tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45049520698481748642024-03-23T21:09:10.163-07:00The Trendy TroodonDavid N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.comBlogger630125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-33662505517071962442024-03-23T21:08:00.000-07:002024-03-23T21:08:20.884-07:00Fiction: The Evil Possum vs. Baldy!<p><b> So I quit a decade-long career this week, after spending two weeks looking at a doodle of a cartoon mouse. And this is the scene that started it, from the same storyline as the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2024/03/fiction-evil-possum-beer-war-battle-demo.html">battle demo</a>. Yeah, these characters were always like this.</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It
was a low, wide compound, which seemed to slouch across the ground. Its outer
layers were razor wire, its middle tiers were brick and barred gates, and its
heart was a concrete block with grudging entry points and vision blocks. All
were now in flames, in a scene like the Hell of the elder gods of a forgotten
race. From the midst came shots and screams, not the cries of men but the
skirling squeals of rats in a trap.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In
the midst of it, ten creatures darted inward. They ran on two legs, yet their
gait was the skulking of creatures whose instinct was to crawl. They bore tails
that swished behind them, just above the ground. What could be seen of their
faces were shining eyes, gleaming teeth, and whiskers that glimmered in the
flames. Two more figures approached. One was like themselves, the other was
much shorter and very fat, wearing a squashed fur cap. The smaller creature
moved with a loping gait, halfway between running and jumping. When it gave a
skirling squeal, the others turned attentively, if only out of curiosity. Then
they followed a pointing finger. As smoke cleared, they beheld the likeness of
a VW Beetle without a rear windshield, next to a breached door. The rats
squealed and scurried after the shorter figure as he bounded into battle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Up
close, the rotund creature was nearly hairless and exceptionally ugly, despite
large eyes and rounded ears that vaguely suggested cuteness. They did not make
up for his mottled, vein-streaked pink skin and wrinkled folds of fat, nor for
his perpetually shifting eyes. “There’s his frinkin’ car!” he squealed in a
high-pitched, whistling voice. “That means he’s already inside or he’s comin’
back! You three frinkers, come with me! The rest of you, hold the rear an’
don’t frinkin’ die!” He unlimbered the wire stock of a scaled Skorpion machine
pistol. It was clear from his bare arms that what the insulating fat covered
was solid muscle. Three of the rats lined up to follow. His tufted tail stuck
out nearly rigid behind him. He made as if to leap, but tumbled and rolled through
the door instead. The chattering of his gun rang out. The followers rushed in
with a chorus of squeals, leaving their companions chittering outside. A moment
later, a volley of automatic fire rang out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
small creature peered out a vision block. The rats who had remained outside lay
dead or dying. One who started to lift a weapon abruptly twitched and lay
still. A huge silhouette loomed over it, a third again the height of the
tallest of the rodents and far more massive. “Frink of a frinkin’ frink,” he
said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Altimus
and his son are dead, as are his Second and his chief guards,” the figure
outside called out in a nasal but commanding voice. “I breached his bunker with
Panzerfaust and collapsed the escape tunnel with multiple timed demolition
charges. The Revenants are no more.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yeah?”
the much smaller creature called out. “Why are you frinkin’ telling us?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I
am giving you an opportunity to consider your position,” the giant said
patiently. “You know who you face: No-Hands, El Diablo Sin Mano Derecho, Archididelphis
invicta, the Unconquered King. 100 of the slaves and debtors of Altimus pooled
their wealth for 10,000 dinars to free themselves from his bondage. Because the
Revenants were pledged to avenge anyone who took the life of one of their own,
it was necessary to strike while you were together. If you renounce your pledge,
I may consider allowing you to leave.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Well,
frink you, Iron Nuts!” the hairless creature called out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Saucer-like
ears rose, and a mane bristled upon a high brow. “Baldur Thorndyke?” No-Hands
called out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yeah,”
the one unavoidably known as Baldy answered. “Small frinking world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yes,”
No-Hands said. His lips curled, revealing the saw-edged teeth of a possum. “This
is the second time we have met since we parted ways. Surely you have
considered, there are ways to stay out of each other’s way.” Two of the rats
abruptly rose up, straight into three blasts of a shotgun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I
was the frinkin’ chief guard,” Baldy said. “Altimus pulled me off duty when I
told him what his frinkin’ chances were.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Unfortunate
for him; less so for you,” No-Hands said. “You are quite good at what you do. A
creature of your talents should have no trouble finding another line of work,
or an employer who would not come to my attention.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I’m
the frinkin’ top-dollar talent,” Baldy answered. “I go where the frinkin’ money
is. People who don’t worry about you don’t pay my frinkin’ going rates.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“But
you have nothing to spend your money on,” the possum said in irritation. “You
have no family, no lovers, and no vices to speak of. Neither do I, of course,
but all know that money is not the reason I do what I do. So why do you insist
on risking your life for wretched beings you would kill for free if they did
not pay you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Because
I’m the frinking best!” Baldy shrieked. He fired a full magazine at No-Hands,
then rolled for the door. No-Hands switched his shotgun for a freshly loaded
PPSh-41. He fired short bursts at a target that came bouncing like a lone
photon in a hall of mirrors. Baldy answered with a semi-random volley that
seemed to propel his globular body one way and then the other. Several times,
his shots struck the chest of his foe, only to ricochet off what appeared to be
a vest of rattlesnake skin inside No-Hands’ mink coat. Finally, Baldy launched
himself straight at the possum, twice his height and nearly 10 times his mass.
At the last moment, No-Hands swung his head forward, and Baldy bounced right
off his skull. The mouse tumbled into the dark with a squeal of pain, and the
possum staggered back against his car with a rumbling call of displeasure. He
refocused his crossed eyes as the final rat reared up. He stepped forward and
took aim, only to topple as a shotgun blast caught him in the chest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Not
so tough, are you?” the rat said. He pumped the shotgun as he advanced. “You’re
bigger than us. They say you’re smarter than us. But you go down the same as
us.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then
both barrels of a shotgun fired from inside a boot that had replaced No-Hands’
right foot.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">“Yes,” No-Hands said
as he sat up. “I do.”</span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-63294991137807890952024-03-11T18:37:00.000-07:002024-03-11T18:37:52.909-07:00Fiction: The Evil Possum/ Beer War Battle Demo!<p> I've ended up on a break from this blog that I was going to let go a bit longer, but I decided to come back with a repost of something I already tried and hilariously failed to plug on my beautiful, useless Wattpad page, a <a href="https://www.wattpad.com/1429009885-the-evil-possum-the-beer-war-battle-demo-the-beer">battle demo </a>for a new adventure of the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/12/fiction-evil-possum-prologue-demo-and.html">Evil Possum</a>! This is, in fact, for the Beer War story line I already posted one <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/03/fiction-evil-possum-demo.html">demo </a>for. If you read it, this might make slightly more sense. Maybe. And yeah, this is what No-Hands' enemies were always like...</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
machine gun emplacement looked like an exploded egg. Its concrete shell was
caved in and bowed out. Within was carnage, so blackened and charred that the
organic could not be distinguished from the inorganic. The most misshapen form
of all was what finally sat up. It was a possum, species <i>Didelphis sapiens</i>,
by name Heinrich Hilfiger, 40 centimeters tall. Bloodshot eyes came wide open
as he sat up and hissed. He shook off the soot and dust that covered him,
revealing a gray and black pelt only somewhat charred. In a moment, his eyes
fixed on a machine gun, miraculously intact. He looked at the end of a belt
still in his hand, then he began to wind it around himself. Momentarily, he had
a doubled bandoleer over his chest, a belt wrapped twice around his waist and a
loose end thrown over his shoulder. He threw three drums into a shoulder bag,
one as large as the other two together, and slammed another large drum into the
gun. It was a total of 600 rounds, enough for 30 whole seconds of fire. For
good measure, he stowed two spare barrels. He examined the gun, and found half
the bipod missing. He hissed and knocked the remainder off with a sharp blow.
Only then did he emerge, the gun at his hip. He saw a figure even taller than
himself, already receding. He all but strangled his own words as he snarled, <i>“Nicht
est Konig!!!” </i>Then he opened fire.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No-Hands
turned his head before he heard the cry. There was just time enough to choose
whether to run left or right. For better or worse, he ran right, toward a basement
loading dock for the warehouse. He stayed just ahead as the adversary behind
him fired a barely controlled stream of fire. A final volley knocked his prosthetic
leg out from under him, and he tumbled and rolled where the ramp dropped below
the level of the pavement. Hilfiger loaded and emptied another drum blindly,
while No-Hands slid down the ramp toward the open loading door. Directly behind
him, a half-second volley disintegrated one of the barrels lined up just
inside, spilling beer across the floor. Hilfiger loaded a second drum. He
finally leaned into view, peering over the rail. No-Hands returned fire with a
rifle longer than he was tall. With both eyes, he might have felled his foe
then and there, but his snapped shot merely tore through the railing. Heinrich
dropped out of sight, while No-Hands retreated to what cover there was among
the barrels.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At
least two more gunmen added their own fire, driving him further down the ramp.
However, only Hilfiger ventured to approach, firing a score of bullets at a
time. He gave a snarl as he paused to replace not only the drum but the visibly
glowing barrel. The latter ejected from an opening in the side of the
perforated housing with a hard metallic clang. He allowed it to clatter to the pavement.
Already, he had the replacement in hand and sliding in. No-Hands fired his
revolver twice as the foe once again revealed himself. This time, Hilfiger
confidently let fly, without slowing or hastening his descent down the ramp. Three
more barrels burst apart on the loading dock floor. Behind them, two whole
stacks came tumbling down as another volley cut through the middle tiers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-Hands retreated from the cascade, into a
warehouse floor lined with racks of beer barrels three and four high.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">An
appreciable fraction of a centimeter of beer splashed underfoot as Heinrich Hilfiger
stepped onto the warehouse floor. A leaking keg came rolling toward him,
spilling beer behind it. He stopped it with his foot. Another came flying from
the right. He blew it apart in mid-air. He leaned around the nearest rack of
barrels and emptied the rest of his final drum in the direction from which the
barrel had come. A dozen barrels and more trickled and poured, adding to the fluid.
Hilfiger calmly pressed his back against the rack. He played out one end of the
belt that wrapped his body before he loaded it into the machine gun with an
audible “chunk” of the cocking handle. His ear twitched at a second metallic
sound. He dropped to the floor just as No-Hands fired his rifle point-blank
into the other end of the line of barrels behind him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
first barrel burst in the center and at both ends, rupturing another barrel in
the other half of the rack beside it. No-Hands gagged and coughed at the resulting
spray of suds and splinters, so he could not have seen if there had been time
the resulting trail of destruction. Another ruptured catastrophically. A third had
one or both ends blown out. A fourth was left intact by a fluke as the bullet
dropped below it and ricocheted off the metal frame of the rack. The projectile
went on through three more barrels before it burst out the far end, straight
over the foe’s head. Hilfiger spat out beer as he rose up on hands and knees,
then squalled as more poured down on his head. He whirled and fired around the
rack. Another barrel disintegrated on the far end of the next rack. Over his
head, the leaking barrel burst, spilling what remained of its contents on
Hilfiger’s head.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hilfiger
held his fire. The sound of leaking barrels and sloshing beer came from all
around. Then there was a louder splash as No-Hands loped deeper into the
warehouse, past one line of racks to a third and final one. Hilfiger ran after
him, through beer that had reached his ankles. No-Hands’ own saucer-like ears
swiveled, triangulating the path of his pursuer. For a moment, he leaned around
the rack he had just reached, his rifle at ready. Then he hissed and retreated
yet again, just before two scores of bullets chewed into the rack. Hilfiger
continued firing as he made his way down the line. No-Hands managed to fire one
shot. The barrel it struck burst. Hilfiger jerked his head back just as the far
end of the one beside it blew out still intact. Yet again, he took a spray of
suds to the face. The bullet ricocheted off the next rack. Hilfiger dropped to
a crouch as the unseen projectile went winging through the warehouse, finally
bursting a keg on the far side of the floor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Heinrich
Hilfiger reached the far end of the floor, wading through beer halfway to his
knees. By then, half the belt at his waist and the bandoleer over his left
shoulder had disappeared. His tail swished behind him, stirring up a trail of
ripples. He squalled in triumph at the sight of the door to a loading dock,
closed and securely locked. He took a position directly in front of the door, next
to a column of stacked barrels. He looked one way and then the other, but there
was no sight nor sound of his opponent. He hissed and gripped the shroud of the
gun. He squalled and drew back his hand. He cursed as he hastily ejected the
overheated barrel, tossing it behind him. He turned, befuddled, at a splash and
simultaneous metallic clang. No-Hands stood at point-blank range, holding the
barrel in the pincer that served as his right hand.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Both
possums dropped their jaws as they roared. No-Hands swung the glowing barrel.
Hilfiger staggered from the blow, his face scalded by the heat. He countered
with the replacement barrel in his hand, catching No-Hands on the tufted
flanges of his chin. The only known specimen of <i>Archididelphis invicta</i> took
a step back as he raised the revolver already in his hand. Hilfiger’s tail wrapped
around his massive wrist like a whip, deflecting two shots into a barrel.
Hilfiger slammed the barrel into his gun as No-Hands rushed to close the distance,
with a third again the mass of his wiry frame. Another round from the revolver
destroyed the padlock on the loading gate. Hilfiger’s tail lashed for No-Hands’
throat. Then Hilfiger screeched in triumph as the barrel went home with a ching.
He promptly fired a volley into a barrel behind him. Three more came tumbling
down. No-Hands’ raised arm somewhat reduced the force of a barrel that bounced
off his high brow. With his pincer, he flung open the gate… revealing a trailer
full of barrels backed up to the gate. That was when Hilfiger opened fire.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A
veritable avalanche of barrels rained down on both combatants. No-Hands managed
to retreat while Hilfiger took the brunt of the downpour. He paused to open his
revolver for reloading. A wild volley blew the weapon out of his mechanical
hand. He turned to see Hilfiger scramble out from under the barrels, even as
more came tumbling down. He ran once more, and Hilfiger finally held his fire
as he pursued, instead playing out more of the belt. The pursuer fired a short
volley before No-Hands disappeared between two racks. He zagged left and then
right, just ahead of a score and half a score of bullets. Directly ahead lay a
third gate, a counterpart to the one through which he had entered. A volley
from behind was cut short. A single shot from the rifle blew it halfway open. A
swing of the rifle butt backed by No-Hands’ momentum knocked the left door off
its hinges. <i>“Linkshander!” </i>Hilfiger called out. No-Hands turned back, to
see his foe load the other end of a broken belt into his weapon.
Simultaneously, he loaded another round into his rifle and fired.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It
was an incendiary round.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No-Hands
grabbed the bottom rung of a guard rail to haul himself up, ahead of the wall
of blue flame that erupted through the loading gate. He vaulted over and
dropped to the pavement as the barrels that had not been destroyed burst or
burned, prolonging what would otherwise have been a short and relatively cool
blaze. Only then did something else rush up the loading dock. It was a nearly
unrecognizable form awash in flame, racing blindly forward. As it ran, it cast
aside a weapon and a belt of ammo that already popped like a chain of fire
crackers. No-Hands only shook his head as he tracked the figure toward its
clear objective, a polluted sluice pond. It became all too clear how
ill-considered it was when Heinrich Hilfiger dived straight into the deepest
part. The surface of the pond itself lit up in a sheet of admittedly
short-lived flame.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“You
were never my equal, Hilfiger,” No-Hands said, “only my opposite. You still
came closer than most.” Then he picked up the machine gun and slung it over his
back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-56151922060933711352023-12-31T19:50:00.000-08:002023-12-31T19:50:36.778-08:00 Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Giant patchisaurs!!!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2tFrADl1YyJvl_0axRI7w6st8KrwYkSSWMB6Jrsqda2WJ77hrjUCtWsl4EFd3-Q0dhv5TmXSjnLTsKCdUVck5edRUyXTuhAluiclugD6JmLPGjJVaYM_St8-JOBQLHIb-wnfhLIjk1BydouH8A2Z9DS2PI7XuIOzcyoogTewT8qy6oncBcENzxkqmPKk/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-06-25-536.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2tFrADl1YyJvl_0axRI7w6st8KrwYkSSWMB6Jrsqda2WJ77hrjUCtWsl4EFd3-Q0dhv5TmXSjnLTsKCdUVck5edRUyXTuhAluiclugD6JmLPGjJVaYM_St8-JOBQLHIb-wnfhLIjk1BydouH8A2Z9DS2PI7XuIOzcyoogTewT8qy6oncBcENzxkqmPKk/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-06-25-536.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>So it's the last night of the year, and I've gone two months without a blog post, and you might think I would just bow out, but I decided it wasn't too late for a dino blog. It just happens I have something very special I've been sitting on, two specimens of the<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/05/legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-patchisaurs.html"> patchisaurs </a>that started this whole thing. To dive right in, here's possibly the first patchi whose origin is entirely accounted for!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvdajUP6VMGHBRoBDLtlm04h-ZPxlzIUQsnOVREAWkehG2NbVZfxngdS9XvmSD3Y3h7jkaLfC4UAz1iW1g9JJSjcYTuXnkttKdltlyLTt-G790ErZJmEbkjoNY8RS58IAvHUgs6GhFHSr4BsLQstqeJcEz7lsAkddGLRCt2AEoB6IMgErN-gKrvPIbU2o/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-06-48-955.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvdajUP6VMGHBRoBDLtlm04h-ZPxlzIUQsnOVREAWkehG2NbVZfxngdS9XvmSD3Y3h7jkaLfC4UAz1iW1g9JJSjcYTuXnkttKdltlyLTt-G790ErZJmEbkjoNY8RS58IAvHUgs6GhFHSr4BsLQstqeJcEz7lsAkddGLRCt2AEoB6IMgErN-gKrvPIbU2o/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-06-48-955.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJLBMPCtWBPAIgDsZBcKlMhjysnGHmRiKcaXKBQWI5K4RQMAEOI8B-Gqc7UPS3p2d5d6aXtWtIJp-E6dpkOLVNXbFS3m4yoP858uxebXFSl-AoC65O5Mle0lrAhsCtLEvKFXqZqDNIgjYrsNIXzE_JAO-dqUX-WPKE_wnpwOZ_0Cgrwrzm_riWnXDxdM/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-07-20-807.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJLBMPCtWBPAIgDsZBcKlMhjysnGHmRiKcaXKBQWI5K4RQMAEOI8B-Gqc7UPS3p2d5d6aXtWtIJp-E6dpkOLVNXbFS3m4yoP858uxebXFSl-AoC65O5Mle0lrAhsCtLEvKFXqZqDNIgjYrsNIXzE_JAO-dqUX-WPKE_wnpwOZ_0Cgrwrzm_riWnXDxdM/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-07-20-807.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nec_Z5iH4ac3M7aTRk08Z8yb5XqO0lanZovloK6a3VxF56d2ayTgKVVfGuFDQLpcGNytnkj8KgyrjM41MQEviATg19-6gHnTTQMCn1U-TmmSmbtvfkx7ZJcZl2f4x1ge_cqgQj37wnHINldaLddNOWqS1sOxbXzgw_3XBJUigcRQv_IFSjNy2GNMoIg/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-07-45-595.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nec_Z5iH4ac3M7aTRk08Z8yb5XqO0lanZovloK6a3VxF56d2ayTgKVVfGuFDQLpcGNytnkj8KgyrjM41MQEviATg19-6gHnTTQMCn1U-TmmSmbtvfkx7ZJcZl2f4x1ge_cqgQj37wnHINldaLddNOWqS1sOxbXzgw_3XBJUigcRQv_IFSjNy2GNMoIg/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-07-45-595.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, for the backstory, I have been seeing unusually large patchisaurs for quite a while now, and finally decided to sample a few. This particular guy came in a pair with a smallish generic rubber dragon creature pictured above, clearly an extra-large version of a patchi with whiskers or mandibles believed to have inspired the Dungeons And Dragons Umberhulk. This is a true hulk indeed, well over 4 inches tall. Soon after I got it, I ran down a lead at a blog called <a href="https://fantasytoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2014/09/unknown-chinasaurs.html">Fantasy Toy Soldiers </a>which confirmed that the small price I paid was almost certainly too much. As it turns out, this was made for a playset laughably called Medieval Times from a company with the only slightly less questionable name Awesome Kids, from what I can tell sometime after 2000. Complete sets, which I found for under $30, contain 4 of these. So where did they come from? Did someone simply copy and enlarge the patchisaur? Did they find original molds to work from? Or did someone actually unearth a vintage patchisaur that even the people who actually had the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/10/fiction-adventures-of-princess-sarah_22.html">owlbear </a>had forgotten about? As usual, the chances of an answer are less than zero, but at least, for once, we have a name and a date that is within a decade. Now, behold the glory of the hulk, newish and old!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqOAc5e8QvuIV50cj7_wO-J0xfBmUXzGAsJljyTUmOwn-pf9my6_VmAornTYATE7JwGghnUoiTVyjkC-zsSlSxC5u7E-4UxSpxxaoAf_66cEyZe91vxJ4oefWA0E0yqELvkWM7DMlq4Z4GjXRtDVkcXTxp9WhJUrSRTK_K4w_HMB4wfGTr_Tx3-2cxm4/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-09-37-789.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqOAc5e8QvuIV50cj7_wO-J0xfBmUXzGAsJljyTUmOwn-pf9my6_VmAornTYATE7JwGghnUoiTVyjkC-zsSlSxC5u7E-4UxSpxxaoAf_66cEyZe91vxJ4oefWA0E0yqELvkWM7DMlq4Z4GjXRtDVkcXTxp9WhJUrSRTK_K4w_HMB4wfGTr_Tx3-2cxm4/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-09-37-789.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"I once ate a bus that was<i> this </i>big..."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">And here is the other, a big version of one I've come to call Flattop, as it turns out not so flat. This is also featured on the linked blog, though that dedicated thing-finder knew no better than I where it came from or who made it. One marginally useful clue is that it bears a script of Hong Kong, which means it must have been made before China took the island back. The further patina and overall look seem about right for the 1970s or '80s at the latest, so it just might be from the people who made the originals. If it wasn't, there's enough additional detail to suggest a source better than the usual 1980s/ '90s copies. He's a modest size, probably 3 1/2 inches, but pretty bulky. Here's pics of the big guy and the original.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfxKefVVpMYkwjPSo06hBrxaOuLYv3dXRQMgY39eixGkT6gq7nkIxVcKSFfYojEPVFDVGJaEurU7syuX81GEhTFRAoeBd64868ikHMSwFu7wlfi5e36hunCT9U5K8BFVNU7S4t5BbVnll3A46f2Lr9J9ErHjTd3svstL1GMx6rjTtHShs9SnmNmSb2hA8/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-10-03-952.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfxKefVVpMYkwjPSo06hBrxaOuLYv3dXRQMgY39eixGkT6gq7nkIxVcKSFfYojEPVFDVGJaEurU7syuX81GEhTFRAoeBd64868ikHMSwFu7wlfi5e36hunCT9U5K8BFVNU7S4t5BbVnll3A46f2Lr9J9ErHjTd3svstL1GMx6rjTtHShs9SnmNmSb2hA8/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-10-03-952.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Ask not what they were smoking. Ask what they were <i>NOT </i>smoking.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjm3Yyb4bVErZzu1QMkPDjQ_vOySBQiVqaOsZXSW8RrERtw7xZP2dhmJvZ75t_f6zHwSG-3paiM6F0miBF-J3Ewj7HhV3eWXqz11ZKH7VMDNzKRTDPURpsK4iAZd23XQ9x6ZlP8LtZ62C8X4Ul55iwZU_ci437IdRTFpqBfJ9mszGorNupSPeHugOI_Bo/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-12-02-333.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjm3Yyb4bVErZzu1QMkPDjQ_vOySBQiVqaOsZXSW8RrERtw7xZP2dhmJvZ75t_f6zHwSG-3paiM6F0miBF-J3Ewj7HhV3eWXqz11ZKH7VMDNzKRTDPURpsK4iAZd23XQ9x6ZlP8LtZ62C8X4Ul55iwZU_ci437IdRTFpqBfJ9mszGorNupSPeHugOI_Bo/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-12-02-333.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FjuGyNTdT6hwzbX22GNUGNWTSMNMIUKVpJYc6HQaPF5HMQYQn6Q0gMVILYyFwEJDR56fZkfYqxUIqbrZWf9viRHFaoAYhj-fEkEcvTs1UjbJUtr5HK7Zer28dmwEMTN7SYf5dzz1SEdfE0FsUjKEZ2GdWzKRGXEm379cxs238ZpiHtgjWotESPYoEV0/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-11-30-370.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FjuGyNTdT6hwzbX22GNUGNWTSMNMIUKVpJYc6HQaPF5HMQYQn6Q0gMVILYyFwEJDR56fZkfYqxUIqbrZWf9viRHFaoAYhj-fEkEcvTs1UjbJUtr5HK7Zer28dmwEMTN7SYf5dzz1SEdfE0FsUjKEZ2GdWzKRGXEm379cxs238ZpiHtgjWotESPYoEV0/w400-h300/IMG_2023-12-30-20-11-30-370.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, how many more of these are there? I saw a specimen for sale of the semi-sane rhino-lizard, featured on the blog, made maybe twice or maybe only half again the size of the one I have. There are also pics of the Rust Monster in two sizes, though as far as I can tell the one I have from back when is in fact one of the "big" ones. I could also swear that a while ago I saw the chupacabra-creature in a spectacular size, but I don't seem to have saved any pics to prove it. I have confirmed and been amazed to see old versions of that malign little beast with a full array of spines on his back. They look more solid, but they do not appear substantially larger as such. I will probably get one sooner or later, and I just might find a large version again. In the meantime, let's wind this up with a pic with <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/06/role-call-dropped-pilots.html">Sidekick Carl</a>. I said that guy is <i>big!</i></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZF27Z2mcA4RzgEH-S4ZQxF-y8NDY9N1v2t-kmjejcKvyti_JvXEGjf2sjMd-I3PQp2nGtVDt4IFfOLfqVtoAMWrDOtN20P504vWDQLvyADzPgGgyrjGJg2hOugMdKRFU5Tqa9bk7wtkp4XMANRiNoC8GPBjWcpBuRb4ao55tP2a1yLFF7GAFf156wDA/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-12-32-237.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZF27Z2mcA4RzgEH-S4ZQxF-y8NDY9N1v2t-kmjejcKvyti_JvXEGjf2sjMd-I3PQp2nGtVDt4IFfOLfqVtoAMWrDOtN20P504vWDQLvyADzPgGgyrjGJg2hOugMdKRFU5Tqa9bk7wtkp4XMANRiNoC8GPBjWcpBuRb4ao55tP2a1yLFF7GAFf156wDA/s320/IMG_2023-12-30-20-12-32-237.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So that's it for another year. It's been good to take a break, but I'm definitely not ready to call it quits yet. As always, it's the dinos that keep me coming back, and at this rate, I'll be seeing the patchisaurs waiting for me at The Furthest Shore. And heck, here's another of the dragon creature!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTVcjLT780ExQEvXXlhpfpanWPw0hBB4nTR5rxszxbr74OkZwua57PqWIh2ppiJH31iy5lBH3lznBiUDz5Y-9wA0qM4TSlkOvMb6LZgGTYIFBFgXlkYvT6FXOLptU8W2-1BuIytDXa4URvJ9EaRqIFI67jxMw6T3XPPEHjevzWczhCxS98-BSoR9ZWgM/s3264/IMG_2023-12-30-20-13-16-680.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTVcjLT780ExQEvXXlhpfpanWPw0hBB4nTR5rxszxbr74OkZwua57PqWIh2ppiJH31iy5lBH3lznBiUDz5Y-9wA0qM4TSlkOvMb6LZgGTYIFBFgXlkYvT6FXOLptU8W2-1BuIytDXa4URvJ9EaRqIFI67jxMw6T3XPPEHjevzWczhCxS98-BSoR9ZWgM/s320/IMG_2023-12-30-20-13-16-680.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">That's all for now, more to come!</div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-32856887218357996332023-10-31T19:47:00.004-07:002023-10-31T19:47:42.712-07:00The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs Halloween special: Scary cute stego!