The Lindsay Brothers

Category: 100 Extraordinary Adventures

The Lost World

Extraordinary
Adventure
82

Let us be very clear about one thing: This essay has nothing to do with Steven Spielberg. His Jurassic Park sequel, also called The Lost World, shares the title merely as homage, because his movie shares some of the same subject matter as Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel. Namely, little girl gymnastics.

Also dinosaurs.

Besides, Jurassic Park The Lost World may be one of the weakest movies in the Spielberg pantheon, a clear case of the director phoning it in (literally. I’ve heard that Spielberg actually directed some segments via video conferencing). Half the time, they aren’t even bothering to create anything new.

See, there used to be a place called “Jurassic Park” where dinosaurs roamed an island. This island was abandoned at the end of the movie. So in Jurassic Park II, Spielberg introduces the idea of a “Site B,” a sort of backup system for the original Jurassic Park. Seriously, this is their sequel idea. They might as well have had the first movie turn out to be Bob Newhart’s dream.

Way funnier than a T-Rex rampage

It actually does feature a cool action sequence involving an RV, a cliff, a T-Rex, and breaking glass. But then it destroys itself by having Ian Malcolm’s daughter use her parallel bars routine to defeat the velociraptors. Any way, go watch Schindler’s List instead. And don’t feel too sorry for Spielberg. I have a feeling that by the time this list is over, you’re going to be sick of hearing about him.

Now that we’ve spent several paragraphs emphasizing that this is not about Spielberg, let me tell you what it’s really about. Dinosaurs. The Lost World is about a plateau in the middle of the Amazon basin where dinosaurs still walk the earth. Completely trapped and unable to break free of their humdrum existence, the dinosaurs teach themselves to hunt, build shelters, and spell out messages for passing airplanes. But of course, they must also survive the tribe of ape-men who are warring with another tribe of regular men that also live on the plateau.

How did they get him back on such a small bus?

If this sounds like the plot of last year’s Academy Award winning animated movie Up, it’s only because the guys at Pixar are huge Arthur Conan Doyle fans. Same goes for the makers of King Kong, The Land of the Lost, The Planet of the Apes, even John Carter of Mars. The plot is derivative now, but back when A.C.D. was churning out the pages of his serial novel, this kind of stuff was fresh and new.

Birds instead of dinos and talking dogs instead of ape-men.

I won’t bore you with the names of the party of explorers who make their way to the Lost World in order to bring back proof of its existence. Let’s just say that its leader is named Professor Challenger (that should tell you all you need to know). After surviving the dinos and joining the natives and defeating the ape-men, the party escapes via a secret tunnel and goes back to civilization, bringing along a baby pterodactyl, which promptly falls off the Empire State Building flies away.

Arthur Conan Doyle would resurrect the Professor Challenger character for several more stories, but had a hard time topping this one. Nevertheless, it’s pretty clear that if there were a League of Adventurers, Arthur Conan Doyle would be a charter member. It seems he’s got every aspect covered. Not only did he write tales of expeditions into uncharted jungles, he pretty much invented the modern mystery novel with his Sherlock Holmes stories.

"Don't bother me, I'm busy inventing yet another genre."

He also has the “magic” angle, having been friends with Harry Houdini, whom he was convinced used real magic and not illusions. He was a member of The Ghost Club, investigating paranormal occurrences for legitimacy, and to top it all off, he was himself a knight, so there wasn’t much you could throw in his face.

Sadly, we do not allow life stories of real people to make the list of Extraordinary Adventures, so we’ll just have to be content with the traditional old lost dinosaur / warring ape-men story. Deal with it.

Next up, #81.

Triceratops are the only dinosaurs with a sense of humor.

December 30, 2010
The Most Dangerous Game

Extraordinary
Adventure
83

There is an interesting thing about school in that there are some teachers who will do anything they can to get you to read. They surmise that if the stories were shorter they might hold your interest. Also it makes them easier to teach because you only have to spend 1 or 2 class sessions on them. Thus begins every person’s quick flirtation with something known as “short stories.” They are called this because they are short. Why long stories are called “novels” and not “long stories” is the real question. “Long Stories” would actually be the more fitting term when you think about it. This is because a lot of times there is nothing technically new or original about “novels.” If you are not interested because the stories are now shorter, the next thing they try is assigning you sensationalist stories about ghosts or murder. This is how I came to be acquainted with The Most Dangerous Game.

See kids doesn't this look fun? Not like other things you have to read in school at all.

Actually it is a relatively long short story, but not quite on the level of a novella, which is longer than a short story but shorter than a long story. Keeping this straight? The game in the title refers not to a game that you play but the game that you hunt as in big game hunter or game preserve. Game here means “animal.” In high school, you see, it seemed like a great twist when you found out what the most dangerous game of the title actually was. Though this is probably because the other thing teachers like to assign in high school is meaningful literature and so you almost expect to have sympathy for the hunter or the hunted or both. Here you have little sympathy for either and you can probably guess just exactly what the Most Dangerous Game of the title is without me having to say it.

It's People! The Most Dangerous Game is People!!!

Fortunately for you the writer, Richard Connel, must’ve known that his audience would be able to see the twist coming because he writes the story in such a way that it is exciting even if you guess the twist. His prose is almost a little bit too adventure-y especially when he speaks of the “blood-warm waters of the Caribbean sea.“ He also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for a while so it should come as no surprise that the characters are named things like “Sanger Rainsford,” and his nemesis “General Zaroff.”

