Miniature Giants: Campus Cuties!

 

As I write this, I'm at a watershed moment with my Marx figure collecting: I have been covering things on my godforsaken Youtube channel before I posted about them on this godforsaken blog. (Of course, I'm also finally doing another installment of this feature in the same month as the last one.) One thing that came up recently is that I did a video in connection with the Star Wars scale Japanese soldiers where I discussed the general question of the rarest Marx figures. In the course of that video, I finally showed off something that was backlogged a long time, a representative set of Marx Campus Cutie figures. Here are 2 of them in full... um... glory?

"I'm like any college student... I go to class in the morning, show up for work at noon and pick up my kids at night."

For the usual backstory, the Campus Cuties were perhaps the most notorious line released by Marx in the 1960s if not their entire history. (See Marx Wild West for most of the details.) Eight of these figures were released in 1964, the second year of production for Marx 6-inch figures. The concept was exactly as advertised, a lineup of perky, perhaps flirty young ladies in detailed outfits that, as many observers noted, had little if anything to do with academic pursuits. In further hindsight, these conspicuously failed to anticipate to anticipate either the fashion or the politics of the rest of the decade, though there were several sculpts that showed athletics and outdoor activities. (I will get to that...) The exact reasoning behind the line remains debatable. It did roughly coincided with efforts by Marx to expend into toys for girls, as evidenced by their dollhouse figures. It also would have offered an opening for sales to teenage and adult males. The latter scenario would further account for an apparent decision to market them as models for painting. As a result, a large percentage of the specimens in circulation have been hand-painted, as seen here. This particular set was sold to me by a seller who claimed or implied to have painted the figures. I bought it primarily for the pair shown immediately above, labeled Shopping Anyone? and Stormy Weather. Here's one more pic.

"This is lame, let's go to Woolworth's..."

Now, the unavoidable joke here is that, even given the spectacularly dated clothes and assumed gender roles, these look anything but youthful. In considering a place for these in my emerging Marx-based universe, I immediately associated the one on the right with a character who was supposed to be over 40. The other one at least looks like she could be college-aged, but she looks more like a senior with her own apartment than a romping freshman. Then there is the paint. It will be evident from the pics so far that the work on these two is pretty good in both quality and current condition. The third, on the other hand, was different.

This one is marked On The Beach, which for the easy gag was indeed the title of the "classic" post-apocalyptic film released in 1959. The first thing to note about this one is that the outfit is in fact a bathing suit typical for the 1950s and/or early '60s. If anything, the sculpt actually looks more risque without factoring that in. As far as the paint, this was done well enough that the straps on the suit are neatly painted. The head is not so good, I'm sure in part because of damage to the hair. The fundamental problem is the pose and posture. To be blunt, she looks either morbidly depressed or actually stoned. (Heck, maybe she is in On The Beach...) And here's a closeup pic. The paint isn't good, but I'm not satisfied it could have gone this bad if there wasn't already a problem.

And here's closeups for the other two.

"Well, why can't `Campus Cuties' include adjunct faculty?"

Now, there is a little more backstory that led to this post. The original eight Cuties were produced in significant numbers, and remain available as reissues and recasts. Fortunately, these are easy to tell apart, originals being a pink flesh tone and reissues tending toward white, grey or tan, and as often happens with Marx figures, there isn't that big a price difference to begin with. The values are somewhat above average, from about $10 for likely reissues to $50 or so for full sets. However, a second series was made in evidently limited numbers, without any report of reissue. These were a vast improvement in both aesthetics and relevance, complete with jeans, trendy jackets and accessories, and one pair of glasses between the lot of them. Alas, they are also so scarce that there is not a frame of reference for their value. By comparison, the astonishingly expensive Marvel figures (which I barely got one of) are at least available in sufficient numbers to track their prices at any given time. The second-wave Cuties, on the other hand, are simply a Wall of Nothing. Nobody is buying them, because nobody is selling them, because in all likelihood, nobody who would sell through normal channels has them. The only things comparable are a few items that I have called Marx's equivalent of the rocket-firing Boba Fett, prototypes like the Superman figure that never saw the light of day and novelties like the nude figure that were never intended to. This was the state of affairs for months, and then years, until about a month ago, I found a seller offering two sets of these damn things.

Needless to say, I was very interested and wildly incapable of meeting the lowest minimum bid for the listings, a partial painted set and a full set that was in pristine condition. My suspicion was that these were not going to sell for more than the $30-40 per figure that came out of subdividing the minimum bids, which I knew to be typical for Marvel figures (and maybe originals of the Universal Monsters line). Given the obscurity of the items compared to the (fair!) price, it seemed conceivable they might not sell at all. I was optimistic enough that I reached out privately to discuss buying one individually or at least reposting the seller's absolutely beautiful photos here. As it turned out, the painted set sold within the range I suspected, a fact I reported in my most recent video. When I reviewed the listings, however, I discovered that the complete set had gone for much more than the minimum bid, as in over $60 per figure with shipping factored in. That, of course, is still not exceptional compared to a Blue Snaggletooth. Alas, while I did successfully correspond with the seller, I received no reply regarding permission to reuse images, so I have nothing to show for it here but the tale.

So, I have one more chapter done in my adventures in Marx figure collecting. All in all, these are an essential part of any Marx collection. The only caution in order is that it's best not to go overboard, which is why I haven't gone further than this. And I couldn't avoid an extra pic with the Truckstop Queen (and Connie)...

"Let me get this straight, women's jeans were invented in 1934???"

That's all for now, more to come!

Fiction: The Space Guys Adventure, Part 11!

 It's my last day for a weekend post, and once again all I have is another Space Guys post, this time pretty much odds and ends. And yes, spoiler, I'm recycling the Space Nazis scenario from my Exotroopers (anti) series. As usual, the table of contents is at the end.

As the Janus left the asteroid belt behind, Jason finally proposed to Alek. The crew was gathered in the captain’s cabin in hopes of a glimpse of Jupiter. To that end, Donald set up a telescope in line with the porthole beyond the captain’s cabin. It was not a stable view, thanks to the rotation of the ring, but they could see the giant planet when the wing-like extensions of the Mission Fuselage were not in the way. The captain took the first look through the telescope, as the ring reached the bottom of its rotation, and gave his rumbling laugh of approval. As the others gathered to look through the telescope, Jason knelt and fumbled through his overprepared speech. Alek let him get halfway through before she cut in. “You want to marry me, no?” she said.

