In email, zzzzthunk asks:

So a long time ago you talked about how a Flash movie shouldn’t be about the origin of the Flash but instead be about the final adventure of Barry Allen. But who signs on to be Barry Allen in that movie when they’re just going to be cut from the franchise?

Firstly, go ask Liam Neeson why he signed on to play Qui-Gon Jinn. Hint: the answer is “it’s fun and you get to make a lot of money.” But the real answer is that if I was going to plot out a trilogy of Flash movies (as trilogies are the hot thing these days, assuming the first one goes off properly), whoever played Barry would be key in all three. But, since I am not a hack, each movie itself would also have to be a self-contained work within a larger theme.

So what is the Flash’s theme? “Runs real fast” is not an answer, and Geoff Johns’ thing where he tries to turn Barry Allen into Batman isn’t the answer either. Barry Allen works best when he’s just a decent sort who gets superpowers and does good because he can, which is not that fascinating, which means his conflict should be external rather than internal. Wally’s can be internal, though – and the fact that I am mentioning Wally should key off that a Flash movie and/or trilogy should ultimately be about family. The Flash has always been best when the generational aspect of the costume raises its head: after all, the Flash was basically always just a dude who ran fast, and what ultimately distinguished him from other superheroes was really the fact that at a certain point someone took over for the previous guy, and then again, and then again.

So:

The Flash: Barry Allen’s last adventure. Jay and Wally and Linda are introduced as well: Jay is quite explicitly the “older Flash,” and Wally is the former sidekick, grown up, with Linda as his lady. And he’s got cancer, which is of course killing him because every time he uses his speed powers his metabolism clocks up to deadly o’clock. Professor Zoom is the villain, perhaps with Savitar as his assistant, and Zoom wants to command the Speed Force itself to do Bad Things. (NOTE: Do not ever call it the Speed Force in the movies. Say it out loud and you will quickly understand why. Call it “the lightning,” which sounds properly ominous, and you are fine.)

But Zoom gets killed by the end, and the end is Barry Allen running himself into relativity/the Speed Force to save the world from the Speed Force, turning into pure Speed Lightning, traveling through Wally (and curing him in the process by retro-aging the cancer into nonexistence) and eventually going back through time to become the lightning bolt that gives him his superpowers in the first place. (This can actually work as a nice twist on the superhero movie genre as a whole, by having the movie resolutely refuse to explain WHY Barry has speed powers throughout the entire movie – until it does right at the end.) Your conclusion is Wally putting on Barry’s uniform and declaring that the Flash lives again.

There is nothing terribly original in this – the originality would be in putting several disparate elements and tying them together into a satisfying whole. But then we turn to the second movie:

The Return of Barry Allen: Exactly what you think it is. Take Mark Waid’s classic Flash story and use it for the midway point of the trilogy. Any actor warned of this in advance would kill to play Barry Allen now, because he gets to play both the noble hero and a psychotic villain in what is essentially the same role. (This is of course why you need Zoom to be the baddie in the first movie.) And this is as straight an adaptation as can be: maybe you remove Johnny Quick (because he’s mostly extraneous to the plot), but you keep Max Mercury around because you’ll need him to explain the Speed Force a little more than Jay can – particularly how it’s sort of like Heaven – and because he’ll come in handy for movie number three, to be the Magical Speedster who doles out less-than-helpful advice as necessary.

The Fastest Man Alive: The capper of the trilogy only features maybe a brief appearance from Barry within the Speed Force, because at this point it’s become clear that although a trilogy of Flash movies is about family and generational responsibility, it’s also about man’s relationship with what he perceives to be Heaven and what Heaven even is. The third movie is a combination of “The Quick and the Dead” and “Dead Heat” (the Flash stories, not the movies of the same names) and features Savitar as the villain, trying to ascend to his idea of Heaven, even if it destroys the world – and Wally then has to choose, at the same time, ascension to bliss or return to Earth – and Linda. You can place a lot of callbacks in this movie to the first of the trilogy, and show how Wally’s different choices and different personality mean that things end differently for him.

That’s your Flash trilogy right there: a commentary on the superhero as mortal man, and on the superhero as godly ascended being. You can fit in a lot of commentary on man’s relationship with religion as you see fit, but it will all be in the entertaining context of somebody being a superhero by running really, really fast. And, in case any of the movies bomb, each one has its own satisfying ending (Barry ascends and Wally takes his place/Wally finally comes out of Barry’s shadow/Wally makes his final choice). I think that works.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

5.) Olympos. A ninety-minute civilization/conquest game is practically impossible to manage, but Olympos does so quite well. Its “time” turn-making mechanic (lifted from games like Thebes) gives the game a modular feel – clever players can figure out how to set up their plays so as to take multiple turns in a row and gain advantage that way, but then again sometimes going for a big single turn is the right play. The scarce resources force you to fight other players for tactical advantage (particularly when it comes to the Zeus heads which give you religious bonuses at the right time – and timing the gain of these bonuses is another aspect of the game that lends itself to strategic thinking). Olympos is simply a well-designed area control game with a lot of nifty tweaks to it, and a good fight-it-out area control game is always worth my time.

4.) Blood Bowl Team Manager. Oldschool nerds are all familiar with Blood Bowl – Games Workshop’s last truly funny property since Warhammer 40K and even Warhammer Fantasy seem determined to suck all the joy out of their respective settings – but this is a different twist on the idea, abstracting the idea of football with elves and dwarves and orcs into a season at a time, and doing so quite successfully. Sometimes a good game is more about communication of its theme, and BBTM is an excellent example of this: it’s a game that’s about giving you the feel of playing a whole lot of Blood Bowl without actually having to play a whole lot of Blood Bowl. And it’s funny, with some clever mechanics (the mandatory cheating is my favourite) and nice art.

