Adaptation Insanity: The one that readapted Maximum Overdrive

 

Title: Trucks

What Year?: 1997

Classification: Weird Sequel

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

 

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 feature on adaptations. That, in turn, brought me to a whole lot of maybe pile material from everyone’s “favorite” author, Stephen King. (See Sleepwalkers, fungghh.) As I surveyed the material at hand, one stood out that would otherwise have gone under my even more abortive feature on TV movies. 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 Trucks, a made-for-TV film that has just a little more under the hood than one might think.

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!

Trucks 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  film Maximum Overdrive directed by King. The film was produced by Trimark Pictures, a company also responsible for distributing Dead Alive, with New Zealand film maker Chris Thomson as director. King and screenwriter Brian Taggert (see… Of Unknown Origin???) 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.

For my experiences, I watched this one as a video rental around 2005, after reading the story but before watching Maximum Overdrive. 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. Maximum Overdrive 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 Night of the Living Dead, 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.

Moving forward, the most significant further comparison between Maximum Overdrive and Trucks 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 Maximum Overdrive. 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.

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 Duel. 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 cable, 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.

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 Maximum Overdrive, 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.

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 12:01. 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!

The Anthology Anthology: The very modern horror of Ambrose Bierce

 

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 Oliver Larch. Here, I’m giving a wider, still anecdotal survey of his work.

 

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, The Ghost And Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce, which I bought in ebook form, and the more luridly named Terror By Night. 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 The Ghost And Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce, 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 Eight Legged Freaks on TV, because my superpower is my torment.) So, here’s a rundown of the ones that have stayed with me all this time.

 

“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.

 

“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.

 

“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 Nightmare On Elm Street 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.

 

“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.

 

“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.

 

“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.

 

“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.

 

“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.

 

“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 House…)

 

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.

Image credit ISFDB.

Robot Revolution: The one with zombies and an evil computer

 

The one with zombies and an evil computer

 

Title: Resident Evil

What Year?: 2002

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Mashup

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

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 feature 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 Resident Evil, the Patient 0 of the modern zombie movie wave, and I will be showing why the computer is much scarier than the undead.

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!

Resident Evil 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 The Fifth Element (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 Dawn of the Dead. 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 Resident Evil: Apocalypse in 2004 and Extinction in 2007, as well as a number of direct-to-video animated films. A new live-action film, Welcome To Raccoon City, received a limited theatrical release in 2021.  Anderson and Jovovich married in 2009. Their daughter Ever has several screen credits.

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 The Revenant Review, though I finally gave number 3 an entry in the out-of-control ebook edition. 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 Horror Vault, or under my still nascent adaptation feature, where I already covered the Nineties Mario movie. 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.

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 Re-Animator and Day of the Dead (see also Sole Survivor, the re-review I completely botched).  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.

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 The Forbin Project and of course The Lift. 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 Ghost Ship). 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.

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.

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.

Robot Revolution: The one that's the good Transformers movie

 

 

Title: Bumblebee aka Transformers: Bumblebee

What Year?: 2018

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

As I write this, my channels have been a bit quiet, enough that the biggest news is a new entry in a franchise everyone has been saying they want to end but won’t stop putting money into. It also happens that I had been considering one particular entry for my semi-randomized survey of robot films. Without further preamble, I’m diving in. Here’s Bumblebee, the Transformers movie people actually liked, and as far as I’m concerned, the only other entry worth any attention was the one with Orson Welles as the Death Star.

Our story begins with the fall of the world of Cybertron to the Decepticons, during which the heroic Bumblebee escapes to Earth. That leads to a three-way fight with a Decepticon and a persistent military man, in which the sympathetic bot’s voice box is disabled. He goes to ground as a piece-of-kaka VW Beetle in what turns out to be the actual 1980s time frame of the original franchise. He finds a friend in a spunky teenage girl named Charlie who tries fixing up the Bug and is surprisingly cool with both discovering a robot from an alien civilization and legally owning a sentient AI. Soon, they bond over Eighties pop culture, and Charlie opens up about her actually moving tragic backstory. But the Decepticons are closing in, aided by a fair-weather alliance with the military over our military man’s objections. Robots will fight, character will be built, and cliches will actually be used effectively. And to quote/ rip off Brandon’s Cult Movies, congratulations, your toys sold well enough for you to live!

