Dominator (comics)

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Dominator

The Region 1 DVD cover art of the first film
Directed by Tony Luke
Produced by Jim Bathwaite
Written by Alan Grant
Starring Dani Filth
Ingrid Pitt
Doug Bradley
Distributed by Salvation Films, MVD
Running time 74 min
Language English

Dominator is a British comic strip created by Tony Luke, chronicling the ongoing adventures of the eponymous Demon God of Rock & Roll. It originally appeared in a short-lived run in the music magazine Metal Hammer in 1988, with black and white artwork, and plots that often involved the leading rock stars of the time. After a hiatus following the end of its original run, Dominator was resurrected in 1993 as the first ever Brit-created manga series printed in "Kodansha Comic Afternoon", still drawn by Luke, and now boasting scripts by Alan Grant. In 2003 the comic was adapted as an animated film by Luke's Renga Media, and two further short films followed in 2004 and 2005: namely A Brief History of Hell and Heavy Metal vs Dominator, the latter of which was a crossover with characters from the Heavy Metal universe. A full-blown, bigger budget revamp of the original movie is set for release sometime in 2007. A videogame is also set to go into development.

Contents

[edit] Film Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In his bid to be the ruler of Hell, Lord Desecrater and his armies have defeated Lucifer in a civil war. To fully seize control of Hell, Lord Desecrater must have in his possession the Key to Hell, but the general of Desecrater's armies, Dominator, who had already abandoned Desecrater's cause before the war, reveals to his former master that he is no longer willing to be under his command as he steals the Key to Hell. Dominator obliterates the army that was dispatched to reclaim the Key, and in response Desecrater dispatches three warriors that are on par with Dominator's strength; these warriors are Decimator, a large demon with an equally large metal ball covered in spikes for his right hand, Extricator, a winged skull sprouting multiple tentacles and a cannon underneath, and Lady Violator, a female demon who is almost totally nude and is equipped with a claw for her left hand and is Dominator's former lover.

Meanwhile, in the Happy Passage Funeral Home in London, Dr. Payne's daughters, Tara, Molly & Fina, are searching through his library to find one of his many tomes, "The Lost Chord". While using it for band practice, Dr. Payne hears it and heads to the catacombs where his daughters are playing, it is too late; the Lost Chord has already created a rip and a gateway to Hell begins to form. Dominator and his familiar, Shagg, are brought to the catacombs, who briefly threatens to kill Dr. Payne's assistant, Sidney. As this happens, several skeletal warriors are also brought to the catacombs, Dominator turns his attention and slays them. Staying at Dr. Payne's household, who is looking for a spell to send him home in response to Dominator's demands, Dominator finds that Lady Violator and the two other warriors have emerged from the gateway to bring him and the Key back to Hell.

In response to Dominator's refusal, Extricator and Decimator assault him but he escapes further into the catacombs to summon his Hellbike and make a getaway. The three warriors give chase, their pursuit leads to central London in which two of Big Ben's faces are destroyed by Decimator and Extricator while Dominator and Lady Violator battle throughout the city. Dominator is ultimately defeated, having been knocked to the pavement by a swing from Decimator but he summons up power from the Key to teleport his attackers away from him. With the renewed strength he has received from the Key, Dominator leaves London central when armed police begin to attack him.

Meanwhile, Decimator and Extricator have been teleported to a seemingly abandoned pub where they begin to guzzle all of its stocked alcohol, as to where Lady Violator is teleported to is never revealed. Back at the Payne household, Tara and her sisters engage in another bout of band practice, only this time Dominator steps in too, causing Fina to grow jealous of his interactions with Tara. Dr. Payne interrupts their practice and asks Dominator to come with him to meet the Prime Minister after receiving an important phone call, concerning the recent intrusion of demons on Earth.

At the conference, Dominator reveals that he wants no part in protecting Earth and the only important thing is that he gets sent back to Hell, as Lord Desecrater will eventually find a way to Earth to find Dominator, so he departs and leaves for the household. The next day, Tara finds Dominator sitting on the roof alone and tries to engage him in conversation, he tells her about the war and what he makes of Lord Desecrater. Tara also tells him that she and her sisters come from three different mothers, the two then lean in to kiss, but a spying Fina interrupts them to pull Dominator away and show him the work that is taking place on their band's website. However, he is again pulled away when he hears news of demons attacking Charring Cross, he arrives in his Ghost Train and slays all of the demons present before taking off, but a winged female demon hides in the Ghost Train and does battle with him as the Train flies above London.

