Date: Fri, Mar 8, 2002 9:53 AM
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
The first showing in Cleveland is in TWO HOURS! And
none of my Time
Control tricks are working. It's just dragging out longer
instead of
getting here sooner. I watched all the trailers and
documentaries on
their website. I hope I either love this movie or hate
it. I'm
suffering terrible anxiety that I might find it just
sort of "eh".
Maybe I should walk to the mall and then just PACE back
and forth in
front of the theater. No, that would not be Time Control,
just
exercise. And I have decided that exercise is a kooky
crackpot notion,
as evidenced by the PAIN it brings.
AAARGH!
I just put on my treasured soundtrack CD of the music
from the George
Pal "The Time Machine." I'll pay bills...
no, I'll prep yesterday's
swag orders for mailing. Yes that's it. Must Do Something.
The suspense
is unbearable. I read the H.G. Wells novel when I was
9 or so, and then
the Classics Illustrated comic, and ... hey, wasn't
there an unbearably
shitty made-for-TV version of The Time Machine back
in the early '80s,
with some long-haired blonde pretty-boy playing The
Time Traveller? In
fact I myself started making a movie of "The Time
Machine" in 8mm when
I was 11, in 1965. I played the Time Traveller, my little
brother was
Philby/Sebastian Cabot, and also the first Eloi. Then
I ran out of cast
and quit. Only got 5 minutes in. But it does have a
Time Machine made
of cardboard boxes with drawn-on knobs, and a time travel
sequence with
lots of stop motion and time lapse scenes a la the Pal
version, but
crappy instead of good.
We shot ONE MORE SCENE for it at X-Day Drill 1997, with
me playing a
Morlock, Papa Joe narrating as the Time Traveller, and
Friday Jones as
the Eloi (and costume maker).
I have not yet read NIGHT OF THE MORLOCKS, but the sequel
THE TIME
SHIPS by Stephen Bishop devours Eloi ass. (Thanks to
Friday Jones for
turning me onto that 1995 winner.)
Through St. Byron Werner, who supervised the rotoscoping
on this film,
I have been able to hear all sorts of bad stories about
the filming and
how much they hokied up the original story.
But I am ready to keep an open mind. The most recent
remakes of DRACULA
and THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU both departed grossly from
the original
novel but, I felt, kept to the spirit quite well, and
I love them. (I
like the Kenneth Branaugh FRANKENSTEIN okay too.)
But the Eloi living in birdcage like structures on cliffs,
structures
that they made themselves?
I dunno... I just dunno...
And Guy Pearce is AUSTRALIAN?!? I saw a clip of him
talking in
Australian. Holy fuck. In "Memento" he sounds
twice as American as I
do.
Alan Young, who was Philby in the Pal movie, is in this
one too, and
he's wearing the very same costume prop that he did
in that movie --
but it happened by ACCIDENT, a pure coincidence, supposedly.
They
brought out this antique costume for the old geezer's
cameo, and his
name was already written in the collar... it was his
costume from 1965.
It had somehow made its way from L.A. to upstate New
York where some
location filming was done.
Ahhh, 10 minutes gone. My tricks are finally starting
to work. What use
is Time Control when it's late, though??
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Her Ladyship Lilith von Fraumench <lilith@ZubJenius.com>
> hey, wasn't there an unbearably
> shitty made-for-TV version of The Time Machine
back in the early '80s,
> with some long-haired blonde pretty-boy playing
The Time Traveller?
There was a 1978 made-for-TV *Time Machine*--which had
a brown-haired,
bushy-mustached guy playing the lead. It was placed
in the 70s in some
government research lab, and aside from Eloi and Moorlocks
had little
to do with the H.G. Wells classic.
THEN there was the 1979 theatrical release *Time After
Time*, in which
H.G. Wells (played by Malcom McDowell) *invents* the
time machine
himself, which gets stolen by Jack The Ripper (David
Warner), forcing
Wells to chase after him, into the year--you guessed
it--1979, where
Wells has to cope with the complexities of the 20th
Century while
hunting down his nemesis. Mary Steenburgen plays Wells'
love interest
as well as one of the Ripper's potential victims. It's
not a bad movie,
but far from great.
It sounds like you confused the two a little, since
McDowell was blonde
in *Time After Time*. But I'd watch the latter over
the former ANY day.
I remember the TV mini-series and it bit the big one,
even as I watched
it with baited breath as I watched most TV shows that
even smacked of
science fiction and monsters.
Her Ladyship Lilith
--
\m/ -=8=- http://lilith.foolspress.com/ -=8=- \m/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: HellPopeHuey <hellpopehuey@subspamgeenyus.com>
Rev. says...
