Standing at opposing corners of pop culture, two titans consumed the collective consciousness of entertainment in the early 00s. Let's review the tale of the tape, shall we? In the red corner, traditionally bestowed to defending champions, stood Pokemon. Tearing through its competition with the swiftness of a gambling addict standing neck-deep in a stack of scratch-off lotto tickets, Pokemon rose to become an immovable juggernaut in the world of turn-based RPGs. In the blue corner, typically given to the scrappy challenger, stood Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Without a shred of hyperbole, I believe we can all agree that The Room is unquestionably the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time. In the early 00s, this was the dream match; nothing else mattered. You just had to be there.
I kid, of course. Clearly, The Room was the only one with staying power between the two. I mean, it's not like Pikachu has a movie or anything. Tommy Wiseau's offbeat and puzzling film is actually like the inverse of Pokemon. Whereas Gamefreak intentionally designed Pokemon to be as addictive as possible, Tommy Wiseau just poured the mismatched contents of his mind onto celluloid and accidentally turned The Room into a film that demands compulsive viewing. It's hard to imagine two pieces of entertainment as wholly divergent as Pokemon and The Room, which is why the video embedded above is so bizarrely captivating.
Taking cues from Pokemon's battle system, including the memorable melody that precedes a confrontation, some wonderful soul turned the rooftop "fight scene" from The Room into a turn-based altercation in the vein of classic RPGs. The video linked above is an excerpt from The Room Tribute, which is a full game that homage's Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece. The villainous Chris R has never been as intimidating as he is here. And considering that he's arguably the best actor in the film, that's saying something.
