Metal Gear tech profiles-Triumph Bonneville motorcycle

 

Although several motorcycles are used in the Metal Gear series, the Triumph Bonneville is perhaps the most iconic in the “Big Boss” era of the games (1963-1984). It’s first seen as Eva’s bike when she’s heading for parts unknown, as her confession to Snake-and her revelation of the true meaning behind the bosses’s mission-are revealed via voiceover.

A similar model (probably not the same one) makes an appearance in “Peace Walker” as Big Boss’s ride to the Miltaries San Frontieras beach house (His HQ before it got a massive upgrade in the offshore plant “Mother Base”.

Years later, after he emerged from his coma, yet another motorcycle was presented to Big Boss as he rode to parts unknown (Possibly eventually to America, to restart FOXHOUND and start putting his Outer Heaven plan into action).

 

Although an image exists of Venom Snake-the “phantom” Big Boss-with the motorcycle, this image is in fact not in the game, as Venom Snake traveled by horse for most of the game, including his escape from the hospital.

 

Decades later, the Triumph appears again in Metal Gear Solid IV,  with Eva-now “Big Mama” once again behind the wheel, with her son Solid Snake, in an effort to escape with the body of “Big Boss” (In fact, what was left of another clone “son”, Solidus). Snake provided covering fire while Eva drove, similar to the conclusion of Operation Snake Eater. (Although that motorcycle was not a Triumph, and Big Boss was in a somewhat more comfortable sidecar).

The bike ultimately crashed, much like Eva did with that other, non- Triumph Bike (She even sustained similar injuries, although it was ultimately a new strain FOXDIE that did her in).

A real-world version of The Phantom Pain variation of the bike was used by Triumph in a cross-promotion with Konami for the game, and also sold on Ebay for 10, 000.

 

Breaking Bad-The Basics

So I’ve just finished this series after six months of watching on Netflix. Like “The Walking Dead”, it’s a show that originated on AMC. Now, AMC technically means “American Movie Classics”, but given the quality of their original content, I won’t argue over the name 🙂 .

 

“Breaking Bad” tells the story of Walter White, a New Mexico man who’s just turned 50. Although supported by a loving, pregnant wife and son, Walt-who has pretty much a genius-level intellect-feels that he doesn’t get proper respect, even as a high school chemistry teacher (although he also moonlights at a car wash).

 

This is partially because Walt was once part of a promising pharmaceutical company, Gray Matter technologies, but ultimately left due to a falling out with his then-girlfriend, Gretchen, taking only a small share of the company. Gretchen ended up marrying the other partner in the business-Elliot Schwartz-and the company ends up making billions. oops.

 

…and if that’s not bad enough, Walt gets diagnosed with lung cancer after a collapse at the car wash, which will cost a ton of money to treat. Money Walt doesn’t have.

However, opportunity eventually knocks. Walt’s brother-in-law Hank Schraeder, a DEA agent-takes Walt on a ride-along to bust a crystal meth lab-and learns that making meth can be easy-and a lot of-money.

….and Walt recognizes one of his former students-Jessie Pinkman-as an escaping “cook”-“Captain Cook”.

 

With not enough money, and a genius level intellect-Walt tracks down and offers Jessie a deal to make Crystal meth-a chemically pure, 99.1% and very blue type called “Blue sky”.

All of course, is very illegal….and as Jessie says to him-and the series gets it title from:

“Nah, come on, man. Some straight like you, giant stick up his ass all a sudden at age, what, 60, he’s just gonna break bad?”

…and that’s how it starts. Despite wanting the money mainly for his cancer and his family,Walt, like many notable fictional characters….

finds that the road to hell is paved with the best intentions.

Walt becomes an addict of sorts-not to his product-but to the criminal lifestyle breaking from the tedium of his regular life , and his own bruised ego…and eventually, his formerly family man personality gives way to “Heisenberg”….a name he chooses for himself based on the German nuclear scientist who also died of cancer. Despite this kind of “badass” persona he begins to cultivate, Walt’s still only a man, and often gets out of potential arrests/death by pure luck; while at the same time often digging a bigger hole for himself.

