By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Demon Crowley is heading to Dublin Comic Con on the 9th and 10th of March to meet his fans. Played by Mark Sheppard he stayed in the role from 2009 to 2017. Mark is no stranger to Dublin having been part of a successful band before discovering acting. He was the fire starter assassin in the first season of the X Files who never returned despite being charred alive, Battlestar Galactica, the Matt Smith Doctor Who two parter the Impossible Astronaut. In the Name of the Father, Star Trek Voyager, MacGyver and much, much more.
He almost died last year of multiplr heart attacks which he gave a full and uplifting account of on the Michael Rosenbaum podcast Inside of You. Hs father was the late. great W. Morgan Shepperd. Get your tickets now to meet this great guest.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
photos copyright columbia pictures
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Krull is a wonderful fantasy movie full of great characters very much in the tradition of the magic and fantasy genre. While you can point at the young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, one character stands out as one of the most tragic and interesting.
Krull is a planet where the Beast has returned in his moving fortress to take a bride in the form of Lyssa and plunge the planet into darkness. His savage, inhuman troopers the screeching Slayers kidnap Lyssa from her own wedding killing nearly everyone in attendance. Only Colwyn (Deep Space 9’s Ken Marshall) her husband to be is injured but once healed goes after his soul mate. He teams up with a ragtag band of criminals, Ynyr who knows how to kill the Beast, a terrible magician Ergo, a blind Seer and a young boy must travel to save Lyssa and their world.
They are shadowed along the way by a cyclops called Rell. Rell saves Ergo from Slayer attacks revealing himself to the group. Having heard the Best has returned, Rell came to help them. He is eloquently spoken and has a kind heart. He sees in Ergo a greatness that Ergo cannot. Rell’s race and the Beast have aa dark history.
They made a deal with the Beast to give them the gift of foresight so they could see the future. They sacrificed one eye but in a move as twisted as the Wish Master, the Beast did indeed give them the ability to see the future. Sadly the only future they would see would be their own deaths.
In a conversation as they travel through a swamp, Ergo enquires of Rell what he would wish for if he had the chance. Rell answers simply, “Ignorance.”
Rell saves Colwyn from a Changeling, another of the Beast’s servants who has murdered the Seer and replaced him. It is a close call when Rell finds the Seer’s body in the quicksand and with seconds to spare Rell spears the creature in the back as it moves to kill Colwyn.
Rell is truly a gentle giant and he and Ergo become firm friends. Given the Beast’s fortress shifts location every day, it is Rell that tells Colwyn of the fire mares. These enchanted animals can travel huge distances giving the group hope back that they can defeat the Beast. However Ergo is taken aback when Rell declines his offer to ride with him. Rell is going to die here so he can go no further. Reaching the fortress the group is under attack when Rell suddenly appears and holds the door closed to let the gang access the fortress before it vanishes again. This is where Rell foresaw his real deatha nd he is crushed between the great stone doors as the others make it to safety.
Part of any movie’s success is not only a good story but the characters that populate it. They draw us in to the plot or send us awway with a roll of our eyes. Here Rell makes such an impression that you root for him throughout the movie and genuinely mourn his heroic sacrifice. Despite the tragedy of the cyclops people’s’ fate, doomed forever to see the moment of their own death and nothing else, there is a serenity and hopefulness in Rell. He sees hope in others and will aod them to keep Krull safe and destroy the Beast himself. Rell’s death is a celebration of sort because he has helped bring about the defeat of the Beast which destroyed his people. While it is true the cyclops brought about their own demise by making a deal literally with the Devil, the experience has left them wiser and more open to the suffering and problems of others. This goodness can be taken as a sign they are not bitter but hopeful that there will be a better future as long as as they can see the good in others like Colwyn and Ergo. For Rell he had the chance to redeem his people’s folly to secure their future and grasped it with both hands in a flurry of devotion and loyalty.
