A 1750s SCOTTISH Karate Kid?

I just watched the original Karate Kid film for Myopia Movies and coincidentally found this Tumblr post that Canadian author Bruno Lombardi, whom I know from the alternate history forum, posted on Facebook.

I thought that would actually be pretty fun to watch and joined in the brainstorming. For the Scottish scenario, I suggested the equivalent to the Japanese Internment would be German bombing of Scottish cities and evacuation of Scots to Canada, with "Mr. MacMiyagi" as the sole survivor of a U-Boat attack on the ship evacuating his clan. Bruno's friend, fellow writer Jonathan Edelstein, suggested instead it could actually take place in the early modern period, with "Mr. MacMiyagi's" personal tragedy being the Highland Clearances.

So here's the scenario we hashed out:

*Daniel is from the yeoman class, while Ali is gentry. There's a clear class difference, but they're both landowners. Mr. and Mrs. Mills aren't going to be exactly impressed, but the class difference isn't such a problem for them that they're going to have Daniel kidnapped and shipped to the Colonies as an indentured servant or quietly murdered. Perhaps Daniel's father was killed in one of Britain's wars during this period rather than dying of cancer and so the Mills, however skeptical they are of this poor(er) man, at least have that respect for Daniel. If he's an officer rather than "the scum of the earth" who formed the enlisted ranks in this period, even better. Edelstein suggested the LaRussos might own enough land to be able to vote, albeit at the lowest possible level (a "forty shilling freehold").

*Our elderly friend "Mr. MacMiyagi" is a Scot who fought for the British government against the 1745 Jacobite insurrection, but was driven off his land during the clearances. During the disaster his wife died in childbirth and his son died with her and with his home gone, he drifted southward and became a groundskeeper or gardener on the Mills' family estate. Traumatized by his various mishaps, he keeps to himself and engages in stereotypically Scottish hobbies like shinty (the Scottish equivalent of Irish hurling) or (if he's literate), writing Scottish poetry?

*The equivalent of Johnny and his Cobra Kai gang are "young gents" who dislike someone they view as little better than a peasant wooing a girl of their class, with Johnny in particular being a spurned suitor of Ali. Given how much more power parents' had over their children's, particularly daughters', romantic choices in this period, perhaps Mr. Mills is somewhat less oblivious than his movie equivalent and recognizes Johnny for the incipient wife-beater he is, or perhaps he also looks down on Johnny on class grounds. After all, Cobra Kai gets more into Johnny's backstory and "the money" he comes from his from his stepfather who barely tolerates him, not his birth family. Perhaps his mother is an actress or from a similarly low-class background who "married up" and the illegitimate Johnny was part of the package? Not only is Johnny a hormonal and jealous a-hole, but he's also classist and nasty toward Daniel because he's overcompensating for his own impoverished background.

*Bobby, one of the Cobra Kais in the original film who tries to restrain Johnny from his grotesque behavior toward Daniel, is an early Wesleyan. In the Cobra Kai series, we later see that he's become a preacher, so he sticks with it.

*"MacKreese" is another veteran of Culloden, only he fought for the Jacobites. He has a beef with "MacMiyagi" for that reason, plus the fact his side lost. He runs his quarterstaff club (I doubt they'd have martial-arts dojos in England at this time) like a particularly abusive military unit, spinning it to his charges' parents that he's teaching them discipline so they don't end up dissolute libertines. Thing is, instead they're a bunch of angry young men abusing peasants (think Chozen from the second film cheating people at the grocery store) or peers they dislike (i.e. Daniel).

So we have something roughly similar to the canonical film in which Johnny and his gang bully Daniel for courting Ali, but an attempt to jump him and murder him is interrupted by "Mr. MacMiyagi" totally wrecking them the way Mr. Miyagi wiped out five Cobra Kai students in seconds in the canonical film. Given the legal hell to pay a poor Scot is going to get for beating up some English gentlemen even in defense of an English yeoman (especially if their parents are important local nobles), perhaps "MacKreese" and "Mr. MacMiyagi" agree to allow Daniel to fight some kind of duel with Johnny rather than getting the law involved? "MacKreese" could spin this as some kind of test for his students (or put on a show of not wanting "Sassenach" laws judging another Scot), but it's really part of some kind of elaborate revenge on "Mr. MacMiyagi" for the Battle of Culloden?

Things start to get a little tricky when we tried to come up with a Scottish equivalent of Mr. Miyagi's traditional Okinawan/Japanese wisdom (be it authentic or something underinformed Americans would *think* was traditional Okinawan/Japanese wisdom). Edelstein said setting it in the 1750s would be too early for Robert Burns, but "MacMiyagi" could tell embellished stories of the founding of various Scottish clans or the great William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. And instead of Daniel's crane kick, there's a finishing move called "the Kelpie."

I personally am rather disinclined to join with woketarians in attacking The Karate Kid (see Ralph Macchio's defense of the original film when it's criticized for being "too white"), but I also recognize the concept of "turnabout is fair play." So if someone actually wanted to make a parody of TKK that riffs on the Magical Asian Mentor and Mighty Whitey tropes, I'd be all for it.

Crossing Over THE CARE BEARS...With RIFTS

About six weeks ago, I spotted some discussion on the We Hate Movies Facebook group about unlikely fictional crossovers. It looked like a fun discussion, so I contributed a crossover between the rather violent role-playing game Rifts and the cheerful 1980s children's cartoon The Care Bears.

It's not as ridiculous as it sounds...the world of Rifts includes a lot of extradimensional beings. The Care Bears are clearly not from our world, while Dark Heart, the villain of Care Bears II: A New Generation, clearly is some kind of demon.

So here goes...

The Care Bears are beings of goodwill who have been observing Earth for some time from the pocket dimension of the Kingdom of Caring and can see the apocalypse coming. Being well-intentioned but not particularly powerful, they generally intervene in relatively small ways--befriending lonely children, getting people to talk about their feelings rather than lashing out, curing a town of unnatural depression, teaching lessons about the virtues of hard work, etc.--and hoping that like a falling pebble triggering an avalanche, the coming darkness can be averted.

And for a time it actually works. In Care Bears II, for example, the monstrous shape-shifting Dark Heart is not only defeated in his schemes to spur children at a summer camp into violence and destruction, but renounces his wickedness and becomes a real boy. Through the power of kindness, not only is a powerful supernatural force for evil neutralized, but it actually becomes a mortal force for good.

(Maybe the redeemed Dark Heart and Christy went on to found a food bank or something. Who knows?)

However, that's only a Hope Spot before the darkness falls--a nuclear war kills so many people that it reignites the dormant ley lines, tearing open holes in the fabric of reality and bringing in all sorts of aliens, monsters, and supernatural beings into the devastated Earth.

