Songs for the Bewildered: Space Invaders
As part of an ongoing project to make my 14-month-old daughter as gargantuan a nerd as her daddy, I recently decorated half her room with a charming Space Invaders motif. It rocks. And she loves it (or appears to). In your face, Peppa fucking Pig!
Anyway, said decorating job put me (unsurprisingly) in a Space Invaders-y mood. So off to the internets I went in search of weird 'n' wonderful delights. I'm glad I did. Because I found this.
Like most classic arcade games, Space Invaders was not overly forthcoming with back-story or context. It gave you a ship. It showed you where to point it. And it implored you to shoot the living shit out of everything. Till you were dead.
What breakdown in galactic diplomacy had led to the invasion? We never knew. Nor did we care. We didn't even know much about our enemies' true faces – save for some crude (probably propagandic) cabinet art designed to make 'em look as monstrous as possible.
Into this breach of relative ignorance swooped (Australia's?) Player One – a band nobly determined to show young men & women just who it was they were fighting. I think…
Far from being lumbering, thuggish and fur-covered monsters, the invaders were (it would seem) intelligences of the cool, detached, and "standing around in a dark cavernous space wearing flowing cowls" variety. They may have looked freaky (blank mannequin faces and glowing LED eyes) but they seemed (otherwise) fairly harmless. Their favoured (only?) activity appeared to involve turning slowly toward camera. Hardly an intergalactic war crime.
The trouble with being a cool, detached, stand-y & stare-y type alien (of course) is that you leave yourself wide open to being strolled up to and shot at point-blank range (as happens above at 1:35). Brains are grand and all that. But being able to run away, or roll behind a barrel, is undeniably handy.
I'm assuming (though Player One's fragmented narrative never makes this entirely clear) that the assassins were part of some Earth-originating infiltration force. If so, then, y'know, this flies like totally in the face of established Space Invaders continuity. How did we get the lads aboard? Where did we get shuttle craft or transporter capabilities from? I mean, there was only one bloody giant tank defending the whole damn planet as far as I recall.
It's a conceptual nightmare. The campaign for a Director's Cut to address these (scoff!) glaring deficiencies starts here.
March 14, 2010
2 responses to Songs for the Bewildered: Space Invaders
Having such a vague back story made it easily adaptable. One of my favourite pieces of spin-off paraphernalia was an action-packed glow-in-the-dark poster from the Weetabix Club. It depicted the Weetabixes attempting to destroy the Titchies, who were predictably cast as the evil invaders.
love it,
Came to the sight through google image for the side art and read the post aswel… I virtually never do that.
Good stuff