The first Space Jam: A New legacy trailer followed the 1996 hybrid live and animated film and was released today by Warner Bros. Pictures. Once again, LeBron James, an NBA star, is teaming up with Bugs Bunny and other Looney Tunes cartoon characters to take on a villainous opponent’s basketball team.
Warner Bros. decided that the crossover wasn’t sufficient for the sequel. Instead, Space Jam was brought into cyberspace, depicted as a multiverse marvel of intellectual property WarnerMedia. This includes Scooby-Doo, the Mystery, the Iron Giant, Robin, and more from the crowd showing up to see the Tune Squad take on the Goon Squad. However, for some reason, there are also A Clockwork Orange characters, which look like a strange choice to add to the so-called children’s film.
If you don’t know the 1971 classic from Stanley Kubrick, let you know that A Clockwork Orange adapts Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel on Alex, a subcultural teenager based on ultraviolence. In the movie and the notorious opening sequence, Malcolm McDowell plays Alex, committing acts of wilful violence and rape with his friends. It seems odd to include characters from this film, rated X in the United States before it was edited and re-released with a Rating R at their first release.
You children who watch this movie probably won’t notice the characters of A Clockwork Orange, cartoons with monsters playing basketball. They have no reference frame, even if they do. And yes, the movie features other adult characters, such as Game of Thrones and Mad Max. However, the Night King and War Boys have caricatured villagers who would not be in a work of child fiction. Alex is something else with his droogs.
Space Jam: A New Legacy is the latest in a growing genre of films shown in cameos such as Ready Player One, Wreck-It Ralph, or The LEGO Movie. Probably this genre will not soon go away. But perhaps the studios should consider what properties they insert in where they are so that more daring crossovers like this could be avoided instead of just opening the vault and dumping it carefree.
Although Pepe Le Pews “rape-y,” a group of real onscreen rapists, were too problematic to include him in the “Space Jam” sequence. This weekend the first official trailer to “Space Jam: a New Legacy” came down — and it shows LeBron James coming down for a do-or-die basketball match not only into the Looney Tunes world but in a world full of classical movie characters, hand-drawn or otherwise.
In the new teaser, you will see LeBron, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and Diana Taurasi on a basketball court in a stadium-like setting, full of real-life human camels from the likes of Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, and Diana, but also pantheon greats sprinkled all over such as ‘Batman‘ characters, & ‘Mad Max.’ Yes, we speak about Alex and his Droogs gang – they’re renowned for their all-white outfits and bowler hats. In the 1971 Kubrick film, their rape scene, which is depicted graphically and NOT family-friendly in all its detail, is even more well-known (or infamous).
Many people quickly noticed the presence of the Droogs and wondered why they were in the film, taking into account the nature of their background. At this point, nothing but ‘Space Jam’ seems to be explaining so many memorable film characters as much as possible. The inclusion of Droogs naturally makes the question if they are in Pepe, why is it? Space Jam 2: A New Legacy opens in theaters and streams on HBO Max on 16 July 2021.
