NORTHERN REBEL:

defending indie film art

 in the allegorical film art

of Sir Ridley Scott

 

by Gary W. Wright

 

        Unlike some participants in the allegorical Zone Wars that have raged on film and in fiction since a helicopter crash killed child extras Renee Chen and Myca Le and actor/director/writer Vic Morrow at 2:20 am in the morning of July 23, 1982 on the George Folsey jr. produced John Landis set of the twilit, allegorical and Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall produced Landis, Joe Dante, George Miller and Steven Spielberg film TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983), Sir Ridley Scott had been implicitly rising to the defense of film artists who created film art for film art’s sake and their film art and blasting beastly blockbuster profit lusting film artists, their controlling Dark Sides and their blockbuster films since his first allegorical, Ozian themed and indie docufeature film THE DUELLISTS (1977).  This indomitable commitment to film art for film art’s sake and the film artists who created it continued after Sir Scott embraced the indie artbuster approach to film art championed by Stanley Kubrick and was one of the most prominent and perennial features of his allegorical film art, along with their defiant indie status, vivid docufeature realism and their Ozian structure.  A vivid and immersive indie docufeature realism exuberantly embraced when Sir Scott donned the writer/director of photography/producer/director hats for the short, innocent, exuberant and allegorical art student indie docufeature film BOY AND BICYCLE (1961).

 

“I’m on the outside now.”

 

Innocent indeed, for this first short film had Sir Scott following his sixteen year old future film artist younger brother, Anthony David Leighton “Tony” Scott, around their small, bleak and Spartan Channel coast hometown of Stockton-on-Tees in northeast England with a film camera borrowed from his art school, the London based Royal College of Art (RCA), documenting a day when the younger Scott decided to skip school and ride smoothly, surely, confidently and surprisingly unselfconsciously around town on his bicycle in his schoolboy uniform, exploring the main shopping street, grim and gritty industrialscape and deserted beaches of Stockton-on-Tees, meditating on the state of the universe and pondering getting older with a stream of consciousness monologue voiceover (VO) straight out of the allegorical James Joyce novel Ulysses (1922).  In fact, since small towns in most films symbolized Hollywood, Tony’s rebellious decision to skip school and wander around the northern town presciently anticipated Sir Scott’s equally rebellious decision to trust his northern instincts and make films the way he wanted to make them regardless of how they were received by audiences or Hollywood.  Indeed, the boy’s rebellious independence and embrace of his own Scott free world anticipated the unique and independent Scott free film art that would be created by Sir Scott in time by his film art production company, Scott Free Productions. 

 

Sir Scott’s uncompromising embrace of his own artistic independence was presciently reaffirmed by Tony’s brief climatic showdown at the end of the film with the father of the Scott brothers, ominously named Frank, after Frank’s frightening and Frankenstein evoking face was suddenly framed in the doorway as the boy frantically fled the spooky fishing shack he had been exploring at the end of the film.  For this tragicomic showdown was briefly framed as a Western duel, with the camera looking back at Frank standing outside his fishing shack through Tony’s flexing and quick draw right fingers, implicitly linking Frank to not only Evil gunslingers but Hollywood film types.  Thus, by facing down Frank with cool quick draw resolve before riding off into the westering sun on his magic bicycle, Sir Scott not only implicitly affirmed the longing of the Scott brothers to escape their father and their isolated hometown but also presciently anticipated Sir Scott’s insistence on facing down and breaking free from Hollywood with his own indie film art. 

 

Significantly, the desolate and deserted streets and beaches of Stockton-on-Tees and their lack of flora and fauna gave the area a grim post-nuclear apocalypse atmosphere, a post-apocalyptic ambience enhanced by the short film’s black and white horrorshow film stock.  This suggestive post-apocalyptic vibe transformed BOY AND BICYCLE, making Tony’s rebellious wanderings and the bored, restless and youthful thoughts, hopes, and dreams expressed in his VO-ably complemented by an ironically and equally young, high spirited, hopeful and innocent theme by John Barry-pensive meditations on a lush, green and life filled pre-apocalyptic world that had disappeared and a brave new world that would hopefully one day spring from its radioactive ashes.  This arguably made BOY AND BICYCLE the first sly fi film of Sir Scott, anticipating the equally post-nuclear apocalyptic and flora and fauna bereft future in the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical, computer generated imagery (CGI) enhanced and Ozian themed Sir Scott indie docufeature artbuster BLADE RUNNER (1982).

 

 In fact, the restless wanderings through the industrial landscape of Stockton-on-Tees, Tony’s VO-which almost immediately mentioned someone named Taffy soon after the film began in the boy’s bedroom as he woke up and initially resigned himself to another dreary day at school-and a teddy bear first seen in that bedroom and later in the fishing shack at the end of the film in a way that brought the film full circle anticipated the equally resigned clue tracking peregrinations through the decaying industrial future Los Angeles and world weary film long VO of Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard, Hy Pike’s sleazy Snake Pit strip club owner, Taffy, and Bear, the walking teddy bear-played by Kevin Thompson-seen in the decayingly cavernous and lonely bachelor apartment of William Sanderson’s J.F. Sebastian in BLADE RUNNER.  At any rate, after creating such swinging Sixties British television shows such as the allegorical one off PATHS OF GLORY (1964)-apparently inspired by the allegorical and implicitly Walt Disney and Richard Fleischer roasting Kubrick docufeature film PATHS OF GLORY (1957), making it clear that Sir Scott was already aiming at feature film artists, particularly American ones like Kubrick, when he was still in television-and individual episodes of such series as SOFTLY, SOFTLY (1966-76), THE INFORMER (1966-67) and ADAM ADAMANT LIVES! (1966-67)-I do not know, as I have not seen them-the northern rebel Scott free spirit definitely returned in Sir Scott’s first allegorical, Ozian themed, vividly realistic and full colour indie docufeature artbuster THE DUELLISTS, inspired by the allegorical Joseph Conrad short story “The Duel” (1908), made by his first production company, Scott Free Enterprises, and released on May 22, 1977.

 

“Here is the path you must take. 

It is a path of instinct. 

Everyone who travels on that path

 travels alone.”

 

        Curiously, the film began in Strasbourg in 1800 with a duel between an unknown character played by Harvey Keitel and another unknown man played by Matthew Guinness, the son of Sir Alec Guinness.  This duel was mostly shot from the perspective of Keitel’s character looking back at the character of Guiness along Keitel’s right sword arm.  This reminded us of the camera looking back through the flexing right fingers of Tony at Frank at the end of BOY AND BICYCLE, immediately linking THE DUELLISTS to BOY AND BICYCLE.  Soon after the duel began, Keitel’s character ended it by running his opponent through with his sword. 

 

Not long after the piercing end of the duel, we discovered that Keitel’s character was named Lieutenant Gabriel Feraud, and that he was an officer in Napoleon’s army.  This information emerged when the David Cronenberg resembling and implicitly linked Lieutenant Armand D’Hubert-which sounded like “Our man D’hubert”, a phrase that prepared us for D’Hubert emerging as the hero of the piece, and played by Keith Carradine-was ordered by the righteously furious General Treillard-his surname sounding like “trailer”, as in film trailer, implicitly linking him to film, and played by Robert Stephens-to arrest Feraud for almost killing his duelling opponent, who turned out to be the nephew of the mayor of Strasbourg.  Standing next to each other after D’Hubert managed to track down Feraud, the two Napoleonic officers looked very similar despite their differences in height, almost like brothers in fact, with the same mustachios, uniforms, caps and swords.  Even the military ranks of the two Lieutenants were the same, and would remain so throughout the film as they were always promoted at the same time.  The differences between the two were purely internal, with D’Hubert the more calm, placid, balanced, rational, thoughtful, beautiful and resignedly dutiful of the two, while Feraud was the more ferocious, emotional, unstable, irrational, instinctive, primal, beastly and fanatically obsessed with military protocol and honour and service to Napoleon of the two brother officers.  

 

Soon after D’Hubert called Feraud “…a madman” for his fury about being arrested for the duel with the mayor’s nephew and for Feraud’s irrationally stiff necked and stubborn reasons for fighting the duel in the first place and a furious Feraud immediately challenged D’Hubert to a duel.  This duel was mostly shot from the perspective of D’Hubert along his right sword arm, implicitly linking him to Good.  When the camera did take the perspective of Feraud, the camera mostly shot over his sinister left shoulder, implicitly linking Feraud to Evil.  In fact, Feraud’s rotoring sword anticipated Landis and the deadly rotoring helicopter of the TZ disaster in the first memory of the future in a film by Sir Scott.  Won by D’Hubert, who sliced the right wrist of Feraud before knocking Feraud out with a hit to the head with the hilt of his sword, the duel lead to four more duels. 

 

Significantly, these duels had an Ozian cadence that evoked the allegorical and implicitly Prime Minister William Mackenzie King and Nazi Germany roasting Victor Fleming film THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939).  Indeed, the opening duel of the film wounded a symbolic Wicked Witch of the East figure in the form of the mayor’s nephew; the second duel between dutiful D’Hubert and beastly Feraud took place in a field, the perfect place to find a Scarecrow-played by Ray Bolger in the Fleming classic; the third duel between the Ozian duellists featured a lot of flashing and fiery sparks, evoking the fiery Cowardly Lion-played by Bert Lahr; the fourth duel took place high on charging horseback, evoking the Great Oz-played by Frank Morgan-high in his floating balloon; and the last duel was fought with pistols on the grounds of a castle in a forest-a castle that evoked the Black Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West-and led to Feraud being frozen by fate like a Tin Man-played by Jack Haley.  This Ozian cadence evoked the allegorical and Ozian themed Lucas indie docufeature film AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973), implying that Feraud symbolized Lucas. 

 

This implicit link of Feraud to Lucas was affirmed by the fact that the surname of Feraud evoked the Pharoahs teen gang in AMERICAN GRAFFITI-indeed, Feraud was even pronounced “Fair-oh”.  As already noted, Feraud’s first duelling combatant in the sword duel that began the film was played by Matthew Guinness, the son of Sir Alec Guinness, who Sir Scott would have known from the newspapers and film trade papers while he was making THE DUELLISTS was starring in the then upcoming allegorical science fiction film of Lucas called STAR WARS.  In fact, a fellow officer who showed up to take on an opponent who had bested Feraud in an arm wrestle while on campaign in 1801 near the beginning of the film looked like Lucas, openly linking Feraud to a Lucas lookalike.  Last but not least, an eyepatched soldier and friend of Feraud-played by Arthur Dignam-who looked like Spielberg and who agreed to act as the second of D’Hubert at the final duel reaffirmed Feraud’s link to Lucas, reminding us that Spielberg was a friend of Lucas in those days.

 

However, while spirited, neither duellist was ever able to kill the other in any of these duels, as the two Napoleonic officer brothers were too evenly matched.  It was also noticeable that despite their mutual antipathy, each officer needed the other’s qualities to succeed in the Napoleonic Wars.  Nothing summed up their mutual need for each other than the sight of the two antagonistic officers teaming up and saving themselves for more duels by fighting off some Cossack cavalryman during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.  Curiously, even in the end, when D’Hubert was in a position to finish off Feraud after defeating him in the final pistol duel, he let him live, the first of many beastly antagonists to go Scott free and alive in the films of Sir Scott.  Given the implicit links of D’Hubert and Feraud to Cronenberg and Lucas, the implication was that Sir Scott believed that Cronenberg needed commercial film artists like Lucas to live so as to infuriate and inspire him-and also Sir Scott-to respond to their commercial film art with uncompromisingly artistic indie film art.  And so the film ended with the still living, disappointed and Wickedly black clad Feraud standing as silent and motionless as a rusted in place Tin Man on a hill overlooking a river, staring into the sky and brooding over his fate.  Fittingly, the sky Feraud brooded into was cut in beautiful and beastly two by dark clouds and bright sunlight in a way that implicitly affirmed Sir Scott’s conviction that light and darkness needed to be not only in film art and in life but balanced inside film artists like Cronenberg and himself in order to make great film art. 

 

Intriguingly, D’Hubert’s pretty, sweet and implicitly Dorothy linked brunette wife, Adele-played by Christina Raines-was the first of many warm, attractive, intelligent and indomitable brunettes to oppose the cold and duplicitous peroxide blondes of Hollywood in a Sir Scott film.  The fact that the name of Adele began with an “A” and ended with an “L” sound, an “AL” combination that was in natural opposition to L.A., implicitly reaffirmed that Sir Scott was declaring his intention to take on Hollywood and its commercial film art with his combative and uncompromising indie film art for film art’s sake.  To make this implicit anti-Hollywood point clear, prior to marrying Adele, D’Hubert turned down Diana Quick’s implicitly Glinda linked Laura.  An important snub, for the first and last letters of the name of Laura created L.A., while her name also evoked the allegorical Otto Preminger film LAURA (1944), openly affirming her link to Hollywood film art created by European film artists.

 

Significantly, there were also other layers to THE DUELLISTS.  For the haunting and thoughtful flute melody heard throughout the film-a haunting solo and its orchestral variations that featured the solo flute bursting out of the mass of the symphony like a ray of sunlight on a cloudy day-was taken by composer Howard Blake from Georges Delerue’s soundtrack for the equally haunting, allegorical and implicitly Lucas and Francis Coppola roasting Bernardo Bertolucci docufeature film THE CONFORMIST (1970).  This link implied that Sir Scott did not want to be a spineless conformist to Mussolini’s Italy and, implicitly, to Hollywood like Jean-Louis Trintignant’s implicitly Coppola linked Marcello Clerici, the protagonist of THE CONFORMIST.  THE DUELLISTS also strongly evoked the implicitly Landis roasting and allegorical Kubrick indie docufeature artbuster BARRY LYNDON (1975), released only two years before THE DUELLISTS.  Indeed, the presence of Gay Hamilton as Feraud’s loyal and unnamed soldier groupie openly affirmed the film’s link to the Kubrick film, for Hamilton had a larger and more pivotal role as Nora Brady in BARRY LYNDON.  The intermittent film long narration of Stacy Keach also evoked that of Michael Hordern in BARRY LYNDON.  These were important links, for BARRY LYNDON was a film that combined a commitment to film art for film art’s sake with blockbuster size and greater commercial ambitions to create an artbuster, thus giving audiences the first affirmation that Sir Scott was committed to the artbuster style of film art.  

 

 

Alas for Sir Scott, however, Lucas easily bested him and every other film artist in the world in 1977 with that sly fi film he had been working on, the allegorical, Ozian themed, CGI enhanced and implicitly Spielberg roasting  indie docufeature film STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977).  Significantly, two years later, an implicitly Sir Scott linked character named Jan Bronski-played by Daniel Olrychski-who duelled with Mario Adorf’s implicitly Lucas linked Alfred Matzerath for the affection and attention of Angela Winkler’s beautiful, brunette and Adele and Leia evoking Agnes Matzerath, turned up in the implicitly Lucas bashing and Sir Scott toasting allegorical Volker Schlondorff docufeature film DIE BLECHTROMMEL/THE TIN DRUM (1979), released on May 3, 1979.  Just as significantly, and not long after this first implicit case of Sir Scott being addressed on film, the phenomenal world wide success of the truly fantastic and Skyrockin’ STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE implicitly inspired Sir Scott to reaffirm his indie Northern Rebel spirit, affirm his own commitment to the artbuster and team up again with associate producer Ivor Powell and editor Terry Rawlings-both from THE DUELLISTS-to implicitly roast Lucas again in his second allegorical, Ozian themed and CGI enhanced indie docufeature artbuster ALIEN (1979), a Lucas beating determination implicitly affirmed by the film’s release on May 25, 1979, the second anniversary of the release of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE on May 25, 1977.

 

“Listen to me. 

If we break quarantine,

we could all die.”

