title: Valeri Bure

text: An unrestricted free agent following the 2004 playoffs, Bure did not play anywhere in 2004–05 as the entire NHL season was canceled due to a labour dispute. He signed a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Kings for the 2005–06 season when the league resumed operations. He never played a regular season game for the Kings. A back injury suffered during the pre-season, initially just described as "soreness", kept him out of the regular lineup. The injury ultimately required surgery, and a second surgery on his hip caused Bure to miss the entire season. At the age of 31, he opted to retire following the surgeries.


title: Valeri Bure

text: Bure made his debut internationally with the Russian national junior team at the 1994 World Junior Championship. He was the leading scorer of the bronze medal-winning Russians with eight points in six games and was named to the tournament's All-Star Team. That same year, Bure first played with the senior team as he scored three goals in six contests at the 1994 World Championship in a fifth-place effort.


title: Valeri Bure

text: After appearing in one game at the inaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996, Bure played in his first of two Olympic Games in 1998. The tournament marked the first time he played with his brother Pavel since they were briefly teammates with CSKA Moscow in 1991. Valeri scored one goal in the tournament, and Russia advanced to the gold medal game. They settled for the silver medal after being shut out by Dominik Hašek and the Czech Republic. Bure returned for the 2002 Salt Lake Games. He scored a goal in the tournament as Russia won the bronze medal. Russia invited him to play at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey, but as he was without an NHL contract at the time, Bure declined to play due to a lack of proper insurance in the event of injury.


title: Valeri Bure

text: Bure married actress Candace Cameron on June 22, 1996. They were introduced by Cameron's "Full House" castmate Dave Coulier at a charity hockey game in 1994. The couple has three children: daughter Natasha (b. 1998) and sons Lev (b. 2000) and Maksim (b. 2002). Bure became an American citizen in December 2001. Bure cited his family as the reason he retired from hockey in 2005. He felt he could return from his surgeries, but wanted to spend time with his children and allow his wife to return to acting. Bure and his family are Christians.


title: Valeri Bure

text: Both Valeri and his older brother Pavel became estranged from their father Vladimir Bure, along with his second wife, Julia, and their half-sister Katya, by 1998. Neither brother has explained a reason for the split.


title: Valeri Bure

text: In 2007, Bure and his wife opened a Florida restaurant called The Milk and Honey Café, but closed the business when the family moved to California. They operate a Napa Valley winery, Bure Family Wines. Bure developed an interest in wine early in his NHL career that he described as growing into a passion: "I fell in love with the behind-the-scenes work and being able to start from the vineyard and put it into a bottle. It's an amazing process." Bure modified the Russian imperial seal his great-grandfather stamped on his watches to use as his company's label.


title: Valeri Bure

text: Bure returned to the ice in 2010 as a contestant on the second season of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's figure skating reality show "Battle of the Blades". The series was a competition that paired a former professional hockey player with a figure skater. Bure's partner was Ekaterina Gordeeva. The pair won the competition and shared a $100,000 prize donated to charities of their choice. Bure's donation was made to Compassion Canada.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American season 17)

text: The seventeenth season of the American competitive reality television series "Hell's Kitchen" (officially known as Hell's Kitchen All Stars) began airing on September 29, 2017, and ended on February 2, 2018, on Fox. This is the first season in "Hell's Kitchen" history to have an all star edition as sixteen former contestants from previous seasons return to compete once again (also their first time since season eight returned to 16 contestants, instead of 18), and the winner of this season will receive the position as head chef at the first-ever Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen Restaurant at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. All of the returning chefs made it onto the Black Jackets in their respective seasons. Gordon Ramsay returned as host and head chef, season 10 winner (and season 15 sous-chef) Christina Wilson returned as the Red Team's sous-chef replacing Andi Van Willigan-Cutspec, and British "MasterChef" judge James "Jocky" Petrie made his "Hell's Kitchen" debut as the Blue Team's sous-chef replacing Aaron Mitrano. Marino Monferrato returned as the maître d'. The red team won only three of the nine dinner services during the team phase (two outright, one joint). As a result, they are the first team in the show's history to only have one member earn a black jacket. This team's Michelle Tribble, who previously finished in third place in season 14, won the competition, making her the fifth consecutive female winner of Hell's Kitchen.


title: Free Bird

text: "Free Bird", also spelled "Freebird", is a song written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant and performed by American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. The song featured on the band's debut album in 1973.


title: Free Bird

text: Released as a single in November 1974, "Free Bird" entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 on November 23 at No. 87


title: Free Bird

text: "Free Bird" achieved the No. 8 spot on "Guitar World"s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos. It is Lynyrd Skynyrd's signature song, the finale during live performances, and their longest song, often going well over 14 minutes when played live.


title: Free Bird

text: According to guitarist Gary Rossington, for two years after Allen Collins wrote the initial chords, vocalist Ronnie Van Zant insisted that there were too many for him to create a melody in the belief that the melody needed to change alongside the chords. After Collins played the unused sequence at rehearsal one day, Van Zant asked him to repeat it, then wrote out the melody and lyrics in three or four minutes. The guitar solos that finish the song were added originally to give Van Zant a chance to rest, as the band was playing several sets per night at clubs at the time. Soon afterward, the band learned piano-playing roadie Billy Powell had written an introduction to the song; upon hearing it, they included it as the finishing touch and had him formally join as their keyboardist.


title: Free Bird

text: Allen Collins's girlfriend, Kathy, whom he later married, asked him, "If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?" Collins noted the question and it eventually became the opening line of "Free Bird". Also in an interview filmed during a fishing outing on a boat with Gary Rossington, an interviewer asked Ronnie Van Zant what the song meant. Van Zant replied that in essence, that the song is "what it means to be free, in that a bird can fly wherever he wants to go". He further stated that "everyone wants to be free...that's what this country's all about".


title: Free Bird

text: The song is dedicated to the memory of Duane Allman by the band in their live shows. During their 1975 performance on "The Old Grey Whistle Test", Van Zant dedicated the song to both Allman and Berry Oakley, commenting, "they're both free birds".


title: Free Bird

text: On the 1987–1988 Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour, the band played "Free Bird" as an instrumental. Johnny Van Zant first sang the song on its Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 Tour in Baton Rouge, where the band had been headed in 1977 when several members were killed in a plane crash.


title: Free Bird

text: "Free Bird" is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and at number 407 in "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2009, it was named the 26th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.


title: Free Bird

text: On Skynyrd's first live album, 1976's "One More from the Road", Van Zant can be heard asking the crowd, "What song is it you wanna hear?" The calls for "Free Bird" led into an fourteen-and-a-half-minute rendition of the song. It has become something of a humorous tradition for audience members at concerts to shout "Free Bird!" as a request to hear the song, regardless of the performer or style of music. For example, during Nirvana's 1993 "MTV Unplugged in New York" show, a shout-out for "Free Bird!" eventually resulted in a lyrically slurred, if short, rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama". In 2016, an attendee of a Bob Dylan concert in Berkeley, California, shouted for "Free Bird" to be played, and Dylan and his band unexpectedly obliged.


title: Free Bird

text: The song has been covered many times. Among the most notable is a version by American dance-pop group Will to Power who created a medley of this song and the 1976 Peter Frampton song "Baby, I Love Your Way" in 1988. Titled "Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley". The song spent one week at No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart.


title: Nakshatra

text: Nakshatra () is the term for lunar mansion in Hindu astrology and Indian Astronomy. A nakshatra is one of 27 (sometimes also 28) sectors along the ecliptic. Their names are related to a prominent star or asterisms in or near the respective sectors.


title: Nakshatra

text: The starting point for the nakshatras according to Vedas is "Krittika" (it has been argued because the Pleiades may have started the year at the time the Vedas were compiled, presumably at the vernal equinox), but, in more recent compilations, the start of the nakshatras list is the point on the ecliptic directly opposite to the star Spica called "Chitrā" in Sanskrit, which would be Ashwinī, a part of the modern constellation Aries, and these compilations therefore may have been compiled during the centuries when the sun was passing through the area of the constellation Aries at the time of the vernal equinox. This version may have been called "Meshādi" or the "start of Aries".


title: Nakshatra

text: In classical Hindu scriptures (Mahabharata, Harivamsa), the creation of the nakshatras is attributed to Daksha. They are personified as daughters of Daksha and as wives of Chandra, known as the Moon God (who reluctantly married the 26 other nakshatras on Daksha's request even though he was only interested to marry Rohini), or alternatively the daughters of Kashyapa.


title: Nakshatra

text: In the Atharvaveda (Shaunakiya recension, hymn 19.7) a list of 27 stars or asterisms is given, many of them corresponding to the later nakshatras:


title: Nakshatra

text: This 27 day time cycle has been taken to mean a particular group of stars. The relationship to the stars really has to do with the periodicity with which the Moon travels over time and through space past the field of the specific stars called nakshatras. Hence, the stars are more like numbers on a clock through which the hands of time pass (the moon). This concept is described by J. Mercay (2012) in connection with "Surya Siddhanta".


title: Nakshatra

text: In Hindu astronomy, there was an older tradition of 28 Nakshatras which were used as celestial markers in the heavens. When these were mapped into equal divisions of the ecliptic, a division of 27 portions was adopted since that resulted in a clearer definition of each portion (i.e. segment) subtending 13° 20′ (as opposed to 12° ′ in the case of 28 segments). In the process, the Nakshatra Abhijit was left out without a portion. However, the Abhijit nakshatra becomes important while deciding on the timing of an auspicious event. The Surya Siddhantha concisely specifies the coordinates of the twenty-seven Nakshatras.


title: Nakshatra

text: It is noted above that with the older tradition of 28 Nakshatras each equal segment would subtend 12.85 degrees or 12° 51′. But the 28 Nakshatra were chosen at a time when the Vedic month was recognised as having exactly 30 days. In India and China the original 28 lunar mansions were not equal. Weixing Nui provides a list of the extent of the original 28 Nakshatras expressed in "Muhurtas" (with one Muhurta = 48 minutes of arc). Hindu texts note there were 16 Nakshatras of 30 Muhurtas, 6 of 45 Muhurtas, 5 of 15 Muhurtas and one of 6 Muhurtas.


