Sharknado: you are not wasting your time

[Image from earwolf]

The Sharknado movie was everything that I expected it to be and more. I was watching it with my friends and we were all super excited to see the actual sharknado. It took about an hour but we finally got the glory shots of a shark tornado that we were aching for and everything in between was glorious. The ninety minutes of flying sharks, disaster porn and menstruation jokes about the floods of bloody water were an epic that was worth every second of my time. 

This film follows a bunch of people – I don’t remember their names. There’s the divorced dad, the girl who works at his bar, the ex-wife who’s still in love with her rugged ex-husband, their two grown-up kids and the divorced dad’s friend from Tasmania. I’m not entirely sure what their deals were, since they were in no way more important than the sharknado itself. The phenomenon dominates the entire movie. It is the only character that matters. There is a moment of excitement at the beginning where sharks are pouring into the streets in giant waves and it seems that there may even be a sharknami featured in the movie. There wasn’t, but that’s just something to look forward to in the sequel then, isn’t it? 

Just diving into a shark's mouth with a chainsaw... nothing to see here. [image source]

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Anyway, for the human characters, the storyline is an epic race to find higher ground and save all of their family and love interests from getting eaten by sharks. The sharks are buffeted everywhere by the wind and water. They can go anywhere so long as there is even a little bit of water and they will COME RIGHT AT YOU!! The random chaos and carnage the sharknado causes as it creeps across the city of Los Angeles is scary enough but then all of a sudden THERE ARE THREE SHARKNADOES!!! Almost every shark in the ocean must have been plucked for the creation of this disaster. For sharks to be flying around in the air for hours, ripping stuff up and devouring people, would be the equivalent of a ton of grizzly bears jumping into the ocean on a busy beach and murdering all of the swimmers. Isn’t that terrifying to think about? Not only would you have sharks, jellyfish and sea snakes to worry about, there would also be grizzly bears in the ocean. 

 

dude, it's gonna kill you. [image source]

While watching the film I found myself wishing that it had been released years ago while I was in high school. The critical theme analysis I could glean from this movie would have covered my “man VS nature” requirements in my final exam. In this film, the sharknadoes are eventually defeated with explosives. It sends a powerful message to the audience that man is not powerless in the face of nature; we can overcome the trials that natural disasters present. 

It was surprisingly accurate too. Shark skin is really rough so a shark shooting past you at 100 knots and more is definitely going to shred off some skin, which happens a lot in the movie. Not to mention that there were many different types of sharks considered. As an Australian citizen, it makes me happy to see that there are now so many popular films giving Australia more rep than just a nation of blondie-redneck-“throw a shrimp on the barbie”-crocodile hunters. Not only does Straya get its own mechas in Pacific Rim, Sharknado also sheds light on some Australian issues. 

Not only is one of the main characters Australian, sharknadoes are sometimes a naturally occurring disaster that plagues our country, along with the many other dangerous things we have around here. Every summer is a terrifying waiting game to see if one of our seasonal cyclones will evolve in a sharknado. It’s particularly a problem in the northern parts of the country where humidity levels actually climb high enough to physically lift the sharks out of the water and carry them over the coast. In the failure of a cyclone, torrential shark rain is also a possibility. 

Real Life Problems [image source]

All in all, Sharknado was a totally worthwhile film. It should be on everyone’s ‘To Watch’ list because there is a shark tornado, they set a pool on fire and bomb the weather. What more do you want to see?

Plasmo: Science fiction has never been so beautiful

[Image from Plasmo and the Infinite Sadness]

Sometimes I really, really, really feel the need to have a bit (a lot) of nostalgia in my life, which is probably the reason why I love Kingdom Hearts so much. Very often I find myself on Google googling various keywords in search of shows that I used to watch as a child. I want to revisit them and in many cases I also want to confirm that they weren’t just things that I dreamed up or imagined.

I always knew for certain that Plasmo wasn’t something I dreamed up but I couldn’t really remember most of it. The most iconic scenes that stuck out to me were Parsty using her force field, Coredor’s slightly traumatic early-childhood-spent-in-a-bubble scene and Episode 3’s unforgettable brick wall at the end of the universe. It’s a short series and all of the episodes plus the pilot are available on Youtube on Anthony Lawrence’s account. That made things extremely easy. 

I watched a hell of a lot of TV when I was a child (my mother denies this but I assure you, it’s absolutely true) and Plasmo was one of my favourite shows to watch. It was incredible how much wonder, beauty, sensitivity, drama and action could be packed into Claymation episodes less than five minutes long. The lessons a child learns from the kindness of Plasmo are head, shoulders and hips above anything I’ve seen on children’s television these days. Each episode is succinct and direct while somehow remaining subtle and charming. They’re dominated by the morals of generosity, friendship and co-operation without needing to resort to the astounding levels of violence a lot of more modern children’s shows are inundated with. 

Some of the character design is pretty cute too.

I’ve got to admit that the pilot episode, Happy Hatchday to Plasmo, is also a kicker. I wasn’t even born in the year that it was made, so the first time I got to see it was recently on the internet with the rest of the series. The models are nothing like the refined versions they show in the 1997 series. It’s actually kind of incredible that something like that even managed to get off the ground. The creator even admits that they had a “shoestring budget” to shoot the pilot. The animation and voice acting is absolutely terrible but it’s still charmingly amusing. The plot is more fantastical than the series it preceded, which went with a more “hard science” approach but the underlying values and quirky characteristics of the characters are still there.

They do more stuff with technology that looks vaguely legit, therefore it's "hard" science. By the way, this is Coredor. Don't say anything about his face...

This planet's name is literally near-unpronouncable and is where most of the story takes place.

Now, I’m not a child. I am way, way, waaaaaaayyy too old for this show but somehow it’s still beautiful. In my recent revisiting of my past, the episodes of Plasmo still made me laugh and cry with joy, sadness, excitement and amazement. If you’re a parent, this show is something that you absolutely need to show your child. Even if you have no children, it’s something you just need to see because of the miracles it will perform on your heart. 

From left: Parsty, Brucho, Plasmo, Nik-nik (dog) and Professor Sashimi. The characters in this show are simply amazing, quirky, colourful. You need to see this show just for them.