Dexter Riley is the main character in three movies, all of which involve him temporarily getting superpowers and foiling the schemes of criminal kingpin A. J. Arno.
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
Dexter Riley is a student at Medfield College, although if Professor Ned Brainard is still a faculty member there, he is never seen. Medfield is perpetually plagued by money problems, and Dexter and his friends convince local businessman A. J. Arno to donate a computer to the college. Dexter suffers a freak accident while trying to repair the computer during a thunderstorm and gains superhuman mental powers. He becomes a celebrity and decides to put his intellect to use helping the college win a $100,000 prize in a quiz bowl competition.
Unfortunately, while he's on television, Dexter hears the password to the files on Arno's gambling ring and Arno discovers that Dexter has all of the computer's information in his head. Arno kidnaps him, but Dexter's friends help him escape. A knock to the head causes him to lose his super-intellect, but he's able to hold it together for long enough during the competition that one of his friends can deliver the winning answer. Arno ends up in prison.
Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972)
Dexter Riley is trying to solve the problem of invisibility. He manages to create a liquid which will turn anything covered with it completely invisible, which washes off with water. Meanwhile, Medfield college is facing financial trouble because local crook A. J. Arno has managed somehow to buy the mortgage on the college.
Dexter and his friends use the invisibility formula to spy on Arno and discover that he plans to foreclose on the college and use an old statute allowing gambling on the property to tear down the college and create a gambling mecca.
To get the money, Dean Higgins of Medfield College tries to get the college entered into a science competition which will win enough money to keep current with the mortgage. In order to make the deal to get into the competition, the Dean has to play golf with the founder of the competition, but the Dean is horrible at golfing, so Dexter uses the invisibility formula to give the Dean the best game anyone has ever had on the course.
The Dean becomes instantly famous, and enters into a winner-take-all golf competition which would get all the money the college needs if he wins but would close the college if he loses. The Dean doesn't realize that he had help with his golf game, and thinks he's just a naturally good golfer.
Meanwhile, Arno and his cronies discover the invisibility formula and steal it to use it to rob a bank. Dexter and his friends discover the plan, but can't convince the police until it's too late. In the end, the bank robbery is foiled, Arno and his henchmen are jailed again, and the invisibility formula wins the prize and the college is saved, though Dexter and his friends note that Dexter will have to invent something else to save the college next year.
The Strongest Man in the World (1975)
Dexter Riley is now a senior at Medfield. A lab accident involving Dexter's formula to make cows gain weight and a box of cereal results in cereal that gives people super-strength. Dexter shows off his super-strength to Dean Higgins, who seizes upon a plan to get Medfield out of financial trouble and save his own job: he'll take the formula to the company that makes the cereal, Crumply Crunch.
Higgins and the president of the cereal company, known to everyone as Aunt Harriet (mostly because her board of directors is made up of her relatives), concoct a plan to challenge the #1 cereal company, Krinkle Krunch, to a weightlifting competition between Medfield College and State college.
However, Crumply Crunch has a spy on the board of directors, working for Krinkle Krunch. He gets A. J. Arno released from prison, and sets Arno and his gang to work stealing the formula. The new batch of formula gets stolen, by kidnapping Dexter's roommate and hypnotizing him into giving up the formula, but it doesn't work. This is bad news for Medfield in the weight lifting competition, since they're pitting the science department against the State College weightlifting team (who are all gigantic piles of muscle).
When the cereal doesn't give anyone superstrength, Dexter realizes what must have happened: he thought it was his roommate's experiment that got into the cereal, but it was his. He leaves the competition to go get his formula. While in the lab, he finds Arno, his henchmen, and the spy, and uses the formula to take care of them all. He gets back to the competition with only minutes to spare, and saves the day (and presumably saves Medfield college once and for all).
Fitting it into the WW4C
Dexter Riley is very much a hands-on sort of mad scientist. Even when he intends to make something, he ends up making it via some sort of happy accident. However, his accidents always seem to result in creating some sort of formula to give people superpowers.
Merlin Jones (to be covered later) was a few years ahead of Dexter in using mad science to create superpowers (having experimented with telepathy and superstrength, among other things). After Dexter gets out of college in the 1970s, he may work with Jones to create a formula which will give people permanent superpowers, which would mean that the resurgence of actual superheroes and villains would probably start in the mid-to-late 1970s.
Medfield College's Metahuman Studies program is probably the best in the nation.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
The Cat From Outer Space (1978)
The Plot
An alien ship (a flying saucer; it's always a flying saucer) is forced to make an emergency landing on Earth. The U.S. Army arrives to investigate, with the General in charge convinced that a horrible bug-eyed alien monster might be loose. The ship's pilot, Zunar-J-5/Doric-4-7, sneaks on board an Army transport unnoticed, as he is not a big-eyed alien monster, but an Abyssinian cat.
The Army calls together a group of scientists to make sense of some of the technology they've found on the ship. None of the scientists know what the thing is, but one of them, Liz Barlett, suggests they call in Dr. Frank Wilson, who lives in her building. That's a not a glowing endorsement, but no one has a better idea, so they call Dr. Wilson.
Wilson states that he thinks the alien device taps into the "primal mainstream" for power, which makes the alien (lounging unnoticed nearby) start paying attention. Unfortunately, Wilson's flippant attitude doesn't sit well with the General, and he's off the project. The alien follows him and, assuming it's a normal cat, he names it Jake. "Jake" speaks to him, and tells Wilson the whole story, but decides to go by the name Jake when Wilson has trouble with his actual name.
Jake offers to give Wilson some high technology in exchange for Wilson helping Jake get home. However, along the way Jake uses his powers of telekinesis to help Link (another scientist living in the same building) win money betting on sports, and develops a crush on Liz's cat Lucybelle. (Unsurprisingly, this mirrors the attraction between Wilson and Liz.)
However, one of the people working on the Army base, Stallwood, is also a spy for criminal Mr. Olympus. Olympus finds out about Jake, and more importantly about Jake's collar, which gives anyone using it telekinetic powers, including the ability to fly. So, while Wilson and Jake are infiltrating the Army base to get Jake onto his ship so he can get home, Olympus and Stallwood kidnap Liz to get Wilson to hand over Jake and the collar.
Jake lets his ship leave without him so that he can help Liz (and Lucybelle). Olympus, Stallwood, and Liz are in a helicopter, so Jake uses his powers to fly a decrepit biplane so that he and Wilson can rescue them. Of course, the rescue succeeds. Liz and Wilson are a couple, as are Jake and Lucybelle. The criminals are caught and the Army is weirdly okay with everything.
The final scene is Jake being sworn in as a U.S. citizen.
Fitting it into the WW4C
This one's a doozy. First off, I'm happy that I decided earlier than animals in the WW4C can communicate intelligently with each other. Jake's attraction to Lucybelle if she were just an unintelligent cat would be disturbing.
Jake's collar grants some pretty impressive telekinetic powers, giving him enough power to fly a plane, and letting him move objects from an apparently unlimited distance as long as he can see them (he influences several sporting events he sees on TV). It also grants him the ability to speak via "thought projection," but this isn't telepathy, since it appears to actually broadcast his thoughts as sound, and he doesn't seem to have any ability to read minds.
The collar, as well as Jake's ship, appear to be powered by the "primal mainstream," which is apparently a wavelength found in all forms of energy, or a form of energy found in all wavelengths, or--well, it would take a scientist to explain it. I figure it's something like zero-point energy or a remnant of the creation of the universe before multiple types of energy split from each other. Regardless, it's a good source of power for high-tech devices.
Jake's race is also interesting. Jake is indistinguishable from an Earth cat, but states that he comes from another galaxy. It's possible this is parallel evolution, but it might also be the result of a common genetic ancestor seeding the universe. Without his collar, Jake is effectively an ordinary cat--he's still smart, but he can't speak and has no telekinetic powers. However, Jake says that the reason he's a cat is that his people developed mental powers and so developing thumbs and an upright posture wasn't necessary from an evolutionary standpoint. But if they need the collars to perform telekinesis, how did they make the collars? My thought is that, at one time, they were all telekinetic and able to use thought-projection. Or at least most of them, and the telekinetic ones invented the collars to give the same powers to the others. The availability of the collars, however, meant that being naturally telekinetic was no longer an evolutionary advantage, and so natural telekinesis is slowly becoming less common. I might be overthinking this.
Finally, there's the matter of Jake's legal status. Jake is a U.S. citizen, with all the attendant rights. Presumably, any kittens he has with Lucybelle are also U.S. citizens. However, the citizenship oath was delivered in what appeared to be a closed courtroom; there was no one else being granted citizenship there. Jake's citizenship, therefore, is probably a classified government secret in exchange for his services.
An alien ship (a flying saucer; it's always a flying saucer) is forced to make an emergency landing on Earth. The U.S. Army arrives to investigate, with the General in charge convinced that a horrible bug-eyed alien monster might be loose. The ship's pilot, Zunar-J-5/Doric-4-7, sneaks on board an Army transport unnoticed, as he is not a big-eyed alien monster, but an Abyssinian cat.
The Army calls together a group of scientists to make sense of some of the technology they've found on the ship. None of the scientists know what the thing is, but one of them, Liz Barlett, suggests they call in Dr. Frank Wilson, who lives in her building. That's a not a glowing endorsement, but no one has a better idea, so they call Dr. Wilson.
Wilson states that he thinks the alien device taps into the "primal mainstream" for power, which makes the alien (lounging unnoticed nearby) start paying attention. Unfortunately, Wilson's flippant attitude doesn't sit well with the General, and he's off the project. The alien follows him and, assuming it's a normal cat, he names it Jake. "Jake" speaks to him, and tells Wilson the whole story, but decides to go by the name Jake when Wilson has trouble with his actual name.
Jake offers to give Wilson some high technology in exchange for Wilson helping Jake get home. However, along the way Jake uses his powers of telekinesis to help Link (another scientist living in the same building) win money betting on sports, and develops a crush on Liz's cat Lucybelle. (Unsurprisingly, this mirrors the attraction between Wilson and Liz.)
However, one of the people working on the Army base, Stallwood, is also a spy for criminal Mr. Olympus. Olympus finds out about Jake, and more importantly about Jake's collar, which gives anyone using it telekinetic powers, including the ability to fly. So, while Wilson and Jake are infiltrating the Army base to get Jake onto his ship so he can get home, Olympus and Stallwood kidnap Liz to get Wilson to hand over Jake and the collar.
Jake lets his ship leave without him so that he can help Liz (and Lucybelle). Olympus, Stallwood, and Liz are in a helicopter, so Jake uses his powers to fly a decrepit biplane so that he and Wilson can rescue them. Of course, the rescue succeeds. Liz and Wilson are a couple, as are Jake and Lucybelle. The criminals are caught and the Army is weirdly okay with everything.
The final scene is Jake being sworn in as a U.S. citizen.
Fitting it into the WW4C
This one's a doozy. First off, I'm happy that I decided earlier than animals in the WW4C can communicate intelligently with each other. Jake's attraction to Lucybelle if she were just an unintelligent cat would be disturbing.
Jake's collar grants some pretty impressive telekinetic powers, giving him enough power to fly a plane, and letting him move objects from an apparently unlimited distance as long as he can see them (he influences several sporting events he sees on TV). It also grants him the ability to speak via "thought projection," but this isn't telepathy, since it appears to actually broadcast his thoughts as sound, and he doesn't seem to have any ability to read minds.
The collar, as well as Jake's ship, appear to be powered by the "primal mainstream," which is apparently a wavelength found in all forms of energy, or a form of energy found in all wavelengths, or--well, it would take a scientist to explain it. I figure it's something like zero-point energy or a remnant of the creation of the universe before multiple types of energy split from each other. Regardless, it's a good source of power for high-tech devices.
