Best of / Worst of 7 part 1

Best of / Worst of  7 part 1

By

Kevin Scott Bolinger

Poster for film 1

     Greetings and salutations. Welcome to another special edition of Best of/ Worst of. This time, break out the eye patches, peg legs, swords, and most importantly, the rum, as I dive right into the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.


     Those expecting me to bash the second and third installments of the series, which happens to be the popular thing to do, it will not happen. This will be a fair look at each film individually. I am a fan, and unlike many, I was able to pull all the plot threads together in the second and third films, and it all made sense to me. I will get into all that as I get to those films, but for now I will give an overview of the series as a whole, and then a write up on the first film.

     As most people know, Pirates of the Caribbean was first a very popular ride at Disneyland in California, copied over to Disney World in Orlando Florida when that park opened. Using animatronic characters and a catchy song, it drew visitors from all over the world. When I fist heard there would be a Pirates film loosely based on the ride, I was a bit skeptical. That all changed when I saw the first trailer, and saw the pirate skeletons walking under water in the moonlight. It captured my imagination, and when it came out, I was there, in the theater enjoying every rollicking  moment.

    Then, a sequel was announced. I was not sure how a sequel would be received. However, yet again, the trailer blew me away. The sight of the Kraken pulling ships down, and of course, Davy Jones himself, one of the best CGI characters ever brought to film. Knowing ahead of time that this movie was one of two, I did not expect to have all the answers. I kept an open mind, and just enjoyed it for what it was. I waited a bit impatiently for the first looks at the third film.

    The third film came out much further from part two then was expected. Hurricanes in the Caribbean postponed some of the filming. When trailers began to hit, I did not care about the plot lines, I just wanted to see Captain Jack and Davy Jones sword fighting in the rigging of the Flying Dutchman, all while a raging whirlpool was beneath them. I love that scene, and will discuss it in detail in the next installment.

    It took time until the fourth installment was announced. The title took me back a bit, but the subject matter was hinted at in the closing moments of the third film.  When the trailers hit, I was not as blown away as I was with the others, but I knew I would be seeing it on it’s opening weekend. I will say, it was a smaller, more contained story, and I did enjoy it, though I missed some of the supporting cast from the other three films.  Rumors now have it that there will be two more sequels,  to be filmed mostly back to back. The story, unknown at the moment of this writing,  is apparently going to be spread across both films, as the second and third parts were. I hope they come up with something amazing, but only time will tell. 

    As a whole, the series is not bad. The Pirate genre was popular back in the 40’s and 50’s but in modern film, a pirate story was pretty much doomed to failure. Many predicted that the first of these new pirate films would suffer the same fate. History now tells us that many nay-sayers  were very wrong in their predictions. The first film went on to be a huge success, breaking a few records along the way.  The sequels, they two turned the franchise into a gold mine. Critics panned the films, but the movie going audience, many of whom no longer take film critics seriously, came out in droves.  Captain Jack Sparrow became a household name!  So, with that being said, let us delve into a more detailed look at the first film.

Cursed Incan Gold

Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse of the Black Pearl ( 2003 ).  The film opens with a foggy crossing for a British flagged ship. We hear a small girl singing “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me,”  as she looks into the water below her.  She is distracted by Mr. Gibbs, one of the crew. As he tells her tales of pirates, he is interrupted by Lieutenant Norrington.  He tells them how pirates are dealt with, a sudden drop with a short stop, a funny way to describe a hanging.  As the young girl, now known as Elisabeth, gazes back in the water,  she sees wreckage, followed by a young boy on a plank. The boy is brought aboard, she notices he has a pirate coin medallion , she quickly takes and hides it, as the ship comes upon the burning wreckage of the boys own ship. He is the only survivor. As the others watch the one ship burn, Elisabeth see another, a dark black ship, slip into the fog.

     Eight years later, we find the young boy, Will Turner, has become the apprentice to the local blacksmith. He shows up at the Governor’s mansion with a special sword, to be presented to Norrington, as he is to be promoted to Commodore. Elisabeth comes down to see Will, as her father, Governor Swan, takes the case with the sword so he can give it to Norrington later in the ceremony. During the ceremony, Norrington proposes marriage to Elisabeth, who is wearing a too tight corset. As she is overcome by her breathing difficulty,  she falls over the wall and into the water, wearing the medallion. As it hit’s the bottom it emit’s a strange pulse.

Best Character Introduction Ever!

    Just before the ceremony, we are introduced to Captain Jack Sparrow, as he enters the port in a beat up dingy with a mast. He is standing at the top of the mast, as the dingy slowly sinks below him, the top of the mast coming even with the dock as the boat goes under. Jack, in a style that will become well known,  coolly walks from the sinking mast to the dock without missing a beat. He then pays an extra fee for docking without using his name, while at the same time stealing the dock master’s coin purse.  As he makes his way towards the royal warships, so he can attempt to commandeer one, two Marines meet him, and as he is trying to trick them, Elisabeth falls into the water. He quickly gives his effects to the Marines, and dives in, saving Elisabeth by tearing open her corset and bringing her to the surface.

    There he is met by Norrington, who thanks him for saving his love, only to be recognized as a pirate. Norrington declares him the worst pirate he has ever heard of, which Jack point out that at least he has heard of him. Jack makes a daring escape and hide, eventually making his way into the blacksmith’s , where he has a confrontation with Will, who it turns out is the real skilled blacksmith, creating many swords. He also practices with them a lot, so he can kill pirates. As he and Jack swordfight, the drunken blacksmith wakes up, and bops Jack on the head, knocking him out. He is taken away to be jailed, and eventually hung.

    Later that night, the black pirate ship attacks Port Royal, the pirates seeming to be unstoppable, and un-killable. They kidnap Elisabeth, and knock Will out. She is taken to the ships Captain under the hospices of parley. There we are introduced to Captain Hector Barossa. He welcomes her aboard the Black Pearl, his crew only really wanting the medallion. She is determined to get them to leave, and threatens to throw it overboard. They stop their assault, and prepare to leave, but since she did not specify herself being brought back, they leave with her as their prisoner.

Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl

   Will wakes up, and realizes he will need help. He breaks jack out of prison, and the two make their way to the fleets flagship, though only to disable it and cause a distraction so they can steal a smaller , faster ship. One of Norrington’s aides declares Jack to be the best pirate he has ever seen.

   Jack needs a crew, so he heads to Tortuga, the pirates den. There he puts a rag tag bunch of misfits together.  Included in this lot, is the older, and drunker, Mr. Gibbs.  They leave Tortuga and make after the Black Pearl, Jack using a compass that Will thinks is broken.

Barbossa revealing the curse

   Elisabeth is being wined and dined on the Pearl, but Barossa is not eating, just talking. She tries to kill him, and realizes he cannot die. As she tries to escape onto the moonlit deck of the ship, she sees that the crew are skeletons. The crew is cursed.  As we learn, they took cursed Incan gold from Isla De Meurta , at first they did not show signs of being cursed, but as they spent their fortune, nothing could slake their thirsts or lusts. They learned they had to return every piece of gold to the island, along with a blood sacrifice. Because Elisabeth told them her last name was Turner and not Swan, they think that she is the last piece they need to break the curse. They find out the hard way that they were wrong.

   Eventually the realize they need the real Turner, and track down Jack and his crew. The Pearl is the fastest ship afloat, and they cannot escape her. They capture the crew and destroy Jack’s ship. Will escapes the destruction, but is also captured, once Barossa and his crew realize who he really is. Jack and Elisabeth are made to walk the plank, and left on a small island with only a single gunshot in a pistol.

