Their arrows shall block out the sun.

The English Longbow is one of Medieval Europe's most deadly weapons. The powerful bow, in the hands of a skilled archer, could launch an arrow hundreds of feet across a battlefield, and then punch through steel plate armor when it fell back to Earth, sending on even the most powerful knight to push up the daisies. The English would rain thousands of arrows down on the heads of their enemies. All until the French finally wised up and stayed inside of their castles and the longbow was superseded by firearms.

Ben Franklin wanted to use massed bows against the English during the Revolution, in place of expensive Muskets and the hard to acquire gun powder. The American Continent had tons of trees, so why not make powerful bows out of them and wipe out the English with their own ancient weapons?

Good question Ben. The answer? Well, Archery isn't an easy skill to master. With firearms such as the muskets of the period, all one would really need to do was to point a loaded weapon in the general direction of the enemy and pull the trigger. Range and accuracy were both dismal, but it was a weapon that was easy to learn to operate, especially when battles were fought with large blocks of soldiers just hammering away at one another.

By comparison to become proficient with the English longbow takes years of careful training.. Years, maybe even decades to master. The English Peasants were required by law to start their training in childhood and practice weekly as required by law. The longbow was the weapon of farmers and other peasants. Men who built up enormous physical strength to draw back the string, not just once but dozens of times over the course of a battle.

I've tried shooting a bow a couple times. And to use an old saw, if it weren't for gravity, I wouldn't be able to hit the ground. Yeah, it isn't nearly as easy as it looks. Pull back string, hit target. Try this, pull back string, drop arrow, curse, pick up arrow, put arrow back on string, drop again. Repeat. Finally, pull back string, release, miss target, lose arrow. Swallow rage. Go back inside and drink.

It's a fun sport I tells ya.

Why bother with a bow then? When it requires all that work? When there are firearms just lying about? Ever try and make a single round of ammunition for that 12 gauge shotgun? Huh? Now that takes know-how. A combination of chemistry and mechanics and metallurgy. Most human cultures were able to tie some rope to a branch and create a working bow and arrow system. How many of them went on to manufacture Repeater rifles?

Here's a great primer on what you need to make a bow using a sapling. Though it does

Global Warming: Man, I just don't have a positive view of humanity, must be, since most of my reasons for picking up these skills are martial in nature. Well, getting your hands on a lithe young sapling to create a bow might be difficult at best. Don't get me started on the arrows. But bows can be made out of other substances besides wood. Bone and sinew from animals were used to make wonderfully powerful bows in the early days of civilization. Anyhow, why use one? Well, ever heard of the phrase “Slower than wet gun-powder”? Yeah, guns, and all of their components don't respond well to moisture. Moisture of which the sea is largely comprised. Then again, neither do bows or their strings. Damn it, you might want to just go Medieval and stick with swords. But swords will rust. Fuck you nature!

Alien invasion: Oh yeah. Bows against blasters. A cage fight between the most primitive weapons known to mankind, and the most advanced. Those slags and chigs don't stand a chance. Especially if someone remembers to bring along their copy of Poor Man's James Bond to the party. Specifically that section about making exploding arrow heads. Picture it, a beefy sweaty dude with a speech impediment and a severe case of PTSD, running through the woods 'sploding skin-jobs with his wacky bag of arrow grenades. All of our movies have taught us one thing, a lone ex-special forces maniac running through the woods half-naked and with the simplest weapons can take down the most bad-assed of foes. Worked in the Rambo movies. And in Predator, you can't forget Predator, in fact, Predator proved that we need to abandon all of our hifalutin tech for mud and spears. LONG LIVE ARCHERY! DOWN WITH THE SPLOOGIES! 4/5

I don't feel the need to expand further. I don't think that there's anywhere else to go. After civilization collapses we'll regress a bit, and firearms will become largely worthless. But that's ok, because exploding arrows are easy to make! Rambo was right on the awesomeness of using a bow. As a whole the weapon is nearly silent compared to an off the shelf model of any firearm.

