[ Post a Response | EVEN DeepER Blurting! ]
Posted by Kenneth Morgan
on 8/7/2008, 8:24 am, in reply to "DVDs you might like to see"
--Previous Message--
: I recently came across some of those two movie
: DVDs being sold at Bestbuy. And one of them
: was "Moon Zero Two / When Dinosaurs
: Ruled the Earth". Not a bad combo. Too
: bad the second feature wasn't also a MST3k
: feature, at one time. There were two other
: DVD 2-fer volumes. But I forgot their
: titles. One of those may have also been an
: old MST3k feature.
I'm a little surprised you found these in an actual store. So far as I know, neither has had an official release in the U.S. Oh, and as for "Moon Zero Two", check back tomorrow.
: There's some advanced word that Disney might
: finally be releasing one of my favorites,
: "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh".
: However they may have retitled it, as
: "Disney Presents...." or "Dr.
: Syn", or something, just to be
: confusing. And I doubt we'll see it until
: after the Election. As this feature could
: inspire political unrest.
:
: It's basically the time of the Boston Tea
: Party and Ride of Paul Revere, told as a
: fictional paraphrase story, in a fictional
: town, in a fictional country called Ireland.
: The people there are as equally oppressed by
: the English crown, as we were in the
: Colonies. High taxes and Naval recruitment,
: threatening to drain the locals dry. A
: masked hero (aka The Scarecrow) helps the
: farm folk get by with smuggled goods. And
: occasionally rescuing an escaped political
: prisoner. It's fascinating to see how the
: local church Vicar transforms himself into
: this over the top hero, with his Solomon
: like wisdom, in settling disputes. It's
: Disney, so nobody gets killed. But you're
: always left believing it could happen any
: minute. And wondering how it didn't? It's
: just too bad our own colonial history
: couldn't have been told in a similarly
: exciting tale. But I suspect there were
: pressures not to. And those who would balk
: at Disney stepping on sacred ground, if it
: wasn't told accurately enough. So, instead,
: they went with this foreign fiction, of the
: same era. In case you're wondering, Patrick
: McGoohan plays the Vicar Dr. Syn (aka The
: Scarecrow). And that strange laugh of his
: (under a cloth mask) is enough to freeze
: anyone's soul. And so unlike the Vicar's
: usual calm register, that it's a far better
: disguise than Clark Kent's glasses. No one
: outside of his two closest helpers knows or
: suspects his identity. And as a churchman,
: he get to spy upon the very English military
: leaders that he opposes as the Scarecrow.
:
: The only real drawback to this story was
: Disney's rather hokie theme song. More
: exhibition than anything. It's a little too
: sappy, after you've heard it once. And they
: use images from later in the story, to
: support it. Thus giving some of the plot
: away, too early. It has a kind of
: "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" meets
: "Robin Hood" style. But it's just
: not as scary or moody as some pirate story
: theme. And this Scarecrow basically is a
: land based pirate.
: -Dex-
I remember this one well. It's even been used a riff material. In one movie (can't remember which), the theme is referenced thus:
JOEL: (singing) Scarecrow!
CROW: Scare me?
In fact, this movie is based on the same source material as "Night Creatures" (a.k.a. "Captain Clegg"), the Hammer adventure movie I reviewed a while back. Some rights hassles forced Hammer to change the name of the characters in its version.
I remember the story being pretty good. Hope this release materializes.
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