Attack of the Pearl!

   On the island, Jack tells her how he was the original captain of the Pearl, and Barossa was his first mate. Barossa wanted to be told where they were headed, since only Jack knew the location if Isla De Meurta. He leads a mutiny and maroons Jack on the very same island. We also learn that Will’s father, Bootstrap Bill Turner, was against the mutiny, and after they had the gold, spoke out against it. His punishment was to be tied to a cannon and sent to the depths of the ocean.  Given the immortal status of the crew, this was a fate worse then death, and considering he would be needed to break the curse, the pirates regret their mistake with him, hence settling for Will for the blood sacrifice.

Two Captains.

    Jack shows Elisabeth a stash of smuggled goods on the island he found the last time he was there, and the two drink lots of rum, and get drunk, dancing and singing on the beach. The next morning, Elisabeth has taken the remaining rum, and lit a huge signal fire. As Jack goes to the other side of the island to get away from her, he sees Norrington’s flagship heading their way.

   Rescued from the island, Jack exchanges information on where to find the Black Pearl for his freedom. He leads them to the island, and makes his way into the caves. He confronts Barossa, under parley, and while no one is watching, he palms one of the coins.  Barossa sends his men for a walk underwater, to sneak up on Norrington and his men.  The pirates, being immortal, have the upper hand.

"Gents, take a walk.

   Meanwhile, Jack and Barossa begin to fight, as Elisabeth frees Will. Barossa gets the better of  Jack, and stabs him, only for jack to stumble back into the moonlight, revealing he too is cursed now.  He plays with his pilfered coin, showing Barossa how he tricked him. The two fight some more, Barossa wondering aloud if they would continue forever as two immortal battling.  Will stands by the casket of coins, his fathers medallion in his hand, Jack tosses his coin, with his blood on it to Will, and turns and shoots Barossa with his single shot pistol. At the same time, Will drops Jack’s coin, and his own, now with blood, into the chest, breaking the curse. Barossa falls dead, as do a few of his recently wounded men on Norrington’s ship. Without their immortality, the survivors quickly surrender.

    Jack’s crew had stolen the Black Pearl while Barossa’s pirates were busy. They sail off with it, without Jack. Jack is brought back to Port Royal. He is to be hanged after all, despite his service to Norrington and Governor Swan. Will frees him, and he escapes as the Pearl is seen in the distance. Elisabeth decides she loves will, her father accepts that, as does Norrington. Norrington also decides to not chase jack right away, giving him a few hours head start.  The film ends with Jack looking at his compass as he changes course on the Pearl. After the credits, a monkey from the cursed crew takes a coin from the cursed chest and becomes cursed.

    So, what do I think if this one? It was fantastic, it introduced us to a rich and colorful world. The fight scenes were great, the locations beautiful, and the acting was superb. Obviously Jack was the standout. Johnny Depp created a character he described as a slight tribute to Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. It is funny that Richards himself would later go on to play Jack’s father in the third and fourth films.

    The cursed pirate effects blew me away.  It was cleaver that their true nature would only be revealed in moonlight. It had the feel of an old time horror film. The CGI used was some of the best, only to be outdone by Davy Jones and his crew in part two.

    The story was a great way to introduce this world. However, I do feel that this one, though great, is lacking a little of what the sequels have. I still love it, but I do not watch it as often as I watch the others. 
However, for being the first, it was done very well. I highly recommend it to anyone that likes adventure stories, pirates, or tales of the sea.

   So, what is next for our intrepid Captain Jack and his crew? We will dive into that in the next few weeks.  Next time, we will take a detailed look at Dead Man’s Chest and At Worlds End. I may or may not point out all the relevant plot points and how they connect. It will depend on how long the descriptions get. I may save that for a separate blog, time will tell. Till then, thank you for reading, and please feel free to comment here, or on my Facebook page. I welcome all criticism, as long as it is done respectfully.  As always, we are the universe, trying to find it’s voice, we are one!

"Drink up, me hearties, YO HO!"

Ship of the week/month

Ship of the week/month

By

Kevin Scott Bolinger

   Hello all, and welcome to the first installment of my look at famous ships. These ships can range from the great ocean liners of the past, to modern cruise ships, warships, or even wooden vessels from days long ago. This comes out of my personal love of ships and the sea. The romantic notion of sailing a ship towards the horizon intrigues me.

    You may be asking where my love of ships came from. It is simple, it all began when I was eight years old and first heard the name of one of the most famous vessels to ever sail, TITANIC. Back then, and we are talking the late seventies, I could not really get much information on the ship. It wasn’t till I was twelve going on thirteen that Doctor Robert Ballard and his team of American and French researchers located her wreck that information became more readily available. As I grew, I began to wonder about other ships of her era, famous liners like her sister, the OLYMPIC, rivals, MAURETANIA and LUSITANIA (herself a famous ship for her untimely demise,).


    With the release of James Cameron’s film TITANIC, even more research flooded to my hands. I learned about the beginnings of the ocean liners, why they were important, and why they should never be forgotten. I will recommend to you all, if you want a few good reads on the history of ocean liners, find copies of the following:
The Sway of the Grand Saloon  by John Malcolm Brinnin.

The Only Way to Cross  by John Maxtone-Graham.

The Age of Cunard  by  Daniel Allen Butler

Falling Star  by John P. Eaton  & Charles A. Haas

Those are but a few of the wonderful books I have read in my life on the subject of the old liners.  I highly recommend them to anyone with an interest in maritime history.

   Now, on to the subject of this first ship blog.  For my first ship, you would think I would choose the RMS TITANIC, however, a ship of her fame must be saved. I plan on doing a write up on her, but I would like to wait to next April, the 100th anniversary of her sinking. No, my first ship will be one that is much closer to me, and I mean geographically. This particular ship is still afloat, though barely. She rests tied up to a pier right up the road from me in Philadelphia. I am of course talking about the fastest ocean liner ever built, the SS UNITED STATES.

Cutaway of the Big U.

    She was born from the mind of William Francis Gibbs,  born in 1886. Gibbs was a naval architect. One of his first jobs was to oversee the conversion and reconstruction of the former German liner VATERLAND into the SS LEVIATHAN. The original builders, Blom and Voss in Germany, demanded one million for the plans. Gibbs, being the genius he was, spent a few weeks crawling through every nook and cranny of the ship, and simply drew his own.  He would later go on to design the SS AMERICA, a mid-sized vessel, with similar lines to her later sister, the Big U. 

UNITED STATES at sea.

    During World War Two, he was helping to oversee the conversion of the great French liner NORMANDY into a troop ship, as had been done with the Cunard lines QUEEN MARY and QUEEN ELIZABETH. Unfortunately, a fire broke out on board, and the NORMANDY capsized at the pier. Her superstructure had to be cut away so she could be raised, and by then, it was decided she would be worth more as scrap. The fire had an effect of Gibbs, one that would become manifest in the design and construction of the UNITED STATES.

   The UNITED STATES was designed as a dual purpose ship. She was a liner first, but could quickly be converted to a troop ship if the need arose. Because of this, her hull was designed to Navy specifications, which also meant that photographs of her under water hull were not allowed until the ship was declassified  in 1968.  Her lower hull had more in common with a battleship then an ocean liner.

Under Construction early 1952.