But somewhere in a ruined Magitek world, there are still several small bear-like creatures doing their best to make things better...

ENOLA HOLMES: The Possibilities of an Indian Inspector Lestrade

In the recent Netflix series Enola Holmes, the police officer Inspector Lestrade is played by Adeel Akhtar, who is of Pakistani background. In the original stories, there's no indication that Lestrade was anything but a white Briton (although his name is actually French) and someone online suggested this was simply a case of colorblind casting where the actor's ethnicity/nationality is simply not considered in picking the role, making Lestrade Indian actually raises some interesting possibilities in regards to his back-story and characterization.

For starters, why is an Indian man working as a police officer in Great Britain in 1884, the year the reform bill that's a big part of the movie passed? Akhtar himself suggested that his Lestrade came from a working-class background and had to work his way up to his police position, leaving his back-story full of possibilities.

*India at the time was part of the British Empire and theoretically Indians could travel and live anywhere within its bounds--the Komogata Maru Incident I helped research as a graduate student was a legal test of that concept). Furthermore, many Indian sailors lived in port towns and even had British wives due to there being so very few Indian women in Britain. Akhtar's Lestrade could be from that background, perhaps a former sailor or a child of such, which would tie in with the working-class background. A 1931 census indicated there were thousands of Indian students in British universities, so Lestrade could be going to school part-time and paying for it by working as a police officer. Given his apparent age, this could be something he's been working at for awhile.

*Another possibility is that his presence in the UK is related to the Indian Civil Service. According to the book I used when I taught AP World History, theoretically anybody could work in the Indian Civil Service, but because examinations were held in Britain, it was extraordinarily difficult for Indians to access them. The Indian National Congress was actually founded in part to include more Indians in government--it didn't start out as a national independence movement. Lestrade's family could have paid for him to come to Great Britain to take the exams, he failed, and he's working as a police officer to pay them back. Or more optimistically, he hasn't taken the exams yet and this is how he supports himself until he does. His associations with the civil-service might explain why he is a police officer despite not being British--an Indian man applying to Scotland Yard might be rejected due concerns he might not be able to do the job effectively as a foreigner or simple straight-up racism, but an exception might be made for a civil-service candidate, either current or previous.

*Also, given how Lestrade's name is actually French, there are some other possibilities. This might be a name he adopted upon coming to Britain, indicating a desire to assimilate (especially since one study, albeit a disputed one, suggests Britons with Norman names are wealthier than those without even centuries after the conquest) or perhaps a Dark and Troubled Past he's trying to avoid. Alternatively, given how the French had a colonial presence in India before being defeated by the British, perhaps he's distantly descended from a Frenchman? Bonus points if as such he's actually Catholic, given the history of anti-Catholicism in Britain even in the 19th Century.

Although I'm almost certainly reading too much into this, if more Enola Holmes films are made (it is based on a book series) and Akhtar continues to play the role, this could be an interesting rabbit hole to go down. And if anybody wants to write a fan fiction story elaborating on this, go right ahead.

(Heck, Lestrade is public domain by now--although one wonders if a specifically Indian one is--so you could actually write a novel. Just leave out Enola completely and it probably won't be a copyright issue.)

Blast From The Past Movie Review: 13th Warrior (1999)

For the current season of Myopia Movies, we're pairing freely-available episodes with episodes available only to our patrons. Our episode on the 2009 reboot of Star Trek, for example, was paired with a patrons-only episode on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the surprisingly good one with the whales). Now we're pairing Twister, written by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, with a patrons-only episode on The 13th Warrior, based on Crichton's novel Eaters of the Dead and partly directed by Crichton himself.

If you want to listen to the podcast (it's available now), sign up for the Patreon here, but in the meantime here's my review.

The Plot

*The real-life historical figure (and in this version of the tale, a court poet of the Abbasid Caliph) Ahmed ibn Fadlan (Antonio Banderas), after an indiscretion involving another man's wife, is sent from Baghdad on a diplomatic mission to the Volga Bulgars in modern-day Russia. Along the way, he encounters a group of Norsemen whose king has recently died. After the king's funeral celebration, an envoy arrives from another Norse king, Hrothgar (Sven Hollter), seeking the warriors' help against an ancient evil. A Norse wise woman prophesies that thirteen warriors are needed to defeat this evil and one must be "no Northman," so ibn Fadlan is inducted into the mission despite his vigorous protests.

Now the thirteen warriors, led by the chieftain Buliwyf (Vladimir Kulich), have to travel to the northerners' homeland, to do battle with the vicious Wendol, a horror that, as the book describes it, "slaughters the Vikings and devours their flesh."

The Good

*The film is entertaining and never boring. It moves along at a brisk clip and made my elliptical sessions go much faster.

*I liked the overall concept. Some people online who seemed to think the book was actually real history basically described it as "Vikings fighting Neanderthals in ancient Russia" and were I a movie producer or book publisher and someone pitched this to me, I'd definitely want more information. More on the Neanderthal part later...

*I liked the initial focus on the Vikings in Russia, before they return to their homeland to fight the wendol. The popular image of Vikings in Western culture is based on their raiding in Ireland, England, and France and the accounts are largely written by monks who were their victims. The Vikings also traveled eastward--they sailed down the great rivers of Eastern Europe to the Black Sea and founded the cities that became the centers of Russian civilization. The Byzantine emperors' Varangian Guard was largely made up of Norse. Vladimir I, the prince of Kiev, converted to Orthodoxy to marry an emperor's sister and assisted him in putting down a rebellion. There were even Norse expeditions on the Caspian Sea, to plunder as far as Iran.

*And although most of what happens in Eaters of the Dead is fictional, the first part of the book consists of (or is at least heavily based on) the historical ibn Fadlan's account of the Vikings when he was a diplomat in modern-day Russia. Islamic involvement with the Norse (or the early Russians for that matter) is something that isn't well-known either, so I'm glad Eaters was made into a film even though they weren't able to spend a whole lot of time on this part.

*The casting is good. Although some might raise eyebrows at casting Spanish actor Antonio Banderas as an Arab, the Arabs ruled Spain for hundreds of years. Banderas likely has least some Arab background even if it's way back, and he's a box-office draw (even if unfortunately that wasn't enough to save the film). And the legendary Egyptian actor Omar Sharif has a role here as well, albeit not a big one. The Vikings all look the part and have good accents--at no point do we reach "John Wayne as Genghis Khan" levels of miscasting.

