Next up, steam-mopping the floor a bit.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Back Again
A busy day. Two software releases, goofing about with Google Fusion Tables, solving someone's problems with a phone I've never really used, trying to work out whether I'm just imagining that everything changed in the one day I wasn't in the office on a work day, answering various customer and helpdesk queries, and triple-checking everything I type in case it gets all gibberishy.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Tyred
The illness progresses apace. My nose is running like unto a tap whilst my brain is most decidedly not running at all. It keeps hitting breakpoints that I didn't set up and the stack trace seems to be for a different process entirely.
Yes, I am mixing my metaphors like I mix my drinks. Badly.
Given it took me an hour to fry three sausages, it was not the best time to get my car in to the garage for a Service and MOT. Four new tyres and the geometry realigned. I have to admit I Googled "tyre geometry realignment" to check that it wasn't a made-up thing because today they could probably have told me my Ring System needed a Cassini division and I would have gone for it. The only car where that might be an actual thing would be GM's old Saturn brand, which has gone the way of the Sega Saturn.
My face burns from the constant blowing of nose. Tomorrow, I must go to work and do a software release for one guy.
Yes, I am mixing my metaphors like I mix my drinks. Badly.
Given it took me an hour to fry three sausages, it was not the best time to get my car in to the garage for a Service and MOT. Four new tyres and the geometry realigned. I have to admit I Googled "tyre geometry realignment" to check that it wasn't a made-up thing because today they could probably have told me my Ring System needed a Cassini division and I would have gone for it. The only car where that might be an actual thing would be GM's old Saturn brand, which has gone the way of the Sega Saturn.
My face burns from the constant blowing of nose. Tomorrow, I must go to work and do a software release for one guy.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Flares Are Back!
Apparently I do requests now, as someone who shall remain nameless wanted me to post about this.
On Thusday night, I saw my first-ever Iridium flare! If you're too lazy to click on the link to Wikipedia (or they're SOPA'ed out again), I will explain it myself with lies and half-truths and everything.
Some years back, a bunch of rich idiots including but not limited to Bill Gates and Motorola decided that America knew what the world wanted in a mobile phone, namely a handset the size of a breezeblock that cost $3,000 minimum and a contract that would charge $10 a minute of calltime.
The thing is that America is a big country that is sparsely populated for most of its territory. The cost of fitting conventional GSM towers all over the nation to give European-style levels of coverage would cost billions. BILLIONS!
The solution? Well, how about bigger cells? Trouble is, for the shortwave frequencies that go furthest without needing huge antennas and frying the users head, the earth's curvature becomes a problem as the radio broadcasts only go out to the horizon.
So, how do you see further over the horizon? From higher up.
Instead of a network of hundreds of thousands of cell towers, they envisaged a network of seventy-seven satellites in low-ish Earth orbit, providing phone coverage not merely across the US, but ANYWHERE ON EARRRRTHHHH (and also in any nearby space stations).
The seventy-seventh element in the periodic table is Iridium, so that's where they got the name.
A couple of problems occurred. One was that Satellites are REALLY expensive, as are the rockets to launch them. The other was that GSM networks spread like crazy, even in poor countries that'd never had a fixed-line telephone network, as the cost of GSM kit was hugely less than millions of miles of copper cable. As more people bought GSM network gear, the cost went down and down and down.
In the meantime, the cost of the satellites went up and up and up. Eventually, they had to settle on only sixty-six, but didn't rename the network to element 66, possibly because Dysprosium sucks as a name.
Eventually, they launched their network and sold services to basically no-one outside of international news services and ultra-rich yachtsmen. They ran into financial difficulties and would have died a death if it hadn't been for a little old thing called war.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq revealed that a lot of the fancy communications gear the US Armed forces had spent billions of moneys on was in a lot of ways pretty crap. All around them, embedded journalists were running round with phones that were more reliable, more rugged and more effective than the Army's own kit. The Pentagon immediately started throwing money at Iridium and everyone was happy except for the people who got bombed and shelled and stuff thanks to a phone call but they were all non-American and thus didn't count.
Aaaaanyway, the interesting thing about Iridium is the satellites. Ignoring the one that crashed into a Russian Strela-2M communications satellite, the surviving Iridium satellites have one very interesting design feature, a pair of large, flat, mirror-finish radio antennas.
