Run Forrest Run

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Forrest deserves a better game, that's for sure. It's relatively harmless as far as cash in games go but it sure picked one, small aspect of the source material and just rolled with that.

 

[Hagi]

You literally could not be projecting any harder. The strip is about respect for movie source material. It has nothing to do with Forest's mental capabilities.

The great irony, of course, is you're accusing me of arguing against mentally diverse lead characters in Critical Miss, a comic known mostly for its mentally diverse lead character.

I've got lots of black friends but... ?

And what disrespect to the source material? It's a game about a movie character that's well known for his running doing exactly that. It's just a cheap game about an extremely popular cultural phenomenon, like there have been hundreds of cheap games before it and will be hundreds of cheap games after it. Personally I'm happy for this game that may hopefully introduce a few new people to what's undoubtedly an amazing movie.

But sure, if you say that's all it is then I'll take your word for it and I'll apologize again for my angry reaction, that was unwarranted. All the same I don't think it's wrong to be aware how this comic comes across, not as a commentary on respect for your source material but as a comparison of a mental handicap as a subject sharing the same gravity as terrorist attacks and ethnic cleansing.

Maybe next time compare it to actual movies? Might get your point across a lot better, say Ripley in a bikini running away from an Alien plastered with sponsor logos...

 

[katsabas]

You literally could not be projecting any harder. The strip is about respect for movie source material. It has nothing to do with Forest's mental capabilities.

The great irony, of course, is you're accusing me of arguing against mentally diverse lead characters in Critical Miss, a comic known mostly for its mentally diverse lead character.

I've got lots of black friends but... ?

And what disrespect to the source material? It's a game about a movie character that's well known for his running doing exactly that. It's just a cheap game about an extremely popular cultural phenomenon, like there have been hundreds of cheap games before it and will be hundreds of cheap games after it. Personally I'm happy for this game that may hopefully introduce a few new people to what's undoubtedly an amazing movie.

The fact that there have been a hundred thousand cash-ins of this kind doesn't make this a correct policy. Any developer that knows he is dealing with a movie that has a big fanbase, addresses mental disabilities with respect and is considered a classic by the majority of people is OBLIGATED to show at least a hint of humbleness.

This game respects neither the movie, nor its' subject, nor its' audience.

I cannot have a nice time with this sort of stuff. I mean, Jenny hopping in every 2 seconds with a smile on her face while most of us know what her character goes through in the movie is something despicably low. Plus, if you think the film's central theme is running, then you missed the point of it completely.

 

[Ferisar]

Edit: Aaaand I responded to a guy that emphasized "literally" with caps before speaking figuratively.

Lmao, yep, that's me. I literally don't think about anything I say, especially when I say it literally. Who needs to communicate with regular speech patterns and widely-accepted ways of providing information? This isn't an essay. I literally don't have to be literal despite using it as an exaggeration to hammer home my point. I'm sorry that it's so difficult to comprehend (especially after you take several seconds to ACKNOWLEDGE my usage of the word as improper and be fully aware in what I aimed to accomplish, and then use it to insult me for LITERALLY no raisins at all.) Please stay on point or don't bring this second-hand shit into the conversation, because it's , actually LITERALLY useless for you to point out my lack of textual tact.

You might need to explain what's so controversial about it then. It's not as apparent for some as it is for others.

Do I really? It's a movie regarded as a classic about a man overcoming his disabilities and achieving greatness in the eyes of many despite remaining completely human and going through the same shit everyone else went through. Why the actual flying flappy bird fuck would they be all "hey, this character from this awesome movie? We're going to include him in our temple-run knock-off iOS title." You don't see the controversy? They're taking the underlying theme of the film, the struggle of the main character, stripping it all away and putting him to run forward indefinitely with a single quote from the movie. Gee, I wonder why people are upset, it might just be that, OH RIGHT, THEY COULD'VE USED LITERALLY (see, I did it again) anyone else and it would've been more tastefully done than this. Oh, but no, Forrest Gump is clearly the only character in film that ever ran anywhere, right? Tom Cruise need not apply, for we have the man to qualify. We're so totally on the nose about this whole matter.

