From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2004
The Future is Wild is out on DVD, in a boxed set containing
13
episodes. I spent real cash money on it, brought it
home, viewed the
first 5 mjinutes, CAME, viewed the first two episodes.
Came once more
and washed up.
I've always enjoyed the natural sciences, in a hobbyist
sort of way,
sttarting of course with dinosaurs but really including
all animals and
even some plants. And my childhood religion is science
fiction. And one
of my favorite books of all time is "After Man"
by Dougal Dixon, a sort
of mock zoological treatise with killer art about the
animals that
puoplate the Earth some millions of years after X-Day.
Well, they don't
mention XDay specifically, but we know what they mean.
AND, one of my
favorite movies of all time was the British TV series,
"Walking with
Dinosaurs" and its follow-ups, "Walking with
Allosaurus" and "Walking
with Prehistoric Beasts." (The American-produced
"When Dinosaurs
Roamed North America" and "Walking with Cavemen"
are utter SHIT. WORSE
than shit. BELOW shit.)
"The Future is Wild" is by Dougal Dixon, about
15 very weird
scientists, and a crew of animators and location camera
people who must
have learned their tricks on "Walking with Dinosaurs."
The animation of
the creatures, and the compositing of them into the
live action footage
shot in exotic locales, is not quite on the level with
the Dino series,
but PLENTY CLOSE ENOUGH and generally completely awe-inspiring
to me --
me being a guy whose childhood hero was Ray Harryhausen,
and enough of
a wanna-be fx guy to understand more or less how trickily
it's done,
having made attempts myself many times.
The first several episodes cover the animals of Earth
5 million years
into the coming Ice Age, long after humans have become
extinct and
SubGenii have vacated the planet. The episode I watched
last night
covered the carnivorous Wooly Saber-Toothed Giant Wolverine
and its
prey, the overgown, stubby-legged, fat, wool-covered
former marmots
called ShagRats, plus introduced us to the gigantic
whale-birds, huge
descendants of sea birds which have become flightless
and filled the
niche of the whales and dolphins (who went extinct with
or even before
humans). The drawbacks of reproduction by egg-laying
for flightless,
swimming birds is illustrated by comparisons with penguins.
(Male
penguins spend the winter freezing their asses off,
clutching an egg
between their legs, while the females party down South.
The poor
pussywhipped bastards.). This episode takes place around
the glaciers
covering Southern France.
Future blocks of episodes cover specific ecological
niches in the
hothouse Earth 100 million years from now, and then
the utterly bizarre
situation 200 million years hence, after a mass extinction
event has
wiped out all but ONE MAMMAL. (And that mammal is FARMED
by large
SPIDERS.) Plankton have evolved to replace a lot of
the smaller fish,
and higher water animals have left the oceans to fill
the void left
when the large mammals and birds vanished.
This is where it gets good for SubGenii, because SQUID
and OCTOPI have
spread across the land in many forms, from monkey-like
Squibons that
live in trees to huge lumbering elephant-like giants,
and
nearly-intelligent ones that communicate by elaborate
psychedelic color
displays. "Flish" fly through the trees squirting
poison at giant bugs.
Snails hop across the desert like jackrabbits, on ONE
POGO-STICK LIKE
FOOT.
This show was on Discover and Animal Planet networks
and apparently no
one noticed. I got the slightest hint of its existence
long after it
was on TV, and long scoured the binaries newsgroups
dutifully for it,
but NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE *GOOD* STUFF in this modern
world.
You can correct that: Cleveland Devival, Saturday May
22, at Beachland
Ballroom. With The Amino Acids!!
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath
of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bobdiddley@aol.com (Bobdiddley)
Stang says:
>The Future is Wild is out on DVD, in a boxed set
containing 13
>episodes.
This AND Arise, both available in this new-fangled DVD
format, here on Earth?
Well, there just might be a new gadget in my future!
As soon as I sort out the
mysteries of the Automobile Which Is Not Mobile...
When I was in 2nd grade, the bookmobile came every two
weeks, and we could
check out one book. Wally Scott and I swapped off two-week
periods checking out
THE book about dinosaurs. We sat side-by-side in class,
and must have read that
thing twenty times through, and memorized the specs
on all the dinosaurs Known
At That Time (the dinosaurs had only been extinct for
a few months back then).
It took almost the whole school year, before the teacher
caught on to our game,
and insisted that we let someone else have a go at it.
I'm still a big fan of
wildlife shows and speculative evolution. I especially
like the age of the
MegaMammals.
=================================================
"And as long as there are people who find the whole
idea of a 'state of
normalcy' for 'our world' to be an inherently fucked-up
idea, there
will be a Church of the Subgenius. Or SOMETHING WORSE.."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Bobdiddley <bobdiddley@aol.com> wrote:
> Stang says:
> >The Future is Wild is out on DVD, in a boxed
set containing 13
> >episodes.
