Fiction: The Adventures of Chelsea the Social Worker, Part 13!

 I was debating whether to skip blogging this week, so of course, what I'm back with is even more of Chelsea. I have literally spent months planning this out, and it took maybe a few days to write. As usual, the full table of contents is at the end.

It had really started in the parking garage, as an officer circled the perimeter in search of an unclassified being known only as Skinny McCoy. He paused as he passed the main elevator, then looked over his shoulder. He nodded in satisfaction; there was no one there, there was no room for anyone there. So, he moved on, never seeing the shape of the wraith literally flattened into 15 centimeters of space between the columns of the elevator shaft.

It took less than 30 seconds for the assassin to ascend the shaft like a chimney. He then swung his way along the underside of a footbridge to an adjoining aquatic center. He vaulted onto a balcony in a kind of cartwheel, his limbs and body twisting. As he touched down, he opened a leather case at his waist and snapped together two halves of an archaic large-caliber repeating rifle. He made a strange downward motion that slid back the trigger guard and a section of the grip, opening the breech. Rather than cycle a round from the magazine, he loaded a cartridge from the gun belt at his waist directly into the chamber. By the time the breech shut, he was at the corner railing. In the next moment, he fired.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, in the market floor of the shopping plaza, several figures moved toward Chelsea. There were a maintenance AI, holding a pry bar, a Woolie who needed no weapon, a rider on a one-wheeled scooter wearing a helmet and jumpsuit that hid his identity, and at least two nondescript humans. One of the humans turned at a tap on his shoulder. He saw only blunt spikes on a bronze fist, and then he went down.

From there, a number of things happened virtually simultaneously. Three slugs hit the nearest flexiglass pane, one of which penetrated. The rider fired a spear gun at Chelsea, just as Shad pushed her to the floor. That projectile also embedded in the window pane, trailing a nearly invisible filament. And the three other attackers still standing wheeled about to face the apparition of Deve, a metallic humanoid with a multiplying number of arms that sprouted blades as they appeared. He started with four arms, the upper two bearing heavy triangular thrusting blades that sprouted from the knuckles, the lower arms sprouting twin parrying daggers from above and below. There was still more secondary cutlery, including a thin arrow-like blade from the knuckles on the lower left hand and the knuckleduster studs on the right. The AI got in a shot then and there, burying the pry bar in Deve’s lower back with a resonating klong. Deve countered with his upper left hand, exposing circuitry with a slash from one of a pair of parrying blades on either side before knocking the AI aside with the trowel blade in the center. That was when Deve reversed his two arms and revealed his full ten-limbed fan. From what became the uppermost arms sprang a pair of evil-looking S-shaped blades that seemed twisted more than curved, one ending in an upturned point, the other in a claw-like downward hook.

As Deve shouted his challenge, three more shots hit the window, and two of them came through. When a slug actually ricocheted off the tabletop, Chelsea tested if it could be overturned. Momentary inspection confirmed that the frame and “decorative” stonework of the round top were heavy enough to hold itself and the supporting hyperboloid frame in place by gravity alone. Even as she made that discovery, there was a crash as the Woolie lifted the entire top of another table and slammed it across Deve’s chest, with a motion that might have flung it if the range had been any greater. The living statue slid back, his whole torso creased by the impact. In several places, his bronze hide was split, revealing a wire mesh that seemed to knit itself back together as the breaks sealed. He still made a prefect thrust as the Woolie lunged in, driving his upturned blade straight through the roof of the Woolie’s mouth. There was a horrible garbling from the creature, until a strike from the knuckle studs dropped it like a limp rag doll. That was time enough for the remaining human attacker to grab for the imbedded pry bar. He withdrew with a scream, leaving the skin of his palms on top of a layer of ice crystals that covered the metal. There was a ripple in Deve’s hide like flexing muscles, and the object was abruptly expelled, to shatter as it hit the floor.

All the while, a whine came from the mounted attacker’s spear gun, which Chelsea assumed was to retrieve the harpoon for a second shot. Suddenly, the whole pane came loose. She screeched as it crashed down on the tabletop. The escorting officer Hexley opened fire as a cluster of passers-by gathered at the new opening. “Do not engage them!” Deve called out as he made his retreat toward them. “I have challenged them; they will destroy me first, if they can. Get them to safety!”  As he spoke, he traded slashes and feints with the AI, who now brandished a buzzsaw, and two more human attackers who hung back. Hexley nodded, then fired a final shot that knocked a revolver from the hand of a goon trying to use the window frame for cover. Deve leaped back, just as a Dodge A108 crashed through the entrance.

