Combination Attacks II: Rating More Tag Finishers

In 2017, I wrote about Combination Attacks at depth on Mother's Day.....

This One: https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2017/05/best-tag-team-finishers_4.html

It went on a long time, it seems mostly due to taking a while to get going, by talking about other stuff in the intro. I don't want to do that this time.... but there's matters in the Combination Attack field that I feel need to be talked about before we start rating Tag Finishers in this essay.

Re-reading my 2017 ratings of Combo Attacks has left me with woe and with red in the face. I am appalled that I didn't include a move from a movie that probably is the SOURCE of my deep respect and intrigue with Combination Attacks and Tag Finishers.

I feel a sense of personal shame and am actually appalled at myself for leaving something out of that article....and that something is... The Crossing of the Streams.

How could I have over-looked what was probably the most ICONIC combination attack of my lifetime? When the Ghostbusters crossed the streams of their proton-particle-throwers in 1984's Ghostbusters.... it shook the foundations of all of which was known prior-to-then as being cool.

Just call me Forgetful Jones, I guess.

It was a FINISHER too! They combined their proton streams at the behest of Egon (who previously in the film told them NEVER EVER to cross the streams) to create a total particle reversal in hopes to teach that travelin' and destructin' Gozer how they did things downtown!

I am appalled at myself for overlooking this attack in my previous article. This may have even beaten Pentagon and Blackhole's attack if it was entered into that 2017 Tag Finisher Tournament. It probably would have pulled it out in the end and won.

If I as a tiny baby/child never saw this happen.... my brain probably would never have even been wired to wig over Combination Attacks at all! I would never have cared about Antipodes I, II, or even III.... or Piccolo firing a Makankosappo through Gohan's Kamehameha blast to give it an added piercing element to its naturally occurring powerful energy blast explosion.... or care or wig even a bit when Animal held a guy on his shoulders for Hawk to launch himself off the top turnbuckle to harm the opponent with a flying clothesline.

....without Ghostbusters One, and the Crossing of the Streams...it's possible that I wouldn't have cared about ANY of those great things even at all.

So thank you for all you've done for the Art and the Science of Combination Attacks, my sweet Ghostbusters One, I shall forever value your contribution to the field.


Alright so with that out of the way, that lament and regret, let's get started reviewing all of the great Tag Finishers that are occurring in modern times...wait hold up.... I have something inside of me, whether it's in my heart or mind, that needs to be said regarding the field of tag finishers... and it involves Chrono Trigger... specifically the new modern ports of the game.... that have re-named many of the combination attacks of the game... that I believe is almost blasphemous in nature.

Super Nintendo's Chrono Trigger was released in 1995, and it was the greatest game. Ports of the game have been made for many systems after its initial release so a new era of people can enjoy one of the Society's Greatest Video Games just like we did as youths in 1995. Now, each port seems to think they can translate the game better than Ted Woolsey did in 1995.

Let's get something straight now, okay? Ted Woolsey's translation of Chrono Trigger in 1995... is the OFFICIAL translation of Chrono Trigger, okay? It is. Fans can make endless "fan translation" patches to pretend to fix his "mistakes".... and the ports to newer era systems can pretend that they can do a better job localizing Chrono Trigger than Terrific Ted did in '95... but your works are all in vain. The SNES version of Chrono Trigger released in 1995...is the BEST version of the game. Period.

Changing the names of Dual and Triple techs from the original translation is threading a thin needle and almost stepping on the toes of history, I must say.

With some of the Tag Finisher name changes in the new versions of the game, I get them, I guess. Let's look at Doublevbomb. Now, here I understand why it might be in their interest to re-translate Doublevbomb into Double Bomb. At the heart of it, it makes sense, it seems like it should have been Double Bomb back in '95 but some programmer entered the name into the field and hit the "v" key instead of the "space" key. Okay.... I get why they would change this.

Then again, part of me doesn't. To 1995 enthusiasts of Chrono Trigger, this move is called Doublevbomb! For all that I knew back then, maybe Lucca had an uncle who with her father Taban would make explosives and junk...and her uncle was named Nabat Doublev and the family named the highly powerful explosive Lucca uses in conjunction with Robo in a combination attack a "Doublev" bomb to honor her uncle who contributed to the creation of the Tag Finisher in that small yet key fashion. No?

I'm not that upset over Doublevbomb to Double Bomb. Who knows, maybe it really was a typo in the original and the new ports are just fixing the typo... maybe Lucca doesn't have an uncle named Nabat Doublev. I get it. I'm okay with Double Bomb.... but there's one I'm really not Okay with and that's.... Bubble Breath?

They changed Bubble Snap to Bubble Breath? Why? Why in the name of anything would they change the Snap to the Breath? Now, I'm a huge fan of Bubble Snap. I used Bubble Snap a lot. Frog summons up a bubble-casing with his Water magic to encase Robo in a bubble... then the bubble gently floats up into the sky.... next, the weight of Robo gives and the bubble SNAPS and makes a noise similar to a SNAP! Robo then proceeds to fall from the sky, his metal weight picking up much momentum on the way down, until he crashes on top of the opponent...harming them.

