I thought I had seen nearly all the dystopian/computer-ruled-future sci-fi movies out there, especially that of the 1970’s (the decade that pretty much invented the genre) but recently came across one I had not – 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project.

While this movie is a bit dated given its Cold War theme (the USA builds an invincible computer to run our missile defense system – then we find out the Soviets have done the exact same thing) and the fact that it’s 42+ years old now, it still presents a somewhat different take on the now-common TRON/Terminator/Matrix vision of man handing off control (either by mistake or on purpose) to technology, and then having to fight to regain freedom.

Here, the computer(s) (Colossus from the USA and Guardian from the Soviets) ‘discover’ one another, begin communicating (we never find out what about, save that they progress through simple math into subjects alleged to be beyond human capability within a day or so and never look back) and then start taking over as they gain sentience.  When the humans try to regain control, well, that doesn’t work out so well of course.  Finally Colossus forces the technicians to install a weird-looking speech unit, and issues an edict to the world by the end, that it is ushering in a new era of peace, ‘on my terms’.  Enforced by control over the world’s nuclear arsenal, which is re-aimed at countries still not under its control computer-wise.

The difference to me on this movie was the ‘peace enforcement’ angle – usually all-powerful computers want to enslave or worst case, exterminate all humans once they gain power, right?  Here Colossus hints that he’s going to force Dr Forbin (his creator) to evacuate Crete and build an even bigger, autonomous computer complex there that will control all world communication within 5 years.  To which Dr. Forbin naturally replies – ‘never!’

So on the positive side, the plot is pretty decent, although there could have been a bit more editing of somewhat tedious long shots after the main sets are established – I really liked the opening of Dr. Forbin walking around the huge Colossus complex as it goes online – you really get the impression of scale (it’s an impregnable fortress in the Colorado Rockies). The acting is generally effective, with even a few familiar faces, including Marion Ross, James Hong and William Schallert, although only the latter gets much to do.

What’s also amusing in these movies (and in similar books – helped by hindsight of course) is how the ‘humans never learn’ – they always go creating something magnificent to solve some enormous problem – and it ends up creating far more problems than it solves – and they wonder why? But it must be human nature (or a time-honored/tiresome element of sci-fi plots) to try and try again….

On the negative side – the main computer interface they use is similar to those neon ‘announcement’ lights you see by the side of the highway or in a shop window, backed by typing sounds.  Even 2001’s HAL (from several years earlier) had a much more advanced interface (those all-too-menacing ‘eyes’ located all over the ship) than this.  And that Colossus doesn’t learn to talk until about the last 15 minutes of the movie?  And that we never see or really hear from Guardian (the Soviet computer) at all, save that it effectively becomes Colossus’ partner in world domination by the end – why not have it be a rival instead?  That would be another interesting take – most movies have computers vs. humans – why not computers vs. each other, with us caught in the middle?  While the Matrix addresses that theme a bit, we never really know WHY the computers in that movie decide to help us out, it’s really just assumed that some are ‘good’ and some are ‘bad’…?

Anyway, this was an interesting movie, if you like old-school sci-fi and don’t mind that the Cold War is now over (replaced by the ‘invent-a-war’ nature of the world now, arguably more unstable in some ways)….

Other reviews:
The Chicago Reader
Eccentric Cinema

candybowl

this short was just released by Ridley Scott regarding the upcoming Alien prequel this summer, Prometheus. Can’t wait for this movie! This short features Guy Pearce and reveals some backstory – this isn’t in the upcoming movie…

candybowl

Was reading an interview with Nathan Fillion the other day in which he confessed to being a big sci-fi and comic fan – Of course he’s well known for being in Firefly, but often as not, actors in sci-fi stuff aren’t necessarily fans of the genre. But he mentioned he did voice acting in a new Justice League cartoon – Justice League: Doom.

Naturally I was interested, as some of my favorite (and completely ridiculous in most cases) cartoons from kid days included Challenge of the Superfriends – where they battled the Legion of Doom every week (and of course usually won, with the Legion escaping at the last minute every week to start trouble the following Saturday – amazing how job security works in the superhero world).  You can watch nearly all of the COSF episodes on YouTube these days if you are interested.

Anyway, so I got the DVD from Scarecrow and watched it. I liked it, and I think you will too – but there are some aspects I think they could have done better. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT from here on out – stop now and watch before reading further!