The van careened along on its rims, knocking aside two tables. It barely got all the way inside before it ground to an inevitable halt. That was enough to ensure that the goons who piled out came out of loading doors on both sides and in the rear, a dozen at least, and they did indeed focus on Deve. His upper three arms held off any attempt to rush him, while those who tried to catch him from behind or the sides were met by an assortment of grappling weapons in his lower four arms, including a short 15 cm version of the trowel blades. The most unwary lost an arm to a slash of the scythe blade. His protective suit made itself a torniquet, tightening over the wound. Another managed to hit him in the knee with a sledge hammer, only to be hit backhanded with what looked like a baling hook. Others brought firearms to bear, with little more effect. Pocket pistols and snubnose revolvers merely rang off his hide. A more consequential over-under12 gauge drew a sound like rain with a blast to a chest, followed by a deep gong as a slug went clean through and through. Then a goon still in the passenger seat of the van opened fire with a Soviet submachine gun. At that, Deve launched the middle blade on his left parrying hand, striking the gunman in the shoulder.

Meanwhile, Chelsea and her companions hurried toward the shop that filled the far end of the market area. Chelsea saw that many of the customers and staff had already gathered there. Several waved for them to go back. In the corner of her eye, she saw a merchant still huddling behind his cart. Suddenly, the straggler rose, and Hexley opened fire, staggering him with stun round. Hexley staggered in turn. Only then did she see a gun, already skittering across the floor.

In the midst of the fray, the mounted attacker raised a whole second spear gun and rolled forward to meet the bronze god, weaving and bobbing through the fray. The spear struck Deve in the middle left shoulder, possibly deflected by a stroke of his blades. The rider turned away, clearly aiming to wrap Deve with the carbon filament quite capable of shearing through bronze and steel alike. But he snared the cable with the triangular blade on the very arm it had pierced, wrapping it around the parrying blades on either side. A sharp pull drew the rider straight into a downward blow from a longer blade on the upper hand. A built-in safety cut the cable as the attacker literally flew from the saddle, his helmet not merely pierced but shattered. A split second later, he crashed through the cart before coming to a halt barely a meter from Chelsea. She reflexively turned her head, and gasped as she finally saw his eyes through the shattered visor. They were the same uncanny blue as the AI they had left behind. As the second AI turned his, or its, head, the eyes visibly locked on the loose gun.

“It’s the Triplets,” Hexley said, gripping her arm. “Deregistered AI, completely rogue. There were 3 of them, anyway. We thought we got two.” The pointing finger literally twitched as if in yearning reflex, but when it started to go through the motion of a trigger pull, the whole hand closed into a fist. She looked back to the spear gun; its grip was a simple paddle with a wire loop around the trigger.

“They really don’t take chances, do they?” she mused out loud as the AI rose to his feet. Then she shrieked as one more rifle slug came through the nearest window pane. Hexley and Shad pulled her into the store as an emergency barricade lowered behind them, but the AI had already turned back to Deve.

* * *

In the midst of it all, Frank sat at the wheel of Chelsea’s camper van, drumming his fingers on the dashboard. He looked to the officer beside him, and the giant echidna called Hector in the back seat. “Look,” he said, “don’t you have your own orders?”

“Sure,” said the human officer, who had still never identified himself except as Hexley. “Monitor the perimeter. Intervene if backup is needed. It isn’t.”

Frank gave him a hard stare. “So you’re sure two more officers won’t make any difference?”

“Not for what it would cost to get in there,” Hexley answered frankly. “The important thing is that we have a cordon around the area. From there, our officers will move in, detain any and all hostile parties, and secure the person or persons of interest. Breaking the cordon for any reason could double the time it takes to complete our objective.”

“Yeah?” Frank said. “But supposing you wanted to go in, would they let you?”

Hexley didn’t answer immediately. Hector whistled and shrugged, a singularly expressive gesture in itself. “Sure,” Hexley said grudgingly. “Between me and the monotreme, we have enough rank to pull that we could go in.”

“Then look at it this way,” Frank said. “The `person or persons of interest’ are my best friend and the girl who made him happier than any guy in the world, plus my wife and your brother. So, do you really just want to sit here?”

Hexley nodded. “No,” he said. “I suppose I don’t.” Frank grinned as he started the engine.

* * *

Deve stood at by as the goons swarmed in. His gray-green hide shone gold from numerous blows. In several places, gray vapor wafted from holes and cracks that had not yet closed. The AIs led yet another charge. One still swung a buzz saw, with one remaining arm. The other wielded a pipe, more as a mace than a club. The living idol skewered the latter with his triangular blades, but still took a blow to the head. The impact dented an ornate frill on his sculpted headpiece; it also cracked the pipe, revealing a filling of cement. The other AI lunged in with the saw, shearing off Deve’s left arm. He countered with the already bloody sickle blade, shearing off the other arm. A goon tried to exploit the opening, only to have his helmet caved in by a crescent-shaped fist axe. The remaining AI struck again, and again. Deve’s eyes flashed white as the pipe split across his face. He swung his remaining trowel blade straight up, driving the AI face-first into a light fixture overhead. He then slashed down, shearing straight through its torso. Two hapless goons dropped under the resulting shower of sparks, parts and fluids. That was when the literally disarmed AI charged head-down, with a dozen goons behind, slamming Deve into the barricade.

 

Chelsea stared about inside the store they had just entered. Behind her, the emergency barrier shut and locked, already bowed by the battle outside. The small crowd drew back from her. “Look,” Shad said, “we got together, that pissed my Maimeo off, and her boss drew on Spike. What would any of you have done?”