Around dawn and dusk, passing Iridium satellites will reflect the sun's rays down to earth, appearing for a few seconds as a *really* bright moving star (up to thirty times brighter than Venus!). Some flares are visible in broad daylight!
The great thing is they're predictable. I have an app on my Android smartphone that takes my GPS position and works out where and when I'll see a flare (actually it cheats and asks a web server to do the hard sums). Tonight, I went out at the appointed time (18:34), looked where the pointy thing said and waited.
Out of nowhere, a star appeared. It got brighter until it looked like the main light of a plane without the wingtip lights or blinking anticollision lights; it moved steadily north-east and then faded down to invisibility again.
I'd seen a half-tonne satellite seven hundred miles up while it was somewhere over the North Sea, a little south of Norway!
And that was my evening.
For you kids too cool for smartphones, you can always try www.heavens-above.com as that'll do the same job as the app.
On Thusday night, I saw my first-ever Iridium flare! If you're too lazy to click on the link to Wikipedia (or they're SOPA'ed out again), I will explain it myself with lies and half-truths and everything.
Some years back, a bunch of rich idiots including but not limited to Bill Gates and Motorola decided that America knew what the world wanted in a mobile phone, namely a handset the size of a breezeblock that cost $3,000 minimum and a contract that would charge $10 a minute of calltime.
The thing is that America is a big country that is sparsely populated for most of its territory. The cost of fitting conventional GSM towers all over the nation to give European-style levels of coverage would cost billions. BILLIONS!
The solution? Well, how about bigger cells? Trouble is, for the shortwave frequencies that go furthest without needing huge antennas and frying the users head, the earth's curvature becomes a problem as the radio broadcasts only go out to the horizon.
So, how do you see further over the horizon? From higher up.
Instead of a network of hundreds of thousands of cell towers, they envisaged a network of seventy-seven satellites in low-ish Earth orbit, providing phone coverage not merely across the US, but ANYWHERE ON EARRRRTHHHH (and also in any nearby space stations).
The seventy-seventh element in the periodic table is Iridium, so that's where they got the name.
A couple of problems occurred. One was that Satellites are REALLY expensive, as are the rockets to launch them. The other was that GSM networks spread like crazy, even in poor countries that'd never had a fixed-line telephone network, as the cost of GSM kit was hugely less than millions of miles of copper cable. As more people bought GSM network gear, the cost went down and down and down.
In the meantime, the cost of the satellites went up and up and up. Eventually, they had to settle on only sixty-six, but didn't rename the network to element 66, possibly because Dysprosium sucks as a name.
Eventually, they launched their network and sold services to basically no-one outside of international news services and ultra-rich yachtsmen. They ran into financial difficulties and would have died a death if it hadn't been for a little old thing called war.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq revealed that a lot of the fancy communications gear the US Armed forces had spent billions of moneys on was in a lot of ways pretty crap. All around them, embedded journalists were running round with phones that were more reliable, more rugged and more effective than the Army's own kit. The Pentagon immediately started throwing money at Iridium and everyone was happy except for the people who got bombed and shelled and stuff thanks to a phone call but they were all non-American and thus didn't count.
Aaaaanyway, the interesting thing about Iridium is the satellites. Ignoring the one that crashed into a Russian Strela-2M communications satellite, the surviving Iridium satellites have one very interesting design feature, a pair of large, flat, mirror-finish radio antennas.
Around dawn and dusk, passing Iridium satellites will reflect the sun's rays down to earth, appearing for a few seconds as a *really* bright moving star (up to thirty times brighter than Venus!). Some flares are visible in broad daylight!
The great thing is they're predictable. I have an app on my Android smartphone that takes my GPS position and works out where and when I'll see a flare (actually it cheats and asks a web server to do the hard sums). Tonight, I went out at the appointed time (18:34), looked where the pointy thing said and waited.
Out of nowhere, a star appeared. It got brighter until it looked like the main light of a plane without the wingtip lights or blinking anticollision lights; it moved steadily north-east and then faded down to invisibility again.
I'd seen a half-tonne satellite seven hundred miles up while it was somewhere over the North Sea, a little south of Norway!
And that was my evening.
For you kids too cool for smartphones, you can always try www.heavens-above.com as that'll do the same job as the app.
