Category Archives: Analysing Story & Theme

Analysin’ Movies: Re-Animator

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Eijo: When it comes to success, how much does talent really matter? Or creativity? Or even good old fashioned know-how? According to Stuart Gordon’s gory campus satire Re-Animator, not much — as long as you’re ambitious. That’s right, all you need is the drive to succeed no matter what, and if that means you’re willing to cheat, steal, murder, and then re-animate the corpse of the man you just murdered… well, so much the better.

College sweethearts Dan and Megan may constitute Re-Animator’s emotional core, but the movie truly belongs to student Herbert West and his instructor Dr. Carl Hill — both of whom are already, by the film’s opening, quite mad with the desire to change the face of science, though West appears to be the purer researcher, a med student who aspires to eliminate death itself, while Dr. Hill is simply a career opportunist who wants renown and gobs of money (not to mention some sexy-time with Megan — the daughter of his long time friend, the Dean of the university Alan Halsey… eeeew).

West is played with stunning bravado by Jeffrey Combs, who’s career since has consisted of similarly quirky characters that tend to be mere shadows of Herbert West, a shame since he, like another talented and unfairly typecast performer who broke out in a classic horror film I can think of, Anthony Perkins, is capable of so much more (the key exception being the most recent Star Trek tv spin-offs, which have provided Combs with several outstanding roles that display his exceptional range despite layers of alien makeup).

Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West

West enters the film as the obsessive disciple of experimental brain surgeon Dr. Gruber, a madman himself who’s unconventional experiments in corpse re-animation lead to the creation of a green glowing “re-agent” that does indeed bring corpses back to life when injected directly into the brain — but after trying the re-agent on himself, Dr. Gruber’s eyes explode and then his skull bursts (this unfortunate conclusion to the experiment is the basis of the film’s opening scene, which is a hellified way to kick off any movie).

Though West clearly helped assist Dr. Gruber, it’s also clear that West isn’t responsible for the creation of the re-agent himself, yet he takes ownership of it all the same (Dr. Gruber of course isn’t alive to dispute the matter), which makes him quite similar to the talentless Dr. Hill — a man who has built his career by stealing the ideas of smarter men. Indeed, when Dr. Hill discovers that West possesses the method to re-animate the dead, the skeletal old codger sees dollar signs and immediately sets to blackmailing West in order to take the re-agent for his own.

And this is one of the many reasons why this movie is such a blast to watch — other than the fantasy element of the re-agent, the film plays things fairly straight for its first three-quarters, mining the bulk of its drama from the central conflict between two men with a distinct lack of scruples as they duke it out for the right to introduce to the world at large what is an incomplete and ultimately useless creation (after all, the re-agent turns corpses into insanely violent killing machines; where’s the scientific use in that?) — Dr. Hill blackmails West; West responds by chopping off Dr. Hill’s head with a shovel, and then re-animating Dr. Hill immediately after in order to see what happens — West’s overwhelming drive for more raw data is inspiring, if a little over-zealous.

West & Dr. Hill have a nice chat about science

Dr. Hill then surprises West by using his headless body to attack West and knock him unconscious — Dr. Hill’s apparent psychic ability to control his detached body, as well as the bodies of other corpses, is the point at which the film jumps fully into the territory of fantasy (the sequel, Bride of Re-Animator, goes even further when Dr. Hill’s head grows wings and starts flying around) — but here’s where Dr. Hill takes a sharp turn in his tactics; rather than publish his “findings” and make all that fame and money before West can stop him, Dr. Hill instead kidnaps Megan, straps her naked to an autopsy table, and sets about to molesting her. It’s one of those few examples in horror cinema (or indeed cinema at large) when nudity doesn’t feel exploitative. The audience is invited to squirm and cringe from an innate sense of empathy for Megan — how would any of us feel if we were stripped naked and licked all over by a pervert’s bloody grinning decapitated head? This scene is as close as I ever want to get to finding out.

Even the unscrupulous West knows enough to be, if not disgusted, at least put off by Dr. Hill’s actions: “I must say, Dr. Hill, I’m very disappointed in you. You steal the power of life and death, and here you are trysting with a bubble-headed co-ed. You’re not even a second-rate scientist.”

What follows is a blood-soaked tour de force that shows us exactly how awkward it would be to fight off a horde of angry naked corpses, but also displays West’s commitment to discovery in the face of his own death — as he’s being crushed to death by Dr. Hill’s over-grown intestines, West takes a moment to grab the bag containing all of his research and throw it to faux-hero Dan, who’s busily running for his life. The politics of discovery is nasty business, the film seems to say, and the victor is not the smartest guy in the room, but the guy who’s left standing after all the blood has flown.

Star Wars Part III: A Storm Full of Vader

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Eijo: And now it all comes together. Luke has learned how to foresee possible future events, shape his own Fate, and use planning and action to bring about a specific Foreseeable Event that lines up with his desires. The rescue of Han Solo and destruction of Jabba the Hutt was a stunning (if bloody) success.

It is this experience, the very attempt at such a crazy undertaking, that signals Luke’s ascension beyond the abilities of dear ol’ daddy Darth Vader, because using prescience to aid one’s goals is a risky game for the big boys — and Vader, for all his power, never shows the slightest interest in such things.

Darth Vader is a force of nature throughout the trilogy — a terrifying tsunami of violence that carries out the will of his master, the Emperor: in Star Wars, Vader is sent on a mission to recover the stolen blueprints of the Death Star and after failing that, he defends the Death Star from Rebel snub fighters (he fails there too and the Death Star is blown to hell); in The Empire Strikes Back, Vader is sent to find and destroy the hidden Rebel base (he  succeeds) and also to capture Luke for delivery to the Emperor (he fails); in Return of the Jedi, Vader is sent to the Death Star II to make sure the construction workers meet their deadlines (yikes, now he’s stuck doing boring administrative chores and presumably some amount of paperwork — which he succeeds at by the way, because the most important part of the project, the cannon, is ready in time) and to deliver Luke to the Emperor (this time, he succeeds here as well).

Vader’s a Do-Boy. No ambition. Just a hard workin’ joe who leaves all the thinking and planning to the Emperor. And in Return of the Jedi, the Emperor has come up with a doozy.

With the construction of the Death Star II, the Emperor has created an opportunity to gain his biggest desire: to wipe out the Rebellion once and for all — that is his Fate.

But like Luke, the Emperor must take big risks in order to get all the pieces into
position: he constructs the Death Star II out in the open (the first Death Star was constructed in secret, its existence not discovered by the Rebellion until after it launched), he leaks the Death Star II’s blueprints (giving the Rebels the impression they’ve got a decent shot at destroying it), and he even takes up residence in the partially-constructed Death Star II thereby setting himself as bait in a trap the Rebels can’t afford to resist (the chance to assassinate the Emperor, ending his corrupt reign) — all in order to lure the bulk of the Rebel Fleet to one spot where he can destroy them all in two decisive battles, one on the surface of the Sanctuary Moon and the other in orbit. His Foreseen Event. The Battle of Endor.

