I saw a lot of Disney animated features when I was growing up but Bambi was never one of them. It may be because when it was released on home video in 1989, I was only two years old and wasn't even beginning to be able to process movies yet, unlike The Jungle Book, which was released on VHS when I was four. By the time it was released again in 1997 when I was ten, I was starting to grow out of Disney save for a few certain films and so, I never saw it then either. I did see small bits of it after that release because someone was playing it at my sister's house during a get-together she was having but I didn't pay it much mind. It wasn't until I bought the Platinum Edition DVD in 2005 that I finally saw the movie. My opinion of it: it's good. That's all I can say. It's just good. It's not one of my favorite Disney animated features per se and not one I watch very often but all in all, I do think it's a well made and beautiful looking film for the most part.
If you've read my review of Pinocchio, you would know that Bambi, based on a 1920's book by Felix Salten, which made it the studio's first film to be based on a fairly recent work of literature, was originally intended to be the studio's follow-up to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs since they acquired the rights to the book in 1937, the year of Snow White's release. However, the film wasn't completed until 1942 due to many production problems, such as the difficulty of adapting a dark and somber book to the Disney standards, the animators' difficulty in animating deer and other animals realistically while giving them character at the same time, and the enormous amount of work and time Fantasia was taking up. Even though production on it really began in 1939, it still took another three years to complete due to the departure of certain studio personnel, the studio being moved to a new location, and changes in animation techniques. Walt's insistence on the animals being animated realistically caused even more delays, resulting in only a half-a-foot of film a day (less than one whole second) and the film's budget ended up swelling to $850,000 and while that was cheaper than even Dumbo, which was released in 1941, it was much more than the studio expected to spend on the movie.
Bambi is also an unusual film from Disney in that there's not much dialogue in it. Granted, Fantasia was completely pantomime save for the live-action segments with the conductor of the orchestra, but still, this movie has very little dialogue. It relies mainly on visuals, music, and raw emotion rather than words to get its point across and for the most part, I think it succeeds. I do like most of the characters even though they don't say much. The visuals, which I will elaborate on shortly, are done very well and you really have to admire the realistic animation of the animals, especially the deer. If you've ever been to a zoo or seen deer in the wild, you can watch this movie and really see that, except for their ability to talk and their expressive faces, the animated deer in this movie do look and move like real ones. The stances, mannerisms, and movements are correct, the joints and anatomy are realistic, and they are colored to exactly like real deer, especially the spots of the fawns and their white tails (although from what I can gather, the deer in the book are what are known as roe deer, since the author of that book is Austrian). The other animals, from the rabbits to the ducks, birds, moles, mice, and so on also look very realistic. However, it's interesting to note that the realistic animation of the animals was actually criticized when the film was originally released. Critics said that it destroyed the fantasy element that had made Disney's previous films magical. Yes, this movie is not as fantastical as the majority of the studio's other films but I think that's the point. This is meant to be a realistic look at life in the forest and the animals' dialogue and facial expressions are merely meant to give us an emotional anchor in regards to how they view and deal with it.
Bambi himself is, of course, the focus of this coming of age story and even though he doesn't have that much dialogue or impressive character traits, I feel that you still really care about him. Even though this film is only 70 minutes long, you do feel like you've seen this character's entire life and nothing important has been skipped. Also, despite the fact that he's a deer, we see his life unfold in the same that a human's does. We see him shortly after he's been born, take his first wobbly steps, get introduced to the other inhabitants of his world, make friends with other children in the forest, speak his first words, and experience rain and thunder for the first time. As with human life, we also see him learn about the dark side of his world. In his case, it's the dangers of going out into the open, the threat of hunters, the harshness of winter, and, ultimately, the loss of his mother. Finally, we see his first encounter with the opposite sex when he meets Faline, the young doe who would become his mate later in life. Like a human boy, he's kind of bashful when he meets this girl and isn't that fond of her, particularly when she giggles at him and kisses him. The way he wipes away that kiss is like what you would see when a little boy who isn't that fond of girls gets kissed for the first time. After he becomes an adolescent, we see him meet up with Faline again and while he's still bashful, this time it's probably because he's old enough to realize her beauty and how it makes him feel. After she kisses him this time, he's smitten with her because of his sexual awakening. He even has to fight off a buck who tries to get her for himself and after a fierce fight, he manages to win. Bambi and Faline them become mates and after they're reunited after the climactic forest fire, Faline gives birth to Bambi's children. We see Bambi on a nearby hill looking down on his mate and children, just like his own father when he was born. Every possible part of his life save for his natural death has been explored here. Bambi is now the prince of the forest and the cycle has begun again with his children.
I'd be lying, though, if I said I enjoyed every aspect of Bambi's life and character. My favorite section of the movie is the beginning up to when Bambi and his father walk off into the forest after his mother is killed. Although the voice acting isn't the best due to the lack of major acting experience on the kids' parts, I thought that Bobby Stewart and Donnie Dunagan were likable as the voices of baby and young Bambi respectfully. My young nieces always lost interest in this film after Bambi becomes an adult and honestly, I kind of feel the same way. Hardie Albright and John Sutherland are passable as adolescent and adult Bambi (although I can't spot any difference) but for some reason, I've never Bambi to be as interesting when he becomes an adult. It could be because I was more interested in seeing him learn the good and bad aspects of life when he was a child rather than him dealing with adult issues. Whatever the case, the section when Bambi appears as an adolescent up to when to the climax is the least interesting part of the movie to me.
You can't talk about Bambi himself without mentioning the character in this film that is the center of one of the most notorious scenes Disney has ever produced: his mother (voiced by Paula Winslowe). Her death scene is what the majority of the populace think of when they hear the film's title. It's ironic, too, because her death is not shown at all. You see her running behind Bambi, Bambi gets ahead of her, and you hear the gunshot. That's it. You don't actually see her get shot or her dead body afterward (which you were originally supposed to, actually, but Walt decided against it) but that's because you don't need to. You know what's happened. Sometimes the subtle way has more of an impact. It's even more upsetting because Bambi's mother came across as very sweet and nurturing, just as a mother should be. She loves her son dearly and does her best to keep him safe and happy in the dangerous world that they live in but she also makes him aware of the danger rather than making him think that it doesn't exist at all. I'm convinced that that's why her death strikes such a nerve. It's not because you see her die. It's because she's a great mother and the idea of her dying (and no doubt being gutted and eaten by the hunters after they find her body) is very upsetting and horrific.
The other characters in the film are likable but I don't find them to be anything special. Of course, there's Thumper, the hyper little rabbit who gets his name because he constantly smacks the ground with his foot. He's an okay, likable character but there's nothing else to say about him. I did think the scene where he's an adult and meets up with that female rabbit was funny due to his bashful reactions. (He's voiced by Peter Behn when he's young, Tim Davis as an adolescent, and Sam Edwards as an adult. I still don't see the difference between the voices of the young and adolescent stages.) My mom thinks Flower the skunk is absolutely adorable and I feel the same way. I never thought that I would find a skunk to be cute but you look at Flower with his big blue eyes, bashful attitude and his sweet voice which is provided by Stan Alexander when he's young (and Tim Davis as an adolescent apparently) and unless you're just a cold-hearted person, there's no way you couldn't find him to be precious. (Yes, I'm a big softy. Deal with it.) Weird thing is that I thought Flower was a girl (I actually thought the same thing with Bambi when I was a kid) but when he shows up as an adult with the voice of Sterling Holloway (whose voice doesn't sound quite as high here as it usually does) and becomes smitten with a female skunk, that's when I realized that he is indeed a guy. I feel the same way about Faline (voiced by Cammie King from Gone with the Wind as a child and Ann Gillis as an adult) as I do about Thumper. She comes across as hyper but sweet, the latter especially when she's an adult, but there's not much else to grab onto.
I do kind of like Friend Owl (voiced by Will Wright). I like how he's a nice guy most of the time, as in the scene where he and the other animals visit the newborn Bambi, but can be a bit crusty and grumpy, like during the springtime scene when he's trying to sleep and all the birds won't stop twittering because they're in love. I also smirk how every time he's woken up from a nap, he grumbles, "Oh, what now?" The only part with him I'm not too keen on is the scene where explains to the adult Bambi, Thumper, and Flower about being "twitterpated" in the springtime. I know many probably like this section but the exaggerated way that Friend Owl explains it to them just comes across as corny and cringe-inducing to me. It's a bit too kiddy in my opinion, even for a Disney film. Finally, I have to mention Bambi's father, the Great Prince of the Forest (voiced by Fred Shields). He's a mysterious and yet fascinating figure to me for several reasons. One, he's not present in Bambi's life until they meet one day in the meadow and Bambi is actually kind of intimidated by him. But, he manages to get Bambi out of the meadow when hunters chase all the animals out. It's not until after Bambi's mother is killed that the Great Prince identifies himself as Bambi's father. When he said, "Come, my son," I thought he was just saying that because, as the Great Prince of the forest, he sees all the young deer as his sons but I eventually put two and two together. Since he appears on the hill above Bambi and his mother after his birth and Bambi does the same thing when his own children are born, I realized that he is indeed Bambi's father. He also has a real presence to him. He's very tall, muscular, has big antlers, and he doesn't speak much but when he does, it's a deep, commanding voice. You could sort of see him as the prototype for Mufasa in The Lion King. He also has a habit of appearing when you least expect him to, such as when he appears to Bambi after the death of his mother, when Bambi is looking down at the human camp, and after Bambi is wounded by one of the hunters. I can't help but really like the Great Prince because of the sheer power of his presence and his mysterious nature.
You may have noticed that I was kind of struggling when I was trying to go in-depth into the characters like I usually do. With this kind of film, there's not much to latch onto in that aspect. The characters aren't bland or anything. It's just that there's not much dialogue and because the film's main focus is on the visuals, most of the emotion comes from the characters simply being in their surroundings and reacting to the atmosphere around them rather than from the characters themselves, just as you would get from real animals. And like I said, I do like most of the characters but it's just that with a movie like this, it's difficult to go into detail about them.
As with most Disney films, the art design in this movie is absolutely top notch. Since my house is in the woods, I can safely say that this film does capture the feel of a forest very well. Chinese animator Ty Wong did really good impressionistic paintings of a forest and he was hired to do so for this movie. His backgrounds, while clearly a painting due to the brushstrokes and water colors, do manage to manage to pull off the hint and feeling of a real forest very well, even if the edges aren't as detailed as the center. You don't need a whole lot of detail though because the impressionistic art is so good that it makes you feel like you're in the wilderness and surrounded by nature. The opening shot that pans through the forest also achieves that feeling and once again, the addition of animated elements such as the running water and Friend Owl flying into something concrete like the forest edges is just unreal for the 1940's. The scene where Bambi first experiences a thunderstorm is quite realistic to me. The raindrops, the running water, and the haze in the air as it pours down does make me think of what it's like when it rains out here at my house in the woods, particularly during the autumn and early spring. The snowstorms also do look realistic and harsh and the scene where Bambi and Thumper play in the snow does make me think of what it looks out here when it's a sunny day after it has snowed. There's one scene during the winter segment with Bambi and his mother in the snow at night with the moon in a clear, dark sky that should be a postcard because it's so beautiful. Bambi is also one of the most atmospheric Disney movies ever in my opinion. There are some bright, sunny scenes but for the most part, there's a misty haze in the air, around the characters and at the edges of the woods, that gives a feeling of mystery, that you don't know what's out there. This is very much true in the scene where Bambi's mother walks cautiously out into the middle of the meadow, to make sure there is no danger. It's kind of an eerie scene, with the meadow being enveloped in that mist and the music adding to the atmosphere. If any filmmaker is planning to make an animated film that is meant to be kind of eerie, they should watch Bambi and that scene in particular because it is effective. During the scene where Bambi has to fight off a rival buck for Faline, the color palette starts turning bright red, green, and blue to characterize the chaos and intensity of the scene. This is one instance where I have to criticize the art direction. While it looks great, I think it would have been better to show the fight normally instead of getting overly visual with it because it's hard for me to tell what's going on. Other than that, due to the amazing art design in this film, it's easy to accept the fact that the drama and emotion comes from the characters reacting to what's around them rather than from the characters themselves because they have great surroundings to react to.
There is a villain in Bambi but it's a villain that is never seen and is only characterized by its presence: man. Man is treated not as a character but more like a force in this film. You don't see anything concrete except for a brief look at a camping site late in the film and a pack of hunting dogs. Whenever hunters are approaching, you don't see a shadow, the glint of a gun, anything. You do know that they're there due to the creeping music theme that signals their presence (which I wonder if John Williams took some inspiration from when he wrote the legendary Jaws theme), the animals sensing them, and the sound of gunfire. Even before they're first introduced when they attack the animals in the meadow, their presence is very much a factor when Bambi's mother warns him that he must never run out blindly into the meadow because there's no cover out there. The aforementioned scene where she cautiously walks out into the meadow to check for danger further punctuates this feeling. There's also an eerie moment after the attack in the meadow where Bambi asks his mother what happened and she simply says, "Man was in the forest." It's a silent, still moment save for her saying that and it really lets you feel the constant fear that the animals have of humans. Another good scene like that is when Bambi as an adult looks down on a camping site and his father explains to him that man is in the forest again. By the way, I think it's interesting that people always mention the death of Bambi's mother but they never talk about a moment that I think is even more horrifying. It happens after that aforementioned scene with Bambi and the Great Prince. All the animals are panicking and running for cover as the hunters enter the woods. There are some pheasants hiding in the tall grass but one pheasant (voiced by Paula Winslowe) becomes hysterical as the hunters get closer and closer. Her friends warn her not to move but she gets too scared and takes off into the air. There's a gunshot and you actually see her limp body fall and hit the ground! To me, that is infinitely more horrific than the death of Bambi's mother because you see the aftermath, however brief it is.
Of course, there was a lot of controversy when this movie was released from hunters who said that Bambi was a slam on hunting and American sportsmen in general. In my opinion, this film is not attempting to demonize mankind. True, man is presented here as a frightening force of death and destruction but that's just it: it's characterized the way it feels to the animals of the forest (which could be why we never see any humans because animals always run they minute they merely sense hunters). Animals don't know anything about sportsmanship or keeping the population in check. All they see are these creatures that creep into their environments with these devices that can kill them and just start attacking them. That's what this movie shows. Granted, it does make you hate man for killing Bambi's mother and other frightened forest animals like that pheasant but all it comes down to is that this is what happens when hunters enter the forest and those characters were just casualties of something that occurs every day. I'm sure some hunters were also insulted by man unintentionally causing the climactic forest fire but again, you can't say that's never happened. Smokey the Bear doesn't lie, folks. Forest fires do often start because of careless people not putting out their campfire and the like. So, to sum this argument up, I just think that, while man is the villain of the movie, it's just portraying man in the way the animal world views it: a destructive force in the way we view earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Heck, Felix Salten, the author of the original book, was a hunter so that should say something there.
I like the music score for the film, written by Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb. Like the art design, it's meant to characterize the emotion that the characters are feeling rather than have it come from the characters themselves. There's a lot of vocalizing in the score (this time, I have to wonder if Danny Elfman took inspiration from that for many of the scores he's done for Tim Burton), some of which is wondrous like during the opening scene or after Bambi is born, which I think is meant to be about life. Other vocalizing on the soundtrack is much more somber, like during the scenes where the deer are having to cope with the harshness of winter and especially the bit after Bambi's mother is killed, no doubt meant to symbolize the sad aspects of life. I've already mentioned man's theme, which is very ominous and creeping. As with any Disney film, there's a lot of cute, sweet music, like when Bambi is exploring his world for the first time and meeting other inhabitants of the forest. And there's the action music when Bambi has to battle another deer for Faline and during the forest fire.
There are songs on the soundtrack but they're not sung by the characters as with most Disney films. They're actually sung by off-camera, omnipotent singers. I will say right now that none of the songs really did anything for me. They were okay but I didn't find them to be that special, although one of them was nominated for an Oscar apparently. Love Is a Song and Looking for Romance (I Bring You a Song) were nice but I didn't find them to be that intriguing. Little April Shower was interesting, though, because it does fit with the scene, starting out very whimsical and wondrous, characterizing Bambi's initial curiosity of the rain, and then turning bombastic when the shower becomes a storm, signifying how Bambi is now frightened of it. Let's Sing a Gay Little Spring Song is the most curious because it comes out of nowhere right after the somber moment where Bambi walks off with his father after the death of his mother.Walt probably wanted to give the audience something light-hearted after that but it was really abrupt and jarring. In any case, the song itself is a bit too whimsical and happy even for me though.
I think I agree with Doug Walker in that Bambi is a film that I admire more than I actually like. The art design, the character animation, the atmosphere of the film, the creeping presence of man, and the music are all awesome but to be honest, when I watch a Disney animated feature, I watch it for likable, fun characters as well as a good story. This film's story is simply Bambi's life and because of the visual nature of the film, the characters, while enjoyable, don't give me much to grab onto. Therefore, while I do think Bambi is a good film, it's not one of my personal favorites and not my first pick when I feel like watching a Disney movie. But it is a fine example of great visual art, which is what Disney is able to create when they're at their best.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Disney: Pinocchio (1940)
Some of my earliest movie memories come from Walt Disney's Pinocchio. I remember when this was released in 1992 when I was just five years old and my mother took me to see it at a small theater near in Sewanee. It had been promoted a lot on TV, particularly in regards to some tie-in toys that were from some fast food chain (it may have been Pizza Hut, I'm not sure), and Mom figured it would be something that my young mind would enjoy and she was right. Even though I was very young and my exact memories of it are vague, I can still remember loving this movie when I saw it in that theater. Along with The Jungle Book, it was one of the first Disney movies I ever saw and became a fixture of my early childhood. I rented the VHS that came out the following year many, many times from my local video store and as I became six and seven years old, more concrete memories of the film entered my mind. After a while, though, as with most Disney-oriented stuff, it went out of my life for a long time and while I certainly didn't forget about it, I didn't think about it much from when I was eight to my mid-teens (that's why I didn't put this as an installment of Stuff I Grew Up With). By the time I graduated from high school, I had gotten back into Disney, having now grown to appreciate the movies as an adult along with the memories of when I was a kid. I didn't see Pinocchio again until the Platinum Edition DVD was released in 2009 and I scooped it up. Like most movies from my childhood, it was a huge trip of nostalgia to see this great flick once again and to this day, it's one of the Disney animated features that is very special to me.
Everybody should know the story of Pinocchio but here's a summary in case you don't. Jiminy Cricket begins the film by telling us how he learned to believe in the old adage of wishing upon a star to make your dreams come true. A long time ago, he arrived in a small village (not exactly sure where or during what time period but it's obviously somewhere in Europe) and entered the workshop of a kindly woodcarver named Geppetto. Jiminy arrives just in time to see Geppetto put the finishing touches on a little wooden boy he names Pinocchio. Although happy with the puppet, he makes a wish that night that Pinocchio would become a real boy. Hearing his wish, the lovely and kind Blue Fairy brings Pinocchio to life. Although she's granted him life, the Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio that if he wishes to become a real boy, he must prove himself to be brave, truthful, and unselfish and to learn the difference between right and wrong. She appoints Jiminy Cricket to be Pinocchio's conscience. Eventually, Geppetto wakes up and, although he initially believes he's dreaming, is ecstatic to learn that his wish has come true. The next day, Geppetto sends Pinocchio off to school but he immediately runs into a couple of con-artists who easily manipulate the naive kid. From there on, the film centers on a series of encounters that Pinocchio has with many villainous characters and on Jiminy's attempts to steer him straight.
As I've said many times before, Disney has an uncanny knack for taking fairy tales and classic stories that have existed for centuries and making them so much their own that, therefore, most people think of the Disney versions when they hear the titles. Pinocchio is no exception. The Disney film is such a beloved classic that it's what most people think of when they hear the title. I'm sure few are familiar with the original Carlo Collodi book and fewer still have even read it (including me). It doesn't really matter because the film, as with many Disney adaptations, is quite different from its source material, although the first drafts of the screenplay were closer to the book but Walt wasn't satisfied with them. In any case, animator Norman Ferguson brought the book to Walt Disney's attention during production on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Walt became absolutely ecstatic about the possibilities of turning it into an animated feature. It was actually intended to be the studio's third animated feature with Bambi being the second but Bambi took longer to complete than expected. So Pinocchio ended up becoming the long-awaited follow-up to Snow White and even though the film wasn't all that successful when it was originally released in 1940, it's become one of the studio's most beloved films and for good reason too.
I know that there are some very cynical people out there who probably wouldn't take to Pinocchio himself that well but to me, Pinocchio is a very appealing. Unlike the sarcastic and mischievous little kid he was in the original book, he's depicted here as a very innocent and naive character. He's constantly asking, "Why?", is very gullible and is easy for one of the slick-talking villains to lead astray but he has a pure heart and, during the climactic chase with Monstro the whale at the end of the movie, sacrifices his life to save his father. He also, with the help of Jiminy, gradually learns the difference between right and wrong. I thought that Dickie Jones' performance fit the innocence of the character very well. I also think that his actual look is very appealing as well. If it weren't for his button nose, the rivets in his joints, or the Mickey Mouse-like gloves he wears, you would think he was already a real boy. Therefore, when the Blue Fairy turns him into a real boy at the end of the movie, it isn't that much of a change. In any case, I think Pinocchio is a very appealing, innocent character whom you can root for and sympathize with.
The character that most people associate with Pinocchio besides the title character is Jiminy Cricket. In his Disneycember series of videos, Doug Walker admitted that he doesn't care for Jiminy at all. While he isn't one of my favorite Disney characters, I do think he's likeable. He's pretty much a boyscout character (similar to what Mickey Mouse became): pure as can be, always doing the right thing and, as Pinocchio's conscience, trying to steer him in the right direction as well. I could see how some would get tired of that or find that to be really bland but I didn't mind it. However, he does have moments where he nearly quits being Pinocchio's conscience, like when Pinocchio becomes part of Stromboli's act or when he's smoking and playing pool at Pleasure Island but ultimately decides not to run out on the kid and ends up helping him. I also like how, even though he's Pinocchio's conscience and is thoroughly clean-minded, he isn't so uptight that he doesn't admire pretty women (even if all of those said women are either puppets or carvings). I thought Cliff Edwards did well as Jiminy's voice, especially when he sings When You Wish Upon a Star. Also, as many have mentioned, he doesn't look like a cricket at all but rather like a little man with a big head. He was originally designed to look like a cricket but Walt, as with Pinocchio's original personality, decided that wasn't appealing enough and had animator Ward Kimball create the design we know now. All in all, I can see how some would find Jiminy Cricket to be bland but I liked him.