Russia- Land of Smiles and Candy
Since I am ill, I have spent much of the weekend watching films and sneezing.
Russian films are depressing. Russian war films are really depressing, especially if they're based on historical events. I quite liked the handful of Russians I've actually met and they all seemed a lot more fun than the Finns they worked for. It seems really rather unfair that as a nation their history is like one big long miserable Blues song with Vodka standing in for Bourbon and all to the sound of Balalaikas rather than the Steel Guitar.
Case in point: Compare and Contrast "Saving Private Ryan" and "Fortress of War" (AKA "The Brest Fortress"). Spoilers abound:
Saving Private Ryan:
Fortress of War:
Come on Russia; let's have a single century where the average citizen's life isn't one long depressing miserable misery. Also, stop trying to defeat attacking troops by RUSHING OUT FROM HARD COVER in an attempt to bash men with MACHINE GUNS in the face with spades and WINDOW FRAMES.
Russian films are depressing. Russian war films are really depressing, especially if they're based on historical events. I quite liked the handful of Russians I've actually met and they all seemed a lot more fun than the Finns they worked for. It seems really rather unfair that as a nation their history is like one big long miserable Blues song with Vodka standing in for Bourbon and all to the sound of Balalaikas rather than the Steel Guitar.
Case in point: Compare and Contrast "Saving Private Ryan" and "Fortress of War" (AKA "The Brest Fortress"). Spoilers abound:
Saving Private Ryan:
- Omaha Beach is a horrible nightmare but the beach is taken. Watch out Hitler, Uncle Sam is comin'! (also those rubbishy British and Commonwealth types, but they don't count)
- Tom Hanks nearly gets squished by a tank.
- Most everyone dies, but Ryan is saved. Mission Accomplished!
Fortress of War:
- The Siege of the Fortress is a horrible nightmare but... actually, it's just a horrible nightmare followed by four more years of horrible nightmare where twenty million more Soviet soldiers and civilians die. Nobody even knows about the defender's desperate attempts to hold out until the nineteen fifties, after Stalin's safely dead and isn't likely to get all elevated if people mention how badly the whole Buddies-With-People-Who-Hate-Communists thing went on.
- Everyone dies (including women and children), bar the Orphan boy and the one guy who knew the Nazis were going to attack and that the fortress is unprepared. He spends years in a POW camp and is kicked out of the Communist party after the war for being taken prisoner and not dying. Even the fat, jolly NKVD commander who randomly dances at people and is very kind and understanding to the guy who is going to be put on trial (and no doubt shot in the face) for spreading alarmist rumours about an impending attack from Uncle Joe's Bessie Mate Hitler, even he dies.
- The Orphan boy (who is an orphan) has his brother, his girlfriend and his tuba shot and killed. Basically everyone he has ever known at all dies horribly.
- Also, he is deafened by a bomb.
- Lots of people, mostly civilians, actually do get squished by a tank.
- Mission not accomplished.
Come on Russia; let's have a single century where the average citizen's life isn't one long depressing miserable misery. Also, stop trying to defeat attacking troops by RUSHING OUT FROM HARD COVER in an attempt to bash men with MACHINE GUNS in the face with spades and WINDOW FRAMES.
Illin' like a Villain.
I am full of a cold.
What a tragedy! But the kicker is since this is CAMERON'S BIG SOCIETY, I don't get sick pay when I'm ill so I shall have to struggle to work and be ill on everybody else or be unable to pay for things like gas, electricity or the fuel to get to work. Yeah, I'm a Subsistence Software Engineer.
So I shall go to work and every one else will get my cold. Last time I was ill, I gave it to the boss. He didn't threaten to fire me, he threatened to shoot me.
Less paperwork that way.
What a tragedy! But the kicker is since this is CAMERON'S BIG SOCIETY, I don't get sick pay when I'm ill so I shall have to struggle to work and be ill on everybody else or be unable to pay for things like gas, electricity or the fuel to get to work. Yeah, I'm a Subsistence Software Engineer.
So I shall go to work and every one else will get my cold. Last time I was ill, I gave it to the boss. He didn't threaten to fire me, he threatened to shoot me.
Less paperwork that way.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
I am a bad person who should post more
New Year's Resolution: Blog More, because the world hangs on my every word.
