FOLDED IN HALF

I’d bought the book, an autobiography of an outspoken 90s basketballer, from a Salvation Army store for $3; a far cry from the big money he would have seen after inking the book deal. Even though I knew he’d never see a cent of the money paid and thus, would never know I (as a reader or a sales figure) existed, I was still looking forward to reading his opinions on issues ten years gone. Perhaps I’d find the time to knock it over during a slow shift at work, or inbetween writing sessions for my screenplay…just as long as the baller’s policy of keeping it real didn’t seep its way into my work – heaven forbid. But things didn’t work out that way, and before long the paperback had been relegated to the bedside table. There, it could boast that it was the last thing I saw before turning off the light each night, but I imagine that’s not exactly a fulfilling purpose for a book.

It was during one of these nightly exchanges that I noticed the dog ear.

There it was, about halfway through. It’s not exactly a tome, this book (I guess his views only stretched as far as his editor was willing to read, or he’d shrewdly saved the really juicy stuff for the sequel), so the tone of my imagination as it began to form an image of the book’s previous owner became somewhat patronising. You only got halfway? And was that in one sitting? But as the portrait became clearer, I started to experience the self-doubt and inferiority complex that accompanies second hand ownership syndrome. Had they paid full price, and in doing so become a blip on the author’s radar, at least moreso than I was? Surely someone willing to pay full price for a brand new paperback wouldn’t then proceed to ruin the book’s condition by dog-earing it. Surely someone that decadent would have a bookmark, perhaps one with a tassel. Perhaps in living so rich, they had led a busier life than me, so finishing the book in one sitting wasn’t as feasible, despite all the first class flights and departure lounges? Perhaps they needed glasses, and those glasses had not been available for the entire duration of the book’s value to them, rendering the pages blank and useless. What if the original owner had cared more about basketball than I did, and this was a signpost along a second, third or even fourth read-through?

What if the book was being used for some higher purpose, like research? And this dog-eared page contained information vital to that research?

Suddenly, my trivial, impulse purchase of the book felt like a petty, almost tawdry episode in the book’s imagined lifespan. Would it remember me on its deathbed? Would I make the will?

Why had the previous owner gotten rid of the book, anyway? And was I somehow second best because I’d picked up their refuse? Did all this analysis say more about me than about either the owner or the appeal of a paperback full of someone else’s opinions?

Probably.

The weight of it all was crippling, I needed to end the madness. What was on the page?! I turned to the marked chapter…

…only to discover that the dog ear was made up of two or three pages folded over together; classic wear and tear. No one had ever dogeared this book. Worse still, perhaps no one had ever read it. The realisation makes our nightly routine that much more bittersweet. Maybe one of these nights I’ll read it. I’ve been saving a bookmark for just such an occasion.

WISDOM

One of my favourite arcade games is Sega’s 1987 ninja hack-em-up Shinobi. You are Joe Musashi, a modern day ninja who runs a school…of ninja. One day, you find your students kidnapped by terrorists – a terrifying act indeed. Really, whoever kidnapped students from a ninja school must be extremely hardcore, but that thought doesn’t occur to you as you hit the streets to find your pupils armed only with your wits, your hands, your feet, uh, your throwing stars and your sword. Think it’s gonna be easy? Think again. The controls are tight, the music is fantastic, and the atmosphere is unparalleled.

Shinobi, arcade version.

One of the first encounters I had with this simple-in-concept-yet-amazing-in-execution game was years ago at a friend’s house. It was a far cry from the dingy arcades that had given birth to the game – a carefully housekept early 90s lounge room. “Don’t put your drinks down without coasters,” his mother warned as we excitedly ran from the kitchen to the lounge room with our cordial. He’d said he had something to show me, and since those ominous words are a lot more innocent when you’re a kid, I was excited.

In those days and in the income bracket my friends and I found ourselves born into, it was rare to have more than one TV in the house. Sometimes, if you were lucky, there’d be an ‘outside TV’; an older model often sporting wood paneling, a multitude of dials, and UHF. Laugh now, but those dials were integral to building upper arm strength. These TVs were invariably found in ‘games rooms’, ‘dens’, or any other secondary lounging space. Occupying the family TV for the frivolity of video games was seen as a major suburban faux pas, and would usually result in a clip ’round the ears or a slap if requests to do so weren’t submitted through the proper channels.

The greatest fear of the TV overlords seemed to be that “you’ll break the TV with that nonsense”, an observation painfully lacking in insight. Being able to play video games, especially on ‘the good TV’, was a powerful incentive for kids to learn the ins and outs of any model of television. Break it, parents? Why would we do that? Then we wouldn’t be able to play the games! The same logic applies to VHS players, but that’s another story.

My friend had turned 6 not so long before, and either from his parents following his strict instructions or from a hipper uncle or aunt, he’d received Shinobi for his Sega Master System.

Shinobi had been released for the system in 1988, and its violent blend of gritty street politics and daring rescue was more than enough to extinguish any desire for the day-glo bowl-cutted world of Alex Kidd (video games were supposed to be an escape from reality. Although that said, Sega soon produced Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, a game that appears to have reached into the future, read this criticism of Alex Kidd and then gone back to address those concerns). After a game had been on the shelf for two years, it was likely to be discounted, which is more than likely the reason my friend had received Shinobi for his birthday instead of a more recent release.

One look at the box was enough to know this game meant business. His eyes bore into you. They don’t implore to you save the kids, as do Michael Jackson’s on the cover of Moonwalker – they expect you’ve already saved them, and should only dare to meet his eyes if you’ve done so. If not, those shuriken just might be for you. The box provides you with everything you need. He’s Shinobi. You are Shinobi. GO NINJA GO!

Shinobi, Sega Master System version

Once the Sega had been powered up and Shinobi  was dominating our senses, the lounge room – with its Nick Scali leather lounges, myriad coasters for sloppily poured drinks, tacky Copperart flourishes and smelling strongly of Glen 20 – brutally made way for the gloomy, crate-filled back alleys and sinister docks which provided the backdrop for the action. Super Mario Bros. had nothing on this. It felt real, like I could have left the house that moment and headed for the nearest harbour and uncovered a secret ninja base, and if the game hadn’t been so compelling, I might have.

Sega Master System

At the start of the second act of Stage 1, the game threw a curveball at us. “Who’s that?” I asked my shuriken-throwing friend, who had been selfless and kind enough to “show” me the game without me having to play it. “I dunno, maybe it’s his wife,” he said distractedly, as if answering the simple, even rhetorical question could result in his in-game death.

