Featured Creature Special: The one where the werewolves have guns

 

 

Title: The Howling

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Runnerup/ Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

As I write this, I have been taking longer than usual to decide on a film to review. What’s different is that I have actually gone a good stretch without watching a movie at all. That brought my decision down to whatever I finally watched, and as often happens, I already had a rental that I was not looking forward to. So with that glowing endorsement, I’m wading into a movie that I had watched exactly once and still remembered being disappointed by. I present The Howling, the movie that deconstructed the werewolf ahead of An American Werewolf In London, and boy, did they not do it better.

Our story begins with a reporter named Karen who goes out on an obviously hare-brained attempt to catch a serial killer that ends in a last-minute rescue that leaves the killer bullet-riddled in the morgue. After the traumatizing experience, a psychiatrist sends Karen and her husband out to the Colony, a counterculture settlement where people go to reconnect with nature. But all is not well, as the inhabitants mutter of dark secrets and a resident maneater. Meanwhile, the body of the killer has disappeared, leading the reporter’s colleagues to suspect that he might not be as dead as the authorities believe. In fact, the killer and the inhabitants of the Colony are all werewolves, living a conflicted existence under the doctor’s direction. It’s up to the reporter and her work friend to get out alive- but her husband is already one of the lycanthropes!

The Howling was a 1981 horror film directed by Joe Dante (see InnerSpace, Gremlins 2), based on the first of a series of novels by Gary Bradner. It was the first of three werewolf films released in 1981, preceding Wolfen and An American Werewolf In London. No serious allegation emerged that any of the films had copied each other. The film starred Dee Wallace as Karen and Patrick Macnee as the psychiatrist Dr. Waggner, with Robert Picardo (see Dead Heat) as the killer Eddie Quist. Other cast included John Carradine (Shock Waves), Dick Miller (Terminator, Night of the Creeps), and Elisabeth Brooks (Deep Space???) as Marsha. Creature effects were created by Rob Bottin, after Rick Baker (see King Kong 1976) left the project for American Werewolf. Additional stop-motion effects were created by David Allen (see Dungeonmaster, Robot Jox, etc, etc, etc), all of which were cut or replaced except for a shot of a group of werewolves at the end of the film. The film was a commercial success, earning $17.9 million against a $1.5M budget. It received 7 official sequels, none of which appear to have followed Bradner’s additional books. The movie is available for streaming on AMC Plus.

For my experiences, this is a film I watched on VHS in college, probably before American Werewolf. What has remained most interesting is that the two films represent an already undisputed case of what I call a “runnerup”, as well as a much rarer case where two such parallel productions were roughly equal in their impact and stature (compare to AntZ and A Bug’s Life). To me, what has been most intriguing in a sad way is that the two films are in every important respect opposites to each other. One was a highly polished medium-budget film from a “mainstream” director. The other was openly a low-budget genre film by a newcomer who never outgrew his roots. Unfortunately, this is an especially clear-cut case where the establishment unquestionably produced far better results.

Moving forward, the most significant and counterintuitive comparison to be made between this film and American Werewolf is that the latter was a “horror comedy” but not a horror parody. The present film is in itself proof of the difference. It aims to be knowing and subversive in its genre references and inside jokes, the best by far being a lead villain who hands a gun back to the nosy guy reporter. The “problem” is that there is not a lot here that is funny on its own terms. The most effective satirical elements come, tellingly, not from the gags but from the domestic dysfunctionality of the werewolves. They are set up as leftovers from another time (which could have worked far better if we knew something about their aging if any) trying to adapt to modernity. Left to their own devices, they present an unsettlingly mundane picture of a cult: Banal, petty, bickering and often simply bored. It’s an intriguing angle greatly improved by strong acting and dialogue, but on a certain level, it never goes anywhere. In the final confrontation, it’s quite clear all the arguments among the pack are merely a half-hearted delay before the inevitable. The real surprise is that the lone dissenter doesn’t get lunched by his own side.

Meanwhile, my personal beef has always been with the effects, and that only got worse when I looked into the history of the production. At best, the creatures are outdated off the drawing board, adding to an already strong vibe of a 1970s movie that happened to come out in the Eighties. At worst, they are inert and distractingly odd. (And dear Logos, what were they thinking with those ears???) Before the inevitable objections, this was only a year before the same guy made The Thing, and two years after Alien. They could definitely do better. What’s worse is that the more rudimentary makeup effects are far more menacing, especially as seen on Picardo (whom I did not recognize despite noting his presence on many other occasions). His full transformation is the biggest washout, to the point that his intended victim easily deals with him while he is still standing there. A further indictment comes from the tryst between Marsha and the newly turned husband, which for all its awkwardness manages to achieve the stylized surrealism the film clearly intended to give. My true rage moment came when I found unused stop-motion by Allen in a bonus feature. The final insult came as I discovered that what I remembered as the only shot where the wolves looked good was in fact the only remnant of his work on the film.