The Emperor’s Foreseen Event: The Battle of Endor

But the First Law of Prescience applies: the more the Emperor attempts to control the variables of The Battle of Endor, the more uncertainties plague his design. And he’s thought of nearly everything — after foreseeing a space battle surrounding an incomplete Death Star, he puts all construction efforts toward completing the station’s massive cannon before the superstructure is even completed (which is why Darth Vader himself is dispatched early on to make certain the cannon is operational in time for the Rebels attack) so that the Death Star II’s unfinished look becomes an essential part of the Emperor’s trap.

Also, the Emperor follows well-established strategic wisdom by allowing certain holes in his defenses, the best way to funnel the Rebels into specific killzones. He knows, as the Rebels do, that two things must be done in order to destroy the Death Star II (and him
with it) — blow up the shield generator on Endor that protects the station, then send snub fighters into the station to destroy the main reactor at the station’s core– and he sets an ambush at both positions.

The shield generator on Endor has a heavily fortified front entrance but also a vulnerable back door, which the Rebel strike team predictably uses to gain entrance. The Emperor posts a full legion of his best stormtroopers just outside and catches the Rebels without a single shot fired.

However, the Emperor underestimates the presence of a key variable: the battle strength of a massed force of Ewoks. Fair to say, just about anyone would underestimate the heartiness of a tribe of paleolithic teddy bears, but that only underscores the dangers of building an entire campaign around incomplete images of possible future events.

Ewoks: an unforeseen variable

The same goes for the defense of the Death Star II itself. The Rebel Fleet arrives, realizes too late that the shield hasn’t been lowered, and turns away only to find their escape blocked by a massive Imperial Armada which pins the Rebels down while the Death Star II’s cannon picks off their capital ships one at a time. In the classic words of Admiral Akbar: “It’s a trap!”

When the deflector shield is finally lowered (thanks to the Ewoks and Chewie’s liberation of an Imperial AT-ST), the Rebel snub fighters race toward the Death Star II’s main reactor which is hidden deep in a deadly maze of tunnels and conduits that claims the lives of every pilot that enters the station with the exception of two — again, the Emperor probably has no idea these guys even exist: Lando Calrissian (a longtime smuggler and the original owner of the Millennium Falcon who knows how to fly her through the tightest of situations) and Wedge Antilles (arguably the best fighter pilot of the Rebel Fleet whose flying skills throughout the trilogy appear to exceed even those of Luke), the two guys who do the honors of destroying the Death Star II despite the Emperor’s best laid plans (though by then the Emperor is dead and well past the point of caring just how completely his tactics have failed).

Lando & Wedge race to the center of the Death Star

By working so hard to control all of the variables of the Battle of Endor, the Emperor shows a distinct lack of faith in the future, breaking the Third Law of Prescience, which only exacerbates his failure — though let’s not ignore two other major contributing factors: the Emperor’s raging ego and his underestimation of his enemies’ abilities.

But the Emperor’s failure goes even further. As stated by Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, the Emperor has foreseen his own destruction at the hands of Luke. Far from being disturbed by this vision, the Emperor appears to be quite comforted by it; he foresees Luke as his logical heir to the Empire (Darth Vader is a slave, an instrument the Emperor wields, while Luke shows real potential as a leader) and plans to train Luke in the ways of the Dark Side. Once Luke has matured into a Dark Lord, he will destroy the Emperor and take over control of the Empire, perhaps expanding it well beyond the known galaxy. Hey, an Emperor can dream.

When Luke arrives at the Death Star II just prior to the Battle of Endor, the Emperor should take this as a big ol’ warning sign — meeting the guy who’s been foreseen to bring about your destruction on the eve of your riskiest undertaking just ain’t good cricket — but the Emperor isn’t a reasonable man, and what he lacks in faith he more than makes up with sheer overconfidence; as he sees it, Luke’s arrival couldn’t be more fortuitous: what could be more helpful in turning young Jedi to the Dark Side than murdering all of his friends while he watches helplessly?

Luke himself has not orchestrated a Fate as such in this situation, rather he is moving along the path to a Foreseen Event set for him by Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi: his final test toward becoming a Jedi, facing Darth Vader. Together, the Jedi masters have done what they can to steer him to this very confrontation. Luke suffers from a host of unresolved feelings toward Vader, feelings which pull him toward the Dark Side as well as the Light, and the choice Luke makes when he faces his father will determine whether he will become a Jedi or fall to the Dark Side: to kill or not to kill.

Though Luke initially says of facing Vader, “I can’t do it, Ben,” he later strikes out in search of his father if for no other reason than to prove that there really is some good left in Vader — and in doing so, Luke abandons his friends and the Rebellion at their hour of most dire need. He takes no part in either of the battles at Endor. The Emperor foresees this choice in an earlier scene:

Emperor: …You must go to the Sanctuary Moon and wait for [Luke].

Vader: (skeptical) He will come to me?

Emperor: I have foreseen it. His compassion for you will be his undoing. He will come to you and then you will bring him before me.

Vader: (bows) As you wish.

 

A good sign that Luke will indeed walk the righteous path to become a Jedi is his early resolution not to kill his father, or even to fight him. Luke is able to see little of his Fate (which is entirely focused on Vader’s future so there are simply too many uncertainties for a clear vision), but what he does see is Vader returning to the Light Side of the Force. Luke doesn’t know exactly how this will be accomplished but he shows profound wisdom by leaving it to faith: he wholly believes that his father ultimately will prove to be a force for good.

However, Luke doesn’t foresee a face-to-face meeting with the Emperor, for such a thing would in all likelihood signal his death, which is why he’s openly shocked when Vader barely hesitates before strapping a pair of handcuffs on him and taking him straight to the Emperor’s Throne Room aboard the Death Star II. Luke’s meeting with the Emperor reveals the film’s central conflict — a face-off between the two most powerful men in the galaxy and their warring futures…

Luke & Vader in the Emperor’s throne room

The Emperor introduces himself by establishing his expertise in prescience: “Welcome, young Skywalker. I have been expecting you.”

Then, the Emperor goes on to explain something of the Fate he has foreseen: “I’m looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.”

Luke responds, “You’re gravely mistaken. You won’t convert me as you did my father.”

Vader glances sharply at Luke, either surprised by Luke’s lack of humility in the presence of the Emperor or because he’s shocked at Luke’s own talent for prescience (the mark, one may assume, of someone who is very powerful in the Force).