But who was that? Why would the game, which in the first level had been completely bereft of any kind of posters, suddenly get all arty? Who was the woman they’d chosen to feature so prominently? There was no way you could miss her, even though she didn’t add anything to the gameplay itself. My friend died so many times on that stage she became burned into our retinas. By the end of the afternoon we’d taken to calling her Madonna, as that seemed to fit the bill. Later, as my mother drove me home and away from any method of playing Shinobi, I had a sneaking suspicion we were wrong.

The use of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic image in Shinobi is a curious, but unforgettable choice. Perhaps they were seeking to tie the game into reality, or perhaps they just admired her visage. It certainly lends the game’s atmosphere a more realistic feel, and there’s something unsettling about the clash of 50s-60s iconography and 80s aesthetic it causes. Perhaps the Japanese developers saw Monroe as the epitome of American glamour, and the juxtaposition of that against the burned-out action scenes that provide Shinobi‘s backdrops was an artistic statement that proved irresistible. Maybe there’s a definitive explanation out there, but knowing that would take some of the magic out of it, don’t you think?

Shinobi was released on many platforms. According to Wikipedia, no less than 10 ports of the original arcade game have been released since November, 1987. All of these have featured the Marilyn stage, and all of them have interpreted the original in different ways. Let’s take a look.

Arcade

The original, and perhaps the most understated. The arcade game’s first level features posters (albeit of ninjas), making Marilyn less surprising when she turns up. But still, why? Eagle eyed readers might notice that her beauty spot has shifted to the middle of her forehead in the bottom right picture.

Sega Master System

My first exposure to this phenomenon, the Sega Master System jacks up the bright colours but remains a relatively faithful version of the original. Her beauty spot stays still this time, so it’s got that going for it.

Nintendo Entertainment System

Despite being a Sega game, an unlicensed version of Shinobi found its way to the competition. Accordingly, they’ve changed the source picture of Marilyn, making her look more like the Mulligrubs host than ever before. Those eyes…they’re just demonic.

PC Engine

Electronics giant NEC had a go at the whole video games thing in the late 80s-early 90s, and Shinobi was there. Marilyn doesn’t seem to approve, as her smile has vanished. Her face looks as if she had previously been smiling at someone who’d then started making lewd gestures, or perhaps she’s reacting to the imminent crotch damage that bloke in front of the crate’s about to take. Closest to the arcade, though.

Atari ST

Atari’s heyday was far behind it by the late 80s, when Shinobi appeared on its home computer, the ST. Immediately you’ll notice it’s a different picture – Marilyn is now winking at the player…or perhaps the programmer. A lot of lonely nights spent staring at a screen would go into ports like these, and a winking Marilyn Monroe isn’t the worst thing you could spend that time looking at. Bafflingly, the programmers didn’t seem to have much faith in the recognisability of Monroe’s likeness (and in the case of my friend and I, they were right), so they’ve helpfully added a little caption filling us in. All in all they put more effort into her picture than they did into that bad guy’s face. Some like it hot, indeed.

Amstrad CPC

This looks horrendous. The Amstrad CPC should have been able to do a bit better than this, which has again used another picture of Marilyn. They’ve respected her pop-culture icon status a bit more than Atari, as her first name is all that’s necessary as a caption. Then again, the entire game features that Shinobi caption in the bottom centre, and I don’t think he’s quite reached the same legendary status as MM.

ZX Spectrum

I’m sorry for trashing the Amstrad version, I really am. The designers here have chosen to accentuate Marilyn beyond even the player sprite, which blends into the background just like the villains. So despite not being able to see your guy and play the game properly, you can still get a fix of Marilyn’s smiling face, which is different yet again. She looks a bit like she’s laughing at the player’s poor performance, which her inclusion is causing. Fair shake, Marilyn.

Commodore 64

Here they appear to have harkened back to the arcade original, despite the resolution being much worse. They’ve even gone so far as to replicate her beauty spot moving to her forehead in the last picture; nice attention to detail there.

IBM-PC

Yikes. The IBM-PC version sees Faye Dunaway filling in for Marilyn. I don’t blame her for looking away either, I don’t think I could look at that action for very long.

Wii/XBLA

Sadly, licensing issues have led to Marilyn’s removal for the Wii and Xbox Live Arcade versions of the game. Couldn’t they have worked this out? How was it okay for the vintage versions of the game? Does this ruin the atmosphere? Ordinarily I’d say no, but they were too lazy to replace her with even the existing in-game ‘NINJA!’ posters you find most other places in the game. C’mon guys, I’ve paid my points. Transport me.

Monroe’s appearance in Shinobi has even inspired a complete exhibition by artist Ashley Anderson, who believes the initial instance was a tribute to Andy Warhol. Anderson has used a variety of the different Marilyns found above to create a series of modern works. A 60s icon’s insertion into an 80s arcade game corresponds to the theory that there’s a 20 year gap for mass nostalgia, which is why in the 90s we saw a lot of 70s stuff, and why we’ve only recently pulled ourselves out of that horrible 80s revival. Perhaps a game came out in the last few years with a Shinobi poster up on one of its walls? Sadly we’re a lot more litigious than back then, so I doubt it. Whatever the reason for or meaning of her inclusion, it can’t be argued that Marilyn Monroe’s Shinobi cameo isn’t visually arresting or strikingly original. After all, you don’t see James Dean in Sonic the Hedgehog.

A big thanks to Hardcore Gaming 101 for the pics of the various Marilyns.

HIS EVER CHANGING MOODS

Can I talk about Game Boy for a minute?

In 1990, my dad brought home an Amstrad 386 PC complete with the shareware version of Commander Keen. As the tired saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention, and I certainly got inventive learning how to use DOS to get further games happening. When you’re 5, necessity is playing video games, especially if you’ve never had the chance before.

Imagine my shock and awe the following year when my friend Con came over with his GAME BOY. A Game Boy? Here, in my house?! In a fit of embarrassment I felt like hiding the little LCD basketball game I’d bought for myself with birthday cash months earlier. Sure, I could shoot hoops when the stars aligned and the tiny battery decided to work, but this dude had a Game Boy. It took FOUR batteries. Oh, the shame.

As starstruck as I was to have Nintendo’s portable device in my house (in my house), I wasn’t unfamiliar with Game Boys. As video games began their rise to power throughout the late 80s and early 90s, comics were on the decline. In a desperate cash-grab, advertising space in comics was overly available to the up and coming video game market, so plenty of NES and Game Boy ads wound up in my face as I read TMNT Adventures or Legends of the Dark Knight. Many big movies of the time received Game Boy adaptations, and those ubiquitous Ninja Turtles were certainly available on the go. The ads in comics served to make the Game Boy seem like an escape route for kids from the humdrum of life. If you didn’t want to endure a trip to Grandma’s place, you’d take your Game Boy (or your Tiger handheld LCD game) and raise some hell.

