2006 Overview
2006 would be another relatively quiet year over for most nations. With most of the world having quieted down, there was a sense of focusing on domestic issues along with the broader problems that required international cooperation. As President Clinton was looking on with the latter half of his second and final term, he was perhaps feeling more compelled now to be more ambitious with his goals. Of course, with how stable everything was economically and politically, said changes would perhaps need to be more unothodox and unexpected. This push for ambition and accomplishment was a partial explanation for the Clinton Administration's push for legalizing same-sex marriage across the nation, especially as more and more states were pushing for it or have done so. Even the states with little plan to do it justified it on the basis that it would become federal law at some point, why not just wait? Regardless, it was quite a political milestone that was mostly warm-received. However, there was still the unfortunate case of certain reactionary groups or individuals who protested the developments though they were considered on the fringe for the most part. While there was some protests and the like, there was nothing majorly violent that occurred though it did serve as an unfortunate reminder that not everyone would be pleased by these developments in society and that it has to be up to everyday peple to keep helping to make things better.
Internationally, there was still some concerning conflicts, such as the Sri Lankan Civil War though there was still plenty to be optimistic about. The Koreas, while having to push back their planned date of reunification, only did so to ensure they were being thorough about this. They still went ahead to further integrate their economies together while also working on having a unified foreign policy. This in turn influenced their neighbor as China went to work more on repairing relations over with South Korea; while Sino-American relations were positive, China would still prefer having a unified Korea in their sphere. Additionally, North Korea would also further implement their planned democratic reforms, which would see Pyong-li be reelected over into his office as North Korea's leader, now being formally called the President. All the while, other places in the world were pulling themselves out of the troubles of the past or finishing them off. All the while dealing with the massively growing world wide web and its adoption by a gowing majority of the population and the social changes that come about from such a phenomenon.
Regarding pop culture, there was plenty of family-aimed classics along with suprising hits, though one of the big bit of news would be the acquisition of MGM by Turner Broadcasting, which intrigued more than a few folk. Regarding movies,
Night At The Museum would turn out to be quite a surprisingly fun hit with various historical references and comedy. Another surprising one would be
The Da Vinci Code, a rather conspiratorial story and based off the book of the same name by Dan Brown. Meanwhile,
Mission Impossible III would finish with quite an enjoyable end to the trilogy though some have questioned if the series would continue. Some have noted that spy thrillers and the like would be difficult to do in the current day and age because of the near-tranquility of the world and would require more consideration in the setting. And of course, one big hit would be
The Pursuit of Happyness. A biographical drama film where Will Smith plays Chris Gardner and would be considered a fairly popular and insightful film, especially given how it didn't seem like much other films were going on. Sure there were a growing number of dramedies and the like, but nothing that really caught the public, at least compared to other films. That said, superhero films were still being quite a blast to enjoy. First was
Superman Begins, a more grounded but still wonderful. The film was heavily based on the comic mini-series "Superman: Birthright" by Mark Waid, with the film's purpose also being to intoduce Superman and his supporting cast over to the modern day and to provide a modern yet timeless portrayal over of the Man of Tomorrow for everyone to enjoy. And then there was
X-Men: The Last Stand, which was another finishing and triumphant end to a trilogy.