What’s worse, the very family he tried to help becomes his victims….first, because of his pathological need to lie-or cover up some of his harsher, more inhumane crimes. Hank in particular-who seems to be almost one step behind Walt (He initially has no idea that this criminal is his own brother-in-law, due in part to Walt’s quick thinking and elaborate falsehoods)-seems to often become the victim-sometimes mentally, sometimes physically. Hank’s pretty much one of the more heroic characters in the show, although in many ways, his “ride-along” is sort of what created Heisenberg (Who in many ways, is his personal White Whale) in the first place. This also takes a toll on his wife, the kind of quirky Marie (Skylar White’s sister) who is a bit of a nag and kleptomaniac, but also obsessed with purple….but who really loves her husband.

Another victim of course is his wife Skyler. Although initially unaware of her husband’s crimes, she’s pretty intelligent herself and can tell Walt isn’t telling the whole truth-and he never really does, even to the end-although at times, she’s not quite innocent herself.

Walter Jr, Walt’s disabled son, largely remains blissfully unaware of his father’s crimes, but it’s clear he’s emotionally distraught over his parent’s often strange behavior, even taking the alias of “Flynn” partially to avoid embarassment at school-a Nom de Plum which later becomes permenant for obvious reasons.

 

 

Even Jessie-who starts as the criminal-also starts to become more of a victim as Walt goes on. Walt’s actions-intentionally or unintentionally-begin to leave a trail of bodies (although maybe not quite a “trail” as Walt’s chemistry skills is often used to dissolve said evidence) pretty much from day one. While some of these are in the drug trade, many innocents begin to get caught up in Walt’s web, intentionally or not. The harm or death of innocents-in particular, children-causes great moral conflict for Jessie, as well as killing in cold blood. In many ways, he’s actually far more sympathetic than Walt.

 

Eventually, beginning in season 2, the universe of Breaking Bad expands even further beyond these initial characters.  We meet Mike, a sort of enforcer/cleaner/hitman who often tries to serve as a reality check to Walt….

Saul Goodman, a highly unethical lawyer (and often comic relief) who often schemes with Walt (and ended up getting his own spin-off prequel).

and most notably, Gustavo Fring, who, on the outside, seems to be the friendly owner of a chain of chicken resturants (Los Pollos Hermanos) but is actually a sociopathic drug kingpin. He later partners with Walt, a partnership which has consequences for them both.

…and the Salamanca clan, who are part of a Mexican cartal that has a long-standing rivalry with Gus…and also complicate things for Walt and Jessie fairly early in the series.

(On a side note, pretty much all these season 2/3 characters are given more backstory in the “Better Call Saul” series, which I haven’t started yet hence part of the brevity of the descriptions).

While of course a drama, the series often has moments of comedy, although kind of “dark comedy”, especially in the first season. (some parts-such as Walt and Jessie’s early attempt to dispose of a body-something which unfortunately begins to become second nature for him-are definitely not for the squeamish)

After all, this is a series whose early publicity image is fairly comic himself…

…and Cranston’s most well-known earlier roles were pretty comic in nature. Of course there’s Hal, the goofy dad from Malcolm In the Middle….

 

 

Tim Whatley, the dentist on Seinfeld for example. On a side note, Walt’s almost a bit like the characters on Seinfeld-who are pretty much narcissists who often don’t give much of a damn about the collateral damage they often do (For instance, Susan’s death), although, like Walt, they do eventually get their comeuppance.

 

 

But despite the comedy, this is often a very, very dark show, although a different beast altogether from AMC’s other hit, “The Walking Dead”.

Anyway, I’ll probably be writing more on Breaking Bad as time goes on, but here’s sort of the fundamentals, along with some of my own thoughts.

 

 

 

Metal Gear Survive-A look

 

Metal Gear Survive-with the beta due tomorrow, and the full game due in late February-  is the somewhat controversial follow-up to “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain”-the first main Metal Gear title released since the game, unless you count the “Pachislot” version of Metal Gear Solid 3, which, although mainly a video gambling machine, does have some nice updated renders of some of the scenes from the game using MGSV’s “Fox” engine.

