Hmm. I feel like there's a joke there somewhere...
Hmm. I feel like there's a joke there somewhere...
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Insert Your Own Joke Here
Hmm. I feel like there's a joke there somewhere...
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Shameless Or Genius?
Went to the cineplex this weekend as I always do, and while I was walking through the lobby I spotted this poster for the upcoming movie The Snowman. It's a film about a serial killer (dubbed "The Snowman" of course) who leaves notes on his victims that taunt the police.
Obviously the poster's supposed to look like one of these notes, which I have to admit is kind of clever. On the other hand, it couldn't have taken the graphic designer more than five minutes to slap this thing together. He probably knocked it out around 9am and then took a four hour lunch before going home early.
I don't know whether to denounce the artist as a shiftless and brazen hack, or praise him as a bona fide genius.
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It Came From The Cineplex: It
It was written by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman, and directed by Andy Muschietti.
Palmer previously wrote... well, nothing much, other than a couple of short films. This appears to be his first theatrical screenplay. Fukunaga is a writer, director and producer, who previously wrote Sin Nombre, Chinatown Film Project and Beasts Of No Nation, none of which I've ever heard of. Dauberman previously wrote Annabelle, Within, Wolves At The Door and Annabelle: Creation.
Muschietti has just one theatrical credit to his name— the bland and mediocre horror film Mama. Somehow he managed to rise above his limited resume and made a decent film.
The film based on the 1986 novel by Stephen King, and is the second attempt at adapting it to the screen. ABC aired a very mediocre TV miniseries version of It back in 1990.
So how's the new It? Did someone finally make a good Stephen King movie? Happily, the answer's yes. It's a decent adaptation, and actually contains a few genuine scares. It's definitely much, much better than the dreadful The Dark Tower, King's other movie adaptation that's currently stinking up a few cineplexes across the country. It is also a rarity in the cineplex these days— unlike most modern watered-down PG-13 horror films, It's actually rated R! For that alone it deserves high praise. When's the last time we saw an honest-to-goodness R-rated horror movie?
That said, I'm puzzled by the huge amount of hype surrounding this movie. The internet's been buzzing about it for over a year and tickets went on sale months before the premiere. I honestly don't get it. As a story, I would call It OK at best. It's mildly scary and has its share of iconic moments, but it's not THAT great. So why's there so much interest in this property?
That said, I'm puzzled by the huge amount of hype surrounding this movie. The internet's been buzzing about it for over a year and tickets went on sale months before the premiere. I honestly don't get it. As a story, I would call It OK at best. It's mildly scary and has its share of iconic moments, but it's not THAT great. So why's there so much interest in this property?
The only explanation I can think of is that the people who can't wait to see the new film never read the overlong, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks book or are too young to remember the lame, scare-free TV miniseries.
The plotline of the novel takes place in two separate time periods (the 1950s and the 1980s), as it follows the characters as children and adults. The book's not strictly divided into two distinct eras though— instead the past and present are intertwined, as the adults experience flashbacks and recall their childhood adventures fighting Pennywise The Dancing Clown. The TV miniseries followed this same structure (although it moved the "present" to 1990, the year the show aired).
For some reason, this new version of It splits the story right down the middle and only gives us the kid half. Presumably they're saving the adult part for the inevitable sequel. Eh, I dunno. I can see that plan backfiring on them. This first film introduces us to a cast of likable and endearing child actors. Now in the sequel the audience will have to get used to an entirely NEW set of actors. It could be a nasty jolt to the moviegoing public when they realize those kids they liked so much in the first film aren't gonna be in Part 2 (or will show up, but have very limited screen time).
To be honest I've always thought the kid part of the story is MUCH stronger than the adult half. I think that's because it's a lot easier to accept a gang of kids being terrorized by a demonic clown. When it's a group of grown-ass adults hunting down a killer clown, it just seems kind of... silly. I really wish they'd just stop with this film and forget about the adult half altogether. I know that's never gonna happen though, especially after the success of this first part.
Frankly it's a wonder the movie turned out as well as it did, considering was in development hell for seven years, going through numerous scripts and two different directors along the way.
Cary Fukunaga wrote the first screenplay, which was definitely a mixed bag. For some reason, his script inexplicably changed the names of many of the characters. In his version, Bill Denbrough became Will, Henry Bowers became Travis and the character of "Belch" was changed to "Snatch." Why Fukunaga insisted on these perplexing and arbitrary changes, I have no idea.
His script retained many of the novel's more controversial and batsh*t insane scenes, such as Henry Bowers having sex with a sheep and ejaculating on a birthday cake, along with Beverly's father attempting to rape her. Yeah, you read right. Welcome to Stephen King's seamy, disturbing world. The studio wasn't exactly crazy about Fukunaga's script, as it would have likely earned the film the dreaded NC-17 rating, a sure-fire box office killer.
When the studio asked Fukunaga to cut out the more provocative scenes from his script, he refused and dropped out of the project. That's when Andy Muschietti stepped in. Muschietti loved the basic structure of Fukunaga's script, but changed a few elements to make it more faithful to the novel (and thankfully restored the original names of the characters). The final version was touched up a bit by Gary Dauberman, who eliminated the cosmic scenes from the book (which would have required extensive CGI work) to bring the project in on budget.
When the first trailer for It dropped, it supposedly enraged hundreds of the nation's professional clowns. They claimed that by depicting clowns as evil and scary, it was costing them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in business (!). To that I say a rousing, "Who cares?" Nobody likes clowns, it's an antiquated and obsolete art form that's way past its expiration date and the sooner it dies out altogether the better!
So far It is a massive hit, grossing an amazing $266 million against its paltry $35 million budget! It's made another $212 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $478 million! This is all the more impressive when you consider it's rated R, meaning a good chunk of the audience is theoretically barred from seeing it (but are no doubt doing so anyway).
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BOTH THIS FILM, THE 1990 TV MINISERIES AND THE 1986 STEPHEN KING NOVEL!
The Plot:
The movie begins in Derry, Maine (of course) in October, 1988. Fourteen year old Bill Denbrough (the sensitive, stuttering one) makes a paper sailboat (because that's something kids still did in the 80s, right?) for his seven year old brother Georgie. Bill's sick in bed, so he tells Georgie to go outside in the rain and play with the boat by himself. For some reason, Georgie sets the boat in the street, and the heavy downpour carries it quickly away.
Georgie runs after the boat, but it moves so fast he can't keep up with it. It sails into a gutter and down into the sewer, which greatly upsets Georgie, since there's no way he could ever get another paper boat. As he stares down into the dark, damp gutter, suddenly a terrifying white face with glowing yellow eyes comes into view. Instead of running for his life like any normal person would do, Georgie stays and talks to the hideous, unsettling demon, which identifies itself as Pennywise The Dancing Clown (played by Bill Skarsgard).
Pennywise offers Georgie a balloon, uttering his catchphrase, "We all float down here." Georgie politely refuses the offer. Pennywise then holds up the paper boat, and Georgie reaches into the drain for it. Pennywise grabs Georgie, bites off his right arm and drags him down into the sewer.
Cut to June 1989. It's the last day of school, and Bill and his friends Richie Tozier (the smart aleck), Eddie Kaspbrak (the jittery hypochondriac) and Stanley Uris (the responsible Jew) discuss their plans for the summer. They're terrorized by psychotic (and how!) punk Henry Bowers and his gang of hoodlums, but are saved by a security guard. This is why anyone who tells you "school is the best time of your life" should be punched repeatedly in the dick.
Meanwhile, another student named Beverly Marsh is bullied by several mean girls, who arbitrarily label her a slut. Beverly runs into Ben Hanscom, the overweight "new kid" who secretly has a crush on her.
All over Derry various kids start going missing, causing the city to initiate a curfew. Feeling guilty for Georgie's death, Bill becomes obsessed with finding his body. He builds an elaborate model of Derry's sewer system, believing Georgie may have washed through the tunnels and into a nearby marsh called the Barrens. This enrages Bill's father, who tells him Georgie's gone forever and to stop trying to find him.
On the other side of town, Mike Hanlon (the black homeschooled kid) makes a delivery to a local butcher shop. Mike lives with his grandfather after his parents died in a fire. As he approaches the shop's alley door, he sees a vision of Pennywise in a flaming slaughterhouse, beckoning to him. Suddenly he's almost run over by Henry, who roars down the alley in his car.
The other kids begin seeing Pennywise too. Ben goes to the library and reads up on Derry's inexplicably gory and unsettling history. While leafing through a book, he's lured into the basement by a floating balloon. Once there, he encounters the staggering corpse of a headless boy (who was decapitated in a factory explosion decades earlier). Suddenly the boy turns into Pennywise, and Ben escapes just in time.
In his father's temple, Stan studies for his upcoming bar mitzvah. While reading he looks up at a creepy painting of a woman with a distorted face. When he glances at it again, the painting is empty and the woman leaps out of the shadows at him before he escapes just in time.
Bill tells his friends about the Barrens, and convinces them to help him search there for Georgie's body. They enter a large sewer tunnel, where they find the sneaker of Betty Ripsom, a young girl who recently disappeared.
Cut to June 1989. It's the last day of school, and Bill and his friends Richie Tozier (the smart aleck), Eddie Kaspbrak (the jittery hypochondriac) and Stanley Uris (the responsible Jew) discuss their plans for the summer. They're terrorized by psychotic (and how!) punk Henry Bowers and his gang of hoodlums, but are saved by a security guard. This is why anyone who tells you "school is the best time of your life" should be punched repeatedly in the dick.
Meanwhile, another student named Beverly Marsh is bullied by several mean girls, who arbitrarily label her a slut. Beverly runs into Ben Hanscom, the overweight "new kid" who secretly has a crush on her.
All over Derry various kids start going missing, causing the city to initiate a curfew. Feeling guilty for Georgie's death, Bill becomes obsessed with finding his body. He builds an elaborate model of Derry's sewer system, believing Georgie may have washed through the tunnels and into a nearby marsh called the Barrens. This enrages Bill's father, who tells him Georgie's gone forever and to stop trying to find him.
On the other side of town, Mike Hanlon (the black homeschooled kid) makes a delivery to a local butcher shop. Mike lives with his grandfather after his parents died in a fire. As he approaches the shop's alley door, he sees a vision of Pennywise in a flaming slaughterhouse, beckoning to him. Suddenly he's almost run over by Henry, who roars down the alley in his car.
The other kids begin seeing Pennywise too. Ben goes to the library and reads up on Derry's inexplicably gory and unsettling history. While leafing through a book, he's lured into the basement by a floating balloon. Once there, he encounters the staggering corpse of a headless boy (who was decapitated in a factory explosion decades earlier). Suddenly the boy turns into Pennywise, and Ben escapes just in time.
In his father's temple, Stan studies for his upcoming bar mitzvah. While reading he looks up at a creepy painting of a woman with a distorted face. When he glances at it again, the painting is empty and the woman leaps out of the shadows at him before he escapes just in time.
Bill tells his friends about the Barrens, and convinces them to help him search there for Georgie's body. They enter a large sewer tunnel, where they find the sneaker of Betty Ripsom, a young girl who recently disappeared.
Meanwhile, Henry and his gang capture Ben and straight up torture him. Henry even carves a large letter "H" into Ben's ample belly (Jesus Christ!). Ben manages to get away and takes off running into the woods. Patrick Hockstetter, one of Henry's thugs, wanders into the sewer looking for Ben. He bumps into Pennywise, who kills him because he's not a main character.
Ben runs into Bill and the others, who take him back into town to deal with his wounds. They go to the pharmacy, where they meet Beverly. She helps them steal first aid supplies and tends to Ben's injury, becoming friends with the boys in the process.
On his way home, Eddie passes a comically spooky-looking haunted house on Neibolt Street. He's attacked by Pennywise, who takes the form of a rotting leper— Eddie's greatest fear. He manages to escape just in time. In his home, Bill's lured down into his basement by Georgie, who of course turns out to be a disguised Pennywise. Suddenly Georgie starts screeching "We all float down here. YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!" Bill escapes just in time. Beverly hears children's voices coming from her bathroom sink. Suddenly several MILLION gallons of blood erupts from the drain, coating her and the entire room. She screams and her father enters, asking what the hell's going on. He's oblivious to the blood, and Beverly realizes adults can't see Pennywise and his antics.
The kids, who now call themselves "The Losers Club," meet in the woods and discuss their visions. They realize they're all being terrorized by the same evil being, which can appear as an evil clown or manifest itself as their worst fears. Suddenly they see Mike Hanlon being chased by Henry Bowers and what's left of his gang. They protect Mike, and drive off Henry and his thugs by pelting them with rocks.
The Losers meet in Bill's garage, where he tells them he thinks Pennywise is using the town's sewers to move around unseen (even though adults can't see him, so why bother?). Suddenly they're attacked by Pennywise when he leaps out of a slide projected on the wall (?). The kids theorize that Pennywise is scaring them because he actually feeds on their fear. Ben, the history buff, realizes that the evil clown appears in Derry and starts eating kids every twenty seven years. Using a map of Derry and Ben's knowledge of the town's history they deduce Pennywise is hiding in a well deep under the haunted house on Neibolt Street.
The Losers enter the Neibolt House, looking for the titular "It." Pennywise appears as various creatures to try and separate the kids so he can pick them off more easily. Eddie falls through a floor, breaking his arm. Pennywise slowly heads for him, but the others arrive and Beverly stabs the evil clown through the head with a fence post. Pennywise leaps down the well in the basement, as the Losers escape just in time. They take Eddie back to his house, where his overprotective mother shrieks and tells them to stay away from her delicate son. Bill wants to finish off Pennywise, but the other kids believe it's too dangerous and refuse to help, causing the group to bicker and ultimately splinter.
Later Beverly's skeevy father tries to rape her but she hits him in the head with a toilet tank lid (possibly killing him?). Pennywise then appears and abducts her, taking her down to the sewers. Beverly tells Pennywise she's not afraid of him, so he opens his mouth impossibly wide, revealing the "deadlights" inside (don't ask). This puts her into a trance.
Bill finds out Beverly's been captured, and reunites the group to mount a rescue. Meanwhile, Pennywise talks the increasingly unhinged Henry into murdering his abusive father, and sends him to kill the Losers.
The kids arrive at the Neibolt House, and use a rope to lower themselves into a tunnel in the side of the bottomless well. Before Mike can enter the well, Henry suddenly appears and attacks him. The two struggle for a bit, and Mike throws Henry down the well, where he falls far below to his death (wink wink). Mike climbs down to the tunnel with the others.
After wandering the tunnels for a bit the kids finally find Pennywise's lair. It's a huge cavern containing a giant column made of his previous victims, some of whom are indeed "floating down here." The boys see Beverly floating near the column, and pull her down to the ground. They try to wake her, but can't rouse her from her clown-induced trance. Ben plants a big kiss on her and she instantly wakes up. That was easy!
Pennywise appears to Bill as Georgie AGAIN, luring him away from the others and capturing him. Pennywise then tells the others he'll let them leave if they give him Bill. The Losers unanimously decide they no longer fear Pennywise and begin beating the crap out of him with boards and pipes. Weakened by the kids' lack of fear, Pennywise is seriously wounded and slithers back down into an even DEEPER well in the sewers. The dead bodies floating around the column float back down to Earth. Bill finds Georgie's yellow rain slicker and realizes his brother is gone forever.
A month later, Beverly tells the Losers she had a vision of them starring in a sequel, fighting Pennywise again twenty seven years in the future. The kids all participate in a blood oath (Whew! Is that all?) and swear to return to Derry to battle Pennywise if he returns. They wander off one by one, with only Bill and Beverly remaining. Bill kisses her and the credits roll.
Thoughts:
• The beginning of the film, in which Georgie sails his paper boat down the street and sees Pennywise poking his head out of the gutter, is a near perfect recreation of the same scene in the TV miniseries. The staging, pacing and dialogue in both versions is almost identical, with just a couple of minor variations.
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Heck, even the camera angles of Georgie talking to the evil clown are virtually the same!I don't know if this was done intentionally as an homage to the miniseries, or if there are only so many ways you can film a kid talking to a clown in a gutter.
• I recently rewatched the 1990 It miniseries in preparation for this review, and was shocked by how terrible it was. It's cheap looking, totally scare-free and consistently bad in almost every conceivable aspect.
The main problem is the fact that it aired on ABC, meaning it had to conform to early 90s network TV standards. This resulted in a dull, sluggish and bland "horror" film which was sanitized for the audience's protection.
The acting was also a mixed bag. The kids weren't too awfully bad, as most of them (including Seth Green and the late Jonathan Brandis) turned in decent and believable performances. But the adults— yikes! They were all horrible! This is likely due to the fact that most of them were well known comedic actors who'd previously starred in various sitcoms. There was John Ritter from Three's Company, Harry Anderson from Night Court, Tim Reid from WKRP In Cincinnati and Richard Masur from One Day At A Time. You could probably count Dennis Christopher too, since Breaking Away was a sort of a humorous coming of age film.
This is one of the miniseries' many missteps, as these sitcom stars were all painfully out of their element and had no earthly idea how to carry a serious horror film.
• One more thing about the TV miniseries before I stop bashing it and get on with the new film. Ever since it aired, people have been praising actor Tim Curry for his spooky portrayal of Pennywise. I don't get this, as frankly I thought he was awful.
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Curry's Pennywise wasn't the least bit scary, as his performance was consistently hamstrung by the censors. All he did was materialize before every commercial break, point at the camera and spout terrible one liners. Sadly he came off as downright goofy rather than scary.
Actually TV Pennywise reminded me of bit of late stage Freddy Krueger. When Freddie first appeared in A Nightmare On Elm Street, he was legitimately terrifying. By the time A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors rolled around, all attempts at being scary had been forgotten, as he constantly spewed groan-worthy puns ala the Crypt Keeper.
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As an example of TV Pennywise's lameness: at one point Bill has a vision of seven freshly-dug graves, one for each member of the Losers. Pennywise pops up and points (of course) at one of the graves, telling Bill, "There's room for one more!"Oooooh, scary!
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TV Pennywise also turned into a goddamned Rottweiler at one point and killed a psych ward guard. I'm assuming this was supposed to be frightening, but unfortunately it came off as unintentionally hilarious.
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The closest TV Pennywise ever came to being even mildly spooky was when he'd occasionally wear a pair of pointy fake teeth he bought at Party City.
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• Thankfully the new It gives us a Pennywise that's much more frightening. This new version looks creepy, unsettling and disturbing. The old Pennywise wore a bright, clean suit that looked like it just came from the cleaners. Movie Pennywise has a costume that's dirty, mildewed and moldy. He looks... unwholesome, for lack of a better word, which in this case is a good thing.
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This is also a much more physical Pennywise, one that actually lunges toward the Losers instead of just pointing at them. Of course he never actually catches any of them, since they all need to survive the movie to become adults, but still...
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• In several scenes, the filmmakers use a "stabilization effect" on Pennywise, meaning the background moves around while his face stays rock-still in the center of the screen. I can't quite pinpoint why, but it's a disturbing and unsettling effect that makes the audience uneasy. Kudos to whoever came up with this idea.
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• In many of his scenes, Pennywise's left eye is gazing in a subtly different direction from his right one. No CGI or special contact lenses were used for this disquieting effect, as one of actor Bill Skarsgard's many talents is the ability to look in two directions at once.
• When New Line first announced that actor Bill Skarsgard was cast as the new Pennywise, the internet of course sprang into action, instantly denouncing the choice. Luckily Skarsgard did an amazing job, giving us a truly memorable new version of the evil clown.
Supposedly Tilda Swinton and Richard Armitage (aka Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit films) were in the running to play Pennywise. Thank the movie gods neither of those terrible casting choices happened.
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Ben runs into Bill and the others, who take him back into town to deal with his wounds. They go to the pharmacy, where they meet Beverly. She helps them steal first aid supplies and tends to Ben's injury, becoming friends with the boys in the process.
On his way home, Eddie passes a comically spooky-looking haunted house on Neibolt Street. He's attacked by Pennywise, who takes the form of a rotting leper— Eddie's greatest fear. He manages to escape just in time. In his home, Bill's lured down into his basement by Georgie, who of course turns out to be a disguised Pennywise. Suddenly Georgie starts screeching "We all float down here. YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!" Bill escapes just in time. Beverly hears children's voices coming from her bathroom sink. Suddenly several MILLION gallons of blood erupts from the drain, coating her and the entire room. She screams and her father enters, asking what the hell's going on. He's oblivious to the blood, and Beverly realizes adults can't see Pennywise and his antics.
The kids, who now call themselves "The Losers Club," meet in the woods and discuss their visions. They realize they're all being terrorized by the same evil being, which can appear as an evil clown or manifest itself as their worst fears. Suddenly they see Mike Hanlon being chased by Henry Bowers and what's left of his gang. They protect Mike, and drive off Henry and his thugs by pelting them with rocks.
The Losers meet in Bill's garage, where he tells them he thinks Pennywise is using the town's sewers to move around unseen (even though adults can't see him, so why bother?). Suddenly they're attacked by Pennywise when he leaps out of a slide projected on the wall (?). The kids theorize that Pennywise is scaring them because he actually feeds on their fear. Ben, the history buff, realizes that the evil clown appears in Derry and starts eating kids every twenty seven years. Using a map of Derry and Ben's knowledge of the town's history they deduce Pennywise is hiding in a well deep under the haunted house on Neibolt Street.
The Losers enter the Neibolt House, looking for the titular "It." Pennywise appears as various creatures to try and separate the kids so he can pick them off more easily. Eddie falls through a floor, breaking his arm. Pennywise slowly heads for him, but the others arrive and Beverly stabs the evil clown through the head with a fence post. Pennywise leaps down the well in the basement, as the Losers escape just in time. They take Eddie back to his house, where his overprotective mother shrieks and tells them to stay away from her delicate son. Bill wants to finish off Pennywise, but the other kids believe it's too dangerous and refuse to help, causing the group to bicker and ultimately splinter.
Later Beverly's skeevy father tries to rape her but she hits him in the head with a toilet tank lid (possibly killing him?). Pennywise then appears and abducts her, taking her down to the sewers. Beverly tells Pennywise she's not afraid of him, so he opens his mouth impossibly wide, revealing the "deadlights" inside (don't ask). This puts her into a trance.
Bill finds out Beverly's been captured, and reunites the group to mount a rescue. Meanwhile, Pennywise talks the increasingly unhinged Henry into murdering his abusive father, and sends him to kill the Losers.
The kids arrive at the Neibolt House, and use a rope to lower themselves into a tunnel in the side of the bottomless well. Before Mike can enter the well, Henry suddenly appears and attacks him. The two struggle for a bit, and Mike throws Henry down the well, where he falls far below to his death (wink wink). Mike climbs down to the tunnel with the others.
After wandering the tunnels for a bit the kids finally find Pennywise's lair. It's a huge cavern containing a giant column made of his previous victims, some of whom are indeed "floating down here." The boys see Beverly floating near the column, and pull her down to the ground. They try to wake her, but can't rouse her from her clown-induced trance. Ben plants a big kiss on her and she instantly wakes up. That was easy!
Pennywise appears to Bill as Georgie AGAIN, luring him away from the others and capturing him. Pennywise then tells the others he'll let them leave if they give him Bill. The Losers unanimously decide they no longer fear Pennywise and begin beating the crap out of him with boards and pipes. Weakened by the kids' lack of fear, Pennywise is seriously wounded and slithers back down into an even DEEPER well in the sewers. The dead bodies floating around the column float back down to Earth. Bill finds Georgie's yellow rain slicker and realizes his brother is gone forever.
A month later, Beverly tells the Losers she had a vision of them starring in a sequel, fighting Pennywise again twenty seven years in the future. The kids all participate in a blood oath (Whew! Is that all?) and swear to return to Derry to battle Pennywise if he returns. They wander off one by one, with only Bill and Beverly remaining. Bill kisses her and the credits roll.
Thoughts:
• The beginning of the film, in which Georgie sails his paper boat down the street and sees Pennywise poking his head out of the gutter, is a near perfect recreation of the same scene in the TV miniseries. The staging, pacing and dialogue in both versions is almost identical, with just a couple of minor variations.
• I recently rewatched the 1990 It miniseries in preparation for this review, and was shocked by how terrible it was. It's cheap looking, totally scare-free and consistently bad in almost every conceivable aspect.
The main problem is the fact that it aired on ABC, meaning it had to conform to early 90s network TV standards. This resulted in a dull, sluggish and bland "horror" film which was sanitized for the audience's protection.
The acting was also a mixed bag. The kids weren't too awfully bad, as most of them (including Seth Green and the late Jonathan Brandis) turned in decent and believable performances. But the adults— yikes! They were all horrible! This is likely due to the fact that most of them were well known comedic actors who'd previously starred in various sitcoms. There was John Ritter from Three's Company, Harry Anderson from Night Court, Tim Reid from WKRP In Cincinnati and Richard Masur from One Day At A Time. You could probably count Dennis Christopher too, since Breaking Away was a sort of a humorous coming of age film.
This is one of the miniseries' many missteps, as these sitcom stars were all painfully out of their element and had no earthly idea how to carry a serious horror film.
• One more thing about the TV miniseries before I stop bashing it and get on with the new film. Ever since it aired, people have been praising actor Tim Curry for his spooky portrayal of Pennywise. I don't get this, as frankly I thought he was awful.
Actually TV Pennywise reminded me of bit of late stage Freddy Krueger. When Freddie first appeared in A Nightmare On Elm Street, he was legitimately terrifying. By the time A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors rolled around, all attempts at being scary had been forgotten, as he constantly spewed groan-worthy puns ala the Crypt Keeper.
• When New Line first announced that actor Bill Skarsgard was cast as the new Pennywise, the internet of course sprang into action, instantly denouncing the choice. Luckily Skarsgard did an amazing job, giving us a truly memorable new version of the evil clown.
Supposedly Tilda Swinton and Richard Armitage (aka Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit films) were in the running to play Pennywise. Thank the movie gods neither of those terrible casting choices happened.
• Oddly enough, the Duffer Brothers desperately wanted to direct It, but were rejected by New Line because they were relative unknowns (and Andy Muschietti wasn't?). Fortunately for us, the Duffers went on to write and direct 2016's TV miniseries Stranger Things, which is a love letter to 1980s horror and scifi movies, and contains many a reference and homage to the works of Stephen King.
In fact, even though It was written in 1986, I have no doubt that some audiences will watch the new film and whine, "Hey, this is just a big ripoff of Stranger Things!"
Adding to the confusion is the fact that child actor Finn Wolfhard (which may be one of the greatest names of all time) played Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things, and also plays Richie Tozier in It. To cloud things even further, Stranger Things takes place firmly in the 1980s. For some inexplicable reason, Andy Muschietti needlessly moved the setting of It from the 1950s to the 1980s as well.
• In the TV movie, Mike Hanlon is the one who's obsessed with Derry's history and is constantly reading about it. For some reason the movie makes the boneheaded decision to graft this trait onto Ben. This leaves Mike with literally nothing to do during the film, other than stand around motionless in the background. He barely even has any lines! I honestly can't think of any good reason for this change, and I'm sure it's just gonna end up pissing off a lot of people.
• In the TV movie, Mike Hanlon is the one who's obsessed with Derry's history and is constantly reading about it. For some reason the movie makes the boneheaded decision to graft this trait onto Ben. This leaves Mike with literally nothing to do during the film, other than stand around motionless in the background. He barely even has any lines! I honestly can't think of any good reason for this change, and I'm sure it's just gonna end up pissing off a lot of people.
• For some reason, the number 27 figures prominently in It, both on and off the screen. In the book, Pennywise returns to Derry every twenty seven years to feed on the town's kids. Jonathan Brandis, who played Bill in the TV miniseries, died at age at the much too young age of twenty seven. The new film was released exactly twenty seven years after the miniseries. And the new It was released one month after Bill Skarsgard's twenty seventh birthday. Ooooh, spooky!
• Although I enjoyed It as a whole, I have to admit it got a bit repetitious after a while. Pennywise menaces all seven members of the Losers club individually, and the film insists on showing us every single one of these incidents.
Each encounter plays out exactly the same— one of the kids finds themselves alone, they see a vision of Pennywise, he lunges at them and they escape in the nick of time. Lather, rinse, repeat.
These scenes become tedious after a while because we know that no matter what Pennywise does, he can't actually kill any of the Losers, since they all have to survive to become adults and appear in Part 2. Note thatfor some reason, Pennywise doesn't seem to have any trouble killing off any of the film's minor characters.
• At one point Beverly's alone in her house, and hears the eerie whispers of Pennywise's victims issuing from her bathroom sink. As she leans down to hear what they'r saying, a geyser of blood unexpectedly spurts from the drain, splattering her in the face.
In the TV miniseries, it looks like maybe a gallon of blood sprays out of the drain, which seems like a reasonable amount. In the new film, several thousand gallons pour from it, covering Beverly's entire body and coating every square inch of her bathroom! It's such an over-the-top amount of blood that it becomes unintentionally hilarious rather than scary.
