Warning: Spoilers
(spoilage factor: pick a dumpster in a back alley. Any dumpster will do.)
I took my wife to see a Star Wars movie tonight and I had to apologize afterwards.
Can you imagine how bad that makes me feel? Beyond my own level of disgust at this steaming pile of celluloid excrescence, that is. I mean, I’m the one that first introduced her to Star Wars when we were dating, and now, well, now it’s come to this. Sigh.
I admit, I’d read a few bad reviews ahead of time, as well as one or two good ones, but I figured that being a true fanboy, being someone who’s had Star Wars in his life for as long as he can remember, I had to at least give this flick a chance. Well, at most I can say I’ve done just that. I gave it a chance. Wasn’t worth it though.
I smelled the first faint whiff of putrification when we first stepped into the local billion-plex. Only one theatre had been allocated to a Star Wars movie on its opening night. “Um…” I said, staring up at the board, “Well, maybe they’re just not sure they’ll get enough of an audience because it’s animated.” I ventured to my wife. The second hint something was amiss came when we bought the tickets – we were running a few minutes late and according to the board, the movie had already started. I asked the kid behind the counter if we’d still be able to make it – if the previews were still running and if there was room. “Oh yeah,” says the other kid beside him at the other till “You’ll be able to get in.” At this point my wife, sensing a disturbance in the Force, shot me a glance. Walking into the cinema itself, the guy in front of me rounded the corner from the entrance corridor, stared up at the audience and muttered “This can’t be good.” – there were a few people in it, but not many. Not more than 50 or 60 in a theatre that could seat more than 200.
I knew for sure we were in trouble when the film finally started to roll. The big “Star Wars” title jumped up onto the screen, but the music was all wrong! They weren’t running the theme under the opening title sequence? What the hell?!?! I knew ahead of time that they’d engaged a different composer to do the score for this installment (my wife wonders if it’s because John Williams got fragged in “Family Guy – Blue Harvest” but wouldn’t that mean they should have replaced him with Danny Elfman?), and that’s all well and good for the body of the film, but not the beginning! Not the opening title sequence!
It got worse. What’s worse? What’s worse is right at the very, very beginning, when they left out the crawl. Yes, the obligatory text crawl at the beginning of every Star Wars film setting up the recent backstory was absent. Nixed. Gone. Vamoosed! They replaced the crawl with, get this, a 1940’s-style newsreel sequence – some cheesy newsreel anchor doing a voiceover atop scenes of battle across the galaxy, narrating the state of the war. I suddenly realized why the cinema smelled like urine when I’d walked in – I think any self-respecting fanboy would have to fight to keep from pissing himself watching this dreck, and some likely failed.
Let’s get something straight: the John Williams Star Wars theme music and the opening crawl are fucking tradition. You don’t mess with tradition when it comes to the Star Wars movies. That music and that crawl set the tone. They are the Pavlovian cues that have been revving-up the salivary glands of fanboys for more than 30 years now. Take away that crucial combination and you automatically lose that very solid feeling that you’re about to be treated, treated, mind you, to a Star Wars film.
Then there’s the fact that the newsreel was awful. And I don’t mean awful merely because it had gruesomely disposed of the crawl like an alien bursting out of John Hurt’s chest, no, I mean this thing was poorly written, lazily performed, and completely out of synch with the Star Wars style of film. Did you see a newsreel re-cap in Empire? No. Did you see highlights at eleven during Jedi? Did the Three Stooges come out and try to sell you a war bond at the opening of A New Hope? I think not. Why? Because a newsreel doesn’t fit with the feel this type of movie is trying to create. Newsreels used in movies or television shows are iffy at the best of times. Many just don’t work (I’m talking about an episode of you, here, “MASH” [TV series]!). It definitely doesn’t work here.
It was at this point I had to start fighting the urge to howl “Turn down the suck!” at the screen, much the way you might try to choke back a fiery little stream of vomit in the back of your throat during Christmas dinner at grandma’s when the beer in your system from the previous night’s partying tries to come out to wish everyone a colourful Yule.
From there it was a blur of unforgiveable tediousness and downright bad film-making. Take your pick: maybe it was the endless fighting for the first hour or so that was so constant, so unremitting, so totally determined to not allow more than 20 seconds of characterization and plot, that I became desensitized to and bored with what I was seeing in the battle sequences. Desensitized and bored used to describe my impressions of a Star Wars battle?!? The hell I say! The hell I do say. The melees ended up playing like nothing so much as test beds for video games – and let’s face it, they probably will be. They didn’t really advance the plot and they were often downright stupid. I mean, come on, Anakin and his padawan Ahsoka crawling through a droid army under a box, bickering like an old married couple and no-one overhears them or stops to wonder “Hey! Why is this box moving? Why does it have feet? And why does it seem to be arguing with itself?!”
Maybe it was the lousy animation. Not only am I not a fan of this particular style of drawing, but the animation itself was crude. Fast, to be sure – very fast movements during the lightsaber duels especially, but at the same time herky-jerky. They lacked fluidity – they (especially the non-droid characters) lacked any sense of organic movement.
Maybe it was the frequently clunky dialogue. Sounded like it was written by the same gang that translated “Macross” into “Robotech”. If they could state the obvious or indulge in repetition, they would.
Maybe it was the stupid plot devices like Jabba’s infant son (frequently referred to as “Stinky”) getting kidnapped. They couldn’t think of a better way for the Sith to exacerbate the war? Or, if they wanted to draw the Hutts into it, they couldn’t think of a smarter way to do it? I mean, come on, in the original movies, Jabba may have been arrogant, cruel and overconfident, but he never really struck me as flat-out stupid. Here, the big space slug (whose mind is supposed to be powerful enough to withstand Jedi mind tricks) is manipulated like a toddler watching a cookie waved under his nose.
And let’s talk about bad characterizations: who would have expected Jabba to get all snuggly and cutesy like he does at the end when he’s reunited with junior?
And then there are the downright bad characters who were brought in: Jabba’s make-up sporting, dilettante uncle Ziro? There have been some out there on the net speculating and complaining that this particular gangster is the first gay Star Wars character. Personally, I don’t care. A character can be straight or gay as long as they’re a good character, and Ziro was most definitely not. Here’s another Hutt who was lead around by the nose. Granted, the Sith are specialists in manipulation, but if the original Jabba is any indication, again, Hutt crime bosses aren’t stupid or weak-willed, and you’d figure any slug who manages to eke out a living as a don on Coruscant, right under the noses of the Senate, probably has some brains as well as balls. As for the makeup and feathers? Meh. If someone were to explain it off as inner-systems fashions for oversized potato worms, then so be it. What bugged me was the acting associated with Ziro (that and the stupid choice of name). Why would they inflict a poorly done impression of Truman Capote on us? I felt like I was watching some bad outtake of “Murder by Death”. And it was such a bad Capote impression too!
Speaking of bad characters, let’s not forget how they dragged in pouty Padme for all of 10 minutes. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel there.
And the list of flaws goes on.
But don’t think this review is a totally one-sided hatchet job. Not totally anyway. I do have to admit there were two elements in this flick that didn’t annoy me. The jazz played by the band in Ziro’s bar wasn’t half bad. And Ahsoka wasn’t a bad character to watch either. I just wish she was a little less clichéd and had a better plot to live in. It’s nice for the Star Wars film canon to finally have a worth-while female Jedi character for girls in the audience (because I think kids would have more tolerance for this movie than adults – as much as I hate sounding like kids would be fooled by the garbage passing for an installment in the series) to focus on.
But overall though, this stinker ranks down there with the infamous Christmas Special. Oh yeah. It was that bad. When the final credits started to roll, I almost felt like standing up and yelling “Noooooooo!” like Vader in the end of Episode III – but then again, James Earl Jones did such a half-hearted job of that “no”, that it just wouldn’t do. No, you’d need a raw-edged, emotionally torn super “no” like Gary Oldman gave us in the beginning of Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” to approximate the necessary no-ness. But that would just be entirely inappropriate for movie-theatre behaviour, so I remained silent and stewed on my anger. What I couldn’t believe though, was the sound of a group of fanboys in the back row clapping.
The Clone Wars made me angry that Lucas would allow this crap to be made an official part of his story.
It made me fearful that the Star Wars universe will be further butchered as time goes on and more spin-offs are excreted in the search for more money.
It made me depressed that such a great series has been brought so low.
“Anger, fear, depression – the Dark Side are they.” Fuckin’ ay, Yoda. Fuckin’ ay.
As one fan of quality SF to another, I urge you to avoid seeing “Star Wars – The Clone Wars”. Save yourself. I wish I could forget tonight’s experience, but in the words of Vader: “It is too late for me”.
babbling relentlessly about science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Score One for Megatron
He may never have been able to achieve a lasting victory over the Autobots, but Decepticon leader Megatron has beaten Canada Border Services.
Check out this story in today’s Province newspaper about how the borderguards tried to block the import of this Transformers toy, but had to back off.
Now, that he’s able to come north, we all know what kind of trouble ol’ Megatron will be up to – he’ll be looking to score some high-grade, organic, BC energon cubes. Oh yeah.
Check out this story in today’s Province newspaper about how the borderguards tried to block the import of this Transformers toy, but had to back off.
Now, that he’s able to come north, we all know what kind of trouble ol’ Megatron will be up to – he’ll be looking to score some high-grade, organic, BC energon cubes. Oh yeah.
"You're very persistent, Tron!"
Not too long ago, there was an explosion of excitement coming out of the San Diego ComicCon like a recognizer being nailed by a tank blast, when Disney surprise released a teaser for the new “Tron 2” – or “Tr2n” – in development.
Luckily, someone in the audience was quick enough on the draw to capture the thing on a cellphone cam and upload it to the net. I was able to catch it over at SF Signal and all I could say at first was “Wow.” It looked great. The clip focused on a lightcycle race across a typically surreal tron-world landscape. This time though, the look of the programs and their bikes was upgraded – sleeker, and the lightcycles themselves were able to make curving turns, rather than the traditional, wrenching 90 degree cuts we’re used to. Then there’s the appearance of Jeff Bridges, staring down on the scene from a white room like some tired old god of electronica. All in all, for three minutes, “Tron 2” (I’m not going to use the formal presentation of the name, because I think the embedded “2” looks dumb) looks very promising.
What annoys me though (aside from the placement of that “2”), is the startling lack of presence of this trailer, now that it’s been released. Initially, it was everywhere. But now, a quick search for it comes up rather lacking. It’s not even on the Disney site! What are the people at the cult-of-the-mouse thinking? They’ve whet the appetites of geeks everywhere, and now they’re keeping the teaser to themselves? Within a day of its release at the ‘Con, Disney should have posted a nice, clean, quality official version on its site and blasted it out across the net, as well as every multiplex movie screen with the rest of the pre-feature trailers and commercials. I’m a communications guy by trade, and while I’m not pretending to be the level of expert that resides in the halls of marketing masters at Disney, I do know enough to be able to say pretty confidently that they’re not doing themselves any favours by keeping this little piece of “Tron 2” close to their chests. Most of the buzz about the clip seems to have been positive, and while some would argue that they won’t lose ticket buyers by holding back on an early teaser, I would say they have a better potential to build a BIGGER audience and create MORE buzz by unleashing the thing, fostering its going viral, and getting it up on every SF site out there. Get people talking! Give them what they want – sneak peaks and inside scoops! Remember when Peter Jackson was developing LOTR? Weta had a site up right from the start that was dispensing photos and casting updates, news from the set and, best of all, trailers. By comparison, Disney’s approach now has been as if Kevin Flynn had sidled up to the hole in the game grid wall, hawked a loogie and spat through the breach, then walked away, rather than tearing through in his lightcycle and bringing Tron and Ram with him. In the modern age of information sharing, the smart media mogul starts building hype as early as possible (which Disney has done here) but feeds it by dropping tidbits on a regular basis. The “Tron 2” trailer from the ‘Con should have been released on a much, much larger scale.
At any rate, seeing the sequel’s teaser online put me in the mood to watch the original again – not that it takes much to do that; “Tron” is one of my favourites. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, I can always pop in the DVD and enjoy this movie.
Part of that comes from nostalgia. I have to admit, “Tron” is one of the greats of cinematic sci-fi that I didn’t get to see in the theatre. In the summer of 1982, I was a kid, and even though my friends and I were all gung-ho to see this flick ‘cause it looked really cool, my parents (and the other parents in the neighbourhood) couldn’t have cared less about it – to them, it looked weird and it was science fiction and it wasn’t about anything they understood or had any involvement with, so they weren’t going to waste any time or money taking us to see it. Sigh.
And yet, we were inundated with “Tron” marketing by-products none-the-less: from trailers on TV and the previews before other movies we saw, to posters and illustrated books, and let’s not forget the “surprises” in cereal boxes. Yes, Disney waged quite a campaign through the breakfast industry to get some hype for this flick. I can remember digging crunchily around in boxes of Shreddies and Rice Krispies, finally wrapping my hand around the tantalizing plasticy goodness of the prize hidden amidst the cardboard-tasting cereal, pulling out the crumply package to rip it open and connect spars and wheels of plastic to make my very own lightcycle! No jetwall of course, but with a pull of the plastic ripcord that little sucker would go dashing off across the kitchen floor to smash into the wall (not through it, like on the game grid)! At least, that was the plan, until our collie pup would come bouncing in to play too, scooping up the toy into his jaws and running off with that quick “come on, chase me!” trot. And then there was the video game – and I’m not talkin’ about that cheesy pixilated waste of time that was available for purchase for Atari home game sets (no, I’m not jealous because I didn’t have an Atari – my Colecovision consol was a much better system, even if it didn’t have as many games) – no, I’m talkin’ about the full-sized arcade game (back when there were such things as arcades) with the screen and the joystick set up just like the game in the arcade in the movie. That was the best! There was a Holiday Inn out on the edge of town that was kind of like a weekend getaway resort for the locals, and it had a small arcade with the “Tron” game. I remember it started off with a character in a maze, and you had to find your way to one of the exits on one of the four sides of the screen before some bad guys would come and de-rez you. Once you were through one of the exits, you’d be plunged into a game – each exit led to a unique game. One put you into a lightcycle match, another exit led to a tank battle in a maze (the joystick controlled the tank’s movement, but there was a spinning knob control as well to let you turn the tank’s turret independently), and the other two exits – well, I can’t remember what kind of games they led to ‘cause I was never very good at those. I was okay in the tank battle (although it was really more of my brother’s forte), but in lightcycles, I kicked ass. Three years ago, my wife and I had our honeymoon at Disneyland in California. When we went to Tomorrowland and hit upon the Starcade, I went in hoping to find an old “Tron” arcade game - I mean, this was Disneyland, the heart of the place that gave life to “Tron” – it was a reasonable expectation. What could be more appropriate than a little corner for this movie in an on-site arcade? No love though. “Just a lot of cold circuits”, like the program said. No sign of “Tron” at all. Not even a blue or red Frisbee in the gift shop. I shouldn’t have been surprised – it was 2005 and “Tron” was 23 years gone, and from all appearances, Disney’s all about keepin’ up with the times and the marketing hooks that’ll draw in new generations of little ones, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for the classics. Oh sure, there are the rides and attractions that Disneyland just wouldn’t be Disneyland without, like the castle or Space Mountain or It’s a Small World, but forget about the other stuff that helped build its cache, cut new ground, or created memories for those of us who were kids a few decades ago. Anyone remember Disney’s take on Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”? Remember the submarine ride they built around it at the park? When we were there, it was behind a fence getting a facelift into the “Finding Nemo” ride. The only trace of 20,000 leagues was a mural high-up on the second storey of a snack shack – something I suspect they’d forgotten about for the time being but would eventually be wiped-out as part of the rebranding. So much for history. What chance would “Tron” have?
“Tron” also has links in memory to my old school back east – C. Cornwell School was waaaaaay out in the middle of the country, a grade 4-8 school where all the kids got bussed in after they’d been through their local village K-3 elementaries and before they were set loose in the local 9-13 (yes, I said 13, this was Ontario in the 80’s) highschool, and consequently, because it was so far out by the highway in the middle of farmers’ fields and forests, the school dances for the older kids around the holidays had to take place in the afternoons. The grade 4 & 5’s were considered too young for the dances, so they had a choice – go to the “activities room”, where the activities invariably sucked, or go to the “movies room”. “Movies” was a misnomer. There was only one movie: “Tron” – which shows a heck of a lot of cool for a middle school in the middle of farm country. Occasionally they’d also run some short Disney series about a cowboy running a stagecoach service in Australia, but usually it was “Tron”. And that was okay by me and most of the other kids, ‘cause “Tron” blew us away. Cool special effects like nothing else we’d seen before (or since), awesome fight scenes (come on, who wouldn’t be impressed by some dude using a Frisbee as an information storage medium one minute, a drinking bowl the next, and then taking it and blowing away bad guys after that!), good guys who were funny, bad guys full of menace, and, a sense that there were deeper elements to the plot that we were still too young and naïve to understand. Good times, good times.
Over the years, this film has aged well. Sure, the realities of the high-tech world have changed, but we can look at their clunky computers and the arcades and say, that’s how things used to be (kind of). As for the look of the special effects, the synthesis of computer graphics and traditional animation, running side-by-side with live action film elements, were seamless. Together they created a unique world that we hadn’t seen before and haven’t seen since. It gave the world of “Tron” its own texture and atmosphere, and a style that doesn’t date itself because it is so utterly different. This early representation of cyberspace essentially showed moviegoers a totally alien environment (something which was itself unheard of – take any other SF movie prior to “Tron” and look at its environment, in most cases it was something easily recognizable, be it cityscape, desert or jungle [with the exception, perhaps, of “2001”] – but no-one had ever seen anything like the world of “Tron”) – but one where recognizable characters were (for the most part) totally at home in, and thus it was an alien environment that we, as viewers, were able to be comfortable enough to visit for a while. Watch “Tron” today, and for all the advances in CG that have been employed to enhance the reality of film backdrops, it’s still pretty rare to see anything that utterly strange (and cool!).
