Our Plan of Defense Should the Armies of Fantasia Attack

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If there’s one thing Avatar has taught us, is that’s maybe we should see a movie before declaring that it sucks.  If there are two things Avatar (and Vietnam?) has taught us, then the second one is that superior technology doesn’t always trump a motivated society of warriors.  Enter Bastian Bux, perhaps the most formidable enemy our planet has ever encountered.

After naming the Childlike Empress, Bastian has become powerful enough to open a gateway between our world and Fantasia.  We know that Bastian hates bullies and, unfortunately for us, he views the glorious beacon of freedom we call America as the biggest bully in the world.  With the help of Atreyu, Falkor, and the rest of the characters from The Neverending Story, Bastian has launched a full-scale attack on our homeland.  Not to worry, my fellow patriots: I’ve seen The Neverending Story 163 times and have devised a battle plan to obliterate Bastian and his Fantasian minions.

If we follow my plan, we can see to it that Bastian dies like the scum he is.  Bastian’s forces will strike from the land, sea, and air, but by exploiting their weaknesses, America can and will prevail.  I will briefly touch on each enemy we may encounter and how we can defeat them:

Atreyu & Artax

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Methinks Artax would look great inside a bottle of Elmer’s.

Don’t be fooled by Atreyu’s youth or lack of size.  He is a formidable warrior, and because of his indomitable spirit and years of hunting the purple buffalo, Atreyu is capable of defeating enemies much larger and stronger than himself.  His steed, Artax, is loyal to Atreyu and can traverse great distances with minimal effort.  To defeat this pair, I recommend taking out Artax first, if only to neutralize Atreyu’s mobility.

We know that Artax suffers from low self esteem and will succumb to despair and depression.  The Swamps of Sadness overwhelmed Artax, so I suggest employing a strategy that humiliates and degrades Artax.  We’ll set up a giant loudspeaker, projecting insults at Artax nonstop.  Tell him he’s hung like a dog and that you saw his mother performing on stage in a Mexican sex show.  After asking Artax for the 100th time, “Why the long face?”, the depression will be too much for him to overcome.  Artax will surrender, forcing Atreyu to dismount and fight without his steed.  Ground troops will make quick work of Artax, slaying him and then shipping his corpse to the glue factory.

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How about some nerve gas, Atreyu?

Without Artax, Atreyu is still dangerous.  As he’s one of Fantasia’s finest warriors, attacking Atreyu with conventional weapons would be a mistake,  I’m pretty sure there’s no nerve gas in Fantasia, so it’s unlikely that Atreyu would know how to counter such a strike.  With his mobility minimized, an attack with chemical weapons would eliminate Fantasia’s alpha dog.  To send a message to the rest of the Fantasians, Atreyu’s body would be donated to necrophiliacs.  The result would be videotaped and sent to the Ivory Towerin an attempt to lower Fantasian morale.

The Childlike Empress

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Have fun surviving without a new name, sweetie.

The best strategy against the Childlike Empress is to avoid her altogether.  She’s given no indication that she can individually attack with any force, and it was Bastian, not the Empress, who became powerful after Atreyu brought Bastian into Fantasia.  Eventually, with hopes and dreams crushed as they tend to be in our hateful, cynical, self-destructive society sometimes are in this country, the Empress will once again fall ill.  The U.S. government will instruct its citizens not to give her anything – especially a new name – and that everyone is forbidden from speaking with her.  Failure to comply with these instructions will result in the offender being shipped off to a camp and detained, denied a lawyer, and tortured…indefinitely.  Soon enough, the Empress will fall sick and experience so much pain that she will pray for death in between bouts of coughing up blood.

The Rockbiter

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Big, strong hands are no match for a nuclear warhead.

The Rockbiter craves delicious rocks and seems to gain energy from their consumption.  He may be made out of rock, but he ain’t indestructible.  We’ll patrol areas that contain large deposits of the Rockbiter’s favorite rocks and when he appears, we drop the nuke.  Whatever rocks are left are immediately renamed “Freedom Stones” and sold on the street in New York City.