 

        Indeed, the allusions to Lucas and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE began with the arrival of the commercial towing space vehicle Nostromo-whose name evoked the allegorical Conrad novel Nostromo (1904)-drifting across the screen towards a large ringed and Saturn evoking planet.  For the huge and castle-like Nostromo evoked not just the castle at the end of THE DUELLISTS and the Black Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, albeit floating through space like Dorothy’s tornado tossed farmhouse, but the equally huge and great white space shark evoking Star Destroyer (SD) that was in hot pursuit of a fleeing Rebel cruiser frantically trying to reach the planet Tatooine at the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE. 

 

This implicit link to STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE continued when the camera dipped inside Nostromo to explore the massive commercial spaceship, the camera initially wandering around the hallways and rooms of the Nostromo like the camera, imitating the eyes of Tony, wandered around his room after he woke up at the beginning of BOY AND BICYCLE.  For the hallways, rooms and CGI seen on a computer monitor as the Helen Horton voiced Mother, the onboard computer that oversaw the spaceship, awoke and booted itself to artificial life, resembled hallways, rooms and CGI seen in the Death Moon and the Millenium Falcon.  The sight of the seven crew members of Nostromo waking up from a long haul cryogenic sleep in their sleeping pods also evoked the new Lucas film, for the seven Sleeping Beauties evoked the fairytale “…once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away” beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE. 

 

Significantly, Mother soon informed the implicitly Lucas and Great Oz linked Captain Dallas-played by Tom Skerritt-that the crew of Nostromo had been woken up from cryosleep before reaching Earth by a contractual obligation to investigate a radio transmission repeating every twelve seconds from LV-246, one of the moons of the Saturn evoking planet.  At this point, ALIEN also began to evoke the allegorical Christian Nyby docufeature film THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD! (1951).  For taking a shuttle-probably Narcissus, whose name evoked the allegorical Conrad novel The Nigger Of The Narcissus (1897)-to the surface of LV-246, the crew discovered an inhospitable moon with visibility hampered by dust and rocks whipped by howling winds that evoked the howling wind whipping blinding snow across the lunarscape at the Arctic research station location of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD! 

 

After exploring a nearby extraterrestrial spaceship-a huge biomechanical vessel designed by H. R. Giger-Captain Dallas and two other crew members, the implicitly Wicked Witch of the East linked Kane and the implicitly Glinda linked Navigation Officer Lambert-played by John Hurt and Elizabeth Cartwright, respectively-soon brought a nasty extraterrestrial-also designed in a biomechanical style by Giger, evoking his earlier allegorical Work No. 303 NECRONOM IV (1976)-aboard Nostromo that evoked the equally nasty extravegeterrestrial Thing-played by James Arness, and implicitly linked to the then emerging terror of television that threatened to keep audiences at home away from the Temple Theatre vegetating in front of the idiot box, given that one of the scientists in the film, one Doctor Wilson (played by Everett Glass), resembled a thin Alfred Hitchcock-taken from its crashed spaceship and brought in a block of ice into the Arctic research station in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!  The main difference between ALIEN and THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD! was that the biomechanical alien was carried unknowingly onto Nostromo inside the unfortunate Kane.  It soon burst out of his stomach in one of the most memorably gory scenes in film history, making the doomed Kane the implicit Wicked Witch of the East figure whose death kicked off the healing Ozian dream or, in this case, nightmare. 

 

Significantly, the pint sized and phallic headed black biomechanical alien soon grew to an even bigger size than the Thing, a towering and implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked behemoth of blockbuster biomechanical terror played by Bolaji Badejo.  But size truly mattered not, the blockbuster alien beast hunted down and killed Dallas, Lambert and most of the rest of the Ozian themed crew-including Harry D. Stanton’s implicitly Scarecrow and Spielberg linked engineer Brett and his implicitly Cowardly Lion linked fellow engineer, Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto-with the same methodical and merciless remorselessness as the Thing hunted down and killed the personnel of the Arctic research centre in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!

 

However, like the Thing, the biomechanical alien was finally killed in the end by the beautiful, brunette and implicitly Dorothy linked Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley-played by Sigourney Weaver.  Ripley managed this feat by using a blast of steam, evoking the water with which Judy Garland’s plucky orphan, Dorothy Gale, melted the implicitly Nazi Germany linked Wicked Witch of the West-played by Margaret Hamilton-at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ, affirming the implicit link of the black biomechanical beast to the Wicked Witch of the West.  This blast of steam disoriented the alien and set it up for being sucked into space through an open airlock of the shuttle Narcissus that Ripley used to flee Nostromo, causing the alien to “melt” as it shrunk in size as it drifted away into space, reaffirming its implicit link to the Wicked Witch of the West. 

 

Thus, given that the biomechanical, black, penis headed and towering alien evoked the equally biomechanical, black, penis headed and towering Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader-played by David Prowse and voiced by James E. Jones, respectively-in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, Sir Scott implied that unknowingly bringing the deadly and pitiless blockbuster biomechanical star beast onboard Nostromo symbolized the equally unknowing release of the addictive, hi-tech and CGI enhanced STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE into Temple Theatres, a hi-tech biomechanical film that Sir Scott implicitly worried would kill serious film art and its artists as surely and remorselessly as the Wicked black biomechanical alien hunted down and killed the crew of Nostromo over the course of ALIEN-unless it was stopped by indie film art purists like Cronenberg and himself, given that the surname of Ripley evoked Ridley and her brunette hair made for another all natural Sir Scott brunette triumphing over peroxide blonde Hollywood.  Indeed, the strobe light that flickered through the tense scene that saw Ripley carefully seal herself in a spacesuit before blasting the biomechanical beast with a blast of seering steam at the end of the film affirmed that implication.  For the flickering light evoked the film projector-like light that flickered as psycho Gary-played by Tom Berenger-murdered naïve and restless Theresa Dunn-played by Diane Keaton-at the shocking end of the allegorical Richard Brooks docufeature film LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977), a shocking ending that implied that Brooks felt that being led astray by blockbuster lusts for fortune and glory would cause the film artists of New Hollywood to kill their film art. 

 

Particularly if the corporations that owned Hollywood studios like Twentieth Century Fox-which ironically released both ALIEN and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE-developed a fondness for the profits to be made from these kinds of bewitchingly hi-tech blockbuster star beasts, like the conscienceless Weyland-Yutani Corporation which owned Nostromo, its corporate name taken from the corporation paying for the expedition of Kurtz in the allegorical Conrad novella Heart Of Darkness (1899)-a fitting choice of company name given that Coppola had returned to the Temple Theatre that same year with the Heart Of Darkness inspired, implicitly John Huston roasting and eerily twilit and prescient allegorical indie docufeature artbuster APOCALYPSE NOW (1979).  For the Weyland-Yutani Corporation made clear through the shocking revelations of the android Tin Man, Ash-played by Ian Holm- that it valued the blockbuster alien beast more than the human crew.

 

Eerily, as the days marched relentlessly forward to the TZ disaster in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, a number of film artists released films that contained ominous memories of the twilit future disaster, including Sir Scott’s ALIEN.  For soon after being unexpectedly awakened from cryogenic sleep at the beginning of the film by Mother, the all controlling onboard computer of Nostromo, Captain Dallas was seen choosing Interface 2037 from an Overmonitoring Address Matrix screen on a computer in order to communicate with Mother, openly anticipating the 23782 date of the TZ disaster.  Shortly after, the numbers 7:23 would be the last numbers seen on a computer screen being monitored by Ash shortly before Narcissus landed on the twilit and forbidding moon of planet LV-426 that sheltered the alien, again eerily anticipating the 23782 date of the TZ disaster. 

 

Just as eerie, Dallas, Kane and Lambert made for an ominously twilit trio of two males and one female who anticipated the two males and one female killed in the TZ disaster when they explored the forbidding moon of LV-426 in search of the source of the unexpected and repeating radio transmission.  A beam of film projector light that played over top of the bed of eggs that contained the aliens in the hold of the huge extraterrestrial spaceship implicitly affirmed the link of the alien blockbuster beast that Kane inadvertently brought onto Nostromo to film.  Of course, the decapitation of Ash by Parker eerily anticipated the decapitation of Morrow in the TZ disaster.  Last but not least, the last image of both the original 1979 release and the 2003 Director’s Cut of ALIEN brought the healing Ozian nightmare full circle by showing Ripley and her unusually feline but Toto evoking cat, Jones, asleep in her cryogenic cocoon on Narcissus like another Sleeping Beauty, the number 723 prominently stamped on the glass lid of the cocoon in the last of a twilit trio of numbers that exactly and eerily anticipated the July 23, 1982 date of the TZ disaster in one last ominously prescient memory of the future. 

 

Making it fitting that Sir Scott was implicitly linked to the earnest, altruistic, optimistic and future predicting time traveller, Herbert George (H.G.) Wells-ironically played by Malcolm McDowell-and roasted for his naïve support of the gleefully violent and implicitly Cronenberg linked Doctor John Leslie Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper-played by David Warner-in the also presciently twilit Nicholas Meyer  docufeature film TIME AFTER TIME (1979), a film released on August 31,1979 whose implicit Sir Scott roasting intent was affirmed by the film’s allusions to THE DUELLISTS.  Curiously, like ALIEN, TIME AFTER TIME also contained ominously prescient memories of the twilit and disastrous future.  For Wells arrived in the future at 2:27 pm, a time that almost anticipated the 237 day of the TZ disaster.  The 2340 Francisco address of his future lady love, Amy Robbins-played by Mary Steenburgen-also almost predicted the 237 date of the TZ disaster. 

 

Curiously, David Lynch also implicitly linked Sir Scott to London Doctor Frederick Treves when he replied to TIME AFTER TIME in his allegorical moving painting THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980), a film released on October 2, 1980 whose implicit allegorical intent was affirmed by the film’s allusions to THE DUELLISTS and TIME AFTER TIME.  Last but not least, Peter Hyams was so implicitly convinced that Sir Scott’s implicit intention to defeat and exorcise addictive hi-tech and f/x filled films like STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE with ALIEN had been done so well that it ironically made audiences even more addicted to hi-tech and f/x filled film art that he implicitly linked Sir Scott to an illegal and synthetic polydichloric euthimal (PDE) dealer named Russell B. Yario-played by Richard Hammat-in the ALIEN evoking and implicitly Cronenberg and Sir Scott roasting allegorical docufeature film OUTLAND (1981), a film released on May 1, 1981.  An implicit link that Sir Scott appreciated so much that he implicitly traded PDE for PKD and roasted Hyams in turn and reaffirmed his commitment to the artbuster when he returned with Powell and Rawlings to the Temple Theatre on June 25, 1982 less than a month before the TZ disaster with BLADE RUNNER, the third film in his implicit Lucas Trilogy and a film inspired by the allegorical and implicitly Disney animatronic “person” roasting Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (1968) and the allegorical William S. Burroughs novella BLADE RUNNER: a movie (1979).

 

“Are you for real?”

 

Significantly, the film began with a short and ascending written prologue that recalled the more spectacularly ascending and golden paragraphs that set the stage for the individual films of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, affirming at the outset that the film was implicitly addressing Lucas.  Curiously, this ascending written prologue set the stage by informing audiences that the creation of robots had evolved “…into the Nexus phase-a being virtually identical to a human-known as a Replicant [created by Tyrell Corporation and genetically engineered for] Off-world…slave labor [and]…the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets”.  This ascending prologue also pointed out that after a mutiny in an Off World colony by a Nexus 6 “combat team”, Replicants were declared illegal on Earth.  Significantly, if any Replicants managed to make it from the Off World colonies to Earth, they were hunted down by “special police squads” known as “Blade Runner units”, setting us up for the Blade Runner versus Replicant battles to come.  As “blade runner” was actually slang for heroin addict, these upcoming Blade Runner versus Replicant battles were also implicitly linked to addiction, particularly addiction to spellbinding on set special and post-production visual cinematic effects like those in ALIEN, OUTLAND or STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE or films that desperately recreated or replicated them in order to make money, desperate replications that were implicitly embodied by the human resembling renegade robot Replicants,

 

Then “Los Angeles November 2019” flashed on the screen and the film began with a flight over a vast and hell-like nighttime cityscape that was supposedly the future Los Angeles, with fireballs exploding from factory or oil refinery emission vents all too presciently anticipating the exploding fireball that soon took down the fateful Huey helicopter in the TZ disaster, a dark, Hellish and entirely urban future L.A. cityscape that evoked the Black Castle and its environs of the Wicked Witch of the West and was the antithesis of the bright and clean Cloud City in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, implicitly Spielberg roasting and Lucas executive produced Kershner  docufeature film STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), and of the equally bright and clean Metropolis of the allegorical Fritz Lang film METROPOLIS (1927) and was also so radically removed from the famously sunlit, blue skied, floral and palm treed coastal city with its equally famous and small coastal mountains, valleys and beaches as to be unbelievable that the Greater Los Angeles Area (GLAA) would change that much by 2019.  The flight over this hellish cityscape drew audiences towards two huge and pyramid shaped buildings that towered over the rest of the Hadescape and evoked the equally huge and towering bulk of the Con-Amalgamated titanium mine 27 on the Jovian moon of Io, a Jovian moon said to have a diameter of 2273 miles in another eerie and twilit memory of the future, in OUTLAND, affirming from the outset that Sir Scott was implicitly addressing OUTLAND and Hyams on one level in BLADE RUNNER. 

 

Soon we found ourselves high inside a room in one of the towers, where a man named Dave Holden-his surname evoking film actor William Holden, and played by Morgan Paull-conducted an “empathy test” on a new and Kershner resembling and implicitly linked waste disposal engineer employee named Leon Kowalski-his name evoking Frank Kowalski, co-writer of the allegorical Morrow indie docufeature film A MAN CALLED SLEDGE (1970), and played by Brion James-with the help of an ominous biomechanical insect evoking machine that evoked the biomechanical alien blockbuster beast in ALIEN.  Kowalski was so pleased with this creepy dimunitive beast and the irritating empathy test that he shot Holden with a gun held under the table, evoking the sight and sound of Han Solo-played by Ford-shooting Greedo-played by Maria De Aragon-with a blaster held under a table at the end of the Mos Eisley cantina sequence on Tatooine in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE in a way that prepared us for the return of Ford and reaffirmed that Sir Scott would be wrapping up his Lucas Trilogy with BLADE RUNNER.  The shooting of Holden also killed a symbolic Wicked Witch of the East figure, opening up the gates of the healing Ozian spiritworld dream.

 

Then the POV fell down to gritty Earth from the heady and deadly heights of the pyramid building to the dark, dirty, rainswept and neon dragon guarded streets below where we found the unemployed and red and blue neon and implicitly Lucas and Cowardly Lion linked Richard “Rick” Deckard-possibly linked to Frank Herbert in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, and played by Ford-sitting reading a newspaper, addressing the audience with what turned out to be a film long VO and trapped in an alternate post-nuclear war sly fi world of broken dreams as he was unable to leave for the supposedly more promising Off World colonies being advertised above him by a hi-tech blimp.  The despondent sight reminded us that PKD was also trapped in an alternate sly fi world of broken writer dreams and unable to achieve success in the mainstream fiction world at the time he wrote Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?  Indeed, PKD longed despondently to leave his bittersweet life as a sly fi novelist for success in the mainstream literary world like some despondent characters of an alternate Earth where the Axis powers won World World II longed to live in a real world where the Allies won World War II in the allegorical PKD novel The Man In The High Castle (1962), like some of the equally despondent denizens of a Martian colony ghetto that aptly symbolized the ghetto world of sly fi writers longed to return to Earth in the allegorical PKD novel Martian Time-Slip (1964), or like Nick St. James climbed determinedly out of an underground sly fi world and back into the real world in the allegorical PKD novel The Penultimate Truth (1964), a novel obsessed with two spoof documentaries released in 1982 in another eerily prescient memory of the cinema linked twilit future. 

