MULAN (1998)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

Along with the 1999 TARZAN, MULAN was among the last box-office successes of the Disney Renaissance, after which the fortunes of the animation division began taking a downward turn. Though it's not one of the classics, MULAN shows more of the great Disney combinations of humor and pathos than any of the company's animated productions of the 21st century.

Although by 1998 it was standard practice for the Disney heroine to sing an "I want" song near the outset, "Reflections" seems more amorphous than others. Mulan is uncomfortable as she fails to fulfill his feminine destiny by simply making a good marriage for her family's sake. but she's not rebelling against the restrictive, honor-bound culture of dynastic China. (Disney's writers surely knew that China itself was a promising market even in 1998, so they didn't want to suggest a critique of Chinese culture.) Mulan simply wants to find her true self, whatever it is, little suspecting that her identity is going to be revealed through another imposture.

 An invasion of the Huns ("Mongol" being politically incorrect) proves bad luck for China but indirect good luck for Mulan. To keep her infirm father from being conscripted for anti-Hun repulsion, Mulan dresses up as a young man and joins the army. In this endeavor she's joined by a miniature ancestral dragon named Mushu (Eddie Murphy) and an intelligent cricket whose only purpose is to give Mushu a second character (besides Mulan) on whom to run lines. Despite having almost no powers beyond an ability to annoy, Mushu is functionally modeled on the Genie from ALADDIN, allowing him to indulge in assorted anachronistic jokes.

                  

Once she's ensconced at boot camp for new recruits, Mulan, using the name "Ping," meets her other support-characters: the handsome young commander Shang and three funny stooges: Ling, Yao and Chien Po. Initially Mulan gets on the wrong side of Ling and Yao, introducing her to the rough-and-tumble testosterone world. But it's Shang, the demanding drill sergeant, who provides the heroine with a criterion for identity: that "once you find your center, you are sure to win." Mulan's many fumbles almost get her dishonorably discharged, which would have solved the problem of how to keep her father and herself out of the army. But now Mulan wants to succeed, to excel among men even if she can't really "be a man," and she does so by performing a feat no one else in the unit could. As if by osmosis, Mulan finding her center causes everyone else in the troop to do the same.

But to its credit MULAN is much more than a service comedy, though the script plays up more hilarity on the troop's way to its first sortie. The soldiers have stoked their spirits by singing about their amorous intentions-- except for an embarrassed "Ping"-- only to be cut off when they sight a village burned out by the Huns. No dead bodies are seen, and only indirect evidence suggests that Shang's general father perished in the conflict. A little later, a horde of Huns charge the unit. Mulan unleashes an avalanche that kills most of them (bloodlessly), but the sequence captures much of chaos of warfare. And then Mulan's secret is exposed, to the mortification of those who've come to respect "Ping" for his courage and resourcefulness.

But to redeem Mulan for the crime of being a woman out of her place, the writers have to make Shan Yu do a Freddy Kruger and imperil the Emperor of China himself. The big finish includes a few strong moments, as when the Three Chinese Stooges are forced to dress up as women, but the last section is the weakest part of the movie. Still, MULAN manages to put across the ideal of a heroine who achieves masculine goals but who is not, unlike the later girlbosses, some ideological mixture of femininity and masculinity. The romance here is subplot rather than plot, and though Shang and Mulan will come together, Mulan finding her center is the thing that makes her movie a winner.

    

X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, VOLUME FOUR (1995-96)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

One odd note about Volume 4 is that although it doesn't contain all the episodes attributed to "Season 4," at least this time every episode on the discs came FROM Season 4. That said, a few had already appeared on the Volume Three collection, and there's at least one Season 4 tale that I assume will show up on Volume Five.

That said, the selections for Four are the same mixed bag seen in earlier volumes. "Proteus" is, despite cast-changes, one of the show's closest emulations of a Claremont-Byrne story, and it even succeeds in putting across some of that tale's horrific tonality.  One, "Sanctuary," was based on a story I'd not read, but it was tolerable, while "Lotus and Steel" is a complete reworking of the history of Wolverine's occasional opponent Silver Samurai, with mediocre results.

 An event of sorts takes place in that Cyclops and Marvel Girl are finally married, with less folderol than in the comics. That said, the wedding gets lost in yet another of the time-wasting time-travel stories to which the showrunners seemed addicted. Cable, Bishop, Apocalypse and Mister Sinister get four episodes devoted to a forgettable outing. The storyline was intended to conclude the series, but if nothing else, the fifth season deprived this mediocrity of that distinction.  

Strangely, the showrunners devote just one episode to disclosing Magneto's paternity of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. While I don't fault the adaptors for not translating the many continuity-nuggets from "The Yesterday Quest," at this point the show had only briefly introduced Quicksilver in one episode, as a member of an off-brand version of X-Factor. Then suddenly everyone in the story knows both Quicksilver and his sister Scarlet Witch, and Wolverine provides the X-hero connection while the two siblings encounter both Daddy Magneto and a fanatical version of the High Evolutionary. Niggles aside, it's still a better story than most of those on Volume Four.       

