A Review of Jack Archer's YF-1R Veritech from Toynami's Robotech Masterpiece Collection

What can I say? I'm a sucker for miniatures and replicas of characters and vehicles from my favorite TV shows and movies. So when Toynami started releasing Robotech mecha as part of their "Masterpiece Collection", beginning with mecha from the Macross Saga, I knew I had to pick up at least one of these items regardless of their high prices. Fortunately, I caught a break when I saw on sale the only vehicle in Toynami's Robotech line that came straight from a video game and not the original anime series--namely, Jack Archer's YF-1R Veritech from the 2002 Robotech: Battlecry game. Read on for my complete review of this unique bit of Robotech merchandise.

Before I get to my review, here's some background on my experience with Robotech merchandise. Robotech first appeared in the U.S. not as an anime series, but as a series of model kits distributed by Revell. The transforming robots that would later become known as Veritechs were part of this kit series, which I'm assuming is one of the reasons why "Robotech" was chosen for the U.S. anime series. Production history aside, Robotech shared a commonality with Star Wars in the sense that if you wanted a vehicle replica to play with, you'd end up with a toy that mostly looked like the vehicle but was not completely accurate in detail; on the other hand, if you wanted an exact replica of the vehicle, you'd have to purchase and assemble the model kit version.

In the case of Robotech, if you wanted to play with a fully transformable Veritech during the mid-80s, you'd have to pick up the Jetfire figure from the Transformers toy line. (How a Veritech ended up in the Transformers line is a long, convoluted story.) Jetfire was the most accurate toy replica of a Veritech at that time--much more accurate than the squat, "super deformed" Veritech toys that Matchbox distributed under its official Robotech line--but even that lacked many details that were seen in the anime TV show. In contrast, the Revell model kit versions of the Veritech captured every detail from the anime series, with an even greater range of articulation than the Jetfire toy.

The Transformers Jetfire toy ...

... a Revell Robotech model kit ...

... and a Matchbox Veritech toy.

Toynami's Masterpiece Collection Veritech replicas began to appear almost fifteen years after Robotech went off the air. If I had to summarize the Veritech replica that I purchased in a nutshell, it would be as if someone built a Veritech model kit with more durable materials and then released it for sale as an assembled, painted product. I tried to assemble Revell's Veritech kits twice and while my efforts were far less than average, I'm familiar enough with the kits to know that the Toynami Veritech took most--if not all--of its details from the model kits.

The box that the Masterpiece Collection Veritech came in looks like a huge, hardcover book, complete with a volume number; the Jack Archer Veritech is Volume 6. I suppose that this box design was chosen to add an aura of style and sophistication to the "Masterpiece Collection" name, even though all the box contains is just an expensive toy. The spine of the "book" features a picture of Jack Archer, a picture that when lined up with the other five volumes in sequence will look like a Macross cast photo (note the elbow sticking out in front of Archer in the picture below). The box also included a signed certificate of authenticity, which tells you the official number of the item produced within the limited edition toy line.

Out of the box, the Veritech is an impressive thing to behold. As you can see from the pictures of the Veritech in Fighter mode below, everything is proportionate to everything else: the length of the wings, the shape and length of the nose cone and the overall length of the fighter all match how a Veritech is supposed to appear. (Just looking at this toy in Fighter mode makes the Robotech opening theme song start playing in my head!) The Veritech also came with missile clusters to attach to the wings, retractable landing gear, an opening cockpit and a pilot ladder for extra details. Even the Veritech's gun pod fits neatly to the underside of the Veritech when it is in fighter mode.

The same level of detail holds up when transforming the Veritech into Guardian and Battloid modes. Toynami placed a few hinges within the Veritech's hands, so that it can grip the gun pod in either hand. The toy also comes with a heat shield to place over the cockpit for when it is in Battloid mode.

Finally, the Veritech comes with batteries and a small switch located on the underside the nose cone. When you flip the switch, the Battloid's eye lights up. This is a nifty extra feature that I didn't expect and it is included in all of their Masterpiece Collection Veritech replicas, although Toynami didn't think to add this to their subsequent series of Masterpiece Collection Alpha Fighter replicas.

As a display piece, I'm very satisfied with this Veritech--it looks great in any mode. The only drawback is that the joints of the toy are very loose. While it will remain upright in Guardian and Battloid modes, you have to position the legs very carefully so it will remain standing. For this reason, I hesitate to transform my Veritech often, lest the joints become too loose.

I've heard that better quality Veritech replicas of similar size and detail can be purchased straight from Japan, but from what I've seen so far those are usually more expensive than the Toynami Veritechs. Then again, the price of this particular Veritech replica wasn't an issue for me--I found it on sale for $29.99. Whether this discounted price is due to Jack Archer's obscurity even among Robotech fans, I cannot say.