Geppetto is characterized as a kindly old man, who loves making puppets and hand-carved clocks in order to bring joy to people and therefore, his wish to have a son is granted. Even before Pinocchio is brought to life, Geppetto absolutely adores his little "wooden head", happily controlling him around the room with the marionette strings. Christian Rub's performance really brings out the kindness of the character. I also smirk at how Geppetto is kind of senile. There are a bunch of clocks in his workshop, all of which work, and yet when they strike 9:00, he says, "I wonder what time it is" and pulls out a watch. (By the way, the clocks in his workshop are very interesting in their designs and no one looks the same as another. There are models on them such as a guy trying to chop a turkey's head off but the turkey keeps pulling his head away, a woman spanking a kid who's been naughty, and many others.) When he first discovers that Pinocchio is alive, he thinks that he's dreaming and pours water over himself, getting poor Figaro soaked in the process. My favorite is at the end when he's mourning the death of Pinocchio and it doesn't register that Pinocchio is talking to him. When Pinocchio is brought back to life and turned into a real boy by the Blue Fairy, he says, "Father, why are you crying?" Geppetto says, "Because you're dead, Pinocchio." "Father, no I'm not." "Yes, yes, you are. Now lie down." It's some nice levity to what was at first a very heavy and sad moment.
Even though they don't have speaking roles, Geppetto's pets are memorable characters as well. I really like the little cat Figaro (who would later appear in theatrical shorts and would somehow become Minnie Mouse's cat). His attitude is that of a cranky and spoiled little kid. I love his expressions when he's trying to sleep and Geppetto subtly asks him to open the window. He throws off his blanket, as if he's thinking, "Give me a break!" When Geppetto goes out to look for Pinocchio when he's been taken by Stromboli, Geppetto tells him and Cleo not to eat until he comes back with Pinocchio. As soon as Geppetto leaves, Figaro prepares to eat his dinner, but Cleo motions for him not to. Figaro then frustratedly leans on his left front leg, looking very much like a little brat who didn't get his way, and is like, "Oh, damn it!" He's also not too fond of Pinocchio at first, being a bit jealous of the attention he's getting from Geppetto even before he's brought to life, but he grows to love him by the end of the film. As for Cleo the goldfish, I don't have much to say. She comes across as sweet and such and seems to like Figaro even though he doesn't feel the same way (which gives her a big shock when Figaro kisses her at the end of the movie when Pinocchio becomes a real boy) but other than that, she doesn't do much.
The Blue Fairy (voiced by Evelyn Venable) comes in the form of a really beautiful woman with a kind demeanor who grants Geppetto his wish and brings Pinocchio to life. While she's kind to Pinocchio when she brings him to life and tells him what he must do to become a real boy, she does have to be a bit firm with him about the consequences of not telling the truth when she finds him locked up in Stromboli's wagon and he lies about how he got there. She only appears in two scenes in the movie and unlike her literary counterpart, isn't all that involved in Pinocchio's upbringing, since she appoints Jiminy as his conscience. Her presence, however, is felt constantly, such as when this glowing dove comes out of nowhere and drops a note for Pinocchio and Jiminy and at the end of the movie when she gives Jiminy a badge for his good work at being Pinocchio's conscience. While I don't mind the Blue Fairy, I don't quite get why she didn't just turn Pinocchio into a real boy in the first place. I know she wanted Pinocchio to learn to be good boy before he became flesh and blood but wouldn't the lessons on right and wrong that he learns be the same if he was a real boy? She says that a boy who won't do good might as well be made of wood. Why not say that to him as a warning that, if he doesn't learn his lesson, she'll before forced to turn him back into a puppet? I guess that would be a little cruel to grant Geppetto's wish and then take Pinocchio away from him but still, it could've been another way to take the story. Doug Walker brought up another good point: Pinocchio's personality was a creation of the Blue Fairy since he was just a block of wood beforehand. Why didn't she just bestow upon him the knowledge of the differences between right and wrong, the importance of telling the truth and so on? Maybe she figured it would be better if she gave him a child's personality and had him learn everything else for himself like a real child would but it does make you wonder. But like Doug himself said, that's probably thinking about it way too much.
Even though I've never read the original story, I've heard that it's actually a dark, twisted story, especially for something meant for children. Even though the Walt Disney film is not as twisted, this movie does become quite dark once Pinocchio starts running into the villains of the piece and there are even some moments here that are downright freaky. If we're going to talk about the villains (and there are five of them, which is amazing for any movie), let's start with the least threatening of them: the slick-talking conman fox Honest John (voiced by Walter Catlett) and his silent counterpart, the cat Gideon (who was supposed to be voiced by Mel Blanc but they deleted all his dialogue save for a few hiccups). First, you do have to wonder why these two characters walk around the town in plain sight and no one questions the presence of a large, anthropomorphic, talking fox and cat but it's a Disney film so you just go with it. Anyway, Honest John is definitely as sly as a fox. He's slick, fast-talking, and knows how to manipulate those who are very naive, such as Pinocchio. He's able to trick Pinocchio twice and use him to earn some money. Although he's not at all frightening like the other villains of the movie, there is a bit of sinister undercurrent to him that he goes along with the coachman's evil scheme to kidnap young boys, even though both he and Gideon are quite horrified when the coachman tells them why there's no risk in them getting in trouble with the law. All he cares about really is making money and not getting caught for it. He'll stoop to anything, even helping this evil man round up young boys. Gideon, on the other hand, is kind of like an evil version of Dopey the dwarf. He's dumb and never says a word (whether it's because he can't or just doesn't is never explained) but he goes along with Honest John's schemes to get money. Whereas Honest John uses his slick-talking to get the job done, Gideon often tries to bop people with a big mallet: brute force instead of brains. Again, they're not frightening like the other villains but they're definitely no angels either.
The first real villain of the movie is Stromboli (voiced by Charles Judels), this big, fat gypsy (who has an Italian accent, for some reason) who is a puppet-maker and after Honest John sells Pinocchio to him, forces him to perform on stage. Since he's also a puppet-maker, you can sort of see Stromboli as an evil version of Geppetto. At first, he comes across as just a blowhard, angrily yelling at Pinocchio in Italian when he slips and falls during his stage performance. The comic and silly nature of that show with its funny looking and hyper moving marionettes coupled with Pinocchio's singing and his trying to imitate the other puppets also offset how dark the situation becomes in the following scenes. In the scene following the show where Stromboli sees how much money Pinocchio made for him, his true evil nature comes through. When Pinocchio tries to go home, Stromboli tricks him into laughing with him when he says that Pinocchio's statement about doing so is funny and then, when Pinocchio least expects it, he throws him in a cage and locks him in. That's when he reveals his plans to travel the world, making lots of money off of Pinocchio. Most horrific of all, he reveals that he plans to turn Pinocchio into firewood when he grows old and unable to perform. That coupled with the evil laugh he gives afterward is very intimidating. It also gets to me when Pinocchio starts protesting and Stromboli yells, "Quiet! Before I knock you silly!" And you believe he would do it too. At this point when Stromboli's wagon starts moving and Pinocchio is left alone in that dark wagon while a storm rages outside, you're like, "Holy shit, this movie's tone just took one sharp turn!" There's also a bit of cruel irony when Geppetto is out looking for Pinocchio and Stromboli's wagon passes right by him. Even crueler is when Geppetto calls for Pinocchio right after the wagon passes by but a thunderclap drowns the sound out. Pinocchio, and later Jiminy, of course do manage to escape Stromboli with the help of the Blue Fairy but still, Stromboli was a very sinister figure.
The most frightening villain in the entire movie to me is the coachman (also voiced by Charles Judels), this large Cockney guy who hires Honest John and Gideon to help him take unsuspecting rowdy boys to Pleasure Island, where he somehow turns them into donkeys (I know it's supposed to be caused by the boys doing things they're not supposed to, like drinking, smoking, getting fights, breaking stuff and so on but I'm still not clear on exactly how he does it) and sells them to be used in salt mines. That is messed up and terrifying on so many levels. Even before you get to Pleasure Island, the coachman reveals what a sick, sadistic character he is when he meets with Honest John and Gideon in a bar. When Honest John worries about them getting arrested for this scheme, the coachman assures him by saying, "They never come back as boys!" When he says that, his face turns slightly red, his eyes turn green, and his ears become pointed, all coupled with an evil grin. He looks like Satan right there (and perhaps he is of some satanic nature and it's just never explained). That along with how Judels said that line is scary as hell. On top of that, the coachman has these creepy looking henchmen who are dressed in black and are even kind of ape-like. You never find out what they are exactly but they're just as sinister as their boss. It also gets me when one of the boys turned donkey can still talk and when he says, "I wanna go home to my mama!", the coachman throws him in a section of the room with other ones that can still talk. When they start begging him to turn them back into boys, he cracks a whip and yells, "Quiet! You boys have had your fun, now pay for it!" It's a shame that the coachman doesn't get brought up more when Disney villains are discussed because I think he's one of the most terrifying characters the studio has ever created.
Since we're talking about the coachman, I have to mention the scene in this movie that freaked me out big time as a kid and still disturbs me even to this day. On the way to Pleasure Island, Pinocchio meets up with this kid Lampwick (voiced by Frankie Darro), who is a tough-talking, rowdy kid who can't wait to get to the island so he can be bad. When they get there, he takes great pleasure in getting into fights, tearing stuff up, drinking booze, and smoking cigars. But that attitude changes when he turns into a donkey. The transformation is gradual: ears and tail pop up and his face turns into that of a donkey when it's out of sight for a brief second (you got to love how Pinocchio slowly but surely gets rid of the cigar and booze when he sees what it's apparently doing to Lampwick). Once he realizes what's happening to him, Lampwick panics and starts yelling for his family. He begs for Pinocchio to help him and then his hands turn into hooves (which is a freaky but impressive bit of animation, I might). The freakiest part by far is after that when he fully transforms. It's done in shadow and you see his body contorting down to a four-legged stance and his screaming for his mother drowns out into a bray. You then see him as a fully changed donkey, braying crazily and kicking up the room in a panic. That scene scared the living crap out of me as a kid and even now when I watch it, I still get shivers. That has to be among the darkest and scariest moments Disney has ever produced.
My favorite villain and the one I was waiting on when my mother took me to see the film when I was five because I'd seen him in advertisements is the whale, Monstro. Hey, I love giant monster movies so it shouldn't surprise anyone that he's my favorite. There's a lot of buildup to him starting when Pinocchio and Jiminy receive the letter from the Blue Fairy that tells them that Monstro has swallowed Geppetto's ship whole and Jiminy warns Pinocchio about how gigantic Monstro is because he's heard of his reputation. Also, when the two of them go down into the ocean to look for Monstro, all of the sea-life they come across run away in abject fear when they mention Monstro's name. When we finally get to Monstro, we see why everyone is so scared of him because he is a very intimidating creation due to his sheer size and the loud, frightening roars he makes (provided by Thurl Ravenscroft). The animation on him (done by Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Walt's beloved Nine Old Men) is very impressive and it brings out his sheer power perfectly. The sequence where Pinocchio, after being swallowed by Montro and reuniting with Geppetto, makes Monstro sneeze them out is my favorite part of the movie, especially when Monstro, furious at them for doing that to him, chases them across the ocean. It really is a thrilling sequence, with Monstro tearing the ocean up, smashing into rocks, destroying their raft, and charging at them full throttle while Pinocchio tries to save Geppetto. That latter bit is very suspenseful because Pinocchio is trying to drag Geppetto through an opening in this wall of rocks and it keeps cutting back to Monstro getting closer and closer, to the point where he leaps toward them and you see a closeup of his huge, sharp toothed mouth. Pinocchio just barely manages to get Geppetto and himself through the opening before Monstro crashes into the rock wall. Even though he doesn't get them, Monstro, intentionally or not, does manage to kill Pinocchio through the fury he causes when he crashes into the cliff. However, unlike the other villains in the film, Monstro is not actually evil. He swallows Geppetto and Pinocchio because he's hungry and the only reason that he chases them during the climax is because he's pissed at them for making him sneeze. As frightening as he is, he's still just an animal and only acts the way one normally acts.
Another dark aspect of the film is that none of the villains are ever defeated or made to pay for what they've done. They just disappear when the sections of the movie involving them end. Honest John and Gideon no doubt went on to scam more people and make money in more sleazy, dishonest schemes; Stromboli is never punished for what he did to Pinocchio (although you could guess that he probably lost a lot of money and was ridiculed after Pinocchio escaped from him); most disturbing of all, the coachman is never caught and the boys aren't saved; and even though Pinocchio and Geppetto manage to escape from Monstro, he more than likely wasn't killed by crashing into that cliff and probably went home with a bad headache, plus he did manage to kill Pinocchio. I don't think that's ever happened again in a Disney movie where the villain isn't killed or at least defeated by the end of it. It no doubt would have been very contrived and distracting to show all of those villains getting their comeuppance when all you really care about is Pinocchio and the other main characters but that's still awfully downbeat for a Disney movie.
Many people tend to forget that this was made back in the 40's when adults were the main audience for movies and therefore, there's a lot of stuff here that some would find inappropriate for a kids' movie. Obviously, there's the smoking (the bar where Honest John and Gideon meet with the coachman seems to be absolutely thick with cigar smoke) and booze drinking but there's also stuff that involves Jiminy Cricket. When Jiminy is watching Geppetto put the finishing touches on Pinocchio, he leans his hand on something and soon realizes that his hand is on the rear end of a model of a woman. He quickly removes his hand and says, "Pardon me." Very adult joke. And like I said, Jiminy isn't above admiring models and puppets that look like pretty ladies. There's nothing wholly inappropriate here, as with most Disney films, but it's clear that this movie was meant for adults as much as it was for kids (hence, Walt's definition of family films).
Just as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was groundbreaking because it was the world's first full-length animated feature, Pinocchio is also groundbreaking in the animation techniques it introduced. First off, the movie absolutely gorgeous to look at. Everything is very well designed, both the characters and the environments. The clocks in Geppetto's workshop look really good and practical because real working models of them were built for the animators to use as models for their drawings. They also used rotoscoping, which had been invented for the Fleischer Brothers' Superman cartoons, to get realistic movements out of the wagons in the film. There was also some rotoscoping used in the animation of the Blue Fairy. As they did with Snow White and would also do with other films, the animators studied live action footage of actors (I'm guessing the actual voice actors) performing the various scenes as a guide and also studied how human beings move, rather than tracing the live action images as they had done with Snow White. As a result, the characters do move very much like real people, albeit a bit exaggerated. As far as the environments go, I thought the most atmospheric ones were the seedy bar where Honest John and Gideon meet the coachman and Pleasure Island. Even before things turn sinister there, the place doesn't look quite right to me. The outside of some of those attractions looked a little freaky to me and that big wooden door at the entrance should have given those boys pause but they were too dead-set on causing trouble to think about it. I also thought the park looked very eerie when it suddenly got all quiet and still and Jiminy noticed that there wasn't a soul in sight. Nice bit of atmosphere there.
We're so used to all the technology used in animated films nowadays that we take it for granted and when you realize what the Disney animators were doing back when animation was in its infancy, it's quite impressive. Not only do the characters, environments, and vehicles look good but there are some very well done effects-work in the film as well. One that really impresses me is the opening shot of the day after Pinocchio is brought to life. The camera actually moves through the village as if it were a real three-dimensional space and you actually see animated characters come out of their houses, as if it were live-action footage. Again, given the limitation of animation technology at the time, it's amazing how realistic that looks. The water effects in the final act of the movie also look very good and took a year to develop with all the waves, bubbles, ripples, and the blurry underwater look. As I mentioned earlier, on top of that, Monstro looks absolutely breathtaking in his animation. I know it's easy to take animation for granted today but like I said, if you put this film into context as to when it was made, you can see how groundbreaking it really is.
Song-wise, Pinocchio has one of the most iconic that Disney has ever produced. When You Wish Upon a Star not only won an Oscar that years but it has also become the theme for the Walt Disney Company itself. It's a beautiful and heartwarming song, sung very well by Cliff Edwards. I know some have criticized it in recent years as promoting laziness rather than being proactive but like Doug Walker said, I think it's meant to be a message of hope rather than something you should actually do all throughout your life. It's not saying you should just let fate take care of everything. It's just saying that sometimes, things work out so unexpectedly well that it could be seen as a miracle (besides, people shouldn't take stuff like this so seriously anyway). The other songs are fine for the most part. Little Wooden Head, the song that Geppetto sings when he's first controlling Pinocchio after finishing him, is sweet and charming, showing what a kind man he is and how much he loves this little puppet; Give A Little Whistle, which Jiminy sings to Pinocchio after he's been appointed as his conscience, is okay but I don't think it was needed at all; I can't help but smile at Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, the little song that Honest John sings when he's fooled Pinocchio into going along with one of his schemes because it's so cheerful despite the fact that it's being sung by a villain; and finally, there's I've Got No Strings, which Pinocchio sings when he's performing on stage for Stromboli, which is quite charming and Dickie Jones has a good singing voice. Pinocchio also won an Oscar for the music score itself but I don't know what was so special about it. It's a good score, mind you, and it does its job well, particularly in the freaky donkey transformation scene and the thrilling climactic chase with Monstro, but I don't get what convinced the Academy that it was good enough for an Oscar. That's just me, though.
I honestly think that Pinocchio is one of Disney's best animated features. It's beautifully designed and animated, has great characters, creepy villains, its fair share of scary, dark moments, and an iconic main song. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way about it either. Even though it may not have been a financial success when it was originally released, it eventually did gross over $84 million due to reissues throughout the years and it's now deservedly seen as a classic of American animation. If you haven't seen it and you're a lover of animation, particularly Disney, this is mandatory viewing. It's, simply put, a true work of cinematic art.
Everybody should know the story of Pinocchio but here's a summary in case you don't. Jiminy Cricket begins the film by telling us how he learned to believe in the old adage of wishing upon a star to make your dreams come true. A long time ago, he arrived in a small village (not exactly sure where or during what time period but it's obviously somewhere in Europe) and entered the workshop of a kindly woodcarver named Geppetto. Jiminy arrives just in time to see Geppetto put the finishing touches on a little wooden boy he names Pinocchio. Although happy with the puppet, he makes a wish that night that Pinocchio would become a real boy. Hearing his wish, the lovely and kind Blue Fairy brings Pinocchio to life. Although she's granted him life, the Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio that if he wishes to become a real boy, he must prove himself to be brave, truthful, and unselfish and to learn the difference between right and wrong. She appoints Jiminy Cricket to be Pinocchio's conscience. Eventually, Geppetto wakes up and, although he initially believes he's dreaming, is ecstatic to learn that his wish has come true. The next day, Geppetto sends Pinocchio off to school but he immediately runs into a couple of con-artists who easily manipulate the naive kid. From there on, the film centers on a series of encounters that Pinocchio has with many villainous characters and on Jiminy's attempts to steer him straight.
As I've said many times before, Disney has an uncanny knack for taking fairy tales and classic stories that have existed for centuries and making them so much their own that, therefore, most people think of the Disney versions when they hear the titles. Pinocchio is no exception. The Disney film is such a beloved classic that it's what most people think of when they hear the title. I'm sure few are familiar with the original Carlo Collodi book and fewer still have even read it (including me). It doesn't really matter because the film, as with many Disney adaptations, is quite different from its source material, although the first drafts of the screenplay were closer to the book but Walt wasn't satisfied with them. In any case, animator Norman Ferguson brought the book to Walt Disney's attention during production on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Walt became absolutely ecstatic about the possibilities of turning it into an animated feature. It was actually intended to be the studio's third animated feature with Bambi being the second but Bambi took longer to complete than expected. So Pinocchio ended up becoming the long-awaited follow-up to Snow White and even though the film wasn't all that successful when it was originally released in 1940, it's become one of the studio's most beloved films and for good reason too.
I know that there are some very cynical people out there who probably wouldn't take to Pinocchio himself that well but to me, Pinocchio is a very appealing. Unlike the sarcastic and mischievous little kid he was in the original book, he's depicted here as a very innocent and naive character. He's constantly asking, "Why?", is very gullible and is easy for one of the slick-talking villains to lead astray but he has a pure heart and, during the climactic chase with Monstro the whale at the end of the movie, sacrifices his life to save his father. He also, with the help of Jiminy, gradually learns the difference between right and wrong. I thought that Dickie Jones' performance fit the innocence of the character very well. I also think that his actual look is very appealing as well. If it weren't for his button nose, the rivets in his joints, or the Mickey Mouse-like gloves he wears, you would think he was already a real boy. Therefore, when the Blue Fairy turns him into a real boy at the end of the movie, it isn't that much of a change. In any case, I think Pinocchio is a very appealing, innocent character whom you can root for and sympathize with.
The character that most people associate with Pinocchio besides the title character is Jiminy Cricket. In his Disneycember series of videos, Doug Walker admitted that he doesn't care for Jiminy at all. While he isn't one of my favorite Disney characters, I do think he's likeable. He's pretty much a boyscout character (similar to what Mickey Mouse became): pure as can be, always doing the right thing and, as Pinocchio's conscience, trying to steer him in the right direction as well. I could see how some would get tired of that or find that to be really bland but I didn't mind it. However, he does have moments where he nearly quits being Pinocchio's conscience, like when Pinocchio becomes part of Stromboli's act or when he's smoking and playing pool at Pleasure Island but ultimately decides not to run out on the kid and ends up helping him. I also like how, even though he's Pinocchio's conscience and is thoroughly clean-minded, he isn't so uptight that he doesn't admire pretty women (even if all of those said women are either puppets or carvings). I thought Cliff Edwards did well as Jiminy's voice, especially when he sings When You Wish Upon a Star. Also, as many have mentioned, he doesn't look like a cricket at all but rather like a little man with a big head. He was originally designed to look like a cricket but Walt, as with Pinocchio's original personality, decided that wasn't appealing enough and had animator Ward Kimball create the design we know now. All in all, I can see how some would find Jiminy Cricket to be bland but I liked him.
