RESISTANCE - FALL OF MAN on Playstation 3

Not enough hours in the day...

The main reason I've been watching fewer movies over the past year, is this Playstation 3 game, Resistance: Fall of Man.

You play as this character, British soldier Nathan Hale, and run around in the rubble of 1950s Britain frantically trying not to get killed in an alien invasion.

I wasn't initially interested in the PS3 - just another video game machine, I thought. But after seeing the quality of the latest leap in high-res graphics and processing power, I got hooked... again. The immersion factor, coupled with the huge detailed landscapes, an intricate scenario, a mixture of destruction and tactical problems, hours of exploring, plus a high repeat factor... have kept me returning to the game too.


Running around Manchester Cathedral backwards fending off dozens of huge scuttling spider-crab monsters was just one of many challenges. Bringing down huge Sentinel crab robots, fending off zombies, ducking energy-weapons that penetrate walls... and just when you think you're winning, fresh platoons of nasties arrive from the skies in dropships.

It has soaked up a substantial amount of late night spare time. I'm fairly addictive when it comes to video games, and since 1978 when I started bringing down Space Invaders and blowing up Asteroids, every few years I've been drawn into a new generation of video games. The latest lot can deliver heart-pounding excitement and sudden scares that give any action movie on Earth some severe competition.


Admittedly not many of the PS3 games have attracted me. I've tried out a lot of demos and not found many others that enticed me - only Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction and Bioshock so far. I'm hard to please - I don't want to shoot humans (Resistance has really ugly, vicious aliens called Chimera), I don't want to spend a whole game destroying stuff (I like exploring and problem-solving too), I like to see places and characters I haven't seen before (it's set in Britain, but many places have had gigantic otherworldly makeovers), I like variety (loads of different levels) and I like a challenge (four levels of difficulty).

So, only a few games, but that's all that's needed - they can be so vast and repeatable. Two games have kept me going all year. I've just completed Resistance at the hardest level, though I've not yet explored the many online multiplayer areas, also accessible with the game by going online. And the sequel, Resistance 2, has just hit the stores. An item that could single-handedly obliterate my spare waking hours throughout 2009...

"Resistance 2... INCOMING!"

WESTWORLD (1973) - when theme parks attack

WESTWORLD
(1973, USA)

You planning a trip to the Delos resort. Would you choose Romanworld, Westworld, Futureworld or Beyond?

Science fiction has long toyed with the concepts of sophisticated humanoid robots being able to replace humans. TV and film producers love the idea of robots that look like people because building robots is very expensive - Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet (1956) was the most expensive prop in the film. Robots that look like humans (androids, to be exact) are a very cheap special effect.

In the 1970's, writers were still being inspired by the technology of the Disneyland theme park attractions, like the animatronic Hall of Presidents, and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This was specifically referenced in the 1975 thriller made of Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, and in Westworld - an expensive playground where adults dress up as cowboys, shoot gunslinger robots and shag-robot dancing girls.

 

Westworld struck a vein, depicting the funland of Delos, deep in the desert, made up of Westworld (the wild West), Medieval World (sword fights, jousting, wenching) and Roman World (orgies).

While it didn’t predict that the electronic games of Pong would evolve into virtual reality gaming, the writer envisaged a reality re-created on a Hollywood-style set with robots fulfilling sexual and violent fantasies. In retrospect, I don’t think everyone would want to live out their fantasies in public, and not many businesses could really make money out of building expensive robots but having to repair their gunshots every night. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.


Written and directed by Michael Crichton, on a roll between medical sci-fi thrillers The Andromeda Strain (1971, based on his novel) and Coma (1978, which he directed), he injects a problem into the computerised resort. The machines start breaking down in a pattern that spreads like a disease, thus predicting the computer virus, but calling it a "central mechanism psychosis". Of course, this plot device was recycled for Jurassic Park (1993).

