While I liked the look of this figure, I wasn't necessarily planning on getting it, but though a set of somewhat complicated events I ended up getting this figure for $10. And it was absolutely worth that price, being even better in person than I expected it to be.
Check out all the neat detailing on her cuffs, lapels, hat band, and those ribbon things have a different pattern on them, which is neat. Notice her shoes, and her fishnet stockings are actual material, not just painted on.
In fact, if you follow the ribbon things around to the back, the detailing on them is interesting. Plus she's got some kind of frosted detailing on the ends of her coattails. Also, take look at those nifty shoes.
Great looking statue, in my opinion. However, there's something a little off with these pictures. Can you tell what?
I tried to photo them in such a way as to hide it, but it's pretty apparent to me that she's gimpy. While attaching her to the stand, her right wing snapped off. :( However, I think she's too interesting looking of a statue to delay posting some pictures of her while I attempt to mend her broken wing.
The first pic allows a good look at clawed left hand, the arm band on her right, and her helm. I like the way the black paint under her hawk-eye doesn't end, it streaks back fading into the gold. I thought at first it was a mistake, but both sides are the same, and I rather like the effect. It is also apparent from this angle that her top doesn't wrap around, and while she's...um, rather large...in the front (less apparent because you can't see how thin the rest of her body is), I'm not sure that covering would stay in place particularly well in actual flight/combat. Although the red strings wrap around her waist as well as her neck, so maybe? I don't know, I'm no fassion expert. I can't even figure out how to spell it: fascion? fasion? phassion? Oh, it's easier than that: fashion.
Anyway, the second pic gives a slightly better view of the armor bit on her left hand, you can see it's got some detailing on the top, reminiscent of the Eye of Ra symbol, plus she's got some nifty necklaces. She's got a battle ready, intent look on her face, and interestingly, she appears to have an impressive scar under her left eye. Right up under her eye. That was a close call. I like that she has eye lashes or something drawn under her right eye, but she's not hiding the close call she had with her left one.
Unfortunately, the following picture removes any illusion of wings, but gives us a good look at her Mace. This hand also has the finger claws and bracer that her left has, but no wrist or hand armor, just the finger claws, the pommel of the mace is carved in an hawk head motif, though obviously my angle was off when shooting it. But the mace head itself is quite cool, I love that the studs are gold instead of the same lead color of the mace, and the collar obviously is supposed to have some interesting detailing, though either PVC is too soft to have picked up the details well, or they weren't very finely detailed to begin with. But it's an interesting texture and color if nothing else. Also, her hair is done up in one really long braid. I like that.
Ame Comi Hawkgirl definitely turns out to be one of the best figures in the line so far, one of my favorites for sure, and I didn't even get any good pics to show off her armored boots with they're hawk claw detailing, but trust me, they're awesome, it's a great figure, I highly recommend it. Plus, it's a variant on her modern costume, which I MUCH prefer to her Golden/Silver Age look, or even her Animated Series look.
But attach the stand to her back first, the hole was just a tad too small, and it took quite a bit of force to get it in (in retrospect I could have easily shaved the hole out a little with a razor, and since I had plugged the wings in first, I inadvertently pushed on her wing more than I thought I was. Stand first, then wings. :(
And so, at long last, the Batman: Animated Series feature returns. It only took my two years to review this episode. And that episode is, The Forgotten, BTAS Vol 1, disc 2. Written by Jules Dennis, Richard Mueller and Sean Catherine Derek, and directed by Boyd Kirkland, all of whose names we've either seen before, or will see again later in the series.
Gaff Morgan
The episode starts with Bruce Wayne peeling potatoes at a soup kitchen, the guy who runs the place is telling him that he thinks people are disappearing, transients, regulars he hasn't seen it a while, even volunteers. Of course, being the Great Detective, he investigates, in a different disguise, that of an older homeless guy, Gaff Morgan. He wanders around town, visiting areas frequented by homeless people, until he is assaulted by a couple of guys, after they offer him a job. Of course, being Batman, he makes short work of the two, but a third guy jumps him from the shadows and it's lights out for Gaff Morgan.
This looks just like where I grew up
He awakes in a shoddily built shack in a desert area, filled with bunk beds, several of which have occupants. Two introduce themselves, and of course one turns out to be the missing volunteer from the homeless shelter. They explain he's been shanghaied to work in a gold mine for the fastest character I've ever seen animated, up until I saw the Wonder Woman animated film that came out last year. This guy is massive, and a slob, eating all the time, spilling on himself, and according to the credits, his name is Boss Biggs. But, he's got a gold mine and cheap labor, which he, or rather, his overseers work to death. Disobedience, slacking and causing trouble are punished by a day in The Box, a steel box with a small barred window left out in the sun to cook all day.
That's not chicken he's eating...
It falls to Batman to free himself and the other slaves, without the use of his regular persona or gadgets, and without getting anyone else in trouble. It was a decent episode, not my favorite upon first viewing, but still a good episode, and knowing that I have 16 DVDs of episodes, it's nice to see some that don't revolve around the regular type of escapades.
Some of the highlights that occur are, Amnesia! When his two cell-mates introduce themselves, Bruce says he can't remember his name. Bruce Wayne does an honest day's work for the first time in his life (probably), slaving away mining gold. We start seeing that there's more to Alfred than just an old butler, he's smart and a detective on his own. Bruce has a creepy dream that helps him start to remember who he is.
Once Bruce remembers who he is he escapes the mines, to be found by Alfred, whose having a rough time in the Batwing (on autopilot). Guess who returns to the mining camp later that night? Batman lures the slavers into the mines, kicks the crap out of them one by one, leaving only fatty and one guard. Fatty accidentally blows up the mine, and Batman drags him off to prison.
"Hey, where'd everybody go?"
The episode ends with Bruce's two slave buddies finding out he remembered who he is, and he's freaking loaded, he says good by to them and drives off in a Rolls Royce. "Hit me Riley," one says, "maybe I'll loose my memory and wake up a millionaire, too!"
So, it wasn't an awesome episode, but it was good, and was pretty amusing, and different from the usual super villain fare. Well, that's it for this review. A little shorter than my previous attempts, but one reason I took a break from doing thees is because those reviews would take hours. Hopefully I'll be back next week with the next episode, Be A Clown, featuring everybody's favorite homicidal circus character, the Joker.
Remember kids: Only vampires loath sunlight more than Batman. - Alfred
Okay, so two posts ago I mentioned that my cousin and I went toy shopping last night, we drove all over the Salt Lake Valley, hitting approximately 11 stores in total, and still skipping 4 or so Walmarts. This area is ripe with Walmarts.
I was actually looking for the Walmart Exclusive 5 pack consisting of Batman, Superman, repainted DCSH Catwoman, repainted DCSH Two-Face, and brand new Lex Luthor from the Super Friends. Two people in the Salt Lake area reported finding it Monday or Tuesday, so I was excited to find it, since I even happened to have money. As for the single packed figures, all the stores around here are swamped with waves 6 and 7, so I'm not expecting to see wave 8 at all, and I thought 9 was really iffy. I was flabbergasted to find wave 9 and two stores that were quite full of the Kalibak and Atom Smasher figures. And not only that, one store had a complete set, where I thought this wave was shipping in two different case assortments, like the last two have, with neither case being able to assemble a complete Chemo.
