War Rocket Ajax

[  Mood: Happy ]
THIS is just one of MANY reasons I love coming HERE.

[  Mood: Embarrased ]
[  Currently: Listening to the sound of our collective dying childhoods. ]
I predict one of the next remakes will be…

P.S. I have no proof of this. It simply seems like it’ll eventually show up on the Hollywood Writer’s Block.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Reading the RevolutionSF forums ]
I returned from Iron Maiden’s incredible show in Auburn, Washington happy and exhausted (lots and lots of driving).

Maiden performed a smattering of hits from the ’80s. I’d say that was their heyday, but I think their last three albums have contained the best music they’ve ever made. I can’t wait for the next album (Bruce said they’d return to the Seattle area to tour it next year)!

Best of all those classics I finally got to see live, the band played one of my favorites, the 14-minute epic, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Brilliant.

In other news, I’ve decided to drop one job to focus exclusively on another, and so far the decision has been the right one. More on that later, perhaps.

The remainder of my downtime’s been spent relearning the guitar and playing Team Ninja’s tremendously beautiful (and tremendously HARD) Ninja Gaiden II.

I must shackle myself to the t.v./computer combo very soon, as Excalibur is demanding I watch it again…

[  Mood: Scared ]
Oh, George.

I am so scared right now.

Not just by the photo, but by the idea that, if he paid any attention to a poor wretch such as I, and if he then willed it, Lucas could have me squished like a grape.

The way Mr. Miyagi warned about practicing karate "guess-so."

I don’t wanna go out like that…or do I?

Think of the consequences: My wife collects the insurance policy AND she could bring a criminal case against the wealthiest man living south of Bill Gates, provided the lawyers can prove he hired some character actors or down-on-their-luck stunt men to do the deed. It has the potential to defame him for all time AND bring about the release of the Star Wars Holiday Special in an attempt to have the sales cover his court costs!

It’s win, win!

Except where I’m dead, of course. That part sucks.

And it could backfire, making him IN-famous, like El Guapo, and bringing about an unheralded new era in his filmmaking, inspired by true events (like all those Law & Order episodes! They’re really popular, right?).

For a moment, see the headline with me…

Lucas Kills Vocal Ex-Fan In Fit Of Rage!

And why would he do this?

Because I can’t stop thinking, "When is he gonna make good on his threat to go back to making a simple film we can all ignore?"

And every new bit of news that comes out…must…be…commented UPON!

Also, I admit, he’s such an easy target!

Obviously, the man cannot or will not just shut up and put his copious coinpurse where his dilapidated digital tomfoolery is. Instead, we are inundated by Lucas’s meddling hand, threatening at every turn to twist and transmogrify the things we love, leaving torn and bloodied the genre stories of joy we once counted on him to provide!

The latest news? LaBeowulf, waving his switchblade around (this, and being acquainted with Michael Bay are apparently all one needs to make giant Canadian dumptruck loads of cash these days in Hollyweird), proclaims he and George’ll do Indy 5, which will be Mutt One, or some other decidedly non-Cthulhuian horror, but horrible nonetheless.

The truck above might be able to move the amount of bricks the world’s Geekdom collectively drop when the announcement is "officialized, " or whatever Gee-crazzizz-Ell decides to term it.

Before that diShiabance in The Force, our friend Frank Darabont was crying in his beer. No doubt, it had been served by a gruff bartender who looked like Uncle Owen with a bad shave.

From Joe’s article: ‘Frank Darabont says he will get no onscreen credit for Indiana Jones 4. About working again with George Lucas, he said, "Honestly our storytelling sensibilities have diverged to the point where that would be a pointless exercise." Ouch, Lucas. Hurts, don’t it?’

Well boo-filkin’-hoo.

So Lucas obviously wants to continue to make hoary, boring technobabble or poorly conceived serial homages, while Darabont wants to make soul-destroying, unfaithful at-the-last adaptations of otherwise excellently written stories?

What they don’t say on the poster above is this: that guy with his hand in front of his face?
Member of the paid-to-see-it-free preview audience.

Pardon me for obtusity, but I’m missing the "divergence" there, Frank old bean. Maybe your next film will make us all understand?

I highly doubt it. And I’m scared all over again.

[  Mood: In Love ]
[  Currently: Listening to music to slay zombies by… ]
“World War Z,” Mark Hamill, Todd Wainio, Iron Maiden‘s “The Trooper.”

