i wanna do a #Monsterdon for rom coms. a #RomComdon

here’s the thing, neither of these guys is good. at least thr techbro owns his violence. the bitchy scientist thinks he is above the fray; but the only reason he does his sciencing is to be a settler colonialist.

so fuck the science guy a million miles from Sunday.

science for settler colonialism is violence.

#monsterdon

wanted to play the OG black & white version, but forgot to download it, so off to color i go.

these opening credits are 🔥🔥🔥 and this moon shot is actually THE MOOD! is this gonna be an actully good movie?

i just reckoned it’s a Ray Harryhausen production, so no wonder the visuals have kicked ass so far.

#Monsterdon

it’s amazing how you can blow up a whole house in the english countryside and nobody bats an eye.

#monsterdon

the shape of that spaceship when it landed reminded me of…

#monsterdon

so this techbro with the antigravity chair is like an incel Mary Poppins?

#monsterdon

"Darling, the neighbour and I have built a spaceship in his back garden and we're going to the MOON!"

"OK, but at least it's not crypto you're into..."

#Monsterdon

so, WAIT! this movie is about real estate?

#monsterdon

They should have a millionaire and his wife along. Maybe a movie star and a dumb guy who used to be a beatnik

#monsterdon

Tired: antigravity boots
Wired: antigravity fruitcake

#monsterdon

@leece it's a wise civilisation that fakes it's own death rather than deal with Humanity #Monsterdon

sis is still with that mans and is giving him a whole cage of chickens to take to the moon?

that’s what i call being dickmatized.

#monsterdon

@Taweret the next James Bond movie, Moon Goose. #monsterdon

so, they’re selling a house that’s not theirs?

so this is an allegory for the USA.

#monsterdon

who am i kidding. they’re settler colonialists. everything is real estate for these people.

#monsterdon

Things I liked about this #monsterdon movie:

* the cultural exchange sequence
* the nice moon aliens
* the bumbling astronauts
* an ironic approach to British imperialism
* evocative sets and matte paintings
* giant caterpillar frend
* use of geese and live chickens
* a strangely utopian view of 1960s space exploration and world harmony

I'm still a little bummed out by the probable accidental genocide, but I think maybe it makes a good cautionary tale?

so i see where the sisters wachowski got the idea for that rave party scene

#monsterdon

Chekhov’s head cold

#monsterdon

Oldest grift in the book… sell a house that you don’t actually own and then run off to the moon

#monsterdon

i miss those briefcases… i want one of those briefcases

#monsterdon

oh, so old scientist guy was the walking, talking plague for the moon roaches?

y’all now there was a time gringos called us latines roaches, right?

The First Men On The Moon is totally an allegory for US America

#monsterdon

the cockroaches killed Mothra. can’t trust those fuckers.

#monsterdon

This movie takes place on June 23, 1899 (because that's the only total lunar eclipse in 1899)

#monsterdon

this fucking guy

and this other fucking guy

#monsterdon

Okay, so the moon orb is kind of fun. From the outside it looks like a cross between a polyhedral dice and a Japanese paper lantern, only with knobs coming out of it.

From the inside, it has old timey portholes to look out of, but the rest of the inside is like... green velvet? It also has ropes inside so you can hang on to something while being yeeted through space, which seems like a good design feature.

#monsterdon

but… where has that finger of fate been in before it touched him?

#Monsterdon

I liked the Victorian outfits, especially Kate's hats. Some of the moon f/x were really great. There was a clear message about the stupidity of war. And a whole lot of unnecessary rubbish.

#monsterdon

Misogyny, imperialism, the extinction of an entire race of sentient beings played off as a joke. At least no one shoved a pistol in their pants

#monsterdon

I give the First Men on the Moon 4 out of 5 knobby velvet-interiored Orbs of approval. It was weird and fun, so I kind of enjoyed it.

I appreciated the bumbling and ironic actions of the human astronauts.

The Selenites did nothing wrong, and I am worried that they might have all been accidentally killed by an earthling cold. I hope they escaped to another planet instead, but I fear that might be too optimistic. Poor green moon people.

#monsterdon

Then the moon creatures killed them. Kate went home and lived the rest of her life with a school teacher named Maggy. They were just "very good friends".

#monsterdon

The moment they spy natives

"I knew we should have brought that gun"

Fucking British abroad...

#Monsterdon

#Monsterdon the lack of an airlock is amusing. Her and… hopefully the chickens. I’ve got Doctor Crusher’s words from #sttng “We’ll have fifteen seconds of useful consciousness and then ten seconds of struggle before we die.”

The dream of building a Spaceship in your back garden and just fucking off from the cruel planet Earth.....

#Monsterdon

"Army Surplus Boots from the Boer War" is a pretty good randomly generated trade good.