    Her keel was laid in 1950 at the Newport News shipyard in Virginia.. Construction of her hull and super structure would last till 1952. Though it was not announced until many years later, when her true stats were known, during her sea trials, which lasted two days, she reached the unheard of speed for a vessel her size, of 43 knots. That is almost the equivalent of 50 mph. Mind you this was a ship 990 ft long,  and 101 ft wide. Also during her trials, she managed to reach the speed of 20 knots…in reverse!  Her nearest rivals, the Cunard QUEENS, could only do about 32 knots on a good day. She truly was in a class all her own.

   When she made her maiden arrival in New York, she was greeted by a flotilla of tugs, fire boats, ferries, and even two Liberty ships from World War Two. She made her first crossing to Europe in a record shattering 3 days and 10 hours, shaving a full ten hours of the QUEEN MARY’s best time.  She was greeted warmly in Southampton, with Winston Churchill himself sending a congratulatory telegram.

   Some of her figures were reported falsely in her early life. When publications about her began, it was said she had 150,000 shaft horsepower, driving four screws. The truth, her steam turbines were far more powerful, with a true horsepower rating of 248,000. However, with a all that power to spare, she was never driven at full speed, except in her trials.

20 knots...BACKWARDS!

   Back in the mid nineteenth century,  the ship that completed the fastest crossings was awarded the blue ribband, though an actual award never existed, it did give bragging rights to the line that owned a particular ship. To this day, no other passenger ship has ever crossed the Atlantic in either direction. The UNITED STATES still holds the blue ribband, the longest ship in history to be so honored. Though her speed record was broken, it was not by a passenger ship, and it was only in one direction. The Big U held the record for both eastbound and westbound crossings.

   Now let us get into some of the design elements that make her unique. As I mentioned before, William Gibbs had a great fear of fire onboard ship after the destruction of the NORMANDY. To combat this, he designed the UNITED STATES with no wooden decking, no wooden paneling, an aluminum super structure, and fabrics treated with fire retardant.  The only two wooden objects onboard, so it was said, were the butchers block in the kitchen, and the baby grand piano, and Gibbs tried to persuade Steinway to build him an aluminum piano, but they refused.

Her maiden New York arrival.

    Though she was the fastest, and most popular ship in the 1950’s, even she could not beat the newcomers to the trans-atlantic trade. The age of the passenger jet had begun. Why would a person spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to cross the ocean in days, when it can be done in hour aboard a jet air liner. This was what ultimately  what killed the ocean liner trade. Today, there  is only one true ocean liner afloat and in service, Cunard’s ,massive QEEN MARY 2, though she herself is mainly a cruise ship with a reinforced bow designed to survive North Atlantic crossings.  Of the great liners of the past, only a handful remain, though most are either in back waters, rotting away, or, like the first QUEEN MARY, they are finding new life as floating hotels and convention centers.  The Big U sits up the road from me, rusting at a pier side, her mighty funnels dominating the riverfront. Her lines are still beautiful, but her glory has faded.

The UNITED STATES (top) passes her older sister, the AMERICA (bottom)

    How she got to her current berth is a short tale filled with long pauses. She was laid up in the late 1960’s, no longer profitable, no longer needed. She spent a long time in her birthplace of Newport News, and even some time tied to a pier in Norfolk. Eventually, overseas interests tried to purchase her, and in 1994, she was sent to Turkey. They removed almost all of the asbestos, and the lifeboats, and well as other fittings. However, she just sat at anchor for two years. Nothing was done with her. It almost seemed as if she would be scrapped. Yet somehow, she was towed back across the Atlantic to the country of her birth. Many speculated on where she was headed, some thought New York, others Miami, yet in the end, on July 27th, 1996, she was tied up to the dockside of Philadelphia, at the foot of the Walt Whitman bridge. It is odd that it was this date, for on that same date, I was in upstate New York saying my wedding vows. Odd how now I live down the road from her.

Her current state, tied to a pier in Philadelphia, rusting.

     All  is not lost for the UNITED STATES. Late last year, the organization trying to save her, the SS UNITED STATES Conservancy, was given enough cash from Philadelphia philanthropist H. F. “Gerry” Lenfest, to buy her from her then owners, Norwegian Cruise Line. Plans are now afoot to find a permanent home for this great ship. Rumors abound, will she stay in Philadelphia? Or maybe New York? No one yet knows, as deals are still being made, as of this writing. What I do know, is she was saved from the cutting torches of the scrapers, due to protection from the U.S. Congress. That protection bought enough time for the Conservancy to purchase her.  What will the future hold for this fantastic vessel? I do not know, but I am glad she at least has a chance at a future. She was the last great liner built by our country, and she deserves better then what she has got.

     I hope you all enjoyed this look at a great ship. I am not sure which ship I will do next.  If you have one you would like to hear about, with the exception of the TITANIC, for reasons I discussed above, feel free to leave me a comment here or on my Facebook page. In today’s society, we take for granted the great liners of the past, and it is a shame, for they were once the headliners for many newspaper. We do not make film reels of jets, unless one crashes, yet many film reels were made of the great liners. Learn about them, appreciate them, because, for nearly  100 years, they were the only way to cross. Farewell!

New York's Luxury Liner row in the 60's. Ships shown, The RMS QUEEN ELIZABETH ( just arriving) , from top down, SYLVANIA, MAURITANIA (II) , the USS INTREPID, the OLYMPIA, the UNITED STATES, the AMERICA, and the INDEPENDENCE.

Best of/Worst of 6 Part 2

Best of/ Worst of 6 part 2

By

Kevin Scott Bolinger

     Greetings and salutations, loyal readers. Forgive me for my long absence in finishing my look at the Nightmare On Elm Street films, but a death in the family, followed by illness on my part, waylaid me for a few weeks. However, I am back now, to bring you part two of my series. Please read to the end, I will have a few announcements for the future.  Now, when we left off, I had given you all my opinion on the best four of the films. Today, I give you what I consider the lower end of the spectrum. Not all of these are bad films, in fact only one of them really deserves to be called as such, but I do feel that they are not as well done as those that came before. So, let us delve into the four worst Nightmare On Elm Street films, cue theme music…oh wait, I don’t have any.

  I will be numbering these down from five to eight,  in the reverse of the previous post. As always, your opinion may vary, and you can all feel free to express that either here or on my Facebook posting.

Number 5. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  (1994 ).

New Nightmare

This one earns the best of the worst spot, simply for it’s ingenuity . Craven set out to tell a tale of a film becoming reality.  It is meant to showcase the real world demon that Freddy represents on the big screen.  I give him points for creativity, but I will be honest, I found the final product a bit boring in parts. However, he tried to think outside the box on this one, and that is worth a lot.

    I will try to sum this one up as quickly as I can. The film opens with a recreation of the famous glove creation scene from part one. We soon learn that this is a movie set, and the special effects creator is married to Heather Langencamp, the actress who portrayed Nancy in two of the films. They have a son, and are wandering the set.  Suddenly the claw, once an inanimate special effect, comes to life and begins killing the crew. As it heads for Heather’s husband, she suddenly wakes up screaming. Yes, all of this a nightmare. To make it more interesting, as she wakes up screaming, there is an earthquake.

   As time goes by, she reveals that she has been getting phone calls from someone who sounds an awful lot like Freddy. Familiar faces are brought in, as she visits old friends and co-actors, such as Robert Englund, and even Wes Craven himself.  Her son also begins acting strange, even walking out into the middle of a busy freeway in the middle of the night. 

Freddy, the real Demon behind the scenes

    Soon it seems reality and fantasy are colliding, and Wes reveals that there is a real demon that Freddy has always represented. This real demon likes being Freddy and is now taking things a bit far. As the film winds down, Heather and her son find themselves in a final confrontation with the demon, but she has to confront him as Nancy. 

