Godzilla: King of the Monsters

I am the symbol of Creation and Destruction
I am the beginning and the end.
With my tail in my mouth
I am the Circle of Eternity.
Wisdom is in my eyes
And the dusk of wisdom lurks amid my coils.
My track circles the world
And I loop my coils around the Universe.
My head waves among the stars
And the nations fall prostrate before me.
Coiled, head upright, I am the spirit of the sea.
The world-shaking dinosaur was my henchman
And the flying dragons were my footmen.
The ancients knew me.
They reared shrines and altars
And I taught them dim, dusky wisdom...
 - Robert E. Howard, "Serpent"

It's obvious why there's such a divide between critics and audiences for Godzilla: King of the Monsters - because it isn't the kind of film most critics would like. This isn't a film you go to see for dialogue, character arcs, or plot points: it's a film to experience spectacle, and ponder what it's about. You will undoubtedly be disappointed by the human characters, the script, and the story - the "people" and "events" which take up the runtime - but that's not the point of a Godzilla film. It's fair to criticise those elements, of course, and there's no real barrier to a monster film having excellent characters, script, & plot: it's just their absense is not a mortal failure. To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt: when it comes to monster movies, great critics discuss themes; average critics discuss plot; small critics discuss characters.

Since this is going to delve deep into the mythology of the Monsterverse, I'd wait until after you've seen the film - and I do recommend you see it - until reading.

Dinosauria Caspakensis: Diplodocus ajori

During the three days which followed, our progress was exasperatingly slow. I doubt if we made ten miles in the entire three days. The country was hideously savage, so that we were forced to spend hours at a time in hiding from one or another of the great beasts which menaced us continually. There were fewer reptiles; but the quantity of carnivora seemed to have increased, and the reptiles that we did see were perfectly gigantic. I shall never forget one enormous specimen which we came upon browsing upon water-reeds at the edge of the great sea.
 -  Edgar Rice Burroughs, Chapter 3, "The People That Time Forgot" (1918)

Most of the biota of Caspak are terrible creatures indeed, locked as they are in what seems like a constant battle for survival: they menace the crew of U-33, they pursue the hominids of the island, they feast upon each other and fight to the death. 

Diplodocus ajori ("Ajor's Double-Beam") is different: even among the beasts of Caprona, this animal is unique.

Dinosauria Caspakensis: Allosaurus whitelyi

The deer lay in a small open space close to a clump of acacias, and we had advanced to within several yards of our kill when we both halted suddenly and simultaneously. Whitely looked at me, and I looked at Whitely, and then we both looked back in the direction of the deer. "Blimey!' he said. "Wot is hit, sir?"

"It looks to me, Whitely, like an error," I said; "some assistant god who had been creating elephants must have been temporarily transferred to the lizard-department."

"Hi wouldn't s'y that, sir," said Whitely; "it sounds blasphemous."

"It is more blasphemous than that thing which is swiping our meat," I replied, for whatever the thing was, it had leaped upon our deer and was devouring it in great mouthfuls which it swallowed without mastication.
 - Chapter 5

You might be wondering why this series is named Dinosauria Caspakensis, given the first two entries into its records are not dinosaurs at all. I use the term quite deliberately: the Dinosauria was, in the first place, a loose grouping of three creatures. Owens had little notion of the sheer variety of forms prevalent in this great dynasty of beings in 1842, and indeed, the latest taxonomic tumult suggests in its most extreme form that an entire family of what we used to call dinosaurs weren't members of the Dinosauria at all!

There's also the fact that it isn't clear the "dinosaurs" of Caspak are dinosaurs as we understand them at all: likewise for the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, prehistoric mammals, and even (especially) the humans. If we go by our current understanding of evolutionary biology, many creatures on Caspak must, logically, all be members of the same species, undergoing metamorphic upheaval that makes the life cycles of insects & amphibians positively stagnant in comparison. Nonetheless, for the sake of simplicity, and to evoke the style of the time - to pick the most dynamic and thrilling name - I decided to stick with Dinosauria over the more prosaic Fauna or Animalia, which would probably be more technically correct.

In fact, only three members of the Dinosauria are actually named in The Land That Time Forgot. The first of these was encountered by Tyler and Whitely while out hunting for some venison: I figured that since Olson was immortalised by the crew of U-33, and Tyler already has an eponymous taxon, that the very strange creature they encountered should be named Allosaurus whitelyi ("Whitely's Different Lizard").

