Luang Phibunsongkhram was a field marshal and premier of Thailand in 1938–44 and 1948–57, who was associated with the rise of authoritarian military governments in Thailand. He was educated at the royal military academy, and in 1914 he entered the Siamese artillery corps. In 1924–27 he took

Vietnam War: The Diem regime and the Viet Cong: …of the Viet Cong’s so-called People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). At the base of the PLAF were village guerrilla units, made up of part-time combatants who lived at home and worked at their regular occupations during the day. Their function was to persuade or intimidate their neighbours into supporting the…

Donovan Bailey: …there that he met coach Dan Pfaff, who invited Bailey to train with him. Pfaff subsequently overhauled his technique and helped him polish his style. As a result, Bailey improved his starts and his ability to sustain his speed throughout the race. By the end of 1994, he was ranked…

Plafond, (French: Ceiling), French card game popular in Europe in the 1920s, a predecessor of Contract Bridge. Trick values and scoring were as in Auction Bridge except that, as in Contract Bridge, only tricks bid and made counted toward game; overtricks scored 50 points each in the honour score,

cadence: In the plagal cadence the subdominant (IV) triad leads to the tonic (I). This cadence usually is an extension to an authentic cadence, and its most characteristic and formulaic usage in the West is with the final amen (IV–I) at the end of a hymn in Christian…

mode: The eight modes: …the pentachord, thus generating a “plagal” mode:

facula: …the chromosphere, they are called plages.

St. Louis Blues: …Bowman and featuring hard-nosed defenseman Barclay Plager, the Blues advanced to the Stanley Cup finals in their first season but were defeated by the Montreal Canadiens in four contests that were each decided by just one goal. The Blues won the NHL West Division—composed of the six expansion franchises—in each…

Agnès Varda: …life; Les Plages d’Agnès (2008; The Beaches of Agnès), an account of her life; and the Academy Award-nominated Visages villages (2017; Faces Places), in which Varda and artist JR travel throughout France, photographing various people they encounter.

plagiarism, the act of taking the writings of another person and passing them off as one’s own. The fraudulence is closely related to forgery and piracy—practices generally in violation of copyright laws. If only thoughts are duplicated, expressed in different words, there is no breach of contract.

Sir Fretful Plagiary, fictional character, the epitome of the vain, talentless playwright, in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Critic (first performed 1779). The character is based on the English dramatist Richard Cumberland, who had expressed his contempt for Sheridan’s The School for Scandal

leafy liverwort: Plagiochila, a very species-rich genus, is found throughout the world.

plagioclase, any member of the series of abundant feldspar minerals usually occurring as light-coloured, glassy, transparent to translucent, brittle crystals. Plagioclase is a mixture of albite (Ab), or sodium aluminosilicate (NaAlSi3O8), and anorthite (An), or calcium aluminosilicate (CaAl2Si2O8);

oceanic crust: …this layer includes pods of plagiogranite, a differentiated rock richer in silica than gabbro. The lower gabbro layer has a stratified structure and evidently represents the floor or sides of the magma chamber. This layered structure is called cumulate, meaning that the layers (which measure up to several metres thick)…

fern: Annotated classification: …coarse tubercles; 1 genus (Plagiogyria) with about 15 species, distributed in tropical regions. Family Cibotiaceae Rhizomes massive, creeping to erect and often trunklike (up to 6 metres [almost 20 feet]), with soft yellow hairs toward the tip; leaves large (up to 4 metres [13 feet]), 2 or 3 times…

Plagiogyriaceae, a small family of ferns in the division Pteridophyta (the lower vascular plants). The single genus, Plagiogyria (15 species), is confined to tropical and warm temperate regions from North America to South America and Asia to New Guinea. The species superficially resemble some

flatworm: Annotated classification: Order Plagiorchida Cercaria typically armed with a stylet; encystment in invertebrates, rarely vertebrates; excretory vessels not open to the exterior. Most representatives require 3 hosts to complete one life cycle. Many hundreds of species. Order Opisthorchiida Cercaria never armed; excretory pores open on margins of tail;…

tropism: Plagiotropic movements are oblique to the direction of stimulus. Diatropic movements are at right angles to the direction of stimulus.

