"Ex Machina" is actually pronounced "eh-cks mah-kin-ah": A Graphics Novel Guide for Jenni and Eric

Ever suggest a movie/book/TV show to a friend, with full expectations that they'll love it as much as you do, and your friend doesn't like it? That happened to me twice this weekend with Jenni and Eric (Buffy and Superbad). I guess I should learn a lesson from that, and not make any more suggestions. Alas, my ego knows no bounds so I present a list of graphic novels that I'm abosolutely SURE, either Jenni or Eric will love as much as I do.

10) Ex Machina



Synopsis: Mitchell Hundred is a structural engineer who develops super powers after coming in contact with a mysterious alien artifact. What does he do with his new abilities? He runs for Mayor of New York City.

Suggested for (Jennie or Eric?): Eric.

Why?: Well, like the protagonist, Eric is a somewhat super fellow with political aspirations. He may well identify with the day-to-day challenges of a man who can fly as fast as a passenger jet, but is daunted by the bureaucracy involved with closing the Greatest City in the World down for a snowstorm.

9) Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 - "Gifted", "Dangerous", "Torn" and "Unstoppable"



Synopsis: Written by Joss Whedon and drawn by John Cassaday, this is the highest quality X-book out on the market to date. It's also the X-book with the most publishing delays, but us fan-boys are still lining up to get them issues. This book still achieves high sales and even higher critical acclaim.

Suggested for: Jenni

Why?: Although not the absolute best of Joss Whedon's writing (the Buffy episode "Once More With Feeling" and the Firefly episode "Objects In Space" are granted that honour), it's a fantastic piece of work. Familiar X-characters are beautifully drawn, and the writing harkens back to the days when Chris Clearmont and Alan Davis were in charge of the franchise. Plus, Kitty Pryde is back! Hubba, hubba!

8) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier



Synopsis: The long awaited third installment of Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neil's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series updates the timeline beyond the Victorian Era.

Suggested for: "Eh, Rick..."

Why?: For selfish reasons. My man, Eric borrowed the first two volumes of Leauge from me back in the day and apparently enjoyed them. The Black Dossier is not available in Canada, so I'm hoping he will buy the book and return the favour.

7) Identity Crisis



Synopsis: One of the most contraversial collections with a story line that shakes the foundations of the DC Universe. Identity Crisis explores the ramifications when the DC Heroes cross a fundemental ethical line.

Suggested for: Jenni

Why?: Jenni tends to be into less mainstream graphic novels. Identity Crisis is to comic books what Pulp Ficton is to movies: a mainstream work with indie sensibilities. Also, I think this would be an interesting counterpoint to Jenni's usual choices.

6) The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born



Synopsis: This retelling of Roland Deschain's early adventures was personally overseen by Stephen King and Robin Furth. A must-read for any Dark Tower fan.

Suggested for: "E-rector set"

Why?: Not only is the main story arc faithfully written and beautifully rendered (Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, 'nuff props!), the graphic novel features previously untold, secret tales that flesh out the world of the Dark Tower. For example, ever wonder where Rhea of the Cöos came from? Or how Eldred Jonas got his limp? Well, now you can find out!

5) From Hell



Synopsis: Alan Moore's and Eddie Campbell's haunting meditation on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper.

Suggested for: Jenni

Why?: Actually, I don't really want to suggest this one for Jenni, it was just her turn. This book is pretty challenging, not because of the dense narrative, more because it's syle places us smack dab in the middle of ugly Victorian London at the end of the century. Think of this book as the movie Se7en without the uplifting ending.

4) Serenity: Those Left Behind



Synopsis: Takes place in Joss Whedon's 'verse, in between the events of Firefly the TV show and Serenity the movie.

Suggested for: "E-rock"

Why?: More Serenity is a good thing. (Chances are Eric read it already anyway).

3) V For Vendetta



Synopsis: A mysterious anarchist named "V" works to destroy the totalitarian government who controls a dystopian future.

Suggested for: Jenni

Why?: Features big words like "anarchist", "totalitarian" and "dystopian", that only smart folks like Jenni truly understand. Also, it's better to read the graphic novel before watching the somewhat passable but mostly uninspiring movie version.

