This Week on the League: The Apocalypse (dun, dun, dunnnnnnnhhh)

 

Whether it’s in movies, video games, books, or TV I love apocalyptic stories. This topic has been very dear to me for sometime, it all started with a little film called:

Wizards.

For anyone that doesn’t know it, learn it! I instantly took to this film the very first time I rented it from Video Junction 2(see last weeks league post). Whether it was the simple cover or the incredibly awesome artwork, or maybe the combination of both I’ll never know but it truly shaped my choices for the rest of my life.

The short version:

The world explodes in a million fireballs, set off but a group of (rather stupid) terrorists. The only humans left after suffered and eventually mutated (due to the radiation) into a race of dim-witted and ill-tempered monsters. Eventually, things began to return to “normal” and faeries and elves were born. They set out to reject all technology other than magic and continued this way for many years. Then on a stormy night a set of twin boys are born to the Faery Queen, both were powerful wizards. One was good-natured(Avatar) while the other is pure evil(Blackwolf). The Queen dies and both wizards duke it out over who should be in charge. Blackwolf gets his ass handed to him and he vows revenge on his brother Avatar. [Blackwolf] as he grows older amasses an army of mutants and has them fight the Faeries only to have his soldiers run away or get distracted during the battles, so the Faeries always win. Blackwolf then makes a discovery that gives him the “ultimate power”. He finds Nazi propaganda, weapons, and technology which he uses to give purpose and drive to his less than intelligent soldiers. Which leads to all out war. Did i mention this is the short version?

Here are some pictures so you can put a name to the face:

Just in case you were wondering, yes Avatar is smoking his cigar with his feet, and yes he is a bad ass mofo. Black wolf is nothing to sneeze at either but he needs an entire army to back him up. Whereas Avatar needs only “A woman child, one elf, and a moron ro-but”

More faces and names:

Elanor (Woman child):

Wee Hawk(Elf):

Peace(Moron Ro-But, originally Necron-99)

Necron 99 is one of my favorite characters as well. He was originally a pawn of Blackwolf and is ordered to assassinate the president, which he does. Avatar then reprograms him with magic and makes him a good guy/the protector of the group.

Just know its awesome. Also Mark Hamill is in it for a moment, because they were filming Star Wars on the same sound lot.

Waterworld:

One of the most mocked and put down sci-fi movies of all time, is also one of my personal favorites. A trimaran……I want one. One of the reasons Waterworld makes me so happy, is that when it was originally coming out it was supposed to be rated “R”. This was at a time when I wasn’t allowed to see anything above PG-13, so you can imagine how awesome it was for me after seeing all the trailers finally saying it wasn’t “R”. If you can’t it was kinda like this:

Later, I found out there were a lot of cut scenes and a completely different ending. They play it on TV sometimes its about 3 hours with commercials. The new ending is ehh…I prefer the original, much more fitting of the Mariner.

Speaking of which this is what Kevin Costner’s character looks like if you haven’t seen it:

Waterworld’s main villain is the Deacon, played by none-other than Dennis Hopper. The evil power-hungry Deacon is the leader of a gang called the “Smokers” who terrorize peaceful boaters and other people just trying to survive.

The Deacon:

Also, there are some stars that would become much more popular later down the line. For example:

Jack Black who was the pilot of the Smokers airplane.

And for all my fellow Sons of Anarchy fans out there, yes that is Tig! The “Pay-per” guy from Waterworld who wanted to buy the Mariner’s female companions is Trager from SOA.

Waterworld is definitely worth at least 62 chits if not twice that.

The Book of Eli:

I saw this movie in theaters at least 2 times. The Book of Eli is one badass apocalyptic movie. There are not that many movies that come out that perfectly pay homage to the Mad Max series, but this is definitely one. Bleak surroundings, dull colors, roving bands of bad guys, and sweet action scenes make this film truly worthy of the term masterpiece. Not to mention the awesome twist at the end! The action scenes are perfect and the color of the film is spot on. The naysayers usually have a problem with the fact that there are “religious overtones”. *Eyeroll* (get over yourself it’s a movie) Basically the movie is about a man “on a mission from God” to bring the last Bible on earth (or at least in the US) across the country in a 30 year journey on foot not knowing where he is going or for what reason. After the apocalypse everyone apparently burned all the religious texts, because they were angry with God. The villain, is Carnegie, (played by the unbelievable acting powerhouse Gary Oldman) who happens to be looking for a Bible so he can use its “power” for evil and keep the people under his thumb and worshiping him.