title: Nakshatra

text: The 28 mansions of the 360° lunar zodiac total 831 Muhurtas or 27.7 days. This is sometimes described as an inaccurate estimate of our modern sidereal period of 27.3 days, but using the ancient Indian calendar with Vedic months of 30 days and a daily movement of the Moon of 13 degrees, this early designation of a sidereal month of 831 Muhurtas or 27.7 days is very precise.


title: Nakshatra

text: Later some Indian savants dropped the Nakshatra named Abhijit to reduce the number of divisions to 27, but the Chinese retained all of their original 28 lunar mansions. These were grouped into four equal quarters which would have been fundamentally disrupted if it had been decided to reduce the number of divisions to 27.


title: Nakshatra

text: Irrespective of the reason why ancient early Indian astronomers followed a Vedic calendar of exactly 12 months of 30 days it was this calendar and not a modern calendar of 365 days that they used for the astronomical calculations for the number of days taken for the Moon to complete one sidereal cycle of 360°. This is why initially they named 28 Nakshatras on their lunar zodiac.


title: Nakshatra

text: Each of the 27 Nakshatras cover 13° 20’ of the ecliptic each. Each Nakshatra is also divided into quarters or "padas" of 3° 20’, and the below table lists the appropriate starting sound to name the child. The 27 nakshatras, each with 4 padas, give 108, which is the number of beads in a japa mala, representing all the elements (ansh) of Vishnu:


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: Sathuvachari Varadarajan Mudaliar (9 October 1926 – 2 January 1988), also known as Vardhabhai and Vardha, was an Indian crime boss. From the early 1960s to the 1980s, he was, along with Karim Lala and Haji Mastan, one of the most powerful mob bosses in Bombay. His origin is Sathuvachari in North Arcot district of Tamil Nadu, from where his father migrated to Tuticorin to work in shipping business. He was born in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: Varadarajan was born in Tuticorin, Tamilnadu in 1926 He moved to Mumbai in 1945. Working as a porter at VT Station, he began his criminal life by stealing dock cargo. Varada, as he was fondly called, was hugely popular among the poor Tamil residents in the Dharavi slums. He used the massive Dharavi slums as a safe haven to expand his criminal activities into an underworld empire of extortion, kidnapping, contract killing, land encroachment, illegal gambling and liquor dens, manufacturing illicit liquor and bootlegging. Varada had total control over the distribution racket of illicit liquor.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In the early 1980s, after Haji Mastan gave up his smuggling operations and Karim Lala's Pathan gang was weakened by a split between Samad Khan and Dawood Ibrahim, Varadarajan emerged as a powerful contender in the Mumbai underworld. Varadarajan ran a parallel judicial system within the Tamil community in his strongholds. Starting the 1980s, police officer Y.C. Pawar targeted Varadarajan Mudaliar. Most of his gang members were eliminated or imprisoned. His illegal gambling and liquor dens were closed down and finally by the end of 1983, Varadarajan was forced to abandon his underworld empire and flee from Mumbai to Tamil Nadu.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: While a porter at VT Station, Varadarajan began offering food to the poor at the nearby dargah of Bismillah Shah Baba and kept the tradition up as his fortunes rose.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: His opulent pandals at Matunga station during the annual Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations were quite famous and visited by celebrities. However, after the collapse of the cotton mills in Mumbai in the mid-1980s, their relevance ended.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: During the period of Varadarajan's fading influence, his hugely popular Ganapathi pandal was served an eviction notice at the behest of the police in the mid-1980s. This was also the time when most members of his gang were jailed or eliminated, forcing him to flee Bombay for Madras, where he led a retired life until his demise in January 1988, following a heart attack. Haji Mastan brought his body to Mumbai in a chartered Indian Airlines plane for last rites as per Varda's wishes . Many people mourned his death. Life came to a standstill in Dharavi, Matunga and Sion Koliwada when his body was flown into the city. Varadarajan's dear friend, Selva, was with him throughout his adult life, until his death.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: A daughter, Mahalakshmi, died of suffocation in a fire at her home at age 50, along with her husband, Hemachander, in 2010 at Pattinapakkam, Chennai.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In 1983, in the film Ardh Satya, the character of Rama Shetty played by actor Sadashiv Amrapurkar was loosely based on Varadarajan.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In 1984, actor Amrish Puri played a character called Varadarajan of Dogharbhatti in the movie, Mashaal.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In 1987, Mani Ratnam made his film "Nayakan", loosely based on Varadarajan's life. Actor Kamal Haasan played the lead role.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: One of the characters in the 1991 Malayalam film Abhimanyu, which was based on the Mumbai underworld activities, holds resemblance to Muthaliar with the character's name being the same.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In a television interview, Amitabh Bachchan stated that he modeled his dialogues and mannerisms in the movie "Agneepath" after Varadarajan's.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In 2007, In the film Thottal Poo Malarum, "Rajkiran" Played the role in the name of Varadarajan Vaandaiyar.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In 2010 Hindi movie Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai the character of Vardhan played by Ravi Khanvilkar was inspired by Varadarajan Mudaliar.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In the 2013 Tamil movie "Thalaiva", Sathyaraj's character is mainly extracted from Varadarajan's life. Vijay played the lead and as Sathyaraj's son.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In the 2015 Tamil movie "Yagavarayinum Naa Kaakka", starring Mithun Chakraborty a character is mainly extracted from Varadarajan's life.


title: Varadarajan Mudaliar

text: In the 2018 Tamil movie "Kaala", where the lead role played by Rajinikanth was inspired by Varadarajan's life.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: We Bought a Zoo is a 2011 American family comedy-drama film loosely based on the 2008 memoir of the same name by Benjamin Mee. It was co-written and directed by Cameron Crowe and stars Matt Damon as widowed father Benjamin Mee, who purchases a dilapidated zoo with his family and takes on the challenge of preparing the zoo for its reopening to the public. The film also stars Scarlett Johansson, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit, Elle Fanning, Colin Ford, and John Michael Higgins.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: "We Bought A Zoo" was released in the United States on December 21, 2011 by 20th Century Fox. The film earned $120.1 million on a $50 million budget. "We Bought a Zoo" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 3, 2012 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Dartmoor Zoological Park (originally Dartmoor Wildlife Park), on which the film is based, is a 33-acre zoological garden located near the village of Sparkwell, Devon, England.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Benjamin Mee has been grieving the loss of his wife, Katherine, for seven months. When his 14-year-old son Dylan is expelled from school, Benjamin realizes that the family's current situation is not working, they are all grieving, and everything around them reminds them of Katherine. Benjamin decides to make a fresh start, starting with a new home.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: He tours many homes with his 7-year-old daughter, Rosie, and their realtor, Mr. Stevens, but find none to their liking until Rosie sees a listing for a large old house. Mr. Stevens tries to dissuade them from considering it, but as they tour the grounds, Benjamin declares that "it's perfect". Stevens explains that if they want the house, then they must also buy the zoo on the property which closed several years before. Benjamin, seeing Rosie playing happily with the peacocks, resolves to buy the zoo.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Dylan, frustrated by the idea of moving away from his friends, retreats into his art. Benjamin's brother, Duncan, tries to discourage him from the purchase, but he buys it anyway.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: The zoo staff, led by head keeper Kelly Foster, start making renovations to reopen the zoo to the public. When Kelly asks Benjamin why he bought the zoo despite knowing nothing about zoo management, he simply responds, "Why not?" Meanwhile, Dylan is very unhappy and misses his friends, causing him to retreat further into his art. He is soon befriended by Kelly's 13-year-old homeschooled cousin, Lily, who develops a crush on him.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Walter Ferris, a strict USDA inspector, arrives for a surprise visit and makes a list of repairs that would cost over $100,000. Benjamin cannot afford the repairs and gossip spreads that he will probably sell the zoo. The staff's morale sinks, fearing the property will be sold to a buyer that will close it down. Dylan is overjoyed when Lily tells him the rumor about his family leaving, which hurts her feelings.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Benjamin learns that Katherine bequeathed him an investment account with instructions to use the money wisely while listening to his heart. Duncan advises him to walk away and start over with the money, but Benjamin decides to use the money for the repairs.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Dylan, unhappy about having to stay, confronts his father and they have a heated argument. They reconcile the next morning and Dylan admits he misses Lily. Benjamin tells Dylan his favorite motto: that you only need 20 seconds of courage for something great to happen. Benjamin realizes that instead of trying to start over by forgetting his wife, he should accept that she will always be a part of him. Dylan, following his father's advice, confesses his love to Lily, and she forgives him.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Prior to the zoo's grand opening, the facility passes a stringent inspection by Ferris, who grudgingly wishes them good luck. They learn that the worst rainstorm in 100 years may wash out the zoo's grand opening. Fortunately, the weather clears by the morning of the grand opening, but they are disappointed when it appears that no one is visiting.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Dylan discovers that a fallen tree has blocked the access road with a large crowd of visitors waiting behind it. The staff help everyone climb over the tree, and the attendance is so high that they run out of tickets. Benjamin and Kelly set out to find more and end up face to face in a shed, where Kelly admits that she has a crush on Benjamin and they kiss.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Benjamin takes Dylan and Rosie to the restaurant where he met Katherine. He tells them the story of how he worked up the nerve to approach her table with "20 seconds of insane courage." He visualizes her at the table, and asks why such an amazing woman would talk to someone like him. She responds, "Why not?"


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: The zoo scenes were filmed at Greenfield Ranch in Hidden Valley, Thousand Oaks, California, where a zoo was erected for the filming.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: In May 2010, Cameron Crowe agreed to direct the 20th Century Fox adaptation of Benjamin Mee's memoir "We Bought a Zoo". He then began rewriting the film's script, which was originally written by Aline Brosh McKenna. This was the first narrative film that was directed by Crowe since the 2005 film "Elizabethtown". The film was released on December 21, 2011.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Crowe traveled to the set of the film "True Grit" to persuade actor Matt Damon to take on the role of the lead character in the film. Crowe also presented a script of the film, a CD of songs that Crowe burned himself of live versions of classic songs, and a copy of the 1983 film "Local Hero", with instructions "to not just read the script and make a decision". Damon was persuaded to play the role after he was moved by the music and found that "Local Hero" was a "masterpiece". As for Crowe himself, he had already decided on Damon halfway through their meeting, though the distributor Fox still had a shortlist of candidates to play this role.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: In August 2011, it was announced that Icelandic musician Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, the lead singer of the band Sigur Rós, would be composing the music scores for "We Bought a Zoo". Director Crowe described the choice as "only natural", since "Jónsi has been a part of the making of "We Bought A Zoo" from the very beginning".