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAMXOMs_3ttGPiyw_4eCqv8ZhZKTCWHFXgUNHXSIF6l5rp3Q3YAxiEJN53QFIOJ7nQ4NyrIIICK3jZ8CCB5pQzryYTlU9EvK3b3krN5M1_xHiQaZiA31OOREEJGpZPA8DvrSJkq4YnOh2ABneoRdX9XdxFDTN-FuuidNstPTGsMLZjw9LlZaQFiP1vjao/s3264/WIN_20231030_19_29_57_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAMXOMs_3ttGPiyw_4eCqv8ZhZKTCWHFXgUNHXSIF6l5rp3Q3YAxiEJN53QFIOJ7nQ4NyrIIICK3jZ8CCB5pQzryYTlU9EvK3b3krN5M1_xHiQaZiA31OOREEJGpZPA8DvrSJkq4YnOh2ABneoRdX9XdxFDTN-FuuidNstPTGsMLZjw9LlZaQFiP1vjao/w400-h225/WIN_20231030_19_29_57_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p>It's Halloween night and I've done a lot less than I used to but a lot more than I have in a while. To round things out, I obviously<i> had</i> to do a dino post. It happened I already had a perfect specimen for a quick post from a trip to an old stomping ground. Here he is in full glory on The Couch Mark 2.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHjGJJZfZInA55w1nyCtP4FuOZCPPVf6uM8JOMP-dGlOY3YIzNM_WiJjNzL59osKunuKQTE939VS9XznyRJetE8NlYff_Qiu_ZUf8QDFMEpcI3FEtGQ6AgU5iIIxKaxU59xj6IiNfsKLHJYeORCsQkPcXNQrKCGBv8ZCw_9fRcVp_L9XMTrx6cji31cM/s3264/WIN_20231030_19_28_10_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHjGJJZfZInA55w1nyCtP4FuOZCPPVf6uM8JOMP-dGlOY3YIzNM_WiJjNzL59osKunuKQTE939VS9XznyRJetE8NlYff_Qiu_ZUf8QDFMEpcI3FEtGQ6AgU5iIIxKaxU59xj6IiNfsKLHJYeORCsQkPcXNQrKCGBv8ZCw_9fRcVp_L9XMTrx6cji31cM/w400-h225/WIN_20231030_19_28_10_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Now for the story, I made this acquisition late last month at the Arizona Museum of Natural History, which I volunteered at back when it had the much cooler name Mesa Southwest Museum. Of course, I had a long history here. This is where I picked up the actually good Prehistoric Panorama <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/12/rogues-roundup-cambrian-creatures.html">Cambrian creatures</a>, an okay pachycephalosaur I can't confirm I featured before, and my <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/09/legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-dinobots.html">second worst dinobot</a>. This little guy was part of a lot that appears to have flooded the shop, with several whole boxes discretely positioned under shelves and tables. His tag identifies him as made by the prolific company Aurora (maker of my first and only Valentine's Day gift), per the data entirely from recycled bottles. He's obviously a cute little guy, and pretty soft. Here's a few closeups.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTvnQr_auhTlC3b9b3uRTPooYztERDL-PrpYvfJABCS55LEFKwZ-dOLpXtf9GIgNz15_aN3P-uD4cKis-LTFHBBz4RsZqUBmg7-Mr5Z3T-sXE4WCa2eT5hUmJyqHpr3X0XhpJJKJzgi7OlQDdGAET5_tZBwwFzZEbWagnZsn-YUvBaS40nQfvCAARYaQ/s3264/WIN_20231030_19_28_47_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTvnQr_auhTlC3b9b3uRTPooYztERDL-PrpYvfJABCS55LEFKwZ-dOLpXtf9GIgNz15_aN3P-uD4cKis-LTFHBBz4RsZqUBmg7-Mr5Z3T-sXE4WCa2eT5hUmJyqHpr3X0XhpJJKJzgi7OlQDdGAET5_tZBwwFzZEbWagnZsn-YUvBaS40nQfvCAARYaQ/w400-h225/WIN_20231030_19_28_47_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ1U0Roi-N3RdMXTcrqJA7whjHX687dQMMKpbIDr4E5aSlUVP1CwrSuyzqYWm6HJ0c16NgdG6GDaRZpzYbAWXx__civwgNjZFpMtKwLOTpf5K7f8MmQHTR3h2H3kt1k5OiMHURc5dDbKezgFOfp6KTDnTDMSl68fVKzuqr_aRtM3kolLhScKNUUHBrVdU/s3264/WIN_20231030_19_28_53_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ1U0Roi-N3RdMXTcrqJA7whjHX687dQMMKpbIDr4E5aSlUVP1CwrSuyzqYWm6HJ0c16NgdG6GDaRZpzYbAWXx__civwgNjZFpMtKwLOTpf5K7f8MmQHTR3h2H3kt1k5OiMHURc5dDbKezgFOfp6KTDnTDMSl68fVKzuqr_aRtM3kolLhScKNUUHBrVdU/w400-h225/WIN_20231030_19_28_53_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOpvZYF8ZW7zsZkrI2Oqvdq-V0RfL7Qx6f-AWWlJWUDixQH6M8KGtrKYTTzTw0fGd-Eghb2I-4tZkutkM-I_2HfKQ-vIwcjHtcu9_RU3PUNpJnLBebo4YJZotbw-pTJ5oF-HVmGJWa1yYuGeCyYSnR77Cm2m0h_AyWtXQrvMA5KCaSSO25sjyOc2EjefI/s3264/WIN_20231030_19_29_24_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOpvZYF8ZW7zsZkrI2Oqvdq-V0RfL7Qx6f-AWWlJWUDixQH6M8KGtrKYTTzTw0fGd-Eghb2I-4tZkutkM-I_2HfKQ-vIwcjHtcu9_RU3PUNpJnLBebo4YJZotbw-pTJ5oF-HVmGJWa1yYuGeCyYSnR77Cm2m0h_AyWtXQrvMA5KCaSSO25sjyOc2EjefI/w400-h225/WIN_20231030_19_29_24_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"I'm innocent and adorable. But I'm still judging you."</span></div><br /><p>So that's enough for a quick post. As usual, this feature is always worth the time, and finds like this make things easy when I'm in a hurry. I definitely expect a longer installment soon. And here's some more pics from the trip...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBeIAkolAP7JihPIc54acY8ZLKFyMe30VZPXmmTR-4gyC60bE-cOZe0P-wdN7xnW_TgoaCliqFmcl46W3BMsHrBDdvX87Uk-QRW4_6CHZS3vuwoPCRvhTCTqrHRC4_tgfUCq8hD6fxncOmjt6RHGDjUJgTaX0UMZNBXORI4Mv4vtOkVkTBOimN0tWEOuU/s4160/20230922_154253.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBeIAkolAP7JihPIc54acY8ZLKFyMe30VZPXmmTR-4gyC60bE-cOZe0P-wdN7xnW_TgoaCliqFmcl46W3BMsHrBDdvX87Uk-QRW4_6CHZS3vuwoPCRvhTCTqrHRC4_tgfUCq8hD6fxncOmjt6RHGDjUJgTaX0UMZNBXORI4Mv4vtOkVkTBOimN0tWEOuU/w300-h400/20230922_154253.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Resistance is futile..."</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClCuOD4okDXmdMANJhVjYyRTKffhzNAARB3n_nRJsnGFgZX_vcGcHj1wr8Flv4wjzaQyqxKKxTsrD6P20CshO-IFNL34YLW6lhvyad-quB_tREwToKgGVSBPs2VYmhPUWKEsztMad4PxXYkPC0jGsK7xOI_Ao-mDd2SdaqY6AGIc1AN7vCkCCgUArzMc/s4160/20230922_155926.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClCuOD4okDXmdMANJhVjYyRTKffhzNAARB3n_nRJsnGFgZX_vcGcHj1wr8Flv4wjzaQyqxKKxTsrD6P20CshO-IFNL34YLW6lhvyad-quB_tREwToKgGVSBPs2VYmhPUWKEsztMad4PxXYkPC0jGsK7xOI_Ao-mDd2SdaqY6AGIc1AN7vCkCCgUArzMc/w300-h400/20230922_155926.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-spinosaur.html">Spinosaur</a> flashback!</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPKkQRf8u7OsYZCVnGsXLEo324Vv43rLwvdZchyphenhypheno7R61ZGaZg4GTNTc16QoXAK_NanZmqNoyxtBMX5sYA77Tj_X0kShsOfTzq9sA5IWBinTXFhUqXgErTlujBAlMbtv2koQzlrA4QeflBG5MUN0pOJwfo-hkOrRqO0Nx_eAkMbdgspRyJVwLQBH7FVreI/s4160/20230922_155931.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPKkQRf8u7OsYZCVnGsXLEo324Vv43rLwvdZchyphenhypheno7R61ZGaZg4GTNTc16QoXAK_NanZmqNoyxtBMX5sYA77Tj_X0kShsOfTzq9sA5IWBinTXFhUqXgErTlujBAlMbtv2koQzlrA4QeflBG5MUN0pOJwfo-hkOrRqO0Nx_eAkMbdgspRyJVwLQBH7FVreI/w300-h400/20230922_155931.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The Schleich vs Safari war is heating up.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPLdL2t_OKIrmz4c49701wzJsfXTabs83RXRyeQSFzdj8LtnKT488f-ICCIgo_meZX-L8AByfQE6niiYz4Fg78bTr9VP7V31QhCEZqkTvyMulXjdEOUV_L0zhCctptdPmoMCsQ789RP4NP9MyhDdQFARKw91MMvy5JGGQDJDfTULbyfNxnj_rT_4ctXBY/s4160/20230922_160011.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPLdL2t_OKIrmz4c49701wzJsfXTabs83RXRyeQSFzdj8LtnKT488f-ICCIgo_meZX-L8AByfQE6niiYz4Fg78bTr9VP7V31QhCEZqkTvyMulXjdEOUV_L0zhCctptdPmoMCsQ789RP4NP9MyhDdQFARKw91MMvy5JGGQDJDfTULbyfNxnj_rT_4ctXBY/w300-h400/20230922_160011.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"We will have our revenge when the school bully sees you with the pack..."</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq47Z6eooIgPF8GO9BPDK-FjQTbZjpX1ChZb6EPxnTlt5_NtRxbvE7us2Ed9CKOwZHKK22CC31IPcIBr-6bpYRup0PNMJNupmRbe0OBqKVQAfqy05A7aF4_xIHnBl8E7xEW3q_p6zNvrpXbnVTLELfrOGdC7nGJgrgUbm_J94IKbkcXvY-4QJsNQoZamI/s4160/20230922_160820.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq47Z6eooIgPF8GO9BPDK-FjQTbZjpX1ChZb6EPxnTlt5_NtRxbvE7us2Ed9CKOwZHKK22CC31IPcIBr-6bpYRup0PNMJNupmRbe0OBqKVQAfqy05A7aF4_xIHnBl8E7xEW3q_p6zNvrpXbnVTLELfrOGdC7nGJgrgUbm_J94IKbkcXvY-4QJsNQoZamI/w300-h400/20230922_160820.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiz5qvFvvgAKg96_I0o2vIhSbEwBea3lfK16wlmoS1n0ibhz0fpzeJ9RD-IfWJmOWGmpK0GwrJf_IaQJJZn-yOgSz-TZ4RvC95EcvvJ8RnVgVvR7x5wgfITqQvXsXYQM4vjVvkHCym29q9GDDvLF0rmQIyF8vS9xujOhCYyY_0dl6636a8dOWoHs97cHQ/s4160/20230922_160841.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiz5qvFvvgAKg96_I0o2vIhSbEwBea3lfK16wlmoS1n0ibhz0fpzeJ9RD-IfWJmOWGmpK0GwrJf_IaQJJZn-yOgSz-TZ4RvC95EcvvJ8RnVgVvR7x5wgfITqQvXsXYQM4vjVvkHCym29q9GDDvLF0rmQIyF8vS9xujOhCYyY_0dl6636a8dOWoHs97cHQ/w300-h400/20230922_160841.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And why not one more in the bag?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlABTVXr5UqhpO7FyZa89rcSGVa1mJQfc4lVo_SQDwPH97XsBqKI0h1EgPBHun5sWJVhhKyxhyphenhyphen-XS2j9BTViTDQb7qaXoNxWk0LPvKUNWTKb3pz6t76EcI3tlxK4RcE7SD8xKcOeLzso5q3DQm4ojcsjsbYgAjdY-E9jDj9szHxYzxHkHgJr9BcN7XtMo/s3264/WIN_20231030_19_30_39_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="1836" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlABTVXr5UqhpO7FyZa89rcSGVa1mJQfc4lVo_SQDwPH97XsBqKI0h1EgPBHun5sWJVhhKyxhyphenhyphen-XS2j9BTViTDQb7qaXoNxWk0LPvKUNWTKb3pz6t76EcI3tlxK4RcE7SD8xKcOeLzso5q3DQm4ojcsjsbYgAjdY-E9jDj9szHxYzxHkHgJr9BcN7XtMo/w225-h400/WIN_20231030_19_30_39_Pro.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-34247841702443146662023-10-29T20:56:00.002-07:002023-10-29T20:56:19.060-07:00Adaptation Insanity: The one that's the best Stephen King adaptation<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhApOTm0PoUpVp4Xhyec6bOnuLQsvOHPhCVnLkQxJtc9CzIupkG1lOVb-vFATnnusjYq4ZvKIwDoqocv-Y4ABylorP3vWMkdHTX-f82cZiU4PtoZ6PzckrJgXfTnQUyBhoAfTo5-pNADH-YjVyt3jhLoOkwXRrV1nKMAVvGid0GZV7EB1IZy599wqFmNbI/s1498/Misery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1498" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhApOTm0PoUpVp4Xhyec6bOnuLQsvOHPhCVnLkQxJtc9CzIupkG1lOVb-vFATnnusjYq4ZvKIwDoqocv-Y4ABylorP3vWMkdHTX-f82cZiU4PtoZ6PzckrJgXfTnQUyBhoAfTo5-pNADH-YjVyt3jhLoOkwXRrV1nKMAVvGid0GZV7EB1IZy599wqFmNbI/w268-h400/Misery.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Title:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Misery<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What Year?:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
1990<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Classification:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Mashup<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s
Good! (4/4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this, I’m in an
unplanned breather from my Halloween lineup, and the big change this time
around is that I haven’t been leaning on movie reviews to fill it out. Now, I’m
ready to get out one more, and I decided to go with more movies based on the works of
Stephen King. And there was no better place to start than my pick for the best
one of all. I speak of none other than <i>Misery</i>, as at a minimum the one
that does the most to improve on the book.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Our story begins with a
writer named Paul finishing his latest novel at an isolated cabin. He starts
for home to a jaunty musical number, only to take a tumble on an icy mountain
road. He wakes up to find himself being looked after by a matron named Annie
who introduces herself as a nurse and his biggest fan. She assures him that the
proper authorities and his agent have been notified, but proves evasive as he
asks how soon they will come to pick him up. Soon enough, she lays out the
truth: She has kept his rescue secret, while the wider world thinks he is dead.
Annie wants Paul to herself, and when she finds out he has killed off the
character that made him rich, she demands that he write a new adventure to
bring her back. The author must write his own escape plan, if the nosey sheriff
doesn’t get to him first- but the nurse is even deadlier than she seems!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Misery </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">was
a 1990 psychological horror film directed by Rob Reiner, based on the novel of
the same name by Stephen King. It was the 17<sup>th</sup> theatrical film based
on King’s work, though only the 7<sup>th</sup> based on one of his full-length
novels. Development reportedly began after producer Andrew Scheiman personally
recommended the book to Reiner. William Goldman, a veteran screenwriter and the
author of <i>The Princess Bride</i>, wrote the final script. The late James
Caan was cast as Paul Sheldon and Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, after the roles
were offered to actors including Warren Beatty and Bette Midler respectively. The
soundtrack was composed by Marc Shaiman. Few changes were made to the story,
the most significant being the addition of the sheriff Buster played by Richard
Farnsworth (d. 2000) and (spoiler…) the removal of an arc in which Paul
publishes the final Misery novel after destroying a fake manuscript. Several early
advertisements referenced a scene in which Annie severs Paul’s foot, which
was altered in the final film. The film was a financial and critical success, earning
over $60 million against a $20M budget, and won a Best Actress Oscar for Bates.
James Caan died in June 2022 at age 82.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For my experiences, this
is one where I’m foggier than usual. I distinctly recall seeing this movie on
network television, and I can remember reading bits of the novel in the early
2000s, but I’m not quite certain which one came first. What I do recall is that
I read the novel much later, somewhere in the 2015-2016 window, and very
quickly concluded that the movie was if anything a substantial improvement. Sure,
the book isn’t “bad”, but under scrutiny, it’s one of his more self-indulgent
experiments, with a lot of on-the-nose venting that often seems to be at other writers’
expense. (Apart from anything else, Stephen King <i>still</i> hasn’t done a
“real” sequel outside of the Dark Tower series…) By comparison, the movie
improves as much as its medium can improve on a literary source, greatly aided
by two superb actors. (And I meant to say a <i>lot </i>more about the soundtrack...) The one thing missing is the author’s searing hatred for
his own character, which the novel transforms into revealed hypocrisy, but the
difficulty of conveying that on-screen is obvious enough that the effective
omissions of the ending are understandable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving forward, I’m
already feeling like this is a case in point of a movie “too good” for me to
review in my usual format. What I find most worthy of comment is how easy it is
to underestimate the rest of the cast in the face of Bates’ performance. Caan/
Paul himself is effectively turned into a supporting player, in itself a
perversely effective subversion of the “damsel in distress” and the gender-role
baggage that goes with it. That, in turn, pays off with real growth as the
victim recovers and begins to develop his own plans. The big surprise is
Farnsworth, whose only counterpart in the book is a nameless casualty of
Annie’s wrath. He becomes an effective third player in the story, in the
process adding a police-procedural element to the genre mix. It’s most
intriguing to see his outside view of Paul Sheldon’s works. Finally, as with a
number of things, his abrupt end is in its own way at least as brutal as
anything in the book. (And dear Logos, I think I must have heard of the
lawnmower scene when the movie was in theaters…)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then, of course, there is
Annie. What’s most striking is how easy it would have been for the filmmakers
to compromise with an attractive or even “Hollywood unattractive” actress.
Instead, we get a performer every bit as ungainly as King’s descriptions,
without the script and cameras going into “fat-shaming” either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We simply have a plus-size, middle-aged performer
playing a character we could pity under any other circumstance. That is only
the bedrock of her performance, which somehow gets more disturbing the more we
can laugh. Then what I find most interesting is that her character becomes more
sympathetic than the character in the original, and I have never been satisfied
that this is simply because her bloodiest acts are removed or (arguably…) toned
down. The screen version of Annie certainly tends to be absent-minded rather than
actively sadistic, yet this is not played into a redeeming quality. It merely
makes her less like Sid from <i>Toy Story </i>and more like Elmyra from Tiny
Toons; she may not intend evil, but she is no less destructive for it. (Now I’m
getting anger flashbacks to those idiot kids in <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/space-1979-franchise-fatigue-one-that_20.html">ET</a></i>…) To me, the
difference is that it makes her more believable, and by implication not so
different from any of us. And that brings me to a thought I had on my very
first viewing, that her character would have been more disturbing and
ultimately more frightening if the “backstory” had been cut entirely. All she
needed to be was an outlier of toxic fandom that the wider world was still oblivious
to. Portraying her otherwise was pretty much the same as making the big reveal
in <i>The Shining</i> that Jack was a murderous wifebeater all along.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And that gets to the “one
scene”, and there’s one that always stood out in the movie and the book. After
Paul’s first attempt to revive Misery on demand, by rewriting the final scenes
of his book, Annie simply says it’s “all wrong”. Paul is polite in asking for
her input, with a level of returning assurance that will grow. To illustrate,
she goes into a story of her childhood (which Paul questions in the book) of
going to the serials, and an especially contrived resolution of a cliffhanger. Bates
delivers it in top form, if anything with surprising restraint. She concludes,
in a line that seems to be unique to the film, “Misery was buried in the ground
at the end, Paul, so you’ll have to start there.” It’s all great, and it not
only checks all the boxes of “AU” and “canon” that I can now hate that I know
but does sound very much like me on one of my rants. This is what fandom is and
was like, though I maintain that even then, we still understood that the point
was to have fun. And I can give no better defense of the critique I laid out
above than this, that if this sequence was the only time we learned anything
about Annie’s past, the story wouldn’t be the least bit worse for it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In closing, what I come
back to is what I really think of Stephen King. I’ve been very sparing in covering
his work, but I have still covered a good sample:<i> <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/03/super-movies-one-about-comic-that-never.html">Creepshow, </a><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/space-1979-apocalypse-how-1-one-with.html">Maximum Overdrive,</a>
<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/10/no-good-very-bad-movies-6-one-thats.html">Sleepwalkers</a></i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/10/no-good-very-bad-movies-6-one-thats.html"> </a>and most recently<i> <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/10/adaptation-insanity-one-that-readapted.html">Trucks</a></i>. (See also<i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/09/really-good-movies-one-with-tv-zombies.html"> The Signal, </a></i>kiiind of...) These definitely give a
representative sample of what I find good in Mr. King’s work. I can add that
what I find bad, I cannot find in any story or book I have read through. My overall
policy with King has been to sample cautiously, and either read what engages
with me or respectfully set aside what doesn’t. The end result is that I have
read some of what is agreed to be his best work, skipped a number of his “classics”
and come to greatly appreciate some of his works that remain decidedly offbeat.
(Again, how in Cocytus did we <i>not </i>get a <i>Rose Madder</i> movie?) The
present film similarly shows how to get a good movie out of King’s material:
Don’t worry about what’s most popular, or his “best”, but just run with
something that’s different. It’s a lesson Hollywood may not learn anytime soon,
yet there are enough quirky projects out there to have hope for the future. For
now, we can appreciate what we’ve got. “Isn’t that an oogie mess…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-46162293480319650792023-10-22T20:14:00.007-07:002023-10-22T20:14:59.067-07:00Fiction: The Adventures of Princess Sarah, Part 2!Filling out another week while it's still the weekend, didn't have anything better to work with than a second chapter of the adventure of <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/10/fiction-adventures-of-princess-sarah.html">Princess Sarah</a>, the spin-off to my<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/09/fiction-retro-gaming-parody-novel.html"> retro gaming parody novel </a>(which I just dumped on a<a href="https://www.wattpad.com/story/354578733-your-princess-is-in-another-castle"> free platform</a> I probably should have been using all along). This has what's already my best gag, and as a bonus, I worked in the original owlbears!<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sarah’s first sensation
was falling. The next was landing on her face. She skinned her knees in gravel,
and one of her teeth came out against the rock. She started to cry, before she
remembered she was a big girl now. She raised her head, and found Prince Robert
looking down at her, his frog pack on his back and his beloved toy Frog Frog in
hand.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Sarah
fall down,” he said. “Sarah ow ow?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Oh,”
said a distant, murmuring voice, “look at them!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Oh,
don’t talk like a baby,” Sarah said. She scrambled to her feet, briefly looking
left and right. There was another murmur, as if one voice pressed another to be
silent. They were in what was clearly a streambed, empty but still damp. Her River
Cow bag had landed in a murky puddle beside her. She snatched it up and
absentmindedly used her skirt to wipe it off. “Oh, poor Missus Cow… I mean, I
hope it’s not wet.” She reached into an outer pouch and pulled out a jar of
salve. Robert helped rub it on her knees.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Ooh,”
came the distant voice. “Look, the little one’s helping the big one!” The other
voice rumbled louder than before.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Well,”
Sarah said, “we must have opened a magic door. Father said that was how he met
Mother.” She smiled at Robert. “It will be an adventure, just like in the
Guidebook! Ooh! I hope it didn’t get wet!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She
pulled out the book, and sighed in relief to find it dry. Indeed, she could
feel no dampness at all on the inside of the bag. That was because it was, in
fact, lined with real Water Cow hide, something Mother and Father had so far
neglected to explain. She half-spoke the table of contents: Cartography, Topography,
Geology, Botany, Zoology, Ethnography, Diplomacy, Polity. She flipped to the
second chapter, then the third.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“`In
your surroundings, you can see the past, present and future,`” she read. “`If
there is a clamshell in desert sand, then it must once have been an ocean. If
there is a tree or the cornerstone of a house still rooted in a riverbank, it
must once have been dry ground. If there are stones that look round and smooth,
then they must have been worn down by slow and gentle currents water or other
elements. If there is gravel and large stones with sharp edges, then stronger forces
may be in effect…’” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She
looked up and down the channel. There were indeed a number of angular rocks.
Then, half-buried in the gravel, there was the keel of a capsized boat. “Oh,
dear,” she said. “`…If you see evidence of floods or falls of rock, vacate to
higher ground as quickly as possible.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Frog,”
Robert said. He pointed to a purple toad with oddly long legs. It was struggling
to climb up the steep edge of the bank, without appreciable success.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They
quickly scrambled up the streambed. “Aren’t they adorable?” said the distant voice.
“I just want to hold them! Those packs! Aww, look at the little boots! Really,
can’t we help them?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Now,
now,” came the lower voice. “We can’t interfere. Besides, if they have our
smell, their parents may not take them back…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They
reached a hilltop where a tree grew from an outcropping. Sarah declared they would
have lunch. She poured them each a glass out of Dink. She took out a safety
knife and cut up the roll. She tried spreading the pomegranate jelly on a small
piece, but she spat it out as soon as she tasted it with the hard and sour
bread. Instead, she cut up the cheese and half of the sausage and served them
on the bread. “`A lady in the wilderness should encourage the gentlemen with food
prepared well and served with aesthetics and good cheer,’” she recited from
memory. She offered the stacked slices to Robert.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Frog,”
he said. He opened Frog Frog, and the purple toad hopped out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Robert,
Mummy and Mother told you, you can’t take anything real for your collection,”
Sara said. The Prince offered a crumb of the bread to the creature, which
showed no interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Help
frog,” he said. He tried again with a sliver of sausage, which the toad
swallowed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Oh,
he is kind!” cooed the voice. “And so brave!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As
the Princess and Prince ate, the sky grew overcast. Before they had finished,
it began to rain. Robert opened the umbrella to deflect what the branches of
the tree did not. The toad hopped about on the dry ground, which it evidently
preferred to the rain. Sarah flipped open Dink’s top and leaned out, collecting
a smattering of rainwater. When she looked downhill, she saw that the streambed
was already half full. She again took out the Guide, and opened it to the
fourth part.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“`To
travel and survive in an unfamiliar land, the first priority must be to
identify and harvest edible plants,’” she read. “`There is no better
preparation than learning the flora of the known realms, yet this is but the
first step. It is essential above all not to let familiar appearances lead to
false conclusions. Even the most learned and experienced have perished because
they took a deadly plant for an edible one, or disregarded a source of valuable
nutrition because it resembled a noxious weed…’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She
flipped through a series of illustrations that filled a good part of the guide,
pausing occasionally to consider the plants around them. None of them looked familiar
or welcoming in the first place, and several that had looked at least vaguely
similar to ones in the book proved to be among the strangest of them all. She
reached out and pulled down one of the very branches overhead. The leaves, on
examination, were strings of separate fronds. What looked like a single flower
was similarly a cluster of tiny blossoms. She examined one of number of white
globes that she had taken for fruit. Its surface proved papery and translucent.
She found that it had no stem, but bulged directly from the branch. At a gentle
poke, it split, revealing a pallid worm that hissed at her. She squealed and
let go of the branch. As it snapped upward, the grub went flying.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Let’s
go,” Sarah said as soon as the rain cleared. “We need to find a safe place.”
Robert shrugged and shouldered his pack. The long-legged toad clung to one
strap. His sister read as they walked from an earlier chapter. “`When possible,
follow waterways. They will lead to centers of agriculture, population and even
government…’” When they reached the streambed, now full of coursing, muddy
water, she turned upstream.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Oh,
no,” said the distant voice. “We can’t let them go <i>that </i>way…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Now,
dear,” rumbled the answering voice, already grudgingly, “it’s going to be a
bother…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sarah
tramped along the bank, Robert following behind her. Something almost but not
quite like reeds grew along the edges, sometimes well back and sometimes so far
forward they had to push through it. Ahead was a stand of trees like the one
they had sat under. She read aloud from the fifth part of the Explorer’s Guide,
on zoology. “`The next and most vital step in understanding an unknown land is
to catalog its animal life,’” she said. “`Consider the size, shape and habits of
each creature. Does it consume plants, meat or a combination of both? Is it
alone, or does it gather and travel in groups? Are its colors and mode of life
a match for its surroundings, or could it be a traveler from elsewhere like
yourself?” As she spoke, she took a closer look at the strange toad. They were
mere Cubits from the edge of the trees when the creature stepped into their
path.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It
was three Cubits high and utterly massive. It had scales on its belly and
limbs, and long, fibrous quills on its back. It seemed to have no neck, only a
massive head that protruded from between its hunchbacked shoulders. Its face
was dominated by a long, stout beak, a helmet-like carapace and two red eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Please,”
</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">she
said, carefully enunciating, <i>“you must go back. I will show you…”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sarah
froze and stared. Robert huddled behind her. The squawking cries hurt her ears.
It was like the roar of one of the engines Father’s craftsmen wouldn’t stop tinkering
with, drawing out every note with prolonged reverberations. But what she found
most disconcerting was that its cries sounded almost like words. She hastily
consulted the Guide.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“`If
intelligence is unknown, treat a creature as you would a strange dog or a menagerie
beast outside its cage,’” she quavered. “`Maintain an upright posture, firm eye
contact, and an authoritative voice. If possible, withdraw deferentially,
without haste or any sign of panic…’” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As
she edged deeper into the almost-reeds, she straightened and called out, “Leave
us alone, we don’t want trouble!” She added, “I’m a princess, not a little
girl! I’m six, almost six and a half!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Suddenly,
a second and even larger creature burst out of the trees, as tall as the armoire.