>The first showing in Cleveland is in TWO HOURS!
And none of my Time
>Control tricks are working. It's just dragging out
longer instead of
>getting here sooner. I watched all the trailers
and documentaries on
>their website. I hope I either love this movie or
hate it. I'm
>suffering terrible anxiety that I might find it
just sort of "eh".
Gee, of all people, YOU shouldn't be grabbing yer Slack
in yer teeth and go
rolling down a hill like some hideous Barkeresque Nightbreeder.
At least keep
your fly zipped. You might pick up a thorn in your manhood
and ouchie oochee.
>Through St. Byron Werner, who supervised the rotoscoping
on this film,
>I have been able to hear all sorts of bad stories
about the filming and
>how much they hokied up the original story.
Byron is the colitis poster child; don't listen to him
too much. He's a demigod
of Time, Space and Art, but maybe too close to the details
to let his jaw droop
and the drool roll like the rest of us.
>Ahhh, 10 minutes gone. My tricks are finally starting
to work. What use
>is Time Control when it's late, though??
Well, see the movie, then go back to NOW and tell yourself
how good or bad it
was, ruin the surprise and then do a self-flagellating
St. Vitus breakdance on
the edge of the paradox loop. THAT'll teach you.
HellPope Huey, hellpopehuey@subgenius.com
Giant human milk-chocolate-covered peyote button
"Everything is a slippery slope...
the world is a luge."
-Bill Maher
"There's nary an animal alive
that can outrun a greased Scotsman!"
- Groundskeeper Willie
"You're not a helpful person, in any way at all."
"I don't have to be, I have tenure."
- "The West
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
SIMON CASTRATES HIS GRANDPA
The verdict:
((a sad head-shaking of resignation))
The visuals are great, most of the creative liberties
taken with the
material are no problem, and the script is only half
as retarded as it
could be.
The basic moral of the H.G. Wells story has been clipped
and excised as
neatly as if Herbert George Wells has been born rich
instead of poor.
Republican parents need not fear any leftover Wellsian
socialist taint
affecting their children -- this movie might as well
be "Indiana Jones
Saves the Ravers from the Bikers."
In H. G. Wells' original novella "The Time Machine,"
the world of the
Morlocks and the Eloi was a direct result of today's
class division. In
Simon Wells' movie adaptation, that cannibalistic caricature
of a
society is basically the product of one specific industrial
accident in
2037.
I LIKED all the details of the movie, more or less.
I could even bear
Orlando Jones as the vehicle for explaining the future
history (the
equivalent of Pal's movie's "talking rings").
But seeing the MAIN THEME
of my favorite sf story removed to make way for more
expensive CGI...
Well, that's show biz, I guess.
If this movie is any indication, when the big-budget
SubGenius movie
becomes a reality, in the year 2070, with "Bob's"
grandson directing,
"Bob" will be depicted as the leader of the
good guys -- the
team-playing, uptight Pink excutives -- against the
bad guys, the
scruffy, disorganized slackers, cynics and drop-outs.
In Gramps Wells' admittedly simplistic scenario, the
distance between
the Haves and Have-Nots increases over the millenia
until they are two
distinct species -- but by then, the Haves have been
pampered into
docile cattle who are EATEN by the slavish, bestial
Morlocks who pamper
them. Kind of like "Logan's Run," only the
recycling vats are runtish
cannibal monsters who also are the hidden butlers and
repairmen of the
world.
In his grandson's movie, too many hotels were built
on an increasingly
hollowed-out Moon between 2030 and 2037, and the Moon
cracks up and
screws up the environment, so some people go underground
and become
Morlocks, while some stay on top and become Eloi. The
exact OPPOSITE of
H.G.'s dystopian evolution is implied -- that the rich
people could
afford to burrow to safety ,and deliberately evolve
themselves into
castes (the new "Hunter" and "Spy"
and "Uber" Morlocks), while the
noble po' folks who stayed on top became the self-sufficient,
coolly-tattooed, Burning Man-haircutted, eco hippies.
Come to think of it, that's a stretch. That's me trying
to like what
They did. No, they basically just turned it into a standard
Road
Warrior action movie. Nothing wrong with that, unless
you happen to
LOVE THE ORIGINAL!! -- in which the yups have become
cattle for the
monsters they themselves created.
Poor old H.G.... sad old Fabian Socialist, seeing the
world turn into
American Advertising before his very eyes, writing those
increasingly
shrill rants as he got older and older. Like the screenplay
of THINGS
TO COME and the paradoxically almost Ayn Rand-like rants
at the end of
THE FOOD OF THE GODS. I can certainly see why he would
be pissed off.
