Lola and Brownie are teenagers in 1950s Bundaberg, Australia. They fall in love, but because of their age they must fight their parents and welfare, who try to keep them apart. Lola falls pregnant and the couple run away so they can keep their baby. However, Lola's mother and the police find them and take Lola home.
Brownie joins the crew of a ship so he can sail the coast and look for Lola. He befriends a sailor called Bosun, who offers him a job.
Meanwhile, Lola is forced to have an abortion by her mother in Brisbane. After an argument with her mother, Lola moves to Melbourne, becomes a waitress and bleaches her hair. Lola is reunited with Brownie after he visits the bar where she works whilst on shore leave. They return to his ship and they spend the night together. The next day, Bosun discovers Lola in Brownie's cabin and asks her to leave. After an argument between Brownie and Bosun, the latter agrees to Lola staying, on the condition that she is kept "out of sight" from the other sailors.
After the ship docks, Lola and Brownie attend a party held by a young couple, Lyle and Mavis. They are squatting in the property with their daughter, Sharon. Both couples quickly become friends and Lola and Brownie move into their spare room.
One night, both couples are socialising in a local pub when Lola and Brownie are arrested for underage drinking and vagrancy.
Lola is sent to stay with Aunt Westbury, a caretaker in the countryside for a fixed-term of 12 months. She and Brownie are told that they are not allowed to see or contact each other for one year. Brownie was also issued with a fine.
During Lola's stay in the community placement, a former charge of Aunt's visits the house. Lola collects the mail and, after a brief conversation with the postman, realises that Aunt Westbury has disposed of Brownie's letters. An argument follows, and Lola runs away.
Finding her mother drunk and unsympathetic, Lola heads to Lyle and Mavis's house, only to be arrested and taken to a reform school to restart and complete her sentence. During this time, a riot is started by the other inmates.
After her 18th birthday, Lola has completed her sentence and is immediately reunited with Brownie. Upon returning to the house, Lola discovers Mavis is heavily pregnant with her second child.
Lola wants Brownie to quit his job as a sailor, and stay with her. However, Brownie is in a quandary and confides in Bosun about his dilemma. Meanwhile, Mavis goes into labour; the birth does not go well and both Mavis and the baby die.
Although Lola and Brownie offer to adopt Sharon (Lyle & Mavis' surviving daughter), they are unable to as they are unmarried. Lyle leaves the child with Lola to give to social services as she will be placed into foster care and Lyle is unable to bear the thought of giving up his only child. Lyle subsequently leaves after telling Lola he plans to travel the world, taking on odd jobs to make ends meet.
Lola leaves the house, suitcase packed, ready to take Sharon to the welfare office before heading back to Bundaberg. Brownie sees Lola and Sharon in the taxi and runs after them. Eventually, Brownie catches up with the taxi and he is reunited with Lola and Sharon. The film ends with their wedding with their families and friends in attendance.
After his troopship is sunk in 1942, John Sullivan is saved by Yugoslav Chetniks, whose leader Marko forces John to travel with him up through Greek Macedonia to a village where he has to practice as a doctor. He saves the life of a Jewish girl, Nadia, with whom he falls in love.
John is then captured by the Gestapo but escapes. He meets British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents Major Barrington and Captain Meg Fulton. He goes to live with the Partisans. John leaves Yugoslavia.
The play concerns a dissident, Alexander Ivanov, who is imprisoned in a Soviet mental hospital, from which he will not be released until he admits that his statements against the government were caused by a (non-existent) mental disorder.
In the hospital he shares a cell with a genuinely disturbed schizophrenic, also called Ivanov, who believes himself to have a symphony orchestra under his command. Alexander receives visits from the Doctor and from a Colonel in the KGB.
Meanwhile, his son, Sacha, is seen in a school classroom with a teacher who attempts to convince him of the genuineness of his father's illness.
In the future, a race of insectoid aliens, known as the ''Uchuu Kaijuu'' or ''Space Monsters'' , seem dedicated to the eradication of humans as the latter takes its first steps away from the Solar System, and they are getting closer and closer to Earth. Humanity has responded by developing space-going battleships and giant fighting robots. These complex robots—RX-7 Machine Weapons—are actually an advanced type of fighting suit, piloted by a single occupant. As advanced as they are, however, they are being used as trainers for a new weapon, the ''Gunbuster''. Pilot candidates are selected from the best and brightest youth on Earth and the Lunar colony. These are trained at schools around the world.
In the year 2023, six years after the first battles with the aliens (the actual battle started in the year 2015 however due to time dilation, two years went by on Earth by the end of the battle), and centers on young Noriko Takaya (タカヤ・ノリコ ''Takaya Noriko'') (voice: Noriko Hidaka). Although Noriko's father was a famous admiral in the space fleet who went missing following one of the first battles of the war, her own talents as a pilot are questionable—especially when compared to the other students. Nonetheless, she has entered a training school on Okinawa, where she is largely influenced by her instructor, Kōichirō Ōta ("Coach Ōta") (voice: Norio Wakamoto), who was one of Admiral Takaya's crew. He has faith that she will overcome her early clumsiness, while other students are critical of her inability, referring to Noriko as the "daughter of defeat".
Noriko idolizes the beautiful, competent and talented Kazumi Amano (アマノ・カズミ ''Amano Kazumi'') (voice: Rei Sakuma). Amano is the top RX-7 pilot at the school, and likely the entire world. Coach Ōta shows the extra training which Amano creates for herself, inspiring Noriko to look within herself for strengths which she did not know that she had.
Only two Gunbuster pilots from each school will be selected for the real mission. Amano, of course, will be going, and all of the others want the second slot on the team. Takaya is determined to win, not only to be with Amano but also to find (or avenge) her father. She is thrilled to discover that she has in fact been chosen as the second Japanese pilot.
Following that selection, conflict between Takaya and other students comes to a head, when the second-best RX-7 pilot at the school publicly challenges her to a one-on-one fight. Planned for late at night, when none of the school authorities will be around to stop it, Ōta learns of the duel and comes to the battleground—but does nothing. He is there to observe, and perhaps to save Takaya's life, if the combat gets too intensive.
Takaya is on the defensive from the start, and the older student humiliates her by action and over the radio. As Takaya's RX-7 is pummeled, Noriko realizes that her difficulties are a case of sensory overload—she is getting too much information from the electronic monitoring systems. She turns off her monitors, but as the systems go dark, her opponent is infuriated by the perceived insult and prepares the final, killing blow. Just as it appears that Noriko is doomed, she destroys her opponent's RX-7 with a "Thunder Kick". Her opponent muses that the school rookie has beat her with an advanced maneuver which she hadn't been taught. This is the proof that Ōta was seeking, that Noriko had an innate ability which would be invaluable in the battles to come.
Together, with Coach Ōta and Amano, Takaya is sent into space to train with other representatives from all over the solar system in preparation for the attack upon the space monsters. There they are introduced to a Soviet pilot from the moon base by the name of Jung Freud (voice: Maria Kawamura). On their first training mission, Takaya and Amano are stopped by Jung, and challenged to a duel. Amano and Jung become completely involved in the fight, as Noriko trails along, and all three get lost within the machinery of the space station. The fight stops midway, when all three come in contact with the first space monster that was defeated and captured.
Once they return they are scolded by their coach, but because of their importance to the missions success as well as building feelings between the coach and them, they are let go with a simple warning. Jung later apologizes for her challenge, and thus begins a friendship with the two.
As they move farther into space, the young pilots are placed in their quarters for subspace traveling. On a dare, Takaya is sent into the hangars and meets a male space pilot named Toren Smith (voice: Kazuki Yao). Amano comes into doubt of Takaya's abilities and asks the Coach to end their partnership. Takaya overhears the conversation and ends up partnering with Smith instead.
The first true battle between the aliens begin, and the humans realize how vastly outmaneuvered and outnumbered they are. They are able to retreat with limited casualties, but Takaya has lost Smith, and gained an uncontrollable fear towards deep space combat. As their second battle approaches, Takaya is determined to improve and asks the Coach for private lessons. Jung finds out and thinking that she doing so to control Gunbuster, challenges her in space. But even before they are able to fight, Takaya breaks down within her suit and is taken to the infirmary.
The captain decides to retreat to Earth, but the fleet is attacked in sub-space, leading to the destruction of the majority of their forces. Once they reach Earth's orbit, only the Exelion and a few minor cruisers are still active. Though their struggle appears bleak, Takaya manages to summon up her strength for the sake of her friends and crew members. She takes control of the incomplete Gunbuster and uses its high-powered weaponry to force the enemy to retreat. The battle is over, but those who remain are faced with the harsh reality of war and its aftermath.
Afterwards, the three pilots return to Earth, where things have changed significantly. Due to the effects of time dilation, 10 years of relative time has passed on Earth while the pilots were in space. Takaya's former nemesis who had previously challenged her at school is now the coach for new pilots. Her best friend, Kimiko, is now a mother with a 3-year-old daughter, and Earth has been working on a 70 km long space ship as a form of defense in the event of a space monster attack.
While in a peaceful lull, Takaya and friends try to re-adjust to living in a world that has already passed them by. Takaya tries to reconnect with her friend, while Amano tries to share her feelings with the Coach. The peace is broken, however, when Earth is notified that a space monster fleet of unprecedented size is headed towards Earth. After many arguments, the idea of sending the old Exelion as an unmanned black hole bomb, is proposed. The Gunbuster is nominated to escort the bomb there, and then to come home.
Takaya and Amano, in separate ships which combine into Gunbuster, are sent out, a trip that will last an hour or more to them, but half a year to everyone back on Earth. As they almost reach their goal, Amano breaks down, admitting that she does not want go forward, since each second forward means the longer she is away from their Coach, who is now dying from space radiation. Takaya is able to convince her to continue, and their mission is a success. Upon returning, they are relieved to learn that the Coach is still alive; he and Amano then get married.
The final episode takes place 15 years later. Amano has lived on Earth during this time, but after the Coach passes away, she decides to take on a final mission. The space monsters have resurfaced, and in retaliation Earth has been building a much larger black hole bomb, which has been created using the mass of Jupiter pressured into the size of the moon. Known as Buster Machine III, this weapon is the size of a small planet. When detonated, the bomb and 3,000 'slave mines' placed around the center of the galaxy, will cause a black hole to be formed thereby sucking in and destroying the space monsters.
Amano is sent back into space to board the new ship Eltreum, where mobile suits called Sizzlers (buster sized machines, piloted individually) are now used in combat. With the crew present to welcome Amano, she and Takaya share an emotional reunion, though the absence has felt much longer for the former. Takaya has difficulty coming to terms with the fact that so much time has passed on Earth, after only 6 months relative to her.
When the final battle begins, Amano is ordered to man the Gunbuster with Takaya, and both fight alongside others to defend the bomb. The alien army is fended off, allowing the black hole bomb to be set. However, when the time comes to activate, they find out the enemies' attacks have damaged 2% of the 'slave generators' required for implosion. Amano and Takaya decide to dive down into the core of Buster Machine III and activate it by using one of Gunbuster's two Degeneracy reactors, even though doing so means they will likely be unable to leave without suffering severe relativistic time dilation during their escape.
After the bomb is set off, Noriko and Kazumi spend 12,000 Earth years objective traveling home, although for them only hours or days have passed. Upon arriving in Earth orbit in the damaged Gunbuster, the pilots cannot make contact with anyone nor see any sign of habitation on the planet, suggesting that human civilization is long gone. However, their despair is instantly dispelled when a massive light pattern suddenly appears on the planet saying "WELCOME HOMƎ!" spelled out in simplified Japanese ("オカエリナサイ". The final letter "イ", however, is reversed, which indicates the current civilization was mimicking the bygone language). Delighted that their planet is alive and well, the pilots bid the Gunbuster farewell and return to Earth.
Karen McCoy (Kim Basinger) is released from prison with nothing but the clothes on her back. Before being incarcerated, Karen was ''the'' bank robber of her time but now she wishes for nothing more than to settle down and start a new life.
Unfortunately, between a dirty parole officer, old business partners and an idiot ex-husband, McCoy will have to do the unthinkable to save her son (Zack English) and new heartthrob J.T. (Val Kilmer): another bank job.
While Dori Thorell (Sharon Lawrence) and her 9-year-old son, Danny (Michal Suchánek), eat breakfast, Sam Thorell (Garwin Sanford) calls from his business trip. Ballerina Diane Agostini (Jennifer Garner) is on the phone with her father when a blender shakes off the counter. Dismissing it, she ends the call and rushes off to a rehearsal session at the New York City Ballet. She is scolded for being late. Public defender Evie Lincoln (Lisa Nicole Carson) talks with her client Joshua Bingham (JR Bourne) about his case. That evening, tremors cause a gas leak at Diane's apartment complex. Though the electricity is still on in the evacuated building, Fire Chief Thomas Ahearn (Tom Skerritt) sends his crew inside. The building explodes, killing several men. At a party at Gracie Mansion, Evie's grandmother Emily Lincoln (Cicely Tyson) chastises her for being late. Her father, Mayor Bruce Lincoln (Charles S. Dutton), coerces her into going to a job interview at a big law firm.
The next day, Ahearn drops his daughter, Christine, off at high school. She expresses annoyance at his quitting to get "revenge" against the "stupid" mayor over budgeting issues. At the courthouse, Joshua is found not guilty of murdering his invalid wife. Diane meets her father for lunch to get money. When she leaves, she catches a cab driven by recent Russian immigrant Nikolai Karvoski (Fred Weller). A massive earthquake hits the city, toppling many buildings and structures. Nikolai's cab is smashed by falling debris, forcing Nikolai and Diane to flee down the street. A gas main explodes as the sidewalk pushes up between them. Diane saves his life after he falls and catches on fire. In the subway tunnel, the train Evie and Joshua are riding derails after the tunnel collapses. After the earthquake stops, Diane, accompanied by Nikolai, goes back to the restaurant and finds her father fatally injured. He dies after telling her he is proud of her. In the subway, Joshua wants to leave the badly injured driver and any other survivors to get out, but before he can convince Evie and the others to leave they hear someone calling for help.
Chief Ahearn returns to his fire station to find the building partially collapsed. With the central dispatch system down, he contacts Jillian Parnell (Erika Eleniak-Goglia), a reporter for WCBS-TV, who is flying over the city, to get an update on the situation. Both 1 Police Plaza and City Hall have collapsed, and he asks them to come pick him up. At the church, an injured Emily wakes up to find a teenage boy (Ray J) that she helped get a job there is searching her wallet, but moves to try to find a way out after seeing she is still alive. Despite her protests, Nikolai initially remains with Diane as she tries to find her mother, but they eventually part ways. Ahearn sees that his daughter's school has collapsed, but continues on to Central Park where a temporary camp is being set up. He finds the Mayor and they agree to ignore Ahearn's resignation and put aside their differences to help the citizens of their city. A large break in the sewer is causing hundreds of gallons of water to begin flooding into the subway system.
Ahearn goes to his daughter's school after learning there are survivors. Christine is among the three survivors, but she dies during an aftershock before they can free her. At the church, Emily learns that the boy has no name, just a street name. She asks him to take the name of her late son, Clayton, who died as a baby. Shortly after, he is able to escape through a break in the ceiling and get help. Dori arrives at Danny's school where she learns he is stuck on the top floor and rescue efforts are failing. Sam arrives as Dori prepares to scale the building to save their son. Diane finds looters in her mother's apartment, but Nikolai arrives and finds a note saying her mother is at a friends. The mayor arrives at the hospital where he learns his mother is dead. He thanks Clayton for trying to help her and asks Ahearn to try to help the boy, who is despondent over not being able to save her.
In the subway, Joshua, Evie, and one other survivor, Allen (Roger R. Cross), break from the others and find a ladder out. Joshua climbs up, followed by Evie. As Allen is climbing, Joshua breaks the ladder. He confirms Evie's growing suspicions that he did kill his wife and attacks her. When he hears someone coming, he tries to escape up another ladder but an aftershock breaks it and he is killed. Evie points her rescuers to where the other survivors are waiting. Dori successfully climbs the school, where Danny has to jump into her arms. The cable breaks, but they land safely on an inflated mat below and are reunited with Sam.
A year later, the city is shown still being rebuilt; Mayor Lincoln and Ahearn are now close friends; Dori and Sam are shown teaching Danny how to rock-climb; and Diane is a prima ballerina and married to Nikolai.
Nick Di Angelo is working in a Las Vegas casino to earn enough money to pursue the woman of his dreams, Lady Victoria Wingate, to Oxford, England. He believes the only way to win her is to get into Oxford University and join the rowing team. After spending the night with a beautiful older woman, he collects enough money to make the trip and arrives at Oxford in his 1955 Ford Thunderbird, which promptly gets stuck between two walls along a very narrow street. Thus begins Di Angelo's troubles in Britain.
Di Angelo is accepted into Oriel College; consequently, large parts of the film are set in the college itself.
The coxswain of the rowing team that Di Angelo joins, Rona, is also an American. Di Angelo quickly finds Lady Victoria but also finds that she is deeply involved with another Oxford rower, Colin Gilchrist Fisher, a member of Christ Church college.
Eventually, Di Angelo comes to learn not only the value of friendship and love, but also the importance of keeping promises to teammates and to oneself as well as the importance of thinking beyond oneself.
The film opens with the usual MGM logo, but with a voice-over by René Auberjonois saying "I forgot the opening line" instead of the lion's roar. As the opening credits roll, wealthy Houstonian Daphne Heap (Margaret Hamilton) begins to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the field of the Astrodome, but stops the band, insisting that it's off-key. The band and Daphne start again, while the credits begin again as well. Daphne, who has been off-key herself, insists that this take is much better, but she is surrounded by the young Black band members as we hear Merry Clayton singing an upbeat version of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," often called the "Black National Anthem." All this time, a woman (Sally Kellerman) in a trench coat has been watching from the stands. As the credits end, we see Brewster (Bud Cort), in an Astrodome fallout shelter, where a pet raven defecates on a newspaper headline about a speech by then-Vice President Spiro Agnew. Scenes are interspersed throughout the film of a Lecturer played by Auberjunois regales an audience including an enthusiastic young woman (Jennifer Salt) with a wealth of knowledge of the habits of birds, as he becomes increasingly birdlike himself.
Owlish Brewster lives hidden and alone under the Houston Astrodome and dreams of creating wings that will help him fly like a bird. His only assistance comes from Louise (Sally Kellerman), a beautiful woman who wants to help. Wearing only a trench coat, Louise has unexplained scars on her shoulder blades, suggestive of a fallen angel. She warns Brewster against having sexual intercourse, as it could kill his instinct to fly.
While Brewster works to complete his wings and condition himself for flight, Houston suffers a string of unexplained murders, the work of a serial killer whose victims are found strangled and covered in bird droppings. The victims are all authoritarian or overtly racist figures, including Daphne Heap and the aged and wealthy but vicious landlord Abraham Wright (Stacy Keach). Haskell Weeks (William Windom), a prominent figure in Houston, pulls strings to have the Houston police call "San Francisco super cop" Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy) to investigate. Shaft immediately fixates on the bird droppings and soon finds a link to Brewster. Brewster eludes the police with the apparent help of Louise but he eventually drives her away—and dooms himself—when he ignores her advice about sex by hooking up with Astrodome tour guide Suzanne Davis (Shelley Duvall). Suzanne saves Brewster by evading Shaft in her stolen Road Runner. Severely injured after losing Brewster, Frank kills himself. Brewster eventually confesses his responsibility in the killings to Suzanne, who betrays him to the police.
A small army of Houston policemen enter the Astrodome but fail to nab Brewster before he takes flight using his completed wings. However, as a human he cannot overcome his inherent unsuitability for flight. Exhausted by the effort, he falls out of the air, crashing in a heap on the floor of the Astrodome. The film ends with a circus entering the Astrodome, played by the cast of the film costumed as clowns, strongmen and other circus performers. The ringmaster announces the names of each cast member, finishing with Brewster, who remains crumpled on the floor.
Roger Ramjet is a patriotic and highly moral — if not very bright — hero, who is typically out to save the world, with help from his Proton Energy Pills ("PEP"), which give him "the strength of twenty atom bombs for a period of twenty seconds". The world is invariably saved by defeating the various recurring criminals who populated the series.
On government missions assigned by General G.I. Brassbottom, Ramjet encounters various nemeses during his missions. Typically he is caught, and must be rescued by his crew of sidekicks, the American Eagles: Yank, Doodle, Dan and Dee (a play on "Yankee Doodle dandy"). Although his Eagles appear to be children, each of them, except for Dee, flies his own individual ramjet aircraft expertly, and they are obviously much more savvy than their leader.
The various recurring criminals include: * Pint-sized gangster Noodles Romanoff and his evil organization N.A.S.T.Y. (National Association of Spies, Traitors and Yahoos, a contrived acronym). Noodles wears dark glasses, a fedora, and a trench coat. His hands are always jammed into his jacket pockets. His band of No Goods consist of several lookalike henchmen clad in hats and coats, who simultaneously utter incomprehensible phrases of agreement to whatever he says. * The Solenoid Robots, green metal gas mask-faced evildoers from outer space who have a unicycle-like wheel instead of legs and talk in barely understandable electronic voices. * Red Dog the Pirate, a redheaded short, squat scourge of the seven seas with an eye patch, peg-leg and a wiseacre parrot named Carl Bob for a sidekick. * Jacqueline Hyde (a play on Jekyll and Hyde) is a blond, long-nosed, Zsa Zsa Gabor-accented foreign spy ''femme fatale'', who aided by other spies and gangsters, tries to get information on plans, documents for her foreign government agency. * Dr. Frank N. Schwine, a Boris Karloff soundalike mad scientist who, with the help of his purple propeller beanie-wearing assistant Sidney, keeps creating huge hulking Frankenstein-style monsters only to have them defeated by Roger and become football players. * Count Batguy, a bald Nosferatu-style vampire from Transylvania complete with Bela Lugosi accent. * Dr. What, internationally feared evil genius. * Sexy senorita Tequila Mockingbird (a play on ''To Kill a Mockingbird'') who teams up with her bandito boyfriends the Enchilada Brothers, Beef and Chicken, to stir up revolution in the tiny Latin American country of San Domino.
Another recurring, non-criminal character in the series was sportscaster Vincent Yafnarro, who appeared in several sports-related episodes. Roger's tough little old mother, Ma Ramjet, appeared in several episodes; her voice was an imitation of Jonathan Winters' "Maude Frickert" character, and she had her own variation on her son's Proton Energy Pills, "Ma Ramjet's Atomic Vitamins for Old People whose Get-Up-and-Go Got Up and Left."
Lance Crossfire (a parody of actor Burt Lancaster; the name may have been a pun on real life test pilot Scott Crossfield), Ramjet's toothy test pilot rival for the affections of his short, Southern-accented sweetheart Lotta Love, is also likely to get in the way. When Lance and Roger cross paths, neither one of them wins: in one episode, the always fickle Lotta ends up dating General Brassbottom, who promises the two men that he will take care of her. As is his way, Roger does not realize that they have both lost — unlike Lance, who inevitably ends these cartoons with the phrase, "Oh, Roger — Shut up!"
The game follows Nina, an armored girl armed with a power blaster, and Ace, an armored boy who has an energy sword, in the aftermath of a robotic uprising. Traveling from their base on the Ark, a space station orbiting the Earth, they have been hired to clear dangerous locations that are infested with robots that have run amok.
In ''The New Adventures of Batman'', the "Dynamic Duo" fights crime in Gotham City, encountering the classic Batman rogues gallery as well as some original villains. Complicating matters is Bat-Mite, a well-meaning imp from another dimension called Ergo, who considers himself Batman's biggest fan. As a result, he wears a variant of Batman’s costume and attempts to help him, only to often create more problems. Missing is Alfred, the faithful butler of Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne; also notable in this series are the inverted colors of the circled "R" on Robin's costume.
Honey Bunny has been kidnapped by Wile E. Coyote, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, and Sylvester. Bugs must travel through 60 levels (80 in the Game Boy version) in order to save her. To get past each level, Bugs must collect all 8 carrots in each level.
In 1939 Navy Commander Victor "Pug" Henry has been appointed US Naval attaché in Berlin. During the voyage to Europe aboard , Victor befriends a British radio personality, Alistair Talcott "Talky" Tudsbury, his daughter, Pamela, and a German submarine officer, Commodore Grobke. In the television version, he also meets German General Armin von Roon. In the book he only meets Von Roon later at a Berlin dinner party. Von Roon becomes the viewpoint character for the German side of the war and witnesses the German government's worsening persecution of the Jews.
Pug quickly recognizes—through his work as the attaché—that Nazi Germany is intent on invading Poland. Realizing that this would mean war with the Soviet Union, he concludes that the only way for Germany to safely invade is to agree not to go to war with the Soviets. Pug submits a report back to Washington—going over his supervisor's head—which predicts the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact before it is signed. When the pact is made public, Pug's report draws him to the attention of President Roosevelt, who asks the Navy Commander to be his unofficial eyes and ears in Europe. Although this new assignment again delays his desired sea command, it gives him the opportunity to travel to London, Rome, and Moscow where he meets Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, and Iosif Stalin in addition to Adolf Hitler, whom he met in Berlin.
Due to Pug's increasing amount of travel and his aversion to many of the cultural events which are enjoyed by his wife, Rhoda, she spends increasing amounts of time alone. Through Pug, she meets a widowed engineer named Palmer (Fred) Kirby, who later will be involved in the first phase of the Manhattan Project. Rhoda and Palmer begin to spend time together attending the opera and other events, but soon this leads to a romantic relationship. For his part, Pug begins a platonic but very close and borderline romantic relationship with Pamela; however, he cannot decide to leave his wife Rhoda for her.
After having finally obtained command of a battleship, , he leaves for Pearl Harbor from Moscow, where he has discussed Lend-Lease issues and observed a battle. He flies over Asia and spends time in Manila listening to the radio broadcast of the annual Army–Navy football game. When his flight is approaching Pearl Harbor, they receive the message that an attack is under way. Arriving at the base, they see the burning ships, including his own.
Pug's three children each have their own story lines. His older son, Warren, is a United States Naval Academy graduate who enters Navy Flight School in Florida. His daughter, Madeline, begins a job in a radio company.
The child most prominent in the story is middle child and younger son Byron, named after Lord Byron, the English poet. Though a Columbia University graduate and holding a naval reserve commission, Byron has not committed himself to a career. In 1939 he accepts a job as a research assistant for an expatriate Jewish author, Aaron Jastrow, who is best known for his book ''A Jew's Jesus'' and lives in Siena, Italy.
Byron also meets Jastrow's niece, Natalie, and her soon-to-be fiancé, Leslie Slote, who works for the Department of State. Readers later discover that Natalie and Slote are also close friends of Pamela Tudsbury from their time in Paris together. Byron is three years younger than Natalie, but catches her attention by heroically saving her uncle from being trampled by a stampeding horse during the Palio, a festival in Siena.
Byron and Natalie visit her family's native town in Poland, Medzice, for a wedding, which occurs the night prior to the German invasion of Poland. They are awakened early the next morning to evacuate as the town citizens flee from the invaders. They travel from Medzice to Warsaw ahead of the invading German army, and at one point the refugees are strafed by the Luftwaffe and many are killed and injured. As they approach Warsaw, they encounter Polish soldiers who confiscate Byron's passport and attempt to commandeer their automobile and leave them stranded. Finally, they are in Warsaw as the Germans begin the siege and are evacuated along with other Americans and citizens of neutral countries.
During their encounters with the German and Polish soldiers, Byron repeatedly behaves heroically. Leslie behaves in cowardly fashion under artillery fire, but stands up to the Germans when they attempt to separate Jewish Americans from their group. When Natalie receives the proposal of marriage from Leslie that she has been eagerly awaiting, she realizes that the experience in Poland has changed her heart and that she is now in love with Byron. After much beating around the bush, she admits this to Byron, who promptly offers his own proposal of marriage, which Natalie accepts. She returns to America upon receiving word that her father is quite ill, and she is also able to attend Warren's wedding. Her father dies of a heart attack upon hearing of the invasion of Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940.
In January 1941, she marries Byron and devotes herself to getting her reluctant uncle out of Europe to escape the Nazis, soon discovering she is pregnant.
All of the story lines are left as a cliffhanger as the United States is drawn into the war by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Rhoda makes and then retracts a request for a divorce. With USS ''California'' damaged and out of action, Pug is given command of a cruiser, . Byron has been trained as a submarine officer. Warren has graduated from Pensacola, married a Congressman's daughter, Janice Lacouture, and is assigned to as a dive bomber pilot. Aaron, Natalie, and Natalie's infant son Louis are trapped in Europe as the United States is plunged into the global conflict. These storylines continue in ''War and Remembrance''.
The story involves two fictional countries, the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbor Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from a Gamibian incursion, Sardun sends Major Zara and General Byrne-White to ask the help of MegaForce – a secret army composed of international soldiers from throughout the western world, equipped with advanced weapons and vehicles. The MegaForce leader, Commander Ace Hunter, will lead a mission to destroy the Gamibian forces, which are led by his rival, and former military academy friend, Duke Guerera.
While Hunter composes an elaborate battle plan to destroy Guerera's forces, Zara tries out to become a member of MegaForce. As she executes the various tests, Hunter's feelings of affection toward her grow. And while she passes the tests, he is unable to allow her to participate in their raid, because her presence, as an outsider, would disrupt the trust and familiarity of his force.
Eventually, MegaForce successfully para-drops its attack vehicles into Gamibia and Hunter mounts his sneak attack against Guerera's forces. Although they manage to destroy his base, they are told by General Byrne-White that Sardun has decided they will not be allowed to cross the border into their country because they consider MegaForce too dangerous a global organization.
At the same time, Guerera has set a trap for them at the team's only means of escape – a dry lake bed where the cargo planes will pick them up. Guerera sends his tanks to secure the lake bed while Hunter comes up with a plan to attack Guerera from behind by crossing over a mountain range the enemy tanks had turned their backs toward.
The plan succeeds, and MegaForce manages to break through Guerera's tanks, but one of MegaForce's cargo planes is damaged in the process. Having to abandon their high-tech vehicles (which they program to self-destruct), the team successfully makes it on foot to the last plane, except for Hunter. The commander, instead, makes his own dramatic escape on his motorcycle after it deploys airfoils and a rocket motor and catches up with the cargo plane in midair. Although he has lost the battle, Guerera shows admiration for Hunter's cunning, and he gives his old friend a thumbs up.
The game begins with Gerdy attempting to wake his sleeping father, Master Herder Gedryn, who is going to be late for the annual herding competition. It is soon revealed that Gerdy's dad has been placed under a spell by the evil wizard Sadorf. Gerdy is determined to save his dad and the magical island that they live on from Sadorf's evil rule. First he goes to his village to receive herding training from Yggdrasil, a wise old sage, who gives him the Herding Stick. Then he travels to Midmear where he receives the Magic Flute from Red, a magician in training. Soon after that, Gerdy obtains the Magic Horn after beating Efrin, a teenage boy who lives in the Elven Wood. Gerdy heads into the Gold Mine Gorge where he meets Jake, an old gold miner that has recently invented the ladder. However, the ladder cannot support Gerdy's weight, so the young boy must venture on to Belder's Spring. Belder's Spring is an underground spring haunted by the ghost of a miner. Belder, the ghost, gives Gerdy a Magic Feather which will cause him to weigh virtually nothing, allowing him to climb ladders. Gerdy heads up through the mountains to Moonlit Peaks, a snow-covered cliff. There he finds Poric, an old Leprechaun who guards his gold carefully. Gerdy manages to steal Poric's Magic Hammer, allowing him to activate Rainbow Switches. He heads back to Elven Wood, and gets through using his new item. He continues on into Forest Glade, but stops after reaching Crystal Lake. Due to his inability to swim, Gerdy is unable to get to a Gypsy on the other side of a pool. Gerdy explores until he meets a mole living underground. The mole gives him some Magic Gloves, allowing him to push large blocks. Gerdy travels back to Midmear and enters the Ancient Temple. After beating the tricks and traps there, he comes out into Pirate Cove. There he meets a pirate that takes him to an island inhabited by a giant bird. Gerdy defeats the winged terror known as Skrag, and wins the Magic Swimsuit. He goes back to Crystal Lake and crosses the pool to get to the Gypsy. Gerdy make his way through the rest of the forest to Foxtown. He hitches a ride with a baker to Tournament Island and defeats Sadorf, thus saving the entire Island and his father.
The game opens in Clarksville, a city located in the American countryside. One day the protagonist, Jake the flatulent American Foxhound, witnesses Daisy, a Labrador Retriever, whom he has a crush on, being taken away by dog-catchers and resolves to rescue her. He follows them from the small town of Clarksville, to a mountain resort called Lake Minniwahwah, and finally to Boom City, using information gained from overhearing conversations between humans to track them down. Throughout his adventure, he is continually harassed by Killer, a Dobermann belonging to a dog catcher.
Eventually it is revealed that Miss Peaches, head of a cat food company, is arranging for dogs to be caught and smuggled to a factory where they will be made into her cat food. Jake ultimately makes it to the dog pound, and after rescuing a number of dogs and bribing Killer with bones, gains entry to the factory. There, he manages to prevent Daisy from being killed by the machinery as she is taken through it on a conveyor belt, only for Miss Peaches to appear with a shotgun. Jake farts, sending her falling onto the conveyor belt, where she is taken through the machinery which turns her into her own cat food.
The epilogue reveals that all the stolen dogs were saved and that Jake and Daisy are together.
''Jak II'' takes place in the same fictional universe created by Naughty Dog for ''Jak and Daxter'', though five hundred years after the events of the first game. The game largely revolves around Haven City, a dystopia ruled by Baron Praxis and his Krimzon Guard law enforcers. Haven City serves as the game's hub location, although the player is frequently given tasks that must be fulfilled outside of the city.
Jak (voiced by Mike Erwin) is the game's protagonist, along with his sidekick Daxter (voiced by Max Casella). When they first arrived in Haven City, Jak was captured by Krimzon Guards and became the subject of Baron Praxis's (voiced by Clancy Brown) "Dark Warrior" project. He became subjected to several experiments, ultimately giving him the ability to become "Dark Jak", a beastly version of himself which is unleashed when Jak has gathered enough Dark Eco. Daxter is an otter-weasel hybrid (known as an ottsel) and is the game's comic relief. After two years of searching for him, Daxter finally sneaks into the prison holding Jak and rescues him. This is also the first time Jak is heard speaking in the series, which is heavily lampshaded by other returning characters throughout the story.
Other important characters include Torn (voiced by Cutter Garcia), the second-in-command of the resistance movement known as the Underground; Sig (voiced by Phil LaMarr), a Metal Head hunter/Wastelander (someone who gathers artifacts from outside the city); Krew (voiced by Bill Minkin), a vastly overweight gang lord; Tess (voiced by Britton A. Hill), a barmaid; Errol (voiced by David Herman), the Baron's right-hand man and commander of the Krimzon Guard; and Ashelin (voiced by Susan Eisenberg), the daughter of Baron Praxis who helps the Underground behind her father's back. Baron Praxis and the Metal Heads' leader Kor are the story's antagonists.
Following the events of ''The Precursor Legacy'', Jak and Daxter join Samos the Green Sage to witness his daughter Kiera's efforts at testing an ancient artifact known as the Rift Rider: a mechanical device linked to an ancient portal called a Rift Gate. Upon Jak activating the device, the gate opens and allows strange creatures to flood the world, before the rider sucks the group within it. Both Jak and Daxter become separate in the journey from the others, and eventually land in Haven City—a dystopia ruled by the tyrannical Baron Praxis, and guarded by the Krimzon Guard, a paramilitary force led by Praxis's right-hand man Errol. While Daxter is forced to run away, Jak is arrested by Errol, whereupon he is put through a series of experiments for two years by Praxis involving Dark Eco, in an attempt to create a new soldier.
During a break in experimentation Daxter finds Jak and breaks him out of the facility, though the pair discover that Praxis' experiments have left Jak with the ability to transform into a Dark Eco version of himself with increased strength, reflexes, stamina and aggression. Accessing the city, the pair encounter an elderly man named Kor, protecting a young boy known only as The Kid, who sends them to make contact with the Underground—a resistance movement led by the mysterious figure known as the Shadow, seeking to bring down Praxis and replace him with the city's rightful heir, The Kid. Meeting with the Shadow's lieutenant, Torn, the pair learn that Praxis is seeking to protect the city from creatures known as Metal Heads, an evil biomechanical race dating back from Precursor times. Working for the Underground, the pair eventually discover that they have been flung nearly 500 years into the future, after finding the remains of their home village in the city's borders. To further complicate the matter, the pair also learn that the Shadow is none other than Samos—albeit, a younger version, unaware of the ruins significance.
Learning that Praxis is seeking an item within a tomb of the city's founder, Jak and Daxter continue working for the Underground, along the way taking work for the crime lord Krew, and reuniting with Kiera, who works as a mechanic in the city's arena. In the process, the pair discover Praxis created the war with the Metal Heads, bringing them with eco to attack the city so he could remain in command, but lost control when the Metal Heads betrayed him. Working with Young Samos, the pair eventually help the Underground access the tomb, but become separated when it closes shut on them. With no choice, the pair search the tomb and discover an ancient artifact within called the Precursor Stone, which Praxis steals in hopes of using it to fuel a bomb that can destroy the Metal Heads, despite it having the potential to wipe out Haven City.
Seeking to rescue the Underground, after its chief members were kidnapped in their absence, Jak and Daxter reunite with the older version of Samos, who warns the group that The Kid must be found urgently, despite Young Samos contradicting his instructions. However, Jak and Daxter soon find they must, after preventing Praxis from completing his bomb with the assistance of Krew, whom the pair kill. Shortly after Krew's death, Metal Heads swarm into the city, forcing the Underground and Krimzon Guard to join forces to resist the invasion. At the same time, Jak and Daxter track down Praxis and find him meeting with Kor, who transpires to be the Metal Heads' leader in disguise and had been seeking to use The Kid in order to bring the world into ruin. Departing to complete a ritual he had been working, Kor kills Praxis, who entrusts the Precursor Stone to Jak and Daxter. The pair swiftly pursue after Kor, killing him before the very Rift Gate they used to travel through time, and ending the Metal Heads threat.
The Kid, whom Jak had discovered was his younger self, touches the Stone, reawakening the Precursor entity within, which reactivates the gate. As Kiera arrives with a new Rift Rider she had created, Samos reveals that they cannot return to the past—instead, Jak's youngerself and Young Samos must not do so, in order to ensure Jak will fulfill the destiny he completed with Kor's defeat. In the aftermath of the conflict, Daxter takes over Krew's bar, as he, Jak, Samos and Kiera prepare to enjoy their new lives in Haven City.
Struggling actor Jake Scully has recently lost his role as a vampire in a low-budget horror film after his claustrophobia thwarts shooting. After returning home to discover his girlfriend cheating on him, Scully splits up with her and is left homeless, as the residence belongs to her. At a method acting class, where he meets Sam Bouchard, Scully reveals his fears and the childhood cause of his claustrophobia. They go to a bar where Scully is offered a place to stay; Sam's rich friend has gone on a trip to Europe and needs a house-sitter for his ultra-modern home in the Hollywood Hills.
While touring the house with Scully, Sam is especially enthusiastic about showing him one feature: a telescope, and through it a female neighbor, Gloria Revelle, who erotically dances at a specific time each night. Scully voyeuristically watches Gloria until he sees her being abused by a man she appears to know. The next day, he follows her when she goes shopping. Gloria makes calls to an unknown person who she promises to meet. Scully also notices a disfigured "Indian", a man he had noticed watching Gloria a few days prior. Scully follows Gloria to a seaside motel where she is apparently stood up by the person she was there to meet. On the beach, the Indian suddenly appears and snatches her purse. Scully chases him into a nearby tunnel, but his claustrophobia overcomes him. Gloria walks him out of it, and they impulsively and passionately kiss before she retreats. That night, Scully is again watching through the telescope when the Indian returns and breaks into Gloria's home. Scully races to save Gloria, but her vicious white German Shepherd attacks him, and the Indian murders Gloria with a huge handheld drill.
Scully alerts the police, who rule the murder a botched robbery. However, Detective Jim McLean becomes suspicious after finding a pair of Gloria's panties in Scully's pocket. Although McLean does not arrest him, he tells Scully that his voyeuristic behavior and failure to alert police sooner helped cause Gloria's death. Later that night, suffering from insomnia and watching a pornographic television channel, Scully sees porn actress Holly Body dancing sensually, exactly as Gloria did. In order to meet Holly, he pretends to be a porn producer hiring for a new film.
Scully learns from Holly that Sam hired her to impersonate Gloria each night, dancing in the window, knowing Scully would be watching and later witness the real Gloria's murder. Offended when he suggests she was involved in a killing, Holly storms out of the house. The Indian picks her up, knocks her unconscious and drives away with her. Scully follows them to a reservoir where the Indian is digging a grave. Scully attacks him, and in the scuffle peels his face off to reveal it as a mask worn by Sam. Scully has been set up as a scapegoat by Sam, really Gloria's abusive husband Alex, to provide him with an alibi during the murder. Scully is overpowered and thrown into the grave. Though his claustrophobia initially incapacitates him again, he overcomes his fear and climbs out, and Sam is knocked into the aqueduct by the dog and drowned.
During the ending credits, Scully is shown having been recast in his previous vampire role as Holly watches from the sidelines.
On 1 September 1939, Germany invades Poland, after which a regulation was promulgated that all Polish Jews should move to the new Warsaw Ghetto. As in all the ghettos, a ''Judenrat'' was appointed and was responsible for the administration of the ghetto. The film tells the moral dilemmas faced by Adam Czerniaków, head of the ''Judenrat'' in the Warsaw Ghetto, who had to carry out orders of the German authorities, including sending Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp.
A group of Polish Jews decide to rebel against the Germans and not to lend a hand to the murder of their brethren. They begin to organize their people to protect the honor of the Jewish people. Czerniaków, as the leader of the ''Judenrat'', objects to this activity, fearing German reprisals against the Jews in the ghetto. By the close of 1942, people living in the ghetto realize they are doomed as deportations to Treblinka began. The rudiments of resistance are planned by Mordechai Anielewicz together with Yitzhak Zuckerman who laid the foundation for the Jewish Combat Organization, ''Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa'' (ZOB).
The film illustrates the moral dilemmas of members of the Jewish Combat Organization during the preparations for the revolt: "How to remain moral, in an immoral society?" On January 18, 1943, Nazis raid the ghetto again but this time the Jews resist. The Jewish Combat Organization stops the Nazi raids into the ghetto. Germans return on 18 April 1943, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins. In the intervening time, many of the ghetto residents construct hidden shelters or bunkers in the basements and cellars of the buildings, often with tunnels leading to other buildings. The handful of fighters who have weapons take to these shelters, giving the uprising the advantage of defensive positions.
In 1999 Los Angeles, Hannon Fuller (Mueller-Stahl) owns a multibillion-dollar computer enterprise and is the inventor of a newly completed virtual reality (VR) simulation of 1937 Los Angeles, filled with simulated humans unaware they are computer programs. When Fuller is murdered just as he begins premature testing of the VR system, his friend and protégé, Douglas Hall (Bierko), who is also the heir to the company, becomes the primary suspect. The evidence against him is so strong that Hall begins to doubt his own innocence.
Between interrogations by LAPD Detective Larry McBain (Haysbert), Hall meets Jane Fuller (Gretchen Mol), the estranged daughter of Hannon Fuller, who is busy with the shutdown of the new VR system. Hall then romances her. When a local bartender is murdered after he claims to have witnessed a meeting between Hall and Fuller on the night Fuller was murdered, Hall is arrested. He is released when Jane gives him an alibi.
With the assistance of his associate Whitney (D'Onofrio), Hall attempts to find a message that Fuller left for him inside the simulation. Entering the virtual reality, Hall becomes a bank clerk named John Ferguson. Fuller left the message with a bartender named Jerry Ashton (D'Onofrio), who read the message and discovered he is an artificial creation. Earlier, Ashton notices that Ferguson switched places with Hall in the men's restroom of the hotel where Ashton works, and began to realize that something was wrong. Frightened and angry, Ashton tries to kill Hall. Hall barely survives to escape the VR.
McBain informs Hall that Jane does not exist, as Fuller never had a daughter. Hall tracks her down only to discover her double, Natasha Molinaro, working as a grocery store clerk, but Molinaro does not recognize Hall. This leads Hall to perform an experiment outside the VR system, something that Fuller's message instructed him to try: drive to a place where he never would have considered going otherwise. He does so, and discovers a point beyond which the world becomes a crude wireframe model. Hall grasps the revelation behind Fuller's message: 1999 Los Angeles is itself a simulation.
Jane Fuller explains the truth to Hall: his world is one of thousands of virtual worlds, but it is the only one in which one of the occupants have developed a virtual world of their own. Jane Fuller lives in the real world outside the simulation in the 1990s. After Fuller's death, she entered the virtual version to assume the guise of Fuller's daughter, gain control of the company, and shut down the simulated 1937 reality, a plan foiled by Hall being made the company heir. The virtual Hall is modeled after David, Jane's real-world husband, though Jane has since fallen in love with Hall. David committed the murders via Hall's body, being driven to increasingly jealous and psychopathic behavior from prolonged use of VR to live out his dark fantasies.
Whitney enters the 1937 simulation, assuming the body of bartender Jerry Ashton, who has kidnapped Ferguson (Hall's 1937 identity) and bound him in the trunk of his car. When Whitney is killed in a car crash inside the 1937 simulation, Ashton's consciousness takes control of Whitney's body in the 1990s simulation and takes Hall hostage. Hall tells Ashton that he is not in the real world, and that they are both products of a VR simulation. Hall takes Ashton to the place where he was 'born': a computer lab. David assumes control of Hall again to kill Ashton and then attempts to rape and murder Jane. Jane is rescued by Detective McBain, who shoots and kills David. McBain at this point has realized the nature of his own reality, and jokingly asks Jane, "So, is somebody going to unplug me now?" She answers "no", so McBain follows with the request "Look, do me a favor, when you get back to wherever it is you come from, just leave us the hell alone down here, okay?"
David's death as Hall in the 1990s simulation allows Hall's artificial consciousness to take control of David's body in the real world. He wakes in 2024, connected to a VR system. He disconnects the system and finds Jane and her father, the real Hannon Fuller. Jane wants to tell Hall more about the simulation, but as she begins the film ends, the screen image collapsing to a thin line of light before going dark like a computer monitor being turned off.
Although the opening segment implies that Merlin's magical interventions in people's lives are intended to have a benign effect, in practice this proves to be far from the case.
The first story focuses on a married couple, Jonathan and Madeline Cooper. Jonathan is a respected, though obnoxious columnist, and Madeline is desperate for a baby, as she and Jonathan have been unable to conceive. The couple visit the store, where Jonathan berates Merlin and threatens to write a negative article in the newspaper that will cause his readers to avoid the store. Merlin loans Jonathan his spell book as proof that he is actually the legendary wizard. Jonathan takes the book home and begins to toy with several of the spells. Jonathan becomes convinced of the book's authenticity when an unsuccessful spell to summon a spirit results in him having a vision of Satan and causing Jonathan to breathe fire. Jonathan quickly grows excited and becomes obsessed with the book's powers, but begins to dramatically age due to the rapid depletion of one's life force required to cast the spells. Jonathan attempts to transform his pet cat into a mystical servant, but it becomes demonic and proceeds to attack him. Using the spell from earlier, Jonathan breathes fire and burns the cat alive. By then, Jonathan has aged so severely that his hair is white and receded. Jonathan retrieves the book's rejuvenation spell and proceeds to create the required potion. He takes a sample of Madeline's blood and adds it to the mixture. Jonathan drinks the potion, but the spell backfires: Jonathan regresses into infancy. Madeline happily decides to raise her former husband as her own child.
In the second story, which bears a very close resemblance to Stephen King's short story "The Monkey", a thief steals a cymbal-banging-monkey toy from Merlin's shop, and sells it to a novelty store, where it is quickly bought as a present for a young boy. Every time the monkey's cymbals are struck, a nearby living thing dies. The boy's father takes the monkey and attempts to bury it, but it finds its way back into the boy's house. But before the monkey's cymbals are struck again, Merlin shows up and takes the toy back to his shop.
BluffCo has been dumping waste into Lucky Duck Lake under the command of CEO Bill Bluff. This pollution creates a friendly creature that is discovered by Doug Funnie and Skeeter Valentine. They house the creature in Doug's home, where they name him Herman, after he tries to eat a copy of ''Moby-Dick'' by Herman Melville. Not wanting him to be discovered, they disguise him as a foreign exchange student called Hermione, causing Doug's love interest Patti Mayonnaise to become jealous from all the attention he gives her, leading school paper reporter Guy Graham to make a move on her. Meanwhile, bully Roger Klotz and his cronies build a robot to kidnap Herman, but instead it becomes very overbearing toward Roger.
Doug and Skeeter show Herman to Doug's neighbor, Mayor Tippy Dink, who warns them Bluff will kill the story if they try to get it into the press. After being mocked by Guy in front of Patti, Doug calls a press announcement where he promises to expose what Bluff is doing to the lake. While initially dismissive, Guy finds a picture of Herman and realizes Doug is telling the truth. He notifies Bluff, who sends BluffCo agents to Doug's announcement posing as reporters to capture Herman. Doug sees through the ruse and calls off the conference, but Herman is kidnapped and Patti now believes Doug to be a liar.
The next day, in the school newspaper office, Doug finds an article by Guy detailing how Herman attacked students at the upcoming Valentine's Day dance and was killed by BluffCo agents. Realizing Guy and Bluff's plan, Doug and Skeeter recruit Roger and Al and Moo Sleech to help thwart it. On the night of the dance Doug has to give up his last chance to win Patti back in order to save Herman. The Sleech's reprogram Roger's robot to act like the monster in Guy's article, distracting everyone while Doug and Skeeter find Herman and sneak him out of the school in a giant Valentine's decoration.
They bring Herman to Crystal Lake and release him into the waters, where they are confronted and threatened by Bluff. Seeing this his daughter, Beebe, sides with her friends and Mayor Dink hints at revealing Bluff's practices to the government unless he volunteers to clean up Lucky Duck Lake himself. After Patti sees Doug was right all along she dumps Guy and Doug is about to reveal his feelings for her, but is interrupted by Herman. The gang bid goodbye to Herman and spend the rest of Valentine's night dancing by the lake.
In Hamburg in 1939, Peter Müller and Thomas Berger join their friends Arvid and Otto at a swing club called the Bismarck. They have a good time, dancing and enjoying the music.
Peter goes home to find his mother in an argument with the Nazi Blockleiter (block leader). Herr Knopp, head of the local Gestapo, arrives and curtly dismisses the Blockleiter. Herr Knopp begins asking Frau Müller questions about some of her late husband's friends. Herr Müller had been accused of being a communist, and his health was irreparably damaged by an interrogation at the hands of Nazi agents.
At Arvid's house, Thomas accidentally ruins one of Arvid's prized records. Upset, Arvid kicks Thomas, Peter and Otto out. To apologize to Arvid, Peter and Thomas steal a radio (which Peter knows was stolen from a ransacked Jewish home) from a bakery. Thomas escapes, but Peter is caught. Herr Knopp, who is attracted to Peter's mother, intercedes for him; in return, Peter must enroll in the ''Hitlerjugend'' (Hitler Youth).
Peter, who has a job delivering books, is asked to spy on his boss, whom the Nazis suspect is working against the Reich. In HJ school, the boys are encouraged to spy on their friends and families. Thomas accuses his father of insulting Hitler, hoping to cause trouble for him, but is unnerved when the Nazis come to his home and take his father away. His subsequent attempts to resume his friendship with Peter and persuade him to collaborate with the Nazis are tinged with fear.
Arvid, who is working at a jazz club, refuses to play a German song, lashing out at the club's patrons for being blind to the Nazi agenda. Peter is sympathetic but Thomas loudly argues the Nazi side. Peter angrily proclaims Thomas to be a "fucking Nazi" and storms off. After he is badly beaten by Nazis, leaving him struggling to play the guitar, Arvid realizes there is nothing for him in Germany and dies by suicide.
As Thomas begins to believe fully in Nazi ideology, Peter feels as though there is no hope for him. Peter, disenchanted with how his life is coming apart, dresses up and goes to a swing club which is scheduled to be raided by members of the ''Hitlerjugend''. As Thomas begins assaulting the club's patrons he attacks Peter; however, during the fight Peter is able to reach Thomas. Thomas begs Peter to run away but Peter won't. Willie Müller is there and as Peter is driven away by the police, he loudly screams "Swing Heil!" over and over again, proud that his brother stood up for being a swing kid.
The story is split between parallel narratives. The odd-numbered chapters take place in "Hard-Boiled Wonderland", although that phrase is not used anywhere in the text, only in page headers. The narrator is a , a human data processor and encryption system who has been trained to use his subconscious as an encryption key. The Calcutecs work for the quasi-governmental System, as opposed to the criminal who work for the Factory and who are generally fallen Calcutecs. The relationship between the two groups is simple: the System protects data while the Semiotecs steal it, although it is suggested that one man might be behind both. The narrator completes an assignment for a mysterious scientist, who is exploring "sound removal". He works in a laboratory hidden within an anachronistic version of Tokyo's sewer system. The narrator eventually learns that he only has a day and a half before his consciousness leaves the world he knows and delves forever into the world that has been created in his subconscious mind. According to the scientist, to the outside world this change will seem instantaneous, but in the Calcutec's mind, his time within this world will seem almost infinite.
The even-numbered chapters deal with a newcomer to "The End of the World", a strange, isolated Town, depicted in the frontispiece map as being surrounded by a perfect and impenetrable wall. The narrator is in the process of being accepted into the Town. His Shadow has been "cut off" and this Shadow lives in the "Shadow Grounds" where he is not expected to survive the winter. Residents of the Town are not allowed to have a shadow, and, it transpires, do not have a mind. The narrator is assigned quarters and a job as the current "Dreamreader": a process intended to remove the traces of mind from the Town. He goes to the Library every evening where, assisted by the Librarian, he learns to read dreams from the skulls of unicorns. These "beasts" passively accept their role, sent out of the Town at night to their enclosure, where many die of cold during the winter. It gradually becomes evident that this Town is the world inside the subconscious of Hard-Boiled Wonderland's narrator (the password he uses to control different aspects of his mind is even "end of the world"). The narrator grows to love the Librarian while he discovers the secrets of the Town, and although he plans to escape the Town with his Shadow, he later goes back on his word and allows his Shadow to escape the Town alone.
The two storylines converge, exploring concepts of consciousness, the subconscious or unconscious mind, and identity.
In the original Japanese, the narrator uses the more formal first-person pronoun to refer to himself in the Hard-Boiled Wonderland narrative and the more intimate in the End of the World narrative. Translator Alfred Birnbaum achieved a similar effect in English by writing the End of the World sections in the present tense.
Popular music and jazz figure prominently in many of Murakami's stories. The title ''Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World'' contains a reference to the 1962 pop hit "The End of the World," written by Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee and sung by Skeeter Davis. Davis's version reached No. 2 on both ''Billboard''
The reference to "The End of the World" is obvious in Japanese editions of the novel because an epigraph quotes from the lyrics and credits for the song are appended at the end. For some reason, however, neither epigraph nor credits are included in the English translation, which obscures the musical reference and has led one critic to mistakenly identify the song as originating with the Carpenters in the 1970s.
Given that lost love is one of Murakami's major themes and that Murakami likes to play metafictionally with such allusions (the credits at the end of the Japanese edition of the novel also contain a spurious reference to a book translated into Japanese by one "Makimura Hiraku" -- an anagram of Murakami's name), the removal of the explicit reference to the song is puzzling.
The first part, "The Thieving Magpie", begins with the narrator, Toru Okada, a low-key and unemployed lawyer's assistant, being tasked by his wife, Kumiko, to find their missing cat. Kumiko suggests looking in the alley, a closed-off strip of land behind their house. After Toru stays there for a while with no luck, May Kasahara, a teenager who had been watching him camping out in the alley for some time, questions him. She invites him over to her house in order to sit on the patio and look over an abandoned house that she says is a popular hangout for stray cats. The abandoned house is revealed to possibly contain some strange omen, as it had brought bad luck to all of its prior tenants. It also contains an empty well, which Toru uses later to crawl into and think. Toru receives sexual phone calls from a woman who says she knows him. He also receives a phone call from Malta Kano who asks to meet with him.
Kumiko calls Toru to explain that he should meet with the clairvoyant Malta Kano, who will help with finding the cat. Malta Kano had come recommended by Kumiko's brother, Noboru Wataya, which is also the name given to the cat. Kumiko's family believes in fortune-telling and had previously stipulated that the couple meet with an elderly man, Mr. Honda, for consultations on a regular basis, which they did for some time. (Instead of giving advice, he spends most of their sessions retelling the same story of his experience in the Kwantung Army in the lost tank battle with the Russians at Nomonhan on the Manchukuo-Russian border during World War II.) Toru meets the mysterious Malta Kano at a busy hotel restaurant, and she tasks her sister Creta Kano to further the work. Both sisters wear unusual clothing: Malta a large red hat and Creta unstylish 1960's clothing. Creta meets Toru at his home and begins to tell him the story of her past, involving being raped by Noboru, but abruptly leaves. Toru notices Kumiko is wearing perfume that has been gifted to her by some unknown person. The cat remains missing. Toru is contacted by Lieutenant Mamiya, who informs Toru that Mamiya's old war friend corporal Honda has died and that Mamiya wishes to visit Toru to drop off an item that Honda had bequeathed to him. The first section ends with Lieutenant Mamiya arriving and telling Toru a long tale about his eerie and mystical wartime experiences in Manchukuo in the Kwantung Army, where he sees a man skinned alive. Mamiya was also left to die in a deep well before being saved by corporal Honda. The gift from Honda is an empty box.
Kumiko is revealed to be missing at the start of the second part, "Bird as Prophet". Shortly after, Toru finds out through a meeting with Noboru and Malta that Kumiko has apparently been spending time with another man and wants to end her relationship with Toru. Confused, Toru tries several things to calm himself and think through the situation: talking and taking up work with May Kasahara, hiding at the bottom of the well, and loitering around the city looking at people. Work with May involves tallying up people with some degree of baldness at a subway line for a wig company. While at the bottom of the well (of the abandoned house), Toru reminisces about earlier times with Kumiko, including their first date to an aquarium where they looked at jellyfish. He also experiences a dreamlike sequence where he enters a hotel room and speaks with a woman, and notices a strange blue mark on his cheek after he leaves the well. While loitering in the city, he spends most of the day sitting outside a donut shop and people-watching. Through this activity, Toru encounters a well-dressed woman and also a singer he recognizes from his past, whom he follows and beats with a bat after getting ambushed by him.
"The Birdcatcher", the third, final, and lengthiest part, ties up most loose ends while introducing a few new characters. The well-dressed woman Toru met while people-watching is revealed to be Nutmeg, whom he sees again when he reverts to people-watching. She hires him to relieve clients, middle-aged or older women, of some kind of inner turmoil that develops inside of them. The blue mark is involved in this somehow, though its power is never fully explained. In return, Toru receives pay and partial possession of the abandoned house that had been purchased to resell by some property agency. Cinnamon, Nutmeg's son, maintains the house and refits the well with a ladder and pulley to open and close the well cap from the bottom. Toru periodically goes to the bottom of the well to think and attempt to revisit the hotel room. The cat, who has been hardly mentioned following Kumiko's disappearance, shows up at Toru's home after nearly a year of being missing. Toru discusses Kumiko's disappearance with Noboru directly and indirectly (through his agent Ushikawa) and eventually arranges for a talk with her through the Internet, using her recollection of the jellyfish date as a means to verify her identity. Finally, Toru is able to travel to the hotel room from the well and confronts the woman, realizing that she is Kumiko and breaking the spell. It is revealed in this reality that Noboru has been beaten into a coma by a bat, with the assailant described to look just like Toru. An unknown man enters the hotel room and attacks Toru, the intruder, with a knife. Toru fights back with the bat and kills the man, before escaping back to the well. In the well, bruised and unable to move, Toru passes out after the well fills with water. Cinnamon saves him, and some days later Nutmeg notifies him that in this reality Noboru had a stroke and is now in a coma. Kumiko sends him a message on the computer to let him know she is alright but intends to kill Noboru by pulling the plug on the life support. She reveals that she did not cheat on Toru with just one man, but in fact there were several. Noboru's obsession with their middle sister, continued with Kumiko, triggered sex addiction in her until Noboru stepped in. Subsequently, in a discussion between Toru and May, Toru says Kumiko was successful in killing Noboru and is now serving time in jail after admitting the deed — time of her own volition, because she is waiting for the media circus to end so neither she nor Toru are targeted. Toru says that he will wait for her, and bids May goodbye.
The player character is named Jake Peril and wears a gray suit, although a second player can play as his partner, Wes Reckless (who wears a blue suit), during two-player cooperative levels and head-to-head hotseat play. The robots of the original game are skeletal "mad monks" who wear red robes. The game's manual explains that Jake, and optionally Wes, travel to unknown underground worlds in the hopes of scavenging the untold golden treasures that litter the game's levels. At the end of the game, Jake is seen in the Technological world calling an elevator to the surface, eagerly waiting while the credits roll. The elevator arrives but malfunctions, leaving Jake no other choice but to reach the surface using the presumably tall staircase.
Professor Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) (pronounced BRAIN-ard) is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. Brainard names his discovery ''Flubber'', which is a portmanteau of "flying rubber." In the excitement of his discovery, he misses his own wedding to Betsy Carlisle (Nancy Olson), not for the first time, but his third. Subplots include another professor wooing the disappointed Miss Carlisle, Biff Hawk's (Tommy Kirk) ineligibility for basketball due to failing Brainard's class, Biff's father Alonzo P. Hawk's (Keenan Wynn) schemes to gain wealth by means of Flubber, the school's financial difficulties and debt to Mr. Hawk, and Brainard's attempts to interest the government and military in uses for Flubber. Shelby Ashton (Elliott Reid), the other professor who is interested in Betsy, is given his revenge by the Professor, who keeps on jumping on the top of Shelby's car, until it crashes into a police car, where he is given a field sobriety test.
Looking for backers, he bounces his Flubber ball for an audience, but his investment pitch proves so long-winded that most of the crowd has left before they notice that the ball bounced higher on its second bounce than on its first. For a more successful demonstration, he makes his Model T fly by bombarding Flubber with radioactive particles. Other adventures and misadventures result as Flubber is used on the bottoms of basketball players' shoes (in a crucial game) giving them tremendous jumping ability; Brainard (at a school dance) making him an accomplished dancer, and the scheming businessman Alonzo P. Hawk. Hawk becomes aware of the Professor's car and proposes a way to thwart it, to which Biff makes an actually intelligent proposal, "switch cars". Brianard's debut turns into a mockery when it fails, finding himself with a fake Model T powered by squirrels and pigeons. Realizing it was Hawk's doing, Brainard plays on Hawk's greed by saying (at the time) only 8% of the world's population uses cars, but nearly everyone wears shoes, and gives him a pair of Flubber shoes. However, Hawk cannot stop bouncing, and is blackmailed into revealing where he hid the Professor's car. A bouncing Hawk soon attracts everyone's attention, even a news crew, who interviews a physicist who sees Hawk keeps bouncing higher with each jump and remarks "by 7 tonight, he's going to be in serious trouble!". The police escort the Medfield football team to tackle Hawk on his way down, stopping his bounces. Hawk and Biff then chase after the Professor, who by now has recaptured his car and jumps atop their car like he did to Shelby. Hawk crashes into the same squad car Shelby did, and gets arrested for illegal firearms possession. Brainard convinces Betsy to accompany him to Washington D.C. Never seeing a flying car before, the military considers it an attack and is ready to open fire until one junior officer recommends against it, as Brainard is atop the United States Capitol building. Now able to convince the government of the merits of Flubber, the Professor finally marries Betsy.