PIRATES OF DARK WATER (1991-93)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Since I've always liked both pirate films and high fantasy, the combination of the two in Hanna-Barbera's PIRATES OF DARK WATER excited my admiration back in the day. At the time I knew that PIRATES was very different in tone from the 1980s product of H-B. With the exception of the Scooby Doo franchise, most of H-B's offerings seemed starved for fresh ideas. I didn't know that a producer named David Kirchner had assumed CEO duties for the company, taking over from William Hanna. Kirchner's reign only lasted from 1989 to 1992, when Fred Siebert took over as CEO. Overall Siebert seems to have done better helming the company in its final years (1992-96) of making serial cartoon shows for television. But even if one views PIRATES as the sole accomplishment of Kirschner's brief reign, it was ineluctably that breath of fresh air many viewers wanted, to judge from the persistence of nostalgic fandom for the series.

Some of that nostalgia, though, stems from the fact that Kirchner treated PIRATES like any other open-ended show. Thus, despite introducing the series with a world-threatening peril, the story ended without even a partial resolution. PIRATES takes place in a fantasy-domain with no connection to Earth: the world of Mer, wherein all land-masses are island-sized, not unlike LeGun's Earthsea novels. Mer lies under the existential threat of "Dark Water," a mysterious, poisonous sludge that infests the seawaters and that boils up from the earth's center. Later, main hero Ren learns that a malefic force lies behind Dark Water, but when the viewer meets the 17-year-old, he doesn't even know that he's a child of high estate, son of King Primus of the decayed kingdom Octopon. Ren also learns that for most of his young life, Primus has been the prisoner of the pirate-lord Bloth. The loose implication is that Ren was raised as a commoner because Bloth killed all of Primus' other relations. Primus escapes, finds Ren, tells him that Mer's peril can only be averted if Ren gathers "the Thirteen Treasures of Rule," and then suffers an ambiguous fate, maybe or maybe not dead.

Ren does have one bequest from his father: a compass that will guide Ren to each of the treasures in turn. Because Bloth also covets the treasure, Ren needs a ship with which to sail Mer's seas, and a crew as well. He gets them all in short order: Ioz, an older male pirate hungry for treasure, Tula, an athletic woman with mystic "ecomancer" skills, and Niddler, a comical "monkey-bird." All three initially have selfish reasons for following Ren, though it doesn't take long for them to be swayed by Ren's altruism, not to mention  their need to escape Bloth's relentless pursuit. 

The design-work for PIRATES-- costumes, vehicles, flora and fauna -- is as good as most animated fantasy-films, and the voice-work is excellent. But as is usually the case with TV serials, the continuing characters evolve certain "tics" that become their reasons for being. Niddler complains about not having enough to eat, chauvinist Ioz makes some rude comment about women at sea, Tula snaps at him, and Ren tells them all to stifle themselves.

Similarly, the "guest stars" aren't much better, and so only a few episodes stand out in terms of characterization. In "A Drop of Darkness," the crew encounters an elderly sorceress named Cray. Ren is surprised to learn that Cray may have had some relationship to his father Primus, though Primus rejected Cray for Ren's mother. Cray wants to relive her life, using Dark Water to restore her youth and trying to romance the naive prince. And in "Sister of the Sword," the heroes meet Ioz's kid sister Solia, who's as larcenous as her brother and who incites Tula's jealousy when Solia outrageously flirts with Ren. 

Yet too often the motives of the guest stars don't bear close scrutiny. The last episode, "The Living Treasure," presents Tula becoming wroth with Ioz's chauvinism. By the wildest coincidence, the treasure-hunt drops the hero-pirates in the laps of a tribe of man-hating Amazons, who enslave Ioz and Ren but invite Tula to join their ranks. Though it's not a horrible story, it's very predictable. At the conclusion, the good guys find a treasure that suggests a way that the Dark Water may be nullified. But then the series ended, so that only devoted fans could complete the abbreviated epic via fan-fiction.

               

           

VIRTUAL COMBAT (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Hyde Park Entertainment came close to PM in terms of churning out reams of STV products for cable and video rental stores. PM tended to concentrate on action movies, while Hyde emphasized softcore thrillers like the NIGHT EYES series. That said, the redoubtable Don Wilson made three flicks for Hyde Park. I've found a number of Wilson programmers to be passable formula entertainment. But though I've not seen them all, VIRTUAL COMBAT may be the worst thing Wilson ever did, though the fault surely lies with the guys behind the camera.

COMBAT takes place in the near future, and like most such action-fare, it's really just the modern world with one or two SF-tropes added. VR technology has become the big thing in future-Las Vegas, so much so that local cops like David Quarry (Wilson) and his partner John spend most of their time hanging out in VR parlors-- though John avails himself of VR sexcapades, while David hones his martial skills by battling VR opponents. One opponent is Dante (Michael Bernardo), and he kicks real boy David's ass in their first bout. Unfortunately, a world-beater named Burroughs (first and middle names "John Carter," hah hah) has his scientists invent a way of bringing VR programs into the real world-- sort of the 3-D printing of the 1990s. Burroughs' main purpose seems to be to corner a new market on VR prostitutes, both creating regular good-lookers like Liana (Athena Massey) and "specialty types" like whip-wielding dominatrix Greta (Dawn Ann Billings). But the same tech that births cyber-babes also unleashes cyber-villain Dante, and one of his first actions is to kill David's partner.