Forgive me, KD. I have not read Max Brooks’ novel "World War Z."

In December of 2006 my wife accepted a promotion with Big Book Company #2 and we moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan amid many claims from friends, family, and acquaintences that we’d see snow banks only heretofore dreamt of in our little inland northwest hamlet of Spokane.

This is Spokane, of which Warren Zevon once sang:

The many claims were proven false by Ma Nature’s fickle temperment that winter. The only precipitation we encountered on our trip came in sparse drips and drizzles as we approached Des Moines, Iowa.

During our dry voyage we enjoyed the full-cast audio performance, author-approved abridgement of "World War Z." Featuring the talents of Mark Hamill, Alan Alda, Henry Rollins, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, Jürgen Prochnow, and John Turturro, among others, the audiobook was awarded with the 2007 Audie Award for best Multi-Voiced Performance (thanks, wiki). It richly deserves that award.

Through the dusty, snowless landscapes of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, on highways empty of even those who’d dare a normal winter’s journey on them, we drove and listened to the performance.

I think it was the nearest thing I may ever get to that feeling many Americans shared when Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater made their memorable entry into cultural history October 30th, 1938: This may really be happening.

Sure, sure, I started the cd and stopped it when necessary on the drive, but the delivery, the nuances in the voices, the accents and the passion displayed-! The word incredible doesn’t do it justice in my mind. Unbelievable might be the adjective I should use, but that counters the effect the performance had on Celena and I.

We could believe that there was a zombie infestation occuring in America even as we drove east across its great highways.

The key performance among the many excellent readings sits with Mark Hamill, as Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers. I’ve known, loved, and been annoyed by his whining as Luke Skywalker, and seen his performances as the animated Joker.
His imdb.com listing has voice work that should have Mel Blanc applauding every day from his perch on high.

Hamill as Todd Wainio, though, drives home the reality of World War Z. His voice transports you, opening visual vistas in your mind of places you might never have actually seen.

When Wainio talks about the battle that turned the war around, out of nowhere (and this made me even happier I hadn’t read the book before listening) he explains how some soldiers use music to pump themselves up before a hard mission, and how over the loudspeakers the soldiers fighting those zombies that day were lifted to the fight by Iron Maiden’s "The Trooper," I teared up.

If you’ve heard the song, you can hear it in your head when Hamill’s character describes the scene. If not, you’ve missed out on a classic piece of music.

It’s no secret to anyone that I love Iron Maiden.

They are hands down my favorite band.

To have their music referenced in such a way, and that song–so perfectly picked!–used as the aural template for the human race’s battle for survival against zombie hordes?

Priceless!

[  Mood: Angry ]
[  Currently: Listening to Fire, Inc. ]
It’s something we can’t avoid as long as we allow ourselves to be spectators in various aspects of the game of life: watching, unable to vary the outcome, as a bad ending inexorably forces its drudging self upon us.

It happens in every genre we know and love.

Science fiction: The "Huh? Wha-?" ending to Tim Burton’s barely-watchable, otherwise-mockable, ‘reimagining’ of "Planet of the Apes."

This movie stripped Mark Wahlberg of almost every ounce of cred he got from me after I saw this scene in "Boogie Nights." The 5:35 mark is where the magic happens.

Yes, I will likely use this link until it falls dead from YouTube. I LOVE that scene.

But Tim Burton’s big ape turd? I forgot everything that happened in that ‘movie’ about ten minutes after I left the theater. Except the unbelievable, unexplained, I-don’t-care-if-someone-has-a-theory-about-it ending.

Why did I forget?

Because the ending SUCKED.

Horror: I could go for the duck sitting there in its barrel on this one and deride the Frank Darabont horrorshow titled "The Mist," but I, ladies and gentlemen, shall avoid the easy target, and take the high road.

The unbelievable adaptation of Stephen King’s "IT" for television (Richard Thomas as Stuttering Bill!?!), complete with effects ripped right out of some sandbox plastic dinosaur fight I might have had in the early ’70s.

Except MY dinosaurs were BETTER.

King let the t.v. miniseries hacks literally hack his great novel (IT is my favorite, sorry The Stand) into palsied, palatable-to-middle-America pieces.

And, no, I didn’t like Tim Curry as Pennywise, either.

Not because he was freaky.

It’s because he wasn’t the Pennywise I saw when I read the book.