With animated films, the big hit would be
The Animatrix. A collection of animated short films that served as a prequel/sidequel to
The Matrix trilogy, it would gain a surprising popularity for the various artstyles and stories told that fleshed the story more. Beyond this one and a couple other sleeper hits, it was still dominated over by family-focused animation. Disney would release two films out. The first would be another project of Pixar in
Cars, which would be considered a bit of a hit or miss film by some though the Americana sentiment of the film and for old school racing did have its fans. The second film would be quite a surprise over with
Tam Lin. An adaptation of the legendary Scottish ballad, this was a passion project of Roy Disney and rumor had it that there was conflict between him and Eisner over the film and some general stuff before cooler heads prevailed and Eisner even apologized. Telling the story of a spirited Scottish maiden in Margaret, she must brave the forests of Karterhough in order to save her beloved Tam Lin from being a sacrifice and thus she ends up in the strange world of fairies. Managing a surprise balance between the classical spookiness of the fair folk with some glorious hand-drawn animation and Disney charm (and even CGI to render the monstrous villain), the film would become another fun hit, with the Scottish in particular being big fans of how much of the folklore contained along with a couple of more modern jokes. The films contained trailers for upcoming films, such as a third and final Atlantis film (with some noting likely being inspired by the success of trilogies) and apparently a new Disney project seemingly based off of
Iranian folklore.
Dreamworks meanwhile would release the third of their
Monkey Island trilogy over with
Dreamworks' The Curse of Monkey Island and still serving as a fun hand-drawn animated film and would still be plenty of fun. It would also serve to help promote the upcoming remasters of the games and would even come with a
Monkey Island television series, that being
Tales of Monkey Island. It would be Dreamworks' second major television show, airing over on MetroKids, following up on helping to make the Star Wars prequel television series,
Star Wars: Last Days of Peace and followed up by a new show in development. This added to further rumors regarding the triple cooperation of MetroCen, Dreamworks and LucasArts (and their parent company in LucasFilms) There was also the
Dragon's Lair animated film that would be released later in the year. It was over in 3D CGI though being cel-shaded to try and add a bit more charm to it. While it contained a similar level of risque humor as its source material, it was still toned down a bit for modesty along with having more serious moments too to add a level of groundedness to it. It also came with a trailer for
Shrek 3, the third film in the Shrek saga. Dreamworks were continuing their successes and plans to expand and broaden their projects. In fact, they have been in growing talks with MetroCentury, leading to some growing rumors that Dreamworks Animation would be purchased over by MetroCentury for the company to be able to keep expanding. After all, they turned down to buy Blue Sky Studios, instead it being acquired by Universal Studios instead a little while back. Speaking of Blue Sky, they would also release
Ice Age: The Meltdown, a sequel to their strange yet beloved popular smash hit. Though this would not be the only film of frozen fun, given also how
Happy Feet would come out.
In television, a fair number of notable shows were ending.
Arrested Development and
The FBI Files were some of the bigger surprises, but of course Soul Train was the biggest surprise of it. So much so that attempts to revive the show pretty much began the moment people began getting organized to figure out how to get the 35 year old show back on the air. Other major shows that ended were
That '70s Show, The West Wing, Will & Grace and
Alias, all of which were rather prominent shows and people were wondering what could fill them in. Regarding animated shows, there were some painful cancellations such as
W.I.T.C.H. and
The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, but the big one would be
Justice League Unlimited, as it would symbolize the end of the Timm-Dini shared universe that had come to define DC superheroes for the modern generation. Interestingly,
Teen Titans would be spared cancellation, as they'd get one final season in the last minute though Murakami and his team were also in the works for a new show on Nick. Other shows that would be saved at the last minute would be
Invader Zim and
The Fairly Oddparents, though the former would take a hiatus due to the awkwardness and renegotiations. For new shows, it would be some gems such as
Psych,
Heroes and
America's Got Talent coming out along with
30 Rock and
Rob & Big along with some new branches with sports and the like. As for animation, well, the bigger names included
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Yin Yang Yo, Class of 3000 and Marvel creating a new Fantastic Four animated series that some have speculated that it would be part of Marvel trying to do their own version of what DC did with Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. Toonami would see a few new shows such as
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and
MÄR along with more in Disnippon, such as
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. For adult animation, the big news would be the new project worked on by Seth McFarlene, Matt Stone and Trey Parker in adult animation. While loosely inspired by Futurama, the show is a mix of the three's personal likes such as Seth's love of Ratpack music and science fiction with Stone and Parker's love of Pythonesque humor and strangeness along with the three's love of musical theater created a strange new show in
American Alien. Taking place in the late 1950s, it stars a group of aliens known as the Grays (specifcially, the Grays from Roswell) trying to blend into human society and the shannigans coming as a result, especially in interacting with their human neighbors in the city. While definitely satirical in humor given its creators, it was a fair bit more serious in addressing issues and exploring themes. Stone and Parker enjoy doing all sorts of voices and the show also has more than a few musical pieces (which is considered part of the aliens' culture). Overall, the show was looking to be quite a fascinating and enjoyable hit.