Rell was played by actor Bernard Bresslaw who at 6 foot 7 inches tall was perfeect for the role. He is most famous for being part of the Carry On movies and he was the first Ice Warrior in Doctor Who when they battled the second Doctor. As Varga, the towering Bresslaw secured the Ice Warrior’s future with his massive size and hissing voice. He is credited for their success in the show and to be fair, nobody has ever come close to his performance. Sadly he died from a heart attack at the age of 59 after a long and successful career. He was much loved by the public especially with the Carry On movies success. With his experience of making distinct characters out of giants, Rell is up there along with Varga in public appreciation.
Cyclops are few and far between in movies and sci fi and horror genres and maybe that’s a good thing because otherwise rell may not stand out as a strong and unique character whose species and culture is begging to be expanded upon and explored.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
photos copyright BBC
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Families can be a burden as well as a blessing; the simplest of actions can result in severe misunderstandings that can cause rifts that last forever. For Jack Harkness in Torchwood, this would come home hard and fast resulting in tragedy that breaks his heart. But of all the villains and monsters Jack has fought never did he think his own brother would be the instrument of vengeance.
In seaon 2 of Torchwood, we meet Captain John. Played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s very own Spike, James Marsters, John is a former longtime lover and fellow time agent like Jack. They shared an intense relationship but in the season’s penultimate episode Fragments, he blows up a building with the Torchwood team inside. They survive but not before he shows Jack his long lost brother, Gray, is alive and well.
Earlier in the season we learned how Jack and Gay’s home of Boeshane Peninsula is invaded by unnamed aliens. Jack grabs his little brother by the hand and runs but they lose each other in the confusion. Gray is presumed dead after a long fruitless search and it tortures Jack ever since that day. Believing John is using his brother to destroy Jack and everything he has built with Torchwood, it is a kick in the nuts when John reveals Gray is behind it all.
They blow up parts of Cardiff and bring the Weevils to the surface plunging the city into chaos. John lets Jack witness this then takes him back to Cardiff befire it was built. There he digs a grave and reveals Gray in the flesh. Jack is shocked and delighted until his brother plunges a blade into his chest. He reveals to Jack that he was taken by the aliens who kept bringing him to the point of death then pulling him back so they could do it all over again. He kept hoping Jack would find him but he never came. John is in fact doing Gray’s bidding against his will, He is strapped to a bomb on a molecular level that Gray monitors. If he does not comply then he will be blown apart. John revela he found Gray in a sea of corpses chained beneath the ruins of a city. As Gray tells Jack he wanted so much to become one of the dead rather than be tortured again and again. He has gone mad, his mind broken so he blames Jack for his fate. Now he will bury Jack beneath the city before it is built where he will forever choke on soil and die for eternity. Cardiff will be Jack’s tomb where he will lie unknown as Gray burns it to the ground over his eternally dying body. In the meantime Gray will destroy what is left of Jack’s life.
However John cannot let that happen, kisses and throws a ring in the hole with Jack telling Gray it is of sentimental value. In reality it is a tracking device. With Jack now out of the way Gray releases John who goes to Gwen for help. The ring emits a signal but they cannot find it. With time running out they discover Jack was rescued by the original Torchwood team, frozen and is in fact in Torchwood itself. Gray just cannot believe how his brother survived but Jack forgives him. Despite Jack searching fruitlessly for him, his guilt for letting go of his brother’s hand drove him every day. Rather than killing his brother, Jack drugs him and locks him in a stasis chamber. His fate is up in the air as as John points out he won’t wake up suddenly regretting his actions and be the perfect brother again.
