Nomad Radio

The original and worst? Posted by Gargleman

After reading this post about hating retro gaming I got to thinking: is the original also the best? Or is retro retarded? So here is Nomad Radio’s unacceptably geeky handy guide so you know what to think.

OBEY.

Movies

C3P0's mum

As RottenTomatoes “Top 50 science fiction films” shows, genre pioneers like Metropolis (1927) are still highly regarded. Directed by Fritz Lang, Metropolis was one of the earliest science fiction movies and was hugely influential on everything from Star Wars’s C3PO to Tim Burton’s Batman. It is also almost totally unwatchable and should be avoided unless you are a film student. Or George Lucas.

VERDICT: Original is worst. Really. Forget Serenity or Star Wars, I’d rather watch a compilation of the Anakin/Padme love scenes on repeat for two hours than watch Metropolis again. Though I’d rather watch stray dogs fight over the rotting carcass of a tramp than either.

Books

Reviewers endlessly compare new books unfavourably to the pioneering work in their genre. This is stupid. Take fantasy fiction as an example. Despite it being “Britains best-loved book“, Lord of the Rings was badly written. Although Tolkien was undoubtedly a good ideas man, reading Tolkien feels like pulling teeth. The never-ending descriptions, the interminable backstory, the plot-holes, the Elvish poetry, and for fuck’s sake, why not write ONE ending, or two at the most?

The best modern fantasy books (e.g. Guy Gavriel Kay, Scott Lynch or Terry Pratchett) may be built on Tolkien’s legacy, but they are also far more enjoyable to read. A shame the British public (or those voting in BBC polls) are such idiots.

VERDICT: In fiction the original is, if not the worst, certainly not the best. Idiots willl disagree with me, but I am right and they are idiots. Do you see?

Video Games

Didn’t you read the introduction? Pete’s blog already covered this.

No? Well, consider this: playing through Super Mario Galaxy would take an average player over 50 hours and still leaves you begging for more. In comparison: I downloaded the old NES Super Mario Bros. for my Wii. I paid 500-odd cold hard Wii points for it, and I still only played it for about 2 hours.

VERDICT: New games are just better, with virtually *cough*Sonic the Hedgehog*cough* no exceptions.

Art

By now you’re thinking you know what this article/rant is all about and where it’s going. But you’d be wrong.

Art is about a lot of things, but primarily this: make something that makes people stop and go “Ooh…” or “Aah!” or “What?”

There are two ways to do this: aesthetics or novelty.

If an artist has based themselves on producing aesthetically beautiful works then the original can indeed pale compared to a new variation of that painting. But this is all about taste, which combined with a post-modern relativistic world could mean that Jeff Smith the taxi driver is as correct as J’Eff von Schmidt the eminent art critic about what he thinks looks pretty.

So to avoid embarrasing mix-ups in the canteen, modern art tends to be about novelty. If you didn’t do it first, you’ve basically wasted your time. If you were the first person to cut a tear in a blank canvass and hang it in a gallery, if you were the first person to stick a urinal in a gallery, if you were the first person to put a blank solid blue canvass and persuade a gallery it was art, have a gold star.

If, however, you were not the first but have done this anyway, you are the parasite scum of the cultural world and you should seriously consider autoeuthenising. Right now.

VERDICT: The original is best, maybe.

Music

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