< scenario >

He heard the roar of the motorcycles long before you catch that glint of sun on the chrome of the leader's gas-tank. Ten, twenty, thirty. More. Roll into the little village that you made your home after weeks of wandering. Empty and safe, but most importantly there were no memories there. Just a blank slate. One helped by the well stocked saloon where you finally made your residence.

All that changed as the gang of hyenas tore into your territory, their weapons speaking with thunder as they smashed windows and ransacked the stores along main street. The noise. They each and every man, and most of the women, were armed. With bellows of laughter they stripped the furniture shop of anything that would burn and piled their booty into a hill in the middle of the street. Smoke and a red glow greeted the stars as the twilight gave way to full night.

Fire was their god. And they worshiped the flames with drunken revelry that would make Pan himself blush and turn his head in disgust. And worse. Not all of the figures below were members of the gang. Some were being dragged off into the shadows that flickered and danced at the edge of the fire's glow. Most seemed too shocked to resist.

He grit his teeth as his hand reached for his bow. Two full quivers. He needed to make every single shaft count.

< /scenario >

And, if you manage to take down a whole effin roving biker gang, one that's armed with machine guns, using just your bow - well that just elevates you to a whole new level of badassery. One inhabited by the likes of Godzilla, Bruce Lee and Superman.

Netflix is my dealer. Revised.

Gangland. 2000.

I do love the post apocalyptic and dystopian genres. Almost as much as I love to state the obvious. Movies, books, comics or daydreams. Whatever takes me away to a time after civilization has fallen. I like the idea of scavenging deserted cities in a post-apocalyptic future. Cities where only gangs roam. Zombies, or plagues, or alien invasions. Blah, blah blag. I'll give just about any title in the genre a go. This is a sickness, I know. Netflix doesn't help either. They have tons of movies available any time of the day. Netflix is one horrible enabler for a sad wretch like myself. Oh baby, just one more hit for me before I hit the road.

Hell, do it in Lego and we'll be good.

Add this to the fact that I have netflix, and the ability to stream many low budget films instantly. It has to be low budget too, since in most cases the Post-Apocalyptic genre is at the fringes of popular culture. I have to imagine that it's difficult to get proper funding. Still, Gangland had some sort of budget to work with. It wasn't large, but they were a professional crew, and not a bunch of amateur college students.

Gangland starts out with some stock footage of nuclear weapons going off. There's a monologue about the war and how it ended with the bomb, and then an onset of Ebola mutated by the radioactive fallout. Good times. Civilization is collapsing as the police are no longer able to keep control due to attrition of their numbers and the rise in gangs. That's right, the gangs have united and taken over the cities all across the country. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

You got all of that? We're not moving too fast for you here? Gangland is a combination of Mad Max and Warriors. Or maybe Surf Nazis Must Die (though I only managed to watch a half hour or so of Surf Nazis before my brain rebelled.)

Made in 2001, and set approximately 10 years in the future (or last summer), Gangland is a film about war, plague and the break down of human society and how individuals cope. Or at least I think that might be what the writers are telling themselves. Really, the movie seems to ask the age old question. “How many shirtless, muscular dudes can we stuff into leather pants and get on-screen at one time?” The answer, a lot. There are only a few token female breasts (mostly slaves and implied rape victims) and most of the rest of the screen-time is filled with big beefy men. I think that somewhere along the way in the production process a gay man saw 300, and said “I want to do that, but with bikers!” - though there is a major hole in my theory. 300 came five years later. Clearly someone on the team felt that there wasn't nearly enough softcore gay porn available in the world.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it seems that Gangland was wrangled by a crew who cut their teeth in porn. In addition to the beefy, mostly naked dudes, they throw in a couple of hot sex-slaves of the Asian persuasion. I think this can be seen as a definite precursor to the later film 300, where the director throws in a red herring to disguise the fact that the audience is viewing Gay Porn. Asian girls in mini-skirts? People running around in leather? Definite Fetish Film!