A longing for the real world that also featured prominently in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? as well, with Deckard longing despairingly to replace his electric animatronic sheep with a real, live and virile black Nubian goat.

 

Significantly, while eating at a sushi stand, Deckard was soon “arrested” by the implicitly Scarecrow linked Gaff-who also constantly evoked Gastone Moschin’s Special Agent Manganiello of THE CONFORMIST, and was played by Edward J. Olmos-and taken back to Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters by flying police car “spinner” to talk to his old boss, Captain Bryant-played M. Emmet Walsh-who looked and sounded like Sheldrake-played by Fred Clark-a Paramount Studios producer that Holden’s struggling screenwriter Joseph C. “Joe” Gillis tried but failed to sell a screenplay to at the beginning of the allegorical Billy Wilder docufeature film SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950).  A curious but fitting allusion, indeed, for Deckard’s film long VO and the fact that he began the film unemployed before being drawn back into the blade runner ranks reminded us that the struggling and unemployed screenwriter Gillis narrated and played a prominent role throughout the tragicomic events of SUNSET BOULEVARD. 

 

Significantly, at this meeting with Capt. Bryant, we found that Deckard was an ex-LAPD Blade Runner.  And a bored ex-LAPD Blade Runner at that, for he was easily persuaded by Capt. Bryant to rejoin their ranks and track down and kill “six” violent Replicants that had managed to steal a shuttle, kill its passengers and crew, escape the Off World colonies and return to Earth- actually, after one was “fried” after reaching Earth, only four others turned up-who turned out to be Kowalski and his girlfriend Zhora [played by Joanna Cassidy] and Roy Batty and his girl Pris [played by Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah, respectively]-the missing fifth Replicant long since passed into legend.  Significantly, the sight and sound of Deckard spending the rest of the film hunting down the Replicants in the crowded, hellish and labyrinthine streets of L.A. evoked the sight and sound of Sean Connery’s implicitly Kubrick linked Federal District Marshall W.T. “Bill” O’Niel hunting down renegade PDE dealers like Yario and a twilit trio of assassins in the equally crowded, hellish and labyrinthine passages of Con-Am 27 after a company shuttle brought them to the mine at the end of OUTLAND, an ending that evoked the end of the equally embittered and allegorical Fred Zinneman docufeature film HIGH NOON (1952), reaffirming the implication that on one level Sir Scott was addressing Hyams and OUTLAND in BLADE RUNNER. 

 

Significantly, after showing Deckard some videos of the renegade Replicants, Capt. Bryant sent Deckard off to the Tyrell Corporation to give a Voigt-Kampff empathy test like Holden had given to Kowalski on a Replicant.  This was an ironic name for an empathy test, given that Voigt-Kampff evoked the Adolf Hitler book Mein Kampff (1925), linking the film and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? to the alternate Earth where Hitler, his Third Reich and the other two Axis powers won World War II in The Man In The High Castle.  Significantly, this allusion to Hitler and the Third Reich continued when the Tyrell Corporation turned out to be housed in the two giant pyramid buildings seen at the beginning of the film and Deckard met in a huge penthouse suite in one of the buildings with the implicitly Hyams and Great Oz linked Tyrell Corp. head, Eldon Tyrell-played by Joe Turkel.  For Tyrell also resembled Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Gotho’s Master of Ceremonies in METROPOLIS, a Nazish link reaffirmed by the many columns and golden eagles on pedestals in the penthouse, a sight which again evoked the German, Italian and Japanese triumph over the Allies in World War II in the alternate sly fi Earth of The Man In The High Castle.  Thus, Sir Scott implied that Tyrell, his corporation and his Replicants were as unfeeling and indifferent to human suffering as Goebbels, the Third Reich and the Nazis.

 

Here in the penthouse suite Deckard also met Tyrell’s niece, another beautiful brunette named Rachael Tyrell-who fittingly resembled Kathryn Bigelow, given that she had arrived on the scene the year before with the Lafayette “Monty” Montgomery co-written and co-directed  indie docufeature film THE LOVELESS (1981), and was played by Sean Young.  Significantly, Rachael also resembled the lost and despondent ex-silent film star, Norma Desmond-played by Gloria Swanson-who caught Gillis in her web and eventually shot him twice in the back, in the end, making it grimly fitting that the Holden evoking Holden was also shot in the back by Kowalski at the end of the film’s prologue.  Indeed, the retro-Forties black blouse and skirt Rachael wore in the palatial penthouse office of Eldon Tyrell on this first appearance in BLADE RUNNER evoked the black clothing Desmond wore in her palatial house on her first appearance in SUNSET BOULEVARD, affirming the implicit link between the two characters. 

 

Unfortunately, after a memorable and thought provoking beginning, confusion began to reign at this point in the film when Deckard administered the Voight-Kampff empathy test on the Replicant that turned out be Rachael with the same ominous and biomechanical insect evoking testing machine that Holden used on Kowalski in the film’s prologue.  For the eyes of Rachael soon began glowing red as Deck read out a series of questions involving animals and insects to test her empathy for these creatures, which was high in humans but low in Replicants.  This red glow quickly implied to audiences that Rachael was a Replicant.  Unfortunately for Deckard and Ford, neither noticed the red eyes as the red eye effect that revealed Replicants to audiences was added in post-production to Rachael by Sir Scott without telling anyone beforehand.  Curiously, however, Sir Scott did not add the effect to the eyes of Kowalski, which was why it was missing in the first interview with Holden.  Thus, Deckard and Ford knew nothing about the red eyes while filming the scene and did not quickly realize that Rachael was a Replicant like audiences did, mystifying audiences and making them wonder why Deck was so dense if he was LAPD’s “top” Blade Runner.

 

After leaving Rachael at Tyrell Corp, another surprisingly silly mistake occurred when Deck dropped by the Yukon Hotel room of Kowalski with his constantly sneering and origami loving chauffeur/shadow Gaff, who drove Deckard around in a flying spinner like the long suffering butler/chauffeur Max-played by Erich von Stroheim-drove Gillis around in SUNSET BOULEVARD.  For when Deckard inspected the room’s bathroom for clues, he suddenly became left handed, with a watch on his left wrist no less, when he discovered a snake scale in the dirty bathtub.  However, when he left the bathroom, Deckard reverted to his usual righthandedness, and remained right handed for the rest of the film.  Legend has it that Sir Scott was not satisfied with the scene, and reshot the bathroom sequence in post-production in England with left handed English stuntman Vic Armstrong-who was Ford’s stunt double not long before in the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed, implicitly William Friedkin roasting, Lucas executive produced and Marshall produced Spielberg docufeature film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)-again doubling for Ford.  The worst of Deckard’s film long VO-“…whatever was in the bathroom was not human.  Replicants don’t have scales” [!d’oh!]-was also heard during this sequence.

 

Curious chaos continued soon after the inspection of Kowalski’s hotel room, with the first two images introducing the green neon and implicitly Schlondorff linked Batty, the leader of the Replicants, who looked Nazish indeed in his black leather jacket, for these two images were taken from scenes later in the film.  Things did not improve when the snake scale led Deck to an Atari logo and yellow neon linked Replicant stripper Zhora at Taffy’s strip bar.  For when Deckard asked her if her python was real, Zhora replied indignantly “…of course it’s not real.  Think I’d be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?”  This made it clear that some animals were still alive and could be purchased by wealthy people.  This revelation reminded us that when Deckard had asked Rachael earlier if the owl in the Tyrell penthouse was artificial, she mouthed “…of course not” as she walked toward him.  However, in post-production, Sir Scott had her say “…of course it is”, implying that the owl was fake.  While not unusual, given that most flora and fauna had been wiped out by a nuclear war in the PKD novel that inspired the film, this re-dubbed dialogue now did not seem likely given Zhora’s revelation that some animals still lived and could be purchased by the wealthy.  For it was unlikely that the Tyrells, the wealthiest people of the film’s milieu, could not afford a real owl. 

 

Alas, these unforced errors took the shine off the film’s most memorable sequence that broke out after Zhora escaped Deckard and fled the strip club through a back door and a battered and resigned Deckard chased her through the crowded streets of L.A., a sight and sound that evoked the sight and sound of O’Niel chasing the implicitly Cronenberg linked drug dealer Nicholas P. Spota-played by Marc Boyle-through the crowded passageways of Con-Am 27, a mining operation overseen by Peter Boyle’s implicitly Lucas linked General Manager Mark B. Sheppard in OUTLAND to reaffirm that Sir Scott was implicitly replying to that film on one level in BLADE RUNNER.  Curiously, Deckard pushed aside an extra played by Tony Scott after this chase ended with him shooting Zhora in the back, openly linking BLADE RUNNER to BOY AND BICYCLE in a way that implied that BOY AND BICYCLE was set in a post-apocalyptic Earth like BLADE RUNNER. 

 

The second meeting between Rick and Rachael at his apartment after the “retirements” of Zhora and Kowalski-a high collared fur coat that Rachael wore when she shot Kowalski from behind also evoked a similar high collared fur coat Desmond wore midway through SUNSET BOULEVARD before she shot Gillis from behind at the end of the film, linking Rachael to Desmond once more-also saw Rick’s eyes suddenly flash red at one point, making audiences uncertain whether Deckard was human or Replicant-an uncertainty shared by Ford, as he had not been forewarned that this other red effect would be added in post-production.  In the elevator on the way up to see Tyrell at the end of the film, the implicitly Meyer and Cowardly Lion linked genetic designer J. F. Sebastian-his premature aging evoking the old Victorian spirit of TIME AFTER TIME, and played by William Sanderson-took off his coat as he stood next to Batty, but was seen wearing the coat soon after. 

 

Not long after, and after Deckard “retired” Batty’s blonde sweetheart Pris back at the vast penthouse apartment of Sebastion at the Bradbury building, Deckard showed no interest and made no response when he disturbed some wild pigeons roosting in a room on the top floor of the fittingly named Bradbury building as he fled Batty at the end of the film, despite the importance that the society of L.A. 2019 placed on living rather than artificial animals, birds, insects and sea creatures.  In addition, Batty “shut down”, in the end, as if his built-in four year “lifespan” was up, despite the fact that the film took place in November 2019 and Batty had been “turned on” on January 8, 2016, meaning his four year “lifespan” was not over.  A pigeon released by Batty after he “shut down” on another twilit and rainy day in L.A. 2019 towards the end of the film also unaccountably flew out of his hand and up into rain free sunlight, apparently as a result of more tampering of the film by Sir Scott in post-production.  However, the TDK sign behind Batty in his final moments was a nice touch, affirming that he was a “copy” and not a real person.

 

Alas, and last but not least, while it was clear that the Replicants were not real people, it was never clear whether the Replicants were androids, clones, cyborgs, machines, robots, test tube people, embodied symbols of desperate copies of hi-tech f/x enhanced films like STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE or the symbolic embodiment of the new CGI enhanced film art that was not only making film art “…more human than human” but creating the possibility that film artists would do away with human actors altogether in preference for CGI “people”.  Indeed, the sight and sound of Deckard using an “Esper” photo analysis machine-a name which evoked the Espers or people with extra-sensory powers (ESP) in the allegorical and inaugural Hugo award winning Alfred Bester novel The Demolished Man (1953), a fitting allusion as the novel was also a murderous mystery-to sift through and find Zhora in a photo found in the possession of Kowalski affirmed the implicit link of the Replicants to “more human than human” CGI enhanced film, for the Esper wandered through the photo in any direction it wanted without any need of a film camera like CGI.  What was clear was that this uncertainty created yet more confusion for audiences that prevented them from understanding or warming up to this Great Flawed Film.

 

However, given that Rachael’s implicit link to Norma linked her to an era of low-tech film art that was being swept away by hi-tech, special and visual f/x filled and CGI enhanced film art like BLADE RUNNER and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, the sight of Deckard kissing a sleeping Rachael to life in a fairy tale ending that evoked the beginning and end of ALIEN and driving Rachael away from L.A. to freedom, in the end, after hunting down and “retiring” the renegade Replicants implied the hope of Sir Scott that Lucas would choose to direct again but this time abandon the hi-tech and f/x filled direction he had sent film art down with STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and lead the way back to a more life affirming and fully human low-tech film art era as in AMERICAN GRAFFITI.

 

Curiously, eerie, ominous and prescient memories of the twilit and disastrous future also plagued the Great Flawed Film.  Indeed, the sad and wistful first notes of the electronic soundtrack by Vangelis created for a post-nuclear war world haunted by memories of green also anticipated the sad and wistful years after the TZ disaster when audiences and film artists would be haunted by the disaster and by memories of the Skyrocking years before the disaster.  The oil refineries burning off pressure relieving fireballs in the Hades landscape seen surrounding the nightmare Emerald City of the future Los Angeles in 2019 in the opening shots of the film anticipated the special effects explosion and fireball that brought down the Huey helicopter during the attack on the Vietnam War village on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  The flying police cars-spinners-soaring above the Hades landscape like automotive flying witch brooms also anticipated that helicopter. 

 

The large, four bladed ceiling fans that spun over the Replicant infiltrator, Kowalski, and his implicitly Wicked Witch of the East linked Blade Runner tracker, Dave Holden, during the Voigt-Kampff empathy test that determined whether or not Leon was human in an office of the towering and Black Castle evoking pyramid of the Tyrell Corporation soon after the camera flew over the Hades landscape ominously anticipated the scything rotor blades of the downed helicopter.  The small portable fan seen in the office of Captain Bryant soon after Kowalski shot Holden reiterated the ominous link to helicopter rotors. 

 

Significantly, Bryant’s revelation to Deckard that six replicants jumped an Off World shuttle and killed its twenty-three passengers and crew in order to get back to Earth quickly brought the fateful number 23 back to the allegorical films of Sir Scott-and linked BLADE RUNNER to ALIEN by way of the shuttle Narcissus.  Deckard’s apartment number 9732 returned a full 723 combination back to the films of the Northern Rebel, for it evoked the 723 stamped on the glass lid of Ripley’s cryogenic cocoon at the end of ALIEN.  “Enhance fifteen to twenty-three”, Deckard’s last command to his photographic analysis Esper machine made for a twilit trio of mentions of the number twenty-three in BLADE RUNNER as in ALIEN.  Deckard’s Blade Runner license number B25364 contained the numbers two and three again, allowing BLADE RUNNER to surpass ALIEN with a forceful four mentions of the fateful number 23. 

 

Of course, the large and rotoring rooftop windmill power generators seen in the final moments of the film evoked the helicopter rotors of the TZ disaster once again, and the large ceiling fans seen above Holden and Leon in the opening of the film, bringing the film full rotoring circle.  The sight of the bleeding Batty emerging out of the smoke between two rotoring rooftop windmills to gaze down at Deckard hanging frantically from the edge of a neighbouring rooftop at the end was also an eerily prescient sight.   The three humans-all male-killed by the replicants over the course of the film also made for an eerily prescient twilit trio of victims.  Last but not least, the dark, decayed, depressed, dirty, gloomy, hi-tech and soulless atmosphere of the future L.A., its omnipresent neon corporate logos and its casual, impersonal and brutal violence anticipated an L.A. and Hollywood taken over by blockbuster loot lusting corporations, as well as the depression and gloom that overwhelmed audiences, film artists, Hollywood and L.A. after the TZ disaster and created a perennially dark, depressed, violent and hi-tech film world obsessed with the TZ disaster. 

 

Heck, BLADE RUNNER was even released by Warner Brothers, the same studio that financed and reluctantly released TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE the following year, underlining how closely this Great Flawed Film anticipated the TZ disaster, the fallout from the disaster, and the outbreak of the dread allegorical Zone Wars.  In fact, that BLADE RUNNER anticipated the TZ disaster with such eerie accuracy on top of succeeding too well in its job of warning audiences away from soulless and mindless hi-tech and f/x filled film art may explain why the film failed at the box office.  What was certain was that the film was still in theatres on July 23, 1982, when audiences began to turn against not only Landis, Lucas, Spielberg but also Kennedy and Marshall, the co-producers of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE who helped Landis and his episode’s producer, Folsey jr., illegally hire and use Chen and Le after hours on the Landis set that fateful night in July of ’82, but also against hi-tech and special and visual effects filled films like BLADE RUNNER that reminded audiences of the films of these infuriating film artists and of the TZ disaster. 