Beyond the pretty pictures, as an adult, the deeper elements are what the story worth coming back to. As writer/director Steven Lisberger has mentioned on the commentary track, the movie explores the issue of freedom of creativity – who owns what gets created, along with the threat of corporations squeezing out individuals – something he notes many programmers were concerned about during the early days of computing. It’s an issue that’s still relevant today. All you have to do is listen to anyone who’s deeply into the software scene discussing the proprietary moves of certain big corporations versus the open-source and collaborative approach, and the impact of each on users. The film is also a series of “religious discussions” (to borrow from Ed Dillenger’s conversation with old Walter). We see programs created in their users’ images, those programs worshipping their users (after a fashion) as gods. In so presenting this macro-micro universe relationship, the film poses the question of whether we, as users/human beings, are merely running systems for larger, higher powers. By showing Flynn’s confusion and vulnerability upon entering the computer world, the film also asks whether theoretical gods thrown into our world would be any more capable (despite having a few bonus powers) or far-seeing than we. I think it also pointedly raises the issue of, as we see from Flynn’s initial surprise upon arrival, whether any creating entities would even be aware of humans as functioning, thinking, feeling minds. Lastly, though I don’t think it’s quite as overt as the other issues, I think “Tron” also brings up the question of a creator’s responsibility to its creations. Initially, Flynn, like any other user, gives no thought to the state of his programs, like Clu – they are things to be used to achieve his ends. The capture and destruction of Clu in the beginning has no meaning to Flynn beyond the personal inconvenience of not being able to hack into the memory he was looking for to find his evidence. He has no concept of Clu’s fear, pain or death. Until he arrives in the computer world, himself, and, most especially because he’s in as much physical danger as the programs around him, learns that what happens to these programs matters – he learns they have feelings too (here the writers tap into a kind of Shinto notion, that anything created by man that serves a purpose for man has a soul of its own). This begins to hit home when he has a hand in the de-rezzing of the slightly portly accounting program Crom (played nicely Peter Jurasik). But the real change comes aboard the salvaged recognizer when Ram dies. Ram asks Flynn to “Help Tron”, which, let’s face it, Flynn probably would have done anyway, having something of an idea that he probably needs Tron to help him get home, but Ram’s dying request puts an added imperative on it. Flynn says yes for Ram’s sake, to put the program at ease as he dies. Flynn is now feeling responsible for what happens to the programs. One wonders if that was an idea of the writers too, to ask the question of whether any supposed gods would feel any kind of responsibility to humanity? The other implied question, of course, is whether creators do have a responsibility to their creations, whether creations can simply be thrown away or if a creator must ask him or herself what the consequences are. A viewer is left wondering whether, back in the real world, Flynn will treat his programs differently (and I guess we’ll find out in “Tron 2”!). But the implication here is that perhaps we, as an audience, also have to start asking ourselves if we, as a society, need to be thinking about this as our science allows us to create more and more complex things – perhaps even artificial intelligences or genetically engineered life forms. I don’t think a viewer has to be religious or not to toss these questions around. The fact that the questions are posed gives the film much greater depth than the simple quest storyline on the surface and makes “Tron” worth re-watching every now and again.
I’m normally pretty cautious about sequels. Even with a great foundation to build upon, it’s too easy to teeter off balance and have a movie come crashing down upon itself (and risk damaging one’s impression of the original). “Tron 2” is no exception – there’s no way of telling whether it will successfully build about the smarts and the wonder of “Tron” until we see it. I am hopeful though. And while I’m being hopeful, I hope that Disney will smarten up and do a better job with releasing its trailers.
End of line.
Luckily, someone in the audience was quick enough on the draw to capture the thing on a cellphone cam and upload it to the net. I was able to catch it over at SF Signal and all I could say at first was “Wow.” It looked great. The clip focused on a lightcycle race across a typically surreal tron-world landscape. This time though, the look of the programs and their bikes was upgraded – sleeker, and the lightcycles themselves were able to make curving turns, rather than the traditional, wrenching 90 degree cuts we’re used to. Then there’s the appearance of Jeff Bridges, staring down on the scene from a white room like some tired old god of electronica. All in all, for three minutes, “Tron 2” (I’m not going to use the formal presentation of the name, because I think the embedded “2” looks dumb) looks very promising.
What annoys me though (aside from the placement of that “2”), is the startling lack of presence of this trailer, now that it’s been released. Initially, it was everywhere. But now, a quick search for it comes up rather lacking. It’s not even on the Disney site! What are the people at the cult-of-the-mouse thinking? They’ve whet the appetites of geeks everywhere, and now they’re keeping the teaser to themselves? Within a day of its release at the ‘Con, Disney should have posted a nice, clean, quality official version on its site and blasted it out across the net, as well as every multiplex movie screen with the rest of the pre-feature trailers and commercials. I’m a communications guy by trade, and while I’m not pretending to be the level of expert that resides in the halls of marketing masters at Disney, I do know enough to be able to say pretty confidently that they’re not doing themselves any favours by keeping this little piece of “Tron 2” close to their chests. Most of the buzz about the clip seems to have been positive, and while some would argue that they won’t lose ticket buyers by holding back on an early teaser, I would say they have a better potential to build a BIGGER audience and create MORE buzz by unleashing the thing, fostering its going viral, and getting it up on every SF site out there. Get people talking! Give them what they want – sneak peaks and inside scoops! Remember when Peter Jackson was developing LOTR? Weta had a site up right from the start that was dispensing photos and casting updates, news from the set and, best of all, trailers. By comparison, Disney’s approach now has been as if Kevin Flynn had sidled up to the hole in the game grid wall, hawked a loogie and spat through the breach, then walked away, rather than tearing through in his lightcycle and bringing Tron and Ram with him. In the modern age of information sharing, the smart media mogul starts building hype as early as possible (which Disney has done here) but feeds it by dropping tidbits on a regular basis. The “Tron 2” trailer from the ‘Con should have been released on a much, much larger scale.
At any rate, seeing the sequel’s teaser online put me in the mood to watch the original again – not that it takes much to do that; “Tron” is one of my favourites. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, I can always pop in the DVD and enjoy this movie.
Part of that comes from nostalgia. I have to admit, “Tron” is one of the greats of cinematic sci-fi that I didn’t get to see in the theatre. In the summer of 1982, I was a kid, and even though my friends and I were all gung-ho to see this flick ‘cause it looked really cool, my parents (and the other parents in the neighbourhood) couldn’t have cared less about it – to them, it looked weird and it was science fiction and it wasn’t about anything they understood or had any involvement with, so they weren’t going to waste any time or money taking us to see it. Sigh.
And yet, we were inundated with “Tron” marketing by-products none-the-less: from trailers on TV and the previews before other movies we saw, to posters and illustrated books, and let’s not forget the “surprises” in cereal boxes. Yes, Disney waged quite a campaign through the breakfast industry to get some hype for this flick. I can remember digging crunchily around in boxes of Shreddies and Rice Krispies, finally wrapping my hand around the tantalizing plasticy goodness of the prize hidden amidst the cardboard-tasting cereal, pulling out the crumply package to rip it open and connect spars and wheels of plastic to make my very own lightcycle! No jetwall of course, but with a pull of the plastic ripcord that little sucker would go dashing off across the kitchen floor to smash into the wall (not through it, like on the game grid)! At least, that was the plan, until our collie pup would come bouncing in to play too, scooping up the toy into his jaws and running off with that quick “come on, chase me!” trot. And then there was the video game – and I’m not talkin’ about that cheesy pixilated waste of time that was available for purchase for Atari home game sets (no, I’m not jealous because I didn’t have an Atari – my Colecovision consol was a much better system, even if it didn’t have as many games) – no, I’m talkin’ about the full-sized arcade game (back when there were such things as arcades) with the screen and the joystick set up just like the game in the arcade in the movie. That was the best! There was a Holiday Inn out on the edge of town that was kind of like a weekend getaway resort for the locals, and it had a small arcade with the “Tron” game. I remember it started off with a character in a maze, and you had to find your way to one of the exits on one of the four sides of the screen before some bad guys would come and de-rez you. Once you were through one of the exits, you’d be plunged into a game – each exit led to a unique game. One put you into a lightcycle match, another exit led to a tank battle in a maze (the joystick controlled the tank’s movement, but there was a spinning knob control as well to let you turn the tank’s turret independently), and the other two exits – well, I can’t remember what kind of games they led to ‘cause I was never very good at those. I was okay in the tank battle (although it was really more of my brother’s forte), but in lightcycles, I kicked ass. Three years ago, my wife and I had our honeymoon at Disneyland in California. When we went to Tomorrowland and hit upon the Starcade, I went in hoping to find an old “Tron” arcade game - I mean, this was Disneyland, the heart of the place that gave life to “Tron” – it was a reasonable expectation. What could be more appropriate than a little corner for this movie in an on-site arcade? No love though. “Just a lot of cold circuits”, like the program said. No sign of “Tron” at all. Not even a blue or red Frisbee in the gift shop. I shouldn’t have been surprised – it was 2005 and “Tron” was 23 years gone, and from all appearances, Disney’s all about keepin’ up with the times and the marketing hooks that’ll draw in new generations of little ones, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for the classics. Oh sure, there are the rides and attractions that Disneyland just wouldn’t be Disneyland without, like the castle or Space Mountain or It’s a Small World, but forget about the other stuff that helped build its cache, cut new ground, or created memories for those of us who were kids a few decades ago. Anyone remember Disney’s take on Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”? Remember the submarine ride they built around it at the park? When we were there, it was behind a fence getting a facelift into the “Finding Nemo” ride. The only trace of 20,000 leagues was a mural high-up on the second storey of a snack shack – something I suspect they’d forgotten about for the time being but would eventually be wiped-out as part of the rebranding. So much for history. What chance would “Tron” have?
“Tron” also has links in memory to my old school back east – C. Cornwell School was waaaaaay out in the middle of the country, a grade 4-8 school where all the kids got bussed in after they’d been through their local village K-3 elementaries and before they were set loose in the local 9-13 (yes, I said 13, this was Ontario in the 80’s) highschool, and consequently, because it was so far out by the highway in the middle of farmers’ fields and forests, the school dances for the older kids around the holidays had to take place in the afternoons. The grade 4 & 5’s were considered too young for the dances, so they had a choice – go to the “activities room”, where the activities invariably sucked, or go to the “movies room”. “Movies” was a misnomer. There was only one movie: “Tron” – which shows a heck of a lot of cool for a middle school in the middle of farm country. Occasionally they’d also run some short Disney series about a cowboy running a stagecoach service in Australia, but usually it was “Tron”. And that was okay by me and most of the other kids, ‘cause “Tron” blew us away. Cool special effects like nothing else we’d seen before (or since), awesome fight scenes (come on, who wouldn’t be impressed by some dude using a Frisbee as an information storage medium one minute, a drinking bowl the next, and then taking it and blowing away bad guys after that!), good guys who were funny, bad guys full of menace, and, a sense that there were deeper elements to the plot that we were still too young and naïve to understand. Good times, good times.
Over the years, this film has aged well. Sure, the realities of the high-tech world have changed, but we can look at their clunky computers and the arcades and say, that’s how things used to be (kind of). As for the look of the special effects, the synthesis of computer graphics and traditional animation, running side-by-side with live action film elements, were seamless. Together they created a unique world that we hadn’t seen before and haven’t seen since. It gave the world of “Tron” its own texture and atmosphere, and a style that doesn’t date itself because it is so utterly different. This early representation of cyberspace essentially showed moviegoers a totally alien environment (something which was itself unheard of – take any other SF movie prior to “Tron” and look at its environment, in most cases it was something easily recognizable, be it cityscape, desert or jungle [with the exception, perhaps, of “2001”] – but no-one had ever seen anything like the world of “Tron”) – but one where recognizable characters were (for the most part) totally at home in, and thus it was an alien environment that we, as viewers, were able to be comfortable enough to visit for a while. Watch “Tron” today, and for all the advances in CG that have been employed to enhance the reality of film backdrops, it’s still pretty rare to see anything that utterly strange (and cool!).
Beyond the pretty pictures, as an adult, the deeper elements are what the story worth coming back to. As writer/director Steven Lisberger has mentioned on the commentary track, the movie explores the issue of freedom of creativity – who owns what gets created, along with the threat of corporations squeezing out individuals – something he notes many programmers were concerned about during the early days of computing. It’s an issue that’s still relevant today. All you have to do is listen to anyone who’s deeply into the software scene discussing the proprietary moves of certain big corporations versus the open-source and collaborative approach, and the impact of each on users. The film is also a series of “religious discussions” (to borrow from Ed Dillenger’s conversation with old Walter). We see programs created in their users’ images, those programs worshipping their users (after a fashion) as gods. In so presenting this macro-micro universe relationship, the film poses the question of whether we, as users/human beings, are merely running systems for larger, higher powers. By showing Flynn’s confusion and vulnerability upon entering the computer world, the film also asks whether theoretical gods thrown into our world would be any more capable (despite having a few bonus powers) or far-seeing than we. I think it also pointedly raises the issue of, as we see from Flynn’s initial surprise upon arrival, whether any creating entities would even be aware of humans as functioning, thinking, feeling minds. Lastly, though I don’t think it’s quite as overt as the other issues, I think “Tron” also brings up the question of a creator’s responsibility to its creations. Initially, Flynn, like any other user, gives no thought to the state of his programs, like Clu – they are things to be used to achieve his ends. The capture and destruction of Clu in the beginning has no meaning to Flynn beyond the personal inconvenience of not being able to hack into the memory he was looking for to find his evidence. He has no concept of Clu’s fear, pain or death. Until he arrives in the computer world, himself, and, most especially because he’s in as much physical danger as the programs around him, learns that what happens to these programs matters – he learns they have feelings too (here the writers tap into a kind of Shinto notion, that anything created by man that serves a purpose for man has a soul of its own). This begins to hit home when he has a hand in the de-rezzing of the slightly portly accounting program Crom (played nicely Peter Jurasik). But the real change comes aboard the salvaged recognizer when Ram dies. Ram asks Flynn to “Help Tron”, which, let’s face it, Flynn probably would have done anyway, having something of an idea that he probably needs Tron to help him get home, but Ram’s dying request puts an added imperative on it. Flynn says yes for Ram’s sake, to put the program at ease as he dies. Flynn is now feeling responsible for what happens to the programs. One wonders if that was an idea of the writers too, to ask the question of whether any supposed gods would feel any kind of responsibility to humanity? The other implied question, of course, is whether creators do have a responsibility to their creations, whether creations can simply be thrown away or if a creator must ask him or herself what the consequences are. A viewer is left wondering whether, back in the real world, Flynn will treat his programs differently (and I guess we’ll find out in “Tron 2”!). But the implication here is that perhaps we, as an audience, also have to start asking ourselves if we, as a society, need to be thinking about this as our science allows us to create more and more complex things – perhaps even artificial intelligences or genetically engineered life forms. I don’t think a viewer has to be religious or not to toss these questions around. The fact that the questions are posed gives the film much greater depth than the simple quest storyline on the surface and makes “Tron” worth re-watching every now and again.
I’m normally pretty cautious about sequels. Even with a great foundation to build upon, it’s too easy to teeter off balance and have a movie come crashing down upon itself (and risk damaging one’s impression of the original). “Tron 2” is no exception – there’s no way of telling whether it will successfully build about the smarts and the wonder of “Tron” until we see it. I am hopeful though. And while I’m being hopeful, I hope that Disney will smarten up and do a better job with releasing its trailers.
End of line.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Interesting Editorial
Check out this interesting editorial from Kate Heartfield of the Canwest News Service, published today in the Vancouver Sun, on what’s drawing people to the host of superhero movies this summer.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
A New Feature: Movie Reviews from My Mother-In-Law! - the first installment: "The Dark Knight"
For those of you who tire of my frequently excessively long and pointless movie reviews, I’ve decided to add a much more to-the-point feature (occasionally) to the blog: Movie Reviews from My Mother-In-Law! (you may now mentally insert the theme music from “Dragnet”)
Oh, I’m not abandoning my movie reviews – I’ll keep posting my long-winded cinematic bitchings (most likely late, as usual), but this is something I’ve been mulling over as an extra for a while.
My mother-in-law is a 50-something Chinese living in Hong Kong. Because she took very early retirement years ago, she’s got a lot of time on her hands. One of the things she enjoys is going to the movies. And she goes to a lot of ‘em. While she isn’t a fan of SF movies, she does take in one or two from time to time. Another thing about Mother is that she shoots from the hip. Her thoughts on any film, good or bad, rarely require more than a couple of sentences, and she’ll tell you exactly what she thinks. And once a verdict has been rendered, it’s final. There’s no discussion. It’s safe to say that Mother and I approach movies from different perspectives. I rarely agree with her assessments, but listening to her sledgehammer reviews always gives me a chuckle, if for no other reason than their brutally opinionated bluntness.
The seeds of this feature were first planted years ago when “The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring” was released. Mother was less than enchanted, having this to say: “Ugh. It was bad! Just a bunch of dirty little men running around.” After our initial astonishment, my wife and I had a good laugh. We were flat-out howling years later when we saw Kevin Smith’s “Clerks II” and Randall did his take on LOTR, alleging that all that really happened was walking. At any rate, we knew that Mother’s thoughts on pop culture cinema were an untapped gold mine just waiting for the right opportunity.
And so, it is with great pride that I share with you the first installment of Movie Reviews from My Mother-In-Law! In this review: “The Dark Knight”
“Meh. It was okay. Why did they bother to go to Hong Kong though? There was no need for that.”
Stay tuned for my own take on the latest Batman flick.
Oh, I’m not abandoning my movie reviews – I’ll keep posting my long-winded cinematic bitchings (most likely late, as usual), but this is something I’ve been mulling over as an extra for a while.
My mother-in-law is a 50-something Chinese living in Hong Kong. Because she took very early retirement years ago, she’s got a lot of time on her hands. One of the things she enjoys is going to the movies. And she goes to a lot of ‘em. While she isn’t a fan of SF movies, she does take in one or two from time to time. Another thing about Mother is that she shoots from the hip. Her thoughts on any film, good or bad, rarely require more than a couple of sentences, and she’ll tell you exactly what she thinks. And once a verdict has been rendered, it’s final. There’s no discussion. It’s safe to say that Mother and I approach movies from different perspectives. I rarely agree with her assessments, but listening to her sledgehammer reviews always gives me a chuckle, if for no other reason than their brutally opinionated bluntness.
The seeds of this feature were first planted years ago when “The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring” was released. Mother was less than enchanted, having this to say: “Ugh. It was bad! Just a bunch of dirty little men running around.” After our initial astonishment, my wife and I had a good laugh. We were flat-out howling years later when we saw Kevin Smith’s “Clerks II” and Randall did his take on LOTR, alleging that all that really happened was walking. At any rate, we knew that Mother’s thoughts on pop culture cinema were an untapped gold mine just waiting for the right opportunity.
And so, it is with great pride that I share with you the first installment of Movie Reviews from My Mother-In-Law! In this review: “The Dark Knight”
“Meh. It was okay. Why did they bother to go to Hong Kong though? There was no need for that.”