Avenging his partner then becomes David's only motive in life for the rest of the film, though he finds a little time for a nothing sex scene with Liana. But director Andrew Stevens's idea of a plot is that of providing minimal connective tissue between a bunch of mediocre fight-scenes. Even Liana and Greta get to throw down a little. But only the climactic combat between David and Dante shows decent choreography, which may stem from the two actors working to their strengths. But Dante's never very threatening, not least because he doesn't utter his own lines, but strides around close-mouthed while his dialogue is uttered by the booming voice of Michael Drn.

Eventually all the rogue programs are destroyed, even "good VR" Liana, though David can still visit an iteration of Liana. Where? Why, in the VR sex parlors! And so COMBAT ends by coming "full circle"-- or is that "full-circle jerk?"                 

NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

No one would accuse Ed Wood's NIGHT OF THE GHOULS of being a "wandering minstrel" a la Gilbert and Sullivan, but the movie certainly is a "thing of shreds and patches." GHOULS, in addition to being a rough sequel to BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, borrows footage from three other Wood projects: HELLBORN, of which the director shot about fifteen minutes in 1952, and two 1957 pilots for an unsold TV horror-anthology. For decades all three were lost, but in more recent years Wood-ologists have managed to unearth both the HELLBORN footage and one of the two pilots, FINAL CURTAIN. Perhaps ironically, though, it's the other, still-lost pilot, THE NIGHT THE BANSHEE CRIED, that seems to have had the greatest influence on how Wood cobbled together his disparate materials. This site was good enough to provide a summary of the BANSHEE story as Wood presented it in prose:

A beautiful young woman is aware that she is dead but does not seem to understand why she has been summoned back to the swamp behind her father's now-decaying home. She can hear the anguished screaming of the banshee who has traditionally haunted the property. The woman scans her memory in search of clues as to why she was dragged from her peaceful grave. Suddenly, the reason becomes clear: she is to replace the banshee.

Both of the TV pilots were about characters having inevitable encounters with death, and though in 1957 Wood was only a little over thirty years old, he seems to have nurtured something of a death-fetish in some of his major works. In GHOULS what was only a mysterioso encounter between a young woman (Valda Hansen) and a banshee (Jeannie Stevens) becomes interpolated with a wider story, also about inevitable death. Hansen has new scenes in GHOULS, though I believe all of Stevens' appearances may stem either from BANSHEE or FINAL CURTAIN. (Famed cross-dresser Wood is said to have played Stevens' role-- a woman in a heavy black veil and robe-- for a few quick scenes in GHOULS.)  

 

This time out, Hansen plays Sheila, the accomplice of a phony spiritualist named Karl (Kenne Duncan), though to his customers he bills himself as "Dr Acula"-- and even had the part been essayed by Bela Lugosi, most 1950s audiences would have groaned at such a corny pun. Still, had Lugosi lived long enough to play "Dr Acula," he would have found himself on "familiar ground." At the movie's opening, fake medium Karl has moved into Willows Lake House, the location where Lugosi played the manor's original owner, mad scientist Eric Vornoff, who dies at the conclusion of BRIDE. Karl, though, has fixed up Vornoff's old house to draw in superstitious customers, and in addition he has Sheila drift around the grounds in a white dress, pretending to be "The White Ghost." Karl has a couple of other helpers, but they barely rate a mention next to his mute mountain of muscle Lobo, who survived the devastation of Vornoff's lab but has become Karl's enforcer.

Unfortunately for the mendacious mystic, some citizens catch sight of the White Ghost and ask the cops to check things out. Admittedly, the constables might have done so anyway, because the Black Ghost (and former Banshee) has also been meandering the area, and has killed at least two people. In any event, two cops are assigned to suss out Willows Lake House. One is Officer Kelton (Paul Marco), a veteran of both BRIDE and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The other is new character Lt Bradford (Duke Moore), who spends the entire film clad in a tuxedo. Why? Because Wood wanted to recycle one FINAL CURTAIN scene, in which Moore's tuxedo'ed character, "The Actor," encounters Stevens' (blonde) character, "The Vampire." In my review of CURTAIN, I asserted that "The Vampire" was *probably* supposed to be a creation of The Actor's imagination. But here, the Black Ghost-- both in her black-veiled and blonde incarnations-- is a real spirit, one of several accidentally summoned to the lake house. Karl knows himself but slenderly, for it turns out his medium skills are real.

To be fair to Wood, he does set up the incursion of these spirits at the film's beginning. In a monologue that seems to be a framing-device, celebrity psychic Criswell (also of PLAN 9) talks of "The Threshold People" and describes them as "monsters to be pitied-- monsters to be despised" (a line recycled from FINAL CURTAIN). However, Criswell and a half-dozen other male ghosts show up to bring Karl to his doom, that of being suffocated in a coffin. (This mirrors both the dramatic conclusion of CURTAIN and the comical ending of the Wood-scripted NECROMANIA.) Meanwhile, the Black Ghost gets the White Ghost, Lobo dies of gunshot wounds, and the cops try to figure out what happened. 

Incidentally, the three-four minutes of HELLBORN footage appear during Criswell's opening monologue. The most interesting nugget is a scene in which some young toughs beat up and rob a man while Mona (PLAN 9) McKinnon looks on coldly. I wondered if the scenario might have involved the young woman luring the older man to a location where he could be mugged. GHOULS is definitely more fully in the "so bad it's good" category than BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, with GHOULS' ridiculous excuse for a seance and a flat performance from Kenne Duncan as Karl.  There's also an odd and unresolved subplot in which one of Karl's customers is a young swindler who's been making up to a wealthy old woman, and who has apparently directed Karl to get a "seal of approval" as to his intentions. All demerits considered though, Wood does put across some genuine fear of death that's not fully diminished by his loopy dialogue.