That's a Bubble Snap! Where does anyone do any breathing here? No one is breathing here! No where! No how! No breathing is being done! Why rename this move from a Bubble Snap to a Bubble Breath?

It's things like this that make people's hair turn gray before their time. It really is. It really is. Re-naming Bubble Snap...... to Bubble Breath. I wouldn't be surprised if one gray hair on my head is directly there because someone thought it would be a great idea to re-name Bubble Snap. Would not surprise me in the least, friends.

Alright, enough with this, we better start reviewing and rating Tag Attacks of the modern times... wait though.... while we're on the subject of Super Nintendo ports to modern systems of classic games, we have to talk about Final Fantasy VI....

Final Fantasy VI is a classic and a Video Game's Video Game. To see the port they offer younger people of today's times to experience Final Fantasy VI is enough to make a whole head of hair gray on a person well before its time.

I don't want to get too much into it... if you are interested in seeing why the port is almost blasphemous in nature I suggest you read the following article written by a person who gets very esoteric into why the graphics are not good:

Link to Esoteric Article delving into Why new versions of Final Fantasy VI's Graphics are Not Good:
https://www.fortressofdoors.com/doing-an-hd-remake-the-right-way-ffvi-edition/ 

Young people are growing up playing bad ports of some of the most classic of video games.... and I think the reverberations and damage this will cause to the minds of young people will be felt for aeons (probably). 

You don't need a Good Graphics degree from Videlectrix University (or a similar institution) to know that giving young people ports of great games but with bad graphics is a recipe for a less-than-bright Tomorrow.



Alright, we better start this article soon.... because I am gonna have a full head of gray if I keep letting Bad Ports get to me soooo..... Let's Get Started......

NOW.




Rating the Modern and Cool Tag Finishers and Combination Attacks of AEW Wrestling!

(Note: If a cool-cool move is over looked or forgotten to be included in the review.... please don't over-think it. In my first article in this field...I forgot to include the greatest thing ever.... so to color myself as a Forgetful Jones isn't an exaggeration by any stretch. I forget my own age sometimes.)

All Elite Wrestling's Tag Team wrestling is wicked and great... no one can deny this. Let's now look at some of the cool moves on display.


Re-iteration of Definition: 
A Tag Finisher is a fighting move which combines the input and skills from two or more individuals to form increasingly powerful combination attacks. Once two singular moves are combined they thus become greater than the sum of their whole ... they become ... More Better.


I'm not sure I can get photos or videos of all of these moves as some of these only happened like last week.... so the aesthetics of this article will be on the low-end... it is an in-depth review of these maneuvers in a more literary sense... I guess.

The Finalists for this year's Tag Finisher award are:

-Private Party - Gin and Juice
-Proud and Powerful - Camel Clutch + Boston Crab Dual Tech Submission (+honorable mention)
-Young Bucks - More Bang for your BUCK!!!!
-Best Friends (accompanied by Orange Cassidy) - Center of Ring Group Hug
-Kenny Omega and "Hangman" Adam Page - V-Trigger + Lariat
-SCU - S C U.... LATER!
-Jurassic Express - Double-Assisted Canadian Destroyer (+honorable mention)



Private Party

Gin and Juice

Marq and Isiah's Private Party may sound snobbish and the uninformed reader might think they are snobby bad guys... but they're not... they are good guys. It is a Private Party... but EVERYONE is invited to this party. This party has front flips, back flips, running back flips, running front flips, 450 swam dive flips.... and COMBINATION ATTACKS!

The best part, as stated above, is that Everyone is invited to this "private" party. It is very inclusive. Yet, if you're gonna imbibe though you gotta remember that what they're drinking at this party 'aint water, dude. It 'aint water, dude. It's probably some decent-enough-proof Hennessy... so if you are gonna imbibe at this party you should imbibe responsibly.

Private Party's tag finisher is their patented Gin and Juice. Here we see Marq plant the opponent onto the turnbuckle, nextly he deftly hurricane flips so his feet are wrapped around the opponent's head, he proceeds to re-flip himself which catapults the opponent off of the turnbuckle and into the trusty and waiting arm of Isiah...

....who hurricane DDTs the opponent's head into the canvas. Bravo.

With all these hurricane flips and hurricane DDTs.... how can an opponent cope? Quick answer is: They can't. The Gin and Juice doesn't just make them tipsy... it puts them down for a 3-count!

Raw Power: 71
Finesse: 89
Aesthetics: 87

Overall: 82



Proud and Powerful

Camel Clutch + Boston Crab (also we will talk about the assisted Vertical blood-to-head Suplex attack)

Santana and Ortiz are bad guys! They are in cahoots with Chris Jericho and his dastardly inner-circle. They play for keeps. They will whip you with a sock full of baseballs....they don't care. They are bad! They will slam 60+ year old wrestling legends right through tables! They are very bad! They will rake your back with their nails.... and they will preform brazenly powerful COMBINATION ATTACKS!