2) Planet Hulk



Synopsis: For some reason people insist on pissing Hulk off. The Hulk is tricked by a bunch of people who really should have known better, and finds himself exiled to another, unihabitated planet. Due to an "unforseen navigational error", he instead finds himself on a real craphole, war-torn planet in a weakened state and on the wrong side of a set of slave manacles. Eventually.... HULK SMASH!!!

Suggested for: "E-rotic massage"

Why?: Why not? Sure graphic novels can be lit'ry and profound, but sometime you just wanna see HULK SMASH!!!

1) Lost Girls



Synopsis: Graphic novel depicting the sexual adventures of three important female fictional characters of the late 19th and early 20th Century, namely Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz, and Wendy Darling from Peter Pan.

Suggested for: Both Jenni and Eric

Why?: Pure, unadulterated porn. To be read together in bed after the little one is asleep.

Ta ta!

Mr. TWIT's All Time Best Web-Entertainment of 2007

In anticipation of the plethora of Top Ten lists that accompany each new year, Mr. TWIT has decided, not only to blog in the 3rd person, but to present his list of All Time Best Instances of Web-Entertainment for 2007. Keep in mind that Mr. TWIT does not have cable television, and aside from Food TV, does not really miss it, so his only source of entertainment (other than having sexual relations with Mrs. TWIT every once in a while) is the Internet.

10) Smodcast



Click this link to find Kevin Smith's and pal, Scott Mosier's weekly lewd, uneducated and misinformed discussions on pop culture. The current highlight of this podcast series is Episode 15, where they show their complete ignorance and lack of respect for Hellen Keller (although the one where a Canadian guest star can't remember the name of his Prime Minister is pretty damn hilarious too!).


9)"Shoe's" by Kelly

My friend Grant turned me on to this one. Friggin Hilarious.



8) Jamie Fox completely embarrasing this really bad comic named Doug Williams.

The only thing more painful than bombing on stage, is having Jamie Fox call you on it.



7) Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager

What if Darth Vader had a younger brother named Chad, who was responsible for running the day shift at a grocery store? Hmmmm... perhaps it would look something... like this...

6) Dan Savage's Savage Lovecast

It's like "Talk Sex with Dr. Sue" except with really foul language, and a gay guy instead of Dr. Sue. Am I the only one who thinks if Sex Education was replaced by this podcast, we would have a lot more sexually responsible kids? Yeah.... probably...

5) Kanye West's "Throw Some D's" Remix

You may notice a foul language trend in all my choices so far. That's what makes the web so cool, and why cable TV sucks. Props for Kanye, who unlike other rappers who threw some D's(rims) on a car, decided that there's a whole 'nother creative way of throwing D's.



4) David O. Russell freaking out on Lily Tomlin on the set of I Y Huckabees.

Man this video makes me cringe.



David O. Russell has had a very well known reputation for being an a-hole. Celebrities like George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman, and Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan have all had thier run-ins with this guy.

The running theory on this guy is that his behaviour is a deliberate attempt to keep his sets raw and emotionally charged to get better performances from his actors. Lily Tomlin is on the record for tacitly defending his behaviour by saying:

"I'd rather have someone human and available and raw and open. Don't give me someone cold, or cut off, or someone who considers themselves dignified."

Maybe there's a small element of truth to that, but really, after watching Three Kings, I'd have to say that the results are not worth the torture.

3)Filipino Jail Inmates re-enact "Thriller"



It's been 25 years, but that Thriller album still moves people!

2)The Message at ThisJustIn.com

With the Chapelle Show cancelled, where can we go to find racially charged sketch comedy? Right here, of course! The folks at the Message may not be 100% funny 100% of the time, but they do have some great sketches.



1)Clark and Michael



I've been trying to get people hooked on this web series, but the only other person who thinks it's funny is Sara K, one of my Facebook friends. It's like the bastard step-child of the British Office and Mr. Show with Bob and David. It's too damn funny to pass up my friends!


BONUS CLIP

Hindu Prayer in the Senate, featuring the Dramatic Hamster



ANOTHER BONUS CLIP

I just couldn't resist.

Mr. TWIT gives advice

A reader wrote:

Mr. Twit,

Planet Terror, one of my current favorites......yet I am concerned. While discussing with an acquaintance, I was accused of supporting gratuitous violence and cinema of no value or redeeming social quality. Mr. Twit, please reassure me that movies can still be enjoyable just because they are enjoyable....I mean heck.....it was a ZOMBIE movie, not a treatise on some social more or a documentary on some obscure psychological phenomena. Say it ain't so Mr. Twit!!!