The bystanders seemed to relax, though most kept their distance. The group withdrew toward the other side of the store. Her gaze reached a bystander who leaned against a wall to one side. She couldn’t really see the face, but the eyes met hers… pale, piercing blue eyes. And then, for a few moments, things were hazy. When things cleared, she was looking down at a figure at her feet… and a head halfway across the store. “Um,” she said. “did I just decapitate an outlaw AI?”

“I’m not sure,” Shad said. “It happened really fast.”

“Okay,” Chelsea said. She turned to Hexley. “What do we do now?”

“We stay here and wait for a Riot unit,” he said. “What the Hell else would we do?”

It was Diane who spoke up. “Uh-uh,” she said. “As long as we’re in here, they keep coming, even if it’s through Deve. When they get through, they aren’t going to worry about collateral damage. And one of them is still out there. I am going to find a way out of here.”

Hexley stared outside. “Fine, you’re probably right,” he said. “But if we try it, we’re doing it right.” He pointed out the side entrance. “If I open that door, we’ll be in the cross corridor. From there, we can double back to the curb, go down the main throughway to the elevators, or cut all the way across to the other side of the Aster. The only problem is, they will be covering at least one.” Even as he spoke, he punched in a code.

As they emerged, Hexley pointed to a camera at the corner, and then to Chelsea’s wrist organizer. “I have your organizer set to receive the feed from that camera,” he said. It showed the corridor ahead, which ended between two banks of elevators, currently oddly empty. “You could walk out of there now, you just couldn’t come back in. We can do better…”

Shad pulled back Chelsea before she could pass the officer as he reached the corner. Hexley waved them to stay, then crossed the corridor to a barricade ahead. There was just enough of a recess to provide cover as he worked. He looked merely puzzled at the sound of the entrance to the main corridor opening from outside. He started to call out as he leaned around the corner- and then staggered and dropped as four shots rang out.

Only then did Chelsea look at her wrist, and see the silhouette of the wraith standing in the doorway. The voice that came down the hall was oddly soft, and all the more unnerving for it: “You just donta listen…”

Part I: The romance!

Part II: The parking violation!

Part III: Capsule hotel destruction!

Part IV: The Kelsiraptor, and Harryhausen monster bureaucrat!

Part V: The restraining order!

Part VI: The trial, part 1!

Part VII: The trial, part 2, with the King Kong Moral Contraband film!

Part VIII: The goon!

Part IX: The religion!

Part X: Kloe!!!

Part XI: The Arcostate Zoo, plus Spike's Southside Motorcycle Gang!

Part XII: Skinny McCoy!!!

Animation Defenestration: The one with a Fiat 600

 

Title: Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro

What Year?: 1979 (Japanese release)/ 1991 (US dub release)

Classification: Prototype/ Mashup

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

It’s time for the third review of the first week of the month, and it happens I’ve been working on another project that has required me to plow through a body of material where a foreign-language film with no subtitles was among the more pleasant entries. Needless to say, I’ve been needing something good, and fortunately, I had something on deck I was already meaning to get to. Here is a film that started a career and possibly but a genre on the map, and is a lot of fun in the bargain. Here is The Castle of Cagliostro, an anime where an unapologetic thief is the hero.

Our story begins with our anti-hero and an accomplice or so fleeing the scene of their latest exploit in a Fiat 600 literally full of money, which unfortunately proves to be counterfeit. It’s Lupin the Third, the descendant of a notorious thief before him, with a gang of companions that includes a chain-smoker and a samurai whose sword can cut cars in half. Even they are taken aback when they witness a woman in a wedding dress running from assorted goons (in a Citroen 2CV, no less). Despite their best efforts, the obviously reluctant bride Clarisse is captured and taken back to the castle of her groom, an evil nobleman named Cagliostro. Lupin sets out to free her, even joining up with a nosy lawman. Soon, he discovers that the castle is home to a whole host of schemes, including a counterfeiting complex that made the phony money he ran into before. Only his most madcap scheme will save the damsel- but the real secret is a treasure only she can unlock!

Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro was the second feature-length animated film based on the manga Lupin III, created by the artist known as Monkey Punch. It marked the directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki, who went on to found Studio Ghibli. The film was produced for 500 million yen, estimated to be equivalent to $2.3 million US. It was considered a box office disappointment in Japan, and received only limited showings at events such as the World Science Fiction Convention in the US. Beginning in 1991, it received theatrical and home video releases in the US with an English dub by Streamline Pictures, with a cast including Bob Bergen as Lupin and JC Henning as Lady Clarisse. The film subsequently became a popular ad well-regarded anime. A second dub was released by Manga Video mainly in the UK, described as more faithful to the original film. A 2015 DVD release included both dubs and the Japanese language version with subtitles. The Japanese version and Bergen dub are available for digital purchase and rental from Amazon.