Jake's race is also interesting. Jake is indistinguishable from an Earth cat, but states that he comes from another galaxy. It's possible this is parallel evolution, but it might also be the result of a common genetic ancestor seeding the universe. Without his collar, Jake is effectively an ordinary cat--he's still smart, but he can't speak and has no telekinetic powers. However, Jake says that the reason he's a cat is that his people developed mental powers and so developing thumbs and an upright posture wasn't necessary from an evolutionary standpoint. But if they need the collars to perform telekinesis, how did they make the collars? My thought is that, at one time, they were all telekinetic and able to use thought-projection. Or at least most of them, and the telekinetic ones invented the collars to give the same powers to the others. The availability of the collars, however, meant that being naturally telekinetic was no longer an evolutionary advantage, and so natural telekinesis is slowly becoming less common. I might be overthinking this.
Finally, there's the matter of Jake's legal status. Jake is a U.S. citizen, with all the attendant rights. Presumably, any kittens he has with Lucybelle are also U.S. citizens. However, the citizenship oath was delivered in what appeared to be a closed courtroom; there was no one else being granted citizenship there. Jake's citizenship, therefore, is probably a classified government secret in exchange for his services.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Problems of Upcoming Sequels and Remakes
Sequels
Yesterday I mentioned that the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides, will be about Captain Jack Sparrow's quest for the Fountain of Youth. It's (undoubtedly very loosely) based on the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers.
It could mean that in the WW4C, Captain Jack Sparrow is immortal. Or it might not. We won't really know until the movie comes out. However, as far as the WW4C is concerned, I'm not going to guess and end up being wrong. I know that the day I write, "Captain Jack Sparrow became immortal when he found the Fountain of Youth," will be the day that the script gets leaked and they end the movie by blowing it up and Jack having to chase down the Holy Grail or something in his quest for immortality.
Remakes
Disney, like all movie studios, likes to remake their old movies. I've seen that they're developing remakes of, among other things, Bedknobs & Broomsticks and Swiss Family Robinson. They did a remake of The Shaggy Dog, but with an adult Tim Allen instead of a teenage Tommy Kirk, and instead of a cursed ring, it's caused by genetic engineering and a magical dog, or something.
Honestly, I kind of dread watching the new Shaggy Dog, because I have heard absolutely nothing good about it. However, like Race to Witch Mountain, I'll probably be including it because it's a different story than the original. Whereas, by contrast, the Robin Williams movie Flubber is by all appearances just a new adaptation of The Absent-Minded Professor, so I'm giving it a pass.
Yesterday I mentioned that the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides, will be about Captain Jack Sparrow's quest for the Fountain of Youth. It's (undoubtedly very loosely) based on the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers.
It could mean that in the WW4C, Captain Jack Sparrow is immortal. Or it might not. We won't really know until the movie comes out. However, as far as the WW4C is concerned, I'm not going to guess and end up being wrong. I know that the day I write, "Captain Jack Sparrow became immortal when he found the Fountain of Youth," will be the day that the script gets leaked and they end the movie by blowing it up and Jack having to chase down the Holy Grail or something in his quest for immortality.
Remakes
Disney, like all movie studios, likes to remake their old movies. I've seen that they're developing remakes of, among other things, Bedknobs & Broomsticks and Swiss Family Robinson. They did a remake of The Shaggy Dog, but with an adult Tim Allen instead of a teenage Tommy Kirk, and instead of a cursed ring, it's caused by genetic engineering and a magical dog, or something.
Honestly, I kind of dread watching the new Shaggy Dog, because I have heard absolutely nothing good about it. However, like Race to Witch Mountain, I'll probably be including it because it's a different story than the original. Whereas, by contrast, the Robin Williams movie Flubber is by all appearances just a new adaptation of The Absent-Minded Professor, so I'm giving it a pass.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Pirates of the Caribbean
An Update on Updates
It's been a couple of days since my last post. Blame Rockstar Games for making a truly addictive console game which pretty much devoured my entire weekend, and I'm not even halfway through it yet. However, it's time to get back on track.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Note: I'm posting this from work, so I'm not going into a lengthy summary of the movies. They're fairly recent, they were big blockbusters, and unless you've been actively avoiding them, you probably saw them. I may write some plot notes later, but I don't think they're as necessary as with the older films. (When Prince of Persia and The Sorceror's Apprentice come out, I'll probably skip plot notes altogether to avoid spoiling them for those who don't see them before I do.)
Instead, I'm just going to focus on the things that I think make a difference in the setting.
The Society of Pirates
Pirates in the POTC movies are all part of a fraternity with its own laws, customs, and leaders, even if those laws are really more like suggestions. The idea that a pirate fraternity exists into the modern day is pretty tempting, especially if it expands to include all sorts of crime. Additional inspiration might be found in the "Ten Rings" organization of the Iron Man movies or in the secret society of pirates in The Phantom.
And, yeah, they can be bad guys. While Captain Jack Sparrow and his companions were the heroes (more or less) of the movies, the pirates as a whole weren't terribly nice people.
Magic and Tone
The movies are full of magic. Not only is there the Inca curse which turns the crew of the Black Pearl into the undead, but there's Davy Jones, voodoo, and an actual goddess, plus a trip to the afterlife. All of this adds a darker undertone to the magical setting of the universe, and makes the existence of pagan gods a reality.
Tonally, the POTC movies are frequently gruesome, but definitely lighter in tone than Dragonslayer. However, it's less light in tone than the completely bloodless Bedknobs & Broomsticks. That said, B&B had some darker elements, too, especially the fate of the wizard Astaroth who, if you recall, was murdered by the animals he experimented upon.
I guess that in the WW4C, magic is a holdover from a time when the world was a darker place. As a result, stories based around magic (rather than just magical superheroics) have the potential to get a little darker than usual. (In Wild Talents terms, drop the Black rating by a point or even two to reflect a grayer morality.) Think of it like DC's Vertigo imprint.
Immortality and the Afterlife
The Afterlife depicted in POTC, and the role of the Flying Dutchman in that Afterlife, likely only applies to those who die at sea. However, it's also clearly possible to avoid dying altogether. Captain Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl became undead without the unpleasant part of dying first. Will Turner also becomes immortal, though at a price: he can only set foot on land once every 10 years, and the rest of the time guides those who die at sea to the Afterlife.
The best bet for "no strings attached" immortality might still be Captain Jack Sparrow who, last time we saw him, had found a map to lead him to the Fountain of Youth. (Note: This will be the story of the upcoming POTC: On Stranger Tides, which is--very loosely--based on the Tim Powers novel of the same name. I imagine the story of the novel will be all but unrecognizable.) The Fountain of Youth (or something like it) also plays a part in the non-pirate movie Tuck Everlasting.
It's been a couple of days since my last post. Blame Rockstar Games for making a truly addictive console game which pretty much devoured my entire weekend, and I'm not even halfway through it yet. However, it's time to get back on track.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Note: I'm posting this from work, so I'm not going into a lengthy summary of the movies. They're fairly recent, they were big blockbusters, and unless you've been actively avoiding them, you probably saw them. I may write some plot notes later, but I don't think they're as necessary as with the older films. (When Prince of Persia and The Sorceror's Apprentice come out, I'll probably skip plot notes altogether to avoid spoiling them for those who don't see them before I do.)
Instead, I'm just going to focus on the things that I think make a difference in the setting.
The Society of Pirates
Pirates in the POTC movies are all part of a fraternity with its own laws, customs, and leaders, even if those laws are really more like suggestions. The idea that a pirate fraternity exists into the modern day is pretty tempting, especially if it expands to include all sorts of crime. Additional inspiration might be found in the "Ten Rings" organization of the Iron Man movies or in the secret society of pirates in The Phantom.
And, yeah, they can be bad guys. While Captain Jack Sparrow and his companions were the heroes (more or less) of the movies, the pirates as a whole weren't terribly nice people.
Magic and Tone
The movies are full of magic. Not only is there the Inca curse which turns the crew of the Black Pearl into the undead, but there's Davy Jones, voodoo, and an actual goddess, plus a trip to the afterlife. All of this adds a darker undertone to the magical setting of the universe, and makes the existence of pagan gods a reality.
Tonally, the POTC movies are frequently gruesome, but definitely lighter in tone than Dragonslayer. However, it's less light in tone than the completely bloodless Bedknobs & Broomsticks. That said, B&B had some darker elements, too, especially the fate of the wizard Astaroth who, if you recall, was murdered by the animals he experimented upon.
I guess that in the WW4C, magic is a holdover from a time when the world was a darker place. As a result, stories based around magic (rather than just magical superheroics) have the potential to get a little darker than usual. (In Wild Talents terms, drop the Black rating by a point or even two to reflect a grayer morality.) Think of it like DC's Vertigo imprint.
Immortality and the Afterlife
The Afterlife depicted in POTC, and the role of the Flying Dutchman in that Afterlife, likely only applies to those who die at sea. However, it's also clearly possible to avoid dying altogether. Captain Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl became undead without the unpleasant part of dying first. Will Turner also becomes immortal, though at a price: he can only set foot on land once every 10 years, and the rest of the time guides those who die at sea to the Afterlife.
The best bet for "no strings attached" immortality might still be Captain Jack Sparrow who, last time we saw him, had found a map to lead him to the Fountain of Youth. (Note: This will be the story of the upcoming POTC: On Stranger Tides, which is--very loosely--based on the Tim Powers novel of the same name. I imagine the story of the novel will be all but unrecognizable.) The Fountain of Youth (or something like it) also plays a part in the non-pirate movie Tuck Everlasting.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Underdog (2007)
Note: I was planning on doing the Dexter Riley movies next, and thereby finishing up the series on Medfield College. However, Neflix is being uncooperative. So, here's Underdog.
The Plot
Underdog's humble beginnings are as a bomb-sniffing police dog in Capitol City. Unfortunately, he's pretty out of place. For one thing, in a field dominated by German Shepherds, he's a Beagle. For another, his sense of smell is off-kilter. In particular, bombs and pork smell the same to him. After an embarassing incident involving the Mayor, he ends up jobless.
He gets captured by dapper but diminutive evil geneticist Simon Bar-Sinister and his dimwitted associate Cad. Simon Bar-Sinister (or, SBS, as I'll call him) is experimenting on animals to give them superpowers as part of an evil scheme to . . . well, do typical villain stuff. Our hero escapes, but not before he's doused in chemicals, giving him amazing powers. Also, in the course of his escape, he blows up SBS's laboratory on accident.
He's found and taken in by Dan Unger, a security guard at the building where SBS does his research. Dan is a former cop who is having trouble raising his teenaged son Jack on his own. He thinks the dog, which he names Shoeshine, will help endear him to Jack. Jack isn't thrilled with Shoeshine but then discovers that Shoeshine has superpowers: he's strong, he's fast, he can fly, and he can speak.
Jack is smitten with Molly, a reporter for the school paper. Shoeshine is smitten with her dog, Polly. Shoeshine ends up rescuing Polly (and incidentally Molly) from muggers, and he and Jack decide that he should become a superhero. Jack fashions a costume for him out of one of his dad's old varsity sweaters and a blanket, and Shoeshine becomes Underdog. Underdog rhymes when he talks because he saw a hot dog vendor doing it as a way to get people's attention. Thing is, he's improving his rhymes and so a lot of them are less than spectacular.