To make things worse, the other Losers come by Beverly's house, see the bloody bathroom, and offer to help clean it up. Jesus Christ! How the hell did they accomplish that? It would take ten days and several truckloads of cleaning supplies to mop up a mess that size! Yet they somehow do it in just a few hours, before Bev's abusive asshole of a dad comes home from work.
This is likely a book & miniseries reference. See, Pennywise feeds on his victims' fears, so to that end he often appears as the thing that scares them most. In the book and the miniseries, Richie's terrified of werewolves after seeing one in a horror movie. Pennywise senses this and transforms into the main character from I Was A Teenage Werewolf in order to scare Richie.
• The film's set in the summer of 1989, and occasionally we see the Losers ride their bikes past the local Derry movie theater. Over the months the movies advertised on the marquee are Batman (in June), Lethal Weapon 2 (in July) and A Nightmare On Elm Street 5 (in August).
In case you're wondering, all three films really did come out in 1989, and in the months indicated! Well done, guys!
• So what happened to Beverly's dad? At one point he tries to molest her, and she clocks him but good by breaking the lid from the toilet tank over his head. He goes down like a load of bricks, and we see an alarming amount of blood pour out of his head and onto the tile floor.
And that's the last we ever see or hear of him! Did she really just kill her dad? Based on the aftermath, I can't see any way that she didn't. If she did do him in, she doesn't seem very choked up about it for the rest of the film. Sure, he was a physically abusive asshole, but does that really justify his murder?
If her dad really is dead, what happens next to Bev? Will she live in her home by herself? What about the authorities? We're told that Pennywise used his powers to make the adults of Derry apathetic, so he could go about killing off kids without any pesky legal entanglements. But would they really look the other way in a murder case?
And what does this say about Beverly's character? She's ostensibly one of the heroes of the piece, but she just killed her dad in cold blood. Is the audience just supposed to ignore that? Apparently Bill's OK with it, as the movie ends with he and Bev smooching.
These glowing balls are called "deadlights." They're part of the novel, and were very briefly mentioned in the miniseries. It's not really clear just what the deadlights are, as sometimes Pennywise says they're where he's from (?) and other times he states they're his true form. Supposedly anyone who sees the deadlights instantly goes crazy. So... why doesn't this happen to Beverly? Other than because she's a main character who can't be harmed yet?
• There's a lot of bizarre cosmic hooey in the novel, because Stephen King was hopped up on booze and cocaine back in the 1980s when he wrote It. Now before you say, "Bob, how dare you spread gossip like that," King himself fully admits it. In fact he's stated in interviews that he doesn't remember writing a single word of his novel 1981 novel Cujo (which I have no trouble believing). Fortunately he's managed to clean himself up in recent years.
I'm not gonna go into the weirdo space stuff in much detail, because it comes out of left field, it completely clashes with the relatively grounded tone of the rest of the novel and it's just plain stupid. Basically, Bill psychically travels to the Macroverse, which is some sort of parallel dimension (cocaine). There he meets an ancient super-intelligent turtle named Maturin, who apparently created the entire universe (more cocaine). Maturin tells Bill that Pennywise is some sort of formless evil entity, and gives him tips on how to defeat It (mountains of coke).
The movie wisely decides to jettison all that claptrap, although it's possible it may crop up in the inevitable sequel.
There are actually a couple of references to Maturin in the movie. When the Losers are all splashing around in their swimming hole, one of them says he spotted a turtle underwater. Later on Bill enters Georgie's room and picks up a turtle built out of Lego (!).
• And now we come to the part of the review I know you've all been waiting for— a discussion about the most controversial and downright perverted chapter of the entire It novel. Yep, I'm gonna talk about the infamous Tween Gangbang Scene.
In the novel, the Losers hunt down Pennywise in the sewers below Derry and amazingly manage to defeat him (or at least send him packing for a while). Afterwards they find they can't remember how to get out of the maze-like sewer tunnels, and are hopelessly lost.
The kids start to panic, but never fear— Beverly comes to the rescue! Amazingly, she tells the guys that the only way to restore their memories and find their way out of the tunnels is for her to have sex with each and every one of them (!). King then gives us an entire chapter detailing Beverly's blow-by-blow (so to speak!) description of their coupling. She even describes what each of their penises feel like, noting that Ben's is the biggest (!!!).
Yep, you read all that correctly. Stephen King actually wrote a goddamned gang bang scene involving eleven year olds.
Jesus Jetskiing Christ! I know King was coked out of his mind when he wrote the scene, but what about his publishing company? Were there no editors working there? Was he so successful and powerful at that point that no one had the guts to stand up and say, "Stephen baby, we love the new book, but could you maybe tone down the kid-on-kid molesting a bit?"
King's desperately attempted to justify this scene many times over the years, with predictably cringe-worthy results. In an interview, King said:
I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood— 1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. None of us remember what we did as children— we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.Nice try, Steve. You still wrote a scene about eleven years olds f*cking.
I've also seen fans of the book desperately bend over backwards as they try to defend the scene, saying it was a metaphorical "sacrificing of a virgin," which was the only way to defeat Pennywise. Again, good effort, guys, but I ain't buying it. It's still sick and demented.
Fortunately for everyone concerned, both the TV miniseries and this new film completely jettison this seamy subplot, and rightly so. In the film, the Losers find their way out of the sewer with no trouble, then slice open their hands and swear a blood oath to return to Derry if Pennywise ever comes back. Phew!
It is one of the better Stephen King adaptations I've seen in a long time, and actually contains a few genuine scares. It's not perfect, but it gets more right than wrong, and is light years better than the woeful TV miniseries, giving us a legitimately terrifying Pennywise. Amazingly it's rated R, which is a rarity in these days of watered down PG-13 "horror" films. I give it a good solid B.
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The Orville Season 1, Episode 3: About A Girl
A couple weeks ago I posted a lengthy rant about Seth MacFarlane's new series scifi series
Well, we're now three episodes in, and I still haven't decided if I actually like the show or not. I have to admit it's starting to grow on me though. Much like a hard-to-cure foot fungus. So against all logic and reason, I've changed my mind and here I am reviewing the goddamned Orville.
I'm starting with this week's episode, which I know is a bit odd. I'll backtrack and review the first two in a bit.
As you can probably tell, I still have a weird love/hate relationship with this show. I was a huge fan of ST:TNG back in the day, so I'm both attracted and repelled by how much MacFarlane's cribbed from that series. Seriously, it's downright shocking. Last year CBS, who owns the Star Trek brand, got all pissy and unilaterally outlawed the making of fan films— even the non-profit ones! So how the hell is MacFarlane getting away with making what amounts to a professional fan film like this? I honestly don't get it.
The Orville is also quite the schizophrenic little series, as it can't quite figure out what it wants to be. It's too silly to be taken seriously, but it contains too much drama to be considered a comedy. It's desperately trying to tread in both camps, but so far hasn't found the proper balance. Hopefully they'll figure it out soon and settle on a more consistent tone.
This week's episode was written by creator and actor Seth MacFarlane and directed by Brannon Braga. Trekkies will certainly recognize Braga's name, as he was a writer on all the modern Star Trek series. He's also responsible for writing the Voyager episode Threshold (the one where Captain Janeway and Tom Paris turn into giant salamanders), which is widely considered to be the worst hour of ANY version of any Trek series.
MacFarlane attempts to create an old school Star Trek "morality play" episode here— the kind that uses an alien culture to comment on a hot-button issue that's plaguing our own society. Like featuring aliens who are black on one side and white on the other, to show us that racism is bad. In this particular instance it's gender identity.
MacFarlane's script does a decent job at first, presenting rational arguments on both sides of the issue, which actually gives the viewer something to think about. Unfortunately he loses his focus in the third act, as the story devolves into a "women can do anything and men are stupid" girl power rant, which is not the same issue at all.
Even though it didn't exactly work, I'll give MacFarlane credit for trying to say something relevant. It was a bold move, especially in our current society where the country's viscously divided over which goddamned bathroom certain people can use.
Despite the fact that The Orville's first two episodes aired on Sunday night, apparently the show's moving to Thursdays. Unfortunately this move caused the series to take a huge ratings hit, pretty much halving the audience. I have a feeling that's because most people didn't realize it moved. I only found out when I just happened to see a mention of it online. Hopefully people will figure it out, find the show again and the ratings will pick back up.
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
Bortus and Klyden, members of the all-male Moclan race, are stunned when their child is born female. Since this is seen as a horrible birth defect and a socially embarrassing abnormality on their world, they intend to have their daughter surgically corrected to become a male.
Bortus asks Dr. Finn to perform the procedure, but she refuses, smugly claiming it would be unethical. Bortus then goes to Captain Mercer, and asks him to order Dr. Finn to comply. Mercer also refuses, saying it's wrong to subject a child to a life-altering procedure without her consent. Bortus correctly points out that it's wrong for Mercer to judge another culture by human standards, but the Captain's adamant.
Later Mercer's contacted by the Moclan government, who announce they're sending a ship to rendezvous with The Orville to pick up Bortus' child and take it to Moclas for alteration. Mercer's livid with Bortus for going over his head and calling for a ship. Kelly goes so far as to say Bortus' actions could jeopardize Moclas' place in the Planetary Union, which seems a little over the top. Mercer relieves Bortus of command, and he and Kelly discuss the morality of the situation.
Mercer gets a half-baked idea— he gets Alara to challenge Bortus to a boxing match. As a Xelayan, Alara has super-strength, and Mercer hopes this will make Bortus see that females can do anything. Or something like that. Bortus sees through this lame plan and quite rightly demands the crew stop sticking their noses in his business.
Gordon and John take a shot at convincing Bortus by watching Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer with him (?). Amazingly, the whimsical animated Xmas tale opens Bortus' eyes, and he actually changes his mind about altering his daughter (!).
Bortus tells Klyden that they should leave their child alone. Klyden disagrees and refuses to go along with it. When Bortus asks why, Klyden sheepishly admits he was born a female and was physically realigned.
Bortus is furious with Klyden for not telling him about this until now. Klyden says he's glad he was altered, as otherwise he'd have been an outcast in their society and would have lived a life of shame and ridicule. Bortus says Klyden doesn't know that, and he might have achieved great things as a woman, just as Rudolph did with his glowing nose.
The Moclan ship arrives, and its Captain demands Bortus hand over the child to him. Mercer refuses to let the baby leave the ship, saying it's under his protection. The Moclan Captain threatens Mercer, until Bortus finally calls for the matter to be settled by Tribunal. The Moclan Captain claims it's pointless, as the Tribunal will undoubtedly side with him. Bortus asks Kelly, who he sees as a neutral party, to be his advocate (aka lawyer). She reluctantly agrees.
The Orville and the Moclan ship arrive at
At the Tribunal, the Prosecutor states his case, claiming that if Bortus doesn't allow his child to be altered, he'll rob it of the chance to have a normal social life and meet a mate.
Kelly tries a different tactic, as she attempts to prove that females are better than males (which isn't even close to the same argument but whatever). She has Alara demonstrate her great strength, which is far higher than that of any Moclan male. She also proves that Gordon, a male, is far stupider than any women. The Prosecutor rightly points out that these examples have nothing to do with Moclans.
As the Tribunal winds down, Mercer gets an idea. He calls Isaac on The Orville, and has him scan the planet for female life signs. Amazingly, Isaac senses one high in the mountains. Mercer, John and Alara fly a shuttle into the mountains, where they find an elderly Moclan female living alone in a cabin.
Meanwhile the Prosecutor demands that Kelly stop stalling, and convinces the Judge to end the Tribunal. Right on cue, Mercer returns with the Moclan female. The Tribunal is stunned by the very sight of such a creature. She tells her life story, revealing that her parents chose not to have her altered, and moved high in the mountains with her. There they taught her and raised her until they both died.
The Prosecutor isn't convinced, claiming she's worthless because she's never contributed anything to society. She then begins quoting the works of Gondus Elden, Moclas' most revered writer. The Prosecutor demands she stop sullying the name of Elden, until she reveals she's actually him, having written under a pen name her entire life.
The Tribunal is gobsmacked that a female could produce such works, but end up ruling in favor of altering the baby anyway. Bortus is crushed.
Later a Moclan doctor returns the baby, now a male, to Bortus and Klyden. Bortus vows to give his child a good life and love him, whatever he decides to become. They name their son Topa, and Bortus places a stuffed Rudolph toy in his crib.
Meanwhile the Prosecutor demands that Kelly stop stalling, and convinces the Judge to end the Tribunal. Right on cue, Mercer returns with the Moclan female. The Tribunal is stunned by the very sight of such a creature. She tells her life story, revealing that her parents chose not to have her altered, and moved high in the mountains with her. There they taught her and raised her until they both died.
The Prosecutor isn't convinced, claiming she's worthless because she's never contributed anything to society. She then begins quoting the works of Gondus Elden, Moclas' most revered writer. The Prosecutor demands she stop sullying the name of Elden, until she reveals she's actually him, having written under a pen name her entire life.
The Tribunal is gobsmacked that a female could produce such works, but end up ruling in favor of altering the baby anyway. Bortus is crushed.
Later a Moclan doctor returns the baby, now a male, to Bortus and Klyden. Bortus vows to give his child a good life and love him, whatever he decides to become. They name their son Topa, and Bortus places a stuffed Rudolph toy in his crib.
Thoughts:
• While watching this episode I glanced at the time code, and noticed it was less than forty three minutes long— and that's including beginning and end credits! Jesus Christ! That means there's about forty minutes of actual content, and TWENTY minutes of commercials! How long before it's half and half?
• Moclan biology doesn't seem very well thought out. In the pilot episode we're told that ALL Moclans are male, which raised the question of just how they reproduce. Last week we got an answer, as Bortus was apparently impregnated (!) and laid an egg (!!).
So... are ALL Moclans capable of doing that? They'd pretty much have to be, because if only half of them can reproduce, then wouldn't they technically be considered... female? And if all Moclans CAN reproduce, how does a couple decide which one's going to be the mom?
Apparently none of this is any of our business, as it's never fully explained.
• This is the second week in a row now that Doctor Finn refused to help a member of the crew. Last week when Alara was left in charge of the ship and asked for advice, the Doctor told her to figure it out for herself. This week Bortus asks her to alter his daughter and of course she balks. Does she actually do anything on the ship?
• I'm assuming they used CGI makeup on Bortus' kid, and didn't actually glue rubber prosthetics to a newborn baby's head.
• Bortus tells Ed that all Moclans are male, but once every seventy five years or so a female "anomaly" is born. Later in the episode Klytus reveals he was actually born a female and was surgically altered to become male.
That means one of two things: Either Bortus is wrong about the frequency of female Moclan births, or Klytus is over seventy five years old!
• Although this series shamelessly lifts virtually everything from ST:TNG, it fails to copy one huge component of that series— it's humans are nowhere near as evolved. Mercer seems to have a healthy disrespect and even outright contempt for Moclan social mores. This Mercer come off as a smug asshole rather than an enlightened leader. Who the hell made humans the moral guardians of the galaxy? What happened to celebrating our differences and honoring alien cultures?
• Despite the fact that The Orville's human crew spends the entire episode judging Bortus and Klyden for their treatment of their child, no one ever bats an eye over the fact that two Moclan dudes are living together and having sex. In fact it's never mentioned even once, and is completely accepted by everyone. So kudos for that, I guess.
• Does The Orville have any kind of schedule or regular assignment? Can Mercer really just zoom off to Moclas (or wherever) whenever he feels like it?
• The Rudolph Xmas special is currently owned by Universal. I wonder how much Fox had to pay them to use clips of it in this episode?
By the way, the scenes that Bortus, Gordon and John watch are heavily edited, as large chunks fly by while the crew's talking.
This is a HUGE design flaw, as there don't appear to be transporters in this world, so The Orville is constantly launching shuttles every day! No wonder Gordon has to be "the best pilot in the galaxy!" One slip-up during a launch and he'll destroy the whole ship.
• There's some blatant plot trickery during the Tribunal scene when Mercer contacts Isaac on The Orville. He says, "I want you to run a planetary scan on the following search parameters," but then types in the rest of the message.
Why the hell'd he do that? Why type in "scan for female life signs" instead of just saying it to Isaac? Answer: Because if he did, then it wouldn't have been a "shocking" reveal to the audience when they discovered there was a Moclan female secretly living in the mountains.
This is an old, old plot trick used by thousands of TV shows and movies over the years, as a way to keep the audience in the dark until the writer's ready to reveal their twist.
• Early in the episode, Mercer speaks into a small communicator built into the sleeve of his uniform to acknowledge a hail. Later on Moclas, he pulls out a full-fledged Star Trek communicator to call the ship. Why have two different devices?
I'm betting the handheld communicator was needed as part of the "Scan For Females" plot trick, because it had a keypad on it and the sleeve model didn't.
I suppose we could be generous and say the handheld communicator has a longer range than the sleeve model. I suppose we could say that, but I don't see why we should.
• When Mercer and the others are searching the mountains for the female Moclan recluse, John says it's hard to get a fix on her because there's a lot of "thermal interference coming from beneath the surface," which is interfering with their detectors.
So their scanners can't work because the ground's too hot? Ummm....
• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:
Kelly tells the Moclan Captain that he can entertain himself by playing board games such as Scrabble, Candy Land or Monopoly.
As mentioned earlier, Bortus, Gordon and John watch the Rankin-Bass Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Xmas Special, which first aired in 1964.
When Bortus quotes the most famous writer on Moclas to Kelly, he says its customary to respond with a quote from your own planet's greatest mind. Kelly replies with lyrics from the Destiny's Child song Survivor. Yeah, that song's not gonna be around in 2418. Hell, it's only 2017 and I had to look it up!
I have a theory about this. Over on ST:TNG, the crew lived in the 24th Century but they were constantly reading Shakespeare while listening to classical music. I wonder... is it possible that all the modern pop culture references on The Orville are a very subtle jab at that trope? It that the joke, that the crew of The Orville listens to Beyonce instead of Mozart? If that's really the case, it's actually kind of clever. Is Seth MacFarlane really capable of coming up with such an understated joke?
• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:
This entire episode borrows HUGE swathes of its plot from the ST:TNG episode The Outcast. In that story, the Enterprise-D encounters the J'naii, a race of genderless beings. Commander Riker works closely with a J'naii named Soren, helping repair one of their ships.
Soren tells Riker about its race, saying that although they're androgynous, every now and then a J'naii is born who identifies as male or female. Soren confesses to Riker that she thinks of herself as female, and of course he immediately falls in love with her.
The J'naii government finds out about Soren's "perversion" and orders her to undergo mandatory conversion therapy to eliminate all traces of her female urges. Riker protests, and the rest of the episode is a big morality play about gender identity and choice. In the end, Soren's forced to undergo the therapy, becomes androgynous again and Riker loses her.
Sound familiar? Like I said before, I still don't understand how MacFarlane's getting away with this.
In addition to aforementioned The Outcast, this episode borrows bits and pieces from several other ST:TNG episodes as well.
In Sins Of The Father, Worf challenged the Klingon High Council in an effort to clear his family name. He went outside his race and chose Captain Picard to stand by him as his cha'Dich, which was sort of the Klingon version of a legal advocate. Much the way Bortus chose Kelly to defend him in the Tribunal in this episode.
Also in Sins Of The Father, Picard hunts down an ancient Klingon woman named Kahlest, who has evidence that can restore Worf's honor. Picard brings her into the High Council as a surprise witness, pretty much exactly like Mercer does with the Moclan female here.
In Devil's Due, Captain Picard was also drafted into defending a planet against their version of Satan. And in The Measure Of A Man, Commander Riker was forced to try and prove that Data was a machine, and not a sentient being.
Lastly, in A Fistful Of Datas, Worf's son Alexander talks him into going on a Wild West holodeck adventure, giving the cast a chance to play cowboy. And in this episode, Mercer, Gordon and John go on a Wild West holodeck adventure, giving the cast a chance to play cowboy.
How is any of this legal?
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Happy Thirtieth (!) Anniversary To Star Trek: The Next Generation!
Believe it or not, it was exactly thirty years ago today that Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered. It first aired back on September 28, 1987. That was THIRTY YEARS AGO! What the hell's going on with the flow of time lately?
ST:TNG was the highest rated syndicated show ever, averaging around 20 million viewers per episode. That was more than some prime time series generated at the time, and far more than any series could ever hope to achieve today (to be fair, some stations aired the show twice a week, which naturally doubled the ratings). It racked up a whopping 18 Emmys. It was also the only syndicated program to ever be nominated for an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. Not bad for a show about people exploring outer space in their pajamas.
I was a huge fan of the series back in the day (by that of course I mean I was an avid enthusiast of the show, not that I myself was huge). After all, this was the first brand new live action Star Trek content to be aired in almost two decades! I dutifully recorded it every week on my trusty VCR (ask your parents, kids) and spent many a paycheck on Trek related merchandise.
The series featured a great cast (especially Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner), top notch writing and for the most part, slick state of the art special effects.
The series featured a great cast (especially Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner), top notch writing and for the most part, slick state of the art special effects.
ST:TNG gave us many new and memorable alien races: the greedy, capitalistic Ferengi, the Nazi-like Kardashians, er, I mean Cardassians and best of all, the relentless, unstoppable Borg.
It also took the Klingons, who were pretty much one-dimensional villains in the Original Series and greatly expanded their culture, making them one of the more interesting races on the show.
They even managed to feature a few guest appearances from Original Series characters, specifically McCoy, Spock, Sarek and Scotty.
Like the Original Series, ST:TNG used sci-fi to examine various controversial topics such as racism, terrorism, assisted suicide, child abuse, homosexuality and torture.
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Despite all the accolades and my love for the show, even I have to admit that it wasn't perfect. Many of the First Season episodes are absolutely dreadful and are a chore to sit through. The Second Season was better, but was marred and cut short by a lengthy writer's strike. In fact the final episode of Season Two strayed firmly into Family Ties territory as it gave us the first ever clip show in the history of Trek! The series finally hit its stride in Season 3 and from then on gave us a shuttlecraft full of memorable episodes.
It also took the Klingons, who were pretty much one-dimensional villains in the Original Series and greatly expanded their culture, making them one of the more interesting races on the show.
They even managed to feature a few guest appearances from Original Series characters, specifically McCoy, Spock, Sarek and Scotty.
Like the Original Series, ST:TNG used sci-fi to examine various controversial topics such as racism, terrorism, assisted suicide, child abuse, homosexuality and torture.
Part of me has to wonder: If it had been a network show, would they have given the series two full seasons to get its bearings? I'm thinking probably not.
ST:TNG also suffered from a large number of just plain dull characters. Counselor Troi? Dr. Crusher? I'm dozing just typing their names. For seven seasons all Counselor Troi ever did was sit in a chair with her arms crossed and say, "I sense great anger..." Her only memorable characteristic was that she liked chocolate. How fascinating. And other than her wildly inappropriate name I don't think we ever learned anything at all about Dr. Crusher.
Even Geordi LaForge was pretty bland when you think about it. The only interesting thing about his character was that he was blind and wore a cool vision-enhancing VISOR.
The original Star Trek had some very vibrant and distinct characters, particularly Kirl, Spock and McCoy. There extreme personalities often made for some dynamic interactions. ST:TNG's three most interesting characters— Picard, Data and Worf— paled greatly in comparison.
A good part of the blame for the dull characters has to lie with series creator Gene Roddenberry. "The Great Bird Of The Galaxy" had the lofty notion that by the 24th Century, humanity will have advanced to the point where everyone will get along. That's a very nice sentiment, but... it ain't ever gonna happen. If humans haven't learned to live together in the past 5,000 years, there's no reason to think it'll happen in the next 300.
Nevertheless, Roddenberry was adamant that there be no conflict between crew members on the Enterprise. Apparently he never took any creative writing courses through the mail like I did or he'd have known that conflict is the basis of all drama. Without it, all you've got is a bunch of people sitting around holding hands, smiling and singing Kumbaya. Pleasant enough I suppose, but it sure makes for dull TV.
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That wasn't the only peculiar idea he had for the show. For some reason he didn't want any of the alien races from the Original Series to appear on ST:TNG. That meant no Vulcans, Klingons or Romulans; fan-favorites the audience would be expecting to see. Luckily he was overruled on that one, else Lt. Worf would never have been a part of the crew.
He also toyed with the idea of not having a ship in the new series at all. He thought that by the 24th Century technology would have advanced to the point in which the crew would use some sort of "super transporter" to just teleport anywhere in the galaxy. He was outvoted on that one as well (no doubt by studio lawyers who'd happened to see the movie Stargate).
Some of his ideas were just downright... kinky. He supposedly wanted the males of the newly created Ferengi race to be incredibly well-endowed, sporting enormous schlongs up to two feet long (!), and covered by gigantic codpieces. Fortunately one of the producers took him aside and pointed out that the series was airing on regular TV, not HBO or Cinemax.
The series also relied much too heavily on the ship breaking down every week in order to create tension. In practically every episode the B-plot involved some piece of the Enterprise-D's technology malfunctioning and putting the crew in danger. Sure, Kirk's ship broke down now and then, but Picard's was worse than an old used car. It became a crutch for the writers whenever they couldn't think of any other way to fill the time slot.
He also toyed with the idea of not having a ship in the new series at all. He thought that by the 24th Century technology would have advanced to the point in which the crew would use some sort of "super transporter" to just teleport anywhere in the galaxy. He was outvoted on that one as well (no doubt by studio lawyers who'd happened to see the movie Stargate).
Some of his ideas were just downright... kinky. He supposedly wanted the males of the newly created Ferengi race to be incredibly well-endowed, sporting enormous schlongs up to two feet long (!), and covered by gigantic codpieces. Fortunately one of the producers took him aside and pointed out that the series was airing on regular TV, not HBO or Cinemax.
The series also relied much too heavily on the ship breaking down every week in order to create tension. In practically every episode the B-plot involved some piece of the Enterprise-D's technology malfunctioning and putting the crew in danger. Sure, Kirk's ship broke down now and then, but Picard's was worse than an old used car. It became a crutch for the writers whenever they couldn't think of any other way to fill the time slot.
ST:TNG provided me with many memorable and sometimes shocking moments over the years. Remember that the series aired before the internet cropped up, in an era in which you didn't have to work at avoiding spoilers. Back then the only way to find out what was going to happen was to just sit down and watch the show.
The third season finale— in which Captain Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg and Commander Riker gives the order to fire on him as the screen faded to black— absolutely floored me. I was not expecting that and had no idea such a shocking denouement was coming. I spent a long and anxious summer waiting for the follow-up to air in the fall.
As much as I loved the show, watching it (or rather trying to watch it) was a grueling chore, due to my local TV station. It was just plain hard work to even find the show where I lived. In my hometown ST:TNG was usually relegated to the wee hours of Sunday morning, in time slots normally occupied by Aerosol Toupee and Psychic Hotline infomercials.
One week it might be on Saturday night at 11 pm, the next at 1:30 am Sunday morning. Sometimes it would even pop up in the afternoon! You just never knew when it might air. I used to record the show every week but I couldn't just set the timer on the VCR and forget it, because there was no guarantee as to when it might start. Many's the night I would stay up until 1 or even 2 am waiting for the show to begin so I could hit the record button (and then I'd have to go to work at 6 am the next day!).
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Sometimes I wonder if the station's programming director secretly hated the show and deliberately aired it at such a dismal hour in hope that the ratings would sag and he could justify canceling it. Why else would you pay for an no-doubt expensive syndicated program and then air it when no one was awake?
Ah well, that's all in the past now. Thirty years in the past, to be exact. Thanks to home video and streaming I can now watch the show anytime I want.
So Happy Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'll close with a joke: What did Captain Picard say when he took his sewing machine to the repair shop? Make it sew! Haw!
One week it might be on Saturday night at 11 pm, the next at 1:30 am Sunday morning. Sometimes it would even pop up in the afternoon! You just never knew when it might air. I used to record the show every week but I couldn't just set the timer on the VCR and forget it, because there was no guarantee as to when it might start. Many's the night I would stay up until 1 or even 2 am waiting for the show to begin so I could hit the record button (and then I'd have to go to work at 6 am the next day!).
I never understood the local station's attitude toward the show. This wasn't some execrable drivel like Mama's Family, this was an award winning, critically acclaimed series that regularly got higher ratings than some network shows. Plus it had a built in audience of rabid fans. So why the shabby treatment?
Sometimes I wonder if the station's programming director secretly hated the show and deliberately aired it at such a dismal hour in hope that the ratings would sag and he could justify canceling it. Why else would you pay for an no-doubt expensive syndicated program and then air it when no one was awake?
Ah well, that's all in the past now. Thirty years in the past, to be exact. Thanks to home video and streaming I can now watch the show anytime I want.
So Happy Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'll close with a joke: What did Captain Picard say when he took his sewing machine to the repair shop? Make it sew! Haw!