I love the poster tagline: "The master of horror unleashes everything you were ever afraid of."

Yeah.

Another crappy version of one of his books.

Fantasy: Did you enjoy the end of "LOTR: Return of the King"? Really?

‘Cause I was napping off and on from the minute Pippin started singing until Sam carried Frodo up Mount Doom.

Sam carried Frodo up Mount Doom?!? What, did someone slip in my dvd of "Hearts In Atlantis"?
Did I not read that chapter in the book? It’s possible. There were quite a few chapters in the books that I napped through.

So maybe the movies did an admirable job of recreating the book experience, and Tolkien’s relatives, with their incessant bitching about the films, are simply wearing their BVDs one size too small.

I give P.J. and crew props for trying to stuff battle after battle after battle after battle into those last two films, but even though "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring" just got everything started storywise and ended hanging on a relatively weak cliff (everyone KNEW Gandalf weren’t dead, y’all), it still ended more satisfactorily than ROTK.

The Mutt (a little bit of everything, and Michael Pare): In 1983 I took a trip to Universal Studios and during the tour saw the huge black tents that the tour guide mysteriously, giddily exclaimed to our group were from the in-production movie "Streets Of Fire," starring Diane Lane, Michael Pare, and Willem DeFoe!

OK, I don’t recall the exclamations about the cast, but I’m fairly certain there was mention of them.

I saw this film in theaters the next year and enjoyed it for what it was: a popcorn film designed by throwing together many disparate elements—rock/pop/doo-wop music, a hot damsel in distress (Lane), a brooding anti-hero (Pare), a plucky sidekick (AmyFILKINGMadigan, hopelessly miscast), a sneering villian (DeFoe, both more and less terrible than his Goblin), and a colorful cast of supporting characters (Robert Townshend! Rick Moranis! Deborah Van Valkenburgh! Rick Rossovich! Bill Paxton! Ed Begley, Jr!)—into a fantastic setting neither future nor past.

Touted as "A Rock & Roll Fable," the film manages to entertain on a thin story and a few witty lines delivered from the steely Pre-Swayze chin of Michael Pare (and if the wiki is right, someone needs to tell him, in his long career of bad career moves, he really needs to rethink the upcoming Uwe Boll collaboration).

The music throughout is decent–you can still hear Dan Hartman’s "I Can Dream About You" on the radio, especially XM’s ‘Sunny 24’ station–and the movie is bookended by two of the best Jim Steinman songs EVAR.

This one.

And this one.

If those songs don’t make you yearn for your years of misspent youth, you maybe didn’t have any.

Watch that last clip to the five-minute mark (or pull the dvd off your shelf and find the chapter) and you’ll see what I mean when I say "Why, oh, god, why did they screw up the ending?!"

At the 4:06 mark (in the video), when I was watching the movie for the first time, I thought, "Oh, this movie is going to end JUST perfectly, with our anti-hero walking into the distance (no sunset, but you get the jist), roll credits."

For seven seconds I think this, and my joy is rapturous.

Then the camera cuts to a different angle.

And then the damned sidekick drives up.

Blahblahblah, pseudo-witty banter, and a ride is offered, and the filking anti-hero takes it! Didn’t anyone tell this guy that anti-heroes don’t take rides?!

Why am I torturing myself? When I own the dvd, the movie ends when I make it end! HA! Take that, crappy screenwriter/producer/director/Hollywood system that makes everything so plain that the majority of America won’t have to use ANY cogitation whatsoever!

I have the remote now! And I’m not afraid to use it!

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Playing Battleship with Death… ]

I love Kurosawa.

Granted, I haven’t seen the majority of Kurosawa’s films, though I own a number of them on general principal. To paraphrase Sting, as Fayd Rautha: I will view them!

Likewise, I haven’t yet read the autobiography of Kurosawa that I received several years ago on my birthday. There’s so much to read between marathon Oblivion/Xbox 360 sessions.

Really, I’m just making excuses. I’ve watched every Zatoichi film, even the elusive number 14, ordered on eBay (thank you, France!). Ditto a number of the Ichi television series episodes.

I’ve done Akira wrong.

I suffered through The Hidden Fortress because Lucas said it was part of his inspiration for Star Wars.
Inspiration, my @$$. Maybe he was "inspired" to make a movie with a pulse! Those two hours of boredom are just one more thing Lucas owes me an apology for.