Nighthob & Stupid Bat

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The Nighthob’s days of hang gliding are near their end…

While not very powerful, the Nighthob and his Stupid Bat could pose problems from above.  The Stupid Bat can stun and incapacitate enemies with its powerful sonar, but if left alone long enough, will fall asleep.  As such, the strategy here is simple: target the Stupid Bat from afar, and when it starts to doze off, fire a surface-to-air missile at it.  The explosion will destroy the Stupid Bat, and if the Nighthob should survive, his long fall to the Earth will do him in.  His skin should be scraped from the ground and made into a suit for one of the American generals to wear.

Teeny Weeny & The Racing Snail

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These guys get it the worst of all.  Why?  Why not?

The Racing Snail is likely to be too quick for our tanks and may even be able to evade strikes from the sky.  That’s not a problem, though.  A battalion of soldiers, both in vehicle and on foot, will drive Teeny Weeny and his Racing Snail to a predetermined location where the ground is covered with salt.  The Snail’s membrane will disintegrate and the salt will soon eat away at its skin, a process so painful that it will paralyze the overgrown gastropod.  Now comes the fun part where we send a real message to Fantasia about what kind of soldiers we have.  With the Teeny Weeny held down and forced to watch, a gang of soldiers wielding baseball bats crush the Snail’s shell and bash the Snail to mush.  And the general who was supposed to wear the Nighthob’s skin?  Well, he gets to beat that little dandy Teeny Weeny to a pulp with his baseball bat, Casino-style.

Gmork

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This guy will be on our side if we make it worth his while.

There’s no reason to fight Gmork.  What, you think an awesome wolf like Gmork would be down with squares like Bastian and Falkor?  No way.  Gmork hungers for power, which makes him corruptible.  Simply put, after a sit down with government officials, Gmork would be siding with the good ol’ U S of A.

Morla

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We’re gonna have to break out the hardcore stuff for Morla.

I’m not going to lie.  Morla worries me.  She’s insane (she refers to herself as “we”), so she’ll attack with reckless abandon and without much regard to her own safety.  Morla’s shell is itself Shell Mountain, and can provide protection against missiles and bombs.  With enough aggression, the behemoth Morla could devour our entire naval fleet.  Morla will stay in the water, where she’ll be almost impossible to harm with conventional weapons.  Fortunately for us, though, is the fact that Morla has a very weak immune system.  I take it you’re thinking what I’m thinking: biological weapons.  Even Morla’s shell is no match for the Ebola virus.

Engywook & Urgl

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Assets.  Expendable assets.

Urgl poses no threat whatsoever, so she should be kidnapped as part of a scheme to coerce the scientist Engywook into designing a powerful biological weapon that affects only Fantasians.  Engywook’s intellect can be a great asset to Fantasia, so it is essential that any action he takes is on behalf of the United States.  Engywook’s weapon will be tested on Urgl.  After the war, Engywook and Urgl – if she happens to survive the experiments – will be given an acre of land and a telescope as a token of the country’s appreciation.

Bastian & Falkor

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We saved the best – and toughest – for last.  Bastian can create anything in Fantasia simply by wishing it to exist, and with his newly-opened gateway, there’s no telling what sort of help he may conjure.  He rides on the back of the luckdragon Falkor, a large, flying beast with an uncanny ability to overcome all sorts of odds.  Like with Atreyu and Artax, Bastian and Falkor are easier to defeat once they are separated, and also like the former, the mount should be attacked first.

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Let this creatures head sevre as a warning to all those who oppose this country.

We know three things about Falkor: 1) he has boogers the size of footballs, 2) he HATES minorities, and 3) he has very good luck.  Of these three snippets of knowledge, only number (3) can help us.  Whether Falkor’s good luck comes from a magical aura or a luck-producing gland in his brain, it follows that luck can indeed be manipulated.  To counter Falkor’s good luck, thousands of black house cats will be gathered and marched across his path, and countless mirrors will be hurled in his direction, hopefully shattering against his body.  With his good luck neutralized, Falkor becomes susceptible to missile attacks from jet fighters.  Once he’s dead. Falkor’s head will be severed from his body and placed on a spike on the front lawn of the White House so that all can see the massive luckdragon’s eyes rolled back in his head and his large, limp tongue hanging out of his rotting mouth.  The real fun begins when the flies gather and the stench manifests.