*There's some good attention to detail, like the casting of Diane Venora (an American presumably of Italian background) as the Norse queen Wealthow. In the older Germanic languages the "weal-" sound is used to designate "foreigner" (hence the Celtic Welsh and the Wallachians in modern-day Romania) and she's a darker, lithe Mediterranean type, not a big blonde Nordic. Although the book includes the "Venus figurines" as a Wendol cultural icon, the addition of the Wendol general with the "horns of power" alongside the Wendol's priestess-goddess "mother" seems like they were going for some kind of proto-Wicca--the Goddess and the Horned God. The Norse are also extraordinarily brave in battle because of their religious beliefs--they believe the day of their death has been determined already, so there's no point in retreating or trying to hide. And at another point, weregild is paid to prevent a blood feud.

*Some of the dialogue is pretty funny. Herger (Dennis Storhøi) gets the best lines, but Weath (Tony Curran) gets some too. Banderas' ibn Fadlan gets some good moments in, especially when he shows that despite being a little guy riding a small horse he can be pretty bad-ass himself.

*And some of the serious dialogue is legitimately good, like a character who is mortally wounded (in the film cut with a poisoned blade; in the book a gut wound pierces either the stomach or intestine) claiming he will die a pauper. One character promises the burial of a king, but the person instead wishes someone who can "draw sounds" to tell his story so it would be remembered. Spoilers ahead, but you can see the dialogue in the Heartwarming page of TVTropes.

*The soundtrack is really good. A lot of very dramatic music, as befits the subject matter.

The Bad

*It was difficult to tell the various Northmen apart. Buliwyf stands out because he's the leader, is wise enough to recognize the value of writing, and has all the presence and charisma of a particularly large brick. Meanwhile, Herger is funny and keeps calling ibn Fadlan "little brother." However, the rest really aren't developed. TVTropes goes so far as to depict most of their names and epithets (like "Halga the Wise") as Informed Attributes, since we don't see them. That's one of the film's great failings. At DragonCon one year S.M. Stirling said that books make good miniseries or TV shows and adapting Eaters of the Dead into a miniseries or TV show would have been really helpful in this respect. Hey Netflix or Hulu, need something? :) Even a three-hour Lord of the Rings-esque film would have been better.

*The book plays up the differences between Norse polytheism and ibn Fadlan's Islam, but all we get the in film is one line about how ibn Fadlan is from a land where one god is enough but that's not the case in Scandinavia, the fact ibn Fadlan actually has personal hygiene in way the Norse most definitely don't, and some rules-lawyering about how as a Muslim he's forbidden to drink beer or wine but honey-based mead is just fine. The culture shock for the courtly Muslim in the land of violent, unhygienic pagans could have been much more developed. The book plays this up a lot more (ibn Fadlan has a running commentary on the Norse throughout most of it), but most of that didn't get into the film. I don't agree with fellow podcaster Nic's position that his being an Arab Muslim means so little that they could have just made him European or per Jon's suggestion Chinese (for starters, that would be an utterly pointless deviation from the book), but this is still a missed opportunity.

*There's a travel montage depicting the Norse making their way back to what in the book is pretty obviously Denmark from their riverside camp in Russia, but it's disjointed and it's not clear what's really going on other than ibn Fadlan gradually learning Norse and showing off his riding ability to the Norse who look down on his small Arabian horse. Some kind of Indiana Jones-style map-montage depicting their route might've been nice, or at least a more coherent "we're traveling overland through the Russian interior until we get to the Baltic coast and then we're taking ships home" journey would've been better. The Lord of the Rings films' depiction of Aragorn taking the Hobbits to Rivendell and then the combined Fellowship of the Ring traveling from Rivendell to Moria would be a good model, although since those movies came out later straight-up copying wouldn't work.

*In one of ibn Fadlan's prayers, he refers to God as "Father." It's my understanding that that's a very Christian thing, not a Muslim thing at all.

*The book very strongly implies the Wendol are a group of remnant Neanderthals. Ibn Fadlan comments specifically on their heavy, bony brows, for example, and this DeviantArt image of what they should look like includes relevant text from the book. However, other than a comment on how they look like the mating of a human and an animal, this never comes up. When we see them without their bearskin disguises, they look like ordinary people, not Neanderthals or some sort of "ancient evil." For all we know these could be some random tribe of cannibals that have managed to gather a large force of cavalry and get the drop on an isolated Norse settlement, not the monsters the Vikings claim they are. It would have been more interesting if the movie touched on the fringe theory that Norse mythology about trolls were either ancient racial memories of Neanderthals or that a small population of them survived into historic times or the even more fringe theory that most of humans' distinctiveness from other primates came from evolving to defeat Neanderthal predation. It might've cost a bit more, but hiring shorter and more heavily-built actors to play the Wendol and making them up to look just Neanderthal enough (bigger noses, heavier brows) to trigger the Uncanny Valley effect would've been an improvement.

*Per the above, a major villain looks nothing like the Venus figurines or her depiction in the book as a hideously fat old woman. Instead she's this swarthy ninja girl with poisoned weapons. Per IMDB, she was originally portrayed by an older actress, but Michael Crichton (who directed reshoots of the film) thought it wouldn't look good for Buliwyf to fight an old woman. Here's what the character should look like, at least if she were slimmed down a bit.

*It would have been better in a couple of battle sequences if the Wendol were less numerous. It's true the Vikings have metalworking and the Wendol seem to be generally Stone Age, but the Wendol seem to outnumber the Norsemen so absurdly at times that they could bury them in their corpses if nothing else. Think Zulu Dawn (about the Battle of Isandlwana) in which around 20,000 essentially Iron Age Zulu spearmen (with a few riflemen) destroyed just under 2,000 19th Century British troops armed with rifles and possibly even artillery while taking around 2,000 to 4,000 casualties.

The Verdict

Not the best adaptation of Eaters of the Dead that it could have been, but it's not a waste of your time either. 8.0 out of 10. If you want to listen to Myopia's take on the film, go to our Patreon page and sign up.

Ideas for a Soft Reboot/Sequel for HELLRAISER...

A common complaint about the state of the film industry these days is that it's all sequels and reboots, with few original ideas. One film that's been subject to Sequelitis and has had a reboot in Development Hell for years is Hellraiser, the tale of an occult puzzle box that can be used to summon the grotesque Pinhead and his Cenobites, "demons to some and angels to others."

This subject was discussed on one of the horror-related Facebook groups I joined in order to hawk my novel The Thing in the Woods and so I posted some of my thoughts on what such a film should look like in response to a June 23 post. The following discussion is my ideas, expanded.

