Film Theory: The Looney Tunes CHEATED! (Space Jam)

There are few names in sports as recognizable as basketball legend Michael Jordan, I mean, even if you don't know anything about sports, you've probably heard of this guy, not only is he one of the greatest athletes of all time, but the best, but he's also a spokesperson for dozens of different brands, he's a billionaire businessman, and most importantly, he's a meme. I mean, is there really anything this guy can't do well? Yes, it's called acting. Has anyone here ever played basketball? It's almost like this guy is a professional athlete and not an actor. I really enjoy playing with you guys, you guys have a lot of vibes, well whatever it is, you have a lot.

Let's just hope Lebron had a better acting coach for the sequel. Hello Internet, welcome to Film Theory, the show that always asks you to be ready. By this and by this we mean long analytical dives into movies you loved when you were in grade school, my dear theorists, it should come as no surprise to those of you who know me well that I wasn't exactly the most athletic of kids growing up. . in the 90s they just weren't as interesting to me as video games or movies or math or the ghost of the opera everyone laughs but that ghost got angry no in all honesty almost everything was more exciting to me than watching the old sports ball, but there was one notable exception, the cinematic masterpiece known as Space Jam that combines cartoons with one of the most popular athletes on the planet, talk about a dunk, now the plot is not exactly the most important thing, but it has happened a time.

Here's the original Space Jam story in less than 30 seconds. Some little aliens are sent to Earth to kidnap the Looney Tunes and take them back to their alien theme park. Planets. Bug's Bunny obviously doesn't want to be kidnapped and realizes that the aliens are small and challenges them. to a basketball game in exchange for his freedom, good plan, except for one thing, the alien steals the talent of five professional basketball players on earth to become the best basketball team, the monsters with their freedom at stake, the

looney

tunes

kidnap michael jordan to help him win and after a very close and poorly officiated game the cartoon team emerges victorious and bill murray randomly shows up which might be the most realistic part of the movie idea , deity, that's all folks, this movie alone got me interested in basketball.

I'm sure I'll be picked last in gym class, but if Elmer Fudd can dunk one, how desperate can I be. I'll let Sniffles the mouse sum up my gaming philosophy. I'm small, but I'll try hard to be good at basketball. and I always try really hard, my mom says do your best at everything, sure the movie may not have taken home an Oscar, but it won something better: $1.2 billion in merchandise revenue, so you can see why a sequel starring the new Michael Jordan was inevitable. Also known as Lebron James, so yeah, I have to say a little bit of excitement for Space Jam's new legacy.

Now I haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't know much about the team Lebron has to face, other than they look like rejected aliens. of the men in black, but I have to say that these guys have some big shoes to fill. I mean, the monsters from the original movie were an unstoppable team, huge, intimidating, and taking advantage of the best talent the NBA had to offer at the time. He better be Lebron. I appreciate that you're not dealing with that well, well, without looking back, Space Jam, the Mom Stars were actually a team that was built to fail from the start, as scary as they were, I'm safe to say that if the monsters If they played in the nba these days they would finish last in their league, don't believe me, let's put on those air jordans and pour ourselves a tall glass of mj's secret stuff because it's time to come and beat up the monsters like the seedy team that they were and how they would only be worse in this new movie if they came back now to actually start talking about how good the monsters were, right?

We actually have to consider their individual players or rather the actual NBA players that each alien stole. obviously their monster talent didn't exactly turn into the players whose talent they stole, as far as I remember Patrick Ewing was incapable of breathing fire, but it was based on the aliens' original form and their ignorance of what basketball was. Saying that the aliens didn't add any kind of basketball skill to the equation, so to simplify the argument let's say that the tuning team was essentially playing a game against the five players who had their basketball talent stolen by the monsters. individually.

These five guys were good players, but together they will make an odd team. Typical positions on a basketball team are point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center, and historically teams have had one player at each position playing guard at any given time. They tend to be smaller, faster, better shooters and better ball handlers, power forwards and centers are bigger and slower, play closer to the basket to block shots, rebound and score from close range. Now the monsters clearly valued their greats since four of the five players who The imitators are the power forwards Larry Johnson and Charles Barkley or the centers Patrick Ewing and Sean Bradley and the Monstars had no middle ground because their fifth player is Muggsy Bogues , the shortest man to ever play in the NBA at just five feet three inches tall, so not a very balanced roster, but hey, weren't those just the five best players in the league?

Not exactly, Barkley and Ewing are Hall of Famers, but in 1995 and 1996, the season in which Space Jam takes place, both had been professionals. for a decade and they are past their prime, as for the other three players, they are all better basketball players than I will ever be, but Sean Bradley Mugsy Bogues and Larry Johnson were named to the NBA All-Star team just ago. two years. times combined in 36 years of playing professionally the point is that the monstars were a terribly unbalanced team made up of players who were far from the top five non-Jordanian players at the time and that only speaks to the error in which the

film

came out.

I've seen a lot of people discouraged by the fact that the monsters won't be returning for this new movie, but I have to tell you that they would be a much worse team now because of the way NBA basketball has evolved over the last 25 years. In fact, if they were to reprise their role in the new Space Jam legacy, they would be defeated not only by Lebron James but even by mediocre teams because, one, they are too slow on defense, two, they would tire too easily, and, three, they can . Let's not shoot, let's take these one at a time, we will issue one.