If you haven't played Robotech: Battlecry, Jack Archer's one and only appearance in the Robotech franchise, you might want to give it a try if you can find a copy. You play as Archer, one of the pilots who was on Macross Island when the Zentraedi first attack, but he is left behind when the SDF-1 performs the notorious spacefold that sends it to Pluto. Hence, there are only three parts of the game--the Macross Island attack, the disastrous battle in the skies over Toronto, and the Zentraedis' orbital assault against Earth--that overlap with the Macross Saga; the rest of the game's missions take place on Earth during what is known as the "Malcontent Uprisings", a series of smaller conflicts that took place before the launch of the SDF-3 and the Second Robotech War.

Some Robotech fans may be disappointed by the game's lack of direct connection to most of the Macross episodes; you don't get to play any missions that take place during the SDF-1's voyage back to Earth and you don't get to explore the SDF-1 at all, either on the inside or the outside. Yet the game retains the feel of Robotech by playing clips from the series' memorable soundtrack during each of the missions, and several original voice cast members return to reprise their Macross Saga roles--as well as to portray some new roles, both human and Zentraedi alike. Furthermore, the game's unlockable extras include video clips of enjoyable and insightful interviews with the returning cast members about their time with the Robotech series. Overall, Robotech: Battlecry is a decent game where you get to fly a transforming Veritech--what's not to like?

Joe Dante's 3D Movie The Hole (2009) Will Arrive in U.S. Theaters This September

I just heard around the 'net that Joe Dante's 3D movie from 2009, The Hole, will finally make it to silver screens here in the U.S. this September. While I still can't pin down the details about how wide this release will be, all I can say is that it's about time.

The Hole is about two young brothers who find a heavily padlocked door in the floor of the cellar of their new house. After they open the door, they discover that they've unleashed a dark force that torments them with their deepest fears.

Why The Hole has been seen just about everywhere else but here is still a mystery to me. It was shot in Canada and it has a very American look and feel to it--it even won an award at the 2009 Venice Film Festival--and yet audiences in the U.S. will be the last ones to see it in the theaters. Furthermore, it's not like Joe Dante is an obscure or unproven director--he gave us such great films as Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins, Innerspace and Matinee, and yet his first 3D movie doesn't make it into American theaters until three years after its initial release? What gives?

Anyway, below are two interviews that I found with Dante that were done during The Hole's release overseas.

The Age of Feature-Length 3D Horror and Sci-Fi Cartoons in America Has Arrived

Feature-length cartoons have been around in American cinema since Disney released Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs back in 1937, but cartoons for genres outside of fairy tale-based musicals have been very rare for most of the time since that milestone. Thus, I've been ecstatic that three horror-themed cartoons--ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania and Frankenweenie--are being released in American theaters between August and October of this year. Furthermore, all three of them are in 3D and two of them were shot using stop-motion animation, a special effects technique that has almost completely vanished from live-action films.

To be sure, these titles aren't horror cartoons per se--they are mostly comedies with plot points and imagery based on the horror genre. Yet having three of these films debuting in American theaters within weeks of each other is unprecedented and I think that it reflects what 3D and CGI technology can contribute to cinema animation in terms of the kinds of subject matter that animators can explore. I've already posted about how 3D technology has found a home in video games and feature-length CGI cartoons; here, I'll examine how 3D and CGI have sparked new life into animated storytelling, which has resulted in a selection of horror and sci-fi themed cartoons (five of which I will discuss in this post) that will pave the way for new generations of horror and sci-fi fans. In a time where live-action horror and sci-fi films that are released on the big screen have been overrun with remakes, reboots and retreads, this can only be a good thing. Read on ...

For the longest time, the only horror-themed cartoon movie around was Mad Monster Party, which was produced by Rankin/Bass Productions back in 1967, yet that stop-motion cult classic was a rarity even among certain groups of horror fans. I first saw it on syndicated TV when I was just a wee lad during the late 70s (the film was followed by a broadcast of Son of The Blob, which scared the crap out of me before I was old enough to know better). I didn't know the name of the cartoon movie when I first saw it but I remembered enough of Mad Monster Party's visual style and plot that I could tell my friends about it in the years and decades to come, even though none of them had the slightest idea of what I talking about other than to remark that they had no idea that the makers of such holiday favorites as Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman would produce something so monster-centric. Tim Burton would eventually make his own contribution to horror-themed cartoon movies with A Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993, but that still left only two animated titles that dealt with horror themes and visuals amid a long list of American cartoons that didn't.

