Prometheus Trailer: The Aliening

You may have heard about Ridley Scott's new movie, Prometheus, his much-heralded return to the sci-fi genre. Originally, Prometheus was to have been a prequel to Scott's 1979 classic, but at some point in its development the project seems to have taken another more mysterious turn than simply being an Alien prequel. Scott and members of his cast and crew have made a lot of conflicting statements about just how much this movie has to do with the Alien series. Scott has made strange comments about the movie having "Alien DNA" and has implied that the movie is set in the same cinematic universe as Alien but he has denied that the famous monster makes an appearance in the movie.

Perhaps this is a bit of misinformation. Or maybe Ridley Scott is attempting to manage expectations so that people don't go into his movie expecting another Alien sequel in which his cast is devoured one-by-one. Aside from its connections to Alien there does seem do be a lot going on with Prometheus and the filmmakers have alluded to some big themes that apparently wouldn't be able to be shoehorned into a movie about a monster on the loose.

Today, a lot of questions are answered about the movie with the release of its first official trailer. For a movie that the filmmakers are trying to disassociate with Alien, this trailer really works in as many references to the classic movie as possible, from its eerie music first used in the original Alien trailer, to the title which slowly assembles over the moving images.



Also like Alien is what looks like a terrific ensemble cast including Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, and Guy Pierce. Heading the cast is Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Once again, Scott has put together a group of established character actors, edgy up-and-coming movie stars and international talent.

From what little we can tell from the trailer, the movie is more clearly connected to Alien than Scott has been letting on. It looks a lot like much of the footage from this trailer is set on LV-426, the planet on which the first crew discovered the derelict ship and also the setting for most of Aliens. The planet from the Prometheus trailer has the same murky windswept craggy appearance. Later in the trailer, we see the derelict ship from Alien both balancing on its end, and then crashing down, perhaps into the position in which it is found in Alien.

Scott has long indicated a desire to explore the mysterious "Space Jockey" that was found in a fossilized form inside the ship in Alien and he looks to have made good on his wish. Here we see a quick shot of what looks like the head or helmet of the creature going through some kind of medical scanner. Later, we see it aboard the derelict as it rises from the floor and assumes its familiar position.

There are also some strangely unfamiliar things in the trailer. In a shot that recalls a similar situation in Alien, we see Michael Fassbender in a dark chamber filled with pods, but these pods are metal instead of the expected organic eggs. The room is dominated by the colossal sculpture of a human face, which we have already seen in the film's publicity materials. Shortly after, it looks as though Fassbender is face-hugged, although it is no secret that his character is an android. And then there is Fassbender again, pulling something out of a container.

I can't tell you how psyched I am to see this movie. We've gotten used to the idea of an Alien series of movies and have forgotten that Alien was very much its own thing, with it's own unique Anglo Gothic Horror vibe. Prometheus looks to take us back to the Lovecraftian horror roots from which Alien spawned. June 8th, 2012, people.



Patrick Garone is a writer, director, sketch comedian, and blogger. He is the author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Follow him on Twitter for fun-sized ramblings on nerd culture and politics.

Monster Movie of the Week: Rebirth of Mothra (1996)

Rebirth of Mothra (1996)
Directed by: Okihiro Yoneda
Genre: Kaiju eiga/Family

THE MOVIE

After Godzilla was "killed" in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah to make way for an American movie, Toho decided to produce a few movies focusing on their second most popular kaiju, Mothra (with the also-popular King Ghidorah in a supporting role). While she's best known to audiences for her many appearances in Godzilla's movies, Mothra actually debuted in her own eponymous movie in 1961, before being incorporated into the larger Toho monster universe, so Rebirth of Mothra is not her first time carrying a movie.

Rebirth of Mothra and its two sequels are not particularly well known in the U.S. (the third one has never even been available on DVD) and they might strike Toho fans as a bit kiddish but that shouldn't stop anyone from checking them out. Kaiju-philes will find a lot to love and some very cool monster designs despite the juvenile tone, ham-fisted environmental message, and low budget. It's also nice to see Mothra and Ghidorah get some of the spotlight for themselves.

More than any of the other Toho movies, the Rebirth of the Mothra series gives a central role to the Elias, the ubiquitous twins who have been Mothra's keepers and companions since her very first movie. Here the Elias are joined by a third (and evil) sister, Belvera. While the Elias ride around on a small butterfly, Belvera's mount is a tiny fire-breathing dragon. Throughout the three movies of the Mothra Trilogy, the three sisters battle it out, often using humans and monsters as surrogates, for the fate of the world. It's actually nice to see the Elias doing something more active rather than simply singing or waiting to be rescued.

In the first Rebirth movie, Belvera seeks to unleash an ancient monster, Death Ghidorah, from it's tomb deep within the heart of a mountain. She possesses a young girl to help her, while the girl's brother is enlisted by the Elias to prevent their sister from releasing Ghidorah. Sadly they fail and the monster wreaks havoc. The twins are forced to call upon Mothra who is old and exhausted from having just laid an egg. She is defeated by the monster but her offspring hatches and joins the fight. The battle rages and the mother is defeated but the new larva spins a cocoon and is reborn as Motra Leo, who finally defeats the monster and avenges his mother.


THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

The Mothras tend to be on the cuddlier side, as they had during the Monster's appearance during the rest of the Heisei movies but I'm happy to say that Mothra Leo is given a slightly more aggressive design than the traditional Mothra. This is perhaps because he is the first explicitly male version of the character that we have seen.