Now for the “one scene”, I decided it was long past time to feature the late Dick Miller, the greatest cameo artist in history. He appears around the mid-point as proprietor of an occult bookstore. The clip I found starts with him talking to the secondary reporters about the patrons of his store, allegedly including a certain real-life cultist. When the lady reporter asks about grave robbery, he matter-of-factly gives them a book. Of course, the conversation turns to werewolves, and a case of silver bullets whose origin should count as a plot hole yet actually works. In the process, he lays out the werewolves’ strengths and weaknesses. For me, what makes the scene is when the guy reporter comes out and asks if he actually believes anything he has been saying. His reply is better heard than described. Suffice to say, it’s as good a deconstruction of the genre and underlying mythology as anything in the film.

In closing, what I decided was worth coming back to is what makes a parody. Obviously, that has become far more pertinent in a landscape where revisionism, deconstruction and “meta” humor have become a genre in themselves. As I have shown regularly, we were already in the same cycle long, long ago. The one lesson worth learning is that a “good” genre satire has to be something more, and the best explanation of what works is to look at the examples that already succeed.  If you had never seen a Star Trek episode, Galaxy Quest would still be funny. If you cut all the jokes out of Shaun of the Dead, it would still be a good zombie movie. By comparison, The Howling is and always was going to be the “runnerup” to American Werewolf. I can get why people like this one and might even find it more entertaining than its competitor, or I would probably give it a lower rating than I have. It still remains a film that struggles to be decent, let alone “great”. And with that, I can finish for another day.

Futures Past: Marx 1950s -futuristic building???

 

It's Friday and I still don't have a mid-week post. I decided it was time to cover one of my most recent acquisitions before it got any deeper into the backlog. It's my biggest score yet, and in theory the one that might actually be useful for my current projects. Here is the Marx Cape Canaveral building, and it is even more awkward than it looks. To kick things off, here's a pic from the back.

Now for the backstory, this is a tin litho building introduced with the Marx Cape Canaveral playset, first released in 1958. It based on a similar structure included with the Tom Corbett/ Rex Mars playsets (see my "revisionist" post on same). The big change is that it incorporated an "overthrust" split-level extension that stretched in front of the rest of the structure. It also included a spire introduced with the very popular and now very expensive skyscraper playset released in 1957, plus a pylon piece to support the front of the extension. Of course, the latter was missing from my item, and I will be going into just how important that is momentarily. Here's a few more shots of this thing from multiple angles.

Now for this item, it came in two parts, the main building and the extension. I knew from pics of complete and unused sets that they would have come as three separate metal sheets that kids were presumably expected to fold by hand, one big one for the main structure and two for the extension. From inspection, I had no doubt that it was assembled and played with in the "vintage" period, based on both its obviously "used" condition and several minor errors in assembly. The spire was already attached to the extension, along with two other pieces. However, it was evident that the two parts had never been connected. I suppose they might have originally come from entirely different sets, though the condition of both is quite consistent. I made the fateful decision to complete the assembly, which quickly revealed two things. First, this was never intended to be disassembled. Second, without the above-mentioned support, this thing will not stay upright by any means short of putting it directly against a solid wall or surface. Here are a few detail shots.

The oddest detail here is that there are two plastic accessories on top of the extension that I have not seen on any other specimen. One is clearly the  base of the spotlight in the previously-covered space accessories, a fact I confirmed by actually attaching the top part. The other might be the base of an item usually referred to as an antenna that I maintain looks like a lamp. At first, I accepted these as attached at the factory, until I reviewed photos of other specimens. I'm still not satisfied that this was simply something a kid would have done. These are attached very solidly, enough that I am sure any attempt to remove it would end in serious damage. (Okay, I started to try. Once.) That leaves the spire, and here's one more shot of it.

Now this is very possibly the most amazing thing Marx ever made, big enough to be a retro-future tower all on its own. I had spent a good deal of time trying to get hold of one before I found the actual building on sale. By my best measurement, this is just under 5 1/4 inches tall. It would originally have been even taller thanks to an antenna that apparently had a 99.9% casualty rate in the wild. The grime alone on this one leaves no reasonable doubt that it is indeed a vintage item. This one was clearly repaired at some point, yet still ended up shorn by the time it got to me, which is really saying something if it was done at the same time and with the same materials used to attach the accessories to the roof. (Definitely be suspicious of anyone offering an "original" with the antenna still on.) I investigated whether it could be removed, before and after assembling the building, but as with most things here, this was just not meant to be taken apart. It's held in place with two tabs that can be reached from below, which might come loose if pushed or squeezed. However, I suspect they would be just as likely to break off.

That leaves the question, how well does this work with the Marx figures? Of course, I investigated that, after cleaning out the interior very carefully. What I found was that it is seemingly sized for a range of figures, without fitting any especially well. Here's a pic with the figures it would actually have come with, the already repurposed 45mm Air Force figures sighted briefly in my Robby the Robot revisit, plus the original Tomy wind-up bot. 

I confirmed that the box is tall enough to hold two of the little guys one above the other quite comfortably, which would make for something like a 12-foot ceiling in scale. And here it is with a 70 mm Space Guy and the reissue Tomy bot, plus a few very futuristic accessories.