Signed,
Overweight, Past Middle Aged, White Woman


Dear OPMAWW,

Your friend is not only a whiny bore, he or she is probably very sexually repressed, plain and simple. Plus your friend has a really messed up sense of scale. Consider the seven bucks you spent on renting Planet Terror versus the millions of dollars spent to blow up the World Trade Center, or the billions spent on the Iraq War. When it comes to supporting gratuitous violence I think those latter examples bother me way more than a friggin movie.

There's nothing wrong with you enjoying a trashy, ultra-violent, utterly charming piece of crapola like Planet Terror. (Speaking of charming, how friggin cool was that faux-trailer for Machete?)



Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if your friend just can't see the beauty of a one-legged woman shooting a zombie-rapist in the crotch with a M-60 machine gun modified to fit on her semi-healed amputation stump, you really can't fault your friend for that. You can only pity him/her. (I have a five dollar bet with my wife that your friend was a "her". Please confirm in the comments section.)

Could you imagine if every movie had to contain Redeeming Social Value? How sucky would that be? I mean I can fully enjoy Munich, but after a while a steady diet of that crap gives me a friggin headache. I need palette cleanser movies like Big Trouble in Little China.



It requires very little thought or contemplation. It helps ease the mind and makes the world a little bit less sucky. I love existential dread as much as Ingmar Bergman, but a little bit of John Carpenter shoot-'em-up ain't so bad.

Plus, your friend is absolutely wrong in claiming that Planet Terror has no Redeeming Social Value. The movie was made by Robert Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios, a company that provides employment opportunities by many Latino-American's, who are a generally under-represented in the movie industry. Name me another studio that would feature a great actor like Freddy Rodriquez as a bad-ass action hero? Plus the sheer logistics of producing Planet Terror is worthy of study. Many bloated, over-produced, big-budget, "socially redeemable" films would do well to emulate the efficient planning required to put together Planet Terror given it's relatively low-budget. Every bit of cash budgeted to make that film was put directly on the screen (The production could not afford hiring Bruce Willis for an extended period of time, thus they filmed all his shots in one day. That way the money usually required to rent a honey-wagon trailer for Mr. Willis was used to directly produce the movie.) I guess you can present such facts to refute your friend's claims that Planet Terror has no value, but why bother? Save yourself all that trouble, ditch your "friend" and make a new, much cooler, way more fun friend, sans the stick-up-the-ass.

Yours truly,

Mr. TWIT

Who Watches the Watchmen

Me, that's who.

Yep, I'm going to be one of the first guys to go see the movie adaptation of The Watchmen (directed by Zack Snyder of 300) on opening weekend some time in 2009. And you know what? It's going to suck. Even if its a decent and enjoyable, it will suck multitudes when compared to the original comic.

Why, you ask? Because even at their best movies based on comic books and graphic novels are limited by the media of film itself. Not so much the visuals, because the Spiderman, X-Men, Blade, Sin City and even 300 show that you can present a visually dynamic, somewhat faithful representation of our favourite comic book hero's as depicted in comic book panels. But these same movies also show how the stories we comic book fans know and love often suffer under the strict time limits of the typical Hollywood blockbuster.

Perhaps the reason why the Spiderman, X-Men and Blade franchises suffer the least in the comic-book-to-movie transition is because these stories are entrenched in popular culture, thus screenwriters and movie audiences have a familiarity with the respective mythologies. Screenwriters can employ a kind of short-hand approach to depicting character origins, and audiences are more willing to accept a cursory review of the salient backstory points (for Blade, the overall vampire mythology serves as the short-hand, but still the first movie of the franchise, the origin tale, is an unsatisfactory movie as compared to Blade II).

Now, for a graphic novel like The Watchmen, the characters are not as well known in general popular culture, even though they are revered within the culture of the comic book world. Screen writers cannot employ a short-hand approach, rather, to do the characters justice, each one requires a significant introduction and development. Additionally, The Watchmen is a dense, complicated story, employing many literary tropes, including an arresting narrative-within-a-narrative (i.e., Tales of the Black Freighter) to counterpoint the main storyline. This is a lot to fit into a 2 to 2.5 hour summer blockbuster movie and the typical movie audience won't stand for the more leisurely pace required to do the original graphic novel justice.