For my experiences, the main thing I have to say about this one is that anime is one of the things people would probably expect me to like far better than I do. Sure, I’ve seen a good sample of the genre, and that has certainly included ones I like. There was even a time, way back when I first tried animation reviews, when I was sounding off for one or two that I greatly admired and still do. In the end, however, I have found that very few resonate with me as engaging or original (see Lily CAT). To me, the good, bad and what-the-Hell-did-I-just-watch weird usually don’t feel fundamentally different from each other, and the further common denominator is that they tend to deal in ideas and visuals more than character development and emotional involvement. And of course, there are ones that I find to have weight and depth (Tales of Earthsea stands out as perhaps underrated), yet I find them exceptions more than the rule. Eventually, I got to this one, and it stood out as different. It has the madcap action and over-the-top characters of a 1960s cartoon, with none of the allegorical pretensions of a “serious” anime, yet it never quite descends into the realm of magic or superscience. It’s like Tin Tin meets James Bond (why not see my review of Never Say Never Again while you’re at it?), which is really as good a preview as any what you’re in for.

Moving forward, the central reality of this movie is that its hero is quite unique and indeed altogether psychotic. Lupin is not a romanticized “thief with a heart of gold”, but he does have an implied commitment to avoiding fatalities. At the core, he’s really no more or less than an adrenaline junkie chasing a fix, and certainly getting it. The closest he gets to altruism in the course of his normal business is throwing away loot he already knows he can’t use. Things get more complex when he meets Clarisse. He clearly is offended by the idea of another man holding a woman as chattel, without manifesting the more selfish desire to take a well-guarded prize for himself. At the same time, he goes through far too many desperate gambles not to be attracted to her, whatever he may say or want to believe. It may feel a little frustrating to see a relationship that is clearly going nowhere, at least for the present installment. (I have no idea what the later episodes are like.) We get a partial answer with the relatively late appearance of a spunky former associate. He clearly respects her, and might be attracted to her, yet it’s self-evident that he would rather leave her free to find her own adventures than have her follow him. It's a nuanced message that gradually extends to Clarisse, and it still has a progressive note.

The other side is certainly the villain, the lord of Cagliostro. Again, he presents a nuanced and unstereotyped character. He isn’t Megavolt crazy, nor is he merely greedy or flatly sadistic (see the Gobots movie, if anything). What does become clear is that he values his position and the outward compliance of his minions. Again, Clarisse brings out the greater depths of his character. He especially delights in pointing out their shared class and heritage, and he’s never proven wrong in asserting that she is not so far from him. He also certainly does show the drive to possess her for the sake of possession, though the goal of the mysterious treasure obscures just how much of this is personal. His conflicting motives and those of Lupin come to a head in the finale, where he quickly goes out of his way to do his own dirty work. The biggest irony is that he’s competent enough to get as much as he actually wants, until he runs into one of the most impressively gruesome insta-kill Maguffins on record.

Now for the “one scene”, I finally gave in and bought the damn movie for another look at the opening. It all starts with low-key “stealth” music as Lupin and his main accomplice descend from the upper floor of a casino with at least two sacks and capacious overcoats stuffed with money. As the alarms go off and the music gets zipper, they drive away in their yellow Fiat 600 (a car I know well from writing the Exotroopers story), so full of money Lupin literally has to push bills aside to see out the windshield. Meanwhile, a number of shady sedans scramble to give pursuit, only to break down, lose their wheels, or in one puzzling case split in half, something that is replicated later but only by a  character we haven’t seen yet. There’s an implied passage of time, as we see them next on a roadway in daylight. As the thief and his henchman converse, he gives a look of unpleasant surprise as he looks at one of the bills literally under his nose. He tells his right-hand man to dump it, and then explains it’s counterfeit, already hatching another scheme. Still, it does appear that his elusive moral code stops short of spending money he knows is fake. On the other hand, he shows no concern about the consequences for unwary bystanders as he very happily casts money out the window and the sunroof, and finally opens his doors to allow it to pour out. It’s a gloriously psychotic moment that really tells us all we need to know about the characters, truly a demonstration of the best that a genre can do.

In closing, this is one time I don’t really have more to say. This is truly among the very best animated films I have ever reviewed, which are already high enough to start skewing the curve, at least equal to Treasure Planet among others. The one thing left interesting to comment on is that, unlike that film, it never went through any initial misfortunes at the box office. It may not have been an immediate success either commercially or with fans, but that can clearly be put down to the limited availability and appreciation of anime in Western circles. Once those horizons opened up, it’s clear that this film quickly rose right to the top, as it certainly deserved. On top of that, it got at least one decent English dub. So by all means, get it any way you can; you are very unlikely to be disappointed. With that, I’m done for another night.

Futures Past: Museum of Science and Industry Mold A Rama souvenirs

 

It's time for the Thursday post of the week, and I decided to do more on my vacation. Last time, I covered Mold A Rama dinos from the Field Museum. To follow up, I have a little more material. Here's a pic of a Mold A Rama space capsule, shown above with the Dinoland T. rex and the Truckstop Queen.

I got this one from another Mold A Rama machine at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry space center, where I took a video of the machine in action. It is reportedly the largest item produced for/ by these machines, which I can well believe based on height. It is, of course, based on the 1960s-era space capsules, which were frequently depicted in toys and other items that are expensive now. In that context, this is definitely worth the price if you have the opportunity to get it. It's one of at least five Mold A Rama machines at the museum. Here's pics of the other one I got with the capsule, photographed in the hotel room for reasons I'll get to in a moment.