But little does Jack know that Gray has shot Tosh and taunted as to what she is seeing as she dies as he doesn’t have that experience. This cold delivery is because of his treatment at the hands of the aliens. He has a morbid fascination of what he was denied. Brought to the edge of death, he was always pulled back from its brink yet Tosh is going to die and it makes him curious. To him, she is merely a cog in Jack’s life that needs taken out. Tosh is working with a trapped Owen to stop a nuclear reactor melting down. The only solution os divert the radiation to the control room Owen is trapped in. He freaks out but calms when Yosh tells him he is breaking her heart. Gray doesn’t know this nor would he care about these two or their feelings. Tosh manages to help Owen stop the meltdown but Owen dies in the process. She has been in love with Owen for ages but he never knew until now when it is too late. This is a heartbreaking moment as both of them say their farewells before Owen dissolves in the radiation flood.
Gray’s own thirst for vengeance blinds him to the bonds between the team, his brither and John. His total lack of humanity leaves him oblivious to the fact they will find a way because they love each other. This thanks to the aliens is gone in him so even when Jack forgives him, Gray cannot process it.is all he understands. Death and destruction are all he sees; there is no humanity.
Gray is a victim of bad luck but such is his torment that he blames his brother for it all. Jack never meant to lose him but Gray cannot see that. He waited for Jack to come which was never going to happen. Indeed why did Jack never use the Tardis systems to find him or is Jack lying about searching for him?
Gray is sadly a victim of circumstance and in the first episode of Children of Earth, the Torchwood Hub is destroyed in an explosion. We can only assume Gray died in that blast which may be a blessing in disguise as he could never find his humanity ever again.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright of Entertainment Film Distributors
For any franchise to develop it must continue to expand its boundaries and main characters. When the third movie in the Hellraiser series hit, that’s exactly what they did.
Following the events of Hellbound, Pinhead in his battle against Leviathan and Doctor Cenobite has been split in two; his Cenobite half and his human half, soldier Elliot Spence. Trapped in the Pillar of Souls, Pinhead manipulates debauched nightclub owner J.P. into feeding him souls so Pinhead can walk the Earth. Standing in his way this time is reporter Joey Summerskill played by Star Trek DS9’s Terry Farrell. Having witnessed a man being torn apart by chains out of thin air in an emergency room, she is drawn to solve the mystery which involves the sale of a statue from a shop that has not been open in a long time. And it all leads to the Boiler Room nightclub owned by J.P.
Maybe because her father died as a soldier and she dreams of battle, this connection allows Elliot Spence to contact her in her dreams warning her of whom she is up against. She must stop Pinhead getting the puzzle cube, the Lament Configuration from falling into his hands. Together Joey and Spence must work to stop Hell literally coming to Earth.
Farrell does a solid job as Joey and the overall story is pretty tight. The more intimate settings of the first two movies are gone as Pinhead slaughters a nightclub full of people and creates some brand new Cenobites as he steps into our world. In a way Joey and Pinhead mirror each other’s arcs; Pinhead is battling his own human self, a part that he sees as weak and disposable while Joey is battling the trauma of her father’s death in Vietnam. She never knew him and is tormented by dreams of his death while Pinhead is tormented by the ghost of his own past. They are in perfect symmetry but their end goals are very different. It successfully takes Pinhead in a new direction adding and exploring new facets of his character and giving Doug Bradley some time out of prosthetics.
When Pinhead and his Cenobites chase Joey down a street it is chaos with explosions going off all around her, cars and people scattering and the Cenobites using their new powers to stop her. If Pinhead gets the Lament Configuration he will fully unleash the dark desires of Hell on the entire planet where it will entice, pleasure and condemn everyone to a living eternal Hell. If you are lucky, you will die when the gates open.
What evil does best is take what is everyday and normal to us and twist it so it becomes a way for them to get to us. Here, even a simple CD can take your head right off , a camera certainly lies and a father’s love is a stepping stone to armageddon.
