The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Generic giant Oviraptor and friends!

 

As I write this, it's the last day of the year, and I've gone a whole week without a post. I knew if there was one thing I had to get done, it was a dino blog. Fortunately, over the last shopping days before Christmas, I made it to a little store that is my favorite place for things paleo related, the way The Falling is my favorite Alien knockoff. It's a concentration of incredibly weird and wonky dinos that has already been the source of the ankylosaur dino bot, the generic dino bag, and a plurality of my "in the wild" pics (surprisingly not so much round 2). I was counting on finding something worthy of this feature. I knew I had it when I saw this guy.

This is, as anyone who found their way here undoubtedly knows, an Oviraptor, very possibly the weirdest dinosaur ever discovered. The thing about that title that the non-paleo public doesn't get is that very, very few dinosaurs are really that strange as dinosaurs, particularly among the therepods. The medium-sized herbivores could be pretty weird, the most unique being none other than the beloved stegosaurs. By comparison, the big, famous carnosaurs are mostly bigger or smaller versions of the same body plan, with only Dilophosaurus, Carnotaurus (see the mystery box post) and to a lesser extent Ceratosaurus going far from form. We now know the spinosaurs got weird enough to be their own thing, but they were ultimately nothing more or less than a reversion back to the Triassic crocomorphs (absolutely the most scientificest term ever) that the dinosaurs descended from in the first place. 

But the oviraptors have a skull structure so unique that we still have no idea how they actually fed. In fact, as nobody but me has ever commented, the one thing it does resemble is a flamingo, the filter-feeding bird, which I semi-seriously considered as a solution to their diet before we found one that weighed two tons. From what we knew then and now, the diet really couldn't have been that strange, as lizards and/ or small dino remains have been found as stomach contents and other closely associated remains. As you all undoubtedly know, the name was based on the fact that the very first specimen was found on top of a nest of eggs that it was assumed to be feeding on, until we figured out 70 years later that those were its own eggs. This specimen is a pretty good representation of how we thought they looked by the mid-1980s, before revisionists started drawing them with feathers. Here's some more pics of the glorious datedness. And yes, I could not get a single one of this thing standing up on its own.

"You'd protect your eggs too if you had to squeeze this one out..."

The thing that really seals the deal is that egg. If this was anywhere near normal size for an oviraptorosaur, this would be the size of a football, which would be about as big as actual titanosaur eggs. It is hollow, squeezable and cast in two pieces, which seemed to indicate it would be more or less removable. I initially wondered if it would have a baby dino inside. I figured from inspection in the package that it would be held on with tape or a bit of super glue at most. Naturally, handling quickly established that this thing is going nowhere without cutting something off. The lingering mystery is, what the hell is that tube thing???

As it happens, this gigantic dino still came in a bagged set with a couple more dinos, an out-of-scale stego and a brachiosaur that is probably even more disproportioned but still huge. As usual, the brachiosaur has no semblance of the soft tissue we know it had. It's still a decent old-school dino. The stego is very good, and might have been better with painted eyes, if, of course, they had been painted with competence not in evidence. Here's more pics of the pair.

And here's a couple with a 70mm Space Guy for scale...

If the gun is as effective as usual, we can assume it's a .410 loaded with rock salt.

Naturally, the set also came with some vegetation for scenery. This time around, it's quite decent. Here's a diorama shot with the space marine analogs.

And that's enough for another day and another year. I'm still thinking over what I want to do with this blog, but one thing you can count on is that the Legion will press on. That's all for now, more to come!

Fiction: The Space Guys Adventure, Part 13!

 It's overtime on the holiday weekend, again. Once again, all I have to show for it is another Space Guys installment that's more worldbuilding, only this time, it's not even that long. By the way, I already know exactly what really happened to the communities discussed here; don't look it up if you don't want to be depressed. As usual, the table of contents is at the end.

As the Janus approached Jupiter, Alek and Jason finally married. To Jason’s surprise, Alek insisted on a religious service. Old Yuri offered to perform an Orthodox service, revealing that he was a deacon of the Church, but a hasty consultation confirmed that his authority stopped short of performing a marriage. While the pair were debating what to do, the captain summoned them. They came, to find Moxon waiting. Raeder said matter-of-factly, “Commander Moxon has offered to perform the ceremony. I have confirmed, he has the authority.”

Jason looked uncertainly at Moxon. “So you’re really a priest?” he said, not quite incredulous.

“I said I was a Brahmin,” the officer answered with evident modesty. “I studied at the Temple of Karachi for 6 years, all told, when I wasn’t on duty. At the end of it, the Brahmins voted to recognize me as one of their own. It’s a title of respect more than anything else. It wouldn’t mean any more than Yuri’s title. Still, we can perform marriage rites, and outsiders never argue. All you need me for is to witness your vows. Yuri can still handle the rest.”

Jason looked at Alek. She smiled. “Of course, it will be fine,” she said. “I am an enlightened woman.”

The ceremony ended up being performed mostly by Yuri. The reporter Lin recorded their vows. Anastasia was in view as a bridesmaid, and Harrison and Jax stood with Jason. Moxon opened with a speech on the principle of ahimsa and the value of all life, and closed by affirming the marriage as valid. It was excuse enough for as wild a revel as could be had in the confines of the life support ring. As the celebration commenced, the Americans Yates and Smith sang the Major Maxon theme song, a clear plagiarization of the Marine Corps hymn, drawing an evidently sincere smile from Moxon. In the midst of it, Jason found the officer talking with Donald and Jax.

