'Coyotes' the moviie trailer - Sep 9

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but then I watched the trailer for the upcoming 2025 ‘Coyotes’ movie and realize that Hollywood can suck even worse. Let us discuss.

First, why wolves are known to be man-eaters (in the past, however distant), and coyotes are not? Frankly because they do not have the strength. A grey wolf (not to be confused with several other canine/lupine species) and a coyote look superficially similar, but the wolf is much more formidable.

A coyote – on average – is about 1 m in length, (without the tail) and weighs about 16 kg. A grey wolf, on the other hand, is about 1.5 m in length (also without the tail) and weighs about 60 kg. Most of this weight comes from muscle, and a wolf’s skull and jaws are wider and stronger than those of the coyote are; a coyote is more of a precise strike carnivore, and a grey wolf aims for greater mass damage instead.

Again, how do carnivorous mammals kill? In general, (there are always exceptions), they either go for a precise strike (on the throat, more rarely on the muzzle or even the skull), or, conversely, they bite and tear – tear off pieces of flesh, live… You need physical strength in both of these scenarios, of course, but the second one requires a much stronger bite, and a much stronger (and durable) body to handle such rough hunting. Lions, spotted hyenas, and grey wolves have it, and they all hunt big prey – African buffalo, antelopes, and deer (including the elk and sometimes the moose), in case of the wolves.

By contrast, the jackal and the red fox, the coyote and the striped & brown hyena do not normally hunt big animals; they prefer to scavenge, or to eat smaller prey, such as rodents, rabbits, and hares. The hyenas, true, have a more powerful bite than their canine counterparts do, but they are still at half the size of the spotted hyena, and in general defer to it, when they encounter it.

The ancestor of the more successful spotted hyena drove the ancestors of the striped and brown hyenas into the African deserts, and sort of forced the ancestor of the aardwolf to become an obligate insectivore – but we digress.

…Only not, for in North America the relationship between grey wolves and coyotes isn’t unlike that of… lions and spotted hyenas, for example, only more one-sided: the wolves’ tower over their coyote cousins, they are much stronger and heavier than the coyotes are, and they hunt in large packs, while coyotes hunt in pairs or alone. There is footage – from the Yellowstone Park – of wolves killing coyotes in packs. One on one, a wolf might let a coyote be; a wolf pack will make short work of it.

Enter humans. They drove the grey wolf to extinction in the North American East, and in the West its’ population is still reduced. The coyote adapted and flourished alongside humans, (as did the raccoon and the red fox)… but there were no cases of attacks on humans by any of them, (unless rabies or a similar factor was involved). The coyote may look like a wolf, generally, but unlike the wolf, it is not mentally wired to tackle prey as big as an adult human being… Enter the coydog.

It is exactly what it sounds like – it is a hybrid of a domestic dog, (either intentionally or a feral animal), and a coyote. Just like its’ bigger cousin the wolfdog, this hybrid seems to be quite fertile, (but then again, the question if the domestic dog an independent species, a subspecies of the grey wolf, or just a domesticated wolf with artificially derived physical differences is still open), and is doing well enough in North America.

The American coyote is not known to be a man-eater. The Australian dingo, (again, either a domestic dog turned wild, a separate species, a subspecies, or something else entirely), is. In addition, unlike the coyote it hunts in packs, as the grey wolf – or the feral populations of the domestic dog – do. More succinctly, the dingo is not as big as the grey wolf is, but it can be dangerous to people, and sometimes, it is.

Now, in North America, we get cases of domestic dogs interbreeding with grey wolves and especially coyotes – and unlike them, domestic dogs are not afraid of humans. Oh, they are peoples’ best friends, but with a metaphorical switch, they can be their worst enemies instead. When they attack, the results are bad and often deadly for the humans. You put in coyote, let alone grey wolf DNA into the mix, and the result is worse – but where does it leave the upcoming ‘Coyotes’ movie?

‘Coyotes’ apparently aims to be a social satire or something else, not unlike how ‘The Death of a Unicorn’ was. (Remember that sad pile of horse apples?) Fair enough, and the script is intentionally screwy and unrealistic – but the poor coyotes. Moreover, my point is that if they renamed the film ‘Coydogs’, and had not purebred coyotes, but coyote-feral dog crossbreeds, it would have worked just as well, and been more accurate, so there is that. The movie cast and crew decided that that would be too much effort, so we will probably end up with some anti-coyote hysteria, something that we do not really need right now – but it is real life. It sucks.

This is it for now – see you all soon!

Hyenas (and Zombies) - Sep 08

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, therefore I was going to talk about the upcoming Marvel™ Zombies special, but then Textbooks Travels YouTube channel presented a video about five hyena species, including the one new species, and I had to watch – hyenas are some of my favorite animals, you know?