Bumblebee was a 2018 science fiction/ drama film directed by Travis Knight, previously known for animated films including Kubo, from a script by Christina Hodson.  It was the 6^th film in the live-action Transformers franchise by producer Michael Bay, and considered a prequel to the preceding films. The film starred Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie and Angela Bassett as the voice of the villainess Shatter, with John Cena and John Ortiz as the government men. Other voice cast included Justin Theroux as the hench-bot Dropkick and Peter Cullen in a limited role as Optimus Prime. The film was a commercial success, earning $468 million worldwide against a $135M budget, and was well-received by critics and fans as the best entry in the franchise. A direct sequel has reportedly been in development. In June 2023, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was released as a second authorized prequel, without the involvement of Steinfeld or other cast and characters from Bumblebee.

For my experiences, I have already gotten a lot of ranting about Transformers out of my system with toy blogging and my review of the animated film (see also the Gobots movie…). The bottom line has always been that I liked the idea of the Transformers better than the toys, and I clean missed out on any incarnation of the TV franchise. When it comes to films, the 1986 cartoon had enough sheer weirdness to impress me, and the original live-action film was good enough for a viewing or so. After that, I completely bailed on the cinematic franchise until the present film came along. I saw it in theaters, and it earned what was for me somewhat grudging respect. In the time since, I’ve given it a fair number of repeat viewings, which if anything have improved my opinion. Saying it’s the best Transformers movie may be an easy joke, but this is far more; it’s one of the best recent treatments of robotics/ artificial intelligence to come out of what can still be considered the “mainstream” studio system. In those terms, the only other films to appear here that even suggest themselves for comparison are M3GAN and Robot and Frank, and those already set the bar very high indeed.

Moving forward, the one thing to get out of the way is that mustering goodwill for this one is going to require a high tolerance for both the franchise assumed mythology and general 1980s pop culture. The latter is where the “mainstream” description starts to feel like a “con” rather than a “pro” (also an admitted issue with Robot And Frank). What the film has going for it is a feel of sincerity rather than, or at least in addition to, the presumption of nostalgia that will definitely be hit or miss for people like me who were actually around in the Eighties. The bots are allowed to be truly good and very evil, and their battles see victories and defeats for both sides throughout the movie. It’s of further note that the stop-motion veteran director knows how to portray the bots in real-world environments in ways that make it clear who they are and who’s winning. The humans are the weaker element, but for once, it’s not because they are an underwritten afterthought. The problem is that there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, a fact that is amplified by the frequent references and inside jokes. The payoff is that we can actually get to like these characters far more as the story goes along. The standout to me is Ortiz, a prolific character actor in a typically disposable role, whose character by any fair appraisal proves himself by far the most intelligent here without considering that he’s applying the rules of chess to a rugby match.

Meanwhile, the thing that has to be talked about for this feature in particular is Bumblebee himself, an absolutely first-rate “sympathetic” bot. Again, it’s especially noteworthy that this is done with an animator in the director’s chair (and a woman as writer to boot), and the character shows everything that can be brought to the table: He has distinctive features, mannerisms and an expressive face. The most interesting part of the setup is his lack of speech, which to me could have been all the more intriguing if it was a permanent part of his personality rather than a posited physical (mechanical???) injury. (On the gruesome side, aphasia is a very real problem for victims of major head trauma…) The results are a little hit or miss, with a high proportion of cutesy pratfalls and still more pop-culture references. In form for the film, the premise gets fully developed into what becomes a thoughtful portrayal of nonverbal/ preverbal intelligence. It’s especially striking to see the bot contextualize music and audio snippets to express himself and draw out his human counterpart. For that matter, there’s dark irony in the further contrast with the highly articulate and very anthropomorphic villainess, who proves that familiarity in no way reduces menace.

That leaves the “one scene”, and this is a rare case of a scene that upped the rating. Partway through, Charlie ends up at a beach party where someone brings up the established backstory that she was once on the school diving team. When one of the jerks takes a dive that would definitely not be safe if you don’t happen to have a topographical map, the gathered kids cheer for Charlie to do the same. The parked Transformer joins in, bumping her with an open door and playing an egregious track from the animated film. We get all the Eighties movie buildup as the spunky heroine goes to the edge… and then walks right back. It’s a calculated anticlimax, and what impressed me enough to raise my opinion of the whole movie is that this is contextualized as Charlie absolutely in the right. It’s a moment that proves a film can both use cliches and subvert them effectively. It’s just right to bring this one from 3 to a (kind of) perfect 4.