The game is set in the year 1997. Dr. Proton is a madman, determined to take over the world with his army of Techbots. Duke Nukem, the eponymous hero, takes upon the task of stopping him. The first episode takes place in the devastated city of Los Angeles. In the second episode, Duke chases Dr. Proton to his secret moonbase. In the third episode, Dr. Proton escapes into the future, and Duke pursues him through time, to put an end to his mad schemes.
Lance, a young computer expert, is called to fix a computer at a scary, dilapidated castle. After repairing a large super-computer, Lance learns that his client, the disembodied brain of Dr. Nero Neurosis, has a diabolical plan to take over the world. He quickly finds himself in trouble, being chased around the castle by Dr. Nero Neurosis's psychotic servant Fritz. The player must guide Lance through the castle in order to defeat Dr. Neurosis and escape with his life.
An old journalist, who has just celebrated his 90th birthday, seeks sex with a 14-year-old prostitute, who is selling her virginity to help her family. Instead of sex, he discovers love for the first time in his life.
Typical for him, Pasolini's subject is sex: he questions representatives from a variety of social brackets on topics such as virginity, prostitution, homosexuality and sex education. The interviews are made in Italy. The overarching themes are sexual ignorance, confusion and conservatism. The film is divided into four large parts, called "Ricerche" (literally, "searches"), plus a brief prologue, in which Pasolini asks children in a poor area where babies come from (the responses include "flowers," "the stork," "Jesus and God," and "my uncle") and an epilogue, in which Pasolini recites one of his poems about marriage. Also included are conversations with acclaimed author and his friend, Alberto Moravia and psychologist Cesare Musatti, or with poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, or with a group of three women journalists, including Oriana Fallaci.
Maia, at 15, lives in the Beklan Empire's province of Tonilda with her mother, Morca, her three younger sisters, and her stepfather, Tharrin. Their small, poor farm is on the edge of Lake Serrelind, and Maia tends to shirk her chores by swimming in the lake.
Tharrin secretly seduces Maia. When Morca discovers the affair, she sells Maia to a slave dealer Lalloc. Maia is almost raped by one of his employees, but is saved by Occula, a black slave girl. Maia and Occula become very good friends and even lovers. They are sent to the city of Bekla.
Occula relates her past: her father, a jewel-merchant, brought her across the desert to Bekla. They were received by the noblewoman Fornis. She had Occula's father murdered and his emeralds incorporated into the Sacred Queen's crown. Occula was sold as a slave.
Adams outlines Bekla's political situation in several chapters that bypass Maia. The "Leopard" faction led by the High Baron Durakkon, Fornis (now the Sacred Queen), the Lord General Kembri, and the High Counsellor Sencho came to power by ceding Suba, a western province, to the neighbouring kingdom of Terekenalt. They legalised slavery, and the capital's finances are now heavily based on taxation of it. Pockets of rebellion have sprung up around the empire.
Sencho buys both Maia and Occula as "bed-slaves". Terebinthia, the woman in charge of Sencho's household, supervises and trains them. At intervals, a peddler named Zirek visits and exchanges cryptic conversations with Occula.
Beautiful and fun-loving, Maia shows promise of going far, and finds some professional satisfaction in providing Sencho's decadent pleasures. To her surprise, she even enjoys the spectacle when a fellow bed-slave, the tempestuous Meris, is whipped and sold for dereliction of duty.
Terebinthia rents out the girls to other rich and powerful men. Using this means of contact, Lord General Kembri secretly enlists Maia and Occula as agents and charges Maia with gaining the trust of Bayub-Otal, the dispossessed heir to Suba and a potential ally of the rebels. Bayub-Otal is the son of the baron of a neighbouring province and a dancer nicknamed "Nokomis" ("dragonfly").
When Sencho becomes drastically ill, he comes to depend almost solely on Occula's intense caretaking. During a garden party, Occula lures Sencho out of sight and signals her rebel confederates, Zirek and Meris, to stab Sencho to death.
Maia and Occula are imprisoned on suspicion of colluding in Sencho's murder. Queen Fornis takes Maia into her household. As Maia fails to satisfy her sexual needs, Fornis gives her to Kembri; Maia seizes on this chance to interest the queen in Occula, hoping to save her friend from execution.
Kembri sends Maia to Bayub-Otal with a cover story of having escaped. Bayub-Otal takes her with him as he secretly makes his way back to Suba. Maia learns that one reason for his extraordinary standoffish respect for her is that she looks (and dances) like his dead mother, Nokomis, who is still revered throughout the province. Bayub-Otal hopes to use the resemblance to rally Suban patriotism on behalf of an alliance with Terekenalt.
At the rallying site, Maia falls passionately in love with the handsome young Zen-Kurel, an officer of Terekenalt. Zen-Kurel accepts her invitation to bed, but leaves quickly to take part in a surprise attack scheduled for that very night. The River Valderra, the boundary between the two countries, is thought to be uncrossably swift and rocky, but the Terekenalters plan to ford it with heavy ropes and strong men, thus surprising the detachment of Tonildan soldiers guarding the other side.
In hopes of saving her fellow Tonildans' lives as well as her lover's, Maia swims the river. Despite serious wounds, she warns the Beklan commander and thwarts the invasion.
Maia returns to Bekla, freed and celebrated. She gains an informal title as the "Serrelinda" after Lake Serrelind. Hoping to reunite with Zen-Kurel, she takes no lovers, despite expectations that she will find a rich husband or become an expensive courtesan. Her popularity and single status bring her under threat from Fornis; since the Sacred Queen is chosen periodically by popular acclaim, Maia is an obvious rival despite not wanting the crown.
Maia sees her stepfather, Tharrin, dragged into Bekla as a rebel informant. He is condemned to be sacrificed. Maia does her best to free him, and he reveals to her that her real mother was not Morca but a pregnant girl who had fled to Morca's cottage and died there in childbirth; Maia deduces she is the daughter of Nokomis' younger sister and therefore a Suban.
Fornis causes Tharrin's death. Maia makes a desperate attempt to kill Fornis, but is thwarted by Occula, who was indeed inducted into the queen's household. Occula intends to take revenge on Fornis when the time is right; meanwhile she is performing the sort of sado-masochistic services of which Maia had been incapable.
As civil war breaks out in Bekla, Maia learns that Bayub-Otal and Zen-Kurel have been brought there as prisoners. In danger of Fornis' murderous fury, Maia frees the two men, and with them and Zirek and Meris (who have been hiding since assassinating Sencho), she flees Bekla.
The former prisoners are bitterly angry at Maia for betraying them at the Valderra, which she had idealistically considered an attempt to save their lives. Nevertheless, they agree to return with her to Suba or Terekenalt.
Maia and her companions travel for a time with rebel freebooters. Meris, always a troublemaker, gets herself killed by one of them. Maia gradually regains Zen-Kurel's and Bayub-Otal's trust by her sincere efforts to help them. After an arduous boat escape from the Beklan Empire to Terekenalt, Bayub-Otal is killed and Maia receives a marriage proposal from the man she loves most.
Two years later, Maia (with her little son) visits the capital of her new country and by chance meets Occula. Occula describes how she killed Fornis, aided by supernatural forces, and how the rebels overthrew the Leopards' regime.
The story ends with Maia refusing Occula's plea to go back to Bekla; she would rather help Zen-Kurel and his father manage their farm.
Yogi, Quick Draw, Huck and the rest of the gang encounter a variety of villains such as Captain Swashbuckle Swipe, Smokestack Smog, Lotta Litter, the Envy Brothers, Mr. Hothead, Dr. Bigot (and his henchmen Professor Haggling and Professor Bickering), the Gossipy Witch of the West, J. Wantum Vandal, the Sheik of Selfishness, Commadore Phineas P. Fibber, I.M. Sloppy, Peter D. Cheater, Mr. Waste, Hilarious P. Prankster, and the Greedy Genie, who act as their friends, hosts and/or guests, but embody some of the most common human faults and vices. Yogi and crew would often put up with them which ends with the villains either being repelled or outdone by their actions.
The movie depicts the life of Dawn Anna, a teacher and single mother of four children. Soon after meeting her eventual husband, she is diagnosed with a severe brain disease that requires a serious operation. Shortly after her recovery, daughter Lauren Townsend is murdered by shooters in the massacre at Columbine.
The show focuses on Leonardo the lion (voiced by Jackson Beck), the well-meaning but often inept king of Bongo Congo, a fictional African nation notable for its bongos. King Leonardo is assisted in all things by a calm, competent skunk named Odie Cologne or "Odie O. Cologne" (voiced by Allen Swift). Odie, the one who really keeps the kingdom on an even keel, has been by the king's side since they were children. His voice characterization was based on screen actor Ronald Coleman.
King Leonardo's main archenemy is the gangster-type character Biggie Rat (voiced by Jackson Beck impersonating Edward G. Robinson), who routinely attempts to overthrow Leonardo and take over Bongo Congo for himself, with Leonardo's dimwitted sibling Itchy Brother (voiced by Allen Swift) becoming king. Biggie is often also assisted by an evil German inventor named Professor Messer (voiced by Jackson Beck) or Odie's flirtatious sister Carlotta. Biggie and Itchy's schemes always end with them either landing in the dungeon or escaping.
Episodes of ''The King and Odie'' that were exclusive to ''Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales'' feature Biggie Rat and Itchy Brother employed by Mr. Mad (voiced by Norman Rose), a mad scientist with a domineering personality. Mr. Mad has his own plans for Bongo Congo. When his schemes fail, Mr. Mad disappears "as if by magic" before he can be apprehended.
Robert "Bobby" Pendragon is an everyday athletic junior high school student from (fictional) Stony Brook, Connecticut, located in the greater New York metropolitan area. Bobby's Uncle Press reveals that he will train Bobby to become one of the "Travelers": wormhole-journeying young warriors from a variety of different planets and cultures, who are tasked with stopping or reversing the destruction being enacted by the villainous Saint Dane. Saint Dane is a shapeshifting demon whose favorite form is a tall human with icy blue eyes and long grey hair, but who can variously transform into a raven, a cloud of smoke, and a variety of other forms. He plans to destroy "what separates order from chaos"—the very fabric and structure of the universe, known as "Halla"—so that he can rebuild it according to his own twisted design. Uncle Press, the lead Traveler, introduces Bobby to the "flumes": enchanted tubes used by Travelers to journey among the ten "territories", which are especially eventful locations and time-periods in the universe. Press explains that Bobby is a resident and designated Traveler of the territory known as "Second Earth", which means planet Earth (especially centering on New York City) during the early 2000s (the present moment at the time of the series' publication).
Most of the novels in the series are structured around a similar basic conflict: as one of Halla's ten territories reaches a crucial turning point, in which its people must make a critical global decision for their future, Saint Dane arrives, hoping to lead the people towards self-destruction, especially through cultural homogenization, social inequality, discrimination, and totalitarianism. Bobby must then travel to each threatened territory to thwart Saint Dane's plans, sending journals back home (to Second Earth) to be received and kept safe by his best friends, Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde, who become sometimes involved with the action and are deemed Bobby's "acolytes": personal helpers and record-keepers along Bobby's journey. There is one Traveler from each territory, and Bobby cooperates with all ten along his journey. Throughout the series, Saint Dane often confronts Bobby personally and asks him to join his side, but Bobby consistently refuses.
Bobby soon realizes his central role in the battle for Halla: that he is to replace his uncle as the lead Traveler, pursuing Saint Dane and helping to guide the territories back toward stability with the assistance of the other Travelers, their acolytes, and further allies. The turning points of the ten territories, in order, occur on: the medieval wilds of Denduron; the ocean-wide planet of Cloral; First Earth (the approximate time and location of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster); the virtual-reality wastelands of Veelox; the rainforests of Eelong; the deserts of Zadaa; the corporate monopoly-controlled arenas of Quillan; the semi-civilized island of Ibara (located on the planet Veelox, though 300 years after the "Veelox" territory); Second Earth; and, lastly, Third Earth (New York City in the year 5010).
Along his journeys, Bobby also learns martial arts, sometimes even dueling with Saint Dane one-on-one. Bobby also comes to respect the diverse peoples of Halla, who wildly differ in their social structures, technologies, philosophies, traditions, and other cultural aspects. He also has to adapt to each territory's environment to be ready to confront Saint Dane at a moment's notice. Bobby gradually learns the nature of what it really means to be a Traveler, first hinted at when Saint Dane mysteriously begins referring to the Travelers as "illusions". Saint Dane's long-term strategy also eventually surfaces, centering on a mysterious event called "the Convergence", in which the territories' turning points all begin to coincide, potentially causing an escalating chain reaction of chaos throughout Halla. Matters worsen when the Traveler from Quillan, named Nevva Winter, treacherously defects to Saint Dane's side. Meanwhile, the Convergence causes some territories to undergo a devastating and unanticipated second turning point.
By the ninth book, Bobby and his friends have successfully prevented the destruction of five territories, but they have failed in their fight against Saint Dane on Second Earth, Veelox, Ibara, and Quillan. Even worse, by overrunning Second Earth, Saint Dane manages to reverse all previous Traveler victories, allowing him to establish an elitist and genocidal cult called Ravinia. Ravinia openly marches its robot army of humanoid soldiers, "dados", throughout the territories, freely breaking down the boundaries between the territories. In the tenth and final book, Bobby finally learns about the true nature of Travelers: that he and the others are not actually humans at all, but rather, human-shaped guardian spirits created by something called Solara: the accumulated energy of all positive sentient knowledge and creativity. Contrarily, Saint Dane is a spirit arisen from a dark antithesis of Solara. Reuniting one last time, Bobby and the Travelers confront Saint Dane in a final battle on Third Earth to begin Halla's process toward recovery at last.
Right before midnight, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the coastal town of Antonio Bay in Northern California, Mr. Machen (John Houseman) tells ghost stories to children by a campfire on the beach. One of the stories is about a local ship that had crashed against the rocks, causing all of its crew to drown. Paranormal activity then begins around the town starting at midnight, which results in the town priest, Father Malone (Hal Holbrook), discovering his grandfather's diary at the church after a piece of masonry falls from the wall. The journal reveals that in 1880, the six founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone's grandfather) deliberately sank a clipper ship named the ''Elizabeth Dane'', so that its wealthy, leprosy-afflicted owner Blake would not establish a leper colony nearby. The conspirators used some of the gold plundered from the ship to fund the town.
Meanwhile, three fishermen are out at sea when a strange, glowing fog envelops their trawler. The fog brings with it the ''Elizabeth Dane'', carrying the vengeful revenants of Blake and his crew, who kill the fishermen. Meanwhile, town resident Nick Castle (Tom Atkins) is driving his truck home and picks up a young hitchhiker named Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis). As they drive towards town, all the truck's windows inexplicably shatter.
The following morning, local radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau) is given a piece of driftwood by her son Andy (Ty Mitchell); it is inscribed with the word "DANE", and Andy says he found it on the beach. Intrigued, Stevie takes it with her to the lighthouse where she broadcasts her radio show. She sets the wood down next to a tape player that is playing, but the wood inexplicably begins to seep water, causing the tape player to short circuit. A mysterious man's voice emerges from the tape player swearing revenge, and the words "6 must die" appear on the wood before it bursts into flame. Stevie quickly extinguishes the fire, but she then sees that the wood once again reads "DANE" and the tape player begins working normally again.
After locating the missing trawler, Nick and Elizabeth find the corpse of one of the fishermen, Dick Baxter (James Canning), with his eyes gouged out. The other two are missing, one of whom is the husband of Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh), who is overseeing the town's centennial celebrations. While Elizabeth is alone in the autopsy room, Baxter's corpse rises from the autopsy table and approaches her, before collapsing. As Elizabeth screams, Nick and coroner Dr. Phibes (Darwin Joston) rush into the room where they see the once-again lifeless corpse has carved the number 3 on the floor. That evening, as the town's celebrations begin, local weatherman Dan (Charles Cyphers) calls Stevie at the radio station to tell her that another fog bank has appeared and is moving towards town. As they are talking, the fog gathers outside the weather station and Dan hears a knock at the door. He answers it and is killed by the revenants as Stevie listens in horror. As Stevie proceeds with her radio show, the fog starts moving inland, disrupting the town's telephone and power lines. Using a backup generator, Stevie begs her listeners to go to her house and save her son when she sees the fog closing in from her lighthouse vantage point. As the fog envelops Stevie's house, the revenants kill her son's babysitter, Mrs. Kobritz (Regina Waldon). They then pursue Andy, but Nick and Elizabeth arrive and rescue him.
Stevie advises everyone to head to the town's church through her broadcast. Once inside, Nick, Elizabeth, Andy, Kathy, her assistant Sandy (Nancy Loomis) and Father Malone take refuge in a back room as the fog arrives outside. Inside the room, they locate a gold cross in the wall cavity which is made from the rest of the stolen gold. As the revenants begin their attack, Malone takes the gold cross out into the chapel. Knowing that they have returned to take six lives in lieu of the six original conspirators who led them to their deaths, Malone offers the gold and himself to Blake to spare the others. At the lighthouse, more revenants attack Stevie, trapping her on the roof. Inside the church, Blake seizes the gold cross, which begins to glow. Nick pulls Malone away from the cross seconds before it disappears in a blinding flash of light along with Blake and his crew. The revenants at the lighthouse also disappear, and the fog vanishes. Stevie gets down from the roof and makes it back to safety.
After Elizabeth, Nick, Andy, Kathy and Sandy leave the church, Malone contemplates why he was spared by Blake and asks "Why not six?" given that there have been only five deaths. However, moments later, the fog reappears inside the church along with the revenants and Blake decapitates Malone as the screen cuts to black.
In the final years of the Mexican Revolution, American rancher J.W. Grant hires four men, who are all experts in their respective fields, to rescue his kidnapped wife, Maria, from Jesus Raza, a former revolutionary leader-turned-bandit.
Henry "Rico" Fardan is a weapons specialist, Bill Dolworth is an explosives expert, Hans Ehrengard is the horse wrangler, and Jake Sharp is a traditional Apache scout, skilled with a bow and arrow. Fardan and Dolworth, having both fought under the command of Pancho Villa, have a high regard for Raza as a soldier. But as cynical professionals, they have no qualms about killing him now.
After they enter Mexico, they witness soldiers on a government train being massacred by Raza's small army. The professionals follow the captured train to the end of the line. When the bandits leave, they take the train before moving onto the camp where they observe Raza and his followers — including a female soldier, Chiquita (who once was in a relationship with Dolworth). At nightfall Fardan infiltrates the camp but he is stopped from killing Raza in his quarters by Maria, Grant's kidnapped wife. Dolworth concludes, "we've been had."
After bringing Grant's wife back to the train, a shootout starts because it has been retaken by the bandits. The professionals are forced to retreat into the mountains while being relentlessly pursued by Raza and his men. The group evade capture by using explosives to bring down the walls of a gully. Maria reveals they haven't rescued Grant's kidnapped wife but Raza's lover. Grant bought her in an arranged marriage from which she escaped at the earliest opportunity to return to her true love in Mexico.
Dolworth volunteers to stay behind to allow the other professionals to escape with Maria as Raza and his remaining men close in. In the ensuing fight Raza is wounded and captured while Dolworth is almost killed by a dying Chiquita whose gun is empty.
Grant and his own men meet the professionals (with Raza and Maria) at the US border. The wealthy rancher tells Fardan that their contract has been satisfactorily concluded. He then orders one of his men to kill the wounded Raza. But before he can fire, Dolworth shoots the guns from his hand. The other professionals step in to protect Maria and Raza. They collect the wounded Raza, put him on a carriage and, with Maria at the reins, send both back to Mexico.
Grant angrily turns to Fardan and says "You bastard!" to which he retorts: "Yes, sir, in my case an accident of birth. But you, sir, you are a self-made man." The professionals ride behind the fleeing carriage back into Mexico.
"Trucks" takes place in a truck stop in the United States. The truck stop is located off a freeway and it features a diner, a gas station, and a convenience store.
The story's narrator and a handful of strangers find themselves trapped together in a freeway truck stop diner after semi-trailers and other large vehicles are suddenly brought to independent life by an unknown force and proceed to gruesomely kill every human in sight. Cars, which remain unaltered, are swiftly battered into wreckage and pedestrians are massacred by rampaging trucks and buses. The six survivors hiding in the diner include the narrator, as well as an elderly counterman, a trucker, a young man named Jerry, his girlfriend, and a salesman named Snodgrass.
As the story begins, the counterman and the trucker attempt to radio any other survivors, but the two-way radio fails for unknown reasons. Snodgrass, cracking under the strain, attempts to flee across the stop's parking lot and is hit by a truck. Snodgrass gets propelled into a drainage ditch, taking hours to die from internal bleeding. The situation worsens when the diner's power goes out. The counterman instructs the survivors that they will need to consume the perishable meats and collect good potable water from the restrooms. While the employee's restroom is inside the diner, the men's and ladies' room are by the outdoor gas station, and the narrator's attempt to gather fresh water from those places nearly costs him his life when the trucks realize what he is trying to do.
Some time later, a glimmer of hope appears when the trucks begin to run out of fuel. An enormous semi-truck noses up to the diner and starts blasting its horn erratically. Jerry remembers from his time in the Boy Scouts that the horn blasts are Morse Code, and translates that the trucks are demanding humans start pumping fuel. The trucks assure they will not attack people who refuel them. The narrator is outvoted when he suggests they comply with this, and a bulldozer arrives and proceeds to attack the diner. The narrator and Jerry destroy the bulldozer with improvised Molotov cocktails, but the diner is half-destroyed and Jerry and the trucker are killed.
The remaining three humans surrender and, taking turns, start pumping the gas into the mile-long string of waiting trucks. When the narrator exhausts the fuel reserve of the truck stop's gas station, a fuel tanker arrives to replenish the fuel cisterns. When the narrator is at a point of collapsing, he is relieved by the counterman, who starts pumping gas for his "shift". The narrator says that he will have to show the girl how to handle a fuel pump, and that she will do it because she wants to live. The narrator thinks to himself that perhaps this will last only until the trucks run out of fuel, rust, and fall apart, but he then has a grim vision of forced assembly lines churning out new generations of trucks, and the trucks, aided by construction vehicles and tanks, doing great efforts such as draining the Okefenokee Swamp and paving much of the wild backcountry, stamping it into a great plain. The story ends as a pair of planes fly overhead, and the narrator laments "I wish I could believe there are people in them."
In Tokyo, a weak, unassertive boy named Sena Kobayakawa enters the high school of his choice Deimon Private Senior High School. Sena's only remarkable physical abilities are his running speed and agility, which are noted by the school's American football team captain Yoichi Hiruma. Hiruma forces Sena to join the Deimon Devil Bats football team as its running back. To protect his identity from other teams who want to recruit him, Sena is forced to publicly assume the role of the team secretary and enter the field under the pseudonym of "Eyeshield 21" wearing a helmet with an eyeshield to hide his features. The makeshift team initially takes part in the spring football tournament hoping to win through the strength of their new "secret weapon". However, the extremely weak team is eliminated early by the Ojo White Knights, one of the best football teams in Japan.
After Deimon's defeat, the spring tournament is revealed as secondary in importance to the fall tournament, where the teams compete for the chance to play in the Christmas Bowl the high school football league championship. Hiruma, Ryokan Kurita, and Sena regroup and slowly build a real team from misfits and students looking to define themselves, such as Tarō "Monta" Raimon a baseball player who can only catch and the Ha-Ha Brothers. Other characters slowly join the team, and the series follows the building and growth of the Deimon Devil Bats and its members, and rival teams as they all strive to achieve their goal of playing in the Christmas Bowl.
Some time after the Deimon Devil Bats win the Christmas Bowl and they become the best team in the country, Japan begins to gather the best football players to form a team to represent it at the American Football Youth World Championship, where a Most Valuable Player (MVP) will be awarded an NFL contract and $3 million. Team Japan reaches the final against Team America, in which the game ends as a tie, and both teams are declared winners. Both teams are unsatisfied with this and return to the field for their own, improvised "overtime", causing chaos with officials. It is unclear which team wins the unofficial extra period, but Panther of Team America holds the MVP trophy aloft, winning the professional contract with the San Antonio Armadillos.
The series concludes with Sena becoming the captain of the Devil Bats after Hiruma and Kurita leave school to attend college. In his final year of high school, Sena is invited to Notre Dame High School. In the final chapter, the main characters are in college or playing amateur-league football while employed.
Rappin' John Hood (Van Peebles), an ex-convict, attempts to save his neighborhood from developers and hoodlums. Around the same time, one of the hoodlums' girlfriend, Cecilia, persuades him to audition for a rap recording contract. Their interactions develop into a relationship.
Ian Wyndham (Nicholls) is a British businessman who lives with his American musician girlfriend, Samantha Andrews (Hewitt), in London. Taking us through a day in Ian and Samantha's life, the film opens by showing different events such as Samantha getting burnt on a kettle, Ian's watch breaking, Samantha getting Coca-Cola on her and Ian being interrupted by Samantha during an important meeting at work.
Samantha gets angry at Ian as he always treats her as his second priority and tells him that she just wants him to love her. Ian makes one last attempt to reconcile with Samantha. An angry Samantha gets into a taxi and asks Ian whether he is coming in or not. The taxi meets with an accident and Samantha dies. A heartbroken Ian goes back to his apartment, finds Samantha's notebook and opens it, finding a song she was working on. He falls asleep clutching the notebook close to him.
When he gets up the next morning, he hears Samantha talking and sees her in the bed right next to him. He is scared at first but after the initial confusion, Ian comes to the conclusion that the previous day must have been a dream. Ian feels happy to have Samantha by his side.
The events of the next day are similar to those he already experienced in the dream, although occurring at different times and in different ways. Ian is sure that he had a premonition and that the end of the day will be same and Samantha will die. Samantha gets Coca-Cola spilt on her. But Ian's watch remains in working order. After talking to the taxi driver he realizes that the driver is the man from the dream who asks Ian to love Samantha.
After convincing her to come with him, they travel to Ian's rural home town. They climb a hill in the rain. He asks her how she wold spend her last day if she only had one left. She replies that she would spend it with him. He declares his love and they make love in a cabin. In the town below, the two have drinks and Ian tells Samantha about his father, who lost his beloved job before becoming an alcoholic and dying sometime later. The two travel back to London and Ian takes Samantha on the London Eye as another surprise. They then travel back to their apartment and Ian takes a page from her notebook and brings it to a nearby photocopying shop while Samantha travels to her concert with her violin. Before the show begins Ian gives the photocopied pages to an organizer. After the performance in which Samantha is a violinist, the organiser announces Samantha's name as the next performer. A nervous Samantha proceeds onto the stage as the orchestra begins to play the song printed on Ian's photocopied sheets. She sings the song she wrote for Ian in her notebook and the crowd burst into applause at her performance.
Instead of going to Tantra, the restaurant that Ian had made reservations for, they go to a more intimate restaurant that Samantha chooses, but Ian loves it as well. Ian gifts her a bracelet with meaningful charms. They have a nice time. After the dinner, as both of them are standing outside of Tantra, where they ate in the dream, Ian tells Samantha why he loves her. As the taxi pulls over and Samantha gets in, she asks him again whether he is getting in or not. This time Ian gets in and sees that the cab driver is the same again. As the clock strikes 11, the taxi meets with an accident.
The same scene is repeated again, when Samantha's friend is shown running in the hospital corridor. Only this time, unlike the dream, its Samantha who is sitting and crying instead of Ian, implying that Ian died in the crash.
The film ends six months later, with Samantha packing up the apartment she shared with Ian while looking at his watch, and then performing onstage while wearing the bracelet that Ian gave her, with tears in her eyes but smiling, intercut with a scene of her finally getting to the top of the mountain that she tried to climb with Ian while stopping at the cabin that they stopped at.
While playing the trumpet in a burning room, the protagonist's voice is heard in narration. His story begins with him posing as "Danny Parker", a speed freak addicted to methamphetamine, who hangs out with friends while indulging in drugs. He also moonlights as an informant for two corrupt cops, Gus Morgan and Al Garcetti. He is trying to set up a large meth score with notorious drug dealer Pooh Bear, an eccentric psychopath who lost his nose to excessive snorting of "Gak" (meth), while also attempting to set up a sting operation for Morgan and Garcetti.
When he returns home, Danny sheds his clothes and his personality, and basks in his past life as trumpet player "Tom Van Allen". He reveals to an abused neighbor named Colette that he was once happily married, only to watch as his wife was gunned down by masked thieves during a stopover at the Salton Sea.
When meeting with Pooh Bear, Danny becomes fearful of Pooh Bear's displays of bizarre homicidal behavior, so he tapes a gun to the bottom of a table.
Danny's parents-in-law track him down, believing he has sunk into depression after his wife's death, but he tells them he doesn't want their help. As the deal approaches, it becomes known that Danny is not only working for the police but FBI agents working to take down Morgan and Garcetti, who have committed multiple murders. It is also revealed that they were the men who killed his wife and wounded him as they robbed a drug dealer. Danny had started his own investigation when he found out who Morgan was and delved into the drug underworld to become a believable junkie.
On the night of the deal, Danny, with the help of his best friend Jimmy, leads the FBI to the wrong location. Meanwhile, Danny arrives at Pooh Bear's house. At the dinner table, surrounded by Pooh Bear's armed friends, tensions rise and one of Pooh Bear's men tries to kill Danny, who retrieves the gun he stashed earlier and shoots the rest of the gang. Shot in the chest by Pooh Bear, Danny collapses to the floor.
Pooh Bear, wounded in the leg, goes to take a shot of meth while mumbling incoherently. Morgan and Garcetti arrive, find the massacre, and Garcetti kills Pooh Bear, whose drug-filled hypo drops to the floor. Garcetti is then killed by Danny, whose life was saved by a bulletproof vest. Morgan is shot twice by Danny, who reveals to Morgan that he knows he murdered his wife. Morgan manages to snatch Danny's gun away, but finds it empty. Danny finds Pooh Bear's syringe on the floor and plunges it into Morgan's neck, then picks up a pistol and briefly contemplates suicide, but then shoots Morgan several times and flees.
Back in his apartment, he dons his Tom Van Allen identity again, but is shot by Colette's "boyfriend", who is in fact an agent tasked with exacting vengeance for the Mexicali Boys, a leader of whom Danny turned in to the police before the events of the film's present day timeline. Collette says she was forced to betray Danny because her daughter was being held hostage. The room catches fire, and Danny plays one more tune on his trumpet before passing out.
He regains consciousness to find that Jimmy has saved him from the fire and taken him to a hospital. After he recovers, he leaves the city, and the identities of Danny and Tom, behind.
''Curse of Darkness'' is set in the year 1479, three years after the events of ''Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse''. Though defeated by vampire hunter Trevor Belmont, Dracula's curse continues to ravage the European countryside, spreading disease, mob violence, and heresy in its wake. Amidst all this devastation is Hector, a Devil Forgemaster who had formerly worked under the employ of Dracula but betrayed him sometime during the events of ''Castlevania III''. Eventually growing disgusted with Dracula's brutal methods, Hector leaves Dracula's castle and relinquishes his powers to live amongst humans, settling down to live a peaceful life. When Hector's fiancée Rosaly is accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, Hector learns that her murder was directed by his rivalrous Devil Forgemaster, Isaac. Seeking revenge, Hector chases his former colleague back to his old home, and back to the demonic life he believed he had left behind him.
When the game begins, Hector arrives at an Abandoned Castle to confront Isaac. The latter scoffs at his desire for revenge and dares him to regain his powers so they can settle their score in a satisfying way. Hector reluctantly accepts the challenge, and starts hunting his former friend across the Transylvanian countryside. During his quest, he encounters several people: Julia Laforeze, a young witch in exile who turns out to be Isaac's sister, Trevor Belmont, who distrusts him for being a Devil Forgemaster, Zead, a kindly holyman who provides him with reliable information about Isaac's whereabouts, and St. Germain, a mysterious time traveller who presses him to abandon his quest, but eventually leaves him alone with some cryptic comments about a "new destiny" having emerged for him.
At one point, Trevor decides to trust Hector, and uses his own blood to unlock a parallel world called the Infinite Corridor, where Isaac is supposedly hiding. However, when Hector fights a Dullahan there, an evil glyph channels his energy and uses it to summon a new incarnation of Dracula's castle. Isaac, who intended this all along, cruelly stabs Trevor and leaves him for dead.
Hector enters the new Castlevania, where he fights and defeats his nemesis. As he prepares to kill him in a fit of rage, he suddenly remembers Julia, who had warned him not to let the Curse take hold of him. Horrified, Hector realizes that his actions are being controlled by Dracula's Curse. A triumphant Zead appears and confirms this, explaining that the Devil Forgemasters were supposed to fight to the death, with the blood-stained Hector becoming the vessel for the Count's reincarnation. Having secured Isaac's body for this purpose, he reveals himself to be Death and attacks, in vain. Hector proceeds to fight Dracula, who is unable to take full control of Isaac's body and returns to the afterlife. Hector then uses his powers as a Devil Forgemaster to lift the Curse. Julia comes to his rescue, and they start a new life together. Meanwhile, St. Germain departs for the distant future, wondering how the struggle between mankind and Dracula will end.
In the early 1950s, Cuban brothers and musicians Cesar and Nestor Castillo flee from Havana, Cuba after getting into a violent dispute with the mobster owners of a club where they performed. Eventually ending up in New York City, the brothers work at menial jobs while attempting to revive their musical careers. At a nightclub where Cesar briefly crashes the act of mambo star Tito Puente, they make new friends and connections, as well as meeting cigarette girl Lanna Lake, who falls quickly into a love affair with Cesar.
Nestor, in the meantime, remains oblivious to other women while continually composing his ode to his lost Cuban love, Maria. He writes version after version of the same ballad, "Beautiful Maria of My Soul", until by chance one day he encounters Delores, a shy but attentive young woman who wishes to become a schoolteacher. When she becomes pregnant, they decide to get married.
Fate intervenes one night at a club, where the Castillo brothers have a part-time job. Nestor's love ballad captures the interest of one of the customers, who turns out to be the Cuban bandleader and American television star Desi Arnaz. After a pleasant evening in Nestor and Delores's home, Arnaz invites the struggling Castillos to sing and act on an episode of his sitcom series, ''I Love Lucy''.
Fame does not last, however. Nestor is not as ambitious as his brother and desires nothing more than to own his own small club. He is in love with Delores, but lacks the passion he felt for his beloved Maria back home. Cesar suppresses his true feelings, believing that a woman like Delores would actually be perfect for him. He reveals to Nestor that Maria left him for a Cuban mobster in exchange for cancelling a contract hit against Nestor. One snowy night, the Castillo brothers' car veers off the road and into a tree. Cesar, in the back seat of the vehicle, is barely hurt, but Nestor, who was driving the vehicle, is killed. To honor his brother's memory, a devastated Cesar opens his own small club. Delores pays him a visit and asks him to sing "Beautiful Maria of My Soul".
An extract from Geoffrey of Monmouth's ''History of the Kings of Britain'' serves as a preface, in which refugees from Troy flee to the island of Britain, and establish a new kingdom. Unlike in Geoffrey's narrative, however, that dynasty eventually produces a series of weak rulers who usher their kingdom into decline.
Alexander of Macedon and his Greek forces are on their way to the coronation of India's new king when they are blown off course in a storm. They arrive in Britain and discover the poor state of the country. Alexander takes charge and appoints the brothers Betis and Gadifer as kings of England and Scotland, respectively. He then leaves for Babylon. Betis renames himself "Perceforest," as one who dares to "pierce" and "purge" the evil forest to root out Darnant the Enchanter and bring freedom and justice to the land. Perceforest and Gadifer take on Darnant's descendants, a group of magic-wielding knights, and drive them out. However, the successful leadership of the two brothers is fated not to last, and native English and Scottish knights are forced to step into the breach to quell rebellion and fend off invasion.
Perceforest eventually regains his powers and, as king of Britain, creates a chivalric society. Specifically, he founds the ''Franc Palais'' of free equals with the best knights, paralleling the Round Table. "Thus the romance would trace back the model of ideal civilization that it proposes, a model also for the orders of chivalry created from the 14th century onwards, to a legendary origin where the glory of Alexander is united with the fame of Arthur." King Perceforest also abandons polytheism in favor of a monotheistic god and, under the influence of the hermit Dardanon, advances a new religion that will serve as a transition toward Arthurian Christianity. Meanwhile, Perceforest's knights, often with the help of a guardian spirit named Zephir, engage in heroic and romantic acts of derring-do in Britain as well as in the Low Countries. Tragedy comes to prevail as Perceforest's eldest son becomes infatuated with a Roman girl, whose treachery enables Julius Caesar to launch an invasion in which Perceforest and all his forces are annihilated and the kingdom is utterly destroyed.
The third generation comes to restore the land. Ourseau, a grandson of Gadifer, secures the assassination of Julius Caesar. Another grandson, Gallafur, marries Alexander's granddaughter, the "Maiden of Dragons", to give Britain a new royal house. Gallafur also embeds the sword in the stone that one of his descendants will draw out to become king. And it is Gallafur who casts out many of the enchantments that still plague Britain. Nonetheless, tragedy triumphs a final time in this work, as Britain is invaded by the Sicambrians, a group of Trojans. They destroy Alexander's Greek dynasty, leaving a void that only the coming of Arthur will fill. An elaborate frame story tells how the "Greek" manuscript was discovered by count William of Hainault in a cabinet at “Burtimer” Abbey; in the same cabinet was deposited a crown, which the count sent to king Edward III of England.
The novel describes the naval career of a young gentleman during the period of British Mastery of the seas in the early 19th century. The hero of the title is introduced as 'the fool of the family', son of a parson and heir presumptive to the influential Lord Privilege. This forms a subplot among several others that run alongside the main narrative which mainly concerns the young man's journey from adolescent to adulthood amidst a backdrop of war at sea.
One of the key components of the tale is Peter's relationship with the various shipmates he meets, mainly an older officer who takes young Simple under his wing and proves invaluable in his sea education, and also a post captain who suffers from Münchausen syndrome, among others.
Like its predecessors, ''Jak 3'' takes place in an unnamed fictional universe created by Naughty Dog specially for the games. The game is set a year after the events of ''Jak II''. ''Jak 3'' largely focuses on the Wasteland, a large desert only briefly referred to in the previous entry in the series as being completely uninhabited and inhospitable.
Spargus City, a large settlement within the Wasteland bordering the ocean, is where the game begins, and serves as a hub for the player, where new weapons and upgrades can be earned, and most missions are given out. Later on, the plot shifts focus to Haven City, a sprawling metropolis which was the central locale in ''Jak II'', though the area is only one-fifth the size of the Wasteland. Some levels from the previous game are radically altered (Haven Forest, Metropolitan area) or removed entirely (like the Bazaar in Haven City), while others are added (New Haven City), branching off from Spargus and the Wasteland and Haven.
As in the games before it, ''Jak 3'' two main protagonists are Jak and his best friend Daxter the ottsel, which is a fictional hybrid between an otter and a weasel. Jak is revealed to have the birth name of Mar in this game, named after his ancestor and the original founder of Haven City, Mar. Jak's mechanic friend (and potential love interest) Keira returns in this game. There is also Ashelin, the Governor of Haven City, who was previously involved with Torn, the now-commander of the Freedom League. Daxter's love interest Tess returns as a weapons designer; and Jak's mentor, Samos, also makes appearances throughout the game.
A new character, Damas, is first introduced here. It is revealed that not only did Damas lose his son, but was the leader of Haven City before being betrayed by Baron Praxis and being banished to the desert. More minor but returning characters include Sig, a spy for Damas back in Haven City who later becomes the new king of Spargus after Damas is killed, Jinx, a former member of the Underground, Vin, whose brain now resides inside a computer and Pecker, Onin's translator from ''Jak II'' becomes an adviser to Damas in the early parts of the game.
Few of the original antagonists from ''Jak II'' reappear in this game. A new secondary villain is Count Veger, a self-absorbed Haven City aristocrat who banishes Jak to the Wasteland at the beginning of the game. The player later finds that Veger attacked the Palace himself, wishing to journey to the core of the planet and gain the power of the Precursors. Even as he attempts this, a species known as the Dark Makers begin to invade the planet, seeking to destroy it. The Dark Makers are Precursors who have been corrupted by Dark Eco, similar to the antagonists of ''The Precursor Legacy''.
The main antagonist is the former Krimzon Guard commander Errol, first introduced in ''Jak II'', renamed Cyber-Errol. He is a cybernetic version of himself, as he was badly wounded in ''Jak II'' when he crashed into a supply of Eco barrels in an attempt to kill Jak. Sometime before the start of this game, he restarts the manufacturing of Krimzon Guard Deathbots, whose original factory was shut down during the events of the previous game. Errol launches a war against Haven City in tandem with the remaining Metal Head monsters, and later forges an alliance with the Dark Makers. He obtains a massive Dark Maker terraforming robot at the end of the game, with which he attempts to destroy the planet. The Terraformer is destroyed by Jak as it advances through the Wasteland towards Spargus City.
The game begins with Jak and Daxter being banished into the Wasteland by the tyrannical Count Veger for supposed crimes against Haven City. Ashelin, who opposes the banishment, gives Jak a beacon before she leaves and tells him to "stay alive". As they travel through the desert, flashbacks reveal that Haven City is at war between the Freedom League and the surviving Metal Heads and their allies, the KG Death Bots. The Palace is then destroyed by an unknown force. As Jak, Daxter, and Pecker lose consciousness, they are rescued by a group of desert-dwellers, who take them back to Spargus City.
Waking up in Spargus, the King, Damas, says that Jak must earn his place in the civilization by proving himself as a warrior in both the Arena challenges and by serving the city, who his "life now belongs to" for being rescued. His missions involve recovering citizens and artifacts during or after sandstorms, racing both buggies and Leaper lizards for upgrades, solving puzzles for Eco crystals, catching Kanga rats upon a Leaper lizard, and several other odd jobs in the oasis city. Most important among these events is that Jak is bestowed Light Eco abilities to balance the darkness within, granted to him at the Precursor temple by an oracle who believes that Jak is the last hope for civilization. His Light powers include time-slowing abilities, healing powers, shield abilities, and even flight. Along the way, Jak befriends the Precursor Monk, Seem, and a buggy garage owner, Kliever—who initially dislikes him until he gains their trust over time. During one of Damas's missions into the desert, Jak is found by Ashelin, who reveals that she knew Damas would find him since she knew he would check his old beacons. She refuses to tell him how she knows Damas and then begs Jak to come back to Haven City to defend it from the Metal Heads and the new Krimzon Guard Deathbots. Still embittered about being exiled, he refuses to return. Ashelin leaves him, but later, after finding out what the evil Count Veger has in store for his friends, Jak changes his mind and makes the journey via transport to Haven City. Jak and Daxter help reunite the resistance in Haven, who were divided due to barriers put up by enemies, and gives them hope that they can beat back the Metal Heads and Deathbots to reclaim their city.
Partway through the game, Jak and Daxter start to encounter strange creatures. A Precursor telescope in the outskirts of Haven City reveals that the beings are Dark Makers, who were once Precursors, but exposure to Dark Eco transformed them into twisted beings. Jak finds that a purple star in the sky is actually a Dark Maker space ship, and it is nearing the planet. The only way to stop the ship is to activate the planetary defense system situated at the core of the planet, and after defeating the Metal Heads and Deathbots in Haven City, Jak and Daxter begin their trek to the Planet Core.
Damas joins them as they burst through a destroyed section of the city searching for a way to the core. In the battle, Damas is crushed underneath a buggy and fatally injured. In his last moments, he asks Jak to find his long-lost son, Mar, and gives him an amulet bearing the seal of Mar to identify him. Remembering his younger self from the events of ''Jak II'', Jak realizes that Damas is his father, but Damas dies before Jak can tell him. Veger arrives and tells Jak that it's true, and he took Jak when he was a small boy away from Damas for his eco powers before Praxis banished Damas and seized control of Haven. Veger then rushes off to the core and Jak follows him, hungry for revenge.
Once there, they seem to have beaten Veger, and the Precursor entity tells Jak that he has earned the right to evolve into one of them. Veger, however, emerges from the shadows and takes the power for himself. However, it is soon revealed that Precursors are actually ottsels who are simply fluffing up the myth to match their appearance with their abilities. A baffled Veger is transformed into an ottsel, effectively as punishment for his actions. The Precursors send Jak and Daxter to the Dark Maker ship to slow it down while the planetary defense system charges. The mission is a success, but as the ship is breaking apart, a gigantic, spider-legged Dark Maker terraformer commanded by the Deathbot leader, Errol, escapes from the ship and descends to the planet. Jak follows, and after a battle, Errol and the Robot are destroyed.
Back in Spargus, Sig is put on the throne and Jak departs with the Precursors to see the universe. However, after the ship takes off, he emerges from the shadows and says that there was no way he could leave Daxter behind, not with "all their adventures ahead".
''Devil May Cry 3'' starts with Dante's yet-unnamed shop. A mysterious man, Arkham, arrives with an invitation from Dante's brother Vergil in the form of a demonic attack. After Dante defeats a group of demons, a huge tower erupts from the ground nearby, eclipsing the sprawling city surrounding it. Sensing that Vergil is on top of the structure, Dante interprets this as a challenge. He begins fighting more demons during his journey, some of which become his weapons once defeated. Dante is attacked by a woman on a motorcycle who turns out to be Mary, Arkham's daughter, who wants revenge on her father for causing her mother's death. It is revealed that Arkham works for Vergil; they plan to take Dante's half of their mother's amulet and use its power on the tower to connect the human and demonic worlds.
After a number of battles and an encounter with a being named Jester, Dante reaches the tower's summit and battles Vergil. Vergil defeats Dante by stabbing him with his own sword, Rebellion, steals his amulet and leaves. Dante's blood releases a seal on Rebellion, causing Dante's dormant demonic powers to emerge, and he sets out in pursuit, only to be swallowed by a giant whale-like demon. After escaping from the beast, Dante catches Vergil in a control room in the tower's basement, where Vergil cannot reactivate the tower. The brothers fight again, until they are interrupted by Mary and Jester. Jester reveals himself to be Arkham, who has manipulated them all to reactivate the tower in order to reach the demonic world. There he plans to steal the Force Edge, the dormant form of Sparda's sword with his power, using it to rule a demon-infested Earth.'''Arkham:''' He plucks the threads that make us dance, finger and toe! We surrender in joy to the lowest of the foul and rank; we submerge through darkness, rancid filth. Hour by hour, we move downward, ever closer to Hell, in a slow, steady gait. Now, let the world resonate! Sloth! Gluttony! Greed! Envy! Lust! Wrath! And pride! A bell of chaos that tolls human desires! After two thousand long years, the once sealed gate to the demonic world will open! Destruction! Carnage and Despair! Let your instincts drive you! Entrap this world in fear! As its very name Temen-ni-gru strikes terror into the heart of mankind. Then I will become the ultimate ruler of this wasteland engulfed with pandemonium. The demonic power that Sparda once imprisoned... will be mine! (''Devil May Cry 3'') Capcom, 2005 The tower transforms as the spell is broken; Arkham is carried to the summit, and Vergil disappears in the confusion.
Dante battles his way back up the tower, fighting Mary for the right to pursue Arkham. He is victorious, and Mary lends him her most powerful weapon. Reaching the summit, Dante crosses to the demonic world and catches Arkham, who has by now assumed Sparda's demonic form. Overwhelmed by power, Arkham transforms into a blob-like creature and attacks Dante. During their fight, Vergil reappears, and the brothers work together to expel Arkham from the demonic world. Weakened, Arkham lands on the tower where Mary finds him. She renounces her name and calls herself Lady, a nickname given to her by Dante because she refused to tell him her name, before killing him. In the demonic world, Dante and Vergil fight for ownership of the Force Edge and the amulet halves. After Vergil's defeat, he remains as the portal closes, vanishing with his half of the amulet.
Dante meets Lady outside the tower. They become friends and begin a partnership as demon-slayers; Dante ends up naming his shop "Devil May Cry". A scene after the credits shows Vergil in the demonic world, weak but determined, as he charges into battle against his father's old foe Mundus.
Officers Gus Kucharsky and Ismael Ortega are assigned to New York's 11th Precinct, commonly known as District X or 'Mutant Town'. While investigating allegations that Jake Costanza is holding his mutant wife against her will and abusing her, Kucharsky falls under Mrs. Costanza's mutant mental powers and kills them both, before attempting to take his own life. Gus survives and Ortega covers for him. Gus is forced to retire early and Izzy is assigned to serve as the liaison to federal agent, Lucas Bishop.
Violence erupts between rival crime lords "Shaky" Kaufman and "Filthy Frankie" Zapruder over a mutant, Toad Boy, and the addictive narcotic he produces (known as 'Toad Juice'). When Kaufman learns of the lucrative sales of 'Toad Juice' in District X, he raids Zapruder's facilities and kidnaps the Toad Boy for himself. However, it is unknown that Toad Juice can be fatal to normal humans; a theft of the drug leads to the death of over a dozen human teenagers.
After the death of a human patron at the nightclub Daniel's Inferno caused by exposure to Toad Juice, the police begin a desperate investigation before other unsuspecting addicts face the same fate. This prompts a turf war between Zapruder and Kaufman. Both men are eventually arrested.
When Absolom Mercator finally decides to use his powers to try to help others, his efforts backfire and he suffers an intense identity crisis. Believing that he must use his powers to destroy Mutant Town, Mercator warns his friend, Hanna Levy so that she can escape safely. The police intervene and use Lara the Illusionist to show Mr. M the devastation he could unleash. This snaps the mutant back to his senses and he willingly returns to his peaceful life of quiet isolation after a short period in jail.
A series of brutal murders followed by a mysterious blackout leads to an investigation of the growing underground mutant community, called the Tunnel Rats. Calling themselves "Those Who Live in Darkness", the tunnelers claim responsibility for the blackout and state that they want the city to leave them alone. In recent months, police and social services have put pressure on the Tunnel Rats by destroying their homes and remanding their children into state custody.
Tensions with the Tunnel Rats come to a head just as Bishop and Officer Ortega manage to track down The Worm, a hideously mutated young man who is seeking revenge for being cast out by his parents. Bishop convinces many of the Tunnel Rats to rejoin surface society but a small band decides to dwell deeper in the tunnels under Mutant Town. Their journey is cut short by The Worm who massacres them all before being stopped by Bishop and Ortega, who kills him.
William "Billy" Bates discovers that he is a mutant, calling himself "The Porcupine", and becomes a frequent patron at the Café Des Artistes. He falls in love with the Café's waitress, Sylvie Lauziere. When a group of anti-mutant humans start harassing her, Billy steps in and inadvertently kills several humans with his emerging powers. He barricades himself in the Café with Sylvie, which the authorities perceive as a hostage situation. In order to hide the fact that a mutant slaughtered several members of Purity, an anti-mutant movement, Alexei Vazhin orders hitwoman Sashenka Popova to kill the boy, and pays hush money to the Lauzieres to cover up the truth of the incident.
The Scarlet Witch transforms the entire world into a mutant paradise ruled by her father Magneto. This shift in reality turns District X into "Mutopia X", the center of art and culture in the new mutant-dominated world. The denizens of District X find themselves in a newly elevated societal status. Lara the Illusionist is a movie star married to entertainment mogul, Daniel "Shaky" Kaufman. Absolon Mercator and Gregor Smerdyakov have founded the Center for Transformation and Illumination and are the center of a spiritual following as they help mutants achieve their genetic potential. Ishmael Ortega is tasked with protecting Mercator from assassination.
After the Decimation, Ishmael Ortega's daughter dies. He attempts suicide, before reuniting with his family.
An experienced burglar, Luther Whitney, breaks into a billionaire's house with the intent of robbing it. While there, he witnesses the President of the United States and the billionaire's wife having sex. However, their lovemaking turns violent and Secret Service agents burst in and kill the woman, which Whitney also sees. The reason Whitney was able to witness the murder was because he was behind a large one-way mirror that was a secret door into a large closet where the billionaire would sit and watch when his wife had sex with another man. Whitney escapes, but not before the Secret Service learns of his presence; they blame the wife's murder on Whitney. Whitney goes on the run from the President's agents while a detective tries to piece together the crime.
Based on discussions with unidentified scholars, ''The Times'' summarizes the plot as follows:
Philip Wild, an enormously corpulent scholar, is married to a slender, flighty and wildly promiscuous woman called Flora. Flora initially appealed to Wild because of another woman that he’d been in love with, Aurora Lee. Death and what lies beyond it, a theme which fascinated Nabokov from a very young age, are central. The book opens at a party and there follow four continuous scenes, after which the novel becomes more fragmented. It is not clear how old Wild is, but he is preoccupied with his own death and sets about obliterating himself from the toes upwards through meditation, a sort of deliberate self-inflicted self-erasure.
Siblings Chuck (voiced by Jerry Dexter) and Nancy (voiced by Janet Waldo) come across a cave off the coast of Maine where they find a mysterious chest containing halves of a strange ring. When they first join the rings, they end up transported back to the fabled land of the ''Arabian Nights'' where they meet their genie Shazzan (voiced by Barney Phillips). Shazzan creates a magical flying camel named Kaboobie (voiced by Don Messick) to serve as their mode of transportation and gives them gifts like an invisibility cloak and a magic rope. Shazzan tells Chuck and Nancy that he can't return them home until they deliver the two rings to his rightful owner known as the Wizard of the 7th Mountain.
Shazzan is very large, being able to hold Chuck, Nancy, and Kaboobie in the open palm of his hand. He is wise and jolly in nature, usually appearing with a cheerful "Ho-ho ho-HO!" and addressing the two children as his "little masters". Chuck and Nancy each wear one half of the broken ring, which has to be joined to bring forth their magical servant in times of danger or different villains.
Out of the one-shot villains, Shazzan, Chuck, Nancy, and Kaboobie had two villains they encounter more than once:
A frequent plot device is that the two teenagers became separated, most often by the act of a villain. They cannot summon the omnipotent genie until they manage to find each other. Once Shazzan materializes, it is extremely bad news for the villain.
''Mother 3'' is set in the fictional Nowhere Islands, an unknown length of time after the events of ''Mother 2''. The game begins with twins Lucas and Claus and their mother Hinawa preparing to return home to Tazmily Village after visiting Hinawa's father, who lives in the northern reaches of the Islands. Before they can return, Tazmily Village is attacked by a mysterious military force known as the Pigmask Army, who bomb the nearby forest and start a forest fire. Hinawa's husband, Flint, is alerted to the fire and sets out to rescue his family. He finds Lucas and Claus, but discovers that Hinawa was killed defending them from a hostile Drago, a normally peaceful lizard-like creature. Later, Claus leaves the village to take revenge on the Drago; Flint attempts to follow him and discovers and defeats the Drago, which has been turned into a cyborg, but fails to find Claus.
In response to the Pigmasks' invasion, neophyte thief Duster is sent by his father and teacher Wess to the abandoned Osohe Castle to retrieve the mysterious Egg of Light. While there he meets the spirited young Princess Kumatora, but both he and the Egg are caught in a trap and vanish. At the same time a mysterious peddler known as Yokuba, who works with the Pigmasks, sells television-like devices known as Happy Boxes to the townspeople, with the unwilling help of a monkey named Salsa who he abuses. Yokuba introduces the villagers to the concept of currency, giving some money to one of them and then framing Duster for the theft of it. Salsa escapes from Yokuba's control with the help of Kumatora, Lucas, and Wess.
Three years later, Tazmily Village has been taken over by the Pigmask Army, who have modernized it with railways, Happy Boxes, and other modern technology. Lucas hears rumours that Duster, who has been missing since leaving for Osohe Castle, is working as a bassist at the nearby Club Titiboo, and sets off with his dog Boney. While travelling there, he learns psychic powers from a superpowered, benevolent, androgynous creature known as a Magypsy. At the club, he finds Kumatora working as a waitress, as well as Duster, who has lost his memory. They join and recover the Egg and restore Duster's memory, but while attempting to board a flying Pigmask airship, a mysterious Masked Man shakes them off and sends them flying to the ground, separating them.
Lucas and Boney land in a haystack back in Tazmily, and learn from the Magypsies that beneath the Islands is a massive dragon. The Magypsies' purpose is to guard seven Needles that were placed in the dragon to control its power; whoever pulls most of the Needles will be able to use the dragon's incredible power to completely reshape the world. Because of this, the Masked Man is trying to find and pull the Needles. Lucas and Boney reunite with Duster and Kumatora and race to pull the Needles before the Masked Man, but only manage to pull three before him, with the Masked Man pulling another three.
The seventh and final Needle is located beneath New Pork City, the capital of the Pigmasks. Lucas and company travel there and meet Leder, another villager, who reveals that the inhabitants of Tazmily Village are the last survivors of a global apocalypse, who travelled to the Nowhere Islands as they were protected by the dragon's power. To prevent a second apocalypse from reoccurring, the survivors sealed their previous memories in the Egg of Light; Leder was given the role of revealing the truth if the situation called for it. He also reveals that the leader of the Pigmasks is Porky Minch, who after the events of ''Mother 2'' travelled in time to the Nowhere Islands and began building an empire there, kidnapping inhabitants from other time periods (including Dr. Andonuts from ''Mother 2'') to populate it, as well as transforming the local wildlife into twisted new forms (including the Drago that killed Hinawa).
Lucas and company set out to confront Porky and pull the last needle. While fighting their way to him, they discover that Yokuba was the Magypsy responsible for protecting the seventh Needle, who turned traitor and started working for the Pigmasks. The heroes confront Porky deep beneath New Pork City, but he seals himself inside an "Absolutely Safe Capsule" built by Dr. Andonuts; unbeknownst to him, however, Andonuts has tricked him, as the Absolutely Safe Capsule also renders the outside world safe by permanently sealing Porky within it.
Lucas reaches the seventh needle and confronts the Masked Man, who is revealed to be a brainwashed Claus. During the battle between Claus and Lucas, Claus's memory of his mother restores his humanity and he commits suicide. Lucas pulls the final Needle, awakening the Dragon and destroying the Nowhere Islands.
In an epilogue set in pitch darkness, the game's cast reveals that they have survived and wish the player farewell. After the credits, the Mother 3 logo is shown restored to being made completely of wood.
Jack, the protagonist of the game, must make his way through 16 levels set within a pyramid in order to defeat the demon Belzebut and rescue the royal Pamera family.
M. Hulot (Jacques Tati) is the dreamy, impractical, and adored uncle of nine-year-old Gérard Arpel, who lives with his materialistic parents, M. and Mme. Arpel, in an ultra-modern geometric house and garden, Villa Arpel, in a new suburb of Paris, situated just beyond the crumbling stone buildings of the old neighborhoods of the city. Gérard's parents are entrenched in a machine-like existence of work, fixed gender roles, the acquisition of status through possessions, and conspicuous displays to impress guests, such as the fish-shaped fountain at the center of the garden that, in a running gag, Mme. Arpel activates only for important visitors.
Each element of Villa Arpel is stylistically rather than functionally designed, creating an environment completely indifferent to the comfort, or lack of comfort, of its occupants. In choosing modern architecture to punctuate his satire, Tati once stated, "'' "'' ("geometrical lines do not produce likeable people"). From inconveniently-located stepping stones, to difficult-to-sit-on furniture, to a kitchen filled with deafeningly loud appliances, every facet of Villa Arpel emphasizes the impracticality of a dedication to superficial aesthetics and electrical gadgets over the necessities of daily living.
Despite the superficial beauty of its modern design, the Arpels' home is entirely impersonal, as are the Arpels themselves. In fact, M. and Mme. Arpel have completely subordinated their individuality to maintain their social position and their shiny new possessions. Tati emphasizes his themes surrounding the Arpel lifestyle (as well as M. Arpel's automatonic workplace, ''Plastac'') with monochromatic shades and cloudy days.
By contrast, Monsieur Hulot lives in an old and run-down city district. He is unemployed, and gets around town either on foot or on a ''VéloSoleX'' motorized bicycle. Gérard, utterly bored by the sterility and monotony of his life with his parents, fastens himself to his uncle at every opportunity. Hulot, little more than a child himself at times, is completely at home with Gérard, but also completely ineffectual at controlling his horseplay with his school friends, who take delight in tormenting adults with practical jokes. Exasperated at their relative's perceived immaturity, the Arpels soon scheme to saddle him with the twin yokes of family and business responsibilities.
The animated portions of the show focused on a canine private investigator named Ace Hart. The Muppet portions of the show focused on the interactions between Ace Hart and his animator Eliot Shag (who, like Ace, is a German Shepherd). Eliot would illustrate the stories while Ace would go traverse through it, occasionally breaking the fourth wall to speak with Eliot about the various troubles with the story. In one episode, Eliot even enters Dog City himself to join Ace in solving a mystery.
A recurring gag was that many of the characters in the cartoon were seemingly based on the residents of Eliot's apartment building. The bulldog crime-boss Bugsy Vile was inspired by the building's grouchy bulldog superintendent Bruno. Ace's love interest Rosie was based on Eliot's deep feelings for his neighbor Colleen, and so on. The Muppet characters were unaware of this. In the first episode, Bruno asks Eliot how a loser like him could have created a great character like Bugsy. Eliot replies, "Sometimes it just stares me right in the face."
Later series included segments from other shows Eliot worked on, including skits featuring the main ''Dog City'' characters and a superhero series starring the Batman parody ''Watchdog''.
Trisana (Tris) Chandler meets Kethlun (Keth) Warder, a glass mage with a dangerous power: lightning. During their first meeting, he was unconsciously using his unknown ambient powers and accidentally created a living dragon out of glass. Tris saves the dragon from being smashed by Keth, and names it Chime. She later finds out that he had been struck by lightning less than a year ago, and this left him paralyzed and with a great fear of lightning. He learned to walk again, but his speech is a little slow, and he lost his ease at glass-blowing.
A twenty-year-old man just as stubborn as Tris, Keth won't accept Tris or any of her teachings. He argues with her constantly, and refuses to learn about his lightning abilities, fearing a relapse into paralysis. Tris is surprisingly patient with him as she guides him through meditation and control over his powers. Eventually, Keth learns to trust Tris' instincts, and grudgingly accepts her as his teacher.