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: The song "Gathering Stories" was on the shortlist of 39 songs that have a chance of being nominated for Best Original Song Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards. This song was co-written by Jonsi Birgisson and Cameron Crowe.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: While the official CD release of the movie soundtrack only includes music by Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson and Sigur Rós, the complete soundtrack of the film included a variety of artists.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: "We Bought a Zoo" grossed a total of $2,984,875 on its opening day in the U.S. box office, making it the sixth highest-grossing film that weekend. It subsequently earned $14,604,645 in its first four days of screening. Overall, the film grossed $75,624,550 in North America and $37,764,426 internationally for a worldwide total of $113,388,976. It is one of only twelve feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and still improve on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 41.4% from $9,360,434 to $13,238,241.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 65% based on 172 reviews, with an average rating of 6.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""We Bought a Zoo" is a transparently cloying effort by director Cameron Crowe, but Matt Damon makes for a sympathetic central character." On Metacritic the film has a score of 58 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Roger Ebert, reviewing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", awarded the film two and a half out of four stars, describing the film as "too much formula and not enough human interest". He added that the film's "pieces go together too easily, the plot is too inevitable, and we feel little real energy between the players". However, he praised Damon, who he said "makes a sturdy and likable Benjamin Mee". "The New York Times" reviewer Manohla Dargis criticized Crowe's direction, writing that it "makes the escalating tension between Benjamin and Dylan the story's soft center," while keeping "the brutality of illness and death... safely off-screen". She also noted that the film uses "classic movie logic", specifically pointing out the way that Benjamin quits his job and that he "doesn't agonize about how he'll keep his children housed, fed and clothed". On the other hand, Dargis wrote that "you may not buy his [Cameron's] happy endings, but it's a seductive ideal when all of God's creatures, great and small, buxom and blond, exist in such harmony.""


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: "The Hollywood Reporter" commented that the film "has heart, humanity and a warmly empathetic central performance from Matt Damon", although it "doesn't dodge the potholes of earnest sentimentality and at times overplays the whimsy"; ultimately concluding that "Cameron Crowe's film has some rough edges, but it ultimately delivers thanks to Matt Damon's moving performance.""


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: The movie's plot and actual events differ. The real Benjamin Mee is British. The story was adapted for an American audience and Mee approved the changes. The actual zoo Mee bought is Dartmoor Zoological Park, located in Devon, England. The fictional zoo in the film is called Rosemoor Wildlife Park and is located in California.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: In real life, Benjamin's wife, Katherine, died after they had already bought the zoo and moved in. In the film, Benjamin bought the zoo after her death. In real life, Benjamin's father had died and his mother needed to move; the farm cost the same price as his parents' house, and his mother came too. Benjamin and his family made a specific and informed decision to buy a zoo. In the film, it occurred as a result of finding a house they liked.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: Instead of an escaping grizzly bear, as portrayed by the film, it was a jaguar called Sovereign that had escaped. Benjamin's children were also younger (aged four and six respectively) than the children in the film.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: In the film, the zoo was much easier to buy. In real life, it took almost two years to buy. Benjamin's first offer to buy the zoo was rejected due to his lack of experience in the zoological world. Finally, the real zoo opened on Saturday July 7, 2007. The movie moved that event up to the same date in 2010. This later date fell on a Wednesday, but was identified in the script as the original Saturday.


title: We Bought a Zoo

text: The longtime gag-feud between Matt Damon and Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel continued at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony, where Kimmel jokingly mocked Damon's performance in the movie.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra (Naja naja), also known as the spectacled cobra, Asian cobra, or binocellate cobra, is a species of cobra found in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan, and a member of the "big four" species that are responsible for the most snakebite cases in India.


title: Indian cobra

text: It is distinct from the king cobra which belongs to the monotypic genus "Ophiophagus". The Indian cobra is revered in Hindu mythology and culture, and is often seen with snake charmers. It is a protected species under the "Indian Wildlife Protection Act" (1972).


title: Indian cobra

text: The generic name and the specific epithet "naja" is a Latinisation of the Sanskrit word () meaning "cobra".


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra is classified under the genus "Naja" of the family Elapidae. The genus was first described by Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in 1768. The species "Naja naja" was first described by the Swedish physician, zoologist, and botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The genus "Naja" was split into several subgenera based on various factors, including morphology, diet, and habitat. "Naja naja" is part of the subgenus "Naja", along with all the other species of Asiatic cobras, including "Naja kaouthia", "Naja siamensis", "Naja sputatrix", and the rest.


title: Indian cobra

text: "Naja naja" is considered to be the prototypical cobra species within the subgenus "Naja", and within the entire genus "Naja". All Asiatic species of "Naja" were considered conspecific with "Naja naja" until the 1990s, often as subspecies thereof. Many of the subspecies were later found to be artificial or composites. This causes much potential confusion when interpreting older literature.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra or spectacled cobra, being common in South Asia, is referred to by a number of local names deriving from the root of "Naga."


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra is a moderately sized, heavy bodied species. This cobra species can easily be identified by its relatively large and quite impressive hood, which it expands when threatened.


title: Indian cobra

text: Many specimens exhibit a hood mark. This hood mark is located at the rear of the Indian cobra's hood. When the hood mark is present, are two circular ocelli patterns connected by a curved line, evoking the image of spectacles.


title: Indian cobra

text: This species has a head which is elliptical, depressed, and very slightly distinct from the neck. The snout is short and rounded with large nostrils. The eyes are medium in size and the pupils are round. The majority of adult specimens range from in length. Some specimens, particularly those from Sri Lanka, may grow to lengths of , but this is relatively uncommon.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra varies tremendously in colour and pattern throughout its range. The ventral scales or the underside colouration of this species can be grey, yellow, tan, brown, reddish or black. Dorsal scales of the Indian cobra may have a hood mark or colour patterns. The most common visible pattern is a posteriorly convex light band at the level of the 20th to 25th ventrals. Salt-and-pepper speckles, especially in adult specimens, are seen on the dorsal scales.


title: Indian cobra

text: Specimens, particularly those found in Sri Lanka, may exhibit poorly defined banding on the dorsum. Ontogenetic colour change is frequently observed in specimens in the northwestern parts of their geographic range (southern Pakistan and northwestern India). In southern Pakistan, juvenile specimens may be grey in colour and may or may not have a hood mark. Adults on the other hand are typically uniformly black in colour on top (melanistic), while the underside, outside the throat region, is usually light.


title: Indian cobra

text: Patterns on the throat and ventral scales are also variable in this species. The majority of specimens exhibit a light throat area followed by dark banding, which can be 4–7 ventral scales wide. Adult specimens also often exhibit a significant amount of mottling on the throat and on the venter, which makes patterns on this species less clear relative to patterns seen in other species of cobra. With the exception of specimens from the northwest, there is often a pair of lateral spots on the throat where the ventral and dorsal scales meet. The positioning of these spots varies, with northwestern specimens having the spots positioned more anterior, while specimens from elsewhere in their range are more posterior.


title: Indian cobra

text: Dorsal scales are smooth and strongly oblique. Midbody scales are in 23 rows (21–25), with 171–197 ventrals. There are 48–75 divided subcaudals and the anal shield is single. There are seven upper labials (3rd the largest and in contact with nasal anteriorly, 3rd and 4th in contact with eye) and 9-10 lower labials (small angular cuneate scale present between 4th and 5th lower labial), as well as one preocular in contact with internasals, and three postoculars. Temporals are 2 + 3.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Oriental rat snake "Ptyas mucosa" is often mistaken for the Indian cobra; however, this snake is much longer and can easily be distinguished by the more prominent ridged appearance of its body. Other snakes that resemble "Naja naja" are the banded racer "Argyrogena fasciolata" and the Indian smooth snake "Wallophis brachyura". Also, the monocled cobra ("Naja kaouthia") may be confused with "Naja naja"; however, the monocled cobra has an "O"-shaped pattern on the back of the hood, while the Indian cobra has a spectacles-shaped pattern on its hood. Confusions may exist with Caspian cobra ("Naja oxiana"), as some Indian cobra specimens without a hood mark are sometimes confused with "N. oxiana", where these two species coexist in Pakistan and northern India, and are both the only true non-spitting cobras in Asia. Although some Caspian cobra specimens can be quite dark, they are never fully black like the Indian cobra. "N. oxiana" normally has several dark bands under the throat, whereas in the black phase of "N. naja" from Pakistan, almost the entire throat is black.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra is native to the Indian subcontinent and can be found throughout India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and southern Nepal. In India, it may or may not occur in the state of Assam, some parts of Kashmir, and it does not occur in high altitudes of over and in extreme desert regions. In Pakistan, it is absent in most of Balochistan province, parts of North-West Frontier Province, desert areas elsewhere and the Northern Areas. The most westerly record comes from Duki, Balochistan in Pakistan, while the most easterly record is from the Tangail District in Bangladesh. As this species has been observed in Drosh, in the Chitral Valley, it may also occur in the Kabul River Valley in extreme eastern Afghanistan. There's been at least one report of this species occurring in Bhutan.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra inhabits a wide range of habitats throughout its geographical range. It can be found in dense or open forests, plains, agricultural lands (rice paddy fields, wheat crops), rocky terrain, wetlands, and it can even be found in heavily populated urban areas, such as villages and city outskirts, ranging from sea level to in altitude. This species is absent from true desert regions. The Indian cobra is often found in the vicinity of water. Preferred hiding locations are holes in embankments, tree hollows, termite mounds, rock piles and small mammal dens.