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The Orville Season 1, Episode 4: If The Stars Should Appear
So far he's done the "Humans In An Alien Zoo" trope, and now the "People Who Don't Realize They're Inside A Colony Ship And Think It's The Entire Universe" storyline. Star Trek of course used both of these plots over the course of its run.
If The Stars Should Appear isn't quite as good as last week's episode, but it's still pretty solid, and managed to take a couple of good jabs at organized religion and government. I was also amazed at just how much plot they were able to cram into a scant 41 minutes and 43 seconds!
Not as good as last week's ep, but solid. I was amazed at how much plot they managed to cram into 43 minutes.
In addition to cribbing storylines and elements from Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Orville's also borrowing from behind the scenes as well. This week's episode was directed by James L. Conway, who helmed various episodes of ST:TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise!
This was an interesting week in the world of TV sci-fi, as the new official Trek series, Star Trek: Discovery (or STD for short— com-O-dee!) FINALLY premiered, at long, long, LONG last.
The new series was originally supposed to come out in 2016, which was the 50th Anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek. Unfortunately, due to CBS' incompetence and lots and lots of backstage drama and infighting, it barely managed to air in 2017.
I watched the two hour premiere of Discovery, and honestly found it lacking. It's not that it was completely terrible— in fact if it were a brand new sci-fi series called "Space Journey" it might be tolerable. But as Star Trek it's a dismal and head-scratching failure.
Welp, it's official. Against all logic and reason, The Orville is a better Star Trek series than Star Trek: Discovery. I know I've been harping ad infintum about how much The Orville's swiped from ST:TNG, but at least MacFarlane seems to understand the basic philosophy of Star Trek's bright, shiny future. Much more so than the producers of Discovery do. I can't believe I'm saying this, but barring some drastic change in both shows, I'm much more interested in watching The Orville than I am Discovery.
Sometimes our universe can be a very strange and terrifying place.
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
In the cold open, Bortus and Klyden are lying in bed. Klyden nags Bortus, accusing him of neglecting him and their newborn child. Bortus tries to explain that his position as a bridge officer demands a lot of his time, and Klyden knew that when he came on board. They both make valid points.
Bortus gets fed up and reports for his bridge shift early. Just then Isaac detects a large artificial mass nearby, and Mercer orders the ship to investigate. The crew's gobsmacked when they see it's an enormous spaceship the size of New York City.
Isaac says the ship appears to be two thousand years old, is non-functional and drifting through space. John extrapolates the ship's present course, and says in six months it'll collide with star J2837.
Mercer decides to investigate, and assembles an away team consisting of himself, Kelly, Isaac, Alara and Doctor Finn. They fly a shuttle out to the derelict ship and dock with it. Mercer can't get the airlocks to work, so Alara uses her superstrength to open them.
Inside the ship they're amazed to see a vast Earth-like landscape, dotted with grassy plains, trees and streams. The blue sky is permanently lit by a series of lighted rings and an artificial sun in the center of the ceiling high overhead.
Doctor Finn says it's a "bio ship," whose interior is built to resemble a planet. Isaac runs a scan and detects millions of life forms. Mercer wonders why the ship's not sending out a distress call, since the engines are out and it's drifting toward a sun.
Mercer says they need to make contact with the natives and warn them. They split into two teams, as Mercer, Finn and Isaac head for the starboard side, while Kelly and Alara go to port. Mercer tries to call The Orville, but finds his signal can't penetrate the derelict ship's plot-contrivance hull.
Mercer and the others explore the immense wooded interior of the ship, and eventually come across a log cabin. Mercer knocks on the door, and an alien woman answers. She takes one look at the oddly-attired crew— and their robotic companion— and immediately slams the door shut. Mercer knocks again, and the woman's husband comes out and shoots at the intruders. Isaac stuns the man with his blaster.
The woman is horrified and asks what the crew wants and where they came from. Mercer tries to explain, telling the woman her ship is grave danger and they're there to help repair its engines or evacuate it. The woman has no idea what he's talking about.
Just then the woman's teenaged son Tomilin enters the room. He's amazed by the appearance of The Orville crew, especially Isaac. Mercer tries pumping Tomilin for info, but can't get through to him either. Isaac realizes that these people have no idea they're living inside a giant spaceship.
Tomilin asks Mercer if he and the others are from "Beyond." His mother immediately accuses him of blasphemy and tells him to shut it. Mercer asks what he means by "Beyond," and Tomilin says to follow him.
Meanwhile, Kelly and Alara walk through a large field. Alara complains that it's hard to have a relationship, because all the males on The Orville are weirded out by her superstrength. She says the only person who's not intimidated by her is Captain Mercer. Uh-oh... I smell a romance subplot brewing.
Just then a truck (!) pulls up behind them, and two armed guards get out. They demand their identification, but Kelly and Alara say they don't have any. Alara makes a move toward a guard, who shoots her in the chest (!). She rolls down a hill, seemingly dead. Um... isn't this supposed to be a comedy? The guards then knock out Kelly and take her away.
Tomilin takes Mercer and the others into the forest. He explains that his people are taught the word of Dorahl, the creator of the world. He and a few others have begun to question the word of Dorahl though, and suspect there may be more to the universe than what they can see. He takes them to meet with the Reformers, a secret group of Dorahl-doubters.
Meanwhile, The Orville receives a distress call from the transport ship Drian, which is under attack by the Krill. Bortus orders the ship to intercept the Drian, and hopes the Captain will be OK until they return. Before they leave, he launches a communication buoy into space to explain that The Orville's going on a rescue mission.
Back in the world-ship, Mercer meets with Kemka, the leader of the Reformers. He's happy to see the crew, as they confirm their suspicions that there's an entire universe out there. Mercer tells him his world's in danger and will be vaporized if they don't restart the ship's engines and alter course. Kemka says their leaders will be reluctant to listen, as the truth will prove they've been wrong all this time. He says Hamelac, First Guardian Of The Word Of Dorahl, will be especially hard to convince.
Just then, Mercer receives a distress call from a barely conscious Alara. He homes in on her signal and tells her they're on their way. Tomilin goes with them to act as a guide.
In a local city, Hamelac stands in front of his HQ, spouting the word of Dorahl to a handful of extras. He brings out a Reformer and throws him to the crowd, who literally beat him to death. Um... again, this show was advertised as a comedy, right?
The two guards arrive and bring Kelly to Hamelac. Inside his HQ, she threatens him, saying if he doesn't let her go, there'll be trouble. He recognizes her as someone from "Beyond," and tells her she's going to be his guest for a lonnnnng time.
Mercer and the others locate the unconscious Alara. Doctor Finn uses her medical tech to extract the bullets and speed-heal her wounds. She wakes a few seconds later and gazes dreamily at Mercer (uh-oh). Thanks to her hardy Xeleyan physique, she's able to walk again in no time. She says she and Kelly were attacked by two armed men, who must have taken her. Tomilin says they likely took her to the city to see Hamelac.
Mercer orders Isaac back to the shuttle to bring backup from The Orville. Isaac returns, sees the ship's gone and reports to the Captain. Mercer says they'll just have to rescue Kelly on their own.
Meanwhile, Kelly tries to convince Hamelac that his world is a spaceship that's headed for disaster. He doesn't believe her of course, and demands she tell him where she's really from. When she insists she's from another world, he begins torturing her, demanding to know where the rest of her friends are.
Mercer and the others disguise themselves as bio-ship aliens and very easily sneak into Hamelac's HQ. Seriously, they knock out one guard and then pretty much have the run of the entire building. They burst into Hamelac's office, stun his guards and rescue Kelly.
Mercer tries to convince Hamelac about the whole ship/sun/danger thing. Hamelac admits it might be possible, but says the public's not ready to hear the truth. Mercer says he thinks Hamelac's just not ready to give up his control over the population. He stuns Hamelac and they leave.
Kemka shows them a secret locked hatch in the side of a mountain. Isaac easily opens it, and they realize it's an elevator. They all pile inside, and the lift takes them up to the bridge of the bio-ship. Isaac diddles with a control panel and activates an ancient recording. An image of Captain Dorahl, who looks suspiciously like Liam Neeson, begins to infodump a bunch of exposition.
Dorahl explains that his people wanted to venture into space, but knew it would take hundreds of years just to reach the nearest populated world. So they built a massive bio-ship, where the crew could live, work and reproduce during the long journey. He said the third generation of inhabitants would be the ones to finally arrive at their destination. Unfortunately the ship was hit by an ion storm (space sure is lousy with those) and the engines were permanently damaged. Dorahl says that unless they find help, the ship will drift helplessly through space for thousands of years.
Mercer realizes that Dorahl's people lived and reproduced for thousands of years until they eventually forgot they were inside a ship. Isacc says the damage to the engines is easily repairable, and can be fixed in twenty four hours (so why didn't Dorahl do so?). He also says the upper portion of the ship is retractable, and Mercer orders him to open it. The "sky" of the ship then splits open, revealing a breathtaking view of outer space and causing much soiling of garments among Dorahl's descendants.
Kemka asks now what? Mercer says he'll contact the Union, which will send specialists to help them learn how to operate their own ship, and after that it's up to them. Cue uplifting music over a beauty shot of The Orville flying off to its next adventure.
Thoughts:
• At the beginning of the episode, Bortus and Klyden have an argument. Uh-oh! I smell a breakup/custody battle episode coming up!
• Seth MacFarlane absolutely luvvvvvs Broadway showtunes, and insists on sticking them in his various TV series and movies. I was wondering how long it'd be before one popped up on The Orville. Well, not long! This week Klyden tries to cheer himself up by watching a clip of Sixteen Going On Seventeen from The Sound Of Music. So everyone who had "Episode 4" in the "When Will Seth Stick A Showtune In His Sci-Fi Series" pool, come forward and collect your winnings!
By the way, MacFarlane's released three albums (!) of swing and jazz standards, and actually has a reasonably decent voice. He even does a duet with Barbra Streisand on one of his albums!
• On all the various Star Trek shows, Starfleet personnel are bound by the Prime Directive. It's their number one law, which states that it's illegal to interfere with another planet's developing culture, even with good intentions.
Apparently the Planetary Union doesn't have anything like the Prime Directive. Mercer and his crew have no trouble saving the bio-ship, completely overturning their society and devastating their religious beliefs in the process.
• When the crew discovers the immense derelict, Alara asks who would need a ship that big. Gordon says, "Persian guy, maybe? Wants to show off at the club?"
In 1935, King Reza Shah issued a decree demanding that the world stop saying "Persia" and refer to his country by its proper name of Iran. Many countries ignored him though, and still use the term Persia to this day. Looks like they're still doing it in the 25th Century!
• Isaac scans the derelict ship and says it has a tiny docking port. He says it'll be extremely difficult maneuver, and he's the only one with the skills and reaction time necessary to safely dock with it. Fair enough.
• Mercer needs a new catchphrase when he wants Alara to use her superstrength to open a locked door. This is the second episode in which he's asked her to "open this jar of pickles for him."
• Foreshadowing Alert! Kelly and Alara walk along a deserted road inside the bio-ship. Alara says Mercer's the only man on The Orville who's not intimidated by her superstrength, and asks Kelly all sorts of questions about him.
Later when Doctor Finn revives her, the first person she sees is Mercer, and she gazes dreamily at him.
I'll bet my blogger's license that they're setting up an Alara/Mercer romance here.
• Another possible Foreshadowing Alert? When they're exploring the bio-ship, Isaac asks Mercer questions about human sexuality, in order to gather info for his "final report" to his home planet of Kaylon 1.
It would not surprise me if his superiors eventually order Isacc to report back to Kaylon, and we'll get the inevitable "Will He Or Won't He Stay" episode.
• I realize it's a large ensemble cast and this is only the fourth episode, but so far John LaMarr's gotten the shaft as far as characterization goes. So far the only thing we know about him is he likes drinking cokes on the bridge.
• Kemka offers Mercer some food, and when he takes a bite it's so awful he can't even swallow it.
Even though the scene's played for laughs, it makes perfect sense! In virtually every sci-fi series or movie I've ever seen, the characters will sample the local cuisine and it's always palatable to them.
There's no way that would happen in reality! Hell, there are dozens of Earth foods I can't bring myself to eat (I'm lookin' at you, hominy!), so of course alien cuisine would likely taste terrible to humans. It could even be poisonous to us!
• When Mercer finds the wounded Alara, she has red blood all over her uniform. Yawn. I'd have expected Xelayan blood to be some exotic color.
• When Mercer, Alara and Finn infiltrate Hamelac's HQ, they're disguised as natives, complete with little brown dots on their foreheads. Does Doctor Finn really carry some kind of skin-altering alien disguise doo-dad in her tiny medical bag? Doesn't seem like there'd be room for something that specific.
Maybe she just happened to have a brown Sharpie in her pocket and drew spots on everyone's faces.
Patrick Stewart's done voice-over work in MacFarlane's various TV shows and movies. It's only a matter of time before he pops up on The Orville as well. The question is whether we'll just hear his voice or he'll actually appear in person.
• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:
Klyden watches a clip from the 1965 film The Sound Of Music.
The word "dick" is still used as an obscenity and insult in the 25th Century . Actually I think this one has shown up in every episode so far. Seems unlikely people would still be saying that three hundred years from now. After all, no one in 2017 calls anyone a "swollen parcel of dropsies."
Mercer says they need to save the inhabitants of the bio-ship. Kelly answers, "What do we say to them? Hi, we live in the trailer across the street! We have jumper cables." Jesus, I'd hope mobile homes and dead batteries will be phased out by 2419!
Hamelac tortures Kelly, demanding to know where her friends are. She pretends to give in, saying, "There's a little coffee shop on Lafayette Street in Soho called "Central Perk." My friends are there. Just please... don't hurt the monkey."
Doctor Finn quotes Ralph Waldo Emmerson. Eh, I guess I could see that. We still quote lots of authors hundreds of years after they died, so I'm willing to give 'em this one.
• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:
Doctor Finn has magic medical wands that can instantly extract bullets and rapidly heal wounds, just like the ones Beverly Crusher used on ST:TNG.
This week's plot is very similar to that of The Original Series episode For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky. In that episode, the Enterprise discovers Yonada, a hollow asteroid that's on a collision course with another planet. The Fabrini launched Yonada ten thousand years ago to escape the destruction of their planet, and set out in search of a new planet. Over the millennia the Fabrini forgot they were inside a ship and believe it's the entire universe. Kirk & Co. encounter a High Priestess who prays to The Oracle, which is really a giant computer. Eventually they discover how to alter the ship's course, and send it toward a suitable new planet. Sounds pretty familiar, eh?
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It Came From The Cineplex: 9/11
This dismal film's probably long gone from every cineplex in the country at this point (it premiered on September 8), but I sat through the goddamned thing so I'm gonna review it and you're all going to share my pain.
Golebioski's sole previous writing credit was for the Haunted Collector TV series, whatever that is.
Guigui is a very mediocre writer, producer and director. He previously wrote and directed My X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception, Cattle Call, Benny Bliss and The Disciples Of Greatness, Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay! and The Bronx Bull. He also directed Changing Hearts, Swing and Beneath The Darkness. I've never heard of a single one of those titles.
The film's based on the stage play Elevator by Patrick Carson. I have absolutely no problem believing that, as most of the film is confined to one location (an elevator, natch) and the whole thing seems very stage-like.
As you've probably already sensed from my snarky tone, 9/11 is not a good movie. It's maudlin, repulsive and downright offensive. It confuses soap opera histrionics for legitimate drama, as it ineptly trivializes one of the darkest days in our country's history for the sake of entertainment.
9/11 could have been a powerful film about self-sacrifice and heroics in the face of catastrophe. Unfortunately it's far too confused, muddled and incompetent for that. It's a shockingly amateurish film in every measurable sense. It looks and feels like a cheap made-for-TV movie, complete with terrible writing, laughable dialogue, flimsy sets and bargain basement production design.
And the acting. My word, the acting. I didn't expect much from a nutjob like Charlie Sheen, but I was appalled by the inept performances by actors like Gina Gershon, Luis Guzman and Whoopi Goldberg, all of who've outstanding work in the past (hell, Goldberg won a goddamned Oscar, for corn's sake!). What the hell, did they have a bet to see who could turn in the worst performance in this film?
The film could have given us a realistic look at the people affected by disaster, or offered up new insights into the events of that day. Sadly it does neither. It's far too concerned with melodrama to bother with facts or historical accuracy. In fact if you didn't know much about the events of September 11 before, you'll know even less about it after watching this dismal film. It trivializes the event to the point where I have to wonder why they set it against the backdrop of 9/11 in the first place. The movie could have easily taken place inside an elevator in an everyday building on a perfectly normal day, and it wouldn't have changed the story one bit.
By far the most shocking and offensive thing about the film is the fact that it stars Charlie Sheen, a known "9/11 Truther." Back in 2006, Sheen called into The Alex Jones Show (oh, jesus), voicing his support for the Truther movement and claiming the Twin Towers had been destroyed by "a controlled demolition." Sheen went on to say, "It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airlines and hitting 75% of their targets— that feels like a conspiracy theory." Sighhhh...
Recently, Sheen tried to backpedal a bit (no doubt due to the release of this film), saying, "I was not just coming up with stuff about 9/11. I was parroting those a lot smarter and a lot more experienced than myself, who had very similar questions. Not to put this behind us because, as brilliantly written, we must 'never forget,' but there are still a couple of things just rooted in simple physics that beg some measure of inquiry."
Seems a bit hypocritical to cast a Truther in a film that's ostensibly about the 9/11 attacks, doesn't it? Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, as 9/11 costar Gina Gershon was unaware of Sheen's beliefs until after the film wrapped. Gershon said if she'd known sooner, she'd have had some hard questions for Mr. Sheen before agreeing to star in the film.
For some reason, director Martin Guigui reeeeeally wanted Sheen to star in this project, and refused to film it without him. According to Guigui, he wanted Sheen so badly because of his starring role in 1987's Wall Street, and thought he could best capture that elusive stockbroker mentality that a film about 9/11 naturally calls for.
Sheen originally passed on the film, causing Guigui to meet with him for a whopping six hours, desperately trying to change his mind. Eventually Sheen agreed to star, but only if his "long time confidant" Steven Golebiowski came on board to co-write it. Well, based on the end result, he was certainly worth it
Most critics have taken great pains to point out how offensive 9/11 is, and I can't argue with them. It's definitely distasteful and appalling, but I've been trying to figure out exactly why? There've been plenty of other movies about the 9/11 disaster in the past, and no one squawked about those. Some like World Trade Center (starring Nicolas Cage) and United 93 were pretty much docudramas, based on real persons and their experiences. Others like The Guys and Incredibly Loud & Extremely Close were dramas about people affected by the events of that fateful morning. Why do those films get a pass and 9/11 doesn't? What sets it apart?
I think I finally figured it out— it's because 9/11 uses actual footage of the September 11 attacks! Seriously! Several times throughout the film, characters gaze in horror as actual video footage of the incident plays out on their TVs.
It's one thing to hire ILM to whip up CGI planes crashing into detailed models of the World Trade Center. It's quite another to see the real thing projected up on the cineplex screen for our amusement. When the film shows Flight 175 plowing into the side of the South Tower, we're watching hundreds of real people actually lose their lives in that instant. THAT'S why this film is so detestable.
I've searched high and low, but can't find any info on the film's budget. I can't imagine it cost much more than $5 million, as it looks like a cheap TV movie. Whatever its budget, 9/11 is a MASSIVE, MASSIVE flop, as according to Box Office Mojo it's grossed an astonishingly tiny $170,000 since its September 8 release. That... that can't possibly be right, can it?
SPOILERS, I GUESS.
The Plot:
In a New York City apartment, bike messenger Michael (no last names, please) and his wife sing "Happy Birthday" to their young daughter. Michael gives his daughter her present (at 7:30 in the morning?) and reluctantly leaves his beloved family to go to work. So from frame one the movie's ramping up the pathos, trying to manipulate our emotions.
Next we meet Jeffrey Cage (played by Charlie Sheen) and his wife Eve (played by Gina Gershon). Jeffrey's a sleazy billionaire who reads six newspapers a day (?) and is fond of telling truly awful and unfunny jokes. Eve on the other hand comes across as cold, humorless and distant. Can you feel the love between them?
The two meet in a law office in the North Tower of the World Trade Center (apparently right at 8 am). Eve accuses Jeffrey of neglecting their marriage, and wants a divorce. Jeffrey's opposed to it (no doubt because he'll lose half his assets), claiming they can work things out. Somehow he talks her into thinking it over, and they leave the office.
Cut to Eddie (played by Luis Guzman), a genial custodial engineer (don't call him a janitor!) who works for the Port Authority of the World Trade Center. Eddie stops to exchange playful banter with Metzie (played by Whoopi Goldberg), who works as an elevator dispatcher in the basement Control Center of the North Tower. Metzie's beginning her shift, which consists of her sitting in front of a bank of TV screens that apparently monitor all the elevators in both towers. She's also a fan of the Mets, hence her nickname. This is what passes for characterization in this woeful film.
Lastly we meet Tina, an attractive young woman who's supported by a wealthy "Sugar Daddy." She visits him in his office (at 8 am) to tell him she's breaking off their relationship.
With our main characters introduced, we can now commence with the plot. Jeffrey, Eve and Tina all pile into an elevator on an upper floor of the North Tower. They're soon joined by Eddie, and lastly Michael, who just finished a delivery. As the elevator starts its journey to the ground floor, Jeffrey looks down at his Rolex®, and we ominously note the time: 8:46 am. Uh-oh!
Suddenly the elevator's rocked by a massive blow and the characters are knocked to their feet, as Flight 11 slams into the side of the North Tower. As the shockwave subsides, the elevator stops moving. The Control Center, all of Metzie's monitors go offline. She wonders what the hell just happened.
The elevator occupants are calm at first, assuming it's just a normal everyday technical glitch. When the car doesn't move, they gradually they become more concerned. Jeffrey complains he's going to be late for a meeting and Eve asks "What's going on?" several dozen times. Eddie uses the intercom to contact Metzie. She tells him she's lost contact with all the Center's elevators, and calls for help. She's puzzled when all the lines are out.
Metzie pulls out a portable TV and sees news reports that a plane hit the North Tower. She calls Eddie and tells him what happened, and says they need to get out of the elevator somehow. Everyone panics, and the unstable Tina immediately pulls a bottle out of pills out of her purse and starts chowing down on them. Jeffrey tries to calm everyone down, saying the Towers were attacked in the 1993 and survived just fine.
Eve tries to call for help on her cell phone, but can't get a signal. Eddie tries to open the elevator door, hoping they'll be able to squeeze out, I guess. Unfortunately this car has a new safety feature, and the doors can't be opened more than a few inches without a special tool. Just then Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower, rocking both buildings, and causing everyone to freak out all over again.
Apparently the screenwriters can think of nothing else for the characters to do at this point, so they sit down and get to know one another, as the film turns into a reeeeally bizarre version of The Breakfast Club. Michael resents Jeffrey because he's a billionaire, and therefore must be evil. Eve strangely defends her man, despite the fact that an hour ago she wanted to divorce him. Eddie confesses he has a rampant gambling addiction. Tina has nothing to confess, save that she hopes her Sugar Daddy died when the plane hit the building. Classy!
Amazingly Eve manages to get a plot-convenient cell phone signal and calls her mother Diana (played by Jacqueline Bisset). She says they're OK for now, and asks her to call Eddie and Michael's families. Jeffrey gets on the horn and talks to his son J.J. (which you just know has to be short for Jeffrey Junior), and tells him he'll see him soon, all while calling him "sport" and "buddy" and other assorted male terms of endearment. The phone line goes dead, and he and Eve exchange meaningful glances and actually hug. Could it be? Is there really still a spark of attraction between these two estranged love birds?
Suddenly smoke begins filling the elevator. Metzie calls Eddie and tells him they need to get out of there now. They try to pry the door open again, but still can't figure it out, as Eddie's not familiar with the new design. In an effort to eat up some screen time, Metzie runs to the controller's office to look for his elevator manual. She finds it, brings it back to her desk and begins reading instructions over the intercom to Eddie. Ah, yes. It's the riveting "Reading The Instructions" scene everyone's talking about!
The passengers all pull together, as Michael pries open the doors a few inches and Jeffrey hoists Eddie onto his shoulders so he can reach the door mechanism on the outer top of the elevator car. After a few abortive tries, he finally releases the safety catch, and they're able to open the elevator doors! Hooray!
Their celebration is cut short though, as they see the car's stopped between floors. Cue sad trombone! Eddie takes a closer look through the rapidly thickening smoke, and says it's just a sheet of thin drywall standing between them and freedom. The passengers begin chipping away at the drywall, until they manage to open a small hole, just large enough for a thin, brittle, waspish woman like Eve to crawl through.
Just then the passengers hear a deafening roar. They contact Metzie and ask her what happened. She tells them one of the Towers just fell. The passengers are amazed and stunned by this news.
Right on cue, the elevator slips down a few inches, as the cable begins fraying or something. Man, if it ain't one damn thing it's another. Knowing that it's possible for the Towers to actually fall, the passengers now have a renewed sense of urgency. Jeffrey shoves Eve through the hole in the wall, and she finds herself inside a storage room. Just as Tina's about to go through, the elevator slips again, this time making it impossible for anyone else to crawl through the hole.
Jeffrey tells Eve she has to go find help, and let the authorities know where they are. She's reluctant to leave him, but eventually agrees. She exits the storage closet and staggers off into a smoke-filled hallway.
Meanwhile, a group of firemen enter the control center and tell Metzie she's HAS to evacuate. She calls the passengers and says, "Welp, good luck with your trapped elevator" and buggers the hell out of the movie (!).
The elevator slips some more, and Jeffrey tells everyone to get into "crash positions." This consists of simply lying on the floor of the car, with their arms and legs spread out as much as possible in an effort to "disperse the impact" or something. Suddenly the cable snaps, and the elevator plummets several dozen floors to the bottom of the shaft. The passengers are then in free fall, floating around the elevator in a ridiculous and cartoonish manner. Luckily the emergency brakes kick in, and manage to stop the car a foot or two from the bottom of the shaft.
Eve somehow makes it down to the ground floor (I guess she hurried down thirty or forty flights of stairs in record time) and feels her way through the near whiteout conditions inside the lobby. Metzie practically knocks her down trying to get the hell out of there. Eve sees a group of firemen run by, and manages to snag one and convince him to come with her.
They run to a bank of elevators, but Eve's not sure which one Jeffrey and the others are in. They hear voices coming from one, and the fireman spends several minutes trying to pry the door open in an effort to ramp up the tension. Suddenly the door pops open, and several complete strangers run out. D'oh! It's the wrong elevator!
Undeterred, Eve pleads with the fireman to try again. They find our heroes' elevator and get the door open. Michael, Eddie and Tina spill out. Just as Jeffrey's about to exit, the elevator slips again, slightly past the ground floor. The fireman tries to pull Jeffrey out, but can't get a good grip on him.
Jeffrey tells Eve he loves her, and orders Michael to make sure she gets to safety. Michael nods and he and Eddie grab the hysterical Eve and drag her away. The fireman reaches into the elevator as far as he can, and finally manages to grab Jeffrey's hand. It's now 10: 28, and there's another tremendous roar from above. The two men lock eyes, and we smash cut to black.
Thoughts:
• As I said earlier, 9/11 is nothing more than an ill-advised, glorified disaster movie. Don't believe me? They actually use the "Estranged Couple Who're Brought Back Together By The Tragedy" trope, which has been used in virtually every disaster movie ever made all the way back to the Irwin Allen days.
• Ehhhhh, nice try, but no. Other than the most basic outline of the 9/11 attacks, there's precious little in this film that actually happened.
• Shortly after Jeffrey enters the elevator, he glances at his fabulously expensive Rolex® watch, which reads 8:46. This is about as close as the movie ever gets to historical accuracy.
• If you've ever sat in a theater and thought, "You know what's wrong with movies today? There just aren't enough extreme closeups of Whoopi Goldberg's gaping maw," then 9/11 is the film for you.
• There's some really odd motivation going on with Charlie Sheen's Jeffrey character. When he first appears he's presented as a sleazy, billionaire asshole who's so involved with work that he neglects his wife and son.
As the passengers become trapped, he does a complete turnaround, going so far as to promise to give Michael a job and send Eddie and his wife on a Hawaiian vacation. By the end of the film he's a full blown hero, sacrificing himself to save the other passenger.
I think maybe this was supposed to be an attempt at some kind of redemption arc for Jeffrey, but it's handled so poorly and ineptly I'm not quite sure. As it stands, it's never clear if we're supposed to hate him or cheer for him.
• At one point Michael, whose character might as well be named "Angry Young Black Man," denounces Jeffrey, saying he has no idea what it's like for the working class, and accusing him of using his "white privilege" to amass his fortune.
