Comments on: Jane Badler Speaks Near The Outland Institute

By: murrayNE

murrayNE — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:41:45 +0000

Dan, you think rubber head? I had always assumed overlay of a stretched photograph.

Regarding the vests, the thing that always seems most convenient to me is finding Diana’s room in particular. Really? Just “one of the gang”, Diana? Right next to “girl with only a bed and a book”?

The odd thing that struck me watching this just now… and I think it’s been in my subconscious for a while, is how (forgive me) “unladylike” eating a whole freaking guinea pig seems in the middle of a conversation. Especially as seen here – imagine two people at a party – one eats a mini spring roll during idle chit-chat and then the other, not to be outdone, picks up half a dozen of them and proceeds to shove them all simultaneously into their mouth. Classy.

By: Dave AA

Dave AA — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:25:03 +0000

I’m sure more than one teenage sex-comedy has used ventilation shafts as a way for schoolboys to perve at showering schoolgirls.

By: Dan Cardone

Dan Cardone — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:13:09 +0000

I must confess that when Diana eats the hamster, I wasn’t listening to what she was saying, I was just waiting for the cheesy cut-away shot where the actress is replaced with a rubber head…

As for the vent, it is ridiculously roomy. He doesn’t even really have to crouch. You could say the same thing for sewers in horror movies – you could easily fit a gang of adventurous teens with room to spare for a modular sofa.

I did try to find an example of a romantic comedy with someone crawling through an over-sized air vent, but the best I could come up with was Marilyn Monroe standing over an air vent in Seven Year Itch, and numerous examples of people hearing things through air vents from other apartments. There’s also a startling lack of rodent eating aliens in romantic comedies too…

By: Sam

Sam — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:42:15 +0000

But these ones seem particularly roomy, not just your average vent? Usually they seem more claustrophobic, with a good chance that someone will get stuck in them and eaten by the alien menace or cut into pieces by a fan.

By: simbo

simbo — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:33:22 +0000

Climbable vents are in everything, not just Science Fiction. Well, at least, they’re in Die Hard as well..

They’re probably not in any romantic comedies I can think of, though…

By: outlandinstitute

outlandinstitute — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:58:02 +0000

Weirdly, this was the exact thought I had while rewatching this for Boxcutters. That eating live rodents had me thinking “well, they just have different cultural rules than ours – also, they’re aliens so who am I to judge?”. Which either means that I am political correctness gone mad, or it really is a bit much to use someone’s diet to indicate they’re evil. Mind you, Diana does spend the entire scene making an extended soliloquy about her evil plans, so that’s probably a tip-off.

And Sam – ventilation shafts you can climb through! I am such a fan of ventilation shafts you can climb through, I think they’ve become a proud tradition of science fiction. They’re everywhere in spaceships and bunkers – do they exist anywhere in real life? I can’t believe I forgot to include them in Motifs of Cheap Science Fiction – maybe because they’re not restricted to cheap science fiction, they’re in all of it – http://outlandinstitute.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/7-popular-motifs-of-cheap-science-fiction/

By: Dave AA

Dave AA — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:24:12 +0000

… whereas eating a pig mashed in to sausages is normal.

By: Dan Cardone

Dan Cardone — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:19:46 +0000

Funny how eating a hamster whole immediately equals “Evil”.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:43:32 +0000

I always wanted one of those V figurines with the lizard underneath… After watching that clip, do you think the spaceship’s ventilation system was so roomy so Mike Donovan could lug his big camera around… bet he wished he had an i-phone.