0:01 [Phoenix] Look, this is the content that people crave!
0:06 [Commander Sterling] My face is the content that fuckin' ferret crave!
0:17 Greetings, you terrestrial pedestrians.
0:21 It is I, the pangalactic princesque of pansexual pandemonium.
0:25 The super heavyweight supervillain.
0:27 The polyantagonist.
0:29 The trans femme, They/Them, paragon of non-binary finery.
0:33 The estro-gen-eral.
0:35 The enby to envy.
0:37 The chromatic, dramatic, charismatic, only mildly asthmatic fanatic of cinematic acrobatics.
0:44 On the run from the cis dimention.
0:48 Commander...
0:49 Stephanie...
0:51 Sterling.
0:52 I hope you're all doing splendidly.
0:54 The Commander loves you all, especially that one commenter who provides helpful timestamps
1:00 in the comments on YouTube, telling people at what time they can click on to skip the
1:06 wrestling content, leaving such helpful tips as "00:31 to skip the wrestling".
1:16 Because that doesn't make you sound like a petty little bitch.
1:19 The joke's on that prick this week though, because if they skip the content to get right
1:22 to the meat of the video, they'll miss me holding a weasle.
1:27 OW.
1:28 OW. OW.
1:30 It bit me OWWWWW.
1:31 It bit my fuckin' chin.
1:34 [Phoenix] Judith, why?!
1:35 [Commander Sterling] OW.
1:37 It legit bit my fuckin' chin.
1:39 [Phoenix] She's vibrating.
1:40 She's happy.
1:41 [Commander] Pffft, well, I'm glad someone is.
1:43 [Phoenix] What did you do?
1:45 [Commander] I just held the weasel.
1:47 Like you told me how to hold the weasel.
1:49 [Phoenix] Alright, hold the weasel like this.
1:50 [Commander] I'm not holding the weasel again.
1:52 [Phoenix] It's not even a weasel, it's a ferret.
1:54 [Commander] Well, why did you tell me it was a weasel?
1:57 [Phoenix] Sorry.
1:58 [Commander] You told me it was a weasel.
2:01 So I've been bitten, AND I look like a twat.
2:08 [Phoenix] Do you want Judith back?
2:09 [Commander] NO!
2:14 Wasn't even a weasel.
2:15 [James Stephanie Sterling] What if Rick & Morty fought The Batman though?
2:18 What if Shaggy out of Scooby Doo fought Wonder Woman though?
2:22 What if Steven Universe fought the Tazmanian Devil though?
2:26 What if Arya Stark fought Tom & Jerry though?
2:30 These questions, and a handful of others, have been defiantly asked by Warner Bros.
2:36 in it's latest display of media mastery, Multiversus, a low-energy, high-branding Super Smash Bros.
2:44 ripoff that truly puts into perspective how much of our popular culture has been divvied
2:49 up between a handful of terrifyingly powerful corporations.
2:53 As a game, Multiversus is bland as you can get.
2:56 A fairly straightforward alternative to Smash, with an increased emphasis on team
3:01 play, Multiversus uses an inoffensively generic art style to adequately merge such diverse
3:07 properties as Game of Thrones, Adventure Time, and... basketball into one cohesive universe.
3:14 Despite the colorful cast of unique characters, the sheer lack of personality this game has
3:19 is quite notable.
3:20 Characters mutter occasional lines without much excitement, the soundtrack is nondescript,
3:26 stages are quite sparse and forgettable, and overall the game just feels shallow.
3:31 It feels plastic.
3:33 It feels like what it is - a hollow flex from a company eager to showcase exactly how much
3:39 intellectual property it claims dominion over.
3:43 Crossovers are nothing new, of course.
3:45 They’ve been stoking excitement among fandoms ever since I was a kid, and that was a fucking
3:50 eon ago because I’m completely, rottingly ancient.
3:54 Aliens vs. Predator, Freddy vs. Jason, The Babysitters Club vs. Jacob’s Ladder, there
4:00 was plenty of promising mashup material for nerdy children of the 80s and 90s to get excited about.
4:07 Sometimes, these crossovers even happened, and when they did they felt like genuine events.
4:13 Sure, the actual results were less than stellar, but the very fact they happened felt special
4:18 as hell.
4:19 Back then, movies, TVs, and games, were owned by a wider variety of companies.
4:24 This has its issues, as licensing these properties could be a fucking nightmare.
4:29 Just look how hard it is to get official rereleases of certain licensed games because the rights
4:34 have changed hands so much.
4:35 Like, you’ve got The Simpsons arcade game.
4:38 The license is owned by Fox, the game's created by Konami, but the current development rights
4:43 owned by… uhhh… is it EA, still?
4:47 Fuck even knows.
4:48 It’s a confusing mess, and copyright and licensing overall is a big hot mess of scumfuckery.
