The B-Movie Comics

Chap. 4, Act 3, Strip 22

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

author writes:

Well, you could indeed say that Biff spent quite a long time in that launch tube, given how it’s been 18 episodes since he set out. And while it’s true that longship is long, it’s not that long. Only long, and that long is definitely longer than only long.

No, Biff’s rather extended sojourn in catapultation has not only to do with the length of the ship, but also, and more importantly, with the speed of his spacefighter. Even single-seat spacefighters count as spacecraft, and a spacecraft’s maximum velocity is defined as the speed of plot. So when Nolan told the scriptwriter to shift Biff’s planned involvement in the space battle to the ground battle taking place at least 2 hours later, that script change automatically slowed Biff’s fighter down to a mere crawl, and everything lined up neatly again.

And yeah, Biff and Soldier in trench are played by the same actor. It’s a matter of economy. After all, their different uniforms make them easy to tell apart, so hiring an extra extra would have been an unnecessary luxury.

Naturally, the SovieT-AT which just went down wasn’t the one with Uranin on board, but the other one - after all, that was the reason to have two of those things.

Chap. 4, Act 3, Strip 21

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

author writes:

Yeah, Snuka is rightly pissed at that! All those times he got into trouble with the law…most of it just because he didn’t know that he doesn’t have to answer questions truthfully, if he doesn’t want to. His youth was practically wasted!

Well, the part of his youth which is already over was wasted. And, admittedly, it was kinda wasted anyway, but now it turns out that it was even more wasted than he ever realized before. The part of his youth that’s already over was practically even more wasted than he ever realized before. Still bad enough.

And it could have been so easy…the Professor nearly always carries his dictionary on him, so if there just had ever been something to get him onto the subject of lying, Snuka could have had this life-changing epiphany ages ago! Admittedly, the Professor always encouraged him to read the dictionary on his own, anyway…but nobody could have possibly expected him to actually do that, could they?

But don’t worry, I’m sure Snuka won’t mope around for any major amount of time…the past is past, but he has a future to look forward to, now more than ever! A future full of blatantly unadmitted criminality. It’s like an undiscovered country.

Chap. 4, Act 3, Strip 20

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

author writes:

Naw, Lt. Fishhead, it’s not a trap. On the contrary, it’s a perfectly honest, obvious, direct full frontal attack. I know that you’re a bit wary of traps, because of your family’s history in that regard, but this one really isn’t a trap. Really. Don’t worry, I’m sure you won’t end up like your uncle, the admiral, who’s the laughingstock of all the sentient creatures in the universe.

Since we’ve established that Comrade Uranin can’t simply wipe out the base with an attack from above, he’s got no other choice than putting boots on the ground and staging a classic assault. This conveniently coincides with the fact that George also had no other choice than working a rip-off of those Imperial AT-ATs in somehow, since otherwise he would have lost tons of his jealously guarded geek cred. And it’s not like it cost him a lot of time - by that stage of planning, it was pretty much a given what those SovieT-ATs would end up looking like.

On a sidenote, it seems that Comrade Uranin is still busy doing the Timewarp. I’m pretty sure that that’s no longer necessary, strictly speaking. ._.

Chap. 4, Act 3, Strip 19

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

author writes:

As thoroughly and deeply as the Professor normally tends to analyze issues, it does happen that he overlooks a little thing here or there. Nothing close to the core of the matter, of course, but some of those strange, off-side, implausible things. You know, those things you’d dismiss anyway, even if you happened to think of them…ancient astronauts, Quetzalcoatl, people lying - that kind of thing. ._.

And now he’s quite astonished by the idea that Captain Valiant could have been lying…but, thinking about it, he’ll soon realize that it’s possible. He did say he wasn’t an Alien Spy, but, after all, he didn’t publish it in a peer-reviewed journal.

Snuka, in the meantime, is shocked, simply shocked, by the insinuation. Much like back then, when somebody told him there was gambling going on in his opium den.

There’s a slight continuity error with one of the props going on in this scene…George Geekish is normally really good about properly inventorying props, but a “6″ and a “9″ look rather similar if you aren’t sure which way counts as up on a morning star. ._.

Chap. 4, Act 3, Strip 18

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

author writes:

A dog lightyear is equivalent to about 7 human lightyears. That is because dogs run a lot faster than humans. ._.

Comrade Uranin has his priorities straight - not willing to run the risk of time wasted by inappropriate amounts of gloating, he unleashes the fury of his ultimate weapon, the super laser, capable of destroying an entire planet with a single shot. I assume that that’s on the “high” power setting. ._.

And he picks the closest possible target for it: Aldebaran. He couldn’t have aimed for anything closer, of course. He isn’t stupid, he knows that aiming for the Repell Alliance base, as obvious a target it might appear to the uninitiated, would have amounted to suicide. Superweapons, when they are in the hand of villains, never work when they’re aimed at something that would cause the villain to win when hit - obviously. If he had aimed for the base, his flagship would have blown up fractions of a second before firing, either due to hubris/equipment malfunction, a one-in-a-million lucky shot by a tiny enemy fighter, or explosives planted by Anthony Quinn. Uranin can’t allow this to happen, at least not until he’s got his big scene.

comic: Longship was loooooooong.

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

Longship was loooooooong.

comic: Dictionary Learning

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

Dictionary Learning

comic: AT-ATtractive

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

AT-ATtractive

comic: J\' accuse!

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

J\' accuse!

comic: Allow me to demonstrate

1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

Allow me to demonstrate