Overall, Hell on Earth is the last of the great Hellraiser movies with solid characters, a strong sense of identity while giving us a taste of the evil that simmers beneath the surface of human psyche.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photo copyright Amblin
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
In the Seaquest universe, between 2001 and 2003 genetic engineering went wild resulting in the creation of humans called Daggers. They were bred for war and totally sterile so reproduction was impossible. The UN banned all such work meaning the Daggers had no function in society. They were kept in camps under armed guard, abused and despised by the guards who also use the “almost women” for sexual pleasure. But the seeds of revolution had been sown. But as Ian said in Jurassic Park life finds a way and one gives birth. That makes them human with full rights as any citizen which draws Captain Bridger and his crew in.
Aboard the Seaquest is a solitary Dagger called Dagwood with the mannerism of a shy child. As fate would have it, Dagwood would become instrumental to the plight of the Daggers and Seaquest itself. Captain Bridger is impressed by his insight into the Dagger situation that everything will work out. It is when Dagwood uses his enormous strength to save O’Neill )Ted Raimi) from being killed that Bridger offers Dagwood a permanent place on the Seaquest.
Dagger’s skin is multicoloured given the different gentc samples used. Dagwood goes largely ignored and unnoticed, used to clean only, He has the strength of a bull and as we soon learn he is much more than just another Dagger. He is an Alpha model K , the prototype for all Daggers. Bridger dislikes the term Dagger as racist. When they find the baby, Dagwood is delighted that he is now technically an uncle.
It is Dagwood that manages to convince his brethren that Bridger is on their side and avert total disaster.
Dagwood quickly becomes part of the crew and enjoys nights out with Lucas, Tony and the others. If nothing else, he is the best bodygusrd you could have on your side. His strength comes in useful time and again even when the crew go under the command of Captain Oliver Hudson (Michael Ironside) in season three.
I have a real soft spot for both Seaquest and the character of Dagwood. Played by Peter DeLuise, he is the son of Cannonball Run’s legend Dom DeLuise and brother of fellow Seaquest cast member Michael DeLuise who plays Merman Tony Piccolo. His performance is so nuanced and likeable you couldn’t help but feel protective of Dagwood. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and brutally honest. He looked like he could crush your skull but he was as gentle as a kitten with his childlike view of the world. Much to Tony’s disbelief, Dagwood doesn’t understand why women wore mini skirts in the 60s.
When Dagwood is accused of the murder of the scientist who created him but does not remember doing it, we discover he was one of mutiple clones. He finds versions of himself in various stages of development hidden in a secret lab. He refers to them as his family. What he also finds is his evil twin has kept on ice because it could not be reasoned with. This version was almost the perfect Dagger but it killed anyone it met rather than the enemy it was meant to. To get a beat down between two Dagwoods is well done and makes for exciting viewing. It is brutal and leaves our Dagwood battered and bruised. We know he is innocent as does the crew but the evidence is concrete up until this point. Brody and Ford take him to do things he would never do otherwise before going to prison like dance and be kissed. Perhaps the most telling scene in this episode is when Bridger tries to tell Dagwood what jail really is. Dagwood tells him he has been in a jail all his life; the only difference is this jail has bars on the windows. His jail has always been the fact he is different even to other Daggers. This shows that Dagwood is well aware of how the world sees him and we see this racism first hand firstly through a prison guard and when he is turned away from a bar. Not even prostitutes will kiss him. So when he gets a taste of an actual life he runs to keep it but thankfully he fights with his evil clone which proves his innocence.He also finally gets kissed by Henderson which is a great reaction moment. If only we got a deeper exploration of how layered Dagwood really was as a character.
This is further explored when the Seaquest is at the mercy of a powerful psychic. He brainwashes Dagwood using his deepest wishes to make him do what he wants. Dagwood admits he wants to be like everyone else and is shown what he would look like as a human. The psychic admires Dagwwod as the new Adam and he will be the template for all future humanity. He beleives this to the point that the villain sacrifices himself to save Dagwood from being killed in an explosion. Tony aand Dagwood have never been closer than in this episode when they share a nightmare implanted by the psychic and he saves Tony from a type of floatation tank when he has a panic attack induced by our friendly neighbourhood psychic. And it is Tony’s fledgling psychic abilities that get through to dagwood to save Lucas.
