PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Starlost Disc 1

I'd noticed that there had been a dvd set of this short lived series back in 2008 but it was 50 bucks when it came out and poorly discounted for a long long time. It seemed like a big investment in something that might turn out to be a big pile of crap. It was pretty much universally panned when it first aired in 1973. I know I watched it but I'm not sure if I saw all the episodes. I don't have any memories of it, fond or otherwise. For no good reason I was curious to see it again. Series creator Harlan Ellison probably isn't curious to see it again. He created the series for 20th Century Fox. They were looking to get a co-production with the BBC going. After the BBC passed the producer, Robert Kline, turned to syndication. He went to Canada to take advantage of the tax incentives. He sold the show to the CTV and syndicated it in the USA. The show's budget took a tumble and the script got changed. Harlan took his name off the series, replacing it with Cordwainer Bird. I put it in my NetFlix queue, and after a good wait, the first one came yesterday. The set has 4 discs, each with 4 episodes. There aren't any extras on the first disc and I suspect the others are the same. Each of the shows is about 50 minutes long.

Producer Douglas Trumbull had created a process he was calling Magicam. That drawing on the left is from the Patent. The idea is to use two cameras, one to film someone against a blue screen, and the other to film a miniature set. Kind of like that they are doing today with computers and green screen. Problem with Doug's setup is that it didn't work and they had to use traditional blue screen to add the backgrounds. Some of that blue screen looks pretty poor, even for 1973. Their studio was small, rented based on the working Magicam system, and they didn't have room for large sets. A lot of shots look pretty cramped. It's shot on video and doesn't always look that good. The quality of the shows on the dvd really varies from shot to shot. Some of the ship effects shots are really fuzzy. I bet no one is going to do a nice CGI replacement like they did on the original Star Trek for The Starlost.

That's the logo and the cast. I thought it was a pretty poor logo. The cast is somewhat better but not much. Left to right we have Robin Ward who plays Garth, Gay Rowan who plays Rachel and Keir Dullea who plays Devon. Keir had been in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He started working in 1960 and still works today. It was Gay's second job and she continued to work through 1983. Robin started working in 1969 and he still works. I just don't see much of their work. What I'm seeing in The Starlost sure isn't anything to write home about. A lot of the acting is so-so and same can be said of the direction. It's just not a well made show.

That's the model of the Ark on the left. It's 50 miles wide and 200 miles long. That's big, huh. It's a generation ship that's carrying 3,000,000 people to a new home out in the stars. It doesn't have a destination but sends out smaller ships to look for habitable planets. The earth had a big catastrophe and some people got to leave. They live in domes that are connencted to the main body of the space ship by tubes. You travel the length of the tubes by a levitation mechanism that pics you up and flies you along the tube to the other end. You land on a bit of green foam on the floor. If you look around you'll see a lot of that green foam around the sets. It was probably cheap to buy and it's green. The ship has been in space nearly 500 years and the people in the domes no longer seem to know about their mission to find a new home or the other domes.

   

In the first episode, Voyage Of Discovery, we start our story in a dome called Cyprus Corners. It's an Amish like community run by big bearded Sterling Hayden. He's a fire and brimstone kind of dick who's got complete control over the citizens. He's got it in for Devon, who questions authority, and he forbids Devon to marry Rachel even though they're in love. Devon is friends with an older guy who also questioned authority. He gives Devon a key to the door that leads to the tunnel between the dome and the main ship body. Devon leaves and flies down the tunnel to the ship.

    

That Devon by a piece of that green foam. He goes exploring and finds a computer that gives him some of the backstory to the series. It's all new to Devon but he understands that the ship is off course and going to hit a star. He goes back to Cyprus Corners where he's tossed into jail. Garth lets him out and tells him to leave. Rachel goes along and Garth follows thinking he'll get her back. It doesn't happen and that's the three of them on the empty bridge. Now they have to figure out how to save all their lives. Not to bad a start for a story. Lot of people have written novels with the idea of a generation ship and I would have read some of them by 1973.