“Oh no, my young Jedi,” says the Emperor. “You will find that it is you who are mistaken… about a great many things.” Showing off, he reveals that he knows exactly what Luke is up to: “By now you must know your father can never be turned from the Dark Side. So will it be with you.”

Again, Vader looks sharply at Luke…

…Just as Luke signals that he’s got some insight into future events as well: “You’re wrong. Soon I’ll be dead — and you with me.”

The Emperor laughs. “Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Rebel Fleet.”

That one catches Luke off guard. His pa-pa-poker face wavers.

“Yes…” says the Emperor. “I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.”

Luke comments, quite astutely, “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

“Your faith in your friends is yours,” the Emperor snaps, and he’s foolish to think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Darth Vader, ever the dutiful servant, adds, “It is pointless to resist, my son.” (Though Vader calling Luke his son does indicate the rumblings of conflict within him, his sense of loyalty dancing between his master and his child.)

But the Emperor isn’t done bragging about what he’s accomplished. Honestly, the ego on this guy: “Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends up there on the Sanctuary Moon are walking into a trap. As is your Rebel Fleet!”

And here he admits to the risky action he’s taken in service of his Foreseen Event (something Luke should be able to relate to after the battle at the Pit of Carkoon): “It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops await them. Oh, I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.”

Luke’s got no answer for that. Watching helplessly as the Rebel Fleet arrives, becomes trapped, and is picked apart by the Imperial Armada, he second-guesses his decision to abandon his friends to fight for his father’s soul.

Angrily, Luke begins to accept that the Emperor has accounted for everything and entertains the notion of joining the battle in the only way he can, by getting his lightsaber back and striking down the Emperor.

The Emperor immediately senses Luke’s raging feelings and pats the lightsaber on his armrest. “You want this, don’t you? The hate is swelling in you now. Take your Jedi weapon. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant.”

As he says this, the Emperor knows of course that Darth Vader will protect him at all costs — if Luke really wants to kill the Emperor he will first have to face Vader in combat and he will probably win. But by killing Vader, Luke will fall to the Dark Side.

It seems the Emperor’s got everything covered. Luke has no options and it’s pissing him the eff off, which isn’t good either because as Yoda instructed in The Empire Strikes Back: “Anger, fear, aggression — the Dark Side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…”

Luke agonizes over his next course of action. How does he beat the Emperor from within the jaws of a trap? Perhaps he remembers an important question he once asked Yoda:

Luke: Is the dark side stronger?

Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

Luke: But how am I to know the good side from the bad?

Yoda: You will know… when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

 

So if Luke even attacks at all, he’s walking the path of the Dark Side. But what the heck is he supposed to do? Meditate? Sing a little ditty? He’s got to do something.

The Emperor, sitting pretty with his Foreseen Event unfolding perfectly according to plan, continues to apply pressure to Luke: “As you can see, my young apprentice, your
friends have failed. Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!”

As Luke watches in horror, the Death Star II’s surprise cannon begins picking off Rebel cruisers, throwing the rest of the fleet into a fatal panic.

The Death Star II’s fully operational cannon

“Your fleet has lost,” says the Emperor. “And your friends on the Endor moon will not survive. There is no escape, my young apprentice. The Alliance will die… as will your friends.”

Luke quietly rages. He knows he has to help his friends somehow and he’s never going to be in a better position to kill the Emperor than right now. After all, the guy’s an old wrinkly fogey — what chance does he have against a powerful young Jedi with a lightsaber? The only catch, the conflict that is killing Luke, is his promise to himself not to fight his father.

The Emperor revels in Luke’s torture. “Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon! Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete.”

He may be offering himself as the victim of Luke’s rage but he’s actually describing Vader’s murder at Luke’s hand — for he understands, just as Yoda and Obi-Wan do, that Luke’s decision whether or not to kill Vader will determine his fate. An excellent magician, he deceives Luke into thinking the end (killing the Emperor) will justify the means (killing Vader and falling to the Dark Side).

Luke decides to go for it, to kill the Emperor right here and now before all is lost. He grabs the lightsaber and swings at the Emperor, but his blade is stopped by Darth Vader’s own blade. Father and son duel.

Quickly gaining the advantage over Vader, Luke finally regains his composure and switches off his lightsaber. “I will not fight you, father.”

Vader continues to attack but Luke only retreats, saying, “Your thoughts betray you, father. I feel the good in you… the conflict.” (Whether this is true or if it’s simply Luke’s faith coming out as projected insight is up for debate, for the Emperor appears unworried; either he feels no conflict in Vader or he’s simply too overconfident to notice.)

Rather than fight, Luke hides. Vader searches for him, trying to goad him into resuming the duel, even astutely pointing out Luke’s only option: “Give yourself over to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends.” — but it’s a futile effort until Vader senses Luke’s concern for the safety of Leia, his recently discovered twin sister.

Vader then takes the opportunity to convey just how un-conflicted he is about his allegiance to the Emperor: “Sister! So, you have a twin sister… Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps she will.”

And that is simply too doggone much for Luke to take: Vader’s threat to turn his own daughter to the Dark Side crushes Luke’s faith that Vader is anything but an evil tool of the Emperor. The sense of betrayal, disappointment, pain, and fear engulf Luke and he strikes out at his father with such rage that Vader is barely able to keep up.

Luke strikes, strikes, strikes — meaning to kill Vader, though during those crucial moments he no longer remembers why (in his fury, he strikes surrounding objects as often as he hits Vader’s blade). Vader falls, raises his lightsaber in helpless defense, and Luke promptly cuts off his hand at the wrist. Victorious, Luke holds his blade to Vader’s throat.

The Emperor approaches them and chuckles, unable to contain his glee. “Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father’s place at my side!”

That clears up Luke’s head but quick. Staring at Vader’s severed robot hand, Luke then looks at his own robot hand and realizes just how far along the path to the Dark Side he’s come — in his efforts to emulate his father, Luke has fallen further than he ever could have realized. Until now.

(One can only wonder how things would have turned out if the Emperor had simply kept his wrinkly mouth shut — but if he had any sense of restraint he wouldn’t be the Emperor.)

Luke tosses his weapon away, his rage suddenly evaporated by enlightenment. He stands defiantly unarmed, now truly a Jedi Knight — he has faced Vader and under the absolute worst of circumstances has chosen the path of mercy.

“Never,” says Luke. “I’ll never turn to the Dark Side. You’ve failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

The Emperor sees that Luke is right — he is now a Jedi. And the Emperor, being the kind of guy he is, doesn’t take disappointment very well. “So be it, Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed.”

Lightning blasts out of the Emperor’s hands and he slowly begins to kill Luke in the most painful way imaginable. Vader struggles to his feet and stands at his master’s side.