“Of course,” Jason answered.

“Why?” she said.

“Be… because I love you,” he said. “I… I want to make you happy.”

“Yes,” she said, shifting to her flat lecture voice. “But why do you want to marry me? What is in it for you?”

“Well, you… you make me happy.”

She made a point of pondering. “Good enough,” she said. “I accept.”

“Speaking of,” Donald chimed in. He abruptly kissed Anastasia. “The captain married us last night!” Alek looked incredulously at Anastasia. She blushed but held her head up, ignoring critical stares from Vasily and Jackie and a bemused gaze from Moxon.

 

In the company of their friends, Jason had learned that his best defense was to show that he was far from uneducated, joining in discussions of everything from astronomy to engineering to languages. Moxon in particular regularly quizzed him on geography, and rarely caught him in an error. Jason, for his part, was most interested in a subject called mathematical linguistics, apparently developed by Tanya and Mehmet, who could be found together often enough that there was speculation if they were involved. For their part, the odd pair listened respectfully when he told them one of the “story” problems from his education, this one set in the lands of Arabia, called the Scroll of Solomon.

“So, there was a Sultan called Saladin,” Jason said by way of introduction. “He was a powerful king and a great warrior, but what he valued most was wisdom. So he collected books from every land and in every language, and he paid hundreds of scribes to translate them in his own tongue. Then one day, someone brought him a scroll that wasn’t like any other. It was very, very old, with words written in gold and beautiful pictures. The scholar who brought it said that it had belonged to King Solomon, and he got it from a holy man who said that it was a gift from an angel. The problem was, nobody could read the letters, or find any script like them. So Saladin had his scribes give every letter a number, based on how often they found it in the scroll. Then they rewrote it as numbers, and what they found was one long, beautiful equation.”

Mehmet had considered for a few moments. “Interesting,” he said. “I’m sure it is based on a real text. A smuggler brought it out of Italy, as I recall, only about a hundred years ago. At any rate, the story was clearly created by someone who understood the basic principles of statistical linguistics. It would not work, of course, but for an illustration, it is sound.”

“So how does it work?” Jason asked. “Do you just treat languages like a code to crack?”

“No,” Mehmet continued smoothly. “Cryptography is about communication with a function that would be obvious if it were unencrypted. What we learn from it is that language and mathematics are not fundamentally different. All information has a mathematical component. By extension, no language can be so different from any other that certain things cannot be learned by statistical analyses. If an archeologist 6,000 years from now had no knowledge of English, they could still figure out that `e’ and `a’ were the most common letters and `an’ and `the’ were among the most common words.”

“What if someone tried to fool you?” Jason continued. “Suppose they just made up a bunch of symbols and chose which one to put together with a spinning wheel. From there, they could put together words and put them on the same wheel, only a few words could be repeated. How would you know there wasn’t something there?”

“It has been tried,” Mehmet said. “In the occult fields, it is fairly common. What we have learned is that the human mind is not equipped to understand randomness. We can look at momentary patterns of water vapor or the positions of stars thousands of kilometers away, and think we see shapes and order. But thousands of us could walk past a series of pits in the rock for decades before one figured out that they once held the support beams of a temple. In practice, we are even worse at producing the random than we are at recognizing it. Without a fully automated system, our conscious and unconscious minds will always contaminate the results?”

Jason glanced in Jax’s direction. “Suppose we found something out there?” he said. “Something that wasn’t built by any human?”

For just a moment, Mehmet and Tanya gave each other a glance that made him wonder if they knew something he didn’t. But the former merely shrugged. “We will only know if and when we see it,” he said. “Even so, I would wager that we could figure out their math.”

 

Jason also spent time learning about their destination. Almost all of it came from a single image, taken from a distance of over 4 billion kilometers. The established authority was Professor Futura. When he first presented the image, Jason immediately pointed to a bright white spot on the blue-gray orb. “What’s that?” he said.

Futura had smiled. “That is the main reason we are out here,” he said. “It has been called simply the Anomaly, which is really a routine practice. What we know is that it originated as a meteor impact crater. In those terms, it is large but not exceptional, perhaps half the size of Hellas Basin, though much larger in proportion to the planetary body. What is unusual is that the interior is a completely different climate system from the paramoon as a whole. It is much warmer, enough that the initial survey classified it as volcanic in origin. It also has a greatly different atmosphere. Spectroscopic data show gaseous nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, in quantities comparable to Gaian atmosphere. Most remarkably, there is a high volume of water, the source of the cloud layer. The data was inconclusive whether this is actual water vapor or suspended ice crystals, but either implies an Earth-like precipitation cycle. Unfortunately, the same cloud layer prevented direct observation of the crater interior. Our main objective is to survey the anomaly.”

“What about the paramoon?” Alek said. “The reports say it has nearly the same gravity as Gaia. How is that possible? How do you really know?”

Futura smiled again, more subtly. “We were able to infer certain things either from the paramoon or from its evident effects on the orbits of other moons,” he said. “Its gravity implies that it contains a core of very dense material. It is believed that it was captured by the gaseous planet in the relatively recent past. The real question has been how recent. Many moons and planetoids have been discovered within the Atomic Era, but every paramoon of comparable size was discovered before the Great Wars. Some have gone so far as to speculate that its capture only happened since space exploration began.”

“Then can it really be colonized?” Jason said.

“We don’t know,” Futura said. For a moment, Jason wondered if he knew something he would not tell. He did not notice that Alek had met the professor’s gaze and shaken her head.

 

Regular communications continued to and from Gaia and Mars. Every week, each crew member was allowed to record and receive at least one personal communication, and given the choice whether to listen in private. Jason and Alek were with Jax when he played a message from his wife. The morena kept a level tone and a calm expression as she explained that she was expecting their first child, and that it would be a son. Jason turned to his friend sternly as the message ended. “We knew,” Jax said. “It wouldn’t have mattered. You know how it is. Most of the time, that doesn’t work out anyway. This was once in a lifetime.”