3.) Airlines Europe. Last time we discussed board games, I was talking about 18XX games, which are about creation of rail networks and manipulation of the stock market. Airlines Europe is an entry-level stock game, and sort of the equivalent to 18XX in stock manipulation in the way that, say, Ticket To Ride is sort of the equivalent to 18XX in route building. (Both games were designed by Alan R. Moon, so this is doubtless no coincidence.) The result is a fun game that isn’t too time-consuming and is very enjoyable for new players, but offers quite a bit of fun for experienced boardgamers as well. My only criticism of the game is that the route-building aspect of the game is too wide open for experienced players, but the recent Flight Ban expansion (which one should soon be able to get very cheaply online) seems to fix that quite nicely.

2.) Eclipse. A stupendous achievement and naturally short-printed in its initial run, so you’ll have trouble getting a copy (and even then this one is ‘spensive). But it is well worth the effort to pick up, as this game is simply superb. Boardgame versions of Master of Orion have been a holy grail of design in the hobby for years, and mostly they fall into “light fun, but not meaty enough” games like Terra Prime or Ascending Empires, or “I hope you like LOTS AND LOTS OF FLOWCHARTS” games like Throneworld. Eclipse straddles the boundary between these two neatly: it is a game that only takes half an hour per player, but remains a true 4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) and has so much customizability that a big part of the game is designing your own spaceships. It has a comprehensive tech tree research system, a brilliant economic engine, a solid combat system, rules for diplomacy, a half dozen variant alien races, and best of all the rules are simple enough that they will not overwhelm players who want to avoid the aforementioned flowcharts: the action-selection mechanic the game uses is inspired. Really, every single aspect of this game’s design is inspired, and the production value is excellent. There is simply nothing that is bad about this game.

1.) King of Tokyo. This one was designed by Richard “Magic: The Gathering” Garfield, and Garfield is a designer who has only gotten better over the years. The game is best described as “Yahtzee, except you are a giant monster.” Of course it’s more than that, as roll-and-keep dice games have gotten more sophisticated over the years, with Roll Through The Ages being the most complex of the genre and one of the most popular. But where Roll Through The Ages offers players a complex set of upgrade options, King of Tokyo offers wilder and more chaotic gameplay – but also more tactical than RTTA, since that game is more of a point-scoring race with some minor options for interaction while KoT is all about beating the other players up, as a giant monster game should be. Every turn is filled with important decisions: do you chase points or try to beat up other monsters? Heal yourself, or save up to buy upgrade cards to make yourself a more efficient giant killing machine? (Or, if you like, a Friend to Children Everywhere, as the game will offer you that option.) It plays fast and furious, is tons of fun, only takes about twenty to thirty minutes, and also this is a game where you are giant monsters beating each other up. Nothing else comes even close to being the best game of 2011 for me.

Other games in 2011 that were good: A Few Acres of Snow, Pastiche, City Tycoon, Ankh-Morpork, Skull and Roses.
Other games in 2011 that were not so good: The Star Trek TNG Deckbuilding Game, Quarriors, Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon, Urban Sprawl, Cargo Noir.
Most welcome reprint in 2011: Montage.

So they are rereleasing Titanic in IMAX 3D in a few months (and, curiously, advertising it with trailers that are not IMAX and not 3D, so… good going, movie marketing people). Now, I can already hear the groans from the peanut gallery, but… it’s been fifteen years. Yes, everybody was sick to death of Titanic fever after six months of it, but then again we were all sick of “Wonderwall” because every radio station played it to death back in 1995 (this is when there were still radio stations that you listened to, kids), and fifteen years later it turns out that “Wonderwall” is actually a really good song and our hatred for it was based almost entirely on saturation, and maybe a little bit because the Gallagher brothers were dickheads.

So, fifteen years later, is Titanic a good movie?

Well, it’s worth saying right off the bat that James Cameron is notoriously shit with villains. He can do inhuman monsters quite well, but when it comes to actual humans, his villains are almost uniformly massive disappointments:1 the Evil Military Guy in Avatar, the Evil Terrorist Guy in True Lies, and of course, Billy Zane, Titanic‘s Evil Rich Guy, who is easily the worst part of the entire movie. He just feels completely superfluous to the plot, mostly because he is completely superfluous to the plot, which is a romance set within a disaster movie. A movie about a boat crashing does not need a villain, and especially does not need a villain to make stupid jokes about Picasso paintings.

And yes, the adorable Irish ragamuffins in steerage class and their quaintly adorable working-class party kind of stick in the throat a bit. Particularly of late, the “it’s better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable” moral is taking a beating, mostly because people have come to recognize that it’s generally a lot easier – or at least simpler – to be rich and also moderately okay than poor and also happy. Of course, given that this is turn-of-the-century times when societal morals for women meant that being rich meant, for all intents and purposes, societal imprisonment and very little personal agency, it’s certainly less unbearable. Also, Kate Winslet would have to be married to Billy Zane’s character, so I take it back: Billy Zane does serve a purpose in this movie, and it is to help us rationalize Kate Winslet’s choices.

But for the most part, this is about whether the Kate and Leo romance works as well as the boat-sinking aspect of the film does. After all, I trust nobody will argue that the boat-sinking part of the movie is anything other than excellent. Even in early 1997 when people were considering murder of Leo fangirls as justifiable homicide, they were willing to admit that the actual boat-sinking part was stunning, and it holds up today. Cameron’s ability to instill drama and excitement into what could easily have been a foregone conclusion2 remains one of his signal achievements as a filmmaker, and the little codicils he throws in (the old couple embracing on the bed, the band playing on, et cetera) could have been cheesy, but aren’t.