Dinosauria Caspakensis: Pterodactylus tyleri

Above the trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on batlike wings - a creature large as a large whale, but fashioned more after the order of a lizard.
  - Chapter 4, "The Land That Time Forgot," Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1918

There are three general "groups" of animals which are not members of the Dinosauria, but due to their size, majesty, and the terror they instill, are included as "honourary Dinosaurs" in the public consciousness. There are the "pre-Mesozoic reptilimorphs" like Dimetrodon ("two measures of teeth"), Scutosaurus ("shield lizard"), and Gorgonops ("Gorgon face"), who may belong to wildly distinct groups, but are sufficiently morphologically similar that they are counted among them; there are the marine reptiles like the Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, and Mosasaurs; then there are the Pterosaurs, who are the closest related to the Dinosaurs as fellow members of the Ornithodira.

While Burroughs only granted a specific name to Plesiosaurus olsoni, I thought that the other fauna of Caspak deserved that honour. As Bradley coined P. olsoni in honour of the man who slew & subsequently cooked it, I figured that as the first person of the U-33 to see a Pterosaur should be its namesake. That being none other than Bowen Tyler himself, I introduce to you Pterodactylus tyleri, "Tyler's wing finger."

Dinosauria Caspakensis: Plesiosaurus olsoni

The Burroughs master illustrator J. Allen St. John's illustration of P. olsoni

Close by us something rose to the surface of the river and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide, distended jaws, and then all was blotted out...
  - Chapter 4, "The Land That Time Forgot," Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1918

The first native of Caspak the reader encounters is, alas, not technically a dinosaur, though it is one of another ruling dynasty of the Mesozoic - a Plesiosaurus ("near lizard"). "The Land That Time Forgot" is not the first story to feature a Plesiosaurus, but as far as I can tell, it is the first to do battle with a German submarine, which earns it a special place in the annals of Man vs. Dinosaur.

100 Years of "The Land That Time Forgot": Dinosauria Caspakensis

It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that it happened - the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seems incredible that all that I have passed through - all those weird and terrifying experiences - should have been encompassed within so short a span as three brief months. Rather might I have experienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with my own eyes in this brief interval of time - things that no other mortal eye had seen before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world so long dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of it remains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passed forever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of the earth whither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed. I am here and here must remain.
 - Chapter 1, "The Land That Time Forgot"

There are several significant anniversaries of particular importance to me. Obviously, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is out, as well as the much-anticipated 25th anniversary of Jurassic Park on 9th June. But there are some others:

• 2018 is the 50th anniversary of Robert T. Bakker's "The Superiority of Dinosaurs," an augur for what would become the Dinosaur Renaissance
• 30th August is the 100th anniversary of the death of Samuel Wendell Williston, the first palaeontologist to suggest birds developed flight cursorially, and (with Benjamin Franklin Mudge) co-discoverer of Allosaurus and Diplodocus, my favourite dinosaur
• 17th November is the 100th anniversary of the premiere of The Ghost of Slumber Mountain, Willis O'Brien's first dinosaur film, and the first film to combine live-action human actors with stop-motion dinosaur effects
• 2018 is the 150th anniversary of the first ever mounted dinosaur skeleton

And, of course, there is Edgar Rice Burrough's "The Land That Time Forgot."

This is it. 100 years of the story from which this blog, itself almost nine years old, takes its name.

"The Land That Time Forgot" first appeared in the August 1918 edition of The Blue Book Magazine, the home of many of Edgar Rice Burrough's creations: it was closely followed by "The People That Time Forgot" and "Out of Time's Abyss," a series that became known as the Caspak trilogy.

Black Panthers and Ape Lords

I had a feeling Black Panther would be my favourite Marvel film for a while now. The first trailer indicated to me that this was going to be a film steeped in the lore, ambiance, and spirit of Africa. I've always loved that continent: the many peoples, the fauna, the landscapes. So much of my favourite pulp adventure - Burroughs, Haggard, Howard - is set in a historical, mythic, or fantastical version of Africa. But so many of these stories are written from the adventurer's perspective - someone going to Africa, where Africa is a faraway land of wonders and mysteries. From the African perspective, Africa is home: it's always been there, they've always been there. Black Panther, being the creation of two North Americans, started life as an outsider's interpretation of an African superhero. Black Panther, the film, seeks to bring him home.

The results are plain to see: an all-star cast and senior crew from all across the world, almost all of whom have a direct or ancestral link to the continent. It isn't an adventure so much as a homecoming.