 

Curiously, in another eerily prescient memory of the future, Slava Tsukerman became the first film artist to implicitly address BLADE RUNNER in the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film LIQUID SKY (1982)-despite the fact that LIQUID SKY was created at the same time as BLADE RUNNER-released in late August of ‘82.  At any rate, fairy tale endings were clearly still on the mind of Sir Scott, for exuberant fairy tale romance implicitly triumphed over twilit Landis, Lucas and Spielberg linked Evil when Sir Scott teamed up again with Rawlings and strove to come to grips with the BLADE RUNNER and TZ disasters and reconnect with audiences in his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster LEGEND (1986), first released on August 28, 1985.

 

“Do you think you could upset

 the order of the universe

and not pay the price?”

 

Indeed, the setting of the film in a lush and verdant forest teeming with plant, bird and animal life, a setting that was as far removed from the lifeless post-apocalyptic world of BLADE RUNNER, implicitly affirmed how eager Sir Scott was to leave behind 1982 in LEGEND.  Alas, the attempt to bring harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre by having the implicitly Landis and Scarecrow linked forest boy, Jack-played by Tom Cruise-and the foolishly mischievous and Deborah Landis-the wife of Landis-and Dorothy linked Princess Lily-played by Mia Sara-team up with a group of mischievous Munchkins led by the forest Gump-played by David Bennent, whose presence allowed Sir Scott to acknowledge Schlondorff’s interest in him, as Bennent played the implicitly Lucas linked Oskar, the tin drum drumming and glass breaking kid who refused to grow up in DIE BLECHTROMMEL/THE TIN DRUM-to rescue the last of the unicorns and defeat the red, towering, Satan evoking and implicitly Lucas and Wicked Witch of the West linked Lord of Darkness-played by Tim Curry-in a climatic sword duel that evoked the duels of THE DUELLISTS and the climatic light saber duels of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy to implicitly affirm the link of Darkness to Lucas came across as a laughably lost and confused feature length music video, complete with wimpy synthesized score by Tangerine, making for another surprising box office dud for Sir Scott, after starting so well with BOY AND BICYCLE, THE DUELLISTS and ALIEN. 

 

To make matters worse, the sequel to that latter film-which Sir Scott had turned down the opportunity to create-was not only released that year in the form of the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Dante and Spielberg roasting James Cameron  indie docufeature Zonebuster ALIENS (1986)-which implicitly saw Sir Scott linked to Michael Biehn’s space marine Corporal Dwayne Hicks-it was also the smash hit of the year, making Sir Scott look twice as bad that year.  Thus, rejected twice by audiences and thrashed by Cameron, Sir Scott retired to lick his wounds before returning to the fray with his next twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and TIME AFTER TIME evoking indie docufeature artbuster SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME (1987), released on October 9, 1987.

 

“Ellie? 

I want to come back.”

 

Luckily for Sir Scott, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME was a solid and coherent enough film-a solidity and coherency enhanced by the crisp, clean and oftimes hypnotizing cinematography of Steven Poster-that it more than reassured audiences and himself that he was back on track.  The visually stunning nighttime helicopter flight over the pristine, colourful and beautiful Emerald City of New York that began the film and ironically recalled the opening spinner flight over the nightmarish nighttime Hades landscape of L.A. at the beginning of BLADE RUNNER also implied that Sir Scott was brooding more over the failure of BLADE RUNNER than LEGEND in SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.  However, the film also contained enough allusions to such twilit and allegorical Lynch indie moving paintings as DUNE (1984) and BLUE VELVET (1986) to imply that Sir Scott was actually sending a message to Lynch in his latest allegorical film. 

 

Indeed, the opening murder of the implicitly Wicked Witch of the East linked Win Hockings-played by Mark Moses-by the beastly and implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked Joey Venza-played by Andreas Katsulas-took place in a large and beautiful gold chamber-actually located in the real life Mayan Theatre in L. A., rather than New York-that evoked the equally huge and magnificent gold throne room of Jose Ferrer’s Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in his palace on Khaitan at the beginning of DUNE, a notorious box office flop, immediately affirming the implicit interest in Lynch in SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.  This implication was reaffirmed by the fact that the implicitly Glinda linked New York socialite, Claire Gregory-played by Mimi Rogers-who inadvertently witnessed Venza kill Hockings, resembled Emperor Shaddam IV’s daughter, Princess Irulan-played by Virginia Madsen. 

 

The resemblance of the brunette and implicitly Dorothy linked Ellen “Ellie” Keegan-played by Lorraine Bracco-the wife of the dutiful and implicitly Lynch and Cowardly Lion linked and newly ordained NYPD Detective Mike Keegan-played by Tom Berenger-to Dorothy Vallens-played by Isabella Rossellini-in BLUE VELVET reaffirmed the implicit interest in Lynch in SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.  The fact that the film’s allegorical and titular George and Ira Gershwin song “Someone to Watch Over Me” (1926) was repeated three times and was as important to the film as the allegorical Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris song “Blue Velvet” (1950) was to BLUE VELVET, also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch.  Thus, given that Claire tried to lead Mike away from Ellie when he was watching over her to prevent her from being murdered by Venza, and that Mike left her and the wealthy circles that she inhabited in Manhattan and returned to Ellie and their lower middle class home in Queens after the beautiful Ellie shot and killed the beastly and Wicked Venza at the end of the film-like Rachael shot Kowalski in BLADE RUNNER-the implication was that the art school trained Sir Scott was telling the fellow art school trained Lynch to stay away from big budget blockbuster beasts like DUNE that could destroy him and stick to the lower budget indie moving paintings like BLUE VELVET that he did so well. 

 

Indeed, Venza’s status as a shady and independent Italian money lender as well as killer reminded us that indie Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis lured Lynch away to make DUNE, a flop that almost killed the reputation of Lynch, reaffirming the implicit intent of Sir Scott in SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.  That Keegan also stalked and eventually shot a killer who looked like Mark Hamill-played by Harlan C. Poe-in a mirrored room in Claire’s apartment in a gun duel that evoked the end of THE DUELLISTS reaffirmed the implication that Sir Scott wanted Lynch to kill any desire to take on and top Lucas with another STAR WARS Classic Trilogy evoking film like DUNE ever again.  Overall, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME was a more solid and noteworthy film, no doubt inspiring Sir Scott to create his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster BLACK RAIN (1989), released on September 22, 1989.

 

“Hey, baby, what I’d say?”

 

Significantly, like SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, the film made endless allusions to BLADE RUNNER, implying again that Sir Scott was brooding furiously over the failure of that film.  Indeed, in many ways BLACK RAIN seemed like a remake of BLADE RUNNER set mostly in an everyday late Eighties Osaka, Nippon that evoked the future L.A. of BLADE RUNNER.  Despite this resemblance to BLADE RUNNER, however, the film implicitly addressed Spielberg in the form of another NYPD Detective, Nick Conklin-played by Michael Douglas.  Significantly, Conklin captured an implicitly Landis linked thug named Kogi Sato-played by Yusaku Matsuda-after he killed two fellow Japanese gangsters in a New York restaurant.  This murderous attack evoked a similar murderous attack on the Kessler family by a gang of monstrous Nazis in a nightmare experienced by David Kessler-played by David Naughton-in the allegorical and implicitly Kubrick addressing Landis indie docufeature film AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981), affirming the implicit link of Sato to Landis. 

 

Accompanying Sato to Osaka by plane-the sight of Osaka from the air evoking the sight of Chicago by air at the beginning of the allegorical Landis film THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980), reaffirming the implicit interest in Landis in the film-for transfer to Japanese authorities with his wisecracking partner, Charlie Vincent-played by Andy Garcia-Conklin lost Sato on arrival and then spent the rest of the film tracking down the violent and inhuman Sato in the streets of Osaka like Deckard spent BLADE RUNNER tracking down violent and inhuman replicants in the streets of L.A.  Along the way, Vincent was decapitated by Sato, a Morrow evoking decapitation that gave Conklin even more reason to track him down and bring him to justice, in the end.  This Conklin accomplished with the help of his Osaka liaison, Police Detective Masahiro Matsumoto-played by Ken Takakura, in a scene that implicitly reaffirmed the link of Sato to Landis.  For the sight of Conklin and Matsumoto firmly marching a beat up Sato through the Osaka police department to be formally and finally arrested for his twilit trio of murders ironically evoked the sight of Joliet Jake Blues-played by John Belushi-being marched by two prison guards through Joliet Prison to be released at the beginning of THE BLUES BROTHERS. 

 

Thus, given that Conklin spared Sato’s life despite the fact that Sato murdered Vincent and the two Japanese gangsters and returned to New York after the arrest of Sato, Sir Scott implied that Spielberg should also release Landis and get back to his film art creating life, given that Landis and his four co-defendants had escaped punishment at the end of the TZ trial two years before in 1987.  The film’s allusions to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Friedkin addressing Spielberg docufeature film INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984), affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Spielberg.  The presence of Kate Capshaw as a nightclub hostess named Joyce openly reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Spielberg, as she played nightclub singer Wilhelmina “Willie” Scott in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and would soon go on to become the second wife of Spielberg.

 

As for Lynch, he implicitly responded to SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME and implicitly roasted and toasted Sir Scott in the implicit form of luvable and implicitly Scarecrow linked lunk Sailor “Sail” Ripley-played by Nicolas Cage-in the twilit, allegorical and openly Ozian themed indie moving painting WILD AT HEART (1990), a film released on May 19, 1990 whose implicit Sir Scott addressing intent was affirmed by the resemblance and implicit link to Hannah of Ripley’s ditzy but equally luvable and implicitly Dorothy linked blonde girlfriend, Lula Fortune-played by Laura Dern-and the fact that WILD AT HEART had the same Ozian theme as SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.  Curiously, while no doubt pleased with the success of BLACK RAIN, Sir Scott was implicitly displeased with WILD AT HEART for he donned the co-producer/director hats and teamed up again with Keitel and BLACK RAIN composer Hans Zimmer and implicitly addressed Lynch again in his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster THELMA AND LOUISE (1991), a film first screened on May 20, 1991 almost exactly a year after the first screening of WILD AT HEART and whose implicitly Lynch addressing intent was affirmed by allusions to BLUE VELVET, WILD AT HEART and the twilit and allegorical Lynch telemoving painting series TWIN PEAKS (1990-91).

 

“Did I hear somebody say “Peaches”?”

 

Indeed, Sir Scott implicitly roasted Lynch and WILD AT HEART co-writer Barry Gifford in the forms of Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer-played by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, respectively-throughout the film.  This implication was affirmed by the fact that Thelma resembled and evoked both Dern and Hannah, and by the fact that Thelma’s husband, Darryl Dickinson-played by Christopher McDonald-resembled Lynch and had a first name that evoked that of Daryl Hannah.  Thus, it was fitting that the boyfriend of Louise, Jimmy Lennox, was played by Michael Madsen, reminding us that his sister Virginia Madsen played Princess Irulan in DUNE.  An implicit roast of Lynch and Gifford that was not without some links to Sir Scott and his film art, for the sight and sound bored and restless Thelma and Louise fleeing their stultifying lives by hitting the road for a rejuvenating weekend alone without telling their significant male others at the beginning of the film, evoked Tony’s Scott free day from school in BOY AND BICYCLE. 

 

Significantly, a stop at a roadside bar called the Silver Bullet to celebrate the end of their first day of spontaneous freedom led to an inebriated Dickinson being beaten up and almost raped in the parking lot by a callow cad named Harlan Puckett-played by Timothy Carhart-who looked like James Cameron and had a buff physique that evoked Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, implying that Puckett symbolized Cameron.  Indeed, Puckett’s first name “Harlan” reminded us that fantastic fiction writer Harlan Ellison fought and won a lawsuit against Cameron due to the fact that the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Lynch addressing Cameron indie docufeature Zonebuster THE TERMINATOR (1984), too closely resembled one of the short stories of Ellison, implicitly affirming that Puckett symbolized Cameron.  This link in turn also reminded us that while Cameron implicitly addressed Lynch in THE TERMINATOR, Sir Scott was symbolically “raped” by Cameron by the success of ALIENS.  Luckily for Thelma, she was rescued from the brutish attentions of Puckett by the righteously furious rape survivor Louise, who also shot Puckett dead when he was rude to her after she saved Thelma, evoking the sight of Rachael shooting Kowalski “dead” in BLADE RUNNER and Ellie gunning down Venza at the end of SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME. 

 

Unfortunately for the ladies, the righteously furious and satisfying murder of Puckett led to them frantically driving Louise’s 1966 Thunderbird down south to Mexico City to escape the pursuing police.  Along the way, Thelma and Louise were robbed by a smooth talking drifter named J.D.-played by Brad Pitt-who appeared to symbolize Lucas.  Indeed, his initials evoked the J.D. Jedi of the Classic Trilogy, and his robbery reminded us that Lynch and Sir Scott lost a lot of audience support and money implicitly blasting Lucas in box office duds like BLADE RUNNER, DUNE, and LEGEND.  Thelma and Louise were also harassed by an obnoxious, arrogant, Spielberg resembling and implicitly linked trucker-played by Marco St. John-but had the last laugh when shortly before the end of the film they blew up his monstrous big rig, a big rig that evoked the monstrous and tormenting big rig in the allegorical and implicitly Lucas supporting Spielberg  docufeature telefilm DUEL (1971), perhaps Sir Scott’s way of repaying Spielberg for his decision to make a feature film of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and hire people like Folsey, Kennedy, Landis and Marshall to help him in the first place, leading to the TZ disaster and trapping film art in the Zone Wars, despite an implicitly more positive message to Spielberg in BLACK RAIN. 

 

As in BLACK RAIN, Sir Scott also alluded to Landis and THE BLUES BROTHERS.  For the frantic posse of police cars that chased Thelma and Louise at the end of the film evoked the equally frantic posse of police cars that chased down Jake and Dan Akroyd’s Elwood Blues at the end of THE BLUES BROTHERS.  Thus, it was fitting that the two law enforcement officials leading the Blues Sisters womanhunt, the ridiculously surnamed Detective Hal Slocumb and FBI man Max-played by Keitel and Stephen Tobolowsky, respectively-resembled Jake and Elwood Blues as much as they did Landis and Marshall.  Slocumb even showed up in a Huey helicopter at the end of the film, the same type of helicopter that crashed in the TZ disaster, openly linking him to the disaster and affirming his implicit link to Landis. 

 

Alas it was to no avail as there was no escaping the long arm of the Law, leading the dejected and freedom loving Blues Sisters to drive the Thunderbird off a cliff in Utah and into a canyon of the Colorado River.  Significantly, the film ended with the image of the Thunderbird freezing over the Colorado River midway through its falling arc, evoking the frozen image of Tony on the desolate beach at the end of BOY AND BICYCLE.  This frozen in mid-air ending implied that Sir Scott felt that he was unsure if there would be any place for film art for film art’s sake artists like Lynch and himself in the crave new world of blockbuster loot obsessed and CGI enhanced Hollywood film art of the Nineties.  Sir Scott soon also affirmed that he had indeed been brooding bitterly in BLACK RAIN and SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME over the failure of BLADE RUNNER when he released a new Director’s Cut of the film in theatres in and around September 11, 1992 in its tenth anniversary year.

 

“Too bad she won’t live-

but then again, who does?”