 

MGS Survive is also built on the FOX engine, but includes some gameplay features that were included in some other Metal Gear games, but largely absent from others-mainly “Snake Eater’s” cure and food options, although from what I’ve read this system is even more important to gameplay than Snake Eater’s use of it, with the player needing to scavenge food, water, and oxygen to well, survive.

 

The game will also incorporate a co-op system. While other MG games have had multiplayer modes, The co-op recalls Peace Walker, which had a co-op mode where Big Boss could team-up with other MSF soldiers (or “himself”, and given the amount of times the character either gets impersonated or cloned, that’s not as canon-breaking as you’d expect!) played by other players in the campaign/story mode.

 

Metal Gear Survive also appears to put a bigger emphasis on melee weapons than before. While the series has often used hand-to-hand combat/chokeholds quite frequently-these are stealth games after all….they certainly haven’t used that many spears….(Although there’s been a share of  swords, mostly used by the Raiden or the fellow Cyborg ninjas, naturally; and rarely of course by Snake himself).

and it looks like with Peace Walker and Phantom Pain, a great deal of base management is used, although it seems to be a bit more ‘real-time’ like “Fallout 4” than the gradual expansion of Mother Base in Peace Walker and Phantom Pain.

….especially since the base is under siege….and here we come to the main problem many have with the game.

Even without Kojima, Konami still holds the rights to the Metal Gear licence, and I assume many of it’s characters. There’s still a lot of gaps in the series that they could cover (As I’ve written about in some articles): The Boss and the Cobra Unit during World War II; Big Boss’s falling out with Zero; more of the gap between Phantom Pain and the original game, or even some of Solid Snake, Otacon’s and Raiden’s unseen adventures such as Philanthropy or the search for Sunny….. or even remake some of the older, more dated games (especially the original MSX games, which are closest to “Phantom Pain” in the timeline and are referenced quite frequently in most of the “Solid” games of course.).

Metal Gear Survive however, decides to instead take place between the two parts of V: Ground Zeroes and the Phantom Pain. In Ground Zeroes, MSF’s mother base is destroyed by XOF…Big Boss and a medic go into a coma….and the story picks up 9 years later.

But according to Survive, some MSF soldiers got left behind-but not only that, they were sucked into a wormhole along with the wreckage of Mother Base! (Wormholes, to be fair, were an extra feature for the Fulton balloons and multiplayer modes of The Phantom Pain, but not really brought up otherwise).

Recent trailers have shown that a mysterious agency called WardenClyffe section has, for some reason, decided to send somebody into the destination of the wormhole-some other dimension. It’s naturally been speculated by many fans-including myself-that WC might in fact be yet another front, division, or name for CIPHER (Like XOF, The Patriots, and even FOXHOUND at times).

…and that the man in the suit might be Donald Anderson/SIGINT, as he appeared in the mid 70’s (and who was largely the human control of CIPHER along with Para-Medic with Zero’s declining health)

This soldier goes into the other dimension, and encounters what looks like Zombies with crystals in their heads and flesh, whom the MSF survivors-including yourself-will have to fend off in this bizzare wasteland. (On a side note, the tactic of poking at zombies through fence holes with spears kind of reminds me of a certain other series….

 

Granted, “Zombie modes” in games seem to be a popular thing, even if the base game itself doesn’t feature zombies. The “Red Dead Redemption” expansion Undead Nightmare was pretty popular….

….and Call of Duty of course has had a few zombie add-ons. And of course Zombies are big in many game series-“Last of Us” “Fallout” (With the Ghouls), “Left 4 Dead” (Which might’ve inspired Survive a bit too) and of course, “Resident Evil”.

It can even be argued that Metal Gear used Zombies in “Phantom Pain” already, with the Skull unit, soldiers exposed to versions of Skull Walker’s parasites, giving them superhuman abilities but messed-up (although quickly regenerating) flesh and an appearence not unlike Star Trek’s Borg, who in their own way, were zombies too.

….and their “puppet soldiers” look and act even more zombieish.

I suppose in part a lot of the criticism toward the game might be leveled that-like I stated-that out of the possibilities for a new game in the lore, they decided to take an easy choice (and pretty much just build on top of the same engine)….and it’s also the first really post-Kojima Metal Gear game, although certain games in the series-The ACID! games, Portable Ops, Rising, Ghost Babel and of course the NES sequel Snake’s Revenge….did not have his direct involvement (although Ops, Rising and Babel sort of had his blessing). Time will tell if the game will really be good, and how it will influence the series going forward without it’s creator.

