Last month while wandering around our local mall, Kid Indie Squid Kid and I came across the following items of octopus-spangled clothing.
octopus pajamas by Kim Rogers®
This girly six-armed octopus was sighted in the “intimate apparel” section at a Belk department store.
Octopus two-piece Gymmies™ by Gymboree®
Gymboree gets bonus points for giving their octopi the correct number of arms! We saw this pajama set at the Gymboree store, and you can buy them online here.
PZ Myer’s Pharyngula is a blog about evolution, development, and a myriad other aspects of the biological sciences. Myer is a fellow cephalopod enthusiast, and every Friday he posts an image of a cephalopod (such as the one shown above, from today) as part of a feature called, oddly enough, Friday Cephalopod.
Pharyngula is a member of the ScienceBlogs family, the source of many of the subscriptions in my blog reader.
In a similar vein of what I’ve started doing on Tuesdays, every Friday (beginning today) I will share a cephalopod image that I’ve found on the photo site Flickr.com.
Today we have a cuttlefish from the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. Even I can admit that as fascinating and awesome as cephalopods are, they are rarely “cute” in the traditional sense. However, this little guy proves that you don’t have to be fuzzy to be adorable!
This toy squid is perplexing. It accurately has eight arms and two club-ended feeding tentacles (the detail which these kinds of replicas get wrong more often than not), but instead of extending forward from the front of the head and encircling the mouth, the arms are arranged along the middle of the body like the legs of an insect. Adding insult to injury, the feeding tentacles trail behind it like some kind of double tail.
It has a beak, which is good, but the horizontal orientation combined with the forward-facing eyes give its head an ant-like quality. Speaking of the eyes, the illustration shows hourglass pupils, like an octopus. This is wrong for a squid, but it’s also oddly specific—as if the designer had a visual reference for the eyes, but just winged the rest of the figure without much thought.
Seriously, was the design of this toy dictated over the phone or something? Had the designer seen a squid one time, perhaps while high, and figured he remembered it well enough? Did he then get distracted by a picture of a spider half-way through?
I don’t want to rag on the Fisher-Price Imaginext line too much, since it recently has produced a couple of cool (and more accurate) cephalopod toys…but those will be the subject of future posts.
Hot on the heels of Movie Week, I find out that Disney is working on a prequel to their classic 1954 adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (covered previously here and here). Due to be released in 2011, and titled Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, McG (Terminator: Salvation, Charlie’s Angels) is attached to direct. And I am afraid.
Supposedly, the prequel will tell the story of how Captain Nemo goes from being an Indian prince to the brooding science pirate we all know and love. Or, in McG’s words “Where you look at the original picture [Nemo] just enters and he’s already pissed off and underwater and what we want to do is show how he got there.” McG has also stated that he wants Will Smith to play Captain Nemo.
Wait…Seriously?!
Don’t get me wrong, I like Will Smith just fine, but why go through all the trouble of adhering to the character’s original backstory (in The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne reveals that Nemo was Prince Dakkar, son of the Raja of Bundelkhand) but not cast an Indian actor? I’m having troubling visions of a mutant mashup of the abysmal League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie and Wild Wild West.
The Hollywood Reporter reported (duh!) yesterday that the script for Captain Nemo is undergoing a major rewrite, but only time will tell if this is a good thing or not. (For the record, I’m getting all this second-hand from Meredith Woerner over at io9, THE blog for science fiction news.) I guess the odds are pretty good that there will be some kind of cephalopodian element to this movie, and, if so, I fear the odds are even better that it will end up in the Indie Squid Kid Movie Hall of Shame.
So, to cheer myself up, I’ll end with some production images from Disney’s original 20,000 Leagues movie. All of these and more can be found at Pat Regan’s wonderful www.volcaniasubmarine.com.
James Mason as Captain Nemo
Production sketch of the squid fight.
Nemo vs the giant squid!
Still from the discarded "sunset" squid fight sequence.
The photos below show two of the many amazing entries to the annual Sand Sculpture Festival at Weston-super-Mare’s Beach Lawns which runs from July 4 – September 6. This year’s theme, as you might have surmised, is the sea.
We live in awesome times—particularly if you are a T-shirt enthusiast. T-shirt design has long been an art form, but the Internet has revolutionized the craft. There are currently dozens of websites where one can get amazing/hip/ironic/hilarious shirts, and so, logically, T-shirts that feature cephalopods abound. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I own quite a few of them, but, due to my sedentary lifestyle and a job that requires I be parked in front of computer all day, they stopped being flattering on me right about the time that I started this blog. Until now! I think it must have something to do with having a kid—both because taking care of a baby is a form of exercise, and because we have started being more cognizant of our weekly food budget.
Anyway, starting today, I am going to feature a different cephalopod-themed T-shirt every Tuesday until both my personal collection and the vast inventory of the Internet have been fully cataloged.
