Thor: The Dork World

Hey, it’s time for another mockumentary review of a hit movie!  Actually, it’s well PASSED time for another review (and I know that I still have not posted a review of Prometheus yet.  I think it’s going to just be one of those things.), but I had to wait for the right movie to show up.

I was going to do Ender’s Game, but I couldn’t find anything worth making fun on.  Come on, it’s freaking Ender’s Game.  With Harrison Ford.  So I had to wait for Thor.

We last left our hero eating shawarma in a half-destroyed diner somewhere in New York.  After which, he summarily hauled his brother back to Asgard to be tossed into a fairly barren jail cell. 

While Loki, who many will argue is the true star of the film, languishes in what is apparently a holodeck, Thor is off with his friends – Jackie Chan, Xena, Warrior Princess, Gimli, son of Gloin, and Professor Lockhart – trying to quell the rebellion and war triggered after the destruction of the Bifrost.  We join up with them on the planet where Jackie Chan’s people live (who apparently all dress like Guinan, from Start Trek: TNG).  They are fighting off an invasion of leftover extras from the original Star Wars set.  Thor drops in, knocks out the Rock Biter from Neverending Story, and goes back home to mope over Jodie Jane Foster.

Odin, who is turning into a bit of a dick in his old age, doesn’t give a rat’s ass that his son is in love, he’s just miffed it’s a stupid human from Midgard.  Thor goes back to moping, but then Heimdall loses sight of Jodie Jane, Thor panics, and heads to Earth.

Jodie Jane, meanwhile, and her fellow interns, have stumbled upon some interesting gravimetrical anomalies, which means they are playing with portals.  Then Jodie Jane gets sucked into a portal and winds up in a cave somewhere with a really spooky monolith.

BACKSTORY ALERT

Apparently, back before the Nine Worlds were formed, an evil race of Dark Elves ruled the known universe.  Which begs the question: where the hell did they come from?!  Anyway, the Dark Elves kind of don’t like the Nine Worlds, I’m guessing because they have suns or something, and so they take this thing called the Aether, infect some of their soldiers and turn them into, well, really pissed off strong things.  Asgard stole the Aether, defeated the Dark Elf armies, yay.  The leader, Malekith (who looks a hell of a lot like a Necromonger from The Chronicles of Riddick), sent all of his ships crashing down to kill both armies, then ran away like a Monty Python knight.  Odin’s father, Bor, says the Aether cannot be destroyed, and instead must be hidden away.   Clearly, they had never read Lord of the Rings, or they would have known that they could only destroy it by throwing back into the fires of Mount Doom, from whence it came. 

END OF BACKSTORY ALERT

So, anyway, the big scary monolith that Jodie Jane has found is, obviously, where the Aether is being kept.  Like an idiot, she gets too close and it attacks her, flowing into her body and knocking her out for a few hours.  She wakes up back on Earth, where Thor shows up looking for her.  Why he finds her in London is beyond me, but there he is.   The Aether makes its presence known by knocking down a few mortal police officers, and Thor drags her back to Asgard.    Odin, showing an increasing lack of empathy, pretty much tells her she is going to die.  Lovely.

Meanwhile, Malekith sends a Dark Elf (with a weird Aether-stone that will turn him into the Incredible Hulk) to get captured by Asgardian forces and thereby be snuck into their castle.  The Elf gets tossed into the dungeon alongside Loki and a bunch of rejects from The Lord of the Rings set.  Loki, during all of this, is displaying his own pathetic narcissism, which his mother promptly sees through and gives him the guilt trip from hell.  In the last cell, the Dark Elf crushes the stone and – OK, he’s not the Incredible Hulk so much as a Balrog.  Nice. 

So Balrog-dude lets everybody out, except for Loki – maybe he figured he’d be too busy making snarky one-liners to actually be of any service.  They wind up fighting the guards in the dungeon, while Loki reads Cold Days: Book # 14 of the Dresden Files.  Because, come on, what else would he be reading?

Thor leaves Jodie Jane in the care of his mother, who snatches a knife from a passing guard.  Meanwhile, a couple of the Dark Elf ships go cruising passed Heimdall’s guard station (which is really stupid, when you think about it – yeah, just approach the city by a trajectory that takes you right passed the one freaking guard who has super-senses).  He takes one out, but the rest keep on going, so he hurries back to his station to bring up the castle defenses. 

Inside said castle, the Balrog-Kursed guy has found the shield generator and took it out with only slightly less force than Han Solo needed in Return of the Jedi.   By this time, Malekith has figured out where Frigga and Jodie Jane are hiding, and confronts them. Frigga, who, by the way, kicks total ass, slaps Malo around like he weighs nothing, but gets sidelined by Balrog.  Jodie Jane turns out to be another hologram (ha ha!), and Balrog stabs Frigga.  Cue weepy death scene.   Odin throws a fit and imprisons Jodie Jane (because clearly it was her fault). 