While Shoeshine has a thing for Polly, Polly has a thing for Underdog. Also, while Underdog is becoming the hero of Capitol City, SBS (now scarred and living in the sewers) is planning his revenge on Underdog. He discovers Underdog's secret identity and captures Dan and Jack. (At this point, Dan discovers that Shoeshine is Underdog, and there's some family bonding as Dan reveals that he gave up being a cop because after Jack's mom died, he didn't want to risk dying as a cop and leaving Jack alone.) SBS agrees to let the Ungers go if Underdog surrenders his powers. He does.
SBS creates three new dogs with the powers of Underdog, all German Shepherds, and begins his new plan: he'll place a bomb on top of city hall which will spread a mind-control gas out over the city, making him the ruler of Capitol City. Problem is, there's no more Underdog. Shoeshine, however, sniffs out the bomb (well, he sniffs out some pork and reasons that there's no reason for there to be pork on top of City Hall) and sets out of save the day without any powers.
Inside City Hall, he encounters SBS and the German Shepherds. In a turn of events, he manages to spill SBS's stash of power-granting pills, and swallows one. He also disposes of the German Shepherds by reasoning with them. SBS, after all, is just using them. Why should they let him boss them around? Turns out, they don't even have proper names; they think their names are Attack, Maim, and Kill. SBS takes one of his own pills and gains superpowers, but it's not enough to defeat Underdog. Underdog grabs the bomb, which is just a bundle of dynamite with a timer, gets the mind-control formula off of it, and buries the bomb deep in the park. However, he can't escape the blast in time, and he's propelled into space, then crashes back to earth.
Fortunately, he's also basically indestructible, so he survives and lives to fight another day. SBS and Cad are imprisoned.
Fitting it into the WW4C
This is a pretty easy one. He's a dog, but he's also a Superman-level superhero. Simon Bar-Sinister is a good villain, filling a Lex Luthor role pretty handily (actually, since Peter Dinklage plays him, he might be too good for what's really a fairly ordinary movie).
More interesting in terms of world-building is that the dogs (and cats) can all understand each other, and Shoeshine doesn't realize he's speaking English until Jack understands him. In the WW4C, then, animals have their own languages which can be learned if not necessarily spoken by other species. A conversation with a dog or cat may not be terribly interesting, but it's possible. This also fits in with the Witch Mountain movies, in which telepathy is used to talk to animals. It's not that they don't think like people; it's that we can't understand them.
From the standpoint of modeling Underdog's powers in a roleplaying game, the biggest problem is how fast he can fly. At one point in the film, he flies around the earth in a couple of seconds to catch a Frisbee. (Show-off.) I estimate that requires a flight speed of, oh, in the area of 40 million miles per hour. At the climax, he can't outfly the explosion from dynamite. I couldn't find a figure for how fast dynamite explodes, but a C-4 explosion expands at about 8,700 mph if the internet is correct (and it's certainly not powerful enough to propel someone into space). Fortunately, since I'm not going to worry about game statistics until the new superhero RPGs come out this summer, I can put that problem off for another day.
The Plot
Underdog's humble beginnings are as a bomb-sniffing police dog in Capitol City. Unfortunately, he's pretty out of place. For one thing, in a field dominated by German Shepherds, he's a Beagle. For another, his sense of smell is off-kilter. In particular, bombs and pork smell the same to him. After an embarassing incident involving the Mayor, he ends up jobless.
He gets captured by dapper but diminutive evil geneticist Simon Bar-Sinister and his dimwitted associate Cad. Simon Bar-Sinister (or, SBS, as I'll call him) is experimenting on animals to give them superpowers as part of an evil scheme to . . . well, do typical villain stuff. Our hero escapes, but not before he's doused in chemicals, giving him amazing powers. Also, in the course of his escape, he blows up SBS's laboratory on accident.
He's found and taken in by Dan Unger, a security guard at the building where SBS does his research. Dan is a former cop who is having trouble raising his teenaged son Jack on his own. He thinks the dog, which he names Shoeshine, will help endear him to Jack. Jack isn't thrilled with Shoeshine but then discovers that Shoeshine has superpowers: he's strong, he's fast, he can fly, and he can speak.
Jack is smitten with Molly, a reporter for the school paper. Shoeshine is smitten with her dog, Polly. Shoeshine ends up rescuing Polly (and incidentally Molly) from muggers, and he and Jack decide that he should become a superhero. Jack fashions a costume for him out of one of his dad's old varsity sweaters and a blanket, and Shoeshine becomes Underdog. Underdog rhymes when he talks because he saw a hot dog vendor doing it as a way to get people's attention. Thing is, he's improving his rhymes and so a lot of them are less than spectacular.
While Shoeshine has a thing for Polly, Polly has a thing for Underdog. Also, while Underdog is becoming the hero of Capitol City, SBS (now scarred and living in the sewers) is planning his revenge on Underdog. He discovers Underdog's secret identity and captures Dan and Jack. (At this point, Dan discovers that Shoeshine is Underdog, and there's some family bonding as Dan reveals that he gave up being a cop because after Jack's mom died, he didn't want to risk dying as a cop and leaving Jack alone.) SBS agrees to let the Ungers go if Underdog surrenders his powers. He does.
SBS creates three new dogs with the powers of Underdog, all German Shepherds, and begins his new plan: he'll place a bomb on top of city hall which will spread a mind-control gas out over the city, making him the ruler of Capitol City. Problem is, there's no more Underdog. Shoeshine, however, sniffs out the bomb (well, he sniffs out some pork and reasons that there's no reason for there to be pork on top of City Hall) and sets out of save the day without any powers.
Inside City Hall, he encounters SBS and the German Shepherds. In a turn of events, he manages to spill SBS's stash of power-granting pills, and swallows one. He also disposes of the German Shepherds by reasoning with them. SBS, after all, is just using them. Why should they let him boss them around? Turns out, they don't even have proper names; they think their names are Attack, Maim, and Kill. SBS takes one of his own pills and gains superpowers, but it's not enough to defeat Underdog. Underdog grabs the bomb, which is just a bundle of dynamite with a timer, gets the mind-control formula off of it, and buries the bomb deep in the park. However, he can't escape the blast in time, and he's propelled into space, then crashes back to earth.
Fortunately, he's also basically indestructible, so he survives and lives to fight another day. SBS and Cad are imprisoned.
Fitting it into the WW4C
This is a pretty easy one. He's a dog, but he's also a Superman-level superhero. Simon Bar-Sinister is a good villain, filling a Lex Luthor role pretty handily (actually, since Peter Dinklage plays him, he might be too good for what's really a fairly ordinary movie).
More interesting in terms of world-building is that the dogs (and cats) can all understand each other, and Shoeshine doesn't realize he's speaking English until Jack understands him. In the WW4C, then, animals have their own languages which can be learned if not necessarily spoken by other species. A conversation with a dog or cat may not be terribly interesting, but it's possible. This also fits in with the Witch Mountain movies, in which telepathy is used to talk to animals. It's not that they don't think like people; it's that we can't understand them.
From the standpoint of modeling Underdog's powers in a roleplaying game, the biggest problem is how fast he can fly. At one point in the film, he flies around the earth in a couple of seconds to catch a Frisbee. (Show-off.) I estimate that requires a flight speed of, oh, in the area of 40 million miles per hour. At the climax, he can't outfly the explosion from dynamite. I couldn't find a figure for how fast dynamite explodes, but a C-4 explosion expands at about 8,700 mph if the internet is correct (and it's certainly not powerful enough to propel someone into space). Fortunately, since I'm not going to worry about game statistics until the new superhero RPGs come out this summer, I can put that problem off for another day.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Dragons!
In addition to Queen Narissa of Andalasia, who was only a dragon part-time (and very briefly), there have been other dragons in the WW4C. Here are the stories of two more:
Pete's Dragon (1977)
Pete is an orphan in the early 20th Century in New England. He was sold to the loathsome Gogan family, who plan to use him basically as a slave. He escapes with the help of his friend Elliott, who is a dragon. Elliott isn't a very fearsome dragon, as dragons go, but he can fly (clumsily), can breathe fire (a little, but mostly smoke), and he can turn invisible. He's also very large and very strong. Pete ventures into the fishing village of Passamaquoddy, where he's taken in by the daughter of Lampie, the lighthouse keeper. Nora, Lampie's daughter, thinks that Elliott is just Pete's imaginary friend, but Lampie has seen Elliott and is terrified of him. Pete lives in the lighthouse, while Elliott takes up residence in the caves below.
Passamaquoddy is also visited by traveling medicine huckster Doc Terminus and his assistant Hoagy. When Lampie and Hoagy get drunk, Lampie takes Hoagy to see Elliott. Doc Terminus realizes that a live dragon would be worth a fortune in parts for his medicines and offers to buy Elliott from Pete. Pete refuses, however, since he doesn't own Elliott. The Gogans arrive in town looking for Pete, and Doc Terminus strikes a deal with them: they'll work together, and the Gogans can get Pete and Doc Terminus will take the dragon.
This plan completely falls apart, of course, and Elliott ends up becoming a hero when he saves the mayor of Passamaquoddy. Nora's fiancee, thought lost at sea, returns (with help from Elliott, who was sent to find him by Pete). Everyone lives happily ever after, except that Elliott tells Pete that he's got to leave and he won't be coming back because there are other kids who need his help.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Elliott is not native to the WW4C, as the last dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative, was slain long ago. He's very likely a refugee from Andalasia or possibly from Monstropolis. Either way, he's not like most dragons: he's kind-hearted, loves children, and is either the "runt" of the litter or he's long past his prime. However, as a dragon, he's probably still alive, and still helping kids in trouble.
Doc Terminus was just a snake oil salesman, but "Dr. Terminus" is too good a name not to use for a supervillain. A modern Dr. Terminus might be an evil alchemist, trying to capture magical creatures for use in his potions, or he might be encased in armor like Dr. Doom. Maybe both.
Dragonslayer (1981)
In the Dark Ages, in the kingdom of Urland, the people live at the sufferance of the dragon Vermithrax Pejorative, the last dragon. Twice a year, King Casiodorus holds a lottery to determine which young girl will be sacrificed to the dragon. A young man from Urland, Valerian, leads a party to find the sorceror Ulrich of Craggenmoor, to convince him to slay the dragon.
Ulrich ends up dying when he invites a soldier to stab him to prove his magical powers, but his apprentice Galen takes up the quest when he finds that Ulrich's pendant gives him magical powers. Along the way, Galen discovers that Valerian is actually a woman whose father, a blacksmith in Urland, disguised her as a boy to keep her out of the lottery.
Galen collapses the cave of the dragon, and it's assumed that the dragon is defeated. Valerian publicly reveals herself to be a woman. King Casiodorus discovers that Galen isn't really a wizard and suspects he only angered the dragon. He takes the amulet from Galen and throws him in a call. Galen informs the King's daughter, Elspeth, that her father has kept her name out of the lottery all these years.
The dragon returns, and Elpseth helps Galen escape in the confusion. King Casiodorus holds a new lottery. Elspeth, however, rigs the lottery so that she will be chosen, to make up for all the girls who died in the past to protect her. Galen goes to steal the amulet back from the King, who catches him but lets him have the amulet so he can use it to save Elspeth.
Galen and Valerian's father craft a magical spear to kill the dragon, and a shield made of dragon scales to protect him from the fire, and Galen sets off to do battle. He and Valerian also confess their feelings for each other. Galen fails to kill the dragon, and Princess Elspeth is killed by the dragon's hatchlings, which Galen kills. Valerian and Galen flee the village together.
