Indie Squid Kid

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.

Welcome back to Art Week! Today we have something that’s actually hanging on a wall in my house, “The Kraken Always Follows Its Heart” by my good friend Leah Riley. Leah is a graphic artist, creator of comics, and purveyor of robots. Once upon a time when we were still co-workers, we used to keep a running list of funny things people would say that sounded like the titles of non-existent songs by a band that didn’t have a name. Well, it made sense to us, and this is one of them.

At the time of this writing, there are still two baby doll tees of this very design (in black and red) for sale in her Esty store, but even if they’re gone, you are guaranteed to find something both awesome and ridiculously cute.

Leah is also the co-creator of the webcomics Willrad and Robohobo and the co-author of the manga review blog Hobotoku. See her art portfolio online at www.leahstuff.com.