Metropolis Redone

As just about everyone knows me knows, I love the old movie Metropolis. But I have never liked the ending at all. So if were to get the chance, here is how I would change it.

The movie stays the same with a couple of minor adjustments until the workers riot and go charging towards the power room. We then see Joh Fredersen and Rotwang in Joh Fredersen’s office watching the riot on the electrotelevisifier (television).

Joh Fredersen: Ok, you set this up for me. Now what do I do?

Rotwang: Push the pink button next to you.

Joh Fredersen, with some astonishment: This turns them all gay?

Rotwang, laughing: No, it releases the poison gas.

Joh Fredersen pushes the button: Why pink? Did you run out of colors?

Rotwang still laughing: No, when we tested it the workers we tested it on came out pink.

Joh Fredersen laughs so hard he almost falls over and has to sit down: They go in red and come out pink. That is progress! Have a drink.

Rotwang pours himself a glass of champagne.

Joh Fredersen: L’chaim!

As the drink laughing, the camera moves to the mob, now breathing in the cloud of gas and choking, then falling en massed to the floor twitching uncontrollably as they die in various postures of unspeakable agony.

The movie ends with row upon row of robots in blue uniforms marching up the Cathedral steps, the proles having been removed once and for all.

Oh, and Freder and the Robot Maria live happily ever after, Freder never been quite smart enough to figure out that he is mating with a machine.

Ninevah

Everyone knows the story of Jonah pretty much, for those who don’t, let me give you a little refresher.

Jonah was sitting under a tree and God said, “Guess what! You won the lottery! I’m sending you to the wicked city of Ninevah to let them know I am going to blast the living shit out of their sorry sinner asses.”

Well, Jonah, figuring that the good Ninevahns might not take kindly to this and kill him, ran for his life. He got on a boat, a huge storm came up and the crew decided to sacrifice him to Dagon, by throwing him overboard to be devoured by Cthulhu. Well, Cthulhu didn’t want him and a big fish, usually called a whale but it was probably Leviathan, got him for dinner. Only Jonah was indigestible and the fish puked him out.

Well, after that experience, Jonah decided that it made more sense to be killed by the Assyrians so he got to Ninevah and preached. Turns out he was pretty good at it because the Assyrian king said, “Everyone repent!” And they did! In fact they did it so heartily that God looked down and said, “Maybe I was a little hasty..”

Now what has this bit of silliness got to do with anything? Most preachers use the example of Jonah as an example of faith overcoming fear, which is nuts because it is merely one fear overcoming another one, in this case the fear of being digested by Leviathan. But what our Evangelical friends are thinking when they read this is if the Government, or the President, where to call for national repentance, somehow it would work.

I know, they needs their brains examined, if they can be found. This ain’t Ninevah! If the Congress or worse, the President, were to call for national repentance, the laughter would be heard all the way to Andromeda, though it would take a while to get there Andromeda being as far as it is.

But that does not deter them. They really imagine that people would do that.

The Psi Warrior

I have written little poetry in my life, I’m really not very good at it, but I composed this sometime in the mid 80s after something unique and entertaining had happened in another part of the world.

The Psionic Warrior

I sit before my console,
The thumb stroking the plate.
The dials stop and read out
The number that is hate.

How new this all is to me
I, who in lives before,
With axe and sword and helmet
Strode upon the Viking shore.

I who marched with Caesar
On the bloodstained Gallic plain,
Sit alone before my meters
And number not the slain

My arrows fly so deadly
But no longer from a bow.
From eyeshot now to mindshot,
The deadly seeds I sow.

And I wear a crested helmet,
As I did in lives before.
I sit before my console
And I fight the psychic war.

There are days when I know the feeling!