Death Ghidorah is a bit more interesting as he is a substantially different version of the character than we have seen. In fact, he is not really even King Ghidorah but rather a kind of "Ghidroid," who shares a lot of Ghidorah's characteristics-three heads, wings, a nasty attitude-but has a different body layout and coloration. I, for one, like the redesign as the traditional Ghidorah has always seemed a bit topheavy and awkward, stumbling around on two legs. A four-legged Ghidorah makes a bit more sense. As much as I like the classic golden scaled appearance of the original Ghidorah, I like the rough skin texture and dark color scheme on this one. It's a really good alternate look for the character.
This look for Ghidorah is pretty influential as well. The short neck and smaller proportions made an appearance in the great Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack. The quadrupedal body layout also returned in Godzilla: Final Wars as Kaiser Ghidorah, who looks a bit like Rebirth of Mothra's Death Ghidorah.


HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

The first two Rebirth movies are available as a two pack DVD in the same style as most of the Heisei Godzilla movies. They are available as mail rentals from Netflix and all three movies are free to watch on Crackle.


MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The extended battle sequence at the end is pretty cool and is actually the first time Mothra and Ghidorah have tangled without Godzilla.

TRAILER





Patrick Garone is a writer, director, sketch comedian, and blogger. He is the author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Follow him on Twitter for fun-sized ramblings on nerd culture and politics.

Monster Movie of the Week: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Genre: Socio-Science Fiction

THE MOVIE

The second sequel to Planet of the Apes is a striking about-face from its immediate predecessor, the mostly light-hearted Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Conquest is the darkest and most violent of the Apes movies and is very much a product of the gritty early seventies, the heyday of violent exploitation movies.

Chronologically, Conquest takes place twenty years after Escape and tells the pivotal story of how the Apes took over the Earth, portraying the early events of the world we see in the original movie. In a bit of early '70's futurism, the movie is set in a spare and sleek 1991. In this future, America has become a dysutopian society that is reliant on the slave labor of (genetically engineered?) apes. These apes are mute and beat down, not unlike the humans in the first movie.

The rather flimsy back story for the apes is that there had been a plague that killed off the earth's population of dogs and cats. Apes were brought in as replacements (!) and ultimately they were trained to work menial tasks and hard labor. Humans eventually began to rely on them so heavily that the apes became a cornerstone of the economy.


Meanwhile, Cornelius and Zera's child, Ceasar, had been raised in secret by the circus owner, Armando. For most of Ceasar's life, he has been hidden from the authorities who believed that they had killed the child of the talking apes and safeguarded humanity's future. In a trip into the city, Ceasar and Armando are separated and Ceasar is forced to hide amongst the ape slaves. He is ultimately purchased by the governor of California, a slimy fascist who could give Charlton Heston a run for his money when it comes to scenery-chewing. Soon, Ceasar witnesses the brutality of human beings and over the course of the movie he is forged into a revolutionary who leads an uprising against human beings, and sets into motion the future we see in the original movie.

While there is no time-travel in this movie, it is interesting to note the fundamental paradox at the heart of the original Apes series. The planet of the apes only came about because two apes were able to travel back in time on a spaceship sent by men to explore the cosmos. If Zera and Cornelius had been unable to restore Taylor's (or Brent's) ship and travel back in time, they would not have been able to leave Ceasar behind to found Ape society. It is Taylor's trip to the future that sets the whole series of events in motion.



By this time, the Apes movies had established themselves as being quite popular with black audiences. One could speculate that this is because they depicted a world in which the white power structure was obliterated and Charlton Heston-the epitome of blond, Anglo Saxon American manhood-was objectified, humiliated, and dragged through the street in a way that recalls how African slaves were treated in the U.S.. Or perhaps it is that words and images of apes and monkeys had always been used by white racists to dehumanize people of color. In the context of the American racial experience, an ape planet in which all-American Charlton Heston is nearly done in by intelligent talking simians only to collapse at the ruins of the Statue of Liberty is powerful stuff.

Remember, this is during the late sixties and early seventies during a time when the Civil Rights movement was taking a darker turn with a backdrop of riots, assassinations and violence. While the Apes movies have always had an important sociological component, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes brings this to the fore like no other. It is very consciously aims to be part of the revolutionary dialogue of the times, and its visual references to then-current events would not have been lost on its original theatrical audiences.


Another interesting point to consider, is the movie's connection with the 2011 series reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which can possibly be considered a very loose remake of this movie. Both movies are concerned with an ape uprising led by a chimpanzee named Ceasar. While that Ceasar is not the product of time-travelling super-intelligent apes, the two movies do cover quite a bit of the same thematic territory and are interesting companion pieces.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

Sadly, Conquest continues the sad trend of diminishing budgets in the Apes sequels and the ape effects do suffer in this one. This is particularly true of the many background ape characters which are realized through god-awful overhead masks as opposed to the more expensive prosthetic appliances used on the lead characters. Unfortunately, even the terrific Ape make-up starts to show its limitations here, as the mouths are not really as expressive as you'd like for such an intense high-drama story as this and Roddy McDowell often sounds muffled under his make-up.

McDowell returns to play the son of the character which he had made famous in the first and third Apes movies and Ceasar is a bit of a stretch from his fastidious father. Ceasar has an interesting character arc that takes him from naive young chimpanzee to furious revolutionary leader. By and large, McDowell does a good job taking us on this journey.


HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Has been widely available on home video in a number of configurations and boxed sets, some of which are quite nice. The Bluray set in particular is amazingly good not only with a whole slew of extras but a very nice hard cover book as well.