Alek true closer, looking very sad. “I have seen figures,” she said. “The miscarriage rate is very high. Do you think… he will make it?”

Jason shrugged. “Usually, if something goes wrong, it would have by now,” he said. “It’s the same on the Motherworld, really.”

“What about Dr. Cahill?” Jason said with a scowl.

“She knows,” Jax said. “It’s not like that, anyway. We talk, we take care of each other. Jill knew it might happen. I told her she could do whatever she has to.”

“Then what does Dr. Cahill say?” Alek said.

“She says she’s glad I have someone back home,” Jax said. “She’s told me about her husband, and her son. I know all about that. They had problems before she came out here, not the way people think. It doesn’t matter.” The conversation trailed off then. But the next time Dr. Cahill came to the cabin, she left quickly, with tears in her eyes.

 

Then a time came when Jason lay with Alek, her face-down beneath him, half-listening to a documentary. “For seven years, the War had raged in the lands between the great oceans,” a narrator intoned. “But the final battle would come more than a year after its end, in the one place the War had never touched. It is the shores of Pantagonia, and young Professor Futura is leading the charge against the last stronghold of the leader of the Final Reich, Heinz Himmelman.”

Jason looked up in interest. Of course, he had seen the footage before: The desolate cliffs; the scrambling commandos; the lumbering Landkreuzer; the mass of rockets and fuel tanks it supported; and atop it all, a spade-shaped craft not unlike the Pegasus payloader. The narrator explained how Heinz Himmelmann had recruited or captured the greatest minds of the world for his special projects, starting with an electronic brain that proved that the Reich could not win the war. How he had diverted thousands of prisoners and laborers, billions of marks and countless tons of material for the greatest project of all. “His workers labored night and day, some in fear, some in devotion, some in the hope of some greater good,” the narrator continued. Jason felt Alek stir beneath him. “The sum of their efforts was the Tottenkarte, the first spacecraft capable of reaching into interplanetary space.”

The screen showed the craft rising into the sky. “It launched into the heavens, carrying Himmelmann and the greatest minds of the Reich. No other craft could pursue it, nor rise high enough to intercept it. The armies of the world could only watch as it rose to the edge of space… and vanished.”

“My grandfather worked on that ship,” Alek said. “Great grandfather, actually. We all just call him Grandfather. A lot of people think he was on it. But probably no. They only ever said that because nobody never found him. I spent a long time trying to find out what I could. I talked to people who would not have talked if they knew. They all said they did not know. I could tell it was true.”

“What do you think happened?” Jason asked.

Alek shook her head at that. “It is not like people think,” she said. “They never really had a chance. There was too much they did not know, too much they could not do. The only question should have been where they came down. But they never did. We should have seen it, we would have. People were watching, everywhere. Nobody saw nothing, never.”

She settled on her back, staring upward. “I feel like I know him, better than my own mother and father,” she said. “I understand him. I understand what it was like to be him. I am the only one left like him. You know, with the supergenius. There were a few others in our family who had it. But it skips around, like red hair. An uncle here, a cousin there, maybe one of my aunts. My mother and her father, not even a little. That is why I am here at all. The rest… all gone.”

She turned her head to meet Jason’s gaze. “I might be the last one, even if we have children,” she said. “I can’t, you know, until we get back. To come at all, I had to let a doctor do something, something only another doctor could undo. We all did. If we get back, you will still be a farmboy. I know, you are very smart; you will still never be like me. But it is okay. I like you the way you are. If it has to be a farmboy’s son with you or a girl like me with someone else, I would call it a fair trade.”

 

She put her arms around him. “There are things you do not know,” she said. “Do not worry, you will. Some, you may not like. I still like you.” She rolled down a partition. “Now show me again, what it is the farm girls do…”

Table of Contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Movie Mania: Most heroicest movie tracks!!!

 I'm two days behind on blogging, and I'm trying to hold down my fiction post count, so here's something a bit different. I'm doing a rundown of the most heroic movie score tracks, at least from the eras and genres of films I usually cover. Here's my list in top 10 format, with a bit of handicapping to avoid overrepresentation of composers or franchises.

10. Action Pack/ "Peter Changes His Mind", Simon Haseley, Dawn of the Dead-  I covered this extensively in my Dawn/ Day of the Dead soundtrack post and video. A tough-as-nails SWAT trooper contemplates self-termination, decides to kill zombies instead. It gets made fun of, and I have joined in, but it's a textbook case of cheesy/ "bad" music that really works. What could be more life-affirming than plowing through the undead hordes to literal football music?

9. "Klendathu Drop," Basil Poledouris, Starship Troopers-  The space troopers invade a planet of Bugs, get slaughtered. It's great music with enough of an edge to fit the themes. And the cover is, ah, different...

8. "Futile Escape", James Horner, Aliens- I couldn't avoid this one. The Colonial Marines make a fighting retreat from the xenomorph swarm, get picked off one by one starting with Bill Paxton. It's not as popular as "Ripley's Rescue", but it ups the game for a sequence that ratchets up the tension as things go from bad to worse. Also proves Horner could compete with the best on the law of averages.

7. "The Asteroid Field", John Williams, The Empire Strikes Back- The Millennium Falcon runs from the Empire through a swarm of deadly space rocks. The best incidental music from the greatest science fiction film of all time by the most accomplished science fiction/ adventure composer, and we're still not even in the top 5...

6. Star Trek First Contact/ Main Theme, Jerry Goldsmith- A showdown with the Borg is introduced with a surprisingly subtle opening. The composer of the "Next Gen" theme returns with a theme that's truly noble. Oh yeah, I wrote this one up for my Revenant Review ebook that I'm still waiting for someone to buy.

5. Conan the Destroyer/ Main Theme, Basil Poledouris- The second movie featuring the most famous sword-and-sorcery hero opens with an epic opening theme. You can argue whether the movie is better than the first one (it is), but the soundtrack is among the very best from an underrated composer. And see the movie review and expanded soundtrack post...