#monsterdon

OMG this movie is some loser retconning of the moon landing by jellie Brits?

#Monsterdon

This #monsterdon movie starts with a realistic looking lander doing a realistic landing on the moon, labelled "UN 1", I think; maybe its a multinational space mission from the good timeline.

The spacecraft looks like the upper stage of a rocket, so I'm guessing that its set up for direct ascent, but then we see the astronauts inside and then they radio a mothership, so I guess this is some kind of lunar-orbit rendezvous setup.

I like space.

lol, we should have know a HG Wells story would end in "in the end, the common cold saved Humanity"

#Monsterdon

i really hate the technolibertarian scientist more.

#monsterdon

ohgawd, they’re learning to speak in Space Karen

#monsterdon

haven’t decidee if i hate the wanker scientist guy more than the opportunistic techbro.

#monsterdon

I rather like how the universal translator thing doesn't work automatically but the Selenites have to spend some time programming it by getting Kate to scream at them in English and talk to the Professor for a while.

#monsterdon

So they knew there was no atmosphere but didn't bother building an air lock‽
#monsterdon

you’ll be in the cottage? sis, there ain’t no dick that good…

#monsterdon

Gotta love how the interior of the capsule in green velvet and wood, modern Spaceships have none of that class....

#Monsterdon

We have heat pumps now, instead of shovelling coal. That's actually a lot better , well done us!

#Monsterdon

@jonny much of Jane Austen's work was about this trope #Monsterdon

Okay, so the science master who name is Cavor or something, has invented a Special Magical Material which is called Cavorite and is anti-gravity, so he wants to use it to make a moonship, but not like a rocket moonship but like a hollow orb that uses antigravity to levitate itself to the moon. Which he is building in his garage or garden shed or something.

#monsterdon

The fucking British were here first?!

And we interfered with the local people, sexually, as per the tradition.

#Monsterdon

I was only 2 but I have a distinct memory of my dad getting me out of bed and sitting me on his knee to watch the men walk on the moon. #monsterdon

@moira @_L1vY_ "Humans are a Virus" #Monsterdon

btw fuck “science for science’s sake” guys

#monsterdon

Wow, touch shit for the Selenites, ay?

"Lol, they're all dead...serves the right for not being Human"

#Monsterdon

And they f’ed off into the sea off the coast of Zanzibar

#monsterdon

No, some men do enjoy war, don't lie to the big alien, and they run things

#Monsterdon

Sometimes there are hints of genius in these movies, which are quickly buried in gibberish before you can really grasp them

#monsterdon

"Lol, we could speak English all long, we were just fucking with you"

#Monsterdon

we didn’t just get mooned. we got goatsed with the moon’s mechanical anus.

#monsterdon

"Let's open the door to the dome and vent all their air out"

Poxy blankets and gunboats pointing at the Palace next?

#Monsterdon

Just remembered there are people on the moon and the guy decided to spend ~30 minutes letting them know about his boot scheme before moving onto what happened on the moon
#monsterdon

I assure you most of us do not think about the Royals as much as this guy does, fucking loon.....

#Monsterdon

Trajectories do not work like that. Also, shouldn't they have a sextant?

#monsterdon

sis is the OG Space Karen

#monsterdon

What was that movie where the Civil War guys went to an island in a hot air balloon and got attacked by a giant chicken? That was a good one

#monsterdon

There is a cool bit in The Expanse about why you should stow everything away when on a Spaceship, think knives in a kitchen....

#Monsterdon

The playwright is very happy his friend the scientist has invented the magic antigravity material, because he is motivated by comfort and also money. The scientist wants to take the orb ship to the moon, because he is motivated, probably, by curiosity. He wants the playwright to go with him, but the playwright doesn't want to go until the science master is like "bro there's gold on the moon!" and then the playwrite is like "i'm in."

#monsterdon

"The moon is high in minerals...."

LETS GET COLONISING!

#Monsterdon

*looks at play

"ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY"

#Monsterdon

So I guess our astronaut crew is multinational, because they all have flags on their space suits from different countries, and after they land we cut to a Ticker Tape parade and adoring news broadcasts from multiple countries, including the USA, the USSR and Japan and probably some other countries too.

I'm guessing the moon lander carries so large of a crew because of diplomacy... which... actually is a pretty good reason.

#monsterdon

"Don't forget England is a land of eccentrics"

And (sigh) bigoted fucks too, who think they are 'eccentric'

#Monsterdon

launching my #Monsterdon thread for First Men in the Moon (circa the year of someone else's lord, 1964), which I think I've seen before, but will heroically watch anyway until I get bored!

anyway, monsterdon is the thing where we watch an old monster movie each week and praise its glory, but which I mean, "make fun of it". Join if you want, or mute the hash tag if that isn't your thing and you don't want to see 999+ posts by me and everyone else about it.