The reality is, if they didn't pick him, they'd have no publicity. Because all of their publicity is coming from making a mockery of someone else.

EDIT:
After letting the testosterone settle, I will submit that this is a non-troversy, but it's done so tastelessly that I will stand by that this should never have existed and should never be purchased. It's a game with a premise that cashes in on a film's character in the shallowest manner and attempts nothing beyond the laziest re-use of a game that uses a single mechanic. Controversy? No. Awful? Yep.

 

[Hagi]

You literally could not be projecting any harder. The strip is about respect for movie source material. It has nothing to do with Forest's mental capabilities.

The great irony, of course, is you're accusing me of arguing against mentally diverse lead characters in Critical Miss, a comic known mostly for its mentally diverse lead character.

I've got lots of black friends but... ?

And what disrespect to the source material? It's a game about a movie character that's well known for his running doing exactly that. It's just a cheap game about an extremely popular cultural phenomenon, like there have been hundreds of cheap games before it and will be hundreds of cheap games after it. Personally I'm happy for this game that may hopefully introduce a few new people to what's undoubtedly an amazing movie.

The fact that there have been a hundred thousand cash-ins of this kind doesn't make this a correct policy. Any developer that knows he is dealing with a movie that has a big fanbase, addresses mental disabilities with respect and is considered a classic by the majority of people is OBLIGATED to show at least a hint of humbleness.

This game respects neither the movie, nor its' subject, nor its' audience.

I cannot have a nice time with this sort of stuff. I mean, Jenny hopping in every 2 seconds with a smile on her face while most of us know what her character goes through in the movie is something despicably low. Plus, if you think the film's central theme is running, then you missed the point of it completely.

There's a reason I didn't use the word theme.

Running is a not insignificant part of Forrest's character (part, not theme). It's how he displayed independence, by shedding those walking aids. It's how he displayed loyalty and caring to his friends, by running them to safety in Vietnam. It's how he coped with a troubling time in his life, by running from coast to coast.

While running isn't a theme of the movie it most certainly is central. It's not for nothing that even when sitting on that bench with his chocolates and dressed up in a fine suit he's still wearing dirty running shoes. His running shoes are the first part of him the viewer sees in the movie.

Considering the theme of Forrest Gump is well beyond a simple F2P game I'd say running was the best thing they could've picked, it's significance in Forrest Gump is undeniable. Trying to cash in on the movie's theme in such a cheap manner is what I would have considered highly disrespectful. Merely picking up on the running and building a game around that isn't really the same as I see it.

I wouldn't call the game respectful or, if I'm honest, anything positive at all. But all the same I wouldn't say it's negative either. It doesn't ruin the movie, it doesn't try to mess with it's theme, it doesn't try to pretend to be something it's not. It's just a cheap and silly game about Forrest running.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yeah, I'm going to call this strip a swing and a miss, based on what Grey's saying in the comment section.

A joke about, say, Rear Window being turned into a spot-the-missing-object game would have worked great, but 9/11 and Hotel freaking Rwanda was leading in a completely different direction from the original intent.

 

[Ticklefist]

Edit: Aaaand I responded to a guy that emphasized "literally" with caps before speaking figuratively.

Lmao, yep, that's me. I literally don't think about anything I say, especially when I say it literally. Who needs to communicate with regular speech patterns and widely-accepted ways of providing information? This isn't an essay. I literally don't have to be literal despite using it as an exaggeration to hammer home my point. I'm sorry that it's so difficult to comprehend (especially after you take several seconds to ACKNOWLEDGE my usage of the word as improper and be fully aware in what I aimed to accomplish, and then use it to insult me for LITERALLY no raisins at all.) Please stay on point or don't bring this second-hand shit into the conversation, because it's , actually LITERALLY useless for you to point out my lack of textual tact.

You might need to explain what's so controversial about it then. It's not as apparent for some as it is for others.