One they do is they suplex a guy but they don't finish the suplex, they get the opponent into a vertical clutch hold and just hold him in the vertical suplex but they don't even drop him! They just keep tagging in-and-out of the ring exchanging the opponent when their arms get tired! Oh my gooodness. If their arms don't get tired they never really ever have to drop the opponent, do they? No! The ref? The ref cannot do a thing because they are legally tagging in-and-out of the ring to exchange the opponent in the vertical clutch hold!

Meanwhile... what is the opponent feeling during all of this? His blood is rushing to his skull and brain! He has been upside down with his body back-to-front for what must seem like an eternity! Oh no! He must be passing out.

That's not the move I am entering them into this contest with though. I am entering them for their dual tech submission attack... the Camel Clutch + Boston Crab. Whereas one sits on the opponent and faces forward whilst the other sits on the opponent facing the opposite direction. They then start pulling on the neck and legs of the opponent in hopes of twisting him into some kind of a human pretzel. My gosh.... where is the humanity in all this, you ask? There is none. These men are BAD and they don't mind turning people into pretzels inside of the ring!

The downside to this submission attack is that you are only allowed 10 seconds inside the ring once a tag is made.... meaning both men can only be in the ring at the same time for 10 actual seconds. Will any opponent submit from an attack within ten seconds? Probably not. The ref will break Santana and Ortiz up if the attack goes on for 10 seconds under this rule.... this seriously limits the power of the otherwise powerful attack.

Raw Power: 90
Finesse: 72
Aesthetics: 83

Overall: 82




The Young Bucks

More Bang for your BUCK!!!

By Gawdness are these guys buck. The flips? Forget it.... just forget it. They flip like there is no tomorrow. They kick like there is no tomorrow. If you even blink while these guys are doin' it n' doin' their thang in the rang.... forget it... you missed at least 40 flips and 50 kicks whilst you blinked, dude. There's so much wild and crazy things going on while they wrestle that I recommend to the viewer of their craft that you don't blink.. unless you don't mind missing many a flip and a bevy of kicks during your 0.01 second blink session... then go right ahead and blink... I guess.

They have this one where Matt holds the guy in a pile driver hold and kindly waits... until his brother Nick preforms a spring-board front flip off of the ring apron with momentum help from the ropes... the momentum of the spring-boarded flip is then transferred into the feet of the opponent who is then thrust into a pile driver. Dang, that's buck.

They did a simple yet effective Triple Tech with Dustin Rhodes where both Bucks preformed a reverse-thrusted round-house Super Kick and Dustin stood in between and preformed a simple yet devastating front-thrust kick. A triple kick... to one face!? That's a massive attack, bubba.

Their entry in this tournament of techs is the More Bang attack... because it is uniquely buck. It is simply a sight to see. My eyes have seen some uniquely cool things over the years, ok? I'm not like a guy who just exaggerates and just like says stuff, you know? I've seen cool stuff like rock and roll concerts and naked-ass ladies and stuff over the years that I'd deem as being very very very cool.... so when I say something is cool or buck... I mean it? You know?

More Bang is COOL. There's so many back flips and front flips it's almost as if I cannot even conceptualize what a flip is anymore after they preform this. There's A LOT of flips. A lot of them. Flip after flip after flip after... after FLIP!

I'm not joking that momentarily after seeing More Bang... I cannot conceptualize the meaning of "flip" for a brief period. If you came up and asked me what my favorite Flip Wilson character was within a few minutes after seeing More Bang for your Buck... I wouldn't be able to answer because my brain would be unable to process the word Flip. I'd be like... "What Wilson?".... and then like a few minutes later I could answer you after my conceptualization as to what "flip" meant returned to me. I'd be like "Oh....Geraldine. That's my favorite Flip Wilson character. Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, I had a mental lapse for a moment, old friend."

There's so many flips it's like they got the Star in Mario Three on NES and knew they only had Star Power for like a few seconds so they pressed the jump button as many times as they could just to see Mario do an insane amount of flips!!!

Raw Power: 73
Finesse: 95
Aesthetics: 96

Overall: 88


 

Best Friends (accompanied by Orange Cassidy)

Center of Ring Group Hug

In this incredible maneuver, Best Friends, one Trent(?) and one Chuck Taylor, invite their familiar acquaintance one Orange Cassidy, into the ring to display the strength of their friendship.  

It is pondered by many how connected Orange Cassidy is to the Best Friends as he is never announced as being a member of the Best Friends as they approach the ring. It is clear that only Trent and Chuck are Best Friends and Orange Cassidy is just an acquaintance of theirs that they oft-times hang out with.

I wonder about this as well, I mean, is Orange Cassidy just too cool for the school and is the one who wants to be introduced separately... or is Trent and Chuck's Best Friendhood so pronounced that to include Orange Cassidy in the Best Friends would only serve to water down the strength of their friendship by including a guy who just wants to hang out sometimes? It's a great mystery...

..but, I think if Best Friends were to throw a party and they invited everyone and Orange Cassidy, they would see the biggest gift would be from Orange Cassidy, and the card attached would say....

