Interstella 5555: the 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (part 5)

At this rate, this is due to be a six parter after all. I think I need to learn to be less verbose, but then...the visual nature of this story just neccessitates so dang many screenshots that that barely even matters. Well, regardless, the four surviving Tealiosians are driving up the spooky mountains toward what looks like Literally Icecrown Glacier to confront Robotwig. If he's home. If not, then I guess they'll just break into his mansion and draw dicks on the faces of all the framed photos or something, I don't know.

Track 11: "Veridis Quo"​

A mournful, meandering tune. Long, rising in energy, but never reaching any sort of climax or conclusion. The title can be translated as either "to where?" or "for what purpose?" The meanings as they relate to the accompanying movie sequence are...well, some of them are already obvious. Others will become so shortly. This is where Interstella 5555 gets weird.

Their drive takes them high up into the mountains. High enough for it to be snowing, even in what appears to be late spring or early summer. The modern road gives way to a...plateau? I think...covered in these stone spikes that look like stalagmites even though they're not underground. Just evil spikes, because this is an evil mountaintop, I guess. The Darkwood Manor comes into view, and "manor" isn't really the right word. More like "castle." And when I say castle, I don't mean something that a medieval king would build, I mean something that an over-ambitious RPG designer would build.

They drive as close to the entrance as their van can navigate, and then get out and struggle up the hazardously high, narrow, and slippery walkway toward the front door. You know, if this place is above the treeline, how come it's called "darkwood?" This breaks my suspension of disbelief and ruins the entire movie. Anyway, the stone door is locked, but the holographic doohickey that Sahn'Hik gave them comes to life and...hacks?...the door. It looks like it's hacking into the door. I guess maybe there's a bunch of computerized tech built into it...or wait, no, the door just vanishes like a hologram after the device finishes its work.

Maybe this whole castle is actually a hard light construct or something? That would actually make more sense than just about anything else, tbh. Heck, maybe the "castle" is just the Shark spread out over the mountaintop its landed on and disguised as yet another form. Well, if so we can hopefully fly this baby back to Transexual Transylvania.

They enter the spooky baroque foyer. There doesn't seem to be anyone home, but with a castle (or "castle" as it may be) this large it's very hard to tell that for sure.

Castles don't have phones asshole!​

There were no other vehicles in sight from the outside, but given Robotwig's penchant for shapeshifting vehicles and hidden facilities that may not mean anything. For now, the Crescendolls move deeper inton the castle and start looking for photos to draw dicks on. Unfortunately, all they can find at least at first are Arabesque wall busts of either a younger Robotwig or an ancestor who looked very similar to him, and they're too high off the floor to reach with a permanent marker. So, they explore deeper.

There's an extended castle exploration sequence of them opening doors and looking at creepy wall carvings as they make their way up into the towers. It gives the music a mysterious, forbidding quality rather than simply a lost and melancholy one. Unfortunately, the way it's shot and edited reminds me juuuuuust too much of a Scooby Doo scene for me to be able to take seriously. Oh well, it tried. A series of hidden doors that they appear to just luck into discovering (or maybe the holographic thingy is supposed to have guided them again, idk) eventually brings them to a hidden library room with an old tome titled "Veridis Quo" laying conveniently out on an old piano. They open it, and discover it to be an illuminated manuscript telling literally the entire story of the villain's origins, methods, and plans. Don't you just love it when you luck out like that?

The first thing they find is a depiction of...I guess one of his ancestors again? Either that, or dude is several centuries older than he looks.

The next few pages show illustrations of the Earl de Darkwood and his young son (who has similar features) doing some kind of...alchemy experiment? It looks like he's trying to teach his son alchemy. Well, either because of an alchemical mishap or by sheer, bizarre coincidence, the castle gets struck by a meteorite on the next page.

I guess he's rebuilt it in a less OSHA compliant manner since then.

Now, from my original viewing of this movie I thought I remembered this being the Shark that crash landed on his house. My impression having been that he studied the wrecked ship and eventually managed to repair and use it. But no, it's pretty clearly just a meteorite. Maybe an alchemically-attracted meteorite, but still just a round chunk of rock.

I'm not sure if this next bit is supposed to actually be illustrated in the book or not, but we see Babby Robotwig standing over his father's body in the ruins of their castle, weeping. Somehow he survived that impact and his father standing right next to him didn't, I guess. Maybe dad had already been giving him philosopher's stone infusions or something.

