• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything from 8 to 10) contact me at davegolderSFX@gmail.com so I can arrange collection.
• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!
1977. Such an important year for sci-fi and fantasy in so many ways. And also the year Buffy bad boy Spike first donned that famous leather jacket, having torn it off the fresh corpse of former Slayer Nikki Wood (whom he’d just killed). Maybe I should have stopped him, but you know what it’s like on the tube… probably best not to get involved.
You think I’m kidding about being there? You’ve seen the episode and you know that the fight between Nikki and Spike took place in an empty carriage? Well, maybe not. Below is the unPhotoshopped screen grab; have a careful look bottom left…
Is that or is that not the toe-cap of somebody’s trainer? So you see… I could have been there (if I had a time machine).
It’s not the only trainer related faux pas in Buffy history. In the season three opener “Anne”, when Buffy fights the demons at the climax her shoes keep changing from Nikes to Converse Jack Purcells.
And, yeah, only I’d notice something like that.
And as I’m in a Buffy mood, here’s a reprint of an old article I did for an SFX special which I’m still rather fond of (I didn’t do the art – I’m pretty sure it was Andy Watt, but apologies if I got that wrong – but the ideas were mine!)
Every episode of Buffy ended with the Mutant Enemy zombie grrr-aarrgghhing his way across the screen. On some special occasions, though, he was subtly altered to suit the subject of the episode. For example, in “Graduation Day Part 2” he wore a mortar board, and in “Once More, With Feeling” he sung for us. At SFX, we were gagging for more zombie fun, so we’ve made up a few variations of our own…
• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything from 8 to 10) contact me at davegolderSFX@gmail.com so I can arrange collection.
• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!
Or Sandshoe Ninja Team Gatchaman as it’s known in its native Japan
This robot would not be familiar in Japan. That’s despite 7-Zark-7 being one of the stars of Battle Of The Planets, which was the re-edited US version of the Japanese anime Science Team Ninja Gatchman. Because when I say re-edited, I mean chopped up, amended, re-ordered, cut and added to beyond recognition. And one way the American producers could justify and explain all these changes was to introduce exposition droid 7-Zark-7 and his occasional sidekick 1-Rover-1 (a robot dog, in case you hadn’t guessed).
7-Zark-7 was basically the bastard love child of Star Wars’ two main droids, inheriting R2-D2’s looks and C-3PO’s irritating, camp personality. And boy, could he talk, which was handy for padding out episodes where the US producers had excised all references to the main villain being a transexual.
I kid you not.
Zoltar, or Bergu Kattse as he/she/it was known in the original, was a chimeric mutant created by Sosai X by fusing two fraternal twins (one male, one female) into a single entity for the task of world domination. As a child Kattse would change from male to female on a yearly basis and had to spend years transferring between schools before gaining control of his body.
Zoltar, on the other hand, was a camp bloke in a silly mask.
And because I haven’t got much time again today (it’s my penultimate day at Future, and SFX’s 240th issue party is later in London, so I’ve got a lot to pack in) here’s another article from the SFX archives that I wrote about other famous sex changes in sci-fi…
(Oh, and I hope you’re liking the green stripey socks, worn to try to spice up some dull cheap daps in today’s pic.)
1 Curtis (Misfits)
You can rely on Misfits to take an SF cliché and reinvigorate it in strange and perverse ways. When the 2010 Christmas special ended with the community service superheroes going to dodgy power dealer Seth to get some new powers, we all wondered what cool abilities they’d choose. Curtis somehow ended up with the ability to change into a female version of himself.
Despite helping him escape from the police in the first episode of the new series, this new ability was initially a bit embarrassing for a guy who never shown a hint of a feminine side before, and it was a long while before he let his mates see his other half. Female Curtis also has to deal with periods, female orgasm, the wandering eyes and hands of leery blokes, date rape and Rudy’s opportunistic muff diving. Rudy is distressed when he discovers that the pube stuck in his throat is a man’s…
And through it all, being a woman teaches Curtis how to be a better man. Who says Misfits is immoral?
2 Godzilla
Fnas of the Japanese Godzilla were less than thrilled with Roland Emmerich’s bizarre decision to turn the clearly testosterone-fuelled giant lizard of the original film series into a doting, egg-laying mom for his maligned US version. Not that we needed this proof to realise that Emmerich’s Godzilla was an impostor. It was clear from the first glimpse she was just an iguana with attitude. God may be a woman. Godzilla certainly is not. As Gareth Roberts nows.
3 Starbuck (and Boomer)
The new Battlestar Galactica was particularly gender-, colour- and species-blind when it came to recasting characters from the old show. Boomer went from being a black male human to an Asian-American female Cylon. The most high-profile sex change, though, was Starbuck’s – Dirk Benedict in the original show was replaced by Katee Sackhoff in the reimagined show, though she still puffed on the odd cigar. Benedict initially seemed happy with the idea; he posed and shared a cigar with Sackhoff for a publicity stunt held, of course, at a Starbuck’s. Later, though, he had a major change of heart, disdainfully referring to his successor as “Stardoe” and saying in an interview in May 2004: “‘Re-imagining’, they call it. ‘Un-imagining’ is more accurate… One thing is certain: in the new un-imagined, re-imagined world of Battlestar Galactica everything is female driven. The male characters, from Adama on down, are confused, weak, and wracked with indecision while the female characters are decisive, bold, angry as hell, puffing cigars (gasp) and not about to take it anymore.”.