Geppetto is characterized as a kindly old man, who loves making puppets and hand-carved clocks in order to bring joy to people and therefore, his wish to have a son is granted. Even before Pinocchio is brought to life, Geppetto absolutely adores his little "wooden head", happily controlling him around the room with the marionette strings. Christian Rub's performance really brings out the kindness of the character. I also smirk at how Geppetto is kind of senile. There are a bunch of clocks in his workshop, all of which work, and yet when they strike 9:00, he says, "I wonder what time it is" and pulls out a watch. (By the way, the clocks in his workshop are very interesting in their designs and no one looks the same as another. There are models on them such as a guy trying to chop a turkey's head off but the turkey keeps pulling his head away, a woman spanking a kid who's been naughty, and many others.) When he first discovers that Pinocchio is alive, he thinks that he's dreaming and pours water over himself, getting poor Figaro soaked in the process. My favorite is at the end when he's mourning the death of Pinocchio and it doesn't register that Pinocchio is talking to him. When Pinocchio is brought back to life and turned into a real boy by the Blue Fairy, he says, "Father, why are you crying?" Geppetto says, "Because you're dead, Pinocchio." "Father, no I'm not." "Yes, yes, you are. Now lie down." It's some nice levity to what was at first a very heavy and sad moment.
Even though they don't have speaking roles, Geppetto's pets are memorable characters as well. I really like the little cat Figaro (who would later appear in theatrical shorts and would somehow become Minnie Mouse's cat). His attitude is that of a cranky and spoiled little kid. I love his expressions when he's trying to sleep and Geppetto subtly asks him to open the window. He throws off his blanket, as if he's thinking, "Give me a break!" When Geppetto goes out to look for Pinocchio when he's been taken by Stromboli, Geppetto tells him and Cleo not to eat until he comes back with Pinocchio. As soon as Geppetto leaves, Figaro prepares to eat his dinner, but Cleo motions for him not to. Figaro then frustratedly leans on his left front leg, looking very much like a little brat who didn't get his way, and is like, "Oh, damn it!" He's also not too fond of Pinocchio at first, being a bit jealous of the attention he's getting from Geppetto even before he's brought to life, but he grows to love him by the end of the film. As for Cleo the goldfish, I don't have much to say. She comes across as sweet and such and seems to like Figaro even though he doesn't feel the same way (which gives her a big shock when Figaro kisses her at the end of the movie when Pinocchio becomes a real boy) but other than that, she doesn't do much.
The Blue Fairy (voiced by Evelyn Venable) comes in the form of a really beautiful woman with a kind demeanor who grants Geppetto his wish and brings Pinocchio to life. While she's kind to Pinocchio when she brings him to life and tells him what he must do to become a real boy, she does have to be a bit firm with him about the consequences of not telling the truth when she finds him locked up in Stromboli's wagon and he lies about how he got there. She only appears in two scenes in the movie and unlike her literary counterpart, isn't all that involved in Pinocchio's upbringing, since she appoints Jiminy as his conscience. Her presence, however, is felt constantly, such as when this glowing dove comes out of nowhere and drops a note for Pinocchio and Jiminy and at the end of the movie when she gives Jiminy a badge for his good work at being Pinocchio's conscience. While I don't mind the Blue Fairy, I don't quite get why she didn't just turn Pinocchio into a real boy in the first place. I know she wanted Pinocchio to learn to be good boy before he became flesh and blood but wouldn't the lessons on right and wrong that he learns be the same if he was a real boy? She says that a boy who won't do good might as well be made of wood. Why not say that to him as a warning that, if he doesn't learn his lesson, she'll before forced to turn him back into a puppet? I guess that would be a little cruel to grant Geppetto's wish and then take Pinocchio away from him but still, it could've been another way to take the story. Doug Walker brought up another good point: Pinocchio's personality was a creation of the Blue Fairy since he was just a block of wood beforehand. Why didn't she just bestow upon him the knowledge of the differences between right and wrong, the importance of telling the truth and so on? Maybe she figured it would be better if she gave him a child's personality and had him learn everything else for himself like a real child would but it does make you wonder. But like Doug himself said, that's probably thinking about it way too much.
Even though I've never read the original story, I've heard that it's actually a dark, twisted story, especially for something meant for children. Even though the Walt Disney film is not as twisted, this movie does become quite dark once Pinocchio starts running into the villains of the piece and there are even some moments here that are downright freaky. If we're going to talk about the villains (and there are five of them, which is amazing for any movie), let's start with the least threatening of them: the slick-talking conman fox Honest John (voiced by Walter Catlett) and his silent counterpart, the cat Gideon (who was supposed to be voiced by Mel Blanc but they deleted all his dialogue save for a few hiccups). First, you do have to wonder why these two characters walk around the town in plain sight and no one questions the presence of a large, anthropomorphic, talking fox and cat but it's a Disney film so you just go with it. Anyway, Honest John is definitely as sly as a fox. He's slick, fast-talking, and knows how to manipulate those who are very naive, such as Pinocchio. He's able to trick Pinocchio twice and use him to earn some money. Although he's not at all frightening like the other villains of the movie, there is a bit of sinister undercurrent to him that he goes along with the coachman's evil scheme to kidnap young boys, even though both he and Gideon are quite horrified when the coachman tells them why there's no risk in them getting in trouble with the law. All he cares about really is making money and not getting caught for it. He'll stoop to anything, even helping this evil man round up young boys. Gideon, on the other hand, is kind of like an evil version of Dopey the dwarf. He's dumb and never says a word (whether it's because he can't or just doesn't is never explained) but he goes along with Honest John's schemes to get money. Whereas Honest John uses his slick-talking to get the job done, Gideon often tries to bop people with a big mallet: brute force instead of brains. Again, they're not frightening like the other villains but they're definitely no angels either.
The first real villain of the movie is Stromboli (voiced by Charles Judels), this big, fat gypsy (who has an Italian accent, for some reason) who is a puppet-maker and after Honest John sells Pinocchio to him, forces him to perform on stage. Since he's also a puppet-maker, you can sort of see Stromboli as an evil version of Geppetto. At first, he comes across as just a blowhard, angrily yelling at Pinocchio in Italian when he slips and falls during his stage performance. The comic and silly nature of that show with its funny looking and hyper moving marionettes coupled with Pinocchio's singing and his trying to imitate the other puppets also offset how dark the situation becomes in the following scenes. In the scene following the show where Stromboli sees how much money Pinocchio made for him, his true evil nature comes through. When Pinocchio tries to go home, Stromboli tricks him into laughing with him when he says that Pinocchio's statement about doing so is funny and then, when Pinocchio least expects it, he throws him in a cage and locks him in. That's when he reveals his plans to travel the world, making lots of money off of Pinocchio. Most horrific of all, he reveals that he plans to turn Pinocchio into firewood when he grows old and unable to perform. That coupled with the evil laugh he gives afterward is very intimidating. It also gets to me when Pinocchio starts protesting and Stromboli yells, "Quiet! Before I knock you silly!" And you believe he would do it too. At this point when Stromboli's wagon starts moving and Pinocchio is left alone in that dark wagon while a storm rages outside, you're like, "Holy shit, this movie's tone just took one sharp turn!" There's also a bit of cruel irony when Geppetto is out looking for Pinocchio and Stromboli's wagon passes right by him. Even crueler is when Geppetto calls for Pinocchio right after the wagon passes by but a thunderclap drowns the sound out. Pinocchio, and later Jiminy, of course do manage to escape Stromboli with the help of the Blue Fairy but still, Stromboli was a very sinister figure.
The most frightening villain in the entire movie to me is the coachman (also voiced by Charles Judels), this large Cockney guy who hires Honest John and Gideon to help him take unsuspecting rowdy boys to Pleasure Island, where he somehow turns them into donkeys (I know it's supposed to be caused by the boys doing things they're not supposed to, like drinking, smoking, getting fights, breaking stuff and so on but I'm still not clear on exactly how he does it) and sells them to be used in salt mines. That is messed up and terrifying on so many levels. Even before you get to Pleasure Island, the coachman reveals what a sick, sadistic character he is when he meets with Honest John and Gideon in a bar. When Honest John worries about them getting arrested for this scheme, the coachman assures him by saying, "They never come back as boys!" When he says that, his face turns slightly red, his eyes turn green, and his ears become pointed, all coupled with an evil grin. He looks like Satan right there (and perhaps he is of some satanic nature and it's just never explained). That along with how Judels said that line is scary as hell. On top of that, the coachman has these creepy looking henchmen who are dressed in black and are even kind of ape-like. You never find out what they are exactly but they're just as sinister as their boss. It also gets me when one of the boys turned donkey can still talk and when he says, "I wanna go home to my mama!", the coachman throws him in a section of the room with other ones that can still talk. When they start begging him to turn them back into boys, he cracks a whip and yells, "Quiet! You boys have had your fun, now pay for it!" It's a shame that the coachman doesn't get brought up more when Disney villains are discussed because I think he's one of the most terrifying characters the studio has ever created.
Since we're talking about the coachman, I have to mention the scene in this movie that freaked me out big time as a kid and still disturbs me even to this day. On the way to Pleasure Island, Pinocchio meets up with this kid Lampwick (voiced by Frankie Darro), who is a tough-talking, rowdy kid who can't wait to get to the island so he can be bad. When they get there, he takes great pleasure in getting into fights, tearing stuff up, drinking booze, and smoking cigars. But that attitude changes when he turns into a donkey. The transformation is gradual: ears and tail pop up and his face turns into that of a donkey when it's out of sight for a brief second (you got to love how Pinocchio slowly but surely gets rid of the cigar and booze when he sees what it's apparently doing to Lampwick). Once he realizes what's happening to him, Lampwick panics and starts yelling for his family. He begs for Pinocchio to help him and then his hands turn into hooves (which is a freaky but impressive bit of animation, I might). The freakiest part by far is after that when he fully transforms. It's done in shadow and you see his body contorting down to a four-legged stance and his screaming for his mother drowns out into a bray. You then see him as a fully changed donkey, braying crazily and kicking up the room in a panic. That scene scared the living crap out of me as a kid and even now when I watch it, I still get shivers. That has to be among the darkest and scariest moments Disney has ever produced.
My favorite villain and the one I was waiting on when my mother took me to see the film when I was five because I'd seen him in advertisements is the whale, Monstro. Hey, I love giant monster movies so it shouldn't surprise anyone that he's my favorite. There's a lot of buildup to him starting when Pinocchio and Jiminy receive the letter from the Blue Fairy that tells them that Monstro has swallowed Geppetto's ship whole and Jiminy warns Pinocchio about how gigantic Monstro is because he's heard of his reputation. Also, when the two of them go down into the ocean to look for Monstro, all of the sea-life they come across run away in abject fear when they mention Monstro's name. When we finally get to Monstro, we see why everyone is so scared of him because he is a very intimidating creation due to his sheer size and the loud, frightening roars he makes (provided by Thurl Ravenscroft). The animation on him (done by Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Walt's beloved Nine Old Men) is very impressive and it brings out his sheer power perfectly. The sequence where Pinocchio, after being swallowed by Montro and reuniting with Geppetto, makes Monstro sneeze them out is my favorite part of the movie, especially when Monstro, furious at them for doing that to him, chases them across the ocean. It really is a thrilling sequence, with Monstro tearing the ocean up, smashing into rocks, destroying their raft, and charging at them full throttle while Pinocchio tries to save Geppetto. That latter bit is very suspenseful because Pinocchio is trying to drag Geppetto through an opening in this wall of rocks and it keeps cutting back to Monstro getting closer and closer, to the point where he leaps toward them and you see a closeup of his huge, sharp toothed mouth. Pinocchio just barely manages to get Geppetto and himself through the opening before Monstro crashes into the rock wall. Even though he doesn't get them, Monstro, intentionally or not, does manage to kill Pinocchio through the fury he causes when he crashes into the cliff. However, unlike the other villains in the film, Monstro is not actually evil. He swallows Geppetto and Pinocchio because he's hungry and the only reason that he chases them during the climax is because he's pissed at them for making him sneeze. As frightening as he is, he's still just an animal and only acts the way one normally acts.
Another dark aspect of the film is that none of the villains are ever defeated or made to pay for what they've done. They just disappear when the sections of the movie involving them end. Honest John and Gideon no doubt went on to scam more people and make money in more sleazy, dishonest schemes; Stromboli is never punished for what he did to Pinocchio (although you could guess that he probably lost a lot of money and was ridiculed after Pinocchio escaped from him); most disturbing of all, the coachman is never caught and the boys aren't saved; and even though Pinocchio and Geppetto manage to escape from Monstro, he more than likely wasn't killed by crashing into that cliff and probably went home with a bad headache, plus he did manage to kill Pinocchio. I don't think that's ever happened again in a Disney movie where the villain isn't killed or at least defeated by the end of it. It no doubt would have been very contrived and distracting to show all of those villains getting their comeuppance when all you really care about is Pinocchio and the other main characters but that's still awfully downbeat for a Disney movie.
Many people tend to forget that this was made back in the 40's when adults were the main audience for movies and therefore, there's a lot of stuff here that some would find inappropriate for a kids' movie. Obviously, there's the smoking (the bar where Honest John and Gideon meet with the coachman seems to be absolutely thick with cigar smoke) and booze drinking but there's also stuff that involves Jiminy Cricket. When Jiminy is watching Geppetto put the finishing touches on Pinocchio, he leans his hand on something and soon realizes that his hand is on the rear end of a model of a woman. He quickly removes his hand and says, "Pardon me." Very adult joke. And like I said, Jiminy isn't above admiring models and puppets that look like pretty ladies. There's nothing wholly inappropriate here, as with most Disney films, but it's clear that this movie was meant for adults as much as it was for kids (hence, Walt's definition of family films).
Just as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was groundbreaking because it was the world's first full-length animated feature, Pinocchio is also groundbreaking in the animation techniques it introduced. First off, the movie absolutely gorgeous to look at. Everything is very well designed, both the characters and the environments. The clocks in Geppetto's workshop look really good and practical because real working models of them were built for the animators to use as models for their drawings. They also used rotoscoping, which had been invented for the Fleischer Brothers' Superman cartoons, to get realistic movements out of the wagons in the film. There was also some rotoscoping used in the animation of the Blue Fairy. As they did with Snow White and would also do with other films, the animators studied live action footage of actors (I'm guessing the actual voice actors) performing the various scenes as a guide and also studied how human beings move, rather than tracing the live action images as they had done with Snow White. As a result, the characters do move very much like real people, albeit a bit exaggerated. As far as the environments go, I thought the most atmospheric ones were the seedy bar where Honest John and Gideon meet the coachman and Pleasure Island. Even before things turn sinister there, the place doesn't look quite right to me. The outside of some of those attractions looked a little freaky to me and that big wooden door at the entrance should have given those boys pause but they were too dead-set on causing trouble to think about it. I also thought the park looked very eerie when it suddenly got all quiet and still and Jiminy noticed that there wasn't a soul in sight. Nice bit of atmosphere there.
We're so used to all the technology used in animated films nowadays that we take it for granted and when you realize what the Disney animators were doing back when animation was in its infancy, it's quite impressive. Not only do the characters, environments, and vehicles look good but there are some very well done effects-work in the film as well. One that really impresses me is the opening shot of the day after Pinocchio is brought to life. The camera actually moves through the village as if it were a real three-dimensional space and you actually see animated characters come out of their houses, as if it were live-action footage. Again, given the limitation of animation technology at the time, it's amazing how realistic that looks. The water effects in the final act of the movie also look very good and took a year to develop with all the waves, bubbles, ripples, and the blurry underwater look. As I mentioned earlier, on top of that, Monstro looks absolutely breathtaking in his animation. I know it's easy to take animation for granted today but like I said, if you put this film into context as to when it was made, you can see how groundbreaking it really is.
Song-wise, Pinocchio has one of the most iconic that Disney has ever produced. When You Wish Upon a Star not only won an Oscar that years but it has also become the theme for the Walt Disney Company itself. It's a beautiful and heartwarming song, sung very well by Cliff Edwards. I know some have criticized it in recent years as promoting laziness rather than being proactive but like Doug Walker said, I think it's meant to be a message of hope rather than something you should actually do all throughout your life. It's not saying you should just let fate take care of everything. It's just saying that sometimes, things work out so unexpectedly well that it could be seen as a miracle (besides, people shouldn't take stuff like this so seriously anyway). The other songs are fine for the most part. Little Wooden Head, the song that Geppetto sings when he's first controlling Pinocchio after finishing him, is sweet and charming, showing what a kind man he is and how much he loves this little puppet; Give A Little Whistle, which Jiminy sings to Pinocchio after he's been appointed as his conscience, is okay but I don't think it was needed at all; I can't help but smile at Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, the little song that Honest John sings when he's fooled Pinocchio into going along with one of his schemes because it's so cheerful despite the fact that it's being sung by a villain; and finally, there's I've Got No Strings, which Pinocchio sings when he's performing on stage for Stromboli, which is quite charming and Dickie Jones has a good singing voice. Pinocchio also won an Oscar for the music score itself but I don't know what was so special about it. It's a good score, mind you, and it does its job well, particularly in the freaky donkey transformation scene and the thrilling climactic chase with Monstro, but I don't get what convinced the Academy that it was good enough for an Oscar. That's just me, though.
I honestly think that Pinocchio is one of Disney's best animated features. It's beautifully designed and animated, has great characters, creepy villains, its fair share of scary, dark moments, and an iconic main song. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way about it either. Even though it may not have been a financial success when it was originally released, it eventually did gross over $84 million due to reissues throughout the years and it's now deservedly seen as a classic of American animation. If you haven't seen it and you're a lover of animation, particularly Disney, this is mandatory viewing. It's, simply put, a true work of cinematic art.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Movies That Suck: The Crazies (1973)
I can already see the fire in the eyes of all devoted George Romero fans when they read this title. If you've been following my blog from its inception, you would know that I think very highly of Mr. Romero. His Living Dead series was the first thing I ever reviewed on here and his original Living Dead trilogy was part of my 101 Favorite Horror Films. I also think that his 1982 anthology Creepshow is a very fun movie as well. But, as with all great filmmakers, the guy has made some turkeys along with his indisputable classics and, in my opinion, The Crazies is one of them. I first heard of it when it was briefly mentioned in the documentary on the Ultimate Edition DVD of Dawn of the Dead in order to shed light on the films that Romero made in the time period between that film and Night of the Living Dead. They showed a brief clip from the trailer, with the guys in the white bio-suits with gas masks gunning down a bunch of people in a field. It looked interesting but I didn't anything more of it until I started listening to Deadpit.com. CK and Uncle Bill told me personally that The Crazies might be one of Romero's non-Living Dead movies that could be worth my time. I finally saw it when I got a used DVD of it at McKay's in Chattanooga. It was only $11.00 but I still felt ripped off. I can safely say that when I watched this movie one night shortly after getting the DVD, it was one of the most excruciating 102 minutes I have ever spent watching a movie. This movie really lives up to its title. It goes way too fast to the point where you have no time to get invested in the lead characters and it ends up being a very painfully boring sit.
One night in the small town of Evans City, PA, two young children are messing around when suddenly, their father goes mad and begins tearing their house apart. They also discover that he killed their mother before he eventually sets the house on fire. Two firemen and the pregnant nurse girlfriend of one of them get the call to come to work when the fire is reported and soon, the military rolls into the town and all of the soldiers are wearing biological containment suits with gas masks. It is revealed that a plane carrying a secret biological weapon developed by the military crashed near the town just recently and the virus, codenamed Trixie, has infected the town's water supply. The virus either eventually kills its victims or renders them incurably insane. The military does everything it can to both contain the virus within the perimeters of the town as well as try to find a cure but the hastily put together operation leads to the deaths of many soldiers and civilians and mayhem engulfs the town. The two firemen and the nurse are briefly captured by the military but they, along with a man and his teenage daughter, manage to escape and attempt to take cover in the hills since they don't trust the actions of the military, particularly the firemen, who are ex-Vietnam veterans. The rest of the film centers on the group's attempts to get away and keep from becoming infected and the military trying to stop the virus from spreading throughout the rest of the country.
This was made in the period between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead where George Romero was attempting to establish his identity as a director who could do other things besides strictly horror films. Funny thing is that The Crazies, up until Dawn of the Dead, was the closest thing to a sequel to Night of the Living Dead that Romero ever produced. It is similar to his zombie movies in that it focuses on people being turned into murderous creatures, a group of people trying to escape the carnage, and, as with most of Romero's films, it has a good amount of political commentary, particularly on the military and the government (although it's much more blatant here and is more in line with his later films rather than his early work). Unfortunately, as we'll get into shortly, I don't think Romero succeeded in that aspect with The Crazies as he did with his original Living Dead films. With the failure of this film, along with his two previous films, There's Always Vanilla and Season of the Witch, with the exception of a couple of documentaries, he wouldn't make another movie until his vampire film Martin in 1976.
My biggest problem with The Crazies is the pace. This thing moves like a car rolling out of control down a hill. It opens with a quickly with an already infected man trashing his house, murdering his wife, and finally setting the house on fire. From there, we're hastily "introduced" to the characters and the situation and the plot is set in motion. You would think that would make the movie exciting and fun but it doesn't. A movie can be boring because it goes too fast as well as because it's too slow and that's what happens here. Moreover, we're introduced to the lead characters so quickly and learn only the basics about them, if that, before they're thrown into the situation. I know Night of the Living Dead had the situation start off quickly from the beginning but we still had lulls to get to know the characters so we could root for them as they tried to face down the zombie menace. This movie's pace is so frantic that we don't have any time to grow close to the characters and therefore, what happens to them means nothing to us. On top of that, after the opening cemetery scene, Night of the Living Dead let us see how dire and serious the zombie outbreak was becoming, with more and more zombies showing up at the farmhouse that served as the main setting of the film as well as news reports on the radio and TV about how the outbreak is happening everywhere. We don't get anything like that in The Crazies. Before we know what's going on, the military takes over the town and starts hunting down and killing the infected people while we only learn about the gravity of the situation from fast-paced, hard to hear dialogue from the military and government officials. Show us, Mr. Romero, don't tell us. On top of that, as if the pacing of this movie wasn't enough to make it completely batshit insane, the editing is nuts too. Most of the cuts don't seem to last longer than ten seconds, if that, and there are also moments where there is insane inter-cutting between a government official describing something and what he's describing being put into action. There is a way of doing that and making it work but it just comes across as clumsy here, as if the editor, which is Romero as well, is having a stroke. The structure also gets monotonous and tiresome after a while. A reviewer on IMDB said it best: the movie repeats scenes of the leads trying to escape the military, the army officers arguing with each other about how ass-backwards the operation is and how nothing is going right, the lead scientist who is trying to find a cure arguing with the Army officers that he doesn't have enough resources or time to do his work properly, and government officials in Washington trying to keep themselves from being publicly embarrassed over and over again to the point where you feel like the story is not progressing at all. In short, the film is just an incomprehensible, fast-paced mess.
