Top 5 Things I Hated in Disney Movie (in honor of MovieFan12)

(Yes, this is a re-do. I deleted the first one because it was rushed I realized I did not put enough thought into some of my choices, and my title was a foolish choice. Hope this list is better.)

The theme today is to tribute MovieFan12 and his year on the site. Who am I to buck an obvious trend? However, I wanted to do something different. I present to you my Top 5 Things I Hated In Disney Movies.

There are several movies which had scenes or concepts which I just didn’t like. Others may like it, that is fine, but I just always had a problems with it and at times it nearly ruined an otherwise great production.

#5.  The falling in love crap in “Bambi”

There’s nothing like spending an hour establishing characters just to crap all over them. This is a movie about a deer growing up and becoming an adult. Ok, we meet these cute lovable characters and then the mother gets killed which even I admit was upsetting. The movie is going along fine, until the now adult characters are warned that spring means falling in love. Of course they don't believe, and then one by one they find someone and start making googly eyes at them. Are we supposed to care if these characters fall in love with someone they just met and have no history with? To this day I never understood why they shoehorned that love crap in there, were they trying to make it longer? I just hate this movie after they grow up because the characters stop being cute and lovable and are just bland and boring. There is a reason Timon and Pumbaa are around Simba after he grows up, maybe Disney learned their lesson from this bore fest. Thank goodness Bambi II corrected some of this, in fact that was very good sequel and urge you to find a copy if you never saw it because it makes the end of the original movie make sense! We understand why Bambi likes the girl (he’s already met her!) and we understand why we get that otherwise pointless fight scene in the original. Bambi II was definitely worth watching unlike the other foolish “sequels”, and speaking of poorly planned sequels....

#4. Direct to DVD Sequels like Cinderella II & III

Nothing like damaging a classic movie years after it came out. During the late 90's Disney was fascinated with the idea of direct to video sequels. Most of them were ok, Lion King was good. Lady and the Tramp wasn't bad. Most were lousy, and some were never even made! I saw previews of the Dumbo sequel in the special edition video release years ago, but it never got past the storyboard phase. Thank heavens the Dumbo sequel was killed, it looked stupid. For all of the sequels they made though, these were the worst (although Fox and the Hound 2 was terrible!).  In II they took what was a timeless movie and they made it into a Saturday morning cartoon. We get three separate stories, none of them interesting and none of them having to do with anything. One was a story about Cinderella adjusting to her new lifestyle (yawn), then a story about one of the stepsisters trying to find a man (yawn), and one scene where the fairy godmother is reading to the mice from the first movie. This seem moronic to anyone else? This was just boring. As for III, it would have been ok if they hadn’t retcon’d the entire ending to the first one, which is inexcusable. As I said above, Bambi 2 was one of the few exceptions I think that this sequel helped the original believe it or not.

#3. Inaccurate history in Pocahontas.

I know that this is Disney and there is no reason to expect an accurate historical account of the settlement of Virginia, but it’s kind of hard to swallow everything here. I really don’t think Pocahontas had animals who could speak, and the geography in some of the songs doesn’t even come close to what Virginia looks like. They gloss over the horrible way Pocahontas and her tribe was treated, obviously they wanted to make the film more family friendly but if you’re going to base a movie on real events you have to stick a little closely to the source material. The same problem happened in Hunchback, the comedy relief just feels wrong and out of place.

#2. These are kids films?

There are so many scary moments in the early days of Disney, it’s a wonder they ever got made. Everyone remembers the scene in Snow White where she is racing through the black forest. Then we get Pinocchio which has some real terrifying images. Some Disney movies are almost depressing. Get through Dumbo without crying, dare you. And I always wondered, why does every Disney movie have to have a death fake out? We have a character who we believe has died, and they let us think it for a few second until we find out it was a fake out. It happened in Snow White, Pinocchio, Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that’s not even all of them. Of course the worst is when the death is real, who has ever forgotten when Bambi’s mother died, or Mufasa in The Lion King? I guess that's what makes these movies memorabile, even if they are a bit traumatic. Speaking of traumatic......

#1. Pink Elephants on Parade from Dumbo.

I know people will think I am crazy, but this bothered me for years. While I think the scene in Pinocchio where the boy turns into a donkey was scary as hell, but this scene from Dumbo is on this list for one simple reason. The scene in Pinocchio is part of the story, this is just filler. Talk about being creeped out, the clown scene in Poltergeist didn’t bother me as much. We see Dumbo and his mouse friend drink too much (accidentally) and pass out. What we get is a bizarre sequence of pink elephants dancing around with this crazy song which sets up residence in your head and never gets out. Pointless, disturbing, and just awful. The only good thing is right after this scene we meet the crows, and they were always my favorite part of Dumbo. I can understand, and even appreciate, how this scene is liked but I just didn’t.

And finally, I have been talking about pieces of movie but what is the one animated Disney movie I truly can’t stand to watch? The award goes to The Three Caballeros. Sorry, but putting Donald Duck in it didn’t make this confusing mess anymore tolerable. I know people will disagree with me, but that’s ok. I can take it.

Well, that’s my list of things Disney should never have done in their animated films. Maybe another time I will talk about their live action stuff. What happens in “The Three Lives of Thomasina” could fill a whole article. All in all I do like Disney, the way they entertain children while keeping adults interested is amazing. I especially loved the 90’s renaissance, from Little Mermaid to Lion King. They were all great, great movies. I also loved Lilo & Stitch, it was great!

Congratulations Moviefan12!

The Worst of Trek-Part 4

Star Trek V-A Review

Let’s talk about the first six movies. It all started in 1979 when Paramount wanted to cash in on the success of a little film called “Star Wars”. They took what was supposed to be the second Star Trek series and turned into a full-fledged motion picture. The good thing about that was they got Leonard Nimoy to be in it. The bad thing was they got a little special effects happy. We didn’t want to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, we wanted to see Star Trek. That meant story, character development, etc. What we got was a long boring mess of pretty pictures which the cast literally spends several minutes just staring at out the view screen. The only one that is ok is when Kirk sees the Enterprise in space dock, and even that goes on a tad too long.

However, Star Trek-The Motion Picture isn’t all bad. If you watch it with a remote so you can fast forward the nonsense, it’s pretty good. Fortunately they smartened up and for Star Trek 2 they brought in Nicholas Meyer and Harve Bennett. These two saved the movies by bringing us what some consider the best Star Trek movie of them all, Star Trek II-The Wrath of Khan. I liked it, except for the ear slugs, but thought the violence was a little too much. Then Star Trek 3 came out, and I never understood why so many people are so hard on this movie. I liked it; it was my favorite until the next one finally came out. The ending still chokes me up a little.