Sad orphaned Robotnik de Darkforest looks tearily up at the sky, and his face morphs into his much older self doing the same, as if wanting revenge on the heavens for striking down his father. Then there's a montage of him furthering his ancestral alchemy and astronomy research, discovering hyperspace, somehow getting his spaceship (we're never shown him building the Shark, but I guess the implication is that he did in fact build it himself), and then capturing a series of alien musicians. Starting with an impish-looking creature that he disguises as...I think that' supposed to be Mozart. With Robotwig apparently having served as whatever the 1700's version of an agent would have been, idk.

Then, Robotwig in a hooded cloak, leading a bunch of cultists dressed similarly, forcing alien Mozart to...okay, I guess not Mozart, since he lived into his thirties. Some European musical prodigy who is meant to evoke child Mozart was actually a kidnapped alien who impressed the continent before being forced to throw himself into a volcano.

What even is this movie anymore?

More Shark voyages. More alien musicians being abducted, disguised as humans, and sacrificed by volcano. There's one that looks like Jimi Hendrix, and some others I don't recognize. Anyway, it's implied that most of Earth's greatest musicians of the last few centuries were actually Robotwig's victims.

...

I guess it turns out that most music actually sucks, with our abundance of good tunes being a result of him pillaging a dozen galaxies' worth of musical geniuses and concentrating them in one spot.

I'm not sure if that's what the movie intended to imply with this plot point, but it's sort of an unavoidable inference if you think about it for a second.

That might actually be even more depressing than the mass abduction, enslavement, and murder of said geniuses, as a concept.

...

Also, apparently the "Golden Record" award is multiple centuries old, because Robotwig is apparently trying to collect 555 of them. And...well, how long ago was not-Mozart supposed to have been? Same as IRL Mozart? If so, the phonograph must have been invented a couple centuries earlier than it was in real life, for there to have been a trophy named that. Anyway, if he gets 555 Golden Record trophies, he can sacrifice them and the musicians that earned them and get godlike power over the universe.

No, seriously, that's the plot.

It's always five hundred year old alchemists with daddy issues, isn't it?

While the Crescendolls are (very understandably) gawking uncomprehendingly at what they've just seen, those two cyborg guards who they escaped from before creep up on them. They're wearing hooded robes now instead of security uniforms, and look completely ridiculous in them. Unimpressive appearances aside though, they get the drop on the Crescendolls and have them at raygun-point before the tealosians can react.

They march them back down to the castle's lower level, and then down a hidden staircase into a spooky cave system that descends into the mountain. Eventually, they reach the volcanic chamber where the sacrifices are performed. Robotwig seems to have spruced the place up since drawing those helpfully detailed illustrations of it a few centuries back; it's got (bio?)technological accessories now. As well as little Golden Record holders built into everywhere.

And he's standing at the edge of the pit, leading a crowd of robed and hooded cultists in their sibilant dance and unheard eldritch chanting. He's also holding his newest Golden Record trophy in hand, and the digits "5555" briefly flash across it.

Okay, I guess this award is both much older AND much less prestigious than I assumed. For there to be multiple thousands of them since Robotwig started doing this, several must be given out each year.

I guess its possible that the award is annual and ancient, with phonographs having been invented alongside the agricultural revolution, and him just having stolen the first 5K or so from museums and tombs and ancient ruins. But in that case, you'd think he'd just keep on stealing them from the natural winners rather than going through this whole alien enslavement process.

I feel like it should have just left the number at "555" instead of going for the full four digit title drop. Heck, even 55 would have been sufficient.

Anyway, it's very convenient for him that the Crescendolls just happened to come wandering into his castle of their own accord right now, because he was already in the process of conducting the final ritual, and it would have been really embarrassing for him if they *hadn't* dropped back into his lap by sheer chance right now.

With his armed cyborgs still holding the abductees at gunpoint, Robotwig grabs S'telha and - with strength that one wouldn't expect from a portly old man, but isn't surprising given this guy's mastery of both cybernetics and literal alchemy - shoves her into this...glowing socket thing...on the central pillar that he's installed.

I guess he only needs to sacrifice one member of each winning band, which is why he wasn't bothered when three of the four escaped earlier. I also guess he's streamlined the sacrificial process by devising that glowy incinerator-alcove instead of the primitive magma-toss he used previously. I suppose that these two facts may be related.

That does make me wonder why he and his cyborgs stopped paying attention to her at the award's ceremony, though, if he still did need at least one of them for the ritual. :/

Well, anyway.