Kicking things off, we have “The squid and the whale” by graphic designer Dan McCarthy. In addition to this and other cool shirts, Dan also makes some kick-ass prints and posters!
The U-Haul Venture Across America and Canada SuperGrpahics® campaign uses vibrantly colored images to celebrate mysterious places, bizarre facts, and interesting creatures from all over North America. There is a SuperGraphic for each American state and Canadian province, and, as you can see, the one for Newfoundland features our old friend Architeuthisdux. I’ve spotted this on the highway several times, but I never got a good look at it. In fact, my only issue with U-Haul’s cool truck graphics is that, for me at least, they constitute a bit of a driving hazard. I just want to stare at them!
I know it’s too small to read in the above image, so here is the the accompanying text:
Did you know…
The first recorded encounter with the world’s largest invertebrate took place off the coast of Newfoundland. What secrets of the deep were revealed with the discovery of the giant squid? Learn more about the giant squid at…www.uhaul.com
The U-Haul website actually has quite a bit of information about the giant squid, and this graphic is available for download both as desktop wallpaper and, best of all, as a coloring book PDF!
I decided to take a break for the Fourth of July holiday, but I’m back to wrap up Movie Week. All week long I have examined notable examples of cinematic cephalopods, but tonight I am going to end things with a look at films that are, from a squid’s-eye view, a bit disappointing, if not down right embarrassing. So, without further ado, I present to you the Indie Squid Kid Movie Hall of Shame:
1. Clash of the Titans (MGM, 1981)
Loosely based on the myth of Perseus, this movie featured stop motion special effects by Ray Harryhausen, making it a reluctant classic, despite its unintentional campiness and complete butchery of the source material. Clash of the Titans makes the Hall of Shame because the film’s main monster, the so-called Kraken, is not a proper Kraken at all! The Kraken is traditionally (and almost universally) depicted as a gigantic cephalopod, usually a squid. So, if a toga-clad Lawrence Olivier says he is going to send a Kraken to destroy your city, you would have a certain set of expectations, a giant four-armed humanoid lizard-fish not being among them. But even accepting a bit of creative license in the monster department, the Kraken is most definitely NOT part of the Perseus myth, or any Greek myth for that matter. In fact, the tales of the Kraken originate in Scandinavian and Germanic folklore. Why the filmmakers chose not to use Cetus, the actual sea monster from the story of Perseus and Andromeda, is beyond me.
Any of you guys know the way to Argos?
Warner Bros. is currently in production on a remake of Clash of the Titans which is due to be released March of 2010. From what little information I can find, the updated plot still includes “the Kraken”, so I am not optimistic that this movie won’t end up joining its namesake in the Hall of Shame.
2. The Harry Potter movie franchise (Warner Bros., 2001 – present)
In each and every Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling makes a point of mentioning the giant squid that lives in the lake that is part of the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Unfortunately, the giant squid has been left out of every Harry Potter film to date—even Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which features the lake quite prominently in a number of scenes. The sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, comes out later this month, but, sadly, I have no reason to believe that this won’t perpetuate the chronic squidlessness of the movie series.
3. Batman: The Movie (20th Century Fox, 1966)
I really love this movie, so it pains me to include it in the Indie Squid Kid Movie Hall of Shame. However, I can’t ignore the fact that the film promises an exploding octopus but fails to deliver on that promise. This movie was a spin-off of the hugely successful television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, and it features Batman’s four main villains: The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether). Together they are the United Underworld, and they have hatched a diabolical plan to do away with Batman. The plan, in a nutshell, involves luring Batman to their headquarters where a jack-in-the box will launch him through the window and out to sea into the waiting arms of an exploding octopus. During the inevitable fight, a goon accidentally springs the trap and gets sent flying into the ocean. The instant he hits the water, there is an explosion, but no octopus is seen. Is a cheesy rubber octopus really too much to ask for? Did the rubber exploding shark that attacks Batman at the beginning of the movie blow the budget?
I do have to admit that the United Underworld emblem, an octopus enveloping the globe, is pretty cool (I wonder if Michelle at Vulgar Army knows about this?), but what’s up with the bird beak?
4. Sphere (Warner Bros., 1998)
Based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name, Sphere stars Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson. It not a good movie. In fact, it is widely considered to be Dustin Hoffman’s worst. It is so bad, I am not even going to bother trying to summarize the plot. Sure, I could expound on all the reasons why this underwater psychological sci-fi thriller is such a dud, but to my mind, it can all be boiled down to this one scene—the giant squid “attack.”
Seriously, what the hell was that about? If you had asked me to think of what the scariest possible thing about getting attacked by a giant squid at the bottom of the ocean would be, I would not have come up with “rain of eggs.” You know what’s scarier than a bunch of squid eggs? ANYTHING! Also, is the vague outline of a squid on the sonar screen really the best that a big-budget Hollywood production could come up with? WEAK. I think I know why Sam Jackson’s character is reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea…he wishes he was in a movie with a legitimately frightening cephalopod! And that, my friends, is why Sphere wins the ISKy for Worst Movie Cephalopod of All Time.