The poster is admittedly a little misleading. The giant floating evil eyes don't show up until the sequel.

These touches are only slightly off-putting, the real thrill is the chase through the forest. Sanger Rainsford the celebrated hunter is now the prey of Zaroff and he uses such things as Mandalay Man Traps to avoid his pursuer. General Zaroff is described as a Cossack, which in the 1930s probably meant something, but these days, is a little hard to describe. Basically they were Russian mercenaries. He has captured lost sailors on his island and is training them so that he can chase them later. The story cuts around a bit, a lot like a Hollywood screenplay, but in the end it turns out that the teachers were right. The Most Dangerous Game succeeds precisely because it happens to be short and not because it happens to be particularly dangerous.

Fireball: The Real Most Dangerous Game

Read the story for yourself here.

Next up … #82!

December 27, 2010
Big Thunder Mountain

Extraordinary
Adventure
84

“The wildest ride in the wilderness.” Do not let the highbrow country club tagline fool you. Big Thunder Mountain delivers adventure in spades. From an opening ascent through a bat cave to a thrilling avalanche climax, you would be hard pressed to find this kind of action anywhere outside of a John Ford movie.

Unless John Ford made a Batman movie, in which case we would explode from happiness.

For the first time, our series steps outside the boundaries of books, movies, and television and dives into the third dimension. Real 3-D, not this Avatar stuff. Big Thunder Mountain is a theme park ride, a take on the old runaway mine-car idea. Were it not for Miley Cyrus, it would be the Disney Company’s absolute finest creation.

Imagineer Tony Baxter came up with the concept as a way to re-use some of Disneyland’s props and scenes from the Nature’s Wonderland attraction, which had existed in some form or another almost since Opening Day in 1955 (not to be confused with Tim Burton’s Nature’s Wonderland, which stars Johnny Depp as a dark, weird miner).

And Helena Bonham Carter as the shrieky elk.

Various pack mules, stagecoaches, and leisurely railcars departed Frontierland daily through a recreation of the Old West, past animatronic bobcats, rigged waterfalls, and happy stereotypes of indigenous American races. In a way, not much has changed, but it was Baxter that added a crucial story element: Dangerous Adventure. We are also very lucky that he ditched his first idea, which was runaway pack mules.

Not to be confused with Disney's other finest creation.

Big Thunder’s secret, like all great theme park stories, lies in its simplicity. There is no back-story that needs illuminating. No preshow to set the stage. No complex hero, no nefarious villain (unless you count whatever cursed Indian grave the Big Thunder Mining Company disturbed). It is simply a roaring, rumbling trip through iconic Western imagery, clinging for your life to a mine train that has all the self-control of Lindsay Lohan at a wine tasting.

The number of dangers we encounter is staggering. Before the train has even crested its first hill, we’ve already journeyed through a horde of bats, witnessed ethereal underground tidal pools, and basked in the spray of torrential mountain runoff. Then Big Thunder really gets going.

But won't all these banked curves spill the ore?

There are four versions around the globe, one each in Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris, and Tokyo Disneyland. Some variations do apply, but the experience is the same. All of the rides feature hairpin curves and exciting dips and drops through “natural” rock arches. Each one has a blistering near-collision with the sun-bleached bones of an exposed dinosaur fossil while geysers rocket all around us. All of them end in a crumbling mineshaft, the track ahead obliterated, the massive boulders coming loose above us. Big Thunder indeed. That we somehow manage to escape isn’t all that surprising, considering this is Disney. Then again, this is also the same company that sent us to hell at the end of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Seriously. Go ride it.

While riding, and even while waiting in line, one thing really stands out: How stinky all the other tourists are. But also the attention to detail. Disney Imagineers gathered real mining equipment and props from flea markets and ghost towns throughout the United States to dress Big Thunder’s sets. It lends a sense of authenticity to help combat that nagging question about why anyone is mining for gold in the middle of a Florida swamp or the Parisian countryside.

While ostensibly a rollercoaster, at no time is the illusion ever broken that this is a real mine train. The tubular steel tracks hug every bend and valley in the faux mountain, making one wonder if the Big Thunder Mining Company ever heard of dynamite. The artistry of the mountain itself is breathtaking, requiring expert sculptors and practiced painters to transform a lump of chicken wire and concrete into a butte straight out of Monument Valley. Elizabeth Taylor’s plastic surgeons could learn a thing or two.

Elizabeth Taylor's forehead. Also Utah.

The animatronics here, while not as advanced as some of Disney’s famous shows like the Enchanted Tiki Room or the Hall of Presidents, are perfectly serviceable, especially considering that they have to remain outdoors, exposed to the elements. Anyway, it’s not like you have a lot of time to critique them when you’re careening past at 30mph.

Mountain Lion voices provided by Matthew Broderick and James Earl Jones.

Did I say thirty? It feels like ninety. Big Thunder is thrill ride for the entire family, an extra shot of adrenaline in the middle of your day with Mickey. But make no mistake about it, this is an adventure story first and foremost, and one every bit as worthy as the other titles on this list. It’s just probably the only one to require you to hang on to your hats and glasses.

Next up, #83!

December 23, 2010