Mortal Kombat (1993) - The Alternative Instruktion Manual

It's no secret that one of my oldest and dearest hobbies is playing video games, and that I generally prefer the older ones: games with simple control schemes and no learning curve, which are quaint and non-threatening and which I warmly remember playing as a child. Luckily for me, my tastes are very much catered for at the moment, as the last ten years have seen a rush of revivals, re-releases and nostalgic internet musings. People of my generation are starting to look back to their pasts, and want to play Super Mario Bros. and Zelda and Goldeneye all over again. Retro is in.

But one series of games that has curiously never been re-released (not properly anyway) is Mortal Kombat - the main rival to the brilliant Street Fighter 2, which invented and simultaneously perfected the 'tournament fighter' genre.

Mortal Kombat was one of the few imitations that almost surpassed the original. It had neat graphics based on animated photographs rather that standard cartoons, it had a cool oriental theme... and it had a comical amount of blood. And death moves. By today's standards these are silly and tame, but as a small child playing these behind my parents' backs, I remember feeling a wonderful hot flush of guilt at the back of my neck.

Death. Moves. You could rip people's heads off and everything! Or at least, Gary from number 12 said he had a friend who knew how to rip people's heads off. It was a secret move which no-one really knew how to do. I just settled for an uppercut as my standard finishing move, which I pretended was fatal.

Scorpion, seen here reassuring himself that that final knee-to-the-chest probably caused internal bleeding or something, as a legion of unimpressed John Malcoviches clap politely.

So it was with enormous joy that I noticed today that whoever it is that bought up Midway have gone and released all three of the classic 2D Mortal Kombat games, in one package, on Xbox Live Arcade! Immediately I downloaded it and got to grips with a nicely-ported version of the arcade machine original. I played as Liu Kang, because I remembered how to do his moves, and bravely chose the 'normal' difficulty setting. As a kid I remember finding this game pretty tough and never daring to go higher than the insultingly-misnamed 'very easy' mode. But you know, nowadays I'm so much wiser and smarter. I have a beard of sorts. I bet now I can win it, maybe even properly!
All right, let's do this! It's time for MOOORDAL KAWMBAAAAAT! *and then techno music in my head.*

The following hour was interesting. As I played, I was mentally compiling the following instruction booklet. I wish I'd had this information available before I'd started. It might have helped me lose less.

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FIGHT!

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1. Getting Started

Thank you for your purchase, and welcome to the curious and soul-destroying world of MORTAL KOMBAT (TM)! Here at Midway we pride ourselves on not just copying Street Fighter 2 outright, but rather putting time and effort into disguising that fact, and doing all we can to piss off your parents too (yes this is the game where you can rip people's heads off, and no, this booklet will not tell you how to do that.)

First, download and open your 'Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection' virtual game pak. After maybe a hundred company credits screens, the game will begin. Now press 'Start' and try not to notice the spelling and grammar errors in the load-screen instructions. The original classic MORTAL KOMBAT is the first game available, so just hit start. Now select a difficulty. These range from 'Quite hard' through to 'Bloody hard', 'Jesus Christ this is hard', 'How do they expect children to play this?' and 'Nobody even tested this.' Choose based on your tolerance for pychological pain and hit 'Start'.


2. The Story...

The story of MORTAL KOMBAT begins many centuries ago, when the Elder Gods separated creation into several realms: Earthrealm (the Earth), Outworld (a mixed lesbian and gay nightspot which did very well for itself), Netherrealm (Hell), Edenia (paradise) and the realms of Order and Chaos (filler). Upon doing this, the Gods decreed that should one realm's rulers wish to invade another realm, then they would have to stage a martial arts tournament known as Mortal Kombat (the Elder Gods were apparently dyslexic) and have one if its representative fighters win against those representing the other realm ten times in a row. Everybody got that?

The Elder Gods figured that nobody would ever win ten in a row (like, who has the time and stuff), but failed to realise that some of their new realms would breed distinctly better fighting champions than others. As such, Edenia and Order-realm were conquered pretty quickly, and the Emporer of Outworld starting getting ideas about Earth.

Ten generations later, the Emporer found himself sitting on nine straight victories and ready for a tenth. His finest general and martial-arts master, Shang Tsung, organised the most important Mortal Kombat tournament of all: the fight for Earth. Acting quite hastily, the thunder-God Raiden assumed human form and gathered a handful of top Earth-based fighters at the absolute last minute, explaining the rules and origin of the tournament en-route. Their questions about why he hadn't warned them, trained them or prepared the Earth in any way were brushed aside as he told them something about destiny and responsibility, which they weren't listening to.

Later that day, the dazed and baffled kombatants arrive at Tsung's mysterious private island, where the tournament is about to begin...

As one of Earth's chosen warriors (the first six guys Raiden could think of, chosen on the basis that they had cool names), you must save the Earth from invasion by defeating and ideally murdering the other contestants, two ninjas, the famous Prince Goro and finally Shang Tsung himself (yes, Outworld only picked two guys to fight for it). Do you have the strength, skill and inner harmony required to defeat the deadly gauntlet... of Mortal Kombat? No.


3. The Kharacters

You will be given a choice of seven martial arts experts, representing a range of styles and cultures from across the globe. All of them posess magical powers of some kind, but weapons are not allowed, unless you're Scorpion. Scorpion has some kind of disability scam going, but the details are cloaked in mystery.

Liu Kang is the canonical hero, despite the fact that he is Bruce Lee. Aledgedly. Similarities and legal disputes aside, Liu is a brave Shaolin Monk who has entered the tournament in order to save the Earth. He wears black pants and cuts his hair short. He is Chinese, and... makes noises like Bruce Lee.

Raiden is the ancient Chinese-I-Guess God of thunder, alive inside a mortal body, sunhat, apron and white hazardous materials suit. He has the power to shoot electricity from his hands, and can hurl himself across the room like a torpedo while screaming incomprehensible faux-Chinese gibberish. This all sounds good, but remember that he and his hand-picked elite squads have so far failed to win a single tournament out of the last ten. Might not want to bet on this guy.

Johnny Cage... looks nothing like you remembered. You were expecting a cool guy in sunglasses and black trousers, right, like in the movie? The real Johnny wears wierd pirate shorts with a sash, squats with his legs apart and hands up as if he's about to do the Walk Like an Egyptian dance, and his face is oddly long and serious-looking.