As Movie Week draws to a close, it’s time to come full circle with another Disney movie. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is the second installment of the trilogy based the popular theme park attraction. Even if you are not a fan, you have to admit that they’re pretty good for movies based on a 40 year old ride! Personally, I thought the first was thoroughly entertaining, the second was fun, but hard to follow, and the third made almost no sense at all. Dead Man’s Chest is the topic of today’s post because, of course, it features not one, but two cephalopod-based characters: Davy Jones, the film’s central villain, and the monstrous Kraken.
Davy Jones is an immortal mariner and captain of the infamous Flying Dutchman. He was originally tasked by the sea goddess Calypso to ferry souls of those who perish at sea to the afterlife. His subsequent betrayal of the goddess and dereliction of duty brought a curse upon him, transforming him into something resembling the Cthuloid spawn of an octopus and a lobster. He has a roughly human face, but his entire head seems to be made up several octopi stacked on top of each other—their tentacles forming a writhing facsimile of the pirate’s original hair and beard. The index finger on his right hand has become a single winding tentacle. He has no nose but instead seems to breath through a siphon protruding from the side of his face.
Davy Jones is apparently the ruler of the ocean, and seems to spend most of his time attacking ships and forcing sailors to join his mutant aquarium crew. He locked his still beating heart away in a chest (the Dead Man’s Chest of the title), for reasons that are unclear but seem to be critically important to the movie’s plot. He commands the mighty Kraken (see below), which he sends to hunt down Captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp, of course) who owes Jones his soul…or something like that.
Davy Jones was played by the fantastic Bill Nighy, and Industrial Light and Magic created his CGI “costume” via motion capture.
The Kraken, as you can see in this clip, is an enormous tentacled beast capable of not just sinking a ship, but literally ripping it apart. Davy Jones summons the beast to do his bidding using a device that sends out shock waves into the water. In this scene, we see it attack and destroy the Edinburgh Trader. Why does it do this? I think it has something do to with Will Turner (played by Orlando Bloom) and the key to the box that contains Davy Jone’s heart. Like I said, the story was kind of hard to follow.
Little of the Kraken’s body is seen in the movie, apart from it’s giant arms, two of which appear to be larger than the rest. This would be consistent with the monster being some type of squid, although these tentacles lack the characteristic club ends. At the end of Dead Man’s Chest, the Kraken has finally caught up with Captain Jack, and we get a clear view of the monster’s mouth. Instead of a beak, it has a circular maw with multiple rows of conical teeth. In this way, the Kraken resembles the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi more than it does a giant squid. Like Davy Jones, the Kraken was entirely CGI, and ILM won the 2006 Acedemy Award for Best Visual Effects for their work on Dead Man’s Chest.
Not a squid.
Davy Jones and the Kraken return in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the final part of the trilogy, although the Kraken only has a brief appearance. It seems Davy Jones’ new master (who has the box that contains his heart and therefore the power to kill Jones. I think?) has commanded ol’ squid face to kill his former pet. We do finally get a look at the body of the Kraken when Jack Sparrow finds its massive corpse washed up on a beach. (A scene that we are apparently supposed to find very poignant and symbolic.) It has a pair of enormous eyes and a long mantle with two rear stabilizing fins—all very squid-like. The book Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide (Dorling Kindersley, 2007), states that the Kraken was 1400 feet long (the length of ten ships) and the accompanying illustration shows its body being at least twice as long as its arms, making the Kraken more like a cuttlefish than a squid.
We’re almost at the end of Movie Week! Tomorrow, for the final installment, I’ll take a look at the cephalopod movie hall of shame.
al plan to do away with Batman. The plan, in a nutshell, involves luring Batman to their headquarters where a jack-in-the box will launch him through the window and out to sea into the waiting arms of an exploding octopus. During the inevitable fight, a goon accidentally springs the trap and gets sent flying into the ocean. The instant he hits the water, there is an explosion, but no octopus is seen. Is a cheesy rubber octopus really too much to ask for? Did the rubber exploding shark that attacks Batman at the beginning of the movie blow the budget?
Davy Jones is an immortal mariner and captain of the infamous Flying Dutchman. He was originally tasked by the sea goddess Calypso to ferry souls of those who perish at sea to the afterlife. His subsequent betrayal of the goddess and dereliction of duty brought a curse upon him, transforming him into something resembling the Cthuloid spawn of an octopus and a lobster. He has a roughly human face, but his entire head seems to be made up several octopi stacked on top of each other—their tentacles forming a writhing facsimile of the pirate’s original hair and beard. The index finger on his right hand has become a single winding tentacle. He has no nose but instead seems to breath through a siphon protruding from the side of his face.