Meanwhile, mysterious murders are taking place. All the murdered women are Yaskedasi, female entertainers who are looked down upon in the town for their immodesty. But when one of the murdered Yaskedasi turns up in the town's central fountain, everyone starts to take notice. The town has a culture of thanatophobia, an irrational fear of death. Each time a person dies, the place must be cleansed by the town's priests when they perform the traditional cleansing ceremony. This ceremony is not only religious, but magical as well, effectively erasing all traces of the murderer, making it impossible for the authorities to track the killer, nicknamed the 'Ghost' by locals.
Keth has been asked to attempt to find the Ghost by way of glass balls that only he can make. These balls hold scenes of past crimes in them, causing him to be a suspect at first. Keth and Tris struggle, first against the local authorities, then against each other in the creation of these globes. When Keth's friend Yali is killed by the Ghost, the race takes on new meaning.
The game is set in the year 2174, two years after the events of ''Zone of the Enders''. It follows Dingo Egret, a miner working on Callisto. He inadvertently discovers the Orbital Frame, Jehuty, hidden. When he is attacked by BAHRAM forces who have come to seize it, Dingo climbs into Jehuty and engages the attackers, which include a female Orbital Frame runner named Ken Marinaris. During the battle, Dingo enters the BAHRAM battleship, seemingly defeating Nephtis, an Orbital Frame controlled by an AI program based on Viola's fighting style, but is subdued by Anubis, Jehuty's superior counterpart controlled by Col. Ridley "Nohman" Hardiman, leader of BAHRAM. Nohman requests Dingo to join him once again. When Dingo refuses as his comrades were sacrificed by Nohman years ago, Nohman shoots him and leaves him to die.
However, Ken has Dingo revived and placed inside Jehuty. As Jehuty is acting as a life-support system, if Dingo leaves Jehuty, he will die. She then tells him that she is a UNSF spy, working undercover and needs Dingo's help. Helped by Ken, Dingo escapes the battleship with Taper, a soldier with the UNSF who was hiding within the ship, and heads for Mars. On Mars, Dingo confronts UNSF pilot Leo Stenbuck who is Jehuty's former pilot. Leo reveals the AI A.D.A. is programmed to self-destruct Jehuty in BAHRAM's base Aumaan which forces Dingo to join Leo in his quest to destroy Aumann. After several battles on the planet, Dingo runs into Nephtis once more and battles her. The A.I. within Nephtis possesses Ardjet, forcing Dingo to disable the Orbital Frame to purge the computer virus. Ken climbs into Jehuty and, together, they seek out Lloyd, a BAHRAM scientist who can upgrade Jehuty, allowing it to stand a chance against Anubis.
In a secured complex, Dingo and Ken find Lloyd who tells Dingo to fight him if he wants Jehuty's upgrade. After defeating Lloyd in combat, he has Ken's help to upgrade Jehuty. While Jehuty is being upgraded, Nohman flies in and attacks Dingo. Lloyd helps Dingo able to escape but is killed by Nohman in the process. As Ken is left behind Dingo learns she is actually a BAHRAM member whose father was one of Dingo's former comrades and that his death resulted in her wish to get revenge on Nohman.
Dingo meets up with Leo again, and they travel to Aumaan. Once there, they battle what they think to be Anubis, but it is later revealed to be a decoy with Ken inside. Nohman cripples Jehuty and flees the facility, destroying it. Ken tells Dingo and Leo that Aumaan is actually on Phobos, the largest moon of Mars. The three enter compressed space, where Dingo battles Anubis along the way. Upon reaching Phobos, Dingo does battle with Nohman again, this time destroying Anubis, but not before Nohman can activate Aumaan. Dingo manages to prevent the detonation by throwing Anubis' head into the core, and escapes with Leo. After the battle, Dingo is nursed back to health.
''More'' tells the story of an inventor who lives in a drab, colorless world. Day by day, he toils away in a harsh, dull, and dehumanizing job, his only savior being the memories of the bliss of childhood. But at night, he works secretly on an invention that could help him relive those memories and spread their joy to everyone in his despair-filled life.
When he finishes the invention, it changes the way people look at the world. His success changes him, however, because he loses an important part of himself.
The plot follows the Cars, who go to the moon in a candy-shaped spaceship in order to assist the Queen of the Moon. The Bitter Gourd King and his gourd troopers are attacking the World of Sweetness with bitter juice, and the Queen needs the help of the cars. Wolfie and his family come with the Cars by accident. At one point the Gourd King kidnaps Beetle's family, and Weslie comes to tears upon seeing his parents.
The entire book is spread out over eight weeks of time, compared to the two or three in Book 1, titled simply ''Abarat''. The book picks up several weeks after the original had left off; weeks wherein Candy Quackenbush and Malingo the Geshrat (a character introduced in the first book) have traveled from Hour to Hour to evade the bounty hunter Otto Houlihan. Christopher Carrion's whereabouts are revealed only in the second quarter of the book, wherein he plots with the Sacbrood in the Pyramids of Xuxux. Sacbrood are terrifying insects of all shapes and sizes which Christopher Carrion has been breeding in order to help him create Absolute Midnight. Under the cover produced by the Sacbrood, he expects, the destroyers called the ''Requiax'' will emerge from under the Sea of Izabella (which surrounds the Abarat) and annihilate everything they see, giving Carrion the opportunity to re-organize the world according to his will.
Candy begins to develop powers of great magic, with which she frees the mysterious beings called ''Totemix'' from their imprisonment in the Twilight Palace on the island of Scoriae. Malingo, separated from her on the carnival island of Babilonium, joins with others of Candy's acquaintance to form a force of resistance against the armies of Midnight. Candy is eventually captured by Letheo, the lizard-boy servant of Christopher Carrion, and taken to the island Efreet.
The enchantress Diamanda, having died of an encounter with a monster, travels as a ghost to the human world, where she finds her also ghostly husband Henry and with him works to prepare Candy's home town for the flood resulting from its imminent meeting with the Abarat. When this meeting occurs, Henry's opening of the factory farm which is the town's only industrial outlet is used as a comment on the variety-deprived lives of chickens raised in such factories.
This book introduces readers to new characters including Finnegan Hob, the would-be husband of Princess Boa, who is discovered by other characters in search of himself. Having persuaded him to give up his vendetta against the Abaratian dragons, whom he blames for his fianceé's death, the seekers travel to Efreet, where Candy is held prisoner by Christopher Carrion. They rescue Candy and at her request return her to the human world, where she intends to hide from the Abarat's perils. The two worlds meet in a dramatic climax, wherein it is revealed by the magician Kaspar Wolfswinkel that Princess Boa's soul is contained within Candy's body, having been placed there by the Fantomaya in obedience to the belief that Princess Boa, or her reincarnation, could halt the Abarat's progressive degradation and revitalize the Abarat as a whole. Christopher Carrion clashes with his grandmother Mater Motley, having learned that she had concealed Candy's dual nature from him, and is severely wounded in the process (whether he dies or not is unclear).
Candy and most of the major characters return to the Abarat when it is withdrawn from the human world. There, Mater Motley assumes control of Gorgossium Island, where she executes all of Christopher Carrion's living supporters. The remains of Kaspar Wolfswinkel's six hats, the source of his power, are left in the human world.
In the United Earth Year 192, Earth is under attack from an alien race known as the Radam, which consists of bug-like monsters and armored warriors known as Tekkamen. The Radam's spaceship lies dormant on the dark side of the Moon where the Radam wait for it to be repaired.
Fighting against the Radam is a special defense force called the Space Knights. The group consists of Heinrich von Freeman, the group's commander; Noal Vereuse, the pilot of the Space Knights' ship ''Blue Earth''; Aki Kirasagi, the ''Blue Earth'' s navigator; Milly, the communications operator; Levin, a computer mechanic; and Honda, the group's mechanic.
Before the start of the Radam invasion, the exploration ship ''Argos'' discovered the dormant Radam spaceship in the outer rings of Saturn. While exploring the ship, the crew were captured by pods and converted into Tekkamen. Before he was fully converted, Takaya Aiba (Tekkaman Blade) was freed by his father and placed into an escape pod; his father then activated the ''Argos'' self-destruct. The Radam crashed on the Moon and began their attacks on Earth.
After spending six months drifting toward Earth, Blade bursts free from his escape pod and attacks the Radam forces, entering into a fight with Tekkaman Dagger (Fritz von Braun). After the fight, Blade crashes on Earth and is found by Noal and Aki, who take him back to their headquarters. Blade is initially hostile towards the Space Knights, but as time progresses, he begins to respect them for their dedication and develops a romantic interest in Aki. With Blade's help, the Space Knights begin to repel the Radam until Blade's transformation crystal is shattered during a battle with Dagger. Levin develops a battle robot named Pegas which houses the shards of Blade's crystal and enables him to transform again. In his first transformation using Pegas, Blade challenges Dagger and kills him.
Meanwhile, Earth's belligerent military leader, General Colbert, becomes obsessed with acquiring the Tekkaman armor for his own use. He attempts to attack the Space Knight's base during an emergency, but is forced to withdraw by order of Earth's president. He later sends in the spy Balzac Asimov, posing as a journalist, to infiltrate the Space Knights. Balzac acquires data on the Tekkaman armor system and Earth's military create their own Tekkamen armor, which are worn by Balzac and Noal.
Four more Tekkamen — Tekkaman Lance (Molotov), Tekkaman Axe (Goddard), Tekkaman Sword (Hun-Ri) and Tekkaman Evil (Takaya's twin brother Shinya) — arrive on Earth to challenge Blade. Tekkaman Rapier (Takaya's younger sister Miyuki) also arrives on Earth, but like Blade she is not under the Radam's control. Evil, Lance, Axe, and Sword attack the Space Knights' base and attempt to kill Rapier. Although outnumbered, Rapier self-destructs in an attempt to destroy the four Tekkamen. Blade manages to kill Lance and Axe and he later gains the power to attain Blaster Tekkaman mode, although he loses more of his memories whenever he uses it. Evil is given the same ability as the last line of defense for the Radam's leader, Tekkaman Omega.
At the end of the war, Blade and Evil meet for the last time, where Blade kills Evil after a long fight. As he dies, Evil is freed from the Radam's mind control. Balzac kills Sword and they both burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
Blade takes Pegas to the Moon, where he confronts Omega, who reveals that he is Takaya's older brother Kengo. Omega launches the repaired Radam spaceship and heads for Earth. Blade attacks Omega, who easily defeats him. Omega is about to kill Blade when Pegas steps in front of the killing blow and sacrifices itself. Pegas' destruction enrages Blade and causes him to transform into Blaster Tekkaman mode for the last time. Blade kills Omega and causes the Radam spaceship to explode. The remnants of the Radam spaceship fall to Earth along with Blade, now stripped of his armor. As a result, Blade is left reliant on a wheelchair and is completely amnesiac, cared for by Aki.
This six-episode series is set ten years after the original series and a new group of Space Knights confront the Radam. The group features Yumi Francois, Aki, Natasha, David and their mysterious leader, D-Boy. Tekkaman Blade joins them to fight the sinister alien enemy, but things become complicated by the appearance of Dead End. He blames the Space Knights for the destruction of the Tekk-plant at Prague after it was conquered by revolutionary generic Tekkamen. See individual episode summaries below.
Mike, a struggling actor with a tattooed arm, auditions for a role as an Italian man. He delivers a profanity-laced anecdote in an Italian accent, about getting into a fight with another man in a restaurant for looking at his girlfriend. The anecdote ends with Mike saying that he discovered the man was a homosexual, so he beat up his girlfriend instead, and is surprised that she doesn't call him anymore. The casting director expresses interest and has Mike speak Italian before telling him they'll get back to him. When the director asks Mike where the monologue came from, Mike says that it's a true story that happened to his friend. Outside, Mike calls his manager without an Italian accent. He complains about the monologue, which wasn't a true story, saying it was offensive and worries that it will keep him from getting the job. He wipes the fake tattoo off his arm and goes to his next audition.
At an audition for a commercial, Mike meets a black actor in the waiting room and the two of them talk about their careers. Mike tells the actor about the audition he just left, and again complains that he thought his monologue was offensive. The actor tells Mike he has just landed a role in an international commercial, but Mike says he doesn't want to do commercials because no great actors have had to do commercials. Before he can audition, the director tells Mike that his skin is "a little too light" and not to bother auditioning. He suggests Mike audition for a Spanish role in a soap opera instead.
Mike goes to another audition and reads with a Cuban accent alongside a Hispanic actress. The two of them are portraying an argument, but when the actress launches into Spanish, Mike is unable to continue. As they leave the audition, the actress guesses correctly that Mike doesn't speak Spanish. She suggests that he try out for a soap opera which is looking for Hispanic actors, but Mike says he doesn't want to do soaps because no great actors have ever done them. Mike attends another audition, where the woman reading with him tells him that she really thinks he could do well. Mike does the reading with her in a heavy urban accent, but the casting directors cut the audition short, saying they're looking for more of a "Wesley type".
Mike moves on to another audition, where they are expecting him from a previous audition. The casting director sees on his resume that Mike can rap; Mike launches into a hip-hop routine. Afterwards, Mike sits down and does a monologue about being a young man watching his father on stage in a performance of ''Raisin in the Sun''. During his father's performance, Mike came to believe that his father wanted him to be a great black actor. After his father died, Mike realized that his father wanted him to be a great actor full stop. When the monologue is finished, the casting director is impressed with Mike's performance, but admits that they are supposed to be casting an actor with dreadlocks. Mike leaves with a promise that they will contact him if they can cast him instead.
The film cuts to Mike sitting silently and angrily at a booth in a diner. He can overhear an actress talking to another man about how frustrated she is to be typecast as a blonde bimbo. When the waitress comes, the actress orders coffee that's "not too light, not too dark". Mike chuckles to himself and mouths the words "not too light, not too dark".
The game is about a man named Freeze, his friend Shaun Calderon, and a police officer, Officer Williams. The game features three playable protagonists during single player campaign in the game. Freeze commits crimes with Shaun to get money, which he promptly spends for his family while Officer Williams is trying to stop at all costs the organized crime and felony across the city of Las Ruinas (based on Los Angeles).
One night upon returning home, his wife confronts him about these actions. Saying they are a bad influence to their son, she wants him to stop. After an argument, he agrees. The next day, he tells Shaun he wants out of the game. Shaun levels a gun on Freeze, informing him that he must do one last "job"—a narcotics trade.
At the deal, Freeze finds the Colombian gang members dead, and police officer Maria Mendoza waiting. Freeze flees with the police in pursuit and loses them. The 2nd Street D-Boys realize Freeze wants out of the gang, and he has to avoid both his former homies and the police. Later, he robs a bank until the police arrive. After a gun fight against the police, he finally reaches his getaway car only to be arrested after being hit by a nightstick.
Meanwhile, Mendoza informs Officer Williams of a new criminal, Shaun Calderon. They look for Shaun in his house (with a rookie) only to be found in a gun fight. Officer Williams then finds evidence and gets into Mendoza's car. Officer Williams goes to a club to find Shaun and chases him to the subway. Officer Williams then arrests Shaun but Mendoza kills him and tells Shaun to leave and go to Mexico.
Shaun goes to Tijuana and fights his way to a local club called "The Curtains Club". Shaun then robs a casino, fights security and goes to a wealthy man named Saragosa in his penthouse. Shaun then kills him.
Freeze breaks out of jail and gets new clothes at the mall while being chased by the police. Freeze then kills Mendoza in the mall and hunts down Shaun, now a wealthy drug kingpin, then saying, "We used to be best friends, until you sold me out. Now, it's nothin' but flowers and a funeral for you, home boy", as Freeze steps on Shaun's neck until he suffocates. The final scene shows Freeze telling Darnell, "From now on, it's just you and me against the world. Now let's do this", as a large number of police officers arrive, with Freeze picking up a gun and pointing it at the police.
7-year-old Ben Wrightman has just moved to Boston with his mother after his parents' divorce. His uncle Carl takes him to a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park to cheer him up. From that day on, he is a die-hard Red Sox fan for life.
23 years later, the adult Ben is still in Boston, working as a school teacher, and has inherited his uncle's season tickets. Almost all of his possessions bear the Red Sox logo (except for his toilet paper, which is of the New York Yankees). On a school trip, Ben meets Lindsey Meeks, a successful, dedicated corporate executive, and they begin dating.
Lindsey, who knows little about baseball or the Red Sox, learns about the Curse of the Bambino from Ben's stadium friends (including Al Waterman, a sponge salesman who also narrates the story). They continue attending the games together, but tension arises when Lindsey is up for a promotion and begins working on her laptop during the game. Lindsey is knocked out by a line drive foul and recovers but stops going to the games, suggesting Ben will have more fun if he goes with his friends.
Things get worse when Lindsey invites Ben to accompany her to Paris, and he declines because the Red Sox are in the heat of the pennant race. Before leaving, she tells Ben she might be pregnant. She expresses concern that he is more committed to the Red Sox than to her, and days later calls him and confirms she isn't pregnant. To prove he is not obsessed, he misses a game against the Yankees to escort Lindsey to her friend's birthday party. Ben and Lindsey enjoy the party, and after making love, he tells her it was one of the best nights of his life. Moments later, he gets an ecstatic call from his friend Troy, who tells him the Sox overcame a seven-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in team history. Ben becomes irate that he missed such an historic Red Sox moment, blaming Lindsey for making him miss the game. She is heartbroken, and they separate.
Ben soon misses Lindsey and visits her in a futile attempt to reconcile. To prove she means more to him than the Red Sox, he plans to sell his season tickets. Lindsey finds out during the celebration for her much-anticipated promotion and rushes to stop him. She gets in during the 9th inning of the Red Sox–Yankees playoff game when the Red Sox are just three outs away from being swept, and Ben is in the stands about to finalize the ticket sale. Desperate to reach Ben, Lindsey runs across the field and running around players to avoid security. She tears up the contract and tells Ben that if he loves her enough to sell his seats, then she loves him enough not to let him to do it. They reunite and kiss in front of the entire crowd before Lindsey is arrested.
Al narrates the epilogue: the Red Sox won that game and then beat the Yankees three more times to win the American League pennant, later sweeping the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals for their first World Series title in 86 years. Lindsay and Ben travel to Busch Stadium in St. Louis for the decisive Game 4. Eventually they marry, and Lindsey conceives a 'player to be named later'. Al explains that the baby will be named Ted Williams Wrightman if it's a boy, "Carla Yastrzemski" Wrightman if it's a girl, adding, "Let's all hope for a boy." A post-credit scene shows a bunch of kids (presumably Ben & Lindsey's and their friends') chanting "LET'S GO, RED SOX!".
In a small wooden cottage known as Peaceful Woodland Cottage, five members of a clan small electric appliances -- a toaster, a radio, a lamp stand named "Lampy", an electric blanket named "Blanky" and a vacuum cleaner named "Kirby" -- await the return of a young boy named Rob (whom they refer to as the Master) who used to vacation at the cottage with his family, but the family has not come by in many years. Then one day in July, upon seeing that the cottage is about to be sold, the appliances decide to venture out and find Rob themselves. They turn Kirby into a lawn tractor by attaching a rolling office chair, a power strip and a Junko car battery for a power source to him and travel via Kirby, and Radio serves as navigator by directing the group toward urban radio signals he picks up.
Along their journey, the appliances have numerous harrowing adventures. At one point, when their battery is nearly dead, the group stops for the night in a forest, with Blanky serving as a makeshift tent. During the night, a storm blows Blanky up into the trees, and Lampy uses himself as a lightning rod to recharge the battery. After recovering Blanky, the appliances try to cross a waterfall, but everyone except Kirby falls into the water below. Kirby dives in and rescues the others; but with the chair, strip and battery lost, the group resorts to pulling the disabled Kirby through a swamp. They are almost swallowed up by quicksand, but are saved by Elmo St. Peters and taken to his appliance parts store, where they witness him dismantling a blender to sell its motor to a customer. When Radio is about to be taken apart for radio tubes, the others frighten St. Peters by pretending to be a ghost. With St. Peters unconscious, the group escapes and makes their way to the city.
Rob, now a young adult, goes out to the cottage with his girlfriend Chris to retrieve the appliances to take with him to college. When the group arrives at Rob's family's apartment, their newer appliances -- resentful about Rob wanting to take the older appliances instead of themselves -- demonstrate how much more technologically advanced they are and throw the group out of the apartment and into a dumpster. Rob and Chris return home empty-handed; but an old black and white television in the apartment, a friend of the five appliances who formerly resided in the cottage with them, plays fictional advertisements for the junkyard the appliances have been taken to, in the hopes that Rob and Chris will go there to find them.
At the junkyard, the appliances are despondent that Rob apparently no longer needs them. They are picked up by a large electromagnet and are about to be destroyed by a crusher; but when they see Rob in the junkyard, they believe he might still need them after all. They make numerous attempts to escape the magnet and place themselves so Rob will find them, until the magnet picks up a huge pile of junk and spreads it along the conveyor belt leading to the crusher, separating the group. Rob spots all the appliances except Toaster on the conveyor belt, but the magnet picks up Rob as well as the appliances and drops them back on the belt. Toaster jumps into the crusher's gears and jams them, stopping the crusher just before it flattens Rob and the others. Back at the apartment, Rob repairs the mangled Toaster, and he and Chris soon depart for college with all five appliances in tow.
Bart notices that the water in the bathroom sink always drains counter-clockwise. Lisa explains that water only drains clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Coriolis effect. Bart makes phone calls to various countries in the Southern Hemisphere to confirm this, such as a research station in Antarctica, Buenos Aires, Santiago and (incorrectly) Burkina Faso. When Lisa points out how expensive overseas calls are, Bart instead makes a collect call to Australia, where a boy named Tobias Drundridge answers the phone. Bart impersonates an adult bureaucrat and is told the sink and toilet are both draining clockwise. Frustrated, Bart asks Tobias to check his neighbors' toilets. The call takes six hours to complete, since Tobias lives in the rural locality of Squatter's Crog and Bart fails to hang up the phone.
Three weeks later, Tobias's father Bruno is billed $900 for the phone call. Bruno calls Bart and demands payment, but Bart only taunts him. However, Bruno's neighbor is a federal Member of Parliament, who reports the matter to the Prime Minister. After several letters from the Prime Minister and the Solicitor-General, the government of Australia indicts Bart for fraud. A U.S. State Department official arrives and explains that Bart has worsened already acrimonious Australia–United States relations. When Marge refuses to allow the State Department to imprison Bart for five years to placate Australia, the State Department settles on having Bart publicly apologize in Australia.
The Simpsons arrive in Australia and stay in the U.S. Embassy in Canberra. When Bart sees a sign prohibiting foreign visitors from bringing in invasive species, he leaves his pet bullfrog at the airport. A kangaroo puts the frog in its marsupial pouch, introducing it into the wild. Bart makes his public apology, but an unsatisfied Parliament demands Bart receive a "booting" — a kick on the buttocks with an oversize boot — as corporal punishment. Desperate, Bart and Homer escape and the family flees to the embassy, chased by a large, angry mob. After a stand-off, the two governments propose a compromise: one kick from the Prime Minister, through the gate of the embassy, with a regular wing-tip shoe. Marge protests, but Bart agrees to the punishment. However, Bart dodges the kick, moons the Australians with the words "Don't tread on me" written on his buttocks, and hums "The Star-Spangled Banner". The outraged mob storms the embassy, and the Simpsons and the embassy staff are evacuated by helicopter. From the air, the Simpsons notice that Bart's bullfrog has reproduced and its offspring are wreaking havoc on Australia's ecosystem and farms. They gleefully laugh, unaware a koala has stowed away aboard their helicopter and may inadvertently be introduced to U.S. territories.
Walker works with his friend Mal Reese to rob a major crime operation, ambushing the courier on deserted Alcatraz Island. After counting the money, Reese shoots Walker, leaving him for dead. Reese takes the money and Walker's wife, Lynne. Walker recovers. With assistance from the mysterious Yost, Walker sets out to find Reese and recover his half of the robbery: $93,000. Reese used all of the money from the job to pay back a debt to a crime syndicate called "The Organization." Walker goes to Los Angeles where he bursts in on Lynne and riddles her bed with bullets, only to find Reese has long since disappeared. Lynne is distraught; she takes an overdose of sleeping pills.
Walker approaches car dealer Stegman for information, smashing a new car and terrorizing him until Stegman says Reese is with Walker's sister-in-law, Chris.
Breaking in on Chris, he learns that she despises Reese and admires Walker. Willing to help in any way, Chris agrees to a sexual tryst with Reese inside his heavily guarded penthouse apartment where she will unbolt a door for Walker. Walker ties up some men in an apartment across from the penthouse and has a call made to police to report a robbery, creating a diversion that enables him to slip into the penthouse.
With a gun to Reese's head, Walker persuades him to give up the names of his Organization superiors – Carter, Brewster, and Fairfax – so he can make somebody pay back his $93,000. He then forces the naked, bedsheet covered, Reese to the balcony saying that both will go and meet Carter together. Suddenly, a bodyguard switches on the light in the room they just left, calling for Reese. Startled, Walker backs up quickly still holding on to Reese behind him by the bedsheet. Forced to back up himself, Reese accidentally goes over the side and plunges to his death. Walker, still grasping the bedsheet, watches him fall.
After next confronting Carter for his money, Walker is set up. A sniper is assigned to kill him at a money-drop in the paved Los Angeles River bed. Walker, suspecting a trap, forces Carter to get the money instead. Carter and Stegman both get shot at the pickup. The sniper leaves; Walker tears open the package of money, but finds only slips of blank paper.
Yost takes Walker to a house belonging to Brewster. Walker visits Chris in her apartment, which has been trashed by The Organization. He brings her with him to Brewster's house, claiming she will be safer with him. While waiting for Brewster, Chris slaps and punches Walker as he regards her impassively, not defending himself. She leaves the room. Walker hears noises from the kitchen and goes in to turn off several appliances which Chris has apparently turned on. She taunts him as “washed up” over a speaker system. He finds her playing pool; she turns on him and hits him in the head with a pool cue. They fall to the floor in an embrace, then go to bed and make love. The following morning, Brewster comes home and is ambushed by Walker, who demands his money. Walker forces Brewster to call Fairfax, but Fairfax refuses to pay. Brewster says the only cash available for Walker is in San Francisco. “The drop has changed, but the run is still the same”, he explains.
At Fort Point, Walker refuses to show himself as the courier delivers the money. Hiding in the dark is the sniper who shoots Brewster. Yost emerges from the shadows, telling Brewster that it was not Walker who shot him. Brewster calls out to Walker, “This is Fairfax, Walker! Kill him!”
Yost/Fairfax thanks Walker (who is still hiding in the darkness) for eliminating his dangerous underlings, telling him: “Our deal's done, Walker. Brewster was the last one.” He offers a partnership, but Walker remains silent. Yost/Fairfax and the hit man go away while leaving the money on the ground.
The main character and narrator is 17-year-old David Balfour. His parents have recently died, and he is out to make his way in the world. He is given a letter by the minister of Essendean, Mr Campbell, to be delivered to the House of Shaws in Cramond, where David's uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, lives.
David arrives at the ominous House of Shaws and is confronted by his paranoid Uncle Ebenezer, who is armed with a blunderbuss. His uncle is also miserly, living on "parritch" and small ale, and the House of Shaws itself is partially unfinished and somewhat ruinous. David is allowed to stay and soon discovers evidence that his father may have been older than his uncle, thus making David the rightful heir to the estate. Ebenezer asks David to get a chest from the top of a tower in the house but refuses to provide a lamp or candle. David is forced to scale the stairs in the dark and realises that not only is the tower unfinished in some places, but the steps simply end abruptly and fall into an abyss. David concludes that his uncle intended for him to have an "accident", perhaps so as not to have to give over his nephew's inheritance.
David confronts his uncle, who promises to tell David the whole story of his father the next morning. A ship's cabin boy, Ransome, arrives the next morning and tells Ebenezer that Captain Hoseason of the brig ''Covenant'' needs to meet him to discuss business. Ebenezer takes David to a pier on the Firth of Forth, where Hoseason awaits, and David makes the mistake of leaving his uncle alone with the captain while he visits the shore with Ransome. Hoseason later offers to take them on board the brig for a drink and a brief tour, and David complies, only to see his uncle returning to shore alone in a skiff. David is then immediately struck senseless.
David awakens, bound hand and foot, in the hold of the ship, and learns that per arrangement with David's uncle the captain plans to sell him into slavery in the Carolinas. But the ship encounters contrary winds, which drive her back toward Scotland. Fog-bound near the Hebrides, they strike a small boat. All of the small boat's crew are killed except one man, Alan Breck Stewart, who is brought on board and offers Hoseason a large sum of money to drop him off on the mainland. David later overhears the crew plotting to kill Alan and take all his money. David and Alan barricade themselves in the roundhouse, where Alan kills the murderous Shuan, and David wounds Hoseason. Five of the crew members are killed outright, and the rest refuse to continue fighting.
Hoseason has no choice but to give Alan and David passage back to the mainland. David tells his tale to Alan, who in turn states that his birthplace, Appin, is under the tyrannical administration of Colin Roy of Glenure, the King's factor and a Campbell. Alan, who is a Jacobite agent and wears a French uniform, vows that should he find the "Red Fox" he will kill him.
The ''Covenant'' tries to negotiate a difficult channel without a proper chart or pilot and is soon driven aground on the notorious Torran Rocks. David and Alan are separated in the confusion, with David being washed ashore on the isle of Erraid, near Mull, while Alan and the surviving crew row to safety on that same island. David spends a few days alone in the wild before getting his bearings.
David learns that his new friend has survived, and David has two encounters with beggarly guides: one who attempts to stab him with a knife, and another who is blind but an excellent shot with a pistol. David soon reaches Torosay, where he is ferried across the river, receives further instructions from Alan's friend Neil Roy McRob, and later meets a catechist who takes the lad to the mainland.
As he continues his journey, David encounters none other than the Red Fox, Colin Roy Campbell himself, who is accompanied by a lawyer, a servant, and a sheriff's officer. When David stops the Campbell man to ask him for directions, a hidden sniper kills the King's hated agent.
David is denounced as a conspirator and flees for his life, but by chance reunites with Alan. The youth believes Alan is the assassin, but Alan denies responsibility. Alan and David then begin their flight through the heather, hiding from government soldiers by day. As the trek drains David's strength, his health rapidly deteriorates; by the time they are set upon by wild Highlanders who are sentries for Cluny Macpherson, an outlawed chief in hiding, the lad is barely conscious. Alan convinces Cluny to give them shelter, and David is tended by a Highland doctor. He soon recovers, though in the meantime Alan loses all of their money at cards with Cluny, only for Cluny to give it back when David practically begs for it.
When David and Alan resume their flight in cold and rainy weather, David becomes ill again, and Alan carries him on his back down the burn to reach the nearest house, fortuitously that of a Maclaren, Duncan Dhu, who is both an ally of the Stewarts and a skilled piper. David is bedridden and given a doctor's care, while Alan hides nearby, visiting after dark.
In one of the most humorous passages in the book, Alan convinces an innkeeper's daughter from Limekilns (unnamed in ''Kidnapped'' but called "Alison Hastie" in its sequel) that David is a dying young Jacobite nobleman, despite David's objections, and she ferries them across the Firth of Forth. There, they meet a lawyer of David's uncle's, Mr Rankeillor, who agrees to help David receive his inheritance. Rankeillor explains that David's father and uncle had once quarrelled over a woman, David's mother, and the older Balfour had married her, informally giving the estate to his brother while living as an impoverished schoolteacher with his wife. This agreement had lapsed with his death.
David and the lawyer hide in bushes outside Ebenezer's house while Alan speaks to him, claiming to be a man who found David nearly dead after the wreck of the ''Covenant'' and says he is representing folk holding him captive in the Hebrides. He asks David's uncle whether Alan should kill David or keep him. The uncle flatly denies Alan's statement that David had been kidnapped but eventually admits that he paid Hoseason "twenty pound" to take David to "Caroliny". David and Rankeillor then emerge from their hiding places, and speak with Ebenezer in the kitchen, eventually agreeing that David will be provided two-thirds of the estate's income for as long as his uncle lives.
The novel ends with David and Alan parting ways on Corstorphine Hill; Alan returns to France, and David goes to a bank to settle his money.
The series begins with a long introduction, with the characters Ennoia and Hannah living a peaceful life on a remote and isolated island called Eden, with researcher Lane Morris, who is their guardian and a victim of the pandemic, the so-called "Closure Virus", which has killed 15% of mankind. The events that led to this situation are revealed in flashbacks, leading up to the return of Ennoia's father, along with the forces of the Propater Federation.
Following this, the story moves forwards twenty years, and focuses on Ennoia's son, Elijah, the main character, and his own conflict with the powerful and monopolistic Propater federation to save his sister, Mana Ballard, kidnapped by Propater when he was very young. She is being held to threaten Ennoia Ballard, father of the two characters, who has become a powerful drug lord in South America, feared and despised by many, including, to an extent, his own family. During a terrorist attack, Elijah, at the aged 15, is separated from his mother and his sister is kidnapped, along with his mother Hannah and now has to handle things on his own. ''Eden'' is about his coming-of-age as a man and trying to survive both bodily and morally in world that is too complex for mere "black and white". He encounters many other characters, both allies and enemies, all sharing the same struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world.
Many stories are included of the people Elijah meets, telling their past or following life, sometimes volumes later, furthering understanding of the characters and giving increased depth to the world of the book as a whole.
Later in the series, the story once again moves forwards in time, jumping four more years ahead. The Closure Virus, the cause of the original pandemic, mutates, this time assimilating non-organic matter as well as organic, known as "colloid" (or "Disclosure Virus"). The story rejoins Elijah, now 19 years old, as well as many other old characters, and some new, as the world begins to deal with this new threat that is swallowing many cities in the world, leaving lakes and craters, and many people. It is later discovered that the several colloids in the world, are linked with a net of underground auto-built "cables," and that the colloid itself, stores all the memories of the people it swallows.
One afternoon while watching television, Homer and Bart see a commercial for something named "Gabbo"; this is the start of a viral marketing campaign, with the whole of Springfield unsure what "Gabbo" actually is. Finally, "Gabbo" is to revealed to be a ventriloquist's dummy. Ventriloquist Arthur Crandall announces that Gabbo's new children's program will air in direct competition with the established ''Krusty the Klown Show'' each afternoon at 4 p.m., and Gabbo's catchphrase — "I'm a bad widdle boy" — instantly charms his intended audience. At first, Krusty is unimpressed by Gabbo and vows to fight back, but quickly pales to Gabbo's clever tactics and great reviews. Krusty even tries to use a dummy of his own, but its gruesome appearance and poor condition scare off many of the children in the audience. To make matters worse, Itchy and Scratchy have moved to Gabbo's show, forcing Krusty to instead show an obscure Cold War-era Eastern European Communist cartoon entitled "Worker and Parasite", before his ratings hit rock-bottom and his show is eventually cancelled.
Left without work and having no nest egg (something referenced in "Krusty Gets Busted" by his ex-sidekick, Sideshow Bob), Krusty falls on hard times and begins suffering from depression. Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa, who had disliked Gabbo from the start, decide to try to help Krusty. Bart sneaks into the studio and secretly records Gabbo referring to children of Springfield as "SOBs", which damages his reputation. After visiting Krusty and seeing photos of him with a series of celebrity friends, Bart and Lisa suggest that he host a comeback special. They begin recruiting major celebrities to appear on Krusty's special: Bette Midler, Johnny Carson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hugh Hefner, and Luke Perry. They also try to recruit Elizabeth Taylor, but her agent declines the invitation before they can speak to her. Bart and Lisa then help Krusty get back into shape before the special airs; this is necessary because, for health, he has been drinking a lot of milkshakes, not knowing that they should have been diet milkshakes. Krusty tries to tempt his former partner Sideshow Mel, who is now working in a fast food restaurant, into rejoining for the comeback special, but Mel declines because of all the physical abuse that Krusty has subjected him to.
Krusty's comeback special features his surprise reunion with Sideshow Mel, Perry getting shot out of a cannon, the Red Hot Chili Peppers singing "Give It Away" in their underwear, Carson lifting a 1987 Buick Skylark over his head, Hefner playing "Peter and the Wolf" on a glass harp, and Krusty and Midler singing "Wind Beneath My Wings". The show is a great success and Krusty's career gets back on track. While watching the special at home, Taylor remarks to herself that she should fire her agent. Afterwards, everyone heads to Moe's Tavern for an after party, where they toast Krusty and watch Carson as he plays the accordion while balancing Grampa and Jasper on a bench on his head.
The story takes place at Lincoln International, a fictional Chicago airport based very loosely on O'Hare International Airport.
The action mainly centers on Mel Bakersfeld, the Airport General Manager. His devotion to his job is tearing apart his family and his marriage to his nagging wife Cindy, who resents his use of his job at the airport as a device to avoid going to various after-hours events she wants him to participate in, as she attempts to climb into the social circles of Chicago's elite. His problems in his marriage are further exacerbated by his romantically charged friendship with a lovely divorcee from Trans America Airlines, who is their passenger relations manager, Tanya Livingston.
The story takes place mainly over the course of one evening and night, as a massive snowstorm wreaks havoc on airport operations. The storyline centers on Bakersfeld's struggles to keep the airport open during the storm. His chief problem is the unexpected closure of primary Runway 30 (runway 29 in the subsequent film), caused when a departing airliner for a Mexican airline (in the film, an arriving airplane of the same airline as the flight to Rome) turns off past the wrong side of a runway marker light, burying the plane's landing gear in the snow and blocking the runway. This becomes a major problem as another airplane, Trans America Flight Two, experiences a midair emergency, aborts the flight to Rome and returns to Lincoln. This requires runway 30 to be made operational---at any cost.
The closing of runway 30 requires the use of shorter runway 25 (runway 22 in the subsequent film), which has the unfortunate consequence of causing planes to take off over a noise-sensitive suburb, whose residents picket the airport in protest. The shorter runway 25 is also later inadequate to land the returning airplane, which has suffered major structural and mechanical damage due to explosive decompression caused by the detonation of the bomb brought on board.
Percy became the fifth member of the Gunpowder plot on Sunday 20 May 1604. Almost a year earlier, he had called at Robert Catesby's home at Ashby St Ledgers, and complained bitterly about James, who since succeeding Elizabeth had done little to fulfil his expectations. He had threatened to kill the new king with his own hands, but was asked by Catesby to restrain himself, and told "I am thinking of a most sure way and I will soon let thee know what it is." Thus Percy found himself at the Duck and Drake inn near the Strand in London, along with Catesby and his cousin Thomas Wintour, John Wright and Guy Fawkes. His first words at the meeting were "Shall we always, gentlemen, talk and never do anything?" All five later swore an oath of secrecy on a prayer book, and then celebrated Mass in another room with Father Gerard, who was ignorant of their pact.
While the plotters did not then have a detailed plan, Percy's appointment on 9 June as a Gentleman Pensioner gave him a reason to establish a London base. Through Northumberland's agents, Dudley Carleton and John Hippesley, he subleased a house in Westminster from Henry Ferrers, a tenant of John Whynniard, and installed Fawkes there as his servant, "John Johnson". On 25 March 1605 Percy also obtained the lease for the undercroft directly underneath the first-floor House of Lords. It was into this room that the plotters moved 36 barrels of gunpowder from Catesby's lodgings on the opposite side of the River Thames. The plan was that during the State Opening of Parliament, at which the king and his ministers would be present, the plotters would blow up the House of Lords, killing all those within it. James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, would be captured during a Midlands uprising, and installed as a titular queen.
Percy spent that Autumn collecting Northumberland's rents, while Catesby continued to enlist support. By October 1605, he had 12 Catholic men assigned to his cause and was at work on the remaining details. Several conspirators expressed disquiet over the safety of fellow Catholics who might be caught in the planned explosion. Percy's concern was for his patron, Northumberland, who it seems might have been made Lord Protector if the plot had succeeded. Lord Monteagle's name was also mentioned, by a worried Francis Tresham. The fate of Elizabeth's brother, Prince Henry, was uncertain; although the plotters presumed that he would die with his father, they decided that if he did not attend Parliament, Percy should kidnap him.
In a little town in French West Africa in 1938, Lucien Cordier is the only policeman. Unable or unwilling to impose his authority, he is treated with scorn by everybody. His sexy wife Huguette has brought a lover, Nono, to live openly with them, claiming he is her brother. Cordier fancies the mischievous young bride Rose, but lets her brutal husband beat her in the street unchallenged. The head of the timber company, Vanderbrouck, daily insults him for all to see. And the bane of his life is a pair of slimy pimps, who flout the law and enjoy humiliating him.
It is the pimps that take him to the brink, so he gets on a train to consult his superior Chavasson, who tells him to act forcefully. On the train home is the attractive new teacher in town, Anne, to whom he warms immediately. Once back, he catches the two pimps alone and, after shooting both dead, throws the corpses in the river. When Chavasson learns of this, he rushes down to question Cordier, who says it was in effect Chavasson who killed them. Having outwitted his boss and removed his prime tormentors, Cordier starts on the others who have made his life a misery. Vanderbrouck is dropped in a privy and Rose's husband, like the pimps, is shot dead. When his servant brings his master's body back to the house, Cordier kills the servant as well.
Catching Nono peeping at Anne in the shower, he beats him up in the street. Then he steals the money which his wife had been saving up in order to leave him and goes off to see Rose. Huguette and Nono, reckoning that he is going to abscond with Rose and the money, storm round to Rose's and in self-defence Rose shoots both dead. Cordier gives her the money and tells her to get away fast. All he has left in life is Anne, to whom he confesses his general malaise and specific crimes. She is ready to accept him but he says he is now incapable of love. In the closing shot, he is alone under a tree caressing a revolver.
In 1954 Baltimore, Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker leads a gang of "drapes", which includes his sister Pepper, a teenage mother; facially-disfigured Mona "Hatchet Face" Malnorowski; Wanda Woodward, whose post-World War II normal parents constantly embarrass her; and Milton Hackett, Hatchet Face's devoted boyfriend. Walker's ability to shed a single tear excites all the girls. One day after school, Allison Vernon-Williams, a beautiful girl tired of being a "square", approaches him, and the two fall in love. at the charm school run by Allison's grandmother, and introduces himself to her, who doubts his motives. Cry-Baby invites Allison to a party at Turkey Point, a local hangout spot for the drapes.
Despite her grandmother's skepticism, Allison accompanies Cry-Baby to Turkey Point, where she is given a "drape" makeover by Hatchet Face, Pepper and Wanda, and sings a duet onstage with Cry-Baby
When Lenora Frigid, a loose girl with an unrequited crush on Cry-Baby, claims to be pregnant with his child, Allison feels betrayed and returns to Baldwin and the squares, though her grandmother warns her against rushing into a decision. Meanwhile, in the penitentiary, Cry-Baby gets a teardrop tattoo from fellow drape Dupree (Robert Tyree), telling him, "I've been hurt all my life, but real tears wash away. This one's for Allison, and I want it to last forever!"
Eventually, after performing with Baldwin and the Whiffles Cry-Baby wins, as Baldwin chickens out, and is reunited with Allison. During the race, Pepper gives birth to a baby in the backseat, and her boyfriend proposes by holding up a sign.
The film ends with all watching the chicken race crying a single tear, except for Allison and Cry-Baby, who has finally let go of the past, enabling him to cry from both eyes.
There are mass murders and catastrophes all over Japan, committed by a masked/caped psychic madman called the '''Skull Man''', and his shapeshifting aide '''Garo''' (named after the manga ninja Garo created by Sanpei Shirato), who can mutate into various powerful monsters. The calamities caused by the Skull Man are investigated by the '''Tachiki Detective Agency''', with the help of a young man named '''Tatsuo Kagura''', the son of a yakuza in the '''Kagura Clan'''.
'''Police Chief Tachiki''', who heads the Tachiki Detective Agency, suspects that Tatsuo is the Skull Man. Tatsuo, in turn, suspects that the detective is a part of a public conspiracy that has been after him for fifteen years. It turns out that Tatsuo's parents were murdered and he was adopted by the Kagura Clan. For fifteen years, Tatsuo has been hunting for the mastermind, who manipulates all industry, finance and even politics. Tatsuo, the Skull Man, threateningly demands Tachiki that he tell him the name of the mastermind. After muttering the culprit's family name, Chisato, the Skull Man shoots him in the head.
Skull Man and Garo then race to the estate of a reclusive old man named '''Kogetsu Chisato''', who lives with a girl named '''Maya''', who is mute and blind (she is always seen with her eyes closed). Overcome with psychotic rage, Skull Man threatens to kill Chisato, who not only kindly welcomes him, but has been looking forward to his arrival. Maya, however, telepathically persuades him not to kill Chisato, and reveals a shocking secret: Chisato is Skull Man's grandfather and Maya is his younger sister.
Chisato tells his shocked grandson the whole story: his own son, Tatsuo's father, was a scientific genius beyond geniuses. In fact, he was so intelligent and unearthly that he was a mutant, a being of '''Newmanity''' (''Shinjinrui'' - similar to that in Ishinomori's later creation, ''Inazuman''). His wife, whom he married and had Tatsuo with, was a mutant as well. The couple conducted bizarre experiments that were capable of destroying humanity. Chisato feared this greatly, so, when Maya was born, he killed his own son and daughter-in-law, and sought to kill his grandson Tatsuo, who ended up being rescued and raised by Garo. He could not bring himself to kill Maya, however, and raised her to be his faithful servant. Maya then tells Skull Man that Chisato wanted to bring him back before he could do anything.
Chisato traps himself, Skull Man, Garo and Maya in glass walls, and sets himself and all the others ablaze, sadly stating that "We were born in the wrong era!". Along with his entire "family", Tatsuo dies a tragic, horrible death in the inferno.
The film opens to Adam Beckett (Zach Galligan) reluctantly performing as a purported pianist to an audience in New York City. When Beckett gives away that he is using a player piano, the outraged crowd storms the stage and wraps Beckett with the piano rolls. After he awakes and realizes it was a nightmare, Adam is accosted on a train by a Swedish architect, to whom he explains his stymied dreams of becoming an artist. After encouragement from the architect, Adam resolves to return to America. Upon returning, he discovers that the Port Authority has taken control of New York and is restricting entry into the city.
Upon failing a drawing test at the Port Authority, Adam is forced to work in a menial job under a trigger-happy boss (Dan Aykroyd).
His kindness to a tramp leads him to be taken into an underground network where he discovers that the city's tramps are controlling the destiny of all the cities in the world. They instruct him to travel to the moon on a mission—via a city bus and its conductor (Bill Murray) —to spread peace and find his true love (Lauren Tom).
Florence, 1535. Sculptor Benvenuto Cellini has been sentenced to hang for the attempted murder of Count Maffio ("When the Bell of Doom is Clanging"). The people of Florence gather in the public square, gaily celebrating the hanging ("Come to Florence"). On the gallows, the unrepentant, rakish Cellini says it's been a good life anyway ("Life, Love, and Laughter"). Suddenly Alessandro, Duke of Florence, pardons Cellini, because the statue of a nymph he commissioned from the sculptor has not been finished yet, though Alessandro has already paid for it. Walking away from the scaffold, Cellini is set upon by Maffio; this time he kills him (or so it seems).
Back at Cellini's workshop, his apprentice Ascanio and servant Emilia rejoice in the reprieve ("Our Master Is Free Again"), as Cellini presents an embellished version of his latest duel with Maffio ("I Had Just Been Pardoned"). He resumes work on the statue, but he has trouble concentrating because of his attraction to his model, Angela. Angela reciprocates the attraction but with reservations ("You're Far Too Near Me"). The French ambassador enters, telling Cellini that the Duke intends to hang him for Maffio's murder, and suggesting that he flee to Paris, where the king wants him to decorate Fontainebleau. But before Cellini can bolt, Duke Alessandro arrives ("Alessandro the Wise") to ogle Angela. The Duke decides to carry off Angela to his summer palace, and he puts Cellini under house arrest (Finaletto).
Cellini escapes his guards and hurries to the summer palace to rescue Angela. He accidentally encounters Alessandro's wife, the Duchess of Florence ("Entrance of the Duchess") on her way to Pisa. The Duchess makes no secret of her yen for Cellini, and she's not interested in romance, just sex ("Sing Me Not a Ballad"). The two plan an assignation for later. Next Cellini encounters the Duke's cousin, Ottaviano, who demands that he conspire to kill the Duke, but Cellini refuses, and Ascanio helps him escape. At the summer palace, the Duke exults in the opportunity to have his way with Angela ("While the Duchess is Away"). But Cellini has sneaked in, and he eavesdrops as the Duke makes his move. The Duke senses Cellini's presence and is unnerved, and his attempt at seduction degenerates into spoonerisms ("The Nosy Cook"). Cellini emerges, and a commotion ensues during which Cellini escapes with Angela and the Duchess unexpectedly returns, to the Duke's chagrin. The act concludes in a merry tarantella.
Back in Florence at Cellini's workshop, Benvenuto and Angela finally consummate their passion. But they bicker the following morning, and when a missive from the Duchess arrives ("The Duchess's Letter") inviting Cellini to decorate the summer palace, he sets his mind on the Duchess rather than Angela. Cellini's inconstancy aggrieves Angela, who blames it all on Cupid ("The Little Naked Boy"). Meanwhile, at the city palace, the guards always have their spears at the ready ("Just in Case"). Inside the palace, the Duke schemes to woo Angela by writing her a love poem, but he cannot come up with "A Rhyme for Angela." When he learns that Cellini has taken Angela away, the Duke again threatens to hang him, but the Duchess persuades him to put him on trial first.
The people of Florence gather in a carnival atmosphere once again ("Hear Ye!"). The judges read the charges against Cellini ("The World is Full of Villains") but Cellini protests that his past behavior, like everyone else's, is predetermined by the stars ("You Have to Do What You Do Do"). For a moment the Duke is amused by this, sensing that this astrological alibi covers his own amatory transgressions. Then Ottaviano testifies that Cellini conspired to kill the Duke. Just when Cellini appears doomed, Ascanio testifies that it was really Ottaviano who was plotting against the Duke ("How Wonderfully Fortunate"), and the Duchess supports the accusation. So the Duke again reverses himself, arresting Ottaviano and pardoning Cellini. Now Cellini decides to accept the commission to redecorate Fontainebleau. For the greater glory of art and posterity ("Love is My Enemy"), he swears off both the Duchess and Angela, while they commiserate with each other ("The Little Naked Boy" reprise).
The scene shifts to Fontainebleau ("Come to Paris") where Cellini, deprived of Angela as a model/muse, has a bad case of "sculptor's block." Suddenly the Duke and Duchess of Florence arrive, with Angela in tow. Cellini reconciles with Angela. Finally he finishes and unveils his nymph statue, as commedia dell'arte players perform a motley dance. Bizarrely, Maffio reappears—he had not been killed after all. As Cellini and Maffio draw their swords, a spirit of gaiety lights up the stage in a final reprise of "Life, Love, and Laughter."
Act 1 Scene 1: A Public Square in Florence. Time: 1535. Scene 2: Cellini's Workshop Scene 3: The City Gates Scene 4: The Garden of the Summer Palace Act 2 Scene 1: Cellini's Workshop Scene 2: Outside the City Palace Scene 3: A Loggia in the City Palace Scene 4: The Grand Council Chamber at the Palace **Scene 5: The Palace of the King of France
Act 1 Overture Opening Act 1: When the Bell of Doom is Clanging Come to Florence Life, Love, and Laughter Our Master is Free Again I Had Just Been Pardoned You're Far Too Near Me Alessandro the Wise Finaletto ("I Am Happy Here") Entrance of the Duchess Sing Me Not a Ballad When the Duchess is Away The Nosy Cook Act 1 Finale (Tarantella)
Act 2 Entr'acte The Duchess's Letter The Little Naked Boy March of the Soldiers of the Duchy (Just in Case) A Rhyme for Angela Trial Scene: Hear Ye! The World is Full of Villains You Have to Do What You Do Do How Wonderfully Fortunate! Love Is My Enemy The Little Naked Boy (Reprise) Come to Paris Finale (Reprise: Life, Love, and Laughter)
The action is narrated by 19th-century author Washington Irving, who announces his intent to write a history of the original Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. The story opens in Manhattan in 1647, where the colony awaits the arrival of its new Governor from Holland, Peter Stuyvesant. Irving selects the young Brom Broeck as his hero. Broeck is a brave but impulsive fellow who becomes enraged if anyone tries to give him orders. The narrator and his character reflect that this independent streak is characteristic of American citizens.
Brom is in love with Tina Tienhoven, whose father heads the corrupt town council. Brom knows that Tienhoven is selling brandy and firearms to the Indians—a criminal offense. Tienhoven, with the support of his cronies, arranges to have Brom convicted and hanged. Brom survives by putting the noose around his waist instead of his neck just as Stuyvesant arrives on the scene. Impressed by the young man's ingenuity, the Governor pardons him.
Stuyvesant plans to marry Tina and to declare war as his first official act of governance. After many mishaps and recriminations, all ends happily when the narrator reminds Stuyvesant that history will not remember him kindly if he persists in his dictatorial actions. Brom and Tina are free to marry, and the musical ends as Stuyvesant reflects that perhaps he will make a good American, given his own independence and resistance to authority.
Ivan Ilyich Golovin (''Ilyich'' is a patronymic, his surname is ''Golovin'') is a highly regarded official of the Court of Justice, described by Tolstoy as, "neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them—an intelligent, polished, lively, and agreeable man." As the story progresses, he becomes more and more introspective and emotional as he ponders the reason for his agonizing illness and death. Praskovya Fëdorovna Golovin is Ivan's unsympathetic wife. She is characterized as self-absorbed and uninterested in her husband's struggles, unless they directly affect her. Gerasim is the Golovins' young butler. He takes on the role of sole comforter and caretaker during Ivan's illness. Peter Ivanovich is Ivan's longtime friend and colleague. He studied law with Ivan and is the first to recognize Ivan's impending death. Vasia is Ivan's son. Lisa Golovin is Ivan's daughter. *Fëdor Petrishchev is Lisa's fiancé.
Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a woman whom he often finds too demanding, he works his way up to be a magistrate, thanks to the influence he has over a friend who has just been promoted, focusing more on his work as his family life becomes less tolerable.
While hanging curtains for his new home one day, he falls awkwardly and hurts his side. Though he does not think much of it at first, he begins to suffer from a pain in his side. As his discomfort grows, his behavior towards his family becomes more irritable. His wife finally insists that he visit a physician. The physician cannot pinpoint the source of his malady, but soon it becomes clear that his condition is terminal. Confronted with his diagnosis, Ivan attempts every remedy he can to obtain a cure for his worsening situation, until the pain grows so intense that he is forced to cease working and spend the remainder of his days in bed. Here, he is brought face to face with his mortality and realizes that, although he knows of it, he does not truly grasp it.
During the long and painful process of dying, Ivan dwells on the idea that he does not deserve his suffering because he has lived rightly. If he had not lived a good life, there could be a reason for his pain; but he has, so pain and death must be arbitrary and senseless. As he begins to hate his family for avoiding the subject of his death, for pretending he is only sick and not dying, he finds his only comfort in his peasant boy servant, Gerasim, the only person in Ivan's life who does not fear death, and also the only one who, apart from his own son, shows compassion for him. Ivan begins to question whether he has, in fact, lived a good life.
In the final days of his life, Ivan makes a clear split between an artificial life, such as his own, which masks the true meaning of life and makes one fear death, and an authentic life, the life of Gerasim. Authentic life is marked by compassion and sympathy, the artificial life by self-interest. Then "some force" strikes Ivan in the chest and side, and he is brought into the presence of a bright light. His hand falls onto his nearby son's head, and Ivan pities his son. He no longer hates his daughter or wife, but rather feels pity for them, and hopes his death will release them. In so doing, his terror of death leaves him, and as Tolstoy suggests, death itself disappears.
Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a woman whom he often finds too demanding, he works his way up to be a magistrate, thanks to the influence he has over a friend who has just been promoted, focusing more on his work as his family life becomes less tolerable.
While hanging curtains for his new home one day, he falls awkwardly and hurts his side. Though he does not think much of it at first, he begins to suffer from a pain in his side. As his discomfort grows, his behavior towards his family becomes more irritable. His wife finally insists that he visit a physician. The physician cannot pinpoint the source of his malady, but soon it becomes clear that his condition is terminal. Confronted with his diagnosis, Ivan attempts every remedy he can to obtain a cure for his worsening situation, until the pain grows so intense that he is forced to cease working and spend the remainder of his days in bed. Here, he is brought face to face with his mortality and realizes that, although he knows of it, he does not truly grasp it.
During the long and painful process of dying, Ivan dwells on the idea that he does not deserve his suffering because he has lived rightly. If he had not lived a good life, there could be a reason for his pain; but he has, so pain and death must be arbitrary and senseless. As he begins to hate his family for avoiding the subject of his death, for pretending he is only sick and not dying, he finds his only comfort in his peasant boy servant, Gerasim, the only person in Ivan's life who does not fear death, and also the only one who, apart from his own son, shows compassion for him. Ivan begins to question whether he has, in fact, lived a good life.
In the final days of his life, Ivan makes a clear split between an artificial life, such as his own, which masks the true meaning of life and makes one fear death, and an authentic life, the life of Gerasim. Authentic life is marked by compassion and sympathy, the artificial life by self-interest. Then "some force" strikes Ivan in the chest and side, and he is brought into the presence of a bright light. His hand falls onto his nearby son's head, and Ivan pities his son. He no longer hates his daughter or wife, but rather feels pity for them, and hopes his death will release them. In so doing, his terror of death leaves him, and as Tolstoy suggests, death itself disappears.
Buffy arrives home and sees flowers sent by Joyce's suitor. She calls out to her mother, but hears no answer. Buffy sees Joyce lying lifeless on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.
There is a flashback to a Christmas dinner where Joyce and all the Scoobies are present, having a typical lighthearted conversation. The scene snaps back to a hysterical Buffy in the living room, shaking Joyce and screaming at her. She calls for an ambulance and attempts CPR, but to no avail. As the paramedics arrive, Buffy briefly fantasizes about Joyce reviving and recovering in the hospital; only to return to reality where the paramedics are unable to revive Joyce and pronounce her dead. Giles arrives and Buffy tells him not to move the body, shocking herself by using that word. At school, Buffy pulls Dawn out of class into the hall. Through the windows of the art room, the class watches Buffy tell her that Joyce has died. Dawn collapses, wailing.
In Willow's dormitory room, Tara tries to help Willow find a shirt to wear. Xander and Anya arrive. Willow panics, rejecting shirt after shirt, not knowing how to appear for Buffy and Dawn. Anya asks Xander what she is supposed to do; he cannot answer. Xander expresses his desire to find Glory and exact justice, then complains about Joyce's negligent doctors. Anya asks if they will see the body, then if the body will be cut open, and Willow responds angrily. Anya tearfully says she does not understand how to behave, or why Joyce cannot go back into her own body, unable to understand human death. The group then leaves to visit Buffy, Dawn and Giles at the hospital.
In the waiting room outside the morgue, the doctor tells Buffy that Joyce died of an aneurysm suddenly and painlessly. Dawn goes alone to see Joyce's body. While she is there, one of the bodies, now a vampire, gets up. After noticing Dawn has not come back, Buffy goes to look for her. As Buffy kills the vampire, the sheet falls from Joyce's face. Looking at her mother's body, Dawn asks where she went, as she reaches out to touch her cheek.
Twelve years have passed since Paul Atreides became Emperor at the end of ''Frank Herbert's Dune'' by seizing control of the planet Arrakis and forcing a union with the former Emperor's daughter, the Princess Irulan. Paul's Fremen armies have since launched several bloody jihads to solidify his position. Deposed Emperor Shaddam IV and the rest of his family are exiled to Salusa Secundus, where his other daughter Princess Wensicia plots to restore House Corrino to power. The Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild and the Tleilaxu also plot to overthrow Paul's reign, aided even by rebel Fremen, who hate how Paul's terraforming project is changing Arrakis and the traditional Fremen way of life. The Tleilaxu present Paul with a ghola in the likeness of his friend Duncan Idaho, killed during the events of ''Dune'' but secretly conditioned to assassinate Paul when triggered by certain words.
Though his prescient abilities reveal the dangers ahead, Paul allows the conspiracies to succeed to avoid even worse consequences. He is attacked with a type of nuclear weapon called a stone burner and blinded but still manages to "see" by following his prescient visions. Later, Paul's concubine Chani gives birth to twins at a Fremen sietch but dies soon afterward. In Paul's absence, his sister Alia purges the imperial city of the enemies of House Atreides. Paul says the words that trigger Duncan's conditioning but the trauma of potentially killing Paul breaks his programming and unlocks the memories of his original incarnation. The Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale offers this as proof that the Tleilaxu can bring Chani back to life if Paul agrees to their terms. Paul is tempted but the unique nature of the infants (who, like Alia, were "pre-born") allows him to see through the eyes of his son and kill Scytale. Following the Fremen tradition of abandoning the blind to the sandworms, Paul walks alone into the desert. His legacy secured, the twins and their future empire are left in the care of Alia.
Paul's and Chani's children Leto II and Ghanima are now young adults; Princess Irulan has protected their interests as her own. Now married to Duncan, Alia is still regent of Paul's empire and official guardian of the children. Irulan's sister Wensicia yearns for a return to power through her son, Farad'n. After a long absence, Paul and Alia's mother Lady Jessica arrives on Arrakis to visit her family but Alia fears that Jessica has resumed her allegiance to the Bene Gesserit and may be plotting against her. An individual known as "The Preacher" has surfaced in the capital, speaking against the decline of Muad'Dib's religion into empty rituals; Alia resists having him killed because she shares the popular belief that he may be a returned Paul.
Alia possesses the memories and personalities of her ancestors due to being pre-born but has trouble controlling them; her internal struggles against the assertive voices manifest themselves in the form of paranoia and self-destructive behavior. The persona of the evil Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Alia's maternal grandfather whom she had killed, begins to influence her and threatens to overtake Alia's consciousness altogether. Jessica senses that Alia has become dangerous and advises Irulan to spirit Leto and Ghanima away to safety. Later, after an assassination attempt on her, Jessica seeks sanctuary with Fremen dissidents. Wearing clothes presented to them by Wensicia, the twins escape into the deep desert but are soon cornered in a deadly trap of her devising.
Wensicia's plot to assassinate the Atreides heirs fails but provides Leto an opportunity to fake his death and buy time to overcome Alia, whose madness reaches its peak. Baron Harkonnen's grip on her consciousness strengthens and a civil war brews with the rebel Fremen. Leto returns from the deep desert, where he bonds himself with sandtrout, the larval form of Arrakis' sandworms, to acquire a partial carapace granting the superhuman speed, strength and invulnerability of the sandworms themselves.
To force the neutral Fremen leader Stilgar to lead the rebels, Duncan murders Alia's lover Javid in Stilgar's sietch. As he predicts, Stilgar kills him in revenge and comes out in opposition to Alia. Leto encounters the Preacher, whose identity as his father is revealed. Leto's prescient visions have convinced him that he must lead mankind along "the Golden Path" to ensure humanity's ultimate survival. The Preacher / Muad'dib admits that he saw the same path with his own prescient vision but he refused to take it, horrified at the sacrifices it would entail for him and humanity. Leto is vindicated by pointing out to his father that he also saw this is the only possible path that avoids humanity's extinction.
