Peter’s picks with comics and flicks

2/17/14

This month’s pick: STARGATE

Released in the year: 1994

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Kurt Russell and James Spader

The plot:

The story is about James Spader portraying a nerdy Egyptian Cultural researcher who has been hired by the U.S. Air Force to decrypt the mysterious hieroglyphs on a ring like portal called a Stargate and Kurt Russell portraying a serious Air Force colonel who is ordered to lead a military team into the Stargate and destroy it if it poses as a threat.

       When Spader, Russell and the other military personnel enter the Stargate, they arrive on a desert planet where tribes of ancient humans work as slaves to alien possessed humans disguised as the Egyptian gods who forbid reading and writing due to a revolt back on Earth centuries ago. It is then that Spader and Russell help lead a revolution against the godlike human/aliens and win. At the end, spader’s character chooses to stay on the planet while Russell goes through the Stargate to back Earth.

          

The hero’s journey aspect:

From my standpoint, Stargate is the perfect example of the hero’s journey. Daniel Jackson (Spader’s character) is the main hero who was given the call adventure by Catherine Langford (portrayed by Viveca Lingfors) who is sort of the mentor for the first half of the movie. Jack O’Neil (Russell’s character) is sort of the failed hero on a personal matter because before being assigned to the Stargate, his kid accidentally shot himself.

The shadow is none other than Ra, the sun god.

Ra is the perfect definition of sci-fi movie evil (no offense to Darth Maul) because he plans to send a nuclear bomb through the Stargate to destroy the Earth. The Herald is basically the Stargate itself along with the hieroglyphics that tell us the story of how these characters. The three parts of the hero’s journey are all present with this movie. From the Departure to Initiation and then to the Return, it’s used perfectly.

 

Final thought:

In my opinion, I think Stargate is the coolest science fiction film of all time. It’s premise and plot is interesting and engaging, it’s characters are funny and likeable, and above all else, it’s probably one of the most realistic sci-fi movies of all time and that’s really saying something. It shows aspects from the classic 1968 book, “Chariots of the Gods” by Enrich von Danikken, in which aliens helped the humans with building the Egyptian pyramids and were worshiped as gods. While there has also been a movie made in 1970 based off this book, Stargate shows it well through groundbreaking special effects and interesting plot. Ronald Emmerich and Dean Devlin are the kings of 1990’s science fiction movies (or they were, at least until 1998, when they remade Godzilla). The whole movie is an amazing spectacle that basically not only unlocked a franchise… but a universe as well.

Peter's picks 2/22/14

Peter’s picks with comics and flicks

2/22/14

This month’s comic pick: Terminator-Endgame

Published in 1999

Published by Dark Horse Comics

 

Okay, so here’s the deal folks, back in July of 2013, I bought this graphic novel collection book called “The Terminator: Omnibus-Volume 2” which is a collection of 5 different Terminator comics published by Dark Horse Comics.

In this second volume omnibus, there was a story called “Terminator: Endgame” which was actually a 3-part series. This was a story that I had my doubts about for various reasons, but you know what? I now think it’s the best comic in the history of Dark Horse Comic’s publishing (no offense to the first Alien versus Predator series in 1989, that’s also pretty good, too). I know this story is nothing special compared to other stories in comics, but there is just something about it that can really hook a reader in.

This story is about an L.A. detective named Mark Sloane and a future resistance soldier named Mary Randall who are trying to save Sarah Connor after being destroying other Terminators in previous comics. While Sloane is trying overcome the fact that the terminator’s will rise up and try to destroy humanity, he is also trying to find a crazed serial killer named Catfish. To make matters even worse, yet another Terminator is sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor while she gives birth to her child. Unlike the Terminators in the movies who know to go to L.A. to find Sarah Connor, this Terminator (who sort of looks like Schwarzenegger only with darker hair and a beard) travels from the Canadian Tundra to Odessa, Texas where Connor is located and he manages to kill so many people in his way.  I’m not kidding, he kills so many more innocent lives than the Terminators from the movies ever could.

 This story is also a continuation of other comics like, “Tempest”, “Secondary Objectives” and “The Enemy Within” which I found out are in the first volume omnibus. The story arc is hard to follow, but it’s easy to understand when the characters talk about the previous events that did not occur in this comic, but in the other three

Because I don’t want to spoil it for you, I’m not going to talk about the ending of this story. However, I’m just going to say this… it is possibly the greatest twist ending in a Terminator story since the ending of the first movie. Let’s just leave it at that. You can Google the story itself or actually buy the omnibus or just buy the graphic novel separately if you want to skip all the other stories in the omnibus and let’s face it, who doesn’t.

In conclusion, TERMINATOR: ENDGAME is a Terminator comic at its best. It has a great storyline, excellent action and it’s not just a great Terminator comic…it’s a great comic period. Anybody who is a fan of the Terminator franchise or just comic books in general should read this comic.

Thank you for reading this and…

I’ll be back!!!

P.S.: Sorry I said that line. I know it’s a cheesy thing to say, but I just couldn’t resist it. J

peter's picks 2/17/14

Peter’s picks with comics and flicks

2/17/14

This month’s pick: STARGATE

Released in the year: 1994

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Kurt Russell and James Spader

 

The story is about James Spader portraying a nerdy Egyptian Cultural researcher who has been hired by the U.S. Air Force to decrypt the mysterious hieroglyphs on a ring like portal called a Stargate and Kurt Russell portraying a serious Air Force colonel who is ordered to lead a military team into the Stargate and destroy it if it poses as a threat.

       When Spader, Russell and the other military personnel enter the Stargate, they arrive on a desert planet where tribes of ancient humans work as slaves to alien possessed humans disguised as the Egyptian gods who forbid reading and writing due to a revolt back on Earth centuries ago. It is then that Spader and Russell help lead a revolution against the godlike human/aliens and win. At the end, spader’s character chooses to stay on the planet while Russell goes through the Stargate to back Earth.

 

In my opinion, I think Stargate is the coolest science fiction film of all time. It’s premise and plot is interesting and engaging, it’s characters are funny and likeable, and above all else, it’s probably one of the most realistic sci-fi movies of all time and that’s really saying something. It shows aspects from the classic 1968 book, “Chariots of the Gods” by Enrich von Danikken, in which aliens helped the humans with building the Egyptian pyramids and were worshiped as gods. While there has also been a movie made in 1970 based off this book, Stargate shows it well through groundbreaking special effects and interesting plot. Ronald Emmerich and Dean Devlin are the kings of 1990’s science fiction movies (or they were, at least until 1998, when they remade Godzilla). The whole movie is an amazing spectacle that basically not only unlocked a franchise… but a universe as well.