The 60s was a great decade for toys. Robots had spring-loaded missiles that fired with a velocity capable of gouging an eye from the socket. Spaceships were (well, still are...) painted with lead paint. Removable parts were small enough for a child to swallow, yet big enough to lodge in the trachea.
The decline in child mortality rates is probably all the evidence you need that the era is better off behind us, but commercials like this one for the Robot Commando make me wistful anyway. With his bizarrely hypnotic googly eyes and treads capable of decimating an oncoming onslaught of U.S. Army toy tanks, this is definitely the sort of robot I would want to conquer the world for me -- if I were a ten-year-old.
From a kaiju theorist's point-of-view, the giant rubbery Toho monsters -- the Godzillas and Gameras who fire-breath and belly-flop their way through downtown Tokyo -- represent vengeful gods punishing humanity for their sins.
In kaiju movies, these sins are usually pollution and war. But what about Cloverfield? Does the same theory apply? What are the sins of the small human insects in the path of the tripodal Cloverfield monster?
A fascinating piece over at the Religion Dispatches website (of all places!) dissects the sins of the Cloverfield protagonists:
The focus of Gamera 3 is on the human impact of this sort of tragedy, and Cloverfield, shot in shaky, first-person video, is all about human impact. But what is the sin for which the monster is punishment? In a word, it's self-absorption: the characters in this film search for cell phone chargers while the world falls down around them. In one key scene -- which appears in the trailer -- the monster hurls the head of the Statue of Liberty, which crashes down a few feet from the POV camera. Within seconds, people have lined up in front of it to take pictures with their cell phones. They're distanced from what's happening around them, oblivious to what it really means.
I'm really not sure that much thought went into Cloverfield, even subconsciously, but it's a fascinating take on both kaiju movies and Cloverfield nonetheless. Read the whole thing.
With the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer only a day away, the rumor remains that the film's MacGuffin will be a bloated and mutated crystalline skull. Whether or not we actually get to see aliens in the next Indy movie is questionable at best, but George Lucas has long been obsessed with getting Indy into some fisticuffs with aliens.
Over at thedeadbolt.com, Tom Burns has posted summaries of earlier drafts for Indiana Jones 4, ranging from the probably-authentic to the laughable. One script in particular, though, seems to indicate that the plan has been for Indy to visit Area 51 since The Last Crusade: The unproduced script for the unimaginatively titled Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars.
I think the problem with the Star Wars prequels all comes down to the Clone Wars. It's a fantastic example of exactly what Lucas, in his arrogance, got wrong. Ever since A New Hope, fans' imaginations were sparked by the mythical clone wars in which Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker fought. This was what people wanted to see in the prequel trilogy.
So what did they get? Lucas almost entirely ignored the bulk of the Clone Wars, and instead gave us Darth Vader as a little kid, then as a petulant teenager. That's why Genndy Tartakovsky's animated Clone Wars series was such a revelation: It was the movie that people wanted to see but which George Lucas was too unimaginative to make.
More Clone Wars is a good thing, then. Over at StarWars.com, they have a great look at the upcoming CGI movie and television series. I think it's looking pretty good, though the style of the CGI is a compromise between Pixar-style abstract caricature and the actual appearance of the actors in the films. It's weird listening to LucasArts producers talk about how fans have wanted to see the Clone Wars on film for 30 years, and then watching Lucas drone on to them while they nod their head.
Now that the WGA and Hollywood have withdrawn their claws, called an end to their three-month cat fight, and re-initiated the professional pillow-and-tickle-fight for which they are known, the big question for the Internet's legion of spiritual Viper Jockeys is whether or not Battlestar Galactica will go back into production.
Just a month ago, it looked bleak. The cast and crew were grumbling about all production on the show being halted indefinitely. Fourteen of twenty-two fourth season episodes had been filmed, but would the SciFi Channel bite on the expense of ramping up production for 8 episodes of a show that will not have a fifth season by creative decision?
• When Trekkies take a tizzy: 20 Star Trek fans are so incensed that Trek XI isn't making a donation to a non-profit space exploration program that they're threatening to boycott. Darth Vader signed and everything, so you know it's serious.
• Don't expect to see any more Heroes until the fall. Not that many were looking forward to that prospect after season two.
• J.J. Abrams does the utterly unnecessary and hires a real planetary scientist to consult with the CGIers.
• Viewers of George Lucas' abysmal Howard the Duck movie will probably look at it as a good thing, but fans of the sublime and genre-bending comic will mourn: Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck, has died at the age of 60.
Now that the WGA and Hollywood have withdrawn their claws, called an end to their three-month cat fight, and re-initiated the professional pillow-and-tickle-fight for which they are known, the big question for the Internet's legion of spiritual Viper Jockeys is whether or not Battlestar Galactica will go back into production.