And the truth: yes, the Kate/Leo pairing works. It worked then and it works now. Maybe in 1996 people were willing to argue that these two weren’t major acting talents and instead just lucky kids. It was not a good argument even then, what with Winslet’s turns in Heavenly Creatures and Sense and Sensibility, as well as DiCaprio’s in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and The Basketball Diaries. But nowadays, Kate Winslet3 has an Academy Award and two Golden Globes and gets nominated for something like, every other year and when she isn’t getting nominated Leonardo DiCaprio is, and when he isn’t he’s busy being Martin Scorcese’s new go-to guy. And they were very nearly as good back then.

Yes, the dialogue is clunky, but good actors can sell clunky dialogue because good actors know that in real life, clunky dialogue is what most people say all the time. Tons of movies have clunky dialogue and yet survive on the strength of the actors delivering it: good actors sell clunky dialogue with Method and commitment, because inelegance and cliche is what we fill our lives with even when we don’t want to admit it and instead want to pretend that we are all Vicious Circle-level wits all of the time instead of people who quote The Simpsons at one another. Most people who complain about clunky dialogue are writers or want to be writers, and they dislike an artificial entity like a script engaging with the messiness of real life – and further, on some level they disapprove of relying on actors to find the reality in the lead and the wheat in the chaff. But it’s still an option. In Titanic, Kate and Leo sell the shit out of the clunky dialogue, turning what could be trite or stiff into what is real, and that is an achievement. The two of them make this movie work, and to give them full credit for the film’s success as a story is only deserved.

So, in conclusion: yes, it was and is a good film. Did it deserve to win Best Picture? No, not even close – after all, 1996 was the year of Boogie Nights, Contact, The Sweet Hereafter and L.A. Confidential, all of which are better and have a distinct lack of a terrible Billy Zane villain. Heck, even The Full Monty is stronger, and that movie was a formula before the formula existed. But most of them are not as ambitious as Titanic was, and it is understandable that ambition counts for something in Hollywood.

1. His exceptions are Burke in Aliens and Coffey in The Abyss, mostly because both are realistic and understandable. [↩]
2. Remember all the SPOILERS THE BOAT SINKS jokes? No? They were there. Believe me. [↩]
3. Who is age-appropriate for me – no YOU shut up. [↩]

My guess:

Rick Santorum 22
Ron Paul 20
Mitt Romney 16
Newt Gingrich 13
Rick Perry 10
Michele Bachmann 5
Anti-Liberal, The Superhero Who Hates Liberals 3
Herman Cain 2
Sarah Palin 1.75
Spuds Mackenzie 1.5
Zombie Reagan 1.25
Gary Johnson 1
Glenn Beck 1
Victoria Jackson .5
Chuck Norris .5
Orly Taitz .5
Frank Miller .5
Buddy Roemer .5
Jon Huntsman 0.25

Your guesses/predictions in comments.

When you think about it, ‘Doctor Who’ should really have ended in 1966. After all, the star of the series was involved in protracted and angry disputes with the show’s producer, and was also suffering from the first visible symptoms of the arteriosclerosis that would take his life less than a decade later. Sure, the show was doing well in the ratings, but it’s pretty rare that success like that survives replacing the star of the show. Admittedly, ‘Doctor Who’ had already replaced its entire supporting cast at least twice by the time Hartnell finally left, with no apparent loss of support (primarily due to strong viewing support for the Doctor’s recurring antagonists, the Daleks–it’s no coincidence that Troughton’s first outing was against the iconic pepperpots)…but really, there was no reason to ever believe that recasting the Doctor was going to work.

Especially because it was written into the series. The show has been around for almost fifty years now, and is on its eleventh actor to “officially” play the part; as a result, we’ve become so accustomed to regeneration as a concept that we’ve almost forgotten what an extraordinary handwave it is. “Oh, yes, I just changed my entire physical appearance and personality. We aliens do that every so often. Weird, huh?” (Speaking of things that are no coincidence, it’s only after regeneration is introduced that the Doctor’s alien physiology becomes a serious plot point. Hartnell’s “alien-ness” was primarily a matter of attitude, a cultural identity; with Troughton and afterwards, he becomes an alien with unusual racial abilities.)

What’s striking about this is that when you look at most of the American cult series who’ve taken a run at the Doctor’s longevity (…well, “taken a run” is putting it generously. The only shows to really come close would be ‘Stargate’ and ‘Star Trek’, and that’s if you decided to treat every single one of their spin-offs and relaunches as a single show. But we’ll consider anything that ran more than three seasons, the point at which ‘Doctor Who’ was forced to retool to account for Hartnell’s absence…) It’s amazing how many of them are set up better than ‘Doctor Who’ was to continue without their stars. All of the ‘Trek’ series are ensemble shows built around the crew of a Starfleet vessel; they even tease us, in the Season 3 finale of ‘Next Generation’, with the idea that Picard might be pensioned out/killed off as a result of the Borg crisis and Riker might become the captain. Such a thing would have been audacious, but would it really have been any more daring than replacing a 58-year old grandfatherly inventor with a 46-year old cosmic tramp?

‘The X-Files’ actually did make use of its series format to replace one actor with another, but only late in the series run and only out of necessity. It’s worth asking if they could have extended the show by making the switch sooner and getting the audience used to the idea that nobody was safe from the sinister conspiracy, or whether it would have gotten the series canceled that much quicker as fans who were really watching for the emotional dynamic between Mulder and Scully gave up on the show.