Eventually, it descends crashing through Sussex and grinding to a halt inside a stripclub. The demon reveals her name is Hellkatt, and that she is a half-human half-demon bounty hunter hired to kill Dominator and that she is the bastard child of Lord Desecrater, but already she is attracted to him, so much she performs oral sex on him when he receives a phone call from Tara to tell him they have their first gig booked at the Savoy.

Meanwhile, Decimator and Extricator are now very drunk within the pub when the image of Lord Desecrater pays them a visit, Decimator foolishly seals his and his friend's fate by insulting Lord Desecrater and smacking his image, Extricator is quite concerned by what has just been done, but Decimator dismisses this and presents his drunken friend with more beer. Back at the Prime Minister's, he and his aide, Bishop, stare at the news, on it is footage of Sussex up in flames, the Prime Minister is riled but Bishop merely advises him to go to bed. Left to his own devices, or lack thereof, Bishop is shocked to see the image of Lord Desecrater who persuades the man with ideas of glory from ruling the world if he joins him.

Dominator makes it in time at the savoy, the band take their place at the stage and break out into "Die Goths, Die", as they play, Tara is possessed by Lady Violator who begins to destroy the stage and blasts Molly and Fina off it. Dominator and Violator go head-to-head, battling with their guitars, eventually Violator is prepared to strike Dominator down but at the last minutes he shouts, pleaing with Tara to fight back. Lady Violator drops the guitar and Tara resumes her control, only to find that she is now trapped in Lady Violator's body.

Elsewhere, several homeless people are settling down for the night as their friend goes out for beer, but they are interrupted by a bright flash of light. The armed police escort them out of the alley to supposedly "somewhere warm", but the single homeless returns to find that the alley is empty.

Within the catacombs of the Payne household, Fina is using the black arts to communicate with Lord Desecrater, requesting a award for giving him the Key to Hell; her request is Dominator. Back at the alley, Dominator and Dr. Payne are present, Dominator uses his magic to see if anything from Hell removed the homeless, Payne is suspicious at the fact of how nearly all of London's homeless have been moved off the face of the earth, Dominator uses his magic again and is given the image of an armoured body and Dr. Payne's only answer to this is that the military and government are involved. Later, Fina is making an alcoholic spirit using some of her blood and gives it to Dominator, who drains it all. Affected by whatever was in that drink, Dominator begins to have sex with Fina. Once they're done, Fina finds the Key to Hell among his armour and proceeds to her base of operations, but Dominator bursts in to find what she is doing. He is too late, as Desecrater has already taken the Key from her. Dominator all too softly falls for Fina's apology and hugs her, Tara sees this and can sense the intimacy in how Fina is dressed in only her underwear.

Furious and upset, Tara leaves the household just as Extricator and Decimator enter the premises; Dominator, now at the grounds, meets them and learns that they are no longer with Lord Desecrater, so they join him, but a furious argument is about to go underway with Dr. Payne. Meanwhile, Tara sits on the rooftops overlooking the city in sadness, but a squad of policemen, armed with equipment similar to proton packs, attack Tara with streams of electricity until she can no longer move. She is taken to the bowels of St. Paul's Cathedral and is met by Bishop, who speaks of Lord Desecrater and the use of her body. Back at the household, Dominator attempts to reassess Dr. Payne with that fact that of one his daughters is now in the body of a demon, and that she can protect herself.

Owning up to her guilt, Fina helps the situation using her witchcraft to locate Tara, which she does successfully. Dominator sets out in his Dragula, while Decimator and Extricator set out in the Ghost Train. As they enter St. Paul's, they are met by Hellkatt, who has come along to aid them. Within the depths of the Cathedral, Tara has been attached to a device that is drawing energy from her to power a process that Bishop has set up. Dominator and his new allies are storming toward Bishop, destroying the humans in their way.

Eventually, they break into the lab, Extricator frees Tara from the device, but Bishop reveals that she was not totally nescesarry to this operation, he points out that in the chamber below them what is truly nescesarry; the homeless people, who are to be sacrificed. The sacrificees are reduced to skeletons as Lord Desecrater emerges into the world, Hellkatt jumps into the chamber and attacks Desecrater but is almost destroyed, Dominator manages to fend him off before he and his team depart. Desecrater turns his attention to Bishop, who is panicking all over and is trying to persuade Desecrater into becoming an ally, he reveals his plan was to ultimatelt use Bishop as a means of getting to Earth, and with that he swallows him whole before destroying the chamber. Desecrater begins to grow, causing the Cathedral to crumble, before eventually exploding through the dome and then storming through the city, he is unstoppable.