Eve then tears into Michael, going into a long and oddly impassioned speech about how Jeffrey started out with nothing, working in "the docks." She goes on to say how he dreamed of a better life, and toiling away for years until he worked his way up to CEO or whatever he's supposed to be.
It's a very odd little speech that comes completely out of nowhere, considering just an hour earlier Eve wanted to divorce Jeffrey and could barely stand to even glance at him.
Plus Eve— and the screenwriters— seem oblivious to the fact that Michael has a point. Of course white privilege played a factor in Jeffrey's rise to the top! A man like Michael could have worked just as hard as Jeffrey, and still not rise to the same station because of his race. Like it or not, that's just where we are as a society today.
• As the elevator cable is in danger of breaking, the characters all lie on the floor in an effort to survive the fall. Jeffrey makes an extremely lame joke, saying it's not the fall that kills you, it's the stopping when you hit the ground.
The cable then snaps, and the characters float comically in the air for a few seconds while they're in free fall. Yeah, not a good choice. The word "comically" should never come to mind when discussing 9/11.
• In the play on which the movie's based, the characters are a maintenance worker, a secretary, a pregnant Muslim woman with a Jewish husband, a crippled philanthropist, a wealthy, ruthless businessman and his older female assistant.
The movie uses a couple of those (sort of), but completely changes the rest. Honestly the characters in the play sound more interesting than the ones we got here.
• I don't usually talk about my theater going experience at the cineplex, but I'm making an exception for 9/11. When I went to see it, my friend and I were the only people in the entire theater. We had our own private showing. I would not be surprised to find out that we were the only two people who saw the film all day. Or all week!
9/11 is a cheap, mawkish disaster movie set against the background of the September 11 attacks. It has absolutely nothing to say about the events of that day, and is more concerned with its soap opera plotting than in historical accuracy. Amazingly the film even casts known 9/11 conspiracy theorist Charlie Sheen in the starring role! Worst of all is the fact that the movie uses actual footage of the 9/11 attacks in lieu of special effects, which is beyond offensive. I give it a well deserved D+.
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The movie uses a couple of those (sort of), but completely changes the rest. Honestly the characters in the play sound more interesting than the ones we got here.
• I don't usually talk about my theater going experience at the cineplex, but I'm making an exception for 9/11. When I went to see it, my friend and I were the only people in the entire theater. We had our own private showing. I would not be surprised to find out that we were the only two people who saw the film all day. Or all week!
9/11 is a cheap, mawkish disaster movie set against the background of the September 11 attacks. It has absolutely nothing to say about the events of that day, and is more concerned with its soap opera plotting than in historical accuracy. Amazingly the film even casts known 9/11 conspiracy theorist Charlie Sheen in the starring role! Worst of all is the fact that the movie uses actual footage of the 9/11 attacks in lieu of special effects, which is beyond offensive. I give it a well deserved D+.
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Flagged Post Redux
I originally posted this last year, but sadly, it's become relevant again.
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DATELINE: Cleveland, Ohio–– In response to overwhelming consumer demand, this week the American Association Of Decorative Hardware And Fixtures announced it's making a fundamental design change in all flagpoles. Beginning immediately, all poles manufactured in America will be designed to display flags at half mast only.
Sid Silverbaum, President of the Association, said, "We got a lot of feedback from various groundskeepers, patriots and elderly veterans from around the country, all of whom are exhausted from constantly having to trudge out to their poles and lower their flags to half mast every two to three days. Frankly it just doesn't make sense to make poles that display flags all the way at the top anymore."
According to Silverbaum, the new Half-Master® brand poles will be in stores by the end of the year, just in time for the latest mass shooting or Independence Day, whichever comes first.
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The Orville Season 1, Episode 5: Pria
This week's episode was written by Seth MacFarlane of course, and directed by Jonathan Frakes. Yep, that Jonathan Frakes, aka Commander Will Riker of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame. Frakes directed various episodes of ST:TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, as well as the Trek theatrical movies First Contact and Insurrection. So he's the perfect choice to direct a similar show such as The Orville.
MacFarlane turned in a surprisingly well-written episode this week, one that takes yet another well-worn sci-fi trope and gives it a unique spin. This time it's the old "Guest Star Who Turns Out To Be A Villain In Disguise And Takes Over The Ship" plot, that we saw many, many times on the various Trek series.
The first season of a series is usually the shakiest, as it generally takes the actors and crew many weeks to figure things out and hit their stride. I'm impressed that The Orville seems to have found its groove after just a couple of episodes. Kudos to MacFarlane, I guess, although the fact that he patterned the show so closely on ST:TNG might have had something to do with it gelling so quickly.
The only downside of the episode was the wonky temporal paradox at the end, which made absolutely no sense. But few time travel stories ever do, so I'm willing to give 'em this one.
Nice guest appearance by Oscar® winner Charlize Theron, who rarely if ever graces the TV screen. No doubt she and MacFarlane are fast friends after filming A Million Ways To Die In The West. As I said last week, at least something good came out of that dreadful film.
SPOILER WARNING! DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL YOU SEE THE EPISODE! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND WATCHING THE EPISODE FIRST!
The Plot:
Apparently all's quiet in space, as the Orville crew watches The Junior Mint episode of Seinfeld on the main viewscreen. Isaac doesn't understand why the episode is funny, as it involves laughing at another's pain. Mercer tries to explain humor to him, but fails miserably. Gordon promises to teach Isaac about humor by playing a practical joke on him when he least expects it.
Just then the ship receives a distress call, and investigates. They discover a small mining ship has crash-landed on a comet that's being pulled into a massive star. The pilot appears on the viewscreen and identifies herself as Captain Pria Levesque, a beautiful blonde human woman.
Mercer assures Pria they'll do everything they can to save her. He, Gordon and Alara board a shuttle and fly off to rescue her. They manage to land on the comet, enter the ship, retrieve Pria and blast off the comet seconds before it disintegrates. Unfortunately the shuttle's caught in the star's gravitational field. Luckily the Orville uses its tractor beam to pull it to safety.
Back on the ship, Pria says she works for the Vega Mining Consortium, and her ship was attacked by a Krill Battle Cruiser. She managed to outrun it, but it drained her power and she crashed on the comet's surface. She thanks Mercer, saying she'd have died without his help. Pria says she could use a drink, and Mercer invites her to a cocktail party he's hosting for the senior officers later. A slight look of disapproval crosses Kelly's face.
A bit later, Isaac takes his station on the bridge, unaware that his head is covered with oversized Mr. Potato Head pieces, courtesy of Gordon. Naturally Isaac doesn't understand why this is funny. Gordon then says it's Isaac's turn to retaliate, which seems like a bad, bad idea. Isaac says he'll do his best.
At the party, Mercer discovers Pria grew up in Massachusetts, just like him, which seems suspicious to everyone but him. The two hit it off quite well, much to Kelly's chagrin. After the party's over, Pria enters Mercer's quarters alone and shamelessly flirts with him. She gives him a goodnight kiss and leaves.
The next day a suspicious Kelly does a google search for Pria, and finds there's no record of her in the Vega Mining Consortium. She reports her findings to Mercer, who brushes off her concerns, saying that mining companies typically keep spotty records.
Kelly then talks Alara into helping her search Pria's quarters. Not sure why she couldn't just do it herself, but there you go. They enter her room and snoop around, and Alara finds an odd metal bar under Pria's bed. Kelly tries scanning the bar, but it's impenetrable. Just then Pria returns to her quarters, and the two officers make a lame excuse and quickly scram.
Kelly and Alara report the metallic object to Mercer. He's enraged that they went behind his back and searched a guest's quarters without probable cause. Kelly says she doesn't think he's being objective about Pria, as he's blinded by her good looks and charm. She believes his lack of judgement is endangering the ship.
Just then the Orville's rocked by an unknown force, as something invisible is pounding the ship. Isaac says he believes it's a "concentrated dark matter storm," whatever that is. Pria wanders onto the bridge (which apparently has some pretty lax security) and says she can help. She tells them to flood the area with neutralized axion particles (ah, good old technobabble!). Isaac does so, and instantly they can see thousands of dark matter "bubbles" surrounding the ship.
Gordon (who you'll remember from previous episodes is "the best pilot in the galaxy") tries to fly the ship out of the storm, but is in over his head. Pria tells Mercer she's navigated a dark matter storm before, and can get them out. Kelly objects, but Mercer gives her helm control. She takes control of the ship and executes a series of fancy maneuvers, skillfully piloting them into the clear.
Unfortunately the storm completely knocked out the ship's communication array, cutting them off from the rest of the galaxy. Gosh, that's not suspicious at all! Mercer says they'll have to put in for repairs at Outpost 49, which is five days away. Pria says there's a Consortium Base just one day away, and they could repair the ship there. Again, suspicious! Mercer agrees and Pria gives John the coordinates.
Later Mercer and Pria go sightseeing the
The next morning, Gordon gets out of bed and promptly falls on his ass. He looks down and is horrified to see his left leg has been amputated above the knee. He hops to the bridge and accuses Isaac of cutting off his leg. Isaac emits a mechanical laugh and says it was his attempt at a practical joke. He points out that Gordon told him it was his turn to retaliate, and to do it when he least expected it. Mercer orders Gordon to sickbay to have Doctor Finn regenerate his leg.
Just then Chief Newton calls Mercer and Kelly to the engine room. He shows them a strange metallic object that's fused to the engine controls and can't be removed. Kelly says it's the same device she and Alara found in Pria's quarters. Mercer finally realizes Kelly was right about Pria all along.
They confront Pria in her quarters, and demand to know who she really is and what's going on. She realizes it's time to fess up, and says tells them she's from the 29th Century (four hundred years in their future). She says the Orville was supposed to be destroyed in the dark matter storm, and she came from the future to prevent that. Kelly doesn't believe Pria would travel through time just to save them. Pria says she didn't— she's only interested in the ship.
Just then Pria remotely activates the metallic device, and the Orville changes course. She tells them she's a dealer in ancient artifacts. She travels to a specific period to find ships like the Orville that are destined to be destroyed. She then saves the ship, takes it to the future and sells it to a collector for a handsome profit. By only targeting doomed ships, she doesn't risk altering the timeline. Kelly asks what happens to the crews of those ships, and she says they're free to live out their lives in the 29th Century. Um... that can't be good.
Mercer asks about her crashed ship on the comet, and she says it was all part of the act, to get them to trust her. She also knocked out their communication system so they couldn't radio for help. Kelly asks how she travels through time, and Pria says she uses a stable wormhole that people in the collecting business have learned to manipulate. That's where the Orville's headed. Mercer posts a guard on Pria's quarters (now that it's way too late).
Mercer apologizes to Kelly for not listening to her, and says he has an idea. In Engineering, Chief Newton uses an old school diamond-tipped drill to bore a hole in the metallic device. Isaac then inserts his metallic tendrils into the device, attempting to override it. It zaps him with a lethal blast of energy, knocking him across the room and "killing" him.
The ship approaches the wormhole, and Pria teleports to the bridge. Mercer says there are three hundred people on board with lives in this century, and begs her to let them go. She says she can't— they're technically all dead, and if they stay in the 25th Century, they'll massively alter the timeline.
Pria takes the Orville through the wormhole and into the 29th Century, where they're met by a Benzian ship. Pria and the Benzian buyer then haggle over a price for the Orville. Meanwhile, Mercer gets a message on his monitor that reads, "Would you like a Junior Mint, Captain?"
Mercer jumps to Gordon's station and restores helm control. Gordon turns the ship around and heads back through the wormhole, while Kelly beats the tar out of Pria. Once they're through, Alara takes Pria to the brig. Isaac then reveals that his "death" was all an act for Pria's benefit, as he transferred his consciousness into the ship so he could override the metallic device. He thought the Junior Mint comment would be funny, indicating maybe he's finally starting to understand humor.
Mercer meets with Pria in his office. He says Isaac believes if they destroy the wormhole, then they cement this new timeline in which the Orville survives, and that Pria will have no reason to ever travel back from the future. This makes absolutely zero sense, but let's just go with it. She reminds him this would also mean they'll never meet and spend the night together. He orders the ship to fire, and the wormhole is destroyed. Pria fades away before his eyes.
Thoughts:
• For the third time in five episodes, Mercer asks Alara to bust through a door by saying, "You wanna open this jar of pickles?" It was funny the first time, but it's becoming kind of cringe-worthy now. He needs a new metaphor, stat. I dunno why this is bugging me so much, but it is.
As the camera pans across the hull, we see into three distinct rooms before it settles on the cocktail party in the Captain's quarters. The first room looks like it's empty, while the second features two men talking or maybe eating at a table. In the third window we see what appears to be a man stuffing something into a black bag (?). Actually it's tough to tell just what he's supposed to be doing. Maybe he's a janitor? Or is he getting rid of the evidence?
• At the cocktail party, Mercer says he was born in Boxford, Massachusetts. That's such a random and obscure bit of info that I assumed it's where Seth MacFarlane was born. Nope! I checked and he was born in Kent, Connecticut.
• This week we find out that the Orville's engines have a "Dysonian powered quantum drive system capable of speeds exceeding ten light years per hour." Wow, that's much more specific than the somewhat vague warp factors of the various Star Trek ships.
Surprisingly, 10 LPH is also much, much faster than the Enterprise-D can fly. According to various ST:TNG reference sites, at Warp 5 the ship travels just 1.075 light years in a 24 hour period!
• Chief Engineer Newton makes his second appearance on the show this week. I get the feeling he's probably going to be a secondary character, one we don't see every week. That's quite a difference from ST:TNG, where Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge was constantly spouting technobabble about the ship's faulty engines every week.
Actually in Season 1 of TNG there was were several different Chief Engineer characters, who only showed up occasionally. It wasn't until Season 2 that Geordi was promoted to Engineering. I wonder if The Orville will follow this same pattern?
One last thing about Gordon and his leg. After Isaac amputated it, he hid it somewhere on the ship so Gordon would have to hop around looking for it, which he said would increase the humor. So... did Isaac inject the leg with some sort of futuristic preservation chemical? If not, then it would be dead, decaying and way past the reattachment window. Good thing they have the technology to regenerate limbs!
• There's some wonky comedy pacing going on in the scene where Pria seduces Mercer. When she kisses him he pulls away, saying, "I actually got out of a rough marriage not too long ago. So I... I think maybe we should take this slow." Jump cut to Mercer and Pria in bed together, as he leans back and quips, "Or not."
Its a funny little scene due to the unexpected editing, but it's hopelessly unrealistic. Think about how this would play out in reality. Mercer and Pria are sitting in the
See what I mean? In reality an hour or two probably went by before he finished his sentence.
This is an old, old trope that pops up a lot in TV and movies.
• The biggest question I have about this week's episode— was Isaac's fourth quarter play part of Mercer's plan? I've watched that part of the episode several times now, and I'm still not sure.
To recap, after Mercer admits he was wrong about Pria, he says he "might" have an idea. Jump cut to Engineering, where he tries to blast a hole in the control device with a
So many questions! Was Mercer's "idea" just to try and blast the device? I don't think so, as that wouldn't be much of a plan. It would also be extremely dangerous, as he was basically shooting at the ship's engine! Not good!
Plus if that's all he had in mind, why was Isaac there watching? There'd be no reason for him to be in Engineering unless he was part of a larger plan.
But then why stage Isaac's phony death? Was that for Pria's benefit, so she wouldn't figure out what they were really doing? That would make sense, IF she'd been standing there watching them! But she was confined to her quarters and nowhere near engineering, so there'd be no reason for their little act.
On the other hand, if Isaac was in on the plan, why would he wait until Pria took them to the future to take control of the ship? To make it more dramatic? Why not immediately restore control the minute he uploaded himself and avoid a dangerous trip through the wormhole?
I think Mercer's plan actually did involve integrating Isaac into the computer. After Pria's taken to the brig, Isaac says his algorithms were successfully transferred to the computer before the energy blast, which sure sounds like a deliberate action to me.
See? I'm still not clear on whether Isaac's role in the plan was intentional or not. If so, then it wasn't made clear and needed to be clarified.
• Once Mercer regains control of the ship, Kelly starts punching Pria, who she says she'd expect a sucker punch from a woman who cheats on her husband. An angry Kelly turns to Mercer and says, "You told her about that?" Mercer lies and says no, claiming Pria knows about it because she's from the future. Kelly thinks a second and then says, "But it's in the past."
Wha...? That... that doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't Pria know everything about the Orville and its crew? It's all ancient history to her. Does Seth MacFarlane not understand how time travel works, or am I missing some very subtle bit of logic here?
• After Pria's captured, Mercer examines the teleportation device they found on her. She angrily says he probably can't wait to crack it open and see how it works, so the Union can have teleporation technology. Mercer says no, as he and his people have no interest in altering the timeline. He puts the device in his desk drawer for safe keeping.
How long do you think it'll be before we see this device again? In the season finale, maybe? It's definitely gonna come back somehow, or else Mercer would have destroyed it.
On the other hand, maybe the Orville crew will take a page from all the Trek shows and conveniently forget that they can now figure out teleportation. There’ve been dozens of Trek episodes over the years in which a piece of amazing new alien tech was discovered and then ignored.
• As with most time travel stories, the temporal physics in this episode don't make a lick of sense. OK, so Pria is a temporal antiquities dealer. She regularly uses a wormhole to travel to the past, where she steals ships or other objects and takes them back to the future, where she sells them to collectors. By only taking items that were doomed to be destroyed, she avoids altering the timeline.
So far, so good. That part makes sense.
However, at the end of the episode, Mercer meets with Pria one last time and discusses the wormhole she used to time travel. Here's what they say:
Mercer:"According to Isaac, as long as the wormhole exists, the quantum potentiality is open. Many sets of future events are possible, but, if we destroy it, we choose a path. There's no chance of us returning to your future, and the Orville goes on to live its life. Which means that Pria Levesque will have no reason to come back into our past."
Pria:"And you and I will never have met."
Mercer then destroys the wormhole and Pria fades away as if she'd never been there.
W... wait a minute. OK, so the Orville was supposed to be destroyed in the dark matter storm. Got it. But Pria came back in time and saved it for business purposes. Got that too. But then destroying the wormhole means she never traveled to the Orville's present, and she disappears. And somehow Mercer still remembers her after she's gone, hence his wistful expression as he stares at his empty office. Yeah, no. None of that makes any sense.
Even worse, if she now never came back in time, wouldn't that mean she doesn't save the ship? I don't see any way that scenario doesn't result in the Orville immediately winking out of existence.
Honestly I can't tell if MarFarlane wrote himself into a corner here and needed an out, no matter how nonsensical it was, or if the ending was a very subtle little comment on how time travel stories never make any logical sense.
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• This has nothing to do with the episode, but it's something I've been noticing in sci-fi movies and TV shows the past few months. Whenever there's a CGI spaceship or creature or something flying past the camera, there are always a series of faint white dots that appear briefly on the screen whenever there's a bright light source. You can see a couple of them here in this screencap, just above the word "Executive."
They're not annoying JJ Abrams-type lens flares— instead I think they're supposed to look like the camera lens is dirty. I think this is meant to make the shot seem more realistic. After all, they'd be crazy to add fake lens schmutz in a CGI shot, right? That means they had to have filmed an actual spaceship with a real camera!
It's a very subtle, almost subliminal effect, and it honestly does work. And now that you know about it, you're gonna see it everywhere like I do, and you'll never be able to unsee it.
• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:
People still watch and understand Seinfeld in the 2419. Eh, we still watch, read and perform Shakespearean plays, and they're four hundred years old, so I guess it's not out of the question (not that I'm comparing Seinfeld to Shakespeare quality-wise, mind you!).
Mr. Potato Head is still around as well.
The phrase, "Go to hell" is still used in the 25th Century, but is apparently unknownt by the 29th.
Fist bumps are apparently still a thing in the 2419 too.
For the past few weeks now I've been giving the show crap for including all these anachronisms. As unlikely as it would actually be, the idea's starting to grow on me. Having the Orville crew speak and act in a contemporary manner makes them seem more human and relatable
Compare this to ST:TNG, which attempted to show us how people would really act in the future. Sure, that might have been more realistic, but it make the Enterprise-D crew come off as sterile, dull and robotic.
• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:
This week we learn that the Orville's holodeck is called an "environmental simulator." They can slap any name they want on it, but it's still the goddamned holodeck in every measurable sense.
Pria bears a slight resemblance to the ST:TNG episode A Matter Of Time. In that story, a professor named Berlingoff Rasmussen travels from the 26th Century to the 24th, to study the Enterprise-D and its crew. During his interviews, he covertly steals several items of 24th Century technology. Eventually the crew discover that Rasmussen is actually a disgruntled inventor from the 22nd Century. He encountered a 26th Century time traveler, stole his temporal ship and now regularly travels to the future. He then steals future technology and takes it back to the past where he pretends to "invent" it and reap enormous profits. Captain Picard arrests Rasmussen, and the time pod is automatically recalled to the future.
Pria is also somewhat similar to Vash, a character who popped up on ST:TNG and Deep Space Nine. Vash was an unscrupulous archaeologist who ransacked ancient sites and sold artifacts for profit. Despite her bad reputation, Captain Picard fell in love with her for a time.
Pria's scheme, in which she only steals ships that are destined to be destroyed, nears a slight resemblance to John Varley's Millennium, which was a short story, then a novel and ultimately a low budget scifi movie. In it, agents from the future rescued passengers of present-day planes that were about to crash, and took them to the future to repopulate a desolate Earth. The movie Freejack had a similar plot as well.
When the Benzian ship tries to lock a tractor beam onto the Orville, Mercer tells John to modulate the deflector frequency as fast as he can. This is exactly how the Enterprise-D would always avoid the Borg tractor beams on ST:TNG.
So far, so good. That part makes sense.
However, at the end of the episode, Mercer meets with Pria one last time and discusses the wormhole she used to time travel. Here's what they say:
Mercer:"According to Isaac, as long as the wormhole exists, the quantum potentiality is open. Many sets of future events are possible, but, if we destroy it, we choose a path. There's no chance of us returning to your future, and the Orville goes on to live its life. Which means that Pria Levesque will have no reason to come back into our past."
Pria:"And you and I will never have met."
Mercer then destroys the wormhole and Pria fades away as if she'd never been there.
W... wait a minute. OK, so the Orville was supposed to be destroyed in the dark matter storm. Got it. But Pria came back in time and saved it for business purposes. Got that too. But then destroying the wormhole means she never traveled to the Orville's present, and she disappears. And somehow Mercer still remembers her after she's gone, hence his wistful expression as he stares at his empty office. Yeah, no. None of that makes any sense.
Even worse, if she now never came back in time, wouldn't that mean she doesn't save the ship? I don't see any way that scenario doesn't result in the Orville immediately winking out of existence.
Honestly I can't tell if MarFarlane wrote himself into a corner here and needed an out, no matter how nonsensical it was, or if the ending was a very subtle little comment on how time travel stories never make any logical sense.
They're not annoying JJ Abrams-type lens flares— instead I think they're supposed to look like the camera lens is dirty. I think this is meant to make the shot seem more realistic. After all, they'd be crazy to add fake lens schmutz in a CGI shot, right? That means they had to have filmed an actual spaceship with a real camera!
It's a very subtle, almost subliminal effect, and it honestly does work. And now that you know about it, you're gonna see it everywhere like I do, and you'll never be able to unsee it.
• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:
People still watch and understand Seinfeld in the 2419. Eh, we still watch, read and perform Shakespearean plays, and they're four hundred years old, so I guess it's not out of the question (not that I'm comparing Seinfeld to Shakespeare quality-wise, mind you!).
Mr. Potato Head is still around as well.
The phrase, "Go to hell" is still used in the 25th Century, but is apparently unknownt by the 29th.
Fist bumps are apparently still a thing in the 2419 too.
For the past few weeks now I've been giving the show crap for including all these anachronisms. As unlikely as it would actually be, the idea's starting to grow on me. Having the Orville crew speak and act in a contemporary manner makes them seem more human and relatable
Compare this to ST:TNG, which attempted to show us how people would really act in the future. Sure, that might have been more realistic, but it make the Enterprise-D crew come off as sterile, dull and robotic.
• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:
This week we learn that the Orville's holodeck is called an "environmental simulator." They can slap any name they want on it, but it's still the goddamned holodeck in every measurable sense.
Pria bears a slight resemblance to the ST:TNG episode A Matter Of Time. In that story, a professor named Berlingoff Rasmussen travels from the 26th Century to the 24th, to study the Enterprise-D and its crew. During his interviews, he covertly steals several items of 24th Century technology. Eventually the crew discover that Rasmussen is actually a disgruntled inventor from the 22nd Century. He encountered a 26th Century time traveler, stole his temporal ship and now regularly travels to the future. He then steals future technology and takes it back to the past where he pretends to "invent" it and reap enormous profits. Captain Picard arrests Rasmussen, and the time pod is automatically recalled to the future.
Pria is also somewhat similar to Vash, a character who popped up on ST:TNG and Deep Space Nine. Vash was an unscrupulous archaeologist who ransacked ancient sites and sold artifacts for profit. Despite her bad reputation, Captain Picard fell in love with her for a time.
Pria's scheme, in which she only steals ships that are destined to be destroyed, nears a slight resemblance to John Varley's Millennium, which was a short story, then a novel and ultimately a low budget scifi movie. In it, agents from the future rescued passengers of present-day planes that were about to crash, and took them to the future to repopulate a desolate Earth. The movie Freejack had a similar plot as well.
When the Benzian ship tries to lock a tractor beam onto the Orville, Mercer tells John to modulate the deflector frequency as fast as he can. This is exactly how the Enterprise-D would always avoid the Borg tractor beams on ST:TNG.
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R.I.P. Dark Universe
Back in July I reviewed The Mummy, which was the first film in Universal's desperate attempt to jump start their own little shared movie world, ala the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
I predicted it wouldn't work, as Universal was putting the cart before the horse, trying to START with a fleshed-out universe instead of slowly building one the way Marvel did. I also said it was a mistake to take their Classic Monsters and try to turn them into superheroes. And when Universal pinned The Mummy's failure on actor Tom Cruise instead of taking the blame themselves, I said the Dark Universe was dead on arrival.
Sadly, it looks like I was right on all counts.
The next entry in the Dark Universe was supposed to be the Bride Of Frankenstein. Why they'd make a movie about the Bride before introducing the Frankenstein monster, I have no idea, but there you go. Anyway, the film was to be directed by Bill Condon, who recently helmed the incredibly successful live action Beauty And The Beast. But in an interview a couple weeks ago, Condon said he was looking forward to filming Bride Of Frankenstein, but claimed it wouldn't be connected to the Dark Universe in any way. Said Condon:
"I will tell you this— what I’m doing is 100% making a really good monster movie. It has nothing to do with anything else. Nothing. Zero."Wha...? So much for those shared universe, I guess!
Then a few days later, Universal announced that Bride Of Frankenstein has been quietly removed from their schedule, in order to "rework the script." Universal made an official statement, saying:
“None of us want to move too quickly to meet a release date when we know this special movie needs more time to come together. Bill is a director whose enormous talent has been proven time and again, and we all look forward to continuing to work on this film together.”All that's MovieSpeak® for, "We don't wanna risk throwing any more money at this cinematic turd, so we're yanking it from the schedule to try and save what little face we have left."
I will be greatly surprised if the Bride Of Frankenstein remake ever sees the light of day at all. I tried to tell Universal they were going about it all backwards, but no one ever listens to me.
R.I.P. Dark Universe
2017 -2017
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That's No Moon, It's A Poster!
I like it! It's definitely one of the better poster designs I've seen in a long, long time (although it wouldn't take much to outdo the mediocre crap hanging in most cineplexes today). It's an interesting layout, and has quite a striking color scheme.
Best part about the new poster— there's no goddamned Death Star anywhere on it! Huzzah! I'm hopeful that means the film's plot won't revolve around blowing up yet a FOURTH one.
Since The Force Awakens was a remake of A New Hope, I'm assuming The Last Jedi will be a shot for shot recreation of The Empire Strikes Back, so we should be safe. They'll save the blowing up of the fourth Death Star for the remake of The Return Of The Jedi.
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It Came From The Cineplex: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Kingsman: The Golden Circle was written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn. It was directed by Matthew Vaughn.
Goldman and Vaughn previously wrote Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, The Debt (along with Peter Straughan) and of course 2015's Kingsman: The Secret Service..
Goldman wrote The Woman In Black, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children and The Limehouse Golem solo.
Goldman wrote The Woman In Black, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children and The Limehouse Golem solo.
Vaughn co-wrote X-Men: Days Of Future Past. He previously directed Layer Cake, Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and Kingsman: The Secret Service. Whew! Got all that?
The Kingsman films are very loosely based on the The Secret Service comic by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. Millar was the writer of the Wanted and Kick-Ass comics, both of which became feature films. Gibbons was co-writer and artist of the Watchmen graphic novel, which also got the movie treatment.
