+1 to the “finish all 4 stages == ANW”, and some money.
By the way, was “UFO alley” supposed to be hard? No one had trouble with it. Did the designers expect people to just use their hands?
I also notice in the inverted rock climb most people hooked their feet on the opposite side of the panel at the start - smart move
Brian
ANW itself totally ruined things by showing Geoff Britten climbing stage 4 in the end-of-show teaser three weeks ago:
The guy in that preview was Geoff Britten.
Then NBC ruined things by outright stating in a commercial that someone wins the $1 million prize two weeks ago:
Turns out the image they showed while saying “Someone wins $1 million” was just a shot of Lance (or someone who looks like him) finishing the city finals. I noticed that same shot in the Lance intro before his run on stage 2.
In the history of ANW, exactly four people have ever made it as far as the flying bar: Geoff Britten, and three Wolfpack members. That’s some serious bragging rights for the Wolfpack. In a related thought, how much of an inferiority complex will Noah Kaufman have now? Tell me there’s no ribbing of that guy all year. “Have you even even made it to stage 2?”
Agreed with the group, of course Geoff Britten is an American Ninja Warrior, and yes, he goes down in history as the first.
He got totally screwed by ANW’s cheapskate rules. NBC should put up $2 million in prize money every year. Fastest time wins $1 million even, letting the announcers crow about “winning a million dollars” all they want. Any additional finishers would split the second million evenly. So if five guys finish, that’s $1 million to the first guy, $250k to the other four.
Geoff was absolutely robbed by ANW/NBC. It’s a travesty.
First off, I’ve been watching this season, but for some reason didn’t dig up this thread.
Second, amazing that we had not 1, but 2 people make it and complete stage 4.
Third, they had to climb 75 feet in 30 seconds? Okay, did it look to anyone else like they were getting help from the rope on their harness? It seemed in tension the whole time, and those guys were practically levitating. I know, I saw the America vs the World last year, and both of them scaled quickly, but this just seemed magical.
Fourth, Isaac had the call to go first or second. He chose second. Was he counting on Geoff still being worn down from his later run to give him an edge? Was he hoping for the advantage of knowing the time to beat? I’m not sure it’s much of an advantage in this run - you’re climbing for your life, as fast as you possibly can, there’s no real complexity, so it’s not like you have more leeway, right?
Anyway, I think he made the wrong call. Yes, he won the million dollars over Geoff, but Geoff is the First American Ninja Warrior, and there’s no taking that from him. And Isaac himself said it wasn’t about the money, so then why did he go second? 
Anyway, Geoff gets my nod for most impressive contestant, for coming out of nowhere, making the city finals look like a cake walk while it fried out some of the best, and then stormed through stages 1, 2, and 3. And man was it close in stage 3, where I think his lack of experience on the Hang Climb was the biggest factor. He came so close to falling off the last jump when the bar hit.
As far as the contest, I think the caliber of the top crew has improved. Several of them have built or work in or train in Ninja gyms or obstacle courses. Some of them train for it full time. So while your average entry is still going to struggle, the top contenders are pushing themselves at these specific types of events. That gives familiarity and also conditioning.
And yet the winner was Geoff.
Anyway, as far as the pacing, I get tired of the sob stories, and especially the repetition - every time that contestant is on, we hear the story again. Ugh.
I HATE the also rans, the fact that we see three people get summed up with a minor nod. They were doing it to fan favorites who were contenders, and they were doing it all the way through Stage 2. I mean, come on, you make it to Vegas, at the very least that should qualify you to have your whole run shown. Bah!
As for the hosts, Akbar might be super hype, but Matt Iseman drives me batty, with his incessant grunting. Damn, that’s annoying.
And I absolutely hate previews. I really didn’t need them telling me someone was going for the million dollars, and I definitely tried to avoid any hints as to who it might be. If I know they’re up there, then how do I get excited over their run on Stage 2? Totally crap, but that’s the way TV and movies work these days. It frustrates the hell out of me.
With regards to Roulette Row, there seem to be a couple of factors that made it a real tough challenge. First, if you hit too close to the front of the wheel, you wouldn’t curve far enough around. Second, because of the off-axis rotation, it throws the momentum at the wrong angle to follow the curve very well. That is what made it difficult to launch to the second wheel, and difficult to launch to the platform. The body takes off and you have to redirect, but when you start the redirect, you take your energy out, and then the wheel starts the counter rotation. That’s why, was it Geoff who had to change his grip to go for the second attempt on the dismount? His body was going the wrong way on the first swing, he would have missed the platform. And it’s why people who understood the need to go, still couldn’t get themselves to transfer. They felt the position going the wrong way, so they held on, but that meant they would never get the necessary momentum.
I don’t know if it’s possible to treat the whole unit as a single pendulum. You might be right that they didn’t have the timing down and that canceled their momentum, but it might just be that the geometry would require holding a stomach crunch for longer than possible. The natural body pendulum from their arms is entirely at odds with the rotation of the wheel, and the off axis from gravity robs that source of energy and makes the rotation out of plane. I don’t think there’s a way to get there.
Basically, you had to get the placement and direction just right on the first wheel to exit at the right angle to grab the second wheel, and then get lucky on that redirect to exit at the landing. The ones who did the two-wheel grab had a good strategy if you have the reach. That allows stopping your momentum and setting up you direction for the second swing to depart just right, versus having your body thrown willy-nilly.
I suspect that next season will be like the season after the first winner of Sasuke. A big increase in difficulty.
