The Big One : Trevor's Sucker Punch

The movie Sucker Punch has often been compared to The Matrix, yet in SP, The Matrix's Agents/Archons have been replaced by two only slightly different enemies: Steampunk WWI soldiers brought back from the dead, representing transhumanism, while another enemy Babydoll and the others must face are rebellious cyborgs. First off, it's pretty obvious that the cyborgs are easily attributed to the machine overlords in the Matrix trilogy, but then you have the WWI soldiers representing transhumanism. The machines in The Matrix are essentially one of the fears about transhumanism: humans being replaced by machines.



This fear can also be seen in the form of other Archonic/transhuman enemies: The Borg from Star Trek, HAL 9000 from 2001, T-1000 from The Terminator, the Daleks from Doctor Who, and possibly many others.

But it just isn't limited to mechanical entities. We can also see a menacing side of transhumanism in the form of parasitic aliens: Necromophs from Dead Space (which ties in nicely to the Resident Evil franchise), The Thing, xenomorphs from the Alien franchise and the artwork of H.R. Giger, and again, possibly many others. Now consider this: The Agents are to the Archons what the Borg, T-1000, etc. are to mechanical tranhumanism, but what is it for the parasitic aliens? Look no further than the Strangers from Dark City, also resemble the Borg, along with the Cenobites from the Hellraiser franchise. To make matters more interesting, The Strangers, Agents, and Observers from Fringe seem to share a common ancestor: The Men in Black.

These transhuman monsters have another Black Oil-esque relative: The Shoggoths from H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. When you put these together, the message seems to be that transhumanism gone awry is a way of "assimilating" with the Archons.But how does SP fit into this mess? Here's how: Sucker Punch and possibly The Matrix were both influenced by video games. There have been theories circulating that our modern technology may be recovered "alien" technology. So what would that make virtual reality and games? An interesting connection is how Timothy Leary, a proponent of psychedelics, would later become a proponent of virtual reality. Then of course, you have Steve Jobs, the main link between the psychedelic experience and the VR experience. In things like the Mithraic mysteries up to shamanic rituals, you have psychedelics being used to contact the "gods"...or flying discs!


Now I feel I should mention two other franchises: Transformers and Battlestar Galactica/Caprica. In both these franchises we see Archonic machines (Decepticons and Cylons), but they are merely predecessors for the transhuman machines. Both these franchises contain ancient astronaut elements. Plus, in Caprica, a bit of the action takes place in the VR world of New Caprica, while in Transformers 2, Sam undergoes his own psychedelic experience from a piece of the All-Spark cube. Ancient astronauts being replaced by engineered Archons can also be seen in Mountains of Madness. So the overriding message is that evidence of the Star Gods/Ancient Astronauts being discovered by corporate-minded/religious fanatics/materialists/corrupt governments leads to transhumanism gone awry, all in some weird time loop scenario. But video games and and "aliens" can't be that bad, you're probably asking. Well, keep reading dear reader, because you're about to travel deeper down the rabbit hole.

In order to understand this, we must now head into the superhero and fantasy genres for a bit. Another influence Sucker Punch and The Matrix share is Alice in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland is basically about a human traveling into some fantasy realm, much like Lovecraft's Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath. The hero, Randolph Carter, fights against the Nightgaunts in Dream Quest. At the X-Files Lexicon blog, it is stated that Lovecraft may have had and abduction experience in his childhood, his abductors being referred to as the Nightgaunts. The Nightgaunts fall into the same archetypal category as the Dementors from Harry Potter, Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings, and the Smoke Monster from Lost. These latter three entities seem to carry the same traits and behaviors as the infamous Shadow People. Just to bring it full circle, some speculate that the Shadow People may be tied into the Ufo phenomena. "But how can aliens, beings from other planets, also be ghost-like entities?" may be a popular question. Pehaps they aren't physical. Which brings us to the Elusive Companion/Ultraterrestrial/Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis, the idea that the entities we are seeing, and might have seen for centuries, may in fact be interdimensional or a companion race, rather than flying back and forth from other planets (As proposed by John Keel, Whitley Streiber, Mac Tonnies, Charles Fort, Christopher Knowles, etc.).


So how do Elusive Companions, fantasy, superheroes, and video games intertwine? When you take the plots and recurrent themes of Sucker Punch, Harry Potter, Hanna, Kick-Ass, Pan's Labyrinth, Let Me In, and The Hunger Games, the main theme seems to be that the characters are dropped into a world trying to militarize or emotionally/mentally scar them so they use an alternate magical reality as a means of literal escape, often with the help of Elusive Companions.

The ECs make an appearance in the Lord of the Rings as well, in the forms of the Elves. Now here's where superheroes are tied in. Jack Kirby's The Eternals is about a conflict taking place between two groups: The Eternals, humanoids who were worshipped as gods in ancient times, protect mankind from the Deviants, groteusque creatures who live underground and build machines as part of their plot to ovethrow humanity.