In closing, this is a case where I’ve already covered everything, for once including the rating. Enough time has passed to say that this is not a “great” movie, but it would not be at all surprising if the next five to ten years sees it hailed as a “classic”, which has certainly not been the case with any other live-action incarnation of the franchise. On its own, it might be no more or less than “pretty good”, but after what came before, it’s the kind of film where just being adequate would be enough for a seasoned viewer to kiss the ground. Sometimes, you have to take what you can get, and fortunately, this is one that more than delivers. My highest compliment is that I’m glad to have gotten to it. “I’ve got better things to do tonight than die!”

Robot Revolution: The one Basil Poledouris couldn't save

 

 

Title: Cherry 2000

What Year?: 1985 (filming)/ 1988 (limited theatrical release)

Classification: Improbable Experiment/ Mashup

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

 

With this review, I’m continuing my survey of robot movies, and what is standing out is that I still haven’t covered several of the movies that made me think of this feature in the first place. This time around, I’m finally getting to one that I planned on all along. It’s a film that I could have long since fit into one of my other features, especially Space 1979 and No Good Very Bad Movies, but I have found it odd enough that I have continued to put it off until I could give it a more proper treatment. Now, I’m ready, and I’m not playing nice. I present Cherry 2000, a movie where actual humans die over a rich guy’s sex robot. And yes, they managed to waste Basil Poledouris in the process.

Our story begins with a middle/ upper class guy named Sam getting frisky with his wife/ partner while a dishwasher overflows. But it turns out the lady is a robot, and unlike actual robotic submarines built since the 1950s, she is not waterproof. After this tragic incident, only the bot’s brain is salvaged, so Sam tries to obtain a replacement body. However, it turns out that this is a post-apocalyptic future, and the only spares are in an abandoned warehouse in the territory of an actual warlord. The guy sets out on his quest, with the help of a rough and tough guide who also happens to be a very attractive woman. Bullets will fly, cars will chase, romantic tensions will rise, and it all comes down to… woman vs machine?

Cherry 2000 is a 1988 science fiction/ romantic drama film by producer Edward R. Pressman (see The Hand) and director Steve De Jarnatt, known as a writer for Strange Brew. The film starred David Andrews as Sam and Melanie Griffith as the guide “E”, with actress/ model Pamela Gidley as the bot Cherry and Tim Thomerson as the warlord Lester. The score was composed by Basil Poledouris (see the Starship Troopers and Conan the Destroyer soundtrack posts), following work with Pressman on the Conan franchise. The film was reportedly completed as early as 1985, but had its release repeatedly delayed. It received a limited US theatrical release in early 1988, which earned only a reported $14,000 box office against a $10M budget. It was released on VHS later in the same year, with possibly greater success. De Jarnatt directed one additional film, Miracle Mile, before returning to a career as a screenwriter and author. Pressman continued to produce films such as Masters of the Universe, Judge Dredd and The Island of Dr. Moreau, with his final film Daliland being released several months before his death in January 2023. Cherry 2000 is currently available on multiple digital platforms, including free streaming on Tubi.

For my experiences, this is a film I first heard of simply because it came up in the Poledouris filmography, and I never saw it mentioned spontaneously again until it was mentioned in correspondences related to this feature. As alluded, however, I had long had it in mind. Where it really stands in my skewed frame of reference is as the epitome of a category that only a reviewer could arrive at: Movies to play and half-watch while I’m working on something I deem more important. Needless to say, the characteristics of such things are unflattering but not exceptional, not good enough to make me want to give it my full attention, not bad enough to be actively annoying. (The Nest has been the archetypal example so far.) In the lead-in to this review, I gave it exactly that treatment. What came through all the more was that this is the kind of film that makes mediocrity far more offensive than actually “bad”.

Moving forward, most of what I could say would be on the same vein already stated. Outside of the bot, which is reduced to a Maguffin for the vast majority of the relatively slim running time, everything here is interchangeable and forgettable, which to me includes Griffith’s admittedly charming character. The toll is especially heavy on the score, which can make this absolutely painful. As I have commented (see my post on the Predator soundtracks), Poledouris is the one movie composer varied and creative enough that I have rarely if ever recognized his material during a viewing, but here, I finally recognized recurring cues (especially from Robocop) that are almost always far inferior to the works they tie into. In the midst of this, what becomes even more disappointing are the action scenes, which only made an impression with a surreal moment when the bad guys ride out on ATVs with bolted-on machine guns. What is truly baffling is that this film can’t even get to the “over the top”/ “so bad it’s good” level, which is the last issue one would expect from the people involved here. As a further corollary, the only fun to be had is from Thomerson as the truly unhinged warlord and his even more fractured submissive moll played by Cameron Milzer (apparently also in Chopper Chicks In Zombietown). This is a genuinely terrifying portrait of shared psychosis, and the source of many potential honorable mentions for “one scene”. (“No sandwich for him!”)