Thor wants to take her off Asgard to draw off Malekith, but Odin is being a stubborn snit and refuses.   So it’s time for some treason.  Enter Loki, who is really having too much fun with the whole hologram thing (wonder where he learned that, eh?).  Thor, however, has clearly learned some lessons and they steal a freaking Dark Elf ship and fly off, complete with dialogue straight out of Independence Day. 

It seems Loki knows a shortcut out of Asgard, and they wind up on the former world of the Dark Elves.  It’s pretty depressing.  Thor and Loki have a beautifully staged fight, during which Loki actually acts like a pretty decent fellow.  Then he freaking abandons the rest of the movie, to go off and do whatever the hell he wants.  I think he went to get a gyro.  After all, Thor didn’t bring him any falafel back from New York, which probably accounts for much of his pissiness.  So much for this being Loki: The Movie.

Thor and Jodie Jane get back to Earth and figure out the whole problem because science.  Malekith shows up in London (thank God, because New York is still putting itself back together after the whole tesseract invasion thing) and tries to destroy the entire Nine Worlds, but pretty much fails because Jodie Jane is running around with Halo on her DS, opening up portals everywhere.  Thor wins and yay everybody survives.

The title of this blog post is Thor: The Dork World.  Why?  Because Thor is a freaking DORK.  I mean, he’s chasing around Earth, doing battle with a Necromonger and pretty much getting his ass kicked. It didn’t OCCUR to him to grab a cell phone and go “Yo, hey, Tony – if you’re not too busy, could you fly on over here and give me a hand?  Fate of the world and all that.  Sure, bring Cap if you like.   We can talk righteousness and stuff.”

No, no, he has to handle it ALL by himself.  Admittedly, Tony might still be putting his penthouse apartment back together.  But still.  Thor knew about all of these incredibly handy superheroes running around, and it didn’t occur to him to call on a few of them when it became clear that their world was where it was all going down?

He’s just lucky that humans know how to play video games.

If you haven’t yet watched Thor: The Dork World, I’m not going to disclose the OMG moment at the end. If you have, I hope you stayed through BOTH of the Easter Eggs during the credits.  I just have to ask: WTF was that first one?   Looked like a scene out of a 70s episode of Dr. Who.   Am I going to have to write a crossover about THAT next? 

Pacific Rim Job

OK, so a while ago I was bemoaning the fact that apparently Hollywood canNOT come up with any original ideas anymore (I think it was the Snow White & the Huntsman review).   This trend continues with the release of Pacific Rim.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed the movie.  It’s just that they pretty much stole from everything possible.  Ever since the first trailers for this movie came out (which is about the time I started planning this blog post), I’ve been referring to it as “Voltron vs Cloverfield” – but thinking that surely it wouldn’t be so OBVIOUSLY Voltron vs Cloverfield. 

It was.   

But they also stole stuff from a LOT of other movies.  Case in point: not 1 minute into the film, and they give you a line plucked straight outta George Lucas’s mouth: “Hey, kid…don’t get cocky.”  Cripes, the actor even gave the same LOOK that Harrison Ford gives just about everybody.   Of course, we’d already seen a couple Cloverfield monsters and a few Voltrons – and then they do the “and I’ll form THE HEAD!” bit when they drop the head down onto the big giant robot thing. 

The neural-bridge thing was reminiscent of Avatar, too – along with the fact that the main character’s brother dies.  And then he gets all reclusive and stuff.  Yeah.  Seen that before. 

Any-hoo, so we end up with Nick Fury gathering the Avengers to combat the big giant aliens coming through the spacial rift.  Oh, sorry – I mean Nick Fury gathering up the teams of pilots for the big giant robots to combat the big giant aliens coming through the spacial rift.  Somewhere along the line he lost his patch as well.   

A word about the big giant robots: they are referred to as Jaegers, which is apparently Japanese for “hunter” – but what it really tells you here is that after getting a beating from one of those (or, receiving a beating while driving one of those) is similar to the feeling you get after consuming Jaeger.  But I digress.

On to the story.   The Cloverfield monsters keep showing up and keep beating the crap out of the Jaegers and the big walls and the coastal cities and what not until finally Nick Fury tells the traumatized main character to co-pilot with his adopted Asian daughter and waste some monster butt.  Which works for a while until one of the beasties sprouts wings and flies out of the atmosphere with them. 

A word now about Voltron.  Remember Voltron?  Remember how the witch Hagar and King Zarkon and Prince Lotor would send the robeasts after Planet Arus?  And how the Voltron Force would get in their lions and get knocked about for a while until they FINALLY remembered they could form Voltron?  And then they would – after getting thoroughly trounced again – remember they could form the Blazing Sword and chop the robeast in half?  Which made you wonder why they just didn’t do that in the first place? 

Yeah.  Same thing.  “Oh, by the way, we can form a sword!”  (Gee, that would have been nice….oh….about TWELVE YEARS AGO.)   So they chop it in half and return to earth. Voltron saves the day again.

Meanwhile, two scientists, played by Dark Helmet and Dr. Who, manage a neural-bridge with a secondary brain of one of the beasties, figure out how to defeat them, and then Nick Fury and a pissed off Aussie commit suicide to clear the way for our heroes to send a nuclear payload  through the spacial rift right to the aliens (I cannot believe they passed up the opportunity to refer to this as a Jaeger-bomb.  Just sayin’.)

Hello, Avengers?  Hello, Independence Day?

If it’s one thing this movie taught me, it’s how it’s not so bad living in Kansas – you don’t have to worry about giant Cloverfield monsters ever making it this far inland.  (Or Sharknados, but that’s another story.)

Oh, by the way: No, Ron Pearlman, I do NOT know where your shoe is.

The Gifts that Do NOT Keep on Giving

I heard the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” on the radio the other day. (Actually, I heard it sometime around November 10^th, causing me to hurl my automobile radio out the window.  I believe it may have struck a pedestrian.  But I digress.)   Anyway, as I was saying, I heard the song on the radio, and it struck me just how completely useless a song it is. 

Let’s analyze it, shall we?

12 Drummers Drumming

Oh, great.  Twelve Tommy Lee doppelgangers in my living room.  That’s bound to be pleasant.  It’s also bound to be a noisy, testosterone-infused beat-fest, with tattoo-laced ego-tripping rock stars trying to outdo one another for sheer style.   So instead of sleeping in on Christmas morning, I have to deal with a migraine.  Just what I always wanted.

11 Pipers Piping

I’m still trying to figure out where my True Love dug up one lone piper, let alone eleven.   There’s Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute, but beyond that, I’m not sure another ten exist anywhere on the planet.  And not like a Zamfir CD is anybody’s idea of a great Christmas gift.   Come on.  That just screams “Walmart bargain bin at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.”  Of course, I suppose Piper from Piper and Tupper would be a suitable alternative, and we all know the story of the Pied Piper…my question is, who’s gonna pay him?  Not me. 

10 Lords-a-leaping

Now, it’s just my opinion, but anybody who’s a “Lord” in this day and age is probably far too stuck up to do any real leaping.  My guess is that they pay their servants to do any necessary leaping for them.  In the event of a real Lord leaping, it’s probably safe to say that they have somehow managed to yet again squeeze money from the lower classes.  If you saw Bernie Maddoff leaping around his office, what would you think?  I thought so. Not at all a nice thing to learn on Christmas.  Next!

9 Ladies Dancing

This was probably the easiest gift for my so-called “True Love” to find.  He probably just went down to the local “gentlemen’s club” and waved a few twenties around.   He probably had to beat off the any extra ladies with a stick.  And where am I going to put that pole?  I’ll have to take out the Christmas tree. 

8 Maids-a-milking

Maids don’t milk anymore, that process being more generally suited to large, sterilized machines.  In the event that eight milk maids could be summoned, in order to be “a-milking,” they would require the influx of eight ruminants from which to harvest said milk.    Imagine that panic that would ensure when the dancing ladies vehemently object to sharing space with over half a dozen bovines.   Moo-ving on.

7 Swans-a-swimming

As any zoology-minded person can attest, it is a rare thing to come across a swan who is merely swimming.  A more accurate assessment of this gift would be “seven swans-a-spitting,” “seven swans-a-hissing,” or “seven swans-a-charging-at-you-with-wings-and-neck-extended.”  Not to mention the swan poop all over the carpet.

6 Geese-a-laying

Possibly the most practical gift on the list, it quickly breaks down to be nothing more than a huge hassle.   Space, and large amounts of high-quality feed are required in order to stimulate the laying process.  And I have yet to see the Betty Crocker cake mix box instructions that require “2 goose eggs.”

5 Gold Rings

What, one for each finger on one hand?  A truly lucky woman will have ONE GOLD RING on her hand, and perhaps a diamond, signifying her union with her True Love.   I guess my True Love got a deal on these gold rings, and gave them all to me.  Or perhaps he had intended to leave the other four in reserve, in case he should come across other women he might consider his true love.  This reminds me of the sign I saw once for “I Love You Only” valentine cards – Now available in multi-packs!  Wonderful.

4 Calling Birds

Do I really want more calling birds in my life?  What sort of birds are these?  And what are they calling about?  If they’re calling to offer me a chance to lower my credit card interest rates, or to tell me that my automobile warranty is about to expire and would I like to provide my credit card information over the phone to the helpful person on the other end…thanks, but no thanks.  Stuff the calling birds and serve them to me for Christmas dinner, and I’ll reconsider.  