I watched Rashomon. Twice. I almost get it. They say the third time’s the charm.

But what I want to touch on here is the proliferation of film references ("remakes," "reimaginings," what-have-you) to Seven Samurai, arguably one of Kurosawa’s best films.

There is, of course, The Magnificent Seven. It is one of my all-time absolute favorite, I-don’t-have-enough-adjectives-for-how-I-feel movies.

A (supposed) scene from Seven Samurai was featured briefly during the "first date" segment of the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston collaboration, The Bodygaurd–not to be confused with the great 1980 film, My Bodygaurd, that started Adam Baldwin on his long journey to playing the likes of Knowle Rohrer, Jayne Cobb, Marcus Hamilton, and John Casey.

You’ll always be Linderman to me, Adam.

The Seven Samurai’s inspiration can be seen indirectly in such films as The Three Amigos and A Bug’s Life.

More immediate examples are Battle Beyond The Stars and Galaxy Quest.

I’m sure there are more than just these, but let’s go from here.

The little Roger Corman-directed John-Boy vehicle above even starred one of the stars from the star-studded (a pun I use willingly), majestic Seven Samurai "re-imagining," The Magnificent Seven: the one and only Robert Vaughn! He played the same character, too, with many of the same lines, except innnn Spaaaaaaace!

The other main draw of that sad little film was not the special effects…

Is it any wonder I have a (soft) spot for Boobs McGillicutty, a.k.a. Sybil Danning?
Oddly, though, the ship below was flown by Richard Thomas’s unbelievably poorly named character, Shad.

Don’t skimp on the breastfeeding, ladies. Your babies will grow up to fly ships like that one.

And don’t name your babies Shad.

I can’t imagine why, but somehow, somewhere, the soundtrack to that movie exists, too:

Enough badgering of that terrible waste of my youth that I watched every time I caught a glance of it on cable in the ’80s, though.

Galaxy Quest came along in 1999 and made me love Tim Allen all over again.

Great performances, great sci-fi references, a wonder-filled story…you know, I can’t think of a thing I didn’t like about Galaxy Quest. Same goes for The Magnificent Seven.

As strictly faithful adaptations of Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven is more direct while Galaxy Quest is more funny fun. Both are excellent ways to spend a couple hours.

What’s strange about Galaxy Quest, A Bug’s Life, and Three Amigos is the addition of the "performers-turned-saviors" plotline.

I wonder where in the history of scriptwriting that idea got added to the mix…

Whatever the case may be, we have a number of Seven Samurai derivatives to enjoy, and Thank Shatner, they are good, if not great. Well, most of them.

Shut up, John Saxon! You won’t be able to save your foxy daughter from Freddie Krueger, so don’t scowl at me about your career choices!

Ahem.

Enjoy the samurai, everyone.

[  Mood: Evil ]
[  Currently: Eating kooks like Willie Scott for breakfast! ]
In response to:

Sci-Fi: WTF Couples
1. Indiana Jones and Willie Scott, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Poor Willie. She will always been seen as the also ran romance of the Indy series. Marion was Indy’s one true love as evidenced by Raiders and the forthcoming Crystal Skull. Willie was just a pit stop.
And it wasn’t hard for Indy to tell. She wasn’t good in the outdoors. She screamed every time anything happened. Clearly this woman should have been a booty call for Indy, but we were urged to think this would last forever. Probably had something to do with producer Spielberg making the actress who played Willie his one and only seven years after this movie came out.

I HATE Willie.

HATE.

Willie Scott and the wretched movie from which she spawned are proof positive that in 1984, for whatever reason, Spielberg and Lucas were wandering the desert of imagination in search of a creative idea.

There were plenty of other movies to see in 1984, and I saw at least twenty on that linked list. Man, 1984 was a good year for movies.

Indy sucked more than every one I saw that year, except The Woman In Red.

Gene Wilder, you let me down, man.

The horrible, erroneous gun/sword joke reference in the prequel is proof that Lucas and Co. had started filking with their own material in dangerous ways, long before the E.T. walkie-talkie fiasco. Indy meets with two swordsmen, instead of the one in Raiders, which is supposed to happen several years after Temple, yet he grabs for his pistol, and finding the holster empty, gives a knowing, almost 4th-wall-breaking, smile!

I blame Willie Scott.

Geekdom! I submit to you: we weren’t taking notes! We should have seen Episodes I, II, and III coming at that moment, and we should have initiated prepartions to prevent it!