And ‘Buffy’ actually introduced first one, then a second, then a whole friggin’ raft of potential replacements, only to have them all serve as foils for the lead character and demonstrate, in one fashion or another, that Buffy Summers is special even among special people. Certainly, you could argue that the show was about Buffy in specific and not about Slayers in general, and that the creators weren’t interested in extending the show just for the sake of extending it…then again, you could also argue that the show was about transitioning from teenager to adult through making the metaphorical high school experiences into literal confrontations with the forces of evil, and the creators certainly seemed to be interested in extending that show just for the sake of extending it.

Even a series like ‘Heroes’, which was explicitly designed to have a sprawling, ever-changing cast, had problems adding people to it in later seasons…then again, it seems like the later seasons had a lot of problems beyond just “adding new characters that caught the audience’s interest.” But ‘Heroes’ does provide a particularly illuminating example of the problem that cult shows have when they try to outlast their actors, and the reason that ‘Who’ is not in much company as it heads to the 32-odd season mark.

Namely, that series don’t like changing their core dynamic, and do so only a) grudgingly, b) out of necessity, and as a result c) through desperation and not design. The concept of Agent Doggett was, at its heart, “Oh shit David Duchovny just served us walking papers what are we gonna do now?” The dynamic of Season Six of ‘Buffy’ was less, “Let’s do a meaningful and sensitive arc about how Buffy will cope without adult mentor-figures,” and more, “Um…Tony Head wants to go back to England. How do we work with that?” The actors who came in for the later seasons of ‘Heroes’ were working with a plot arc that was already flailing around for relevance, and were cast by producers who were trying to cast new roles while managing the day-to-day production of a complex series. These changes were reluctant, and frequently rushed.

Whereas ‘Doctor Who’, by this point, had already (as previously mentioned) changed its entire cast twice. The producers were very comfortable creating new characters to travel in the TARDIS, and the show’s format had shown that it could adapt to such changes. Recasting the Doctor was just the final step in a process that had begun with ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, a process that showed that the concept, not the ensemble, was the star of the show. In that light, it’s not too surprising that the show made it through the transition with barely a bump.

Which makes the transition to the UNIT era, with ‘Spearhead From Space’, even more surprising. But that’s a discussion for later…

I signed up for Netflix last week and they have tons of Star Trek and dinosaur shows.  I am at peace.

I decided to go through the Star Trek: Voyager episode listings and found one I don’t remember ever seeing, which I guess is appropriate because it’s called “Unforgettable,” and it’s about the crew meeting an alien woman who claims they can’t remember meeting her before.  It’s a weird thing for me to realize there’s a Star Trek episode I’ve never seen before, because I miss the style and format of the TV shows and this is as close as I’m going to get to bringing it back.

Unfortunately this episode sucks turds.

The concept is not so bad.  Kellin is a Ramuran bounty hunter who visited the ship a month ago to recover a fugitive, and after she left the crew were made to forget about her in the interest of Ramuran security.  Only trouble is that Kellin fell in love with Commander Chakotay, so now she has fled her society (the same high crime the earlier fugitive had committed) to seek asylum on Voyager.  She’s there to continue her romance with Chakotay, but this just makes Chuckles all the more suspicious of her story.  (Given Chakotay’s history with women I don’t blame him.)

The main problem is how they explain this memory-erasing stuff.  Voyager‘s sensors can barely detect a Ramuran ship, even when it’s heavily damaged, and its transporters can only get a lock on Kellin for about two seconds at a time.   (The transporter works fine on her when Chakotay goes down there and holds her in his arms, so I suppose it works best when it’s feeling sentimental.)  The Doctor can scan her with his medical tricorder, but the readings disappear from the computer almost as soon as he takes them.  Fortunately, the Doctor can diagnose her injuries with a simple visual analysis.  Mind you, the Doctor is a tricorder (albeit an overgrown, huffy one), so his eyes shouldn’t work any better than his instruments.

Kellin explains that non-Ramurans are unable to form long-term memories of their experiences with Ramurans–once she left, the crew forgot about her within hours.  Let me pull up the transcript:

CHAKOTAY: Is this done through technology? Telepathy?
KELLIN: It’s a factor of our biology. You see, our bodies produce a sort of pheromone which blocks the long-term memory engrams of others.
CHAKOTAY: Is that why the tricorder can’t scan you? Why we couldn’t get a transporter lock?
KELLIN: We’re impervious to those sort of devices.

I want to point out here that Chakotay is asking if a pheromone could interfere with the ship’s sensor readings.  You might think this line would be delivered with sarcasm: “So your scent kept us from detecting your life signs through the vacuum of space?”  But no, Robert Beltran is deadly earnest when he asks these questions–he’s concerned about the well being of their new guest and the mystery threatening his ship, and he wants to learn everything he can, so he just wants to be sure he knows what this pheromone can do.

None of this, of course, explains why the crew can’t remember talking to each other about Kellin.  For example, B’Elanna doesn’t appear in this episode, so presumably she’s down in engineering the whole time and only hears about all of this secondhand.  Maybe the idea is that Kellin is sweating all over any place she goes, so once she visits the mess hall the whole crew will inevitably be contaminated.  I don’t know.

Does the pheromone erase all short-term memories that occurred during Kellin’s presence?  Does the crew not remember doing anything at all that happened while she was aboard?  Or do they remember everything except that this nice lady was standing around the whole time?  I mean, let’s face it, Chakotay had sex with her.  When he recalls the events of that evening, is it just a blank or does he remember jumping on top of empty space and having an awesome jerkoff session?  Let’s say he gloated about it the next morning to Paris and Kim.  I wonder how they remember it after this episode is over.  “What’s up, broskis, guess who played with himself all night long!”