3 French Hens

Oh, terrific.  French hens?  I notice that while the geese earlier were a-laying, this particular gift indicates nothing about their egg production abilities.  Given that these are French hens, they will probably just strut around the coop in a bored manner, smoking cigarettes, and saying things like, “Zees coop looks like zee crap!  Euh, I am le bored!”  Stuff these guys along with the calling birds and we’ll feed the neighbors, too.

2 Turtledoves

WTF?  More freaking birds?  I already have swans and geese and telemarketing-calling birds and ennui-infused chickens.   What the hell do I want with turtledoves?   I see these things in pet stores and while they are billed as a timeless expression of love and devotion, I must say, all they do is sit around and poop.  How’s that for a description of marriage?

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Oh, terrific, another damned bird!    Let us consult the encyclopedia regarding partridges, shall we?  Here we go:  These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails.  Partridges are ground-nesting seed-eaters.   Ground nesters!  So how did I manage to get one that’s up in a tree?  Ecologically speaking, the partridge should be underneath the tree, like a sort of feather-wrapped present.  The only way to get a partridge in a pear tree is to shoot it, stuff it, and mount its ass up there.

Thanks, True Love. 

Snow White Meets Captain Plagairism

Hollywood's lack of originality continues, with the premier of Snow White and the Huntsman. 

I almost didn't go see it.  Not because I didn't want to, but because my funds are a bit thin this month due to some unforeseen expenses.  But I did, and you're now glad I did, because I'm writing this post, literally five minutes after I got home.

Could they have stolen from any more films?  The answer is yes, because they totally missed out on stealing from The Princess Bride.  If only somebody had said "Aaaaaasssss  yyyyooooouuuuuu wwiiiiiiiiiiiish" while rolling down a hill, then the plagiarism would be complete.  Alas.

So.  Movie starts of promisingly enough with a brief narration of the early parts of the Snow White fairy tale as most know it: Queen wishes for a beautiful daughter, Queen has a beautiful daughter, Queen passes away from an illness. 

Then things start to get positively strange stolen.  First, you see a young Snow White playing with a young boy named William (who, you will later learn, is the Duke's son).  They look just like the two young characters from the beginning of Red Riding Hood, except that instead of killing bunnies, they are saving an injured bird.

Now the story starts to really split off from the original fairy tale.  A weird "dark army" appears nearby, apparently taking advantage of the King's grief over the death of his wife.  He and his forces ride out to meet the dark army, which looks suspiciously like it's made up of Necromongers.  The King's forces attack, and the army disintegrates around them, turning into shards of obsidian or something.   They find, in the aftermath of the "battle," the prisoner carriage from Season of the Witch. 

Surprisingly, Nicolas Cage does NOT make an appearance in this film.

Of course the King falls in love with the beautiful woman imprisoned in the carriage, but if you were paying attention during Season of the Witch, you know she's a witch and may we burn her?  (They don't.)

They didn't get better, either.

Now, I don't seem to recall this portion of the original fairy tale, but the new Queen, on their wedding night, stabs the King in the heart, steals his life force, and then opens the portcullis to admit her own army, who quickly take over the castle.  The young Snow White, upon seeing her father's body, flees from the Queen.  The Duke attempts to ride off with his son and Snow White, but Snow White's body guard and shot and killed from his horse, and while the Duke and William escape, Snow White is trapped when the portcullis falls and is seized by the Queen's men.

Fast forward ten years or so.  The new Queen - her name is Ravenna, by the way - has pretty much poisoned the land.   You soon learn that she's rather like the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal - or perhaps more like the mother-son duo from Sleepwalkers.  She drains the life force of young women (and sometimes men) in order to maintain her youth.  She also has a brother, and for a wild moment I thought they were actually going to start stealing from A Game of Thrones - but if they did, they didn't film it (thank God, because the brother was about as appealing as Joffrey).  You also learn that Snow White has been imprisoned in the tallest tower all these years, and while Ravenna hasn't drained her life yet, she clearly drained her acting skills, because you realize she's just Bella, from Twilight.

In the meantime, Ravenna finally figures out that Snow White is ruining her youthful looks, apparently by just being alive.  So she sends her brother to bring her from the tower where she's been imprisoned, but Bella manages to escape and lock the brother in the cell.  She flees to the courtyard, and makes her escape down - of all things - a garbage chute (a-la Star Wars).   And remember the injured bird she saved?  Well, it makes an appearance now, leading her to where a beautiful white horse lays waiting for her. 

She rides off and now we're just in Lord of the Rings because it's a girl....riding a white horse...pursued by riders in black.  Yeah.  OK.  So, she rides and rides until she comes to a dark, misty forest.  The horse gallops straight into a marshy area and....holy crap!  Good going, Bella.  You just lost Artax in the Swamps of Sadness.  Thank you for forcing me to relive that traumatic cinematic moment from my childhood.  Again.