“I thought Jainism was pacifist,” the engineer said, almost argumentatively.

The officer smiled at that. “People who’ve heard of Jains usually think that, if they never met one,” he said. “The holy texts teach peace, when possible. But we also teach freedom of conscience. Nobody is told what they can or can’t do, only what the principles are. The Brahmin I learned from used to say, non-violence is ideal. Non-interference is practical. It mostly comes down to, don’t start anything, and you won’t have to finish it.”

Jax spoke up. “So how do you decide when to get involved?”

Moxon looked at him thoughtfully. Jason could tell that it unsettled Jax. “It’s up to everyone to decide,” the officer said. “But there is a saying: If life is taken for naught; if the good are persecuted for their goodness; if evil is done for evil’s sake; then the righteous man may join the fight.” In his peripheral vision, Jason saw Alek frown.

Donald  persisted on another track. “So what god do you pray to?” he said. “Or do you have a bunch of them like the Hindis and the islanders?”

“We don’t need one,” Moxon said, still smiling. “Now, that’s not like it sounds. The holy texts teach that the universe is forever. No Creator, no beginning and no end, leastways none that people will ever see. There’s just us, the world and Karma. You could say that’s our idea of God. It’s not like a judge punishing sinners, more like the laws of physics. Everything is interconnected. Nobody can just stand by and watch. If you do harm to another being, what you do or don’t do affects the whole world. Then, sooner or later, the world will affect you back. So what we mostly teach is non-interference.”

Jax patiently cut in again. “Then how does non-intervention work?” he said. “If you stand by and do nothing while people are hurt, how are you any better than the people doing it?”

“That’s where things get complicated,” Moxon said. “Here’s how the Brahmin explained it to me. Suppose you’re in the woods with a gun, when you see a tiger chasing a deer. If you shoot the tiger, you save the deer. But you are responsible for everything that happens after. If it’s a tigress with cubs, her cubs will starve, and you will be to blame. If the deer is old or weak, it may starve too, or be eaten by another tiger, unless you are there to protect it every night. Then if you keep killing every tiger, all the deer will all starve when there are too many of them for the forest to feed. If you don’t involve yourself, then it is between the tiger and the deer. Maybe the tiger will feed, maybe the deer will save itself.”

“Then how does that fit with what the Strato Corps does?” Jax said. “How is leaping into other people’s wars anything but interference?”

 “Our tactics are carefully developed on the principles of ahimsa,” he said. “We enter at the invitation of the lawful, local authorities. We secure an area with minimum loss of life. Then we hold until proper civil and diplomatic channels can be restored. The invitation is the important part. If there weren’t authorities, there wouldn’t be anything left to protect, would there?”

By then, Anastasia was at Donald’s side, trying to lead him away. He continued with what had clearly been on his mind all along. “So, where did that scar come from?”

Moxon turned his head, smiling. A bright blue-white light overhead showed his face in sharp detail. For the first time, Jason saw the full extent of the scar. He had thought it was on his cheek, perhaps extending to his eyebrow. In fact, the ragged trail started well above his hair line and went down to his jaw, even his throat. For a moment, he tried to reconstruct what blade and what trajectory could have made the wound without simply cleaving his skull. He only shook his head.

“Here’s the thing,” Moxon said. “Lots of people ask about that scar. I assume you mean the big one. Too bad; I have others that are a lot more interesting.” He casually removed a glove from his right hand. Underneath were matching scars like stigmata on his palm and the back of his hand. He wiggled his fingers. Only then was it evident that his ring finger was a prosthesis. “Usually, they ask in private. In fact, you’re the first person to ask me with a real crowd around. Some of them have asked me themselves. Obviously, they haven’t talked, leastways to you. So, are you sure you really want to hear it?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Anastasia said. She drew an arm possessively and perhaps protectively around Donald’s waist. His eyes widened as she whispered in his ear in Russian. Jason picked up the gist, which was what she would drag him out by if he did not come with her. The engineer happily followed her out.

“I am ready to go, too,” Alek said. She took Jason’s arm. “Please.” Jason ignored the chorus of cheers as they left.

Alek led him through a less frequented cross passage as they made their way back to her lab, lined with plants, fish tanks, caged rodents and other creatures used to study microgravity. “I know what really happened,” she said. “It is in the file I got from the Corps. I demanded it as a condition of coming. I already knew of three people who insisted they had heard the story from him. I found four more on the ship. Every last one was completely different; all total kaka.”

“I wondered about it,” Jason said. “There’s something else. Yuri showed me a pilot of the Major Maxon show. It had an extra introduction before the theme song. The whole bit about protecting good from evil was straight from it.

“I know; I’m pretty sure Donald did to,” Alek said. “Tell me, did you ever ask?”

“No,” Jason said. “I never cared.”

“That is why you are a good man,” his bride said. “Now come with me.”

 

When they arrived at her quarters, a light dinner was waiting, evidently prepared by her robots. Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl served them, while Nick Chopper and Tik Tok prepared a freeze-dried desert. When they had finished, Alek dismissed the robots. After months of sharing her bed, Jason still felt excitement and an undercurrent of tension as she closed the partitions.