With a political marriage arranged by Jessica between Ghanima and Wensicia's son Farad'n, the Corrino heir identifies his mother as the mastermind behind Leto's apparent death. Alia has Wensicia imprisoned but Ghanima accepts Farad'n's gesture as honest. With Stilgar's forces moving in, father and son return to the capital city of Arrakeen, where the Preacher makes a final speech denouncing Alia, his own religion and is fatally stabbed by a rebel Fremen. Leto confronts Alia at Ghanima's wedding and defeats her. Alia then takes her own life, rather than be controlled by the Baron, and dies in her mother's arms. After handing Alia's water and his father's ring to Stilgar, Leto disappears into the desert. In the final scene, Ghanima tells Farad'n that while he will not be her husband due to politics, they may yet fall in love and how she pities her brother for the solitude and suffering he will endure in the millennia that he must live for the sake of humanity.
Roy Applewood (Tom Wilkinson), after fainting on the night of 25th marriage anniversary, shocks his wife Irma (Jessica Lange) by revealing plans to transition into a woman named Ruth. While Ruth tries to keep the family together, Irma's initial reaction is to separate from her. Patty Ann (Hayden Panettiere), their daughter, is more accepting, but Wayne (Joseph Sikora), their son, struggles with the transition. He mocks Ruth after receiving an explanation letter.
The movie follows the fictitious story of the character Ruth in the depiction of her transition. She buys women's clothes, wears earrings and puts on perfume. She finds graffiti on her truck "You are not normal". Her mother decides not to tell her father. She is kicked out of church choir. Irma finds Ruth in the barn with a gun to her head. She invites her back home. Her teen daughter just got her period and doesn't like being a girl. Son Wayne comes home for Thanksgiving and ends up in a fist fight with Ruth. The son yells obscenities at her and then cries in her arms. After a year passes she goes in for surgery with full support of Irma.
Ruth faces ostracism at church and at work. She finds understanding from her boss, Frank, but not from her minister. In the end, Irma discovers that love transcends gender and the family survives.
The player assumes the role of a young Arthur, before the legendary days of Camelot. The "sword in the stone" (which in the legends was not Excalibur, but is often confused with Excalibur by people unfamiliar with the legends) that would signify Arthur's destiny to rule, has been stolen by the evil King Lot. In the quest to regain the sword, the player must prove to Merlin that he has the qualities needed to be a great king: chivalry, experience, and wisdom. Merlin assists Arthur by giving him periodic advice as well as the power to transform into animals, but also tells Arthur that unless Excalibur is recovered within three days, Lot will usurp his destiny as a king of legendary stature.
Set in Yorkshire and London in 1933, ''The 12.30 from Croydon'' is about 35-year-old Charles Swinburn, the owner of a factory in Cold Pickerby, Yorkshire, in which electric motors are produced. Swinburn has inherited the works from his father and uncle. While the former has been dead for many years, Andrew Crowther, his uncle, leads a retired life in the same town. At 65, his health has recently started to deteriorate. In particular, Crowther is suffering from indigestion.
Swinburn's business is hit by the Great Depression just like any other company, but when he asks his uncle for a loan to be able to avoid bankruptcy he is appalled to find that the old man, obviously no longer able to understand trends in the world economy, is unwilling to grant him a substantial sum to overcome his financial difficulties. Swinburn knows that he and his cousin Elsie will each inherit half of Crowther's fortune, so he does not see why he cannot have some of the money a bit earlier—"an advance on his legacy". At this point the first thoughts that it might be feasible to kill his uncle without being found out occur to Swinburn.
His unrequited love for a young woman called Una Mellor helps him come to a quick decision. "It seems a beastly thing to say", she tells him,
After thinking the matter over again and again, Swinburn resolves to poison his uncle with potassium cyanide. He takes all kinds of precautions when he buys the poison. Then he makes a pill that looks like one of Crowther's anti-indigestion tablets. He buys a bottle of those pills, buries the poisoned pill in that bottle, and, over dinner at his uncle's, spills a glass of wine which gives him the opportunity to exchange bottles without anyone noticing.
Charles Swinburn is particularly proud of his perfect alibi. On the following morning he books a three-week cruise of the Mediterranean. When he is informed of his uncle's death, he is in Naples, Italy. To his surprise, his uncle took the pill not at home but on his first (and last) flight, the 12.30 from Croydon: The family had been alarmed by a report stating that Elsie had had an accident in France, and Crowther had insisted on coming with Elsie's father and their daughter. On arrival in France he had been found dead.
An inquest is held, but Swinburn feels quite safe when no one seems to implicate him in the case. However, some time later he is approached by Weatherup, Crowther's butler, who claims he has seen him exchange the bottles, and who starts blackmailing him. Again, Swinburn sees no other solution than to "take that desperate remedy" and kill the butler. This time he cannot be as subtle as when planning his uncle's death. He brutally slays Weatherup with a piece of lead pipe and dumps his body in a nearby lake.
Soon afterwards he is arrested, tried, and hanged.
One of the interesting aspects of the novel is the insight the reader gains into the workings of a criminal mind. In particular, Swinburn's rationalization along utilitarian argumentative patterns must be mentioned in this context:
Crofts's Detective-Inspector Joseph French, who appears in several of his novels, keeps in the background during the action of ''The 12.30 from Croydon''. He does solve the case, and explains how he did it in the final chapters of the novel, but the emphasis of the book is on the thoughts and deeds of the criminal.
One of the changes to the plot of the video game is the absence of the villainous organisation SPECTRE, who played a vital role in the film. Due to legal issues that have plagued the James Bond film series since 1963, the organization was renamed "OCTOPUS" and appears to lack a central leader in the same vein as Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The SPECTRE name was tied up in a long-running dispute over the film rights to ''Thunderball'', between United Artists/MGM and the now-deceased writer Kevin McClory.
The game begins with a pre-title sequence in which Elizabeth Stark, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom's daughter, is kidnapped by OCTOPUS while attending a party. Bond was assigned to attend the party for just such an event, and he defeats OCTOPUS and rescues Miss Stark.
Similar to the film, OCTOPUS has conceived a plan to embarrass British secret service agent 007 for the death of Dr. Julius No from the film ''Dr. No'', in which No was an agent of SPECTRE. The plan involves the theft of a Soviet encoding machine known as the Lektor with the help of a defecting Soviet agent, Tatiana Romanova. However, Romanova is being used by OCTOPUS to lure James Bond into a trap; their ultimate goal is to let him obtain the Lektor and then ambush him for it, killing him in humiliating fashion as well. Romanova is sent by Rosa Klebb, an agent of the KGB (in both the novel and film, an agent of SMERSH) who has secretly defected to OCTOPUS. Her immediate subordinate, Donald "Red" Grant, protects Bond through the first half of the game and attacks him in the second. The game ends with a final assault on OCTOPUS headquarters, during which Grant is fatally shot by Bond.
The story is told as a series of diary entries, the first being New Year's Day, 1796. The setting is an island off the coast of Norway.
On January 1, the narrator records that it is his first day in the lighthouse, and records his annoyance at the fact that he had a difficult time getting the appointment to man it, even though he is of noble birth. He records that a storm is in progress, and that the ship that brought him "had a narrow escape". He also dwells on the concept of being alone, and how much he looks forward to spending time alone, just him and his dog Neptune, so he can write his book. He briefly comments that he hears some echo in the walls, thinking they may not be sturdy, but catches himself and claims that his worries are "all nonsense", alluding to a prophecy made by his friend DeGrat, who got him the appointment to the lighthouse.
On January 2 he describes the sea as being calm and uneventful, the wind having "lulled about day-break", and expounds on his passion for being alone.
On January 3 he describes the day as being calm and placid, and resolves to explore the lighthouse. He again begins to worry about the safety of the structure, but tries to reassure himself. The last line reads, "The basis on which the structure rests seems to me to be chalk..."
A heading for January 4 follows, but there is no text.
The narrator presents the facts of the extraordinary case of his friend Ernest Valdemar, which have incited public discussion. He is interested in mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnagogic state by the influence of animal magnetism, a process that later developed into hypnotism. He points out that as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He considers experimenting on Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis).
Valdemar consents to the experiment and informs the narrator by letter that his doctors expect him to die by midnight of the following evening. Valdemar's two physicians inform the narrator of their patient's poor condition. After confirming again that Valdemar is willing to be part of the experiment, the narrator comes back the next night with two nurses and a medical student as witnesses. Again, Valdemar insists he is willing to take part and asks the narrator to hurry for fear he has "deferred it for too long". Valdemar is quickly mesmerized just as both physicians return and serve as additional witnesses.
In a trance, he reports first that he is dying and then that he is dead. The narrator leaves him in a mesmeric state for seven months and checks on him daily with the help of physicians and friends. Meanwhile, Valdemar is without pulse, heartbeat, or perceptible breathing, and his skin is cold and pale.
Finally, the narrator makes attempts to awaken Valdemar by asking questions that are answered with difficulty, as Valdemar's voice emanates from his throat and lolling tongue, but his lips and jaws are frozen in death. In between trance and wakefulness, Valdemar begs the narrator to put him back to sleep quickly or to waken him. As Valdemar shouts "Dead! Dead!" repeatedly, the narrator starts to bring him out of his trance, only for his entire body to immediately decay into a "nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence."
Scat Sweeney (Crosby) and Hot Lips Barton (Hope), are two musicians, who were part of a swing quintet (the other three musicians are played by the Wiere Brothers a popular vaudeville act). Meanwhile Lucia is a glamorous nightclub singer. Scat and Hot Lips join her as her backing music: clarinet and trumpet.
They travel the United States trying to find work and stay away from girls. After running from state to state, each time running because of a girl, they try their luck in Louisiana.
They stow away on board a Rio-bound ship, after accidentally starting some fires at a circus. They then get mixed up with the distraught Lucia, who first thanks them, then unexpectedly turns them over to the ship's captain. Unbeknownst to both of them, Lucia is being hypnotized by her crooked guardian, Catherine Vail. Vail plans to marry Lucia to her brother so she can control her and a set of "papers".
After a series of misadventures, including sneaking off the boat, recruiting a few local musicians, and the boys trying to escape with Lucia, only to have Vail hypnotize her again and slap them both, Vail decides to do away with the boys permanently. She hypnotizes both of them and tries to get them to kill each other in a duel, but it fails. Scat and Hot Lips finally figure things out and the boys head for the ceremony to stop the wedding and to help catch the crooks. Upon finding the "papers", which Scat reads, when Hot Lips asks what they are about, Scat tears them up and looks into the camera, saying, "The world must ''never'' know."
Later on, Scat is dismayed to see that Lucia loves Hot Lips and not him, but upon peeking through a keyhole, he sees Hot Lips hypnotizing her.
Hope's frequent sidekick Jerry Colonna has a cameo as the leader of a cavalry charging to the rescue of Bing and Bob, as the film cuts away to the galloping horses periodically. All is resolved before he can arrive, leading Colonna to point out:
This is the true story of Kent Stock, who in 1991 takes on what he perceives as the job of a lifetime as head coach of the Norway High School Tigers baseball team, which has won 19 state titles and has a baseball tradition in Iowa tantamount to that of the New York Yankees nationally.
Stock joins the team in 1990 as assistant coach, excited to learn from the legendary Tigers coach Jim Van Scoyoc. The Tigers win the 1990 title, the twelfth under Van Scoyoc. Stock is unaware that he has been picked by the school's Principal Halberstorm to replace Van Scoyoc in order to facilitate a losing 1991 season. The principal is pushing a consolidation of Norway with the larger "Madison School District" (in real life, the Benton Community School District), but the town is opposed, centered mainly on not wanting to give up the successful baseball program. The principal only knows about Stock's experience as a girls' volleyball coach, unaware that Stock was a star player for his Division III college baseball team and is a student of the game.
Several of the Tigers' returning stars refuse to go out for Coach Stock, who must win over the rest and convince them, the skeptical townspeople and himself that he can fill their former coach's shoes, all while dealing with the reality that this will be the team's final season due to the impending merger. With the support of a young female state auditor whose findings helped push through the merger, and a gadfly baseball writer from Des Moines who is following the team, Kent learns to motivate the team his own way.
In May 1991, Norway High's baseball tradition ends on a triumphant but somber note as it wins its 20th state championship in its final season. A video clip of the actual Coach Stock thanking Van Scoyoc publicly for the opportunity opens the final scene.
In 1890, five years after immigrating to the United States, the impoverished Mousekewitz family discovers that conditions are not as ideal as they had hoped, as they find themselves still struggling against the attacks of mouse-hungry cats. Fievel spends his days thinking about the Wild West bloodhound-sheriff Wylie Burp, while his older sister, Tanya, dreams of becoming a singer. Meanwhile, Tiger's girlfriend, Miss Kitty, leaves him to find a new life out west, remarking that perhaps she is looking for "a cat that's more like a dog".
A British aristocratic cat named Cat R. Waul launches an attack on the mice, forcing them to flee into the sewers. There, they come across a mouse in a cowboy outfit, who is in fact a mouse marionette controlled by Cat R. Waul, who tricks the mice into moving to a better life out west. Tiger tries catching up with his friends, but is thrown off course by a group of dogs. While on the train, Fievel wanders into the livestock car, where he overhears the cats' intentions to turn the mice into "mouse burgers". After being discovered, Fievel tries to flee but Cat R. Waul has his hench-spider, T.R. Chula, strand Fievel in the middle of the desert. Devastated once again over his loss, his family arrives in Green River, Utah.
Upon arrival in Green River, Chula blocks up the water tower, drying up the river. Cat R. Waul approaches the mice and proposes to build a new saloon together, although intending to trick the mice into doing the bulk of the work and then eat them afterwards. Meanwhile, Fievel is wandering aimlessly through the desert, as is Tiger, who has found his way out west as well, and they pass each other. However, they each figure that the other is a mirage and continue on their separate ways. Tiger is captured by the local mouse Indian tribe and hailed as a god. Fievel is picked up by a hawk, dropped over the mouse Indian village and reunites with Tiger. Tiger chooses to stay in while Fievel catches a passing tumbleweed, which takes him to Green River. He reunites with his family, but they are oblivious to Cat R. Waul's plans. Entering the saloon, Fievel overhears the cats' plan yet again and is discovered once more by Cat R. Waul. Cat R. Waul tries eating Fievel, but is thwarted when he hears Tanya singing. He sends Tanya to Miss Kitty, who is now a saloon-girl cat, and she reveals that she came at Cat R. Waul's request. He tells Miss Kitty to put her on stage and Tanya performs for the cats. Meanwhile, Fievel is chased by Chula and briefly taken prisoner, but flees.
Despondent, Fievel speaks with an elderly bloodhound sleeping outside the jail, discovering he is actually Wylie Burp. Fievel convinces him to help and train Tiger as a lawman and as a dog. Though initially reluctant, Tiger relents at the suggestion that a new persona might win back Miss Kitty. They return to Green River to fight the cats, who attempt to use a concealed giant mouse trap on the mice at sunset during the opening of Cat R. Waul's saloon. Tiger, Wylie and Fievel fight the cats, during which Miss Kitty and Tanya discover the trap. Tanya rushes to the mice and, using her singing abilities, helps them escape. Seeing this, Cat R. Waul uses a giant revolver as a makeshift cannon on the fleeing mice, but Wylie has Fievel intercept from Cat R. Waul's attacks. When Chula takes Miss Kitty hostage, however, an incensed Tiger rescues her and the heroes use the mouse trap as a catapult to send Cat R. Waul and his cats out of Green River. The cats fly into the air and land into a mailbag, which a passing train picks up and leaves.
Enamored by his new personality, Miss Kitty and Tiger are reunited. Tanya becomes a famous singer and the water tower flows with 1,000 gallons of water again, making Green River bloom with thousands of flowers. Fievel finds Wylie away from the party who hands him his sheriff badge. Fievel is unsure about taking it, but realizes that his journey is not over.
Diaspar is the last human city, hundreds of millions of years old. Alvin, born seventeen years ago, is the first child to be born in 7,000 years and lives among ancient immortals with unchanging lives. The Earth he knows lies in ruin, a vast desert, after a cataclysmic war with the Invaders millions of years ago confined mankind to the planet. He is fascinated by the world and its history, which his tutor Jeserac finds disturbing, the fear of doing anything that might trigger a return of the Invaders remains palpable. Bored, Alvin explores the empty sections of the city, and on one such trip, finds stairs leading to the desert outside. He begins to walk down them but is stopped by a large stone inscribed with the words "There is a better way. Give my greetings to the Keeper of the Records. - Alaine of Lyndar".
Alvin takes the message to Rorden, the current Keeper of the Records, who has access to "all the knowledge of Humanity" in the city's databases. Rorden finds a message from Alaine but it simply states there are three ways to leave. Three years later, Rorden tells Alvin that he has deciphered Alaine's message, and takes him to a park in the center of Diaspar. There lies a monument to Yarlan Zey, designer of the park, which Rorden realizes was built to conceal some sort of transport. Rorden triggers a hidden elevator that takes them to an underground train station. A large map on the floor shows Diaspar as a brightly lit dot among many dimmed destinations, but one other dot remains lit, "Lys".
After three days of preparation, Alvin steps into a waiting train car. Expecting an abandoned city, Alvin is shocked when he finds a thriving garden-like environment including a lake. He is taken to meet Seranis, leader of the local town of Airlee. She explains that Diaspar and Lys are two extremes of civilization, the ultimate end of those who preferred city or country. The inhabitants of Lys are different from his own people, living short but full lives and having telepathic abilities. Alvin is prevented from going home as the citizens do not want him to reveal Lys to the people of Diaspar. They contact Rorden and tell him that Alvin will stay five days to allow the council of Lys time to decide his fate.
Alvin befriends Theon, Seranis' son, who takes Alvin camping. That night they see a bright light that Theon realizes comes from the ancient fortress of Shalmirane. Even Alvin has heard of Shalmirane; it is where mankind made its last stand against the Invaders. They decide to continue their hike and visit the fortress. At Shalmirane they find an old man who tells them his story; he was a follower of the Master, who came from space during the recovery following the invasion, attracting followers with his powers and machines. When he was dying, the Master spoke of the "Great Ones" returning, and his last words suggest he had lived on a planet around the Seven Suns, a wheel of multi-colored stars. The old man is the last remaining follower, sending signals into space to attract the Great Ones. He also controls the Master's machines, three advanced intelligent robots, but the Master instructed them to keep secrets. Alvin convinces the man to lend him one of the robots so he can take it to Rorden, promising to return it.
The boys return to Lys, and Alvin is given the choice of staying in Lys forever or returning to Diaspar without his memories. Alvin agrees to the mind wipe but programs the robot to grab him and take him to the transit station before this occurs. He returns home, and Rorden takes Alvin and the robot under the city to meet the Master Robots, the computers that run the city. They are unable to remove the instructions from the Master, so they instead make a duplicate robot without the instructions in place. When they return to the surface, they find the Council has met in their absence and is trying to decide what to do about Alvin's visit to Lys. They decide to block the underground train system and instruct Rorden to remove all references to Lys from his records. As the Council debates, they allow Alvin to leave, expecting, and allowing, him to run for the train and return to Lys before it is blocked.
Rorden is surprised when he finds a message from Alvin instructing him to meet at the tower where he first found the message from Alaine. Alvin explains that the new robot had revealed that the Master had landed on Earth not at Lys, but at the Port of Diaspar. He retrieves the ship from beneath the sand and flies to Lys where he learns they have also blocked the train, and sows confusion by claiming he used it without problem. He causes further confusion by stating that Diaspar now knows all about Lys but will have nothing to do with their inferior culture. The next day he and Theon fly to Shalmirane to fulfill his promise to return the robot, but find the old man had died.
Alvin and Theon decide to visit the Seven Suns. They arrive at a planet around the middle star and find it as desolate as Earth. Despairing that his search for meaning has failed, they return to the ship and are met by a disembodied superintelligence with the behavior of a child but memories going back further than any human. The alien, Vanamonde, is convinced that Alvin is a member of the race of creators it has been waiting to return. They return to Earth to find Diaspar and Lys in constant communication over the events due to the fears their trip will trigger the Invaders to return. Rorden is a voice of calm, he has been researching the topic and can find no mention of the Invaders or any sort of treaty in the data banks.
Alvin flies Rorden and Jeserac to Lys so they can add to the effort to understand Vanamonde. Over a period of months, they learn that their history is false. Man had only reached Persephone when aliens arrived, minds so much greater than their own that they returned to Earth and spent millions of years improving. When they were ready to join the galactic empire, they worked on projects like the Seven Suns, an artwork marking the agreed-on center of the galaxy. It was mankind that suggested the next great galactic effort, the construction of a non-physical pure intellect. This produced the Mad Mind, destroying swaths of the galaxy before it is locked up in the Black Sun. Learning from their mistakes, Vanamonde is created.
Around the same time, the galactic empire contacts another race "far around the curve of the Cosmos" that has developed its own superintellect, one along purely physical lines. Most of the galaxy leaves on a quest to meet them, powering their great ship using the energy of all the suns, leaving the galaxy permanently dimmed. Only the Seven Suns remain untouched. Those that stayed behind were not adventurous and slowly went extinct over time, Earth only avoiding that fate by luck. Even the Battle of Shalmirane is a myth; Shalmirane was built to destroy the Moon when it threatened to crash into Earth.
The book ends with the Tomb of Yarlan Zey being torn down as the links between Lys and Diaspar are opened to all. Alvin sets himself to rebuilding the Earth's oceans and solving the mystery of who the Master was. He intends to send the spaceship off on its own to bring a message to their now distant ancestors, hoping Earth will be worthy of their companionship when they return in the far distant future.
Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are investigative reporters for the ''Daily Chronicle'' newspaper—they are supposedly identical twins, which becomes the source of a running gag: nobody can tell they are twins unless Fozzie is wearing his hat. Gonzo the Great is their loyal photographer, and together they make a team. One day, after the trio is dismissed for failing to report on a major jewel robbery, Kermit asks their editor Mr. Tarkanian to allow them to travel to London to investigate the robbery and interview the victim, the prominent fashion designer Lady Holiday. Statler and Waldorf make appearances throughout the film to heckle them and the audience.
With only $12 for the trip, they are forced to travel in an airplane baggage hold and are literally thrown out of the plane as it passes over Britain. They stay at the dilapidated (but free) Happiness Hotel, which is populated by other Muppet characters, including Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Scooter, the Swedish Chef, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Lew Zealand, Rowlf the Dog, Sam the Eagle, Pops, Beauregard, Crazy Harry, Camilla the Chicken, and Rizzo the Rat. The next morning, when Kermit seeks out Lady Holiday in her office, he finds her newly hired receptionist, the alluring Miss Piggy, and mistakes her for the fashion designer. Piggy instantly falls in love with the little green reporter. She poses as Lady Holiday, and Kermit asks her out for dinner; to keep up the pose, she allows Kermit to assume she lives at a "highbrow" address. She sneaks into a townhouse at 17 Highbrow Street to wait for him (much to the surprise of the actual upper-class British residents), and they go out to the Dubonnet Club for dinner.
At the nightclub, the real Lady Holiday's necklace is stolen by her jealous brother Nicky and his accomplices Carla, Marla, and Darla, three of her exploited fashion models (the very same thieves who robbed her before). After the robbery, Miss Piggy's charade is revealed and she flees, leaving Kermit behind. The next day; in a London park, they reconcile after having a brief argument. Despite Nicky's instant attraction to Miss Piggy, he and his accomplices frame her for the necklace theft during Lady Holiday's fashion show. They plan to steal an even more valuable prize: Lady Holiday's largest and most valuable jewel, the Fabulous Baseball Diamond, now on display at the Mallory Gallery. Unbeknownst to them, Gonzo overhears their plot. He, Kermit, Fozzie, and the other residents of the Happiness Hotel decide to intercept the thieves and catch them red-handed to exonerate Miss Piggy. Kermit arrives at the prison to explain the plan to Piggy, while being disguised as her "lawyer".
The Muppets sneak into the Mallory Gallery and get to the Baseball Diamond at the same time as the thieves. They try to keep the diamond out of the thieves' hands via a game of keep away, but Nicky eventually catches the diamond and takes Kermit hostage at gunpoint. In the meantime, Piggy escapes from prison, and she races to the gallery, crashing through the window on a motorcycle that serendipitously fell off a truck in front of her. She knocks Nicky out and dispatches Carla, Marla and Darla with a flurry of furious karate chops. As the police arrive, all charges against Piggy are dropped, Nicky and his accomplices are arrested, and the Muppets get their deserved credit for foiling the heist.
The Muppets then return to the United States the same way they departed, being thrown out of the cargo hold and parachuting back.
Jim Hawkins is a young orphan who lives in an inn in England with his best friends Gonzo and Rizzo. Jim listens to Billy Bones' tales about the pirate Captain Flint, who buried his treasure trove on a remote island and executed his crew so only he would own the island's map. One night, Bones' crewmate Blind Pew arrives, giving Bones the black spot. Just before dying of a heart attack, Bones gives Jim the treasure map and begs him to go after the treasure and keep both it and the map safe from pirate hands, especially a one-legged man. Just then, an army of pirates attack the inn, destroying it, but Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo escape with the map.
The trio takes the map to the half-wit Squire Trelawney (Fozzie Bear), who arranges a voyage to find the treasure. The boys are enlisted aboard the ''Hispaniola'' as cabin boys, accompanied by Trelawney, Dr. Livesey (Bunsen Honeydew), and Beaker. The ship is commanded by Captain Abraham Smollett (Kermit the Frog) and his overly strict first mate, Mr. Arrow (Sam Eagle). The boys meet the cook Long John Silver, the one-legged man whom Bones warned them of, but Jim and Silver become good friends. The ship sets sail, but Smollett is suspicious of the crew, believing them to be of shady character. After Gonzo and Rizzo are kidnapped and tortured by three of the crew who have turned out to be pirates, he has the treasure map locked up for safe keeping.
It is revealed that Silver and the secret pirates in the crew had been part of Flint's crew and want the treasure for themselves. Silver fools Mr. Arrow into leaving the ship to test out a rowboat, says he drowned, and has his minions steal the map during Arrow's memorial service. Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo discover Silver's treachery and inform Smollett. Arriving at Treasure Island, Smollett orders the entire crew save the officers to go ashore, planning to keep himself and non-pirate crew aboard the ship and abandon the pirates on the island. However, his plan falls through when it is discovered that Silver has kidnapped Jim to have leverage against the captain. On the island, Silver invites Jim to join them in the treasure hunt using his late father's compass. When Jim refuses, Silver forcibly takes the compass from him. Smollett, Gonzo, and Rizzo land on the island in an effort to rescue Jim. However, unbeknownst to them, Silver had hidden a squad of pirates aboard the ''Hispaniola'' before leaving, and they capture the ship in Smollett's absence. On the island, Smollett and the rest of the landing party are captured by the native tribe of pigs, where Smollett reunites with his jilted lover Benjamina Gunn (Miss Piggy), the tribe's queen.
The pirates find that the cave in which Flint hid the treasure is empty, leading to a brief mutiny against Silver. Silver reveals that, even though he is a pirate, he cares for Jim and allows him to escape. After reprimanding the crew from using a page from the Bible to deliver a death sentence, Silver and his crew capture Smollett and Benjamina. Smollett is hung from a cliff to fall to his death, joined soon by Benjamina after she reveals where the treasure is hidden to save his life. Jim rescues his friends and with an alive Mr. Arrow, who portrays his own ghost to scare the pirates aboard the ship, the group regains control of the ''Hispaniola'' and rescues Smollett and Benjamina.
The group engages the remaining pirates in a sword fight on the beach with Sweetums defecting to Smollett's side until only Silver is left standing, but he surrenders when he finds himself outnumbered. While the pirates are imprisoned, Silver discovers he still has Mr. Arrow's keys and tries to escape with the treasure during the night. Jim confronts him and threatens to give his position away, while Silver draws his pistol. In a tearful standoff, neither can bring themselves to follow their threats and Jim allows Silver to leave as long as they never cross paths again, much to their disappointment. Silver rows away, but not before returning Jim's compass to him and complimenting his kind heart. However, Mr. Arrow informs Jim and Smollett that the boat Silver used was not seaworthy, and Silver is later stranded on Treasure Island.
The crew of the ''Hispaniola'' sails away into the sunset, but not before some scuba-diving rat tourists recover the treasure from the sea.
Gonzo has always been identified as a "whatever"; but, after having dreams of abandonment and rejection, including him being denied entry to Noah's Ark, he begins to realize just how alone he is in the world.
Gonzo tells Kermit that he is getting tired of being referred to as a "whatever". After an alien species appears to be trying to send him a message through his bowl of cereal, Gonzo realizes that he may not be alone after all and later that evening, he climbs to the rooftop of the Muppet boarding house to watch the sky. Suddenly, he is struck by a bolt of lightning, which allows him to communicate with a pair of cosmic knowledge fish, who reveal his origins as an alien from outer space.
Hoping to contact the aliens, Gonzo makes an impromptu appearance at the television studio for ''UFO Mania'', where Miss Piggy works. Unable to convince Kermit and his friends of the aliens' existence, Gonzo is lured by Agent Barker to K. Edgar Singer of C.O.V.N.E.T., a top secret national security facility whose mission is to investigate threats of extraterrestrial attacks while disguised as a cement factory. Singer is aware of the aliens' attempts to communicate and, having seen Gonzo on television, believes that he is the key to convincing his superior General Luft that aliens exist.
Gonzo and Rizzo are taken to C.O.V.N.E.T., where Hulk Hogan, who is working for C.O.V.N.E.T. as an agent, flushes Rizzo down a tube to the facility's rat medical research held by Dr. Tucker, alongside other Muppet rats. Unable to get answers from Gonzo about the aliens, Singer decides to have Gonzo's brain surgically removed, and has him taken to a holding cell. Meanwhile, after Miss Piggy interrogates Barker, she, Kermit, Fozzie, Pepe, and Animal go to rescue Gonzo and Rizzo from C.O.V.N.E.T., using various inventions from Bunsen and Beaker.
While Gonzo is in his cell, an alien channeling his voice through a sandwich asks him where the alien ship can land, and Gonzo suggests a beach known by the name of Cape Doom, unaware that Singer's assistant Agent Rentro (Bobo the Bear) is listening. Gonzo is then taken to the surgery room, and the Muppets arrive to rescue Gonzo and Rizzo.
Meanwhile, Rizzo escapes from medical research and frees Gonzo from the dissection table, while Singer and Luft witness the other rats attack the surgeon Dr. Phil Van Neuter. Luft feels that his time has been wasted and angrily leaves. Upon discovering from Rentro that Gonzo is heading for Cape Doom, Singer prepares the Subatomic Neutro-Destabilizer weapon to use on the aliens. Singer and Rentro then head to Cape Doom.
The Muppets rescue Gonzo from the facility, then arrive at Cape Doom where a crowd of alien believers await their arrival. After an hour-long wait, the ship comes to Earth and the aliens, who all resemble Gonzo, explain that many years ago they lost him, but now welcome him back. Singer shows up and tries to kill the aliens, ultimately failing to do so (Rentro having removed the weapon's battery) and is laughed at. Gonzo considers going with his long-lost family to their home planet, but chooses to stay on Earth with the Muppets with his family's blessing. Singer is invited by the aliens to go with them and leaves as Earth's ambassador.
Later that night, Gonzo and the other Muppets watch the stars from the boarding house roof.
Lawrence Hammer (Lowe) and Dean Mazzoli (Hansen) are two Naval Officers undergoing the rigorous and demanding Navy BUD/s training program. Both men quest to become Navy SEALs. During the training Hammer is shown as cocky and not a true team player. Mazzoli is a natural leader who is respected by the other trainees. The two men clash over time due to Hammer's attitude making a bad name for everyone. The two men's feud eventually is seen by the training instructors. After being punished in a “military manner”, the two become friends. On liberty Mazzoli takes an interest in Barbara, a known love interest and friend of Hammer's. Barbara and Mazzoli share a romantic moment under a capsized canoe but Mazzoli breaks away before anything further happens. He knows that his friend Hammer has been “with” her for a while. Later that night Hammer and Barbara elope and Mazzoli is shocked but accepts the marriage.
The two finish their BUD/s training and Mazzoli informs Hammer that he is completing his SDV training on the East Coast, not the West Coast as Hammer will be doing. A brief confrontation between the two occurs on the beach and subsides when Mazzoli says it is because of Barbara. Soon Iraq invades Kuwait and Hammer is seen on a reconnaissance mission with Bosco, who was Mazzoli's and Hammer's former lead training instructor. After coming under enemy fire Bosco is taken prisoner. Hammer and Mazzoli reunite when Mazzoli comes to aid in the rescue mission of Bosco. While preparing for the mission the two catch up, with Hammer talking about how Barbara and her son Josh both miss seeing him. He further goes on and tells of his infidelities and about Barbara knowing about his unfaithfulness. Hammer and Mazzoli successfully rescue Bosco but Hammer is severely injured during the mission.
While Hammer is hospitalized, Mazzoli picks up Barbara at the airport to bring her to see her husband. The two exchange a level of awkwardness and it is clear they both have feelings for each other. After ensuring that Hammer is all right, Barbara and Hammer began to argue and viewers learn that Hammer slept with Barbara's best friend. While remaining around for Hammer's sake, Barbara is guided around the area by Mazzoli. The two share some alone time together and their romantic feelings come back with each aware of the other's feelings. Barbara informs Mazzoli that she will be leaving Hammer.
The SEAL commanders inform Hammer while in the hospital that they will be sending the SEALs back in to destroy the island facilities where Bosco was being held. The island is a chemical weapons manufacturing base. Hammer intends on participating in the mission but is denied for medical reasons. He falsifies paperwork and is released from the hospital. He attends the briefing for the mission and produces his falsified medical clearance which gains him a spot on the mission roster.
The mission is launched and Mazzoli learns early on that Hammer was not medically fit for diving. He raises his concern that Hammer put the whole team and mission in jeopardy. The mission is successful but the SEALs are discovered and are on the run. They commandeer a boat and plan on blowing up the boat. Hammer ensures he is the last one off the boat, but becomes snagged by netting on his jump off the boat. The boat explodes and Mazzoli is seen searching the water for his friend. He finds Hammer and Hammer tells him “I’m dying” to which Mazzoli responds “You’re always dying.” Following the SEALs' rescue by submarine, Hammer goes into cardiac arrest. Upon the ship's return to the docks, Barbara is seen waiting and smiles when she sees Mazzoli. The smile turns to grief when she sees a saddened Mazzoli and other SEALs carrying a military body bag containing Hammer's corpse off the ship. The movie ends with Mazzoli coming back into narration, saying that when Barbara and he both lost Hammer, they lost themselves as well, meaning they did not pursue a relationship.
Homer goes to Sprawl-Mart, and he buys Marge a "Kitchen Carnival" for Mother's Day, a machine that houses a cotton candy maker, a vat of liquid caramel, and a deep fryer. Eventually Homer uses it to make a giant ball of deep-fried, caramel-covered, cotton candy. When it becomes too dirty and inedible, Marge orders him to take it to the dump. While there, he is confronted by a large grizzly bear, from whom he cowers. The bear eventually wanders off without attacking, annoyed by Homer's tearful cowering. The incident becomes well known due to a nearby hunter with a camera.
Homer becomes a nervous wreck, hallucinating and seeing bears like Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington Bear, Smokey Bear, the Snuggle Bear, Teddy Grahams, the Chicago Bears, and an "Intensive Care Bear." To add insult to injury, the hunter's tape is shown on the news, and Homer is mocked by many. Homer hires the hunter, named Grant, to assist him in confronting the animal. Homer makes a near-useless suit of armor: despite Marge's objections, Bart, Lenny and Carl join him as they start on their quest.
The four of them make camp in the woods. As his homemade armor is hot, Homer eventually takes it off and bathes in a stream, where he is again attacked by the bear. With Bart, Lenny and Carl dancing to the radio and paying no attention, the bear drags Homer to his cave. Deciding to die facing the bear as a man, Homer later discovers that the bear is only angry and hostile because of the painful electrical prod that Grant attached to the bear's ear. To make sure of it, Homer takes the tag off the bear and tries it on himself, resulting in a lot of pain before taking it off. Because of being freed from the electrical prod, the bear reverts to his friendly state, licking Homer and giving him a bear hug as a thanks.
Realizing this, Homer becomes friends with the bear. In the meantime, Marge and Lisa have discovered Homer, Bart, and the suit of armor missing, and Marge hires Grant to help track Homer down, though Lisa disapproves of Grant's methods to take down the bear. Homer decides to take the bear to a nearby wildlife refuge, but on the way, they are attacked by Grant and other hunters. To ensure the bear's survival, Homer dresses the bear up in the homemade armor, which surprisingly resists the gunfire and allows the bear to reach the wildlife refuge where he is promptly attacked by Stampy the elephant, but then fights back against him for good. It is then the whole family declares to be proud of Homer for his efforts of saving the bear from the hunters, to which he responds that he loves nature.
After Bart and Lisa see Krusty the Clown broadcast his show from the Mount Splashmore water park, they pester Homer to take them there. While Marge and Maggie visit a wading pool for infants, Bart, Lisa and Homer line jump and ride an intense water slide called H2WHOA!. Because he is overweight, Homer gets lodged in the water slide mid-course. The park's rescue crew is forced to close the ride and remove the blocked section of pipe using a large crane, with Homer still stuck inside. That night, the news media poke fun at Homer's massive size during their coverage of his mishap at the water park.
After having found out that he weighs 260 pounds, Homer vows he will diet and get more exercise. While Homer is looking for his weights in the attic, Bart stumbles upon several old paintings of Ringo Starr that Marge had made as a high school student. Marge reveals she was scolded by her art teacher for painting Starr, on whom she had a crush. She sent a painting to him for his "honest opinion", but she never got a response from the Beatles' drummer. After Lisa suggests that Marge take a painting class at Springfield Community College, she paints Homer asleep on the couch in his underwear, earning praise from her teacher, Professor Lombardo. The painting wins the college art show, earning Marge fame and newspaper headlines.
Mr. Burns asks Marge to paint his portrait for a new wing of the Springfield Art Museum. Desperate to please his boss, Homer convinces Marge to agree, although she resists Homer's plea to paint Burns as a beautiful man. While Burns is taking a shower at the Simpsons' house, Marge inadvertently sees him naked. Homer finds he has lost 21 pounds from his exercise regimen and now weighs 239. After Burns disparages Homer's weight and his daughters, Lisa and Maggie, Marge throws him out of the house. She is ready to quit until Homer encourages her to finish the portrait.
Marge is also inspired by a letter from Starr, who is determined to answer decades' worth of old fan mail. After working well into the night, she finishes the painting in time for its unveiling at the opening of the museum wing. The painting depicts a naked, frail and weak Burns. The museum visitors are shocked until Marge explains that the portrait shows what Burns really is: behind all of his evil, he is a frail and vulnerable human being who is by extension just as beautiful as any other living creature in the world. At first, Burns is outraged, but then he praises Marge's painting and thanks her for not making fun of his genitalia — to which she remarks to Homer, "I thought I did."
Radhe who lives with mother and has love for a girl named Priya but Priya's father doesn't allow him to marry her because of their financial statues than one day Radhe leaves the village without anyone's notice, after leaving the village he meets a man in the journey than lives with him than after while Radhe joins the army.
The tale is a version of a story related both by the Roman historian Livy and in the 13th-century ''Roman de la Rose''. The story opens with a description of the noble Virginius and his daughter, the beautiful, virtuous Virginia. One day, Virginia accompanies her mother to the city on an errand and is spotted by a judge, whose name is later revealed to be Appius, who decides he must have her to himself. It is then that Appius concocts a scheme to take her legally: he contacts a local peasant, named Claudius, who has a reputation for being both bold and cunning and asks for assistance in the matter. Claudius accepts and is rewarded handsomely. Some time later, Claudius appears before Appius in court to file a complaint against Virginius, saying he has witnesses of his misdeeds. Appius declares that he cannot try Virginius without him being present. Virginius is called to the court and Claudius begins his accusation: Virginius stole one of Claudius' servants one night while she was young and raised her as his daughter. He then implores Appius to return his slave to him to which Appius agrees, refusing to listen Virginius' defense.
Following the sentence, Virginius returns home with a "deathlike" face and calls his daughter into the hall. He then informs Virginia of the events that have transpired and offers her two choices: to be shamed by Appius or to die at her father's hand. Recalling the story of Jephthah, Virginia asks for time to lament her position for a moment before consenting to death by her father's blade. Virginius then beheads Virginia and brings her head to Appius in court. Upon seeing Virginia's severed head, Appius orders that Virginius be hanged immediately. However, a thousand people burst into the room in response and defend Virginius, having heard of Claudius' false charges and reasoning that Appius had arranged it based on the judge's lecherous reputation. The crowd arrests Appius and throws him in prison where he commits suicide. Claudius is set to be hanged with the others who had helped Appius in his scheme but Virginius, in a moment of clemency, asks that the peasant be exiled instead. The tale then ends with the Physician warning of the repercussions of sin.
The story opens with Juna telling her boyfriend Tokio that she feels too cramped in the city, and deciding to take a trip to the Sea of Japan. On the drive, they get in an accident caused by a large, invisible worm-like creature and Juna dies. As her spirit leaves her body, Juna sees the dying Earth. The planet's suffering is visualized by worm-like creatures similar to the one that caused the accident that killed her. Known as the Raaja, they vary in size, from microscopic bacteria to those entwining the planet. A young boy named Chris appears before Juna and offers to save her life if she will help the planet. She reluctantly agrees and is resurrected.
Supported by Chris, Tokio and SEED, an international organization that monitors the environment and confronts the Raaja, Juna must use her new powers to stop the Raaja from destroying Earth through humankind's destruction of the environmental systems of the planet, and Chris can only hope that she can fully awaken her powers in time to save the world.
In the near end of the anime, Chris is revealed to be responsible for using a spillage of genetically engineered decomposition bacteria to summon Raajas that ravage Japan, causing everything including their modern clothes, gadgets, accessories, as well as food, water and electricity, to all be destroyed. All the people are thus forced to wear traditional Japanese clothes, and others become sick due to starvation and dehydration. This forces Juna to fight Chris and the Raajas for the sake of the people that she cares about when SEED tries to put her to safety. It is during this time that she finally understands how to fully awaken her powers, and saves everyone. When Chris is defeated and after realizing his mistakes, he dies and disappears. Juna, satisfied to see her friends and her boyfriend Tokio one last time before dying for the second time tells them to eat the Raaja, and Tokio discovers that the Raajas that she defeated was made by food and water nutrients as he grabs it stating that they can survive to live once more.
Invited to Nazi Germany during World War II, Dr. Asagumo is asked by Hitler to collaborate in researching the new weapon "Big X". Concerned about the possible effects of this weapon, Dr. Asagumo intentionally delays the progress of the research, conspiring with his co-researcher, the devious Dr. Engel. Immediately before Germany is defeated by the Allies, Dr. Asagumo is shot to death by the German army but not before implanting a card inscribed with the secret of Big X into his son, Shigeru. An organization claiming alliance with the Nazis appears, steals the card from Shigeru, who now lives in Tokyo, and completes the Big X project, which is revealed to be a drug that can expand the human body without limitation. Dr. Engel's grandson has joined the Nazi Alliance. Recovering Big X from the enemy, Shigeru's son Akira fearlessly challenges the Nazi Alliance and Hans Engel, who are plotting to conquer the world.
Taking place in the year 2279, a planetary research project is sent into the depths of space. One particular group of researchers lands on and partly colonizes the alien planet Delia. However, sometime after their stay, an emergency transmission is sent from Delia to their security force orbiting the planet. The only clue they are given is a message regarding a hazardous leak. The planet's space fighters had become possessed by an unknown space squadron of alien bioships that appear out of nowhere and soon make themselves a hostile threat among the possessed fighters. The player assumes the role of Wink Baulfield (named Rick in the Game Boy Advance version), an ace pilot assigned to investigate the disaster and possibly discover what is invading Delia in the assignment Operation Climax in the experimental space fighter the A/144 Phalanx.
Pete (played by Antti Tarvainen) is a seventeen-year-old boy who loses his consciousness while playing in a pop band. The diagnosis of cancer is harsh and the doctor cannot say for sure whether Pete will celebrate his 18th birthday. Hospitalized, he meets Jusa (Joonas Saartamo), a "tough guy", cancer patient too. They eventually become friends, after a first moment of clash. One night, encouraged by the vodka on Jusa's 18th birthday, Pete confesses his love to Kata (Johanna Rönnlöf), his dream girl since high school. Jusa and Pete travel to Lapland where Kata has a summer job at her uncle's hotel. In Jusa's wild company, Pete experiences something which he never felt before as they decide to take a trip to Mombasa via Lapland, together with Kata, as this is Jusa's last wish before his inevitable death.
Jusa has sex with Kata to whom he loses his virginity. Pete acquiesces and stays in the red convertible while Jusa and Kata are having a sexual intercourse in a barn. Afterwards Pete joins them and the three spend the night together sleeping in the barn. Jusa will never see the dreamed beach of Mombasa: he dies in the company of Kata and Pete in Finland on the beach by the shiny blue Baltic Sea.
The movie's theme song is "Mombasa" performed by the band Denigrate. The song is a remake of the eponymous 1975 hit performed by Taiska, which is the original Finnish cover of the Italian song "Ibo-le-le".
A powerful and chiseled 8th-century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, from a custom of killing the leader at the first sign of aging. After fleeing, no longer a king but only a man, he travels through Eurasia, on a newfound quest for the secret to longevity. Eventually he stumbles upon the stamping grounds of the pungent goat-god Pan, who is slowly losing his godly powers as the world turns toward Christianity. Pan encourages Alobar to continue East in search of the masters of immortality.
Meanwhile, in the present day, Priscilla, a part-time waitress and amateur perfumer, is stalled in re-creating the fragrance from the last remaining drops of a three-hundred-year-old perfume bottle in her possession. She rejects the sexual advances of her co-worker Ricki. She begins an affair with an eccentric Irish philosopher, Wiggs Dannyboy, who runs a clinic for immortality research called the Last Laugh Foundation. She attempts to ignore the mysterious deliveries of beets she keeps receiving at her apartment.
In New Orleans, Priscilla's stepmother, Madame Devalier, a once successful perfumer, is also working to recreate the same fragrance as Priscilla. Madame D’s protégé V'lu urges her to attempt to formulate a scent that will compete with their historic competition in Paris. The two have their hands on premium Jamaican jasmine supplied by a mysterious man with the helmet of swarming bees, Bingo Pajama, a symbolic figure in the story.
In Paris, Claude and Marcel LeFever of the LeFever Parfumarie are not concerned with the small perfume house in New Orleans, but rather their new scent and its synthetic base. Claude has been charged with keeping an eye on Marcel’s stability. Though the "creative nose" of the company, his latest ideas on evolution of a new consciousness have got his uncle, the owner, Luc Lefever, more than a bit unsettled. It is revealed that Luc has placed Marcel’s lover V’lu as a secret agent to send them information about Perfumerie Devalier.
In Ancient India, a heinous widow commits suttee, a ritual of self-immolation. Alobar consoles a young girl, Kudra, who was horrified at the sight of the woman attempting to escape the flames of the funeral pyre. Years later, the girl, now a young woman, arrives at a lamasery where Alobar has taken residence for two decades. The two fall in love, and as with most of Robbins' couples, their mutual libido is enormous, and their love quite like something out of a comedic fairy tale. Kudra reveals that she recently escaped suttee herself, and the two find a common bond in their defiance of death.
Alobar tells Kudra about his encounter with a mysterious group known as "The Bandaloop Doctors," who are masters of immortality. The two set off to the caves of the Bandaloop to learn immortalist practices. Through the remaining vibrations of the now empty caves, the lovers begin a daily practice of controlled breathing, regular fasting, frequent sex, and bathing in extremely hot water. Alobar and Kudra, successful in their practices and never aging, find they are constantly on the run, moving around Europe to avoid the threat of violence against them for their heathen practices. After several hundred years, they have settled and opened a perfume shop in 17th century Paris. When a group of monks threaten their lives, they try to create a perfume to take "stinky Pan" to the New World with them. When time runs out, they attempt a sort of new transcendental meditation and become separated into different astral planes. Alobar completes the perfume formula with Pan and they voyage to the New World. Alobar ultimately loses not only the love of his life, but the precious bottle of sweetly scented perfume.
In the present, the ancient bottle of perfume is stolen by V’lu while Priscilla is attending a dinner with Wiggs Dannyboy at the Last Laugh Foundation. Priscilla goes to New Orleans to retrieve it, but misses Madame Devalier and V'lu. The pair are in hiding after witnessing the murder of Bingo Pajama.
Later, Priscilla's relationship with Wiggs Dannyboy is put on hold by a tragedy at the Last Laugh Foundation. But Dannyboy relays the good news that Marcel Lefever and his good friend, the thousand-year old Alobar, will be coming to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and that he will arrive shortly thereafter.
Alobar, Marcel, and Priscilla all convene for Mardi Gras, where they encounter Pan one final time. Priscilla recovers the bottle when V'lu and Madame Devalier return. Together, they learn the secret of the mysterious beets, the perfume and the story of Alobar and Kudra. In Paris, the story makes a final stop in another dimension, led by Kudra, discovering the way to immortality.
The main message is summarized in the words spoken in Alobar's 8th century Bohemian dialect Erleichda, loosely translated as "lighten up".
Prior to the series there was war between the Guylos Empire and the Helic Republic which ended in a ceasefire. The series starts with Van being chased by a group of bandit Zoid pilots and discovering the organoid Zeke in ruins near his village. Zeke revives an abandoned Shield Liger, which Van uses to fight off the bandits. Returning to the same ruins, he discovers Fiona, a mysterious girl with no memories. When Van returns to his village, the gang of bandits return and try to take Zeke from Van. To keep his village safe, he leaves with Fiona. Van hears Fiona speak of something called ''Zoid Eve'' and decides to help her find it in hopes that it will help her memories return. Shortly afterwards, they meet Irvine. Initially, Van and Irvine are enemies because of Irvine's attempts to steal Zeke, but they end up traveling together when they meet Moonbay. Van has to travel with Moonbay because she blew up her cargo to help him.
Later, the four arrive at one of the Republic's army bases and help to stop an invasion by the Empire orchestrated by Prozen. Afterward, Van, Fiona, Irvine, and Moonbay try to stay out of the war. However, Van is drawn back in when he meets the Guylos ace pilot Raven, quickly developing a grudge after witnessing Raven's brutal nature. They fight, but Van proves to be no match for Raven. Van later challenges Raven again, losing a second time, and Zeke suffers near-fatal damage, but Van manages to save him. During this time the Imperial army is marching farther and farther into Republican territory but are eventually stopped by the Republic's new weapon, the Gojulas. Van and the others eventually reach the Republic's capital in hopes of finding information about Zoid Eve, but are caught up in the Empire's surprise assault on the city. During the battle Van is finally able to defeat Raven, the latter destroying his own Zoid as he attempts to pierce the Liger's energy shield.
The war is stopped when the Empire's crown prince Rudolph orders a ceasefire, but Prozen refuses to give up on conquering the Republic and attempts to assassinate the prince. His attempt is foiled by the bandits Rosso and Viola, who kidnap the prince for ransom. However, Prozen announces that the prince is dead, seizing control of the Empire for himself. Prozen finds the remnants of legends about an apocalyptically powerful Zoid, the Death Saurer, and attempts to clone it. As a byproduct of the cloning research, the Geno Saurer is created and given to Raven. Raven uses the Geno Saurer to destroy Van's Shield Liger, but Zeke and Fiona later revive the Shield Liger as the Blade Liger.
It is revealed that Fiona is actually an ancient Zoidian that existed before humans came to the planet Zi. Rudolph joins Van and his friends, who try to take him to the Empire's capital Guygalos to stop Prozen from taking over the Empire and restarting the war. When Rudolph resurfaces, Prozen claims that he is an imposter, manipulating the imperial forces into fighting against the prince and his friends. Eventually, Van faces Raven again, and after an extremely difficult battle destroys the Geno Saurer. Raven survives thanks to his organoid Shadow.
Van and his friends succeed in returning Rudolph to the capital, but Prozen unleashes his cloned Death Saurer. The Death Saurer goes on a rampage and almost destroys the capital, with the joint forces of the Empire and Republic powerless to stop it. Van is able to destroy the Death Saurer using what he learned fighting against the Geno Saurer. Prozen, riding the Death Saurer, appears to be killed in the process. Rudolph is then crowned the emperor and peace finally begins between the Empire and Republic, but Van and Fiona don't take part in the celebration and instead leave to find Zoid Eve.
Two years after the Death Saurer's defeat, Van is shown to have joined the Helic army. On a trip home he meets up with Fiona, now a researcher for the military, and the two decide to try to find the Zoid Eve again. Van and Fiona are assigned to a joint task force, the Guardian Force, formed by the Empire and Republic. They work with Thomas Schubaltz of the Empire to fight against those who threaten the peace between the nations. The Guardian Force faces a number of antagonists. Most notably, they have multiple encounters with two mysterious individuals who have organoids, Reese and Hiltz. Raven also resurfaces, piloting various Zoids until he obtains a new Geno Saurer that later evolves into the Geno Breaker. The Guardian Force's members clash with Reese, Raven, Hiltz, and other criminals a number of times.
Eventually it is revealed that Reese and Hiltz are working to awaken a mysterious Zoid known as the Death Stinger, a very large and extremely powerful Zoid capable of destroying cities with its charged particle beam. Hiltz uses the Death Stinger to destroy the Republic's capital, despite a massive mobilization of Imperial and Republican military forces. The remaining forces gather and awaken the Ultrasaurus, a giant mobile fortress Zoid meant to be used as a last resort. The Ultrasaurus is fitted with the gravity cannon, an immense weapon nearly as large as the Ultrasaurus itself.
Hiltz continues his campaign of destruction across the continent. The Ultrasaurus pursues, and Van, Irvine, and Thomas close in to pin down the Death Stinger for the gravity cannon. They successfully hit the Death Stinger with the gravity cannon's third and final shot, crushing it. Its Zoid core shuts down and the Zoid begins to turn into stone. However, Hiltz's organoid Ambient appears and fuses with the Death Stinger, resurrecting it. Van and friends make headway against the still-weakened Death Stinger, but Hiltz, the Death Stinger, and Fiona all suddenly dissolve into light.
Fiona materializes before the Dark Kaiser, revealed to be Prozen merged with the Death Saurer's Zoid core. He manipulates Fiona to open the doors to the Ancient Zoidian city of Evopolis, where the Zoid Eve is located. Fiona regains her memories and explains that the Zoid Eve is the source of life for all Zoids. Zoids initially brought great prosperity, but some turned them into tools for war. The Death Saurer was created to end all wars, but instead began to destroy everything. The Zoidians could not bring themselves to destroy the Zoid Eve, which would end the life of all Zoids, so they sealed it away along with the Death Saurer's body.
Hiltz and the Death Stinger re-materialize in front of Van, who is heading toward Fiona. Van faces Hiltz, aided by Ambient, without his own organoid Zeke. He astounds Hiltz by out-fighting the more powerful Zoid. Van and the Death Stinger arrive at Evopolis, and Prozen demands that the Death Stinger merge with him into the Death Saurer. However, the core instead absorbs him. Hiltz and the Death Stinger merge with Death Saurer core, bringing the monster back to life. The awakened Death Saurer is much more powerful than the incomplete clone that was previously defeated. The combined forces of the military, Van, Raven, Reese, and a fourth gravity cannon shell are unable to even harm it. The Death Saurer and Hiltz are finally stopped by firing the Blade Liger out of the gravity cannon like a bullet, piercing the Death Saurer's core, critically damaging it and killing Hiltz once and for all. After the destruction of the Death Saurer, Planet Zi lives in peace.
After losing her mother in an earthquake in Paleolithic Europe, 5-year-old Cro-Magnon Ayla (Emma Floria) is left alone in the woods. She then suffers a severe injury to her legs from a nearby cave lion. After suffering from starvation, exhaustion, and infection of her wounds, she collapses, on the verge of death. She is rescued by Iza (Pamela Reed), the healer of a group of Neanderthals who call themselves "The Clan", against the orders for her to be left to die by the clan's chief, Brun (John Doolittle), because she is clearly a member of "the Others", the distrusted antagonists of the Clan. Brun refuses to accept Ayla when Iza adopts her, only allowing her to stay with the Clan because Iza refuses to abandon her. The Clan calls her "Ayla", the closest they can come to pronouncing her birth name.
Through meditation, Iza's brother, Creb (the group's shaman), comes to believe that the child may be protected by the spirit of the cave lion, a powerful "totem" that is never given to a woman and very few men. He cites the cave lion attack the girl experienced shortly before being discovered as proof that its spirit marked her so that she could be adopted into the Clan. After traveling with them for a while and starting to heal, Ayla wanders away from the group when they stop to discuss what they should do and she discovers a huge, beautiful cave, perfect for their needs; many of the people begin to regard Ayla as lucky, especially since good fortune continues to come their way as they begin to accept her in the fold.
Ayla's different thought processes lead her to break important Clan customs, particularly the taboo against females handling weapons. She is self-willed and spirited, but tries hard to fit in with the Neanderthals, although she has to learn everything first-hand; she does not possess the ancestral memories of the Clan which enable them to do certain tasks after being shown only once.
Iza trains Ayla as a medicine woman "of her line", the most prestigious line of medicine women out of all of the Clans. It takes her much longer to train Ayla than it will her own daughter, Uba (Lycia Naff), since Ayla does not possess the memories of the Clan. Iza is concerned that when Ayla grows up nobody will want her as their mate, making her a burden to the Clan. So she trains Ayla to be a highly respected medicine woman who will have her own "status" and will not have to rely on the status of a mate.
Meanwhile, Broud (Joey Cramer), the son of Brun, disdains Ayla and when they both reach adulthood, Broud (Thomas G. Waites) brutally rapes Ayla (Daryl Hannah) in an impulsive bid to demonstrate his control over her. Broud continues to assault Ayla multiple times daily leaving her despondent, and she soon becomes pregnant. Iza explains to Ayla that her unusual appearance compared to the rest of the Clan will likely preclude her from obtaining a mate before she gives birth, a circumstance Iza's people believe will bring bad luck to their settlement. Ayla witnesses Broud trying to master a ((slingshot)) with no success, she then takes it and soon becomes skilled with it. The clan are then attacked by a pack of wolves and Ayla saves a child from being killed with the slingshot, the clan then decide to banish her from their settlement, she finds shelter in another cave. Following a difficult pregnancy and a near-fatal labor, Ayla rejoices in the birth of a son but, due to his appearance being an amalgamation of Clan and Other features, he is considered deformed and almost taken away from her, but because she has proven to have survived on her own and be a skilled hunter, she is allowed to keep him, and is given the name Durc.
After Iza's death, Broud is named chief by Brun. Broud's first order is to take Ayla for himself and separate her from her son, giving him to another couple, and he also exiles the already elderly Creb as there's another shaman in charge. Ayla opposes and fights Broud, defeating him. Thus a humiliated Broud agrees to keep Creb with the clan, but Ayla still chooses to leave, saying goodbye to her son, in search of her own people.
In the Genesis version, the Warner Siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, decide to open up a hip-pop culture shop in order to become closer to their favorite movie stars. To this end, they travel across various movie sets in the Warner Bros. studio lot in order to retrieve movie memorabilia to sell. However, once they collect all the memorabilia, Pinky and the Brain attempt to steal them in order to further their world domination plans.
In the SNES version, the Brain once again has another plan to conquer the world by deciding to steal the script of the new Warner Bros. film while it was under development. The CEO of Warner Bros. studio reluctantly asks the Warner Siblings for their assistance to retrieve all 24 pages of the script and foil the Brain's plan, which is the primary objective of the game. The ending of the game depends on how many script pages are collected, with the best ending leading to Warner Bros. being able to complete the film, pleasing the CEO, only to find out that the film was about the Warner Siblings, which pleases them.
In the frontier town of Stetson City, Arizona, in 1885, business is booming at the Trigger Whisky Saloon. Tornado Lou, the local chanteuse, regales the saloon-goers with a sultry ballad ("Když v báru houstne dým"), while the saloon owner Doug Badman tries in vain to woo her. Two evangelists, Ezra Goodman and his daughter Winnifred, enter the bar attempting to drum up interest in their temperance movement, but the saloon's hard-drinking cowboys scorn them. Into the fracas steps a stranger: Lemonade Joe, a lone cowboy singing the praises of Kolaloka, a non-alcoholic soft drink (in Czech, ''limonáda'', hence the name; the name is throughout the film pronounced phonetically ''yoh-eh'', as a tongue-in-cheek hommage to a practice common among the Czech fans of Wild West novels at the time). His superior gunfighting skill quickly convinces the saloon-goers of the benefits of teetotalism. Before long, Joe and the Goodmans have joined forces, Joe has begun courting Winnifred, and all the cowboys in Stetson City have transferred their loyalty to the cathedral-like God Bless Kolaloka Saloon ("Arizóna, to je pravých mužů zóna").
Doug Badman's business is saved by the arrival of his brother Horace, alias "Hogofogo, the Master Criminal of the Wild West". In a dramatic public appearance, Hogofogo convinces the Kolaloka customers to go back to Trigger Whisky, and soon the old saloon is back in business ("Whisky to je moje gusto"). Joe, unaware of the developments, is riding on the prairie ("Sou fár tů jů áj méj") until, thanks to a mirage, he discovers that Hogofogo has his own designs on Winnifred. Joe saves Winnifred from his clutches, but in the ensuing fight, his account book falls to the ground. Reading it, Winnifred discovers the truth: Joe is not the selfless hero he appears, but rather a traveling salesman for Kolalok & Son, makers of Kolaloka. Delighted at the news, Winnifred pledges her love for Joe. However, the chanteuse Tornado Lou has also fallen for Joe, imagining him as the ideal lover who will make her "different, better."
Joe returns to Trigger Whisky Saloon, where, in another display of fighting skill, he wins the customers back to Kolaloka once again ("Můj bóže, můj bóže"). Hogofogo, in disguise, attempts to shoot Joe, but Joe instead engages him in a gunfighting chase through the town, trying to force him into signing a testimonial in favor of Kolaloka. Though Hogofogo seems momentarily to have the upper hand ("Horácova polka"), Tornado Lou attacks Hogofogo and saves Joe's life. Joe, too commercially oriented to understand her devotion, spurns her advances. In misery, she vows to help the Badmans lure Joe to his death. Their plan begins with Hogofogo, now disguised as a blind piano tuner ("Horácův pohřební blues"), kidnapping Winnifred as a bait to lure Joe to Dead Man's Valley ("Balada Mexico Kida"). There, the Badmans' henchmen, led by Grimpo, capture him and torture him, but Lou has a change of heart and saves his life again, reuniting him with Winnifred. Meanwhile, Hogofogo waits for his henchmen to deliver Winnifred to his room. Instead, Joe appears and forces him to sign the testimonial. Hogofogo, taking advantage of Joe's aversion to spirits, ambushes him with a volley of gunshot and leaves him dead.
