[LNH/ACRA] Deja Dude / Master Blaster Special #8

[Martin Phipps]

  Somewhere in Chi.net, a woman knocks on a bathroom
door.
  "When will you be finished in there?  When will you
be coming out?"
  "I'll be finished when I'm finished and then I'll
come out!" said Wen Jiabao.  "And for heaven's sake,
woman!  I'm the Prime Minister of China!  At the very
least you should call me _Mister_ Wen!"

  Meanwhile, in the Philippi.net, Deja Dude woke to
the sound of an alarm clock.  He didn't feel like
getting up... but then suddenly he had to.  He slowly
sat up, put his feet on the bedroom floor, stood up
and walked to the bathroom.  It was still a bit dark
and he knew his eyes would need time to adjust so he
didn't turn the light on.  He was about to do his
business when he remembered to check.  Good, he
thought, she's remembered to leave the seat up.

  "Melda!" he said as he left the bathroom.
  "Mmm," she replied, barely.
  "Melda, you have to take Michael to school."
  "Tired," she said.
  "Melda, I have to go to LNH HQ.  I'm meeting Rob. 
We're doing another special!"
  "Tired," she said again.
  Deja Dude sighed.  "Okay.  I'll get Michael up."  He
went to his son's room.  "Michael!  Get up!  It's time
to go to school!"
  "No no no!" Michael said.  "No school!  Please!"
  Deja Dude sighed again.  He went to get his cell
phone: he knew he'd better tell Master Blaster he was
going to be late.

             Deja Dude / Master Blaster Special #8
          Deja Dude and Master Blaster Go Hollywood #8