The glowing orange alcove doesn't seem to be killing her *yet,* though. Holding her in place, and seemingly causing pain, but there's no visible damage happening to her body and she's still struggling. Maybe it's a flash-incinerator that activates when Robotwig hits the switch or something. Anyway, he picks up his spellbook and starts chanting more forcefully, with a maniacal grin and gleaming-wide-eyed stare skyward.

The cultists - including the two armed cyborgs - all stupidly stare at him worshipfully and stop paying attention to the other three Crescendolls. Enabling them to knock their ray guns aside and start a struggle. It turns out that the doohickey Sahn'hik gave them (which I initially thought was a piece of holoprojector-based band merch, but is increasingly seeming like a manifestation of his soul or something) can reflect energy blasts like a lightsaber, so when the baddies pick their guns back up Bhreel just bounces the beams back and shatters their metallic skulls. A big brawl starts between the Crescendolls and the mass of confused, seemingly fully organic, cultists. Arpajjas, with his previously telegraphed speed and combat skill, manages to break through the brawl and charge Robotwig.

If Robotwig had a weapon or a practical fighty-spell on hand, he didn't have time to level it on Arpajjas. The tealosian knocks him to the ground and sends the trophy he'd been holding flying over the cliff edge and tumbling down into the magma pit below. Losing his head entirely as he sees it fall, Robotwig leaps off the ground and tries to snatch it out of the air, with the predictable result of him falling down after it.

Arpajjas tries to grab him before he can fall. Either an act of (probably foolish) mercy, or just because he wants to beat more information out of him. He manages to grab his robe, but Robotwig's gut ends up being the death of him; Arpajjas isn't able to pull him up, and the last of the Earls de Darkwood falls to his volcanic death.

On one hand, they could have made him teach them how to fly the Shark and get themselves home. On the other hand, maybe they actually couldn't have. This guy had too many traps, tricks, and covertly embedded minions in too many places for them to twist his arm reliably. I guess him dying here probably was the least bad outcome for the Crescendolls.

Also, the cultists all leap off the cliff after their master like robed, hooded lemmings.

They all appear to have the glowy red terminator eyes now, so maybe they actually were all cyborgs? They didn't seem nearly as strong or heavy as the two main ones, though. And they did seem to need helmets for the Tealios raid. Not sure what their deal is supposed to be.

The magma starts rising, and the castle and caves all around start trembling. Looks like killing the Earl activated the castle's self destruct. You know, typical European hill fort construction. Or maybe the energy he was planning to use to open the Gate of Earth and eat God with all just got released in an uncontrolled manner because he died mid-ritual, that could also be. In any case, Robotwig de Darkwood ended up being a load-bearing boss whether he set it up that way deliberately or not.

The Crescendolls flee the exploding castle and make it back to their van just in time to escape the final collapse. Not sure if they managed to save the dachoras and ettecoons along the way or not, the onscreen escape sequence is pretty truncated. The song, whose melancholy melody had been cycling with only slight variation for this entire sequence, finally ends as the castle goes up.


So. This sequence. "Veridis Quo" is the second longest track on the album, so its movie segment was long in absolute terms as well as having a lot packed into it. Which is probably a contributing factor to it feeling like a completely different film, but it's definitely not the main one.

Like I said at the start of this LW, I'm trying to approach Interstella 5555 with the understanding that the story isn't always the point, and making sense is sometimes only a work's tertiary objective. Even ignoring the practical story issues though and tackling it solely on aesthetic, atmospheric, or subtextual/metaphorical levels, "Veridis Quo" is a deeply weird sequence.

Like, start with the aesthetics. This doesn't look like the rest of Interstella 5555. It doesn't act like the rest of Interstella 5555 either, and I'm not just talking about it abruptly switching the scifi trappings for dark fantasy ones. I mean things like why and how the characters do any of the things that they're doing. The whole movie works on a kind of cartoon-inspired dream logic, sure, but here it's like it suddenly morphed into a completely different type of dream. Why do they keep exploring the castle for room after empty room? What happened to them being exhausted (something that the movie always seems to have accounted for up until now)? Would the plot device of them finding that bizarre illuminated manuscript telling the villain's backstory, MO, and future plans in an easy-to-understand format have been palatable in any other part of the movie?