The movie is littered with symbolism. I don't mean riddled. I mean littered. Someone opened up a proverbial can of symbols and then drenched the script with it. What's a can of symbols? Well it's sort of like a can of whup-ass, only it smells a lot like a jar of Mayo that's been sitting in the sun for a week. To start out we have a conflict between Coolio and Ice T. This would be a bit like pairing Cheech Moran with Danny Trejo. Not quite, but close. They're portraying police officers just as the works is really going to hell. One is still a good cop, while the other is becoming corrupted and evil. The beginning of Gangland is almost like an analogy of the Hiphop industry during the 90s. Down to the street brawl that wraps it up!

Enter Lucifer, the new King of Los Angles. The story takes place in LaLaLand, where most of the characters seem intent on fleeing (that is, all non-gang members) to Phoenix. Get it? Oh yeah, that's American subtlety at it's best! But at least they try to add some sub-context. They were thinking about about injecting some deeper meaning into their story. Better luck next time guys, but damn good effort.

Ok, I can accept all of this. I can suspend disbelief, this is how I managed to enjoy Ghosthunters. It's why I watch movies in the first place, to be whisked off to a fantasy world and entertained by the story, if only for a little while. But the movie takes place in Los Angeles. Why are ALL of the gang members white? This is LA, home of the Crips and Bloods. Latinos make up half of the population of the city. Blacks and Asians each make up another ten percent. Where are all the people of color? If the movie was shot in LA, they should have had plenty of available talent. LA is crawling with non-white gangs.

Back is the Harry Potter Heroic Lineup. One smart woman. One slightly above average man as the leader. One really dumb guy to play sidekick to slightly above average man who's the leader. That's ok, since the heros are pitted against utter retards. How can it tell? Imagine you're in a violent street-gang that runs the city and kills civilians for pleasure. You encounter a couple unarmed dooffi(the plural for doofus), on a bridge, standing next to a overheated car. Your gang decides to toy with them a bit, but the doofi show spunk and show their mad kung fu skills. Do you:

A. Join the fray with your bare hands and out Bruce Lee them!
B: Find a stick and go in swinging!
C: SHOOT THEM WITH YOUR FUCKING GUN!

Guess what happened? Guess. Yeah. It got worse, the scene ended tragically with a slow motion extended “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” sequence on the part of one of the heroes. I laughed at this. Does that make me a bad person? There was another point that I laughed at the big dumb guy, at the finish of another scene that was meant to be traumatic. I can't help it, he was one of those dudes who kept up a running commentary, talking and talking, no matter that he had nothing to say. Fuck him, says I, fuck him with a chainsaw wrapped in barbed wire.

The heroes aren't much better than the villains. They were facing a psychopathic gang of thugs who were terrorizing a city. A gang that spent its time slaves and raping and murdering all over the place and generally carrying on ugly. What tactic do the heroes choose? Shoot them in the face so that they can't continue their reign of terror? Nay Nay. Cut their throats with a knife. Never! That might be messy! They just choose to beat the gangsters into submission and then run away.(In fairness, fearless leader did use the dreaded cock-punch technique once) That of course is unless they have a gun. Then they just shoot wildly, firing hundreds of rounds without ever re-loading. I believe in the final confrontation with Lucifer, the Light-Bringer is armed with naught but a six-shooter. After firing at least fifteen rounds, he's overcome and performs his loud and dramatic death, all to the tune of firing another eight shots.

Finally there was the big girl fistfight where Hermione met her nemesis. A statuesque woman clad in tight leather. Because tight leather is the ideal clothing for fighting in. There's no real explanation for any of this. They didn't meet previously, so there's no feud between them that has become more bitter with each encounter. They just randomly meet in the woods and throw down like a couple of men, trading punches and kicks. At no point does either of the combatants go for a titty. Never. Sure that might hurt the actresses, especially since Nemesis clearly is sporting an excess of silicone. One punch and she's down for good. Maybe Hermione ain't so bright after all. Of course intelligence is rather relative, and she's smarter than her two companions.

I think that the writers had a bit too much material for 90 minutes, and had to cut some of the character development. Because man, those boring fight sequences take a lot of time, as the actors keep repeating the same moves over and over and over again.

Clearly Gangland was about 15 years too late. It should have been made in the mid-eighties where it would have been about on par. This isn't the worst movie I've ever seen. In fact it, with the exception of a couple times where I got up and got a beverage, Gangland kept my attention. So, it's entertaining, if stupid. It would have made a fine episode of MST3K.