                      

                    

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST (2006)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I'm sure Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer saved a ton of money by shooting this movie and its sequel back-to-back, and since audiences loved Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, both films made bank at the box office. But director Gore Verbinski and his team sure sacrificed the simple, elemental appeal of two good-hearted but conventional lovers who have their world turned upside down by a roguish pirate with a heart of fool's gold.

It's a year later since the events of the first film, and Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann (Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley) are due to be married soon. However, a Navy official named Beckett shows up at Port Royal, ordering the arrests of the two lovers for having aided the escape of wanted pirate Jack Sparrow (Depp). Beckett's also looking for former Naval officer Norrington, but this is merely a plot-device just to let the audience know that the character will show up later in the story. Beckett has zero need for Norrington, because his real plot is to use Elizabeth's captivity to blackmail Will into finding Jack Sparrow.

After the first hour, it becomes clear that the poor excuse for a plot is just a series of "go find something" tasks. The crude assemblages of goals put me in mind of the old kids' song "The Old Lady Who Swallowed the Fly:"

Will follows Jack Sparrow to find Jack's compass,

And they use the compass to find a key,

And the key they use to open Dead Man's Chest, 

And in the chest they find a heart

From another chest, that of Davy Jones,

And with that heart they can win their desires--

I understand that most pirate adventures owe a debt to TREASURE ISLAND, but all these different doodads become tedious, particularly since they're just there to pad the film's running-time. The supernatural being Davy Jones (Bill Nighy with an octopus-face), a former human transformed into a keeper of dead souls (and the captain of the Flying Dutchman), holds control of the seven seas. Anyone who can gain custody of Davy Jones' heart will also control the oceans-- which is Beckett's endgame.

After about an hours' worth of pointless stunts, Will does find Jack and reunites the querulous captain with his crew and his ship-- as well as new crewman Norrington, who nurses old grudges against both Will and Jack. While they head off to find the Flying Dutchman-- which is crewed by a bunch of fish-men-- Elizabeth wins free of prison and goes looking for Will.

The makeshift mythology here includes not only Davy Jones, but also a goddess called Calypso and a giant Kraken. I recall that these matters get a little more exposition in the third film, but I imagine the audience just rolled with it all while waiting for Johnny Depp to show up and be funny. Will has a subplot in which he meets his long-lost father, now a member of the Dutchman crew, and Elizabeth once more appears to be slightly tempted by Jack's chaotic charms. Elizabeth gets to swordfight this time, as well as handily tricking tricky Jack, while the best stunt in the film is a three-way blade-battle between Jack, Will, and Norrington. But there were also a lot more boring scenes that one should expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer production.

          

THE FOX WITH A VELVET TAIL (1971)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

The "fox" in the title means nothing as such, it's probably just a marketing tactic to make consumers associate the movie with other "animal-named" giallos. However, there's nothing Argento-esque about this movie by Spanish director/co-writer Jose Maria Forque. If anything, FOX has more in common with a suspense-giallo like 1969's PARANOIA in being focused on a mundane murder-plot. 

The alternate title IN THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE applies better to the situation of wealthy lady Ruth (Analia Gade), in that for almost half the movie she seems to be peacefully ensconced on her estate, immune to any forces of chaos that might be swirling about her. At the film's outset she tells her husband Michel (Tony Kendall) to move out, because she has a new lover, Paul (Jean Sorel). Michel is downcast but not overly upset, so he leaves, expressing the hope that Ruth will change her mind. But for over half an hour, Ruth and Paul live things up in the lap of luxury. Sure, a little chaos intrudes when the brakes on Ruth's car fail, but hey, that could happen to anyone, right? And that gorgeous redhead Daniela (Rosanna Yanni) who moves in next door-- just part of the cheery scenery, right?

No detective-work is required for Ruth to suss out the destructive forces in her life: she simply lucks onto three conspirators openly discussing their plans to murder her. But with no proof of the murder-plot, Ruth must find some way to cause the destructive forces in her life to rebound on her enemies. At one point, she appears to be under the thumbs of two of her oppressors, but Ruth may have one more card to play.

FOX is beautifully photographed and both Gade and Yanni are glamorous, but there's just not enough characterization to make any of the principals seem like more than bare functions of the plot. While in many films like this the predators are eminent, this time it's the potential victim who holds the narrative together. FOX is watchable but strictly non-demanding.     

        

STAR TREK: PICARD (SEASON ONE, 2020)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

SUPER HEAVY SPOILERS

Before venturing into this review, I wrote this essay to demonstrate that any nostalgic appeal for the STTNG series the producers hoped to evoke with PICARD was all but absent in me. In part I wrote:  

In the 1980s, as Roddenberry saw the franchise he'd created taken over by other hands, TNG gave him his last chance to infuse a teleseries with his guiding ethos. Yet this time he didn't want a series that stressed heroic action and character conflict. As many TNG critics have observed, Roddenberry wanted characters who had advanced beyond personal interest, not least with regard to that old devil sensuality. As the characters lacked personality in those early years, the players couldn't do much except to pontificate-- though always with the most earnest attitudes possible. For me, as a viewer not much impressed with TNG's early years, the culmination of this tendency appeared most egregiously in the first-season episode "Skin of Evil," which I call "The One Where Picard Has Righteous Conversations with an Oil Slick." 