This also gave me my first look at the very fine litho backdrop, recycled from the Tom Corbett sets. It's a very good backdrop. The obvious problem is getting any light into the back. There's also some odd details, especially the doors. At 70mm scale, they look more like lockers than functional doors. Even at nominal 45mm scale, they look odd, still a little on the small side for a door but big for anything else. Here's a reference pic with both sizes. Wow, that is dark.

I decided to see if I could hit a middle ground, and decided to try the 60mm astronauts. It's not a bad fit, but not a lot better. In any case, it's clear why Marx had phased out the Tom Corbett look.

This further convinced me that what will really help people who want to do what I do is a print-yourself template for the structure, ideally scanned from one of the unassembled flat plates still out there. Then one will have the freedom to choose lighting, backgrounds and even scale. There are already enough images out there that one could probably put together a composite, but it would still be preferable to have a single image freely offered rather than collectors swiping from each other. For now, we live and learn. How about one more pic?

"I'm mysterious. Also a mystery, why we don't have overhead lighting..."

That's all for now, still more to come!

Animation Defenestration: The other one from Netflix

 

 

Title: Pinocchio aka Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

What Year?: 2022

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Improbable Experiment

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

As I write this, I’m just coming out of a spell that has beat the Hell out of my blogging, and well aware that I was having plenty of trouble before. One thing I remembered in the process ia that it has been a really long time since I did an animation review. That brought me to look through some new and old material I had been meaning to get to, and that led me to something truly different, except for the time I did the exact same thing. I present Pinocchio, the Netflix version, and it is… odd. Even for me.

Our story begins with an introduction to Geppetto, a toymaker who tragically loses his only child to war. Fast forward, and we find him as an old man wishing for a second chance. Somehow, his wish reaches the Blue Fairy, a freaky entity that looks half old-school fairy and half hard-core Biblical angel, who as usual does what nobody asked for and won’t necessarily help by bringing one of his wooden puppets to life. In this variation, the townspeople actually notice a fully sentient magical entity in their midst and prepare to destroy the abomination. The love of Geppetto wins them over, however, at least for the time being. Things go awry when the father tries to send his son to school for no obvious reason, only to have him wander off with a literal slavemaster of a showman who still actually puts the puppet to productive work. As the misadventures continue, Pinocchio discovers the price of the miracle that brought him to life: He can die after a fashion, as explained by the actually helpful Queen of the Netherworld, but he is destined to return to life every time. This soon attracts the interest of the military, which turns out to be the forces of Mussolini, while Geppetto is swallowed by the enormous Dogfish. Pinocchio must escape the actual Fascists and save his father from the sea monster, but the price of his choices may be forever!

Pinocchio is a 2022 Claymation film by Guillermo Del Toro (see Mimic 2, kind of) and Jim Henson Productions, based on the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (see… Pinocchio In Outer Space?). Del Toro had reportedly developed the project since 2008, before securing funding from Netflix (see The Mitchells Vs. The Machines). It was released for streaming in 2022, coinciding with a Disney remake of the 1940 film of the same name (no way in Hell…) and at least one other adaptation of the book. In contrast to the Disney film, the Netflix film was well-received by animation fans and critics. It remains available for streaming on Netflix.

For my experiences, what stands out in my mind is that I had a reverse of the usual pop culture experience: When I was a kid, I obviously knew of the Disney film, but my one direct experience with the strange mythos was reading an apparently faithful storybook version of the novel. In full hindsight, I came to two conclusions. First, the Disney film is the all-around best the studio ever made, which is like a confession under torture for a lifelong Fantasia junkie like me. (See Allegro Non Troppo, if anything…) Second, almost everything the film achieved was in spite of source material that is, to use “authentic” Serbo-Croatian, absolute kaka. Sure, I didn’t read the “real” book, but I got through the original story without prejudice, and it couldn’t win over kid me. Moreover, every account I can recall from those who have credibly claimed to be familiar with the  novel are even less favorable than mine, to the point of raising the question if the author qualifies as proto-Fascist. (Oh yeah, everybody hates the Blue Fairy.) With all that unloaded, I freely admit to being puzzled why such an inauspicious book has been adapted repeatedly, before and after the Disney film, and why, outside of the Disney influence, it would continue to attract interest today. If you’re asking these questions, the present film offers some answers, but still won’t help.

Moving forward, the obvious thing to say about this film is that it is both beautifully animated and strikingly mature. This surely accounts for why it has won over animation reviewers, who have long since tired of both mindlessly cute “kids” animation and gross-out gags posing as “adult” animation. If there is a problem, it is that this is neither fish nor fowl. The very freaky animation is not going to win over kids, while the story is still not as dark as the novel or even the Disney original. Then there are two specific choices that can be considered bold yet don’t deliver a proportionate payoff. First, the literally rough-hewn design of Pinocchio himself is an odd point to depart from both Disney and the novel, which can border on distracting. The only real “plus” to come with it is that it’s easier to accept the nose of this unsanded wooden boy sprouting into a sapling. Second, the Pleasure Island episode is entirely replaced with a new anti-war narrative. This removes the most famous, memorable and flatly horrifying scenes of the core narrative, and with it admittedly a number of effects that could have turned out badly in the Claymation medium. Of course, the question is and should be what we get in return. The explicit depiction of Fascism gives the film a much stronger political bite, in many ways on par with the actual Disney propaganda cartoons. Even so, the return is modest at best, and again, it just feels like a poor compromise. It isn’t nearly edgy enough to push this into adult-oriented satire, yet it falls even further short of the sheer existential terror of the allegedly all-ages Disney “original”.