<i>“No, no!”</i> he bellowed. <i>“Stay away, see!”</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sarah
and Robert both shrieked, and immediately turned and ran. The girl took her
brother’s hands, though within moments, it was he who pulled her forward. As
they disappeared, the larger creature embraced his mate. He groomed her mane as
she shook with honking sobs. “Ohh,” she said, “did we have to do that?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“There,
there, he said. “I’m sure they’ll be all right…” He gave a honk that made the
children run faster still.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /></div>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-75283041164660940182023-10-20T16:42:00.003-07:002023-10-20T16:43:33.727-07:00Adaptation Insanity: The one that readapted Maximum Overdrive<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVGpaVCvkRVtlYXcw-fddF0LCjgS9tOePq-jpC28UxSJijoMTOEZWbXpfjrLIq6M15fu8KGjrjeKbRXmiZSwee6B8DwQeMOa-uIgxhB4UoAYMl_GAQi8I9fC1nn-YwTiuJ2p6fba8WNzYZF8U4K-5KsnTJFzkBeSWSUbpg8JV9-bXNwvcri0v40tKmis/s475/Trucks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="334" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVGpaVCvkRVtlYXcw-fddF0LCjgS9tOePq-jpC28UxSJijoMTOEZWbXpfjrLIq6M15fu8KGjrjeKbRXmiZSwee6B8DwQeMOa-uIgxhB4UoAYMl_GAQi8I9fC1nn-YwTiuJ2p6fba8WNzYZF8U4K-5KsnTJFzkBeSWSUbpg8JV9-bXNwvcri0v40tKmis/w281-h400/Trucks.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Title:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">
Trucks<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">What Year?:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">
1997<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Classification:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">
Weird Sequel<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">
Ow, My Brain!!! (Unrated/ NR)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this, I’m
trying to scrape together a lineup for Halloween, and that brought me back to this
so far barely started <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/adaptation-insanity-one-where-scariest.html">feature</a> on adaptations. That, in turn, brought me to a
whole lot of maybe pile material from everyone’s “favorite” author, Stephen
King. (See <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/10/no-good-very-bad-movies-6-one-thats.html">Sleepwalkers,</a></i> fungghh.) As I surveyed the material at hand, one stood out that would otherwise
have gone under my even more abortive feature on <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-rerun-review-one-with-george-c-scott.html">TV movies</a>. It’s one King
adaptation that has stayed obscure even though it’s been readily available for
a very long time, and as a bonus, it’s based on the same source material as the
only film the author directed. So do we have undiscovered gold, or a buried cat
spoor? Would I be writing about it if it was that simple? Here’s <i>Trucks,</i>
a made-for-TV film that has just a little more under the hood than one might
think.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Our story begins with an
old jalopy that takes out its owner. We then move to a little townlet with a
truck stop and a lodge for a sightseeing tour, where a man and his son, a
veteran and his spunky daughter and a vaguely mysterious lady guide meet up. While
the domestic awkwardness unfolds, they notice several vehicles moving around
strangely, with no explanation or context beyond vague official broadcasts
about chemical spills in the area. They soon find themselves under siege by
trucks that have no drivers, seemingly led by a meat truck that locked its
driver in the freezer. The dad becomes the leader of our little band as they
plan to fight back. But soon it becomes clear that the machines don’t just want
the humans dead- they want to be their masters!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Trucks </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">was
a 1997 made-for-television movie aired by the USA cable network. It was the
second adaptation of Stephen King’s short story of the same name, following the
1986 theatrical <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>film <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/space-1979-apocalypse-how-1-one-with.html"><i>Maximum
Overdrive</i> </a>directed by King. The film was produced by Trimark Pictures, a company
also responsible for distributing <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/10/revenge-of-revenant-review-one-with.html"><i>Dead Alive</i>,</a> with New Zealand film
maker Chris Thomson as director. King and screenwriter Brian Taggert<i> </i>(see…
<i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/04/featured-creature-rat-file-3-one-with.html">Of Unknown Origin</a></i>???) shared credit for the script. The cast was led by
TV/ character actor Timothy Busfield as the dad Ray and Brenda Bakke as the
guide Hope. Unusually, the film was rated by the MPAA, which gave it PG-13. The
movie was released on VHS. It is currently available for free streaming on Tubi
and Amazon Prime.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For my experiences, I
watched this one as a video rental around 2005, after reading the story but
before watching <i>Maximum Overdrive.</i> At the time, I regarded it positively,
even finding favorable comparisons to the theatrical film once I had seen both.
Since then, I have come back to both at irregular intervals, and what I have
come to see is equal and opposite extremes. <i>Maximum Overdrive </i>was an
exercise in big-budget 1980s excess, exacerbated by a creator with no experience
and unlimited creative control. The present film, on the other hand, is a clearly
competent production restrained for better or worse by sub-B production values and
“mainstream” network sensibilities. In many ways, the most appropriate frame of
reference is the remake of <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/10/featured-creature-one-that-remade.html"><i>Night of the Living Dead</i>,</a> which can only
highlight the futility of comparison. What we have is truly a case of two films
with nothing in common except source material, and it’s impressive enough that
both have retained some measure of relevance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving forward, the most
significant further comparison between <i>Maximum Overdrive</i> and <i>Trucks</i>
is that the former was action/ adventure where the latter is unequivocally
horror. By any appraisal, what modest merit the present film has is owed to
this decision. There is no vision of a wider apocalypse here; indeed, from what
we do know, the authorities of the wider world are either unaware of the unfolding
situation or so far able to contain it. This allows the focus to remain even
more than in the original story on characters in isolation and growing despair.
What’s different is that the individual buildings are not particularly claustrophobic.
Space is ample, and there are windows that give a good view of the
surroundings. On the other hand, the structures are so old and dilapidated that
the trucks easily smash through whenever they try, quickly removing any appearance
of safety. The key ingredient, of course, is human characters we can like or at
least find believable. In those terms, this comes close to trying too hard. The
characters are more fleshed out then the ciphers of the story, yet the drawn-out
backstories do not make them any more vivid or sympathetic than the rogues’
gallery of <i>Maximum Overdrive</i>. On the balance, we at least have competent
actors delivering decent dialogue, greatly helped by Busfield. I have to give a
particular shoutout for his performance in the final shot of the film
(definitely up for the “one scene”). In a more routine film, the unsurprising
reveal could have led to a freeze frame of a shrieking scream queen; from our
lead, we do not see fear or even surprise, only resignation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Then, of course, there
are the machines, and this is where the most definite improvements emerge. The goofy
gimmick of the goblin truck is replaced by ordinary, working machines that are
vastly more frightening. One can draw some sense of personality out of the individual
machines, strikingly varied in size, age and roles, though none can match the
sheer malevolence of the beat-up old clunker in <i>Duel</i>. It’s most
intriguing to see the group playing literal cat and mouse. The usual trade-off
is that it quickly becomes obvious when the machines are just messing with
someone they have no intention of killing, and the cop-outs avoid the kind of
gore that might push the limits of television. (And this was <i>cable</i>,
dammit…) By my long-running rant, however, the nuance of a “monster” is
potentially unnerving in itself, and the payoff here is better than usual as their
ultimate plan becomes clear. Then there are moments of pure brutality, egregiously
the surreal attack of a toy dump truck on a mailman (yes, you read that right)
and a final kill where the lead truck wipes out a building as collateral
damage. We get one more inscrutable moment in the finale when the same machine
tries to wipe out the protagonists for no strategic reason, as if willing to destroy
out of pure spite. This is what you get when variable behavior is used for more
than plot armor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now it’s time for the one
scene, and this is where I’ll mention that I went through a whole viewing in the
course of this review just to stick to my own rules. Right about the middle, I
was actually waiting for the sequence that was always going to be here, and still
taken a little by surprise. We see two cannon-fodder government types who have
already popped in and out, on their way to a chemical spill that might otherwise
be written off as a cover story. One decides to put on his hazmat suit, a piece
of gear that looks for all the world like a human-shaped padded envelope,
leaving his companion in the cab. As the other guy finishes some
inconsequential task, a second suit starts to inflate. Sure enough, when fully
inflated, the suit starts to move of its own volition. The guy in the cab doesn’t
seem to notice, until he sees his colleague outside. There’s just a moment to
be surprised before the animated suit strikes with an axe already on hand. We
then cut to the suited goon as he returns to the rear of the truck. He looks up
at the bloody apparition, and promptly asks what he is doing. Of course, he
gets the axe, and there’s a certain impressiveness as the phantom dispatches
him, with far more force than strictly needed yet no sign of savagery or
sadism. And then the suit returns to its place. Even compared to <i>Maximum
Overdrive, </i>it’s a bizarre and totally random moment, neither foreshadowed
nor figuring in any subsequent event, which is exactly how a movie like this
stays in your memory two decades later.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In closing, I come to the
rating. What it really comes down to is that this is one I would simply ignore
under normal circumstances, especially in a feature with my “revised” rating
scale in effect. Even with the points I have laid out in its favor, this is just
plain cheap. On top of that, its greatest significance in genre history is to
show just how far feature-length TV movies had fallen after peaks as recent as<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/05/space-1999-one-thats-not-ripoff-of.html"> <i>12:01</i>.</a>
Yet, as I postulated at the beginning, it still manages to be just a little
more than it should have been, and it is clear that I’m not the only one who
remembers it. For that, I can give it my attention and just a little respect. Forward
until dawn!<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-39821550819414240082023-10-17T21:19:00.006-07:002023-10-17T21:19:56.006-07:00The Anthology Anthology: The very modern horror of Ambrose Bierce<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4LCeNRyr2VF6k7jPTj2cBbhxExnwtQKsrglSAYwXFioXavVmq024wAQBYv1UU_RrGMIT-i-qunNArqL3iVhB8GVarvCsD7c2-YESve_GvQlBofLLw8KxuHZMcDJx0DzmFLHZ-KszyEO7JBPli7gLNvycfQPCzudrs1NTggwAYgsYnApbd0J7aSKippWI/s500/Bierce%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="296" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4LCeNRyr2VF6k7jPTj2cBbhxExnwtQKsrglSAYwXFioXavVmq024wAQBYv1UU_RrGMIT-i-qunNArqL3iVhB8GVarvCsD7c2-YESve_GvQlBofLLw8KxuHZMcDJx0DzmFLHZ-KszyEO7JBPli7gLNvycfQPCzudrs1NTggwAYgsYnApbd0J7aSKippWI/w236-h400/Bierce%20cover.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As I write this, I’m looking at another week of posts, and I’m far enough ahead that it is still technically the weekend.
As it happens, I was already working on something that spun off into another
post, the fiction of Ambrose Bierce, which was transformed into the “true” tale
of <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/10/crypto-corner-boy-who-really-disappeared.html">Oliver Larch</a>. Here, I’m giving a wider, still anecdotal survey of his work.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For introduction, I’m not going to
try to cover the author’s life or his place in American literature. What I was
interested enough to run down is the background of the two collections I consulted,
<i>The Ghost And Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce</i>, which I bought in ebook
form, and the more luridly named <i>Terror By Night</i>. The former has an
introduction by one Dan Hawks, the latter by David Stuart Davies. Both
otherwise appear almost identical (I’ll get to that…) both to each other and to
the 1964 publication <i>The Ghost And Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce,</i> edited
and introduced by E.F. Bleiler, a scholar of science fiction and fantasy. On
working this out, I was immediately satisfied that the 1964 book was one which
I had read during college. (I distinctly recall reading it the same night I saw
the end of <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/10/featured-creature-one-thats-best-giant.html"><i>Eight Legged Freaks</i> </a>on TV, because my superpower is my torment.)
So, here’s a rundown of the ones that have stayed with me all this time.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Moxon’s Master”- This is the most
historically significant story by Bierce, a proto-science fictional tale about
a chess-playing automaton that takes losing badly. In an unfortunate common
denominator, it’s not really his best work. A good chunk of it is a monologue
that lays out a kind of pantheism as a rationale for machine intelligence. The
actual bout between man and machine is well-paced and intriguing, but there
just isn’t much here.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“A Vine On A House”- This is an
example of the formulaic side of Bierce’s work, done better than usual. On
stopping at a crumbling and ill-reputed house, two travelers notice a vine shaking
without explanation. An investigation leads to a grisly discovery. Surely based
on the actual case of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, it’s another story
with overtones of animism, quite effective and still understated.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Stanley Fleming’s Hallucination”-
This is perhaps the most oddly prescient of Bierce’s stories, concerning a man
who is threatened by nightly visions of a menacing hound in his bedroom. His
roundabout confessions reveal a darker backstory that will end in supernatural
revenge. One can find in it the conceptual bedrock of the <i>Nightmare On Elm
Street</i> franchise (which I had previously traced through the work of Robert E.
Howard). In a running theme, it feels underwhelming placed in context, which here
more than usual is clearly our fault, not Bierce’s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“A Fruitless Assignment”- Now we
have Bierce’s true masterpiece, a brief misadventure of a journalist sent to
investigate a supposed haunted house where mysterious yet decidedly unghostly
figures come and go. It’s startling for how weak it should be on paper, less
than 3 pages with a buildup that’s too long and never makes sense. But there is
an incalculable impact in the utterly savage climax and the even more
frustrating aftermath, with a deceptively well-realized and decidedly
unsympathetic protagonist. On top of everything else, it’s a chillingly early
treatment of PTSD. Here, the greatest horror is to live and learn nothing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“The Spook House”- A longer piece
by Bierce’s standards, another pair of travelers venture into a deserted house
whose original owners disappeared. Only one will come out. It’s more of the economical
savagery that the modern reader could easily overlook in familiarity, both
atmospheric and gruesome. What impresses even now is the “ambiguous” ending,
which Bierce truly excelled at.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“The Suitable Surroundings”- Here,
we see Bierce in full-blown deconstructionism, tweaking the Gothic horror genre
still in its prime. A writer challenges a reader to read his latest story under
uniquely unsettling conditions, with deadly and comical results. I freely admit
I didn’t try to re-read this one; what I remember is enough.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“The Difficulty of Crossing a
Field”- A much better entry in Bierce’s cycle of eerie disappearance tales, a
man disappears without a trace just outside his own front door. Again, the
deeper horror is the exploration of the aftermath.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“A Jug of Sirup”- An entry in the
“disappearing shop” niche genre as much as anything else, a storekeeper returns
from the grave, so much himself that it takes a while for his old customers to
notice. It’s another satire, not quite as subversive as “Suitable Surroundings”
but correspondingly more unsettling. This is incidentally the epitome of
Bierce’s view of the revenant dead, neither angelic nor vengeful, but merely acting
the parts they did in life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Visions of the Night”- And this
is the one that was only in the ebook, which I remembered from the 1964
edition. The author narrates a series of visions supposedly from his own
dreams, the last being a seemingly whimsical encounter with a talking horse. One
can take the authenticity with a heaping helping of salt, yet it is a
convincing picture of the world of dreams that lays out a path for much to
follow. (Fine, I’ll mention <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/12/space-1979-one-where-girl-gets-eaten-by.html">House</a></i>…)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And that’s enough for me. Needless
to say, there are many, many more that I am passing over, including supposed “classics”,
but these are by all means representative of the stories that have impacted me.
It should be obvious that I hold this author’s work in the highest regard,
where it truly deserves it, and equally obvious that I am well aware of the
flaws. In the proverbial light of day, Bierce stands out first and foremost as
an author who didn’t and perhaps couldn’t pick a lane between satirizing what
was wrong with a genre and actually doing it well. He also gives an early
preview of the cycles of excess, self-parody, and revitalizing deconstruction
that have afflicted horror fiction. But he also does offer some of the very
best genre tales of his own or any other time, which are even now a breath of
fresh air for anyone who has truly gone through the trash heap of history. Read
him with my highest recommendation, perhaps ideally in small doses. The one
thing you will not do is forget.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Image credit <a href="https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?584821">ISFDB.</a></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-49202750266126363322023-10-15T19:44:00.002-07:002023-10-19T22:08:09.480-07:00Fiction: The Adventures of Princess Sarah demo!<p> As I write this, I've been trying to work up a weekend post while it is still the weekend. After trying to build on other stuff, I finally admitted I wasn't going to do better than yet another demo I worked up as a spinoff of my<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/09/fiction-retro-gaming-parody-novel.html"> retro gaming novel</a>. It actually is an idea I've had for quite a while (see my <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/01/no-good-very-bad-movies-16-one-with.html">Troll</a></i> review), fleshed out with a couple characters I already had a lot of fun with. It also crossed my mind that just about everything good I've ever done has been on the fantasy/ mythology vein. So, here goes...</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Princess
Sarah and Prince Robert were the children of High King Hector and Queen
Daffodil of the Aquamarine Isles and the united Kingdoms of the sea. Sarah was
the second oldest of three little Princesses, and Robert was the youngest and
the only Prince. Sarah was frustrated and suspicious that the King and Queen
would not say if there would be another Prince or Princess. In the summer, when
the High King liked to take his Queen on a tour of the Isles and the eldest
Princess Lily was away at camp, Sarah and Robert and their sister Bell went to
stay with their Grandmother, a Dowager with a great palace on the sea to the
east. They loved spending time with Mummy. When they were not with her, they
went on long adventures through the Palace grounds, which were full of all
manner of wonders. A day came when Sarah announced that they would explore a
more secluded part of the Palace.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">She
held up an old book with a map of the Palace. “Look,” she said, pointing at a
turret on the far end of the grounds. “This is the Old Royal Bedroom. Grandma
says it’s just a storeroom now. But the location is all wrong. I think there’s
something interesting. Anyway, we covered the west wing already. Did you gather
our provisions?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Frog,”
Prince Robert said. He was still just beginning to talk, at an age when Sarah
had already had an extensive vocabulary. He held out a purse shaped like a
frog, which their mother had fitted with straps to wear on his back. Sarah sorted
through the contents. The first was his favorite story book. Next were an umbrella,
a tin of soup crackers and a tiny jar of pomegranate jam. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there was a smaller frog-shaped coin
purse that had been his beloved toy before he inherited the larger one. It
rattled with his Collection, a shifting assortment of objects he picked up. It
held about a dozen small rocks, three marbles and a pretty seed pod. She opened
a compartment in the roof of its mouth with a key Mummy had entrusted to her. It
held three candies. Sarah sighed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Robert,”
she said, “I told you, we need food, not treats….” She relented when she pulled
out a sack on the bottom. It held a large roll, a lemon, two peaches, an eighth
of a cheese wheel and half a sausage. Robert held out another item. It looked
like another toy, shaped like a saurian with a stubby tail and a large, round
head. In fact, it was a pitcher, with a lid that formed the saurian’s upper
jaw. In the purse were two cups.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Dink,”
Robert said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Okay,”
Sarah said. She shouldered her own bag, shaped like a Water Cow. “This is good.
Now, let’s go.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">She
led the way. She wore a simple checkered dress, because only little girls wore
overalls like boys did. On her feet, she wore perfectly sized and entirely
functional hiking boots that clomped loudly on the palace floor. Robert wore
her old pair, which were dyed a salmon pink that had worn and faded down to
white spots. As they proceeded, the Palace attendants discretely stepped aside.
They paused when they found Mummy in their path, innocently playing with her
pet ferret. “Hello, children,” she said. “Are you exploring today?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yes,”
Sarah said. “We’re going to survey the West Tower.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“I
see,” Mummy said. “Are you sure you want to? It hasn’t been used in a long
time, it must be awfully dusty.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yes,”
Sarah said. “I bet the catalog is out of date. We can clean up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“If
you say so,” Mummy said. She gestured to an attendant, who brought her a comb
to groom the ferret. “Do be careful. Be sure to be back by tea time.” She waved
as they entered the tower stairway. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Bye
bye,” Prince Robert called back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stairway proved to be a long climb. They paused at a chamber a third of the way
up. It was configured as a sitting room, with a small table that held a chess
board complete with pieces. Sarah measured out half the crackers, and filled
their cups from Dink. While Robert munched his share, she examined the table.
“I knew it,” she said, lifting the red king. “There’s no dust. Someone has been
using this section recently.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Dink?”
Robert said, holding out his cup.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“We
need to conserve our water,” Sarah said, then relented and filled his tumbler
halfway.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">They
were winded as they reached the top. It was a high-ceilinged octagonal chamber
that echoed with the sound of their boots. The better part was filled by a
great bed ringed by curtains. Facing it was a painting of a woman who looked
like their mother. Sarah frowned as she looked up. It showed her from behind,
in the act of emerging from her bath. Her head was turned back, throwing a sly
smile over her shoulder. When the Princess saw Robert at her side, she said,
“Go play play. Over there.” She redirected him from the bed to a celestial globe
to one side. He giggled as he spun the concentric brass rings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Wait,”
Sarah said. Her brother froze with a puzzled expression. “You weren’t being
bad,” she assured him quickly. She showed him how to turn the knobs and dials
properly. She frowned again. “This was tuned, recently.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">She
went out onto the balcony. She opened the main compartment of her bag, which formed
the belly of the Water Cow. The buckles of the strap were anchored on the tip
of the tail and between its horns. She brought out her field glasses and her
favorite book, the Royal Explorers’ Guidebook. “`First, survey the area from an
elevated position,’” she read. She looked out with the glasses. It was, of
course, all familiar landscape, though she discovered that she could see the
Royal Flamingo Preserve. She helped Robert up and held the glasses for him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Birds,”
he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“`Next,
sketch a chart of the terrain,’” she read. She set down the glasses and took
out a drawing pad. She scribbled an outline of the lagoon. “`Make particular note
of usable caves and shelters, navigable waterways, and any structures of
artificial origin.’” She put an X on a canal that ran back to the Palace. “`Catalog
the birds and game…’” She watched the flamingos as they milled about the
lagoon.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Well,”
she said with a sigh, “I guess we’ve surveyed this area.” She was mildly
surprised to find that Robert was no longer at her side. She was momentarily
alarmed when she did not see him behind her either. She circled the bed before
she panicked, as Mother told her. Sure enough, her brother was on the other
side, looking up at a large armoire.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Leave
it alone,” she said, walking to his side. “I’m sure it’s locked, anyway.” He
pulled at a handle that was just within his reach. The left door came open.
“Oh. Well, I’m sure there’s nothing interesting…” She opened the door, and then
the other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
armoire was in two parts. The right side was a set of drawers with a cabinet on
top. They were locked, except for a pair of drawers just under the cabinet
door. She pulled one out, and found it disappointingly small. The left side was
an open space as large as her closet, where a suit, a fur wrap and a greatcoat
still hung. Sarah tugged at the coat, and found it stiff with age. Robert
pointed and whimpered. She followed his pointing finger to a curled up beetle
at the back. “I see it,” she said. “Poor little bug.” He whined expectantly. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">She
sighed and climbed into the armoire. It seemed larger inside than outside, tall
enough for Mummy or Mother or even Father to stand upright. She drew a
handkerchief and carefully picked up the beetle. “There,” she said, holding up
the kerchief. “We’ll give Mr. Beetle a funeral.” She shrieked at a buzzing from
under the cloth. She shook out the kerchief, and the now-squirming beetle tumbled
out. Before it hit the ground, it spread its wings and flew out through the
open door.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Well,”
she said, smoothing her dress, “Mr. Beetle must have gotten stuck inside. It’s
a good thing we opened the door, or he might never have gotten out. Let’s go
back to the other room.” She climbed down, and started to push the right door
shut. She paused, frowned, and opened the drawer again.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“This
is too small,” she said. “It’s shallow, do you see? It can’t go all the way to
the back. Not even halfway…” Robert looked intently, and nodded in seeming
agreement. She opened the other drawer. From it, she pulled two keys. One was
weathered brass, the other mirror-bright silver.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">She
went back inside the armoire. Robert followed, holding his little frog. She ran
a hand along the wood paneling. The joining was artful, but could not be hidden.
She knocked twice, producing a hollow rattle. She found a decorative panel that
slid to one side. Behind it was a keyhole. Robert tugged at her sleeve. “No,”
he said solemnly. “Frog Frog say so.” The eyes of his frog swiveled and
blinked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Don’t
worry,” Sarah said. “It’s just a trick door, like Mother’s magic drawer. Look.”
She turned the brass key in the lock. The door swung open. It revealed a set of
shelves. It was mostly books, most of them in strange languages and letters. On
the top shelf were a bottle, a jar, a knife and a strange skull. “See? Just
grown-up stuff.” She shut the door and locked it. Only when it clicked did she
realize that she had used the silver key.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Huh,”
she said. “They both fit the same lock. I wonder why…” She turned the key
again. The door opened…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Sarah!”
Robert called out. He grabbed for her skirt.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
hidden door clicked shut.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And
slowly, the ponderous doors of the empty armoire swung shut.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-84898674494066558942023-10-13T17:02:00.003-07:002023-10-13T17:02:48.507-07:00Featured Creature: The one that's the best giant spider movie<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0uMC5XD9F3J9Edkp833yb-eTKvMNulyv27KjL1V7yx3w4_OU9Ksdk3PXFrkL7laYIhbamFLM9xOb4dmgeHcvE_vOoic89FuAKz9k79QjXgXmIZeaeiCYNPVOtE7XtlST-ut6D8DHWgixH6Ha6TW4XI5dsJ_802w_KU37xBp7kV7XxDplLtk1paqLEpo/s383/Eightleggedfreaks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="259" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0uMC5XD9F3J9Edkp833yb-eTKvMNulyv27KjL1V7yx3w4_OU9Ksdk3PXFrkL7laYIhbamFLM9xOb4dmgeHcvE_vOoic89FuAKz9k79QjXgXmIZeaeiCYNPVOtE7XtlST-ut6D8DHWgixH6Ha6TW4XI5dsJ_802w_KU37xBp7kV7XxDplLtk1paqLEpo/w270-h400/Eightleggedfreaks.jpg" width="270" /></a></b></div><b><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Title:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Eight Legged Freaks<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What Year?:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
2002<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Classification:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
That’s Good! (4/4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this, it’s the
second week of the month of Halloween, which is when I’m usually in high gear
plowing through anything and everything monster/ zombie/ horror related. This
time around, I’m still recovering from some big changes, and I have been
debating whether to take it easy. I decided I owed it to myself to try to fill
out the lineup with at least a few posts every week. I also got off to a head
start watching a movie I have meant to get to for a while. For this <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/05/featured-creature-one-with-jurassic.html">feature </a>in
particular, there was one that was always going to be here. I present <i>Eight
Legged Freaks</i>, the best 1990s monster movie that technically didn’t come
out in the Nineties.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Our story begins with a
ranting conspiracist who occasionally makes sense, introducing a story that we
are apparently expected to take at face value. We then meet our cast, who will
have less to do with him than anyone else: A drifter returning to a dying
Arizona town; the lady sheriff and her geeky son and spunky teen daughter; the
token corrupt mayor; and an exotic pets breeder with a collection of spiders. While
the drifter and the sheriff play will-they-won’t-they, a toxic waste spill
spreads through the ecosystem, causing a proliferation of enlarged crickets.
(Wait, why did we never get a killer-cricket movie?) When the spider enthusiast
feeds the crickets to his spiders, the rapidly enlarging arachnids promptly
lunch him and spread through the town. Soon, the spiders have grown to low-end
kaiju sizes, still able to climb, run and even leap. As the arachnids go into
full rampage, the sheriff and the drifter must rally the townspeople at an
outlet mall. But the deadliest of the creatures is already lurking right
beneath their feet!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eight Legged Freaks</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
was a 2002 science fiction/ horror comedy directed by New Zealand filmmaker
Ellory Elkayem from a script cowritten with Jesse Alexander, based on Elkayem’s short film “Larger Than Life”. The film starred David Arquette and Kari
Wuhrer as the drifter and sheriff, with Scarlett Johannson (see <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/no-good-very-bad-movies-countdown-7-one.html">Jojo Rabbit</a></i>),
17 at the time of the film’s release, as the teenager. Other cast included comedian
Doug E. Doug as the conspiracy theorist Griffith, Leon Rippy (see… <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/space-1979-apocalypse-how-1-one-with.html">Maximum Overdrive</a></i>?) as the mayor and Tom Noonan of <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/08/super-movies-one-by-guys-who-made.html"><i>Robocop 2</i> </a>as the spider
breeder. The score was composed by John Ottman, also known for 2013’s <i>Jack
The Giant Killer </i>and several films in <i>the X-Men</i> franchise, with a song
“Itsy Bitsy Spider” sung by Joey Deluxe in the final credits. The film was shot
mainly in Glendale and other locations in Arizona. Footage from the famous
1950s monster movie <i>Them!</i> is played during the film. The finished film
was distributed by Warner Bros. It was a possible commercial failure, earning
$45 million against a $30M budget. It received comparatively favorable reviews,
including a positive one from Roger Ebert, and gained in popularity on home
video and streaming.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For my experiences, this
is a prime example of a film that people would probably have expected to make a
lot more of an impression than it did. I saw what I now know to be the end of
the film on TV (and dear Logos, the song…), and rented it somewhere around 2005
after hearing favorable comments about it from a friend. I don’t recall if I
looked it up again until I bought a tape during the great wave of video store
liquidations. With more leisurely viewing, I came to appreciate it far more,
above all as a showcase of the very best 1990s-early 2000s CGI monster effects.
As for the movie itself, it is a pretty good film that just about makes it to
actual greatness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving forward, the
central reality is that this is a polished film that encompasses what is both
good and bad in that description. The cast and acting, in particular, clearly
represents far too much money and talent not to be satisfactory. The story and
dialogue are likewise too solid to fail, without ever quite delivering the
outright subversion that it hints at. Even the effects are, on a certain level,
successful simply because nobody was trendy enough to mess with what had actually
worked in the preceding decade: The creatures look like actual, functioning
organisms; the action sequences are linear and coherent; and there’s enough
goddamn light to see what the Hell is going on. What pulls things up are the
peripheral skirmishes in the apocalyptic onslaught. It is here that things get
genuinely unpredictable. Likeable characters can die where villains live. All
the more impressively, at least one character set up for nothing better than a telegraphed
self-sacrifice actually pulls through. The proceedings are greatly helped by
the music, which perfectly fits the intended mood; it may be cliches, but they
are livened by a sense of mischief.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then there are the spiders,
and this is where people might be surprised by what I find good, bad or
unobjectionable. To start with, many/ most of the spiders look to be about the
same mass as a human, which I am willing to grant as within the bare minimum of
plausibility. (How could I not plug<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/10/fiction-evil-possum-and-eurypterids_28.html"> the Evil Possum Vs Eurypterids</a>?) Further credit
is due that the much larger spiders seen later do not replace their more
compact counterparts, or make them less threatening. The tarantula that is the
biggest we see serves as nothing more or less than a battering ram for the others,
while the end-boss queen owes her menace first and foremost to her mastery of
her own hostile environment. The biggest hole in the biology is that the film
unquestioningly copies the cliche of spiders gathering in swarms (see also, of
all things, <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/03/revenge-of-revenant-review-18-one-where.html">The Beyond</a></i>), which in reality makes about as much sense as using
feral cats to run the Iditarod. Even then, there is at least a sense of a hierarchy
that might or might not be sustained under other circumstances, as witnessed by
one hapless specimen that the tarantula seemingly stomps be accident. Meanwhile,
any further objections are easily overruled by the surreal high point of the
jumping spiders, who are neither mutually hostile nor coordinated but simply
focused on the chase as they each leap after a suitable prey.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now for the “one scene”, in
all the wealth of material (honorable mention has to go to the conspiracist
mentioning L. Ron Hubbard), I’m going to go with a deleted scene that I know
well from my old tape. In the final act, we find the main characters
underground in a mine that the drifter keeps reminding them is full of explosive
gas. There’s a distant scream (one more thing I was meaning to rant about on
the biology), and then a swarm of tiny spiders rush in that I swear I remember seeing
in here somewhere. (I now suspect that effects shots were interchanged with an
earlier gross-out sequence that undeservedly made the final cut.) Alas, in the
version of the scene I could find, we see literally nothing even as the cast react
quite convincingly. After they draw back, the leads start stomping. Then the
jerkiest of several jerk teenagers steps forward and begins squashing in bulk.