The film has a fairly comic book-y cast as well. Jeff Bridges previously starred in Iron Man and R.I.P.D., while Halle Berry was in the various X-Men films as well as Catwoman (!). Mark Strong previously starred in Kick-Ass and Green Lantern. I suppose at this point in our world it's tough to find an actor who hasn't been in a comic book movie.
The film has a fairly comic book-y cast as well. Jeff Bridges previously starred in Iron Man and R.I.P.D., while Halle Berry was in the various X-Men films as well as Catwoman (!). Mark Strong previously starred in Kick-Ass and Green Lantern. I suppose at this point in our world it's tough to find an actor who hasn't been in a comic book movie.
Did you enjoy the plot of Kingsman: The Secret Service? Then you're in luck, because virtually every element and story beat from the first film is duplicated in The Golden Circle. Main character Eggsy's is once again introduced to a whole new world of spies and high tech equipment (in America this time). There're more outlandish fight scenes and ridiculous action setpieces. There's another evil henchmen with a deadly prosthetic limb. And we get yet another campy comic book villain with a plan to take over the entire world by killing everyone in it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.
Kingsman: The Secret Service paid homage to early James Bond films and their various tropes, subverting them without resorting to outright mocking. Kingsman: The Golden Circle does the same thing, but naturally it can't quite capture the surprises and original tone of the first film.
As these are male-fantasy spy spoofs, it's a given that women need not apply (or at least must stand discreetly in the back, behind the men). Kingsman Agent Roxie is callously obliterated in the opening seconds of the film, while Statesman Agent Ginger Ale is relegated to her lab, never allowed to venture out on field missions. And to top it all off, Eggsy's girlfriend is a literal princess (!), who's given nothing to do but wring her hands and fret about her man, going so far as to turn to drugs to alleviate her stress!
The only other female character of note is villain Poppy Adams, who wouldn't be out of place on the 1966 Batman TV show. C'mon, writers! I'm by no means a feminist, but even I thought the film's treatment of women as inconsequential props was a bit much.
The first film satirized British culture, skewering both the upper and lower classes. This one sets its sights squarely on the U.S., as Matthew Vaughn offers a warped take on Americans. The Statesmen are all exaggerated, macho cowboy types, and even villain Poppy Adams is a parody of the perfect 1950s TV housewife. I'm sure there must be a message there somewhere, even though I'm not quite sure what it is.
I still think it's odd that Eggsy is the ostensible star of these films, but actor Taron Egerton only gets third billing on the poster. I guess that's better than the NO billing he got on the previous film's poster, despite the fact that it prominently featured his face. Time for a new agent, stat!
The film clocks in at a whopping 141 minutes, but honestly it didn't feel that long. That said, it could stand a bit of trimming, especially the pointless and downright icky Glastonbury scenes.
For some reason the film's struggling here in the States, which surprises me, since the first film was a surprise box office hit. So far it's grossed just $81 million against its $104 million budget. Why the hell it cost that much, I have no idea, as the film didn't look any more spectacular than the first. Maybe Elton John demanded a huge paycheck to show up? It's done much better overseas, where it's made $173 million, for a worldwide total of $255 million. That officially makes it a moderate hit, insuring we'll see Part Three in a couple years.
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
A year after the events of Kingsman: The Secret Service, Eggsy Unwin (played by Taron Egerton) is still working as a secret agent for the Kingsmen. He's now known as Galahad, the title formerly used by the late Harry Hart, his mentor who was killed in the first film. Eggsy's also living with Princess Tilde of Sweden, who he also met at the end of the previous movie.
As Eggsy leaves the Kingsman Tailor Shop (which of course is a front for the secret spy organization), he's ambushed by Charlie Hesketh and his henchmen. Charlie's a failed Kingsman recruit, who lost his arm and vocal chords during the first film. He now has a powerful bionic arm and an electronic voice box. There's a big, outlandish Bond-style car chase, as Eggsy and Charlie battle one another while speeding through the center of London.
During the chase, Eggsy tears off Charlie's bionic arm (which must not have been attached very well!) and throws him from the car, where he lands in the street. The arm plops unnoticed into the back seat of Eggsy's car. He manages to elude the police and drives into a lake, where there's a secret underwater entrance to a Kingsman base.
During the chase, Eggsy tears off Charlie's bionic arm (which must not have been attached very well!) and throws him from the car, where he lands in the street. The arm plops unnoticed into the back seat of Eggsy's car. He manages to elude the police and drives into a lake, where there's a secret underwater entrance to a Kingsman base.
Eggsy then rushes to Sweden, where he has an awkward dinner with Tilde and her parents, the King and Queen. While he's out of the country, Charlie's forgotten bionic arm springs to life, hacking into the Kingsman's database and locating all its secret bases. The arm launches a missile strike, destroying every Kingsman base and every agent in England, including Arthur (head of the organization) and Roxy Morton, who trained with Eggsy.
Eggsy returns to London and stands staring at the ruins of the shop, feeling survivor's guilt. He's approached by Merlin (played by Mark Strong), the only other surviving agent. Merlin activates the Doomsday Protocol, which is only to be used in cased of extreme emergency. The Protocol turns out to be a simple bottle of Kentucky bourbon. From this they figure out they need to travel to America.
Eggsy returns to London and stands staring at the ruins of the shop, feeling survivor's guilt. He's approached by Merlin (played by Mark Strong), the only other surviving agent. Merlin activates the Doomsday Protocol, which is only to be used in cased of extreme emergency. The Protocol turns out to be a simple bottle of Kentucky bourbon. From this they figure out they need to travel to America.
Eggsy and Merline arrive at the Statesman Bourbon Distillery in Kentucky. After a tense encounter with security, they discover the Statesmen are the American version of the Kingsmen. They have their own massive secret base, funded solely by sales of their bourbon whiskey.
The two meet with Champagne, aka "Champ" (played by Jeff Bridges) who introduces them to the rest of the crew: agents Tequila (played by Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (played by Pedro Pascal), along with tech whiz Ginger Ale (played by Halle Berry). Yeah, the Statesman agents all have beverage codenames, just like the way the Kingsmen were named after Arthurian characters.
The two meet with Champagne, aka "Champ" (played by Jeff Bridges) who introduces them to the rest of the crew: agents Tequila (played by Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (played by Pedro Pascal), along with tech whiz Ginger Ale (played by Halle Berry). Yeah, the Statesman agents all have beverage codenames, just like the way the Kingsmen were named after Arthurian characters.
Champ says he has a surprise for the two British agents, and Ginger takes them to a special room where they see Harry, aka Galahad (played by Colin Firth), is somehow still alive. Ginger says that after Richmond Valentine shot and killed Harry in the first film, she and Tequila were alerted to the disturbance and swooped down in a Statesman chopper within seconds. Ginger then administered a newly developed "Alpha Gel" head wound treatment. Amazingly it brought Harry back to life (!), minus his left eye and his memory. Ginger's hopeful Harry's memory will return in time, theorizing that a powerful recollection might jump start it.
Cut to Poppy Land, a bizarre little 1950s-themed community built in the heart of the Cambodian jungle. It's run by Poppy Adams (played by Julianne Moore), head of a nefarious international drug cartel. Poppy seems like a sickeningly sweet Martha Stewart type, but can instantly turn cold, ruthless or psychotic (So she's a normal woman then. IT'S A JOKE, PEOPLE!!!). She calls her organization the Golden Circle (Houston, we have a title!). Her compound houses hundreds of disposable grunts, a pair of deadly robotic dogs, and for some reason, Sir Elton John, who she forces to perform for her.
Back in Kentucky, Eggsy tries to trigger Harry's memories, but fails. Champ tells Eggsy they've been hunting the Golden Circle for years, but can't seem to find Poppy's HQ. He assigns Tequila as his partner, and orders them to find the hidden base. Just then Tequila's covered by a bizarre blue rash and rushed to a stasis pod in the Statesman med bay, where he spends the rest of the film. Champ then assigns Whiskey as Eggsy's new partner.
They learn that Charlie's ex-girlfriend Clara Von Gluckfberg (!) is attending the Glastonbury Festival in England. They fly there and Eggsy flirts with Clara, planting a tracking device in her... um, vagina. No, really! For some reason Eggsy calls Princess Tilde and tells her what he did, swearing it was all in the line of duty. Naturally this upsets her greatly, and she turns to drugs to relieve her pain (um... this is a member of a royal family, we're talking about, right?).
Poppy then takes over the airwaves and broadcasts a message, stating she's laced all her recreational drugs with a deadly toxin. Anyone taking her drugs will develop a blue rash (just like Tequila), followed by paranoia, paralysis and finally death. She claims she has the only antidote, and demonstrates it on Sir Elton John. She delivers an ultimatum to the President of the United States (thankfully played by Bruce Greenwood)— stop the War On Drugs, give her and her cartel full immunity to do whatever they want, and she'll send out a fleet of drones that will spray the antidote over the population.
The President sees this as a golden opportunity to rid America of its drug users. He pretends to go along with Poppy's demands, while secretly rounding up everyone infected with the toxin, intending to just let them die. Problem solved!
Eggsy comes up with a drastic plan to restore Harry's memories. As part of the Kingsman training process, every recruit is given a puppy and later required to shoot it (actually their guns are filled with blanks, to test their resolve). Eggsy brings in a dog that looks like Harry's beloved Mr. Pickle (who died of old age) and threatens to shoot it. The plan works, as Harry's traumatized by the dog and finally remembers who he is.
The Statesmen use Clara's tracker to locate a factory in Italy that's manufacturing Poppy's antidote. Eggsy, Harry and Whiskey fly there, infiltrate the factory and steal a sample of the antidote. Charlie's inside the factory, and sends an army of Golden Circle henchmen after the agents. Eggsy and the others hide out in a mountain cabin, where they're soon surrounded. During the shootout, the antidote is destroyed.
While they're pinned down, Harry secretly tells Eggsy he suspects Whiskey's a double agent. Eggsy doesn't believe him, assuming Harry's not quite his old self yet. Harry then brutally shoots Whiskey in the head, killing him. A horrified Eggsy says, "What the hell, man!" and uses the Alpha Gel treatment on Whiskey to bring him back to life. He realizes Harry's still not all there and can't be trusted. To make things even worse, Eggsy gets a call from Tilde, who's now infected with Poppy's toxin. And to top it all off, Charlie blows up the Italian factory, meaning they can't steal any more of the antidote.
While they're pinned down, Harry secretly tells Eggsy he suspects Whiskey's a double agent. Eggsy doesn't believe him, assuming Harry's not quite his old self yet. Harry then brutally shoots Whiskey in the head, killing him. A horrified Eggsy says, "What the hell, man!" and uses the Alpha Gel treatment on Whiskey to bring him back to life. He realizes Harry's still not all there and can't be trusted. To make things even worse, Eggsy gets a call from Tilde, who's now infected with Poppy's toxin. And to top it all off, Charlie blows up the Italian factory, meaning they can't steal any more of the antidote.
Eggsy, Harry and Merlin then secretly follow Charlie to Poppy Land to steal more of the antidote for synthesis. As they're trudging through the jungle, Eggsy steps on a landmine surrounding the compound. Merlin freezes it, then shoves Eggsy off it and stands on it himself. He then creates a diversion by singing a touching rendition of John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads, giving Eggsy and Harry a chance to sneak in. Once they're inside the compound, Merlin sets off the landmine, killing himself and dozens of Poppy's goons.
Inside Poppy Land, Eggsy encounters Charlie and they have an epic battle. Eggsy eventually kills Charlie (until he gets better and comes back in the third film). Harry's attacked by Poppy's robotic dogs, but is saved by the timely intervention of Elton John.
Eggsy and Harry capture Poppy, along with the briefcase that controls the antidote drones. They demand she hand over the drone access code, but she refuses. Eggsy injects her with the toxin and asks again. She gives them the code and promptly dies, as Eggsy mistakenly gave her too high a dose. Welp, so much for the movie's villain, I guess!
Eggsy and Harry capture Poppy, along with the briefcase that controls the antidote drones. They demand she hand over the drone access code, but she refuses. Eggsy injects her with the toxin and asks again. She gives them the code and promptly dies, as Eggsy mistakenly gave her too high a dose. Welp, so much for the movie's villain, I guess!
Just as they're about to enter the code, Whiskey somehow shows up and stops them, proving Harry was right about him all along. He reveals he's not working with Poppy as they thought. Instead he's avenging the death of his wife and unborn son, who were killed by drug addicts. The three agents have another big setpiece battle, which ends when Eggsy and Harry throw Whiskey into Poppy's meat grinder. They enter the code and the drones release the toxin, saving millions of lives all over the world, including Tequila and Tilde.
The President is then impeached (oh, if only) for attempting to murder the world's drug "victims." Champ announces he's opening a new distillery in Scotland, which will double as the new Kingsman HQ. He offers Eggsy a job with the Statesmen, telling him he can become the new Whiskey. He politely declines, and Champ gives the title to Ginger Ale. Eggsy marries Princess Tilde, and Tequila moves to London to work for the new Kingsmen.
Thoughts:
• After Eggsy manages to lose Charlie, he's desperate to make it to the Kingsman's secret HQ before the cops catch him. Why's he so worried about the cops? Aren't they all on the same side? If he was stopped by them, couldn't he just show 'em his secret agent I.D. card? Are the Kingsman so top secret that not even the government knows they exist, and they want to keep it that way?
• I hated seeing the all the Kingsman agents and HQ blown up at the beginning of the movie, but I get why they did it. Eggy's Pygmalion storyline played itself out in the first film, so there was really nowhere else to go. The only real solution was to blow up everything and start over.
That said, I am royally pissed by the way The Golden Circle brutally and callously kills off Agent Roxy Morton, without a second thought. She was a big part of the first film, and I liked her character a lot. She deserved a better fate.
• As a test of loyalty, Poppy orders a new recruit named Angel to kill an older henchman and stuff his body into her diner's meat grinder. Angel reluctantly does so, and Poppy activates the machine. Pounds of fresh, ground meat then pours from the end of the grinder— but ONLY meat. There're no shreds of clothing or chunks of shoe leather.
Apparently Poppy's machine has a special feature that somehow removes clothing before grinding up a body.
• Poppy has two robot guard dogs she calls "Bennie" and "Jet." Obviously this is in honor of her captive Elton John, who famously sang Bennie And The Jets.
• In Kingsman: The Secret Service, Harry has an epically awesome shootout inside a bigot-filled Kentucky church. In this film, the Statesmen's secret base is also located in Kentucky, and the agents all act like exaggerated, cartoonish Southerners.
Gosh, do you think director Matthew Vaughn (who was born in London) is trying to say something about Americans in these movies? Does he really believe we're all ignorant, drawling, gun-toting fundamentalists?
• The Golden Circle marks the third time Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore have worked together. They previously starred in The Big Lebowski and Seventh Son.
• Are you a fan of Channing Tatum? Are you looking forward to watching him in The Golden Circle? Eh, not so fast there! For some reason he appears for a few minutes early on, literally sits out the bulk of the movie, and shows up for a few seconds again at the end. His appearance amounts to little more than a cameo.
The same goes for Jeff Bridges, whose appearance is also a glorified cameo.
• I hated seeing the all the Kingsman agents and HQ blown up at the beginning of the movie, but I get why they did it. Eggy's Pygmalion storyline played itself out in the first film, so there was really nowhere else to go. The only real solution was to blow up everything and start over.
That said, I am royally pissed by the way The Golden Circle brutally and callously kills off Agent Roxy Morton, without a second thought. She was a big part of the first film, and I liked her character a lot. She deserved a better fate.
• As a test of loyalty, Poppy orders a new recruit named Angel to kill an older henchman and stuff his body into her diner's meat grinder. Angel reluctantly does so, and Poppy activates the machine. Pounds of fresh, ground meat then pours from the end of the grinder— but ONLY meat. There're no shreds of clothing or chunks of shoe leather.
Apparently Poppy's machine has a special feature that somehow removes clothing before grinding up a body.
• Poppy has two robot guard dogs she calls "Bennie" and "Jet." Obviously this is in honor of her captive Elton John, who famously sang Bennie And The Jets.
• In Kingsman: The Secret Service, Harry has an epically awesome shootout inside a bigot-filled Kentucky church. In this film, the Statesmen's secret base is also located in Kentucky, and the agents all act like exaggerated, cartoonish Southerners.
Gosh, do you think director Matthew Vaughn (who was born in London) is trying to say something about Americans in these movies? Does he really believe we're all ignorant, drawling, gun-toting fundamentalists?
• The Golden Circle marks the third time Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore have worked together. They previously starred in The Big Lebowski and Seventh Son.
• Are you a fan of Channing Tatum? Are you looking forward to watching him in The Golden Circle? Eh, not so fast there! For some reason he appears for a few minutes early on, literally sits out the bulk of the movie, and shows up for a few seconds again at the end. His appearance amounts to little more than a cameo.
The same goes for Jeff Bridges, whose appearance is also a glorified cameo.
• This film marks the third time that Bruce Greenwood has played President. He previously played JFK in Thirteen Days and another fictitious prez in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Ironically, Greenwood is Canadian, so he can never be President in real life.
• Who knew Elton John was an action hero? He stole the show as he beat up a gang of henchmen while clad in an outlandish feathered outfit!
• In Kingsman: The Secret Service, Richmond Valentine shot Harry in the eye at point blank range. He got better thanks to the Statesmen, but he's still missing his left eye.
Does that seem odd? If the Statesmen have the technology to heal a bullet wound to the head (!), how hard could it be to whip up a bionic eye?
• Although I'm glad Harry's back as Galahad, his inevitable resurrection in this film completely undercuts his emotional exit in the first film. See, no one ever really dies in the Kingsman Universe, as they're always effortlessly brought back to life (except when the script says they can't be).
When characters can be hand-wavingly resurrected with this much ease, then their temporary deaths have no meaning or emotional impact. Dying becomes just a minor inconvenience, no worse than a bad cold.
Fortunately the filmmakers had the good sense not to resurrect Merlin after his emotional death in this film. Hopefully he'll stay dead, and won't pop up somehow in the third film.
• Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the third film in 2017 to feature John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads. The song popped up in Alien: Covenant and in Logan Lucky as well. In addition, the movie Free Fire prominently used Denver's You Fill Up My Senses.
I dunno why, but for some reason, 2017 seems to be the year of John Denver!
• Poppy's master plan deserves some scrutiny. She resents the fact that the drugs she peddles are illegal, but cigarettes and alcohol aren't, which forces her to hide out in Cambodia. So she devises a scheme in which she'll lace all her drugs with a toxin that will kill anyone who uses them, unless the President grants her and her people full and permanent immunity.
I get the feeling Poppy hasn't thought this all the way through. What if the President says no to her ultimatum (as he secretly does in the movie)? She'd end up killing off her clientele. Who's gonna buy her illegal drugs when there are no more addicts? Doesn't seem like a very sound business model.
• This film has a VERY mixed message regarding America's War On Drugs and recreational drug use in general, and I'm still not clear on just what it's trying to say. On the one hand, it criticizes anyone (like the movie's President) who dares to speak ill of drug users. But then it turns around and says people shouldn't abuse drugs.
So which is it, movie? Are drug users sinful and evil, or poor, innocent victims of circumstance?
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is, like many sequels, pretty much a remake of its predecessor, but with everything turned up to eleven. It callously kills off several old characters while unsurprisingly resurrecting a major one from the first film. It expands its world a bit, while handily setting up yet a third entry. I enjoyed the first film a lot (going so far as to see it twice in the theater!), but gave it a much too enthusiastic A-. I should have given it a B at most. And that's what I'm giving this new one— a solid B.
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• This film has a VERY mixed message regarding America's War On Drugs and recreational drug use in general, and I'm still not clear on just what it's trying to say. On the one hand, it criticizes anyone (like the movie's President) who dares to speak ill of drug users. But then it turns around and says people shouldn't abuse drugs.
So which is it, movie? Are drug users sinful and evil, or poor, innocent victims of circumstance?
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is, like many sequels, pretty much a remake of its predecessor, but with everything turned up to eleven. It callously kills off several old characters while unsurprisingly resurrecting a major one from the first film. It expands its world a bit, while handily setting up yet a third entry. I enjoyed the first film a lot (going so far as to see it twice in the theater!), but gave it a much too enthusiastic A-. I should have given it a B at most. And that's what I'm giving this new one— a solid B.
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Sign Of "Things" To Come!
First of all, the movie premiered in 1978. That means it's 39 years old this year. THIRTY NINE! How the hell is that even possible? I can remember sitting in the theater watching it first run!
Secondly, as a graphic designer, I'm always aware of fonts and kerning and such. Halloween uses the ITC Serif Gothic Black font. It's not bad, but I think I'd have come up with a hand-made, "scary" looking font instead of just using a store-bought one.
The kerning (aka spacing between letters) is also a bit off. There's way too much space on either side of the "A" and too much between the two "Es." But other than that it's perfect!
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The Flash Season 4, Episode 1: The Flash Reborn
As season premieres go, this one was a bit lacking. It dealt with the big season-ending cliffhanger from Finish Line in the least interesting and most offhanded way possible, which made for less than compelling viewing.
I assumed we'd then get at least one "Flash-less" episode before Barry returned, to show us how the rest of the cast was dealing with his absence. I thought they might even wait two or three episodes before he returned, showing up just when Central City was at its lowest.
Nope! We got maybe ten minutes of Team Not Flash before Barry returns.
Why the big hurry? Why needlessly rush his return? Wouldn't it have been much better if we'd gotten an entire episode without Barry? Then maybe an entire episode where he tries to regain his memory? Instead his return and restoration all happens in the space of about fifteen minutes, making me wonder why the hell they bothered with this Speed Force storyline in the first place.
It's almost like the creators realized they'd written themselves into a corner with this Speed Force storyline, and wanted to dispose of it as quickly as possible. Even worse, once Barry returns, his ordeal affects him for all of about fifteen minutes before he's completely back to normal, as if nothing happened. The whole thing just felt cheap and unearned.
There's one small ray of hope here— maybe there's more going on here that we think. Maybe Barry was affected by the Speed Force more than he's letting on. Maybe he's really not even Barry (GASP!).
On the plus side, the writers really stepped up with Iris in this episode, and it was great to see her finally have something to do. This was a nice change from last year, where she pretty much spent the entire season standing around and wringing her hands as she waited for her predestined Death Day to arrive. Hopefully she'll continue commanding Team Flash from STAR Labs. She did end up playing Damsel In Distress before the episode was done, but at least she CHOSE to put herself in danger this time, to help spur Barry's recovery.
One reason I hoped they'd keep Barry inside the Speed Force longer was so Wally West, aka Kid Flash, could step up and finally have something to do on the show. The brief scenes of him and Team Not Flash working together to save the city were a lot of fun and very well done. Alas, they were also all too brief, as the writers just couldn't wait to bring Barry back and shove Wally to the side again. Which makes me ask— what the hell is Wally's purpose on this show? Why'd they turn him into Kid Flash in the first place? So they could constantly remind us that Wally's not as good as Barry?
In recent interviews, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg promised that Season 4 of The Flash would bring back the lighter tone of the early episodes. That's great if true, but... color me skeptical. I've heard promises like that before.
If nothing else, at least we're not getting another speedster villain this year! Woohoo!
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
Wally, Cisco and Joe are chasing metahuman criminal Peek-a-Boo across Central City. They're led by Iris, who's coordinating their movements from inside STAR Labs. The four of them now make up Team Not Flash, formed to protect the city now that Barry's lost inside the Speed Force.
Peek-a-Boo uses her powers to teleport across rooftops to escape. Wally and Cisco manage to capture her, but she wriggles free and points a gun at them. She's then stunned by Joe, who's wielding a piece of STAR Labs tech. The three congratulate themselves on their teamwork, but Iris, who's now humorless and drive after Barry's disappearance, isn't impressed. Cisco says it'd be easier of they weren't a man down.
At the West home, Joe tells Iris that his gal pal Cecile is moving in. Cecile says now that Julian's abruptly fled the show and Barry's disappeared, she's going to have to hire a CSI replacement at the Central City Police Department. This depresses Iris.
Suddenly there's a disturbance, and Team Not Flash springs into action. Wally and Cisco confront an armored, masked samurai warrior, who demands the "real" Flash come out and face him. Wally speaks to him in Japanese (!), saying that's not gonna happen. The Samurai says they have one day to produce the Flash, or he'll destroy Central City. Just to prove he's not kidding, he stabs his sword into the pavement, producing a massive energy wave that flings the surrounding vehicles several hundred feet.
Back at STAR, Cisco says he's been working on a way to bring Barry back. For some reason Iris forbids him from messing with the Speed Force, saying they need to figure out a way to deal with the Samurai. Cisco ignores her and tracks down Caitlin, who's working in the
The next day Cisco sets up his equipment on the abandoned (I hope) runway where they first tested Barry's speed back in the pilot episode. Wally, Joe and Caitlin— but not Iris— are there as well. Cisco launches into a lengthy technobabble explanation of how he plans to rescue Barry. He's using a Quark Sphere (whatever that is) to imitate Barry's life signs and fool the Speed Force into thinking he's still in it. Comic Book Science! He'll then use the Speed Force cannon from last season to pull him back into the real world.
Cisco fires up the machinery, opens a portal and fires the cannon, but it doesn't work. Cue sad trombone. Just then Iris shows up, furious that Cisco went behind her back.
Later that day a wormhole opens in downtown Central City, and a familiar lightning-covered figure exits and zooms off. Hundreds of miles away in Ivy City (wherever that is), the figure stops in the middle of the road. It's Barry Allen, naked and sporting an embarrassingly scraggly beard. As a truck approaches, he collapses in the road.
Barry's taken to the CCPD (just how he got there is none of our business), and Cecile calls Joe and says to come pick him up. Joe, Iris and the others arrive, and see Barry sitting in holding cell he intently draws strange symbols all over the walls. When they try to talk to him, he responds with a string of rhyming gibberish. They take him back to STAR, where Caitlin examines him. She says physically he's super fit, but mentally... oy. She has two theories— he may be suffering from schizophasia, or else he was inside the timey-wimey Speed Force for the equivalent of thousands of years and is suffering from dementia.
Cisco shows Barry a new costume he made for him for some reason, hoping that'll rouse Barry from his incoherent state. Iris tries talking to Barry, and suddenly his eyes glow and he starts zipping uncontrollably around Star Labs. Caitlin finally KO's him with a freeze gun, and ironically not with her Killer Frost powers (!).
Just then the Samurai shows up on the street, looking for Barry again. Wally dons Barry's Flash costume and tries to fool the Samurai. He's too smart for that and promptly stabs Wally through the shin, once again demanding to see the real Flash.
Back at STAR Labs, Cisco analyzes Barry's alien symbols, and figures out they're a language (which seemed pretty obvious to me). He translates them and says they mean "This house is bitchin." Um... what? Joe tells Iris that he's been going to church lately, and has faith that Barry will be OK.
Later on the Samurai shows up again, and is surrounded by Joe and the CCPD. Suddenly Iris appears and gives herself up to the villain. When the Samurai asks what the heck she's doing, she says if he takes her, Barry will come for him, which is what he wants. The Samurai then flies off with her, much to Joe's chagrin.
Joe rushes back to STAR Labs and tells the still-babbling Barry that Iris has been abducted. For some reason, the second Barry hears Iris' name he stops his babbling. His eyes glow again and he breaks out of the Secret Super Jail cell, grabs his new costume and runs off. He catches up to the Samurai, who's flying through the air with Iris in tow. The Samurai flies through a wind farm, blasting several of the enormous windmills and causing them to topple over toward Barry. He runs up one of the windmills and is able to grab Iris. A second later one of the blades hits the Samurai, knocking him to the ground. Barry removes the comatose Samurai's mask, revealing it's really a robot. Or a Samuroid, as Cisco calls it.
Back at STAR, Caitlin examines Barry again, who says he feels like he's been reborn (boy, DC lovvvvves itself some Christ metaphors, don't they?). He's also now much faster than ever. No one brings up the possibility that he might not actually be the real Barry.
Cisco asks Caitlin if she's back for good, and she says yes. She returns to the bar to give her two week notice or something. Her boss doesn't take it well and grabs her arm. Caitlin slowly turns into Killer Frost and tells him to move his hand or lose it. She stumbles out of the bar, and painfully regains control of herself, turning back into Caitlin.
Cut to a mysterious lab, where a woman called the Mechanic stares at the remains of the Samuroid. She approaches the Thinker, a man seemingly built into a futuristic chair, and asks him what's next. He turns and says, "I'm thinking." Com-O-Dee!
Thoughts:
• Peek-a-Boo first appeared in the Season 1 episode Crazy For You, where she was captured and tossed into Well's Secret Super Jail. So... does that means she's been sitting in that cell for the past three years, without benefit of a trial?
Shh... we're not supposed to think about stuff like that.
