Sarah Palin: Pathalogical Liar

Andrew Sullivan has grouped together the 32 lies that Sarah Palin has told over the last few months. These aren’t just the normal sort of lies you’d expect from a politician; these are weird, bizarre lies that don’t seem to serve any purpose. She’s five kinds of batshit nuts and this pretty well proves it.

Clear the Sidewalks!

That’s right, mortals! I am finally learning to drive! I’ve a learner’s permit and everything, so you’d all best fear me! FEAR ME! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Movie Recap – Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Cast of Characters –

Cloud Strife – Our hero from the video game and the hero in this movie, during which he displays a whole range of emotions; from sulking, to brooding, to scowling, all in an exciting, emo-fashion! Legally prohibited from smiling.

Tifa Lockhart – The girl Cloud should have hooked up with. Her fisting abilities make her very popular!

Barrett Wallace – The man with the silver gun arm! He doesn’t really do much other than show up, swear and shot things. He’s here to kick gum and chew ass… or… something.

Kadaj and the Crunch Bunch – A pack of whinny, annoying, always-crying, emo-ish, Sephiroth cos-players who are somehow great bad-asses. Apparently representing elements of Sephiroth’s personality, though not so you’d notice. Really, just three Oedipal losers, but scary in a Hot Topic kind of way.

The Turks – Reno and Rude are the only ones who matter, and even then they’re just pointless comic relief.

The rest of the good guys – Don’t do much, don’t really matter.

The dead – Sephiroth, Aerith and Zack were all dead at the end of the video game, so of course they are still dead and can have no bearing whatsoever on the plot. None at all. Glad we have that cleared up.

Final Fantasy VII was one hell of a game. Groundbreaking in just about every way possible, it featured a decent (if confusing), storyline, interesting characters, great music, a 3-D environment and wonderful music! It was a system-seller for the Playstation at a time when they kind of needed one.

It also knocked Nintendo down hard. See, originally the game was supposed to be on the successor system to the Super Nintendo. That was going to be a CD-based system (possibly originally made with help from Phillips), and would’ve boasted pretty much all the features that the Playstation had. Well, in the end Nintendo decided to continue with cartridge based games, which really ticked off Square, as it placed limits on them that they didn’t want. Words were said, and next thing you knew, no Square games on any Nintendo systems for several years.

FFVII was great, and left many fans wanting more. Eventually they got Final Fantasy VIII, which made a lot of people very angry, and is generally regarded as a bad move. Other games came along, none of which related to the seventh, and people still wanted to see more of Cloud and his friends.

The game remained quite popular with people at Square as well. When showing off what the Playstation 3 could do, they showed a CGI movie that copied the opening scenes from the game. This left a lot of people hoping and wondering. Could a sequel be in the works? Maybe a remake onto the PS3?

No, instead what we got was Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (or, to use it’s Japanese title, “Fainaru Fantajī Sebun Adobento Chirudoren”); a broad continuation of the story from the game, done entirely in CGI. Surprisingly it doesn’t suck and has a lot going for it, including a great soundtrack and some really well-done fight choreography. Unfortunately, it also has a muddled screenplay, very uninteresting villains and a lot to do in a short amount of time.

For this recap I watched the film with the Japanese soundtrack and English subtitles. I have no problem with the English dub on this (actually, it’s pretty good), but when watching any non-English film I prefer to hear the original language and read the subtitles (though if I ever knuckle under and watch Incubus that policy may have to change).

Anyhow, on with the show!

Readable titles are for losers!

We start with a nice dedication to the fans. The entire movie is, of course, blatant fan-service, and I’m fine with that. Then we get a caption indicating that what we are about to see takes place 498 years after the other events in the movie that take place two years after the events in the game. So for those keeping count, the movie happens two years after the game, this part happens 500 years after the game, and 498 years after the movie. Right-o.

From the dedication we pan down to a lovely mountain scene showing Red XIII and what appear to be young cubs running along together. Now I’d been under the impression Red XIII was the last of his species, so I’m unclear as to how he has kids, but I could just be remembering things wrong. It’s been a while since I played the game.

Anyhow, Red XIII runs up to the top of a hill and howls. We look down and see some sort of ruins. I’m assuming this is Midgar or something, but the movie is far from clear on this point. Also, it’s really, really unclear why we need this scene. It just creates some vague confusion about when the game takes place and brings up the question of where the cubs came from.

Really, they would’ve been better opening it on the following scene, which shows Reno, one of the Turks, flying a helicopter while listening to reports from down bellow. Ah, Reno… pathetic in the game, not that much better here, but so, so cute… *le sigh*

Yeah, baby, hold that joystick....

Anyhow, we hear lots of gunshots and the helicopter goes down to the rescue. We don’t know anything about who is attacking, but presumably we’ll find out later. The helicopter rescues only one person, apparently, and then goes flying off.

From here we go onto another scene with some voice-over from Barrett’s daughter explaining the events from the video game. So for those keeping count, we have so far three prologues before we get into the movie proper.

This little recap of the video game also brings up something that annoyed me from the game. First, let me say that it does look beautiful, though it makes me sniffle slightly at Aerith dying. But it also brings up what’s known as Gaia Theory, and I really, really hate Gaia Theory.

For those not in the know, Gaia Theory (also called the Gaia Hypothesis), basically state that the Earth is an organism of some sort that engages in a form of self-regulating homeostasis. It’s a silly idea especially once you take it to the logical conclusion of “what does the planet do to compensate for change?” This is of course an oversimplification, but you get the idea.

In this movie, and in the video game, the planet reacts to what humanity is doing by interacting with the lifestream and saving itself and causing geostigma and etc, etc, etc. None of which makes any rational sense. It’s very silly and pointless and, yes, I know it’s just a video game/movie, but it still irks me.

Anyhow, we now move out into the movie itself, introducing Midgar and showing some street urchins hanging about, most of whom apparently have this poorly-defined illness called “geostigma”. From what I can gather later on in the movie, it’s kind of like cancer, but there’s no real explanation. For now what you need to know is that it causes a grey rash and apparently is fatal, but we never see anyone die from it.