..."Thank You, For Being a Friend...."

It is safe to say the damage of this move is limited but... if this were to be used in a video game universe, this move would boost their attributes for a set amount of time.... a lot. I'm talking like +25% to their melee damage, +25% to their melee defense, +25% to their super move attacks, +25% to their super move defense, +25% to their agility, +25% to their luck stat too, and their special move bar increases at 2x rate... all this for a full 2.5 minutes of gameplay time. Damn, that's a powerful boost.

In that sense, say you were playing like a Tag Team Story Mode where you take any team, start at the bottom, and work your way to fight the champs to win the belts... an unbeknownst player might think "why would I take the Best Friends and Orange Cassidy? Their base stats are very bad like 10 to 15 points lower than the best teams to choose from in this tag team menu screen...." ... yet lo, woe, and red in the face will be that hapless video game enthusiast for not choosing a team that has a Tag Move that boosts their stats considerably ... and thusly making them one of the strongest teams in the game with enough experience points.

Raw Power: N/A
Finesse: 72
Aesthetics: 93

Overall: 82


Kenny Omega + "Hangman" Adam Page

V-Trigger + Lariat

This attack is nothing short of a Massively Powerful Combination Attack. Let's look at each of these moves in a singular sense before we look at them in a combined and powerfully-combined sense.

The V-Trigger is a frontal running knee-strike... it sounds simple but it is so much more than its description. These can wake you up. Kenny doesn't finish matches with this attack... this is just a powerful running knee to the face to wake the opponent up... so said opponent is not tired and groggy when he experiences Kenny's One Winged Angel buster. These knees'll wake you up in the morning! If you're at work and you're on your third cup of cheap-but-free work coffee and still can't keep your dumb eyes open... call Kenny Omega to come down to your work and get him to knee you in the face! It'll wake you up!

What awaits the opponent in this attack once he's been awoken from his groggy slumber by a V-Trigger? A spring-board apron-flip momentum-enhanced... LARIAAAAAATOOOOOOOH!

A spring-board flip Lariat like that is NOT designed to wake you up... it's designed to put you down for the 3-count, compadre.

I've seen them do this from multiple angles. One time they connected with the V-Trigger AND the Lariat at the SAME exact TIME! Imagine getting a V-Trigger wake-up call and a Lariat smash at the same time!? I've seen it done by a drunken Hangman who needed M. Jackson to hold his beer for him while he flipped and lariatted.

Speaking of Hangman and his proneness to imbibing on drink... it seems like it is causing descension amongst Kenny and Adam. Hangman's drinking has caused some awkward in-ring moments between the two combatants. Some accidents involving Adam missing opponents and hitting Kenny... and even Hangman leaving Kenny Omega HANGING on a High Five. I was shocked when I saw the hang on the five. It left me feeling empty inside. I remember as a youth of 17, at a cool concert, one of my first, leaving someone hanging on a high five... and I never found it in my own heart to forgive myself. The regret over a left-hanged five is a greater regret than most understand.

(I remember many years ago seeing a ".gif" that really spoke to the realness of what I am trying to describe. Lemme see if I can dig it up by searching for it. Yes, I found it. It is this ".gif": HERE.)

Opponents think they can prey on this perceived non-unity between them... I'm sure SCU is thinking they will easily defeat them and regain the titles in their re-match with them by isolating the drunkard Page... yet you never count a team like this out for the count no matter how low their morale is or how drunk Adam Page is... because their Tag Finisher is lights outingly POWERFUL.

It is MASSIVELY POWERFUL.

Raw Power: 98
Finesse: 82
Aesthetics: 84

Overall: 88




SCU

S..C...U.... LATER!!

Socal Uncensored are good guys. They are a marching band from Southern California University. They held the tag team belts for a long while after they won the inaugural tag team tournament to kick off AEW's first year.

Is there any better alliterative string of words in our language that is better than Tag Team Tournament? I mean, the joy that springs to the breast of humankind when those three Ts come together in alliteration is completely and utterly magnifique, n'est ce pas?

Scorpio and Frankie's magnificent finisher involves Scorpio athletically spinning an opponent off of his back thus propelling incredible momentum outward and off his back....and into what... right into Frankie's knee strike. A sure-fire method to cap off an excellent bout. 1, 2,3 .... it's over.

I don't want to forget to mention the third member of SCU, one C. Daniels, who I thought had a very great redemption of his talent recently. After messing up an Arabian Moonsault, the Lucha Bros. endlessly scorned and scoffed at Daniels... many thought the regret and shame over botching said Moonsault would lead Daniels down a path of darkness.... but he overcame! He executed the Moonsault a few week later! He didn't give up! Never ever give up!

SCU also had a very touching display recently by honoring the late great Kobe Bryant by adorning his #24 during their match.

    
Raw Power: 85
Finesse: 80
Aesthetics: 81

Overall: 82



Jurassic Express

Double-Assisted Canadian Destroyer

Jurassic Express consists of a large-yet-loveable giant Dinosaur Man, a wild Mogli-esque wild jungle child, and a scrappy scamp who apparently live together in the forest behind the junkyard.