Much like J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek, one could have a sequel that's also a "soft reboot." Ashley Laurence and Doug Bradley, who are both alive and in good health, could return as Kirsty Cotton and Pinhead respectively. The decline in the series began after Hellraiser 3, in which they have a completely new protagonist Joey Summerskill (Terry Ferrell), and it went straight to video after Hellraiser: Bloodline. They brought Kirsty back for Hellraiser: Hellseeker, but that was direct-to-DVD and had a plot that made no sense--there is no way in hell (hee-hee) that Kirsty would be stupid enough to touch anything resembling the Lament Configuration again. And they replaced Bradley with other actors in Hellraiser: Revelations and Hellraiser: Judgement and I've heard very little good about those films--they were very low budget and existed only so the production company could keep the rights. And Bradley wanted nothing to do with them. Fortunately Bradley himself is a good sport and is up for reprising his role.

However, both actors are a lot older than they were back in the 1980s--Laurence is in her mid-50s and Bradley is nearly 70--so it can't just be "Kirsty and Pinhead at it again." Since the original cast is aging and the idea is to reboot the series, this could be a means of giving the original cast their last hurrah before they hand off the torch to a new generation.

My idea would be take Hellseeker into account, but make it a nightmare Kirsty had or some kind of hallucination induced by a head injury from the film's car accident. Kirsty is older and married to Trevor (Dean Winters) and they have teenage children. Due to her experiences in the first two films, Kirsty has a lot of baggage and isn't the easiest person in the world to deal with, a contributing factor to her husband cheating on her.

(Obviously not to the degree he does in Hellseeker--in that one he was unfaithful to Kirsty with three separate women. However, Kirsty is likely a jumpy paranoid mess due to her backstory, so she might think it was more than just him venting about his marital problems to a sympathetic coworker and things just getting out of control from there.)

Kirsty, though she's understandably upset (especially given how she remembers Frank and Julia), doesn't file for divorce--yet. After all, she knows the pain a broken home can cause a child--she moved out of her father's home and lived in a nasty apartment rather than share a home with Julia--and doesn't want to inflict this on her own children, who aren't aware of his adultery. Furthermore, she recognizes Trevor strayed in part due to drama caused by her own issues. However, their marriage is in a very fragile state and more problems arise when a letter from a foreign bank arrives. They've been trying to find the next of kin for one Frank Cotton for twenty-odd years--a small amount of money he'd stashed away has, through the magic of compound interest, grown to a somewhat larger sum. Trevor would like to put the money for some useful purpose (perhaps a family vacation to make everybody feel better, or some needed renovations on the house), but Kirsty, suspecting the money was gained through crime--Frank in the novella The Hellbound Heart smuggles heroin and earns money through other illegal means--wants nothing to do it.

(In Hellseeker Kirsty was the beneficiary of both Larry and Frank's wills and didn't want to spend the latter's money, viewing it as dirty. However, it was apparently a large sum and Trevor was able to enlist a close friend in a plot to kill her to get his hands on it. However, Larry doesn't seem particularly rich in the first film and in the book Frank is always in debt due to his hedonistic lifestyle. More realistic that Frank had some bug-out money hidden somewhere and it's been slowly accumulating interest ever since.)

However, this isn't going to be a domestic drama however much the original Hellraiser came off as one at times. Pinhead is involved somehow, either to get his hands on Kirsty at long last or go after her children like Captain Hook threatened Peter's family in the film Hook. 

(Pinhead has shown a willingness to make deals, like sparing Kirsty to lead him to the escaped Frank in the first film and Kirsty's own bargain with him in Hellseeker. Perhaps someone from the bank had solved the Lament Configuration but Pinhead, upon learning he had found Kirsty, agreed to let him help take her instead.)

If the goal is hand off the franchise to a new generation, in the resulting confrontation Pinhead and Kirsty (and perhaps Trevor too) are all killed. That might be tricky given how Pinhead withstands gunshots and even futuristic laser cannon in some of the films, but maybe Kirsty could run him over with her car (something that would inflict a lot more damage than a single bullet or laser beam) and die in the process, defeating her old enemy at the cost of her own life. 

However, her sacrifice is in vain--the forces of Hell claim one of Kirsty's children as a new Cenobite. However, another manages to escape and vows to reclaim them for humanity, something Hellraiser II: Hellbound showed was possible with the Channard Cenobite reverting Pinhead to Captain Elliott Spencer before killing him. To save their sibling, the character would seek occult knowledge and we could use that to bring in concepts from the Hellraiser comics like the Harrowers, human warriors chosen by the hell-god Leviathan's sister-goddess to fight him. Subsequent films can get into the "war of the gods" angle with all-new Cenobites and human characters, much like the comics did.

Book Review: "Fantastic Schools Vol. 1"

Chris Nuttall is not only a prolific writer, but he appears to be getting into the production side as well. Here's my review of his newest project, the collection Fantastic Schools Vol. 1 that he edited in addition to contributing a story.

The Plot

Most people are probably aware of the Harry Potter series that takes place at the magical boarding school Hogwarts, but the "magical boarding school" genre is actually much older. Chris and several other authors have written stories of their own set in these types of environments--Chris himself has a lengthy series entitled Schooled In Magic--and this volume collects fourteen of these magical tales into a book of respectable length.

The Good

*The collection is pretty long for an anthology--the Kindle version has 500-odd pages, as does the paperback. You're definitely getting a lot for your money with this one.

*The collection ends with "Gennady's Tale" by Chris himself. I haven't read any of his Schooled In Magic series, but I know enough that this is one of the villains' Start of Darkness. This story starts out with him as a crippled boy treated horrendously by the superstitious ignorant villagers he grew up among. And though magical school brings many improvements to his life, it also brings more bullies. His need to be respected, his need to be powerful, is understandable under such circumstances, but how he goes about trying to get these leads down a very dark road. This story serves as a warning to those whose bad circumstances might tempt them to envy, resentment, and spitefulness. 1 Corinthians 10:12 comes to mind--everybody who thinks they're standing should take heed lest they fall. You can see the train wreck coming, the temptation he falls to, but it's relentless. Our hero definitely has an arc, but it's a very bad one. Definitely well-done, and rather sad.

*One of the other top stories in the collection is "The Last Academy" by G. Scott Huggins,  a parody of Harry Potter with a dash of Lovecraft. The Chosen One has defected to the Dark Lord and the only bastion of wizarding society not under his control is a school for magical misfits meant more for containment than teaching them how to function in society. I enjoyed the evil counterparts to the HP Golden Trio (Harry, Ron, and Hermione), especially evil Hermione, and there's a good joke in there about the misuses of the Invisibility Cloak. Not going to go into any more detail for reasons of spoilers.

*Another story I really liked is "How To Get Into A Magic School" by Erin N.H. Furby. Not only do they touch on some deeper topics like high-stakes testing and apply the whole "hidden magical world" to an American setting rather than Harry Potter's British one, but it made me care about the characters and the choices they make. It also touches on Native American mythology in some interesting ways.