The scene changes to the inside of Tifa’s bar, where she eventually answers a phone call with the words “Strife Delivery Service!” Yes, apparently Cloud is working as a delivery boy, thus putting him on the same occupational level as Philip J Fry.

Tifa tells the caller that Cloud isn’t around, and we go out to a shot of the cliffs above the city. Here we see the buster sword sticking into the ground. Damn stupid weapon, but I know the fan-boys love it. After that we move along to see, sitting on a motorbike and listening to his voice mail, our hero, Cloud!

Oh, Cloud. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. You’re really hot.

2. See one.

Cloud is of course looking all broody and emo, as befits a hero who saved the world. You know, once I made up a drinking game based around this movie. One of the rules was that you took a drink every time Cloud looked moody. Alcohol poisoning usually set in around the thirty minute mark.

Say, that's a nice bike.

The next scene features a wonderful chase scene as Cloud rides his motorcycle through a canyon and gets chased by the bad guys. Ah, yes, the bad guys. Kadaj and his gang of pussies.

Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz (hereafter referred to as Thing 1 and Thing 2), are the three chumps who pass for villains in this movie. Most of the time they taunt each other for crying and whine about Mother. They look interesting, kind of, and they have some decent moves, but frankly they do just come off as some sort of wanna-be Sephiroth cos-players.

Anyhow, Thing 1 and Thing 2 both ride down in the canyon to chase Cloud while Kadaj engages in… extreme cell phone conversation! Yeah!

Now the fight scene here is really well done, with Cloud on his motorbike, swinging his sword and looking exciting as Thing 1 and Thing 2 orbit around him, shooting and swinging their swords. It’s a really well-done fight with some great music, and a good demonstration of how the movie, like the game, can mix magic and science.

Of course there’s three problems with this fight.

First, they cut away from the action to show Kadaj on his cell phone. Now this is just my opinion, but I believe the movie would work better just focusing on the action.

Second, argh, gunblades are being used! These are swords built with guns inside (or guns built with swords outside). They look cool, sort of, but are completely useless. This also raises the question of why, in a world with guns, would anyone be using a sword? From Wikipedia, I see that the real-life versions of these weapons died out centuries ago, and that’s no surprise. Don’t bring a knife (or sword), to a gunfight.

Third, Cloud gets shot in the face or rather, gets shot in the bullet-proof sunglasses he’s wearing. This does no damage whatsoever. I can accept that this is basically a CGI anime and these people are basically super-heroes, but along with another scene later, this really pulls me out of the movie.

Cloud gets away and heads off to a place called Healin, where he briefly (and pointlessly), fights Reno. He goes inside a small building, and Rude confronts him. Cloud already has his sword out and ready to go, so Rude puts on a glove in a menacing fashion, whips out his sword and (pointlessly), takes a swing. No reason is given for why these two try to attack Cloud.

Menacing Glove Number One

Rufus Shinra, president of the Shina corporation (which runs the whole world from what I can tell, cause you know how megacorps roll), turns up to exposit a bit at Cloud all about Sephiroth and how Shinra is trying to make up for past crimes. Cloud tells him to piss off and leaves. Why they needed Cloud to drive out to see them for a conversation that could be handled on Cloud’s (product-placed), cell phone is beyond me.

The next bit shows Tifa and Barrett’s daughter arriving at the church where Aerith used to hang out. We find out here that Cloud has the geostigma (big surprise), and that he’s been living and sleeping here (big surprise).

A few moments later we see Reno and Rude getting it handed to them again, this time by Kadaj. Mind you, from what I understand, Reno and Rude’s group, the Turks, is supposed to be pretty bad-ass. This is apparently just an informed attribute, as we see no real proof of this here.

Kadaj and Rufus exposit back forth for a bit. There’s something here about Kadaj being just a memory, or an avatar or something, but it’s not very clear. Then Kadaj kneels in a menacing fashion (?), and his features briefly flicker, making him look vaguely like Sephiroth. I yawn.

Back at the church, one of the Things shows up. He briefly taunts Tifa and then, after she puts on a glove in a menacing way, the two start to fight. It’s a really good fight sequence, though the laws of physics are seriously wounded in the process. We also get a piano remix of the fight music from the game, so that’s pretty fun.

Menacing Glove Number Two

Tifa beats the snot out of the Thing and gives the little girl a hug. Then they hear the Thing’s ringtone which is, hilariously, the Final Fantasy Victory Music! I gotta say, the fan-boy in me just loves this! It’s a great use of the music and quite cool.

The music pulls the Thing out from under the pile of debris he’s currently in. He banters with Tifa for a moment, and then somehow gets behind her, knocks her down and is about to kill her when the little girl throws a bit of materia at his head. It’s a small piece, so he of course glares at her, kills Tifa and then grabs the girl and leaves.

Well, in fact, no that’s not what he does, though that would be smart. Instead he menaces the girl, grabs her and runs off, leaving Tifa wounded (but not in any serious way), and alive. I’m not sure why he didn’t just kill her, aside from the fact that the story needs her alive for later.

Outside in the city we see a couple kids (one of whom is carrying a stuffed moogle! Yay!), getting into a mysterious truck that is, apparently, going to take them off somewhere to get cured of their geostigma.

Now. Call me silly and all, but I’d imagine that an odd, unlabeled truck with a couple creepy guys who are rounding up kids just might attract the attention of the police. However as we learn here and later, Midgar apparently doesn’t have any police or military.

This makes no sense to me. People are people and people need policing if they are together in large numbers. Midgar doesn’t appear to be all that big (probably only a couple thousand people tops), but one would think they would have some police that might come up and try to put a stop to this. Ok, yes, maybe the police already tried and were killed, but wouldn’t that invite more police and make it less likely the kids would go off with Kadaj and the Crunch Bunch?

You know, while I’m on this rant, just how big is this world? It must be about the same size as Earth, since the gravity appears to be about the same, but the amount of land space shown in the game is hardly anything. Further, Midgar is presented as a big city, but as I noted, it seems to only hold a couple thousand people at most.