That leaves Cherry herself, and for all the noted limitations imposed by the story, she offers a fascinatingly nuanced picture of the domestic android and the implications and complications of human/ AI relationships. The one big “pro” is that the protagonist is actually developed and quite sympathetic. Whatever one makes of the bot and the perceived relationship, it’s quite clear that he views her as a person and feels real grief at the perceived loss. Of course, it’s also established that he has a lot of trouble relating to people not programmed to like him, which becomes an obstacle to sympathy when his quest starts getting real people killed. Even so, he retains enough moral judgment to avoid killing anyone who isn’t trying to kill him. It also has to be said that the real plot hole is why the warlord isn’t simply selling off the robots. When we do get a look at Cherry, what comes across is an entity that is neither anthropomorphic nor unsympathetic. There can be no doubt that she has no choice but to serve and satisfy her owner, yet it becomes evident that she at least has the benefit of emotional satisfaction from her master’s approval. There’s a somewhat cringey payoff when she tries going through her routines in the middle of a life-and-death battle, which could be evidence of rote programming but also a clear consequence of her lack of any frame of reference for the situation. Overall, it’s a picture of a dysfunctional relationship that isn’t necessarily “worse” than the human/ human pairs on screen. I can charitably allow that this point is reinforced when the bot and the moll connect in the epilogue, in a surreal moment that fits both characters. In here, however, it's too little, far too late.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with one of the few that has stayed in my mind across multiple viewings. Soon after the bot short-circuits, Sam’s friends take him to a bar in an effort to connect him with a real woman. Things quickly go awry as we see multiple interactions that are more transactional than romantic. It culminates with a meeting between a friend and an apparently interested lady, mediated by a third party (yes, that’s Lawrence Fishburne) who seems to have formal authority. The mediator spells out jarringly detailed terms for a prospective encounter. It’s a bizarre scenario fleshed out enough for the viewer to ask if this would be a viable alternative to our norms, at least until the lady brings up an “oral clause”. From there, things go south in a hurry. To me, it has always felt like nothing more or less than a glimpse of a far better film.

In closing, I have to reiterate that this one is just bad. It’s definitely the actual worst film to receive any consideration for this little future. In its own way, it’s among the worst movies I’ve ever watched, especially with “does this even count as a movie?” entries like Ingagi and Death Bed filtered out. By my usual refrain, I judge movies on a curve, and this is the kind that I find peculiarly insulting: It may not be “that bad”, but only because it is too polished to be inept and too unimaginative and unambitious to be offensive. What I find most telling is that even back then, the powers that be looked at this thing and effectively dumped it straight to the home video market. It’s the most fitting epitaph for a movie that squandered ideas, talent, and quite a bit of money. The one thing I’m happy for is that I can say I am done with this. Rest in pieces!

Image credit Metacritic.

Movie Mania: Heavy Metal soundtrack!

 

It's Monday and I still don't have my weekend post, so I decided to do something that actually came up in the course of my epic fan fi/ parody novel (see Demos 1 and 2) that I'm actually on track to finish. Most of this feature has been about movie soundtracks (see the Predator post from about 6 months ago), but this time, I have something different. It's a soundtrack of pop rock songs from one of the most famous/ popular movies I ever reviewed, and I actually like it. Here is Heavy Metal, the soundtrack! Here's a pic of the insert booklet.

Now, there's a lot of lore here that I already covered or skipped over. Heavy Metal was an animated anthology film based on the magazine/ comic of the same name, which was in turn based on the European publication Metal Hurlant. (Oh, yeah, my review is now in my zombie movie ebook.) In the process, the filmmakers made an unusual if not unprecedented decision regarding music. They paid for a top-notch orchestral score from Elmer Bernstein (see An American Werewolf In London and... Robot Monster???). They also got the rights for a lineup of contemporary rock songs from artists including (alphabetic order is easiest) Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick (see Rock & Rule, already intertwined with this saga), Devo, Journey and Stevie Nicks. The problem, as one can extrapolate from at least the last two, was that this was in fact pretty light on the "metal", but as I have pointed out, the title was technically that of the magazine first.