   

In Lazarus From The Mist Devon introduces Rachel to the computer. They find out there are frozen people on the ship, waiting for the ship to reach it's destination. They are in the medical area. They find it but are attacked by some primitive types in dirty clothes. Devon and Rachel get into the medical area but Garth gets captured. Devon and Rachel open a tube with an engineer in it but he's not too much help. He's not the right sort of engineer to help them with the reactors. He's also terminally ill so he has to get back to the freezer or die.

   

Frank Converse plays the frozen guy. He does tell them how to subdue the primitives using knock out gas. Good thing the stuff has a 500 year life span. They knock out the primitives and rescue Garth. Another helpful bit from Frank gives the primitives a nice place to live with apples growing on trees. The poor primitives were so ignorant of the paradise just a door away. If only they would have had the key. Frank also tells them that there is info on some other domes. They will have to collect it to save the ship.

   

In The Goddess Calabra our trio find an all male society that had eliminated women as being weaker. They use their man seed and artificial eggs to create men for their vaguely Roman society. How is that a good idea. Notice the green foam on the throne of the leader. John Colicos plays the leader and Barry Morse plays the head priest. John decides to marry Rachel because she looks like the statue of their goddess. That can't be good.

   

Lookin' at Rachel you'd think that she's bummed out about that gettin' hitched news wouldn't you? Nope, that's how she almost always looks. None of the main characters have much personality and that just might be the best they can act. I know the characters are supposed to be from a repressed society but it seems like a poorly thought out concept. I like my lead characters to have some personality. Anyway, Devon fights John and somehow beats him. The fight wasn't very good. They get a bit of info and leave for the next dome.

   

The Pisces is the title of the fourth episode and the name of the exploration ship that has been scouting out habitible planets. Lloyd Bochner plays the head of the three person research team that has been away ten years. Devon has to tell them that they have been away for 400 years and things are pretty screwed up. The crew of the Pisces try to adapt to the Ark's conditions but they can't and leave in their exploration ship. Kind of sad for Garth as he was hoping to get something going with the woman on the left. maybe he'll meet someone in the next dome on their quest.

Like I said earlier there's a bit of a good idea in the concept but the exectution killed it. The poor production values, acting, and scripts sure caused the ratings to fall and Fox stopped production after 16 episodes. They aren't so awful as to be unwatchable but they sure aren't up to the level of the poorest episode of the orginal Star Trek. I'll contiue to watch the rest of them and think about all the money I saved by not buying the set.

Friday Night Movies 380

We watched the BluRay of Underworld: Awakening tonight. It came out in January of this year and it's the fourth film in the series. They keep making money and there's a hint at #5. The first two are set modern day and the third flashes back hundreds of years to the time when the vampires and werewolves were formed and how their war started. The vampires were dicks. The fourth movie takes place a few months after the second movie ends. The humans are exterminating the vampires and werewolves, and really,  if those guys were real, who wouldn't. Kate Beckinsale is in the first two movies and the fourth. She's a vampire, turned by head vamp Bill Nighy in the 14th century, and a death dealer who hunts werewolves and slaughters them in their secret world. Werewolves turn back to human and vamps disappear when they die so it's fairly easy to keep everything on the QT. When the war escalates the humans take notice and it all spills out. That's why the humans are gettin' their purge on. After a while the humans think the werewolves are wiped out. The Vampires have been mostly killed off, their are little pockets hiding here and there. Kate is on the run at the start of U:A and after some whooshes and booms she gets captured. We jump ahead 12 years and she's in a freezer. When someone wakes her up she jumps right into her black leather killin' outfit that was left in glass cases near her freezer. She up and kills nearly everyone she comes in contact with while escaping. Turns out that Stephen Rae, head of the lab that held Kate, has been experimenting and he's made Kate a daughter. He's also developing a special cure for the werewolves, one that makes the werewolf immune to silver. So now they are immortal and silver bullets can't stop them. That's no good, huh. Kate's daughter escapes and there's plenty of chasing and killing, shooting and stabbing. Stephen's son is a super werewolf. I'd been saying earlier that I'd like top see a Hulk size werewolf and here comes one 20 minutes later. The boss werewolf is twice as big and harder to kill. The movie ends with Kate reunited with her daughter and the promise of another sequel. The movie is directed by Måns Mårlind & Björn Stein. Don't know anything about them. They aren't very original, this movie copies the others pretty much to a T, but that might not be their fault. It's a mostly entertaining movie. The critics seem to hate it but the fans went to the theater and bought a lot of dvds. I don't know if I'd buy this dvd now that I have seen it but since I have the other three I might. It's my least favorite of the bunch.