     Is this one bad? No, not really. However, as I said, it can be a bit boring. It can sometimes be difficult to wrap your head around some of the concepts being put forth. The effects were good for it’s time. The new look of Freddy as the demon, coupled with how he acts, is how Wes originally wanted the character to be, ten years earlier. I can take or leave this one. Sometimes, I will watch it, if I need a refresher, but for the most part, it remains untouched in my film library.

Number 6. A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) .

Remake-o-rama

Ah yes, the remake of the original. This film was less a horror film, then a character study about the origins of Freddy. This one makes Freddy out to have been so much more of a child molester then a child killer the original one was.  His fate was similar, the parents ganged up and burned him alive. The makeup reflect a more true burn victim look. I have only sat through it once, and it did not really catch my interest too much. That isn’t to say it was bad. I like Jackie Earl Haley, who plays Freddy in this. Ironically, it was Haley who had gone to the auditions for the first film, way back when. His ride to the audition, Johnny Depp. The producers liked Johnny’s look, and asked him to audition. The rest, as they say, is history. Funny how things come full circle.

    In this film, Freddy was a gardener at a preschool. He had a “secret room” where he used to take the children, and he would take pictures of them, in various states of undress.  His little hobby is discovered by the parents when his favorite little girl, Nancy, tells her mom about the secret room. 

    The film opens in a diner, where a man is falling asleep in a booth. He meets a burned man, with razor knives on one hand. He awakes to discover his chest is cut and bleeding. He then stands, and with a steak knife, cuts his own throat.  There is a funeral, and one of Nancy’s friends see a picture of them at a preschool, but no one remembers it. Her friend is later killed, her ex-boyfriend blamed. He is then killed in his cell.

   Nancy and her friend Quentin begin to piece it all together. They confront one of the parents, and realize Freddy was killed by them without evidence, and he is now out for revenge because the kids lied. Somehow they find the old abandoned preschool after all this time, and they discover the “secret room” complete with the child porn still on the walls. Realizing they were wrong, and that Freddy is just killing them off because he is evil, they try to formulate a plan.

Freddy or Scarecrow?

    As in the original, Freddy is brought out of the dream, but this time, Nancy cuts off his gloved hand , slashes his throat, and sets him and the room on fire. Nancy wakes up in the hospital, with her mom with her. Freddy appears in a mirror, kills her mom, and pulls her body into the mirror.

    The idea of Freddy as a child murderer was evil enough, but turning him into a pervert, one that was molesting the kids instead of killing them, is somehow worse. I think it doesn’t work as a motive, and the film suffers for it. There is of yet no word on if a sequel will be made, but who knows, with the Hollywood reboot machine in full swing, we make get another retelling one day. Watch this one if you are curious about how they made a modern version of Freddy. Otherwise, skip it.

Number 7. A Nightmare On Elm Street 5 : The Dream Child ( 1989 ) .

Aww Freddy has a baby buggy...

This film was the final part of the trilogy that was started with Nightmare 3.  The main plot is silly, the deaths are also silly, it seems that everything about this film was just made for comic relief. This one is bad, but it is still better then the final dud on this list.

    This film picks up a year after Nightmare 4, where the two survivors, Alice and Dan, are now dating, and preparing to graduate high school, then tour Europe. Alice begins having dreams of Amanda Krueger, and of an unknown child named Jacob.  As the story progresses, we meet new friends of hers, none who are very important. We also begin to see a reforming Freddy, though one that is more physically disfigured and twisted then before. 

    Freddy is slowly regaining strength, but to do that, he needs new souls, since his old stash was ripped out of him in the last film. He begins killing Alice’s new friends, and even manages to kill off her boyfriend Dan right in front of her, which causes her to faint. When she comes to in the hospital, she learns she is pregnant with Dan’s child, and it is through this unborn child that Freddy is returning. 

     As the film nears it’s climax, Alice needs her one remaining friend to free the soul of Amanda Krueger, buried behind a brick wall at the old sanitarium where she was locked in the room with the maniacs and raped.  Her soul released, Amanda is free to fight her bastard son Freddy, and Alice escapes.  Many months later, we see Alice, her friend, and her dad, smiling over the new born baby in a park, his name, Jacob.

    This one nearly brought down the series. The goofy look Freddy was given makes it even worse.  The story makes almost no sense.  This film and the film in our number eight slot are the least favorite of series star Robert Englund.  If you want to see this for completeness, or are just curious about how to make a bad Nightmare film, give this one a whirl. If you really want to know what happened to Alice after part four, then watch this one. Otherwise, avoid, there is very little to redeem this one. However, we are not done yet folks, and I might need to take a few swigs of rum before tackling our last installment.

Number 8. A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 : Freddy’s Revenge ( 1985 )

Oh Freddy, how they hurt thee...

My head hurts just thinking about this one. I do not think I am going to hold back on the bile with this. This film is a pure example of how a sequel to a successful film can be done so horribly wrong. The director seemed to have a thing for homosexuality, and it is very evident in the final product. However, it does have one of the best sequences from the franchise, one that most fans recognize. Freddy, leaping out of a pool, and in a much darker and deadlier voice, saying to all the teens gathered there for a party “You are all my children now!”  This is the highlight of this film, the rest, I have seen better excrement on the bottom of my shoes after walking through a dog park.

    The film opens with a new family moving into Nancy’s old house from Nightmare 1.  Our main character, Jesse, moves into Nancy’s old room. He begins having nightmares, in them Freddy demands that he kill for him.  Jesse’s girlfriend Lisa ends up finding Nancy’s diary in the room, while helping Jesse unpack. As she reads, he realizes his nightmares are related.  As the nightmares get worse, Freddy becomes stronger and stronger.

    Jesse tries to tell his parents, but they feel he is crazy, and he storms out. One night, he finds himself wandering the streets, not knowing how he got there or why. In a bar, he runs into the head coach from school. The coach decides to force Jesse back to the school, at night, and makes him run laps.  As Jesse is showering, the coach’s office comes to life, and jump ropes drag the man into the shower. He is tied up, as steam increases. A shadowy figure, unmistakably Freddy, emerges, and slashes the coach’s back with his razor claws. We then see that it was not Freddy , but Jesse wearing the claws. He looks down and screams in horror.  The film then cuts back to Jesses house, no explanation.

    Lisa does her best sleuthing, and gets the background on Freddy. Meanwhile, Jesse enlists the help of his friend Grady. He wants Grady to watch him as he sleeps, to make sure nothing happens. Jesse falls asleep, so Grady decides to sleep himself. Jesse then awakes screaming, as Freddy makes his way out of Jesse. He kills Grady, and as the camera looks in the mirror, it is Jesse who killed Grady, but the silhouette is that of Krueger.  Jesse runs to Lisa’s house, where the above mentioned pool party is taking place. Freddy takes over, more fully this time, and tries to kill Lisa. She fights him off, and escapes.

"You are all my children now!"

   Freddy then begins to wreak havoc on the party goers. He heats the entire area, causing the fences to burn, metal to glow red hot, and the pool to boil. He kills kids left and right. Some attack him, but are quickly dealt with. He then gives the best line of the film, mentioned above. Lisa’s father runs out with a gun, but Lisa keeps him from shooting Freddy, who erupts in a fireball and escapes.