Angrily, the Emperor says, “Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side.” Insulted by Luke’s choice to walk the path of the Jedi, the Emperor spits, “You have paid the price for your lack of vision.”

“Father, please!” Luke cries in agony. “Help me!”

Vader looks from Luke to the Emperor and back again. Now the conflict within Vader is quite visible even through his mask, though the Emperor is too busy killing Luke to notice.

Preparing for the final fatal strike, the Emperor says, “Now, young Skywalker… You will die.”

And here’s what it all comes down to — Luke and the Emperor: two warring futures now met at the flashpoint of the present. But while both of them have moved along diverging paths of pre-designed Fates, Vader the force of nature who lives firmly in the present reveals himself as the biggest uncertainty of all, the father of unknown variables, the very thing that both creates faith and is created by faith: free will.

Until that very moment, standing there watching his master murder his son, Vader has no idea what he’s going to do. He frankly hasn’t thought about it; he leaves the thinking to the Emperor, which is why he’s been such a good servant all these years.

But in those moments, listening to his dying son cry out to him, Vader acts — grabs the Emperor, takes the brunt of the wild lightning now blasting out in all directions, and tosses the old bastard down a bottomless pit, thus sacrificing his life to defend Luke. Truly, the act of a Jedi.

And therein lies the Final Law of Prescience: For all your visions, all your plans, all your maneuvers, you’ve got nothing on free will.

Star Wars Part II: Jabba Must Die!

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Eijo: Okay, so where were we? Oh yeah, Luke’s figured out how to see the future (or at least one possible future, or Fate, based upon his desires and plan of action) — but before he can take on someone as tough as the Emperor, who also possesses the power of prescience, Luke sets his sights on the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt.

We can assume that at some point during meditation Luke discovers the Second Law of Prescience — that he’s got to have a specific intention for his Fate, a goal. Easy. “What must I do to save Han?”

Maybe he sees a possible future involving a sneaky and well-planned rescue that doesn’t include all-out combat against Jabba and his minions. They get in, they grab Han, they bug out, no muss no fuss.

Luke shrugs and thinks, Meh, it works, but he’s one of these impatient, over-confident “go hard or go home” guys. Saving Han is good. Saving Han and killing Jabba the Hutt is better.

Either Luke comes up with this more violent intention on purpose or subconsciously. Either way, it doesn’t matter — once he gets the idea to act like a Big Damn Hero and save his buddy while killing the toughest G on Tatooine, he can’t let it go. The audacity, the sheer violence of the act energizes him (shades of some Daddy Vader idolizing here?), though it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of reasons to take Jabba out hardcore:

Safety: Han won’t be safe until Jabba is dead.

Ego: Luke’s taking on the whole bloody Empire and this little gangster is gonna go and act a fool by kidnapping his friend? Aw hell no.

Vengeance: Luke won’t allow Jabba to freeze Han in carbonite and hang him up on the wall like a velvet Elvis and get away with it without paying the ultimate price.

Emulation (either conscious or subconscious): Here’s the kicker. Luke — whose only family was kindly Aunt Beru, gruff Uncle Owen, brotherly friend Biggs Darklighter, and that quirky old wizard Ben Kenobi are now all dead — has recently discovered that Darth Vader is his father. Luke obviously experiences horror at the news, but also an almost immediate desire to connect with Vader emotionally, reverently calling him “Father.” When we see Luke for the first time in Return of the Jedi he’s dressed in all black looking much more like a Dark Side apprentice than a Jedi, and his actions on Tatooine clearly show someone who has not yet decided which path to walk. (shoot, man, Luke looks just like the danged Emperor!)

         Um, this is our good guy?

What at first (and even 20th) viewing appears to be a slipshod rescue attempt at Jabba’s Palace in actuality proves to be an ambitious high-risk strategy executed in such a way as to accomplish Luke’s two-fold objective: rescue Han and destroy Jabba (again it’s no mistake that this plan incorporates both the peaceful intentions of a defensive Jedi and those of a violently-intentioned agent of the Dark Side since Luke is torn between those paths).

Luke has foreseen the destruction of Jabba — the sail barge floating over the Pit of Carkoon, Artoo launching the lightsaber into the sky, Han unfrozen, perhaps even Leia in
a position to be close enough to Jabba to kill him — and with pure intention Luke sets this vision as his Fate; now, he must take action in order to secure this future he desires.

Either through suggestion or subtle lies (let’s not fool ourselves — Luke is playing a dangerous game with the lives of the people he loves), Luke places his friends at key points so they all will be in position when the Foreseen Event arrives.

[In this context, the Foreseen Event is the physical moment when all of the seer’s precisely set variables come together to create the his desired Fate; in this case, the battle aboard the sail barge at the Pit of Carkoon which will result in Han’s rescue and Jabba’s destruction. Again, keep in mind that the problems arise from the unforeseen variables.]

Because Luke must count on his friends to act naturally (as predictable variables) in the days leading up to the Foreseen Event he cannot alert them to the fact that he knows what’s coming or that they are ultimately chess pieces placed upon the board he has created. Thus, when Leia rashly sneaks into Jabba’s main audience chamber to rescue Han by herself, she’s acting on her own instincts without realizing her failure will accomplish two smaller tasks within Luke’s larger design: thawing Han & getting herself “enslaved” so she’ll be in position to kill Jabba.

aaaaall part o’ the plan

Let’s take a second and look at the pieces Luke has set upon his board:

Lando and Chewbacca are the avant-garde — they get to Tatooine first and Lando goes undercover as a member of Jabba’s Palace guard where he assumably transmits gathered intelligence covertly to Chewie who’s staying with the Millennium Falcon. (It’s possible Lando also makes certain Jabba’s translating droid gets the ol’ heave-ho so there’s a spot for C-3PO to take upon his arrival.)

Next, C-3PO and R2-D2 (smuggling in Luke’s lightsaber) arrive at Jabba’s palace as “gifts” from Luke to Jabba. Threepio is given the translating job while Artoo is put to work aboard the sail barge serving drinks (this indicates Luke’s fore-knowledge that the final battle will in fact play out aboard the sail barge and not in Jabba’s main audience chamber where he first attempts to “kill” Jabba with a guard’s blaster).

Then Leia arrives (in disguise as the bounty hunter Boussh) with a “captured” Chewie, whom she sells to Jabba. Chewie is sent down to the dungeons — a predictable move Luke is counting on so that Chewie can protect Han until the rescue.

Late at night, Leia attempts to rescue Han herself. Perhaps she told Luke this ahead of time, maybe not, doesn’t matter because either way Luke is fully aware that she will make the attempt — in fact, he’s counting on it because he needs Han free of the carbonite in time for the real rescue. Moments after Leia frees Han, they are captured by Jabba. The plan is unfolding just as Luke foresaw it.