Anyhow, after going through about 30 minutes of video footage of the various hyena, team TT finally reached the supposed new species in question – and it is the aardwolf. Pause.

Here is the thing. There are four modern species of hyena, and they are all specialists in their unique ways, all are different from each other in various different ways. In case of the aardwolf, it is the smallest and the weakest hyena species, one that is specialized in feeding on ants and termites, it is an unassuming and nocturnal animal, most people in Africa (especially the not-tourists) are ignoring or just unaware of it, and for the rest of the world, the situation is not much better. That is one.

Two is that there are two aardwolf subspecies. Pause.

Let us backtrack a bit. Out of the four modern hyena species, the spotted and the brown hyenas are monotypic; there is just one species of each without any greater genetic variation. With the striped hyena and the aardwolf, the situation is different. The striped hyena has up to five subspecies, but they all differ from each other mostly by where they live – from northern Africa (the Sahara desert) to Middle East, to Central Asia, to India, (mostly the north-east – like its’ sister species the brown hyena, the striped hyena is primarily a desert dweller/specialist). The aardwolf is less extreme, but it too has two subspecies – one in east Africa and the second in the south Africa – that have some minor physical differences, and thus they are two separate subspecies – but they differ from each other primarily by where they live. Team TT took this concept and proclaimed that no, the two populations are two different species of the aardwolf (aka two different hyena species), but so far there’s no consensus on that, so I’m going to call out them (him) and say that their proclamation about there being five hyena species in the modern world is wrong. Anything else?

…The aardwolf really got the short end of the stick in the TT hyena video – it had the least amount of footage & screen time, it had to share with the bat-eared fox. The two are not related at all, the hyenas are part of the cat half of the mammal carnivore family tree, and the wild dogs are the more ancient clan out of the two. That is part of the reason as to why wild dogs are found all over the world these days, (excluding Antarctica), while the hyenas are not. Just like some of their cat cousins, they tried to imitate the dogs, to try to beat them at their own game – and outside of Africa, they failed. The spotted hyena is as a formidable a pack hunter as any dog, but it is savannah animal, unlike the brown and striped hyenas (or the big cats such as the lion and the leopard); it does not do well in the desert, it cannot cross the Sahara into Eurasia. The brow hyena, of course, is hemmed in by the two oceans on one hand, and it does not enter the savannah, because there it would be outcompeted by the local predators/scavengers before it reached the African east (where Africa is connected to Eurasia). The striped hyena is already there, of course, but it is half the size and muscle of the spotted hyena and just like the brown hyena, it is a desert specialist and does not enter more fertile areas, (such as the Southeast Asian jungles, for example). In addition, the aardwolf is an insectivore, it feeds on insects and as long as they are plentiful, (and they are), it is happy. So is the bat-eared fox, of course, but we are talking hyenas here, not foxes and other wild dogs.

…The point here is that without humans being in the picture, the hyenas are doing just fine, even though about 87.5% of their global population is in Africa. By living there, they avoid competing for food resources with the wild dogs, and thus both them and the wild canines are satisfied.

In addition, where does it leave the Marvel™ zombies? In their own part of MCU multiverse, of course – they were introduced In Marvel’s™ now finished ‘What if?’ animated series, and it will be somewhat interesting to see as to how Earth-89521 will deal with the undead threat. The hyenas, in fact, should be of little help there – the aardwolf is an insectivore and does not eat carrion to begin with, the spotted hyena prefers to hunt live prey, and the brown and the striped hyenas, while scavengers, are nowhere as formidable as it is. Therefore, the humans of that dimension will have to defeat the zombies one way or another, mostly by themselves – and we will have to wait until September 24, 2025 to see how it plays out…

Well, this is it for now, see you all soon.

F4, 'Ironheart' +etc. - July 27

Disclaimer: real life sucks. First OO is gone, and then HH, so now king Hades has to call queen Persephone to help him deal with the double emergency. Now onto the F4-2025 movie?

Hard to say. RL was not idle recently and CB unleashed the host species of their upcoming to be resurrected giant moa species – the greater tinamou and the emu. Why? Because among the ratites, the tinamous are the closest relatives to the extinct moa, whereas the emu…

CB also proclaims that the emu is a close relative to the moa birds. It is not – the two ratite lineages were quite distant from each other. However, it is the biggest modern ratite (and modern bird overall) after the African ostriches, so it is reasonable to theorize that CB is going to ‘augment’ the emu DNA with that of the tinamous and see what happens. In case of the wolves, this strategy worked… supposedly. Lately the trio of Romus, Remulus and Khaleesi vanished from MM, you know? The point, however, is that for most people grey and dire wolves are just… wolves, they expect them to be externally similar to each other, so when they see… well, wolf puppies, they don’t really care just what kind of wolf puppies they are – if CB says that they’re dire wolf puppies, they’ll believe CB, period.