I don’t want to seem like I’m nitpicking the central conceit of a sci-fi story.  I mean, I accept that these people eat and breathe, and other science facts, so I’m perfectly willing to believe there are mindwiping aliens.  If Kellin hadn’t bothered to explain it, or muttered something about chroniton fields, I would have been fine with it.  But the explanation given is profoundly stupid.

I came up with a better setup for the premise in about a minute.  Goes like this: The Ramuran security force is armed with memory-wipey devices like in Men In Black, and computer viruses for purging alien records.  Because they’re so secretive and xenophobic, operatives like Kellin are allowed to interact with outsiders but are required to destroy their memories and records of the interaction.  (There was a Next Generation episode like this, and it worked better than this one.)  If my idea sounds familiar then it’s because you watched this episode, since the Ramurans do have flashy-things and computer viruses.  Which means the whole pheromone business is totally superfluous; it literally adds nothing to the story except plot holes and a reassurance that the people writing Star Trek: Voyager did not give a shit.

At the end, when Kellin has had her memory wiped and recants her request of asylum, Chakotay is left heartbroken and determined to make sure at least one of them remembers their romance.  So we see him in the mess hall recording a personal log…with pen and paper, so the computer virus can’t get it.  This is at once brilliant–ha ha, those aliens didn’t count on that!–and absurd–why didn’t the aliens think of that, and why didn’t you think of it the first time she left?  Neelix goes out of his way to refer to “those ancient writing implements,” like some eight-year-old who doesn’t think he needs to learn cursive because he has an iPad.  But I have run out of invective, because Voyager has taken me to the limit.

Next time, Neelix, next time.