plague, infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium transmitted from rodents to humans by the bite of infected fleas. Plague was the cause of some of the most-devastating epidemics in history. It was the disease behind the Black Death of the 14th century, when as much as one-third of

plague doctor, physician contracted by a government to tend to patients infected with plague during an epidemic, especially the plagues in Europe in the Middle Ages. Plague doctors were contracted by a city or town during an outbreak to treat plague patients specifically. The contract would outline

Richard Adams: The Plague Dogs (1977; film 1982) explores issues of animal rights through the tale of two dogs that escape from a research facility—possibly carrying the bubonic plague. The novels The Girl in a Swing (1980; film 1988) and Maia (1984) drew attention for their graphic…

Louise Erdrich: Novels: …characters with such novels as The Plague of Doves (2008), which centers on a young protagonist trying to understand the long-standing tension between her Native family and their white neighbors, and Shadow Tag (2010), which chronicles the unraveling of a marriage and the effect it has on the couple’s children.

plague of Justinian, plague pandemic that spread throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond beginning about 541 CE. It is named for Justinian I, who was the Byzantine emperor at that time. Although there is evidence that bubonic plague has been around for as long as humankind, the plague of

Italian literature: Fiction at the turn of the 21st century: …first novel, Diceria dell’untore (1981; The Plague-Sower), which he published after a lifelong career in teaching, won the 1981 Campiello Prize for fiction awarded by the industrialists of the Veneto region. He went on to publish several other novels. Il sorriso dell’ignoto marinaio (1976; The Smile of the Unknown Mariner)…

The Plague, novel by Algerian-born French writer Albert Camus, published in 1947 as La Peste. The work is an allegorical account of the determined fight against an epidemic in the town of Oran, Alg., by characters who embody human dignity and

plaice, (Pleuronectes platessa), commercially valuable European flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. The plaice, like others of its family, normally has both eyes on the right side of the head. It also has about four to seven bony bumps near its eyes. It reaches a maximum length of about 90

Plaid Cymru, political party that has sought self-government for Wales and worked for the protection and promotion of Welsh language, culture, and traditions. More a social movement than a political party in its early years, Plaid Cymru was founded in 1925 in response to a perceived threat to Welsh

Plaid Cymru, political party that has sought self-government for Wales and worked for the protection and promotion of Welsh language, culture, and traditions. More a social movement than a political party in its early years, Plaid Cymru was founded in 1925 in response to a perceived threat to Welsh

Jean Racine: Works of Jean Racine: The three-act comedy Les Plaideurs (first performed 1668, published 1669; The Litigants) offered Racine the challenge of a new genre and the opportunity to demonstrate his skill in Molière’s privileged domain, as well as the occasion to display his expertise in Greek, of which he had better command…

plain, any relatively level area of the Earth’s surface exhibiting gentle slopes and small local relief. Plains vary widely in size. The smallest occupy only a few hectares, whereas the largest cover hundreds of thousands of square kilometres—as, for example, the Great Plains of North America and

bearing: …oil) or gas; these are sliding bearings, and the part of the shaft that turns in the bearing is the journal. The surfaces in a bearing may be separated also by balls or rollers; these are known as rolling bearings. In the illustration, the inner race turns with the shaft.

curassow: Typical is the plain chachalaca (Ortalis vetula), a 50-cm species, ranging from the Texas border to Nicaragua. Weighing about 0.5 kg (1 pound), it is brownish with a long, green-glossed, white-tipped tail. At dawn and sundown, flocks call together from the treetops with a regular, almost metronomic beat.