Hogofogo tracks Winnifred down to the Stetson City cemetery, where he attempts once again to kidnap her. When the now-moral Tornado Lou stops him, he kills her; in revenge, Doug Badman kills Hogofogo, and in his death throes, Hogofogo kills Doug. Just as he is about to shoot Winnifred, Lemonade Joe enters alive and well; surveying the three dead bodies, he notices their birthmarks and discovers that they are his long-lost siblings. He revives them with the same medicine that has just brought him back to life: the miraculous soft drink Kolaloka. Joe's father—none other than Mr. Kolalok himself, owner of Kolalok & Son—enters just in time for a happy ending, in which villains and heroes alike agree to work together and merge their businesses to create a new drink, Whiskola. The entire Kolalok family, including the newly married Winnifred and Joe, ride off into the sunset in a stagecoach as the population of Stetson City cheer.
The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (modern Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. The movie opens with a panoramic shot of a bucolic Russian countryside. Katerina Matveyevna, Sukhov's beloved wife, is standing in a field. Awakening from this daydream, Sukhov is walking through the Central Asian desert – a stark contrast to his homeland. He finds Sayid buried in the sand. Sayid, an austere Central Asian, comes to Sukhov's rescue in sticky situations throughout the movie. Sukhov frees Sayid, and they strike a friendly but reticent relationship. While traveling together they are caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rakhimov, leaves to Sukhov the harem, which was abandoned by the Basmachi leader Abdullah, for temporary protection. He also leaves a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, and proceeds to pursue the fleeing Abdullah.
Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore village. There, Sukhov charges the local museum's curator with protecting the women, and prepares to head home. Sukhov hopes to "modernize" the wives of the harem, and make them part of the modern society. He urges them to take off their burqa and reject polygamy. The wives are loath to do this, though, and as Sukhov takes on the role of protector, the wives declare him their new husband.
Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same village and find Abdullah's wives. Sukhov is bound to stay. Hoping to obtain help and weapons, Sukhov and Petrukha visit Pavel Vereschagin, a former Tsar's customs official. Vereschagin warms to Petrukha who reminds him of his dead son, but after discussing the matter with his nagging wife, Vereschagin refuses. Sukhov finds a machine gun and a case of dynamite that he plants on Abdullah's ship. Meanwhile, Abdullah has confronted his wives, and is preparing to punish them for their "dishonor", as they did not kill themselves when Abdullah left them. Sukhov manages to capture and lock Abdullah as a hostage, but after he leaves, Abdullah convinces Gyulchatai, the youngest wife of the harem, to free him and then kills Gyulchatai and Petrukha.
The museum curator shows Sukhov an ancient underground passage that leads to the sea. Sukhov and the women of the harem attempt to escape through the passage, but on arriving at the seashore they are impelled to hide in a large empty oil tank. Abdullah discovers that and plans on setting the oil tank on fire.
Enraged at the cold-hearted murder of Petrukha, Vereschagin decides to help Sukhov and takes Abdullah's ship. Sayid also helps Sukhov, and together they fend off Abdullah's gang. Vereschagin, unaware of the dynamite on the ship and not hearing Sukhov's shouted warnings, tragically dies on the exploding ship.
Sukhov kills Abdullah and his gang, and returns the harem to Rakhimov. He then begins his journey home on foot, having refused a horse since a horse is merely "a nuisance". Whether Sukhov will make it home to his beloved wife is unclear: the revolution is not over in Central Asia, and an exemplary Red Army soldier like Sukhov may well be needed.
''The Iceman Cometh'' is set in New York in 1912 in Harry Hope's downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house. The patrons, twelve men and three prostitutes, are dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in one another's company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They drift purposelessly from day to day, coming fully alive only during the semi-annual visits of salesman Theodore "Hickey" Hickman. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to arrive in time for Harry's birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters as they bicker among themselves, showing how drunk and delusional they are, all the while awaiting Hickey.
Joe Mott insists that he will soon re-open his casino. The English Cecil "The Captain" Lewis and South African Piet "The General" Wetjoen, who fought each other during the Boer War, are now good friends, and both insist that they'll soon return to their nations of origin. Harry Hope has not left the bar since his wife Bess's death 20 years ago. He promises that he'll walk around the block on his birthday, which is the next day. Pat McGloin says he hopes to be reinstated into the police force, but is waiting for the right moment. Ed Mosher prides himself on his ability to give incorrect change, but he kept too much of his illegitimate profits to himself and was fired; he says he will get his job back someday. Hugo Kalmar is drunk and passed out for most of the play; when he is conscious, he pesters the other patrons to buy him a drink. Chuck Morello says that he will marry Cora tomorrow. Larry Slade is a former syndicalist-anarchist who looks pityingly on the rest. Don Parritt is a former anarchist who shows up later in the play to talk about his mother (Larry's ex-girlfriend) to Larry; specifically her arrest due to her involvement in the anarchist movement.
When Hickey finally arrives, his behavior throws the characters into turmoil. With as much charisma as ever, he insists that he sees life clearly now as never before because he no longer drinks. Hickey wants the characters to cast away their delusions and accept that their heavy drinking and inaction mean that their hopes will never be fulfilled. He takes on this task with a near-maniacal fervor. How he goes about his mission, how the other characters respond, and their efforts to find out what has wrought this change in him, take over four hours to resolve. During and after Harry's birthday party, most seem to have been somewhat affected by Hickey's ramblings. Larry pretends to be unaffected, but when Don reveals he was the informant responsible for the arrest of his own mother (Larry's former girlfriend), Larry rages at him; Willie decides McGloin's appeal will be his first case, and Rocky admits he is a pimp.
Most of the men Hickey talked with do go out into the world—dressed up, hopeful of turning their lives around—but they fail to make any progress. Eventually, they return and are jolted by a sudden revelation. Hickey, who had earlier told the other characters first that his wife had died and then that she was murdered, admits that he is the one who killed her. The police arrive, apparently called by Hickey himself, to arrest Hickey. Hickey justifies the murder in a dramatic monologue, saying that he did it out of love for her. He relates that his father was a preacher in the backwoods of Indiana. Evidently he was both charismatic and persuasive, and it was his inheriting these traits which led Hickey to become a salesman. An angry kid trapped in a small town, Hickey had no use for anyone but his sweetheart, Evelyn. Evelyn's family forbade her to associate with Hickey, but she ignored them. After Hickey left to become a salesman, he promised he would marry Evelyn as soon as he was able. He became a successful salesman, then sent for her and the two were very happy until Hickey became increasingly guilty following his wife's constant forgiveness of his infidelities and drinking. He then recounts how he murdered her to free her from the pain of his persistent philandering and drinking because she loved him too much to live apart from him. But, in retelling the murder, he laughs and tells Evelyn, "Well, you know what you can do with that pipe dream now, don't you?" In realizing he said this, Hickey breaks down completely. He realizes that he went truly insane and that people need their empty dreams to keep existing. The others agree and decide to testify to his insanity during Hickey's trial despite Hickey's begging them to let him get the death sentence. He no longer wishes to live now that he has no illusions about life.
They return to their empty promises and pipe dreams except for Parritt, who runs to his room and jumps off the fire escape, unable to live with the knowledge of what he has done to his mother after discarding the last of his lies about his action and motivation for it. He first claims that he did it due to patriotism and then for money, but finally admits he did it because he hated his mother, who was so obsessed with her own freedom of action that she became self-centered and alternately ignored or dominated him. Despite witnessing the young man's fatal leap, and acknowledging the futility of his own situation ("by God, there's no hope! I'll never be a success...Life is too much for me!"), Larry fears death as much as life and is consequently left in limbo.
Paul Benjamin is a forty-seven year old CPA who lives in Manhattan with his wife Esther in an apartment close to their daughter, Carol, and her husband Jack Tobey. Paul is a staunch liberal, volunteering his time to civic organizations, being generous and compassionate, and trying to rationalize the crime and misery he witnesses on a daily basis. He refuses to move out of the city, explaining that while the suburbs might be safer and cleaner, he can't leave New York after having lived there his entire life.
One day, Paul gets a call at work from Jack telling him to come to the hospital. There, a patrolman explains that three junkies broke into Paul's apartment and assaulted Esther and Carol, beating the former to death before stealing Paul's television and fleeing. Carol is still alive, but in a vegetative state where she can no longer meaningfully interact with anyone. After his wife's funeral, Paul begins to undergo an emotional and personal transformation. He refuses to leave his apartment, has new locks put on the doors, and starts carrying a club made from a sock stuffed with quarters in his pocket. He also sheds his previous beliefs; everyone he sees is now either a potential criminal or unproductive, useless "cattle". Paul gradually aligns himself with the conservative viewpoints of his co-workers, unnerving them.
The sudden changes in his personality and behavior also alienate Paul from his son-in-law, who disagrees with Paul's contention that since the police aren't making any headway with Esther's case, they ought to hunt down her murderers themselves. Jack points out that vigilantism is not a real solution to crime, and that Paul isn't doing himself any favors by obsessing over what happened to her. When Paul asks for help obtaining a permit so he can carry a gun, Jack refuses. Paul appears to give in, returning to his old job and even accepting a dinner invitation from his friend Sam.
One night while walking home drunk, Paul is threatened with a knife by a teenage boy. Overcome with rage, Paul pulls out his club and tries to kill the boy, who runs away in sheer terror. The experience changes Paul; he decides that he won't "let those animals run him out of his own town anymore", and accepts an offer from his boss to go to Tucson to work on a business merger between two rival companies. He sleeps with a woman named Shirley whom he meets in a bar, and visits a sporting goods shop, where he purchases a .32 Smith & Wesson revolver and smuggles it back into New York along with a large stash of ammunition.
Jack calls his father-in-law, revealing that Carol's condition has deteriorated to the point where she can no longer feed, wash, or take care of herself; Paul reluctantly signs off on Jack's plan to have her placed in a mental institution; he then purchases a jacket, hat, and gloves and starts looking for criminals, deliberately presenting himself as a harmless, affluent old man in order to attract attention. After initially finding no good targets, Paul is held up by a junkie, and shoots him three times. Over the next few weeks, Paul keeps up the pretense of being his usual self by going to work and attending social events while discreetly continuing his vigilante activities; he shoots another mugger and a man he catches burglarizing an apartment. He also tries more sophisticated tactics, renting a car and leaving it unoccupied with a sign reading "Out of Gas" on the windshield. When two thieves show up to strip the car for parts, Paul shoots them both.
Paul's actions lead to him being dubbed "the vigilante" in the press, and divides the public over whether his killings are justified. The police declare him a menace, and a magazine runs an article where a psychiatrist accurately describes Paul's motivations and personal history, and states that if he is insane, it's because he's acting against social norms that prevent ordinary people from acting on their base desires for revenge. One night, Paul shoots at a group of young men and women throwing bricks and rocks at a subway train. While hunting for his quarry, a beat cop stumbles onto the scene and recognizes Paul as the vigilante. Unwilling to commit suicide, Paul is about to surrender when the cop suddenly tips his hat and walks away. The story then ends with Paul finishing his work and quietly heading home.
Yukio Tanaka, known as "Koyuki" by his friends, is a regular 14-year-old Japanese boy starting eighth grade in junior high school. His boring life is changed when he saves an odd-looking dog, named Beck, from some kids. Beck's owner turns out to be an emerging rock musician, 16-year-old Ryusuke Minami, who soon influences Koyuki to start playing the guitar. The story focuses on the trials and tribulations of their rock band named ''Beck'', and Koyuki's relationships with its members, in particular Ryusuke and his 14-year-old half-sister Maho.
After hanging out with Ryusuke and seeing him play with his former band, Koyuki slowly becomes interested in Western rock music. Ryusuke gives him a guitar, but when Koyuki breaks it, Ryusuke tells him never to speak to him again. At the same time, Ryusuke forms his new band Beck, with vocalist Tsunemi Chiba, bassist Yoshiyuki Taira, and Togo, the drummer from his previous band. Koyuki begins working for, and learning guitar from, 44-year-old Kenichi Saitou in exchange to have the guitar fixed.
He reunites with Ryusuke a year later, and begins to rehearse with Beck. Koyuki then makes friends with his classmate Yuji "Saku" Sakurai. When Togo leaves the band, Ryusuke has Koyuki and Saku join Beck as support musicians, becoming full members only when the band hears Koyuki sing. Eventually Beck releases their first album, which gets released on an independent record label in the United States, under the band name Mongolian Chop Squad. After gaining popularity from their US album and Koyuki being in an internationally screened concert documentary, Beck earns a spot at the music festival Grateful Sound 5, where they put on the most talked about show of the whole festival. (The live-action film adaptation ends here.) However, circumstances cause them to part ways, making it their last performance.
Finding life tedious without being in Beck, Koyuki slowly gets the members back together, except Ryusuke, whose whereabouts are unknown. They perform a few shows as a quartet, before getting an offer to tour the US based on their Grateful Sound 5 performance. After Koyuki and Saku drop out of school to do the tour, Beck heads to America. But after several bad performances, they are about to get kicked off the tour before reuniting with Ryusuke in Seattle. (The anime adaptation ends here.) The rest of the tour is a hit and they end up appearing on national TV before heading back to Japan.
After releasing two singles, Beck goes on a nationwide tour of Japan and earn a spot at Grateful Sound 7. However, they are later cut from the lineup. They slowly bounce back after forming a tour with several similar-sounding bands, get signed to a popular British indie record label, and start recording their first full album. The now-famous director who created the concert documentary Koyuki once appeared in ends up directing their first music video. Their album and music video do well both in Japan and England, earning them numerous magazine articles in both countries. After another nationwide tour of Japan, they do a short tour of England, including a spot at the relaunch of the legendary Avalon Festival. The band then signs to a major international record label and records their major debut album in New York. With the album hugely successful worldwide, they tour Japan and America extensively, and the series then ends with Beck headlining the main stage at Grateful Sound 9.
The novel begins with the phrase, "In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day." The novel is purely poetical, and its protagonist in time aspires to become a poet who invests the lives of men with reality in its most beautiful of forms. Peter Camenzind easily reminds one of Hesse's other protagonists, i.e. Siddhartha, Goldmund, and Harry Haller. Like them, he suffers deeply and undergoes many intellectual, physical, and spiritual journeys. In the course of his many journeys, he will come to experience the diverse landscapes of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as the wide range of emotions that humans exhibit at different stages in their lives. In a later stage of his life, he will embody the ideal of St. Francis as he cares for a crippled man, from whom he gains as much as he gives.
Peter Camenzind, as a youth, leaves his mountain village with a great ambition to experience the world and to become one of its denizens. Having experienced the loss of his mother at an early age, and with a desire to leave behind a callous father, he heads to university. As he progresses through his studies, he meets and falls in love with the painter, Erminia Aglietti and becomes a close friend to a young pianist named Richard. Greatly saddened because of the latter's death, he takes up wandering to soak up the diverse experiences of life.
Ever faced with the vicissitudes of life, he continually takes up alcohol as a means to confront the harshness and inexplicable strangeness of life. He also meets and falls in love with Elizabeth, even though she will later marry another man. However, his journey through Italy changes him in many respects and enhances his ability to love life and see beauty within all things. Only when he becomes friends with Boppi, a man with a physical disability, does he truly experience what it means to love another human being. In time, he comes to see in Boppi a wonderful reflection of humanity in its noblest form, and the two forge an indelible friendship. After Boppi dies, Peter Camenzind returns to his village and takes care of his aging father, even as he plans out the completion of his life's great work.
CIA director Maxwell Danforth (Burt Lancaster) watches a recording of agent Laurence Fassett (John Hurt) and his wife having sex. When Fassett goes into the bathroom to have a shower, two KGB assassins enter the bedroom and kill his wife. The CIA had in fact sanctioned her killing. Fassett, unaware of his employer's involvement, was consumed by grief and rage. He hunted the assassins, eventually uncovering a Soviet spy network known as Omega.
Three of the top agents in the Omega network are Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson), a television producer who knows martial arts; Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper), a plastic surgeon; and stock trader Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon). Rather than arrest the three members, which would alarm the KGB, Fasset proposes to the CIA director that they turn one of them to the side of the West in order to unravel the entire network more efficiently. Fassett sees an opportunity in John Tanner (Rutger Hauer), a controversial television journalist who is highly critical of government abuses of power. Tanner has been close friends with the three agents since all four were at Berkeley together, and Fassett believes Tanner can successfully turn one of them.
The CIA contacts Tanner. He and Fassett meet, and Fassett tells him that his closest friends are Omega agents. Although initially highly skeptical, Tanner becomes more convinced as Fassett shows him videotaped evidence of the three traitors talking with a Russian man, whom Fassett identifies as a KGB agent. In three different video clips, the KGB agent discusses with Cardone the prospect of "targeting" Tanner, seeing him as a threat. Tremayne expresses his desire to leave the country when "it" goes down; Osterman talks about wanting to see "radical change" in the current system, but makes clear that he's only interested if paid handsomely, asking for a Swiss bank account. Tanner eventually agrees to try turning one of them at their annual reunion, which is coming up that weekend (these reunions are named "Ostermans", in honour of their initial sponsor, Bernie Osterman), which this year is being held at Tanner's house; but only on the condition that Danforth, the CIA director, appear as a guest on his show. Danforth agrees to this condition.
Tanner's troubled marriage is not improved when he asks his wife, Ali (Meg Foster), to take their son out of town for the weekend so the two of them would miss the reunion. He does not want them involved but cannot tell her why, which upsets her. Fassett tells Tanner that his wife and child are safer at home where the CIA can keep an eye on them, but Tanner disagrees. While driving his wife and son to the airport, their car is ambushed, and Ali and the child are kidnapped. With Fassett's intervention, they are rescued unhurt and the kidnapper is shot dead. In the meantime, Tanner's home has been wired with closed circuit video so Fassett can gather more evidence. Now that Ali is aware Tanner is involved with the CIA (although not knowing the details), Tanner has her and their son stay at the house for the weekend. Fassett sets himself up in a large van on the grounds with a squad of CIA agents on the outskirts of Tanner's property.
Osterman, Tremayne and Cardone arrive for the weekend, each having recently encountered difficulties engineered by the CIA in order to unsettle them and make them receptive to defection. The mood is tense. On the second night, Fassett sends a video feed to Tanner's dining room television, showing a clip about Switzerland that focuses on Swiss bank accounts and illegal financial manipulation. Virginia, Tremayne's wife, becomes furious, and Ali punches her in the face. Osterman tells Tanner that he's getting himself into something out of his league, and everyone retires to their rooms. Soon after, Tanner's son discovers the severed head of the family dog in the refrigerator, but it turns out to be fake. Tanner has had enough and demands that his guests leave. Tanner confronts Fassett and insists he arrest the suspects. Fassett sends an order to the CIA guards to kill Osterman.
Cardone and Tremayne and their wives escape in Tanner's RV. Tanner confronts Osterman and assaults him. Osterman easily overpowers him and demands an explanation. Tanner says that he knows that Osterman and his friends are Soviet agents. Osterman dismisses the accusation and explains that they have been illegally sheltering money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid taxation, but insists they are not traitors.
Fassett appears on the television and admits that he knows Osterman and his friends are only tax evaders. Fassett kills the Tremaynes and Cardones by remotely detonating an explosive device on the RV. He sends his soldiers into the house to kill Osterman and Tanner. Fassett taunts Tanner during the attack on the house, revealing that Danforth authorized his wife's murder. Fassett offers to release Tanner's family if Tanner will expose Danforth on television.
Sometime later, Danforth prepares for his remote interview with Tanner. Danforth is at his office and will speak into a camera and microphone crewed by the TV station. Tanner introduces Fassett on the air and Danforth becomes enraged when he realizes that he has been tricked. Fassett, who is also being filmed remotely, exposes Danforth as a murderer. Fassett's remote location is a secret, but it is clear someone is coming for him. It is revealed that Tanner himself has pre-recorded his questions for both men and has used the video feed to locate Fassett, whom he shoots and kills. He then rescues his wife, his son, and his dog.
The main characters in ''Breath of Fire III'' are Ryu (voiced by Tomoko Takai as a child and Kappei Yamaguchi as an adult) and his companions, a group of adventurers with their own distinct personalities and skills that help move the story forward. Ryu's story is presented in two parts, which involve him as both a child and adult, and his struggles to find his place in the world, as well as his lost friends. As a member of the ancient Brood race, he is a human with the ability to transform into powerful dragons, a power he doesn't fully understand at the beginning of the game, but begins to piece together as time goes on. He is accompanied on his quest by several other playable characters, including Nina (voiced by Kyoko Hikami), a winged princess from the Kingdom of Wyndia and powerful magician; Rei (voiced by Syusuke Sada), member of the cat-like Woren tribe and skilled thief; Teepo (voiced by Yoko Matsui), an orphaned rogue and longtime friend of Rei's with no memory of his past; Momo (voiced by Kaori Saito), daughter of a famous engineer and inventor who wields a SniperCannon; Garr (Garland in the Japanese version, voiced by Yukihiro Fujimoto), an experienced warrior and member of a group known as the Guardians who serve the goddess Myria; and Peco (Pecoros in the Japanese version, voiced by Ai Kamimura), a plant-like creature who resembles an onion with limited speech and a connection with nature.
The cast is rounded out by several supporting characters including Balio and Sunder, brothers and horse-men who act as mercenaries to a powerful crime lord and frequent adversaries of Ryu. Their boss, Mikba, is the head of a criminal organization with the ability to transform into a demon. Deis returns as a powerful sorceress who knows the secrets of the past. Myria, an ancient Goddess of Destruction, serves as the central antagonist once more, though her motives have changed, and she is instead set on preserving the lives of humanity, whom she protects with an over-zealous matron complex, by ordering the death of the dragons centuries ago. Most of the master NPCs are removed from the plot, but Deis serves as one later on in the game.
Other masters in the game include the strong giant woodsman Bunyan whom Ryu, Teepo and Rei run afoul of shortly after the game begins, and Mygas, a traveling wizard who is camped outside of McNeil village who has run out of money. The party will also meet the self-doubting master of non-lethal combat, Durandal, who in turn provides the party with the skills to impress Hondara, the benevolent Urkan priest who despises violence. Fahl, the tipsy barkeep from Genmel and friend of Balio and Sunder will become one after those villains are defeated and if they have fought 30 battles without resting. A strange fishman named Giotto teaches skills once the party reaches a high-enough fishing level. Once Ryu and his team fix Rhapala's lighthouse situation and meet the fairies, the errant fairy Meryleep will turn up at a secluded pond asking for her flower jewel which was stolen by a crow. The party can also use Peco to communicate with Yggdrasil trees, which serves as yet another master. Near the end of the game, the dragon spirit Ladon will offer to communicate with Ryu in a similar fashion.
The game begins in a chrysm mine in a far corner of the world, where a rare and powerful mineral is being harvested from the fossilized remains of dragons. When a large deposit is cracked open by dynamite, a preserved baby dragon emerges and is attacked by the frightened miners. The dragon defends itself, quickly killing everyone who rushes in to fight it. Eventually, the miners manage to ambush the dragon and, after knocking it unconscious, place it in a cage aboard a train to be taken away for experimentation. On the way out of the mine, the dragon jostles its cage off the train and falls down a hill on the outskirts of a large forest, where it transforms into a young blue-haired boy before again losing consciousness. The boy is found by a wandering thief named Rei, a member of the cat-like Woren clan and fellow orphan who believes himself to have discovered just another abandoned child.'''Teepo''': So who is he? / '''Rei''': I told you-- I don't know—I found him in the woods / '''Teepo''': Really...? Sounds like what happened with me... / '''Rei''': An orphan... Not surprising—It's been a lean year... ''Breath of Fire III'' (English version). Capcom Co., Ltd. 1998. SLUS-0042. Rei takes the boy to his home in the woods, where they meet Teepo, Rei's longtime friend and partner-in-crime, who agrees to let the boy join their thieving operation. Rei and Teepo learn that the boy's name is Ryu, the only fact he can remember. The team commits several minor crimes, and later comes into favor with the local villagers when they kill a Nue that is terrorizing the village. Upon defeating the Nue, the team discovers she was gathering food for her young, which she was unaware had died. The villagers knew, and, afraid of the Nue taking revenge on the village for her youngs' death, tried to avert a massacre.
Shortly afterward, the trio steals from the town's corrupt mayor and re-distributes his money among the villagers. The mayor, however, is secretly a member of a large crime syndicate. He hires two hitmen, the horse brothers Balio and Sunder, to exact revenge on the gang for their theft. Balio and Sunder proceed to burn down the trio's home, violently attack them, and leave them for dead.'''Sunder''': Hey, check it out, bro... They're gonna try and fight! / '''Balio''': Kids... They just don't wanna do what they're told, do they...? (''Breath of Fire III'') Awakening a short while later, Ryu finds himself in the care of a woodsman named Bunyan who had found no trace of his friends. Believing them to be alive, Ryu travels to the city of Windia where he meets Nina, child daughter of the King. Nina helps Ryu evade Balio and Sunder, who are now on his trail.
Ryu and Nina eventually come across a large tower and meet Momo, an inventor and engineer who is researching the properties of chrysm. Together with her diminutive robotic assistant Honey, the three eventually escape the tower by rocket when a group of bounty hunters arrive looking for them. Momo leads Ryu and Nina to a nearby chrysm research facility which is conducting experiments on plants. There, they are approached by the institute's chairman and colleague of Momo's late father, Dr. Palat, who informs the party of a mutant creature causing trouble at the dump where their biological waste is stored. After defeating the mutant plant creature, it gives up its offspring, whom Nina names Peco, to be cared for in its absence.'''Nina''': Why don't we call him... Peco? I mean, he does look like an onion, right? (''Breath of Fire III'') As the four continue their journey east, they are finally captured by Balio and Sunder who take them to a nearby colosseum. It is there that the team meets Garr, a seasoned warrior. With Garr's help, the team defeats the horse brothers for good.
Garr agrees to help the group in finding Rei and Teepo, on the condition that Ryu also accompany him to a sacred temple far to the east.'''Garr''': Once we've taken the princess back to Windia, you must come with me to the Angel Tower, Ryu... (''Breath of Fire III'') After crossing a long bridge and traveling through the heart of a volcano, the group arrives at the temple of which Garr had spoken. Garr and Ryu journey inward alone. There, Garr reveals the true fate of the Brood, the race of dragons that once populated the world. which, The Brood was slaughtered by the hundreds by Garr and his fellow guardians at the behest of Myria, an ancient goddess who promised an age of peace in return. With Ryu being the last living dragon, Garr attempts to slay him, but Ryu beats him'''Garr''': Once you are dealt with... my purpose shall be complete... Prepare yourself, Ryu! (''Breath of Fire III'') and escapes. Having been easily defeated by a child of the Brood, Garr has an epiphany: the Brood didn't really fight back against him and the other guardians and could have easily defeated them.
The story cuts to several years later, when reports of a rampaging dragon have led Garr to the same mines where Ryu was originally found. In the depths of the mine he finds Ryu, now a young adult. After convincing Ryu that means him no harm, Garr asks forgiveness for his actions against his people centuries ago. He also entreats Ryu to help him discover the true motivation behind Myria's genocide against the Brood.'''Garr''': Why did they let us kill them??? Why did God have us kill the Brood!? I may not have the right to say this... But I want to know the truth... That's why I ask you... I ask you to let me live until then... (''Breath of Fire III'') The pair re-groups with Nina, now a young adult, too, and find Rei alive, battling the leader of the crime organization responsible for the attack on his friends. Once Rei joins their group, they learn that he has not seen Teepo since the incident, either.
While investigating some suspicious activity at the plant institute per Nina's orders, the team reunites with Momo, who has been performing experiments at the plant institute with Peco (who in the intervening years has been frequently visiting the great tree Yggdrasil, overseer of the world's forests). The party receives information about Myria's whereabout from a deity named Deis. After traversing the ocean to the forgotten northern continent, the group finds a town littered with advanced technology from a forgotten age, and then proceed to the last known village of the Brood, Dragnier, where they learn of the battle between the heroes from the first ''Breath of Fire'' and Myria millennia ago. They learn that the Goddess returned to seek her revenge against the Brood.'''Jono''': My son... Did you see the mural as you came in? That... is the history of our people's struggle. Our peoples' history stretches back into the distant past... before even the Great War... It is the history of a struggle against a great, recurring evil. With each age, a warrior appears among the Brood... With his allies, he carries on the struggle... Against the evil that appears as a mortal, sometimes as a devil-- the evil that is named Myria... (''Breath of Fire III'') The party continues by crossing an expansive desert, beyond which they find the ruined city of Caer Xhan, a former haven of technology which contains an escalator leading to Myria's fortress.
After making their way up the long escalator to the floating Myria Station, the group fights its way into the facility's inner sanctum, where they meet a lavender-haired young man who reveals himself to be Teepo. After surviving the attack by Balio and Sunder by drawing on his latent dragon powers, Teepo was contacted by the Goddess, who convinced him to live in peaceful seclusion in her fortress to spare the world from his destructive power. Unable to convince Ryu or his friends to do the same, Teepo morphs into his Dragon Lord form and fights them, only to be defeated, his dying words revealing that he just wanted to be with his "family", Ryu and Rei.'''Teepo''': Ryu... Myria... is... right... Look at us... The Brood... all we know how to do is... fight and kill each other... like this... but... I... didn't ask... to be Brood... I didn't ask for the power... I... just wanted to be with... you Rei, and you, Ryu... my family... (''Breath of Fire III'') The determined group makes their way to Myria herself within the station's control center, where she reveals that she exterminated the dragons centuries ago for the same reason she destroyed the world's advanced technology: to keep humanity from inadvertently destroying itself. She presents Ryu the same choice she gave Teepo: to live the rest of his life in peace within her station or be destroyed.
If the player opts to comply with Myria, the game ends anticlimactically, showing Ryu in Eden, and blacking out with the text, "And so time passes... unchanging..." If instead the player chooses to challenge her, the spirit of the great tree Yggdrasil channels itself through Peco and tells Myria she is taking her power too far, and, like any parent, she must allow her children to make their own mistakes. With that, Ryu and his friends overcome Myria and then flee the station as it crumbles around them. Garr reveals that his life must end with Myria's, turning to stone while Ryu and Nina look on; Deis, now revealed to be Myria's sister,'''Myria''': Sister...? / '''Deis''': It's for the best, Myria... You went too far in your attempt to wipe out the Brood... (''Breath of Fire III'') appears before Myria as the station falls apart, stating that they will henceforth leave the world in humanity's hands.'''Deis''': Don't worry... They can take care of themselves better than you think... They-- and the world-- are stronger than we think... I'm sure of it... (''Breath of Fire III'') Ryu, Nina, Momo, Rei, and Peco, now having safely evacuated the station, make their way out of its rubble and back into the desert to begin their long journey home.
Having taken a break from their adventures, the Battletoads Rash, Zitz, and Pimple spend some time in the Lost Vega system. The toads find themselves entranced by the alluring charms of an exotic dancer, but are ambushed when the dancer is revealed to be the Dark Queen. During the ensuing fight, Rash and Pimple are taken away to the planet Armagedda, with Zitz successfully escaping to the Vulture spacecraft of Professor T. Bird and leaving him as the only available toad to rescue his partners.
With aid in the form of briefing comments from the Prof and while also receiving taunts from the Dark Queen herself, Zitz wages a one-toad war on the Dark Queen's forces in planet Armagedda, ultimately culminating with a brutal showdown with the crazed biogen Robo-Manus. After he is defeated, Zitz succeeds in rescuing Rash and Pimple and the trio returns safe to the Vulture spacecraft along with Professor T. Bird. Though she does not face off the 'Toads in combat, the once again defeated Dark Queen swears to the heroes that she will be back with a vengeance.
''SaGa Frontier 2'' has two separate storylines: one is the history of Gustave XIII of the country of Finney, and the other concerns a character named Wil Knights. The game takes place in the land of Sandail, with the game's timeline spanning several decades.
Gustave XIII is the former prince of Thermes, the capital of Finney, and was intended to be the heir to the throne of his father, Gustave XII. The son is disinherited and exiled by his father when, at the age of 7, he fails to manifest any magical abilities, known as Anima, during a ritual known as the Firebrand Ceremony. His mother, Queen Sophie, unsuccessfully tries to prevent Gustave XIII's banishment. She and Gustave XIII are banished from the castle by Gustave XII and are forced to live in the slums of Thermes. Master Cielmer, a magician as well as teacher and councilor to Gustave XIII assists both mother and son in escaping Thermes and seeking asylum in the city Gruegel in the kingdom of Na. Despite being granted a mansion to live in by the king of Na, Gustave is still resentful of his rejection and lack of magical powers.
At age seventeen he apprentices as a blacksmith and learns to fight, and it is during his period his mother dies. He then moved to the city-state of Wide where he insinuates himself with the ruler and overthrows him. Five years later, Gustaves father dies, and at the behest of his best friend Kelvin decides to claim the throne. A war then breaks out between Gustave XIII and his half-brother in which Gustave conquers Finney and becomes the ruler of all the surrounding kingdoms except Na. This one holdout is controlled by Phillip, Gustave's brother, who blames Gustave for their mother's death. During the subsequent conflict, Gustave admits he lacks magical powers, and abdicates in favor of Phillip. Gustave then build a city of his own called Hahn Nova, but it is overrun by monsters and burned to the ground. The fate of Gustave and his friends is left a mystery.
The secondary playable storyline in the game is that of Wil Knights, who is a member of a rich family of "diggers"; after the death of his parents, Wil relocated to the kingdom of Westia. At the age of fifteen Wil sets out to become a famous digger: after hearing about a legendary object known as "The Egg", Wil sets out to find it. After adventures in the Arctic region of Weissland, Wil becomes known as "Tycoon Wil", though he continues to search for the Egg. Wil then has a son named Rich who goes in search of the Egg and finds a young woman named Misty in possession of it. And even though his wife announces their baby girl Ginny has been born, he becomes obsessed with the woman and the Egg, and never returns from his quest.
The final part of the story involves Ginny Knights following the path of her father and grandfather in searching for the legendary object. Upon hearing of the evil powers of the Egg, and its role in leading her father to his death, Ginny decides to find and destroy the object. She eventually discovers the Egg is now possessed by "Fake Gustave", a pretender to the throne of Finney trying to take power in the wake of Gustave XII's death.
The ''Candy Candy'' manga provides a story for the shōjo demographic. Candy, an abandoned orphan taken in by the orphanage Pony's Home near Lake Michigan around the start of the 20th century, spent the first years of her life at the orphanage, to where she would often return to repose and to decide her next course in life. When Annie, her best friend at the orphanage, was adopted, she ran outside crying and met briefly a boy who told her not to cry. Candy retained fond memories of the boy and, not knowing his name, remembered him as the "Prince on the Hill". The boy will have great influence and importance in her life later on.
When she turned 12, Candy was taken in by the Leagan family as a companion for their daughter Eliza and her brother Neil. The Leagans treated her poorly and eventually made Candy a servant girl. When the Leagan family accused Candy of stealing and sent her off to work in their family farm in Mexico, Candy was rescued from being sent to Mexico by William Ardlay, the sole heir of the very wealthy Ardlay family and the owner of the Ardlay estate. William Ardlay became Candy's tutor until she would reach adulthood, but his true identity remained a mystery and she would not meet him until the end of the story. He was also the uncle of Candy's first love, Anthony Brown, and a relative of Anthony's cousins, the Cornwell brothers Archibald (Archie) and Alistair (Stear), as well as the Leagan children.
Later on, Anthony died in a hunting accident when he was thrown off the horseback. Thereafter, Candy, along with Archie and Stear, and the Leagan children, were sent to London to attend the prestigious St. Paul's College, a secondary school, where she met Terrence (Terrius/Terry) Granchester, the illegitimate child of a British Duke with American Broadway actress Eleanor Baker. Candy once saw him crying on the same boat she was taking to London from America. Terry was allegedly her "second and grand love that cannot bear fruit" (in the words of the author Keiko Nagita/Kyoko Mizuki in essays believed to be found on Misaki's website). Circumstances divided the pair when Eliza Leagan schemed to have Candy expelled from St. Paul's by manipulating them into a scandal.
After the scandal, Terry left St. Paul's to protect Candy's reputation and pursue his aspiration to become an actor, but Candy also decided to leave soon after. They would both embark on their individual life journeys forward in the United States, where Candy trained to become a nurse in Chicago around the time of World War I, and Terry pursued a career as a rising star actor in New York. An actress and colleague in his theater troupe, Susanna, became attracted to Terry. During a rehearsal session, an accident occurred and Susanna saved Terry's life, but in the process became disabled. Her injury destroyed her acting career. Susanna became depressed and attempted to commit suicide as she did not want to be a burden to anyone and her career was ruined. Feeling responsible, Terry was torn between reuniting with Candy and his concern for Susanna. When Candy discovered what happened without Terry ever telling her beforehand, she decided to sacrifice her own happiness and left Terry. Candy knew that Terry would remain with Susanna as this was the decision he had already made on his own accord without ever consulting with Candy.
Afterwards, Candy returned to Chicago to continue her life. By chance, she became the nurse and caretaker to Albert, who lost his memories after a World War I related bomb explosion on a train in Italy. Candy and Albert decided to live together and their cohabitation lasted for several years during Albert's amnesiac state. Yet, Albert ultimately regained his memories and revealed his true identity to Candy. At the end of the story, Candy discovered that he was also the Prince on the Hill. Their relationship had moved on to a different level during their adulthood. In Italy, however, the anime's ending was changed albeit without the endorsement of Keiko Nagita and TOEI productions. Based on this unofficial Italian version, Candy and Terry meet again at a train station deciding to stay together. This ending, however, is simply based on fanfiction and not on any official publication by the author or her agent, therefore, never achieving any international acclaim or official recognition.
In 2010 the novel "Candy Candy The Final Story" was re-edited by Mizuki using her real name Keiko Nagita. In this revised novel based on an earlier 1970s text, Candy discovers that Suzanne died when reading about it in the newspaper. At an undefined time, Candy receives a note signed with the initials "T.G.". Albeit never confirmed in the text itself, these initials are allegedly ascribed to the stage actor, Terry Graham. He no longer uses his father's surname "Granchester" as he had renounced it upon his departure from the UK several years ago. The note itself is obscure and thus open to a multitude of interpretations. The novel ends with Candy in her mid-30s living with the man she loves during the Interbellum. The identity of this man is never revealed in the text and there is no evidence indicating who this character is. In addition, there is no indication whether Candy is married or not, employed or has children of her own. All the reader knows is that she is happy to be with the man she loves-whoever he may be.
There were some plot and character differences between the manga and the anime: Candy's age was different for several events when she grew up at Pony's Home. In the manga, she was six or seven years old when she met her Prince of the Hill, but was ten in the anime. Her sidekick pet raccoon Kurin/Clint belonged solely to the anime version.
Kyoko Mizuki's (the pen name of Keiko Nagita) ''Candy Candy'' novel, consisting of three volumes, has piqued the interest of ''Candy Candy'' fans outside Japan for some years. This novel was only available in Japan and published in Japanese.
Of particular interest is the 3rd volume, which covers the period after the events chronicled in the manga and anime. The novels have been translated in their entirety by Western fans but the translations confirmed that, true to her artistic form, Kyoko Mizuki did not provide concrete closure to the story. Yet, in the last letter that closed out the novel, Candy was still an optimistic, life-loving and cheerful heroine.
In 2010, Kyoko Mizuki, under her real name Keiko Nagita, revised and published the "''Candy Candy Final Story''" (CCFS). CCFS was published in two volumes and not three volumes as the earlier novels. She announced that this was her effort to tell the story as she always intended from the beginning, without the influence of the manga illustrator or the manga production team. Most of the plot of the story remained the same. Changes were made mainly to details of descriptions to scenes. Mizuki also replaced the children hiragana form writing of the earlier novels with more mature kanji form of the writing and made the style of CCFS more poetic. She did, however, add a few major new developments to CCFS. In CCFS, Susanna had died from a chronic illness years after Candy and Terry had separated. It is not said in the CCFS whether Candy responded to a note she had received which had been signed with the initials "T.G.". It is alleged that this note may belong to Terry Graham but that is never confirmed in the text nor is it specified whether Candy responded to that letter or not. Then the novel proceeds with the final section known as the "Epilogue" where a series of letters are exchanged between Candy and Albert. Candy includes a recollection of her (unsent) letter to Anthony where she reflects upon her life thus far. Keiko Nagita also added a final scene where Candy, in her thirties and living in an unknown place near a river called Avon, greets her beloved as he enters their home. The man's name is never revealed, but Nagita said that she was satisfied knowing that Candy now lived a happy life with that mystery man.
In 2015, the Italian publisher Kappalab obtained the copyright to publish CCFS in its entirety in Italian. The first volume was published in early 2015. The second volume was released in summer 2015.
Announcement of the Candy Candy manga appeared in the March 1975 issue of ''Nakayoshi''. The first chapter was published in April 1975, and continued until the last chapter in March 1979. However, the story did not appear in the November 1975, December 1976, January 1978 and June 1978 issues. The manga was published in 9 volumes.
1 (2 October 1975) 2 (8 March 1976) 3 (8 August 1976) 4 (8 December 1976) 5 (18 March 1977) 6 (18 September 1977) 7 (18 April 1978) 8 (18 November 1978) *9 (19 March 1979)
After the manga had become popular among Japanese girls, an anime series was produced for NET (now known as TV Asahi) in 1976. The anime has 115 episodes which run for 25 minutes each.
There are four animated short films: ''Candy Candy'' (1977), ''Candy Candy: The Call of Spring/The May Festival'' (1978), ''Candy Candy's Summer Vacation'' (1978) and ''Candy Candy the Movie'' (1992).
Minori Matsushima as Candice "Candy" White Ardlay Makio Inoue as William Albert Ardlay Kei Tomiyama as Terrence "Terrius/Terry" Graham Granchester Kazuhiko Inoue as Anthony Brown Ryo Horikawa as Anthony Brown (1992 film) Kaneta Kimotsuki as Alistair "Stear" Cornwell Yūji Mitsuya as Archibald "Archie" Cornwell Mami Koyama as Annie Brighton Yumi Touma as Annie Brighton (1992 film) Chiyoko Kawashima as Patricia "Patty" O'Brien Yumi Nakatani as Eliza Leagan Eiko Hisamura as Eliza Leagan (1992 film) Kiyoshi Komiyama as Neil Leagan Ryuusei Nakao as Neil Leagan (1992 film) Taeko Nakanishi as Sister Pony, Grandaunt Elory and Narrator Nana Yamaguchi as Sister Lane, Mrs. Leagan and Sister Gray Miyoko Aso as Mary Jane Headmistress Sachiko Chijimatsu as Jimmy Eken Mine as Garcia Koko Kagawa as Susanna Marlowe
In 1981 the Drama/Family live action movie of the manga & anime has been produced by Chu-ji Choi, directed by In-hyeon Choi, and written by Man Izawa. Shin-hie Choi is starring, alongside Do-hie Kim, Hyo-jeong Eom, Bo-geun Song and Eun-suk Yu. Due to licensing issue, the movie only made it on domestic release.
'''Sinemart''' as one of largest Indonesia production house made modern storytelling of '''Candy Candy''' with titled '''Candy''' drama series produced by Leo Sutanto & directed by Widi Wijaya aired on channel RCTI in 2007 starring Rachel Amanda, Nimaz Dewantary, Lucky Perdana & Bobby Joseph.
Set in a rundown Danish seaside resort, it depicts a day in the life of Bernie, a self-destructive alcoholic, as he takes Winnie, a young girl with a leg brace, to the resort despite constant rain. Though Winnie calls Bernie "uncle", he is likely her biological father. Over the course of the day, they encounter various people whom Bernie alternately berates and scams for alcohol, while Winnie is often left alone to fend for herself.
On Christmas Eve, Daniel Grudge (Hayden), a rich American industrialist, sits alone in a dark room of his mansion playing a record of a World War II-era popular song, "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)" by The Andrews Sisters. He looks at a framed display of war medals on the wall and seems about to cry. He shuts off the player, but as he leaves the room, he hears the record start to play again of its own accord, although the record player is still shut off. Downstairs, he meets a visitor, his nephew Fred (Gazzara). Grudge caustically notes that Fred always comes to him for help with various causes and asks what cause he is promoting this time. Fred complains that Grudge used his influence to cancel a "cultural exchange" program that Fred's university had planned with a Polish counterpart. In the ensuing argument with Fred, Grudge takes the isolationist position that the United States should stay out of international affairs, and not participate in cultural exchange programs, foreign aid to the needy, or discussions at the United Nations. Grudge distrusts foreign countries, and contends that the U.S. should build up its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, and make sure other countries know the U.S. is willing to use them. Fred disagrees, arguing that the U.S. should help all people in need and foster international communication in order to avoid future wars and nuclear destruction. As Fred leaves, he reminds his uncle that they have one thing in common: their love for Grudge's son Marley, who was killed in WWII twenty years earlier, on Christmas Eve 1944.
After Fred leaves, Grudge once again hears the record playing upstairs, and sees a short vision of the deceased Marley sitting at the dining room table. Suddenly Grudge finds himself on the deck of a fogbound troopship, which is carrying coffins draped in flags, guarded by soldiers at attention. A soldier on board introduces himself as the Ghost of Christmas Past (Lawrence) and explains that the ship is carrying the dead of all nations from the First World War. Through the fog, Grudge glimpses another vessel, similarly laden but with World War II soldiers. Those are the sons, the Ghost says. These are the fathers. Ships horns sound. They are in a huge convoy, carrying the dead from conflicts of all times. The Ghost suggests that the way to stop the killing is to spend more time talking, since when talking stops, fighting starts. He and Grudge revisit a scene from Grudge's past in which Grudge, a Navy commander, accompanied by his WAVE driver (Saint), visited a hospital in devastated Hiroshima and saw Japanese schoolchildren whose faces had been destroyed by the atom bomb.
Grudge walks through a door and meets the Ghost of Christmas Present (Hingle), who is feasting on an excessively large Christmas dinner on Grudge's dining table under Grudge's chandelier. This new Ghost turns on a light and shows Grudge that right next to the dining room is an internment camp full of displaced persons from different nations who are poor, hungry and lacking adequate shelter. These people search through the snow for food as the Ghost eats in front of them. When Grudge criticizes the Ghost for this behavior, the Ghost reminds Grudge of his earlier statement to Fred that refusing donations to the needy would make them less needy and more self-reliant. The Ghost harangues Grudge with statistics and information about needy people in the world and finally in a fit of anger pulls the tablecloth, dumping huge amounts of leftover food on the floor. Grudge cannot stand any more and runs away into the dark.
Grudge emerges into destroyed ruins that he recognizes as having been his local town hall, where he encounters the Ghost of Christmas Future (Shaw). This Ghost explains that the town hall was wrecked in a disastrous nuclear conflict that also annihilated most of the world's people. A handful of survivors enter and prepare for a meeting. Their leader is a demagogue called "Imperial Me" (Sellers) who wears a Pilgrim suit and a cowboy hat cut into a crown. The crowd cheers as Imperial Me is paraded in and gives a speech exhorting each person to act as an individual in his or her own self-interest. Grudge watches his butler, Charles (Rodriguez), try unsuccessfully to convince the crowd that acting collectively for the greater good of all is essential for humanity's survival. Imperial Me and the crowd mock Charles as crazy and beat him. Finally Imperial Me has Charles brought forward and charges him with treason. Charles tries to escape and is shot dead by a little boy in a cowboy outfit. Grudge's cook Ruby (Teer) weeps over Charles' body, while the crowd, led by Imperial Me, enthusiastically prepares to first kill the people across the river who had approached them wanting to talk, and then kill off each other until only one person is left. An agitated Grudge asks the Ghost if this is the world "as it must be, or as it might be". The Ghost doesn't answer and leaves Grudge in the ruins of his own study.
A shaken Grudge awakens back in the real world on Christmas morning, on the floor of his (intact) study with the phone in his hand. His nephew Fred appears and says that Grudge called him at 3 a.m. and asked him to stop by on his way to church. Grudge apologizes to Fred for his statements of the previous evening and, without explaining the reason for his change of heart, indicates cautious support for the United Nations and international diplomacy as a way to prevent future wars. Grudge further shows his new internationalism by enjoying a radio broadcast of the children of UN delegates singing Christmas carols in their native languages. Fred leaves and Grudge, rather than have Charles serve him on a tray as usual, goes into the kitchen to have his Christmas morning coffee with Charles and Ruby.
The opening titles announce it is set "possibly around 1933." The story concerns the 168-year-old Fu Manchu, who must duplicate the ingredients to the elixir vitae (which gives him extended life) after the original is accidentally destroyed by one of Fu's minions.
When the diamond "The Star of Leningrad" is stolen by a clockwork spider from a Soviet exhibition in Washington D.C., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sends a pair of special agents (agents Pete Williams and Joe Capone) to London, in order to seek the assistance of Scotland Yard as a card from Fu Manchu's organisation the Si-Fan has been left at the crime. Sir Roger Avery of the Yard feels this is a job for Fu's nemesis, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, now retired.
Nayland Smith correctly surmises that Fu Manchu will steal the identical twin to the missing diamond that is held among the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom in the Tower of London. Smith also predicts that Fu will be thwarted by the tight security (several aged Beefeaters) at the Tower, then will kidnap Queen Mary to gain the jewel. He recruits Alice Rage, a woman police constable, to impersonate the Queen and fool Fu's gang. She is soon captured by Fu but the plan backfires somewhat, however, when she falls in love with her captor. She switches sides and willingly helps Fu.
The Crown Jewels are guarded by Sir Nules Thudd, an obese Chinese-cuisine loving glutton. The man has obesity-related health problems, and has been ordered by the doctor to walk around for a day on stilts. Thudd is promised access to Fu's outdoor restaurant of Chinese food, and in return helps the Si-Fan steal the diamond. Fu steals the rest of the Crown Jewels as well.
Nayland then uses his flying country house, "The Spirit of Wiltshire", to transport himself and his fellow officers. They fly all the way to Fu Manchu's mountain base in the Himalayas. Meanwhile Fu has recreated the elixir vitae, only to find that it has no effect on him. One of the ingredients used was faulty.
Nayland's country house is soon besieged by an army of Si-Fan. Nayland demands an audience with Fu, and is transported to his old enemy. Fu is in poor health by this point. Nayland reveals that he had hidden the real diamond. Fu offers to return the Crown Jewels in exchange for the diamond. Once Nayland hands over the diamond, Fu has a new elixir vitae prepared for him. Fu becomes young and vibrant again.
Fu willingly hands over the Crown Jewels to Nayland's allies. He also has a diamond identical to "The Star of Leningrad" handed over to Capone, arguing that the Russians will not see any difference. In a private meeting, Fu expresses his appreciation of Nayland, who has been the only worthy adversary of his life. He offers Nayland part of the elixir vitae, but asks him not to drink it until he returns to London. Fu warns Nayland that his latest fiendish plot will wipe out his enemies.
Smith rejoins his fellow officers in time to see a rejuvenated Fu Manchu sporting an Elvis Presley-type jumpsuit. Fu rises from the floor and, his cohorts now form a rock band. They sing the song "Rock-a-Fu", as the story ends.
''Soul Reaver'' takes place within the fictional world of Nosgoth, where the health of the land is tied to the nine Pillars of Nosgoth, and each pillar in turn is represented by a guardian. Before the events of ''Soul Reaver'', the guardians became corrupt, and, after Kain killed eight of them, he discovered he was the final one.'''Elder God:''' This world is wracked with cataclysms – the earth strains to shrug off the pestilence of Kain’s parasitic empire. The fate of this world was preordained in an instant, by a solitary man. Unwilling to martyr himself to restore Nosgoth’s balance, Kain condemned the world to the decay you see. In that moment, the unraveling began... now it is nearly played out. Nosgoth teeters on the brink of collapse – its fragile balance cannot hold. Refusing to sacrifice himself to restore the Pillars, he doomed Nosgoth to eternal decay and proceeded to raise his vampire lieutenants, including Raziel, to besiege the land. By the time of ''Soul Reaver'' s introduction, the vampires are now the land's dominant species and apex predators, the humans have been decimated, and the vampire tribes have each claimed a region of Nosgoth and turned their attention to internal matters. Unknown to the vampires, beneath Nosgoth lurks The Elder God, an ancient and powerful entity. The Elder God controls the Wheel of Fate, a cycle of reincarnation of souls that circle the Wheel in a loop of predestination; however, because vampires are immortal, their souls do not spin with the Wheel, causing the land to decay as the Wheel stalls.'''Elder God:''' The birth of one of Kain’s abominations traps the essence of life. It is this soul that animates the corpse you 'lived' in. And that Raziel, is the demise of Nosgoth. There is no balance. The souls of the dead remain trapped. I can not spin them in the wheel of fate. They can not complete their destinies. Redeem yourself. Or if you prefer, avenge yourself. Settle your dispute with Kain. Destroy him and your brethren. Free their souls and let the wheel of fate churn again. Use your hatred to reave their souls...I can make it possible. Become my soul reaver, my angel of death... By the time that Raziel is revived centuries after the game's opening cinematic, Nosgoth is on the brink of collapse, little more than a wasteland wracked with cataclysms and earthquakes.
The protagonist of ''Soul Reaver'' is the vampire-turned-wraith Raziel, whom Kain casts to death at the beginning of the game. Although Kain is the protagonist of the previous game, ''Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain'', he is the primary antagonist and final boss of ''Soul Reaver''. The Elder God resurrects and assists Raziel, explains the game's controls, and describes previous events in the story. Ariel, who preceded Kain as the guardian of the Pillar of Balance, appears as a spirit and offers Raziel advice on occasion. During his quest, Raziel meets his brothers - Melchiah, Zephon, Rahab and Dumah - who serve as the game's bosses. Each has developed different powers that Raziel partially gains by killing them and devouring their souls. A fifth brother, Turel, was omitted due to time constraints on development.
Raziel approaches Kain's throne and extends newly grown wings. In an act of seeming jealousy, Kain tears the bones from Raziel's wings and has him thrown into the Lake of the Dead, a large natural whirlpool;'''Raziel:''' I am Raziel, first-born of his lieutenants. I stood with Kain and my brethren at the dawn of the empire. I have served him a millennium. Over time, we became less human and more...divine. Kain would enter the state of change and emerge with a new gift. Some years after the master, our evolution would follow. Until I had the honor of surpassing my lord. For my transgression, I earned a new kind of reward...agony. There was only one possible outcome – my eternal damnation. I, Raziel, was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings – to burn forever in the bowels of the Lake of the Dead. however, Raziel is resurrected as a wraith by The Elder God to become his "soul reaver" and kill Kain, thus restoring Nosgoth. With The Elder God's guidance, Raziel adapts to his new form and returns to Nosgoth. Infiltrating a Necropolis inhabited by the Melchahim vampires, Raziel finds his brother Melchiah, who has devolved into a beast unable to sustain his own flesh.'''Raziel:''' My brother, Melchiah, was made last, and therefore received the poorest portion of Kain’s gift. Although immortal, his soul could not sustain the flesh, which retained much of its previous human frailty. This weakness, it seemed, was passed on to his offspring. Their fragile skins barely contained the underlying decay. After Raziel kills Melchiah and absorbs his soul, he confronts Kain among the ruined Pillars of Nosgoth in the Sanctuary of the Clans. Kain does not appear surprised to see Raziel, apparently having even been expecting him, and implies that he has destroyed Raziel's vampire clan, which only enrages Raziel even further. When Raziel begins to criticize him, Kain simply launches a tirade against him before noting what has become of the empire and engaging him in combat. Kain quickly overpowers Raziel and attempts to strike him down with the Soul Reaver, a powerful sword that absorbs its victims' souls, but the Reaver shatters when it strikes Raziel, and Kain escapes, strangely satisfied. Raziel enters the spectral realm to find the blade's soul-devouring spectral form, which binds itself to him.'''Elder God:''' From this moment and ever afterward, you and this blade are inextricably bound. Soul Reaver and reaver of souls, your destinies are intertwined. By destroying the sword, you have liberated it from its corporeal prison and restored it to its true form: a wraith blade, its energy unbound. After this, Raziel meets Ariel, who restores his strength, and learns of Zephon's location from The Elder God.
Raziel ventures into a large cathedral once inhabited by the humans and finds the Zephonim clan. After ascending into the cathedral's spires, he finds that Zephon is now a large insect like creature whose body has merged into the cathedral spire in which he dwells.'''Raziel:''' Zephon, your visage becomes you. It's an appropriate reflection of your soul. / '''Zephon:''' And you are not his handsome Raziel anymore. His precious first-born son, turned betrayer. You have missed so many changes, little Raziel. Look around you! See how the humans' weapon of destruction has become my home. Indeed, my body. A cocoon of brick and granite from which to watch a pupating world. Raziel kills Zephon and uses the gained power to infiltrate an ancient crypt. There, Raziel discovers coffins for members of the Sarafan, a fanatical order of vampire hunters killed centuries before Kain's rule. To Raziel's horror, he finds the crypt was designated for him and his brothers; as cruel irony, Kain revived the Sarafan to serve him as his vampire sons.'''Raziel:''' These crypts ... defiled caskets of Sarafan saints ... bearing my brothers' names.... And my own.... The irony of Kain's blasphemous act rushed in on me with the crushing force of revelation.... / '''Elder God:''' Yes, Raziel – you were Sarafan...born of the same force that all but destroyed your race. Before the dawn of the Empire, you were chosen. Raziel ventures through a secret passage under the crypt and finds a flooded abbey inhabited by the Rahabim clan, whose members have mutated into amphibians; its leader, Rahab, has become a merman. Raziel tells Rahab what he has learned about their human pasts, but Rahab is unmoved, claiming that Kain "saved" them, and attacks. Raziel defeats Rahab and absorbs his soul, then crosses the Lake of the Dead to the abandoned fortress of his brother Dumah. The Elder God explains that the Dumahim vampires were scattered following an invasion of human hunters. Raziel eventually finds Dumah shackled to his throne with his heart pierced.'''Elder God:''' It was not Kain, but Dumah’s own arrogance that brought the downfall of his clan. These are human weapons, Raziel – believing themselves invincible, Dumah and his offspring failed to see an attack coming from the least likely assailants.... Complacent in their arrogance, they were taken by surprise, allowing the human vampire hunters to decimate their ranks with little resistance. The few that escaped have been reduced to scavengers. / '''Raziel:''' My brother, Dumah – a powerful warrior, in life. He would have burned with shame, to have me find him here like a stuck pig. Raziel revives Dumah and leads him into a giant furnace, burning him alive and absorbing his soul.
Afterward, Raziel discovers the Oracle's Cave, where Moebius the Time Streamer once hid the Chronoplast, a magical time machine. Raziel traverses the caves and finds Kain in the Chronoplast's control room. Raziel is angered over what he has learned, and Kain says his actions are justified due to his being subject to destiny,'''Kain:''' As long as one of us stands, we are legion. And that is why when I must sacrifice my children to the void, I can do so with a clear heart. / '''Raziel:''' Very poetic, Kain, but in the end you offer no more than a convenient rationalization for your crimes. / '''Kain:''' These chambers offer insight for those patient enough to look – in your haste to find me, perhaps you have not gazed deeply enough. Our futures are predestined. Moebius foretold mine a millennium ago. We each play out the parts fate has written for us. We are compelled ineluctably down pre-ordained paths. Free will is an illusion. before proceeding to inform Raziel that the Sarafan were far from the noble crusaders that Raziel believes them to be when the latter demands to know why he created him, which Raziel refuses to listen to. Raziel attacks Kain while the latter continues to adjust the Chronoplast's controls. Although Raziel eventually gains an advantage, the Chronoplast activates, and Kain escapes through a time portal, beckoning Raziel to follow. Raziel complies, ignoring warnings from The Elder God. At the end of the game, Raziel emerges from the timeslip and is greeted by Moebius. ''Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver'' ends on a cliffhanger by showing a postscript, a verse where Moebius comments on the nature of time and his ability to "plunge the fate of planets into chaos", leading directly into the events of ''Soul Reaver 2''.'''Kain:''' You nearly had me, Raziel. But this is not where, or how, it ends. Fate promises more twists before this drama unfolds completely. / '''Moebius:''' Raziel. Redeemer and destroyer, pawn and messiah. Welcome, time spanned soul. Welcome, to your destiny.
Lieutenant General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford) is brought to a maximum security military prison to begin a ten-year sentence for deciding to send U.S. troops on a mission in Burundi, violating a presidential order and resulting in the deaths of eight soldiers.
Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini), the prison's commandant, greatly admires Irwin, until Irwin criticizes his much-prized military artifacts collection, calling it something no actual battlefield veteran would ever have. Offended Winter, who has never seen combat, resents the remark. He then opposes what he perceives as Irwin's attempt to change the attitudes of the prisoners, his admiration for Irwin fading fast.
On one occasion, Irwin is reprimanded after stopping a guard from clubbing a prisoner, Corporal Ramon Aguilar (Clifton Collins, Jr.), who had mistakenly saluted Irwin in the prison yard, violating a tenet of Winter's methods for running the prison, that the prisoners are no longer soldiers and therefore should stop acting as such.
Continuing to observe cruel acts, Irwin attempts to unify the prisoners by building a "castle wall" of stone and mortar at the facility, which in many ways resembles a medieval castle. Envying the respect Irwin is clearly receiving, Winter orders his guards to destroy the wall. When Aguilar, an integral leader in the wall's construction, blocks the bulldozer, Winter orders sadistic sharpshooter Cpl. Zamorro (David Alford) via a coded hand gesture to fire a normally non-lethal rubber bullet directly at Aguilar's head, killing him.
After the wall is destroyed, Irwin and the inmates pay final respects to Aguilar in formation. Winter later offers some small concessions to Irwin, who rejects them as flimsy, and calls him a disgrace to the uniform, demanding his resignation.
The prisoners begin to behave like soldiers around Irwin, using code words and gestures. An infuriated Winter reaches out to Yates (Mark Ruffalo), an anti-social prisoner and a former officer and Apache helicopter pilot convicted of running a drug-smuggling ring. Bribed to inform about Irwin's plans for a reduced sentence, Yates informs Winter that Irwin intends to take over the prison, then raise the U.S. flag upside down to signal distress.
Irwin organizes a plot to throw the prison into chaos. His intent is to show a friend, Brigadier General Wheeler (Delroy Lindo), Winter's superior officer, that Winter is unfit and should be removed from command under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. During a visit, Winter receives a letter demanding that he resign, or the prisoners will kidnap Wheeler.
After ordering his men into action, Winter discovers that the scheme was just a bluff. Irwin uses the event to gain intelligence on how the prison guards would react during an actual uprising. Wheeler, who has made it clear that he hates Winter, nevertheless respects Winter's argument that Wheeler has no idea what running a military prison is like; he offers to transfer Irwin to another prison if Winter requests it, but Winter declines.
Yates discreetly steals a U.S. flag from the warden's office during one of his visits and reveals he is on Irwin's side; Winter orders all the prisoners to be outside in the yard in an attempt to prevent their plot, but this was part of their plan as well, and the riot commences.
Using improvised weapons, the prisoners capture an armored vehicle and the prison helicopter, which Yates uses to kill Zamorro. The prisoners call Wheeler's headquarters and inform him of the riot. Winter has little time to regain control before Wheeler will arrive to see the prison under siege, so he orders that live ammunition be used against the prisoners.
