Classic Serials: Undersea Kingdom (Faster-Paced Version), Chapter Nine

(originally posted December 27, 2008)

You know, I'm running out of ways to say, here's Undersea Kingdom, the chapters are edited to ten minutes, etc., etc. But maybe that's all I need to.

I know I've asked this question about other equipment of the Black Robes, but why haven't they tried ramming the gates of the Holy Sacred* City with a Juggernaut and mowed everyone down with an atom gun until now? Do the Black Robes and White Robes usually have a SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) in effect that restricts the Black Robes to swords and arrows?

*- On re-watching an earlier chapter today, I realized I'd been using the wrong descriptor all along... this despite the fact that I must watch each of the damn things five times as I'm editing them. There's a simple explanation for this, however: I suck. You'll may find it useful to explain other things around here. Anyway, it's Holy Sharad, Sacred City (which sounds like a novelization of Undersea Kingdom by Jay McInerney).



Man, a tough one this week. Practically every scene had a plot beat of some kind, so if you're musical enough to notice the soundtrack jumping around a lot, that's why. I had to do most of the trimming within scenes, dropping out extraneous shots, shortening others, and so on. I talk a lot about this version having a brisk pace, but by golly, it could hardly get much more brisk this week, given the source material.

Fortunately, Undersea Kingdom doesn't go in for elaborate sound design. For instance, the scene in which Billy sneaks out of and around the Ho Sacred City (damn!), comes back in the gates, goes into the Juggernaut, and frees Crash was backed only with music, which made it a snap to edit. I simply removed the music from before Crash's leap, edited at will, dragged the music in point to the new beginning of the sequence, and put in a sound fade to cover the join with what came before. I did similar things in a couple other places.

A semi-cheat removed this week. The shot of the plane being hit showed it tumbling out of control. So I replaced it with the shot from next week, where it doesn't. I also added a shot of Crash et al unique to next week's recap, and generally moved around in and out points, to fit the timing of the soundtrack, especially the explosion. (Another thing that had me monkeying with timing was that, where possible, I replaced shots in the cliffhanger, which had very noticeable film damage, with their counterparts from next week's recap. But they tended to be a few frames shorter in the recap, for some reason, so...)