Star Trek IV is and will always be one of my favorite movies of all time. I was lucky enough to see it in a theatre with a crowd of what must have been serious Trek fans. It was light, enjoyable fun. There really isn’t anything about it I can pick on. Star Trek VI was great too. Well done finale to the original series, the movie was well written and the characters weren’t stupid in this one (more on that in a second). I was always a bit sad this was the last regular series movie, but what a great way to go out on.

That leaves one movie I did not mention. This is considered the worst original series movie, and I thought today I would take closer look at why. It’s been awhile since I made myself sit through this train wreck, is it really that bad? So, here is a brief review on the movie called Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Everyone blames William Shatner for the atrocity, and it’s true he deserves some blame but not all of it. The biggest mistake of this movie was trying to inject humor into it. Humor worked in Star Trek IV because that movie was, in essence, a fish out of water story so the jokes work like the exact change gag for example. Here, the jokes are lame and it makes the characters look like idiots. However, the biggest problem is the story which is just, well, silly.

The movie opens with a strange man meeting a vagrant in the desert. After some boring dialogue we see the strange man isn’t a man, but a Vulcan. He laughs a big laugh, probably at the audience, and we fade to the opening credits. Wow what an exciting opening (not!). We then fade to a scene in Yosemite Park, where Kirk is climbing a huge mountain. More thrills as we see Kirk climbing. Then Spock appears in anti-grav boots and makes Kirk fall, of course Spock catches him just before he hits the ground.

Ok, we cut to a dessert city which looks they were trying to rip off the bar in Star Wars (and badly too). It is here we meet our main protagonist, named Sybok. He leads a rebellion which kidnaps a trio of ambassadors who were on this planet discussing the future of it because apparently the Klingons, Romulans, and Federation all agreed to share the planet. Gee, what could go wrong there? So the ambassadors are taken hostage in a scene which is oddly dull, and we cut to stock footage. First we see the space station from the 3^rd movie followed by the reveal of the Enterprise from the 4^th. Way to save money guys.

On the ship we establish that the Enterprise is basically in pieces. After Scotty and Uhura share an affectionate moment, a red alert comes over. Of course, the Enterprise is the only ship in the area that can respond. Never mind the ship is barely functional, and why is that always the excuse in these movies? Where are the other vessels’s anyway? It was the excuse in the 1^st movie and Nemesis. I realize the ambassadors’ being taken hostage is serious and they want the best and brightest, but the ship isn’t working! I hope you find that concept funny by the way, because they beat this gag into the ground.

Anyway, Uhura starts rounding up the crew. What do we get next, an exciting scene of the crew returning? No, we get silliness. We find Sulu and Chekov lost in the woods, and when Uhura calls down they pretend they are stuck in a storm. Of course it takes Uhura a half a second to figure out there is no weather where they are. Boy was that funny, turning Sulu and Chekov into morons. Then we get a campfire scene where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are talking about life and stuff. Now don’t get me wrong I love these characters as much as anyone, but in the series the conversations came out of the situations they were in. I don’t remember an episode where we saw the three just sitting around the lounge waxing philosophical for no reason. This scene almost hurts (and isn’t there an emergency or something going on?)

Wake me when something interesting happens! After all this we’re almost a half hour in and so far our heroes have done nothing. We get a scene with a Klingon vessel, and on board is Captain Klaa who decides to go after Kirk because he’s got nothing else to do. Then we cut to a scene of Uhura coming for Kirk and co. in a shuttle. In case you’re wondering, the transporters are offline for almost the whole movie necessitating the use of the shuttle. Why didn’t she contact him by communicator? It seems our good captain forgot to take his. I am trying to decide if that was meant to be funny. Uhura fills the guys in on the situation, and it seems like the movie is finally going to get moving.

Nope, we get a shot of the crew returning to the ship which involves more talking. Then after we watch the shuttle land in the docking bay, they board the turbo-lift which for some reason looks like a fancy elevator in a hotel. It even makes a “ding” sound. They arrive on the Bridge, where we continue the contrivance that things on the ship don’t work. This is supposed to be funny, but it isn’t. Then we see a little scene which I hadn’t noticed until the DVD commentary where Kirk gives his coat to a yeoman or something, and she has no idea what to do with it. In the commentary Shatner admits the joke didn’t work, the bit looks like an outtake they left in, and for those trivia buffs the young lady is one of Shatner’s daughters.

Anyway, at long last we get the plot going when an admiral comes on the screen. This admiral is played by Harve Bennett, who wrote Star Trek II and is not an actor, and boy, can you tell. Even though there are other ships in the fleet, the admiral insists on Kirk. I don’t understand it either. Kirk has no choice, and tells Sulu to set course for the planet. Kirk whines he misses his old chair, and Spock makes an odd face. Why does Spock not get one line in this scene? In the series this would have been a five minute discussion between Kirk and he about the situation. Instead Kirk talks to McCoy which is kind of cute but Spock just sits there. I get the feeling Shatner decided this was going to be Kirk’s scene and left Leonard out of it almost entirely. So Spock just sits there like a dope. Is every character in this movie out of character at some point? Oh wait, I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff.

Ok, let’s move on and get this over with. After a brief return to the Klingons we go back to the Enterprise where the hilarious malfunctions are preventing Kirk from even making a log entry. Then we get some back-story about the situation. Spock wakes up and helps clarify the identity of the hostages including the mysterious Vulcan in charge. Then do we get an exciting scene of the ship racing in and doing some damage? No, we cut to a lounge where the Vulcan is pouting. It seems clear he is hiding something, but he doesn’t want to ruin the reveal later so keeps quiet.

The Enterprise arrives at the planet and Kirk has to use the shuttle to rescue the hostages because the transporters still don’t work. While Chekov distracts Sybock, Kirk and crew take a shuttle at night to lead a rescue mission out. They need to sneak into the city and require another distraction. They decide that Uhura doing a naked dance is the way to go. I can see why Nichelle Nichols may have liked doing this, but the scene itself is silly.

Cut to Kirk and co on horses (who directed this again?) charging into the city. Long story short, they get caught and the rescue is screwed up as a fight ensues. Kirk and Spock find the hostages, but they are on Sybok’s side. Captured, Kirk and Spock finally meet Sybok. Sybok is happy to see Spock but all Spock cam do is place Sybock under arrest. One of the few actual cute scenes. We then find out the motivation for this was that Sybok needed a starship. Sybok also offers Spock a chance to help him which Spock refuses.

As the shuttle heads for the Enterprise, the Klingons appear. Sybok isn’t about to let that stop him so they continue heading for the ship. In order to get the shuttle in before the Klingons can attack; Sulu floors it and basically rams the thing into the shuttle bay. They make it, and the Enterprise races off before the Klingons can strike. Thanks goodness, there was almost excitement!