4. "Ride of the Firemares," James Horner, Krull- A band of heroes race against time to the evil overlord's teleporting castle on magic horses. The effects aren't great, but the music is epic. See my soundtrack post while you're at it...

3. "Building the Crate", John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams, Chicken Run- Claymation chickens race to build an aircraft before their owner completes a machine to make them all into pot pies. It's a masterpiece of frenetic energy with real emotional weight. The moral in case you missed it, we're all the chickens.

2. Superman/ Main Theme, John Williams- The most epic theme from the master. Just because it's virtually impossible for the hero to lose doesn't mean he can't be awesome.

1. "Entr' Acte", Jerry Goldsmith, Patton- The high point of the soundtrack that convinced me that Goldsmith was as good as Williams. It's the essence of victory; what more is there to say?

And that's really all I wanted to do for this. Things like this are why I love movie music as much as I love movies. If anything, it may seem like I'm not being as eclectic as I usually am, but that's because the very best movies are the ones that tend to go above my radar. As an extra, here's an updated playlist covering most of this list plus a few surprises. While I'm at it, here's the one I'm proudest of (after the one that's literally one song), my Poledouris playlist. That's all for now, more to come.

Super Movies! The one with a superhero who's not a superhero

 

 

Title: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai aka The Adventures of Bucakroo Banzai Across The 8^th Dimension

What Year?: 1984

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity

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

 

As I write this, I’ve been on a bit of a 1980s binge. That presented the perfect occasion for a movie I have been meaning to do a ludicrously long time. It’s an entry whose very inclusion in this feature requires even more arm-waving than Heavy Metal and They Live. To me, however, it was an integral part of my comic-book pop culture experience long before I saw it. Once I thought of this feature, I knew it belonged here. I present The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, a movie I might never have seen or heard of if not for ads in old comic books.

Our story begins with a test of a new vehicle, a sort of rocket car with a special overthruster that allows it to travel through solid matter, possibly either to save on tolls or always have a place to park. The pilot proves to be the titular Buckaroo Banzai, a billionaire, inventor, brain surgeon and actual rock star (well, more like blues meets techno neo-swing), because in a 1980s movie, Mary Sue was not only an acceptable model for a character but an ideal one. After the trip, he finds an unknown if seemingly harmless organism stuck to the car, apparently the fauna of another universe. We also meet a former colleague of Mr. Banzai’s late father named Dr. Lizardo, who took part in a similar experiment only to come out raving mad. In reality, he’s either possessed or replaced by an evil overlord who has been waiting for an invention like Buckaroo’s to return to our universe. Buckaroo must keep the overthruster out of the hands of Lizardo and his concealed alien minions, with help from a nominally friendly alien faction that still isn’t above taking out Earth as collateral damage if they lose. But the greatest challenge may be a troubled young lady who just might have the key to his past- and his heart!

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai was a 1984 science fantasy film directed by W.D. Richter, based on a character, story and script developed in collaboration with novelist/ screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch. The film starred Peter Weller (see Robocop 2, Leviathan, etc.), with John Lithgow (see Santa Claus The Movie) as Dr. Lizardo and Ellen Barkin as love interest Penny Priddy. An extensive supporting cast included Jeff Goldblum (see Earth Girls Are Easy), Clancy Brown (Pet Sematary 2), and Christopher Lloyd (see… Star Trek 3?) as chief minion John Bigboote (pronunciation a running gag…). The theme music, used only in the end titles and certain excerpts within the film, was composed by Michael Boddicker, otherwise best known as a synthesizer performer. While the film had a medium to high budget of $17 million, it was not given a corresponding budget for marketing on television or “mainstream” publications. Most of its limited advertisements were instead printed in comic books, presumably on the assumption that it would have the greatest appeal to superhero fans and younger readers in general. The movie included a teaser for a sequel, which the creators of the film later downplayed as a joke. Whatever the intentions of the filmmakers, the film was unsuccessful, earning only $6.3M. It gained much greater popularity as a cult film, eventually being featured or referenced in other media such as Ready Player One. Efforts to develop a sequel or “reboot” have failed to progress, in part because of reported conflicts over rights to the film and characters.

For my experiences, as I have alluded, this was a movie that I only knew existed because I saw ads for it in old comics, probably around the early 1990s. What’s strange in hindsight was that given this context, it never crossed my mind that there was anything unusual about the film itself. I hadn’t heard of it, and wouldn’t for years to come, but it wasn’t the only time I ran across a movie I hadn’t heard of before in this fashion. Even the wonky title and goofy character names in the ad didn’t seem that odd for the ‘80s/ ‘90s, especially with Marvel comics as a frame of reference. In a final irony, I finally watched the movie and still didn’t know the full story, which from what I know now is that of a cursed production to rival Star Trek 5, with possibly even greater confusion and active hostility from studio management. My effective verdict was that it was not much more or less than good fun. That left a decade or so to second-guess myself before I got hold of it again.

Moving forward, the main thing to talk about (at least after the astonishing theme music) is the title character. It goes without saying that his range of careers and skills I completely and surely willfully preposterous. That, in turn, has invited the argument whether this qualifies as a superhero movie. Certainly, Buckaroo has counterparts in the annals of superheroes, especially Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark. (Okay, yeah, Iron Man probably kind of ripped off Batman.) On the other hand, there are signs of earlier roots which are difficult to pin down. When I was preparing for this review, a correspondent suggested Doc Savage as a source, which definitely feels in the right neighborhood. I find more immediate parallels in 1960s-‘70s animation (see, dear Logos, my Captain Scarlet post). What has fascinated me most is that Buckaroo is never pushed into the “strong, silent” and implicitly “dumb” stereotypes of masculinity. He communicates well, both professionally and personally; he can talk others through their emotional problems; and he certainly isn’t afraid to express his own feelings. This is the part that seems surreal specifically for the 1980s timeframe, except, many of the background sources I have mentioned were showing intelligent and emotionally complex male characters before, during and after the decade’s collective freakouts, a whole other rant I will get back to momentarily.