And here's the actual machine.

This is, of course, a very 1950s/ '60s fighter jet, which I find strikingly similar to the Tim Mee jets. It is in many ways the most impressive of the little collection I built up, made of a silver plastic with what looks like built-in marbling. (Unfortunately, as previously seen with the reissue Marx Kronosaur, this has a tendency to look awful if you don't know what you're looking at.) Here's a couple more detail pics from the hotel.

Alas, this was the one that broke on the way home. The damage was a broken-off tail fin, I'm sure in part because of an unnecessary gap between the root of the tail and the engine exhaust. (A few image searches confirmed that the whole style of combining the tail with a giant nozzle for the engine was really something that was being phased out by the '60s.) For extra humiliation, before starting this post, I took another video of me trying and failing to fix it. In hindsight, I might have been better off using the glue to fill the gap rather than sealing the crack. Eventually, I did finally get the fin to stay on for the moment. Here's a pic of the repaired jet on The Couch Mark 2.

On the whole, the whole museum has a "retro future" vibe, which is why I'm writing about it here. The space center in particular is a showcase of 1960s tech. Even beyond that, it shows the same techno-optimism that found its highest and most infamous expression in the 1964 World's Fair. (Why not see the first installment of this feature while you're at it?) It's easy to say that "mainstream" society was outgrowing such things even then. The flip side is that the same easily deconstructed visions of lunar colonies and Mars expeditions that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s were still going strong when I was an impressionable kid in the 1980s. Judging from the space center, the spirit of probably unwarranted optimism is alive and well even now, and kids at a place like the museum are the audience that should have it. And how about some more pics of the museum?

Yeah, they have a submarine.

And a toy...

Space art, the final frontier!

The space igloo!

Apparently a working gravity detector!

To boldly sit...

I don't think this is their most profitable machine.

And a big train layout!

Now this is just wrong...

And Snoopy for the win!!!

That's all for now, more to come!

The 1980s File: The one where James Bond plays video games

 

Title: Never Say Never Again

What Year?: 1983

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

With this review, I’m continuing the No Good Very Bad Movies feature with a project I had really started some time ago, but never decided what to do with. For now, I’m fitting it in with a few more odds and ends that should fit the theme. In brief, I decided a while back to look at movies in the Bond franchise (see Moonraker), which meant going through quite a few movies for what amounted to bragging rights. I watched some of the most controversial and outright hated entries, and some of the most popular and praised, which right off the bat presented a startling amount of overlap. I took a deep dive into the really obscure stuff, like the TV episode with Peter Lorre. (Yes, that happened…) Still, I didn’t quite get to the one I had meant to cover all along, in no small part because it lay in the middle of some of my oldest and most tangled pop culture memories. Without further ado, I present Never Say Never Again, the Bond movie that isn’t technically a Bond movie, and that’s just the beginning of the complications.

Our story begins with James Bond breezing through a rescue that ends in his own death. Of course, it turns out to be a training exercise, while the real drama is that M is trying to keep our favorite alcoholic sex addict in retirement. He still becomes the target of an assassination while in a physical therapy spa. It turns out that SPECTRE is back with a standard exercise to steal a few nukes, carried out by an unhinged businessman named Largo and a crazier-than-usual femme fatale. Bond is on the trail, with help from the villain’s lady friend Domino. Will James Bond prevail, or is this his final mission? Actually, it kind of is!

Never Say Never Again was the only James Bond movie released by Warner Bros, and as such not a part of the franchise “canon” produced by United Artists (later MGM/ UA) and Eon Productions. The project was based from a 1960s script written by novelist Ian Fleming and screenwriter Jack Whittingham, which Whittingham maintained was adapted into the novel and film Thunderball without credit; an eventual settlement gave Whittingham and producer Kevin McClory permission to make their own treatment of the script. After the project was greenlit, several actors were reportedly considered to play Bond, including Richard Burton, before Sean Connery agreed to appear as bond for the first time since Diamonds Are Forever in 1971. Independent filmmaker Irvin Kershner was signed on to direct following his successful turn in Empire Strikes Back. Kim Basinger was cast as Domino, with Klaus Brandauer as Largo. Other cast included Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush and Max Von Sydow (see Flash Gordon) as Blofeld. The score was composed by Michael Legrand. The film was released at roughly the same time as MGM/ UA’s Octopussy with Roger Moore.  It earned $160 million against a $36M budget, compared to $187.5M for the Moore film. Availability of the film has been somewhat limited, especially in digital formats. As of mid-2022, it is available for digital rental from Amazon and other platforms.