Things have been picking up for horror and sci-fi cartoon movies in the years since thanks to CGI and 3D technology, even to the point of getting Nightmare Before Christmas re-released in 3D in 2006. Sure, these films aren't as serious as the horror and sci-fi cartoons produced in Japan (then again, what other country is more serious about animation than Japan?), but the fact that American animation companies are willing to expand their subject matter into horror and sci-fi territory is a step in the right direction that is long overdue. In chronological order, here are five examples of 3D horror and sci-fi cartoon movies done right, the models that future 3D animators should follow when blazing new paths of their own.

---

Monster House (2006)

When Monster House arrived in 2006, I was amazed. It was produced using top-notch CGI, it was in 3D, it had a great voice cast, and it was an obvious homage to the many kid- and early teen-friendly horror/sci-fi/adventure films of the 80s, films such as Gremlins, Goonies, The Gate, Explorers, The Monster Squad and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. (Then again, with executive producers such as Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, two filmmakers who excelled at these kinds of movies during their heyday, what else would you expect?) Even though Monster House is told from a kid's perspective and is largely devoid of violence and gore, it still tells as a satisfying ghost story that can be enjoyed by an audience of varying ages. If you're looking to introduce kids to the horror movies, Monster House should place high on your list of titles.

---

Meet The Robinsons (2007)

Meet The Robinsons has everything: A goofy sense of humor, an intriguing story that is both a parody and a homage to the plot device of time travel, a tribute to Walt Disney's futurism, and a heartwarming message about family, belonging and making peace with an uncertain past to move onward into a brighter, better future. In particular, retro sci-fi fans will love the movie's chrome-plated, tail-finned vision of the future that's skillfully rendered in 3D.

---

Coraline (2009)

2009 was a fantastic year for horror/sci-fi 3D cartoon movies, beginning with Coraline. Henry Selick applied his animation magic to an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's dark, twisted fairy tale, and the results were astonishing. Not too shabby for the first stop-motion animated feature to be shot entirely in 3D. Also, even though Coraline is not a CGI-animated film, it could not have been animated without computers: The characters' different facial expressions were molded by a 3D printing computer program, which allowed for up to 207,336 possible face combinations for a single character.

---

Monsters Vs. Aliens (2009)

There are so many nods to Atomic Age horror and sci-fi movies in this cartoon that it's impossible for a creature feature fan like me to resist it. It features homages to such classics and cult favorites such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly and Mothra, and it casts Stephen Colbert himself as the President of the United States--what's not to love? Monsters vs. Aliens is also the first computer animated movie to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3D format, instead of being converted into 3D after completion.

---

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Whenever filmmakers decide to take a short children's book and adapt it into a feature-lenght movie, they really need to look at Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as the example to follow. Not only was this film able to take the book's original idea and expand upon it in a way that could sustain a full movie, but doing so also allowed the filmmakers to do a hilarious parody of the science-running-amok plot that has become a cliche in horror and sci-fi movies. Furthermore, Cloudy's 3D effects are amazing, and this level of quality carries over into the 3D Blu-ray version of the movie.

Nerd Rant: Robotech Toys, Then and Now

I was surfing around eBay the other day looking for affordable deals on horror and sci-fi collectibles, when I noticed this picture for one of the listings:

The listing was for a lot of five Ride Armor action figures from the short-lived anime series, Genesis Climber Mospeada, and that these action figures were made back in 2008 by a Japanese toy company called CM's Corporation. Mospeada was later redubbed in 1985 to become the third act of the Robotech saga known as either "The New Genenration" or "The Invid War", and the Ride Armors were renamed in the Robotech dub as "Cyclones". (For the sake of this post, I'll be using Robotech terminology and character names.) These are not the first Cyclone toys to be made, but these are the first--and so far only--Cyclone toys that have been made for 3 and 3/4 inch action figures and that actually transform from motorcycles to battle armor that can be worn by the figures.

From what I've heard, the CM's Cyclone toys have their own problems and they certainly aren't cheap. Yet the impressive details and features of toys of such a small size can't help but to evoke some comparisons between them and the Robotech toy line came before them in mid-80s courtesy of Matchbox. Read on for a more detailed comparison, along with some pictures for detail and scale.

I was around when Matchbox launched its small and short-lived Robotech line back in the mid-80s. It did two things right: It imported and repackaged a few transformable, die-cast metal toys from Japan, and it released toy versions of different alien mecha--Battlepods, Bioroids and Invid Troopers--that were previously unavailable anywhere else. Unfortunately, everything else that Matchbox did with the Robotech line was a disappointment. The action figures were poorly sculpted and of the vehicles that were produced for them, only one of them transformed--and even that transformation was partial and fell short of recreating its animated counterpart. How Matchbox though it was a good idea to release non-transformable vehicles under the toy license for a cartoon that's known for human-piloted combat vehicles that transformed into robots remains a mystery to me.