For the arguable con side, the core “problem” is that this really does feel like a first installment that wasn’t really trying to be the best. The central plot never gets far ahead of the hero’s personal trials and side antics, while the heroics needed to defeat the villains are mild as such things go, without any doubt as to the outcome. Quite a few more issues rise from the nature of the villains. The aliens are more comic-book than Buckaroo, and more goofy than sinister even by those standards. What’s all the more problematic is that neither they nor their opponents ever do much that a human couldn’t; indeed, this could have been quite a bit more interesting if they had native collaborators to do their dirty work on the lines of They Live. There’s a further missed opportunity in the apparently racial divide between the “red” and “black” factions, which hints at a backstory that might make the villains either more or less sympathetic without ever being explored. Finally and rather counterintuitively, we never have any cause to doubt that they are fundamentally rational, strange mannerisms and grandiose posturing notwithstanding. This is the logical villainy of Rupert Thorne, not the actual insanity of the Joker or Megavolt. That’s not bad by any means, but it misses the one thing that makes so many outwardly goofy villains utterly terrifying on more considered analysis.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the one that has kept my interested in the film. A little ways in, Buckaroo is performing with his band when he pauses and says, “Is somebody crying?” That actually draws an apology from someone in the audience. That’s when the spotlight turns on Penny, who at first sight is impressively a mess. At first, she is unwilling to talk, but he draws her out enough to tell her story. Buckaroo continue with semi-philosophical comments like, “Don’t be mean,” and, “Wherever you go, there you are.” He then starts the next number, while several of the bandmates continue to scrutinize her. In the midst of it, she draws a gun… and puts it to her own head. And this is where I can go on a cluster rant. I can say as a self-advocate, this is a quite good portrayal of a mental-health intervention. Of course, it shows things you really shouldn’t do, but there is far more done right that the media still don’t get. And that comes back to the movie’s baffling place in 1980s-‘90s masculinity, where anti-intellectualism and homophobia were pretty much a chicken/ egg thing. Right at ground zero, however, we have this film portraying an attractive, intelligent, heterosexual guy who can talk feelings as well as physics. The real lesson is that “goofball” genre films like this could be vastly more intelligent about gender roles, sexual orientation and mental health than the “mainstream” pop culture.

In closing, I have to say that I am finally at the ending I planned for this feature. For me, it was the perfect choice, if only because there is truly no other like it. That, in turn, is why I have chosen to designate it “unrated”. To me, this is a film I could have given any of my usual ratings, depending on the part and my own mood. The fair compromise was always to let it be its own thing, and let you the viewer draw your own conclusions. With that, I can end another chapter. “Home is where you wear your hat.”

Fiction: The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 24!

 It's the middle of the week, and more than 2 months without an installment of Sidekick Carl, so I barely got one together. As usual, here's links for first, second and previous installments.

The facility looked like a truncated pyramid, 3 stories tall and 100 feet on a side. There was no sign to identify its purpose, only a 7-digit number and an emphatic sign that said: UN CAAPEP MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILITY TOP SECURITY CLEARANCE ONLY. The car that approached paused briefly outside the cyclone fence. At the wave of a badge, the gate opened.

An armored figure advanced to meet the new arrival. Lauren Carter smiled from the driver’s seat. “Greetings, Agent Carter,” the guard said with a deep but neutral voice. “How may we assist you?”

“I’m here to see a person of interest being detained at this location,” she answered. “I will be evaluating the subject for transfer to an alternate facility.”

“Ms. Carter,” the guard replied, “your clearance gives access to the grounds. But surely you are aware, I cannot admit you. We certainly cannot confirm the details of who, if anyone, is here.”

Lauren continued to smile as she lifted the badge to reveal a card beneath it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We aren’t supposed to show these unless needed.”

“Of course,” the guard said. “That changes things. Of course, any change in arrangements would require further review. But we can admit you.”

Soon enough, Lauren approached a cell a number of stories under ground. It was lined with bullet-proof glass. Within was a woman whose dark hair had grown long enough for an attractive short-length cut. She wore yellow fatigues with some semblance of styling, which Lauren recognized as a uniform for aerospace technicians. “Dr. Hartnell,” she said succinctly. The other looked up with interest.

“Sidekick Carl just found the Toxo Warriors’ lab,” Lauren continued. “The one outside Audrey’s colony. My husband is on the way with a Tactical Team. But I don’t think they’re going to find anything. Are they?”

And the woman who had become a supervillain smiled…

* * *

 

Audrey’s mutant tackled Dana, or tried to, just as the explosion went off. His efforts were just enough to push her out of the way before the door she was about to kick down became a spray of splinters. The metal loading door, by comparison, rippled and bowed without giving way. The real question was whether the walls would hold, and if they did not, whether they would fall inward or outward. In fact, they did hold, mostly, well enough that Dana quickly flattened herself against it to avoid the rain of pieces of the roof. She shrieked when something that was clearly not debris came hurtling down, a smoking shape with limbs that seemed to flail in every direction except the way they were meant to move. The form hit hard enough to throw up a secondary cloud of dust on impact. The mutant held her in place when she tried to rush out. It took a little longer for the last of the roof to fall.

Dana finally reached her husband as Audrey came around the corner. The towering mutant accompanying her was beating out flames in its fur. Bare moments passed before Audrey was at her side. “Well, you’re looking worse than usual,” she said.

Carl looked like a rag doll, his limbs and joints turned in a dozen incompatible directions. His white suit was now black, either charred or covered in soot, dust and chemicals. For a moment, he was ominously still. Then his head raised and turned, facing almost directly backwards. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, you’re getting old.” One at a time, his limbs twisted back into their natural shape, until he was finally able to sit up.”

“Oh, Carl,” Dana said. She could not hide a shudder as his right leg rearranged itself. “Are you… still you?”

“You bet,” he said. He rose to his feet, wobbling like a scarecrow in a windstorm. “That’s not even the worst I’ve been through. Ah, not quite.”

“Sure,” Audrey said. “There was one time I dropped a freight elevator on him…” Dana covered her eyes and screeched.