Also, I love the idea of two prizes. A first place prize and a second pool of money split by all finishers. Heck I’d even extend it to Stage 3. Maybe it doesn’t need to a million so that in the case of 2 finishers you don’t have the strange situation (from NBC’s perspective) of having basically a tie with two $1,000,000 winners. Maybe $1,000,000 and $200,000. Still I think it is a great concept.
Yeah, on second thought maybe a $500k runner-up pool would be better. Or maybe just give out a flat $100k for everyone who completes stage 4.
Disagree about giving out participation awards, though. To get money you have to hit the buzzer on stage 4.
Just would like to add that Geoff is the only one who finished all 6 contests since Isaac didn’t finish his city finals.
A fall-arrest device is basically a spring-loaded tensioner, so yeah, there was some tension there, but not enough to lift anything but the safety line. The reason they are made this way is because of what we call “shock load”; basically, when an object is falling and changes direction suddenly, the force is multiplied by at least a factor of 3 compared to the actual mass of the object. So a 155 pound person falling who is suddenly jerked to a stop (and the equipment saving his life) will experience it as tho 465+ pounds of force (insert appropriate physics formula here, if you need the real numbers). Keeping tension on the fall-arrest device minimizes that force so that the person and the safety cable don’t experience any more stress than necessary should the safety device become active.
I just watched Isaac Caldiero’s run and it was ddamned impressive! Grats Mr. Caldiero!
In the original series the prize was a feeling of accomplishment. I liked it better.
My kids attend a Ninja Warrior class taught by one of the finalists, Drew Drechsel. My husband was chatting with him after class yesterday and Drew said that the contract was very clear that there would only be one winner, so at least the contestants all knew going in that there would be no prize-sharing. We still think that having it all come down to stage 4 was unfair, and that if someone finishes all four stages they should be able to claim some sort of title.
I was ‘almost’ a millionaire.
FTR, I agree - but I like the all or nothing aspect - I like the fact these are not “professionals” in the sense of most sports entertainment - many of the more successful competitors have already turned it into professions
Whatever the show wants to say, Geoff Britten is the First American Ninja Warrior. Isaac Caldiero is the second, but the million dollar winner. That’s reality. NBC can go futz itself if it thinks differently.
While getting some share of prize money for completing it would be neat, the victory is a huge reward in itself.
And I expect the Las Vegas stages to take a jump in complexity, especially stage 3. No real need to increase the difficulty of the prelims and all, save the tough increases for Vegas and the real contenders. We did have a record number make it to stage 2, so stage 1 and stage 2 could take a bump.
And like some of you mentioned, I think it was a mistake to replace Halfpipe attack. That is much harder than the one they replaced it with. It’s much trickier to plan out your path when you don’t even know what the ideal run should be. But I guess too many were getting it down, so they wanted to shake it up with something different, just to shake up the experts.
Would that really be enforceable? If Geoff and Isaac made a handshake agreement that the winner would give the loser $100K or something (assuming both of them would honor that), and they just did that a month later, how would that ever be ANW’s business?
I meant that NBC would give out money to only one contestant. Don’t know if NBC tried to put anything in the contract about what happens to the money after it is awarded.
I don’t. It’s economics. The Japanese series had several seasons that were short because no one came close to the end. Shorter season means less money. Giving out one prize for a million is cheap compared to having a short unsatisfying season. I expect there to be changes but keeping it about the same difficulty wise. In the Japanese version there was one season where they put in a new obstacle and the season ended with a parade of contestants failing on it.
But the way the US show works, that wouldn’t be an issue. They always take the top 30 from each prelim round (or more), they always take the top 15 from each city finals, and then they have enough Mt. Midoriyama stuff to edit into however many hours they want. I guess if they made stage 1 so hard that no one made it to stage 2 they might be in trouble, but that would be pretty unlikely. Assuming the show has basically been successful up until now, I think they’ll just want to stick with a working formula… so have the challenges be hard enough that each season might have a winner, but might not. Which means make them harder than they are now, because people are obviously getting better at the existing obstacles. If they just kept Mt. M identical next year there would likely be 5 or 6 finishers.
I agree with Irishman, and if we’re going to compare the Japanese show, that’s exactly what the Japanese show did. From earlier in the thread:
2 things Matt Iseman does that drive me up a wall…
1> He gets crazy excited for things that happen somewhat uniquely but, repeatedly and is clearly some sort of course strategy. Example: jumping 2 runs on the salmon ladder. About 1 in 5 contentestants did this… every time “HE JUMPED TWO RUNGS ON THE LADDER! THAT IS IMPRESSIVE AKBAR!” I’m not saying its not impressive, but point it out and save the excitement for something truely unique and different.
2> He says the same thing on every obstacle for every contestant. Example- every single time somebody got to the stage 1 warped wall, he pointed out that the run up is half as long. Every. Single. Time. Point it out… maybe remind us every so often, but I don’t have the memory of a goldfish. I remembered from when you told me about it 5 minutes ago, and 5 minutes before that, and 5 minutes before that…
First off I am hugely disappointed that Geoff did not get any money. I even incredulously found myself actually rooting against Isaac during his stage 4 attempt. I hate that NBC made me choose a side. I want everyone to succeed and be rewarded.
I found myself wondering why no contestant that made it to the first wheel (and not the second) did not climb up onto the first wheel (as in feet on the wheel) such that he/she could then jump to the second. Would this be have been considered illegal by the rules?
-J
Forget the money, is the first guy officially considered to be an ANW or not?
If not, why do they differ from the original Japanese show in that regard? In that show, anybody who completed the course got the title Ninja Warrior, so why change that?