 

Fallout Overview Part one-The World

War. War Never Changes.-Series tagline

So now you’re gonna shoot bullets of fire 
Don’t want to fight but sometimes you’ve got to 
You’re some soul survivor 
There’s just one thing you’ve got to know 
You’ve got ten more thousand miles to go

-Tina Turner “One of the Living” Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

 

Thought I’d share my thoughts on this particular video game franchise; I’ll admit that I haven’t played some of the older games or the “New Vegas” (sort of 3.5) game, or explored every aspect or every faction in the series. So pardon any inaccuracies.

“Fallout” is not only a post-apocalyptic future, but an alternate past; one where certain technologies were developed, or went in different directions after the second World War. By the mid 21st century, human civilization-at least in the united states, sort of resembles the hypothetical future thought up in the 1950’s and 1960s; the franchise as a whole pretty much has a sort of “retrofuture” aspect to it.

But despite this idealistic society, with Leave It To Beaver family values and handy butler robots, there is ugliness behind the utopian vinear-which culminates in a nuclear war that lasts one day. A large group of humanity is saved in underground vaults created by “Vault-Tec”…although some of these are used for often cruel experiments on the remains of humanity. While select groups survive on the surface, some of the radiation warps them into ‘ghouls’, who despite their appearance, often manage to keep many of their mental facilities-and are able to live long lives centuries after the war.

 

 

although some devolve into a feral, almost zombie-lake state.

The nuclear apocalypse also produced other weird mutations on the surface, such as the Brahmin cows…

and the crustacean Mirelurk:

 

…..in addition, human experimentation on ways to resist the radiation  resulted in other mutations as well, most notably the Hulking super mutants.

Eventually, regular humans emerged from many of the vaults in an attempt to rebuild civilization, sometimes joining with other survivors scattered around the various wastelands-where of course, not a lot of vegation grows, there’s a great deal of radiation still around, and many buildings and infrastructure lie in total ruin.

 

 

living a slightly slipshod, quirky existence in many settlements, such as a city in Fenway park in the ruins of Boston…..

or an aircraft carrier in Washington D.C….

 

Or others just figured it was best to remain in the vaults.

In addition to the various mutants in the wasteland, there were various other threats, of course….various bands of Raiders, looking much like the villains of a “Mad Max” movie….

and various mercenary groups, not to mention various robots left over….some benign….

Others, not so much.

It is into this world that our main character-who often starts in a vault-is eventually thrown into. I’ll cover some more on “Fallout” in a future article (Hopefully with a bit more knowledge of the franchise than this surface stuff).

Metal Gear Profiles-The Sorrow

“Sad… So sad… A host of sorrows… And you are one of them… I am The Sorrow. Like you, I, too, am filled with sadness. This world is one of sadness… Battle brings death. Death brings sorrow. The living… may not hear them. Their voices… may fall upon deaf ears. But make no mistake… the dead… are not silent. Now you will know the sorrow of those whose lives you have ended.”

 

The Sorrow was a member of the Boss’s Cobra Unit in World War II. A psychic, he was able to use these abilities-such as reading minds and summoning the spirits of dead soldiers-as valuable intelligence for the allied effort.

 

He also formed a romantic relationship with his commander, the Boss, and the two had a child together-one ultimately however, that was taken by them from the Philosophers, but still trained as a Russian Soldier.  The man ultimately known as Ocelot.

Following the war, the Sorrow returned to the Soviet Union, but then another war-a colder one-happened.  As Big Boss said:

…and soon the lovers became enemies. While working for the Soviet Union, he turned one of the Boss’s spies (Although he was unaware she had sent him) and had him feed false information to the CIA. Ultimately one year prior to the events of Virtous Mission and Operation Snake Eater in Tselinoyarsk, the Boss met the Sorrow again, and was forced to kill him, since the Philosophers would kill Ocelot if they were both alive. The Sorrow’s corpse remained in Tselinoyarsk, where it would be spotted by Naked Snake the following year.