 

Unfortunately, and tragicomically, Sir Scott also revealed that he had not understood the many reasons for the failure of BLADE RUNNER.  For the removal of Deckard’s VO and the addition of a short and wistful LEGEND evoking unicorn dream experienced by Deckard were the only major changes he made to the film, making the ’92 Director’s Cut as much of an incomprehensible Great Flawed Film as the ’82 Domestic and International originals.  The new version also lacked the sight of Deckard and Rachael escaping LAPD pursuit by driving off into the mountains, in the end.  Instead, the Director’s Cut ended ambiguously with the elevator doors closing on Deckard and Rachael after they left his apartment.  As such, audiences were uncertain whether the two lovers escaped Deckard’s apartment building, or were gunned down in the lobby or outside the apartment building after they exited the elevator. 

 

Curiously, despite its continued incomprehensibility, BLADE RUNNER caught on this time with audiences, remaining in sold out theatres for months (Sammon, 349-71).  And so, with the Great Flawed Film finally a success, Sir Scott’s spirits were no doubt raised by the time of the release on October 8, 1992 of his twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE (1992), fittingly made with Vangelis, Weaver and THELMA AND LOUISE (and ALIENS) director of photography Adrian Biddle and production designer Norman Spencer and BLACK RAIN associate producer Mimi Polk Sotela.

 

“I will not give up!”

 

Significantly, in the failed attempt of Gerard Depardieu’s implicitly Luc Besson linked Christopher Columbus to establish a harmonious and prosperous community in the New World-his crew of implicitly film artist linked sailors and their newfound indigenous friends briefly united by the hoisting of a huge church bell into its tower in their first colony before disaster struck-and his rivalry with the rich, powerful and implicitly Lucas linked Sanchez-played by Armande Assante-and the Evil, gold lusting and implicitly Spielberg linked Moxica-played by Michael Wincott-Sir Scott warned Besson that he would likely fail to establish a brave new world of film art due to the machinations of powerful established film artists like Lucas and Spielberg.  A sobering implication indeed, and one that was rejected by audiences as emphatically as they rejected the original BLADE RUNNER and LEGEND.  Thus, it was back to the drawing board for Sir Scott.

 

Significantly, before Sir Scott determinedly returned with his own film, he added producer of the films of other film artists to his accomplishments when he combined with Polk to produce the allegorical Mike Figgis indie docufeature film THE BROWNING VERSION (1994), a film that implied that it was blasting Lucas, given that the film evoked the Lucas executive produced THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES ADVENTURES indie docufeature telefilm series (1992-96).  Indeed, its lead character, the embittered and crotchety old teacher, Andrew Crocker-Harris-played by Albert Finney, who played Fouche in THE DUELLISTS-evoked George Hall’s equally old and crotchety Indiana Jones in the telefilm series, affirming the film’s implicit Lucas addressing intent.  Curiously, Sir Scott then implicitly reached out to Lynch again in the form of another determined and Columbus evoking Captain sailing on another momentous Atlantic voyage when he combined again with Polk Gitlin on his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster-and the first film made with his new Scott Free film production company-WHITE SQUALL (1996), a film released on February 2, 1996 that was inspired by the Chuck Gieg memoir, White Squall (1970).

 

“You can’t turn from the wind. 

You face the music,

you trim your sails,

and you keep going.”

 

Indeed, the film began with an initially peaceful voyage of the good Brigateen School sailing ship, Albatross, a sailboat for troubled teen boys that combined the last year of high school with a year of real life sailing and maturing experience in the Caribbean discovered and transformed by Columbus and his film crew in 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE.  A peaceful beginning that was literally the calm before the storm, for eventually a nightmarish storm known as a white squall sunk the ship.  Significantly, this remorseless storm was implicitly linked to the good decade for Lynch after the failure of DUNE in ’84 before the failure of the twilit and allegorical indie moving painting TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1994) led to an even greater storm of criticism and vitriol being heaped on his poor head.  This implicit Lynch addressing intent was affirmed by the fact that the implicitly Great Oz evoking Captain of the Albatross, Christopher “Skipper” Sheldon-played by Jeff Bridges-looked, dressed and talked like Lynch throughout WHITE SQUALL, implicitly linking Sheldon to Lynch.  The presence of a young and troubled rich boy named Frank Beaumont-played by Jeremy Sisto-amongst the teenaged sailors affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, as his name recalled Jeffrey Beaumont and Frank Booth-played by Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper, respectively-in BLUE VELVET.  Indeed, Beaumont’s arrogant father, Francis Beaumont-played by David Selby-resembled Hopper, reaffirming the film’s link to BLUE VELVET.  The sound of Sting singing the twilit, allegorical and Sting written tune “Valpariso” (1996) over the closing titles of WHITE SQUALL also reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, recalling Sting’s role as Feyd Rautha in DUNE.

 

Significantly, Beaumont and the rest of the teenage crew of the Albatross were also implicitly linked to twilit film artists who had also experienced and weathered box office disasters like Lynch.  Thus, it was fitting that these teen sailors lived up to the motto on the ship’s bell-“…where we go one, we go all”-and rallied around Skipper Sheldon at the tribunal at the end of the film and refused to allow all blame for the Albatross disaster to fall solely on his shoulders.  For this solidarity was implicitly Sir Scott’s way of urging Lynch to not get too down about the failure of TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME or to feel he that was alone in cinematic failure.  Indeed, the presence of the Sir Scott resembling and implicitly linked English teacher and second-in-command, McCrea-played by John Savage-openly affirmed Sir Scott’s support for Lynch.  And then Sir Scott was off to team up again with WHITE SQUALL director of photography Hugh Johnson and co-producer Nigel Wooll to complete his Atlantic Bell Trilogy with his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster G.I. JANE (1997), released on August 22, 1997.

 

“Master Chief! 

Suck my dick!”

 

Curiously, from a distance the film seemed straight forward: determined, indomitable, young and implicitly film artist linked U.S. Navy Intelligence Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil-played by Demi Moore-struggled to pass the arduous training required to become the first female U.S. Navy SEAL against the bitter opposition of the head of the SEAL training programme, Master Chief John James Urgayle-played by Viggo Mortensen.  However, it was not certain which film artist Lt. O’Neil was implicitly linked to upon closer inspection.  For CO Salem-played by Scott Wilson-the commander of the Atlantic facing Florida base where the Navy SEAL programme took place, resembled Lynch and shared Lynch’s love of smoking and drinking coffee, implicitly affirming that Lt. O’Neil symbolized the bloodied but unbowed film art of Lynch, still stuck in the doghouse at the time.  Indeed, the U.S. Senator who helped Lt. O’Neil get into the programme, Lillian DeHaven, was played by Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs. Kendal in THE ELEPHANT MAN, reaffirming the implication that Lt. O’Neil symbolized the moving paintings of Lynch. 

 

Significantly, however, the beautiful, dimunitive and feisty Lt. Jordan O’Neil also acted, looked and talked like the equally beautiful, dimunitve and feisty Princess Leia Organna-played by Carrie Fisher-in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy throughout the film, implicitly linking her to Lucas.  Indeed, if you changed Lt. O’Neil’s name slightly to Neil O’Jordan, her name looked and sounded like Leia Organna, affirming her implicit link to Lucas.  Lt. O’Neil’s implicit link to Lucas was reaffirmed halfway through the film when she shaved her head so as to fit in with the other implicitly film artist linked SEAL trainees, for her shaven head evoked the shaven headed men and women of the allegorical Lucas indie docufeature film THX 1138 (1971).  The computer screen filled battle rooms that opened and closed the film also recalled similar computer screen filled battle rooms in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, reaffirming the possibility that Sir Scott was reaching out to Lucas in G. I. JANE in a complete about face from the implicit roasts he gave Lucas in ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER, LEGEND, THE DUELLISTS and THELMA AND LOUISE. 

 

If so, G.I. JANE was one of the many films released in the mid to late Nineties that implicitly urged Lucas to get his CGI enhanced J.D. Jedi game on and return to the Temple Theatre with another film, which he did soon after with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Cameron and Spielberg roasting indie animaction film STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999).  In which case, the sympathetic and implicitly Lynch linked CO Salem was present to remind Lucas, in the doghouse like Lynch at the time, that he was not the only film artist to go through bad times, and that he should press on regardless in a repetition of the supportive message of WHITE SQUALL.  However, while some uncertainty surrounded the identity of the film artist that Lt. O’Neil was implicitly linked to, there was little uncertainty surrounding the film artist that Master Chief Urgayle was implicitly linked to throughout the film. 

 

For the surname of Urgayle evoked Gale Hurd, the ex-wife of Cameron and the producer of ALIENS and THE TERMINATOR, implying that Urgayle was linked to Cameron.  This implicit link was affirmed by the fact that Urgayle shared Cameron’s intimidating height, belittling manner and obsession with detail, while his love of the poetry of D.H. Lawrence-particularly “Self Pity” (????)-linked him to art and artists.  In addition, the nightmarish nighttime training battlescape filled with attacking machines that the SEAL trainees had to fight their way through at one point evoked the nightmarish visions of the dark and blockbuster machine battling future in the Terminator films, reaffirming Urgayle’s implicit link to Cameron.  Last but not least, Urgayle’s attempted rape of O’Neil late in the SEAL training programme evoked the attempted rape of Thelma by the implicitly Cameron linked Puckett in THELMA AND LOUISE, reaffirming Urgayle’s implicit link to Cameron.

 

Alas for Lucas, Lynch and Sir Scott, while Master Chief Urgayle was humbled at the end of G.I. JANE when Lt. O’Neil’s furious and forced ringing of the washout bell-a symbol of solitary failure rather than collective and triumphant solidarity as in WHITE SQUALL, though a refusal to ring the bell did unite the successful trainees-during the SEAL training was annulled and she succeeded in becoming the first female U.S. Navy SEAL, Cameron triumphed over Sir Scott and everyone else that year with the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature Zonebuster TITANIC (1997), like Lucas triumphed over everyone in the Skyrocking year of ’77 with STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  A titanic and CGI enhanced triumph that implicitly encouraged Sir Scott to finally embrace CGI enhancement when he teamed up again with Zimmer and G. I. JANE production designer Arthur Max and editor Pietro Scalia to curiously, implicitly and sympathetically toast Kubrick only a year after his death in his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster GLADIATOR (2000), released on May 1, 2000.

 

“I will give them something

they have never seen before.”

 

Indeed, the Roman battle against a German horde led by the famed and implicitly Kubrick linked General “Mad” Maximus Decimus Meridius-played by Russell Crowe-that kicked off the film evoked PATHS OF GLORY, immediately affirming the film’s implicit interest in Kubrick.  The sight and sound of “Mad” Maximus being betrayed by the Evil and implicitly Landis linked Emperor Commodus-played by Joaquin Phoenix-and forced to fight as a gladiator for the rest of the film reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Kubrick, for the brutal and bloody scenario evoked the allegorical Kubrick docufeature film SPARTACUS (1960), which implicitly linked David Lean to the inspirational Thracian gladiator, Spartacus-played by Kirk Douglas.  The film’s allusions to AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and the allegorical and implicitly Cronenberg roasting Kubrick indie docufeature artbuster THE SHINING (1980) also affirmed the implicit interest in Kubrick and Landis in GLADIATOR.  Thus, the sight and sound of “Mad” Maximus dying in the Coliseum before he could lead Rome and its Empire into a daylit new era free of the Evil and corruption of Commodus implied Sir Scott’s sympathetic regret that Kubrick died before he could lead Hollywood and its film art, film artists and audiences into a daylit new era of allegorical and CGI enhanced daylit artbusters free of Landis and the TZ disaster, in the end.

 

Of course, the sight and sound of “Mad” Maximus working hard to regain the approval of audiences by fighting one bloody and gruelling gladiator bout after another before his moving death reminded us that Sir Scott had also worked hard for years to regain the approval of audiences after the BLADE RUNNER, LEGEND and 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE disasters by creating one gruelling film after another.  Thus, it was fitting that audiences were so impressed with GLADIATOR that they finally forgave and re-embraced the battle-scarred Sir Scott, despite the ironic fact that GLADIATOR also openly mocked the greater CGI enhanced violence of Zone War films and their baying and bloodthirsty Cineplex Coliseum audiences.  The august and fickle Academy were also impressed, giving GLADIATOR the imperial thumb up and awarding Sir Scott his first five Oscars for Best Actor, Best Costume Design, Best Film, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects, finally giving him something to crow about and rewarding him for all of the long and embittering years he had spent in the wilderness. 

 

Curiously, the same victorious year Sir Scott co-produced with executive producer Tony Scott the allegorical Marek Kanevska indie docufeature film WHERE THE MONEY IS (2000), which revolved around the tragicomic exploits of Paul Newman’s successful and implicitly Landis and Tin Man linked elderly bank robber, Henry Manning.  All in all it was a satisfying way to begin the new millennium of indie northern rebel film art, which no doubt inspired Sir Scott to team up again with Scalia, Spencer, Zimmer and director of photography John Mathieson and costume designer Janty Yates from GLADIATOR and return to the Temple Theatre again on February 9, 2001 to implicitly address Cronenberg again in the macabre, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster HANNIBAL (2001), an aptly named film, given that “Mad” Maximus was called upon to portray the Carthaginian general in one of his gladiator bouts, and inspired by the twilit and allegorical Richard Harris novel Hannibal (1999), the author’s name curiously evoking the appearance of Richard Harris as the Emperor Marcus Aurelius in GLADIATOR.

 

“He once told me that whenever feasible,

he preferred to eat the rude.”

 

For the intelligent, educated, shrewd, knowing, cultured, sensitive, sophisticated, insightful, art loving, mischievously psychopathic, twistedly moral and implicitly Great Oz linked Doctor Hannibal Lector-played by Hopkins-was implicitly linked to Cronenberg David throughout HANNIBAL.  Indeed, the exuberantly serial killing Dr. Lector evoked the implicitly Cronenberg linked serial killer Dr. John “Jack the Ripper” Stevenson in TIME AFTER TIME throughout the film, implicitly affirming the Cronenberg addressing intent of HANNIBAL.  Not surprisingly, most of the people Dr. Hannibal tracked down and killed or tormented over the course of the film were also implicitly linked to film artists. 

 

Indeed, Dr. Lector’s first victim, Giancarlo Giannini’s implicitly Cowardly Lion linked Florence Police detective Commendatore Rinaldo Pazzi, repaid for foolishly lusting after all of the fortune and glory of capturing Dr. Lector for the FBI himself in the crowded and labyrinthine streets of implicitly Emerald City linked Florence-streets that evoked those of ancient Rome in GLADIATOR and L.A. 2019 of BLADE RUNNER-was implicitly linked to Luc Besson, perhaps roasted by Sir Scott for turning from indie film art like the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film LE DERNIER COMBAT (1983) to blockbuster twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature film art like THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997).  Indeed, Pazzi’s young wife, Allegra-played by Francesca Neri-resembled and was implicitly linked to Milla Jovovich, Besson’s young wife at the time and star of THE FIFTH ELEMENT and  twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Bigelow roasting indie docufeature film THE MESSENGER (1999), in which she played Leeloo and the doomed and implicitly Bigelow linked Joan of Arc, respectively.

 

Dr. Lector’s second victim, Mason Verger-played by Gary Oldman, who played the Evil Zorg in THE FIFTH ELEMENT-the implicitly Scarecrow linked scion of a wealthy American family who lusted after the murder of Lector after his face was horrifically maimed under Lector’s direction, was implicitly linked to Tim Burton.  Last but not least, Julianne Moore’s obsessively pursuing and implicitly Dorothy linked FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling, was implicitly linked to Bigelow throughout the film.  Twistedly serious fun, indeed, putting Sir Scott in a good humour to team up again with Max, Scalia, Zimmer and Zeljko Ivanek-who played Verger’s aide, Doctor Cordell Doemling, in HANNIBAL-and pre-empt the twentieth anniversary of the TZ disaster in 2002 with an implicit reflection on the disaster and on the inability of film artists to free the world of film art from the grip of the TZ disaster and kickoff a daylit new era of CGI enhanced film art in his next twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001), a film released on December 18, 2001 that was inspired by the Mark Bowden bestseller Black Hawk Down (1999).