As they are leaving, the amulet reveals to Galen that Ulrich's wish was that his ashes be spread over burning water, which is the lake near the dragon's cave. Ulrich knew he could not make the journey, so he had Galen make the journey for him (if Galen had known this sooner, the princess might have lived, but oh, well). Ulrich is returned to life, and fights the dragon. He's caught up in the dragon's claws, but Galen smashes the amulet and Ulrich and the dragon explode.
King Casiodorus arrives on the scene to claim credit for slaying the dragon, while Galen and Valerian leave. Galen is upset that he's not really a sorceror, but when he wishes he and Valerian had a horse, one appears.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Dragonslayer takes place after the fall of Rome, but before Christianity is widespread. It was filmed in the British Isles, so the kingdom of Urland is probably a small kingdom which sprang up after Rome left. It's definitely prior to the rule of King Arthur.
This is also reflected in the tone. Dragonslayer is darker than most Disney movies and, frankly, kind of gruesome.
Historically, then, the WW4C might not have become the generally optimistic place that it is until Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and become King of England. Prior to that, the world was a much darker place.
Pete's Dragon (1977)
Pete is an orphan in the early 20th Century in New England. He was sold to the loathsome Gogan family, who plan to use him basically as a slave. He escapes with the help of his friend Elliott, who is a dragon. Elliott isn't a very fearsome dragon, as dragons go, but he can fly (clumsily), can breathe fire (a little, but mostly smoke), and he can turn invisible. He's also very large and very strong. Pete ventures into the fishing village of Passamaquoddy, where he's taken in by the daughter of Lampie, the lighthouse keeper. Nora, Lampie's daughter, thinks that Elliott is just Pete's imaginary friend, but Lampie has seen Elliott and is terrified of him. Pete lives in the lighthouse, while Elliott takes up residence in the caves below.
Passamaquoddy is also visited by traveling medicine huckster Doc Terminus and his assistant Hoagy. When Lampie and Hoagy get drunk, Lampie takes Hoagy to see Elliott. Doc Terminus realizes that a live dragon would be worth a fortune in parts for his medicines and offers to buy Elliott from Pete. Pete refuses, however, since he doesn't own Elliott. The Gogans arrive in town looking for Pete, and Doc Terminus strikes a deal with them: they'll work together, and the Gogans can get Pete and Doc Terminus will take the dragon.
This plan completely falls apart, of course, and Elliott ends up becoming a hero when he saves the mayor of Passamaquoddy. Nora's fiancee, thought lost at sea, returns (with help from Elliott, who was sent to find him by Pete). Everyone lives happily ever after, except that Elliott tells Pete that he's got to leave and he won't be coming back because there are other kids who need his help.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Elliott is not native to the WW4C, as the last dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative, was slain long ago. He's very likely a refugee from Andalasia or possibly from Monstropolis. Either way, he's not like most dragons: he's kind-hearted, loves children, and is either the "runt" of the litter or he's long past his prime. However, as a dragon, he's probably still alive, and still helping kids in trouble.
Doc Terminus was just a snake oil salesman, but "Dr. Terminus" is too good a name not to use for a supervillain. A modern Dr. Terminus might be an evil alchemist, trying to capture magical creatures for use in his potions, or he might be encased in armor like Dr. Doom. Maybe both.
Dragonslayer (1981)
In the Dark Ages, in the kingdom of Urland, the people live at the sufferance of the dragon Vermithrax Pejorative, the last dragon. Twice a year, King Casiodorus holds a lottery to determine which young girl will be sacrificed to the dragon. A young man from Urland, Valerian, leads a party to find the sorceror Ulrich of Craggenmoor, to convince him to slay the dragon.
Ulrich ends up dying when he invites a soldier to stab him to prove his magical powers, but his apprentice Galen takes up the quest when he finds that Ulrich's pendant gives him magical powers. Along the way, Galen discovers that Valerian is actually a woman whose father, a blacksmith in Urland, disguised her as a boy to keep her out of the lottery.
Galen collapses the cave of the dragon, and it's assumed that the dragon is defeated. Valerian publicly reveals herself to be a woman. King Casiodorus discovers that Galen isn't really a wizard and suspects he only angered the dragon. He takes the amulet from Galen and throws him in a call. Galen informs the King's daughter, Elspeth, that her father has kept her name out of the lottery all these years.
The dragon returns, and Elpseth helps Galen escape in the confusion. King Casiodorus holds a new lottery. Elspeth, however, rigs the lottery so that she will be chosen, to make up for all the girls who died in the past to protect her. Galen goes to steal the amulet back from the King, who catches him but lets him have the amulet so he can use it to save Elspeth.
Galen and Valerian's father craft a magical spear to kill the dragon, and a shield made of dragon scales to protect him from the fire, and Galen sets off to do battle. He and Valerian also confess their feelings for each other. Galen fails to kill the dragon, and Princess Elspeth is killed by the dragon's hatchlings, which Galen kills. Valerian and Galen flee the village together.
As they are leaving, the amulet reveals to Galen that Ulrich's wish was that his ashes be spread over burning water, which is the lake near the dragon's cave. Ulrich knew he could not make the journey, so he had Galen make the journey for him (if Galen had known this sooner, the princess might have lived, but oh, well). Ulrich is returned to life, and fights the dragon. He's caught up in the dragon's claws, but Galen smashes the amulet and Ulrich and the dragon explode.
King Casiodorus arrives on the scene to claim credit for slaying the dragon, while Galen and Valerian leave. Galen is upset that he's not really a sorceror, but when he wishes he and Valerian had a horse, one appears.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Dragonslayer takes place after the fall of Rome, but before Christianity is widespread. It was filmed in the British Isles, so the kingdom of Urland is probably a small kingdom which sprang up after Rome left. It's definitely prior to the rule of King Arthur.
This is also reflected in the tone. Dragonslayer is darker than most Disney movies and, frankly, kind of gruesome.
Historically, then, the WW4C might not have become the generally optimistic place that it is until Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and become King of England. Prior to that, the world was a much darker place.
Professor Ned Brainard & Flubber
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
Professor Ned Brainard is a bumbling but brilliant chemistry professor who is, as the title indicates, so absent-minded that he has to put a reminder in his lesson plan that he's getting married that evening. Stopping by his laboratory to run some quick tests before he goes to get married, Brainard discovers he's invented a "new form of energy," flying rubber, or "flubber." It's a substance that, when energy is applied to it, it creates more energy, but only as long as the energy is applied to it, and only--well, it would take a scientist to explain it. Basically, it's grade-A technobabble.
However, Brainard loses track of time and misses his wedding by twelve hours. This is apparently not the first time this has happened, and his fiancee Betsy has had enough. She turns for comfort to Professor Shelby Ashton, an English professor from a rival college. Ned has to win her back and decides that flubber is the way to do it. He initially tries to explain to her how great his new discovery is, but she's having none of it. He next grafts flubber onto the soles of the basketball team's shoes to help them win, but Betsy thinks he's being a jerk when he tries to take credit.
It's also worth noting that the reason the team needs help to win is that Professor Brainard has flunked their star player, Biff Hawk, the son of local businessman (read: loan shark) Alonzo Hawk. Medfield College, where Ned teaches, is deep in debt to Hawk, who is looking to foreclose on the loan and tear down the college to build commercial properties. So flubber is also going to save the college.
Ned also makes his car flubber-powered, which somehow gives it the ability to fly. He mostly uses this to terrorize Professor Ashton, but he's spotted flying by the Hawks. Alonzo Hawk approaches Ned and tells him that he (Hawk) can approach the government and get them to pay millions for the formula. Ned wants no part of Hawk's plan, which he sees as blackmail, and decides to sell it to them directly.
Hawk sabotages Ned's meeting with the government by swapping Ned's flubberized Model T for an ordinary one. However, Ned and Betsy trick Hawk into wearing flubber-soled shoes which keeps him occupied while they recover the car. They fly to Washington, D.C. and, after being mistaken for a UFO and almost shot down, meet with the military, who are very interested in the secret of antigravity.
Son of Flubber (1963)
Professor Brainard and Biff Hawk, now Brainard's top pupil, are going to Washington to get paid for flubber. However, the government has declared flubber to be top secret and, well, basically takes it without paying for it. Brainard returns empty-handed to find that the IRS is planning to tax him based not on what he actually has, which isn't enough to pay the paperboy, but on what he estimated his income to be based on flubber. Meanwhile, Alonzo Hawk is still looking to foreclose on his loans to the college.
Ned decides to create something new since he can't make flubber anymore, and creates flubbergas, which he plans to use to control the weather. Turns out, it does more than that: it can negate gravity, can create clouds, and in one experiment causes windows all over town to break. This gets the attention of Alonzo Hawk, who issued the insurance policies on all those windows. He's upset at losing money, but has a proposition: he and Brainard can buy up glass companies and then make a fortune by replacing the windows they break. Way to think big.
Ned doesn't like this plan, either, and Hawk vows to bring him down. There's also a subplot with Biff and his friend using flubbergas to win the football game against Medfield's rival college. Ned ends up on trial for damage caused by flubbergas, but the day is saved when it turns out the fallout from flubbergas has created "dry rain" which makes the land superfertile, causing crops to grow to freakishly huge size. Everyone wins, except Alonzo Hawk.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Professor Brainard is definitely a superscientist in the Reed Richards mold: he makes amazing creations which end up not changing the world. However, unlike Richards, who got fabulously wealthy off of his patents, Brainard has horrible luck when dealing with the government.
Medfield College will turn up again in the Dexter Riley movies. The movies were filmed in California, but flying east at basically driving speed (in a Model T, no less) gets Professor Brainard to Washington D.C. without much trouble. The college itself is probably located somewhere in the midwest, perhaps in Ohio or western Pennsylvania.
Alonzo Hawk will also show up again in one of the Herbie movies, trying to run an old woman out of her home so he can tear it down. There's really nothing good about him. Biff Hawk does not show up again in the movies, however, which makes his post-college future an empty slate for us to write on. Probably he becomes a superscientist like Professor Brainard. Maybe he uses his science skills to become a superhero in the mid-to-late 1960s and 1970s.
Flubber was taken by the government and kept top secret. Flubbergas was created to make money for the Brainards and the college, but since Medfield college is in financial trouble again by 1969's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (and since vegetables as big as a man aren't commonplace), it seems that flubbergas didn't see widespread distribution, either. Maybe it was also taken by the military, or maybe it had a side effect that made it impractical to put into wide use. It's unclear what else flubbergas might do, after all. It might cause people to develop superpowers with too much exposure (or it might just be good for one big crop and then deplete the soil again).
Professor Ned Brainard is a bumbling but brilliant chemistry professor who is, as the title indicates, so absent-minded that he has to put a reminder in his lesson plan that he's getting married that evening. Stopping by his laboratory to run some quick tests before he goes to get married, Brainard discovers he's invented a "new form of energy," flying rubber, or "flubber." It's a substance that, when energy is applied to it, it creates more energy, but only as long as the energy is applied to it, and only--well, it would take a scientist to explain it. Basically, it's grade-A technobabble.
However, Brainard loses track of time and misses his wedding by twelve hours. This is apparently not the first time this has happened, and his fiancee Betsy has had enough. She turns for comfort to Professor Shelby Ashton, an English professor from a rival college. Ned has to win her back and decides that flubber is the way to do it. He initially tries to explain to her how great his new discovery is, but she's having none of it. He next grafts flubber onto the soles of the basketball team's shoes to help them win, but Betsy thinks he's being a jerk when he tries to take credit.
It's also worth noting that the reason the team needs help to win is that Professor Brainard has flunked their star player, Biff Hawk, the son of local businessman (read: loan shark) Alonzo Hawk. Medfield College, where Ned teaches, is deep in debt to Hawk, who is looking to foreclose on the loan and tear down the college to build commercial properties. So flubber is also going to save the college.