Bruce Catton: …the Cleveland News, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (1920–26), Catton continued his lifelong study of the Civil War period. He subsequently worked for the Newspaper Enterprise Service (1926–41) and for the U.S. War Production Board. In 1954 he became the founding editor of American Heritage magazine, for which he wrote…

baimiao, in Chinese painting, brush technique that produces a finely controlled, supple ink outline drawing without any colour or wash (diluted ink or paint applied in broad sweeps) embellishment. It is commonly used for figure painting, in which precise description is important. Painting without

calligraphy: Formal minuscule, 10th to 14th century: …period as the less distinctive plain hands in which the majority of the manuscripts are written, at least in the 11th and 12th centuries.

plain stitch, basic knitting stitch in which each loop is drawn through other loops to the right side of the fabric. The loops form vertical rows, or wales, on the fabric face, giving it a sheen, and crosswise rows, or courses, on the back. Plain-stitch knitting is a filling knit construction and

Bret Harte: …(1870), better known as “The Heathen Chinee,” although it attracted national attention in a manner unintended by Harte, who claimed that its satirical story—about two men, Bill Nye and Ah Sin, trying to cheat each other at cards—showed a form of racial equality. Instead, the poem was taken up…

English literature: Effect of religion and science on early Stuart prose: …editions, such as Arthur Dent’s Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven (25 editions by 1640) and Lewis Bayly’s Practice of Piety (1611; some 50 editions followed), two copies of which formed the meagre dowry of preacher and author John Bunyan’s first wife. Puritans preferred sermons in the plain style too, eschewing…

migration: In intertropical regions: The plain nightjar (Caprimulgus inornatus), on the other hand, nests in a dry belt from Mali in the west to the Red Sea and Kenya in the east during the rains and then migrates southward to Cameroon and the northern Congo region during the dry season.

American spiny rat: General characteristics: At one extreme is the plain punare (Thrichomys apereoides), with dull brown upperparts and grayish white underparts. At the other extreme is the painted tree rat (Callistomys pictus), whose whitish body has a wide, glossy black stripe on the neck and head and a saddle pattern extending from the shoulders…

roller: The plain roller is often used to compact grassland damaged by winter heaving. Corrugated rollers, single or tandem, crush clods and firm the soil after plowing. A type usually called a roller-packer or land presser has heavy, wedge-shaped wheels about 3 feet (1 m) in diameter…

water supply system: Sedimentation: This is called plain sedimentation. Long-term water storage (for more than one month) in reservoirs reduces the amount of suspended sediment and bacteria. Nevertheless, additional clarification is usually needed. In a treatment plant, sedimentation (settling) tanks are built to provide a few hours of storage or detention time…

John Mellencamp: No Better Than This (2010), Plain Spoken (2014), and Sad Clowns & Hillbillies (2017), which was recorded with Carlene Carter. Other People’s Stuff (2018) was another collection of covers. In 2022 Mellencamp released the self-produced Strictly a One-Eyed Jack; Bruce Springsteen contributed to several of the album’s songs.

plain stitch, basic knitting stitch in which each loop is drawn through other loops to the right side of the fabric. The loops form vertical rows, or wales, on the fabric face, giving it a sheen, and crosswise rows, or courses, on the back. Plain-stitch knitting is a filling knit construction and

Rudyard Kipling: Life: … in 1886, the short-story collection Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and between 1887 and 1889 he brought out six paper-covered volumes of short stories. Among the latter were Soldiers Three, The Phantom Rickshaw (containing the story “The Man Who Would Be King”), and Wee Willie Winkie (containing “Baa…

plain weave, simplest and most common of the three basic textile weaves. It is made by passing each filling yarn over and under each warp yarn, with each row alternating, producing a high number of intersections. Plain-weave fabrics that are not printed or given a surface finish have no right or

abyssal plain, flat seafloor area at an abyssal depth (3,000 to 6,000 m [10,000 to 20,000 feet]), generally adjacent to a continent. These submarine surfaces vary in depth only from 10 to 100 cm per kilometre of horizontal distance. Irregular in outline but generally elongate along continental

the Plain, in the French Revolution, the centrist deputies in the National Convention (1792–95). They formed the majority of the assembly’s members and were essential to the passage of any measures. Their name derived from their place on the floor of the assembly; above them sat the members of the

woodcreeper: …others of its genus, the plain-brown woodcreeper (Dendrocincla fuliginosa), of Honduras to northeastern Argentina, often follows marching ant columns, eating the insects and other creatures routed out by the ants. See also scythebill.