Oh, well. Enough of that.

Anyhow, Kadaj hauls the kids off to some sort of lake/temple thingy where he is, I presume, about to tell them all about thetans. He takes the kids and leads them into the water, which somehow, I think, cures the geostigma, or maybe not, since we see one of the kids with it later. The water does apparently brainwash the kids so that they become stars in the newest remake of The Bloodening.

Meantime, Cloud has heard that the kids have been taken to a place called the Forgotten City. Yes, it’s actually called the Forgotten City. First, it doesn’t look like much of a city, and second, if people know where it is, why is it called the Forgotten City?!

As Cloud is riding along, Aerith picks this time to contact him mentally or something. He sees a vision of flowers and is standing back-to-back with her. We don’t see her clearly yet, which is a nice touch, but I have to wonder what Aerith is thinking here. Cloud is riding a motorcycle, without a helmet, at high speed and she chooses then to distract him? What the fuck?

Anyhow, Cloud survives this insane moment, though only just, and finds himself in a fight with Kadaj and his cronies. Thing 1 and Thing 2 shoot at Cloud, but they apparently went to the Stormtrooper Academy of Small-Arms Fire, as they completely miss him and his motorcycle (and, amazingly, even avoid hitting something up in the air off screen which would then “squawk!” and fall to the ground).

The ensuing fight is well-staged and interesting even if it, again, brutalizes the laws of physics. Still, these are basically super-heroes in what’s basically an anime so I can bear with it, mostly. Also, we get to see Cloud use a limit break, and that’s pretty cool.

Eventually, though, Cloud starts getting it handed to him. Before anyone has the chance to off him, however, Vincent the vampire turns up in his red cloak and spirits Cloud off to safety. Vampira ex machina, I suppose. We see some footage of Cloud being even more whiny and emo than usual. Vincent exposits on geostigma (still doesn’t make any real sense to me), then basically tells Cloud to get over it.

Speaking of getting over it, Barrett’s daughter seems to think this is exactly the right moment to start bitching about how Cloud doesn’t pay enough attention to her, Tifa and the rest. Cloud flashes back to Tifa basically giving him the exact same lecture. Yes, ok, we get it. Cloud is really, really emo, but there’s a time and place. I don’t really want to see Cloud sitting around acting like Squall.

I'm Squall. I shop at Hot Topic and have a MySpace page with music by the Cure.

Cloud mumbles something about feeling guilty letting Aerith die, and really, yes, he should feel guilty about that. I mean, why the hell didn’t he just whip out a phoenix down and bring her back to life? Yeah, I know that would’ve nuked the story and stuff, but it’s still a huge plot hole both in the game and in the movie, and one well-addressed by VG Cats!

As Cloud makes up his mind, we see his Panasonic FOMA P900iV cell phone slowly sinking down into the water. Yes, that’s right. Product placement in a movie that takes place in another universe. Well done! Anyhow, it’s apparently waterproof, since it’s we can hear voice mails playing and also there a lot of air bubbles coming out of it. I mean a shitload. I’m not sure how much air these things hold, but I’m betting it’s not that much!

What, me product place?

Back in Midgar we see that Thing 1 and Thing 2 have arrived and set up camp outside a large landmark thingy. They have the landmark thingy ringed with children who are looking all sorts of creepy. Meantime the people of the city are standing there shouting curses at the bad guys, and I’m not sure why. I mean, they haven’t actually done anything yet. Yes, they’re going to, but for right now they’re just standing around. Hey, maybe they’re street performers! Maybe this will turn into a dance number! That could be interesting!

Kadaj is up at the top of a tower hanging out with Rufus, who seems to think it’s a good idea to meet with someone like Kadaj at the top of a building with nothing between him and certain splat except Kadaj’s goodwill. Rufus is apparently very stupid, but about to get stupider.

Anyhow, the Crunch Bunch summon up some demon-dog things that attack everyone as they try to open up this landmark which is, apparently, holding some clues to the location of Jenova, or possibly has Jenova inside it. Reno and Rude show up and engage in some of the strangest banter I’ve ever seen where, from what I can tell, Reno is being dissed on for being a low-level schlub.

It’s strange dialogue that gets even odder when you see Reno’s face, since it looks like’s received the greatest insult ever. I don’t know, maybe this is some sort of cultural thing, but I don’t get it, but another fight happens.

Up on the tower, Kadaj is getting all, “Have you heard the word of Jenova? Are you ready for Reunion?”with Rufus and summons up Bahamut. Too bad Tiamat hasn’t shown up, cause that’d rock. We could have a big old Monster Manual party!

Down bellow, Barrett has shown up and started to fight against Bahamut. After a bit, Vincent, Cid, Red XIII, fucking Cait Sith, and Yuffie (she’s a ninja! Believe it!), show up and join in. A huge-ass battle ensues and it is, for the most part, pretty damned impressive. Some really great fight choreography yet again, along with some very cool music. Really, it’s a nicely done scene and proof that this movie is at it’s best when people are just beating the shit out of one another and not actually talking.

At about this point, Cloud turns up, whipping out yet another sword from his Swiss Army Bike and then joins in the fight.

Elsehwere, Rude’s glasses get broken (he pulls out another pair), as he and Reno continue to fight Thing 1 and Thing 2. In the tower Kadaj continues to taunt Rufus who then, suddenly, whips out a box that apparently has what’s left of Jenova.

Now comes one of the worst parts in the film as far as I’m concerned. Before this moment, the laws of physics have merely been beaten up a bit. Now, however, they get raped, pwned and totally destroyed in a scene that completely takes me out of the film and removes my ability to suspend disbelief.

I’ve watched this scene several times, including just now and what happens is this: Cloud is jumping up into the air to put the pain to Bahamut. This is fine and dandy. At one point Barrett helps him go higher, and then Cid does the same. Then, in quick succession, Red XIII/Cait Sith, then Yuffie and then Tifa, all boost him upwards while in midair themselves.

