REMEMBER 2001

The first year of the 21st century and 3rd millennium saw the beginning of many big budget film franchises. Peter Jackson brought J.R.R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth to life with the first Lord of the Rings film, just as we were brought to Hogwarts for the very first time in the first Harry Potter film. The Fast and the Furious raced into theaters, Ocean's Eleven first formed, and everyone's favorite memetastic green ogre, Shrek, hit the big screen. Wes Anderson introduced us to the Royal Tenenbaums, just as Derek Zoolander hit the runway. In the world of television, reality television grew even bigger, with the massive success of Survivor's second season, set in the Australian Outback, the first Amazing Race, and The Mole. Fear Factor tested in what ways people were able to face their fears in order to earn $50,000. Scrubs brought us to the medical floor, 24 broke ground by following the unconventional format of a real-time narrative (each 1 hour episode would take place over the course of an hour). Smallville showed us the life of Clark Kent before he donned the red cape, and Star Trek: Enterprise brought us to the past, many years before the adventures of Kirk's Enterprise crew. In the world of animation, Samurai Jack, The Fairly OddParents, The Proud Family, Justice League, and the too-soon cancelled Invader Zim proved to be heavy hitters, spawning quite the dedicated fanbases. 2001 was one of the biggest years for video games as well. Sony's PlayStation 2 really hit its stride, with hits such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Jak & Daxter, Final Fantasy X, and Grand Theft Auto III, the last of which ditched the arcade-style gameplay of past titles and adopted the groundbreaking open-world gameplay system. Nintendo released their last few titles on the Nintendo 64, including Mario Party 3, Paper Mario, and the crude and raunchy Conker's Bad Fur Day, showing that the N64 wasn't just for kids. Nintendo soon released their successor console, the GameCube, with Luigi's Mansion, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II, and Super Monkey Ball. Two weeks later, they released Pikmin and Super Smash Bros. Melee, the latter of which proved to be the console's most successful title, spawning a competitive gaming community which is still very active to this day. Meanwhile, SEGA dropped out of the console market for good and went third-party, but not before going out with a bang with Sonic Adventure 2. Microsoft soon took their place when they released their first home console, the original Xbox, with Halo, which proved to be a massive success and made first-person-shooters the dominant genre during much of the 2000s. And then there was the day that defined the millennial generation. September 11 started out like any normal day, until Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four airplanes, flying them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. In response, the United States invaded Afghanistan to counter Al-Qaeda, commencing the war on terror. With increased security and defense to prevent a similar situation from ever happening again, the world would never be the same after that fateful day. And there you have it, my final REMEMBER video. It has been a good run, but my time has come to move on to other ventures. So sit back, relax, and enjoy one last nostalgia trip to the year 2001!