    Lisa tracks him to the old factory where he was originally burned. As her and Freddy face of for the final time, she appeals to Jesse inside. She then takes off Freddy’s hat and kisses him, causing Freddy to loose control, and the building to ignite, along with Freddy himself. In the end, Freddy’s remains stir, and Jesse crawls out, a little shaken, but alive. The film ends with them on a bus, and Freddy killing, and the bus heading for a cliff…with chilling laughter.

The kiss of death? Thankfully not!

    Ok, on paper, all that sounds like a good idea, in practice, it was a migraine waiting to happen.  Not one death takes place within the confines of a nightmare. The acting is wooden at times. The best part is Freddy, yet he is relegated to a few cool scenes near the end. The basic plot idea of this story is just very flawed. Freddy does not need someone in the real world to claim victims.

    Was this sequel needed?  Wes Craven did not think so. He wanted the first film to be a standalone piece. He wisely steered clear of this fiasco. Now don’t get me wrong, the film has it’s fair share of people who like it. However, it is a far cry from it’s predecessor. Jesse is a whiner, his girlfriend has more balls then he does. The director wanted to flaunt his personal taste in men on the audience, hence why there are so many scenes of the male leads in tight underwear, or what is really a gay bondage scene where the coach is killed. Say what you want, but this fill is bad, despite being successful in the box office. It could have easily killed the franchise before it even got off the ground..

    This one makes me cringe when I watch it. I only own it because I own the box set with all the older nightmare films. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. F it was not for the pool party slaying scene, the film would be irredeemable. I recommend, that if you have not seen it, skip it. It is largely ignored by the films that follow it. In the grand scheme of the franchise, this is the biggest turd.

    Now that I am done with that mess, and my rum is running out, I can move on to my final thoughts on the entire series as a whole. I like it, I really do, for the most part, the films are fun escapism into the world of a twisted madman out for revenge. Every film series has it’s good parts and bad parts.  However, even the worst parts have their fans. I am a fan of Freddy Krueger,  he was a great villain to root for. I would even recommend watching Freddy vs. Jason, simply for the nostalgic aspect, and the comedy Freddy injects into the film.  If you have never seen the films, give them a chance, they are tame compared to the horror films of today, the so called torture porn era of horror films, which only exist to disgust, not entertain.  These are classics, even the bad ones are watchable.  Enjoy them for what they are, but do not expect cinema masterpieces.

    Now on to a few announcements. I am thinking of adding some more content to the blog, not just more Best of /Worst of, which I  will be continuing, but I also want to add new write-ups. My next best of /Worst of will be focusing on the Pirates of the Caribbean films, so look for that in a week or two, depending on what life throws at me. I am also a historian of sorts when it comes to ships, most notable ocean liners from the mid 19th all the way through the 20th centuries. I will be creating a ship of the week, or ship of the month, depending on how frequently I can get to doing a write up. On top of that, I also dabble in fan fiction. Back in my Myspace days, I ran a group which featured my own stories as well as those of others. I wish to get back into it. I plan on starting this with a story that will begin where the series Stargate Universe left off. I will try to end the series in my own way, and I hope fans of Stargate join me in this little bit of fan fiction. 

   With all that said, I want to thank those that take the time to read this and enjoy the things I enjoy.  As always, your comments are welcome, feedback, as long as it is respectful is appreciated.  Till we meet again, we are the universe, trying to find it’s voice, we are one!

Best of / Worst of 6 Part 1

Best of/Worst of 6

By

Kevin Scott Bolinger

       Greetings and salutations. Welcome back to Best of /Worst of. I took a few weeks off to collect my thoughts after the long three part Doctor Who blog, and now, refreshed, I am ready to tackle a new subject. I have decided to move to a horror franchise this time. This weeks subject, the A Nightmare on Elm Street series.

      Since there are eight movies in this franchise, that is including the remake, but not including Freddy Vs Jason, I have decided to present my four best chapters, then next week, to present the four worst. Mind you, this is based on my opinion, and if one you feel is good does not make the top four, do not fret. I am a fan of the series, and I like most of the films in some way. That being said, some entries stand out more then others as being real gems, while others end up smelling like something Fido left on the lawn.

    Let us begin with a little background. In the early eighties, director Wes Craven was looking for a way to have a break out hit. He had a fascination with the power of the mind during dreams, learning that some people have even died from severe nightmares. He picked up on this, and, having suffered from a nightmare of his own since he was a child, he went with it. He also learned that there were some who believed they could willingly control their dreams, turning nightmares to paradise.

   He began to envision a dream demon terrorizing a group of teens in a small town. The final product became one of the scariest films of it’s day. The main villain, Freddy Krueger, was pulled right from his childhood. As a young boy, late one night he heard a noise outside. There he spotted a transient, in a dirty red and green stripped sweater, just shuffling down the road. As young Wes looked out, the transient stopped, turned and stared at the boy. Wes cowered in fear, and looked away. The transient kept staring for a very long time till finally moving on. That image eventually became Freddy.

Freddy Krueger, Stuff of Nightmares

   As the story goes, Freddy was a child murderer, using a homemade leather glove with razor knives on the fingers, to mutilate his victims. He was caught and arrested, but due to a technicality, he was released. The parents of the Elm street neighborhood, trying to protect the children still alive, took it upon themselves to form an angry mob. They cornered Freddy in an old building, and torched the place, killing the murderer. One of the parents saved his hat and glove, and the rest took his burned corpse and buried it in a junk yard.

    This should be the end of the tale, but it was only the beginning. Three dream demons had approached Freddy as he burned, and offered him power, the power to get his revenge through nightmares. So, many years later, teenagers on Elm street began to die, one by one. Many times Freddy has returned, and many times he has been defeated.

   As a whole, the series is not that bad, though the very first film was probably the scariest. Freddy was more terrifying then. In later installments, he became more comical, killing in very imaginative ways, and always ending on a bad pun. This made him unique amongst the big three of horror villains from the eighties, those being Freddy, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers, and yes, I know Myers came around in the late seventies, but hey, he still counts. Both Jason and Michael were silent killers, where as Freddy was very vocal. Played by Robert Englund in seven of the films, as well as Freddy vs. Jason, he would tease his victims before killing, feeding off their fear.

      So, there is a brief history of our main antagonist. I will delve into the remakes differences when I get to it in my list. For now, let us just move on to the films I think are the four best of the franchise.

Number 4

A Nightmare On Elm Street 4 : The Dream Master (1988)

Nightmare 4, it was ok...

    So, what can be said about this entry into the series. The basic plot still remains, Freddy tries to kill teens in their sleep in revenge for his death. This one, however, was a direct sequel to Nightmare 3. The three survivors from that entry are hunted down by a newly resurrected Freddy, due to a mistake made by one who had the power to pull others into her dreams. As she is dying, she passes her power on to a new friend, who then proceeds to bring fresh victims to Freddy.

     As the movie progresses, our main heroine, Alice, slowly begins to gain the power of those Freddy kills, not just in the dreams, but in reality. Eventually, this leads her to becoming a dream master, which allows her to free all the souls Freddy has collected in his years of terror.  The souls tear him to pieces, ending his current existence. 

     This one was not the best, nor was it the worst. It was middle of the road. The acting was ok, the deaths were creative enough, and the story made sense if you could suspend your beliefs for a while.  I know this is a very brief description of this entry, but hey, I will save the longer write ups for the better parts.

Number 3

Freddy’s Dead : The Final Nightmare (1991)

Nightmare 6, a good way to end the classic series

     This one I do like a lot, however, in my book it is still not as good as my numbers one and two on this list. It does bring a nice closure to the classic Nightmare series, and it even had a short 3D sequence thrown in and a cameo by Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold. The basic story takes a bit of a curve in this one. Freddy has run out of victims in Springwood, and he needs help to expand his territory.