Stay tuned for my own take on the latest Batman flick.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Scientist Says a Real Batman Would Have a Pretty Short Career
Just in time for the annual summer orgy of comic-inspired cinematic blockbusters (with fans and the general public lining up for “The Dark Knight”), a University of Victoria professor has determined that if Batman existed in real life, he’d have a pretty short career - about 3 years.
CanWest New Service is running an article today (I caught it in The Vancouver Sun newspaper) featuring Dr. Paul Zehr, a specialist in kinesiology and neuroscience, karate black belt, and lifelong Batman fanboy. Zehr’s publishing a book entitled “Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero”, where he details exactly what would be involved in becoming a non-super-powered vigilante crime fighter, and what the consequences of that would be.
According to Zehr, a real-life Batman would have to be in peak physical condition –part Olympic decathlete, part NFL running back, part ultimate fighter, part boxer. This person would need to have 10-12 years of martial arts and motor skills training, 3-5 years of intense physical conditioning and a few more years of working under a lot of stress.
But Zehr points out the cost of getting into nightly slugfests with badguys and vaulting around on buildings would be high. A crimefighter, no matter how good, is likely to get hit a few times and fall once in a while. Zehr says injuries, like repeated concussions, would start to pile up over time and eventually force Batman to throw in the cowl.
CanWest New Service is running an article today (I caught it in The Vancouver Sun newspaper) featuring Dr. Paul Zehr, a specialist in kinesiology and neuroscience, karate black belt, and lifelong Batman fanboy. Zehr’s publishing a book entitled “Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero”, where he details exactly what would be involved in becoming a non-super-powered vigilante crime fighter, and what the consequences of that would be.
According to Zehr, a real-life Batman would have to be in peak physical condition –part Olympic decathlete, part NFL running back, part ultimate fighter, part boxer. This person would need to have 10-12 years of martial arts and motor skills training, 3-5 years of intense physical conditioning and a few more years of working under a lot of stress.
But Zehr points out the cost of getting into nightly slugfests with badguys and vaulting around on buildings would be high. A crimefighter, no matter how good, is likely to get hit a few times and fall once in a while. Zehr says injuries, like repeated concussions, would start to pile up over time and eventually force Batman to throw in the cowl.
B5 - Do It Right or Not at All
SF Signal had a link to “Babylon 5” creator J. Michael Straczynski’s page the other day, on which JMS says he’s given it a lot of thought and come to the conclusion that he won’t be doing any more B5 projects unless a studio gives him enough money to do it properly – “a full-featured, big-budget, feature film.”
Good for you, JMS.
That had to be a hard place for him to come to in his reflections, but I think it’s the mature and artistically correct conclusion.
I’m a huge fan of B5. It was an incredibly written show with compelling characters. For its time, it was the best damn show on TV and is still eminently watchable. Sure there was the odd weak episode (but what show wouldn’t have some with that kind of on-air lifespan), and season 5 seemed a bit rushed, and yeah “The Legend of the Rangers” was a monstrous steaming pile of shit, but overall, B5 had a vision and it followed it, and it had a story to tell and it told it well and made us care.
But in some ways, it’s a good thing it’s over. It’s because the story of B5 was so good that it’s a good thing it’s over. Some stories don’t have to go on forever. They’re good enough to continue to be good over time without constantly tacking on extra installments here and there every couple of years. A good dish doesn’t need an entire buffet to make it better – sometimes the food on that one plate is great on its own. To keep adding on more and more is to risk losing that original wonderful product amid the clutter; it is to risk making the original beloved thing no longer special. There’s an old saying that an artist has to know when to walk away from the piece of art he’s working on. George Lucas hasn’t figured that out (don’t get me wrong, while I love the original Trilogy, I don’t hate all of the stuff that’s followed it – but the other stuff is just unnecessary and doesn’t stack up), but the afore-mentioned posting proves Straczynski has.
Part of me is hopeful that someday JMS will be offered enough money and be given enough time to create another great installment in the B5 saga. But if that doesn’t happen, that’s okay. We’ve still got the B5 story that has been told, and it’s good enough as-is.
Good for you, JMS.
That had to be a hard place for him to come to in his reflections, but I think it’s the mature and artistically correct conclusion.
I’m a huge fan of B5. It was an incredibly written show with compelling characters. For its time, it was the best damn show on TV and is still eminently watchable. Sure there was the odd weak episode (but what show wouldn’t have some with that kind of on-air lifespan), and season 5 seemed a bit rushed, and yeah “The Legend of the Rangers” was a monstrous steaming pile of shit, but overall, B5 had a vision and it followed it, and it had a story to tell and it told it well and made us care.
But in some ways, it’s a good thing it’s over. It’s because the story of B5 was so good that it’s a good thing it’s over. Some stories don’t have to go on forever. They’re good enough to continue to be good over time without constantly tacking on extra installments here and there every couple of years. A good dish doesn’t need an entire buffet to make it better – sometimes the food on that one plate is great on its own. To keep adding on more and more is to risk losing that original wonderful product amid the clutter; it is to risk making the original beloved thing no longer special. There’s an old saying that an artist has to know when to walk away from the piece of art he’s working on. George Lucas hasn’t figured that out (don’t get me wrong, while I love the original Trilogy, I don’t hate all of the stuff that’s followed it – but the other stuff is just unnecessary and doesn’t stack up), but the afore-mentioned posting proves Straczynski has.
Part of me is hopeful that someday JMS will be offered enough money and be given enough time to create another great installment in the B5 saga. But if that doesn’t happen, that’s okay. We’ve still got the B5 story that has been told, and it’s good enough as-is.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Goodbye, Roland
A sad visit to White Dwarf Books yesterday. The store owners’ trusty Basset Hound, Roland, has died.
It was shaping up to be a good afternoon… it was a sunny Saturday, my wife and I were driving around Vancouver after a nice lunch and we thought we’d drop by the store to check out the latest books, chat with the owners and say hi to Roland. The first part of the trip went as planned – many good books (naturally) and I was happy to find the newest offerings from Nick DiChario and Naomi Novik. But something was missing. No sign of the old dog on his blanket under the display table at the back of the central aisle. Now, Roland being off-site was nothing unusual… sometimes he’d be out for a walk, but the tablecloth had never been blocked the entrance to his lair before. As I settled-up for the books, I asked where he was. The owner got a sad look in her eyes and told us Roland had died last week.
To a regular like me, this was a shock. Roland was part of White Dwarf. He was one of the first things I saw the first time I went there, that old Basset Hound lounging in front of the door in a nice sunny patch. I remember smiling to myself thinking, “Here’s a quiet little SF bookshop with quiet owners and a quiet dog. This is a good place.” If he wasn’t under his table at the back, Roland would be in a sunny spot up front, keeping an eye on the door. Sometimes he’d work up the energy to patrol the aisles and check out the customers, always ready to accept a pat, always hoping you had a cookie you’d share. If you went to an author reading at the store, no matter how many people were crowding the aisles, Roland would always be there, doing the rounds in his slow, steady way, having a good look and sniff at the customers and making sure his store was in good order. He was an important part of the feel of the store - Easy-going. Comfortable. Encouraging you to take your time and wander between the shelves like he did, idly sniffing out that next good book.
Hearing the news, I felt sad. Sure, he wasn’t my dog, but Roland was a good old dog, the kind you always said hi to when you passed him, the kind who you just knew you were going to stop and pat if he happened to be awake when you dropped by. I felt worse when the owner said it was still pretty soon and she couldn’t talk about him much without having to hold back the tears. But she told me that it was alright that I’d asked. She said she liked it when people asked because it let her know that all of us cared about Roland. And we did. So if you’re a regular at White Dwarf, give the owners their space if they need it, but if you’ve got fond memories of Roland, let them know that you’ll miss that old dog too.
Goodbye, Roland.
It was shaping up to be a good afternoon… it was a sunny Saturday, my wife and I were driving around Vancouver after a nice lunch and we thought we’d drop by the store to check out the latest books, chat with the owners and say hi to Roland. The first part of the trip went as planned – many good books (naturally) and I was happy to find the newest offerings from Nick DiChario and Naomi Novik. But something was missing. No sign of the old dog on his blanket under the display table at the back of the central aisle. Now, Roland being off-site was nothing unusual… sometimes he’d be out for a walk, but the tablecloth had never been blocked the entrance to his lair before. As I settled-up for the books, I asked where he was. The owner got a sad look in her eyes and told us Roland had died last week.
To a regular like me, this was a shock. Roland was part of White Dwarf. He was one of the first things I saw the first time I went there, that old Basset Hound lounging in front of the door in a nice sunny patch. I remember smiling to myself thinking, “Here’s a quiet little SF bookshop with quiet owners and a quiet dog. This is a good place.” If he wasn’t under his table at the back, Roland would be in a sunny spot up front, keeping an eye on the door. Sometimes he’d work up the energy to patrol the aisles and check out the customers, always ready to accept a pat, always hoping you had a cookie you’d share. If you went to an author reading at the store, no matter how many people were crowding the aisles, Roland would always be there, doing the rounds in his slow, steady way, having a good look and sniff at the customers and making sure his store was in good order. He was an important part of the feel of the store - Easy-going. Comfortable. Encouraging you to take your time and wander between the shelves like he did, idly sniffing out that next good book.
Hearing the news, I felt sad. Sure, he wasn’t my dog, but Roland was a good old dog, the kind you always said hi to when you passed him, the kind who you just knew you were going to stop and pat if he happened to be awake when you dropped by. I felt worse when the owner said it was still pretty soon and she couldn’t talk about him much without having to hold back the tears. But she told me that it was alright that I’d asked. She said she liked it when people asked because it let her know that all of us cared about Roland. And we did. So if you’re a regular at White Dwarf, give the owners their space if they need it, but if you’ve got fond memories of Roland, let them know that you’ll miss that old dog too.
Goodbye, Roland.
Quck! To the Fanmobile!!!
You never know what you’re gonna see on the roads these days. Amidst all the duallies, extra-loud non-muffling mufflers, neon lights, bumper stickers, stuffed toys in the back window and paraphernalia hanging from rear-view mirrors, sometimes, just sometimes, an SF fanboy or girl will stand out from the crowd of hipsters with a little bit of geek pride.
About five weeks ago, I saw (barely) just such an example of a fan strutting their stuff. One sunny weekend afternoon as my wife was at the wheel, my distance vision post-op just starting to return, while we were getting on the on-ramp of the Arthur Lang Bridge on the Vancouver Marpole side heading for Richmond, we saw a little black car, a Volkswagen GTI, I think, sporting a BC plate with the license: CTHULU. I guess even the old ones need a fuel-efficient, easy to park, yet sporty little car to get around in. I seem to recall a posting on SF Signal quite a while ago with a photo of a car with a similar Lovecraftian brag-tag in Virginia or someplace in the US.
Not two weeks later, driving through Tsawwassen, we found ourselves behind something much sillier: a little quarter-ton pickup boasting the plate: MC LUVN. Okay, so this one wasn’t an SF-mobile, but I figured I’d give a nod to another type of dedicated fanboy anyway.
What’s the most fannish car you’ve seen on the road?
About five weeks ago, I saw (barely) just such an example of a fan strutting their stuff. One sunny weekend afternoon as my wife was at the wheel, my distance vision post-op just starting to return, while we were getting on the on-ramp of the Arthur Lang Bridge on the Vancouver Marpole side heading for Richmond, we saw a little black car, a Volkswagen GTI, I think, sporting a BC plate with the license: CTHULU. I guess even the old ones need a fuel-efficient, easy to park, yet sporty little car to get around in. I seem to recall a posting on SF Signal quite a while ago with a photo of a car with a similar Lovecraftian brag-tag in Virginia or someplace in the US.
Not two weeks later, driving through Tsawwassen, we found ourselves behind something much sillier: a little quarter-ton pickup boasting the plate: MC LUVN. Okay, so this one wasn’t an SF-mobile, but I figured I’d give a nod to another type of dedicated fanboy anyway.
What’s the most fannish car you’ve seen on the road?
So long, Carlin
It wasn’t too long ago that George Carlin died, and even though I was offline at the time, I thought it was important to post a quick note here about what a great performer he was.
Performer almost seems too limiting of a term. I think Carlin was really a “stand-up philosopher”. That phrase was coined by Mel Brooks in “The History of the World, Part I”, simply referring to a comedian – the profession of Brooks’ Roman Empire –era character, Comicus. But with Carlin, the philosopher part of the gig went far deeper than the mere fact that he was a stand-up, or that he used performance as the vehicle to deliver his philosophy. As many have already mentioned, and with far better words than I can muster, Carlin’s comedy dug into the heart of our society, both in terms of the how and why behind simple things like turns of phrase and sports, to the bigger issues like politics, religion and ideology. Carlin wasn’t just having tantrums on stage to see if he could get you to smile, he had clearly thought his words through to their ends and made you laugh because he helped to you to see the absurdity behind it all for yourself.
In addition to his stand-up routines, Carlin was also an actor. Some of his roles of interest to SF fans were Rufus, the cool cat who kept the two hard rock-wannabes on track in the Bill & Ted movies (Rufus gets extra cred for choosing a phone booth for the shape of the time vessel in the movies, a respectful nod, of course, to “Doctor Who”) and as slick-talking, cigarette-sucking, Armageddon-courting Cardinal Glick in Kevin Smith’s biblical fantasy “Dogma”.
But getting back to his stand-up, while I enjoyed many of his political rants, the Carlin routines that I’d have to say are my favourites are What Constitutes a Real Sport/How Sports Should Really Be and most especially Hellos & Goodbyes. I love how Carlin catalogued all the ridiculous ways people say goodbye and their implications (asking you to say “hi” to someone else for them is like asking you to carry cargo), and how the routine evolved into “unique” ways to say goodbye that he’d dreamt up so that “people would remember you”, such as “Farewell! May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your home!” At a time when we’ve just lost this master stand-up philosopher, proper ways of saying goodbye become important. In fact, as J. Michael Straczynski has noted, “goodbye”, because it is a single word that carries such heavy emotional freight, is one of the most powerful words we have at our disposal. And yet it is also one of the simplest. I think one of the messages Carlin was trying to convey with his bit on hellos & goodbyes is that too often we stretch for ostentation when the simple and the heartfelt would do. And so, with that, I say goodbye, George.
Performer almost seems too limiting of a term. I think Carlin was really a “stand-up philosopher”. That phrase was coined by Mel Brooks in “The History of the World, Part I”, simply referring to a comedian – the profession of Brooks’ Roman Empire –era character, Comicus. But with Carlin, the philosopher part of the gig went far deeper than the mere fact that he was a stand-up, or that he used performance as the vehicle to deliver his philosophy. As many have already mentioned, and with far better words than I can muster, Carlin’s comedy dug into the heart of our society, both in terms of the how and why behind simple things like turns of phrase and sports, to the bigger issues like politics, religion and ideology. Carlin wasn’t just having tantrums on stage to see if he could get you to smile, he had clearly thought his words through to their ends and made you laugh because he helped to you to see the absurdity behind it all for yourself.
In addition to his stand-up routines, Carlin was also an actor. Some of his roles of interest to SF fans were Rufus, the cool cat who kept the two hard rock-wannabes on track in the Bill & Ted movies (Rufus gets extra cred for choosing a phone booth for the shape of the time vessel in the movies, a respectful nod, of course, to “Doctor Who”) and as slick-talking, cigarette-sucking, Armageddon-courting Cardinal Glick in Kevin Smith’s biblical fantasy “Dogma”.
But getting back to his stand-up, while I enjoyed many of his political rants, the Carlin routines that I’d have to say are my favourites are What Constitutes a Real Sport/How Sports Should Really Be and most especially Hellos & Goodbyes. I love how Carlin catalogued all the ridiculous ways people say goodbye and their implications (asking you to say “hi” to someone else for them is like asking you to carry cargo), and how the routine evolved into “unique” ways to say goodbye that he’d dreamt up so that “people would remember you”, such as “Farewell! May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your home!” At a time when we’ve just lost this master stand-up philosopher, proper ways of saying goodbye become important. In fact, as J. Michael Straczynski has noted, “goodbye”, because it is a single word that carries such heavy emotional freight, is one of the most powerful words we have at our disposal. And yet it is also one of the simplest. I think one of the messages Carlin was trying to convey with his bit on hellos & goodbyes is that too often we stretch for ostentation when the simple and the heartfelt would do. And so, with that, I say goodbye, George.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Battlestar Galactica - What on Earth?
At this point, I’ve been outta the loop for so long that I’m probably the only person who hasn’t weighed-in on the mid-season cliffhanger or whatever you want to call it (Mid-season? They’re not gonna air any more shows until 2009 and this is still mid-season? Let’s call a spade a spade here, folks, this was a season finale, and because we have to wait so damn long, whatever comes in 2009 is a new season as far as I’m concerned!) where Galactica and the fleet finally reach Earth. I’m gonna speak my peace anyway.
Overall it was a good episode. But it felt rushed. Sure they had a lot to squeeze into a single episode, and yeah they key at this point is to keep the pacing quick, but one of the hallmarks of this series’ success has been its willingness to let some moments play out in their own time. It’s had a little something called patience. That’s been a major factor in keeping the level of realism in the plot so high. Not this time though. It was like the writers wanted to throw a fan’s wishlist at us full of the things we wanted to see and the type of hints we love to be teased with so that we’d be sated and wouldn’t realize we’re being cheated at having to wait so long for the show to resume or that there aren’t quite enough episodes to play itself out. I felt we were being hurried through Adama’s mental breakdown. This is a significant event within this character and the plot, and yet it was settled so quickly it was like being at a banquet where the main course arrives, you take two delicious bites and when you turn your head for a second the waiter whisks your plate away and moves on to the dessert course (this happened to me a little over 2 months ago). Adama’s suffering and recovery needed way more time, not only to be believable, but to make the audience really care that it happened. Remember the entire episode of “Babylon 5” dedicated to Sheridan’s interrogation at the hands of Clarke’s inquisitors? That was character and plot development that was given due diligence. The Adama experience? Not so much.
Then there was the odd little statement when Lee told Rosalin how happy the Quorum would be that she was back, as though he was hinting they were unsatisfied with his administration. Really? Seems to me when she went galavanting off aboard the basestar the Quorum was on the verge of a revolution, with all off the members grinding their teeth at Rosalin’s (again, let’s call a spade a spade) growing dictatorial behavior. More time could have better explained their joy at her return.
How about seeing a little more of the imprisoned 6 who’s pregnant with Colonel Tigh’s child? They gave us a quick shot of her at the end, but the character’s been absent for the past little while.