Not only are the characters so hastily introduced that it's hard to care for them but it doesn't help that the acting isn't the best either. Lane Carroll (who never worked again after this movie and before it, appeared only in Hercules in New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film, and Romero's There's Always Vanilla) and W.G. McMillan (who's actually appeared in a lot of stuff, mostly TV work, since although this was only his second film) play the film's lead couple, Judy and David. There's not much to say about them. David is the most level-headed member of the on the run civilians whereas Judy really doesn't do much except act as a nurse at the very beginning of the movie before they go on the run (her doctor actually advises both her and David to try to escape the military). Judy is pregnant with David's baby, they're very much in love, and they're determined to make it out alive. But, Judy eventually succumbs to the virus and is killed by a posse, dying in David's arms. Also, in an ironic twist of fate, David develops a natural immunity to the virus but at the end of the movie when he's finally captured by the military, they don't bother doing an immunity test on him. I did find that to be a wonderful bit of sad irony: a potential cure is right under their noses and they don't even know about it or care to check. There's also Harold Wayne Jones (who only appeared in a few other films and TV stuff, including Romero's Knightriders, after this) as David's friend, Clank, who is part of the same fire brigade that David is and also served in Vietnam, same as him. He kind of looks like David and I wonder if that was intentional, that it was meant to be another link between the two, even though their personalities are different. It's hinted at in his first scene that Clank also has feelings for Judy and is maybe a tad bit jealous that she didn't pick him as a lover. He's also much more hot-headed and impulsive than David, which is acerbated when he contracts the virus. He starts gunning down soldiers left and right and acts in a kind of schizophrenic way. He even goes so far as to attack David near the end of the film when he realizes that he and Judy tried to leave him behind. He's eventually killed by the military. Again, while the acting by these three characters is not bad, it's still amateurish and, again, coupled with how hastily they're introduced, makes it hard for me to really care for them.
Now Artie and his daughter Kathy are two characters that I can honestly say I didn't like. Artie is played by the late Richard Liberty, who would go on to play the mad Dr. Logan in Day of the Dead. While Liberty's performance in that movie is wonderfully entertaining in how over the top it is, here he's playing a creepy, sleazy man who has lost his wife and is left with only his daughter, whom it is revealed he has sick sexual feelings for. I don't know if it's because he thinks she's his wife in his delusional mind, judging from how he calls her by his wife's name at one point, or if he just harbors sick fantasies about her period, although it's probably as a direct result of the virus, but whatever the case, he actually attempts to have sex with her. He's stopped by Clank but still, that's just messed up. Personally, I wonder if Artie already had these sick thoughts and the virus just brought them up to the surface. In any case, he hangs himself after his rape attempt is foiled. Now, Lynn Lowry (who appeared in stuff like I Drink Your Blood before this and would go on to be in David Cronenberg's first feature film, Shivers, and Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People) annoyed the crap out of me as Kathy. This virus makes men go crazy but it seems to make women childlike and annoying (it does the same thing to Judy near the end and her death is her own stupid fault as a result). Kathy just aggravates me in this film due to her annoying, childlike way of speaking, her almost getting them shot by the soldiers, and her death is her own fault because she wanders out in a field in front of a bunch of soldiers. You just can't make me care about someone if the virus they get makes them act annoying and stupid. She also has one of the most hilariously bad death scenes ever. She gets shot, spins around, and simply says, "Oh," before keeling over. I don't know what Romero was thinking when he had her act like that but I just couldn't take it seriously.
I thought Lloyd Hollar was fine as Col. Peckem, who's trying his best to maintain order in the chaos-ridden town but knows that the chance of this town surviving the situation is slim to non-existent. By the end of the movie, he's completely disconcerted and despondent when he's called away to another town that's possibly infected with the virus. The way he reacts, you know that he feels that it's probably never going to end no matter what he tries to do. The ending scene with him being airlifted out of the town and looking down upon the chaos that has completely devastated it is quite well done and would be even more powerful if the rest of the movie had been as effective. Another character that I also kind of enjoyed was Richard France (who would go on to play the eye-patch wearing scientist on the TV in Dawn of the Dead) as the frustrated Dr. Watts. I found him to be funny and he kind of unintentionally sounded like me voicing my complaints about the film itself. In his introductory scene, he's complaining about how the army is forcing him to go to Evans City even though he's confident that he could do more productive work at the base and when the soldiers say that they can't do anything about it, he yells, "This is so random!" I was thinking, "Tell me about it, man!" Even later, he's saying stuff akin to, "This is a mess!" and so on and, again, I'm like, "Right on." I also laughed at how, after being unable to look through a microscope with the helmet of his bio-suit on, he decides to heck with it and takes it off, even though he could be risking infecting himself. His last scene is also another one of the few I actually liked, where he finds a cure for the virus but when he tries to get out of the building, the soldiers think he's one of the infected because he's not wearing a bio-suit and they try to quarantine him. He's trampled by a stampede of the infected and is killed as a result and the cure is destroyed. It's another bit of sad irony that the military have unknowingly helped to destroy what chance they had of stopping the virus. The last character of note is Harry Spillman as Maj. Ryder, the initial man who is in charge of the operation until Col. Peckem arrives. He's just doing his job and himself is unaware of the true nature of the situation until Peckem actually tells him. When he is told, he feels like a fool that he bought the cover-up story of the situation. Not much else to say about him. I also must briefly mention Will Disney (I doubt he was related to Walt) as Dr. Brookmyre, the kindly doctor who tells Judy that she and David must get away from the army for the sake of the baby. He's not that noteworthy of a character but he's obviously a decent person due to his concern for the couple.
It's obvious that the film is meant to be about how one can't trust the American government and the military. The original script for the film by Paul McCollough only focused on the military aspect of the story at the beginning of it but the producer of the film, Lee Hessel, asked Romero to re-write it to where it focused much more on that aspect. For me, this is another problem about the movie. They should have focused on the characters who are trying to escape the military occupation of the town or focus on a heroic member of the army who is trying to find a cure for the virus (like the movie Outbreak) instead of going back and forth between the two subplots because, like I said, it gets monotonous and repetitive after a while. Also, when Romero attempts to do political statements and social satire in a subtle way while focusing mainly on making a good movie, it's entertaining; however, when he makes it so blatant that it feels like you're being beaten over the head with it, as in his later Living Dead films and Bruiser, it can be insufferable. While the obvious commentary in The Crazies didn't aggravate me too much and I didn't think it was the film's biggest problem by far, I still think it's one of the examples of Romero being unable to do it subtly. There are so many scenes with the military and government officials trying to find a way to cover their ass about the bio-weapon that I was like, "Okay, I get it. You feel that we can't trust the military and that our government officials lie." I felt the same way about his criticism of the media in Diary of the Dead: "Okay, the media can be bad and corrupted. I understand." Romero even makes the president of the United States look like a Bond villain or something, with his back to the camera, smoking a cigar and speaking in a voice that sounds shady (but then again, this was during the era of Richard Nixon so maybe it was justified). I thought the best part of the commentary was the scenes I described where the military unknowingly helps destroy a potential cure for the virus and later, they ignore another one. That was nice and subtle, that the military doesn't realize that it's doing more harm than good. I also thought the images of the soldiers in faceless, bio-containment suits would have been a subtle enough jab at the military. So, while I do see potential in the political statement that Romero is trying to make here, I think the blatant nature of it ultimately overrules the more subtle and well done aspects of it.
The makeup effects in this movie are fine and do their job. This was before Romero started working with Tom Savini so the effects here are not quite up to the standard put forth in the movies they would do together but since this isn't a zombie movie, there's no need for graphically over the top blood-splatters and the like. It's mainly consists of squibs with blood packs in them that result in some fairly graphic gunshots, some corpses getting burnt, a priest setting himself on fire which is fairly gruesome and disturbing, and, most gruesome of all, ripped open necks and head getting blown off. The effects are fine but they're really quick and the blood is that bright red, almost orange, blood that would later turn up in Dawn of the Dead that isn't very realistic when you get down to it. The infected people themselves don't look much different than normal people. It's all in the way they act. So, while there are some makeup effects here, they're just standard but simply serve their purpose in this type of movie.
Like the structure of the movie, the music by Bruce Roberts is very repetitive and monotonous. The bit that is repeated over and over and over again is the sound of these marching drums used to signify the military. You hear it so many times over the course of the movie that you really get tired of it. There are also some instrumental versions of military themes that play over the music as well as some bits with a singer vocalizing. In all honesty, the score is nothing to write home about in the slightest. There is a song called God Help Us that plays over the ending credits, though, that I felt was effective in showing the hopelessness of it all as Col. Peckem looks down on the town and sees how it is now in absolute shambles. As I've said, it's too bad the rest of the movie is so unremarkable because if it had been more powerful, that song would have hit home even more so.
Some may feel that The Crazies is an overlooked gem in George Romero's filmography but to me, it should have stayed obscure. It has some good points to it but for the most part, it's a fast-paced, frantic, confusing mess of a film that doesn't give you enough time to grow close to the lead characters, doesn't build the situation up well, has a monotonous, repetitive structure, and has some political commentary that is so blatant and in your face that it overshadows the more subtle and well done aspects of it. Every director, no matter how good, is going to make some bad movies and in my opinion, this is one of Romero's, made in-between two of his truly watershed films. Though, as I say, you can sort of see The Crazies as a cousin to Romero's zombie films as well as a precursor to 28 Days Later and the like. But, the reason the zombie films work is because they're simple whereas this is far too complex. Bottom line, I know this movie has fans and I respect that. I would never try to take that away from you. To me, though, The Crazies is just that: it's way too crazy for its own good and it cripples what could have been an interesting movie.
One night in the small town of Evans City, PA, two young children are messing around when suddenly, their father goes mad and begins tearing their house apart. They also discover that he killed their mother before he eventually sets the house on fire. Two firemen and the pregnant nurse girlfriend of one of them get the call to come to work when the fire is reported and soon, the military rolls into the town and all of the soldiers are wearing biological containment suits with gas masks. It is revealed that a plane carrying a secret biological weapon developed by the military crashed near the town just recently and the virus, codenamed Trixie, has infected the town's water supply. The virus either eventually kills its victims or renders them incurably insane. The military does everything it can to both contain the virus within the perimeters of the town as well as try to find a cure but the hastily put together operation leads to the deaths of many soldiers and civilians and mayhem engulfs the town. The two firemen and the nurse are briefly captured by the military but they, along with a man and his teenage daughter, manage to escape and attempt to take cover in the hills since they don't trust the actions of the military, particularly the firemen, who are ex-Vietnam veterans. The rest of the film centers on the group's attempts to get away and keep from becoming infected and the military trying to stop the virus from spreading throughout the rest of the country.
This was made in the period between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead where George Romero was attempting to establish his identity as a director who could do other things besides strictly horror films. Funny thing is that The Crazies, up until Dawn of the Dead, was the closest thing to a sequel to Night of the Living Dead that Romero ever produced. It is similar to his zombie movies in that it focuses on people being turned into murderous creatures, a group of people trying to escape the carnage, and, as with most of Romero's films, it has a good amount of political commentary, particularly on the military and the government (although it's much more blatant here and is more in line with his later films rather than his early work). Unfortunately, as we'll get into shortly, I don't think Romero succeeded in that aspect with The Crazies as he did with his original Living Dead films. With the failure of this film, along with his two previous films, There's Always Vanilla and Season of the Witch, with the exception of a couple of documentaries, he wouldn't make another movie until his vampire film Martin in 1976.
My biggest problem with The Crazies is the pace. This thing moves like a car rolling out of control down a hill. It opens with a quickly with an already infected man trashing his house, murdering his wife, and finally setting the house on fire. From there, we're hastily "introduced" to the characters and the situation and the plot is set in motion. You would think that would make the movie exciting and fun but it doesn't. A movie can be boring because it goes too fast as well as because it's too slow and that's what happens here. Moreover, we're introduced to the lead characters so quickly and learn only the basics about them, if that, before they're thrown into the situation. I know Night of the Living Dead had the situation start off quickly from the beginning but we still had lulls to get to know the characters so we could root for them as they tried to face down the zombie menace. This movie's pace is so frantic that we don't have any time to grow close to the characters and therefore, what happens to them means nothing to us. On top of that, after the opening cemetery scene, Night of the Living Dead let us see how dire and serious the zombie outbreak was becoming, with more and more zombies showing up at the farmhouse that served as the main setting of the film as well as news reports on the radio and TV about how the outbreak is happening everywhere. We don't get anything like that in The Crazies. Before we know what's going on, the military takes over the town and starts hunting down and killing the infected people while we only learn about the gravity of the situation from fast-paced, hard to hear dialogue from the military and government officials. Show us, Mr. Romero, don't tell us. On top of that, as if the pacing of this movie wasn't enough to make it completely batshit insane, the editing is nuts too. Most of the cuts don't seem to last longer than ten seconds, if that, and there are also moments where there is insane inter-cutting between a government official describing something and what he's describing being put into action. There is a way of doing that and making it work but it just comes across as clumsy here, as if the editor, which is Romero as well, is having a stroke. The structure also gets monotonous and tiresome after a while. A reviewer on IMDB said it best: the movie repeats scenes of the leads trying to escape the military, the army officers arguing with each other about how ass-backwards the operation is and how nothing is going right, the lead scientist who is trying to find a cure arguing with the Army officers that he doesn't have enough resources or time to do his work properly, and government officials in Washington trying to keep themselves from being publicly embarrassed over and over again to the point where you feel like the story is not progressing at all. In short, the film is just an incomprehensible, fast-paced mess.
Not only are the characters so hastily introduced that it's hard to care for them but it doesn't help that the acting isn't the best either. Lane Carroll (who never worked again after this movie and before it, appeared only in Hercules in New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film, and Romero's There's Always Vanilla) and W.G. McMillan (who's actually appeared in a lot of stuff, mostly TV work, since although this was only his second film) play the film's lead couple, Judy and David. There's not much to say about them. David is the most level-headed member of the on the run civilians whereas Judy really doesn't do much except act as a nurse at the very beginning of the movie before they go on the run (her doctor actually advises both her and David to try to escape the military). Judy is pregnant with David's baby, they're very much in love, and they're determined to make it out alive. But, Judy eventually succumbs to the virus and is killed by a posse, dying in David's arms. Also, in an ironic twist of fate, David develops a natural immunity to the virus but at the end of the movie when he's finally captured by the military, they don't bother doing an immunity test on him. I did find that to be a wonderful bit of sad irony: a potential cure is right under their noses and they don't even know about it or care to check. There's also Harold Wayne Jones (who only appeared in a few other films and TV stuff, including Romero's Knightriders, after this) as David's friend, Clank, who is part of the same fire brigade that David is and also served in Vietnam, same as him. He kind of looks like David and I wonder if that was intentional, that it was meant to be another link between the two, even though their personalities are different. It's hinted at in his first scene that Clank also has feelings for Judy and is maybe a tad bit jealous that she didn't pick him as a lover. He's also much more hot-headed and impulsive than David, which is acerbated when he contracts the virus. He starts gunning down soldiers left and right and acts in a kind of schizophrenic way. He even goes so far as to attack David near the end of the film when he realizes that he and Judy tried to leave him behind. He's eventually killed by the military. Again, while the acting by these three characters is not bad, it's still amateurish and, again, coupled with how hastily they're introduced, makes it hard for me to really care for them.
Now Artie and his daughter Kathy are two characters that I can honestly say I didn't like. Artie is played by the late Richard Liberty, who would go on to play the mad Dr. Logan in Day of the Dead. While Liberty's performance in that movie is wonderfully entertaining in how over the top it is, here he's playing a creepy, sleazy man who has lost his wife and is left with only his daughter, whom it is revealed he has sick sexual feelings for. I don't know if it's because he thinks she's his wife in his delusional mind, judging from how he calls her by his wife's name at one point, or if he just harbors sick fantasies about her period, although it's probably as a direct result of the virus, but whatever the case, he actually attempts to have sex with her. He's stopped by Clank but still, that's just messed up. Personally, I wonder if Artie already had these sick thoughts and the virus just brought them up to the surface. In any case, he hangs himself after his rape attempt is foiled. Now, Lynn Lowry (who appeared in stuff like I Drink Your Blood before this and would go on to be in David Cronenberg's first feature film, Shivers, and Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People) annoyed the crap out of me as Kathy. This virus makes men go crazy but it seems to make women childlike and annoying (it does the same thing to Judy near the end and her death is her own stupid fault as a result). Kathy just aggravates me in this film due to her annoying, childlike way of speaking, her almost getting them shot by the soldiers, and her death is her own fault because she wanders out in a field in front of a bunch of soldiers. You just can't make me care about someone if the virus they get makes them act annoying and stupid. She also has one of the most hilariously bad death scenes ever. She gets shot, spins around, and simply says, "Oh," before keeling over. I don't know what Romero was thinking when he had her act like that but I just couldn't take it seriously.
I thought Lloyd Hollar was fine as Col. Peckem, who's trying his best to maintain order in the chaos-ridden town but knows that the chance of this town surviving the situation is slim to non-existent. By the end of the movie, he's completely disconcerted and despondent when he's called away to another town that's possibly infected with the virus. The way he reacts, you know that he feels that it's probably never going to end no matter what he tries to do. The ending scene with him being airlifted out of the town and looking down upon the chaos that has completely devastated it is quite well done and would be even more powerful if the rest of the movie had been as effective. Another character that I also kind of enjoyed was Richard France (who would go on to play the eye-patch wearing scientist on the TV in Dawn of the Dead) as the frustrated Dr. Watts. I found him to be funny and he kind of unintentionally sounded like me voicing my complaints about the film itself. In his introductory scene, he's complaining about how the army is forcing him to go to Evans City even though he's confident that he could do more productive work at the base and when the soldiers say that they can't do anything about it, he yells, "This is so random!" I was thinking, "Tell me about it, man!" Even later, he's saying stuff akin to, "This is a mess!" and so on and, again, I'm like, "Right on." I also laughed at how, after being unable to look through a microscope with the helmet of his bio-suit on, he decides to heck with it and takes it off, even though he could be risking infecting himself. His last scene is also another one of the few I actually liked, where he finds a cure for the virus but when he tries to get out of the building, the soldiers think he's one of the infected because he's not wearing a bio-suit and they try to quarantine him. He's trampled by a stampede of the infected and is killed as a result and the cure is destroyed. It's another bit of sad irony that the military have unknowingly helped to destroy what chance they had of stopping the virus. The last character of note is Harry Spillman as Maj. Ryder, the initial man who is in charge of the operation until Col. Peckem arrives. He's just doing his job and himself is unaware of the true nature of the situation until Peckem actually tells him. When he is told, he feels like a fool that he bought the cover-up story of the situation. Not much else to say about him. I also must briefly mention Will Disney (I doubt he was related to Walt) as Dr. Brookmyre, the kindly doctor who tells Judy that she and David must get away from the army for the sake of the baby. He's not that noteworthy of a character but he's obviously a decent person due to his concern for the couple.
It's obvious that the film is meant to be about how one can't trust the American government and the military. The original script for the film by Paul McCollough only focused on the military aspect of the story at the beginning of it but the producer of the film, Lee Hessel, asked Romero to re-write it to where it focused much more on that aspect. For me, this is another problem about the movie. They should have focused on the characters who are trying to escape the military occupation of the town or focus on a heroic member of the army who is trying to find a cure for the virus (like the movie Outbreak) instead of going back and forth between the two subplots because, like I said, it gets monotonous and repetitive after a while. Also, when Romero attempts to do political statements and social satire in a subtle way while focusing mainly on making a good movie, it's entertaining; however, when he makes it so blatant that it feels like you're being beaten over the head with it, as in his later Living Dead films and Bruiser, it can be insufferable. While the obvious commentary in The Crazies didn't aggravate me too much and I didn't think it was the film's biggest problem by far, I still think it's one of the examples of Romero being unable to do it subtly. There are so many scenes with the military and government officials trying to find a way to cover their ass about the bio-weapon that I was like, "Okay, I get it. You feel that we can't trust the military and that our government officials lie." I felt the same way about his criticism of the media in Diary of the Dead: "Okay, the media can be bad and corrupted. I understand." Romero even makes the president of the United States look like a Bond villain or something, with his back to the camera, smoking a cigar and speaking in a voice that sounds shady (but then again, this was during the era of Richard Nixon so maybe it was justified). I thought the best part of the commentary was the scenes I described where the military unknowingly helps destroy a potential cure for the virus and later, they ignore another one. That was nice and subtle, that the military doesn't realize that it's doing more harm than good. I also thought the images of the soldiers in faceless, bio-containment suits would have been a subtle enough jab at the military. So, while I do see potential in the political statement that Romero is trying to make here, I think the blatant nature of it ultimately overrules the more subtle and well done aspects of it.
The makeup effects in this movie are fine and do their job. This was before Romero started working with Tom Savini so the effects here are not quite up to the standard put forth in the movies they would do together but since this isn't a zombie movie, there's no need for graphically over the top blood-splatters and the like. It's mainly consists of squibs with blood packs in them that result in some fairly graphic gunshots, some corpses getting burnt, a priest setting himself on fire which is fairly gruesome and disturbing, and, most gruesome of all, ripped open necks and head getting blown off. The effects are fine but they're really quick and the blood is that bright red, almost orange, blood that would later turn up in Dawn of the Dead that isn't very realistic when you get down to it. The infected people themselves don't look much different than normal people. It's all in the way they act. So, while there are some makeup effects here, they're just standard but simply serve their purpose in this type of movie.
Like the structure of the movie, the music by Bruce Roberts is very repetitive and monotonous. The bit that is repeated over and over and over again is the sound of these marching drums used to signify the military. You hear it so many times over the course of the movie that you really get tired of it. There are also some instrumental versions of military themes that play over the music as well as some bits with a singer vocalizing. In all honesty, the score is nothing to write home about in the slightest. There is a song called God Help Us that plays over the ending credits, though, that I felt was effective in showing the hopelessness of it all as Col. Peckem looks down on the town and sees how it is now in absolute shambles. As I've said, it's too bad the rest of the movie is so unremarkable because if it had been more powerful, that song would have hit home even more so.