Do I really? It's a movie regarded as a classic about a man overcoming his disabilities and achieving greatness in the eyes of many despite remaining completely human and going through the same shit everyone else went through. Why the actual flying flappy bird fuck would they be all "hey, this character from this awesome movie? We're going to include him in our temple-run knock-off iOS title." You don't see the controversy? They're taking the underlying theme of the film, the struggle of the main character, stripping it all away and putting him to run forward indefinitely with a single quote from the movie. Gee, I wonder why people are upset, it might just be that, OH RIGHT, THEY COULD'VE USED LITERALLY (see, I did it again) anyone else and it would've been more tastefully done than this. Oh, but no, Forrest Gump is clearly the only character in film that ever ran anywhere, right? Tom Cruise need not apply, for we have the man to qualify. We're so totally on the nose about this whole matter.

The reality is, if they didn't pick him, they'd have no publicity. Because all of their publicity is coming from making a mockery of someone else.

EDIT:
After letting the testosterone settle, I will submit that this is a non-troversy, but it's done so tastelessly that I will stand by that this should never have existed and should never be purchased. It's a game with a premise that cashes in on a film's character in the shallowest manner and attempts nothing beyond the laziest re-use of a game that uses a single mechanic. Controversy? No. Awful? Yep.

I'm not reading all that. I skimmed enough to tell you this: controversy and publicity aren't the same thing. The game is using notoriety to gain publicity, not controversy.

And the author is backpedaling.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Seriously.
Also, my sincerest congratulations to Grey on not fucking up the French in the last panel. Usually, whenever there are three words in French in any American media there's at least one glaring grammatical mistake.

 

[Loonyyy]

If that's what you take away from this strip then it says far more about your attitudes than it does mine. As a side note, you're free to misinterpret our jokes all you want, but please stay civil on the forums.

Ah. The "I'm not a racist, you're a racist." defense has been employed.

With the aforementioned "I have black friends defense" (Also: "I write about a character who is X" is such a weak variant of that I can't even imagine it working in your head. Because no-one has ever used fiction to attack a marginalised group, all representations of everything ever are positive) in play, we're at 2/3. One more and you win a prize! And a free lifetime membership to the Republican Party.

No, I don't particularly find the comic all that offensive, but I can definitely understand how it could be construed that way. So could you if you read and tried to empathise with what had been said. But failing that, when your responses mimic reprehensible defenses of far worse, they're probably not very good defenses.

And really, is "I was trying to make a point about the tonal disparity and complete barrel-scrapiness of taking a well-regarded - some might say "classic" - film, and was unaware that I unintentionally marginalised a group of vulnerable people, and insulted their lives to boot, and I'm sorry." that hard to type out?

 

[Staskala]

HOLY LOADED QUESTION THAT ISN'T HALF AS CLEVER AS YOU THINK IT IS, BATMAN. The strip has nothing to do with Forest's mental handicap. It's about the tonal disparity and complete barrel-scrapiness of taking a well-regarded - some might say "classic" - film and making it into a cheap, Temple Run knockoff. I've got no issues with the idea of a Forest Gump game. Hell, I think Telltale could do a great job of it. I'm more concerned with the TYPE of game it's being made into. That's why the two punchlines are both obvious parodies of popular mobile games prone to being ripped off.

If it's disrespect to the source material you're concerned about, then why are your follow-ups parodies of real-life tragedies rather than other popular work of fiction? What's the connection here? And what tone disparity? Forrest Gump is at heart a comedy, the running scene in particular is more than just tongue in cheek, he just throws away his leg bracers and starts running at 20 mph for no reason. How is that not video game material?

 

[JemothSkarii]

Wow, a game about someone who (initially) had trouble walking is getting a video game?

Finally! I'm represented! I can play a video game!

Well, except I don't have autism or what have you. Damn, maybe not.

But yeah, bit late for a game about Forrest Gump, but running was a big thing for him amongst other things so it makes sense. Not a game I would play though, not a fan of mobile games.