That still leaves the bigger question, what does this do with the story and especially the character? If there’s a distinct “take” here, it is that this Pinocchio has even fewer moral flaws than the Disneyfied version, without losing all nuance. He is seemingly incapable of the foul temper and outright malice of the novel’s antihero (you can bet I always knew what happens to the cricket, but he can most certainly be manipulated, deceived and coerced. What one is tempted to look for is any sign of the story questioning the very skewed “lessons” of the novel. We get a little of this in a late sequence where Pinocchio freely uses his growing nose to good purpose, in the process clearly delineating between obvious fantasy and damaging untruths. The greatest potential lies in Pinocchio being sent to school. Here, we are given a clear rationale, which could have been an intriguing if Pinocchio actually got into the classroom. What would have been most interesting, however, would have been a legitimate debate over whether human education would benefit an entity who demonstrates the power to speak at a minimum within moments of his creation. That leaves one more unavoidable rant on Del Toro, who has rarely turned out anything I didn’t promptly see and like. In light of that history, this film felt like the epitaph of a good friend who died doing something stupid. There’s all the wonder and weirdness he brought to Mimic, Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy. But with it is the inescapable feeling that even then, he was hitting the boundaries of his own limitations as much as what the studio system would support.

That leaves the “one scene”, and the one I decided to come back to was his first meeting with the Queen of the Netherworld, who has no name within the film. After Pinocchio is carried into the underworld, he emerges from a ceremonial coffin and talks to a group of odd characters who brought him in. One of them comments that he will have to see “the boss”, without interrupting a card game. Sure enough, a red light shines on Pinocchio, and he comes into the presence of the Queen. At first, she is only evidenced by two glowing spotlight eyes and her voice, the latter courtesy of Tilda Swinton. The form comes into full view as the most strange and memorable creature in the movie, something like a manticore with horns, semi-vestigial wings and a surplus of eyes. The most unsettling feature is that there is no movement of her lips as she explains Pinocchio’s plight with far more clarity and empathy than the Blue Fairy, referred to as her “sister”. One can read reincarnation or resurrection into her description of Pinocchio as a “wooden boy with a borrowed soul”, but nothing more is said to clarify the issue. Her final reveal is that Pinocchio will spend more time in the Netherworld each time he dies, shown with an ominous hourglass. The wooden boy declares that he has a question, but of course, his time has run out. It’s a great scene in a generally good movie, and that sums up why I find the whole less than its parts.

In closing, I come as usual to the rating. This is one case where I freely admit that my rating is harsher than the objective quality warrants. However, I have always said that my reviews are on a curve that can swing both ways. Given what I’m usually dealing with, that means I’m being generous far more often than not, but that doesn’t mean I have gone so nose-blind that I cannot hold truly talented creators to a higher and completely appropriate standard. For me personally, the rating is first and foremost an expression of my disappointment. It’s obviously not bad, it’s certainly better than other movies I have given the same rating (see Chicken Little), it’s just not the same from a creator who can usually hit my soft spots even on his off-day. For me, that’s enough to count as closure. “If I had legs…”

The Space Guys Adventure, Part 15!

 It's the end of a bad week, and I decided to get one post in. Naturally, what that left me with is yet another installment of the Space Guys. Hey, this is actual space stuff. As usual, the table of contents is at the end.

The last and largest delivery was a 50-meter xenon tank straight from Jupiter, to be launched Europa, the next major moon inward from their holding orbit over Ganymede. “It’s so big, none of the tenders could handle it,” the captain explained. “They finally decided to attach it to another tank full of ice wired with thermite. The charges will vaporize the gases and blow it into a suitable orbit. The Pegasus will separate to pull into a matching trajectory, then two crewmen will descend from the main hold of the Pegasus to secure it with tethers. Moxon has volunteered. We need one more.”

Jax agreed to be the second person, without any objection. Jason and Alek were assigned to the Pegasus cockpit/ command center. Old Yuri was in charge of the communications, from the rear station. The ship’s course kept a blind side to Jupiter. It did offer a good view of the moon Io, still further in. Its surface made Jason think of a pear in a still life painting: Faded yellow, covered in pores and pockmarks that were in reality immense mountains and craters. From over 200,000 kilometers range, he could see the flare of an ongoing eruption. “There was a plan to put our main base on Io instead of Ganymede,” Yuri remarked. “It has the highest gravity of any satellite. The downside is, it has over 400 active volcanos. It’s a nice enough place to visit, not so much to stay.”

Europa came into view ahead. It was the gloomy gray of a weathered ball bearing. The surface was rock and ice, much of the latter actual solidified dihydrogen monoxide. That was novel enough to justify a base with a whole fifty crew, normally employed in carving out ice to supply ships and other settlements. A video feed showed the final preparations for the launch. Two tracked crawlers pulled the enormous tank assembly on what amounted to a trailer, on four balloon-like tires as big as the crawlers themselves. A third crawler was finishing scraping a flat surface for a launchpad. When the tank reached the center, a dozen crew raced out. They quickly attached cables that led to a titanic crane. The camera pulled back to show the improvised rocket pulled upright. In the near distance, the base could be seen, a single dome with two adjoining half-cylinders that looked just like Quonset huts from a war movie.