Moving forward, the real twist here is the very different fates of the two halves of the soundtrack. Both were released around the time the movie came out, on vinyl, cassette and CD. However, the orchestral score has gone on to fall into Copyright Hell, with any disc copies going for $50 and up, while the present album has remained available in both physical and digital formats right up to the present day. I got my particular specimen last year, in what I just remembered was the same order as my Blu Ray of Death Becomes Her. Before that, I had listened to it regularly on free music streaming. In fact, I can recall going to sleep listening to this, which once again brings us to the problem.

In fact, considered objectively, this is nothing more or less than a representative sample of 1980s pop rock with a bit of a "lean" toward the metal/ punk/ proto-grunge cluster. A good starting point for consideration is the one I have always been able to place within the movie, "Heavy Metal/ Takin' A Ride" by Don Felder, played at the start of the "B-17" segment. It's a surprisingly good fit for the material, and okay overall. For maximum confusion, it has the same title as the opening track, "Heavy Metal" by Sammy Hagar, which I completely forgot plays in one of my favorite scenes in the film. ("If there's one thing I know, it's how to drive when I'm stoned...") That's followed by "Hearbeat" (which I managed to reference in the Sidekick Carl adventure, still very much in my mind) and "Working In A Coalmine" by Devo. The fifth track, "Reach Out", turns up in the Lincoln Stern segment, and after Felder's track, I start to kind of tune out. Aside from one I'll get to in a moment, the most memorable of the remaining tracks would be "Radar Rider" by Riggs, played in the opening sequence "Soft Landing", and "Blue Lamp" by Nicks, an oddly dark song that I just figured out plays in the police station scene of "Harry Canyon".

That leaves three songs that stand out to me. One of them is a song that isn't in the soundtrack, "Through Being Cool" by Devo from the Taarna bar scene, which I cross-identified in Sky High. At one point, I kind of assumed it was in the soundtrack, as the digital version of the album was already down at least one track. I still can't fathom how it wasn't included, given that the band was already represented. Another is "The Mob Rules" by Black Sabbath, track 13, also from "Taarna", which I discovered was included here months before it was released as part of the album of the same name. Then there is by far the most noteworthy track here, "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by BOC, which was also included in the soundtrack prior to its album release. As far as I can recall, I knew of this song from multiple references in fiction, without knowing anything about it until I recognized the title lyric during a viewing of the film. Having heard it, I can say that it is truly one of the most emotionally powerful songs of the 1980s or any other time. The one "problem" is that it easily converts to generic angst, especially of the male variety, which it absolutely is not. Its appearance in the film could really be a case and point, as it simply plays at the discovery of the Loc Nar in "Harry Canyon" rather than any truly introspective moment. My further thought is that it could get back a lot of its depth from a cover by a woman, which I literally have not found even once.

So, that's the album. For what it is, it's a very important release that earns its enduring pace in pop culture. It's worth a listen as a whole as well as for its parts. And for one more thing, here's a pic I managed to take without glare, because apparently the Couch Mark 2 is really, really well-lit.

That's all for now, more to come!

The Horrible Horror Vault Revisited: The one with an evil boat

 

 

Title: Ghost Ship

What Year?: 2002

Classification: Mashup/ Irreproducible Oddity

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

As I write this, I’m at the tail end of a phase of retiring some of my longest-running features, usually with some measure of relief. That has brought me back around to considering whether I should dust off any of them. It happened that the one that finally forced my decision was a horror movie from within the “modern” era, which I have usually specifically avoided outside of zombie films like Splinter.  I quickly realized that the one place it really fit was my one dedicated horror feature, the Horrible Horror Vault, and what made things interesting was that this one went in a quite different direction. I present Ghost Ship, a movie about a literal boat from Hell, and boy do I know there’s more than one.

Our story begins in the 1960s, with a captain and a little girl dancing on a cruise ship deck until a preposterously gruesome mass casualty event strikes. Skip forward, and we meet an evidently competent salvage crew with a butch lady boss who is technically second in command. A nondescript guy comes to them with a lead: After 40-some years, a missing cruise ship has been rediscovered, still drifting around what would in regular reality be the maritime border between two superpowers. This apparently seems neither improbable nor utterly terrifying to the crew, who sign on for a job. They discover a standard spooky ship where rats still scurry about and mysterious figures appear and disappear, particularly the captain and the girl. Just when the audience is thinking get the Hell off this thing, the crew discover a fortune in the hold, only to lose their own ship. The lady and her dwindling crew must survive the perils of the ship and the sea. But they are already part of a trap that claimed the lives of the original complement, and the stakes are their lives and their souls!