My world changed as Con played Super Mario Land in front of me. In the face of such…complete, personal and portable entertainment, I was able to gloss over the little things like the piss-yellow screen, the fact that the games weren’t in colour like Commander Keen, and a friend who seemed to get off on bringing stuff to the house of someone who didn’t have said stuff and boasting about it. This was real, and it was in my house. I had to act quickly.

The big difference between a Game Boy and the Tiger handheld series is that a Game Boy isn’t tied to just one game. If you, as did I, had Tiger’s Batman Returns, every time you turned it on you could expect the same epic struggle against the Penguin and Catwoman. It never changed, and it never could (but hey, Batman Returns isn’t on Game Boy). The background was fixed, and the LCD sprites did the rest, but even they were fixed to predetermined spots on the screen. The Game Boy was completely different: each game came on a cartridge, allowing it to be anything you wanted it to be. Feel like playing a puzzle game? Pop Tetris in. Got a hankering for some bare knuckle brawling? Slap in Double Dragon. Have you just been to the arcade, and want that experience on the street outside, on the corner up the road from your house, or even in your bedroom, up in your face? Insert NBA Jam, and keep your coins in your pocket.

When the Game Boy was released in 1989, the black and yellow graphics and minimalist sound actually helped to service the system’s first and most enduring game: Tetris. That Russian puzzle game with the unforgettable theme song and an infectious gameplay design, Tetris sold countless Game Boys in the first few years of the platform’s life. The early games haven’t all held up as well – the bland-by-name bland-by-nature Tennis and Super Mario Land both seem archaic – but Tetris still retains its pick-up-and-play addictiveness. It didn’t need colour or stereoscopic 3D to work; it just worked. As impressed as I was by Super Mario Land that Autumn day in 1991, Tetris was the one that truly stuck with me.

Also in 1991, Sega’s Game Gear was released. This new system made a big deal of its one clear advantage over the Game Boy: it was in colour. This turned out not to make a lick of difference in the retail war between the systems. Whereas the Game Boy needed four AA batteries to run for around 12 hours, the Game Gear needed six AAs to run for four hours. Although they’ve fallen by the wayside today, back then batteries weren’t cheap, especially to a kid with no income. The Game Boy wasn’t in colour, sure, but we knew why. The Game Gear also had ports of popular console titles like Sonic the Hedgehog, and tried to maintain a kind of x-treme image, but again no one seemed to care. The new system’s pack-in game was Columns, a puzzle game with Tetris-style aspirations, but it felt like a me-too effort at the time. I still couldn’t tell you how to play Columns, whereas Tetris is indelible. The only thing the Game Gear had going for it was its then-mindblowing TV adaptor. As a kid, to see a handheld videogame system able to be used as a TV was about the best thing ever, and the only thing I can remember about the Game Gear’s brief ad campaign.

I finally got my big grey brick for Christmas in 1994. It came with Tetris, Super Mario Land and Alien 3. By some strange coincidence, several friends received Game Boys that same Christmas, and we all got Super Mario Land. The Game Boy was everything I’d hoped for for three years and more: it wasn’t like the computer where you had to c:\games\ckeen\keen.exe or install things or pay attention to system specs to make sure Doom would run. You just popped in the cartridge and played. And you didn’t need to wait for someone to get off the computer because they were printing or doing work – it was yours. I could go into my room, sit directly under a decent light source, and get my game on.

As the batteries were about to die, as they would so often do during Alien 3, the graphics would suddenly fade out. This meant you didn’t have long, so you’d have to turn the sound off and crank up the contrast to get it playable again. When the batteries finally got replaced, you’d turn the Game Boy on again to find the screen completely dark because the contrast was still all the way up. While we’re on the topic, Alien 3 devoured many batteries in addition to being a kids game based on an M-rated movie. That was one hard game. I finished Super Mario Land about two weeks after Christmas, and Tetris cannot be finished…but Alien 3, a game which teases its end-game right near the start of play, was near impossible, and when you’ve exhausted all the games available to you, it’s time to branch out.

Luckily, by 1995 the Game Boy’s library was enormous. None of the competitors – the Game Gear, Atari’s Lynx, the endless onslaught of Tiger handhelds – had made a dent in the Game Boy’s market share. It was to portable gaming what the Walkman was to portable music – synonymous. This made the older games quite cheap, especially to kids with little money. When you don’t have disposable income, your choice of game matters, and the games you do get, you play. Spiderman 2 might be another nearly impossible game, but dammit, I played it. I tried to get my money’s worth out of it. My own collection was never huge, but thanks to generous friends, our combined collection was pretty respectable and always readily available. We’d trade all the time, and for months at a time. I once lent Mortal Kombat 3 to a friend for his Mortal Kombats 1 and 2 because, in his words, “one plus two equals three” (in this case it was untrue, as MKII was the best of the Game Boy MKs, but I was happy to let him go on thinking that). But while video shop rentals were common for the Mega Drives and Super Nintendos, only one shop in my area rented Game Boy games. I thank them now for allowing me to play Batman, Ghostbusters II and Navy SEALs (not so much that one), because they had the guts to pimp out Game Boy games at a time when no one else dared. Was it because they were presumed easier to steal or lose? The system’s user base was a lot larger than any of the home systems, so it wasn’t because the video shops loved money.

Despite its technical limitations, the Game Boy continued to receive what were to us kids amazing ports of big name titles. We were shocked when in 1995 Street Fighter II made it to the Boy, amazed when Killer Instinct got a port, and absolutely flattened when the much-hyped graphical powerhouse Donkey Kong Country received a cut-down, yet still impressive, version we could take anywhere.

For me, a massive part of the Game Boy’s appeal, even in those later years, was that I could take it anywhere. There was something so great about spending a Saturday afternoon in a friend’s backyard, so far from TVs or arcades, but still able to play The King of Fighters ’96. Huge franchises, be it video games or the latest film releases, could be a part of a trip to the countryside or a night in your room, grounded. You weren’t tied to the TV in order to play these games, you really could take it anywhere. Car trips, once so deathly boring, were suddenly a great opportunity for me to destroy the Death Star or get a perfect 300 game in World Bowling (still working on that one). Even at night, when the Game Boy couldn’t be seen, attachable lights were available to do the impossible – make games playable past your bedtime. The Game Boy, so versatile, able to be absolutely anything you wanted it to be depending on your mood, was a real symbol of individuality.