STEVEN SPIELBERG: Hello, everybody, and more specifically Academy voters. This is my new movie, War Horse. It is about a horse. Also there is war. I am pretty sure that these two things combined are good for at least half a dozen Oscars.
ALBERT: Boy, look at that baby horse! I bet that is a special horse.
HORSE: (whinnies, does horsey things)
ALBERT: One day, I will own that horse, for we have a special bond. He is the specialest horse ever.
HORSE: (neigh, neigh, stamps foot)
Eventually the horse comes to be sold at a HORSE AUCTION. The horse is very distressed to be separated from its mommy horse. This is is a metaphor for the BRUTALITY OF WAR, which takes away the young from their loving parents.
ALBERT’S FATHER: Oh, look at that landlord. He thinks he’s better than me because he’s rich and dresses well and isn’t a slobbering drunk and speaks without excessive unnecessary spitting. How I hate him!
LANDLORD: I want to buy that horse! Ten guineas!
ALBERT’S FATHER: ELEVENTY BILLION GUINEAS!
ONLOOKER: Wait, didn’t you come here to buy a plough horse? This horse – while clearly a very special horse, as any man can see – isn’t a plough horse.
ALBERT’S FATHER: Ah, but I have stuck it to that rich landlord that I hate because I pay him rent!
AUDIENCE: Is it possible to get that drunk?
STEVEN SPIELBERG: Excuse me, but I was one of the Hollywood young guns of the 1970s, and I was the one who basically stayed sober while everybody else got shitfaced on everything. You’ll note I still have a career, while Francis Ford Coppola makes a lot of wine and complains about the system. There are reasons for this. I’m just saying.
ALBERT’S MOTHER: Oh, you idiot, you bought a fancy horse – granted, a very special horse, that’s obvious – instead of a plough horse. How are we going to plough the fields now?
ALBERT: I’ll plough the fields with him, mother! For he is the most wonderful horse in the world! I’ll train him to be a super-horse, for we have a special bond, and now, as I knew one day that I would, we are horse and master.
ALBERT’S MOTHER: But you had absolutely nothing to do with buying this horse.
ALBERT: It still counts.
Albert TRAINS THE HORSE. He comes up with a unique whistle to summon the horse. Albert’s best friend GEORDIE watches, all the while wearing a T-shirt that says I AM HERE FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO EVENTUALLY DIE IN WAR. Eventually the Landlord shows up again with his young son, who we know is evil because he sneers a bit.
LANDLORD: So… you owe me money.
ALBERT’S FATHER: We’ll get you the money.
LANDLORD: Yes, eventually, I suppose, but you owe me the money right now, and it’s not because of some horrible disaster that you owe me money. It’s because you spent far too much money on a horse you didn’t need.
STEVEN SPIELBERG: Um, audience? He’s evil. You should boo him. Look at his son’s face! Evil!
AUDIENCE: Well, yes, but he’s got kind of a point, doesn’t he?
ALBERT’S FATHER: We’ll plow the rocky field with all the rocks. We’ll plant turnips there.
LANDLORD: Well, I can give you until October, I guess. But if you don’t pay up then I’ll have to evict you.
STEVEN SPIELBERG: You’re not booing, audience!
AUDIENCE: Yeah, well… we were of the understanding that there was going to be war. Are we going to get to the war soon?
STEVEN SPIELBERG: Patience. Also you should be booing him now.
AUDIENCE: He just gave them a six-month extension. Why would we boo him for that?
ALBERT: No worries! I’ll teach the horse to plow! For he is the specialest horse in the world!
Albert tries to teach the War Horse to plow. The War Horse is not good at this.
ALBERT’S FATHER: I am a self-destructive drunk and will shoot this horse!
ALBERT’S MOTHER: You can’t shoot the horse!
ALBERT: He is the specialest horse in the world and you will have to shoot me first!
Albert’s father BREAKS DOWN CRYING. Later Albert’s mother explains to Albert that his father was in the Boer War and that although he was a war hero, he also has post-traumatic stress syndrome, which makes him depressed and a drunk, and also causes him to spend money on horses he cannot afford. Albert decides to plow the field even though the War Horse is not properly trained.
ALBERT: Okay, horse! Let’s plow this field!
HORSE: (does not plow the field)
RURAL ENGLISH come to watch Albert plow the rocky field and laugh at him, because this is Olden Times and they did not have television then. Even though they are all aware that Albert’s family needs to plow this field in order to survive, none of them offer to help, since all English people are apparently DICKHEADS.
ALBERT: Horse! I am calling on our special bond here!
It begins to RAIN HEAVILY.
ALBERT: We can do it, horse! You and me! Mostly you, but I’m helping!
HORSE: (neighs in a determined manner)
ALBERT’S MOTHER: Look! They’re plowing the rocky field!
LANDLORD: And to think, all it took was rain to loosen up the dirt!
AUDIENCE: When do we get to the war part?
STEVEN SPIELBERG: It’s coming. We have to set stuff up first.
To celebrate, Albert goes RIDING on War Horse. He races the LANDLORD’S EVIL SON because the son is driving a car with a pretty girl, who of course is all about Albert and his horse because girls love horses. Then War Horse refuses to jump a stone wall and the evil son laughs at him.
ALBERT: I hope this pays off somehow later. Because ow.
MOTORCYCLE PERSON: Hello, rural England! We are now entering World War One! To commemorate this, the next time the bells ring will be the last time until the war ends!
Then it RAINS VERY HARD and the family’s turnip crop is ruined. They look grimly at one another, and Albert’s father takes War Horse to be sold to the army. War Horse is bought by the guy who played LOKI IN THE THOR MOVIE.
ALBERT: No! You can’t take my horse from me! We have a special bond!
LOKI: I can see you and this horse have a special bond. Look, I’ll just borrow this horse from you, all right? I’ll return him at the end of the war. After all, it’s clear that this is a truly wonderful horse. God, would I love to fuck it.
ALBERT: …wait, what?
LOKI: Just pretend I didn’t say that last bit while I make sex-eyes at your horse.
ALBERT: No! I volunteer for Army! I’m old enough! Well, no, I’m not, but even though I’m underage I can fight any ten German soldiers so long as I’m with my horse!
LOKI: I’m sorry, but the Army has standards and we don’t let in young men who admit they’re underage. Granted, you could have just kept on lying and claimed you were of age and I couldn’t have done anything about that, but then we would have had to deal with the inconvenient fact that you’re a commoner and therefore wouldn’t be able to ride your horse anyways. So it’s probably for the best that you have stupidly allowed me to separate you from your sexy, sexy horse, which I promise to return to you.
ALBERT: But what if you die?
LOKI: Excuse me, but I am a noble Englishman in a war film. Do you really think I’m going to die? Excuse me, audience, what are you doing?
AUDIENCE: We’re starting a pool on how many more minutes you live.
LOKI: Ah. Well. Carry on, then.
The War Horse goes to Army Horse Camp, where he trains alongside a big black horse owned by BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, who demonstrates that when he has short hair and a moustache, he looks staggeringly like DOCTOR STRANGE. During a practice charge, War Horse beats Benedict Cumberbatch’s horse quite easily.
SOME ENGLISH OFFICER: Well, it looks like we’re going to beat up those Germans awfully good, eh what? I do hope our exuberance in training doesn’t wind up being terribly ironic!
LOKI: I’m sure that there’s not going to be any irony in this war. After all, what’s ironic about warfare? Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to write a letter to Albert, and enclose in that letter all of these erotic pictures I have drawn of his horse.
The English cavalry goes to war. They charge a German camp with their sabres drawn and hack up the Germans quite well, until they find out the Germans have MACHINE GUNS. The Germans kill Loki and most of the British cavalry, although they all die offscreen. Benedict Cumberbatch, his horse, War Horse, and the Ironic English Officer survive.
A GERMAN: Oh, Benedict Cumberbatch! Didn’t you realize that cavalry does not work against machine guns? You stupid English! You are being defeated by progress!
Benedict Cumberbatch THROWS DOWN HIS SABRE ANGRILY and surrenders. His horse and the War Horse are taken away by the Germans to drive an ambulance, because the War Horse knows how to accept a horse collar due to his plowing experience, and he talks to Benedict Cumberhorse in horse language and explains that Cumberhorse must also wear a horse collar.
A YOUNG GERMAN NAMED GUNTER: Boy, whoever taught you to wear a collar must have saved your life! Ironic, is it not, that knowledge of peaceful activities would save you in war? Oh my, but you are clearly a special horse who has been touched by destiny.
MEANWHILE, back in England, Albert receives Loki’s letter and his belongings, and finds out that he is dead. He is sad, because this means War Horse is probably dead as well. He mourns War Horse. Back in Germany, the war continues.
A GERMAN OFFICER: Well, all of you except Gunter are going up to the front lines, where you will probably die. Good for you, Gunter! Your knowledge of horses will save your life!
GUNTER: But my little brother is going up to the front lines!
GUNTER’S BROTHER: There’s nothing for it, Gunter.
GUNTER: But you’re fourteen! You lied to come to war!
GUNTER’S BROTHER: Sadly, there is nothing we can do.
GUNTER: We could just tell them you’re underage and they’ll have to send you home!
GUNTER’S BROTHER: That wouldn’t work, for reasons we will not state.
Gunter’s brother leaves with the marching German army. Gunter steals War Horse and Cumberhorse and rides up to the column, grabs his brother, and they ride off.
A GERMAN SOLDIER: Shouldn’t we do something about that?
ANOTHER GERMAN SOLDIER: If we did anything, then who would track them down later for a dark, emotional execution sequence?
GUNTER: Wait the what now?