Someone as powerful as Dagwood is handy to have when facing killer aliens like the Stormers in Dream Weaver with guest star Mark Hamill. But when the Seaquest is taken to an alien world in the season two finale Splashdown, events turn sour very quickly. Tricked by alien forces, the crew are killed when the Seaquest episodes and they sacrifice themselves for the greater good. But Bridger entrusted Dagwood to save Lucas and look after him to find a way home. As the last three survivors, Dagwood, Darwin and Lucas face an unknown future.
However most of the crew are resurrected and wake up on Earth yen years later. Bridger hands command of the Seaquest to Oliver Hudson who makes Dagwood an ensign. He learns quickly from his human friends and you see him being protective of people especially Lucas and Tony whom have a penchant for getting into trouble. There is a DeLuise family reunion when both Michael and Dagwood act alongside their father Dom and brother David. In the episode Vapors, Dom plays Tony’s father, a heavy smoker who spends his time in Buddy’s Smokehouse.
Dagwood stares at him through the glass of the smoking booth and tells him that he is what he imagines his father would look like only with a brain.
In season three Dagwood got to wield weapons and in Good Soldiers, Bridger returns and takes Lucas and Commander Ford on a secret mission. Dagwood asks to go based on a feeling he needs to be there. He experiences visions of Daggers in agony and they discover a secret facility where Daggers were experimented upon to make the perfect soldier. Dagwood is furious angry at Ford and Bridger’s involvement in these atrocities. He says all he has ever wanted was to be like everyone else but not anymore. It triggers a crisis of conscience but he needs the world to know. But he chooses not to as it is too risky.
Hidson sees Dagwood as a civilian but in the episode In The Company of Ice and Profit, Dagwood risks his life taking a bullet in the process. Hudson makes him part of the crew with his own uniform.
Even though ten years have passed, th Daggers are still struggling to be accepted. Along with Brody and Henderson, Dagwood is refused entry to a restaurant but discovers the Dagger’ Sheath, a Daggers only club. There he meets a woman called Rachel who persuades him that the crew don’t really like him and he is only a slave to them, a novelty. He asks to leave but Hidson refuses giving him 48 hours leave or he will be classd as a deserter. despite her best efforts, Rchel fails and he returns to Seaquest. when asked if he wasn’t happier with his own kind, he replies that he is with his own kind. No one sees him as a Dagger here and he sees friends and family. It shows how far he has come since his arrival on the boat.
Dagwood could walk the line between comedy and drama in a heartbeat. It’s a pity they didn’t get further seasons of Seaquest because it would have been interesting watching his journey to almost human. For the one and a half seaosn we did get, Dagwood was easily the best character besides Tony because he brought the best out in others.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
copyyright Paramount Pictures
The lovely Christina Chong comes to the fore in this episode when she is sent back in time to stop an attack that will destroy history as she knows it. She’s having a bad enough time dealing with her genetically altered ancestry as well as who her infamous ancestor is; Khan Noonien Singh himself. The stakes are higher than any Trek episode that has tampered with this scenario when La’an finds herself stuck in the altered history which says she doesn’t exist with the new captain of the USS Enterprise….James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. She has no choice but to go back as not even Starfleet exists here.
We can assume that the fatally wounded time traveller that comes for La’an is either a member of Starfleet’s temporal division as seen in Trials and Tribblations. Or he could be one of Gary 7’s associates as encountered as our James Kirk in the original series Assignment Earth.
