I was wondering if anyone had noticed that I have grown overly fond of saying that as of late. My sincerest apologies.
Hi, Opal!
And that Ark leaves a BIG frickin’ bruise!
Best line of all three movies.
I mean two movies. There was no Temple of Doom.
Death Rays in the 1890’s ? Of course.
Here’s a webpage that discusses research conducted by the Curies on just such a project.
http://www.geocities.com/internet_web_surfer_dude/raydemort.htm
But again, note that they’re firing HEAT, not DEATH! Sure, heat can still kill you, but it’s different from having a ray that fires death. Or Death. Whatever. I mean, c’mon, look at the chapter title quoted: “The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road,” NOT “The Death-Ray in the Chobham Road.” Get your rays straight, man. Jeez!
A heat ray causes heat which leads to death.
A death ray causes death.
Tap dancing causes shin splints.
Ah, they’re circa 1000 BC-style Ark of the Covenant powered “Death Rays”.
Ah, they’re 1890s-style H.G. Wells inspired Martian “Heat Rays.”
Nope, doesn’t have the same nice ring to it. Stick with the 1920s style.
Look, those 1920’s-style death rays never really killed anyone. At best, they only tickled.
Am I the only one who sees Death Rays as a 1930’s thing? They’re deco all the way.
Besides, wouldn’t it be “circa 1500 BCE style Ark of the Covenant Rays” since the Ark was supposed to have built shortly after the exodus?
Seems like the Ark plans I saw said right on them “Copyright 1500 BCE.”
Yeah, the Jews were time travellers, too. So sue me.
People, people. God doesn’t have a Death Ray, he has a Smite Ray. I mean come on, He’s God!
Could God create a death ray so big he couldn’t smite with it?
The proper paradox is “could God create a Death Ray so powerful that he himself would be vaporized by it?”
I think a 1900’s style “23 Skidoo Ray” would be cool.
I don’t know about 1920’s style Death Rays, but I had a 1950’s style Uncle Ray…
<crickets chirping>
<crickets chirping>
I think Borf had the best one with the futuristic “Infant-O-Ray”.
Does anybody have any idea what I’m talking about?
<borrows some crickets from dangergene>
Horseflesh: none whatsoever, is that like a “teeveedinnert-ray”?
<more of the damn crickets>
<closes window>
<cricket must be in the room somewhere>
KidCharlegmagne
Art Deco was OTTOMH born in the teens. The height of it’s popularity was the 20s. By the mid 30’s, it was out of fashion. One of my posts in the Scalar thread deals with Doctor Eule producing the first Art deco death rays during the 20s.
Horseflesh
Again, off the top of my head. I could do a search on Borf. But, I feel this would be cheating. My guess is that you reference - Space Ace. This arcade game was a kind of sequel to Dragon’s lair. Rather than computer generated sprites, DL and SA played short cartoon segments in response to the players actions. When a skeletal claw threatened Dirk the Daring, pressing the fire button at the proper time prompted the screen to display the film of Dirk drawing his sword and smashing the claw. Delaying too long, or attempting anyother action resulted in a scene of Dirk being crushed to death. IIRC Don Bluth was responsible for the animation in both games. I don’t know if he was associated with the saturday morning shows based on them.
Dragon’s Lair was far ahead of it’s time in one signifcant way. It was the first arcade game to cost 50 cents instead of 25.
DocCathode, you are my hero of the moment. It was indeed in the arcade game Space Ace that Commander Borf first fire his deadly Infant-O-Ray. Space Ace differed in two big aspects from Dragon’s Lair: at some junctures you could choose an alternate path and get to play a greatly enhanced section of the “level”, usually as Space Ace instead of the wimpy Dexter. The other was that there were 3 difficulty settings (Cadet, Captain, and Space Ace). They weren’t actually more difficult, but they added in more “levels” or reversed levels to get through and resulted in higher scores. The game ate a lot of my quarters but I made some of it back by having younger kids plunk money into it and play it for them just so they could watch it and usually made a quarter on the deal. And as you said, Don Bluth did do both games.
But…the 1890s death ray is a Martian invention. Obviously, they wouldn’t use the same calander as we would…Perhaps, by their calander, it is a 1920s style death ray.
Or, Martian civilization being far older than our’s…it could very well be a 1,000,000 A.D. Style Death Ray!