Al-G Rhythm

**Al-G Rhythm** is the main antagonist in *Space Jam: A New Legacy*. He is the King of the Serververse, the Boss of Pete, leader of Warner Bros. Villains and the archenemy of LeBron James, his son Dom and Bugs Bunny. He was portrayed by Don Cheadle.

## Background

### Personality

At first glance, AL-G is a hardworking AI who wishes to be recognized for his hard work at the Warner Brothers servers. He also seems to show sadness over how no one ever acknowledges what he does.

AL-G is shown to be quite manipulative and deceiving, as he easily convinces Dom that his dad was more interested with basketball rather than him and used his technology to lure people into the server and create the Goon Squad. Even before the events of the film, he persuades the Looney Tunes, except for Bugs, to leave Tune world and explore the other worlds in the Server Verse, much to Bugs' sadness.

He is arrogant and narcissistic, as he took a liking to Dom when he praised the ad that he made when not even the executives at Warner Brothers would (because Lebron didn't like it and they did not want to look foolish). This adds to his short temper, as he becomes incredibly angry when things do not go his way or if others disagree with him. This brought his somewhat father-son relationship with Dom to an end after the Goon Squad begins to lose to the Tune Squad in the second-half of the game and after Lebron apologized to him.

AL-G is also revealed to be a hypocrite. After Dom leaves to play with his dad and the tunes after reconciling with him, he takes his place on the Goon Squad and transforms into a giant, muscular basketball player. He then bends the rules of the game and cheats by rewinding the points the Tune Squad scores and breaking past Lebron. When Bugs uses a move that temporarily glitches the game at the cost of his life and Dom throws a jump pad so his dad can score the final point, AL-G screams "That's cheating!" even though he cheated first.

## Role In The Film

Sometime before the events of the film and after the original *Space Jam*, AL-G confronted the Looney Tunes on Tune World. Wanting to separate them in case they get in the way of his future goals, he offers them the chance to explore different worlds in the Server Verse. All of the tunes, except for Bugs, are excited and accept. They then leave Tune World in a rocket and ignore Bugs as he attempts to convince them to stay. He then watches in sadness as they leave.

Al-G Rhythm is an artificial intelligence created within Warner 3000, the state-of-art product of Warner Bros. Studios. At one point, Al-G becomes self-aware and desires for recognition from the world, he plans to have LeBron James as his replacement while he enters the reality. During the trip to the studios, LeBron disagreed the idea of joining Warner 3000, which causes Al-G to be furious and his son Dom to leave him. LeBron followed his son to the server room, where Al-G kidnapped both of them to the Serververse. Holding Dom captive, Al-G made a deal with Lebron of playing a basketball game, and if he loses the game he will be forced to stay in there forever. Al-G had his assistant Pete to send LeBron to the Tune World.

Lebron then met Bugs Bunny, the only remain resident of the world, Bugs revealed that Al-G took all of his friends away to the other worlds, LeBron then start his journey of finding Bugs' friends, such as Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote etc. which also involves with stealing Marvin the Martian's spaceship to travel around the Serververse.

Meanwhile, Rhythm had manipulating Dom into turning against his own father by creating the Goon Squad and upgrading himself as a unstoppable basketball player.

LeBron and Bugs successfully finding their friends and assemble into the Tune Squad. Over Bugs' objections however, LeBron insists on teaching them the fundamentals of basketball. The Tune Squad then met Al-G and the Goon Squad, led by Dom, to further the stakes, Al-G livestreams the game and abducted the countless viewers into the virtual world, which included LeBron's family, and if they lose the game, the viewers will get to stay in here forever with the Looney Tunes characters being deleted permanently.

As the Goon Squad dominate first half of the game, LeBron and his friends start planning a way to beat them. At one point, Sylvester suggested to recruit the former member Michael Jordan (the protagonist in the first film), however it turns out he got Michael B. Jordan (the actor of Erik Killmonger) instead of the player. Realizing his mistake, LeBron allows Bugs to devise the strategy of using cartoon physics in the second half of the game. LeBron eventually apologizes to Dom for interfering his dreams, and Dom forgives his father by joining the Tune Squad.

Much to the AI's anger and disappointment, Al-G turned himself into a giant basketball player and ready to defeat the Toon Squad in the final seconds. Dom then realizes the way to win the game and defeating Al-G, is to use the move that LeBron had done in his video game which caused it to glitch out. With the cost of being erased, LeBron proposed to do it, but instead Bugs sacrificed himself to do the move and weakened the Goon Squad. In the last stand, Al-G tried to grab LeBron from dunking the ball, before being "posterized" and shredded by Pete.

After returning to the real world, LeBron and his son arrived at basketball camp, who are investing Dom’s game. Afterwards, LeBron met Bugs once again, as Toons cannot die, he then invites him with all of his friends the Warner Bros. Heroes and the Looney Tunes to his house.

## Quotes

*You want to join these losers? You go ahead, Dom. 'Cause it's not your game anymore, I am the game! KING KONG AIN'T GOT NOTHIN' ON ME!*
—Al-G seeking revenge on Dom
## Trivia

* His name is an evident pun on "algorithm".
* In contrast to Mr. Swackhammer, the main antagonist of the original Space Jam film, Al-G Rhythm is a live-action character, whereas Swackhammer is an animated character. Interestingly, Swackhammer was originally planned to be a live-action character as well before it was decided he'd be an animated one to save time.
	+ Also, Al-G is much more evil than Mr. Swackhammer. While Swackhammer only wants Jordan and the Looney Tunes to be the attractions for his park, Al-G wants to separate LeBron from his family, trapping all the viewers in the Serververse, and even vowing to delete the Tunes. All of his deeds can be considered crossing the Moral Event Horizon, therefore making him the most evil villain in the *Looney Tunes* franchise.
* When Bugs and Lebron try to recruit Lola Bunny for their basketball game, she rejects their offer at and states that she's been training under Wonder Woman for years. This means that AL-G separated the tunes quite some time ago.
* Al-G is the second main antagonist to be a live action character, after Mr. Chairman from *Looney Tunes: Back in Action*.
* Al-G, Swackhammer and Chairman have one thing in common as they all have monitors to watch every move of their enemies, while having five accomplices to aid them: Goon Squad (White Mamba, Chornos, Wet-fire, the Brow & Arachnneka) for Al-G, Monstars (Pound, Bang, Bupkus, Nawt & Blanko) for Swackhammer and the Tune pawns of ACME Corporation (Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian, Elmer Fudd & Tasmanian Devil) for Chairman.
* Since he crossed the Moral Event Horizon, he is shown to be more evil than Mr.Swackhammer.
* Out of the *Looney Tunes* Villains, he is the most evil.
* Al-G is considered to be the darkest *Looney Tunes* villain to date.