La’an’s story is met with disbelief by Kirk who accidentally sends them back to the present. This is a great chance to see a previously unknown Kirk adventure and indeed aspects to a Kirk whom we only know because of his face. This Kirk was born in space, his brother Sam is dead, Earth is an uninhabitable ruin, and he has never seen a sunset. On the flipside he is still the cocky confident chess playing man we know ready to jump right in to save the day. Given La’an has never met the real James Kirk in her history, it gives her a chance to form a real relationship here even falling for him. Given the fact Kirk is Khan’s greatest foe, it is as if fate is having a laugh teaming La’an up with him. This Kirk’s past is dark but he deals with it in a humorous manner like how he makes Vulcan soup and where he learned to nerve pinch. La’an sees in him someone she can relate to and be open with as seen in the scene where her name means nothing to him. His tragic past is something she can identify with given her history especially with the Gorn (again fate having a bit of fun given Kirk is the first to see what a Gorn looks like in Arena).
Both do what they do best; they have no tricorders or weapons so use their wits and abilities to steal clothes and get some money. They frame a woman for shoplifting then Kirk plays chess to hustle some cash.
After a car chase there is a nice commentary on our world now when an on-looker, Vanessa, forces the cops to release Kirk after a car chase due to social media pressure. It is the same woman whom they spoke to earlier when a bridge (which happens in both timelines) is destroyed by photonic charges. Vanessa is a conspiracy theorist tracking government activity and claims aliens are the big threat. She shows them photos which Kirk realises show a Romulan ship. They now know a cold fusion reactor will explode in a few days triggering Kirk’s future as La’an has never heard of it.
New chief engineer Pelia, played by Carol Kane, is alive and well in the 21st century given her species the Lanthanite lived in secret on Earth for centuries. However, this version of Pelia is not an engineer yet but a nice Voyage Home moment as La’an triggers Pelia’s engineering career. Indeed, the ghost of Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home is sprinkled throughout as Kirk learns of hotdogs, hot showers with water, memes and the Apple store.
Such is their connection La’an hopes to being Kirk back to her timeline as she admits he is special as she opens up about her heritage. Her speech about being marked as different as seen in the Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. This is the first person La’an has met that takes her for who she is and not what her name of lineage represents. As seen in the scene in the hotel, she almost tells him in the middle of the night . She is torn and Christina Chong plays it perfectly. You can feel her agony at opening to, literally, a complete stranger.
However, fate chose them for this mission for a much bigger reason. The real target is not a cold fusion reactor but Khan. Vanessa is really a surgically altered Romulan that has been trapped on Earth for 30 years. The Romulan plan to slow mankind’s progress has not achieved the results they wanted and should have happened in 1992 so if they kill Khan, the Eugenic Wars never happen and man does not reach the stars. Vanessa calls Kirk’s bluff and shoots him dead in an unexpected twist but we always knew he could never come back to La’an’s reality. There is an echo here of Edith Keeler’s death in City on the Edge of Forever when Kirk had to stand by and let her die to ensure his future. La’an declares Khan and his dark legacy for what it is and that she is a product of that same legacy. After a vicious fight, Vanessa is shot but self-destructs ending their threat. Despite our hope it will be a CGI appearance by Ricardo Montalban, we discover this Khan is a mere child along with others being kept secure by the government. There is the thought of would you kill Hitler as a child here in the background. La’an knows what he will become but also knows the good that will come out of it. With Khan safe she returns to her restored timeline where she is instructed by Temporal Investigations to keep what she has just been through.
She is furious that she was sent back to save a mass murderer and having to kill to do it. She is furious she lost Kirk in the process but realises it had it be done to keep her reality safe. In the final scene La’an contacts Kirk who is the Kirk she has never met. Speaking to him, it rams home that the version she has fallen for and trusted is gone forever. He may have the face of the only man she trusted to open herself too, but he is not him. She breaks down completely alone just as she has always been due to the mark of Khan.
This episode is a tour de force for Christina Chong and her character as get to see below the layers that make her so rigid in her duties. We thought her tales of being trapped by the Gorn were heart wrenching but here it delves into her very soul. A classic.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Within hours of Dublin Comic Con announcing that actor Carl Weathers was coming to Dublin in March, the sad news came that Carl passed away at the age of 76.