    He sends a messenger boy of sorts, one with no memory. He ends up in a halfway house where they try to help him get his memory back. One of the therapists, Maggie, thinks that heading back to Springwood would help. So, a small road trip follows, with Maggie, the John Doe, and a few other teens. Springwood is a ghost town, devoid of children. A creepy carnival greets them, empty, save for two crazed former parents. Then, the nightmares begin.

    We learn that Freddy sent the teen to find his daughter, who, it turns out, is Maggie. Since she is his flesh and blood, Freddy can hitch a ride out of Springwood and kill in other towns, because, as Freddy says, every town has an Elm Street.

    Maggie eventually figures out what’s going on, and at some point is able to enter her fathers memories. She sees her childhood, which was repressed. She watches as Freddy kills her mother. She also sees Freddy cornered in the abandoned building as it is set ablaze. She watches as the three dream demons give their power to Freddy, turning him into the dream monster we all know.

   Maggie manages to pull Freddy out, and kills him with a pipe bomb, ending his reign of terror. This entry was fun and a little unpredictable. The effects were ok, the 3D sequence was an interesting touch. However, it never captured me as much as the other two films on this list, and so it ranks as my third favorite.

Number 2

A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 : Dream Warriors (1987)

Nightmare 3, best of the sequels!

    Wes Craven returned to the franchise to write the story for this one. It was a good thing too, but more on why in part two of this blog. He brought back Nancy, the survivor from the original film, he gave us more of Freddy’s back story, and he introduced powers in dreams to fight Freddy. Just one of those would have been enough to make this a great film, all three at once, and it is an awesome thrill ride.

   Springwood has a problem, it seems all the teenagers are committing suicide. This is of course Freddy’s ultimate revenge, killing in such a way as to make it look like his victims took their own lives. It was very cleaver. Some, survived the attempts on their lives, and were put in a mental hospital to help them recover. No one would believe them about the nightmares, about the man haunting their dreams.

    Nancy Thompson, the only surviving teen from the original film, returns to Springwood as an intern, at the mental hospital. She of course believes the kids, and knows exactly who is after them. She describes him to the teens, and tells them why he is doing what he is doing. They want to know how they can fight back. It seems one of them, a newcomer to the hospital, has the ability to draw others into her dreams. This could prove useful to them.

   Meanwhile, another of the therapists in the hospital has been seeing a mysterious nun. He follows her one day, and learns of a young woman named Amanda Krueger, who worked at the hospital back in it’s early days. He learns that there is a sealed off ward, in it was once housed all the maniacs, in one large room. Amanda was locked in there accidentally, and she was raped, over and over by the maniacs. Eventually she bore a son, Freddy, the bastard son of a hundred maniacs. The nun also tells him that Freddy can only be stopped by burying his remains in consecrated ground. Only one man knows where the remains are, Nancy’s father.

Trust me, I won't hurt you...much

    Back in the group sessions, Nancy comes up with a plan to have them all brought into one dream, and teaches them how to make themselves powerful in it. This way, they can fight Freddy on his own turf. In reality, the other therapist convinces Nancy’s dad to take him to Freddy’s remains, which are in a junkyard. Armed with a shovel and Holy Water, they plan to did Freddy a proper grave.

   In the dream the plan seems to work, they are all brought into a group dream. However, Freddy quickly splits them up. They all try to overpower him, but he has been at this game far longer then they, and he begins to use their powers against them. In the junkyard, a hole is dug, but before the therapist and Nancy’s father can bury the bones, they attack, and kill Nancy’s dad. In the dream, Freddy manages to kill Nancy as well, leaving just three to fight him. As they get ready, Freddy begins to scream in pain as white light escapes him. In the real world, holy water is being flung on his remains. As his mortal remains are buried, Freddy vanishes.  The survivors attend Nancy’s funeral, and part company.

   This one was by far a fantastic film. It is fun, scary, and had a great story that lead in a few directions, only to be pulled back together in the end. This one needs to be seen, but of course, it is still not as good as number 1.

Number 1

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

The original Nightmare, still the best!

    Ok, who didn’t see this one coming. The original is still the best. It is sheer terror. Freddy was a true monster in this one. He did not need jokes or elaborate schemes to kill, he just terrified his victims, then slaughtered them. This film almost earned an X rating for the amount of blood in one kill alone.

   It opens, typical enough, on a nightmare. A girl named Tina is being chased in an old burned out boiler room. The killer taunts her and teases her, and he swipes at her, just missing. As she wakes up screaming, she notices her nightgown has four slash marks on it. Her mom tells her she needs to either cut her nails or stop having nightmares.

   In School the next day, she finds out that her best friend Nancy, and her boyfriend Glen both had the same nightmare. Tina’s boyfriend Rod then jumps out at them and scares them. Eventually he leaves, and the others go to class. Tina asks Nancy to stay at her house, because she is frightened, and her parents will be out of town. Both Nancy and Glen decide to stay with her, and Rod shows up. Rod and Tina have sex in her moms bed, and afterwards, Rod admits he also had the same nightmare. As they sleep, Tina dreams again. This time, however, Freddy gets her.

    Rod wakes up to Tina’s screaming, and he sees a shape under the covers on top of Tina. She is cut open and dragged across the ceiling, still screaming, still being slashed. She falls to the bed dead, in a bloody heap. Rod jumps out the window, chasing after someone who isn’t there. Later, when the cops arrive, we learn the Nancy’s father is the Chief. He is convinced Rod killed Tina and puts a warrant out for his arrest.

    Rod is captured the next day as he tried to talk to Nancy, and let her know he was innocent. She is furious with her dad for using her. In school she begins to doze. As she does, she looks into the hall and sees a bloody body bag shuffling down the hall. Tina is in it. As she follows after, Freddy  appears, and chases her. In her dream she burns her arm on a hot pipe, and is awoken in class as she violently screams. As she regains her composure, she looks down, her arm is burned.

   Later that night, as she is taking a bath, she falls asleep again. A razor knifed hand rises from the bath and pulls her under, into a very deep pool of water. He struggling in the bath causes her mother to break in, saving her from becoming the next victim. After this, she begins drinking lots of coffee and taking pills to keep herself awake. Her mom grows concerned, and takes her to a sleep study. They put her under, where she begins to dream. Freddy chases her again, but this time, when she is awoken, she somehow managed to grab his hat. When she awakes, she is still holding it.

The true face of fear!

    In the hat is a name, Fred Krueger. She confronts her mother. Her mother eventually gives in and tells her the tale. Krueger was a child killer. He was caught and brought to trial, but was released on a technicality. To protect the remaining children, the parents got together and killed Freddy, burning him alive in an abandoned building’s boiler room. She shows the razor knife glove to Nancy, and says that Freddy cannot hurt her, because he is dead. Her mother even has bars installed on the windows to keep Nancy in.

    She tries to get her boyfriend Glenn to help her fight Freddy, but Glen’s parents intervene. That night, when Glen falls asleep while holding his portable TV and wearing headphones, listening to music, he is pulled into his bed. Seconds later, a geyser of blood erupts from the bed, coating the entire room. The phone rings, and as Nancy answers it, it is Freddy, taunting her , since he just killed Glen.  Her mom is drunk, and useless, so she goes to her dad, and tells him she is going to get the killer.

