Special TV-Michael Jackson’s Halloween

Well I haven’t done one of these in a very long time. But my friends, we have to talk about this one. This aired last Friday (Oct 27) and I watched it last night. Normally I would feel bad I need Wikipedia’s help with some details, but this time I really did. So here are my gut reactions after only seeing this once…..

 

I’m rushing this a bit, I admit, so forgive the lack of details. And spoilers by the way

The Plot-OK, I am going to to try to make sense of this. A young and woman cross paths on Halloween night, and the woman loses her dog. They follow him into a haunted house, and after listening to a Monkey named Bubbles (of course he’s named Bubbles) the two end up on a magical journey where they meet a scarecrow, a spider security guard. and a cat mad scientist (all three who become Michael Jackson? I missed that part) and an evil witch they all have to stop. What’s her goal? Getting ti of music and dancing. Of course it is. The thriller dance saves the day and I wont even try to talk about how the villain is defeated.  Let’s just say it was the power of love. Of course.

 

Underrated Trek:Impulse (ENT)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek. So we’ve had Jack the Ripper, nightmares, a horror movie and ghost stories. What could be left? How does Vulcan Zombies sound?! This is….

 

Enterprise had very few scary episodes from what I could see. So it made sense to discuss the one episode that is sort of infamous for what they do. I didn’t remember this episode very much so I was interested in seeing just how good it is. Let’s take a look:

Underrated Trek:The Haunting of Deck Twelve (VOY)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of Voyager. If last time was a classic horror movie, what would an old fashioned campfire story on Star Trek look like? Let’s discuss :

 

Voyager has several contenders, like Twisted which was just lame and The Thaw which I already discussed. Darkling was another one but I hardly remember it, it’s sort of a Jekyl and Hyde story involving the Doctor. I decided this episode was better to discuss. This episode, much like the one last time, was another homage of horror tropes. This time an old fashioned ghost story. But since it’s Voyager, it’s not quite as good.

 

Underrated Trek-Empok Nor (DS9)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of DS9 that is scary. But unlike last time, it is a good episode too! This is:

There weren’t to many DS9 episodes to pick from. I covered Distant Voices already. And Whispers barely makes it as a scary episode. This episode is perfect, it’s basically a homage to classic horror movies. And being DS9, they do a fantastic job! Let’s take a look at it.

 

Underrated Trek-Night Terrors (TNG)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of Next Generation that is scary. Even if it’s also a far from perfect episode. This is:

I had a few choices from TNG, such as Conspiracy which was scary at the time but is more silly today. There was also Genesis and Identity Crisis, but I already covered them. Schisms and Frame of Mind are hard one’s to talk about, being closer to Twilight Zone than horror. Though you could argue Schisms is the idea in this episode realized a lot better, the ending is a bit more satisfying but not entirely. I finally decided that this is as close as TNG would come to a genuine scary episode…which makes it more tragic that the episode basically fails. Lets to a closer look at it.

 

Underrated Trek-Wolf in the Fold (TOS)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. I wanted to do something Halloween related, but I already did Catspaw. So what else can I check out? Looking at a list there are plenty of creepy Trek episodes which are perfect for the season.In fact each series has a handful. So for Halloween something a little different. Five Trek articles on scary episodes from each Trek series. I want to be clear, these are EPISODES that are creepy not just an episode that has a random creepy scene. Today we start with :

 

As I noted, I already did Catspaw. I also already covered The Man Trap, and no other Original Series episode come closer to being scary than this one. So what makes it scary? How about Jack the Ripper meets Star Trek!

 

Another Look at Retcons in Sitcoms (and Trek)

Four years ago I did a short list of some of my favorite sitcom retcons. You can see that article here:
http://nostalgiarush.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-look-at-retcons-in-sitcoms.html


Retcons of course is when established continuity is disregarded or even changed to further the current story line. They often piss people off, but I find them fascinating. The way a show will so blatantly disregard something that has been established in the past like we’re supposed to forget it. Sometimes they work, let’s be honest isn’t forgetting “The Brady Bunch Variety Show” ever happened a good thing?, and other times they can be aggravating like the Everybody Loves Raymond episode that brought up the fact Ray and Debra had a maid when they were first married, a fact which was never mentioned before and make no sense in context with the series.