Sonya Blade is the girl. Got to have a girl. If she gets you with the sweep kick, she will automatically do this annoying move with her legs, thus effectively sweeping you twice. Also she is an FBI agent. For some reason she is wearing lime-green exercise gear.

Sub-Zero is a ninja who dresses in sky-blue and posesses the ability to freeze solid matter, but sadly not the ability to come up with a subtle or creative nickname. His freeze-move is extremely useful as it is hard to block and slows down the combat for a few precious moments.

Scorpion is exactly like Sub-Zero except that he wears yellow instead of blue, and he shoots an Inspector Gadget-style harpoon from his hand and yells 'Get ooover here!' in a deep American accent, thus overshadowing the obvious palette-swap effect by being the most fun character in the game. Like the freeze move, the Harpoon is much more helpful than most special moves.

Kano has a metal plate covering his glowing red eye, throws magic knives and in the film seemed to be a Cockney crime boss. However, is is rubbish.


4. How to Play

After you have selected your fighter, your opponents will be laid out in order of difficulty, and the easiest one will immediately begin kicking the everliving crap out of you. Don't worry - you paid your ten bucks, so you have unlimited continues! During the ensuing defeats you will learn that every fighter is able to high-kick, low-kick, furiously wail on the other guy with fast punches, sweep kick, block, perform specific special moves and of course... uppercut.

There are three ways to win a fight. Any other stretagy will fail.

1) Be Sub-Zero or Scorpion, and thus have an easy special move which incapacitates the other guy for a second. Abuse the hell out of this move. Shout 'Get oooover here!' to amuse yourself, but remember this is still no guarantee of victory in the cruel world of Mortal Kombat. The first time someone blocks your harpoon and proceeds to brutalise you in revenge, your heart will break.
2) Wail on that impossibly-fast jackass with high punches every time he gets close to you. You will look silly, but maybe you'll win and the game will not laugh at you or loudly applaud your defeat (it does this a lot).
3) Play the uppercut and sweep game. Once you're fairly close to your opponent, he will try to sweep-kick you. The trick is to be slightly too far away and then walk towards him to deliver the uppercut. And vice versa - that is, if he tries to uppercut, you sweep the leg, Johnny, and you sweep it good. Be aware that he will be trying the same thing. Don't keep trying to do one or the other - you must alternate between both moves.

If you do win, you will hear a deep voice cry, 'Finish him!' (regardless of your opponent's gender) and be allowed to perform a finishing move! You have half a second to do it, and the instructions (on the pause menu) are tiny, complex and incomprehensible. You will likely never accomplish this.

Every few levels you will be granted a bonus round. Here you will hear the deep voiced guy say, 'Test your might!' and in the following 0.034 seconds you must tap the punch button until you have built up enough power to hit 'block' and thus shatter a piece of wood before your power sinks back down. You will never accomplish this. The game is just trying to demoralise you.

At one point, you'll fight on The Pit Stage. This is a stage set on a thin stone bridge over a pit of spikes. The winner here is able to actually perform a finishing move, by simply uppercutting the loser and thus dropping him onto the spikes. This feels amazing and makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Liu Kang: "I'm doing it! I'm actually doing it!!"

Once five of your opponents have been beaten and one unfortunate soul has been thrown on the spikes, you will enter what the tournament spectators lovingly call 'The Padding':

- First the Mirror Match! You must fight an identical copy of yourself for unknown reasons. Here the game is able to dispel the false belief you have built up, that you are playing with any degree of skill. The computer-controlled copy will demonstrate how you were supposed to be playing this whole time, until you either replicate his inhumanly-fast style or get lucky with the sweeps and uppercuts.
- Then you will face the first Endurance fight! Here you fight two of the other fighters back to back! This is, as you would imagine, twice as hard as what you've been doing so far. Time to up your game, chum.
- Twenty minutes later, you face another Endurance fight! Same as before. You might want to get a cup of coffee or something. Count youself lucky you're not playing this on an arcade in the mid 90's, feeding a limitless supply of 50ps into it just so that maybe you can get to the next round, which is...
- Another fucking Endurance fight. You have now fought everyone twice, including the guy you killed earlier. You may begin to question the alledged 'mortality' of the Kombat at this point.


5. Almost There! Except...

Once you defeat the Padding, you will notice that you are shaking, exhausted and sporting a healthy stubble. Well done: this is the mark of a true Mortal Kombat player! You are now ready for the two final challenges - Outworld's two greatest fighters! The battle to save all of mankind!

But never mind that shit - here comes GORO!

Just another day for Goro. Here he is, preparing to crucify Scorpion with nothing but his bare fists and the air. The bones belong to Chuck Norris.

Goro is a half-man, half-dragon. Like Johnny Cage, he looks nothing at all like how you remember him or how he looked in the movie. He fights you outside a cave with glowing monster eyes peeping out from the darkness, and he is enormous and has four arms. You can't knock him over by uppercutting or sweeping, and he can kill you in three or four hits. Also, he growls constantly. Like, constantly. You grow to really resent that.

Goro's special moves include punching you so hard it kills you whilst growling, grabbing hold of you, growling and punching you multiple times and betting on whether you die on an even or odd number, throwing you so hard you lose consciousness and then punching you and growling, shooting a fireball which melts your flesh before it even hits you, jumping onto your head and stomping your body into a fine dust which he then sets sets fire to and stomps on all over again to put it out, and growling as he makes a sandwich out of your lungs, which he then serves to his giant, four-armed mates, who immediately punch the sandwich so hard it flies into outer space and burns up in the sun and then the sun explodes from the sheer force of the punch. Goro's salary is paid in 50ps.

This guy has been fighting Goro for less than a second, and already has no skin. This is a slow day for Goro, but don't worry - he's apparently about to bring about armageddon.

The final stage is Shang Tsung himself. No-one knows who he is, because no-one has ever defeated Goro. It's rumoured that he may be the the old man you see in the background on some levels, but nobody knows or cares any more.

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At this point, I would like to say that I'm only kidding. Mortal Kombat has a strange and amusing storyline and it's unbelievably hard when you reach the later stages, and Goro, but hey. It's an arcade game, what did I expect? And its a damn good arcade game, too. The moody, vaguely-Chinese-mythological setting and music are fun and atmospheric, the uppercuts feel great, the Pit Stage is wonderful and the fatalities, should you ever get them to work, make you feel on top of the world. This nostalgic classic does hold up, after all this time, even now that the novelty and controversy of the blood has worn off. And it was worth buying just to have another crack at Goro. Besides, the difficulty level helps to create the sense of doom and dark fantasy that this whole experience is built on.

Maybe if I try 'very easy' mode, eh?

I recommend the new release: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection. Just... don't expect to win. Ripping people's heads off may be possible with practice.

And as I remember things, the second game was much better! I got MK2 and 3 as part of this deal, so I look forward to testing them too. In the mean time, remember...

YOUR BROTHER'S SOUL IS MINE!

America: What I Have Learned

At the moment I'm not so proud of my own country, which has gotten me comparing it to the next one along - no, not France. I mean the more successful, handsome, rich kid who lives a few streets away, who the United Kingdom likes to hang out with so it can watch him play his Super Nintendo and perv off its much prettier mum: the United States of America.

Over the last few years, my life has become distinctly more internet-based, and as such, less English. I've been basically a hermit: I'm not even joking. More and more, I stay in and spend my time online - reading Roger Ebert rather than watching Jonathon Ross, catching up with Cheers on YouTube instead of following whatever the hell passes for British comedy at the moment, and carrying-out a lot of my social life on forums and Google-chat.

Mostly this has involved long talks with my co-author on this site - a slightly younger man from California whose company is always a pleasure, even if it does necessitate neither of us ever leaving our homes. One thing that comes up endlessly in these chats, endlessly, is cultural differences. I think it's fair to say that the general British and Irish understanding of what Americans are like is halfway between Peter Griffin and Samuel L Jackson, because these are the two representatives who we are mostly exposed to. We see US citizens, on the whole, as loud, stupider than us, fatter than us, aggressively Christian, pigheaded, extremely dangerous, and yet in all cases inexplicably adorable, like a puppy dog with a lit firework in its mouth. Although my main source defies all of these characteristics, I still think it's about right.

History's most terrifying single image, or kind of cute? YOU DECIDE.

And Americans see us, I think, as 'The United what?' or 'Susan Boyle', both of which are pretty accurate descriptions.

So for three years or more, I've picked-up a lot of little bits of information which completely surpised me. I'm going to share a few of them now - and remember, all of these are 100% accurate.

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1) They really don't have biscuits. They have chocolate chip cookies and they have Twix bars, and that is all. They have the word 'biscuits' which they use to describe a sort of scone-like thing that you apparently have with a pale, grey sauce.

2) To them, Kentucky Fried Chicken is a shameful place to eat and also, wierdly, the basis of racial stereotyping (I don't know why), rather than the 'kind of fancier alternative to McDonalds' it is here.

3) They do not know what the word 'beefburger' means, not even when you explain it by comparing it to 'cheeseburger'.

4) Alaska and Hawaii are nowhere near where I thought they were, and absolutely not where they appear on that bullshit map of theirs, which probably exists just to confuse us.

5) Instead of letter-boxes in their doors or the little boxes on sticks with surnames on, like you see in the films, they actually have large filing cabinets in the middle of the street.

6) Whatever their relative average intelligence, Americans are absolutely not uninformed. Sorry British people, but just because we speak more elegantly doesn't make us cleverer. Laziness is curiously not encouraged in the United States: the fierce, inhuman, competitive spirit that powers Samuel L Jackson and Ryan Seacrest on a daily basis lives within all of them, instilled at an early age. In terms of competition and personal pride, they're like Germans but without the organisational skills. If you think I'm making this up, Britain - have you ever been part of a 'spelling bee', which I understand is a spelling contest for children that takes place outside school hours, when X-Men is on, and is often voluntary? No.

7) They have a fast-food chain called 'In-N-Out Burger', and nobody over there finds that funny. This is by far my favourite US fact.

8) One more food one: Taco trucks. These are literal trucks where meat is prepared and eaten.

9) Americans do not know what the UK's flag is called, despite the fact that we were good enough to emerse ourselves in their culture like Malcolm McDowell with his eyes being held open in A Clockwork Orange, to the point that we have now quietly adopted their language, because it just seems easier not to try remembering how things used to be spelled... in the before-time...

Hoe-nor?

10) They really do prefer their version of The Office. They're not just teasing us.

11) 'Fox News' is apparently not a comedy.

12) Who loves orange soda? Kel loves orange soda.

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And with that, I'm really out of ideas. Believe it or not, after all that (when I try to be funny it always ends-up smarmy and hateful,) I'm very fond of the place. If we seem to obsess over the country and follow them around at parties, there are good reasons, beyond the obvious wanting-to-be-on-their-side-in-the-next-World-War.

Every time I look at a website, and every time Knight and I chat, I pick up another little fact I never realised, something awful they never dared show us or the occasional quiet triumph that never made it to the news here.

Meanwhile, we're sat around reading about how our children spent the day burning down Selfridge's in town. At least it beats watching bloody Outnumbered.

Return to Oz (1985): 15 things that have no place in a sequel to 'The Wizard of Oz'

Yesterday I watched the movie Return to Oz for the first time. I'd heard that this was the sequel to the classic, beloved family film - perhaps the quintessential family film - The Wizard of Oz from 1939. I had also heard that the 1985 film was largely unconnected to the first one (taking more of its cues from the original L Frank Baum books) and that it maintained a cult appeal, largely because it was surprisingly scary.

In particular, I had heard that the Wheelers were pretty creepy and had apparently traumatised plenty of viewers.


And yeah, that definitely looks pretty creepy. So, having often been curious about this supposedly unsettling sequel to the most cherished, colourful and heartwarming family fim ever made, I decided to check out these Wheelers for myself.

I mean, the rest of the movie can't be as bad, right? Just look at the cover!


The result is this list:


15 things in 'Return to Oz' which are significantly more frightening than the Wheelers.

Obviously this list will spoil the movie if you haven't seen it. And trust me, seeing it will be far more fun than reading this.

So, in loosely chronological order-


1) Dorothy is taken to a psychiatric clinic.

Within the first ten minutes of the movie (which begins with suspenseful violin and the image of an expressionless, insomniac Dorothy staring hauntingly at the walls at the dead of night) Dorothy is taken to a psychiatric clinic. It's made very clear from the start that the little girl (now actually played by a little girl, just to make it worse) is mentally unstable, and that the events of the first film were probably an hallucination of some sort.

And this doesn't let-up later on. There is no point in the movie where it turns out Oz was real after all. It's left ambiguous.


2) We're off to see the....... electro-shock... therapist...

Before that opening violin has even finished, we're treated to the site of 'Auntie Em' reading a newspaper advertisment that reads, 'Announcement! Electric Healing!'
And, yeah. because of her endless ravings about ruby slippers and tin men and wicked witches (you know, our childhoods) Dorothy is literally carted-off to a turn-of-the-century psyichiatric hospital to be electro-shocked. By Auntie Em. Later in the movie, we see her being strapped into the contraption and then left alone. She escapes before the therapy can begin, thank God, but this is the movie's only mercy.


3) Dorothy, as written by Christopher Walken.

This was probably in the books, but just check out what our heroine, the sweet and kind Dorothy, tells her therapist.

The tin woodsman used to be made of flesh, like everybody else. But then he cut off his leg... he had a tin leg made, but then a witch enchanted his axe. And he kept on... cutting off all the other parts of his body, until he was all made of tin. Even his head was...

And at this point the therapist stops her, possibly in order to avoid soiling himself.


4) The sequence that launched a thousand J-Horror movies.

While we're still in the hospital, we get lots of little clues / parallels as to what will happen in Oz. You know, to set up the inevitable 'And you were there! And you!' scene at the end. There is a pumpkin, a chicken, a machine with a face. It's symmetry within the plot, setting-up the characters who are to come later - and... uh, adding weight to the implication that her adventure really is nothing but delusion. Fun for kids.

But while her doctor is explaining about the modern marvel of electric shocks, Dorothy seems to drift off... and the voice of the doctor fades... and the god-damned violin returns... and she sees the face of another girl in the mirror. Staring. Emptily. And Dorothy looks into its dead eyes... and gives the subtlest of smiles. And the violin swells... and she's interrupted again.

The rest of the scenes in the clinic are just classic horror. The mysterious girl in the mirror appears in Dorothy's room and says, 'It's Halloween soon' and it gets worse from there on. There are some very unsettling desolate, drawn-out suspense shots here, including a great one with a creaking door and a gradual zoom-in on Dorothy's empty, emotionless face.


Oh! And every now and again you hear screaming mental patients in the background.


5) A drowning child.

After the agony of the slowly-strapping-Dorothy-Gale-Into-An-Electric-Chair scene, she and the mysterious girl from the mirror manage to flee the building and escape to the storm outside. Persued as they are by the Gestapo-style matron, they immediately hurl themselves into the swelling lake nearby. After several minutes of the pair frantically trying to grab onto something in the rushing water at the dead of night, the mirror girl drops under the water and doesn't come back up.
Now later she returns, as 'Ozma of Oz'... so if we assume that Oz is real, then don't worry she's okay. But if we assume Oz is not real... and remember, the movie never gives us a straight answer... then we just watched a little girl drown.

No catchy musical numbers, yet. Still hoping.


6) Demonic voices and faces in the wall.

Dorothy wakes up, finally, in the Merry old Land of Oz, and thank God, it's colourful and pleasant. There is even whimsical music. She finds a talking chicken who tells jokes and picks from a 'lunch pail tree' - awww! And then faces start appearing on the rocks, and we cut to the same faces reappearing in a hell-like scene, distorting themselves across flickering, red, stone walls, telling an unseen character with an unhumanly deep voice that 'She has returned'. Oh.


7) Your childhood memories in ruins.

As Dorothy and the chicken sidekick set off to find any sign of life in Oz (no, honestly, that seems to be their quest) they encounter the symbolic wreckage of the yellow brick road. After another scene with Satan and the Posessed Rocks we see the heroes have reached the Emerald City... much quicker than they did last time. The city is now an eerie, ancient ruin, with no emeralds in sight, or indeed people. There are numerous chalky, semi-collapsed statues of people, some of them without heads, some cut in half at the waist, the others bearing frozen expressions of horror. The tin man and the cowardly lion are there too, having suffered the same fate. No word yet on the scarecrow or Glinda the good witch, who we are left to assume were eviscerated by Jason Voorhese. Also it's at this point that the Wheelers appear and try to kill Dorothy. She escapes and finds a new sidekick, 'Tic Toc' the comical robotic soldier who proclaims, 'I am not alive, so I cannot be sorry or happy'. More on this later.


8) Princess Mombi.

Princess Mombi is the personification of my nightmares.

The Wheelers are her private army, and she's some kind of overlord who lives alone in a giant palace playing a bouzouki, surrounded by a gallery of beautiful, female human heads. She has long ago removed her own head, and now wears those of her murder victims, which take on her personality the moment she attaches them to her neck, and otherwise wait in obedient silence with their eyes closed. Usually. After the headless body of the Princess explains the situation, she attaches a new head and announces plans to keep Dorothy a prisoner, until she is an adult and thus able to provide her with a new, pretty head.


9) Jack Pumpkinhead.

Inside Mombi's dungeon, Dorothy and her freakish, unlovable cohorts meet the latest and most horrific of that number - Jack Pumpkinhead. This is a tall, gangly man with a carved pumpkin for a head, a distorted sense of identity and the voice of a serial killer, specifically Norman Bates. Seriously, he sounds just like Norman Bates! And better yet, he believes Dorothy is his mother. For me, this was the height of the movie's horrors - just after seeing Mombi's living decapitation gallery, to suddenly see Jack crouching down toward a small girl and whispering, 'May I call you Mom?' sent me right over the edge. And he keeps calling her that all the way through the movie.


10) The Wizard of Oz 2: Dead By Dawn.

As they flee the Princess (don't get me stated on that - it involves a headless, animatronic woman jutting out of her bed) the heroes enlist the help of the 'gump' - a trophy deer head which they have reanimated against his will in order to help them. They connect the gump to a sofa with improvised wings. Quite rightly, the Frankensteinian monster asks them, 'What am I?' Dorothy replies, 'You're just a thing.' Quite. Tic-Toc then says they should keep flying until dawn. They won't make it 'til dawn.

This scene ends, brilliantly, with the whispered line, 'Good-night, mom...'


11) The Nome King.


The Nome King is not a gnome, and hardly a King since he seems to have no subjects beyond Mombi, her Wheelers and the claymation faces in the rocks. Because everyone else in Oz is dead. He is the one responsible for the current, horrible fate of the land, as he explains when he introduces himself to the heroes. Because the Emerald City was built with emeralds, which he apparently owns, being a spirit of the rocks... he views the city's construction as theft, and he does a fairly good job of convincing us of the cold, just logic of his coup.
Also, his face becomes more and more human-looking with every life he takes. And he has the scarecrow held prisoner in Limbo. And he has stolen the ruby slippers. And he is wearing them.


12) He chose... poorly.

After taking them prisoner and inviting them to drink hot liquid silver, the Nome King forces our heroes into a challenge - they must view his 'trophy room', in which every trophy is the distilled soul of a citizen of Oz, and work out which one holds what remains of the Scarecrow. If they choose incorrectly, they become his latest trophies. And all but Dorothy choose incorrectly. The comical robot Tic-Toc actually cries before the stress of the situation causes his body to break and shut-down. Before he makes his choice he also says, 'I have always valued my lifelessness.'
I have always. Valued. My lifelessness.


13) Honour or Madness?

Before making her choose her ornament, the Nome King offers Dorothy another tough decision:

Nome: You don't have to go down there. I could use the ruby slippers and send you home. And when you get back, you will never think of Oz again.
Dorothy: But what about my friends?
N: Forget about them. You can't help them now. (pause) There's... no place... like home!!

And with this, the last remnant of good feeling about The Wizard of Oz is eradicated forever.


14) The Death of the Nome King.

By confusing means, Dorothy, Jack and the other abominations manage to beat the Nome King at his own game, whereupon he ceases to toy with them and transforms into a massive, red stone monster. The fires of hell surrounding them, they watch helplessly as he laughs hysterically in his demon voice and slowly lowers Jack into his enormous, gaping jaws.


Jack survives and the King dies, horribly. And this is the end of things, here. The rest of the film is relatively non-threatening. Dorothy restores the murdered peoples of Oz to life and in thanks, the shell-shocked Tin Man and Lion wordlessly hug her. She wakes-up to find that the mental clinic has burned down, killing the doctor with the shock therapy machine. Y...ay?

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So there you have it! I hope I've brightened-up the Wheelers' reputation, if only by comparison. Sure, at one point they corner Dorothy in a tunnel whilst cackling and threatening to 'cut her into shreds', but as you've seen - this is nothing compared to the everyday waking nightmares within the wonderful, charming, Technicolor world of Oz.

And also-


15 - This.

This.


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Return to Oz is highy, highly recommended, but not for unaccompanied children.

Buch's All-New Saturday Morning Cartoon Line-up

Lately I've been kind of depressed and concerned that I'm stuck in an awkward 'man-child' phase that should have ended a few years ago. I keep finding myself collecting nostalgic videogames, making silly jokes and losing the silent, aloof smart-guy quality I used to have when I was actually a child. It's strange: as a kid I acted like a lonely guy in his late twenties. Now -
I have it all backwards. I'm clinging to childhood joys...

And I'm starting to think the reason is just that somebody has to! Kids today don't have a fun, colourful childhood. I see them dressed like adults, more smartly than adults sometimes, cursing without finding it funny - just cursing. Just talking like everyone. Renting 15-rated comedies at my shop, because there's nothing else for them now.

Where my generation had Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, today's youths have Twilight, whatever animes they can understand and Epic Movie. Where we had Spiderman, Spiderman, Radioactive Spiderman, they have Tobey McGuire crying because the stress of his three jobs made him punch his girlfriend. I see these kids looking through the DVDs, trying to find which films rest halfway between what their parents are watching and what they actually want to watch. And they get something like Watchmen. It's the closest they can get.

The famous Saturday Morning Watchmen video is hilarious, but what's kinda sad is that it seems so funny nowadays. If 'Watchmen' had been mainstream in the early 90's, they would have made that show for real. And though it would have driven Alan Moore to homicide, it would have been really good. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a ridiculous parody of the dark, gritty comic it was based on, too, you know? And we loved it. There was even a Rambo cartoon. That was a movie about a traumatised war veteran killing cops. We had cartoons based on absolutely every succesful movie, toy line or videogame character. Absolutely every one. Whatever happenned to that?

---

So because of a) this chip on my shoulder about the kids having nothing to watch, b) my sad reflections on my own immaturity, and c) three glasses of wine, I present the new summer line-up. Here's a list of recent (or recent-ish) movies that are just crying out to be turned into cheerful, enjoyable half-hour cartoons. On the television. For kids.

Dear TV producers: if you'd like to use these ideas, I will accept payment in the form of strawberry-flavour Nesquick milkshake mix.

----

THE PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN

The pitch: In an age of swords and shenanigens, charming, rogueish, Bohemian pirate Captain Jack Sparrow commands the motley crew of The Black Pearl, seeking treasure, adventure... and rum! Every week it's a new mishap, a new mis-step and a new foe: Blackbeard, mermaids, voodoo zombies, the evil squid-man Davey Jones himself... or just the usual trouble from his old friends Barbossa and the East India Trading Company. Whatever he's fleeing, Captain Jack is always just sober enough to save the day, and fight crime!

Honestly, though: Well why not? I would have loved a 'Pirates' series on CITV.

--

JAMES CAMERON'S 'AVATAR'

The pitch: Heroic marine Jake Sully now lives happily with the peaceful and mystical Na'vi aliens on the jungle planet Pandora. Whenever the human miliatary, lead by the cruel Commander Nevarius and his mechs, return to the planet trying to destroy the environment and steal their precious Unobtanium - it's up to Jake, his true love Neytiri and their tribe's best warriors (Ka'lor the strong, the wily and cunning Jee-las and the hilariously overweight Colbo) to save the planet, fight crime and put things right!

Seriously: Seriously! I don't know that it would have to be in CG, but just picture it! That movie was made for half-hour adventures. Cameron apparently is making two sequels, but why? The story (such as it was) is told already. If you're going to add to it needlessly to make a few bucks, do it like this.

The theme tune: Av-at-aaaaaaar! He's my av-atar... comes from afaaaaarrr... beyond the staaaaaars!

--

NEO AND THE HEROES OF THE MATRIX

The pitch: Stuck in the middle of the never-ending war between humans and machines, chosen-one Neo and his band of cool, leather-wearing pals must bend the laws of physics to save the people of Zion from killer robots. Neo and his team spend half their time flying for their lives in the crumbled remains of Earth, and the other half thwarting the machines more subtlely in the virtual world of the Matrix, by foiling the Agents' sinister schemes and fighting crime.

Seriously: It would be like Swat Kats, this one. or like the old Batman cartoon. It would be the cool one, with stylish, angular drawings and lots of black.

Also: Here's another movie that was spoiled by two pointless sequels. It could so easily have been a fun, non-canonical kids' series.

--

TOY STORIES

The pitch: Whenever young Andy's back is turned, his collection of toys come alive! Restless, lovable and wacky, every time they show their true colours, Woody, Buzz and the gang always seem to wind up getting into trouble, and sometimes even find the time to fight some crime. However, they get back home within 30 minutes, and at no point do they wordlessly embrace the inevitability of their own deaths, holding hands while rolling toward a furnace, treasuring the flicker of humanity they were allowed to experience. Adults find the show predictable, but the kids have fun and are less likely to self-harm in later life.

Seriously: I loved Toy Story 3 so much, but they were silently holding hands as they waited to die. In a furnace. Also I would like to see a series based on Up! in which no-one ever dies tragically within the first ten minutes. The Toy Story series would be like Rugrats. Rugrats was fantastic.

--

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: The Animated Series

The pitch: Adam, Lou, Nick and Jacob are four lovable losers who have lost sight of the present... and the past! Unable to solve life's problems with a little hard-work and common sense, they invariably choose to travel through time in their magical, time-travelling hot tub! But of course, things just never go according to plan. One minute they could be travelling back to the day before Adam's anniversary to pick up some flowers, and the next - oops! - suddenly they're giving those flowers to Jesse James, or ineptly fighting crime in the prohibition era! How will they cope with that one? What temporal trouble will they get into next?!

I know: This would be exactly like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, I realise that. Give me time.

--

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

The pitch: Heroic, brilliant (yet quiet and mysterious) billionaire Internet magnate Mark Zuckerberg needlessly-tweaks his beloved 'Facebook' by day... and fights crime by night! Whenever The Troll and his evil Cyber Pirates plan to steal personal information or flood the Information Superhighway with illeagally copied mucic, The Social Network will be ready! Utilising all his contacts from all the corners of the Web, Mark has assembled the ultimate force of technological justice! Marshalling representatives from Google, MySpace, various porn-rings and that Chocolate Rain guy, the mastermind and true force for good is always alert, proving that no criminal scheme can stand up to the properly-organised power... of friendship.

Seriously: Did you ever see M.A.S.K.? I would watch this.

--

I'm kind of losing track of what I was trying to do here...

But I have more: just imagine The Expendables, Alien Versus Predator, Inception: The Series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Mass Effect or Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Those would be pretty cool, neh? How about Machete, Let Me In! or The Hurt Locker? Maybe even Saw? Fifteen or twenty years ago, I guaruntee all of those shows would have been made, there would have been less rubbish sequels in the cinemas, and kids would have had something to watch.

Maybe I'm just a twenty-something fool refusing to let go of the childhood joys he was too scared to embrace at the proper time. But I honestly believe that no story has ever been told which can't be improved by some bright colours, a good moral at the end...

...and a cool guitar theme. No story at all.

--

300 new entries to the Thrawn Trilogy

I've been studying his blog, Pallaeon. His weakness appears to be idiotic puns.

In the last few months, me and Knight have been reading Timothy Zahn's trilogy of classic mid-nineties Star Wars sequels - 'Heir to the Empire', 'Dark Force Rising' and 'The Last Command'.

They're absolutely fantastic, not least because of the cast of new characters Zahn introduced - many of whom, such as Mara Jade, have been with the ongoing series ever since he rejuvenated it with these books. The other great new character in this trilogy is the main villain - Grand Admiral Thrawn. In the long, sad history of the Star Wars 'Expanded Universe', this is the one character I am proud to name a 'Star Wars Villian'. The only one who's up there with Darth Vader and the Emperor and Peter Cushing. (Well him and Darth Revan.)

I don't think the actual titles of these books are very good. One could even say they are UNWORTHY of Grand Admiral Thrawn! And also I think the name 'Thrawn' sounds kind of funny - so for a while I've been trying to amuse Knightfall by constantly referring to them by made up names...

Here is a list of 50 better titles for the three individual books of the Thrawn trilogy. And there are so many, you could even get a few sequels out of them! Mr Zahn, you may use them if you wish. I haven't applied for a copyright on any of these.


UPDATE!

Thanks to dedicated support from fellow Thrawn-fans I am proud to announce some extra special Thrawn content!

Thanks to all the suggestions sugestions and my own tireless Thrawning, we now have over THREE HUNDRED bloody Thrawn titles!!

Considering I was hoping to come up with 50, this is really something! Three hundred?!?! Thank you VERY much to everyone who has contributed.

R.A.Eng-what? 's entries are the ones in Thrawn-blue.
Cali's are in Imperial Orange... or something. Orange. Oh crap, some of them are in yellow. I'm not editing them all again. Orange or yellow for Cali.
And Mr Glow is in green!
The contributions from others are in grey like mine, but have the authors' names afterwards in brackets.

1. Star Wars: Attack of Thrawn
2. Star Wars: Revenge of Thrawn
3. Star Wars: The Thrawn Menace
4. Grand Admiral Thrawn Wore Tennis Shoes
5. Thrawn's Cocktail
   
6. Thrawn To Be Wild
7. Thrawn In The USA
8. The Hand of Thrawn Book One: Hardcore Thrawn
   
9. The Thrawn Identity
10. TransThrawners: Revenge of the Thrawn
11. Bride of Thrawnkenstein
12. Thrawn of the Dead
13. Breaking Thrawn
14. Me So Thrawny
    
15. Thrawnton's Delicious Handmade Fudge
16. Children of the Thrawn
17. Thrawn Dog
18. Star Wars: Thrawn on the Cob
19. Return of Thrawn Green
20. Advent of Thrawn Michaels
21. Enter Thrawn Chaney Jr
22. Rip Thrawn
23. Introducing Harry Thrawnick Jr
24. And With a Special Guest Appearance as Lieutenant Worf, Michael Thrawn
25. Luke Skywalker Versus Deep-Vein Thrawnbosis
    
26. The DarksThrawn Chronicles
27. Thrawn To Kill
28. Thrawn To Life
    
29. Thrawn Together, Thrawn Apart
30. Thrawn Dusk Till Dawn
31. Every Rose Has Its Thrawn
    
32. Marathrawn Man
33. Thrawn Dusk Till THRAWN
34. Dude, Where's My Thrawn?
35. The Hand of Thrawn Book Two: Brains Over Thrawn
    
36. Thrawn Fishin'
    
37. Natalie Imbruglia's 'Thrawn'
38. Thrawn Versus The Volcano
    
39. The Nazis: A Thrawning From History
40. 'Round The Thrawn
41. The Last UniThrawn
42. The Stolen Thrawn
43. Thrawndi, Mardi, Mecredi
44. The Hand of Thrawn Book Three: Thrawnmower
45. The Thrawnmower Man
46. Crunchy King Thrawn
47. So Dark the Thrawn of Man
    
48. The Rise of Napoleon Thrawnaparte
49. Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Thrawn
    
50. Vince Thrawn's Wild West Comedy Show
51. Nightmare on Thrawn Street (by R.A.Eng-what?)
    
52. The Thrawnsporter
53. Ong-Bak the Thrawn Warrior
54. Legend of the Thrawn
55. The Thrawn With the Dragon Tattoo
56. Diary of a Wimpy Thrawn
57. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Thrawn
58. Tropic Thrawn
59. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Thrawn
60. ...And Justice for Thrawn
61. A Clockwork Thrawn
62. The Chronicles of Thrawn
63. Monty Python's Life of Thrawn
64. Indiana Thrawn and the Last Command
65. Merry Christmas, Grand Admiral Thrawn
66. Mister Thrawn Studies the Washington Post and Then Goes To Washington
67. Thrawning Has Broken
68. All My Thrawns
    
69. Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Thrawno)
70. Let The Right Thrawn In
71. On a Pale Thrawn (by R.A.Eng-what?)
    
72. Island of the Blue Thrawns
73. The Left Thrawn of Darkness
74. The Poisonwood Thrawn
75. Monty Pythrawn and the Holy Grail (that one is by far my favourite so far)
76. A Man Rides Thrawn
77. Queen of the Thrawned
78. The Queen's Thrawn" (hey it rhymes with "Pawn)
79. The Chronicles of Thrawnber
80. English Thrawn the Ages
81. Thrawning on the Right Side of the Brain
82. Thrawn the Looking Glass
83. Interesting Thrawns
84. The Mists of Thrawnalon (ouch. MZB fans are gonna flog me now)
85. Life Before Thrawn
86. The Handmaid's Thrawn
87. The Edible Thrawn
88. Castle Thrawn
89. Thrawnmistress!
90. Thrawn's Sun
91. Fear and Loathrawn in Las Vegas
92. The Curse of Thrawno
93. So Thrawn, and Thanks for All the Fish
94. The Thrawn Afternoon of Earth
95. Lord Thrawn's Bane
96. Thrawn Gnome
97. Thrawn of Those Days
98. How a Yawn, Mr. Thrawn (instead of "How now, brown cow?" Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch. Sorry. I am trying to rhyme where I can!)
99. The Thrawn Who Stole Christmas
100. THRAWN WITH THE WIND (Thank you Knightfall for the 100th entry!)
101. Aphex Thrawn
102. The Boy With the Thrawn in His Side
103. Evil Dead: Hail to the Thrawn
104. Thrawn Russia With Love
105. Thrawn Vision
106. I Am the Thrawn and Only
107. Delicious Chicken-Style Thrawn Pieces
108. Thrawn: Deadly Discs
109. Once Upon a Thrawn in a Galaxy Far, Far Away (by JKLinders)
110. Red Thrawn (by Mr Glow)
111. The Thrawnicles of Riddick (by Cali)
     
112. Thrawn, Baby, Thrawn
113. A Thrawn Apart
114. Black Snake Thrawn
115. Thrawn With a Blastwave
116. Thrawnlander
117. The Bride of Thrawn
118. Thrawn in Africa (this one is my second favourite suggestion)
119. The King of Thrawnmedy
120. Thrawn Jeremy
121. Thrawn Against the Machine (by R.A. Eng-what?)
     
122. In Thrawn the Out Door
123. The Chronicles of Thrawnia
124. Thrawning Pool
125. Thrawn of Time
126. Thrawn Among Strangers
127. Thrawn to the Wolves
128. Superthrawn Doomsday
129. Wheel-Thrawn Pottery
130. Thrawn Pillow
     
131. Thrawn With Dick and Jane
132. The Lion, the Witch and the Thrawndrobe
133. Mad Max Beyond Thrawnderdome
134. Santa Thrawn Conquers the Martians (by studying their art)
135. The Rise and Fall of Thrawn Free Taa
136. Hooked on Thrawnics
137. Thrawning Period
138. Sun Thrawning
139. Are You Dave Thrawnman?
140. Featuring Art Carney as Thrawndan
141. What is This, Some Kind of Thrawn Game?
142. When a Child is Thrawn
143. Good-night, Thrawn-boy
144. Thrawn of Godzilla
145. Thrawn, God of Thunder!
146. Thrawn Lake
147. Thrawn to Rook Five
148. Sir, Your ThrawnThrawn Will Freeze Before You Reach the First Marker!
     
149. Thrawn in Sixty Seconds
     
150. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Thrawn (by R.A.Eng-what?)
151. Thrawnic and Knuckles
152. Being Thrawn Malcovich
     
153. Doctor Thrawnson's Dictionary of the English Language
154. World of Thrawncraft
     
155. Thrawnny B. Goode
156. Thrawn Mama Off the Train (by Cali)
     
157. Thrawn Adams
158. Interview With the Thrawnpire
159. The Twilight Saga: New Thrawn
160. Pirahna 2: The Thrawning
161. Raiders of the lost Thrawn
162. The Maltese Thrawn
163. Warcraft: Thrawns and Humans
164. Dr Thrawn
165. Thrawnfinger
166. Thrawnderball (hell yes)
167. You Only Thrawn Twice
168. On Her Majesty's Secret Thrawn
169. Live and Let Thrawn
170. The Thrawn With the Golden Gun
171. The Thrawn With the Golden Thrawn!
     
172. The Thrawn Who Loved Me
173. Thrawnopussy
174. The Thrawning Daylights
175. Tomorrow Never Thrawns
176. Casino Thrawnayle
177. Doom II: Thrawn on Earth
     
178. The Thrawn Locker
179. The Great Thrawnsby
180. One Flew Over the Thrawn's Nest
181. The Thrawn Who Fell to Earth
182. Friday the Thrawnteenth
183. Mission Inthrawnable
184. Thrawnfellas
185. Thrawn in My Side
186. In Thrawn's Country
187. Thrawn's Hot Sister
188. Thrawnfire
189. Thrawn's Pizza
190. Runaway Thrawn
191. My Left Thrawn
192. Catcher in the Thrawn
193. Rocket Thrawn
194. Thrawn on the Fourth of July
195. Thrawn Bon Jovi
196. Super Smash Thrawners
197. G.I. Thrawn
198. Thrawnsmack
199. Thrawn's Addiction
200. Thrawnout: A Post-Empire Roleplaying Game
201. Thrawno for Pyros
202. Camp Thrawny
203. Nine Inch Thrawns
204. Thrawngarden
205. Thrawny Cash
206. Thrawn Rambo
207. Rocky Thrawnboa
208. Thrawn Story 3
209. FrogsThrawn
210. Full Thrawntal
211. Thrawntispiece
212. Praying Thrawntis
     
213. Cali... where the hell was "Thrawntum of Solace"?
     
214. Requiem for a Thrawn (by lieden)
215. Thrawn Goes to Jail (by Cali)
     
216. Thrawn Goes to Camp
217. Saturday Night Thrawn
218. Blade Thrawner
219. You're the Thrawn That I Want
220. Thrawny Nut Loops
221. Bill's New Thrawn
222. Judy Blume's SuperThrawn
223. Thrawn Hell
     
224. Whose Thrawn is it Anyway?
225. The Young Thrawns
226. Pallaeon and Thrawn's Excellent Adventure
227. Sweet Grand Admiral Thrawn's Baddasssss Song
228. 228 Thrawns Later
229. Death of a Salesthrawn
     
230. Good Thrawns For People Who Love Bad Thrawns (by Cali)
     
231. Horton Hears a Thrawn
232. Nil By Thrawn
233. A Boy and His Thrawn
234. The Gospel of Thrawn
235. Appetite for Thrawnstruction
236. Thrawn Sreet
237. The Boondock Thrawns
238. Thrawns at Work
239. Loony Thrawns
240. Thrawn and Stimpy
241. Deep Thrawn
     
242. Tiny Thrawn Adventures
243. AniThrawniacs
244. Thrawnazoid
245. Pinky, Are You Thrawndering What I'm Thrawndering?
     
246. And Then Grand Admiral Thrawn Wept... Because There Were No More Worlds to Thrawnquer
247. Thawnsters Vs. Aliens
248. Jay and Grand Admiral Thrawn Strike Back
     
249. Thrawn Eyre
250. Thrawnheit 451
251. Thrawnza Motorsport 3
     
252. Featuring Henry Winkler as the Thrawnz
253. Thrawn and Mindy
254. Thrawnkie and Johnny
255. How to Have Thrawn Like a Thrawnstar
256. Thrawn Carvallo's Putting Challenge
     
257. Event HorizThrawn
258. Mortal Thrawnbat
259. Blue Thrawnday
     
260. Back to the Thrawnture, part Thrawn
     
261. Thrawns in the Outfield
262. Thrawndice
263. Alien Resurrects Thrawn
     
264. Thrawn-Claude Van Damme
265. Jean-Thrawn Van Damme
266. Jean-Claude Van Thrawn
267. Thrawn-Thrawn Thrawn Thrawn
268. Troopers! I Just Recieved New Thrawnders
269. Al-Thrawn Wake (by Mr Glow)
270. Robin Hood: Men in Thrawns
271. SpaceThrawns
272. Thrawnfall
273. Thrawnout: New Vegas
274. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Thrawn (another favourite of mine there)
275. King Thrawn
276. A Midsummer Night's Thrawn
277. Sam and Max: Beyond Thrawn and Space
278. Spider-Thrawn (captures Rebels, just like flies!)
279. Thrawny Wiseau's 'The Room' (Oh hai, Grand Admiral Thrawn!)
     
280. Star Wars: Knights of the Thrawn Republic
281. Star Wars: Knights of the Thrawn Republic II: The Sith Thrawns
282. Thrawn Effect
283. Thrawn Effect 2: Fight for the Thrawn
284. The Thrawnfather
285. Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Thrawn
286. Thrawnout: New Taris (by Cali)
287. The Thrawn Red Line
288. Tea With Thrawnsolini
289. The Alan Thrawnsons Project
290. Thrawn's World
291. Bothers in Thrawns
292. ThrawnWee's Big Adventure
293. I Got This Blaster at the Thrawn Shop
294. Thrawns and Generals
295. The Elder Scrolls III: Thrawnowind
296. Mystery Science Theater Thrawn-thousand
297. Thrawndog Millionaire
298. Thrawn-Hundred
299. Hidden Thrawntress
300. Thrawn Torino
     
301. The Many Faces of Thrawn
302. The Omega Thrawn (by Mr Glow)
303. Thrawn Dies At The End (My new favourite there)
     
304. Horatio Thrawnblower
305. The Fair Thrawn With Golden Locks
306. The Maltese Thrawncon
307. The Dresden Thrawns
308. The Acts of Thrawn
309. Halo: The Thrawn of Reach
310. Thrawn Carter of Mars
311. EraThrawn
312. The Thrawn Machine
313. The Man Who Was Thrawn
314. Thrawn Shrugged
315. Jesus Thrawn Superstar
316. Don't Be A Thrawn to South Central While You're Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (by Knightfall1138)
     

Do YOU know any words that rhyme - even slightly - with 'Thrawn'? Can you make a film or book title funny by replacing a noun with 'Thrawn'? If so, we want to hear from you!

I have EVERY faith we can make it to 1000 titles!


Thrawn.