title: Indian cobra

text: Indian cobras are oviparous and lay their eggs between the months of April and July. The female snake usually lays between 10 and 30 eggs in rat holes or termite mounds and the eggs hatch 48 to 69 days later. The hatchlings measure between in length. The hatchlings are independent from birth and have fully functional venom glands.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra's venom mainly contains a powerful post-synaptic neurotoxin and cardiotoxin. The venom acts on the synaptic gaps of the nerves, thereby paralyzing muscles, and in severe bites leading to respiratory failure or cardiac arrest. The venom components include enzymes such as hyaluronidase that cause lysis and increase the spread of the venom. Envenomation symptoms may manifest between fifteen minutes and two hours following the bite.


title: Indian cobra

text: In mice, the preferred value is estimated to be 0.56 mg/kg via subcutaneous injection (SC). However, there's a wide range of potency for this species, ranging from 0.22 mg/kg (in Pakistani "N. naja karachiensis") to 0.84 mg/kg (Indian specimens). "Minton (1974)" reported a value of 0.29 mg/kg SC for specimens from northwest India, along with an average venom yield per bite range between 170 and 250 mg (dry weight). In another study the average venom yield was 169 mg and a maximum yield of 610 mg (both are dry weight of milked venom). Though it is responsible for many bites, only a small percentage are fatal if proper medical treatment and antivenom are given. Mortality rate for untreated bite victims can vary from case to case, depending upon the quantity of venom delivered by the individual involved. According to one study, it is approximately 20–30%, but in another study involving victims who were given prompt medical treatment, the mortality rate was only 9%. In Bangladesh it is responsible for most of the snake bite cases.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra is one of the big four snakes of South Asia which are responsible for the majority of human deaths by snakebite in Asia. Polyvalent serum is available for treating snakebites caused by these species. Zedoary, a local spice with a reputation for being effective against snakebite, has shown promise in experiments testing its activity against cobra venom.


title: Indian cobra

text: The venom of young cobras has been used as a substance of abuse in India, with cases of snake charmers being paid for providing bites from their snakes. Though this practice is now seen as outdated, symptoms of such abuse include loss of consciousness, euphoria, and sedation.


title: Indian cobra

text: , an antivenom is currently being developed by the Costa Rican Clodomiro Picado Institute, and the clinical trial phase is in Sri Lanka.


title: Indian cobra

text: Indian cobras ("N. naja") earliest clinical manifestation of systemic envenoming was drowsiness, which occurred in 60% of cases starting at 30 minutes (severe bites) post-envenomation to 3 hours post bite. Difficulty in opening the eyes, speaking, opening the mouth, moving the lips and swallowing followed 1 – 4 hours later. Ptosis developed 1.6 – 6 hours post bite in all cases of systemic envenoming. General weakness was usually the last symptom to develop, followed by paralysis of the muscles in severe cases. Three patients developed respiratory paralysis and were given artificial respiration; 2 recovered and 1 died. The fatal case developed respiratory paralysis about 10 minutes before reaching hospital and patient became comatose; tracheostomy and artificial respiration were performed immediately and antivenom was administered intravenously. Patient survived for 8 days but finally died. The outstanding feature of systemic envenoming is paralysis of the muscles due to rapid action of neurotoxin at the myoneural junction. Respiratory paralysis may occur within 3 – 4 hours in severe cases.


title: Indian cobra

text: Indian cobra bites are very common in many parts of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and throughout their range in South Asia. Hundreds of individual case reports have been published in books and journals over the past century. It is astonishing, however, that no large prospective study of patients with proven bites by "N. naja" has been undertaken and reported. In a survey of snakebites in India, 91.4% of cases were bitten by an unidentified snake. Of the 6.1% of identified venomous snakes responsible for bites, 40% were "N. naja". As with bites by "N. kaouthia" and "N. oxiana", patients may show manifestations of systemic neurotoxic envenoming or local envenoming or both, although "N. oxiana" bites produce noticeable symptoms of envenomation more rapidly and prominent neurotoxicity (severe flaccid paralysis) is more common amongst patients bitten by "N. oxiana". A woman bitten by "N. oxiana" in northwestern Pakistan suffered prominent neurotoxicity and died while en route to the closest hospital nearly 50 minutes after envenomation (death occurred 45–50 minutes post envenomation).


title: Indian cobra

text: Local necrosis was described after cobra bites in India in the 1860s and up to the 1920s but this was apparently forgotten until Reid's work in Malaysia. Severe local pain and swelling may begin almost immediately after the bite. The pain persists while swelling and tenderness extend up the bitten limb, sometimes spreading to the adjacent trunk. Darkening of the necrotic area of skin and blistering are apparent by about the third day with a characteristic putrid smell typical of necrotic cobra bites in Africa and Asia. Early systemic symptoms include headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and a feeling of lassitude, drowsiness and intoxication. "Many subjects describe their drowsiness as if they had imbibed large quantities of some potent intoxicant." Neurotoxic symptoms begin with ptosis (the patient puckers their brow, contracting the frontalis muscle, attempting to raise the eyelids or tilts the head back so as to see beneath the drooping upper lids), profuse viscid saliva, inability to clear secretions, sagging of the jaw or inability to open the mouth and progression to respiratory paralysis. It is not clear from the available literature whether the proportion of patients developing neurotoxicity and necrosis is different from that in patients bitten by "N. kaouthia".


title: Indian cobra

text: Between 1968 - 1974, clinical observations were made on 20 cases of cobra bites in Thailand. Most of the patients came from the rural health centres and the cobra responsible for the bite was identified as "Naja naja" (Indian cobra). All 20 patients developed systemic envenoming. Antivenom for cobra bite was administered intravenously together with symptomatic and supportive treatment; 19 patients survived and 1 died from cerebral anoxia.


title: Indian cobra

text: The outstanding feature of systemic envenoming is paralysis of the muscles due to rapid action of neurotoxin at the myoneural junction. Respiratory paralysis may occur within 3 – 4 hours in severe cases. Drowsiness is the first symptom, but it is difficult to assess because it is a subjective symptom. All of the cases developed ptosis 1.5 – 6 hours post bite. Since ptosis is easy to detect it is a valuable clinical sign for early diagnosis of systemic envenoming due to cobra bite. Restlessness, irregular breathing, and mental confusion usually developed before respiratory paralysis, indicating that they are significant early clinical signs of impending respiratory failure. It is important for clinicians to recognize the early signs of respiratory failure. Cases which show signs of systemic envenoming require antivenom. If some hours have elapsed since the bite the antivenom may be less successful. In general, 100 ml. of antivenom should be given in the first 30 minutes. If there is no distinct clinical improvement within 1 hour the dose should be repeated. Tracheostomy and artificial respiration are essential in cases of respiratory failure. Necrosis is the outstanding feature of local envenoming. Most patients were bitten on foot while working in rice fields. Authors recommended the wearing of shoes or boots while working, and that persons bitten by a snake apply a firm ligature above the bite and go to the nearest health centre or hospital.


title: Indian cobra

text: Previous cytogenetic analysis revealed the Indian cobra has a diploid karyotype of 38 chromosomes, compromising seven pairs of macro-chromosomes, 11 pairs of micro-chromosomes and one pair of sexual chromosomes. Using next-generation sequencing and emerging genomic technologies, a de novo high-quality "N. naja" reference genome was published in 2020. The estimated size of this haploid genome is of 1.79 Gb, which has 43.22% of repetitive content and 40.46% of GC content. Specifically, macro-chromosomes, which represent 88% of the genome, have 39.8% of GC content, while micro-chromosomes, that represent only 12% of the genome, contain 43.5% of GC content.


title: Indian cobra

text: Synteny analysis between the Indian cobra and the prairie rattlesnake genome revealed large syntenic blocks within macro, micro, and sexual chromosomes. This study allowed the observation of chromosomic fusion and fission events that are consistent with the difference in chromosome number between these species. For example, chromosome 4 of the Indian cobra shares syntenic regions with chromosomes 3 and 5 of the rattlesnake genome, indicating a possible fusion event. Besides, chromosomes 5 and 6 of the Indian cobra are syntenic to rattlesnake chromosome 4, indicating a possible fusion event between these chromosomes.


title: Indian cobra

text: On the other hand, by performing whole-genome synteny comparison between the Indian cobra and other reptilian and avian genomes, it was revealed the presence of large syntenic regions between macro, micro, and sexual chromosomes across species from these classes, which indicates changes in chromosome organization between reptile and avian genomes and is consistent with their evolutionary trajectories.


title: Indian cobra

text: Using protein homology information and expression data from different tissues of the cobra, 23,248 protein-coding genes, 31,447 transcripts, and 31,036 proteins, which included alternatively spliced products, where predicted from this genome. 85% of these predicted proteins contained start and stop codon, and 12% contained an N-terminal secretion signal sequence, which is an important feature in terms of toxins secretion from venom glands.


title: Indian cobra

text: Further studies on gene prediction and annotation of the Indian cobra genome identified 139 toxin genes from 33 protein families. These included families like three-finger toxins (3FTxs), snake venom metalloproteinases (SVMP), cysteine-rich secretory venom proteins and other toxins including natriuretic peptide, C-type lectin, snake venom serine proteinase (SVSP), Kunitz and venom complement-activating gene families, group I phospholipase A2 (PLA2) and one cobra venom factor (CVF) gene. These major toxin gene families in the Indian cobra are mostly found in the snake's macro-chromosomes, which differs from "Crotalus virides" (rattlesnake) that presents them in its micro-chromosomes, and is indicative of the differences in their venom evolution. Besides, comparison of venom gland genes between the Indian cobra and "C. virides", identified 15 toxin gene families that are unique to the Indian cobra, which included cathelicidins and phospholipase B-like toxins.


title: Indian cobra

text: Analysis of transcriptomic data from 14 different tissues of the Indian cobra identified 19,426 expressed genes. Out of these genes, 12,346 belonged to the venom gland transcriptome, which included 139 genes from 33 toxin gene families. Additionally, differential expression analysis revealed that 109 genes from 15 different toxin gene families were significantly up-regulated (fold change > 2) in the venom gland and this included 19 genes that were exclusively expressed in this gland.