Parts of the future were coming truer than he expected
-- the bad
parts.
While waiting for the movie I saw the trailer for next
summer's
Spielberg movie, "MINORITY REPORT," "based
on the story by Phil Dick",
and somehow every single line and image in the trailer
appeared to be
lifted directly from some previous sf movie -- especilly
(hate to
mention this stinker again) "Logan's Run."
And "Running Man," which
they seem to be remaking over and over again.
Oh, Wells.
The Time Machine itself is a cool design -- it had to
be big enough to
stage a fight aboard it this time -- and the time travel
effects are
surprisingly kept to a minimum. They pack all of Pal's
time lapse
effects into one CGI tracking shot, then they throw
in some
"fast-evolving landscapes" which, if you've
actually done this sort of
animation, which I have recently, are not actually all
that impressive
considering the budget.
One thing they ALMOST did right was showing the Time
Traveller escaping
the Morlocks by fleeing into the VERY VERY VERY far
future.
Unfortunately, instead of the Dali-like end-of-the-sun
landscape of the
original Wells book, we glimpse an Eternal Heavy Metal
Album Cover
Painting with Eloi and Morlocks still trudging around.
Jeremy Irons as the UberMorlock isn't too bad if you
don't happen to be
a big long time fan of albino Texas blues guitar player
Johnny Winter.
The UberMorlock and his fight aboard the machine with
our hero are
lifted right out of THE TIME SHIPS, as is the UberMorlock's
explanation
of why our hero can't change the past.
I can understand them changing the female lead's name
from "Weena" to
something less snicker-worthy.
The chase scenes in this owe everything to Franklin
Schaeffer's
original PLANET OF THE APES.
The music is kinda cool. The transition from English
to Eloi-language
to English again is accomplished relatively smoothly.
At least the
problem is addressed.
The Morlocks' Sphinx was a thousand times better in
the George Pal
version. This one is a fuckin' Meat Loaf record cover...
or like
something from BILL AND TED GO TO HELL (or whatever
they named that
sequel).
I have no complaints with the Morlocks' basic look and
make-up. Their
caverns and machines are very cool. The fact that the
Morlocks are now
hulking action figures instead of scurrying furtuve
rat-like monkey-men
with huge blind eyes, I can understand that... I mean,
ya gotta sell
tickets. I understand the "gotta sell tickets"
aspect.
I just don't understand the "CHOP OFF GRANDPA'S
NUTS WHILE HE SCREAMS
IN HIS GRAVE" part.
The director's background as an artist and animator
shows in the
excellent visual design. His background as a simpering
eager tool of
the pre-Eloi fuckwads shows in the emasculation of the
main point of
the whole god damned classic thing.
This makes me think of my own maternal grandfather,
an award-winning
yet little-known mystery writer named Donald McNutt
Douglass. Old Popoo
won two Elery Queen awards for his novels starring the
Caribbean island
detective Captain Bolivar Manchenil (first black hero
in a '50s
detective series). But his life's ambition was to write
the ultimate
religion-bashing novel. Mainly he hated the Catholic
Church for messing
up his personal life. He even tried to write the novel
-- AND I HAVE
THE MS! But it's not good. It's serious and ponderous.
He was lacking
the MAGIC INGREDIENT -- SLACK! And he was missing the
MAGIC GOD-MAN:
"BOB"!
I now work at the same roll-top desk that my grandpa
worked at, and his
etchings of toiling workers inside titanic buildings
are framed on my
walls. But my life's ambition was NOT to write the ultimate
religion-bashing novel. And I didn't. I just edited
shit for "Bob". I
wanted to make MONSTER MOVIES!! However, I caught on
early that I am
just not cut out for the Hollywood movie making lifestyle.
Working with
you SubGenii is close enough to making monster movies.
My son, Ydnax, however, just found an apartment in Hollywood
and has
been interviewing with movie job people all week.
If HE finally makes that SubGenius movie... it would
probably be okay.
It would probably be a lot better than if I did it,
because I'm too
close to the material, and I'm not "up" on
"what's happening" as the
kids say. And I might have nervous breakdowns during
production so
they'd have an excuse to take it away from me, and Pink
it up.
It's the prospect of the unimaginable SON OF YDNAX doing
the SubGenius
movie that now worries me.
One of the people Ydnax talked to about finding work
was St. Byron
Werner, whose name is in the credits of "The Time
Machine" as head
Rotoscope Morlock.
The Morlocks masks are so bulky that the actors didn't
see through
eye-holes, but through TINY TV CAMERAS AND SCREENS built
into the mask.