Winter knows from Yates that Irwin ultimately plans to raise the American flag upside down, signaling distress. Irwin's men create havoc, but ultimately are confronted by overwhelming numbers of guards armed with live ammunition. Winter orders the men to lie down, but they refuse. He orders them again, warning them that the sharpshooters positioned above them will fire if they do not obey. Just before he gives the order, Irwin orders his fellow prisoners to lie down. Winter then tells Irwin to return his flag, but Irwin replies, "It's not your flag", before he turns and begins walking toward the flagpole in order to raise it.
An increasingly unsettled Winter tells Irwin, "You will not raise that flag upside down," but Irwin continues walking, despite Winter's orders to cease and desist. Seeing that Irwin is ignoring him, Winter orders the shooters to fire on Irwin, but they do not. He orders them repeatedly, trying to stop Irwin from raising the flag upside down, but after Winter's men, including Captain Peretz, disobey his orders and refuse to kill Irwin, Winter fatally shoots Irwin in the back as he lifts the flag. As his life ebbs away, Irwin continues to raise the flag.
Peretz places Winter under arrest for shooting Irwin. The prisoners, now standing again, begin to salute the flag. Astonishingly, Winter notices that Irwin has actually raised the flag correctly, meaning that he had shot Irwin fruitlessly. The flag flies above the prison's walls as General Wheeler arrives. Colonel Winter is led away in handcuffs. The inmates build a new wall as a memorial to their fallen comrades. Aguilar and Irwin's names are among those carved onto the castle's wall.
The movie begins with Donald Foley retrieving curling stones from a lake near Long Bay, Ontario. Foley dies after retrieving the stones, and a codicil to his will demands that curling rink he formerly coached be re-assembled, and enter a bonspiel to win the Golden Broom by placing a stone containing his ashes on the button. The team's skip, Chris Cutter, had skipped town ten years ago over the shame of failing to call a burnt stone, abandoning his fiancée Julie Foley (Donald's daughter) at the altar, and throwing the team's stones into the lake. Chris returns to Long Bay, where he convinces the former members of his team, Neil Bucyk, James Lennox, and Eddie Strombeck, to enter the competition for the Golden Broom. While the rink practices for the Golden Broom tournament, Chris tries to make amends with Julie, which is complicated by his feelings for her younger sister Amy. Neil deals with his resentment towards his wife, and unhappiness at running a funeral home inherited from his father in law. Eddie deals with his low sperm count and dissatisfaction about being unable to father children. James is working as a minor drug dealer, and tries to raise money to pay off a supplier to whom he is indebted.
After losing a match to an extremely elderly rink, the team realises they need a coach to be prepared for the bonspiel. Chris reconciles with his estranged father Gordon Cutter, so he will coach the team. Gordon trains the team for the upcoming bonspiel. In the first match of the bonspiel, the rink plays another rink, skipped by former Olympian Alexander Yount. Chris again fails to call a burnt stone, demoralising himself, the rest of his rink, and his father. Chris goes drinking at a bar, where Amy meets him and informs him she and Julie have come to an understanding; Julie accepts that Chris and Amy love one another, and once Chris accepts it they can be together. Julie, meanwhile, will be blasted off into space. Chris goes to his mother's grave where he encounters his father; the two reconcile, and Gordon tells Chris to go be with Amy.
Neil quits the rink, and is replaced by Gordon. However, in the second to last match, Gordon once again throws out his back and is unable to curl. However, Chris and his rink manage to win the match. In the final match of the bonspiel, the rink once again meets Yount's rink. With Gordon injured, Chris is forced to curl with a rink of three. Down 6-0 early, Gordon laments that they "need a good lead man." At this time, Neil and his wife are at the country club. Joanne rushes to the club and convinces Neil to rejoin the rink. Chris and his rink stage a comeback, and are now within victory. On the critical final shot, one of the sweepers burns the stone, noticed only by Chris. In this instance, Chris calls the burn. Yount allows Chris to retake the shot, to which Chris changes up his shot. Chris throws the rock directly at the centre of the house, smashing it and the rock it collided with. A large piece of granite lands directly on the button, along with Coach Foley's ashes. Chris and his rink have not only won the Golden Broom bonspiel, but have also fulfilled Coach Finley's final wish.
The story begins only days after the conclusion of ''Taran Wanderer''. With winter approaching, Taran and his companion Gurgi return from their wanderings to Caer Dallben after getting news from Kaw the crow that Princess Eilonwy has returned from the Isle of Mona. Indeed, they find her at home, along with her escort King Rhun of Mona and the former giant Glew, who had been magically restored to human size by a potion from Dallben.
Before Taran can propose to Eilonwy, the bard-king Fflewddur Fflam and his mount Llyan arrive with a gravely injured Gwydion, Prince of Don. Servants of Arawn had assaulted them and seized the magical black sword Dyrnwyn. Fflewddur also states that Taran was involved in the ambush, baffling everyone. With Achren's help, the truth is determined: Arawn himself has come from Annuvin to the verge of Caer Dallben in the guise of Taran, in order to lure Gwydion into the ambush.
Because Dyrnwyn may be pivotal as a threat to Arawn, Dallben consults the oracular pig Hen Wen to determine how it may be regained. During the reading, the ash rods used to communicate shatter and the two thirds of Hen Wen's answer are discouraging and vague. When Gwydion heals sufficiently, he sets out with Taran and others to meet with King Smoit. Gwydion insists that he alone should enter Annuvin to seek the sword, but Smoit's Cantrev Cadiffor is on the way. The small party divides, as Rhun and Eilonwy intend to visit the ships of Mona en route.
When Gwydion, Taran, and others reach Caer Cadarn, they are imprisoned by Magg, the treacherous former Chief Steward of Mona, who has entered service with Arawn and taken over the fortress. When Eilonwy approaches with the other party, she detects something amiss and they cautiously send Fflewddur Fflam to the fortress as a bard. After entertaining the soldiers for a night, he returns with the bad news. Then the companions encounter Gwystyl of the Fair Folk outside the stronghold, en route home after closing the waypost near Annuvin, personally bearing final observations to King Eiddileg about preparations for war by Arawn's forces. With Gwystyl's assistance and store of magical smokes, fires, and concealments, the companions break in and free the prisoners. The plan goes awry, however; King Smoit and his men are finally able to regain control only by Rhun's intervention, which costs his life.
Learning from Gwystyl of the activities in Annuvin, Gwydion turns from the quest for Dyrnwyn to planning for battle at Caer Dathyl. Gwystyl, Fflewddur, and Taran leave to gather support, respectively from the Fair Folk, the northern realms, and the Free Commots. Kaw, sent out by Taran to reconnoiter the enemy, is attacked by Gwythaints while spying near Annuvin, but manages to reach Medwyn, who asks all the creatures of air and land to oppose the forces of Arawn. Taran, Coll, Eilonwy, and Gurgi muster the Commots, who rally to their friendship with Taran, and sends them marching in groups to Caer Dathyl while the smiths and weavers rallied by Hevydd and Dwyvach work day and night to equip them.
Soon after Taran and the last Commots reach Caer Dathyl, King Pryderi arrives from the western realms. In council he announces his new allegiance to Arawn, for the good of all, because "Arawn will do what the Sons of Don have failed to do: Make an end of endless wars among the cantrevs, and bring peace where there was none before." He is rejected utterly but permitted to return unharmed to his army, and at the next day the battle begins. Although the Sons of Don and allies initially have the best of it, the Cauldron-Born arrive en masse before evening, overwhelming the allies and razing Caer Dathyl to the ground.
With High King Math killed, Gwydion is proclaimed the new High King. With the bulk of the Cauldron-Born deployed outside of Annuvin, Gwydion determines that the best chance is to attack while it is guarded by mortal men alone. He will lead the Sons of Don to waiting ships on the north coast and attack by sea, while Taran leads the Commots to delay the Cauldron-Born's return march, as their power wanes with time and distance from Annuvin.
Taran and his army are able to hold the tired Cauldron-Born warriors beyond arm's length by brute force, and turn the march from a straight and easy route into the rugged hills, although Coll dies in battle. Thanks to a company of Fair Folk, and to the animals sent by Medwyn, they destroy most of the Huntsmen who accompany and lead the undead. At last the Cauldron-Born break free of the hills and return to the lowland route. Regaining strength as they near Annuvin, it would be futile for the exhausted allies to meet them head-on again, so inevitably they take the long, easy route to Arawn's stronghold.
Taran and the remainder of his army finally reach Annuvin by a combination of the direct route, a mountain path of Doli's, and a secret pass over Mount Dragon shown to them by Achren. Taran sees that victory is nearly in Gwydion's hands, but also that the Cauldron-Born are about to reach Annuvin. In his alarm, Taran nearly falls off Mount Dragon, but is saved by the now-grown Gwythaint he had rescued so many years ago (''The Book of Three''). In a desperate attempt to fight off a group of Cauldron-Born who have discovered him on the mountain, he rolls a rock at them, and discovers Dyrnwyn in the hollow the stone occupied. Wielding Dyrnwyn, Taran slays the undead warrior who approaches to slay him, and at that instant all of the Cauldron-Born die as one.
Taran's group enters the fray, and the battle continues through the halls of Annuvin. Taran is almost deceived by Arawn - who has taken the guise of Gwydion - into giving up the sword. After the chaotic defeat of Arawn's forces, the companions gather before the Great Hall. Achren identifies Arawn in the form of a nearby serpent preparing to strike Taran and grabs him. He strikes her fatally, but Taran kills him with Dyrnwyn. With the death of Arawn, the stronghold of Annuvin bursts in flame and falls in ruins, destroying all of the magical implements inside; only Gurgi manages to save several scrolls containing knowledge of farming, smithing, and other crafts. The sword Dyrnwyn begins to fade, losing its magic.
The allies travel to Caer Dallben, where Gwydion tells them that in victory the Sons of Don, with all kinsmen and kinswomen, must return to the Summer Country. Indeed, all those who still have magic will depart, and the Fair Folk and Medwyn have closed their realms to outsiders. Dallben and Eilonwy must also go, and others who have served well, Taran among them, are given the chance to accompany them. Taran proposes to Eilonwy at last, and she accepts.
The Sons of Don plan to leave the next day. However, Taran becomes uncomfortable about his decision overnight. The witches Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch appear before him and reveal that they too are departing, and leave him with an unfinished tapestry depicting his life. He realizes there is much work to be done to rebuild Prydain, and he has made many promises; so he determines to remain behind. Eilonwy is able to willingly give up her magical nature in order to remain with him, and the two are married.
Dallben reveals that with this last quest, Taran has completed a path prophesied in the ''Book of Three'' whereby an orphan of "no station in life" would succeed the Sons of Don as High King. Dallben had traveled to seek such a one and try to hasten the day of Arawn's defeat; on this journey, he found a baby, hidden in the trees beside a battlefield and without any token of parentage, and took it in under the name Taran. Taran receives many gifts, including ''The Book of Three'' itself, although its powers, like all magic in Prydain, have also faded away with Arawn's demise, leaving it only as a mere chronicle of Taran's life. With Eilonwy by his side, Taran accepts his new responsibility and is hailed by his friends and battle companions as the new High King.
The story is set in the Franco-Prussian War and follows a group of French residents of Rouen, recently occupied by the Prussian army. The ten travellers decide for various reasons to leave Rouen and flee to Le Havre in a stagecoach. Sharing the carriage are Boule de Suif or "Butterball" (lit. ''suet dumpling'', also translated as ''ball of fat''), a prostitute whose real name is Elisabeth Rousset; the strict Democrat Cornudet; a shop-owning couple from the petty bourgeoisie, M. and Mme. Loiseau; a wealthy upper-bourgeoisie factory-owner and his wife, M. and Mme. Carré-Lamadon; the Comte and Comtesse of Bréville; and two nuns. Thus, the carriage constitutes a microcosm of French society, representing different parts of the French population during the late 19th century.
Due to the terrible weather, the coach moves very slowly and by midday has only covered a few miles. The occupants initially snub Boule de Suif, but their attitudes change when she produces a picnic basket full of lovely food and offers to share its contents with the hungry travellers.
At the village of Tôtes, the carriage stops at the local coaching inn, and the occupants, hearing a German voice, realise they have blundered into Prussian-held territory. A Prussian officer detains the party at the inn indefinitely without telling them why. Over the next two days, the travellers become increasingly impatient, and are finally told by Boule de Suif that they are being detained until she agrees to sleep with the officer. She is repeatedly called before the officer, and always returns in a heightened state of agitation. Initially, the travellers support her and are furious at the officer's arrogance, but their indignation soon disappears as they grow angry at Boule de Suif for not sleeping with the officer so that they can leave. Over the course of the next two days, the travelers use various examples of logic and morality to convince her it is the right thing to do; she finally gives in and sleeps with the officer, who allows them to leave the next morning.
As they continue on their way to Le Havre, these "representatives of Virtue" ignore Boule de Suif and turn to polite topics of conversation, glancing scathingly at the young woman while refusing to even acknowledge her, and refusing to share their food with her the way that she did with them earlier. As the coach travels on into the night, Cornudet starts whistling the ''Marseillaise'' which sours the mood of everyone in the coach, and all the while Boule de Suif, bemoaning her lost dignity, can hardly repress her sobs.
The game starts with the protagonist, a Ninja in training (simply named Ninja), who comes to rescue his Sensei (simply named Sensei) from the Ranx sent by Ninja's nemesis, Emperor O-Dor. Ninja saves Sensei by defeating the Ranx. Then, a creature comes to attack Ninja which he deals with easily. The creature then spits out a Rage Stone which Ninja touches and goes into a fit of rage and accidentally kills Sensei. Sensei comes back as a ghost and tells Ninja that there are more Rage Stones and with their power, he can defeat O-Dor. Sensei then sends Ninja to find the second Rage Stone in Robot Beach. Ninja then arrives at Robot Beach.
Ninja arrives in Robot Beach and is told to rebuild Tekeyama, a giant robot that guarded Robot Beach before Kyza came. Ninja rebuilds Tekeyama and starts to fight Kyza in which he defeats him. Inside Kyza, a Rage Stone is found and Ninja retrieves it. Like before, he is unable to control the stone at first, and dashes around the area before heading for the next level. The guardian of Robot Beach and creator of Tekeyama, Yang, thanks Ninja by opening the gate to Bomb Bay, the location of the next Rage Stone.
Ninja arrives at Bomb Bay and saves it from many of the dangers the Ranx have set up. Ninja then finds a submarine inside a giant bomb and fights the mechanical fish, Ventis for the next Rage Stone. Ninja then meets the guardian of Bomb Bay, Aria. If anybody saves Aria from something, she always rewards the hero with hugs and kisses, with Ninja being no exception. She then tries to hug and kiss him, while he struggles not to harm her with the rage stone's power. Ninja opens the gate and gets away from Aria, not before calling her a "fish girl" and walking off.
The next area Ninja lands in is the Jungle Falls which is being haunted by the underworld demon, Psyamon. Ninja saves the jungle by defeating the Ranx. When Psyamon finds Ninja, Ninja is not ready to fight so he finds a battle suit which destroys the underworld demon. Ninja then meets Twikki, the guardian of the Jungle Falls (and a passive/cowardly one at that.) Ninja also locates O-Dor's Rage Stone which he uses, despite Twikki's warning to save him from an army of Ranx.
Ninja then enters Mountain Gorge where he saves the Mountains from the new, more powerful Ranx. After saving the mountains, Ninja meets O-Dor's right-hand man, Malakai, who can control the elements. Ninja wins and takes a moon-shaped Rage Stone. After a confusing moment of Ninja climbing all over the large stone, trying to use it, a female ninja, Zarola, tells Ninja that the stone was a Teleport Stone, not a Rage Stone which will take him to O-Dor's secret moon base. She also tells him about the stone of life which can resurrect the dead or grant immortality to the living, offering Ninja a chance to resurrect Sensei or live forever. Then, Zarola sends Ninja off.
Ninja arrives at the Moon Base and fights all sorts of Ranx until Ninja finds where O-Dor was hiding out. Ninja and O-Dor then have a battle across space until Ninja makes O-Dor blow up. Ninja then finds the stone of light and decides to use it on himself. Sensei feels disappointed by Ninja's selfishness and floats away. Ninja starts to feel bad and then remembers Sensei saying that "Actions speak louder than words." Ninja throws the shuriken shaped stone at Sensei, and giving Sensei his life back. With everything back to normal, Ninja and Sensei teleport back to Earth. As soon as they leave, O-Dor manages to resurrect himself.
The main character, Kira, who has a deformed leg, is recently orphaned since her mother abruptly died from unknown sickness, and her father died years ago on a hunt with the Hunters by being killed by The Beasts. Kira must learn to survive in a society that normally leaves the weak or disabled exposed to die in the fields.
Kira needs a reason for the council to keep her in the village and not to take her to the Field, which is certain death at the hands of The Beasts. A member of the council, Jamison, defends Kira during the trial, much to Kira's surprise, and convinces the Council that Kira has a gift for embroidery. She is found worthy of life in society at the trial and is given the task of repairing the Singer's robe.
She is taught how to further solidify her talent from a much older woman, Annabella, who continues to teach Kira how to create dyes for different shades and hues for her thread work. To Kira's dismay, she learns that there is no ability to create the color blue for the threads that she will be using. Eventually, to Kira's surprise, Annabella tells her that with her own years and knowledge, she knows much of the society's history and even goes so far as to say that there really are no Beasts, contrary to the society's beliefs. Kira is unsure what to think of that revelation or what Annabella really means by it.
Along the way, she becomes closer friends with a younger boy, Matt, and makes a new friend in her neighborhood at her new home, Thomas, who is a boy around Kira's age. Thomas is also an orphan and has lived there since he was very young because of his abilities. Kira learns that he is the woodworker who maintains and improves the Singer's staff, which, in turn, helps the Singer remember the history of the society as he sings the lengthy song. Together, they help each other bring out the best in their talents to prepare for The Gathering. Jamison, the Guardian who fought for her life in the trial, becomes somewhat of a mentor in her new home. He is kind and instructive but also very stern.
Kira slowly learns that her life is less than idyllic. Thomas hears crying in her building, and they discover another orphan, a very young girl, Jo, whose ability to sing is magnificent. She is kept with the intent of eventually replacing the current Singer. Jo is scolded and punished if she does not sing. Kira secretly befriends her and sneaks into Jo's locked room at night to comfort her. Kira realizes that the three do not have as much freedom as they had previously thought. Annabella abruptly dies, and Matt tells Kira that the old dyer had died and been dragged to the Field by Jamison and his men. Kira is later told that Annabella had died of old age and died while asleep by Jamison. Kira is left to continue her work. That and the secluded life that a very young Jo must live help Kira decide to find out the truth about her society.
On the day that the Singer sings the Song at the Gathering, Matt is nowhere to be found. At the Ceremony of the Gathering, she notices that the current Singer both uses the staff that Thomas has worked so hard on and wears the robe that she repaired and enhanced. She realizes that his feet are chained, scarred, and bleeding. This implies that he is essentially a prisoner kept for the Ceremony because of his talent. This implies that Kira and the others with Gifts, which the council has saved for their jobs, are also prisoners. Their gifts are in control of the council by tenants who, without any creativity of their own, seek to control the three to provide a future that they envision.
After a long absence, Matt returns with a blind man from the distant Village of Healing. The man wears a blue shirt, which Kira's people are unable to make. The man is Kira's father, Christopher, who Kira long thought dead. Christopher reveals that he had been attacked years earlier by another hunter, who was jealous of his immediate potential of being a member on the Council of the Guardians. He was beaten and stabbed, blinding him. After being taken to the fields to die with the other rejected, injured, and dying citizens of their society, he was rescued by some people he could not see. They took him to the Village that he now lives in. This village is full of kind and helpful people, as opposed to the selfish residents of Kira's village. Matt excitedly explains that they know the way to make blue threads, and he brings plants that will allow Kira to do the same.
After a long heartfelt reunion with his daughter, Christopher reveals that he has enemies on the council. The one who maimed him years before was none other than Jamison. He tearfully apologizes for taking so long to return to get her. Because of his memory loss caused by the beating and his loss of sight, he had no way of finding her. Matt had gone looking for a way to make blue for Kira and stumbled upon Christopher's village, leading to this eventual reunion.
Kira begins to wonder if her mother's sudden death and the deaths of the two other orphans' parents were actually by the council's hand to acquire the young gifted children so that it could mould them into creating the future that it wants.
Christopher cannot stay and is forced to return to his village. Kira, however, decides to stay in her own community to continue to embroider the Singer's robe and help improve her society. Matt is designated as the "eyes" that will help Christopher find his way back. It is implied that Thomas, Kira, and Jo, who are the new holders of the Gifts, have the opportunity to change the cycle of their society and to improve the conditions in which they live by using their gifts to influence the actions of their people vastly.
At the end of the book, Matt tells Kira that in the Village, all are important and married, which she would have to do without in her society in which the injured and the impaired are seen as worthless wastes of space. He continues to tell her about a boy from the Village who has blue eyes, is around her age, and is not injured in any way (alluding to Jonas from ''The Giver'') in the hope that will entice her to come with them. Kira declines to go with them to the Village, but it is decided that she will follow once her work in her current task is eventually finished. In the meantime, Matt will travel back and forth between Kira and her father Christopher, being called their Messenger, relaying their messages.
Matty, who was introduced in ''Gathering Blue'' as "Matt", now lives with Seer, who was originally named Christopher and is a blind man rescued by the people of the Village years earlier.
Outside the safe boundaries of Village is the Forest, an unwelcoming realm that most of the Villagers fear because of its powerful harm. Despite the lack of dangerous beasts, The Forest is animated.
People who trade at a gathering, Trade Mart, change from being compassionate and generous to angry and impatient. The Villagers change temperament and decide to close their borders and stop permitting the displaced and the unwanted of other communities to enter. Seer, in the wake of the sudden change, decides to send Matty to travel through the Forest to retrieve his daughter, Kira, who lives in a town several days away.
The gift is a special ability that Matty possesses but hardly understands. It is a power of healing that causes wholeness from the inside out. Matty puts his hands to the ground and manages to restore the integrity of The Forest and people alike at the expense of his own life from the thickening forest. The Leader (Jonas) names Matty as "the Healer."
At the end of the novel, Matty's soul drifts deep into the earth, which saves the villagers and Forest. The chaos turns to peace, as Matty's powers become a part of the perishing earth.
The play opens at Rocky's residence on Caidoux Street in Montreal's red light district. Rocky receives an unwanted visit from Dawson, a police officer he has been paying off to keep quiet about a murder. Rocky offers Margy, a prostitute who works for him, as payment to Dawson, but she refuses. Dawson leaves without trouble, but swears to return for his money. Margy longs to leave Rocky for a better life, but she currently has no realistic alternative. Rocky leaves for a date with a "society dame", whom he plans to seduce and blackmail. Once Rocky has left, Margy receives several visitors. The first is her best friend Agnes, who, despite Margy's warnings about rejection, plans to return home to her parents once she's saved enough money. Margy's second visitor is Gregg, a Royal Navy officer who, while he is a customer, is also a friend. Gregg encourages Margy to follow the fleet around and entertain the military men so she can see the world and get rich. To prove he truly cares about her, he takes her out on a nice date with the money he planned on using for her services. Rocky returns with his "society dame" Clara, whom he quickly drugs and hauls into the bedroom once she is unconscious.
Margy and Gregg return to have a drink and discover that Rocky has fled and left behind Clara, who is now near death. Gregg and Margy manage to revive her, and she regains consciousness as Dawson returns. Margy tries to cover up for Rocky and Clara by saying Clara is a friend, but Clara takes advantage of Margy and lies to Dawson, saying Margy lured her in and stole all her jewelry. Dawson prepares to take Clara downtown for further investigation but Clara, knowing the publicity would ruin her reputation, convinces Dawson to accept money in exchange for letting her go. As he goes to escort Clara out of Montreal, Margy stops them and curses Clara for trying to frame her to save herself. Margy reminds Clara that all she ever did to her was try to save her life, and if she ever gets the chance to get even with her, she will.
The second act opens at The Café Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Margy has begun to follow the fleet and travel the world as Gregg suggested. Gregg and Margy run into Jones, an old customer of Margy's. He keeps trying to seduce Margy, but Gregg is strangely protective and warns him to back off. The captain of the ship introduces Margy to Jimmy, a young millionaire. Jimmy is unaware Margy is a prostitute and quickly falls in love. Jimmy soon proposes to Margy and begs her to return home with him. She tells him he is silly, as they have not even known each other for more than a week. Jimmy insists and eventually Margy says yes to his proposal. After too much wine, Jimmy soon retires to his room.
Margy discovers Agnes in a state of despair and learns that Agnes's family rejected her when she tried to return home. Margy consoles her and confides that she is pretending to be an upper-class tourist so that she can marry a rich man. Agnes is delighted, but Margy is considering coming clean because she does not want to lie to such a good man. Agnes makes Margy promise she will marry Jimmy and have a good life. Margy tries to get Agnes a hotel room and some new clothes, but Agnes does not want to ruin Margy's cover, so she refuses and runs off sobbing. Gregg enters and tells Margy he is leaving the next day for Australia, then asks if she will come with him and be his wife. Margy is flattered, but turns him down. Jimmy re-enters and a commotion is heard. Agnes has jumped off the boat into the bay and drowned herself. Margy nearly faints, and Jimmy, surprised at her reaction, tells her not to worry because it is just some worthless prostitute.
Act Three opens at Jimmy Stanton's home, where Jimmy is excited for Margy to meet his parents. Upon meeting Jimmy's mother, Clara, Margy instantly recognizes her as the "society dame" from Montreal. Clara cannot reveal who Margy is without exposing herself, and Margy takes advantage of the situation to put Clara in her place. Once alone with Jimmy, Margy brings him up to her room to seduce him before their wedding as a way of getting revenge on Clara. The next morning, Jimmy tells Margy that he is having his friend Lieutenant Gregg over. Gregg also recognizes Clara from Montreal, but Margy stops him before he has the chance to say anything. Clara is so anxious about her past being exposed she feigns illness and rushes off to her room. Once Jimmy and Gregg have left, there is a knock at the door, and Clara answers it to reveal Rocky, who demands money. Clara grabs for a gun, but Margy enters and takes the gun while calling the police. Margy knows that Rocky has been blackmailing Clara, but she lets him run before the police arrive when he promises to leave them alone forever.
When the police arrive, Margy tells them it was a mistake, but to her dismay, she recognizes one of the officers as one of her former clients, and he recognizes her as well. Knowing she can never pull off her façade, she silently goes up to her room. Jimmy and Gregg return and begin to talk with Clara, but Margy interrupts, dressed to leave and carrying her suitcase. She explains to Jimmy that she is the same as the woman who threw herself into the bay in Haiti. Jimmy is heartbroken that Margy is not what she appeared to be, and he cannot love her for who she is. Margy, who is not surprised, smiles and says she's leaving for Australia. She takes Gregg's hand, knowing that he has loved her all along.
Marimar is a poor, innocent girl who lives with her grandparents in a hut on the beach at San Martin de la Costa, in Ixtapa Zihuatanejo. She falls in love with Sergio, the son of Renato Santibáñez, a wealthy ranch owner. Sergio takes an interest in Marimar due to her humble, sweet demeanor and decides to marry her to spite his father and young stepmother, Angélica. Angélica despises Marimar because of her naivete, her illiteracy, and her ignorance of societal norms, deciding to embark on a campaign to disparage and humiliate her. Angered by his stepmother's behavior, Sergio decides to leave on a short business trip to earn enough money to allow him to take Marimar somewhere where she will be safe from Angélica's abuse.
However, Sergio's departure leaves Marimar alone with no defense between her and Angélica's malice. First, Angélica turns the family and all the household staff against her. She then devises a plan to rid Marimar from the hacienda by staging a theft: she shows Marimar a bracelet lying in a puddle and tells her that she recognizes it as something that once belonged to Sergio's biological mother. She encourages Marimar to retrieve it from the mud with her teeth, and after Marimar follows Angélica's instructions and retrieves the bracelet, Angélica reports to the police that Marimar has stolen it. With Marimar being sent to prison, Angélica sends one of her servants, Nicandro, to set fire to the home of Marimar's grandparents where both of them die in the blaze that ensues. Finally, Angelica forges a letter in Sergio's name in which he tells Marimar that he never loved her and that he will divorce her. Traumatized by Angélica's wickedness, her imprisonment, the death of her grandparents, and the apparent betrayal of Sergio, the formerly good-natured Marimar becomes a woman hell-bent on revenge. Once released from jail, Marimar decides to create an entirely new life for herself. Accompanied by Padre Porres, she moves to Mexico City, where she adopts a new identity as "Bella".
Marimar's life takes an unexpected turn when she finds employment in the home of a stranger named Gustavo Aldama, a man who has been looking for his daughter, ''María del Mar'', for many years. Gustavo and his sister Esperanza take "Bella" under their wing and teach her how to read and write, how to speak eloquently, and how to dress elegantly. Her family circle expands further when she discovers that she is pregnant with Sergio's child, in due course giving birth to a daughter, Crucita.
When Marimar's metamorphosis into a new, brilliant social butterfly is complete, Gustavo takes her to the opera, where she happens to meet her estranged husband. Still believing that Sergio betrayed her, she launches herself into her long-planned vendetta against him and the rest of the Santibañez family. Diving into her new identity as Bella Aldama, she torments Sergio in a game of erotic cat and mouse, sometimes seducing him, sometimes rejecting him. After Marimar reveals to Gustavo that she is his daughter, in the middle of an argument with Bernardo Duarte, he suffers a heart attack and later dies. Marimar inherits her father's share of a country club in Valle Encantado and moves there to manage it. In the meantime, Marimar and Sergio's relationship becomes further complicated when the local governor, Fernando Montenegro, falls in love with Marimar, while his daughter, Natalia, becomes infatuated with Sergio and begins to plot against Marimar for Sergio's affection.
Marimar's campaign against the Santibáñez family enters its final phase, in which she strips Renato and Angélica of their wealth by driving Renato deep into gambling debt while holding the deed to the Santibáñez ranch as collateral. Finally revealing herself to everyone as Marimar, she takes ownership of the ranch and renames it ''Hacienda los Abuelos'', now ranking further above Angélica socially than Angélica ever was. Marimar exploits their fall from grace publicly to humiliate Angélica in the same way that Angélica used to humiliate her. Meanwhile, although Sergio remains in love with Marimar, he ends his marriage with her in disgust due to her actions and makes preparations to marry his childhood friend, Inocencia del Castillo. Marimar sets out to disrupt Sergio and Inocencia's lives by ruining their wedding and wielding her power and influence over Sergio.
Angélica is involved in a major traffic collision on her way to Valle Encantado and suffers fatal burns as a result. While lying on her deathbed, but still as hateful as ever, her last request is for someone to set fire to Marimar's home so that she will die in agony like Angélica. Meanwhile, Inocencia is distressed to discover that Sergio has been making repeated visits to Marimar's home. Pregnant with Sergio's baby, she collapses and is taken to the hospital. Her baby is delivered safely, but a scan conducted reveals she has a brain tumor. While awaiting surgery, she is visited by Marimar. Inocencia then makes a deal with Marimar: if she survives her operation, Marimar will have to leave Sergio and her alone; if she doesn't survive, Marimar will have to marry Sergio. Nevertheless, Marimar commits to Inocencia that she will forget about Sergio regardless of the outcome of her surgery.
Marimar then decides to enter into a relationship with an engineer, Adrián Rosales. Inocencia's tumor is successfully removed. With a new lease on life and ashamed of how she has treated Marimar, Inocencia tells her that she will no longer stand between Marimar and Sergio, as long as she can count on Sergio's support as a father to their child. Renato also expresses regret over how he has treated Marimar, and asks for forgiveness on behalf of himself and Angélica.
Padre Porres helps Sergio understand the motive behind Marimar's quest for revenge, and the couple eventually resolve the outstanding issue of the betrayal that never occurred. The story ends with Marimar and Sergio finally remarrying in the small church in San Martin de la Costa.
Joe Tyler, a process server, is a week late serving a Mafia kingpin known as Fat Charlie with a summons to appear as a witness in court. Joe's abrasive boss Ray ridicules him while complimenting Joe's rival, Tony, for serving multiple summonses in record time. Willing to give Joe one last shot, Ray gives him an assignment to serve British socialite Sara Moore with divorce papers from her husband, Gordon, who is at his ranch in Texas with his mistress, Kate, while Sara is vacationing in upstate New York.
While Joe is attempting to serve Sara, Tony tips her off, thus revealing that Joe has been failing lately because Tony is sabotaging his efforts. Eventually Joe does serve her, but is mugged soon thereafter. Joe and Sara are forced to take the same bus; while they are riding together, Joe informs her that, under Texas law, she stands to gain nothing from the divorce. When she learns that "half of everything" would apply if the papers had been served under New York law, Sara offers Joe a million dollars to serve her husband and rip up her papers. Despite knowing that he might lose his job, Joe agrees and the two set off together to serve Gordon.
When Ray hears of their plan, he informs Gordon and sends Tony off to re-serve Sara. Gordon hires a bodyguard to protect himself, and Joe, expecting Tony to tail him, leaves a set of bogus clues that lead Tony to Miami, Florida, Bangor, Maine, and then Amarillo, Texas, where Tony is shot in the back as he attempts to get on the grounds of the wrong ranch to try to serve the papers. Sara and Joe trail Gordon to his ranch, but Gordon evades them. At the ranch, Sara takes some money and Gordon's passport so that he cannot leave the country. Sara and Joe stay overnight at a hotel, and Joe tells Sara of his dream of owning a vineyard. While Sara is bathing, Joe goes to the bar, and Gordon's mistress appears to suggest a new deal to Joe; for one million dollars from the divorce settlement, she will reveal Gordon's location. Joe agrees, but the entire deal is a setup to get Tony into the hotel room to serve Sara, which he does. Furious, Sara kicks Joe out.
While Joe contemplates his lost fortune and budding affection for Sara, he notices Tony's watch in the picture Tony took of him serving Sara, and calls Ray to inform him that Tony forgot to set his watch to Central Time Zone, so that the papers do not take effect until 7:04 pm Central Time. With mere minutes until they both lose a fortune, Joe and Sara trail Gordon to a monster truck rally. They evade both Gordon's bodyguard and Tony, and with seconds to spare, Sara knocks Gordon out by dropping a six-pack of beer on his head. Joe serves him under New York law and Gordon takes the papers. Tony and the bodyguard are carried out of the stadium on stretchers (due to Tony accidentally running over Gordon) and then attempt to fight one another. The final scene shows Joe and Sara at Joe's vineyard, where they taste-test a bottle of Joe's first vintage before going inside to have sex.
First published in Brazil in 1949, ''O Homem que Calculava'' is a series of tales in the style of the ''Arabian Nights'', but revolving around mathematical puzzles and curiosities. The book is ostensibly a translation by Brazilian scholar Breno de Alencar Bianco of an original manuscript by Malba Tahan, a thirteenth-century Persian scholar of the Islamic Empire – both equally fictitious.
The first two chapters tell how Hanak Tade Maia was traveling from Samarra to Baghdad when he met Beremiz Samir, a young lad from Khoy with amazing mathematical abilities. The traveler then invited Beremiz to come with him to Baghdad, where a man with his abilities will certainly find profitable employment. The rest of the book tells of various incidents that befell the two men along the road and in Baghdad. In all those events, Beremiz Samir uses his abilities with calculation like a magic wand to amaze and entertain people, settle disputes, and find wise and just solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.
In the first incident along their trip (chapter III), Beremiz settles a heated inheritance dispute between three brothers. Their father had left them 35 camels, of which 1/2 (17.5 camels) should go to his eldest son, 1/3 (11.666... camels) to the middle one, and 1/9 (3.888... camels) to the youngest. To solve the brothers dilemma, Beremiz convinces Hanak to donate his only camel to the dead man's estate. Then, with 36 camels, Beremiz gives 18, 12, and 4 animals to the three heirs, making all of them profit with the new share. Of the remaining two camels, one is returned to Hanak, and the other is claimed by Beremiz as his reward.
The translator's notes observe that a variant of this problem, with 17 camels to be divided in the same proportions, is found in hundreds of recreational mathematics books, such as those of E. Fourrey (1949) and G. Boucheny (1939). However, the 17-camel version leaves only one camel at the end, with no net profit for the estate's executor.
At the end of the book, Beremiz uses his abilities to win the hand of his student and secret love Telassim, the daughter of one of the Caliph's advisers. (The caliph mentioned is Al-Musta'sim, the only real character who appears fictitiously; the time period ends with the Abbasid dynasty's collapse.)
In the last chapter we learn that Hanak Tade Maia and Beremiz eventually moved to Constantinople following the Siege of Baghdad (Telassim's father died in the fighting), where Beremiz had three sons and Hanak visits him often.
Harry Mitchell is a successful construction magnate living in the suburbs of Los Angeles, whose wife Barbara is running for city council. One day, Harry is confronted by three hooded blackmailers who demand $105,000 per year for a videotape of him and his mistress, a young stripper named Cini. Because of his wife's political aspirations he cannot go to the police; however, guilt eventually drives him to confess, and she kicks him out of their bedroom.
Harry's stubborn inclination is to not surrender to the threats, and when his lawyer advises him that the blackmailers will never leave him alone, he refuses to pay. The trio kidnap Harry and force him to watch a video of Cini being murdered with a gun stolen from his house. They demand $105,000 a year for the rest of Harry's life in exchange for their silence. Harry, however, vows to get revenge.
Using deduction and his business contacts, Harry tracks down and confronts Alan Raimy, the leader of the blackmailers and an amateur adult filmmaker. Knowing he has a background in accounting, Harry shows Raimy his financial records, which indicate that the majority of his wealth is tied up and he can't afford $105,000. Raimy agrees to accept Harry's offer of $52,000 instead, at least as a first payment. However, Raimy also breaks into Harry's house posing as an insurance salesman and subtly threatens Barbara.
Through Doreen, a stripper who was friends with Cini, Harry learns the names of the other blackmailers: the sociopathic Bobby Shy and the cowardly Leo. He first makes Raimy suspicious by suggesting Leo gave up his name; Bobby, realizing the truth, violently interrogates Doreen but believes her when she says she didn't give him away. That night he breaks into the Mitchell house and tries to kill Harry, but Harry and Barbara overpower him. Harry realizes Raimy kept the revised deal to himself and tells Bobby as much before letting him go.
Leo, cracking under the pressure, confesses everything to Harry, saying he never wanted to hurt Cini and that both her body and the videotape have been disposed of. He also warns him that Raimy and Bobby will kill him and Barbara after the payment is made, since he knows who they are. Bobby later confronts Leo, who is planning to leave town, and kills him. Meanwhile, Raimy kidnaps Barbara and sedates her with drugs, to ensure Harry delivers the $52,000. He lures Bobby and Doreen to a warehouse and kills both of them before going to meet Harry.
Harry exchanges the money for Barbara, telling Raimy that if anything happens to them, his lawyer will send Raimy's fingerprints (from the financial records) to the police. Raimy had previously expressed interest in Harry’s sports car, so Harry offers it as a getaway vehicle. When Raimy turns the ignition key the doors lock, trapping him inside; the car then explodes in a ball of fire.
Following a series of brutal murders committed by what appears to be an animal, Sheriff Vernon Bell (Philip Carey) asks local adventure writer and former hunter John Weatherby (Peter Graves) to investigate. Weatherby agrees and finds that the footprints left at the murder site appear to be that of a wolf, but that changed into a bipedal animal while leaving, and the animal has left no scent. Weatherby asks his friend, reclusive big game hunter Byron Douglas (Clint Walker), for help, but he declines, stating that he feels the atmosphere of fear the killings create has made the townsfolk "alive" for the first time. Byron and Weatherby had previously gone on a hunt where they battled a vicious wolf that had bitten Byron.
Weatherby's girlfriend Sandy (Jo Ann Pflug) is attacked in her home by the animal. She survives, but begins to believe the murders were committed by a werewolf, a belief that spreads to the rest of the townsfolk. Sandy also believes that Byron could be the killer, as does Sheriff Bell, who posts a police officer to stakeout Byron's house. The officer is mauled to death, and his body is found in a clearing far away from the house. After the town is put into a state of national emergency, Weatherby demands Byron's help once more, and he reluctantly agrees. The two hunt for the animal in the woods, splitting up. Byron is seemingly killed by the animal, which John tracks to Byron's house. John is held at gunpoint by Byron, who faked his own death by killing his assistant Grant (Don Megowan).
Byron reveals that he was the killer, having faked the tracks with pieces of the animals he has killed over the years and covered his scent, and used an attack dog to kill the victims. Byron wants to hunt Weatherby and help him regain his killer instincts, and sends him out into the woods with a five-minute head start to find ammo for his rifle. Weatherby succeeds but is attacked by the dog, which he shoots. Byron then attacks him, only for Weatherby to reveal he had hidden a pistol, having known Byron was the killer and baited him into revealing himself. Byron walks away, only to be shot and wounded by Weatherby. Enraged, Byron rushes after him, only to be shot again and killed. Weatherby stands over his friend's body, contemplating what he has done, and then walks off into the night.
During his childhood, Tim Jensen witnesses his father being taken by the Boogeyman, an evil creature which lives in all closets worldwide. Since then, he has taken precautions to ensure that the Boogeyman cannot get to him, such as sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and removing all closets from his home, and keeping all his clothes in a dresser drawer.
After a Thanksgiving trip with his girlfriend Jessica to her parents' house, Tim has a premonition in which his mother tells him to return to the family home. Soon after, he receives a call from his uncle informing him that his mother has died. Upon returning to the psychiatric ward, where he grew up after his father died, he discovers that one of the patients, a young girl, is being terrorized by something hiding in the ceiling of her room.
Upon a suggestion by his psychiatrist that returning to his family home to spend the night in that house would be a good idea, Tim returns to his old Victorian style house in the open country, where he relives memories of his mother telling his father that the Boogeyman does not exist and therefore cannot possibly harm Tim. Tim is briefly attacked by the Boogeyman when he enters the downstairs closet.
Tim meets a young girl in his woodshed, named Franny, who wants to know if it's true that the Boogeyman murdered Tim's father. Searching the woodshed he discovers a file of Missing Person lists and documents left by Franny, and upon flicking through them, he discovers a disturbing collection of missing children who were all taken by the Boogeyman.
Tim panics and attempts to leave, but Jessica abruptly shows up and takes Tim out of the house for a night to a quiet motel, where she is murdered by the Boogeyman, dragging her into the bath.
Tim returns from getting ice and preparing drinks and enters the bathroom, where he finds that Jessica is missing. He realizes what has occurred, and stumbles blindly into a closet, and then walks out into his family home, just as Kate, his childhood friend, has returned to his home and, upon hearing noises from the closets, was about to open the door herself. Tim drags Kate back to the hotel, where they find the empty bath; this time with blood on the side. Kate begins thinking that Tim might've harmed Jessica; but Tim angrily denies it. Frustrated at Tim's refusal to tell her what is really wrong with him, Kate drives them back to her house where Tim spots something in the window. Kate claims that the person Tim saw was in fact her deaf father. She then calls Tim's Uncle Mike to have him check on Tim. But he is captured and taken away by the Boogeyman.
Tim returns to his house and meets Franny once more, who leads him to a house full of proclamations describing the Boogeyman. There is a chair in the middle of the room facing a closet. Tim remembers this house as being the home of a doctor whom everyone thought was insane. Franny then reveals herself to be the doctor's daughter and one of the kids the Boogeyman took, telling Tim he'd best go to the place where it all started. The Boogeyman pulls Tim through various portals in time through the closet, eventually depositing him in his childhood room. Realizing its true weakness, Tim smashes various toys the Boogeyman uses to give itself form, eventually defeating it, vanishing into the void.
With the Boogeyman gone, Tim hopes that his and Kate's lives will be safer. Morning dawns and Tim already feels better, thinking he's finally safe. However, a post-credits scene reveals a young girl being tormented by the monster, revealing that the Boogeyman has resurfaced out of the closet.
While on a treasure-hunting voyage with his father, Gary Gulliver and his dog Tagg end up shipwrecked on an island. On this island is the kingdom of Lilliput, where its inhabitants have a height of only a few centimeters. Gary and Tagg are caught by the Lilliputians while they are recovering from the shipwreck, but afterwards they become great friends. With the help of the Lilliputians, Gary continues searching for his missing father. (A subplot in the series involves a map that Gary's father left to him after secretly putting it inside Tagg's collar before the shipwreck). The villain of the series is the evil Captain Leech who, in the adventures, is always attempting to steal the map from Gary.
Kat Ellis is a single New Yorker who returns to her parents' house in London to be the maid of honor at her younger half-sister Amy's wedding. The best man is her former fiancé, who unexpectedly dumped her two years ago. Anxious about confronting and eager to impress him, she hires suave escort Nick Mercer to pose as her boyfriend.
Kat intends to make her former flame, Jeffrey, jealous, but her plan backfires when Nick convinces everyone, including her, that they are madly in love. Kat then feels herself, too, falling for Nick as he slowly falls for her.
The night before the wedding, Kat discovers Amy slept with Jeffrey when they were still together, and he dumped Kat because he believed he was in love with Amy. Nick had discovered this a day earlier, and when Kat finds that out, she feels betrayed from all sides, and puts Nick off. He decides to return to America, and leaves Kat the money she had paid him.
On the wedding day, seeing Kat distressed, her step-father asks her if Nick 'is the guy for you'. Kat realizes he is, so she sets off to find him. Meanwhile, just before the wedding ceremony, Amy confesses her betrayal to her fiancé, Ed, but professes her love for him. Upset, Ed chases Jeffrey out of the church and down the road. Jeffrey says he gave up on Amy and believes he's done nothing wrong. To which Ed, calls him a "back-stabbing weasel", though Jeffrey believes he's still not in the wrong as he slept with Amy before they dated. Ed shouts out that he was engaged to Kat, proving he was still in the wrong for what he did to Kat.
Nick picks up Ed in a car as Jeffrey disappears into the woods. They talk about love, and Ed decides he loves Amy more than he is angry. To make it clearer he should go back, Nick tells Ed if he went back the couple would end up having great makeup sex. They return to the church, with Nick as 'new' best man. Just before the ceremony, Nick tells Kat he realized he'd "... rather fight with you than make love with anyone else", and they kiss passionately.
Kat and Nick begin a real relationship. Amy and Kat now reconcile, Kat lets go of her anger and forgives Amy as she confessed the truth to Ed. TJ, Kat's cousin also apparently enjoys a moment with Woody after the wedding. Jeffrey learns absolutely nothing, at the end he is seen trying to get the attention of a female neighbor.
Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) and Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams) live on the Coeur D'Alene Indian Reservation in Plummer, Idaho. Thomas is an eccentric storyteller and Victor is an angry young man who enjoys playing basketball.
Victor and Thomas are brought together through Victor's father, Arnold (Gary Farmer). Arnold rescued Thomas as an infant from a house fire that killed his parents. Because of this, Thomas considers him a hero. On the other hand, Victor, who endures Arnold's alcoholism, domestic violence, and eventual child abandonment, regards his father with both deep love and bitter resentment. Thomas and Victor grow up together as neighbors and acquaintances, fighting with each other and simultaneously forming a close, albeit uneasy, friendship.
When Arnold dies in Phoenix, Arizona, where he has stayed after leaving Victor and his mother Arlene (Tantoo Cardinal), Victor and Thomas go on an adventure to retrieve his ashes. The trip is the means for Victor and Thomas to explore their identities. Neither of them loses sight of his identity as an "Indian", but their perspectives differ. Victor is more stoic and Thomas is more traditional (and romantic to the point of watching the feature film ''Dances with Wolves'' countless times). Their dichotomy is portrayed all through the film; it results in Victor being irritated with Thomas, and Thomas being fascinated with Victor.
Once they reach Phoenix, Victor has to confront his conflicted feelings about his father, as well as his own identity. He has to grapple with a new account of Thomas's parents' death, as told by his father's friend, Suzy Song (Irene Bedard). She says that a drunken Arnold set off fireworks, accidentally starting the fire that cost Thomas his parents. The road trip by the young men leads to Thomas reconciling with the memory of his adoptive father Arnold, as he understands more of his path to alcoholism and related abuse and abandonment. Victor also gains a better understanding of Thomas and his reverence for Arnold. By the end of the movie, Victor and Thomas throw Arnold's ashes into a river as a form of acceptance.
In the story of Belshazzar's Feast, the Jews are in exile in Babylon. After a feast at which Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, commits sacrilege by using the Jews' sacred vessels to praise the heathen gods, he is miraculously killed, the kingdom falls, and the Jews regain their freedom.
As described in the film magazine ''Exhibitors Herald'', little Marie Farrell (Axzelle), through the carelessness of her nurse, is lost and believed drowned. She has wandered upon the ship of the smuggler Captain Flagg (Brandt), who finds her and brings her up as his own. Her parents adopt a boy to help them forget their grief.
The girl grows up with no memory of her former life. The adopted boy moves in the smart set in Mayport, and his parents try to make a match between him and a society girl. Marie (Darmond) is brought to her adoptive father's sister, as the old captain believes she should have the care of a loving woman. She meets young Richard Farrell (Welch) and the two come to love each other. The Farrells do everything they can to break up the couple, but with the help of the captain a marriage is accomplished. There is a stormy meeting between the bridal pair and the parents, during which the captain sees a portrait of Marie as a baby and, realizing the truth, tells the story of her life. The family is reunited and Mary and Richard spend their honeymoon on the captain's ship.
The film chronicles the tragic fall of a cursed Wall Street second banana, Rick O'Lette.
Two lonesome Texas Rangers, Roland Sharp (Tommy Lee Jones) and Maggie Swanson (Liz Vassey), question Percy Stevens (Cedric the Entertainer) about the whereabouts of his former prison roommate, Morgan Ball (Curtis Armstrong), who they want to testify against organized crime boss John Cortland (Turner Stephen Bruton).
Sharp and Swanson track down Ball to the warehouse, where Ball gives Sharp a key in an attempt to buy him off. Instead, Sharp takes the key and forces Ball outside, where FBI agent Eddie Zane (Brian Van Holt) is waiting. As they talk, a sniper begins shooting, wounding Swanson and giving Ball a chance to escape (although Swanson is shot in the chest, she survives due to the bullet missing her heart). It is revealed the sniper is after Ball, and a group of cheerleaders from the University of Texas at Austin witness his murder. Agent Zane is found shot in the arm next to Ball's body and claims he didn't see the sniper.
Anne (Christina Milian), Teresa (Paula Garcés), Evie (Monica Keena), Heather (Vanessa Ferlito) and Barb (Kelli Garner) are taken to the police station, where they all have conflicting descriptions of the shooter. Sharp is given the task of protecting the girls at all times, because their fathers are worried about them. The information is relayed to him by the Governor of Texas (Rick Perry).
It is revealed that Sharp is divorced and has a daughter, Emma (Shannon Marie Woodward) who is in high school and doesn't feel as though her father had ever been around. John Cortland is exonerated from all charges pressed against him due to a lack of evidence. FBI Agent Zane is revealed to be working with Cortland, having killed Ball and shot himself in the arm.
Cortland scolds Zane for letting some "loose ends" escape, and Zane begins searching for Sharp and the cheerleaders; he also kills the sniper he hired. With Swanson in the hospital recovering from her near-fatal wound, Sharp and two additional Rangers must now pick the girls up from school and secure their sorority house. Sharp moves in with the girls and the two young Rangers working with him move into the fraternity house across the street, where they end up busting a drug deal.
Sharp sets some ground rules, including no cell phones. He also tells them to "cover up in his presence" (referring to the girls' revealing clothes). When they fail to comply, he orders a massive industrial air conditioner, forcing them to dress warmly. Sharp is posing as a cheerleading coach specializing in conditioning, and at a Longhorns football game he tackles an opposing team's mascot when the mascot approaches the girls with a gun, later revealed to be a water gun. Other humorous mishaps occur, but Sharp's relationship with the girls begins to strengthen; Barb even begins to develop a crush on him.
However, Sharp finds himself attracted to Barb's English teacher Molly (Anne Archer) who calls him into her office to complain about Barb's plagiarism. Later he invites her over for dinner, which the girls coach him through using an earpiece and tiny video screen. After they fall asleep, he turns it off and woos Molly himself. He admits to the girls about his last failed marriage and the way he feels about his estranged daughter. This interests Evie, who has a 4.0 GPA and wants to write a paper on Emma. She uses the house's "emergency phone" to call her, revealing Sharp's location to Zane, who had contacted Emma.
Sharp takes the girls to a "spirit rally", where he is forced to give a speech about cheerleading. He becomes more and more impassioned, proving to the girls he finally "gets it". The night is ruined, however, when Sharp realizes in the nick of time that somebody put a bomb under their van, and Teresa (who was convinced that nobody was after them) is almost killed when her seatbelt gets stuck. Sharp saves her, and she admits that maybe someone is trying to kill them.
Evie tells Sharp she contacted Emma, and when Sharp calls his daughter he learns that Zane has her. He tells Sharp to take the key Ball gave him to open a lockbox, both of them unaware the cheerleaders are listening in. The next day Sharp gets the money out of the lockbox and drives to where Zane instructs him. Zane gives Sharp instructions over a cell phone, telling him he will shoot Emma if Sharp disobeys. After Sharp handcuffs himself to the steering wheel, Zane thanks him and tells him he's a "good parent." Zane takes off with the money, Sharp's keys and phone, and Emma.
Zane and Emma get on a bus, but as it pulls away Sharp sees Barb in the back. As he wonders what is going on, Heather gets in the car with him and picks his handcuffs. They take off after the bus in a stolen Volkswagen Beetle. On the bus, Teresa pretends to go into labor and Evie demands the bus be stopped. She attempts to steal the bag with the money, but Zane pulls a gun and Evie runs away from the bus. Zane forces all of the other passengers and the driver out, taking over driving the bus himself.
Emma is rescued by the cheerleaders, but Zane attempts to drive to Mexico with the bag to hide. Sharp shoots a wheel, causing the bus to flip over 90 degrees. Zane gets out the bus, his face injured after he hits the bus's ceiling. The Mexico–United States border closes and the border officers draw guns on him. Rather than go to jail, Zane attempts suicide by cop. Sharp shoots the gun out of Zane's hand, and handcuffs him with the same cuffs from which Heather freed him earlier. He and Emma are reunited. At the end of the film, Cortland is arrested and taken back to court. Sharp and Molly are married, and Emma and the cheerleaders are part of the wedding.
Tripper Harrison leads a group of new counsellors-in-training (CITs) at Camp North Star, a cut-rate summer camp located in Ontario, and leads practical jokes on camp director Morty Melnick, mainly by taking Melnick from his cabin late at night so that he awakens in unusual places.
Rudy Gerner, a lonely boy whose mother died about a year earlier, is sent to summer camp by his workaholic father, but decides to run away. Noticing Rudy is lacking self-confidence, Tripper tracks him to a nearby bus station and takes him under his wing. They rapidly bond as friends after many morning jogs. Tripper helps Rudy gain confidence while Rudy encourages the reluctant Tripper to start a romance with Roxanne, the girls' head counsellor. Many of the CITs also find romance: Candace "kidnaps" Crockett in a speedboat and confesses her feelings for him, while Wheels, who had broken up with A.L. the year before, successfully rekindles their relationship during a dance, and the nerdy Spaz falls for the tomboy Jackie.
A subplot deals with North Star's rivalry with Camp Mohawk, a wealthy summer camp located across the lake. During a basketball game, North Star is being beaten by Mohawk when they attempt their own perverse form of victory. This sets the stage for the yearly Olympiad between the camps, which Mohawk has won 12 consecutive times.
During the first day of competition, Mohawk dominates North Star, often winning by cheating. Crockett fails to clear the high jump bar, Hardware gets pummelled in boxing, and Jackie suffers a broken ankle in field hockey, thanks to the dirty work of two Mohawk girls. The score at the end of Day One is: Mohawk 170, North Star 63. That evening at the North Star Lodge, Tripper rouses the demoralized campers by explaining that victory or defeat is unimportant. In unison, Camp North Star begins to chant, "It just doesn't matter!" Day Two of the Olympiad belongs to newly inspired North Star as they win every event. Wheels outwrestles his opponent, Spaz defeats Rhino in a stacking contest with inspiration from Jackie and a thwarted Mohawk cheating attempt, and, after 12 years of North Star defeats, Fink finally beats "The Stomach" in the Frankfurter/Wiener-eating contest. North Star now trails by only 10 points with one event left, a four-mile cross country run for 20 points. Tripper offers to select a surprised Rudy to compete against Horse, Mohawk's star runner. Rudy's many mornings spent jogging and training with Tripper pay off as he wins the race, giving North Star its first Olympiad victory by a score of 230–220.
Later that evening, Morty, Tripper, Roxanne, and the CITs sing around a campfire and say their final goodbyes as the camp prepares to close at the end of summer. Rudy has already decided to return to camp next year and Roxanne agrees to live with Tripper. The two ride off on Tripper's motorcycle, leading the buses out of camp and leaving Morty behind, in bed, on a raft in the middle of the lake.
Veronika is a young woman from Ljubljana, Slovenia, who appears to have a perfect life, but nevertheless decides to commit suicide by overdosing with sleeping pills. While she waits to die, she cancels the suicide letter she starts to her parents while suddenly provoked by a magazine article.
The magazine article wittily asks "Where is Slovenia?", so she writes a letter to the press justifying her suicide, the idea is to make the press believe that she has killed herself because people don't even know where Slovenia is. Her plan fails and she wakes up from the coma in Villette, a mental hospital in Slovenia, where she is told she has only a few days to live due to heart condition caused by the overdose.
Her presence there affects all of the mental hospital's patients, especially Zedka, who has clinical depression; Mari, who has panic attacks; and Eduard, who has schizophrenia, and with whom Veronika falls in love. During her internment in Villette she realizes that she has nothing to lose and can, therefore, do what she wants, say what she wants and be who she wants without having to worry about what others think of her; as a mental patient, she is unlikely to be criticized. Because of this new-found freedom, Veronika experiences all the things she never allowed herself to experience, including hatred and love.
In the meantime, Villette's head psychiatrist, Dr. Igor, attempts a fascinating but provocative experiment: can you "shock" someone into wanting to live by convincing her that death is imminent? Like a doctor applying defibrillator paddles to a heart attack victim, Dr. Igor's "prognosis" jump-starts Veronika's new appreciation of the world around her.
Each game region contains from several dozens to over a hundred "Regional" quests which can be standalone missions or part of complete storyline with a clear culminating point, which often runs parallel to the Epic Story. The main storyline (also known as the "Epic Quest Line") is presented as a series of "Books", which consist of a series of quests called "Chapters". Eight Books were available at the game's release, with a new book added with each content update. After the game's transition to free-to-play, new Books stopped being strictly tied to updates; some major updates contained no new Books while others added several Books at once instead.
The original Epic Story focused mostly on events that were new additions to the ''Lord of the Rings'' story by the creators of the game. Starting shortly after Frodo and his company had left the Shire, the player character makes it to Bree, where they become acquainted to Aragorn and Gandalf and become involved in the larger affairs of Middle-Earth. After initially following in the footsteps of Aragorn and the Hobbits to Weathertop and the Trollshaws where they track the single Black Rider that was not swept away at the Ford of Bruinen, the player character soon gets involved into a campaign against resurgent Angmar, eventually stopping the plans of several powerful servants of The Witch King across Eriador.