4 Doctor Who
For just about every regeneration since Tom Baker’s, there have been rumours that the next Doctor would be a woman. What many forget is that it actually happened – sort of – when Hugh Grant regenerated into Joanna Lumley. “Hang on…?” you might be thinking, “What kind of a cockamamie parallel world have we stumbled onto here?” Welcome to Planet Red Nose, where “The Curse Of Fatal Death” was a one-off comedy episode of Doctor Who produced for 1999’s Comic Relief fundraising exercise on the BBC. Written by Steven Moffat, it’s very funny (a rarity for these kind of events), and features a whole host of actors playing the part of the Time Lord, all of them potential Who material – Rowan Atkinson, Richard E Grant and Jim Broadbent as well as Hugh Grant and Lumley.
The Doctor seems quite delighted to regenerate into her first female self (“I’ve always wanted to get my hands on one of these”) and overjoyed at a new setting she finds on the Sonic Screwdriver. Her companion, Emma (Julia Sawalha), is less enthusiastic, as she was due to marry the Doctor: “I’m sorry, but you’re just not the man I fell in love with.” This leaves the way for a romance to blossom between the Doctor and his old enemy (played by Jonathan Pryce): “Tell me, why do they call you the Master?” “I’ll tell you later…” he says with a lascivious grin..
5 Starhawk
A member of Marvel’s superteam from the future, the Guardians Of The Galaxy, Starhawk (aka Stakar) was forced to live part of his life time-sharing a body with his adoptive sister Aleta Ogord – they took turns occupying the same physical space; while one was “here” the other was banished to some kind of limbo. Somehow this didn’t prevent them developing romantic feelings for each other, and when they were finally separated they had three kids together. It’s all just too weird, really, and if you missed the “origin” story it was near impossible to work out what was going on – it really did seem like Starhawk was just randomly changing sex.
6 Holly/Hilly
If there were ever a character less likely to undergo an unexpected, self-elected sex change it would have to be Red Dwarf’s grumpy, sardonic, world-weary computer Holly. Yet that’s exactly what happened, in the digital equivalent of Jack Dee suddenly becoming Jacquie DeLite. Actually, it’s even weirder. Holly decided to have a “head sex change” after meeting and falling in love with his alternate female self, Hilly – he actually became her! In image at least. That’s like Jack Dee deciding to have a sex change and a facelift to look like his wife..
7 M
Bond’s boss was a man. Then he was a different man. Then he was a woman. Then again, Bond has been a Scotsman, a Welshman, an Englishman, an Aussie, an Irishman, and a catalogue man in a safari suit. So it seems likely Q, M and perhaps even Bond are mere code names, and different people can take up the mantle. Does that mean we could soon have a Jemima Bond? Or is that an even more heinous suggestion than a female Doctor Who?..
8 Orlando
Orlando was a character created by famous literary darling Virginia Woolf for her novel Orlando: A Biography. He was born in the 16th century as a male, and, like Peter Pan, decides not to grow old. He spends a century or so tromping around Europe hobnobbing with historical bigwigs and writing poetry (like an eternal teenager) before one day falling asleep, and waking up sometime later as a woman. After suffering a few teething problems, Lady Orlando soon decides that being female is actually a pretty good thing.
At which point, Alan Moore steps in and decides, “Blimey, you’d make a cracking character for The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” And thus a great, witty, ingenious adventure comic about the likes Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo and Jekyll & Hyde teaming up for a bit of derring do, suddenly becomes a cul de sac of high brow literary in-jokes for the kind of people who can think James Joyce is a little too trashy.
9 Dr Jekyll & Sister/Ms Hyde
You really wouldn’t want to read a feminist critique of Hammer’s 1971 gender swap take on The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. Well, think about it – the good Dr Jekyll (Ralph Bates) becomes the evil Sister Hyde (Martine Beswick). It’s not exactly PC is it? More AC/DC. But dodgy gender politics aside, it’s a typically affable piece of Hammer melodrama, and about a million times more watchable than 1995’s Dr Jekyll And Ms Hyde, a “comedy” starring Tim Daly and Sean Young where the real evil comes in the form of the insultingly lame script, and a message about, “To understand women, he had to become one.”
..
10 HG Wells
Yep, in the wacky world of Warehouse 13 HG Wells is a woman. An evil woman. Helena Wells. She never really changed sex. It’s more a conceptual change. Y’see, she wrote all the books back in the 19th century, but had to pretend her brother really wrote them because it was man’s world. For a while she was an apprentice at Warehouse 12, but went off the rails after her daughter was killed, and became obsessed with finding a way to time travel so she could go back and save her. She never seems too worried about missing out on her book royalties, though.
11 Spot
Data’s cat spot in Star Trek The Next Generation was originally a long-haired male moggy. Not that we examined him close enough to check, but Data certainly calls him “he”, and Data’s an android with a positronic brain, so we’ll trust him on that. But then, as the seasons went by, Spot morphed into a short-haired cat that eventually had kittens. We blame some kind of bizarre transporter accident or a fuzzy blue anomaly…..