What little online criticism I'd seen of PICARD had been negative, and I had little reason to extend the show any benefit of the doubt, given that PICARD's producer Alex Kurtzman also had his fingers in the Trek TV shows DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS and in two of the last three TREK theatrical movies. All of these I deemed garbage whose only merit was to make even the weaker TREK entries of the Rick Berman years look like genius. So when I liked PICARD, I can only posit that the crucial difference for me was Season One's showrunner was novelist Michael Chabon. For me, Season One's ten episodes bring out the Liberal political themes of TNG better than any ten episodes of the original series-- though of course PICARD has the advantage of presenting a unified narrative.

It's quite possible that some reviewers didn't like Chabon's labyrinthine storyline, and I must admit that I don't think it fully tracks, though that doesn't invalidate other qualities. Chabon drew strongly upon two TREK narratives I've not revisited since their theatrical debuts-- NEMESIS (2002), the last movie to spotlight the TNG cast, and the 2009 STAR TREK, which did not involve the TNG mythos but which Chabon seems to have retconned into said continuity, at least with respect to one event. Since I think Chabon's reworking of the TNG mythos was key to my enjoyment of the season, in this review I'm going to focus less on the story's dramatic twists and turns than on the phases of the Chabon timeline-- hence, SPOILERS.

PHASE 1-- In the distant past, a mighty civilization is destroyed by their populace of androids, usually called "synthetics." Though the organics die, they exile the synthetics to another dimension, and leave behind a recording, known as "The Admonition," to warn other sentients of the consequences of empowering synthetics.

PHASE 2-- At some later millennium, the Romulans discover the Admonition. A secret society, the Zhat Vash, dedicates itself to the prevention of another synthetic uprising.

PHASE 3-- The events of TREK NEMESIS transpire, culminating in the death of the synthetic Federation officer Data. As I recall, in that time-frame synthetics are not prevalent.

PHASE 4-- The events of TREK '09 transpire, though the only event referenced in PICARD is the destruction of Romulus, the Romulan homeworld. Chabon asserts that this event takes place in TNG time, and that Admiral Picard leads a humanitarian effort to rescue the imperiled denizens. However. not all Federation officials approve of succoring the Federation's rivals, and for that reason, the Zhat Vash takes an action that some might deem counter-intuitive. Apparently synthetics are being used in greater numbers at the time, so Romulan operatives somehow mess with a large number of synthetics on Mars. The synthetics revolt, which somehow impairs the Romulan rescue effort. Reactionary elements in the Federation use the revolt as an excuse to both shut down the rescue effort and to legislate against the further creation of synthetics. Picard opposes both measures and seeks to reignite the rescue effort by threatening to resign-- only to have his resignation accepted. Picard does succeed in rescuing a large number of Romulans and relocating them on the planet Vashti, but then the former Admiral goes into seclusion.

PHASE 5-- Unbeknownst to Picard, Data, prior to his death, created at least two twin female androids, Dahj and Soji, with the help of human scientist Maddox. Both are separately raised by human families without their even knowing they're synthetics, probably to keep them from being destroyed under the new laws. Maddox, wanting to continue his synthetic research, emigrates to another planet with some like-minded associates and populates that world with an android population. (It's a fine touch that the world is named Coppelius, after the robot-making mad scientist of Hoffmann's story "The Sandman.") The Zhat Vash wants to annihilate all the synthetics, but they don't know where Coppelius is. But they are able to locate Dahj and Soji. For some reason, agents Narissa and Narek track Soji to her workplace-- an abandoned Borg cube-- and seek to tap her memories to learn the location of the homeworld that Soji has buried in her subconscious memories. Other agents of Zhat Vash seek to abduct Dahj for similar treatment, but her cyber-skills activate and she kills them. Other memories surface, leading Dahj to seek out Picard-- who then has to learn all of this continuity in reverse order.

Though many details of the scenario are weak, they serve quite well to advance the political ethos of the story, which coheres admirably with a running trope from TNG: "androids are people too." PICARD is almost lyrical in its efforts to champion synthetics as not just an underclass in need of rescuing, but as a species of "children" that deserve the kindness and amity of all sentients. And while the Romulans are "the bad guys" for choosing to make synthetics into scapegoats, they are not, as in many TNG episodes, totally wrong. Toward the latter half of the season, the inhabitants of Coppelius are aghast to learn that a Romulan fleet seeks to destroy their world. Picard and his new crew cannot save them, but the synthetics can reach out to the extradimensional androids to save them. Picard is naturally just as much opposed to a Holocaust of organics as of synthetics, and he manages to sway the Coppelians to renounce the alien synthetics (who are seen briefly as some sort of tentacled Cthuluoids).

Speaking of the support cast, PICARD includes two characters from TNG, Troi and Ryker, and one from VOYAGER, Seven of Nine, but they play only small, though resonant, parts. Picard engages a new motley crew to aid him in his investigation, and while none of them are compelling, they all serve their purposes well enough. The only crewmember that shows potential is the Romulan youth Elnor, who views Picard as the father he never had but resents the admiral for having absented himself. The two villains Narissa and Narek are much better than most TNG foes, though. Narek inserts himself romantically into Soji's life to probe her memories, and his sister Narissa is visibly jealous of the hookup, threatening Narek to make sure he sticks to the mission. Narissa gets a solid demise in a battle with Seven of Nine-- one of several well-choreographed fight-scenes in this season-- but Narek's fate, that of being apprehended by Federation forces, was left on the cutting room floor.