What we needed to see more of was the behind-the-scenes Cylon politics. D’Anna took them to the brink of a shoot-out, risking the loss of the final Cylons, and the others basically went along with it. Sure, 6 fussed a bit, but mostly just stood there and looked worried and the 8’s/Boomers looked like they were focusing like it was another day at the office. These are Cylons that rebelled against their peers and went to the extreme of destroying the resurrection hub, and they’re not going to at least verbally take D’Anna to task for risking a shooting war that they probably can’t win and would possibly cost the lives of the Final 5? Sure, they’re cautious around D’Anna because she knows who the 5 are and they don’t, but that doesn’t imply that they’d give her free reign. You’d think the strong, silent type centurions who are so protective of the hybrid might also object to the prospect of a pissing match that could injure or destroy they’re precious hybrid (never mind their own newly self-determining lives).
That being said, there was a lot I did really enjoy about the episode, especially the riveting scenes with Saul Tigh putting his life on the line for a fleet that now hates him for a traitor, because he’s decided that Colonel Tigh is who he wants to be. I also enjoyed the final act where the fleet jumps to Earth, with beautiful shots of the ships in orbit, a wonderful musical score and then the bitter disappointment of the travelers standing amidst the ruins. It was a good ending to the episode. And ya know something, it could have been a good ending to the series.
But there’s more to come. And as we wait, there are two big questions to wrestle with:
When in Earth’s history did they arrive and what happened to the 13th colony? (okay, that’s really two questions)
And
Who is the 5th Cylon?
With respect to the first question(s), I’ve been toying with a couple of possibilities...
At first I was highly suspicious and wondered if they’d even landed on Earth at all. Sure it was a blue planet with clouds and a yellow sun. But we didn’t see out great big moon anywhere in the background, and there was no large view through the clouds to identify the shapes of continents below. Could this have been another colony world left behind along the way? But no, the constellations verified that this was the right location. I wondered briefly if this could be a very ancient Mars, as some scientists have suggested it may have been wet and more Earth-like in its deep past. But this Earth-like? And no big volcanoes rearing up to the edge of space? Probably not. Occam’s razor cut in and I figured that with so little time left in the series, the writers would probably not be jerking around with other worlds – they’ve got to keep the pace up and cut to the chase, so it’s obviously Earth. But when?
For a while, I was hopeful that it might be something really cool and off the wall - a time in the distant future where (as some on other boards have said they’d like to see) our civilization has progressed to a post-human state, leaving the old cities and possibly our physical bodies and perhaps even the planet behind in favour of electronic existence in the information space between machines. The cities would, in time, then decay under the force of the elements, leaving only mystery to the new arrivals who have not yet been contacted by the post-humans (who, immersed in their own quantum-computed concerns, may not even care about the arrival of this gaggle of interstellar refugees) and may never be. Or, having evolved, might be able to teach the Colonials and Cylons a little wisdom. But I doubt it. I suspect the writers of this very gritty series would want to give the audience something more tangible.
If it’s the future, that raises the question of whether the 13th colony eventually destroyed itself, whether it was destroyed by its own creations (all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again), or perhaps even by that which this series has avoided so far like the plague - some kind of alien force. Perhaps they packed up and left for greener pastures for some other reason. I think the most likely of these scenarios would be either self-destruction or destruction by their own creations.
But I think the most likely reason for the discovery of the ruins is this: I suspect the writers are going to make a big nod to the old series idea that these spacemen were the ancestors of one of Earth’s ancient civilizations (real or mythical). My bet is that the fleet has arrived in the ancient past. Bronze Age at the earliest. I’m guessing that we’ll be told that sometime even earlier in prehistory the 13th colony arrived, founded a civilization among the savages and less advanced societies (maybe they’ll go for broke and call it Atlantis), then collapsed as all civilizations eventually do. The Colonials, tired of running, will hunker down and try to rebuild and eventually blend in with the locals.
Then there’s the equally hotly-debated question of the identity of the 5th Cylon. At various times, I’ve subscribed to three theories:
In my more cynical moments, I’ve entertained the idea that it might be Tom Zerick. Consider that all of the other four are strong, outspoken personalities who are, or have been leaders and thus have influenced (and you may want to read “influenced” as “controlled”) human beings (and generally more effectively than the ham-fisted brutal ways of their Cylon brethren). Saul Tigh has served as a Colonel in the Colonial fleet, handling significant responsibilities and authority as second in command (and on two occasions, the command itself) of Galactica. He also led the rebellion against the Cylons on New Caprica and was a chief rabble-rouser among the disgruntled crew after the return to space who believed that only those who had lived under the occupation had known hardship. Galen Tyrrol was chief of the flight deck aboard Galactica, a union leader on New Caprica, a senior leader of the resistance on New Caprica and once again a union organizer during the fleet-wide general strike. Tory was one of President Rosalin’s senior staff members and also served as her aide in the resistance movement on New Caprica (in which she seemed to hold some organizational authority, as evidenced in her coordination of block groups during the evacuation). Anders was a guerilla leader on Caprica and reprised this role with the resistance on New Caprica. For his part, Zerick was a terrorist leader on Saggitaron, the leader of the prisoner uprising aboard the Astral Queen, a presidential candidate and leader of an apparently neo-marxist party, and current Vice President (and two occasions interim President) of the Colonies. Certainly he’s been agitating people on a large scale in one way or another for the entire series. In fact, as the Cylons claim they want to change the relationship with humanity, Zerick has claimed to be trying to redefine humanity’s relationship with itself with proposed neo-marxist reconceptualizations of society, politics and economy. Aside from his terrorist and political activities, nothing else has been mentioned of Zerick’s past, making him a reasonable candidate to be the 5th Cylon.
In my more paranoid moments, I’ve wondered if the audience might be the 5th Cylon. While I didn’t watch “The Sopranos”, I recall friends who were fans discussing that series end, with the screen that went abruptly black, tossing around the theory that this was the audience – the unacknowledged character – finally getting whacked as so many others in the show had been – the audience was finally made part of the experience. Or so the theory went. I’ve chewed on the idea of whether we’ll get a reveal of this nature (though a similar treatment and fate would be doubtful) at the finale of BSG. And yet this one doesn’t feel quite right either.
At this point, I’ve got the notion that the 5th Cylon might be Felix Gaeta. It seems that so far, all of the 4 have lived lives that seem designed to give them a sense of the big human experiences: Tigh is a fleet officer, a drunk, a rebel leader and was a husband in a tempestuous marriage; Anders is the sports hero with the on-again off-again marriage; Tory maneuvers treacherous political waters and flirts with cult leader Baltar; Tyrrol was in love with a traitor and struggled in his marriage. But Gaeta, Gaeta on the other hand, has none of that. Sure he was the senior aide in the Baltar administration and secretly fed information to the resistance, but he certainly wasn’t living on the edge. Gaeta has led a quiet life in a go-nowhere job where he’s liked by most of his colleagues but ultimately taken for granted. And isn’t that a fundamentally human experience too? The others have all struggled with their identity and times (most especially during their Cylon-coming-out). Gaeta voiced this as far back as D’Anna’s documentary on Galactica’s crew back in season 1 (or was that season2?) where he said all he’d ever wanted was to work on a battlestar, and now, here he was, and he didn’t really know what he wanted anymore. All of the 4 have lost something: Tigh his wife, Tyrrol his wife and Boomer before that, Anders his wife, Tory her sense of place and sense of self. Gaeta lost his faith in the system when the election was rigged, he lost his faith in Baltar on New Caprica, he lost his faith (to some degree) in his shipmates after the rescue when he was branded a traitor and nearly executed, and he lost his leg during Starbuck’s mad quest for Earth. During his recovery in hospital, Gaeta sang sad songs endlessly to cope with the pain. Immersing onself in art as a means of self expression and a way to deal with feelings/emotion/pain is so very fundamentally human and something the Cylons would dream of if they wanted to grow in the direction of humanity. Gaeta: adrift in the middle, crippled and emotionally lost. So human. And so, possibly, very, very Cylon.
That’s my two bits, for what little they’re worth. Something we should all bear in mind though is that it has been said a few times by various people associated with BSG that not every question will be answered when the series ends. Not every situation will be resolved. How do we know we won’t be left hanging on these issues?
But for now, it’s fun to guess. So what do you think? What’s the deal with Earth, and who’s the 5th Cylon?
Overall it was a good episode. But it felt rushed. Sure they had a lot to squeeze into a single episode, and yeah they key at this point is to keep the pacing quick, but one of the hallmarks of this series’ success has been its willingness to let some moments play out in their own time. It’s had a little something called patience. That’s been a major factor in keeping the level of realism in the plot so high. Not this time though. It was like the writers wanted to throw a fan’s wishlist at us full of the things we wanted to see and the type of hints we love to be teased with so that we’d be sated and wouldn’t realize we’re being cheated at having to wait so long for the show to resume or that there aren’t quite enough episodes to play itself out. I felt we were being hurried through Adama’s mental breakdown. This is a significant event within this character and the plot, and yet it was settled so quickly it was like being at a banquet where the main course arrives, you take two delicious bites and when you turn your head for a second the waiter whisks your plate away and moves on to the dessert course (this happened to me a little over 2 months ago). Adama’s suffering and recovery needed way more time, not only to be believable, but to make the audience really care that it happened. Remember the entire episode of “Babylon 5” dedicated to Sheridan’s interrogation at the hands of Clarke’s inquisitors? That was character and plot development that was given due diligence. The Adama experience? Not so much.
Then there was the odd little statement when Lee told Rosalin how happy the Quorum would be that she was back, as though he was hinting they were unsatisfied with his administration. Really? Seems to me when she went galavanting off aboard the basestar the Quorum was on the verge of a revolution, with all off the members grinding their teeth at Rosalin’s (again, let’s call a spade a spade) growing dictatorial behavior. More time could have better explained their joy at her return.
How about seeing a little more of the imprisoned 6 who’s pregnant with Colonel Tigh’s child? They gave us a quick shot of her at the end, but the character’s been absent for the past little while.
What we needed to see more of was the behind-the-scenes Cylon politics. D’Anna took them to the brink of a shoot-out, risking the loss of the final Cylons, and the others basically went along with it. Sure, 6 fussed a bit, but mostly just stood there and looked worried and the 8’s/Boomers looked like they were focusing like it was another day at the office. These are Cylons that rebelled against their peers and went to the extreme of destroying the resurrection hub, and they’re not going to at least verbally take D’Anna to task for risking a shooting war that they probably can’t win and would possibly cost the lives of the Final 5? Sure, they’re cautious around D’Anna because she knows who the 5 are and they don’t, but that doesn’t imply that they’d give her free reign. You’d think the strong, silent type centurions who are so protective of the hybrid might also object to the prospect of a pissing match that could injure or destroy they’re precious hybrid (never mind their own newly self-determining lives).
That being said, there was a lot I did really enjoy about the episode, especially the riveting scenes with Saul Tigh putting his life on the line for a fleet that now hates him for a traitor, because he’s decided that Colonel Tigh is who he wants to be. I also enjoyed the final act where the fleet jumps to Earth, with beautiful shots of the ships in orbit, a wonderful musical score and then the bitter disappointment of the travelers standing amidst the ruins. It was a good ending to the episode. And ya know something, it could have been a good ending to the series.
But there’s more to come. And as we wait, there are two big questions to wrestle with:
When in Earth’s history did they arrive and what happened to the 13th colony? (okay, that’s really two questions)
And
Who is the 5th Cylon?
With respect to the first question(s), I’ve been toying with a couple of possibilities...
At first I was highly suspicious and wondered if they’d even landed on Earth at all. Sure it was a blue planet with clouds and a yellow sun. But we didn’t see out great big moon anywhere in the background, and there was no large view through the clouds to identify the shapes of continents below. Could this have been another colony world left behind along the way? But no, the constellations verified that this was the right location. I wondered briefly if this could be a very ancient Mars, as some scientists have suggested it may have been wet and more Earth-like in its deep past. But this Earth-like? And no big volcanoes rearing up to the edge of space? Probably not. Occam’s razor cut in and I figured that with so little time left in the series, the writers would probably not be jerking around with other worlds – they’ve got to keep the pace up and cut to the chase, so it’s obviously Earth. But when?
For a while, I was hopeful that it might be something really cool and off the wall - a time in the distant future where (as some on other boards have said they’d like to see) our civilization has progressed to a post-human state, leaving the old cities and possibly our physical bodies and perhaps even the planet behind in favour of electronic existence in the information space between machines. The cities would, in time, then decay under the force of the elements, leaving only mystery to the new arrivals who have not yet been contacted by the post-humans (who, immersed in their own quantum-computed concerns, may not even care about the arrival of this gaggle of interstellar refugees) and may never be. Or, having evolved, might be able to teach the Colonials and Cylons a little wisdom. But I doubt it. I suspect the writers of this very gritty series would want to give the audience something more tangible.
If it’s the future, that raises the question of whether the 13th colony eventually destroyed itself, whether it was destroyed by its own creations (all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again), or perhaps even by that which this series has avoided so far like the plague - some kind of alien force. Perhaps they packed up and left for greener pastures for some other reason. I think the most likely of these scenarios would be either self-destruction or destruction by their own creations.
But I think the most likely reason for the discovery of the ruins is this: I suspect the writers are going to make a big nod to the old series idea that these spacemen were the ancestors of one of Earth’s ancient civilizations (real or mythical). My bet is that the fleet has arrived in the ancient past. Bronze Age at the earliest. I’m guessing that we’ll be told that sometime even earlier in prehistory the 13th colony arrived, founded a civilization among the savages and less advanced societies (maybe they’ll go for broke and call it Atlantis), then collapsed as all civilizations eventually do. The Colonials, tired of running, will hunker down and try to rebuild and eventually blend in with the locals.
Then there’s the equally hotly-debated question of the identity of the 5th Cylon. At various times, I’ve subscribed to three theories:
In my more cynical moments, I’ve entertained the idea that it might be Tom Zerick. Consider that all of the other four are strong, outspoken personalities who are, or have been leaders and thus have influenced (and you may want to read “influenced” as “controlled”) human beings (and generally more effectively than the ham-fisted brutal ways of their Cylon brethren). Saul Tigh has served as a Colonel in the Colonial fleet, handling significant responsibilities and authority as second in command (and on two occasions, the command itself) of Galactica. He also led the rebellion against the Cylons on New Caprica and was a chief rabble-rouser among the disgruntled crew after the return to space who believed that only those who had lived under the occupation had known hardship. Galen Tyrrol was chief of the flight deck aboard Galactica, a union leader on New Caprica, a senior leader of the resistance on New Caprica and once again a union organizer during the fleet-wide general strike. Tory was one of President Rosalin’s senior staff members and also served as her aide in the resistance movement on New Caprica (in which she seemed to hold some organizational authority, as evidenced in her coordination of block groups during the evacuation). Anders was a guerilla leader on Caprica and reprised this role with the resistance on New Caprica. For his part, Zerick was a terrorist leader on Saggitaron, the leader of the prisoner uprising aboard the Astral Queen, a presidential candidate and leader of an apparently neo-marxist party, and current Vice President (and two occasions interim President) of the Colonies. Certainly he’s been agitating people on a large scale in one way or another for the entire series. In fact, as the Cylons claim they want to change the relationship with humanity, Zerick has claimed to be trying to redefine humanity’s relationship with itself with proposed neo-marxist reconceptualizations of society, politics and economy. Aside from his terrorist and political activities, nothing else has been mentioned of Zerick’s past, making him a reasonable candidate to be the 5th Cylon.
In my more paranoid moments, I’ve wondered if the audience might be the 5th Cylon. While I didn’t watch “The Sopranos”, I recall friends who were fans discussing that series end, with the screen that went abruptly black, tossing around the theory that this was the audience – the unacknowledged character – finally getting whacked as so many others in the show had been – the audience was finally made part of the experience. Or so the theory went. I’ve chewed on the idea of whether we’ll get a reveal of this nature (though a similar treatment and fate would be doubtful) at the finale of BSG. And yet this one doesn’t feel quite right either.
At this point, I’ve got the notion that the 5th Cylon might be Felix Gaeta. It seems that so far, all of the 4 have lived lives that seem designed to give them a sense of the big human experiences: Tigh is a fleet officer, a drunk, a rebel leader and was a husband in a tempestuous marriage; Anders is the sports hero with the on-again off-again marriage; Tory maneuvers treacherous political waters and flirts with cult leader Baltar; Tyrrol was in love with a traitor and struggled in his marriage. But Gaeta, Gaeta on the other hand, has none of that. Sure he was the senior aide in the Baltar administration and secretly fed information to the resistance, but he certainly wasn’t living on the edge. Gaeta has led a quiet life in a go-nowhere job where he’s liked by most of his colleagues but ultimately taken for granted. And isn’t that a fundamentally human experience too? The others have all struggled with their identity and times (most especially during their Cylon-coming-out). Gaeta voiced this as far back as D’Anna’s documentary on Galactica’s crew back in season 1 (or was that season2?) where he said all he’d ever wanted was to work on a battlestar, and now, here he was, and he didn’t really know what he wanted anymore. All of the 4 have lost something: Tigh his wife, Tyrrol his wife and Boomer before that, Anders his wife, Tory her sense of place and sense of self. Gaeta lost his faith in the system when the election was rigged, he lost his faith in Baltar on New Caprica, he lost his faith (to some degree) in his shipmates after the rescue when he was branded a traitor and nearly executed, and he lost his leg during Starbuck’s mad quest for Earth. During his recovery in hospital, Gaeta sang sad songs endlessly to cope with the pain. Immersing onself in art as a means of self expression and a way to deal with feelings/emotion/pain is so very fundamentally human and something the Cylons would dream of if they wanted to grow in the direction of humanity. Gaeta: adrift in the middle, crippled and emotionally lost. So human. And so, possibly, very, very Cylon.
That’s my two bits, for what little they’re worth. Something we should all bear in mind though is that it has been said a few times by various people associated with BSG that not every question will be answered when the series ends. Not every situation will be resolved. How do we know we won’t be left hanging on these issues?
But for now, it’s fun to guess. So what do you think? What’s the deal with Earth, and who’s the 5th Cylon?
Sunday, July 06, 2008
2008 Aurora Awards link
The 2008 Aurora Awards, Canada’s highest honours for speculative fiction were announced at Keycon in Winnipeg not too long ago (mid May), but, if you were out of commission at the time like I was, you can find the complete list of winners on the Canadian SF Works Database site.
Congratulations to all of the winners!
Congratulations to all of the winners!
A Prescription for Geekdom
A trip to the hospital emergency room a few nights ago unexpectedly turned into a geekfest.
