Actually There Was No March Involved
Come back in a week. Ha! Do you see what I - O you do. There was quite a bit of Mars, however, because NASA have now released some objectively stunning footage of Perseverance landing on the surface of the Red Planet. Conrad was watching, slightly stunned that here we are, drinking in both a snifter of gin and a view of a planet millions of miles away, as a bit of hardware descends through the atmosphere. Art!
The details got better-defined the closer our intrepid robotic explorers got to the surface, until you could see the retro-rockets blasting Martian sand away as Perseverance got landed by it's 'sky-crane'. Art!
This part is where the staff in Mission Control get squeaky voices and sweat a lot, because the robots are so far away that any signal sent in response to what they 'see' is not going to get there in time to make any required adjustments. So there are a lot of crossed fingers that things go smoothly, as predicted or at least within safety parameters. Cue massed geek chorus of applause when this happens ...
What made this all the more peculiar is that I was reading Andy Weir's "The Martian" whilst it was running, which must be at least some kind of irony, if not chromiumy; perhaps molybdenumy. It was sitting not three feet from where Your Humble Scribe was sat, I'd read it sufficiently long ago to forget all the details, so it was a no-brainer. I have, of course - obviously! - seen the film at the cinema, when we were allowed to venture thusly.
How to scare cats the NASA nerd way!
Truly, we are living in science-fiction, not merely reading about it.
Okay, we need to convert the sandpit into the Martian surface so that Motley gets a realistic experience; just add a couple of Martian Rock Snakes!
Simples!
Okay, fair warning, there is quite a bit of science-fiction about today's blog, so if your idea of a good time is a Bronte bodice-ripper or an Austen-tatious orison, then you are completely out of luck. And - why were you here in the first place?
Fair enough
Remember "Pacific Rim"?
You better had, it was quite awesome. In case you have been living in an Autarkic Biotic Environment for the past twenty years, it was that film with giant robots beating the living snot out of giant alien monsters; there was all sorts of poetic and anguished justification about the rationale and the reason, but in the eyes of Your Humble Scribe it was a splendid excuse to have giant frikkin' robots smacking the tar out of kaiju. Art!
With puny humans for scale
"Er - quite," I hear you quibble. "And?"
You remember that life-size Godzilla the Japanese are building on it's very own Monster Island? Okay, nothing but tears is going to come out of that, but it's not the first giant-size replica. O no. Art?
CAUTION! Not Photo-shopped
Apparently this is a life-size replica of "Mobile Suit Gundam", which is a manga of some description. This thing is ENORMOUS, as is proven by the framework they hang it upon at night to - I don't know, recharge? Repair? Consume humans as fuel? Art!
Your Humble (And Cowardly) Scribe is exceedingly glad this thing is on the other side of the globe, because he has never gotten over that moment of utter terror in "Jason And The Argonauts" when that bronze statue of Talos - you know, bronze, immutable, immobile and imposing - suddenly moves.
Position A Position B
Laugh all you like. Don't come crying to me when you need a hanky the size of a football field.
The Perspective Of Retrospective
For Lo! we are back at "Le Mort D'Arthur" and how is it that jousting is only deemed worthy or of merit if - no, only joking, we're back at "Dalek Invasion Of Earth 2150" again. Had you going for a minute though, didn't I!
Okay, Your Humble Scribe could easily make two entire blog's about this film, and it's various strengths and failings, which would satisfy my horrid ego if less so the readers. Art!
 |
| A matte in action |
As Your Humble Scribe sees it (which is the only way to be seen) the foreground devastation is actually a painting on glass, with the filmed insert being the Dalek ship taking off. This shot doesn't last long, so the audience don't have time to critically assess it's various components, and instead are drawn to the flying saucer whizzing off into the stratosphere. Net result, a lot of time and money saved on building a set and models for a scene that lasts for all of 2 seconds. Matte work - a sad casualty of CGI.
NOT THAT MATT!
It is notable over on IMDB that there are a few spitefully accurate comments about how the world of 2150 seems to be EXACTLY the same as that of 1966 (when the film was made), and indeed if a couple of lines of dialogue between Suzan and her grandfather (Doctor Who, do keep up!) were to be excised, there would be no reason to have that date of 2150 AD in the script at all. Conrad postulates that there must have been contractual reasons for the title.
I have just realised that none of my screen photographs illustrate this point and have spent 5 futile minutes trawling teh interwebz, to no avail. We shall come back to it - O how surely we shall! - at a later date.
Robomen
Ah yes the Robomen. Essential slave workers, because - stairs.
Finally -
Conrad finally deciphered what that obscure note "Y, MATA" meant. A slightly abbreviated version of an abbreviation, the whole thing was "You, Me, And The Apocalypse", which was one of those things to be regarded with a certain degree of wary caution, a "comedy drama". These claim to be both and frequently achieve neither. It concerns the impending apocalypse, to be delivered via an inbound comet - here Conrad has to lay aside all his astronomy concerns about ballistics and velocity and inertia and just go with the script - and a disparate group of people trying to survive said apocalypse. Art!
Yes, that is Rob Lowe
The thing is, this series ENDS with the end of nearly all of humanity, it being the Apocalypse and all. End end end the theme. Did I mention "END" enough? Yet there are people out there who want a second series*.
And in that very timely fashion, we are O so very done indeed.
* NO! Just NO! NO! repeatedly. A pie full of NO! made with NO! pastry, baked in a NO! oven and served on a NO! plate. With ambiguous cutlery.
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