dünyayı kurtaran adamın Keith Allison kritiği, aylar önce koymuştum bi -
gene okuyup gene gene gani gülüp bi daha koymak istedim,
sabırla okunmalı - hayretler içinde yazılmış bi yazı

Lord knows I ain't a religious man. My last significant contribution to the
holy church came some twenty-two years ago when I, along with all the
other children, was called to the front of our small-town rural church for
a "kiddie sermon." It was a hot day with no air conditioning because God
likes to punish his followers, but also likes to string them along, so
everyone had those "paper on a popcicle stick" fans with weird paintings
of Jesus and Mary on them.

We sat on the floor in a poorly formed semicircle while the minister, fanning
himself fervently and no doubt trying to come up with a way to justify the
heat with something like, "Well, it's much hotter in hell, so don't do any
sinnin'," explained to us that God loves all people, even all the little people.
The legend goes that I raised my hand and asked, "You mean midgets?"

It was an historic occasion for several reasons. It was my first strike for the
rights of the short folks of this world, and it was my first -- not to mention
last -- regular day at church. Not that what I did was bad mind you, but the
heat and the whole midget thing just sort of showed my family that,
despite community pressure, we really weren't into this whole church
thing.

Oh sure, I went to church functions, usually youth groups at the bequest of
friends. These meetings always meant something like a free trip to King's
Island amusement park or one of those all night church lock-ins that, if all
went well, wound up with me and the "bad church girl" -- the one whose
shorts were too short, who smoked and listened to Stryper -- in the
deserted balcony of the chapel after all the lights went out. I know, I
know, some people go to hell for this sort of thing, and very few preachers
will buy the "I was running to third base for the Lord." Luckily, I'm not a
Christian, and among Pagans, getting a little nookie for the gods is nothing
but a good thing. Of course, I'm not really faithful enough to actually
believe in a pagan god either, so no matter how you slice it, I guess I'm
hellbound. And if I'm going to hell, then it's a good thing I took the chance
to get a little action in the chapel after hours when the opportunity arose.

I know this revelation may shock some of you who had me pegged for an
upstanding, moral member of the Christian community. See, my big
problem with not being a sinner is that, well, to be honest, a lot of those
sins are really fun.

Well, a lot of my sinnin' is behind me, though I figure if I'm already gonna
burn in hell, I should go ahead and start sinnin' again because, what the
hell? But all this goes to illustrate my point: I'm probably not among God's
Chosen even though I live amongst God's Chosen. Frankly, being the town
sinner suits me. So with that established, you can figure that I'm probably
not down on my knees very often praying to any gods, even those naked
Pagan ones.

And yet there are certain things in this world that cause even an
unrepentant heathen like me to drop to my knees and sing praise. These
things are rare, no doubt about it, but it is their rarity that gives them such
awesome power, power the likes of which we mortals seldom glance,
power the likes of which can only be wielded by men and women of
supernatural greatness, like Blackstone the Magician or the guy that
invented the "I can take my thumb off" joke. These things are granted to
us by artists of a talent beyond the scope of everyday man, and when
even a loathsome troglodyte like myself gazes upon their unspeakable
beauty, we are at once snared by their rapturous glory, an untold
greatness that knows no bounds.

At these precious moments, our eyes that have seen so much become like
the eyes of a newborn child. They fill with tears, sweet sweet tears of
unbridled joy. We fall to our knees and, in a meek, quivering whisper, can
utter no words other than, "Thank you."

It's often been said that the end of the world shall swoop down 'pon us all
out of the Middle East and shall wear a blue turban. My guess is it'll be Rip
Taylor dressed as a swami, but very few people seem to be behind me on
this one. Fools! I'll show you. I'll show you all! And when the end comes, I
shall stand above you and make you crawl, crawl I tell you!

Anyway, the end of the world may wear a blue turban, it may wear faded
dungarees and have a smoldering Chris Isaak "come hither" look. All I
know is that wherever the end of the world may come from, I found
salvation in Turkey.

You don't hear a whole lot about Turkey these days unless you collect belly
dancing records or smuggle a lot of opium. Ever since the whole Ottoman
Empire thing was reduced to a comfortable padded footstool, the Turks,
like most great former empires (when's the last time the Greeks or the
Mongols made headlines), have kept a fairly low profile. I'm sure if you are
Turkish, the affairs of Turkey play a pretty big role in your daily life, but if
you are not Turkish, you don't hear a whole heck of a lot about the place.
Very few people sit down to surf the internet and think to
themselves, "Hmm, I wonder what's hot in Turkey right now."

