One has to wonder what happened to the medical industry in James Kirk’s time.
In The Wrath Of Kahn we learn a bit of allergy information when Kirk tells McCoy that he’s allergic to Retinax V and as a result, he occasionally used old-fashioned corrective lenses to adjust for his increasing farsightedness.
Isn’t it amazing that in a world where medical professionals have developed a pill that can make you grow a new kidney, they can no longer perform Lasix eye surgery?
Cowboys And Aliens is one of those movies that landed on our “must see” list simply because of the title. While the movie wasn’t a complete disappointment, it also wasn’t everything it could have been. It was after seeing this movie that we learned that the film “was inspired not by a comic book, but by its cover“.
The Plot
A mysterious stranger (Daniel Craig) awakes in Arizona in 1873[1] or, possibly, he awakes in the New Mexico territory in 1875.[2] The movie itself is content with the idea that it’s the old West and it’s the desert. The stranger has a nasty wound in his side, a mysterious futuristic bracelet clamped to his wrist, and no memory of who he his or how he came to be in this situation. While he’s trying to kick-start his brain, a group of men rides up and asks him which is the way to Absolution. When they start to rough him up, he snatches one of their weapons and kills all three of them. He then steals some clothes and a horse and rides in to Absolution – the quintessential old West soon-to-be-ghost town.
The first person he runs into is a gun carrying preacher who stitches up the wound in his side. Outside he runs into a bully named Percy Dolarhyde who demands a “contribution” from the stranger and receives a boot to the crotch instead. Percy, in a fit of rage, starts firing his gun wildly and shoots an innocent bystander in the arm. This gets him arrested with the promise of a trip to the Federal Marshal’s office. While at the jail dealing with Percy, the sheriff notices a Wanted poster and identifies the nameless stranger as the outlaw, Jake Lonergan. Jake is sitting in the saloon when a mysterious woman named Ella claims she knows something about him. About the time he runs her off, the sheriff shows up and puts him in the jail cell next to Percy.
In the desert outside of town, four of men working for Percy’s father, Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), are camping out and minding some of Dolarhyde’s cattle while one of them, new to the group, gets drunk and mouths off about what a rotten person the Colonel is. The mouthy one goes into a nearby river to, um, do some business and there’s a flash of bright blue light. When he gets back to the camp, the cattle as well as the other three men have been incinerated. Colonel Dolarhyde shows up and, when he doesn’t believe the survivor’s explanation for what happened, he has the man tied between two horses tugging in opposite directions. When Dolarhyde receives word that his son is in trouble again, he unties one horse and slaps the other, giving the drunken cowhand the last ride of his life.
Dolorhyde shows up in Absolution as Jake and Percy are being shackled together and loaded into a coach to be taken to the Federal Marshal. Jake tells Percy that he can get the chains off of them, then breaks Percy’s wrist to get the chain free on that end.[3] Suddenly, the whole place is under attack by alien ships and the mysterious bracelet that Jake is wearing lights up. Jake figures out that its a weapon and shoots down one of the small craft that are strafing the area, but not before other ships abduct Percy, the sheriff, the bartender’s wife, and several other people.
Dolarhyde, Jake, and Ella, along with a group of Apache warriors Ella knows and the gang that Jake used to lead set out in search of the aliens to save the townspeople. Ella is killed in a battle with an alien and when the Apache’s have a funeral for her she comes back to life and explains that she’s also from another world and she’s chasing these aliens because they destroyed her people. These aliens, it seems, are mining for gold and destroying anyone who tries to interfere. It apparently didn’t occur to the writers that after traveling who-knows-how-far to Earth, they could suck up every ounce of gold on the planet and not make it worth the trip.
Ella and the Apaches perform a ritual which gives Jake his memory back and he is able to lead them to the alien’s mother ship. On the way they find a steamboat upside down 500 miles from the nearest river big enough for it. They take shelter there for the night, but throughout the rest of the movie no explanation is given for how it got there. It is made pretty clear that the aliens that Jake and Dolarhyde are chasing didn’t have the stuff to do it.
When they find the alien ship, it’s as big as a skyscraper, only 90% of it is underground. The plan is that Dolarhyde and his people will flush the aliens out of the ship and then the Apaches will surround and attack them while Jake and Ella go inside and release the surviving prisoners. It’s at this point that we get our first clear look at the aliens. Picture the bastard children of the creatures from Alien and Predator. These creatures have chest cavities that open up to reveal long arms with three-fingered hands covered in slime. For all their technology, the aliens fight the humans by running around, screaming, and trying to bite people in the head. They don’t seem to realize that the blaster-bracelets like the one Jake got from them are excellent weapons, which is just as well for the humans.
