Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:43:02 -0400 
From: Louis Blair <lb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Cool World and Bakshi: Brin reply
	<1992Jul21.145447.31836@eecs.nwu.edu>
Distribution: na

David Brin wrote:
>The other brother works hard, loves a wife and child,

Michael L. Kaufman writes:
>I have been reading this on and off, but this one line just begs
>to be discredited. From the film:
>
>Other brother (name escapes me): Will it be a male or a female?
>Assistant: Female, the signs say, Milord.
>Other Brother: The next one woun't be.
>Wife (crys out): You'll not have her killed...
>(later, near the end of the film, the wife comes out with the body
>of the baby)
>
>Leaving aside the "works Hard" as that is not necessarily a good
>thing - it depends on what he is working hard for - I am not sure
>where you got the "loves a wife a child". Are you saying that he
>is planning on loving a male child, if and when his wife has one?
>Or are you saying that somehow you feel that he loves the female
>baby, even though he has her killed?

I agree with you that what Brin wrote was nonsense, but your
own version of what happened is slightly garbled.  The evil
wizard says something like this to the woman, "You are
young to be queen ..."  The woman reacts with surprise to
this.  Obviously she has not been led to think of herself as
the evil wizard's wife up to this point.  Nor is she getting a
real proposal now.  The evil wizard continues, "but deliver
me a son and you will help me rule this planet."  Sounds to
me as though she can only expect to be discarded if she doesn't
produce an offspring of the proper sex.  Some lover, huh?
The woman replies, "I don't want to rule the planet.  Our
kingdom is enough."  "Enough!", the evil wizard says
sharply, and the woman raises her arm obviously expecting
to be struck.  Presumably this reaction is based on past
experience.  The evil wizard then launches into a tirade
about how he can't be content with ruling only Scorch
because he wants to live in the goodlands.  Some people
have taken this to mean that someone is forcing the evil
wizard to live in Scorch, but he NEVER says that, and
there is plenty in the film to contradict this idea.  It is
clearly indicated elsewhere in the film that the evil
wizard went to Scorch by choice.  It was the only place
where he could be a ruler.  He would only consider
going elsewhere if he could be a ruler elsewhere.  When
his assistants tell him that his off-spring will be a mutant
he says with resolve that the next one won't be a mutant.
He expects to soon be able to live as ruler anywhere he
wants.  The possibility of living without being a ruler
does not occur to him.  At this point the woman pleads
with the evil wizard to not have the not-yet-born child
killed.  The evil wizard does not answer.  Later we see
that the child has been born (room for a sequel there)
and not killed (as far as I could tell anyway), but it is
not clear whether or not the evil wizard has decided to
spare the child or simply has not gotten around to killing
it yet.  I'm not sure why Kaufman thinks that the child
was dead in the later scene.  Perhaps I missed something.
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