Also, The Watchmen graphic novel is designed to explore the full dimensions of the comic medium. Both text and visuals work together to fully examine the universe depicted within it's pages. It is a unique structure, made especial for the comic medium. Sadly, the story won't be nearly as effective as a movie.

If I had my druthers, I would love to see The Watchmen adapted as an HBO mini-series. The best way to recreate the world of the graphic novel would be in a multi-episode format with the high visual and storytelling quality often afforded to HBO productions. And since I'm just plain daydreaming, I decided to present my casting choices for the non-existent HBO mini-series and compare them to the current cast of the The Watchmen movie currently under production. Here we go:


1) Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg



Official Cast: Patrick Wilson



Mr. TWIT's Cast: Damien Lewis



I love Patrick Wilson's work in Angels in America, Hard Candy and Little Children, but I don't see him as the Nite Owl.

I can totally buy Band of Brothers's Damien Lewis as Dan Dreiberg, flabby, introverted, impotent, ornithologist by day, who in his Nite Owl persona, becomes a confident, dashing, dangerous crime fighter by night. He could totally play all the complex, psycho-sexual repression that so informs the character. And it would greatly make up for the fiasco that was Dreamcatcher.

2) Silk Spectre/Laurie Juspeczyk



Official Cast: Malin Ackerman



Mr. TWIT's Cast: Michelle Monaghan



Don't know much about Malin Ackerman. I saw her on a couple episodes of Entourage, and I know she was in the last Ben Stiller/Farrelly Bros. movie. She's obviously beautiful, but she didn't impress me much. Her The Heartbreak Kid co-star, Michelle Monaghan is my casting choice. She blew me out of the water in this years Gone Baby Gone. In the graphic novel, Laurie Juspeczyk is more than just a hot chick. The character is central to a major plot revelation, and it requires an actor of some weight to carry the drama of it. Michelle Monaghan definitely has the chops (plus she would look great fighting crime in a see-through negligee).

3)Rorschach



Official Cast: Jackie Earle Haley



Try as I might I can't argue with this choice. In Little Children, Jackie Earle Haley was able to play a child molester who's equally repulsive and sympathetic, which is no mean feat. I think he would make a great Rorschach. If I was forced to re-cast the role, I'd choose Leland Orser, best know as the sex-shop patron in Se7en.



4) Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt



Official Cast: Matthew Goode



Mr. TWIT's Cast: Patrick Wilson



I can totally buy Patrick Wilson as Adrian Veidt, the Smartest Man In The World. He looks almost exactly like Dave Gibbons's depiction of Ozymandias. On the other hand, I don't know Matthew Goode and don't really care to.

5) Dr. Manhattan/John Osterman



Official Cast: Billy Crudup



Mr. TWIT's Cast: Neal McDonough



Nothing in Billy Crudup's past repertoire leads me to think of him as Dr. Manhattan, the World's First Superman. That doesn't mean he couldn't do a good job portraying the character, because he is a good actor and acquits himself well in movies like Almost Famous. But personally, I'm not a big fan. For the role I would choose another Band of Brothers vet, Neal McDonough. I am a huge fan of his, and although I think he's slumming it in TV land right now, he would make a superb addition to the Watchmen cast. His "all-American" looks would serve well in the role of the human John Osterman, and would be a very tragic counter-point to Dr. Manhattan's ever-growing lack of humanity.

6) The Comedian/Edward Blake.


Official Cast: Jeffery Dean Morgan



Mr. TWIT's Choice: Clancy Brown



Again, don't know much about Mr. J.D. Morgan to offer an opinion of if he fits the role or not. What I do know is Clancy Brown is one of the best character actors around, and at his age, he would make a more believable choice for the Comedian. Clancy is famous for his bad guy roles in moves like The Shawshank Redemption, The Highlander, and Carnivale, but it's his funny, sympathetic role in the HBO movie Normal that leads me to think he would make a great Comedian. A funny and sympathetic bad guy is much more real and scary than a cardboard cut-out villain.

I think that if there is a common critque of my cast choices is that the actors are fairly old for the typical summer action movie. But I think the point I'm trying to make is that the problem with adapting Alan Moore graphic novels is that they are not summer blockbuster fodder. Look at the relatively unsatisfactory cinematic results of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell and V: For Vendetta (as compared to the source graphic novels), and you may agree that an HBO mini-series would be a better forum for a screen adaptation of Alan Moore's work. Still, I don't think there is a better form of media for his stories than the original graphic novels.

