I have been reading about the original Speed Racer series after my inspirational rewatch of the Wachowskis' 2008 film, and while I would never change anything about the gloriously bad original English dub, the fact that the original title was a bilingual pun is pretty great
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(This was, of course, changed for the 2008 movie, where the creation of a Mach 6 is a big deal I figure it's like the version numbers on Windows Anyway when I was a kid I thought this meant the car could literally go at Mach 5, which is totally impossible)
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The rl land-speed record was set by the ThrustSSC in 1997 at 763 mph, which is just barely over Mach 1 depending on how you count Fun fact, the "Fastest Car on Earth" on Speed Racer (the GRX) has a speedometer that tops out at 400 kph (250 mph)
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I mean, maybe the car goes faster than the top speed on the speedometer, but then why even have it But they talk about the GRX going "at the speed of sound" like it's a big deal, and he needs the special V-Gas drug to keep the G-forces from killing him
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When the Wachowskis did Speed Racer 2008, on the other hand, and the associated video game, they specified that all the cars have to be traveling at ~400 mph most of the time just to stay on the tracks (they designed them with roller-coaster-style vertical loops etc)
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The G-forces involved in making hairpin turns at that speed over and over again would probably cause a human being to black out (the top speed of a real-life Formula One racecar is in the low 200 mph range) But that's why it's set in a goofy science-fiction future
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As we all probably remember, the opening titles of the Speed Racer cartoon have Speed sideswipe a driver and force him off the track, whereupon he drives through the fence and off a cliff, and his car explodes in a massive fireball While the peppy music keeps playingpic.twitter.com/z5GqNXAXYO
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I really appreciated that the movie kept the horrifying collisions and explosions from the anime intact, and just said this is a video-game world where everyone's car has a "Kwik-save" system that covers your body in fireproof shock-absorbing goo immediately before impact
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Even outright saying that cutscene death is permanent and other deaths aren't (Rex Racer's tragic death wasn't caused by the fiery head-on collision, which is normal, but by dastardly assassins disabling his Kwik-Save before the race)
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But yes, just looking at the opening credits of the original anime Speed Racer would be disqualified from most real-life racing organizations and, possibly, arrested and put on trial for murder
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Regrettable accidents happen in extreme motorsports but, you know, it didn't really look like an accident and he doesn't seem to regret it
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End of conversation
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