  "You're late."
  "I did call and say I was going to be a bit late."
  "You're almost an hour late."
  "I had to take my son to school."
  "At seven o'clock in the evening?"
  "At eight o'clock in the morning... in the
Philippi.net.  And he's supposed to get there at seven
thirty but he didn't want to get up."
  "Okay, fine."
  "Do you think we can hurry this along?  I have a
class later."
  "What?  At eight o'clock in the evening?"
  "Actually at eleven o'clock in the morning,
Philippi.net time, but I need to go home first and get
my books."
  "Whatever."
  "So, did you see Aeon Flux?"
  "No, but I did see the XXX version, Anal--"
  "Okay, stop!"
  "What?"
  "We're not doing that gag."
  "Why not?  This issue has an acraphobe label."
  "Yes but that doesn't mean the gratuitous use of bad
language."
  "Bad language?  You mean 'Fucks' is bad language?"
  "Yeah."
  "I mean, it's just 'Flux' without the 'l'."
  "Point taken."
  "So did you see it?  Aeon Flux I mean."
  "No.  Too busy."
  "So what are we going to review this time?"
  "I thought, in honour of talking apes month, we'd
review The Planet of the Apes."
  "Which one?  The original or the remake?"
  "I thought we'd review both of them.  I'll review
the original and you can lambaste the remake."
  "Sounds good to me."
  "Alright."  Deja Dude cleared his throat.  "The
original Planet of the Apes is a science fiction
classic.  First of all, the basic concept was a direct
application of known science: by travelling at high
velocities relative to and then returning to the
Earth, the crew find themselves returning to a planet
they no longer recognize as home, it being presumably
many centuries, if not milennia, into the future.  The
movie also played on the feeling of superiority that
people have over the rest of the animal kingdom by
creating a world while the roles of man and animal,
specifically apes, was reversed.  Religion was subtly
admonished when the scripture quoting Dr. Zaius said
'There is no contridiction between faith and
science... true science' where 'true science' was
defined as anything which did not contradict
established beliefs.  Indeed, the movie has apes
laughing at the idea that apes could have descended
from man, in much the same way that many people today
still deny the evidence for a common ancestor for all
primates.  Finally, it deals with the very common cold
war fear of nuclear devastation when Charleton
Heston's character, George Taylor, finally realized
that this was, in fact, Earth, many many years
following a nuclear holocaust that had wiped out human
civilization."
  Master Blaster nodded in agreement.  "The re-make,
on the other hand, was absolute crap, relying instead
on pseudo-science in a form of a wormhole that sent
Mark Wahlberg's character, Leo Davidson, into Earth's
past.  Here, Leo Davidson was in charge of training
monkeys to operate space craft in areas where it was
too dangerous to send humans, but when his favorite
ape disappeared into a wormhole, he felt compelled to
go after him.  This caused the mother ship to follow
him through the wormhole in an attempt to rescue him. 
With the mother ship crashing in Earth's distant past,
the crew was presumably killed leaving the specially
trained apes and their descendents to form their own
civilization, at a time when human civilization
apparently had not yet developed.  We don't know this
right
away, of course.  Just as was the case with the
original,
the twist isn't apparent until the very end.  Alas, to
say that the twist was 'apparent' is giving the movie
too much credit: I suspect most people left the
theatre completely confused and, indeed, there were
calls for Tim Burton to do a sequel just so that the
ending could be explained.  One could argue that the
movie was too smart for its audience, but there were
other problems: the more realistic monkey make-up made
it look as though we were watching programming on
Animal Planet and not a Hollywood movie.  And while it
could be argued that the advances in make-up allowed
the female apes to appear more sensual, who besides
Hubert Bartles would actually prefer watching a hairy
ape-woman to a hairless human?  A cat-woman, okay, but
not an ape-woman.  That's just gross."
  "Okay.  Now, let's introduce our guest reviewer."
  "Guest reviewer?"
  "Yes, Gorilla Grad is here to review King Kong!"
  Gorilla Grad walked in, took one look at the chair
Deja Dude had prepared for him and shook his head. 
"There's no way I'm fitting in that chair."
  "Okay, how about that one over there?" Deja Dude
said, pointing out another chair.
  "How's about you put two chair together so that I
have one chair supporting each of my butt cheeks."
  "Okay.  Rob?"
  "What?"
  "Go get the other chair."
  "Why me?"
  "Okay.  Fine.  I'll be right back."
  "Take your time."
  "Actually, I'm in a bit of a hurry."  Deja Dude went
and go the other chair.  "Here.  How's that?"
  "Fine.  Thank you."
  "Okay, so... King Kong.  What did you think?"
  "It was good."
  "And?"
  "It was really good."
  "That's it?"
  "How was the woman who played Fay Wray?" Master
Blaster asked.
  "Actually, Fay Wray was the name of the actress in
the original 1933 version.  The character is named Ann
Durrow."
  "Okay, how was she?"
  "A bit skinny," Gorilla Grad said.  "That took me
out of the movie a bit.  Frankly, I couldn't really
imagine a real gorilla falling for anybody so
waif-like.  I mean, to be honest, we apes prefer women
with a bit more meat on their bones, if you know what
I mean."
  "How about the plot?" Deja Dude asked.
  "It was the same as the 1933 version, and the 1976
remake: they find King Kong on an island and bring him
to New York."
  "Okay... how about the special effects?"
  "Oh, they were fine."
  "Fine?"
  "Well, yeah, they were fine."
  "That's all you're going to say?  'Good'?  'Fine'?"
  "What do you want from me?  I'm not a professional
movie reviewer.  I'm just somebody who went to see the
movie."
  "I thought you could describe the movie, you know,
from your unique perspective."
  "You mean, because I'm a gorilla?"
  "Well, yeah.  I mean, did King Kong look like a real
gorilla to you?"
  "Hmm.  Yeah, sure.  King Kong... he looked... okay."
  Deja Dude sighed deeply.  "Alright, well, I guess
we'd better wrap things up now.  I have a class coming
up."
  "In the evening?"
  "No, in the morning.  Different time zone.  I went
over this with Rob already."
  "Okay."
  "Anyway, Gorilla Grad, thanks for coming."
  "My pleasure."  He offered to shake hands with Deja
Dude.
  "Um, no," Deja Dude said, "I might need to use this
hand later.  I appreciate the gesture though."
  "No problem."
  "Anyway, until next time, I'm Deja Dude."
  "And I'm Master Blaster."
  "What happens next time?  Do you guys switch?  Does
he become Deja Dude and you become Master Blaster or
will you be two completely different people?"
  Deja Dude just sighed.

Deja Dude and Master Blaster created by Martin Phipps
Gorilla Grad created by Arthur Spitzer

Martin


	
		
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