 

“They wouldn’t understand why we do it.”

 

Indeed, the inability of the implicitly Spielberg linked Major General William F. Garrison-played by Sam Shepard-to successfully command a joint operations group consisting of members of Delta Force, the Rangers and the 160^th SOAR and inspire them to capture the notorious, mysterious, never seen and, hence, Great Oz linked Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid and two key lieutenants during a meeting in the Bakara market area of central, war torn and implicitly Emerald City linked Mogadishu in October of 1992, the tenth anniversary year of the TZ disaster, was implicitly linked to the failure of Spielberg-who was the overall commander of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE as he came up with the idea to make the film and hired Folsey jr. and Landis to create their episode-to oversee a successful and fatal disaster free TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE throughout the film.  Indeed, the presence of Tom Sizemore as Lieutenant Colonel Daniel McKnight affirmed the implicit interest in Spielberg in the film, as Sizemore played the implicitly Kubrick linked Sergeant Horvath in the twilit and allegorical Spielberg docufeature film SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998), a film that was evoked throughout BLACK HAWK DOWN. 

 

The fact that the beastly black biomechanical Black Hawk helicopters with their loads of Delta Force soldiers were filmed as they took off from the “Mog” airport and flew toward the city on their fateful mission in a way that evoked the helicopter attack on the village in APOCALYPSE NOW, affirmed the film’s implicit interest in New Hollywood film artists and films about the Vietnam War, including the Vietnam War portions of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  The fact that the black and deadly biomechanical Black Hawk beasts also evoked the equally black and deadly biomechanical beast of a L.A. police helicopter in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Lucas addressing John Badham docufeature film BLUE THUNDER (1983) reaffirmed the film’s link to 1983, the year of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  In addition, as the black and beastly biomechanical dragonflys took to the air, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s version of the allegorical Jimi Hendrix tune “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” from ELECTRIC LADYLAND (1968) played on the soundtrack.  This reminded us that the song had first appeared on the allegorical SRV and Double Trouble recording COULDN’T STAND THE WEATHER (1983), reaffirming the film’s link to 1983, the year of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.

 

Of course, the sound of the SRV and Double Trouble Hendrix cover also reminded us that Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash on the night of August 27, 1990, while leaving an outdoor concert in East Troy, Wisconsin, ominously setting us up for the Black Hawk crashes to come.  Of course, the two Black Hawk helicopters that were shot down during the chaotic operation evoked the downed helicopter of the TZ disaster as well, particularly the second, when its rear rotor was taken out.  For the sight reminded audiences that the fateful helicopter in the TZ disaster was also brought down when its rear rotor was taken out by a fireball caused by an on set special effects explosion on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. 

 

The big difference between the film and the real life TZ disaster was that Major General Garrison took full responsibility for the disastrous mission and its failure to capture Aidid, unlike Spielberg, who never took responsibility for the disaster despite being the man who hired Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis and Marshall to work on the film in the first place.  Thus, Sir Scott implied that he felt that Spielberg should have taken responsibility for the TZ disaster, and that the failure to do so had caused the Zone Wars to drag on as long as they had as much as the not guilty verdict in the TZ disaster trial that freed Landis and his four co-defendants in 1987.  An allegorical battle that would not end no matter how big and determined were the films-like BLACK HAWK DOWN and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN-that tried to end the dread allegorical Zone Wars or how many film artists-implicitly symbolized by the soldiers of BLACK HAWK DOWN and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN-threw themselves into the fray.  This continued an embittered emphasis on sound leadership and responsibility that had already been emphasized in 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE, WHITE SQUALL, G.I. JANE and GLADIATOR.

 

Significantly, this bitterness appeared to have been softened by the success of BLACK HAWK DOWN and HANNIBAL and the surprise success of LEGEND when it was released as a more coherent Director’s Cut in 2002.  For Sir Scott left behind the dark and bloody battles of BLACK HAWK DOWN and lightened up when he teamed up again with Mathieson and Zimmer to implicitly address Lynch again in the unusually and refreshingly tragicomic, twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster MATCHSTICK MEN (2003), a film released on September 2, 2003 that was inspired by the twilit and allegorical Eric Garcia novel Matchstick Men (2002).

 

“For some folks,

money is a foreign film without subtitles.”

 

Indeed, chain smoking, obsessive compulsive, highly phobic and implicitly Cowardly Lion linked Los Angeles small time con artist and lonely divorced bachelor, Roy Waller-played by Nicolas Cage-was implicitly linked to the equally quirky, chain smoking and Los Angeles based Lynch throughout the film, an implicit link affirmed by the presence of Cage-who played Sailor Ripley in WILD AT HEART-and by the film’s allusions to the twilit and allegorical Lynch indie moving painting MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001).  The surname of Waller also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, reminding us that the music of Fats Waller was heard in the allegorical Lynch indie moving painting ERASERHEAD (1977).  Waller’s first con victim in the film, one Irene Fisk, reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, reminding us that Jack Fisk was an actor and a production helper in ERASERHEAD, and production designer on MULHOLLAND DRIVE and the twilit and allegorical Lynch moving painting THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999).

 

Significantly, Waller’s many quirks and obsessions not only prevented him from getting his life back together with the help of his estranged teenaged daughter, the curiously and implicitly Dorothy and Wicked Witch of the West linked Angela-played by Alison Lohman-but also prevented him from ending his con man career by pulling off one last big “long con” on Bruce McGill’s Besson resembling and implicitly linked, and implicitly Great Oz linked, Chuck Frechette.  For Angela and Frechette were revealed, to Waller’s embarrassment, to be parties to a last big long con on Waller that was organized by his protégé, “good friend” and fellow con artist, the implicitly Scarecrow linked Frank Mercer-played by Sam Rockwell.  Thus, in the final and embarrassing failure of Waller to succeed with one last con due to his many quirks and phobias, Sir Scott implied that it was the many quirks and phobias of Lynch that had also prevented him from succeeding with audiences. 

 

Indeed, the fact that Angela’s named evoked both Los Angeles and L.A. underlined that Sir Scott felt that Lynch had mistakenly thought that he could become “Le Roy” of Hollywood again as in the old days.  The sight of Waller sheepishly learning his lesson, giving up on crime and hooking up with the friendly and implicitly Bigelow linked grocery cashier, Kathy-played by Sheila Kelley-in the end was also one last satirical dig at Lynch and Bigelow.  For Bigelow and Lynch were not likely to leave behind film art and retire a happily married couple, given that Bigelow had implicitly blasted Lynch in such twilit and allegorical indie docufeature films and artbusters as THE LOVELESS, POINT BREAK (1991) STRANGE DAYS (1995) and THE WEIGHT OF WATER (2000).

 

Curiously, after implicitly telling Lynch that he could not become “Le Roy” again, Sir Scott then implicitly gave Lucas the same message when he teamed up again with Mathieson, Max and Yates to implicitly and sympathetically address Lucas once again and fuse the brutal combat of BLACK HAWK DOWN with the epic scope of GLADIATOR in his next twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005), released on May 2, 2005.

 

“There, at the end of the world,

you are not what you were born

but what you have it in yourself

to be.”

 

Curiously, the film began with an unusual, creative and literal animated moving painting apparently created by Gianluigi Toccafondo of Acme Filmworks.  This animated moving painting first saw a man in a long coat seen walking along lost in thought, then he appeared to light a cigarette or cigar with a match.  The sight reminded us of Sir Scott’s fondness for cigars, suggesting that the animated figure symbolized him.  The light of the match caused a searchlight to appear behind him, sending him fleeing into the darkness.  As he fled the searchlight, he slowly transformed into a falcon or a hawk and flew away, only to settle down between the painted words Scott Free.  Then the moving painting froze, and turned aquamarine.  Of course, this Scott Free animated painting implicitly affirmed that the spirit of Sir Scott was indeed soaring scot free after his recent successes, and forever after kicked off all of his films.

 

Then the film began in France in 1184 with a young and implicitly Scarecrow linked blacksmith named Balian-played by Orlando Bloom-mourning the death of his child and the subsequent suicide of his young wife-played by Nathalie Cox.  Significantly, Balian’s wife resembled Natalie Portman, wrapping up her role as Padme Amidala that year in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Cameron and Spielberg roasting Lucas indie animaction film STAR WARS EPISODE I: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005), linking the film to Lucas and his STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy.  This implicit interest in Lucas and his STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy was openly affirmed when Balian soon discovered that he was the illegitimate son of Baron Godfrey of Ibelin-played by Liam Neeson-for Neeson played rebellious, doomed and implicitly Terry Gilliam linked Jedi Knight Qui Gonn Jinn in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE. 

 

Not long after this revelation, Baron Godfrey died, but not before he persuaded Balian to leave behind the tragic death of his wife and child and join him in Jerusalem fighting to preserve peace between Christian and Moslem in the Holy City.  As the death of Godfrey and his replacement by Balian reminded us that the reputation of Lucas had been “killed” by the poor quality of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Spielberg roasting Richard Marquand indie docufeature trimax of the Classic Trilogy STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983), and by creating films like INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg after the TZ disaster, and that Lucas was trying to rise from the ashes of his own self created demise like a human phoenix with his new STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, the implication was that the older Baron Godfrey symbolized the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy Lucas and that the younger Baron Balian symbolized the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy Lucas.

 

Alas for Lucas, his dream of rebirth with the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy did not happen, as the new trilogy was rejected by audiences.  Thus, it was no surprise to see the younger Baron Balian of Godfrey also fail to unite Christians and Moslems in peaceful harmony in implicitly Emerald City and Hollywood linked Jerusalem, instead watching as the city fell to the massive Moslem army of Saladin-played by Ghassan Massoud-after too many impertinent attacks on Moslems by Christian hardliners who wanted the city for themselves and then being forced to flee the Holy City with the rest of the surviving Christians after the final battle.  For the failure of Balian evoked the failure of Lucas to reconnect with audiences with the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, affirming the implicit link of the two men and implicitly affirming the conviction of Sir Scott that there was no returning to former glory for Lucas.  As the name of Saladin created the anagram “Laandis”, Sir Scott also implied his conviction that Lucas had failed to end the dread allegorical Zone Wars with the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy. 

 

Luckily for Sir Scott, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN was also more successful than STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH that year.  This allowed Sir Scott to finally triumph over Lucas after all these years with an implicit Lucas bashing film ironically released by Twentieth Century Fox-the distributors of all six of the STAR WARS films-thus really driving the sword blade home.  This allowed Sir Scott to briefly relax, smile, laugh and team up again with Crowe, Finney and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN editor Dody Dorn and leave behind medieval France for contemporary France in order to celebrate his good year with another unusually light hearted and humourous film whose high spirits and title reflected his good year in 2005, the twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster A GOOD YEAR (2006), a film released on September 9, 2006 that was inspired by the twilit and allegorical Peter Mayle novel A Good Year (2004).

 

“Let’s play.”

 

Curiously, the tragicomic saga of a young, cocky, money obsessed and implicitly Jason Reitman linked English financial wizard named “Mad” Maximilian “Max” Skinner-played by Crowe-who inherited a chateau in Provence from his deceased and implicitly Ivan Reitman linked Uncle Henry Skinner-played by Finney-and ultimately decided to fake a will and give the Chateau La Siroque to Uncle Henry’s possibly illegitimate American daughter, Christie Roberts-played by Abbie Cornish-instead of selling it to so as to allow her to redevelop the chateau’s famous indie wine implicitly urged the young and cocky Reitman-who had burst on to the scene the year before with his brash twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (2005)-to cultivate and create memorable indie film art like his father rather than sell out and make blockbuster beasts for Hollywood.  For the art of creating great wine was linked to the art of creating great film art throughout the film, as befitting a film called A GOOD YEAR, with its connotation of a good wine year as well as a good film year, a year as good as the one that both young Reitman and Sir Scott enjoyed in 2005 with the successes of THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

 

At any rate, A GOOD YEAR was the most openly Ozian themed film Sir Scott had yet made, with the perennially twilit, grey, gloomy, manmade and lifelessness of the London of the implicitly Scarecrow linked Skinner evoking the black and white film used to shoot Kansas in the prologue and epilogue of THE WIZARD OF OZ.  By contrast, the au natural, vibrantly colourful, lively and living Provence of his implicitly Great Oz linked Uncle Henry-who evoked Charley Grapewin’s Uncle Henry in THE WIZARD OF OZ-evoked the colour and zest of Oz throughout the film.  Indeed, upon his arrival in vibrant and florid Provence to inspect the chateau, Skinner evoked Dorothy-implicitly linked to Christie-upon her arrival in vibrant and florid Munchkinland, openly affirming the film’s implicit link to THE WIZARD OF OZ.

 

Then Sir Scott implied his hope that a daylit new era of CGI enhanced film art would lead to a triumph over Cameron as seen in the triumph over the implicitly Cameron linked Irish King Donnchadh-played by David O’Hara-in the twilit and allegorical Kevin Reynolds indie docufeature film TRISTAN + ISOLDE (2006), a film partly co-produced by the Scott Free brothers.  A cheerful, hopeful and sunny optimism missing when Sir Scott stubbornly returned to Retropolis with the strangely well received release of the still inconsistent and incomprehensible but CGI enhanced twenty-fifth anniversary Ultimate Edition of BLADE RUNNER (2007), a further retrofitted version of this Great Flawed Film released on October 5, 2007.  Yet another return to the confused despair of BLADE RUNNER that prepared audiences for a more hopeful optimism when Sir Scott teamed up again with Crowe, Max, Scalia, Yates and A GOOD YEAR composer/music supervisor Marc Streitenfeld on his next twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007), released on October 19, 2007.

 

“With you out of the way,

everything can return to normal.”

 

Curiously, the sight of up and coming New York indie heroin importer and dealer Frank Lucas-played by Denzel Washington-learning the ropes from long time gangster Ellsworth “Bumpy’” Johnson-played by Clarence Williams III-and going on to successfully take over the biz after Johnson’s death with the help of his brothers reminded us that Cameron had learned the film art ropes from established indie film artist Roger Corman before going on to be a successful indie film artist with the help of his brothers, implicitly and ironically linking Lucas to Cameron.  Indeed, the implicit link of Lucas to Cameron was affirmed by his implicitly Bigelow linked girlfriend, fiancée and wife, Eva-played by Lymari Nadal-for she reminded us that Cameron was once married to Bigelow.  Significantly, the rebel Sixties set film was also a study in contrasts that saw Crowe’s law abiding and educated Newark, New Jersey Police Detective Richie Roberts-his name evoking Christie Roberts in A GOOD YEAR, also linking him to indie film art-tracking down and eventually arresting the lawless and uneducated Lucas and his gang with the help of his indie Essex County narcotics squad.

 

Significantly, the popularity of the pure heroin that Lucas imported from Vietnam reminded audiences that the development of equally popular CGI enhanced film art was spurred on by a desire to create dangerous effects without causing anymore fatal film set disasters, implying that Sir Scott was linking heroin addiction to CGI enhanced film art addiction.  Particularly the new addiction for CGI enhanced animated and superhero films, as the name of Richie Roberts evoked that of Marvel Comics superheroes with equally alliterative names like the implicitly Cronenberg linked Peter “Spiderman” Parker-initially implicitly linked to Wally Wood by Smilin’ Stan Lee and Jolly Jack Kirby in Marvel Comics, and played by Tobey Maguire-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Sami Raimi super satirical animaction film SPIDER-MAN (2002), and the implicitly Richard Kelly linked Matt “Daredevil” Murdoch-initially implicitly linked to John F. Kennedy jr. by Lee, Kirby and Beamin’ Bill Evertt in Marvel Comics, and played by Scott Terra as a lad, and by Ben Affleck as a laddish man, respectively-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Mark S. Johnson super satirical animaction film DAREDEVIL (2003).  Indeed, one of the friends of Roberts named Joey-played by Richie Coster-looked like Walt Disney, affirming the film’s implicit interest in the new CGI enhanced animated film art.  At any rate, Sir Scott soon teamed up again with Crowe, Max, Scalia, Streitenfeld, Yates and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN screenwriter William Monahan to implicitly address Kelly in his next twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster BODY OF LIES (2008), a film released on October 5, 2008 that was inspired by the twilit and allegorical David Ignatius novel Body Of Lies (2007).

