Galaxy Express 999 Episodes 16-26
So throughout these episodes I've been contemplating what a real world version of the Galaxy Express 999 would be like, and all I can imagine is an un-refurbished Pacer train that travels the world making stops at exotic locales such as North Korea, wherever is currently being bombed in Syria, the parts of Mexico under the control of drug cartels, the Chernobyl exclusion zone and the part of Antarctica directly underneath the hole in the ozone layer. A journey without any security or medical facilities for which tickets cost so much they're out of reach of anyone but the 1% and people are willing to literally kill each other to obtain them.
All in all, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite as batsh*t insane as this particular batch of episodes of
GE999, which seems to have been the result of someone going "Yeah, sure, whatever" to any ideas that first came into the staff's heads after plying them with depressants, stimulants or a cocktail of the two. So we have an episode about a self-loathing animator living in poverty (surely not written from experience, that one) an episode seemingly inspired by Devo's
Jocko Homo, an episode set in Westworld that contains a gunfight standoff that goes on for a full five minutes, one about a door to door egg salesman so bitter over his girlfriend leaving him he turns into a skeleton without any ribs(?) and my personal favourite, an episode about a hollow planet with flying inflatable cows that appears to have nothing resembling a plot whatsoever. Maetel and Tetsuro visit a planet with flying inflatable cows. That's it. That's the story.
And you can't possibly watch a whole ten episodes of
GE999 without there being at least a couple more in which a beautiful but creepy woman wants Tetsuro to stay with her for ever and ever. Oh, and one in which a creepy robot
man wants Tetsuro to stay with him for ever and ever. Nice to see them mixing it up a bit. I think I'm beginning to understand how it was possible to cut this 113 episode series down into a 2 hour film.
There are still some lovely visuals however, particularly in the episode where Maetel shoots the leg off and then leaves at the bottom of a cliff one of two remaining residents of a planet, the other being the now crippled man's bedridden dying father.
"Is he dead?" Tetsuro asks.
"No," replies Maetel
"I wouldn't kill one of only two people left on the planet." Then they board the train and leave. I don't know if the harshness of
GE999 seems worse now than it would have then or whether the tonal whiplash is just making me a bit giddy, but it's the visuals and the unremitting bleakness that's keeping me watching.
Thanks
GE999, those are the kind of comforting thoughts that keep me going.