Another struggle ensues and Spock ends up with a weapon facing Sybok. However, Spock refuses to fire the weapon. Sybok then takes the weapon and has Kirk and co locked up while he keeps Uhura and Sulu because they can be useful. In the cell we find out that Sybok is a half-brother to Spock, which is why Spock is so torn between his loyalties. Now this scene could have been a powerful one, but instead it is played for a laugh which is wrong. And as for the continuity breach that’s caused by making Sybok Spock’s half-brother, I ain’t going near that. Let’s just say it’s a big one. By the way, this scene is McCoy’s turn to be oddly quiet.

I could spend all day on this scene so let’s move on. Back on the Bridge Sulu and Uhura have been converted to Sybok’s cause which isn’t fully explained. Its ok, the crew hasn’t acted right this whole movie why stop now? After more pointless dialogue in the brig, Sybok tries to explain the plot on the Bridge. Let’s just put it this way, he knows the planet were God lives and needs a ship to get there because it’s through the great barrier in the center of the galaxy. That’s it in a nutshell.

Scotty manages to get them out of the brig. Then the biggest “not funny” scene in the movie happens. Scotty directs the others down a hallway and turns another direction, only to slam into a beam and knock himself flat on his, well, you know. You ready for this rant? How could this ever happen? Scotty would never do something this stupid. Aside from that, it isn’t funny not to mention totally out of place in this movie. Yeah, we had some jokes in the movie but at what point did we have slapstick? The jokes in this movie just do not work, and this is a great example.

An alert sounds and we see some troops running through a hallway from Next Generation’s Enterprise. Anyway, Kirk and McCoy start climbing a ladder of a Jeffries tube when Spock magically appears with anti-grav boots and flies them up. Watch this scene for the inconsistencies of the floors they fly by. Did they pay attention at all? Kirk, Spock, McCoy send out a distress call which gets intercepted by the Klingons. Sybok then finds them, and they begin a long, boring dialogue. At this point why does that surprise me, in a movie where a flight up a turbo shaft is considered one of the more exciting moments?

The scene could take a long time to describe so I will try to break it down as simply as possible. Sybok doesn’t control minds he frees them up by allowing people to face their pains and inner demons and draw strength from it. McCoy asks how, and Sybok demonstrates. In a flashback we see McCoy pulled the plug on his dying father, not long before a cure was found. Sybok implores him to release his pain. The acting was fine, but the whole thing just seems, I don’t know, pointless. Apparently all you need to do is reveal some old trauma then hug it out. Wow, why are there psychologists then? He then moves on to Spock. In yet another flashback we see how disappointed Sarek was that Spock was born half-human. Ok, since when was Sarek ever upset about that? He and Spock fought over his choice of vocation. Also he had a human wife, what was he expecting?

Then he moves to Kirk, but Kirk refuses to participate. I have to say, I love the quote in this scene. Kirk says: "You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us--the things that make us who we are. I don't want my pain taken away. I need my pain." I like this quote, not that it saves this scene or the movie for that matter. I just don’t understand why we needed these deep character revelations on characters we have known and loved for years.

The whole scene is broken up when the ship reaches the barrier. Even though no ships have ever survived, the Enterprise does. They make it through the cheesy special effects storm, which is very dull by the way it makes you miss the old TV show, and they reach the blue planet. The crew discover an unknown energy source, as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy join the rest of them without explanation. Kirk decides that they may as well investigate and orders a landing party.

As a shuttle flies over the landscape (yes, the shuttle again!) we get a view of a purple tinted dessert. The shuttle lands and the crew disembark into a landscape which doesn’t quite match what we saw as they were flying over. On the ship the crew is so mesmerized no one notices the Klingon’s are approaching. Man this scene is slow. Ok, let’s speed this boring stuff up. They finally find this alien being, who proclaims he is God and needs a ship to get off the planet. Kirk asks the classic and reasonable question, “Why would God need a ship?” Long story short, it’s not God just an alien which starts to attack them.  The original sequence was apparently so horrible, they settled on the God creature shooting at them. It should be pointed out this scene was supposed to be different, but Shatner got handcuffed by the special effects department.

Basically, Sybok figures out everything he believed in was wrong and all for nothing. He sacrifices himself by jumping at the God alien whatever it is. Then the Enterprise fires a photon torpedo which destroys the area. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy survive the blast in a really bad special effects shot of them diving for cover. They then race back to the shuttle but it can’t lift off. Kirk calls Scotty who has the transporter working, well only two of them. Isn’t that always the way? Spock and McCoy are beamed up but Kirk is stuck on the planet with energy beams and explosions. Also, The Klingons are closing in, though no on one the Bridge seems to notice. The Klingons attack before they can beam Kirk up, creating a space battle that this movie really didn’t need. The Klingon captain announces he just wants Kirk, but Spock informs him that the good captain is still on the planet. Spock goes to the Klingon ambassador to assist, and gives a great line. “Damn you, sir, you will try!”

 As the Klingon vessel closes in on the Enterprise, we see Kirk on the now red planet climbing another rock ledge (symbolism? Nah) with the alien attacking, suddenly, the Klingon ship appears and fires on the alien. Kirk is then beamed up and on the Bridge Kirk gets an apology from the Klingon for wasting everyone’s time with this pointless plot thread. Just kidding, he apologizes for acting without orders. Then we see that Spock was the gunner on the Klingon Bridge. What??

The movie finally ends with a scene in the lounge of the Klingons and humans having a few good laughs. I guess even they couldn’t believe the movie they’d just made. They take one more opportunity to make Sulu and Chekov look like morons while Scotty drinks with a Klingon. Kirk and Spock exchange some kind words about how God is in your heart, and we cut to…..another campfire scene with them singing row row row your boat???

Oh please end! Wait, that’s it. Thank goodness. Anyway, as I said in the start the real question is how bad was this movie really? The truth is I could forgive the lame jokes, weak story and hammy special effects (isn’t that we got in the series?) What really ruins this movie is the way they screw over all the characters. They just come off like idiots, and even Spock and McCoy have their awkward moments. Also, it was boring. Not only do we not care about the story, there’s hardly any cool action. All of these problems I am happy to say they fixed in the 6^th movie.

No it wasn’t all Shatner’s fault. It wasn’t his fault they did not have a budget, or there was a writer’s strike, or the studio insisted they include stupid jokes. Basically what it comes down to is that there is no message in this movie and it isn’t any fun to watch. Simple as that.

Whew, glad that one’s over. I’ve been putting this off but don’t think I can anymore. Next time I will dive into the Next Generation movie. Oh, the pain!

The Worst of Trek-Part 3

Posted by richtv on Saturday, 22 October 2011 in Uncategorized

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What is the worst episode of Voyager? Also will be talking about DS9 and Enteprise.

So, here I am in January of 1996 looking through my TV Guide. I was not a regular fan of Star Trek-Voyager yet, but I had seen the show and was a little familiar with it. Then I see a caption advertising the next episode of Voyager had some really cool special make-up effects. Apparently it took five stages of make-up to transform Tom Paris into an amphibious creature.