He remarks that these are much less intimidating than the ones we and they have
already seen. The geek abruptly warns them to stop, and when questioned, says
succinctly, “They’re babies.” Then the scream is repeated, and he adds the
hypothesis that it is the mother. And my whole point in including it here is
that this is just the stuff they cut out of this one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now I come to the rating,
and this is one where I kind of changed my mind. My plan going in was to give
this one no more or less than 3 out of 4, and that is probably about what it
would deserve entirely on its own merits. But further viewing convinced me that
this is a movie better than the sum of its parts. The decisive consideration was
that this is indeed a comedy, and as such subject to hits and misses that can
come down to simple taste. Yet, with due allowances, it lives up to the
tradition of <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/07/space-1979-one-where-creator-of-alien.html">Dark Star </a></i>and <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/featured-creature-one-where-buzz.html"><i>Galaxy Quest</i> </a>as a parody that is at
least as good as many “straight” examples of the genre it is supposed to be
making fun of. On a sadder note, it also proved to be one of the last gasps of
an era that reinvented the monster movie without leaving the Hollywood “mainstream”
any wiser about how to make a good one. This is one time where “good enough” is
more than enough. “…Okay, he did all right…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-79689193977082859722023-10-11T20:48:00.001-07:002023-10-11T20:48:22.766-07:00Crypto Corner: The boy who really disappeared<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As I write this, Halloween is approaching, and I’ve been getting enough Ideas that I might not even do that many movie reviews. Among other things, I
had been planning an installment of my woefully intermittent features on short
fiction, which in the process brought me to something on the Fortean vein. That
provoked me enough to try filling out the lineup with another post in this
feature. Last time, I covered the<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/10/crypto-corner-returns-ship-with-nobody.html"> <i>Mary Celeste</i>,</a> an actual unsolved
historical mystery that just might come down to outright insurance fraud. This
time, I’ll be talking about a case that was always fraud through and through. I
speak of a horrifying tale that must have terrified countless impressionable
kids, the disappearance of one Oliver Larch, whose real vanishing act was
leaving no trace of his existence in the first place.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The tale, as I remember first
reading it long, long ago, begins with a festive celebration by a family called
the Larches at their farmhouse in South Bend, Indiana on Christmas Eve 1889. In
the midst of the party, the young and instantly sympathetic Oliver, age 11, is
sent out to fill a pail of water from their well, across a field covered in
new-fallen snow. He leaves his popcorn behind (really, that’s repeatedly specified)
to do his part for the family. Soon after, the family hears a commotion
outside. They run out, to hear Oliver calling for help, and adding, “They’ve
got me!” But his cries are fading, and they seem to come from overhead. Meanwhile,
the family follows the trail of prints in the snow. At the end of it, perhaps
halfway to the well, they find the bucket, but no trace of Oliver. And,
invariably, it is affirmed that the police and other authorities investigated
these facts and found them beyond dispute.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Except, of course, every remotely
critical investigation found nothing of the kind. (See Kevin Randle's thorough, hilarious and pitiful <a href="https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2008/09/disappearance-of-oliver-lerch-larch.html">rundown </a>from 2008.) The South Bend police
department stated only that they had not maintained or preserved records from
the time of the incident. Newspapermen and other recordkeepers, evidently
annoyed, reported no record of an individual named Oliver Larch or his family
residing in the area at that or any other time, and openly opined that the tale
of the disappearance was fantasy or fiction. On top of that, weather reports
that were handed down recorded clear weather with little or no snow. But the
smoking gun was that the tale was nearly identical to the plot of “Charles
Ashmore’s Trail”, a work of fiction published by Ambrose Bierce in 1888. By the
1970s, after being repeated in such publications as Fate, the tale was repudiated
in the Fortean community as either a legend or outright hoax. But was that the
end of the story? I will be the first to say, yes, dammit, it was. Except,
things still weren’t that simple.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And that’s where I come in, in the
course of rereading Bierce’s work for what would have been another post
altogether. In the midst of it, I remembered the strange saga of Oliver Larch
and reread the tale that supposedly started all this. What struck me was that,
for a story with such an enduring impact, it was conspicuously unimpressive.
Bierce was a master of modern minimalist horror while Gothic purple prose was
still riding high (I will name-drop “A Fruitless Assignment” as the peak of his
form), yet one would not guess it from the yarn under consideration. Even
allowing for its short length, it is awkward and oddly unengaging. What is all the
more striking is that it lacks a number of dramatic details and sympathetic
hooks of the received legend. Rather than a lovable lad, Charles Ashmore is just
a guy of 16 who would have been considered virtually an adult in the Victorian era.
Instead of Christmas eve, the night of his disappearance is simply an evening
in November. In place of a dramatic disturbance, his family find his trail
after merely noticing that he has not returned, and only later hear his voice
in the course of their ordinary doings. Given these discrepancies, how certain
can we be that this was the source of the tale of Oliver Larch?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In fact, we can guardedly give the
lore a certain benefit of a doubt. It is already clear that the tale as
received is more like a legend or “myth” than an outright hoax, though the more
brazen “true” retellings certainly cross the line into the latter category. If
it did originate from Bierce’s yarn at all, it certainly had to have evolved
greatly before it reached the form known to us. It follows that Bierce himself might
likewise have drawn from much older sources, and it is no stretch to allow that
the underlying lore persisted independent of or at least in parallel with his
influence. We may finally consider that the quite vivid tale of young Oliver is
indeed the earlier and more authentic form of the tale.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It is at this point that we can
consider certain oddly modern features of the story, which the folklorist will
find more akin to “urban legends” than the folklore of the elder world. First,
while a supernatural element is explicit, there is no endorsed or implied “explanation”
that would root it in established religion or mythology. There is no invocation
of devils, witches or fairies. For all intents and purposes, the abductors of
Oliver Larch represent nothing more or less than the unseen and unknown. On a
closely related note, there is no moralizing element. There is no suggestion of
young Oliver being punished for any wrongdoing. Indeed, we might take his tale
as a child’s jeering mockery of such adult-sanctioned lore, except that he is
never set up as an obnoxious do-gooder either (compare/ contrast with Saki’s
astonishing “The Story-Teller”). Finally, there are the effortlessly confident
appeals to authority which leave no doubt of its truth, a distinctly recent
preoccupation. On this vein, it is consistently recounted that no balloons were
in the air, as if anticipating this as a viable explanation. To anyone actually
knowledgeable about lighter-than-air aviation, of course, it would be obvious
that a balloon used in the manner described (at night!) would simply crash in a
trail of burning wreckage, as would any known aircraft prior to Sikorsky’s
development of a practical (but still very<i>, very</i> loud…) helicopter in
the aftermath of World War 2.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">With this frame of reference, we
can outline the most probable path of the tale’s development. It undoubtedly
began somewhere in the morass of 19<sup>th</sup>-century oral tradition, if it
did not somewhat predate the 1800s. It was then retold especially among children
and teenagers, perhaps at some point to a still young Bierce. With or without
his influence, the tale persisted into the 1890s and early 1900s, when we know it
first began to circulate in print. From there, it was a small if delayed jump
into early Fortean literature, where it was repeated with painful earnestness
long after multiple debunkings.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So that brings us to the end of
the trail. And you know something? I still <i>like </i>the story. It’s the
Platonic archetype of a campfire tale, and it perfectly expresses the anxieties
of young and old alike. There will always be things we don’t understand. There
will also always be bad things happening to good people, sometimes not even
outside your front door. If it takes a tale like this to teach that lesson to
the young, then it would be a more than fair price. The only people who made it
a problem were grownups who only remembered contrived terror for its own sake. For
the rest, knowing the truth is only part of the balance of growing up. With
that, I bring this short chapter to an end.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-55377271328775008182023-10-09T20:32:00.005-07:002023-10-09T20:32:53.877-07:00Fiction: Chelsea the Social Worker Epilogue!<p> It's Monday night, and it's been dawning on me that I really have nothing. So I tried to think what I have backlogged, and realized my best bet was something I teased way back, the actual ending of Chelsea the (bad) social worker. So, here goes. As usual, the table of contents is at the end. And yes, this is exactly how I am with a baby...</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">Chelsea returned home to
the sound of a crying baby. She entered the townhome unit on the second story,
and quietly descended the stairs. What interested her was the sound of the
voice drifting up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“I don’t understand,
cuddle bunny,” Shad said. She spotted him seated on the floor next to the crib,
his back against a couch. “I changed you, I fed you, I read to you, you have
your blanket and all your favorite toys.” As he spoke, the baby in his arms
cast aside a squeaky dicynodont. “I just don’t know what you want.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“She’s a baby, she
doesn't want anything except attention,” Chelsea said. Shad looked up, and she
gave him a smile. “I keep telling you, babies fuss. The more you try to make
them stop, the more they fuss. They’re jerks that way. Hey, bunny, mommy’s
here.” Shad handed off the baby, who if anything cried louder. Chelsea cooed
nonsense as she cradled the baby, adding editorially, “Why are you making your
daddy worry so…?” She freed a hand to clear the clutter of toys out of the
crib, then laid their baby down and laid a blanket over her. As an
afterthought, she took all but one especially beloved toy, a fuzzy caterpillar.
She stood by without intervening as the baby continued to cry. After 15
minutes, she hugged the toy and quieted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“She was doing okay most
of the night,” Shad said. “We were having fun earlier. She just got fussy when
I tried to put her to bed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“That’s because you’re a pushover,”
Chelsea said. “By the way, have you noticed you talk to her the same way you do
to me?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">Shad shrugged. “How else
would you talk to a baby?” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“That’s my sweet man,”
Chelsea said. She kissed him on the lips.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“How was work?” Shad
asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“The usual grind,”
Chelsea said. “I delivered 12 state assignments, approved 3 petitions for
separation, and got two couples assigned an instructor. How about you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“Oh, you know, stuff,”
Shad said. He grinned. “I finalized our video.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">Chelsea grinned back. “You
should show me,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“I was planning to,” he
said. But he continued to look down at their daughter’s crib. “She turned out…
different, didn’t she?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">“Well, anything can
happen once,” Chelsea said. Leaning over, she ran a finger through the fuzz
just beginning to appear on the bay girl’s scalp.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 106%;">It was purple.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;">Table of Contents</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/fiction-return-of-chelsea-social-worker.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part I: The romance!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part II: The parking violation!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_11.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part III: Capsule hotel destruction!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_21.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part IV: The Kelsiraptor, and Harryhausen monster bureaucrat!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_26.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part V: The restraining order!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/06/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part VI: The trial, part 1!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/06/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_9.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part VII: The trial, part 2, with the King Kong Moral Contraband film!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/06/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_20.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part VIII: The goon!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/07/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part IX: The religion!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-adventures-of-chelsea-social-worker.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part X: Kloe!!!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/07/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_20.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part XI: The Arcostate Zoo, plus Spike's Southside Motorcycle Gang!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/07/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_27.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part XII: Skinny McCoy!!!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/08/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social.html" style="color: #ff9900; text-decoration-line: none;">Part XIII: The Harryhausen monster fight!!!</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16.96px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/08/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_17.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part XIV: The Showdown!!!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/08/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social_29.html" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">Part XV: The Multiverse!</a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/09/fiction-adventures-of-chelsea-social.html">Part XVI: The Space Guys Spinoff Teaser! </a></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-37185258479583796872023-10-06T15:02:00.001-07:002023-10-06T15:02:06.276-07:00Robot Revolution: The one with zombies and an evil computer<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNtIGwtCY2bGmvGCqsTHh6xf_4tiIo-ERanyixJy-ObyXMe-wybpzxYp92virms1CQglCAAMD78x_vYq_O27KPL2vC9J0d1lxr2s_GgIlvl_OJVg2ETZlsIietldsUiupwaqiOsZPjc7Hy1rYHRrEwjo3zn9R6Xu1vWEDhhAGQvSQ6cd8XYoxkBirJYs/s1455/Resident%20Evil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1455" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNtIGwtCY2bGmvGCqsTHh6xf_4tiIo-ERanyixJy-ObyXMe-wybpzxYp92virms1CQglCAAMD78x_vYq_O27KPL2vC9J0d1lxr2s_GgIlvl_OJVg2ETZlsIietldsUiupwaqiOsZPjc7Hy1rYHRrEwjo3zn9R6Xu1vWEDhhAGQvSQ6cd8XYoxkBirJYs/w275-h400/Resident%20Evil.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The one with zombies and an
evil computer</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Title:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Resident Evil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What Year?:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
2002<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Classification:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Irreproducible
Oddity/ Mashup<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
It’s Okay! (3/4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this, I’m
still coming out of a sabbatical from blogging that has included a complete
moratorium on movie reviews. For my comeback, I decided it was time to fill out
my count for this, my survey of robot/ AI movies, the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/02/robot-revolution-one-thats-killer-robot.html">feature </a>that has done as
much as anything else to keep me going. In keeping with what has been its own
theme, I further decided to do something different. This time around, we have
yet another murderous computer, only this time, it is technically a zombie
movie. I present <i>Resident Evil</i>, the Patient 0 of the modern zombie movie
wave, and I will be showing why the computer is <i>much </i>scarier than the
undead.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Our story begins with an
introduction to the Umbrella Corporation, a company with their own underground
lab for nefarious bioweapons research, and the massacre of the staff of said
facility by a series of lethal mechanisms that might or might not be working as
intended. The carnage is followed up by little tasteful nudity as our heroine
wakes up in the shower with no memory of where or even who she is. The story
picks up momentum when the company’s paramilitary team arrives, revealing that
her name is Alice and she is the custodian of the entrance to the Umbrella lab.
It is also revealed that the facility has been taken over by a supercomputer
called the Red Queen for reasons allegedly unknown. For no obvious reason, the
team drag along Alice and a couple iffy guys they find along the way. Things go
south when most of the team are wiped out by a laser cheese grater controlled
by the Queen. But the real trouble starts when the survivors take the computer
offline, unleashing a horde of zombified employees and a few more ugly
surprises. The dwindling party must fight their way out, but they still don’t
know each other’s agendas- and they may need the Queen’s help to stay alive!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Resident Evil</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
was a 2002 horror/ action film written by Paul W.S. Anderson, based on the
Capcom video game franchise of the same name. The film starred Milla Jovovich as
Alice, following appearances in films including <i>The Fifth Element</i> (still
don’t know if I can work with that one), Michelle Rodriguez and Colin Salmon as
ill-fated troopers. The soundtrack was composed by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn
Manson. The film was possibly the first major zombie movie of the 2000s, preceding
the 2004 remake of <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>. It was a commercial success,
earning a box office of over $100 million against an estimated $33M budget,
though reviews were mixed to negative. It was followed by five live-action
sequels, including <i>Resident Evil: Apocalypse</i> in 2004 and <i>Extinction </i>in
2007, as well as a number of direct-to-video animated films. A new live-action
film, <i>Welcome To Raccoon City</i>, received a limited theatrical release in
2021. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anderson and Jovovich married in
2009. Their daughter Ever has several screen credits.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For my experiences, this
film and franchise has been a textbook case of a film and franchise that stayed
above my radar. I conspicuously declined to cover it for<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/10/revenge-of-revenant-review-1-one-where.html"> The Revenant Review</a>,
though I finally gave number 3 an entry in the out-of-control <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revenge-Revenant-Review-Strangest-Zombie-ebook/dp/B0BKLJXFTQ/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=eI2IK&content-id=amzn1.sym.579192ca-1482-4409-abe7-9e14f17ac827&pf_rd_p=579192ca-1482-4409-abe7-9e14f17ac827&pf_rd_r=131-1260254-5055330&pd_rd_wg=naUAR&pd_rd_r=aa043f95-3e88-4ed5-9251-b179d191dc5a&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk">ebook edition</a>. The obvious reason for this is simply that it is a profitable and
well-known series that did not require comment. Another is by all means that I completely
gave up on it at number 4. But the overarching consideration is just how many categories
the first movie in particular stretches across, which became an immediate
problem in the question of which feature to review it under. I could have
covered it for the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-horrible-horror-vault-one-thats.html">Horror Vault,</a> or under my still nascent <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/adaptation-insanity-one-where-scariest.html">adaptation feature,</a>
where I already covered the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/adaptation-insanity-one-that-was-first.html">Nineties Mario movie.</a> By the time I loaded my ancient
disc, however, I had no doubt it belonged here, if only because it truly
represents one of the most formidable AI antagonists of the current millennium
at least.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving in, the central
reality is that this is a film that owes all its strengths to a sustained vibe.
From the settings to the creatures to the very minimalist music, this is sci-fi
horror at its most cold and clinical, building and even improving on the likes
of <i>Re-Animator</i> and<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/07/really-good-movies-one-thats-best.html"> <i>Day of the Dead </i></a>(see also<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/revenge-of-revenant-review-24-one-where.html"> <i>Sole Survivor</i></a>,
the re-review I completely botched). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
undead themselves fit very well into this world. They are among the most malevolent
and vicious revenants of the Romero/ “slow zombie” tradition, with a
counterintuitive subtlety that suggests a measure of cunning. The very first of
them (seen well past the 30-minute mark) is representative of the lot, at first
lurching along as if merely distressed, then striking fatefully just as a
target comes within reach. Of course, both the shock value and in-universe
effectiveness of this behavior sharply decline as the film goes on, yet it is a
consistent behavioral pattern that never fails to be unsettling. The one thing
that can be counted as disappointing is that their evident ability to use tools
and weapons never goes anywhere, but then by the final act they are already superseded
by the surreal hellhounds and the foreshadowed mutated abomination.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the midst of all this,
the Red Queen is indeed clearly established as both the primary antagonist and
by far the most formidable threat as long as “she” is online. In the context of
this feature, there are especially strong parallels with <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/robot-revolution-one-where-analog.html"><i>The Forbin Project</i>
</a>and of course <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/robot-revolution-one-thats-killer.html">The Lift</a></i>. Even more than in the former film, the AI is completely
rational in both actions and motivations and as much in the right as any of the
human characters. As in the latter, the computer’s most formidable ability is
its control over its arcological environment that might or might not have been
originally granted by its creators. (I honestly have no opinion on whether
Anderson might have been directly influenced by that very odd film, as I
already documented the “killer elevator” as a startlingly persistent concept.) The holographic
avatar and very English accent give a fine extra touch that doesn’t really resolve
the AI’s status; one can sympathize as the machine pleads to be allowed to continue
its duties, but it is already clear that one cannot trust its motives or its
anthropomorphic affectations. It is impossible to avoid further comment on the
completely surreal laser sequence (obviously on the board for “one scene”),
which does a great deal to define the tone and reputation of the film (see also
<i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-horrible-horror-vault-revisited-one.html">Ghost Ship</a></i>). On a certain level, the intentionally lethal gauntlet is
less impressive and intriguing than the seemingly improvised booby traps of the
opening. What is easily forgotten after two decades of “so bad it’s good” fame/
infamy is that it is preceded by an effective and plausible set-up, in which
the humans remain in apparent control until it is far too late.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That already brings me to
the “one scene”, and there’s one I’m going to try doing from memory. In the
face of the first onslaught of the undead, our heroes are driven up against a
computerized door that is still locked for reasons that won’t be analyzed. The
most technically minded of the group (if I’m not mistaken the same one who
turned off the Queen) remains confident as he does a hacker bypass while the
others hold back the horde. He does it all with a smoothness that leaves no doubt
that he can indeed do this. He is openly satisfied as the door opens behind
him, and what really got this in here is that I didn’t remember or expect what
happens next.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In closing, what I come
back to is how I feel about this movie and the franchise. My standing and long
stated opinion is that the third film was the best, the second was the worst,
and everything thereafter isn’t worth the trouble of counting in the same
continuity. By further comparison, the original is almost overshadowed, which I
will be the first to say is the last thing it deserved. Whatever else one may
say, it was the right film that came out at just the right time to bring the
zombie genre back to life. It also had the further virtues of being both a
competent film and a genuinely creative one that never tried to be anything but
itself. That should be a good enough epitaph in an age of remakes and reboots.
I for one am happy to give it a final salute and call it a day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-47229554554538799762023-10-03T19:16:00.001-07:002023-10-03T19:16:27.773-07:00Crypto Corner Returns?! The ship with nobody on it<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s almost time for
Halloween, and I have been thinking about the future of my blogging. That
brought me back to one of the things that got me here in the first place, my
interest in Forteana. That, in turn, got me thinking about something that I had
never really thought about trying my own hand at either way. It’s the most
famous and iconic of mysteries, the one that is still hailed as “unsolved”… and
the one that has the highest volume of absolute nonsense. I speak of the <i>Mary
Celeste</i>, the greatest of maritime mysteries… and I will be presenting the
explicit hypothesis that it was a scam.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The facts of the case are
already so frequently retold as to be moot in serious discussion. In 1872, a ship
named <i>Dei Gratia</i> sighted another ship near the Strait of Gibraltar,
moving erratically. The captain, David Morehouse, gave orders to approach what
was presumed to be a vessel in distress, only to find that it in fact had no
crew aboard at all. Its name was the <i>Mary Celeste</i>, an already
disreputable vessel commanded by one Benjamin Briggs, a well-regarded if
undistinguished seaman who had set off from New England with a cargo of
alcohol, a handpicked crew and his wife Sarah and young daughter sophy on
board. Though the lifeboat was gone, the ship was still largely seaworthy. But
what made it remarkable was that a logbook found aboard recorded the ship’s
last position as hundreds of miles further west. Further investigations would
raise allegations of mutiny, murder, conspiracies and outright insurance fraud.
Yet, in the end, multiple inquests could give no explanation, and neither the
captain nor the crew nor his missing family members were ever found. So, of
course, decades of literature suggested that it was the work of mutineers, or murderous
ex-slaves, or pirates, or giant squid, or aliens, or… Yeah, we all know, this
was <i>bunk.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, to back this up,
what’s really noteworthy are the two figures who gave the story its eventual
form. One was none other than Arthur Conan Doyle, who turned out an early yarn
with a fictionalized retelling of the vessel, subtly renamed<i> Marie Celeste</i>.
In his telling, the tale became a racially charged tale of vengeance. Though it
specifically lacked a supernatural element, he made a number of additions and
omissions to present a scenario that was far more mysterious than the mundane
facts, notably portraying the vessel with its lifeboat still in place and with
a “hot meal” on the table. (The latter detail seems to have come from a
slightly earlier retelling in the<i> Los Angeles Times</i>.) The other is the
infamous Frederick Solly Flood, an attorney general who investigated the case.
He was quite justifiably incredulous at the truthfulness of the received
account of events, but could not come up with a better alternative than increasingly
contrived speculations that the captain and the crew had either murdered each
other or been killed by the crew of the <i>Dei Gratia. </i>It is worth further
note that, prior to the rise of the Fortean community, his was the dominant
“narrative” of the event, as further reflected in the multiple lurid hoaxes
that made the worst school library Forteana look like naïve exuberance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now is the point where we
can double back to the “savvy” version of events, represented by Ian Wilson’s
frequently cited<i> Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries</i> and Brian Hendricks’
fine scholarly rundown <i>Ghost Ship</i>. These accounts have at least set a
bar of discussion higher than the self-mystification of the “true mysteries”
books. We intelligent anomalists and historical investigators all know now that
the lifeboat was gone from the ship. It has long since been agreed that, while
the <i>Mary Celeste</i> was reasonably intact at the time of discovery, it had
suffered significant damage that would probably have claimed it if not for its
seemingly happenstance encounter with another ship. Finally, while items of
significant value were left aboard ship, as well as the ship’s log book, the
captain and crew did take the time to bring navigational instruments. The
upshot has been at least to place the “mystery” in the realm of psychology
rather than the paranormal. Obviously, the captain and crew decided to leave
the ship, without believing the situation so dire that they deserted without
preparation. It is sensibly postulated that they believed they could either
reach land or simply return to the ship once some temporary problem resolved
itself. At some point, they miscalculated or had a further mishap, leaving the
captain, crew and a woman and child to a fate that was, in Wilson’s words,
“tragically obvious”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What is most noteworthy
in all this is that these revisionist takes have done very little to put Flood
in a better light. If anything, he has been the foil of the debunkers as he was
to the credulous lay Forteans. In their accounts, he becomes a kind of
misguided extremist, trying mightily to refute the posited facts of the case
only to see them affirmed again and again. What is undoubtedly true is that
there was precious little that was reasonable in his conjectures. The one thing
that can still put him in a sympathetic light is the desperation that must have
driven to it. He becomes the epitome of the specifically Victorian brand of
rationalism, determined to find a “reasonable” explanation even for what was by
all appearances a series of irrational acts. As the centerpiece of my own
scenario, I posit what I find closest to the truth: He was the kind of
prosecutor who, given the opportunity, would overstate and distort his case to
the point of irreparable harm even if the facts and evidence were already in
favor of the accused being guilty. We can thus frame the question as, just how
much did Flood set rational inquiries back?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On this vein, we can see
that Flood fundamentally botched his case as soon as he arbitrarily fixated on
the notion that the crew had mutinied after getting drunk on alcohol from the
ship’s hold. In fact, even if the alcohol was not strictly toxic as usually
reported (only Hicks seems to admit any uncertainty on that point), it was
certainly never intended for recreational consumption in any quantity. Beyond
that, an uprising of intoxicated and enraged sailors changes the scenario from
a crime of passion rather than cold-blooded fraud, without any advantage in
accounting for the evidence. It was notably unlikely that such a ragtag band
could act without resistance from loyalists in the crew and/ or infighting in
their own ranks, either of which would almost certainly have left clear signs
of struggle. What should have ended the discussion is and if such a group had
given any thought at all to covering their tracks, they would simply set fire
to the ship and its flammable cargo. Then the most consequential and malign
error was that Flood all but rejected the simplest solution of all, that Briggs
decided to abandon, burn or flat-out explode his own ship to collect the
insurance. On this point, it must be considered that even if Flood was right,
his unwillingness to accuse a captain of wrongdoing surely reveals a cultural
blind spot that could easily have cost us key facts and context.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, we get to the
infamous details, and I freely maintain that if my scenario does not explain
everything, it leaves no more plot holes than any other. For example, we know
that a certain amount of alcohol had leaked into the hold, and that at least
one hatch was secured open. This was in fact a reasonably favorable
circumstance for the kind of fuel-air explosion already prominently discussed
by revisionists, as much as a man of the 1800s could have understood the
phenomenon. It is especially noteworthy that this would allow for multiple
contingencies. If whatever igniting mechanism was set up failed to produce an
explosion, the resulting blaze could still destroy the ship. If it had not,
then the flames could still burn up the cargo along with any evidence of
intentional sabotage. The one thing would-be arsonists might well have been
unprepared for was for a carefully planned detonation to fail entirely. That
would have left the crew in the position we already know, either paddling away
from the ship in the lifeboat or watching from a calculated safe distance. In
the latter scenario, we can envision an argument whether to go back to the ship,
just possibly long enough to delay a decision that would have changed their
fate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another detail this can
account for is the abandoned logbook, and the further fact that the last entry
was 9 days prior to the ship’s discovery. From what we know now, this was
probably at least a day or two before the abandonment of the ship, and of
course, the apparent gap in the nominally daily log is all the more strange if
anything untoward had happened in the meantime. It has also been freely noted
that several calculations of the ship’s position may have been incorrect. This
is precisely where outright fraud becomes, at a minimum, more economical than
any other solution. Perhaps Briggs discontinued the log when his real plan
started. If he had cared enough to make the effort, he might have kept two
separate logs, a fraud known to Christopher Columbus. Or, for simplicity, the
logbook may have been abandoned because the captain realized it contained
information that would contradict whatever story he planned to tell.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At this point, the
problem once again falls into the realm of psychology. Much has been said about
Briggs’ piety and mild temperament, which is certainly a fair point against the
broken-record guessing that he drove his crew to mutiny. But if the charge is premeditated
fraud, the story of the scrupulous and reliable professional taking the money
and run has long since become its own cliché. Of course, it can be further
allowed that he objected to the plan only to be overruled by other
conspirators, most obviously the ship’s frequently discussed owner, James
Winchester. We might also reconsider a role for Morehouse, the one point where
even Flood backed off. If Morehouse and any of his crew had been let in on a
plot, they could have been induced by a chance to play hero by picking up the
survivors as much as any share in an expected payout. If they were not, it
could very well have been planned for the <i>Mary Celeste</i> to cross paths
with his ship, notwithstanding the known discrepancies in their known and
intended courses, and ideally give truthful witnesses to the destruction of the
<i>Mary Celeste</i> in the process. Then we might wonder about a comment
reported by his widow: “Poor Briggs! He and his wife and crew must have
perished in that small, open yawl. There can be no other way out of it.” It is
the same conclusion reached by others much further removed from the case, but
wouldn’t the certainty and finality of his remark make all the more sense if that
was what he expected to find on the fateful day?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The one obvious
counterpoint is that Briggs would have to have embarked on the plot with not
only his wife but the younger of their two children onboard. On consideration,
this is no more or less than one more unknown, and another point where the
lingering filters of Victorian morality have done us no favors. The later
hoaxers were especially apt to push Sarah Briggs into the role of a passive
damsel, which is in fact the one thing we can be sure she was not. In reality,
she was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an intelligent and resourceful
woman who had accompanied her husband often enough to be an seasoned mariner in
her on right. From what can be known, Briggs in turn respected her as a partner
in his ventures. If a plot to sink <i>the Mary Celeste</i> had been discussed
between them, it is at least not preposterous that she might have approved. As
usual, we can spin further motivations. She may have already wanted to return
to a life on land and bring her wayfaring mate with her. Perhaps she would have
seen a scheme as no more than a romantically piratical adventure. And of
course, the only thing that needs to be added to this “what if” is, as usual,
that something went very, very wrong.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And that brings us back
around to the aftermath, as <i>Dei Gratia</i>’s crew surveyed the scene. We have
already seen that it is not essential that they were party to a conspiracy, if
one occurred, but it is all too easy to envision a spontaneous and organic
“coverup”. If even the suspicious Flood was unwilling to sustain an accusation
of wrongdoing against Briggs, his peers and friends would have been all the
more reluctant to implicate him in a petty plot or for that matter a simple
error that in all likelihood cost him, his crew and his wife and daughter their
lives. Then, if the scenario laid out here is anywhere close to correct, there are
plenty of things that would only have been “obvious” to experienced seaman, and
many of those might only have been seen by a single person. It would have been
easy to dispose of some crucial piece of evidence or remove it from context,
easier still simply to omit it from the reports and subsequent testimony. The
unavoidable irony is that if anyone had tried to come clean, it might only have
further antagonized the likes of Flood.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now as an epilogue, we
might consider a deeper part of maritime lore, the supposedly “cursed” ship. As
we all know, the <i>Mary Celeste</i> was the epitome of the legend even without
the incident that made her infamous, from a maiden voyage with a captain who
got sick and died to a wreck and costly rebuild that gave the ship its name to
a final trip where she was in fact wrecked in what a court of law ruled to be
deliberate insurance fraud. Through it all, we can see a bedrock of rational
plausibility. The ship started as an undistinguished specimen of a type that
would soon become both obsolete and unprofitable. In its rebuilt form, it
became an awkward compromise, larger than it was meant to be yet only
marginally improved, with a sunk cost that would weigh down its profitability. Along
the way, it acquired a bad reputation that on objective scrutiny can be counted
as nothing more or less than self-fulfilled prophecy. Captains and crew were
increasingly unwilling to sail aboard the ship, especially after the
disappearance of the Briggs and its crew. More tellingly, it passed through a
series of increasingly indifferent or malicious owners, until it finally came
to one who was willing to destroy it on purpose. The truth of the matter was
that the ship was doomed not by any curse, but by economics that left it
unprofitable yet too expensive to abandon until the very end.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And that ends this little
rabbit trail. So, what do I think? I’m willing to say, I still don’t know. I
have run with my scenario just to see how far it can go. Having come to the
end, I will be the first to admit that it’s not a very likely solution. But I can
also say, it certainly is not so unlikely that it can be dismissed out of hand.