>
> This AND Arise, both available in this new-fangled
DVD format, here on Earth?
> Well, there just might be a new gadget in my future!
As soon as I sort out the
> mysteries of the Automobile Which Is Not Mobile...
VHS versions are available, but all movies ARE in the
can whereas you
might need the wheels any minute.
> When I was in 2nd grade, the bookmobile came every
two weeks, and we could
> check out one book. Wally Scott and I swapped off
two-week periods checking
> out
> THE book about dinosaurs.
The Roy Chapman Andrews book about finding Protoceratops
eggs in the
Gobi desert was the one that you found in the bookmobile
when I was a
kid. Taught me early that the kind of dinosaurs I liked
most were in
the movies.
> We sat side-by-side in class, and must have read
> that
> thing twenty times through, and memorized the specs
on all the dinosaurs Known
> At That Time (the dinosaurs had only been extinct
for a few months back then).
And yet, there were only a couple of dozen types of
dinosaurs Known to
Us Kids at that time! By the time my son was a dinosaur
freak, the
number of different weird-ass species had exploded into
such an army of
outlandish beasts that it made you almost want to side
with the
Creationists, just because it was all getting so COMPLICATED.
Too much
for anyone EXCEPT a kid to be able to learn.
> It took almost the whole school year, before the
teacher caught on to our
> game,
> and insisted that we let someone else have a go
at it. I'm still a big fan of
> wildlife shows and speculative evolution. I especially
like the age of the
> MegaMammals.
An Age sadly ignored by monster movie makers, although
that may be
partly because scaly animals are easier to fake than
hairy animals.
However, that show "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts"
made up for it.
Remember the UNSPEAKABLY COOL paintings in all those
books about
prehistoric animals, and Cave Normals, where some noble
rough looking
cave guy was in the very act of spearing with his COOL
COOL SPEAR an
IRISH ELK that was springing RIGHT AT HIM, or the COOL
COOL scenes of a
tribe of Neanderthals driving a confused Wooly Mammoth
off a cliff?
Well, all that shit is now FAKED in these shows to such
a degree that
it looks JUST like hand-held home movies actually shot
right there in
Cro-Magnonsville. And sometimes at night with a night-vision
camera, to
boot.
Seriously, although the animals aren't PERFECT perfect,
they're close
enough so that MOST of the time you feel like you're
watching a
National Geographic special filmed all on location by
intrepid camera
guys with 16mm cameras. When the mammoths splash into
puddle, the water
hits the lens, that sort of thing. The way they're married
into the
real scenery filmed live, often hand-held or from helicopters
or
whatnot, is thrilling to an old Dynamation fan, you
better believe it.
And I always wanted to see the fx used for purely naturalistic
dinosaur
movies, like this. No monsters chasing lantern-jawwed
scientists and
women with ripped clothes that fall down when they're
running. No
humans at all. JUST the MONSTERS. Doing JUST NORMAL
MONSTER THINGS.
That said I am now going to go check out Episode 3 of
the Future is
Wild thing. NO HUMANS... JUST MONSTERS. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.
The REAL
porno.
Actually in Future Is Wild there are thankfully brief
interludes
showing the amazingly geeky scientists talking about
their beloved
future animals. Most of these guys have "SubGenius"
written all over
them. Spazziest bunch I've seen since last X-Day Drill.
I guess they
mostly teach zoology and suchlike, and write books about
animal
behavior, and get laughed at behind their backs by Norm-Humes
because
they really are SO fucking funny looking. If it can't
be ALL monsters,
at least let the humans be SubGenii. Between the speculative
animal
design and the actually weird professors, it's a HECK-BLASTEDLY
entertaining show. If you are into that sort of thing.
For me the ONLY
thing missing is topless plumper gals frolicking behind
the geeky profs
while they talk about the monsters to come, once humans
vamoose.
Speaking of monsters, I had a nice long phone chat with
Papa Joe Mama
today. The nonfiction book on Jack Chick and his endless,
timeless line
of religious tracts hits the stores next month! Includes
a Chick
take-off by Papa Joe and Hal Robins that is... well...
hopefully you'll
see. Chicks dig Chicks, and so will you when you plunge
into a kook
universe so PURE that it rivals that of J.R. "Bob"
Dobbs in luridness
and luridity.
> =================================================
> "And as long as there are people who find
the whole idea of a 'state of
> normalcy' for 'our world' to be an inherently fucked-up
idea, there
> will be a Church of the Subgenius. Or SOMETHING
WORSE.."
YUCH!!
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath
of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
The honeymoon is over.
In Episode Three they cheated too much. Used each animation
shot THREE
TIMES EACH, minimum, over the course of the show. Or
flipped a scene so
the direction went right to left instead of left to
right, and hoped
you wouldn't notice. But it was done WAY too much.
Also, the rock pigs and crevass weasels featured in
this one are not
very realistically animated nor married to the scenery.