But inevitably the show wouldn't work if Patrick Stewart didn't bring his A-game. I reject critics who said Picard is just "carried along" by events, for he's clearly the moral linchpin of Season One. Stewart's Picard is just as intermittently righteous and self-deprecating as he ever was in TNG, but here he's dealing with an issue far more substantive than most of those seen in the old show. (And I say that as a person that doesn't automatically validate the many Liberal permutations of the save-the-marginalized trope.) PICARD is a rare example of a sequel that improves on the original-- though I see that Michael Chabon may not contributed as much to ensuing seasons as to this one.        

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

This is an average but still tolerable adaptation of the classic Doyle tale. As I just finished rereading the source material today, I find myself excusing a lot of odd changes just because it was a TV-movie with limited time and money.   

I rather liked the straightforward Holmes of Stewart Granger, while the Watson of Bernard Fox (best known as the character "Doctor Bombay" on BEWITCHED) was efficient enough. Watson's long sojourn at Baskerville Hall is cut for time, which makes sense. Yet the writer also tries to work in Holmes' masquerade as a moor-hermit, which only makes sense if Holmes is absenting himself from the hall so that he can study all suspects at his leisure.

Unlike the 1939 version, this HOUND keeps the idea that the villain Stapleton (William Shatner) has his wife masquerade as his sister to hoax his prospective victim (and cousin), as well as having used another female pawn to bring about the death of the earlier target. On the other hand, the writer troubled to build up Doctor Mortimer as a red herring, which Doyle never does. This proved an enjoyable development because it gave Anthony Zerbe better lines than the literary character got.

In my review I asserted that the thing separating Doyle's novel from most film adaptations was that Doyle made the Hound-mystery a meditation on the human tendency to regress to the primitive and egoistic. The 1972 HOUND is no different, but its depiction of the killer hound is more bracing than I've seen in two of the more expensive productions. This is particularly true because the beast turns on its master, which is in some ways more visually satisfying than Doyle's conclusion. And this may be the only HOUND where, after the dog's dead, the heroes still hear a distant, mysterious howl.     

       

X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, VOLUME THREE (1994-95)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

At this point it's hardly worth reiterating that Volume Three offers a sampling from both Seasons 3 and 4, for reasons that are not evident. My only general feeling is that some stories show a bit more originality, as opposed to adapting established tales with some cosmetic changes.

SAVAGE LAND, STRANGE HEART, for example, builds on the X-Men's last visit to the Savage Land, but mostly drops Magneto's mutates in favor of pagan priestess Zaladane, who conspires with the X-foe Sauron to revive a god (probably also a mutant). This narrative only slightly resembles the X's first encounter with Zaladane. Ka-Zar and Shanna guest star but Shanna gets no lines.   

Four episodes are devoted to the second half of the Phoenix Saga. Again, the Phoenix Force is changed into a more sentient entity, rather than a discarnate force that unleashes the "id" of Jean Grey. Thus Jean doesn't seem compromised when the Hellfire Club corrupts Phoenix, and when Phoenix goes berserk and destroys the sun of an alien system, no living beings are harmed, in contrast to the original story. The denouement allows Jean to live but she's phased out of the rest of these episodes.

I frankly don't remember how, in the comics, Cyclops finds out that Corsair's his long lost father, but this version is probably as good as any other.    

Less well-realized was an episode devoted to charter X-hero Iceman. It starts out well, showing the frosty crusader as having broken away from the X's because he wanted a normal life. But then there's a confused plot about Iceman breaking into a military base to save his girlfriend Lorna-- only to learn she doesn't need saving, because-- she's now part of a new group of motley Marvel mutant-heroes? Why bring back Iceman just to recapitulate a big melodramatic breakup with his GF? Maybe the writers liked Nightcrawler better, since he certainly gets a better solo outing.

Finally, from what I can tell, an episode called "One Man's Worth" seems to be an original attempt to do another dystopian "Days of Future Past" tale, but with an ongoing romance between the future versions of Storm and Wolverine. Nothing in the volume knocked my socks off, but I was sometimes diverted.             

ACES GO PLACES 2 (1983)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

The second ACES movie is more of the same freestyle farce, but with fewer memorable jokes. The producers probably rushed TWO into production to keep the audience interested. 

Unlike the first film, where the only metaphenomenon appeared near movie's end, TWO begins with supposedly reformed burglar Kong (Sam Hui) breaking into a building. He meets, and fights with, a big robot guardian that looks like a Japanese tokasatsu creation. Later, for no reason related, the same robot turns up to fight a bunch of little robots, using ray-beams from its eyes. I think the robots tie into some more amorphous "plot" about a Hong Kong space program, since other jumbled astronaut-stuff appears elsewhere.