Ghost Ship was a 2002 supernatural horror film directed by Steve Beck and produced by Joel Silver (see Lethal Weapon, Predator 2) and Robert Zemeckis. The production was developed from a script that reportedly emphasized psychological horror over gore and supernatural elements. Similarities were noted to the 1980 film Death Ship (oh dear Logos, that should have been on my list of films too bad to review), ultimately including a very similar movie poster. The film starred Julianna Margulies as the lady boss Epps, with Gabriel Byrne as Captain Murphy and Emily Browning as the girl. Plans to film on an actual ship were rejected in favor of CGI effects and extensive miniatures, provided by the crew Photon VFX from Australia. The movie was released in October 2002 and on home video in March 2003. It received mixed to negative reviews but was a commercial success, earning $68 million against a $20M budget. It is currently available on digital platforms including HBO Max.

For my experiences, this is one I remember seeing around the time it came out without knowing it was “supposed” to have a bad reputation; I liked it, I hear nothing bad about it, and I distinctly remember at least one reasonably positive contemporary review. But what has really stood out is the whole “evil boat” concept. It’s a counterpart to the more niche “underwater sci fi” (see Leviathan, The Abyss) which I have covered with the likes of Deep Rising and The Ghost Galleon. (Wait, doesn’t Event Horizon kind of count???) In that context, what I have found most interesting is the degree to which it rides the line between horror and science fiction. The notes are Gothic, but the visual vocabulary is industrial, with shot after shot emphasizing the very solid if rusted and creaky walls, rooms and fittings of the ship. It’s a fascinating blend of genres, and that’s the other reason I remain very conflicted coming back to this film.

Moving forward, the word that applies here is indeed “solid”. Everything here is genre formula done quite well, with good acting and dialogue, excellent effects, and a story that at a minimum gets a real payoff out of a “twist” villain. It all serves to illustrate that cliches become cliches because they can and do in fact work. What is most impressive is that there is still complex conceptualization and  genuine ambiguity. Several incidents could be actual hallucinations. Others appear to be a combination of illusions by the spirits and hazards already present on the boat. Then there are certain points where the ship seems to show a malign will of its own, to a degree that I considered including this along with The Lift and Willy’s Wonderland under the “possessed machine” category of my robots feature. It all builds to an unexpected touch of beauty in the finale when (fine, spoiler) the sinking ship releases the souls of the dead. The only points where this becomes a problem are where the film goes with shocks over substance. It shows most around the middle act, which sees multiple redundant jump scares and one obvious gross-out. But we already see it in the ludicrous opening, which just feels like an unconvincing ripoff of the laser cheese grater in Resident Evil, even though a little chronological review would indicate that this was mostly in the can by the time that movie came out.

With these issues already on the table, where my nitpicking instincts kick in is the reveal of the original atrocity that killed everyone in the first place. This is the point where the story becomes a straight-up Medieval morality play, and for the most part, it’s another twist that really works, especially once the characters start to question each other’s identities and motivations. The problem is that the chain of events follows neither logic nor proportion. By my further penchant for rewriting, what would have worked is a potentially non-lethal scheme that actually went wrong, like a staged “accident” gone out of control (essentially the set-up of Deep Rising and for that matter an intelligible solution to the actual Mary Celeste). Instead, almost everyone jumps straight to mass murder on a literal war-crime scale, which goes as far beyond the standards of “rational evil” as killing a bank president, vice president and the entire board of directors to rob the bank. Even if this went according to plan, it’s obvious that it would almost certainly end badly. The real “problem” here is that the movie specifically fails to sell this as a slippery slope that might tempt the ordinary viewer, and that specific weakness is in contrast to the unsettlingly believable conflicts that arise among the present-day protagonists.

Now for the “one scene”, the one that really lingered in writing this review is a scene that makes absolutely no sense in cold blood. In the midst of the middle-act slow-down, Byrne/ Murphy has wandered into the captain’s cabin, where he discovers the ghost of the original liner’s captain. What is surreal off the bat is, first, that there is neither fear nor surprise, and second, that this non-reaction actually follows from previously established characterization. The captain simply accepts what he sees, and gives careful attention as the ghost presents a file on the discovery of another ill-fated and infamous ship. Murphy says simply, “I know the story,” without telling the yarn anyway. He adds, “There were no survivors,” at which point the ghost holds out a photo we don’t see. Of course, it’s always possible that this whole interaction is simply how a character we know to be imaginative visualizes a discovery he made rummaging through a desk. For the film’s purposes, it doesn’t really matter, and the story is already moving on accordingly.