In the case of Conquest it features the ability to watch the original unrated cut of the movie, which to my knowledge had never before been released on home video. The two versions of the movie are largely the same, up until the end which features a far more violent conclusion to the movie and makes Ceasar a more militant and less likeable character. The theatrical cut uses some weird editing tricks and redubbed dialogue to soften his lines. The unrated cut seems to better suit the spirit of the movie.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

The ending battle in the unrated cut of the movie is surprisingly violent, with characters getting stabbed and shot in the face left and right.

SEQUELS

This movie was followed by Battle for the Planet of the Apes which continues the story of Ceasar and further sets up the pieces for the Ape society that we encountered in Planet of the Apes, although for my money it is the worst of the original movies.

TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: Tarantula (1955)

TARANTULA (1955)
Directed by Jack Arnold
Genre: Monster on the Loose

THE MOVIE

Along with movies like Them! and The Black Scorpion, Tarantula is a standout in the genre of giant bug movies which became popular in the 1950's. And as far as insects and arachnids go, even normal tarantulas are pretty freaky with their hairy bodies and giant poisonous mandibles, so one that is a hundred times bigger than normal certainly can hold its own among cinema's nastiest monsters.

Tarantula begins with a memorable and mysterious scene in which a deformed man stumbles through the desert and collapses. Like many of the other giant bug movies, Tarantula takes place in the western United States, a land of open spaces and secret experimentation. We soon meet a scientist at a remote lab in which he is developing a super nutrient which he hopes will fight the hunger that he thinks will overtake the world as the population grows in the coming decades.

In one scene, the old man looks ahead to the future predicting population growth in the far future of 1975 and 2000. As someone who was actually alive in both of those years, it felt a bit disconcerting being called out in a movie from 1955. It made me feel like kind of a backward-looking voyeur, watching this movie in 2011 with technology that had not yet even been dreamed up in 1955.


The practical effect of this super nutrient is that is causes animals to develop quickly and grow to enormous sizes. In his lab, we see oversized rats and other animals, including a very large tarantula. Why he would need to test on a tarantula is for smarter people than me to figure out.

When the scientist's former partner returns to the lab, having fallen victim to the effects of the nutrient, the two engage in a struggle which destroys part of the lab and frees the tarantula which escapes into the desert and grows to an enormous size.

Much as in the later movie, Sssssss!, the shady scientist has to replace his mysteriously missing assistant. Only this time, the replacement is an attractive young female grad student, who also catches the eye of the doctor from the nearby town. The doctor and his new friend begin to piece together the suspicious activity centered around the lab, including horses that have been totally stripped of their flesh and huge pools of arachnid venom. The giant spider soon reveals itself in the open and goes on a rampage. It is only defeated by jets which fire napalm projectiles and are piloted by young Clint Eastwoods.

You've gotta ask yourself one question spider, do I feel lucky?

MONSTERS/EFFECTS

The giant tarantula is brought to life through a mix of puppetry and trick photography using a real tarantula composited onto a live action plate. This was a well-worn technique in old movies and many an unfortunate lizard has been dolled up to look like a ferocious dinosaur. It works surprisingly well, partially because the spider is so dark but also because a large puppet wouldn't have been able to capture the creepy way that a tarantula moves.

The two scientists also undergo a kind of inexplicable transformation after having been exposed to the experimental nutrient. While the other animals suffer from gigantism, the two scientists morph into deformed snub-nosed creatures that look a bit like the pig-people from the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Eye of the Beholder." That whole subplot seems a little unnecessary for a movie that has enough going on with a hundred foot spider running around.



MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

The brief view of the twisted flaming tarantula corpse at the end of the movie.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Available on DVD in a double feature with The Mole People.

TRAILER







Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Monster Movie of the Week: The Mist (2007)

THE MIST (2007)
Directed by Frank Darabont
Genre: Horror/Survival


THE MOVIE

For a long time, the idea of a good Stephen King adaptation was laughable. After a strong starts with Carrie. The Dead Zone, and (arguably) The Shining, Hollywood became saturated with rushed and crappy King adaptations in the 1980's. His reputation was rehabilitated with strong adaptations of some of his less overtly horrific works like Stand By Me and Misery, movies which often did not advertise their Stephen King origins. When The Shawshank Redemption was released in 1994, it was universally acclaimed and is widely considered on of the best films of its decade. Many were surprised that it was in fact based on a novella from King, as it lacks most of the traditional genre elements that audience expects from the author.

The movie was adapted and directed by Frank Darabont, who also had previously been known for his genre work, writing films like A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Fly II, and The Blob. He went on to become a prolific adapter of Stephen King's work, with The Green Mile and, most recently, 2007's The Mist. The Mist gives us full-on horror Stephen King, in which a group of desperate survivors are holed up in a grocery store surrounded by a creepy mist which conceals all manner of horrible Lovecraftian monsters.

The best thing about The Mist is that it has a kind of elegant simplicity to it. It is a pure horror story about a group of people surviving an onslaught of monstrous foes and how they react as a group to survive. The movie smartly never definitively tells you where the mist and the monsters are from, you are with the survivors and only know as much as they do. Some of them speculate that some experiments at the near-by military base have gone awry and opened a gateway to "another dimension" but no one really knows and, to be honest, it really doesn't matter.




