You'd Probably Expect This Intro To Be About Another Australian Pyramid
Not so!
We may come back to those words, but for this Intro I'm going to be veering wildly between different iterations of the same thing, to whit: 'Malum', which is the Latin <hack spit> for 'Apple'. Art!
This is indeed 'The Apple', a film from 1980 that is widely recognised as one of the worst cinematic atrocities ever committed to celluloid (the medium they used way back then) even if it's had a lot of competition in the intervening 45 years. It's supposed to be a look at the world of 1994 via the medium of a rock musical, which is where Conrad's interest abruptly ends. Art!
Allegedly, the Beatles accountants told them in 1968 that they had £2 million which they could either invest or it would be clawed back by the government, so Paul McCartney came up with the punning title, pronounced 'Apple core'. It was around for at least 40 years, thanks to having a never-ending source of income in The Beatles song archive.
ANYWAY none of that has anything to do with today's Intro, which is once again a deep dive into 'Starry Trek' and the episode 'The Apple', which might well have lots of alien fruits but nary a Cox's Orange Pippin to be seen. Art!
You can tell by the detailing on the planet here that they've jiggerered things up with CGI. Making it the apple of one's eye, perhaps. Basic plot, a large landing party beams down to investigate anomalous readings, into what seems a veritable paradise. Inevitably there are sundry serpents afoot in this terrestrial Eden or it would be a very short episode. Art!
The first metaphorical snake appears: Hendorf is hit with a shotgun blast of seeds that kills him before he collapses to the ground.
Your Humble Scribe has questions here. Why did Hapless Hendorf get shotseeded to death? If him, why not the others? We never find out.
The party, now reduced to 8, makes tracks for a native village 17 kilometres away. What, couldn't they have transported down a bit closer? Shoddy work on the 'Enterprise', one feels. Art!
 |
| Mister Spock and his effing rock |
Mister Spock then casually discards a piece of unusually friable rock, which promptly explodes on impact. 'Garden of Eden - with land mines' opines Captain Kirk.
Once again, why are these dangerously hazardous rock strewn across the landscape? Remember, also, the theory of 'Checkhov's Gun', because he's in this party, too. Art!
The next 'Naturally-occurring Hazard' (quotation marks are mine) is a thunderstorm that rolls up with about 20 seconds notice, much to the chagrin of the landing party, who do not come equipped with umbrellas. Welcome to British weather, chaps! There is then a brief spate of lightning bolts, and one of the redshirts - now down to three from the original four - you may be ahead of me here. Art!
When the remaining 7 reach this spot, all they find is a blackened scorch mark. Okay, apparently some power doesn't want this landing party to get anywhere, yet once again it only zaps a single person. Bad power! Inefficient power! No biscuit for you!
The remaining 7 continue on their way, with the surviving redshirts patrolling well forwards of the others. One of these rashly runs back to meet up and -
I did warn about Chekhov's Gun, didn't I? This time it's the Randomly Scattered Land Mine Rocks, which blast the careless chap to perdition. Ooops.
Nor is that all. Scotty had discovered that the transporter is no longer working, that the Enterprise's orbit is decaying and they have 16 hours remaining. Art!
Transporter out? Just what a shuttlecraft is designed for! Apart from seemingly slipping from everyone's minds.
ANYWAY when the native village is reached, they are revealed as mere minions of 'Vaal', which is a vast subterranean machine, accessed via certain surface portals, which are strikingly designed. Art!
Apple, Eden, Serpent. Got it.
The Vast Subterranean Machine is sustained by the villagers chucking rocks into this gaping satanic maw, which proves to be a weak link. Kirk et al - after losing their last redshirt - confine the natives to their huts, and Scotty unleashes a phaser barrage against the (single!) access point, which burns out Vaal's energy reserves and 'kills' it. Art!
Miles better than my screenshot, which is why it's here
Problem solved, everyone wins, Conrad ponders on plot holes.
Spock describes the Vast Subterranean Machine as 'ancient'. Okay, who built it and - WHY? In their 17 kilometre trek, there are no other villages or villagers, so Vaal was entirely, totally, cripplingly dependent on a handful of people to sustain itself? With a back-history of 10,000 years it couldn't come up with a crude robot or two?
Of course, I may be overthinking this .....
More Of Apples
I had to wait for my i-Pod to charge up in able to be post this illo because it's not been used for months and the internal battery had run down. Art!
What's the marque for i-Pods? Why none other than an apple with a bite taken out of it, which we did put up yesteryon as a teaser. Art!
You'll have a hard job persuading me that the i-pod isn't one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century.
Charge!
Nothing to do with cavalry.
One of the requirements for Conrad's Working From Home is a functioning mobile phone, because that's how we log onto our phone system and various work applications. For the Dog Buns mobile to function it has to be properly charged up, which has been an incredibly slow process when achieved by my laptop. About 10% every hour, taking care never to touch the charging cable, which is mighty obstreperous about how it charges. Art!
A connection directly to an adapter plugged into the mains supply. 0 - 100% in half an hour. Ha! Take that, laptop!
Speaking Of Cavalry
One of the methods of halting or incommoding cavalry for millennia has been the humble 'caltrop', which name is derived from the Old English 'Calcatrippe', meaning 'Heel Trap'. Typically it's a four-pointed metal device designed that one point is always uppermost. As you can imagine, running onto one of these even in shoes would stop a charge dead in it's tracks. Art!
They were used to a limited extent in the First Unpleasantness in the early months, and the Ukrainians took to dropping ones made out of steel nails behind enemy lines from drones a couple of years ago. Running a vehicle over one bursts the tyre, running a vehicle over two stops it dead in it's tracks.
The wickedly inventive Ukrainians have improved on their original model. Art!
These are more like an air-dropped 'Stinger' than the original single discrete variety. Three thousand years on, the Romans would have recognised these.
THEY'RE DOING IT AGAIN!
Dog Buns, these people will be first into the uranium mines when I take over, make no mistake about it. Art!
Let me spare you the click and inform that this is 'Full Metal Jacket', Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam War epic that is far better than the rather peculiar novel it's based on. There are still shots from FMJ that you cannot differentiate from those taken at the time, and the sheer artistic conceit of filming in the London Docklands as a substitute for Vietnam takes the whole tin, not just the biscuit.
Finally -
Time to go make lunch and sort out Sunday's Stew. Pip pip!
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