They got a cool cool move where after a crazy dive onto guys outside the ring by Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus launches Marko Stunt unto the already dazed opponents with a Gorilla Press Slam... which is great.

Their entry is the double-assist on the Canadian Destroyer. Whereas Looch and JB swing Marko back-and-forth to create a great deal of centrifugal force of which is key in enhancing the utter devastation of the Canadian Destroyer.

It is a very physical move in two ways. It employs the laws of physics... and it is physical like ... you know what I mean. 

Sorry guys. Some of these paragraphs are getting stale, homeys. Gonna wrap this up. Sorry, Jurassic Express... if you got the lead-off spot in this essay instead of the end-spot you would have had better paragraphs. 

Raw Power: 73
Finesse: 84
Aesthetics: 86

Overall: 82

  


Post Writing Tally: 

*Young Bucks: 88*
*Kenny Omega and "Hangman" Adam Page: 88*

SCU: 82
Jurassic Express: 82
Private Party: 82
Proud and Powerful: 82
Best Friends (accompanied by Orange Cassidy): 82

Dang, it is a tie. Who woulda thunk it?


Conclusion 

Okay, I know I already have qualms about who was left off the list. Some of the best wrestlers in AEW are 1-on-1 guys so cracking them into the tournament would be too hard. I know I left one of my favorite tag teams on the show, The Lucha Bros., off of it... I should have got them in. Lucha Bros. vs. Young Bucks matches on AEW have been nothing short of a Piston's Hurricane and of Straight-up Fire.

Their women division is amazing... sadly I couldn't work it in, either.

I didn't manage to work in my favorite thing I have seen on AEW... which was the 4.5 Man vs. 4 Man combined 8.5-man synchronized suplex.... which was get-out-of-towningly Great.

I selected the ones to do only after writing a lot of other stuff before I even started... I wouldn't regard this as an expert's opinion. I'm not a licensed Wrestling Journalist and I do not have a Wrestling Journalism degree from any of the top Wrestling Journalism schools... so if you read this don't think it's like a definite thing or anything by a Wrestling Savant.

The first time I did this in 2017... I left the greatest thing ever out of the tourney... so if anything cool was left out of this article ... it's not surprising by any means.

Let me once again thank Ghostbusters One. If Harold Ramis never asked his friends Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, and Ernie Hudson to cross their proton throwers to form a singularity of intense particular-reversing beam cannon.... I probably would never have wigged to any Combination Attack...



....I probably wouldn't've wigged at all... to any of it.

...wouldn't have wigged...at all.

So thank you......
 
...Harold Ramis.

The Wizard of Oz

I wrote in the itinerary "September: The Wizard of Oz" ... and to be honest that topic was almost chosen at random just to make it a challenge for me to remember to write in this.

This is going to be a bit of a challenge... I haven't seen the film in decades and really have no clue why I wrote that the Wizard of Oz is the next Subject for Writings on Subjects (New 2 Stronger) to cover.

The main angle I was thinking of was "Things from youth that are different after you re-view them as an adult" ... and I narrowed it down to three choices...

1. Summer Rental (1985) starring John Candy
2. Waiting for Godot
3. Wizard of Oz

Summer Rental was a film I always considered as a B-rank Candy offering as opposed to his A work (Planes/Trains/Automobiles, Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, etc. being his "A" work). I wanted to give Summer Rental a try and see why I filed it away as one of John's lesser works ... and even after re-seeing it... I don't think I was wrong ... it's a B+ Candy film if anything more than a B.

Waiting for Godot was something I didn't like at all when I watched it as a 26 year old person ... I thought it was boring, contrived, and pointless. This 36 year old version of me re-watched that ... and holy crap ... I got it about 1000% more than 26 year old me did.

In one sense, going back and watching Waiting for Godot again and comparing what 26 year old me thought of it to what 36 year old me thinks of it ... made me feel like I was a living version of one of Beckett's other works, "Krapp's Last Tape" ... which is a solitary play about this dude listening to old recordings he made on a tape recorder of what he thought of life many years ago ... and presently ruminating and lamenting them to the audience (sort of what N. MacDonald does in "Dirty Work" if you young folks are looking for something you'd be familiar with).

Me just Krapp's Last Taping out big time to Godot ... would be a good article ... but man alive, man.... it'd be too heavy. Way too heavy, man. I could probably Krapp out pretty loose for about a few thousand words for Godot but it'd be pretty heavy, guys.

If you wanna Krapp out for Godot... you guys can watch "Krapp's Last Tape", and then "Waiting for Godot" ... and you can Krapp the heck out for Godot yourselves in your own time.

So If we're not doing Summer Rental (1985) starring John Candy as this month's topic, and we're not doing Waiting for Godot... looks like we're gonna do the Wizard of Oz after all.


Sections:

1) Formula

2) Then and Now ... my view of it as a growned-up person as opposed to my view of it as a young person

3) What would a modern day version of it be?



The Wizard of Oz's Formula

Let me clue you guys in on something that ALWAYS works in writing... and that's the Four Person Journey and it is maybe the hallmark style of fiction.