4:54 Now, we have the opposite issue, and for consumer-based fandoms who care only about getting hyped
5:00 for big name products, the fact that Warner Bros. and Disney between them own the vast
5:04 majority of American media is only a good thing.
5:07 After all, it means they get to find out what would happen if Bugs Bunny fought Harley Quinn
5:12 though, or if Velma fought The Iron Giant though.
5:16 And frankly, I’m over it already.
5:19 I was over it long before Multiversus became a thing.
5:22 Clearly, given the fact that Multiversus is already attracting millions upon millions
5:26 of players, I’m an unimpressed minority, but the fact remains I am unimpressed.
5:32 The idea of a crossover is that it’s meant to be special.
5:35 Unique.
5:36 An unexpected merging of two universes once thought an impossible interaction.
5:41 But it’s all possible now.
5:43 If Warner Bros. owns it - and Warner Bros. owns most of it - a crossover is on the table.
5:48 Movies, TV shows, games, comics, even real-life sports, it’s all on the table, and Warner
5:53 Bros. is sure as hell committed to making sure everything melds together in one massive
5:57 orgiastic cross pollination of media conglomeration.
6:01 But the thing is, Multiversus is just the latest in a years-long effort by WB to continually
6:07 show off how much it owns.
6:08 We already had a massive crossover of intellectual property in the form of the Lego movie, where
6:14 Warner couldn’t help but trot out cameo after cameo, reference after reference, IP
6:19 after IP.
6:20 A movie ostensibly about little plastic toys became one of many instances of corporate
6:25 grandstanding, as Batman, The Lord of the Rings, and more were wheeled out in vapid
6:31 succession to yell
6:32 “look at me, look at me, I’m a recognizable thing that you recognize, do you recognize me?!"
6:38 J.K. Rowling's a fasacist.
6:40 At first it was novel, but it keeps happening.
6:43 Space Jam: A New Legacy sold itself pretty much entirely on how much intellectual property
6:48 it could cram into a single film.
6:50 Probably for the best as it couldn’t sell itself on anything fucking else.
6:54 Disney’s doing the same - the Rescue Rangers movie, despite critical acclaim, was nonetheless
6:59 a chance to throw as many characters as possible together in the name of cheap pops and easy
7:04 headlines on geek blogs.
7:05 Wreck It Ralph did the same thing for videogames, mashing together quick one-scene goofs with
7:10 the like of Zangeif and Bowser.
7:13 Everything has gotten so meta, so self-referential, that none of it matters anymore.
7:18 If everything is special, nothing is special.
7:22 If everything is a crossover, then nothing is a crossover.
7:25 It’s all just a homogenized, congealed media soup at this point.
7:30 There’s no meaning behind any of it.
7:32 I don’t care what would happen if Superman fought Jake the Dog though, because it’ll
7:36 just happen now, without circumstance, without grandeur, without meaning.
7:42 Mainstream media’s complete lack of chill has absolutely torpedoed the creative value
7:47 of anything pop culture has to offer.
7:50 By now Disney has churned out so much Marvel shit across movies, TV shows, and videogames
7:54 that people are finally starting to get sick of it.
7:57 I personally completely dropped off of following any of the Marvel or DC shit because it’s
8:03 just too much, and I feel that way about so much of modern media now.
8:07 It’s an oversaturation of meaningless fluff, endless characters and universes thrown together
8:13 in an increasingly desperate bid to find something that sticks.
8:17 I’ve gotten tired of most things churned out by Disney and Warner Bros. now because
8:21 that’s exactly what it is - a churn.
8:24 A neverending schedule of focus-tested disposable garbage based on what gets the most amount
8:30 of hype rather than what actually tells a good story.
8:34 And Jesus H Buttplugs…
8:36 Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe comprises 50 hours and 21 minutes of content.
8:44 It runs longer than the first three phases put together.
8:47 And none of it means *anything* anymore.
8:49 There’s too much FOR it to mean anything.
8:52 I can’t keep track of all that.
8:53 I can’t care about all of that.
8:56 But the content just won’t stop being shat out at a factory line pace, because it’s
9:01 not about whether it means something, it’s simply about having more nebulous *stuff*
9:06 to sell.
9:08 More reveals.
9:09 More trailers to make the fandom piss its pants in excitable glee before quickly getting
9:14 bored and looking for the next big distraction.
9:17 More than that, however, my biggest issue with a product like Multiversus is just how
9:22 fucking dystopian it is.
9:24 Make no mistake, it’s actually a *bad* thing that one corporation holds so much power over
9:30 so much of our entertainment media, no matter how many Smash clones it might lead to.
9:35 That most of our culture has its values and standards set by one profit-driven entity
9:40 is a little fucking creepy really.