It was Canada Day, about mid-evening, (happy belated Canada Day, by the way, to all my fellow Canucks, and a happy belated Independence Day to our neighbours to the south) and after an enjoyable day at the local salmon festival, I was relaxing in the back yard with our cat, Wookie (what, me, an SF fan? Yes, I know, we forgot the second “e”) waiting for the bbq to finish its smokey magic on some bison ribs when another cat wandered into the yard. My beast chased the thing off, but I made the mistake of trying to pick him up afterwards (with the aim of putting him back in the house) while he was still in full territorial Kzin mode. In a second, he went from being my little buddy to a shredding demon wrapped around my hand digging claws and fangs as deep as they would go. Sporting a range of slashes and one sizeable gash in the back of my hand that went right down into the muscle, I asked my wife to take me to the hospital for a couple of stitches, a tetanus shot and some antibiotics (any doctor will tell you cat spit is some seriously bad stuff and you really want that tetanus shot if you haven’t had one in the last decade).
Once there, I explained the whole thing to a nurse. She looked up from her notes and said “So he went from Cringer to The Mighty Battle Cat?” That had the two of us chuckling pretty hard. I responded “You know it’s a good night in the ER when you can drop a ‘He-Man’ reference”. I think she was happy someone actually understood her slick little Saturday morning cartoons allusion. And who can blame here? How many of us have dropped SF-flavoured pop culture references that have fallen flat because the other party hasn’t experienced them? Makes it all the more enjoyable when someone’s on the same playing field as you.
But it didn’t end there… My wife snuck into the examining room while I was waiting and we got on a Monty Python kick (“Spamalot” is in town and we had started discussing whether we can rearrange our schedules to see it). By the time the doctor arrived, we were well into “it’s just a flesh wound” and “what are you going to do, bleed on me?” bits. I can’t say we had him in stitches – those were reserved for my mangled hand – but he was catchin’ the references as they flew and he seemed to appreciate a little levity on a busy holiday night shift. His requests for my wife to pass him a couple of pieces of equipment got us onto a Nurse Piggy and “Muppet Veterinary Hospital” kick that was pretty satisfying.
The strange tie-up to the whole affair came the next day when I was chatting with my mom on the phone, explaining what had happened. She responded by quoting Han Solo! “It’s not wise to upset a Wookiee.” My mom, suburban housewife, the shake-n-bake queen, the woman with little to no interest in SF and who was bemused at times, frustrated at others with her geeky son’s hoard of sci-fi books, turns around and out of the blue drops a Star Wars reference on me. The Force was strong with her that day.
I guess you just never know when or where an SF moment will happen, but that’s what makes them all the more enjoyable.
It was Canada Day, about mid-evening, (happy belated Canada Day, by the way, to all my fellow Canucks, and a happy belated Independence Day to our neighbours to the south) and after an enjoyable day at the local salmon festival, I was relaxing in the back yard with our cat, Wookie (what, me, an SF fan? Yes, I know, we forgot the second “e”) waiting for the bbq to finish its smokey magic on some bison ribs when another cat wandered into the yard. My beast chased the thing off, but I made the mistake of trying to pick him up afterwards (with the aim of putting him back in the house) while he was still in full territorial Kzin mode. In a second, he went from being my little buddy to a shredding demon wrapped around my hand digging claws and fangs as deep as they would go. Sporting a range of slashes and one sizeable gash in the back of my hand that went right down into the muscle, I asked my wife to take me to the hospital for a couple of stitches, a tetanus shot and some antibiotics (any doctor will tell you cat spit is some seriously bad stuff and you really want that tetanus shot if you haven’t had one in the last decade).
Once there, I explained the whole thing to a nurse. She looked up from her notes and said “So he went from Cringer to The Mighty Battle Cat?” That had the two of us chuckling pretty hard. I responded “You know it’s a good night in the ER when you can drop a ‘He-Man’ reference”. I think she was happy someone actually understood her slick little Saturday morning cartoons allusion. And who can blame here? How many of us have dropped SF-flavoured pop culture references that have fallen flat because the other party hasn’t experienced them? Makes it all the more enjoyable when someone’s on the same playing field as you.
But it didn’t end there… My wife snuck into the examining room while I was waiting and we got on a Monty Python kick (“Spamalot” is in town and we had started discussing whether we can rearrange our schedules to see it). By the time the doctor arrived, we were well into “it’s just a flesh wound” and “what are you going to do, bleed on me?” bits. I can’t say we had him in stitches – those were reserved for my mangled hand – but he was catchin’ the references as they flew and he seemed to appreciate a little levity on a busy holiday night shift. His requests for my wife to pass him a couple of pieces of equipment got us onto a Nurse Piggy and “Muppet Veterinary Hospital” kick that was pretty satisfying.
The strange tie-up to the whole affair came the next day when I was chatting with my mom on the phone, explaining what had happened. She responded by quoting Han Solo! “It’s not wise to upset a Wookiee.” My mom, suburban housewife, the shake-n-bake queen, the woman with little to no interest in SF and who was bemused at times, frustrated at others with her geeky son’s hoard of sci-fi books, turns around and out of the blue drops a Star Wars reference on me. The Force was strong with her that day.
I guess you just never know when or where an SF moment will happen, but that’s what makes them all the more enjoyable.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Seeing Is Believing - bloginhood's Back Online
It was one thing after another, but finally, after an absence of more than a month, I’m back online. I apologize for dropping off without warning, but a lot of what’s happened came out of the blue.
It started in the back half of May when I was installing an upgrade to my antivirus and the program decided it wasn’t going to play nice with Windows. Go figure. The immediate effect of these programs knocking heads with one another was that they cut off our home internet access. Within days, before I had time to plumb the depths of our machine to try to solve the problem, I was hit with “piece of bad news number 2”… I’d gone in to the optometrist for an eye checkup - a fluke, actually, because I hadn’t been in for about 4 years, and while I was starting to think it was time for a new prescription for my glasses, I’d kept putting it off until finally my wife (who had to get her eyes checked for a job application) made an appointment for me. The doc was peering into my eyes when he started making those “I don’t like the looks of that” type of noises. This gets me a little worried because the BC Optometrists’ Association has been re-running old ads talking about all of the horrible things that can be wrong with you that can go unnoticed until an eye doctor looks at you. Anyhow, he muses about some possibilities and says he’s sending me to see a specialist. Three days later I’m at one of our local hospitals where an ophthalmologist and his sidekicks put me through a two-hour routine that feels like I’ve taken the brunt of a first class eye-poking by Moe, Larry and Curly. He tells me my right eye’s got a bunch of thin areas and some holes in it. They fix that same day with (cue the Austin Powers music) a frikkin laser mounted on a device that felt like someone was trying to ram a paper cup into my eye socket while shining a green flashlight at me. Then they talked about the real problem. Seems, in addition to a whole bunch of thin areas and a Swiss-cheese’s worth of holes, my left eye had a partially detached retina. They told me if it detached entirely I’d go blind in that eye. Two days later they had me in another local hospital for surgery on the left eye, where they put me under general and carved into the thing like a grapefruit to fix the retina and the various holes. Afterwards, I was sent home with an eye patch. Sadly, it wasn’t a cool pirate eye patch, it was a big, puffy orange affair that my wife says kind of looked like a plastic sieve, so I probably looked like only the lamest of pirates – the weenie pirate dressed by his mother that all the other pirates picked on or something. That only lasted overnight ‘cause the next day they took the thing off. My eye was swollen and red as a maraschino cherry and the massively dilated pupil made me look like I was stumbling around with a concussion. Vision was very blurry, but it returned gradually over the following weeks, first with distance vision coming back, then clearing up closer and closer. It’s still a bit blurry close-up, but I’m told that will pass. Needless to say, while deprived of functional vision, I was unable to resolve the computer issue and get back to chatting with all of you folks. Worse than that, imagine having to go weeks without being able to read because it was too much of a strain! Looking at all of the books in my “to read” pile nearly brought me to tears. But that’s not all! Oh no, the fates were getting positively Dickensian on my ass last month. Within days of the operation, I came down with a monster case of bronchitis that sunk its claws into my chest and just wouldn’t let go. It was weeks before I was breathing normally again.
But after all of that, I’m back. And I’ve gotta say, it’s good to be back here, up on the ol’ soapbox, babbling about SF. I’d also like to say a heartfelt thank-you to all of you who sent your well wishes during my downtime.
Now, back to the SF portion of the blog.
One of the things that struck me (and there were many, as the bruises will attest) while I was stumbling around after the operation with my left eye in a haze and relying, initially, almost entirely on my right eye, was that it’s tough to be stuck peering at the world through just one eye. I got to thinking about all of the memorable, and not-so-memorable, cyclopic characters of SF cinema and TV, and decided to rank them according to who was the most cool.
And so, with a singular focus (sorry, I couldn’t resist), here are the Top 30 One-Eyed Characters of SF TV and Film:
30 – KITT – from “Knight Rider” – admit it, you too thought KITT was just about the coolest thing with one eye on wheels (come to think of it, how many other one-eyed things were on wheels?) when you were a kid. Problem is, “Knight Rider” was one of many, many Larson shows that didn’t age well, or survive the test of audience aging either. And this year’s attempt to revive the show hasn’t worked well either. They’ve definitely tried to up the cool factor by bringing in Val Kilmer to voice KITT, but Kilmer lacks the deliciously effete snottiness of William Daniels. KITT might not have finished dead last on this list if his/its abilities had included (beyond half-hearted banter and the obligatory turbo-boost per episode) the ability to lock the doors and override the driver’s control of them, thereby imprisoning The Hoff and preventing him from inflicting himself upon the world.
29 – the cylops – from “The Odyssey” TV movie – some cheap special effects tried to make a sumo wrestler into a monster from Greek myth – and completely failed to make it monstrous. The only reason for acknowledging this tubby fellow is that the TV movie was inspired by Homer’s masterpiece, and we have to at least give a nod to the producers for trying to bring the epic to the masses.
28 – Hector – from “Saturn 3” – this lumbering robotic throwback to 1950’s B-budget monster movies had no redeeming qualities at all except that it had the guts (or stupidity) to think it could try to take on Kirk Douglas. While we might also be tempted to give it bonus points for being attracted to Farah Fawcett in her prime, we would then also have to deduct points for its failure to have the foresight to see the kind of zombie she’s turned into now.
27 – Number Two – from the “Austin Powers” movies – Number Two gets flushed on this list because even though he realizes it is his practical work that keeps Dr. Evil’s criminal empire running, he’s unable to work up the gumption to take total control of the organization once and for all, either by freezing the villain out of the hierarchy during one of his prolonged absences, or through direct confrontation. While Dr. Evil has the advantage in, well, evil, Number Two could probably come up with a plan that would actually work. I respect loyalty, but Number Two’s lack of ambition is what keeps him as the bottom rather than the top. In fact, there isn’t much aside from his loyalty to Dr. Evil that makes Number Two actually evil – he could just as easily be working the support services for Mr. Powers.
26 – Cyclops – from the Marvel “X-Men” franchise – I was never a collector of the “X-Men” comics, but those that I did read didn’t leave me with much of an impression that Cyclops (occasional leader of the team, no less) was anything more than a supporting cast member. The movies have done nothing to change this impression. While there is some lip service paid to Cyclops being a “nice guy”, that’s not so much the case as he’s just a whiner. Petulance tends to blaze forth from him more than eyeball lasers. In fact, the ability to shoot lasers outta his face, and his occasional forays into leadership, are the only factors that put Cyclops ahead of Number Two in the ratings.
25 – the Death Star trash monster – from “Star Wars Episode IV” – somewhat cool for taking down Luke as he was warming up to a good whine, and yet not very cool because by releasing young Skywalker, it gave him ample opportunity to continue to whine throughout the rest of the series. The monster also rates as at least minimally cool because when we were kids, my brother and I had the Death Star play set (which invariably collapsed in on itself if the lid on our nearby toybox banged shut – something that we used to our advantage when our X-wing fighters were ready to blow it up) which included a trash compactor to chuck your action figures into, complete with foam “garbage” and a green trash monster figure.
24 – Death Star trash monster Meg – from “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” – this variant outranks the original trash monster because it was one of only two appearances by Meg on the show – not that I dislike Meg, rather that it kept with traditional FG vicious humour.
23 – Otto – from “WALL-E” – the autopilot with control issues from one of this summer’s animated blockbusters gets points for being a nice tribute to HAL-9000, and more points for being unlike HAL in that Otto never decided to exterminate its crew (unless of course, one considers the slug-like humans to be cargo). However, Otto loses points, not for refusing to relinquish control of the ship to the Captain, but rather because given seemingly inexhaustible resources, an FTL drive and a knowledge of Earth’s poor condition, the autopilot never rose above its programming (like WALL-E , EVE or the others) and never tried to find another suitable world to colonize.
22 – the aliens in the yellow spaceship – from “Monty Python’s The Life of Brian” – we don’t know a thing about them, except those two fat aliens in their yellow spaceship came along at just the right time to catch our hapless hero Brian in mid-fall off of a tower while he was being chased by Roman legionaries. Clearly they’d honked-off some other aliens – and paid for that with their lives – but they at least got Brian back to Earth in one piece so that we could continue watching his hilarious misadventures for a while longer. I think Reg and the other members of the PFJ would salute their sacrifice.
21 – Mike Wazowski – from “Monsters, Inc.” – It’s gotta be tough being a short guy in a world of monsters, especially when your job is scaring people in another dimension. But Mike keeps on plugging, he’s got a heart as big as his blue buddy Sully, and he keeps the gags coming full throttle.
20 – the Cylon centurions – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the old series) – these big shiny badguys weren’t known for their exceptional flying, or their marksmanship, or tactical or strategic thinking, or their durability, or their way with words, or much of anything else, for that matter, but they looked really cool, and if you can’t be good, at least look good.
19 – Maximilian – from “The Black Hole” – a “quiet type” among the badass robots. While this bot is certainly a tough, well-armed (and multi-armed) SOB, and while it is the second in command of its ship, Max only finishes mid-range in the standings because it lacks self control and foresight. Going on a rampage and butchering a crewmember of the Palomino caused more trouble – and subsequent damage to the ship – than whatever sick gratification Max got was worth. As well, the big red guy should have figured out that its boss was utterly off his rocker thinking he could take the Cygnus into the black hole while meteors were being dragged in without sustaining catastrophic damage. Never mind the fact that it should have taken the probe ship and left the Palomino’s crew behind, rather than waste time (and ultimately Max’s own existence) getting into a scrap with VINCENT on a ship that was breaking up.
18 – Captain Harlock – from the “Arcadia” and “Galaxy Express” anime series – as a Canadian, I guess if I’d grown up in Quebec and identified myself as part of the “Arcadian” generation, I’d place a higher value on Harlock. As it is, being originally an Ontario boy, my early anime was “Starblazers”/”Space Battleship Yamato”, which he wasn’t a part of, so Harlock lacks the nostalgia for me. Certainly, in anime terms, he’s a tough dude with a funky phallic pirate ship and so earns a measure of respect.
17 – General Martok – from “Star Trek – Deep Space Nine” – You’ve got to give credit to a tenacious old Klingon war hero who can survive a Jem’Hadar prison camp with daily death matches having only lost an eye. Martok also came out as a hero of the Dominion War. More importantly, he had the wisdom to accept being given the title of Chancellor of the High Council by Worf (who was entitled to the position, having outfought and killed the previous chancellor), realizing that he would make an effective leader and setting aside any pride about not having won the position himself. He also had the smarts to see the advantage in dealing with the Federation. Martok also rates acceptably well for uttering what has to be a quintessential example of Klingon philosophy: “Worf, we are Klingons! We do not respect other cultures! We conquer them!”
16 – Gort – from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” – Another strong, silent type among the artificial persons of this list. Gort is basically the ultimate cop. He’s programmed to observe and make sure the law and the rules are adhered to. When they’re not, he settles the matter. Generally with speed and finality. Sadly, it’s Gort’s complete lack of dialogue, which prevents us from knowing if anything else beyond the rules is going on in his head, that prevents him from rising higher in the standings. That and the fact that he looks like a 7-and-a-half-foot-tall sex toy.
15 – Rell – from “Krull” – arguably one of the worst of the big budget films of the 80’s, “Krull” did have one or two redeeming features. The character of Rell the Cyclops was one of them – kind of. You have to give credit to a guy who decides to help another group of people (another species, in point of fact) in their fight to save their world, against a common enemy. Rell really shines when he makes his final decision to aid in the attack on the Beast’s Black Fortress – rather than stay behind in safety to wait for what is presumably a peaceful and painless death, the big dude ignores his fate, saddles up and goes charging in to help the siege succeed, knowing his death in his altered fate will be unpleasant. And it is. He takes a couple of blasts from the enemy as he rushes the door, allowing his friends to get through, but is then crushed – slowly - by the closing rock gates before he can get to safety. You’ve got to hand it to Rell for that kind of sacrifice, especially giving his life for a young couple who overact so horrendously. However, he does lose points for the really cheesy hair-do, although in all fairness, most of the supporting characters looked like they’d been given bad hairstyling deliberately as a distraction to mask the afore-mentioned bad acting of the lead player(s).
14 – Franky – from “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” – ace fighter pilot, brilliant general, and very easy on the eyes.
13 – Commander Breetai – from “Macross”/”Robotech” – A Commander of a Zentradi battle fleet, this anime archtype is the leader who turns his back on his own people when he comes to grips with the need to do the right thing. Never mind the fact that he’s a decorated war hero, or that he’s the one of the largest specimens of his genetically engineered and cloned people, or that he’s apparently smart enough to earn a position of senior leadership. What makes Breetai an interesting character is that despite a lifetime of following orders and destroying ships and worlds when he’s told to, when confronted with humanity and its emotions and music and culture, he realizes that there’s something more to life than what he and his people have been pigeon-holed into. Sure, his decision to rebel is in part motivated by the fact that Supreme Commander Dolza has labeled his fleet as contaminated for engaging humanity for too long and failing to achieve victory and thus has ordered them destroyed, but by this point Breetai has already had the good sense to realize that talking to the humans can lead to better things than fighting them. Also to his credit, Breetai, the warrior, is willing to consult with and take advice from an academic (Exedore). What holds Breetai back from a higher rank on this list is the repetitive and clunky dialogue forced upon him and the other characters by the writers.
12 - the Cylon centurions (the modern models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These toasters are big and bad, armed to the teeth (er, faceplates) and fully believable as killing machines that would actually frighten the piss out of you if they were chasing you through the bowels of your drifting ship. Their cool factor has increased now that the rebel Cylons have allowed the centurions to develop sentience, and in the wake of that they’ve discovered self-respect and now insist that the humanoid models mind their P’s and Q’s. I was tempted to deduct points because one of them looked like it was starting to be seduced by Baltar’s rabble-rousing, and yet, maybe that makes these chrome nightmares worthy of more appreciation because it shows greater depth of character if one of them can have misgivings.