Bella runs off, trips, falls (just like Bella to trip and fall, right?), and apparently triggers some weird mushroom spoor stuff to come billowing out.  Reminds me of Katniss and the Tracker-Jacker venom in The Hunger Games.  More plagiarism.  Does it never end?  (That's right...it's The Neverending Story Plagiarism.)

While Bella's out having a bad LSD trip in the spooky forest, the Queen is right pissed at her brother and tells him to go find somebody to hunt the girl down.  He finds a drunken Boromir in a fight with Jaws from Moonraker, sobers him up in the horse trough, and takes him to the Queen.  Ravenna promises the huntsman that she will bring his dead wife back to life if he brings back her "missing prisoner."  He reluctantly agrees to go, and sets off with Joffrey and a few hired hands.  They head into the Dark Forest (ooooo, spooky).  He might be Boromir, but he tracks like Aragorn, and tells the Queen's men to "wait here."  They don't, and it's only because the writers clearly didn't recognize the foreshadowing that they don't wind up sinking into the swamp themselves. 

Bella, meanwhile, has awakened and tried to run, but Boromir catches up to her.  He ditches Joffrey and company and leads the way out of the Dark Forest, toward the Duke's castle and renegade army.  While crossing over a bridge, they wake up a troll, but Bella just stares at him until the blandness of her acting makes him too lethargic to kill anybody; he goes back to sleep, and our characters continue on their way.

They are sheltered for the night by a community of women who have slashed their cheeks so that the Queen won't steal their beauty.  But the settlement is attacked and Boromir and Bella flee, where they run into a bunch of Dwarfs, who apparently have a score to settle with Boromir - probably because he's been carrying Gimli's axe the whole movie.  While all this is going on, William - the Duke's son - learns from a peasant who escaped from the Queen's castle that Snow White is still alive and has escaped, so he grabs his Legolas bow and poses as a bowman-for-hire and joins Joffrey's motley band of Bella-hunters.

Anyway, the Dwarves hide the fugitives in a place called "Sanctuary" - which is supposed to be the home of the fairies, but it looks way too much like Narnia turning from winter into spring - and then the really terrifying moment when Bella wanders through the woods toward the rising sunlight, and one of the dwarves says, "It's just Him" and by God you are expecting Aslan to show up, but instead it's just a white deer with tree branches for antlers.   I mean, this deer looked really freaking stupid.  He'd look even stupider as a head mounted on the wall, but clearly somebody thought otherwise because he's suddenly shot with an arrow. 

Ah, that would be Joffrey and his band of not-so-merry-at-this-point men.  They have tracked their quarry to "Sanctuary" and set about trying to capture Snow White (again).  Boromir fights Joffrey and impales him on a tree; he begs his sister to heal him with her power, but she's a jealous little thing and doesn't like to share her Botox.  Joffrey dies, and William hooks up with everyone, and the whole lot of them head off toward the Duke's stronghold, which is apparently somewhere in Rohan.

Then, early one morning, Bella is wandering through the woods (didn't Edward tell her to not wander through the woods?  See, this is what happens!) and turns to see William.  The apple from Twilight makes an appearance, and Bella eats it, but - you guessed it! - the apple was poisoned and "William" is really Ravenna, who gets ready to kill Bella but the real William and Boromir interrupt her.  William kisses Bella, but nothing happens, so they agree to continue on.  They carry her to the Duke's castle, where they lay her body in state (in a gown apparently purchased en route from the Gap of Rohan).  Boromir is drinking again, and ranting on about his wife, and he confesses his love for Snow White, and kisses her.  Then he goes off to drown his sorrows, but Bella wakes up, stalks out of the castle in her bare feet, and makes a really lame speech that still causes everyone to salute her. 

Was it poisoned? 
Or was Bella a victim of her own acting skills?

Then she puts on armor, turns into Joan of Arc, they storm the castle, she kills the Queen, and everybody lives happily ever after, except for William, who presumably goes off to sulk because she was probably going to hook up with Boromir in the end.

Or maybe not?

The end.

God help me, when does Prometheus come out?

Not-Holes and Plot-Holes

Just fair warning: if you haven’t seen  Men in Black 3 yet, and would like to, do NOT read further.  There will be spoilers.

Obviously: I saw Men in Black 3 this weekend.  How could I not?  It’s MEN IN BLACK, for crying out loud.  The pairing of Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones is as classic as Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks in Dragnet (though, to be fair, an even better pairing would have been Jack Webb and Dan Aykroyd…but I digress). 

Rather than stealing scenes from other movies (see previous blog post “Origi-NOT-ity”), MIB³ had one major flaw, and that was it was riddled with holes like a downed 30s era mobster.  First one: when the poor schmuck of a chick brings the “cake” (OK, I lied about the plagiarism – isn’t that the same pudding that Dobby dropped on Mrs. Mason’s head in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone?) to Boris the Animal (“It’s JUST BORIS!”), and we see that the crème filling isn’t so much crème as it is insectoid-symbiotic-alien-lifeform: a creepy spider-like thing that shoots darts.  When he is finally free of his steel straight-jacket, we learn that it’s more than just a pet….it’s actually a part of Boris, and it returns to this mouth-pouch thing on his hand. 