Ned also makes his car flubber-powered, which somehow gives it the ability to fly. He mostly uses this to terrorize Professor Ashton, but he's spotted flying by the Hawks. Alonzo Hawk approaches Ned and tells him that he (Hawk) can approach the government and get them to pay millions for the formula. Ned wants no part of Hawk's plan, which he sees as blackmail, and decides to sell it to them directly.
Hawk sabotages Ned's meeting with the government by swapping Ned's flubberized Model T for an ordinary one. However, Ned and Betsy trick Hawk into wearing flubber-soled shoes which keeps him occupied while they recover the car. They fly to Washington, D.C. and, after being mistaken for a UFO and almost shot down, meet with the military, who are very interested in the secret of antigravity.
Son of Flubber (1963)
Professor Brainard and Biff Hawk, now Brainard's top pupil, are going to Washington to get paid for flubber. However, the government has declared flubber to be top secret and, well, basically takes it without paying for it. Brainard returns empty-handed to find that the IRS is planning to tax him based not on what he actually has, which isn't enough to pay the paperboy, but on what he estimated his income to be based on flubber. Meanwhile, Alonzo Hawk is still looking to foreclose on his loans to the college.
Ned decides to create something new since he can't make flubber anymore, and creates flubbergas, which he plans to use to control the weather. Turns out, it does more than that: it can negate gravity, can create clouds, and in one experiment causes windows all over town to break. This gets the attention of Alonzo Hawk, who issued the insurance policies on all those windows. He's upset at losing money, but has a proposition: he and Brainard can buy up glass companies and then make a fortune by replacing the windows they break. Way to think big.
Ned doesn't like this plan, either, and Hawk vows to bring him down. There's also a subplot with Biff and his friend using flubbergas to win the football game against Medfield's rival college. Ned ends up on trial for damage caused by flubbergas, but the day is saved when it turns out the fallout from flubbergas has created "dry rain" which makes the land superfertile, causing crops to grow to freakishly huge size. Everyone wins, except Alonzo Hawk.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Professor Brainard is definitely a superscientist in the Reed Richards mold: he makes amazing creations which end up not changing the world. However, unlike Richards, who got fabulously wealthy off of his patents, Brainard has horrible luck when dealing with the government.
Medfield College will turn up again in the Dexter Riley movies. The movies were filmed in California, but flying east at basically driving speed (in a Model T, no less) gets Professor Brainard to Washington D.C. without much trouble. The college itself is probably located somewhere in the midwest, perhaps in Ohio or western Pennsylvania.
Alonzo Hawk will also show up again in one of the Herbie movies, trying to run an old woman out of her home so he can tear it down. There's really nothing good about him. Biff Hawk does not show up again in the movies, however, which makes his post-college future an empty slate for us to write on. Probably he becomes a superscientist like Professor Brainard. Maybe he uses his science skills to become a superhero in the mid-to-late 1960s and 1970s.
Flubber was taken by the government and kept top secret. Flubbergas was created to make money for the Brainards and the college, but since Medfield college is in financial trouble again by 1969's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (and since vegetables as big as a man aren't commonplace), it seems that flubbergas didn't see widespread distribution, either. Maybe it was also taken by the military, or maybe it had a side effect that made it impractical to put into wide use. It's unclear what else flubbergas might do, after all. It might cause people to develop superpowers with too much exposure (or it might just be good for one big crop and then deplete the soil again).
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Witch Mountain
Witch Mountain is located in northern California. It has long had stories associated with it about strange inhabitants and phenomena. It has featured in three movies:
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
Orphan twins Tony and Tia Malone have strange powers. Tony can move things with the power of his mind and Tia can read minds and see the future to a limited extent. They are trying to find out where they came from, and are being chased by millionaire Aristotle Bolt and his right-hand man Deranian, who are trying to capture them to use their powers for his own ends.
The children meet a widower named Jason O'Day who is traveling the country in his RV and enlist his help in getting them to Witch Mountain, where they believe they can find their Uncle Bene. O'Day is reluctant to help them, but ultimately cannot refuse to help children in need.
It is revealed that Tia and Tony are aliens whose ship crashed at sea and they were lost. [1] Their people established a colony at Witch Mountain. Bolt and Deranian are foiled in their attempts to capture the children, and Tia and Tony rejoin their people.
Return From Witch Mountain (1978)
Tia and Tony visit Los Angeles after spending the last three years at Witch Mountain learning to use their powers. They get separated and Tony is kidnapped by the evil Letha Wedge and the mad scientist Dr. Gannon, who see Tony using his powers. Letha Wedge has been funding Gannon's efforts to build a mind control device. Not only does the device work, but it works on Tony.
Letha wants to use Tony to make money, since she has spent her fortune funding Dr. Gannon, but Gannon sees Tony as his opportunity to take over the world. It's up to Tia, along with a gang of truant kids (the Earthquake Gang) she befriends, and the hapless truant officer Mr. Yokomoto to save Tony and stop Dr. Gannon.
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
Ex-con Jack Bruno is a taxi driver in Las Vegas during a UFO convention, which he believes is full of lunatics, even if one of the lunatics, Dr. Alex Friedman, also happens to be gorgeous. He finds two teenagers, Seth and Sara, in his cab and they offer to pay him an exorbitant amount to deliver them to a certain destination. Against his better judgment, he accepts the fare.
Jack discovers that Seth and Sara are aliens, and that they were sent to Earth by their parents to retrieve a device that will restore their home planet's polluted atmosphere. Problems arose when their ship crashed and now they need to retrieve their ship, which is being held in a government facility in Witch Mountain. Further complicating matters, they are being pursued by an alien assassin called a Siphon, sent by the military of their home world which is planning to invade Earth and make it their new home and doesn't want the kids to succeed in their mission, as that would eliminate their justification for invading. To make matters worse, Burke, a government alien hunter, and his team have recovered the spaceship and are trying to locate and capture the kids.
Seth and Sara have powers of their own--Seth can alter his density to become intangible or incredibly dense, and Sara can read minds and move objects with a thought--but they still need the help of Jack Bruno and Dr. Friedman to save the day. In the end, the kids return home with a promise to return one day, Jack and Dr. Friedman become a couple and write a popular book about their adventure, and Burke is in trouble with his superiors.
Fitting it into the WW4C
The biggest problem here is that in the first two movies, Witch Mountain is a colony of aliens on Earth, and in the third movie it's a government installation for studying aliens--sort of the difference between Mount Shasta and Cheyenne Mountain (if Stargate SG-1 is to be believed).
Given the choice between including one version or the other, I'd go with the first two movies. I love Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino as much as the next person, but I grew up watching Tony and Tia. Fortunately, Race to Witch Mountain has a scene which saves it.
At one point in the movie, Jack and the kids end up in a diner. Their waitress, Tina, seems to have an unusual reaction to the kids, which she explains as noticing how dirty they are. The kids, however, look like they're amazed to see Tina. As she leaves the table, Tina says hello to the local lawman, Sheriff Antony. Tina and Antony later prove crucial in helping Jack and the kids escape from Burke and the alien hunters. "Tina" and "Antony" are also played by Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann, the original "Tia" and "Tony."
Seriously, watch the scene and look at the way "Tina" and Seth and Sara react to each other. I'm pretty sure we're meant to think that maybe this is Tia, grown up and slinging hash for a living (for some reason). Well, here's my reason:
In the 1980s, the government, in particular its alien-hunting agency SETI [2], moved in on Witch Mountain hoping to find evidence of alien invasion. They didn't, because the inhabitants of Witch Mountain left the planet. Tony and Tia stayed behind, however, becoming "Tina" and "Antony." They may have had superheroic careers in the 1980s and 1990s. Should Seth and Sara return, they will almost certainly have superheroics in their future as well.
[1] Most aliens who end up on Earth in these movies seem to do so by crashing. Earth is like the most dangerous intersection in the galaxy.
[2] I may not get to it for a while, but the alien-hunting organization in My Favorite Martian is SETI. It seemed redundant to have two such organizations. I know that the real SETI is just some underfunded scientists looking for radio signals, but the real Masons aren't a world-spanning conspiracy, and yet there are the National Treasure movies (also from Disney).
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
Orphan twins Tony and Tia Malone have strange powers. Tony can move things with the power of his mind and Tia can read minds and see the future to a limited extent. They are trying to find out where they came from, and are being chased by millionaire Aristotle Bolt and his right-hand man Deranian, who are trying to capture them to use their powers for his own ends.
The children meet a widower named Jason O'Day who is traveling the country in his RV and enlist his help in getting them to Witch Mountain, where they believe they can find their Uncle Bene. O'Day is reluctant to help them, but ultimately cannot refuse to help children in need.
It is revealed that Tia and Tony are aliens whose ship crashed at sea and they were lost. [1] Their people established a colony at Witch Mountain. Bolt and Deranian are foiled in their attempts to capture the children, and Tia and Tony rejoin their people.
Return From Witch Mountain (1978)
Tia and Tony visit Los Angeles after spending the last three years at Witch Mountain learning to use their powers. They get separated and Tony is kidnapped by the evil Letha Wedge and the mad scientist Dr. Gannon, who see Tony using his powers. Letha Wedge has been funding Gannon's efforts to build a mind control device. Not only does the device work, but it works on Tony.
Letha wants to use Tony to make money, since she has spent her fortune funding Dr. Gannon, but Gannon sees Tony as his opportunity to take over the world. It's up to Tia, along with a gang of truant kids (the Earthquake Gang) she befriends, and the hapless truant officer Mr. Yokomoto to save Tony and stop Dr. Gannon.
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
Ex-con Jack Bruno is a taxi driver in Las Vegas during a UFO convention, which he believes is full of lunatics, even if one of the lunatics, Dr. Alex Friedman, also happens to be gorgeous. He finds two teenagers, Seth and Sara, in his cab and they offer to pay him an exorbitant amount to deliver them to a certain destination. Against his better judgment, he accepts the fare.
Jack discovers that Seth and Sara are aliens, and that they were sent to Earth by their parents to retrieve a device that will restore their home planet's polluted atmosphere. Problems arose when their ship crashed and now they need to retrieve their ship, which is being held in a government facility in Witch Mountain. Further complicating matters, they are being pursued by an alien assassin called a Siphon, sent by the military of their home world which is planning to invade Earth and make it their new home and doesn't want the kids to succeed in their mission, as that would eliminate their justification for invading. To make matters worse, Burke, a government alien hunter, and his team have recovered the spaceship and are trying to locate and capture the kids.
Seth and Sara have powers of their own--Seth can alter his density to become intangible or incredibly dense, and Sara can read minds and move objects with a thought--but they still need the help of Jack Bruno and Dr. Friedman to save the day. In the end, the kids return home with a promise to return one day, Jack and Dr. Friedman become a couple and write a popular book about their adventure, and Burke is in trouble with his superiors.
Fitting it into the WW4C
The biggest problem here is that in the first two movies, Witch Mountain is a colony of aliens on Earth, and in the third movie it's a government installation for studying aliens--sort of the difference between Mount Shasta and Cheyenne Mountain (if Stargate SG-1 is to be believed).
Given the choice between including one version or the other, I'd go with the first two movies. I love Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino as much as the next person, but I grew up watching Tony and Tia. Fortunately, Race to Witch Mountain has a scene which saves it.