title: Indian cobra

text: These 19 venom specific toxins (VSTs) encode the core effector toxin proteins and include 9 three-finger toxins (out of which six are neurotoxins, one cytotoxin, one cardiotoxin and one muscarinic toxin), six snake venom metalloproteinases, one nerve growth factor, two venom Kunitz serine proteases and a cysteine-rich secretory venom protein. Additionally to these VSTs, other accessory venom proteins (AVPs) were also found to be highly expressed in the venom gland such as: cobra venom factor (CVF), coagulation factors, protein disulfide isomerases, natriuretic peptides, hyaluronidases, phospholipases, L-amino acid oxidase (LAAO), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and 5' nucleotidases.


title: Indian cobra

text: This transcriptomic data together with the information provided by the high quality Indian cobra genome generated by Susyamohan et al., 2020 suggest that these VSTs together with AVPs form the core toxic effector components of this venomous snake, which induce muscular paralysis, cardiovascular dysfunction, nausea, blurred vision and hemorrhage after snake bite.


title: Indian cobra

text: The identification of these genes coding for core toxic effector components from the Indian cobra venom may allow the development of recombinant antivenoms based in neutralizing antibodies for VST proteins.


title: Indian cobra

text: Rudyard Kipling's short story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" features a pair of Indian cobras named Nag and Nagaina, the Hindi words for male and female snake, respectively.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra is greatly respected and feared, and even has its own place in Hindu mythology as a powerful deity. The Hindu god Shiva is often depicted with a cobra called Vasuki, coiled around his neck, symbolizing his mastery over "maya" or the world-illusion. Vishnu is usually portrayed as reclining on the coiled body of Adishesha, the "Preeminent Serpent", a giant snake deity with multiple cobra heads. Cobras are also worshipped during the Hindu festival of "Nag Panchami" and "Nagula Chavithi". When killed by humans, it is usually cremated with milk and ghee along with a cloth by Hindus.


title: Indian cobra

text: The Indian cobra's celebrity comes from its popularity with snake charmers. The cobra's dramatic threat posture makes for a unique spectacle, as it appears to sway to the tune of a snake charmer's flute. Snake charmers with their cobras in a wicker basket are a common sight in many parts of India only during the Nag Panchami or Naagula Chavithi festival. The cobra is deaf to the snake charmer's pipe, but follows the visual cue of the moving pipe and it can sense the ground vibrations from the snake charmer's tapping. Sometimes, for the sake of safety, the cobra will either be venomoid or the venom will have been milked prior to the snake charmer's act. The snake charmer may then sell this venom at a very high price. In the past Indian snake charmers also conducted cobra and mongoose fights. These gory fight shows, in which the snake was usually killed, are now illegal.


title: Indian cobra

text: Indian cobras were often a heraldic element in the official symbols of certain ancient princely states of India such as Gwalior, Kolhapur, Pal Lahara, Gondal, Khairagarh and Kalahandi, among others.


The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, often shortened to Buckaroo Banzai, is a 1984 American science fiction film produced and directed by W. D. Richter and written by Earl Mac Rauch. It stars Peter Weller in the titular role, with Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Lloyd. The supporting cast includes Lewis Smith, Rosalind Cash, Clancy Brown, Pepe Serna, Robert Ito, Vincent Schiavelli, Dan Hedaya, Jonathan Banks, John Ashton, Carl Lumbly and Ronald Lacey.


title: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

text: The film centers upon the efforts of the polymath Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, and rock star, to save the world by defeating a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids from Planet 10. The film is a cross between the action-adventure and science fiction film genres and also includes elements of comedy and romance.


text: After screenwriter W. D. Richter hired novelist Earl Mac Rauch to develop a screenplay of Mac Rauch's new character, Buckaroo Banzai, Richter teamed with producer Neil Canton to pitch the script to MGM/UA studio chief David Begelman, who took it to 20th Century Fox to make the film. Box office figures were low and less than half of the film's production costs were recovered. Some critics were put off by the complicated plot, although Pauline Kael enjoyed the film and Vincent Canby called it "pure, nutty fun." "Buckaroo Banzai" has been adapted for books, comics, and a video game and has attracted a loyal cult following.


text: Buckaroo Banzai and his mentor Dr. Tohichi Hikita perfect the "oscillation overthruster", a device that allows an object to pass through solid matter. Banzai tests it by driving his Jet Car through a mountain. While in transit, he finds himself in another dimension. After exiting the mountain and returning to his normal dimension, he discovers an alien organism has attached itself to his car.


text: Dr. Emilio Lizardo, incarcerated at the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane, sees a television news story of Banzai's successful test. In 1938, Drs. Lizardo and Hikita had built a prototype overthruster, but he tested it before it was ready and became stuck between dimensions. He was attacked by aliens until freed by his colleagues, emerging changed and violent. Understanding that Banzai has finally accessed the 8th dimension, Lizardo escapes the asylum and plots to steal the overthruster.


text: Banzai and his band, "The Hong Kong Cavaliers", are performing at a nightclub when Banzai interrupts their musical intro to address a depressed woman in the audience, Penny Priddy. During a song he performs especially for her, she attempts suicide, which is mistaken for an assassination attempt on Banzai. After questioning her at the jail, he realizes she is his late wife, Peggy's, long-lost identical twin sister and bails her out.


text: Later, during a press conference to discuss his Jet Car experience, the overthruster, and the specimen of alien/transdimensional life he obtained while traversing the 8th dimension, Banzai is called to the phone, where he receives an electrical shock. Simultaneously, strange men disrupt the event and kidnap Hikita. When Banzai returns, his electrical shock enables him to recognize them as humanoid aliens, and he gives chase. He rescues Hikita, and they manage to evade the aliens long enough for the Cavaliers to rescue them.


text: Banzai and the Cavaliers return to the Banzai Institute, where they are met by John Parker, a messenger from John Emdall, the leader of the peaceful Black Lectroids of Planet 10. Parker delivers a recording from Emdall in which she explains that her people have been at war with the hostile Red Lectroids for years, managing to banish them to the 8th dimension. Lizardo's failed test of the overthruster in 1938 allowed the Red Lectroids' tyrannical leader, Lord John Whorfin, to take over Lizardo's mind and enable several dozen of his allies to escape. Because Banzai has now perfected the overthruster, Emdall fears Whorfin and his allies will try to acquire it to free the other Red Lectroids and tasks Banzai with stopping Whorfin; otherwise, the Black Lectroids will attack Russia from their orbiting ship, triggering a nuclear World War III that will annihilate the Red Lectroids on Earth as well as humankind.


text: The Cavaliers track the Red Lectroids to Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems in New Jersey. They realize that Orson Welles's broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" described the Lectroids' arrival in 1938, though afterward the Lectroids forced him to state it was fictional. Yoyodyne has been building a spacecraft to cross over to the 8th dimension, disguised as a new United States Air Force bomber. While the Cavaliers are planning their response, Red Lectroids break into the Institute and kidnap Penny, unaware that they have also captured the overthruster, which she was carrying.


text: At Yoyodyne, Penny refuses to tell the Red Lectroids where the overthruster is, and they begin torturing her. Banzai enters Yoyodyne headquarters alone; the Cavaliers follow, reinforced by several groups of the Blue Blaze Irregulars, civilians recruited to assist the Cavaliers when necessary. Banzai saves Penny and fights off the Red Lectroids, though she is wounded and unconscious. While the Cavaliers tend to her, Banzai and Parker sneak into a pod on the Yoyodyne spacecraft. Lacking Banzai's overthruster, Whorfin insists they use his imperfect model, which fails to make the dimensional transition; instead, the Red Lectroid spaceship breaks through the Yoyodyne wall and takes off into the atmosphere.


text: Lord Whorfin ejects the pod containing Banzai and Parker from the craft, but they manage to activate it and use its weapon systems to destroy Whorfin and the other Red Lectroids. Banzai parachutes back to Earth while Parker returns to his people in orbit using the pod. With the situation resolved and war averted, Banzai finds Penny has died from her injuries. When he goes to give her a final kiss, Emdall gives Banzai another brief shock, reviving Penny.


text: In 1974, W. D. Richter's wife read a review of "Dirty Pictures from the Prom", the debut novel from Dartmouth College graduate and writer Earl Mac Rauch, and recommended it to her husband. Richter, also an alumnus from the college, read the book, loved it, and wrote Mac Rauch a letter. The two men began corresponding. When the writer told him about his interest in becoming a screenwriter, Richter offered him an open-ended invitation to visit him in Los Angeles where he was attending the University of Southern California and working as a script analyst for Warner Bros.


text: Years passed and Richter became a successful screenwriter. Mac Rauch took Richter up on his offer and arrived in L.A. Richter proceeded to introduce the writer to producer/director Irwin Winkler, who gave Mac Rauch rent money for the next six months. Over several dinners, Mac Rauch told Richter and his wife of a character named Buckaroo Bandy about whom he was thinking of writing a screenplay. Richter and his wife liked the idea and paid Mac Rauch $1,500 to develop and write it. According to Mac Rauch, his script was inspired by "all those out-and-out, press-the-accelerator-to-the-floor, non-stop kung fu movies of the early '70s". Richter remembers that Mac Rauch wrote several stories about this character, then he "would get thirty or forty pages into a script, abandon its storyline and write a new one". Mac Rauch recalled, "It's so easy to start something and then—since you're really not as serious about it as you should be—end up writing half of it ... You shove the hundred pages in a drawer and try to forget about it. Over the years, I started a dozen "Buckaroo" scripts that ended that way."


text: Mac Rauch's original 30-page treatment was titled "Find the Jetcar, Said the President - A Buckaroo Banzai Thriller". Early on, one of the revisions Mac Rauch made was changing Buckaroo's surname from Bandy to Banzai. Mac Rauch was not happy with the name change, but Richter convinced him to keep the new name. The Hong Kong Cavaliers also appeared in these early drafts, but, according to Richter, "it never really went to a completed script. Mac wrote and wrote but never wrote the end". Another early draft was titled "The Strange Case of Mr. Cigars" about a huge robot and a box of Adolf Hitler's cigars. Mac Rauch shelved his work for a few years while he wrote "New York, New York" for Martin Scorsese and other unproduced screenplays.