With the birds, it is more complex, especially with such a unique species as the South Island Giant Moa: physically, it is quite different from both the emu and the tinamous. Whether CB will augment an emu with tinamou genes, or vice versa, the result will not be a moa, even if CB will successful. What will It be, (and that is a big if), is another question…

In addition, yes, again, the emu is not the best candidate for a resurrected moa – the moa preferred to live in forests, and the emu lives on open plains instead. Even behaviourally, the potential new hybrid will not be like the original species. The cassowaries, who are the emu’s closest relatives, do live in the forests, but they are smaller than the emu, and much more aggressive. Naturally, CB will not have anything to do with them. What else?

Well, the F4 film. To me, it feels like a successful reworking of the 2000s F4 films, which worked. This puts ‘First Steps’ miles above the ‘Ironheart’ mini-series, which is forgotten already.

Why?

Because ‘First Steps’ is a soft reboot of sorts: it takes place in a completely different universe from ‘the sacred timeline’ with completely new characters – and it is a success. Now Disney/MCU can make more Marvel adventures in this universe with an occasional something or other taking place in the original MCU timeline as well.

‘Ironheart’, on the other hand, takes place in the MCU, just as Disney/MCU lose interest in it. ‘Ironheart’ is better than SW-2025, (but that is a low bar), but worse than 2024 ‘Kraven’. It is not a mash of two different movies, more like a failed case of having its’ cake and eating it too. ‘Ironheart’ fluctuates from being depended on Tony Stark and his legacy in the MCU world, to being completely detached from it. The cast, the crew, everyone else did not really know what they were doing, and they did not care about it either. The result? ‘Ironheart’ is almost forgotten by now, as is MCU itself by now – somewhat, but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

CB and the giant moa birds - July 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I was about to talk about ‘Ironheart’, perhaps, or the JWR movie, when Colossal Biosciences (CB) came back out of nowhere, and proclaimed that they are bringing back the giant moa birds. Pause.

Let us roll back to the dire wolf adventure – re-creating those mammals is already hard because they belong to a different genus, one that is separate from all of the genera of the modern canines, none of them, from the grey wolf to the grey fox of the Americas are close relatives of the dire wolf. Giving ‘primitive’ traits and characteristics to the modern grey wolf puppies does not make them dire wolves. Pause.

With the moa birds, the situation is different from the wolves’. See, the moa birds are part of the ratites, or Paleognath birds, a separate infraclass from the rest of the birds for they do not have the keel bone anymore… only not. One lineage does.

The tinamous of South America are enigmatic and little studied birds; they behave largely like the gamebirds of the rest of the world, (aside from Australia), and they can fly, however poorly. Yet, they are also ratite/Paleognath birds, and they are the closest modern relatives of the extinct moa birds. Silence.

Let us expand. All of the Paleognath birds are related to each other, but there are nuances. The African ostriches (two species) are a sister group to everyone else. Next are the America rheas (also two species), followed by the tinamous and the moa birds, and finally we have the extinct elephant birds of Madagascar and their closest living relatives – New Zealand kiwi birds on one hand, and the Australian emus and cassowaries on the other. Take a breath.

Now, with dire wolves, CB were able to swing it using the parallel evolutionary similarities between them and the modern grey wolves, and even that didn’t really float. With the giant moa birds, what candidates will CB use to ‘recreate’ them? Genetically their closest living relatives are the tinamous, but they do not behave or look anything like the giant moa birds did, so giving them the anatomical characteristics of the moa birds won’t work – the resulting mutations won’t be viable or beneficial most likely. Meanwhile, behaviorally, among the ratites, it is the cassowaries of Australia who are most like the giant moa birds are, but…

…But however the moa birds did behave, and we will never know because they became extinct because of the Maori before the Europeans could study them, the cassowaries are solitary birds with aggressive tempers who are not afraid of humans very much and who are known to attack them. Out of the two groups, the giant moa birds were bigger and more massive than the cassowaries… ok, the biggest two species of the giant moa birds were bigger and more massive than the cassowaries are, and so, if CB and co. will try to make bigger and more massive modern cassowaries, they just might end with an ecological disaster, and they don’t want that, hopefully.

On the other hand, Peter Jackson, the maker of the LotR and the ‘Hobbit’ movies seems to have invested into CB’s recreation of the giant moa birds, so now, CB does have to deliver something, at least on the level with the genetically modified dire/grey wolf puppies, or else there might be a lawsuit and some sort of a PR disaster for the company. Pause.

Do I care about CB? Not particularly. The wolf story was not a bad one; they could have just stuck with mammals and went along. Now they are off into the deep end, and with at least one celebrity along for the ride, they are likely to have a PR explosion in their faces – but they asked for it. Still, it will be interesting to see as to what will develop out of this statement of theirs – but it probably will not be a giant moa bird. (We do not really have any DNA of theirs, incidentally).