The depth and richness of Black Panther could easily inspire thousands of words of critique and analysis, from the languages to the clothing; the architecture to the martial arts; the music to the dances. To demonstrate the film's profundity, I'm going to look at one seemingly tiny aspect of the film across three posts, and explore the possibilities and meaning therein - the Gorilla God of the Jabari.

The Reason I Don't Particularly Care For The Asylum

I discussed this company once before, but The Asylum's latest scheme has moved me to briefly comment.

See, this could be just another mockbuster: a shameless, trite, creatively barren facsimile of a blockbuster film which will undoubtedly gain promotion - whether it be through honest confusion by the well-meaning but less knowledgeable, or the kitsch appeal which lures aficionados of camp as a pile of refuse draws clouds of flies* - and thus can be safely savaged or ignored.

But this film aims to be something more... and I feel like such a tremendous hypocrite, because this makes it even worse.

80 Years of Conan at Pulpfest

Coming up next month is Pulpfest, the annual shindig dedicated to all things pulp: a celebration of Tarzan's and John Carter's centennials, former Cimmerian blogger Bill Maynard and Howard art extraordinaires the Keegans and Mark Schultz will be in attendance, and dozens of events and panels will take place.  As with Howard Days, Conan's 80th is high on the agenda, with a panel on the Cimmerian on Saturday the 11th:

On Saturday, August 11th, PulpFest will celebrate the eightieth birthday of Conan and the sword and sorcery genre with a panel presentation hosted by Rusty Burke, the editor of the highly acclaimed Howard reprint series published by Del Rey Books, the president of the Robert E. Howard Foundation, and a member of REHupa (The Robert E. Howard United Press Association).

Joining Rusty for Robert E. Howard’s Conan and the Birth of Sword and Sorcery will be Don Herron, editor of The Dark Barbarian (Greenwood Press, 1984), the first book to treat Howard’s work seriously, and its sequel The Barbaric Triumph (Wildside Press, 2004). For a quarter century, Don has been leading San Francisco’s Dashiell Hammett Tour, the longest-running literary tour in the United States. Also on board will be Brian Leno, an award-winning Howard scholar whose essays have appeared in The Cimmerian, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, and Up and Down These Mean Streets, and John D. Squires, an Ohio bookseller whose knowledge of fantastic fiction is broad and deep. John is an expert on the work of M. P. Shiel and publisher of JDS Books and The Vainglory Press.

Rusty Burke and Don Herron,* of course, need no further introduction. I'd mentioned Brian Leno's "Atali, The Lady of Frozen Death" in 80 Years of Conan, but that's barely scratching the surface of his decades of work. "Lovecraft's Southern Vacation," a look at "Pigeons from Hell" which previously appeared in The Cimmerian v3 n2, can be read online. Most recently he's been doing great work on Howard and his admiration of Arthur "Kid" Dula at the Two-Gun Raconteur blog (parts one, two, three, four, five and six).

Were I a rich man, I'd take my private dirigible over to Columbus, Ohio, set anchor above the Hyatte Regency, and parachute down to enjoy what will undoubtedly be a fantastic and informative panel. Then steal all the books, because who's going to tangle with a man who has his own airship? Nobody, that's who.

*The site mispelled him as "Heron" in the tags: I can sympathise, having been misidentified at various points as Harrow, Harn, Harren and indeed Herron, but them's the digs.

The Agony of What Could Have Been: John Carter of Mars

I have one request: before you read any further, please read all of it until the end. It's quite a long read, but I really hope it's worth the time.  There are a few controversial opinions in here. Don't just read the preview and decide not to bother clicking on.  It's very important you read the whole review, or none of it - though naturally I'd be thrilled if you read until the end.

I write this blog because I feel like I have something worthwhile to share with the world. It seems everyone and their dog has a blog these days, so it's understandable that some consider the currency to be about as valuable as a Weimar Papiermark. But there are days when the sense of self-consciousness is overridden.  There are some things you just have to yawp from the rooftops, screaming at the stars, begging for someone to listen, for the message to be heard and understood.  This is one of those occasions.

John Carter is one of two things on the internet: it's either a hyperinflated, safe, cynical, lifeless flop destined to be considered along the likes of Ishtar and Heaven's Gate, or an unappreciated future classic unfairly dismissed by the media worthy of joining the ranks of similarly originally maligned films like Blade Runner and The Thing.  Ever a man to instinctively side with the underdog (even though the underdog, in this case, has a $300 million budget: there's a turnup for the books) I figured that this is a classic case of schadenfreude against the Evil Disney Empire, a meme which got tiresome before I was on the 'Net.