But none of that matters, because I did find a complete set of 7 Chemo figures. I'd like to get the classic style Mantis, but it's not very important to me, and the black Wildcat isn't either, though I think I'd like it a little more than the blue.
Of course, the real question is, how are the figures? Well, pretty damn good. It's no secret I'm in love with this line, and despite some hard to find figures (Metallo wave), and low-ish quality figures (wave 3), to me Mattel is doing, and can do no wrong.
Green Arrow isn't the one I'm most excited about, but the Fwooshers wanted pics of him, so I complied.
What I was really looking forward to was Chemo himself (itself?), Deadshot, and Robo-Mantis. I can't remember if I actually had the Super Powers toy Robo-Mantis is based of off, or if I just strongly desired it, but this figure is the one with the most nostalgic value to me (classic Aquaman and classic Firestorm do come close though), harkening back to my childhood, with my brother and I playing with the Superman, Aquaman and Firestorm figures that I do specifically remember.
Mantis is, simply put, one of the greatest figures this line has ever seen. Deadshot is awesome. Chemo is awesome. Black Canary and Green Arrow are great. Black Adam and Wildcat are pretty cool. Guardian is...really bland, actually. I haven't pulled out the checklist to actually verify the next statement, but I think this wave has provided us with the most villains at one time - 4 (or 5 if you count the two Mantis variants as separate characters) villains to 4 heroes. Although maybe Black Adam is in a gray area and could be counted on either side. I don't know, I don't get to keep up much with comics.
Sure, Chemo doesn't have a lot of articulation, and a lot of what is there is quite limited. He has no neck, and therefore no neck articulation. The shoulders are bal joints, with the most maneuverability of all the joints. No biceps, simple hinged elbows, he does have cut wrists on both sides of the gauntlet things, but on the elbow side there's not a lot of room. He has a swivel waist, t-crotch with about 45 degrees movement forward, and probably less than 10 back, no boot-top articulation or mid thigh, he does have rocker ankles, with a good bit of travel, and the forward/back hinge his actually quite limited by his boots.
But he looks awesome.
And he is BIG. Atom Smasher looks tall, but he's also human proportioned. Solomon Grundy looks big, because he's also bulky. Chemo dwarfs them all, he's taller than Atom Smasher, and much, much bulkier. I don't yet have any of wave 8 so I don't know how he stacks up next to Giganta, who was supposed to be the tallest C&C figure, but I don't really care how he looks next to her. He's big and bulky, and awesome. If she's taller, who cares? If she's shorter, so what? The way I'm talking about him, you would think Chemo is my favorite of the C&Cs, and honestly, I'm not sure. Metamorpho is a really well made figure, not big or anything, but pretty cool. Metallo is nothing less than freaking awesome, but I think I might actually like Chemo a little more. Only time will tell, and really, who even cares which I like better. I don't even thing I do.
What's important is DCUC is a sweet line, and wave 9 is super awesome. I'll actually be disappointed a little when I finally get the Giganta wave, because I've always been looking forward more to Chemo's wave. As great as some of the upcoming figures are (Joker, Man-bat, Power Girl, Imperiex) I think this is my favorite wave so far.
A few months ago I decided it was time to read Dune again, probably because the final book in the series (book 8) was finally released and I wanted to read it, but I'd have to start at least with book 6 to have any idea what was going on. So I decided to read the entire series of 14 books instead, in chronological order, because publishing order wouldn't have helped. For those who don't know, the Dune series originally consisted of 6 books by Frank Herbert. The protagonist of the first book was Paul Atreides, and the story followed his rise as the leader of the Freemen of Arrakis, the planet also known as Dune, and his conflict with the eternal enemies of the Atreides, the Harkonnens. It's a very popular book series, with one motion picture adaptation, and two (or possibly three) television mini-series.
So. The Legends of Dune Trilogy consists of the books The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, and The Battle of Corrin. I've read this set only once before, I think it was shortly after the third book came out. The whole idea is similar to the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy: A few references in the Original Series sparked the imaginations of readers with images of humans battling evil machines (ala The Matrix or Terminator movies) and eventually Frank Herbert's son decided to cash in (probably after the huge success of the previously mentioned movies). Actually, Brian Herbert decided to cash in on his father's legacy long before the Legends Trilogy, by co-writing a Prequel Trilogy of books with Kevin J Anderson, who's a well known Sci-Fi/Fantasy author. The Prequel Trilogy details key events in the life Duke Leto Atreides, Paul's father.
The Legends of Dune Trilogy was also written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson, and takes place something like 5000 years before the events of Dune. The citizens of the worlds belonging to the League of Nobles are at war with the Synchronized Worlds, the machine worlds under the rule of Omnius the Evermind, and have been at war for around a thousand years. We are introduced to four humans, key throughout the series: Xavier Harkonnen, a courageous officer in the Army of Humanity; Serena Butler, a young but courageous and determined member of the ruling council of the League of Nobles; Iblis Ginjo, a low ranking but respected foreman on the Synchronized Worlds (on Earth, to be exact), in charge of a construction crew; and Vorian Atreides, a high ranking human trustee on the Synchronized Worlds (also Earth), son of the Titan Agammemnon, the cyborg general of Omnius' machine forces. Through an interesting series of events Serena is captured by the thinking machines, taken to Earth and introduced to Vorian. She shows him what it means to be an independent free-thinking human, despite her current situation as a servant of the machines. When her child is murdered (by the independent machine Erasmus), it sparks a rebellion among the human slaves, led by Iblis Ginjo, and Vorian uses his high rank to flee Earth with Serena and Iblis. They return to the free human worlds and convince them to step up the war, and it becomes a Jihad, a Holy War in memory of Serena and her murdered child, hence the Butlerian Jihad.
Of course, in the end humans utterly defeat the machines (and the cyborg Titans), but first they struggle through deadly plagues, machine incursions , the complacency and indifference of human leaders, and the treachery of other humans. In general, it's quite an entertaining set of books. There's a big war between logical, intelligent machines, they have a plethora of information, but little wisdom and little insight into human behavior, and the creativity and ingeniousness of humans, shackled by morals and indecision, and short memories. But it's mostly a story of characters, such as the aforementioned four humans, but also Erasmus, the most interesting of machines, he is one of the few thinking machines on the Synchronized Worlds that isn't tied in to Omnius, he has his own independent personality. We see how they live and die, how they feel and grow and respond to the various circumstances. Most of the characters are easy to sympathize with, even some of the machines are, and it's easy to get drawn into the conflict and be caught up with how it will end.
However, part of that sympathy is in conflict with a common flaw of the series. It's always been a flaw of the series (in my mind) that the time isn't constant. I don't know, it does help with the storytelling, but at the same time it breaks flow between the books. Subsequent books do not usually pick up where the previous book left off, so you loose your frame of reference, because the status is not quo (to quote Dr Horrible). It was a particular difficulty for me in the original Dune series. It wasn't too bad between books 2 and 3, only around 10 years had passed, so not a whole lot had changed, we were following characters who had been infants at the end of book 2 so we hadn't really developed a relation to them anyway. But five thousand years pass between 3 and 4, so EVERYTHING has changed, except for the once constant character throughout the original Dune books. Back to the Legends books, The Butlerian Jihad ends after humans nuke Earth into oblivious, and the Jihad is in full swing. But The Machine Crusade picks up 25 years later, and the characters we knew and loved from TBJ are not the same. Especially Iblis Ginjo. He was a very sympathetic character in TBJ. A foreman on a work crew on Earth, his job was to manage a construction crew whose purpose was to build monuments to the greatness of the Titans (the cyborg generals). He had a little authority which he used to improve the lives of his workers, to inspire them to hard work for their machine overlords.
A quick side note: Erasmus spends is life examining and learning about humans. He feels his independence is a benefit to Omnius, as he has a different perspective on humans and their behavior. In an effort to prove to Omnius that he understands humans better, Erasmus bets that he can turn a trusted human against Omnius, and he succeeds. He unexpectedly starts the rebellion on Earth by trying his bet out on Iblis Ginjo (among others). Iblis is convinced that there is a secret underground movement brewing, and he takes steps to be ready: recruiting his workers, preparing defenses and offenses (hiding rocket launchers in the statues his crew builds), and getting ready for when the time is right and the sign is given. When Serena's baby interferes with her willingness to obey Erasmus, he decides to remove the distraction, and he kills the baby (drops him off a ledge to the ground below), in full view of Iblis and his work crew. Serena flips out (understandably) and attacks Erasmus, but his bodyguard robots intervene. She manages to knock one of the bodyguards off the ledge, and it smashes to pieces on the pavement below. This shocks all the humans present, and Iblis realizes there is no better time, and launches his work crews into action, setting off the rebellion that eventually becomes the Holy Jihad in memory of Serena and her murdered baby.
So that's Iblis at the end of The Butlerian Jihad, fervently leading a holy war against the demonic thinking machines. But at the start of The Machine Crusade he's a fat, power-drunk, bureaucrat, living high on the authority granted him due to the war. He's very much taken advantage of the fervor of the people, and gotten himself appointed Grand Patriarch of the Jihad, and has set up a very Nazi-esque secret police, the Jihad Police who root out machine sympathizers and spies and it all sounds very much like witch hunts to keep the populous afraid of the machines and keep Iblis and his Jihad Council in control of the League of Nobles. We eventually find out that some of the so-called spies actually were spies, but low ranking, unimportant spies, "found out" by the true spy for Omnius, the head of the Jihad Police, whose name I don't recall at the moment. It doesn't take long for us to completely dislike Iblis, because we're supposed to, but those feelings are in stark contrast to how we were supposed to feel about him in the first book. It's all very confusing and makes it more difficult to get into the subsequent books.
Another thing I remember not liking from my first read through was the fact that EVERYTHING of importance from the original Dune books finds its beginnings in this trilogy. The Spacing Guild and space folding? Books 2 and 3, check. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood? Book 3, check. Mentats? Books 2 and 3, check? The Atreides/Harkonnen fued? Well, that was actually one of the main purposes of this trilogy (or at least, that's how I remember them being advertised back when I first bought them), so of course, check, though it just barely sneaks in at the end of the third book, almost like they had forgotten they were supposed to setup the feud, because Vorian Atreides and Xavier Harkonnen become very good friends in the first book, and remain so until Xavier's death in the second, and Vorian transfers his friendship to Xavier's grandson in the third book. The feud does feel kinda thrown together at the last minute. Anyway, the phrase "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind" book 3, check. The Corrino line of Emperors? Again, book 3, check. Oh, and how can we forget the founding of the Freemen of Dune, books 1-3, check! Glowbulbs, shields, suspensors, they're all to be found here for the first time.
I tried to pay more attention to all these beginnings and the time frames this read through, and it's not quite as bad as I remembered. The books span something like 150 years, so it's not quite so forced as it felt before, but still, every important socio-political relationship is setup in these book. Sure, the Mentats and Sisterhood aren't very far developed, and neither is the Spacing Guild really, but the obvious beginnings of the three come to pass in the same 50 years of the last book. Same with the Freemen, although a lot of their beliefs and practices are acquired throughout the books. It just feels a little too rigged.
Now, lest you think I didn't enjoy the books, let me set your mind at rest. I did like the Legends of Dune trilogy. Quite a lot. most of the beginnings are very interesting, there are a lot of sympathetic characters for us to like, and lots of very not sympathetic characters for us to dislike. The stories surrounding the formations of the various entities are very interesting. For example, the first Mentat, the humans that can think in fast and logically like computers, is trained by Erasmus. And it makes perfect sense of course, what better way to learn to think like a computer than to be trained to do so by a computer? And it sets up an interesting father/son relationship for Erasmus. The Freemen have interesting stories, we learn more about the slavery they suffered that we heard about in the later books, and we see them learn to ride the Sandworms for the first time.
There are a lot of interesting, engaging stories in these books, and they're definitely worth reading. They're also a lot easier to get into than the original Dune, it's lighter writing than Frank Herbert used, so I recommend these books to sci-fi fans, or those who don't mind sci-fi for a good story. Oh yeah, and there's a giant war with robots and cyborgs, so what more could you want?
I saw a really great movie earlier last week, but first, a quick update on Batman: TAS (if anyone still cares). I will be getting back to that soon. There's still one thing that will occupy my nights for the next week or two, but once that's taken care of I'll make better use of my time than just playing the XBox all the time (I just got Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which is pretty cool) and get some Batman reviews done too. Along with the cartoon I plan to review some comics; I finished Batman: No Man's Land Volume 1 recently and want to discuss it, as well as a few books from the Dune series.
There will be spoilers for the previous two films, and probably some for this one as well.
I thought Underworld: Rise of the Lycans was a great movie. The relationship between Sonia and Lucian was really well executed and they're both quite sympathetic characters. Viktor, on the other hand, is NOT a sympathetic character. It's interesting to see how the point of view of the films changes.
The first, Underworld, was mostly from Selene's point of view, from the perspective that the vampires with the good side of the war, and the lycans were the bad; Viktor was Selene's hero and her savior. But as we get to know Lucian through Michael (Michael was bit by Lucian, and as he undergoes his first werewolf transformation he sees Lucian's memories) we learn that Lucian's woman was executed by her own father, Viktor, for loving him, because she was a vampire and he was a lycan.
Viktor
Then there's the big reveal later that it wasn't lycan's that slaughtered Selene's family, with Viktor arriving in time to save her life (only to turn her into a vampire so she could hunt down lycans for the next 600 years), but that Viktor in fact was her family's killer, and he spared her because she reminded him of the daughter he had lost. So with Viktor the bad guy at the culmination of the movie, Selene kills him and the lycans leave her and Michael in peace.
Underworld: Evolution picks up soon after the first, with Selene and Michael hiding from the vampires, with Selene planning to return to her coven and wake the last remaining Elder Vampire, Marcus, to explain everything that transpired in the first, in hopes of winning amnesty for Michael from the vampires. It's again told very much from the vampire perspective, this time Selene and Marcus. The plot of the first film was that the lycans were trying to combine the vampire and lycan bloodlines to create a hybrid which would be more powerful than either, and they succeeded in Michael (which is why the vampires want to destroy him, Abomination!). However, they also inadvertently turned Marcus into a hybrid, only he's a much more powerful hybrid, he being the original vampire, he's more a bat-man and he looks really cool. Anyway, he seems to have gone a little insane from the transformation, and he decides to kill all the vampires in his coven and find out why Viktor thought Selene was so important (and then kill her). And free his brother.
Turns out his brother, William, is the original werewolf. Marcus and William are the sons of Alexander Corvinus, a noble of types from centuries ago. A plague swept through the land and killed all of those under Alexander Corvinus, he too contracted the virus, but somehow he didn't die. His body was changed such that he stopped aging and getting sick, and he became the first immortal. He could still die, of course, by violence, but natural causes of death no longer affect him. I guess sometime after this point he had two sons who grew to adulthood and stopped aging, the virus and its effects having been passed to them. Then one was bitten by a wolf and the other a bat, and the vampire and werewolf species came into existence. But the werewolf that William because was not like the lycans of later days. He was permanently transformed into a large, somewhat humanoid wolf creature, and became completely feral, all his past humanity lost. Also, he was highly infectious. He went on murderous rampages throughout the countryside, and those he murdered would come back to life as crazed wolf-creatures like him.
At some point Marcus came to Viktor, a human noble or ruler of some type, who was dying of old age, and he offered him immortality. Viktor turned his armies and the nobles of his court into vampires and immediately took over as the ruling vampire. He and his armies hunted down the feral werewolves, trying to exterminate them, and in a concession to Marcus, to capture William. This is actually the point at which E:U started, which the capture of William, and his eternal imprisonment. We see some more that Viktor is actually a really big stupid head and convinced of his own superiority over all others we have no reason to like him.
Viktor
Okay, so back to Marcus hunting Selene and Michael. He learned that Michael has been wearing a pendant that Lucian had all through the first movie, which we learned he took from Sonia after she was murdered, which had been given to her by her father, Viktor. From another rather old vampire Selene and Michael had learned why Viktor had murdered Selene's family, for it wasn't just to feast on the blood of humans, it was to guard a secret - the location of William's prison, for Selene's father was the one that built the sarcophagus that William is imprisoned in. And the pendant is part of the key. Marcus kills Michael, finds out where the sarcophagus is being kept (because vampires and werewolves can read each other's memories through drinking each other's blood - which I thought was pretty cool), and rushes off to free his brother.
Selene takes some army-type guys with her (who are actually in the employ of Alexander Corvinus) and rushes off to stop Marcus from freeing the most infectious and powerful lycan. They bring the body of Michael with them. Marcus frees William, who attacks the soldier guys, quite easily killing them (so they can shortly rise as rabid dog werewolves for Selene to kill. Then she's left to face William and Marcus, but Michael's body finally finishes healing itself and he joins the fight. Marcus and Selene fight up on a bridge, while William and Michael fight down below, Michael being cleverer and more agile he eventually wins the fight by getting on William's back, grabbing William's upper snout, and tearing his head in half. This distracts Marcus enough that Selene is able to push him into the still rotating blades of a crashed helicopter so he can get blended into bite size bits, and the movie ends with Selene and Michael probably going to be able to live the rest of their lives out in peace.
Selene
And finally back to the movie I'm trying to review, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This movie appears at first to be told from the vampire perspective, but is really all about Lucian and the lycans, with a little bit from Sonia and Viktor thrown in. You know, for guy who died at the end of the first movie Viktro got as much or more screen time in the sequels than the Selene did.
I started this review Wednesday morning after having seen the film, and it is now Sunday morning, and I've really forgotten quite a bit of the movie. I'm not sure if I remember how it started, or what for explanatory dialog there might have been at the beginning. Guess I need to go see it again. This movie takes place hundreds of years in the past (compared to the first two movies which take place in the now), as U:ROTL starts the vampires are at war with the lycans, but these are the original breed of lycans, the vicious, feral lycans; the mindless murderous beasts. The vampires have a nice big fortress they live in, with Viktor as the lord of the vampires. It's shown that the vampires have several of these lycans imprisoned, though I don't remember why, maybe to torment them, or experiment upon them, something or other. Anyway, the important point is that one of these feral lycans had a baby. A baby that wasn't a wolf-creature, but a human baby boy. Viktor kills the mother, and it just about to kill the boy, when he suddenly has a change of heart.
The boy of course, is Lucian, and he is raised as a slave of the vampires. He is quite intelligent, and unlike the lycans that gave birth to him, he can transform between wolf and human form (at the full moon). He is used by the vampires to create more lycans like him, taking from the human slaves the vampires keep. We also learn he is the (or a) blacksmith for the coven, and the favored slave of Viktor (and not the favored of the slave keeper, of course). We are also introduced to Viktor's daughter Sonia. She's an independent woman, strong and courageous, often disobeying her father to leave the safety of the fortress to hunt down the wild lycans. And eventually we are shown what we already know from the previous movies, Sonia and Lucian are in love, despite the class and racial differences.
Lucian
I rather expected that we would see Kraven in this film. Evil Vicious Cousin Derek and I looked the movie up on imdb.com last week to see who was in it, and seeing whoever as Kraven from the previous two films excited me a little, because he was a sneaky, slimy , backstabbing worm in the first film (and died in the first 20 minutes of the second) and I wanted to see his involvement in the origin of the war between Viktor and Lucian, and expected him to be one of Viktor's primary lackeys. But he wasn't. His lackey in this one was Tanis, the historian we met in Underworld: Evolution. Which was cool, I rather liked Tanis, and he had a very large part in this movie. For example, when Lucian and Sonia sneak out to boink he sees them together, and puts two and two together. But he's also cool and doesn't snitch on them to Viktor.
Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a plot recap of the movie, more a general review and my thoughts on it. The action was good. The CG lycans were good. Viktor was a hateful evil monster, just like the first two movies, but he's a great actor and had a great presence in the film (and the first film too, I really, really liked Viktor in Underworld, right up until the end when we found out he was the bad guy). The design of the props, sets and costumes was really cool - the lycan slaves were fitted with collars that had 4 silver spikes in the front, so if they tried to transform they'd get skewered in the throat, the vampires were all very well dressed, especially Viktor, with intricate designs on his fancy robes and armor. Rage has the freakiest voice of anyone I have ever heard. And it's awesome.
Sonia
The execution scene was excellent. We saw it in flashbacks in the first movie, and this recreation was very faithful, and very emotional. Lucian, of course, was torn apart (emotionally) as he was chained in front of Sonia to watch her die. At first he tried to be the brave one, trying to distract Sonia from her impending doom, but as the skylight was opened he lost his focus and control and completely broke down, trying to break free and save her, and finally slumping in defeat, while in contrast Sonia maintained her calm, even as the sun fell upon her and turned her into ash. Then when Viktor came back into the chamber (after night feel) to see how it went, he pulled the pendant from her neck, Lucian transformed, freed himself, took the pendant, and escaped, Again, just like in the flashback, but new and exciting all the same.
What we didn't see in the flashbacks is what Viktor did during the execution. After leaving Sonia and Lucian chained in the chamber, he went to Sonias room, and wept like I wouldn't have believed possible. He loved Sonia like no other, and was apparently really broken hearted to have had to sentence her to death. Speaking of which, she was brought before the council of vampires to be judged, he presented the crime and the sentence (death) and asked for a vote. Each of the council members voted in favor of the sentence, and he was the last to have to vote. And he hesitated. For several long seconds he paused, and in fact, there may have been flashbacks to her as a child, like when he gave her the pendant, but I don't remember for sure. But he hesitated a long while before finally saying, "Aye." So he sobbed and sobbed in her room, while his daughter burst into flame.