For my experiences, the big distinction for this one is that it’s probably the first Bond film I ever saw, which I much later came to count as the worst Bond movie I had personally encountered. But what really fascinated me leading up to this review was how many of the choices other people made were simply the ones that departed from the franchise formula. There were Diamonds and You Only Live Twice before it, which ramped up the actual camp under Connery’s tenure, with the disconcertingly odd On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (which I finally watched specifically for comparison with this film) in between. There were the science-fictional The Man With The Golden Gun and Moonraker, which I personally regard as the best of the Moore films (with Live And Let Die maybe in the middle). Then there are the grimdark-leaning “modern” films like License To Kill and The World Is Not Enough. Given this context, the present film emerged even unseen as a striking anomaly. Where almost all the other polarizing films did something different, this was more of the same in the most literal sense. The actual results, finally viewed in cold blood, are no more or less than generally average. 

Moving forward, I have to say that anything which really changed my mind here are things I credit without hesitation to Kershner and the pool of talent Empire would have dropped him into. The camerawork and establishing “environment” shots are consistently good. The motorcycle chase surely matches anything from the “official” films. (Ironically, the most solid entry on that vein is Secret Service.) Then there are the truly superb effects, especially the launch of the missiles around the 40 minute mark, which I knew had to be from people I had dealt with before. When I checked on that, the first three names that came up were David Beavis, David Harris, and Harry Walton, the last of whom also worked on Howard The Duck, InnerSpace, and Willow. As a further annoying mystery, it appears that Walton’s contribution was originally uncredited stop-motion that I haven’t conclusively identified. To quote Burt Gummer, that’s never happened to me before.

As for the rest, the common denominator is that when it comes to characters, dialogue and story, there is nothing here that Thunderball among others didn’t already do better. The story is engaging and fairly realistic for a Bond movie, but it’s still by the numbers even with Thunderball set aside. The music, usually a focus of criticism, is generally good by my appraisal, but does far better when it goes for a 1980s minimalist vibe over ‘60s melodrama. Basinger is gorgeous and vibrant with an arc that gives her real autonomy, except she doesn’t really show up until Bond needs her. The villain has the makings of one of the best, perhaps an improvement on his counterpart in the earlier film, but when it comes to being actually crazy, things get a little heavy on “tell, don’t show”. To me, the bottom line, especially in a franchise is charisma-driven as this, is whether the actors and their characters seem to be having fun. In those terms, the one standout is Carrera as the absolutely feral Fatima, followed if not outmatched by Von Sydow as Blofeld. (The cat gets honorable mention.) By comparison, Connery is at least at ease, as if he has finally made peace with the character that catapulted him to fame, with a little more vulnerability to go with his undisguised age. It’s enough to absolve him of just being here for a paycheck (that ship sailed when he took money to be in Zardoz), but he's still losing a battle that’s ultimately with himself.

Now for the “one scene”, the one I remembered just as soon as I got to it is a little past the halfway mark. Here, Largo challenges Bond to join him in a game, in this case a video game. By way of introduction, he explains, “This game has one objective, power.” What we then see is sort of a cross between Missile Command and Tempest (see… Night of the Comet?), and for once, the graphics and evident game play are good for the early 1980s. We see both the game and the expressions of the players, the villain confident, the (anti?) hero wary and calculating. Of course, it turns out there’s more than money on the line, as the loser is subjected to electric shocks. After getting hit especially hard, Bond asks to go another round, and you don’t need to watch the game to see the dynamic change. It’s an intriguing scene that’s truly unique, which is more than enough for a movie that’s practically a remake of one that not many have counted among the best.

In closing, I must come back to the question, is this “the” worst Bond movie. I would still have to say yes, but I am willing to back down on what I thought that would mean. It’s definitely the weakest of the Connery Bond movies, which in turn places it under a far harsher standard than those from any other phase of the franchise. By the standards of what I do and this feature in particular, however, there was never a Bond movie that was “that” bad. We are, after all, talking about a big-budget mainstream property, compared to a lineup that has included Death Bed, Creepers, the Gobots movie and Ingagi. My final confession is, I still haven’t found a Bond movie I really didn’t like. (Unless you count the 1960s version of Casino Royale; now that is radioactive coprolite.) They can be formulaic, forgettable, frustrating and entirely disappointing, but never on a level that stops you from coming back for what’s good. (Heck, one day, I might even actually watch one with Daniel Craig.) That’s how a franchise endures for 6 decades and counting. That’s enough for me to call it a day.

The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs Special: Field Museum retro dinos!!!

 

As I write this, I'm just back from my one-item bucket list trip of a lifetime the Chicago Field Museum, the best museum in the nation/ continent/ world. I got to spend a day there, which was just enough to cover most of the good stuff, and of course, I planned on bringing at least one dino home. Naturally, the actual result ended up being the most outdated and proportionately most expensive stuff they had, because what's the fun in writing about paleo stuff that's actually good? To kick things off, here's a few pics from the museum.