I remember I closed this blog like a few years ago because I was gonna write a book and actually like try and "make it" as a writer... like a Pro Writer, you know? I was gonna do a gigantic four-person journey that would have been like eight million words. I gave up on it early because fiction is not something I am really versed in. My short story from early 2019, "The Journey", was a short 3-person Journey (with parts 3-80 left blank in case one day I do want to turn it into a full-out booky-book).

Most Pro Writers have done good 4-person Journeys. A more modern one is Stand By Me which is S. King's 4PJ where four teens wanna go see a dead guy in the forest so they embark on a life-altering adventure.

I'm surprised, after playing Final Fantasy XV the last few weeks, that "Stand by Me" is huuuge in Japan. I think the guy from "Legends of Localization" did an article on this. Stand By Me is maybe bigger in Japan than it is anywhere else. I don't think it's the formula of the movie that they wig out for... I think it's the dead body part though. There's been a lot of articles lately about this spooky forest in Japan where you can see a dead body most likely .... and that forest has been around Japan folklore for a long time... so I think the idea of four teens going on adventure just to see a dead guy is relatable-to for Japanese people. Still, the popularity of Stand By Me in Japan is slightly baffling ... maybe the localization of the film was just well-done or something.

Speaking of Final Fantasy.... that's a Four Person Journey as well. The most recent one is a total Four Person Journey with a car too. I put-off playing Final Fantasy Fifteen for a few years because I didn't think the Final Fantasy series has really lived up to its name for a good while. I think The Tenth One (FFX) was the last one I thought was good.... for the record I believe 6, 7, and 4 are the best ones. I really thought Fifteen was going to be an emo-laden snooze-festival but that is not the case... it is a great game... and even if the emo-style character designs are off-putting at first these four bros became my bros pretty quickly and by the third gas-station I felt like I KNEW these guys in real life.

The most popular of all time Four-Person Journey is probably Journey to the West. In that Chinese Epic, Sanzang must depart China and travel to India to retrieve ancient Buddhist scriptures ... and along the way makes the most unlikeliest of amigos... an out-of-control Monkey King, a lecherous Pig man, and a Swamp Monster who roils the waterways and eats travelers. It's the most well-known, epic, and at times strange Four Man Walker you're ever gonna get into.

It's so long, like millions of words, and there's some whacky stuff in Journey to the West. There's a chapter where they are at this all-women town with no dudes in it.... and Sanzang drinks a bunch of water because he's thirsty... then asks how the ladies make babies if the town has no dudes... and they say they have a special holy water that makes them get pregnant without doing any sex at all .... and Sanzang just spits out the water he's drinking and is all "OH CRAP! I'M PREGNANT!!!" ... but it's okay because Monkey King sneaks into a secret cave that has anti-pregnancy holy water to stop Sanzang's pregnancy.

I wonder if the Wizard of Oz's author one L. Frank Baum read Journey to the West. It was compiled from vocal legends into the text we read today in the 16th century... but I don't think there's a real translation of it to english until well after L. Frank's time. There is a part of Wizard of Oz that leads me to think L. Frank may have read Journey to the West somehow (maybe he could read Chinese, I don't know). The Monkeys of the Wicked Witch. She controls the out-of-control winged-monkeys with a golden cap, Sanzang controls the out-of-control Monkey King with a piece of golden head-wear entrusted to him by Guan Yin.

Gold head wear to control out-of-control monkeys. It could be a coincidence or it could be a shout out by Baum to the most epic Four-Person Walking Text of All Time.

I do feel the unlikely comrades Dorothy meets is slightly similar to Journey to the West. She meets three troubled compadres as well... a Scare Crow who feels he has no brains, a Tin Woodman who feels he has no heart, and a Cowardly Lion who thinks he lacks courage. They are not ex-criminals banished from heaven who are trying to find remorse as the compadres to Sanzang are in Journey to the West ... but they are very odd and even possibly frightening characters in their own right.

Another similarity is the main character is the "driver of the story" and in some regard is NOT the main character, per se, as the other characters have more depth. Sanzang is almost a place holder in Journey as the "Why" they have to go on this Journey... and most of the book is Monkey flying around the damned earth to bail this guy out of all the messes he gets into ... such as getting pregnant even, as mentioned above.

In Wizard, Dorothy is definitely more of a "story driver" than a main character. She's the "Why" they have to get to the Emerald City and the other characters get more depth and text/screen time devoted to them. In Baum's later Oz works, he opens his books by thanking his fans and in one he notes that from the mail he received from children... they don't like when Dorothy is not given a lot of text time in an Oz book and he vowed to make her the central character again ... it is in that sense that this "driver" worked... the children experience the text AS her... as a normal person from a normal world (Kansas in this case) who is transported to a land of imagination. The young reader doesn't view Dorothy as a character from Oz, she is from Kansas in the USA in Actual Reality. They experience the world of Oz through the "main" character of Dorothy.

In Journey, the vulnerable, innocent, and "real" Sanzang is who the reader "becomes" as they travel through the text. This "driver" main character, I feel, is another similarity between them.