I don’t know why this breech of physics bugs me so much. I mean, we’re dealing with anime super-heroes, basically, and it still bugs me. It’s like a scene in Superman Returns where Superman is lifting something while standing on it. I can accept him flying around, but I can’t accept that. Same here.

Anyhow, past that annoying bit, we do have a lovely scene where Cloud gets boosted his last way up by Aerith, shown as a reflection in Cloud’s eye, and that’s rather sweet. It almost makes me forget everything that just happened. Almost.

Meantime, back with Rufus and Kadaj, we pick up where Rufus threw the box off the roof. I’m not sure why Rufus throws it or, for that matter, why he was carrying the damn thing around with him to begin with. Me, I’d have found a way to destroy it or toss it into the ocean or given it to Cloud and said, “Don’t let anyone else get their hands on this.” But, oh, well, I’m a logical, reasoning, intelligent person, unlike basically everyone in this movie.

Rufus and Kadaj both end up going off the building and falling as I have flashbacks to The Matrix Revolutions (speaking of movies ripe for the recap treatment). The box gets breeched, Kadaj lands safely and Rufus is saved from certain splat by…

Trinity really looks different for some reason.

Fucking Tseng and Elena?!

What. The Hell? I thought they were dead? I thought Kadaj and the Crunch Bunch had killed them, but apparently not! They’re here to save Rufus’ bacon. Ok, whatever.

Kadaj makes his getaway with Cloud in hot pursuit. There’s another rather nifty motorcycle-based fight, complete with Cloud cutting a bike in half as it flies towards him, and then we see Reno and Rude standing on a bridge together holding bombs. They have a little talk and it’s quite clear they mean to kill themselves and take out Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the process. Cloud and Kadaj zips by, the bombs go off and that’s it for those four (yeah, right).

Reno, about to blown... er, blown up. Anyhow.

Kadaj and Cloud start having their big finale fight. They beat the shit out of each other, Kadaj whining about Mother every step of the way. God, he’s an irritating bad-guy. Sephiroth whined to, but at least he had some style.

We get a view up on Cid’s airship for a bit with the other heroes arguing about what to do with the fight going on beneath them. Eventually it’s decided to let Cloud handle it, and I have to ask: why?

This is an ongoing cliché in fiction. “Let the guy handle it, he needs to sort it out for himself, let him fight his own fight!” It’s stupid. Here these people are, facing the end of the world, and they don’t want to join in the fight in case it injures Cloud’s self-esteem?! Tough! Everyone on the airship should be down there fighting, just like they were in the game when facing Sephiroth!

Speaking of which… just as it seems Cloud has beaten Kadaj, he finds that Kadaj is transforming and he’s suddenly facing… (cue music)… Sephiroth!

Look out! He's emo and carrying poetry!

Well, ok, we all knew this was coming, but I really don’t get it. If Kadaj and the Crunch Bunch are supposed to be aspects of Sephiroth, how come only one of them turns into him? Shouldn’t all three, or shouldn’t they have to combine? Aspecticons! Merge and form… Sephiroth!

I don’t know. It’s cool and all, I guess, but how much cooler would it have been if it had, you know, made sense? Ah, well. It is rather cool seeing Sephiroth back now and, oh, look, he can fly. Of course he can.

Sephie and Cloud duke it out and it’s another really well-done fight scene! They exchange some banter, the celestial chorus sings and, in the end, Cloud kicks Sephiroth’s ass using some really impressive new limit break! Fan-boys around the world cum in their jeans and sit back and light cigarettes.

Cloud goes to Sephiroth who, it seems, has turned back into Kadaj. They have a little moment where Kadaj goes off to join the lifestream. There’s some celebration and we see that, oh, look, Reno and Rude are still alive. I wonder if Thing 1 and Thing 2 are kicking it somewhere? We see that, why, yes, they are, as one of them shoots Cloud.

See, this is one of the biggest problems I have with this movie. There’s no consequences. So far in this film, Kadaj, Thing 1, Thing 2, Tseng, Elena, Reno and Rude have all been, at one point or another, apparently killed only to turn up completely alive, unharmed and ready for action. It’s vexing. I hate it when I can’t trust movies and I know, just know, that someone shown as dead isn’t. Much as I bitch about Cloud not using a phoenix down on Aerith when she died, at least she stayed dead and didn’t turn up at the end, alive and healthy with no reason why!

So, yeah, Cloud gets shot and has a nice little near death experience where we hear the voices of Aerith and Zack telling him that, essentially, he hasn’t dealt with all his thetans, so he needs to go back to the world and smile more (and possibly get laid, though that’s only implied). A strange wolf walks up to Cloud (?), and Cloud wakes up in some water at Aerith’s church.

There’s a bit of rejoicing, all the kids get cured of the geostigma, Cloud smiles just faintly and we finally see Areith and Zack and, I must admit, this scene always chokes me up a little. Even now, just describing it, I have a reaction. It’s a really, really sweet scene and I love seeing Zack and Aerith properly.

Looking good, Zack! Looking good.

Anyhow, they walk off into, essentially, the sunset, everyone is reunited, the Ewok music from the original version of Return of the Jedi plays and we go to the credits (with some of my favorite music in the series).

The end.

I still have a soft spot in my heart for this movie and probably always will. I know it’s a bad film, but it’s a very, very good bad film. Hell, given that I own two versions of it, I can’t hate it that much.

You know, there is a lot that works in this movie. The graphics are impressive, the fight scenes are great and the music is amazing.

But there’s so much fail as well. The plot is a muddled mess, the character motivations are murky at best, the laws of physics get destroyed, death is never permanent and, basically, the film shows that too much fan-service can be a bad thing.

I do hope that at some point the powers that be at Square-Enix give us a proper video game sequel or, failing that, at least go back and remake or release the original version. The movie is what it is, but the video game is so much more, and this movie could/should have been much more than it is.

Hmmm… I wonder where I get a good Playstation emulator?