1) So first – This group of the Justice League has the usual players (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash) plus a few others (Green Lantern – not always a member in my memory; some weird guy named Martian Manhunter, and another guy named Cyborg (who ends up a member by the end of the show). The Legion has a completely different ‘cast’ than in the past, save only Cheetah, the longtime nemesis of Wonder Woman. I was not familiar with any of the others – none of them were in the ‘old’ Superfriends-Legion of Doom ‘competition’.  And where’s Aquaman?

2) So there were some weird (and interesting) changes for the JLA here – apparently Wonder Woman can now fly – when did that start? And Green Lantern can now be rendered nearly useless through the powerful use of ‘guilt’ (more on that below)?

Batman here follows the currently popular ‘true vigilante’ profile of him seen in the recent Batman movies and the less recent Frank Miller Dark Knight series – he’s in it for real, he doesn’t f around, and woe to anyone who gets in his way (friend or foe, doesn’t matter). For being one of the perennially most popular and known comic book heroes out there (and for putting up with as many cheesy portraits of him as have been done – you know who you are) – I have to say this Batman is the bad-ass he should always have been, and it works very well.

3) The Legion of Doom yet again has the Hall of Doom based in a swamp, although it apparently doesn’t fly around and save their bacon at the end like before. Still though, it was cool to see it back. Far cooler in many ways than most of the JLA’s tech, to be sure, and definitely has some evil ‘style’ to it.

4) So the plot in a nutshell – the JLA breaks up a weird museum robbery with some wacky high-tech gang with costumes and names based on a deck of cards (yes, I’m not kidding) But they determine that the gang couldn’t have come up with such tech, so they start seeking its source – ultimately leading them to the Legion. The leader of the Legion turns out to be a man named Vandal Savage, who is apparently immortal and has been biding his time to take over the world, but first he must get the JLA (and half or more of the Earth’s population) out of the way via a horrible solar flare bomb). So each member of the Legion ultimately turns out to be a personal nemesis of each member of the JLA, and they naturally trap or seemingly waylay each member in turn after stealing valuable data from Batman’s computer on how to do it.

While the mad scheme is on the verge of execution, the JLA shows up to save the day, and after a series of battles and related mayhem, they do. But it ends on an interesting note. Earlier the JLA found out that Batman had been tracking all of them in terms of how to take each of them out were they to go against the cause of good. The others are pretty po’d about this and have a vote to boot him out of the JLA – but he’s allowed to speak in his own defense – he says basically that any/all of them should have been doing the same thing, and that if they aren’t realistic about that happening (one or more JLA member going AWOL) then he offiically quits – he then leaves the room. Superman comes into the room before Batman is about to leave a few minutes later and says they didn’t vote him out, but still give him crap about what he did – Batman pretty much gives him the hardnosed response but they end up allies as it ends, just like before. Bad. Ass.

5) I was disappointed to not see any of the other classic Superfriends villains here – ‘Metallo’ is apparently now Superman’s nemesis – not Lex Luthor? Come on. LL was the ultimate villain – more ego than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney combined, and always ready to destroy everything, sometimes even to his own detriment.  Like The Repugnicans when they get in power – he usually way overreaches and has to be smacked down. At least Metallo was smart enough to pack Kryptonite in a bullet and shoot Superman right where it counts, from which he almost doesn’t make it.

Batman’s nemesis Bane seems tough (and seems to be able to get bigger on demand by sucking in more ‘blood fluid’ from some pack on his back) – but like all fatally flawed villain power packs, once Batman notices this, he severs the tubes and Bane shrinks back down and snivels on the ground like a loser.

Star Sapphire, as mentioned before, besides having some sort of blue lasers to combat Green Lantern’s green lasers, gets inside his head and turns him into a crying baby until Batman (who else) all but smacks him out of it.

6) One key factor in the old COSF was the constant barrage of ridiculous insults used by the Legion (in addition to whatever zany scheme they had cooked up) against the SuperFriends.  While they never seemed to do much more than prompt some ‘holy ___, Batman!’ statement from Robin in most cases – they were hilarious – and sorely missed here.  Plus had they used them here, it might have made Batman even madder (assuming that was even possible) and that could have been badass too 🙂

Will we see the Legion again?  Well, they locked everyone up good this time by the end (big surprise) but never count a good villain, comic writer/artist, or money-seeking comic syndicate out – I suspect we haven’t seen the last of them…muhahhaha!

candybowl

Give rise to MUPPET Wicker Man! Based on the original 1973 movie, of course, NOT the craptastically horrible nic Cage remake (NO link will be provided to that one!)

The online MWM comic is here: link

the ‘trailer’ is here:

enjoy!

candybowl

Pretty cool. This is currently showing at LACMA, so if you are in Los Angeles, check it out!