So how's Wally falling all that distance without splattering all over the rooftop? He has superspeed. That ain't gonna protect him from a five hundred foot fall. Fast doesn't mean invulnerable. Is he somehow vibrating his body to slow it down or absorb the impact or some other pseudo-scientific hooey?
• Iris tells Cisco that Peek-a-Boo's gonna land on the Broome Tower. It's been mentioned on the show before, and once again I assume it's a shoutout to John Broome, who wrote many a Silver Age Flash comic back in the day.
• Team Not Flash seems like an effective and pretty well-oiled machine. So why haven't they been working together this all along, even when Barry was around? Yeah, yeah, in the past Cisco would occasionally bark directions to Barry over his comm, but that was about the extent of their teamwork. Why has Barry always done everything by himself up to this point? Why not take advantage of his superpowered co-workers?
• Since Iris is now in command of Team Not Flash full time, I guess that means she no longer worked for the Central City Picture News? Or is she somehow still finding time to write articles in between coordinating the Team?
• Welp, so much for Tom Felton as Julian, who apparently moved back to London between seasons. Just when I was starting to like him too.
• At one point Cisco says, "I've consulted with Harry and and Tina and Tracy and Felicity and Curtis, and I'm pretty sure I figured out a way to stabilize the Speed Force Prison and free Barry without unleashing another lightning storm on the city."
If you've not up on your Arrowverse lore, he just named all the brainiacs/tech gurus on the various series.
Harry's obviously the Earth-2 Harrison Wells, and I assume Tina is Dr. Tina McGee, of Mercury Labs. Tracy is likely Tracy Brand, who became an honorary member of Team Flash last season, but unceremoniously disappeared this year. Felicity is Felicity Smoak, Cisco's equivalent over on Arrow. And Curtis is Curtis Holt, another Arrow tech guru who later became the superhero Mr. Terrific.
• This is some hardcore nitpicking, but whatever. When Cisco's trying to bring Barry out of the Speed Force, he says, "In the spirit of bringing back old friends, may I present the Speed Force bazooka. Ah, I made a few slight modifications, as Captain Solo would say."
Wrong! When Han talks about the Millennium Falcon, he says, "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself."
Told you it was hardcore! As a card-carrying nerd, Cisco should know this.
• The Flash has always excelled in nonsensical Comic Book Science, but they outdid themselves in this episode. For some reason, there always needs to be a speedster living inside the Speed Force, or else it'll start unleashing powerful forces that'll destroy the Earth. At the end of last season, Barry willingly entered the Speed Force in order to save the planet. Sure, why not?
In this episode, Cisco comes up with a plan to "fool" the Speed Force and save Barry. Here are his exact words:
"Caitlin and I spent all of last night working out some kinks, fine-tuning the Quark Sphere. The Quark Sphere, filled with Barry's unique genetic marker, and programmed to track his specific DNA, using the electrical current of the Speed Force. Once we track Barry and we pull him out, the Quark Sphere will trick the Speed Force into thinking he's still there."
So basically he's coating a softball with Barry's DNA (eww!) and tossing it into the Speed Force, which will somehow make it think he's still inside it. Got it.
That is some amazing "science" there. I hope the writers didn't hurt themselves bending over backwards to come up with that ridiculous solution.
• Iris mentions something about bringing the Mockingbird satellite online. Is that the satellite Cisco bragged about owning to Caitlin?
I don't know what really went on behind the scenes, but I have a feeling that when Grant Gustin read the script, he said to the producers, "Hey, how about letting me grow my OWN beard! I know I can do it!" They probably reluctantly said yes, and then he showed up on set with that patchy nightmare on his face. At that point it was too late to shave it off and glue a proper fake beard to his head, so they had to make do with what he'd "grown."
That's my theory, anyway. How else would you explain that raggedy excuse for a beard?
• Barry emerges from the Speed Force and immediately zooms off. He ends up in Ivy City, where he collapses in the middle of the road. Um... did they mean Ivy Town here? There's an Ivy Town in the Arrowverse, but no Ivy City as far as I can tell. Professor Stein of the Legends Of Tomorrow went to Ivy Town University, and Oliver Queen and his wife Felicity lived there for a short time.
Either the writer's flubbed the name, or there are two nearly identically named towns just outside Central City.
• At one point Cecile calls Joe and tells him Barry's in a holding cell at the Central City Police Dept.
So... how'd Barry get from Ivy to Central City? He had no I.D. on him, since he was naked when he passed out. Maybe the ICPD put his photo on the wire, and a Central City cop recognized him as Barry?
• Once Barry's back, he acts spacey and detached, spouting what appears to be gibberish. Caitlin examines him and says he's suffering from schizophasia, which causes people to assign the wrong definition to words. Turns out schizophasia is a real condition! Kudos to whoever googles medical reference on this show!
• It was interesting to see Caitlin blast Barry with a ray from a freeze gun, when she secretly has those exact same powers!
Apparently this high tech scientific think tank has its own branded towels! That had to be Cisco's idea!
• This week's main villain is the Samuroid, a robotic samurai created by the Thinker to test Barry (I guess?).
• Cisco's little speech about Barry's written symbols make absolutely zero sense to me.
Cisco:"I'm gonna keep working on this. Unless you have any ideas."
Iris:"Nope, it's all Greek to me."
Cisco: "Great Caesar's Ghost. This analysis is based on a monoalphabetic substitution cipher, but what if it's polyalphabetic? What if it's it's like Greek? Like the symbols are unique alphabet? Excelsior!"
First of all, did anyone NOT think Barry was writing in some unknown language, with its own unique alphabet? What the hell else would he be writing? Hieroglyphics?
Plus, A monoalphabetic cipher uses fixed substitution over the entire message, whereas a polyalphabetic cipher uses a number of substitutions at different positions in the message. I don't see how that would pertain to Greek in any way.
Also, I get why he says "Great Caesar's Ghost," but Caesar was Roman, and Cisco's talking about the Greek language. He's also mixing universes here, as "Great Caesar's Ghost" was Perry White's catchphrase over at DC, while Stan Lee was always exclaiming "Excelsior!" at Marvel.
• One last thing about Barry's new language: Somehow, despite the fact that he covers the walls with hundreds and hundreds of DIFFERENT symbols, they all somehow boil down to four words: "This house is bitchin."
I have to assume that message will end up meaning something before the season's over.Iris:"Nope, it's all Greek to me."
Cisco: "Great Caesar's Ghost. This analysis is based on a monoalphabetic substitution cipher, but what if it's polyalphabetic? What if it's it's like Greek? Like the symbols are unique alphabet? Excelsior!"
First of all, did anyone NOT think Barry was writing in some unknown language, with its own unique alphabet? What the hell else would he be writing? Hieroglyphics?
Plus, A monoalphabetic cipher uses fixed substitution over the entire message, whereas a polyalphabetic cipher uses a number of substitutions at different positions in the message. I don't see how that would pertain to Greek in any way.
Also, I get why he says "Great Caesar's Ghost," but Caesar was Roman, and Cisco's talking about the Greek language. He's also mixing universes here, as "Great Caesar's Ghost" was Perry White's catchphrase over at DC, while Stan Lee was always exclaiming "Excelsior!" at Marvel.
• One last thing about Barry's new language: Somehow, despite the fact that he covers the walls with hundreds and hundreds of DIFFERENT symbols, they all somehow boil down to four words: "This house is bitchin."
The Thinker, aka Clifford Devoe, is actually a villain from the comics. He first appeared in All-Flash Comics #12, wayyyy back in 1943 (!). He wore a "thinking cap" (no, really!), which amplified his psionic abilities. He often clashed with the Jay Garrick version of the Flash, as well as the Justice Society.
• This Week's Best Lines:
Cisco: (to Caitlin) "Barry's trying to send us a message. I know it. I mean, he spent all this time in the Speed Force. Maybe now he knows the answers to life, the universe, and everything."
Caitlin:"So you think all this crazy writing is Barry's way of telling us 42?"
(I'd expect Cisco to be a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, but I'm surprised Caitlin's heard of it!)
Caitlin: (examining Barry) "Pupils are equally reactive to light. I mean, your vitals are amazing. You're in perfect health, even for you. I'd like a urine sample, just to confirm, but everything looks great."Cisco: "Man, you love urine. You love the the testing of urine. The testing of the urine. You know what I meant."
Joe: (to Barry) "How you feeling?"
Barry:"I feel great. Yeah, I feel incredible. I don't know, it feels like I've been reborn."
(wa-WAHHHHH!)
The Mechanic:"What's our next step?"
The Thinker:"I'm thinking."
(yes, it's corny as hell, but that's why I like it)
↧
The Orville Season 1, Episode 6: Krill
This week's episode finally brings back the Krill, the enemy aliens who were introduced in the series' pilot but haven't been seen since. It gives us some much needed background on the
At first glance this episode, in which the Krill refuse to tolerate any race not blessed by their god, seems to be making a comment about Middle Eastern religious extremism, specifically Muslims. Scratch a bit deeper though and I think it's actually commenting on ALL religions— even Christian fundamentalism! Think about it— over the centuries there's been more blood shed in the name of the Christian God than for any other reason. Heck, the Krill temple even looks amazingly like the inside of a Christian church!
The religious angle gets abandoned halfway through the episode though, as it switches gears and becomes a morality play about casualties of war. Mercer's forced to killa ship full of Krill in order to save a human colony. It's not quite the victory he hoped for though, as his actions inadvertently make future enemies of a group of Krill children. Mercer's realization that violence just begets violence was legitimately chilling, and something I never expected to see on this show.
Krill is the first episode that's not written by series creator Seth MacFarlane. It was penned by David A. Goodman, who's written and produced many of MacFarlane's various animated shows. Goodman's also a Trek alum, as he wrote several scripts for Enterprise (and even an episode of The Golden Girls!).
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
In
Mercer uses some fancy tactics to obscure the Krill vessel's targeting scanners, then unexpectedly unleashes all torpedoes on the enemy ship, destroying it. Even better, Kelly notices a Krill shuttle floating in the wreckage.
Admiral Ozawa arrives on the Orville, and has a plan for the captured Krill shuttle. She says the Union knows very little about the Krill, except that they're extremely religious, and attack human colonies because they see it as their divine right. She says they need to understand the Krill better in order to have a lasting peace, and the only way to do that is to obtain a copy of the Ancana— the Krill bible.
Union intelligence believes every Krill ship has at least one Ancana on board, and Ozawa wants one. She orders Mercer and Gordon to take the stolen shuttle, use it to infiltrate a Krill ship and steal a bible. Mercer's less than enthusiastic about this insane plan, but agrees.
The crew preps the Krill ship in the shuttle bay. Suddenly a Krill soldier enters, holding a gun to Mercer's head. The crew tries to diffuse the tense situation, but the Krill starts laughing and suddenly morphs into Gordon. Mercer explains that Isaac helped develop sophisticated holographic projectors to disguise them as Krill. The projectors will even fool the Krill sensors.
Kelly tells Mercer and Gordon to be careful. They take off in the shuttle and head for the nearest Krill ship. On the way, Mercer reads up on the enemy race. He says the Krill Homeworld is surrounded by thick clouds that obscure 96% of their sun's light, meaning the planet's shrouded in perpetual darkness. Plot Point!
They dock with the Krill ship Y'kar, and are met by Captain Haros and High Priest Sazeron. Mercer and Gordon can't think of suitable Krill names, so they introduce themselves as "Chris" and "Devon."
Sazeron is instantly suspicious, wondering how they survived when everyone else onboard the ship was killed. Just then a bell sounds, and Sazeron says it's time for services. Mercer and Gordon follow everyone into a chapel, where they sit next to a female Krill named Telaya. She introduces herself, and says her brother was on the Kakov, the ship the Orville destroyed. This makes Mercer uncomfortable, as he realizes his actions had very real consequences for the Krill.
Sazeron leads the service, praying to Avis (yeah, Avis), the Krill god. As part of the service, Sazeron holds up the head of a human captured in a raid, saying the man believed he was entitled to the resources of his colony world. Sazeron says the human was not touched by Avis' divine hand, and is therefore unworthy. He then stabs the head a dozen times or so, horrifying Mercer and Gordon. Mercer spots a copy of the Ancana on the altar.
After services, Mercer and Gordon sneak into the chapel. Mercer starts photographing every page of the Ancana, which is easily a foot thick. Suddenly Sazeron enters and catches them. They make a lame excuse and leave. Sazeron eyes them suspiciously.
Sazeron asks Haros to post a guard on the chapel, saying he doesn't trust "Chris" and "Devon." Haros agrees, and orders a guard. Mercer and Gordon sneak back into the chapel and finish copying the book (I guess?). While they're doing so, their holographic generators glitch and stop working, causing them to revert to their true forms. Uh-oh.
Just then a guard enters the chapel and snoops around. Mercer and Gordon somehow elude him and run back to their quarters, where they fix their holo-disguises. Mercer says their holograms were disrupted by a massive power source two decks below, and of course they decide to investigate.
They track the power source and discover the Krill are building a massive neutron bomb. Mercer invites Telaya to dinner to pump her for more info. She claims that anything not Krill doesn't have a soul, and they'll be carrying out the will of Avis when they use the bomb to kill the human colony of Rana III.
Gordon wants to leave immediately and warn the Union, as they've completed their mission and apparently copied the 50,000 page Ancana. Mercer says the mission's changed, as they need to sabotage the bomb while they're already here. He theorizes they could board their shuttle, then use their holo-emitters to remotely detonate the bomb inside the Krill ship. Gordon uncharacteristically points out that they came here to try and make peace, but now they're talking about killing everyone on board. Mercer says there's no alternative.
On their way to look for tools, they're approached by Telaya, who wants them to speak to the class she teaches. They reluctantly agree, and enter the classroom full of Krill child trainees. One asks Mercer how many humans he's killed, while another wants to know why the Union doesn't believe in Avis. Telaya reminds the kids that humans have no souls.
Back in their quarters, Mercer's unnerved by the incident, and tells Gordon that colony or no colony, he's not blowing up a ship full of kids. Just then, Coja, one of Telaya's students, enters and starts asking questions. He wants to know where humans are from and why they don't look like Krill. Mercer explains that it's perpetually dark on Krill, hence their pale skin, while on Earth the sun's UV rays cause some humans to be darker. This spurs the old "Random Comment Inspires A Brilliant Idea" cliche, and Mercer tells Coja to get the hell out. See?
Mercer asks Gordon if it's possible to turn up the lights inside the ship and amplify the UV spectrum. Gordon says yes, even thought there's no way he could possibly know how the internal mechanisms of an alien ship would work. Gordon says that would fry the Krill, who are basically "space vampires," while he and Mercer would just get a bad sunburn. Told you that was a Plot Point!
Gordon brings up the matter of the kids, and Mercer says they could round them all up in the classroom and blow out the lights inside, saving them. Gordon sets up the overload, and activates a ten minute countdown. Unfortunately he's then captured by Sazeron, who confiscates his holo-emiter. He shuts it off, revealing Gordon's humanity, and takes him to the Captain. Mercer returns to the classroom and sees Coja's missing. Just then an intruder alarm sounds. Mercer begs Telaya to keep the kids inside the classroom, and runs off to look for Coja.
Mercer runs through the corridors, pursued by Krill soldiers. On the bridge, Haros questions Gordon, who claims they're on a mission of peace. Haros doesn't believe him, and stabs Gordon in the leg— the same leg he had regenerated just last week.
Just then the ship arrives at Rana III, and Haros launches the bomb. Mercer finds Coja and returns him to the classroom, just as the lights flare up. All over the ship, the Krill collapse as they're burned alive and killed. I guess when Gordon said they'd be "fried," he wasn't kidding!
Gordon sees the bomb heading for Rana III. Luckily he knows how to fire a torpedo on an alien ship, and destroys the bomb at the last second.
Cut to the Orville towing the Krill Destroyer back to the Union. Mercer meets with Telaya before she's taken to the brig. He tells her the children will be returned to their families on Krill, and promises she won't be harmed. She says she finds that hard to believe, since he just murdered her entire crew. Mercer says their mission was one of peace, but the Krill were planning on wiping out Rana III, leaving him with no choice.
Telaya asks Mercer why he saved the Krill children. He says because they're just kids with their whole lives ahead of them. He says they're not his enemy. Telaya ominously says after they saw what he did, they will be.
Thoughts:
• A short little disclaimer here before we start. I wasn't all that impressed with The Orville at first, but I quickly grew to like it over the past month or so. I liked this week's episode a lot as well, even though I'm about to rip it a new one. That's because it's entirely possible to like something while simultaneously pointing out its flaws. I can enjoy the episode while admitting it's far from perfect. OK, on with the review!
• When the crew finds out Bortus can eat anything, they have a field day offering him various items. Gordon runs to the
This opens up a HUGE can of worms, one I don't think the writer quite thought through. Conjuring up a bowl of cereal or even a cooked sirloin steak is one thing. Creating a living cactus plant is quite another! And that's just what happened. No one would ever ask for a dead, simulated cactus— they'd want a real, living, growing one!
If the synthesizers can indeed create life, then the people in the 25th Century can keep their pets forever. I'm assuming it works by scanning an item and storing it in its memory, so it can create a copy later. So when you first get a dog or cat, just stick it in the synthesizer and scan it. When the pet inevitably dies, all you have to do is order up another one! Sure, its memories would be a few years out of date, but hey, you'd still have Mr. Barkers back!
Why stop with pets? Build a bigger synthesizer and scan your kids! If one dies, just make a new copy! You could even scan yourself and live forever (sort of— a copy of you could live on long after you were gone).
As I said, I think the cactus thing slipped under everyone's radar, and they didn't quite think through the implications.
Sorry, Orville SFX Guys, but that had to be the WORST LOOKING fake glass I've ever seen. It didn't even look like a glass— it looked like it was make out of sugar or something.
• When the Orville encounters the Krill Battle Cruiser, Mercer orders Alara to hail them and immediately starts addressing the ship. Alara sheepishly stops him, admitting she's not opened haling frequencies yet!
OK, the joke was kind of out of place in what was a serious situation, but it was still pretty funny. It took a decades-old sci-fi convention— one we saw over and over on every Trek series— and turned it right on its ear. I guess Alara's just not as quick at opening frequencies as Uhura or Worf!
Jesus Christ! Surely there's a better spot for the launchers— one that doesn't risk blowing up the goddamned ship every time they're used!
This isn't something unique to The Orville, as all the various Star Trek series constantly reused their sets over the years. Heck, it's not just Trek— ALL shows have done this at one time or another. Sets are expensive and time consuming to build, so it makes sense to repurpose them whenever possible.
• Gordon holographically disguises himself as a Krill and enters the shuttlebay, pretending he's holding Mercer captive. He completely fools the crew, causing him to double over with laughter. I've listened to Gordon's next line twenty times, and it sound for all the world like he says, "Oh man, your faces were f*cking priceless!" I'm sure the censors didn't actually let that slip through, but boy does it sure sound like it. Maybe he said "freakin."
On the other hand, over on Star Trek: Discovery this week, they actually DID drop the F-bomb for the first time in the fifty one year history of the franchise. In fact they did it twice. Sigh... Congratulations, CBS! You finally figured out what was missing from the Star Trek formula. It's not well-written scripts, likable characters or complex moral dilemmas— it's profanity, and lots of it!
• After boarding the Krill ship, Mercer and Gordon introduce themselves as "Chris" and "Devon." I'm betting the "Chris" alias was an obvious Family Guy reference.
The makeup's done by KNB EFX Group, which is apparently taking cues from Michael Westmore, who created alien prosthetics for all the modern Trek series. Westmore did the same thing with the Klingons, giving each of them all subtly different forehead ridges.
• The look of the Krill makeup seems to have been tweaked slightly since the pilot (just like Alara's look). When we first saw them they appeared to have solid black eyes with glowing white pupils. It was a cool effect, and made the Krill look even more alien.
For some reason, all the Krill in this episode have plain old solid black eyes. So what happened to the white pupils? I have a feeling that was probably a CGI effect and turned out to be too expensive to use in the long run, so... solid black eyes it is. Too bad, as I really liked the white pupil look.
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One last thing about eyeballs. The holographic Krill versions of Mercer and Gordon, er, I mean "Chris" and "Devon" have distinctly human-looking eyes. Luckily for the two of them the other Krill either didn't notice this physical anomaly or were too polite to mention it.
I'm assuming the makeup team left their eyes alone to help the audience recognize which Krill were Mercer and Gordon.
I'm assuming the makeup team left their eyes alone to help the audience recognize which Krill were Mercer and Gordon.
• How's this for some really hardcore nitpicking? Mercer and Gordon use holographic projectors to disguise themselves as Krill soldiers, right? But when Mercer's talking to Captain Haros, he tries to cross his arms and can't, as his thick Krill gauntlets get in the way.
Wha...? I thought the holograms were just images projected around their bodies. Apparently they're somehow solid. They'd have to have some kind of substance, or else Mercer would be able to cross his arms, and it would probably look like his gauntlets were melding into one another.
Told you it was hardcore!
OK, the "Aliens Speaking English" thing is something we're just all going to have to accept and ignore. It's happened in every Trek series ever aired, and every attempt to explain how everyone's understanding everybody else always ends up making things worse. So I'm willing to give 'em this one.
The Krill computers and screens are a different matter though...
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Of course none of that can explain this. When Gordon rigs up a timer to crank up the lights in the Krill ship, for some reason it uses Earthly Arabic numbers.
Apparently Mercer has absolutely no trouble reading and comprehending this page from the Ancana.
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Or this Krill control panel.
I suppose I could be really generous here and propose the idea that the holographic projectors that Isaac whipped up for Mercer and Gordon also automatically translate spoken and written Krillish into English and vice-versa. After all, it's a sci-fi show with advanced tech.
I suppose I could be really generous here and propose the idea that the holographic projectors that Isaac whipped up for Mercer and Gordon also automatically translate spoken and written Krillish into English and vice-versa. After all, it's a sci-fi show with advanced tech.
As I said, this is something we all just need to accept and forget about so we can get on with the story.
• Some more hardcore nitpicking: Coja, a curious Krill kid, asks Mercer where humans come from. Gordon then points to a bright star outside the window. He says if Coja used a very powerful telescope and looked just to the left of it, he'd see Earth's star.
That's some good star charting there by Gordon. They're likely many, many, MANY light years from Earth, and all the familiar constellations are likely to be scrambled and look completely different from what Gordon's used to. That means he's somehow calculated his position in the galaxy and figured out where Earth is, even though he's too far away to see it. I guess he really IS the best pilot in the galaxy!
By the way Gordon, it might not be a good idea to tell a member of an enemy race that hates all other life forms how to find your home planet. Just saying.
I wonder if that seemingly innocent little scene was a bit of foreshadowing, and will come back to bite the Orville crew in the ass?
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• Mercer mentions that in their first encounter with the Krill, the aliens never took their helmets off outside in sunlight, and theorizes they may be highly susceptible to UV rays.
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I went back and checked the pilot episode, and by god he's right. They take their helmets off inside the science lab, and one appears helmetless in the Orville's shuttle, but when they're outside those helmets stay on the entire time. Either way, well done!
I don't know if the Krill's aversion to sunlight was planned from the beginning, or if the writer of this episode got lucky and it just happened to work out perfectly for him.
• One last bit of hardcore nitpicking before I stop. Mercer gets the bright (heh) idea to crank up the lights inside the Krill ship, which will bathe it in UV light and "fry" the Krill.
Why the hell is that even possible? If you were a race that had a deadly aversion to sunlight, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU EVER INSTALL UV LIGHTING INSIDE YOUR SHIP? It's like being allergic to bee venom and then wearing a hive on your head.
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By the way, when Gordon said the increased UV lighting would "fry" the Krill, I assumed he meant it would cause them intense discomfort and incapacitate them. Nope! He literally meant FRY. As in cook until dead.
• Now that (almost) everyone on the Y'kar is dead, I guess Mercer can just pick up the real Ankana and hand it over to Admiral Ozawa.
I'm kind of wondering how the Admiral's gonna react to Mercer's actions here. He wiped out an entire ship full of Krill on what was ostensibly a mission of peace. Yes, he did so to save the Rana III colony, but still... This incident probably isn't going to help the peace process.
• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:There were only a couple I spotted in this episode. The biggest one of course is Avis, which is not only a 20th Century car rental company but the name of the Krill god as well. Somehow Gordon has not only heard of Avis but is intimately familiar with their marketing slogan as well! Impressive! Maybe Avis is still around in 2419 and rents flying cars?
On their way to infiltrate the Krill ship, Gordon listens to The Midnight Special by Credence Clearwater Revival.
• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:The Orville has a fire suppression system, just like the Enterprise-D did. Unfortunately the Orville's catches fire! Com-O-Dee!
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Ever since the Krill appeared in the pilot they seemed familiar, but I could never quite figure out why. This week it finally dawned on me— they look amazingly like the Jem'Hadar from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Jem'Hadar were cloned soldiers grown by the Founders, a civilization of shape-shifting aliens from the Gamma Quadrant.
The idea of crew members going undercover as members of an enemy race is nothing new, and was done many times in the various Trek series over the years. Captain Kirk was altered to look like a Romulan in The Enterprise Incident. Picard and Data did the same in Unification Part I. Counselor Troi also masqueraded as a Romulan in Face Of The Enemy. Commander Riker and Troi posed as Mintakans in Who Watches The Watchers. Riker disguised himself as a Malcorian in First Contact (the TV episode, not the theatrical movie). Worf and his human brother disguised themselves as a Boraalians in Homeward. Over on DS9, Major Kira posed as a Cardassian in Second Skin. There are probably many other instances, but those are the ones I can come up with off the top of my head.
• Some more hardcore nitpicking: Coja, a curious Krill kid, asks Mercer where humans come from. Gordon then points to a bright star outside the window. He says if Coja used a very powerful telescope and looked just to the left of it, he'd see Earth's star.
That's some good star charting there by Gordon. They're likely many, many, MANY light years from Earth, and all the familiar constellations are likely to be scrambled and look completely different from what Gordon's used to. That means he's somehow calculated his position in the galaxy and figured out where Earth is, even though he's too far away to see it. I guess he really IS the best pilot in the galaxy!
By the way Gordon, it might not be a good idea to tell a member of an enemy race that hates all other life forms how to find your home planet. Just saying.
I wonder if that seemingly innocent little scene was a bit of foreshadowing, and will come back to bite the Orville crew in the ass?
I don't know if the Krill's aversion to sunlight was planned from the beginning, or if the writer of this episode got lucky and it just happened to work out perfectly for him.
• One last bit of hardcore nitpicking before I stop. Mercer gets the bright (heh) idea to crank up the lights inside the Krill ship, which will bathe it in UV light and "fry" the Krill.
Why the hell is that even possible? If you were a race that had a deadly aversion to sunlight, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU EVER INSTALL UV LIGHTING INSIDE YOUR SHIP? It's like being allergic to bee venom and then wearing a hive on your head.
• Now that (almost) everyone on the Y'kar is dead, I guess Mercer can just pick up the real Ankana and hand it over to Admiral Ozawa.
I'm kind of wondering how the Admiral's gonna react to Mercer's actions here. He wiped out an entire ship full of Krill on what was ostensibly a mission of peace. Yes, he did so to save the Rana III colony, but still... This incident probably isn't going to help the peace process.
• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:There were only a couple I spotted in this episode. The biggest one of course is Avis, which is not only a 20th Century car rental company but the name of the Krill god as well. Somehow Gordon has not only heard of Avis but is intimately familiar with their marketing slogan as well! Impressive! Maybe Avis is still around in 2419 and rents flying cars?
On their way to infiltrate the Krill ship, Gordon listens to The Midnight Special by Credence Clearwater Revival.
• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:The Orville has a fire suppression system, just like the Enterprise-D did. Unfortunately the Orville's catches fire! Com-O-Dee!
The idea of crew members going undercover as members of an enemy race is nothing new, and was done many times in the various Trek series over the years. Captain Kirk was altered to look like a Romulan in The Enterprise Incident. Picard and Data did the same in Unification Part I. Counselor Troi also masqueraded as a Romulan in Face Of The Enemy. Commander Riker and Troi posed as Mintakans in Who Watches The Watchers. Riker disguised himself as a Malcorian in First Contact (the TV episode, not the theatrical movie). Worf and his human brother disguised themselves as a Boraalians in Homeward. Over on DS9, Major Kira posed as a Cardassian in Second Skin. There are probably many other instances, but those are the ones I can come up with off the top of my head.
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Hey, Why So-lo? (Get It?)
For months now, Disney's troubled Young Han Solo movie has been shooting without an official title. Most have been referring to it simply as the "Untitled Han Solo Movie."
Welp, today Disney and director Ron Howard finally, at long, long last, revealed the movie's official title to the world.
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Really, Opie-Wan? After all this time, that's what you came up with? Oy.
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That's gotta be the most generic and least interesting title they could have possibly come up with. Heck, it's not even a title, it's a TV Guide listing (ask your parents what that was, kids).