Gunter and his brother flee to a windmill, where they hide the horses inside the windmill. They talk like young boys about the women in Italy, underscoring the fact that they are YOUNG BOYS and they will DIE IN WAR. Then the Germans find them and execute them in a manner so that the audience cannot see them being shot, but for some reason they leave the horses behind even though in order to find Gunter and his brother, they would have had to walk right past the horses. The next morning, a YOUNG GIRL finds the horses in the windmill.
EMILY: Look! Grandpa! Horses! And clearly this one in particular is very special! Not the big black one, the other one.
GRANDPA: Very well and good, but I do not want you riding those horses – not even the one who is clearly a very special and important horse – for you are sickly, as evidenced by this green medicinal liquid I make you take.
EMILY: What do I have?
GRANDPA: A bad case of moviegitis. It is invariably fatal, although you will only die once you are offscreen or, in some cases, when you present a final, touching monologue.
The GERMANS arrive to ransack the farm. Emily hides the horses in her bedroom on the second floor. The movie does not explain how she manages to do this.
GERMAN OFFICER: Take everything we need. This farmer is doing his part for the war.
GRANDPA: Excuse me, but I am clearly French and you are German. Your appeal to patriotism isn’t even ironic. It’s just stupid.
GERMAN OFFICER: You forget that I am a bit of a dickhead, yes?
GRANDPA: Ah.
GERMAN SOLDIER: What is this?
GRANDPA: If you don’t know what it is, you don’t need it.
GERMAN SOLDIER: Er, it’s pretty obviously a pot. I was more asking what you used it for, you see.
GRANDPA: Oh. That makes sense.
The Germans LEAVE. Emily starts begging to be allowed to ride the horses. Eventually Grandpa relents and goes and fetches her dead mother’s saddle from the barn.
GRANDPA: Now, be careful when you ride, Emily, for you are sickly. Ride very slowly, and do not go over the hill.
Emily of course rides quickly over the hill. Grandpa follows her, and sees that the GERMANS are taking War Horse from her. They also take Cumberhorse.
GRANDPA: In retrospect maybe we should have waited until the front line wasn’t literally in our backyard in order to ride the horses.
A FAT GERMAN is in charge of the horses.
FAT GERMAN: I do so love horses. It is a shame that they have to be involved in war, which is dehumanizing. Are you listening, audience?
AUDIENCE: Sort of.
War Horse and Cumberhorse are drafted to pull big heavy artillery pieces up hills. They do this. We then cut to the BRITISH TRENCHES, where Albert has since become a soldier, along with Geordie and the Landlord’s Evil Son.
SOLDIER: All right, we’re going over the top in a bit, so everybody who wants to put their valuables here for safekeeping, do so.
ALBERT: I could put in my prized drawings of War Horse… but no!
EVIL LANDLORD’S SON: I remember that horse! You fell off it that one time while I was driving a car!
ALBERT: Hey, do you remember the name of the girl you were driving with?
EVIL LANDLORD’S SON: Not particularly.
AUDIENCE: Wait, was this sequence the only reason for that earlier scene?
STEVEN SPIELBERG: Excuse me, but I have a Best Director Oscar and you don’t, so shut up in your stupid face.
GEORDIE: Oh, I am so scared of going to war!
EVIL LANDLORD’S SON: Don’t be scared! Just remember to kill any of your friends that try to retreat, and you’ll be fine.
The English CHARGE OVER THE TOP and most of them get killed because this is World War One, duh. The EVIL LANDLORD’S SON gets shot, but Albert drags him to safety. Albert then takes out a machine-gunner’s nest with a grenade and drops into the German trench, where he is overcome by all the dead Germans he just killed with his grenade. Geordie comes up behind him and Albert nearly shoots him, but stops himself just in time.
GEORDIE: Hah on you, audience! That was exactly the moment where I would have died ironically, but it didn’t happen, now, did it?
BRITISH SERGEANT: GAS! GAS!
GEORDIE: Oh, balls.
Geordie dies in the gas. Albert is wounded. Meanwhile, back in German lines, the Germans are retreating. Fat Horse-Loving German runs to War Horse and Cumberhorse and drags them away from duty. Cumberhorse, exhausted, lies down, dying. War Horse and the Fat German comfort him in his final moments. War Horse says things to Cumberhorse in horse talk. Then a TANK shows up.
FAT GERMAN: Run! Run, War Horse!
TANK: I REPRESENT TERRIBLE, UNSTOPPABLE PROGRESS!
War Horse RUNS AWAY FROM THE TANK, eventually charging through enemy lines and running right through multiple barbed wire fences until he is bogged down in No Man’s Land and horribly entangled in barbed wire.
BRITISH SOLDIER NAMED COLIN: Somebody should go do something about that horse.
GERMAN SOLDIER NAMED PETER: Somebody should go do something about that horse.
Eventually Colin and Peter both go to save War Horse. They work together to cut the horse free.
COLIN: I say, this is quite a nice scene, isn’t it?
PETER: Ja, it serves quite effectively to convey the horror of war without overplaying it with a heavy sense of irony.
COLIN: Something about how war disrupts the essential sense of brotherhood that exists among all men, that sort of thing?
PETER: This is precisely what I was thinking. You do not need clever twists to show how war ruins people’s lives.
COLIN: In fact, one might even suggest that a scene like this, where we work at common purpose and demonstrate simple humanity in the midst of carnage and terror, does the job ten times better than that.
PETER: Indeed. I don’t know why the rest of the movie isn’t like this.
STEVEN SPIELBERG: You both be quiet.
Eventually they free War Horse, and after a coinflip Colin takes War Horse back to British lines and a doctor, who is also DAVOS SEAWORTH in the next season of GAME OF THRONES.
COLIN: Hello, doctor. Can you fix this horse?
DAVOS: Let me think about that for a second. I can save a number of human patients, or a horse. Gosh, even if this horse is special, I think I have to go with the people.
COLIN: Look, I don’t think you understand – this is a miracle horse.
DAVOS: I can see from here that those cuts are infected. He almost certainly has tetanus. I can waste time on the horse, or I can save this person over here from bleeding to death. How is this a hard choice? Sergeant, give the horse a noble end.
COLIN: But he’s a miracle horse!
DAVOS: He ran into barbed wire and you rescued him, and now he’s going to die of infection. What’s miraculous about that? If somebody can’t give me a really, really amazing reason to save this horse, then we shoot him. Anybody? No? Okay, sergeant, shoot the horse.
The SERGEANT prepares to shoot War Horse, but in the distance Albert WHISTLES his special summoning-whistle from offscreen. War Horse looks up, seeking Albert.
DAVOS: …why haven’t you shot the horse yet?
SERGEANT: Cos he moved his head a bit.
DAVOS: Really?
The sergeant tries to shoot War Horse again, but Albert whistles again and War Horse again looks around for Albert.
DAVOS: Why does him moving his head stop you from shooting him in it once he stops moving?
SERGEANT: Dunno. Maybe it is a miracle horse?
ALBERT: That’s my horse!
WAR HORSE comes and nuzzles Albert, who is TEMPORARILY BLIND because of the gas attack.
DAVOS: Look, I’m glad you found a friend, but we have to kill this horse.
ALBERT: He’s my horse! I raised him, I did! He has four white socks and a white thingy on his forehead!
DAVOS: I don’t see any white marks on this mud-encrusted horse.
COLIN: What if… we washed off all of the mud?
They wash War Horse and his white markings are revealed.
DAVOS: My word. Well, I take back everything I said about putting this horse out of its misery as it is almost certainly infected with tetanus. Clearly, this is a miracle horse and must become my first priority. Sorry, human patients!
MAN BLEEDING TO DEATH: Arrrrgh arrrrgh arrrrrgh.
Albert recovers. The war ends. War Horse is to be sold at auction, and the entire brigade has chipped in thirty pounds so Albert can buy War Horse. It is mentioned in passing that the Evil Landlord’s Son tried to pretend that War Horse was his so Albert could get it for free, showing that the Evil Landlord’s Son is not a bad chap after all. An EVIL FRENCHMAN, however, is present and wants to buy War Horse.
SERGEANT: Albert bids thirty pounds!
ALBERT: Wait, why are you bidding instead of me?
EVIL FRENCHMAN: Forty pounds for this battle-scarred but very clearly special horse! Good day, English kiniggets!
GRANDPA: One hundred pounds! And if I have to go into bankruptcy to own this horse, then I will do so!
Grandpa wins War Horse.
ALBERT: Excuse me, sir, but please let me buy my horse from you?
GRANDPA: No. My granddaughter died offscreen from her illness, as I foretold. Now this horse is all that I have left of her, as the Germans came back and took all of her toys and dresses and such to be used as crude tools on the front lines.
ALBERT: Well, all right then. Can I say goodbye to War Horse?
GRANDPA: Sure.
ALBERT: War Horse, you be a good horse for this man, all right? You help him around the farm, and do chores, and cook his meals maybe. Because you’re the very specialest horse in the world and my best friend and I love you, but sometimes life isn’t fair, and we have to strive on, and –
GRANDPA: Oh, Jesus, just take the horse.
ALBERT: Thank you so much, sir. What was your granddaughter’s name?
GRANDPA: Emily. Why? Is this going to be significant to the narrative in any way?
ALBERT: Not at all, actually. I mean, they’re not going to show me meeting that girl from the horse-versus-car race early in the film now that I am a grown-up soldier. Maybe we could pretend that I name my first daughter Emily as a sign of respect, even though we never see that.
GRANDPA: Good enough for me.
Albert returns home during a GLORIOUS SUNSET that is so gorgeous it LOOKS LIKE A GREENSCREEN even though it isn’t. Albert embraces his mother, and then his father, who knows that Albert is now as fucked up as he is. We close on a shot of War Horse, glowing golden in the sunset light.
STEVEN SPIELBERG: Take that, Scorcese! “A 3D love letter to the founding father of cinema,” my ass – this is how you win Oscars. Cinematography. war, and horses.
AUDIENCE: TWO AND A HALF HOURS WE SPENT WATCHING THIS?