12 Dren
Some scientists are a bit thick. The modern-day Frankensteins in Splice, Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) (horror fans will get the in-joke in the names) create some artificial slug-like creatures. Unfortunately, they unexpectedly and spontaneously change sex during an ill-timed press conference, and, being male now, they decide to maul each other to bloody pulps. Clive and Elsa then create the far cuter Dren using similar methods, but only cotton on to the fact that she’s due to turn into a psychotic male when it’s a tad too late..
13 Jurassic Park
Nature finds a way. So while scientist John Hammond tried to maintain control over the dinosaurs in his prehistoric theme park by making sure they were all female (so that they couldn’t breed) nature had other ideas. What that silly old duffer Hammond forgot was that he had used frog DNA to help recreate his dinosaurs, and some frogs are known to spontaneously change sex. D’oh! Next thing you know, the big blighters are breeding and getting very aggressive. Men, eh?.
14 Goybirl/Birlgoy/It-Star
It-Star was actually an android, so it’s debateable if he/she ever actually changed sex. He was a “baby” android constructed by Cy-Star, sister of Zelda, the big bad in Gerry Anderson’s ’80s series Terrahawks. Cy-Star was never sure if she wanted a boy or a girl, so she went for a bizarre compromise. At times it would have a male personality, all scheming and evil and speaking in a masculine German accent; at other times it would be all innocent and delicate, speaking in a little girl’s voice. No gender-stereotyping there, then..
15 Ranma 1/2
Ranma ½ is a manga and anime series created by Rumiko Takahashi about a 16-year old boy martial arts protégé who, on a training trip to China, falls into The Spring Of Drowned Girl. As a result, whenever he comes into contact with cold water, he changes into a girl; and whenever she is splashed with hot water, she changes back into a boy. Endless fun at shower time, when somebody else in the house switches on the washing machine. Most teenage boys might find the situation all a bit squirmsome, but the sly, opportunistic Ranma soon learns how to use gender swapping to his advantage..
16 Sasquatch
Sasquatch, a kind of orange, furry, Canadian version of the Hulk, created for Maple Leaf superhero team Alpha Flight, has a history so chequered he makes a Chess board look like a sheet in a Persil advert. Although originally the alter ego of a scientist called Walt Langkowski he’s been a woman twice. When his Sasquatch form went evil, he was killed by team-mate Snowbird, but – after a long series of hiccups far too loony to go into here (but involving the Hulk) – his soul was eventually recovered and placed in the handily-recently-vacated body of Snowbird (now, there’s irony for you). In this female form he became a white Sasquatch with the alter ego “Wanda” Langkowski (see what he did there?). After a while, he became a bloke again. Don’t ask. But the spirit of Snowbird was involved. Presumably she wanted her body back and didn’t like all the hair that clogged up the bath plug.
Later, in Marvel’s Exiles, we met another female version Sasquatch – but this one was woman from an alternate dimension, so that doesn’t really count.
17 Ben/Glory
The big bad of Buffy season five was Glory, a Hell dimension goddess (or sommat) too powerful to destroy, so she was banished by two other gods to Earth (gee, thanks guys), where her essence was imprisoned in a human child called Ben. The idea was that when he died, so would she. But when Ben hit his 20s, Glory started to assert control of his body, until they were body swapping like crazy..
18 Sam Beckett
And finally, TV’s greatest serial sex changer. It took a season and a bit before the producers of Quantum Leap bit the bullet and experimented with Sam leaping into the body of a woman for the first time in “What Price Gloria?” If they had any worries about the audience reaction to putting their star in drag, they needn’t have. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive, and star Scott Bakula proved so game tottering around in high heels and a dress, that soon gender-swapping leaps were a regular thing.
In “Another Mother” he plays a mother of three who destined to go missing; in “Miss Deep South” he plays a contestant in a beauty pageant; in “8 1/2 Months” he’s just about to pop; in “Raped” he puts in a stunning performance as a rape victim that never veers into distasteful parody; in “A Song For The Soul” he’s a member of an all-female singing group; in “Liberation” he’s burning his bra (literally, at one point); and in “Dr Ruth”… well, actually with this one, maybe they did go a little too far.
Usual Sign-Off
• Current total: £1,000 (come on, let’s forge on into that second century!)
• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything from 8 to 10) contact me at dave.golder@futurenet.com so I can arrange collection.
• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!
Sole Of Sci-Fi travels to Santa Carla for a little bit of vampire slaying…
Last night I Tweeted that today’s photo was never going to work. Now I’ve put it together… I’m still not sure it has. But hey, they can’t all be masterpieces and it just about works as a homage to The Lost Boys. If you can work out what’s going on…
The angle doesn’t exactly show off the trainers well, and as they’re a loan pair from Jordan they deserve a bit more respect, so here are those Nikes in full…
They’re not a style I’ve ever come across before, ad there’s no label on them revealing what they’re called, but they’re pretty damned smart. The only worrying thing about them was for a while I thought they had a Burberry lining – and I’ve never worn Burberry in my life (I may be from the South East but I’m not from Essex). Luckily it turns out it’s only pretend Burberry. Actually, not sure if that’s better or worse. At least you can’t spot it from the outside. Much.