I have a feeling Howard forgot he had a meeting with the Disney brass to discuss the title and slept in late. He then sprang from bed, threw on some clothes and sped across town to the meeting. On the way he stopped at a traffic light, and jotted down this gem of a title on a fast food napkin he found on the floor of his car.
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Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a series of Han Solo (and Chewie) novels, chronicling their days as smugglers before the events of A New Hope. They had titles like Han Solo At Stars' End and Han Solo And The Lost Legacy.
Why not come up with a fun, pulpy title like that for this upcoming movie? Something like Han Solo And The Incident At Kessel Run? Or Han Solo And The Mystery Of Who Shot First? How about Han Solo And The Incredible Disappearing Directors? Something, anything besides the snooze-fest they chose.
Welp, today Disney and director Ron Howard finally, at long, long last, revealed the movie's official title to the world.
I have a feeling Howard forgot he had a meeting with the Disney brass to discuss the title and slept in late. He then sprang from bed, threw on some clothes and sped across town to the meeting. On the way he stopped at a traffic light, and jotted down this gem of a title on a fast food napkin he found on the floor of his car.
Why not come up with a fun, pulpy title like that for this upcoming movie? Something like Han Solo And The Incident At Kessel Run? Or Han Solo And The Mystery Of Who Shot First? How about Han Solo And The Incredible Disappearing Directors? Something, anything besides the snooze-fest they chose.
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Legends Of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 1: Aruba-Con
It's the Season 3 premiere of Legends Of Tomorrow!
If you're a regular viewer of the show, you'll remember that Season 1 was pretty dire. The sole Big Bad for the entire season was the lame and uninteresting Vandal Savage, played by the horribly miscast Casper Crump. Since Savage was the only villain, that meant the Legends couldn't defeat him until the season finale, else the series would be over. That led to an entire season of wheel spinning and dull stories.
Fortunately the producers seemed to learn from their mistakes, and Season 2 of the show was a VAST improvement. Legends quickly became my favorite show, as it gleefully embraced its goofy Silver Age comic book roots, and all the insanity that implies. Hopefully Season 3 will give us more of the same.
Unfortunately this Season 3 premiere got off to a bit of a rocky start though. Last season ended with a cliffhanger, in which the Legends discovered they'd "broken time," as modern day LA was overrun with dinosaurs and other temporal anomalies. Based on this compelling setup, most fans, including myself, assumed that the Legends having to "fix time" would be the theme of Season 3.
Nope! Apparently the writers changed their minds, because this cliffhanger was resolved in the quickest and most off-handed way humanly possible. It's like they couldn't wait to torpedo this storyline and get on with a different one.
Oddly enough, the exact same thing happened on Legend's sister show The Flash, as the writer's there unceremoniously resolved their cliffhanger in a similarly disinterested way.
The Legends now have to deal with former captain Rip Hunter and his brand new Time Bureau. The Bureau is a thinly disguised Men In Black, right down to their 1960s suits, high tech weaponry and handheld memory erasers. It's actually shocking how deliberately the show's copied the MIB franchise, and I'm not quite sure how they're getting away with it.
The show's never quite known what to do with the Rip character, so who knows, maybe this new role will finally give him a purpose.
Now the bad news. The day after this episode aired, the Hollywood Reporter announced that actor Victor Garber, who plays Professor Stein on Legends, is leaving the show sometime this season. Garber's exiting to star in a Broadway production of Hello Dolly! with Bernadette Peters.
Goddammit! This is a kick in the gut indeed, as Garber is undoubtedly the best actor on the show, and his Professor Stein character is one of the main highlights of the series. Jesus, Legends usually has truncated seasons that are sixteen or seventeen episodes long. Couldn't Garber tread the boards in his off-time from the show?
This means that once again we'll be getting a new half of Firestorm. Robbie Amell was one half of the original due before deciding he'd rather be making quality theatrical films like The Duff and Max. Now they're gonna have to replace Garber as well, which is gonna be damned near impossible. Feh!
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
We pick up right where we left off in the Season 2 cliffhanger. The Legends were headed for Aruba when the Waverider was caught in a "time storm" and crash-landed in present day L.A. As a result of their actions, time is now "broken" and they find themselves in a city where dinosaurs roam the streets and spaceships fill the sky.
As the Legends look around the city in astonishment, a T-Rex runs right toward them. Suddenly Rip Hunter, dressed in a snappy Men In Black suit, appears out of nowhere and opens a time portal. The dinosaur runs safely through it, back to its own era. All around the city, similarly dressed agents use portals to clean up the time aberrations in minutes. Well, that was certainly easy!
Rip explains that since he left the ship in last season's finale (which was about fifteen minutes ago from the Legends' point of view), he's been busy founding the Time Bureau, a highly advanced organization that protects the time stream. He confiscates the Waverider and tells the Legends their services are no longer needed and are free to go.
Six months pass. White Canary's now working at Sinks, Showers And Stuff (I guess the assassin business must be slow?), where she's yelled at by a way too serious boss. Atom works at a Silicon Valley startup company called UpSwipes, which is a slight variation on Tinder. He tells his boss— who's a good fifteen years younger than him— about his shrinking tech, but he's too occupied with making the next big app to listen. Steel is in Central City for some reason, fighting crime with Kid Flash. He's upset because his gal pal Vixen decided to return home to 1942 after all.
Heat Wave of course is relaxing on a beach in Aruba. He's approached by the real Julius Caesar, who apparently slipped past the notice of the Time Bureau. Heat Wave calls Canary and says he's got a time aberration on his hands. She tells him not to let Caesar out of his sight, and quits her dead-end job. She meets with Atom and Steel and they all decide to help Heat Wave in Aruba. But first they're gonna need their old ride back.
In Aruba, Heat Wave's tied up Caesar and is holding him captive in his hut. Caesar breaks loose, dropping a leather pouch full of gold coins (Plot Point!). He escapes and runs onto the beach, right into a Spring Break party full of toga-clad college students.
Canary, Atom and Steel travel to Star City, where they sneak into Time Bureau HQ, where they're immediately surrounded by security. Canary demands to see Rip, and tells him that Heat Wave captured Caesar in Aruba, and they need their ship. Rip takes them to a vast hangar, where they see the Waverider's been decommissioned and is now used a training simulator for new Time Bureau recruits.
The Legends finally convince Rip to at least check out Heat Wave's claim, so he opens a portal to Aruba. They go through, and see Heat Wave fighting with Caesar. Rip summons his agents, who take Heat Wave and Caesar back to the Time Bureau. Once there, they discover it's not Caesar at all, but a drunken frat boy in a toga. An angry Rip kicks the Legends out of the building.
On the way out, Heat Wave tries to buy a coke with a gold coin. Steel recognizes it as currency from Caesar's era, and they realize Heat Wave was telling the truth (told you it was a Plot Point!). They decide to capture him themselves, to prove to Rip they're still a viable team. They sneak into the hangar, throw the students out of the Waverider and fly it out of the building.
Cut to Professor Stein's house, where we see his time aberration daughter Lilly is now pregnant. Jackson shows up for their weekly Firestorm "bonding session," so they don't blow up. He says he's dropped out of school because it's boring after saving the world so many times. Just then the Waverider appears and lands in Stein's front yard. Canary says they're getting the band back together. Jackson's all for it, but Stein's reluctant to leave his family again. Jackson talks him into it and boards the ship.
The Waverider lands in Aruba, where Caesar's trying to recruit a bunch of drunken frat boys to join his army. Canary fights Caesar and eventually knocks him out. Rip then contacts the Legends, congratulating them on capturing Caesar (I guess he was monitoring them through the Waverider?). He orders them to return to the Time Bureau so he can put Caesar back where he belongs. The others want to finish the mission themselves, but tell Canary (their captain) they'll go along with whatever she decides. She thinks for a moment and orders Gideon to Ancient Rome. Woohoo!
Canary and Steel— who's carrying a Roman history book for no apparent reason— walk Caesar to the edge of his camp. They zap his memory with a Men In Black gizmo they stole from the Time Bureau, and send him on his way. They return to the ship, and Canary orders Gideon to take them home. She says she can't, as there's no home to go to. According to her database, North America is now called "Magna Hesperia."
Steel, who's apparently the most unobservant person on Earth, realizes that Caesar must have stolen the large, heavy history book he was carrying without him noticing. Caesar now has knowledge of what's to come and changed the future (even though the Waverider's still sitting there in 49 AD).
Rip and a team of Time Agents create a portal and enter the Waverider. Rip tells the Legends to sit quietly and not screw up any more history, thanks. His Time Agents move out to retrieve the history book, but they're easily captured by Caesar and his Centurions. Canary tells Rip that they can help, and he reluctantly lets them try.
There's a big battle between Caesar's men and the Legends. The Legends eventually rescue the Agents, destroy the book, wipe everyone's memories and restore history. For no reason other than because the script says so, Rip decides to let the Legends keep the Waverider, and tells them to try and stay out of trouble.
After Rip leaves, Heat Wave reveals he stole one of the Time Agent's portal openers. Stein decides to stay with the team a while longer. Atom sees Steel looking wistfully at photos of Vixen.
Cut to 1942, as a group of Belgian soldiers approach Vixen's village in Zambesi. They ominously say they have business here, and she tells them they should leave, as the village is under her protection. When they refuse, she summons several spirit animals who attack and kill the soldiers (!), which is a definite upgrade to her powers.
Thoughts:
• There's no opening narration this week, which is something the show's done since day one. I've always liked the narrations, and the fact that each of the cast members gets their own version, so I hope they start using them again soon.
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• After exiting a time storm, the Waverider smashes through several buildings and crash-lands in present day LA. The Legends then see that their time travel shenanigans have broken time, as the past, present and future have seemingly merged. Dinosaurs roam the streets, as ancient buildings stand next to futuristic skyscrapers.
Luckily for the residents of LA, Rip Hunter and the Time Bureau appear. Within seconds, they send all the time aberrations back to their appropriate periods, and restore the city to normal.
Hmm. When the Waverider first appeared, it plowed right through the center of a downtown LA high-rise. I wonder... did the Time Bureau fix THAT too? Did they somehow restore the dozens of floors wiped out by the ship, as well as resurrecting the hundreds, if not thousands of people who were killed in the crash?
• Rip says he's spent the past five years forming the Time Bureau, a massive, top secret FBI-type organization, complete with its own weapons, technology and bureaucracy.
At first I scoffed at the idea that one man could do all that in just five years. But the more I thought about it, I realized it wouldn't be impossible for a time traveler.
The first thing Rip would need is money, and lots of it. That'd be no problem for a time traveler, as he could use his knowledge of the future to play the stock market and easily amass a vast fortune. He'd also be able to use time travel to outfit his agents with advanced technology that hasn't yet been invented. So it's not as far-fetched as it first seems.
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• Nice attention to detail: When Heat Wave's sunning himself, we see his arms are covered in burn scars. Makes perfect sense for someone who's a pyromaniac.
• Rip says he's spent the past five years forming the Time Bureau, a massive, top secret FBI-type organization, complete with its own weapons, technology and bureaucracy.
At first I scoffed at the idea that one man could do all that in just five years. But the more I thought about it, I realized it wouldn't be impossible for a time traveler.
The first thing Rip would need is money, and lots of it. That'd be no problem for a time traveler, as he could use his knowledge of the future to play the stock market and easily amass a vast fortune. He'd also be able to use time travel to outfit his agents with advanced technology that hasn't yet been invented. So it's not as far-fetched as it first seems.
We first saw his scars back in the Season 1 episode Fail-Safe, in which he and Atom were tortured by Russian agents. Good to see someone on the crew (probably Dominic Purcell himself!) remembered this little detail about Heat Wave.
Oddly enough, the scars he has in Fail-Safe seem to be much worse than the ones here! Maybe Gideon partially healed them last season while we weren't watching?
• Was there any reason for Steel to be hanging out and fighting crime in Central City, other than to give Wally West, aka Kid Flash, a cameo?
• When Caesar appears in 2017, he can inexplicably understand everything Heat Wave says, and vice versa. According to Rip, this is a side effect of time travel, called "Temporal Linguistic Dysplasia." It allows anyone from any time period to comprehend any language. Well that's certainly convenient!
This is similar to the translation explanation over on Doctor Who. Supposedly the Doctor's TARDIS features a "translation circuit," which is a telepathic field that enters a passenger's brain and allows them to instantly understand anyone from any time period.
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• As Caesar approaches Heat Wave, we see he's wearing a typical Roman helmet. Unfortunately whenever he speaks, the helmet's cheek guards flap back and forth in front of his mouth. It's pretty funny once you notice it! Hopefully real Roman helmets didn't flop around like that, else the Britains would have fallen off their horses laughing.
• When Caesar appears in 2017, he can inexplicably understand everything Heat Wave says, and vice versa. According to Rip, this is a side effect of time travel, called "Temporal Linguistic Dysplasia." It allows anyone from any time period to comprehend any language. Well that's certainly convenient!
This is similar to the translation explanation over on Doctor Who. Supposedly the Doctor's TARDIS features a "translation circuit," which is a telepathic field that enters a passenger's brain and allows them to instantly understand anyone from any time period.
• Caesar escapes from Heat Wave and runs into Aruba-Con, a Roman-themed beach party filled with drunken frat boys dressed in togas. It's called Aruba-Con because they're in Aruba, and also because in 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon river. Get it? Rubicon, Aruba-Con? Eh? Get it?
• Rip asks Agent Sharpe if she knows where Heat Wave is located in Aruba. Sharpe says, "Mm, we followed a trail of petty larceny reports. He's been holed up on the beach, running up a room service tab and a serious collection of STDs."
Ew! I could happily live out the rest of my life without ever having to hear about Heat Wave's STDs again!
• The Time Bureau is filled with dozens of transparent monitors depicting the various aberrations caused by the Legends. Those screens look pretty cool. I wonder— are they real, or CGI? If it's a special effect, it's a very well done one. Not only can you see through the screens a bit, but you can see the reflections of the Agents' heads in them. And a soft blue glow from the screens on their faces!
• Inside the Time Bureau, Rip takes a break from screaming at the Legends to zap King Arthur with a high tech memory eraser before sending him home. A couple things here:
Secondly, man, they're not even attempting to hide the fact that the Time Bureau is lifted straight from the Men In Black franchise. Not only do the Time Agents look like the Men In Black, they've got the exact same technology as well!
Is that legal? Aren't there copyright laws in place to prevent one show from shamelessly copying another? Apparently not, since over on Fox The Orville's currently lifting practically every element from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I have a feeling Sony (who owns Men In Black) may be sending a cease and desist letter to Warner Bros. (owners of the Arrowverse) in the near future.
• Something to think about: Somehow this vast space...
And this one...
As well as this...
All somehow fit inside a ship of this shape and size. There's also a brig, a medbay, a mess hall, individual crew quarters, an engine room, a cargo hold and a small hangar with at least one shuttle inside.
I would dearly love to see a blueprint of the inside of this ship! I still say the Waverider's like the Doctor's TARDIS, and is bigger on the inside. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
I would dearly love to see a blueprint of the inside of this ship! I still say the Waverider's like the Doctor's TARDIS, and is bigger on the inside. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
• Of course it makes sense that a conquerer like Julius Caesar would be a "manspreader."
Ye gods, how I hate that word. That and "mansplaining."
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• There's some wonky time travel (is there any other kind?) going on near the end of the episode. The Legends take Caesar back to 49 BC, and order Gideon to take them home. She says she can't, as Caesar secretly stole Steel's history book and changed the future. Wha...?
I don't have a problem with the concept of Caesar using knowledge of history to alter the future. Makes perfect sense. But how could the future change the instant they leave him? He's only been back in 49 BC for thirty seconds. He hasn't had time to do any changing yet!
I could understand it if they returned to 2017 and found it drastically altered by Caesar's actions. But it makes zero sense for the future to change before he has a chance to modify it!
You could also argue that if Caesar's altered the future so radically, then the Legends would likely have never been born. I guess you could say that the Waverider protects them from changes to the time stream or something.
By the way, after Caesar alters the future, the U.S. is now known as "Magna Hesperia." According to the inter webs, that means "The Great West."
Ye gods, how I hate that word. That and "mansplaining."
I don't have a problem with the concept of Caesar using knowledge of history to alter the future. Makes perfect sense. But how could the future change the instant they leave him? He's only been back in 49 BC for thirty seconds. He hasn't had time to do any changing yet!
I could understand it if they returned to 2017 and found it drastically altered by Caesar's actions. But it makes zero sense for the future to change before he has a chance to modify it!
You could also argue that if Caesar's altered the future so radically, then the Legends would likely have never been born. I guess you could say that the Waverider protects them from changes to the time stream or something.
By the way, after Caesar alters the future, the U.S. is now known as "Magna Hesperia." According to the inter webs, that means "The Great West."
• At one point the Legends team up with the Time Bureau to retrieve Steel's history book and prevent Caesar from changing the future. During the battle, there's a reeeeally cool stunt in which Canary literally runs across the shields of several Roman Centurions.
I suspect Canary, aka Caity Lots, was on some kind of wire rig here. Even so, it was still pretty impressive. I bet they went through a ton of takes to get it right!
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• Apparently Vixen's powers have changed drastically since we last saw her. Last season she'd touch the amulet around her neck to summon the power of various animals. For example, a glowing blue image of an elephant would briefly appear around her, and she'd then have the proportionate strength of one. She could only invoke the powers of one animal at a time.
I suspect Canary, aka Caity Lots, was on some kind of wire rig here. Even so, it was still pretty impressive. I bet they went through a ton of takes to get it right!
In this episode she activates her amulet and huge waves of energy flow out of her body...
Which then form into four or five different INDEPENDENT glowing animals. These ghostly beasts are apparently solid, as they attack and kill the soldiers who threatened her.
That's a hell of an upgrade! Vixen's supposed to return to the crew full time, so I'm assuming we'll eventually get the whole story and find out what the heck happened to her.
• When we first catch up with the Legends, Jackson's anxious to rejoin the team, while Professor Stein would rather spend time at home with his family. At the end of the episode, Professor Stein agrees to return to the Legends for the sake of his pal Jackson.
This was a nice little moment, since if you'll recall, Stein practically kidnapped Jackson and forced him to join the Legends way back in the first episode. It was good to see Stein acknowledge that mistake and try to make up for it.
On the other hand, it didn't take much arm-twisting to get Stein to join the old gang again. I'm starting to get the feeling he doesn't like spending time with his real family as much as he claims he does!
• I'm still not sure why Rip let the Legends keep the Waverider, especially after he spent the entire episode being a dick and telling them all what screw ups they are. The writers try to smooth this over by having Rip say he senses they have a destiny or role to play in coming events or something. Nice try, guys, but I don't buy it. His sudden turn was clunky and unbelievable.
• As the Legends depart, Heat Wave secretly steals Rip's "Time Courier" (his wrist-mounted time portal opener). A few seconds later Rip realizes it's gone and nonchalantly says, "Hmm... I must have misplaced it." He then asks Agent Sharpe to open a portal back to the Time Bureau.
Rip can't possibly be stupid enough to not realize what happened. I'm assuming he knows the Legends have it, and it's all part of some plan, otherwise he'd be appearing on the Waverider and demanding they give it back.
• At the end of the episode, Rip hints at this season's big bad:
Agent Sharpe:"They are irresponsible, undependable, unpredictable, dangerous."
Rip:"And yet effective. At least on occasion."
Sharpe:"Is that the reason they're not warming a cell back at headquarters as we speak?"
Rip:"They're not warming a cell, Agent Sharpe, because they might just be our best hope of defeating what's coming."
Sharpe: "They are the reason Mallus is a threat."
Rip: "Indeed. But there might just come a day when we need the Legends to do what they do best."
So, who the heck is Mallus? I have no idea. I searched the internet, and there doesn't appear to be any character with that name in any DC comic.
Since this is Legends Of Tomorrow, it's a safe bet to assume Mallus will have something to do with time travel. In this episode we just happen to find out that Professor Stein's time aberration daughter Lily is pregnant. I'm calling it right now— Lily's unborn child will somehow turn out to be Mallus! Eh, maybe not. We'll see.
• This Week's Best Lines:
Since this is Legends Of Tomorrow, it's a safe bet to assume Mallus will have something to do with time travel. In this episode we just happen to find out that Professor Stein's time aberration daughter Lily is pregnant. I'm calling it right now— Lily's unborn child will somehow turn out to be Mallus! Eh, maybe not. We'll see.
• This Week's Best Lines:
Canary: (as the Legends steal the Waverider) "Gideon, engines to power, turbines to speed!"
(Apparently Canary's a fan of the 1966 Batman TV show. That's what the Dynamic Duo would shout as they powered up the Batmobile)
Steel: "The point is, sometimes we screw things up for the better."
Canary:"That's a good motto. We should use that."
Steel:"We know how to handle ourselves."
Rip:"Not against Julius Caesar, who has an entire legion at his command."
Steel:"We're pretty good at taking down legions."
(this is a reference to last season, when the Legends defeated the Legion Of Doom— all for members of it!)
Stein: (after the Legends fix the Caesar time aberration) "We came, we saw..."
Atom and Steel:"We kicked Caesar's ass!"
(yep, that's a Ghostbusters reference)
Agent Sharpe:"I've got to say, Ms. Lance, now that I've seen your team in action with my own eyes, you are even worse than I imagined."
Atom and Steel:"We kicked Caesar's ass!"
(yep, that's a Ghostbusters reference)
Agent Sharpe:"I've got to say, Ms. Lance, now that I've seen your team in action with my own eyes, you are even worse than I imagined."
Canary:"You're welcome. Well, like Nate said, sometimes we screw things up for the better."
Agent Sharpe: "I fail to see how that's true in this case."
Canary:"It's our new motto."
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It Came From The Cineplex: Flatliners (2017)
Ripley is a very mediocre screenwriter who previously penned Species III, Species— The Awakening, The Watch, Source Code (oy) and Boychoir.
Opleve directed Dead Man Down and Speed Walking, along with episodes of various TV series such as Millennium, Under The Dome, Mr. Robot and Midnight, Texas. He also directed the original Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which was a very good film. So what the hell happened here?
Sony Pictures is the wonderful studio that pumps out hit after hit, year after year to universal critical accla... HAW, HAW, HAW! Sorry, I couldn't finish that sentence with a straight face.
Seriously, the second I saw that logo flash across the screen, I wanted to get up and leave the cineplex, but my movie-going pal stopped me. Sony's the absolute worst, as they consistently churn out flop after flop. With the exception of Spider-Man: Homecoming (which they made with the help of Marvel Studios) and Baby Driver, this year was another grim one for Sony. Seeing them desperately try to come up with a hit is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Virtually every decision they make as a corporation is wrong. How the hell do Anthony Vinciquerra and Tom Rothman keep their jobs?
Flatliners asks the burning question, "Is There Something Beyond Death?" The answer is yes, but it's really, really boring and not the least bit scary.
The movie is of course a remake of the 1990 film of the same name. I was never much of a fan of the original (which was directed by Joel Schumacher of Batman & Robin fame!) what with its silly new-age pop psychology plotline. The film was a decent hit back in the day though, grossing $61 million against its $26 million budget. A big part of its success was no doubt due to its all Brat Pack cast, which included Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland, who were all red hot at the time.
The new Flatliners is virtually a carbon copy of the original, recreating it practically scene for scene. I don't understand why studios keep doing this. Why bother remaking a film if you're not going to bring something new to it? Give us some new insights or a different perspective. Anything besides the exact same movie.
Actually there's apparently great confusion as to whether this film is a sequel to the original or a reboot. According to the filmmakers it's a sequel, but there's absolutely nothing in the movie to indicate this.
The only connection between the two versions is actor Kiefer Sutherland, who starred in the original as main character Dr. Nelson Wright. Sutherland shows up in Flatliners 2017 as well, playing Dr. Barry Wolfson, chief resident of the hospital.
For some reason, Sutherland seems convinced he's playing the same character in the new film, despite the fact that his name is different. In an interview, Sutherland said:
I play a professor at the medical university. It is never stated, but it will probably be very clearly understood that I'm the same character I was in the original Flatliners but that I have changed my name and I've done some things to move on from the experiments that we were doing in the original film.Yeah, sorry Kiefer, but that was not clearly understood. In fact it's not mentioned at all, even in passing. There's no way the new Flatliners can possibly be a sequel, unless the filmmakers expect us to believe that the events that occurred in 1990 are playing out the exact same way here in 2017. Despite what Kiefer Sutherland thinks, it's a remake, plain and simple.
Sony chose not to screen Flatliners 2017 for critics, which of course is always a bad, bad sign. By keeping the film under wraps until the last possible moment, critics wouldn't have time to right unfavorable reviews, increasing the chances of a decent opening weekend. Nice try, Sony, but it didn't work.
So far the film is a HUGE flop, grossing just $16 million in the States against its meager $19 million budget. It's only made another $8 million overseas, for a worldwide total of just $24 million! Since movies need to gross twice their production budgets just to break even, it's unlikely that Flatliners will ever turn a profit. Better luck next time, Sony!
SPOILERS, I GUESS!
The Plot:
The movie opens with Courtney Holmes (played by Ellen Page) happily driving along with her little sister Tessa. They laugh and smile at one another, as they're obviously having the most perfect day ever. Uh-oh! If you don't sense disaster's about to happen, then you've never seen a movie before.
Right on cue, the film takes a dark turn as Courtney gets a text and takes her eyes off the road for just a second. Tessa screams, and Courtney looks up just in time to see construction equipment blocking the bridge ahead (I guess flagmen don't exist in this universe). Courtney swerves and her SUV slams into the bridge and violently flips into the stream below. A construction worker pulls Courtney from the water as the SUV sinks with Tessa trapped inside.
Nine years later, Courtney is now a med student, and is obsessed with the question of life after death (due to the guilt she feels about the whole killing her sister thing). She's constantly pestering patients who've experienced clinical death, asking what they remember about the experience. Some don't remember anything, while others give the standard "Bright Light/Peaceful Feeling/Dead Relatives Welcoming Them" answer.
Determined to know the truth, Courtney comes up with a
Courtney's experiment is simple. With her classmates' help she'll stop her heart, then once she's dead she'll look around and see if anything lies beyond. At the end of sixty seconds the others will revive her and she'll report her findings (if any). Naturally the other students are reluctant to deliberately kill a fellow student, since that's considered murder and all, but eventually they all agree except for Ray.
Courtney brings Jamie, Marlo and Sophia down to a little-known basement area of the hospital to perform the experiment. They set up the monitoring equipment, inject her with drugs and then stop her heart with a defibrillator. Once Courtney's dead, Ray shows up (I guess he got an invitation anyway?), and is horrified to see she went through with it. When the minute's up, the students try to resuscitate her, but can't. Ray, whose fireman training makes him more experienced at bringing people back to life (I guess?) finally steps in and successfully revives her.
The others excitedly ask Courtney what it was like on the other side. Unfortunately she can't tell them, as she says it's hard to remember or articulate. They examine the recordings and note there were sparks of electricity in Courtney's supposedly dead brain, indicating something was happening while she was dead. Ray spoils the fun by saying the spikes could have been just the death throes of an oxygen-starved brain (which is the correct answer).
Later the students go to a bar, and Courtney suddenly starts playing Clair De Lune on the piano. The next day she effortlessly offers complex and intricate diagnoses in class, which greatly impresses Dr. Barry Wolfson (played by Kiefer Sutherland), her grumpy, no-nonsense mentor. Apparently dying and getting better has somehow enhanced Courtney's brain.
Once the others see this, they all want to become Flatliners and kill themselves too, in order to soup up their own brains. Jamie goes first, determined to beat Courtney's paltry one minute of clinical death. Marlo goes next, upping the time limit even further. Finally even the meek and mild Sophia manages to drum up enough courage to die. The only one who refuses to participate is Ray, who's presumably seen enough sh*t to know better than to play around with death.
Shortly afterward, the Flatliners all begin experiencing disturbing visions. Courtney sees her dead sister Tessa popping up at random. Jamie sees an ex-girlfriend and a mysterious young boy. Marlo keeps seeing a patient she failed to save. Sophia's haunted by visions of a nude girl. Ray dismisses their visions, saying they're all crazy. Courtney becomes racked with guilt and admits to the others that she performed the experiment in order to see her dead sister, not to try and further medical knowledge. Really? I thought that was pretty obvious from the start.
The Flatliners' visions begin intensifying, eventually becoming physical. Marlo's attacked by the man in her vision, who tries to suffocate her with a roll of plastic. She ends up crashing her car, but survives. Jamie's stabbed in the hand by the boy in his vision. Sophia's assaulted by her vision as well. Courtney gets it the worst though, as the vision of her sister Tessa stalks her through her apartment. Ghost Tessa chases Courtney onto the fire escape and actually pushes her to her death (!).