“Now that we are married, I have something for you,” she said. She held up a vinyl video disc. “I get it to, how to say, spice things up. You know, give some new ideas. I had to ask around a little. They wouldn’t have let it in the data banks. But it wasn’t no hard to get, when I ask the right people.” She was still smiling as she put the disc in the player on top of her computer terminal.

Within bare minutes, Jason walked right out of the nacelle.

Alek was waiting for him when he inevitably circled back around. “Too much?” she said. He returned her smile, and they embraced.

Table of contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Part 11: The Space Nazis!!!

Part 12: The inevitable geography lesson!

The Kong File 3: The one with robot Kong

 

 

Title: King Kong Escapes

What Year?: 1967

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Improbable Experiment

Rating: Ow, My Brain!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

With this review, I’m up to the third in this lineup, which would usually be the last. As I already alluded, this is the one that was going to be here all along. In a franchise approaching its 90^th anniversary, there have been all kinds of detours and dead ends, and one is the strangest and wonkiest of them all, not just in concept and execution but in the backstory of its creation. And, even more amazingly, it’s not the one that had Kong literally brought back as a zombie. Without further delay, I present King Kong Escapes, the one where King Kong does indeed escape.

Our story begins with a sub travelling under water, accompanied by a moody yet groovy score. It turns out that the crew is on an expedition to Mondo Island, to investigate legends of a giant creature called Kong. For some reason, this Japanese crew has exactly one female crew member who happens to be blonde, because apparently the template has overcome ethnicity. They discover this movie’s incarnation of Kong, who can politely be described as sleepy-looking even in battle with Mesozoic creatures. Naturally, he takes a fancy to the blonde, leading him on one hand to save her from the monsters but on the other trying to disable the sub when they try to leave. Meanwhile, a mad-ish scientist named Dr. Hu has built a giant robot ape based on Kong, as a means to mine the mysterious element X. When the machine fails, the doctor and a lady spy set out to get the real Kong. It’s  zany villainy on a collision course with good, and there’s no way this doesn’t end with Kong fighting his own double on top of a building!

King Kong Escapes was a 1967 science fantasy/ kaiju film from Toho and Rankin Bass, directed by Ishiro Honda. The film is regarded as both a sequel to the 1962 Toho film King Kong Vs. Godzilla and a film adaptation of the Rankin Bass cartoon King Kong aired from 1966-1969. While the characters Dr. Hu and Mechani-Kong were previously featured on the show, the film did not feature or directly reference characters or events from the earlier Toho film or any other entry in the franchise. The film starred veterans Akira Takarada as Hiro and Hideo Amamoto as Hu, with Linda Jo Miller as Susan and the original Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima as Kong. The film was released in the US by Universal in 1968 with a G rating, for a North American box office reported as $1 million. Toho continued development of films featuring Kong, but was unable to proceed after a deal with the US rights holders expired. The film is not available for digital purchase or rental in the US.

For my experiences, this is an egregious example of a film that has been a third-hand memory for most of my life. I first became aware of it from a single illustration of the robotic Kong, which I am sure I long thought of as Mecha-Kong. A little later, I saw King Kong Vs. Godzilla on TV, which in hindsight was a major reason I did not warm up to actual kaiju movies as a kid. By early adulthood, I had figured out that the references I remembered were to this film. It was still a few years before I watched it. It immediately stood out as a strange chimera. It’s as if someone set out to make a film based on all the stereotypes and assumptions people, especially in the Western sphere, hold about kaiju movies: Low production values, wonky effects, marginal acting, preposterous plots and an anticlimactic resolution. Fortunately, it also demonstrates why even a “bad” example of the genre can still be a lot of fun.

Moving forward, what’s really noteworthy here is that this a fairly rare case of a vintage kaiju movie that is definitely trying to be funny. It is counterintuitively difficult to pinpoint the difference. All the elements here could be and were played “straight”, yet the presentation transforms them. Whether it’s the psychedelic costumes, vehicles and sets, the weird suit monsters and permanently spaced-out Kong, or the hammy acting, everything here is just a little “more” than usual, at least before the 1970s camp cycle (see Godzilla Vs. Hedorah), and that makes a big difference. It shows the most in the dynamic between Kong and the blonde, which is in many ways the most interesting and sophisticated variation on the formula. Out of the long trail of quasi-romantic figures, Susan is the first to succeed in telling the big guy what to do. She accomplishes this feat mostly by talking to Kong as if he was the petulant toddler he really acts like, with no regard for the very real possibility that he might simply squash her if sufficiently annoyed. The results are truly comical, with a disturbing edge that was there all along. It’s just as well that it ends with the pair parting in peace, implying that the ape has actually learned some kind of lesson.

