The Jack in the Black
by Dr. Radhafan Seuss

One voyage, quite early, near the suns of Phlerd
So early, in fact, not a cryo had stirred
There came a ping-pinging; no, more a whiz-whizzing
Then out holes like pinpoints the air went fizz-fizzing,
The crew, what was left, tried to figure a plan,
To foil a fate like cakes fried in a pan,
The unseasoned Fry strove to parry the crash,
While visions of "Purge All" overhead flash,
The big ship twisted, she wobbled, she spun,
Then smacked in the ground when her break dance was done,
Hunter-Gratzner by name, she whose fate we now ponder,
Well, the Hunter stopped here …and the Gratzner back yonder.

Nine left the wreck with their minds full of 'how?'
The crash trail seemed made by a snail with a plow,
Still they gave thanks and looked out on the land,
Sand north, east and south…and to the west there was …sand.

One survivor, name of Jack, was a boy, early teen,
The type often drawn to persona non clean,
The adults were all square, not one had a niche,
No one, that is, save a convict named Rich,
The rest feared the con; they thought him quite vile,
But Jack, pliant Jack, felt him cool by a mile,
(Or by 1.6 kilometers, should you think metric-wise,
This story isn't meant just for American-born eyes),
In the confusion Mr. Riddick did fashion a break,
(In a scene that most likely took more than one take!)
The others, while nervous, faced a crisis for water,
"If we're going," said Fry, "then it's now that we oughta,"
So the squad split in two, as they always do in reel one,
(Film brains seem to click off when one's handed a gun),
And while one party discovered some bones by the bunch,
Zeke found himself the main course at a brunch,
They all blamed Riddick for the fate of the "Z,"
"Killed a few, sure," he said, "But you've found worse than me,"
Jack, meanwhile, wondered, "Gosh, golly and jeepers,"
"Who, what, where, how does one get such great peepers?"
Fry shooed him away but the 'Bad' in boys rules,
And Jack pondered hard how to score menthol cools,
Now Fry, our heroine, tried her hand in the cave,
Searching for Zeke, but there was little to save,
(We're treated to shots of her cleavage and bum,
Which watched even ten times still leaves most men numb),
Fry was trapped underground by the alien horde,
(In a scene inserted lest the female audience be bored),
Jack hears her cry and they free her from doom,
For time being, anyway; many more terrors loom,
On this strange planet Phlerd where the suns never set,
(Hey, in reel two they do, I'm quite willing to bet!)

Here, at this point, our story gets going,
Crosscurrent plots in earnest start flowing,
Johns decides Riddick's freedom is a help, mostly,
Who, for his part, recommends the Merc make him ghostly,
Jack says, "I can talk to him now, can't I, surely?"
"You can," answers Fry, "when his thoughts come out purely,"
Water they find at the settlement quite deserted,
"They're all dead," Riddick said; well, actually he blurted,
Fry spies a glint and lets out a "Hello, Mecca",
And runs to a skiff, with the odd name Rebecca,
(Yes, I know in the film they did not give its name,
There's no other rhyme to 'Mecca', I admit with much shame)
With that discovery their feelings are soaring,
Then poor Ali meets Allah in the room meant for coring,
Fry has an inkling, and spins globes gold and blue,
"An eclipse." "Not afraid of the dark, are you?"
Imam and his boys pray for guidance from on high,
Fry tests the skiff with Riddick oh so close nearby,
Johns, blue-eyed devil, finds his God in a hypo,
Fry decries Owens' pain when he bled out his Type "O",
Then they all see it, nearly having a cow,
The eclipse, so it seems, starts a quarter to NOW,

Look out, here our story really gathers momentum!
(Some words can't be rhymed so one must prevent 'em)
They get to the crash but have no time to go back,
The sky goes from yellow to amber to black,
The CGI is quite pretty but they can't be enjoyers,
For out of the ground stream the flying destroyers,

(Alas, I'm most sorry to say, girls and boys,
That Burger King blew it - no alien toys,
No Paris action figure, no Johns hyped-up needle,
You can get nary one; it won't help you to wheedle,
No faux Riddick goggles to adorn young fans' eyes,
Not even any Super-Deluxe, "Purge All"-type 'Frys'),

But back to the story, ere too long I digress,
(I have never been known to agree "more is less"),
Shazza does sprint but she can't outrun the beasties,
"A bit thin," ET's think, "but she IS meat, at leasties,"
The rest flee inside and make like The Thinker,
Fry hatches a plan but Johns calls it a stinker,
The rest want to risk it and that feeds the merc's fear,
Quintupled when Riddick is wrong with "Looks clear",
The six that remain head into the pitch with the sled,
(Yes, there were seven, but before another alien was fed),
Riddick leads the way 'til Paris is frightened,
(His death scene's the way the trailer was heightened),
Riddick reveals that Jack, our young, robust hero,
Has a testosterone count that is, in fact, quite zero,
Johns, in his style, says, "You've got to be kidding,"
All the while in mind-schemes the girl he is ridding,
Riddick and Johns have their inevitable tussle,
(We knew this would happen when we first saw their muscle),
Johns big gauge fails him, and then there were five,
Imam speaks of God's love but to Riddick it's jive,
They start out again, battling their way through their hell,
And "Oh," says Mr. Twohy, "let's throw rain in as well,"
Suleiman repels on a cliff the wrong way,
An ET attacks Jack; geez, this just ain't their day!
Riddick saves the kid with some shivin and duckin,
"Definitely did not know with who he was f*ckin",
(I apologize right here for language polluted,
For a PG story that's a phrase not very well-suited,
For all of those readers who favor narratives clean,
I instruct you to white out that word from your screen),
Riddick rocks the last three survivors in a cave,
And forges on ahead, in an act … is it brave?
He gets to the skiff but return he won't bother,
Fry makes it back somehow with the glow from blue larva,
He asks her to join him and she pleads and refuses,
"How interesting," he says; the concept amuses,
Together they go back and pull Imam and Jack out,
The girl greets them smiling - "I never had a doubt!"
On the way back to the skiff Riddick lags back behind,
Surrounded by two aliens, is it three of a kind?
Brave Fry comes to his aid and gets skewered by a tail spur,
As she's pulled skyward he thinks, "Hey, I just might miss her,"
(No, not really…he didn't; Riddick wasn't THAT bad a guy,
On second though …he WAS…Why did Fry have to die?)

So we come to the end of this sad tale of space woe,
The end is much like the one twenty-two years ago,
Of all the Hunter-Gratzners, just left are these three,
An escaped con, a holy man and a boy-wannabe,
They head into space, remembering their lost people,
Each hoping against hope that they'll appear in the sequel.


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