Fast forward to today, when many toys have become instant collector's items due to their new levels of detail and articulation. Looking at the gap between 80s era Robotech toys and the Robotech toys of today is absolutely astonishing, and CM's Cyclone toys are a perfect example. It's also worth noting that while Matchbox only produced a small number of action figures for the New Generation characters, CM's selection includes four major New Generation characters in battle armor and transforming Cyclones, as well as two more non-major-but-still-armored characters that also have transforming Cyclones. The CM's line includes armored figures of Scott Bernard, Rand, Rook Bartley, Lancer, Sue Graham, and a Robotech Expeditionary Force (REF) soldier.

In contrast, Matchbox only produced five figures for the New Generation chapter of Robotech; of those five, only the Scott Bernard figure wore battle armor, and that armor sculpt was both inaccurate and of poor quality. It also didn't help that the Matchbox Cyclone toy for the action figures didn't transform.

To be sure, CM's Cyclone toys are far from perfect and are much better suited for static display than anything remotely resembling play. According to several reviews, the action figures don't fit on the Cyclone cycles, and transforming the cycle to wearable armor is excruciating to accomplish and parts tend to fall off in the process. This level of quality doesn't match the toys' price tags. The cheapest stand-alone CM's Cyclone toy that I've found is $40, while the eBay listing I mentioned above currently comes in at $600, essentially over $100 per one 3 and 3/4 inch action figure.

Matchbox made a lot of missteps with its Robotech line, but one can only imagine how it would have done better if it had the level of detail and amount of features that the CM's Cyclone toys had. Even if Matchbox had to sacrifice a few details to make the toys more durable, action figures that can fit into the vehicles and have transformable battle armor is much more impressive than what they provided during Robotech's run on TV. Below are some pictures of a CM's Cyclone with two similarly scaled Matchbox-produced toys, an Invid Shock Trooper and a (modified) Hover Tank.

Click here to read Mospeada/Robotech toy reviews at the CollectionDX site. Click here to read the review of CM's Cyclone toys at the Scorched Earth Toys site, and click here to read Scorched Earth Toys' review of CM's Mospeada character figures.

Experiments in Unorthodox Horror: House (1977) and Detention (2012)

When crafting a horror film, directors use a variety of cinematic tropes to convey to the audience that the story they are watching belongs in the horror genre. Sometimes, the director may choose to get under the viewer's skin by keeping the source of terror off screen and only hinting at it through narrative hints and suggestive sound effects and camera angles. In other situations, the director may opt for graphic depictions of explicit violence and gore--either in brief and sudden bursts or repeatedly throughout the story--to keep the viewer anxious and off balance. But what happens when a director foregoes the mood-building techniques that are often associated with horror movies and chooses instead to utilize tropes from other genres to tell a story of dismemberment, death and despair?

Two examples of off-kilter horror can be found in Nobuhiko Ohbayashi's House (1977) and Joseph Kahn's Detention (2012). Even though these films are three decades apart, they both are coming-of-age horror films that are difficult to describe due to their unpredictable, illogical selection of counter-intuitive cinematic styles as a key part of their storytelling process. House is a dark fairy tale that's told in a psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness succession of images and moods, while Detention is self-referential teenage comedy/drama that's vigorously mashed together with time travel sci-fi, body horror and slasher film archetypes. Both films could have been scripted and shot as conventional horror movies, but the fact that they weren't makes them fascinating films to watching in their own right. Read on for my complete comparison.

House tells the story of Oshare (Kimiko Ikegami), a teenage schoolgirl who is looking forward to spending her summer vacation with her widowed father (Saho Sasazawa). Yet when she learns that her father's new girlfriend Ryoko (Haruko Wanibuchi) will be going with them on vacation, she decides to visit her aunt (Yoko Minamida) and brings several of her teenage friends along with her. When the girls start disappearing in the aunt's house, the surviving girls struggle to survive by fending off a slew of demonic, supernatural attacks, including a few from possessed furniture.

House is a hard movie to pin down in terms of what it's supposed to be. It's filled with horrific images, but it's not exactly a horror movie; it's campy and absurd, but it's not a comedy. It's frequently childish and immature, with scenes that could easily be inserted into a live-action TV show for kids, and yet it's not a film for children (at least by American standards). These observations may make House sound like an absolute mess of a film to watch, but it's not. In fact, I think that Ohbayashi's approach to how he filmed the script for House allows him to tell and haunting story of when adolescent idealism and naïveté collides with--and is annihilated by--the pain, possessiveness and sensuality of adulthood.