The Mist is also a commentary on human nature and we witness many of the survivors begin to break off into different factions and turn on each other. This works early in the movie as the film does a good job of giving us a broad spectrum of people and nicely underscores their differences in gender, race and social class. We see the societal bonds begin to unravel as the situation becomes more stressful but the movie really over-reaches in its second half. It goes a bit off the rails when the characters start actually openly discussing this theme. Also, the town's local religious nut, Ms. Carmody begins accumulating followers among the survivors. I don't think the movie really earns where it goes to with this character and this story arc seems to be go a bit too fast and is missing a few connections.



Darabont fans will see a lot of familiar faces in The Mist. Character actor William Sadler returns from playing a prisoner in Shawshank. You may remember Laurie Holden from her brief stint on The X-Files as recurring character Marita Covarubbias (The Unblonde) and she goes on to do Darabont's The Walking Dead. Jeffrey DeMunn has them all beat having appeared in Shawshank, The Majestic, and The Walking Dead.

Perhaps the most memorable part of the movie is its controversial and monumentally downbeat ending. I won't spoil it but will say that it aims to be very big and Dramatic. Perhaps too much so because it aims for big Tragedy, which doesn't play that well in a movie. Imagine the biggest and most tragic version of a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" and you'd be pretty close.




MONSTER/EFFECTS

There are a lot of nasty creatures in The Mist but we don't get a good look at many of them. Our first creature encounter is with a full fledged Tentacle Monster, which reaches in under a big loading dock door. We first see some fat tentacles, but we then see that they unfold into spiky appendages capable of ripping bloody chunks of flesh out of a man. In keeping with the movie's style of not giving us too much, we never actually see the rest of this creature.

We next see some large flying insects, which look like large mosquitos. The insects are pursued by some very interesting pterodactyl-like animals which have four membranous wings. Also in the mix are some very large and mean skull-faced spiders which breed inside human corpses and are able to spin webs which violently burn people's skin.

In the mist is also what appears to be a large mantis-like creature. Sadly we only see it as a hazy shadow and we never get a good look at it. The movie's best creature shows up at the end, when our small group of survivors are attempting to drive out of town, it is a truly unearthly creature like a giant dinosaur/insect hybrid with dozens of writhing tentacles. It may even be the original tentacle monster from the loading dock scene.



MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

See above. I really like that the horror comes to a halt in this scene and the characters take a moment to experience a kind of awe in this scene. I love that there is room for a small moment of amazement. It really is a beautiful and unearthly creature.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available on DVD and Bluray. The deluxe DVD even features a black and white version of the movie.

TRAILER







Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

TOP 10 CHANGES I WOULD MAKE TO THE STAR WARS SAGA

The Star Wars movies are a work in progress. Lucas has been tweaking them and making changes from the re-release of the original movie in the late '70's through the recent Bluray editions of the saga. With the upcoming 3D versions of the movies, it's likely that he will continue to refine his movies to more fully realize his vision, for better or worse.

As Anakin's mom says in Episode I, "You can't stop change." As a long-time Star Wars fan, I'm mostly okay with the changes, many of which are subtle and actually improve and enrich the visual world of the movies. A few changes don't really work (Jabba's scene in A New Hope). And some are just weird and unnecessary (Vader's "Noooo!" in Jedi and his shuttle trip in Empire).

If you hate the changes made to the movies, you should go back and look at the originals some time. We take for granted some of the more subtle improvements that have been made to these movies. Thanks to the Special Editions we are spared the awful landspeeder effects, flimsy light sabers, and the atrocious Rancor blue screening.

Knowing that Lucas will continue to make updates, here's my list of changes I think should be made.

Just because you can show us an alien's tonsils, doesn't mean you should.

1. Fix Some of the 1990's CGI (Original Trilogy): If it's going to be in there, at least bring it into the 21st Century. Whether it be the dodgy compositioning and texturing (Sarlacc beak) or the overly ostentatious CGI in the Max Reebo Band number, it's time to go back and do some much needed touch-ups to the early generation digital effects.

2. Add Some Battle Droids to the Background Inside the Sandcrawler (A New Hope). The Battle Droids were ubiquitous in the Prequels but are totally absent from the original trilogy. It would be great to see some old rusted Battle Droids in the background inside the Sandcrawler or even replacing one of the robots in the droid sale. This would be a nice way to visually tie the trilogies together and some evidence of some Clone Wars action that might have happened on Tattooine, which would give some context to the Cantina bartender's line, "Your droids will have to wait outside! We don't serve their kind here."


3. Vader and the Blast Door (A New Hope): Before the Millennium Falcon escapes the Death Star and right after Obi-Wan sacrifices himself, Luke shoots a wall panel causing a door to shut on Vader, locking him out of the hangar. The way I see it, Vader is not going to wait for someone to fix the door, nor is he going to walk around. We need to see his red light saber poke through the door and begin cutting its way into the hangar. This helps establish Vader as an unstoppable bad-ass.

We could even see him step through in time to see the Falcon leave. This would be a nice call-back to The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon attempts to cut through the door on the Federation cruiser and it also recalls moments when Darth Maul watches the Naboo ship escape on Tattooine and when the Falcon narrowly escapes Vader twice in Empire. (Come to think of it, there are lots of shots in Star Wars in which people frustratedly watch ships take off.)


3. Add Count Dooku to the Jedi Council (The Phantom Menace): One of the problems with Count Dooku as a villain is that he comes out of nowhere in Episode II and we have to listen to a lot of people talk about his backstory. He plays such a major part in the prequels that he should really be visually established prior to Episode II. Since we hear that he is an important Jedi prior to the Clone Wars, why not see him on the Council in Episode I?