Westworld caught the public imagination at the time, though it was a hard project to find financial backing. Crichton describes his script getting turned down all around town – perhaps executives liked big stars and directors with good track records more than they liked original stories. As a result, the movie is low budget, but still considerably smarter looking than other pre-Star Wars sci-fi at the time. After a lengthy set-up to explain what the Delos resort is all about, and some lightweight comedy padding (like the low-rent balsawood bar-room brawl), the pace tightens considerably as things start to go wornnnng… With the robot gunslinger programmed to get into fights, but his fail safe mechanisms deactivated, a deadly chase begins. As the other guests get massacred, one survivor has to fend off the unstoppable top-of-the-range killing machine…

This was an early starring role for James Brolin, before he rounded off the decade with genre classics The Car, Capricorn One (1978) and The Amityville Horror (1979). Richard Benjamin is better known for comedy, like the Dracula spoof Love at First Bite, but this and Catch 22 proved he had more range. Of course, Yul Brynner efortlessly recreates the look of his character from The Magnificent Seven (1960). His silvered eyes and removable face giving away his robotic status.

The functional sets are under-dressed and flatly lit, though the endless white corridors of the Delos resort work well as a maze. You can tell it from a TV movie by the 2.35 widescreen aspect, the bloody slow-motion squibs, and the hints of cyber-sex. In the UK, it got an AA certificate, restricting under 14’s from seeing it. I first saw it on a double-bill with Soylent Green.

The long final act with the unstoppable robot with infra-red vision anticipates elements of The Terminator, Predator (right down to a crucial plot point), even the robo-vision of Robocop. In fact, the American Cinematographer articles about Westworld (November 73 issue) point out that the gunslinger’s electronic viewpoint was the first sequence to use actual computer imaging – the footage was scanned in, digitally simplified and played out again. Westworld also features an early instance of the baddie who won't stay dead (before Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers or The Terminator).


The paperback tie-in book (above) that was sold at the time was simply a draft of the script, as it stood just before filming began – with a different ending to the film. It has an interesting and thorough introduction by Crichton, talking about the making of the film.



Westworld spawned a sequel in 1976, but Futureworld wasn’t written by Crichton. It picks up years after the Delos disaster, replacing the resort of Westworld with an outer space simulation. But somehow the relaunch of the resort to the public also incorporates a sinister bid at world domination (a story continued in the short-lived 1980 TV series Beyond Westworld).



The story isn't as intersting as the actual NASA hardware used as a backdrop, all far more impressive than the many dull predictions of 'future' technology - holographic chess, dream machines, remote-controlled robot boxing… I remember it even being unexciting at the time. 

They even throw away the return of the Gunslinger character, using him for seduction rather than gunplay. But it’s not every day you can say that you’ve seen Gwyneth Paltrow’s mum (Blythe Danner) making love to a robot (Yul Brynner). Peter Fonda and Arthur Hill starred, though Danner's character makes more of an impression, playing a fiesty journalist.

Futureworld has had a PAL region 2 DVD release in the UK.

APPLESEED: EX MACHINA (2007) - futuristic animation

APPLESEED: EX MACHINA
(2007, Japan)

I've not seen or read anything from the Appleseed saga except for the first film, which was very impressive. It introduced me to the scenario of a futuristic post-war society trying to keep the peace after a devastating Third World War.

Cyborg technology now strengthens the police ranks and repairs the war-wounded. Repopulation has been boosted with Clones who've been genetically tweaked not to cause trouble when angry or stressed. But there are still problems in paradise, and the heavily armoured police now use flying mecha-suits to stamp out trouble. The most powerful cyborg is Briareos a reconstructed ex-soldier, who has a robotic helmet instead of a face, something Deunan, his lover, still has to deal with.

The first film had many dramatic and visually complex set-pieces, like the holographic recreation of a murder scene. Technically, the film was a conserted effort to use 3D CGI animation to represent people, not with photo-realism, but with a stylised more traditional anime look.

The movie sequel Appleseed: Ex Machina pushes this visual approach further, aiming to give the stylised 3D characters more weight and realism, extensively using motion-capture for action, as well as dialogue (it's far harder to map the movements of the many facial muscles). While more time is spent humanising the performances, apparently less time is spent on the plot.


As the various president's of the new world territories meet to unify their communications satellites, cyborg terrorists attack the conference. As the crisis spreads throughout their city, Deunan and Briareos take on a huge new threat to save their fragile future.

The story is too simple, with the characters lagging behind the audience - if only the heavy ops squad were as good at detective work as they were at slow-motion sideways somersaults during gunplay (thanks to co-producer John Woo), a lot of trouble could have been averted.

It's still spectacular, entertaining and represents what can be done in digital cinema using imaginative designwork. The hardware on display looks like it will actually be built one day.

But despite the advances in the animation, I still prefered the more complex first film, where the climax was more impressively large-scale and the story more complex and even philosophical. The totally chaotic action finale is full of those dangers where heroes depend on luck as much as skill.