However, although his body was dead, the spirit of the Sorrow remained anchored to the earthly plane, and remained a sort of witness to the events of the Snake Eater operation, occasionally aiding him in his quest as a ghostly apparition.

 

 

Eventually, after his difficult  escape from Grozny Grad, Snake found himself facing the Sorrow in a shadowy river, where the Sorrow used summoned the spirits of the men he had killed during the mission, and also gave small hints as to his future as Big Boss-including the birth of Solid and Liquid Snake: “Light and Darkness dwell within you”.

After escaping from that, the Sorrow also appeared a few more times to Snake,  aiding him in his defeat of Volgin with several non-corporeal hints and warnings. It’s also possible he served as sort of the grim reaper to his fellow Cobras-including his lover the Boss-taking them into the spirit realm.

 

 

Fifty years later, a puppet of the Sorrow appeared as part of the arsenal of Screaming Mantis, alongside a puppet of Psycho Mantis.

When Screaming was defeated, an apparition of Psycho Mantis appeared and taunted Snake, but soon the spirit of Mantis was brought back to the underworld, with the Sorrow telling Solid Snake: “The spirit of the warrior is always with you”.

Favorite Movie scenes: The Force Awakens

In three years, Disney’s given us three Star Wars films-two installments of the sequel trilogy, and “Rogue One” of course. While they have been a bit polarizing among groups of fandom (mainly due to claims of unoriginality, or going too much into the OT sandbox of Rebellion vs. Empire instead of new story directions), they’ve gotten good critical reviews, and have definetly revived the brand as a major box office force (heh). Here’s my thoughts on a few notable scenes from the first Disney film, “The Force Awakens”.

 

Rey The Scavenger

While the first few scenes of the film sort of showed off the “new toys”-the upgraded Stormtroopers, the fancy new (and ill-fated) X-wing with a Millenium Falconesque dorsal canon, Kylo Ren, and the new Star Destroyer etc, we get a lot of the old, first shown us via Rey’s goggles, which are crafted from a Stormtrooper helmets, with Rey taking some component out of some massive vessel….which we soon learn, from the outside, is very familiar-an old Star Destroyer (with an X-wing nearby)-the remnants of the Battle of Jaaku, a post-Endor battle-one that pretty much broke the Empire even further than Endor (While also planting the seeds of the First Order) that’s been retold in a good chunk of Disney media since TFA’s release (The novel Lost Stars, the novel Aftermath, both Battlefront games etc.).

 

 

After Rey drops off some the scrap and get her rations for the day, we get even more interesting callbacks to the OT-Rey’s home, in particular, is that of a toppled AT-AT….and her helmet she seems to put on possibly out of boredom, that of a Rebel pilot.

It’s worth noting that this was one of the early things we saw emerge from the filming….the foot of the said  Walker.

 It’s a sort of reflective scene, somewhat akin to Luke’s “binary sunset” moment, and with a similar narrative function as it’s soon followed by her adventure starting to move forward a bit when she hears BB8 (although at this point, Luke already had plenty of dialogue and had seen part of the Leia hologram, while Rey actually hasn’t spoken in the film at all yet!).

It sort of demonstrates, to a degree, the balancing act of the sequel trilogy; trying to mix the old with the new.

The Garbage will do!

The Millenium Falcon makes it’s debut in the sequel trilogy (and it’s first real appearence since ROTJ, apart from some PT “hidden” cameos) in this thrilling scene, which of course hearkens back to Luke’s assesment of the ship when the audience first saw it (Well, before the reveal was kind of spoiled by the Special Edition version introducing it a scene earlier).

 

But of course we get to see what this “piece of junk” can do, once again, in a scene that evokes the classic Star Wars trope of “obstacle course” chase scenes (The trench from A New Hope, the Asteroid Chase from ESB, the speeder bike chase and the Death Star shaft from ROTJ, TPM’s pod race, AOTC’s airspeeder chase and ROTJ’s opening space battle).

 

We also get a look at a crashed Super star destroyer, once again confirming Vader’s ship wasn’t unique, and of course the shot of the TIE fighter pilot similar to the angle used in the other films (Some interesting trivia-the shot of the TIE pilot briefly seen in ROTJ is actually the same footage from ANH with a different backdrop-one of the rare examples of stock footage in the series.)