By 1997 though, the limitations had become that much more apparent, and the novelty was wearing off. You can only defeat Shredder so many times, and the really old games were getting old. It seemed like 1998 could have spelled the end for the little Boy who could…until the release of Pokemon. Thanks to that one game, the next generation’s Tetris on the exact same hardware, the Game Boy lived on through its first colour iteration Game Boy Colour, the next gene technical leap Game Boy Advance, and all the subsequent variations thereof. 2005′s Game Boy Micro was the last system released to carry the Game Boy name, and today, the system’s legacy is carried by the Nintendo DS family. These later systems are all amazing, but none feel as special in this era of phones that can do just about anything. I’m pretty sure the iPhone can play the entire Game Boy library and can probably do it without breaking a sweat. But it’s just not the same, and for me, nothing ever will be. That big grey brick of many moods really did allow me to play with portable power.

Now, if you’ll indulge me, there’s no better way to get the best feel for the Game Boy’s versatility and entertainment value than by watching the below video, but to heighten the experience, mute the volume and play the song in the second video while you watch. Game over.

INTERVIEW: JOHNNY SHAW

When I was a kid, video games were prohibitively expensive for someone without an income (like myself), and I didn’t have my own video card. What option did I have when I wanted to go on an action-packed, politically incorrect adventure full of suggestive themes, revenge, mayhem and the occasional bout of extreme patriotism? Books.

Yes, while parents and teachers clucked about violence on television and in video games, we were getting our fix of subversive pleasure from the school library. It starts off innocently enough: Choose Your Own Adventure, ghost stories, things like that. Choose Your Own Adventure books could often be a scarring experience; the sense of mystery, excitement and wonder behind the idea of ‘turning the page’ was transformed into a white knuckle thrill ride, since death lurked behind myriad corners. Sure, you could rewind…it was like a video game with unlimited lives. But that entry level drug soon makes way for the harder stuff: Goosebumps, those dodgy horror compilations, and perhaps the sneakiest fix of all: movie adaptations. If I wasn’t allowed to watch the R-rated Total Recall on TV or get it from the video shop, I’d just march into the library and borrow the novelisation. Often, these were more violent than what you’d see on screen because your imagination (remember those?) augmented the graphic descriptions being thrown in your face.

Taking things one step further were the men’s adventure series so prolifically published in the 70s and 80s. Action heroes who could only exist on the page struggled eternally against wildly exaggerated street gangs tearing up the naked city, Commies, Nazis, mutants, or abominations of science. If you were a threat to the city/state/hero’s home/America, you were a villain that needed to be ended with extreme prejudice and a total lack of political correctness. Similarly, if you were a woman in peril during these adventures, you’d wind up satisfied multiple times.

Those days are long gone now, but inside one quarterly magazine, the fire still burns. Blood & Tacos seeks to bring back that era of fun, action and adventure in the biggest way possible: directly to your face. Each issue features five or six hard-as-nails page-turners crafted by some of today’s best and emerging crime writers, all featuring massive damage, hiss-worthy villains, soft-and-sensual ladies, and of course steely heroes determined to administer justice wherever and whenever it’s needed, which of course is everywhere and always.

Not long ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Johnny Shaw, accomplished screenwriter and author, and steel-toed editor of Blood & Tacos. Think about that for a second: this man has to whittle down a selection of the hardest of stories with his bare hands. Read on…

Johnny, what was it about the modern age that was screaming for a return to the gung-ho pulp action heroes of old?

I seriously doubt that the modern age was screaming for Blood & Tacos, but they are now. No matter how civilized we pretend to be, the universal appeal of sex and violence has never diminished. Blood & Tacos gives the people what they want, except we’re slapping sideburns and bushy mustaches on it.

There’s something freeing about stories set in the 1970s & 1980s. Stories that consciously forego any political correctness and let loose the dogs of war.

What can readers expect from a typical issue?

If you’ve read the Executioner, the Destroyer, or the Death Merchant, you’ll know right away what we’re all about. Entertaining stories that deliver fast-paced thrills and big action. Manly men doing manly things.

Every three months, Blood & Tacos delivers five original “re-discovered” stories from the 1970s & 1980s. Men’s fiction “discovered” by today’s hottest crime writers. The stories run the gamut from “one man’s war against the mob” to “survival in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.” Two-fisted tales with heroes named The Silencer, The Albino Wino, Bastard Mercenary, and Tiger Team Bravo, to name a few.

Was it hard to convince other crime writers to get on board? What kind of talent do you have on hand?

Surprisingly, most writers jumped at the chance to be a part of the Blood & Tacos family. I’m getting submissions from all over the world.

Remember, a lot of established, bestselling authors started their careers writing for the men’s adventure paperbacks of this era. Nelson DeMille (Ryker), Joe Lansdale (Stone: MIA Hunter), Marc Olden (Black Samurai), and Lee Goldberg (.357: Vigilante), just to name a few.

While I’m proud to have veteran writers like Gary Phillips and Ray Banks participating, the opportunity to publish an author for the first time (in the case of Christopher Blair’s Battleground USSA story) is even more rewarding. I’m also really excited to announce that the new issue will have a story by Stephen Mertz, a writer who actually wrote men’s adventure novels, including Executioner and Stone: MIA Hunter books.

You’ve been very careful not to denigrate the source material, although there’s plenty of room for humour. How do you find a balance between hard-boiled ball-tearers and the more satirical stories?

“Hard-boiled ball-tearers?” Maybe I should get you to write a story. I’m definitely using that in the publicity from now on.

The original stories from the era were so over-the-top, bordering on or completely sliding into self-parody that it would be difficult to do anything more outrageous than what was written in say, The Penetrator series. That gives our writers a lot of latitude. They can play it straight. They can go broad. I leave that choice up to them.

We’ve always described the aesthetic of the stories as “ridiculously awesome.” When an albino henchmen attacks a mustachioed hero with a spear gun. That kind of thing. That’s what we’re going for. It’s about big, harmless fun.

They’re definitely very cinematic stories. I know you can’t speak for the other writers, but what’s your process to get into the headspace of the grizzled ‘King of the Three-Shots’ Brace Godfrey?

Writing as Brace Godfrey is a blast. I’ve created a character that I write through rather than about. And he’s a real piece of work.

I see Brace as a reformer, although limited by a narrow world view. I really like the idea of a writer that wants to be the first person to feature a Hispanic hero or a tough female heroine, but when he does so, he incorporates all the worst stereotypes and caricatures in his portrayal. The opportunities for humor and satire are broad.

That was essentially the heart of blaxploitation and characters like John Shaft in the 1970s. Black heroes had finally arrived, but they were all pimps and players. And it’s not like things have changed much.  It’s still happening with Asians, just to name one group.  There might be stories with Asian heroes, but I can count on my left hand the number of non-martial artists out there.

You’ve recently released your first novel, Dove Season, which certainly testifies to your authority in the crime fiction genre. How did you get started, and what are your influences?

