TRANCERS WEEK! Day 3: 2005

BUT HE NEVER DIED!

From time to time here at Mr. Gable’s Reality I am able to acquire certain “privileged” information. Sometimes it’s receiving a screener copy of a movie, other times it’s talking to filmmakers themselves. But today I want to share with you a conversation that took place nearly 20 years ago at Full Moon headquarters.

Here it is, uncut & unfiltered:

Full Moon Goomba: Mr. Band, the fans. My god the fans! They’re demanding more Trancers. Trancers 1 and 2 have literally killed at the box office. People are dying. It’s awesome.

*large explosion*

Sweet Cheezus. They’re at the door! Quickly, we need another Trancers!

Charles Band: Ummm….start out with Tim, I mean Jack…umm…in the middle of a divorce.

FMG: Why?

CB: BECAUSE IF FUCKING SAID SO, THAT’S WHY!

FMG: yes, yes sir. Please don’t hit me with your win stick again. I had hard enough time explaining it to my girlfriend last time. Wha, what else sir? HURRY! I can hear them charging up the stairwell.

CB: OH! Then all of a sudden an android from the future shows up in the…that pod thing from the second one.

FMG: The TCL Chamber?

CB: YES! That thing. And then he kidnaps Jack and brings him back to the future because there’s a…there’s ummm….a TRANCER WAR! All hell has broken loose and people are dying. YES! Angel city is lost. The Trancers are WINNING! So it’s up to Deth to go back to where it all started and end the Trancer threat once and for all!

FMG: That kinda sounds like the plot to Terminator 2.

CB: NO IT’S NOT! THERE’S NO FUCKING TRANCERS IN TERMINATOR 2! ONLY AUSTRIAN ROBOTS!

*beating at the door*

FMG: OH NO! THEY’RE HERE! WE’RE DOOMED! DOOOOOOOMED!

*printer spits out a few sheets of paper. VERY few sheets of paper*

CB: Not to worry son. I just finished the script.

END CONVERSATION

Trancers 3 is…

AWESOME!!

Once again Jack Deth, Writer, Director, Producer, and everyone involved with this movie NOT GIVING ONE FUCK ABOUT ANYTHING!

HAHAHAHA YES!

This is how you make a sequel. The problems with sequels is they try too hard to “continue” a story and end up just spitting in the face of it. But if you just say, “uh, fuck it. Who cares?” Then you make yourself a great movie. You know, you have an awesome character and some cool villains. Just kinda…carry them forward. Forget the details.

So we open up a year or two after part 2. Jack Deth is still possessing his ancient descendent and now is getting a divorce from his “past” wife Helen Hunt. He has a shitty detective service that’s going nowhere…and then OUT OF nowhere, a fishlike android dude shows up and abducts Deth. They hop in a TCL chamber a la Bill and Ted’s Fantastic Fucking Adventure and travel back (forward?) to Jack Deth’s present time. (2300’s). It is here where we find out about a catastrophic Trancer war that has destroyed the world and there’s a small band of resistance fighters shacked up trying to heal themselves before their next battle.

We meet a new character, Harris, played by Stephen Macht (who’s awesome by the way), and they’ve tracked the Trancer origins to 2005. Actually, they know that Lena has figured out the Trancer origins so they send Jack to 2005 to meet up with Lena who has been without Jack for 13 years so she really hates him. And she’s got a kid who may or may not be Jack’s.

Holy shit, that’s confusing. But I fucking LOVE time travel and they handle this whole part pretty well. It doesn’t “exactly” fit the timeline of the first two films but like I said, Fuck it. It’s Jack Deth.

So from here we learn that there’s a secret government agency that’s pumping out some kick ass formula that turns humans into super soldiers. And the ringmaster of this little experiment is none other than Andrew Robinson. You may have seen him in Hellraiser, Dirty Harry, Pumpkinhead 2, or my favorite role: Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Also, there’s some fresh and perky nudity!

The thing that makes this movie and every Trancer sequel work is Tim Thomerson. That man’s charisma and the way he delivers Jack Deth is just so fucking amazing. It doesn’t fucking matter what’s going on, Jack Deth just dives in. There could be a pit full of monsters and a vortex of painful thorn bushes followed by an army of robotic cows and Jack Deth wouldn’t even think about it, he’d just grab his laser gun and shout, “LET’S FUCKING DO THIS THING!”

 Just off camera Jack Deth is ripping his shirt off and getting ready to kick Sarlaac ass.

He’s always telling someone off or letting them know how big a squid they are. He lets everyone know that he’s going to kill them and there just isn’t enough fucking Trancers to singe. The lowest points of this series so far is when he doesn’t have anything to kill. It’s just depressing. Jack needs Death. And Deth needs Trancers. It’s vicious cycle of awesome that feeds off each other. I love it!

The effects for this movie were done by Robert Kurtzman's company. A few years after this movie they will be doing effects for Wishmaster. This guy is a fucking GENIUS! His practical effects are mindblowing. He just edges out the effects of Buechler, but just barely.

And finally, there's Andrew Robinson. I love that man. If I ever see some piece of shit movie sitting on the shelf I’ve never heard of and pick it up and see Andrew’s name on it, I always say: I’m buying this. Andrew is at the top of his CREEPY GAME in this movie. Not only does he make his presence known EVERY TIME he’s on screen, he’s also plays this creepy sex-crazed tyrant at the same time. He borders on rape with this one chick while he’s trying to “teach” her how to control her Trancing. He is the PERFECT adversary for Tim Thomerson. Both of them bring their characters out as far as they will go and then they push a little harder. It’s such a crazy thing to watch.

And I gotta point out one more thing: Robinson does what no other has ever done: He trances Deth. Albeit a very minor amount but he does inject some of that shit into him. Deth ain’t no squid so he doesn’t fall prey to it but you know if Trancers 7 ever gets off the ground like they’ve beentalking about, then that would be a pretty good angle to take it. Deth is getting old and weaker and the Trancer virus takes over. And then he turns other people into Trancers so he must kill everyone and cure himself before it gets outta hand.

I’m fucking rambling. I LOVED Trancers 3. I thought it’d be kinda dumb at this point but you see that mark on the wall over there? That’s MY FACE, after Jack Deth blew it off.