Upon their capture, Han is sent down to the dungeon and into Chewbacca’s cell where both are safely held away from the other obviously less-than-savory prisoners (maybe Lando uses his position in palace security to make sure they get tossed in the same cell) while Leia is dressed in a revealing slavegirl outfit and put on a leash. This leash will of course be the very weapon that ends Jabba’s life — it’s not a stretch to imagine Luke foresaw this as well.

Finally, Luke himself pays a visit to Jabba’s Palace.

it doesn’t go well

Mere moments after introductions are made, Luke offers Jabba two options — release his friends or die. This isn’t mere arrogance; Luke is speaking of his Fate. He’s also making trouble: he knows he must antagonize Jabba into ordering the execution of him and his friends because the decisive battle must take place at the execution site, the Pit of Carkoon. But despite his growing powers of prescience, Luke soon finds himself the victim of the First Law of Prescience: “Always in motion is the future.”

This law is a direct parallel to Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, that oh-so-popular quantum physics saw which states (and forgive me because I’m para-phrasing here, and I sure ain’t no quantum mechanic): it is impossible to measure the values of all the properties of a system at the same time.

there, that should clear it all up

This principle came out of an attempt to measure the location of an electron spinning around a nucleus. The problem is, you can’t accurately determine both the position and the momentum of an electron — you get either one or the other, and the more accurate a measurement you get of the one (ex: position) the less accurate your measurement becomes of the other (ex: momentum). It’s as if matter on a quantum level wiggles the closer you look at it. And that’s just a one-dimensional system; the disparity between the measurable and the unknowable grows by leaps and bounds the more complicated the system gets.

(Albert Einstein hated this idea and famously said of it, “I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe.” Fellow physicist Niels Bohr responded, “Einstein, don’t tell God what to do.”)

The uncertainty factor of foresight is exactly what the First Law of Prescience is talking about; the closer you look at the future, the more it wiggles — too many variables, too many uncertainties, and in spite of the upped odds it’s still a risky roll of the dice. What’s more, the risk multiplies in direct correlation to the ambition of the plan, and Luke’s plan is hella ambitious; in deed, he puts all of his friends in bad possibly fatal situations just so that he can get within arm’s reach of destroying Jabba. (If that ain’t Dark Side, what is?)

Thus, when Luke walks into Jabba’s Palace and starts making threats, he’s unprepared for Jabba’s first reaction — dumping Luke into a pit where he faces the towering carnivorous Rancor (and him without his lightsaber). Luke’s shocked response makes it quite clear that the confrontation wasn’t part of his vision; the Rancor is a nearly fatal variable Luke didn’t predict. (By committing himself to actions in service of his Foreseen Event, now even Luke is but a cog in his own machine, as much a prisoner to the circumstances he’s created as anyone else.)

The Rancor: a deadly variable

Luke’s survival and destruction of the Rancor pisses Jabba off so bad the gangster immediately promises, “They will suffer for this outrage!” and sentences Luke and his friends to be executed at the Pit of Carkoon. It is at this point, when all is at its most precarious, that Luke’s plan comes together. And what’s more — he knows it.

As he (along with Han and Chewie) is dragged off to await execution, Luke tells Jabba this is his last chance to free Luke and the others, or die. Jabba perceives no threat; on the contrary, he is quite clearly reveling in his “victory” over Luke.

And what happens? They all ride the sail barge out to the Pit of Carkoon and Luke leads a daring rescue of Han that not only succeeds, but results in the utter destruction of Jabba the Hutt and his minions. Just as Luke believed it would.

The Third Law of Prescience: Without faith, you cannot succeed.

This is another variable, a biggy, the direct opposite of foreknowledge that is essential to success: faith. The seer must accept that he cannot know everything, cannot predict or compensate for all of the variables, and must ultimately surrender himself to the knowledge that the future will unfold as it naturally should — the seer accepts any outcome with humility and respect whether it all works out according to his predictions and desires or not, at least that’s the way a Jedi would face the future.

(Though the argument could be made that Jedi don’t concern themselves with attempting to alter the future in the first place. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda admonishes Luke’s penchant for looking ahead: “All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.” Glaring at Luke, Yoda says, “You are reckless.” And the little green dude ain’t wrong.)

Luckily for Luke, he is often guided by faith (his success hinges on his faith in his friends as much as the conditions he’s invented) and sure enough everything works out in the end: Luke’s risky first attempt at constructing and exploiting a Foreseen Event results in the rescue of Han Solo and the annihilation of Jabba the Hutt’s mob.

Luke’s Fate has come true.

Next up, the stunning conclusion! What happens to Luke & the Emperor’s Duel of the Fates when the unpredictable force of nature that is Darth Vader shows up?

Star Wars Blu-Ray: The Future is Now

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Eijo: I recently picked up the Star Wars blu-ray set and it’s been years since I’ve seen these movies, so I’m having a blast re-visiting them. Like a lotta folks, I enjoy The Empire Strikes Back the most, but if you’d have asked me which was my favorite back when I was 8-years-old, I woulda said Return of the Jedi easy.

Thing is, Jedi‘s when the movies started getting silly — wall-to-wall muppets, not one but two wet monster belches, and of course those cutesy ewoks (I don’t hate ‘em as much as other people, but they didn’t exactly help things). Watching the movie now, I found myself cringing a few times, but then I got curious about why certain things happened the way they did. Flaws in the story came across a little too loudly this time — Luke’s roundabout plan to save Han Solo that seems doomed at every turn, yet works out perfectly in the end; why the Emperor, who’s supposed to be such a smart guy, makes some insanely dumb choices like giving the rebels the perfect opening to blow him to smithereens.

But then something happened while I was pondering these “plot holes” during one of the yub-nub scenes — I began to see a certain logic to it all. A deeper story was being told: a high-stakes chess game between Luke and the Emperor, two characters with the powerful (yet fatally limited) ability to see the future and the cold will to do whatever it takes to emerge victorious.

Apologies up front: this sucka runs long, so I’m gonna split it into three parts. Okay, let’s kick things off with a suitably hoity-toity, academic-sounding title…

Warring Futures: The Power and Danger of Prescience in Return of the Jedi

Foreseeing the future can be a powerful ally, but it can be a dangerous one as well [see what I did there? with the title? someone should be paying me for this stuff], for the future is not a thing easily tamed. Myths and sagas deal with the questions of foresight all the time, but one example of a particularly potent, lucid exploration of prescience exists as subtext in the second half of the original Star Wars trilogy (notably due to the quickly increasing use of the word “destiny”); the bulk of its implications are felt in the Return of the Jedi, but its groundwork is laid during two key scenes in The Empire Strikes Back. Let’s start with a look at those.