Thus while they were galloping through the bluescreen
sets that stand
in for their cave, they would run into things and bonk
their heads,
dent the masks, etc. Part of what Byron does is make
sure little
details and bloopers like that are "photoshopped
out".
I suspect that some critical dialog was cut from this
film. I SUSPECT
that there was something about the Time Traveller's
trip through time
having affected the future BY inspiring HG Wells to
write that novel,
which somehow then led to the very future Wells warned
against, or some
such shit -- the UberMorlocks said a couple of climactic
type things
that didn't make much sense UNLESS there was some circular-regressive
time loop involved in the original script -- which was
then cut after
preview screenings in Dallas because too many poebuckers
wrote "I
didn't get that long explanation at the end" on
their comments cards at
the test screening.
Actually this is more a HOPE than a suspicion. I HOPE
they at one point
even ATTEMPTED that much thought.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
> THEN there was the 1979 theatrical release *Time
After Time*, in which
> H.G. Wells (played by Malcom McDowell) *invents*
the time machine
> himself, which gets stolen by Jack The Ripper (David
Warner), forcing
> Wells to chase after him, into the year--you guessed
it--1979, where
> Wells has to cope with the complexities of the
20th Century while
> hunting down his nemesis. Mary Steenburgen plays
Wells' love interest
> as well as one of the Ripper's potential victims.
It's not a bad movie,
> but far from great.
I agree, that movie had some great moments. The McDowell-Wells
character's reaction to his first McDonald's -- just
the TABLETOP's
TEXTURE ALONE -- is priceless, and his trying to convice
the cops that
he's just an out-of-it-British tourist named Holmes,
Sherlock Holmes --
PERFECT! I was not aware of Mrs. Wells' Connietite
orientation before
that movie, if such actually existed. TIME AFTER TIME
gets cloying "at
times" (HEEE-YUK!!) but I enjoyed the hell out
of it. David Warner as
Jack the Ripper reveling in the violence of any daily
American news
program was a great rant -- it was excerpted on HoS
somehere along in
there.
Mary Steenbergen completely turns me off, however. I
dunno why a stud
like Doc Brown would risk so much for her character
in the last BACK TO
THE FUTURE.
> It sounds like you confused the two a little, since
McDowell was blonde
> in *Time After Time*.
No, i's just that my color TV of the Day was a bad TV.
> But I'd watch the latter over the former ANY day.
> I remember the TV mini-series and it bit the big
one, even as I watched
> it with baited breath as I watched most TV shows
that even smacked of
> science fiction and monsters.
There was a lot less to watch when I was trying to watch
anything that
smacked of SF and monsters. But I ain't complaining.
I've seen 200 Motels 17 times!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dyskolos <dyskolos@menander.org>
> Oh, Wells.
All I know is wifey saw two seconds of the TV commercial
and said,
"Everything has to be a gothic horror story now."
Me, I'll use the same
money to rent three or four movies I know I will enjoy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Her Ladyship Lilith von Fraumench <lilith@ZubJenius.com>
> I agree, that movie had some great moments. The
McDowell-Wells
> character's reaction to his first McDonald's --
just the TABLETOP's
> TEXTURE ALONE -- is priceless, and his trying to
convice the cops that
> he's just an out-of-it-British tourist named Holmes,
Sherlock Holmes --
> PERFECT!
Beats the shit out of most culture shock movies, that's for sure.
> I was not aware of Mrs. Wells' Connietite orientation
before
> that movie, if such actually existed.
Huh? Are you confusing Connie-whorship with the whiny
weakling "modern
liberated woman" Steenbergen played? I *hope* not.
I think they cast
her for her nasal voice, to make her even more irritating.
> David Warner as Jack the Ripper reveling in the
violence of any daily American news
> program was a great rant -- it was excerpted on
HoS somehere along in
> there.
Wow, I guess I missed that bit! Now I'm thinking about
renting the
movie....
> Mary Steenbergen completely turns me off, however.
I dunno why a stud
> like Doc Brown would risk so much for her character
in the last BACK TO
> THE FUTURE.
It's her voice, I tell you. I think she's cute in a
fragile don't-slam-
fuck-me way, and I love long black curly hair, but when
she opens her
mouth I have to grind my teeth loudly to compensate
for both the noise
and pain.
And, well, her character in Back To The Future 3 was
a Jules Verne fan.
DUH. You know how chicks into sci-fi does things to
geek boys and geek
dykes alike. It's all we can do to keep from makin'
a little bad
science fiction with the lights out.