11 – the Cylon centurions (the old, First Cylon War models/Guardian models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These are the Cylons as they should have been on the old series. It’s not that they’re CG’d, and thus somewhat sleeker in appearance than the actors in suits from the old show, it’s rather that they move like they mean business and they’re tough like machines of war would be designed to be (they don’t go down after a single hit like the old show robots did). These Cylons also know how to fly their Raiders too, taking out capital ships like the Battlestar Columbia with skill and precision (as opposed to the old show Raider pilots that seemed to beat the Colonial fleet with nothing more than surprise and overwhelming numbers) and engaging Colonial Vipers effectively. They’ve even developed strategies for taking over ships – and taking out entire fleets – from the inside through boarding actions. Getting rid of those hokey old gladii at their belts in favour of slick-snapping long wrist blades also looks pretty cool. These Cylons are also a helluva lot smarter than the old show forebears – they don’t just build weapons, they come up with the idea to advance the evolution of their race. What they do to their human prisoners is unforgivably horrific and disgusting, but their hybrid experiment shows these machine entities are engaged in a process to better themselves, misguided though it may be. In some ways this makes them more frightening than the Cylons of the old show, and also makes them more human.
We’re into the Top Ten now!
10 – the Daleks – from “Dr. Who” – these brutal, oversized pepper pots are a Time Lord’s worst nightmare. Not only are they hell-bent on “ex-ter-min-a-tion!!!”, but no matter how many times you and your Companions think you’ve wiped them out, they keep coming back. Kudos to the Daleks in the new series for figuring out that hovering is a good way to overcome the pesky problem of stairs when you’re chasing down The Doctor.
9 – Mad Eye Moody – from the “Harry Potter” series – masterfully played by Brendan Gleeson, Moody is that mix of crusty old teacher and biker that a kid being hounded by the forces of darkness needs on his team. He’s reminiscent of Snake Plissken, or maybe an older, ulglier Indiana Jones if Indy hadn’t had the women and there had been more booze.
8 – R2D2 – from the “Star Wars” series – this trusty little astromech is the unsung hero of the “Star Wars” movies. Seriously, who is it that’s always getting the humans and their biological chums out of trouble, while in the process getting blasted or bashed? And what is their reaction when R2’s beaten carcass is dragged out onto the deck (if they bother to notice at all)? “Oh, we’ll fix him”. Pretty cold comfort for a loyal little guy who’s just had his circuits fried protecting your wetware. And you’ve gotta love that never-ending supply of gadgets that keep popping out to help in all occasions. Whether it’s fixing a star cruiser or shocking Salacious Crumb, R2’s your man, er, droid.
7 – Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. – from the “Indiana Jones” series – Indy a one-eye?! Say it ain’t so! Don’t believe me? Then you didn’t watch “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones”, where each episode was bracketed by an ancient, and curiously chatty, Indy sporting an eye patch. Since it was approved by Lucas, it’s cannon. Indy’s got one eye by the end of his apparently considerably long life. Lucas hasn’t yet revealed how our hero lost the eye, but I’ve gotta say I was disappointed that it didn’t happen in” Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to provide a bridge to the TV series and maybe some more interesting plot possibilities than what was offered up.
6 – Ambassador Kosh – from “Babylon 5” – This is a tough one. I wasn’t sure whether to include Kosh or not. While their encounter suits have only one “eye”, Vorlons do have two eyes when they appear to other races (all of them on the show being two-eyed) in the guise of that race. I can’t recall how many eyes the Vorlons have when they’re out of the suits and showing their own faces. If it’s only one, then I’d have to move Kosh much higher on this list, for all kinds of reasons I won’t go into now. If it’s more than one, Kosh gets knocked off the list. So, because I’m not certain, we’ll keep Kosh on for the time being because of the encounter suit, and reasonably high up because he was a pretty cool character. If I’m proven wrong about Kosh, then I’d probably add the Harrihausen cyclops from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” somewhere near the bottom of the list.
And now for the Top Five:
5 – General Chang – from “Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country” – How can you not like Christopher Plummer playing a Klingon general? Chang is smart, resourceful and tough. Unlike his fellow Klingons, the general knows how to use subtlety to set up an enemy for the kill, as evidenced by his style of debate, and his choice of weapon to sabotage the Federation-Klingon Empire peace talks – a bird of prey that can fire when cloaked. All the more interesting to watch when he does explode into violence – verbally or in space warfare – usually quoting something from “King Lear” or “Hamlet”. “You’ve never read Shakespeare until you’ve read him in the original Klingon.”
4 – HAL-9000 – from “2001 – A Space Odyssey” – without having a human body to walk around in or a face to show emotion, the voice behind this glowing red eye did it all as a believable personality in this cinematic masterpiece. As the movie unfolded, we heard HAL become more unsure of the situation, more secretive, at times cold, self-satisfied, and finally despairing and fearful. A machine was given a fully-flushed character, probably for the first time on film. And in the sequel, “2010 – The Year We Make Contact” we saw more of HAL, even a heroic side when he realizes that to save the human crew he will have to allow his own destruction, and moreover he decides to face the end alone (a frightening prospect for any sentient being, especially a machine that doesn’t have the ingrained spiritual beliefs most humans are raised with to fall back on), declining Dr. Chandra’s offer to stay with him.
3 – Colonel Saul Tigh – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – Colonial officer, Cylon sleeper, rebel leader, drunkard, husband, and friend to Adama, Saul Tigh isn’t always a likeable person – in fact he’s frequently an asshole, but he is a complex and interesting character. For a character who turns out not to be human, the Colonel is a very human character who struggles daily with himself. While he may possess many less-than-admirable traits, there’s still a coolness about Saul Tigh’s willingness in the face of confusion about his origin to take his life by the collar and choose to define who he is and will be.
2 – Snake Plissken – from the “Escape from New York” series – This was a tough one. I almost put ol’ Snake in the Number One slot. Plissken’s the ultimate example of the anti-hero: a Clint Eastwood-talking toughguy from the badlands who’s the badest of them all because he’s the best at getting the job done any way necessary, including winning gunfights (and lethal basketball challenges) against overwhelming odds, even though he’s only got one eye. And he’s a guy who, in the end, stands up against the real badguys, the tyrants, even if his solution to the problem of them isn’t always the safest option. But Snake’s a one-eyed hero who’s coolness is ultimately one dimensional. He comes in, hisses and busts heads, makes some decisions based on a somewhat moral compass, stirs the pot, then limps off alone into the night to be a badass somewhere else. He’s a comic book character. And so he can’t quite eke out the top spot.
1 – Citizen G’Kar – from “Babylon 5” – from freedom fighter to warrior and bombastic diplomat for a corrupt regime, then back to rebel leader and finally to philosopher and explorer, G’Kar is the finest among our company of one-eyed characters. Here is a Narn who began with childish tantrums and schemes and evolved into a poet whose words could bring together disparate races and yet someone who possessed he wisdom and humility to laugh at himself. At first, as a fan, I was sad and angry that his last appearance in the B5 universe was on that steaming pile known as “The Legend of the Rangers” (although even there his character was true to himself), but I was heartened (though still sad) when his quote about lingering voices from the final season of the show was used to open “The Lost Tales”. And so, with one eye, a reflective mind and an open heart, Citizen G’Kar rises above all of the generals and superheros and mechanical monsters to show what is really cool in a story’s character.
That’s my list. Who would you pick as the best of the one-eyed characters out there?
It started in the back half of May when I was installing an upgrade to my antivirus and the program decided it wasn’t going to play nice with Windows. Go figure. The immediate effect of these programs knocking heads with one another was that they cut off our home internet access. Within days, before I had time to plumb the depths of our machine to try to solve the problem, I was hit with “piece of bad news number 2”… I’d gone in to the optometrist for an eye checkup - a fluke, actually, because I hadn’t been in for about 4 years, and while I was starting to think it was time for a new prescription for my glasses, I’d kept putting it off until finally my wife (who had to get her eyes checked for a job application) made an appointment for me. The doc was peering into my eyes when he started making those “I don’t like the looks of that” type of noises. This gets me a little worried because the BC Optometrists’ Association has been re-running old ads talking about all of the horrible things that can be wrong with you that can go unnoticed until an eye doctor looks at you. Anyhow, he muses about some possibilities and says he’s sending me to see a specialist. Three days later I’m at one of our local hospitals where an ophthalmologist and his sidekicks put me through a two-hour routine that feels like I’ve taken the brunt of a first class eye-poking by Moe, Larry and Curly. He tells me my right eye’s got a bunch of thin areas and some holes in it. They fix that same day with (cue the Austin Powers music) a frikkin laser mounted on a device that felt like someone was trying to ram a paper cup into my eye socket while shining a green flashlight at me. Then they talked about the real problem. Seems, in addition to a whole bunch of thin areas and a Swiss-cheese’s worth of holes, my left eye had a partially detached retina. They told me if it detached entirely I’d go blind in that eye. Two days later they had me in another local hospital for surgery on the left eye, where they put me under general and carved into the thing like a grapefruit to fix the retina and the various holes. Afterwards, I was sent home with an eye patch. Sadly, it wasn’t a cool pirate eye patch, it was a big, puffy orange affair that my wife says kind of looked like a plastic sieve, so I probably looked like only the lamest of pirates – the weenie pirate dressed by his mother that all the other pirates picked on or something. That only lasted overnight ‘cause the next day they took the thing off. My eye was swollen and red as a maraschino cherry and the massively dilated pupil made me look like I was stumbling around with a concussion. Vision was very blurry, but it returned gradually over the following weeks, first with distance vision coming back, then clearing up closer and closer. It’s still a bit blurry close-up, but I’m told that will pass. Needless to say, while deprived of functional vision, I was unable to resolve the computer issue and get back to chatting with all of you folks. Worse than that, imagine having to go weeks without being able to read because it was too much of a strain! Looking at all of the books in my “to read” pile nearly brought me to tears. But that’s not all! Oh no, the fates were getting positively Dickensian on my ass last month. Within days of the operation, I came down with a monster case of bronchitis that sunk its claws into my chest and just wouldn’t let go. It was weeks before I was breathing normally again.
But after all of that, I’m back. And I’ve gotta say, it’s good to be back here, up on the ol’ soapbox, babbling about SF. I’d also like to say a heartfelt thank-you to all of you who sent your well wishes during my downtime.
Now, back to the SF portion of the blog.
One of the things that struck me (and there were many, as the bruises will attest) while I was stumbling around after the operation with my left eye in a haze and relying, initially, almost entirely on my right eye, was that it’s tough to be stuck peering at the world through just one eye. I got to thinking about all of the memorable, and not-so-memorable, cyclopic characters of SF cinema and TV, and decided to rank them according to who was the most cool.
And so, with a singular focus (sorry, I couldn’t resist), here are the Top 30 One-Eyed Characters of SF TV and Film:
30 – KITT – from “Knight Rider” – admit it, you too thought KITT was just about the coolest thing with one eye on wheels (come to think of it, how many other one-eyed things were on wheels?) when you were a kid. Problem is, “Knight Rider” was one of many, many Larson shows that didn’t age well, or survive the test of audience aging either. And this year’s attempt to revive the show hasn’t worked well either. They’ve definitely tried to up the cool factor by bringing in Val Kilmer to voice KITT, but Kilmer lacks the deliciously effete snottiness of William Daniels. KITT might not have finished dead last on this list if his/its abilities had included (beyond half-hearted banter and the obligatory turbo-boost per episode) the ability to lock the doors and override the driver’s control of them, thereby imprisoning The Hoff and preventing him from inflicting himself upon the world.
29 – the cylops – from “The Odyssey” TV movie – some cheap special effects tried to make a sumo wrestler into a monster from Greek myth – and completely failed to make it monstrous. The only reason for acknowledging this tubby fellow is that the TV movie was inspired by Homer’s masterpiece, and we have to at least give a nod to the producers for trying to bring the epic to the masses.
28 – Hector – from “Saturn 3” – this lumbering robotic throwback to 1950’s B-budget monster movies had no redeeming qualities at all except that it had the guts (or stupidity) to think it could try to take on Kirk Douglas. While we might also be tempted to give it bonus points for being attracted to Farah Fawcett in her prime, we would then also have to deduct points for its failure to have the foresight to see the kind of zombie she’s turned into now.
27 – Number Two – from the “Austin Powers” movies – Number Two gets flushed on this list because even though he realizes it is his practical work that keeps Dr. Evil’s criminal empire running, he’s unable to work up the gumption to take total control of the organization once and for all, either by freezing the villain out of the hierarchy during one of his prolonged absences, or through direct confrontation. While Dr. Evil has the advantage in, well, evil, Number Two could probably come up with a plan that would actually work. I respect loyalty, but Number Two’s lack of ambition is what keeps him as the bottom rather than the top. In fact, there isn’t much aside from his loyalty to Dr. Evil that makes Number Two actually evil – he could just as easily be working the support services for Mr. Powers.
26 – Cyclops – from the Marvel “X-Men” franchise – I was never a collector of the “X-Men” comics, but those that I did read didn’t leave me with much of an impression that Cyclops (occasional leader of the team, no less) was anything more than a supporting cast member. The movies have done nothing to change this impression. While there is some lip service paid to Cyclops being a “nice guy”, that’s not so much the case as he’s just a whiner. Petulance tends to blaze forth from him more than eyeball lasers. In fact, the ability to shoot lasers outta his face, and his occasional forays into leadership, are the only factors that put Cyclops ahead of Number Two in the ratings.
25 – the Death Star trash monster – from “Star Wars Episode IV” – somewhat cool for taking down Luke as he was warming up to a good whine, and yet not very cool because by releasing young Skywalker, it gave him ample opportunity to continue to whine throughout the rest of the series. The monster also rates as at least minimally cool because when we were kids, my brother and I had the Death Star play set (which invariably collapsed in on itself if the lid on our nearby toybox banged shut – something that we used to our advantage when our X-wing fighters were ready to blow it up) which included a trash compactor to chuck your action figures into, complete with foam “garbage” and a green trash monster figure.
24 – Death Star trash monster Meg – from “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” – this variant outranks the original trash monster because it was one of only two appearances by Meg on the show – not that I dislike Meg, rather that it kept with traditional FG vicious humour.
23 – Otto – from “WALL-E” – the autopilot with control issues from one of this summer’s animated blockbusters gets points for being a nice tribute to HAL-9000, and more points for being unlike HAL in that Otto never decided to exterminate its crew (unless of course, one considers the slug-like humans to be cargo). However, Otto loses points, not for refusing to relinquish control of the ship to the Captain, but rather because given seemingly inexhaustible resources, an FTL drive and a knowledge of Earth’s poor condition, the autopilot never rose above its programming (like WALL-E , EVE or the others) and never tried to find another suitable world to colonize.
22 – the aliens in the yellow spaceship – from “Monty Python’s The Life of Brian” – we don’t know a thing about them, except those two fat aliens in their yellow spaceship came along at just the right time to catch our hapless hero Brian in mid-fall off of a tower while he was being chased by Roman legionaries. Clearly they’d honked-off some other aliens – and paid for that with their lives – but they at least got Brian back to Earth in one piece so that we could continue watching his hilarious misadventures for a while longer. I think Reg and the other members of the PFJ would salute their sacrifice.
21 – Mike Wazowski – from “Monsters, Inc.” – It’s gotta be tough being a short guy in a world of monsters, especially when your job is scaring people in another dimension. But Mike keeps on plugging, he’s got a heart as big as his blue buddy Sully, and he keeps the gags coming full throttle.
20 – the Cylon centurions – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the old series) – these big shiny badguys weren’t known for their exceptional flying, or their marksmanship, or tactical or strategic thinking, or their durability, or their way with words, or much of anything else, for that matter, but they looked really cool, and if you can’t be good, at least look good.
19 – Maximilian – from “The Black Hole” – a “quiet type” among the badass robots. While this bot is certainly a tough, well-armed (and multi-armed) SOB, and while it is the second in command of its ship, Max only finishes mid-range in the standings because it lacks self control and foresight. Going on a rampage and butchering a crewmember of the Palomino caused more trouble – and subsequent damage to the ship – than whatever sick gratification Max got was worth. As well, the big red guy should have figured out that its boss was utterly off his rocker thinking he could take the Cygnus into the black hole while meteors were being dragged in without sustaining catastrophic damage. Never mind the fact that it should have taken the probe ship and left the Palomino’s crew behind, rather than waste time (and ultimately Max’s own existence) getting into a scrap with VINCENT on a ship that was breaking up.
18 – Captain Harlock – from the “Arcadia” and “Galaxy Express” anime series – as a Canadian, I guess if I’d grown up in Quebec and identified myself as part of the “Arcadian” generation, I’d place a higher value on Harlock. As it is, being originally an Ontario boy, my early anime was “Starblazers”/”Space Battleship Yamato”, which he wasn’t a part of, so Harlock lacks the nostalgia for me. Certainly, in anime terms, he’s a tough dude with a funky phallic pirate ship and so earns a measure of respect.
17 – General Martok – from “Star Trek – Deep Space Nine” – You’ve got to give credit to a tenacious old Klingon war hero who can survive a Jem’Hadar prison camp with daily death matches having only lost an eye. Martok also came out as a hero of the Dominion War. More importantly, he had the wisdom to accept being given the title of Chancellor of the High Council by Worf (who was entitled to the position, having outfought and killed the previous chancellor), realizing that he would make an effective leader and setting aside any pride about not having won the position himself. He also had the smarts to see the advantage in dealing with the Federation. Martok also rates acceptably well for uttering what has to be a quintessential example of Klingon philosophy: “Worf, we are Klingons! We do not respect other cultures! We conquer them!”
16 – Gort – from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” – Another strong, silent type among the artificial persons of this list. Gort is basically the ultimate cop. He’s programmed to observe and make sure the law and the rules are adhered to. When they’re not, he settles the matter. Generally with speed and finality. Sadly, it’s Gort’s complete lack of dialogue, which prevents us from knowing if anything else beyond the rules is going on in his head, that prevents him from rising higher in the standings. That and the fact that he looks like a 7-and-a-half-foot-tall sex toy.
15 – Rell – from “Krull” – arguably one of the worst of the big budget films of the 80’s, “Krull” did have one or two redeeming features. The character of Rell the Cyclops was one of them – kind of. You have to give credit to a guy who decides to help another group of people (another species, in point of fact) in their fight to save their world, against a common enemy. Rell really shines when he makes his final decision to aid in the attack on the Beast’s Black Fortress – rather than stay behind in safety to wait for what is presumably a peaceful and painless death, the big dude ignores his fate, saddles up and goes charging in to help the siege succeed, knowing his death in his altered fate will be unpleasant. And it is. He takes a couple of blasts from the enemy as he rushes the door, allowing his friends to get through, but is then crushed – slowly - by the closing rock gates before he can get to safety. You’ve got to hand it to Rell for that kind of sacrifice, especially giving his life for a young couple who overact so horrendously. However, he does lose points for the really cheesy hair-do, although in all fairness, most of the supporting characters looked like they’d been given bad hairstyling deliberately as a distraction to mask the afore-mentioned bad acting of the lead player(s).