I really can't make too many comments about Turkey. The men seems
stylish or big and tough. The women seem pretty sexy. They have their fair
share of cackling old crones, but who doesn't? I've never been in a Turkish
prison, and up until recently, I'd seen very few Turkish films. I can now
upgrade that from "very few" to "a few." Well, I've seen one, and I've seen
lots of pictures from others, and all the pictures seem to involve people
killing each other or sultry, dark-haired, naked women smoking cigarettes
(possibly while killing someone). With that evidence to go on, I have to say
that Turkey makes some pretty enjoyable films.

Did I say "pretty enjoyable?" Well, in the case of the one Turkish film I
have bothered to hunt down and experience, allow me to indulge in a little
hyperbole. The film is called The Man Who Saved the World, though it's
commonly known simply as The Turkish Star Wars, and it is one of the
greatest movies ever made by anyone, anywhere.

The reason I love what I do is because just when I think I've seen the
weirdest damn movie I could possibly see, something even more bizarre
and warped rolls along. In once sense, it means every time you climb a
mountain, there is another mountain beyond it you must also climb. The
positive in this is that I enjoy hiking, and there's no end to the breath-
taking scenery and indescribable moments. There is always something
beyond where I am, always yet another phantasmagorical wonder waiting
in the wings to one day emerge and totally blow my mind.

The Man Who Saved the World is such a relic, and now that I have seen it,
I feel a little piece of my soul has finally been put in its proper place.

The movie opens with disco music and an exciting hand-drawn credit
sequence that seems to consist of someone lifting up sheets of black
construction paper with gold letters on them. It's slightly less impressive
than the credit sequence we developed my sophomore year of high school
for our shot-on-video production of Richard the Protagonist. From this
stunning sequence we segue immediately into, well, Star Wars, as in
George Lucas' last decent film before he became wildly delusional and
thought that dippy technological advances equaled quality film making.
Shots of X-Wing fighters, the Death Star, and Star Destroyers are intercut
with stock footage of a rocket taking off. From time to time they cut to a
grim looking Turkish guy in a super-duper motorcycle helmet sitting in a
fake cockpit while various space battle scenes from Star Wars are
projected behind him to give us the impression that he is part of this grand
space opera. Depending on the editing, he is at any given time piloting an
X-Wing fighter, a star destroyer, that rebel blockade runner, the Millennium
Falcon, or the Death Star itself.

Now I know what you are thinking: that's illegal, right? I mean, we have
copyright laws. Well, you know what Turkey thinks of your copyright laws?
They same thing India thinks of them. I once saw an Indian Superman film
in which every special effects scene from the big budget Hollywood film
starring Christopher Reeves was stolen, At one point, they even
superimposed the face of the Indian actor over Reeves' own face during a
flying scene. Face it, copyright laws are fine and dandy, but they're not
very much fun.

The main Turkish guy -- for shits and giggles let's call him Han Solo -- and
his best buddy are in this random space battle set to a disco cover of the
theme from Battlestar Galactica when they are shot down and crash land
on a desert planet that is not Tattoine but a less-than-amazing facsimile
there of. For some reason, this makes music from Raiders of the Lost Ark
and the 1980's Flash Gordon movie play as the two heroes dig themselves
out of ancient, crusted earth. Han Solo is, shall we say, slightly less than in
shape. If you have an uncle named Murray, this is probably him. It's difficult
to get behind a space hero who probably wears sock garters, but what
can you do?

They are wearing the clothing of manly warriors -- spandex trousers and
puffy, shiny Renaissance Festival shirts. How come people who make sci-fi
always think we're going to wear shiny disco clothes in the future? I mean,
it'd be one thing if these guys were going to a space nightclub, but these
are soldiers. Aren't military uniforms supposed to instill some sort of
psychological advantage? I mean, the Germans didn't need that little spike
on the top of their helmet during World War One. They put it there
because it looked cool and intimidating. Satin doesn't really say "military
might." There is nothing intimidating about tight-fitting disco clothes unless
the person wearing them is also saying, "Hi, I'm your date."