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Forcing Bastian to grow up is our best bet.

If Bastian isn’t killed by the missiles fired at Falkor, we better hope that he’s knocked out.  It’s actually better if he’s captured alive, as I’ll explain below.  In the event that Bastian survives and remains conscious (a possibility due to the seemingly limitless allies he can summon from Fantasia), the government will have no choice but to gas the entire country.  I know it sounds drastic, but it’s necessary to preserve our way of life.  The land will be gassed with a sleeping agent – nothing lethal – and once unconscious, Bastian will be taken into custody.  And to prevent Bastian from donning a gas mask of his own, all we need to do is employ a bit of reverse psychology.

Remember, Bastian stole The Neverending Story from the bookstore only after he was told not to.  As such, the United States will declare that gas masks are mandatory for all its citizens.  Bastian will undoubtedly refuse to wear a gas mask; his penchant for disobedience will prove to be his fatal flaw.  After capture, Bastian will be put into an articifical coma and slowly brought back to lucidity, given only Newsweek and The Economist to read, with an occasional edition of the Wall Street Journal.  Bastian will grow up and stop imagining, causing the Nothing to engulf and destroy Fantasia forever, necessarily deleting any gateways, as well.  U.S. troops will finish off any remaining invaders and Bastian, now an adult, will be tried as a war criminal.  He’ll be found guilty and publicly executed by beheading.  Moonchiii-CHOP!

You do not f*ck with the United States of America.

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6 Comments

  1. mhm, well this essey is very different from the other articles on this site. I like it(!), because it’s something new. You should do more weird monologues.
    Any way am I reading it correct, that you are saying (long story shot) that super duper graphics don’t make a good movie. Well I guess lot’s of people agree with that. Everyone I’d call intelligent does. (“long story shot” is not a pun referencing to the article ^^)
    Good story or bad story, Paul shirley is right, when he is saying that it’s importent someone made Avatar. I guess it’s just “lets make an overwhelming story” and “let’s buy the best graphic’s” because both aspects interfere and a story get’s meh once it looks too good. Garden State would be a super pseudo if you’d change the setting or replace the noname characters.
    But the fact that you choosed the never ending story makes it difficult for me to stop the interpretation there. I mean more that every other book ever, more than LotR or whatever, The Never Ending story is the movie that should have Never be allowed to make a film of. I must say I like the movie, because I say it abou 164 times as a kind, but the essence of the story is that it’s all about fantasy and the modern world is loosing it. If you create all the pictures by making a movie then everyone is told the same story, despite when you read a book everyone has a different picture of all the creatures of phantasia. The book is also totally different from the movie in the sence that, like Dune, there is a story behind everything. Also, the original book feels kinda more real, since fantasy and reality are, in the beginning of the story seperated in two colors. there are green pages, and there are red pages. In the end it’s not so clear anymore. And I mean if you read 2 pages in the book you find out that Bastian is a fat kid for example.
    But to come back to Avatar, I think that’s a general problem I have. I like cool graphics, as I want the sun and the spaceship in sunshine to look real, but I don’t want to get to the point, where I can’t destinguish between real or animated persons. On the one had it’s a bit scary. But the other point, and here comes the never ending story, is that I don’t wan’t it to be, that there is no fantasy which you can’t bring to sceen. Because where is the fantasy then? omg it’s the nothing!

  2. @ Lagrange

    No, there’s really nosubtext at all to this article. It isn’t a statement about politics (not really, anyway), and it isn’t a statement about the film industry. I just wanted to have some fun.

    I’m glad you enjoyed it, though- that’s really the whole point.

  3. To the Vietnam point here and “jokes” about War I sure am on Madisons side! I mean if the vietnamese people would have straight forewardly won the war, there maybe would be a movie today called Inglourious basterds where vietnamese people laght at slaughtering americans.
    *Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Marine scalps!*
    “Yay! Yeah buddy, looks like a fun movie to watch, the american’s deserve it after all. Let’s buy some tickets for the cinema!”

    You know what I mean?
    It’s always the winners who write the history books.

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