Some may feel that The Crazies is an overlooked gem in George Romero's filmography but to me, it should have stayed obscure. It has some good points to it but for the most part, it's a fast-paced, frantic, confusing mess of a film that doesn't give you enough time to grow close to the lead characters, doesn't build the situation up well, has a monotonous, repetitive structure, and has some political commentary that is so blatant and in your face that it overshadows the more subtle and well done aspects of it. Every director, no matter how good, is going to make some bad movies and in my opinion, this is one of Romero's, made in-between two of his truly watershed films. Though, as I say, you can sort of see The Crazies as a cousin to Romero's zombie films as well as a precursor to 28 Days Later and the like. But, the reason the zombie films work is because they're simple whereas this is far too complex. Bottom line, I know this movie has fans and I respect that. I would never try to take that away from you. To me, though, The Crazies is just that: it's way too crazy for its own good and it cripples what could have been an interesting movie.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Stuff I Grew Up With: Star Fox 64 (1997)
This is yet another game that I doubt I would have ever owned had I not played a demo of it at Wal-Mart. I never played the original Star Fox for the Super NES (and to this day, I still haven't) so I had no expectations when I went into this game. Also, the controller for the demo was messed up when I played it. I couldn't keep the Arwing very high in the air for very long and I never finished the first level because I kept crashing. And yet, despite that, what little of the game I played at the Wal-Mart was enough to let me know that this was one I was going to play in-depth the first chance I got. What really sold me were the characters' distinct, likable personalities as well as the fact that there was much more dialogue in this game than I had ever heard in any game before. I just thought that was so cool. In any case, I rented the game many times from my local video store and finally owned it when I received it as a Christmas present in 1997. While there are some things about the game that irked me as a kid and still kind of get under skin now, I feel that, on the whole, this is one of the N64's most well put together and fun games.
The story of Star Fox 64, which you can hear on an opening crawl when you first activate single player mode, takes place in the Lylat System. On the fourth planet, Corneria, a brilliant scientist named Andross goes mad with power and nearly destroys the planet before being exiled to a distant planet called Venom. Five years later, when strange activity is reported at Venom, the mercenary Star Fox team is sent to investigate. One team member, Pigma, betrays the team, resulting in the other two members, Peppy Hare and the leader, James McCloud, to be captured by Andross. Peppy manages to escape but James is killed by Andross. A few years later, Andross declares war on the Lylat System and a new Star Fox team headed by James McCloud's son, Fox, is contacted by General Pepper of the Cornerian Army to defeat the power-mad scientist.
From my research, it seems that Star Fox 64 came into being when master game-creator Shigeru Miyamoto decided to shelve the proposed sequel of the original Star Fox in favor of using the more powerful capabilities of the Nintendo 64 to create a much more striking and advanced game. Star Fox 64 is a remake of the original game that also combines elements from the canceled sequel. Miyamoto himself said that 60% of the game is remade from the original while 30% is from the sequel and 10% is completely original. Looking at existing screenshots of Star Fox 2, you can definitely see that a lot of it was incorporated into Star Fox 64. While I've never played the original game, I've always found Star Fox 2 to be a fascinating curiosity piece. It was covered extensively in Nintendo Power and other gaming magazines (I didn't have a subscription to any gaming magazines at the time but I've learned about this after the fact) and there were many screenshots from it but it was never released. It's odd because the Japanese version of the game, at least, was finished (it's unknown whether the English version was ever completed). I don't see why they just didn't go ahead and eventually release it. Nowadays, I don't see why they couldn't put it on the Wii Virtual Console if it's at least playable. Just one of those mysteries of video games, I guess.
The gameplay is interesting. In each level, you control one of three vehicles being operated by Fox McCloud. Most of the time, you're flying a jet-like vehicle called an Arwing but there are a couple of levels where you pilot a tank called the Landmaster and in one level, you operate a submarine called the Blue Marine. Most of the levels are in a rail-shooter corridor mode where your vehicle goes down a fixed path and you can maneuver around to avoid obstacles and shoot at enemies. A few levels as well as certain sections of various levels are in All-Range mode, where you can move around freely to engage an enemy in combat (the Arwing is the only vehicle you can operate in All-Range mode). Nearly every level has a boss you face at the end of it. In fact, both levels on the planet Venom have a secondary boss that you face before moving onto the battle with Andross. Where the gameplay becomes atypical is in its non-linear series of levels. Depending on what path you take in a level or whether or not you succeed in achieving a certain objective, the path you take throughout the Lylat System in order to reach Venom tends to be different through each playthrough. The planets along each path vary in difficulty: the bottom row of planets is the easy path, the middle one is the medium, and the top one is the hard path. On top of that, you get a different game ending depending on which path you take to Venom. There's no save feature so you're intended to finish the game in each playthrough and if you don't or get a game over, you have to start from first mission on Corneria again. While I personally prefer the normal fixed series of levels in a game, I won't deny that this does enable the game to provide you with a different experience each time you play it.
The three vehicles share some aspects such as upgrades and weapons but are also different in what they can and can't do. The Arwing has the largest number of different maneuvers. It can brake and boost, perform a somersault so you can flip around behind a pursuing enemy, and in All-Range mode, it can perform a U-turn. There's a maneuver called the barrel-roll you can pull off by pressing the Z-button twice. This move deflects enemy fire. You can also pick up a maximum of nine smart bombs and fire them with the B-button in order to clear out huge clusters of enemies (you can wait for them to explode on their own or detonate them by pressing the B-button again). By holding the A-button, you can charge your laser as well as lock onto enemies and fire upon them. The Arwing starts out with a single laser blasters but you can acquire laser upgrades strewn throughout the levels. Flying into one enables you to fire two blasts and flying into a second upgrades your two blasters up in power. Your upgrades do carry over from level to level. However, if you get killed or lose one of your wings, you downgrade back to one. You can repair your wings by flying into another laser upgrade or a special wing repair item.
The Landmaster tank has many of the same capabilities as the Arwing: boost, brake, and barrel-roll (however, the barrel roll here is for avoiding enemy fire and doesn't deflect it). The Landmaster can also hover in order to get over obstacles. You can also lock on to enemies and fire smart bombs with the Landmaster but you can't upgrade your laser. The Landmaster tends to be my least favorite vehicle in the game because it's difficult to hit airborne enemies from the perspective you have while being stuck on the ground. The Blue Marine sub is basically the Arwing except underwater. In addition to boosting, braking, and barrel-rolling (which does deflect enemy fire here), the Blue Marine can also upgrade its lasers and lock on. In place of smart bombs, the sub has an unlimited supply of torpedoes which light up the darkness as well as destroying enemies (trust me, you'll be glad those torpedoes are unlimited because the level where you use the sub is choked with enemies). All the vehicles encounter the same items that enable you to regain health, which are these rings that you have to fly or drive through. Silver rings recover a little bit of damage but you usually encounter a lot of them to make up for it; there are some rare silver star-shaped rings that appear in the later levels that recover much more health than the normal ones; and finally, there are gold rings which recover the most amount of health. On top of that, if you get three gold rings, your life bar becomes longer and another three gold rings gets you an extra life.
As I said, what really struck me about Star Fox 64 were the characters and the actual use of voice-acting. It seems that in the original game, the characters spoke in gibberish that was supposed to be the actual language of the Lylat System (also, it seems like the PAL version of this game has a feature where you can enable that Lylat language among the dialogue). Here, though, the characters talk and act like real people. The dialogue may not be exactly Oscar-worthy, mind you, but at the time, this was quite impressive for a game. During each level, there is a lot of com-chatter between the characters as they relay to you gameplay advice, technical information on the strength of the bosses you come across, alert you to hidden paths in some levels, or just bust each other's chops, as you would expect members of a mercenary team who've known each for a long time to do (like the members of Dutch's rescue team in Predator). While I do enjoy the characters most of the time, they do tend to grate on my nerves in all-range mode levels where they're constantly getting chased by enemies and always call on you to help them. Even after you help, they tend to get in trouble again (especially Slippy Toad). It's like they can't do anything for themselves in those situations. Also, if their life-bar is drained completely during a mission, they're forced to retreat and have to sit out the next mission while their ship is being repaired. That makes you really paranoid when you're flying through a huge cluster of enemies and shooting constantly because your team members have a bad tendency of flying right into the line of fire and if you accidentally shoot them, they will admonish you for it. That can get old really fast. In All-Range mode, if you're not careful, you can fly into them but even though you can lose a wing, I do like hearing them complain: Peppy Hare yells, "Watch where you're flying!" and Falco Lombardi goes, "Get out of my way!" I also like hearing them complain when you shoot down an enemy that they're pursuing. Bottom line, I do think it's a very cool feature but there are times where the characters can get on my nerves.
Let's get this out of way: my least favorite character by far is Slippy Toad. I could just shoot down this little pissant myself if I could. And I know I'm not alone in my thinking. Now, I will give Slippy credit that you need him around when you're battling a boss because he brings up its lifebar but that's about all he's good for. He sucks as a pilot and he can't shoot for crap. The most annoying thing about him is that he's constantly getting pursued by enemies and always whining, "Fox, get this guy off me!" (in fact, he does this within a few seconds of the first mission of the game!) He'll keep whining, yelling, "Oh no!" and "Slippy's hit!" until you help him but even if you do, he'll more than likely get into trouble again and you have to bail him out a second time. That makes his cockiness in one level where he's being followed by enemies even more annoying. He says, "You want a piece of me?" and when you destroy those those enemies, he says, "Take that!" Oh, shut up, Slippy, you stupid, annoying wart-hive! Lyssa Browne's voice acting is irritating as hell too. You have to wonder about his gender because he's supposed to be a guy but there's a woman doing his voice. While women usually do voices for children, including you male children, Slippy isn't supposed to be a child. In any case, the voice, and the character, is just really grating.
The other two characters are much more tolerable, even if you have to bail them out of danger as well from time to time but not nearly as often as Slippy. I like Peppy Hare's role as the oldest, most experienced member of the team who gives you gameplay advice throughout the levels. My favorite voice actor for him is Isaac Marshall who did him in this game because the voice does sound middle-aged but it doesn't sound like somebody who's about to keel over at any moment, as Peppy tends to sound in later games. I just like the personality that comes through the voice: gun-ho but knows he has to rely on his friends and acts primarily as a mentor to Fox, perhaps feeling like a surrogate father to him in light of what happened to James McCloud. On top of that, he utters the popular line, "Do a barrel-roll!" which has become an internet meme in recent years. My favorite team member is Falco Lombardi, the hotshot bird pilot of the team. Granted, he is like the Raphael of the group in that he's a hot-headed smart ass and constantly gives you crap, even when you save his hide from enemies (though, to be fair, he almost never actually asks for help) but he's the most skilled fighter of the group and really tends to help you when you're confronted with a lot of enemies. Plus, I like Bill Johns' voice acting, with all the sarcastic remarks that he throws in. I know some find his attitude to be really annoying but I just love this character. As for Fox McCloud himself, I thought Mike West's acting fit the character well: a confident, young leader who begins to become like his father. Nothing else I can say about that since Fox is the character that you control. Finally, even though he's technically not a member of the team, there's ROB 64 (voiced by David Frederick White), the robot pilot of the team's mothership, Great Fox. Although he stays out of the action for most of the game and mainly gives you technical data, he often calls you and when you respond, he'll send you an item (if you're not missing a wing or you have all the laser upgrades, it's a smart bomb). He does, however, join the action during a very tough mission where he has Great Fox fire its lasers in order to destroy big, Star Destroyer-like crafts that you come across in that level.
The game also has a nice supporting cast. General Pepper, the leader of the Cornerian army, is the guy who informs you of each mission at the beginning of the levels (although, in some instances, he tries to dissuade the team from going if he feels it's too dangerous). Not much say to about him though you have to wonder, though, why he doesn't send his armed forces to help you in the most difficult missions. I do prefer the voice given to him by Rick May in this game to the others (the one in Star Fox Adventures sounded a little too bombastic to me). There are two supporting characters who actually do join you in one specific mission for each of them and appear in another one afterward. Bill Grey, an old friend of Fox's, first appears when you have to help his squadron stave off an attack on a planet called Katina. Whether or not you manage to stop the attack, Bill appears briefly in your very next mission to assist you. Another character is Katt Monroe (voiced by Lyssa Browne), a pink cat with a crush on Falco who appears out of nowhere in one mission and also assists you briefly in the very next mission just like Bill. While I do think Bill is a cool character, I feel that both he and Katt aren't all that useful in the subsequent missions they appear in, especially Katt. But, at least Bill's first appearance is tied into that level's actual mission. Katt just comes out of nowhere. But whatever. I also can't be certain if James McCloud is really dead or not because after the real battle with Andross you engage in on Venom, James appears to guide you out of the rapidly exploding base. Once you escape, he disappears without a trace so you're not sure whether he was a ghost, an illusion, or if that really was him. In any case, he's given a deep, commanding voice by Mike West that is quite striking when you first hear it, especially when you consider that it's the same guy who does Fox's voice.
The look of Andross has always kind of perplexed me. Each time you encounter him, not only in this game but in Star Fox Adventures as well, he's always a gigantic floating head and hands. I'm sure that's not his real form and he just became that in order to battle you but it just never looked aesthetically useful in the long run. How could he have become such a great scientist and created a huge empire if he's just a floating head and hands? In any case, in this game, Rick May gives him a booming voice that sounds almost mechanical, kind of like Darth Vader. By the way, Wikipedia noted that he kind of looks like Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes and now that I think about it, he does. Other than Andross, the main antagonists that you come across at least once during every playthrough of the entire game are members of the Star Wolf team. They're basically an evil counterpart to the Star Fox team in that they're a mercenary team that Andross has hired. The leader of the team, Wolf O'Donnell (voiced by Rick May), has a cultured, sophisticated voice (in this game, anyway) but nonetheless, is an evil character who thinks he's a better pilot than Fox. Pigma Dengar (voiced by David Frederick White) is the member of the original Star Fox team who betrayed James McCloud and Peppy. His main character trait is that he's a greedy, sadistic pig who only cares about getting a huge paycheck from Andross. Leon Powalski (voiced by Rick May) is a chameleon-like character with a calm, classy, and sinister voice who seems to be a bit arrogant since he sometimes refers to himself as, "the Great Leon!" Finally, there's Andrew Oikonny (voiced by Bill Johns), the young nephew of Andross. He's like Slippy in that he's the youngest member of the team and is the most inexperienced at piloting. He's also not very smart. Every time you encounter the Star Wolf team, the various members will each target a specific member of your team: Wolf targets you, Pigma goes after Peppy, Leon tries to shoot down Falco, and Andrew chases Slippy. Worse, if any of your teammates gets so damaged that they're forced to retreat, whoever was chasing them will join Wolf in pursuing you. You can't avoid the Star Wolf team in this game because no matter what path you take, you'll eventually run into them.
Here's an interesting story concerning myself and the voices in the game. As I said, the voices was something that astonished my ten-year old mind at the time and was what attracted me to the game. However, I kind of grew to hate the game's voices because of the annoyance they unintentionally caused me in my personal life. There was this kid at my elementary school who found out that I really liked the game and once he found that out, he would aggravate me mercilessly during recess, asking what I said when this character said this or when this character said that. What really tore it, though, was when the guy somehow found out my phone number and started calling me and asking those idiotic questions at home. I got so annoyed that eventually, there was a time where he called and my mom picked up the phone but when she called me, I refused to talk to the guy. She was immensely embarrassed and kept yelling at me to talk to him but I was like, "You can threaten me all you want, Mom, I am not talking to that idiot." That kid had been a thorn in my side all throughout elementary school, always annoying me to end. I guess maybe he sincerely wanted to be friends with me at this point but he went about it the completely wrong way. He refused to leave me alone, even when I told him he was driving me crazy. I eventually went to a different school so it didn't matter but I was kind of resentful towards Star Fox 64 for a while afterward. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the game itself but I just some people would be interested in that.
The game is very well designed. Granted, the character designs do have that polygonal look to them that was common with games around that time but the environments with the planets and the enemies especially are quite imaginative in their designs. The enemies don't consist of just typical spaceships, although those do look good. There are big rolling robots, robotic fire birds that drop exploding eggs on you, bizarre-looking crafts called tripods that hover right in front of you while firing, long eel-like creatures that slither through space, bee-shaped enemies that fire swirling multi-colored blasts at you, and a whole lot of others. The most interesting living creatures that you encounter are on the planets Aquas and Zoness, which I will elaborate on when I discuss the actual levels. The bosses are also interesting creations. The first couple of bosses are standard robots and ships but as you progress through the game, they become more complex and imaginative in how they look, as well as much tougher to beat because you often have to hit them in a certain way in order to make them vulnerable and finish the job.
To make the game's replay value even more interesting, there's an Expert mode that you can activate by receiving a medal on each level. You get a medal when you destroy a certain number of enemies as well as if all of your teammates being with you at the end of the level. As you can guess, Expert mode is a much harder version of the typical single player campaign. There are more enemies in each level and your vehicle is much more vulnerable (your Arwing will lose wing if you run into anything). Interesting thing to note about Expert mode is that Fox wears dark sunglasses much like his father, James. In fact, a strategy guide for the game (not the one published by Nintendo Power, mind you) described it as being able to play as James McCloud but that's a big lie. Apparently, if you obtain all the medals on Expert mode, you get a new title screen for the game. Big whoop. (Fun thing you can do with the title screen, though, is that you can move around the 64 in the title and the four characters will actually watch it in curiosity and amazement.) Other stuff you acquire from getting medals include a sound test where you can listen to the game's soundtrack and activate new vehicles to use in multiplayer mode.
As I've said before, being an only child I hardly ever bothered with the multiplayer sections of any games as a kid unless I had friends over. While my friends and I did play the multiplayer of Star Fox 64 every now and then, it wasn't nearly as much as the multiplayer modes of games like Goldeneye or Mario Kart 64. As with most N64 titles, this game's multiplayer can support up to four players and there are three modes of play: Point Match, where the winner is the player who shoots down the other player the largest number of times; Battle Royal, where the winner is the last player who isn't shot down; and Time Trial, where you have to destroy a large number of enemies in a certain amount of time. You start with the Arwing being the only available vehicle but after earning medals in Story Mode, you can use the Landmaster (which can upgrade its lasers here) or have your character walk around on foot with a bazooka. There were only three arenas to play in, though. To be honest, I barely remember anything about the multiplayer on this game. I don't remember it being awful, I just don't remember much of it since we hardly ever played it but that, in and of itself, should say something. I wonder why they didn't have it to where you and your friends could play in Story mode and the team members who weren't being controlled could be handled by the computer? Just saying.
This game was also the first N64 title to make use of the Rumble Pack, which it came packaged with. The Rumble Pack, for those who don't know, was this large peripheral that you would attach to the back of your controller and every time you get hit by something or when there was a gigantic explosion in the game, the controller would vibrate. It was an attempt by Nintendo to make you feel like you were part of the action, like you really were flying along in a huge space battle. Personally, though, I almost never used the Rumble Pack. It was an interesting idea but when I'm in the heat of a huge battle or an intense race (I'm personally referring to Diddy Kong Racing, which also made use of the Rumble Pack), I find the vibration to be more of a distraction than anything else. Unfortunately, games for next generation consoles are now almost guaranteed to have a rumble feature and the controllers for said consoles had the actual mechanism built into them. Some games are good enough to give you the option of turning the rumble off but some don't (I find that to be true mainly with games for the Wii) so you're stuck with it. Didn't mean to go off on a tangent there and if you enjoy the rumble feature in this or any other game, Rumble Pack or not, that's fine but it just bugs me.
The music, composed by Koji Kondo and Hajime Wakai, is pretty good. The main title has become the recognized Star Fox theme and it has a nice, grandiose sound to it (I'm not sure if that theme was in the original game). Some other bits of music that I like include the eerie theme in the Sector X level, the music that plays during the Landmaster levels, the Katina music, the Bolse Defense Outpost music, the Zoness theme, the Sector Z music, the music during the Easy route level on Venom, and the triumphant music that plays after you defeat Andross. It may not be one of the best scores ever created for a video game (to me, at least) but I think it's pretty good and serves its purpose well.
Now for my usual overview of the levels.
Corneria: The first level is a cinch. You must rescue Corneria City from an attack by Andross' forces. Like I said earlier, shows how much of a pest he is going to be throughout the game because he needs you to bail him out of trouble just a few seconds into the first mission. The enemies here include big Garuda robots that throw big steel beams at you as well as push buildings over, sometimes on top of useful items if you don't destroy them quickly; a lot of standard fighter crafts; the aforementioned firebird robots that drop egg bombs on you; mole missiles that shoot up from the ground and head right for you; small tank-like crafts that you'll encounter constantly throughout the game; and ski bots on the water which don't attack you but can get in the way if you try to fly underneath these rock arches. There are two paths you can take to finish this level. The first is to keep following the direction the corridor mode is pointing you in. Completing the level on that path will lead you to the Meteo asteroid field. The other is a bit more of a challenge. There's a point in the city where Falco is pursued by three fighters and his shield malfunctions so you have to help him by taking them down (you'll have to boost in order to get close enough to shoot them). After saving Falco, fly under the series of stone arches on the second patch of ocean and Falco will point towards a different path. This path will take you to Sector Y. Both paths lead you to a different boss you must fight but they're both ridiculously easy. The boss on route 1 is a giant robot who is one of the most vulnerable enemies in the entire game. All you have to do to destroy him is shoot the green panels on his back. You can shoot one of his legs off to make him completely defenseless but that's not even necessary to defeat him. (You get an extra life if you fly between the robot's legs and do somersault without bumping into him.) The boss on route 2 is a huge aircraft carrier that is also very easy. All you have to do is shoot the insides of its three launch bays when they open. After you destroyed them, the actual craft will vulnerable to attack.