End

D:BA and dire wolves - April 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but then Colossal Biosciences Company threw dire wolves at us. Pause.

Initially, I intended to discuss the penultimate S1 Daredevil episode, which had Bullseye coming back, and Murdock (Daredevil) taking a bullet for Fisk (Kingpin) because of reasons? Apparently? Does anyone care about those two anymore anyhow? Dire wolves are more interesting than MCU, these days.

…Of course, these days, at least some news outlets discuss with an authentic feeling, who makes a better jam and/or spread – king Charles III of Great Britain or Megan Markle, his younger daughter-in-law. Seriously, and compared to this sort of news, MCU’s D: BA show is cutting-edge political drama or something along those lines. Nevertheless, what about the dire wolves?

…I am a sceptic when it came to CB’s claims. See, while the RL dire wolf (let us leave Westeros out of this, the topic is already quite confusing), is a true canine, (as opposed to a bear-dog, a bear, or any other kind of mammal carnivore), it also belonged to a completely different genus than the modern wolves do. However, so what?

See, even CB admits (sort of) that their dire wolves – Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi – are not exactly purebred dire wolves, more like grey wolf/dire wolf hybrids. Eh? The problem with that statement that in nature hybrids occur only between animals that share the same genus, albeit belonging to different species. Pause.

Let us try again. We are talking only about mammals here; in other animal groups, such as birds (say, songbirds), or amphibians (such as the tailed salamanders) the hybrid situation might be quite different, but along the mammals? Either it works or it does not.

See for yourselves. On one hand, we have horses and donkeys, whose hybrids are sterile and can’t really make a new species; big cats, whose hybrids aren’t sterile but can’t survive in the wild due to health-related reasons; and the two species of the gnu antelope, whose hybrid offspring also aren’t sterile but have plenty of health defects that they die quickly enough. Pause.

On other hand, we have the beluga and the narwhale whales, for example, or the better-known polar and grizzly brown bears, whose hybrid offspring are viable and are increasing in numbers. The wolf branch of the wild dog family, incidentally, is in this boat too, as the various coyote/grey wolf/domestic dog hybrids of eastern North America are growing more numerous and are establishing their own independent populations…

That said, those wild dogs are all in the Canis genus, while the extinct dire wolf is not, not anymore, at least not at the moment. In addition, if you look at the related animals that belong to different genera, they do not form hybrids – just look at rhinos or elephants, for example. African and Asian elephants do not hybridize, not even in captivity, unlike the big cats, and the black and white rhinos of Africa do not hybridize – unlike the feral domestic dogs and the Ethiopian wolf. The latter is a separate, albeit related, species to the grey wolf of the northern hemisphere – the term ‘wolf’ covers almost two dozen animal species, living and extinct, most of whom are related to each other (i.e. they’re canines), but some are not…

Where were we? Right, the DNA of the dire wolf isn’t in as a good a condition as that of the woolly mammoth is – what’s left of the dire wolf are mainly fossilized bones, teeth, and the like. Extracting DNA from them, even if the dire wolf was in the same genus as the grey wolf, doesn’t guarantee success; the fact that the surrogate mothers were domestic dogs, aka a third canine species, separate from the other two (I’m going with this theory), only complicated the situation: how did their pregnancies go? How did the births go? Did the mothers survive or not? However, no, all we get are sterilized reports of a success, and automatic reactions to those reports. Neither is a reliable source of information and so far no one outside of CB has much to go on. Still…

Remember Ms. Nicole from my last week’s entry? Or rant, whatever. As it was said, she was hired by CB, or something similar to make six videos about mass extinctions; so far, two of them were aired, but we talked about this; the point is that one would expect her to jump onto the dire wolf promotion bandwagon, because CB are her employers or something, but no. She is keeping mum about them instead and seems to have outright distanced herself from the CB. Does she know something about this that we do not? Maybe, maybe not, but I, for one, am sceptical of just what CB’s latest wolf pups are. Real life does suck, but sometimes it is less sucky and more complex and complicated instead…

This is it for now. See you all soon!

AFO: Cougar vs. grey wolf - Sep 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In case of Canada’s current PM, Justin Trudeau, this is because he has worn blackface/brownface in the past, and now it came back to bite him in the ass. The photos really show him in an unflattering light, but are they causing him to lose?

Well, if he loses, those photos will certainly be one of the reasons, but not the only one. As compared to the U.S., where each new presidential election is a bigger show than the lost one, (a tendency that became really obvious since Bill Clinton became impeached), Canadian elections… are not. Maybe it is because Canada is still subjected to the U.K., whose queen (or king) can always interfere, overtly or covertly, unlike the U.S., which is its’ own, independent country, but another reason is that Canada and its’ politicians tend not to blame anyone else when things go wrong in their lives; Hell, Trudeau has already apologized for those photos and this approach seems to be working – certainly, at least some people are turning onto Mr. Scheer for failing to apologize in his turn – it happens. Where were we?

