The Shmups Forum Dead Pool

[BIL]

Leiji Matsumoto, the legend and mastermind behind such works like Galaxy Express 999, Space Battleship Yamato, Captain Harlock, and Gun Frontier, also passed away a week ago at age 85. Having done a lot of space opera anime, he was essentially the George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry of anime.

Legend indeed.

[Fingolfin]

Star Blazers theme https://youtu.be/eMcrep48Wz0

Star Blazers Season One intro lyrics

“We’re off to outer space
We’re leaving mother Earth
To save, the human race
Our Star Blazers

Searching for a distant star
Heading off to Iscandar
Leaving all we love behind
Who knows what dangers we’ll find

We must be strong and brave
Our home we have to save
If we don’t in just one year
Mother Earth will disappear

Fighting with the Gamalons
We won’t stop until we’ve won
Then we’ll return and when we arrive
The Earth will survive with our Star Blazers”

No disrespect to Leiji Matsumoto’s other genre defining works — anime space operas and resultant manga — but this is where it all started for me: Space Battleship Yamato as the US dubbed Star Blazers.

Have very fond and distinct memories of watching US dubbed Star Blazers aka Space Battleship Yamato and getting up early before school to watch it on TV @ 5 am in 1979; in addition to Godzilla and other TOHO kaiju movies, my love and fascination with Japanese culture and media started with Star Blazers

RIP Leiji Matsumoto and thank you for all you have shared!
Roddenberry & Lucas seem apt comparisons.

[GaijinPunch]

Leiji Matsumoto, the legend and mastermind behind such works like Galaxy Express 999, Space Battleship Yamato, Captain Harlock, and Gun Frontier, also passed away a week ago at age 85. Having done a lot of space opera anime, he was essentially the George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry of anime.

Legend indeed.

Damn... can say 100% that he was my gateway to anime/Japan.

[vol.2]

Damn... can say 100% that he was my gateway to anime/Japan.

Definitely an earlish anime for me. The first ones I knew were Speed Racer, Macross, and Go Lion, but Star Blazers was right in there somewhere. When I was in HS, my cousin gave me VHS tapes of the Star Blazers shows. Great stuff. In a way, I think it's a tighter, more consistent show than Macross ever was, even if it didn't have the iconic Valkyrie designs

[GaijinPunch]

It was 3x the show Macross was. J-Pop cannot save the fucking Earth. Sorry to break everyone's heart.

[Udderdude]

https://twitter.com/Ellidena/status/1627649444773609473

[xxx1993]

Tom Sizemore just kicked the bucket. Brain aneurysm. I guess they had to put him out of his misery one way or another...

[BIL]

Jesus, didn't realise how rough he was looking towards the end, there.

Only really knew him from Heat and Saving Private Ryan - which is plenty admirable, tbh - but his sex tape was a goddamn riot back in the day. We used to blast it over our college radio, lmao. 3;

"OOOOOONGH!!! AAAAAAGH! MOTHER FUCKERRR!!!"

[xxx1993]

I also knew him as one of the main antagonists of Natural Born Killers, which I watch every Super Bowl Sunday...

[GaijinPunch]

I was gonna post this a few days ago, as they had put him on "end of life" status... was just a race to the clock. That felt a bit in bad taste though. My phone knows I love anything to do w/ Heat, so it told me about this pretty early on.

Only really knew him from Heat and Saving Private Ryan

How could you have forgotten him in Natural Born Killers?

That also reminds me you've yet to watch Twin Peaks the Return, as well.

[BIL]

Nah it's the other way around - I binged Twin Peaks s1, s2, Fire Walk With Me, Missing Pieces and The Return all in like two months, a few years back. You're right though, I totally forgot I made this GIF! (I make sure to do Rodney's dance whenever the slightest opportunity presents itself )



I have indeed never seen NBK though! Despite the soundtrack album being a youthful favourite - just like his sex tape!

[GaijinPunch]

Nah it's the other way around - I binged Twin Peaks s1, s2, Fire Walk With Me, Missing Pieces and The Return all in like two months, a few years back. You're right though, I totally forgot I made this GIF! (I make sure to do Rodney's dance whenever the slightest opportunity presents itself )

Legendary scene!

I have indeed never seen NBK though! Despite the soundtrack album being a youthful favourite - just like his sex tape!

Oh man - it is quite unforgettable. Actually hard to watch as one gets older... at least I have found.

[BulletMagnet]

Gary Rossington, founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, age 71.

[xxx1993]

Robert Blake. He was acquitted in his wife’s murder.

[BulletMagnet]

Longtime singer-songwriter Bobby Caldwell, age 71, apparently due to side effects from a medication; penned a whole bunch of stuff for other artists, though the one he's probably best known for performing himself is What You Won't Do For Love. I actually saw him in person a handful of times, still have an autographed CD or two around someplace.

[xxx1993]

https://www.tmz.com/2023/03/17/the-wire ... dead-dies/

What? Lance Reddick is dead? But how?

[BIL]

Great, understatedly compelling actor. Sadly, 60 and up can go downhill fast for some. Way too soon, needless to say.