William Wycherley: The Plain-Dealer, presented in 1676, satirizes rapacious greed. The satire is crude and brutal, but pointed and effective. In The Country-Wife, acted a year earlier, the criticism of manners and society remains severe, but there is no longer a sense of the author despising his…

card game: Classification: …may be subdivided as follows:

plainsong, the Gregorian chant (q.v.) and, by extension, other similar religious chants. The word derives from the 13th-century Latin term cantus planus (“plain song”), referring to the unmeasured rhythm and monophony (single line of melody) of Gregorian chant, as distinguished from the measured

Thomas Morley: His textbook, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597), provides knowledge of the theoretical basis of composition of Morley’s own time and that of earlier generations.

John Napier: Theology and inventions: …forms the dedication of his Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John, a work that, while it professed to be of a strictly scholarly character, was calculated to influence contemporary events. In it he declared:

the Plain, in the French Revolution, the centrist deputies in the National Convention (1792–95). They formed the majority of the assembly’s members and were essential to the passage of any measures. Their name derived from their place on the floor of the assembly; above them sat the members of the

Plains of Abraham, plains in Quebec region, southern Quebec province, Canada. The plains lie at the western edge of the old walled city, overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The plateau was the scene of a battle (September 13, 1759) between the French under the Marquis de Montcalm and the British

Plainfield, city, Union county, northern New Jersey, U.S., at the base of the Watchung Mountains. Quakers settled in the area in 1685, and the town became known as Milltown—for its large gristmill—in the late 1700s. The name was changed to Plainfield in 1800, and it was incorporated as a township

Plains, city, Sumter county, southwest-central Georgia, U.S., 10 miles (16 km) west-southwest of Americus. A post office was established there in 1839, and when the railroad was built in 1885 several local settlements, including Magnolia Springs (or Village) and the Plains of Dura (named for the

Native American: Plains Archaic cultures: The Plains Archaic began by about 6000 bce and persisted until about the beginning of the Common Era. It is marked by a shift from just a few kinds of fluted Paleo-Indian points to a myriad of styles, including stemmed and side-notched…

bison: …subspecies of American bison, the plains bison (B. bison bison) and the wood bison (B. bison athabascae), though the differences between them are minor. The plains bison formerly inhabited most of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains provinces of Canada. It greatly outnumbered the…

bluegrass: fendleriana), and plains bluegrass (P. arida) are important western forage grasses. Annual bluegrass (P. annua), a small, light-green species, is a European introduction that has spread throughout North America; it is considered a pest in lawns.

bison: The American bison (B. bison), commonly known as the buffalo or the plains buffalo, is native to North America, and the European bison (B. bonasus), or wisent, is native to Europe. Both species were drastically reduced in numbers by hunting and now occupy small protected areas…

Cree: The Plains Cree (Paskwâwiyiniwak) lived on the northern Great Plains; like other Plains peoples, their traditional economy focused on bison hunting and gathering wild plant foods. After acquiring horses and firearms, they were more militant than the Woodland Cree, raiding and warring against many other Plains…

Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, Native peoples inhabiting the Great Plains of the present-day United States and Canada. This culture area comprises a vast grassland between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and from the present-day provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada

Venus: Plains deformation belts: Although plains deformation belts are similar in some ways to mountain belts, they display less pronounced relief and are found primarily in low-lying areas of the planet, such as Lavinia Planitia and Atalanta Planitia. Like mountain belts, they show strong evidence for…

foxtail: …are forage grasses, such as plains foxtail (S. macrostachya). Foxtail millet (S. italica; see millet) is the only economically valuable species. Yellow foxtail (S. pumila) and green foxtail (S. viridis), named for the colour of their bristles, are common in cornfields and disturbed areas. Bristly foxtail

Plains Indian sign language (PISL), system of fixed hand and finger positions symbolizing ideas, the meanings of which were known to the majority of the Plains peoples. In addition to aiding communication between the deaf, PISL was used for a broad range of interactions—for hunting and other

Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, Native peoples inhabiting the Great Plains of the present-day United States and Canada. This culture area comprises a vast grassland between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and from the present-day provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada

fox: Classification: velox (swift fox) Sometimes considered as two species, V. velox (swift fox) and V. macrotis (kit fox); large-eared pale foxes of the western North American plains (swift fox) and deserts (kit fox); shy and uncommon; adult length about 40–50 cm without the 20–30-cm tail, weight about…

love grass: Plains love grass (Eragrostis intermedia), sand love grass (E. trichodes), and weeping love grass (E. curvula) are forage species in southern North America. Weeping love grass, native to South Africa, was introduced elsewhere as an ornamental and later was used to reclaim abandoned or eroded…