Jake and Ella find and release the human prisoners who make it outside just as the aliens have been defeated. During the tearful reunion scene Ella takes the bracelet from Jake and says that she can destroy the ship and stop the aliens once and for all if she can get the device to the ship’s core. Dolarhyde shows up inside the ship to find out what happened to Jake and Ella. Dolarhyde and Jake make it off the ship just as it takes off with Ella still on her way to the core. A few miles above the ground Ella is successful in getting to the core and the ship explodes, killing all the remaining aliens along with Ella.
I’ll have to say that this movie would have been better as a Western without the aliens, or as an Alien movie without the Western aspect. The two genres are like ketchup and ice cream. Separately, they’re pretty good, but together….ugh!
Technorati Tags: science+fiction, westerns, reviews, cowboys+and+aliens, harrison+ford, daniel+craig
On November 5th, 1955, Doctor Emmett L. Brown of Hill Valley, California was standing on his toilet hanging a clock when he slipped and hit his head. Upon waking up, the inventor had an image in his head and put it down on paper while it was fresh in his mind.
THIS is what makes time travel possible
Several hours after his invention of the “Flux Capacitor”, he was visited by a young man named Marty who claimed to have traveled back in time 30 years in a time machine invented by Brown. Brown insisted he hadn’t invented a time machine and the young man recounted the story of how Brown had fallen off his toilet while hanging a clock and awoke with the idea for the Flux Capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible.
“Doc”, as he is known to his friends, spent the next week working on a plan to use an upcoming bolt of lightning to power the time machine’s flux capacitor. On November 12, 1955, Doc Brown sent the young man back to the future, only to have him return seconds later with a story about the “Doc” being sent back to 1885. This time, young Marty was carrying a letter which Brown had sent via Western Union detailing exactly where the time machine was hidden and how to repair it with 1955 technology. While unearthing the time machine, the two found Doc Brown’s grave, dated one week after the letter to Marty was written, with the epitaph, “shot in the back over a matter of $80″. Doc repaired the time machine, which no longer needed a lightning bolt thanks to an early 21st century installation of a “Mr. Fusion”, and sent Marty back to 1885 to rescue … him.
We recently caught up with Emmett Brown and asked him why on earth anyone would need a clock hanging over their toilet. In response, his eyes got wide, his jaw went slack for a moment, he yelled, “Great Scott!” then he ran back to his laboratory.
Technorati Tags: science+fiction, movies, back+to+the+future, bttf, flux+capacitor, doc+brown, marty+mcfly, time+travel
The forth and (hopefully) final Highlander continues (and, we hope, concludes) the tradition set in the first three Highlander films. It completely ignores facts established in its predecessors.
While I will admit that I recall seeing this movie once, I was so disgusted with it that I, honestly, had forgotten a lot of the details and had to look up the plot summary online. One gets the impression that this film was intended to be a bridge between the Highlander movies and the television series staring Adrian Paul.
The film takes place at a point in time before the end of the first Highlander film. Connor McCleod has not yet won the Prize and is still fighting evil Immortals in hopes of becoming the last remaining Immortal.
In 1555AD, Connor returns to Scotland to save his mother from an evil priest named Kell. Connor is unsuccessful and Kell executes Connor’s mother for witchcraft. Connor kills Kell and his father, Rainey. Kell is reborn as an Immortal and vows to get revenge on Connor for killing Rainey.
Kell spends the next four centuries killing people Connor cares about. He amasses great power by ignoring the rules of the game and recruiting Immortals to overpower other Immortals so that Kell can behead them. By 1900AD, Kell has killed 661 Immortals, compared to 262 for Connor McCleod and 174 for Connor’s cousin, Duncan McCleod.
Ten years before this film’s “present day”, Kell kills Connor’s adopted daughter. Connor is heartbroken and goes to “The Sanctuary” where a group of “watchers” makes certain that Immortals there stay out of The Game.
Adopted daughter? Sanctuary? Watchers? None of these were mentioned in any of the other movies but, what the heck, why not just rewrite history to help push our story along.