14 – Franky – from “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” – ace fighter pilot, brilliant general, and very easy on the eyes.
13 – Commander Breetai – from “Macross”/”Robotech” – A Commander of a Zentradi battle fleet, this anime archtype is the leader who turns his back on his own people when he comes to grips with the need to do the right thing. Never mind the fact that he’s a decorated war hero, or that he’s the one of the largest specimens of his genetically engineered and cloned people, or that he’s apparently smart enough to earn a position of senior leadership. What makes Breetai an interesting character is that despite a lifetime of following orders and destroying ships and worlds when he’s told to, when confronted with humanity and its emotions and music and culture, he realizes that there’s something more to life than what he and his people have been pigeon-holed into. Sure, his decision to rebel is in part motivated by the fact that Supreme Commander Dolza has labeled his fleet as contaminated for engaging humanity for too long and failing to achieve victory and thus has ordered them destroyed, but by this point Breetai has already had the good sense to realize that talking to the humans can lead to better things than fighting them. Also to his credit, Breetai, the warrior, is willing to consult with and take advice from an academic (Exedore). What holds Breetai back from a higher rank on this list is the repetitive and clunky dialogue forced upon him and the other characters by the writers.
12 - the Cylon centurions (the modern models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These toasters are big and bad, armed to the teeth (er, faceplates) and fully believable as killing machines that would actually frighten the piss out of you if they were chasing you through the bowels of your drifting ship. Their cool factor has increased now that the rebel Cylons have allowed the centurions to develop sentience, and in the wake of that they’ve discovered self-respect and now insist that the humanoid models mind their P’s and Q’s. I was tempted to deduct points because one of them looked like it was starting to be seduced by Baltar’s rabble-rousing, and yet, maybe that makes these chrome nightmares worthy of more appreciation because it shows greater depth of character if one of them can have misgivings.
11 – the Cylon centurions (the old, First Cylon War models/Guardian models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These are the Cylons as they should have been on the old series. It’s not that they’re CG’d, and thus somewhat sleeker in appearance than the actors in suits from the old show, it’s rather that they move like they mean business and they’re tough like machines of war would be designed to be (they don’t go down after a single hit like the old show robots did). These Cylons also know how to fly their Raiders too, taking out capital ships like the Battlestar Columbia with skill and precision (as opposed to the old show Raider pilots that seemed to beat the Colonial fleet with nothing more than surprise and overwhelming numbers) and engaging Colonial Vipers effectively. They’ve even developed strategies for taking over ships – and taking out entire fleets – from the inside through boarding actions. Getting rid of those hokey old gladii at their belts in favour of slick-snapping long wrist blades also looks pretty cool. These Cylons are also a helluva lot smarter than the old show forebears – they don’t just build weapons, they come up with the idea to advance the evolution of their race. What they do to their human prisoners is unforgivably horrific and disgusting, but their hybrid experiment shows these machine entities are engaged in a process to better themselves, misguided though it may be. In some ways this makes them more frightening than the Cylons of the old show, and also makes them more human.
We’re into the Top Ten now!
10 – the Daleks – from “Dr. Who” – these brutal, oversized pepper pots are a Time Lord’s worst nightmare. Not only are they hell-bent on “ex-ter-min-a-tion!!!”, but no matter how many times you and your Companions think you’ve wiped them out, they keep coming back. Kudos to the Daleks in the new series for figuring out that hovering is a good way to overcome the pesky problem of stairs when you’re chasing down The Doctor.
9 – Mad Eye Moody – from the “Harry Potter” series – masterfully played by Brendan Gleeson, Moody is that mix of crusty old teacher and biker that a kid being hounded by the forces of darkness needs on his team. He’s reminiscent of Snake Plissken, or maybe an older, ulglier Indiana Jones if Indy hadn’t had the women and there had been more booze.
8 – R2D2 – from the “Star Wars” series – this trusty little astromech is the unsung hero of the “Star Wars” movies. Seriously, who is it that’s always getting the humans and their biological chums out of trouble, while in the process getting blasted or bashed? And what is their reaction when R2’s beaten carcass is dragged out onto the deck (if they bother to notice at all)? “Oh, we’ll fix him”. Pretty cold comfort for a loyal little guy who’s just had his circuits fried protecting your wetware. And you’ve gotta love that never-ending supply of gadgets that keep popping out to help in all occasions. Whether it’s fixing a star cruiser or shocking Salacious Crumb, R2’s your man, er, droid.
7 – Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. – from the “Indiana Jones” series – Indy a one-eye?! Say it ain’t so! Don’t believe me? Then you didn’t watch “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones”, where each episode was bracketed by an ancient, and curiously chatty, Indy sporting an eye patch. Since it was approved by Lucas, it’s cannon. Indy’s got one eye by the end of his apparently considerably long life. Lucas hasn’t yet revealed how our hero lost the eye, but I’ve gotta say I was disappointed that it didn’t happen in” Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to provide a bridge to the TV series and maybe some more interesting plot possibilities than what was offered up.
6 – Ambassador Kosh – from “Babylon 5” – This is a tough one. I wasn’t sure whether to include Kosh or not. While their encounter suits have only one “eye”, Vorlons do have two eyes when they appear to other races (all of them on the show being two-eyed) in the guise of that race. I can’t recall how many eyes the Vorlons have when they’re out of the suits and showing their own faces. If it’s only one, then I’d have to move Kosh much higher on this list, for all kinds of reasons I won’t go into now. If it’s more than one, Kosh gets knocked off the list. So, because I’m not certain, we’ll keep Kosh on for the time being because of the encounter suit, and reasonably high up because he was a pretty cool character. If I’m proven wrong about Kosh, then I’d probably add the Harrihausen cyclops from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” somewhere near the bottom of the list.
And now for the Top Five:
5 – General Chang – from “Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country” – How can you not like Christopher Plummer playing a Klingon general? Chang is smart, resourceful and tough. Unlike his fellow Klingons, the general knows how to use subtlety to set up an enemy for the kill, as evidenced by his style of debate, and his choice of weapon to sabotage the Federation-Klingon Empire peace talks – a bird of prey that can fire when cloaked. All the more interesting to watch when he does explode into violence – verbally or in space warfare – usually quoting something from “King Lear” or “Hamlet”. “You’ve never read Shakespeare until you’ve read him in the original Klingon.”
4 – HAL-9000 – from “2001 – A Space Odyssey” – without having a human body to walk around in or a face to show emotion, the voice behind this glowing red eye did it all as a believable personality in this cinematic masterpiece. As the movie unfolded, we heard HAL become more unsure of the situation, more secretive, at times cold, self-satisfied, and finally despairing and fearful. A machine was given a fully-flushed character, probably for the first time on film. And in the sequel, “2010 – The Year We Make Contact” we saw more of HAL, even a heroic side when he realizes that to save the human crew he will have to allow his own destruction, and moreover he decides to face the end alone (a frightening prospect for any sentient being, especially a machine that doesn’t have the ingrained spiritual beliefs most humans are raised with to fall back on), declining Dr. Chandra’s offer to stay with him.
3 – Colonel Saul Tigh – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – Colonial officer, Cylon sleeper, rebel leader, drunkard, husband, and friend to Adama, Saul Tigh isn’t always a likeable person – in fact he’s frequently an asshole, but he is a complex and interesting character. For a character who turns out not to be human, the Colonel is a very human character who struggles daily with himself. While he may possess many less-than-admirable traits, there’s still a coolness about Saul Tigh’s willingness in the face of confusion about his origin to take his life by the collar and choose to define who he is and will be.
2 – Snake Plissken – from the “Escape from New York” series – This was a tough one. I almost put ol’ Snake in the Number One slot. Plissken’s the ultimate example of the anti-hero: a Clint Eastwood-talking toughguy from the badlands who’s the badest of them all because he’s the best at getting the job done any way necessary, including winning gunfights (and lethal basketball challenges) against overwhelming odds, even though he’s only got one eye. And he’s a guy who, in the end, stands up against the real badguys, the tyrants, even if his solution to the problem of them isn’t always the safest option. But Snake’s a one-eyed hero who’s coolness is ultimately one dimensional. He comes in, hisses and busts heads, makes some decisions based on a somewhat moral compass, stirs the pot, then limps off alone into the night to be a badass somewhere else. He’s a comic book character. And so he can’t quite eke out the top spot.
1 – Citizen G’Kar – from “Babylon 5” – from freedom fighter to warrior and bombastic diplomat for a corrupt regime, then back to rebel leader and finally to philosopher and explorer, G’Kar is the finest among our company of one-eyed characters. Here is a Narn who began with childish tantrums and schemes and evolved into a poet whose words could bring together disparate races and yet someone who possessed he wisdom and humility to laugh at himself. At first, as a fan, I was sad and angry that his last appearance in the B5 universe was on that steaming pile known as “The Legend of the Rangers” (although even there his character was true to himself), but I was heartened (though still sad) when his quote about lingering voices from the final season of the show was used to open “The Lost Tales”. And so, with one eye, a reflective mind and an open heart, Citizen G’Kar rises above all of the generals and superheros and mechanical monsters to show what is really cool in a story’s character.
That’s my list. Who would you pick as the best of the one-eyed characters out there?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Holy Sith! ...er, well, you know what I mean
I was doing my morning media checks as usual today at work when I stumbled on this strange little item on the CBC site, courtesy of Canadian Press and Associated Press: a court in Wales has handed a 27-year-old man a suspended sentence and ordered him to make payments to two other men he attacked back in March. But there’s a geek angle to the whole sordid tale. Our villain was dressed as Darth Vader at the time of the assaults. His victims: two of the founders of the Jedi Church in Britain. The whole thing was caught on video, with the Sith-wannabe yelling “Darth Vader! Jedis!” as he came at the two, er, Masters, wielding not a red light saber, but a metal crutch. Seems the Force was not with this dark lord of the shit disturbers, rather, it was intoxication brought on by the 10 litre box of wine he’d drunk beforehand. Sounds like somebody should have stuck to drinking blue milk.
And you thought things got ugly between fanboys when someone tossed the old Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer debate into the ring!
And you thought things got ugly between fanboys when someone tossed the old Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer debate into the ring!
Monday, May 05, 2008
Road Trippin'
Sorry I haven’t been posting in a while, folks. Things have been hectic at the office and I was away on business a week-and-a-half ago. Afterwards, my wife and I took a brief vacation on Vancouver Island (home of Neo-Opsis Magazine) where, incidentally, SF was never far from my mind (well, okay, let’s face it, SF is never far from my mind anyway, so who am I kidding? It just made itself a part of this vacation, that’s all.)
We started the trip in Victoria. Great city. Home of Munro’s Books – a great independent bookstore. It’s the kind of place with creaky wooden floors in a classy old stone building with lots of great books and staff who actually know the merchandise. I make a b-line there every time we’re in the capital. And, not surprisingly, I came away this time with a good find: Charles Dickens’ “Best Ghost Stories”. I’ve been looking for this one for a while but hadn’t been able to track it down until now. Trust Munro’s to have it. The main reason for wanting this book was for its closing short story “The Signalman”, which I read about in another book (and I can’t remember the title or author) or maybe heard mention of on TV or in a flick. After buying it, I was poking around the store some more, waiting for my wife, when I noticed something odd on the “classics” shelf – Penguin Classics is reprinting a bunch of H. P. Lovecraft stories. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lovecraft collections on the horror or speculative fiction shelves, but the classics? Not that I’m objecting, rather, I’m just surprised these books made it past the literary snobs at the publisher and at the store (which is not to imply that the staff are literary snobs, rather, that it’s a tendency one sees in general in book stores and thus a possibility for consideration here). I mean, the Victorians like Wells or Stoker or Verne or Stevenson or a little earlier with Shelley, those have always been considered authors who belong in the classics (although grudgingly by some stuck-up academics like a certain Victorian Lit prof I once had who refused to acknowledge them at all – but that’s a rant for another time), but Lovecraft getting his due? Will we see Clarke and Asimov or Bradbury lining the classics shelves in a few years? I certainly wouldn’t object, it merely points to a surprising new maturity in the minds of publishers and stores.
Anyhow, Dickens in hand (sorry, I just couldn’t resist), we hit the road and headed up to Courtenay, in the Comox Valley part of northern Vancouver Island. We worked there for a while a number of years ago and fell in love with the place and it was great to get back for a short vacation. 5th Street, in downtown Courtenay, looks, in many ways, like a piece of 1950’s small town North America frozen in time. Lots of old buildings that haven’t changed in years, populated by little local stores that also haven’t changed in years (like Leung’s grocery store – complete with original soda fountain counter). I hit The Laughing Oyster Book Shop, just up the street from Beyond the Kitchen Door (a kitchen shop with a green door – I wonder how many of the locals and tourists get that naughty little joke), and picked up a recent reprint of A.E. van Vogt’s “Slan” – a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while but just haven’t gotten around to. After that I popped into ABC Books & Inner Sanctum (sorry, couldn’t find a url to hyperlink here) – a combination used bookstore and comic shop (also selling cheap tourist trinkets) for a quick browse. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time in ABC/Inner Sanctum when I lived there (not a lot of extra cash in those days), but the store has a solid selection of used SF with a couple of potentially good finds like a good-condition hardcover of “Rendezvous with Rama” (with its astronaut and disco-light-background cover). Didn’t buy anything there this time, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re in the area.
Just across the street though was a mighty disturbing sight – a big frackin’ hole in the ground where the old Palace movie theatre had stood. This was one of the classic small town cinemas of yesteryear with the big façade out front and a single screen inside – none of the multiplex cookie-cutter stuff like we’ve got now. It was a great little cinema, made even better by the fact that when I worked on the north Island, everyone at the station got in for free – all we had to do was hand over a business card. I saw some great SF movies there like “Deep Impact”, as well as some real crap like “Mission to Mars”, but sitting in an authentic small town theatre was an experience unto itself – it was almost Bradburian to take in a show on a warm summer’s night, then come out afterwards and amble down the quiet old town main street under the stars after all the stores had closed. To put it another way, walking past the Palace of an evening, I could almost hear that soft harmonica and piano bit from “Field of Dreams” when Costner sees Doc “Moonlight” Graham for the first time. Since coming home I’ve done a little research. Turns out the Palace was closed for renovations when a fire broke out last July and it was then shut down permanently. Now it’s dust and a wonderful piece of Courtenay’s history is gone. It’s a damn shame.
And so, after resting and relaxing on the Island, we came home to the Lower Mainland. There and back again, as Mr. Baggins once wrote.
We started the trip in Victoria. Great city. Home of Munro’s Books – a great independent bookstore. It’s the kind of place with creaky wooden floors in a classy old stone building with lots of great books and staff who actually know the merchandise. I make a b-line there every time we’re in the capital. And, not surprisingly, I came away this time with a good find: Charles Dickens’ “Best Ghost Stories”. I’ve been looking for this one for a while but hadn’t been able to track it down until now. Trust Munro’s to have it. The main reason for wanting this book was for its closing short story “The Signalman”, which I read about in another book (and I can’t remember the title or author) or maybe heard mention of on TV or in a flick. After buying it, I was poking around the store some more, waiting for my wife, when I noticed something odd on the “classics” shelf – Penguin Classics is reprinting a bunch of H. P. Lovecraft stories. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lovecraft collections on the horror or speculative fiction shelves, but the classics? Not that I’m objecting, rather, I’m just surprised these books made it past the literary snobs at the publisher and at the store (which is not to imply that the staff are literary snobs, rather, that it’s a tendency one sees in general in book stores and thus a possibility for consideration here). I mean, the Victorians like Wells or Stoker or Verne or Stevenson or a little earlier with Shelley, those have always been considered authors who belong in the classics (although grudgingly by some stuck-up academics like a certain Victorian Lit prof I once had who refused to acknowledge them at all – but that’s a rant for another time), but Lovecraft getting his due? Will we see Clarke and Asimov or Bradbury lining the classics shelves in a few years? I certainly wouldn’t object, it merely points to a surprising new maturity in the minds of publishers and stores.
Anyhow, Dickens in hand (sorry, I just couldn’t resist), we hit the road and headed up to Courtenay, in the Comox Valley part of northern Vancouver Island. We worked there for a while a number of years ago and fell in love with the place and it was great to get back for a short vacation. 5th Street, in downtown Courtenay, looks, in many ways, like a piece of 1950’s small town North America frozen in time. Lots of old buildings that haven’t changed in years, populated by little local stores that also haven’t changed in years (like Leung’s grocery store – complete with original soda fountain counter). I hit The Laughing Oyster Book Shop, just up the street from Beyond the Kitchen Door (a kitchen shop with a green door – I wonder how many of the locals and tourists get that naughty little joke), and picked up a recent reprint of A.E. van Vogt’s “Slan” – a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while but just haven’t gotten around to. After that I popped into ABC Books & Inner Sanctum (sorry, couldn’t find a url to hyperlink here) – a combination used bookstore and comic shop (also selling cheap tourist trinkets) for a quick browse. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time in ABC/Inner Sanctum when I lived there (not a lot of extra cash in those days), but the store has a solid selection of used SF with a couple of potentially good finds like a good-condition hardcover of “Rendezvous with Rama” (with its astronaut and disco-light-background cover). Didn’t buy anything there this time, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re in the area.
Just across the street though was a mighty disturbing sight – a big frackin’ hole in the ground where the old Palace movie theatre had stood. This was one of the classic small town cinemas of yesteryear with the big façade out front and a single screen inside – none of the multiplex cookie-cutter stuff like we’ve got now. It was a great little cinema, made even better by the fact that when I worked on the north Island, everyone at the station got in for free – all we had to do was hand over a business card. I saw some great SF movies there like “Deep Impact”, as well as some real crap like “Mission to Mars”, but sitting in an authentic small town theatre was an experience unto itself – it was almost Bradburian to take in a show on a warm summer’s night, then come out afterwards and amble down the quiet old town main street under the stars after all the stores had closed. To put it another way, walking past the Palace of an evening, I could almost hear that soft harmonica and piano bit from “Field of Dreams” when Costner sees Doc “Moonlight” Graham for the first time. Since coming home I’ve done a little research. Turns out the Palace was closed for renovations when a fire broke out last July and it was then shut down permanently. Now it’s dust and a wonderful piece of Courtenay’s history is gone. It’s a damn shame.