Talk to the hand.

The hand…that was previously encased in a long metal tube.  Now, it’s clear now that the tube was in place in order to prevent Just Boris from deploying his little weapon.  Otherwise, he would have been out long before then, right?  So where’d the thing come from, anyway?  And why did it take Boris 40 years to be reunited with his beloved pet? 

Dunno.  It’s never explained.  Plot-hole Numero Uno.

OK, so Boris and his girlfriend (whose name should have totally been Natasha) stride gleefully through the jail – stopping only to end the life of one inmate.  Boris dispatches the rest of the guards by blowing a hole in the side of the jail, which at first you think isn’t a hole so much as a portal into outer space, but then you see that the prison itself is actually on the MOON.  Boris bounces outside – and doing a much better job at walking in low gravity than John Carter did (but I digress) – and yells out a challenge to Agent K….which of course should have been inaudible, as there is no atmosphere on the moon. 

That’s the thing that bugs me most in movies: breaking the known laws of science and physics just because they are inconvenient.  Granted, I know that to enjoy and appreciate science fiction, one must suspend reality.  Ships that have faster-than-light capability, “beaming down,” hyper-drive, lasers, phasers, photon torpedos….yes, OK, they don’t really exist, but they DO follow the laws as we know them.

Boris?  Not so much.  Apparently he can speak without the benefit of an atmosphere.  And apparently we – the audience – can hear him perfectly well without an atmosphere.  Baloney.  You know we couldn’t hear him if we were on the moon – sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum.  And you know we couldn’t jolly well talk, either, without some air passing through our vocal chords.

There is one explanation for Boris being able to actually “speak” without the benefit of atmosphere: perhaps he doesn’t need oxygen, or even an atmosphere at all.  In which case it was pretty damned short-sighted of the MIBs to build a huge freaking prison on the moon to hold him (and other undesirablres) without considering that it wouldn’t kill him to be outside the prison.  Dumb.

There’s plot-hole number two.

I’m going to diverge here from MIB and go on a little more about breaking the laws of physics just to make a story.  As I said, there is a difference between “suspending disbelief” and “we’ll just make impossible crap happen.”  Breaking laws like that leads to plot holes so large that they have their own set of “Yo Momma” jokes.  As a writer, I try to make sure that what I write is happening could actually happen, within the confines of the laws of the universe wherein the story takes place.   Writing science fiction and fantasy gives you some leeway (especially with magic), but even writers who include magic in their stories have rules that govern the use of that magic.  Otherwise it’s just deux ex machina and BAD, BAD WRITING.

Yes, I’ve written myself into corners before, not knowing how on earth I can resolve whatever conflict is happening between what I need to have happen in the story and what is actually possible within the world.  But a good writer will find a way to make it happen while staying true to his or her universe.  A good writer will make their world believable.  A lazy writer just expects you to believe whatever they say.  And the worst example in the world of lazy writing has got to be the movie Starship Troopers.

I hated the movie.  Not because it was a stupid, campy B-grade comedy, but rather because it was a stupid, campy B-grade comedy that billed itself as an epic space adventure.   No, that’s not why I hated it: that’s merely why I was disappointed in it.  I hated it because – all stupidity and lime-green fiddles aside – it just completely ignored about every single law in the physical universe.  As well as left some egregious plot-holes just sitting there, waiting for somebody to fall into them. 

OK, this is a big one: the “bugs” launch a big-ass asteroid toward the Earth, where it hits a densely populated area.  Direct hit.  Excellent calculations on their part, wouldn’t you say?  They threw that big chunk of space rock aaaaaaaaaaallllllll the way from their solar system to Earth, without hitting any other planets, without any other gravitational field (planet, star, etc) in between altering its trajectory, to make it hit Earth’s atmosphere at the precise speed and angle needed to ensure it got all the way through the atmosphere intact (without burning up or exploding in the upper atmosphere).  Wow.  That’s pretty damned impressive…for what turns out to be a bunch of gigantic insects on a barren planet.  How did they launch the asteroid?  What did they use to push it up to the speed necessary to traverse vast distances of space?  Where are their ships?  Their weapons?  Their defense fortifications?   How in the name of all that is holy did they pull that one off?