It's been a busy old year what with one thing and another. Work is something of an uphill run except with navigation performed by a cross between a Rally Car navigator, a driving test instructor and Yoda (for the whole sitting on your shoulders whilst you run thing), so that your course isn't determined by practicalities such as terrain or final destination, but by someone yelling "Turn left! Turn right! Do a barrel roll!" in your ear every few seconds. Still, we've managed to get some interesting things done, though I have developed a powerful hatred for a certain mobile phone network.
My grandmother died. Same day as Steve Jobs, so once again I had to deal with the loss of a close relative at the same time all the press is eulogising someone I didn't particularly care for. Last time it was the death of my mother versus the death of Jade Goody. Jobs may have been something like a tremendous control freak with a knack for popularising things other manufacturers had been doing for ages, but at least he wasn't a horrible talentless racist idiot.
I get rather down at Christmas what with one thing and another. All commercial media (and the BBC for that matter) is dedicated to rubbing my face in what a tremendous amount of fun I should be having with my family, my friends and my TONNES OF PRESENTS. I don't even have tonnes of presents these days, although a certain person did her very best to swamp me in cool stuff including a pair of actually awesome socks. They're incredibly warm and snuggly and at last I understand why Fell Walkers walk the fells- To have an excuse to wear these socks. Sure they may wind up dying of hypothermia from the knees up, but it's a small price to pay.
So, what can we look forwards to in the new year? I reckon 2-1 odds on economic disaster and 5-1 odds on yet another war, with 10-1 odds on World War 3 in the Entangling Alliances whoops how did we get ourselves into this mess-style.
I told you Christmas made me happy.
It's been a busy old year what with one thing and another. Work is something of an uphill run except with navigation performed by a cross between a Rally Car navigator, a driving test instructor and Yoda (for the whole sitting on your shoulders whilst you run thing), so that your course isn't determined by practicalities such as terrain or final destination, but by someone yelling "Turn left! Turn right! Do a barrel roll!" in your ear every few seconds. Still, we've managed to get some interesting things done, though I have developed a powerful hatred for a certain mobile phone network.
My grandmother died. Same day as Steve Jobs, so once again I had to deal with the loss of a close relative at the same time all the press is eulogising someone I didn't particularly care for. Last time it was the death of my mother versus the death of Jade Goody. Jobs may have been something like a tremendous control freak with a knack for popularising things other manufacturers had been doing for ages, but at least he wasn't a horrible talentless racist idiot.
I get rather down at Christmas what with one thing and another. All commercial media (and the BBC for that matter) is dedicated to rubbing my face in what a tremendous amount of fun I should be having with my family, my friends and my TONNES OF PRESENTS. I don't even have tonnes of presents these days, although a certain person did her very best to swamp me in cool stuff including a pair of actually awesome socks. They're incredibly warm and snuggly and at last I understand why Fell Walkers walk the fells- To have an excuse to wear these socks. Sure they may wind up dying of hypothermia from the knees up, but it's a small price to pay.
So, what can we look forwards to in the new year? I reckon 2-1 odds on economic disaster and 5-1 odds on yet another war, with 10-1 odds on World War 3 in the Entangling Alliances whoops how did we get ourselves into this mess-style.
I told you Christmas made me happy.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Braincrashed
I have given myself a brain injury
I meant to, too.
This is going to take some explaining so bear with me as we go on a journey to a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...
Okay, really we're going nearly twenty years ago to an office five minute's walk from where I currently work. Way back then, I worked for the UK arm of MicroProse, doin' games and hittin' my co-workers upside the head with laser guns (actually true).
One of the more interesting characters in the office was an artist by the name of Mark Wilson, whose work you can see if you ever dig out the Atari STe version of Civilization, which you totally should because it's aces and much better than the Amiga version because there's not so much disk-swapping. He was quite a Sci-Fi fan, specifically of Dr Who and various extraordinarily bad films. When he'd been at University, he'd been involved in the cinema club and would run all-night showings of some truly magnificent movie catastrophes, and when he wasn't banging on about Dr Who or exactly why his friends had written a dedication to him in a Call of Cthulhu role-playing adventure (or why our head programmer was an evil troglodyte from Greek myth and how we should probably trap him in a giant wicker man and light him on fire, if only we could somehow get hold of all the wicker in the world), he would regale me with stories of the finest film in cinema history.
Starcrash.