On the other side of the equation are the villains and Mechani-Kong. The striking thing about the mad doctor and his fair-weather lady friend is that they are the one element played more or less straight. Despite their campy appearances (and Paul Frees swinging for the fences as Hu’s redubbed voice), these are competent and cold-blooded professionals who are absolutely willing and able to kill to get what they want. This is driven home with uncharacteristically brutal human-on-human violence that would be shocking in a G-rated movie if you haven’t seen the likes of The Green Slime and The Andromeda Strain. The robot ape comes across as nothing less than the sum of their malign personalities. We never get a full sense of its capabilities, yet it is a grim and formidable presence in its quite limited screen time. The bot’s greatest advantage is its hypnotic ray, which requires human intervention to neutralize. In true one-on-one combat with Kong, it proves itself quite capable without being completely overwhelming. It’s the environment of the tower that makes the fight memorable, as both combatants maneuver in search of an advantage. One more thing I have to say is that the bot’s early failure from radiation is a quite believable weakness for an AI (though there aren’t many things that wouldn’t be equally bad for the organic Kong). If there’s anything I might suggest changing, it would be to make this a factor in the finale.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with one that’s random even for this movie. Soon after the landing on the island, the blonde is menaced by a wonky dino admitted to the Toho stable as Gorosaurus. Its overall look is actually unusually realistic for a vintage kaiju, even if that’s not saying much. The only thing really “off” with mid-20^th century paleontology as a frame of reference is that the head, neck and forelimbs seem bunched up, a compromise presumably dictated by the mechanics of the suit. The lady has the presence of mind to scream and run away, cueing the now-infamous cut to Kong’s eyes opening as he wakens from either a long nap or a stoned stupor. (Okay, his eyes aren’t blood-shot, so we should lay off the drug jokes… nah.) It takes bare moments for him to arrive. That’s when we get possibly the most surreal moment of the movie as the gorosaur launches what proves to be its main attack, a sort of tail-bounce that allows it to hit Kong with both feet simultaneously. It’s every bit as absurd as it sounds, except, this kangaroo-like form of locomotion was considered very seriously in the Victorian era and portrayed in paleo art through the 1930s at least. It’s just an early highlight of a weird sequence that is definitely going for slapstick, and as with many things, it works.

In closing, I will freely admit the bottom line: By any technical standard, this is the worst Kong movie that can still be counted as within the franchise, a fact I certainly took into account in nominating King Kong Lives for that very title. It’s obviously not as polished or professional as De Laurentiis’ offering; for that matter, there were still undoubtedly entries far worse than either among the wave of knockoffs and parodies that the 1976 remake spawned (see Mighty Peking Man). Per my standard refrain, it all comes down to context and means. The real “problem” with King Kong Lives was that those involved could do far better. By comparison, this is a movie that delivers exactly what you would expect from those involved, inasmuch as one could have expectations of a studio that went on to make House. The crowning achievement and irony is that, even considered as a parody of what Toho had done before, it still comes out as well above average. In that respect, it can take its place with the likes of Galaxy Quest and Twitch of the Death Nerve. It’s weird, it’s silly, it’s dated, and for the right taste and mood, it’s just fine. Hail to the King!

Fiction: The Space Guys Adventure, Part 12!

 It's time for the nominal start of the week, so of course I have another Space Guys installment that's pretty much all gratuitous world-building. By the way, these are all real place names. As usual, the table of contents is at the end.

The voyage went on as Jupiter grew larger in the porthole. Jason struggled less with his own engagement than with the sudden marriage of Anastasia and Donald. Within a week, they could be seen openly displaying their affection in the recreation area around the captain’s cabin. Much of that admittedly consisted of Anastasia talking while he pawed at her. Alek made a point of teasing him. “See, he is a man’s man,” she said. “He grabs and takes. Why do you no do that to me? Am I not no good enough woman for you?”

Jason ignored her and joined the group. They passed a computer game console, consisting of a circular flat panel screen the size and configuration of a game table with two sets of controls on opposite sides. Currently, Jax and Yukio, the Edonian engineer, were using it to play Go. Surprisingly, Jax was in the process of winning. By Anastasia was playing one of the electromechanical games, a rudimentary simulator where the player controlled a descending model lander. When Donald sidled up behind her, she finally swore and hissed at him.

Jason chose an electromechanical target game, based on King Kong. Through a vision block, he could see a miniature ape atop a stylized spire, holding a wildly out-of-scale woman. The spire and the figures rotated as the crosshairs moved back and forth, in a fair simulation of a circling aircraft. Alex leaned in to look. The window was wide enough for one or two onlookers to see what was happening, but little of what illusion there was carried over when viewed from the side. He waited for the mechanical ape to set down the woman, then fired. He got the required number of hits on the second try, then allowed Alek to look as the flailing ape dropped out of sight. He then allowed her to take his free turn. Within bare moments, there was a crude but effective wail as she fired early, causing the ape to drop the woman and end the game. He suppressed a flinch when he found Moxon leaning against the next cabinet. “Say,” he said, “can I try?”

They took turns through three rounds each. He outscored Moxon twice. The officer took it in evident good humor. By then, Alek had started into boasting about their partnership. “I am an enlightened man, and you know, he is a very enlightened man,” she said. “That is why we are waiting to get married. He takes care of me, I take care of him, we don’t need to rush.”

That got a scowl from Anastasia. “Oh, please,” she said. “You two are so traditional the Motherworld press think you are already married.”

Jason managed to cut in. “Well, we’ve both been wanting to ask,” he said. “You getting married was, well, fast. I’ve known you a long time, I never thought you were the marrying kind. There’s definitely no way you would do it just to stay out of trouble.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Anastasia said. “We were seeing each other. We just weren’t exclusive. There wasn’t anyone else I was going long-term for.”