I already had a copy of Observe and Report but was entertained to watch the $2.55 BluRay that Sperhauk found at Half Price Books. Even those are starting to show up in the cheap clearance area at the local HPBs. Not much better than a cheap dvd, huh. Seth Rogan is a mall cop who lives in his own deluded world. He's in love with Anna Farris who plays Brandi. She sells cosmetics in the mall and is totally not interested in Seth. She'll fuck just about anyone else but sadly not him. There's a flasher out in the mall parking lot. At first it's just some man ass but later it's balls to the mall's walls with a healthy dose of the full monty. I believe that I remember something about the flasher having an appliance in front of his real junk. Brandi is one of the victims of the flasher. She gets all screamy and weepy. Now Seth really wants to "fuckin' kill" that pervert scum. He says so on the news. His mom is real proud when the news is on later. Then she passes out drunk. When Ray Liotta, the police detective, comes to investigate the flasher, and the later store break in, Seth becomes angry that Ray is interfering with his case and acts like a real asshole. Their relationship deteriorates through the movie and ends with a pretty entertaining fight where Seth gets the shit kicked out of him by the police. He totally deserved it. Seth's character, like nearly all the characters in the movie, is pretty fucked up. It's an angry movie with dark violent emotions laid bare. It could make you uncomfortable or make you laugh. There's a bit of a ray of hope for Seth's character after his life falls apart in the born again virgin at the coffee shop in the food court. The movie kind of ends back where it started and there's lots of comedy and mayhem on the way. It's written and directed by Jody Hill. It's not a movie that everyone will enjoy. The humor is pretty dark but I sure laughed.

Build With Chrome

 

I  went to the Build With Chrome site, installed Google Chrome, and built a house. You can use other Browsers but I don't know if they work as well. It's been set up to work best on Chrome. The install was fairly painless and the interface to build with is pretty simple. There aren't a lot of choices for parts, pretty much basic bricks with two types of slopes in 10 colors. I ran out of bricks before I got the roof finished. You get a thousand pieces to start and you build on a 32x32 baseplate. Once you finish you can publish your build and build another. Here's the build page.

The only two other parts available, found under the Extras button, are an old style window and a door. It's pretty easy to get used to the choices as there aren't many. Moving the bricks around isn't too bad. The build can be spun 360 degrees and there's a fair amount of tilt on top of that. You can get you baseplate spinning pretty quickly if you aren't carefull. It didn't look like a I could build on the lot next to me but I just might not have figured out who to do that. I skimmed through the FAQ but didn't see anything about that. I'll spend a bit of time looking and see if I can make something better.

Pottermore

Even though the Harry Potter books are all written, and read, I still have an interest in them. Even thought I've read the books 7 times, or is it 8, I still plan to read them again. I've heard the audio books, both sets, a couple of times. Not very many books get re-read here and even fewer would get such a frequest recycle. Lost Horizon is one of the few. Now that I have assembled a set of the Freddy the Pig books they are going to get re-read again in a couple of years. Life is short so I figure I might as well read books I really like than take a chance on some piece of crap I found at Half Price Books. At least unless it's cheap. Reading books you already own saves you money. Who doesn't like saving money? No one, except that baby that Jimmy Fallon knows. Babies are stupid.