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

And that concludes Part Three of this comic what we are doing. I am really tremendously happy that we have now completed three whole issues, which feels terribly substantial (especially when you consider that at 28 pages, three issues for us is almost four standard issues for anybody else) and puts us in sight of the halfway marker on the whole story.

But, as it is this site’s Christmas tradition:

And, as always, if you do not celebrate No Doubtmas:

The most recent XKCD strip is, for Canadians, shockingly old hat.

Because Canadians have had access to No Name since 1978. Randall Munroe is quite correct when he asserts that he would “build brand identity overnight,” because that is exactly what happened with No Name – it was immensely successful for Loblaws when they introduced it and essentially made the chain into the foremost premium supermarket in Ontario and Quebec (and No Frills, their value grocery chain, into the foremost value grocery store in the region), and No Name is known throughout Canada as being decent value-for-money when it comes to staple goods like flour.

Granted, No Name processed foods are mostly terrible. (Although their ketchup chips are the only brand of ketchup chips I like. Oh, yes – ketchup-flavoured potato chips are a thing in Canada. You may not have known this. Along with Shreddies and Coffee Crisp bars, they are some of the most requested and desired foods by ex-pat Canadians.)

In short: there is nothing the internet can come up with that real life has not come up with already. It’s just that people think they are being original. There’s probably a Christmas specials alignment chart somewhere on the walls at Lascaux.