The first occurs while Luke Skywalker trains to be a Jedi under Yoda. During a physically demanding meditation session, Luke has a terrifying vision of his friends being tortured in the cloud city of Bespin:

Luke: I saw a city in the clouds.

Yoda: Friends you have there.

Luke: They were in pain.

Yoda: It is the future you see.

Luke: Will they die?

Yoda: Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Okay, let’s call this the First Law of Prescience: Always in motion is the future. This is the very core of the power and danger of prescience as established in the Star Wars trilogy — the future is not set, but rather it is a fluid state that is made up of infinite variables perceived (and here’s the rub: unperceived) by the “seer.” That’s what makes the whole “foreseeing” thing so tricky — even a powerful dude like Yoda, or the Emperor, can’t see all ends.

Classic double-edged sword, right? Most of the variables that make up the future can’t be guessed at, let alone seen, and thus are impossible to predict. Or control. But there is one variable the seer can bet on with confidence: himself.

Foreseeing your own Fate therefore is much easier than foreseeing the future of others, which is why Yoda cannot definitively predict whether or not Darth Vader will actually kill Han, Leia, and the others at the cloud city — there are simply too many variables that have absolutely nothing to do with Yoda’s own Fate since he has absolutely no intention of hopping around planets getting into any more adventures at his age.

[By the way, "Fate" in this context specifically refers to the seer's vision of his own future, based on his wants n' desires n' various shenanigans, though keep in mind that the seer's Fate is only one possible future, higher odds than other futures maybe, but still ain't guaranteed to come true.]

Cool, so, the Second Law of Prescience states: the seer’s intentions frame the vision of the future s/he receives.

It’s like this — you can’t simply look into your crystal ball and say, “So what happens in the next five years?” The question’s too vague, too big. You gotta get into specifics, and those specifics are naturally going to be based on your desires, and what actions you’re willing to take to make those desires a reality.

For example, you might say, “I’m an Emperor just tryin’ to do his thang, run some game, but now the rebellion’s got this kid who’s ridin’ dirty like a Jedi — what’s gonna happen to all my hard work oppressin’ s**t if he comes at me?”

The answer to this question informs the second instance when Luke hears about prescience in The Empire Strikes Back. It’s right at the end of his bloody confrontation with Darth Vader.

Luke’s got a hand off, he’s dealing with some serious daddy issues, he’s contemplating suicide… and then Vader drops this bit o’ fried gold:  “Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny.”

That simple statement will shape the conflict at the core of Return of the Jedi — the difference between the Luke’s Fate and the Emperor’s Fate; two futures shaped by their seers’ wildly divergent intentions. (Honestly, Jedi should’ve been the movie with a song called “Duel of the Fates,” but I digress.)

So Luke survives his battle with Darth Vader, and understandably takes some time off to lick his wounds… and ponder this whole “foreseeing the future” business he’s been hearing about. He figures prescience could really help out the goodies’ cause — if he learns how to predict the future, and plan accordingly, this war could be over next week.

Luke gets to work. Maybe he finds some ancient Jedi tome that explains the whole thing, or maybe he texts Yoda for some hints — or perhaps he discovers during meditation that the ability is already there inside him, that it has been for some time. After all, when he first arrived at Dagobah to find Yoda, Luke mentioned that the place was “like something out of a dream” and that there was “something familiar” about it.

Damn right. Luke was already seeing his Fate, but in a subconscious way — now he begins to hone the ability. Vague visions creep in and out of view, tough to grasp at first, or even understand, but after some practice he starts to see specifics. He’s growing, learning at an incredible rate (at least fast enough to build his confidence to pretty nutty proportions), but he’s smart enough to know he ain’t ready to take on the Emperor just yet.

An excellent opportunity to practice his new prescient ability comes in the form of a rescue mission to save Han Solo from the slug gangster Jabba the Hutt. And Luke doesn’t half-ass this trial run — he puts the lives of all his friends in danger in order to incite a bloody battle that culminates in the death of Jabba. It’s an ambitious undertaking conceived and planned according Luke’s visions of the future, as I’ll explore in Part II: Jabba Must Die!

 

Love Never Dies… Until It Does

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Eijo: In 1932, one year after gaining international fame as Frankenstein’s Monster, Boris Karloff “The Uncanny” took on the role of another iconic horror monster, The Mummy. Watching it, I was surprised to find that his version of the Mummy isn’t the cliché lumbering zombie-in-rags I’d expected, but rather a polite coldly calculating and thoroughly lovelorn ancient Egyptian priest named Imhotep.

Risen from the undead after his cursed sarcophagus is opened by over-zealous archeologists, Imhotep finds himself in a strange and modern world, but rather than adapt to it or explore its wonders, he immediately gets to work reconnecting with his old girlfriend, Princess Anck-es-en-Amon (Zita Johann).

In a stunning show of idealized romance, Imhotep attempts to raise her mummy from the dead so they can presumably pick up their relationship where they left off several thousand years ago, but his incantation fails and the Princess’s mummy does not rise. For good reason: she’s already been reincarnated as Helen, a popular ingénue who apparently still possesses some buried memories of her past life, because she’s strangely enraptured by Imhotep the moment she meets him.

Determined to win her back, Imhotep re-ignites Helen’s vestigial memories of him, as well as her past life as the princess — the more she remembers, the deeper she falls for him.

One catch. The dapper archeologist who dug up the princess’s mummy (and presumably donated it to the museum) has also fallen for Helen, and wouldn’t ya know it, she starts falling for him too. Pulled between her past-life’s memory and her present day identity, poor Helen suffers a kind of existential schizophrenia; what she wants (live forever with the ex-boyfriend Mummy? settle for a more conventional relationship with the archeologist?) is entirely dependent on which identity is currently in charge of her consciousness.

Meanwhile, Imhotep ain’t havin’ it — he uses his evil mummy-spells to kill every sumbitch who dares come between him and his Princess. He even tries to off the dashing archeologist.

Throughout the film, Imhotep is one step ahead of everyone else, and everything’s going his way… up until the moment he explains to Helen how they’ll be able to stay together forever — first he’ll kill her, then he’ll raise her from the dead to be immortal like himself.

That’s the flashpoint when Helen and Princess Anck-es-en-Amon see eye-to-eye for the first time: neither one of them wants to die (again). Speaking as the Princess, Helen explains to Imhotep she’s intrigued by the modern world and wants to see more of it.

Imhotep is naturally upset by her response and asks her the one question that is central to the film: Wouldn’t you endure a few moments of agony in order to gain true love for eternity?

It’s a good question, and worth exploring, but The Mummy makes the matter unfortunately (and predictably) clear cut: Helen doesn’t want to endure any agony, thank you very much, which is effectively the end of the love affair.