That's J K Rowling and a sign for her new Pottermore site. It let's you revisit the books, collecting stuff, and solving puzzles along the way. Last night I spent most of the evening working my way through the first book. It took about 3 hours and I didn't wind up watching any tv. Weird, huh. Each chapter is broken down into key moments and those are displayed as an interactive background. I put a couple below. One for Privet Drive and one for the Hogwarts Express. The paintings are mostly pretty good. The look is different from the movies and the art doesn't look like the art from either the UK or USA editions. Perhaps this is more in keeping in what JK was seeing in her mind. Hopefully she got her input in on the work.

 

The pictures have three levels of depth. If you use the up and down arrows, or double click the mouse, you can zoom in and out. There are three different focus points in most pictures. As you zoom in new objects come into focus. You need to click on practically everything you see so you can collect the objects, books and Chocolate Frog Cards that are hidden on the site. Some of the stuff is well enough hidden that I had to go to a hints page to find a couple of the Chocolate Frog Cards. Then I discovered that some of the books and objects I picked up weren't in their place in my  trunk, either I didn't save them correctly, or the site failed me. They didn't get saved and it seems impossible to go back. You can't re-find certain things though you can re-visit the novel over and over again. It looks like you have to work you way through the books in order before you can look anywhere you want. I picked up a wand at Ollivanders. Length: 11 1/4 in. Wood: Spruce. Core: Unicorn. Flexibility: Slightly Springy. It cost 11 Galleons. Then it was on to Hogwarts on the train. You get little bits of information about the stuff around you. Occasionally you pop up a new bit of information from JK. There's a nice backstory for Professor McGonagall and a briefer one for the Dursleys. JK would flesh out, but not publish, details to aid her in the creation of the series. You get some info on Platform 9 3/4 and the like. There is a huge section on wands, their cores, and their wood. There are about 15,000 words of new material on the first book. I cut and pasted it into a Word dic so it would be easier to access. You can find much of the same material in The Harry Potter Lexicon sorted very nicely.

When you get to the Sorting Hat part of the book the site sorts you using, not a hat, but a series of questions. I got sorted into Ravenclaw. The questions I answered left me with two choices, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. It makes sense to me to go with the Ravenclaws. As one blogger said "who wants to be in a house with all those douchebags." Amen, brother.

 

Another piece of art for a place I haven't gotten to yet. That's the main log in template up on the right. You need to sign up before you can do anything. The first book is highlighted in gold. The second book hasn't been opened yet. I don't know what the schedule is. Above the book lines are the places you can go visit. They start locked and as you visit them they unlock. There's Gringotts and Diagon Alley, your common room and the Great Hall. You start with 500 Galleons in the bank and after buying school supplies you aren't broke yet. Along the way there are Galleons to be found and saved to the bank. You also find books and objects to save while working through the book. There are classes on spells, which I found hard to do. You have to type letters in a  pattern along with a moving green light. You can make potions which can give you points for your house. The House cup is being awarded in a few days. Ravenclaw has 744,000 members and over 68 million points. I'm not sure what the other houses have going right now.

Win or lose it doesn't matter much. I'll keep coming back so I can see what they do with the other books. If the trend continues and JK puts out a nice selection of material she created for reference then I would be happy to read it. 

Star Trek S2D7

   

Return To Tomorrow was first broadcast February 9 1968 and it was the 49th episode broadcast. The Enterprise gets a call from someone on an uninhabitied planet. Kirk and Spock beam down with McCoy and spacebiologist Diana Muldaur. They meet Sargon who is one of the three surviving members of his race. They have been disembodied energy beings for 500,000 years. Their planet had a great war that destroyed their civilization. The best minds were collected, put into balls, and stored. Sargon wants to borrow bodies to build himself a cyborg so he can go visit the galaxy. Soon as he gets control of the Kirk unit he's not so ready to give it back. The other two surviving entities get put into Spock and Muldaur. Kirk gets some kissing, but sadly, he's not there to enjoy it. Sargon is defeated and everyone gets back into their own bodies by the end of the show. It's the first mention of the concept that some alien race had been through the Star Trek Galaxy and seeded people which evolved into the races we know today. It explains why so many of them are humanoid and why Spock can have a human mom.