The real lesson of <i>Mary Celeste </i>research is that there will never be a
perfect answer to every question. To believe otherwise is to enable the
mystification that prevailed for so long, and also to overlook the true horror.
If we cannot figure out why an experienced captain would take his wife and
child as well as his crew onto the open ocean on a marginal lifeboat, does that
not simply show us the limits of our reason? And who are we to say that any of
us could not make an equally unfathomable decision, if we had to make it under
the same limitations? That should terrify us more than any spooky yarn, and
that is why the mystery will live on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-73853987242761852362023-09-17T18:34:00.002-07:002023-09-17T18:34:48.369-07:00Futures Past: The Captain N comic book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7_2ASnp2kP535iGxndHjgC1f5hsXE7dDMYziMCjJvItT53g6F2WhPkhVEvHQ9VHt55ADqsw_oqoiflqoTuVkBEfeER-si5NN0lVdPutrfkNgnZMh0BHMVZXfgKDH53kG0kr6EyV_U64NbHVYKuCBLv8RvTGZG_ljwBRYmPyhKhnbGaODYNljCNGkbhsA/s576/Captain_N_The_Game_Master_Vol_1_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7_2ASnp2kP535iGxndHjgC1f5hsXE7dDMYziMCjJvItT53g6F2WhPkhVEvHQ9VHt55ADqsw_oqoiflqoTuVkBEfeER-si5NN0lVdPutrfkNgnZMh0BHMVZXfgKDH53kG0kr6EyV_U64NbHVYKuCBLv8RvTGZG_ljwBRYmPyhKhnbGaODYNljCNGkbhsA/w278-h400/Captain_N_The_Game_Master_Vol_1_1.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p> As I write this, I'm two months and counting in my sabbatical from blogging, and have also spent two weeks watching my <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/09/fiction-retro-gaming-parody-novel.html">retro gaming parody/ fan novel</a> not sell, and bought a new computer for good measure. In the midst of all this, I got to thinking more about something I mentioned once before, a traumatic experience that scarred an entire generation. I speak, of course, of <i>Captain N: The Game Master,</i> a show even kids who were several years/ eons away from <i>Batman: The Animated Series </i>knew was kaka. And what really brought me back to it wasn't writing a 100,000-word novel, or buying a <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/06/futures-past-nintendo-exotrooper-figure.html">Samus figure </a>for three times its retail price, but finding out there was a comic book. And by reputation, it is actually... good? Okay? Tolerable??? Clearly, I was going to have to investigate first-hand.</p><p>So, to back things up, I did indeed watch <i>Captain N</i> first-hand during its run, and as usual, I have some very distinct recollections that I now know don't line up with the actual run of the show. I'm sure I saw it first during a vacation that could have been before I had a TV at home, a story arc I assumed was the pilot that I figured out would actually be episodes 4 and/ or 5. It could easily have been a year or more before I watched it again, on the same network affiliate where I first saw <i>Darkwing Duck, </i>in a slot that required getting up early to watch it at all. I can recall several of the more famed/ notorious episodes (including their Tetris one!), of which I'm sure all were in a half-hour, single-story format. From the research that I did for this post, that means I only saw seasons 1 and 2, the last episode of which aired in very early 1991. However, I'm sure I was watching it well after that, probably into 1992 if not later. This fits with certain reports that it was in network syndication as late as 1994.</p><p>Now, with all the easy jokes already at hand, I'm sure everyone is expecting me either to destroy this show or defend it as a neglected classic. However, that simply isn't how it was. The now-storied clashes of titans that defined modern animation were all happening after school between Fox Kids and the Disney Afternoon. Even back then, it was obvious that Saturday mornings were the low end of the pool, the usually short-lived experiments, the outdated-on-arrival tie-ins, the reruns and reboots of shows you had thought you were too old for the first time around. If you accepted the ritual of getting up before 7 in the morning, then you were probably going to watch whatever they threw at us without complaining. And you could get lucky, with shows like <i>Darkwing Duck</i> or a good episode of <i>Garfield And Friends. </i>Then again, you could get the<i> </i>likes of <i>ProStars, Karate Kid </i>and <i>Hammer Man</i>, all of which I most certainly watched in the same timeframe if not the same network and lineup as <i>Captain N</i>. And in their company, yes, <i>Captain N</i> reached the proverbial high standard of mediocrity. We were already past the Dark Ages, into a time where even a low-tier cash grab could be expected to have some measure of technical quality and narrative coherence. If it came to that, when Mother Brain was competent, when Simon Belmont wasn't actively stupid, when Kevin and Princess Lana aren't vying to be both bland and irritating (yes, even compared to Simon <i>and</i> Kid Icarus), when they actually did something creative with the "guest" game characters no matter how little sense it made in relation to the game, it could be entertaining.</p><p>And then there is the comic, which I had absolutely no idea existed until noting a few passing mentions in connection with <i>Metroid</i>. This one was published by Valiant, also responsible for a Super Mario comic I'm now sure I encountered in the wild sometime in the 1990s. The first issue was published in May 1990. Alas, the run ended in September of the same year after only five issues. In its short run and after, it gained a reputation as both more faithful to the source games and far better in quality than the TV series. Unsurprisingly, copies are scarce and quite expensive. Fortunately, the real-world heroes at <a href="http://cnn.captainn.net/com_issueguide.html">Captain N.net</a> have assembled a library for all the internet to read, for the moment.</p><p>Meanwhile, what brought me to this comic was its chief claim to fame or infamy: Unlike the entirety of the TV series, it featured Samus Aran as a major character. In fact, she was introduced as a "guest" character in the last of several storylines in the first issue of the comic, and continued to appear at least once in every remaining issue of the run. In the first appearance, titled "Money Changes Everything", she was set up as a neutral bounty hunter willing to consider an offer from Mother Brain. By "The Happy Zone" in the following issue, she was already established as a member of the "N Team" and a rival to Princess Lana for the affections of Captain N/ Kevin, which admittedly wasn't a big deal in the TV series. After appearing in a single panel of "The Fabulous Powers of Captain N" in issue 3, she got a full protagonist treatment in "Breakout" in issue 4, where a corrupt judge sends her and Princess Lana to a prison planet from which they must escape. In issue five, she got not one but two appearances. First, in "Garbageworld", a time travel mishap sends her to a future where Kevin is finally willing to reciprocate her interest, but also is reduced to leading the remnants of the resistance to Mother Brain from an interstellar garbage dump. Then in "When Friends Fall Out", Princess Lana discovers evidence that the bounty hunter was responsible for the disappearance of the old king of Videoland, in a story that was obviously meant to be finished in the announced but never printed issue 6.</p><p>So, with that out of the way, is this comic any good? Having read the Samus story arc, and skimmed a few more storylines, I can certainly affirm that this is vastly better than the TV show. The unavoidable punchline is, this is pretty much like saying the show was better than the Battletoads pilot. We aren't just comparing two different things, but two things in very different stages of development. The relative strengths of the comic come down to the fact that it is trying to establish its world and characters, but there was a point when the show made some effort to do the same. Whether the same level of quality could have been maintained over a longer run is unknowable at best. What can be seen all too clearly is that this is far from a top-notch comic for its own or any other time. The artwork is no better than average for a newspaper comic, and particularly weak when called on to establish a larger setting, the one thing that the show was undisputedly good at as long as it was trying at all. The stories serve up several duds, notably "Breakout". The real bottom line is that the comic is still everything the show was reviled for, a middling to low budget cash-in built around references to niche pseudo-mythology, though with the difference that it gets said mythology mostly right.</p><p>And then there is Samus, the one thing that made this at all memorable. As with many things, you can see where they were trying, not so much where they did this right. Sure, she's a developed and sympathetic female character with a "dark" side that isn't simply waved away by the power of love (yet...). However, while her open infatuation with the male lead isn't exactly "stereotypical" as such, it is quickly magnified to a level that can only be regarded as either actually disturbing or wholly contrived, to the point that she seriously goes through with accepting the garbage world timeline. Given the general intelligence of the material, it can be allowed that this really is meant to show her conflicting emotions and very gray morality. The deeper problem is that the story arc never pushes its own point. Every time she is presented with a choice between her mercenary ways and the good guys' ideals, the story always throws a softball rather than making her admit to past misdeeds or ongoing flaws. It's by all means a step forward, especially for a video game tie-in (Hell, the show wasn't afraid to show the dark side of unrequited "love" either), but it's the kind that shows just how far we still had to go. Oh yes, and this could all look far, far worse if we actually knew how the Hell old our "hero" is... </p><p>So that's Captain N, the show and the comic book. So, was this worth it? Considering how notorious this has gotten, it was definitely worth a rematch, and I'm more than happy to have dug up the comic book. For myself, I hope I have at least given some perspective. By my standard rant, this wasn't "good" by any means, but anyone who thinks this is the "worst" we got is either too young or suffering from repressed memories. (Hey, sometimes, I <i>wish</i> I could come down with that...) All in all, a weekend isn't too much time for a trip down this rabbit hole. That's all for now, more to come!</p><p>Image credit<a href="https://valiant.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_N:_The_Game_Master_Vol_1"> valiant.fandom.com</a>.</p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-90264275346610995012023-09-04T18:14:00.003-07:002023-09-04T18:21:22.732-07:00Fiction: Retro gaming parody novel publication announcement!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUQk9ZupPg1IWsuB5dJsN_4iyNEINbG2FFG2GwzxvyuD_fsriUr3bgrsJEfPglR-RtU9n5X_92hPp8aw-cmNvIRjCS-ThsYduWmXO5uyy9AW2vcx6ocCcSg9HljJ1FvXvpKzBJQj5UMRgNyMqpZQfhY7FmuJCrIK5U6aux3wgdw9yXKwmpVgcTVDLyDA/s4960/Ataraxes%20descending%20with%20title%202A.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4960" data-original-width="3561" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUQk9ZupPg1IWsuB5dJsN_4iyNEINbG2FFG2GwzxvyuD_fsriUr3bgrsJEfPglR-RtU9n5X_92hPp8aw-cmNvIRjCS-ThsYduWmXO5uyy9AW2vcx6ocCcSg9HljJ1FvXvpKzBJQj5UMRgNyMqpZQfhY7FmuJCrIK5U6aux3wgdw9yXKwmpVgcTVDLyDA/w230-h320/Ataraxes%20descending%20with%20title%202A.png" width="230" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>It's Labor Day, which means this is still technically the last weekend of a month when I've so far done only two posts and absolutely no movie reviews. I'm breaking the silence to announce that my Nintendo fan/ parody novel (see demos <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/04/fiction-off-brand-retro-gaming-fan.html">1</a>, <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/fiction-retro-games-fan-fic-parody-demo.html">2</a>, and <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/its-thursday-of-off-week-and-ive-been.html">3</a>, the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/06/fiction-assumed-mythology-line-up.html">mythology appendix</a> and <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/06/fiction-nintendo-parody-novel-extra.html">extra</a>) is up for sale, as linked to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH5JJMYL?ref_=ast_author_dp">here</a>. In the meantime, I threw in some art on top of the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/07/fiction-special-retro-gaming-fan-parody.html">cover</a> I already spent too much on, resulting in the interior title page above from an artist named Carlos Miguel Garcia. My specific instructions were to make a "1980s futuristic" ship, and I will be the first to admit that really is what Eighties "kit-bashed" sci fi ships were like. Here's another piece of artwork I shelled out for. For context, the description in the book has the mother dragon monster using a chokehold. And they're both being held hostage by the empress of an evil magic-mirror dimension...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrwYbX5Xh_mpgp04_-akiponpuSr4bi1R7UZtmndsUz5a55boUyszIV8yD834CWXf6cSUEppoBiwRsJG8HTLlMlQUSKPPvPmH0SbB4L9zFMwiv_fKPW0t3CRbzZjcfNxUtG-esSPtk47xbvrVadfB3OP_3IK32HcZkPJK6rC-vj0KI24XiWQL2V-pu70/s4960/Transparent%20Background%20(Line%20art)%20by%20Carlos%20Artwork%20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4960" data-original-width="3561" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrwYbX5Xh_mpgp04_-akiponpuSr4bi1R7UZtmndsUz5a55boUyszIV8yD834CWXf6cSUEppoBiwRsJG8HTLlMlQUSKPPvPmH0SbB4L9zFMwiv_fKPW0t3CRbzZjcfNxUtG-esSPtk47xbvrVadfB3OP_3IK32HcZkPJK6rC-vj0KI24XiWQL2V-pu70/w288-h400/Transparent%20Background%20(Line%20art)%20by%20Carlos%20Artwork%20.png" width="288" /></a></div><br /><p>So that's what I have to show for 4 and a half months of work and definitely more money than I'm remotely likely to get back. So was it worth it? Well, it probably helped keep me sane, which is something. And while I'm at it, here's my final version of the ship design everybody kept telling me not to use.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg1ECMxFklOgivllTXKBACHsCYuVkxB9SRYp77t523lYtvRItI_vlsFy_qSuKNoYrHDvOt0MSs4fsCQLxK7XJowFGIa8h05JLCRb4uGFtHJZj4nQ_H5SgOBVIstESp5MFXMbec7_YYyMIiQnSEkc-hMyflpaA-Ihmo1AUXVP7UF-unAQnEca52L5Rmrsc/s2061/Geryon%20Flash%20Gordon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2061" data-original-width="1489" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg1ECMxFklOgivllTXKBACHsCYuVkxB9SRYp77t523lYtvRItI_vlsFy_qSuKNoYrHDvOt0MSs4fsCQLxK7XJowFGIa8h05JLCRb4uGFtHJZj4nQ_H5SgOBVIstESp5MFXMbec7_YYyMIiQnSEkc-hMyflpaA-Ihmo1AUXVP7UF-unAQnEca52L5Rmrsc/w289-h400/Geryon%20Flash%20Gordon.png" width="289" /></a></div><p>That's all for now, more to come... I'm still not saying when.</p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-26543346533284656712023-08-15T21:06:00.008-07:002023-08-15T21:06:45.507-07:00The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Return to the wild!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6QXp9L_pnvZ4EQBizZfI5_WdYEvKbPcRkLlnal6j1zeBYjUcWxRd8YcIIaW7N95gHRoxpB5c3nm4hJzMjp5j-LOqbK2412Sw3dDo7YCKnrci6QjZSqLE2b_dkr7hLm0mCgEzGWqiozSHO0hLvN9HA79ICTSltgFoU-OY9FJcwzH2FULsXx9Ul1fPUHHc/s4160/20230812_162619.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6QXp9L_pnvZ4EQBizZfI5_WdYEvKbPcRkLlnal6j1zeBYjUcWxRd8YcIIaW7N95gHRoxpB5c3nm4hJzMjp5j-LOqbK2412Sw3dDo7YCKnrci6QjZSqLE2b_dkr7hLm0mCgEzGWqiozSHO0hLvN9HA79ICTSltgFoU-OY9FJcwzH2FULsXx9Ul1fPUHHc/s320/20230812_162619.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>It's Tuesday, and I've been busy enough to consider throwing in the towel a while longer. Fortunately, it just happens that I spent some decompression time at the Store of Stores, source of the<strike> silliest </strike>AWESOMEST dinosaurs to appear in this feature. So, here's a quick lineup of the latest sightings there, plus a few more things that even I wouldn't pay money for, which I swear I almost had ready over the weekend. To kick things off, how about a dinobot?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcNYuCwbn5NBJQgOnqjE4Ar9GBXT9EQQse4nq6hZQkuZYWpW4smMzqCkDwEHp9RSe7or5I0jmASzaFRbyJSjmlV_c0dWHmFLR3pfdApHblUwRNPSBR5qoPB_PQ2DL2PP3zOk2O548oAL_w7crGdqPRgoArrsRgsXOkYzSZcgTYUh3ZHQv4lzRYa93r2CE/s4160/20230811_193502.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcNYuCwbn5NBJQgOnqjE4Ar9GBXT9EQQse4nq6hZQkuZYWpW4smMzqCkDwEHp9RSe7or5I0jmASzaFRbyJSjmlV_c0dWHmFLR3pfdApHblUwRNPSBR5qoPB_PQ2DL2PP3zOk2O548oAL_w7crGdqPRgoArrsRgsXOkYzSZcgTYUh3ZHQv4lzRYa93r2CE/s320/20230811_193502.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>This here is, of course, a clear if generic knockoff of the Transformers Dinobots, previously represented in my original <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/09/legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-dinobots.html">dinobot lineup </a>and my relatively recent <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-dinobots.html">Grimlocks</a> followup. This one looks good enough that I genuinely considered buying it, except that its price tag was in the same range as a real Transformer, and not just the discounted and/ or small ones I usually buy. Of course, I did consider that the exact same store sold me the mindbogglingly awful generic <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-generic.html">ankylosaur dinobot</a>, possibly the worst thing I have reviewed for this feature that I bought new. The mask you can kind of see didn't help; it really is a full-sized Halloween mask with an alleged electronic feature. If that's what drove the price up, they lost the sale twice over. Oh, well. And then there was this...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH74om1RlJE0Nw5GYMPy_4fg0-DN_YUHPmnCabCiAUHyFJRcvs1-f2og_McvSre3WseuKA08wQlAnhhtx3w9Qk2zTT0Psfy3TRCov1DejBF9LEyKiiGauUjrCacv9q1c9H1kmFO6BcmMCzjXvdi4qXBAcaMbU0CroBhzWlEiP2trCgZG23XMHnsjMoel8/s4160/20230811_193950.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH74om1RlJE0Nw5GYMPy_4fg0-DN_YUHPmnCabCiAUHyFJRcvs1-f2og_McvSre3WseuKA08wQlAnhhtx3w9Qk2zTT0Psfy3TRCov1DejBF9LEyKiiGauUjrCacv9q1c9H1kmFO6BcmMCzjXvdi4qXBAcaMbU0CroBhzWlEiP2trCgZG23XMHnsjMoel8/w300-h400/20230811_193950.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>So this is a bag of big dinos that appears to be from the same makers as the<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-generic.html"> generic dino bag</a> and the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-generic.html">Oviraptor</a>. This time, there's only about three of them in correspondingly large sizes, as far as I can tell solidly built. There's even signs of articulation on that ceratopsian. The problem, which you might or might not be able to see, is that the included T. rex has two heads, which somehow failed to be a selling point for me. It all comes down to the dictum I laid down with the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/05/legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-patchisaurs.html">patchisaurs</a>, if you're going with dinos as an excuse for fantasy monsters, don't try to make them look like "real" dinosaurs. And here's another pic that might or might not give a better view. One more thing, I swear that <i>Styracosaurus </i>thingy<i> </i>looks<u> exactly</u> like a stop-motion model used in <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-kong-file-one-that-was-first-sequel.html">Son of Kong</a></i>. Dammit, I'm going to go back and buy this thing, aren't I?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZDzU3eCK_G2c7kF45e0MkzGGaY_7uvPMERj6qeIAcoMpDMRGmNwl1N3GfUbCn3Su5MM54BgIEzdjSflJdH5gDH5JsjxEzn2hP07QtmUrt2meUQsZRMzKNiEjmpcUCKstBN2QWf4jQ-g9yoD6oTpu8VEJpSsd5qc3PY1OZLUKZUiWvThUznsKzvuNv504/s4160/20230811_193948.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZDzU3eCK_G2c7kF45e0MkzGGaY_7uvPMERj6qeIAcoMpDMRGmNwl1N3GfUbCn3Su5MM54BgIEzdjSflJdH5gDH5JsjxEzn2hP07QtmUrt2meUQsZRMzKNiEjmpcUCKstBN2QWf4jQ-g9yoD6oTpu8VEJpSsd5qc3PY1OZLUKZUiWvThUznsKzvuNv504/w300-h400/20230811_193948.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And here's another item, clearly intended to look like a therizinosaur. Wow. Just... wow.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD9gkHy7IVvwSEAbdy42HSN1SU3rqbgbJAMKYZl0qn0VI2WaphQxsEIEjrNFv9C2CxuGxw399t668CIGsw_bR8cp8cHu8j09_ThEvaT72E_QHL1WsyT7rFvbbJqTS315vjPm6h2asRL9Cz1IxGtTnUH6WAE9beHfEdnOoHmsjIfl4EjAiqr3WEG2VPu1A/s4160/20230811_193612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD9gkHy7IVvwSEAbdy42HSN1SU3rqbgbJAMKYZl0qn0VI2WaphQxsEIEjrNFv9C2CxuGxw399t668CIGsw_bR8cp8cHu8j09_ThEvaT72E_QHL1WsyT7rFvbbJqTS315vjPm6h2asRL9Cz1IxGtTnUH6WAE9beHfEdnOoHmsjIfl4EjAiqr3WEG2VPu1A/w300-h400/20230811_193612.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>On the other hand, there's this. I'm actually impressed. Is this supposed to be a dino, or the Alien as a plush toy?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW92LlQkVMDpAcFqdq4r5gntBzodqc8XbBwRcmFeF_2mwtZfXQ0mQydve5GMwj8MqbdMNIyZEwxtBINx1KGMso81gt2DAdeB56stVegZ9CYXAwwFIcLtRPF1XKOdYqUagjxQwBbtbPeFrMWhcLOaW5g8VwI1TR0FYdjydfYxmHWTTgxaPHPen23h8m7Lw/s4160/20230811_193806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3120" data-original-width="4160" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW92LlQkVMDpAcFqdq4r5gntBzodqc8XbBwRcmFeF_2mwtZfXQ0mQydve5GMwj8MqbdMNIyZEwxtBINx1KGMso81gt2DAdeB56stVegZ9CYXAwwFIcLtRPF1XKOdYqUagjxQwBbtbPeFrMWhcLOaW5g8VwI1TR0FYdjydfYxmHWTTgxaPHPen23h8m7Lw/w400-h300/20230811_193806.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>And while I'm at it, a sighting from a previous visit. I'm sure this is from the same offenders as the generic bag. Well, if kids aren't traumatized, how will they get into dinosaurs?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMS38zcDH_t7xNF74JPBvq_Qu6GPfkFMsT2xaYa19yOWmbtywO7inXYDyMQ7y8bHVTUAs1J9Iinir5extHSjkAdIEFs2ILzxvDRjy0h0Kx8HjjT09llyRXJoOUfeT_wL3R2jU9cMlfMT_QFIgPEL_h4AqTrYrpriKnuZVz2JzQVj66QWgOZZpoYV0vIU/s4160/20221222_130801.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMS38zcDH_t7xNF74JPBvq_Qu6GPfkFMsT2xaYa19yOWmbtywO7inXYDyMQ7y8bHVTUAs1J9Iinir5extHSjkAdIEFs2ILzxvDRjy0h0Kx8HjjT09llyRXJoOUfeT_wL3R2jU9cMlfMT_QFIgPEL_h4AqTrYrpriKnuZVz2JzQVj66QWgOZZpoYV0vIU/w300-h400/20221222_130801.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And while I'm at it, a few from Walmart. This is the source of my header illustration. It feels like what would happen if a real therepod thought he could host a kid's show...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvJr__puTYnKCE7-sPU8wq6P8hWCwtfDt-klyO85u5GPHEYA1ChfEyHi3_BPob9eFijht1XhlqvWdbhD1M6g6ociP0VekwUaVkX9dUUxIWtzMZeCkrtdAJx_mMRjinEQtF0aBCv9fKRe8YM8PiIE8J5RIEN72yOVvmbc9Vzra9EvL2B6xqT_urfK8hKI/s4160/20230812_162615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvJr__puTYnKCE7-sPU8wq6P8hWCwtfDt-klyO85u5GPHEYA1ChfEyHi3_BPob9eFijht1XhlqvWdbhD1M6g6ociP0VekwUaVkX9dUUxIWtzMZeCkrtdAJx_mMRjinEQtF0aBCv9fKRe8YM8PiIE8J5RIEN72yOVvmbc9Vzra9EvL2B6xqT_urfK8hKI/s320/20230812_162615.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>And another Walmart entry. It's brought me the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-walmart.html">Lanard megafauna,</a> a<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/12/legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-wlmart-marx.html"> Marx clone set</a>, the<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-what-hell.html"> cyborg zombie T. rex</a>, and the actually good <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-spinosaur.html">spinosaur;</a> so you can't win 'em all.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ25VyRi4suj9Z5nBVJwuzN4rVCUIYCA70UbT7czzp2DUzU4w5eLv7l1znYHBn9_2UuZMw64c6QFQkYspiw0V3rsvMLoxSr5oUtZfgSZsuQL1M0aldTHakACyCh7ub2CoDPQxjQFbECq7dikfDBakY_hyaz6_4_yka8BZ9P6TT8oS1TVHPAeMiYirR53w/s4160/20230812_162554.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ25VyRi4suj9Z5nBVJwuzN4rVCUIYCA70UbT7czzp2DUzU4w5eLv7l1znYHBn9_2UuZMw64c6QFQkYspiw0V3rsvMLoxSr5oUtZfgSZsuQL1M0aldTHakACyCh7ub2CoDPQxjQFbECq7dikfDBakY_hyaz6_4_yka8BZ9P6TT8oS1TVHPAeMiYirR53w/w300-h400/20230812_162554.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And here's something different, from the store where I got the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2019/11/giant-robot-review-anime-style-robot.html">anime space jet transformer</a>, now finally closed down. This had definitely been there a very long time...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfLziNz21FvDlSHtCuXXHCY5njHwVWamJNoIeAvk18JKduSiGN56Cw7LMJ8OwBEiBjwrv-LxlJYV08_W-JLlCYkjhLC88f_EXRLFQH13Dw1Gdzqar0r-OQyLN7VcdGDN4G63_kUfAVibbmmWUEOZIWzxlFLr2WxzAmQSVlLVu40axjd2ZKl2yXU6PJho/s4160/20221222_114444.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfLziNz21FvDlSHtCuXXHCY5njHwVWamJNoIeAvk18JKduSiGN56Cw7LMJ8OwBEiBjwrv-LxlJYV08_W-JLlCYkjhLC88f_EXRLFQH13Dw1Gdzqar0r-OQyLN7VcdGDN4G63_kUfAVibbmmWUEOZIWzxlFLr2WxzAmQSVlLVu40axjd2ZKl2yXU6PJho/w300-h400/20221222_114444.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And speaking of Walmart/ Lanard, I found this outside the direct-to-Walmart channels.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwCcKyd7KDM2rCIdHGoCea6tSnFaDRYyh-utH4RDU7g_wXMjdv60eL3OhN6PAoqa9LjNfwOKVxcZ79km87lOeJ9-x7hqErAF_kK5_kdfsxI0fDFDiZJRQqzunOKya_y8D1DrKhSlxSwkGJCv69tJfHFi2qPaShVQdfMYlXYM-5IIk6yjuoOzBdOrTDF8/s4160/20221229_145847.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwCcKyd7KDM2rCIdHGoCea6tSnFaDRYyh-utH4RDU7g_wXMjdv60eL3OhN6PAoqa9LjNfwOKVxcZ79km87lOeJ9-x7hqErAF_kK5_kdfsxI0fDFDiZJRQqzunOKya_y8D1DrKhSlxSwkGJCv69tJfHFi2qPaShVQdfMYlXYM-5IIk6yjuoOzBdOrTDF8/w300-h400/20221229_145847.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And that's enough for me to call it a day/ night/ week. This is truly what I do, and this time around, I've felt good going in and coming out. My material isn't always great, or epically bad, but I can always come up with something interesting. And while I'm at it, here's one more pic from the Store of Stores. Sometimes, something normal is the weirdest thing of all...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmX2htFwweJZ-NgVd9yjDaCtyh9FabijgtDPU7tjDl53yKCYQxx3Zg263y2FefnX9Ms9zw23r2W52b6PeEzajitHw7V7eaJQ-TjDguHdf-f4vZF2BIlsaZcg2k-rIKeSMbAx28ejN_ydmEpxxJUeQXYZL5cPuVoJU4hrxPLFSnaS-ZN-R1VzBnH49vPTU/s4160/20230811_193711.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmX2htFwweJZ-NgVd9yjDaCtyh9FabijgtDPU7tjDl53yKCYQxx3Zg263y2FefnX9Ms9zw23r2W52b6PeEzajitHw7V7eaJQ-TjDguHdf-f4vZF2BIlsaZcg2k-rIKeSMbAx28ejN_ydmEpxxJUeQXYZL5cPuVoJU4hrxPLFSnaS-ZN-R1VzBnH49vPTU/w300-h400/20230811_193711.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p>That's all for now, more to come!</p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-60160555384973654892023-08-05T16:14:00.006-07:002023-08-06T22:39:58.150-07:00Futures Past special: Was the Landkreuzer practical/ feasible/ sane???<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjriQ8B3mRpekI6fx_lPieDGi4dADp5dzW0Jwjlqik9PWRgStnkBWJAplmFXmRBqPVXbJNTnyufofjxN4qmJ-ZtOuPmDqbv8tP9i4kBFa-08jQAu-fDpkCzE5-rTVo9tSEs5ckkGeXv6WdGHHuTKv-n_g_u2M6zjQMPPY7n2Mgb_cAJBm8F5GWu5FZoPpg/s300/Landkreuzer.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="87" data-original-width="300" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjriQ8B3mRpekI6fx_lPieDGi4dADp5dzW0Jwjlqik9PWRgStnkBWJAplmFXmRBqPVXbJNTnyufofjxN4qmJ-ZtOuPmDqbv8tP9i4kBFa-08jQAu-fDpkCzE5-rTVo9tSEs5ckkGeXv6WdGHHuTKv-n_g_u2M6zjQMPPY7n2Mgb_cAJBm8F5GWu5FZoPpg/w400-h116/Landkreuzer.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this, I am in
the third week of a break from blogging. I decided that this was the time and
place for something different that I had really been considering all along, a
post on history and tech. This particular post will be on something I already
covered in a <a href="https://youtu.be/QKGZGe3uTBw">Youtube rant,</a> the Landkreuzer project, and whether giant land
vehicles ever have and ever will be viable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, the facts of the
project mentioned will really be only a prologue here. At some point during
World War 2, there was a request within Nazi Germany for designs for a tracked
vehicle or vehicles weighing over 1000 tons, reportedly at the request of the
Reich’s dictator. Everything from there has been unclear, particularly the
extent to which any of it was taken seriously. At any rate, two major designs
with nominal designations emerge in the lore. One is P1000, a tracked chassis
mounting a battleship turret with 28cm guns. The other is the P1500, a
self-propelled version of the actually built 80cm Gustav railway gun. And this
was the extent of “super tank” development in real life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But, of course, the idea
has taken on a life of its own in science fiction. Even before the first tanks
were fielded, H.G. Wells portrayed very large armored vehicles in “The Land
Ironclads”. In the 1960s, the concept took on new life with Keith Laumer’s <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-anthology-anthology-bolos-giant.html">Bolo</a> series, which portrayed the titular battleship-sized, AI-driven tanks with
“hard SF” realism. Giant tanks and tank-like vehicles continued to appear in a
range of subgenres and media, like <i>The Legacy of the Aldenata</i>, <i>Warhammer
40K</i>, and the Kenner <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/11/rogues-roundup-1980s-super-tank-toys.html">Megaforce toy line</a>. I personally threw in my hand with <i>Aliens
Vs. Exotroopers</i>, featuring the 10,000-ton mobile lab Omega Aleph.