I thought it sounded good, so I popped in the tape on my VCR and hit the record button. In those days I recorded lots of TV; in fact I have a whole library of TV from the late 80’s right thru the 90’s. But what did I manage to record his fine day? The worst stinking episode of Star Trek ever!

Ok, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. I had no idea “These are the Voyages” would come out years later. If you haven’t figured it out by now the episode I am referring to is “Threshold.” If you have no idea what this episode is, consider yourself fortunate. How bad is this episode? The writer himself apologized for it. That’s right; Brannon Braga wrote this stinker and was quoted in an interview as saying, “I wrote the episode, or at least the teleplay. It's a terrible episode.”

I could do a thorough review, but there is one in The Agony Booth’s sight and as I looked over that I’m really not sure what else I can add to it. That review said it all, but for those who are curious here is what happens in the episode briefly:

Tom Paris is all excited because he has found a way to break the transwarp barrier. The fact they did this is in Star Trek III and a few episodes of Next Gen is irrelevant. They rig a shuttle for a test run, and it works. Tom breaks warp 10 and then disappears. They finally find him and he’s in bad shape. He actually dies in sick-bay. A few minutes later, he comes back to life. Then he starts to change and exhibit all sorts of strange symptoms. His flesh changes and he can no longer tolerate water. As his symptoms get worst, he also starts to become irrational with a strong desire to get off the ship.

The mutation begins to get just gross; he even pulls out his tongue at one point. Just as he has become almost unrecognizable as a human, the doctor discovers a way to use anti protons to cure him. They begin the procedure, but because this episode needed another ten minutes to kill Tom escapes. Of course security is unable to stop him and Tom winds up escaping the ship in a shuttle.

I briefly jumped over something because I wanted to point out this is where the episode gets really silly. Before getting into the shuttle he somehow ambushes Captain Janeway and drags her along. The shuttle launches, of course no one is able to stop it, and we see Janeway staring at this creature as the scene changes. The narration indicates a few days has gone by, and we discover that the doctor has figured out that somehow Tom Paris’s transwarp flight accelerated that natural evolution process in him and he evolved into a specimen of what humans will look like in hundreds of years. Hope they don’t have mirrors then.

Voyager locates the planet the shuttle lands on, and Chakotay beams down with Tuvok. They find two salamander’s sitting in a pond and determine this is Paris and Janeway (yes, I’m not kidding). Not silly enough? After they stun the salamanders, they see something odd. Three little baby salamanders suddenly appear and swim away. So in three days, they turned into another species and managed to have offspring? Are you kidding me?

The final scene is back on Voyager, and in its own way is more ludicrous than the previous one. We see Janeway, perfectly fine as if nothing had happened. She goes over to Tom, also back to normal and just fine, and talks to him about the fact that they had alien babies together. Eeewwww. They end the episode with a typical laugh, and we are so happy to see that final shot of the ship speeding away.

Why did I tape this one?? Oh well, there are worst things that could have happened I suppose. I could have taped “Fury” (oh wait, I did!). I could have taped the final episode (nope, did that too!). I just can’t win.

All kidding aside, Star Trek Voyager wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t as good as Next Generation, but it had its moments. I think with “Threshold” they were just trying too hard to make a horror-esque show and it just doesn’t work for the same reason “Sub Rosa” didn’t work.

By the way, the absolute worst for me was that god awful “Fair Haven” crap. I mean, an Irish town? My wife liked that episode because it didn’t even resemble a Star Trek episode. That’s exactly what makes it so bad! Boring I can live with, but pointless and boring I don’t have time for.”The Fight” was god awful too; did we need the obligatory boxing show really? People put down “Nothing Human” a lot but I liked the debate involved, and there’s nothing like an ethics lesson from time to time. Finally, for those wondering why I haven’t mention the insanity in season one it’s because I was lucky enough to not have to experience that Kazon crap.

Well, I could talk about Voyager all day. In fact I will probably talk more about it at a later time. Right now I want to mention Deep Space Nine and Enterprise.

DS9 was the spin-off to Next Generation and had a darker tone. I gotta tell you, I never cared for DS9. Not saying it was bad, there were some good episodes like “Crossover”. Since I never watched it though, I don’t really know which episodes were really bad. So, I did some digging and found that there is one episode almost universally considered the worst show.

The episode is called “Profit and Lace”. Apparently this is a Ferengi episode where Quark has to cross-dress. That doesn’t sound very brilliant, and from what I’ve read no one really cares for this episode. Another episode that I know I never saw was about a baseball game the crew played on a holosuite. That sound’s just silly. Finally, the episode “Let He Who Is Without Sin” is generally considered unwatchable. The crew goes to Risa for a vacation, well what can go wrong there? They already did a boring Risa episode on Next Gen, why not DS9 too? From what I can tell the episode is just silly and pointless with everyone out of character for the entire hour.

Enterprise came after Voyager left the air and was just not done well. The cast was fine, but something just wasn’t right about the show. Many fans won’t even talk about it, and I can’t blame them. As with DS9, I didn’t watch this show regularly. One episode that seems to stand out as exceptionally bad, with this show it’s hard to be particular, is “Unexpected”. In this show a male member of the crew becomes pregnant. Ok, stop right there!

I would kind of like to see these episodes, and maybe someday I will so I can really talk about them. This article was kind a synopsis because there is already a great review of “Threshold” online and I really can’t talk about the other shows but I wanted to mention them. Next time I will start talking about the movies, and while it will be hard to talk about the horrible disappointment that was “Generations” without repeating things many of said before me, I’m willing to give it a shot.

What was your favorite? If I missed a great bad one let me know, maybe I just blocked it from my memory. Wish I could that with “Threshold”!

Top 5 Favorite TV Characters We Love To Hate

Sitcoms live in a very strange universe where things happen which could never happen in real life. For example, the way every problem is solved in 22 minutes. I have actually always argued about this, but that isn’t what I want to discuss today. I want to discuss characters we love to hate. You know, people who are so terrible that we wouldn’t tolerate them for a second in the real world. But in a sitcom we love them and enjoy watching them week after week. Here is my five favorite’s, and I am limiting these to sitcoms (with one exception). 

 

#5, Dan Fielding from Night Court.

 

Why on Earth would anyone like this character? Dan Fielding was a narcissistic, over-sexed, lecherous person who looked at women as objects to be conquered. He never thought of others. If sex was not on his mind than money was, he would take a gift and turn it around and pawn it for the cash almost instantly. If this character were a real person, he would probably be in jail for sexual harassment. However, as played by the great John Larroquette we got to see enough humanity in Dan to forgive his transgressions. One of the best scenes ever happened late in the series. Dan had gone through an arc where he turned into a good guy. Finally, on one episode an attractive women slapped him after a bad date, and suddenly Dan’s primal urges start to kick in and he returned to the lech we all loved. Not only did John Larroquete handle this scene beautifully, but the audience loved it! They cheered and screamed as Dan returned to his sex crazed ways. Where else but on TV would that happen?