No, wait- don't run off to Google it. You'll spoil the fun and the Wikipedia article, while accurate, is dull as hell and makes the film seem a lot more reasonable that the actual film itself. Sure you could Youtube it, but then you'd just be found face down in a coma with cerebro-spinal fluid leaking out your ears and nose from where your brain escaped.
Let's examine the cast. Two big names who aren't at all mismatched. Christopher Plummer and David Hasselhoff. Naturally, they play father and son. Space Emperor father and son, no less. Happily, the film was made in 1979 to cash in on Star Wars fever, so Hasselhoff has not yet transitioned to full-on 'Hoff and does not spoil the subtle balance of the film with his massive personality. Also, he wears a mask with laser eyes.
Next up is the heroine of our adventure, a lady by the name of Caroline Munro. Star of a number of Hammer horror films, including The Abominable Dr Phibes, she is best remembered for starring in an ad campaign for Lamb's Navy Rum and also for being the first woman to be killed by James Bond. Deliberately, anyway. Her main attributes are a willingness to star in a film where about half the time she is wearing a space bikini and fighting other equally scantily-clad women and an ability to be called by the name "Stella Star" without bursting out laughing, as I imagine that film stock was pretty damn expensive, it being a cheap Italian Star Wars knock-off with all the production values that implies, especially since they'd probably used up half their budget on Christopher Plummer- ten percent on his fee and the rest on the enormous amount of valium he seems to have consumed.
Our heroine's sidekick is interesting. All the way through, I was thinking "who is this incredibly curly-haired scary-eyed lunatic Space Jesus wannabe?" and "When is the woman with the second-highest billing in the movie going to show up? I bet she looks damn fine in a bikini". Well, it turns out that they were both one and the same person, by the name of Marjoe Gortner. This is remarkable on account of my "scary-eyed lunatic Space Jesus wannabe" comment, which I really did think at the time. Turns out Marjoe (portmanteau of "Mary" and "Joseph") was a revivalist preacher from the age of four, racking up a fortune of some three million dollars by the age of sixteen (a lot in 1960, fully half a Steve Austin). Space Jesus has powers. He brings Stella StaAHAHAHAr back from the dead with his magic gay disco microwave defrost powers and survives being hit with a stick by a bald-headed green man who was probably envious of his lovely locks.
He also has a lightsaber and uses it to beat troglodytes with. Our Space Jesus is an Angry (and crazy-eyed) Space Jesus!
The villain of the piece is Joe Spinell, AKA Lord Zarth Arn, who has built the most powerful weapon in the cosmos, so big it is built into a planet, that's how big it is! No poxy being mistaken for a small moon for this doomsday weapon, it's a whole planet that destroys people's minds by superimposing the red goop out of a lava lamp on them. Except for our heroes, as they "aren't like normal people". Actual Line.
Lord Zarth Arn (never, ever Lord Arn. Not even Arnie to his bessie mate Elric) has presumably built his terrible doomsday weapon (terrible in the sense that it is rubbish) on account of waking up one day to find out that a mad space-doctor has swapped his skin with that of Edward James Olmos. Also, despite being thin of face, he is surprisingly rotund of tum and should not wear so much skin-tight PVC.
There's a robot too. The fourth worst robot in history ever (the three even worse robots are in this film too thanks to the magic of Stop-Motion Animation!) , his creators couldn't be bothered wasting time giving him a good name, or even a two letter, two number registration like a certain other movie with somewhat better production values. This robot is called "L" or "Elle" and is identical to Elle McPherson is that he has legs and arms and a head. And the name. He is rubbish and his idea for avoiding hypothermia is to lie down in the snow and hold hands. Happily, cave-dwelling trolodytes smash him to bits with styrofoam bones, revealing his giblets to be made from an old, broken movie camera.
I don't want to spoil the plot too badly, partly because there isn't much of a plot to spoil, and partly because the Youtube video I'm going to link to later will do that for you. Instead here are a few highlights:
A giant stop-motion robot made of silver putty and bits of stuff left over from a meccano set. It has robot boobs and flashes red when shot in said boobs. Now I know why every videogame boss in every Japanese bullet-hell shooter flashes red when hit in the vulnerables. It is possibly the worst-animated thing in the history of history. Elbows do not bend that way!