The movie focuses on Oshare and her friends, a group of teenagers who are reaching the end of their educational years. Each girl has a simple nickname that summarizes her personality: "Prof" is the nickname of the smart girl, "Melody" is the nickname of the girl who plays the piano, "Sweet" is the nickname of the girl who always does what she can to help, and so on. The characters' childlike approach to life is reflected in the movie's visual style: all of the settings are very stylized and obviously artificial. This idealized world runs amuck when the girls are attacked one by one at the aunt's house, as if their immature view of the world is turning against them as adulthood (as represented by the aunt, her past and her expansive house) exerts control over their lives. Essentially, House depicts the transition between childhood to adulthood as a sort of death that is traumatic, ghastly and inescapable in equal measures.

Curiously, House utilizes nudity as part of its grim depiction of growing up, although not in the way that most American audiences would expect. For example, nudity in slasher films usually happens in the context of teenagers having sex before they are inevitably murdered by a psychotic killer. In contrast, the nudity in House happens shortly before, during and/or after the girls' deaths--not as part of any sex act, but as if it was an inevitable component of dying. In a sense, the act of dying in a gory manner in House eroticizes the girls, reflecting their transition into sexual maturity and adulthood and the gruesome "death" of their pre-adulthood lives. Adding considerable unease to these death scenes is how some of the girls giggle with glee over their new status as unclothed and dismembered corpses.

Detention doesn't have the same thematic depth as House, but it still knows how to tell as coherent story in what otherwise appears to be a calamitous mixture of incongruous styles. Detention focuses on Riley (Shanley Caswell) as she struggles her way through high school in Grizzly Lake, a town that has been experiencing a rash of UFO sightings. Riley wants to ask Clapton (Josh Hutcherson) to the prom, but her wishes are complicated by her inexplicably spiteful best friend Ione (Spencer Locke), her amorous guy pal Sander (Aaron David Johnson), and a masked serial killer named "Cinderhella" who has been murdering students and has targeted Riley as his next victim. At times, Detention reminded me of Scream, Donnie Darko and a few episodes from the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and yet it’s nothing like those titles.

While Detention bears similarities to the storytelling approach used by House, these films differ considerably in terms of how they view the relationship between adolescence and adulthood. Whereas House views the transition of adolescence to adulthood as a fixed point that can only be passed once in a lifetime, Detention takes a much more fluid approach by showing how the two age groups occasionally overlap. Part of this could reflect how the mainstream cultures of Japan and the US differ in their views of adolescence and adulthood, but I also think that this might have something to do with when both films were made. Ohbayashi's wild visual style reflects the incongruity between how adolescents view of the world and how adults live in the world; in contrast, Kahn's wild visual style emphasizes how incongruity dominates modern teenage life.

The movie world of Detention--where time travel, masked killers, human-insect hybrids and flying saucers coexist in a sort of mundane way in the halls of a high school--is a thematic parallel to the omnipresent information overload that real teenagers are bombarded with through the Internet, cell phones, computers, and high-definition, multi-channel media. One of Detention's subplots features a student who becomes the most popular student in school after travelling back to 1992, with the rationale that a digital-media-saturated teenager from 2012 is much more savvy and cooler than an analog-media-saturated teenager from the early 90s. The movie may lack the pervasive fatalism of House, but it pulls off a very impressive feat by telling a complete and satisfying story from a selection of disparate characters, situations, themes and styles--much like our fragmented-yet-interconnected electronic world, a world that even adults cannot escape. If Detention has any underlying metaphorical message, it is that if teenagers can make sense of and survive our current digital age, then there may be hope for us in the future after all.

Horror films like House and Detention are not for everyone. These films are more like frantic, feverish dreams than traditional narratives that feature well-defined, easily-understood plots and firmly established moods. But if you're willing to try something that's much different than what you normally expect from a horror movie or a horror-comedy, then House and Detention make for an unforgettable double feature.

Flip Top Box: A Song About Necrophilia from the 50s

Did you ever remember loving something from your early childhood only to realize when you're much older that the object of your prepubescent affection wasn't what you originally thought it was? If so, I've got a story for you.

Way back when before I was in kindergarten, my sister and I would listen to some 45 rpm records (give yourself points if you know what a 45 rpm record is) that our mom bought when she was a teenager. One of these records that I used to play repeatedly--usually when my buddies from down the block came over--was called "Nee Nee Na Na Na Nu Nu" by Dicky Doo And The Don'ts. As you can tell just by the title, it is a very silly song that easily amused pre-kindergarten kids like us. You can listen to it here:

There was another song on the other side of the 45 that I would also listen to once in a while, but I didn't understand what it meant so I didn't play it often. It was called "Flip Top Box", and I had no idea what the lyrics were talking about so it didn't hold my interest. Leave it to my memory and curiosity to get the better of me, and I recently decided to look up the lyrics to the song to understand what it really meant. You can read the lyrics here.