Maasai, nomadic pastoralists of East Africa. Maasai is essentially a linguistic term, referring to speakers of this Eastern Sudanic language (usually called Maa) of the Nilo-Saharan language family. These include the pastoral Maasai who range along the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania, the

Battle of Quebec, (September 13, 1759), in the French and Indian War, decisive defeat of the French under the marquis de Montcalm by a British force led by Maj. Gen. James Wolfe. Both commanding officers died from wounds sustained during the battle, and within a year French Canada had capitulated

Jean Auel: In The Plains of Passage (1990), Ayla and Jondalar face hardships as they travel to rejoin his tribe. It was 12 years before Auel completed the next book, The Shelters of Stone (2002), which tells of Ayla, now formally mated with Jondalar, as she fights to…

Native American: Plains Woodland and Plains Village cultures: Archaic peoples dominated the Plains until about the beginning of the Common Era, when ideas and perhaps people from the Eastern Woodland cultures reached the region; some Plains Woodland sites, particularly in eastern Kansas, were clearly part of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere.…

viscacha: The plains viscacha (Lagostomus maximus) lives on sparse grasslands, or Pampas, in Argentina, Paraguay, and southeastern Bolivia at altitudes up to nearly 3,000 metres. It resembles a huge guinea pig, with a large, blunt head, a body length of 47 to 66 cm, and a short…

plains wanderer, (species Pedionomus torquatus), Australian bird resembling a tiny quail. It has a mottled reddish brown body and a collar of black spots against a white throat. The plains wanderer constitutes the family Pedionomidae (order Gruiformes) but is placed by some authorities in the

Plains Wars, series of conflicts from the early 1850s through the late 1870s between Native Americans and the United States, along with its Indian allies, over control of the Great Plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The initial major confrontation, sometimes known as the

Native American: Plains Woodland and Plains Village cultures: Archaic peoples dominated the Plains until about the beginning of the Common Era, when ideas and perhaps people from the Eastern Woodland cultures reached the region; some Plains Woodland sites, particularly in eastern Kansas, were clearly part of the…

perissodactyl: Zebras: The plains zebra (E. quagga) formerly inhabited a great area of grassland and savanna from the Cape to South Sudan. The southernmost race (E. quagga quagga), which was only partly striped, became extinct in the 19th century. The populations of the other races have been much…

plainsong, the Gregorian chant (q.v.) and, by extension, other similar religious chants. The word derives from the 13th-century Latin term cantus planus (“plain song”), referring to the unmeasured rhythm and monophony (single line of melody) of Gregorian chant, as distinguished from the measured

Nancy Huston: …in English, under the title Plainsong, before translating it into French. Her subsequent novels included Virevolte (1994; Slow Emergencies), L’Empreinte de l’ange (1998; The Mark of the Angel), Dolce agonia (2001; Eng. trans. Dolce Agonia), and Danse noire (2013; Black Dance). She won the Prix Femina for

Anglican chant: …vernacular was promoted by the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society (founded 1888). Francis Burgess in England and C. Winfred Douglas in the United States had great influence in the movement. In 1912 the English poet Robert Bridges pointed out that the chant must be fitted to the words and not…

complaint, in literature, a formerly popular variety of poem that laments or protests unrequited love or tells of personal misfortune, misery, or injustice. Works of this type include Rutebeuf’s La Complainte Rutebeuf (late 13th century) and Pierre de Ronsard’s “Complainte contre fortune”

Paul Dukas: …admirer Claude Debussy, the evocative La Plainte au loin du faune (1920), and a song setting, the charming “Sonnet de Ronsard” (1924). A few weeks before his death, he destroyed several of his musical manuscripts. Dukas collaborated with the Paris publishing firm of Durand in preparing modern editions of some…

cryptology: General considerations: …is referred to as the plaintext. As noted above, the secret information known only to the legitimate users is the key, and the transformation of the plaintext under the control of the key into a cipher (also called ciphertext) is referred to as encryption. The inverse operation, by which a…

plaintiff, the party who brings a legal action or in whose name it is brought—as opposed to the defendant, the party who is being sued. The term corresponds to petitioner in equity and civil law and to libelant in admiralty. It is generally applied also to the equity petitioner, particularly in