Oh yes, someone has pointed out that when in the past I was doing my going-through of the AFO episode list, I forgot to cover the ‘cougar vs. wolf’ episode, so I might as well do it for closure…

Right. So, in one corner we had the cougar, (also known as puma and mountain lion), and in the other – the grey wolf. (As opposed to its’ more ambiguous cousin the red wolf, I suppose). The grey wolf lost. Why?

…Because the wolf is not an individualistic fighter, but a team one. ‘The Velvet Claw’ series and the companion book are somewhat outdated by 2019, especially when it comes to taxonomy of carnivores, but they are correct in that the cats are individualistic fighters, and the dogs are not. The puma, the lynx, the tiger, and the domestic cat have their differences, but even at a first glance a complete amateur of zoology/biology will I.D. them as relatives, and their lifestyles are very similar too. The only outliers among the cat clan are the African lions and the African cheetahs, (for a while, there were lions and cheetahs in Asia too, but now the cheetahs seem to be extinct there, and the lions are doing barely better. Sad, this is), because they do live in social groups – the cheetahs in family coalitions, the lions are more derived. Why this is so, is another question, but for now let us focus on the fact that the wild cats, small and big, tend to be solitary. And dogs?

This is where it gets blurry. Actually, most wild dog species are solitary, behaving as, say, the red fox does – we’re talking small carnivores that live on their own or in family groups; some of them, such as the raccoon dog of Far East, (initially), and the maned wolf of South America, can look very exotic, but their lifestyles are similar. And then there are the pack hunters.

Who are they? They are the domestic dog, the wolf, (grey and red), the coyote, the jackals, also – the African wild dog, and the dhole of Asia. This is it, right?

…No, because there’s also the bush dog of South America; proportionally, it may be related closest to the aforementioned maned wolf, but whereas the maned wolf looks like a wolf, or a dog, on stilts, the bush dog looks like a mix between a basset hound and an otter; it doesn’t even bark, more like chirps and squeaks, and it can swim and attack its’ prey items in water, as well as on land. A very atypical dog, but then again, South America has plenty of atypical carnivores, period – but we digress.

Such outliers as the bush dog aside, most pack hunting dogs look the same – streamlined, long-legged, long-muzzled, big-eared and long-tailed… built not for strength, but for speed and endurance. These carnivores evolved to act in a pack, overwhelming their prey through numbers, and using their jaws to tear and rip it to pieces, sometimes even eating it while the prey animal is still alive. They are hunters rather than fighters, especially when it comes to other carnivores, such as big cats and bears, although when it comes to dominance fights within the packs…they are ritualized, actually, and usually are resolved through shows of strength… and then…

Well, there is a video clip on YouTube that shows a wolf pack taking down a coyote. While externally wolves and coyotes are similar, wolves are larger and bulkier than coyotes are… although now scientists know that they do interbreed with each other as well as the domestic dog species, creating such animals as the eastern wolf, the eastern coyote, and the red wolf. The last species may actually be a species, having evolved into taxonomic and biological independence from both grey wolves and coyotes, but we digress. Wolves have evolved to function within a social unit – their pack, with which they bring down their prey items, from rabbits and hares to white-tailed deer, elk, and even the American bison. On their own, wolves are not very effective, as compared to the great cats and bears.

…Now a puma, technically, is not a ‘great cat’ – it is a ‘small cat’: it cannot roar, it can mew like a domestic cat, (or a bobcat), does, and while the jaguar, (can be twice as heavy as the puma) dominates the parts of the New World in which it lives, the puma does not. It can break even with an American black bear, (sometimes), but a grizzly (or brown) bear overpowers it more often than not, and the same goes for the jaguar, (which is unquestionably the bigger and more powerful animal of the two), and even wolf packs. Pause. ‘Packs’ is the key word here. A wolf pack can stand up not just to the puma, but also to the American black bear, (the grizzly/brown bear is a tougher question to answer), but a solitary wolf is no match for even the puma – which is precisely what has happened down in the CGI simulation of that AFO episode. While the rest of the carnivores are a mixed bag, (though, again, the ‘jaguar vs anaconda’ episode was something else), solitary pack hunters, (it even sounds as an oxymoron), are fair game and just are not… up to their best game, (pardon the tautology here), when facing-off with anyone by themselves. The grey wolf just couldn’t win by itself, especially against a mountain lion, which might be small and light by ‘great cat’ standards, but it still packs a punch well above its’ weight. The ‘puma vs. grey wolf’ episode was actually good, because it was honest and straightforward – whatever else you can say about AFO, at least there weren’t any inconsistences and partisanship as there was, (sort of), in DW, but that is another story…

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

M: ALOTJ - Dec 17

Now, a brief word about ‘Mowgli: A Legend of the Jungle’, because real life…doesn’t exactly suck, but sometimes? It rather does, regardless of any details. What about M: ALOTJ then?