   

Patterns Of Force has the Enterprise head for planet Ekos. They are looking for a Federation researcher, John Gill, who has gone missing. When they get there the ship is attacked by a missile with a nuke on the end of it. That shouldn't be. The natives of the planet were much more primitive. Turns out that Gill had given them some advanced technology and introduced them to Hitler's National Socialism. Even Spock agrees that it was a well run country but he wouldn't want people to live like that. Now the Ekosians are space traveling Nazi's who are bent on destroying their neighboring planet Zeon. The Ekosians Final Solution is to send a war fleet to destroy Zeon. Kirk and Spock try to put a stop to that but they get captured and loose their shirts. They escape and meet a woman Nazi who is part of the resistance. They sneak in to the Nazi HQ and free Gill. He renounces the Nazi leader and recalls the fleet. Gill is shot and dies after saying how sorry he is. Too late now. Hopefully the Federation and the two planets will be able to repair the damage. It's a tough old place in space, no one needs Nazis on top of that. This episode was never shown on German TV when the series was first aired there.

   

In the February 23rd episode, By Any Other Name, the Enterprise responds to a call from an uncharted planet. There they meet Rojan and Kelinda of the Kelvan Empire. They come from the Andromedia Galaxy and their ship got damaged when they went through the Galaxtic Barrier at the edge of the our Galaxy. They have special belts that give them great powers and cover up their real appearance. They capture the landing party and take over the ship. Rojan plans to use the Enterprise to return home. A trip that will take 300 years in the Enterprise. The crew is turned into while multi-sided shapes so they won't bother anyone.

   

In order to save the crew Spock and Kirk fight back. They use the newly forming human emotions that come with the Kelvan's new bodies to their advantage. Scotty gets one of them so drunk he passes out. Kirk smooches up the woman Kelvan and creates some jealousy in Rojan. Eventually Kirk and Rojan fight. Kirk explains that they Kelvan's are growing more human and that in the 300 years it would take to get to their home planet they wouldn't be able to live there as they would be too alien. Rojan agrees and they head back to the nice planet they were stranded on before. Kirks sends a robot ship with a message to Kelvan. Another episode where they meet some powerful aliens and teach them a thing or two. They use that plot a lot. Jerome Bixby wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with D C Fontana. Marc Daniels directed. I didn't remember much about this episode but I did remember the multi-sided shapes that the crew get turned into. I wonder if the Federation pays out hazard pay.

   

March 1 1968 saw the broadcast of The Omega Glory. The Enterprise finds the Federation ship Exeter orbiting Omega IV. The Exeter is empty and the logs say they got a virus on the ship that killed everyone but those that made it down to the planet. On the planet Captain Tracey has sided with the Kolms against the Yangs and broken the Prime Directive by giving them phasers. Seems like that rule get bust a lot.

   

They figure out that the planet had a very similar development to the Earth and the Yangs are Yanks and the Kolms are the Chinese Communists. Kirks stops the fighting and gets the two groups thinking about peace. This was written by Gene Roddenberry and it's pretty heavy handed but memorable. I remember the plot points, but not the details, from seeing it when it was new.

It was a fairly fun disc to watch. Good batch of stories though a bit repetitive on some plot points. It must have been hard to come up with a completely new idea each week and people can only handle so much newness.  