7/7/96

Though most of you don’t know me well enough to know it, today is an important day for me. Thirteen years ago, on this date in 1996, a very bad, nasty, unpleasant chapter in my life came to an end and I was able to move on past it and into the much better life I have now. I’m being a little circumspect on what it was, but it was an important thing and I couldn’t let it go past without comment.

Enough is Enough

You may not have heard this, but Michael Jackson died the other day. /snark

I woke up not long ago and I usually sit around watching news for a couple hours while checking email, plotting my blog entry, etc. I don’t have that option today. Why?

Because CNN, CNN HLN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, ABC and NBC are all showing the fucking Michael Jackson memorial! I don’t think we had this much coverage when Ford died, and he was actually president!

Jesus, this pisses me off! There’s actual, real news happening out there and all the news sources on TV are wasting time covering this stupid memorial! Why?! It can’t be for ad revenue, since they aren’t breaking for ads, and I don’t think it’s going to make any difference to their ratings.

I’m sure they’ll justify it by saying that they’re just giving the audience what they want. Yeah, well, you know what? I’m sure the Roman government were just giving audiences what they want when they gave them bread and circuses. That’s not an excuse.

Yet again the media is ignoring it’s duty. I just hope that once this is done, it’s done, and we can move on and pay attention to real news again.

Daniel Radcliffe Comes Out (sorta)!

So yet another reason for extreme conservatives to not see any of the Harry Potter movies: Daniel Radcliffe has come out… as an atheist. This isn’t as good as a young, A-list celeb coming out as being gay, but I’ll take it. We need more people who are atheists to stand up and say so.

Sic Transit Robert McNamara – 1916 – 2009

Boy, they just keep dying, huh? This time it’s Robert Strange McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during much of the Vietnam War.

McNamara was an intersting fellow. Very intelligent, very capable, but clearly someone who, at least for a while, believed his own hype and thought he (and the Kennedy/Johnson administrations), could do no wrong.

He did other things in his life as well, of course, including work during WWII, running the World Bank, and other things, but Vietnam will always overshadow everything else, rather like how Watergate overshadows everything else Nixon did.

For those who want to learn more about McNamara’s complex legacy, I strongly suggest the documentry film The Fog of War. It’s McNamara talking about a number of things, including a mea cupala over Vietnam. It’s really fascinating and I highly recommend it.

Another Fine WTF?! Moment

North Korea apparently makes beer. Yeah, North Korea! Apparently they’ve also started making beer commercials. It’s sureal as hell. Check it at this link.

The Worst of Doctor Who – Black Orchid

Brace yourself for 50 minutes of pain!

Cast of characters –

The 5th Doctor (Peter Davison) – A thousand-year-old Time Lord who flies around in a device looking rather like a police box. Dresses like a cricket player, which for a change comes in handy. Has a bizarre, unexplained, disturbing celery fetish.

Tegan (Janet Fielding) – An Australian air-hostess who joined the TARDIS crew in Tom Baker’s last episode, Logopolis. Noted mostly for arguing a lot and wanting to go home. Well, until she does go home and then comes right back.

Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) – This show’s very own Wesley Crusher. He embodies all that’s best about teenage boys in sci-fi shows, which is, basically, nothing. A mathematical genius and alien from another universe who, of course, looks human.

Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) – A girl from an alien world, light-years from Earth. Like Adric looks human and specifically, looks a lot like…

Ann (Sarah Sutton) – Nyssa’s exact duplicate. This sort of coincidence is caused by a natural force known as “the producers didn’t want to spend a lot of money hiring someone who merely looks similar when they can have someone who looks the same for free.”

Lord Cranleigh (Michael Cochrane) – Your basic Edwardian upper-crust sort. Largely harmless, largely boring, largely uninteresting.

Lady Cranleigh (Barbra Murray) – Your basic Edwardian upper-crust sort. But she has many secrets!

Sir Robert Muir (Moray Watson) – He’s a cop in the Dirty Harry mold. He’s got two slugs in him; one of them’s lead, and one’s burbon. He patrols the mean streets of Cranleigh Hall, only one step from turning into the men he seeks… or possibly not. Also, he hits on Tegan.

Captain Spooky Feet! (Gareth Mine) – The villain of the piece! He has menacing feet, which is all we see of him for quite some time.

Ah, Doctor Who. If you own a reproduction of Captain Kirk’s toupee, all the Babylon 5 tie-ins ever made, one of Dirk Benedict’s old cigars or a sample of George Lucas’ urine, you’ll likely still look down your nose at Americans who like Doctor Who, especially the original series. It’s the ultimate in geekiness, leaving even other geeks looking askance.

The original series of the program ran from 1963 – 1989, with a couple interruptions. There was a movie in 1996 (which most fans try to pretend never happened), and then the new series, which started in 2005 and is still going strong.

Internationally, and especially in the UK, the show has quite a following, and why not? Shoddy production values, cheap sets, lousy SFX, mediocre screen plays; this program had it all! When it was at its best, you got some of the greatest science fiction ever put to screen. Things like The Invasion, Genesis of the Daleks, Blink, Human Nature and others remain some of the most fantastic science fiction ever made!

But when it was bad, oh, when it was bad… then you got stinking piles, like The Web Planet, the aforementioned 1996 movie, Planet of the Dead, anything with the Slitheen and Sylvester McCoy’s trifecta o’ crap: Ghost Light, The Happiness Patrol, and the mind-numbingly awful Delta and the Bannermen. You also got our subject for today: Black Orchid.

Black Orchid is an interesting episode in several ways. First, it’s a two-parter, which is rare. Second, it’s the first “historical” episode since The Highlanders, back in 1966. A historical is an episode that has no science-fiction elements aside from the Doctor and the TARDIS crew. These were never very popular with fans, though I rather like them myself. Black Orchid is the last to date.

The episode starts with the usual, very early-1980’s opening credits sequence, showing the Doctor’s face, the title of the episode and the screen credit showing that Terrence Dudley was the writer. So now we know who to blame for the upcoming 50 minutes of pain.