Plainview, city, seat (1888) of Hale county, northwestern Texas, U.S. It lies on the Llano Estacado, a portion of the High Plains between Amarillo and Lubbock (40 miles [65 km] south). The site was surveyed in 1887 by Z.T. Maxwell and E.L. Lowe, who named it Plainview because of the unbroken view

Placentia, town, southeastern Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It lies along the Avalon Peninsula and the east shore of Placentia Bay, 67 miles (108 km) southwest of St. John’s. Basque fishermen arrived in the 16th century and probably named the site for Plasencia, Spain. In 1662

Piacenzian Stage, the uppermost division of Pliocene rocks, representing all rocks deposited worldwide during the Piacenzian Age (3.6 million to 2.6 million years ago) of the Neogene Period (the past 23 million years). The Piacenzian Stage is named for the city of Piacenza, which lies midway

Philip IV: Conflict with the papacy of Philip IV: …ministers Guillaume de Nogaret and Guillaume de Plaisians, Philip pledged to see Boniface judged for the heretical words and criminal and immoral deeds with which he had been charged.

Marcel Proust: Life and works: …Plaisirs et les jours (Pleasures and Days), a collection of short stories at once precious and profound, most of which had appeared during 1892–93 in the magazines Le Banquet and La Revue Blanche. From 1895 to 1899 he wrote Jean Santeuil, an autobiographical novel that, though unfinished and ill-constructed,…

basketry: Matting or plaited construction: Standards and threads are indistinguishable in matting or plaited construction; they are either parallel and perpendicular to the edge (straight basketry) or oblique (diagonal basketry). Such basketry is closest to textile weaving. The materials used are almost always woven, using the…

textile: Weft knitting: The plaited stitch is made by feeding two threads into the same hook, so that one thread shows on the one side of the fabric and the other on the opposite side. A float stitch is produced by missing interlooping over a series of needles so…

braiding, in textiles, machine or hand method of interlacing three or more yarns or bias-cut cloth strips in such a way that they cross one another and are laid together in diagonal formation, forming a narrow strip of flat or tubular fabric. The word plaiting is generally applied when such

basketry: Matting or plaited construction: Standards and threads are indistinguishable in matting or plaited construction; they are either parallel and perpendicular to the edge (straight basketry) or oblique (diagonal basketry). Such basketry is closest to textile weaving. The materials used are almost always woven, using the…

Athens: Traditional features: …this lively quarter is the Pláka, on the north slope of the Acropolis. Small, one-story houses, dating from about the time of independence, are clustered together up the hillside in peasant simplicity. There are appropriately tiny squares with tavernas, once celebrated for their folk music, dancing, and simple fare. There…

graphic design: Early developments: …school of poster design called Plakatstil (“Poster Style”) similarly continued the exploration of pure form. Initiated by Lucian Bernhard with his first poster in 1905, Plakatstil was characterized by a simple visual language of sign and shape. Designers reduced images of products to elemental, symbolic shapes that were placed over…

George W. Bush: The Plame affair: The agent, Valerie Plame, was the wife of Joseph C. Wilson, a retired foreign service officer who had traveled to Africa in early 2002 at the request of the CIA to help determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase enriched uranium from Niger. Wilson reported that there…

Namibia: The road to Namibia: …largely of units of SWAPO’s People’s Liberation Army of Namibia [PLAN] under Angolan command). By June South Africa had to negotiate a total withdrawal from Angola to avoid a military disaster, and by the end of December it had negotiated a UN-supervised transition to elections, a new constitution, and independence…

Ed Wood: Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space: Plan 9 from Outer Space is Wood’s most famous film. The plot involves aliens resurrecting the dead to stop humans from creating a weapon that could destroy the universe. The directing and production were notoriously shoddy. Scenes go from daytime to nighttime and back within…