9464 The Vampire Hearse

Lord Vampyre rides in quite the hot rod hearse doesn't he. I'm not much of a vehicle set buyer but I'm on the fence on this one. I thought the hearse has a kind of 1960's George Barris look to it and that's kind of cool. It's kind of clunky looking but that might be on purpose. It wouldn't be that hard to streamline that thing. It might be higher in the back than looks good because of the special action feature. The roof opens and there's some sort of lever that flips the vampire out of his coffin. That's kind of silly but I like it. Kind of captures the whole vampire surprise attack thing in a simple bit of movement. That's a huge sticker on the top of the vehicle. It looks kind of cool even though paint jobs on roofs are rarely seen by anyone on the ground. If I ever got around to building a museum that fiery face could be a nice big painting. The sets got 314 parts, including three minifigs, and it's got a price of $34.95. There's a nice assortment of parts but most of them are black and they cost just over 11 cents each. I have more than enough of most of them and that doesn't make me feel too inclined to buy the set. There's a motorcycle but I'm pretty stocked up on those. Several sets have had them in the last few years. Some of them got put on clearance. I might be more likely to purchase this set on clearance. I'm somewhat interested in the minifigs but I already have a handful of vampires and zombies. That's Sir Rodney Rathbone, Lord Vampyre and his zombie driver below. They have nice costumes that could be used for other themes. Lucky for me I can talk myself out of buying some of the sets that I see. If I wanted the set to build and have as a model or plaything that would be a better reason to pick one up. It's lacking as a parts pack for me. Oh, well, not like there isn't some other set that's crying out to be bought.

    

Science Fiction Sunday 186

I hadn't seen Soldier for a while so I put that on. It's a 1998 Paul W S Anderson film that has Kurt Russell as a super soldier who's been raised right out of the cradle to be an emotionless killing machine. There's a long montage that starts the movie which shows him being conditioned and trained to obey and fight. Poor performers are weeded out with a bullet to their pre-teen heads. Nice future, huh. Writer David Peoples intended it to be the same universe as Blade Runner which he also wrote. Earth people move out into space and soldiers fight. By the time Kurt's nearly 40 he's seen many campaigns and then suddenly the team is being replaced by the next generation of superior genetically engineered super soldiers. Jason Isaacs, the creep in charge of the new kids on the block, lords it over Gary Busey who's in charge of of the older generation. They make the men compete and the new guys are bigger and can run faster. They make them fight, Kurt and two others against one of the new kids, and the three oldies take a beating that leaves them dead in a heap on the floor. Jason tells them to report the men died in a training accident and has the bodies tossed in the garbage. Unfortunately for creepy Jason, Kurt isn't dead and he wakes up in a space garbage scow just as it's being emptied on Arcadia 234.

Besides being home to big ass mounds of garbage the planet is the place that a bunch of stranded colonists are eking out a living. There ship went down there and the garbage scows ignore there bonfires. It's not a place for people, there are heavy winds that will carry you off and dangerous poisonous snakes that will kill you. Kurt is befriended by a local guy, Sean Pertwee, and he tries to fit into the society there. It doesn't go so well and the villagers are afraid of him. They send him away after a violent incident that luckily ends with no one hurt. Sean comes looking for Kurt a little later and before he can get him to come back to the community a ship lands. Turns out Jason picked the garbage planet for some military exercises with the new super soldiers. Finding some citizens he sends the new soldiers to exterminate them. The civilians fight back but it's pretty hopeless. Kurt picks off Jason's men one or two at a time. The old soldier squad all pitch in with Kurt to toss Jason and his officers off the ship and leave with the citizens who are still alive. They head for the colonists original destination. Back on Arcadia 234 Jason screws up disarming the nuke that he set and the planet blows up. A nice end for that prick.

