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FLASH! AH-AHHHHH! Savior of the universe!

If there’s a song that better encapsulates both the plot and mood of a film, I’ve yet to hear it. Flash Gordon is based upon two things: a science fiction comic strip, and the 1930’s adventure film serial starring Buster Crabbe. Long before the likes of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and RDM’s Battlestar Galactica came along as pioneers in the realm of ‘darker and edgier’ science fiction stories, a trend that Flash would himself follow, the use of older material like this was more about a homage than a revision. However, Flash Gordon comes to us with one intention in mind, one that lies at the root of the reason why we see movies in the first place: to have some fun.

Evil: It’s A Growth Industry!

Flash Gordon‘s story begins with a simple question: “What do despotic galactic overlords do when they get bored?” If you’re Ming the Merciless (Max van Sydow), you toy with the eco-system of a planet that can’t fight back. In this case, Ming picks on Earth. NASA informs the public that the phenomena making Mother Earth scream obscenities are perfectly natural and nothing to worry about, but mad scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol) is the only man sane enough to recognize this abusive weather as an attack from outer space. At gunpoint, he brings two people who happened into his lab along on his journey to halt the attacks: journalist Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) and football superstar Flash Gordon (Sam J Jones). In short order, the Earthlings find themselves among the planets of Mongo, and when Flash realizes who this despot is and what he’s about, he sets his sights on kicking this guy square in his Merciless Mings.

Flash! And the most impractical sword in the universe!

Forget the grayish browns and brownish grays that predominate most modern science fiction story. Flash Gordon is bursting at the seams with bright colors, shimmering costumes and characters that have some memorable features right down to the bit players. In addition to being a treat for the eyeballs, the whole affair has a campiness to it. The only thing terribly serious about the film is how much its tongue is stuck in its cheek. But it’s not taking the piss out of science fiction in a mean-spirited way. It feels like a send-up rather than a parody, a loving callback to the things people love about reading the strips in the newspaper – remember newspapers? – and seeing Buster run around in those short pants of his. I think the most important thing about Flash Gordon, though, is that everybody seems to be having fun. From Max van Sydow’s deliciously malevolent Ming to Timothy Dalton’s swashbuckling sylvan prince, the whole cast seems to be going along with the ridiculous nature of the film’s premise because it’s the most fun they’ve had since they decided to make a living pretending to be other people. I mean, they gave Brian Blessed wings and a large blunt weapon – how can you not have fun in that get-up?

Seriously. Look at that man’s grin.

This is a film that, by today’s standards, would not work as a legitimate science fiction adventure. I think we’ve become a bit too used to the sort of gritty pseudo-realism present in Avatar or District 9. Even the Star Wars films, once known for high adventure among the stars for better and for worse, became darker as they wore on in recent years, along with becoming less coherent. Now, I don’t mind science fiction staying tethered somewhat to the realm of the possible, but the fact that Flash Gordon zooms directly towards the border of the ridiculous and crosses it without nary a backward glance makes it surprisingly refreshing. This story has no deep message, no philosophical bent, not even that much of a plot. But unlike the works of Lucas, this feeling is intentional, and while it’s been said you can’t do camp on purpose, Flash Gordon camps things up so much, it’s hard to imagine the filmmakers not knowing how outlandish the end product would be.

Do I even have to mention Princess Aura? Define “hubba-hubba”.

Entertainment, especially in escapist forms like movies and video games, is about having fun. It’s about losing oneself in the experience provided by the medium. Sometimes you can lose yourself in a deep and touching story, but there are also times when you as an audience member just want to sit back and enjoy the show. Flash Gordon doesn’t punish you for trying to think during the movie the way other badly made films might – rather, it elbows you in the ribs and tells you we’re here to have fun, not to wonder how Flash can survive on a rocket cycle in space with no enclosure or exactly how the physics of Mongo work. Yeah, the plot is thinner than a thread-bare shoestring and the special effects might seem laughably produced in comparison to modern robust CGI suites, but you know what? In this case, none of that matters. Flash Gordon is all about having fun, and that’s why we watch movies. If you’ve forgotten that, gentle reader, put this on your Netflix queue right away. If nothing else, you have an excuse for playing Queen’s music at high volume, and if you don’t think that’s fun, check your pulse. You’re probably dead. And only Flash can save you now.