Here is Gary knowing he’s badass again:

Not only is this movie awesome it has a black protagonist, which is relatively rare for these movies and Denzel is a perfect choice to play Eli.  Here he is being awesome:

The Hughes Brothers, who brought us Menace II Society, and Dead Presidents directed this fantastic film and they did it exactly right (which doesn’t come out of my mouth very often). Oh, Mila Kunis is in there as well,

and needs to be saved several times by Eli.

A couple other stars are tucked away in BOE as well.

Wow is that Alex/Caligula:?

Yessir that is none other than Malcolm McDowell

Wait a minute…..isn’t that:

Why yes that is Frances de la Tour and Michael Gambon, better known as Madame Maxine and Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter, I hope Hagrid doesn’t know!!

Is that the Punisher?:

Yep. Ray Stevenson is one of Carnegie’s thugs.

Holy Shit!!!!!:

The one and only Tom Waits!! Not only is he one of the best songwriters ever, he is a really good actor and always makes me happy whenever I see him.

It’s awesome. Don’t miss this movie!!!!

Light Years(Gandahar): NESFW(Not exactly safe for work)

It doesn’t get much weirder then this one. Light Years is a French movie from the same director who made Fantastic Planet. Another VHS classic, the story is pretty much about a futuristic society/utopia/dystopia where everything is peaceful and life exists easily. While not exactly an apocalypse movie, it still has a lot of the same kind of themes. Its more like terminator, in the way that an apocalypse happens in the future and it needs to be circumvented. Oddly enough Glenn Close gave her voice to this movie:Her name is(no kidding) Ambisextra. She is the queen.

She lives here:

with her advisers and technology:

There are these one eyed robot/psychic birds called Mirrorbirds(which are essentially drones) and they report everything that goes on around the city:

What every one in Jasper(the city where most people live) thinks is that they are all a perfect race and there are evil mutants that live outside of the city.

These are some of the mutants. With their leader in the center with all the heads. Well One of the birds sees a pink flash before it dies. So they send their best soldier Sylvaine the son of Ambisextra:

to figure out what killed the mirrorbirds.

Along the way he meets his love interest Arielle:

Oh did I mention that 90% of the women in this movie are topless 100% of the time? (Already an awesomely weird movie and this certainly doesn’t hurt it.)

Anyway back to the plot.

So these evil metal men show up:

and they start turning all the people to stone, and putting them inside of some very large eggs:

If you didn’t think this movie was weird enough we find out later that the robots are controlled by Metamorphosis:

Which is a giant penis brain.

Oh, you still don’t think it’s weird?

The mutants are botched experiments, that Jasper’s scientists made in the process of forming a perfect race. They were forced underground where they listen to “The Ears of the Earth”, and the first group of mutants had the gift of foresight. And the only thing they have left from the original mutants is a prophecy.

“In a thousand years, Gandahar was destroyed and all of it’s people killed. A thousand years ago, Gandahar will be saved, and what can’t be avoided will be.”

I don’t want to give everything away in case you are interested in seeing the movie, but just know it is very weird, trippy, complex and a true Sci-Fi classic.

Fallout 3:

This is one of the best video games I have ever played. The story, the wasteland, the graphics, the fight system, all amazing.

You get to make your in-game character look however you want down to very meticulous details:

A taste of the wasteland:

It’s a huge sprawling area and its all open-world, which is game terminology for, you can go wherever the hell you want as long as you can walk to it.

You aren’t completely on your own though. You meet a lot of people along the way and you have your trusty Pipboy 3000 on your wrist.

Which keeps track of all your inventory, your health, how you stand with different factions in the game and your map.

Which is composed of real places in America.

The targeting system is called V.A.T.S. which allows you to pause the game at any moment, and pinpoint where you want to strike or shoot on your enemy’s body.

As you can see it can be very helpful and allows a more precise tactical approach to the fight as opposed to firing wildly. Which is fun as well and that option is still available to you.