Reminds me a bit of OMSI’s Gravitram in Portland, Oregon – which dates from the early 70s. Video of the Gravitram in action below also…

candybowl

CHRIS BURDEN: Metropolis II

OMSI Gravitram:

Given that it was Thanksgiving weekend, and that as of Friday morning I ended up on the couch sick for the next two days (only getting sort of better today, Sunday), it was time to watch endless James Bond movie reruns on ‘Syfy‘ (the channel that also thinks WWE wrestling somehow has a connection with science fiction – sigh). I haven’t finished them yet, only caught most of The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only – still have Moonraker and Octopussy on DVR for later. These are all Roger Moore Bond films – they showed the Connery ones on Thursday (not that I haven’t seen all those several times too) with a few of the Pierce Brosnan ones and the two Daniel Craig movies sprinkled throughout. Thankfully we were spared the brief journey through Timothy Dalton’s time as Bond – I like him as an actor generally but his Bond films simply sucked, sorry Dalton fans.

The Spy Who Loved Me has always been a personal fave – I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1977, one of the first movies I got to see, I’m sure. It has all the classic Bond elements – great villain (with one of the most impressive ‘lairs‘ seen in all the movies, if not the coolest outright), ridiculous ‘kill the world’ plot, vivacious Bond girls, an excellent ‘Bondmobile’ (here, a white Lotus Esprit that doubles as a submarine, probably the reason why I’ve always wanted one of these cars despite their British heritage), decent action sequences and special effects (which really haven’t dated too badly given their age) and the usual series of scenarios and situations that Bond inevitably escapes through fancy cocktails, bedding nearly all the women (friend or foe, they sure all think he’s the c*** of the walk) and dressing like he’s going to a wedding no matter what the situation – meaning of course he blends right into all those exotic places no problemo! And don’t forget Richard Kiel as Jaws – huge bad guy with metal teeth – who turns up in other Roger Moore Bond films – always a classic. While Roger Moore simply cannot be taken seriously as a spy – barring possibly the first couple movies he got way too old too quickly to be doing all these crazy stunts (acc. to IMDB he’s actually 3 years OLDER than Connery!) and he just plays it for laughs too much for this to be a ‘thriller’ – it’s still fun entertainment.

For Your Eyes Only is decent, but not as good IMHO. It has another cool Lotus (he blows one up very early in the film so naturally gets another when he takes his ski trip) – because every spy naturally shows up at an Italian ski lodge in a race car with skis on top – glitterati indeed. And the ski chase where two guys on motorcycles pursue him down the hill, over buildings, and even through most of a bobsled run, are pretty well done. The early car chase in the Citroen 2CV (they beat the living crap out of that poor car, but they are stuck with it because he already blew up the Lotus) is well done too, if a bit more unbelievable. I had forgotten about the later sequences filmed at one of the Meteora monasteries in Greece, that’s pretty cool too – and thankfully not just the usual Hollywood ‘outside of L.A. in the desert’ onsite shooting – they were actually there. But no devious villain with a big lair, no over-arching plot – just a race against time (and the KGB) to retrieve a sunken British spy ship with a special code computer onboard. Fairly mundane stuff, really – not a SPECTRE to be seen anywhere?

After a while Bond movies all start to run together though. I’m glad they’ve taken a more traditional approach with the Daniel Craig movies – less high-tech silliness and more straight ‘thriller’ – they far more resemble the Bourne movies in that respect, and it works.

candybowl

Got the early 70’s Star Trek:The Animated Series on DVD from the library last week. This was an ‘interim’ series done by Filmation from 1973-74, originally intended as a kid’s Saturday am cartoon show but given the hunger at the time for anything/all things Star Trek, actually served to ‘continue on’ the original 60’s series for many fans. I had seen at least a few of these either back then or later in reruns, and had borrowed the set from a friend a few years ago but neglected to watch many of them then.

The show had 22 episodes, which is pretty good considering that the original series only has 79 to begin with (and the third original season had a lot of crappy shows, for that matter). Most of the original cast is here (Kirk/Shatner, Spock/Nimoy, Scotty/Doohan, Uhura/Nichols and Takei/Sulu) save for Chekov/Walter Koenig, who was left out due to budget constraints – but did get to write an episode, The Infinite Vulcan.

One difference (besides being animated instead of live-action) is that the shows are only a half-hour, meaning in practice about 24 min. or so – whereas the original had hour-long episodes. So this constrains the storytelling a bit, but they still did pretty well with what they had. Another is a better variety of weird aliens, architecture and landscapes – animation naturally provides more flexibility in that case, and they used it well.