And so, after resting and relaxing on the Island, we came home to the Lower Mainland. There and back again, as Mr. Baggins once wrote.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Review: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” reads like Harry Turtledove and Mordecai Richler conspired to remake the movie “Chinatown”. (And maybe they consulted Philip K. Dick along the way, with just a dash – just a dash, mind you - of Clavell’s “Shogun”.)
It’s an alternate universe tale, set in the 21st Century on an Earth where the attempt to establish Israel in the late 1940’s failed. Routed by the Arabs, the Jews fled to North America, where a territory was set aside for them on the Alaskan Panhandle. But there’s a catch, the District of Sitka, as it’s known, is only temporary. As the story opens, the 60 year lease on the land is about to expire and residents face another Diaspora.
It’s also a classic gumshoe tale, the story of Detective Meyer Landsman, crack homicide investigator, trying to solve the murder of a heroin-addicted chess genius who lived just a few floors below him in his seedy hotel. To do so, Landsman has to navigate his way through powerful crime syndicates, religious conspiracies, revolutionary dreams, government intrigue and plain old bureaucracy.
And it’s the story of a man trying to redeem himself. Landsman is a manic-depressive alcoholic who bucks authority and lives in a ratty apartment. He’s mourning a failed marriage and a dead sister and has unresolved issues from his childhood.
There is a pervasive sense of loomings (to borrow from the title of chapter 1 of Melville’s “Moby Dick”) in this book. The mountains, forest and sea hem-in the District on all sides. Time is running out for the District as the settlement expiry draws near and a people are unsure of their fate. Shadowy forces conspire for their own ends. There signs of passage indicating the divine may have been lurking about. Men are haunted by their childhoods. Amidst all this, how is one man supposed to sort out his own shit? Yet he doggedly moves in that direction, towards rebuilding himself. Landsman’s story becomes one of survival, and so, in a way, the story of his people.
“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a methodical book that plays out it its own time, like two old friends facing-off across a chess board.
But while I found the story interesting, it wasn’t compelling. I just couldn’t seem to care much about Landsman. And not because of cultural differences either. It was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe Landsman was too down-and-out to draw me in. Maybe his character was, in many ways, too much of a rehash of Rick Deckard (as much as from Scott’s “Blade Runner” as Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”). Maybe the book itself was a little too clinical. Maybe it’s because gumshoe stories, while I’ll read one or watch a film once in a blue moon, are not my favourite. I dunno. The book just didn’t demand that I come back to it right away after dinner. It was good, but it wasn’t great. It was, to borrow a little Yiddish, “nisht geferlekh”.
Special thanks to my good friend David Berner, author of David Talks/The Berner Monologues, for the Yiddish lesson.
It’s an alternate universe tale, set in the 21st Century on an Earth where the attempt to establish Israel in the late 1940’s failed. Routed by the Arabs, the Jews fled to North America, where a territory was set aside for them on the Alaskan Panhandle. But there’s a catch, the District of Sitka, as it’s known, is only temporary. As the story opens, the 60 year lease on the land is about to expire and residents face another Diaspora.
It’s also a classic gumshoe tale, the story of Detective Meyer Landsman, crack homicide investigator, trying to solve the murder of a heroin-addicted chess genius who lived just a few floors below him in his seedy hotel. To do so, Landsman has to navigate his way through powerful crime syndicates, religious conspiracies, revolutionary dreams, government intrigue and plain old bureaucracy.
And it’s the story of a man trying to redeem himself. Landsman is a manic-depressive alcoholic who bucks authority and lives in a ratty apartment. He’s mourning a failed marriage and a dead sister and has unresolved issues from his childhood.
There is a pervasive sense of loomings (to borrow from the title of chapter 1 of Melville’s “Moby Dick”) in this book. The mountains, forest and sea hem-in the District on all sides. Time is running out for the District as the settlement expiry draws near and a people are unsure of their fate. Shadowy forces conspire for their own ends. There signs of passage indicating the divine may have been lurking about. Men are haunted by their childhoods. Amidst all this, how is one man supposed to sort out his own shit? Yet he doggedly moves in that direction, towards rebuilding himself. Landsman’s story becomes one of survival, and so, in a way, the story of his people.
“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a methodical book that plays out it its own time, like two old friends facing-off across a chess board.
But while I found the story interesting, it wasn’t compelling. I just couldn’t seem to care much about Landsman. And not because of cultural differences either. It was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe Landsman was too down-and-out to draw me in. Maybe his character was, in many ways, too much of a rehash of Rick Deckard (as much as from Scott’s “Blade Runner” as Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”). Maybe the book itself was a little too clinical. Maybe it’s because gumshoe stories, while I’ll read one or watch a film once in a blue moon, are not my favourite. I dunno. The book just didn’t demand that I come back to it right away after dinner. It was good, but it wasn’t great. It was, to borrow a little Yiddish, “nisht geferlekh”.
Special thanks to my good friend David Berner, author of David Talks/The Berner Monologues, for the Yiddish lesson.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Hyperion Falls to Warner Brothers
Normally I don’t discuss movie news at length until the flick is released and there’s something to actually talk about. What’s the point of wasting air speculating on a lookahead story when any number of things could come along to derail production or release? But in this case, when it involves one of my favourite stories (SF or otherwise), I can’t help but get drawn into the news. The boys at SF Signal highlighted a story from the Hollywood Reporter the other day about Warner Brothers giving the green light to a movie based on Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos (“Hyperion” and “The Fall of Hyperion”).
This feels like years ago when New Line announced it was bringing “The Lord of the Rings” to the big screen. On one hand, it would be immensely cool to see a “Hyperion” movie if it was done right – if it was done right. That leads to the other, much more likely possibility, that it’ll be gutted and worthless.
Peter Jackson treated LOTR with love and respect, and understood that it had to be done as a trilogy to preserve its depth and scope. But early indications about “Hyperion” aren’t inspiring a lot of confidence in me. The HR article says the plan is to make a single film and that screenwriter Trevor Sands has taken “a selective approach to the two novels’ multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.” Sounds to me like they’re considering dropping or severely stripping-down some of the characters and story lines and most likely favouring a single type of narrative style. I worry that what’s left might be a typical Hollywood slasher flick with a sci-fi backdrop. Lame.
“Hyperion” isn’t a confusing story. It’s demanding, certainly. There’s a lot going on that requires not only a reader’s attention to the plot, but a lot of thought about the philosophical issues raised. And a single film, even one allowed to stray into the 2-3 hour range, just wouldn’t cut it to cover all that.
A proper treatment of the Cantos needs, at the very least, a 3-5 part miniseries (like the Sci-Fi Channel’s great adaptation of “Dune” and “Children of Dune” a few years ago) with each part consisting of minimum 2 hours run time. Ideally, it should have a full TV season to properly flush it out. Here I’m thinking of HBO’s plans for George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Think about it, there are seven pilgrims who embark upon the journey to the Time Tombs, each with vastly different stories told in completely different narrative styles, and each having crucial bearing on the final outcome of the Cantos. Granted, Het Masteen doesn’t play much of a role directly and doesn’t really share his yarn, but by the second half (“The Fall of Hyperion”), you’ve got the Keats cybrid playing a central role. To have a faithful adaptation of Simmons brilliant work requires patience. The Cantos would need an introductory episode, followed by separate episodes for each of the pilgrims’ tales in order for them to be told in enough detail to make any sense and for them to have relevance to the “current” action. You’d then be up to speed enough to play out the events of the second act over the course of several other episodes. And because the perspectives and types of storytelling would change, such a series would offer a completely new experience within itself with every episode. This isn’t an extravagant budgeting of time either. Believe me, I’ve cut enough tape over the years as a reporter that I know you can pare a story down pretty significantly to get to the focus and still make it good, but ultimately, there’s a point where if you hack at it like the Shrike, if you don’t leave the necessary details, if you remove crucial perspectives, then you don’t have a story anymore. At least, not a good one.
I hope I’m wrong, but the more I think about this WB film in development, the more I become resigned to the fact that it will probably be a simple monster movie.
But, since we’re spending time speculating about a movie that hasn’t even started production yet, let’s follow the SF Signal lead and have some fun playing the casting game. Since they’re going ahead with this flick, who would be the best actors to play the key roles in “Hyperion”? Here are my picks:
Martin Silenus – Danny Devito
Father Hoyt – Edward Norton
Colonel Kassad – Oded Fehr
The Consul – John Cusack or Nathan Fillion (Fillion might be better as Endymion from the sequels)
Brawne Lamia – Rosario Dawson
Sol Weintraub – Gene Wilder (watch “Murder in a Small Town” if you don’t believe me)
Father Dure – Robert Duval or Sir Ian McKellen, maybe Al Pacino
Het Masteen – Chow Yun Fat
Rachel Weintraub – Jessica Brooks
John Keats – Jamie Bamber
Meina Gladstone – Lauren Becall
Sad King Billy – Terry Jones
Theo – David Tennant
Shrike Cult Bishop – Bill Duke
Who am I leaving out? More importantly, who would you cast, if you had the time and the resources to make “Hyperion” right?
This feels like years ago when New Line announced it was bringing “The Lord of the Rings” to the big screen. On one hand, it would be immensely cool to see a “Hyperion” movie if it was done right – if it was done right. That leads to the other, much more likely possibility, that it’ll be gutted and worthless.
Peter Jackson treated LOTR with love and respect, and understood that it had to be done as a trilogy to preserve its depth and scope. But early indications about “Hyperion” aren’t inspiring a lot of confidence in me. The HR article says the plan is to make a single film and that screenwriter Trevor Sands has taken “a selective approach to the two novels’ multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.” Sounds to me like they’re considering dropping or severely stripping-down some of the characters and story lines and most likely favouring a single type of narrative style. I worry that what’s left might be a typical Hollywood slasher flick with a sci-fi backdrop. Lame.
“Hyperion” isn’t a confusing story. It’s demanding, certainly. There’s a lot going on that requires not only a reader’s attention to the plot, but a lot of thought about the philosophical issues raised. And a single film, even one allowed to stray into the 2-3 hour range, just wouldn’t cut it to cover all that.
A proper treatment of the Cantos needs, at the very least, a 3-5 part miniseries (like the Sci-Fi Channel’s great adaptation of “Dune” and “Children of Dune” a few years ago) with each part consisting of minimum 2 hours run time. Ideally, it should have a full TV season to properly flush it out. Here I’m thinking of HBO’s plans for George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Think about it, there are seven pilgrims who embark upon the journey to the Time Tombs, each with vastly different stories told in completely different narrative styles, and each having crucial bearing on the final outcome of the Cantos. Granted, Het Masteen doesn’t play much of a role directly and doesn’t really share his yarn, but by the second half (“The Fall of Hyperion”), you’ve got the Keats cybrid playing a central role. To have a faithful adaptation of Simmons brilliant work requires patience. The Cantos would need an introductory episode, followed by separate episodes for each of the pilgrims’ tales in order for them to be told in enough detail to make any sense and for them to have relevance to the “current” action. You’d then be up to speed enough to play out the events of the second act over the course of several other episodes. And because the perspectives and types of storytelling would change, such a series would offer a completely new experience within itself with every episode. This isn’t an extravagant budgeting of time either. Believe me, I’ve cut enough tape over the years as a reporter that I know you can pare a story down pretty significantly to get to the focus and still make it good, but ultimately, there’s a point where if you hack at it like the Shrike, if you don’t leave the necessary details, if you remove crucial perspectives, then you don’t have a story anymore. At least, not a good one.
I hope I’m wrong, but the more I think about this WB film in development, the more I become resigned to the fact that it will probably be a simple monster movie.
But, since we’re spending time speculating about a movie that hasn’t even started production yet, let’s follow the SF Signal lead and have some fun playing the casting game. Since they’re going ahead with this flick, who would be the best actors to play the key roles in “Hyperion”? Here are my picks:
Martin Silenus – Danny Devito
Father Hoyt – Edward Norton
Colonel Kassad – Oded Fehr
The Consul – John Cusack or Nathan Fillion (Fillion might be better as Endymion from the sequels)
Brawne Lamia – Rosario Dawson
Sol Weintraub – Gene Wilder (watch “Murder in a Small Town” if you don’t believe me)
Father Dure – Robert Duval or Sir Ian McKellen, maybe Al Pacino
Het Masteen – Chow Yun Fat
Rachel Weintraub – Jessica Brooks
John Keats – Jamie Bamber
Meina Gladstone – Lauren Becall
Sad King Billy – Terry Jones
Theo – David Tennant
Shrike Cult Bishop – Bill Duke
Who am I leaving out? More importantly, who would you cast, if you had the time and the resources to make “Hyperion” right?
Monday, April 07, 2008
Round 2 of the Aurora Voting
Now that the list of finalists is out for the Aurora Awards, it’s time to choose the winners. Aurora Awards Committee Chair Clint Budd reminds us there are a couple of different ways to cast your ballot:
You can vote online at: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/onlineVotingBallot.html
Or you can download a form to send by snailmail: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/votingballot2008PrixAuroraAwards.pdf
Here’s the catch on these two options though… it’ll cost ya five bucks to vote.
Or you can vote if you’re attending Montreal’s Congres Boreal (May 9-11) or at Keycon 25 in Winnipeg (May 16-19). Keycon is the con that’s hosting the Auroras this year.
Good luck to the finalists!
You can vote online at: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/onlineVotingBallot.html
Or you can download a form to send by snailmail: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/votingballot2008PrixAuroraAwards.pdf
Here’s the catch on these two options though… it’ll cost ya five bucks to vote.
Or you can vote if you’re attending Montreal’s Congres Boreal (May 9-11) or at Keycon 25 in Winnipeg (May 16-19). Keycon is the con that’s hosting the Auroras this year.
Good luck to the finalists!
Heston Dies
Actor Charlton Heston died on Saturday at the age of 84. Heston starred in a number of memorable SF movies, including “Planet of the Apes” (as well as a cameo as an ape in the Wahlberg remake), “Soylent Green” and “The Omega Man”.
Personally, I think his best performance was in (no, not “Ben-Hur”) a remake of "Treasure Island" where he starred as the crafty old pirate Long John Silver.
I can’t say I approved of his politics vis-à-vis firearms, but I will say he was a solid actor.
Personally, I think his best performance was in (no, not “Ben-Hur”) a remake of "Treasure Island" where he starred as the crafty old pirate Long John Silver.
I can’t say I approved of his politics vis-à-vis firearms, but I will say he was a solid actor.
And Speaking of Battlestar (again)
Warning: Spoilers (spoilage factor: about the same as that cookie you’ve left in your office desk drawer, saving it for a snack later, just a couple of days too long)
What an explosive way to kick-off season 4 of Battlestar – literally! Of course we knew it would pick-up where season 3 left off, but that was one-heck of a no-holds barred battle sequence to open the show with. Certainly a great space dogfight, but it went far beyond a simple SFX candy fix, surpassing anything sci-fi has served up on the big or small screen in a long time (way beyond the slugfest at the beginning of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”) because of the emotional punch of the group of characters who’ve just discovered they’re Cylons and have just been thrown into a battle before they’ve even settled their identity turmoil. That fact that they’re not sure about themselves or what they should do and sometimes need to give themselves a shake – or have someone else give them a shake – to snap-to and get on with things made this sequence especially strong. This isn’t just a pat one-shot plot twist where characters make a change, shrug, and get on with what they’re supposed to be doing, this realization is a psychic blow that leaves them reeling and unsure of not only themselves, but of their actions or inactions during the fight.
If there was a weakness to the episode, I’d say it was the Adama-Starbuck relationship. At first viewing, it seems as though Adama is a little more comfortable with Starbuck than you’d think he should be. Sure, he loves her like a daughter and some part of him desperately wants this to be the real Starbuck so she’ll be back in the family, but given his tendencies over the past three seasons, you’d think he’d be more likely in this situation to have his guard up (like when Sharon returned), suspecting another betrayal, and thus be at least a little more hostile. Although some might argue that this seeming indulgence of Starbuck on Adama’s part shows the cleverness of the writing here in illustrating just how human the Admiral is, and how prone to making a possible mistake out of the need to have a loved-one back.
All in all, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this final season play-out.
What an explosive way to kick-off season 4 of Battlestar – literally! Of course we knew it would pick-up where season 3 left off, but that was one-heck of a no-holds barred battle sequence to open the show with. Certainly a great space dogfight, but it went far beyond a simple SFX candy fix, surpassing anything sci-fi has served up on the big or small screen in a long time (way beyond the slugfest at the beginning of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”) because of the emotional punch of the group of characters who’ve just discovered they’re Cylons and have just been thrown into a battle before they’ve even settled their identity turmoil. That fact that they’re not sure about themselves or what they should do and sometimes need to give themselves a shake – or have someone else give them a shake – to snap-to and get on with things made this sequence especially strong. This isn’t just a pat one-shot plot twist where characters make a change, shrug, and get on with what they’re supposed to be doing, this realization is a psychic blow that leaves them reeling and unsure of not only themselves, but of their actions or inactions during the fight.
If there was a weakness to the episode, I’d say it was the Adama-Starbuck relationship. At first viewing, it seems as though Adama is a little more comfortable with Starbuck than you’d think he should be. Sure, he loves her like a daughter and some part of him desperately wants this to be the real Starbuck so she’ll be back in the family, but given his tendencies over the past three seasons, you’d think he’d be more likely in this situation to have his guard up (like when Sharon returned), suspecting another betrayal, and thus be at least a little more hostile. Although some might argue that this seeming indulgence of Starbuck on Adama’s part shows the cleverness of the writing here in illustrating just how human the Admiral is, and how prone to making a possible mistake out of the need to have a loved-one back.
All in all, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this final season play-out.
Another Lucky Bastard
A buddy of mine was at a Canucks game the other night (no, that’s not what makes him lucky – the level of play from the damn Canuckleheads is far too inconsistent [with the exception of Luongo, who rocks] to make seeing one of their games lucky) and got to hang out for the whole evening with Aaron Douglas – Battlestar Galactica’s Chief Galen Tyrol. My buddy was watching the game in a corporate box with a couple of other guys, one of whom, the box-getter, is a Battlestar fan. Apparently Douglas was in a regular seat nearby, and one of the arena staff, knowing of boxboy’s fandom, asked Douglas if he’d like to come up and be their guest. Douglas accepted and ended up spending the game with them. My friend said Douglas was a pretty good guy and it was (aside from the game sucking) an enjoyable evening shooting the breeze. Wanna know what the irony is? This friend of mine (not the boxboy, mind you) isn’t a Battlestar fan himself. He hasn’t gotten around to watching the series yet. The luck of some people…
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