*Another story with well-developed characters that makes me care about them is "Metamorphosis" by Roger D. Strahan. Although some of the stories set in pre-existing worlds didn't stand on their own--more on that later--this one followed a completely new character and made the protagonist of his novel The Witch of New Orleans a side character. That seems like a good technique for writing short works in an established fictional universe and it's something to keep in mind.

*I also liked the opening story "Little Witches" by Mel Lee Newmin. It takes a lighthearted approach to a fairly heavy topic--sexism among British wizarding schools in the Victorian era, with the girls' school getting the short shrift on funding. It doesn't appear to be set in a broader fictional universe based on my googling the author's name and checking out their Amazon page. That's helpful because there's no need to be more familiar with a broader fictional universe to understand it, which was an issue with some other stories in the collection.

*Another interesting one is essentially a LitRPG story featuring a Christian seminary student from our world who ends up as a wizard in a Dungeons and Dragons style fantasy. Who knew that knowing Koine Greek could be so helpful? :)

The Bad

*Some of the stories are set in the authors' pre-existing fictional universes and don't really stand well on their own.

*In "Gennady's Tale," a couple characters' actions seem rather out of character and severe and happen far too quickly. It seems like they're there for plot purposes rather than happening organically due to the characters.

*Unfortunately "Metamorphosis," despite being one of the best stories in the collection, begins with what appear to be formatting problems. The paragraphs aren't indented, nor do they have spaces between the paragraphs. The rest of the story looks normal, so I assume this is an error rather than an artistic choice.

*The shadow of Harry Potter hangs heavily on the stories. Although some hang a lampshade on that and even poke fun at the Potterverse, one story does have something that looks to me like the author was copying the Sorting process.

*One of the stories has an absolutely unsympathetic, two-dimensionally evil Complete Monster lead whose capabilities and actions reach Villain Sue territory. The story would have been much better if the reader were able to sympathize with them at all.

The Verdict

Definitely a good concept and with some very good stories in it. Some weaknesses though. 8.5 out of 10.

Future STAR WARS Plot Ideas If (SPOILERS) Had Lived

As those of us who spend way too much time on social media know by now, there's a lot of discussion out there about The Rise of Skywalker and in particular a lot of fans are upset that

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Ben Solo, aka the Dark Jedi and First Order Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, dies using the Force resurrect Rey, who fell in battle against her undead grandfather, none other than Emperor Palpatine. Given how The Last Jedi converted me to the "Reylo fandom" and the two of them are absolutely Adorkable when they have the Big Damn Kiss, this was a tad bit disappointing.

(Seriously, look at their facial expressions. It's so cute.)

However, given the magnitude of Ben's crimes, it would have been really awkward for him to just show up at the big Resistance victory party, especially given how many people he'd grievously wronged (mind-raping Poe, killing Chewbacca's best friend, lots of battle casualties for the characters without names) are all there and happy. That's why Redemption Equals Death is such a common trope--someone who'd done that much bad, even if they switch sides and do something useful (kill Palpatine the first time for Anakin, revive the dead or dying last Jedi for Ben), isn't going to be readily accepted by the good people.

That said, if one is willing to put in the work, one could come up with all sorts of interesting plots:

*Ben, owing to his brief tenure as the Supreme Leader, provides the intelligence necessary to more quickly destroy the First Order forces that weren't involved in the battle at Exegol. Realistically they'd be overextended (the movie references "free worlds" so the New Republic hasn't yet been completely conquered) and there's a major leadership vacuum with General Hux, Allegiant General Pryde, and Palpatine dead. Given how the First Order was formed out of Imperial survivors who were allowed to remain, albeit disarmed, or die-hards who fled to the Unknown Regions, nobody is going to want a negotiated peace or anything resembling the First Order left intact. Think WWII unconditional surrender.

If you want to torture Ben, this means he has to sell out people who were loyal to him when he was evil, including people who might well have been actual friends. Furthermore, as my uncle pointed out, "no one trusts a traitor" and Ben has betrayed both the New Jedi Order/Republic and the First Order at this point. He'd need to provide some really good stuff, with independent backup. If you want to crank the awkwardness up, he might even have to work with Finn, whom he'd deliberately sadistically injured but not killed in The Force Awakens, to engineer defections of stormtroopers from First Order armies units he knows are prone to discontent and mutiny. More on the drama with Poe and Finn next...

*Although Poe, Finn, and Rey are the new power trio in the vein of Luke, Leia, and Han in the original trilogy or Ron, Hermione, and Harry in Harry Potter, Rey's romance with Ben could destroy this. In The Force Awakens, Ben mind-raped Poe in what's clearly an extremely unpleasant process and let's not forget the lightsaber-to-the-spine with Finn. Although Poe only saw Ben with his mask on, it's my recollection he was unmasked when he fought Finn and Rey the first time. They're going recognize Ben (or at least Finn will and he'll tell Poe) and they're going to feel massively betrayed. Given how they're two of if not the two senior leaders of the Resistance at this point and will likely have correspondingly high positions in the New (New-New?) Republic, Ben might end up exiled or even a fugitive and Rey will have the sadistic choice of abandoning him to stay with her Resistance friends or joining him.

*When Chewbacca learns of Leia's death, he falls to his knees in agony and pushes away any attempt to comfort him. As someone pointed out on Twitter, this is the third friend he'd lost because of Ben--Han got straight-up murdered, Luke burned himself out Force-projecting to distract Ben from finishing off the Resistance at Crait, and Leia burned herself out Force-projecting to jump-start Ben's redemption. Although Chewbacca flew Rey to the First Order fleet in The Last Jedi in order to facilitate what everybody hoped would be Ben's defection, at this point he may well be of the opinion, "Screw that kid." He might be violently (emphasis on violently) displeased to see Ben again. I recall Han's comment about Wookiees pulling arms out of sockets and depending on just how remorseful Ben is for his bad deeds, I'm imagining him letting him do that.

*Per the above, the fleet that arrives to relieve Poe and his pilots over Exegol seems to have been organized by Lando. Lando, Han's longtime friend, friend enough to Luke to help him with his "rebuild the Jedi" project, and given his past I'm pretty sure "send Leia my love" was him trying to hit on Leia like in The Empire Strikes Back now that Han is no longer in the picture. Even though per some of the new-canon material he was a sort of uncle to Ben as a child, he's not going to be happy with him either. Since it was Lando who brought the fleet to Exegol and he has actual governing experience (running Cloud City), I'm imagining him as the new Chancellor (with Poe probably being naval commander and Finn being the commander of ground forces) once the Republic is re-established and he'll be able to express his displeasure far more forcibly than just punching Ben in the face until he wears out his arm.

