Sergeant Hulka. We
all remember Warren Oates and his great role in the first "Stripes"
movie, and Bill Murray was so impressed with his role in making movie history,
he had Harold Ramis write him into the sequel, even though Mister Oates had been
deceased for many years. Fortunately, they refrained from doing a horrible CGI
effect or recasting the character, and memorialised him in the best way
possible: A brand new Army weapon system named after that heroic character,
Sergeant First Class Hulka.
SFC Hulka had
retired at the end of the first stripes movie, to run a chain of burger joints
knowns as "Hulka Burger", and when the sequel picks up, we find that
the chain had failed in the late 90s. Meanwhile, our protagonists, John Winger
(Murray) and Russell Ziskey (Ramis) have remained in the Army, and have
made it up into the higher levels of the Pentagon. Now both Lt Colonels, they
have been developing a new electronic battlefield weapon system, the
Tube-launched, Optically-guided Electronic-jammer, or TOE-Jammer, and have been
selected to give the first in field tests. Having named the system the
"Sergeant Hulka" after their "Big Toe" from basic training
(in a truly emotional speech Winger gives before Congress he tells them how SFC
Hulka made them what they are today) Winger and Ziskey are challenged by various
incompetent politicians and officers who wish to see their system fail
miserably. They are sent to South Korea for the test, not knowing that they have
been set up to "accidentally" invade North Korea, setting off a
massive diplomatic incident and ruining their careers.
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Various escapades and
hijinks ensue, and we get to meet a couple of their old compatriots along
the way. Stillman (John Larroquette) is now a military contractor
lobbyist, "Psycho" Soyer has become an even more deranged
survivalist, Elmo Blum is a state governor, and Louise Cooper even appears
as shipping company CEO who helps the boys out of a couple tough spots. A
nice touch was having Joe Flaherty appear as the Russian ambassador.
The movie really
kicks in with a huge military exercise in South Korea, with the Sgt Hulkas
wandering into North Korea, where they wreack havoc and wind up driving through
Beijing in the films' climactic moments. In all, a good, fun film and some
really great footage of military vehicles in action. It's hard to believe that
the US Army and the USMC were able to be persuaded to allow such access to their
facilities for this film, but it makes it all the more realistic, if that can be
said for a Ramis comedy...Although it was never explained why a USMC vehicle was
being used by the Army.
The kit:
I used the ESCI 1/35 LAV TUA for this model, and built it basically stright out of the box, except for the TOE launcher, which was scratchbuilt using sheet styrene, and the TOE missile, which is a FIMO clay sclupt. Imagine my daughter's dissapointment when she thought I was making frnechfries, and opened the oven door to find a toe baking there. Painting and weathering was basically green and a dirt colour, airbrushed on as required.
And yes, I made ALL this up!
Alvis 3.1
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