Digitally put him in place of the "conehead" Jedi Ki-Adi Mundi and give him that character's one line and then at least we are introduced to him and we actually see that he was an important Jedi rather than having to take Mace Windu's word for it. It gives him a clearer character arc and makes him a more effective villain.

4. Fix Some of the Bad Puppet/Mask Work (Original Trilogy): This is sacrilege for some people, but the Special Editions were not ambitious enough when it came to improving on the bad mask and puppet work throughout the Original Trilogy. I'm surprised Lucas didn't remove more of the cheap masked characters from the Cantina scene with digital characters. Now that the Prequels are over, it would be nice to see some Prequel aliens represented in there. Also in Jabba's Palace, Max Reebo looks like a big ole Muppet.

It's time to play the music...it's time to light the lights...

5. Fix Yoda. (Throughout) I'm a bit dissatisfied with Yoda in both trilogies. I like his range of movement and performance in the Prequels but there was something very plastic about his skin. It was a bit too shiny and translucent. I'd really like to see him "reskinned" with a duller tone that is more like the puppet used in Empire and Jedi.

Yoda was never the same after the stroke...

That's not to say that I am a huge fan of the puppet. There are some scenes where he works well and some scenes that are painful, such as when he is "emoting" surprise when Luke manages to lift the X-Wing from the swamp. Or the awful Yoda dummy that was in Luke's backpack. Or his death scene in Jedi where Luke pulls a blanket over him, which gets caught on his rubber toe and pulls it back like an empty glove. If there ever comes a day when they can create a CGI Yoda that is indistinguishable from the puppet Yoda, they should go in an fix a few scenes to make Yoda more expressive and lifelike.

Hellooooo dear!

6. Fix The Emperor (The Empire Strikes Back): Re-doing the Emperor's sole scene in The Empire Strikes Back with Ian McDiarmid was a great move. The only problem was that he was wearing his weird Mrs. Doubtfire makeup from Revenge of the Sith. Let's fix this so that he looks more like his appearance in Return of the Jedi.

7. Tweak a Few Lines in Jedi: After Sith, there are some lines in Return of the Jedi that stick out as not being very accurate. After Luke expresses his intent to redeem his father, Vader says, "Obi-Wan once thought as you do."

The only problem is that Obi-Wan pretty much had made up his mind to kill Anakin before he even got to Mustafar. It's actually Padme who wants to take Anakin away in the same way that Luke does, so the line could be changed to, "Your mother once thought as you do." This change makes the line more accurate and also more emotionally powerful. With the return of his son, there is no doubt that thoughts of Padme are running around inside Vader's head as he struggles to turn back.

Also, when Luke asks Leia about her "real" mother, she gives a description of her as a beautiful but sad woman which begs the question, who is she talking about? To simplify this, the word "real" should be removed and we can just assume that she is talking about her adopted mother, the one we see her with at the end of Sith, and Luke, trying to ease into the topic, doesn't bother to correct her.

8. Diversify the Rebels (Original Trilogy): It seems like the Rebels are a pretty homogeneous bunch. In the first couple of movies, Chewie is the only alien in their ranks. By the time we get to Jedi, we see some Mon Calamari and some other aliens but it still doesn't seem very representative. I'd like them to make it a little less human-centric to contrast better with the Empire, which is supposed to be the undiverse faction (being diverse in the Empire means you don't have a British accent.) Let's actually see some of those Bothans that Mon Mothma is all broken up about. The Star Wars Galaxy is a pretty diverse place, let's show it off.

And give Chewie his damn metal.

9. Fix the Tauntauns (Empire Strikes Back): While the stop motion work that you see is not too bad, the Tauntauns look much worse when you see them in close and medium shots when they are dead-eyed animatronics. Even worse, when you see them in Echo Base they are often hiding behind ice columns to hide their puppet mechanisms. I'd like to see some CGI in these shots, to make them more convincing and lifelike in the background.

10. Give Ahsoka Tano A Cameo In Sith: As a nod to the popular The Clone Wars series that has brought a whole new generation to Star Wars and is set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, let's have a quick cameo from one of its protagonists, Anakin's Padawan Ahsoka Tano. She could be simply strolling down the hallway in the Jedi Temple or otherwise in the background, but it would be a treat to work her into the live action movies.

Here's a bonus one:

11. Take Out The "Nooooo" and "She's Lost The Will to Live." (Revenge of the Sith): There you were in 2005. It was the movie you had been waiting for forever. For the most part, Lucas had not screwed it up. There was no Jar Jar, very fewAnakin/Padme scenes, it was a legitimately satisfying Star Wars prequel, with some of the best scenes and sequences of the entire saga.

You were at the end and Anakin had been rescued from his brutal defeat at the hands of Obi-Wan, in a scene that was surprisingly intense and graphic. Intercut with a scene of Padme dying while giving birth to the twins is a sequence in which Darth Vader is born.

Intertwining these two scenes was a brilliant and haunting choice. Then we get the one-two punch. First, some Jaialai-handed robot tells Obi-Wan that Padme is dying because, "She has lost the will to live." The droid is practically shrugging as it gives this half-assed diagnosis. You just wished Obi-Wan would have split it in half and said, "No dumbass, she was Force Choked!" It was a stupid, awkward moment.

Then we cut back to Vader and he looks a little terrified as that mask is lowered onto his face. sealing him into his suit. There is a beat and then we hear that infamous breathing and we see it displace the mist that his hanging over him. In a clear visual allusion to Frankenstein, his operating table is straightened and he takes his first awkward steps, while telekinetically crushing the droids and equipment around him. He asks, what has become of Padme and when he is told, he lets loose an awful melodramatic "Noooooo!" while the camera slowly zooms out and Palpatine looks on, pleased. This moment ruins the otherwise perfect scene, which was to be the tragic summation of the entire prequel trilogy.