As they spoke, four armored figures swooped overhead. A moment later, the leader circled back and touched down. The armor was not much bulkier than a knight’s mail, colored deep blue. The figure raised a visor, revealing the irritated face of Agent John Carter. “Dammit, Carl,” he said. “We both know you’d hold onto the best lead for yourself, bur you could at least try not to get the building blown down.”

“The place was already wired to blow,” Carl said. “One of your teams wouldn’t have found any more than I did, and they would have died for real. Oh, and one of the Toxo Warriors was still there. He got out through a trapdoor. It’s probably a tunnel to the mall. If you hurry, you might still catch him.”

John Carter spoke gruffly into his mouthpiece, “Have you found any human signatures, or any traces of a vehicle?”

“If someone made a getaway, we should have seen it,” came the reply. “The only operable vehicles we’ve found are a bike and an open-topped scooter, I’m guessing the ones Carl and his companions used to get here.”

Carl shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The man I met was one of the original Toxo Warriors. We talked, long enough; he knew things I knew that nobody else would. He pretty much admitted, he was the one who made their biggest mistakes. But he still had plans and backup plans. He wouldn’t have bolted without anywhere to go.” He turned to Carter and said, so curtly it could have been an order, “Get Dana back to her RV. Now.”

The agent paused, only a moment. “Lopez, I need you to transport the Nine-Foot Woman back to her primary transport,” he said. In bare moments, one of his subordinates came back, a woman. She literally picked up Dana, rising just a little more slowly than she might have unencumbered. Dana gave a cry that might have been a whoop as they departed.

“All right,” John Carter said. “What’s really going on?”

“I don’t know,” Carl said. “I just wanted Dana out of here. I didn’t like the idea of her RV just sitting there either. I suppose, maybe, we actually came out ahead. The Toxo Warrior needed a diversion that might take out at least one or a few of us. The bomb would have done that well enough, if you hadn’t come after.”

“But you said yourself, he would have a getaway vehicle waiting, somewhere,” Carter countered. “There has to be something we’re missing…” As he spoke, he looked over his shoulder at the lesser storage buildings.

 

And as he looked, the walls of the building fell outward as an enormous metal shape rose up, topped by glowing eyes and teeth at the end of a long neck. There was a sound that could only be laughter, as loud as thunder from the metal dragon's throat.

Super Movies: The one by the guys who made Empire Strikes Back

 

 

Title: Robocop 2

What Year?: 1990

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

As I write this, it’s been a little over a month since my nominal revival of this feature, and I’ve been continuing to consider what I really want to do. I’ve also been reminded how often I’ve talked about such things and how irrelevant it usually becomes when I lay tings down outside my blog. So this time around, I’m just going to say that I’ll be reviewing a movie that was never really not going to be here, but just got lost in the shuffle. It will also stand out as a movie where the comic book/ superhero angle is unusually indirect (even more so than They Live), which to me has made it all the more interesting. I present Robocop 2, a sequel to a movie that probably ripped off a comic book by a guy who wrote comic books.

Our story begins with our hero Robocop back on the streets, hunting for the source of a drug called Nuke and the crime lord/ cult leader Cain directing the operation. Meanwhile,  the familiar rogues’ gallery at OCP are trying to create another cyborg, but their “candidates” keep literally self-destructing. Things continue to go downhill as the police go on strike and OCP proceeds with a hostile takeover of Old Detroit. When Robocop gets chopped up by the bad guys, however, he overrides his new politically-correct programming to go on the warpath. The aftermath sees Cain crippled, leaving his crazy girlfriend and juvenile delinquent lieutenant to spin a new scheme to leverage the city government. But the real wild card comes in play when the company’s cyber-psychologist decides to put the self-proclaimed Messiah in a new robot body!

Robocop 2 was the first sequel to the 1987 film Robocop, widely believed to be based on the character and comic Judge Dredd (see also Hardware). The project was pursued without significant involvement by director Paul Verhoeven, though writers Edward Neumeier (see Starship Troopers 3) and Michael Miner provided an early and largely unused script. The production proceeded with a script by writer/ artist Frank Miller, with Irvin Kershner (see Never Say Never Again) as director. Peter Weller (see Leviathan, Of Unknown Origin) and Nancy Allen (Strange Invaders) returned as Robocop and Anne Lewis, with Daniel O’Herlihy (The Last Starfighter) as “the Old Man”. Cain was played by character actor Tom Noonan; other cast included Gabriel Damon as Hob, and the late Galyn Gorg as Angie. The villain Robocop 2 was portrayed with extensive “go-motion” effects by Phil Tippett (all hail Phil), who had also created ED-209 for the original film. The soundtrack was scored by Leonard Rosenman, whose previous work included Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, replacing Basil Poledouris (see the Conan the Destroyer and Starship Troopers soundtrack posts while you’re at it). The film was a commercial disappointment, earning under $46 million against a budget of up to $30M. Weller declined to return for Robocop 3, which was received very poorly. Kershner never directed another film, though he continued to  work in the industry; his final credit was as executive producer for The Lost Tribe, released several months before his death in late 2010. Gorg died of lung cancer in 2020.

For my experiences, Robocop was yet another 1980s property that influenced me without more than casual exposure to the thing itself. I can now see in it the backbone of the exotroopers, the Evil Possum, and especially Percy the robot cop. Yet, I’m sure that I couldn’t have seen the movie more than once or twice from elementary school to the start of college, and then always as the outlandishly bowdlerized network TV cut (which I still find in many ways more fun). On the other hand, I can very vividly remember encountering its pop culture trail, from the cartoon to the NES game to the live-action TV show. On top of that, I can now see its mark on still other things I knew and loved back then, like the psychotic TV series Sledge Hammer. It was in the wake of all that when I rediscovered the original film, still on TV and bootleg video tape. That finally inspired me to go looking for more, and what I came home with was a tape of the sequel. From all I can remember, I really liked it as well as what I had seen of the original, which is what I’m bringing to the table even now.