 

Soldier did really poorly in the theater and it still scores low with the critics. I'm not sure why Paul W S Anderson seems to have so many haters out there. It's only got a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but I personally find that site a frustrating waste of my time. A common complaint from the critics is about Kurt having no dialog. Since his character was trained from birth to be silent until spoken to it would be out of character for him to be chatty. That info was in the movie so that's a pretty stupid complaint. I suspect they saw the movie much differently than I did. Here's a quote from Bruce Westbrook of the Houston Chronicle: "The action is handled fairly well, but it's routine, and there's no satisfaction in seeing Todd (Kurt) waste men who are no more bloodthirsty than he is." You can't read the rest of his review because his paper has moved it or deleted it so I can't figure out what he means by that. I can only guess that Bruce might have preferred that Kurt was slaughtering fierce space pirates instead of the soldiers that were bred to take his job. An important part of the movie is the soldiers were trained to be emotionless killing machines who have no morality. They aren't blood thirsty. Killing is just part of what you do, it's as natural as eating. In the montage training segment Kurt is a young trainee blasting away at some dummies that are pulled back and forth across the shooting range. The soldiers blast the bad guys and don't fire on the civilians. You've seen that in a dozen cop movies. When a civilian gets in front of a bad guy Kurt blasts them both down. He gets good points for that and later we see the same scenerio play out in a battle. Satisfaction should be gained from seeing that humanity doesn't unlease emotionless killing machines on anyone. Jay Carr of the Boston Globe says "it's little more than dumb genre stuff." Here's a terrible review from John McEwen of Film Quips Online. He's all acid tongued and so incorrect on plot points and the like that you'd think he didn't see the movie at all. If only he had read the Wikipedia entry before he puked out his bile filled post. It gets a 5.7 on the IMDb so you know it has a few fans. I know I'm one, I've seen it several times. It's a great looking movie with really cool sets. The story is pretty entertaining and you see a deep change in Kurt from his experience living with civilians. Kurt does a great job of portraying the character, especially since he doesn't have many lines or facial expressions to work with. It's one of those movies that people seem to like or hate. You might like it, or you might not. Unless you mention it I won't ever know.

I put The Thing From Another World on the tv after Soldier and watched that again. I usually see it every year or so, sometimes twice a year.  It's another movie about a soldier thrown into a hostile environment. He's just trying to survive while the enemy is trying to kill him. Lucky for us the enemy is humanity fighting back when hostile plant critters come to take over the earth. I realy love this movie. It's nearly perfect with it's combination of good story, good acting, and good production values. The script is tight and moves the story along quickly. There's enough comedy to balance the horror and the characters are easily understandable and human. Even the carrot guy has understandable ideas. He's building an army to take over the world. He's clever and hard to kill. The worse kind of enemy. You've got a good bunch of men who stand up to the creature when the time comes. Well worth seeing and a definate dvd to have on the science fiction movie shelf.

The Werewolves of LEGO

   
  

There are 5 werewolves listed on Bricklink. Four are minifigs and the 5th is that little microfig from a Heroica game. The top left figure is the werewolf from 1380 Werewolf Ambush which was part of the Studio series, the Scary Monsters subset. That set came out in 2002 and it was part of a 4 set series featuring monsters and movie making. The top right figure is Professor Lupin, wearing the same werewolf head, from 4756 Shrieking Shack. It was a 2004 Harry Potter set. That was when they switched the gray to blay, or bluish gray, and it looks rather different. There's still no printing on the head. The Collectible Minifigs Series 4 yields up a pair of monsters, one of which is that werewolf in the light blue pants up on the lower left. I thought he looked pretty good. He's got the elf hair in black. It works really well. The new guy from the Monster Fighters is more sculpted and a bit more ferocious. Look at all those teeth. Quite a nice variety of figures.

9463 The Werewolf

 

The Werewolf set has 243 pieces for $19.99 which is about 8.23 cents a part. There are 2 figures, the werewolf and monster fighter Major Quinton Steele. The set makes a small one seater car and a fair size tree. The car isn't too bad but the tree looks kind of odd. Like someone didn't have all the parts they needed and made the tree anyway. It has a moving bit at the top that catapults the werewolf out of it. I'd like the tree better if the black parts of the tree were reddish brown, or better yet, if the whole thing was made from dark brown slopes and bricks. There was a previous werewolf set that was issued under the Studio Scary Monsters theme. It had three figs, a car and a small tree. The tree is hinged and falls over. It wasn't that great a tree and it has eyes. That's so weird.