Don put an arm around her. “Hey, it’s not like I’m the compromise candidate,” he said. “I’m smart, I’m cool, I’m fun. I can make her laugh. I can make her do more than laugh.” He reached down to her waist. She firmly moved his hand back to her shoulder.

By then, Jax had won his game. As he shook hands with the Edonian, Moxon sidled in. “I can play the next game,” he said.

“Nah,” Jax said. “I want to try the geography game again.” He punched a control, and a map of Gaia appeared. Moxon leaned over with interest.

“I can tell you about geography,” he said. Nobody opposed him as he took the Edonian’s seat, though there were glances of concern when he raised his trench knife.

The game consisted of prompts to select a country. Jax moved the crosshairs around the map with a pair of knobs. Moxon simply jabbed the screen with the still-sheathed knife. “Here’s where you farmboys are from,” he said, tapping the middle of the North American continent. “Good old US of A. Now part of the  Pan-Atlantic Union, of course. The closest thing there is to a capitol is down here; Mexico City. Chances are your parents left through the Merida spaceport here.” He tapped the Yucatan Peninsula to the east.

Jax moved the crosshairs to the islands of England across the Atlantic. “Aren’t they in the Union?” Jason said.

“Actually, no,” Moxon said. Jax nodded. “You could say they’re a member in all but name, but officially, they’re a neutral state. They backed out because of Ireland, among other things.” He tapped the island to the west. “They did join the Union, free and clear, but the damage was done.”

They went through France and more Union countries on the continent, then the central states of Deutschland. Moxon nodded toward the captain. “Deutschland tried to get it all in the Last War,” he said. “You know how that turned out. After the Great Peace, all the armies that fought against them withdrew on the condition that they would remain neutral in a war between the other powers. Now, it’s a matter of pride that they don’t have an army. Of course, if they ever need one, there will already be another Great War going.”

He traced the vast territory of the Federation, stretching from Slovakia to Upper Korea, plus satellites as far-flung as Cuba and Lower East Indochina. “The Federation was the Soviet Union, of course,” he said. “After the Reforms, they became the Trans-Eurasian Federation of Socialist Republics. Their Republics got a choice between staying with equal representation in the Party or becoming satellite states, and the satellites were allowed to stay or agree to neutrality. Most of them stayed.”

He jabbed at New Edo and Shen and the allied lands of Lower Korea and Upper East Indochina. “Then, of course, there’s the Alliance of Heaven, really, that’s their name,” he said. “Right before the end of the War, the Emperor of Old Tokyo made a peace treaty with the Leader of the Ruling Party of Shenzhou. Only back then, the Party wasn’t ruling anything, except the lands on the border with Russka. The Emperor said it was atonement for the wrongs of the war. It was really just lighting a fire in the attic while they ran out the back door. The damnedest thing was, they followed through with it.”

They came back to Dalmatia, which drew a chuckle from Moxon. “Dalmatia exists because the Hrvatskis took the wrong side in the Last War,” he said. “When the Jugoslav Union reformed, the southern part was carved out as a new Republic.” He traced an erratic line across the peninsula. “The Adriatic Federation bit was aspirational. They hoped they could get Greece, even Italy. All they got was Albania and Romania. The rest mostly went to the Alignment.” He outlined a swath of territory that went from Greece through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, plus the outliers of Siam and Israel.

The officer waved vaguely at the converging island chains of Indo-Malaya. “The Indo-Malay Federation was another start-up that didn’t get anywhere, though they at least got a lot of nothing to show for it. It’s a whole bunch of little islands full of people who speak almost the same language, pray to practically the same gods and all hate each other. No offense.” He looked in the direction of Aisi. “They finally got to act important when somebody convinced them to stick their noses in West Indochina.” He jabbed at a comma-like swath on the inner edge of the eastern peninsula.

He pointed to the swath between Iran and Siam that was Greater Hindustan, and the belt of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa across the oceans to the south. “This is the Indo-Oceanian Federation,” he said. “It’s the other reason England didn’t get into the Union. There was a deal to let the colonies in the Subcontinent go their own way, and straight to Hell for all anyone cared. But England convinced the non-Hindu provinces to accept peacekeepers from the other colonies, which was how the Federation started. I spent a lot of time there. In the Second Intervention, I saved a temple of the Jains in Karachi. The priests made me a Brahmin.”

Jax spoke up. “Wait a minute,” he said, “I know that one. It was 27 years ago. How the Hell old are you?”

Moxon turned his head and smiled. “How old do I look?” Jax said no more.

Moxon leaned back. “So that’s good old Gaia,” he said. “It’s a nice enough place, really. We have world peace, peace enough anyway. That beats the alternative. Just in case, we have the UN and the Strato-Corps. You could say we’re the world’s fire department, putting out little fires before they get big. You know, there was a time I did that, too.” As he spoke, he drove the blade through a partition.