text: In 1980, Richter talked with producers Frank Marshall and Neil Canton about filming one of his screenplays. Out of this meeting, Canton and Richter formed their own production company and decided that "Buckaroo Banzai" would be the first film. Under their supervision, Mac Rauch wrote a 60-page treatment titled "Lepers from Saturn". They shopped Mac Rauch's treatment around to production executives who were their peers, proposing that Richter direct it, but no one wanted to take on such unusual subject matter by two first-time producers and a first-time director. Canton and Richter contacted veteran producer Sidney Beckerman at MGM/UA, with whom Canton had worked before. Beckerman liked the treatment and introduced Richter and Canton to studio chief David Begelman. Within 24 hours, they had a development deal with the studio. It took Mac Rauch a year and a half to write the final screenplay; during this time, the Lepers from the treatment became Lizards and then Lectroids—from Planet 10. Much of the film's detailed character histories were taken from Mac Rauch's unfinished "Banzai" scripts.


text: The 1981 Writers Guild of America strike forced the project to languish in development for more than a year. Begelman left MGM as several of his projects had performed poorly at the box office; this put all of his future projects, "Buckaroo Banzai" included, in jeopardy. Begelman formed Sherwood Productions and exercised a buy-out option with MGM for the "Banzai" script. He took it to 20th Century Fox who agreed to make it with a $12 million budget. Mac Rauch ended up writing three more drafts before they had a shooting script.


text: When considering the role of Buckaroo Banzai, Richter wanted an actor who "could both look heroic with grease all over his face, and project the kind of intelligence you would associate with a neurosurgeon and inventor". The studio wanted a recognizable film star, but Richter and Canton wanted to cast a relatively unknown actor. Richter looked in New York City because he assumed that an actor with experience on stage and small films "would be able to "completely" interact with props". He had been impressed by Peter Weller's performance in "Shoot the Moon" and met with him. At first, the actor was hesitant to take the role because he was unclear on the overall tone of the film. "Would it be campy? Would it be a cartoon? Or would it be the sort of wacky, realistic film that would catch people sideways—and not be a cartoon", Weller remembers thinking. Richter told Banzai's story to Weller and convinced him to do the film. The actor stated that he based his character on Elia Kazan, Jacques Cousteau, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Adam Ant.


text: For the role of Dr. Emilio Lizardo, the studio wanted to cast an unknown actor, but Mac Rauch had written the role with John Lithgow in mind. Like Weller, Lithgow was not sure about the character, but Richter convinced him by "claiming what a real feast for an actor this wonderful Jekyll and Hyde character was", Lithgow later said. He told an interviewer, "I have had roles where I came very close to going over the top. In "" I almost went over the top several times. But this role is completely over the top. It makes the role in "Twilight Zone" seem like a model of restraint. I do it in a wild, red fright wig and rotten false teeth with a thick Italian accent. It's wild." For Lizardo's accent, Lithgow spent time with an Italian tailor at MGM and recorded his voice (film credit to "Roberto Terminelli: John Lithgow's dialect coach"). Lithgow changed his walk to that of an "old crab, because my alien metabolism is supposed to be messed up". He said of his character, "playing Lizardo felt like playing the madman in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"."


text: Ellen Barkin, who played the romantic interest "Penny Priddy", describes the film as "if Terry Southern had written "Star Wars". None of the characters are quite what they should be—just my kind of thing." Richter's only choice to play John Bigbooté was Christopher Lloyd, who agreed to the role. Richter first met Jeff Goldblum on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and wanted him to play the character New Jersey; the actor admired the script and was eager to work with the cast the director had assembled. Lewis Smith was asked to dye his hair blond; it took eight hours, and he saw it go from red to orange to fluorescent yellow to white. Clancy Brown said that his character is "very common sensical. He's the everyman of the film". Robert Ito was so determined to get the role of Dr. Hikita, that he disguised himself as an old man, designing his own makeup job to age himself 30 years.


text: Production designer J. Michael Riva had worked with Richter before and spent two years working on the look for "Banzai". He and Richter studied many kinds of art and literature for the film's look, including medical journals, African magazines, and Russian history. The inspiration for the look of the Lectroids came from Riva sporting a lobster on his nose. He based the Lectroids' alien form on Canadian-American paleontologist Dale Russell's "dinosauroid", an extrapolation of what dinosaurs might have evolved into if they had survived, but modified the concept because it would have required prosthetics that would have immobilized the actors. Their makeup consisted of 12 separate pieces of latex appliances per alien. Each actor's makeup was unique, with casts taken of their faces. For the Red Lectroids, Riva consulted Russian history to give them a "baggy-suited, Moscow bureaucrat sort of image"; their outfits were influenced by contemporary Russian lifestyles and they went with greens, blues and yellows because, according to Riva, they are "sick and anemic."


text: Costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers, who designed costumes for "Return of the Jedi," "American Graffiti" and "The Conversation," met Richter while working on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Riva noted that "She fell right into step with the stuff I was designing for the sets," making the costumes match the color of the rooms. Richter wanted the Black Lectroids to have a "warrior-like demeanor, but in an elegant, not fierce fashion"; their costumes came from African tribal markings. For Buckaroo's and his Cavaliers' look, Rodgers gathered Gianni Versace, Perry Ellis, and Giorgio Armani sports jackets, suits, and ties. The clothing was mostly found in LA area stores. Rogers noted "We also wanted to have something a little off so that there's a kick to everything to make it unique. Rick changed something on every outfit" and that "It's an interesting style, not a cliche style. You throw stuff in there that people will recognize." Goldblum's character Dr. Zweibel was given a cowboy outfit to wear; according to costumer Radford Polinski, the character thought he was dressed appropriately for an audition for a person named "Buckaroo". The outfit itself was from Nudie Cohn's Rodeo Tailors.


text: Richter and Riva did not want metal spaceships and opted for a more organic look like a deep sea oyster shell. Gregory Jein, Inc. and Stetson Visual Concepts built the spaceship models and worked off sketches by production illustrator Tom Cranham and used seashells as guides. Richter purposely wanted the film to have an unpolished look because the "real world appears ramshackle—because people constantly repair whatever's around them".


text: By the time of filming, Richter had compiled a 300-page book called "The Essential Buckaroo" that consisted of notes and had every incomplete script Mac Rauch wrote over the years. These included various references to a villain named Hanoi Xan, leader of the World Crime League. Begelman was adamant that "Across the 8th Dimension" would be the one and only Buckaroo movie and that all references to Xan be removed. This included the removal of the original opening, which showed Buckaroo's father being killed by Xan and featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as Buckaroo's mother. The director later described Begelman as "our enemy for the entire movie."


text: Principal photography began during the second week of September 1983 on locations in and around South Gate, an industrial suburb of L.A. Buckaroo's neurosurgery scene with New Jersey was shot at the Lakeview Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley. The jet car sequences were shot in October on a dry lake north of the San Bernardino Mountains. The vehicle was designed and built by Riva, art director Stephen Dane, and Thrust Racing owners Jerry Segal and George Hedebeck. Segal started with a Ford F-350 truck, reinforced the frame assembly, added the front end from a Grand National stock car, borrowed air scoops from a DC-3, and a one-man cockpit modeled after a Messerschmitt fighter plane. Under the hood, Segal modified the Ford engine with an oversized carburetor and nitrous oxide injectors. Northrop University loaned the production a working GE turbojet engine. The oscillation overthruster was created by Riva and visual effects supervisor Michael Fink out of a gyroscope to which a metal frame, wires, circuits, and tiny strobe lights were added.


text: Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth was initially hired as the film's director of photography but, halfway through production, producers replaced him with Fred J. Koenekamp. Several scenes shot by Cronenweth, including the iconic nightclub scene, are included in the final cut, though Cronenweth goes uncredited.


text: The Banzai Institute exteriors were shot in Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles, with the interiors filmed in an Art Deco house designed in 1931 by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for his wife, Dolores del Río. Deserted rooms at Brentwood's V.A. hospital were used for Dr. Lizardo's room at the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane. Lizardo's 1938 laboratory was filmed at a deserted industrial site, Alpha Tubing. The set decorators rented a collection of 1930s electrical props originally used in the original Boris Karloff Frankenstein films. The interiors of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems were shot in the abandoned Firestone tire factory. Wilmington's Department of Water and Power provided the location for Dr. Lizardo's shock tower and served as the Yoyodyne exterior, while the Armco Steel Plant in Torrance housed the Lectroid launch hangar. Weller remembers that during the scene where his character is tortured by Dr. Lizardo, "I was laughing at the banter between [Christopher] Lloyd and [John] Lithgow ... I never laughed so hard in my life! They had to stop takes over and over on that segment." Finally, 12 weeks of filming were done on the backlot and soundstages at MGM.


text: Begelman continually interfered with production through the initial stages of shooting, demanding changes and sending notes. By the end of filming, these demands had disappeared. The crew became convinced that Begelman had "checked out", and to test their theory, added a now-famous scene in which the presence of a watermelon becomes a topic for a short discussion. When the scene was allowed into the movie without comment, they concluded that management was indeed ignoring them, and they had free rein to put in whatever they wanted.


text: Begelman eventually made one more major change after seeing that the movie ended with a kiss and demanding something more. By this time the budget was almost completely spent and postproduction nearly complete. Richter decided to have the end credits appear over a new scene that was shot in the style of a music video, hiring a choreographer to arrange the action over new music by Michael Boddicker. The song was not ready in time, so the crew filmed it while playing Billy Joel's Uptown Girl. Richter described the scene as having "kind of emerged from the end of the postproduction." The scene was shot with the actors walking in the LA River bed in front of the Sepulveda Dam. The scene, called "gleefully bizarre", opens with the only remaining reference to the Hanoi Xan storyline when it mentions a (never produced) sequel called "Buckaroo Banzai against the World Crime League."


