Quarantine Control #54: Beyond the Satellites

The situation around the COVID-19 pandemic was looking encouraging in the last few weeks, with vaccinations increasing in pace around the United States and the United Kingdom and other countries not named “Brazil” and “India” taking necessary precautions. But there’s been, as always, a new snag. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was halted in the US due to possible blood clots, though the chances of this happening are so low that they’ll likely resume giving it out in due time. Meanwhile, cases are on the rise again in several states across the US. Like in the previous weeks, things look better than they did before, but the pandemic isn’t anywhere close to being declared “over.” No one should drop their guard just yet.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)
Source: HBO Max
Episodes: 1 movie

I have a bizarre and kind of dumb history with Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, one no sane person should have. I first watched the movie on HBO Family midway through my college years (around the mid-00s), but didn’t realize until after I finished it that it was the censored version, which they aired for some peculiar reason. This version was initially made due to Warner Bros. being overly concerned about kids who watched Batman Beyond on TV watching a movie with more mature themes, a thought process that rarely pans out like executives think it will. The unedited version is still PG-13, and HBO Family showed PG-13-rated films before — some animated. I have no idea why they showed a version that should have been in the dustbin by even that point.

So began my search for the uncut version on DVD, which went badly. The movie was well out of print by that point, and every mall Suncoast (RIP), Sam Goody (also RIP), FYE (still around, thankfully)) and Best Buy (also still alive) was sold out. I’d given up on getting it, but that ostensibly paid off when the Blu-ray released a few years afterward. This is where things got stupid. I never actually picked up the Blu-ray, after holding off purchasing a copy for months and later years. Now that I have HBO Max and ROTJ is among the many DC animated offerings available on the service, this was a good time to watch it.

The big question now was whether the movie was actually worth it after all this time. Largely!

Terry McGinnis’s Batman largely had his own Rogue’s Gallery compared to Bruce Wayne in the DC Animated Universe, thanks to the 40-year gap between Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond. There were returning faces around for a short time, like Mr. Freeze and Ra’s Al Ghul, but most like Blight, Inque, and the members of the Royal Flush gang were new. They weren’t anywhere near as memorable as those from Batman TAS, just as Batman Beyond itself wasn’t as memorable as its predecessor, but they were fun enough. This is why it was a big deal for Bruce Wayne’s most memorable villain to return, complete with a portrayal from Mark Hamill.

Batman Beyond was comparatively a bit more lighthearted than its predecessor, likely because WB wanted a series alongside Static Shock more directly targeted at the younger set. Those who liked superhero cartoons with more mature themes could watch Batman and Superman: The Animated Series, which were either still on the air or in syndication during Batman Beyond’s time. ROTJ’s tone, however, is closer to Batman TAS’, and is about as dark as the Batman: Sub-Zero film (it’s still nowhere near Mask of the Phantasm). The Joker is a vicious and sadistic character, much more than the Jokerz gang that looks up to him expected, and the PG-13 rating was utilized to convey that. The movie also appreciably elaborated on the histories of certain characters from TAS that previously weren’t touched upon in the Batman Beyond series.

I really don’t know why I’m dancing around spoilers for a film that’s over 20 years old, an activity as inane as my quest to actually watch this movie. It’s a habit that’s hard to break by now.

Much of the movie focuses on the mystery of who this Joker is, how he’s alive and looks largely identical to his old self despite this taking place decades after TAS. It’s an intriguing question, but the reveal as to why is a little farfetched. It comes off as an excuse for the writers to find a way to bring back the Joker. I won’t say I wasn’t entertained the entire time, and I enjoyed how it resolved conflicts left unfinished with TAS. I just wish they thought of a better explanation, even by comic book cartoon movie standards.

The movie’s quality wasn’t worth the weeks-long searches I made for the film back in 2006, but it was still a lot of fun. It’s, to no surprise, the kind of film worth watching through a streaming service.

 

Joseph Daniels

A while ago, I decided that I didn’t want to recommend things on YouTube as long as they kept serving ads in the most annoying of ways.  I don’t actually know if they’ve changed their ads to be served better (the last time I checked, ads were being inserted literally in the middle of things, interrupting scenes in videos, sometimes cutting words in half), because I’ve mostly been going over to YouTube on my laptop, and not my PlayStation 4.  I have an ad blocker on my laptop.