Mr. TWIT's Christmas List

I'm currently out of blog ideas so in the spirit of the Season of Giving, here's what I want you to give me (in no particular order):

1) A nice sweater from the Gap or Old Navy. Suitable for work but a little funky. (Size XL)

2) A new white button down dress shirt (Size 17 1/2)

3) A new dress tie (classy with minimal patterns, navy blue silk would be nice)

4) Hand knitted socks

5) A new stuffed toy, preferrably one that "speaks" (not "squeaks")when you squeeze it. (This one is for my dog, Keeper. His Mr. Froggy "Ribbit, ribbit" died on him this week.)

6) HMV/Future Shop/Best Buy gift certificates

6) Grindhouse Special Edition DVD (apparently this one won't be released until early next year so a gift certificate would come in handy)

7) "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman, paperback novel.



8) Katana 25 II (code kt25ii) from www.kriscutlery.com



9) The Watchmen movie teaser poster by Dave Gibbons



10) "Anancy and Miss Lou", by Honorable Louise Bennet-Coverly (This book is really hard to find. May be able to order a copy from A Different Booklist in Toronto http://www.adifferentbooklist.com/story.html)



11) "Selected Poems", Lousie Bennet (this book is even harder to find)



12) "Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam" Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera



13) "The Dangerous Book for Boys" by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden (I would prefer the UK edition, please)



14) "The SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, In any Climate, on Land or Sea" by John "Lofty" Wiseman



15) "The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook" by the Editor's of Cooking Illustrated

Mr. TWIT's Alternate Tag Lines

October was a great movie month for me. I saw/rented a lot of great flicks. Rather than bore you with a detailed review of each, I've decided to provide a one sentence review of the movie in the form of a revised tag line

1) Planet Terror

Official Tag Line:
"Fully Loaded!"

Mr. TWIT's Alternate Tag Line:
"Half-naked chicks, bad-ass dudes, flesh-eating zombies and a dude who collects testicles in a ziplock bag... Truly, the 'feel-good' movie of the year!"



Mr. TWIT's rating (out of 4 stars): ***1/2

2) Gone Baby Gone


Official Tag Line:
"Everyone Wants The Truth... Until They Find It."

Mr. TWIT's Alternate Tag Line:
"Come to Boston... get kidnapped by hairlipped pedophiles!"



Mr. TWIT's rating (out of 4 stars): ****

3) Breach


Official Tag Line:
"How one man betrayed the security of a nation."

Mr. TWIT's Alternate Tag Line:
"Watch Chris Cooper and Laura Linney compete in the 'Who's more scary' contest! If they mated, their baby would be just like that British chef who yells at people."




Mr. TWIT's rating (out of 4 stars) : ***

4) Little Children


Official Tag Line:
"Let the little children come onto me."

Mr. TWIT's Alternate Tag Line:
"Wow, man... white people sure are creepy..."



Mr. TWIT's rating (out of 4 stars): ***

5) Transformers


Official Tag Line:
"Thier war. Our world."

Mr. TWIT's Alternate Tag Line:
"How can a movie look this great and suck so bad at the same time?"



Mr. TWIT's rating (out of 4 stars): **1/2

PS: I'm totally super excited about the Joss Whedon/Eliza Dusku TV Show. Tim Minear is also involved, so great! To bad it's on Fox. (they're gonna cancel after the first show) Can't we just give Joss Whedon his own network already?

Dubledore is Gay

The latest Harry Potter buzz is that over the weekend, at some Q & A, J.K. Rowling related that she always thought of Professor Dumbledore as being gay. I don't have a lot of time to comment on this, so to summarize, I'm fine with it. I love the idea of a gay Dumbledore! That's it really. No other comment required.

I just want to take the opportunity to predict the irrational religous shitstorm that with rage over this non-item. For those of you who think this is a problem please remember one key fact: Dumbledore doesn't exist, therefore there is no real problem. What ever dick he might be enjoying in his off-time, is totally imaginary dick.

By the way, just a reminder to all fundementalist evangelicals who might make a big deal out of this: Ted Haggard is real, and he sucked real dick while he was building one of the biggest evangelical ministries ever (he also sucked on glass dicks full of crystal meth, hee hee!). He also caused more harm than Dumbledore, who is imaginary. Calm down and take a breath, 'kay?