ACK! GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!

#Monsterdon

HG Wells isn't wrong about biological cross contamination in Space Travel though.....

#Monsterdon

So in 1899 some British blokes got into a big steampunk Coronavirus and went to the moon and they gave some moon bugs a really bad cold then the moon bugs died

THE END

Poor moon bugs what a sad ending! :blobcry:

Still this #Monsterdon was a visual delight and a fun way to spend an Easter evening thanks for another great one @Taweret !

And Kate never spoke to another named female ever again. The end.
#monsterdon

And so we see that humans are inherently violent and everyone would be better off without them. Just what I've been saying all along

#monsterdon

Humans are defective, yes. Wipe them out.

#monsterdon

"Conveniently all evidence of our story fell into the Sea"

#Monsterdon

Being a probable authoritarian pacifist in Stellaris ethics, the Selenite leader is surprised that the earthlings do not have a single leader and asks if that brings confusion. Cavor explains that, yes, this does cause problems, even war, and the Leader asks what war is, so Cavor explains what war is, and the Leader thinks this is bad and is afraid that other humans might invade the moon.

#monsterdon

They did the cool X-ray effect and then just dropped it

#monsterdon

So wandering around the moon city for a while, Cavor finds a giant staircase leading to a giant green portal thing, behind which there is a Selenite leader, who politely asks him some questions about Earth and what its life is like.

Cavor clumsily explains that humans live on the surface in cities and the alien leader is like "wait doesn't the bright sun blind yall?" and he answers "no we got a thing called irises" and the leader is like "bro let me see"

#monsterdon

OMG the moon roaches carcassed Mothra!

#monsterdon

The Lunar throne room is not exactly wheelchair accessible...

#Monsterdon

The aliens are mix of stop-motion and people in costumes. That's an unusual choice

#monsterdon

Imagine humans taking Aliens around our society, showing how everything works like the aliens do in these old movies.

"And here is where the gears of Capitalism are oiled by the blood of the Workers, here is where we are making the planet uninhabitable for ourselves for....reasons...."

#Monsterdon

moon cockroaches 😬

#monsterdon

Perhaps wisely realizing that the British have come here to fuck with them, they decide to swarm the two boys and capture them; even though they are armed with some kind of sticks (maybe spears?) because they are bad at warfare the two bumbling boy astronauts repel them.

However, this might have been enough to repel imperialism, because the two boys then decide the Selenites will come back with reinforcements and decide to leave.

#monsterdon

Okay, so while bumbling on the moon we encounter civilization, in the form of a giant skylight that opens revealing a long tunnel going deep into the moon, and some air is blowing out of it, which seems like a waste of air.

The two boys decide to go down because one of them dropped his helmet down the tunnel (which has air) it but they don't tell the girl first so she probably doesn't know where they are.

They find a shiny rock prism and some bubbling slime soup.

#monsterdon

The Moon People are wise in wanting to kill the Colonisers before even listening to their barbaric lies....

#Monsterdon

I am appreciating the bumbling quality of this space expedition, where the amateur astronauts aim themselves at the wrong celestial body, yell at a surprise chicken, screw on a diving helmet and then get drunk on oxygen. It's kind of relatable actually.

#monsterdon

Touch helmets because they don't have good radios in 1899. Acceptable.

#monsterdon

If it's 1/6 gravity they could just gently float down. I wish they'd show that more in movie set on the Moon, all the very un Earth like acrobatics you could do, think Parkour in lunar gravity.

Anyway, this isn't that sort of movie....

#Monsterdon

The British people are not playing against stereotypes when they walk out of their moon orb and decide it will be a nice colony as they claim the moon for Queen Victoria and the British Empire.

#monsterdon

Also, I super like the mountainous lunar landscape they have here. Very unearthly and neat.

#monsterdon

Love how they have un-gloved hands as they step out onto the Moon, I mean who needs hands, right?

No gloves, but a Union Jack, that is disturbingly accurate for this clown island, "Brits on holiday"

#Monsterdon

"Stop touching things with your woman fingers, Kate!"

#monsterdon

So I guess to land our knobby space orb we have to somehow adjust it to counter the gravity of the moon and slow down, but the landing sequence mostly involves us holding on to the ropes as the ball rolls across the moon and bounces violently before settling to a stop.

I think I did a landing on the Mun like that in Kerbal Space Program once.

#monsterdon

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU!!!

NO 👏 CHICKENS 👏 IN 👏 THE 👏 MOON!!!

#monsterdon

@blue still better than a Cybertruck #Monsterdon

45 minutes in and nobody has gotten close to leaving Earth

#monsterdon

Girls might be nice to look at, but they are a blasted nuisance when one is engaged in serious business like painting anti-gravity goop on a sphere, and tuba solo

#monsterdon