In closing, I come to the rating, and this is a fairly rare case where I have been going back and forth the whole time. By my own admission, the main thing this film has had going for it is that I can remember a time when I viewed it quite favorably. Channeling early 2000’s me, I would probably have given it the same rating then that I do now. In other ways, however, time and more experience with the genre(s) have been unkind enough that I came close to knocking the rating down to 2 out of sheer disappointment. What settled things in my mind was simple perspective. This may never have been a great movie, but it still stands as one that did far better than might be expected and in some lights better than it really deserved to. (With Death Ship anywhere in the frame of reference, Sleepaway Camp would get the benefit of a doubt.) That’s enough to hold its own in my book, and that makes one more film I’ve made my peace with. Bon voyage!

Robot Revolution: The one that's the worst Alien movie

 

 

Title: Alien: Resurrection

What Year?: 1997

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

With this review, I’m continuing my survey of robot movies, and after Willy’s Wonderland, I decided to do one more movie that I have been simply looking for an opening to review. As I have regularly commented, there are many movies that are simply “above the radar” for what I do, especially when it comes to franchises. I have worked around this rule when it comes to sequels, especially of the controversial and obscure variety. Even so, there is one franchise that I have still never featured, despite discussing it regularly since my second review. (Yeah, Inseminoid, you all owe me.) That ends now, and while I’m at it, I’m going to talk about why this monster franchise is also a big part of the history of robot cinema. I present Alien: Resurrection, and yes, it is not great. But, it can be a whole lot of fun.

Our story begins in deep space, where a secret government project has resurrected both the Alien and Ellen Ripley. They are both put under the care of one of the maddest mad scientists in history, who still hasn’t considered that if you need a host for a dangerous parasitoid, a dog or a pig should work as well as a human. Enter a crew of space pirates with a crop of kidnapped workers in suspended animation, who will never discuss the ethics of this again. The aliens spawn faster than usual, while the nosiest of the pirates connects with the clone of Ripley, now a hybrid of human and xenomorph. Alas, the aliens escape, with literally no opposition from the military crew, leaving the pirates and the Ali-Ellen trapped on board with the aliens. They must fight their way to an escape craft with the help of the least trustworthy of the remaining staff. But one of the renegades is not what he/ she/ it seems, and the queen is about to give birth to a brand new abomination!

Alien: Resurrection was a 1997 science fiction/ horror film from Fox and Brandywine Pictures. It was the fourth film in the Alien franchise created by Dan O’Bannon, developed after the character of Ellen Ripley was killed at the insistence of Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3. (Yeah, still thinking about that one.) The film was directed by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet from a script by Joss Whedon. Weaver returned as the clone of Ripley, with Winona Ryder as Call and Brad Dourif as the mad doctor. Other cast included Ron Perlman (see Island of Dr. Moreau) as the pirate Johner and Leland Orser of Saving Private Ryan (yes, I recognized him) as the infected Purvis. The film was a commercial success, earning a box office of over $161 million against a $70 million budget. Jeunet returned to filmmaking in France, notably with the romantic comedy Amelie in 2001. The Alien franchise was not revived again until Alien Vs. Predator in 2004, which Weaver had refused to appear in prior to the release of Alien 3. Alien: Resurrection remains the final film in chronological order with Alien.

For my experiences, the Alien franchise was one more thing that I only got into at a ludicrously late date, which didn’t stop me from falling in deep. In all that time, my longest-running rant has been that I simply don’t believe in “canon” as applicable to the franchise (see, if anything, my review of Contamination). A big part of this is what Fox brought on themselves by dragging Alien 3 through development Hell just to turn out the most divisive entry in the entire franchise. But it’s also what I consider to be the best use of the franchise and creature: Keep the xenomorph, the universe and a few core characters, then let each creator do what they want. This has made me tolerant. I can take Alien, Aliens, Dark Horse, AVP, and even Alien 3 all in their place. The one thing I don’t like is being told that one entry in this vast mythos has to be accepted at the expense of any other, which has really happened only once. By comparison, the present film is the closest we ever got to an “official” film that embraced my own view of the franchise, and I have no qualms saying that what works bears out my point.