   Nancy sets numerous booby traps in the house, and then sets her alarm to wake her soon after she falls asleep. Eventually Freddy attacks her, but she grabs him as the alarm goes off. However, he isn’t there when she awakes, only a piece of fence. As she is looking for him, Freddy attacks her, but gets caught up in her traps. She ends up setting him on fire, and he runs off. She tracks him to her moms bedroom, where she finds him burning on top of her. Her mom is dead, a burnt husk, being slowly drawn into her bed. Nancy has had enough, she confront Freddy, and tells him she isn’t afraid. As she turns her back on him, he lunges, but has no power. He vanishes from existence.

   The next day, Nancy heads off to school. Her mom tells her she is giving up drinking. All her friends are alive and waiting in the car. As she gets in, the convertibles top closes, and the doors lock, trapping them. As she looks, she sees Freddy’s hand break through the doors small window and yank her mom through. The car speeds off, while Freddy laughs. You just can’t keep a good dream monster down!

    This film scared the crap out of me as a kid. I had nightmares on top of nightmares. It truly was a masterpiece in horror cinema. This film brought us a young Johnny Depp, in the role of Glen. How can that be a bad thing? This film also turned New Line Cinema from a small independent company, to a powerhouse. Without this film, we would never have had the superb Lord of the Rings trilogy many years later. If you have never seen it, go rent it. This truly is the best of the series, a few come close, but they never match the pure terror invoked in this one..

   So there you have it, my top four, the best of the Nightmare series. Next week, we will star at number five and work our way down to the worst, and heaven help me, it really was bad, it almost killed the franchise. Join me , won’t you? It will be a fun trip down memory lane, for the ones that follow, are what truly give me nightmares. Till then, we are the universe, trying to find it’s voice, we are one!

See, even Freddy gets a vacation now and then!

Best of/ Worst of 5 part 3

 Best of /Worst of 5 part 3

By

Kevin Scott Bolinger

Greetings and Salutations. Welcome to part three of my look at Doctor Who. Today, we shall take a look at two of the Doctor’s most famous villains, the Daleks and The Master. I will then give my closing thoughts on this long running show, and leave it up to you, the reader, to decide who is the best Doctor for all time. I will not, however, tell you my personal favorite. Why? Simple, I like them all.

      Let us dive right in by tackling the Daleks first. They are the oldest of the Doctor’s enemies. They first appeared in the second storyline, simply titled “Daleks“. After the events of “An Unearthly Child” the TARDIS materializes on a strange world, in the middle of a forest. There is a city in the distance. The world is Skaro. The city, the home of the Daleks. The Doctor and his companions make their way to the city, and upon arrival, realize they have been exposed to radiation, which has weakened them. As the episode progresses, they learn that there is another race on Skaro, the Thalls, who have been at war with the Daleks for a very long time. The Thalls help them escape.
  
      Over the long years the Doctor, in his various incarnations, has come into contact with the Daleks as they proceed with their plans of universal conquest. The Daleks change over the years, at first, limited to traveling only within the confines of their city, since they needed static electricity from metal floors to move. They overcame that quickly, developing an anti-gravity mode of locomotion, allowing them to hover, fly, and even go up stairs. Then came an event that let everyone know what they were truly dealing with,

     The Time Lord’s approached the fourth Doctor, ordering him to Skaro at a particular point during it’s history. This point was the birth of the Daleks. His mission, to stop it. This is the multi-part story known as “Genesis of the Daleks” and is considered by many to be one of the best of Classic Who. Upon arriving at Skaro, they quickly realize they are in the middle of a huge war. The war between the Thalls and the Kaleds. The use of atomic weapons has left a poisonous radiation over the planet, and mutants have been the result, mostly among the Thalls, who are fighting for their very survival. The Kaleds, portrayed as almost Nazi-like, have the upper hand, but desire a weapon to finish the Thralls once and for all. Enter Davros.

Davros and his children, the Daleks

A Kaled mutant inside the Dalek shell

  Davros was a mad genius, horribly scarred and blinded, he was bound to a mobile device he used to get around. A single artificial eye was imbedded in his forehead, above the near empty sockets of his real eyes. His left arm was nearly useless, and he controlled his machine with his right. He was far from defenseless. He utilized the radiation from the war to create a new race, a race devoid of most emotions, no need for love, or honor. These mutants were made from Kaled volunteers. He placed the new, small, single-eyed creatures in a mobile armor base, similar to the one he was in, yet they had deadly weapons exposed, and a dome at the top with a single moving eye stalk. These were his Daleks.

    It seemed the Doctor had arrived a few days too late, and Davros had succeeded, and the Daleks were born, so, the Doctor did the next best thing. He tried to stall their development into the deadly race they would become. Eventually he would turn the creations on their creator. The Daleks shoot Davros, and his body and his creation become sealed in a cave for thousands of years.

    The Doctor had thought he had won, but in his later travels, he would once again find himself on Skaro. This time, an excavation by an alien race, had unwittingly uncovered the cave, and the Daleks and the newly revived Davros would rise again. Davros was quickly becoming as hard to kill as the Doctor himself. Eventually, despite the Doctor stopping them at every turn, the Daleks would rise to power, and develop time travel of their own. This lead to the Last Great Time War, already discussed under my write up of the eighth Doctor.

     Even the Time War could not keep them down. First a single Dalek, fallen to Earth from the war, was located. Shortly there after, it was learned that the Dalek Emperor had survived the war, by escaping before the war was locked. The Daleks took their time, and using Earth in the distant future, they were able to build up a massive fleet. This all came to nothing, as the Doctor’s companion Rose , with the power of the time vortex in her head, would simply erase them from existence.

   The Daleks were not completely gone, as a small group of four, a secret organization, known as the Cult of Skaro, the only Daleks with names, would find a Time Lord device known as the Genesis Ark. This happened to coincide with an invasion of the Cybermen from an alternate reality. Immune to the Cybermen’s weapons, the Cult of Skaro succeeded in opening the Genesis Ark, a device, like the TARDIS, that was bigger on the inside. It turns out it was a prison ship, and it was transporting millions of Daleks. They are freed and begin fighting the Cybermen. At the Torchwood institute, the Doctor and Rose use a device that had been created to open a crack between universes, to suck both the Cybermen and Daleks into the void between realities. All are sucked in except the Cult of Skaro who use emergency time travel to escape. The result of all this, was Rose being trapped in an alternate reality.

   They would return again, this time in depression era New York. Their plan, to use a radiation wave heading towards Earth to create a new form of Dalek, one half human. Only one of these monstrosities was created, and he was killed by the other members of the Cult of Skaro. They too were destroyed with the exception of one who used his emergency time travel yet again.

    This would lead to one of the largest confrontation with the Daleks the Doctor had ever witnessed outside the Time War. The surviving member of the Cult of Skaro had somehow ended up in the Time War. This caused him to go insane, yet he was able to free both Davros and the Supreme Dalek from the war. Davros then set about rebuilding the Daleks. They then began to steal planets from both time and space, the last one they steal, Earth itself. Hiding the entire group of planets one second out of phase with the rest of the universe, the plan was to use them to create an energy field capable of destroying the universe itself.

    The Doctor and a group of his former companions, thwart the Daleks, but, his friend Donna paid the price. Her DNA and that of the Doctor got mixed to create a new, human version of the Doctor, but the transfer worked both ways, with Donna getting the Doctor’s memories and intelligence. This caused her to be able to work out a way of freeing everyone, and controlling the Dalek equipment to return all but one of the worlds to it’s proper place . The Human Doctor, not having the benefit of time with humans, destroys the Daleks and Davros. Donna begins suffering the effects of the transfer, and the Doctor has no choice but to erase her memories. After using the TARDIS to tow the Earth back to its rightful place, he brings Donna home. If she were to ever remember him, her mind would burn.