Speaking of bugs…where did they come from?  What’s the evolutionary history of their planet?  The movie expects me (you) to believe that these freaking huge insects evolved on a lifeless hunk of rock?  There’s nothing on the planet except rocks and soil…and bugs.  Lots of bugs.  What do they eat while waiting for shiploads of humans to drop in from space?  What did they eat while they were evolving to the point where they could develop their apparently incredible asteroid-throwing technology, in order to lure shiploads of humans to their planet?   Darwin’s Natural Selection might be considered a theory, but you know damned well that he’s onto something there.  Earth: all mammals have 4 limbs.  All of them.   It’s the design that works, and hints at the common origin way back in the mists of time.  At some point, the 4-limb body design conferred the best adaptation for the environment, and that’s why it stuck.  In the movie Avatar, all of the mammals had SIX limbs, except for the Navi, who had four….but you know they should have had six, too.  (That bugged me throughout the entire movie.)  But more than that: to have life, you have to have an ecosystem of some kind.  Whatever creatures you imagine, they have to eat something.  Know why there aren’t giant beetles on Earth’s moon?  Because it doesn’t have anything there to eat.  Nothing to consume, except rock.  Just like the bug’s planet.  The bugs aren’t eating rocks – if they were, the planet would be gone, because rocks don’t reproduce or grow.   No, the bugs were eating the humans – but what did they eat before the humans showed up?

Lazy writing. Ignoring the fundamental basics of life and biology.  And that’s not the worst part.

The worst part is that despite the fact that us humans on Earth are technologically advanced enough to build ships that traverse the vast reaches of space, we still couldn’t see that goddamned huge asteroid headed straight for us.   (If only the kid from Deep Impact had been in that movie, the entire travesty of the film could have been averted.)  Not only that, but apparently only one ship was anywhere along the path of the asteroid to notice it…and the asteroid conveniently hit the ship’s ONE FREAKING COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE ARRAY.  Jesus H. Christ, didn’t we have CELL PHONES or something?  Morse code?  Radio waves?  One satellite on the stupid ship and they can’t say ANYTHING forever?

 Bad writing.  Lousy writing.  I’m not even going to discuss the final scene wherein the “psychic” reads the “mind” of the bugs.  Just no.

OK, I’ve destroyed enough of yours and my sensibilities with that drivel.  Back to MIB3 and the third major plot hole.  It’s not so much an example of lazy writing as it is the writers forgetting what they’ve already written. 

A good example of this is the theme song to the TV show Friends.  The writers wanted to play it on the radio too, so they added a couple extra verses and a chorus and whammo! – a hit.  Except they forgot what they wrote in the first part of the song.  Sing it along in your head.  “So no one told you life was gonna be this way….”  Yeah, very first line.  Next verse?  “Your mama warned you there’d be days like these?”  She did?  But I thought no one told me life was gonna be this way?  Which is it?  Ugh. Bad writing.

MIB does it on a grander scale, forgetting what they wrote in the first movie.  Remember Agent K?  How did he get involved in the Men in Black in the very first movie?  Yeah…on his way to see his girlfriend, bumped into some friendly visiting aliens….and wound up sacrificing everything in his life to be an anonymous member of this new government conspiracy agency.  He recruited  Agent J – not to be his partner, but to be his replacement – and at least once in the movie we eavesdrop on his eavesdropping on his former girlfriend.  At the very end, you see he’s gone back to her, recovered from his amnesia, and they are happy together at last.  Remember that?  Such a sweet ending to the story.

Then what the hell is this business with Agent O?  Excuse me?  He goes back to the woman he has loved for all those years in movie one, gets re-recruited in movie two, and now in movie three he’s mooning it over a fellow agent he supposedly FORGOT ABOUT at the end of movie one?  OK, he got his memory back in movie two…but what about the woman he went back to?  What happened to her?   She wasn’t strictly necessary to the plot….but how could you just write that K and O have unresolved romantic issues when it didn’t even come up in the first movie?

Plot-hole Number Three.  Big ol’ plot-hole, if you ask me. 

Don’t get me wrong: Men in Black 3 was incredibly entertaining, as well as gave you some really good insight into K’s motivations for recruiting J.  I liked that twist, and it worked well within the framework of the previous stories.  It’s just that they wrote themselves into some corners and didn’t do a very good job of getting themselves out.

Oh, well, I’m sure there will be a Men in Black 4 coming out soon.  Unless this is the one where I ran out of Tastykakes.

Crap. 

Origi-NOT-ity

There’s nothing original in the movie industry anymore. 

Seriously.

Remember a couple years ago, when the movie Thor came out?  (Of course you do.)  Thor, his brother Loki, and his father Odin were dreamed up not by Hollywood, but by drunken Vikings  several millenia ago.  All that stuff about the Bifrost connecting the worlds, yeah, that’s straight outta Norse mythology.  But it wasn’t just that!  When I first saw Thor, I had planned on writing a blog post/review entitled: “Thor: God of Plagiarism” because the damned thing was just so full of stuff from other movies.  (But I did not get around to it.  Moving on.)

Who are Thor’s best friends?  Yeah: Xena, warrior princess, Jackie Chan, Professor Lockhart, and Gimli, son of Gloin.  And Loki, who looks like Professor Snape’s younger brother.  Real original.