On balance, the quality is pretty good here. Even though of course Kirk and Spock get the vast majority of the lines – and now after having watched 40+ years of various Star Trek shows enough to think sending the 3-4 most important members of the crew on all the dangerous away missions is STU-PID, guys! – it’s still entertaining. I think besides having most of the original series’ actors, it helped having many of the original writers (or eminently qualified newbies like Larry Niven) handling the scripts, and Dorothy Fontana, one of the key veterans of the original series running the show overall.

Looking at specific episodes, I’d have to say my favorites were the following:

Beyond The Farthest Star – While elements of this plot were used already in an original series 3rd season episode (Day of the Dove) this is better than that one, even if shorter. This story has far more of the sense of wonder and exploration Star Trek is known for, and the alien taking over the Enterprise is more plausible in this story the way it unfolds.

Yesteryear – Here we see some of Spock’s back story and tie in The Guardian from the original series – a great combination.

The Survivor – Despite the increasing proliferation of crew members wearing cheesy handlebar mustaches from this episode onward – the plot is interesting and has a twist or two to boot.

The Magicks of Megas-tu – A favorite recurring theme on Star Trek is ‘ancient aliens visited Earth/other planets of the Federation in primitive times and now we have to deal with how we treated them’ – This idea was also seen in Who Mourns for Adonais? (original series) and even later in the animated series in How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth which throws in the oft-seen ‘Star Trek loves to whip out the Shakespeare’ in its title. I’m not going to go into that one, as anyone who’s watched any amount of Star Trek (TV or movies) will be already familiar with THAT tendency….’Magicks’ is also interesting in that the included DVD commentary notes the network said they couldn’t do an episode with ‘god’ in it – so they chose Lucifer instead

The Slaver Weapon – This is the Larry Niven episode, which includes elements of his own books and stories as a plot foundation (Slavers, Kzinti, etc.) and it definitely works well.

The Jihad – This was one I remembered reading from the books Alan Dean Foster did based on the animated series (Star Trek ‘Logs’) and the animated version is unfortunately not as good, because it leaves out some of the dialog (it’s probable that ADF simply ‘wrote more’ as he did the novellas *after* the series aired) and the sequence with the ‘dune buggy’ they use to escape a molten lava volcano here is pretty silly.

If you don’t want to watch the series on TV – you can always read the books referenced above, which should still be around in paperback somewhere – they came out in the early 80s I think?

All in all, it was good and interesting to revisit these. Several of them are definitely up to the best of the original series for sure, even if their stories aren’t as long timewise due to the shorter format.

candybowl

So in my ongoing, misguided quest to catch up viewing random old sci-fi and similar movies or TV I missed the first time around (the magic of DVD reissues) – I watched 1979’s The Black Hole today. At the time, this movie was Disney’s attempt to glom onto the sci-fi ‘arms race’ in the movies – started by Star Wars in 1977, followed nearly immediately by Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (also in 1977), and the much-anticipated (but fairly disappointing) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Of these four movies, The Black Hole is clearly the loser by a **wide** margin. The next-to-last finisher, ST:TMP, had some interesting ideas and the effects started out well, but it rapidly turned very boring and tedious, much like the first few seasons of ST:TNG until Roddenberry kicked off and things got more feisty.

So, The Black Hole. Basically there is a spaceship (The Palomino) on an exploration mission crewed by 5 largely nobody actors save Tony Perkins (in what must be one of the most wooden performances of his career) and Ernest Borgnine. They also have a floating robot on board, named V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (I only heard them mention the acronym’s meaning once, and really, who cares – he was voiced by an uncredited Roddy McDowall). Naturally the robot is aimed at R2D2 and kid appeal, but unlike R2D2, he can talk and is arguably more useful as a real crew member (despite frequently quoting Shakespeare and other poetry when he’s supposed to be doing his job). V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (and the later-seen ‘Old B.O.B.’ – the “72 beater Corolla” version of V.I.N.C.E.N.T.) are more like the otherwise silent(!) Huey, Dewey and Louie from Silent Running than the Star Wars robots. Lucas 1, Disney 0.