Yuri’s voice cut in. “We have an audio feed from the hold,” he said. “It must be a mike that turned on automatically when Moxon and Lightower came in. I can patch it through or shut it down; what’s your call?”

Alek spoke up before Jason could decline. “Send it through,” she said.

The feed began abruptly with Jax in mid-sentence: “-ing is okay. Jill will probably have the baby in another week, maybe two.”

Moxon spoke then: “How do you feel about that?”

“I’m happy, of course. I’m glad everything is all right.”

“That’s happy for them, not you. How do you really feel about having a kid with her?”

Jason cut back to Yuri. “Yuri, are you hearing any of this?” he said.

“No,” the old spacer said, quite innocently. “The circuit goes directly to the cockpit. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering,” Jason said. He switched back to the feed. Whatever Jax had said, Moxon was talking again.

“-Course, you want to take care of the woman who gave you a son. Just remember, that doesn’t mean your options aren’t open. These are enlightened times, and that runs both ways.”

After a moderately long silence, the officer changed subjects. “You know, I can see why you and Jason are friends,” he said. “I do like him, really, even if he doesn’t like me.”

Jason turned to Alek. She glanced pointedly at the switch that would kill the feed, then reached for it. “He has to know,” he said with a shake of his head. She shrugged and withdrew her hand.

“You and me, I think we understand each other,” Moxon continued. “Between you and me, I think you could be a Jain one day. Maybe a Brahmin. The ones who do always know the way, even if they haven’t been taught.”

That got a laugh from Jax. “Do all Brahmins quote their own TV show?” he said.

Moxon laughed in turn. “Trust me, the High Brahmin would have done the same thing,” he said. “He loved cartoons, Sparky, Mickey, Jasper and Jinx. He worked them into his sermons all the time. He said that wisdom was everywhere. You could say he was a grandstander, only grandstanding out the other end. He would preach in the streets in just a jockstrap; he only wore the jockstrap because he would have been arrested without it.”

There was a pause. “You know what you and your friend Jason have in common?” Moxon resumed. “Neither of you have asked about the scar.”

“Okay,” Jax said. “Did you want to talk about it now?”

Moxon laughed. It was his natural, braying laugh, which had long since become unnerving to Jason. “You could say I’m used to it,” he said. “I can usually see it coming. They almost always wait till things are private, like now. Now, here’s the difference between you and your friend. Jason wouldn’t do it, because he’s too honest. If he has a question, he will ask in the open, like Donald tried to. You wouldn’t do it because you know when to ask questions and when to just listen. I appreciate that. It’s usually a survival trait.”

 

“Okay,” Jax said. “Maybe I heard about it from someone else. Maybe I heard about it from a few people.”

That got another laugh, this time a short, sophisticated bark. “You are good at listening. You could call that an experiment. I tried telling the truth, at first. I still do, sometimes. Later, I tried coming up with different stories. I made sure it was never the same one twice; it started as a way to know if they ever talked. I have enough mates I let in on it to keep track; Harrison is one of them. Most of them don’t. Later on, I made it into fish stories, just to see what people would believe. The funny thing is, the stories I tell don’t account for half the ones that get back to me. I’ve overheard people I didn’t know from President Kennedy tell lies sillier than I ever thought to try that they insisted they heard it from me.”

“What do the people you tell the truth say?”

“They’re the ones who never talk. Literally, not one, leastways that I ever heard of. Of course, I’ve gotten to be a pretty good judge of that beforehand. The thing about that is, they never react any differently than the rest. Ever notice how stories are always about why people are the way they are?  That’s what people want when they ask about the scar. They see it, and they think the story is going to tell them who I am, why I am who I am. Once they hear it, they know there isn’t an answer, so they just kind of forget about it. I can tell, most of them still haven’t learned. They still treat people like questions with an answer, even if they couldn’t tell you why they had eggs instead of cereal for breakfast.”

Jax laughed at that. “The stories weren’t always like that,” he said. “Nobody in a Solomon Kane adventure ever asks Solomon Kane why he’s Solomon Kane.”

“Exactly.” There was silence. “You know, here’s something to think about. You know what it costs Gaia to keep the Mars colonies going?”

“What do you mean?” Jax said. “It’s not expense, it’s investment. We’re close to all our goals for self-sufficiency. We’re even sending raw materials back to Gaia. That’s not even counting what the asteroid miners are bringing back.” As he spoke, Jason found himself nearly saying the same thing verbatim.

“I know, I’ve seen the numbers,” Moxon said. “If you could triple them, our spending would only be $1 million US dollars per colonist… per day.”

Jason did speak out loud. “That… that can’t be,” he said. “We’re out here. We would go it alone if we had to…” Even as he spoke, he looked to Alek. She only shook her head.

“It is worse than he says,” she said in a flat tone. “Much worse. Worse than he could know. His numbers are for the Union only. I have seen the Federation’s spending.”