I do like the olive leaves, there are 5 of them, and that pair of seaweed pieces will come in handy someday. The werewolf has Wolverine claws, which are way too long,  but they do glow in the dark. Sad to say he hasn't got a minifig head for when he's not a werewolf. It's a pretty good werewolf head. Different than the ones on the werewolf figures that have come before. I'll post after this with a look at them all. The Major has a rifle that is made out of one of the tranquilizer guns that the guys in the current Dino sets sport. They've added a pearl gold telescope and a pearl gold Fez. That Fez seems to be pretty useful, I see it turn up in the oddest places.

 

The werewolf has a ripped shirt and pants and the Major looks like an adventurer from early part of the last century. Both costumes have somewhat limited re-uses. The Major has a weird eye piece, like someone has strapped a monicle to his head, and a grumpy look. Not too bad a set. Worth picking up one or two.

Friday Night Movies 379

We watched the BluRay of Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance. It's the 2011 sequel to the 2007 Ghost Rider. It's got Nic Cage back as Johnny Blaze and it's directed by the Crank directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. It was mostly written by David S Goyer writer of Dark City, Blade and The Dark Knight. The critics don't like it much and there are a ot of haters on the IMDb but I'm on the side of the folks who mostly liked the movie. It's a bit twitchy and nervous but that's the style of the two directors. It looks pretty good and there's some good action. I especially liked the giant digging machine that Ghost Rider lights up with hell fire. He uses it to destroy some bad guys. The story has the devil on earth in human form. He had a son with a woman, one of his many deals, and he plans to use that superpowered form to pour his soul into. The body he's using is breaking down from all the evil inside and it's not long for the world. That transfer would kill the kid's soul and mind but what the does the devil care. The kid's mom tries to save him but she's not doing to well. A priest tires to help and eventually Johnny Blaze gets drawn into the fray. The priest promises to remove the curse if Johnny will help him. The kid is brought to head priest Christopher Lambert and his ancient cliff dwelling monastery. Their plan is to kill the kid, locking up the priest and Johnny to keep them from interfering. Things go poorly as the evil henchmen of the devil attack and take the boy. After Johnny looses his curse he still helps the mom and the priest in their effort to save the boy. They get captured and near the grim end of things the boy, rebeling against daddy, gives Johnny his power back again. This time he channels the fallen angel part of the Ghost Rider spirit and his flames turn blue. Pretty straight up story that moves along fairly quickly through the 95 minute movie. Not great but something I'd watch again. It doesn't take itself to seriously. At one point we see Ghost Rider pissing fire. That made me laugh.

The Donnie Yen movie 14 Blades was next. There wasn't as much to laugh about in the 2010 movie by Daniel Lee. I've only seen 2 others of his 11 movies. The 1996 Jet Li picture Black Mask, not a favorite, and Three Kingdoms: Resurresction Of The Dragon which I didn't care that much for. In 14 Blades Donnie is the head of the secret police, the Brocade Guards, and he's to assassinate a guy who's leading a rebellion. The Brocade Guards used to work for the Emperor but now the Eunuchs control them. Those Eunich's were real dicks and limp or not they are a pain the ass for everyone. The whole country suffered from their evil plotting. The Eunuchs are in league with Prince Quin (Sammo Hung) to move on the Emperor. To their aid they have stolen the Emperor's seal and they are planning to affix it to an order that will give them more power. Handy when they sieze the throne. There are a lot of people interested in the seal and they are a blood thirsty lot. There's a bit of ill fated romance mixed in with the sword fighting but it just slows things down. The fights are fair to middling and sadly most everyone dies. It was a bit long. Not something I would put on the list to pick up now that I've seen it.