The lonely dvd sitting in the Indiana Jones Trilogy box, behind Raiders, Crusade, and the extras dvd? I don’t look at it more than your average commuter looks at a traffic accident on the highway. It’s unfortunate that it happened, and it’s taking up space in my life, but I really wish I could just get the hell past it and not have to worry about it bogging down part of my day.

I blame Willie Scott.

I hear some of you, just a few of you, out there in the aisles with itchy feet and fading smiles, saying “But what about Short Round? You can‘t not like Short Round.”

Grammatically questionable as that last statement is, those very words have come out of at least one person’s mouth when I dug in my heels about IJATTOD sucking. It’s not a fond memory, as now, whenever the subject is broached, that’s the way I hear the question when anyone mentions Short Round.

Short Round doesn’t do anything for me, but I don’t have time to dig into that can of worms for the proper bait right now. Jonathan Ke Quan was, is, and will always for me be Data from The Goonies.
There is no Short Round.

Willie Scott is the reason there are only three Indiana Jones movies in my mind, my world, and just two in my dvd library.

Those movies are as follows.

Raiders, which showed me that cool swipe from the Paramount logo in the beginning, then got better from there. Only Coming To America made better use of the Paramount logo, and only Boogie Nights made better use of Alfred Molina.

Raiders also proved that John Williams’ best work was not The Imperial March. I know, it’s the Star Wars theme to lots and lots of geeks out there, but it pales in comparison to the Indy theme.

The Last Crusade, while touted as THE last Indy movie so many years ago (hey, who knew Harrison just needed the right script to get the hat back on?), was also the best of the three so far, for three reasons.

1. River Pheonix as young Indy. I weep every time I watch the opening to the movie, and every time I hear this song by Natalie Merchant, that she wrote for him posthumously.

2. Sean Connery! In the words of Stan The Man Lee, ‘Nuff Said.

3. Humor! Sure, one might argue a short asian kid who uses telephone books and KISS boots to drive a car, a woman who is scared of the wild and thinks elephants stink, and the poor attempts at slapstick all make for rollicking good fun at the movies. But where Raiders tempered its drama and action with comedy, and Temple added unnecessary song numbers and bad jokes to pad the feather-light story, Last Crusade found a very nice balance between humor and pathos.

And damn it, the movie makes me cry, OK?! It’s a good estranged father-son fantasy story, wrapped in an action yarn, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery!

“Let it go, Indiana.”

Last Crusade just seemed so effortless when weighed against the albatross that is Temple of Doom.

I blame Willie Scott.

Hell, if Wikipedia is to be believed, check out this quote: “After the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Steven Spielberg decided to complete the trilogy in order to fulfill his promise to George Lucas, and ‘to apologize for the second one’.”

Maybe Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is Spielberg’s way of saying, “Let’s make a real trilogy, and in a year or two we’ll mint more money after releasing the NEW dvd box set, sans Temple of Doom! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! Eh…ha?”

Still, let’s hope Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is at least as good as Raiders,.

Which is to say, pretty filking awesome.

I want it to be the summer’s blockbuster movie, taking a righteous swing at the biggest moneymakers the past summers have seen and knocking them sideways.

The movie already has some good things going for it, long, Fiona-Apple-esque title aside. OK, it’s more U2esque.

Mr. Shamamalan LaBootay, who, even if he blows it in a bunch of art house films while living off his last four paychecks, will still appear in the next Michael Bay FIOS commercial, guaranteed.
His LaBoothness plays Mutt, who is potentially Indy’s son by Marion. Or actually is. Whatever, I’m not digging into the spoilers to find out. I’ll learn it all on day one in the theater.

And it’ll have some pudgy pasty white guy instead of Salah, it appears from the trailer. That’s its first strike in my book. I can just imagine Salah saying, “So, Indy, you have A SON!”

Not unlike Brian Blessed’s Hawkman exclaiming something exclamatory in Flash Gordon.

Kingdom touts Nazi-ish villains led by Cate Blanchett! No Indy film is complete without the good ol’ stormtrooperish villainy!

Indy is being portrayed as Indy, twenty years on. Not Harrison Ford’s likeness pasted digitally onto a young stunt man’s frame, with Harrison providing voice talent to lip-sync the dialogue.

Come to think of it, that’s probably what Frank Darabont’s script suggested…after all, the man wrote, directed, and allowed to be released this piece of crap.