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

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Now that the latest film is available on Netflix, as well as the television series, I’d like to discuss the rise and fall of the Terminator franchise. Examining what worked in the various stories of this mythos and where things went a bit wrong, or a lot wrong, should only take a few minutes. It’s interesting, at least to me, that such examinations don’t happen more often when these stories are getting put together. Then again, calling what happens in “Salvation” an actual story is giving it a great deal of credit. Come along, you’ll see what I mean.

The Terminator

I’ve known grown men haunted by this.

Men in action films were being called ‘killing machines’ before this one came along. Charles Bronson springs to mind. However, James Cameron gave us a literal killing machine. The titular character is a cybernetic assassin sent back in time to murder someone. This target isn’t a genius, or a great warrior or even all that significant. Sarah Connor is a waitress in her late teens who is unaware that she’s in any sort of danger until everybody who has her name starts dropping dead in very violent ways. The only man who can save her, who is even aware of what this killing machine really is, comes from the future and explains why she’s wanted dead: she will give birth to mankind’s best hope for survival in a future where machines are systematically exterminating our race. To prevent John Connor from taking charge of the resistance, the artificial intelligence called SkyNet sent the Terminator to kill his mother before he was even born.

Beyond the action sequences and some high octane nightmare fuel in the form of the skinless Terminator rising from the flames of a wrecked fuel truck, the storytelling’s very tight and the conceptualized time travel is realized rather well. The human characters show depth and real emotion, and Arnold’s star-making role relies on him simply being large and stoic, seemingly unstoppable in his cold rampage. I think a lot of this is actually due to the constraints of the technology of the day. Without CGI or today’s massive effects budget, James Cameron had to use the genius of Stan Winston sparingly. The scene where the Terminator repairs himself is a great example of this. Without a single word and minimal music, Arnold’s actions and the use of a very complex artificial stand-in creates a scene that is both awesome in its execution and squick-worthy in its content. Not only did this film really launch Arnold’s career, it cemented Cameron’s place as the arguable master of the genre.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Look up ‘badass’ in the dictionary. You’ll find this.

Sequels can be dubious creatures. It’s rare for a sequel to not only harken back to feelings created by the original, but also build upon the characters, themes and stories established previously. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and The Dark Knight are often mentioned in the same breath as this film, in that they do exactly what a sequel should: taking favorite characters and interesting stories and improving on the overall formula. In this, John Connor’s grown into a somewhat precocious and arrogant pre-teen while his mom has been locked up for trying to tell people about killing machines coming back in time to kill her. A new Terminator, the T-1000, is sent back in time to murder John as a child, while John’s future self captures and reprograms an older model and sends it back as a protector.

Everything that made the first film work is here. However, a lot of concepts are taken in new directions or even turned on their heads. Sarah Connor, learning the identity of the man responsible for creating SkyNet, takes it upon herself to go assassinate him, in effect becoming no better than the machines sent to kill her and her son. The T-800, Arnold’s model, begins to explore the nature of humanity as he spends time with the Connors, and John, who begins the movie zipping around on a dirt bike as he hacks ATMs for cash, turns out to be one of the most virtuous and downright heroic characters in the story. And as for nightmare fuel, the vision Sarah has of the nuclear holocaust that is Judgement Day is as realistic as it is chilling. The action is balanced with humor, the horror with good writing & acting, all coming together in a package that actually outstrips the original. Finally there’s the awesome factor of Arnold hefting a minigun with a little smile on his face, tiny little Robert Patrick tossing Arnold around like a rag doll and Linda Hamilton going completely Amazonian and nearly taking down the T-1000 single-handedly while only having the use of one arm. It gave a fantastic movie-going experience and hope that this trend would continue.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Yeah, she’s kinda hot, but not quite right for a Terminatrix.