Also, both films still can't compare to Innocence – Ghost in the Shell 2, which overcame the wide gap between the look of its 2D characters moving around in 3D backgrounds. Appleseed's story isn't as haunting or memorable and it's imagination hasn't been allowed to roam free.

GUNHED (1989) - Japanese robot wars

GUNHED
(1989, Japan, Ganheddo)

Uh-oh – it’s an Alan Smithee film…

Great miniatures, great visuals, great sets and a video game scenario that was well ahead of its time – why is Gunhed so frustrating to watch?

I was excited by a 1992 pop video for a track called Mindphaser by Frontline Assembly (or FLA), a Canadian heavy electro band. The visuals seemed to work perfectly with the music. The band members are seen in a futuristic cockpit driving a huge robot-tank, capable of changing configuration as it rolls along. The modelwork looked intricate, but there was live action and futuristic military costumes – surely this wasn’t all built for a pop promo?

The promo director had been given the Japanese film Ganheddo to cut down for the video clip. I looked out for the original film and it arrived in the UK on VHS soon after, as Gunhed. But the music wasn’t as good in the film, and the English dub of the film was terrible. I even sold my VHS thinking I never wanted to see it again. Now on DVD, I wanted to give it a second chance, in widescreen and in the original languages.


It begins well, with a quick recap of a future war between humans and machines, then a huge dropship approaches a vast fogbound island/city, entirely defended by robots who have successfully taken over the valuable refining complex. The action kicks in straight away, as a wireframe computer animation shows the extent of the island complex, reminding me of a similar story device in the far more recent Resident Evil movie.

The ship is full of bandits prepared to fight their way in, to retrieve valuable computer chips. But once inside, mechanical booby traps hack down the raiders one by one. As the survivors struggle to avoid robot sentries both big and small, their best hope is to reconstruct their own robot in a vast graveyard of machine parts a legendary, heavily-armed Gunhed tank of their own. Some of the scenes of the actors with this tank are realised with a full-sized prop, but it’s only glimpsed in the film, and used extensively in publicity.


The film looks good for its age – though the animated electrical effects date it. The modelwork would still look good in a modern Japanese sci-fi, and is often spectacular. The complex Gunhed miniature, with lots of missile launchers and robot arms hanging off it, sometimes wobbles a bit too much as it trundles along.

But it’s the humans that really let the film down. There’s initially some fun to be had with Brooklyn the bandit (Masahiro Takashima) and a female Texas Ranger (Brenda Bakke) developing a love/hate relationship. The script then makes the mistake of splitting them up for the rest of the story. Brooklyn is then left to talk to the humourless Gunhed computer, which isn’t nearly enough of a character, considering he has so much to say.

As Gunhed rolls into action, it displays some really neat tricks, with a barrage of grappling hooks, riding up walls and spouting a variety of missiles. But during it’s debut action scene, the complete lack of music makes it a far less exciting spectacle than it should have been. Again, the same scenes in the pop promo were far more effective because of better music. The camera is so tightly framed, it's hard to see what's going on. Gunhed gets out of some really tight corners unexplained, and the robot wrestling goes on for far too long.

The story and the action get more confusing as it progresses and towards the end the editing is almost shoddy, as if everyone had given up and wanted to go home.

The director of the US version has declined to keep his name on it, hence the generic replacement Alan Smithee name. It looked avoidable too - the film seems to have been sabotaged in the editing stage. It could have been salvaged, with some clarification from the onboard computer about what the hell is going on, tighter editing and more and better music.

Gunhed stands as a huge effects showreel for a missed opportunity. almost a glimpse of what an 'Aliens vs T2' scenario might have looked like. There is a substantial budget on show, especially with the huge cyber-sets and inventive design work. Good matte paintings add to the feeling of scale. If only as much effort had been lavished on the post-production.


A DVD has finally appeared in the US, from ADV, with an English-only option (with poor dubbing filling in what little Japanese dialogue there was) as well as an original language option with subtitles. The picture is non-anamorphic widescreen, and a couple of analogue video faults indicate that it's not been digitally remastered yet. It’s a rare chance to see it, if those posters still tantalise you.

A murky copy of the Frontline Assembly video is also on YouTube at the moment, pity it’s not on the DVD.

Gunhed is not without it's admirers, especially this guy on SFF World.