Meteo: This level's pretty straightforward. You have to destroy 200 targets to get a medal here but the enormous amount of asteroids (which do give you points when you destroy them) and enemies make it an easy task. Some types of asteroids you can blow up, while others you can't. At one point, you come across these huge, planet-like asteroids and you better follow Peppy's advice on what to do to keep from getting crushed. There are also a couple of long, hollow asteroids that you must fly through. The enormous amount of enemies consist of wedge-shaped spaceships, lasers attached to certain asteroids, a type of robot that hops up and down while firing at you, long, eel-like creatures that shoot fireballs at you, robots that are only vulnerable when their orange backsides are facing you, butterfly-like fighters that cluster together in formations, robots that create webs that you can run into if you're not careful, and the bee enemies that fire swirling blasts at you (you can't lock onto them). As with most, there are two ways to exit this level. The first is to fly through the asteroid field to the end where you battle a huge ship. This ship has several glowing yellow sections that are obviously where you shoot it. The ship does have a shield that absorbs your laser blasts and fires them back at you, an attack that shoots electrical bolts at you, and two laser blasts that are shaped like a series of rings but again, it's so obvious where you need to shoot that it's not that hard. Beating this boss sends you to Fortuna. However, if you fly through the seven warp rings in the area before you reach the boss (which is difficult to do because your ship starts spinning crazily after you go through a good number of them and it's hard to maneuver), you'll enter into a strange dimension with a number bizarre enemies and whole lot of items that will eventually lead you to Katina.
Fortuna: This is the first completely All-Range mode level of the game. Your mission is to recover the base from the enemies that have taken it over. (By the way, doesn't this level remind you of the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back? Heck, even the situation is kind of similar.) When you first start the level, you may think it'll be easy since all you have to deal with are these very vulnerable saucers but ROB 64 will eventually inform you that a time bomb has been planted at the base. And that's when the Star Wolf team attacks. Now you have a time limit to where you must take out the Star Wolf team so you can diffuse the bomb. The problem is that the evil mercenaries' ships are fast and hard to hit. You can lock onto them but they often manage to outrun the charged up laser blast. You can flip around to tag the one chasing you but he'll often take evasive action and it's hard to keep him in your sights. You often have to bank really hard to do so. This is one of those levels where I tend to get annoyed at my other teammates. They're all calling for your help but you've got your own problems with Star Wolf himself baring down on you. Your best bet is to target each member of the team one at a time and shoot them enough to where your teammate can turn the tables on his pursuer. Unfortunately, Slippy usually gets in trouble again even after you help him (of course). You shouldn't be scrapped for health, though, because there are radar beacons that give up silver rings when you destroy them. Where you go next depends on the outcome of the situation. If the Star Wolf team evades you and the base is destroyed, you'll proceed on to Sector X. If you manage to shoot the members of the team down, Fox will fly into the base, diffuse the bomb, and proceed to Solar.
Sector X: This is an interesting level in that you're sent to investigate a rumored secret weapon that Andross has been working on but when you reach the base, you discover that it's been destroyed (if you know anything about science fiction, you can probably guess what the cause is going to be revealed as). Even though it's now a big floating field of debris, the place is still crawling with enemies. There are canine robotic fighters that attack you when you get close, robot fighters that tend to link up in groups of three, more of those killer bee robots, floating space mines that explode automatically when you get too close, and automated lasers on the floating remnants of the base. There are also these floating spy satellites which don't attack you and in fact, are quite useful because they contain items. Besides the enemies, you also have to avoid big floating pieces of debris and there are spots where you have to maneuver your Arwing carefully to fly through openings in the really big pieces of the base. There are three possible ways to complete this stage. Eventually, you'll come to a fork in the path and if you go left, you come across four gateways that you can open by shooting them repeatedly until they turn red. If you fly through all four (which is a bit tricky since they tend to disconnect from the pieces of debris they're attached to), you'll enter a warp zone similar to the one in Meteo and you'll travel to Sector Z. If you fail to open the gates or you take the right path instead, you'll eventually face the boss which, predictably, is the secret weapon which has gone haywire. It's a large, floating robot torso and there are two phases to the battle. First, you have to shoot at its head when its glowing eyes are visible while avoiding laser blasts from its head and its hands which it shoots at you like missiles. When you keep shooting it and blow its head off, you'll think you've beaten it but the robot comes back to life for another round (the thing even wags its finger at you). This time, it has a head that's much smaller and harder to hit and at the same time, you have to dodge faster laser blasts, the robot throwing big pieces of the base at you, and it spinning around while flailing its huge arms. If you manage to destroy the robot quickly, you'll move on to the planet of Macbeth. However, Slippy will charge at the robot early in the second phase and if he gets hit by the robot's hand, he'll tumble towards the planet of Titania and you'll have to go there to rescue him next.
Titania: This is basically the Lylat System's version of the planet Mars with the red sky and red sand everywhere. It's actually an interesting level in design because of the ancient architecture which hints at a long lost civilization as well as strewn about skeletons of some species of large creature. This is one of the two levels where you use the Landmaster tank and while its useful in attacking all the ground-based enemies, it's hard to hit all the enemy fighters in the sky (even when you're in the Landmaster, you still have to occasionally save your comrades, who are in their Arwings, from pursuing enemies). There are plenty of enemies and hazards here. There are gigantic crawling robots that aren't that hard to destroy but you will take damage if you drive into them, robots on hills that throw boulders at you, enemy tanks which aren't hard to destroy but they often travel in groups, and crafts that dump land mines on you. Speaking of which, there are land mines everywhere in this level and they're hard to get a lock with the Landmaster's turret. There are also big explosives that detonate when you get close but if you shoot them, they'll jump away and explode in the air. There are tall, sentry towers that shoot long lasers at you and it's tough to avoid two or three in a row because they criss-cross each other. On top of all that, there are sections where you have to avoid giant pillars which tumble down towards you. There's a valley right before the boss where all of the hazards come out of the woodwork at you and it can get frustrating, especially on Expert mode. The boss here is a bizarre, four-armed, skeletal creature that has Slippy in one of its hands. To free Slippy, you must destroy the other three arms and when you destroy the fourth one, its beating heart behind its rib-cage will exposed. The boss' attacks are laser blasts from its upper arms while it tries to smash you with its lower ones and a Godzilla-like energy blast that it shoots from its mouth. This boss can be tricky but if you keep a cool head, you'll eventually take it down.
Bolse: This space station is the easy route's entry into Venom. This is an all-range mode mission and the first part is simple. You have to destroy the six shield reactors so you can attack the energy core (the enemy fighters flying around the station are shielded as well). You have to fight the station's gravitational pull during this section and the energy rays emitting from the reactors can damage your ship but it's not too difficult. Once the shield is down, a swarm of fighters will come out of the center of the base. There are laser cannons spread along the surface of the station. Worst of all, if the path you took through the Lylat System didn't lead you to Fortuna or if it did and any members of the Star Wolf team escaped that mission, you'll have to deal with them here. The good news, though, is that there's no time limit here and since the station has stopped rotating, flying is much easier. During the dogfight, the energy core will eventually reveal itself. To destroy it, you have to blast the eight yellow panels on the towering center of the core. This task is made complicated by the core's constant turning as well as the fact that destroyed panels start spraying laser blasts. I never found this to be too difficult a level, though.
Katina: This is the first of the three medium levels. To get here, you'll either have to use the warp in Meteo or be redirected from Sector Y (I'll elaborate on that later). In any case, this level is straight out of Independence Day (which makes sense seeing as how it was the biggest movie of the year before this game's release). It's an all-range mode level where you join the squadron led by Fox's old friend Bill Grey in staving off an attack on the planet's base. When you first enter the stage, you may find it difficult to differentiate the enemy ships from those in Bill's unit. The difference is that the enemy fighters are saucer-shaped whereas the friendly ones look like jets. Even with that difference in mind, though, you more than likely will accidentally destroy some friendly crafts. While your targeting computer will only lock onto enemies, the charged up blasts will destroy any friendly crafts that are too close. It's best not to use smart bombs as well. Eventually, an enormous mothership will enter the battle and position itself above the base. It first will spew out more fighters from its four hatches. You must destroy all four of the hatches, which can get tricky because they're constantly opening and closing (Bill will tell you when they're opening). After they're destroyed, the saucer will expose its powerful laser core. You have one minute to destroy it before it charges up sufficiently to vaporize the base. Much like the Fortuna mission, where you go next depends on whether you save the base or not. If the base is destroyed (again, that cinematic comes straight out of Independence Day), you'll be redirected to Sector X. If you succeed in defeating the saucer, you'll proceed on to Solar (Bill will briefly join in both missions when you arrive at them from here).
Solar: This level is basically the Lylat System's sun. Your biggest enemy here is the heat. You have to stay as high as you can because the closer you get to the molten surface, the faster you'll take damage. To complicate that, there are sections where there are huge swells in the lava which you absolutely must keep from touching. There are also large swarms of birds made of lava, some of which will chase your teammates, and gigantic fireballs that spring up across the surface. Fortunately, items are all over the place here, revealed when you blast apart rocks that spring out of the lava. If you come here from Katina, Bill Grey will appear briefly and if you follow him, he'll drop some items for you. This is one of the few levels where there are no hidden paths or outcomes. Your next destination is always the same. The boss here is a gigantic, mantis-like bioweapon that's made entirely of magma. It's not too difficult to beat though. You first have to destroy its arms and after that, just shoot its mouth until its dead. It will create tidal waves of lava with its arms and once you've destroyed them, it will sling its sizzling hot magma bodily fluid at you as well as splash into the lave to create a huge swell. It also spits rocks at you from its mouth but those rocks are filled with items so it's unknowingly helping you on that score.
Macbeth: This is the other Landmaster level. The planet serves as the location of the factories and plants that create Andross' weapons. Your main target here is a supply train that's heading for the main weapons factory. The thing is that the train is not defenseless in the slightest. It dumps enormous boulders in your path as well as sends them hurtling towards at several points and it also has a car with a tower that fires missiles at you or at a nearby hill to put more boulders in your path. The engineer will also activate security bars that you have to hover over and, of course, the sky is full of fighters that your comrades are trying their best to take down (you will have to rescue them a couple of times). The train's cars take a number of hits to destroy but the good thing is that they're big and slow, which makes them easy to hit. Destroying some cars will cause chain reactions that blow up a good number of cars ahead of them (though you'll have to blast the cars' charred remains out of your way). Your next destination depends on whether you manage to take out the main weapons factory or not. You'll come across eight switches along the track that will change the train's direction and send it crashing into the weapons factory if you manage to flip them all by shooting them. If you manage that, you'll head to Area 6 next. If you're unable to flip the switches, you'll have to take out a hovering robot that the train deploys (this thing appears while you're trying to flip the switches and if you manage to flip them all, you don't have to worry about fighting it). This robot has a number of fierce attacks including iron bars that it shoots along your path that you must take out, wide beams of energy that it shoots from its wings, and its tail that it uses you scoop you up. You have to target its head and tail (both of which are kind of tricky to hit, especially the head since it's so small) and once they're destroyed, you must shoot the glowing power panel on the train. That will cripple the robot for a few seconds and it will be vulnerable to laser fire. After taking out the robot, you'll head to Bolse. (I must note that I absolutely love the dialogue by the train engineer in this stage, especially when you defeat him. When you change the train's direction, he yells, "No! Hit the brakes! I can't STOP IT!" When you destroy the robot, it'll come crashing towards him and he'll yell, "No! Get away!" Really funny stuff.)
Sector Y: The first of the hard levels, this has you flying into a sector of space to save a fleet of Cornerian ships from Andross' forces. This level is a war of attrition as you fly through in corridor mode and do battle with enormous, heavily armed battleships (you can destroy them but you can disarm some of them by blasting the turrets on their sides), homing missiles, and a ton of flying, robot warriors with shields and large laser blasters. Your next destination is determined before you enter the boss battle. If you destroy less than a hundred enemies, you'll be sent to Katina. If you manage to destroy over a hundred enemies, you'll head onward to Aquas. In order to get the hundred hits, it's best to take the upper path when this one battleship forces you to either go above or below it. The first part of the boss battle consists of you battling two large robot warriors. These guys are quick, agile, and they constantly charge you and shoot at you with their huge laser pistols. They're annoying but I never found them to be that hard to defeat. After you destroy them, though, the big boy, an even larger, silver robot warrior, comes out to play. Despite its size, it's still very agile, is well protected by its large shield, and a direct hit from its laser gun can really damage your Arwing. You can destroy its shield but it takes an ungodly number of hits. After that, just keep sweeping and blasting it until it explodes (with its pilot screaming in rage and defeat right before it does).
Aquas: The sole level where you use the Blue Marine sub, this can be a very tough stage. There are enemies galore here and it can become really congested. You have to constantly fire your lasers and torpedoes just to clear the way as well as destroy incoming threats. Early in the stage, there are little, normal-sized fish that don't harm you but are attracted by your torpedoes and tend to block them from hitting their intended targets. Fortunately, they disappear when you get further into the level. The design of the enemy sea creatures you encounter is quite inspired, I must say but on the same token, they're all very tough and can take a lot of punishment. You have these enormous, long fish that swim across your path, blocking your way; oversized angler fish that take a lot of hits to destroy, even with torpedoes; these weird creatures that look like floating shells at first but open themselves up to reveal humanoid proportions and you can only damage them by shooting their vulnerable insides; big starfish that explode like mines; clams that fire laser blasts at you; jellyfish creatures that link up in threes to create electrical charges (you can't destroy them at all); enormous squids that don't actually attack you but can get in your way; and these scallop-like things that are armored on one side and are best taken down with torpedoes. You also have to admire the Atlantis-like ruins you come across throughout the level, suggesting that there was a civilization on this planet but it eventually sunk into the sea. The boss is an enormous clam monster that isn't difficult so much as it's just annoying. The thing shoots eels out of the pods on top of its shell (you can destroy the pods), and enormous pearls out of the pods inside its mouth (you can only temporarily put them out of commission rather than destroy them). You first have to shoot the two stalks inside the mouth that are holding up the top of the shell until they turn white and then blast them with torpedoes. Once they're both gone, you have to target the clam's eye. It puts a shield in front its eye that you have to shoot until the eye is exposed and then target it with torpedoes. The more you damage the creature, the more pearls it'll shoot to block your torpedo shots so the last two or three hits can be tricky to score.
Zoness: This is another ocean planet like Aquas only this time, you fly above the water in your Arwing. Also like Aquas, this level is choked with unique and challenging enemies, particularly those that travel in big groups. There are two types of bird-like creatures: one type that drops bombs on you and bigger types that tend to chase your comrades; big water skimmers that can only be taken out with charged up lasers and bombs; clam-like things that leap out of the water and shoot energy blasts at you; squadrons of patrol boats; and, worst of all, enormous heavily armored sea serpents that don't attack you but can damage your Arwing if you run into them. You can't hurt those big serpents at all and they pop up very unexpectedly so you must keep your guard up. Fortunately, there are lots of enemy supply boats that yield items when you destroy the containers on their decks and this is where Falco's would-be girlfriend Katt drops in to help and, like Bill Grey, she'll join you on whatever your next mission is. There are also searchlights strewn throughout the level. If you manage to destroy them all (which can be tricky because some are behind these gates whose rudders you have to shoot quickly in order to open them), you'll move on to Sector Z next. If even one spots you, though, and you just have to fly by one without shooting it for it to detect you, you'll be forced to head to Macbeth next. Either way, you'll have to battle the boss, which is a heavily armored battleship operated by an ape who talks like a stereotypical pirate. At first, it's completely invincible to laser fire and you'll have to use smart bombs (fortunately, it shoots plenty of slow moving iron balls that turn into smart bombs when you blast them). First, you have to destroy the twin funnels on the front and while you're trying to do so, the ship will submerge down into the water and fire a big, spiked ball on a chain at you. Once the funnels are destroyed, you have to blow up one of the launching pads on either side of the ship and once you do, the ship will turn around and try to use its backside crane to recover the lost part of the ship. Destroy that crane and the ship will be completely defenseless (you can now use your lasers on it as well as bombs to finish it off).
Sector Z: This All-Range mode level is fairly straightforward at first. The first part of it has you scramble out of Great Fox to take on a number of enemy fighters. These crafts are fast and more heavily armored than most enemy crafts you've encountered before and there will be instances where you'll have to save your buddies from them. There's also a lot of floating space junk so if you're not careful, you could lose a wing. However, if you get too badly damaged, you can fly into the docking bay on Great Fox's backside, you'll come out good as new (you'll have to reclaim your laser upgrades if you lost a wing yourself, though). Where things get dire is when the enemy fires six big missiles at Great Fox. The missiles approach in ever escalating numbers: the first approaches by itself, the next two approach together, and the last three come at Great Fox all at once. ROB 64 will warn you when they are approaching and how far they are from their target. If you don't have the highest laser upgrade, your best bet is to use charged lasers and smart bombs. The missiles move very slowly so you will have a lot of time but the problem is that you have to wait until they enter your radar area to launch a full-scale attack on them; otherwise, your Arwing will automatically do a U-turn. Your friends, including Katt, will help you take them out (if they're not being pursued by enemy fighters, that is) and if you fire rapidly enough, you will destroy them. If Great Fox is hit by any of the missiles, you'll be redirected to Bolse. If you manage to destroy the missiles, you will proceed on to Area 6.
Area 6: As the last level before you reach Venom, this level is a war of attrition in every sense of the term. It's an absolute endurance with thousands of enemy fighters, more of those bee robots, lots of umbrella-shaped space stations that turn and fire multiple laser blasts at you, octopus-like missiles that drift toward that you must take as quickly as possible because the concussions from the explosion can still damage your Arwing even if the missiles themselves don't hit you, and two types of battleships: ones with skulls on the side that can be taken down with a few shots and Star Destroyer-like ones that can only be taken down by destroying the bridge. All three of your teammates will need your help at one point or another and at one point, Andross himself will come on the communication line and taunt you (that is, if you answer the call). The good news is that ROB 64 will have Great Fox fire upon some of the battleships if you answer his call. (Weirdly enough, the two characters in charge of operations here are reptiles instead of apes.) The boss is a large saucer-shaped satellite that has metal tentacles with claws on the ends, a warp mechanism, an unlimited supply of missiles and fighters that it can deploy, and worst of all, a powerful laser that it shoots out of its core like the freaking Death Star. You have to shoot the tentacles to make the satellite open up to reveal its core and then you must shoot the three energy balls rotating around the core (the latter segment is hard because the screen keeps shifting, making it easy to miss). Repeat this process twice and the core will become vulnerable. You have to keep shooting the core and the tentacles until the thing blows up.
Venom: There are two different stages on Venom, depending on which route you took to reach it. If you approach it from Bolse, you'll enter a corridor-mode level where you have to battle swarms of fighters, robots, and small tank-like crafts, enormous pillars that jut out of the ground, and big blocks that will either come flying towards you or form a hazardous forest that you have to navigate through carefully (that latter situation depends on which of the many different routes you take). By the way, this level is nearly impossible on Expert mode. You will die so many times there because there's always something that you'll run into and therefore, lose one or both of your wings. After flying through over such a hazardous planet surface, you'll enter a temple where you face one last boss before the battle with Andross: a running statue that is actually a robot. You have to destroy the rock armor on every part of his body until his head starts rotating and then blast it until it blows apart. After that, the robot's mechanical innards will be completely exposed and you can destroy him with just a few more shots. During the chase, the robot will strike the walls and send long bars in your path (after a while, there will so many that they'll be hard to avoid) and there are also falling pillars and big statues with swinging arms along the path.
After destroying that robot, you head down a long corridor to Andross (fortunately, the game is good enough to give you plenty of items to make up for any damage you received during the level beforehand). This form of Andross with the big floating head and hands isn't that hard to defeat, actually. He tries to smack you with either of his hands and then tries to smash you by clapping his hands together. He also shoots a lightning bolt from one hand and his most damaging attack is when he tries to inhale you into his mouth. When he does that, fire a smart bomb into his mouth or if you don't have any, somersault like crazy to avoid being sucked in. If he does manage to suck you in, he'll spit you back out, causing a lot of damage, destroying one or both of your wings, and disorienting your ship for a few seconds. He also spits out a ton of rocks but fortunately, those tend to have items inside them. His hands are quite vulnerable and so are his eyes. If you shoot him in the eyes, he'll pause momentarily and that will give you ample time to target his hands. Once you've destroyed both of his hands, the brow between his eyes will become vulnerable but only at certain key points, namely after you shoot a bomb into his mouth or when he spits out all those rocks. All you have to do is blast away at those moments until his head explodes. When you've come from Bolse, his head will explode to reveal that, in actuality, you've been fighting a robotic double of Andross. You have to get rid of it quickly because there's no way to dodge it when it charges at you. After you destroy it, you'll get the ending credits but afterward, Andross' head will appear in the sky, revealing that you haven't really defeated him yet.
The real final battle begins when you enter Venom from Area 6. Before you battle Andross, you'll have to battle the Star Wolf team one last time. As if that wasn't bad enough, they're now flying new and improved ships. I've been able to take down their original ships quite easily since I got used to them but the ones they fly here are quite a challenge. They're faster and much more agile than before, with stronger twin lasers (instead of the single ones their original ships fired), the ability to do a barrel roll and create a stronger shield than your Arwing, so much so that even direct hits from smart bombs don't do as much damage. During this fight, your teammates' cries for help are even more annoying than before (Slippy's especially) and I tend to lose most of them, especially if they took a lot of damage from Area 6. Believe me, you don't want to have to face two or more of these improved ships by yourself if you can help it. Even after you manage to turn the tables in your friends' favor, you still have to deal with Wolf himself and a ship that's nearly impossible to get good shots at. This fight will take a long time and you'll lose a lot of lives the first time you try it. My only advice is just to stay patient and keep trying.
After dealing with the Star Wolf team, you'll head to the real final battle with Andross. Getting to him is not very straightforward this time. You have to navigate a maze of corridors until you find him and you have to be careful of the sharp turns or you'll lose a wing. When you get to Andross, the first part of the fight will be the same as the battle with mechanical doppelganger. When you destroy Andross' head, that's when the real battle begins. Andross' oversized brain and eyes will be all that's left. This is a very tricky battle, which is in all-range mode this time. Andross launches his eyes at you on long energy strands that can damage your ship if you touch them and the eyes themselves shoot lasers at you. Those eyes can be difficult to get in your sights because they're on the edge of the field and always seem to get right behind. Your best bet is to keep somersaulting until they're in your sights and blast them away quickly. After you destroy the eyes, it's time to attack the brain itself but this is harder than it sounds. You must shoot the medulla, which is the small section on the back of the brain that's a different color from the main section. The brain moves around quite fast and getting behind it can be tricky because the tentacles underneath it can severely damage your ship and destroy your wings if they get you. To make matters worse, if you accidentally shoot the main section of the brain, it'll teleport right behind you. Tight turns and barrel rolls are your best bets to getting the medulla in your sights.