I actually wrote the following article a few years back, about how Buffy The Vampire Slayer may never have existed if not for The Lost Boys. I though this would be a great excuse to dust it down and give it another airing:
Don’t go blaming Joss Whedon for the current glut of shows filled with conflicted teen vampires, dewy-eyed fangbangers and hip, trash-culture dialogue. For one thing, LJ Smith’s The Vampire Diaries novels (1991 onwards) predate Buffy, while the TV series Forever Knight (1992) was almost a dry run for Angel (1999).
So there was already a trend emerging before Whedon shoved a stake in the unlikely hands of a blonde, Californian teenager. And if any film can be credited with kickstarting the vampire genere metamorphosis from velvet-cloaked Hammer hams and Anne Rice-style Byron wannabes into pin-up friendly, fanged James Deans, it was 1987’s The Lost Boys.
Directed by Joel Schumacher, The Lost Boys was a massive seismic shift in the way vampires were portrayed. Although its bloodsuckers are still undeniably the villains, the allure of the vampiric life is implicit in the way the vampires come across in the film. And hey, if you looked as great as the youthful Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric or Jami Gertz, why would you not want to live forever?
Still not convinced? Then here’s evidence that Buffy owes its existence to The Lost Boys.
1 The Lost Boys featured the first teen idol vampire pin-up
Okay, in one significant way David is not a direct influence on Angel, Spike, Stefan Salvatore, Edward Cullen, et al – he revelled in his evil, vampire instincts, and wouldn’t have dreamed of chowing down on rats or raiding hospital blood banks instead of drinking from a human source direct. But David – played with an understated relish by Kiefer Sutherland – is the first cool, hip rebel without a cause-style vampire in film and TV history. He rides a motorbike, wears leather, has stubble and smoulders. He is the vampire as pop idol. He made being a vampire seem cool. He even shed a tear at one point, betraying – perhaps – a sensitive soul. He may be the bad guy, but he’s also a poster boy for turning to the dark side. He’s certainly a more interesting character than the wet Michael (Jason Patric).
2 The music of the night
From the moment Echo And The Bunnymen’s jaunty version of The Doors’ “People Are Strange” strums into action over the opening credits, The Lost Boys marries pop music to the vampire mythos in a way that has shaped vampire soundtracks ever since. Okay, the bands that the Scooby gang would watch in The Bronze had slightly more alternative cred than the strutting, poodle-rocker that Michael and his brother Sam watch on the Santa Carla boardwalk, but the underlying rationale is the same – this new style of vampire tale exists in the same cultural world as its viewers.
3 The geek heroes
Whedon is (justifiably) lauded for celebrating the geek: Willow, Andrew, Xander, among others. But the original geek vampire hunters were The Lost Boys’ Frog Brothers – Edgar and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander). We first meet them in a comic store, advising Santa Carla newcomer Sam (Corey Haim) to read a vampire comic, telling him to regard it as a “survival manual”. And they’ve clearly seen Rambo a few too many times. By the end of the film, Sam (himself an unashamed comics fan who sorts the store’s Superman comics into the right order) has become an honorary Frog Bro’ too.
4 Teen soap
A large element of Buffy was teen soap, featuring an impossibly good-looking cast (even most of the geeks) dealing with relationship problems. The Lost Boys got there first. Sam’s brother Michael (Jason Patric) only becomes involved with the vampires because he fancies a girl (Star, played by Jami Getz). The Lost Boys is as much a love story as a horror story.
5 Dialogue to die for
One of Buffy’s greatest strengths was Whedon’s achingly witty dialogue. Admittedly The Lost Boys’ script never matches his ability to create such an avalanche of snappy one-liners, but it does have its fair share of memorable lines. More importantly, you can certainly detect the seeds of the kind of gleefully quirky dialogue that Whedon would later refine in lines like “My own brother, a goddamn, shit-sucking vampire. You wait till mom finds out, buddy!” and “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires.”
6 The culture show
Characters in Buffy were always namechecking films, comics, TV shows, bands and other zeitgeist-trembling ephemera. As did The Lost Boys, with references such as “The bloodsucking Brady Bunch”, “Warp speed”, “The Flying Nun” and “The Attack of Eddie Munster”.
7 Metaphor for life
If you thought Buffy invented the idea of using horror tropes as a metaphor for teenage strife, think again. The Lost Boys’ tag line – “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die” – makes it clear that the film’s makers saw a clear parallel between being a vampire and being a teenager. Plus, Sam and Michael’s mum (Dianne Wiest) is a divorcee who (unknowingly) starts dating a vampire, allowing the writers to play with that old dramatic cliché – the unwanted potential new dad.
8 Big bad businessman
The Lost Boys even has a Big Bad, who, in true Buffy style, turns out to be an outwardly respectable businessman. Max may only be a videostore owner, but he is also a clear precursor to Mayor Wilkins and the lawyers of Wolfram And Hart.
9 Vamping out
The “vamp out” is a c0ncept inextricably linked to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, so much so it seems improbable it could have originated anywhere else. But The Lost Boys got there first: Michael: “If something happens down there, I won’t have the strength to protect you.” Edgar: “If you try to stop us, or vamp out in any way, I’ll stake you without even thinking twice about it!”