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GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA (2002) - monstrous entertainment

GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA

(2002, Japan)

I'll watch any movie with Godzilla in it. But for a Black Hole review, I have to consider if I can recommend it to you. Godzilla films can be very uneven - the monster action is always fun, but the plots can sometimes drag, or even be embarrassingly bad.

From the last wave (1999-2004), I rewatched Godzilla x Mechagodzilla, while thinking of an audience who may be new to the franchise.

Mechagodzilla first appeared in two films in the seventies, and resurfaced in the early 1990's. This time around it's a more agile giant robot cyborg monster, with more built-in missile launchers than ever, and a few titanium tricks up its sleeve...

After the stupendous Gamera trilogy of the late nineties, from rival studio Daiei, the annual Godzilla movie franchise had to modernise its approach. Godzilla Millennium relaunched the series (after the American Emmerich/Devlin remake of 1997), and these were all stand-alone stories, spinning off from the original premise.

A grittier Godzilla emerged. He's back to being a problem of mass destruction, rather than a children's hero. Once more he’s threatening Tokyo and the Japanese government have to find a way to stop him. They remember that the original Godzilla skeleton still lies at the bottom of Tokyo Bay (where he was defeated in the very first film in 1954). Using a Jurassic Park ruse, scientists propose to use the skeleton as a framework, combined with the Godzilla DNA in the bones, to create a duplicate monster. Enhanced with a robot exoskeleton and under military control, it should defeat the oncoming threat.

Chosen to operate Mechagodzilla's controls, is a young pilot, (Yumiko Shaku, the star of Princess Blade and Sky High), who isn't trusted by her team-mates after a disastrous incident while trying to kill Godzilla using maser cannons, several years earlier. Having a female action hero is a twist in Godzilla films. Add to this her tragic backstory and she has reason to look perpetually grumpy.

The producers still can't resist adding a cute little girl and her klutzy father for extra pathos and comedy relief, but these are far less painful than they sound.

The realism is greatly enhanced by the use of actual full-size tanks - toy tanks bouncing towards Godzilla are traditionally a funny, guilty pleasure in the series. But here the modelwork and explosions are bigger than ever, and they even use a little CGI, though the look of this has dated already, the suitmation less so.


Men in monster suits wrestling, is the mainstay of the special effects. Albeit fantastically designed and constructed suits, surrounded by intricate and extensive cityscape models. But as the action scenes wear on, there's no actual build in the excitement or the story. Mechagodzilla has very few tricks up its sleeve after its first fight, and ends up repeating itself. For once it's launched by VTOL aircraft, rather than by the unlikely rocket jets in the soles of its feet.

The movie is good, solid spectacle, above average for a G-movie, and the action kicks off early with a quick appearance of the big G right at the start. The plot is fairly old-fashioned, as are characters and the overall feel - you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a film ten years earlier.

The Maser cannon weapons are a welcome blast from the past, and there are some surprising flashbacks to lesser-known monster attacks from classic Toho films. This is a good example to showcase the latest generation of G-films, while we wait for Godzilla to endure his eight-year hiatus, self-imposed by Toho Studios after Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.

Columbia Tristar released a good DVD of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla in the US, correctly aspected in 2.35 anamorphic, with English or Japanese language options.

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Not on DVD: PHOENIX FIVE (1970) - an Aussie Star Trek!

PHOENIX FIVE
(1969, Australia)

TV series - 26 x 25 minutes

Since mentioning this obscure Australian sci-fi show two years ago, I've been trying to track down more information. I was a little disappointed to discover that it’s aimed more at children. But here's an updated, expanded article anyway...

(Original 03/08/06 entry)

Wanting to be Star Trek, but with a budget closer to Star Maidens, was this Australian sci-fi adventure that brought us the intrepid interstellar explorers of the spaceship 'Phoenix Five'. The above picture of the crew of three and their computeroid robot (check out its legs) is from the website of Classic Australian TV - it's the first time I've seen anything from the show for nearly thirty years!

I was scouring the web for years until this site turned up a brief history of the show (and its predecessors), an episode guide and some great publicity stills, including images from the theme tune. To help jog your memory and maybe tantalise you further, get on over to Classic Australian TV.

My own vague memories of Phoenix Five are of it running on ITV in the mid-seventies on Sunday mornings. I loved the theme tune (a groovy cyclical instrumental) and an alien planet surface looking like the Australian desert, but remembered little else - except that I wanted to see it again!