However, Hellkatt speaks of how he was sent back to Hell after he raped her mother through a sacrifice, but Dr. Payne thinks that the sacrifice he has in mind to send Desecrater back is so big it's genocidal but he comes to the idea that he may be able to sacrifice Desecrater instead by having the Key to Hell reverse his powers through attacking it with a reversed Lost Chord while an incantation is used on the outside. Decimator & Extricator take to the Ghost Train, Hellkatt & Tara take to the Dragula and Dominator takes to the Hellbike, the team ascend and attack Lord Desecrater, creating an opening for them to enter. When they reach the brain, they find another Desecrater controlling his titanic form, Decimator, Extricator, Hellkatt and Tara are forced to abandon the attack, leaving only Dominator who assaults his nemesis' source of power with a reversed Lost Chord, Dr. Payne doubles this with his incantation and chaos begins to reign inside Lord Desecrater's form. The others take cover as explosions take over the sky, Desecrater is ultimately destroyed.

Tara is saddened by the absence of Dominator, but he appears, descending on his Hellbike. The film closes with Decimator and Extricator's epilogue on what has happened while drinking beer and looking out over the rooftops.

[edit] Music

The original Dominator movie was known for its soundtrack, which was made up of many bands that were known in the Brighton rock scene such as Killing Mode, SikTh, Matter, Synthetic and many others. Cradle of Filth was the most well-known name on the list. The film's actual score was done by Pete Haycock, Richard Attree and Dave Colquhoun.

[edit] Films

Teaser poster for Dominator X
Enlarge
Teaser poster for Dominator X
  • Dominator The Movie Original feature-length movie, 2003
  • Dominator 2 Originally planned as a sequel, cancelled, 2003/2004
  • A Brief History Of Hell Internet short expanding on the movie's prologue, 2004
  • Dominator & The Cradle Of Death Second originally planned sequel, believed to be pushed back for after the release of Dominator X, 2004/2005
  • Heavy Metal VS Dominator Internet short featuring Dominator and Heavy Metal 2000 characters, 2005
  • Dominator X Revamp of original movie, 2007

[edit] Concept

As the movie was based upon the manga story, and because Dominator was first revealed on the UK Sci-Fi Channel (which previously broadcasted anime), many people expected it to be British anime, despite that it was in fact Britain's first-ever CGI movie. Because of this, many were expecting an anime movie when ultimately the movie was and always was intended to be a guerilla CGI movie (except in the development stages, the. Other audiences thought the movie was trying to be serious, despite the comedy elements. Nevertheless, the film has received both negative and positive criticism from multiple audiences. The upcoming Dominator X production looks to be a much more anime-inspired CGI movie with a considerably bigger budget.

During the conceptual stages in late 2000, no movie was planned for Dominator, instead it was to be a downloadable series of episodes that would be posted by Renga Media. It was planned to be done with computer graphics using current technology and programs that were out at the time, if this was to have happened, it would have received a considerably less harsher response from those who were concerned about the graphics. After coming out of hospital, Tony Luke returned to work on Dominator sometime in 2001 or 2002, but the Sci-Fi Channel of Europe had brought up a deal to turn Dominator into a movie after the previous success of Archangel Thunderbird, the deal was accepted and much of the previous work was restarted.

[edit] References

The 2003 movie had several references to Rock-themed items as well as other cult items:

  • During the prologue, several gravestones can be seen in a graveyard in Hell; they read "Ozzy Osborne", "Alice Cooper", "Marilyn Manson" and "Keith Richards".
  • Dominator uses Marshall amplifiers to vanquish the skeletons in the prologue.
  • Hell has a lot of guitar-shaped structures, as a nod to the idea that Hell is a place of Heavy Metal and Rock 'n' Roll.
  • There is a demon, though made in Poser, he looks a lot like Marilyn Manson, prompting Dominator to shout "Marilyn Manson-type retard thing".
  • Dominator's car is called the Dragula, after the car from Munsters and most likely the Rob Zombie song of the same name.
  • Dominator's motorbike is called the Hellbike, it's unusual that for a rock-themed movie it's not based off or named Painkiller, after the Judas Priest album.
  • Dominator's locomotive is called the Ghost Train, after the famous horror icon.
  • Half-way into the movie, Tara says to Dominator "what's Hell like? Motorhead album covers immediately spring to mind", to which Dominator responds with "it's more like Cradle of Filth actually". Cradle of Filth's lead singer voices Dominator too, so this is probably an in-joke.

[edit] Voice Cast

[edit] External links

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