SUPERFUTURE

A LOOK INTO THE (SUPER) FUTURE

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So it turns out that there is a pirate within the Plan B HQ, and because of this for about twenty minutes on the 13th of March 2014, the Plan B video was leaked online. Pulled almost instantly, not many got the chance to see it, but we ripped a copy and thought we'd put out the first review of this long awaited video.

Ironically named SUPERFUTURE. This Plan B vid was heavy.

Where do I start? From the beginning would be a good place. And what a surprising beginning.

Clearly losing Paul Rodriquez from the team was a massive blow, but nobody expected him to have a goodbye micro section to start the video – I guess they must be still on good terms, that or Paul wanted all gold board footage for his new video, and no pesky jock styled Plan B team graphics to ruin the clip - so let them keep the footy. P-Rod blasts into frame accompanied by the tunes of De-La-Soul (Me, Myself and I - which I can only assume was a hint to him going off solo and doing his own thing) stomping a slow-mo frontside nollie heel down Santa Monica's infamous triple set. His short but sweet section is reminiscent of Hensley’s retirement opener, so is possibly a subtle dig at Paul’s future career/retirement. 

Following the unexpected P-Rod surprise opener, come the intro credits: As expected, some aerial drone photography, mixed with kinetic typography make the viewer feel like they're in some Red-Bull snowboard short film. Spike Jonze obviously got his retarded brother to shoot most of it - with the mix of Phantom Camera slow-mo coupled with angles never seen before shot from drones, watching it feels like you are drowning in robotic waves. Confusingly impressive and draining all at once. If this was the VHS days, this intro would wear our your fast forward function after one viewing.

Felipe Fat Face Gustavo then explodes onto the screen - from living in a shoebox with his entire family in Brazil to the opener for a Plan B video eh? Nice work you chubby little bastard. This smooth operator is a pedos dream, as he easily fakie flips a very rough looking Brazilian double set directly into the camera and smashes the lens with his face. He simply looks into the cracked glass and gives it a 'I'm not poor anymore' stare and continues to run back up up the stairs. He makes another ridiculously clean one with a crack across the screen. This gave me hope that the real life element of the original Plan B videos was back. Alas, they show ANOTHER fakie flip at the same spot without the crack on the screen that was obviously filmed on another day. From here it's the same robotic stuff you'd expect from Gusty (we find out this is what the team call him after a casual self-dealt cupcake shown on screen... Toilet humour - really Plan B?). Felipe does do one of the sickest lines of the video - which ends in a nose wheelie nollie flip down a drop that would make Jaws shit his skintight jeans. Talking of jeans, it's nice to see someone sporting jeans that aren't sprayed on, although those bobble hats have to go.

More fucking bobble hats - Torey comes next, and although obviously sick, his music choice of death metal was pretty hard to swallow. And talking of swallowing, sure Torey guy can ledge dance better than Michael Jackson moonwalking into a kindergarten, but if M-Jack had those crazy helicopter arms taking away the attention from his quick feet, those kids wouldn't have been anywhere near as impressed. If screams of Cannibal Corpse mixed with psychedelic t-shirts are your thing then you're in for a treat with the Pudmeister General, but the mixture eye and ear poison was too much for me. More back tail helicopter spin outs on head high blocks and flat ground kickies over Jason Acuna were definitely expected but always good to watch. He even rips up some bowls which is nice to see, his style isn't quite as erratic on tranny either. As a real bonus, we're given a cameo trick from Grizzly Grip team-mate Guy Mariano who opted to steer clear from those god awful sex changes for a few seconds and instead chose to do the longest and fastest switch crack grind revert (the hard way) I have ever seen. Lovely stuff.

Off the ranks next is definitely my favourite part of this video. The 'Legacy' section as they so gracefully call it. 
Riders from Plan B days of old make a very poignant retrospective come-back to the fray. Skating to Beastie Boys, Time For Livin'. Mike Carroll recreates some of his most memorable lines from Questionable. Skating in San Fran as much as possible, Mike's nod to his most notable period is a true joy to watch. Backside smith grinds down familiar rails, switch big-spins down EMB-esque small sets of steps and long stylish runs, Henry Sanchez is even chilling in the background in a striped Polo to add to this beautiful ode to the past. Rick Howard comes next, skating to you guessed it, Ned's Atomic Dustbin. This very short but sweet clip is a pleasure to see as he backside flips effortlessly at some downtown LA stairs before a textbook switch flip into oncoming traffic. Rick's style has always been spot on and like a fine wine has become more refined with age. Then among other greats, we're treated to a few tricks from the rarely seen (looking a little chubby these days) Tony Ferguson, and even one from Sal Barbier - a textbook Sal Flip off a jump ramp in Pasadena. To conclude this glorious homage to the early 90s, Matt Hensley gives us a mix of old school street grabs and shows the young-uns he's still got it with a backside noseblunt slide at at unknown drainage ditch. The only notable missing classics are Rodney Mullen and Sean Sheffey which is a real shame. Ryan Fabry is also omitted, but that's fair enough. Say no more. 10 out of 10 for that section.