The Monsters would be too slow to play modern NBA defense. There are a number of factors that are crucial to playing good defensive basketball, but speed and quickness are arguably the two most important if you can. If you don't keep up with the offensive player you're supposed to guard, you'll allow easier shots when players surround you and you'll have trouble recovering when the offense runs a play to exploit your lack of speed, the monsters. Despite being explosively strong, athletic and creatively violent, they are not very fast, now speed and quickness can be difficult to quantify, so we turn to an old friend to do the job for us.

Video games NBA Live 98 is the oldest NBA game with full ratings. on player attributes with a rating between 50 and 99 on everything from awareness to dunk ability, the game was released about six months after Space Jam hit theaters, making it a set of Good enough data for us to use now. NBA Live 98 has great things to say about Mugsy Bogues' speed and quickness rated him at 82 and 97 respectively for the other four players, although his speed averaged 63.8 and his quickness was an anemic 52.8, even if you exclude Sean Bradley, who At a whopping seven feet six inches he is one of the tallest. but the slowest players in NBA history, those numbers only jump to 67.3 for speed and 58.7 for quickness, still well below average, so what would this mean for the monsters in a typical game?

Well, for starters, it means they'd be terrible at defending rapids. break where the opposing team gets a rebound and runs to the other end of the court to score as quickly as possible, but even in a slower game the lack of quickness would be problematic, take for example one of the most popular actions in the NBA: the ball. Screen in a ball screen, the offensive player with the ball brings the defender to a screen set by his teammate to get away from the defender, then the teammate setting the screen commonly rolls toward the basket, known as pick and roll, leaving the ball handler. without the option to pass, push or shoot without the foot speed to handle ball screens change defensive assignments or defend against the fast break the monsters would receive tons of points no matter how many shots they block around the rim because they are playing against a team much more fast a team that is literally led by rabbits problem number two the monsters would get tired in every game they played another strange decision by the aliens was to steal the talent of only five players NBA rosters normally have 13, although last season it was expanded to 15 and it is extremely rare for less than eight to play in an individual game, so without any players on their bench, the monster five are forced to play the full 48 minutes of the basketball game, which is much more than usual. which any of these players would normally do. play problem number three: they can't shoot.

If you watch an NBA game these days, you'll notice how much work teams have put into making open three-pointers. It was not always this way, although the three-point line was introduced in the NBA in 1979, but at first it was not that popular, the coaches had not included it in their offensive strategy and the players had not grown up practicing it, so it took decades so that it became as popular and effective as it is now. While each of the stars had some elite skills, none of them were good three-point shooters. In the 2020-2021 NBA season, the average three-point shooting percentage for all players in the league was 36.7 percent the year before Space Jam came out, just one. monstar larry johnson even came close to that number shooting 36.6 everyone else on the team is well behind charles barkley 28 bradley 25 mugsy bogues 20 and patrick ewing shooting a hideous 14.3 and here's what those numbers in They're actually inflated seeing how unpopular the three-point shot was.

In the '80s and early '90s, the NBA actually moved the three-point line almost two feet closer to the basket for three years, from 94 to 97. If you have Factor that into the calculations, Monstar's entire roster would shoot 25.4 percent from three, no single team in the NBA has shot that poorly this century and it's not just the speed at which the monsters would shoot those threes that What would hurt them is the sheer number of three-pointers a modern opponent would shoot at them in the last year before Space Jam with a standard three-point line, NBA teams only attempted 10 three-pointers per game last year, they attempted 35 So even if the Monsters somehow didn't tire out and figured out how to defend despite their lack of quickness, the fact that even an average NBA team today scores much more efficiently means the Monsters would be. crushed again and again.

Lebron should expect this mysterious squad of thugs in the new movie to be exactly as good or he should say not as good as the monsters were now. I'm thinking that if the monsters were really as bad as I say, Michael Jordan and the cartoon squad wouldn't have blown them out of the water in the original movie and that's certainly a reasonable idea, but he goes back and watches the movie. movie again when I watch the game again as an adult I can't help but feel like it's been a little rigged I mean come on look at all the fouls the referee doesn't call here and remind me again who the referee was oh yeah Marvin the Martian , but Matpat is impartial because he is both a toon and an alien.

You really hope he believes that the Looney Tune whose main goal in all the cartoons of him was to disintegrate other Looney Tunes and also blow up the Earth wasn't attracting aliens. them, what I think about that logic, leave it, get help, but hey, that's just a

theory

, a

film

theory

, and you know, I've actually been watching a lot and preparing for this new Space Jam movie, not only does it include everything . our favorite crazy doodlesthe

looney

tunes

but there are a lot of cameos from many other classic warner brothers characters we are talking about scooby-doo and all the mystery incorporated team pennywise the clown are those the droogs from a clockwork orange what what What I'm saying is that to be fully prepared to understand the magnitude of this movie, i have a lot of catching up to do, and luckily today's sponsor, nordvpn, is here to help. nord is the trusted online security solution used by over hundreds of thousands of internet users around the world, including myself.

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