2/5

Now, what did this movie teach us?

First, a personal lesson. If we're thrown together due to the end of the world, and you're a chatty bitch who is completely incapable of silence for protracted periods(The Big Dumb Guy from the movie). Big dumb guy, with his inability to shut the fuck up, is going to get everyone killed when he Someone who lacks a filter between your ears that prevents you from voicing every flicker of neuro-energy... Then I'm gonna shoot you. In the face. Until I'm completely out of ammunition or you're completely out of face. Whichever happens first. It's either that or you're wearing a ball-gag for the duration. Your choice.

Now for the broader view.

Martial arts. Everyone in the apocalypse seems to have some proficiency of various forms. It would seem that you either need to become a master of Drunken Style KungFu, or pretty effing good at Parkour. One or the other. Preferably both.

Nowhere that I recall was rope used in this movie. The villains used chain in their torture chamber, which is like the evil half-brother of rope. I bet that the heroes would have been much better off if they had carried a few lengths with them and tied some knots. Maybe they wouldn't have had to flee the first battle had they climbed up the side of Lucifer's fortress instead of barging through the front door. But alas, they didn't follow the teachings of Sir Charles of Bronson.

Automotive Mechanics. Big McStupid would have been in a lot better shape if either he, or his brother, knew thing one about cars. Instead, they got trapped on a bridge and molested by a biker gang. Sure, the movie would have taken a different turn. But it would have been a vast improvement.

Sweet Bludgeony goodness. Like mom usta make!

Warhammers. And why I favor them for the Zombie Apocalypse. First, take a look at this video. That's right, a large man beating on things with a warhammer. I've linked it before in at least one of the previous blogs. I love watching destruction set to heavy electric guitar riffs.

The warhammer evolved during the reign of plate mail armor as a way to counteract the heavy steel plates that would deflect swords and the like. The leverage of the heavy head at the end of a long handle creates a lot of force and power, especially when focused on a small area, like the front face of the hammer. Those steel plates would crumple like tinfoil when pitted against a warhammer wielded by a strong arm. This is what makes it ideal for me against the zombie hordes. A single blow can shatter a skull, killing the zombie instantly, or crush the bones and slow it down. Very little finesse is needed. No need to aim for the neck, or other small targets.

The warhammer, unlike the sword is easy to manufacture. Either as a cobbled together weapon made in a pinch or as a weapon crafted by a smith. A good sword can take a skilled smith weeks of work to make. One sword. Conceivably A hammer head can be easily cast out of molten steel. It may not be the highest quality hammer ever made, but it would be fast to manufacture and mass produce making it easy to replace. If the handle breaks, you just need to find another treebranch and wittle it down to size.

Ok, so you have a hammer. Sweet. Now for the daily maintenance of your weapon. Has the shaft cracked? Is the head loose? No? Then you're in good shape. You have time for that nap. The hammer is, at least in my mind – and I could be wrong, a low-maintenance tool. As a bludgeon, it doesn't require sharpening like the blade of a sword/knife/axe in order to retain it's function.

The only downside I can really think of for the warhammer is that it requires a lot of room to properly operate. Wielding a warhammer is simple. Swing it up over your head and then bring it down onto your target. Enjoy the wonderful cracking sound as bone shatters. But that upswing requires room over your head to work. Working the hammer inside cramped spaces might be all but impossible. Which is where a sword would come into it's own, as it is more versatile. My thought is to add a pointed spike to the top of the hammer. Or maybe a blade. Then you can crush and stab. Merry Christmas!

I've thought about this for a long time. I think that's clear. And rather pathetic. No time wasted exploring the deeper meaning of the universe, or thinking about boobies. No, I was rating medieval weaponry for the coming zombie uprising. I gave one of the characters in my zombie apocalypse series a warhammer. It seemed cool to me, and was more utilitarian and functional than say a katana or battle-axe. As well as generally looked over by geek culture and its fascination with bladed weapons.

This is all assuming that lightsabres are still unavailable.