“So what?” Jax said. That jarred Jason more than what Alek had said. “What else were they going to do with the money? Build ballistic missiles again? Make a bigger F Bomb? Send another intervention to Indochina?”

That made Moxon bray long and loud. “That is thinking like a Gaian,” he said. “If we didn't waste money on one thing, what else would we waste it on? Just don’t say it like that.”

Jason looked at Alek. “You never told me,” he said. “We never talked about it.”

Alek shrugged. “You never told me your father was in the Baton Rouge Intervention,” she said.

He shook his head. “That was different,” he said.

She looked back at him almost blankly. “Why?” she said.

They both started at the sound of Moxon’s voice. “You know, I can tell you a story,” he said. “About the time I was a firefighter.”

“Really. What city?”

“Not a city. We were the kind of firemen that fight forest fires. We were called the Mogollon Smoke Jumpers.”

There was another silence. “I’ve heard of them. I thought they were all dead.”

“It was a close thing, believe me. Thing is, we were good at our job. We were just like the Corps, putting out little fires before they got big. We didn’t think about how there were more and more little fires every season. We didn’t think about the dead trees that weren’t cleared out, the underbrush that wasn’t thinned, the secondary growth that would go as dry as beef jerky at the first sign of a drought. When the big one came, there were places where it went faster than our helicopters. All told, a tenth of the state burned. We were dropped right in the middle of it.” As they listened, Jason looked at Alek. She nodded, wide-eyed.

“The real story, though, was what happened before. There was an old native who helped out, we called him the Shaman. You could say he was our chaplain. I suppose the way we treated him was more like a mascot. There was one day when the captain was showing us a map of all our stations, the observation posts, the fires we had put out, all the contingency plans for putting out the next one. In the middle of it, the Shaman stood up. That was enough for the captain to stop talking; we had that much respect for him. He only shook his head and said, `Sometimes, the forest just wants to burn.’ He walked out. He knew then what was coming. But when the day came, he still went out with us. He was the reason I made it back.

“So, here’s all you need to know about the Motherworld, farmboy. Gaia is a forest that just wants to burn. It’s been that way for a long, long time. In the Corps, we did just enough to stop the big one. The price was leaving the real problems unfixed. We propped up rulers who deserved to be overthrown. We kept people who hated each other under one government when they wanted to go their own way. We made dead institutions stand when they should have been cut down and carved up. We all did it because we knew, as bad as it was, what was coming would be worse. The fire is coming. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m telling you this now. We’re headed for the only place that’s far enough away not to get burned.”

Jason finally looked back to the feed from Europa. The spacers had withdrawn to a safe distance. The countdown was at 10 and dropping. Alek suddenly swore. She hastily unlimbered her microphone and said, “Hey everyone, all hands are go go go!” As she spoke, the camera tumbled and twisted as if in freefall, then went dead. Jason could make out the expanding cloud of vapor on the rapidly approaching moon.

“Opening bay doors,” he said. The payloader shook as the atmosphere departed in a rush. There was a noise like the snap of a sail from the microphone. For better or worse, there would be no more sound.

“Preparing for a drop,” Moxon said over the radio.

“Ready,” Jax affirmed. A moment later, there was a howl as he jumped. From Moxon, there was only silence.

Jason looked at Alek. “What do you think?” he said. “What do you really think?”

“I think,” she said in her flat voice, “that I know madness better than people think. It takes one kind of madman to make money building bombs to blow up the world, and them and their money along with it. It takes another kind, like your father, to drop it. They are the first ones that Gaia sent out here. Why not? We made a deal with the Devil, so what to do when you do not need the Devil anymore? Pay him even more, to go far, far, far away.”

She took his hand. “But it is not all bad,” she said. “Really not bad at all. Maybe you are mad, to them. It is because you can see things in a way they don’t. That is why I love you, farmboy. I think I love you even before you love me. I came out here, to be with you.” 

As she spoke, she turned off the cabin lights. He squeezed her hand tightly as they gazed at the stars.

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!

Part 13: The wedding!!!

Part 14:  The spicy chapter!

Mid-Sized Marx: Star Wars scale Japanese soldiers!!!

 

It's Monday and I still haven't done a weekend post. Fortunately, I have something I've been using the time to examine. It's a new acquisition that I wasn't sure existed before I actually got it, and now I'm still not completely satisfied it is what it's supposed to be. The one thing that is sure is that it's not like anything else I've got, including the set they are literally identical to. Here are my new 3.75 inch Marx Japanese soldiers, a scaled-down version of the figures I wrote about in my very first Marx post! And how about a comparison shot with one of the originals?

Now for the backstory, I first encountered Marx figures in "action figure" 3-4 inch scale when I picked up my first pair of the evil Space Guys. I followed that up with more acquisitions, including a whole bag, but in all that time, I never found compelling evidence that Marx had manufactured any more in that scale. If anything, it appeared to be a one-off experiment, left behind by the ludicrously huge nominal 6-inch figures that proliferated in the 1960s and '70s. Still, there were passing mentions here and there of Marx figures larger than the 70mm Space Guys but still under 5-6 inches. From what information was at hand, they could have been any number of things if they existed at all. Maybe they were "real" Marx figures that never got to full commercial circulation. Maybe they were a vintage experiment from the Mexican Plastimarx or a foreign outlier like the one that made the Ukrainian figures. Or, they could have been just scaled-down copies or loose tributes from long after Marx bit the dust. Once I saw a batch on sale, clearly based on excellent figures I already had, I decided it was worth the money to get a look at them firsthand. Here's pics of most of the lot.

