequate popcorn cinema not that far from what is considered "classics". Let's not forget that many of these films (Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Gremlins, ...) were dumb as shit (not that I care about that, it's just not that relevant in a popcorn movie), but still entertaining as fuck...
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Mischief Maker »

ChurchOfSolipsism wrote:
Mischief Maker wrote:Well then let me be the one to push the nuclear button:

The entire MCU.

Image
You know, I have only seen about two thirds of all the Marvel films, but for a good half of the films I have seen, I came out of the cinema or wherever I watched them slightly confused - they have good character development, some of the dialogue is not just serviceable, but good and witty, the films have good flow, some of them (Antman for example) have a certain 80s-Spielberg-great fantasy adventure-vibe. All of which is not what anybody who has had to endure the decline of popular cinema in the last 25 years would expect. I almost hate admitting it, but I think many of them are good/ adequate popcorn cinema not that far from what is considered "classics". Let's not forget that many of these films (Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Gremlins, ...) were dumb as shit (not that I care about that, it's just not that relevant in a popcorn movie), but still entertaining as fuck...
The question wasn't garbage movies, it was good yet really overrated ones.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
xxx1993

Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

ChurchOfSolipsism wrote:
xxx1993 wrote:I can only think of Mad Max: Fury Road
The fuck, man. Fury Road is objectively one of the best modern action films, and whoever disagrees can expect some raised eyebrows from me at the very least.
And that's why I said Fury Road is like the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies, because it's been lavished with critical acclaim the moment it came out. I'm one of those guys who liked it myself.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by xxx1993 »

I think Top Gun: Maverick is a worthy contender here. You could say Paramount is like the Treasure of movie studios.
Spoiler
Especially considering the final battle is very much like Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga.
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Re: What's the Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga of action movies

Post by Air Master Burst »

Something very precise and very niche thar's really good but also intense and exhausting enough you rarely want to go through it all again?

I dunno, something like Children of Men, or maybe one of those absurd 3 hour Sergio Leone epics?
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