I started as a screenwriter and playwright, but over time grew more and more intrigued by fiction. I was so intimidated by writing a novel, that when I wrote Dove Season, I didn’t tell anyone—including my wife—that I was writing it until I was 100 pages in and confident that I would finish. Since the publication of Dove Season, exciting things just keep happening. In fact, my new novel, Big Maria, comes out in September.

I have always been drawn to writers that play with tone. Writers that are hard-boiled and comfortable in the shadows, but can shift to humor just as quickly.  Off the top of my head, writers like James Crumley, Charles Willeford, Jonathan Latimer, and Chester Himes really showed me that realistic crime stories didn’t have to be humorless.

How far can you see Blood & Tacos going? Where would you like it to?

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my partners-in-crime. Pete Allen, the publisher of Blood & Tacos and the mastermind behind Creative Guy Publishing, has given me incredible creative control that borders on irresponsibility.

Also, my wife Roxanne Patruznick, who continues to do me the enormous favor of volunteering her incredible talent by supplying the original covers for each issue. How many magazines get original oil paintings for their covers? Honestly, they’re the best part.

Right now, we’re concentrating on putting out a solid issue every three months. But, don’t worry, we’ve got big plans.

Look for a Blood & Tacos book imprint in 2013. Pete and I are still working out the details, but at the very least we should have the Year One Annual (collecting all the stories from the first four issues) and a Chingón novella in print in the first half of next year. After that, our plan is to open it up to the authors to write novellas for their characters, stand-alone stories that deliver ungodly amounts of ridiculous awesomeness.

Could you reveal your favourite three-shot?

No question about it, Swamp Master by Jake Spencer.

Here’s the promotional copy from the cover of Swamp Master #2: Hell on Earth: “Mutants and killers rule a devastated land. One man defies them. In Post-Nuke America, Mutant Death Squads terrorize the masses of Occupied Florida. Now mindless killer drones are infiltrating the coast from a floating fortress manned by neo-Nazi stromtroopers. These assassins are wired to kill and willing to die – and only one man dares to take them on. Swamp Master.” Are you kidding me? Talk about ridiculously awesome.

Bonus: What’s the perfect soundtrack for reading an issue of Blood & Tacos?

“The Big Payback” by James Brown, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, and the theme to The A-Team playing simultaneously at full volume.

Johnny’s second novel, Big Maria, is due out in September 2012. His first, Dove Season, is available now, and very much worth the read. This interview originally appeared, in edited form, in Time Out Sydney magazine.

IN THE WAKE OF THE BOUNTY

Mutiny on the Bounty, by Robert Dodd

Recently, a friend and I decided it’d be fun to watch a triple shot of the three major Hollywood films of the Bounty story in a row: starting with 1935′s Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian and Charles Laughton as William Bligh, then 1962′s Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando as Christian and Trevor Howard as Bligh, and finally The Bounty, with Mel Gibson as Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Bligh. We’re all familiar with the story: while on a voyage from Great Britain to Tahiti to collect breadfruit for slaves in the West Indies, Lieutenant William Bligh loses control of his ship, the Bounty, to his first mate Fletcher Christian and a discontented crew. Bligh and his faithful are set adrift near Tonga and miraculously survive the journey to Batavia, eventually making it back to England, while Christian and some of his fellow mutineers establish a society on the uninhabited Pitcairn Island. I thought it’d be interesting to discover how differently each film treated the subject matter, and how reflective of their respective eras each film would be. How historically accurate the films are in portraying the events we can never know for certain, but we can eventually decide which one will transplant those true events in the minds of the public as Titanic seems to have done for that event, judging by the recent Twitter fiasco.

It’s interesting that Hollywood took this very British story of resentment, shame, defiance and triumph over adversity (for better or worse) and turned it into such a demo unit for film itself in each major era of the medium. It’s also interesting that the story hasn’t been filmed since the 80s, and I think the reason for this is that the filmmaking climate and atmosphere hasn’t changed sufficiently for such a film to be made. The Bounty of 1935 is a cookie-cutter adventure film, where we’re immediately introduced to an heroic people’s champion in Christian, and a ridiculously overblown villain in Bligh. Bligh’s villainy knows no bounds – even death is no hiding place from a flogging. Towards the start of the film, a seaman (giggle now and get over it, we’ll be using this one a lot) accused of striking a superior (presumably Bligh) is tied to a post and sailed out beside the Bounty, which hasn’t even left port. Sometime between being tied up and reaching the Bounty, apparently a five minute journey, the seaman has died. This doesn’t deter Bligh, who insists that the man be flogged anyway, and that his crew watch and heed the example. Christian winces, but stands by his captain’s wish. Gable’s Christian is such a righteous hero that the film’s conflict becomes tiresome very quickly. You wait for Bligh to do something unreasonably evil, like send a man up to the crow’s nest for laughing out of line, and once that happens you yawn and check your watch while Christian pauses to frown about the injustice before taking some mild action. Sadly, like Titanic, you know how the story ends, so you know that no matter how villainous Bligh’s acts become, he won’t get his comeuppance until much later in the film. When it happens, it’s well deserved – he’s cast off the ship after a daring rescue effort of some shackled seamen by Christian, who then delivers an inspiring speech about starting a wonderful new society on Pitcairn’s Island free from the oppressive villainy represented by Bligh.