'''Book I – Stirrings in the Darkness''' – After the introductions, the player is sent to Aragorn, who needs help weakening the Blackwolds, a hostile gang within Bree-land, loyal to Sharkey. After helping Aragorn and the Rangers, the player is sent to Tom Bombadil to destroy the evil in Othrongroth, the Great Barrow of the Barrow-downs. Though the Wightlord Sambrog is defeated, the Witch-king and his servants, Ivar and Skorgrim, escape the player's pursuit. Upon returning to Bree, the player discovers Aragorn has left with the Hobbits and instead meets Gandalf, who arrived too late to help. The player is then instructed by Gandalf (who leaves for Rivendell as well) to locate one of Gandalf's fellow Istari, Radagast the Brown. '''Book II – The Red Maid''' – The player is sent to the Ranger Candaith, who tries to learn the location of Radagast the Brown for the player. While waiting, the player investigates the mysterious events that happened on Weathertop and fights the Orc army around and on top of the hill. By the time the enemy is defeated, Candaith has found Radagast in the city of Ost Guruth and sends the player to meet him. Radagast asks for the player's help in cleansing the area of Garth Agarwen from the evil wights that inhabit it. Ultimately the player and Radagast fight Ivar the Bloodhand, their leader and servant of the Witch-king. Upon succeeding, the player is urgently sent to the North Downs to aid the Rangers in those lands. '''Book III – The Council of the North''' – The player is asked by Halbarad to aid in the defense of the North Downs against Angmar's forces, by uniting the three main armies of the North Downs: the Men of the town of Trestlebridge, the local Dwarves led by Dori, and Gildor's Elves. After accomplishing this, the player is sent to Rivendell, where the Fellowship has now safely arrived. '''Book IV – Chasing Shadows''' – The Black Rider that survived the Flood of Bruinen by Elrond is still somewhere in the Trollshaws, making it impossible for the Fellowship to leave. With the help of Legolas, Elladan and Elrohir, the player chases the Nazgûl, destroying the Trolls he has corrupted, and forcing the Ringwraith to retreat to the Misty Mountains. The player is sent to pursue him, where Glóin and some Dwarves have set up a camp. '''Book V – The Last Refuge''' – The player's search for the Nazgûl brings him/her to the final stronghold of Skorgrím and the Dourhands, the corrupted Dwarves. An assault led by Gimli results in the fall of Skorgrim and his servants. But the Nazgûl has fled to Helegrod, where a long-dead Dragon Thorog has been reanimated as a wight to serve the Dark Lord. The player arrives just in time to stop the Nazgûl, defeating him and making him lose control of the Dragon, who escapes. Now that Rivendell is safe, it is time to move on to Angmar itself. '''Book VI – Fires in the North''' – Rangers of the North, led by Corunir and Golodir, have gone to Angmar and their kinsmen want to know what has become of them. Upon arriving in Angmar, the player finds Corunir safe in a friendly Hillmen village. He begs the player to find his lost company, who passed through Rammas Deluon: a great series of statues that weaken (or even kill) those who pass it. After destroying the spirits within them, the player becomes able to resist the power of Rammas Deluon, and finds a hidden Dwarf settlement, where a part of the scattered party lives. '''Book VII – The Hidden Hope''' – The player is informed that Golodir is settled at Gath Forthnir, far in the North. Upon arriving there, (s)he finds that Golodir is long gone and the Rangers are led by his daughter, Lorniel. Lorniel reveals that Golodir has been captured by Mordirith, Steward of Angmar, and has been locked away in Carn Dûm. As leader of the remaining Rangers, and with the help of the Elf Laerdan, Lorniel launches an assault on Carn Dûm, where she is slain by Mordirith, who then releases broken Golodir in a mockery, to continue his torture. '''Book VIII – The Scourge of the North''' – Golodir's grief for the death of his daughter has almost destroyed him, yet he sees a chance to avenge her. Reclaiming an ancient sword, he travels with the player to the heart of Carn Dûm, defeating Mordirith with his blade. But then Mordirith's ''palantír'', a great seeing-stone he used to torture Golodir, is quickly taken by the mysterious Sara Oakheart. '''Book IX – Shores of Evendim''' – The player learns that Sara Oakheart is none other than Amarthiel, the legendary Champion of Angmar. She has set up a plot within a tower of Barad Gularan to use the player to weaken Mordirith. Now that she has the ''palantír'', she can communicate with Sauron and challenge Mordirith's position. The player is sent to kill all of Mordirith's Knights, in an attempt to further weaken his power. But despite the player's victories over Mordirith, Amarthiel only grows stronger. After losing Fornost and Barad Gularan, she moves to Annúminas, the ancient capital of Arnor. The Rangers there, led by Calenglad, need the player's aid. '''Book X – The City of Kings''' – A massive battle in Annúminas ensues and the wise Elf Laerdan offers his services to Calenglad. Mordrambor, one of Amarthiel's captains, is captured, but while in captivity he poisons the mind of Laerdan, making the Elf decide to fight Amarthiel on his own, in an attempt to make up for his mistakes in the past. Again the Free Peoples have been tricked by Amarthiel and her servants. Together with the Rangers of Evendim, the player is able to wrestle the ''palantír'' from Amarthiel's clutches, but Laerdan is lost. However, within the ''palantír'', Amarthiel saw a glimpse of where Narchuil, her ancient ring, lies. She is now determined to possess its power once more. '''Book XI – Prisoner of the Free Peoples''' – Amarthiel's captain Mordrambor breaks free, killing many Rangers. Soon he leads an army out of Annúminas, to find Amarthiel's Ring, Narchuil. The player attempts to find Narchuil before Amarthiel can, searching the ancient ruins of the Trollshaws. After much searching, it turns out Narmeleth, Laerdan's daughter, who originally caused Amarthiel's fall in Fornost, has become possessed by her. But all searching seems in vain, when it is revealed Amarthiel has already found Narchuil. However, Elrond does not fall for her trickery again; he realizes Narchuil is still out there, and Laerdan knows where. '''Book XII – The Ashen Wastes''' – Amarthiel has Laerdan transported to Angmar, where she learns from him under torture where her Ring is. In a brave attempt to save both Laerdan and the ring Narchuil, the player is able to get to them before Amarthiel does, but only half of the ring was found. Laerdan confesses to Elrond he has broken the Narchuil in two, and reveals where the other part should be. But then he swears an oath upon Elbereth that he will not rest before he has saved his daughter, and leaves the council. '''Book XIII – Doom of the Last King''' – Trying to find out more about the other half of Narchuil, the player is sent to Forochel. However Amarthiel's forces have already arrived, and their search is underway. In an attempt to find the ring before the Angmarim, the player receives help from the shade of the Last King Arvedui. During a confrontation with the enemy, it appears that Mordrambor has betrayed Amarthiel: the two battle each other and disappear from the view. The player then retrieves the second half of Narchuil and returns it to Rivendell. '''Book XIV – The Ring-forges of Eregion''' – Still seeking to save Narmeleth, Laerdan travels with the two-halves of Narchuil to Eregion. Amarthiel, baiting him in, reclaims Narchuil for herself. Elrond sends many Heralds of Rivendell to all corners of Eriador to help him in his search for the lost Ring-lore. But all efforts are too late, for Narchuil has been reforged when the Free Peoples reach Eregion. It quickly becomes clear none are able to withstand Narchuil, until Mordrambor, Amarthiel's former servant, arrives. Sowing confusion in her, he shows her the arrival of Mordirith, who is in power once again, but Amarthiel does not surrender and believes she can defeat him with use of Narchuil. However, Mordirith has the power of the Witch-king and defeats her, claiming Narchuil as his own. Just as he is about to finish Amarthiel, Laerdan appears. He reveals his knowledge that Mordirith is actually Eärnur, the last King of Gondor, taken captive by the Witch-King and made a Wraith in mockery of his former defiance. Under Mordirith's orders Mordrambor kills Laerdan, after which the two leave. Amarthiel is devastated by the loss of her father, and taken captive by the Free Peoples. *'''Book XV – Daughter of Strife''' – With the death of her father, Narmeleth is once again freed from the evil influence of Amarthiel. She becomes a captive of the Free Peoples, but volunteers to avenge her father. In Angmar, the final battle between the Free People and Mordirith ensues. First Mordrambor is defeated and Narchuil is finally destroyed by Narmeleth. In the final confrontation, she sacrifices herself to defeat Mordirith. The book ends bittersweetly with Narmeleth's redemption and her death and Elrond comforts the player, saying that she had found peace in the Undying Lands.
Under orders of King Dain Ironfoot, a company of dwarves from Erebor known as the Iron Garrison is sent to investigate and potentially reclaim Moria. By sheer luck, they arrive mere days after Gandalf had fought and defeated Durin's Bane, throwing the denizens of Moria into disarray. Using the power vacuum in the wake of the Balrog's demise, the dwarves quickly claim major ground and establish several footholds within Khazad-dûm, but soon begin to face ever greater peril as the forces of evil in Moria begin to unite under new leadership. Making an alliance with the Elves of Lothlorien the dwarves attempt to hold their ground when a personal emissary of Sauron himself arrives from Dol Guldur to put an end to their expedition. This story concludes in the ''Siege of Mirkwood'' expansion where the Galadhrim launch a major assault against Dol Guldur in an effort to draw the Eye of the enemy away from the Fellowship as it departs from Lorien.
Lady Galadriel tasks the player with leading the Rangers of the North to the aid of Aragorn in the south and the player travels across Eriador to assemble the Grey Company from their Ranger friends with whom they had become well-acquainted during the Angmar campaign. Led by Halbarad and the Sons of Elrond, the Grey Company rides south but encounters several perils, first losing several Rangers in Enedwaith and then suffering another major loss due to a betrayal in Dunland. Saruman's forces block the company's passage across the Fords of Isen and as the Rangers recuperate, Lady Galadriel summons the player back to Lorien and tells them to follow the Fellowship down the river Anduin. Accompanied by a girl from Dunland, an elf from Lorien and a man from Rohan, the player follows the Fellowship to the Falls of Rauros, after which they follow the Three Hunters into the land of Rohan where they become closely familiar with many of the local rulers. Eventually the player fights in the battle of Helm's Deep, after which they accompany King Théoden to confront Saruman at Orthanc where the Rangers of the North finally meet with Aragorn.
After the Grey Company follows into the Paths of the Dead, the player follows them and arrived into Gondor, which is now besieged by the Corsairs of Umbar. After making a stop at Dol Amroth, the player catches up with Aragorn's forces and takes part in the Battle of Pelargir, after which Aragorn bids them to find and inform either Faramir or Gandalf in Minas Tirith while his men will sail up Anduin in the Corsair ships. Unable to pass through the enemy blockade at Harlond, the player takes a detour through Ithilien and eventually reaches the besieged Osgiliath, narrowly escaping with the remaining Rangers of Ithilien and reaching the White City just as Faramir is shot by a Morgul dart and rendered unconscious. The player assists Gandalf in preparing the city for a siege and just before the city gates are shut is sent by the wizard to find King Théoden's forces. The player reunites with their friends from Rohan in the Drúedain forest and fights in the battle of the Pelennor Fields. The player then joins the assembled Host of the West that marches through North Ithilien into Dagorlad and fights at the Battle of the Black Gates from where they see the One Ring destroyed and the forces of Sauron finally defeated.
As Aragorn is crowned the King of Gondor, the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth begin to explore the lands of Mordor which were closed to them for over a thousand years. Assisting Gandalf, the player learns of the Gúrzyul – powerful servants of the Enemy which unlike the Nazgûl did not perish with him and continue to pose a danger to the people of Middle-Earth. One of the Gúrzyul known as Karazgar the Weeping Warrior has been suspiciously absent from the power struggle in Mordor, having escaped into the northern lands. The player character and Gandalf give chase after him, through the ruins of Dol Guldur into the halls of King Thranduil, eventually leading to the Kingdom Under the Mountain, now rules by Dain's son Thorin III. While running an errand for Thorin III in the Iron Hills, the player comes upon an artifact from Mordor – a Black Book which they deliver to Gandalf for safekeeping. Karazgar's forces assault Erebor but are repelled and a company of dwarves departs to reclaim their ancient strongholds in Ered Mithrin, believing them to be safe after the defeat of Sauron. They battle against Karazgar until Gandalf reveals his weakness and learns that Karazgar desires the very book that he carries. Gandalf departs to the lands of Beornings in the Vales of Anduin, where he and the player meet with the entourage of Lord Elrond who accompany Lady Arwen to her wedding in Minas Tirith.
Local baron and town namesake George Washington "G.W." McLintock (John Wayne) is living the single life on his ranch. He is estranged from wife Katherine, who left him two years before, suspecting him of adultery. She has been living as a socialite back East, while their daughter Rebecca is completing her college degree. G.W. goes to town to address recently-arrived homesteaders, whom he tells cannot farm on this land, because it is used for his cattle ranching and is at too high an elevation. A desperate boy who needs work to support his widow mother and sister, Devlin Warren, repeatedly asks G.W. for work, and is refused 3 times. When he has to beg, he lashes out at G.W., who admires his strength and hires him. When Devlin goes to camp to pick up his things, G.W. meets his beautiful mother, who cooks him biscuits. Impressed, he hires her, too. Meanwhile, G.W. hears that his wife has returned to town. He meets her in her hotel and discovers she wants a divorce so that she can take Rebecca back east to be raised in society, which G.W. refuses. That night, much to G.W. and his staff's dismay, the bossy and impatient Katherine moves back in to the ranch and takes an immediate disliking to Mrs. Warren, Devlin's mother.
Rebecca "Becky" McLintock returns to town, along with a suitor from college, "Junior" Douglas (Jerry Van Dyke), whom G.W. dislikes but of whom Katherine approves. Also on the train are four recently released Comanche chiefs brought to town for a hearing over relocating their tribe from McLintock to a reservation near Fort Sill, Oklahoma. They ask G.W. to speak for them at the upcoming hearing, which he agrees to do. At the ranch, Devlin assists Rebecca in decorating for her homecoming party, but when he catches her from falling, she accuses him of groping. He admonishes her harshly, which appears to impress her. Later, at the party, Devlin gets involved in a fistfight with another ranch hand, and impresses G.W. and Rebecca (whom he does not see watching) with his boxing. On another night after Junior calls on Rebecca, Devlin offers to drive him home. On the way he drives recklessly, angering Rebecca, and apparently witnesses her and Junior kissing - when they return, Rebecca demands G.W. shoot him for calling her a "trollop." G.W. "shoots" Devlin with a starter's pistol and Devlin spanks Rebecca for causing trouble, which G.W. allows. When Katherine hears Devlin spanked Rebecca, she admonishes G.W., who leaves to get drunk.
Upon returning home, G.W. calls for Katherine, but Mrs. Warren meets him at the door. After forcing her to drink with him, she accidentally falls down the stairs trying to help him to his room, and Katherine sees her on top of him. She accuses G.W. of cheating yet again, but Mrs. Warren reveals she is quitting because she has just been engaged to the Sheriff. Satisfied, Katherine takes her upstairs and leaves G.W. to sleep in the den.
The next morning, July 4, G.W. speaks for the Comanche, who essentially refuse to be removed and accept US government "charity," which they claim is for widows and orphans. They plead with G.W. to give them guns and let them have a "last fight," but he refuses. Later, during the celebration, local bum Bunny secretly accesses an Army train car and gives weapons to the Comanche, who ride through the town, pursued by the cavalry. In the confusion, Katherine is covered in molasses after a barrel is shot up, and falls into a bag of feathers. G.W. laughs at her appearance and she storms off to get cleaned up. He decides to pursue her to her hotel and find out why she left him and wants to take Rebecca away. In the ensuing chase, she loses her dress and falls into a horse trough in just her corset and bloomers. Ultimately, G.W. spanks her at the blacksmith's and rides off.
Somehow or another, Devlin and Rebecca get engaged after hiding from the Comanche in a bale of hay, and Katherine and G.W. reconcile back at the ranch.
Daniel Foray (Gérard Depardieu) is the leader of an unusual group of burglars in Paris. When he's instructed by fence Laurent (Richard Bohringer) to go to Chicago to steal an expensive necklace in a suburban safe, the seemingly basic job becomes a fight for survival when the homeowner turns out to be mafia kingpin Frank Zammeti (Keitel), who is also under stakeout from authorities. The team are led to believe by American liaison Sophie (Joanne Kelly) that they wrote down the wrong address, but when she disappears with the money and other items taken from the mafioso, they later learn that his residence was the correct target after all and it was a setup by corrupt FBI Agent Pogue (Shawn Lawrence).
Shortly after the revelation, Pogue bludgeons Sophie to death, frames burglar Sam (Saïd Taghmaoui) and leaks the other men's names to the news media as accomplices. Pogue promises to alter evidence on condition that they hand over an audio tape stolen from Zammeti's safe, which not only declares war on fellow mob boss Angelo Giancarlo (Abe Vigoda) but strengthens the criminal case against the former, who has avoided criminal indictment. The sextet also confirm that Pogue was in cahoots with Laurent, whose interest in the heist indirectly relates to the recovery of a stolen Van Gogh painting and release of his brother from prison.
As newly minted fugitives from justice and marks of the American mafia, the thieves make amends with a black street gang they previously clashed with and facilitate a "handover" of the tape between Sam and Agent Pogue in Grant Park; Pogue is secretly filmed confessing to Sophie's murder and picks up a switched tape after a fake mugging from the gang members. Pogue is promptly killed by Zammeti and his underboss when the recording in his possession turns out to be the song ''So in Love'' by Peggy Lee. To free themselves from the threat of Zammeti, burglar Raymond gifts a muscle car (stolen from a Latino street gang) to Zammeti's dim-witted younger brother, culminating in a deadly shootout between both groups of criminals. Finally, Daniel plays Giancarlo Zammeti's incriminating tape, revealing the betrayal, and requests a small sum of money and safe return to France in exchange for the heads up.
With Zammeti gone and Laurent also in line to get "whacked" by Giancarlo's right-hand man, the burglars discover they were once again duped with a suitcase filled with counterfeit money. Before embarking as stowaways, they notice Laurent's Van Gogh painting get blown into Chicago River and comically dive into the water, with the outcome of their latest pursuit unknown.
In the 30th Century, the planet is now united under one country called Earth. Princess Kyoko Suomi is protected by the last remaining members of the Dragon clan: the princes Hizuki and his younger brother Sakataki. Kyoko has lived the life of a commoner, attending public school under the quiet protection of her two guardians, while avoiding being seen in public as the princess. As her 16th birthday approaches, the time when she will inherit the crown, her subjects are growing restless at her refusal to be seen. She decides to accept her fate and her duties as the princess, but her father offers her the chance to return to the life she prefers if she can awaken her twin sister, Ui. Ui has been in a coma-like state since she was born and is said to be "trapped in time". If she awakens, she would inherit the crown, and Kyoko would be free. Wanting to meet and speak with the sister she has never known, Kyoko agrees to undertake the quest.
To do this, Kyoko must find the Strangers, twelve telepaths who each hold a holy stone that enables their owners to use specific powers. They must use their powers to operate a giant clock to awaken Ui. When a trouble-making gang comes to the school having heard a tip that the princess was there, and begins harassing Kyoko's friend Karen, Kyoko reveals her identity to protect both her friend and the school. Her nobility in this situation causes the first holy stone to make Kyoko herself the first telepath, the Time Stranger, and the one destined to lead the others. She has the power to stop time and go back in time, and is given the "Scorpion Cane" which talks to her, allows her to wield her powers and aids Strangers. Her guardian Sakataki is revealed to be the Crystal Stranger, and they are able to quickly find the next ten strangers, all leaders of their clans and descendants of the Kirit clan. They are able to find the ten of the remaining strangers quickly, and along the way Kyoko comes to appreciate her position as a princess and decides she will continue to be one even after Ui awakens.
As the story progresses, Kyoko and Sakataki fall in love, though they do not reveal their feelings to one another. Kyoko plans to confess when the final stranger is found, but one night Hizuki kisses her in her sleep and confesses his own love for her. He is quickly arrested as his actions are taken as an attack on the princess. With Hizuki sentenced to death, to save his life Kyoko chooses him to be her husband and tells him that she loves him. He reveals to Sakataki that he did it on purpose to become her husband and that he is a demon named Kirit and the one who destroyed the Dragon Clan. He gives Sakataki the only sword capable of killing him, then forces him into a duel wanting to die, but Kyoko stops it and yells at him. Sakataki also tells him he knew what Hizuki had done as a child, and that he still loved him. Satisfied, Hizuki reveals himself to be the last Stranger.
The ceremony is performed to awakened Ui, but her body vanishes and she awakens in Kyoko's body. Kyoko awakens in another world where she meets Chronos, the god of time and her true father. He explains that as a child, Kyoko needed a human body to mature in quickly as he was dying, and the king agreed to allow him to use Ui's body. In performing the ceremony, Kyoko returned Ui to her own body and Kyoko returned to being a god. She was forgotten by everyone, except the King, who cried at losing her. Kyoko accepts being this and agrees to fulfill her duties, but she cannot forget Sakataki and runs to where he is and confesses her love to him though he can not see or hear her. She kisses him goodbye and he briefly sees her before she goes. He finds a water strain in his pocket with a picture and note from her, which unlocks his memories. He runs to the clock to find her, but it was destroyed after Kyoko and Chronos returned to their own world. He gathers the other Strangers and helps them remember. They use their powers to open a rip in time, allowing Sakataki to go to where Kyoko is.
Realizing how much they love one another, Chronos allows Kyoko to return to the human world after absorbing some of her powers to enable himself to continue ruling. The king gives Kyoko the body of his late wife Kiku, who died giving birth to Ui and for whom Chronos had stopped time. She marries Sakataki and continues to live as a princess and as a sister to Ui.
Using fossilized DNA, a scientist clones a prehistoric sabretooth cat. However, one night as a janitor prepares to clean the sabretooth's residential quarters, he is subsequently killed after recklessly locking himself in the cage with it. As the fearsome creature is being transported, it breaks free and kills the driver, before beginning to stalk human prey. Taking its spree into the forested mountains in the Pacific Northwest, the beast kills a vacationing couple, before later continuing to stalk a group of trainee guides learning the area of seniors.
Catherine Viciy (Vanessa Angel), the scientist who created it, and her colleague Anthony Bricklin (John Rhys-Davies), call in Robert Thatcher (David Keith), a big game hunter and tracker, to find the animal, tricking him into believing that it is an African lion, and will offer to pay him $50,000. They go into the mountains to find the cat and come across the cabin where the vacationers were killed. At this point, Thatcher states that "your kitty has an attitude problem." Catherine throws away Thatcher's satellite phone, knowing that he had planned to notify the police and Animal Control. As they continue through the woods, the sabretooth kills Kara, a zoologist working for Catherine, and Thatcher declares that he will kill the sabretooth no matter what.
The next day, Thatcher starts seeing signs of the trainees and sabretooth's tracks corresponding. One night, he hears a camper scream and leaves camp to investigate. He finds the camper's remains and later relates his fate to Casey, the leader of the group, who was searching for him. After they return to the group's camp, Trent, another senior guide, comes in screaming about the death of another trainee and about seeing a sabretooth, to much shock and disbelief. Instructing Casey and the others to a nearby mine to wait for him, Thatcher goes after it, but before he can kill it, Catherine shoots at it with a tranquilizer gun and misses, scaring it off. Thatcher is fired for trying to kill it instead of catching it, because of all the scientific progress the creature was going to bring, but the sabretooth reappears and slowly kills Anthony, allowing Thatcher and Catherine time to escape.
Though Catherine steals his revolver, Thatcher recovers his rifle and they head for the mine, where only Casey and Trent remain alive, and where the sabretooth has Trent trapped. Thatcher hands Catherine his rifle and tells her to shoot the sabretooth in case it gets past him, then he heads to an opening at the top of the mine. He and Casey hit the sabretooth with a tranquilizer and Trent escapes. After they are all outside, Thatcher sends them on and tries to kill the sabretooth, but finds that Catherine has unloaded his rifle. As he runs away, he falls and catches his foot in a bear trap. Casey and Trent find him and, after they make spears from saplings, they make it back to a lake where they find Catherine.
After striking Catherine down for nearly getting him killed, Thatcher prepares to go after the sabretooth once more, but Catherine draws his revolver on him, telling him that she does not want to see her creation destroyed. Before she can kill him, Trent kicks the gun out of her hand, but is shot. The revolver slides down the cliff and the sabretooth reappears. Catherine tries to warn the beast off, but is killed by her own creation. Thatcher tricks the sabretooth into jumping on his spear and throws it down a ledge, killing it. Later Thatcher, Casey, and Trent head back to the summer camp where Casey works.
The game has a steampunk-inspired setting, during the year "18XX" of the "Age of Steel", "an age almost familiar". In the earlier game materials, this is explained as being the 19th century of an alternate history. However, in some later game materials, it is explained alternatively as a possible future scenario in which the world has been depleted of resources, forcing most of the world back to steam power. Most materials, including the original Japanese versions, hold the alternate 19th century explanation to be the case. In this "Age of Steel", mammoth, floating, steam-powered battleships cruise the skies and gigantic armored locomotives carry cannons the size of railway cars. A military coup has occurred in the world's largest city, Dama ("Dama" in Asian markets, "Damd" in English versions) and power-hungry dictator, industrialist and robber baron General Styron ("Styron" in English versions, "Sauron" in Asian markets) rules by brute force and military might, his Goliath-like defenses carrying armor-piercing missiles and lethal aerial mines. With none strong enough to stand up against him, Styron sets his vision of steel and steam on the whole planet.
General Styron's Steel Empire are commonly called the Motorheads by their subjects and enemies alike, due to the Steel Empire's emblem of a blue-grey, steel, mustachioed colossal head, sometimes emitting steam. Although the Motorheads have conquered and enslaved most of the world, one small independent republic remains free and defiant. This is the Republic of Silverhead, placed far from the reach of the Steel Empire, centered in Antarctica, and where some of the greatest minds in the world have fled from Styron's tyranny. Silverhead is impressively ahead of its time in technology however; whereas the Motorheads still rely on steam power, dynamite and coal burning with almost religious zeal, Silverhead has perfected sustainable energy, geothermal energy, and even cold fusion. If the wider world were to also harness the power of lightning and the atom, it could pose a threat to Styron's coal and steam-based status quo, and so all "abominations of nature" the dictator would see ended.
Silverhead have a small yet elite air force, whose symbol is a silver eagle with a star between its wings. Although dwarfed in number by the legions of Motorhead, are Silverheads renowned for both the advanced technology of their aircraft and the aerial skill of their pilots. The Silverhead air force is also feared for the "Imamio Thunder" – known as the "Lightning Bomb" to Silverhead's enemies – which is more powerful than anything in Motorhead's arsenal. Silverhead are the last hope for freedom, and they alone have the will, and the weapons, to bring about Motorhead's downfall.
The player is a Silverhead pilot, launched from their titanic-sized, airborne, propelled aircraft carrier ''Rheinhalt'', and has a choice of two different class of aircraft for each mission. The game begins with the Motorhead Empire attacking the mining city of Rahl, an ally of Silverhead in southern Patagonia, and the player is tasked with retaking it. A further several missions will take the player into the vast subterranean (and partially submerged) caverns of Liedengel where Motorhead is gathering a surprise attack force against Silverhead; Sky District Zektor; and the foremost defenses of the Steel Empire – the heavily fortified Gardandi Islands, which lay in front of Dama, Motorhead's capital city. The final assault occurs in the heart of Motorhead, the steampunk metropolis of Dama, and within the cavernous Germburn Fortress. Finally, after General Styron has launched himself into orbit via space cannon, the player must pursue him and his flagship past the atmosphere and into space. Styron's flagship unfurls into a solar sail-powered, monstrously-powered, flaming leviathan, and the last battle takes place over the moon. If the player is victorious, Styron's ship is shown crashing to the moon; the credits play; and "The End" shows over a bleak lunar surface beneath the glowing Earth. The player/Silverhead craft is nowhere to be seen, however, leaving the fate of the protagonist unconcluded.
Dracula reawakens in 1852, after nearly a hundred years of enforced slumber, as a result of humankind's descent into vice and wickedness. Two young heroes sense his return: Carrie Fernandez, a girl gifted with magic powers, and Reinhardt Schneider, heir to the ancient Belmont clan of vampire hunters. The two set out to storm the Count's castle in the Transylvanian province of Wallachia and vanquish him.
As they penetrate the castle walls, an aristocratic vampire appears to warn Carrie and Reinhardt that "all who oppose the Dark Lord will die". The two then come upon a decrepit villa, where they meet the elderly vampire hunter Charles Vincent, beautiful yet unwilling vampire Rosa, demonic salesman Renon and young boy Malus. Beneath the estate's maze garden lies a subterranean path to the castle's center, where Dracula's servants (Actrise and Death) attempt to waylay the heroes by pitting them in battle against their loved ones (the Fernandez warrior and Rosa).
Carrie kills her vampirized kin while Reinhardt beats Rosa in combat. The heroes then climb several of the castle's towers before confronting Actrise and Death atop the Room of Clocks. With their defeat, the heroes climb the Clock Tower to the Castle Keep.
If the hero took sixteen or more "in-game" days to reach the second chamber on the stairs to the Castle Keep, Vincent will have arrived before them, been defeated by the aristocratic vampire assumed to be Dracula and turned into a vampire (thus triggering the bad ending). The hero will then have to battle Vincent. Without Vincent's later intercession, the hero will not discover that Malus was indeed Dracula reincarnate – not simply possessed by him – and receive one of the bad endings in which the hero rescues the boy.
If the player took fifteen or fewer days to reach the second chamber on the stairs to the Castle Keep, they will arrive before Charles Vincent (thus triggering the good ending). After fighting the vampire disguised as Dracula, they will battle Malus, who transforms into an adult. After his defeat atop the Clock Tower, Malus will regain the form of a child. Attempting to dupe the hero, he will pretend to have no recollection of the battle, but Vincent will arrive and douse the boy with holy water. Vincent explains that Malus was not possessed, but was in fact Dracula reincarnate. Malus then transports the hero to an alternate realm to battle his true form, a centipedal dragon. After Dracula's defeat, the player will receive one of the good endings: in Carrie's ending, she places a nosegay on her stepmother's grave. In Reinhardt's ending, Rosa, who sacrificed herself for him atop the Room of Clocks, is revived and her humanity restored.
Set in the year 1844, the game stars the man-beast Cornell in his quest to prevent his adoptive sister, Ada, from being used as a sacrifice to resurrect Dracula. The game opens as Cornell arrives at his village, which has been burned to the ground by Dracula's minions. He finds Ada's pendant in a doorway and follows her scent to Dracula's castle.
During the course of the game, Cornell comes upon a grand estate owned by the Oldrey family: J.A. Oldrey, the master of the Villa, Mary, his wife, and Henry, their son. Gilles de Rais and Actrise have turned Oldrey Senior into a vampire. At Mary's request, Cornell guides Henry to safety. Later in life, Henry returns to Castlevania to save kidnapped children.
Throughout the game, Cornell encounters his rival and fellow man-beast, Ortega. Ortega has allied himself with Dracula to finally beat Cornell in combat, turning into a chimera like creature. They eventually battle near the end of the game, just before Cornell defeats Dracula and saves his sister. He only accomplishes the latter by sacrificing his man-wolf powers. Unbeknownst to the hero, acquiring this power was the true aim of the dark forces, as it was the perfect sacrifice (not Ada, as Cornell had assumed) to resurrect Dracula at his full power.
The story begins in an unspecified year in the Middle Ages in Transylvania, during the incarnation of the original Count Dracula. Sonia Belmont, the first vampire hunter of her clan, develops mystical powers in her 17th year, and ventures out to challenge Dracula, meeting Alucard who seeks revenge against his father. After Dracula's defeat, he swears to Sonia that as long as there is evil in the world, he will be resurrected, and in response she swears her family will always defeat him. The game was designed as the first game in the series timeline, but later declared non-canon after the release of ''Lament of Innocence''.
The setting is Central Asia during the Russian Civil War. In the post-revolutionary twenties, when the power in European Russia was (officially) "fully in the hands of the workers and peasants", but the fight against the Basmachi rebels was in full swing. When a Red Army detachment captures Sultan Nazar (Anatoly Solonitsyn), the brains behind the Basmachi contingent, a decision is made to escort urgently the prisoner to the Bukhara province. The difficult mission is entrusted to a grizzled mountain trapper and conscientious revolutionary Mirzo. His expertise is essential to traverse the precarious paths and steep mountain ridges along the way, impossible terrain for the inexperienced. A group consisting of Mirzo (Alexander Kaidanovsky), his brother Kova, the Sultan, his daughter Zarangis (D. Alimova) and slave Saifulla set off on this journey, pursued doggedly along the way by Fottabek (Shavkat Abdusalyamov), the ruthless new head of the Basmachis. They are forced to fight on the mountain ridges as well as negotiate the natural dangers and harsh elements.
The White Guard Army led by General Anton Denikin are laying siege to a southern city in order to prevent a rebellion. They are also blocking the railway, but Chekist Zavragin is in a hurry to travel south. In a flash of inspiration, he decides to use ''tachankas'' or machine gun carts to reach his destination, and attracts an unusual group of equally desperate fellow travellers.
''The Burning Miles'' is influenced by railroad Western films like John Ford's classic ''Stagecoach'', because of the diverse set of characters thrown together in desperate circumstances. Zavragin's companions on his journey include the doctor Shelako, the nurse Katya and a mysterious white guard officer Beklemishev, disguised as a veterinary surgeon. This formula gives the film an extra psychological dimension as the characters' progress towards their destination echoes the resolution of their problems and transitions in relationships.
In 1759, Langdon Towne (Robert Young), son of a ropemaker and ship rigger, returns to Portsmouth, New Hampshire after his expulsion from Harvard University. Though disappointed, his family greets him with love, as does Elizabeth Browne (Ruth Hussey). Elizabeth's father (Louis Hector), a noted clergyman, is less welcoming and denigrates Langdon's aspirations to become a painter.
At the local tavern with friend Sam Livermore (Lester Matthews), Langdon disparages Wiseman Clagett (Montagu Love), the king's attorney and the Indian agent Sir William Johnson, unaware that Clagett is in the next room with another official. Facing arrest, Langdon fights the two men with the help of "Hunk" Marriner (Walter Brennan), a local woodsman and both escape into the countryside.
Fleeing westward, Langdon and Marriner stop in a backwoods tavern, where they help a man in a green uniform. After a night of drinking "Flip" - similar to hot buttered rum - the two men wake up at Fort Crown Point, where they learn the man they met is Major Robert Rogers (Spencer Tracy), commander of Rogers' Rangers. In need of Langdon's map-making skills, Rogers recruits the two men for his latest expedition to destroy the hostile Abenakis tribe and their town of St. Francis far to the north.
Rogers' force rows north in whale boats on Lake Champlain by night, evading French patrols, but several soldiers are injured in a confrontation with Mohawk scouts. Rogers sends not only the wounded back to Crown Point, but also the disloyal Mohawks provided by Sir William Johnson (Frederick Worlock) and a number of men who disobeyed orders. Concealing their boats, the depleted force marches through swampland to conceal their movements. Informed by Stockbridge Indian scouts that the French have captured their boats and extra supplies, Rogers revises his plan and sends an injured officer back to Fort Crown Point requesting the British send supplies to old Fort Wentworth, to be met by the returning rangers.
Making a human chain to cross a river, the rangers reach St. Francis. Their attack succeeds, and they set fire to the dwellings and cut the Abenakis off from retreat. After the battle, the rangers find only a few baskets of parched corn to replenish their provisions. Marriner finds Langdon shot in his abdomen. The rangers set out for Wentworth, pursued by hostile French and Indian forces. Their initial objective is Lake Memphremagog, with the injured Langdon bringing up the rear.
Ten days later, Rogers' men reach the hills above Lake Memphremagog. Encountering signs of French activity, Rogers prefers to press on a hundred miles to Fort Wentworth, but the men vote to split up into four parties to hunt for food. Game proves scarce and two of the detachments are ambushed by the French, leaving most of the men dead. Persevering through harsh conditions, Rogers and the remaining fifty men finally reach the fort, only to find it unoccupied and in disrepair, and the British relief column has not arrived. Though personally despairing, Rogers attempts to perk up their flagging spirits with a prayer. They then hear the fifes and drums of approaching British boats with the supplies. Reporting that the Abenakis have been destroyed, the British honour Rogers’ men by presenting their firearms and shouting "Huzzah".
Returning to Portsmouth, Langdon reunites with Elizabeth while the Rangers are given a new mission: to find the Northwest Passage. Rogers fires them up with a speech about the wonders they will see on the march to the first point of embarkation, a little fort called "Detroit." He passes by Langdon and Elizabeth to say goodbye; Elizabeth informs him that she and Langdon are headed for London where she is hopeful Langdon will become a great painter. Rogers bids them farewell and marches down the road and off into the sunset.
In 1202, an army led by the three vampire elders (Markus, Viktor, and Amelia) arrives at a village full of Werewolves and capture their target: Markus's twin brother, William Corvinus, the first and most powerful werewolf. Despite Markus's defiance, Viktor orders that William be imprisoned in a secret location forever.
In the present day, Markus awakens and kills regent Kraven. Alexander Corvinus, A.K.A ''Lorenz Macaro'', the forefather to both the vampire and Lycan races, sends in a team of "cleaners" to investigate the aftermath from the battle in the Lycans' lair. Macaro examines Viktor's corpse and finds a metal disc inside; it is the match to a pendant originally worn by Sonja. Micheal obtained the other half of the pendant after the death of Lucian.
Meanwhile, vampiress Selene takes Michael to a safe house. Using the knowledge obtained from Kraven's blood, Markus tracks the pair down and attacks them, but they escape and hide in a warehouse. That night, Selene recalls seeing the pendant as a child, but does not know its significance. Wanting to know why Markus wants it, the two travel to the hideout of the exiled vampire historian Andreas Tanis.
Tanis reveals that Markus was the first vampire, one of the three sons of Macaro, the first immortal. Markus was bitten by a bat and metamorphosed into a vampire, while William was bitten by a wolf and became a werewolf. The third son remained human and gave rise to a line of mortal descendants including Michael, who turned into the first Lycan-Vampire hybrid. The first werewolves created by William were entirely animal and unable to return to their human forms. Due to William's destructiveness, Markus approached Viktor, then a dying mortal warlord, and offered to turn him and his army into vampires in exchange for tracking down and stopping William, and in destroying those he had infected. Tanis further reveals that Selene's father was the architect who built William's prison and that the pendant is the key. Viktor killed Selene's family because they knew the prison's location, but made Selene into a vampiress with the location of the prison encoded in her blood. After Selene and Michael leave, Markus arrives and drinks Tanis' blood to learn Selene and Michael's location, killing Tanis.
Selene and Michael visit Macaro, who refuses to assist Selene in killing his sons. Markus arrives, fights Michael and impales him. He learns the location of William's prison by drinking Selene's blood, mortally wounds his father and obtains the other half of the pendant. He intends, with William, to rule the world as the god-like master of a race of vampire-Lycan hybrids. On Macaro's bidding, Selene drinks his blood, enhancing her physical strength and healing abilities to a level equivalent to that of a hybrid. Afterwards, Macaro blows up his ship, killing himself.
Selene, aboard Macaro's helicopter, leads his cleaners to the prison to kill Markus, who has already freed William. In the ensuing battle, William bites the cleaners turns them into werewolves. Michael, presumed dead, awakens and joins the fight, killing William by ripping his head off. Selene battles Markus and kills him by pushing him into the rotor blades of the cleaners' crashed helicopter.
After the battle, Selene realizes that Alexander's blood granted her hybrid abilities, including being immune to the effects of sunlight, which is lethal to vampires.
The story starts in Aivali (Ayvalık), and takes us through the first days of the Turkish occupation. The way to ''amele taburu'' is slowly but steadily painted in pale and crimson, in the red bloodstained steps of bare wounded feet walking on hot summer sand. The life of the captives, as seen through the eyes of one who lived through these horrific experiences numbs the spirit of the reader too. The few bright sparks of humanity in a wasteland of inhumanity are treasured, as people are treated as if worthless: struck to death with hammers, lethally wounded and left to die alone, raped and then killed. All hope and all light is lost, despite the occasional effort by the prisoners to help each other—sincere at first, then worn down and half-hearted, until at last utter indifference.
Through the narrator's first-person account we learn the story of the people and the events of iDEATH. The central tension is created by Margaret, once a lover of the narrator, and inBOIL, a rebellious man who has left iDEATH to live near a forbidden area called the Forgotten Works. It is a huge trash heap where the remnants of a former civilization lie abandoned in great piles. Margaret, a collector of such "forgotten things", is friendly with inBOIL and his followers, who explore the place and make whiskey.
inBOIL's separation from the group may have been related to the annihilation of the tigers, killed many years previously by the people. It is not clear to the reader whether the tigers were actual tigers, human beings or somehow anthropomorphic: they killed and ate people, including the narrator's parents, but they could also talk, sing, and play musical instruments, and were at least competent with arithmetic. Two tigers were killed on a bridge known later as the "abandoned" bridge. The last tiger was killed on a spot later developed into a trout farm.
In the violent climax of the novel, inBOIL returns to the community along with a handful of followers, planning, he says, to show the residents what iDEATH really is. The residents know only that something is about to happen. After leading members of the community to the trout hatchery, inBOIL and his followers commit suicide, dismembering their faces with jackknives. Margaret appears oblivious to the threats, and unconcerned about the safety of her family and friends. Many suspect that Margaret knew and did not reveal details of inBOIL's real plan, thus "conspiring" with the evil men. She is semi-ostracized from iDEATH. At the beginning of the novel the narrator reveals that he ended their relationship because of these events.
The novel describes escalating phases of an invasion of Earth by aliens, as told through the eyes of Mike Watson, who works for the English Broadcasting Company (EBC) with his wife and co-reporter Phyllis. A major role is also played by Professor Alastair Bocker – more clear-minded and far-sighted about the developing crisis than everybody else, but often alienating people by telling brutally unvarnished and unwanted truths. Mike and Phyllis are witness to several major events of the invasion, which proceeds in a series of drawn-out phases; it in fact takes years before the bulk of humanity even realise that their world has been invaded.
In the first phase, objects from outer space land in the oceans. Mike and Phyllis happen to see five of the "fireballs" falling into the sea, from the ship where they are sailing on their honeymoon. Eventually the distribution of the objects' landing points – always at ocean depths, never on land – implies intelligence.
The aliens are speculated to come from a gas giant, and thus can only survive under conditions of extreme pressures in which humans would be instantly crushed. The deepest parts of the oceans are the only parts of Earth in any way useful to them, and they presumably have no need or use for the dry land or even the shallower parts of the seas. Bocker puts forward the theory that the two species could co-exist indefinitely, hardly noticing each other's presence. Humanity nevertheless feels threatened by this new phenomenon – particularly since the newcomers show signs of intensive work to adapt the ocean deeps to their needs. A British bathysphere is sent down to investigate, and is destroyed by the aliens with the loss of two lives. The British government responds by exploding a nuclear device in the same location.
The aliens' technology proves formidable; an American attack ends in disaster. Moreover, humanity is not united in the face of the mounting threat – the Cold War between West and East is well under way, with the two sides often suspiciously attributing the effects of the alien attacks to their human opponents, or refusing to co-operate because of their different political ideals.
Phase two of the war starts when ships all over the world begin to be attacked by unknown weapons and are rapidly sunk, causing havoc to the world economy. Shortly after, the aliens also start "harvesting" the land by sending up biological "sea tanks", which capture humans from coastal settlements, for reasons that are never made clear; the Watsons witness one of these assaults on a Caribbean island. These attacks are eventually met with sufficiently strong retaliation from humanity that they become far less frequent.
In the final phase, the aliens begin melting the polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. London and other ports are flooded, causing widespread social and political collapse. The government relocates to Harrogate. The Watsons cover the story for the EBC until the radio (and organised social and political life in general) ceases to exist, whereupon they can only try to survive and escape a flooded London, relocating to a Cornish holiday cottage which due to the floods now exists on an island in its own right. Other coastal countries are also disastrously affected – there is a reference to masses of Dutch refugees fleeing into Germany, having "lost their centuries-long war with the sea".
Ultimately, scientists in Japan develop an underwater ultrasonic weapon that kills the aliens. The population has been reduced to between a fifth and an eighth of its pre-invasion level, and the world's climate has been significantly changed, with water levels 120 feet higher than before.
Up to the end, humans have no clear idea what their opponents looked like. The most they have is some protoplasm which floated to the surface of the sea after the ultrasonic weapon was used. As stated in the book by the protagonist, the book aims to demonstrate that an alien invasion of Earth could take a very different form from that in ''The War of The Worlds''; publication of the book coincided with the release of 1953 film ''The War of the Worlds'', an adaptation of H. G. Wells' classic work which was both a critical and box office success.
Depending on the book's printed origin there are several changes to the plot: * In the US edition almost an entire chapter on how the Watsons gained possession of ''The Midge'' yacht, and their aborted attempt to use a dinghy to get to Cornwall is cut, instead simply stating that Freddie Whittier "found it" one day. * The US edition skips several paragraphs detailing Mike Watson's mental state and his several subconscious attempts to commit suicide, with only Phyllis preventing his success. Instead, the US edition just states that Mike goes on holiday. * In the US epilogue, the Watsons are tracked down by Bocker via helicopter and he explains a great deal of what has happened to the world while Mike and Phyllis have been isolated – even describing the Japanese ultrasonic device in some detail. In the UK edition they are instead approached by a neighbour in a rowing boat, who gives them only a brief overview of what has happened in the world – excluding much of the detail and just mentioning that the Japanese have developed an ultrasonic device. He tells them that their names have been broadcast on radio, and that a "Council For Reconstruction" has been formed. * The UK edition is less bleak than the US version, implying that humanity has already begun to rebuild, and that civilisation survives – albeit at a lesser level than before. * There are several changes for a US audience in terms of language and phraseology.
While Christmas shopping at Bloomingdale's in New York City, Jonathan Trager meets Sara Thomas when both try to buy the same pair of black cashmere gloves. Despite both being in relationships, a mutual attraction leads them to have dessert at Serendipity 3 where Sara explains that she lets fate's "little signals" determine many of her life decisions. After separating, they meet again when each returns to the restaurant to retrieve something they forgot. After ice skating, Jonathan convinces Sara to give him her number, but when the wind blows it out of his grasp, Sara thinks it is fate telling them to back off. After Jonathan disagrees, Sara decides to let fate reunite them: she has Jonathan write his number on a five dollar bill then uses it to buy breath mints and promises to sell her copy of ''Love in the Time of Cholera'' in which she will write her number. As one last experiment, Sara and Jonathan board separate elevators in the Waldorf Astoria and agree that if they arrive on the same floor, they are meant to be together. They each pick the same floor, but Jonathan is delayed finding Sara, leading her to believe that the experiment failed. Disappointed, they separate.
Years later, Jonathan is engaged to Halley and Sara, now living in San Francisco, to internationally-renowned musician Lars. When Jonathan finds one of the cashmere gloves, he embarks on a search of the city with his best friend, Dean, to find her. Meanwhile, Sara, stressed by the wedding planning and Lars’ focus on an upcoming world tour, travels to New York with her best friend Eve to find Jonathan. After nearly crossing paths with Jonathan throughout the day, Eve and Sara have dessert at Serendipity where Eve convinces Sara to give up her search. As Eve leaves, she picks up the 5 dollar bill with Jonathan's number on it that was left as their change. They catch the same cab that Jonathan and Dean exited while searching for Sara. After finding that a bridal shop next to Serendipity now occupies the address of a roommate finder service Sara once used, Jonathan sees it as a sign that he should marry Halley.
At the Waldorf Astoria, Eve and Sara encounter Halley headed to the wedding rehearsal. Halley invites Eve to join her since they were friends in college, but Sara declines. Outside their room, she finds an apologetic Lars.
At the rehearsal, Jonathan’s distracted demeanor frustrates Halley. She tearfully pleads with him to focus on the wedding and he reassures her that his reservations have let go of him. Halley then gives him Sara's old book containing her phone number as a wedding gift. Jonathan and Dean get her address and fly to San Francisco. Once there, they see Sara's sister and her boyfriend having sex and assume it is Sara in a happy relationship. Dean helps Jonathan realize that he shouldn’t marry Halley while Sara decides to end her engagement to Lars.
The next day, Sara finds the 5 dollar bill with Jonathan's number on it, having gotten hers and Eve's wallets mixed up. After getting his address and being told by the building superintendent of his wedding at the Waldorf, Sara hurries there and is relieved to find the ceremony cancelled.
Dean reassures Jonathan that he did the right thing and vows to be more spontaneous in his own marriage, which has been on the rocks. Jonathan wanders to the same ice skating rink where he spent part of his evening with Sara and finds a leather jacket on a bench. As it begins to snow, he lays on his back in the middle of the rink with the jacket as a pillow and one of the pair of cashmere gloves on his chest. When the matching glove lands next to it, he sits up and finds Sara watching him, having come to claim her jacket. They introduce themselves and finally share a kiss.
Later they celebrate their anniversary in front of the display of cashmere gloves where they met.
Gabriel, a minor Aristos, runs a group of planets containing societies devoted to artistic pursuits, assisted by his several daimones, each of whom has his or her own personality and special area of interest. Attending oneirochronon parties and composing operas, having sex with both men and women (at one point, he has sex with two women at once—one in physical reality, one in the oneirochronon), he seems to live a leisurely, decadent life.
An elder Ariste, Cressida, warns Gabriel that something is up in a nearby solar system. There appear to be some extra planets in an area which astronomical surveys had said contained none. Cressida is murdered before she can explain more but Gabriel begins to suspect that Saito, the Aristos whose domain is closest to the mystery solar system, is using it for some undisclosed purpose.
Gabriel and some of his advisers leave on a secret mission to the mystery solar system. When they arrive there they discover a horrifying truth: the planets contain life, human life. The most advanced of the planets contains a society similar in nature and technological development to Renaissance Europe. The people here have been left without the guidance and control of an Aristos and are mired in constant warfare and squalor, perishing of diseases which modern technology can easily cure. Someone, presumably Saito, has created human life here and consigned it to perpetual suffering for some unknown reason.
Horrified by the suffering they see, Gabriel and some of his companions travel down to the planet to investigate. Posing as visitors from a distant country they identify a local nobleman whom they believe to be Saito and arrange a confrontation. While they are waiting for their chance to assassinate Saito they see their spaceship, which had been orbiting the planet, destroyed. Their assassination attempt fails when they realize that the nobleman is actually an artificial lifeform. Gabriel and his companions are captured and imprisoned.
It is then that Gabriel is confronted with the truth: the mastermind behind this horrifying experiment is not Saito, but Captain Yuan, the architect of the current galactic civilization, who had long been presumed dead. Yuan explains his motives behind creating new life: the galactic society of the Logarchy has become staid and stultifying. Protected from any danger, the people have stopped improving and have become slaves of the Aristoi. He created this new solar system and the life within it in order to give a new start to humanity and create a society free from the restrictions of the Logarchy.
Yuan, Saito, and Zhenling, an Ariste whom Gabriel had considered an ally and even taken as a lover, then begin a brainwashing program on Gabriel, eventually breaking his will and convincing him to help them with minor duties on their project. Their plan is foiled when a previously hidden sub-personality of Gabriel, that he dubs The Voice, uses his computer privileges to escape.
Gabriel manages to defeat Saito and escape along with his friends. He informs the rest of the Logarchy about what has happened and rallies them to a war footing. The Logarchy's forces swarm into the new solar system to provide humanitarian relief and begin to integrate the societies into the galactic society. As Yuan's secrets are revealed it is also discovered that he had tampered with the examination process which forms the backbone of the Logarchy, promoting people to Aristoi who he believed could help him and keeping others back. Captain Yuan himself has escaped to parts unknown and Gabriel makes it his life's mission to track him down and bring him to justice. As he does so he is warned by Zhenling, now imprisoned, that in doing so he will only fulfill Yuan's plan to shake up the galactic status quo.
Category:1992 American novels Category:1992 science fiction novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Tor Books books
The setting: medieval Transylvania. One hundred years have passed since legendary hero Simon Belmont defeated the evil Count Dracula and sealed him away for what was supposed to be eternity (Making the game set in 1791). The people have long since forgotten about the horror of the undead, thus allowing a few depraved individuals to restore the Prince of Darkness to his former state; sleeping in his coffin by day and preying upon hapless victims by night.
Dracula now plans to get revenge on his old enemy through his descendants by locking Annet, the girlfriend of Belmont's great grandson, Richter, and her younger little sister, Maria, in his dark and gloomy castle.
Once aware of this, Richter takes his ancestor's sacred whip, passed down through the years from father to son, and sets out for Dracula's castle to rescue Annet and Maria, and to seal away the evil Count for good.
The dark priest and major antagonist of both Rondo of Blood and it's direct sequel Symphony of the Night, Shaft, is completely absent from the game's story and is never made reference to.
In an industrial area of Adelaide, Bubby (Hope) is a mentally challenged 35-year-old man who lives in a squalid house with his abusive and religious fanatic mother, Florence. He has never left the house, due to his mother convincing him that the air outside is toxic, and Jesus will strike him down should he leave. He and his mother regularly have incestuous sex, with his mother often encouraging Bubby to fondle her breasts. The two have no other company except for a pet cat, which Bubby accidentally kills with clingwrap. One night, Bubby's father Harold returns, having abandoned Florence years earlier to pursue a career as a preacher. Harold did not know he had a son, but he quickly comes to disdain Bubby, and mocks him for his presumed mental disorder. Harold frequently beats Bubby, and encourages Florence to do so as well. Tired of the abuse, Bubby suffocates his parents with clingwrap, and decides to venture outside for the first time.
Bubby is picked up by members of The Salvation Army, and wanders into the town centre. However, he is socially inept, and is harassed by members of the public for his strange behaviour. He is later given a lift by a group of men who perform in a rock band, and he helps the band set up a gig. The band take a liking to Bubby, but are also unnerved by his odd actions. After reading a newspaper that reports on the murder of Bubby's parents, the band members decide to send him to stay with their friend Dan. The two go out for dinner, but Bubby fondles a woman and is arrested. He is sent to jail, but is unwilling to talk with the warden. As punishment, he sends Bubby into a separate cell, where he is raped by another inmate, "The Animal" (Michael Constantinou). The prison chief then deems him to be rehabilitated, and lets him go.
Bubby enters a church, and converses with a man there (Norman Kaye; listed in the credits as "The Scientist"), who tells Bubby that God does not exist, and it is the job of humans to "think God out of existence" and take responsibility for themselves. Bubby goes to a pub and fondles another woman, and is beaten by her friends. Overwhelmed, Bubby returns to his home as he believes that there is no place for him in the world. He dons his father's clothes and assumes the personality of "Pop". With newfound confidence, he returns to town and finds a stray cat, who he vows to take care of. He goes to the club where the rock band are performing, and joins them on stage, where he delivers a bizarre performance, repeating phrases he has heard from various people. His performance is a success with the crowd, and he goes back to feed the cat, but is distraught to see that it has been killed by local hoodlums. Upset, Bubby encounters a nurse named Angel, who cares for people with physical disabilities. They return to the care centre, and Bubby becomes infatuated with her breasts, as they remind him of his mother's.
Angel and Bubby become lovers, and Angel invites him to have dinner with her strict and religious parents. Angel's parents humiliate her by mocking her weight, enraging Bubby, who curses at God in retaliation, before her parents demand he leave. Bubby kills Angel's parents with clingwrap, and the two continue their relationship. Bubby returns to performing with the rock band, and becomes a sensation with audiences. Finally at peace with himself, Bubby and Angel later have a child.
The film is set in the Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraq–Turkey border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Soran, known by the alias Kak Satellite, is known for his installation of dishes and antenna for the villages who are looking for news about Saddam Hussein, he is also known for his limited knowledge of the English language, which he learns because he interacts with the Americans when they invade. He is the dynamic, but manipulative leader of the children, organizing the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields. Many of these children are injured one way or the other, yet still maintain a boisterous prattle whenever possible, devoted to their work in spite of the vagaries of their life.
The industrious Kak Satellite arranges trade-ins for undetonated mines. He falls for a girl named Agrin, an orphan from Halabja who has recently came to the refugee camps, assisting her whenever possible in order to win her over. She is a perpetual dour-faced girl who is part bitter, part lost in thought, unable to escape the demons of the past. She is traveling with her disabled but very caring brother Hengov, who has the gift of clairvoyance that made him have a bad reputation for it. The siblings stay with a blind toddler named Riga, who they introduce as their "little brother". It is later revealed that Agrin gave birth to Riga after she was gang raped by Ba'ath soldiers, while Hengov's arms had been shot as the soldiers attempted to drown both of them. Agrin is unable to accept Riga as anything besides a taint, a continuous reminder of her brutal past.
Agrin tries to abandon the child and commit suicide on multiple occasions. Once she tries to burn herself in the lake, but she gives up. Trying to get rid of the child, she ties him on a tree and abandons him. He walks around until he gets stuck in a minefield. Kak Satellite tries to rescue him but a mine blows on Kak Satellite, injuring his leg. After multiple tries, Agrin finally ties Riga to a rock and throws him to the bottom of the lake, afterwards committing suicide herself by jumping from a cliff. When her brother sees a vision of his loved ones drowning, he hurries out of the tent to save them, but he is too late. Hengov eventually finds his nephew's body at the bottom of the lake but can't cut it loose from the rock due to his disability. Hengov grieves on the cliff from where Agrin jumped to her death. Meanwhile, a disabled Kak Satellite loses any charm he had about the American intervention and looks away when the American soldiers finally pass by him.
The story begins with the protagonist, under the alias the Technician, who is in deep cover to stop the Hezbollah terrorist organization from overthrowing the government of Tunisia. The operation appears to be going well, until the terrorists discover that the weapons the Technician has supplied them are defective. Before the ensuing battle is over, though, Abu (the leader of the terrorist agency) manages to stab him in the abdomen. He is helicoptered out, and we next find him entering the headquarters of the Directorate.
We meet his boss, Ted Waller, a lover of puzzles. Waller fires Bryson from the Directorate, saying he's lost his touch; Bryson is now told to live as a professor of Byzantine history under the alias of Jonas Barett. After some initial drunkenness and a search for oblivion because his wife, Elena, has left him, he agrees to take the job. He lives under this alias for 5 years and becomes a popular professor, until the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence at the CIA, Harry Dunne, confronts him with a shocking revelation.
We learn that the Directorate is really a Russian intelligence operation created by GRU masterminds: essentially a penetration operation on American soil. He learns that his boss is really Gennady Rosovsky, who assumed the name of Ted Waller after the English poet Edmund Waller. Dunne says that Bryson's entire life, including his parents' death, was engineered by the Directorate to lead him to be a part of the agency. Every mission Bryson has undertaken was designed to hurt American interests, which horrifies him.
Bryson is convinced to go after the Directorate and infiltrates a weapons tanker to find out what they're doing with weapons they're amassing. There he meets Layla, and after blowing up the tanker and amassing an arsenal, he continues to search for the Directorate; however, it seems that everywhere he goes there is a terrorist attack that follows. He pursues the trail of his former contacts with the Directorate. He meets with a former colleague, Jan Vansina, only to have Vansina killed before his eyes.
At another point, when he is about to be shot by a former enemy, he is saved by Waller, who explains that Harry Dunne is really a part of Prometheus, an organization of business executives and powerful politicians around the world. The members of Prometheus are pushing the Treaty on Surveillance, which would allow for an international super-FBI, and their own Richard Lanchester (a former businessman turned politician) would be at the head. The implication is that this organization, because its members own information companies would then be able to monitor everything that went on in the world, and thereby control it.
The Directorate's headquarters are destroyed, and he and his wife, Elena, united again, barely escape. He learns that money is being wired to members of the organization through a bank owned by Meredith Waterman, a respected bank. He goes to the bank headquarters and sneaks into their archives. There he learns of a business choice that forced the company to be sold to a certain Gregson Manning, the CEO of the world's largest company, Systematix, which owns health insurance companies, satellites, software, and thus many ways to get information on people. Manning, of course, is a member of Prometheus.
Now, Bryson and Elena must infiltrate Manning's mansion to crash the meeting of Prometheus's leaders, days before they assume control. However, he finds Ted Waller at the mansion, escaped from the Directorate's destruction and a double agent. Bryson is surrounded and about to be executed when a machine he's purchased, a virtual cathode oscillator, destroys the machinery in Manning's home and disables all the "smart guns" that are trained on him. Most of the guests in the mansion are trapped and killed, seemingly ending the Prometheus Group.
Nick and Elena quietly move to a tropical location somewhat assured to be isolated and away from any monitoring devices. Their peace is interrupted when Waller taps into their satellite TV, and promises that they will meet again.
Agnes (Molly Parker), an alcoholic and drug-user who is struggling to overcome her self-destructive behaviour, returns from Toronto, Ontario, to her Cape Breton Island hometown of Sydney, Nova Scotia, because of the failing health of her mother Rose (Marguerite McNeil). Rose, an Irish-Canadian who is also an alcoholic, lies dying of cancer at a local hospital. Agnes stays at her childhood home with her older sister Theresa (Rebecca Jenkins), a devout Catholic whose husband recently left her for a younger woman, and Louise (Stacy Smith), a middle sister who has retreated from the outside world. Waiting at their mother's deathbed, they are forced to face the resentments, trust issues, and scars of their past, particularly the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of their father, as they make peace with one another and with their mother.
The sisters bring their ailing mother home despite the mistrust they feel at Agnes' pledge to care for Rose, but Agnes cleans the house, acts what appears to be responsibly, and even encourages Louise to play her guitar and socialize with a friend from church. When Theresa's husband Donnie is left by his girlfriend, Theresa is compelled to comfort him and clean his house as she blames herself for his betrayal; he wanted children while she didn't, which is in her mind is a sin.
Agnes is unable to stop herself repeatedly driving to a gift shop in rural Marion Bridge in hopes of building a relationship with 16-year-old Joanie (Elliot Page), her daughter who resulted from the rape by her father. When Theresa finds out what Agnes has been doing, she warns her sister not to tell Joanie about her relationship to their family, and she refuses to consider Agnes' suggestion that they talk to their father.
Eventually Theresa relents about meeting Joanie, and accompanies Agnes to a meeting with her. Joanie's adoptive mother Chrissy (Hollis McLaren) confronts them, and asks that they wait until Joanie is an adult before telling her their secret. When Joanie visits the sisters and asks Agnes whether she is her mother, Agnes denies it, telling her Chrissy is her real mother.
Before she dies, the girls’ mother Rose asks her daughters to forgive her for ignoring things she didn't want to see as she believed it was best for everyone. The sisters finally visit their father, who is suffering from dementia, and his wife. With Agnes' encouragement, Louise buys a new truck and the sisters drive out to Marion Bridge for a picnic with Joanie and Chrissy.
Two NASCAR hopefuls, driver Larry Rayder and his mechanic Deke Sommers, successfully execute a supermarket heist to finance their jump into big-time auto racing. They extort $150,000 in cash from a supermarket manager by holding his wife and daughter hostage.
In making their escape, they are confronted by Larry's one-night stand, Mary Coombs. She coerces them to take her along for the ride in their souped-up 1966 Chevrolet Impala. The unorthodox sheriff, Captain Everett Franklin, obsessively pursues the trio in a dragnet, only to find his outmoded patrol cars unable to catch Larry, Mary, and Deke after they ditch the Impala for a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 440 at a flea market.
As part of the escape plan, Larry's vehicle enters an expansive walnut grove, where the trees provide significant cover from aerial tracking, and the many intersecting roads ("with sixty distinct and separate exits") making road blocks ineffective. The trio evades several Dodge Polara patrol cars, a specially-prepared high-performance police interceptor, and even Captain Franklin himself in a Bell JetRanger helicopter. Believing they've finally beaten the police, Larry and company meet their doom when they randomly collide with a freight train pulled by an Alco S-1 locomotive.
A father finds difficulties in expressing his love to his children. Garnet (played by Colin Roberts) and Flower (Jane McGregor) have grown up in an environment of stifled grief. Since their mother died, Ed (Callum Keith Rennie), their father, mostly just lives without a goal. Eight-year-old Garnet struggles to comprehend the world around him, while sixteen-year-old Flower seeks love with her new boyfriend. Forced to become a real parent to Garnet, Ed buys Garnet a gun and shows, for the first time, his real affection for the boy.
The episode takes place over a single day, which starts when Homer, Bart and Lisa are called down to breakfast by Marge only to find a sticky, gooey cereal called mueslix, which they do not want to eat. While Bart excuses himself to answer the door for Milhouse, Lisa helps Homer come up with an excuse to avoid eating breakfast.
Lisa shows Homer her project for the school science fair, a grammar robot named Linguo, which Homer breaks by pouring beer down its throat. Shortly after, Marge accidentally severs Homer's thumb as she is cooking, and Santa's Little Helper runs around with the severed thumb, forcing Homer to chase him for it. Marge calls the police, but when they mistake her for an attempted murderess, she gives them a fake address (123 Fake Street). After Homer retrieves the thumb, he and Marge drive to the hospital; along the way they crash into Rainier Wolfcastle's car and then steal it. At the hospital, Dr. Hibbert claims that their finger insurance will not cover the cost as thumbs are not included, so they drive off for Dr. Nick's clinic. Since Homer's thumb is starting to shrivel, he stops at Moe's, where he gets a brine solution. He gets distracted when Moe offers him a beer, and then passes out. When Barney wakes him up with coffee, Homer rushes out and sees Marge is gone. He hitchhikes with Cletus who drives him to Dr. Nick's, but they discover the clinic is on fire. Homer asks Cletus to drive him to Shelbyville Hospital, but his truck gets stolen, leaving Homer to walk to the hospital. His thumb is almost completely shriveled up now, and he is about to throw it in a garbage can when an explosion blasts Linguo's head in the air and it lands next to Homer.
Lisa has to fix Linguo after Homer breaks it, missing the school bus as a result. Her bike is stolen and Marge and Homer drive off without her, so she runs around town before getting a ride from Krusty and his driver Mr. Teeny. However, Mr. Teeny mistakenly takes her to ''West'' Springfield Elementary School, where after walking into a French class, she has a whirlwind romance with Thelonious, a student who shares her interests. Still needing a ride, Lisa stops at Moe's Tavern looking for her dad, but he is not there. She spots Chief Wiggum and asks for a ride, but he is too busy tracking down Fat Tony with the help of an undercover informant with a wire. Wiggum botches the mission by announcing himself via the wire, with gunfire heard. Homer comes in just as Lisa leaves by the back door. Outside, Lisa finds Marge, who takes her to school, but the car runs out of gas. Marge and Lisa see Cletus' truck and hitch a ride, but when he exits his truck they steal it and drive off to the school. However, they are forced to stop when Bart emerges from a manhole in front of them.
