Outlander
As genre crossovers go, the Science Fiction/Viking mash-up is probably one of the rarest among the contenders. Even Science Fiction/Western sub-genre has more members in it’s little gang; Joss Whedon’s Firefly being the latest. But aliens and Norsemen? Nope, I can count the number of times I’ve seen that with my pinkie finger. That lends 2008’s Outlander a certain notoriety that no other film can really claim. Sure I love Viking movies like Prince Valiant, the 13th Warrior, and Beowulf, but none of those have spaceships and maurading aliens.
Long story short (the movie is just shy of 2 hours), spaceman Kainan is part of a failed attempt to terraform a planet by genocide. Naturally the dominant lifeforms, called Moorwen, were pissed that Kainan’s people were raining fire on them, chasing them into pits, and generally giving them a hard time. One of the aliens escapes the bombings, kills the first settlers on the planet and hitches a ride on the survivors’ ship, which subsequently crashes into Earth. Kainan, the lone survivor, must join with some rather unhygenic fellows to hunt down the last of the Moorwen and save the hot girl (Sophia Myles from Underworld).
It’s all pretty simple really.
Despite the long running time, the movie works. Mostly, it’s due to the fact that it’s not trying to be anything but what the audience expects it to be; an action movie. It also doesn’t try to offer complicated plot twists to spice things up with surprise developments or character turns. It is what it is and what it is is a rather ludicrous concept executed rather well, one that is predictable, but genuinely satisfying.
Naturally, there are a few issues I’ve got with this movie. One is the odd 2nd act, where James Caviezel starts bonding with the rest of the Vikings. There’s a good 20 minute section where they are playing a game called “Shields”. The set piece really breaks up the momentum of the film, especially coming after the great beginning.
You realize later this whole scene is forshadowing a trap they lay for the Moorwen. This brilliant plan fails, which isn’t unexpected, but the way the shoddy camera work and editing is. Movements aren’t always clear and sometimes you don’t know what is happening. Wulfric (Jack Huston), is running from the monster and then all of a sudden he’s swimming in the oil. There are a lot of fight scenes with this same kind of thing, where it seems as if movements don’t follow through cuts. It’s all very aggravating.
Another thing is the way they used Ron Perlman who plays Gunnar, a rival King. I’ve been a fan of Perlman’s since his old Beauty and the Beast days and felt his character deserved more than what he got here. For one, he looked great as a barbarian, with fur, and scars, and two stone hammers smashing skulls. The fight between him and John Hurt (who should not be taking hammer blows at his age) was great, but so so short.
But really, the final grade for the film depends on how satisfying it was at the end, and I’ve got to say, I was very satisfied. It’s got a great blend of things going for it - a strong cast, decent effects, rich production design, and a unique if somewhat preposterous premise. I would have definitely paid money to watch it in the theater.
Dawn from McFarlane Toys
I’ve never been a big fan of McFarlane toys. Their product is often touted as “action” figures but they’ve always been far from it. Many can’t even boast of the simple 5 point joint system your old school He-Man figures used to have, and the joints they do have are often swivels that add nothing to a figures poseablility. They are essentially made to be displayed in one pose and one pose only.
That being said, this figure, based on Joseph Michael Linsner’s Dawn character has been on my want list since I first saw it on a 2008 filmschoolrejects.com list of the 10 Hottest Female Action Figures. Even if the figure was released back in 1999, the sculpt is still one of the best that any company has ever produced in this scale.
Like a lot of the figures in my collection, I don’t know a hell of a lot about the character Dawn. According to Wikipedia (how the hell did we do research before Wikipedia?), she is a comic character who first appeared in 1989 and is supposed to be a representation of the goddess of rebirth. There’s a whole lot of malarkey that follows about how Dawn is every woman and every woman is beautifyl, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. I skipped over it and decided there was a better way to find out about her. According to a Google Image Search (how on earth did we find pictures without the Google Image Search?), she’s a buxom lingerie model who likes swords.
The McFarlane statuette naturally leans toward to latter description. She is dressed in a green backless body suit, with gloves, boots and a skirt. It’s a pretty great look and there are excellent details to her costume and armor. I really love the vac-metalized belt she’s wearing, even if the process is notorious for chipping over time. It simply looks great.
Paint on the one I found was perfect as far as I could see. This may not be the case for all examples since I bought mine from a McFarlane collector at the recent Metro Comic Con. He most likely bought the best figure he could find. I hear very little about quality control issues about McFarlane so I imagine that there aren’t many problems on this toy’s production run.
As mentioned, articulation is crap. She’s got a ball jointed (if I’m not mistaken) neck that is useless because of her hair, shoulder swivels, elbow swivels, wrist swivels, angled thigh swivels, and one more set of swivels at the top of her boots. None of these are particularly useful except for perhaps the arm articulation which allows for her to gesture or hold the included sword in a couple of ladylike poses (I mean that “couple”; there are two poses only).
The accessories are minimal and are all really part of the base she comes with. There is a sword, a demon skull, a rose and vine, a pair of Greek theater masks, a weird tree trunk/stump thing with wings, and the asphalt base. I’m sure these items all have something to do with the story, but as I haven’t read the book, I couldn’t tell you their significance. They all look great though.
