I got through most but had to give up. It’s really one of the worst videos I’ve ever seen. Possibly the worst. The skating isn’t good enough to be like “Well at least there’s some gnarly tricks in there”. There isn’t many. It’s shit. Hated it.
3 Likes
Didn’t mind it.
Effects were good but grated after a bit.
Skating was great.
Posh kids choir was good once but not for the whole video. I went to Lord of the flies in my mind listening to it and that’s what they think they are. Prob not.
Koston does koston stuff.
2 Likes
Mike Arnold skated a ski haha
1 Like
My eyes hurt from all the flashing effects
1 Like
I’m about half way through. To be fair, some of the visual effects stuff is pretty cool, but the music is making me feel a bit insane, it’s sort of making me anxious
I watched it all.
At the end, they play “Forever Young” which I enjoyed.
Until I go in and watch the full horror for myself and probably feel the same… I’m going to imagine this is how 80s skaters reacted to seeing Memory Screen for the first time, haha.
Ok, well…
To give it its dues, they’ve obviously put some effort into it. Visually there’s some cool stuff going on, which was what I asked for. But that’s about it.
Music is absolutely atrocious, really jarring and I found it pretty uncomfortable to listen to for half an hour. The visual effects were definitely overused (despite being cool at the start) - people complained the last toy machine video had too many graphics, but this was absolute overkill.
Skating was mostly whatever, I liked the last guy, but couldn’t tell you a single trick from the rest of the video. I think Mike A does an hippie jump over Shaun Pablo. And all Koston could bring to this was a slappy and embarrassing middle aged crisis.
2/10. I’d say the kids will like it, but I think the music might be too much of a curveball
2 Likes
MEGA REVIEW
Preface
I have to preface this review by acknowledging that I am very biased. I hate the company.
I strongly dislike Harmony Korine (IDF fundraiser/ponce/Nonce adjacent) and Shaun Pablo (Ponce).
That said, I think Marnold is interesting and Elijah Odom is exciting and fun to watch.
I went into this wanting to dislike it. I knew I would revel in its shortcomings and was content knowing the quality of the video wouldn’t change my stance on the companies existence. I’m disgusted by Harmony Korine buying into our culture but also open minded enough to want to have some positive take away, as I do with all skate videos (because I love skate videos).
Video breakdown
Intro and general aesthetic:
The 3D stuff is fully to be expected and inline with the company vibe. I was surprised that it actually launched into real skate footage and presumed it would all be unwatchable vfx overlayed on the footage so it default gained a point for being somewhat ‘a real skate video’, once the intro was over.
The AI /VFX is ugly and dumb looking. It looks like what I imagine a skrillex live show looks like. I don’t care enough to invest anymore thought into it.
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1st guy would be amazing if you knew him IRl. To everyone else he’s just an American flow level guy and I don’t remember anything beyond that. I won’t rewatch to see if there’s any gems to gleam on a second viewing. Probably a nice person but not worth it. Doesn’t need to be in the video
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2nd up is Sean Pablo, he has the same style as he did as a little kid but he’s got noticeably worse at skating. I can’t mention him and not talk about his gear; Not offensive enough to be a fashion victim, just abit poorly dressed and looks dated.
He’s passed his sell by date.
Break for contemplation
So far the video is really weak and at this point I couldn’t really see the video having any value. Mike Arnold’s name pops up next and I got abit nervous. I want to like Mike and have always hoped he got involved in this shit show without fully understanding what he was getting into.
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Mike Arnold has about 5 throwaway clips and does bouncy polejam on a ski, wedged in the floor.
The ski is high point of the video so far, because it’s silly and quite fun.
Kind of funny but not really any proper tricks. He comes out of this video with the most dignity intact, just by way of having so little footage and being quite a brief appearance. -
This guy like is like the opener guy- Good but just some random Florida shop video kid.
Will probably be really good one day. -
Josh Wolf. Highlight of the video so far. Super relaxed and lazy style doing nice tech tricks in the street. Not a life changing section but really gave me hope for the video and I was happy to learn a new name in skating. Will watch out for him and his future video parts.
RING RING RING DECENT CLIP ALARM RING RING RING
Josh Takes the prize for first memorable trick in the video: Cab heel switch manny on the banked curb manny pad thing in Miami -
Koston section is a minute skit of him being abit annoying in bars in Miami. Only worth lingering on koston to mention that he fits this company perfectly: An over the hill, rich, pseudo-celebrity hanging out in Miami trying to leech off a young, cool crowd. Him and harmony are made for each other.
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Vincent Touzery with possibly his most ample amount of footage in one project but also his overall weakest lump of clips with the exception of a great Corey glick-esque wallie front 3.
The second stand out trick of the video.
Borderline forgettable but big Touz fans will be happy to see footage of him.
Well done him for getting off his arse and filming something, even if it is his career low, in terms of credibility and quality of footage. -
Elijah Odoms footage is so good that it immediately feels out of place and removed from the rest of the video.
He is the only current ‘cool’ pro on the team and the only established, marketable skater in the line up that made an effort, thus completely out of place in this video.
Third stand out trick of the video: Flip back tail on a tall long ledge going up the stairs, not down. Really fucking good.
From 20:22 Elijah has his ‘special tricks’ to end the video and they are really good.
I think forever young worked really well.
The video ends with a montage of the guys being Miami wankers on boats and drinking expensive looking drinks and generally looking really ‘American’. Funnily they do this at possibly the worst point in history to want to associate with America.
Generally I ignored the music and had the video on silent and occasionally turned it up to see what was going on. I didn’t hate it but I also only heard it in 10 second increments every minute or so.
Thought it sounded cool but didn’t deserve to take precedent over Paddington in Peru, which my wife had rented on sky store.
11 Likes
No one liked “Forever Young”?
That was great.
Big up for your in-depth review @Gconroy
Here’s my less in-depth one.
Swan, as underwhelming as you’d expect. Fair enough with the bad injury but I fail to see how making his footage look like I was watching it with 3D glasses that I’d found in a skip on is going to do him any favours.
I don’t think it brings anything new to skate vids. It felt like the skating wasn’t at the fore, so it’s not really a skate vid and the effects and stuff are a bit of an irrelevance.
Compared to a Colin Read, Jacob Harris or Shinpei Ueno production it feels behind the pace. Kind of sad, if it was really good that would have been pretty disruptive. I think the industry could benefit from a bit of disrupting.
2 Likes
My full review: “Forever Young” was great.
TLDR: Rod.
CONTINUED
Mike Arnold - surely he’s trolling here, right?
High jumping Swan’s luxury car, cutaways to luxury cars, strip club footage - all firmly on moral trend for the current state of the world /s
No, Koston. No.
5 Likes
All I could think of was this
3 Likes
Great song, that.
Might rewatch EDGLRD*
*Audio only.
1 Like
Couldn’t make it to the end.
Boring, pointless hubris.
1 Like
Are we talking about the same Forever Young they use in Napoleon Dynamite?
Got a few seconds in and it just looked like the front of a happy hardcore tape box.
This is what I was trying to say in my summary but couldn’t because I’m not very sharp.
Finally! Someone who wants to talk about the good bit of the video.
And to answer your question: Dunno.
2 Likes