Two other very loose plotlines take up more space. Kong is being pursued by the pawns of a hitman called "Black Gloves." He's supposedly the brother of the first film's villain, though the guy's barely seen after his first appearance, played by Joe Dimmick and made to look like Clint Eastwood. Kong is also framed for bank robbery by a cute girl-- not sure what her thing was-- and so he runs for help to his two best friends, Albert and Nancy (Karl Maka, Sylvia Chang). However, Plot One engenders Plot Two, in that Albert and Nancy are trying to be bonded in wedded bliss.

The matrimonial jokes are definitely better than all the forgettable cops-and-robbers hijinks, and there are some decent fights from Hui and Chang, though still too much vehicular chaos. The bloom is off this secondhand rose.

         

KISS THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM DIE (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I'm using my label "eurosploitation" for this Italian-American production because KISS feels a big-budgeted version of one of Italy's cheapie eurospy flicks-- not least because it shows what I've found to be those films' worst feature: crappy villains. Conversely, despite KISS having a storyline that ought to make maximum use of beautiful actresses, I've seen a number of cheap spyflicks that did a better job with their presentations of pulchritude.

The middle sixties displayed the apogee of the superspy movie. KISS was preceded in 1966 by both OUR MAN FLINT and the first of the Matt Helm movies and followed in 1967 by the "Bond-comedy" CASINO ROYALE, which used a "world-peril" very similar to that of KISS, but did it better. By the early seventies the more naturalistic spy-films became prevalent and the superspy subgenre didn't rally until the early 2000s. KISS probably did the subgenre neither lasting harm nor any good.

The story was mostly filmed in Rio de Janiero, where much of the action takes place. The famous Rio statue of Christ the Redeemer provides journeyman director Henry Levin with what might be his only "Hitchcock moment," as American agent Kelly (Mike Connors) fights off an attacker beneath the statue's shadow. Allegedly Kelly came to Rio investigating a white slavery ring, but this mundane rationale is dropped. Somehow Kelly gets on the track of eccentric Brazilian businessman Ardonian (Raf Vallone), who's seen hanging out with a gorgeous jet-setter type, Susan Fleming (Dorothy Provine). Kelly questions Susan and learns that she's a British agent who's also investigating the disappearance of nubile young women. In contrast to most Bond knockoffs, the hero's leading lady shares the spotlight here, even though Susan tends to fight with assorted gadgets (like a ring with a drugged needle) while Kelly uses basic fisticuffs.

Ardonian may be the most under-characterized "bad spy" from this period. The viewer soon learns that he's conspired with Red Chinese agents to engineer a radiation-weapon that can sterilize all of the United States, thus putting China in the catbird seat as a world power. The Dino Maiuri script gives Ardonian no particular motive, ideological or pecuniary, for collaborating with Red China or for building a rocket-silo in Africa, in order to launch a radiation-satellite into orbit. But Maiuri's reticence stems from a "Big Reveal:" Ardonian actually plans to neuter every other man on Earth, aside from himself and maybe a few aides. But the script presents this revelation with zero insight into the villain's psychology, in marked contrast to the better-conceived motives of Woody Allen's evildoer in CASINO ROYALE. All that said, the Reveal does provide KISS with its only mythic moment: a scene in the facility showing that all the kidnapped women have been placed in frozen blocks of ice, moving on a conveyor belt like so many delicacies at the villain's command.

There are a few decent moments of action and comedy in KISS, but they're drowned in lots of dull, pokey scenes, suggesting that often Levin was just marking time. There's also a senseless incident wherein Kelly enters a beauty's room, saves her from a deadly scorpion, and then-- tells her to leave her own room? Half a dozen lovely actresses appear in KISS, but the only ones who have half-decent roles are Provine and Marilu Tolo, the latter playing one of the villain's Chinese contacts.                        

  

KONG: THE ANIMATED SERIES (2001/2005-06)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological. metaphysical*

As a metaphenomenalist, I don't mind it when a show asks me to believe twelve impossible things, whether before breakfast or any other time. But even in a cartoon series aimed at kids, I could wish those impossible things added up to something more than ordinary.

It's curious that the writers even bothered to connect their KONG to the primal 1933 masterpiece, which related the complex but straightforward fable of an island where prehistoric life survived, and where a primitive Black tribe sacrificed women to the appetite of their gargantuan simian god. But that's the setup: after the 1933 Kong fell from the Empire State, a scientist, Lorna Jenkins, took a DNA sample from the big ape. She also did a lot of research on the renamed "Kong Island," where she found no primitive African tribe, but objects called "Primal Stones," which hailed from ancient Atlantis. (Kong Island is now located in the Bermuda Triangle, which I guess excuses the DNAPE's association not only with Atlantis but a host of other New Age concepts.)

Why Lorna does all this comes down to "just reasons," and this includes waiting about sixty years before she creates Clone-Kong-- possibly so that she could mingle the original ape-DNA with that of her grandson Jason. Young Jason grows up thinking of Clone-Kong as his "big brother"-- but only until Lorna's family is endangered by a villain who wants access to the magic of the Primal Stones. So Grandma takes her DNAPE and her research to the hard-of-access island, not reaching out to her grandson until he's of college age. Not content with re-creating a mammoth monkey. she's also invented devices called "cyber-links." A human who wears such a doohickey can magically merge his DNA with that of an animal, and conjure forth a gigantic humanoid creature. Why did Grandma want such a device? Reasons.