His family say he died peacefully at home and his death has truly shocked the world. I met him in Belfast at a comic con a few years ago and he signed a boxing glove for one of my son’s friends who came with us. He was great with us and I was looking forward to meeting him again in a few weeks.
But now that isn’t going to happen.
Instead I’m thinking back at the performances that cemented him into a fan favourite for me. Looking back, to me he was the only man that could stand toe to toe with both Rocky and Arnie. Carl had an intensity about him that made you sit up and notice. None of us will ever forget his role as Apollo Creed and that fight in the ring with Stallone. That fight was raw and roared off the screen at us hypnotised masses. As much as we were rooting for Rocky, your eyes never left Apollo.
Former enemy turned friend to Rocky, I can hear james Brown singing Living in America with Apollo dancing around in his outrageous All American costume. He is confident that Dolph Lumgren’s Ivan Drago will fall like the others so it is with hearts in our mouths that we watcched him die in the ring, his wife crying out to him while Rocky cradles his body. Drago says, “if he dies, he dies.” Rocky glares at him and we shout out knowing Rocky is broken hearted and furious, “I wouldn’t be so cocky, you big blond bollocks. Rocky’s coming on the back of Apollo’s spirit!”
It still makes my blood boil to this day lol But that’s the magic issn’t it.
There’s a power and gut wrenching emotion in it that stayed with audiences long after the movie ended. To see Apollo pummelled to death is a piece of movie history but his legacy lived on in his son.
Similarly in Predator, Dillon against Dutch in the bicep scene shows what a match Weathers was for all of the big power houses at the time. His death in the movie was the most spectacular of them all although you can see his supposed amputated arm strapped up his back. The camera spinning as his gun rattled off shot after useless shot against certain death is brilliantly executed. Predator showed just how good an actor he was and it felt like Arnie was pushed to equal Weathers’ screen presence.
And when he joined the Mandalorian as Greef Karga, we saw another strong character that stood side by side with the Mandalorian in any situation. In the last season he was central in restoring his questionable past and giving the Mandalorian people a home to call their own. It was an act of redemption and a gesture of hope for the future as old enemies forgive and move forward to build a better future.
I’ve only mentioned those that stand out for me but he has so many acting and writing credits to his name; it is a legacy well deserved. He was an uncredited extra in Clint Eastwood’s Magnum Force, an MP in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Force 10 from Navarone, Toy Story 4, Action Jaclson, Happy Gilmour and returned in Little Nicky with Adam Sandler. On television he met Starsky and Hutch, Six Million Dollar Man, Kung Fu and The Shield to name a few.
The thing about Carl was THAT when he walked into a room you noticed. he was intense and brooding but with a smile that melted our hearts that day in Belfast.
Another great loss to the world. Rest easy sir; I’m so glad I got to meet you.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
photos copyright Gerry Anderson
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Gerry Anderson’s second season of Space 1999 is generally seen as the lesser of the two seasons with a splurge of aliens and the addition of shape shifting crew member Maya played by Catherine Schell. Logic was out the window but I don’t care. I love this show and prefer season two to the first one. But despite the moaners, there are some genuinely good episodes like The Metamorph and Dorzak. It’s widely agreed that the mid season two parter story Bringers of Wonder is an outstanding story that is well received.
It opens with Commander Keoing (the late legend Martin Landau) seemingly having a breakdown while piloting an Eagle. He crashes it and his only hope for survival is being hooked to a brain machine that Doctor Helena Russell (Landau’s real life wife at the time, Barbara Bain) hopes can restore him to normal. In the meantime an advanced Earth ship, a Swift, arrives on Moonbase Alpha. Aboard are family, friends and colleagues of the Alphans. They claim to be a rescue mission from Earth thanks to technological advancement. They can all go home, however when Koenig is healed, he sees something else. He sees horrible plasmatic monsters. He freaks out and is sedated again. It soon becomes clear he is right and they are facing an alien race that even Maya falls before.
