Friday, May 14, 2010

A time machine and a Villain

I considered myself extremely lucky yesterday.  Lately, the boy with the yellow hair who is an artist and gentle and a thinker doesn't bring his work to anyone's attention unless they ask.  But yesterday, he slid a piece of paper across the table and asked what I thought of his time machine.  I looked it over and asked him to tell me about it because he was very excited and smiley.  And to be clear, I'm not making this stuff up.

Him:  The time thing is in a jet!
Me:  Huh?
Him:  The time thing is in this jet.  Inside.  There.
Me:  Huh?  Oh.  The time machine is a jet.
Him:  Yeah!
Me:  So, what are these things floating here?  Jellyfish?
Him:  Those are missiles.
Me:  Why would a time machine need missiles?
Him:  Because jets have missiles.  So they can shoot 'stuth' if there's bad guys.
Me:  Good point.
Him:  Yeah.
Me:  What's this thing behind the jet time machine?  A schoolbus?
Him:  Gahhh...you don't know anythiiing!
Me:  (Silence)
Him:  That's where the other people who aren't flying the jet can sit and relax.  (Here he anticipates my next question, a common one, for all of his creations have one fatal flaw.)  And there's no bathroom!  So they all have to poop on the floor!  And whoever does has to clean up their own mess.
Me:  Well, yeah.  That's only fair.  (Me, trying to steer away from the giggles of the bathroom talk) So, tell me how your time machine works.
Him:  Well, the engine is made of all the car engines in the world, but only they're smaller and then they put them all together like one big machine and put it in the jet.
Me:  Gotcha.  What about the fuel?  What kind of fuel does it need?
Him:  All three kinds of gas combined.
Me:  Like, from a gas station?
Him:  Yeah.
Me:  So you just have to park this jet and the back part with the people in a gas station and then mix all the gasses together and it's ready?
Him:  Yup.
Me:  Nice.  So, I have to ask.  Your time machine jet is ready to go.  Where would you go?
Him:  Huh?
Me:  You can travel back in time, forward in time, see dinosaurs, see pirates and knights...where would you go?
Him:  Legoland.

==========

Villainy!
Brick Top, Snatch


"You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.  They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes.  That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute.  Hence, the expression, 'As greedy as a pig'."

Prior to his explanation of his corpse-disposal methods, the audience understood that Brick Top was a powerful gangster who controlled the unsanctioned, bare-knuckle boxing matches of the London underground.  He employed a varied amount of witless thugs, and snarled darkly humorous threats of castration or death to anyone who happened to piss him off.  However, once he ranted about the benefits of pig farms, Brick Top became intensely remorseless and much, much more dangerous to our protagonists.

Fully self-aware that he was the film's nemesis, he also provided many of the film's laughs, uncomfortable as they may have been.  The source of much of his anger, I would argue, was due to the idiocy and haplessness of his employees, clients, and enemies.  Brick Top wants to run an efficient, sustainable, and profitable business, and all of the players that find themselves 'in his pocket' never make things easy.  They botch the simplest of requests, and then have the audacity to act surprised that they're being punished.

Thus, the need for a pig farm.

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