Moving forward, what can really be said about this movie is everything good and bad about the franchise, dialed up exponentially. Yes, the Aliens get as much plot armor as any of the human characters. Yes, the ship design is willfully useless. Yes, the characters repeatedly make stupid decisions for the benefit of the plot. But these are egregious for the franchise, not unique, and there are plenty of good points here, particularly a character actor-heavy cast that is well above average. Perlman and Dourif in particular are in top scenery-stomping form, somehow actually matched by Weaver. The Aliens, too, reach a surreal peak. The fine cinematography brings out the calculating menace of the creatures, and there’s real pathos from the final hybrid abomination. My pick for the two best shots in the movie are the intimate closeup of two preparing to dispatch a third (why did only Dark Horse ever think of making a cage out of dead Aliens?) and the CGI effect of a pair under water, not flailing but holding their arms at their sides for a torpedo profile. At peak momentum, this feels like either a live-action Dark Horse comic or what might have been if Roger Corman had made the first movie. (Old rant, yes, Galaxy of Terror was a rip-off, but Fox did kind of rip Corman off first…)

Then there is the robot angle. While the franchise has always been known for its title creature, it has always featured creative artificial intelligence, and this film in particular, the concepts are both developed and varied. On one hand, the ship’s computer “Father” is a fitting successor to the ship computer in the first film (really already there in Dark Star). The unobtrusive details of the ship’s functions gives a picture of decentralized artificial intelligence that is in many ways is more convincing now. Then there is (spoiler) Ryder as the android, powered by the still-unexplained gooey semi-organic tech. If anything, her character and arc is the one element that was clearly intended to be more than it is, an occupational hazard with a cast and story this bonkers. Still, she does have a part to play that becomes greater as her capabilities are revealed. It’s all the more intriguing to compare her with Ash and Bishop from the previous films. The earlier bots turned in some of the most memorable moments of the franchise, but they did not fundamentally challenge the role of the robot as either antagonist or subservient helper. Here, we truly have an AI with its (?) own agenda, with all the nuances and paradoxes that implies. There’s an extra layer of retrospective fascination in small details of behavior that don’t serve what we learn of her higher purposes. My personal favorite, by all means due for honorable mention as “one scene”, is an attempt to pick things up while wearing boxing gloves, with absolutely no pressure or encouragement from anyone else. It is a truly random moment, and that is exactly what makes a character interesting, AI or not.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the one that has fascinated me for a very long time. As the inevitable escape unfolds, we find the military complement of the research ship running away, not only without firing a shot but seemingly without their guns. The troops at least line up to board the life pods in good order, overseen by the designated military man played by Dan Hedaya, if anything one of the more subdued of the character actors on hand. We get a good look at the pods, which have iris hatches and nifty retracting ladders. We see one or two on their way before an Alien comes into the frame, apparently still at some distance from the pod currently loading. We see the last guy climb in, then cut to the exterior, to find that the CGI-rendered creature has already reached the hatch. What follows is a stylized exterior view of the carnage (wait, is this referencing O’Bannon’s “B-17” segment in Heavy Metal?), culminating in the same unlucky guy trying frantically to get out. The commander shows no emotion as he sends a grenade clattering on the deck, shown with one of several very odd Rube Goldberg action/ reaction slow-motion shots. The pod ejects, just before exploding. That’s when we cut to the commander saluting his subordinate, without looking back at what’s coming. It may sound absurd in cold blood, and it is, but it’s a striking example of what makes the film actually work.

In closing, what I come back to is how I would rank not just this film but the franchise as a whole. When it comes to the first film and its original sequel, I have always punted. They are both excellent, yet at the same time too fundamentally different for direct comparison. By further comparison, the present film and Alien 3 are each flawed in their own ways, and by any standard outside of effects and action sequences, this one is far inferior. What makes the difference to me is that I find it to be the one entry that truly lets you take it or leave it. On top of its internal insanity, it sets itself far enough ahead that the events of the preceding films become more like legends and myth than “fact”. In this context, you could just as well say that this is a comic book or video game within the Alien/ Aliens cinematic universe, and its relative merits would be no less. Per my standard rants, this was in fact an acceptable “norm” well into the modern era of franchise genre films. I still stand by it as a valid alternative to the canon overanalysis people have become used to. With that, I can say that I have finally covered one more iconic franchise. That’s enough for one day. “Punch it, Bishop!”