 

“The light is on you,

motherfucker!”

 

For the young, brash, confident, indie, knowing and talented Middle Eastern CIA field Agent Roger Ferris-played by Leonardo Di Caprio-was implicitly linked to the Scarecrow and the equally young, brash, confident, indie, knowing and talented Kelly throughout the film, an implicit link affirmed by the film’s allusions to the gleefully madcap and satirical twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced  and Ozian themed Kelly indie docufeature film SOUTHLAND TALES (2006).  Significantly, since the embattled Agent Ferris was forced to experience quite a few embittering, embarrassing and humbling trials and tribulations before finally capturing the implicitly Spielberg linked terrorist leader, Al-Saleem-played by Alon Aboutboul-Sir Scott implicitly warned Kelly not to get too cocky, kid, and expect some equally embittering, embarrassing and humbling trials and tribulations before he truly succeeded as a film artist. 

 

Since Al-Saleem was indeed captured, in the end, with the devious help of the more experienced, callous, Virginia and Washington based and implicitly Tin Man linked CIA Near East Division head Ed Hoffman-implicitly linked to Lynch, and played by Crowe-who spied on Ferris from CIA HQ via film art evoking drone and satellite cameras throughout the film, Sir Scott also implicitly urged Kelly to let go of the fondness for the film art of Spielberg that he implicitly expressed in SOUTHLAND TALES and in his first twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature film DONNIE DARKO (2001).  Curiously, the collaboration between Ferris and Hoffman and the entire film itself constantly evoked the collaboration between CIA men Tom Bishop and Nathan Muir-played by Brad Pitt and Robert Redford, respectively-in the twilit and allegorical Tony Scott docufeature film SPY GAME (2001), implying that Sir Scott was also replying to his younger brother in BODY OF LIES.  At any rate, the daylit ending of BODY OF LIES-with the equally mysterious colleagues of big Hoffman brother back in implicitly Emerald City linked Washington watching Ferris in an Amman market via crystal ball satellite surveillance cameras again-affirmed that Sir Scott was still committed to a daylit new era of Ozian themed indie film art. 

 

Curiously, with its allusions to BODY OF LIES and the STAR WARS films, Reitman implied that he was roasting Lucas and Sir Scott in the implicit form of termination facilitator Ryan Bingham and his boss Craig Gregory-played by George Clooney and Jason Bateman, respectively-and urging both film artists not to get so caught up with the new digital film technology that they would lose the vital humanity of their film art in his twilit, allegorical and slightly CGI enhanced indie docufeature film UP IN THE AIR (2009).  Then Sir Scott outdid earlier films like THE DUELLISTS and BODY OF LIES that implicitly addressed one Canadian film artist when he teamed up once more with Crowe, Mathieson, Max, Scalia, Streitenfeld, Yates, Velibor Topic-who played Almaric in KINGDOM OF HEAVEN-and Simon McBurney, Oscar Isaac and Mark Strong-who played the implicitly Great Oz linked and fittingly surnamed Garland, Bassam and the implicitly Cowardly Lion linked Jordanian intelligence chief Hani Salaam, respectively, in BODY OF LIES-on his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster ROBIN HOOD (2010), released on May 12, 2010.

 

“In times of tyranny and injustice,

when law oppresses the people,

the outlaw takes his place in history.”

 

Indeed, the film was an implicit Canucklepalooza.  For embattled unrest erupted in England after the death in battle in France of the implicitly Cameron linked King Richard the Lionheart-played by Danny Huston-while on the way home from his last Crusade-an ironic death, given that King Richard the Lionheart-played by Iain Glen-was first seen heading off to his last crusade at the end of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.  Embattled unrest fomented by the devious and perhaps Besson linked King Phillip of France-played by Jonathan Zaccai-who turned the noblemen and people of England against the new and implicitly Xavier Dolan linked King John-played by Isaac-by having the Evil Sir Godfrey-played by Strong-attack English cities and towns with a small army and informing the inhabitants that the attacks were ordered by the new King. 

 

This led to a number of implicitly Canadian film artist linked noblemen like the implicitly Cronenberg linked Sir Walter Loxley sr.-played by Max Von Sydow-the implicitly Don Shebib linked Baron Baldwin-played by Robert Pugh-and the implicitly Ted Kotcheff linked Baron Fitzrobert-played by Gerard McSorley-joining up with the implicitly Bruce McDonald linked Robin “the Hood” Longstride-played by Crowe-and the implicitly Sarah Polley linked Marion Loxley-played by Kate Blanchett-to rally by the side of King John and fight off a French invasion force led by King Phillip and Sir Godfrey and aided by the implicitly Denis Villeneuve linked Belvedere-played by Topic.  This the Anglo Canadian defenders did, only to be betrayed by King John when he rewarded the plucky Canuck defenders by proclaiming a dictatorship, perhaps Sir Scott’s way of saying that Dolan was too fond of himself and of publicity, unlike most other Canadian film artists, and would hurt the reputation of Canadian film art with his exuberant narcissism and shameless self-promotion.  Indeed, the presence of Newfoundland musician Alan Doyle as Longstride’s friend, Allan A’Dayle, openly linked Robin and the film to Canadian artists, affirming the implicit Canuck roasting and toasting intent of ROBIN HOOD.

 

Like his implicitly open support for Lynch in WHITE SQUALL in the form of the teacher McCrea, Sir Scott implicitly came out in open support of Canuck film artists in the film.  For the Sir Scott resembling and implicitly linked William Marshal-played by William Hurt-supported the implicitly Canadian film artist linked defenders who saved England from King Phillip and then fled to the sanctuary of Sherwood Forest to continue to defend England against King John’s dictatorial rule at the end of the film.  Sir Scott’s implicit interest in Canada and its film artists and film art was reaffirmed by the cities of Peterborough and York, for they evoked cities and regions in Ontario.  Heck, just by creating ROBIN HOOD the Northern Rebel implicitly affirmed his support for Canadian film art and film artists, for the film recalled the allegorical  docufeature film ROBIN HOOD (1922), whose creation was overseen by Toronto born and raised film artist, Allan Dwan.

 

Curiously, the following year Sir Scott implicitly morphed from Wolverine into Clint “Hawkeye” Barton-based on a character created by Smilin’ Stan Lee and Doughty Don Heck for Marvel Comics, and played by Jeremy Renner-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Kenneth Branagh super satirical animaction film THOR (2011), released on April 17, 2011.  Then the Scott Brothers teamed up as executive producers and implicitly reaffirmed their commitment to a daylit new era of film art that literally transpired over the course of one sunny day, Saturday, July 24, 2010-pointedly a day after the twilit and disastrous day of July 23, 1982-from 4500 hours of digicam footage taken by thousands of people in 192 countries around the world and edited together in the daylit, allegorical and Ozian themed Kevin Macdonald indie documentary film LIFE IN A DAY (2011), released on January 27, 2011.

 

“It’s the best day ever!”

 

Indeed, the opening shots of the full moon in the cloud scudding early morning sky of July 24, 2010-shots that recalled similar shots at the beginning of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON-implicitly affirmed that the Scott brothers and Macdonald were breaking free from Landis and his twilit and disastrous grip in LIFE IN A DAY.  A co-director filming himself howling like a wolf at the moon, and another director, a Pakistani man with arms and legs covered in thick, black and wolf-like hair in the first images in the film reaffirmed the implicit interest in Landis.  However, when sunrise and daylight swept the night and twilight-like dawn away, the film and its wandering camera eyes attached to any moving object more closely resembled a huge, global, full colour and multi-contributor version of BOY AND BICYCLE, with the Scott brothers encouraging the world to skip school and join them in doing their own indie Scott free thing for a sunlit day, whether on film or otherwise. 

 

Indeed, the implicit link to BOY AND BICYCLE was affirmed by Korean world cyclist, Okhwan Yoon, filmed in Katmandu, Nepal, as he neared the end of his epic world bicycling journey with 190 countries toured, implicitly affirming that the Scott Free brothers were encouraging the world to do their own independent thing in LIFE IN A DAY-as well as recalled cyclist Noel L. Walcott III, also seen pursuing his own indie cycling path in Utah in THELMA AND LOUISE.  In fact, Yoon and his epic and gruelling world cycling journey implicitly symbolized the equally epic and gruelling film journeys of the Scott Free brothers, for the six times Yoon had been hit by cars on his journey evoked the box office flops of the brothers Scott.  At any rate, the Scott Fee brothers implicitly hoped that their journey, like Yoon’s journey, would not be in vain, and would help lead to an end to the twilit grip of Landis and the TZ disaster on film.  For the positive daylit imagery and vibes in LIFE IN A DAY and its emphasis on birth and life rather than death and dying affirmed that optimistic hope.  The candle lit and propelled balloons that filled the newly dark sky after sunset at the end of the film implicitly reaffirmed that hope, continuing the daylight and conquering the darkness as they drifted gently into the night sky like the Great Oz in his balloon at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ. 

 

An uplifting ending, indeed, and one that faded away like the candle propelled balloons when Sir Scott implicitly roasted Cameron and Cronenberg again when he teamed up again with Max, Scalia, Streitenfeld, Yates and Idris Alba-who played a gang leader named Tango in AMERICAN GANGSTER-and broke with his tradition of creating only staunchly original indie film art with a sequel to ALIEN in his next twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and CGI enhanced Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster PROMETHEUS (2012), released on April 11, 2012.

 

“The Titan Prometheus

wanted to give mankind

equal footing with the gods

and for that,

he was cast from Olympus. 

Well, my friends,

the time has finally come

for his return.”

 

 

Curiously, the film began with a prologue that saw a CGI spacecraft dropping off a muscle bound “Engineer”-one who evoked the equally muscular Thing in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!, and played by Daniel James-by a waterfall on an unnamed planet.  The muscle bound spacefarer then drank a virulent substance that caused him to fall into the waterfall and dissolve, infecting the planet’s waterways with his digital disease, perhaps implying that Sir Scott believed the wave of twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical films being released by DC/Warners and Disney/Marvel were an equally virulent disease that was plaguing the Temple Theatre.  After the prologue, the film soon cut to a shot of the huge and CGI realized Scientific Exploratory Vessel Prometheus arriving at an unidentified planet on December 21, 2093.  Significantly, this sight evoked the sight of the huge and CGI realized Venture Star arriving at the planet Polyphemus at the beginning of the allegorical and CGI enhanced Cameron indie docufeature animaction Zonebuster AVATAR (2009) which also arrived in the Temple Theatre shortly before Christmas-albeit in 2009-implying that Sir Scott was replying to AVATAR as well as addressing allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical films in PROMETHEUS. 

 

Indeed, one of the members of team of scientists on Prometheus was the Cameron resembling and implicitly linked Scotsman, Fifield-played by Sean Harris-affirming that Sir Scott was replying to AVATAR on one level in PROMETHEUS.  And clearly not too impressed with Cameron’s implicit optimism about the CGI enhanced film art era that he expressed in AVATAR, given that Fifield and most of the rest of the crew of the Prometheus were killed by CGI enhanced beasts or killed in the process of transforming into CGI enhanced beasts by the end of the film.  In fact, given that two of the only members of the crew who survived PROMETHEUS, the implicitly Cronenberg and Tin Man linked android, David-played by Michael Fassbender-and the implicitly Sofia Carmina (SCC) Coppola and Dorothy linked Doctor Elizabeth “Ellie” Shaw-played by Noomi Rapace-were linked to film artists who mostly eschewed CGI enhancement of their film art, Sir Scott implied that film artists who eschewed CGI enhancement would ensure the survival of film art, even as the arrival of the CGI enhanced film art era would simply inflict even bigger and nastier blockbuster beasts on audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre than ever before. 

 

Literally, as PROMETHEUS ended with a new, improved, angrily hissing and even more Wicked CGI enhanced biomechanical blockbuster alien beast being born out of the shattered remains of the last muscle bound Engineer-one who again evoked the equally rampaging Thing in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!, and played by Ian Whyte-again also implying that Sir Scott was just as unimpressed with CGI enhanced super satirical films as he was with AVATAR.  This birth of an even more beastly CGI enhanced biomechanical alien beast than ever before implied that Sir Scott believed that the hopeful and film set disaster preventing CGI enhanced film art age that had been ushered in by Lucas and Spielberg would be killed by the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast.  Indeed, the birth of this even more alienated and CGI enhanced black biomechanical blockbuster beast took place in the same flickering and film projector evoking light as that seen at the shocking end of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR and the more Ozian healing and soothing end of ALIEN, affirming the link to film art of this new CGI enhanced and pitiless beast.

 

Curiously, the head of the expedition, Ms. Meredith Vickers, was played by Charlize Theron, who played the implicitly Gary W. Wright linked Mavis Gary the year before in the brash twilit, allegorical and implicitly Wright roasting Reitman indie docufeature film YOUNG ADULT (2011).  This link to YOUNG ADULT was openly affirmed by the presence of Patrick Wilson as Dr. Shaw’s father in a hologram flashback, as Wilson played Buddy Slade in YOUNG ADULT.  The surname of Vickers and another space expedition member named Ford-played by Kate Dickie-reaffirmed a curious implicit interest in YOUNG ADULT and roasting Wright, for the surnames evoked a teacher surnamed Vickers-Shewman and a vice-principal surnamed Ford who Wright worked with at that time at Streetsville Secondary School in the Streetsville “town in a city” section of Mississauga, Ontario. The presence of another expedition member implicitly linked to Burton and surnamed Millburn-played by Rafe Spall-reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Wright, reminding us that he lived on Mill Street in Streetsville at the time of the release of PROMETHEUS.

 

All of which turned out to be fittingly and garishly prescient, for after Joss Whedon again implicitly linked Sir Scott to Barton-played again by Renner-and had him join the dissemblin’ superhero group the Avengers in a desperate battle against the implicitly Spielberg linked Loki-played by Tom Hiddleston-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS (2012), Sir Scott did indeed implicitly address Zone War film “scholar” Wright when he teamed up again with Fassbender, Max, Pitt, Scalia, Yates and Darusz Wolski-director of photography of PROMETHEUS-on his next twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster THE COUNSELOR (2013), released on October 3, 2013.

 

“I’m all right.”

 

Indeed, Sir Scott implied that the tragicomic tale of the naïve lawyer-Fassbender’s eponymous Counselor-whose life was destroyed when his beautiful wife, Laura-played by Penelope Cruz-was murdered after he infuriated duplicitous and blockbuster loot lusting Colombian drug dealers and the malignant and implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked Malkina-played by Cameron Diaz-was his allegorical way of telling the poor ol’ Gardevil that he was also foolish and naïve to think that he could save or transform film art with his “scholarly” website without irritating and provoking a backlash from equally duplicitous and blockbuster loot lusting Hollywood and its favourite groveling quisling, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).  Indeed, Sir Scott affirmed his implicit intent by the name of Malkina, which could mean “bad kino” or “bad cinema”.  The black SUVs that Malkina’s thugs drove to carry out their dirty deeds also evoked the black SUVs seen carrying around film artists and stars each year at TIFF, affirming Malkina’s implicit link to TIFF. 