At one point in the movie, Jack and the kids end up in a diner. Their waitress, Tina, seems to have an unusual reaction to the kids, which she explains as noticing how dirty they are. The kids, however, look like they're amazed to see Tina. As she leaves the table, Tina says hello to the local lawman, Sheriff Antony. Tina and Antony later prove crucial in helping Jack and the kids escape from Burke and the alien hunters. "Tina" and "Antony" are also played by Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann, the original "Tia" and "Tony."
Seriously, watch the scene and look at the way "Tina" and Seth and Sara react to each other. I'm pretty sure we're meant to think that maybe this is Tia, grown up and slinging hash for a living (for some reason). Well, here's my reason:
In the 1980s, the government, in particular its alien-hunting agency SETI [2], moved in on Witch Mountain hoping to find evidence of alien invasion. They didn't, because the inhabitants of Witch Mountain left the planet. Tony and Tia stayed behind, however, becoming "Tina" and "Antony." They may have had superheroic careers in the 1980s and 1990s. Should Seth and Sara return, they will almost certainly have superheroics in their future as well.
[1] Most aliens who end up on Earth in these movies seem to do so by crashing. Earth is like the most dangerous intersection in the galaxy.
[2] I may not get to it for a while, but the alien-hunting organization in My Favorite Martian is SETI. It seemed redundant to have two such organizations. I know that the real SETI is just some underfunded scientists looking for radio signals, but the real Masons aren't a world-spanning conspiracy, and yet there are the National Treasure movies (also from Disney).
Alternate Universes
Alternate universes are a staple of comic books, and the WW4C is no different. The WW4C also has "pocket dimensions" which aren't entire separate universes but are limited in size.
Here are several alternate universes and pocket dimensions which are known to exist:
Here are several alternate universes and pocket dimensions which are known to exist:
- Andalasia: An alternate universe fantasy realm. It's named after the kingdom of Andalasia, but there is presumably an entire world. The only known portal between Andalasia and the WW4C is between a wishing well in Andalasia and a manhole in New York City. The kingdom of Andalasia is currently ruled by King Edward, a native of Andalasia, and Queen Nancy, a native of New York City.
- The Grid: The Grid is a pocket dimension which exists inside the computers at ENCOM, one of the world's largest computer companies. It is unclear whether the Grid exists inside other computers as well. Computer programs in the ENCOM system resemble their human Users, whom the Programs revere. The Grid can be accessed via a teleportation laser in the ENCOM research laboratory.
- Calisota: The alternate universe of Calisota is named after the state of Calisota in its version of the United States. Calisota is a world of talking cartoon animals. It also has its own superheroes, with the town of Duckburg being defended by Gizmoduck and St. Canard being defended by the terror that flaps in the night, Darkwing Duck. The dominant life forms on this world appear to be ducks and dogs, but bears, orangutans, tigers, and other animals are also represented. (Basically, any Disney cartoon featuring talking animals from Darkwing Duck to Duck Tales to Tale Spin to Goof Troop belongs here.)
- The Marvel Universe: The Marvel Universe is a world much like the WW4C but a little bit darker. Heroes in the Marvel Universe aren't always as morally upstanding as in the WW4C, and villains are occasionally outright murderous. The premiere superteam of the Marvel Universe is the Avengers, consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk. (It might make sense for Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men to also be in the Marvel Universe, but since those movies are made by other studios, I'm not officially including them.)
- Halloween Town: A pocket dimension in which it is always Halloween. Halloween Town is filled with monsters. There is also a pocket dimension called Christmas Town, in which it is always Christmas. It is unclear whether there are "Towns" for every holiday.
- The Incredibles Universe: This is the home universe of the superteam The Incredibles. It's very similar to the WW4C. The events of other Pixar movies such as Toy Story, Up, A Bug's Life, and Ratatouille are part of the Incredibles Universe.
- Monstropolis: A pocket dimension containing a city where monsters that live under beds and in closets reside. Until relatively recently, the city was powered by the screams of children. About a decade ago, it was discovered that children's laughter was a more efficient energy source. Monstropolis may connect to multiple universes, making it a way to travel between worlds for those who know of its existence.
- Gargoyles Universe: Another universe similar to the WW4C. Like the Marvel Universe, the Gargoyles Universe is less morally clear than the WW4C. Its greatest heroes are a group of gargoyles--magical winged creatures which turn to stone in daylight.
- Car World: This is an entire world which is remarkably similar to the WW4C except that it is inhabited entirely by intelligent talking automobiles. (This is a possible origin for Herbie the Love Bug.) It appears to have no humans and no superheroes. Effectively, it is a world of robot cars.
When traveling between worlds, the travelers are typically "translated" into a form which follows the rules of that world. For instance, when various residents of Andalasia came to the WW4C, they became real people instead of animated characters, and the chipmunk Pip lost the ability to speak. Similarly, when Flynn entered the Virtual World, he took on the appearance of a Program. Travelers to Car World are hereby warned.
Enchanted (2007)
The Plot
In the fantasy world of Andalasia, Giselle lives with her animal friends, including the chipmunk Pip. When she's rescued from a troll by Prince Edward, she falls in love with him. However, Edward's mother, the evil Queen Narissa, does not want to give up her throne (or her son) and sends Giselle through a magic portal in a well to a world with no happily ever afters.
Giselle arrives in New York City through a manhole. She's confused but ultimately gets help from a cynical divorce lawyer, Robert Philip, and his daughter Morgan. Giselle is relentlessly optimistic and innocent and shocked that Robert does not believe in true love. It's also revealed that, when she sings, she can start spontaneous musical numbers, causing people to sing and dance, or causing animals to do housework. However, Giselle also causes problems between Robert and his girlfriend Nancy due to various misunderstandings.
Meanwhile, Prince Edward, his sidekick Nathaniel (who is working for Queen Narissa because he is in love with her) and Pip the chipmunk head through the portal to find Giselle. Edward adapts to New York even less well than Giselle: among other things, he attacks a bus, thinking it is a monster that has eaten the passengers. Nathaniel becomes addicted to daytime talk shows and starts questioning his feelings about the Queen--but not before he makes a couple of attempts on Giselle's life, only to be thwarted by Pip, who retains all of his intelligence but cannot speak to warn people of Nathaniel's treachery.
Events progress, as they tend to do, and Giselle and Edward are reunited. Before they leave, though, they head to a ball being held in a skyscraper, which Robert and Nancy are also attending. Queen Narissa travels through the portal and attacks the ball, putting Giselle into a comatose state from which she can only be awakened by the kiss of her true love. Turns out that's not Edward, but Robert. Queen Narissa is defeated, but not before she has turned into a dragon and faced off against all of our heroes. (She's ultimately defeated, though, by Pip.)
In the end, Giselle stays in New York with Robert and Morgan and opens a dressmaking boutique, while Nancy--who deep down wanted the fairy tale romance--travels to Andalasia to marry Prince Edward (who, really, is King Edward now, making Nancy the Queen). Pip also returns to Andalasia, but Nathaniel stays in New York and becomes a successful self-help book author.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Giselle's optimism and enthusiasm mark her as ideal superhero material. Her powers are unusual, being mostly based around starting spontaneous song-and-dance numbers, but superheroes have been successful with less. Once she learned that some people dressed up in fancy costumes and fought evil, she'd want to do it. It's likely that she'd be the driving force behind organizing a superhero team.
And about that singing. Several of the movies I'll be blogging about are musicals, but for the most part no one comments on how unusual it is for people to perform musical numbers out of nowhere. Enchanted does comment on it. My solution is to ignore the musical numbers in the other movies. The ability to create spontaneous song-and-dance numbers is a piece of magic unique to Andalasians.
The land of Andalasia is also the first example of an alternate world to show up in this blog. It's a fantasy world where animals can talk, musical numbers happen at the drop of a hat, and handsome princes rescue fair maidens from monsters and evil sorceresses. Andalasia is likely just a single country in the world, but I'm also attributing that name to the entire world as shorthand. Any of the animated Disney princess movies may have taken place in the world of Andalasia.
In the fantasy world of Andalasia, Giselle lives with her animal friends, including the chipmunk Pip. When she's rescued from a troll by Prince Edward, she falls in love with him. However, Edward's mother, the evil Queen Narissa, does not want to give up her throne (or her son) and sends Giselle through a magic portal in a well to a world with no happily ever afters.
Giselle arrives in New York City through a manhole. She's confused but ultimately gets help from a cynical divorce lawyer, Robert Philip, and his daughter Morgan. Giselle is relentlessly optimistic and innocent and shocked that Robert does not believe in true love. It's also revealed that, when she sings, she can start spontaneous musical numbers, causing people to sing and dance, or causing animals to do housework. However, Giselle also causes problems between Robert and his girlfriend Nancy due to various misunderstandings.
Meanwhile, Prince Edward, his sidekick Nathaniel (who is working for Queen Narissa because he is in love with her) and Pip the chipmunk head through the portal to find Giselle. Edward adapts to New York even less well than Giselle: among other things, he attacks a bus, thinking it is a monster that has eaten the passengers. Nathaniel becomes addicted to daytime talk shows and starts questioning his feelings about the Queen--but not before he makes a couple of attempts on Giselle's life, only to be thwarted by Pip, who retains all of his intelligence but cannot speak to warn people of Nathaniel's treachery.
Events progress, as they tend to do, and Giselle and Edward are reunited. Before they leave, though, they head to a ball being held in a skyscraper, which Robert and Nancy are also attending. Queen Narissa travels through the portal and attacks the ball, putting Giselle into a comatose state from which she can only be awakened by the kiss of her true love. Turns out that's not Edward, but Robert. Queen Narissa is defeated, but not before she has turned into a dragon and faced off against all of our heroes. (She's ultimately defeated, though, by Pip.)
In the end, Giselle stays in New York with Robert and Morgan and opens a dressmaking boutique, while Nancy--who deep down wanted the fairy tale romance--travels to Andalasia to marry Prince Edward (who, really, is King Edward now, making Nancy the Queen). Pip also returns to Andalasia, but Nathaniel stays in New York and becomes a successful self-help book author.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Giselle's optimism and enthusiasm mark her as ideal superhero material. Her powers are unusual, being mostly based around starting spontaneous song-and-dance numbers, but superheroes have been successful with less. Once she learned that some people dressed up in fancy costumes and fought evil, she'd want to do it. It's likely that she'd be the driving force behind organizing a superhero team.
And about that singing. Several of the movies I'll be blogging about are musicals, but for the most part no one comments on how unusual it is for people to perform musical numbers out of nowhere. Enchanted does comment on it. My solution is to ignore the musical numbers in the other movies. The ability to create spontaneous song-and-dance numbers is a piece of magic unique to Andalasians.
The land of Andalasia is also the first example of an alternate world to show up in this blog. It's a fantasy world where animals can talk, musical numbers happen at the drop of a hat, and handsome princes rescue fair maidens from monsters and evil sorceresses. Andalasia is likely just a single country in the world, but I'm also attributing that name to the entire world as shorthand. Any of the animated Disney princess movies may have taken place in the world of Andalasia.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
The Plot
In the early 19th Century, the Robinsons, a Swiss family consisting of a Father, Mother, and their three boys Fritz, Ernst, and Francis leave Europe to head for New Guinea. When their ship is chased by pirates, they end up wrecked on an island. The Robinsons set about using the natural resources of the island and the wreckage of the ship to create a comfortable home for themselves.
While exploring the island the older boys Fritz and Ernst find the pirates, who have captured another ship and hold the captain and Bertie the cabin boy captive. The boys rescue Bertie, who turns out to be Roberta, the captain's very attractive daughter. Fritz (the athletic one) and Ernst (the brainy one) begin a rivalry to win over Roberta. After the boys end up fighting each other, Father declares a holiday for the new nation of "New Switzerland" which is celebrated with a race in which the participants each ride an animal from the island, including an elephant, an ostrich, and a zebra. However, festivities aside, Father realizes that the pirates will come to reclaim their hostage.