    The Daleks would not return again until the eleventh Doctor. After receiving a call from Winston Churchill, the Doctor and his new companion Amy, travel to world War Two London, there to find that Churchill has been using creations known as Ironsides to fight the Nazis. These turn out to be two Daleks. These Daleks set an elaborate trap to get the Doctor to acknowledge who they are, so that a new form of Dalek can be created on their ship with a device known as the Progenitor. They succeed, and the new superior Daleks destroy the old flawed version, and escape in time.

   They last appeared as part of a coalition of all the Doctor’s enemies, their goal, to lock the most dangerous being in the universe in an un-escapable box known as the Pandorica. That most dangerous being? The Doctor himself! So ends our brief look at the Daleks. Now we can move on to The Master.

    The Master was born on Gallifrey around the same time as the Doctor. The two were childhood friends, always playing together. Both were taken at age eight by the Time Lords to gaze into the Untempered Schism. The Doctor ran from the time vortex within, the Master went mad, a constant drumming sound now in his head. He would recover enough to attend the academy with the Doctor, where he would be a member of a group known as the Deca, a group the Doctor also belonged to. Eventually, he and the Doctor would have a falling out.

  

The Master, age 8, looking into the Time Vortex

After the Doctor stole the TARDIS and fled from Gallifrey, the Time Lords decided to send the Master after him, to bring him back. This began a long obsession the Master had with the Doctor. Coupled with his insanity, this lead to many plans to either take over the universe, or simply kill the Doctor. As he approached old age, and his body began to decay, he merged himself with an alien known as Tremas. This however, damaged his DNA and he could no longer regenerate as other Time Lords.

     In this form, he would plague the Doctor more and more, even causing the death and regeneration of the fourth Doctor. Though he tried, he could never quite gain the upper hand with the Doctor. Eventually, the sixth Doctor was put on trial for interference, and in a twisted way, the Master came to his defense, though his true goal was the hope that the Doctor and his evil future incarnation, the Valeyard, would destroy each other.

    The Seventh Doctor would reveal that he was partially to blame for the Master’s actions. When they were boys, the Master was bullied, and in coming to his defense, the Doctor had killed the bully. This would eventually lead to Death taking on the Master as a force to do her bidding.

     The Master was captured by the Daleks, in a time before the Great War, and he was executed. His remains were taken by the Doctor for return to Gallifrey. On the way, the Masters essence escaped, causing the TARDIS to crash, the Doctor to be shot and regenerate, and eventually, would have caused the entire universe to get sucked into the Heart of the TARDIS. The Doctor stopped him, and destroyed the Master once and for all…

    Or so he thought. The Time Lords, during the war, had brought back every great warrior they had in history, including the Master. However, the Master, being a coward of sorts, decided to flee instead of fight. He escaped far into the future, and used a Chameleon Arch to alter his memories and DNA into a human. This human became Professor Yana, a man, who at the very end of the universe, was trying to save the last of humanity by sending them to a place simply known as Utopia. The Doctor arrived at the same point in time and space, accidentally, as the TARDIS tried to shake off Captain Jack Harkness, a man made into a fixed point in time by the time vortex in Rose’s head, several years earlier. He was an impossibility even the Doctor had trouble looking at.

     As the Doctor offered help to Yana, he would talk about Gallifrey, and time lords, and regeneration with Jack, with Yana and his helper listening in. As the words are spoken a change comes upon Yana, who notices his pocket watch. When he opens it, the spell of the Chameleon Arch is broken, and his true self, the Master is revealed. His assistant shoots him, as he makes his way into the TARDIS. There he regenerates into a new younger version. He quickly moves to steal the TARDIS, but the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to lock the controls, limiting the TARDIS to only travel back to the last place it had been, give or take eighteen months.

 

The Master, as Harold Saxon, Prime Minister

  Eventually, this leads to the Master becoming Prime Minister of England under the name Harold Saxon. He introduces an alien race known as the Toclafane,  tiny floating metal spheres. The Toclafane turn out to be the humans Yana sent to Utopia with the Doctors help. After a year, the Doctor is able to use the Master’s own devices against him, and he undoes everything the Master had caused, creating the year that never was. Only those upon the flying UNIT aircraft carrier, Valiant, know what happened. The Master is then shot by his own wife, and he refuses to regenerate. The Doctor burns his body upon a great pyre.

    Even this would not be the end. As his body was consumed by the flames, a ring fell to the ground. A mysterious woman picks it up. This leads to his eventual return, but he was even more insane. His new body could generate energy burst, which he could aim at those around him. Using alien technology, he turned the entire population of Earth into himself. Eventually, it is revealed that the drumming in his head was put there by Rassilon and the Time Lords on the last day of the Time War, just before the Doctor used a weapon known as The Moment to end the war, burn Skaro and Gallifrey and lock the war in time.  Rassilon used the Master as a back door.

   As Gallifrey was appearing through time next to Earth, causing devastation, the Time Lord council, with Rassilon appeared before the Doctor and Master. Rassilon easily undid the changes to humanity the Master had caused, but the announced it was time to enact the final sanction, the end of time itself, the result would be the Time Lords would exist as pure energy, truly immortal. The Doctor could not allow this, if he killed the Master, the link the Time Lords used would be broken. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, but he did shoot the control device the Master had used. The Master, realizing the insanity of his entire life, the drums that drove him to kill, was caused by his own people, finally steps up to the plate. He openly attacks Rassilon, cursing him for doing this. The Time Lords, Master and Gallifrey are all sucked back into the Time War, sealed away forever. In his last bit of life, he had saved the universe.

 

Rassilon and the Time Lords, ready to enact the End of Time.

After this, the Doctor was truly the last of his race. As mentioned above, events mere moments after all this would cause the next regeneration of the Doctor. He was finally able to let go of the guilt of both the Master and the fate of his people, for he had seen that they truly had become evil. He had made the right decision in the end, by burning Gallifrey. If he hadn’t, the universe itself would have been lost. The Doctor that emerged from this regeneration could finally go on with his life.

    What is it about Doctor Who that has drawn me and so many in? The effects in the old days were cheap and corny, but the stories were magnificent. The character himself, a being of constant change and rebirth, was unique. No manifestation of the Doctor was ever like the other, though aspects of those that came before would show through. In their own way, all eleven have been fantastic.

     I would love to see this show go on for many years to come. We are a little under two years away from the shows 50th anniversary. I hope they make a special that combines the old and the new, to showcase what has come before, and where the show is heading. I am fairly new to the Who universe, though I always knew about it from broadcasts on public broadcasting networks as a kid. I will admit, it was the New Who that got me into it, but I have gone back and watched many episodes of the older Doctors. I have all the episodes on a portable hard drive, so I am still in the process of getting through them all.

   So, this leaves us with the real question then, who is the best Who? I have my favorites, but I love them all. There are episodes I can watch again and again, both of the old stuff and the new. I will even be doing my first cosplay as one of the Doctors, sonic screwdriver included. The Who following is not as big here in the United States, but New Who has changed that somewhat. I know many here who have watched the new shows and loved them, I have been trying to convince them to give the old shows a chance. So, you all tell me, in comments here, or on Facebook, who is your favorite Doctor. Let us see what we can make of all this. Till then, we are all simply the universe, trying to find it’s voice, we are one!