Two smaller stop-motion robots based on the Ray Harryhausen skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts. Problem is, they didn't have Ray Harryhausen.
Music by five-time academy award winner John Barry who scored fourteen James Bond movies, including Goldfinger, for pity's sake! He did the theme music for the Persuaders! He was the first man to use a synthesizer in a film score!
Presumably his contribution to this film was made in the form of scrunched-up music scores covered in dog-ends, cigarette ash and banana peel, with "Crap! What was I thinking?" scribbled on them. I also presume that as a result of his work on Starcrash, he learned to shred stuff before chucking it in the bin.
Enemy spacecraft that fly in trains of five ships with less than half a ship-length between each other. They fly into combat this way too. Happily their ray-guns shoot every-which-way but straight ahead, so there's no danger involved. Also, brakes don't work in space, so no accidental five-spaceship pileups in the Haunted Stars here.
A bigger enemy spacecraft that is a giant hand made of tin cans and model kit sprues. The hand closes into a fist for battle. It has nice, big picture windows that turn out to be a slight tactical weak-point.
Imperial battleships that can stop the flow of time (for three minutes, which is interesting because how does time know the three minutes are up?) and whose primary combat strategy is "It's raining men" through the medium of golden torpedoes full of er- men. Happily, they were up against an enemy with big windows instead of a half-metre thick face-hardened steel hull, because face hardening does not mean "hardened with faces".
Did I mention the bikini chick-fights?
There is no punchline or moral to this blog post, save to say that even after twenty years of anticipation, I was not disappointed, this truly was one of the best worst films I've ever seen. Wherever you are, Mark, I salute you.
Click here, you know you want to.
I meant to, too.
This is going to take some explaining so bear with me as we go on a journey to a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...
Okay, really we're going nearly twenty years ago to an office five minute's walk from where I currently work. Way back then, I worked for the UK arm of MicroProse, doin' games and hittin' my co-workers upside the head with laser guns (actually true).
One of the more interesting characters in the office was an artist by the name of Mark Wilson, whose work you can see if you ever dig out the Atari STe version of Civilization, which you totally should because it's aces and much better than the Amiga version because there's not so much disk-swapping. He was quite a Sci-Fi fan, specifically of Dr Who and various extraordinarily bad films. When he'd been at University, he'd been involved in the cinema club and would run all-night showings of some truly magnificent movie catastrophes, and when he wasn't banging on about Dr Who or exactly why his friends had written a dedication to him in a Call of Cthulhu role-playing adventure (or why our head programmer was an evil troglodyte from Greek myth and how we should probably trap him in a giant wicker man and light him on fire, if only we could somehow get hold of all the wicker in the world), he would regale me with stories of the finest film in cinema history.
Starcrash.
No, wait- don't run off to Google it. You'll spoil the fun and the Wikipedia article, while accurate, is dull as hell and makes the film seem a lot more reasonable that the actual film itself. Sure you could Youtube it, but then you'd just be found face down in a coma with cerebro-spinal fluid leaking out your ears and nose from where your brain escaped.
Let's examine the cast. Two big names who aren't at all mismatched. Christopher Plummer and David Hasselhoff. Naturally, they play father and son. Space Emperor father and son, no less. Happily, the film was made in 1979 to cash in on Star Wars fever, so Hasselhoff has not yet transitioned to full-on 'Hoff and does not spoil the subtle balance of the film with his massive personality. Also, he wears a mask with laser eyes.
Next up is the heroine of our adventure, a lady by the name of Caroline Munro. Star of a number of Hammer horror films, including The Abominable Dr Phibes, she is best remembered for starring in an ad campaign for Lamb's Navy Rum and also for being the first woman to be killed by James Bond. Deliberately, anyway. Her main attributes are a willingness to star in a film where about half the time she is wearing a space bikini and fighting other equally scantily-clad women and an ability to be called by the name "Stella Star" without bursting out laughing, as I imagine that film stock was pretty damn expensive, it being a cheap Italian Star Wars knock-off with all the production values that implies, especially since they'd probably used up half their budget on Christopher Plummer- ten percent on his fee and the rest on the enormous amount of valium he seems to have consumed.