For the backstory, it turns out these machines are from the 1960s, which in hindsight was obvious from the dinos themselves. Per the fountain of all knowledge Wikipedia, the machines were developed and patented by John H. "Tike" Miller as a sort of analog-era 3D printer. They could create a toy/ souvenir/ thingy on the spot by injecting hot plastic into a mold. The final product was a hollow, lightweight object that could be produced in under a minute, originally from a choice of two sculpts per machine. In 1962, working machines were put in service by the Automated Retailers of America (now Aramark). In their finest hour, the machines became part of the Sinclair Oil Dinoland exhibit at the 1964 World's Fair, featuring fabulously dated versions of T. rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Corythosaurus and Brontosaurus (see also the 1964 Fair ultimate website, my title not theirs). Alas, the machines were withdrawn from service by 1971, but soon got a new lease on life as at least two companies started buying up machines, molds and parts. Needless to say, they remain in service to this day. As I discovered, at least four are at the Field Museum. Here's more pics of the product.

"Knowing me, knowing you, it's the best that we can do... Oh coprolite, we're older than ABBA."

Of these two, the first one I got was the sauropod/ Brontosaurus, marked Apatosaurus on the base. I had seen a video of one of the machines before, so I tried this one out right at the start of the tour. The dino came out quite hot, and I believe I put him in a travel bag before he cooled down. Unfortunately, that meant I had to carry him around in a travel bag while regularly checking whether he had imploded in the meantime. As it turned out, the only real condition issue was what initially looked like a series of scratches on the right hind leg. in the following days, I discovered that this was really a thin film I could peel away, to reveal what had to be air pockets in the plastic. Here's a detail shot where this should be visible.

Later in the day, I gave in and paid for the T. rex. By then, I had worked out that the things are supposed to be held while they cool (upside down by official instructions!), so he came out better. I think there are signs of the air pockets, and on very close inspection I found a promising hairline fracture in the base. Speaking of, here's how the undersides looked after my best efforts to remove flash and extra protrusions.

All in all, the Brontosaurus/ Apatosaurus is still good enough even now. His tail drags, and the legs seem to be edging toward the sprawling lizard posture that lingered into at least the early 1900s, yet he is upright, presumably on land, in a dynamic pose that makes him look reasonably sensitive and alert. The Rex, on the other hand, is goofy even by 1950s/ '60s standards (though maybe not quite as much as the original Marx Tyrannosaurus), but still somewhat interesting. Meanwhile, I looked into the other machines. One was just a gorilla, so I saved my money. But then I got back to a machine that was quite different, offering a clearly modern sculpt of Quetzalcoatlus. Here's a few pics of him.

To give further context and perspective, here's a scale shot of the Rex with the Truckstop Queen and Sidekick Carl. Pretty much as expected, he's a lot taller than Carl, still quite a bit shorter than Kate. Of course, the odds are relatively high that female tyrannosaurs were bigger.

I know it looks like I propped up Carl against the dino, but they really aren't even that close together.

I then decided to pose them with their near-contemporary Marx counterparts, the "potbelly" rex and the Brontosaurus (first featured back in the patchisaurs post). That did yield some surprises. The hollow Sinclair dinos are definitely larger overall, which undoubtedly improved their appeal at the time. However, the Marx Brontosaurus is still about the same length. So, still awesome!

And that's enough for me to wrap this up, though I have plenty more material from the museum and the trip. To wind down, here's a few shots of the actual gift shop.

Wait, how did I not get this one???

That's all for now, more to come!

Animation Defenestration: The one that DID kill Disney

 

Title: Treasure Planet

What Year?: 2006

Classification: Mashup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

As I write this, I’m back from a break, partly caused by my equipment not working. As it happens, I have one thing on deck I’ve been meaning to get to for quite a while. It’s a film that has become the epitome of a modern-day cult movie, an infamous failure in theaters that has become one of the most praised movies of its medium. I present Treasure Planet, the movie that probably killed Disney’s cell animation department, and yeah, it’s really, really good.

Our story begins with a boy named Jim Hawkins reading the tale of Captain Flint, a storied pirate in a universe where sailing ships travel through interstellar space (which would actually kind of work, if you can afford a sail the size of Alaska and 100,000 years to get to anywhere important). Of course, the tale ends with the pirate disappearing with his treasure to an unknown planet. Fast forward, and Jim has grown into a young man longing for adventure. He gets more than he bargained for when a dying alien stumbles into his mother’s space tavern with an artifact that projects a map. An academically minded patron believes it’s nothing less than the map to Flint’s treasure, which is enough to bring together a ship with a ragtag crew including a foxy felinoid captain, a lovable rogue cyborg named Silver and an assortment of villainous extraterrestrials. As they sail through the perils of space, shifting alliances form among the crew, while Silver befriends young Jim. But when discontent becomes open mutiny, it’s up to Jim to stay alive on the treacherous planet, and Silver must choose between loyalty and loot!

Treasure Planet was a 2006 science fantasy film by Disney, based loosely on the novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and its 1950 live-action Disney adaptation. The story and concepts were reportedly first proposed in 1985, alongside The Little Mermaid. The film was made using traditional/ two-dimensional animation, combined with extensive CGI, on an unprecedented budget of $140 million. The voice cast was led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jim Hawkins and Brian Murray as Silver, with David Hyde Pierce (see A Bug’s Life) as Dr. Doppler and Emma Thompson as Captain Smollet. Other cast included typecast villain Michael Wincott as the arthropod Scroop, Martin Short as the robot BEN, and Patrick McGoohan in his final appearance as the original owner of the map. Though the film received favorable reviews and a reasonable $110M box office, it was widely described as a “bomb” based on its much higher budget. In objective terms, it was almost certainly the costliest failure of all non-CGI Disney animated films in absolute numbers, and probably behind only The Black Cauldron in proportionate losses. It became one of the last 2D-animated Disney films, only 3 years before The Princess And The Frog in 2009. It has remained popular on home video, and is currently available for streaming on multiple platforms.

