+1

Everything I said in this post last year remains true this year. Um, except you should add 1 to all of the numbers.

Have a good day.

DragonLance Movie

There's a movie in the works based on the DragonLance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight. It's an animated feature, starring, from what I've heard, Lucy Lawless and Kiether Sutherland. It'll be released in 2007.

You might note that Mr. Waters is not enthused. I'm interested, and then again I don't really care.

DragonLance Chronicles was a trilogy of novels that came out 1984 - 85. I think I read them for the first time around that point... Though don't hold me to that. It's been a while.

The story itself is standard Epic Fantasy stuff. We got our band of outsiders, we got our Dark Lord (in this case a evil Goddess), we got a lot of running around and a final confrontation between good and evil. It was based on the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, it was part of a major gameline release for TSR.

Back when I read it, I loved every page. But now that I've grown, that I've read other things, it all seems a bit shallow. Lacking.

Maybe it's not fair, comparing it to the works of Steven Donaldson, or Terry Brooks, or Tolkien, three of the best writers of Epic Fantasy. It's sure as hell not fair to comapre it to the Fantasy works of Charles Beaumont or Theodore Sturgeon or Steven Burst (where's our Vlad Taltos movie, Hollywood?).

And yet I do. I've read better stuff. And some of that stuff would be far neater to see in a film.

Whatever. I'm pulling for a good movie in any case. Something better than the last movies associated with Dungeons and Dragons.

"The King Kong Show - Volume One" - A Review

Young Bobby Bond has a very unusual friend: the 8^th Wonder of the World, King Kong. Together with the help of his father Professor Bond, his sister Susan, and crusty old Captain Englehorn, they lead a life of adventure on Mondo (Skull) Island.

This particular disc has episodes dealing with hunters from this world and beyond, underworld civilizations, disgruntled dinosaurs, and more. Also contained there in is our heroes first encounter with their chief enemy, the evil Doctor Who, as well as their first meeting and adventures.

In the list of great theme songs, the theme to The King Kong Show (TKKS) stands... well, “ten times as big as a man.” It lingers pleasantly in the mind, as good theme songs should. For the longest time it, as well as a few small moments, was all I remembered of this childhood favorite.

By the time TKKS finally came out on DVD, I had been well burned on a lot of the cartoons I loved as a kid. For every one series I could still enjoy, there were five or so I couldn't. My hopes were so low, I only bought one of the two DVD's available. I wasn't expecting much.

Which is probably why I ended up liking the thing as much as I did. My expectations were really, really low.

TKKS suffers the same problems as Battle of the Planet (BotP), namely it doesn't always make a lot of logical sense. For instance, in the story “The Spacemen” has a group of Alien Hunters threatening Kong, Bobby, and Captain Englehorn. The aliens state their demands and give our heroes to the count of three to comply. When Kong and co. fail to act according to their wishes, they demonstrate a terrible weapon, then give another three count.

Meanwhile, Bobby and Englehorn discuss their options as the aliens countdown. (For reasons unknown they assume the two are Kong's pets, never minding the fact that the aliens and the humans are all speaking the same language.) The first time through the captain is for running while Bobby wants to stand and fight. The second time, they reverse positions, with Bobby for flight and Englehorn for staying. Ridiculous padding.

Three things put TKKS over BotP. First off, TKKS hasn't been dumbed down for the kiddies like BtoP was. Granted, it's still talking down to a degree. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how serious some of the episodes were.

Secondly, there is a degree of wit in TKKS that BotP doesn't quite possess. The same episode has the aliens bragging as they flee in terror:

We are strong and powerful [Kong growls] and in a hurry!

Also, in the story “Doctor Who”, Susan Bond proves far more capable of dealing with the Doctor's (admittedly stupid) henchman than either her father or her brother, coming up with a means of distracting the man all on her own.* How often did the female characters prove so useful back then?

Finally, each story is short. A usual episode contains two Kong stories that run about seven minutes. Even the lamer stories (I'm looking at you, “Hunter”) zip right past.

All in all, not too too bad. I'm not sure I'd pick up the other discs. But, in fairness, I have on occasion thought about getting more BotP, and that suckers way more painful.

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End Notes

• Each episode of TKKS also has a Tom of T.H.U.M.B. Story, of equal length. I can't say much about them, as I've (re)watched only one story. Very dumb. Fortunately, the disc allows you to watch chose to watch individual stories, meaning you don't have to watch anything you don't want to watch.