'Kay...

The Woeful and Deliberate Pussification of Han Solo (and I mean "Pussification" in the most sex-positive sense)

My friend Jenni wrote:

Mr. TWIT, I can see you're having trouble with blog fodder (or you're busy working, which clearly can't be the case) so I present you with my lunch-time musings: In a galactic fight between Hans Solo and Mal Reynolds, who would win?


Hmmm, Han Solo vs. Mal Reynolds? It's not really that tough a question. The answer is obvious. Mal would kick Han Solo's ass. Why you ask? Because, my friends, there is a very woeful, deliberate and systematic effort to turn the first great sci-fi cinema icon into a pussy.

(By the way, I don't mean "pussy" in a sexist way because vaginas, in general, are very tough, very resilient and strong enough to give birth to relatively large human babies... so don't get your panties in a twist, 'kay?)

February 1, 1981, Canada's first paid cable movie network "Superchannel", premiered with a 12:00 AM showing of Star Wars. I was eight years old at the time when I was introduced to my first anti-hero, Han Solo. He was a revelation! He was cool, he was tough, he was charming and pretty badass. It was the "Greedo Scene" that got me hooked. It wasn't so much that he blasted Greedo (first!) into a smoky mess, it was the way he flipped the tip on the table as he walked away. Sort of like "Here ya go, honey, and sorry for the mess."

For many of us, it may have been the first time we realized the the best kind of good guy is sort of bad. Nothing fleshes out a hero more than giving him a dark side, and at the time Han Solo was pretty dark (in relation to golden boy Luke Skywalker that is). Han was a debt-ridden smuggler, who won the Millenium Faclon in a card game. He shot first, and never bothered with the questions. He openly contemplated leaving Luke, Leia and the droids behind on the Death Star, and he wasn't going to save Leia in the first place unless he got paid. But it wasn't too long before they started to soften him up.

Personally, I blame the carbonation process. He wasn't quite the same when he got unfrozen. I mean he got captured in a net by Ewoks, for Christ's sake! You think pre-carbonized Han Solo would have gotten trapped that easily?

Return of the Jedi really signified the beginning of the downfall of Han Solo. The former lone wolf now was a captain, with responsibilities and duties. He even gave back the Falcon to Lando Calrissian, free of charge! Yeesh! Now I guess I could've handled all that, and let it rest, but when George Lucas began to retcon the whole Han Solo mysique in the re-release, re-digitized Star Wars Special Editions, that was the final straw. Greedo shooting first? Is he frickin' crazy!?! It made Han Solo look like an asshole!

So here's why Malcom Reynolds would kick Han Solo's ass.

10) Mal actually has prior military experience. Han was a half-assed smuggler they turned into a half-assed captain.

9) Mal had a better backup. I'd take Zoe over Chewbacca any day.

8) Han Solo might have had a faster ship, but Malcom would have given up his life before giving up Serenity to anybody. Especially Lando Calrissian!

7) In many ways Mal had more integrity because he's maintained a steady level of assholery. I mean, the guy was a shmuck, but he at least he knew his limits. That's why in episode 11, Trash he had to have Inara close the deal on the Lassiter caper.


6) Malcom actually got laid in episode 13, Heart of Gold. Han Solo never got laid. And honestly, how good do you think Princess Leia would be in the sack anyway?


5) In The Empire Strikes Back, when Han Solo got captured by the Galactic Empire and sent to torture, the second he got tasered he screamed like a bitch. In War Stories, when Mal and Wash got captured by Niska, they had to cut of a piece of Malcom's ear before he screamed. And mind you this was after they beat him to a bloody pulp and strapped him to an electric rack for hours.


4) I get the feeling that Jayne is just a leee-tle, bit intimidated by Mal. Jayne would never give Han Solo that kind of juice. And if Jayne actually got in a fight with Chewbacca, I suspect that the common room in Serenity would end up with a new shag rug.

3) Mal would never, and I do mean "nev-errr"... fall for the meat-on-a-stick Ewok net trap.



2) Mal had the better gun. It was a sleeker and more efficient design. That's why he was such a fast draw. Han Solo's gun is a blocky, barrel heavy piece of crap that probably took ages to draw. No wonder Greedo got off the first shot.

1) Malcom Reynolds always shoots first.





Satisfied, Jenni?