As the game wound down, Donald happily took over the console. He started a game called Interceptor that was clearly intended to simulate a missile exchange. Each incoming projectile was represented by a curving line that could be blocked with another. The trick was that  there was a lag between the lines on the screen and the input from the controls that grew as the game went on. Alek joined in, laughing as she stopped one attack after another and drove her own offensive home. In the midst of it, Jason and Anastasia exchanged glances. They both made their way to the rear, where the ludicrous prefabricated bathroom filled the rear escape pod. She stretched out in the tub. He sat on top of the lowered lid of the toilet.  She said without turning, “It was your fault, you know.”

“What do you mean?” Jason said. There was already a note of wounded innocence in his voice.

“I had to marry Don,” Anastasia said. “After what happened with Vasily and Jackie, I got called in to see the captain. He laid out everything. Sure, it was for what I did, and maybe I deserved it. But it was still because of you and the little supergenius!”

“I don’t understand,” Jason said, quite honestly. “We didn’t do anything wrong, at least by what goes back home. Even what you did wouldn’t be a big deal. What does Command on Gaia care?”

Anastasia started to snarl, but moderated into a sigh. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said. “Remember those silly old shows that always had a man and woman in separate beds even if they were supposed to be married? The Federation State networks still won’t show a man and woman in one bed unless it’s designated for `health and education’. Or did you notice all the times they talk about how the Union outgrew segregation? There are Union stations that wouldn’t air interviews with Jill Lightower without hiding that she’s a morena. Now just try to imagine what it’s like dealing with sponsors in Outer Hindustan and the Arab League. So can you guess the one thing that’s got everyone up in arms? That Shen reporter filmed you and Alek in bed with her top off, while your partition was wide open!”

“What?” Jason said. “We always… wait… oh. Jax must have forgotten about it. Well, what are they going to do about it? The ship has sailed, literally.”

“They can send us home,” Anastasia said. “All of us. That’s why we aren’t going full speed. Of course, the official explanation is that it lets a rescue ship meet up with us if we had an accident or a medical emergency. But as far as Gaia Command is concerned, we aren’t just an unproven experiment, we’re a liability. When they see us living life our own way, they don’t want to see people who don’t know what the rules are supposed to be. They see superhumans who think we’re too good for their morality. If we won’t follow their rules, who’s to say we won’t stop following their orders? They wouldn’t send back the actual supergenius, oh no, they need her. They might let you stay if it kept her happy. But the rest of us… totally replaceable.”

She sighed for real. “The captain told me, it is essential to the program that the public sees a Martian in a stable domestic relationship,” she said. “He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to.”

Jason shook his head. “No way,” he said. “That’s not you. They might as well tell a full-blooded wolf to sit, roll over and fetch.”

Anastasia sighed again. This time, she smiled. “I had thought about it, really,” she said. “Even a woman like me thinks about settling down sooner or later. I was never getting there with Jackie. I should have cut Vasily off already. But Donald… I suppose he could have gotten here on his own eventually. Probably would have. He’s that kind of person.”

“Does he know?” Jason asked pointedly.

“Of course,” Ana said. “Well, he knows enough. He still thinks that makes him Number One, at everything. That’s why he treats me the way he does. It’s fine, really. Trying to change him wouldn’t be any better than trying to change me. If anybody could dig deep enough to do it, I wouldn’t want what would be left.”

She turned her head to meet Jason’s steady gaze. “Damn,” he said. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”

“Well, you’re an idiot,” she said, without hiding a blush. They were still sitting in silence when there came a banging at the door.

“Jason!” Alek said. “I know you’re in there! Ana, I know you’re in there too! Are you cheating with my fiancée?”

Jason and Anastasia looked at each other. “No,” Ana said with a lilting accent.

There was a moment of silence. “Well, why not?” Jason got up to leave.

Table of contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Part 11: The Space Nazis!!!

The Kong File 2: The one with zombie Kong and Linda Hamilton

 

 

Title: King Kong Lives aka King Kong 2

What Year?: 1986

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (1/4)

 

With this review, I’m continuing my Kong lineup. As often happens, I have had the first and last entries settled in my mind all along, yet the middle installment has required further thought. That in turn required me to look through a fair amount of material that I, even I, had not gotten around to watch. I finally gave one particular film a try, with a solid alternate already in hand. When I was done, I knew that it was the one I had to do, so of course, I waited until the last moment to try writing a review. I present King Kong Lives, the sequel to the first Kong remake, because that always goes over well!

Our story begins at the climax of the previous film, as Kong takes a swan dive off a certain building that became a whole other set of baggage. But it turns out that a big company has hired a lady scientist with the tech to revive Kong as a sort of Frankenstein’s monster, because in this kind of movie, corporations never make a mistake that they can’t repeat with exponentially worse results the second time around. Meanwhile, an adventure manages to capture a female of whatever the Hell this species is. The Kongette (there’s no way this crew was coming up with the name on their own) provides a source for a transfusion that fully revives the original. Once Kong is up and awake, he pines for the female in what is definitely not a Platonic way. When the sponsors try to keep the pair apart against their own interests, the star-crossed lovers break free with no significant assistance from the lady scientist who is still being treated as the lead. With company bounty hunters and the military out for Kong, this Romeo and Juliet story just might end in tragedy!