From what I have read elsewhere, rock songs about monsters and morbid subject matter were written and performed long before the arrival of heavy metal music and "Flip Top Box" is certainly one of the more ghoulish tunes from its time. Indeed, a love song about a man who is buried in a coffin with an easily removable lid so that his girlfriend can dig him up later for some "hugging and a-kissing" is a love song that's not meant for beating hearts. Listen for yourself:

Batman Ends in The Dark Knight Rises

I know that I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but I finally saw The Dark Knight Rises while on vacation and here are a few thoughts that I have about Christopher Nolan's final chapter in his Batman trilogy. So much has been written across the blogosphere about this eagerly awaited film, so I'm limiting my observations to a fan perspective. While it's lacking in some areas, Dark Knight Rises successfully concludes an impressive trilogy of superhero films the likes of which we probably won't be seeing for a long time to come. Read on ...

Dark Knight Rises is a sequel in the truest sense, in that its plot relies heavily on the previous two films. Someone who has never seen a Batman film before might be able to derive some entertainment from Dark Knight Rises, but it would be difficult to understand the characters' attitudes and motivations and the significance of their actions without seeing Batman Begins and The Dark Knight first. At its core, the plot of Dark Knight Rises is similar to most other superhero movie sequels in that a new villain arrives for the superhero to vanquish, and that the superhero overcomes challenging adversity before the new villain is defeated and peace is restored. However, writer/director Nolan has weaved so many narrative and visual themes into his interpretation of the Batman universe that this third film is too rich in background to simply dismiss as yet another sequel.

Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of the previous film. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a recluse during that time, still mourning the loss of his love interest Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and content to retire his Batman persona after he was blamed for the death of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Yet Wayne is forced to revive his alter ego when a new menace, a terrorist named Bane (Tom Hardy), arrives in Gotham City with a vicious agenda that is linked to Wayne's past.

The most remarkable thing about Nolan's Batman movies is how he disassembled Batman's corner of the DC universe and then rebuilt it from the ground up to tell stories that even the Batman comic books couldn't tell. By doing so, Nolan gave new significance to characters such as Harvey Dent and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and provided a new perspective on Batman's crusade against crime. Instead of portraying Batman as a dominant personality that overshadows the persona of Bruce Wayne, Nolan depicts Wayne as someone who creates Batman as part of a much larger plan to save his failing city--nothing more, nothing less. (Curiously, thanks to Nolan's Batman films, Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) is now the only DC villain to appear in three consecutive live-action Batman movies.) Batman fans will see similarities in this movie to plot threads from comic arcs such as The Dark Knight Returns, Knightfall, Bane of the Demon and No Man's Land, yet Nolan puts these threads together in a distinct and engaging way. I don't know if DC or Marvel will allow any other director to take such liberties with any other superhero, or if there is another superhero character who is popular enough to allow such a revision to happen.

Unfortunately, Nolan's approach to Batman is not without its drawbacks, and these drawbacks reach their peak in Dark Knight Rises. It appears to me that in his movies, Nolan took Batman and placed him in a cinematic environment that is similar in appearance and mood to other contemporary crime films. I once heard someone describing Nolan's take on Batman as what a Michael Mann crime thriller would look like if it featured superheroes; I'm incline to agree. In a sense, this an extension of what was done in Batman: The Animated Series, which included themes and imagery from 30s and 40s era crime fiction alongside the pulp sci-fi that is common in superhero stories. B:TAS did this as a nod to the creative influences that led Bob Kane to create Batman back in 1939; Nolan just takes the pulp crime aspect of Batman and updates it to fit contemporary crime drama.

However, B:TAS never discarded the pulp sci-fi aspects of the superhero genre while Nolan did, which leaves a few aspects of his Batman universe lacking in terms of narrative purpose and logic. The most obvious example of this is in the character of Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson), a character who first appeared in Batman Begins and plays a key role in the plot of Dark Knight Rises. In the comics, al Ghul's sinister motives stem from his connection to the Lazarus Pits, pits that allow al Ghul to prolong his life by centuries. The Lazarus Pits aren't in Nolan's movies since they don't fit the gritty style of contemporary crime drama, which in turn takes away a key part of what makes al Guhl such a complex character and why he's a convincing and persistent foil for Batman. Neeson does what he can with his role, but Nolan's version of al Ghul falls far short of the comic book version.

The same can be said for Bane. Bane isn't one of Batman's more interesting villains, and Nolan gives him a deeper background than what is provided in the comics. Yet like the removal of the Lazarus Pits, Nolan removes Bane's addiction to Venom, a hyper-steroid that allows Bane to "bulk up" at a moment's notice and overpower just about any opponent with unrelenting muscular force. Nolan tries to give his Bane a new set of strengths and weaknesses in lieu of Venom, but once the weakness of this version of Bane is revealed towards the end of the film you can't help but to wonder why Batman wasn't able to figure it out sooner and beat Bane during their first battle. Such shortcomings don't completely ruin the movie, but they keep Dark Knight Rises from consistently reaching the heights for which it aims.