A true RPG, and a pretty awesome apocalyptic tale all wrapped up in an epic game that sucked me in and wouldn’t let go.

Here are few other ones of note with apocalyptic themes, just because I can’t write much more or my fingertips will just be bones. Not to mention no one wants to read all day….right???

Defiance:

A pretty cool show on Syfy. It takes place after an alien race comes to the Earth an begins to terraform the planet to better suit their needs.

Rock & Rule:

Pretty cool Canadian movie about an evil rocker, that needs a type of sound to summon a demon to take over the world. Features some pretty good music and some really nice animation.

Class of 1999:

Set in the future and featuring some terrible acting, this movie is about everyone being hooked on drugs and being poor and not giving a shit about anything except turf! So obviously, the schools are a joke and no one pays attention to the teachers. That is until they are replaced with cyborgs with a penchant for killing unruly students!

Delicatessen:

Just watch it. It’s awesome.

The Class of Nukem’ High:

A Troma classic, pure perfect schlock, offensive and lovable. Just like the rest of Troma’s catalog.

Any zombie movie:

This is my favorite one. With the infamous eye gouge scene, as well as an underwater fight scene between a shark and a Zombie. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.

The Road:

A story about a man and his son struggling to survive in an unforgiving wasteland.

Tank Girl:

A zany and off-beat comic made into a weird offbeat movie.

Pandorum:

Another really cool movie about a ship sent from a dying earth with thousands of people, but something goes wrong and something else is on the ship.

Event Horizon:

A crew of astronauts board an old ship and unleash an ancient evil. It’s freakin sweet!!!

Children of Men:

Fantastic, even of you don’t like sci-fi, this movie will appeal to you. Beautiful, bleak, and heartbreaking.

The list goes on and on, and I could obviously continue, but I won’t. Except to leave you with the opening words of a Post-apocalyptic story that I made just for this post. Enjoy:

Journal Entry 1:

The morning sky was a mass of black clouds and distant storms, on a purple and green background. This morning was no different from any other. Not since all the scientists and CEO’s decided they knew what was best for the world.

Our world.

Compound 694. That’s what they called it. The bastards.

We called it Apoc.

Apparently there were 693 failed attempts and who knows what havoc they unleashed, but the last one was the scary one. By greasing the right palms and without waiting for approval, testing began for a gas designed to alter human behavior, specifically made not to harm but to rewire human brains. Unbeknownst to the scientists, the gas was made up of a new kind of microbe that fed off of pretty much everything metal and plastic. After the gas died off it all went up and settled in the atmosphere, but not before leaving it’s infinite calling card. Complete buildings and cars were devoured, or at least gutted by one single canister.

To make matters worse, the test subjects were children.More specifically orphans.

Abandoned and forgotten offspring, that were excited to go on what would be their first field trip. They all thought they were going to watch a magic show. They never saw it coming. Most of them were killed by the building slowly collapsing around them.

Not me. I was “lucky”. Being 15 in an orphanage I was pretty much an indentured servant made to clean, cook, babysit, fix things or whatever the orphanage didn’t feel like spending money on. But that was a long time ago.

It’s been so long I can barely remember my own name anymore. Its been about six years since I talked to anyone who didn’t try to kill me, other than myself of course, and before that it was at least a decade. Until last night that is. A small colony of about 50-100 people who all seem eerily happy in the midst of a wasteland. Today I’m meeting with their leader. His name is Smiley….it should be an interesting day.

Well, if you made it this far you poor fool, I will assume that you are incapable of sleep or you are literally killing time. Either way thanks for reading. If I haven’t turned you off to the internet or reading completely here are some more members of The League you should check out.

Cool and Collected gets depressed about being excited about the end of the world.

Eric Johnson Illustrator takes a comedic look at The Four Horseman, and wants you to meet their daughters.

Nerdy Life of Mine examines the likelihood that the world would end with giant demons or some weirdos living in a concrete tube.

Adam Nori is looking to troll and thinking about Donnie Darko’s fate.

G.I. Jigsaw exam……holy shit zombies!!!!!!!! Little plastic zombies that all look exactly the same!!!!!!

Jathniel makes some good calls and understands why The Book of Eli is fucking awesome!

Until next time!

-Hank