10 Santa clause
Both The Lost Boys and Buffy take place in California, partly, no doubt, because that’s where Hollywood is based, but there’s more to it than that. California injects some interesting dramatic ironies into the vampire myth, not least because it’s just kinda fun having vampires in one of the US’s sunniest states. But also, the hedonistic California lifestyle with its population of bubbleheaded valley girls and desperate wannabes also provides a stark contrast to the scuzzy, bloody word of vampires.
Usual Sign-Off
• Current total: £805 (let’s make it to £1,ooo by the end of June!)
• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything from 8 to 10) contact me at dave.golder@futurenet.com so I can arrange collection.
• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!
Sole Of Sci-Fi’s dream (and nightmare) sci-fi weddings…
If I were to get married (which isn’t likely) I would make two demands for the ceremony: bubbles in place of confetti, and I’d be wearing Converse All-Stars. I love the look of a crisp, clean, new pair of black and white Cons with a suit. (I have actually worn Cons to a couple of quite posh, straight-laced weddings and nobody ever seemed to mind.)
What’s put me in a wedding frame of mind? Today’s pair of trainers, which were loaned to me by Rhian Drinkwater. They’re not hers. They’re actually the shoes her husband wore to their wedding. And while they’re not Cons, kudos to Mr Rhian for wearing something a bit different. Admittedly, like the Vans I wore a few weeks back, this pair exist in an “are they actually trainers?” grey area, but they’re certainly not conventional shoes. And hey, if one of my Sole Of Sci-Fi supporters want to loan me a pair like this, then they obviously think they count.
And while I’m in a wedding frame of mind, here are a few of Sole Of Sci-Fi’s fave and least fave sci-fi and fantasy weddings (some aborted, of course):
The Princess Bride
The Impressive Clergyman: “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam… And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva… So tweasure your wuv.” Prince Humperdinck: “Skip to the end.” The Impressive Clergyman: “Have you the wing?”
Peter Cook, we love you!
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “You Are Cordially Invited”
Trust Trek’s best series to produce the franchise’s only great wedding episode. This is comedy genius as Worf’s non-Klingon bride, and non Klingon mates have to endure Klingon marital rituals (though Dax refuses to go nude, notably). There’s even a surreptitious shag in a cupboard for Kira and Odo at the pre-wedding party.
Doctor Who “The End Of Time, Part Two”
“The Runaway Bride”, which introduced Donna Noble a few years earlier, was a bit of a dog’s dinner, but when Donna finally got hitched in the Tenth Doctor’s final story, it was a truly moving ceremony, especially as Donna had lost all memory of her time with the Doctor by this point. This brief scene is full of lovely touches, especially the Doctor’s wedding gift (a presumably winning ticket for the lottery) bought with a pound he borrowed from Donna dearly departed dad (“Thing is, I never carry money, so I just popped back in time, borrowed a quid off a really lovely man. Geoffrey Noble, his name was”). When Wilf salutes the clearly dying Doctor, it’s one of the show’s most lip-quivering moments.
Flash Gordon
Ming tries to hurry up his wedding to Dale as the war rocket Ajax approaches Mingo city. “Attention, all wedding guests,” goes an announcement. “There is no cause for alarm. The weapons are being fired in continuous salute in honor of His Majesty’s wedding.” And hey presto, Mingo’s lightning field defences light up the city like a big, neon wedding cake. The vows are great too: “Do you, Ming the Merciless, ruler of the universe, take this Earthling, Dale Arden, to be your Empress of the hour? Do you promise to use her? Not to blast her into space until you grow weary of her?”
Chuck “Chuck Versus The Ring”
Without a doubt my fave wedding episode of any TV show ever (and that includes the divisive Sherlock episode that personally I adored but isn’t sci-fi or fantasy so I can’t include it here). This was Chuck at its insane best as the hapless wannabe spy tries to stop his sister’s wedding to Captain Awesome being ruined by Roark (Chevy Chase) and his bully boys from evil spy organisation The Ring. The montage sequence in which Jeffster try to entertain the congregation with a Eurovision-worthy version of “Mr Roboto” while Chuck and Sarah battle the spies using improvised wedding gifts and cutlery from the reception tables is a classic. The only shame is that it totally outshone the Chuck and Sarah wedding episode a couple of years later.
The Amazing Spider-Man 131
Doctor Octopus plans to marry Aunt May! Noooo! Don’t let it happen, Spidey. On the other hand, “With this ring, I thee… WEB?” is possibly the greatest single comic book coverline EVER!
Buffy The Vampire Slayer “Hells Bells”
Anybody who knows me of old from my days on SFX and the SFX website will know immediately from seeing that title and that picture that I’ve now moved onto my least faves. It’s not like I’ve made any secret of my loathing of this episode over the years. I LOVE Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but in my opinion the show totally dropped the ball here, with an episode full of misfiring slapstick gags and really obvious wedding episode clichés. The big fight between the groom’s (human) family and the bride’s (supernatural) family at the climax should have been a showstopper, but looked like a reason for show axing. Thankfully, the series recovered rapidly.