So the Palomino crew find a big, apparently abandoned American spaceship – the USS Cygnus – stationed near a black hole. Somehow it avoids getting sucked in, despite its proximity. After a too-long exercise (in fake excitement) at avoiding getting sucked into the nearby black hole themselves, the Palomino docks on the Cygnus, its crew get all but taken prisoner, and meet Dr Reinhardt, the scientist (read: madman) running the Cygnus with his OWN big henchman robot, Maximilian. And I must say, not only does Maximilian *also* know how to float around like all the cool robots, he is apparently mute (despite understanding English), has one big glowing eye on his head (right outta The Outer Limits) and breast-level, apparently sharp, flip-out ‘egg beater’ spinning claws that he uses on several occasions to harass and attack with. Tony Perkins (later) learns about them the hard way, for one. And Dr Reinhardt himself has almost a bigger ‘fro than Huey on The Boondocks. Mad Scientist, indeed.

And thus the Palomino crew now go through the drawn-out motions of figuring out Reinhardt’s diabolical scheme (in a nutshell, he killed/turned his entire crew into robots to ‘save their lives’ and plans to send the Cygnus through the black hole to somehow gain immortality) while they try to repair their own damaged ship to escape.

During this hour or so, we watch Tony Perkins become a traitor (Maximilian whacks him as a reward :)), other sentry robots compete with V.I.N.C.E.N.T. at laser target practice, Old B.O.B. tells them most of the ship’s horrible secrets, and several ridiculous chase sequences ensue as the crew finally wises up and tries to escape. Of course, the last-minute-coward Ernest Borgnine tries to steal the Palomino and leave the rest behind, and gets blasted/blown out of the sky as a result.

Then, if things weren’t bad enough for everyone, meteors (looking not unlike the flying Jello-sticky pad monsters from an old Star Trek episode, but better lit) start pelting the ship. In what must have been a dramatic need to amp up the expensive special effects during these lame chase sequences, a big, round, sun-like burning meteor manages to crash through the roof and ROLL down the center of the ship while the Palomino crew are racing across a catwalk in its way. Yeahhh…..

And of course we have the inevitable faceoff between V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Maximilian (Old B.O.B. was already winged by a sentry’s laser and dies the soldier’s death he deserved – Slim Pickens-voiced piece of crap!) While Maximilian whips out the ‘breast cuisinarts’ and tries to give V.I.N.C.E.N.T. a chest-level rock-polishing, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. gives him a power drill to the guts in addition to laser-based indigestion. And of course somehow we next see Maximilian spiraling away from the ship INTO the black hole? How did he already get outside?

So since EB got their ship blown up, (and meanwhile, due to all the meteors hitting the ship, Dr. Reinhardt gets crushed at his workstation by a falling flat screen TV from the ceiling – yeah, it was a big one) the “Palominos” head to the probe ship, and in blasting off from Cygnus to escape, find out Reinhardt already programmed the probe to enter the black hole too – Suckahs!

What now follows is one of the weirdest endings to any movie I have ever seen. While the probe ship spirals through the black hole with the remainder of the crew aboard (and their speech is speeded up/slowed down for effect, which just makes it unintelligible) – we somehow see Dr Reinhardt soaring into the black hole himself – then we see Maximilian soaring near him, THEN we see them embrace (and apparently ‘mate’ with one another) because the next scene is Reinhardt’s eyes peering OUT from inside Maximilian’s head. And then we see the new ‘man-bot’ atop a fiery mountain with the demented crew milling around in the depths below – not unlike Saruman and the Orcs in the Two Towers (but aren’t we still in a black hole – where did the volcano planet come from?

The “Palominos” apparently make it through in the probe ship, but up come the end credits. So we never apparently get to find out which Palomino crew member gets to take V.I.N.C.E.N.T.’s hand in marriage and create a race of floating midget robots that constantly annoy others by quoting bad poetry – sad. Even Johnny Five was more literate (and funny) than any robot in this movie.

So if you have survived thus far, you are a better person than I. I now know why this movie was a distant, distant fourth in the race to make the ‘next Star Wars’ back then, and why it has escaped notice since. The obvious attempt to make ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea‘ in space failed, guys. And the story isn’t over yet – apparently they are plotting a ‘reboot‘ (thankfully not a sequel and likely not the same plot in the reboot) of The Black Hole. But the first movie was no TRON by any stretch, and like the somewhat recent Escape to Witch Mountain redo, I expect it to fade fast – but maybe i’ll be wrong?

candybowl

The man! Acquired taste for many, but still the man! 🙂

The fascinating contradictions of Bill Plympton

In an interview, the Oscar-nominated animator encourages artists to work the fringes and stay true to themselves

interview link (from Salon)

candybowl

even if I never get to own one of these, i’d definitely be up for driving one around the country to deliver it to the buyer! Very cool…..

candybowl