What's Old is New...

...or perhaps a better way to put it would be "What's new is old, and then new again."  These are words that can be applied to many things, but since this is a blog about video games let's frame it in relation to the Splatoon duology.  I'm not really talking about the original release and its sequel though...no, this goes way back to 1986.

It was a good year for video games.  Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kidd Icarus, Bubble Bauble and Castlevania all came out for the NES.  Rampage was the hot new game in arcades, and for computer gaming enthusiasts Space Quest had just hit store shelves.  It was also a good year for movies: "Aliens," "Big Trouble in Little China," "Labyrinth," "Flight of the Navigator," and "Castle in the Sky."  There was also a short film that debuted in IMAX at the Vancouver Worlds Fair - an Oscar Nominated, 19 minute long mini-epic entitled "Rainbow War."

By modern standards this little fairly tale has a very antiquated and slightly theatrical quality to it.  The lack of any spoken dialogue outside of some narration at the beginning gives "Rainbow War" an almost silent film quality reminiscent of "Metropolis."  The story revolves around three floating islands in a seemingly endless sky.   Each of these lands is dominated by a primary color.  To quote from the Wikipedia entry:

In the blue kingdom everything was blue, because blue was beautiful.  And besides, everyone who was anyone loved blue.  In the red land, everything was red because they trusted red, but were afraid of everything else.  The golden kingdom was dominated by yellow.  Other colors were to be eliminated on sight.

Although each was aware of the other, having no means of air travel meant that the three kingdoms developed relatively isolated from each other.  However, the story kicks off with a youth from the golden kingdom inventing a flying ring.  Almost immediately after, a man in the blue kingdom comes up with the concept of a hot air balloon.  The climax of the story takes place in the red kingdom as it is simultaneously invaded by gold and blue.  Being a film rated for children, the conflict isn't driven by a need to destroy, but rather color convert by painting.  Sound familiar?  Basically this is a live action version of Splatoon.  I'm not sure if anyone working at Nintendo knows of this rather obscure piece of cinema, but if they think their IP is totally original then I got bad news for them.  Conceptually, they were beaten to the punch by almost three decades...minus the squid kids, of course.