It’s unfortunately at this point that the Terminator films began to follow the ways of other sequels: rehashing old ideas while not presenting anything terribly new. John Connor, now a young adult and getting by off the grid after the death of his mother, is once again targeted for termination, this time by a female Terminator with highly advanced weaponry and programming under the liquid-metal skin that made the T-1000 so dangerous. Another older model is sent back to protect him. This time, however, Judgement Day’s coming is inevitable, and John ends up in a bunker with his future wife and becomes the voice of the resistance even as SkyNet brings humanity to its knees.

Instead of doing anything new with the storylines or characters, Terminator 3 suffers from being, in essence, a carbon copy of Terminator 2. The Arnie model is already programmed with psychology so there’s nothing for it to learn, the T-X is somehow less menacing since it has an endoskeleton that can be destroyed as an excuse to have energy weapons in the past, there’s no Sarah Connor against which to contrast John and some of the very rules of time travel are ignored for the sake of plot convenience. Still, it’s difficult for me to confidently say that T3 is a horrible movie since some of it does work, if only because it was looking over the shoulder of T2 and jotting down notes. It’s just shallower than the first two films, and while it does offer the eye candy of Kristanna Loken and some amusing moments like the contents of Sarah Connor’s coffin, it can safely be ignored.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

That’s more like it.

That’s exactly what television producers did when they began the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Taking place after T2, Sarah and John stay on the run until a Terminatrix named Cameron appears from the future to help prevent Judgement Day. As the series goes on, the protagonists move into roles of anti-heroes and even terrorists, breaking the law on a regular basis and pushing the envelope in terms of acts committed for the sake of a greater good. The show grew a very dark and edgy beard, and in my opinion, was too good a show for FOX execs to allow to live.

Aside from casting the always delightful and poignant Summer Glau as Cameron, what this show does right among other things is the dynamic of Sarah and John. In T2 we observe that Sarah loves her son enough to go to murderous lengths to protect him, while John loves his mother too much to see her become a complete monster in the name of his safety. The TV series builds on this, showing Sarah struggling to maintain her humanity in the face of everything she has to do while John slowly has to let go of his young idealism and taking on the mantle of leadership. It is, like the first two movies, smartly written and well acted. And then there’s the fan service – dear God, the fan service.

Terminator: Salvation

An action shot from Modern Warfare 2 Terminator:Salvation

Reversing the way the TV series handwaved T3, the fourth film follows T3’s take on the story and brings us to 2018 where John Connor is not the leader of the resistance, but rather a subordinate officer whom some people (especially those in charge) deem unpredictable or even unstable due to his claims of his own importance. His cell is infiltrated by an advanced prototype Terminator calling itself Marcus Wright, who believes he’s still human, while trying to save a young warrior named Kyle Reese from termination – and thus becoming the cause for his own conception.

I’ve reviewed this film already so let me just briefly cover the bullet points. The writers and director water down the concepts even further from T3 until it feels more like a generic CG-driven action flick than an heir to the Terminator legacy. While Anton Yelchin does very well as Kyle Reese, and Sam Worthington brings a lot of humanity to his character in the face of a lot of alpha-male swaggering, the whole thing overall just feels more empty and lifeless than the machines themselves. Again, there’s some parts of the film that work while others fall flat, so I can’t really call it a horrible movie but it’s really not something I’m interested in watching again, either. But there’s not a great deal of story here, and the emphasis seems more on the action scenes and big robots with lasers.

That, I think, is the failing of the second pair of films. The humanity of the characters is somewhat dialed down so the cool factor of the robots, gunplay and visuals can be turned up. But what worked in the first two films weren’t just the special effects or the action or the bloodshed. It was the characters, very human and well-realized characters, that drove both the plots and the success of those films. Even the television series, blasted by some as being too cerebral or too dark or too God-awful, managed to get that right, focusing on Sarah and John more than it did on killer robots, laser beams and things that belong more in a Michael Bay flick than it does in something that’s actually got a brain in its head.

So, in conclusion, I recommend you watch the first two Terminator films, and if you find yourself hungry for more, check out The Sarah Connor Chronicles. You can watch the other two films if you want, but I feel they’re pretty weak by comparison. Feel free to disagree, though. It’s not like I’ll be able to send a killer cyborg back in time to kill your parents or anythig. Well, not until I figure out what exactly they’re using to power Dick Cheney.

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.