Dark Knight Rises is a satisfying conclusion to Nolan's trilogy of Batman films. While it's not as strong as the previous two film, it completes what Nolan originally set out to do--to provide a unique and complex version of DC Comic's most popular and enduring superhero.

An Interview with Jaws Maquette Sculptor Mike Schultz (Part 2 of 2)

Here is the second half of my interview with Shark City Ozark’s Mike Schultz about his ongoing series of Jaws maquettes. In this half, Schultz talks about the responses he’s been getting about his Bruce maquettes from Jaws fans of all stripes, what he’s learned from working with the Jaws franchise, and the challenges and rewards that come with earning a living in the scale replica business. This half also includes a picture gallery of Shark City Ozark’s Jaws 2 maquette (a.k.a. “Brucette”), which will make its debut at the upcoming JawsFest in Martha’s Vineyard. (Photos courtesy of Shark City Ozark.) Read on….

Titans, Terrors and Toys: From what I've seen on your Shark City Ozark (SCO) blog, your Jaws maquettes and busts have been a big hit among Jaws fans. What kind of feedback have you been getting from the fans and movie prop collectors?

Mike Schultz: We have enjoyed receiving consistently positive and ecstatic feedback from our customers and fans. I’m proud to say that we have achieved a pure 100% satisfaction level, with nearly everyone writing back that their SCO shark is the crown jewel of all their collectibles. We have sold sharks to young children and people older than me, and we have sold to both everyday Jaws fans and famous Hollywood directors.

In fact, Mr. Greg Nicotero--from The Walking Dead himself--not only is one of our happiest customers, he actually commissioned us to build him a special scale Bruce Dry-Dock display stand. He loves his Nose to Tail (NTT) Bruce shark so much he actually molded and remodeled other variations of the other Bruce sharks. The on-screen sharks were all very different from each other and even from themselves, as skin padding, paint-jobs and mouth corrections were made throughout filming. We have been working with Mr. Nicotero since April 8 this year toward his future project of releasing a full scale and full length Bruce Shark display! I have a detailed article about this process that we will be posting on our Shark City Ozark blog very soon. We have already shipped to him our original prototype 1/12 scale 25 inch long Ultimate Bruce Shark, which he has laser scanned towards increasing it to a full 1:1 scale. (Editor’s Note: Click here to read the latest update on the SCO blog about the full-sized Bruce replica project.)

We are doubly honored to not only have been chosen by Nicotero and called into this project, but that it is our shark and our work that has been chosen as the best of the best for the project. What an exciting honor for our family, and I’m very excited to be involved in this process. This is also a great payment towards the many months of 16-hour shop days we’ve put in to make these sharks and molds and prototypes. The hard work is paying off finally for the entire family, and in ways we never thought possible.

Shark City Ozark's NTT Bruce Shark maquette, complete with 
Dry-Dock display stand and scale-sized barrels.

TTT: I've read that Jaws art director Joe Alves was really impressed with your Bruce replicas. Have any other cast and/or crew members for the Jaws movies commented on your work?

MS: So far, we have been pleasantly surprised every time that our phone has rung and the ID reads “California”. Mr. Alves was the first to call me. He had been kind enough to respond to many of our e-mails and he provided me with a great deal of information and materials for both Bruce and Brucette--the Jaws 2 shark. It has been several years since he first called me out of the blue, and it’s been at least since November 2011 since I last spoke with him. He has been very encouraging, guiding us to get these sharks just right. I am currently trying to begin a dialog with several other cast and crew members from the Jaws films, but so far it is slow going as many of them still do not know me well enough.

TTT: How supportive has Universal been?

MS: Sadly, I gave up on Universal four years ago. Much like George Sohn of Toynami told me last year, they make it nearly impossible to achieve anything of any value. It’s almost like they deliberately refuse to produce any marketable licensed Jaws materials that have any lasting value to them. George and I agreed to work with Universal at one point, but George got so disheartened in dealing with them that he wrote me and said that he swore to never, ever to deal with them again until they changed leadership. Universal desk-pilots and bean-counters may very well be the leading reason why there has been such a dearth of collectible licensed material for Jaws these last 30 years. They simply do not operate in any form or fashion like any of the other studios do. Many toy companies refuse to deal with them.

TTT: I'm sure that forming an association with the Big Bad Toy Store site was a major boost to your customer base. Have any other toy and/or movie replica distributors expressed an interesting in partnering with Shark City Ozark?

MS: Big Bad Toy Store has opened up a whole new world for us. They are affiliated with a large number of other retailers, especially in the orient where we do well. We are also partnered with Star Wars Toy Box, which has been very helpful for us. We are still trying to attract the interest of other big name toy and collectible producers, but so far the answer has been the same as from Toynami--namely, that few who have dealt with that particular arm of Universal Studios ever go back for another round of the same.