Even after you destroy Andross, you're still not done. Andross decides to try to take you with him by causing a huge explosion but at the last possible moment, James McCloud suddenly shows up to show you the way out. This last part can be challenging because you can't let James get too far ahead of you and you have to be ready to turn. If you lose James and take the wrong path, you'll fly right into a fiery dead end and be destroyed instantly. Once you make it, you can celebrate because the endurance test is finally over.
Man, that review took a while but it was worth it because Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games by far. It has good characters, groundbreaking use of real voice acting, enjoyable and challenging gameplay, well designed levels and enemies, good music, and a non-linear way of playing that makes for a lot of replay value. If you've never played it before and have a Nintendo 64, I'd say give it a try. Also, if you feel that this isn't your kind of game, remember that I knew nothing about it before I actually played it. In other words, you might just be surprised.
The story of Star Fox 64, which you can hear on an opening crawl when you first activate single player mode, takes place in the Lylat System. On the fourth planet, Corneria, a brilliant scientist named Andross goes mad with power and nearly destroys the planet before being exiled to a distant planet called Venom. Five years later, when strange activity is reported at Venom, the mercenary Star Fox team is sent to investigate. One team member, Pigma, betrays the team, resulting in the other two members, Peppy Hare and the leader, James McCloud, to be captured by Andross. Peppy manages to escape but James is killed by Andross. A few years later, Andross declares war on the Lylat System and a new Star Fox team headed by James McCloud's son, Fox, is contacted by General Pepper of the Cornerian Army to defeat the power-mad scientist.
From my research, it seems that Star Fox 64 came into being when master game-creator Shigeru Miyamoto decided to shelve the proposed sequel of the original Star Fox in favor of using the more powerful capabilities of the Nintendo 64 to create a much more striking and advanced game. Star Fox 64 is a remake of the original game that also combines elements from the canceled sequel. Miyamoto himself said that 60% of the game is remade from the original while 30% is from the sequel and 10% is completely original. Looking at existing screenshots of Star Fox 2, you can definitely see that a lot of it was incorporated into Star Fox 64. While I've never played the original game, I've always found Star Fox 2 to be a fascinating curiosity piece. It was covered extensively in Nintendo Power and other gaming magazines (I didn't have a subscription to any gaming magazines at the time but I've learned about this after the fact) and there were many screenshots from it but it was never released. It's odd because the Japanese version of the game, at least, was finished (it's unknown whether the English version was ever completed). I don't see why they just didn't go ahead and eventually release it. Nowadays, I don't see why they couldn't put it on the Wii Virtual Console if it's at least playable. Just one of those mysteries of video games, I guess.
The gameplay is interesting. In each level, you control one of three vehicles being operated by Fox McCloud. Most of the time, you're flying a jet-like vehicle called an Arwing but there are a couple of levels where you pilot a tank called the Landmaster and in one level, you operate a submarine called the Blue Marine. Most of the levels are in a rail-shooter corridor mode where your vehicle goes down a fixed path and you can maneuver around to avoid obstacles and shoot at enemies. A few levels as well as certain sections of various levels are in All-Range mode, where you can move around freely to engage an enemy in combat (the Arwing is the only vehicle you can operate in All-Range mode). Nearly every level has a boss you face at the end of it. In fact, both levels on the planet Venom have a secondary boss that you face before moving onto the battle with Andross. Where the gameplay becomes atypical is in its non-linear series of levels. Depending on what path you take in a level or whether or not you succeed in achieving a certain objective, the path you take throughout the Lylat System in order to reach Venom tends to be different through each playthrough. The planets along each path vary in difficulty: the bottom row of planets is the easy path, the middle one is the medium, and the top one is the hard path. On top of that, you get a different game ending depending on which path you take to Venom. There's no save feature so you're intended to finish the game in each playthrough and if you don't or get a game over, you have to start from first mission on Corneria again. While I personally prefer the normal fixed series of levels in a game, I won't deny that this does enable the game to provide you with a different experience each time you play it.
The three vehicles share some aspects such as upgrades and weapons but are also different in what they can and can't do. The Arwing has the largest number of different maneuvers. It can brake and boost, perform a somersault so you can flip around behind a pursuing enemy, and in All-Range mode, it can perform a U-turn. There's a maneuver called the barrel-roll you can pull off by pressing the Z-button twice. This move deflects enemy fire. You can also pick up a maximum of nine smart bombs and fire them with the B-button in order to clear out huge clusters of enemies (you can wait for them to explode on their own or detonate them by pressing the B-button again). By holding the A-button, you can charge your laser as well as lock onto enemies and fire upon them. The Arwing starts out with a single laser blasters but you can acquire laser upgrades strewn throughout the levels. Flying into one enables you to fire two blasts and flying into a second upgrades your two blasters up in power. Your upgrades do carry over from level to level. However, if you get killed or lose one of your wings, you downgrade back to one. You can repair your wings by flying into another laser upgrade or a special wing repair item.
The Landmaster tank has many of the same capabilities as the Arwing: boost, brake, and barrel-roll (however, the barrel roll here is for avoiding enemy fire and doesn't deflect it). The Landmaster can also hover in order to get over obstacles. You can also lock on to enemies and fire smart bombs with the Landmaster but you can't upgrade your laser. The Landmaster tends to be my least favorite vehicle in the game because it's difficult to hit airborne enemies from the perspective you have while being stuck on the ground. The Blue Marine sub is basically the Arwing except underwater. In addition to boosting, braking, and barrel-rolling (which does deflect enemy fire here), the Blue Marine can also upgrade its lasers and lock on. In place of smart bombs, the sub has an unlimited supply of torpedoes which light up the darkness as well as destroying enemies (trust me, you'll be glad those torpedoes are unlimited because the level where you use the sub is choked with enemies). All the vehicles encounter the same items that enable you to regain health, which are these rings that you have to fly or drive through. Silver rings recover a little bit of damage but you usually encounter a lot of them to make up for it; there are some rare silver star-shaped rings that appear in the later levels that recover much more health than the normal ones; and finally, there are gold rings which recover the most amount of health. On top of that, if you get three gold rings, your life bar becomes longer and another three gold rings gets you an extra life.
As I said, what really struck me about Star Fox 64 were the characters and the actual use of voice-acting. It seems that in the original game, the characters spoke in gibberish that was supposed to be the actual language of the Lylat System (also, it seems like the PAL version of this game has a feature where you can enable that Lylat language among the dialogue). Here, though, the characters talk and act like real people. The dialogue may not be exactly Oscar-worthy, mind you, but at the time, this was quite impressive for a game. During each level, there is a lot of com-chatter between the characters as they relay to you gameplay advice, technical information on the strength of the bosses you come across, alert you to hidden paths in some levels, or just bust each other's chops, as you would expect members of a mercenary team who've known each for a long time to do (like the members of Dutch's rescue team in Predator). While I do enjoy the characters most of the time, they do tend to grate on my nerves in all-range mode levels where they're constantly getting chased by enemies and always call on you to help them. Even after you help, they tend to get in trouble again (especially Slippy Toad). It's like they can't do anything for themselves in those situations. Also, if their life-bar is drained completely during a mission, they're forced to retreat and have to sit out the next mission while their ship is being repaired. That makes you really paranoid when you're flying through a huge cluster of enemies and shooting constantly because your team members have a bad tendency of flying right into the line of fire and if you accidentally shoot them, they will admonish you for it. That can get old really fast. In All-Range mode, if you're not careful, you can fly into them but even though you can lose a wing, I do like hearing them complain: Peppy Hare yells, "Watch where you're flying!" and Falco Lombardi goes, "Get out of my way!" I also like hearing them complain when you shoot down an enemy that they're pursuing. Bottom line, I do think it's a very cool feature but there are times where the characters can get on my nerves.
Let's get this out of way: my least favorite character by far is Slippy Toad. I could just shoot down this little pissant myself if I could. And I know I'm not alone in my thinking. Now, I will give Slippy credit that you need him around when you're battling a boss because he brings up its lifebar but that's about all he's good for. He sucks as a pilot and he can't shoot for crap. The most annoying thing about him is that he's constantly getting pursued by enemies and always whining, "Fox, get this guy off me!" (in fact, he does this within a few seconds of the first mission of the game!) He'll keep whining, yelling, "Oh no!" and "Slippy's hit!" until you help him but even if you do, he'll more than likely get into trouble again and you have to bail him out a second time. That makes his cockiness in one level where he's being followed by enemies even more annoying. He says, "You want a piece of me?" and when you destroy those those enemies, he says, "Take that!" Oh, shut up, Slippy, you stupid, annoying wart-hive! Lyssa Browne's voice acting is irritating as hell too. You have to wonder about his gender because he's supposed to be a guy but there's a woman doing his voice. While women usually do voices for children, including you male children, Slippy isn't supposed to be a child. In any case, the voice, and the character, is just really grating.
The other two characters are much more tolerable, even if you have to bail them out of danger as well from time to time but not nearly as often as Slippy. I like Peppy Hare's role as the oldest, most experienced member of the team who gives you gameplay advice throughout the levels. My favorite voice actor for him is Isaac Marshall who did him in this game because the voice does sound middle-aged but it doesn't sound like somebody who's about to keel over at any moment, as Peppy tends to sound in later games. I just like the personality that comes through the voice: gun-ho but knows he has to rely on his friends and acts primarily as a mentor to Fox, perhaps feeling like a surrogate father to him in light of what happened to James McCloud. On top of that, he utters the popular line, "Do a barrel-roll!" which has become an internet meme in recent years. My favorite team member is Falco Lombardi, the hotshot bird pilot of the team. Granted, he is like the Raphael of the group in that he's a hot-headed smart ass and constantly gives you crap, even when you save his hide from enemies (though, to be fair, he almost never actually asks for help) but he's the most skilled fighter of the group and really tends to help you when you're confronted with a lot of enemies. Plus, I like Bill Johns' voice acting, with all the sarcastic remarks that he throws in. I know some find his attitude to be really annoying but I just love this character. As for Fox McCloud himself, I thought Mike West's acting fit the character well: a confident, young leader who begins to become like his father. Nothing else I can say about that since Fox is the character that you control. Finally, even though he's technically not a member of the team, there's ROB 64 (voiced by David Frederick White), the robot pilot of the team's mothership, Great Fox. Although he stays out of the action for most of the game and mainly gives you technical data, he often calls you and when you respond, he'll send you an item (if you're not missing a wing or you have all the laser upgrades, it's a smart bomb). He does, however, join the action during a very tough mission where he has Great Fox fire its lasers in order to destroy big, Star Destroyer-like crafts that you come across in that level.
The game also has a nice supporting cast. General Pepper, the leader of the Cornerian army, is the guy who informs you of each mission at the beginning of the levels (although, in some instances, he tries to dissuade the team from going if he feels it's too dangerous). Not much say to about him though you have to wonder, though, why he doesn't send his armed forces to help you in the most difficult missions. I do prefer the voice given to him by Rick May in this game to the others (the one in Star Fox Adventures sounded a little too bombastic to me). There are two supporting characters who actually do join you in one specific mission for each of them and appear in another one afterward. Bill Grey, an old friend of Fox's, first appears when you have to help his squadron stave off an attack on a planet called Katina. Whether or not you manage to stop the attack, Bill appears briefly in your very next mission to assist you. Another character is Katt Monroe (voiced by Lyssa Browne), a pink cat with a crush on Falco who appears out of nowhere in one mission and also assists you briefly in the very next mission just like Bill. While I do think Bill is a cool character, I feel that both he and Katt aren't all that useful in the subsequent missions they appear in, especially Katt. But, at least Bill's first appearance is tied into that level's actual mission. Katt just comes out of nowhere. But whatever. I also can't be certain if James McCloud is really dead or not because after the real battle with Andross you engage in on Venom, James appears to guide you out of the rapidly exploding base. Once you escape, he disappears without a trace so you're not sure whether he was a ghost, an illusion, or if that really was him. In any case, he's given a deep, commanding voice by Mike West that is quite striking when you first hear it, especially when you consider that it's the same guy who does Fox's voice.
The look of Andross has always kind of perplexed me. Each time you encounter him, not only in this game but in Star Fox Adventures as well, he's always a gigantic floating head and hands. I'm sure that's not his real form and he just became that in order to battle you but it just never looked aesthetically useful in the long run. How could he have become such a great scientist and created a huge empire if he's just a floating head and hands? In any case, in this game, Rick May gives him a booming voice that sounds almost mechanical, kind of like Darth Vader. By the way, Wikipedia noted that he kind of looks like Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes and now that I think about it, he does. Other than Andross, the main antagonists that you come across at least once during every playthrough of the entire game are members of the Star Wolf team. They're basically an evil counterpart to the Star Fox team in that they're a mercenary team that Andross has hired. The leader of the team, Wolf O'Donnell (voiced by Rick May), has a cultured, sophisticated voice (in this game, anyway) but nonetheless, is an evil character who thinks he's a better pilot than Fox. Pigma Dengar (voiced by David Frederick White) is the member of the original Star Fox team who betrayed James McCloud and Peppy. His main character trait is that he's a greedy, sadistic pig who only cares about getting a huge paycheck from Andross. Leon Powalski (voiced by Rick May) is a chameleon-like character with a calm, classy, and sinister voice who seems to be a bit arrogant since he sometimes refers to himself as, "the Great Leon!" Finally, there's Andrew Oikonny (voiced by Bill Johns), the young nephew of Andross. He's like Slippy in that he's the youngest member of the team and is the most inexperienced at piloting. He's also not very smart. Every time you encounter the Star Wolf team, the various members will each target a specific member of your team: Wolf targets you, Pigma goes after Peppy, Leon tries to shoot down Falco, and Andrew chases Slippy. Worse, if any of your teammates gets so damaged that they're forced to retreat, whoever was chasing them will join Wolf in pursuing you. You can't avoid the Star Wolf team in this game because no matter what path you take, you'll eventually run into them.
Here's an interesting story concerning myself and the voices in the game. As I said, the voices was something that astonished my ten-year old mind at the time and was what attracted me to the game. However, I kind of grew to hate the game's voices because of the annoyance they unintentionally caused me in my personal life. There was this kid at my elementary school who found out that I really liked the game and once he found that out, he would aggravate me mercilessly during recess, asking what I said when this character said this or when this character said that. What really tore it, though, was when the guy somehow found out my phone number and started calling me and asking those idiotic questions at home. I got so annoyed that eventually, there was a time where he called and my mom picked up the phone but when she called me, I refused to talk to the guy. She was immensely embarrassed and kept yelling at me to talk to him but I was like, "You can threaten me all you want, Mom, I am not talking to that idiot." That kid had been a thorn in my side all throughout elementary school, always annoying me to end. I guess maybe he sincerely wanted to be friends with me at this point but he went about it the completely wrong way. He refused to leave me alone, even when I told him he was driving me crazy. I eventually went to a different school so it didn't matter but I was kind of resentful towards Star Fox 64 for a while afterward. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the game itself but I just some people would be interested in that.
The game is very well designed. Granted, the character designs do have that polygonal look to them that was common with games around that time but the environments with the planets and the enemies especially are quite imaginative in their designs. The enemies don't consist of just typical spaceships, although those do look good. There are big rolling robots, robotic fire birds that drop exploding eggs on you, bizarre-looking crafts called tripods that hover right in front of you while firing, long eel-like creatures that slither through space, bee-shaped enemies that fire swirling multi-colored blasts at you, and a whole lot of others. The most interesting living creatures that you encounter are on the planets Aquas and Zoness, which I will elaborate on when I discuss the actual levels. The bosses are also interesting creations. The first couple of bosses are standard robots and ships but as you progress through the game, they become more complex and imaginative in how they look, as well as much tougher to beat because you often have to hit them in a certain way in order to make them vulnerable and finish the job.
To make the game's replay value even more interesting, there's an Expert mode that you can activate by receiving a medal on each level. You get a medal when you destroy a certain number of enemies as well as if all of your teammates being with you at the end of the level. As you can guess, Expert mode is a much harder version of the typical single player campaign. There are more enemies in each level and your vehicle is much more vulnerable (your Arwing will lose wing if you run into anything). Interesting thing to note about Expert mode is that Fox wears dark sunglasses much like his father, James. In fact, a strategy guide for the game (not the one published by Nintendo Power, mind you) described it as being able to play as James McCloud but that's a big lie. Apparently, if you obtain all the medals on Expert mode, you get a new title screen for the game. Big whoop. (Fun thing you can do with the title screen, though, is that you can move around the 64 in the title and the four characters will actually watch it in curiosity and amazement.) Other stuff you acquire from getting medals include a sound test where you can listen to the game's soundtrack and activate new vehicles to use in multiplayer mode.
As I've said before, being an only child I hardly ever bothered with the multiplayer sections of any games as a kid unless I had friends over. While my friends and I did play the multiplayer of Star Fox 64 every now and then, it wasn't nearly as much as the multiplayer modes of games like Goldeneye or Mario Kart 64. As with most N64 titles, this game's multiplayer can support up to four players and there are three modes of play: Point Match, where the winner is the player who shoots down the other player the largest number of times; Battle Royal, where the winner is the last player who isn't shot down; and Time Trial, where you have to destroy a large number of enemies in a certain amount of time. You start with the Arwing being the only available vehicle but after earning medals in Story Mode, you can use the Landmaster (which can upgrade its lasers here) or have your character walk around on foot with a bazooka. There were only three arenas to play in, though. To be honest, I barely remember anything about the multiplayer on this game. I don't remember it being awful, I just don't remember much of it since we hardly ever played it but that, in and of itself, should say something. I wonder why they didn't have it to where you and your friends could play in Story mode and the team members who weren't being controlled could be handled by the computer? Just saying.
This game was also the first N64 title to make use of the Rumble Pack, which it came packaged with. The Rumble Pack, for those who don't know, was this large peripheral that you would attach to the back of your controller and every time you get hit by something or when there was a gigantic explosion in the game, the controller would vibrate. It was an attempt by Nintendo to make you feel like you were part of the action, like you really were flying along in a huge space battle. Personally, though, I almost never used the Rumble Pack. It was an interesting idea but when I'm in the heat of a huge battle or an intense race (I'm personally referring to Diddy Kong Racing, which also made use of the Rumble Pack), I find the vibration to be more of a distraction than anything else. Unfortunately, games for next generation consoles are now almost guaranteed to have a rumble feature and the controllers for said consoles had the actual mechanism built into them. Some games are good enough to give you the option of turning the rumble off but some don't (I find that to be true mainly with games for the Wii) so you're stuck with it. Didn't mean to go off on a tangent there and if you enjoy the rumble feature in this or any other game, Rumble Pack or not, that's fine but it just bugs me.
The music, composed by Koji Kondo and Hajime Wakai, is pretty good. The main title has become the recognized Star Fox theme and it has a nice, grandiose sound to it (I'm not sure if that theme was in the original game). Some other bits of music that I like include the eerie theme in the Sector X level, the music that plays during the Landmaster levels, the Katina music, the Bolse Defense Outpost music, the Zoness theme, the Sector Z music, the music during the Easy route level on Venom, and the triumphant music that plays after you defeat Andross. It may not be one of the best scores ever created for a video game (to me, at least) but I think it's pretty good and serves its purpose well.
Now for my usual overview of the levels.
Corneria: The first level is a cinch. You must rescue Corneria City from an attack by Andross' forces. Like I said earlier, shows how much of a pest he is going to be throughout the game because he needs you to bail him out of trouble just a few seconds into the first mission. The enemies here include big Garuda robots that throw big steel beams at you as well as push buildings over, sometimes on top of useful items if you don't destroy them quickly; a lot of standard fighter crafts; the aforementioned firebird robots that drop egg bombs on you; mole missiles that shoot up from the ground and head right for you; small tank-like crafts that you'll encounter constantly throughout the game; and ski bots on the water which don't attack you but can get in the way if you try to fly underneath these rock arches. There are two paths you can take to finish this level. The first is to keep following the direction the corridor mode is pointing you in. Completing the level on that path will lead you to the Meteo asteroid field. The other is a bit more of a challenge. There's a point in the city where Falco is pursued by three fighters and his shield malfunctions so you have to help him by taking them down (you'll have to boost in order to get close enough to shoot them). After saving Falco, fly under the series of stone arches on the second patch of ocean and Falco will point towards a different path. This path will take you to Sector Y. Both paths lead you to a different boss you must fight but they're both ridiculously easy. The boss on route 1 is a giant robot who is one of the most vulnerable enemies in the entire game. All you have to do to destroy him is shoot the green panels on his back. You can shoot one of his legs off to make him completely defenseless but that's not even necessary to defeat him. (You get an extra life if you fly between the robot's legs and do somersault without bumping into him.) The boss on route 2 is a huge aircraft carrier that is also very easy. All you have to do is shoot the insides of its three launch bays when they open. After you destroyed them, the actual craft will vulnerable to attack.
Meteo: This level's pretty straightforward. You have to destroy 200 targets to get a medal here but the enormous amount of asteroids (which do give you points when you destroy them) and enemies make it an easy task. Some types of asteroids you can blow up, while others you can't. At one point, you come across these huge, planet-like asteroids and you better follow Peppy's advice on what to do to keep from getting crushed. There are also a couple of long, hollow asteroids that you must fly through. The enormous amount of enemies consist of wedge-shaped spaceships, lasers attached to certain asteroids, a type of robot that hops up and down while firing at you, long, eel-like creatures that shoot fireballs at you, robots that are only vulnerable when their orange backsides are facing you, butterfly-like fighters that cluster together in formations, robots that create webs that you can run into if you're not careful, and the bee enemies that fire swirling blasts at you (you can't lock onto them). As with most, there are two ways to exit this level. The first is to fly through the asteroid field to the end where you battle a huge ship. This ship has several glowing yellow sections that are obviously where you shoot it. The ship does have a shield that absorbs your laser blasts and fires them back at you, an attack that shoots electrical bolts at you, and two laser blasts that are shaped like a series of rings but again, it's so obvious where you need to shoot that it's not that hard. Beating this boss sends you to Fortuna. However, if you fly through the seven warp rings in the area before you reach the boss (which is difficult to do because your ship starts spinning crazily after you go through a good number of them and it's hard to maneuver), you'll enter into a strange dimension with a number bizarre enemies and whole lot of items that will eventually lead you to Katina.