#4, Louie De Palma from Taxi.

This guy was just a plain jerk. No, he wasn’t a jerk. He was an obnoxious ass. Only Danny Devito could have played this horrible character and give him just enough charm that fans didn’t hate his guts. Louie was the main dispatcher at the cab company, and was constantly yelling and insulting the other cab drivers. He could be downright abusive at times, but fans loved him and kept coming back for more. Not only did he do horrible things, but he enjoyed every second of being a miserable bastard.

#3, Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory.

In the first two examples, Louie and Dan were able to make friends because they found people who could see there was good in them and they learned to appreciate them. This guy is, at the most, tolerated by his group of friends. Sheldon is a genius physicist who has no social skills. He is uncaring about any and all social norms, and such a control freak that his friends never argue with him when he goes off about something because they know it’s pointless. Sheldon has to have everything his way, and has no qualms about insulting his friends from their profession to life style. He even made his best friend sign a roommate agreement which binds him to live exactly as Sheldon wants him to. Unlike the first two, you wonder just how anyone could put up with this guy for a second. And yet, we love to watch him and look forward to everything he says. Played by the great Jim Parsons, Sheldon has just enough humanity lurking inside of him that the audience can see it and laugh when he is obnoxious. His funniest scenes are when he loses his cool because his carefully structured universe doesn't always work as he thinks it should.

#2, Karen Walker from Will & Grace.

I mean, what can you say? Mean, selfish, spoiled, rich socialite who only cares about money. She has a husband and stepchildren but is only with them to maintain her socialite status. She spends little to no time with her family and is just fine with it. Her best friend is Jack because she is just as shallow as he is. They are two peas in a pod which is why they get along so well. The reason I chose her over him was because Jack is selfish in a childish way. Karen goes past Jack into plain hateful. She constantly puts down Grace from the clothes she wears to the men she dates, she doesn’t hold back at all not giving a care about other’s feelings. Plus, she is an alcoholic and a pill popping drug addict. She has no morals, no grip on reality; she works for Grace but does nothing, and is downright abusive to her house staff. Why did we watch her week after week? Because Megan Mulally did a great job of making this obnoxious character a true laugh to watch, from her voice, to her one liners, to the quirky way she acts.  We love it every time she is on the screen.

 #1, George Costanza from Seinfeld.

 

Oh, you knew he was going to be on here. One the most despicable characters in television history, and yet we love to watch him week after week. We could list his faults all day. He is selfish, dim witted, neurotic, paranoid, cheap, liar, insecure, conniving and on and on it goes. He can’t hold a job, and it’s a wonder why his friends put up with his annoying whining. I always understood why Jerry hung out with him; it’s because Jerry sees in George the person he would have been had he not been successful in comedy. As Jerry notes in an episode, George’s misery gives him pleasure. Unlike the others on this list who pretend not to care but really they do, George is the opposite. He pretends to care but really he is just worried about himself. Take the episode “The Cadillac”. Elaine’s friend mentions that she could have hooked George up with Marisa Tomei. Finally, George makes Elaine call her to set up a date. Elaine finds out that the friends is now in the hospital with a heart condition. When she tells George this, his response is to roll his eyes and ask “But what about Marisa Tomei?” Nice! Jason Alexander created a character with no redeeming values at all, which is not easy. Even the others in the cast have their moments when they seem to be kind (and I’m not talking about that horrible final episode!), but not George. He is just a loser, and that’s why we love to watch him.

Special Mention, Oscar the Grouch

Not a sitcom character, but I had to mention Oscar the Grouch. We all loved him on Sesame Street, but why? Not just a grouch, he's downright mean. Not only does he make fun his friends and everything they do, he plays mean tricks on them. I can never forget the old Christmas special where he tells Big Bird there is no Santa! That's just evil. Big Bird then sets out to prove him wrong, and my favorite scene was always when Maria literally strangles Oscar and chews him out. Ah, old school Sesame Street. Of course as with the others on the list Oscar did have a soft side. He was mean but we loved him, in fact he is the one character who still makes me laugh out loud with his one liners and nasty comments to this day.

Its interesting that all these actors one Emmy’s for their roles (accept Jason Alexander which is a real shame. How did he get robbed?). I think one of the things we like about these character’s is that they are all happy with who they are, even if that is being terrible. What saves these characters is that each and every one will have moments where we get a glimpse of the real person beneath the obnoxious, crass façade. We see that deep down, they do care they just don’t like to show it. Or, in George's case, we see that he came from a painfully bad childhood which likewise makes him more sympathetic. Maybe that is the lesson from these characters, to not judge someone by how they act on the outside but look in, at the real person inside. Not a bad lesson at all.

I know I left out lots of others. Honorable mentions include Monica from Friends, Dwight from The Office, Nina from Just Shoot Me, and Suzanne Sugarbaker from Designing Women. Who were your favorites?

Sitcom Crossover Hell

It seems like a good idea, take a character or character’s from one show and put them into another. I mean, what can go wrong? I already talked about the curse of backdoor pilots, but that was focused on spinning off show’s from an existing one which was already popular. What happens if we take a show that is not as good and dump a character from a more popular show in it?

I am not sure when this started exactly, I know spin-off’s go back as far as the Andy Griffith Show (which was a spin-off of the Danny Thomas Show, did everyone know that?). But what about crossovers, those stunts in sweeps periods were two perfectly good shows mingle their casts together.

The most infamous example of this has to be The Golden Girls. This show has a spin-off called Empty Nest, and there was another show called Nurse’s. Nurses could have been a spin-off of Empty Nest though I don’t think it is officially. However, because all three were created by the same person and filmed on the same lot (not to mention on the same night), it was a no brainer that we would get crossover’s. They had a couple where the characters of Empty Nest and Golden Girls would appear on each other’s shows. For example one episode The Golden Girls had Barbara Weston intervene when we discover Rose is dating a killer for hire (it’s a long story). Then Empty Nest had an episode with B story all about Rose getting into a minor car accident with Harry.

Then in 1991-1992 NBC decided to do a big stunt. This was called “Hurricane Saturday”, and the idea was that a hurricane was going to impact all three shows. The problem was with the crossovers in these episodes. There is no reason for Carol to appear on Golden Girls, and Sophia’s appearance on Empty Nest feels forced. The Nurse’s episode has two crossover’s, Laverne from Empty Nest (which makes no sense if you just watched the Empty Nest episode that followed it), and Rose from Golden Girls which makes a little sense. The writers couldn’t even keep it the same storm, I guess they figured Golden Girls needed a happy ending so we find the storm ending, and when Empty Nest begins another storm is coming.

Apparently the stunt was successful enough because NBC did it again in February. “Full Moon Saturday” had the full moon as the common thread between the three shows. This time, to the writer’s credit, they made the crossovers make sense. Carol and Barbara appear on Golden Girls logically, then on Empty Nest Rose appears (I know, Rose again?) and continues her story from the Golden Girls episode. On Nurse’s, not only do we get Blanche (and her appearance makes sense, it ends her story from the Golden Girls episode which was kind of left hanging) we get Charlie from Empty Nest. Charlie is even wearing the same outfit, since this was supposed to be the same day, or that night, of the Empty Nest episode that just ended. This was a much better crossover, attention was made to detail and it almost feels like a continuous story unlike the poorly done Hurricane episodes.

After Golden Girls went off the air Nurse’s and Empty Nest kept crossing over regularly, in a few instances stories begun in one show would end in the other. For example, Geraldo Rivera was on Empty Nest and when he is injured in the end, he goes to Nurse’s for treatment. Clever, but it didn’t keep Nurse’s alive.

NBC wasn’t about to be undone though. When they realized that Mad About You, Friends, Seinfeld, and a horrible show called Madman of the People were all New York comedies which aired on the same night, the solution was obvious. A crossover stunt! Blackout Thursday would start on an episode of Mad About You where Jamie would cause a city wide blackout which would send the other show’s in the dark. There was only one problem, Larry David refused to participate. Seinfeld was THE show on the network at the time, so what could NBC do? Seinfeld did a normal episode and the whole stunt was spoiled. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I am proud that Seinfeld didn’t cave in to pressure. So, Friends gets plunged into darkness but the problem is there are no crossover’s of any kind. Anyone who watches this show in re-runs has no idea why the blackout started, just as people who catch the Mad About You episode has no idea how the blackout was resolved. As for the Madman of the People, they did do a blackout episode but the show was horrible and was soon canceled, so who cares? NBC should have made this strictly a Mad About You-Friends crossover, which is what it basically turned into.

As we see sometimes these stunts kind of work, but usually they fail. You can almost feel the writers forcing the situation. ABC did a stunt which was worst than anything NBC tried to do. Back in 1998 The show’s Grace Under Fire, Drew Carey, Coach, and Ellen were on the same night. ABC was desperate to do a crossover even though the show’s had nothing in common, so they decided what they would do is get each show to Las Vegas, where the casts would meet each other. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Talk about being forced, Called Viva Las Vegas night the episodes don’t flow into each other at all. All the character’s meet at a roulette wheel but each episode handled the scene differently. The scenes don’t match and except for Drew Carey Show the crossovers are pointless. From what I understand there were problems getting these cast members together, not helped by the fact that the main cast of Coach and Ellen refused to participate.

ABC had better luck with their TGIF crossover event which started on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. Salem the cat would eat a time ball, which causes the surroundings to change into whatever time period the mortals thought of. In Sabrina’s episode it was the 60’s. Salem escaped before it could be retrieved and winds up at the school in Boy Meets World. They had just learned all about World War 2, so that’s where everyone is transported. Fortunately, mortals are not aware of these changes. Salem then wanders into the show’s Teen Angel and You Wish which were canceled soon after. However, they did a great job of tying all four shows’ together. Rather than show the resolution of each episode, they waited until the story was resolved then showed all four show’s being resolved. Just a great way to make the story actually work, and I always regret that I didn’t record that one.

CBS was not immune to this kind of stuff. They did a “Shameless Crossover Monday” with the show’s King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Cosby. There was no running story, basically the actors of one show appeared in the others. For example Cosby had an episode about Frank Barone which of course also featured Ray. Ray appeared in a few King of Queens episodes. The oddest one came on a second “Shameless Crossover Monday”, which really wasn’t that kind of stunt. The new series Becker had premiered, and the idea was that Hilton from Cosby, Doug from King of Queens, and Ray from ELR would all meet in Becker’s waiting room. What they really did was take the beginning of the Becker episode, and show pieces of it. So Cosby ended with Hilton showing up in Becker’s office, problem is this is really the beginning of Becker not the end of the actual Cosby episode we had just seen. The reason I say that is to this day when I see program listings from the King of Queens and Raymond episodes, the listing always has “Ray meets Doug at Dr.Becker’s office” or vice versa. If you watch the actual episodes, we don’t see Ray meet Doug anywhere! I often wonder if people come across this in reruns and wonder why the description says that when the episode doesn’t show it. The answer is, because it was really the beginning of a Becker episode where all three arrive in the office. By the way, it’s just for the teaser in the start the episode has nothing to do with these cameos, which is basically all they are.

The late great Elizabeth Taylor was the subject of another stunt. It started on the Nanny when Fran lost Elizabeth Taylor’s necklace, and the search continued through the remaining shows. Two of them were horrible show’s which quickly disappeared, the other was Murphy Brown and like I had just said about the Becker crossover, it was more of a cameo then a crossover because after the first five minutes the Elizabeth Taylor story disappeared and the real episode began. What I liked though was when the necklace was found in the fourth show, just like the Sabrina stunt had done, the ending cut back to The Nanny which was a great way to tie the stories together (even if it subsequently made the story make no sense).

Crossover stunts don’t have to cover the whole night. It can just be between two shows. On one clever episode of Family Matters, Steve Urkel has a new invention which sends him flying through the roof of the Winslow house and into the sky. He keeps flying until he finally lands in the Lambert’s back yard on Step By Step. Of course Urkel also appeared on a Full House episode. Back in the day, Happy Days did an episode where a wedding began on Happy Days and ended on Laverne & Shirley. At the end of the Happy Days episode Fonz and Richie are in trouble, so Richie runs for help and right into the Laverne & Shirley episode. I caught this on Nick @ Nite a few years back, and loved it. Diff’rent Strokes did lots of these with Facts of Life, Hello Larry, and even Silver Spoons believe it or not. Probably one of the wildest was when Carl Reiner brought his Alan Brady character from The Dick Van Dyke show onto Mad About You.

The list goes on and on, and yes does include drama's. Since ER and Third Watch shared producers, it was easy to have a story begin on ER and end on Third Watch. In fact this crossover was handled very well. Charlie's Angels appeared on Love Boat, Magnum PI met Jessica from Murder She Wrote among others, and X-Files even appeared on the Simpsons once. 

Well, there you have it. A little look back at when networks want ratings. Seriously, if done correctly these can be fun and enjoyable. Which were your favorites? I'm not sure how much this happens now, but in researching this I found out CSI did a crossover with Two and a Half Men. Now that I want to see!

Batman (1966) Movie Review

I have done a lot of articles, but so far I have not attempted to do a full fledged review. So, here is my first attempt. I am going to talk about the Batman movie from 1966, the one which is impossible to watch without laughing (and for all the wrong reasons). Hope you like this.

Before I begin I want to say that the 1966 Batman show was fantastic. For the time it was on, the show was brilliant. At that time the Batman comics were silly and campy, so the show lived up to that very well. It was well written and had a great cast starting with Adam West. West did the best Batman until Michael Keaton came along, his straight man act was perfect for the role. However, what works in a half hour TV show may not work as well in a 90 minute movie. I guess I give them credit for trying, and in the summer of 66, between season’s one and two, the movie hit theatres. I will spare you a full fledged description of the characters, if you don’t know who the characters were or the actors who played them then you probably aren’t even interested in this to begin with.

We open with a longer version of the theme song, as the credits roll over an odd montage which makes no sense. I guess it’s supposed to be Batman and Robin pursuing the criminals, but it just seems out of place.

The credits end and we get the typical narrator talking about how a yacht is bringing a revolutionary scientific invention to Gotham. We see Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson rushing back to the mansion. I love how the movie budget gives them a chance to show the duo driving up to the house, and racing inside. Anyway, they rush into the library, slide down the polls, and are the Dynamic Duo again. Apparently the inventor, Commodore Schmidlapp, is on the yacht and has been reported in grave danger. We see the usual dash to the Batmobile, and so far this is the best episode ever!

It takes the movie not even two minutes to show the first new cool vehicle for Batman. The Batcopter, which is in an airport they need to drive to. I realize the movie only had so much money, but does that make sense really? Wouldn’t that be like Batman going to Hertz every time he needed his car? Batman must really trust these guys! They board the copter, leaving the Batmobile sitting on the tarmac! and proceed to fly around and buzz a building. The scenes are quite nice, even though they just slow the movie down. Could we get to the story guys? Five minutes in and all they’ve done is show off.

Finally, we get to the yacht. They drop the Bat Ladder (which even has a nice sign on it which says that, to avoid confusion) and Batman climbs down toward the boat. Just when Batman is about to land on the boat, it disappears and a shark grabs his leg! How does Batman get out of this jam? He has Robin throw down the shark repellent, of course! Not even ten minutes yet and this already ridiculous. This makes the bat credit card seem logical. The spray works and the shark drops and explodes, with no damage at all to Batman’s leg even though the shark was munching on it for a few minutes. By the way, the shark is more fake then Jaws 3-D. Then we cut to next scene making that one pretty pointless.

We suddenly appear in Commissioner Gordon’s office were a slew of reporters are taking pictures. Batman conducts a press conference about the yacht, denying that it disappeared. During the press conference we are introduced to Russian reporter Miss Kitka from the Moscow Bugle. I always love how in this series everyone knows they have secret identities, Robin even admits they live with family, and yet no can find out what they are. Anyway, I digress.

Batman deduces that the warning about the yacht was a trap, meant to decoy them from the real kidnapping. They try to find out who is behind the threat, and using a closed circuit TV they deduce that the known criminals not in prison are Penguin, Joker, Riddler, and Catwoman. It’s obvious the pics they show were publicity shots, in the shot of Catwoman she is in Wayne manor. They try to figure out which one is behind the scheme, and deduce it is all of them.

We cut to a pier where we see Ms.Kitka emerge and go into a seedy bar. In the back, the villains are collaborating. Ms.Kitka, it’s revealed, is in reality Catwoman. The villains agree they have to work together, and discuss their plans. Their hostage has no idea he was even kidnapped, as they tend to him. Penguin figures that Batman and Robin are closer to figuring out what is going on, so he makes plans to divert them. He commands the henchmen to get the submarine ready (and for some reason the henchmen yell “yo-ho” after every order. That doesn’t get annoying).

In the Batcave, Batman realizes that the yacht they saw was just an illusion. They determine where the projection came from, an illegal projection buoy carefully camouflaged. Not sure when legal projection buoy’s started being used, but ok then.  They determine the coordinates and head off in the Batboat to investigate further.

Batman and Robin reach the Batboat which is just a speedboat. It is just sitting plain as day by the side of the pier, no guard or anything. We get treated to some shots of the boat speeding across the ocean, to its destination. As it does, the Penguin’s submarine lurks beneath them. I never understood why Penguin is the boss, or why Joker or Riddler would take orders from him. Anyway, Batman and Robin find the buoy and the shark cage that the shark came from. As they investigate, Penguin activates the magnet inside the buoy and magnetizes the dynamic duo to it. These villains are amazing; they made a hologram projector and converted the buoy into a magnet!

The submarine prepares to fire, while Batman finds his transmitter. Just as the first torpedo is fired, Batman gets his transmitter and uses it to reverse the polarity of the torpedo. They do this for the second also. The third time the transmitter fails because the batteries die (he should have used Energizer!). It looks like the dynamic duo are done for, as the buoy explodes. We hear the explosion off screen and the villains celebrate. Suddenly, we cut to Batman and Robin just fine in the Batboat! What happened? Why a porpoise sacrificed himself by hurling himself into the path of the torpedo, of course! That doesn’t explain how they escaped the magnetic buoy, but we’re moving on now.

Batman and Robin then call the navy department to find out where the submarine came from. It seems the navy disposed of a pre-atomic nuclear submarine to a man named P N Guin. That doesn’t seem like a national security breach at all! Batman does dress down the admiral, but the whole thing is a bit hard to believe. This was the cold war era remember. They try to make the admiral come off as a fool but the idea they would just up and sell a submarine to someone is still hard to swallow.

Anyway, a Polaris missile then shoots out of the water and it explodes a message. The message is a riddle, in the form of a joke. I give the writers credit for trying to give Riddler something to do here, but how did the criminals know Batman survived? They were celebrating his death the last we saw them. Back in Commissioner Gordon’s office the joke riddle (?) confirms that the villains are working together. They deduce since it’s four of them their objective must be to conquer the entire world. We then cut to the villains discussing the United World Headquarters. This is a made-up version of the United Nations, more on that in a bit. The villains discuss that they are running out of time and they need to do something about Batman. They discuss a plan to send Batman into the arms of Penguin’s exploding Octopus. They already did an exploding shark, so why not? They decide to use a disguised Catwoman to lure Bruce Wayne into their clutches which will subsequently bring Batman into their trap.

We cut to Wayne Manor where Ms.Kitka is speaking to Bruce Wayne. We get a whole scene were they get to know each other, and Bruce falls for her. She gives Bruce some riddles she discovered and while Alfred escorts her out Bruce sneaks off to the Batcave to interpret the riddles. They determine that the riddles are a threat to Ms.Kitka’s life, figuring that she must have somehow stumble onto their plans and now they are going to kill her. They decide to set a trap for the villains, while Bruce goes out with Ms.Kitka, Robin and Alfred will monitor from the Batmobile.

Bruce and Ms.Kitka enjoy a lovely evening, which I have to say kind of slows the movie down here. It was moving pretty well till this part. Since we know Ms.Kitka is Catwoman there is no suspense, it’s just a waste of time and an excuse for Adam West to look pretty without his cowl on. Robin has the bright idea to shine the bat signal to trick the criminals into making their move. Then when Bruce and Ms.Kitka start to get real close, Robin decides to stop monitoring because it’s the only decent thing to do. Brilliant Robin.

The villains move in on flying, whatever they are. Then, big surprise, the villains ambush the hotel and Bruce can’t defeat them all. I’d make a joke on what Robin must have been doing while this was happening, but will refrain. After Bruce is captured, we go back to the Batmobile where Robin is anxiously trying to decide whether or not to start monitoring again. Alfred convinces him to, and he finds out its too late.  

We cut to a scene where the villains await Batman’s arrival. Bruce threatens the villains if they harm Ms.Kitka, and Catwoman has Bruce bound and gagged. The villains bring him to a room where Catwoman has turned back to Ms.Kitka. They have some more tender moments as they discuss their situation. Bruce tries to escape but that fails. As the villains try to search him, Bruce breaks into another fight scene. This time Bruce does a good job, and one henchman accidentally activates0 the trap for Batman. The henchman is thrown into the exploding octopus.

Bruce actually manages to escape, and return to Wayne Manor. No thanks to Robin, but of course Bruce just moves on to the Batcave. Personally, I would have wanted a quick word with Robin first for screwing everything up. Anyway, the villains are discussing their plan again. They realize they need to do Penguin’s plan to get Batman out of the way, crazy as it may be.  

Penguin gets the scientific invention which we learn is able to extract every bit of moisture from a person’s body, leaving them a small pile of colored dust on the floor. I could go into the science of this and how it’s preposterous to dehydrate someone like that. What’s even crazier the weapon can also rehydrate a person, whole and safe? Even Star Trek could barely get away with that. Anyway, Penguin dehydrates five henchmen and plans to trick Batman into letting him into the Batcave, with the dehydrated men.

Batman and Robin return to the criminal hide-out to rescue Ms.Kitka. Instead, Batman finds a bomb. This is the silliest bomb ever, looks like something Bugs Bunny would use. Then we are treated to a hilarious scene of Batman trying to get rid of the thing but a marching band and other obstacles including some birds get in his way. Finally the bomb explodes, and we find Batman is fine because he disposed of it in time.

Penguin, in a bad disguise, gets Batman and Robin to bring him to the Batcave. They use batgas to knock Penguin out, and once again Robin points out that they have secret identities.  Once in the Batcave the Penguin rehydrates the men, and you’d think we’d get another silly fight scene. However, the men disappear when hit because the water used to rehydrate them was heavy water, and left the men unstable and they were reduced to antimatter. Seriously? This scene was a real waste. Why do I think the writers decided they didn’t want a fight scene after all so this was the cop out to save some money?

Batman and Robin pretend that they are fooled by Penguin’s disguise so he will lead them to the others. Batman and Robin allow Penguin to overpower them and steal the Batmobile. Then we get to see the cool Batcycle as they pursue the Penguin. The Batcycle is stored behind a random bush, which really sounds safe. Batman is certainly a trusting fellow. They take the cycle back to the copter, where they track Penguin over the city. As they fly, Riddler sends some more Polaris missile’s in the air. It seems like they are struck and the copter is out of control. It goes spinning and spinning down, and lands…on a huge sponge at the foam rubber wholesalers convention. Seriously, you can’t make this up. Not only do Batman and Robin survive but the copter is fine.

The missile wrote two riddles in the sky before exploding (I have no idea how either). The riddles lead Batman and Robin to the United World Organization. They then run down the streets, and through a crowd of people, as the Penguin’s submarine reaches its destination. As the villains disembark, the heroes run in front of an obvious blue screen effect (sorry, I mean down the street, of course!). The villains sneak in some kind of back entrance, and Joker wears a mask for the only time ever. We are then treated to stock footage of the United Nations. Now, I gotta ask, did the creators think we were stupid? Why not just say it was the United Nations, or else use a clip of some more obscure building?

The villains break into the general assembly, which is comprised of nine men from nine countries just sitting around a table in a little room. This looks like a board meeting, not the Security Council. And why only nine? The real Security Council has 15 members. The villains slip in, and no one in the room appears to notice them. In fact, even when Joker starts to dehydrate them all no one notices anything. They just keep talking. If these men were in control of our world, it’s a wonder we got out of the 60’s.

So, the villains turn the security pile into little colored piles of sand. Each one is a different color by the way, who knows why, and the villains put them in separate vials. Batman and Robin race in and find out they are too late. That’s another thing, great security in this building. Batman and Robin confront the villains but Catwoman keeps them away by declaring Ms.Kitka will be killed if they stop them. The villains escape and plan to ransom the nine members of the council.

Once again we see the Batboat racing to rendezvous with the sub. By the way, I have no idea what happened to the Batmobile after Penguin stole it. Anyway, once again the villains try to torpedo the Batboat. We get another scene of Batman jamming a torpedo, causing it to explode followed by the villains celebrating. I guess they figured this was so cool the first time, why not do it again. The Batboat finally catches up to the sub; Batman forces the sub to surface using a charge which disables the boat. This is kind of cool. As the sub is tossed around we see the commodore oblivious, and the vials loose and out in the open, totally in danger of braking. Nice of the villains to make sure that stuff was secure.

So the sub surfaces and Batman and Robin board it. This leads to the big fight scene with the heroes and villains. This is a straight out of the series fight with the cool captions and everything. BAP! POW! This is a long fight scene, but understandably. As the villains are dispensed with, Batman races to follow Catwoman inside the sub. Catwoman trips in what has to be the fakest fall ever, losing her mask and revealing she is in fact Ms.Kitka. We get a close-up for a heartbroken Batman, as he recalls the song he heard earlier on his date.

Batman accepts it and moves on, disabling the sub and alerting the coast guard. He gets his hands on the vials, and makes sure they are safe. Everything is good, until Schmidlapp suddenly emerges and causes Batman to spill the vials! The sand is blown all over the place, oh no!

Back in the Batcave, Batman is using the Molecular Dust Separator. Thank heavens he had one of those around. The filter attempts to separate the dust while the world waits and watches including the president who we see from behind sitting, I’m not even sure where. The filer works, and we see Batman and Robin back the United World ready to restore the men. Everything is set, and unlike how Joker dehydrated them one at a time this time Batman rehydrates them all at once. The men are alive and keep arguing as if nothing had happened at all. There is only problem, each person is speaking a different language than before and acting differently. Why not, the science was preposterous to begin with, I guess if I can accept everything to this point I can buy this too.

Batman and Robin simply sneak out the window, their jobs finished. As they climb down the words “The Living End?” come on the screen. I have no idea what that means. Fade to black, that’s it.

What do I think? It was good, but not as good as a regular episode. It felt like it has been stretched out and just didn’t have that same feel. The final boat chase and fight dragged on a bit too long. I think the writer’s ran out of ideas and were trying to keep it going to make it a feature length. I loved the villains; they were great and interacted very well. Of course we look back at this and say it was ridiculous, but I loved watching this show in re-runs and this movie, while not great, is a pretty fun, silly way to kill 90 minutes.