The story itself opens with the inside of an English country manner, where we witness murther! Murther most foul, as a man is strangled by Captain Spooky Feet until he passes out. Note to future murderers: this is not how you kill someone. If you strangle them until they pass out, they will eventually start breathing again. To really get the job done you need to keep strangling them until their heart stops. Just a little FYI.

Captain Spooky Feet is hauled off by an “Indian” with a large (very fake), lip-plate who throws him onto a bed an ties him up. I’m sure there’s probably slash fiction somewhere that goes from this as a jumping off point, but I’d rather not think about that.

Now we move onto the interior of the TARDIS; the Doctor’s time machine, which currently looks like an old police call box and is famed for being bigger on the inside than on the outside (rather like my ego, but that’s another story altogether). Inside the TARDIS we see the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric all hanging about.

Sadly, the Doctor Who spinoff, Two Girls, One Guy and a Timelord did not make it past the storyboard stage.

Lots of people dislike this group and say that the TARDIS is too crowded during this part of the 5th Doctor’s time. I don’t think I buy that. The 1st Doctor traveled with Ian, Barbra and Susan, and then Ian, Barbra and Vicki. The 2nd Doctor traveled with Ben, Polly and Jamie for a time. Having more than one companion isn’t a problem, provided you have writers who can handle the job. This wasn’t always the case and certainly isn’t the case with this story where Adric and Tegan could have been written as being on vacation or something and the story wouldn’t have suffered a bit.

Anyhow, the TARDIS materializes on Earth, at a train station, in 1925 (11 June, to be exact, though I really don’t care). The crew wanders about for a moment, Nyssa makes some smart-ass remarks about how mass transit systems are “silly”, and then run into a man with a car who seems to be waiting for them. Who is this strange man, you wonder. Why does he know the Doctor? What sinister, dastardly fate awaits the crew of the TARDIS?!

But first a slight, suspense-building digression about the Doctor’s companions.

Companions are humans (generally), and usually attractive women who accompany the Doctor on his adventures. They get to be the “cabbageheads” and ask all the questions that the Doctor doesn’t need to ask. They also get to be targets for exposition and occupy much fantasy time for younger, usually male, viewers.

As mentioned, in the early stages of the 5th Doctor’s stories, he had three companions in the form of Tegan, Nyssa and Adric. Tegan and Nyssa had joined up with Tom Baker in his last story, Logopolis and were written with the 5th Doctor in mind. This leaves fan-favorite, Adric.

Adric had joined up following the 4th Doctor’s visit to E-space and seems to have been written more with Tom Baker in mind. The end result of this is that Adric worked reasonably well with the 4th Doctor, but not quite as well with the 5th. A similar thing happens with Mel, who was created to travel with the 6th Doctor, did one story with him and then spent four episodes screaming her way through time and space with the 7th Doctor. She worked well enough with the 6th, but not at all with the 7th.

Adric had other problems, most of which center around the fact that he’s an overly-smart teenage boy and acts like it. He sulks, he thinks he knows best, he has all the charm and social graces of an elephant in heat and he wears a very stupid outfit. He blazed (some say flamed), a trail that would later be followed by such as Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Lucas from the abominable Seaquest and Seaquest: 2021 (hint to producers: never, ever put the year in the title. It didn’t work here, it didn’t work for Galactica: 1980 and it meant that Space 1999 was doomed from the outset).

The main problem with Adric, as well as Wesley and Lucas, is that, frankly, most teenage boys are jerks, and the last thing they want to see is a kid up on screen acting the way they do, since it highlights their own problems and forces them to see themselves as others do, and few people enjoy that sort of thing.

Me, I’ve always had somewhat of a hard spot for Adric. Back when I first saw these stories I was about 16 or 17 and the character was about the same age (though the actor was about four years older). I was just starting to realize that I was something other than straight, and developed a massive crush on Adric (and to a lesser extent Wesley, though not Lucas. seaQuest was so bad I wouldn’t even sit through it for the eye candy).

Adric was not only what I wanted to be (cute, intelligent), but was also what I wanted to hook up with (cute, intelligent). When the events in Earthshock happened after this episode, I was bloody annoyed, but at least they granted the character a certain immortality.

Amusingly, it turns out that I wasn’t alone in my desires. Yes, it seems that in the UK, Adric is something of a gay icon, and apparently the actor who played him, Matthew Waterhouse, is gay (big shock). I saw a recent picture of him the other week. Yeah, I’d still hit that.
But now back to our exciting story!

When we last saw the TARDIS crew (which I keep accidentally typing as “screw”… I gotta get Adric off my mind), they were being loaded into a sinister car, by a sinister driver, going to a sinister, deadly, dangerous…

GAME OF CRICKET! (cue exciting music)

No, seriously.

Honest.

The TARDIS crew goes off to a cricket match.

You don’t believe me? Check this screen cap:

Beware the Krikkitmen!

Yes, apparently some wise soul at the BBC though to themselves, “The Doctor dresses rather like a cricketer these days, so why not have him actually play the bloody game?”

I’m American, so I don’t know much at all about cricket. I do wonder why it’s not more popular here, given that we’re in love with big numbers games (football, basketball), and cricket seems to have impressively big scores. Must be the outfits or something.

Anyhow, we some of the Cranleighs now, and the Doctor gets roped into playing cricket as scenes from The Great Gatsby (not the Michael Bay version), unfold around us, including intense questioning of Nyssa as to how it’s possible she looks exactly like Ann. Yeah, you gotta love it when even the characters in the story are puzzled by a large plot hole.

The Doctor gets introduced, prompting Lady Cranleigh to ask “Doctor who?”, and a little bit of me dies inside. More of me dies as we have some “cute” and “witty” dialogue where the Doctor gets confused by references to “the master” and “the other doctor.” Then we have drinks being ordered, something about Adric getting a “cocktail” in the bath (Down, Badger! You’re supposed to be doing a recap here!), and screwdrivers being ordered. Possibly… sonic screwdrivers? See, I can write things just as clever as the people behind this story.

Tegan keeps busy during all this hilarity by noticing a black orchid, and setting up that Lady Cranleigh’s other son disappeared in Brazil while doing botanical research. To my amazement, Tegan knows all about this, because she apparently keeps up on botanical expeditions in the 1920’s. Me, the only one I can name is Bligh’s Great Pacific Breadfruit Hunt, and we all know how that turned out.

It turns out that George, the son who vanished, had been engaged to Ann, the girl who looks like Nyssa and, let’s face it, the plot points couldn’t be more telegraphed had Western Union somehow sent them.
Meantime, we see Captain Spooky Feet struggling against his bonds! He escapes, clubs the lip-plate Indian and makes his way out into the mansion, no doubt setting off on some dastardly deed!

Meantime, the TARDIS crew is invited to attend the fancy dress ball that’s being planned for that very night. They accept, but don’t have costumes. Luckily costumes are quickly found, resulting in Tegan wearing some weird looking greenish thing that actually is better than her usual outfit, Adric dressing as some pirate. Yes, this does a great deal to put the gay rumors to rest. Meantime, the Doctor is given a harlequin costume and Nyssa rather conveniently gets the exact same costume as Ann.

Pirate Adric! Beloved of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and no one else!

Now I have to call bullshit on this. I mean, come on! Why would Ann order two copies of the exact same costume for herself? It’s made clear later in the screenplay that these are the only duplicate costumes! This makes sense if she knew she’d have her twin there, but she didn’t, and these costumes were clearly ordered in advance.

We have a few more Upstairs, Downstairs moments as Tegan dances the Charleston, Nyssa puts on her costume and we head to the ball, where we get all the 1920’s splendor the BBC props department can provide, and the Doctor finds (and gets lost in), a secret passage. In the room, the Doctor’s costume (one of only two with a mask… get which other costume set has one?), gets stolen by Captain Spooky Feet! Uh-oh! Trouble’s a brewin’!

We go back to the ball, where, sadly, there’s actually a rather nice bit of chemistry that happens in this scene between Tegan and a man named Sir Robert. The two actors seem to have enjoyed working together and the two characters mesh well. Had we seen more of their relationship, this might’ve been a better episode.

Pirate Adric (arr!), meantime, dances briefly with Nyssa, then heads off to graze at the buffet tables. Oh, Nyssa. Trying to make him dance with you is pointless. Either find him a stable boy or play some show tunes, then you might get a reaction.

The Doctor continues to wander about the secret passages, thoroughly lost, until he comes across a book written in Portuguese. He pokes about a bit more and, not once, but twice, manages to find secret passages by the time-honored tradition of giving up, leaning against a wall, and having the door pop open.

As the Doctor snoops, he finds a cupboard, which he opens for some reason, and inside is… a dead body! Eeek! And we go to credits.
Well, actually, we don’t, though that’d be the standard place for a Doctor Who cliffhanger, but, hey, why end the episode on one dead body, when you can end on two?

See, down at the dance, Captain Spooky Feet has appeared wearing the harlequin costume. He finds Ann and dances with her for a bit, then shuffles her off into the house. She tries to engage him in conversation, and he ignores her. As she tries to leave, he grabs her, she screams for help, and a servant carrying a very heavy blunt object comes to save the day! Of course, he starts by setting aside his impromptu weapon and attacks Captain Spooky Feet single-handed. CSF gives the guy a front-facing shoulder rub (?), which kills him (?!). Ann screams and faints, and we go to the credits!

You call this a happy ending?! I want my money- ... argh, argh, ack!

So there’s part one. Twenty minutes of set-up, five minutes of action, and a lot of yawning. Pirate Adric (arr!) and Tegan are completely unnecessary to the plot, which is stupid and contrived, and so far there’s nothing to really make this episode work. Perhaps part two will be better? Perhaps, but do you think I’d be writing about it if it were?

Part two opens with a recap of the last scene from part one. This is great if you, like the original audience, saw it on a different day. Otherwise, it’s just kind of annoying, because you get to see the servant massaged to death again. Oh, the show later claims he died of a broken neck, but I’m not buying it.

The Doctor, meantime, is still wandering around the passages when he runs into Lady Pompadour Lady Cranleigh and the Indian lip-plate guy. They exchange lines for a bit, and the Doctor casually mentions a dead guy in a cupboard. They run off to have a look and, of course, the body is… well, actually, it’s still there, which is a surprise, cause you’d expect that, in a work of fiction like this, the body would be gone. No, still there, so kudos to them not falling into that trap.

CSF drops the costume back off in the Doctor’s room, taking care to fold it neatly. Around this time we also get a good look at the guy, and, I gotta say, his makeup isn’t bad. Oh, it’s not great, but it actually works pretty well and looks mildly scary. I do have to wonder, however, exactly what it was that did this to him. It’s later explained that this is (shock and surprise), George, the missing son, who had been tortured by Indians in the Amazon, which broke his body and mind. I suppose I can almost buy that they did this stuff to his face, but no, not really.

Anyhow, George has now managed to find Ann laying in a bed recovering from the shock of watching him brutally massage a man to death. He advances on her, she wakes up, screams, and Indian lip-plate guy comes to the rescue, bringing out some rope as Ann flees into the arms of Lady Cranleigh.

Sky-rockets in flight... afternoon delight!

We return to Pirate Adric (arr!) grazing (try some of the sausages… yeah, and some milk… oh, baby…), with Nyssa bitching at him for eating so much. Lord Cranleigh, in the meantime, is summoned inside the house where he hears all about the murder and the attack on Ann. The Doctor shows up at this point, of course wearing the harlequin costume, and Ann screams bloody murder.

Sir Robert shows up at this point, and it turns out he’s the head of the police hereabouts. He takes control of things, establishes that there was only one harlequin costume (still two of the costumes Ann had, and I’m still wondering why), and then asks the Doctor to explain himself. Naturally the Doctor says that he’s a Time Lord and came here in his H G Wells-style time machine. Buh?

Well, ok, I mean, I guess there was no possible other way the Doctor could’ve escaped from this mess? Right? I suppose? I know the Doctor’s pulled the whole, “I’m an alien from the future!” thing before, but I don’t really get why he’s doing it here.