 

We also get a “I can do this! I can do this” moment. I’m not sure if this is an Abrams cliche-outside of the Star Trek films and this I’ve seen relatively little of his work, but the line kind of reminds me of that moment in the 2009 Star trek reboot, although Chechov in the film *knew* he could do it, while in TFA Rey and Finn are pretty much trying to reassure themselves.

And we also get the return of the Falcon’s gunner stations, which film-wise haven’t been seen on screen since “A new Hope”

(Although a scene was filmed for ROTJ, it ended up getting deleted from the final film-the other Rebel guys in the ship weren’t totally useless it seems!).

 

Castle battle

The good ol’ shoot out with Stormtroopers, and Han Solo indulging in said favorite pasttime, with a series of shots, including a third one where he’s not even looking at the target…

 

And of course there’s the running gag of Han using Chewie’s bowcaster.

But we also get a scene a bit unlike what we’ve seen in other Star Wars films-a fight with a Stormtrooper using melee weapons.  While some of the Battle droids in the prequels-in particular the “Magnaguards” from Revenge of the Sith-had weapons that could block a lightsaber, this is pretty much the first time we’ve seen something similar in the films.

Although the concept goes back to the early Star Wars days, with a Stormtrooper possessing a lightsaber in concept art. (Certainly, many aspects of the Force Awakens-and arguably the Disney Star Wars as a whole-owe a great debt to Star Wars concept art, which I might explore in a future article).

Although Han, Finn and co. are quickly overwhelmed, we’re treated to the arrival of Poe’s resistance squadron, with some pretty cool X-wing moves that wouldn’t really have been quite as possible with the OT’s 80’s SFX (although they certainly tried). Particuarly cool is Poe’s skill as a pilot here; with his pretty epic takedown of several TIE fighters causing Finn-unaware that his friend is piloting the X-wing, exclaiming:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JB-007

While “The Force Awakens” was filming at Pinewood studios, so was another installment in a long-running franchise, likewise due for late 2015: Spectre, the 24th James Bond film, and the fourth to star Daniel Craig-and like TFA, it brought back some of the long-unusued elements of the franchise; in this case, the criminal organization known as SPECTRE, not seen since the late 60’s.

Craig decided to make a short cameo in TFA filming close by, as the Stormtrooper that keeps an eye on Rey, but falls victim to her Jedi mind tricks, with an “And I’ll drop my weapon” as almost an afterthought. Some of fandom’s issues with how Rey could possibly know the Jedi mind trick despite not being trained at all aside, it’s a funny scene, and Craig’s voice is pretty much unmistakable. Although it’s certainly hard to imagine any James Bond ever really leaving his weapon behind-this is the guy who keeps his gun under his pillow when he sleeps.

Favorite movie scenes-Indiana Jones and the last crusade

Another round of my favorite scenes from various movies. This time, I look at the third (and many feel should have been final) Indiana Jones film-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

 

Do you believe, Marcus?

Kind of an interesting scene here, with Indy going to his father’s house for any clues as to his disiappearence, only to find his house in a state of disarray, leaving Marcus and Indy to wonder what he’s been into. Indy quickly realizes that the grail diary has been sent to him from Venice, and almost seems in awe of it and his father’s obsession, and even slightly haunted, with a haunting version of the ‘grail theme’ playing in the background (The theme, in a sense, is also Henry’s-in particular, it’s used when the character is brought up in Crystal Skull-although Henry does have his own theme of sorts, it’s not used that much) It’s also here that we’re sort of given the last of the “serious Marcus” we remember from Raiders, in a way echoing his warning to Indy about the Lost ark in his own house back then, as Indy asks him “Do you believe, Marcus? Do you believe the grail actually exists?”.

The search for the Grail is the search for the divine in all of us. But if you want facts, Indy, I’ve none to give you. At my age, I’m prepared to take a few things on faith.