Here are some more I just love. Some small and others a little more problematic:




Will & Grace

Gee, I wonder what brought this idea up? Yeah Will & Grace returned to network TV the other week but there was one little problem. The show had a firm final episode which closed the book on Will & Grace’s lives. How do you get around it? Make it a dream of course! Well a drug induced one that Karen had anyway. Final episode basically never happened in fact they also retconned Grace being pregnant so basically that whole final season never happened.


This wasn’t the only retcon for Will & Grace. Besides the others I mentioned in the other article we also had Karen’s mother. Karen commented a couple time she’d had her mother committed and when we finally met her she said “she was only joking” about that. Also Jack had said he made a vow to his mother when he came out that he would never deny who he really was. Which was a lie when we find out he never told his mother he was gay in one memorable episode.

Eight Favorite Fantasy World’s From TV and Movies

I talk a lot about sci fi and comedy, but one genre I hardly touch upon is fantasy. Fantasy is awesome when done right, giving us new worlds and characters that we could never see in the real world. Some of these movies and TV shows give us amazing world’s we never forget, like Wonderland. Or Neverland. These are amazing places that we find ourselves wishing that were real places we could visit and play in. In some cases, we can. Azeroth is the magic world that World of Warcraft takes place in and of course Dungeons and Dragons has several campaign settings including Greyhawk and Khorvaire.

Course not all movies get it right, even if the movie is good the world it creates does not stay with people. How about the bland “Eragon” that came out a few years ago? In the 80’s we had Ron Howard’s “Willow” which was decent but no one really remembers it. Did that world have a name? Dark Crystal was good but who remembers the world was “Thra”? Did the kingdom in Labyrinth have a name at all? The Jeremy Irons “Dungeons and Dragons” movie was ludicrous and do I even need to mention “The Last Airbender” again? And show of hands, where do the Time Lords in Dr.Who come from? If you said Gallifrey I’m impressed.

Now these have to be actual world’s apart from our normal world that requires effort to get to, for example people love King Arthur and Camelot, but Camelot was just a castle the setting was simply Great Britain. Hogwarts is freaking awesome but it’s also just a school in Scotland. Florin was an amazing place in Princess Bride, but wasn't that just a story? And in Bridge to Terabithia the world was 100% imagination in the kids heads.

Here are some fantasy world’s that I love, in no particular order.



Middle Earth

And I know people are going to go nuts but I never read JRR Tolkein’s books or seen the Lord of the Rings movies, so I don’t have much to say about Middle Earth. But I had to mention it because it set the standard, the novels and the movies, for how to do a fantasy setting right! I wasn’t sure if this counted and after getting a headache trying to research it, I just figured the heck with it. I really gotta see these movies. And from the pics I have seen it is an amazing place, I love The Shire.

Five Special Effects From 80’s Movies That Seem Dated Today

With the release of the new “IT” movie that came out recently, I thought about how back in the 80’s the Tim Curry version scared the hell out of all who watched it. But looking back that movie doesn’t seems as scary with goofy acting and noticeably bad special effects. A few weeks ago I talked about special effects from Star Trek TNG that seem outdated. Including that awful shuttle sequence from Star Trek V. But there are other 80’s effects which have not aged well. And it’s not the fault of anyone who made the movie, they were great at the time, and it sure doesn’t make the movie bad now. But it’s still fun to look at these today and say “Wait, that’s not real!”

 

A classic example is Jaws, which scared people in its day but most everyone things the shark looks damn fake now. Of course it makes sense-when we first see a movie we are engrossed and don’t stop to examine the effect. After years of re watching these movies, the seams show a bit in some of these scenes especially when held up to modern standards. Here are five effects, from make-up to green screens, that fooled me thirty years ago but today I look at and say “Yeah, I see how they did that now!”

Back to the Future

When I first saw this movie I had no idea that it was Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson under a ton of make up when we first meet George and Lorraine. But the more I see that movie…over and over…yeah it’s much more obvious now. The same goes for Biff, the make-up is a little to unrealistic. They did a better job in the final scene, where the makeup was toned down, and the old age makeup in the sequel still holds up.