Rage
Lucian escaped, the wolves overran this fortress, and killed all the vampires except Tanis and the three elders (Marcus and Amelia, who were slumbering, and Viktor, who escaped after a near fatal encounter with an enraged Lucian) who escaped to presumably form another coven someplace else. And that's when the movie should have ended. Everything was perfectly awesome up to that point. Then there were the last thirty seconds or so.
Seriously. The movie was totally awesome, possibly the best of the three (the guy behind us said as much, but I very much enjoyed the previous two flicks), except for the last thirty seconds, in which they needlessly put in footage of Selene from the first movie, the opening shot of the first movie where she was perched on a ledge at the top of a tall building, with a voice over by Kraven, saying something (I don't quite remember actually, but it seems like it was something about how the consequences of the events of this movie would cascade down through time). It was completely pointless, and I'm sure somebody felt it was needed to tie this movie to the first two, maybe to make clear that this one is a prequel to the previous films, but it was so completely unnecessary and ham-handed that it almost spoiled the movie. It surely broke the mood we were in after the seeing the true ending of the film.
If you go see the movie (which I highly recommend to anyone that doesn't mind the rather copious amounts of blood), do yourself a favor and leave after Viktor leaves on the boat.
The abomination growing in her womb was a betrayal of me and the coven. I did what was necessary to protect the species. As I am forced to do yet again.
And finally we reach the last episode of disc 1, P.O.V., which I assume stands for Point of View. This was an interesting episode that didn't focus on Batman much at all, but rather on 3 of Gotham's Finest, Detective Harvey Bullock, Lieutenant Renee Montoya, and some new guy (who we'll probably never see again), Officer Wilkes.
The gist of this episode is the three aforementioned cops go to bust a crime ring, but (to steal a phrase) the proverbial fecal matter hits the oscillating unit and things go poorly. An investigator is called in to interview the three and find out what happened and who is responsible, so we get to see the events from each person's - wait for it...wait for it...wait for it - Point of View.
We start out with Montoya and whatshisname speeding through the streets of Gotham in a black and white, sirens blaring, overheads flashing. Montoya says something about Bullock meeting them at 2300 hours, and that they'll be there with time to spare, yet the way she's driving you'd think they needed to be there yesterday; the car careens around corners, tires squealing, rookie cop screaming. When they arrive at the location the building's on fire, and Bullock's regaining consciousness behind a dumpster. Montoya asks why he didn't wait for them, but Bullock says they were late. There are still people inside the warehouse so they split up to attempt apprehending said criminals. As Montoya and Wilkes run off in opposite directions, Bullock stands and glancing up sees a shadowy figure on the roof. "Batman!" He says, before blacking out.
We next see the three cops sitting in a row chairs in a interrogation room with Commissioner Gordon sitting behind a desk, and some bad tempered guy pacing around the three yelling about how much time and money the city spent setting up this sting, and that they blew it in 5 minutes. He even goes so far as to suggest they were paid off, which gets everybody riled up. Bullock declares the whole thing is Batman's fault, which seriously offends Montoya, but the investigating Lieutenant doesn't believe her. He allows Bullock to give his version of the story first.
Bullock again repeats that Montoya and Wilkes were late, but he saw Batman enter the warehouse and feared that Batman would screw up the bust, so he had to go in alone. Of course, as Bullock gives his side of the story we see the events as they actually unfolded. For this particular moment, there's no sign of Batman until after Bullock enters the warehouse, then Batman appears. It was fun to see how Bullock's story differs from the true events, he embellishes and rearranges events to make him look better, always placing the blame on Batman. He was closing in on the suspects when a loud noise tipped them off - "Must have been Batman!" Yeah right. The noise happens to be him tripping over something and falling on his face.
The entire scene was really good, so I'll let you watch the whole thing rather than talk about it here (I'll talk about it afterward.
However, we see how tough a cop he really is. Three thugs confront him, one with a crowbar, another with an ax, the third by himself, but even larger than Bullock. Bullock stands (no longer armed) and says, "Freeze, maggots! You're all under arrest." Strangely, the thieves don't seem overly impressed and the large one jumps him, but Bullock dodges out of the way. Bullock soundly beats the snot out of them, catching the ax on one swing, dodging on the next which unfortunately smashes into a electrical box of some kind which sprays sparks all over, catching boxes on fire (of course). Anyway, he continues to beat the crap out of the thugs until the fire rages out of control and he gets trapped. I was really impressed with him, I didn't think he could fight that well, and that he had the guts to stand up to 5 different guys all on his own. Of course, then he goes and blames his predicament on Batman again, but I love the way he said, "It's a good thing I was there to save his butt!"
Anyway, Mr Investigating-has-a-stick-up-his-bum-Lieutenant doesn't buy Bullock's story, and again suggests that he went in early to beat the other cops to the money. By this point I suspected that there was something not quite right about Mr IL, and wondered if he was perhaps a dirty cop, especially after he yells at Commission Gordon to back off and let him run the investigation the way he looks fit. It also seemed suspicious to me that he's obviously an older guy (balding and such) yet he's the same rank as Lieutenant Montoya, but then again, he's an investigator and she's possibly just a regular cop, I don't claim to know what the different positions are, so maybe he is senior to her, and not just some bitter sounding old man. As I said though, he doesn't believe Bullock, thinks he went in early, but Bullock sticks to his story of the other two being late.
Now we hear rookie Officer Wilkes' story. His is interesting because he'd never seen Batman in action, and thinks he's got superpowers.
He thinks Batman flies, and can take down cars just by shootings sparks out of his hands, and shoot beams out of his fingers, and such. "It was unbelievable!" Not much to say about this one really.
Now Montoya's version. She's been pretty upset about this whole affair. She's ticked off at Lieutenant Frustrated-Old-Man, especially when he gives Wilkes a hard time about his story, and every time he implies they're dirty cops (but then they all got upset about that too). She also seems sad about something, but we don't know what it us until the end of her story.
She's also pretty gutsy, staring down a couple of really big guys with only a shotgun to use, and also sarcastic regarding Bullock's story of saving Batman. Still, since the stories don't match, and there's no way to confirm either story, they're all suspended. Lieutenant Going-to-Die-Cold-and-Alone-and-Bald is pretty smug as the three turn in their badges and guns. Bullock slams his gun on the table so hard he jumps.
To make an already long post less long than it could be I'll try to summarize more. Montoya's heading home on the light rail and figures out the clues were not Doc for Doctor, but for the dock, Gotham Harbor. She finds a warehouse that has a previously mentioned name, and when she looks in the windows she see Batman with his hands tied hanging from a crane hook high above the floor, while the mobsters go about whatever business they're doing; one of them is examining Batman's belt. She enters the warehouse (full of bad guys, unarmed), and is there to see Batman cut himself free (not cut his hands free, just cut the rope he was hanging from. He beats a guy up the whole time with his hands tied together. Montoya gets the jump on another guy who had pulled a gun on Batman. We get a shadowy glimpse of the boss of the whole operation, and I'm thoroughly convinced he will be revealed to be Lieutenant Hope-He-Didnt-Reproduce-And-Further-Pollute-The-Gene-Pool.