Fortuna: This is the first completely All-Range mode level of the game. Your mission is to recover the base from the enemies that have taken it over. (By the way, doesn't this level remind you of the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back? Heck, even the situation is kind of similar.) When you first start the level, you may think it'll be easy since all you have to deal with are these very vulnerable saucers but ROB 64 will eventually inform you that a time bomb has been planted at the base. And that's when the Star Wolf team attacks. Now you have a time limit to where you must take out the Star Wolf team so you can diffuse the bomb. The problem is that the evil mercenaries' ships are fast and hard to hit. You can lock onto them but they often manage to outrun the charged up laser blast. You can flip around to tag the one chasing you but he'll often take evasive action and it's hard to keep him in your sights. You often have to bank really hard to do so. This is one of those levels where I tend to get annoyed at my other teammates. They're all calling for your help but you've got your own problems with Star Wolf himself baring down on you. Your best bet is to target each member of the team one at a time and shoot them enough to where your teammate can turn the tables on his pursuer. Unfortunately, Slippy usually gets in trouble again even after you help him (of course). You shouldn't be scrapped for health, though, because there are radar beacons that give up silver rings when you destroy them. Where you go next depends on the outcome of the situation. If the Star Wolf team evades you and the base is destroyed, you'll proceed on to Sector X. If you manage to shoot the members of the team down, Fox will fly into the base, diffuse the bomb, and proceed to Solar.
Sector X: This is an interesting level in that you're sent to investigate a rumored secret weapon that Andross has been working on but when you reach the base, you discover that it's been destroyed (if you know anything about science fiction, you can probably guess what the cause is going to be revealed as). Even though it's now a big floating field of debris, the place is still crawling with enemies. There are canine robotic fighters that attack you when you get close, robot fighters that tend to link up in groups of three, more of those killer bee robots, floating space mines that explode automatically when you get too close, and automated lasers on the floating remnants of the base. There are also these floating spy satellites which don't attack you and in fact, are quite useful because they contain items. Besides the enemies, you also have to avoid big floating pieces of debris and there are spots where you have to maneuver your Arwing carefully to fly through openings in the really big pieces of the base. There are three possible ways to complete this stage. Eventually, you'll come to a fork in the path and if you go left, you come across four gateways that you can open by shooting them repeatedly until they turn red. If you fly through all four (which is a bit tricky since they tend to disconnect from the pieces of debris they're attached to), you'll enter a warp zone similar to the one in Meteo and you'll travel to Sector Z. If you fail to open the gates or you take the right path instead, you'll eventually face the boss which, predictably, is the secret weapon which has gone haywire. It's a large, floating robot torso and there are two phases to the battle. First, you have to shoot at its head when its glowing eyes are visible while avoiding laser blasts from its head and its hands which it shoots at you like missiles. When you keep shooting it and blow its head off, you'll think you've beaten it but the robot comes back to life for another round (the thing even wags its finger at you). This time, it has a head that's much smaller and harder to hit and at the same time, you have to dodge faster laser blasts, the robot throwing big pieces of the base at you, and it spinning around while flailing its huge arms. If you manage to destroy the robot quickly, you'll move on to the planet of Macbeth. However, Slippy will charge at the robot early in the second phase and if he gets hit by the robot's hand, he'll tumble towards the planet of Titania and you'll have to go there to rescue him next.
Titania: This is basically the Lylat System's version of the planet Mars with the red sky and red sand everywhere. It's actually an interesting level in design because of the ancient architecture which hints at a long lost civilization as well as strewn about skeletons of some species of large creature. This is one of the two levels where you use the Landmaster tank and while its useful in attacking all the ground-based enemies, it's hard to hit all the enemy fighters in the sky (even when you're in the Landmaster, you still have to occasionally save your comrades, who are in their Arwings, from pursuing enemies). There are plenty of enemies and hazards here. There are gigantic crawling robots that aren't that hard to destroy but you will take damage if you drive into them, robots on hills that throw boulders at you, enemy tanks which aren't hard to destroy but they often travel in groups, and crafts that dump land mines on you. Speaking of which, there are land mines everywhere in this level and they're hard to get a lock with the Landmaster's turret. There are also big explosives that detonate when you get close but if you shoot them, they'll jump away and explode in the air. There are tall, sentry towers that shoot long lasers at you and it's tough to avoid two or three in a row because they criss-cross each other. On top of all that, there are sections where you have to avoid giant pillars which tumble down towards you. There's a valley right before the boss where all of the hazards come out of the woodwork at you and it can get frustrating, especially on Expert mode. The boss here is a bizarre, four-armed, skeletal creature that has Slippy in one of its hands. To free Slippy, you must destroy the other three arms and when you destroy the fourth one, its beating heart behind its rib-cage will exposed. The boss' attacks are laser blasts from its upper arms while it tries to smash you with its lower ones and a Godzilla-like energy blast that it shoots from its mouth. This boss can be tricky but if you keep a cool head, you'll eventually take it down.
Bolse: This space station is the easy route's entry into Venom. This is an all-range mode mission and the first part is simple. You have to destroy the six shield reactors so you can attack the energy core (the enemy fighters flying around the station are shielded as well). You have to fight the station's gravitational pull during this section and the energy rays emitting from the reactors can damage your ship but it's not too difficult. Once the shield is down, a swarm of fighters will come out of the center of the base. There are laser cannons spread along the surface of the station. Worst of all, if the path you took through the Lylat System didn't lead you to Fortuna or if it did and any members of the Star Wolf team escaped that mission, you'll have to deal with them here. The good news, though, is that there's no time limit here and since the station has stopped rotating, flying is much easier. During the dogfight, the energy core will eventually reveal itself. To destroy it, you have to blast the eight yellow panels on the towering center of the core. This task is made complicated by the core's constant turning as well as the fact that destroyed panels start spraying laser blasts. I never found this to be too difficult a level, though.
Katina: This is the first of the three medium levels. To get here, you'll either have to use the warp in Meteo or be redirected from Sector Y (I'll elaborate on that later). In any case, this level is straight out of Independence Day (which makes sense seeing as how it was the biggest movie of the year before this game's release). It's an all-range mode level where you join the squadron led by Fox's old friend Bill Grey in staving off an attack on the planet's base. When you first enter the stage, you may find it difficult to differentiate the enemy ships from those in Bill's unit. The difference is that the enemy fighters are saucer-shaped whereas the friendly ones look like jets. Even with that difference in mind, though, you more than likely will accidentally destroy some friendly crafts. While your targeting computer will only lock onto enemies, the charged up blasts will destroy any friendly crafts that are too close. It's best not to use smart bombs as well. Eventually, an enormous mothership will enter the battle and position itself above the base. It first will spew out more fighters from its four hatches. You must destroy all four of the hatches, which can get tricky because they're constantly opening and closing (Bill will tell you when they're opening). After they're destroyed, the saucer will expose its powerful laser core. You have one minute to destroy it before it charges up sufficiently to vaporize the base. Much like the Fortuna mission, where you go next depends on whether you save the base or not. If the base is destroyed (again, that cinematic comes straight out of Independence Day), you'll be redirected to Sector X. If you succeed in defeating the saucer, you'll proceed on to Solar (Bill will briefly join in both missions when you arrive at them from here).
Solar: This level is basically the Lylat System's sun. Your biggest enemy here is the heat. You have to stay as high as you can because the closer you get to the molten surface, the faster you'll take damage. To complicate that, there are sections where there are huge swells in the lava which you absolutely must keep from touching. There are also large swarms of birds made of lava, some of which will chase your teammates, and gigantic fireballs that spring up across the surface. Fortunately, items are all over the place here, revealed when you blast apart rocks that spring out of the lava. If you come here from Katina, Bill Grey will appear briefly and if you follow him, he'll drop some items for you. This is one of the few levels where there are no hidden paths or outcomes. Your next destination is always the same. The boss here is a gigantic, mantis-like bioweapon that's made entirely of magma. It's not too difficult to beat though. You first have to destroy its arms and after that, just shoot its mouth until its dead. It will create tidal waves of lava with its arms and once you've destroyed them, it will sling its sizzling hot magma bodily fluid at you as well as splash into the lave to create a huge swell. It also spits rocks at you from its mouth but those rocks are filled with items so it's unknowingly helping you on that score.
Macbeth: This is the other Landmaster level. The planet serves as the location of the factories and plants that create Andross' weapons. Your main target here is a supply train that's heading for the main weapons factory. The thing is that the train is not defenseless in the slightest. It dumps enormous boulders in your path as well as sends them hurtling towards at several points and it also has a car with a tower that fires missiles at you or at a nearby hill to put more boulders in your path. The engineer will also activate security bars that you have to hover over and, of course, the sky is full of fighters that your comrades are trying their best to take down (you will have to rescue them a couple of times). The train's cars take a number of hits to destroy but the good thing is that they're big and slow, which makes them easy to hit. Destroying some cars will cause chain reactions that blow up a good number of cars ahead of them (though you'll have to blast the cars' charred remains out of your way). Your next destination depends on whether you manage to take out the main weapons factory or not. You'll come across eight switches along the track that will change the train's direction and send it crashing into the weapons factory if you manage to flip them all by shooting them. If you manage that, you'll head to Area 6 next. If you're unable to flip the switches, you'll have to take out a hovering robot that the train deploys (this thing appears while you're trying to flip the switches and if you manage to flip them all, you don't have to worry about fighting it). This robot has a number of fierce attacks including iron bars that it shoots along your path that you must take out, wide beams of energy that it shoots from its wings, and its tail that it uses you scoop you up. You have to target its head and tail (both of which are kind of tricky to hit, especially the head since it's so small) and once they're destroyed, you must shoot the glowing power panel on the train. That will cripple the robot for a few seconds and it will be vulnerable to laser fire. After taking out the robot, you'll head to Bolse. (I must note that I absolutely love the dialogue by the train engineer in this stage, especially when you defeat him. When you change the train's direction, he yells, "No! Hit the brakes! I can't STOP IT!" When you destroy the robot, it'll come crashing towards him and he'll yell, "No! Get away!" Really funny stuff.)
Sector Y: The first of the hard levels, this has you flying into a sector of space to save a fleet of Cornerian ships from Andross' forces. This level is a war of attrition as you fly through in corridor mode and do battle with enormous, heavily armed battleships (you can destroy them but you can disarm some of them by blasting the turrets on their sides), homing missiles, and a ton of flying, robot warriors with shields and large laser blasters. Your next destination is determined before you enter the boss battle. If you destroy less than a hundred enemies, you'll be sent to Katina. If you manage to destroy over a hundred enemies, you'll head onward to Aquas. In order to get the hundred hits, it's best to take the upper path when this one battleship forces you to either go above or below it. The first part of the boss battle consists of you battling two large robot warriors. These guys are quick, agile, and they constantly charge you and shoot at you with their huge laser pistols. They're annoying but I never found them to be that hard to defeat. After you destroy them, though, the big boy, an even larger, silver robot warrior, comes out to play. Despite its size, it's still very agile, is well protected by its large shield, and a direct hit from its laser gun can really damage your Arwing. You can destroy its shield but it takes an ungodly number of hits. After that, just keep sweeping and blasting it until it explodes (with its pilot screaming in rage and defeat right before it does).
Aquas: The sole level where you use the Blue Marine sub, this can be a very tough stage. There are enemies galore here and it can become really congested. You have to constantly fire your lasers and torpedoes just to clear the way as well as destroy incoming threats. Early in the stage, there are little, normal-sized fish that don't harm you but are attracted by your torpedoes and tend to block them from hitting their intended targets. Fortunately, they disappear when you get further into the level. The design of the enemy sea creatures you encounter is quite inspired, I must say but on the same token, they're all very tough and can take a lot of punishment. You have these enormous, long fish that swim across your path, blocking your way; oversized angler fish that take a lot of hits to destroy, even with torpedoes; these weird creatures that look like floating shells at first but open themselves up to reveal humanoid proportions and you can only damage them by shooting their vulnerable insides; big starfish that explode like mines; clams that fire laser blasts at you; jellyfish creatures that link up in threes to create electrical charges (you can't destroy them at all); enormous squids that don't actually attack you but can get in your way; and these scallop-like things that are armored on one side and are best taken down with torpedoes. You also have to admire the Atlantis-like ruins you come across throughout the level, suggesting that there was a civilization on this planet but it eventually sunk into the sea. The boss is an enormous clam monster that isn't difficult so much as it's just annoying. The thing shoots eels out of the pods on top of its shell (you can destroy the pods), and enormous pearls out of the pods inside its mouth (you can only temporarily put them out of commission rather than destroy them). You first have to shoot the two stalks inside the mouth that are holding up the top of the shell until they turn white and then blast them with torpedoes. Once they're both gone, you have to target the clam's eye. It puts a shield in front its eye that you have to shoot until the eye is exposed and then target it with torpedoes. The more you damage the creature, the more pearls it'll shoot to block your torpedo shots so the last two or three hits can be tricky to score.
Zoness: This is another ocean planet like Aquas only this time, you fly above the water in your Arwing. Also like Aquas, this level is choked with unique and challenging enemies, particularly those that travel in big groups. There are two types of bird-like creatures: one type that drops bombs on you and bigger types that tend to chase your comrades; big water skimmers that can only be taken out with charged up lasers and bombs; clam-like things that leap out of the water and shoot energy blasts at you; squadrons of patrol boats; and, worst of all, enormous heavily armored sea serpents that don't attack you but can damage your Arwing if you run into them. You can't hurt those big serpents at all and they pop up very unexpectedly so you must keep your guard up. Fortunately, there are lots of enemy supply boats that yield items when you destroy the containers on their decks and this is where Falco's would-be girlfriend Katt drops in to help and, like Bill Grey, she'll join you on whatever your next mission is. There are also searchlights strewn throughout the level. If you manage to destroy them all (which can be tricky because some are behind these gates whose rudders you have to shoot quickly in order to open them), you'll move on to Sector Z next. If even one spots you, though, and you just have to fly by one without shooting it for it to detect you, you'll be forced to head to Macbeth next. Either way, you'll have to battle the boss, which is a heavily armored battleship operated by an ape who talks like a stereotypical pirate. At first, it's completely invincible to laser fire and you'll have to use smart bombs (fortunately, it shoots plenty of slow moving iron balls that turn into smart bombs when you blast them). First, you have to destroy the twin funnels on the front and while you're trying to do so, the ship will submerge down into the water and fire a big, spiked ball on a chain at you. Once the funnels are destroyed, you have to blow up one of the launching pads on either side of the ship and once you do, the ship will turn around and try to use its backside crane to recover the lost part of the ship. Destroy that crane and the ship will be completely defenseless (you can now use your lasers on it as well as bombs to finish it off).
Sector Z: This All-Range mode level is fairly straightforward at first. The first part of it has you scramble out of Great Fox to take on a number of enemy fighters. These crafts are fast and more heavily armored than most enemy crafts you've encountered before and there will be instances where you'll have to save your buddies from them. There's also a lot of floating space junk so if you're not careful, you could lose a wing. However, if you get too badly damaged, you can fly into the docking bay on Great Fox's backside, you'll come out good as new (you'll have to reclaim your laser upgrades if you lost a wing yourself, though). Where things get dire is when the enemy fires six big missiles at Great Fox. The missiles approach in ever escalating numbers: the first approaches by itself, the next two approach together, and the last three come at Great Fox all at once. ROB 64 will warn you when they are approaching and how far they are from their target. If you don't have the highest laser upgrade, your best bet is to use charged lasers and smart bombs. The missiles move very slowly so you will have a lot of time but the problem is that you have to wait until they enter your radar area to launch a full-scale attack on them; otherwise, your Arwing will automatically do a U-turn. Your friends, including Katt, will help you take them out (if they're not being pursued by enemy fighters, that is) and if you fire rapidly enough, you will destroy them. If Great Fox is hit by any of the missiles, you'll be redirected to Bolse. If you manage to destroy the missiles, you will proceed on to Area 6.
Area 6: As the last level before you reach Venom, this level is a war of attrition in every sense of the term. It's an absolute endurance with thousands of enemy fighters, more of those bee robots, lots of umbrella-shaped space stations that turn and fire multiple laser blasts at you, octopus-like missiles that drift toward that you must take as quickly as possible because the concussions from the explosion can still damage your Arwing even if the missiles themselves don't hit you, and two types of battleships: ones with skulls on the side that can be taken down with a few shots and Star Destroyer-like ones that can only be taken down by destroying the bridge. All three of your teammates will need your help at one point or another and at one point, Andross himself will come on the communication line and taunt you (that is, if you answer the call). The good news is that ROB 64 will have Great Fox fire upon some of the battleships if you answer his call. (Weirdly enough, the two characters in charge of operations here are reptiles instead of apes.) The boss is a large saucer-shaped satellite that has metal tentacles with claws on the ends, a warp mechanism, an unlimited supply of missiles and fighters that it can deploy, and worst of all, a powerful laser that it shoots out of its core like the freaking Death Star. You have to shoot the tentacles to make the satellite open up to reveal its core and then you must shoot the three energy balls rotating around the core (the latter segment is hard because the screen keeps shifting, making it easy to miss). Repeat this process twice and the core will become vulnerable. You have to keep shooting the core and the tentacles until the thing blows up.
Venom: There are two different stages on Venom, depending on which route you took to reach it. If you approach it from Bolse, you'll enter a corridor-mode level where you have to battle swarms of fighters, robots, and small tank-like crafts, enormous pillars that jut out of the ground, and big blocks that will either come flying towards you or form a hazardous forest that you have to navigate through carefully (that latter situation depends on which of the many different routes you take). By the way, this level is nearly impossible on Expert mode. You will die so many times there because there's always something that you'll run into and therefore, lose one or both of your wings. After flying through over such a hazardous planet surface, you'll enter a temple where you face one last boss before the battle with Andross: a running statue that is actually a robot. You have to destroy the rock armor on every part of his body until his head starts rotating and then blast it until it blows apart. After that, the robot's mechanical innards will be completely exposed and you can destroy him with just a few more shots. During the chase, the robot will strike the walls and send long bars in your path (after a while, there will so many that they'll be hard to avoid) and there are also falling pillars and big statues with swinging arms along the path.
After destroying that robot, you head down a long corridor to Andross (fortunately, the game is good enough to give you plenty of items to make up for any damage you received during the level beforehand). This form of Andross with the big floating head and hands isn't that hard to defeat, actually. He tries to smack you with either of his hands and then tries to smash you by clapping his hands together. He also shoots a lightning bolt from one hand and his most damaging attack is when he tries to inhale you into his mouth. When he does that, fire a smart bomb into his mouth or if you don't have any, somersault like crazy to avoid being sucked in. If he does manage to suck you in, he'll spit you back out, causing a lot of damage, destroying one or both of your wings, and disorienting your ship for a few seconds. He also spits out a ton of rocks but fortunately, those tend to have items inside them. His hands are quite vulnerable and so are his eyes. If you shoot him in the eyes, he'll pause momentarily and that will give you ample time to target his hands. Once you've destroyed both of his hands, the brow between his eyes will become vulnerable but only at certain key points, namely after you shoot a bomb into his mouth or when he spits out all those rocks. All you have to do is blast away at those moments until his head explodes. When you've come from Bolse, his head will explode to reveal that, in actuality, you've been fighting a robotic double of Andross. You have to get rid of it quickly because there's no way to dodge it when it charges at you. After you destroy it, you'll get the ending credits but afterward, Andross' head will appear in the sky, revealing that you haven't really defeated him yet.
The real final battle begins when you enter Venom from Area 6. Before you battle Andross, you'll have to battle the Star Wolf team one last time. As if that wasn't bad enough, they're now flying new and improved ships. I've been able to take down their original ships quite easily since I got used to them but the ones they fly here are quite a challenge. They're faster and much more agile than before, with stronger twin lasers (instead of the single ones their original ships fired), the ability to do a barrel roll and create a stronger shield than your Arwing, so much so that even direct hits from smart bombs don't do as much damage. During this fight, your teammates' cries for help are even more annoying than before (Slippy's especially) and I tend to lose most of them, especially if they took a lot of damage from Area 6. Believe me, you don't want to have to face two or more of these improved ships by yourself if you can help it. Even after you manage to turn the tables in your friends' favor, you still have to deal with Wolf himself and a ship that's nearly impossible to get good shots at. This fight will take a long time and you'll lose a lot of lives the first time you try it. My only advice is just to stay patient and keep trying.
After dealing with the Star Wolf team, you'll head to the real final battle with Andross. Getting to him is not very straightforward this time. You have to navigate a maze of corridors until you find him and you have to be careful of the sharp turns or you'll lose a wing. When you get to Andross, the first part of the fight will be the same as the battle with mechanical doppelganger. When you destroy Andross' head, that's when the real battle begins. Andross' oversized brain and eyes will be all that's left. This is a very tricky battle, which is in all-range mode this time. Andross launches his eyes at you on long energy strands that can damage your ship if you touch them and the eyes themselves shoot lasers at you. Those eyes can be difficult to get in your sights because they're on the edge of the field and always seem to get right behind. Your best bet is to keep somersaulting until they're in your sights and blast them away quickly. After you destroy the eyes, it's time to attack the brain itself but this is harder than it sounds. You must shoot the medulla, which is the small section on the back of the brain that's a different color from the main section. The brain moves around quite fast and getting behind it can be tricky because the tentacles underneath it can severely damage your ship and destroy your wings if they get you. To make matters worse, if you accidentally shoot the main section of the brain, it'll teleport right behind you. Tight turns and barrel rolls are your best bets to getting the medulla in your sights.
Even after you destroy Andross, you're still not done. Andross decides to try to take you with him by causing a huge explosion but at the last possible moment, James McCloud suddenly shows up to show you the way out. This last part can be challenging because you can't let James get too far ahead of you and you have to be ready to turn. If you lose James and take the wrong path, you'll fly right into a fiery dead end and be destroyed instantly. Once you make it, you can celebrate because the endurance test is finally over.
Man, that review took a while but it was worth it because Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games by far. It has good characters, groundbreaking use of real voice acting, enjoyable and challenging gameplay, well designed levels and enemies, good music, and a non-linear way of playing that makes for a lot of replay value. If you've never played it before and have a Nintendo 64, I'd say give it a try. Also, if you feel that this isn't your kind of game, remember that I knew nothing about it before I actually played it. In other words, you might just be surprised.
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