Besides his iconic role as The Wire's Cedric, he was great in Oz as the undercover cop with a fictional Jamaican backstory who ends up hooked on smack - one of the series' most memorably troubled side characters - and in The Guest, as the higher-up who's coolly imperious but not above taking to the field to magdump some tangos.

Everyone says his Wire co-star Idris Elba would be a great black Bond, and I don't disagree, but I thought Reddick's aura was nearer Fleming's suave outsider, and bald too, just like Connery! (not saying I think it's a great concept, as always, I'd rather they just come up with a badass new character like our national icon CAPONE aka Third World Cop!)

Longtime singer-songwriter Bobby Caldwell, age 71, apparently due to side effects from a medication; penned a whole bunch of stuff for other artists, though the one he's probably best known for performing himself is What You Won't Do For Love. I actually saw him in person a handful of times, still have an autographed CD or two around someplace.

Ah, damn - totally missed this one. I'm not too well-versed in his scene, but that's an immortal tune. Beautiful, reminds me a bit of Al Green.

[BulletMagnet]

What? Lance Reddick is dead? But how?

Supposedly the official diagnosis at the moment is "natural causes", but it certainly appears to have been sudden; he just posted this a few days ago, apparently.

[xxx1993]

I loved him in the John Wick franchise and Angel Has Fallen…

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Robert Blake. He was acquitted in his wife’s murder.

Surprised the forum Lynch fans didn't have more to say about this one.

Give me back my phone.

[BIL]

Holy cow. I never looked into The Mystery Man, kinda deliberately, but I'd never have guess he was played by such a well-established mainstream actor. Absolutely unnerving presence, more than a bit camp but at the same time flatly menacing.



Bit darkly ironic about his wife, given the film's plot.

[o.pwuaioc]

Longtime singer-songwriter Bobby Caldwell, age 71, apparently due to side effects from a medication; penned a whole bunch of stuff for other artists, though the one he's probably best known for performing himself is What You Won't Do For Love. I actually saw him in person a handful of times, still have an autographed CD or two around someplace.

What You Won't Do for Love is one of those songs my wife and I bonded over. Great song. I honestly didn't even realize he was still around. Apparently took a tumble in 2017, and the medication was antibiotics related to that. Rough way to go.

[GaijinPunch]

Besides his iconic role as The Wire's Cedric, he was great in Oz as the undercover cop with a fictional Jamaican backstory who ends up hooked on smack -

He snorted that junk like a pro. His reaction to it was highly disturbing. Jesus.

[BIL]

That whole storyline was so fuckin intense. "Remember when you got so high you lost your accent?" Aww shit

[Stevens]

Longtime singer-songwriter Bobby Caldwell, age 71, apparently due to side effects from a medication; penned a whole bunch of stuff for other artists, though the one he's probably best known for performing himself is What You Won't Do For Love. I actually saw him in person a handful of times, still have an autographed CD or two around someplace.

What You Won't Do for Love is one of those songs my wife and I bonded over. Great song. I honestly didn't even realize he was still around. Apparently took a tumble in 2017, and the medication was antibiotics related to that. Rough way to go.

What's up homey? Was talking about you yesterday. Northeast treating you well?

[BIL]

Dave & Buster's is very out of my orbit (as is Chuck E. Cheese), but I know the name. Randomly came across the news that co-founder James "Buster" Corley died of apparent suicide by gunshot at his home, this past January. 72 years old, wife says he had a stroke that'd left him in a bad way. Not the worst run but still, brain shit sucks bro. 3;

[xxx1993]

Suicide because of a stroke?

[drauch]

Shit'll fuck you up. Plus at 72, life is already trash. I'm all for blowing your brains out whenever you're ready, but I don't get why these dudes do it at home with their family and shit. Get your stuff together, then go out into the woods and become one with the soil.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

That's why medically assisted suicide really should be more widely available. Nobody should be pushed into choosing that route, but for people who've suffered a life-changing stroke that seriously impacts their quality of life, it gives them a way of peacefully and painlessly ending their lives instead of leaving their family and friends, and whatever first responders happen to get the call, to deal with scraping off the bits of gore and bone from where they've shot themselves. That's an awful thing to leave for a family member to discover; the memory'll haunt them for ages.

[vol.2]

That's why medically assisted suicide really should be more widely available. Nobody should be pushed into choosing that route, but for people who've suffered a life-changing stroke that seriously impacts their quality of life, it gives them a way of peacefully and painlessly ending their lives instead of leaving their family and friends, and whatever first responders happen to get the call, to deal with scraping off the bits of gore and bone from where they've shot themselves. That's an awful thing to leave for a family member to discover; the memory'll haunt them for ages.

That's what heroin is for. If I'm going out, I want to be the one who ends me if at all possible.

Speaking of Chuck E Cheese, I recently watched a video essay on the rise and fall of Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz Pizza. The whole thing was a lot more dramatic than I realized. Of course I was just a little kid when that stuff was happening, and also we didn't have Showbiz in our area. https://youtu.be/7HXTwLbvQPM

Worth a watch if you'd like to know more about the animatronics and all that.