‘Space Jam 3’ with Jeremy Lin is not a sequel, but a loving tribute to anime and video games
No, this is not actually Space Jam 3, but since Space Jam 2 with LeBron James is apparently in the works — and has been for a long, long time — Jeremy Lin and YouTube star Ryan Higa decided to have fun with the idea of a sequel to a sequel that doesn’t exist yet. And instead of having an all-star cast of Warner Bros. characters that the original Space Jam had, they turned it into an anime version, featuring anime icons such as Naruto, Sailor Moon, Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Goku from Dragon Ball Z.
It’s actually a pretty clever skit. It stays faithful to the original film’s ways of behaving as if the things that happen in Warner Bros. cartoons happened in real life, but for anime tropes. It’s ultimately a tribute to what Lin and Higa love, which is basketball, anime and video games — and they couldn’t not include a shout out to Pokémon Go.
Sometimes I forget Lin is more than a basketball star and whatever version of Linsanity exists in the city he plays for, that he’s way into Dota 2 and video games in general, that he loves making comedy skits with his friends. It’s stuff like this that makes me appreciate Lin more. Now I’m hoping he can do something with Brook Lopez, and finally acknowledge the portmanteau that is “Brooklin Nets.”