Imhotep has, in the words of his monstrous cousin Dracula, crossed oceans of time for love — he’s planned, manipulated, stolen, murdered, and even re-lived his own grisly death in order to reconnect with the woman he sacrificed his life for so many centuries ago. This guy’s a walkin’ talkin’ cursifyin’ textbook example of how love makes you do crazy things. I only wish the film would have actually explored that darker side of love that we all can relate to (but prefer not to talk about), rather than portray Imhotep as a mere villain to be vanquished.

As for me, I gotta give the Mummy his due: yeah he was pretty clingy, but he was a romantic.

From a Boy to a Maniac

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Eijo: Madness certainly isn’t a new concept in the world of horror — in fact, it’s often the only rational response to many of the nastier goings ons within shock cinema — but how many times has madness been shown to be not only a natural outcome, but a helpful one as well? Not many, I’d say.

Take a look at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Lead actress (and, in the horror vernacular, “final girl”) Marilyn Burns endures so many abuses — finding the fresh corpses of her friends, watching as her brother gets chainsaw’d to bits in his wheelchair, getting bundled up in a burlap sack and beaten with a broom by a giggling redneck, tied to a skeleton chair and seated as guest of honor at a cannibal family’s supper table in which she’s the intended main course, beaten, sliced, chased… ah well, I don’t wanna give it all away — suffice it to say by the end of the flick she’s alive, yes, but after going through so much crap she loses her mind, fishtailing from screaming to laughing to screaming again. And who can blame her?

What’s interesting in Burns’s situation is that for the majority of the film, she focuses so much on surviving that she becomes positively heroic in her thinking and quick action (jumping through not one, but two windows to get away from the cannibals) and it’s not until the very end when she’s actually safe that she goes fruit-loops right before our very eyes.

Now let’s take a look at perhaps the most famous final girl of all, Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN. Like Burns, she sees everyone around her murdered by a monster (that, while terrifying, is only slightly more scary than cannibalistic in-bred Texans) — but unlike Burns, Weaver escapes the alien more or less still doing okay mentally, only taking leave of her senses momentarily, when she goes to absolutely ridorkulous lengths to save a cat. (Seriously? Cats are cool, man, I love cats, but if there’s a monster nearby? Eff the cats!) Now perhaps Weaver’s character holds onto her sanity because she was able to plan and execute a successful attack on the alien, destroying it in order to make her escape while Burns merely “got away,” full in the knowledge that Leatherface is still out there somewhere, dancing around with his chainsaw. Either way, we’ve got two movies based around similar events but with different psychological results — results which aren’t clear until the end.

The Evil Dead also follows the same chain of events — final girl Bruce Campbell watches all of his friends die as well, but they die much earlier in the film and Campbell’s psychological reaction comes earlier as well. He’s off his bird well before the final credits, and the twist is this: his madness not only doesn’t hurt him in the long run, it saves him.

The key difference here is the villain, and the fact that writer/director Sam Raimi fully explores the psychological ramifications of that villain — evil demons. The Texas cannibals and the alien are both, for all intents and purposes, non-supernatural villains with simple tastes: cannibals want to eat people and the alien wants to make a nest of hosts n’ corpses in a warm part of the spaceship. Nasty stuff, sure, but each villain has its own logic, its own rules.

The demonic spirits of The Evil Dead however, are the very antithesis of logic. As spiritual anarchists, these demons attack all forms of reason — they mock sanity, love, rational thought, perception, even nature. They attack your mind, yanking the rug out from under you and only after they’ve stripped away all your hope and sanity do they come in for the kill. They’re malevolent pranksters, wearing the face of your recently deceased girlfriend to do what? Attack you? Nope. Just giggle at your dumb ass. Now that’s messed up.

So while Burns and Weaver go through some pretty nasty business, psychologically speaking, Campbell goes through even worse stuff because he’s getting dogged by the very demons that assaulted his sister with trees (still a very disturbing scene), made her go mad, then killed her, and then used her possessed body to kill his girlfriend Linda.

Not that Campbell starts off in the best shape — as wussy post-feminist girly boy Ashley, Campbell starts out as a winning combination of goofy dork, lame boyfriend, and crappy sidekick in a fight. He flinches at every dang prank his annoying buddy Scott pulls, gets overly worried, lets everyone else tell him what to do, and freezes up with terror every time something scary happens.

Turns out that jerk Scott is the proactive one, the guy who ventures into the dark basement and attempts to find an escape route while Ashley just stands around waiting for the right moment to give his girlfriend Linda a pretty necklace.

But then everyone starts dying — Ashley’s sister, Scott’s girlfriend, then Ashley’s girlfriend Linda. And when Scott returns from his ill-advised trek to find an way out, and he’s torn to shreds by trees (one wonders what the branches did to his hidey hole) and bleeding to death on the couch, Ashley can only think to say, “You’re gonna be all right. You’re gonna be fine.”

This is when we begin to see Ashley’s sanity unravel. He paces the room, stepping carefully past the dismembered pieces of Scott’s girlfriend, and just keeps repeating, “We’re all going to be just fine.”

What’s interesting about Ashley’s descent into madness is that it comes in fits and starts. When he finally decides to face his demon-possessed girlfriend, he goes full-on nutty and takes her out to the shed where he chains her to a work table and revs up a chainsaw with all the intention of cutting her into little bits. This is the first time in the Evil Dead series that we get a glimpse of Ash, the cult icon — he’s bloody, he’s insane, and he’s holding a chainsaw. (This moment is such a well crafted foreshadow of Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, it almost makes me want to believe Raimi had this whole series worked out from the start, though I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.)

But then Ashley sees his girlfriend’s new necklace and it grounds him. Regaining his last shred of sanity, he takes her outside to bury her like any civilized person would — and for his trouble, he’s attacked by her, forced to decapitate her with a shovel, and then finds himself trapped under her headless body as it dry-humps him while spurting blood all over his face from its neckhole. Yep, Ashley’s halfway to Crazy Town now.

Back inside the house, Ashley descends into the creepy basement ostensibly to get more ammo for his shotgun, but we know this scene is really about him falling down the rabbit hole. As a record player begins to spin an old timey song, Ashley discovers a film projector. The projector turns on, and what appears to be an enlightening moment of exposition (perhaps a key piece of history about the Book of the Dead, the evil tome that started this whole mess) turns out to be both a plot MacGuffin and a thematic high-point: the nail in the coffin of Ashley’s mind — the projected image (which Ashley never even turns to look at) is quickly obscured by thick gore which has dripped onto the lens. The record player breaks. A light bulb fills with blood. And that, folks, is the end of Ashley’s sanity.

When Ash emerges from the basement, his (and our) perception has shifted. Every shot is askew, off-center, and (in one great moment) completely upside down.

Ash approaches a mirror, sees his face which is still recognizable, and reaches out to touch the glass, but his hand goes right through it like water and he starts screaming because now he’s not only mad — he’s mad and he knows it.

