Space Jam 2

[Robby]

The only truly important thing is the original 1996 website for the first movie is still up and untouched, a true artifact of its time.

https://www.spacejam.com/

[Kaiolino]

Isn't it kind of weird that on the cover the feature the characters in 2D but in that last picture Bugs is rendered with greater detail?

Also is Lola back to her old self or are they going to mix in her eccentric aspects born from the Looney Tunes show?

https://ew.com/movies/space-jam-a-ne...f-1f1448c7e320

Upon watching Space Jam for the first time in 2019, Lee was caught off guard by the original's "very sexualized" depiction of Lola Bunny. "This is 2021. It's important to reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters," the Girls Trip filmmaker says of why they "reworked" Lola, a.k.a. the team's best non-LeBron player.

[Green_vs_Red]

Its Space jam 2 so she'll almost certainly be the boring sex object movie version, instead of the infinitely better show version.

I’d be fine with that especially since by extension that would
Mean we’re also not getting the version of Daffy from that show either.

https://ew.com/movies/space-jam-a-ne...f-1f1448c7e320

I actually went on twitter and they’ve put up side by sides of Lola’s design and yep, Lola’s original design was a bit distracting though there new one is kinda of weird.

[Robby]

A lot of the comparisons being posted are hyper sexy fanart. But yes, she's a bit more athletic looking now, less sex object.

[Satsuki]

The first few posters are out:
https://movieweb.com/space-jam-2-a-n...wXj4CksBVjf44I

If Speedy, Roadrunner, and Tweety have their own posters, does this mean they're actually playing rather than bench warmers?

[Green_vs_Red]

Tweety did get used in plays as did Roadrunner I think. Speedy is the only one I don't remember ever playing.

[Satsuki]

Roadrunner and Speedy I don't remember getting any plays. Tweety's only time on court that I remember is this (skip to 1:54):

[Mr. Hide]

I don't remember Tweety doing a whole lot in the first film. But that movie came out after The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries and the Bugs Bunny/Tweety Show, and before Tweety's High Flying Adventure. So it was definitely the Age of Tweety*; giving him screentime must have been a top priority. I remember he was packaged with Swackhammer in the action figure line, I remember that much.

Speedy? I don't remember him showing up at all. I remember Toro the Bull was in it when he gored Pound. I remember Michigan in it, just dancing on stop a car for no reason. Nothing about Speedy thou.


*and Taz and for 15 minutes Marvin but mostly Tweety

[Satsuki]

Well they got Gabriel Iglesias to voice Speedy, so Speedy is winning overall so far in this movie.

[Mr. Hide]

Well they got Gabriel Iglesias to voice Speedy, so Speedy is winning overall so far in this movie.

A casting choice I'm sure has no ulterior motive behind it whatsoever.

[Satsuki]

After Pepe lePew got axed from the movie, some people have put Speedy into question, but Gabriel Iglesias has defended him:
https://screenrant.com/space-jam-2-s...riel-iglesias/

Speedy is one of those characters that skirts the line between "stereotype" and "racist". He definitely works on all sorts of Mexican stereotypes, but does he do so to the point of which it seems racist? Some people think so, but I personally don't think it sinks that low, as Speedy is fast, quick-witted, and clever. He always wins.

[Mr. Hide]

some people have put Speedy into question

White people have put Speedy into question. Happened before in 1999 when one or two imaginative Cartoon Network execs axed Speedy out of fear that they would offend. Mexicans responded with love for Speedy. Pretty hard to say a charismatic man of the downtrodden highlights the worse of an entire race.

Now Speedy's cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez, the slowest mouse in all Mexico, that guy's problemfuckingmatic. You're a damn fool if you call Speedy offensive but make no mention of Slowpoke.

[Satsuki]

Yeah, I don't think there's anyone who can speak well of Slowpoke. But he wasn't really popular so there's no worry in seeing him anywhere. Leave him to the archives.

[CosmicDebris]

Yeah, Speedy is awesome. Maybe I don't have a great memory but I don't think there was ever anything negative about how he's portrayed.
PS - I always hated Pepe LePew

[Mr. Hide]

Since it was on my mind, I watched some Speedy Gonzales last night. Found this gem that can rub elbows with Animaniacs and Simpsons for jokes I didn't get when I was a kid.

"Speedy Gonzales is a friend of my sister."
"Speedy Gonzales is a friend of everyone's sister."

[Nobodyman]

Speedy himself is great. His dumb lazy friends are the problematic ones.

[Green_vs_Red]

Now Speedy's cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez, the slowest mouse in all Mexico, that guy's problemfuckingmatic. You're a damn fool if you call Speedy offensive but make no mention of Slowpoke.

Considering how obscure Slowpoke is you'd forgive people if they forgot about him. Kinda like Speedy's original design.

[Retro]

Seriously I never saw Speedy as a stereotype, near all his shorts are essentially a Hispanic Jerry with super speed powers, that pretty much it. Heck The Loony Tunes Show had me be business savvy and made the guy a proprietor of a pizza joint. So not even sure where these claims are coming from.

Pepe...yeah I can't defend, even I thought they went a little overboard on the Casanova stuff as a kid (I did enjoy the short where he tries to woo a feral cat though). But they've been shying away from that image for a long while. Is it really that had to just make the guy a wannabe ladies man without the stalking?

[CosmicDebris]

Personally I never found anything funny about Pepe stalking the cat. She does kind of get revenge later but it's framed in "oh no, you're ugly to me now so I'm going to run away".

[Robby]

Pepe was my favorite groweing up, I liked the hopeless romantic angle he had. It wasn't until later that I realized that... yeah.


Pepe had a grand total of 17 shorts, (compared to 40 Roadrunner, and 45 Speedy cartoons. 50 Tweetie, 100 Sylvester, Bugs had about 180, Daffy had about 130, and Porky about 170, but they overlapped a fair bit)

So among the big lineup of recurring characters he was one of the ones that showed up the least. Even within those 17 the writers got tired of the formula pretty quick. Penelope was the usual victim (and yes, Victim is unfortunately the appropriate word) but they mixed it up by having it a disguised male cat that deserved to suffer, a mountain lion, fighting with a dog to get a room out of the cold... and in three of the shorts Penelope wanted him by the end. In the last one she was actively pusuing him and wanted him but just couldn't handle the smell.

Yeah, the unfortunately rapey aspects have not aged well at all, but even within the original cartoons they were moving away from that after a handful of shorts, almost half of them weren't quite that formula.

The big issue is that Penelope was scared and a victim. The same dynamic of being chased is fine when Coyote chases Roadrunner (even though he wants to EAT him) because its a game, there's no danger, and Roadrunner is oblivious or even has fun, he's in on it. In Tiny Tunes Fifi had the same gimmick but was fine. (While Elymra was... not.) The modern show a decade ago had Lola going after Bugs and it was okay there because Bugs wa never scared or in danger and any suffering was generally his own doing for agreeing to something when he could have said no. MLP has Pinky Pie chase Twilight with that exact hop homage and its fine because its not sexual.

The bad formula was bad, but they were *already* fixing it 60 years ago, most versions since have toned that bad shit down, and other stuff has the same chase dyOOnamic without being problematic. The character doesn't have to be scrubbed out entirely when a tweak and change in approach fixes him so easily.