Both of these moments can be easily fixed. First, cut the droid's line and the shot entirely. We already know what happened to Padme. It's goofy and unnecessary.

Second, I agree with the sentiment of "Noooooo!" but not the execution. This is a Tragedy after all, so it's okay that emotions run big but the combination of the line and the camera zooming out is a huge cliche. Let's replace the "Nooooo!" with a scream of rage and loose the zoom out. I would even have him crush the droids after he finds out about Padme, like he's letting loose some kind of Force storm, letting the Dark Side give him power, which pleases Palpy.





Patrick Garone
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Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Monster Movie of the Week: Mimic (1997)

MIMIC (1997)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Horror/Survival

THE MOVIE

Horror movies are like icebergs of which we only normally see the tip. The rest of it is generally too unpleasant to show on screen. And I’m not talking about violence or gore, that’s evolved into its own genre: the sadistic torture porn movies that are so popular now. I’m talking about horror movies that identify people’s phobic pressure points and hammer away at them. Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly and Ridley Scott’s Alien both do this. Mimic is nowhere near as good as those movies but is stylish and effective and doesn’t pull any punches: kids and animals are fair game. In fact, the movie opens with a scene in a children’s hospital in which we see a very sick child struggling to stay alive. Although, children are commonly present in movies like this there is a convention that, although they maybe in dangerous situations, nothing is really going to happen to them. You knew Ripley was going to go back and rescue Newt and everything would be okay (well until David Fincher got a hold of them), you knew Timmy and Lex really weren’t going to get eaten by Velociraptors in that kitchen. In fact, there is a pair of kids in The Relic not unlike the bug collecting kids from Mimic but the only difference is that the filmmakers in The Relic chose an unrealistic but less disturbing fate for their two kids.

Of course, if you are scared of bugs then Mimic will probably freak you out. Myself, I grew up in apartments in Chicago, so I’ve had some run-ins with cockroaches. What the production design of Mimic does very well is capture the kinds of places where you are likely to run into bugs. Everything is dark and shadowy and wet and grimy. Urban decay is the overriding design theme. The movie even ventures into the legendary subterranean New York, where the subway tunnels meet once-elegant but long-abandoned train stations from the turn of the last century.


Mimic was one of the first English-language films from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who has given us such great genre movies as Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth. Mimic fits well into his fascination with insects and monsters and underground places. The movie also as a subtle Latin American aesthetic to it in its Catholic imagery and especially in the way that the insects cowls close to form a face resembling Mexican folk art.

In the movie’s opening scenes, we learn that a deadly plague has swept New York’s children. The disease is carried by cockroaches who have survived all conventional attempts to eliminate them. An entomologist has genetically engineered a hybrid insect species to eliminate the cockroach infestation. The new species, the “Judas Breed” was engineered to be sterile and die out after a short period of time. We jump forward several years and there are several mysterious and violent murders happening in or near the entrances to the underground. We see fleeting glimpses of a tall figure that seems to be wearing a long cloak. Meanwhile, a couple of kids bring the entomologist a mysterious bug, resembling the Judas Breed insect but larger and more highly evolved. Several groups of characters go investigating the subway for various reasons and end up trapped and trying to escape the infested tunnels.

Mira Sorvino plays the entomologist. My first problem with this is that every time I see her I think of Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion which makes me giggle. It doesn’t help that she’s about nine feet tall and has a weird tranny voice. On top of that, her character is written as a one of a long line of movie scientists who adhere to hare-brained theories with absolute certainty. In this case, she tells a bunch of people to smear insect guts all over themselves because “they’ll think you’re one of them!” That’s right up there with “Don’t move! It can’t see you if you don’t move!”

The monsters in Mimic are man-sized insects with the ability to rearrange their bodies into a vaguely human shape, thus they are the titular “mimics.” If you see them in silhouette or without your glasses on they look like people, otherwise, they don’t exactly pass. The whole mimic thing is really just a nice little visual subplot in this movie which is more concerned with big scary man eating bugs (the movie has about as much to do with mimics as Signs has to do with crop circles). The visual style serves to cover up a pretty typical monster movie plot that is fairly derivative of other movies such as Aliens. This was a troubled production and del Torro was fired and rehired by the producers over creative disagreements.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Good effects all around. There is actually a surprising amount of practical effects, handled by the great Rob Bottin.

MONSTERS

Female drones and one big giant male “king bug.”

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available in a 1st generation DVD with few features.

As of this writing a nifty director's cut has been made available on Bluray with a digital copy. In truth, the Director's cut is not THAT different but it does restore some interesting subplots to the movie. If you were ever wondering what the deal was with the mysterious abandoned church where the Asian priest was killed near the beginning of the movie, a major scene is restored which shows the place to have been a front for a sweatshop. Also more prominent is the subplot involving Sorvino's character's attempt to become pregnant.

The set has some nice featurettes about the making of the movie. Refreshingly, del Torro speaks frankly and directly to the camera for an extended chat about the difficulties making the movie and his original vision for it. More generally he talks about the craft of filmmaking and horror filmmaking in particular, especially the studio pressures to reach the lowest common denominator. I was struck by something the director said, which was to the effect that some of his best movies are the ones he never got to make, referring to some of his famously unfulfilled projects like At The Mountain of Madness. He's currently working on Pacific Rim but has had a bad bit of luck over the last few years with projects falling through, starting with his involvement with The Hobbit.