The family prepares a series of traps for the pirates, and when the pirates attack, the family holds them off for a while, but is saved by the appearance of a ship captained by Roberta's grandfather. Roberta's grandfather offers to take everyone back to Europe or on to New Guinea. Ernst decides to leave New Switzerland to go to a university, but the rest of the family plus Roberta, who plans to marry Fritz, elects to stay on the island.
Fitting it into the WW4C
The island itself is a conundrum. While the Robinsons speculate that at one time it was connected to Asia via a land bridge, it is home to animals from Asia, Africa, and Australia. In a feat of retroactive continuity, I have decided that New Switzerland was where the wizard Astaroth kept the animals on which he was planning to experiment before he gave them human qualities and put them on the island of Naboombu. (For more on Astaroth and Naboombu, see the entry on Bedknobs and Broomsticks.)
New Switzerland could become its own thriving nation in the WW4C, but I see it differently. The story of the Swiss Family Robinson is a lot like a less grim version of the origin of Lee Falk's classic comic character The Phantom (which was made into a non-Disney movie starring Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones).
However, in my vision of the WW4C, New Switzerland remains the home of the Robinson clan, but over the past two hundred years, it has become their high-tech base of operations in the South Pacific. The Robinson family fills the role of scientific adventurers and action heroes, like DC's Challengers of the Unknown crossed with Johnny Quest. They travel the world investigating anomalies, pushing the boundaries of science, and foiling international criminal plots.
In the early 19th Century, the Robinsons, a Swiss family consisting of a Father, Mother, and their three boys Fritz, Ernst, and Francis leave Europe to head for New Guinea. When their ship is chased by pirates, they end up wrecked on an island. The Robinsons set about using the natural resources of the island and the wreckage of the ship to create a comfortable home for themselves.
While exploring the island the older boys Fritz and Ernst find the pirates, who have captured another ship and hold the captain and Bertie the cabin boy captive. The boys rescue Bertie, who turns out to be Roberta, the captain's very attractive daughter. Fritz (the athletic one) and Ernst (the brainy one) begin a rivalry to win over Roberta. After the boys end up fighting each other, Father declares a holiday for the new nation of "New Switzerland" which is celebrated with a race in which the participants each ride an animal from the island, including an elephant, an ostrich, and a zebra. However, festivities aside, Father realizes that the pirates will come to reclaim their hostage.
The family prepares a series of traps for the pirates, and when the pirates attack, the family holds them off for a while, but is saved by the appearance of a ship captained by Roberta's grandfather. Roberta's grandfather offers to take everyone back to Europe or on to New Guinea. Ernst decides to leave New Switzerland to go to a university, but the rest of the family plus Roberta, who plans to marry Fritz, elects to stay on the island.
Fitting it into the WW4C
The island itself is a conundrum. While the Robinsons speculate that at one time it was connected to Asia via a land bridge, it is home to animals from Asia, Africa, and Australia. In a feat of retroactive continuity, I have decided that New Switzerland was where the wizard Astaroth kept the animals on which he was planning to experiment before he gave them human qualities and put them on the island of Naboombu. (For more on Astaroth and Naboombu, see the entry on Bedknobs and Broomsticks.)
New Switzerland could become its own thriving nation in the WW4C, but I see it differently. The story of the Swiss Family Robinson is a lot like a less grim version of the origin of Lee Falk's classic comic character The Phantom (which was made into a non-Disney movie starring Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones).
However, in my vision of the WW4C, New Switzerland remains the home of the Robinson clan, but over the past two hundred years, it has become their high-tech base of operations in the South Pacific. The Robinson family fills the role of scientific adventurers and action heroes, like DC's Challengers of the Unknown crossed with Johnny Quest. They travel the world investigating anomalies, pushing the boundaries of science, and foiling international criminal plots.
The Rocketeer (1991)
The Plot
In 1938, gangsters steal an experimental jetpack from Howard Hughes and, when the FBI is closing in, they hide it in an aircraft hangar. The hangar, however is used by stunt pilot Cliff Secord and his friend and mechanic, "Peevy" Peabody, who are part of an airshow. Cliff and Peevy discover the jetpack and, after figuring out what it is, Peevy creates a special helmet to correct an inability to steer while flying. Cliff makes his first public appearance as The Rocketeer when he rescues a pilot at the airshow who is in a malfunctioning plane.
The mobsters were hired by actor Neville Sinclair, who coincidentally takes a liking to Cliff's girlfriend Jenny, an aspiring actress. Cliff discovers Neville's involvement when Neville's assassin Lothar (a hulking brute modeled on real-life actor Rondo Hatton), who has been bumping off anyone involved in the theft, comes after Cliff and Peevy. Cliff learns that Neville is on a date with Jenny and sets out as The Rocketeer to stop Neville. However, he fails and Neville kidnaps Jenny.
Neville Sinclair, it turns out, is a Nazi spy. Cliff is arrested by the FBI and taken to Howard Hughes, who explains that the Nazis are after the jetpack as part of a plan to rule the world. In the big showdown that follows, Cliff takes on Lothar and Neville on board a zeppelin.
Fitting it into the WW4C
This is the other movie that spawned the idea of the WW4C. There have been other masked heroes in the WW4C, like Zorro and the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, but the Rocketeer is the first one with superhuman powers, even if those powers come from a piece of equipment.
The Rocketeer in the WW4C remains active through World War II and into the 1950s. He will serve as the inspiration for later superheroes. If the Super-Soldier program which created Captain America in the Marvel Universe was also attempted in the WW4C, it's possible that The Rocketeer fought alongside Captain America during the war.
It's very likely that Cliff Secord passed down the jetpack and helmet to either his children or to someone else to carry on the legacy of The Rocketeer after he retired from superheroics.
In 1938, gangsters steal an experimental jetpack from Howard Hughes and, when the FBI is closing in, they hide it in an aircraft hangar. The hangar, however is used by stunt pilot Cliff Secord and his friend and mechanic, "Peevy" Peabody, who are part of an airshow. Cliff and Peevy discover the jetpack and, after figuring out what it is, Peevy creates a special helmet to correct an inability to steer while flying. Cliff makes his first public appearance as The Rocketeer when he rescues a pilot at the airshow who is in a malfunctioning plane.
The mobsters were hired by actor Neville Sinclair, who coincidentally takes a liking to Cliff's girlfriend Jenny, an aspiring actress. Cliff discovers Neville's involvement when Neville's assassin Lothar (a hulking brute modeled on real-life actor Rondo Hatton), who has been bumping off anyone involved in the theft, comes after Cliff and Peevy. Cliff learns that Neville is on a date with Jenny and sets out as The Rocketeer to stop Neville. However, he fails and Neville kidnaps Jenny.
Neville Sinclair, it turns out, is a Nazi spy. Cliff is arrested by the FBI and taken to Howard Hughes, who explains that the Nazis are after the jetpack as part of a plan to rule the world. In the big showdown that follows, Cliff takes on Lothar and Neville on board a zeppelin.
Fitting it into the WW4C
This is the other movie that spawned the idea of the WW4C. There have been other masked heroes in the WW4C, like Zorro and the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, but the Rocketeer is the first one with superhuman powers, even if those powers come from a piece of equipment.
The Rocketeer in the WW4C remains active through World War II and into the 1950s. He will serve as the inspiration for later superheroes. If the Super-Soldier program which created Captain America in the Marvel Universe was also attempted in the WW4C, it's possible that The Rocketeer fought alongside Captain America during the war.
It's very likely that Cliff Secord passed down the jetpack and helmet to either his children or to someone else to carry on the legacy of The Rocketeer after he retired from superheroics.
Bedknobs & Broomsticks (1971)
The Plot
It's 1940 in England, and children are being evacuated from London to the surrounding towns and villages. Three such children, Charlie, Carrie, and Paul, are sent to Dorset to live with Eglantine Price, an eccentric spinster.
Eglantine has a secret, however: she is an apprentice witch. She's been taking lessons by sending away to a correspondence course for witchcraft. She's searching for the spell of substitutiary locomotion, which will endow inanimate objects with life. She enchants the knob from the end of a bedpost with a spell to travel anywhere, and they head to London to look for the head of the witches' college, Professor Emelius Brown.
Professor Brown turns out to be a con artist who created the correspondence course by writing down things from old books. He accompanies the group on their quest for the spell, which takes them to a criminal called the Bookman, then to Naboombu, an island of intelligent animals which were created by the wizard Astaroth, who also created the spell of substitutiary locomotion. (Astaroth did not survive creating the animals of Naboombu, however, as they rose up and killed him--shades of the Island of Dr. Moreau.)
Eventually, Eglantine, Emelius, and the kids get the spell, just in time for Eglantine to use it to repel a Nazi invasion of Dorset by animating all the old arms and armor in the local museum. In the chaos, however, Eglantine's spellbook is destroyed and, her memory being rather terrible, she can no longer do magic. The kids still have the magic bedknob, however.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Since this was the movie I watched which inspired the whole enterprise, Bedknobs & Broomsticks is ground zero for the WW4C. Everything else revolves around it. Here's how it affects the setting:
It's 1940 in England, and children are being evacuated from London to the surrounding towns and villages. Three such children, Charlie, Carrie, and Paul, are sent to Dorset to live with Eglantine Price, an eccentric spinster.
Eglantine has a secret, however: she is an apprentice witch. She's been taking lessons by sending away to a correspondence course for witchcraft. She's searching for the spell of substitutiary locomotion, which will endow inanimate objects with life. She enchants the knob from the end of a bedpost with a spell to travel anywhere, and they head to London to look for the head of the witches' college, Professor Emelius Brown.
Professor Brown turns out to be a con artist who created the correspondence course by writing down things from old books. He accompanies the group on their quest for the spell, which takes them to a criminal called the Bookman, then to Naboombu, an island of intelligent animals which were created by the wizard Astaroth, who also created the spell of substitutiary locomotion. (Astaroth did not survive creating the animals of Naboombu, however, as they rose up and killed him--shades of the Island of Dr. Moreau.)
Eventually, Eglantine, Emelius, and the kids get the spell, just in time for Eglantine to use it to repel a Nazi invasion of Dorset by animating all the old arms and armor in the local museum. In the chaos, however, Eglantine's spellbook is destroyed and, her memory being rather terrible, she can no longer do magic. The kids still have the magic bedknob, however.
Fitting it into the WW4C
Since this was the movie I watched which inspired the whole enterprise, Bedknobs & Broomsticks is ground zero for the WW4C. Everything else revolves around it. Here's how it affects the setting:
- Magic runs on belief. In order to cast a spell, you must know the spell, believe in magic, and believe that you can do magic.
- Most wizards and witches do not need to cast spells from spellbooks. Eglantine needed a spellbook because she couldn't remember her spells otherwise.
- The spell of substitutiary locomotion is one possible explanation for Herbie the Love Bug and other sentient vehicles.
- The island of Naboombu is inhabited by anthropomorphic animals that speak English and are mad for football (soccer). An animal from Naboombu who ventured out into the world would potentially be an excellent superhero or ally to a superhero, similar to Mister Tawky Tawny from Captain Marvel.
- The magic bedknob is still around waiting to be used by a hero or villain.
It's also worth noting that this movie helps define my philosophy for what counts as "live-action." Bedknobs & Broomsticks has live-action plus cartoons. If the movie were remade today, the animals would be done in CGI and, likely, made to look realistic (much like the Narnia movies). When that is the case (as it also is in Pete's Dragon), I'm including the movie as a live-action film. If it were a pure cartoon, I would not.