With Bart letting him borrow Lisa's bike, Milhouse takes Bart to a cave he has found, which is full of fireworks. The duo test some, but accidentally set fire to Dr. Nick's clinic. Bart and Milhouse hide in a building, but are caught by the police due to the fake address Marge gave them. The police ask the boys to help them find the fireworks smuggler in exchange for avoiding juvenile detention. Bart and Milhouse find Fat Tony and his henchmen and surreptitiously offer to buy his fireworks. However, when Wiggum announces himself via the wire taped to Bart's stomach, Fat Tony realizes that they are undercover. Bart distracts him by lighting firecrackers before running off, so he chases the boys through the sewers until they emerge near Marge and Lisa. Having been chased down the street, Bart and Milhouse get cornered. To save them, Marge throws Linguo at the mobsters who proceed to taunt Linguo. Due to the gangsters' bad grammar, Linguo begins to short circuit causing sparks from Linguo's body ignite nearby fireworks, causing Linguo to explode and his head to launch like a missile.
Fat Tony is arrested just as Homer arrives, but when Marge points out his severed thumb and Lisa's destroyed science project, Fat Tony proposes a solution: Lisa brings the mobsters to the science fair, and Legs successfully reattaches Homer's thumb while Lisa narrates the presentation for her class, earning her first place at the science fair. Marge remarks that it has been "one crazy day", causing everyone to laugh, but a distraught Mr. Teeny fears that the episode's plot made no sense and encourages the audience to "Tell the people".
One day while Abruc the otter and his son Stugg are out foraging for food, they find two badgers; an old one, dead, and a giant one who is barely clinging to life. The otters take the giant back to their colony, where he is revived and reveals himself to be called Lonna Bowstripe. He is told that his attacker was most likely the pirate Raga Bol, whose ship has been lost, and his crew of sea-rats, who are moving inland. Lonna vows to hunt down and kill the entire crew. Armed with his bow and arrows, he sets out to exact his revenge.
Meanwhile, at Redwall Abbey, there is a young hare maid named Martha Braebuck, who is totally incapable of walking, thus restricting her to a wheelchair. She is wheeled around by her very hyperactive brother Hortwill Braebuck (Horty) and his friends, Springald and Fenna. While napping in front of the tapestry of Martin the Warrior, Martin and Sister Amyl appear to Martha in a dream, and she is told that the secret to make her able to walk can be found within the ancient walls of Loamhedge Abbey and that two individuals are coming that can help her.
US cover of ''Loamhedge'' As it so happens, the two in question are Bragoon and Sarobando, two lifelong friends who ran away from the Abbey as Dibbuns. They survive by tricking small vermin bands and taking their food. This time, it's the gang of the weasel Burrad, whose numbers are at about 13. After Bragoon enters the camp (and Skrodd accidentally kills Burrad) they tell the gang that they must leave Mossflower Woods and never return. Skrodd has other plans, however, and convinces the gang to head to Redwall, where there is a rumour of a magical sword. One night, Skrodd is killed by the rat Dargle, who gets decapitated during Skrodd's death throes. The bodies are discovered by a young fox named Little Redd (Later named Badredd), who convinces the gang he was the one who had killed Dargle. They continue on to Redwall, though no one really takes the fox seriously.
Bragoon and Sarobando arrive at the Abbey during the Summer festival and are told Martha's sad story and where the cure can be found. They decide to set out to Loamhedge, but not before Horty's group asks if they can go too. When Abbot Carrul refuses, the trio create a distraction and escape the Abbey. Though they wind up being captured by Darrats, they are rescued by Bragoon and Saro, who are not too entirely pleased to see them. Since they are already fairly far from the Abbey and could risk recapture, however, they are allowed to join the quest.
Meanwhile, Badredd's group has arrived at Redwall and hold it under siege by slipping in through the east wall gate. Realizing he could do with some more troops, Badredd sends Flinky and Crinktail out to recruit some new vermin. The two stoats unwittingly run into Raga Bol and his crew, who take over management of besieging the Abbey.
Elsewhere, the group of questers scale the tall cliffs leading to Loamhedge and enter a cave to avoid the rain. There they find Lonna and exchange stories. Lonna encounters Martin the Warrior's spirit during the night, telling him the whereabouts of Raga Bol. Lonna sets out, and the gang from Redwall continue up the cliff face and keep walking to the ancient Abbey.
At Redwall, Raga Bol continues to try to break into the Abbey. After an escapade of using a ladder to scale one of the windows, one sea rat manages to enter the Abbey and is about to kill Carrul when Martha suddenly lunges out of her chair and pushes him away, realising she now has the ability to stand and all she needed was will power.
Badredd's group managed to escape the Abbey during the battle, and Bol sends a rat named Blowfly after them. Instead of finding the escapees, Blowfly encounters Lonna, who asks him where the Abbey is and then kills him. When Lonna arrives at Redwall, he manages to kill many sea rats, and due to the efforts of the now mobile Martha, gets inside of the main building and is able to snipe out the crew from there. In a last-ditch attempt to kill the badger, Raga Bol tricks Lonna into coming out to the open where a group of spear throwers wait to slay him. Things go wrong when Lonna seizes Bol and uses him as a living shield against the spears. Then he goes on a rampage and kills every last rat.
In the meantime, the five travellers find a stream but get ambushed by reptiles. Sarobando sneaks out and gets Log-a-log Briggy to help them get out of the ambush. They soon find themselves in another wasteland and get lost. When Horty finds a dormouse named Toobledum and his pet lizard Bubbub, Toobledum shows them the way to Loamhedge. The expedition to find Loamhedge has finally arrived at the dead Abbey, but all the things in Abbess Sylvaticus' grave have rotted away to nothing or turned into dust. Rather than return empty pawed, Bragoon and Saro tell the young ones to wait outside while they write their own cure, essentially saying that one just needs faith in oneself. On the way back, the group encounters the Abyss and are attacked by Kharanjul the Wearet and his army of painted rats. In an attempt to allow Horty, Fenna, and Springald to get to safety, Sarobando and Bragoon hold off the oncoming forces, eventually pushing the bridge over the edge of the abyss. Though they won the battle, the duo is badly injured, and they die shortly after.
Ten seasons after they return to the Abbey, we find that Springald has become Abbey Recorder, Fenna has become Abbess, Horty has joined the Long Patrol at Salamandastron, adding the nom de guerre 'Longblade' to his name, Lonna has become ruler of Salamandastron, and Martha sings and dances on the walls every season in memory of the two who left to try to find her a cure.
This article is licensed under the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License]. It uses material from the [https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Loamhedge Redwall Wiki article Loamhedge].
''The Oil, the Baby and the Transylvanians'' is the third part of a fairly successful Romanian trilogy about three Transylvanian brothers, their families, and their companions in frontier America, on the Great Plains. Set in the 1880s, the drama, comedy, and perhaps appeal of the film comes from the characters' difficulty in adjusting to the American rhythm and lifestyle.
The youngest of the Brad brothers, Romulus, and his American fiancée, June, are expecting a baby. The wedding celebration is eagerly anticipated by all the family and organised according to ancient Romanian customs.
Meanwhile, the middle brother John, who is honest, courageous, and fast on the draw, is held in increasingly high esteem by the townsfolk as he faces down a series of bullies and hoodlums, which sets up several gunslinging showdown scenes. Eventually John is elected as sheriff. He hunts these "Wanted" criminals to subsidise Romulus' decaying ranch.
Traian, the eldest of the three brothers, goes looking for water for his cattle and passes through the land of the Orbans, who are ironically Hungarian-Transylvanian farmers. The Orbans and Brads forge an important alliance and friendship against outside danger and violence. However, instead of finding water on his land, Traian finds oil. But will the promise of riches corrupt the brothers and tempt them away from their new home?
Louanne Johnson, a former Marine, applies for a teaching job in high school, and is surprised and pleased to be offered the position with immediate effect. Showing up the next day to begin teaching, however, she finds herself confronted with a classroom of tough, sullen teenagers, all from low income working-class backgrounds, involved in gang warfare and drug pushing, flatly refusing to engage with anything.
They immediately coin the nickname "White Bread" for Louanne, due to her race and apparent lack of authority, to which Louanne responds by returning the next day in a leather jacket and teaching them karate. The students show some interest in such activities, but withdraw when Louanne tries to teach the curriculum.
Desperate to reach the students, Louanne devises classroom exercises that teach similar principles to the prescribed work, but using themes and language that appeal to the students. She also tries to motivate them by giving them all an A grade from the beginning of the year, and arguing that the only thing required of them is that they maintain it.
In order to introduce them to poetry, Louanne uses the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" to teach symbolism and metaphor; once this is achieved, she progresses on to Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". Louanne rewards the students liberally, using candy bars, reward incentives, and a trip to a theme park. Her methods draw the attention of the school authorities, George Grandey and Carla Nichols, who try to force her to remain within the curriculum.
A few particular students attract Louanne's interest for their personal problems. Raul Sanchero is a boy who is frequently involved in gang warfare and street crime. Louanne tries to encourage him to focus by paying a special visit to his family to congratulate him on his work, and going to dinner with him as a way of instilling confidence and self-respect.
Emilio Ramirez is her most troublesome personal "project" as he believes strongly in a sense of personal honor that prevents him from asking for help. When Louanne discovers that his life is in danger because of a personal grudge held by a recently released thug, she advises him to seek help from Principal Grandey. The next day, Emilio visits Grandey, but Grandey (not realizing that Emilio is in serious danger) instantly dismisses him because he neglected to knock on the door before entering his office.
Feeling rejected, Emilio leaves the school and is subsequently killed by his rival. Heartbroken by her failure to protect Emilio and angry at the indifferent school system for contributing to his death, Louanne announces to the class her intention to leave the school at the end of the academic year. The students immediately break down, begging her not to leave. Overwhelmed by their unbridled display of emotion, she decides to stay.
In the wake of the events of "The Mathematics of Magic", Harold Shea and his lady love Belphebe of Faerie have married and settled happily into a mundane earthly existence. But after Belphebe disappears at a picnic, Shea is questioned by the police on suspicion of foul play. The authorities also question his colleagues at the Garaden Institute, Walter Bayard and Vaclav Polacek, and then decide to take in the three of them for further interrogation. At that point the whole group, including police officer Pete Brodsky, are spirited away to another world, that of the Xanadu which is the subject of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. After they have all languished there for a time, Shea and Polacek are pulled away from this world as well and into that represented by Ludovico Ariosto's epic, the ''Orlando Furioso''.
The person responsible for their plight turns out to be Reed Chalmers, aspiring magician and former head of the Garaden Institute, who had accompanied Shea to Faerie in his previous adventure. He had been attempting to retrieve Shea alone, but had erroneously pulled in Belphebe first, and then misplaced his three colleagues and the police officer before at last getting things (nearly) right. Aside, that is, from getting Polacek too and leaving Bayard and Brodsky stranded in Xanadu. Moreover, as Ariosto's epic was a source text for Edmund Spenser's ''The Faerie Queene'', Belphebe's mind has become confused, reverting in accord with the setting to that of her ''Furioso'' prototype, Belphagor. As a result, she now believes herself a native of the world into which they have been plunged, no longer recognizing Shea as her husband!
Chalmer's goal was to seek Shea's assistance in transforming his own love, the lady Florimel, a human simulacrum magically made of snow, into a real person. It was also to that end that he himself had come to this world, where he is now the guest of the wizard Atlantès de Carena in the latter's marvelous iron castle in northern Spain. The world of the ''Furioso'' is based on Carolingian legend, and the Moorish Spain in which the extradimensional travelers find themselves is in the midst of a conflict with the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and his paladins. Somehow they must manage to negotiate their way through the delicate international politics, tiptoe around the treacherous Atlantès, achieve Chalmers' ambitions for Florimel, restore Belphebe's sanity — and survive. Beyond that there are still Bayard and Brodsky to rescue, though those are tasks for later tales.
In 1934, impoverished painter Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten) meets a fey little girl named Jennie Appleton (Jennifer Jones) in Central Park, Manhattan. She is wearing old-fashioned clothing. He makes a sketch of her from memory which involves him with art dealer Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore), who sees potential in him. This inspires him to paint a portrait of Jennie.
Eben encounters Jennie at intermittent intervals. Strangely, she appears to be growing up much more rapidly than is possible. He soon falls in love with her but is puzzled by the fact that she seems to be experiencing events that he discovers took place many years previously as if they had just happened. Eventually he learns the truth about Jennie and though inevitable tragedy ensues, she continues to be an inspiration to Eben's life and art, and his career makes a remarkable upturn, commencing with his portrait of Jennie.
The story opens with a passage from ''Civil Disobedience'' by Henry David Thoreau. The story is a satirical look at a dystopian future in which time is strictly regulated and everyone must do everything according to an extremely precise time schedule. In this future, being late is not merely an inconvenience, but also a crime; perpetrators are punished by having their lives shortened by an amount of time equal to the delay they have caused. These punishments are administered by the Master Timekeeper, nicknamed the "Ticktockman," who uses a device called a "cardioplate" to stop the heart of any violator who has lost all the remaining time in their life through repeated violations.
The story focuses on a man named Everett C. Marm who, disguised as the anarchical Harlequin, engages in whimsical rebellion against the Ticktockman. Everett is in a relationship with a girl named Pretty Alice, who is exasperated by the fact that he is never on time. The Harlequin disrupts the carefully kept schedule of his society with methods such as distracting factory workers from their tasks by showering them with thousands of multicolored jelly beans or simply using a bullhorn to publicly encourage people to ignore their schedules, forcing the Ticktockman to pull people off their normal jobs to hunt for him.
Eventually, the Harlequin is captured. The Ticktockman tells him that Pretty Alice has betrayed him, wanting to return to the punctual society everyone else lives in. The Harlequin sneers at the Ticktockman's command for him to repent.
The Ticktockman decides not to stop the Harlequin's heart, and instead sends him to a place called Coventry, where he is converted in a manner similar to how Winston Smith is converted in George Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. The brainwashed Harlequin reappears in public and announces that he was wrong before, and that it is always good to be on time.
At the end, one of the Ticktockman's subordinates tells the Ticktockman that he is three minutes behind schedule, a fact the Ticktockman scoffs at in disbelief.
On his way to work one morning, Smithers is offered a job at the Globex Corporation, but refuses. Being the next-longest tenured employee of the plant, Homer ends up getting the job. He informs his family that the new job pays better, but involves them moving to Cypress Creek. The family originally opposes the move, but they watch a video about the planned community and, seeing that it is much nicer than Springfield, agree to move there. Abandoning their house, the Simpsons pack up and leave town.
After arriving at their new house at 15201 Maple Systems Road, Homer's new boss, Hank Scorpio, introduces himself. Scorpio, who seems like the perfect boss, takes a shine to Homer and makes him chief motivator in the Nuclear division. Meanwhile, Bart starts school, but he soon finds that his new class is far above the standards of Springfield Elementary, and is sent to a remedial class. Lisa goes for a nature walk and discovers that she is allergic to all the wildlife around Cypress Creek. Marge tries to go about her daily chores, but as their new house does everything automatically, she has nothing to do during the day but drink wine and mope.
On Homer's first day at work, Scorpio gives him a tour of the company and listens with interest to his secret dream of owning the Dallas Cowboys football team. He tells Homer that his dream may come true someday. Homer does an excellent job of motivating his team. During a meeting with Homer, Scorpio excuses himself, turns to a screen, threatens the United Nations Security Council by saying they have 72 hours to deliver an unspecified amount of gold and promptly blows up the 59th Street Bridge. Homer remains oblivious to Scorpio's evil genius tendencies, which includes work on a doomsday device and his attempts to kill a spy named "Mr. Bont" with a laser.
At dinner, Homer proudly tells the family how well he is doing at work, but he discovers that they hate Cypress Creek and want to return to Springfield. Dejected, Homer goes to visit Scorpio for advice at the same time that United States Army Special Forces assault Globex HQ. He asks Scorpio what to do and is advised that he should do what's best for his family. Scorpio straps on a flamethrower and holds his ground while Homer sadly walks away, kicking a grenade in the process. The next day, the family returns to Springfield and Homer receives the Denver Broncos as a present from Scorpio, who has successfully managed to seize the U.S. East Coast.
In 1897, the long war between humanity and Dracula came to an end, as Dracula was laid to eternal rest by Quincy Morris, a distant descendant of the Belmont family. Peace was restored to Europe, until the outbreak of the First World War, which transformed the continent into a dark world filled with massacre and violence. At the beginning of the war, in June 1914 at Sarajevo, the Crown Prince of Austria was assassinated. It was said that a strange beautiful woman was involved, within the shadows. The woman was Elizabeth Bartley, who, in order to revive her uncle, Count Dracula, had conducted an unholy ceremony which caused the war, giving her possession of human souls from Europe.
The game itself takes place in 1917. The characters are John Morris, a distant descendant of the famed Belmont and Morris families who obeyed his fate to fight vampires day and night, and Eric Lecarde, whose girlfriend was transformed into a vampire when Elizabeth was revived. After Drolta Tzuentes resurrected Elizabeth Bartley by using black magic (Drolta is a subservient witch of Elizabeth), they traveled across Europe to conduct the resurrection of Count Dracula. John Morris and Eric Lecarde followed them. Even though the resurrection of Dracula was a success, the vampire hunters defeated him, and his allies.
Jiminy Cricket first appears inside a large plant in a large house, exploring and singing "I'm a Happy-go-Lucky Fellow", until he happens to stumble upon a doll, a teddy bear, and a record player with some records, one of which is ''Bongo'', a musical romance story narrated by actress Dinah Shore. Jiminy decides to set up the record player to play the story of ''Bongo''.
The story follows the adventures of a circus bear named Bongo who longs for freedom in the wild. Bongo is raised in captivity and is praised for his performances, but is poorly treated once he is off stage. As such, while traveling on a circus train, his natural instincts (the call of the wild) urge him to break free. As soon as he escapes and enters a forest, a day passes before his idealistic assessment of his new living situation has been emotionally shattered, and he experiences some hard conditions.
The next morning, however, he meets a female bear named Lulubelle. The two bears immediately fall in love, until Bongo soon faces a romantic rival in the brutish, enormously-shaped bear named Lumpjaw. Bongo fails to interpret Lulubelle slapping him as a sign of affection, and when she accidentally slaps Lumpjaw, he claims her for himself, forcing all other bears into a celebration for the "happy" new couple. Bongo comes to understand the meaning of slapping one another among wild bears and returns to challenge Lumpjaw. He manages to outwit Lumpjaw for much of their fight until the two fall into a river and go over a waterfall. While Lumpjaw is presumably swept away by the river and never seen again, Bongo's hat saves him from falling down, and he finally claims Lulubelle as his mate.
This segment is narrated by Edgar Bergen in live-action sequences, who, with the help of his ventriloquist dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, tells the tale to child actress Luana Patten at her birthday party, with Jiminy listening in after having read an invitation shortly after the previous story ended.
A jovial countryside land called Happy Valley, kept alive at all times by a singing harp, is suddenly plagued by a severe drought and falls into turmoil and depression after the harp is stolen from the castle by a mysterious assailant. After weeks pass, there are only peasants remaining, the story then looks into three of the peasants: Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. The trio have but just one loaf of bread and a single solitary bean to eat. During this time, Mickey has no choice but to cut the bread into paper-thin slices for the three friends to eat. Driven insane by his hunger, Donald goes into a rage, complaining that he cannot stand it anymore. He makes a sandwich out of plates and silverware, but Mickey and Goofy stop him and manage to calm him down. He then sees an axe and attempts to kill their pet cow for beef with said axe, but Mickey and Goofy manage to stop him again. Mickey then decides to sell the cow for money to buy food.
Goofy and Donald are excited about eating again and begin to sing about delicious dishes (to the tune of Funiculi Funicula) until Mickey comes back and reveals that he sold the cow in exchange for a container of beans that are said to be magical. Thinking that Mickey had been tricked, an enraged Donald throws the beans down the floor, and they fall through a hole. However, it turns out that the beans are truly magical after all as later that night, the light of a full moon causes a beanstalk to sprout from under the house and lift it far up into the sky.
The next morning, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy find themselves at the top of the gigantic beanstalk and in a magical kingdom of enormous scope, where they appear to be tiny creatures compared to their surroundings. They eventually make their way to a huge castle, where they help themselves to a sumptuous feast. There, they stumble across the harp locked inside a small box, and she explains that she was kidnapped by a "wicked giant". Immediately after, a giant named Willie emerges from the shadows, grunting angrily while simultaneously breaking into a happy song ("''Fe Fi Fo Fum''") and bouncing a ball about while demonstrating his powers of flight, invisibility, and shapeshifting.
As Willie prepares to eat lunch, he catches Mickey hiding in his sandwich after Mickey sneezes when Willie pours pepper onto the sandwich. Mickey tries to run away, but Willie catches him. Mickey then plays palm reader and gains the childish giant's trust. Willie offers to show off his powers, and Mickey, spotting a nearby fly-swatter, requests that he change himself into a fly. However, Willie suggests turning into a pink bunny instead, and as he does he sees Mickey, Donald, and Goofy with the fly-swatter. Angry, Willie captures Mickey, Donald, and Goofy and locks them in the harp's chest so as to keep them from pulling any more tricks.
In order to escape, Mickey must find the key and rescue his friends. He does so with the help of the singing golden harp, who begins singing Willie to sleep. Mickey almost alerts Willie to his presence by sneezing after falling into a box of snuff powder in Willie's pocket, but the same powder makes Willie sneeze and he loses sight of Mickey. Mickey frees his friends and they make a break for it with the harp. However, Willie wakes up from his sleep and spots them, giving chase all the way to the beanstalk. Mickey stalls him long enough for Donald and Goofy to reach the bottom as they begin to saw down the beanstalk. Mickey arrives just in time to finish the job of sawing down the beanstalk, and Willie, who was climbing down, falls to his apparent death.
Back at Edgar Bergen's home, he finishes his story, saying that with the return of the harp, Happy Valley returned to prosperity. He then cheers up Mortimer Snerd who was crying about Willie's death, saying that Willie was a nice giant who did not deserve to die. Just as Edgar says that Willie is a fictional character and not real, Willie himself appears, alive and well, tearing the roof off his house. Willie inquires about Mickey's whereabouts, but Edgar faints in shock while Mortimer tells Willie goodnight. The scene closes with Jiminy leaving the house into the night and Willie noticing the Brown Derby restaurant and putting it on like a hat before stomping off to find Mickey, with the HOLLYWOOD lights blinking in the background.
Down at Blandings, Lord Emsworth is dismayed to hear from Baxter that he is expected to travel to London to collect the poet Ralston McTodd, invited to the castle by his sister Connie, a keen supporter of the Arts; another poet, Aileen Peavey, is already installed at the castle.
Joe Keeble tries to persuade his imperious wife to let him give money to his beloved stepdaughter Phyllis, but is bullied out of it, and when Emworth's feckless younger son Freddie suggests stealing Connie's necklace to free up some cash, Keeble is taken with the idea. Freddie, not keen on doing the job himself, sees Psmith's advert in the paper, and tags along to London with Lord Emsworth.
Meanwhile, in the metropolis, we learn that Mike, having married Phyllis on the assumption that his job as estate manager for Psmith's father would be secure, found on Mr Smith's death that the old man was bankrupt, and is working as a poorly paid schoolmaster. Psmith worked for a time for an uncle in the fish business, but could stand the fish no longer and quit.
Phyllis meets some old school friends, including Eve Halliday, an assertive young girl who pities the once-rich Phyllis, believing her too soft to cope with penury. Eve, we learn, is a friend of Freddie Threepwood, and on his encouragement has taken a post cataloguing the Blandings library, while another friend, Cynthia, has been abandoned by her husband, famous poet Ralston McTodd.
Later, Psmith sees Eve sheltering from the rain opposite the Drones, and chivalrously runs out to give her the best umbrella from the club's umbrella rack. They later meet once more at an employment agency, where Psmith has come seeking work and Eve is visiting an old friend. Psmith meets up with Freddie Threepwood, who describes his scheme to steal Connie's necklace, but dashes off without revealing his name.
Soon after, Psmith runs into Lord Emsworth at the Senior Conservative Club, where the Earl is dining with Ralston McTodd. The poet is annoyed by Emsworth's absent-mindedness, especially when the old man potters across the street to inspect a flower shop, and leaves in a rage. When Emsworth returns, he mistakes Psmith for his guest, and when Psmith sees Eve Halliday meeting Lord Emsworth, he decides to visit Blandings, posing as McTodd.
Welcomed at the castle, especially by fellow poet Peavey, he is nevertheless suspected by the ever-vigilant Baxter, the real McTodd having telegrammed to cancel his visit. Eve arrives and Psmith begins his wooing with some success, despite her belief that he is McTodd and has jilted her friend. Freddie, worried that one of the maids is a detective, is advised by Psmith to kiss her, and judge by her response whether she is a real maid; Psmith and Eve run into him just as he is embracing the girl.
One day, a stranger arrives at the house claiming to be McTodd, but Psmith turns him politely away. The man, Edward Cootes, runs into Aileen Peavey on his way back to the station, and we learn they are both crooks, estranged lovers both after the diamonds. Cootes returns to the castle, and forces Psmith to help him get in, which Psmith does, passing him off as his valet. He arranges the use of a small cottage, in case he needs to hide the jewels from Cootes.
Cootes and Peavey make a plan to steal the necklace during a poetry-reading, while Eve, having heard from Freddie that Joe Keeble plans to give him money, questions Keeble about why he isn't helping out her friend; he enlists her as a helper in the diamond-stealing plot. As Psmith begins his reading of McTodd's poems, Cootes turns off the lights and Peavey grabs the necklace, flinging it out of the window to where Eve is standing; she hides it in a flowerpot. Returning later to fetch it, she wakes the vigilant Baxter, but evades him, leaving him locked out and stashing her flowerpot on a windowsill.
Baxter, locked out of the house in his lemon-coloured pyjamas, throws flowerpots through a window to awake Lord Emsworth, who assumes he is mad and calls in Psmith to help appease him. Next morning, Baxter is fired from his job, and Eve finds the flowerpot empty at Psmith's cottage. Enlisting Freddie's help, she searches the place, but finds nothing; Psmith enters and explains his motives, his friendship with Mike and Phyllis. Cootes and Peavey appear, armed, and threaten to escape with the necklace, but Psmith takes advantage of Freddie's leg falling through the ceiling to overpower Cootes and retrieve the jewels.
Keeble gives Mike the funds he requires to buy his farm, and gives Freddie enough to get him into a bookmaking business. Psmith and Eve get engaged, and Psmith persuades Lord Emsworth to take him on as Baxter's replacement.
The Simpsons go to Springfield Park and find it has become a trash-strewn dump, but they see a nearby charity carnival which is raising money to help the park. Bart wins the grand prize in a carnival game, and then Homer beats him, going into an extended victory dance. Ned Flanders captures the dance on video and Comic Book Guy places it on his website. Soon, the entire world has seen Homer's embarrassing dance, humiliating him. However, several major sports stars ask Homer to teach them elaborate victory dances.
Meanwhile, Ned uses his camera to make a movie about Cain (Rod) and Abel (Todd). Everyone loves the film, except Marge, who finds it bloody and disgusting. Mr. Burns decides to finance Ned's next film, "Tales of the Old Testament" (which has a running time of 800 minutes – more than 13 hours). The bloodiness of the film angers Marge and she announces at the screening that she will protest anything that Burns owns. Burns retorts, noting that he owns the town's nuclear power plant and there is no other power source. When the crowd blurt out alternative forms of power they can use Burns admits defeat and says the film will never be seen again, much to Ned's dismay.
Homer's victory dances annoy some purist fans but become so popular that he is recruited by professional football to choreograph the Super Bowl halftime show. When he is unable to think of any ideas with the game looming the following night, Homer finds Ned at church. Together they decide to stage one of Ned's Bible stories at the show. At the Super Bowl, Ned and Homer stage the story of Noah's Ark, at the end of which Ned appears and reads a passage from the Bible. The audience jeers and boos, while both Homer and Ned are disappointed. The media and the general public later accuse the Super Bowl of forcing Christianity onto the country via their "blatant display of decency".
Anne is about to start her first term teaching at the Avonlea school, although she will still continue her studies at home with Gilbert, who is teaching at the nearby White Sands School. The book soon introduces Anne's new and problematic neighbour, Mr. Harrison, and his foul-mouthed parrot, as well as the twins, Davy and Dora. They are the children of Marilla's third cousin and she takes them in when their mother dies while their uncle is out of the country. Dora is a nice, well-behaved girl, somewhat boring in her perfect behaviour. Davy is Dora's exact opposite, much more of a handful and constantly getting into many scrapes. They are initially meant to stay only a short time, but the twins' uncle postpones his return to collect the twins and then eventually dies. Both Anne and Marilla are relieved (Marilla inwardly, of course) to know the twins will remain with them.
Other characters introduced are some of Anne's new pupils, such as Paul Irving, an American boy living with his grandmother in Avonlea while his widower father works in the States. He delights Anne with his imagination and whimsical ways, which are reminiscent of Anne's in her childhood. Later in the book, Anne and her friends meet Miss Lavendar Lewis, a sweet but lonely lady in her 40s who had been engaged to Paul's father 25 years before, but parted from him after a disagreement. At the end of the book, Mr. Irving returns and he and Miss Lavendar marry.
In the chapter entitled, "An Adventure on the Tory Road," Anne and Diana discuss the eponymous " 'Tory' Road," constructed and landscaped by " 'the Tory government'," provincial "Conservatives...'when they were in power just to show they were doing something.' " A resident also reminisces about adolescent courtship in her father's roadside home "twenty years ago." The Conservative majority dissolved amidst the 1867 Land Question politics of the Tenant League and regained the provincial government between 1870-91. 1896 Dominion elections similarly inspired author L.M. Montgomery to fictionalize "Conservative" reactions to Liberal "Grit" ascension in the 1917 ''Anne's House of Dreams''. Both novels traverse multiple temporalities and timelines in a politics of post-Confederation memory.
Anne discovers the delights and troubles of being a teacher, takes part in the raising of Davy and Dora, and organizes the A.V.I.S. (Avonlea Village Improvement Society) together with Gilbert, Diana, and Fred Wright, though their efforts to improve the town are not always successful. The Society takes up a subscription to repaint an old town hall, only to have the painter provide the wrong colour of paint, turning the hall into a bright blue eyesore. The trials and travails of the A.V.I.S. further represented the lackluster results of an imagined bipartisan effort to interweave "Liberal" notions of rural "secularization" with "Conservative" temporal ideas on urban "modernities."
Towards the end of the book, Mrs. Rachel Lynde's husband dies and Mrs. Lynde moves in with Marilla at Green Gables, allowing Anne to go to college at last. She and Gilbert make plans to attend Redmond College in the Autumn.
This book sees Anne maturing slightly, even though she still cannot avoid getting into a number of her familiar scrapes, including selling Mr. Harrison's cow after mistaking it for her own, accidentally rubbing red dye on her nose before meeting a famous author, and getting stuck in a duck house roof while peeping into a pantry window.
Anne Shirley is looking forward to new adventures as she packs her stuff, bids farewell to childhood, and prepares to enroll at Redmond College. Anne nestles her memories of rural Avonlea aside and experiences life on her own terms, full of surprises... such as a marriage proposal from the worst guy she's ever met, the sale of her first tale, and a tragedy that teaches her a harsh lesson. Anne tucks away her memories of idyllic Avonlea and discovers the life waiting for her in the bustling metropolis of Kingsport, with her old friend Prissy Grant waiting for her and her frivolous new friend Philippa Gordon by her side.
In addition, Anne submits a short piece to numerous periodicals, but it is rejected, and she swears she will never write again. Worse news arrives when she returns to Avonlea and discovers that Ruby, her consumptive pal, is dying. While Ruby is sick, Anne stays with her and is persuaded to keep writing by Ruby's guidance. Anne leaves Green Gables and her work as a teacher in Avonlea to pursue her original dream (which she gave up in ''Anne of Green Gables'') of taking further education at Redmond College in Kingsport, Nova Scotia. Gilbert Blythe and Charlie Sloane enroll as well, as does Anne's friend from Queen's Academy, Priscilla Grant. During her first week of school, Anne befriends Philippa Gordon, a beautiful girl whose frivolous ways charm her. Philippa (Phil for short) also happens to be from Anne's birthplace in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia.
The girls spend their first year in boardinghouses and decide to set up house thereafter in a lovely cottage called Patty's Place, near campus. Meanwhile, Anne's childhood friend Ruby Gillis dies of consumption (tuberculosis) very soon after finding her own true love. The girls enter their second year at Redmond happily ensconced at Patty's Place, along with Queen's classmate Stella Maynard and her "Aunt Jimsie" (their chaperone), while life continues in Avonlea. Diana Barry marries Fred Wright and Davy and Dora continue to keep Marilla busy.
Midway through their college years, Gilbert Blythe, who has always loved Anne, proposes to her but Anne rejects him; although she and Gilbert are very close, she holds sentimental fantasies about true love (all featuring a tall, dark, handsome, inscrutable hero) and does not recognize her true feelings for Gilbert. Gilbert leaves, his heart broken, and the two drift apart.
Anne later welcomes the courtship of Roy Gardner, a darkly handsome Redmond student who showers her with attention and poetic gestures. However, when he proposes after two years, Anne abruptly realizes that Roy does not really belong in her life, and that she had only been in love with the ''idea'' of him as the embodiment of her childhood ideal.
Anne is so ashamed in how she treated Roy that she feels her entire Redmond experience may have been spoiled. She returns to Green Gables, a "full-fledged B.A.", but finds herself a bit lonely. Diana gives birth to her first child, and Jane Andrews, an old school friend, marries a Winnipeg millionaire. Having received an offer to be the principal of the Summerside school in the Autumn, Anne is keeping herself occupied over the summer when she learns that Gilbert is gravely ill with typhoid fever. With shock, Anne finally realizes how deep her true feelings for Gilbert are, and endures a white night of fear that he will leave this world without knowing that she does care. In the morning, Anne gratefully learns that Gilbert will survive. Gilbert recovers over the summer, bolstered by a letter from Phil assuring him that there is really nothing between Anne and Roy. After several visits to Green Gables, Gilbert and Anne take a late summer walk in Hester Gray's garden, and finally become engaged.
The book begins with Anne and Gilbert's wedding, which takes place in the Green Gables orchard. After the wedding, they move to their first home together, which Anne calls their "house of dreams". Gilbert finds them a small house on the seashore at Four Winds Point, an area near the village of Glen St. Mary, where he is to take over his uncle's medical practice.
In Four Winds, Anne and Gilbert meet many interesting people, such as Captain Jim, a former sailor who is now the keeper of the lighthouse, and Miss Cornelia Bryant, an unmarried woman in her 40s who lives alone in an emerald-green house and deems the Blythes part of "the race that knows Joseph". Anne also meets her new neighbour, Leslie Moore, who lost her beloved brother and her father, and then was forced by her mother to marry the mean-spirited and unscrupulous Dick Moore at age 16. She felt free for a year or so after Dick disappeared on a sea voyage, but Captain Jim happened upon him in Cuba and brought him home, amnesiac, brain-damaged and generally helpless, and now dependent on Leslie like a "big baby". Leslie becomes friends with Anne, but is sometimes bitter towards her because she is so happy and free, when Leslie can never have what Anne does.
Anne's former guardian Marilla visits her occasionally and still plays an important role in her life. Marilla is present when Anne gives birth to her first child, Joyce, who dies shortly after birth (as Montgomery's second son did). After the baby's death, Anne and Leslie become closer as Leslie feels that Anne now understands tragedy and pain—as Leslie puts it, her happiness, although still great, is no longer perfect, so there is less of a gulf between them.
Later in the story, Leslie rents a room in her house to a writer named Owen Ford, who is the grandson of the former owners of Anne's House of Dreams, the Selwyns. Owen, who is looking to write the Great Canadian Novel, finds the inspiration he was looking for in Captain Jim's shipboard diary, and transforms it into "The Life-Book of Captain Jim". While Owen is finishing the novel, he and Leslie independently realize they have feelings for each other, but both know they cannot do anything about them. Owen leaves the Island and Leslie is even more miserable being trapped in her marriage to Dick.
Gilbert examines Dick Moore and suspects that if Dick underwent surgery on his skull, he might recover his faculties. Anne and Miss Cornelia are both opposed to the surgery, fearing that Leslie's life will become infinitely harder if Dick returns to himself, but Gilbert feels obligated to let Leslie know there is a chance for Dick. Leslie consents, and Dick undergoes the surgery in Montreal; when he awakens, he reveals that he is actually Dick's cousin George, who accompanied Dick to Cuba and was with him when Dick died of yellow fever twelve years before. George resembles Dick strongly because their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters, and both had the same peculiar eye colouring abnormality (heterochromia) by which Captain Jim recognized "Dick" in Cuba years before.
Leslie, abruptly set free by this news, returns home, and considers taking a nursing course to get on with her life. Owen Ford returns to the Island to court Leslie after Miss Cornelia informs him of what has happened, and they become engaged. While this is going on, Anne gives birth to her second child, a healthy son. He is named James Matthew, for Anne's guardian Matthew Cuthbert and for Captain Jim.
At the end of the book, Owen Ford's book is published, and Captain Jim dies with a smile on his face after reading his advance copy. Miss Cornelia, thought to be a confirmed spinster, announces that she has decided to marry Marshall Elliott, who may be a Grit but at least is a Presbyterian; she says she could have had him at any time but refused to marry him until he cut his long hair and shaved his long beard off, which he had refused to do for twenty years until the Grits came into power. Finally, Anne, Gilbert, Jem and their housekeeper, Susan Baker, move to the old Morgan house in the Glen, later to be named Ingleside. Anne is greatly saddened to leave the House of Dreams, but knows that the little house is outgrown and Gilbert's work as a doctor requires him to live closer to town.
This book introduces Susan Baker, the elderly spinster who is the Blythes' maid-of-all-work.
The novel takes place over the three years between Anne's graduation from Redmond College and her marriage to Gilbert Blythe. While Gilbert is in medical school, Anne takes a job as the principal of Summerside High School, where she also teaches. She lives in a beautiful house called Windy Poplars with two elderly widows, Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty, their housekeeper, Rebecca Dew, and their cat, Dusty Miller.
During this time, Anne must win over the clannish and resentful Pringle family, as well as her icy colleague, Katherine Brooke. Along the way, she meets many of Summerside's more eccentric residents and becomes involved in helping many romances, which do not always turn out as planned. She also befriends the lonely Elizabeth Grayson, a motherless member of the Pringle family who lives next door to Windy Poplars. She frequently visits Marilla at Green Gables.
At the end of the novel, Anne departs Summerside to return to Avonlea for her wedding to Gilbert. Many of the town's residents express their appreciation for how she has helped them over the years, including Katherine Brooke and Elizabeth Grayson.
Seven years after ''Anne's House of Dreams'', Anne visits Diana Wright and her daughter, Anne Cordelia, in Avonlea following the funeral of Gilbert's father. When she returns home to the old Morgan house, now named "Ingleside", she is greeted by her five children: James Matthew ('Jem'), the eldest, now aged seven; Walter Cuthbert, who is about six and often thought to be a bit of a 'sissy' because of his love for poetry; twins Anne ('Nan') and Diana ('Di'), who are five and look nothing alike, Nan with brown hair and hazel eyes, and Di with red hair and green eyes; and finally Shirley, two years old and Susan Baker's favourite, as she took care of him as an infant while Anne was very sick following his birth.
The book includes the dreadful, seemingly eternal visit of Gilbert's disagreeable, oversensitive aunt Mary Maria Blythe, whose visit was only supposed to last two weeks but stretches on for months and who only leaves when Anne unintentionally offends her by arranging a surprise birthday party, much to the relief of the family.
During the novel, which spans a period of about six years, Anne and Gilbert's youngest child is born and is named Bertha Marilla Blythe. She is also called Roly-Poly, or, generally, 'Rilla'. The novel includes a series of adventures which spotlight one of Anne's children at a time as they engage in the misunderstandings and mishaps of youth. In many of the adventures, the honest Ingleside children are taken in by children who tell lies in order to seem more interesting: Nan is deceived by a lying schoolchild into thinking that she was actually switched at birth; Walter is convinced by an older boy that his mother is dying; and Di gets two stories, in both of which she makes friends with schoolgirls who deceive her. In other stories, oldest child Jem deals with the loss of a pet, and youngest child Rilla somehow gets the idea that it is shameful to be seen carrying a cake, and goes to great lengths to avoid doing so. The Blythes' third son Shirley is present in the book, but oddly gets no solo "spotlight" story of his own, which is also the case in ''Rainbow Valley'', the next volume in the series.
At the end of the book, Anne worries that Gilbert has grown distant and possibly doesn't love her anymore. She and Gilbert spend a disagreeable evening with the widowed and childless Christine Stuart, who was once Anne's rival (or so she thought) for Gilbert's love. Suddenly realizing how tired Gilbert looks, Anne begins to wonder if ''she'' has been taking ''Gilbert'' for granted. At the end she is proven wrong, as Gilbert's lack of attention was caused by worry over one of his patients. He surprises Anne with an anniversary gift and a promise of a trip to Europe for a medical congress.
Genius high school student Duncan Pinderhughes is getting ready for graduation, but is somewhat disheartened to find out that, despite his perfect SAT score and 4.0 GPA, prestigious Hafford University (parody of Harvard University) will not admit him unless he can pass phys. ed. Ex-convict Michael "Blade" Brown is released from jail, and told by his parole officer that the condition of his release is satisfactory graduation from high school. A mishap results in their pictures being swapped on their permanent school records. In effect, Blade is surprised to find out that he is being placed in gifted classes, while Duncan is shocked to be placed in minimal classes with substandard conditions and miscreants for classmates.
Blade realizes this and sees Duncan as his ticket permanently out of jail, since Duncan could pass his classes with ease. He transforms Duncan into a version of himself with dreadlocks, and does his best to teach Duncan how to act and talk like a gangsta. Having no grasp of hip hop culture, Duncan's parents begin to worry about their son's new "friend"; his father especially, beginning to suspect Duncan is gay.
Blade manages to smooth-talk his way through his advanced classes, even successfully executing a dissertation on sexual intercourse (one of his favorite subjects). Duncan ends up running into trouble with a high school thug named Wedge, but also discovers an uncanny ability to kick field goals, and joins the school's football team. Both Blade and Duncan end up with girlfriends that the other would have, with Blade smooth-talking the intelligent but excitement-seeking Ellen and Duncan being pursued by the wild Damita (Alysia Rogers).
A drug dealer named Mink was told by his employee Wedge that Blade Brown was stepping into his territory and a chase involving the guys and their girlfriends and one of Duncan's new buddies ensues. The gang briefly lose Wedge and Mink and go to Damita's work (a wax museum), but are discovered by Mink and Wedge. Once there, the girlfriends realize that their men are swapped, and both guys eventually end up dumped. Still, Duncan manages to knock out Wedge in the museum, while Blade handles Mink, but they all end up in jail.
After the mix-up is corrected, Blade, Duncan and company are all set free. In an anti-climax, Duncan and Blade both enter a Knowledge bowl in an effort to get Blade back with Ellen. They succeed when Blade answers a tiebreaker question to win the competition, recalling a choice tidbit Ellen once told him. Afterward, both couples end up together. In a final scene, Duncan's dad finds out the hard way that Duncan is definitely not gay by catching him and Damita having sex in Duncan's bedroom. However, after returning to his room with his wife, he expresses relief and noted that his son's girlfriend is "stacked".
Walking in each other's shoes dramatically changed the lives of both Duncan and Blade. In the epilogue, the audience learns that Blade graduated from high school and attended Hafford (even wearing preppy attire), while Duncan attended Stanford on a football scholarship.
In 2000, BPRD Director Tom Manning tells Hellboy and Roger that a satellite photo has captured a space capsule with a Nazi symbol reentering the atmosphere on a course toward Hunte Castle in Austria, from which it was launched in 1939. A local police officer, Laura Karnstein, has offered to guide them there. In private, Manning reveals to an appalled Hellboy that Roger has been fitted with a bomb, just powerful enough to destroy him, and gives Hellboy the detonator in case the worst should happen.
Reaching the castle, Hellboy and Roger are separated and ambushed by Herman von Klempt and one of his cybernetic ''Kriegaffes'' ("war apes"). Hellboy awakes in a torture chamber, where "Karnstein" stands at von Klempt's side, revealing herself to be his granddaughter, Inger.
Roger is guided to the castle's power plant by Lobster Johnson, where he absorbs the generator's energy and deprives the castle of its power, allowing Hellboy to free himself from his restraints. Wandering through the castle, Hellboy encounters an extraterrestrial prisoner disguised as a man, who explains that the Nazis somehow made contact with ancient evil beings in space, and sent the capsule carrying a dead body for one of them to inhabit. Roger reunites with Hellboy just as the capsule lands.
Gas streams out of the capsule and transforms Inger's men into mindless frog monsters. The monstrous Conqueror Worm emerges and begins devouring the transformed men, growing larger as it does so. Inger, protected in part from the gas's effects by a gas mask, asks her grandfather how he can hope to control something like the Worm. Herman replies that he does not intend to; after the fall of the Third Reich, and the failure of his multiple projects to bring about the Nazis' planned conquest of the world, Herman no longer cares about causes, or his family, and simply wants to watch the end of the world. Inger removes her mask to realize that it has not protected her from the gas, only minimized the transformative effects, leaving her a humanoid frog creature who is just barely able to think and speak.
Von Klempt attacks Hellboy and Roger, but Roger destroys his robotic body and sends his preserved head falling off a cliff to his death. Roger initially urges Hellboy to let him get close to the Worm and then detonate the bomb, but Hellboy refuses, and instead they use Roger's body as a conductor to deliver a massive electrical shock to the Worm via a lightning rod, destroying it.
Inger is tempted by the ghost of Grigori Rasputin, who says she cannot prevent the end of the world, but can play a pivotal role in the world that will follow. Before she can act, however, she is shot dead by Lobster Johnson.
Hellboy, disgusted by the Bureau's actions toward Roger, gives the detonator back to Manning and announces that he's quitting, telling Kate Corrigan that he plans to travel to Africa, and after that ''"wherever the wind blows."''
In an epilogue, Rasputin's ghost is confronted by Hecate, now inhabiting the body of Ilsa Haupstein imprisoned in an iron maiden. Hecate taunts Rasputin that all of his attempts to manipulate events in the living world are useless, since the only force that can release the Ogdru Jahad is Hellboy's stone right hand, and Rasputin will never control him. Rasputin screams in defiance at this with such force that his spirit shatters into bone splinters. The Baba Yaga takes one of these splinters and puts it into an acorn, to wear around her neck.
After high school graduation and his father's passing, Kid, with scholarship money provided by the congregation of his church, is able to go off to college with his high school sweetheart, Sidney. Play, now driving a Ford Mustang instead of his beat up old wagon, meets Sheila Landreaux and her associate Rick. Really a con artist, Sheila convinces Play she's a record executive and she'd like to sign him, he just has to put some money down in order to start recording.
Lured by dreams of stardom, Play signs over Kid's college scholarship check. Unaware of Play's actions, Kid starts school and meets his roommate Jamal Johnson, a white kid with an obsession for all things Black. But when Kid tries to enroll in his classes, he realizes he left his scholarship check in Play’s car, thus he cannot pay his tuition and enrollment fees. When Kid goes to receive his check, he fights Play after finding out what Play did with his check. Kid then tries to reason with the dean but is only given a week to pay his tuition fees or face being kicked out of college. The dean's assistant, Miles, helps Kid with an extension and a job in the dining hall, working for Mr. Lee, a man who runs the dining hall like a military officer and insists Kid wear a hair net.
At the same time, Zora Henderson, Sidney’s socially conscious roommate, tells her that Kid is just a boy and she should use her college experience to explore and date real men, causing extra strain on Kid, in addition to having to work to pay for school as well as having to write a big paper for a demanding professor. To top it off, Kid is hunted and persecuted by his high school bullies, Stab, Zilla, and Pee Wee, who take jobs as campus security.
While visiting Kid on campus, Play, in another one of his schemes, has an idea that would make Kid's life easier - hold a pajama party in the school's dining hall. But Kid refuses, both out of his mistrust in Play and his fear of Mr. Lee, leaving Play to have to come up with another way to repay Kid.
Kid settles in as his perseverance pays off and he gains the approval, and trust, of Mr. Lee. However, Play is unable to get the money back from the con artists in time to pay for Kid's tuition. Plus, Sidney wants to just be friends, and starts dating Miles, the dean's assistant as Miles only helped Kid in order to get close to Sidney.
Fed up and left with no other choice, in order to raise the money needed for his tuition and win back Sidney, Kid, Play, Bilal and Kid's roommate, Jamal secretly hold a pajama themed party for the students in the faculty dining hall to raise money for Kid to stay in college, prompting Kid to steal the key to the faculty dining hall. Admission is $10 for men and free for women who wear nightwear. Campus security tries to get information on the party by pretending to be students, but their antics are unsuccessful.
The party is a huge success as hundreds of students turn up wearing elaborate costumes, and dance the night away, including to a memorable performance by Kid and Play.
After their performance, Play sees the con artists trying to coerce Zora. Kid sees Miles with Sidney trying to drug her. Kid, Play and campus security go upstairs to stop the con artists and Miles. Kid fights Miles on the roof. The dean and the police come in to stop the party. Play tells the dean that Sheila & Rick are the con artists who stole Kid’s scholarship check, they along with Miles are arrested with the latter also being fired from his job.
The dean tells Kid, Play, Bilal, and Jamal to clean up the faculty dining hall or they will face expulsion. Kid gives the money to Mr.Lee for the damages. With all of his options exhausted, Kid still has to drop out of school and advises Mr. Lee and Professor Sinclair that he will be dropping out of school but will be back when he can pay for it. Sinclair tells him that everyone who drops out always says they'll be back, but never does, telling Kid he better be the one of the few who does come back.
Meanwhile, Play sells his Ford Mustang convertible. Kid goes to his father’s grave to try and sort things out. He then heads back to his dorm room to move the rest of his things out. Play then arrives in his beat up old wagon, and gives Kid tuition money, feeling guilty about using Kid’s scholarship check in the first place. Kid asks where he got the money from, but notices that Play doesn’t have the mustang anymore. Realizing he sold it to give Kid his tuition money. Kid wants to go out and celebrate with him and Bilal but Play tells him to hit the books, also telling him that he’s gonna be coming around the university periodically to check with his professors, seeing as he’s an investment now, before driving off to the sunset.
Christopher, a.k.a. Kid is marrying his girlfriend Veda, while his best friend Peter, a.k.a. Play is dipping his fingers into the music business and attempting to manage a roughneck female rap act called Sex as a Weapon. Play books the ladies for a concert with heavy-hitting promoter Showboat, but when they decide to fire Play and hire a new manager, he has to figure out how to deliver them to the show or face the wrath of Showboat's female security force. Kid and Play talk about their dream to one day open a store to sell their favorite sandwich.
Things eventually begin to spiral out of control for the two, as Play is also planning the bachelor party while trying to keep Kid's three younger cousins from Detroit (who ironically call themselves Immature) in line, and Kid's ex-girlfriend Sydney has come back to town, which is news that doesn't please Veda at all. To complicate matters more Kid's cousins hijack his bachelor party in retaliation for not letting them perform at it (moving it from the rented hotel ballroom to their Aunt Lucy's house) The party at the ballroom is a bust as Play's cousin Stinky invites very obese women to the party (he's attracted to heavyset women). Meanwhile, Showboat has been out looking for Kid & Play for his money but gets sidetracked briefly by Kid's mischievous cousins. Embarrassed by the poor turnout at his party Kid bails into the corridor and runs into Sydney (who is there for her grandparents' anniversary party). Sydney congratulates Kid and tells him that Veda is good for him. As they hug and part ways Veda comes out of the elevator and sees them hugging. She immediately jumps to the conclusion that Kid slept with her but her Cousin Janelle (who had been dogging Kid and the pending marriage throughout the film) comes to his defense and tell Veda she is wrong to assume Kid cheated. At the same time Play (who also disagreed with Kid getting married) tells Kid he is wrong for wanting to break off the marriage since he's convinced Veda doesn't trust him.
After Kid and Veda make up they get a phone call from Kid's Uncle Vester about the party Immature is throwing and head back to his Aunt Lucy's house to find an out of control party in progress (unbeknownst to Aunt Lucy who was up in her room). Just as Kid starts to curse his cousins out Play stops him and convinces him to celebrate his bachelor party here. At that moment Showboat arrives with his female hitmen and are about to attack Kid & Play when he hears Kid's cousins performing at the party, Kid picks up on this and immediately informs Showboat that they were a new act he and Play were working on. Sex as a Weapon arrives and tells Showboat that they didn't like what was done to the three blind rappers earlier in the film (they were stiffed on the pay for a show) so they opted to come back to Kid & Play giving Showboat two new acts instead of just one. Showboat pays up and everything is seemingly coming back into their control. Even Immature knows how much of an irritation they were so in that resolve they opt to give Kid half of the cash from the party. This cash, however is taken by Aunt Lucy who revealed that she knew all along that there was a party going on and that the money would be just enough to clean her house after it was over. After the drama has settled, Kid & Play enjoy the party and perform one last time together rapping to the crowd along with Sex as A Weapon.
The next day Kid and Veda finally tie the knot. Play gifts Kid with a brand new Jeep, telling him that their production company is going to be huge. He accepts the Jeep as he and Veda ride off into the sunset.
After suffering from relentless harassment from her stepmother, Princess Ochikubo meets a man named Michiyori who is a general. The two marry and Princess Ochikubo lives very happily with him. Michiyori starts to take revenge on Princess Ochikubo's family, setting up a series of humiliating events.
Professor Challenger, with the help of Mr Edward Malone and Mr Peerless Jones, drills into the earth until he reaches the mantle, convinced that it is a sentient being, akin to an echinus, and that by doing so he will be the first person to alert it to mankind's presence. He awakens the giant creature, which then proceeds to destroy his excavation, covering the spectators with a noxious liquid in the process.
In the distant future, an overcrowded Earth relies on research conducted by scientists in remote stations across the solar system. Contact is maintained by spaceships shuttling between the stations and large orbiting space stations. Captain James is preparing to depart from one of these stations when he is murdered by Captain Benson (Keitel). Benson, who was rated "potentially unstable" on a mental exam, steals James' cargo ship and departs the station for a small, remote experimental hydroponics research station on Saturn's third moon. Arriving there, he finds the station run solely by Adam (Douglas) and his younger colleague and lover Alex (Fawcett). Adam, Alex, and their dog, Sally, enjoy their isolation far from an overcrowded and troubled Earth. The couple have been on Saturn 3 for three years, but Alex has spent all her life in space, and knows little of the habits and mores of humans who live on Earth.
Alex and Adam's idyll is broken when Benson reveals his mission is to replace at least one of the moon's scientists with a robot. The robot — named Hector — is one of the first of its kind, a "Demigod Series", relying on "pure brain tissue" extracted from human fetuses and programmed using a direct link to Benson's brain. Adam tells Alex that he is the likely candidate for removal, being that he's close to "abort time" and will have to leave anyway.
With Hector assembled, Benson begins preparing the robot, using the neural link implanted in Benson's spine. So connected to Benson, Hector quickly learns of Benson's failure on the test of psychological stability, and also of his murder of James. With little barrier between the robot's brain and Benson's, Hector is soon imprinted with Benson's homicidal nature and his lust for Alex. The robot rebels. Adam and Benson manage to disable the robot while it's recharging, and remove the brain.
Believing the danger over, Adam accuses Benson of gross incompetence, ordering him to dismantle the robot and return to Earth when an eclipse ends (this eclipse also prevents communication to other stations). Unknown to Benson, Adam and Alex; Hector remains functional enough to take control of the base's older robots, using them to reassemble his body and reconnect his brain. Unaware of Hector's resurgence, Benson attempts to leave the station while dragging Alex with him. Resuscitated, Hector murders Benson before he can leave with Alex. Hector destroys Benson's spacecraft before the scientists can escape in it, trapping them all on Saturn 3, and assumes control of the station's computer.
Trapped in the control room, both Alex and Adam are surprised to see Benson's face on their monitor. The two are directed by a voice they recognize as Benson's to leave the control room, both surprised that Benson is even alive. To their shock, the two are confronted by Hector, now wearing Benson's severed head.
A short time later, Alex and Adam wake in their own rooms. To her horror, Alex finds that Hector has installed a brain link at the top of Adam's spine, much like the one that Benson had, and one which will give Hector direct access to Adam's brain. Hector explains that he can 'read' but taking control of Adam 'comes later'. This causes Adam to rebel and he destroys Hector by tackling him into a waste pit, and sacrificing himself with a grenade.
In the final scene, Alex is shown aboard a spacecraft above Earth with shuttles leaving for the planet below.
The film depicts the Battle of Inchon during the Korean War, which took place September 15–19, 1950, and is considered the turning point of the war. The protagonist of the film is General Douglas MacArthur, who led the United States surprise amphibious landing at Incheon in 1950. A subplot in the film involves an American couple who encounter difficulties in their relationship because of the ongoing war.
''Inchon'' begins with North Korean soldiers moving past the 38th parallel north into South Korea in June 1950. People flee to the country's capital, Seoul. One of the displaced people is Barbara Hallsworth, a U.S. Army major's wife who lives in a village on the 38th parallel. She is chauffeured to Seoul in a limousine, picking up five South Korean children along the way. After her chauffeur is killed, she drives them to a safe location called the Inn of the Sixth Happiness. Along the way, she shoots a North Korean soldier.
Meanwhile, her husband, Frank Hallsworth, is attempting to break off an affair with a young South Korean woman, Lim. Her father Saito is aware of his daughter's affair with Frank and does not disapprove. Frank receives word of the invasion by the North Koreans, and he travels north in an attempt to locate Barbara with the assistance of army sergeant August Henderson. August encounters Barbara and fixes her vehicle's battery, and then reunites her with Frank.
Journalists David Feld, Park, and Longfellow are attending a press conference held by MacArthur in Tokyo. MacArthur, however, does not show. He agrees with his wife Jean, that he is the only person who can rescue South Korea from the invasion by the North Koreans.
Hallsworth and his former lover succeed in turning on a lighthouse to signal 261 U.S. ships, and the South Korean woman's father activates mines in the channel. She dies during the ensuing battle. The U.S. troops drive out the North Korean forces and the cheering people wave South Korean and American flags. The film proper ends with MacArthur reciting the Lord's Prayer; after this scene, a newsreel of MacArthur is shown.
Following graduation, college friends Karen Wright and Martha Dobie transform Karen's Massachusetts farm into a boarding school. Although new to the area, they are able to find pupils with the assistance of the wealthy Amelia Tilford, who enrolls her malevolent granddaughter Mary and encourages other families to enroll their daughters. Shortly before the school opens, Martha's aunt, Lily Mortar, arrives and forces her way into a teaching position as a way to continue sponging off of Martha.
Karen and local doctor Joe Cardin begin to date, unaware that Martha is in love with him. One evening, Joe falls asleep in a chair in Martha's room while waiting for Karen to return to the school. He wakes with a start and breaks a glass, which wakes up Mary Tilford. Before he leaves, he casually refers to his and Karen's plans to marry, and Mary watches from the shadows as Martha sobs quietly once she thinks she is alone.
When Karen punishes Mary for missing classes and lying, Mary acts as though she has a pain and falls to the floor in a faint. Although they are not convinced by Mary's performance, Karen and Martha call Joe to examine her. While Joe and Karen are busy with Mary, Martha decides to finally fire Aunt Lily, who is not a good teacher. Lily feels slighted, even though Martha offers to continue to support her, and they have an argument before she goes, during which Lily confronts Martha with her suspicions about the young woman's true feelings for Joe. Martha hears a noise and discovers Rosalie Wells and Evelyn Munn, who are Mary's roommates, listening at the door. Flustered, she accidentally closes the door on Rosalie's arm, slightly injuring her. Back in their room, Evelyn tells Mary about the argument between Martha and Lily.
Feeling persecuted, Mary decides to run away from the school. When her grandmother Amelia just wants to send her back, she tells Amelia a grossly distorted version both of what she witnessed between Martha and Joe and of the argument between Martha and Lily, suggesting Martha and Joe engaged in an illicit sexual affair. To verify the story, Mary has Amelia talk to Rosalie, who she has brought with her and coerced by threatening to reveal that Rosalie stole another student's bracelet. Mary even says that Martha injured Rosalie's arm intentionally. Amelia is shocked by the revelation of a love triangle between Karen, Joe, and Martha, and alerts the other parents who have girls at the school, all of whom withdraw their daughters.
The trio sue Amelia for slander, but they lose their case. Karen and Martha are unable to enroll any new students, and Joe is fired from his job at the hospital. Lily returns, but Martha resents her for not coming back to testify during the case and tells her to leave. Joe asks Karen to come with him to Vienna, where he has gotten a job. She balks when he mentions that Martha is also invited and finally asks if there was ever anything between Martha and him. Unable to fully believe his denial after what she heard in court, she tells him to go to Vienna by himself.
Once Joe is gone, Martha admits to Karen that she loves Joe, though she says she never told him, and then gets on the same train as Lily. In passing, Lily mentions having seen Mary and Rosalie with the missing bracelet, and Martha realizes what happened. She gets off the train and convinces Rosalie to tell Amelia the truth. Amelia offers Martha compensation, but Martha refuses, asking only that Amelia take Karen a message from her: "stay with Joe, wherever he is." Martha leaves, Amelia talks to Karen, and Karen goes to Vienna to be with Joe.
Young Jason Wilkins (Gene Reynolds) has a stern but loving preacher father, Rev. Ethan Wilkins (Walter Huston), and a doting mother, Mary Wilkins (Beulah Bondi). Jason is highly intelligent and outgoing, but also proud and stubborn. His father must often beat him with a leather strap for his impertinence, pride, and rudeness. As a young man (James Stewart), Jason falls in love with beautiful Annie (Ann Rutherford). When Jason's father takes him circuit riding, Jason rebels at the bad food and awful living conditions, and has a fistfight with his father. This ruptures their relationship.
Jason goes to medical school, and becomes a doctor. He is increasingly neglectful of his parents, and when his father dies, he arrives too late to speak with him one last time. Despite his mother's poverty, Jason repeatedly asks her for money, forcing her to sell her silver spoons, and eventually her wedding band, for food. The American Civil War breaks out, and she must sell Jason's beloved horse Pilgrim to pay for his fancy $70 officer's uniform. When Jason fails to write to her for two years, Mrs. Wilkins assumes that he is dead and writes a letter to President Abraham Lincoln (John Carradine) asking for information in locating his grave. Lincoln issues an order requiring the young captain to appear before him without delay. Jason arrogantly assumes that he is about to be commended for his actions as a battlefield surgeon. Instead, with the two of them alone in his office, the president accuses him of possessing the worst human quality of all: ingratitude. Jason tearfully repents; granted furlough, he returns to his mother (even managing to find Pilgrim on the way) and begs her forgiveness, which she happily grants.