Meanwhile, real life intermittently matched fiction with the development of
giant tracked vehicle like NASA’s “crawler” and the Bagger 288 mining machine.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So, was all this ever
“realistic”, either by the minimal definition that such vehicles can be built
and function or in the stricter sense that they could have a useful purpose in
war? On the first question, the answer must be a qualified yes. Vehicles like
the Bagger 288 have exceeded 200 meters in length and 10,000 metric tons in
weight. Given this precedent, there is no reason to doubt that human industry
could build terrestrial military vehicles as large as naval craft if sufficient
demand arose. On the second question, the real question becomes one of
definitions. Of course, one can imagine a far future or alternate universe
where battleship-sized craft launch ICBMs or Harrier jets or railgun slugs able
to reach outer space. But does this meet the definition of a “tank”? This is
where things get complicated, and this is where we can consider something that
was actually built, the Maus tank.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The Maus, in brief, was
an experimental tank developed and built from 1941 to 1944, principally by
Ferdinand Porsche. It was the furthest development of Nazi Germany’s
“superheavy” program. The final prototype weighed 188 metric tons, more than
three times the size of a Tiger I and six times the size of a T34. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This made it the largest terrestrial military
vehicle ever built, though it never saw combat. Both a 128mm anti-tank gun and
a 15cm howitzer appear to have been considered for armament, though only the
former is known to have been fitted on a working turret. Tests showed that it
would run reliably, to the dismay of vocal opponents of the project in the Wehrmacht.
However, its highest reported or plausible speed was 20 km per hour, and its
weight posed severe problems for existing infrastructure. This was not, however, the reason that this was an obvious dead end I am annoyed even to have to
talk about.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">To see why the Maus was
not workable as a tank, we must consider the problem of armament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an observable fact that tank armament
has always plateaued around 12cm, and the exceptions serve to show why this was
the case. The KV-2 was a Soviet attempt to put a full-powered 152mm howitzer in
a rotating turret on an existing heavy tank chassis, but this strained the base
design so severely that it was reportedly prone to tipping over. On the Nazis’
side, the Sturmtiger/ Sturmorser mounted a mindboggling 38cm rocket launcher in
a heavily modified Tiger hull, but it was universally classified as a
self-propelled artillery piece rather than a tank. Finally, the much later
Sheridan light tank mounted a short-barreled 152mm gun originally intended to
launch a missile. Though this weapon was much lower-powered than that of the
KV-2, it still produced severe recoil that could reportedly lift the
lightly-built vehicle off the ground. The utility was further limited by low
ammunition storage capacity. In light of this running problem, the bottom line
for the Maus was that it had more than three times the weight of a more ordinary
armored vehicle, but even with the 15cm gun, it could not offer more than twice
the caliber or killing power of such a vehicle.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">That is the practical
problem, which might have been overcome. The deeper one is theoretical. The
conceptual role of a tank is offensive and linear, which in turn means engaging
an enemy at relatively close range. The noted 12cm limit for tank armament is
very much the upper limit for what is necessary or useful in this role. Beyond
that, you are transitioning to indirect fire, a jump as fundamental as that
from a battleship to an aircraft carrier. There is conceptual and tactical room
for a hybrid “howitzer tank” that can do both to some degree, as long as the
fairly specific flaws of the KV-2 and Sheridan are dealt with. However, when
the range of a vehicle’s primary weapon exceeds 16km, the best protection is to
be at least as far from enemy forces of any size. If anything larger than a
reconnaissance vehicle formation is close enough to engage with direct fire,
let alone do so from behind, something has already gone wrong.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And that brings us to by
far the most actually interesting superheavy vehicle of World War 2, the Karl.
This was unarmored platform for a 60cm howitzer originally intended to demolish
the Maginot Line, ultimately used at the siege of Sebastopol and the Polish
uprising. At 11.4 meters long and 125 metric tons, this is the indisputable but
unacknowledged record holder for the largest fully self-propelled vehicle ever
used in open warfare. (And no, the claim that the Maus <i>might</i> have been
used in an improvised last-ditch defense against the Soviets would not change
that.) Its chief defect was that it was more movable than mobile, with a top
speed of 10 kilometers per hour, and depended on rail to move any distance. The
latter limitation specifically prevented its use in the particularly insane
plan to demolish as much as possible of Paris before the German army withdrew
from the city.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">With this frame of
reference, what becomes clear is that the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>P1000 was a non-starter, even factoring in
calculations that the vehicle as designed would have been far more than the
nominal 1000 (metric???) ton weight. Putting a turret on a vehicle this heavily
armed was simply redundant, while full armor would inevitably be too much and
not enough: 10 or 20mm of plate would be enough to protect the crew from small
arms fire, but even the armor of a Maus wouldn’t stop concentrated bombing. The
P1500, on the other hand, was in the realm of the remotely sane. The Reich had
already built not only the Gustav railway gun but more prosaically sized
artillery like the famed and feared “Anzio Annie”, a 283mm railway gun actually
of about the same caliber proposed for the P1000. With that frame of reference,
we can at least figure out how big such a thing would really be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">That does bring us to
some daunting considerations. The Gustav was over 47 meters long and weighed an
astonishing 1,350 metric tons, obviously very close to the nominal 1500 tons
proposed for the Landkreuzer equivalent. It also had 8 distinct sets of wheels.
Anzio Annie, officially the Krupp K5, came in at 218 tons, still well over half
again the weight of a Karl, carried between two sets of wheels. The Karl itself
offers both a plausible means of construction and an “eyeball” range for size:
Just strip down a few Karl platforms to no more than 100 tons each (for some
reason, no precise figures for the platform minus gun are in circulation), and use it to replace at least
one set of wheels on a railway gun. We can therefore extrapolate a weight of
400 to 500 tons for a self-propelled Anzio Annie, which is not a lot more than
the mass for the two Maus tanks known to half been built. For the actual P1500,
on the other hand, we are definitely looking at not less than 4 and possibly
more than eight Karls worth of additional mass. That puts the minimum plausible
weight somewhere between 1800 and 3000 (metric) tons, which is extreme but not
entirely unfeasible.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">That leaves the essential
question, what could such a monstrosity actually do? In fact, we can at least
deal with the obvious objections. If you’re already over 400 metric tons, there
would be no reason not to throw in a few machine guns and light cannon for self-defense,
which would be enough to deal with infantry and perhaps lone aircraft. It would
still probably need to use the increasingly bombed-out rail infrastructure for most
of its movement, but it wouldn’t be a sitting duck if there was a hole in the
tracks. As for the usually cited problem of Allied bombing, it could be
camouflaged (and for that matter partly dismantled) against discovery by
routine raids and reconnaissance flights. If it came to that, it would be so
much bigger than anything else that simply hiding in plain sight takes on a
counterintuitive element of plausibility. After all, if your enemy’s common
airmen don’t already know you have a vehicle the size of warehouse with the
armament of a battleship, a weird platform with a giant tube on top isn’t going
to look that much more interesting than a tank factory on the left or a munitions
train on the right.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">On the other hand, there
are problems that don’t go away so easily. The existing weapons systems of the
Third Reich were already running into the practical limits of their technology, evidenced
conspicuously in the short barrel life of the Gustav guns. At the same time,
there were technologies that were still unavailable, notably practical submunitions.
(As I go into in the video version of this, the most significant experiment on
that vein was, of all things, the United States’ surreal “X Ray” program to
develop bat-deployed explosive devices.) Finally and most fundamentally, as
seen with the Karl and the Sturmtiger, the Third Reich was simply running out
of useful targets that weren’t already bombed to rubble. Given enough lead time,
they could have turned a formations of Landkreuzers on the urban centers of
Leningrad and Stalingrad, the concentrated armored forces at Kursk, and even
the landing craft at Normandy. But without a nuclear bomb they didn’t have or
chemical weapons even the Austrian painter feared to use, they probably weren’t
going to do more damage than they could have with the same tonnage of Stukas, Panther
tanks and V2s.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So, what of the future of
the super-heavy military vehicle? The self-evident reality is that, for as many
times as the tank has been proclaimed “dead”, there is still nothing better for
what tanks are actually meant to do. Indeed, even tasks well outside a tank’s
role, from carrying troops to launching ICBMs, have proven feasible for
vehicles not greatly different in size and configuration. To get to a vehicle
ten or more times the size of a tank, we would have to envision either a new mode
of combat, an exceptional new threat, or both. Short of slugging it out with aliens in low orbit, any mission parameters we could envision would probably
lead to a vehicle very different from what we would call a tank. Again, the
tactical and conceptual leaps could be as great as that from a battleship to an
aircraft carrier (maybe literally with VTOL aircraft and now drones in the
equation), and we are free to admit we may not know what’s on the other side
until we get there. The responsibility of the futurist is to think outside the
box, and we are definitely due for something more than a battleship on tracks.
Dream big, and reach for the sky… Just watch out for whatever is coming back
down.<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-7359780102737215992023-07-15T17:24:00.000-07:002023-07-15T17:24:02.121-07:00Unidentified Found Objects revisited: Late Nineties Star Wars bootleg ships???<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRa4q3Xg2aqVCNtyasOM0X61xouyMPlTSkUiX9OzzKLMK_okCoGFHGk6CnV0LbwydIruT4u-UnuzGS5EJyRQ5ireAIT6t9YaB_1Xy3Jtob2j3z2wtlsbUMeuwyE_e1VU9dIVrL6uB7UcSoIgr6y1FwJ6D-6cfpi4Rg_d7avE4IfjAq2UooptnSg23vr84/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_09_03_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRa4q3Xg2aqVCNtyasOM0X61xouyMPlTSkUiX9OzzKLMK_okCoGFHGk6CnV0LbwydIruT4u-UnuzGS5EJyRQ5ireAIT6t9YaB_1Xy3Jtob2j3z2wtlsbUMeuwyE_e1VU9dIVrL6uB7UcSoIgr6y1FwJ6D-6cfpi4Rg_d7avE4IfjAq2UooptnSg23vr84/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_09_03_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>As I write this, it's time for a weekend post and still actually the weekend, and it happens that I still have a loose end from previous post on <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/07/movie-mania-special-realistic-star-wars.html">Star Wars ships</a>. I mentioned in the course of that post that I had recently acquired certain kind-of bootleg ships from that franchise. This will be my follow-up report, which fell under a feature that never got off the ground: Unidentified Found Objects (see the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/06/unidentified-found-objects-spiff-ship.html">first</a> and <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/05/unidentified-found-objects-marx-space.html">last </a>posts), dedicated especially to the realm of strange and often all but untraceable "generic" and bootleg/ knockoff spaceships. This lineup in particular might be the most egregious case of all. To get into things, here's another pic of the core group in full, ah, glory...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-x-wxZvs3kjzpPRTC8z3dKksBJd0zd0o1Z6_Pjevs53FVg01P0pKJ555cAEj64Je2y-r9jpDcfJu47ywVhS4I1s6aj4DHN0DU4AWV_5YuYnHlnxbo9bxZ0QLexBf23RC5U-Qjox1vKJt6Esc6ao_cTsF3a8-n4WrEs8u28Zzlt1mSIGb3YSLk0bDMH6Y/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_11_37_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-x-wxZvs3kjzpPRTC8z3dKksBJd0zd0o1Z6_Pjevs53FVg01P0pKJ555cAEj64Je2y-r9jpDcfJu47ywVhS4I1s6aj4DHN0DU4AWV_5YuYnHlnxbo9bxZ0QLexBf23RC5U-Qjox1vKJt6Esc6ao_cTsF3a8-n4WrEs8u28Zzlt1mSIGb3YSLk0bDMH6Y/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_11_37_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">As
usual, my experiences with these begin a long time back, though still pretty
late in my life. Right at the end of the 1990s, when I was just out of high school and beginning to experience public transportation, I wandered into a dollar store near the site of a long-defunct mall and saw something odd that I did not buy at the time. They were cheap pullback toys (also the genre of the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/08/mystery-monday-spiff-ship-revisited.html">Spiff ship</a> and its Gobot-adjacent adversary), at least some of which were clearly based on Star Wars. These had been a fairly routine sight in my experience from the 1980s through the '90s, with something of an increase in the Nineties. These, however, were a bit different. For one thing, they were actually pretty good, both in faithfulness to the franchise sources and overall quality. For another, they covered a wider range than usual, with several that had been portrayed relatively infrequently, like the A-Wing seen here, and certain others that didn't appear to be Star Wars ships at all. (I will get back to that...) Finally, several of them still had very odd features, and not just the kind that would be thrown in as a defense against being sued (my area of expertise, in theory). To give a frame of reference, here's one more pic of the group.</span><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRn6Ek9B9zKA_hzRtJV35GiWlZhNegRhLVPSf3uzKVVoVVmm4zfmikBgnae48lbrrAJxRdXu14OgP-oGVT5GG7lsawE9pUZEBq5-txSn5pLuPD6dQ26bXN7l98-xF-z5zGg9r5UjqlDwjKgblLvnkt0tj5lDNGOsQTHY_Pu2jMN2ZfbJrqnN-nnLyLvAE/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_11_15_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRn6Ek9B9zKA_hzRtJV35GiWlZhNegRhLVPSf3uzKVVoVVmm4zfmikBgnae48lbrrAJxRdXu14OgP-oGVT5GG7lsawE9pUZEBq5-txSn5pLuPD6dQ26bXN7l98-xF-z5zGg9r5UjqlDwjKgblLvnkt0tj5lDNGOsQTHY_Pu2jMN2ZfbJrqnN-nnLyLvAE/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_11_15_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"George Lucas's lawyers are incoming, prepare to retreat!"</span></div><div><br /></div>And an extra A-Wing in the lot...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQroPvr7I4jdQYMexEhw3zgLaLSRIqT_TboEmVtmFjtqv31lNyECFaMHLsGg-XoSx5ZGMG67BQHG4EkI3Ph-iMrgeRU0RymOgoWGwUq7v_U-uE_vXBiVgFwiO9UVMRNeOlKcrkZW8s65_7Yv1XsPMrbgv6Uyby8k6zYulT6aj0ZGYOhD8M50CzIWPl2qY/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_14_18_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQroPvr7I4jdQYMexEhw3zgLaLSRIqT_TboEmVtmFjtqv31lNyECFaMHLsGg-XoSx5ZGMG67BQHG4EkI3Ph-iMrgeRU0RymOgoWGwUq7v_U-uE_vXBiVgFwiO9UVMRNeOlKcrkZW8s65_7Yv1XsPMrbgv6Uyby8k6zYulT6aj0ZGYOhD8M50CzIWPl2qY/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_14_18_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><p>Inevitably, one issue that can't be avoided is where these fall in the bootleg/ knockoff/ ripoff spectrum. As I have said before, I prefer to avoid the "ripoff" designation as negative and usually useless. The vast majority of the time, "knockoff" and "ripoff" can be used interchangeably. Furthermore, for toys in particular, the issues that I would see justifying the "ripoff" label are issues that can apply in any line: Poor or entirely dangerous quality; misleading packaging and advertising; and especially prices that far exceed the overall value of the product. The last is obviously not an issue when you are down to this level. The "bootleg" label, by comparison, is not "judgmental" but still can be problematic. By the strictest definitions, it means an unauthorized and direct copy of an original product, like the infamous Turkish "Uzay" line (see the <a href="http://theswca.com/images-speci/yglesias/uzay.html">Star Wars Collector Archive</a> page). It can broadly apply to a product that is made to resemble an authorized product, which these do come close to. Sure, the X-Wing is simply cartoonish, and the Millennium Falcon has a second cockpit and other extra junk, but it's quite obvious what they are based on and that the designers imitated them in ways far beyond general inspiration. In a crowning irony, the case for a "bootleg" is strongest for the A-Wing, specifically because the size and quality is actually competitive with authorized toys at the time. And that brings us to the crown jewel, a Rebel/ Mon Calamari cruiser.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92wNtjrqiGLIjnQ8PD7YsvdjcSP5yFWe8ornFk4yDHiTjOxEVTJ5iJbZmuFAZ_iMAIzhIXRQ0_l4zEGrPFbiiQ8XdQVL9W-qDiXRIKc9-j7Miiou1eYRCKJaPv82P4aDkGchrA-XhF6ft5Rzy_zPFs6ZKLInnwyJBO8KXs2TMQvUSt8LMIOmJh9MzBqk/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_12_11_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92wNtjrqiGLIjnQ8PD7YsvdjcSP5yFWe8ornFk4yDHiTjOxEVTJ5iJbZmuFAZ_iMAIzhIXRQ0_l4zEGrPFbiiQ8XdQVL9W-qDiXRIKc9-j7Miiou1eYRCKJaPv82P4aDkGchrA-XhF6ft5Rzy_zPFs6ZKLInnwyJBO8KXs2TMQvUSt8LMIOmJh9MzBqk/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_12_11_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"It's a- actually pretty good toy???"</span></div><br /><p>Now this is truly a weird pinnacle of knockoff/ bootleg toys. It's an accurate representation of the ship to anything but scale-model standards (even there, I've definitely seen worse), and it's big to boot. In fact, it could very well be the largest representation of any of the Mon Cal ships I have encountered, definitely bigger and in many ways better than the 1990s Micro Machines versions which were otherwise the only game in town for secondary Star Wars capital ships. Then there are a few things only obvious on inspection that turned out in the toy's favor. Even after this much time, the friction mechanism works when tested. Also, though the sculpt and paint look like they belong on a cheap toy, a good part of it is made of diecast metal as advertised on surviving packaging. Here's a few more pics of the awesome.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztsj606jU_YCSbrRrrflOEyUK-NZapIopkICB4p05zHyyXOCnvcpIqHgasCYtTa02cRLLJ9XSBhe32r_d9grI1ic_pLS4APpeG7cr8r7poAr62JF1dYS9qN-MpjhJkUykvHac-aXiwUA_xqUmN2r7eBG_lgwitIzgMk-NbQ2QaozWFsak9PZedGNjDPQ/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_12_17_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztsj606jU_YCSbrRrrflOEyUK-NZapIopkICB4p05zHyyXOCnvcpIqHgasCYtTa02cRLLJ9XSBhe32r_d9grI1ic_pLS4APpeG7cr8r7poAr62JF1dYS9qN-MpjhJkUykvHac-aXiwUA_xqUmN2r7eBG_lgwitIzgMk-NbQ2QaozWFsak9PZedGNjDPQ/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_12_17_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SURAtQFVFEhMbhN5_F9TpZaC24WiEEGk1DvGy-_p0miPdT54PlsNIB_h3jr7fLJA5mjfz_A7khfflzzUXB7f8CSvSAxP75n_ltCd8BjSgTN4Zg9ijHophs4cBUU9OqiowYl_tZPg28XV7uecDEExlfzbi0FV7ewub6t3QlItG9Ai8qlade3ZGBhwFRw/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_12_29_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SURAtQFVFEhMbhN5_F9TpZaC24WiEEGk1DvGy-_p0miPdT54PlsNIB_h3jr7fLJA5mjfz_A7khfflzzUXB7f8CSvSAxP75n_ltCd8BjSgTN4Zg9ijHophs4cBUU9OqiowYl_tZPg28XV7uecDEExlfzbi0FV7ewub6t3QlItG9Ai8qlade3ZGBhwFRw/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_12_29_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Naturally, there are plenty of mysteries around this line (investigated most thoroughly if at all by Youtuber <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xZ5hpa3dEE">Mighty Jabba's Collection</a>), which have contributed to the cost and difficulty of collecting. It has been confirmed that these ships were sold under the name Star Force, though only specimens in original packaging are particularly likely to be listed under that name. No reports have confirmed their first or last production, beyond the general 1990s-early 2000s range. A significant proportion of surviving specimens are from the UK and/ or Europe, which may mean they were sold in greater numbers there. The most significant datum is that they were sold both on card like the ones I encountered and in boxed sets, the latter still under the Star Force name and with the brand name Knight. These sets, in turn, give our best clue to the full extent of the line. From pictures and listings, there were additional ships based with wildly varying accuracy on Darth Vader's TIE fighter, Jabba's sail barge, the speeder bike, Cloud City (!) and Slave One. For maximum confusion, I have encountered several pictures of boxed sets that include completely prosaic military planes, which I suspect means that these were a late attempt by the manufacturer or an intermediate distributor to sell off a substantial quantity of backlogged stock in one go.</p><p>Then, of course, there is one more twist. Do these look familiar?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyje7O9zsgBXke3rXtLqKBfIlJDS66pGcGnGeDYeUIEqO4gl_pEAD5wDffoHXWm5AGgAS0PEH-6UZM2Vu-2H_R2a3t1Ysi4tUsewMgB1b0hAvBc-nEg3PcDrArMoCmKhJungOe6S_9IWoLoV8DuVU7C2JHsYe6cpatwWMBhcRnyV56ZvgZH5gQhv39smA/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_13_00_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyje7O9zsgBXke3rXtLqKBfIlJDS66pGcGnGeDYeUIEqO4gl_pEAD5wDffoHXWm5AGgAS0PEH-6UZM2Vu-2H_R2a3t1Ysi4tUsewMgB1b0hAvBc-nEg3PcDrArMoCmKhJungOe6S_9IWoLoV8DuVU7C2JHsYe6cpatwWMBhcRnyV56ZvgZH5gQhv39smA/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_13_00_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>If you haven't placed these, I will admit that I can't remember for sure if I recognized them back then, either. If you got it or just aren't sure, these are indeed the escape craft <i>Narcissus</i> and the freighter <i>Nostromo</i> (or part of it) from <i>Alien</i>. The striking thing is that notwithstanding the plastic junk on the underside (Mighty Jabba theorizes these were meant to be an "action" feature...), these are probably the most screen-accurate and well-done of this whole motley group. Given that fact, these are also definitely the ones that definitely push furthest into the actual "bootleg" zone. One might wonder why anyone thought they could get away with this. One fairly obvious consideration is that this franchise's merchandise was always centered on the monster rather than the ships. Another is that Fox had already faced controversy whenever franchise merchandise that appeared aimed at kids came out, so there was tactical sense in presenting themselves as disinterested in the toy scene. The bigger picture is that the Eighties and Nineties were simply a different and mindboggling time, where any number of litigation-worthy antics were tolerated or ignored, as witnessed by any number of the films in my Space 1979 files (see <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/09/title-deep-space-what-year-1988-video.html">Deep Space</a></i> egregiously). While I'm at it, here's a few more pics.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC54ExauNfcRrZ2NukU5jTm1pZxNWs52f-6TWtmusBbhCBUQALZxVZH22dpGaU1i723f7fu-b1dyY9JDPCfGuHQcsCdJxc_OK4AVlJVOFRPKeuwNlQzhdasojsvajJMp06am2_CDCyrCqbhmo3th11FJ0yL9zPETEDXi1SdrRtHkZrnuhR1cP4ErolTZ4/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_13_11_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC54ExauNfcRrZ2NukU5jTm1pZxNWs52f-6TWtmusBbhCBUQALZxVZH22dpGaU1i723f7fu-b1dyY9JDPCfGuHQcsCdJxc_OK4AVlJVOFRPKeuwNlQzhdasojsvajJMp06am2_CDCyrCqbhmo3th11FJ0yL9zPETEDXi1SdrRtHkZrnuhR1cP4ErolTZ4/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_13_11_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEXcWIwy84dWGk1XYMsn1RH0bkT-ejQ7WhBe7E7wV_s-nkgEV_uMNUOfwY0DdHgRvGcSYz4kAtqLH9rYypbIJ1-Tl_QM3A6eoCbKV-52EgQ0IK1iE23_vb517gDFdW5Fh0oGw4IBkzSWhTQHhJKrUZnZSGaPVkvT_UxCu40jfTExWtgSu9tunIJEHSr6c/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_13_34_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEXcWIwy84dWGk1XYMsn1RH0bkT-ejQ7WhBe7E7wV_s-nkgEV_uMNUOfwY0DdHgRvGcSYz4kAtqLH9rYypbIJ1-Tl_QM3A6eoCbKV-52EgQ0IK1iE23_vb517gDFdW5Fh0oGw4IBkzSWhTQHhJKrUZnZSGaPVkvT_UxCu40jfTExWtgSu9tunIJEHSr6c/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_13_34_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"I don't care if you aren't technically in this movie, PUNCH IT, BISHOP!!!"</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDrlvYhmuUiPH_ffW-4QVcNLiIUZUxiQxrob6-B3zzkSKU4pCvvG3n2t-Ygat8n9UBo4Dd76Dt2GjVyqmH6ky9xab4MNEcAoHB99FmIWS7T-BFtjvXlpJcauaZcmnxCSWpzgf1jxVaGJmH_l7NOr7EF6fv4gUyanaUYQtr2wU3fWKxMRXpNSnDW2lcUM/s3264/WIN_20230715_11_13_55_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDrlvYhmuUiPH_ffW-4QVcNLiIUZUxiQxrob6-B3zzkSKU4pCvvG3n2t-Ygat8n9UBo4Dd76Dt2GjVyqmH6ky9xab4MNEcAoHB99FmIWS7T-BFtjvXlpJcauaZcmnxCSWpzgf1jxVaGJmH_l7NOr7EF6fv4gUyanaUYQtr2wU3fWKxMRXpNSnDW2lcUM/w400-h225/WIN_20230715_11_13_55_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>So, that ends this tour of my memories. All I can say is, if I remember something nobody else seems to know ever existed, <i>never </i>put the odds against me. I will also admit, even as proof of my own sanity, I'm glad I got these for as low a price as I did. That's enough to wrap things up. To better things ahead!</p></div>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-89829113495636089592023-07-13T15:55:00.004-07:002023-07-13T15:55:39.672-07:00The Horrible Horror Vault: The one that's a threequel<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYyi93_jQbAZs7j9IHkfpmpl1l1d45anfqmMiSe-GuSXE5TRvcTGaiTUUgmCZ8Fi7xlInJCD1TZuVYF4QAtguR5id7JhX9eo7saxToS3CCioQZ-9MUEKYkcovHt0yKhjrVGCH8aeYdvbqgAAl1bqwjaEngfXcml2Jjw3vjPQBxumLQfCddwcfnQxP460E/s1481/FD3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1481" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYyi93_jQbAZs7j9IHkfpmpl1l1d45anfqmMiSe-GuSXE5TRvcTGaiTUUgmCZ8Fi7xlInJCD1TZuVYF4QAtguR5id7JhX9eo7saxToS3CCioQZ-9MUEKYkcovHt0yKhjrVGCH8aeYdvbqgAAl1bqwjaEngfXcml2Jjw3vjPQBxumLQfCddwcfnQxP460E/w270-h400/FD3.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Title:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Final Destination 3<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What Year?:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
2006<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Classification:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Weird Sequel<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
What The Hell??? (2/4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With this review, I am
three years into doing movie reviews and finally definitely past the 300 movie
count. For me, this has simply been another case of looking through a few
options with nothing in particular in mind. It happened that that brought me to this <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-horrible-horror-vault-revisited-one.html">revived feature </a>and a movie and franchise that was never really on my radar before, except as a
footnote to another movie that it might or might not have ripped off. As
advertised, it happens to be the third entry in the franchise, which is exactly
where things tend to get weird if they weren’t ready. I present <i>Final
Destination 3</i>, a threequel whose good points can be as frustrating as its
bad ones.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Our story begins with an
introduction to our heroine Wendy, her boyfriend, and an assortment of
teenagers that includes a reasonable percentage of actually likeable characters
plus a couple jerks who often have a point. A premonition saves the young lady
and several of her peers from an accident on a rollercoaster that apparently
was last serviced when <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/07/space-1979-one-where-james-bond-hijacks.html"><i>Zardoz</i> </a>was in theaters, but her guy is among the
casualties. Soon, the survivors start to be killed off by strange accidents,
and one of the jerks remembers a similar case involving a certain plane crash
(because apparently even the characters would rather ignore number 2). That’s
enough to convince the grieving protagonist that the unseen forces of fate are
killing off her friends and frienemies- and it won’t be long before she is
next!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Final Destination 3</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
was the third entry in the franchise of the same name. The film saw the return
of director James Wong and writer Glen Morgan from the first film. The story
did not feature any characters from the previous films, though Tony Todd (see <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/10/featured-creature-one-that-remade.html"><i>Night
of the Living Dead</i> 1990</a>) provided the voice of an announcer at the
beginning and end of the film. The film starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead as
Wendy, with Ryan Merriman as the helpful jerk Kevin and Kris Lemche as (spoiler???)
the eventual human antagonist Ian. The soundtrack was composed by Shirley
Walker (see <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/04/featured-creature-rat-file-2-one-with-r.html">Willard</a></i>),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who had
scored both of the previous films. (You really can’t win them all…) The film
was a commercial success, earning a worldwide box office of about $118 million
against a $25M budget. It received mixed to negative reviews, with more
favorable comments singling out Winstead’s performance. Two additional sequels
were released in 2009 and 2011. A sixth entry was in pre-production as of
mid-2023.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For my experiences, this
film came up before simply because of similarities with <i>Sole Survivor</i>
(see my <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/06/revenge-of-revenant-review-24-one-where.html">re-review,</a> which includes comments that make no sense because I hadn’t
decided what feature to put it under while writing it, and my <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/02/movie-mania-top-10-20-best-movies.html">“best” list</a>),
which I took a benign view of. As I commented previously, what both films
really make me think of is the Change War series by my all-time favorite writer
Fritz Leiber, which I have no illusions of being a likely influence on either.