This is not to say that despite a bit of over-lap that these two texts are very similar or anything. I don't think the themes, dialogue, nuances, style, or very much else is similar between Wizard of Oz and Journey to the West. They are just Four Person Travel books ... with possibly a slight shoutout here and there by Baum to Journey which is considered the gold standard of the genre.

Due to Journey not being well-known in the Americas and Europe... I'd venture to say that L. Frank Baum's four person travel text, first published in 1900, is the most well known of the Four Person Travel genre in the Western World.

Anyways, the next section will look at how young-me viewed it and how old-me now regards it. Also, the differences between the text version and film version will be highlighted as well.


Then and Now
(One important note that needs to be noted is that Young Me saw the Movie while Old Me read the book.... so there's that involved also.)

The 1939 film, the Wizard of Oz, was basically the first blockbuster movie. It was not just in full color but it was vivid as all heck. I mean, one thing I notice about other "first color" events in movies and TV is the novelty of getting to work with color was not lost on the artists of the era. If you watch TV's first big-time full-color shows like Batman (1966), or Ultra Man (1966) ... you notice very fast that they use vivid and contrasting colors out of the wazoo.... the intro to Ultra Man features paint mixing even! This 1939 film is similar to those TV color firsts in the 60s where they really got everything they could out of their chance to work with color.

I think why it was chosen for the first color film adaption of a text was because it is very colorfully written but almost using standard primary colors more than anything. The munchkins were a pale blue society, the winkies (who don't appear in the film) were a full on yellow society, and the citizens of the Emerald City were a green folk*.

The movie was an aesthetic event more than anything. It is a good movie and made the epic Four Person Journey genre hugely popular for another century... but the movie and book are not the same cup of tea, really.

As a kid, I never really learned very much from the Wizard of Oz film... it was just a cool fun movie that I knew was old and looked cool for something that was that old.

Reading the text as an adult, you pick up on the themes of it more quickly... and yes most of them are well shown in the film but in text these themes and the opinions of the writer come through more clearly.

In the film, the audience does realize that the Scarecrow was smart all along, and the Tin Woodman was a nice guy all along, and the Lion was actually pretty courageous all along... but it's not as pronounced as it is in the book.

Throughout the 1900 narrative, before they even make it to Oz, the reader picks up that these three characters are just being too hard on themselves and are over-compensating for the character flaws they perceive is wrong with themselves.

The Scare Crow from the get-go is basically the party's strategist. He is so hung-up and worried that he's not smart that he has basically devoted his entire being to overcome this perceived flaw in his person that all he tries to do in every chapter is think up ways to help his friends get out of difficult-to-manage situations.

The Tin Woodman, is so worried that he is an emotionless automaton that he does nothing all day but think of how to project himself unto the world in a manner that is perceived as being caring and full of empathy because he believes he has no heart and is deeply worried about that. As they walk he looks down at the yellow brick road to see if any ants are on it, even, so as to not step on any. He really over-compensates his behavior to mitigate his perceived weaknesses.

The Cowardly Lion, in the film is a scaredy cat but in the book he's a regular walking-on-all-fours lion's lion. He is definitely scared of the other monsters in Oz (in the book there's way more than "Lions and Tigers and Bears" in it, there's legit monsters).... and in Oz a Lion is not a big deal when there's flying monkeys and kalidahs and other fantasy monsters. In the film its not really told to the viewer that a lion is not a huge deal in the Oz universe. In the text, he's worried about monsters stronger than him, and over-exagerates his constant fear by roaring and putting on a big show. In that sense he's cowardly in the book ... but not so much as in the film where he's really a more innocent man-lion guy. In order to overcome this constant fear he never runs away from a battle in the Oz book ... he fights a gang of kalidahs (who do not appear in the film) in one chapter and those things are vicious.

Before the end of the book, you are already shown that these three characters are not flawed at all. The guy who thinks he's dumb is very smart, the guy who thinks he's heartless has more empathy than anyone, and the guy who thinks he's a coward will fight solo in outnumbered battles against tiger-headed bear monsters.

In the film, this is shown to a degree... but I find the awarding of the gimmicks to them at the end is a little forced. In the book the "You Had it All Along!" theme grows with the characters from chapter to chapter... and by a certain point of the book you know these guys got it even if they think they don't. The other portion of the awarding of the gimmick-trinkets in the film that is totally different from the text is that ... the characters kind of dig the trinkets in the movie and they feel like they've succeeded in their journey.

The BIGGEST difference in the text and film of Wizard of Oz is how big of a bozo, or a "humbug", the Wizard of Oz actually is. In the film he's a bit of a let-down but still a likeable character to some extent... but in the book.... after reading many chapters (which takes longer than watching a movie)... and finally they get to meet this guy they wanted to meet... and guess what...he's a bum! He's not even anything at all.... he's not even from Oz... he's from Omaha which is even LAMER than Kansas is!