This battle takes place until the return of the Celestials (Star Gods). If one were to compare LOTR and the Eternals, it's pretty clear that the Eternals=the Elves and Gandalf while the Deviants=the Orcs/Uruk-hai. On Christopher Knowles' Secret Sun blog, he states that the Eternals were Kirby's representation of the Nordic "aliens" while Deviants were Grays/Reptilians. It's been speculated that when the ancient astronauts left, they left behind a Watcher race to monitor mankind's progress until their return. Perhaps this Watcher race split into the Archons and the Elusive Companions. Which brings us to the next part of our journey.

According to Knowles, people like Jack Kirby, Gene Roddenberry, Philip K. Dick, Robert Anton Wilson, and many others seemed to be "picking up signals" of some sort, whether it be PKD's Valis experience or Uri Geller. The string of incidents that connect these people are attributed to three things: Electronic "voices" (the cybernetic replacements), Sirians (Elusive Companions), and a group called the Nine (ancient astronauts). The Sirians are believed to be the same entities as the Nommo, fish-like beings described by the Dogon tribe as coming from the Sirius star system. The Nommo themselves are similar to Lovecraft's Outer Gods.

In Alan Moore's Neonomicon, one character describes how the Outer Gods are us in the future while PKD says the same thing about the Sirians. The time loop again. Perhaps it is the Nine who plant the memes described in this article as a means to help us evolve and break free of the cosmic prison. In a synchromystic examination by Mike Clelland regarding ECH, he talks about a series of connections between 2001, Planet of the Apes, The Outer Limits, Jack Kirby, and the Tucson shootings. In regards to Mike's ECH post, there are two things that I wanted to point out. Connecting to 2001, we have David Bowie (close to Dave Bowman) making the song "Space Oddity". He also played an alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth and, surprise surprise, played a vampire/Nephilim(?) in The Hunger. Just to add on to that, The Hunger was written by Whitley Streiber, a contactee himself. Also, The Man Who Fell to Earth seems to bear a parallel narrative to Stranger in A Strange Land, written by Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein can act as a mediator between PKD and Jack Parsons.


This brings in the Babylon Working and of course, you gotta throw Crowley in at some point, which connects to Lam and Crowley's contact with Aiwass. Also, Stranger seemed to be a tribute to two people: Parsons and "Nine contactee" PJF. Connecting to Planet of the Apes, we have Rise of the Planet of the Apes featuring four syncnifigant actors. First James Franco, who starred in the Spider-Man films, where in the last movie he saved the Grey-eyed Spider-Man from, what else, the Black Oil. Then we have Tom Felton, who starred in the HP franchise which I already brought up. Then, we have Andy Serkis playing the ape Caesar, Serkis starring in LOTR (mentioned) and King Kong. I view both movies of having "9/11 Mega Ritual" symbolism.

Then of course, we move to the lovely Freida Pinto. Freida starred in two movies last year: This movie tied in to an AAT-themed franchise and Immortals, a movie dealing with the Greek gods. As a SP bonus, after Emma Stone dropped out, Freida was set to play Amber before the role went to Jamie Chung.

But that doesn't mean the Archons don't have a say in this.On the Secret Sun, Knowles describes how in Kirby's OMAC and Kamandi, Kirby seemed to have predicted not just the Gulf War and the arrest of Saddam Hussein, but the wars as a means to search for Annunaki stargates in the Middle East, not to mention the destroying of evidence, hence the looting of museums (remember the recent events in Egypt?). This idea has been taken up by conspiracy researchers. Remember what I said about evidence of the Star Gods and transhumanism gone awry? Another series of connections that seem to relate to this pertain to Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In the story "Allan and the Sundred Veil", it turns out that Randolph Carter is related to John Carter, who traveled to Barsoom via astral projection. It should be noted that the John Carter stories are influenced by Theosophy, which seems to bridge Eastern mysticism and contact experiences (same as the Nine). The Carters join forces with Allan Quatermain and the Time Traveler and encounter subterranean Morlocks and the mi-go, which may be compared to the crab-clawed Sirians. In the same volume, the League must stop Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Moriarty, from destroying London with a new weapon. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows seems to have taken this concept and altered it so that it seems that Moriarty is paving the way for WWI.

One last thing I want to touch on is how the Nine are combating this. Judging by the fact that these memes pop up in sci-fi, fantasy, comic books etc. and the transmission events take place around 1974, it seems that the Nine are using the counterculture, whether geeks are aware or not. Knowles describes geeks as a product of 60s/70s counterculture, the era in which things such as Star Trek, Marvel comics, and 2001 were popular, along with a rejuvenated interest in H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Lord of the Rings (which references the "Nine kings"). It also doesn't surprise me that occultism and aliens were popular int his period of time, given the fact that superheroes and science fiction are rooted in the paranormal and occult, as described in Knowles' Our Gods Wear Spandex and Jeff Kripal's Mutants and Mystics.

In OGWS, Knowles mentions how the pulps are the link between comics and Victorian occultism. Essentially, these books argue about the interaction between the world of stories and the paranormal as having a hand in our evolution. We can become the heroes!


by Trevor Tocco