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Mysterious Island; Captain Harding's FABULOUS Adventures
Topic Started: Jan 19 2009, 09:36 PM (4,521 Views)
panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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I'm with Chandu. Mysterious Island does NOT tread water. It treads milk and makes butter. I can't think of a single Republic with half as much plot.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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toddgault
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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What plot? All they've done so far since landing on the island is run to a cave where they get attacked by aliens, run to another cave and get attacked by natives, then run to another cave and get attacked by crazy bearded man.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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Laughing Gravy
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I loved this serial and found it highly entertaining. I also found that approximately 40% to 60% of each episode concerned itself with the shipwrecked soldiers simply wandering around. FNFkateer Vulnavia referred to it as "The Pacing Serial".
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Yeah, they get attacked by a crazy bearded man, and the Mercurians, and the lightning people, and the pirates ... four, count 'em, four evil forces, and another force that might be evil but we don't know yet. Jesus! Enough plot for two Victor Hugo novels, War and Peace, and the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. There's no pleasing some people. Either you like serials or you don't. If you don't, I'm not interested in your opinions.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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toddgault
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Don't be tossing out that you don't like serials crap, I get enough of that from Grood, thank you very much.. All I'm says is this serial doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Yeah you have four villains, all of which don't do anything except randomly attack the heroes, who's response is to .............run away. Throw "Yakety Sax" onto the soundtrack and we'd be watching Benny Hill. I'll take Atom man vs Superman or Captain Video over this one any day. At least they had a plot you could follow.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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Laughing Gravy
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Oooh! A squabble!

*pulls up a seat and orders a bag of peanuts from the kid in the aisle*

"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Captain Video has a plot you can follow? Really? Why didn't I notice?

Serials are usually episodic by their nature. When one shows up with some slight semblance of a plot, like Gang Busters or Drums of Fu, believe me, I pay attention. For me, plot is overrated in the movies -- Griffith got along fine without 'em. Chaplin and Keaton mostly did without plot. The Coen Brothers use plot only as a way of making jokes about how dumb plot is. I watched Rio Bravo last night, and if it has any plot at all, I missed it.

You don't know our history with Eric, but here's a suggestion -- don't compare any of us to him, OK? Just a little suggestion. Just so you know, we're all princes and he's a pompous jackass.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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mort bakaprevski
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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panzer the great & terrible
Aug 1 2009, 02:42 PM
I can't think of a single Republic with half as much plot.
I can't think of a post-war Republic that has a plot that isn't defined by the first & last chapters. The other 10 (or11) chapters are just episodic padding.
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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No heck. At least the Columbias don't have the recap chapters. Actually, come to think of it, there is a little plot in one of the middle chapters of Daughter of Don Q, but that's the best postwar Republic in most ways. If it had a sci-fi element, it would be famous.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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toddgault
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Yes Captain Video has a plot, want me to break it down for you? Here goes, Vultura has Dr. Tobor disrupting weather patterns on Earth to soften us up for invasion, Captain Video investigates, suspects Tobor. Tobor fakes abduction and heads for Atoma, where he is sent to Tharos to over se an another invasion. Video follows trail and gets trapped on Tharos, helps over throw Vultura there and rescues Tobor, who he now thinks is innocent. Head back to Earth. Tobor starts sabotaging Earth's defenses, making Video suspicious. Quick trip to Atoma where Video can't defeat Vultura due to home field advantage. Back to Earth, where Tobor's tricked into revealing his duplicity, gets killed by Vultura for becoming useless. Last trip to Atoma where Video defeats Vultura with that Thanoans help. Yaaaaah!

Rio Lobo has a plot too, but this is a serial thread so I won't detail it for you here. And while we are on the subject of plots, whats the point of watching a film if it doesn't have a plot? Then you're just watching random images thrown across a screen, like The Monkees' movie Head, or Fight Club. I don't want to spend two hours watching a film that is all symbolism of something else, I want an escapist plot to take my mind off of the bad day I had at work, or the dirty dishes in the sink I'm ignoring.

Lastly Paul, about being compared to someone you don't like. Sorry but I got a little miffed there. When you starting talking about people that don't like serials, it just smacked of when Grood accused me of not being a fan. Here's the thing, everybody here likes serials. If we didn't, why would we even be on this board. It's a petty comment to make and has no validity among the Balconeers. As Barretta used to say, "And you can take dat to da bank."

Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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KanSmiley
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Laughing Gravy
Aug 2 2009, 07:21 AM
Oooh! A squabble!

*pulls up a seat and orders a bag of peanuts from the kid in the aisle*

Wait a minute Gravy when did you hire a kid to hawk concessions in the aisle?
http://www.saturday-matinee-memories.com/

intoxicated, adj.: When you feel sophisticated without being able to pronounce it.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Rio Lobo may or may not have a plot (they seem to forget about it after the first sequence), but I was talking about Rio Bravo, which was mostly improvised on the set (Just as Rio Lobo and El Dorado were, and Hatari! too, and I love all four).

Your retelling of the "plot" of Captain Video is simply a matter of this happens, then this happens, then this happens. There's nothing sequential about it, so it ain't a plot. Movies with an actual plot, like The Usual Suspects, don't seem like real movies if you ask me. It's a moot point, I know.

As for "not liking" Grood, there's more to it than that, and it has nothing to do with preference. I never choose to dislike anybody. This guy went out of his way to heck me off, and I'm not alone. Just so you know: I will never, ever have anything to do with that rat bastard again as long as I live. Does that give you a rough idea?

As for the tired businessman, and how helpful plots are to him, I can't comment, being retired and all, but I will say there are lots of different kinds of movies, and I like 'em all. I like Last Year At Marienbad, which avoids plot, just as much as The Philadelphia Story, which has plot out the yin yang.

I will say that novelistic movies like The Manchurian Candidate (the first one) don't seem much like movie movies to me. As Gravy says, I like to let art warsh over me.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Laughing Gravy
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If Todd Gault doesn't like serials, nobody does.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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toddgault
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo, it's the same movie, just with James Caan and Robert Mitchum switched in for Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin, easy mistake to make. I'll skip over any more comments or comparisons to Grood, as that seems to be a sore spot and stick to the whole plot argument. You say that Captain Video doesn't have a plot because it's just a series of actions that are not in sequential order. I disagree, the breakdown I gave was the order of events through fifteen chapters, and according to my handy dandy American Heritage Dictionary from college, the third definition of the word plot is "The series of events consisting of an outline of the action of a narrative or drama" Which is exactly what I gave for Captain Video. As for The Usual Suspects, while it may be great art that washes over you, it doesn't have a plot. It's a bunch of people sitting around telling conflicting stories about who this mystery villain is, who's name I can't spell, and then ends ambiguously with Kevin Spacey getting into a limo which may mean he's the villain and may not. Give me Captain Video any day, at least I know what the heck is going on. Any more debating will have to be done tomorrow, I'm off to work.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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Chandu
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Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart!
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As far as I'm concerned, Todd is entitled to dislike any serial he chooses to. Far be it for me to waste my time trying to change his mind. If he doesn't share our enjoyment of Mysterious Island, it ain't the end of the woild!
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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