A lot has happened these last few years. It was a big deal when I got to be a guest speaker on that Comic-Con panel in San Diego in 2011. I sat with Hasbro on one side and Mattel on the other--and that was during my second year of making Bruce maquettes! Many artists spend their entire careers doing what they do and are not able to enjoy such exposure, and I give full credit to these sharks.

Who knows what the next year or release will bring us? Personally, I would give my left anything just about to partner with Hot Toys or Sideshow Collectibles so that they would distribute one of our sharks.

Mike Schultz with a Bruce bust at Comic-Con 2011.

TTT: During your research into the mechanical sharks, what was the most surprising thing you've learned about the Jaws franchise?

MS: Honestly, what surprised me the most was what I have learned about myself. Nobody has been successful at doing this for 30 years now because I do not believe many have the experience to this correctly. I believe that a few other passionate and experienced Hollywood effects artists could have done what I have been doing these last few years had this been their passion, and done better than me to boot. But I am surprised that I have had what it takes to do what I've been doing all along. I should have been braver and stepped out on a limb 10 years ago.

I guess the next big thing I have learned that was surprising to me--and this more directly answers your question--is the absolutely crippling level of politics involved in these Jaws movies, let alone marketing them. I stand amazed that any movie can be made successfully EVER, with the dead weight that passes for leadership in many of these production companies and studios. Everything rises or falls on leadership. It seems to me that anyone who is skilled at what they do for a living must spend far more time with inept leadership, or fending off gossip, or shouldering the griping and backstabbing, or pushing to do something correctly than whatever it was that they were actually hired to do. I applaud Alves, Roy Arbogast, Kevin Pike and all of the others who must have had to fight far more than we’ll ever read about to do what they did for the Jaws movies. They’re real champions in my book.

TTT: Now that you have committed to doing maquette work on a full-time basis, how have things changed for you and your family?

MS: One thing we had to do and are almost completed with is revamping our lives from the ground up. You see, what makes other collectibles so affordable that they are mass produced in China or Mexico. We want our prices to be lower, because obviously we can sell more with lower prices, but that’s not very possible for most people living in America these days due to the economy. So, what my family and I are doing is restructuring our entire lives from the ground up, in order to make ourselves more like China or Mexico!

What we have been doing all year is cutting our needs to the bone. It could all be summed up by asking this question, “How much money would you really need to survive if you could live mortgage free?” We have moved to a much smaller and simpler lifestyle, without many modern conveniences. We now live in a very small and much older house than what we used to enjoy, and our mortgage will soon be paid in full. Instead of city water, we live off of a well. It’s a very basic lifestyle, but we already are getting used to it and appreciating it. Instead of living in splendor and trying to pass the cost to our customers, we have taken a serious cut in luxuries to live more simply, and are passing the savings to our customers for all our future releases. It’s been good for us, and it will greatly benefit our customers.

TTT: After you finish your current line of Jaws sharks, what do you plan on doing next? Will you continue to produce movie replicas for collectors?

MS: YES! Some of the areas I want to move into soon are dinosaurs and superheroes. I already have a few prototypes in the works along these lines. There are so very many sectors of untouched fandom crying out to get their own collectibles that I feel I could stay busy for life just trying my hand here and there. But dinosaurs and their kind have always been near and dear to my heart. I would like to have 50 active products online, but the challenge is that each product has its own unique needs in terms of production materials. That range of products makes it difficult to maintain stock of everything needed for every separate thing.

We also want to add dramatically to our Reel Life Shark series as well. We have 29 additional Jaws and Reel Life Shark prototypes either complete or nearly complete that we desire to market. Each should have its turn in the spotlight, although I do not wish to spend another year or two making the same sharks every day, week and year so I cannot guarantee how long what we currently offer will remain on the SCO site.

We are serious about what we do, and we want to be doing this for many years to come. The two things that everyone wants are the very best and the very affordable. Keeping that in mind, we will try to juggle all the variables to provide both of these things to our customers through our products. Putting out the best shark replicas was good enough from 2008 until now, and we feel that the combination of putting out the best sharks at the most irresistible prices is the key to surviving and excelling into 2013.

---

Thanks for the interview, Mike! Keep checking the Shark City Ozark site for updates about their series of Jaws maquettes, which will soon include replicas of the mechanical sharks from Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge. Shark City Ozark will be at JawsFest: The Tribute, which will be held at Martha’s Vineyard during August 9 – 12, where the Brucette maquette will make its official debut. See below for pictures of this amazingly accurate sequel shark maquette, which is a 1:12 scale replica of the platform "luxury" shark that was used during the filming of Jaws 2.