King Kong Lives was a 1986 film by Dino DeLaurentiis (see Flash Gordon, Conan The Destroyer, etc, etc.), produced as a sequel to the 1976 remake of King Kong.  The film was directed by John Guillermin from a script by Ron Shusett (see Dead and Buried) and Steven Pressfield. The Kong suits and other effects were created by the late Carlo Rambaldi (see… Twitch of The Death Nerve?). Linda Hamilton of Terminator starred as Dr. Franklin, with Peter Elliott making a credited appearance as Kong. A tie-in video game was released only in Japan, under the alternate title King Kong 2. While the film earned $48 million worldwide against an $18M budget, it earned only $4M in the US and was reported as a failure for the De Laurentiis organization. A legal confrontation arose when Siskel and Ebert were warned not to broadcast clips of the film to national audiences, leading Siskel to comment that the De Laurentiis Group “couldn’t find a single scene that it wanted you to see”.  The film has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes (see Mac And Me, Terrorvision). It is currently available for digital purchase and rental, including free streaming from the Shout! Factory platform.

For my experiences, my one tangential encounter with this one is that I can recall sighting it on the video stores. What really came to my mind with this review was my own reappraisal of Dino De Laurentiis. I grew up on second-hand accounts that treated the filmmaker as a butt of jokes, albeit often in a semblance of good-natured humor. I went along with it to the point of making him the basis of a (likeable!) comic-relief character in my fiction. It was only when I started doing my own reviews that I started to come to terms with Dino as a significant and, at least in intention, serious filmmaker. What I found was that many other people have been making the same journey. What became ominously clear was that the present film has been left out of the De Laurentiis renaissance. Once I watched this movie, the impression I came out with was in many ways an “honest” effort, without the pretensions that built up around De Laurentiis’ most polarizing film. The corollary is, it is absolutely bonkers in ways I have spent the last few days trying to think of ways to convey.

Moving forward, the central and counterintuitive reality of this film and to some extent De Laurentiis’ work as a whole is that there is very little that is intentionally or at least obviously trying to be funny. This is something that I have for my own part come to see as part of the character of the Italian cinema he came out of. To be sure, there are actual gags, the funniest being the total annihilation of a very ‘80s sportscar. Yet, these are not really part of the De Laurentiis brand of surrealism. If anything, there are moments that feel all the more odd for being played straight. The quite lengthy resurrection of the first act is especially telling. It’s every bit as strange as it sounds in cold blood. At the same time, it’s the closest we get to anything resembling realism; there is a clinical feel here that conveys a further sense of real effort. (Alas, this is also the only point where Hamilton is anything but wasted.) The strange tone continues with Kong’s first escape attempt, where the guards and military vehicles descend into Wile E. Coyote slapstick that barely requires a response from the ape. Once the apes meet up, any humor very quickly drains away, generally to the film’s detriment. This shows especially in Kong’s battle with the military and the following birth of his son. There’s raw power in the ape’s Pyrrhic victory, but the new-born ape is just one more moment that’s weird without being interesting, all the more so as it is clearly just a grown human in a regular gorilla suit without magnification.

That leads straight to by far the biggest problem: The effects here are absolutely, inexplicably and inexcusably awful.  There were already plenty of problems with the 1976 remake, which in hindsight was just a little too early for practical effects to match the fine art of stop-motion. Here, at the height of the 1980s effects revolution, everything looks cheap, rushed, poorly thought-out or all of the above. The worst and most persistent problems come from the direction and camerawork, which repeatedly fail to provide either a scale to impress us or a context to know what if anything is going on. But I also cannot avoid a certain frustration with Rambaldi, all the more so after all the completely deserved praise I have given his work. This was the guy who turned H.R. Giger’s concepts into the Alien suit. (See Forbidden World and Deep Space for what could go wrong when people tried to replicate it…) The people who in his league during his lifetime could probably be counted on one hand. But this movie proves his tendency to be either very, very good or bafflingly bad. The apes here don’t match his so-so E.T. rig, never mind the Alien or Dagoth suits. It takes a lot to make me disappointed with a genuine effects hero, and I am well and truly mad.

Now for the “one scene”, I’m going with the one that really got my attention. As the finale approaches, Kong is being hunted by a band of company-backed bounty hunters. These aren’t just incompetents, but drunken, obnoxious louts who would presumably be even more unpleasant if there were women around. Surprisingly, they manage to trap Kong with a man-made avalanche that buries him up to the shoulders. It’s a perfect opportunity to throw a few of the gas bombs that have been established as Kong’s weakness in every incarnation, so of course, they laugh, take pictures and fire guns into the air while the ape snarls in indignation. They poke the ape with sticks and torches over the objections of one of their own, until Kong bursts free, burying the majority under their own rocks. There’s an unusually impressive shot as Kong pursues the 2 survivors, actually moving with something close to an actual gorilla’s knuckle walk. When the goons try to climb to safety, he grabs one and literally breaks him in half. He triggers another rockslide to bring down the other, whom he catches and swallows with no visible gore. We only see Kong chew, swallow, and after a moment, pull the ruffian’s hat from between his teeth. It’s a strange moment in a very strange film, but one of the last that really lives up to his potential.