Star Trek: The Next Generation “Data’s Day”
Okay, I admit, the episode itself isn’t so bad. But it’s legacy? Oh dear. Because this was he episode in which Miles O’Brien married Keiko, thus making her a recurring character and sentencing viewers to endless stories featuring her incessant whinging and sulky face. What did O’Brien see in her?
Lois & Clark “Swear To God, This Time We’re Not Kidding”
Lois And Clark was pretty awful by this point anyway, but the wedding episode was almost unbearably dire, and – as you can tell by the title – annoyingly meta too, winking at the audience a little too much (there’s even a mysterious character called Mike who keeps appearing at opportune times to sort things out, almost like the writers going, “Hey, we can introduce deus ex machina whenever we like… live with it”). This week’s villain is the created-to-fit “The Wedding Destroyer”. Shame he didn’t succeed.
Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
Least convincing courtship ever. She’d have dumped the sulky git long before that rough sand chat up line.
Oh, What The Heck, I Need Some New Sponsors
Here’s a totally gratuitous picture of Benedict Cumberbatch from that wedding episode of Sherlock.
I suppose I could have written today’s blog on Eurovision, but I think I said nearly everything I wanted to say about the various entrants during the heats last week. Glad Austria won, mainly because (according to the BBC’s Moscow correspondent on Breakfast this morning) it really pissed off the Putin-friendly media in the newly homophobic Russia. Good. Plus, it was a decent song, sung with gusto. I was wondering if Conchita Wurst’s agent is already on the phone to the Bond producers, though.
The biggest mystery of the evening, though, was how Hungary did so well with a godawful, rather tasteless song that trivialised child abuse. Please listen to Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” for a much more sensitive treatment of the subject.
I suppose I should also explain yesterday’s cryptic picture clue. Yes, I’ve resigned. But I’ve written too much today already, so more news on that during the week.
Usual Sign-Off:
• Current total: £770 (some of the PayPal funds for trainer sales has now been released)
• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything from 8 to 10) contact me at dave.golder@futurenet.com so I can arrange collection.
• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!
Rabbits, as Tegan used to say. Getting into the Easter spirit, The Sole Of Sci-Fi charity challenge presents some of the freakiest sci-fi and fantasy bunnies ever
It’s Easter Sunday, and having decided that nailing a pair of trainers to a cross would probably be needlessly provactaive, the Sole Of Sci-Fi Charity Challenge in aid of Alzheimer’s Research UK (have you donated yet?) will mark Easter with a potentially slightly less inflammatory Sci-Fi & Fantasy Easter Bunnies list. I expect indignant letters to your MPs about this one.
Not wanting to sound like a grumpy old man, I’m glad it’s an overcast day today. That’s because today I have a special secret project to work on, one which requires sitting at a desk tapping away on a laptop for a few hours. And I HATE doing that when it’s sunny outside. Hopefully I’ll be able to update you on that soon.
Oh, and for those of you who actually follow this blog, no I’m not talking about my Teen Wolf season three review. I finished the marathon last night (shocker penultimate episode, wasn’t it?) but aim to polish that off tomorrow. It’s pretty much written in my head, so can’t take more than an hour. And you might think I’m mad, but it’s getting four stars. Dylan O’Brien’s above-and-beyond performance is worth watching the show for alone. I wish they would make a werewolf and rename the show Teen Wolf Too.
Anyway, on with the rabbits. It’s shamelessly lifted from the SFX site I used to edit, and most of it was written by my good and talented friend Jayne Nelson (though I did do some entries myself, and the carrot rating was my idea). I’ve also updated and added to it. Enjoy.
Roger Rabbit Who Framed Roger Rabbit
He’s a nice guy, is Roger, but he’s not what you’d call “intelligent”. Earning peanuts being beaten up by a baby for a living, he flits from personal disaster to personal disaster, gets accused of murder and makes life hell for detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins). Plus have you heard his voice? It’s enough to strip wallpaper from walls! (No offence to voice artist Charles Fleischer, we hasten to add.)
His wife’s a bit of alright, though.
Easterific or horrific? Ha ha ha ha ha! Excuse us as we wipe tears of laughter from our eyes. Can you imagine the accident-prone, calamity-strewn, bad luck-magnet Roger Rabbit delivering Easter eggs? He’d try – he’d try sooooo hard – but there’s be nothing left but chocolatey goo at the end…
Carrot rating:
.
The Killer Rabbit Misfits
When you’ve been struck by special lightning that’s given you the power to make hallucinations become real, dropping acid is clearly a bad idea. Especially if you’re TV channel surfing at the time and you start hallucinating images from golf coverage, a hitman film and a documentary on rabbit vivisection. Result, a club-wielding Reservoir Bunny.
Easterific or horrific? Definitely horrific… until you realise he’s played by Jack Donnelly – Jason in the BBC’s Atlantis – at which point you can’t take him seriously.
Carrot rating:
Harvey Harvey
Harvey isn’t technically a rabbit at all. He’s a pooka, a cheeky little scamp from Celtic mythology who has taken the form of a rabbit in order to hang out with best pal Elwood P Dowd (James Stewart). Standing at six foot three-and-a-half inches tall and invisible to everybody except Elwood, Harvey’s mere existence causes all sorts of good-natured trials and tribulations for his human chum before he moves on to pastures new.
