Small Screen Surfin'
Created | Updated Apr 1, 2004
This week I was all prepared to review Mel Gibson: God's Lethal Weapon... but I missed
it. As I result I was all ready to rant about the influx of dreary 'holiday' programmes like Club
Reps... but then Psycorp603 sent me a web link to One Ring to Rule Them All- Special
Edition and thus since I haven't watched much TV lately, this gets my attention.
One Ring to Rule Them All or ORTRTA is one of the flash movies on legendaryfrog.com and it is a brilliant parody of Lord of
the Rings (If it can be called that) containing Sauron and hench-orc Wayne whose new Zealand
accent is rather apt... ahem.
Although the first is slightly bizarre to watch, the re-mastered edition is better looking with
better colours and sound and sure to get you laughing1. Even though
it's not linked on that menu, One Ring to Rule Them All 2 is surprisingly long and the
references from other medium are funny. Sam Gamgee's over-the-top English accent is a treat to
listen to while most voices sound similar to South Park's Trey Parker(co-creator).
After the 'classic' and updated editions you get to the 'making of' which, in my opinion, is the
best of the four menu parts even if one bit is almost directly ripped from South Park's advert for
their first episode re-mastering... Lastly there's the trailer for ORTRTA 3 which spoofs many
movies using Sauron and Wayne such as Speed.
If you're on the website it's a toss-up between ORTRTA and The Matrix Has You
for the better of the movies but the Kerrigan and Ark stories tend to be annoying probably because
of the fact they're original characters in anime design but that could just be me who has a
particularly disliking toward Japanese animation bar Dragonball Z. Yet some just make you
go... riiight.
The other spoofs are of games so if you're not a fan of
video/computer/whatever-they're-dubbed-now games you won't find then funny, at least to the
extent you would if you'd played them. Two are tongue-in-cheek looks at Resident Evil, the
highly successful game and not the movie of the same name which didn't quite stay faithful to the
games.
The problem is that creator Joseph Blanchette's individual art is vastly improved over the flash
movies images and quite capable to move into the comic book industry as penciller should he be able
to switch from pin-ups to sequential art... and I will crawl over anyone to get that job..!
Keep Surfin'
Frodo's repetative 'Ring goes on, ring goes off' hasn't done so already