When even the frankly shoddy Star Maidens is out on DVD, with even a soundtrack CD release, I fully expect other gems like this to resurface... eventually.


(Update - more about the series)
It's not a classic, but it's watchable in a Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo, Double Deckers sort of way. That is to say, this could still be of interest, if you're nostalgic for TV from the seventies, or can have fun watching low budget TV.

That said, it's not nearly as low budget as a lot of children’s TV today – it’s still got costumes, sets, location filming and is shot on film. It would be kinder to say it's over-ambitious - making an interplanetary adventure with three sets and one model. it also lacks logic, scientific accuracy, realistic characters and aims for the sort of fantasy adventure provided by early Doctor Who. If all that isn't a problem (I know that's a lot of ifs) you might still want to see it.

The opening title sequence (currently here on YouTube) may very well be the highlight of the entire series. Tightly edited scenes to a fantastic sixties track (see below for CD news). I noticed that the background music includes ‘library’ tracks (ready made music that has to be edited to fit your action - cheaper than getting a composer to write music to fit your action). Stranger still, it also uses tracks composed by Peter Thomas for the German TV sci-fi Raumpatrouille (1966, yet another show called Space Patrol).


The crew of the Phoenix Five consists of the unbearably smug Captain Roke and his crew of two cadets and a robot. The control room looks like the bridge of the USS Enterprise crammed into a broom cupboard. Ensign Adam and Cadet Tina sometimes act more like naughty kids, and are forever being scolded or patronised by the Captain.

They spend much of their time flying around in space trying to thwart an evil opponent, usually a guy in fancy dress talking to an unfunny computer. Bizarrely, the baddie's computer is the only one with an Australian accent, everyone else sounds very English.


Even more British is the commander at Space Control, only glimpsed on the viewscreen, notably lampooned in MTV's short-lived X-rated puppet series, the Super Adventure Team.

Despite the Star Trek uniforms, ther's very little space to be seen. Most of the action is described rather than shown. Even if anything happens on their viewscreens, we hardly ever see it – we just see the actors in their little sets describing what’s going on.

The modelwork is very basic but the spaceship sets are more interesting. The better episodes are the ones out on location, on outback desert planets.


Not essential, but not available either. Thanks very much to Peter for some invaluable material in learning more about the elusive Phoenix Five.


New update 02/02/09
There's now a whole episode of Phoenix Five on YouTube, with links to other 1960s Australian sci-fi shows.

New update 26/03/09
Thanks to Joe McIntyre's comment (below), I've finally (after thirty years of yearning) got the full track used for the theme tune on CD. It's called 'Strange Galaxy' and is on this Jack Arel CD, celebrating this French master of lounge music (another of his tracks was used in the final episode of The Prisoner!), with remixes of 'Strange Galaxy' on the bonus CD! It's available from Amazon, but I got mine from MovieGrooves. Result!

GHOST IN THE SHELL - A phenomenal overview

GHOST IN THE SHELL:
STAND ALONE COMPLEX
(2003, Japan, anime TV series)

If you feel deprived of intelligent sci-fi, or are a big fan of Blade Runner, or want to try out an anime series that's not about children with magical pets, this could be the one for you. Until Akira was released in the UK, I'd not seen any adult anime. Then there was a gap of a few years while I struggled to find anything nearly as good. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex boasts spectacular action, a peek into a likely future, must-have robots and major babe Motoko Kusanagi - she's all android...


THE STORY SO FAR
First, I'll attempt to summarise the various incarnations on DVD, because there's an awful lot of Ghost in the Shell out there...

GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995) - the anime movie

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2003) - anime TV series (26 x 30 minutes)

GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE (2004) - second anime movie

Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd Gig (2004) - the second TV series, (26 x 30 minutes)

Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society (2006) - the third story for TV, is a single feature-length episode


GHOST IN THE SHELL - the beginning
Masamune Shirow (also the author of Appleseed) first wrote and drew the obsessively detailed manga in 1991. It described the adventures of Section 9, a heavily armed secret police force in a near-future Tokyo.

The squad is headed by a brilliant political strategist - 'old man' Aramaki. He's supported by Major Motoko Kusanagi, a completely synthetic super-soldier, disarmingly disguised as a sex-bomb. She is the poster girl for the entire franchise, and the most obvious requirement of an anime nominally aimed at teenagers. Her closest ally is the mostly-human Batou, his steely eyes betraying that he has been partly cyberized (a process equivalent to bionics).