The crux point here is not the presence of Tabaqui the hyena – in the original novels it was a jackal. Yes, a jackal is very different from a hyena, but this is creative license to you – even in the original novels, Tabaqui was a minor character, and he got killed…behind the scenes by Grey Brother, one of original Mowgli’s original wolf cohorts. Kipling did not even show that scene, Grey Brother mentioned to Mowgli (and in ‘Mowgli’, I suppose), because the latter was worried, that Tabaqui would tip Shere Khan off about Mowgli’s trap. To that Grey Brother implied that “Oh, don’t worry, I found Tabaqui earlier today and broke his back, so he’s dead now, don’t worry about him’. The end of the jackal/hyena/period. Not that Shere Khan’s death was much more dignified – in the canon, Mowgli trampled him to death with a buffalo herd, (something that was homage in Disney’s Mowgli remake – remember it?), the end of the tiger.

Yes, in the original novels Shere Khan wasn’t really scaring anyone in the jungle – they hated, despised, and reviled him; eating people was against the Jungle Law, (Kipling even included this statement in one of Mowgli’s poems) and it just asking for trouble – sooner or later colored people would come, and white people would come, and there’d be fire, elephants, torches, firearms – this is where Lockwood can come it, probably.

There are British character in the ‘Jungle Book’ – both novels, actually. The thing is that those stories are not Mowgli stories; in ‘Mowgli’ proper, the British exist somewhere behind the scenes, in a good way, but kind of…nebulous. ‘Mowgli’ stories are about India, its’ animals and people – no British are required, thank you very much. In the ‘Mowgli’ movies, of course, the situation can be very different; the British can play a prominent role, and Shere Khan is always someone to be feared… as, say, Megatron from the ‘Transformers’ franchise is. That is Western prejudice, pure and simple!

And Serkis did precisely that, (though not with Shere Khan’s character) – he presented the Western prejudice in the other, earlier Mowgli movies. Lockwood acts as a typical macho man, defending the weak, (whether they asked him or not), but caring only about strength and solving everything only through strength and violence. Mowgli – in the canon – had the smarts too – which brings us to the dholes.

A dhole is a species of wild dog that is only distantly related to such animals as grey wolves, jackals and domestic dogs. It is a representative of a much-older lineage, and it has no close, immediate relatives. Like many other dog species, (including grey wolves and bush dogs), it hunts in packs and as such, it is formidable. It was also the biggest villain in the original ‘Jungle Books’ – Mowgli had to team up with his wolf pack, Kaa, and a few other jungle animals to defeat the invading dhole pack, or as they were called there – ‘the red wolves’. I think, because it has been a while since I read the novels and so far, almost none of the movies showed the dhole story line. Apparently, Disney did play with it in one of its TV cartoon series – one that was actually based on Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’ novels, but that was a long time ago as well. Anything else?

M: ALOTJ does not have the dhole storyline either, instead we have Mowgli dealing with both Lockwood and Shere Khan, the former because he had killed Mowgli’s wolf friend, Bhoot.

…Bhoot, or bhut, is a ghost in India’s mythology, and a nasty one. Here, Serkis did not do anything really radical either – in the original novels, Mother Wolf actually had a name – Raksha or Rakshasa, which is a demon in India’s mythology - again. Herein lies M: ALOTJ’s problem. Serkis’ version is actually closer to the original novels, especially in the atmosphere – by modern standards, Kipling’s novels, including his YA novels like ‘Mowgli’ – are not very politically correct or child-friendly at all. Neither is Serkis’ movie, but…

But the sad fact is that movies, mass media, are products for sale, abiding the laws of supply and demand as well as anything else. After the 2016’s ‘Mowgli’ version there wasn’t much of a demand for another ‘Mowgli’ version, so it wasn’t very much demanded, and now that it is released, it still isn’t much demanded, and people are comparing it to 2016’s adaptation and are finding it to be more to their liking. Kipling himself isn’t much in demand by contemporary readers and audience any more, Disney itself took a gamble back in 2016 with its’ remake – and yes, it paid off. Serkis’, well, did not. His twist on the story was the semi-evil Englishman; he possibly stands for something metaphorical, but people do not really care. They are upset that this movie is not child-friendly, and it is their call, and they are right. It is not. Serkis might not have been wrong by showing a ‘Mowgli’ that is not really for children, (Kipling’s novels are not really classified by modern standards easily), but this is not what the audiences demand, and in the end, it is their call. They made it. M: ALOTJ is not the success of 2016’s remake. We can move on.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Rampage II - Feb 14

And so, I got a look at the second ‘Rampage’ movie trailer. And?