Anyhow, he can quickly see that yeah, no one’s buying what he’s selling. He turns to Lady Cranleigh for help and, shock and surprise, she denies knowing anything about a dead body. Sir Robert goes with the Doctor for a look-see at the body and in the cupboard they now find a doll. No corpse.

I take back what I said earlier! Jesus H Dalek on a crutch! They didn’t skip the cliché, they just put it on hold! Argh, I hate this story!

Off in George’s room, we see the Indian sitting around reading a book as George rather easily escapes from his bonds. Apparently being a great native hunter doesn’t train one well in the art of knot-tying. George kills the Indian and sets the door to his room on fire.

Yes, that’s his great plan to escape. The door is locked, so he sets it on fire. Actually, it’s not a horrible idea and it does work, but I’m pretty sure that’s only cause the screenplay calls for it to. In reality if one sets fire to a large, solid, probably oak door, the smoke would kill you long before you were able to kick down the burning remnants of the door.

Sir Robert rounds up the TARDIS crew and hauls them off for questioning. Along the way they stop at the train station, since the Doctor has decided to show off the TARDIS to the police. Well, it’s not at the station, so they continue on to the local constabulary offices, where we find out that, ha-ha, the TARDIS was taken there by some police officers. Cute.

The Doctor takes Sir Robert and an officer into the TARDIS and they all go “ooooo, aaaaah, wow!” for a few moments and then, in one bit that actually was rather smart, Sir Robert basically says, “Yeah, ok, so you’re a time traveler. Big whoop. You could also still be a murderer.” That actually impressed me. It was a good bit of thinking on the part of the writer to have someone say that, and it’s only a pity that the rest of the screenplay wasn’t as good or intelligent.

Back at the old Cranleigh place, Lady Cranleigh has come clean about everything and the dead body from the cupboard has been reported. The Doctor offers to take everyone there in the TARDIS which, amazingly, behaves for a change. This is good, because a few episodes of the Doctor, Tegan, Pirate Adric (arr!), Nyssa, Sir Robert and some other cop in the TARDIS adventuring around would’ve probably sucked hardcore.

Inside the hall, George is menacing Lord and Lady Cranleigh when the TARDIS team show up. He grabs Nyssa and runs off with her, heading towards the roof, which is the sort of thing you just know will end in the type of death certificate that contains phrases like “impact crater” and “splash radius”.

Lord Cranleigh and the Doctor run up to the roof where George gives Cranleigh a very light tap, causing his Lordship to fly back dramatically. The Doctor gets George to look down and see that Ann is on the ground and he has the wrong girl. George gets all, “whoops, my bad,” and releases Nyssa, only to rather pointlessly and stupidly fall to his death when Cranleigh moves to thank him.

We go forward a few days and see the 1920’s people wearing black and bidding farewell to the TARDIS crew. Tegan is holding a big wrapped box and feels the need to ask if the Cranleighs are really sincere in giving them their costumes as presents. *sigh* I mean, I know this was clearly designed to establish what’s in the box, but it seems very ham-handed. I’m sure there’s better ways this could’ve been done or, better yet, they could’ve just left out the point and, indeed, this scene, entirely.

Anyhow, Lady Cranleigh gives the Doctor a copy of a book called The Black Orchid, everyone boards the TARDIS and they set off for their next exciting adventure as I claw my eyes out from boredom.

This was such a pointless, stupid episode. The cliché of two people looking exactly the same has been done to death in far better works than Doctor Who. It’s been done in Star Trek: The Next Generation in a way better than this. Come to think of it, it was also done in Star Trek, and in Star Trek VI and… well, you get the idea. Hell, this was even done during the Second Doctor’s tenure in an episode called The Enemy of the World, where we learned the Doctor’s exact double was an evil dictator!

Beyond that, there’s the entirely pointless presence of Tegan and Adric. Had this story been done with just, say, the 3rd Doctor and Jo, it might’ve worked out a lot better. But, no, since we have everyone we have to use everyone, though mostly what happens is Tegan dancing a little and Adric grazing a lot (and looking oh-so-sexy).

The ending here was sudden and contrived. There was no real mystery as to who the killer was once we knew that George Cranleigh was “missing”. Since it was a two-part story, there wasn’t the usual amount of time to build up any real conflict or suspense and really, the whole thing just came off as a half-assed attempt at doing an Agatha Christie story which, sadly, Doctor Who tried to do with the 10th Doctor running around fighting a bunch of wasps (no, not the Cranleighs; actual insects).

Even the cast hated this episode. One of the benefits of owning the DVD was listening to the commentary from Davison, Fielding, Sutton and Waterhouse as they complained their way through this story. A couple times they apologize to anyone who likes the show, then continue to rip on it. It’s actually pretty funny.

So that’s Black Orchid. Let us never speak of it again.
Next time! The 1996 Doctor Who movie! Prepare yourself for opera, regeneration and the gayest version of the Master ever put on screen!

... and Gloria Swanson as the Master

The Price is Wrong, Bitch!

Turkish TV (not to be confused with Turkey TV, a really bad Nickelodeon show from my youth), is going to be airing an interesting game show. The idea behind it is to get a bunch of atheists, have them get lectured to by a bunch of “holy” people and try to get them to join up with a religion. If they wind up joining, they get a trip to the “holy” city of their new faith.

I find this hilarious and stupid. Apparently the people who want to be on the show will need to get screened to prove their lack of faith is genuine, so that no one can just fake it in order to get a free vacation somewhere. That’s a relief. We wouldn’t want people to pretend they believe something just in order to get something in return (Pascal’s wager).

What total-ass nonsense. I wonder what would happen in Turkey, or even here in the USA, if someone tried to create a show converting the religious to atheism. I’d love to see such a program, and I actually think it would be workable, but it’d never fly on TV here or there.

Oh, well. I’d offer to sign up for this program if I could, but I’m pretty sure my lack of Turkish language skills would be a problem.