There's also a brainy bearded super-hacker and a token all-human policeman. They're all connected by internally-installed audio-visual communications, that looks like telepathy to outsiders.

The manga inspired the influential film, directed by Mamoru Oshii, which in turn eventually lead to the TV series, which explores an alternate timeline to the film.



STAND ALONE COMPLEX - first gig
I’ve just finished rewatching the first TV series (a term that doesn't do it justice). It's an epic achievement from the Japanese animation house Production I.G. It looks like a big-budget showreel and was created entirely on computer, when most anime was either still painted on cels, or too electronically 'video' a look (like Ghost Stories). It was recorded on High Definition masters, following the one-off experiment Blood - the Last Vampire. Again, the animation is state of the art for TV, 2D characters successfully mixing with 3D vehicles and robots.

Besides the cutting-edge production techniques, the story-telling is just as intricate and pitched at adults, without surrendering to excessive gore or nudity. There are pure sci-fi concepts, intricate plots, predictive designwork, and hard-hitting action.

Watching the series is like looking into the future, seeing technology that will exist one day, and the programme creators are already wrestling with the sociological problems that will arrive with it, as well as making it all look good!

Anyone who gets cybernetic brains or eyes could be also be online... and therefore hackable. Other individuals won’t trust these artificial body-parts, however advantageous. And how will people cope when they become emotionally attached to completely lifelike androids…

The feelings of artificial humans have been a prime concern to Japanese storytellers for decades, particularly in the Astro Boy series. In the Ghost in the Shell stories, the Major (and the tachikoma) are constantly aware of the differences between them and humans. The crux of the matter is if they can have a spirit, or 'ghost'.

The non-humanoid A.I. devices are more expendable than soldiers, but how sophisticated can the A.I. be allowed to get? The totally robotic tachikoma droids for instance, that assist Section 9, are slightly too intelligent and prone to individuality. They are impressively designed and are the most likeable characters, possessing mischievous child-like innocence.

Besides an almost unfathomable series-length story arc, about a kidnap plot involving a faceless hacker, there are many single episode stories that are easier to grasp, each tackling a techological theme as well as telling a 'stand alone' story.

An amazing amount of research and design-work goes into the hardware on display, even if it's only seen in a couple of shots. The implications of many designs is almost mind-expanding. Though it remains a puzzle why the ghastly 1980's mullet hairstyle is back in fashion.

The series has been sold in a variety of DVD sets around the world. I opted for a region 1 set, to avoid standards conversion artefacts. There's also a special edition available with DTS audio, rather than just 5.1. Both series were produced in a 16:9 aspect ratio, like most big-budget TV anime is now.

OTHER G.I.T.S.
The second TV series was just as long and complicated, Ghost In The Shell SAC 2nd Gig. I didn't enjoy this story nearly as much - the scale of the plot got way too big, the issue being a burgeoning civil war with an unhappy immigrant workforce. The focus shifted from the problems of future technology, to possible political situations, something too huge and messy to be solved by even a crack team of cyber-police. I will rewatch and reappraise it, because I love the characters, but it didn't feel as much like a 'ghost' story.


After the second series was over, the first was boiled down to make a single straight-to-video feature, focussing on just the story arc. Called Ghost in the Shell - The Laughing Man, it has had additional scenes to bridge gaps in the narrative, and has had some animation reworked for continuity purposes. For instance, the Major's hairstyle 'evolved' during the lengthy 26 episodes. Her look was standardised for this cutdown version.


The Laughing Man is now available on DVD in the US and the second series has been given a similar treatment. Called Ghost in the Shell - Individual Eleven. This should be available on DVD in the US in December.


With the spectacular second film, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, not scoring a hit, even in Japan, despite being a visual masterpiece, no further G.I.T.S. feature films are currently likely, so I hope that the TV projects continue.


The third TV incarnation - Solid State Society, is a straight-to-video feature-length episode, that is now available in the UK and US.

There are also rumours of a live-action American remake of the first film – this would need a lot of money, but could it succeed where Aeon Flux failed? I’d rather see new stories as anime, rather than dumbing down the original story for a mass market.