Our heroine's sidekick is interesting. All the way through, I was thinking "who is this incredibly curly-haired scary-eyed lunatic Space Jesus wannabe?" and "When is the woman with the second-highest billing in the movie going to show up? I bet she looks damn fine in a bikini". Well, it turns out that they were both one and the same person, by the name of Marjoe Gortner. This is remarkable on account of my "scary-eyed lunatic Space Jesus wannabe" comment, which I really did think at the time. Turns out Marjoe (portmanteau of "Mary" and "Joseph") was a revivalist preacher from the age of four, racking up a fortune of some three million dollars by the age of sixteen (a lot in 1960, fully half a Steve Austin). Space Jesus has powers. He brings Stella StaAHAHAHAr back from the dead with his magic gay disco microwave defrost powers and survives being hit with a stick by a bald-headed green man who was probably envious of his lovely locks.
He also has a lightsaber and uses it to beat troglodytes with. Our Space Jesus is an Angry (and crazy-eyed) Space Jesus!
The villain of the piece is Joe Spinell, AKA Lord Zarth Arn, who has built the most powerful weapon in the cosmos, so big it is built into a planet, that's how big it is! No poxy being mistaken for a small moon for this doomsday weapon, it's a whole planet that destroys people's minds by superimposing the red goop out of a lava lamp on them. Except for our heroes, as they "aren't like normal people". Actual Line.
Lord Zarth Arn (never, ever Lord Arn. Not even Arnie to his bessie mate Elric) has presumably built his terrible doomsday weapon (terrible in the sense that it is rubbish) on account of waking up one day to find out that a mad space-doctor has swapped his skin with that of Edward James Olmos. Also, despite being thin of face, he is surprisingly rotund of tum and should not wear so much skin-tight PVC.
There's a robot too. The fourth worst robot in history ever (the three even worse robots are in this film too thanks to the magic of Stop-Motion Animation!) , his creators couldn't be bothered wasting time giving him a good name, or even a two letter, two number registration like a certain other movie with somewhat better production values. This robot is called "L" or "Elle" and is identical to Elle McPherson is that he has legs and arms and a head. And the name. He is rubbish and his idea for avoiding hypothermia is to lie down in the snow and hold hands. Happily, cave-dwelling trolodytes smash him to bits with styrofoam bones, revealing his giblets to be made from an old, broken movie camera.
I don't want to spoil the plot too badly, partly because there isn't much of a plot to spoil, and partly because the Youtube video I'm going to link to later will do that for you. Instead here are a few highlights:
A giant stop-motion robot made of silver putty and bits of stuff left over from a meccano set. It has robot boobs and flashes red when shot in said boobs. Now I know why every videogame boss in every Japanese bullet-hell shooter flashes red when hit in the vulnerables. It is possibly the worst-animated thing in the history of history. Elbows do not bend that way!
Two smaller stop-motion robots based on the Ray Harryhausen skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts. Problem is, they didn't have Ray Harryhausen.
Music by five-time academy award winner John Barry who scored fourteen James Bond movies, including Goldfinger, for pity's sake! He did the theme music for the Persuaders! He was the first man to use a synthesizer in a film score!
Presumably his contribution to this film was made in the form of scrunched-up music scores covered in dog-ends, cigarette ash and banana peel, with "Crap! What was I thinking?" scribbled on them. I also presume that as a result of his work on Starcrash, he learned to shred stuff before chucking it in the bin.
Enemy spacecraft that fly in trains of five ships with less than half a ship-length between each other. They fly into combat this way too. Happily their ray-guns shoot every-which-way but straight ahead, so there's no danger involved. Also, brakes don't work in space, so no accidental five-spaceship pileups in the Haunted Stars here.
A bigger enemy spacecraft that is a giant hand made of tin cans and model kit sprues. The hand closes into a fist for battle. It has nice, big picture windows that turn out to be a slight tactical weak-point.
Imperial battleships that can stop the flow of time (for three minutes, which is interesting because how does time know the three minutes are up?) and whose primary combat strategy is "It's raining men" through the medium of golden torpedoes full of er- men. Happily, they were up against an enemy with big windows instead of a half-metre thick face-hardened steel hull, because face hardening does not mean "hardened with faces".
Did I mention the bikini chick-fights?
There is no punchline or moral to this blog post, save to say that even after twenty years of anticipation, I was not disappointed, this truly was one of the best worst films I've ever seen. Wherever you are, Mark, I salute you.
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