And besides, there are some things that are only available on YouTube, for now.  For example…

Satellite City (2017)
Source: (Sigh…) YouTube
Episodes: Ongoing…?  (Currently 23 plus extra videos)

The brain child of Sam Fennah, Satellite City is a series of experimental videos which started out as just short scenes acting as character pieces, kind of like how No Evil began, but as time went on, a story began to show itself.  Kind of like No Evil.

This is where the similarities end.  No Evil takes much inspiration from the mythologies of the Americas, and as far as I can tell, the Kivouack of Satellite City are closer to Lovecraftian horror.  And yet there’s something that draws me to it.  It’s true that Lucy Lacemaker has a mouth in her chest, but she rarely shows it in the series and despite how menacing she attempts to be, there’s something in the way she moves that doesn’t scream “This is going to turn into a nightmare at any moment” to me even though her facial expression clearly communicates this message.  It’s saying “Don’t underestimate me, do I have to remind you I have a mouth in my chest?”  She has the kind of prickle teeth that Pennywise is well known for, an attitude that everything exists for her amusement, and a lack of care that she might hurt her toys, so of course one should stay far away from her.  I think it’s her fur and its appealing pattern as well as her body language that lulls a viewer into a false sense of security watching her.

Plus, a few of the animation tests where she lip syncs a song make her seem kind of sexy, too.

And then there’s Hyzenthlay.  As a character, she existed in Sam Fennah’s videos prior to the first “episode” of Satellite City – the 2017 date I’m giving for its origin is the date of the first officially numbered episode – and she gets 150% of my sympathy.  One of Sam’s earliest videos has him accidentally spill hot tea on his face when Hyzenthlay cheers about their subscription count and then he’s a bit… abusive to her afterward, to the point where it’s a little uncomfortable to watch.  I know he’s the one animating her and coming up with the scripts and everything, including his own dialogue, but wow, he sure makes himself look like a real sociopath and poor Hyzenthlay reacts exactly how you would expect an actual victim to, suggesting that Sam’s playing a character and not being himself.

And yeah, there’s no two ways about it.  This is a very remorseless series.  If not for the presence of Hyzenthlay to garner sympathy early on, I would’ve dumped this as soon as I discovered it.  Then came episode 22, Slice of Life.  Wow, is it an incredibly deep episode and speaks to the talent of Sam Fennah’s skills as a writer.  It shows Lucy in several unguarded moments, including when Hyzenthlay asks for help with a word in a book and then asks if she really is as insignificant as Lucy called her earlier.  Lucy may eventually want to use Hyzenthlay as her toy, but the words of wisdom and encouragement she offers makes you think she could care for the little half-squirrel, half-Kivouack hybrid.

The episode also touches upon immortality and how Lucy feels about living forever.  Granted, this isn’t anything new.  Long lived characters have been giving these kinds of speeches for years.  It happens at least once a season on Doctor Who.  But I never really thought about it quite like Lucy talks about it.  It’s not living forever.  It’s dying forever.  Even if you don’t like any of the early episodes for being as rough and mean spirited as they are, I recommend at least watching episode 22.

And finally, I leave you with my favourite of the animation tests. Hyzenthlay lip syncing to a cover of Heathens. Just an amazing song, an amazing video, and my favourite character performing it.

Right now, the series stands at 23 officially released episodes, with the last one having been released in 2019.  Since then, Sam Fennah has been working on a novel based on ideas developed in the series, posted several animation tests which I’m assuming are in anticipation of what he’s calling season two of the series, and contributed to the Nostalgia Critic’s much maligned Weird Al-ing of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, providing the only six minutes of the “review” that anyone actually likes.  It’s like a trip down Wonderland where the entire cast of the series (except Hyzenthlay) sings a trippy song while wild and imaginative imagery plays on the screen, with The Wall itself as the subject matter.  It’s probably the best and worst publicity Sam Fennah has ever gotten for his web series.

Hmm, I wonder if it’s possible for me to write a novel without impacting the projects I normally do for this blog.  This requires further study.

 

There’s no chance that enough Americans will stay vigilant and dodge COVID-19 if they already haven’t, so the best scenario now is convincing all of them to take the vaccine. A situation like what happened with the Johnson & Johnson offering won’t make that any easier, but this isn’t an impossible problem to overcome. Let’s just hope no variants that render the vaccine largely useless don’t manifest.