Format and Four Color History
After some thinking, and several attempts to start writing something substantive, I've decided that the format of this blog will be to talk about specific movies or characters and how I'll fit them into the setting. This might result in a digression about some facet of the setting or another. Sometimes I'll post game statistics for a character.
First, let's talk about the history of the WW4C. If you looked at the modern WW4C, it would look a lot like our own, except for some extra bits. The history books are mostly the same, too, except that a visitor from our world (or from another world like our own, of which there are several) might be surprised to see that characters believed to be fictional in our world are matters of historical fact in the WW4C. A textbook on British history would almost certainly include a chapter on King Arthur, though probably not detailing how time travelers from the 20th Century saved Camelot on two different occasions, and would probably mention Robin Hood as well.
Other fictional characters from our own world might be less likely to turn up in a history book but are no less a part of the WW4C. Swashbucklers like the Three Musketeers and Zorro existed. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn had adventures in the 1840s in Missouri and up and down the Mississippi River. (Although it's not clear what happened to the boys after they grew up; they could very well have been famous personages in their own right). After the American Civil War, Captain Nemo tried to use his atomic submarine the Nautilus to end war around the world.
However, this is not as extreme as Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," where every fictional character exists. Only the ones about whom Disney has made movies (and possibly TV shows).
Roleplaying Game Ideas
So, what does all this mean for games set in the WW4C? Here are some possibilities:
First, let's talk about the history of the WW4C. If you looked at the modern WW4C, it would look a lot like our own, except for some extra bits. The history books are mostly the same, too, except that a visitor from our world (or from another world like our own, of which there are several) might be surprised to see that characters believed to be fictional in our world are matters of historical fact in the WW4C. A textbook on British history would almost certainly include a chapter on King Arthur, though probably not detailing how time travelers from the 20th Century saved Camelot on two different occasions, and would probably mention Robin Hood as well.
Other fictional characters from our own world might be less likely to turn up in a history book but are no less a part of the WW4C. Swashbucklers like the Three Musketeers and Zorro existed. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn had adventures in the 1840s in Missouri and up and down the Mississippi River. (Although it's not clear what happened to the boys after they grew up; they could very well have been famous personages in their own right). After the American Civil War, Captain Nemo tried to use his atomic submarine the Nautilus to end war around the world.
However, this is not as extreme as Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," where every fictional character exists. Only the ones about whom Disney has made movies (and possibly TV shows).
Roleplaying Game Ideas
So, what does all this mean for games set in the WW4C? Here are some possibilities:
- A hero could be the heir, either spiritual or literal, to a hero of the past. One of the characters I intend to create is La Zorra, the female descendant of El Zorro.
- Morgan le Fay may be a villain (and in at least one movie, Merlin is a villain).
- Time travelers could meet Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
- A villain could seek to salvage the Nautilus for use in his own schemes.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Wonderful World of Four Colors, In Four Colors
Roleplaying Stuff
The roleplaying game Wild Talents measures superhero settings on four color-codes axes. Red represents historical inertia, Gold the degree to which superbeings are fixed in their roles, Blue is the amount of weirdness in the setting, and Black is moral clarity. As a shorthand, then, the Wonderful World of Four Colors is Red 4, Gold 4, Blue 3, and Black 5.
In comics terms, the WW4C is very much a "Silver Age" setting.
Red 4
The WW4C is recognizably our own. Despite the existence of superheroes and other strange things, history has managed to stay mostly the same aside from some relatively minor cartographic changes. Even superscience inventions, aliens, and magic have done little to change the course of history.
Gold 4
People (and animals) with superpowers tend to become heroes or villains. It’s rare that someone will gain strange powers and not end up using them to either fight crimes or commit them, even if they intend to live a quiet life. It’s also rare for heroes and villains to switch sides, and when it does happen, it’s usually because a villain has seen the error of his ways, rather than the reverse.
Blue 3
There’s a lot of strangeness in the world, but it’s not an overwhelming amount and people mostly take it in stride. People generally don’t give a second thought to magic, ghosts, or aliens unless they’ve encountered them personally, but they also don’t spend much time denying that such things exist once they’ve seen the evidence.
Black 5
The WW4C is mostly a black-and-white world. The difference between good and evil is clear, and villains know that what they’re doing is wrong. When heroes do wrong, it’s the result of a momentary lapse, usually selfishness, and they will always try to correct it when they’ve seen the error of their ways. Even when a villain has an apparently noble motive, like protecting his country, in the end the noble motive is not the reason for the villain’s wrongdoing, but his justification.
The roleplaying game Wild Talents measures superhero settings on four color-codes axes. Red represents historical inertia, Gold the degree to which superbeings are fixed in their roles, Blue is the amount of weirdness in the setting, and Black is moral clarity. As a shorthand, then, the Wonderful World of Four Colors is Red 4, Gold 4, Blue 3, and Black 5.
In comics terms, the WW4C is very much a "Silver Age" setting.
Red 4
The WW4C is recognizably our own. Despite the existence of superheroes and other strange things, history has managed to stay mostly the same aside from some relatively minor cartographic changes. Even superscience inventions, aliens, and magic have done little to change the course of history.
Gold 4
People (and animals) with superpowers tend to become heroes or villains. It’s rare that someone will gain strange powers and not end up using them to either fight crimes or commit them, even if they intend to live a quiet life. It’s also rare for heroes and villains to switch sides, and when it does happen, it’s usually because a villain has seen the error of his ways, rather than the reverse.
Blue 3
There’s a lot of strangeness in the world, but it’s not an overwhelming amount and people mostly take it in stride. People generally don’t give a second thought to magic, ghosts, or aliens unless they’ve encountered them personally, but they also don’t spend much time denying that such things exist once they’ve seen the evidence.
Black 5
The WW4C is mostly a black-and-white world. The difference between good and evil is clear, and villains know that what they’re doing is wrong. When heroes do wrong, it’s the result of a momentary lapse, usually selfishness, and they will always try to correct it when they’ve seen the error of their ways. Even when a villain has an apparently noble motive, like protecting his country, in the end the noble motive is not the reason for the villain’s wrongdoing, but his justification.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is the Wonderful World of Four Colors?
A. It’s a superhero universe based on Disney movies. Essentially, it’s a look at what superhero comics based on Disney properties might look like. The name is a combination of Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” and “four color” comics books.
Q. Wonderful World of Four Colors is a mouthful. Want to shorten that up?
A. Sure. Call it the WW4C for short.
Q. Why are you doing this?
A. Initially, this started out when I was watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks for the first time in a couple of decades. I realized that the story of a witch fighting Nazis was kind of a superhero story, and from there I started to see how I could connect a bunch of live-action (or live-action with animation) Disney movies together into one coherent universe.
Later, after Disney acquired Marvel, it became a reaction to that—or maybe a counter-reaction to the reaction that Disney was going to turn Marvel comics into a bunch of lace and frills aimed at tween girls.
Q. Is this legal?
A. The First Amendment protects “fair use” of trademarked or copyrighted material for purposes of parody or criticism. The WW4C is a bit of both. It's a look at some classic (and not-so-classic) Disney movies through the eyes of a comic book fan.
Additionally, it’s never going to be confused with Disney’s actual product (for one thing, Disney makes much more attractive websites), and it’s definitely not a substitute for actually watching these movies, some of which I’m only including based on Wikipedia entries because I’ve never had the chance to see them myself.
Q. What’s with the game statistics?
A. I like roleplaying games. I was planning on using the Wild Talents roleplaying game to write up characters, but I find it to be unwieldy. I'm still using its system for describing the game world, but characters will be written for Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition or, when it comes out, DC Adventures/Mutants & Masterminds 3e.
Q. You forgot to mention my favorite movie/TV show/cartoon. What gives?
A. I’ve set arbitrary ground rules for myself on what gets included. First, only live-action (or primarily live-action) movies from Disney. I do include a couple of Disney TV shows, and a couple of Disney’s TV movies but, for the most part, live-action movies. Where appropriate, I borrow the superhero convention of parallel universes to explain some things, like where Princess Giselle comes from in Enchanted. Yes, this does mean that I won't be discussing Gargoyles and Darkwing Duck, except to say that they exist in a different world than this one.
Also, there’s just no way for me to see everything that Disney has done, so I accept that some things will fall through the cracks.
Q. Disney owns Marvel, so all the Marvel characters are in this, right?
A. Yes and no. Before Marvel started making its own movies, it farmed out the movie rights to several of its top characters to other film studios. Until Disney buys back the rights to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, the X-Men, and so forth, there can’t be Disney movies based on them. The rest of the characters that are showing up in Marvel movies—like The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, etc.—are going into their own parallel universe.
The director of the upcoming Captain America movie, though, also directed The Rocketeer for Disney. I would be elated if The Rocketeer made a cameo appearance somewhere in the Captain America movie.
A. It’s a superhero universe based on Disney movies. Essentially, it’s a look at what superhero comics based on Disney properties might look like. The name is a combination of Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” and “four color” comics books.
Q. Wonderful World of Four Colors is a mouthful. Want to shorten that up?
A. Sure. Call it the WW4C for short.
Q. Why are you doing this?
A. Initially, this started out when I was watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks for the first time in a couple of decades. I realized that the story of a witch fighting Nazis was kind of a superhero story, and from there I started to see how I could connect a bunch of live-action (or live-action with animation) Disney movies together into one coherent universe.
Later, after Disney acquired Marvel, it became a reaction to that—or maybe a counter-reaction to the reaction that Disney was going to turn Marvel comics into a bunch of lace and frills aimed at tween girls.
Q. Is this legal?
A. The First Amendment protects “fair use” of trademarked or copyrighted material for purposes of parody or criticism. The WW4C is a bit of both. It's a look at some classic (and not-so-classic) Disney movies through the eyes of a comic book fan.
Additionally, it’s never going to be confused with Disney’s actual product (for one thing, Disney makes much more attractive websites), and it’s definitely not a substitute for actually watching these movies, some of which I’m only including based on Wikipedia entries because I’ve never had the chance to see them myself.
Q. What’s with the game statistics?
A. I like roleplaying games. I was planning on using the Wild Talents roleplaying game to write up characters, but I find it to be unwieldy. I'm still using its system for describing the game world, but characters will be written for Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition or, when it comes out, DC Adventures/Mutants & Masterminds 3e.
Q. You forgot to mention my favorite movie/TV show/cartoon. What gives?
A. I’ve set arbitrary ground rules for myself on what gets included. First, only live-action (or primarily live-action) movies from Disney. I do include a couple of Disney TV shows, and a couple of Disney’s TV movies but, for the most part, live-action movies. Where appropriate, I borrow the superhero convention of parallel universes to explain some things, like where Princess Giselle comes from in Enchanted. Yes, this does mean that I won't be discussing Gargoyles and Darkwing Duck, except to say that they exist in a different world than this one.
Also, there’s just no way for me to see everything that Disney has done, so I accept that some things will fall through the cracks.
Q. Disney owns Marvel, so all the Marvel characters are in this, right?
A. Yes and no. Before Marvel started making its own movies, it farmed out the movie rights to several of its top characters to other film studios. Until Disney buys back the rights to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, the X-Men, and so forth, there can’t be Disney movies based on them. The rest of the characters that are showing up in Marvel movies—like The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, etc.—are going into their own parallel universe.
The director of the upcoming Captain America movie, though, also directed The Rocketeer for Disney. I would be elated if The Rocketeer made a cameo appearance somewhere in the Captain America movie.
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