The others then realize they're being haunted by their inner demons, which Flatlining has somehow brought to life. Jamie admits he got his ex-girlfriend pregnant, and left her to fend for herself. Marlo says she killed her patient by giving him the wrong meds and altering the records so no one would find out. Sophia says that in high school she sent a classmate's nude photos to the whole school to sabotage her chances of being valedictorian.
The Flatliners then spring into action to reconcile their pasts before they're killed by their respective demons. Jamie tracks down his ex, and sees she's now raising his young son. He tells her he's finally ready to take responsibility for his actions, and says he'll help in any way he can. And just like that, his demons disappear. Marlo meets with the hospital brass and admits she falsified the records. She's put on academic probation, and her demon vanishes as well. Finally Sophia finds the girl she bullied and apologizes to her, which immediately releases her from her repressed guilt.
And that's pretty much it! Once the Flatliners make amends to everyone, the hauntings and visions stop. The gang then meets in the bar again to celebrate. As they all toast themselves, the chords of Clair De Lune suddenly emanate from the bar's piano. They look at one another for a few seconds, then start laughing, as the camera pulls back and the movie sputters and wheezes to a stop. A few minutes later the audience wakes up, stretches and files out of the theater.
Thoughts:
• There's little or nothing to say about this cine-turd, so this'll be mercifully brief.
• The biggest problem with Flatliners (both versions) is its silly core concept. The film concerns a group of med students who explore the afterlife by deliberately dying and coming back. For some reason this causes their past sins to take physical form and try to kill them.
Of course this entire notion is complete and utter bullsh*t, which makes it tough to take any of it seriously or care about anything that happens to the characters. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a movie, and suspension of disbelief and all that. But clinical death is a well known medical phenomenon. There's nothing supernatural about it. All the stories about seeing bright lights and watching your life pass before your eyes are just synapses firing uncontrollably as the brain slowly dies.
Thousands and thousands of people have experienced it over the years, and not a single one of them ever brought back a deadly physical manifestations of their deepest guilt. It's like saying that getting an x-ray gives you the power to walk through walls.
Instead of presenting the supernatural as a side effect of a well-known medical phenomenon, why not just make it a simple ghost story? Why not give us a young doctor who interns at an old hospital with a history, who's haunted by the ghosts of every patient that ever died there over the years? Now there's your movie!
• When Courtney's trying to convince the others to kill her in the name of science, she produces a letter she wrote that she claims will absolve them of all responsibility. Yeah, no. There's no way something like that would hold up in court. The exact same thing happens in the original film.
• Courtney performs the flatline experiment in an empty wing of the hospital, which she says was built to handle emergencies and natural disasters, but never used. She says they'll be safe because "no one ever comes down here."
Later in the film the Flatliners are almost discovered by a cleaning crew. So which is it, Courtney? Does no one ever come down there or is it cleaned regularly?
• Virtually every movie and TV show ever made has depicted the use of defibrillator machines completely and utterly wrong.
We've all seen it a thousand times before. A patient's heart stops, and the Doctor calls for a crash cart. He activates the defibrillator machine, which emits an audible, high-pitched electronic whine as it powers up. The Doctor will then rub the defib paddles together a bit, place them on the patients's chest and shout, "CLEAR!" He then activates the paddles, and there's a loud "THUNK" as the patient's body stiffens, practically lifting off the table. The Doctor then glances at the heart monitor, looking for any sort of spike. He'll usually need to shock the patient a few more times before their heart finally resumes a normal rhythm.
NOTHING in that scenario is even remotely accurate.
When a patient's heart stops (or flatlines), it's called asystole (pronounced "a-sis-toll-ee"). As you might expect, that's a very bad thing. It's absolutely imperative that the Doctor get that heart beating again ASAP. To do that, they usually inject the patient's heart with a drug, often adrenalin.
That usually starts the heart to beating again, but it'll be an arhythmic, chaotic beating. This is called "fibrillation," and it's just as bad as no beating at all. This is where the defib unit comes in. The Doctor uses the DEfibrillator to stop the Fibrillation, and hopefully get the heart beating at a normal rhythm again.
So contrary to popular belief, a defibrillator actually STOPS a person's heart. It doesn't jump start it like it's a car battery. You could shock a stopped heart from now until St. Swithin's Day, and it won't do one bit of good.
I was fully expecting Flatliners to continue this trope, and be filled with dozens of scenes of erroneous defib use. Imagine my surprise when the movie actually got it right! Wellllllll, almost.
In the movie, Jamie injects Courtney with a drug (sodium something?), and shocks her with the defib paddles, which stops her heart. PRAISE BE! At long, long last, someone FINALLY understands that the goddamned paddles STOP the heart, not START it!
Once Courtney's out for a minute or two, Jamie starts CPR to get her heart beating again! Woohoo! Exactly like he should! Unfortunately things fall apart a bit after that. The CPR doesn't work (as is often the case in real life), so they inject a drug into her heart and immediately drag out the defib paddles and start shocking her. It's foggy as to whether she was in fibrillation or not. If she was, they never mentioned it.
Too bad. They came thisssssss close to getting it absolutely right. By the way, I recently rewatched the original 1990 Flatliners, and they did the exact same thing as this one, getting the defib process right up to the same point, before messing up.
Unfortunately things go completely off the rails during Courtney's final "death." None of the other Flatliners can seem to revive her, so they just grab the paddles and start shocking the ever-loving holy crap out of her, which eventually brings her back.
Despite these minor glitches, I'm giving the movie credit for almost getting it right. Sure, they still goofed up the end of the procedure, but they got 90% of it right, which is 90% more than most movies do.
• The film's nonsensical premise is bad enough, but the ending is somehow even worse.
The Flatliners figure out that due to the experiment, their past sins have become solid and are physically attacking them (Courtney's even manages to kill her!). So how do the Flatliners defeat them? Do they whip up some sort of laser to fry the demons? Do they wave crosses in their faces to drive them back to the netherworld from whence they came? Do they change their addresses so the spirits can't track them down?
Nope! Instead, each of the Flatliners simply make amends for their past transgressions and forgive themselves, which causes their demons to evaporate (!). No, really! That's it! They literally defeat their sins with the power of pop psychology!
Forget Frankenstein's fear of fire, or Dracula's susceptibility to sunlight. These monsters can be killed by forgiveness! Jesus wept!
Flatliners 2017 is a pointless, shot-for-shot remake of a previous film that wasn't all that great to begin with. It's core premise is downright silly, as it attempts to graft a supernatural element onto a well known medical phenomenon, with predictably laughable results. Worst of all, it's not the least bit scary. But hey, at least they sort of understand how a defibrillator works! I give it a much deserved D+.
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The Flash Season 4, Episode 2: Mixed Signals
The highlight of the episode was definitely the interplay between Barry and Iris as they decide to go to couples therapy. "Charming" is not a word I use easily or often, but it definitely applies here. It was also nice to see Barry enjoy being a superhero again and revel in his powers, especially after last season's mope-fest.
Wally continues to devolve into little more than set dressing on the show. He did absolutely nothing in this episode, except stand around and somehow get knocked on his ass by an energy blast (um... speedster powers?).
I hate to say it, but it's beginning to look like he was only brought onto the series as a way to eat up a few Season 3 episodes, and now that his origin story's played itself out, the writers have absolutely no idea what to do with him. Maybe he could move over to Legends Of Tomorrow? They could use a good speedster.
Last week Barry returned from his self-imposed exile in the Speed Force, and suffered a few odd side effects for exactly ten minutes before snapping completely back to normal. I was sure this was just a diversion on the part of the writers, as they'd tip their hand this week and show us that the Barry who returned isn't quite the same as the one who went in. Nope! If this episode is any indication as to how the rest of the season's going to go, Barry was completely unaffected by his time in a bizarre dimension. Strange.
SPOILERS!
The Plot:
A real estate agent shows a penthouse suite to tech billionaire Kurt Weaver. He says he'll take it and gets in the elevator. Halfway down the elevator stops, then begins jerking rapidly up and down (heh), as Weaver's shaken around inside like a rag doll. Finally the elevator plummets and crashes to the bottom of the shaft, killing Weaver. On the ground floor, an overweight man in a hoodie ominously watches, as his eyes glow purple.
Barry cheerfully makes breakfast at superspeed. Iris says she needs to get busy planning their wedding, and Barry says he's already done it— at superspeed, of course. Iris is hurt and angered that he didn't consult her first.
Barry, Cisco and Joe inspect the scene of the deadly elevator crash. Cisco hooks up a computer to the elevator's computer memory (?) and proclaims it was no accident— it was hacked by someone.
Back at STAR Labs, Cisco reveals the latest
The Breach Alarm goes off, and Iris, Caitlin and Wally rush down to confront whatever comes through. It turns out to be Gypsy, who's apparently visiting Earth-1 to go on a date with Cisco. Um... isn't dimension-hopping illegal on her Earth?
Cut to Tim Kwon, another tech billionaire, as he drives along in his expensive new car. Suddenly it stops in the middle of the street, right in front of the same purple-eyed man we saw by the elevator. The man glares at the car, causing its dashboard screen to start glitching and display the word "KILG%RE." It then speeds down a crowded Central City street at 120 mph (well, sort of). Barry zooms to the scene and stops the car by completely taking it apart with a large wrench (!).
Cisco examines the car's computer and finds it was hacked as well, with the same virus that was in the elevator. Cisco can't find any link between the two victims online, so he searches through his stash of old tech magazines (?).
Iris approaches Barry and announces they're going to couples therapy. Barry reluctantly agrees. They visit the therapist, and their session is both humorous and painfully awkward.
At CCPD, Joe's questions Tim Kwon, asking if he can think of anyone who'd want to kill him. Ramsey Deacon, the purple-eyed man, shows up at the station and uses his power to take control of a bomb squad robot. The robot grabs a grenade and crashes into Joe's office. It tosses the grenade, and Joe and Tim dive for cover. Just then Barry enters and grabs all the grenade shrapnel at super speed, saving them.
Cisco talks with Gypsy and says he's got to call off their date because of the Kilg%re crisis. She says she understands and wanders off. Caitlin tells Cisco he's in big trouble, as whenever a woman says she understands, she means the exact opposite. Cisco discovers a photo of Kurt Weaver, Tim Kwon, Ramsey Deacona and a woman named Shelia Agnani, who were all computer science students years ago. Kurt, Tim and Shelia later started up a tech company called "Kilg%ore," apparently shutting out Deacon. Cisco theorizes that Deacon must have a grudge against the others and is targeting them somehow. He says Shelia is likely next on Deacon's list.
Barry and Iris return to therapy (is all this happening on the same day?). Iris breaks down and tearfully asks why Barry left her to join the Speed Force. Um... maybe to save the world? She tells him that he's not the Flash— they both are, and they need to do this together. Oy.
Tim goes to Shelia's mansion to warn her about Deacon. Just then Deacon appears and uses his tech-manipulating powers to hack her insulin pump, which puts her in shock. Luckily for her, Wally appears (hey, he finally gets something to do in this episode!) and gives her a shot of glucose to save her. Shelia tells Wally that Deacon abducted Tim.
Back at STAR, Cisco tries to apologize to Gypsy. She says she's angry he canceled their date because today's One/One/One Day, which is a special occasion where she's from on Earth-19. It symbolizes "one soul plus one soul equaling one soul." This sparks an idea in Cisco's head and he takes off again to test out a theory or whip up a solution.
Cisco whips up some kind of technobabble serum that'll theoretically cancel out Deacon's powers. Tim Kwon then appears on all TV channels, confessing that he, Kurt and Shelia stole the Kilg%re malware software (?) from Deacon and sold it for billions, leaving him destitute. It's unclear if Deacon is just trying to ruin the others or wants their money or both. Cisco traces the source of the TV signal and Barry and Wally rush to the scene, where they confront Deacon.
Deacon hacks into Barry's new high tech suit, causing him to incapacitate Wally with an energy blast (that he apparently couldn't dodge?). Deacon then makes Barry's suit run amok, toying with him like a cat does a mouse. He even shuts down the suit's comm system, so Barry can't talk to Team Flash. Somehow Barry's able to gain enough control to call STAR Labs on a pay phone (ask your parents, kids).
Deacon then activates the self destruct system in Barry's suit. Cisco says there's no way to shut it down, and Iris suggest Barry through speed lightning at himself. He does so, which fries the suit and severs Deacon's control over it. Deacon then makes a last ditch attempt at killing Tim by shooting him, but Barry stops the bullet. He then injects Deacon with Cisco's magic serum, rendering him powerless.
Cisco and Gypsy finally have their date.
Cut to Iron Heights Prison, where Deacon's being held in a shielded room with no tech of any kind— it's even lit by candles! Joe says Deacon wasn't in Central City when the particle accelerator exploded, and wonders how he got his powers. Deacon refuses to tell him, but says he's not the only metahuman coming for them.
In the Thinker's lair, he monitors Deacon in his cell (um... didn't they just say there's no tech in there?). He says it's time to find the others, and the Mechanic activates a screen with spaces for eleven other metas.
Thoughts:
• The episode begins with Barry lip synching in his underwear, recreating Tom Cruise's iconic dance number from Risky Business.
• Last week Cecile mentioned that now that Julian and Barry were both gone, she was going to have to hire a new CSI. Barry's back of course, but this week Cisco also stepped in to take a look at a crime scene. Is Cisco the new CSI hire? Is he doing that in addition to his duties and inventing at STAR Labs? When the hell does he sleep?
Why the impractical getup? She works for a crime-fighting think tank! There's likely going to be chaos and running on a regular basis! Why's she dressing like a supermodel?
• In the Breach Room, Caitlin brandishes a freeze gun which looks exactly like Captain Cold's. It even has the same glowing "V" shaped cryo-emitters on the end! This makes sense, since Cisco invented the gun (to stop Barry in case he ever went Rogue) and Cold stole it from him.
Funny how Caitlin's struggling to control her Killer Frost persona, but her weapon of choice is a freeze gun.
• In this episode Gypsy pays a visit to Earth-1 for a date with Cisco. Um... isn't dimensional travel forbidden on her world of Earth-19? Last season she came to STAR Labs to arrest HR for violating the "No World Hopping" law.
Funny how Caitlin's struggling to control her Killer Frost persona, but her weapon of choice is a freeze gun.
• In this episode Gypsy pays a visit to Earth-1 for a date with Cisco. Um... isn't dimensional travel forbidden on her world of Earth-19? Last season she came to STAR Labs to arrest HR for violating the "No World Hopping" law.
I guess that law doesn't apply to special bounty hunters like her, and she can breach to any Earth anytime she wants— even for something as non-essential as a date!
• Not a fan of Wally's new Cab Calloway hairdo.
• Sigh... once again, The Flash seemingly goes out of its way to underwhelm with its live action depiction of a long-time comic book character. This week, they completely botch Kilg%re.
• Not a fan of Wally's new Cab Calloway hairdo.
• Sigh... once again, The Flash seemingly goes out of its way to underwhelm with its live action depiction of a long-time comic book character. This week, they completely botch Kilg%re.
Kilg%re first appeared in The Flash (Vol. 2) #3 back in 1987. It was an evil alien entity that could infect and animate any kind of machinery or electronics, and usually took the form of a constantly changing metal robot or monster. Later runs of the comic depicted Kilg%re as a silvery metallic man.
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So of course it's only natural that the TV show would depict Kilg%re as an overweight schlub in a hoodie, with eyes that occasionally glow purple. Jesus Christ. It's like they're not even trying anymore! If they're not gonna put any more effort into their villains than this, then why bother producing a superhero show at all?
• I was excited when I read that Kilg%re would be appearing this season on The Flash, if for no other reason than we'd finally get an answer to that age old question— just how the hell do you pronounce that name?
See, I used to read The Flash comic back in the 1980s, and when Kilg%re first appeared there was a HUGE controversy as to just how you were supposed to say his name. The book's letter column was abuzz for months, as fans practically came to blows over the matter. Half the readers passionately argued that it was simply "kill-gore," and the percent sign was there just to make it seem more high tech or alien. The other side vehemently contended that the symbol represented electrical static, and it should be pronounced "Kill (squeeeeee) Gore" or something like that.
Turns out it's just plain old "kill-gore" after all. Disappointing!
• The Flash has featured some lame villains in the past, but Deacon's gotta be the lamest. Everything about him is muddled and unclear, as the writers don't even understand him. I've watched the episode twice now, and I still have no idea what the hell he is or how his powers are supposed to work. Just listen to Cisco and Caitlin discussing him:
Cailin: "This guy is a living computer virus. That’s a new one.
Cisco: "Look at this code. From the elevator, to the car, to the bomb robot, this code keeps changing [grumbles] But I can’t figure out why."
Caitlin: "Okay, we have to remember that it’s not just digital. It’s bio-digital. Most organic viruses mutate to avoid being killed."
Cisco: "So, if we managed to create digital antibodies, then we can shut this guy down. Oh, nice one!"
A bit later they say:
Cisco: Deacon's powers are derived from the binary code in his DNA. So we created a compound encoded with a numerical string pattern of ones and zeroes, to invert the order of the code.
Caitlin: "Ones become zeroes and vice versa."
I... I don't understand what any of that means. So Deacon is a living computer virus? Or he can infect electronics with a living computer virus? Is he no longer human? Is he a piece of computer code in human form? I honestly have no idea.
Deacon has the ability to infect and manipulate electronics. That's a pretty formidable power in this day and age, but how's it supposed to work? All we ever see him do is stare at an object as his eyes glow purple and his pupils become square. At no time does he ever actually touch anything. How can he infect a device without ever touching it? Is he using wi-fi?
• The whole Kilg%re software thing is just as bewildering. Listen to Cisco try to explain what it is:
Cisco: "Four years ago, Kurt Weaver and Tim Kwon created an app in their garage with two other programmers. Some kind of malware called Kilgore. And then they sold it off to a big tech company."
• Deacon takes control of Tim Kwon's car and causes it to drive 120 mph down a busy Central City street. We'll have to take the show's word for that, as it looked for all the world like it was puttering along at 30 mph— at the most!
• Credit where it's due: Barry and Iris' couples therapy scenes were very well done. Grant Gustin has a goofy, nerdy charm, and he and Candice Patton have some great chemistry together.
Gustin also has some pretty good comedy chops, and I loved his increasing awkwardness as Doctor Finkle jotted down everything he said. It's a shame he rarely gets to be funny on the show.
By the way, Doctor Finkle ought to have a field day with the fact that Barry and Iris grew up as foster siblings and are now engaged!
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• Cisco recognizes the names of Deacon's victims, but can't seem to find anything about them online (???). He then starts leafing through his collection of old tech magazines in order to figure out who they are. Wha...? This show IS set in 2017, right? Does Google not exist in the Arrowverse?
And how could there not be any online info about a trio of startup billionaires? Are we really supposed to believe that people who made their fortune in computer science have no social media presence of any kind? Nothing about this scene makes the least bit of sense.
Yes, yes, at one point Tim Kwon does say that Kurt Weaver "scrubbed any connection between us from the net." If that's true, then Kurt must be one of the world's most brilliant scientific minds indeed. The idea that a person can erase their presence from the entire internet is more unbelievable than a man who can run at the speed of light!
By the way, Cisco's old computer magazine (complete with a centerfold of a mother board) is called "Noughty Bytes." OK, I'll admit that was kind of amusing.
See, I used to read The Flash comic back in the 1980s, and when Kilg%re first appeared there was a HUGE controversy as to just how you were supposed to say his name. The book's letter column was abuzz for months, as fans practically came to blows over the matter. Half the readers passionately argued that it was simply "kill-gore," and the percent sign was there just to make it seem more high tech or alien. The other side vehemently contended that the symbol represented electrical static, and it should be pronounced "Kill (squeeeeee) Gore" or something like that.
Turns out it's just plain old "kill-gore" after all. Disappointing!
• The Flash has featured some lame villains in the past, but Deacon's gotta be the lamest. Everything about him is muddled and unclear, as the writers don't even understand him. I've watched the episode twice now, and I still have no idea what the hell he is or how his powers are supposed to work. Just listen to Cisco and Caitlin discussing him:
Cisco: "Look at this code. From the elevator, to the car, to the bomb robot, this code keeps changing [grumbles] But I can’t figure out why."
Caitlin: "Okay, we have to remember that it’s not just digital. It’s bio-digital. Most organic viruses mutate to avoid being killed."
Cisco: "So, if we managed to create digital antibodies, then we can shut this guy down. Oh, nice one!"
A bit later they say:
Cisco: Deacon's powers are derived from the binary code in his DNA. So we created a compound encoded with a numerical string pattern of ones and zeroes, to invert the order of the code.
Caitlin: "Ones become zeroes and vice versa."
I... I don't understand what any of that means. So Deacon is a living computer virus? Or he can infect electronics with a living computer virus? Is he no longer human? Is he a piece of computer code in human form? I honestly have no idea.
Deacon has the ability to infect and manipulate electronics. That's a pretty formidable power in this day and age, but how's it supposed to work? All we ever see him do is stare at an object as his eyes glow purple and his pupils become square. At no time does he ever actually touch anything. How can he infect a device without ever touching it? Is he using wi-fi?
• The whole Kilg%re software thing is just as bewildering. Listen to Cisco try to explain what it is:
Cisco: "Four years ago, Kurt Weaver and Tim Kwon created an app in their garage with two other programmers. Some kind of malware called Kilgore. And then they sold it off to a big tech company."
So Kilg%re is an app, but it's also a piece of malware. Um... those two things aren't even remotely alike, writers! An app is a program written for a mobile device. Malware is a piece of software that's intended to damage or disable a computer. I could see a tech company being interested in an app, but no one would ever BUY a piece of malware!
• Deacon takes control of Tim Kwon's car and causes it to drive 120 mph down a busy Central City street. We'll have to take the show's word for that, as it looked for all the world like it was puttering along at 30 mph— at the most!
• Credit where it's due: Barry and Iris' couples therapy scenes were very well done. Grant Gustin has a goofy, nerdy charm, and he and Candice Patton have some great chemistry together.
Gustin also has some pretty good comedy chops, and I loved his increasing awkwardness as Doctor Finkle jotted down everything he said. It's a shame he rarely gets to be funny on the show.
By the way, Doctor Finkle ought to have a field day with the fact that Barry and Iris grew up as foster siblings and are now engaged!
And how could there not be any online info about a trio of startup billionaires? Are we really supposed to believe that people who made their fortune in computer science have no social media presence of any kind? Nothing about this scene makes the least bit of sense.
Yes, yes, at one point Tim Kwon does say that Kurt Weaver "scrubbed any connection between us from the net." If that's true, then Kurt must be one of the world's most brilliant scientific minds indeed. The idea that a person can erase their presence from the entire internet is more unbelievable than a man who can run at the speed of light!
In this episode we get a different angle of the building, and it looks like a huge chunk of the side was completely blown away! Has that hole always been there? I suppose it has, although I honestly don't remember ever seeing it before.
You'd think after four years they might want to get that patched up, before the entire building's ruined.
• When Cisco decides to talk out his problems with Gypsy, he reaches up and vibes a breach into thin air. Gypsy INSTANTLY walks through it and nonchalantly says, "What's up?"
So... was she just standing there on Earth-19 waiting for him to call? Or did the portal he opened somehow drag her away from whatever she was doing on her world?
• When Cisco unveils Barry's new high-tech suit, he hands him a comically thick user manual and tells him to read up on its new features. Barry gives the manual a disdainful look and tosses it aside, as if reading something that huge is out of the question.So... was she just standing there on Earth-19 waiting for him to call? Or did the portal he opened somehow drag her away from whatever she was doing on her world?
OK, I get that this is supposed to be funny, but it doesn't make any sense. In the past we've seen Barry speed-read (literally!) lengthy technical manuals and science papers to instantly bring himself up to speed on a topic. And earlier in this very episode, Barry catches up on six months' worth of DVRed TV by watching it at a thousand times normal speed. So what's the problem here? Why can't he read through this gigantic manual in ten seconds and be done with it?
Answer: Because if he did read the instructions, then we wouldn't have the "comical" scenes of Barry fumbling with the new suit's features as he tries to figure out how to control it.
The suit gets fried near the end of the episode, so I'm hoping this is the last we'll see of it.
• When Gypsy talks about One-One-One Day, she triggers the old, "Someone Says Something Mundane That Inspires A Bright Idea" cliche, causing Cisco to come up with a way to defeat Deacon.
• When Deacon takes control of Barry's suit, he forces him to fire an Iron Man repulsor ray at Wally. Despite the fact that Wally's a speedster, he can't dodge a simple energy blast and is thrown across the room and knocked out.
• Deacon then uses the suit's built-in defibrillator function to try and kill Barry. At the very least, it's good to see that Deacon knows a defibrillator actually STOPS the heart, not jump starts it!
• Barry's new suit has a self destruct function called "The Babel Protocol."
This is probably a reference to the Tower Of Babel storyline in the Justice League comic. In that tale, Batman accumulated files on how to take down his team members in the event any of them ever turned bad.
Cisco sort of references this, saying he added the function to the suit in case he ever had to stop an evil version of Barry.
• As the self destruct timer counts down, Iris gets an idea and tells Barry to generate speedster lightning to short out the suit. He's not sure he's up to the task, so Iris whispers, "Run, Barry, Run!"
I wish I'd started a counter listing every time they've used that phrase throughout the seasons. It'd be up to twenty by now, at least.
• Earth-19 Watch:
According to Gypsy, Earth-19 celebrates Saint Shaquille O'Neal Day. That seems unlikely, on ANY Earth!
Also they definitely don't have Santa Claus. It's unclear if they have Xmas or not.
Gypsy throws around the word "schmoopy" a lot in this episode. Does that mean Earth-19 has Seinfeld, or is it just a coincidence?
• At the end of the episode, Joe's puzzled and says, "How is it possible that Deacon’s a meta if he didn’t get his powers from Wells’ particle accelerator blowing up?" This implies that the explosion is responsible for every metahuman who's ever appeared on the show. That can't be right, can it? Surely they've faced villains who got their powers some other way before now?
• Something just occurred to me: The Thinker appears to be built into his high tech chair, and is completely immobile. He's literally the exact opposite of the Flash, who's main power is movement! Interesting.
• This Week's Best Lines:
Cisco: (at a crime scene) "Excuse me. Coming through. CCPD Tech Consultant. That’s right. Look at the badge. That means it’s official."
Captain Singh:"He’s aware that badge is plastic, right?"
Barry: (at couples therapy) "I love therapy."
Dr. Finkle:"Oh. Have you been before?"
Barry: "Just once, when I was a kid, after my mom died."
Dr. Finkle: "Oh, your mom."
Dr. Finkle: "Oh, your mom."
(she writes in her notebook)
Barry: "Oh. But I’m okay with that. I mean, I’m not okay with it, obviously. I mean, I’d prefer that she was alive. I just meant that I’ve already dealt with it is I don’t think it’s worth writing down."
Dr. Finkle: "These notes are just for me. No one is judging you guys."
Iris:"Yes, we know."
Barry: "Oh, my dad died too. Just for your notes."
Dr. Finkle: "So, Barry, Iris filled me in a little bit about the two of you on the phone before. Getting married?"
Dr. Finkle: "These notes are just for me. No one is judging you guys."
Iris:"Yes, we know."
Barry: "Oh, my dad died too. Just for your notes."
Dr. Finkle: "So, Barry, Iris filled me in a little bit about the two of you on the phone before. Getting married?"
Iris: "Yeah. Yeah, it’s been a long road getting here."
Barry: "Mm-hmm."
Iris: "First, um us growing up together, and then, um, I was engaged to someone else."
Dr. Finkle: "Oh, okay."
Barry: "That’s worth a write-down?"
Barry: "Mm-hmm."
Iris: "First, um us growing up together, and then, um, I was engaged to someone else."
Dr. Finkle: "Oh, okay."
Barry: "That’s worth a write-down?"
Iris: "He’s actually dead too."
Dr. Finkle: "Oh, you two have had to deal with a lot of trauma."
Iris: "Well..."
Barry:"No, not a... "
Iris: "Eddie and Ronnie."
Barry: "I mean, a little."
Iris: "My mom. HR."
Barry: "Not too much."
Iris: "Laurel."
Barry: "Some."
Iris: "Snart."
Barry: "We’ve been... to a few funerals."
Iris: "Yeah."
Caitlin: (angrily) "How much tech did you put in this suit?"
Cisco: (sheepishly) "Sooooo much."
Dr. Finkle: "Oh, you two have had to deal with a lot of trauma."
Iris: "Well..."
Barry:"No, not a... "
Iris: "Eddie and Ronnie."
Barry: "I mean, a little."
Iris: "My mom. HR."
Barry: "Not too much."
Iris: "Laurel."
Barry: "Some."
Iris: "Snart."
Barry: "We’ve been... to a few funerals."
Iris: "Yeah."
Caitlin: (angrily) "How much tech did you put in this suit?"
Cisco: (sheepishly) "Sooooo much."
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Wotta Deal!
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