text: The film's music coordinator and sound designer Bones Howe began working with musician Michael Boddicker on the film's theme music and sound effects, as they had worked together on the soundtrack for "Get Crazy". Boddicker was Howe's first choice to write and perform the film's score. Boddicker had just won a Grammy Award for his song "Imagination" on the "Flashdance" soundtrack. In addition to composing the score, Boddicker also produced the alien sound effects, while Alan Howarth was hired to create the sounds of the 8th Dimension.


text: Howe selected the source music for the club scene and put together a special arrangement of "Since I Don't Have You" that Buckaroo sings to Penny Priddy. Weller, an accomplished musician, played the guitar and pocket trumpet, did his own vocals, and learned to mime piano playing. Howe and the filmmakers decided not to go with a rock music score for the film and opted for an electronic one instead. Howe wanted to "integrate music and sound effects so that everything would merge on the soundtrack with no distinction between music and sound."


text: Fox hired Terry Erdmann and a team of publicists including Blake Mitchell and Jim Ferguson to promote the film at "Star Trek" conventions with a few film clips and free Banzai headbands, which have since become highly sought-after collector's items by fans of the film. The studio made no attempts to sell the film to a mainstream audience with traditional promotion, although there were some magazine advertisements (primarily in Marvel Comics) and related licensing which served as viral advertising in limited venues. Studio publicist Rosemary LaSalmandra said, "Nobody knew what to do with "Buckaroo Banzai". There was no simple way to tell anyone what it was about—I'm not sure anybody knew". Lithgow said, "I've tried to explain the story line to people and it takes about an hour. I mean it; it's that complicated. But it's terrific. Every time I tell people about it, I get so excited that I end it by saying, "Buckaroo Banzai", remember where you heard it first!"


text: "Buckaroo Banzai" was originally scheduled to be released on June 8, 1984 but was pushed back to August 10. It opened on 236 screens and faced stiff competition against the likes of "" (also featuring "Banzai" co-star Christopher Lloyd), "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "Ghostbusters". It made US$620,279 on its opening weekend before finally grossing $6.2 million in North America, earning back less than half of its production costs.


text: Although reportedly "dismissed by many critics as 'strange' and 'unintelligible'" at the time of its release, the film received positive reviews from of surveyed critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads, "Sci-fi parodies like these usually struggle to work, but "Buckaroo Banzai" succeeds through total devotion to its own lunacy." Bill Cosford of "The Miami Herald" praised it as "an unusual film": "Its comedy springs from that odd combination of self-effacement and self-absorption ... [it] is basically a comic strip, relentlessly hip ... an adventure in the Buck Rogers mold." Dave Kehr, in the "Chicago Reader", wrote, "Richter seems to have invented an elaborate mythology for his hero ... but he never bothers to explicate it; the film gives you the mildly annoying sensation of being left out of a not very good private joke". In his review for "The New York Times", Vincent Canby wrote that "Buckaroo Banzai" "may well turn out to be a pilot film for other theatrical features, though this one would be hard to top for pure, nutty fun". Richard Corliss, for "Time", wrote, "its creators, Earl Mac Rauch and W.D. Richter, propel their film with such pace and farfetched style that anyone without PhDs in astrophysics and pop culture is likely to get lost in the ganglion of story strands. One wonders if the movie is too ambitious, facetious and hip for its own box-office good". In "The New Yorker", film critic Pauline Kael wrote, "I didn't find it hard to accept the uninflected, deadpan tone, and to enjoy "Buckaroo Banzai" for its inventiveness and the gags that bounce off other adventure movies, other comedies. The picture's sense of fun carried me along".


text: Danny Bowes, writing a retrospective in 2011 for Tor.com, said that the film "is paradoxically decades ahead of its time and yet completely "of" its time; it's profoundly a movie by, for, and of geeks and nerds at a time before geek/nerd culture was mainstreamed, and a movie whose pre-CG special effects and pre-Computer Age production design were an essential part of its good-natured enthusiasm. What at the time was a hip, modern take on classic SF is now, thirty years later, almost indistinguishable from the SF cinema that inspired it in terms of the appeal to modern viewers: the charmingly old-fashioned special effects, and the comparatively innocent earnestness of its tone."


text: "Buckaroo Banzai" was first released for home media on VHS and Betamax in 1985 by Vestron Video, in 1990 by Video Treasures, and in 2001 by MGM Home Entertainment. The film was released on DVD on January 4, 2002, by MGM. "Entertainment Weekly" gave the DVD release a "B+" rating and wrote, "Fans will drool over the extras, including some illuminating deleted scenes (of particular note is an alternate opening detailing Buckaroo's tragic childhood, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as Banzai's mother) and director Richter's commentary, which reveals some colorful behind-the-scenes battles with studio execs." IGN gave the DVD their highest rating and was "thrilled by the special edition treatment that this landmark cult film has received at the hands of MGM. The video is great, the sound is great, there are tons of extras". For the Blu-ray format, the film was featured as part of Shout! Factory's Shout! Select Blu-ray line in August 2016; the Shout! Factory release contains a two-hour retrospective documentary featuring interviews with Weller, Lithgow, Brown, Serna, Smith, Vera, Lloyd and director W.D. Richter, among others. A Blu-ray was also released in the United Kingdom by Arrow Video.


text: "Buckaroo Banzai" has since attracted a loyal cult following and has been popular on home video. Richter said, "It has had the most dramatic reactions of anything I've worked on. Some loathe it and others are willing to die for it". The director feels that the film failed commercially because the narrative was too complex; he would have liked to have had more coverage for certain scenes and felt he could have edited the film better, as there were too many master shots and two-shots that left little for the editor to work with.


text: "Wired Magazine", in 2009, celebrated "the 25th anniversary of the release of a film near and dear to many geeks who came of age in the '80s. "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" was a great, adventurous, geeky movie, with enough silly science fiction and great characters to fill any three lousy summer blockbusters these days ... and it gave us so many great, geeky lines to quote." Cosford, in his 1984 review: "I suspect that Buckaroo's odd musings, particularly the one about being there no matter where you go, are about to enter the popular argot on the scale of "Where's the beef?"; his prediction has been proved right. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Buckaroo Banzai" as No. 43 in their Top 50 Cult Movies. The film was also ranked No. 21 on the magazine's "The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since '83" list. "The Guardian" has also cited "Buckaroo Banzai" as one of their "1,000 films to see before you die".


text: The film was novelized by creator Earl Mac Rauch in 1984 titled "Buckaroo Banzai", published by Pocket Books and released in conjunction with the film. It was reprinted in 2002 to coincide with the release of the film on DVD. In the foreword, Mac Rauch mentions that the Buckaroo Banzai series would be continued in a series of novels.


text: The second book in the series, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, et al: A Compendium of Evils", also authored by Earl Mac Rauch, was published by Dark Horse in November 2021. Both novels are written in the first person point of view from Reno's perspective.


text: Also in conjunction with the film's 1984 release, Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation by writer Bill Mantlo and artists Mark Texeira in "Marvel Super Special" No. 33. The adaptation was also released as a two-issue limited series.


text: Moonstone Books began publishing comic books in 2006 depicting earlier and further adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers. The first story, "Buckaroo Banzai: Return of the Screw", was written by creator Earl Mac Rauch. The black-and-white preview edition of the comic was released in February 2006, featuring a behind-the-scenes article by Dan Berger regarding the transformation of the rejected Buckaroo Banzai television pilot script "Supersize those Fries" into the present comic book limited series. The three issues of this comic have been collected into a trade paperback. In December 2007, Moonstone released a new Banzai comic story "A Christmas Corrall" in the "Moonstone Holiday Super Spectacular" compilation, also written by Mac Rauch and drawn by Ken Wolak. A two-issue prequel to the film was released in early 2008 called "Of Hunan Bondage". It was written by Mac Rauch with art by "Superman Returns" storyboard artist Chewie. Moonstone released "Big Size" in early 2009, a special oversize one-shot comic written by Mac Rauch with art by Paul Hanley.


text: In conjunction with the film's 1984 release, the interactive fiction game "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension" was released for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 16, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore 64, IBM PC compatibles and ZX Spectrum. It was created by Scott Adams and published by Adventure International.


text: Team Banzai are listed as an elite mercenary Battletech unit in the Battletech and Mechwarrior board game and role-playing universes. Led by the 'enigmatic Dr Banzai', the unit is under long-term contract with House Davion. The unit appears across a period of more than three decades of the universe timeline, from the Third Succession War through the Clan Invasion The unit is composed of three Battalions of Battlemechs, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, the Radar Blazers and the Blue Blazers. It is believed the reference was used in the game by designer Jordan Weisman as a fan homage.


text: In late 1998, the Fox Network announced development of a "Buckaroo Banzai" TV series titled "Buckaroo Banzai: Ancient Secrets and New Mysteries", but it was never released. The special edition DVD contains a short computer animated sequence by Foundation Imaging made as a test reel for the series. The clip depicts a Space Shuttle trying to land with broken landing gear; Dr. Banzai maneuvers his Jet Car under the Shuttle and uses it to take the place of the broken gear.


text: In May 2016, Kevin Smith announced he would be adapting the film for television through MGM Television. Amazon Studios indicated a deal was being negotiated to produce the series. However, by November, during a Facebook Live Stream, Smith revealed that he would be walking away from the project after MGM filed a lawsuit against the original creators.


text: Parzival, the main character of the film "Ready Player One", appears in a Buckaroo Banzai costume for a date. Aech says to Parzival, "You're going to wear the outfit from your favorite movie." His date Art3mis responds to his costume with, "I like Buckaroo Banzai!"


text: The film has been seen in other media. The ending scene, in which Banzai and an ever-growing group of his friends and associates walk together triumphantly while the closing credits roll, was copied for the ending of the 2004 film "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou". (Jeff Goldblum appears in both scenes.) The current incarnation of the comic strip "Dick Tracy" has seen two subtle references to the film in the storyline. In a strip dated October 22, 2013, there is a reference to a business named "Emilio Lizardo Crematorium". In a strip dated November 7, 2013, Dick Tracy's granddaughter Honeymoon tells him she will be attending a Hong Kong Cavaliers concert with the hope of getting Perfect Tommy's autograph. Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems had an office on the promenade of "Star Trek"'s Deep Space Nine. The PhD thesis of Eric Weinstein was called "Extension of Self-Dual Yang-Mills Equations Across the Eighth Dimension".