But then again... I figured, perhaps the critics have a point?  The advertising campaign for the film has been nothing short of horrendous.  Burroughs fans obviously don't need to know who John Carter or Dejah Thoris or Tars Tarkas are, but the masses don't.  Trailers for, say, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring do a great job of not only appealing to the Tolkien fans, but hooking non-Ringers in with a straight outline of the plot and basic ideas of the characters, with a few "greatest hits" clips for flavour.  What's more, there are some parts of the trailer that were actively baffling, not to mention misleading ("Earth is next!" - that line's not in the film I saw, although the threat of the Therns is implied).

Complicating matters is the fact that many of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances are bending over backwards to promote the film.  I'm not kidding, just about everyone loved this film, on the forums, on the message boards, mailing groups.  I was concerned that I might be turned off the film by simple hype aversion, as happened with Firefly and A Song of Ice and Fire - both of which I enjoy in parts, but not nearly to the extent of my compatriots.  So even going in as I always do, with the best will in the world and desire to enjoy the film, that fear that my friends and colleagues were delusional - and that if I enjoyed the film, my gushing review would create the same problem for those still undecided.

So I'll say some things, and again, I implore you: if you've read this far, please read the rest, so you can understand where I'm coming from.  I saw John Carter.  I understand why it's doing so poorly.  I think this is a perfect illustration as to why directors like Andrew Stanton rarely get the chance in this era.  This is a tremendous missed opportunity.  I didn't like it.

And hopefully when you finish reading, you'll understand why I say these things.

John Carter: The Trailer

Now THIS is a goddamn trailer.



Remember what I said last time about the Conan trailer, that all I wanted was to watch a trailer and think "I know this"?  Well, I got it in spades here.

I saw Barsoom.  I saw John Carter.  I saw Dejah Thoris.  I saw the flying ships of Barsoom.  I saw red and green Martians.  I saw a legion of Barsoomian Thoat cavalry. I think I saw Tars Tarkas.

Yes, I do miss "of Mars."  True, I think that weird glowy-bluey-liney-thingy was daft.  Indeed, I'm not a fan of the music, or the fact that Dejah Thoris wasn't quite the shade of red I thought she would be.  But goddamn, I saw Barsoom.  That was Barsoom, up there on the big screen.  That was a Green Martian holding up a gun.  That was a fleet of Barsoomian airships.

I don't doubt that there will be things I don't like about the film: there are things I don't like about the trailer.  But that's to be expected from a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster.  So far... this is easily recognizable as John Carter.  And more importantly, to me, it's easily recognizable as Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter.

And that's pretty freaking awesome.

Now cue all the silly people claiming this adaptation of a 99-year-old literary creation is an Avatar/He-Man/Prince of Persia/Star Wars ripoff...

Triangulation: Revenge of the Mill, African Mythology, Hawks, Dinosaurs, and Momo!

A few more posts this week rounding out April...

Sunday sees that damned mill return, and a fairly lengthy one given my opinions on everything. I still can't get over Lang bringing up Shakespeare in reference to Zym. I've made a habit of posting Patrice's approval of Momoa whenever someone brings up how Momoa "can't live up to AHNOLD" elsewhere. I really think when we see Momoa with the blue eyes & black hair, grizzled makeup and extra muscle, people might finally shut up about Momoa. I admit, I was taking a "wait and see approach" bordering on the skeptical, but as soon as he lost the dreds & goatee in more recent pictures, I was starting to see it. Indeed, it was getting to the point that I'm starting to feel sorry we wasted Momoa in this film. Now I am starting to wish it was Lutz or Padalecki.

Triangulation: Blackwood, Lovecraft, Brackett, Burroughs, "Conan" and more

This was a crazy week. So many important dates to consider!

Running the Asylum: The Land That Time Forgot

While I have a special place in my heart for the 1975 Doug McClure romp co-penned by Michael Moorcock, it wasn't as close to the novel as I was hoping. As with a certain other adaptation of great pulp source material, however, it seems the earlier iteration will still be the most faithful in comparison to their modern counterparts.



Caspak 90210. How utterly depressing. Any dinosaur worth their salt would've chomped those idiots within the first minute of their landing.