*Given how Snoke had forbidden Ben's true name from being spoken by the First Order and most of the galaxy might be only vaguely aware of him (as opposed to Kylo Ren), he's not going to be most hated man in the entire galaxy, at least right away. However, word is going to spread and then he will be.

Perhaps the Resistance leaders agree to accept him back to help clean up the First Order survivors (depending on how well-known his defection is, he could order surrenders or withdrawals out of Republic territory as Supreme Leader in addition to the intelligence he can offer), but as word spreads, popular outrage builds. Think how in the new-canon novel Bloodline, the revelation that Leia concealed that her father was Darth Vader caused a massive popular outcry and derailed her political career. And in this case, said outrage would be far more justifiable given Ben's actual crimes.

Ironically enough, if a surviving Ben works with Rey to rebuild the Jedi Order, a separation between the Jedi and the New Republic--either the Jedi Order has to be rebuilt outside the Republic's borders because one of its two new leaders is going to be shot on sight or Rey and Ben are allowed to remain (probably as a favor for Rey rather than out of any love for Ben) but the Republic's leadership doesn't like or trust them--might be for the best. The Jedi aren't going to be part of the political system with all its distractions and corruption and can basically serve as an order of teachers, mystics, and knights-errant (I'm thinking a visit to Canto Bight to free some child slaves and recruit broom-boy for the New Jedi Order is a good idea) rather than a close ally or arm of the state.

How I Would Have Done STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (SPOILERS)

Here we go, folks. The final film of "The Skywalker Saga," the three Star Wars trilogies focusing on Jedi Knight turned Sith Lord Anakin Skywalker, his children Leia and Luke, and his grandson Ben who becomes the evil Kylo Ren. The Rise of Skywalker is here at last. Although it had its fun parts like the various lightsaber battles and the Big Damn Kiss, what were supposed to be stand up and cheer moments (like Kylo's betrayal of Snoke in The Last Jedi) didn't really work and plot/lore-wise there were some parts that could have been done much better. Spoilers below the image, so be ye warned...

The first part was pretty cool, although I would have the crawl to establish that the First Order, now having taken over most of the New Republic, is becoming overextended and various resistance movements (in addition to the actual Resistance) are causing them serious problems. No references to certain evil emperors. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (Adam Driver) and his generals, seeking to bolster their numbers, have learned where the mysterious Katana Fleet (for those not familiar with the old Expanded Universe, a fleet of low-crew mostly-automated starships long thought lost) is and seek it out. Kylo finds the fleet parked around a mysterious evil planet Exegol, lands, and makes his way through a labyrinth of weird mad science (but no clone Snokes in tanks--they didn't explain that and it raises more questions) to find...

The revived Palpatine and a cult that used various Dark Side schemes to raise him from the dead. Though his body is unstable and decaying, he is potent enough to bring Kylo on-board, offering him the Katana Fleet in exchange for Rey (Daisy Ridley). Kylo, however, has his own plans--he hopes to recruit Rey to help him defeat Palpatine ("let the past die; kill it if you must") to seize control of the Katana Fleet and ultimately the galaxy for himself.

Meanwhile, through their spy in the First Order whose identity we discover later, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) learn about the Katana Fleet. Given how the fleet was designed to operate without significant numbers of crew, this would be a boon to the depleted Resistance. Rey abandons her Jedi training under Leia (Carrie Fisher) to join a mission gathering support for an attempt to seize the Katana Fleet, including meeting Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams). The middle of the film goes roughly as the actual film does, although it's depicted explicitly that Poe had left Kijimi to join the Republic Navy rather than the Resistance directly--per the books and comics, Leia had poached him off the military for her budding private army and the canon needs to be consistent. And although their confrontation is similar to the canonical film, there's no reference to a "Force Dyad"--just have Ben pull his "become my apprentice/marry me" routine some more and have Rey turn him down.

Kylo/Ben's redemption plot--the duel aboard the ruins of the Second Death Star, Leia burning herself out to distract him psychically, Rey mortally wounding and then healing him, and Ben's vision of his father forgiving him and his subsequent throwing his dark saber into the ocean--remains, as that part I really enjoyed. However, in the process Rey learns her true identity--she's some kind of science-project spawn of the Dark Side cult, perhaps a female Palpatine clone--and in horror she flees to Ach-To.

(Palpatine having a son and daughter-in-law whom he later has killed raises all sorts of questions the movie doesn't have time to answer. Where was he during the Imperial period? Would he or Vader be the designated successor if Palpatine slips in the shower or something? Better that the people who left Rey on Jakku were dissidents who abandoned Palpatine's cult when he wanted to sacrifice Rey to the Dark Side to build his new body or something like that.)

However, before she can destroy Ben's TIE fighter and strand herself there, Luke's shade appears and we have a similar conversation. Rey is her own person--she isn't Palpatine, she isn't his "daughter," and Leia trained her as a Jedi despite her being a Sith science project because she knew that. Rey takes Ben's fighter to where the Katana Fleet is located, giving the Resistance the location. Seriously, Luke's X-wing flying again after having spent decades underwater was way too fan-servicey for me, plus it's more likely that a Rebel craft would attract attention from the First Order.

Rey descends into the depths of Exegol to confront Palpatine and face her fears as a Jedi should, only for Palpatine to start trying to suck the life out of her to regenerate his sickly decaying body. The redeemed Ben battles his way through the remaining Knights of Ren and interrupts, allowing for a two-on-one lightsaber duel like the scene in the animated show Clone Wars where Palpatine battles his former apprentice Darth Maul and Maul's brother Savage Opress. Meanwhile the Resistance tries to seize or destroy the Katana Fleet, only to find it much more manned and battle-ready than they thought. Things start to go pear-shaped for the good guys as Palpatine throws Ben down a convenient pit and battles Rey alone. Palpatine knocks her down and starts trying to do his soul-vampire thing again but Rey, spurred on by the voices of previous Jedi, rises to her feet to battle him again, this time using the Force lightning she's shown herself capable of using when sufficiently angered or stressed. Meanwhile, Lando and his allies come through, turning the tide against the Katana Fleet.

(Palpatine doesn't attack the Resistance fleet that's thousands of miles away with Force lightning--that was one of the most ridiculous parts of the old comic Dark Empire and in my scenario he's a little busy.)

Endgame time. Rey beats down Palpatine and kills him, but is mortally wounded herself. Then it's time for Ben to climb out of the pit and use the same Force Heal technique she used to save him to save her. Then they have the Big Damn Kiss like in the movie, but unlike the film Ben survives. The two return to the Resistance base and Rey has her emotional reunion with Finn and Poe while Ben stays aboard the ship (probably the one he used to get there in the first place, since a TIE is too small for two) to avoid the kind of complications his presence would cause.