Together Batman and Montoya dispatch the goons, Batman takes on several guys at once, kicking the crap out of them - one guy gets knocked into the water several times, Montoya beats up a guy, jumps in a crane and drops a large crate behind three or four guys as they attempt to gang up on Batman, which smashes through the floor and drops them all in the drink, and finally, she traps the boss man in the jaws of the crane as he tries to escape. Oh yeah, and Batman sinks a ship as it leaves the harbor by crashing a forklift into the side. Bet you haven't done that before.
After Batman sinks the boat (which the boss man was fleeing in) he tries to escape on foot, but that's when Officer Montoya catches him with the crane. I was sure at this point we would see who he was, but he just appears to have been some random guy with round glasses. I guess he wasn't important enough to ever be fully revealed, and we'll never know who he was. Or maybe we'll find out he was Temple Fugate, the Clock King (cause he has round glasses and dresses similarly - what am I talking about, 90% of the males on this show wear a suit, trenchcoat and hat).
The real cops arrive, Commissioner Gordon is appropriately impressed, and when Lieutenant Never-Had-A-Date-Never-Will arrives Gordon grabs him by the collar and throws him around a bit while yelling at him that "This farce has gone on long enough...this investigation is closed!" And he takes the badges back and gives them to Montoya to deliver. Even Bullock's almost personable as he thanks Montoya for his badge. The End.
This was probably my favorite episode so far. I really do like Harvey Bullock, I find him very interesting. He's a good, tough cop who firmly believes that it's the responsibility of the police to take care of the criminals of Gotham, whether they be of the more ordinary kind, or the wackos. He feels that Batman is intruding upon his territory, and probably feels it's an insult to his ability to perform his job. He also seems to not quite respect The Line as much as others might, he's willing to cross certain boundaries if it help him accomplish his duty, but he's not a dirty cop.Similarly, Montoya is also a good, tough cop who is also very good at her job. However, she also respects Batman, and appreciates his help, and was genuinely concerned for his well-being, happy to see him alive when she thought him dead. They're both great characters, and it's no wonder really that they get partnered up so we can see them often.
Let's see, what else to say about it? I enjoyed seeing the different parts of the story as told by the participants, so it's like we're participating with the character rather than being some observer. Credits go to Kevin Altieri, who directed one of the other great episodes of this disc, On Leather Wings, but then he also directed The Last Laugh which was one of my least favorites, so he's only at 66% so far. Mitch Brian wrote the episode (Teleplay by Sean Catherine Derek & Laren Bright) who also wrote On Leather Wings (that we've seen so far) and Bane (which we haven't, but if I remember it right it was a good episode), so he's doing well, but I think that's all he's done for this series. Sean Catherine Derek (three first names, come on people, knock it off!) co-wrote Nothing to Fear, the next episode we will review The Forgotten (which I liked) and the upcoming two-part episode The Cat and The Claw (three guesses who that one is about, and the first two don't count), as well as others, so I guess I like his work too. Laren Bright also worked on several episodes, many with SCD, and also one of my favorite episodes Perchance to Dream. So a great crew working on this episode, which probably explains why I enjoyed it so much.
For voices we of course have the staples, Bob Hastings (Gordon), Robert Costanzo (Bullock) and the great Kevin Conroy as Batman, as well as a visit from not-quite-newcomer Ingrid Oliu as Renee Montoya, I think she does a great job, and some other people I've never heard of. Some guy named Ron Perlman (never heard of him) is Driller. Robbie Benson plays Rookie Wilkes - he's seems to be primarily a voice actor but does appear in somethings, just nothing I've ever heard of. Interestingly, he's the voice of Beast in the Disney rendition of Beauty and the Beast and all subsequent videos (and also the Kingdom Hearts video game series). And some other stuff. Look him up on Wikipedia or IMDB.com if you want to know more. John Considine was the voice of the ever loveable Lieutenant I-cant-think-of-another-insulting-name Hackle, he's some old guy (b. 1935) who's been on shows like Knight Rider, MacGyver, Murder, She Wrote, and Boston Legal, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Marc Tubert voiced one of the thugs named Scarface, and I found his name in a future episode of this series, voicing Carlos. I'd guess it's not the same guy, but I haven't seen that episode yet so I guess it could be. He's also guested on various well-known shows, movies or video games - Star Trek: The Next Generation, Home Improvement, Superman: TAS, Mad About You, Ellen, Pinky and the Brain, Seinfeld, The Practice, Charmed, Dharma & Greg, etc, etc, and even Team Knight Rider. Now that's gotta be a resume highlight. And I guess that finishes off this episode, the final episode of disc one, but don't worry, we're not quite done with it yet, we've got a special feature or two we can look at next time.
Remember kids: Madness is like gravity... all you need is a little push.
Today's episode should be short, for a couple of reasons. Meh, it wasn't my favorite, I've been busy playing video games and reading my new comics, and I should be going to bed now, but I'll try to type something up quick.
The intro sequence was kinda fun. To little punk kids are standing on a train that's racing toward a tunnel, playing chicken. "Whoever jumps first is CHICKEN!" yells the one who is obviously the instigator of this good example of particularly bad judgment. The other kid is obviously quite nervous and trying to appear cool for the other. I'd guess they're roughly twelve-ish.
Batman lands on the train on the car behind them, and the nervous kid hears something, and upon glancing back and seeing Batman striding purposefully towards them, yells and abandons the game, jumping off the train. The winner taunts him as he goes, and then steps forward to disembark, only to find his foot has caught in some cables. He pulls and squirms, and we see the tunnel entrance getting closer and closer. Batman arrives and frees his foot, and runs toward the end of the car, jumping off just as the train enters the tunnel, and we see the clearance MIGHT have let Batman lay down flat without getting injured.
Why do kids play chicken with trains? I mean, I know they have bad judgement, from lack of experience, but jeez, come on, a train? And then adults do it too, sometimes. I've heard enough stories about kids getting decapitated without needing to hear that supposedly intelligent, full grown adults will try to get their heads forcibly separated from their bodies. Oh well, culls the herd, cleanses the genepool, I guess.
This episode has a lot of kids in it. We see several little street urchins running around, picking pockets, relieving fat, wealthy, high-society types of their valuables. Also, they are wearing green cloaks, not unlike those given to the Fellowship by Galadriel, causing people to think the thieves are Leprechauns, rather than noticing they are just kids.
Even Batman thinks he saw the one he saw was a leprechaun. But being the Detective he is, he won't let it rest until he figures out exactly what is going on. After a little discussion with Alfred, in the which Alfred encourages Bruce to take a little vacation,
"Why not golf?" "Sounds boring." "In the Bahamas?" "Hot, and boring."
Batman heads to the scene of the crime.
In the meantime, we are shown the sewers of gotham, and then dozens of kids (like 6 year old kids) living in said sewers, doing all sorts of things that modern child labor laws would lock you away for years for - sewing green cloaks, farming (!), collecting the pick-pocket-ed money, etc. One child using a hoe slips and hits his ankle with the hoe and cries out, but a neighboring boy quickly stifles his outburst, and then with a friendly smile wraps a rag around the injury.