• The pilot episode, “Friend in Need”, is a two parter, ending as Kong is being brought by the Bonds to the mainland. Apparently the second part is on disc 2. Bummer.

• I can't tell you how many times I tried to write Jimmy Bond instead of Bobby Bond...

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*Of course, the pilot episode, “A Friend in Need”, has her sweeping outside the tents, which strikes me as a touch... dim.

"Battle of the Planets" - A Partial Review

A group of young superheroes known as G Force protect the galaxy from the forces of Spectra. They are aided in this endevour by a monitor robot known as 7-Zark-7 and their own space ship, the Phoenix. Each episode deals with them battling a monsterous robot, a part of a robot, or a group of robots.

Early in my little rant on anime, I rattled off several titles that I watched as a kid. I thought I'd spend the next set of posts talking about each one in turn. Nothing major, just some thoughts I had on viewing these beloved friends as an adult.

Using alphabetical order, we start with Battle of the Planets (BotP), or, in its original form, Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (or simply Gatchaman). We do this to prevent Cullen from starting with Speed Racer and then just sort of mysteriously stopping. Because it hurts me to think about this one. Really, really bad.

I loved this show as a kid. I even had a coloring book. I remembered that the episode where Princess seems to have been killed seriously moved me. Of all of the titles we're going to talk about, this was probably the one I wanted to be good the most.

God is it awful. I suppose in a different frame of mind, I could MS3TK the show... But how to get to that frame of mind?

In fairness, I don't think the show is quite as bad as my non-anime childhood favorite, Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla. There are moments in that show that just don't make a lick of sense. You need to be five to seven years old, up too early, high on sugary cereal to really appreciate it. (A blind love of all things Godzilla wouldn't hurt, either.)

There are moments in BotP, though, that really, really hurt the brain. For instance, early in the episode “The Space Mummy”, R2-D2 clone 7-Zark-7 discovers a new planet he names Zarkadia. Not only is this planet inhabited, and thus is no doubt has its own name, but it is also apparently located... ah... located...

Um.

It's located behind Venus.

Left unexplained is just how “Zarkadia” could hide behind a planet. Or how a space fairing people could be so bloody ignorant of their own galaxy!

No sense. What so ever.

I have four episodes of BotP on DVD (which is why this is a partial and not a full review.) The particular collection I have also has the original version of the episodes, the aformentioned Gatchman. I watched them back to back, which only furthers the pain. Gatchaman is far superior. It has its flaws, don't get me wrong. But I'd watch it over BotP in a heartbeat.

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End Note

• An excellent site on all things Gatcha can be found here

What Do You Mean, There Are Better Things For Me To Post?

¡Soy Henery el octavo, yo soy!
¡Henery el octavo soy! ¡Soy!
Conseguí casado con la puerta siguiente de la viuda,
ella me caso siete veces antes.
Cada era un Henery
que ella no tendría un Willie o un Sam
soy su octavo viejo hombre nombrado Henery
Henery es el octavo yo.

¡Segundo verso, igual que el primer!

Ich bin Henery das achte, ich bin!
Henery das achte bin ich! Ich bin!
Ich heiriet zur Witwe folgenden Tür,
sie werde verbunden siebenmal vorher.
Jedes war ein Henery,
das sie nicht ein Willie haben würde, oder eine Sam
bin ich ihr achter alter Mann, der Henery
Henery genannt wird der achte ich sind.

Ich liebe Babel Fische ein großes... I mean, I love Babel Fish a great deal. Allows a bit of the weird in my life. Most of this probably makes no sense to anyone fluent in Spanish or German, but, really, that just makes it funnier for me.

Notation of a Name - Dominus and Bayley

The name is Barrington J. Bayley. He wrote a short story for a comic book called Dominus years and years ago. The story, as I recall it, deals with a space exploration team dealing with a strange planet and its all-powerful ruler, Dominus. Sort of Lovecrafty in concept if not execution. A panel from that comic can be found here. It's towards the bottom of the page.

A Word About a Forthcoming Release

The all too happy man above is the super villain Kraven the Hunter. For years he's been sort of a joke, seldom a threat, to the amazing Spider-man. But that's all changed. He's done the one thing no other villain has done.

He's killed Spider-man.

Nineteen years ago, Marvel Comics present what has to be one of the greatest Spider-man stories ever written. It's called “Fearful Symmetry: Kraven's Last Hunt”. This August it's being re-released in a hard cover, high quality format.

It's been many a moon since I've read the thing, but this is one comic I don't think I can pass up on...

More information on this can be found over at Newsarama.com