Moving forward, the foremost thing to say is that this is a clear case of a sequel being “different” rather than necessarily better or worse, which has left me all the more puzzled by the criticism and occasional outright hate it was getting both at the time of its release and since. What’s all the more curious is that there is a certain school that tries to pin the blame for the arguable and inarguable failings of the film on its departures from Miller’s story and script (evidently including Weller and Miller himself). Having considered among other things Miller’s own comic book treatment of his original script, I have to dissent that this is getting things exactly the wrong way ‘round. What’s in the movie, for better or worse, is exactly the libertarian/ anarchist  manifesto he intended, especially the very direct connection drawn between allegedly progressive “political correctness” and actual corporate censorship. (For that matter, Robocop 3 is pretty much Miller ramped up by a factor of Miller…) What I find to be the movie’s strength is that this is moderated throughout by good action scenes, engaging dialogue and intriguing character development, all of which I will definitely give the director at least some credit for.

With that laid out, the further pros and cons lie in what is done with the characters and the assumed world. The plans of OCP for Old Detroit have progressed, with even more overt villainy from O’Herlihy as the CEO. On the downside, there’s also more outright irrationality, and not solely in the scheme to use a criminal as their new cyborg. The whole scheme to drive up crime while driving the police to strike made a certain amount of sense as a short-term goal, but by this point, they should be either getting the cops on their side or replacing them (which is admittedly shown in both the comic and the threequel). On the other side, it’s debatable whether there’s anything new for Robocop and Lewis. If anything, Robo has the better arc, as he proves himself more willing to question OCP and more open to human emotion. By comparison, Lewis is just herself with a little more snark, without any sign of being affected by the heartrending ordeal she went through last time. A final good word is in order for the bad guys. The gang from the first movie were too feral for evil deeper than basic sadism. (If they were already raising the dead, why couldn’t we get Kurtwood Smith back?) The trio this time are nuanced, clearly intelligent characters with a complex and increasingly disturbing dynamic, and the kid is the most cunning and quite possibly the most dangerous of them all. This is true Greek tragedy, regardless of whether one can muster sympathy for any of them.

Now, I’m definitely going long for the robots and the effects. Robocop 2 is by any standard one of the best bots created through any method or medium, to me really only comparable to the very odd cyborg of Saturn 3. Its shape and look is essentially ape-like, with touches of the dinosaurian influences of ED-209. What’s most impressive is that it actually seems to have an advantage on Robocop in mobility despite its larger size and evidently far greater weight and durability. This thing can climb, jump, and manipulate objects. On top of that, it has a greater armament. There’s really just two problems. First, the final battle gets long and very bloody for something that could and should be literal comic-book fun, as evidenced especially before and after the surreal melee in the elevator shaft. Second, this isn’t really a natural evolution of the Robocop design, which is already more functional as a one-man SWAT team than a general-purpose law enforcement AI. (I think even kid-me thought of that with Percy.) For an actual tank on legs, there’s not much this can do that an upgraded ED-209 couldn’t do better. For something that can at a minimum chase the bad guys while still entering through the door (and ideally using the stairs…), the already terrifying “joke” Robocops at the beginning were far more promising. (I especially like the first one, which also offered a more natural use of the TV screen interface.) If it comes to that, you could keep the already very good design and just scale it down to Robo’s size.

With that, I’ve gone much longer than usual and I’m still just getting to the “one scene”. Right around the end of the first act, there’s a reunion between Robocop and Mrs. Murphy, and it is not happy. We learn that Robocop has been “patrolling” around his family’s new home, leading to a lawsuit. On coaching from his handlers, he admits that he is a machine before his wife enters. It would be understandable if she only asked to be left alone; instead, she addresses him as Alex, then starts into a speech that they can be together again. Robo simply says, “Touch me,” and she touches his fully exposed face. (We never do get a full explanation how that part actually works.)  He gives the dodgy explanation that the likeness is to honor Alex Murphy, then states, “Your husband is dead.” He then leaves, saying, “I don’t know you.” This is one more thing where I can easily credit Kershner for making it work as well as it does. (Yeah, there is a corresponding scene in the comic, and this is vastly better.) The most frustrating yet counterintuitively effective part is that this is the first and last we will see or hear of it. The whole point of great storytelling and great filmmaking is that if a scene is truly memorable, you don’t have to reference it at every opportunity to keep it applicable to the rest of the story, which is what marks the best of the very best.

In closing, I am left very late with what I think of the movie. Depending on mood, I might rate this lower than I have, but definitely not lower than 3 out of 4. To me, the bottom line is that this is the kind of franchise where “canon” does not apply. The original was so spot on, both in what it showed and what it didn’t show, that a “real” sequel was neither necessary nor conceivable. What makes sense is a “what if” that could just as well be a campfire tale told in the universe of the first film, and that’s the “head canon” by which I can accept the subsequent films (yes, even Robocop 3). In any case, what I have come to appreciate more and more is just how much creativity and actual genius went into this movie. Sure, it’s self-dated and in certain ways outdated, but such is the fate of all political comedy, no matter how good. (If it comes to that, I can count the eventual obsolescence of “PC” as anything but a reactionary’s straw man as one last “I told you so” for Miller.) That doesn’t change the fact that this is a very well-made movie that’s interesting even when it’s irritating. I can even find a last good word for the music, at least as long as there isn’t an actual choir singing our hero’s name. If I don’t get any more done under this feature, I will still be happy to have gotten to this one. With that, I am calling it a day. “They’ll fix you. They fix everything…”

Return of the Super Movies! The one based on a toy

 

Title: Masters Of The Universe

What Year?: 1987

Classification: Runnerup/ Mashup

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

 

Back when I came up with this technically, kind of retired feature, what I wanted was to cover movies that would surprise people, either because they were obscure or because their connections to the theme were less well-known. In its relatively short run, I definitely did plenty of both. But I still had a select list of movies I felt fit even if they weren’t technically related to comics or superheroes. Alas, I never quite got to these, mainly because the review count never went high enough to need them. After hitting yet another milestone for my reviews, I decided it was time for a rematch, and it happened I had been sitting on the one that definitely worked best. I present Masters Of The Universe, a movie based on a crass intersection of toys, television and other media that did in fact include comic books.