 

There’s an interesting cutaway here to some black and white photos, showing what looks like an old doctored photo of Sean Connery around the James Bond era with a young Indy. I’m not sure if the photo is a doctored one of young Harrison Ford, although it does sort of have his signature frown look. Indy’s kind of reflecting on his somewhat troubled relationship with his dad, it seems, and then decides to accept Donovan’s tickets to Venice. Marcus, suprisingly, decides to head with him, although apart from the “You’re meddling with powers you can’t possibly comprehend”, he’s largely relegated to a sort of “fish out of water” comic relief for the rest of the film.

Zepellin

Attempting to head out of Germany after their brief stop-over in Berlin to recover the grail, Indy and his father intend to board a Zepellin; but unfortunately Vogel-aided in part by another guy (Played by Indy’s fight scene opponent in the last two films-Pat Roach-who in a deleted scene, was still on the plane and attempted to catch the Joenses as they made their escape attempt), are trying to search for them. So Indy improvises, probably knocking a ticket guy out and stealing his clothes, once again illustrating Indiana Jones’s slightly clumsy use of disguise, which of course made it’s first appearance in “Raiders”, and was demonstrated as well in the scene immediately before this one as well. Here, it’s kind of clear that like one of the outfits he tried to steal in “Raiders”, it’s not quite the right size.

Indy’s able to get the drop on Vogel, and of course we have the hilarious “No ticket!” moment. Here’s another detail you might have missed though-The German newspaper Henry Jones is reading is upside-down (possibly part of the reason Vogel spotted him in the first place!).

 

 

 

The Steal Beast

The Climax of the film features one of my favorite Indiana Jones action scenes, as Indiana Jones tries to get his father out of the Mark VII Tank. The first part of the chase is Indy using his horse to quickly dodge the blasts of the tank, literally running circles around it and managing to have the tank accidentally ram one of the other transports-which the very angry Vogel simply blasts off and runs over. Indy then uses the simplest of weapons-a rock-to jam one of the Tank’s smaller turrets, causing a backfire which at least gives him a bit more of an edge.

Then it’s mano-a-mano with him vs Vogel, although Indy runs out of bullets, and then has to deal with another group of troops, although his quickly procuring a luger leads to a comic moment where he manages to shoot through them like butter. However, Vogel soon gains the upper hand, and we’re treated to yet another pretty brutal Indiana Jones fight, with Vogel smooshing Indy’s head against the tank’s treads. Indy’s accidental knocking out of the periscope guy mocking him, however, allows his father to get the upper hand….using a pen.

Small note about periscope guy; that’s actually Nick Gillard, the stunt guy probably responsible for a good chunk of this sequence. He’d later become well known for his work on the Star Wars prequels, which, despite a lot of other criticisms, received almost universal praise for their lightsaber battles.

Nick Gillard even had a brief cameo in Episode III, as a Jedi  “swordmaster” who becomes one of Darth Vader’s early victims.

 

We get a nice whimsical moment with Henry using a pen’s ink to stun one of the german soldiers, with Marcus remarking “The pen is mightier than the sword”….

with Henry than blasting away Vogel’s reinforcements.Unfortunately, although it frees Indy from Vogel’s grip, it also knocks him over to the turret he busted up, which his bag also gets caught on….and then against a literal “rock and a hard place”. Like the scene where Indy is dragged by the truck in Raiders, and him trying to slow his mind car in Temple of Doom, this is one of those real “That’s gotta hurt!” moments. Thankfully, salvation comes in the form of Marcus knocking out one of the other guys inside the tank, whose ricochet from a misfire kills the Tank’s driver, steering Indy clear of some really nasty rocks.

Indy temporarily gets the upper hand again (To the tune of Raider’s march, naturally), managing to check on his pop, who remarks “You call this archaeology?” (As he said before, “The quest for the grail is not archaeology!”)

The scene ends with Sallah coming to the rescue after Henry Sr. is knocked over by Vogel, who delivers a few blows to Indy via his brass knuckles, with Indy in turn giving him something even worse, smashing his head against the hatch, before Indy realizes it’s time to abandon tank. Vogel meets a pretty bad end, much like Indy’s “sparring partners” played by Pat Roach in the previous two films, both played by Pat Roach (although not quite as bloody). It’s quite a thrilling scene, with some fantastic stunts and also great score from John Williams.