 

Curiously, Sir Scott also implied his fear that Wright’s “revelations” would destroy Toronto film art and artists, just as the naivete of the Counselor destroyed such implicitly Cronenberg and McDonald linked characters as Reiner and Westray-played by Javier Bardem and Pitt, respectively-over the course of the film.  Indeed, Westray’s murder at the end of the film near a bank in London that evoked the headquarters of TIFF in Toronto affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Toronto film art and film artists.  Significantly, the same year as the doom and gloom of THE COUNSELOR, Zack Snyder implied that he understood the allegorical intent of BODY OF LIES and ROBIN HOOD, for he implicitly linked Jor-El-played by Crowe-to Sir Scott and had his digital ghost help his implicitly Reitman linked son, Clark/Kal-El “Superman” Kent-played by Henry Cavill-save Earth and indie film art in his more uplifting, twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film MAN OF STEEL (2013), an implicit interest in Sir Scott affirmed by the film’s allusions to ALIEN, BODY OF LIES, BLACK HAWK DOWN, LEGEND, PROMETHEUS and UP IN THE AIR. 

 

A film that perhaps did something to relieve the gloom of Sir Scott, for he implicitly lost interest in Wright and changed directions completely when he rejoined Max, Weaver, Wolski, Yates and Golshifteh Farahani-who played Aisha, the sweetie of Ferris, in BODY OF LIES-for his next twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and DUNE evoking Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS (2014), released on December 3, 2014 and dedicated to Tony Scott, who had killed himself by leaping off a bridge on August 19, 2012.

 

“This has nothing to do with you and I. 

This is far beyond that. 

This is about Egypt’s survival.”

 

For the sight of the Cameron resembling and implicitly linked Moses-played by Christian Bale-leading his fellow Jews out of Egypt and to the promised land to the impotent dismay of the implicitly Lucas linked Pharaoh Ramses the Great-played by Joel Edgerton-reminded us that it was Cameron who led CGI enhanced film art and admiring audiences into the new millennium with AVATAR and not Lucas and his STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy.  The choice of Edgerton as Pharoah Ramses the Great affirmed the film’s implicit Lucas roasting intent, for he played the impossibly young Owen Lars in the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy.  His shaven head also evoked the shaven heads of Robert Duvall’s THX 1138 and the rest of the despondent and drugged up underworld denizens of the allegorical Lucas indie docufeature film THX 1138 (1971), reaffirming his implicit link to Lucas and the implicit Lucas roasting intent of EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS.

 

For his part, Besson implicitly came to my support and roasted Sir Scott in the form of Taiwanese drug gang leader, Mr. Jang-playe-d by Choi Min-Sik-in his twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature film LUCY (2014), an implicit allegorical intent affirmed by all of the film’s allusions to BLACK RAIN, LIFE IN THE DAY and THE COUNSELOR.  As for the northern Reb, Sir Scott implied that he was in another and more garishly upbeat mood when he teamed up again with Max, Scalia, Wolski, Yates, Chiwetel Ejidfor-who played Huey Lucas in AMERICAN GANGSTER-and Benedict Wong-who played Ravel in PROMETHEUS-on his next twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and CGI enhanced Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster THE MARTIAN (2015), a film released on September 11, 2015 at TIFF which was based on the twilit and allegorical Andy Weir novel The Martian (2011).

 

“I’m definitely going to die up here

if I have to listen to anymore

God-awful disco music.”

 

For the sight and sound of Matt Damon’s poor ol’ Mark Watney stuck on his own in his small HAB unit on Mars after being accidentally carried away like Dorothy and left behind on the red planet by the departing crew of the Hermes III Mars mission when a Kansas tornado evoking Martian storm slammed into the expedition from Earth at the fateful and TZ disaster evoking hour of 2:30 am one tumultuous Martian morning and communicating with the crew and with Earth via typewritten computer messages evoked the poor ol’ hermetic Gardevil stuck in his tiny bachelor apartment in Marsissauga sometimes wearing his Habs jersey and communicating with the world via typewritten computer messages on his Zone Wars website throughout THE MARTIAN.  Only without the disco music. 

 

Indeed, the presence of Kate Mara’s Johanssen on the Hermes III affirmed the implicit Gardevil addressing intent of the film, reminding us that Scarlett Johansson had played the implicitly Gardevil linked Lucy in LUCY.  The sight and sound of Jessica Chastain as the Polley evoking Hermes III Commander Melissa Lewis and Michael Pena as the Adam Beach evoking Hermes III pilot “Buck” Martinez also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Canadian film art, film artists and film “scholars”.  Thus, rescuing Watney from imprisonment in the HAB and returning him to humanity on Earth implied the hope of Sir Scott that Wright would also one day be liberated from his confining apartment and his Zone War obsessions and returned to the presence of other people, if only so as to get him to stop writing and posting his annoying all word essays and Lucas book chapters on his website. 

 

For his part, Whedon again implicitly and ironically linked Sir Scott to Barton-played again by Renner-when Hawkeye rejoined his fellow Avengers to take on and take out the implicitly Lynch linked Ultron-voiced by James Spader-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015).  Anthony and Joe Russo also implicitly linked Sir Scott to Barton-played again by Renner-and had him battle on the side of implicitly American film artist linked superheroes led by the implicitly Clint Eastwood linked Steve “Captain America” Rogers-played by Chris Evans-against super heroes implicitly linked to Canada led by the implicitly Reitman linked Tony “Iron Man” Stark-played again by Downey jr.-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016).  Then Sir Scott implied again that he was worried that the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast would kill film art for film art’s sake when he rejoined Fassbender, Scalia, Wolski, Yates and Guy Pearce-who played Peter Weyland, CEO of Weyland Corporation, the owners of Prometheus, in PROMETHEUS-to round off the Alien Trilogy with the twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and CGI enhanced Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster ALIEN: COVENANT (2017), released on May 4, 2017.

 

“We are all aliens.”

 

Significantly, the sight of the implicitly Cronenberg linked David-played again by Fassbender-piloting an Engineer ship back to their home world of Origae-6 and wiping out the population of their capital city-or did the city represent the six part Toronto mega city?-with blockbuster CGI disease reaffirmed that Sir Scott was still worried about CGI enhanced blockbuster film art despite confidently and optimistically embracing CGI enhancement in EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS and THE MARTIAN.  With an astronaut named “Danny” Daniels-played by Katherine Waterston-who resembled and was implicitly linked to Alice Munro, Sir Scott also continued to meditate on Canadian artists in the film.  Curiously, however, his fear of the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast was implicitly softened when he rejoined Ford, Olmos, Young, Zimmer and BLADE RUNNER screenwriter Hampton Fancher as executive producer and implicitly addressed Lynch again in the twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and CGI enhanced Villeneuve indie docufeature artbuster BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017), released on October 3, 2017.

 

“To be born is to have a soul, I guess.”

 

Indeed, the cigarette smoking and coffee drinking Replicant Blade Runner Agent KD6-3.7-played by Ryan Gosling-who served his LAPD boss, Joshi-played by Robin Wright-like androids David and Walter-both played by Fassbender-served their human colleagues in PROMETHEUS and ALIEN: COVENANT, was implicitly linked to the cigarette smoking and coffee loving David Keith Lynch throughout the film.  This implied that Agent K’s triumph over the callous cruelty and mendacity of the implicitly Cameron linked Nyander Wallace-played by Jared Leto-his Wallace Corporation and its new and improved Replicants, in the end, symbolized the triumph of the indie moving paintings of Lynch over the CGI enhanced blockbuster Zonebusters of Cameron. 

 

However, despite their implied support for moving paintings, Sir Scott and Villeneuve also held out hope that after decades of working out the bugs, the age of the CGI enhanced artbuster had finally arrived.  For over the course of the film, Agent K discovered that Deckard and Tyrell had not only successfully escaped from Deckard’s apartment building at the end of BLADE RUNNER, they had also successfully conceived and given birth to a daughter two years after the events of the first film in 2021, implying that Deckard was human after all, despite his glowing replicant eyes in the various versions of BLADE RUNNER.  Significantly, the child of Deckard and Tyrell grew up to be a Replicant memory specialist named Doctor Ana Stelline-played by Carla Juri-who, as a fusion of human and hi-tech, was a living symbol of the new era of the CGI enhanced artbuster.  Indeed, the fact that the serial number of Rachael Tyrell was revealed to be N7FAA52318 affirmed Dr. Stelline’s symbolic status.  For the 723 hidden in her mother’s serial number reminded us that the TZ disaster had inspired the development of CGI in the hopes that its use to enhance film art would prevent future film set disasters by allowing film artists to create realistic dangerous effects sequences digitally, thus creating a new era of disaster free CGI enhanced film art.

 

Unfortunately, while BLADE RUNNER 2049 was not as incomprehensible as BLADE RUNNER, it was still nonetheless another Great Flawed Film like the various versions of BLADE RUNNER.  A fate that Sir Scott avoided when he returned to Roma with Max, Wolski and Yates to implicitly address Lynch again and wrap up a Wright Trilogy in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Scott Free indie docufeature artbuster ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (2017), a film that was released on December 18, 2017, was inspired by the John Pearson book All The Money In The World (2017) and evoked A GOOD YEAR, GLADIATOR, HANNIBAL and THELMA AND LOUISE.

 

“You want your money,

I want Paul.”

 

Indeed, after beginning in a black and white film that slowly transformed into full colour-a black and white to colour beginning that reminded us that Lynch like Sir Scott began with black and white film before switching to colour for his moving paintings-in Roma in the early morning hours of July 10, 1973 with the kidnapping of blonde teen John Paul Getty III-played by Charles “Charlie” Plummer-by a group of indie Calabrian criminals, callous kidnappers implicitly linked to Spielberg given the film’s allusions to the allegorical Spielberg docufeature film CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977).  Then the scene shifted to the extraordinarily wealthy world of Paul’s paternal and blockbuster loot lusting grandfather, John Paul “J. Paul” Getty-played by Christopher Plummer-inside the spacious interiors of the palatial Getty Estate in England, a sight and sound that evoked the equally spacious interiors of the Imperial Palace of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV on Khaitain at the beginning of DUNE, implicitly affirming the film’s interest in Lynch and the implicit link of art and painting luving Lynch to the art and painting luving senior Getty in ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD.  Indeed, the name of Paul and the middle name of J. Paul reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch and DUNE, reminding us that DUNE revolved around the heady adventures of the mystic messiah Paul “Maud’dib” Atreides-played by Kyle MacLachlan.

 

Curiously, with the kidnapping of Paul and the indifference to that kidnapping-a kidnapping that evoked the kidnapping of Donald and Donny Watts [played by Dick Green and Jo Jo Snipes, respectively], complete with severed right Van Gogh ear, in BLUE VELVET-on the part of J. Paul, Paul’s mother, the desperate, determined and dimunitive single mother Abigail “Gail” Harris-played by Michelle Williams-literally entered the picture and worked tirelessly and indomitably to secure the release of her son with the help of the fittingly surnamed ex-CIA Agent Fletcher Chace-who resembled departing TIFF CEO Piers Handling, and was played by Mark Wahlberg.  Significantly, Gail looked, dressed and acted like my own mother, Gail Wright, throughout the film, implicitly linking me to young Paul.  It was also noticeable that Gail and Paul triumphed over J. Paul and the Calabrian captors, in the end, implying the hope of Sir Scott that the poor ol’ Gardevil would triumph over Lynch-who implicitly roasted Wright in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced  indie telemoving painting series TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES (2017)-and Spielberg with his film “scholarship” and then leave behind the dread allegorical Zone Wars and return to his momma’s luvving arms…before it was too late!  Like the implicit link of Chace to Handling, the presence of Williams certainly linked the film to Toronto and its film art, film artists and film “scholars” as she played Margot in the twilit, allegorical and openly Toronto set Polley indie docufeature film TAKE THIS WALTZ (2011).

 

At any rate, the film was definitely another implicit admonishment from Sir Scott to stick to true indie film artbusters and avoid blockbuster lusts, given that Getty was so obsessed with money that he did not notice that some, and perhaps all, of the art that he purchased from more shrewd and knowing operators over the course of the film were fakes.  An implicit dedication to indie film artbusters and interest in addressing the poor ol’ Gardevil that the son of Sir Scott continued when Jake Scott implicitly linked the struggles of the Mavis Gary evoking single mother Debbie “Deb” Callahan-played by Sienna Miller-to the struggles of the poor ol’ Gardevil and also implicitly wished that the POG would just leave behind the dread allegorical Zone Wars and go off to something better like Deb when she drove away from her disappointing life at the end of the twilit, allegorical, YOUNG ADULT evoking and Sir Scott co-produced indie docufeature film AMERICAN WOMAN (2018), a film released on June 7, 2018. 

 

And so young Scott followed in his father’s lonely and solitary but resolute and fearless Northern Rebel footsteps.  And so Sir Scott donned the director/producer hats and teamed up again with Max, Wolski and Yates to implicitly complete a Foursfull Wright Quartet in the daylit, allegorical, and CGI enhanced indie docufeature artbuster THE LAST DUEL [2021], a film released on September 10, 2021 that often evoked THE DUELLISTS.

 

“It was right!

…So be it.

God will spare those who tell the truth,

and the truth will prevail.”

 

 Indeed, Sir Scott implicitly hoped that Wright would triumph over Reitman and avenge violated film art like the honour and truth obsessed, unswerving, indomitable and implicitly Wright linked knight Sir Jean de Carrouges-played by Damon-triumphed over the rapacious and implicitly Reitman linked Captain Jacques le Gris-played by Adam Driver-to avenge his beautiful, blonde, violated and implicitly Polley linked wife Marguerite de Carrouges-played by Jodie Comer-in a bloody and brutal duel to the death at the end of the film.  Curiously, Sir Scott then donned the director/producer hats and returned to the Temple Theatre that year again with Max, Wolski, Yates and composer Harry Gregson-Williams and editor Claire Simpson-both from THE LAST DUEL-with the daylit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature artbuster HOUSE OF GUCCI [2021], a film released on November 9, 2021 that will clearly need some time to fully understand its implicit allegorical intent.

 

And so with only two real duds-one of them a Great Flawed Film-in a long and distinguished career, Sir Scott was correct to listen to his intuition as a youth and break free to walk that lonely and solitary path of instinctive film art and make great indie docufeature artbuster film art for indie docufeature artbuster’s sake.  For most film artists would be pleased to have made just one film of the calibre of THE DUELLISTS or ALIEN or THELMA AND LOUISE or WHITE SQUALL or GLADIATOR or KINGDOM OF HEAVEN or A GOOD LIFE or PROMETHEUS or EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS or THE MARTIAN, let alone all of them.  Indeed, it was the very high quality of and his unswerving commitment to indie film art and indie film artists that linked his otherwise noticeably and sometimes jarringly different films together.  A truly fantastic filmography of excellent, inspirational and memorable Scott Free indie docufeature artbusters that ensured that indeed was Sir Scott the Northern Rebel.

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

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-----.  Martian Time-Slip.  New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

 

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-----.  The Penultimate Truth.  London: Orion Publishing Group,

        2005.

 

Giger, H.R.  H.R. Giger: retrospective 1964-1984.  Beverly Hills,

        CA: Morpheus International, 2000.

 

Kerman, Judith B.  Retrofitting BLADE RUNNER: issues in

        Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER and Philip K. Dick’s

        Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?  Madison, WI:

        University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.

 

Knapp, Laurence F. and Andrea F. Kulas, ed.  Ridley Scott Interviews.  Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.

 

Robb, Brian J.  Counterfeit Worlds.  London: Titan Books, 2006.

 

-----.  Ridley Scott.  Harpenden, Herts, UK: Pocket Essentials, 2005.

 

Sammon, Paul M.  Future Noir: the making of BLADE RUNNER.  New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996.