“I summon: Mecha-Lawyer Zeta!”
Ever notice how superheroes are reactive, not proactive? Batman doesn’t hunt the Joker down for his unpunished history of crime, but for whatever he did yesterday?
In a related vein, here’s a Power Rangers question for you. Knowledge of the show is not required; here’s a synopsis of a standard episode.
Space witch Rita Repulsa sends a 10-foot rubber monster to the town of Angel Grove as part of her ongoing plan to capture the city. (I can’t remember the reason.) The Rangers must overcome a plot point usually related to teamwork, friendship, or trust to defeat the critter.
Before it can expire, Rita throws one of an endless supply of magic staves from the moon to the monster’s position; the staff explodes and revitalizes the monster, increasing it to 100-foot size. Property damage ensues as it rampages. The Rangers summon their five-piece giant robot, and melee the giant; more property damage, from both sides, occurs until monster is vanquished.
Question:
Standing Mode
raininva and I watched Robot Jox this weekend – I hadn’t seen it since the early nineties. I liked the mech designs better than I did when I first saw it, and Gary Graham’s an old genre friend now (once considered for Captain Sisko, according to the IMDB). But the script is still ungood. My favorite bit is still the one where the bad guy uses a prohibited ranged weapon during a match, causing the death of hundreds of spectators, and the referees just shrug and say “do-over!”
Contrast this to Gunhed, which has a cooler mech and more interesting characters, but is confusingly edited and is willing to let the audience make up their own explanations for a bunch of plot points. There was enough left unanswered in that flick that I was easily able to steal the whole plot for a Shadowrun game without giving too much away to the players. Still, I prefer it.
I’m trying to make a mental list of live-action “giant robot” movies that are worth spending 90 minutes or so on. Iron Man #28 looks good, but I don’t know if it will ever be dubbed or subbed. And though I love it for camp, I’m not sure I can bring myself to include the first Power Rangers Movie.
Speaking of such, I’ve procured the Cutey Honey live-action flick, which will go into the “to be watched” queue after the latest Orion Slave Girl episode of “Enterprise” and this week’s “Doctor Who”. The movie’s looking very cheesy, which of course is just what I’d be looking for.
The other serious Whovian at my office wants me to bring in the Whoman DVD that I still owe rubinpdf money for. I will do so. He has been warned 🙂
Booklist: I re-read Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, and am trying to finish his Beyond This Horizon, but the latter’s just not grabbing me. OTOH, the local library had a hardcover of Larry Niven’s Ringworld’s Children, which I’m enjoying much much more than The Ringworld Throne. It’s feeling more like SF than the “fallen-civilization fantasy” that Niven admittedly loves, but I think is a bit mined out. I’ve got another nonfiction library book on the OSS to read after that.
Wow. This got long.