For my experiences, I must admit that I can’t recall being aware of this film when it came out, which in further hindsight makes me suspect that the Disney machine was never that interested in making it a success. Beyond that, almost everything I can say falls under my standing rants about Disney (see Chicken Little while you’re at it). Throughout its entire existence, Disney has been making films that were financial failures, not just because it can afford losses but because it has consistently taken real risks. Even more importantly, the main reason so many of these “failures” have gone on to become undisputed classics is that Disney has been willing to play the long game with old material, especially since the emergence of home video. Given that context, the present film is one that got a raw but not uncommon deal. And, again, it happens to have the benefit of being among the very best of the “modern” or any other era.

Moving forward, I have to say that most of the things I would usually comment on as a science fiction reviewer are the “cons”. The real question is what standard to measure it by, from the outright space fantasy of Flash Gordon to the general realism of Star Trek (see also The Black Hole), and that is where this one can feel neither fish nor fowl. The absolutely gorgeous sailing spaceships are obviously not meant to be “realistic” spacecraft, yet they answer to enough basic physics that a little more realism would have done far more good than harm. Put the crew in some kind of spacesuits, like the steampunk exoskeleton we see Doppler actually wearing or the streamlined leather suits of the Marx space guys. Show materials more advance than wood and rope, or at least arm-wave a backstory about super-science star plants (perhaps Larry Niven’s stage trees???) that would have a reason to withstand the conditions of interstellar space. For that matter, put some extra sails on the bottom of the damn things, which is always doing next to nothing when people model spacecraft on naval vessels. Again, none of these issues harm the story, but this just confirms that there was no harm in addressing them.

After the nitpicking, the one caveat left is that there were definitely reasons this movie didn’t fly with the usual Disney audience. This is a very dark story with a genuine body count, set in a universe of beauty and terror in equal measure.  The action isn’t just slapstick pratfalls and a melodramatic swan dive, but treacherous ambushes and brutal brawls where characters we really like can get hurt or worse. The alien crew are seedy and mean, all the more so when they have enough anthropomorphic qualities to assess their personalities and emotions. What balances things out are the main characters, all with complex and nuanced arcs that give some real surprises. It’s easy enough to see that Silver will come around when Jim is in danger, but there’s still depth and weight to what unfolds. Then the real standout is the doctor, who goes from academic to hero as soon as he gets a ray gun. I could even put in a good word for the comic-relief bot, who really acts as he does because of incredible trauma that actually gets fixed.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I had to go with what I find to be the most fascinating and flatly villainous character in the movie, the crustacean creature known as Scroop. As Jim and the bot sneak back onto the ship, they split up. When Jim and a pet blob creature make their way back to the stairs, he finds himself face to face with Scroop, a character I absolutely consider the villain of the whole movie. This single image is enough to make my point; there’s none of the conflicted emotions of Silver’s anti-hero in the inhuman face, just all too comprehensible low-grade hate for a nuisance he would long since have disposed of if left to his own devices. He merely says, “Cabin boy,” then the chase begins. Jim runs for it, aided fairly effectively by the blob. Finally, Jim turns a corner just ahead of the creature, which buys just enough time to draw his pistol. There’s a priceless glimpse of Scroop’s face as he finds his would-be victim has the upper hand, certainly unsettled, perhaps fearful, yet still clearly unrepentant. Then the lights go out, and when they come back on… the villain is gone. As usual, there’s more that follows. As I keep saying, however, it’s the buildup of small details that make the rest.

In closing, what I come back to is the selective memory applied to Disney movies. As I have freely admitted, I had no awareness of this movie when it came out. On further consideration, that can’t just be something I forgot, because I certainly remember taking notice when The Wild came out the same year. And that surely says something about the truths and “myths” of Disney. On one hand, a by-the-numbers cash grab produced a mindboggling abomination that didn’t even stay in the collective memory long enough to be reviled. (I know, Disney didn’t technically, actually make The Wild, but if they get credit for The Brave LittleToaster, I will absolutely hold them accountable for it.) On the other hand, a risky project that in hindsight should have been axed on the drawing board took a beating financially yet went on to become one of their most admired films. This is why I am willing to defend Disney’s “failures” the vast majority of the time. You can complain about Frozen, or Lightyear (which I am absolutely getting to because it is great), or whatever culture they have appropriated this quarter, but the real bottom line is that such things are the cost of being an actual innovator and industry leader. The alternative is the safe, the derivative, the “family friendly” fare neither kids nor parents actually like, and that is where the only answer is “nuke from orbit”. With that, I can rest for a while.