This brings us to present day when Kell attacks the Sanctuary and kills all the Immortals there, although he manages to not get Connor. Duncan learns that Connor has gone to the Sanctuary, but refuses to believe that Connor would go there and just quit The Game. Duncan flies from New York to Connor’s old residence in London. He finds that it was destroyed 10 years ago in the explosion that killed Connor’s daughter. He also runs into Kate, Duncan’s wife from 200 years ago.
So, what’s this woman, Duncan’s wife, doing at Connor’s place, anyway? And, for the record, I just love the way nobody has to come up with any money for all these international flights. There must be an airline that specializes in free flights for people over 200 years old … “no working capital financing needed!”
Kell’s henchmen arrive on the scene and ignore the one-on-one rule of The Game.
…in much the same way the writers of the Highlander movies ignore all the pre-quels…
Kell arrives and the fighting stops. One of Kell’s goons shoots Duncan who falls and lands on a spike and appears to be dead. Kell takes the head of his trigger-happy goon and, as the Quickening begins, a van drives up to where Duncan fell, and takes him away.
Duncan wakes up to discover that The Watchers have taken him to The Sanctuary so as to keep him from winning The Prize.
WHY? did Duncan manage to really piss them off sometime in the past?
Two old friends, Methos and Joe, release Duncan.
I love the way “old friends” show up wherever they’re needed, at exactly the right time to help our character. Explanation, Schmexplanation. The writers need him there, so he’s there. Don’t ask why. Just watch the movie.
He discovers that Kell spared Connor so that he could continue tormenting him. Kell wants to kill Duncan to make Connor even more miserable. Connor is too wrapped up in grief over losing all his loved ones that he won’t confront Kell.
Give me a break! Connor is a 400+ year old Immortal. You can’t be Immortal without outliving a few people. If he’s that grief-stricken after all this time, then that man needs some serious help.
Duncan later confronts Kate (now using the alias “Faith”) at a fashion shoot, and asks her why she is with Kell. She tells him how much she hates the fact that she will never have children or grow old and die, and believes that Kell understands her pain.
So, what does that have to do with Duncan? Apparently, in *this* version of history Immortals are somehow made that way by other Immortals? So, where’d the first one come from?
Duncan must earn her forgiveness, or face her as an embittered part of Kell’s faction. Later on in Duncan’s hotel room, Kate arrives after having a chat with Kell, and the two make love. Though it would appear that she has forgiven him, it is not the case, and she tells Duncan that she will never forgive him, but Duncan tells her that it is never to late for redemption, and that he will wait, even if it takes years or centuries.
Kell puts on a parody of The Last Supper where he kills all of his Immortal henchmen to gain their power. Connor manages to convince Duncan that he must take Connor’s head to gain enough power to defeat Kell. Duncan finally agrees and kills Connor.
HOLD THE PHONE! Connor McCleod is DEAD? They just took the ending to the only decent Highlander movie and flushed it down the toilet! Check Please! I’m done.
Duncan soon meets up with Kell and snatches victory from the jaws of defeat when, at the last minute, he jumps over Kell and decapitates him as he turns around. Duncan absorbs all of Kell’s massive power. He then goes to Glenfinnan, Scotland to bury Connor next to Connor’s first wife Heather. The Producers’ Cut ends with the revelation that Kate/Faith is still alive. Calling herself Kate again, the two Immortals seem to rekindle their romantic relationship.
And, if there are still two Immortals alive, then NOBODY wins the prize. Smart move, guys.
I had hoped that Highlander III: The FINAL conflict would have been the last of these sorry knock-offs of a good movie. I would say that with this movie they’ve butchered the original story so much that you can’t pull another sequel out of its ashes, but that hasn’t stopped anybody yet.
I heard a rumor that there’s a remake of the first Highlander film in the works. I hope that rumor is not true. That was the only one of these movies that I really enjoyed and I don’t want to see it mutilated so some studio can squeeze a few more bucks out of a franchise they’ve already ruined with so many conflicting story lines.
Technorati Tags: science+fiction, fantasy, movies, highlander, endgame, sequel, review, connor+mccleod, duncan+mccleod, adrian+paul, christopher+lambert
The third Highlander movie is known by several names:
It seems that the creators of this franchise weren’t satisfied with confusing people by re-writing history for the second movie, because there is no other reason for one movie to be known by six different titles. The origin of one of the titles is a complete mystery. The phrase “The Final Dimension” has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
No matter what you choose to call it, this movie is essentially a retelling of the original Highlander movie. The best thing that can be said about this movie is that it completely ignored Highlander II: The Quickening.
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