The crested
upright-running desert lizards looked fine -- until
REAL footage of
REAL crested upright-running desert lizards in Australia
were shown.
The real animal footage that's used to illustrate evolutionary
points
in this particular one is reminiscent of the Ren and
Stimpy "Wild
Kingdom" episode, with the crested lizards that
run on their hind legs
and dance back and forth on the hot sand so their feet
won't burn.
This Ice Age episode also features some baboonish creatures
with BRIGHT
BRIGHT BLUE ASSES and hideously, nightmarishly human
faces. They are
the prey of giant flightless birds. Birds are apparently
easier to
animate realistically than mammals.
I am now wishing to hurry through the 5 million year
episodes and get
to 100 million years from now, when the animals are
way more outrageous
looking.
In local news, MAN plays in Youngstown on Saturday night.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Rev. Ivan Stang <stang@subgenius.com> wrote:
> I am now wishing to hurry through the 5 million
year episodes and get
> to 100 million years from now, when the animals
are way more outrageous
> looking.
Oh my god I just went to the P.O. and there was a video
tape from
Nenslo. "Captain Midnight, Planet of Storms and
etc." I put it on. A
Doc Savage imposter is hawking Ovaltine in 1955 on TV.
Good Lord. I'd
better lay in a good store of Habafropzipulops for this
one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)
"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
wrote:
> Oh my god I just went to the P.O. and there was
a video tape from
> Nenslo. "Captain Midnight, Planet of Storms
and etc." I put it on. A
> Doc Savage imposter is hawking Ovaltine in 1955
on TV. Good Lord. I'd
> better lay in a good store of Habafropzipulops
for this one.
You need a large rubber stegosaurus to screw, the one
with the
life-like orifices. We should all chip in; they're pricey,
but you've
been "good."
--
HellPope Huey / www.subgenius.com
Its Friday and its still stupid. Now what?
The attempt to silence a man
is the greatest honor you can bestow on him.
It means that you recognize his superiority
to yourself.
- Joseph Sobran
"I disappeared like a set of rims at a Puff
Daddy concert."
- Larry the Cable Guy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
HellPopeHuey <hellpopehuey@subgenius.com> wrote:
> "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
wrote:
> > Oh my god I just went to the P.O. and there
was a video tape from
> > Nenslo. "Captain Midnight, Planet of
Storms and etc." I put it on. A
> > Doc Savage imposter is hawking Ovaltine in
1955 on TV. Good Lord. I'd
> > better lay in a good store of Habafropzipulops
for this one.
>
> You need a large rubber stegosaurus to screw,
the one with the
> life-like orifices. We should all chip in; they're
pricey, but you've
> been "good."
Best line so far from the Russian "Planet of Storms":
"I REMAIN ON VENUS BEING DEAD AND THE HEAVIEST."
(John the Robot, "Planet of Storms")
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>
Hey Stang, I posted some stills from Planet of Storms,
only it was under a
different title.
Did you notice that John the Robot and my own dear self
are built from the
same Russki-coalhauler truck frame? That's one iDRMRSR
sized robot, thass
fo'shizzle.
[*]
-----
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> Rev. Ivan Stang <stang@subgenius.com> wrote:
> > I am now wishing to hurry through the 5 million
year episodes and get
> > to 100 million years from now, when the animals
are way more outrageous
> > looking.
> >
> Oh my god I just went to the P.O. and there was
a video tape from
> Nenslo. "Captain Midnight, Planet of Storms
and etc." I put it on. A
> Doc Savage imposter is hawking Ovaltine in 1955
on TV. Good Lord. I'd
> better lay in a good store of Habafropzipulops
for this one.
Disregard inquiry in previous post. You are going to love those russian dinosaurs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> The honeymoon is over.
>
> In Episode Three they cheated too much. Used each
animation shot THREE
> TIMES EACH, minimum, over the course of the show.
Or flipped a scene so
> the direction went right to left instead of left
to right, and hoped
> you wouldn't notice. But it was done WAY too much.
You need to see Karl Zeman's Journey to the center of
the far side of
the time barrier or whatever it's called. I have a
copy around here
somewhere. Some of the prehistoric animals are pixellated
models, some
are puppets, some appear to be augmented animated photographic
cutouts,
and the dead stegosaurus is a 1:1 scale model.. And
it's the only one
of those prehistoric movies that shows my favorite,
the age of
amphibians, swamps full of shiny black widemouthed goggle-eyed
croakers.
Did you ever get Planet of Storms? sorry about the
crappy editing on
the Captain Midnight. I accidentally recorded the REALLY
BORING episode
instead of the atom bomb episode and had to try to ineptly
drop the good
one in without having to re-record Planet of Storms.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>
I like the Age of Amphibians best. Twelve foot long
hammerheaded
salamanders that just lie in the swamp going glurk.
Original file name: SubG Porno- The Futu#1AD1D8.txt - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05
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