Turn to page 394....

So Thor goes on a power trip (of course) and picks a fight with a bunch of kilt-wearing Cardasians from Star Trek and a rancor from Star Wars.   Then Odin gets ticked off and banishes him to earth in a scene from Twister.  Natalie Portman makes an appearance, playing Jodie Foster’s character from Contact.  Toss in a few agents from Men in Black, and wrap it all up with a ro-beast from Voltron.  Bingo.  Blockbuster.  (Cheaters.)

Are ya with me so far?

Saw it again in John Carter.  Story itself wasn’t original, either – they ripped it off Edgar Rice Burroughs.   First scenes are straight out of Dances with Wolves. Or maybe Cowboys and Aliens.  Then we’re on Mars and the Navi from Avatar are back, only now they’re green and riding on naked ton-tons and dewbacks from Star Wars.  Speaking of Star Wars, did you notice all of the pod-racing scenes?  And then John Carter falls in love with the princess....and here we go again, Pocahontas.

Oh, and the Therns?   They’re just a bunch of Imhoteps, from The Mummy.

I saw The Avengers last weekend.  Now don’t get me wrong, I loved the movie, and laughed at all the funny parts, even the controversial “He’s adopted” line.  But there was way, way too much plagiarism in this one too.

We start off with Loki (who’s now looking like a cross between Snape and Gollum), who’s bartering with a bunch of necromongers from The Chronicles of Riddick.  Apparently, he intends to use the army to invade Earth, which he will then rule, and give the Tesseract (a glowing blue cube) to the leader of the army so he can rule the universe.  (Um, Loki?  See, if you’re going to rule the Earth, and somebody else is going to rule the universe, well, they’re going to be ruling you, too.  Just sayin’.)

My Precious.....

Anyway, Loki drops in on earth and using his Necromonger Pimp Cane (a la Lucius Malfoy), proceeds to cause quite a bit of mischief.   Then Iron Man shows up and instantly figures everything out (he must have been channeling Sherlock Holmes?) and hurries back to New York for some more Star Wars pod-racing scenes and a movie-ending finale reminiscent of Independence Day.

Hell, even Independence Day isn’t all that original – just like War of the Worlds, the invading aliens are defeated by a VIRUS.

So I’m basically thinking we’ve tapped out our creativity reservoir.  I shudder to think what this might mean for the next Riddick installment currently in production.  Now, I’m not in it – I am not involved in any aspect of it – so I obviously am not around to point out any instances of plagiarism to the Real Vin Diesel (and company).  Which could mean that we’re going to have another copy-cat movie schlepped upon us. 

I sure as hell hope not.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go have some shawarma.

We're NOT in Middle Earth Anymore

It's almost Labor Day weekend, and that means it's time for Dragon*Con!   I have heard that the real Vin Diesel occasionally attends Dragon*Con, incognito.   Well, this year I am attending Dragon*Con....incog-NOT-o.  Of course.  You wouldn't expect any less.

In case you are unfamiliar with Dragon*Con, it is the world's largest sci-fi/fantasy convention.  It is held in Atlanta, every Labor Day weekend.  And it is filled - and by that I mean not empty - with tens of thousands of Trekkies, Warsies, vampires, werewolves, cos-play-ers, and superheroes.   There are seminars, panels, parties, speakers, autographs, photo ops, marketing, and probably more Stormtroopers than you can shake a lightsaber at.   And this year, it will also have Not Vin Diesel.

So in honor of the upcoming week of general nerdery, I have a surprise for you: I have managed to secure an exclusive interview with Boromir, eldest son of the last ruling Steward of Gondor. 

NVD: Boromir, welcome.

B: What is this new devilry?

NVD: No devilry.  Just an interview with a brilliant blogger.

B: Still sharp.

NVD: Yes, I am still sharp.  Now, if you don't mind.  Boromir, I'm sure you're excited about the upcoming event.  Tell us about it.

B: One does not simply walk into Mordor....

NVD: I'm sure, but this is NOT Mordor.  It's Dragon*Con.

B: There is evil there that does not sleep.

NVD: Well, I suppose if you count the people dressed up as Darth Vader, the Emperor, Stormtroopers, and the occasional Borg, you might be right. 

B:  It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.

NVD: Um...it's in Atlanta, NOT Los Angeles.

B: Not with ten thousand men could you do this.

NVD: Considering that the convention's population hovers right around 40,000, I'm reasonably certain we could.

B: That is madness!

NVD: Riiiiiiight.   Well, thank you for your time, Boromir.  Now--

B: They have a cave troll.

NVD: *shoves Boromir out the door*

Well, I guess that did NOT go as expected.  My apologies.  But keep your eyes on this blog, September 1 - September 6.  You just might find some more exclusive access to Dragon*Con's most celebrated attendees.

Or not.