In closing, all I can say is that after watching this, I have no problem with calling it the worst Kong movie. That comes with a few qualifiers. I’m not going to try to count foreign knockoffs, loosely inspired “tributes” and actual parodies. (I claim responsibility for the worst parody, even if it doesn’t technically exist.) I’m also not really considering what makes a film “technically” bad, a distinction that definitely goes to the 1960s incarnations of the character. (I’m definitely getting to that…) But on the Venn diagram of muddled story, poor effects and production values and pure wasted potential, this one hits the exact center of total failure. What’s really of note is that for all its failings, it’s still entertaining enough to be counted as underrated. The real lesson is just how elemental the appeal of the character and story have always been. If a franchise can remain relevant after 90 years, it can survive a lot worse than this. With that, I am ready to call it a night.

Rogues' Roundup: Runner-up Space Guys and Space Girl???

 

It's the weekend, and I still haven't done two of the three posts I was planning for this week. One of the things I promised myself was that I wouldn't just fall back on a fiction post. That led me to a new set of acquisitions I've been meaning to cover, from a line I had debated whether to purchase at all. Here are the Ajax space guys... and girl?

Now for the backstory, these figures are a line that would have been made and sold alongside the Marx Space Guys (see also my Space Guys To Astronauts post) in the 1950s and (perhaps...) early '60s. We previously saw the "off brand" side of vintage Space Guys with the Archer Space Woman. At the time I made that acquisition, I was looking into another figure that might add some diversity, an Ajax figure often described as a lady. Inevitably, I gave in and bought one, along with a couple others. Here is the figure in closeup.

What struck me about this is that this figure is, if anything, distinctly ambiguous in gender. Sure, the hair "looks" like a woman's, especially for the stereotyped '50s. For that matter, it seems to have been the only sculpt out of the entire line with visible hair, so it would make far more sense if it was "supposed" to be different. (Make sense. Space Guys. Ha. Ha. Ha.) To me, however, this still isn't open and shut. The long-hair look was quite common for very masculine adventurers of the serials, pulps and comics of the 1930s through the 1950s, enough that there are probably people who would call it the "Prince Valiant" look without ever setting eyes on that or any other vintage example. It also has to be said that there is nothing else about the figure to suggest feminine anatomy, beyond the fact that it is a little shorter and more lightly built than the other two in this set. (I'll get to that momentarily...) My verdict is, it could go either way. 

That still leaves the question if this is a "vintage" figure. The plastic of all the figures is distinctly of the "hard" variety, even more so than the Archer figures. I tried a "clack" test, i.e. banging them together (see the now-tragic Ukrainian Marx figures), and concluded that all three were of separate origin. With this one in particular, there is an unusually pronounced mold line that looks actually skewed. It all fits with this being an inferior reissue, but the original couldn't have been a lot better. Here's a couple pics. This gets gruesome...

I suppose I should stop making fun of the "scar" on "Moxon". Nah.

Now for the other two, what's most interesting is that the uniforms are clearly based on the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet TV series, which I did absolutely no research on in the course of developing a story around the Marx Space Guys I knew were based on it. I consider it conclusive that the Ajax line is effectively a Tom Corbett knockoff, though it is debatable if they copied Marx or drew more directly on the show. The odd part is that I now know that the knockoffs look far more like the uniforms of the show than many of the Marx figures, possibly because the latter were influenced by the Dell tie-in comic. The most striking thing about them is that in many ways, the Ajax figures differ even more from Archer's space figures than their Marx counterparts. The Archer figures have an almost Greco-Roman look that belies the wonky outfits and accessories. The Ajax figures are simply cartoonish, and the look works in its own way. One more thing is that there are extensive reports of considerable variations in size, with some described as no taller than "large" 63mm army men (see the Timmee nuclear guy/ firemen) and others reportedly up to 3.5 inches tall. These proved to be about 3", just the wrong size to fit easily with the Marx Space Guys, and appear to be sculpted on the same scale. Here's pics of the other two. I am inclined to say the green one is a later, less detailed copy, but I've seen enough weirdness that I'm holding off on judgment.

The big bonus with this lot is that it came with another Archer Space Lady. It is definitely some kind of copy/ reissue, as there are very visible contact points where the sculpt was altered from the original mold. The clothing and other details are close enough to the one I had that they could be used as the same character in two different poses. On the other hand, it has quite distinct facial features, which makes me wonder if they were trying to hint at racial differences. (I know, I already joked about taking Space Guys seriously.) It's still a nice addition to my collection. Here's the new girl with my previous find (the one with her hands on her hips) and my other Archer figures. I don't recall if I noted before that the Archer ladies are very well-endowed, which is a significant consideration in interpreting the Ajax figure. Clearly, few if any designers considered the possibility of space suits bulky enough to hide secondary sexual features.

"Clearly, shoulder pads will be the trend of 1988..."

"I surrender to your fashion sense."

And here's a rear view. This will give a better sense of the style and the level of detail in the sculpts. As often happens, the "copy" is if anything sharper in detail than the original/ older figure.

And here they are with the, um, Non-Binary Space Person! 

And here's a lineup for size comparison. There's a 70mm Marx Space Guy, plus an MPC police office and a Halloween figure I hadn't featured before.

And here's a line-up of ladies, an MPC Teenette and a couple Evermodel train figures!

And that's enough to wrap this up. This brings me to the end of the Space Guys, except for one more acquisition still incoming. Only time will tell if I do more with the Ajax line. And here's one more pic...

"That's right, run from my unisex hair cut!"

Thats all for now, more to come!