After a fade to black, the screen is welcomed to the soothing sounds of crickets as we are greeted to an aerial shot of a huge Hawaiian back-drop. The camera catches the image of Danny Way as he glides a monstrous slo motion Christ Air OVER a helicopter, if you look closely you can see Danny clearly giving the finger to the camera aka Bob Burnquist. Danny lands this ridiculous Christ into a ramp that can't really be described with words (but I'll try) - this beast of a structure has more elbows, corners, hips, extensions and tombstones than Mike McGill's park from the 90s mixed with a Street League style set up from 2054 - and it's 300,000,000% bigger. I can't even imagine dropping in anywhere on this vast megamania (as it's called) ramp. But Danny can and it looks like he's got a point to prove. A straight nollie heel over the chasm, followed up by a no grab 360 ollie. Switch 3flips, kickflip noseblunt slides, MASSIVE ollie 1 foots to fakie, a 20 foot Madonna that breaks off his tail, switch backside flips up the giant step-up gap and so much stuff that is unexplainable without seeing this ridiculous structure. Danny was already a legend, but if this shit doesn't cement him in your hall of fame, you're blind. I won't give away too much more, but the last trick is not only the most insane thing you'll ever see, but he's also naked. Yep, naked. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but Danny Way having big balls is not just a metaphor anymore. And the music is not what you'd expect. Generally Danny likes Metallica but this sounds like an indie band from Manchester in 1996. I believe it's Danny's band, Escalera - not sure what the song is called but it's super emotional and works bloody great as an accompaniment to his big swinging dingaling.

Continuing the vert (if you can call it that) is Colin McKay. It must be hard to follow Danny but Colin does this with style and finesse as he gets down to what he does best - Single tech vert tricks in his private facility. Name a switch flip and he does it into a lip trick, he's also started flipping out of stuff too. This is truly ridiculous stuff. So technical, but done with that effortless Colin style. Picture a non-Australian, non-robotic, non-boring as hell Shane O'Neill skating a ledge and then imagine that on a vert ramp. Colin is the king. Then just when you think he's done, in what can only be an ode to Rodney in Rubbish Heap - Colin focusses his vert board and throws it out the door. Picking up a smaller board he skates out the door and ollies a massive double set. He lands it but his board snaps clean in half as he lays there in a heap on the floor. The video cuts to Burnquist saying 'stick to the vert' from an old 411 and fades to black. Some interesting private jokes going on here I think.

Scott Decenzo and Trevor Mclung are up next and they skate together in this street as fuck section which feels like The Amazing Rubber boys part in Public Domain. After an attempt at a comedic intro with them both pretending to be tight-rope walkers across an LA street as well as mimes outside the Chinese Theatre, these two complement each other enough with tech wizardry to make any skate nerd produce a firm stool with no need to wipe. A beautiful section with some relaxing jazz played by Tommy Guerrero. Trevor's last trick is a beautiful kickflip back smith on a ridiculous long ledge followed up in the same shot as Scott doing a backside lip 270 flip out - both collapsing on the ground afterwards out of exhaustion. Lovely part lads but you two rolling around together like that will no doubt get the homophobic skate community talking. 

PJ Ladd comes next, I've been a fan of PJ since WHL, but by god has he put out some face-down, get-the-trick-done, zero-personality parts since. I think he's hired a skoach or something though, that or he's started drinking because he genuinely looks like he's having fun here, and whilst he does get super tech as expected, he proves once and for all that the rumour of the P in his name standing for pussy is not true. Skating with Sheckler must have influenced him or something. After a school yard tech intro reminiscent of Herman's picnic table assassination, PJ gets down to some serious big boy shit. Big handrails are hit, downhills with huge ollies at Brandon Westgate speeds and man sized gaps are taken care of here. The difference to every other prick throwing themselves off buildings, is that PJ is STILL tech. Switch backside flip down Hollywood High? No problem. I won't ruin it too much, but this was a sick part that we all knew he had in him. I've watched this section at least 5 times today. He even skates to rap music in the first part?! I'm not sure if he hit his head or something, but this is not the same old PJ we all knew and tolerated.

And finally, the ender we all guessed - Sheckler ends the video with a determined part to prove once and for all that he is more than a whiney little MTV mong that can't find a missus however much money he makes. The first few tricks are confusingly tame, until you realise that in fact it's his little brother Kane skating - this lil shit is definitely from the same sperm of that Vallely lookalike dad of theirs, as his kickies (down 10 stairs) are identical to Ryan's. I bet that middle brother would have them too if he wasn't too busy stealing from the Sheckler foundation to buy Slipknot T-shirts. Anyway, Ryan finally appears and shuts down and shuts up everything and everyone. Forget his RedBull nonsense, forget his dumb show, forget his corny tatts, in fact forget everything you have seen before. Yes he backside flips El Torro, but honestly that is just slotted in between everything else he does. Costco, yep he goes back. I won't give away what he does there, but let's just say it's a switch kickflip. Rails too - I knew he could skate them but Jesus, much more than the expected back lips and shit, we are talking frontside flip to switch crook and all sorts. Sick style too. Sheckler has really grown up. His last trick? Well shit, I was expected something massive - but no a backside noseblunt UP a rail!? Seriously so tight. Ryan, if you STILL can't find someone to take to the prom, I'll happily go with you. Textbook.

To conclude, this video is sick as fuck. After us all waiting over 5 years for this, they had D3 sized shoes to fill - and whilst they didn't quite fill them as well as Mayhew, they gave it a bloody good nudge.

Rip Mike Ternasky


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