The set has some of the usual stuff, such as a few deleted scenes and even a gag reel. They did a decent job cleaning up the picture but, it is a dark murky movie from 1997 so it's only going to look so good. It's actually pretty cheap at the moment and definitely worth picking up for fans of the movie or del Torro.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

None in particular.

SEQUELS

There have been two direct to DVD sequels, one crappy, one surprisingly good.

MINORITY REPORT

This is an ongoing feature in which we look at Race and Survival in monster movies.

The veridict:

It should be noted the director is not American but that doesn’t mean the genre trends don’t apply. That being said, he first dude to die is an Asian Catholic priest. Read whatever you want into that.

The wonderful Charles S. Dutton, an African American actor probably best known for the TV show “Rock” and his role in Alien 3 is one of a small group of survivors in the last act that consists of a black dude a Latino(?) dude and a white couple. The Latino dude gets it first. Then Dutton basically sacrifices himself so that the white people can get away (sort of like his death in Alien 3.) This is a movie stereotype I like to call the Sacrificial Negro. Ultimately the survivors are a white couple and an orphaned autistic Latino kid.

TRIVIA

The Assistant Director on this movie was none other than Robert Rodriguez.

TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris

GAMERA: REVENGE OF IRIS (1999)

aka Gamera 3,

Gamera: The Awakening of Irys

Gamera: The Incomplete Struggle

Director: Shusuke Kaneko

Genre: Kaiju Eiga

THE MOVIE

Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko is the modern master of the kaiju eiga genre. With Gamera: Revenge of Iris, he surpasses the high benchmark he had set in the great Gamera: Attack of Legion. In the twisted destinies of the Gamera and Godzilla franchises he manages to make a movie that is far superior not only to any Heisei Godzilla movie but possibly to any Godzilla movie up until that time. This is ironic for several reasons. First, Gamera was created as a cheap Godzilla knock off with a reputation for poorly produced kid-oriented movies (although the Godzilla movies would eventually embrace this more profitable approach in the 1960’s). So the fact that a modern Gamera series would be relaunched which employed modern near-Hollywood quality special effects at a time when the Godzilla series gave us such non-classics as Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla was a serious challenge to the always competitive Toho Studios. I personally believe that the success, acclaim and quality of the ‘90’s Gamera movies as well as the horrible reception of the American Godzilla movie both led directly to Toho’s decision to bring the Godzilla series back in 1999 and they informed the kinds of movies that we saw in the the Millenium Series.

Secondly, Shusuke Kaneko is a lifelong fan of Godzilla and never particularly cared for the old Gamera movies. He had lobbied in the early 1990’s to direct a Godzilla movie and was declined. After the success of the Gamera movies, he was finally given his chance to take on Godzilla and gave us the great Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack, which many consider to be the finest Godzilla movie to date and, like Gamera 3, is a certain contender for best kaiju film of all time.

Iris takes place a few years after Legion and features some returning characters from Gamera: Guardian of the Universe as well as some new characters. Mayumi Nagamine, the ornithologist from the first movie returns as do the giant Gyaos monsters which are popping up with increasing frequency around the world. The movie also introduces us to Ayana, a young girl whose parents were killed during the battle between Gamera and Gyaos in the first movie and who also harbors a deep hatred of Gamera because of this. This is an interesting storyline as it puts a face on the all of the people that are killed off screen during a kaiju battle. One of the things that this movie does very well is remind us that even though Gamera may be “heroic," he is still a monster and he causes a great deal of death and destruction where ever he goes. Ayana eventually comes across a mystical Japanese artifact that hatches into a strange creature that she names Iris, after her cat that was along with her parents. Iris grows into a giant monster that Ayana raises to battle Gamera, developing a dark version of the bond shared by Gamera and Asagi from the previous movies.

Gamera 3 is a millennial movie and like many movies made in the late ‘90’s , there is a feeling that the world is out of balance and that disaster is just around the corner. This aspect of the movie is not developed as much as I would like and raises more questions than is satisfactorily answers. For example, early in the movie a submarine discovers a graveyard of fossilized Gameras on the seafloor. This is a really striking image but what does it really mean, other than that the ancients created “beta versions” as one character explains. The return of the Gyaos seems to be related to environmental collapse (as determined by a “game” run on a Sega Dreamcast of all things) and somehow this is related to Japan’s consumption of “mana.” Maybe one day we'll get a sequel trilogy that addresses some of these plot issues.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

Gamera gets a slight redesign here continuing the trend of making him darker and meaner looking. Compared to the relatively cuddly costume from Guardian, this Gamera has lots ridges frills and dangerous bits. He really looks good in this movie.

There is even a special “Nightmare Gamera” that is featured a couple of times in this movie when Ayana flashes back to when her parents were killed we see what Gamera looks like in her memories and we see a version of the character that is even dark, white-eyed and evil looking. This Gamera is a visual cousin to the Godzilla featured in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah.

Iris, is a bit of a mixed bag. The final form of Iris is an anthropomorphic collection of biomechanical blades and tentacles. My biggest complaint is that Iris lacks a real “face” with eyes we can identify with. However, he is a striking monster particularly when it is able to take flight on membranous wings.