Easterific or horrific? Being invisible would help with his egg-delivering duties, and Harvey’s got a few magical tricks up his sleeve. But as he’s not really a rabbit, we feel it would be cheating to make him the Easter Bunny.
Carrot rating:
John Crichton and “Harvey” Farscape
Well, Crichton did nickname the neural clone of Scorpius that got lodged in his brain Harvey after the big invisible rabbit (after all, only John could see him) so it was only logical that eventually Crichton would hallucinate him as an actual rabbit. We weren’t expecting Crichton to join him, though.
Easterific or horrific? Both. We’re sure some people have dreams about Ben Browder as the Easter Bunny feeding them chocolate (there’s probably a whole website devoted to it) but Scorpius? That’s just freaky. And wrong.
Carrot rating:
Frank Donnie Darko
Frank is the evil-twin flip-side of James Stewart’s friendly rodent pal in Harvey, a giant, all-knowledgeable rabbit who looks human and only Donnie Darko can see. Is he part of Donnie’s imagination? Is he a supernatural entity? Or is he something else entirely?
He’s also the harbinger of doom: when he first appears to Donnie, he tells him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Even if he didn’t look like he’d just walked out of the rabbit version of the Scream movies (he’d be Ghostface, of course), nobody likes the bearer of bad tidings, be they human or bun.
Easterific or horrific? If a happy wee toddler on an Easter egg hunt in their garden happened to come across Frank, they’d be in therapy for the rest of their God-given life.
Carrot rating:
The Easter Bunny
Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey
We really don’t want to talk about this. It’s too disturbing.
Easterific or horrific? Despite cute appearances… Nooooooooooooooo! Don’t you come anywhere near our Easter!
Carrot rating:
Jack, Jane and Suzie David Lynch’s Rabbits
You can’t help but wonder sometimes if David Lynch is weird just for weird’s sake, and here’s a prime example: his Rabbits webseries. Eight episodes in total, with one of the sequences appearing in his movie Inland Empire, Rabbits features a bunch of pointy-eared half-human, half-bunny characters speaking random sentences and walking in and out of the room while a fake laugh-track plays over them.
What are they doing there? Why are they animal-human hybrids? Are they in Hell’s waiting room or trapped in some hitherto-unseen corner of Twin Peaks’s Black Lodge? We may never know. But it’s definitely weird. And, as one of the commenters on the YouTube clip above declares: “It’s like Two And A Half Men, only funnier.”
Easterific or horrific? They don’t do anything terrifying per se, but they’re damn scary all the same. Definitely an Easter no-no.
Carrot rating:
The Rabbit In The Hat Twilight Zone: The Movie
One innocent magic trick. One utterly terrified magician. One all-powerful little boy with powers beyond imagining. What could possibly go wrong? Er…
Easterific or horrific? If the Easter bunny looked like this, the Easter weekend would be awash with wee.
Carrot rating: Minus 100
Rabbit Of Caerbannog
Monty Python And The Holy Grail
If the Easter Bunny had a traumatic experience as a child – let’s say, perhaps, he saw his family killed and eaten by a group of marauding knights, who then hacked off their little pawsies to take with them for good luck – then confined himself to a hermit-like existence inside a cave where he experienced no normal bunny interaction whatsoever – chances are he would have turned out like this little fella. He’s got a vicious streak a mile wide, you know.
Easterific or horrific? If he was the Easter Bunny you’d soil your armour, you’d be so scared.
Carrot rating:
The Giant Rabbits Night Of The Lepus
GIANT KILLER BUNNIES! GIANT KILLER BUNNIES WHO EAT PEOPLE! GIANT KILLER BUNNIES WHO RUN IN SLOW MOTION AND ARE SMEARED WITH TOMATO KETCHUP! GIANT KILLER BUNNIES WHO ARE STILL CUTE EVEN WHEN THEY’RE DEVOURING INNOCENT TOWNSFOLK!!!
Quite how this ’50s B-movie creature feature ended up being made in 1972 is a mystery to us, but that’s exactly what it is. And it’s so bad it’s brilliant.
Easterific or horrific? These giant rabbits would be rubbish at delivering eggs. They’re so big they’d squash them all, see? So they’d make terrible Easter Bunnies. Oh, and there’s also the small matter of the fact they’d eat everybody, too.
Carrot rating:
The Were-Rabbit & Hutch Wallace And Gromit:
The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit
Lock up your vegetables, for the moon is full and the were-rabbit is abroad. Capable of eating prize marrows in one gulp, the furry behemoth hides a dark, dark secret. He is not, in fact, a mutant bunny, as everybody suspects, but the bestial alter ego of mild manner Lancashire inventor and turophile Wallace. This Jekyll and Hyde creation was the result of an experiment on bunny mind control which went hideously wrong, and also resulted in a another rabbit, Hutch, who took on aspects of Wallace’s personality, particularly his love of Wensleydale.
Easterific or horrific? The Were-rabbit would be a hopeless Easter Bunny, because he’d only be able to delivers eggs when Easter fell on a full moon. Hutch would try to invent a mechanical delivery system that would no doubt leave him with egg on his face.