And it is still a crazy mess, with a giant gorilla, and equally giant crocodile/alligator/monitor lizard, and a giant wolf makes it an even three. But now, there is also a newer development that had become obvious only now: this is a kaiju movie rip-off!

…Or an imitation clone, fair enough, but still. In the last few years, the ‘shared kaiju universe’, (or whatever it is properly called), is centered around both King Kong and Godzilla, as well, as their upcoming conflicts, both with each other and King Ghidorah, another giant monster, (a giant three-headed variant dragon from space). Ergo, now we have ‘Rampage’, which has a giant gorilla to substitute for KK, a giant reptile to substitute for Godzilla, (and the second trailer shows that this duo will fight), and a giant wolf because… he was in the original video game? (I believe that the wolf’s name in the game was Ralph, so it is a ‘he’). Not the best reason to star in a movie, but there were worse ones, so there’s that. Anything else?

The thing is that as far as movies go, ‘Rampage’ seems to be simply lazy. When the aborted ‘Dark Universe’ spawned the new version of the ‘Mummy’ movie it did precisely that – yet another reboot of the franchise, at least in part because the trilogy about Nick, Evie and their family became clearly exhausted by the time of the third movie, (dealing with a crazy-evil resurrected ancient Chinese emperor for a change), so something new had to be done – and it was done, and the last ‘Mummy’ movie version also featured a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, so it did try to be different; it just wasn’t very good at it, it seems – but it tried to be original, (to a point, because by now the ‘Mummy’ is a classic for an obvious reason – everyone knows what it is about), and if it didn’t work, it still tried. 

‘Rampage’ on the other hand, currently seems to be shaping into a ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ movie – before the actual ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ movie gets aired. …Oh wait, this movie was made and aired in the 1960s, so this version of the kaiju universe is just another reboot. What a surprise! Not.

On a more serious note, the ‘Mummy’ reboot was exactly that – a mix of the time-tested and original and it has failed. It happens. By contrast, ‘Rampage’ is an imitation of a ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ kaiju movie in the trappings of a 1980s/90s game, which consisted of monsters smashing buildings… period. Not very highbrow, and even an imitation of a kaiju movie is a step upwards here, though not by much, and ‘the Rock’ has stolen the trailers, both of them, so far.

He does get around – he was in the ‘Baywatch’ reboot, (not exactly a success either), and he will be in ‘Rampage’, and he was in the ‘Jumanji’ reboot…which, not unlike the ‘Mummy’, was a franchise reboot, trying to package an old story in a new, different package. Here, the franchise succeeded; the new ‘Jumanji’ is not really like the original movie, aside from some basic similarities, of course, so there is that. Yay for it…and it did not try to imitate the original movie either, so there is a lesson to be learned… other than that ‘the Rock’ can make anything look good, especially in a trailer. Is that it?

Yes, although there is a new ‘Warhammer’ game coming forth – ‘Vermintide 2’. We already saw one of the new PCs of the game – the ‘Kerillian’. This is an elf warrior, whose options include a stereotypical elven archer, (and a very good one), an assassin-type rogue, armed with twin swords, reminiscent of FH’s Shaman and a spear-wielding fighter, who is more like FH’s Valkyrie instead. Go FH team Viking, then! The ‘Black Panther’ movie is coming forth this week too, and AWE Me YouTube channel released a new video of ‘Men-At-Arms’, as they made a spear from that franchise. Actually, it too is similar to FH’s Valkyrie’s spear – a weapon that is designed for stabbing, rather than slicing. Go FH team Viking times too! In addition, of course, the conclusion to ‘Fifty Shades’ movie trilogy will be released this week… and odds are not in its’ favor.

…Well, this is it for now; see you all later!

Post-Shark Week rant

And so, Shark Week has come and gone, and all I can say is – fake. It’s, really, like the Animal Planet shows, like “Man-Eating Super Wolves” or whatever – deliberately fake information, pretending to be real. The only question is why.

I admit that unlike the AP shows Discovery has tried to make its shark week specials both entertaining and educational, but what it did instead was irritate various scientists who were quote mined by the shows, or downright tricked, etc. True, there was a certain catch-22 (or something similar) factor as well: the shows (and Discovery?) needed rich sponsors, but these sponsors wanted to sponsor something, well, respectable, and so Shark Week shows had to be both educational and entertaining...only they hadn’t.

Seriously, they could have just made them educational; showing, for example, how hammerhead sharks get measured up in the wild, live, is already very exciting – but instead Discovery made this a part of a program that mainly talks about a giant and mythical hammerhead, called “Old Hitler” and “The Harbourmaster”. This is simply wrong.

Firstly, and mainly, hammerhead sharks are less dangerous to humans than great white, bull and tiger sharks. Their particular head shape makes them better hunters on the sea floor, but less so in the open ocean (unlike the tiger sharks, say), and thus makes them less likely to encounter humans, even scientists and fishermen, live. 