The Gyaos get a great makeover in this movie and their flying scenes are done digitally and they look amazing (no more Rodanitis.) One thing that the movie really succeeds at is unobtrusively using CGI to supplement the suitmation effects, which is something Toho has historically been shy about (or possibly cheap about) in their Godzilla movies, insisting on exclusively using the old techniques to bring their characters to life.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

Gamera battles a pair of Gyaos in and above Tokyo’s Shibuya district. This is perhaps the greatest and most exciting kaiju action sequence ever, probably rivaled only by Rodan’s attack on New York in Godzilla Final Wars.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

No too hard to get. You can get it individually or in a three pack. There are some good interviews and stuff on the DVD, including some scenes from the movie redubbed for comic effect.

Gamera 3 has also been recently released on Bluray. Unfortunately, it is being treated as a budget release and has not been restored or cleaned up for its HD release and the image quality is only marginally better than the DVD release. On the up-side, you can get the whole trilogy on Bluray for less than $15 on Amazon.

SEQUELS

This movie ended the Heisei cycle of Gamera movies. Gamera: The Brave was released in 2006 and brings the series back to its roots in a pretty solid kids movie.

SEE ALSO

Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (2001)

Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Star Wars Bluray Review, Part 1: The Prequels

I grew up on the original trilogy of Star Wars. Like many other people my age, it was a HUGE part of my childhood. Like many others from my generation, my interest in Star Wars dipped in the mid eighties and then spiked again with the re-release of the movies on video in the mid 1990's, which coincided with new novels, comics, toys and the eventual release of the Special Editions. Like many other Star Wars fans, I was psyched about the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999 but unlike many other fans, I actually enjoyed it. My point is, despite my affinity for the original movies, I am not an Original Trilogy partisan. I like to take Star Wars as a series of six movies that are all pretty flawed but each of which has their own strengths and weaknesses.

The movies are all out on Bluray in either a set of two trilogies or a mammoth boxed set which includes all six movies and three discs of bonus materials. I've managed to make my way through all the prequels thus far and will be looking at the other three movies at a later date. If you are interested in my thoughts on the bonus materials check out this entry.

It's hard to believe its been over a decade since the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. This was perhaps the most hyped movie of all time and was released to strong negative reaction by fanboys and people who grew up on the original trilogy, so objective reactions to the movie are relatively hard to come by. It will always be judged in comparison to people's impressions of the movies that came before it. However, Roger Ebert gave the movie a clear-eyed review and three and a half stars. In his review he called it, "an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking." Prior to the movie's release, Steven Spielberg saw the film and said that Star Wars fans were in for a "treat." The movie was a massive hit and audiences flocked to it. For a whole generation of children, The Phantom Menace is their Star Wars.

So how does the movie hold up twelve years later? Episode I is a solid piece of pop entertainment, with lots of excitement and spectacle. The movie's 3D release is right around the corner, and watching it again at home it seems almost like The Phantom Menace was made with 3D in mind. The podrace sequence, in particular, is going to be a lot of fun and the novelty of seeing it in 3D will actually justify its length.

Star Wars to me has always been about a great story and, for me, this is where Episode I and the other prequels really outshine the Original Trilogy. While Lucas often fumbles the specifics of cinematic storytelling (dialogue and directing actors) his visual storytelling and the overarching plot and themes make the prequels really resonate. Lucas is telling the story of the fall of a democracy which parallels the story of the fall of his hero. The prequels are political allegory and much more ambitious than the simplistic rebels vs. evil empire story of the original movies.

Attack of the Clones was released three years later and, in some ways gave audiences a little more of what they were expecting to see in the previous movie. We have Anakin in his prime, lots of Jedi action, the Clone Wars, Mandalorians, stormtroopers, less Jar Jar, etc. But it also devoted an inordinate about of time to an absolutely painful-to-watch love story. Clones features some of the absolute best and worst moments in Star Wars. The last forty minutes of the movie are amazing fun.

Three years later, Revenge of the Sith was released. In many ways, this was the movie that fans had been waiting for. It featured the rise of the empire, the Jedi purge, the creation of Darth Vader and birth of Luke and Leia. Sith is a dark piece of pop tragedy and actually a pretty solid movie. For my money, it is tied with The Empire Strikes Back as the best of the six movies. Whereas with the previous two prequels, I would cut whole scenes and sequences, in Revenge of the Sith I would only cut some dialogue here and there which diminish otherwise strong scenes.

Even the performances are better, as the actors have more to do (although Natalie Portman is still basically furniture. Being a heroine in Star Wars is a thankless task) and Hayden Christiansen's descent into evil mostly works, although the movie could have used another scene connecting how he went from assisting in the murder of Mace Windu to killing children. Ian McDiarmid, who had hovered in the sidelines for two movies as the slimy politician Palpatine here gets to complete his journey to power in grand fashion. He has some great moments in Sith, especially the chilling story he tells Anakin in the opera scene about the fallen Sith Lord, Darth Plagueis.

As far as their transition to Bluray, the movies are a mixed bag. The Phantom Menace is the only one of the three not to be shot digitally and the transfer is not up to part with the others I've seen snippets of the movie broadcast in HD on cable and the Bluray version is not a whole lot better. Revenge of the Sith is the most recent movie (2005) and it is absolutely beautiful on Bluray. It feels like there is almost nothing between you and what you are looking at on screen and the level of detail on costumes and sets is amazing. If nothing else, the set is worth it just for Sith. The presentation on Attack of the Clones is better than Phantom but not quite as good as Sith.

The prequels are flawed movies but, realistically, so are the originals. You can't fault the new movies for their lackluster performances, wooden dialogue, and inappropriate comic relief without holding the original movies to the same standard. Again, I look at Star Wars as a six movie series with an epic, multi-generational story about fall and redemption. It is a story that is much better and more resonant than the medium in which it is told.



Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl