Favorite SG-1 Episodes: Disclosure

And we are back. Sorry for the delay but that audio review that is now up on Youtube and Vidme took me almost two days to cut to my liking and I am still not 100% liking it. So on with the episode. Now this particular tale is not as exciting from an explosive action jam-packed power hour that you are used to. No new civilizations to beheld buuuut... it holds the future of the Stargate program in United States Air Force in the hands of many. This is SG-1 Season 6 Episode 17: Disclosure.

Sorry, sometimes the Borsch acts up.

A summit is held and foreign political representatives of the planet have been called in. For more than 6 years Cheyenne Mountain has been sending SGC teams to other worlds, finding new technology and making weapons to defend the planet against the Goa'uld but could easily being turned on their own enemies of the planet. Now many folks watching this episode have mixed feelings. You telling our rivals about all this sweet tech the military has been building? Why did it take so long to tell this story to the rest of the world? When will the SGC teams be revealed to the public?

General Hammond is trying to give vital intelligence on the Goa'uld's war capabilities, troops, ships that travel on interstellar levels and the weapons they possess when Senator Kinsey comes in with his hypocrisy for firebrand and God fearing, stating the SGC teams are incompetent, reckless and will one day have the Goa'ulds at our throats. He is counting on the representatives of the world to rally behind a civilian over-site committee to oversee all Stargate use, what trips to be taken and what material goods can come of this travel.  Again he sees overhead and gains rather than the allies and the people. Y'know, bad politician.

Gate bomb away!!!

With the ambassadors reluctance to accept that oblivion is on the rise, the collective heads of foreign relations are outraged as Senator Kinsey lays out some of SGC's dirty laundry. The fact of the foothold situation with an alien species incorporating a shape-shifting device allowing them to take over command for a short while, connecting the Stargate to a black hole nearly swallowing the whole planet up and diverting a planet killer asteroid barely in the nick of time.

His follow-up compromise is to have the NID (National Intelligence Department), a civilian committee to head up Stargate operations. These are also the same people that stole from the Asgard, threatened Hammond's granddaughters, almost killed a world removing its weather control device and frankly are a bunch of ex-military, ex-CIA dinks. Their objective is vast new technology at any cost including pissing off SGC's already established allies.

No France, we cannot immediately surrender. This guy.

Hammond endures about the whole episode of this when he decides he won't play fair either. Time for a winning hand and calls an ally in. You folks love the little guy and you know it. Of the Asgard fleet, Supreme Commander Thor appears and explains why the SGC teams need to continue, the alliance they have forged and how they would take any change as less than wise solution.

Now I know more than a handful of people that do not like this episode because it relies on a lot of stock footage of the previous episodes to explain the severity of the threat. Personally I thought this episode is vastly important to the series as the cat is out of the bag and all that is the SGC is in jeopardy if this summit goes south. Now anyone aware of nuclear deterrent summits, you know another will follow directly after this one has been reached to the goals intended or outright failed. Peace talks will continue and agreements will be done on table and everything under the table will still be in effect. They spy on us, we spy on them and so on.

Political struggle and the possession of the gate should have happened sooner but that is really at the end of the day in the hands of the creators and writers. I still felt there should have been more outrage and disgruntlement.

Extreme Wormholin'!!!

Puppet Master Continues: Curse of the Puppet Master

Welcome back friends and film freaks to Day 1 of Puppet Master Continues. We move on from the adventures that Doctor Rick Meyers (Gordon Currie from Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter, Beverly Hills, 90210, Ripe, Listen, First Wave and Left Behind: World at War) defeated Sutek and his totems... so where the 9 Hells is he??!! Did Blade convince the others he wasn't worth their time and they gacked him in the middle of the night? Are they on strike? This is Curse of the Puppet Master.

Psst, Warden. Heard from the Governor yet?

With no explanation what happened to Rick Meyers at all the puppets were put up for auction. Maybe they sang show tunes all night and Meyers simply had enough of it. EVEN THOUGH, they are the secret to immortality and so on and so forth. Our film opens at The House of Marvels, a museum devoted to dolls and their collection and of course Toulon's puppets can been seen from... a cage? Dr. Magrew (George Peck of Deathtrap, Under Water, Anywhere But Here, The Extra Man and Excuse Me for Living) assures the puppets that this time everything will be different... to whatever that means and he stuffs something into a wooden crate. Seen speeding off into the foreboding woods (which look a bit like Canoga Park in L.A.) he dumps the crate to the ground, douses it in gas and lights it up. As the camera pulls away from the crate a very faint screaming is heard. OooO maybe he was burning Warwick Davis for all those Leprechaun movies. 

Who missed me??  No I am not a garden gnome!

 Anywho, we meet Magrew's daughter Jane (Emily Harrison of Curse of the Puppet Master, Puppet Master: The Legacy, Food for Thought, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, The Bold and the Beautiful and Defending Santa)fresh from college... though I am convinced she is only done for the year and not graduated. Jane looks about for Magrew's assistant, Matt but apparently he had to leave to tend to his sick father leaving Magrew without aid for his dolly show. Dammit I am still irked that Rick isn't even a factor in this when he was a serious driving force of the previous two films. Well, actually the long film broken into and edited to be made into two movies but that is not the point. I want Rick back!

Driving into town for a break, Jane and her father stop at the gas station where the local slow kid dubbed "Tank" (Josh Green of Sweet Kill, Curse of the Puppet Master, Party of Five, Spiders and Peal Harbor) is treated to some low brow bullying because... hell I guess there was nothing good on cable, at the theater or the bully boys just got done burning some books. Jane and Magrew shoo the bullies away by being smarter than they and try to talk to Tank. A timid soul lurks in Tank as he enjoys wood carving, Magrew notices his passion in the carving and asks Tank if he would rather work for him instead. He introduces Tank to Toulon's puppets as they are "alive" and it fascinates Tank to the point he himself is carving new puppets. I would say it as though we have stepped back in time again but seeing the lad only gets paid $35 a week I wouldn't know where to put that timeline considering a '96 Mustang is shown. Jane seems to have a real bond with the puppets and the business. Will the puppets get loose and do in Magrew? Will Tank be the new master?

Just a few bits of interest now.

Full Moon went completely bankrupt during the follow-up to Part 5 and several film projects simply tanked without Paramount bankrolling so Band had to finance his own films and this was the first step. With a much smaller budget and David Allen unable to do the stop animation of the puppets due to be incredibly ill, the stage hands were holding the puppets up or moving them around, coupled with stock footage of the previous Puppetmaster flicks made this look hokey at best and cheesy at worst. At some points you can see the monofilament wire moving their limbs.

The original script was going to take them back to Egypt were Toulon learned of this animating process but it got scrapped and we were given "this" film shot in 8 days.

Hmm?  Oh sorry, I was thinking about that Seinfeld episode.

Shark Week: Sharks in Venice

Hey all you wacky readers and welcome back to yet another installment of the creature feature theme of Shark Week and boy this one is a bit of a doozy.   Imagine if you combine a couple of Spielberg (Lucas not withstanding either) projects and make even less sense than possible. So grab your lost artifacts, scratch your chin with the back of your hand and get ready to dodge a shark and possibly a smooth boulder.   This is Sharks in Venice.

 

Coming for ya, Richard Dreyfuss.

There are spoilers in Venice??!!!  That is preposterous!

Nu Image Films (Cyborg Cop, Hollow Point, Shark Attack, Alien Hunter, SharkMan and S.S. Doomtrooper) has 1 in 7 chances to creating something thought provoking, captivating and entertaining.   The vibe this time around screams stinker.

  

Dr. David Franks (Stephen Baldwin of Born on the Fourth of July, The Usual Suspects, Fled, Half Baked and Scar City) an archeologist traveling with his girlfriend Laura (Vanessa Johansson of Shifted, Reservations, Day of the Dead, The Objective and Skavengers) are meeting with the Venetian police to learn what happened to his father.   I am almost certain a long dead crusading knight and a diary are involved.  They travel by boat where David swears he saw the dorsal fin of a shark but as he glances back it was gone so he dismissed it.

The hell is my line?!

Franks and a scuba expert Rossi (Ivaylo Geraskov of Death Train, In Hell, Air Strike, The Russian Specialist and Mercenary for Justice) head underwater to reach a cavern when suddenly an immense shark swims out at attacks the men.  Rossi of course is eaten and Franks barely escapes to the cave with a shoulder injury.   The cave is decked out like the underground tomb in Raiders of the Lost Ark and he has yet another close call to find this vast treasure hoard.  Pocketing a brooch of gold and emerald he heads back to be hospitalized for the end of Act 1.   Seriously the wounds heal up is worthy of Wolverine.  Not goofy enough for ya, yet?   Well why don’t we throw in the Mafia demanding Franks’ undivided loyalty to fetch the treasure or they put two in Laura’s coconut?

