Damn John Whorfin and the horse he rode in on

Before I start, is there a greater movie villain trio in acting history than these three? No. There is not.



The Governess was kind enough to sit through the tail-end of the Terminator over the weekend, though it was clear she wanted to watch whatever was on whatever channel Trading Spaces is on. She's a doll like that. However, when I started spouting off how the film contained one of the greatest movie powers ever yielded by any movie maker, well, then she wished she had the remote. But anyone who's seen any Sci-Fi movie in the 80's knows this thing, this force of almost indefinable power. So in an attempt more to prove to the Governess than to anyone else, I present my thesis on Blue Lightning.

Starting with the original Terminator...



This harbinger of Arnold's arrival is a pretty tame example, at most possibly blinding a hobo. But at the end, when Sarah flattens the Arnold-bot in the crushinator it appears that he's powered by the mysterious blue lightning. Shootin' all over the place, zapping the homeless.

This is perhaps Blue Lightning’s most famous performance ...



Poor Luke. I never saw Star Wars but my understanding from the graphic novel is that this is the Empire's mandatory sentence for snogging your sister. It should be the standard practice in every film because finger lightning would have made Flowers in the Attic way more interesting. Me, I would use that power to recharge my iPod. Unfortunately, that battery's not dead, it’s dead dead.

But ROTJ isn't Neckfat Lucas’s first use of Blue Lightning. Apparently it not only fries sister-kissers but paralyzes robots in the first one...



Here are some other uses:

A non-kryptonite deterrent against Jor-El's boy...



I submit that Superman III is the most ill-conceived movie of all time. Besides the jive-ass handshake after the Richard Pryor rescue, there's the world economy manipulating, weather changing, Superman re-programming computer. And its first order of business? Changing the traffic signals in Metropolis. C'mon.

It can punch holes in the space-time continuum...

That's 1.21 gigawatts to you and me.

It's crucial in summoning Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor and/or Volguus Zildrohar...



That's a class 5 full roaming vapor to you and Tobin’s Spirit Guide. But it's not just these high society art-house flicks that get the blue lightning treatment. There are some serious blockbusters that rely on this stuff. Without it, young Daniel Aykroyd would never have found his true love...
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Jon Lovitz won best supporting actress for this one.

Then there was the variation of the Blue Lightning, the plasma globe effect. (I'll take this one, please.)



I believe this one was employed right before River Phoenix made out with the big-lipped alien. Or maybe it was Ethan Hawke. Or maybe the other kid. Either way there was some nice Muppet-on-boy action.

Finally there's the Blue Lightning Zap Gun

This last one is a personal favorite as Killer Klowns from Outer Space was on in the background during my first make-out session. I'm not talking kissing here, guys, but I mean full MAKE-OUT! Our tongue actually touched! But then someone pulled the fire alarm and we all ran out of the hotel and the chaperones got all suspicious and everyone had to go back to their own rooms and I had some weird bruise on my neck the next morning. From what the Governess reports, JK stole that story and put it in the new Harry Potter book. I believe it's in the chapter called the Ensorcelled Middle School Ski Trip.

So there you have it. Any movie idea that any hack can dream up can be solved by Blue Lightning. It's the duct tape of the movie world. I'm surprised some drama kid hasn't used it to make a prom tuxedo out of it and then be featured on the local news. They love that crap.