RiffTrax: Live – Star Raiders Review! Ronel Talks Music, Smallfoot and Wandering Earth Reviews, and Ninja News

RiffTrax: Live – Star Raiders!

June 6 was the latest RiffTrax: Live event, showcasing Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine, starring Caper Van Dien of Starship Troopers fame. (Which they also riffed a couple years ago – Casper doesn’t have a good track record with movies.)

The show started with an educational short about lying. Kids discussing lying with a teacher. Kids obsessing over a man laying cement. Kids throwing rocks and breaking a window. I’d be lying if any of it made sense, but the guys had fun with it.

Then came the feature film and the opening credits showed Casper scanning the horizon with binoculars, to which the guys said he was searching the cast for another name actor. (None were to be found.)

At another point, someone commented that the effects weren’t too bad for 1992 but he was corrected – the film came out eighteen months ago! That’s right – the craptastic film came out in 2017.

The acting was bad. The plot was thin and in most spots made no sense. The dialogue was beyond cheesy. And the special effects ranged from ‘okay’ to worse than an Asylum film.

This was inside Saber Raine’s ship. Yes, that is a submarine periscope in his spaceship!

One of the aliens didn’t speak English and the guys dubbed him Gary. “Gary, you are the voice of reason.”
Ironically, we watched Gary die four times in the film. I guess they missed that in editing.

However, it was a blast and very funny! Do not attempt to watch this film without RiffTrax. (DVD comes out later this year.)

Next up The Giant Spider Invasion on August 15!

Music and Dark Desires by Ronel

When Alex said that this post should focus on progressive rock/metal, at first I had no idea what that meant. And then I Googled it. Mm, yeah, I definitely listen to progressive rock!

For those who don’t know, progressive rock is a style of rock music popular especially in the 1970s and characterized by classical influences, the use of keyboard instruments, and lengthy compositions (according to the online dictionary).

I love using music to inspire me while I’m writing. During the planning phase of “Dark Desires”, I listened to a lot of Rush and a bit of Deep Purple (yeah, “Smoke On the Water” was on replay).

Linkin Park probably doesn’t fit in with the genre (though I think they might despite not being listed as such along with other favourite bands like Muse, Led Zeppelin and others in this post), but that is what I listened to while drafting the story. There’s just something about the music itself – forget the lyrics for a moment – that makes creativity flow.

Rush and Queen helped me to polish the story and get it ready for publication. In the TV series “Chuck”, Morimoto who created the arcade game “Missile Command” called Rush the music of the universe. I think he might be right. Chuck later figured out that there is a correlation between the music (specifically “Tom Sawyer”) and how to play the game, some mathematical pattern others couldn’t see. Maybe it’s the same with writing?

There are other great prog rock bands, of course, but these guys helped me with this specific story. (If you click on the links on each band, you’ll be led to a post on my blog about them.)

Find Dark Desires on all platforms: UBL

Award-winning author Ronel Janse van Vuuren mainly writes for teens and tweens, though she is known to write mythology-filled short stories for anthologies aimed at older readers. Her dark fantasy works, usually full of folklore, can be viewed on her website and on Goodreads.
Ronel can be found tweeting about writing and other things that interest her, arguing with her characters, researching folklore for her newest story or playing with her Rottweilers when she’s not actually writing.
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Movie Reviews

Smallfoot

A Yeti named Migo goes in search of the elusive smallfoot – humans.
It’s a simple message – people hurt by others, create rules and build walls to prevent it happening again. But walling ourselves off from others isn’t the answer. And we always need to seek the truth. (And in the deluge of media crap these days, that is so true!)
The animation is good. The scenery is very realistic while the characters are cartoony, which works.
It was mildly entertaining and better than I expected.
Recommended for a rainy day rental.

The Wandering Earth

The sun is dying and thrusters are built to move Earth to a new location.
This film made 800 million world-wide. I have no idea why…
It was ambitious to take on the book. Hopefully it’s not as bad as this film.
This film is just stupid and on so many levels. So many plot holes, inexplicable character actions, etc. There is no rhyme or reason why the two main characters leave the underground sanctuary. The mystery sister’s origins aren’t revealed until over halfway into the film. (Like the director forgot to explain it and stuck something in to cover his butt.) Actual science is out the window. (Move the Earth to another galaxy? Really?)
Plus there’s a HAL computer who wants to kill everyone.
And it’s good video game animation, but it’s not realistic and looks bad on the big screen.
This film makes Michael Bay movies look intelligent.
Not recommended!

Ninja News!

IWSG Anthology Contest

Don’t forget the Insecure Writer’s Support Group Annual Anthology Contest is open and taking submissions!
Genre is middle grade historical – adventure/ fantasy and the theme is voyagers.
See the site for full details.

New release!
Hoosier Dad by Elizabeth Seckman

Find it on all platforms HERE

Did you catch RiffTrax’s Star Raiders? You don’t want to miss the August show! Does music inspire your writing? Seen Smallfoot or The Wandering Earth? And are you entering the IWSG Anthology Contest?

I’m not posting next Monday but I will poke in and check on people during the week.