The beauty of these episodes is that the aliens can control the mind and make you see whatever they want you to. While Keonig’s reaction to them is totally OTT in order to satisfy the ‘Koenig has had a mental breakdown’ aspect of the story, the rest is quite good. The Alphans are mere puppets before the aliens which are never named but can speak telepathically. Their design is disgusting and by far one of the most memorable aliens from my childhood. What is also nice is that they are not the usual man in a rubber suit monster but something unique. Maya describes them as being like the stuff that grows on decaying matter when she has to transform into one of them to discover their plans for the moonbase.
They are capable of space travel and have been drawn to the moonbase because of its nuclear reserves, the same reserves that caused them to be torn out of Earth’s orbit. While this at first seems an ideal solution to both parties, Maya reveals that to consume the nuclear waste, the aliens will have to detonate it destroying them all in the process. They control every aspect of the Alphan’s behavior except for Keonig, Maya and Helena who Koenig has persuaded them to use the brain machine to free their minds.
Under the guise of a lottery to choose the first three Alphans to go home, the nuclear experts are picked. To them they are on Earth, reunited with their loved ones. Alan Carter (Nick Tate) is having a great time with women and living it up under the sun again but in reality they are sabotaging the nuclear reactors to blow. None of them will even know they have killed everyone they care about as the illusions are so powerful. When Koenig tries to stop them Alan thinks he is using a dune buggy to stop a man killing him and his ladies but is simply driving the surface vehicle.
Helena races to find how the brain machine is protecting their minds and discovers a signal blocks the alien influence. She releases it over the intercoms and frees the others who see what the aliens are for the first time. But Alan and the others are still possessed as the signal doesn’t filter through their helmets. Koenig is viciously attacked as the aliens focus all their mental power on Alan and the others. However the more they do the more it weakens them. Without the explosion they will die. Koenig manages to save the day and the aliens and their ship fade away.
Whoever these beings were are master manipulators of the human mind. They targeted Koenig to kill him as the leader. He was meant to die in the Eagle crash leaving the arrival of friends and family from Earth a welcome distraction for the grieving Alphans. With his death they would willingly follow the alien lead. Without Koenig surviving the crash, their plan would have succeeded and Moonbase Alpha would have been destroyed with all hands dead. They even blocked the obvious problem of all the people on the ship being the same age as when the moon left Earth. They would be dead by this stage and Maya’s keen scientific mind is scrambled to not register this. But that doesn’t explain how they never knew she was a metamorph.
Such is the allure of the aliens illusions that we get some beautiful dialogue that reaches themes that were never really touched upon. When Tony asks his brother Guido how his parents took the loss of Tony, Guido’s answer is beautiful. He says their mother complained to every government and authority and never let it go. Their father however became quiet. Then he became thin. In just one line we see the reaction of those left behind and the impact the moon being blown out of orbit had on them. It conveys both sides of the relative’s reactions and the delivery is spot on. Both actors speak volumes with just a few words. For the aliens to go into so much detail shows how powerful they are. With their nonhumanoid bodies, it is quite logical they have evolved their mental abilities to giant levels. What made them really stand out for the audience was the blood pumping through their veins round the eye and their glowing veins especially when on the surface of the moon in semi-darkness. They look totally eerie like something out of a horror film making their impact even more vivid on the minds of the viewer. With their lack of speed and mobility, they use the humanoids around them to do their bidding for them and build space ships. This suggests they have enslaved other cultures to do this for them and they force Sandstrom to try to murder Koenig and Clive Kander to destroy all his film evidence of the aliens’ presence by blowing up the lab and himself. But the presence of others affects their control, meaning it has to be confined and insular in order for an individual to complete a task for them.
These nameless blobs are by far the most lethal race the Alphans have ever faced and almost succeeded in destroying them. Even nearly fifty years later these aliens stand out as one of the most original and terrifying from the seventies sci-fi genre.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 