But no sooner do we start laughing at these two guys and their space
uniforms than they are attacked by what I shall liberally refer to
as "monsters." Creature design was apparently done by a bunch of drunk
frat guys preparing for Mardi Gras, as the monsters are very much of
the "giant chickenwire head covered with paper mache" style of special
make-up effects. There are also some guys who are supposed to be scary
robot-type guys. All things considered, they're at least tougher looking
than those slender little robots from Phantom Menace.

The two space guys fight them off using a series of strategically placed
trampolines and spend up photography. The kungfu choreography is very
much in tune with, say, the works of Benny Hill and Rudy Ray Moore. Only
instead of the Benny Hill theme, we're treated to more stolen music from
Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, if you're gonna swipe music, at least
swipe music that the whole world doesn't already know. John Woo's The
Killer stole almost its entire soundtrack from Red Heat, but who knew,
because who the hell gives a damn about Red Heat? But Raiders of the
Lost Ark is slightly more recognizable.

Despite the high-speed kungfu fury of the two fighter pilots -- which still
looks less stupid than your average ultra-undercranked Donnie Yen kungfu
debacle -- they are captured. They are then led to a gravel pit where the
evil Empire (no relation) spends the day picking on the local farmer types,
all of whom wear the official standard-issue "white gauze robes" of the
future. The evil robots and monsters -- let's call them storm troopers --
while away the hours on their boring desert planet by stabbing people and
squeezing little kids. Hey, this movie has kungfu and cheap gore! It's
already got everything that was missing from the actual Star Wars!

Han Solo and his sidekick, who we shall refer to as Luke for no particular
reason, stand around and grimace as they watch the torture of the
commoners. Finally, they do the "I've had alls I can stands, and I can't
stands no more!" thing and leap into high-speed kungfu action. These bad
guys are about as useful as the storm troopers from that other movie, and
Han and Luke kick their ass verily then lead the people to the Promised
Land. Actually, they lead them to a cave, with Han taking time out to make
eyes at a sexy peasant woman. See, because he is a more mature hero,
complete with poofy grey hair and old man gut, he is not put off by the fact
that she is a single mother struggling to make it in the cut-throat world of
tomorrow.

Han and Luke wind up not being very good at saving people, as the caves
in which they take refuge are populated by scary mummies, or possibly
guys who have been covered in plaster of Paris and spit wads. Several
more people get killed before they finally get to another cave, where yet
another monster bursts in on them! You know, the effects are crappy, but
they sure are plentiful. Sometimes, quantity is better than quality, and a
billion crummy looking monsters are certainly more fun than one cool
looking one.

After finally getting to a safe cave, Han and Luke begin training to take
revenge for the oppression of their new tribe. This involves indulging in
one of those musical montage "kungfu training scenes," where the heroes
do stuff like slap rocks. These guys also tie giant stones to their legs and
run marathons, only to cap it off by kicking huge boulders around like
soccer balls! Hercules, eat your immortal heart out! This is, of course, all
done to the disco-fied version of Battlestar Galactica.

His aged virility causes the peasant girl to fall in love with Han, and he
seems to love her as well. But there is no time for love in this violent
universe. It's been nearly three minutes since the last action scene, so it's
time to go at it again. And again! These guys fight like there's no
tomorrow. Again, the choreography may be more Jackie Mason than Jackie
Chan, but you certainly have to admire their energy and bravado.
Somewhere amid all the limb hacking and trampoline jumping, the young
dude is captured and brainwashed. Meanwhile, the old guy goes to get a
giant sword, and I mean giant! It's like nine feet long and has about thirty
curved prongs sticking off. It doesn't seem like the most manageable
weapon. But if we've learned anything about the future, it's that the
weapons will be really big. Every cheap-ass sci-fi film in the world
makes "future guns" by taking a regular gun and adding about twenty
pounds to it. Who the hell wants to carry a pistol the size of a
watermelon? I always figured the weapons would get smaller and more
powerful, like computers and Mascarita Sagrata Jr., but movie makers want
to have pistols the size of your arm and rifles the size of a very fat man.
Not to mention swords the size of a Doric column.

Oh yeah, the sword is guarded by golden mummies, so there's more
fightin'. At some point, they also go to a bar where scenes from the
Cantina in Star Wars are intercut with scenes of new monsters, which
again look like paper mache devils from Mardi Gras. Unfortunately, there
are no drunk college girls flashing their boobs.

Han must face off with his zombie-fied best friend (twice!) before finally
coming face to face with the evil ruler of the universe, who is equal parts
Darth Vader and Ming the Merciless.