The demons know he’s mad as well, and they recognize this for what it is, a turn of the tide against them — insanity is their main advantage and if Ash is crazy too then they can no longer intimidate him. So they’re done playing now. They come in for the kill but Ash fights them off, blasting them to bits with his shotgun and here’s the weird thing — his insanity has turned him into a badass. By tearing down all his notions of civilized behavior, he’s released his inner cro-magnon — the dude’s de-evolved from a late 20th Century milquetoast to a medieval mamma-jamma. The demons aren’t giggling anymore.

Serious as heart-attacks, the demons give their all — stabbing, biting, pulling, ripping — just abusing the everlovin’ heck out of Ash, but he’s beyond fear or even rational thought. He sees the Book of the Dead nearby and applies the power of his madness-fueled imagination (for when in a million years would this ever work normally?): uses his girlfriend’s necklace to hook the edge of the book so he can yank it within his grasp and hurl it into the fireplace. The effect is instantaneous and dramatic — the demons scream and melt and burst into creamed corn or something, and there’s blood everywhere.

A couple giant arms suddenly reach out of the pile of demon corpses. This is the Demon King, the dude who likes to go roaring around the woods (contrary to popular belief, we actually do get to see it, or at least one of its forms, as a gigantic face roaring in the doorway of the cabin at the end of Evil Dead II), and as it vanishes a voice whispers to Ash, “Join us.”

The Demon King is clearly impressed by Ash’s mad-fu.

As the sun rises, Ash gets to his feet and walks outside. All seems right with the world (excepting the fact that Ash is still completely nuts) until the final shot: the Demon King’s point-of-view as it barrels into Ash, apparently quite insistent on Ash joining the evil dead club.

While there are certainly differences in continuity from one Evil Dead film to the next, the thing that really surprised me watching The Evil Dead again was how perfectly it sets up the Ash we know and love from the next two films. Truly, he is an insane hero, and he proves again and again that he is perhaps the only person fit to battle the demons because he plays at their level — he enjoys the pure thrill of killing just as much as they do, and he’s often laughing just as hard, if not harder, than they are.

The Disturbing Issue of Dead Meat

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Eijo: George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a classic for many reasons — the graphic introduction of the modern image of zombies, a grim racially charged ending, a successful melding of horror and cinéma vérité (which would inspire the style of others including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, and Rec), and let’s not forget the classic movie line “They’re coming to get you, Barbra…” — but watching it for the gazillionth time last night I suddenly felt that there’s another reason why this film continues to haunt audiences: Night of the Living Dead is possibly one of the only films in cinema history to powerfully convey the existential horror of being “dead meat.”

We all like to believe we’re beautiful and unique snowflakes (with apologies to Chuck Palahniuk) and that our special-ness will somehow live on past death, which of course is the central concern of most religions as well as the defining philosophy behind burial rituals throughout history. (Egyptians of course had those fanciest of burials for their pharaohs, but in this day and age’s more capitalistic societies, anyone can spend cold hard cash to bury a loved one like royalty in a swank casket with hand-brushed Venetian bronze exterior, matching premium swing bars, and a hand-knit rose-tan velvet interior). So deep is the mystery of death that many of us deal with it in the only way we can, by tending lovingly to the remains of the person we once knew.

There is a dramatic (and shocking) difference between a living person and a dead body — including surprising physical changes as the nose often shifts position shortly before or after death, making the person slightly unrecognizable. And when that person stops breathing, when the heart stops beating, and the brain finally dies, there’s a definite sense that the person has left, and all that remains is a carcass. To the touch a corpse feels somehow fake.

It’s a scary thing to think that, no matter how special we are, it takes less than a moment for us to be reduced to meat and bones, and few movies have truly conveyed the horror of watching a living, vital, unique person transformed into a carcass within the blink of an eye. Night of the Living Dead makes a point of shoving dead meat right in our face.

The zombies, or the “living dead,” are themselves a slow lumbering kick to the nards of human civilization’s inherent reverence for the dead; rather than remaining in their comfy caskets where they belong, they begin walking among us, approaching us, even feeding off of us — forcing us to the tasteless task of physically fighting off our rotting neighbors or loved ones.

A news report midway through the film brings this theme front and center when a visibly shaken tv anchor interviews an uncomfortable “expert,” a government official by the name of Dr. Grimes who makes it clear that the days of respecting the dead are effectively over.

 

Dr. Grimes: The bodies should be disposed of at once, preferably by cremation.

TV Anchor: Well, how long after death then does the body become reactivated?

Dr. Grimes: It’s only a matter of minutes.

TV Anchor: Minutes? Well, that doesn’t give people time to make any arrangements–

Dr. Grimes: No, you’re right. It doesn’t give them time to make funeral arrangements. The bodies must be carried to the street and burned. They must be burned immediately.
Soak them with gasoline and burn them. The bereaved will have to forgo the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. Uh, they’re just dead flesh.

 

Several scenes later, cute young couple Tom and Judy prove Dr. Grimes’s statement quite literally. After an intimate moment showing us just how cute and young and in love they are, Ted and Julie strike out into the night in order to fill up the gas tank of a pickup truck, but there’s an accident at the gas pump and the whole works explodes, flash frying them both in their seats. A few minutes later, the zombies stumble over to the wreckage and begin pulling the Tom and Judy’s charred remains out of the truck. We’re then treated to close-ups of zombies fighting over intestines, chewing on leg bones, gnawing the flesh off someone’s hand (not really sure if it’s Tom’s or Judy’s — am I wrong for wondering?). It’s pretty nasty stuff and a stunning display of irreverence for the dead, which even today feels downright subversive.

However, the most effective display of death’s inherent lack of sentiment comes at the very end, during the final moments of the credits when the film’s star Duane Jones, who has been mistaken for a zombie by a redneck posse and shot in the head, is lifted up on meat hooks and dumped upon a pile of bodies, then lit on fire.

While there’s certainly the racial component to the scene — Jones, the black star of the film is murdered with casual disregard by the band of gun-totin’ white boys — there is also the larger “dead meat” concept at work here: throughout the film, we’ve cheered Jones on as he’s fought to survive not only zombie attacks but also the idiotic tendencies of several of his living, breathing co-stars; he’s been innovative, brave, quick to think & quick to act, protective of other characters — in other words, a true movie hero. And yet, for all our empathy we’re rewarded with Jones’s meaningless death followed by the careless disposal of his corpse. Piled next to Jones’s body is the Cemetery Zombie, the first living dead character to appear in the film, which begs the unsettling question: an hour ago, one man was alive and the other was undead, but now they’re both just plain ol’ corpses — is there any difference between the two of them anymore? Aren’t they both, now, just dead meat?