9:42 Whether it’s Warner Bros, Disney, or Tencent, I don’t like one bit that a tiny thimbleful
9:47 of companies wields near-monopolistic influence over so much of our media.
9:52 These are companies that have proven willing to sanitize art for mass market consumption,
9:56 sidelining LGBTQ+ representation to the point where it can be easily edited out for regressive
10:01 territories - while having the nerve to expect progressive headpats for tossing us the tablescrap
10:07 of a split-second onscreen lesbian kiss.
10:10 These are dangerously litigious companies that fight to own intellectual property until
10:14 long after it should have entered the public domain.
10:17 Disney will sue you for so much as *looking* at Mickey Mouse with envious eyes, but it's got
10:21 no problem ripping off ideas from other people, liberally.
10:25 The consolidation of power in capitalism is a bad thing, always.
10:29 It leads to terrible things.
10:31 To use my favorite go-to, look at how fucking despicable broadband Internet services are
10:35 in the United States.
10:37 Broadband companies split the country into little fiefdoms where they didn’t have to
10:40 compete, so had no incentive to provide a good service, safe in the knowledge you had
10:44 nowhere else to go.
10:46 This show has demonstrated many times how companies only ever react to threats - be
10:51 they from competition, unionization, or regulation.
10:55 Without a threat, they are free to pursue their one objective - ruthless acquisition
10:59 of profit - as mercilessly and cruelly as possible.
11:02 I don’t like it when corporations have too much power, and between them, Disney and Warner
11:07 Bros. have *entirely* too much power.
11:10 A game like Multiversus might be little more than a wacky crossover in the eyes of most,
11:15 but to me it’s a threat.
11:16 A demonstration that WB has an alarming ownership of some of the most influential media in human
11:23 history - and wields a massive amount of cultural influence itself as a result.
11:28 And personally, I think it’s simply sad that so much art is now in the hands of a
11:32 few wealthy executives who have exactly ZERO respect for the integrity and significance
11:38 of that art.
11:39 While many will find it novel that Arya Stark and Finn the Human are in the same videogame,
11:44 I find it deeply fucking unsettling.
11:47 A TV show featuring bloody murder and sexual violence crossing over with a charmingly dorky
11:52 children’s cartoon is just fucking weird.
11:55 And when I say it's unsettling, I don’t mean that from a moral standpoint - I mean
12:00 it says something about how stripped of context and meaning our media has become that a company
12:06 could just casually merge Game of Thrones with Adventure Time and not even have to think
12:11 about the grisly fucking implications.
12:13 There are no implications, because there is no meaning.
12:17 Not in a culture that gobbles up crossovers for crossover's sake.
12:20 Who cares about narrative justification?
12:23 We just wanna see Garnet punch Batman!
12:25 Context?
12:26 Who needs it?!
12:28 Context is DEAD!
12:29 The sheer robbery of that context is creatively creepy.
12:34 That a show involving multiple rapes, massacres, and infanticide can be seamlessly crossed
12:38 over with a show in which a cowardly dog and his teenage friends solve quaint mysteries
12:42 for the delight of children, and nobody is questioning it, is fucking *twisted* when
12:48 you stop to actually think about it.
12:51 Like…
12:52 I’m not alone in this, right?
12:53 Game of Thrones x Scooby Doo is actually really, *really* fucked up, yeah?
12:58 Like, I can’t be the only one thinking about what Ramsay Bolton would do to Scooby Doo
13:03 if he ever got his hands on him, right?
13:06 Or if Daphne was forced to marry Joffrey?
13:09 Shit’s fucked up!
13:10 Oh, but wait, no, Shaggy and Tyrrion would have such a laugh together.
13:15 Until Shaggy gets his fuckin' face burnt off at the Blackwater!
13:19 [Commander] NO!
13:20 Leave the feret.
13:21 Keep it away from me.
13:26 I hope you enjoyed today's video.
13:27 I had an absolute treat.
13:30 I am thankful for everyone who watched today's video.
13:33 I am thankful for everyone who continues to support The Jimquisition at Patreon.com/Jimquisition.
13:40 I am incredibly thankful, beyond greatful, that I HAD A TETTANUS SHOT!
13:46 A couple weeks ago!
13:50 Just incase I got bit, by a fuckin' ferret.
13:56 Thank god for me.
13:58 Oh, and my next wrestling date is August 6th, that's next weekend.
14:03 Leicster.
14:04 The Midlands.
14:05 My very first time back in The Midlands since I lived in that building where there was a
14:09 human poo in the elevator.
14:11 I was five.
14:12 So, yes, The Y Theater, August 6th, Wrestling Ressurgance, The Commander makes their Midlands
14:20 debut.
14:21 Thank god for me.
14:22 I already did that bit, but it's worth reiterating.
14:24 Thank god for me.
14:26 Commander, out.
14:28 Fuckin' 'ell.