It was immediately clear from inspection that these were not simple imitations. These are virtually identical to the Marx 6-inch sculpts, with a fully comparable level of detail. If these weren't from Marx molds, which I never doubted after getting a good look at them, they were made by someone with direct access to them. Here's more detail shots.

If anything, the real Japanese pistol looked less effective than this.

And here's one that's... different. Well, presumably, some Japanese officers had glasses. I don't recall anyone suggesting they had machetes, though.

The one further question was whether they came before or after the 6-inch figures. I can't easily rule out that these were a prototype of the larger figures, but the law of economy (aka Occam's Razor) dictated that the far more prolific 6-inch line came first. A non-trivial piece of evidence is the bayonet, which I covered in detail the first time around. I don't recall if I mentioned that I had to repair my original infantryman about a year ago, which might or might not have had something to do with bending the bayonet into a horseshoe shape. (Just in case, if it comes up, don't do that.) At any rate, the bayonet on this guy is a lot bigger that the shiv on the Mexican copy, but it still looks proportionately smaller than the 6-inch figure. Since Marx already had trouble with bayonets (more on that in a moment), it's very safe to say the biggest one is the oldest. Here's a lineup of all 3 versions.

And here's the officer, with a 4-inch Space Guy (aka Jason) for comparison. It will be evident from this photo that, alas, these don't "scale" well enough to be easily integrated with the Space Guys adventure.

One more loose end was how many other Marx figures got this treatment. In the inquiries that led to this purchase, I considered a comparably sized set clearly based on the German/ Nazi 6-inch figures (which would have been more relevant to the current and planned Space Guys adventure arc). I declined to buy them partly because I would have nothing to compare them to, and partly because I have found that set far less interesting and attractive than other Marx figures, an opinion that did not improve on seeing them in a smaller scale. It's safe to assume that Marx also at least planned to release similarly sized US troops for them to fight, and perhaps a version of the Soviet set as well. One further datum is that the set had already replaced a discontinued figure shown making a semi-graphic downward thrust with a bayonet, offering the most conclusive proof that the 6-inch line came first.

A further loose end I considered was whether these were in any way part of the evolution of the "standard" 3.75 inch action figure. These definitely are of the same size. Here's a few further comparison shots with Bossk and Sidekick Carl. (I know, Carl's adventure has been postponed a long time...)

As can be seen, these can be considered among the precursors of the 1970s-'80s action figures, assuming they weren't made in the late '70s as a bid to make Marx figures semi-compatible with Star Wars and Adventure People. However, they certainly would not have been the first figures to settle on this size. Here's a lineup with the Archer Space Woman, Ajax Space Guys (plus non-binary person) and the Marx Onion Head alien.

With that, I'm bringing this post to an end. It's another Marx lineage I just might pursue further, if I can do so at a good  price. It may be shrouded in mystery that we probably wouldn't care about if we actually knew, but it's what makes this fun. And to wrap this up, here's an oldie with the Truckstop Queen.

Yeah, this guy didn't even get to the "friend zone"...

And that's all for now, more to come!

No Good Very Bad Movies Finale! The other one with Eddie Murphy

 

 

Title: The Adventures of Pluto Nash

What Year?: 2002

Classification: Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

As I write this, it’s the start of a new year, and most of what I’ve been looking at is simply wrapping things up. For this feature in particular, I have been ready to finish for a long time, without letting go of my goal of getting to a solid 50. I reached 48 cleaning out odds and ends. For the last 2, however, I decided the only option was to wait for the right ones to come to me. I knew I had one when I watched Super Inframan. I remained patient for one more, until as often happens, it landed in my lap. It’s truly a film that would be all but obligatory for a feature like this, a legendary critical and financial bomb whose reputation reached even me. I present The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and what I can say off the bat is that what it made at the box office is about what it looks like it cost.

Our story begins in a middling-future lunar colony, at a nightclub whose proprietor performs accordion music in a kilt. Then we meet our hero, an ex-con named Pluto, because there isn’t a buzzsaw the backside of this movie could miss. When he discovers the actually interesting character is in debt to an interplanetary gangster, he intervenes and time-skips to become the new owner of the now-successful establishment. He makes a new lady friend, only to discover that a mysterious space mafia boss named Crater has decided to kill him rather than collecting actual money. Pluto makes his escape, with help from his mother and his android bodyguard Bruno. But he’s still on the run, and he still doesn’t know who the boss is. It’s robots, AI cabbies, Moon suits and wacky hijinks all the way down. The real mystery is, how did this cost $100 million dollars??!!