And also, “Old Hitler”? Seriously? The chancellor of the Third Reich was a piece of shit accountable for 6+ years of blood, smoke and tears – much more than any shark, regardless of size, ever did. To name any animal (even fish) after him is just wrong. Also – rather dumb. Yes, you can give various animals human names, but they are not really their names, but names that people give them for their own convenience. If animals do have names that they give to each other, they probably do not sound very human...

Getting back on track, if you discount their latest mocumentary about the megalodon, Shark Week at least has tried to be somewhat scientific; its’ AP counterparts, like the before-mentioned “Man-Eating Super Wolves” did not. It even admitted that in the disclaimer, making one wonder why did it was made and aired at all? In the decades past, AP was educational, if somewhat naive (just look at the old episodes of “Wild Kingdom”), now it’s either pure make-believe (like the “Lost Tapes” series), something reminiscent of “Urban Tarzan” from Spike, albeit less staged, or something like “The Pool Master”, which isn’t about animals at all – and since the channel is called, well, Animal Planet, it makes one wonder why is “The Pool Master” aired there at all. At least “Too Cute” or “Pit Bulls and Parolees” have some animals in them, for example... But “Man-Eating Super Wolves” is fake, just as much as of the transformations in the latest “Scooby-Doo” movie are. At least “Scooby-Doo”, the hound that just does not die, is just a cartoon and does not pretend to be anything else. “Super Wolves” pretend to be real...

 

And so, in conclusion, I am forced to admit: Discovery channel has deteriorated somewhat in quality of the shows, but it is still far ahead in the same quality ‘field’ as compared to Animal Planet.

Animal Planet: from fact to fiction

And so, Animal Planet has brought us another Monster Week, which features the following pearls of bad television:

- “Man-Eating Zombie Cats”. The virus is turning wild cats, from wildcats to Siberian tigers, into man-attacking zombies. Basically, this is your typical lousy zombie flick, with a wildlife twist, where the ‘others’ (to use a genre term), are not just zombies, but also carnivorous mammals, predators, and thus – doubly dangerous. This idea is an old one – mankind has feared big predators – lions, wolves, tigers, bears, sharks, crocodiles, etc – since it was represented by australopithecines that just came down from trees. Ok. This idea got augmented by another old chestnut – that only mentally sick, unstable animals will attack the humans, who are kings (and queens) of beasts. Again, that is nothing new. But – where’s the educational angle in all of this? “Man-Eating Zombie Cats” seeks to purely entertain, tuning in with humanity’s oldest (and currently incorrect) fears. AP, can you hear me?

- “Man-Eating Super Wolves” or something along that line. According to this idea, wolves are beginning to starve and are starting to attack people. Again, this is an old idea, used by natives of Europe, North America, and possibly Asia, to justify their killings of wolves. The wolves (including werewolves) were some of the oldest villains in humanity’s history (and villains’ minions – remember the original ‘Dracula’ novel, for example?) and what AP does here is bring up an old literary/movie cliché yet again. Bravo! But there is a twist:

Currently, the American (and also Canadian, and European) society is divided into pro-wolf and anti-wolf camps. These camps are not all encompassing, of course, but they are well-known and well-established, and they are trying to recruit and influence people into their directions; AP’s special on man-eating wolves plays into the anti-wolf camp, of course, a rather strange site for a TV channel that is named Animal Planet.

Admittedly, this departure from the channel’s animal roots has went on for the last years, when AP began to air less wild nature shows, and more shows like “Tanked”, “My Cat from Hell” and “Too Cute”, which deal with pets. History’s “Swamp People”, or now-gone “MonsterQuest”, have more wild nature in them, than most of AP’s current shows, to say nothing of Discovery Channel or BBC. There was a time when AP featured wildlife, not just domestic, and some shows – like River Monsters – still do, but they are in minority: AP is steadily moving away from the wild into domestic, from educational into entertaining, and it shows no signs of stopping.

- The current peak of this trend became currently embodied by the film about lampreys, “The Blood Lake”. Made by The Asylum, the same company that made “Sharknado”, this is fiction, clearly and honestly: AP itself acknowledged that it was fiction (the incident after the mermaid duology and “Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives”, where some misunderstanding about the docufiction nature of those films occurred remained fresh in AP’s collective mind, it seems), which means that it has basically abandoned the documentary genres and is filming and airing fiction, and fiction alone. 

Question: does AP think that it will be able to compete with other purely fiction channels, such as SyFy and Spike successfully? They have been in this field far longer than AP did, and pet- and pet-related shows are poor aides in this endeavor further. At least “Lost Tapes” are gone, so that is good...

Conclusion: AP has gone from documentary to docufiction/fiction channel with an animal flavor. This is a dark day for all wild animal lovers indeed!