Older me loves this book. It's a pretty shaggy dog ending... well it's not an ending in the book actually, there's a few chapters after the Oz let-down part. In the film the Used Car Salesmanhood of the Wizard of Oz is not as memorable to the viewer. The movie is really beautiful, with the colors, the music, etc... but the best part of the book is the total humbugerry of the Wizard. I think many children who grew up reading the L. Frank Baum's children books probably grew up to be adults with a great sense of humor and also a great understanding of the how Life Itself is sometimes in such bad taste and is for the most-part such a Let Down.

I'm not surprised American literature is one of society's most humor-based bodies of literature. If you take the George Ades, the Mark Twains, and the L. Frank Baums (and even to a lesser extent the Thorne Smiths and a couple others) ... you have some real Humorists here.

The Humorist is not the same thing as a Comedian. If life was a current-era video game... the Humorist is what you level up to when you gain 15,000 experience points as a Comedian and have already used another 15,000 experience points to unlock all the skill-branch tree slots in the Comedian skill set.

L. Frank is a Humorist, 100%. I don't even think there's that many, especially in now-a-times era. I really think young people in the 20th century (1900s) grew up versed in Humor from a young age. I'm not sure that's the case in present era times.

To me, the Humorist understands that Life Itself is a Big Letdown and that we have to make the best within ourselves to make light of an otherwise bland and unjust world. The Humorist has no political slant to his or hers view of the world... the Humorist makes light and humor out of the difficulties of life using mostly base-emotions and universally relatable-to themes.

Previous to recently, having only seen the film and never read the book from 1900 it was based upon, I would have never known L. Frank Baum is in the Humorist category ... If you would have asked me what the book of Wizard of Oz was like as a kid who only saw the movie, I'd probably say, it was probably just some run-of-the-mill fairy tale ... but no... this is a real Humorist text.

Anyways, we forgot a character above. We didn't look at what Dorothy was worried about and trying to over exaggerate in her understanding of herself and the world around her. That is to say, what is the "driver" of the text over-compensating for? Thus to say, the driver character of the text being the "reader" themselves. That is to say... what is the reader of the text of the Wizard of Oz trying to overcome?

To me the answer is "boredom" for the Dorothy character. She lives in Kansas at a farm of her adoptive parents (Aunty Em) and is completely bored with life. She is one day transported to a land of total imaginative excitement and adventure. This is one of the things the film gets 100% right, even better than the book does.... because her world is Black and White prior to arriving at the land of Oz in the film... which to describe how well this must have worked in 1939... the first block busting color film ... that starts out on a black and white farm in Kansas ... and then the viewer is whisked away to an aesthetic bounty of color and adventure. That's something story-telling wise and technology-advancement-wise that cannot be recreated. The first big budget color film using the theme of Dorothy/Reader's lame life and then blasting it with visual stimuli that to-that-date had never been seen before? It's a storytelling event that could only really exist once at the level that it must have worked so well in 1939.

Dorothy, the driver of the story, the eyes/ears/nose/hands of who's the reader experiences the World of Oz from... always had that imagination inside of them.... they could have "went home" whenever they wanted... whether by clicking the Ruby Slippers a number of times or just by simply closing the book and putting it down. They picked up that book and were drawn into it out of boredom, they wanted to escape to a land of interesting adventures.

Just like the the other three characters (Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Lion) who had it in themselves the whole time... the reader had that imagination inside of themselves the entire time even if they thought they didn't ... for in the end, the Wizard of Oz, was just words written down on paper. It was the reader's own imagination that brought those words to life.



*(Note: The Emerald City in the text of Oz is such a sham that our heroes are given goggles when they enter the city which tint the world green ... the "Emerald City" in the book is actually all Pale White like a paint primer white. I'm not sure this is inferred to the viewer in the film version.)





A More Modern Version


I would still like to write a really long Four Person Journey genre of text one day... but I think as experimental with writing as I am that it would not be very similar at all to the Wizard of Oz. However, it is interesting to think of what a modern version of it would be like.

Is today's society hung up on the same relatable-to problems as society was in 1900? Is boredom really a big deal in today's fast paced, stimulus over-loaded, world? Not really.

Are people walking around scratching their heads over if they are smart-enough, or kind-enough, or courageous-enough? I guess but I'm not sure you'd classify those as the top three mental hang-ups of 2019's world.

It would be fun to think up base human emotions that create deep-seeded problems for people in today's society and think up antithesis emotions for them ... and then write a story about four people who suffer from difficulties common in today's worried brains ... but who in the end were not actually suffering from it and were simply over-compensating for perceived faults in their character.

I could think of some, but I don't know, I'm sure you can think of some of your own. What are you worried about all the time that you perceive is a deep-rooted character flaw in your own heart? Maybe you think about it so much because being the opposite of that is important to you. If that something is important to you ... and you're trying hard to overcome your personal struggles and achieve that... then maybe it's not even a character flaw at all. Who knows.


Conclusion

Those are the main themes of the Four-Person Walking-Arounder genre. Four people on a long almost-never ending quest to find "something." It is a genre that's endured for so many centuries because it's very fulfilling personally for the writer to write one, I think.