What can you really say? This is just so damned bizarre that I can scarcely
fathom it. I mean, you may think For Your Height Only is a weird one, but
it's got nothing on this! It's a constant parade of bad monsters, worse
kungfu, stolen music and special effects, and non-stop action. I know some
movies claim to be "non-stop action," but this one actually delivers. I think
there's maybe five minutes in the whole thing that doesn't involve ass
kicking, and those five minutes are comprised of the out-of-shape old main
guy gazing at his new mamacita and saying, "Well, you're a fine mamma,
but I gotta go kick some ass."

Despite the fact that this is known as the Turkish Star Wars because of it's
special effects thievery, it has very little to do with that other film. Oh sure,
there's the galactic good versus evil thing, but Luke Skywalker fight
mummies and kick boulders across a field? Hell no. He was too busy
bullseying wamprats back home in his T-16 when he should have been
fighting paper mache-head devils and doing iron palm training. This is
basically a low-budget kungfu film set in space. Replace the space alien
guys with the Ch'ing empire, and you have 90% of the Shaw Brothers films
ever made, only with much worse kungfu and much sillier costumes. The
Man Who Saved the World has much more in common with Hong Kong and
Indian kungfu films than it has with George Lucas' film.

This is, from what I can gather, one of the very first, if not the first, Turkish
sci-fi film. And in much the same way that Tsui Hark decided to go all out in
Zu, the first modern-era Hong Kong special effects film, the makers of this
Turkish delight held nothing back. Well, except the budget, but not
everyone wants to go spending hundred of millions of dollars just to make
a stupid movie. George Lucas spend eight bazillion dollars on Phantom
Menace, and it's not even one-tenth as fun and exciting as this movie full
of a grey-haired guy with a beer gut and spindly little old man legs doing
Benny Hill kungfu on monsters, devils, robots, and mummies. Maybe
George should have watched this movie for a few lessons. But given that
all he talks about with episode two of his little series is that "it will have
even cooler technology than we used in episode one," I don't think that
stupid sumbitch learned a damn thing from the dismal reception of
Phantom Menace or from the glory of The Man Who Saved the World. In
complete and total honesty, if I was invited to a secret advanced screening
of Star Wars: Episode II with the entire cast, or a screening of The Man
Who Saved the World with Cuneyt Arkin sitting in the corner eating some
nachos, it'd be me and Cuneyt Arkin all the way. Maybe we'd invite Natalie
Portman around if she wasn't busy.

So once you take away the special effects they stole, this movie is not a
Star Wars rip off at all, even though lazy-ass people will dismiss it as such.
It's a movie about an old guy saving the world. It's called The Man Who
Saved the World, and by golly what it gives you is a man saving the world,
or at least a little portion of a very dismal world. How come these evil
emperors are always trying to conquer crappy desert planets? Who the
hell wants to rule a desert? I mean, okay, in Dune there was a reason, but
this desert has nothing but gravel and boulders. Maybe this movie is set in
a universe where gravel is as rare and precious as diamonds, and people
use diamonds to wipe their asses with just like we use gravel in this
universe. No, wait, I'm getting confused. That's malachite.

Movies like this transcend criticism. I mean, you can't sit there and go, "well
the editing left a lot to be desired," because if you do, someone's just
gonna haul off and sock you a good one in the kisser, and it'll probably be
me or the star of this film, Cuneyt Arkin. He was a big deal in Turkey at the
time and made all sorts of historical dramas and action films. He made
something like a trillion movies. He's got a filmography that would make
Jess Franco whistle and go, "Damn, Cuneyt Arkin, you made a lot of
movies."

And there's really no point in dismissing this film as "so bad it's good,"
because that's not what it is. I genuinely enjoyed the hell out of this film. I
thought it was wild and ambitious and filled with action. There was very
little kitsch in my enjoyment of the film. It's just fun, and sometimes that's
all I want. So check your snobbery at the door and prepare to have your
mind totally melted by the most warped, action-packed, kungfu-ful vision of
the future anyone has dared ever commit to celluloid. I can't guarantee
much in life, but I can damn sure guarantee that this is going to be one the
most fun times you've ever had watching a movie, unless you previously
watched a movie whilst fooling around with Selma Hayak, in which case
this movie is not going to be as fun as that, but will still be pretty damn
fun.