G.I.T.S. MERCHANDISE
A phenomenon like this spawns goodies. Lots. Here's a few of my faves:


Essential was the series guidebook, Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex: Official Log (Volume 1), which helps list and explain some of the background details in each of the first 20 episodes of the first series. Unfortunately, the second volume has yet to be translated into English. A DVD is included that groups the behind-the-scenes interviews onto one disc, as well as featuring a fantastic showreel for the series, with montages on vehicles, weapons and practically all the action scenes.

The most creative spin-offs from the series have been the many CD soundtracks. Besides writing the usual fast-paced electro background music, composer Yoko Kanno collaborated with a variety of artists to produce futuristic music and a unique theme tune. Her first, with Russian singer Origa, backs the impressive opening sequence.


After years of waiting, the tachikoma robots have finally been released in the form of intricately jointed and detailed 'toys'. There are plastic and die-cast versions of these cleverly designed robots.

And of course there's the manga stories, still being translated into English, video games, novels, action figures...

HINOKIO (2005) what if a robot could go to school for you?

HINOKIO: INTER GALACTIC LOVE
(2005, Japan)

Enjoyable children’s escapist fantasy, but too many sub-plots

Region 3 NTSC Hong Kong DVD (from Asia Video)

From the posters and the trailer, I was expecting the tale of a young boy attending school through the use of a robot surrogate. But this isn’t the only story in the film, which tries to tackle several serious themes at once, and still deliver a feelgood fantasy.

It begins on familiar Japanese ground, with the mother dying in the opening sequence! If you did a survey of all Japanese children’s films and TV series, you’d find that the character of the mother was dead more than alive. Prove me wrong!

A car crash has left young Satoru (Kanata Hongo) motherless, wheelchair-bound and ‘shut in’. Although set in a Japan of the near future, shut-ins are a peculiarly modern Japanese phenomenon of (mostly) teenage boys who refuse to leave their rooms in the family home. Usually passing the time with video games, they can reach their twenties (or older!) without ever going out, their parents covering up for them to preserve the family reputation.

In the film, his father (Masatoshi Nakamura) respects the child’s privacy by never entering his room unless invited. Dad is also a cybernetics scientist and has installed a huge interactive console in Satoru‘s bedroom. From this he can direct a robot to go to school for him and be his eyes, ears and mouth. There, he spots a girl he really fancies, but how can he meet her without leaving his room? Surely if he approaches her using the robot, he won’t stand a chance? In school, the robot is too much of a novelty to miss out on, and a gang of bullies decide to see how resilient its manufacture is.


So far so good, but then we get two perplexing new subplots. One is about an online video game that actually connects with Purgatory (refering to the Buddhist gateway, where your fate is decided – reincarnation or hell) and is supposed to affect real-life events. This is a strand from the ‘shut-in’ problem – one character getting obsessively addicted to video games - but is barely followed through as a storyline. Instead more time is spent on the urban legend-inspired idea of a website influencing your fate – a theme followed to greater effect in the Girl from Hell (Jigoku Shoujo) series.

Besides the video game, a friend that Satoru makes friends with at school turns out to be a girl, not a boy. This revelation is successfully realised in the film, but again, hardly explored. The idea that he is best friends with a (short-haired) girl, but still really wants a girlfriend who’s a traditional (long-haired) beauty who is a complete stranger, seemed to be an unintentional, undeveloped idea in the film. Also sending out mixed messages is a scene where a child puts out an electrical fire with a pan of water!!!

The storyline sort of forgets Satoru (he's not even the child on the DVD sleeve) and concentrates on how the robot appears to be the one attracting friends instead of him. The story builds to a bizarre climax where a whole host of problems collide in disaster…

One of many images used in publicity that aren't actually in the film

Because of the English titles, and the (pretty dire) American soppy songs for the feel-good bits of the film, I got the impression this was aimed at a market far wider than just Japan. It could be sold as a kid-friendly A.I., a cyber-E.T. even. The robot schoolboy certainly looks very impressive, and portrays the sort of technology that Japan will probably be the first to realise.

The visuals effects look excellent, especially the robot walking amongst the children. The close-ups are slightly less convincing because that’s when a more jerky animatronic prop is being used. Other special effects involving green-screen look a little fakey, but it’s a children’s fantasy, so hey.

The child actors are totally convincing and make the movie work as well as it does, and make the robot a believable character too. I enjoyed the film, but I’d advise that you don’t follow the story too closely, and just let it happen. It’s the journey that’s important, not the destination.