In the epilogue, we see the stable-boy on Canto Bight from The Last Jedi getting abused by his masters at the racetrack and Ben and Rey show up and mind-trick them into letting them take the boy off their hands. They go back to the ship and we see other Force-sensitives, humans and aliens both, that they've collected from all over the galaxy.

(Hell, if you want some fan service you could have the older Ashoka Tano and Ezra from Star Wars: Rebels there as well. The trainees also don't have to be all kids--the fact Ben and Rey are still obviously a couple and recruiting adults as well as children indicates they're ditching the no-attachments/culty crap the Jedi Order had gotten into by the time of the Old Republic's fall.)

They go off into the sunset together to train a new generation of Jedi, with the Sith gone for good. All is well.

Blast from the Past Movie Review: Guyver 2: Dark Hero (1994)

Although the film podcast Myopia: Defend Your Childhood did an episode on the film The Guyver on my suggestion, it didn't seem like there was much of an interest from anybody in doing an episode on the sequel Guyver: Dark Hero. Given the film's iffy quality, I can't exactly blame them. Since movies and e-books are very helpful in getting me through otherwise-dull elliptical sessions, I snagged this one off Amazon Prime for a pre-Thanksgiving workout and off we went...

The Plot

It's been a year since Sean Barker (David Hayter) bonded with the Guyver, a suit of biomechanical armor of alien origin. With the evil Kronos Corporation and its alien Zoanoid warriors defeated, the armor's urge to battle evil prompts Sean to fight (and oftentimes kill) drug dealers and other criminals. This alienates him from his girlfriend Mizki (Billi Lee) from the first film, who thinks he's going insane and has no time for his "I don't kill, it kills" excuses. Plagued by strange dreams and seeing news on television of "a werewolf attack," Sean sets off for an archaeological dig in Utah overseen by Cori Edwards (Kathy Christopherson) and her father Dr. Marcus Edwards (Stuart Weiss), a pair of renegade scientists investigating things like Bigfoot, crop circles, etc.

Unfortunately, the Kronos Corporation turns out to be involved, as are a bunch of even more skilled and dangerous Zoanoids. Sean is in for the fight of his life...

The Good

*It's a fast-moving and entertaining film--most of the time.

*The script and the dialogue, although they have their issues, represent a significant improvement over the ponderous original. Watching clips of the original on YouTube (they've taken down the full movie since we watched it for Myopia, it seems), it's clear just how clunky the original was and how improved this one is.

*The opening narration is a vast improvement over the original, which had a laughably obnoxious combination of a Star Wars opening crawl ripoff and a ponderous voice-over. Instead we get a quick introduction complete with the image of the Guyver unit flashing and doing its thing and then we cut to a bunch of drug smugglers murdering a security guard.

*Replacing Jack Armstrong with David Hayter in the role of Sean is a vast improvement given how poor Armstrong's acting was in the original film. Even though Mizki is absent for most of the film, Billi Lee is an improvement on Vivian Wu. No unintentional hilarity, hard-to-understand accents, and overdramatic silliness from these two.

*Cori is a much stronger and more driven character than the passive Mizki.

*The fight choreography has improved quite a bit over the original film. In-universe I suppose it's because Sean has had more time to train in martial arts and learn about his armor and these Zoanoids aren't just Kronos's hired gang-banger muscle, but regardless it's much less silly to watch.

*We finally figure out just what Kronos's master plan is besides "conduct grossly unethical medical experiments to turn people into shape-shifting monsters."

The Bad

*There were several parts of the movie, particularly those taking place at night or in the cave system where the archaeological stuff was taking place, that were difficult to see. This might've been because I was watching it on my Kindle at my not-as-well-lit apartment gym (the LA Fitness didn't have that problem), but I don't think I've had that problem before. Something to keep in mind.

*Toward the end of the film there are some parts where it dragged.

*Given all the crap Sean and Mizki went through together in the first film and how they're still together a year afterward despite her knowledge of what Sean does with the armor, I would have liked more acknowledgement of their relationship. Instead Sean moves onto a new love interest relatively quickly--the film seems to take place over the course of only a few days, meaning that he and Mizki broke up at most a week before. It would have been much more interesting if he'd written her a letter or called her from the archaeological site indicating that he had found Zoanoids and she followed him there, with the Kronos Corporation taking note that she's the daughter of the traitor Dr. Segawa. Given the need to keep the run-time concise, throwing in a full-on love triangle might not fly, but Sean just forgets her too quickly.

*Speaking of Sean, in the first half or so of the movie he's really self-absorbed and aggravating. Somebody really needs to read How To Win Friends and Influence People and commit it to memory.

*Given how the Zoanoid Striker (Jimmie Walker) from the first movie survived and is implied to have defected to the CIA, it would have been amusing to see him again. Although he was easily the weakest of the Kronos Corporation's minions and didn't seem overly dedicated to the cause ("JUST DOING MY JOB!"), he did rough up Mizki and I imagine Sean would not be pleased to see him again. Furthermore, given his outlandishly stereotypical antics in the first film, perhaps fellow African-American Atkins (Christopher Michael) finds him embarrassing and has forced him to get his 'hood tendencies under control, including no longer letting him speak entirely in rap.

(I'm now imagining a scene where Atkins unleashes Striker against Kronos's Zoanoids and he relapses into his ghetto persona in front of Sean. An embarrassed Atkins has to chew him out.)

*The opening credits after the battle with the drug dealers are way too long.

*There are some unintentionally hilarious slow-mo scenes and scenes where Barker is trying to yell. Although Hayter is an improvement over Armstrong, he still has his Narm-ish moments.

The Verdict

An improvement over the original, but still not exactly great cinema. Worth renting or streaming, but not really worth buying. 7.0 out of 10.

How To Improve WILD WILD WEST (1999)

For the 200th episode of Myopia: Defend Your Childhood, our mighty host decided we ought to do Wild Wild West, the Will Smith and Kevin Kline vehicle based on the 1960s TV series). I'd only seen some bits of the movie on HBO at my parents' house long ago and I'm an aficionado of steampunk, so this was something I wanted to see. Here's the podcast. Although I found much of the film hilarious--the only member of the crew to do so--I admit there were some areas that needed improvement.

So here's how I would have improved Wild Wild West while keeping as much of the film intact as possible. Here there be spoilers for a movie that's 20-odd years old, so be ye warned...