So there’s the good and the bad… and then there’s the pervy. The whole front of her costume is translucent. That’s right. It’s see-through. The sculpt underneath is even anatomically correct. Bewbs.
If you’ve been collecting action figures for any amount of time, you know that the female toys are always the ones that look the weirdest, which is why if you want a nice one, you need to shell out for statuettes like this one. No she doens’t have a hell of a lot of articulation, but the beautiful sculpt, the great looking accessories, and the fact that it’s an obscure character that doesn’t get a lot of attention (and hence doens’t warrant insane eBay prices) make this figure a good buy. I got mine at P900.00 loose which is less than a new figure from NECA, so if you can find one around that price I’d suggest picking it up.
District 9
Science Fiction isn’t a genre that has much of a following in the Philippines. My theory is that because of the lack of focus on science in schools, and the growing introversion of society, Pinoys grew up without the sense of wonder that American kids of the 70’s and 80’s grew up with. We lived in an age when Space Shuttle lauches were watched with a quiet awe and where we lived things like Star Trek and Transformers in our heads and wondered what it would be to race among the stars. Remember when every kid you knew wanted to be an astronaut? I do.
Nowadays, I can see why that awe has left us. Reality has set in. We’re no where near where the SciFi greats said we’d be. Where are the robots? The space ships and teleportation pads? We haven’t even reached Mars yet, let alone Proxima Centauri. I don’t remember the last time I saw a scientific breakthrough make it to the news. If it’s not sensationalist coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, then it’s news of impending doom, or the reality of today’s economy sinking in. No one has time to wonder anymore.
And that’s exactly where Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 comes in.
This isn’t the science fiction of Roddenberry’s day; bright utopian futures where no one worries about money and the goal of the human race is the betterment of all the species of the Federation. Nope, Blomkamp’s vision is of a world that wouldn’t be out of place in today’s news headlines. It’s set in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the 90’s, when apartheid was still in effect. If you don’t know what apartheid is, shame on you. The slums of the city are a perfect backdrop to the story’s themes of prejudice and intolerance.
The plot goes like this: Ginormous alien spaceship drops out of the sky and parks itself right outside the city. The government eventually decides to break in and finds a million alien beings, starving in the hold. Government says “Hey, let’s build these guys a slum and take run experiments on them and take any technology we can find”. Naturally, aliens aren’t to happy about it. Local crime lords begin taking advantage of them, tensions rise between alien and human population. Violent, graphic family fun ensues.
It’s sort of a cross between Alien Nation, Blair Witch Project and Independence Day.
The hero of our story is Wikus van de Merwe, an office worker of MNU, a multi-national company that handles military contacts. They are the ones who are handling the security for District 9, the alien slum. When the disturbances between “prawns” (derogatory term for the aliens) and humans increase, and the human population demands their removal, the MNU are tasked to serve the prawns eviction notices. Wikus is promoted to the project manager. Naturally, the eviction and re-location doesn’t go as planned and Wikus finds himself teaming up with a sympathetic alien character, “Christopher” in an attempt to free his people.
While I love documentaries (I’m a PBS - Public Broadcasting Service - fan from way back), I’m not a fan of the “mock documentary” school of filmmaking. I hated Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield did little to redeem the genre for me. I’m of the opinion that there is a reason that hand held camera is reserved for scenes where you want to create tension. However, great storytelling can do wonders. Look at Battlestar Galactica. District 9 actually succeeds in it’s use of handheld because it takes the idea to another level. The whole movie is like a documentary complete with interviews from subject matter experts, candid shots, and the lame, sappy money shots, close ups that are meant to tug at your heartstrings. Of course, there are moments when you’ll be called upon to suspend your disbelief. How can the camera be following Wikus and Christopher into a SECRET underground lab? I don’t know, and I hardly care. The movie is good enough that I barely registered that until the moment was gone.
The effects aren’t the most spectacular. They’re meant to serve the story and the film. Since the film is meant to be a fake documentary, much of it is grainy and from odd agles. Word of advice, don’t eat a lot before sitting down to watch. It can make you queasy. Thankfully, SM cinema has cut out much of the gore that might have tickled my gag reflex. Oh, you’ll see a few dismemberments, and an exploding body or two, but their cut short. Those think they censored a lot of essential stuff can rest easy. The story is intact.
Sadly, I don’t think this kind of movie has much of a chance here in the Philippines. When it came out, it was in what is equivalent to limited release. Not all theaters were screening it, and those that did only had it on 1 screen. Even Megamall. Megamall had Transformers on 6 or 7 screens opening day. It’s really a sad day on Earth when a movie like Transformers is getting more attention than a movie like District 9. If you want to see it in theaters, as it was meant to be seen, go now. Don’t wait. I doubt it’ll last beyond a week and a half.
If you're looking for biased, one-sided views of toys and other assorted geekery, then you're in the right place. If you want objective, you'll need a blog written by someone who isn't an obsessive geek.
These are my views on various toys, movies, places, and things, along with assorted pictures and the the occasional link to stuff I find sufficiently geeky.
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Slangards
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