Clark Gable and Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Unfortunately, that’s only about halfway through the film. The second half becomes a Moby Dick knockoff, with Bligh inexplicably making it back to land, securing himself another ship, the Pandora, and pursuing the mutineers across the ocean. He captures a few of them, shackles them in Pandora‘s brig, and then runs the ship aground on the Great Barrier Reef. He makes a miraculous escape, leaving the shackled seamen to die. It’s annoying because he hasn’t learned his lesson in any way, and even at the end, during the trial of the surviving mutineers (not including Christian) Bligh still escapes any real retribution aside from a dressing down by the Naval court. Given the exaggerated nature of his villainy, however, you just expect a little more. Christian marries his Tahitian amour and starts that wonderful life on Pitcairn’s, and apart from the horrible drowning deaths of those seamen in Pandora‘s box, it’s a happy ending for all. The audience’s ‘in’ in this film is a fictional character named Roger Byam, a composite drawn from the wildly successful book Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Byam bears witness to almost every notable event on the voyage (and in one case becomes a victim of Bligh’s sadistic cruelty), and attempts to stop the mutiny when it happens. This places him squarely in the ‘why do it for’ basket for the audience, who by this point sorely wants the mutiny to happen. At the film’s climactic courtroom scene Byam, despite his levelheadedness, is sentenced to death when Bligh fails to note his opposition to the mutiny (because he’s evil!). After an offscreen plea for clemency by Sir Joseph Banks (!), Byam is given a reprieve – as if we care. We saw him enjoying the spoils of Tahiti, before and after the mutiny, and loving it. The black and white look, although it couldn’t be helped, does nothing but date the film even further. The tropical locations all look like sets, even if they weren’t, and the ‘natives’ are about as politically incorrect as you’d expect from the 30s. Christian’s Tahitian love interest wins his heart with her English vocabulary, which consists entirely of the word ‘yes’ (so it won’t be rape). Christian and co get a good laugh out of her ‘island naivety’, with even her ‘tribal chief’ father joining in. It’s that 30s Hollywood laughter too, adding to the sickening nature of the scene. For someone familiar with the true story, you forget that that’s what you’re watching an adaptation of. It just feels like mugging Hollywood actors barking their way through a simplistic, childish script. It’s so tailor made for audiences of the time – boo now! hiss now! cheer now! – that it’s hard to watch today. The boat, however, looks pretty authentic, and the ocean photography looks real. As I’ve said, Bligh’s villainy becomes comical after awhile, and you end up laughing your way through a fatal keelhauling, several floggings, and the Bounty’s two rowboats being used to tow the ship when the wind dies down. We don’t get to see the Bounty’s disastrous attempt to round Cape Horn on the trip to Tahiti, nor do we get to see much of Bligh’s remarkable journey from Tonga to Batavia with the bare minimum of supplies. I presume the latter is excised because such a feat would detract from his moustache-twirling villainy, even though it would have been immediately followed up with his Captain Ahab schtick (which did not happen in real life). Gable is all Hollywood smiles and easy charm, with that stilted 30s line delivery in full force. I’ve read that Gable had to shave off his famous moustache for ‘historical accuracy’, which is ridiculous given the liberties taken throughout. Laughton proves not to be the best medicine after all, as his overblown Bligh extends beyond the reaches of acceptable reality, and arguably even beyond what’s acceptable for adult fantasy or historical adventure. This film might have worked better if they’d changed the names and done it as a fact-inspired work of fiction, because the factual elements they chose to leave in, especially those that haven’t got to do with the main story of the mutiny, seem to stand out that much more. For instance, the Bounty’s alcoholic surgeon Thomas Huggan is included in the film, but is bafflingly renamed Dr. Bacchus (or Dr. Faggot, as we misheard in the first instance due to Gable’s clipped delivery and the hissy soundtrack). His eventual death by indolence (historically accurate) is slanderously attributed to Bligh in the film. The breadfruit plays a minimal role in this one – it’s the Macguffin they’re going to Tahiti to get, they engage in minimal bartering with the Tahitian chief to obtain the plants, and they’re thrown out of the Bounty by celebrant mutineers as Bligh is left stranded. In fact, the journey itself is just an excuse to get a lot of big personalities confined in a small space for two hours. The Cape Horn attempt is left out, and the stopover in Tahiti is dedicated to meeting the film’s ‘romance’ quota; Christian meets his wife Maimiti, as played by Mamo under extreme soft focus. Bligh doesn’t have many scenes on Tahiti, presumably because he’s off killing puppies. This film won the Oscar for Best Picture in its year, but to me this doesn’t even feel like a particularly classic ‘classic film’.

Moving on, we tackled Lewis Milestone’s 1962 lavish Mutiny on the Bounty. This one’s a true 1960s epic – big sets, big costumes, big colours, big names. This was Brando’s last big film before his star waned, and it’d take him another ten years to reclaim the spotlight – not that he seemed to care. He fell in love with Tahiti during the filming of this movie, married .. , who plays Maimiti in this version, and ended up buying an island in the region. The film unfolds at first through the eyes of the ship’s botanist, charged with creating a healthy, prosperous environment for the hallowed breadfruit. There’s narration, but after a while the filmmakers forget about it, and by the end it’s not clear whose perspective we’re getting. This movie is as much of a product of its time as the Gable film was, and with a three hour running time it doesn’t let you forget it. It includes an overture and an intermission, which is great if you’re foolishly doing a triple shot like we did. Brando’s strange take on the character of Christian isn’t entirely unwelcome, and for the most part it’s very entertaining – during the character establishment scene in which we’re introduced to various crew members while the ship is in port (with the notable omission of the drunk surgeon, who does not appear at all in this film) Brando makes a grand entrance literally dressed as a pimp, and with a girl on each arm. He looks like a pilgrim Billy Zane, and for the entire scene he never loses his broad smirk. Foppish dandy doesn’t even begin to describe his appearance and manner, and his helium voice is without any discernible accent. Clearly, this interpretation clashes with Trevor Howard’s stern reimagining of Bligh. No longer a cartoonish villain, this Bligh is a strict authoritarian, and you really get a sense that he’s someone who’s spent years in the Royal Navy. No-nonsense to a fault, Bligh isn’t even shown to laugh for the first hour and a half, and his one laughing scene is predictably at another crewman’s expense. Brando’s antagonism of Bligh begins early, and the dynamic between the two is more like an Odd Couple situation – the uptight hardass and the carefree layabout opposed to Gable’s Fairbanksian hero and Laughton’s pantomime villain. In this Bounty, Brando seems to be more disruptive of Bligh’s mission-minded agenda, and whatever discontent there is among the crew, led by Richard Harris, Brando is happy to fuel. There’s the token scenes of flogging and torture, but Howard concentrates his punishment on a select few rabble rousers rather than subjecting the entire crew to misery, and this of course is ultimately his undoing. The Bounty replica is very impressive this time around, and the rich colour of the film not only does it justice, but the South Pacific locations as well, which look fantastic (when they’re not AstroTurfed sets). The attempt to round Cape Horn is shown in all its soggy glory, and is genuinely gripping. Howard conveys the sense that he’s a worldly seaman who could have made it with the right crew, and his rage at the crew’s failure seems justified. Brando’s hardly the man of action Gable was, and during these scenes of Hornbloweresque high sea adventure he just seems out of place, serving only to antagonise Bligh with his flippancy and smug aristocratic manner.

Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

When the crew finally reaches Tahiti, we get more of a look at the native Tahitians – tribal rituals are shown, including an amusing scene where Bligh is persuaded to dance with the chief’s daughter. Bligh’s spasmodic dancing is met with derision by the crew, which is of course the reason he’s reluctant to do it – but if he doesn’t, he won’t get the breadfruit. It’s little scenes like this that make the psychological nature of the mutiny that much more credible – it’s a constant power struggle. Brando’s physique was constantly fluctuating during production, and as a result his Christian never has a shirtless scene like in the other films. This wouldn’t be a big deal if he didn’t look so ridiculous rolling around on the sand with Maimiti in full Naval uniform, having abandoned his pimp suit by this point. The crew are shown enjoying the freedom of the island, but Bligh is shown in several instances to violently reject the island ways, further building on the ‘us vs him’ dynamic. Howard’s Bligh still has moments of unreasonable sadism – there’s another keelhauling, another scene of rowboats towing the Bounty, and plenty of flogging. But things reach boiling point when Bligh is informed that the breadfruit won’t survive the journey from Tahiti to the West Indies without fresh water – to solve the problem, he cuts the crew’s water rations. It’s the last straw, and one that sends Brando from puffing on a pipe while wearing a silk sleeping cap in one scene to booting Bligh up the ass and starting the mutiny in the next. Harris’ sailor taunts and goads Brando into rising up against Bligh, but in the end the mutiny is an impulsive reaction to a particularly brutal instance of Bligh’s cruelty (Bligh kicks a ladle of water en route to a man delirious from drinking seawater out of Brando’s hand) more than anything else. Once Bligh and his faithful are set adrift, Brando’s take on the Christian character changes completely. Gone are the smirks, the posing, the capes – they’re replaced by excessive brooding in dimly lit cabins, albeit with the pimp outfit still visible in the background. With Bligh gone, he’s at a loss – and this seems credible. Christian’s impulsive act wasn’t thought through, and although the crew is keen to get back to the hedonistic pleasures of Tahiti, Brando becomes desperate for guidance. Meanwhile, Bligh is shown in part making his journey from Tonga to Batavia on the rowboat, but the film cuts from this to Bligh stepping out of a carriage back in England without any exposition. Once again, he’s exonerated by the Naval court but told off in front of everyone for being an asshole. At this point Bligh leaves the picture, and the rest is all Brando. He makes his way to Pitcairn’s Island after discovering it on a map, but he’s still filled with regret for his actions. He discusses taking the Bounty back to England with Harris and the other mutineers so as to illuminate Bligh’s villainy (how heroic), but they’re quite happy to live like kings on the island – happy enough to burn the Bounty so that Brando doesn’t spoil their future. In a ridiculous, fictional ending borne of the writers writing themselves into a corner, Brando races aboard the burning ship to save the sextant just in case he ever manages to get hold of another boat and feels like heading home. He sustains fatal injuries (!) and has a Hollywood death scene on the beach. There’s some heavy handed parallel imagery of the boat sinking as he dies, and even the ever-mutinous Harris is shown looking regretful. You might have noticed that I’ve referred to ‘Brando’ more than I have ‘Christian’, and that’s because the man overshadows the character. It’s just the impression I’m left with, just as much as Gable’s matinee-idol charisma almost completely eliminated any attempts at creating a character. Howard and Laughton fare much better, with Howard especially disappearing into the role in a subtle way. Bligh’s character in this version is a man under what he feels is extreme duress. He’s a man at war, as he says, with bad weather, bad currents and bad sailors. The film does well to show all of these things affecting him, and although he doesn’t exactly begin the film as a warm figure, you at least feel some sympathy for him – at least until the keelhauling. We can understand his motivations, and so can Brando, and that adds to Christian’s conflict following the mutiny. 1962′s Bounty has a dour yet silly ending, but it’s more satisfying than the 1935 film. I think the filmmakers must have felt that Brando had to die because he really had done the wrong thing, whereas Gable had been completely righteous. It’s an interesting insight into changing sensibilities, and the start of a trend toward darker, bleaker storytelling in Hollywood.

By the time we got to Roger Donaldson’s The Bounty, we were starting to get sick of the formula. Evil captain, reluctant hero. Mutiny. Natives. How did a third film on the same subject have any chance at freshening things up? Well for starters, this film doesn’t draw from the Nordhoff/Hall novel as the last two did. Instead, it’s inspired by Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian by Richard Hough, which was renowned upon its 1972 release as the most historically accurate account of the mutiny published to that date. The book’s major difference was that it presented Bligh and Christian as friends at the start of the voyage, which had basis in historical fact – they’d sailed on voyages before the Bounty. What’s interesting is that The Bounty’s producer Dino DeLaurentiis had previously produced Hurricane, based on a novel by Nordhoff and Hall. This adaptation, written by Robert Bolt, was originally going to be directed by David Lean as two films: one for the mutiny and one for the aftermath. Lean’s stock in Hollywood had fallen after the disastrous reception received by Ryan’s Daughter, and this, coupled with the increasingly large budget, tricky logistics and a stroke suffered by Bolt during pre-production, caused Lean to exit the project. When Mel Gibson ended up being offered the role of Christian, he asked his friend, Australian-born, New Zealand director Roger Donaldson to direct. During Lean’s time on the film, Anthony Hopkins was one of the names touted for the role of Bligh, and this decision was retained for Donaldson’s film. Rather than inventing a character to be the eyes of the audience, or half-heartedly putting us in the shoes of the ‘impartial’ botanist and forgetting about him a third of the way in, this film frames its story with Bligh’s post-mutiny trial in England, so for most of the film we’re given his perspective of events. It’s ridiculous to imagine this kind of film working in any way if you’re only familiar with Laughton’s Bligh, but Hopkins gives such a careful, considered performance as Bligh that it’s a pleasure to take the journey once more. Likewise, Gibson takes the brooding aspect of Brando’s performance and combines that with a character who was written as a reactive observer. Nothing escapes Christian, and Gibson’s eyes convey much of his inner struggles. Bligh and Christian, in this film, are men with strong yet wildly different senses of right and wrong, and it comes across thanks to decent acting and directing that allows for subtlety in both performances. You can sympathise with both, making this one much more of a tragedy than either of the previous movies. The friendship, the optimism, odd little character moments along the way (such as Bligh’s reluctance to get it on with the Tahitian chief’s daughter) all come together to paint a far more realistic portrait of what went on on the ship. The crew don’t start off hating an evil captain, but they’re slowly turned into mutinous dogs by a series of what they believe to be injustices (the failed bid to round Cape Horn, excitingly shown in this film, the unnecessary cruelty of the ship’s first mate Fryer, the unexpectedly long time spent in Tahiti cut short by a jealous Bligh). Bligh’s story to the admiralty in England suggests that the crew was corrupted by the hedonistic Christian, but we’re allowed to see how Christian himself became that way. Bligh in fairness blames the tropical location itself as being part of the problem, and it shows – in having to stay for far longer than originally expected thanks to the delicate nature of the breadfruit, the crew becomes accustomed to the decadent lifestyle afforded them by the Tahitians…a lifestyle Bligh wants no part of. Bligh, constantly surrounded by his loyalists – the sneering Fryer, the drunk surgeon Huggan (correctly named this time), the ship’s flog-master Cole – appears to become jealous of Christian, who himself is constantly in the company of topless Tahitian women. It’s not something that’s explicitly stated, but it’s a latent feeling that builds as the film goes on.

Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson in The Bounty (1984)

Eventually, Bligh grows to resent Christian and they go from a first name basis at the start of the film to short and sarcastic uses of their full titles, wielded like weapons. But that doesn’t make Bligh the sadistic pirate of the past – only two floggings are issued on the voyage, and both stem from a desertion attempt by a few particularly surly crew members. No keelhauling, although the ship’s first-timer is dunked into the ocean as the Bounty crosses the equator. Every now and then, the underlying tensions reach a boiling point and there’s a shouted confrontation, which makes the actual mutiny that much more shocking, as it’s not like steam wasn’t being let off throughout the trip. One such shouting match following the disastrous Cape Horn attempt results in the first mate Fryer replaced with Christian by an angry Bligh, who blames his crew for the failure. The catalyst for the mutiny this time is fictional, but a prime example of a time when taking license works. Bligh, still envious of his crew’s excesses in Tahiti, seeks to claim some glory of his own from the journey by going through with his desire to circumnavigate the globe. The only way to do this is by rounding Cape Horn on the trip from Tahiti to Jamaica to deliver the breadfruit. He announces this to the crew, and understandably, they’re a little upset – or as Mel puts it, ‘the men won’t have it’. For Christian, this is beyond reasonable. He sees it as Bligh’s passive aggressive punishment of the men for their decadence, and one that puts everyone’s life at risk simply for Bligh’s glory. Incited to mutiny by the officer Ned Young, Christian takes the ship in a rage. Of all the tensions amongst the crew, Christian’s by this point have been the most suppressed. He’s formed a connection with a Tahitian princess (and gotten her pregnant), he’s learned the Tahitian language, he’s been heavily tattooed…he has no want to return to England, but has no idea what to do about it. As he says, he is in hell. The mutiny isn’t a sudden boiling over of emotions and anger, like Brando’s, nor is it a long-awaited heroic act like Gable’s. It’s extremely personal for Christian, something his brutish accomplices don’t understand. They set Bligh adrift, but Christian makes sure Bligh is given the navigational equipment he’ll need for his journey. From here, the film leaves behind Bligh’s narration and focuses on the diverging paths, and the repercussions of what seemed like a simple and necessary decision for Christian. A lot of criticism I’ve read of this film attacks it for presenting events, particularly in the second half, from Bligh’s perspective that he could have no knowledge of. I disagree – the film’s presentation of Bligh’s memories are completely different from Christian’s solo scenes, and a lot of credit for this goes to Gibson’s expressive features. We can tell that we’re not getting any of it through Bligh’s eyes. What we do get through Bligh’s perspective is a much more involved and brutal account of his against-the-odds journey to Batavia, including a particularly disturbing scene where his starving party lands on an island full of hostile natives. Never before in any of the films has the concept that British soldiers and sailors look so out of place in the tropics been presented so well than in this scene. Bligh struggles to barter with the savages, giving them his hat in return for meagre supplies, but the natives are far too worked up to conduct civilised proceedings like the Tahitians. One crewman makes the mistake of attacking them, and is brutally murdered. In their sailor hats and heavy coats, it’s clear such sailors were never meant to be in tropical paradises like the archipelagos shown here. It’s a distant death, and one that sticks. It gives you a strong impression of just how far away from their home they are, and how far they have to go. Meanwhile, Christian is discovering that his crew weren’t as satiated by the mutiny as he thought. When they land back at Tahiti to pick up their women and supplies, he’s told in no uncertain terms by the chief that Christian is to leave, because otherwise the British navy will unleash hell on the island in retribution. Christian’s face indicates he hadn’t considered that, just as it does when told by several crew members that they’d prefer to stay in Tahiti than go with him. Silently, he leaves with his scant few loyalists, who are more loyal to the freedom afforded to them by the mutiny than Christian himself. As they drift aimlessly around the South Pacific in the Bounty, the crew lose faith in Christian’s idea that they’ll happen upon an inhabitable island. It culminates in a scene where Christian’s forced to train a gun on the discontented crew while they steer the boat in search of Pitcairn’s Island, which he’s found on a map, with his wife waking him every time he drifts off to sleep. Being the leader isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. At the same time, Bligh and his crew are wasting away (and adorned in fake beards) when they finally arrive at Batavia. He’s able to make his way from there to England, where we find him at the end of his trial. The admiralty places the blame for the mutiny on Christian, and Bligh is pardoned. He tears up as he leaves the courtroom. Christian has by now found Pitcairn’s Island, and he and the Bounty’s crew watch the ship burn in the island’s bay. The look on their faces suggests they’re unprepared for an uncertain future, and that the one thing they’re sure about is that they’ve reached the point of no return. This movie, made in 1984, is indicative of that era’s shift towards darker, more psychological storytelling applied to familiar tales, and for mine, it succeeds. The photography is beautiful, and feels more natural than the overblown colours of the 1962 film. The music, an electronic score by Vangelis, is a far cry from the bombastic sailor tunes and sweeping overtures of the past, and does well to establish a sinister vibe and feeling of isolation. Hopkins and Gibson are a great pairing, and their dynamic is excellent. Neither is afforded more screen time over the other, and neither comes out a clear ‘winner’. It’s morally ambiguous, and the first of these films to truly challenge the audience. For that I think it should be commended.

By the end of the three films we were pretty much Bountied out, but it was nice to end on the most satisfying film as opposed to most trilogies. Each film provides a different experience, no prior film is made redundant by its successor, and I think that’s commendable. So many remakes or retellings seek to replace the former in the public’s mind, and for that reason so many fail. These films are star driven – the audience is likely to make the 2-3 hour commitment based on the stars involved rather than the story, which is certainly the sort where you think ‘but I know how it ends’. The 1984 film does the best at shattering expectations (although I was surprised by Brando’s silly death scene), and also, arguably, does the best at delivering on its star promise. It’s arguable because fans of Gable and Laughton probably won’t be disappointed by the 1935 film, but fans of the story probably will be. Fans of subtlety will be absolutely devastated by it, that’s for sure. I’m not sure that Brando’s performance in his film was among his best, although it’s interesting, and despite not having ‘fans’ in the traditional sense, Trevor Howard puts on a good show for anyone watching the film for him. Gibson and Hopkins absolutely deliver, and both make you want to see sequels involving Bligh’s rum rebellion in NSW or Christian’s struggles on Pitcairn Island – and that’s something you can’t say about the older films. As I’ve said, the films are very much products of their time, and in this way the 1984 film holds up best. We can only await and dread the inevitable Disney/Pixar version set in space in the distant future, or the gritty Michael Bay horror reboot, or Mutiny on the Bounty by Zombies naff comedy remake. I am in hell, sir.