The fact that it's so self contained - Darkwood Manor not appearing elsewhere in the film, the occult aspects of the villain and his plot not being introduced or even really foreshadowed until now and then being permanently dealt with in the same segment, etc - almost makes it seem like a dream within a dream. The movie has had explicit dream sequences before, with Sahn'hik and S'telha's revolutionary girl garden, but "Veridis Quo" feels more like a dream sequence to me than those do. Combined with the fact that we go right back to the Crescendolls driving their beat up van across the countryside afterward, just like they were before, and it's really easy to read this as just a shared nightmare the four of them are having. They leave the scene with barely any change in the status quo (it didn't seem like the Earl had been hunting them since the awards ceremony, so his death wouldn't have meant all that much). And it really does work as a nightmare retelling of their recent experiences; this unfamiliar, hostile environment where their abuser reigns supreme, crawling with entities that can't be appealed to or reasoned with, destined to be used, consumed, and discarded for his alien goals, with just one momento of their old home being the only thing that can hopefully free them from him.

To be clear, within the world of the story this WASN'T just a dream. Material evidence of "Veridis Quo's" events does show up and is very important in the final act of the film. It explicitly did happen. But that's not how it feels when it's actually onscreen, or even immediately after it's been onscreen.

Atmospherically, it...I really don't know. The forlorn, despondent, and yet somewhat energetic sound of the track itself works pretty well for their drive through the creepy nighttime mountains and Scooby Doo-ish exploration of the castle. I'm not sure at all that it works for the action sequence. At the very least, those two parts of the segment are different enough in pacing and tone from each other that having the same track play for both of them feels surreal. And reinforces the sense that this is it's own self-contained short film.

Thematically...there are a few different things going on here. On top of the "characters suffering from their shared trauma even after escaping" interpretation, this sequence digs deeper into a few themes that were only vaguely gestured at before. The mythic archetype of the monstrous elder who refuses to be outdone by younger generations and spitefully devours them to stave off their own obsolescence, is one that often gets evoked in modern media depicting exploitative old businessmen and their interactions with younger clients/employees/etc. By shifting the aesthetics to something more mystical and archaic and making the sacrifice of the musicians more literal, the movie does encourage us much more strongly to think of the Earl as an analogue to Cronus devouring his offspring, Lilitu strangling infants in their beds, Pharaoh casting baby boys into the fire. The social commentary with regards to the music industry, and established society's relationship with artists in general, is blatant enough that I don't think I need to go into it. The way that the villain's modern and even futuristic trappings - his MTV awards and his silvery spaceships - are just the outer skin around a core of archaic savagery and superstition also feels like it might be trying to say something about the people pulling the strings in modern industries, entertainment and otherwise.

The backstory with Robotwig's father...well, I'll wait until the end to go into it more, because this actually connects to what I think may be the biggest flaw in Interstella 5555 as a whole. For now, I'm just going to ask why the story thought this was even relevant to include. Like I said before, I misremembered it as the Shark having crashed on the castle, thus providing young Robotwig with the scientific resources to start his supervillaining, thus giving it some explanatory utility for the main story. That isn't what happened though, so I'm wondering what the point of it even was. Again, hang on to this though, because I'm going to talk about it again from a different angle at the end of the movie.

It's a slightly different cluster of themes than most of the rest of the film though, even if there's partial overlap. And frankly, the song itself kind of sticks out from the rest of the album due to its long length, relative lack of dynamism, and meloncholy tone, so maybe it's only fitting that this part of the movie should also be kind of "off."

Anyway. Like I said, this part of the movie is just bizarre, on multiple fronts. I'm not sure that this makes it a weak point of the film overall. Maybe it does, but I'm not sure. It definitely makes it weirder and more surreal. Whether it does so in the good way or the bad way is something you'll have to decide for yourselves, because I personally cannot decide.

Track 12: "Short Circuit"​

The fiery eruptions from under the castle pick up in intensity, and some dramatic static-y sounds jump into existence in time with them. I checked to see if the static-y explosion sounds were actually part of the song, or just some of the movie's own sparse-but-extant sound effects, and was fairly surprised to discover that it's the former. It's kind of hilarious, because "Short Circuit's" chaotic opening sounds before the electric guitar and keyboard start up really sound a LOT like explosion sound effects from some nineties Konami game. With just how video game logic-y the castle exploding after its master dies is to begin with, this detail almost brings it to the level of self-parody.

Well, the music itself kicks in after a few seconds, and it's a nicely upbeat, high-intensity theme that nicely contrasts the song before it. The Crescendolls successfully outrun the Nintendo final boss lair explosion and get back in their van, with which they make it back to the city by sunup.