A bell rings and the children all file through the tunnels to a large hall where a single torch burns, and a man with a silly, very old fashioned suit and red cape, and round sunglasses with a missing lens, sits hunched in a large chair, tapping his fingers impatiently. He tells the children it's time for their lessons, and rule number one is, "NO TALKING!!!!". "Children should be seen and not heard," he says, and while I agree that children can at times be irritating, I think he's a little on the extremist side in his interpretation of that particular adage.
He calls himself their leader, and their king, they are the under-dwellers, and they must obey him. He singles out the little boy that injured himself, and reminds them all of the punishment for talking. The other children cover their eyes, and the little boy is locked in a room so he can, "See the light," which is meant very literally, several lightbulbs light the room very nicely, and the boy covers his eyes from the brightness of the light to which he is not accustomed. This Sewer King then sends the rest of the children up to the surface to fetch him lots and lots of pretty things.
The children run out to do his bidding, being sure to wear their green leprechaun cloak/disguises, but Batman is there stalking the alleys for clues. He uses his neato infrared scanner we saw in On Leather Wings, the one that makes him look like Cyclops, and he discovers a hidden door in a wall that leads him into the sewers. He treks through the sewers, finding things like subway tunnels, and graffiti proclaiming, "Beware the Sewer King!", and a locked door. It's dead bolted, so he pulls out a mini torch and burns through the lock.
He also finds one of the children, who eludes him for a little while, but Batman eventually catches him - and saves him from a subway. He exits the sewer with the child in tow, and we are shown a neat disguise for the Batmobile. Similar to Tim Burton's movie, Bats speaks into a remote, and the car reveals itself. It was disguised as a trash dumpster, but the sides of the dumptser (and fake garbage on top) fold away to night (again, like the movie). It's a much more practical than the armored look it got in the movie, though certainly less cool looking. The kid's eyes light up at the sight of the car, and then he is given a ride to Wayne Manor.
So, yeah, basically Batman just kidnapped a little kid...
And that's the end of part one. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm only halfway through this episode and I won't make it all the way through tonight. But no reason not post what I've done so far, right? I'll get the second half posted sometime before 2am MST on Saturday.
Remember kids: Paranoid people are harder to kill than regular people.
Yay! Another new villain is introduced. New as in we haven't seen them in the previous four episodes, not new as in newly created for this show. That honor's reserved for Harley Quinn and Livewire (later in the Superman series). Bet you can't guess who the new arrival is! What? You guessed? Cheater, you probably looked it up on Google, didn't you? Damn them. Yes, it's Poison Ivy, the sometimes sultry, sometimes strangely suited, seductress of Springtime and Summer. Hey, I alliterated! Sorry, won't do it again.
The episode begins in a sepia toned flashback. We see a pair of hands dig a rose out of the ground and put it in a pot, then the camera pans up to show Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne given the honors of breaking ground for the new Gotham Penitentiary, the dream of Gotham's new District Attorney (Dent) and funded by the Wayne Foundation. The sepia tone ends as Bruce and Harvey shake hands, and the scene becomes a picture in the newspaper that is torn out by the same gloved hands that dug up the flower, and we see them pin the newspaper clip above a little box of roses. Then we see the field of wild roses get dug up and replaced with the State Penitentiary, 5 years later.
We see a prison break, which serves two small purposes: we see the cops in their offices alerted of the break, running out of their room, just as Detective Bullock is about to stuff his face with a donut. He drops it and follows the rest of the cops out of the room, but then comes running back for his donut. The second reason is so that when the escapee is caught and asks Batman who he is, he can say, "I'm Batman".
I guess there was actually a third (and most important) benefit to this part, we get our first look at Lieutenant Renee Montoya, who is one of the characters that was created for the Animated Series and moved to the comics. In fact, she was adopted by the comics before her first animated appearance. We could go on about her future as the current The Question, or about her being a lesbian (her partner is the modern Batwoman that appeared during 52) or the twisted relationship she has with Harvey Dent/Two-Face (all these are from the comics anyway), but we won't. Suffice it (for now) to say she's Harvey Bullock's partner, and a much more reasonable and likeable person than he is.
Anyway, intercut with the prison break arc we find Harvey Dent at a very fancy restaurant with a hot redhead, they're waiting for Dent's friend Bruce Wayne, who's running late (of course, he's chasing an escaped convict). Dent talks about Bruce always being late, probably working on business with a high-class crowd (cut to Batman chasing down the con), he's really busy but always able to get his kicks (cut to Batman kicking the crap out of the convict), there's nothing we don't know about each other ("Who are you?" the con asks quivering in fear. "I'm your worst nightmare!"). Ha ha very funny, or not, but somewhat amusing. I thought it was good to know that Harvey and Bruce are close friends, but the whole prison break seemed rather pointless, mostly an excuse to have some action at the beginning of the episode.
Bruce eventually joins Harvey and the as-yet unnamed redhead with the low cut red dress for dinner, and he tells funny stories about Dent. After a while the redhead says she needs to go, and she gives Dent a very long goodnight kiss, so long that Bruce becomes slightly uncomfortable and looks away, and the kiss goes on and on and on. Seriously. For like 20 seconds. Dent is quite pleased by it and promises to call her. As she walks away her hips swap enticingly and everyone in the restaurant turns to watch her go. They've obviously gone to great lengths to let us know she's perfectly desirable,therefore we can draw the conclusion that she's completely evil.
Bruce asks Harvey if she has a sister, and we finally get her name (unless I just didn't notice it before, which is possible), he calls her Pam, and tells Bruce he asked her to marry him. Then he pulls on his collar saying it's hot in here. Bruce is surprised and sprays his coffee all over the table, "Harvey, you can't be serious, you just met her last week!" (Boy, those words will come back to haunt him in The New Batman Adventures). Harvey protests that he knows he's found the right woman and why wait, all the while mopping his face with a napkin, sweating and obviously uncomfortable. Harvey says, "The moment I laid eyes on Pam, love hit me right in the face." His eyes roll around in his head, he gets a funny look on his face, and he face plants into his dessert.
Bruce finally realizes that something's wrong with Harvey (World's Greatest Detective, indeed!) and he is rushed to the hospital. What a surprise. Somebody calls Commissioner Gordon about Dent, and he rushes out of his office yelling, "Harvey Dent's in a coma at the city hospital!" And again, cops run out of the room, and again Bullock comes back to grab a donut. Heh heh, what a fat slob.
A doctor tells everyone that Dent was poisoned, and Wayne tells the cops the cafe they ate at was The Rose Cafe. But Bruce doesn't think it was food poisoning. He sneaks into the hospital lab and steals a sample of Harvey's blood. After analyzing it back at the cave (there's that phrase again) he learns it's a poison derived from a wild thorny rose, which Alfred tells him is extinct. Now they can't synthesize an antidote, oh no!
Bruce returns to the hospital and Pam shows up to cry about Harvey. When Bruce walks her to her car he's suddenly suspicions, remembering the kiss earlier. He heads for home and calls Alfred to find out anything he can about Pamela Isely. Again, I think this is the first time her full name has been mentioned, but maybe I'm not paying close enough attention. They discover that she's a research chemist with a cosmetic firm, and she has PhD in Botany, and she gives lectures on endangered and extinct plants. "I think Harvey's engagement is off," Batman says, before leaving to investigate.