Carrot rating:
Anya Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Anya’s hatred of bunnies knows no bounds. “They’ve got those hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!” she once sang, before adding wisely, “And what’s with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?” (It’s a good point, and one we feel the show should have followed through with. A bunny and his army of buck-toothed rabbit minions would have made a great Big Bad one year. Although we did have a bad guy called Warren, so that was sort of rabbit-related…)
Anyway, given that Anya hates rabbits so much, the fact she made such a fetching rabbit on Halloween was rather ironic. She looked so good, in fact, we think she’d make a wonderful Easter Bunny. That, right there, is “irony”.
Easterific or horrific? Anya’s so good at planning she’d make a very organised distributor of eggs. However, we’re not sure her heart would really be in it.
Carrot rating:
Jaxxon (Star Wars)
Inspired by Bugs Bunny himself and popping up regularly in the Star Wars extended universe, Jaxxon is a big-lugged chap from the planet Coachelle Prime – home of the Lepi, whose rabbit-like tendency to breed like, well, rabbits, has resulted in them spreading out across the universe for lack of space.
Jaxxon became a smuggler (complete with a ship called the Rabbit’s Foot) and eventually teamed up with Han Solo to become one of the Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3, fighting tooth, nail and whisker to save the village of Onacra. A heroic, anthropomorphised rabbit who kicks ass? Hell, yeah! Is his agent on the phone to JJ yet?
Easterific or horrific? We’re not sure Jaxxon would lower himself to taking on the duties of a mythical candy-giving animal from a planet far, far away, but he’d probably offend a few kids with his language if he did.
Carrot rating:
The White Rabbit Alice In Wonderland
This little fella spends his life in a terrific, hare-brained rush, constantly watching the clock and worrying about missing a very important date. He’s also been known to entice (accidental or otherwise) little girls into the rabbit hole with him, so we’re a bit worried that if he picked up the Easter Bunny’s basket there’d be a spate of vanishing children from one end of the Earth to the other.
Easterific or horrific? By his hair and whiskers, he’d be late! Can’t have kids going on egg-hunts and not finding any eggs, can we?
Carrot rating:
The White Rabbit Once Upon A Time In Wonderland
Is this the same guy above or a modern meta twist from an alternative dimension? You decide. Essentially a good hearted chap, he finds himself a pawn of the Red Queen who has to betray Alice. He not so much constantly late as constantly twitchy.
Easterific or horrific? He can open portals between worlds, so maybe he could find a reality where eating as much chocolate as you like is really, really healthy for you.
Carrot rating:
Bucky O’Hare Bucky O’Hare
“Bucky! Captain Bucky O’Hare! He goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare!” Quite. After all, how many other rodents would venture into space to fight the evil forces of the Toad Empire if they could stay at home in their hutches nibbling a nice piece of cabbage instead?
Bucky was a force to be reckoned with, a Captain America-style superhero with a crack team (or possibly a “cracked” team) of sidekicks determined to make as many toads croak as possible. His adventures ran in a comic-book series and as a frenetic animated show in the early ’90s: opening credits are above. Watch out, you’ll be singing the theme all day…
Easterific or horrific? While he’s a good guy and would probably do a decent job of handing out eggs to the kids of the world, we have to disqualify Bucky on account of the fact he ain’t a rabbit but a hare. There’s no Easter Hare, after all.
Carrot rating:
The Angry Alien Bunnies (www.angryalien.com)
This intrepid theatre group has been remaking the greatest hits of Hollywood with bunnies for the last few years now, their online escapades covering everything from Alien to The Wolf-Man. Every film they make has one thing in common: it lasts a mere 30 seconds, but what a 30 seconds they are…
For a stunning example of their Method acting, staggering production values and Oscar-worthy direction, check out their remake of Twilight: New Moon– it’s bunny-rific!
Easterific or horrific? They haven’t tackled an Easter story yet, but if they did we reckon it would be amazing. Whether they could deliver all those eggs in 30 seconds flat is open to question, though…
Carrot rating:
The Brace Of Coneys The Two Towers
The biggest movie franchise of all time and the only rabbits we get to see are dead; murdered at the hands of Gollum.
Poor bunnies. Poor, dead, unloved, and eventually uneaten bunnies.
We mourn for them. Rest in bunny peace.
(And yes, we were running out of bunnies to write about. Shhh.)
Easterific or horrific? Totally horrific. Unless you cook them with some nice taters, and then they’re delicious.
Carrot rating:
E.B. Hop
His dad’s the actual Easter bunny and his destiny is one that involves travelling the world (well, apart from China – Easter’s yet to break the market there) delivering colourful chocolate treats of all kinds to kids who hopefully aren’t diabetic. E.B. – voiced by Russell Brand – lives on Easter Island, enjoys playing the drums and hates that his future is mapped out for him. So he hops it to Hollywood, where he teams up with slacker James Marsden, befriends David Hasselhoff and isn’t allowed inside the Playboy Mansion despite the plethora of other bunnies within.
Easterific or horrific? You don’t get more Easter than the actual Easter bunny, and while E.B. shirks his duties and looks down on the humble art of delivering chocolate eggs, he learns the true meaning of his profession in the end.
The Sole Of Sci-Fi 