The real extrinsic reason was to provide heaps of Big Monster Action. The aforementioned villain gets hold of some of Lorna's links, and with them he can make himself, or one of his numerous henchmen, into huge beast-men in order to catch all the Primal Stones. Only Kong, who is "The Protector" of his mystic domain, can battle such titans-- and heroic Jason gets to tag along by merging his mind (but not his body) with that of Kong, sort of a primeval mecha-pilot.

While some kid-vids are clever enough that adults can appreciate them, KONG was designed to be dully repetitive, as evidenced by the fact that most of the episodes can be watched out of broadcast order. Villain and henchmen ferret out a Stone and use the links to become temporary monsters. Kong defeats them and they transform back and escape to do the same thing next episode.  

Jason BTW has two other partners in peril besides the big monkey: his comic relief college-buddy Tann, and what appears to be the only native of Kong Island. an acrobatic, copper-skinned shamaness named Lua. The three young people and Kong provide all the hero-action, with Lua using her shaman-powers to explicate whatever needs explication.

The only other point worth making is that if I watched this as a kid, I would rather have had the DNAPE dueling with traditional monsters. But there only a few of these-- a giant Yeti, a Wendigo--to allay the monotony.      

THE NEXT VICTIM (1976)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

SPOILERS

A lot of the hour-long progarmmers on Brian Clemens' THRILLER emphasized mundane naturalistic psycho-killers. My only real reason for labeling this psycho as "uncanny" is because Clemens' script models him strongly after Norman Bates, with a "Lodger" touch or two worked in.

Rich lady Sandy Marshall (Carroll Baker) returns to the apartment she shares with her not-so-rich husband Derek. Sandy has been in the hospital recovering from a car crash, and she's still occupying a wheelchair, though her prognosis is that she will regain full mobility. Sandy's expecting just to pass the day quietly while Derek's gone on business. However, it's a hot summer day in London, and most of the locals have gone to the beach for the weekend. Unfortunately there's also a serial killer who's been preying on London women lately. The cops have one clue: a single prospective victim escaped the murderer, and she heard him refer to her as "mother."

A couple of cops get on the psycho's trail, and though they ferret out the correct suspect, they have no impact on Sandy's apartment ordeal. The killer gains entrance to the gated complex by pretending to be a delivery driver, and the camera's careful not to show his face at first-- though there's no mystery because there's only one suspect, aside from a briefly seen, creepy maintenance guy (Ronald Lacey).

Sandy doesn't hear from a neighbor when she expects to, which causes her to start worrying. Then in the near-deserted complex, Sandy encounters a handsome young guy named Tom (Max Mason). She appreciates his company at first, since he claims to be a resident. But eventually Tom seems "off" to Sandy, especially when he speaks of her car accident as highly improbable-- as if someone might have arranged it. And he also mentions that he served his wheelchair-bound mother for ten years, which seems to be his reason for wanting to hang out with Sandy.   

Clemens almost seems to be setting up Tom to be some amateur detective who (correctly) suspects Derek of being a wife-killer. So when Sandy knocks Tom over the head and tries to wheel away for her very life, Clemens seems to be leading the viewer to believe Tom's a good guy. But no, Tom's the Oedipal assailant, though Clemens, to keep his precious ambiguity, barely explicates Tom's psycho-profile. The beleaguered viewer can only presume that Tom targeted Sandy and meant to kill her but started seeing her as "good non-sexual mother" rather than the "bad sexual mothers" he believed his other victims to be. But as Sandy flees, she needs a new antagonist--so Deadly Derek comes back that same night to knock off Sandy and blame it on the psycho. He and Tom end up fighting over Sandy, and after both men die, the movie just ends, unceremoniously. Usually Clemens' THRILLER dramas are solid if unambitious melodramas-- but this one is just a jumbled botch.  

X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, VOLUME TWO (1993-94)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Volume One of this series didn't confine itself to the show's Season One but added on three episodes from Season Two. Volume Two shows even greater impatience, adding a full seven Season Three episodes to the mix. This does allow the collection to conclude with an adaptation of a major comics storyline, The Phoenix Saga-- or at least the first half of it. 

Narratively speaking, Two features the same game, mixing old and new material to make the cartoons resemble the then-current comic books. But though there's no evident change in creative personnel, Season Two looks better. Perhaps succeeding in the ratings gave the second season a bigger budget, resulting in better animation for both drama and fight-scenes,

Notable moments include:

--The finish of a long plotline with Magneto and the Professor stuck in the Savage Land, beleaguered by a bunch of mutants Magneto created. Marvel heroes Ka-Zar and Shanna guest star.

--Wolverine gets a quickie origin and encounters the Canadian hero-team with whom he trained, Alpha Flight. So many heroes are jammed into one episode that what appeal the Alphans had in the comics is nullified here.

-- Though in my Season One review I doubted that the showrunners would delve into the intricacies of Rogue getting her powers from Ms. Marvel, they actually did a decent job with the conceit, though the plot is necessarily simplified and Ms. Marvel does not have an active role in the main story. Rogue's involved relationship with Mystique gets attention as well.

--Lady Deathstrike's origin is revised to make her an old Wolverine girlfriend, which adds nothing to this iteration of the character.

--And finally, the Phoenix Saga comes across well enough, though it skimps on Jean Grey's reaction to becoming a powerhouse and implies that her empowerment was part of some entity's scheme to protect a cosmic gateway. Cyclops' lost father Corsair appears but his paternity is not discussed.