They managed to snatch the "Veridis Quo" book again before dashing, and while Arpajjas drives and S'telha recovers in back, the other two continue looking through its illustrated pages. They find the section on Robotwig's memory overwriting process, including the detail of the original memories being saved on disc before a new version of them can be fabricated. If their own memory discs were somewhere in the castle that just exploded, then they're shit out of luck. However, if Robotwig had them stored somewhere else then trying to recover them should be the Crescendolls' next objective.

They drive back to the record company whose headquarters Robotwig initially brought them to, and whose CEO is currently pacing anxiously in his office trying to figure out what the hell happened to his hot new band and their agent over these last few days. Either they're coming here to talk to him and hopefully find an ally, or they somehow got it into their heads that Robotwig stashed their memory discs somewhere in the building. Or both.

Turns out it's the second one. Again, I'm not sure WHY they think this is the place where he'd have hidden the discs. If anything, you'd think they'd still be in the underground facility where he first brought them after landing. But um...okay, I guess we're searching here for whatever reason. Anyway, being the company's star asset at the moment they should be able to get into the building and be granted permission to look around fairly easily...

...okay, nevermind, they're sneaking in through a back window and stealing a janitor's uniform, leaving the janitor tied up on a side hallway floor so one of them can sneak past the night guards.

This, um. Well, I feel like it might not be the most efficient way to go about what they're trying to do here.

I guess they might just be too traumatized and paranoid about dealing with humans in general to think clearly at this point. That could explain this, at least partially.

Also, the janitor is a Peanuts-type, but for some reason they have Oc-Tavoth rather than Bhreel infiltrating using his uniform. Which means its like eight sizes too small on him. Yeah, definitely not thinking clearly.

The music slows down and gets a more "electro noire' quality to it, appropriate for a stealth sequence. Oc-Tavoth sneaks upstairs to the recording studio, where he finds the original record of "One More Time" that they made here back in the "Crescendolls" segment. There's a secret compartment in the back of the CD case that has all four of their memory discs hidden in it.

On one hand, the metaphor about how their music - even when the rights to it were taken from them and commercialized in the service of some corporate techno-alchemist's mad ambitions - is still intrinsically theirs, and thus can be used to rediscover their true selves, is effective. On the other hand, it's just...seriously, why the hell would Robotwig have even brought these here?

Before Oc-Tavoth can take the discs back out to his bandmates though, security catches him on camera. And, in hilarious coincidence, janitor Pig Pen manages to wriggle his way over to the front desk and slump down in front of those same security guards at the exact same moment.

Oc-Tavoth gets close to the exit by the time security closes in on him, but not close enough. When he reaches into his coat to show them...something? His ID, maybe? If he thought that would help I don't know why he didn't just use it in the first place though...well, something anyway, we learn the difference between French rent-a-cops and American police. Namely, that the former will only reflexively shoot their tasers into a black man who reaches into his coat.

Oc-Tavoth collapses. More importantly though, it turns out that electricity is a quick-acting antidote to the RNA treatment Robotwig gave them. Whodathunkit?

As Oc-Tavoth's appearance reverts, the bossman steps out of the elevator just in time to see his prize band's vocalist fall to the floor and turn into an alien. At least he was able to recognize him before that happened. To be fair, it looked like some of the guards were already starting the process of recognizing him when they used the taser.

Outside, the police arrive, and the Crescendolls' van immediately jumps out as suspicious. Also, they might recognize it as stolen depending on how Sahn'hik came by it.

As the police surround them, we briefly cut over to the ruins of Castle Darkwood. A faint red glow emerges from the black pits exposed by the collapse of the castle's foundations. A moment later, a tentacled mass of writhing crimson light drags itself up from the darkness and into the predawn air.

It crackles and writhes over the ruins, and then shoots itself into the sky in a more sinister echo of Sahn'hik's ghost ascending in the "Voyager" scene. This energy octopus thing isn't remotely humanoid, though. If it's supposed to be Robotwig's ghost, then it got seriously warped by the interrupted apotheosis ritual. Or maybe its congealed into a mass of tormented spirits from all the aylmao he sacrificed in that pit. Either way, it doesn't look like a normal healthy afterlife.

The music fades into discordant static noises, similar to those the song opened with. Back outside the record company, the police surround the van and start arresting its occupants. Inside the building, the record company boss guy picks up the paper that Oc-Tavoth had been trying to produce, which turns out to be a page ripped from the Veridis Quo book. A picture and description of the memory discs. With the discs themselves also being on his person.

Looks like we'll be finding out if going loud and hoping for the best would have been their best bet to begin with soon.


The final post will be up tomorrow or the next day.