As for the present franchise, I was intrigued when the first film came out and
impressed when it came my way on (network!) TV. I was interested enough to
follow the sequels through 4, and found the present film to be the most
interesting and flat-out good by far. If anything, it’s good enough to have a
shot as a singularly rare threequel better than the original (compare with <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/07/really-good-movies-one-thats-best.html">Day of the Dead</a></i>). But, as I already alluded, the things that are good and
actually improved are in direct conflict with a great deal that is particularly
egregious, and my personal irritation is already going up after confirming that
this is essentially from the same people as the first one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving in, the good
points of the movie are what we had so far been able to take for granted: Effective
cinematography, good acting and dialogue, and a smart, genre-savvy story. On
the acting front in particular, Winstead handily delivers what is easily the
best performance of the whole franchise, at least outside of Todd’s
comic-relief coroner. (Now <i>that</i> is suspiciously close to <i>Sole
Survivor</i>…) She gets capable support from Merriman, while Lemche comes from
behind as the one who truly and understandably slips into insanity. One can
draw a thematic parallel in what is otherwise a weaker point in the story, the
heroine’s growing preoccupation with “clues” to coming deaths that stretch
things enough to be considered ambiguous in-universe. It all adds up to a story
that delivers real emotional weight rather than running through interchangeable
cannon fodder. On that point, further mention is in order for the macho
minority character, played by Texas Battle (I literally double-checked that this
is the actor’s name, not the character’s), who provides poignant bravado
leading into the most well-executed death.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The ”but” that’s coming
is the kills themselves. If you were willing to go along with the lethal-Rube
Goldberg chain reactions of the first movie, there’s no point complaining now.
However, as I ranted in a review thread long ago, several of the sequences here
are particularly bad. To start with, the opening incident simply shouldn’t have
happened, at least in the same way, once one particular character is out of the
equation. The first two deaths (apparently done somewhat better in an alternate
cut) are clearly a strained attempt to turn an especially stupid urban legend
into a sensible scenario, which suffers further from contrived staging and
uncharacteristically overt exploitation skin. Then there is the one that has
always been my breaking point, an otherwise effective and believable workplace
death that mines for redundant shock value with a gore shot that only make
sense if a nail gun is loaded with literal nine-inch nails. The bigger
“problem” is the definitely cumulative effect of making what would otherwise be
an intelligent entry in an already thoughtful franchise feel like the dumb
slasher movie that hostile mainstream observers were expecting. That, in turn,
could have “worked” if there was an honest attempt at an energetic
over-the-top/ “so bad it’s good” revamp (the closest thing to an excuse for 4),
but with everything else at baseline, it’s just another case of too much and
not enough.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That leaves the “one
scene”, and I’m going with my pick for the best scene in the film. After the double
funeral of the first two casualties, Kevin finds Wendy off by herself in the
cemetery, shot to look sunny and peaceful. As they start into a typically
engaging conversation, she says out of the blue (I can at least paraphrase), “Nothing
makes me believe there isn’t an afterlife like being in a cemetery.” As the scene
progresses, we get a sense of their relationship before and since the original
events. It is and will remain emphatically non-romantic, yet there is a distinctive
honesty already growing between them. In the midst of it, Wendy comments
fatefully that she thought she has been feeling the presence of her lost love,
but now thinks it is something different. Right about then, the sunny scene
does change as clouds and distant thunder approach. What absolutely works is
that even now, the pleasant environment of the cemetery does not feel like
mockery or a fake-out; it’s just two sides of nature, mortality and grief. It’s
a further reminder that this is a franchise conceived as a story with emotional
and philosophical depth. Which, by my running rant, will be a further reminder
that this movie is already slipping below its potential.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In closing, I will also
acknowledge that I was taken off-guard in the course of this review by just how
lonely I am in speaking as well as I have of this one. The first movie deserves
to be remembered as a “classic” of 21<sup>st</sup>-century horror, and it was
already well on its way to that status by the time I got to it. The second was an
inevitably divisive entry that tried to develop new ideas and directions, which
I personally just find too unpleasant to appreciate. The present film is the
one that at least looked for the right balance. It sounds little more than a do-over
of the first movie, which in cold blood is exactly what it is. What the
creators recognize is that telling the same story isn’t an excuse for also using
the same characters. The final product proves that the same premises and
situations can in fact lead to something very different, as long as it’s done
with real thought and care. For that, I have absolutely no qualms standing by
it. That’s enough to end on what I can call a high note.<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-19573230256224806332023-07-11T16:49:00.009-07:002023-07-11T19:19:55.225-07:00Fiction special: Retro gaming fan/ parody novel announcements!<p> As I write this, I'm at the start of a week I had planned to get in 3 posts for, and I've had a rough day. To fill out the lineup, I decided to post a few announcements about my novel. First, I have indeed finished a complete novel for about the last month (see the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/06/fiction-nintendo-parody-novel-extra.html">fourth demo</a>), which I am currently trying to lock down from further revision I have also submitted the book to the two publishers I could find with an online submission process, which indicated that I should be notified of acceptance or rejection sometime in August. That gives me a couple more months to obsess over the book.</p><p>Meanwhile, I did something actually fun. I found a website called <a href="https://www.fiverr.com/">Fiver</a> where you can hire freelance artists. I got a black-and-white illustration done by an artist named <a href="https://www.fiverr.com/nekosa0?source=gig_cards&referrer_gig_slug=draw-a-manga-or-anime-sketch&ref_ctx_id=b2affbaf834e039c93d44ed6e80c3b84&imp_id=56ac3ac7-d0f8-4f73-a661-d6c9b7e3cdd8">Nekosa</a> who looked like a fit for my style, based on a scene about halfway through the book. Here, for the first time, is what I got out of it. I feel like this is what would happen if this was a 1980s video game and this was the box art; it doesn't literally represent the scene (which I willingly departed from to show all the characters really doing something), but it gets the idea and essence. Needless to say, I ask that all readers refrain from reposting or circulating this image except as links to this post.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nrXz6L3y9t6FC9OfMNYGYxKMK2VGwCjxrqfzKoMbwOJOfa9YosuOebRjNn-7vehkdFYUpjqPmMXTnev29kNiLD2CGpDf_IXoqCfQ9lbi8_R-DbB5oycXVsEbWowMR3WB7sT55qtiMpnwSNiYcQFrBjcbfpkkskXc10GEhABf9AMF8EmL55fqdyr3BU4/s3508/mario%202%20rev.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3508" data-original-width="2480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nrXz6L3y9t6FC9OfMNYGYxKMK2VGwCjxrqfzKoMbwOJOfa9YosuOebRjNn-7vehkdFYUpjqPmMXTnev29kNiLD2CGpDf_IXoqCfQ9lbi8_R-DbB5oycXVsEbWowMR3WB7sT55qtiMpnwSNiYcQFrBjcbfpkkskXc10GEhABf9AMF8EmL55fqdyr3BU4/w283-h400/mario%202%20rev.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><p>And here's what I could come up with for an actual cover. This was the original title I replaced in the drafts I have circulated so far, because at least one person beat me to it on the Amazon Kindle platform alone. After further assessment, I decided I could use it without legal risk or creating problems for the other author, whose work as advertised is not within the fantasy or parody genres or otherwise directly based on the source material. And, of course, the powers that be can't sue me without suing the other guy first...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_H4uVq8nT-gA-ZhiSHK9V5tC74_JkBtNZvqAJTJQ09QJuGujxBkqTjJ5PJUZHqBCxBoLyUljFc3VPu2EZGKfx-8fotSaZTxvMhMOG-HyuGiQgFVdYnJxk4j1jZGUX9eWp1StJwKM4Xw7dg5Do91tlyNUGhVKDFjhe58Sela5aBuE7XR3FdGPkJBpLFRg/s1931/Princess%20cover%20test%20jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1931" data-original-width="1407" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_H4uVq8nT-gA-ZhiSHK9V5tC74_JkBtNZvqAJTJQ09QJuGujxBkqTjJ5PJUZHqBCxBoLyUljFc3VPu2EZGKfx-8fotSaZTxvMhMOG-HyuGiQgFVdYnJxk4j1jZGUX9eWp1StJwKM4Xw7dg5Do91tlyNUGhVKDFjhe58Sela5aBuE7XR3FdGPkJBpLFRg/w291-h400/Princess%20cover%20test%20jpg.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><p>So, that is where matters stand. I will be waiting for input and checking out one more legal issue involving the use of song lyrics. If no route to mainstream publication materializes, I plan to put this up by September of this year. I am considering options for getting feedback and maybe a little money while this is still in limbo. Meanwhile, I will be busy going back to actual work. That's all for now, more to come!</p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-38094472042913273142023-07-08T13:59:00.001-07:002023-07-08T13:59:16.179-07:00Movie Mania Special: "Realistic" Star Wars ships???<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxNFYwBoe0KHEy359tBtTyDjz90jvSqXxBxUHFOp-_mc8PtjNSnjPtQtcaIEERXTtwVde6WwV_3Ly7XIWNDZla6wMEJ2PQXnYKuz5nWABXC9P2y7mHk3ldVqnudN4qUXQaeScsPZT_DSlQb2iFS6BGnGPpgRhl6h4hEsfu5sgsjNTks6xGDo7JcQJMgBA/s3264/WIN_20230708_11_37_52_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxNFYwBoe0KHEy359tBtTyDjz90jvSqXxBxUHFOp-_mc8PtjNSnjPtQtcaIEERXTtwVde6WwV_3Ly7XIWNDZla6wMEJ2PQXnYKuz5nWABXC9P2y7mHk3ldVqnudN4qUXQaeScsPZT_DSlQb2iFS6BGnGPpgRhl6h4hEsfu5sgsjNTks6xGDo7JcQJMgBA/w400-h225/WIN_20230708_11_37_52_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s the off-week on this
blog, and I have again decided to do something a little different. It’s time
for Star Wars, which I really cover a lot less than might be expected, and this
time I’m doing a research piece that I already put out there as a <a href="https://youtu.be/3zBRKJWRaWA">Youtube rant</a>.
We’re going to be looking at the urgent question of whether any Star Wars ships
are “realistic” as spacecraft. Along the way, we will be considering the nature
of the franchise and where it’s been over 4 decades and counting. So to hold
momentum, I’m starting with my rating/ category system.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Not That Bad:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
I’m using this especially for ships that are already criticized both for “real
world” science and “in-universe” considerations. I give this to ships that meet
two minimum criteria: They “look” designed for what they are doing on-screen,
and they have some features that would work on a “real” spaceship.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Mostly Good:</span></u><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This
is for ships that meet the above criteria and go a little further. In
particular, they have distinct parts with definite functions that all fit the
ship’s indicated purpose. A further criteria is simply that these look
interesting, attractive and generally “cool”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Actually Okay:</span></u><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
highest level, these are ships that would “work” in reality, with certain
“fudge factors” for in-universe things like deflector shields, hyperdrives,
etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So, here are the ships in
approximately chronological order.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Blockade Runner:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
This one gets to a major rabbit hole in the lore, as the design and actual
models were originally intended for the <i>Millennium Falcon</i>. My guess as
to why this quite late change was made is that Lucas simply chose to move away
from realism toward the “science fantasy” of the pulps and serials. There can
be no argument that this marked a profound decision in the aesthetic of the
franchise. What we got was one of the most functional designs in the franchise.
It’s laid out in a linear form that has so far dominated “real” spacecraft
design, with several discrete parts that have clear and rational functions. As
a bonus, the final design and implied scale fills an actual gap between the
fighters and enormous capital ships, which is reflected by frequent appearances
in the later films. Meanwhile, the original design was immortalized in the
Marvel comic, and finally got an authorized release when Hot Wheels released a
line based on the models of the late Colin Cantrell (shown below with the Kenner diecast Falcon). If I would
have one wish, it would be to have seen the unmodified model in action. We can
still dream…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Actually Okay<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKYhwWmeFU7N3cEEgo2mr_pZSF0Q57Xd-D1yB8vYAuaPBgc0XHE-uNw5aVmTptXDvIetIQ5sKSaMqTUgnyYW9rS6xK6a2FMlRNDxS3kum4FbKRuf9Jc5UWt-iI8qgqxcVmYAdW3Q5lEa-hdtwThE7B1yRLhuejYvcRtZynrW-3cqQbTqqxW24GPX5sR4/s3264/WIN_20230708_11_41_16_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKYhwWmeFU7N3cEEgo2mr_pZSF0Q57Xd-D1yB8vYAuaPBgc0XHE-uNw5aVmTptXDvIetIQ5sKSaMqTUgnyYW9rS6xK6a2FMlRNDxS3kum4FbKRuf9Jc5UWt-iI8qgqxcVmYAdW3Q5lEa-hdtwThE7B1yRLhuejYvcRtZynrW-3cqQbTqqxW24GPX5sR4/w400-h225/WIN_20230708_11_41_16_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Y-Wing:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
This is the SW fighter that has always intrigued me the most. What I find most
noteworthy is that it has been consistently portrayed as a multi-role ship,
broadly comparable to fighter-bombers like the P61, which in turn make sense
for an in-universe workhorse. It also offers a modular design that could easily
be modified, and individual parts that have clear and realistic functions. It
could easily make the highest tier except for those weird cages at the back of
the nacelles. You can impose some reason on it if these are assumed to be
capable of accelerating the propellant like an actual railgun, but the rudders
would simply be parts to overheat. Overall, it’s a sensible design that would
benefit from just a few tweaks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Mostly Good<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">TIE Fighter:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
This is the big target, literally, having long since gone through the cycle
from a credible threat to disposable targets several times over. My big rant
here is that the whole original point of the concept and design was to throw
out Earthly analogies in favor of something that would <i>only</i> make sense
in space, and in the original trilogy consistently remained there. (I know,
Cloud City, I covered that in the video.) In those terms, there is at least
enough functionality to discuss how well it would work whether than whether it
would work at all: There are the solar panels for power, weapons shown to fire
rapidly, and the combination of computerized sensors and targeting and a large
cockpit window. Overall, these are lean and mean ships that were built for
blowing Rebels to junk and would continue to do so until and unless the
Empire’s good pilots were already dead.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Not That Bad<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Executor</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
I already covered this in a<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/02/movie-mania-executor-fleet.html"> post</a> on the toys, this is Darth Vader’s flagship,
estimated as either 8 or 19.6 kilometers long. In many ways, it exemplifies
even more than the Death Star the ability of the franchise to write its own
rules and still manage a semblance of logic. When you have a ship with the
dimensions of an asteroidal moon, practicality is already out the window. Yet,
it has a sleek and appealing design, with no canonic weaknesses besides the
exposed bridge common to the franchise. Even there, we actually see the pros
and cons of protection versus situational awareness and the psychological
effects of visible vulnerability. What I love (already a long rant in the
video) is the hangar bay. Even for Star Wars, it is too huge for comprehensible
function, but here, that lends itself to imagination. It could hold a regular
cruiser, for rescue or capture. It could drop prefabricated fortifications from
orbit. If there wasn’t a war on, it could reel in asteroids and mine them. It’s
just cool, and that’s what has made the franchise last.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Mostly Good<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">TIE Bomber: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When
it came to the TIEs, I was able to lump them together in the video in a way
that wasn’t going to work here. For a second round, I’m covering the bomber, my
personal favorite Imperial ship after the <i>Executor</i>. Famously conceived
as an unused shuttle concept for the first movie, this one takes the TIE
concept and gives it a lot more space for the parts that would really matter.
As a bonus, it offers a multi-role design that could do quite a few things
beyond dropping munitions and carrying troops. The only real downside is that
we didn’t see more of it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Actually Okay<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A-Wing:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Now getting into the third film, this one got an iconic turn taking out the <i>Executor</i>.
It has the benefit of a compact and streamlined design that looks like the
fast, light interceptor it is supposed to be. If there’s a “problem”, it’s that
it still isn’t that aerodynamic for a craft that seems designed for the
possibility of atmospheric flight, and the broad, flat body would limit
visibility from an otherwise well-designed cockpit canopy. The apparently
mobile weapons are also iffy, though they at least offer a real compromise
between fixed guns and a full turret. It’s decent if you don’t ask too many
questions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Mostly
Good<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">B-Wing:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Now we get to one that feels intended for a bigger role than it ever got,
either in the original films or the wider mythos. It’s the most heavily armed
Rebel fighter, with the possible exception of the Y-wing, with a very modular
design that would presumably allow for a range of missions. The most
interesting element is the rotating cockpit, which offers an actual solution to
the problem of disorientation during maneuvers. Its implied upright orientation
offers a further departure from the plan-in-space paradigm. The big bonus is
the attractive and not quite Earthly design, which often comes out as far more
prosaic in the models and toys. It’s a nice ship that deserves more attention.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Actually Okay<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Mon Cal cruisers:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
These ships are my favorites of the capital ships. What they accomplish is to
create an aesthetic that is non-human but appealing, in keeping with the
franchise theme of casting aliens in “friendly” rather than villainous roles.
(Must suppress Yuuzan Vong rant…) They look both organic and adaptable, and
present a further contrast with the Star Destroyer’s angular form. As much as a
spaceship the size of 3 or 4 aircraft carriers can make sense, these are a
functional and truly attractive design. By my further rant, there are ample
indications that Home One is quite a bit larger than either the regular
cruisers or the Star Destroyers. Without these, the Rebellion clearly wouldn’t
stand a chance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Actually Okay <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And here’s a bonus round
of ones that didn’t get their own spot in the video…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Imperial Star Destroyer:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
This is the definitive franchise capital ship, literally a mile long with oddly
limited armament. For all its issues, it is at least a linear and
well-differentiated design. The one really problematic point is the unnecessary
division between dorsal armament and ventral fighter bays. It doesn’t help that
the main guns are shown with superstructure across half their arc. However,
there is room for debate whether the underbelly is as defenseless as it looks,
while the topside guns do defend the easiest routes of attack against the bridge
and engines. One more rant in order, it was always absolutely clear that these
are not meant to enter an atmosphere. All in all, it could have been worse for
a ship originally intended to have just a few minutes of screen time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Not That Bad<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Darth Vader’s Tie
Fighter: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This one did get in the video, as the excellent Action
Fleet version. It shows the TIE design filled out to more functional
proportions, if anything more than was strictly needed outside the Expanded
Universe narrative that standard TIEs have almost none of the things that Rebel
ships do. It’s a cool ship that shows that the base design can be adapted.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Mostly Good<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Medical Frigate/ Nebulon
B:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
This is one I didn’t cover in the video, in part because the only physical
representation I ever found in my usual price range was a Micro Machine. This
was the first real Rebel capital ship we got to see, and it’s an appealing and
functional design. A deceptive strong point is the narrow midsection, which
gives ample room for ships of a range of sizes to dock. Its still unsung high
point is exchanging shots with a Star Destroyer point-blank in RotJ, which I
picture ending with the kamikaze crash recorded in the novel and script.