Isley has quite the impressive greenhouse, full of plants of all shapes and sizes. The cosmetic fragrance business must pay really well, because in a city that's supposed to be a dark, corrupted version of New York, a home that size with greenhouse that big in the middle of the city must cost a small fortune. Batman enters, and as he runs through the place a section of floor falls out beneath him, dropping him into a pit filled with large, very spiky cacti. He manages to grab a flowered vine nearby and hangs precariously over thorny death, then swings out of the pit. As he lands on the floor, the vine suddenly wraps itself around his arm, and the flower opens its toothy maw(!) and chomps at him. More vines entangle him, squeezing him and finally dragging him towards a giant plant, with a large, even more toothy maw.
Batman manages to put his feet on the thing's mouth and keep from getting eaten, Pamela stands in the shadows wondering what her "sweet little flytrap caught this time", then commenting that Batman's a little big for a fly. We can just vaguely see that she's now in her Poison Ivy costume, a green corset with green tights, and slightly finned gloves and boots. She seems to have a thing for bare shoulders.
Batman struggles with the man-eating flytrap, and kicks out several teeth. Poison Ivy reveals herself and she and Batman talk about Harvey Dent, "Poor Harvey Dent, I hear he's not expected to live." She says sadly, and cries into her hands which quickly turns into evil, scary laughter. We can see she has a mini crossbow mounted on a gauntlet on her right hand. Ivy explains to Batman that Harvey had to pay for his crimes, Murder! She throws a bit of a tantrum getting a crazed look on her face, explaining that he plowed up a field of innocent wild flowers, with those awful bulldozers and other evil machinery. Honestly, she's a scary woman at this part, and just confirms my suspicions that all tree-huggers are evil people plotting to murder the rest of us (mostly) normal people.
She puts her poison lipstick on and tries to kiss Batman. Now, in the comics he would have head-butted her the face when she got close enough, but here he gets kissed and starts getting fuzzy vision. She taunts him with the antidote, and then he finally kicks her in the stomach, swings himself up to the sprinkler lines and frees himself from the tentacled flytrap, with a knife. He stands in front of Ivy with the flytrap behind him, and in her freaked out anger at his hurting her giant man-eating plant she makes the funniest sound I have ever heard and fires her (presumably poisoned) darts at him. He ducks and it rips a surprisingly large hole in her precious plant, which screams and thrashes in agony.
She continues to shoot darts at him, and when he tries to escape he accidentally pulls down a large light fixture, which lands in a pool of water; sparks fly everywhere, predictablly (but cool nonetheless) the plants catch fire, and we get a vision of Ivy in the place where all sociopathic greenies will go when they die.
Plants go up in flames all around, Ivy grabs the potted wild rose and tries to escape, but the fire flares up everywhere. Batman rescues her from being crushed by falling trees, and ends up on the edge of the pit from earlier. His vision is blurred, he's weak from the poison, but he's able to make out Ivy approaching him with her crossbow leveled at him, and murder on her face. "Enjoy extinction, Batman!" She screams at him, but he shakes his head, "I'm not going alone," and he holds the potted rose over the pit.
He offers to trade the weed for the bottle (his words), and she acquices to save her precious, almost extinct roses, and then he saves them both from the burning building. Batman takes the antidote to the hospital where it is given to Dent, who wakes up not really remembering what happened. Bruce tells him he's going to be fine, then talks to him about Pam. "I think she's wrong for you." is how he puts it, and we are shown the prison we saw back at the beginning of the episode, a fun sequence starting with the outside of the building, moving to the large front gate, down twisting staircases, to a barred cell where a redheaded woman sits on the bed mounted in the wall, rocking back and forth slowly, "...I'll grow back, we always grow back..."
Directed by our friend Boyd Kirkland, who directs several episodes of this series, a few I recognize - such as Perchance to Dream one of my favorite episodes, and many I don't. Recently we discussed him in Nothing to Fear, and once again I will mention that he directed the Batman & Mr Freeze: Sub-Zero movie
This is the first episode in the series that features Paul Dini as one of the writers. He becomes very closely associated with the show as time goes on, writing and producing for most of the Timm animated series though he left Warner Brothers in 2004 so he didn't work as much on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Speaking of Mr Freeze, Paul Dini is one of the writers on the upcoming episode Heart of Ice which gave the character of Freeze new and more interesting life. He writes so many of these episodes I'm not going to bother mentioning any more here.
Poison Ivy is voiced by Diane Pershing, who appears to have voiced Poison Ivy in every appearance of that character that wasn't a live action film or tv series. She voiced her in episodes of Justice League, Static Shock, several video games, the web series Gotham Girls. She also has done a bunch of other stuff not worth mentioning, like the Smurfs (see, I shouldn't have mentioned it). I believe I mentioned in passing for On Leather Wings that Harvey Dent was voiced by Richard Moll, famous for his Night Court roll. He's done a ton of stuff, so we won't go into it here, check out IMDB.com if you're interested.
Renee Montoya did have a single line speaking part, so she gets a voice and a credit, played by Ingrid Oliu, whoever that she is. I'm not really sure why, but I really like Montoya. She's a great contrast to Bullock, with whom she is paired up often (can't wait till we get to episode 7, P.O.V.), she's a tough, honest cop, and she could kick me ten ways to Sunday.
I quite enjoyed this episode, I've seen the entire first disc now (two more episodes to blog about) and this is tied with On Leather Wings as the second best episode so far (yeah, it's only out of seven so far, but so what?). I didn't really mention it much, but there was a lot of focus on the wild rose, and several times the image of a rose appeared in the show (like the front door of The Rose Cafe where they had dinner), or there were quick scenes where we saw Pam caring for the wild rose, pruning it's leaves, or cutting one rose off it for the poison, talking to it. It made everything feel cohesive and related. I noticed some interesting details in a few places, like Ivy's cell walls have scratchings in them, we can tell she's not the first occupant of that particular room. Ivy herself was interesting, a lot of work was put in to making her sultry and attractive, and then when she would flip out over harm done to the plants she became frightening looking, excessive lines in her face, really she became ugly, and I found it fascinating.
I also liked the blurring and repeated vision effect they gave Batman when he was poisoned, the best example is when he was holding the roses over the pit trying to get Ivy to give him the antidote, the way Ivy went in and out of focus, and had her face swirling around the main image was fun. The style of the animation jumps out at me occasionally, just the way that it doesn't feel like a cartoon (and I enjoy cartoons, I've seen a lot), it feels like a movie, that just happens to be animated.
And the best indicators that I liked this episode a bunch are, I wrote too much about it, took too many screenshots, and I made 4 video clips from it (as opposed to The Last Laugh which got none). The software I have to capture video isn't quite difficult to use, but it's not terribly convenient necessarily either. While watching the episode I write down the start and end times of what clips I'd like to get, then in the capturing software I can capture that sequence. However, the times don't match up between the playback program and the capturing one. Sometimes it's off in one direction, sometimes in another, so I have to grab more than just the part I want, then open the clip in yet a third piece of software to trim the excess video off the beginning and end of the clip. All that to say that getting clips is time consuming and yet I really wanted to show those sections, so it was worth it.
Tune in Friday morning for Episode 6, The Underdwellers.
And remember kids: The Spice must flow. He who controls the Spice, controls the universe!
Gaff Morgan
That's not chicken he's eating...