The official Hong Kong DVD (pictured at top) has excellent English subtitles, 5.1 Japanese audio, an anamorphic widescreen 16:9 picture, but only a trailer for extras.

The trailer is here on YouTube, or click on the above image to watch it here.

Finally, the title of the film has ‘Inter Galactic Love Story’ written under it - I've watched it and still don't know why! Maybe it’s alluding to the meeting of two worlds, robot and human, and got lost in translation?

The Japanese DVD cover, with THAT tagline

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THE BLACK HOLE (1979) - Disney's STAR WARS

THE BLACK HOLE

(1979, USA)

Atmospheric space adventure in need of restoration

It's about time I looked at the film that inspired the name of this blog! I keep revisiting this film, but it's getting harder to enjoy on DVD, because the picture noticeably needs remastering now.

When the first Star Wars was released in 1977, everyone else (and their dog) wanted to make a movie as successful. That meant outer space! Adventure! Robots! Laser gun battles!

The Walt Disney Studio made their own space epic, which looked as spectacular as Star Wars, but the camerawork and spaceships were not nearly as agile. Even though Disney Studios built their own recordable camera movement computer, ‘ACES’, needed for the complex visual FX. But they were mostly using the older traditional special effects techniques, trying to compete with John Dykstra's motion control system over at Industrial Light and Magic.

For instance ILM were using multiple passes (re-recording multiple visual elements on the same piece of film), while Disney used multiple optical composites (each time you composite two visual elements together, the film goes down a generation and softens). Some shots in The Black Hole have been composited so many times, that the picture is defocussed, almost ‘soft’ focus, and crawling with film grain. These shots are now really noticeable and will look no better on HD.

The only current DVD release, in standard-definition NTSC, still shows up the wires supporting the actors in 'zero-gravity', dodgy matte lines, and the excessive film grain. Even the edges of matte paintings, an effect previously perfected by Disney, are easily discernible.


I’m hoping that some sort of restoration can improve the look of the film. I'd also like to see some DVD extras, especially since this was Disney's most expensive film at the time. It still deserves attention. It has a unique story and a creepy atmosphere – a ghost ship perched on the edge of a black hole, crewed only by silver faced drones, sentry robots and a megalomaniac intent on probing the secrets of space.

It’s part mystery, part rollicking adventure. Despite some informative babble about black holes, science gets thrown out of the window by the end of the film! The climactic meteor rolling down the ship’s central corridor is hugely spectacular, doesn't really make sense, but still makes a huge visual impact.


It's also worth a look for the design work on the main spaceship, the Cygnus – an inside-out construction, latticed like an internally-lit Eiffel Tower.

The soundtrack is one of John Barry’s best, where he perfected his space march music, which also came in handy for other Star Wars wannabes, Moonraker and Starcrash.

It’s also interesting as Disney was trying to lose its 'kiddie' image at the time, in order to win back older family audiences. Slightly uncertain in tone, the film veers between an adult and a child audience. Disney were very worried about making their first PG-rated film - with an all adult cast, (light) swearing, onscreen deaths and more graphic scares than ever before. The ending was controversial too, it ends up as like 2001 - A Space Odyssey aimed at children.


The adult elements in The Black Hole sit uncomfortably with the robot sidekicks, who have huge, cute, stuck-on Disney eyes. Nowadays they remind me more of the eyes of South Park characters. Early production artwork also had flying robots, but looking more like The Ultimate Computer from TV's Star Trek, and definitely without any eyes. Besides being cute, Vincent the robot tests our patience by spouting more classical quotes than Jean-Luc Picard. But don't let me put you off.

Hopefully Disney are aiming for a better digital release for the film's 30th anniversary in 2 year's time.


Also in this period, Disney made some other interesting, 'more adult' movies...
- there was Watcher in the Woods - a creepy ghost tale (which needed an extensive reshoot to remove the leftfield, sci-fi twist ending)
- Dragonslayer which has the best movie dragon ever filmed, with more child-unfriendly plot twists and blood too
- Something Wicked This Way Comes, about a haunted fairground, which almost plays like a Stephen King story now
- and of course the hugely influential Tron, which tried to start the ball rolling a little too early on CG special effects.


Do you want to know more…?
The best guide to the pre-production and special effects of The Black Hole was in a magnificently illustrated double issue of the lamented movie magazine Cinefantastique (pictured) published in Spring 1980.