The Adventures of Pluto Nash was a 2002 science fiction/ comedy film directed by Ron Underwood (see Tremors 2, kind of), starring Eddie Murphy (see The Golden Child, and I will get back to that). The production had reportedly developed from a story and script optioned in 1983, with Murphy ultimately being given significant control over the final script. The eventual cast included Rosario Dawson as the nominal romantic interest Dina, Randy Quaid as Bruno and Joe Pantoliano of The Matrix as the goon Mogan. The film was an unquestioned commercial failure, earning a worldwide box office of $7.1 million against a budget estimated at $100M before marketing costs, and was subjected to widespread ridicule including multiple Razzie nominations for Murphy’s performances as both Nash and (spoiler) Rex Crater. Pantoliano publicly claimed that he and others involved in the production expected that the movie was “going to be sh(*)t”, though he described the finished film as “better than I thought it was going to be.” The film has received some reappraisal, without achieving “cult” status. It remains available in digital formats.

For my experiences, this one first came not my radar sight unseen when I reviewed The Golden Child, and it definitely figured in my vocal frustrations with that film. Beyond that, the context comes down to what I have already laid down about my conflicted experiences with genre films by “mainstream” filmmakers. At their best, you get subversive satire and genuinely fresh ideas like Hancock and An American Werewolf In London. More typically, you can expect unusually polished films that can break new ground even if they don’t go as far as they think, like A Quiet Place and Frozen (one last time, not the Disney movie…). Then at the low end, you get the likes of The Hand and The Space Between Us, which simply combine the worst cliches of genre and “mainstream” films with few if any of their good points. With all that laid out, this film immediately stands out as peculiarly unremarkable, not inept, not offensive, and in most respects not interesting apart from its quite spectacular commercial failure.

Moving forward, most of the observations to be made can be counted as obvious. The production values, story and especially the acting all hold at a high standard of mediocrity, which the film really had no excuse not to reach given the talent and unfathomable cost involved. The penalty is a plot that tends to feel even more predictable than it is. I can personally attest that at the big “twist”, I fully expected to see a completely different character revealed as the villain, which would absolutely have been more interesting. What keeps the proceedings in the realm of watchability are the actual leads, Murphy and Randy Quaid as the android. Murphy’s protagonist is at least consistently likeable and generally competent, especially compared to The Golden Child, which I can credit to the actor as holding out for dignified material. Quaid, whom I did not recognize, offers one of the most intriguing AI characters on record. What’s most impressive is that he gets into the “uncanny valley” without a single special effect apart from a very slight distortion of his voice. This leads to a still better payoff as underlying intellectual and emotional complexity gradually emerges. It all culminates in a no-win survival situation, as the bot forges on to the heart-breaking end. Of course, the emotional impact is promptly wasted as the narrative punts with a deus ex machina cop-out.

The real “con” side of all this is the unaccountably weak effects, particularly in the exterior lunar landscapes of the “chase” sequences. There was tremendous potential in putting the light-comedy cast in a realistic space environment. Instead, we get a gray backdrop that is as dull as it is fake. Now, this is something where I could second-guess myself, and allow that there was a lot of bad CGI in the 1990s and early 2000s. But this was 4 years after A Bug’s Life, and the visuals don't come close to AntZ. Even syndicated shows like Deep Space 9 had work at least as good well before this came out. The only movie I can think of that might offer favorable comparison is Sky High, which cost less than half as much. Even then, in the areas that matter, it’s like comparing The Wild to Over The Hedge (which led to the most violent language I have ever used in an animation review). The real difference is that Sky High was effective as both a genre deconstruction and a “straight” take, with enough energy to sustain an intentional “camp” factor that this film rarely even tries to achieve. This gets right to an already pervasive observation: This not only should have been better, but could have been more entertaining if it was worse.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the opening. Right after the credits, we get a pan of the lunar colony exterior, which is just interesting enough to make the drab effects seem tolerable. Then we cut to the nightclub, where the above-mentioned owner is singing an irreverent and cynical ditty to his own accompaniment on accordion. That would be Jay Mohr, an accomplished character actor long before and after this. And yes, he’s wearing the kilt. Alas, I wasn’t able to find a clip of more than a few seconds of this for a second viewing in the course of this review. Even so, I can attest it is a surreal high point of the movie that, after Quaid/ Bruno, is probably the main reason I can muster any measure of good will for this film. What’s truly noteworthy is that there’s a quite seamless transition as he finishes the act and starts a conversation with Pluto. It’s wacky, it’s creative, and per the usual refrain, it’s everything the whole movie should have been.

In closing, I could give my usual defense of the rating. But this is one time I feel my decision is self-explanatory. It may not “deserve” to have the same rating as Frozen or Cross Of Iron, but if I could let The Space Between Us go with 2/3, I have no problem letting this one pass on the technicality that I don’t actively hate it. What I really find worthy of comment is my classification as Anachronistic Outlier, which I have long since admitted to be my most overused subcategory. In fact, this is just about the most literal example I have ever encountered. It is truly a movie that history left behind long before it hit theaters, a 1980s story developed as a 1990s movie that came out 2 years into the new millennium. Given that backstory, the question is not why it failed but whether there was any point in the timeline where it might have been successful, let alone good. The final lesson is that we can never know what might have been. That’s enough for me to count this review as ending on a high note. Punch it, Bishop!