Here are just a few of the many things that will annoy even the most average history buff.    Franks goes to his father’s apartment to investigate his death saying the 8^th Crusade was financed by Louis the XIV.  That particular crusade was conceived in 1270 three hundred years PRIOR the fair king’s birth.  Somehow the crusaders conquered Crete even though the island was under Venetian rule for more than 70 years.    Solomon’s hoard was brought to Venice on a Spanish Galleon???!!!!  A sea barring vessel 300 years in the future made a time jump to the past???!!   Sounds like a time traveling McGuffin or possibly a kooky Timelord with a quantum generator, a pot noodle and a series of rubber bands.  

Ah  Bulgaria..er..um...Venice I mean.

Worry not readers there are continuity goofs too.   Apparently 2^nd Unit Director was allowed all of two streets for a chase scene shot from different angles but you can easily realize how these streets look familiar.   Laura is hauled off in handcuffs by the Mafia goons and then in the cutaway she has rope wrapped around her wrists.  Franks gets his leg bitten off in the first scene and yet it magically appears in the next scene.   Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??!!!!   

  Save your brain cells, eyes and money folks.   This one is NOT a keeper.  Oh final FYI; we see the shark (Title creature) very few times throughout this movie but thank God for that Mafia link or we might have gotten bored.

Alternative Title Week: Space Mutiny

How do all and welcome back to Alternative Title Week and I realize I have tormented you all with this POS Italian Action/Adventure/Sci-fi tragedies so we will steer away from that horrendous standings and give you a really really bad sci-fi instead. You may have thought Silent Running was long and dull but that is peanuts compared to the festering turd that awaits you.  So grab a silver velour suit, try to not dies and be brought back due to lack of continuity.  This is Space Mutiny a.k.a. Mutiny in Space, Espacio exterior and Bunt w kosmosie.

Computer targeting system OF THE FUTURE!!!

Kalgan: I am being undermined by my own spoilers!

This piece of sputum hails from 1988 that is so low budgeted, it is using stock footage of Battlestar Galactica viper and Cylon raider attacks.   Our wayward travelers aboard the starship Southern Sun are divided into two groups. Those that are bound in their duties and believe in their commander to deliver them to  a proper world they can call home and those that cannot wait to take over the ship and find a planet to enjoy to their hearts content.   As a star vessel carrying Professor Spooner attempts to land with the ship’s landing bay when space pirates attack the viper squad and cause a serious of overacting on behalf of our hero David Ryder (Reb Brown of Captain America, Captain America II: Death Too Soon, Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf, Uncommon Valor, Yor, the Hunter from the Future and Night Claws) and would be love interest Doctor Lea Jansen (Cisse Cameron of Billy Jack, The Prize Fighter, Porky’s II: The Next Day and The Deli)to blow the walls of believability. 

  

In no way is this footage of the original Battlestar Galactica.

The fore mentioned Spooner is trapped in his craft as our noble hero emergency teleports out of his vehicle and…well screams at the top of his lungs how the ship is going to blow up.   Leading the faction of dissentients, Kalgan (Death Rides a Horse, Danger: Diabolik, Barbarella, Skidoo, Doctor Justice and The Devil’s Bed) whips some of the security and engineering to overthrow the ship and land it on an inhabitable planet.

 

There is some strange subplot of these space floozies known as the Belerofons …that served no purpose other than to point out spandex on the right women looks hot.  Seriously they have no standing at all other than to tempt the male members of the ship.

Rhombas Deathmatch 3000!!!!

Now to bash this film with a primitive piece of flint as it richly deserves.  Most of the computers OF THE FUTURE are Tandy equipment including the 3.5 floppy drives, continuity is so bad that a member shot in the stomach and left to die and 2 minutes later she is back on the bridge at her post as though her death never happened.  The exciting chase scene with the modified floor polishers’ attempt a Ben Hur chariot race but they are going up to speeds of at least 5 to 8 mph.    The ships’ lower engine rooms are clearly beer vats and the piping residing around it.  Furthermore the grounds around these vats are incredibly explosive as people get fired on and get blasted over the railings.  

Sir, my batch is killing me in these silver pants.

The only way to view this turkey is to enjoy Season 8 Episode 20 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as they bash it profusely.  Avoid this film as though it were a baby diaper filled to the brim with poopies.