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: Production began in 1995 by Yasumi Matsuno, a newcomer who had created the "Ogre Battle" series at Quest Corporation. Matsuno's wish was for an accessible tactical game with a storyline focusing on class-based conflict and the rewriting of history. Matsuno acted as director and writer, "Final Fantasy" creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was producer, and the battles were designed by Hiroyuki Ito. Multiple other staff members were veterans of the "Ogre Battle" series, including artists Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida, and composers Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: The game received critical acclaim from gaming magazines and websites and has become a cult classic since its release. It sold about 1.24million units in Japan during 1997, and over 2.4million worldwide by August 2011. It has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. The world of Ivalice saw the setting for multiple other titles, including other "Tactics" games and the 2006 mainline entry "Final Fantasy XII". An enhanced port of "Final Fantasy Tactics", "", was released in 2007 as part of the "Ivalice Alliance" project.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: "Final Fantasy Tactics" is a tactical role-playing game in which players follow the story of protagonist Ramza Beoulve. The game features two modes of play: battles and the world map. Battles take place on three-dimensional, isometric fields. Characters move on a battlefield composed of square tiles; movement and action ranges are determined by the character's statistics and job class. The battlefield also factors in elements such as terrain and weather to determine strategic advantages and disadvantages during clashes. Battles are turn-based; a unit may act when its Charge Time (CT) reaches 100 and increased once every CT unit (a measure of time in battles) by an amount equal to the unit's speed statistic. During battle, whenever a unit performs an action successfully, it gains experience points (EXP) and job points (JP). Actions can include magical attacks, physical attacks, or using an item. Hit points (HP) of enemy units are also visible to the player (except in the case of certain bosses), allowing the player to know how much damage they still have to inflict on a particular unit.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: In the world map, the player moves on predefined paths connecting the towns and battle points. When the character icon is over a town, a menu can be opened with several options: "Bar" for taking sidequest job offers, "Shop" for buying supplies and equipment, and "Soldier Office" for recruiting new characters. Later in the game, some towns contain "Fur Shops" for obtaining items by way of poaching monsters. Random battles happen in pre-set locations on the map, marked in green. Passing over one of these spots may result in a random encounter.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: "Tactics" features a character class system, which allows players to customize characters into various roles. The game makes extensive use of most of the original character classes seen in earlier "Final Fantasy" games, including Summoners, Wizards (Black Mages), Priests (White Mages), Monks, Lancers (Dragoons), and Thieves. New recruits start out as either a Squire or a Chemist, the base classes for warrior and magician jobs, respectively. The game features twenty jobs accessible by normal characters.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: The JP rewarded in battle are used to learn new abilities within each job class. Accumulating enough JP results in a job level up; new jobs are unlocked by attaining a certain level in the current job class (for instance, to become a Priest or Wizard, the unit must first attain Job Level2 as a Chemist), which also allows the character to gain more JP in that class in battles. Once all the abilities of a job class have been learned, the class is "Mastered". A soldier in a specific Job always has its innate skill equipped (Wizards always have "Black Magic", Knights always have "Battle Skill") but a second job-skill slot and several other ability slots (Reaction, Support, and Movement) can be filled with any skill the particular soldier has learned.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: The story takes place in the kingdom of Ivalice, inspired by the Middle Ages. The kingdom is located in a peninsula surrounded by sea on the north, west and south, with a headland south of the landmass. It is heavily populated by human beings, although intelligent monsters can be found living in less populated areas. Magic is predominant in the land, although ruins and artifacts indicated that the past populace had relied on machinery, such as airships and robots. Ivalice's neighbors are the kingdom of Ordalia in the east and Romanda, a military nation to the north. While the three nations share common royal bloodlines, major wars have taken place between them. An influential religious institution known as the Glabados Church heads the dominant faith, centering around a religious figure known as Saint Ajora.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: The story takes place after Ivalice ended its war with the two nations in what is known as the Fifty Years War, and is facing economic problems and political strife. The king of Ivalice has recently died and his heir is an infant, so a regent is needed to rule in place of the prince. The kingdom is split between two candidates named Prince Goltana, represented by the Black Lion, and Prince , symbolized by the White Lion. The conflict leads to what is known in the game as the Lion War. Behind this backdrop is a revelation by the game's historian Alazlam J. Durai, who seeks to reveal the story of an unknown character whose role in the Lion War was major but was covered up by the kingdom's church.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: Most of the game's plot is portrayed from Ramza's perspective, who is the player character of the story. He is introduced to various factions of the Lion War; the most prominent are those of Prince Goltana and Prince , who both want to become the guardian of Ivalice's monarch and are engaged in a war with each other. The story progresses to include characters from the Glabados Church, which has been controlling Ivalice silently and engineering the war in question.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: As the game progresses, players are able to recruit generic player characters and customize them using the Job system of the Final Fantasy series. Several battles also feature characters controlled via the game's A.I., which may be recruited later in the game according to the story proper. The characters were designed by Akihiko Yoshida, who was also in charge of the illustration and character designs of games such as "Tactics Ogre", "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance", "Final Fantasy XII", and "Vagrant Story".


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: Ivalice is recovering from the Fifty Year War against Ordalia. After the death of its ruler, Princess Ovelia and Prince Orinas are both candidates for the throne. The former is supported by Prince Goltana of the Black Lion, and the latter by Queen Ruvelia and her brother, Prince of the White Lion. The two groups engage in battles in the Lion War.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: Nobles and commoners regard each other negatively and many commoners joined the Corpse Brigade to fight against the nobles' soldiers. Ramza, part of the noble Beoulve family of knights, and Delita, his childhood friend who was an ordinary commoner, witness the murder of Delita's sister during an uprising. This causes Delita and Ramza to abandon their ties to the nobility. Ramza joins a mercenary group, led by Gafgarion, who protects Princess Ovelia from being hunted by both sides of the Lion War. Delita joins Goltana's forces. They are reunited when Gafgarion attempts to take Ovelia to Prince . Agrias suggests visiting Cardinal Delacroix of the Glabados Church to protect Ovelia. Along the way, Ramza meets Mustadio, a machinist in possession of a holy relic called the Zodiac Stone. Hunted by a trading company for the power it contains, Mustadio also seeks Delacroix's intervention.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: Ramza discovers that High Confessor Marcel Funebris and the church used the legend of the holy Zodiac Braves to gather the Zodiac Stones and instigated the Lion War. To prevent Ramza's interference, Delacroix uses the stone to transform into a Lucavi demon and Ramza defeats him. Ramza is regarded as a heretic by the church and he is chased by the Knights Templar, the soldiers of the church who are hunting the Zodiac Stones. He acquires proof of the Church's lies about Saint Ajora, a central figure in the religion, and attempts to use it along with the Zodiac Stone to reveal the organization's plot.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: The two sides in the Lion War face off in a major battle that results in the deaths of and Goltana. Ramza stops the battle and rescues the general, Count Cidolfus Orlandeau, though the Church eliminates the two leaders to secure its control over Ivalice. Ramza discovers that the Knights Templar are possessed by the Lucavi, who are seeking to resurrect their leader Ultima, and they needed bloodshed and a suitable body to complete the resurrection. Alma, Ramza's sister, is to serve as the host for Ultima's incarnation. Ultima is resurrected and Ramza and his allies succeed in destroying her and escape Ivalice.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: In the epilogue, Delita marries Ovelia and becomes the King of Ivalice. He fails to find true satisfaction as even Ovelia distrusts him, leading her to stab Delita. Ovelia is stabbed by Delita in return, with her fate left ambiguous in the game. Delita then cries out to Ramza, asking what Ramza gained in return for his actions, compared to Delita. Orran attempts to reveal the Church's evil plot with the "Durai Report" but his papers are confiscated and he is burned at the stake for heresy. Many centuries later a historian tries to describe the story of the Lion War.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: "Tactics" was conceived in 1993 by "Final Fantasy" series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who is a fan of the tactical role-playing genre. Due to his heavy involvement with the mainline series, he was unable to realize it at the time. Production finally began at the end of 1995 under Yasumi Matsuno, who until that year had worked at Quest Corporation on the "Ogre Battle" series, resigning once work was completed on "" and bringing several of its staff over to Square. During this period, Square had broken its long-standing development partnership with Nintendo and moved their game projects over to Sony's PlayStation. Matsuno acted as director and lead scenario writer. Sakaguchi was the game's producer. The lead programmer was Taku Murata, who had previously worked on the "Mana" series. Matsuno described the working environment at Square as more democratic than at Quest, with a greater ability for the whole staff to contribute design ideas. The art design was a collaborative effort led by "Tactics Ogre" veterans Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida, with additional character designs and artwork by Hideo Minaba and Eiichiro Nakatsu. Contrasting against the polished CGI aesthetic of "Final Fantasy VII", the team wanted a hand-drawn artstyle. The opening and closing cinematics were created by Western company Animatek International.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

text: Matsuno was originally aiming for a tactical RPG that would be accessible, something he originally aimed for with the "Ogre Battle" titles and later felt he had failed to accomplish with "Tactics". When deciding how to differentiate "Tactics" from his earlier title, he placed a focus on individual character growth similar to the main series, contrasting against the army-based simulation of "Tactics Ogre" while keeping its chess-inspired gameplay. While Matsuno designed most of the rest of the game systems, due to staff shortages and needing to focus on the scenario the battle system was designed by Hiroyuki Ito. Ito disliked tactical RPGs of the time, growing bored with their mechanics, so designed the battle system to be engaging and feel fast and exciting. Matsuno had to push against Ito's wish to simplify the class system. The level design, which used compact diorama-style levels, was chosen to allow the intended 60 frames per second, carrying over the smooth gameplay experience gamers expected from the genre. The small scale of battles also reinforced the personal nature of the game's narrative conflicts. Level design and mastering continued until a week before the game shipped.