Video games would see this year be the final year for the sixth generation of video game consoles. The Nintendo Gamecube, the Sony Playstation 2 and the Microsoft Abox are all approach their twilight and despite this, the three consoles would continue to rocket on with success to stick the landing. With Nintendo, they're still riding high on the success of
Legend of Hyrule: Twilight Princess along with some other successful game such as
Baten Kaitos Origins,
Star Fox Command, Wario World 2, Viewtiful Joe 3, Metroid Prime Hunters and a couple other exclusives. The Playstation 2 meanwhile would see a few more titles such as
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Bully, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories and most of all,
Kingdom Hearts II. A sequel to the massively popular first game, the second game sees the inclusion of more characters and worlds such as
Lilo & Stitch, Treasure Planet(both the first and its sequel)
, A Few Good Ghosts and even
Tam Lin thanks to some good work along with expanding other works, such as elements of the sequel for Atlantis. As for the Abox, would have a bit more with original titles, such as
Swordquest Neo: Way of Waterworld. As for other games, some were across the consoles with some surprises such as
Star Wars: Battlefront II. The biggest one would be none other than
Sonic Revolution, a game that came out for the 15th anniversary of the franchise. Having scrapped a Shadow the Hedgehog game (with elements seen in Shadow's playthrough) and shelved another game, this game got plenty of attention and refinement, especially to balance out the ambitions. Playing as either Sonic, Shadow or new character Silver, the game sees you go in past, present and future with an intense story if a bit convoluted, especially as how it all balances out. It does give some further closure to Shadow's story along with seeing the three hedgehogs save the world. The game does mark a transition point given this would be the final game of Yuji Naka on the Sonic franchise. However, he is given a fond fairwell as the others move forward. Next year would see the planned release of the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and the Microsoft Abox 360.
Beyond the consoles, handhelds were receiving a fair bit of attention too. The Super GamePal would still have some life in it with games like
Mega Man Battle Network 6, Drill Dozer and
Final Fantasy V, even with the introduction of it successor. There was also the
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, which had a SGP and a GPDS version (with special conenctivity features between each). As for the GamePal DS, it would emerge over in starting out with some strong competition against the PSP. The GamePal DS would catch the attention, given its introduction of a touchscreen and stylus, along with more potency behind it. It would start out with a strong line of launch titles such as
Super Mario Bros DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Sonic Rush, Mario Kart DS, WarioWare: Touched!, Kirby: Canvas Curse with some upcoming new games (that released in Japan) being
Yoshi's Island DS, Kirby: Squeak Squad and the newest generation of Pokemon in
Pokemon Gold and
Pokemon Silver, taking place in Sinnoh and focusing on time and space, with the former having the golden sands of time inspired Dialga and the latter the silver starred Palkia as their legendaries. Another would be a sequel series to the
Cyberknight Ziro series over with
Cyberknight Legacy. Set centuries after the events of the Cyberknight tetralogy, it sees a world where androids and humans have practically become one thanks to nanotechnology though said peace is theatened and the plot involves the strange biometals. The PSP meanwhile would continue to grow with
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Mega Man Powered Up, Monster Hunter Freedom, Bomberman PSP and
Power Stone Collection. As for PCs, there were
Star Wars: Empire at War, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Guild Wars: Factions and perhaps most importantly of all,
Garry's Mod.