I don’t blame Willie Scott for The Mist.

Yes, Frank, I am bitter. I’ll need about three more Shawshank Redemptions to put you back on the “trust me” list.

But Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull wasn’t written by Darabont, Thank Shatner, so it won’t have Short Round, but it will have the wonderful, beautiful, still-hot Karen Allen! Marion returns!

I’ve missed Marion. I’m glad she’s back.

And I’m so very very glad Willie Scott will not be in the new movie. For that reason alone it has a better-than-good chance of success.

Unless it blows like Willie screaming. In which case…

I blame Willie Scott.

I sincerely hope it won’t.

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Listening to the music in my head ]
Pondering the existence of another cool science fiction information highway destination, io9, I began wondering how their name came about exactly.

Is it a play on the classic flesh-staining antibiotic, tincture of iodine?

Is there a site dedicated to weight gain called io8?

It’d be similar to that ancient Van Hagar album, "Oh, You Ate One, Too," or as many drunk VH fans called it back in the day, "Oh, You Ate Twelve."

Oh, how I loathe Van Hagar! *shakes fist menacingly*

Kudos if you caught the Jane’s Addiction reference (track 5).

[  Mood: Amused ]
[  Currently: Listening to REAL heavy metal ]
Links are SFW. Well, except the South Park ones.

After watching this South Park episode, I think I can say it’s among my favorites. There are many better, more funny episodes, but none which combine three I love to such great effect.

"Major Boobage" contains cats. I love cats. Used to be a dog person, but then responsibility took flight from me (or vice versa) for a number of years, as did living in my own home, so as an apartment dweller I had few pet choices I liked. Snakes were out. Ditto arachnids of any flavor. I don’t do well with fish (though I’ll now eat salmon in addition to the tuna I usually fix when my wife isn’t home to cook). So cats became IT, petwise. I’m not sorry, either. Except when I’m cleaning the litter box. Or listening to the 6am yowls about feeding time. Or hearing the water bowl knocked over for the third time this morning.
Really, I do love my cats.

"Major Boobage" also contains–betcha can’t guess–boobs. If you’ve seen my take on the 1983 classic fantasy "The Sword and the Sorceror," you know how I feel about this topic.

Last, the episode contains several references to the movie "Heavy Metal." I’ve not spoken well of the movie in the forums here because I didn’t enjoy it as a movie when I first saw it. I’m reasonably certain I wouldn’t enjoy as a movie it if I watched it today.

There are a couple reasons for my dislike of the film.
1.: It’s "plot" is strung together worse than an average porn film. The vignettes are so loosely tied together they may as well be separated by neon title cards.
2.: The music sucks. The misconception I had in seeing this film (on video, several years after its theater run had come and gone) was that I might hear some heavy metal to go along with the (anticipated) cool sci-fi visuals (and promised boobage). Maybe some Def Leppard. Or RATT. Or Dokken. Or Motley Crue.

What I was met with was Sammy Hagar at his glaringly mediocre "best." Journey doing "Open Arms." Stevie Nicks and Donald Fagen!?! Is that what Canadians think of when they read Heavy Metal magazine?
Where’s the #%@* was the METALLICA? The QUEENSRYCHE? The mighty IRON MAIDEN? These are shining examples of heavy metal (as I still enjoy it today)!
Those bands were available back then, their albums providing exactly the kind of music that would have complemented a sci-fi/fantasy spectacle.

As a delivery device for good music, "Heavy Metal" doesn’t pass muster. Most folks were probably too busy watching Taarna to be bothered by the music, but to me, there wasn’t enough Taarna in the movie to ignore the bad parts (of the music and the movie) completely. As a delivery device for some animated softcore (perhaps the first I was exposed to in my pubescent years), the movie definitely stands the test of time.

A quick aside to the creators: When does the Druuna (find your own links) movie come out, yo? I’m not bothering with "Heavy Metal: Whatever the hell the abbreviation stands for 2000," even if Julie Strain may be animated nude in it.
The irony may be that I’d like it, seeing how it apparently has more metal than the first movie did, and a starring role by none other than the peroxide god (dancing with) himself, Billy Idol!

Really, though, I think I’d rather listen to my new Iron Maiden albums.

But (SPOILERS!) Stan’s dad Randy has the best line in the episode…

"You never really get to see her totally naked boobs anyway."