Our story begins in the world of Eternia, where Skeletor has actually defeated his adversary He Man and captured Castle Grayskull. With the help of a sorcerer type named Gwildor and an artifact called the Cosmic Key, He Man and a band of loyalists escape to another dimension, which naturally turns out to be mid-‘80s Earth. There, he meets a high schooler named Julie and her considerably more useful boyfriend Kevin. But Skeletor’s minions are already in pursuit, led by Evil-Lyn. He Man must prevail, or the evil overlord will become not just ruler of Eternia but the ultimate power of the multiverse!

Masters of the Universe was a 1987 film by the Cannon Group (see Superman 4, etc, etc, etc), directed by Gary Goddard from a script by David O’Dell (see… The Dark Crystal?). The film was based on the toy line He Man and Masters of the Universe by Mattel, launched in 1982, but officially not the Filmation animated series of the same name. The film starred Dolph Lundgren (see The Punisher) as He Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor, with Meg Foster (see They Live, Leviathan) as Evil-Lyn. Other cast included the late Billy Barty (see Willow) as Gwildor, an original character apparently based on Orko from the toy line and cartoon, Courtney Cox as Julie, and James Tolkan of the ongoing Back To The Future franchise as Detective Lubic. Music was composed by Bill Conti. The movie was a commercial disappointment, earning $17.3M against a $22M budget, contributing to the decline and eventual bankruptcy of the Cannon Group. The failure of the movie coincided with the decline of the toy line, which was discontinued in 1988. The film quickly achieved cult popularity on home video. It has remained available in a number of formats and platforms, including a 10-film multipack The Bombs, Babes and Blockbusters of the Cannon Group.

For my experiences, He Man/ MOTU is something that has remained in an odd blind spot. I had what must have been a fair-sized collection of the figures that I got more than a little obsessed with before they ended up broken or given away. I also can just remember the mini-comics with a certain nostalgia I never had for the show, which is my most immediate justification for including it here. My strongest recollections, however, are of the final days of the line (see my Rock Bots post), when the racks were packed with toys that even kid me considered goofy and gimmick-prone. By comparison, I can remember barely noticing the movie coming out, and the correlations of hindsight make it clear that it was hilariously doomed. Eventually, I did get to it, in part because of yet another comic, the excellent “Fragile Creatures” storyline of Concrete. Even with the most limited of attachments, I was immediately struck by just how mediocre this is.

Moving in, I have to say that the movie’s redeeming qualities come mostly from how little it owes to the toys or anything else. There’s a quite distinct visual style that captures the weird lasers-and-sorcery conceptual groundwork of the franchise while remaining very much its own thing (see Krull and the Cannon Hercules films for further comparisons). It’s of further note that most of the villains have no close counterparts elsewhere, leading to such bizarre and intriguing apparitions like the cyborg samurai Blade. By any appraisal, it’s Langella and the always hypnotic Foster who run away with the film as the lead villains. On that front, my one dissent is with those who find Skeletor (not to mention other Langella roles) to be hammy high camp. To me, this is so contrary to the senses that I feel like I could be watching a different film. This is not a gloating, posturing supervillain of cartoons, but a terrifyingly believable dictator whose subtlest gestures convey the clear expectation that others will obey or suffer the full price. The one thing I could wish for is that they had substituted the odd practical rig with an actual, Vader-style mask, which among other things would have preserved far more mystery about his nature and origin.

On the con side, the easy target is He Man himself, who has already been criticized as not doing much in his own movie. Here, the critics certainly aren’t wrong, yet haven’t gotten the whole of it. Lundgren brings genuine presence that could easily have eluded a “better” actor, and there is plenty of satisfying action in the film’s well-spaced fight sequences. More than that, there is true nobility as he defies Skeletor in the finale. Meanwhile, there’s more good vibes from Me Man’s allies and especially Tolkan as the cop. I can also put in a good word for Robert Duncan McNeill as the “comic relief” boyfriend. The one failure here is Cox, enough to drag the rating down against my original intentions, and I will admit I am at a loss to account for it. There’s nothing obviously “bad” about her performance or even her character. I simply cannot find anything interesting enough to justify her artificially inflated prominence. This shows blatantly in the saccharine “happy” ending. Even more telling are her interactions with Teela, which seem intended to show her own transformation into a self-reliant heroine, but really just demonstrate that her screentime would have been better spent on other characters that were already familiar.

That gets me to the “one scene”, and there was one more intriguing than any other. After the first big fight on Earth, we find Kevin has taken the lost Cosmic Key to a store that seems halfway between a records shop and an electronic store. He shows the artifact to the clerk, who immediately insists he has seen such things, with the amusing further claim, “It’s from Japan.” Meanwhile, we get one of our better looks at the semi-Maguffin, and it truly shows off the movie’s aesthetic. It looks like something that could be built with human or even pre-modern tech, but it’s still not quite clear what it would all do. Kevin does press a few of the controls, producing musical notes that he has the musical knowledge to identify. Finally, a light show appears from the artifact, which finally brings the clerk to admit that he has never seen its like before. Naturally, it’s going to be an important plot point that makes Kevin by far the most significant and useful character, even if it’s never admitted. One more intriguing detail is the soundtrack (a subject I’ve commented on a lot less often than I used to), uniformly good throughout the film. Here, it’s subdued enough to blend in with the tones from the artifact, a quite nice touch. It’s a good moment that shows solid world-building to boot, and one can genuinely debate how well it represents the film as a whole.

In closing, I find myself turning not to the rating but my own checkered history with the Cannon operation. When I first started doing reviews, I dealt with so many of their releases that I was literally turning them up at random. This fully reflected their influence on 1980s genre films, for good or ill, and I felt more than a little regret when I realized how long I had gone without reviewing a Cannon film before this review. But this cements exactly why I find this film so disappointing. Even beyond the issues I have already noted, the overriding feeling is diminishing returns. There are plenty of films in Cannon’s library that are certainly not “better” yet still far more entertaining, usually at a fraction of the cost. It’s as if the audacious creativity of Cannon’s loose-knit operation stalled out as soon as they got real money. (Then again, the most expensive SF/ fantasy film they ever did would have to be Lifeforce…) It all leaves this film as a sad footnote to a driving force of vintage genre films, technically decent yet disappointing. With that, I bid the film and its creators an almost fond farewell.