> There was a lot less to watch when I was trying
to watch anything that
> smacked of SF and monsters. But I ain't complaining.
True enough. But I never got to see The Monitors, damn
it. I'd trade
that for Space 1999 any day.
Her Ladyship Lilith
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
> You all know what to do, you slavering Stank-groupies you!
Yes! SEND STANG MONEY!! (By buying the new 11 HOURS
OF SALCK VOLUME 4
CDR (only $15 for ELEVEN hours of Slack -- plus ANOTHER
WHOLE HOUR
thrown in FREE for this SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER!).
Actually my grandpa's 3 mystery books are very well
written and
atmospheric.
He was ADOPTED by a guy named Douglass. His original
last name was
McNutt. (His real father was a REVEREND MCNUTT!!) Thus
my real REAL
real human name isn't "Douglass" but "McNutt."
McNutt Smith.
McNutt Smith, meet Friday Jones!
(And if you happen to see my other missing McNutt, do
me a favor and
McSave it for me.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Alliekatt" <alleykatzen@hotmail.com>
> ((a sad head-shaking of resignation))
I gave it **1/2.
> The basic moral of the H.G. Wells story has been
clipped and excised as
> neatly as if Herbert George Wells has been born
rich instead of poor.
It's been given a newer moral, one similar to the George
Pal version and
both to the original, "Humanity unleashed powers
to which Nature responded
in kind". Also, it provides an interesting mindfuck
scenario; if predatory
humans existed as a species, does that species at all
deserve to live? The
story seems to advocate genocide, when evolution has
created a race of
interspecies predators that do not allow for the growth
of consciousness by
peaceful means. An even scarier thought.
> In Gramps Wells' admittedly simplistic scenario,
the distance between
> the Haves and Have-Nots increases over the millenia
until they are two
> distinct species -- but by then, the Haves have
been pampered into
> docile cattle who are EATEN by the slavish, bestial
Morlocks who pamper
> them. Kind of like "Logan's Run," only
the recycling vats are runtish
> cannibal monsters who also are the hidden butlers
and repairmen of the
> world.
I actually like the difference in the new version. The
turnaround seems
appropriate for me. The scariest serial killers and
human predators have
all been pampered children whose anger stems from boredom,
and are the
scariest because they have nothing to lose.
> The Time Machine itself is a cool design -- it
had to be big enough to
> stage a fight aboard it this time -- and the time
travel effects are
> surprisingly kept to a minimum. They pack all of
Pal's time lapse
> effects into one CGI tracking shot, then they throw
in some
> "fast-evolving landscapes" which, if
you've actually done this sort of
> animation, which I have recently, are not actually
all that impressive
> considering the budget.
It's absolutely gorgeous. I want one. The whole prism-glass
and victorian
brass dials and gauges, it's absolutely mindblowing;
no hopped-up sled here.
All of the 1900 bit of the film was done quite wonderfully.
> One thing they ALMOST did right was showing the
Time Traveller escaping
> the Morlocks by fleeing into the VERY VERY VERY
far future.
> Unfortunately, instead of the Dali-like end-of-the-sun
landscape of the
> original Wells book, we glimpse an Eternal Heavy
Metal Album Cover
> Painting with Eloi and Morlocks still trudging
around.
That pissed me off. I wanted to see fifty foot crabs
walking around as the
sun begins to expand and turn red. Not Eternal Metallica.
> The Morlocks' Sphinx was a thousand times better
in the George Pal
> version. This one is a fuckin' Meat Loaf record
cover... or like
> something from BILL AND TED GO TO HELL (or whatever
they named that
> sequel).
Fuckin' A. The Morlock sphinx was SO cool in the 1961
version. And the
soundtrack, and the zillion clocks at the start of the
film, and Filby. The
Full Monty guy playing Filby was cool, but he could
NOT do a Yank accent to
save his life. I kept hearing the Midlands sneaking
in here and there.
> I have no complaints with the Morlocks' basic look
and make-up. Their
> caverns and machines are very cool. The fact that
the Morlocks are now
> hulking action figures instead of scurrying furtuve
rat-like monkey-men
> with huge blind eyes, I can understand that...
I mean, ya gotta sell
> tickets. I understand the "gotta sell tickets"
aspect.
They're pretty hardcore, I like the new design.
We all gotta sell tickets. I just don't like wearing
a fuckin' clown suit
to do it. So I don't, and I sell less tickets, but
the tickets I sell are
to the ones I'll have fun entertaining. As long as
the rent stays paid and
I can eat, I'm happy.
alliekatt
Original file name: The Time Machine review.txt - converted on Friday, 20 September 2002, 16:09
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