*Instead of the prologue with the scientist being killed by the flying blade pursuing the magnetized collar around his neck, have a flashback to the end of the Civil War in which Confederate General "Bloodbath" McGrath (Ted Levine) and Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) attack the free black town of New Liberty with their steampunk war machines. Fortunately a nearby detachment of black cavalry including Jim West (Will Smith) is nearby and is able to relieve the town. In the process Loveless loses the lower half of his body and this can be played for laughs. I'm thinking some kind of explosion triggered by West blows Loveless in half, with body parts flying through the air.

(Given how the podcast group objected to the mood whiplash between silliness and serious James Bond-type spycraft, combining a massacre of civilians by evil racists with said racists getting hurt in hilarious ways would be tricky to pull off. Still it's probably doable.)

*Trim down the opening credits. They're more entertaining than the over-long opening credits of Spawn, but they go on and on and on...

*The first chunk or so of the film is generally good, with a lot of goofy humor, fight scenes, and the introduction of steampunk techie Artemis Gordon (Kevin Kline) but it reveals one of the film's major flaws. Many of the jokes in the film are funny, but they go on too long. We're talking Family Guy level of jokes going on too long here. The scene where West is having sex with a woman in a town's water tower is amusing, but the joke about him pretending to kiss her when he's really kissing empty air and she's getting progressively more annoyed goes on much longer than it needs to. The point has been made; let's get to the gunfight in the bar.

*In general, more practical effects. A lot of the CGI in the film is simply bad.

*Nixing the opening with the fleeing scientist losing his head means we lose the "that's a man's head" scene between Gordon and West, but perhaps someone else can lose their head instead. Somebody at the bar at the beginning, perhaps? McGrath is there and he's intent on running nitroglycerin to Loveless in New Orleans, so perhaps one of his minions' corpses is captured? That scene was pretty funny and it would be a shame to lose it.

*Considering how one of the guards on Loveless's estate accosts West and berates him using racist language (calling him "boy") when he sees him skulking around outside, I would expect him to have a much more hostile reception inside. Instead none of the Confederate die-hards attending his ball seem to care that a black man (and a member of the current U.S. Army no less) is roaming about armed and talking to white people as an equal rather than a servant, at least until he gropes a white woman he thinks is Gordon in disguise. Given how he absolutely refused to go as Gordon's manservant--his explanation allows for both humor and to show how incredibly degrading that would be. Perhaps instead he could have gone in disguise as some kind of African prince, Coming To America style? Ex-Confederates would disdain former slaves but might think somewhat better of a wealthy foreigner.

*When we first meet Rita Escobar (Salma Hayek) she's being held prisoner by some scantily-clad entertainers. The vibe I was getting was that Loveless had hired prostitutes to keep his captive scientists entertained, with Rita pretending to be a more respectable actress or singer who refused to participate. The idea that Loveless is using the carrot as well as the stick to control the scientists--and especially the particular nature of the carrot--could be played for more comedy.

*Although most of the group objected to the scenes where Loveless needles West about being black and West in turn needles Loveless about being disabled, a lot of that I actually found pretty funny. Not only does it appeal to my sense of humor, which relies heavily on wordplay and tasteless, shocking comments, but it would be realistic for its time. Loveless, being a Confederate die-hard, would be incredibly racist, while West would retaliate using the most obvious avenue, especially given how sensitive a subject this is for Loveless.

*The way they talk to each other implies they've interacted in the past, although there's really no reason for them to have. Perhaps they fight, or at least talk to each other, in the new prologue?

*That said, the attempted lynching of West that's played for comedy (!) doesn't go well at all. Gordon deliberately set it up (!!) to distract the guests from his searching Loveless's estate to find the captive scientists and it does allow for some amusing Will Smith jokes, but they're not going to be letting a man they intend to murder talk for so long like that. I would have made it so Gordon just needs to distract the party guests long enough to rescue Rita and then the two of them quickly intervene to keep West from being killed. Searching the estate would take hours and West would be long dead by then, but springing Rita from Loveless's sex-dungeon bedroom and then saving West is much less risky. Later in the film, West can in turn put Gordon at gross risk of bodily harm that's both funny and makes the point that what nearly happens to West is serious Dude Not Funny territory. Given how West absolutely refuses to pretend to be Gordon's servant we know that enslavement left a mark on him even though he escaped as a child, and lynching would be a much more fearful possibility for him than for a white man like Gordon.

*West references having been raised by Indians after escaping slavery as a child, but nothing about Native Americans happens at all even though they're in the Old West. His revealing how he was separated from his parents and how they were killed by McGrath at New Liberty was necessary plot-wise to get Gordon to stop feuding with him, but there was no need for the Indian back-story unless it was relevant--say if his adoptive Indian tribe showed up to help fight Loveless or something. I'd just nix that completely because bringing in an Indian war party on top of everything else would make the whole thing needlessly complicated.

(Unless of course West sets up Gordon to be scalped or undergo something like the "sun vow" scene from A Man Called Horse in revenge for Gordon trying to get him lynched earlier. That might actually be funny.)

And that turn ties in with my next point...

*Loveless's plan to divide up the United States between various former colonial powers makes things needlessly complicated and raises some awkward questions--namely an alliance of Mexico and various European powers supporting a terrorist to break up the United States would be grounds for immediate war if it went wrong. And given how President Grant knows the various European countries are involved, that's the obvious sequel and people would be wondering. I'd have just stuck with him trying to kidnap and/or kill President Grant, perhaps using McGrath and his Confederate die-hards as cannon fodder to punish them for losing the war. After all, I did like that Loveless hated the Confederates for losing the war and making his crippling ultimately pointless as much as he hated the Union for crippling him--it shows how much of a narcissist he is. Loveless's betrayal of McGrath and the murder of his men could be here instead of much earlier at the estate.

*Given how much West needles Gordon about dressing in drag for his missions, West having to dress in drag to rescue Grant and Gordon is an amusing ironic punishment. However, like many of the film's jokes, the scene goes for way too long. Yes, Will Smith pretending to be a sassy belly dancer in a veil to secretly unchain some people is funny, but get to the point already.

*The big reveal at the end that Rita's "father" isn't really her father but her husband would've been a lot funnier if the actor was someone younger and better-looking than Gary Cervantes. As someone pointed out on the podcast, perhaps Antonio Banderas? Given how West and Gordon are competing for Rita's affections the entire time, I get they were going for the shocking reveal she was married, but it would have been funnier if it was to a man widely-regarded as a sex symbol in a way Kevin Kline is not. And as they leave at the end, perhaps Mr. Escobar can wink at them? That would be pretty funny, plus it shows he's perceptive enough to know that his wife had been playing them the entire time and he's gloating that at the end of the day, it's him she's going home with. Maybe that'd make him a bit of an Ungrateful Bastard, but it'd be funny.

Hopefully all these suggestions would tighten the film up and fix some plot holes all while preserving the good bits.