There’s a little too much kit-bashed pseudorealism for the top tier, but it’s
still a worthy part of the fleet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Mostly
Good<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cloud Car:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Now the one that’s the actual joke, I just <i>love </i>this one and I will not
be shamed for it. It may not do anything, it may not make sense, but it’s an
attractive, streamlined design that at least would produce less drag than an
actual brick. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Not That Bad<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So, that’s my lineup. The
real bottom line is that Star Wars always did have a unique aesthetic that usually
gave some consideration to functionality. Even the franchise’s lesser efforts
still stand above many others from before and long since. (My object lesson in
the video, the Nostromo from <i>Alien</i>…) They might not work by “real world”
physics, but they still capture our dreams. With that, I’m signing off. Here's one more pic!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcBrOm71Hh3HgZrgGoA1SJA6yRSzmMjxhv6Jr31SNoMqbJ2q1WTfEgBCBEwtxB0PQ2-bxvmz0TmiGTXj9_g9C39yGIfcVzZduEaxGxhC55XniBwc237APMOpVjzTgDKLKV8iEkkpQI7gdGewXkFiT_mB1Bs2SPSA34tF8vdd082-a9kZuk8HJVrauxME/s3264/WIN_20230708_11_42_16_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcBrOm71Hh3HgZrgGoA1SJA6yRSzmMjxhv6Jr31SNoMqbJ2q1WTfEgBCBEwtxB0PQ2-bxvmz0TmiGTXj9_g9C39yGIfcVzZduEaxGxhC55XniBwc237APMOpVjzTgDKLKV8iEkkpQI7gdGewXkFiT_mB1Bs2SPSA34tF8vdd082-a9kZuk8HJVrauxME/w400-h225/WIN_20230708_11_42_16_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-69481090956480338142023-07-03T12:15:00.000-07:002023-07-03T12:15:04.514-07:00The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Definitely Dinosaurs Psittacosaurus and Polacanthus<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLaeN33u3TyAWKerg4lUTPaxX_ABeU9Wn9oSEPk2pT8fw586LUUBznDUnHYkZA_VTpN2sLd_YsNdoVcqLAbwMU3lSeRy2JDKt0-TOF7gzpC-pExfIgvHgzZw4brz5xCEdMPsUixaiuQnJvwHaVmMdDNQkVgxjdGfOt3-W888Ee3oN0WJmAyBU1RSh3fHs/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_22_56_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLaeN33u3TyAWKerg4lUTPaxX_ABeU9Wn9oSEPk2pT8fw586LUUBznDUnHYkZA_VTpN2sLd_YsNdoVcqLAbwMU3lSeRy2JDKt0-TOF7gzpC-pExfIgvHgzZw4brz5xCEdMPsUixaiuQnJvwHaVmMdDNQkVgxjdGfOt3-W888Ee3oN0WJmAyBU1RSh3fHs/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_22_56_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>As I write, it's the start of a new week and a new month, and I still haven't filled out the previous week. I realized I also hadn't done an installment of this <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/05/legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-patchisaurs.html">feature </a>since the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs.html">anniversary post</a>. I seriously debated doing a fiction post to keep this quick, but in the end, I never regret taking a break for a cool dino. It happens that there was one particular dino that's been on my mind from what I have already praised as the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs-dino.html">greatest dinosaur line of all time</a>. Here is the Definitely Dinosaurs Psittacosaurus, with a friend.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirL29LkldAbp8_NTWMZjjT0n0BaPG4xvrFo6WAJiJGMlc--ap-4tKvoqhRI4HVTBjDS-_dc2y89-s1YZA_5MXENzHK8O1fNQdyOH3rCZsm1Rwq32wZxnBMAeaFVO097nH1ARTP8nfJTg7xWg9nHQcqJAgy6JVvD7KCHkEuwBsQfxQbJGNWNAz8DOl-opQ/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_23_03_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirL29LkldAbp8_NTWMZjjT0n0BaPG4xvrFo6WAJiJGMlc--ap-4tKvoqhRI4HVTBjDS-_dc2y89-s1YZA_5MXENzHK8O1fNQdyOH3rCZsm1Rwq32wZxnBMAeaFVO097nH1ARTP8nfJTg7xWg9nHQcqJAgy6JVvD7KCHkEuwBsQfxQbJGNWNAz8DOl-opQ/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_23_03_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Now for the science,<i> Psittacosaurus mongoliensis</i> was a small herbivorous dinosaur that lived in Mongolia and China about 120 million years ago. It is considered an early and primitive member of the ceratopsian lineage, in some lights transitional between the horned dinos and their nearest relatives, the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-legion-of-silly-dinosaurs.html">pachycephalosaurs</a>. It was probably 2 meters long and 20 kg in weight, comparable to a large dog. Through the time this toy was made, it was portrayed as seen here, as nondescript but aesthetically attractive dino that neatly fitted into the most linear models of evolution. Beginning in the 1980s, however, a good deal of new material was discovered including a number of new species. Naturally, things got weird. That culminated in the discovery of evidence of feathers, the first to be found outside the therepods. Before we get to that, here's another pic.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSteQRIfw62oTzyDI6btNpe8F5J0nRvkunWEVuZCO_wKHxNA6QHb1h8wHUTD55QB1RNZJJuDKZUDwo8bzUpaMtkS6xPrljUVZR9vx8DZwNv_XxZ9msFSJHau_GR8BnlIaTbc1e6lyqEUrILVeNrO78G943EuRoJJmsqnN5JBL-hWipI1zABDEf7u5ZouQ/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_23_40_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSteQRIfw62oTzyDI6btNpe8F5J0nRvkunWEVuZCO_wKHxNA6QHb1h8wHUTD55QB1RNZJJuDKZUDwo8bzUpaMtkS6xPrljUVZR9vx8DZwNv_XxZ9msFSJHau_GR8BnlIaTbc1e6lyqEUrILVeNrO78G943EuRoJJmsqnN5JBL-hWipI1zABDEf7u5ZouQ/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_23_40_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>And here it is with <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/06/role-call-dropped-pilots.html">Sidekick Carl</a>. The scale in this line was always iffy...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0EEY-_6aGdnmaGyWkeakWQaZqt520fzuWu8GzK3Z4lZjJ_SGzXN4XZVAxIR-0Yt6b1C76jJmvJZbOoi3OarxjK5TvcuyKfVZywDuuWdFIO0nCWAb4oGWBd5iRfmrbBI3YLJy7ASLXr4v0MzcZS8MUNITo_YDMYNQSIdFptr01juXq80aXUsTOFbbw61Y/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_24_40_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0EEY-_6aGdnmaGyWkeakWQaZqt520fzuWu8GzK3Z4lZjJ_SGzXN4XZVAxIR-0Yt6b1C76jJmvJZbOoi3OarxjK5TvcuyKfVZywDuuWdFIO0nCWAb4oGWBd5iRfmrbBI3YLJy7ASLXr4v0MzcZS8MUNITo_YDMYNQSIdFptr01juXq80aXUsTOFbbw61Y/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_24_40_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>It will already be obvious that this is, at the least, a conservative reconstruction. More recent reconstructions have varied on two points. The first, of course, has been the extent of its protofeather integument, and for once, the consensus has probably not gone far enough. Most will show only a few quills where the tail meets the body, the only thing directly confirmed from fossils, but on any amount of consideration, it's more likely that there was integument over most of the body than that it was otherwise absent. The other extreme is "shaggy" restorations that have so far turned up mainly in amateur paleo art (see <a href="https://www.pinterest.es/pin/539798705314044698/">here </a>for a gnarly example that seems to be circulating meme-style), which are at least useful for discussion. The second and in many ways more intriguing point is whether the dino had anything close to horns. So far, most reconstructions still show it without horns on the nose or brow where they would be on a full-sized trike, which lines up with what we know from <i>Protoceratops</i>. What deserves more consideration is some form of frill, especially around the rear of the skull, which is consistent with what we see in the pachys. A substantiated theory which has been catching on is that they had some kind of projections on the cheeks. This just might give us a new angle on how intraspecies combat evolved: Maybe grappling or simple display with cheek horns and frills was the ancestral condition of the broader pachycephalosaur/ ceratopsian lineage (I know, Marginocephalia), but was replaced by ramming and stabbing as the diverging lines developed more specialized headgear.</p><p>And that leaves us with the friend, the <i>Polecanthus</i>. This is definitely one of the best of an excellent line, and it still holds up pretty well. The real thing was a relative of the ankylosaurs would have lived around the time of <i>Psittacosaurus</i>. It would have been about the size of a hippo, so of course, the designers managed to make it and Psittaco nearly the same size. Beyond that, there's not a lot to say. Here's an extra pic of the pair together.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfWa2YMeDnfG4Z53WEpx6g-usemz12QOlSytPl2epoTfl3-hTSt_ivZCF14xlh6Gf4Z3jFqyGd3jJPH4UfAJnY0h7IV4psCAIQzCprG-nqK7Q6_JoU7mThvQ75xLeQuy1Jr7bOaQVmj84zOpf55MnDMIS2gzRFmY7Cf-k4MI9iDIXmCWBkjq_vg-T56k/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_23_14_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfWa2YMeDnfG4Z53WEpx6g-usemz12QOlSytPl2epoTfl3-hTSt_ivZCF14xlh6Gf4Z3jFqyGd3jJPH4UfAJnY0h7IV4psCAIQzCprG-nqK7Q6_JoU7mThvQ75xLeQuy1Jr7bOaQVmj84zOpf55MnDMIS2gzRFmY7Cf-k4MI9iDIXmCWBkjq_vg-T56k/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_23_14_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>And a solo pic.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40fXW9GlnElSopcAeur5gRjWLHnwtgu5n5CbLv5-OpdrOOA0S4RsF20iUgzFR4XMwFRKjPBmeMz-5SjC1JE-FUj3u3ApC9VxdXF3klZ5pRBc4z2DylOou3dzbdeS0ylLW9VN5CgQBf3L8825baADzrSGeIkRPWnrk_lqj0SaZSzqaNAt6g2n_NN6LghI/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_24_10_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40fXW9GlnElSopcAeur5gRjWLHnwtgu5n5CbLv5-OpdrOOA0S4RsF20iUgzFR4XMwFRKjPBmeMz-5SjC1JE-FUj3u3ApC9VxdXF3klZ5pRBc4z2DylOou3dzbdeS0ylLW9VN5CgQBf3L8825baADzrSGeIkRPWnrk_lqj0SaZSzqaNAt6g2n_NN6LghI/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_24_10_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>And a couple closeups. Behold the awesome!!!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMFdk8kpRaLgne-sDxB0YDaURd-4R_kbq7mSNhhfYKv8UUT96_maTslYNdH7LrhdRynHtNsUpL2pjvNSQRMBo1M2jrtn-9MIlLzfgsn2G96F8xi1-r433alIwTVsCrehjw2nCCFT3qbOV1ngMi2Ihh4WFzlubNR8uL_GuMBHFxO9kNvIKcPJtfgRCVmcI/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_24_18_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMFdk8kpRaLgne-sDxB0YDaURd-4R_kbq7mSNhhfYKv8UUT96_maTslYNdH7LrhdRynHtNsUpL2pjvNSQRMBo1M2jrtn-9MIlLzfgsn2G96F8xi1-r433alIwTVsCrehjw2nCCFT3qbOV1ngMi2Ihh4WFzlubNR8uL_GuMBHFxO9kNvIKcPJtfgRCVmcI/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_24_18_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Ml8fS-dy_-9bfqM5zaHH_-jbzoiG18Ia_40b_eUGgN_A6pWDoXwHZ4fleoYZvVuwrtyk-FvxPabJDqB6n4UMMYfdP04Z4nfIkdIofOici9xlySVg8C5Lz30wT_ELwq-HeGOWfSa_X33leVa5k0Mxw0XHq2rhRjLxORMlbAZN5tS3dpTJP44UCzWcnDs/s3264/WIN_20230703_10_24_59_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Ml8fS-dy_-9bfqM5zaHH_-jbzoiG18Ia_40b_eUGgN_A6pWDoXwHZ4fleoYZvVuwrtyk-FvxPabJDqB6n4UMMYfdP04Z4nfIkdIofOici9xlySVg8C5Lz30wT_ELwq-HeGOWfSa_X33leVa5k0Mxw0XHq2rhRjLxORMlbAZN5tS3dpTJP44UCzWcnDs/w400-h225/WIN_20230703_10_24_59_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>And that's enough to wrap this up. As I have been saying regularly, this feature has been a big part of what I wanted to do when I set out with this blog. And it's always nice, amid the outdated dinos and wonky patchisaur fantasy monsters, to cover something good. To wrap this up, here's a sketch of a design that dredged this up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Gy69imPKvWv1QA3OgPDBMckRFBup-FX53vvRPmg3m7-mpkJs2LdUxlgYi29DbBWzvloIa1hkYCviOIFnLETYVDWicBkdfNA9suNig1H9i6ayklviJzRrdmsvm6fqjYlmZ9JxPXtnollY1tEv3rEkEBF7fUeP0kx1h99HWyywjy4xKj1bcF9KXhXaMig/s314/Persephone%20sketch%20cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="126" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Gy69imPKvWv1QA3OgPDBMckRFBup-FX53vvRPmg3m7-mpkJs2LdUxlgYi29DbBWzvloIa1hkYCviOIFnLETYVDWicBkdfNA9suNig1H9i6ayklviJzRrdmsvm6fqjYlmZ9JxPXtnollY1tEv3rEkEBF7fUeP0kx1h99HWyywjy4xKj1bcF9KXhXaMig/s1600/Persephone%20sketch%20cropped.jpg" width="126" /></a></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><div style="text-align: center;">The joke here, the chest is what it would actually take to support the muscles for those wings...</div></span><div><br /></div><div>And that's all for now, more to come!<br /><div><br /></div></div>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-13484202740748209362023-06-30T17:01:00.002-07:002023-06-30T17:01:15.875-07:00Adaptation Insanity: The one that was an anime more anime than anime<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqpSUdR6HTkxVSR2Y9cPgDUpZyz9l9sShzoP3ddYufm8qhzGSgX68FXH1dKkPWZstvecRTueMAR3ey5P8-K84GTEQPpaIZWmZQcBEpLLjHSVjXVbHhxwYyD75fGZrYrKreWah8NqfNCa7nJIIAdJyrEhdLGBnl7fGNHMhPMOTXXwiSMqt9W9y2R2UVEgA/s1153/UY%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1153" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqpSUdR6HTkxVSR2Y9cPgDUpZyz9l9sShzoP3ddYufm8qhzGSgX68FXH1dKkPWZstvecRTueMAR3ey5P8-K84GTEQPpaIZWmZQcBEpLLjHSVjXVbHhxwYyD75fGZrYrKreWah8NqfNCa7nJIIAdJyrEhdLGBnl7fGNHMhPMOTXXwiSMqt9W9y2R2UVEgA/w348-h400/UY%202.jpg" width="348" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Title:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What Year?:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
1984<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Classification:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Unnatural Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rating:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
It’s Okay! (3/4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this, I’m
rounding out the month while editing an actual novel, and I decided it was time
to do another entry in this still-new feature. It also happened that I’ve been
down an extra rabbit hole with a decades-old multimedia franchise I’ve only
just heard of. That brought me to one particular artifact I decided to write up
for this <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/adaptation-insanity-one-where-scariest.html">feature</a>, even though it is animated. As we will be seeing, however,
it’s also a very odd treatment of a strange and often retrospectively
horrifying property. Without further ado, I present <i>Urusei Yatsura 2</i>, a
film based on a franchise where a literal stalker and a compulsive womanizer
are the couple we’re supposed to want to get together.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Our story begins with a
contest between clubs at a high school whose student body includes Ataru, a slacker
who harasses every female in sight, Lum, an alien with electroshock powers who
insists she is already married to him, and Mendou, a rich kid who can afford
his own tank. As events progress, the cast begin to notice things that are odd
even in their frame of reference. Soon, they find themselves in an empty city
where electricity, water and food simply appear without explanation, an
arrangement the slacker seems happy to accept at face value. But the rich kid
and his self-described spouse are determined to get to the bottom of it. They
discover that the familiar cityscape is really a reproduction floating in space
on the back of a turtle, but even that may still be an illusion. It’s up to the
slacker to find the truth, and along the way, he must confront the nature of
reality and his relationships!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Urusei Yatsura 2:
Beautiful Dreamer</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> was a 1984 theatrical animated film, the
second based on the manga and anime series created by Rumiko Takahashi. The
film was written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, also the director of the
preceding film <i>Only You</i>, reportedly with little or no participation by
Takahashi. The film was released in Japan in 1984, and on US home video with an
English dub in 1993. It was initially poorly received by fans of the manga/
anime series, but became well-regarded as a pioneering anime film with themes
that anticipated later works such as <i>Ghost In The Shell</i>. (Dammit, I’m
going to have to do that one…) It is currently available for free streaming on
Tubi.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For my experiences, this
all started because someone introduced me to the original <i>Urusei Yatsura</i>
manga, which I have found simply mindboggling. I would have to give it a
separate writeup if I was going to cover it at all, but it will suffice to say
that I can only find it comprehensible by comparison with my own Exotroopers
series (see the<a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/06/futures-past-nintendo-exotrooper-figure.html"> Samus figure post/ rant</a>): These are characters who are and
should be absolutely horrible, yet are entertaining enough for us not to want
them to die. After going through a few volumes of the manga run, I came to the
present film, and I found something different and much stranger. What I found
especially striking was its timing, obviously well after the beginnings of
anime (compare with <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/08/animation-defenestration-one-with-fiat.html">Castle of Cagliostro</a></i> and <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/09/animation-defenestration-one-with-cat.html">Lily CAT</a></i>) yet still
well before it took the forms we would take for granted now. As a corollary, it
is a full-blown case of what I call the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/07/space-1979-bonus-about-and-terminology.html">Anachronistic Outlier</a>, for once already
noted by many besides me, with the especially curious tendency of comedies and
parodies (see <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/07/space-1979-one-where-creator-of-alien.html">Dark Star</a></i>, <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-horrible-horror-vault-one-where.html">Twitch of the Death Nerve</a></i> and less
auspiciously <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2020/09/space-1979-one-with-android-portrayed.html">Galaxina</a></i>) to be more innovative than “straight” treatments
from the same time and even significantly later. That, of course, leaves the
question whether it is good, and a lot will depend on taste and mood.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving forward, the main
thing to get out of the way is that this film very much presumes prior
familiarity with the franchise. If you don’t understand the characters, relationships
and assumed world already (or like them in the first place), you aren’t going
to have many chances. The paradox on this front is that this does not become a
source of “insider” humor. Indeed, the movie doesn’t have that much in the way
of humor, beyond the bizarre situations and wildly flawed characters already
built into the franchise. On a deeper level, the film genuinely shifts the
perspective, which in turn becomes foreshadowing of what will be revealed. When
the focus moves to the secondary characters, the “stars” simply look like idiots
that nobody else would have any reason to care about, unless of course this
world was literally built around them. The final twist is that when the actual
main character takes charge, he really does manage to think through the situation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That leaves the story’s
visual, and that brings us to one more paradox, little if anything here is “psychedelic”
or even surreal. The “baseline” style is semi-realistic human characters in realistic
and often very detailed environments. I will say personally that this is
absolutely a believable portrayal of how “real” mental illness works, and I
will shout loudly that it makes for an exponentially better payoff as the dream
world encroaches on the setting. It should be of further note that even then,
there is not a fundamental change in the animation style, which is where
certain pros and cons come in. Again, it is effectively acknowledged that
people who experience hallucinations often perceive them as part of the actual
world. On the other hand, many sequences simply feel like a sane person’s idea
of madness, which I have already ranted about. Per my longest-running
complaint, the part that films like this often overlook is the breakdown of the
very sense of the passage of time and linear causation, which is exactly where
even the severely delusional will realize they are hallucinating without necessarily
pulling out of it. The most intriguing example is Shinobu’s encounter with a
spectral girl whose status is never made clear as her own surroundings become
distorted. She clearly realizes that this is not the “real” world, yet this is
still short of the terror of total breakdown.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That leaves the “one
scene”, and the one I knew I would go with is exactly at the half-hour mark. At
this point, a nurse/ priestess who is easily the most intelligent and
consistently competent character in the franchise has gotten in a cab at night.
She voices the suspicion that the ride is taking longer than needed. The cabbie
starts to talk, quite charmingly, and this becomes our introduction to the antagonist,
voiced by one Draidyl Roberts in the English dub. He begins with what could be
a casual joke that time feels slower in a cab. That leads into a metaphysical ramble
in which he asserts that time, space and reality itself are all products of
human perception, all while the lady clearly grows more aware that this is not
simply a talkative driver. What keeps this interesting is that none of his
points are inarguable in universe. Human perceptions of the universe may be
shaped by all manner of biases, but it will become clear that this character’s
own angle is talking up his own power to warp reality. Even so, the lady is
already able to see through his illusions. What matters is that this battle of
wits is clearly just beginning, which is exactly why a good scene like this
matters.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In closing, what I find I
come back to is my own feelings about anime. I’ve already regularly commented
that people who know me would expect me to be a lot more of a fan than I am. The
underlying reality is that I have never tried to “follow” anime in any
comprehensive way. That means that I have undoubtedly missed a lot that is very
good, and even more that is very, <i>very </i>bad. I consider the present film
a good example of why a little anime can be better than a lot. It’s a well-made
entry in a long-running series that requires some background knowledge but not
a detailed knowledge of everything that came before. Perhaps most
significantly, it’s a well-regarded and influential anime that was never hyped
up into a “classic” you <i>have</i> to watch for fans to take you seriously. (No
way I’m naming names…) It’s just good fun from a time when that was still the benchmark
for the artform. Watch it, if you have the time, and you won’t be disappointed.
With that, I’m calling it a day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4504952069848174864.post-35457640487016583362023-06-27T18:47:00.006-07:002023-06-27T18:47:56.750-07:00Futures Past: Nintendo exotrooper figure!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRCXNoPWTUBZtoCU8HeW4_NOkHHzQNOEdnTERa2kAeii5y7aYv32dD8g39ISdno4QXEyaPM43Zg4wDOz0rjf93uqfNaZHioI1UGgsH7bjtHWPPVimLgSV44p-vXkf4Mw8vHvclOHZtPbC3Ztx4l12Op509VQqiTRO7spjecfHKjjiALXbROtqXwykRLVc/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_40_36_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRCXNoPWTUBZtoCU8HeW4_NOkHHzQNOEdnTERa2kAeii5y7aYv32dD8g39ISdno4QXEyaPM43Zg4wDOz0rjf93uqfNaZHioI1UGgsH7bjtHWPPVimLgSV44p-vXkf4Mw8vHvclOHZtPbC3Ztx4l12Op509VQqiTRO7spjecfHKjjiALXbROtqXwykRLVc/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_40_36_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>As I write this, it's the last week of the month, and I realized I had something backlogged. While I was spending the last 2 1/2 months writing a Nintendo fan novel (see my <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/06/fiction-nintendo-parody-novel-extra.html">fourth demo</a>), I finally gave in and tried to buy a figure of one of the classic NES characters I was obviously ripping off. I refer, of course, to Samus Aran, from the iconic game I can't recall playing or seeing anyone else play once. I found a landscape of figures pulling scalper prices, and with a whole lot of bonus points, I got the newest and in all likelihood least impressive one. Then, of course, I took it out of the packaging, because I do this to make "real" collectors cry. Here's pics of this thing on card.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqVRW0Mko0dRWvkqWsK2DNz1vGCvg9v__dlANgCs9NCna1Ffh8DbGnKZN6c6aSLqDCvpJ_lfDtbAwL-gXeD39Rwgw77o0Z0fhQse0ZVFf19vXlja4X2kmLnVKV_8GDn4l4_kIlPvSVnB4uV9jEv7ilebbOOhghzqjvyFYgh6t6m-MM6N5yIUV3udzzZo/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_31_26_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqVRW0Mko0dRWvkqWsK2DNz1vGCvg9v__dlANgCs9NCna1Ffh8DbGnKZN6c6aSLqDCvpJ_lfDtbAwL-gXeD39Rwgw77o0Z0fhQse0ZVFf19vXlja4X2kmLnVKV_8GDn4l4_kIlPvSVnB4uV9jEv7ilebbOOhghzqjvyFYgh6t6m-MM6N5yIUV3udzzZo/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_31_26_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">You know the suit is from the 1980s because her shoulder pads are literally bigger than her helmet.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJLdF59RFNFrgqFqfwWJfTZ0e7KnQN8efzBPH2oPIjINYvCYIpiPU6kKlvgqXiVUfAsvzNQKFzA16Id9rEtBEbfcBNbSjaagcy86eXI7xcfwJrV0dEWRZoC_w6tdcVdSy4gsSb4Jj9T7kUOBXLGdY6rda27ESeCg87ECdJ7ookIO57CxLnbEdlbiySEiM/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_31_52_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJLdF59RFNFrgqFqfwWJfTZ0e7KnQN8efzBPH2oPIjINYvCYIpiPU6kKlvgqXiVUfAsvzNQKFzA16Id9rEtBEbfcBNbSjaagcy86eXI7xcfwJrV0dEWRZoC_w6tdcVdSy4gsSb4Jj9T7kUOBXLGdY6rda27ESeCg87ECdJ7ookIO57CxLnbEdlbiySEiM/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_31_52_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZiRba4rLac0YB8AVg_d61N43sAIb6qLpm16LNCTnFUCixwyov0x1MMuW-1NiVIWpueSH2053me2ZaH2gD_kAeGcFg6JIEumkf6FgJu50vqDt-erywfNJfAD9KgzKYiMS3XNCrgAYic7sYtr8ECn6UtJL1__O0S-MQxtxrbx0ROBIY5HwovOG5CLsrI6A/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_32_01_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZiRba4rLac0YB8AVg_d61N43sAIb6qLpm16LNCTnFUCixwyov0x1MMuW-1NiVIWpueSH2053me2ZaH2gD_kAeGcFg6JIEumkf6FgJu50vqDt-erywfNJfAD9KgzKYiMS3XNCrgAYic7sYtr8ECn6UtJL1__O0S-MQxtxrbx0ROBIY5HwovOG5CLsrI6A/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_32_01_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Lv37erVfUZ8gTjB7X3D3JWcxQ-VPEybg1mEficbp2F70Omya62LRzJV1LbFDvBy97K2ODQ61yKaWRCBlA4g8vZOzZy1qPiqLjFa_Db94SR4fLaKKRTHstxke6G3XO71l4NCV7SIYxo-TZm3x2Q8lIFifjUAUudzKZxRH1WB958oKiFUPJhmzgIe9xbs/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_32_12_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Lv37erVfUZ8gTjB7X3D3JWcxQ-VPEybg1mEficbp2F70Omya62LRzJV1LbFDvBy97K2ODQ61yKaWRCBlA4g8vZOzZy1qPiqLjFa_Db94SR4fLaKKRTHstxke6G3XO71l4NCV7SIYxo-TZm3x2Q8lIFifjUAUudzKZxRH1WB958oKiFUPJhmzgIe9xbs/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_32_12_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Now to go all the way back, I can recall being aware of Metroid in the 1980s and '90s, and what stands out is that it didn't have that big a profile. Up to when I was in junior high, there was still only the original game, from the ancient year of 1986. From what I heard back then, it was simply a space adventure with a where-do-I-go element that a whole bunch of games were trying to do. It didn't help that the main reason I heard about it was because Mother Brain was the main villainess and quite possibly the most irritating character on the now-legendary <i>Captain N</i> TV series, which I really did watch regularly. It was in a revisit of the game in Nintendo's propaganda outlet that I first learned of the reveal that quite possibly created Rule 34: The space adventurer in the armor was actually a lady.</p><p>Now for the figure, this is a figure released this year by Jakks Pacific, which has been making figures of this character since at least 2014. The most distinctive thing about this figure is that it has a matte texture where earlier figures had been glossy. I have to admit, this is pretty good. The points of articulation, while more gimmicky than useful, are in places that make sense. The detailing is the right balance between realistic and stylized. And, wonder of wonders, it's quite easy to persuade this thing to stand up. Here's some pics of the figure.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGHWcTj82Zqq1fZRLzQ_nbTOZ3OLpsZGWBLZIrfPU_cpU_yuodaIIbVduZVJIykw235mPG1cLfRVdTGdQ7qZ0do6wSc14slwQkisf5Q3XQENhYsSKZDA1atx8C_17N4BD2Q23tChNfAHKyr_w6iYT15rqOZOb5dvr432Rw5COVG1DPGznnhSSVbzFDfk/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_33_52_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGHWcTj82Zqq1fZRLzQ_nbTOZ3OLpsZGWBLZIrfPU_cpU_yuodaIIbVduZVJIykw235mPG1cLfRVdTGdQ7qZ0do6wSc14slwQkisf5Q3XQENhYsSKZDA1atx8C_17N4BD2Q23tChNfAHKyr_w6iYT15rqOZOb5dvr432Rw5COVG1DPGznnhSSVbzFDfk/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_33_52_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqhJYc6bMAl3lMhAfNlZqBcB1TfNZq-031BQ7WmkwonpfUAOWVGKbefsMSLvslh4tmMNvIo9Im9axhhVciN5uTFUuaBRlKXA9tzzHB39BZQ5jmDYlYAL3W0A9Jn71ICdIuvcKp8_cC2LfkZjo0VyvCNzPYjLqQIjOcqcFlCJIz5wZISi4lj1aRr9a7Qg/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_33_59_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqhJYc6bMAl3lMhAfNlZqBcB1TfNZq-031BQ7WmkwonpfUAOWVGKbefsMSLvslh4tmMNvIo9Im9axhhVciN5uTFUuaBRlKXA9tzzHB39BZQ5jmDYlYAL3W0A9Jn71ICdIuvcKp8_cC2LfkZjo0VyvCNzPYjLqQIjOcqcFlCJIz5wZISi4lj1aRr9a7Qg/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_33_59_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8Sbv2PahMuWdjsWr0TjlTYgkzVTEeg9DRAesfoSP6c3CLFlg53vOvG2uRcIYuW9ZV8ra9kMvS2tA-XytPbVTYRWXc-G4qvDtc-mQvSyF0g8jY7aw7BcwQ7Cfxa0wEjRhlcGxdcZibmp-RHeROSxziOBrNwPN-HWlVPdn56QUb_Jqu6EpnBTYCT14DC4/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_34_22_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8Sbv2PahMuWdjsWr0TjlTYgkzVTEeg9DRAesfoSP6c3CLFlg53vOvG2uRcIYuW9ZV8ra9kMvS2tA-XytPbVTYRWXc-G4qvDtc-mQvSyF0g8jY7aw7BcwQ7Cfxa0wEjRhlcGxdcZibmp-RHeROSxziOBrNwPN-HWlVPdn56QUb_Jqu6EpnBTYCT14DC4/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_34_22_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7YQXkFODRYHhDNtd7-gEFgTeOwP_J9VKN-IbAKPjacVHzOOiHXRWL08fXJkMdl6HsuBWFqLxXzTm5lUv8aEDFaPJhjxpWsvZ7WiBw2aCXwlNga3vlSfw1QtBw-JKyBdzvy85Gmu_ZfYsGB1eXo9C1vcZjt2woEUXHXa73Bnji3Oe6zawdUcKKYhaOUfo/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_34_28_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7YQXkFODRYHhDNtd7-gEFgTeOwP_J9VKN-IbAKPjacVHzOOiHXRWL08fXJkMdl6HsuBWFqLxXzTm5lUv8aEDFaPJhjxpWsvZ7WiBw2aCXwlNga3vlSfw1QtBw-JKyBdzvy85Gmu_ZfYsGB1eXo9C1vcZjt2woEUXHXa73Bnji3Oe6zawdUcKKYhaOUfo/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_34_28_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>And for a little fun, here's a couple articulation tests.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEb7wIPfAMp640AmDnEHt2uHIbMP2pcqB28B9W1OT5Cc1ExZ2C4LzIhkE5c7RkYRevdGWKRrLbl0qGrqaie8mhX5BP4lYzq_XZyMOOyqeJ39HNh5LWCPTvWig-mKpGI1TrQgqn7MG3ImtHHV8bXiDxq8eKrT14sxgrTlFsVVLAz3_EKG4MZRoa0gfr34c/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_39_07_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEb7wIPfAMp640AmDnEHt2uHIbMP2pcqB28B9W1OT5Cc1ExZ2C4LzIhkE5c7RkYRevdGWKRrLbl0qGrqaie8mhX5BP4lYzq_XZyMOOyqeJ39HNh5LWCPTvWig-mKpGI1TrQgqn7MG3ImtHHV8bXiDxq8eKrT14sxgrTlFsVVLAz3_EKG4MZRoa0gfr34c/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_39_07_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Okay, I was not expecting Samus as a cheerleader, but it's probably out there.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgipq_um1B1VmXZwx1CbCtZIfDXUwj-yCM0jDpiiLVbHT28yZhJTujYFu9Oe0p8Jgv-H37_OuG3ij5tKADgyRTXe-52MueUg6i1cPUtHsRgJDafnBBZ8aiX8CfemqTXX2Q1pZHxvrwUCFDViUG24eu8PscKV9WTS5_wGd5EAkvGXdy05eNKesFQnyz_dpg/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_39_52_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgipq_um1B1VmXZwx1CbCtZIfDXUwj-yCM0jDpiiLVbHT28yZhJTujYFu9Oe0p8Jgv-H37_OuG3ij5tKADgyRTXe-52MueUg6i1cPUtHsRgJDafnBBZ8aiX8CfemqTXX2Q1pZHxvrwUCFDViUG24eu8PscKV9WTS5_wGd5EAkvGXdy05eNKesFQnyz_dpg/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_39_52_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And here she is with the <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/01/mid-sized-marx-evil-space-guys-unbagging.html">4-inch Space Guys</a> (whose own adventure was ironically derailed for all this). These figures are usually listed as 4 inches, but this is definitely bigger, I can believe 4.5 inches.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdXIjHOuw34_opnItFr049kYjhYVBLb4kr9yrzQrnQ6Bgl1teP-j94gxorUrL4e0Zno2f_dwy4cljsdD-BEETAkYzAzEx4mUJcxcfmqKBZ8j6a6LjSFDcYz0kEutTvKezuJzZrOTKSXHygXR8j2TzHip9ez3rJaLiXWpAeCb5Sj9r84ygsu09Bjwtxpk/s3264/WIN_20230620_13_36_16_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdXIjHOuw34_opnItFr049kYjhYVBLb4kr9yrzQrnQ6Bgl1teP-j94gxorUrL4e0Zno2f_dwy4cljsdD-BEETAkYzAzEx4mUJcxcfmqKBZ8j6a6LjSFDcYz0kEutTvKezuJzZrOTKSXHygXR8j2TzHip9ez3rJaLiXWpAeCb5Sj9r84ygsu09Bjwtxpk/w400-h225/WIN_20230620_13_36_16_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>Now, the question I come to is what put this one in this sporadic and meandering <a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/09/futures-past-retro-future-buildings.html">feature</a>, where does Samus really fit in pop culture evolution? There were plenty of lady adventurers before her, as evidenced in <i><a href="https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2021/03/super-movies-one-with-zombies-on-plane.html">Heavy Metal</a></i> (which I repeatedly reference in my novel), though it was something new in video games. I would propose that the character had more impact through popularizing the combat exoskeleton/ mech suit, though I can attest that I was drawing such things in the late '80s-early '90s timeframe independent of any direct influence. (I swear I kind of invented the term "exotrooper", but I have never had to explain it.) The biggest step forward was a game with a focus on exploring an environment, which as alluded was quickly done to death. To me, she remains what she was then: A cool character.</div><div><br /></div><div>And to wrap this up, here's a couple sketches I did for the book. I was trying to think of an exotrooper design crossed with Greek armor, so I drew a finback with a sort-of Corinthian face plate. I spent a lot of time trying to work out how it would raise, then an illustrator I am working with just drew it scrunched up in a way I'm going to have to work into the book. And the other one is a Flower Girl who can turn into a Psittacosaurus-dragon thing.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvrfjWOn1D3WSgUnTm16xMA5gi55nq5z574Icar8ayTpOioeWbg6IRFdzRNE6ydUUUhboJ7yEO2BbWWRAj8Sa72XkCgRxuzuVwuWqv1-yRvho4XDEI1dhk0424ay4vjEU9QIuf8j5DO1cVyl8P-30arxK8ZQ3aBHWb1BaNfwqWTsV_NHavwh1azepOCc/s4160/20230623_155136.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3120" data-original-width="4160" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvrfjWOn1D3WSgUnTm16xMA5gi55nq5z574Icar8ayTpOioeWbg6IRFdzRNE6ydUUUhboJ7yEO2BbWWRAj8Sa72XkCgRxuzuVwuWqv1-yRvho4XDEI1dhk0424ay4vjEU9QIuf8j5DO1cVyl8P-30arxK8ZQ3aBHWb1BaNfwqWTsV_NHavwh1azepOCc/w400-h300/20230623_155136.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And one more, because the best sketch is always the one that goes completely wrong...</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLSMD4PVJRRon19HSHydtrJjGh0oqBwJl2XqY7XRa4920DvhJP6VEEVzRu4jbWbhxs40EVqVkqE_fKpoqX0CAn2X0KfdOKuH1t1FpR5fEirL1sogFmkwHhIRxvprzwIv3DLC94Poe2nI5JFXObX6QOFnUJ4g8wNU-0laaKdPjeUqn06jvC10dvztdU2UE/s4160/20230622_190522.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLSMD4PVJRRon19HSHydtrJjGh0oqBwJl2XqY7XRa4920DvhJP6VEEVzRu4jbWbhxs40EVqVkqE_fKpoqX0CAn2X0KfdOKuH1t1FpR5fEirL1sogFmkwHhIRxvprzwIv3DLC94Poe2nI5JFXObX6QOFnUJ4g8wNU-0laaKdPjeUqn06jvC10dvztdU2UE/w300-h400/20230622_190522.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p>And with that, I'm calling it a day. That's all for now, more to come!</p>David N. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296102565243287206noreply@blogger.com0