Lately I've been trying to be a little more aware of the route my train of thought follows. Though I assure you it has more bends, tunnels, and bridges than the island of Sodor. It can be very difficult to keep up.
For instance the name Lazar Wolf just popped into my head. Why? Subconsciously maybe I saw the add for Topol's farewell tour in Fiddler on the Roof. But in truth, what I was thinking replace one vowel and you've got a sweet super hero. Lazer Wolf! A government created cybernetic werewolf soldier who chooses to run rather than be used as a weapon. I'm copyrighting that by the way!
For about a week now I've been obsessed with an old episode of The Outer Limits (as if there was a new one to be obsessesd with) entitled The Architects of Fear. It is a pretty well known episode from the series. Perhaps finally seeing Watchmen is what made me think of it. If you're familiar with both you'll understand the connection. As the kids say, spoiler alert!
In Architects, a group of scientists decide that the world is on inevitable slide into nuclear Armageddon. Remember this was the early 60's; the days of the Bay of Pigs and Civil Defense. Kids in school were being instructed to crawl under their desks, put their heads between their legs, and kiss their asses goodbye. The leader of the group hypothesises that the only way the different super powers of the world will stop fighting amongst themselves, is to galvanize them against an single foreign enemy. So this secretive group in a shadowy conference room hatches a scheme to turn one of their own into an alien adversary. Personally, I'd have suggested the Dutch.
Of course the experiment fails. The chosen mutant becomes deranged in the process and is ultimately shot down by the most nonplussed trio of duck hunters to ever encounter an alien attacker. If only Elmer Fudd could have ended Independence Day in the first 20 minutes, instead of waiting for Will Smith to do it in 2 hours. "Welcome to Earth. Heh-heh-heh-heh!"
The special effects are beyond dated (less special like "high-tech" and "cutting-edge", more like "helmet at the dinner table") and the acting terribly overdone. That said, it's a great episode and hits just the right tone of creepiness to linger in your brain for a while. I've heard Kevin Smith tell a story of how, after Mallrats he was offered to rework a couple scripts Warner Brothers was considering making, one of which was to be a feature film remake of Architects. While I am the first to say Hollywood is currently remake crazy, I think that idea had and still has some merit.
Many years ago I started outlining a story for a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake, as well as its sequel, The Creature Walks Among Us. Then of course The Mummy was released and shortly after Universal announced they'd be remaking Creature themselves. It hasn't happened yet, but now and then rumors of its "re-greenlighting" spring up. I still wonder if I should write it anyway, just for my own jollies. I think I had an interesting take on it and the monster's origins. And I love sketching out my designs for an updated creature.
I've been working on concepts for a current version of the mutant-alien on my notepad at work the last few days. Yeah that's right . . . hard at work.
The entire episode of The Architects of Fear can be viewed on HULU, if you can stand a couple Ford commercials scattered throughout.
I'm hungry. Where's my helmet?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment