Gettin' Conned Again - VCon 33

It’s time for VCon 33 – the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming Convention. I’ll be heading over to Surrey every day this weekend (No, I will not be making any Surrey jokes. I may complain about the commute, but I will not sink to the level of taking potshots at the good people of Surrey. No need to follow in everyone else’s footsteps.) to take part in the event and will be posting a summary of the day’s silliness right here every evening. VCon’s always enjoyable because of the significant literary thrust of the programming. Certainly there are discussions about science and gaming and there are Whedonite sing-alongs and there are medieval swordplay demonstrations, but most of the sessions revolve around examinations of what makes a good story. Since good storytelling is what’s at the core of SF, that’s fine by me.

Stay tuned for more updates.

And while you’re waiting…

Be sure to go to my other blog, Not A Planet Anymore, to take part in our online challenge:
Blog Like It’s The War Of The Worlds

Just fill in your blog’s address in the Comments section of that posting and we’ll add you to the roster of bloggers around the world who will be facing the Martian invasion on October 30th – the 70th anniversary of Orson Welles’ grand pre-Hallowe’en prank and tribute to H.G. Wells, the famous “War of the Worlds” broadcast.

Register now and Blog Like It’s The War Of The Worlds!

Online challenge: Blog Like It's The War Of The Worlds!

To celebrate the launch of our new SF blog, Not A Planet Anymore, my faithful sidekick harrysaxon and I are issuing a special challenge to all of you out there in the blogosphere:Blog Like It's The War Of The Worlds!
The blogging challenge takes place on October 30th – the 70th anniversary of Orson Welles' famous War of the Worlds radio play - a production that had thousands of late-arriving listeners believing the Martians were invading.

If you have a blog, on October 30th we want you to blog like the Martians (the kind that Welles borrowed from H.G. Wells) are actually invading. Tell us what things are like in your town (whether you’re in Woking, Grover’s Mill, Edmonton, Courtenay, Etobicoke, Houston, Berlin, Adelaide, Beijing or anywhere else) as the Martian tripod war machines march through with their heat rays and poison gas, snatching human snacks off the streets and leaving a wake of destruction and red weeds. Be sure to pass the word along to all of your blogging friends so we can make this War of the Worlds truly world-wide!

Register beforehand with us at Not A Planet Anymore and we'll add your blog to a list of sites reporting the Martian invasion, so other people can read of your exploits. After it's all over, as a Hallowe'en treat, we'll post some of the highlights from the different blogs on our site.

The inspiration for this online adventure came from the site My Elves Are Different, which has been hosting an annual zombie apocalypse-themed challenge called “Blog Like It’s The End Of The World”. We thought it was such a great idea that it ought to be adapted for an alien invasion – and with the anniversary of Welles’ little pre-Hallowe’en show on the horizon, we just couldn’t resist.

To get all of you in the mood for this challenge, here’s a link to Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast on Youtube (broken into convenient segments that allow for bathroom breaks).

Join the fun at Not A Planet Anymore - take part in "Blog Like It's The War Of The Worlds" on October 30th!

Launching a New Blog: Not A Planet Anymore

As if this old soapbox of SF ranting wasn’t already enough, I’m launching another science fiction and fantasy blog: Not A Planet Anymore.

Not A Planet Anymore is a collaboration between me and my old friend harrysaxon, host of Rassilon’s Arcade. It’s a forum to discuss speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, yadda yadda yadda) in literature, television, movies and other media, and to yak about video games and geek culture in general. Harrysaxon brings a wealth of videogaming experience to the table, while I’ve got the grounding in SF literature.

While Not A Planet Anymore will have reviews, same as here on bloginhood, there will be a number of other features (the addition of video game reviews, first and foremost) that will make the site different enough to be worth checking out. The fact that it’s a team effort means it’ll be a good forum for debate that will hopefully be informative and entertaining.

Admittedly, at this point, Not A Planet Anymore is still a work in progress. Both harrysaxon and I are finding time here and there to cobble it together as we juggle the other aspects of our lives: jobs (because you can’t run a blog if you don’t satisfy that strange addiction to food and shelter), our wives (our wives wholeheartedly approved of the launch of the new site, thinking that if we took our SF debates online we would probably forgo them when we got together for dinner – oh how they were wrong!), and, of course, our own existing blogs (like this one). In some ways, launching this site before all of the bells and whistles are in place makes me feel like Scotty trying to get the Enterprise spaceworthy enough to leave spacedock way before it was scheduled to in “Star Trek I – The Motion Picture”. Then again, that may be giving our little geek arena too much credit – despite having a gimpy warp drive, Enterprise still looked pretty good. No, our site’s probably more like the Thunder Road in “Explorers” – patched together from this and that and rickety as all hell, but it’ll fly (we hope). What’s important is that right from the get-go, we’re posting content we hope you’ll enjoy.

Join us at Not A Planet Anymore.

I’d just like to reiterate though, that bloginhood will continue to be active. I’ll still be grumbling away here on a regular basis (or, as regular as I ever have been, at any rate) and I’m grateful if you choose to hang around here too.

Bigfoot vs. the Big Fools of the Political Arena

A new poll here in Canada indicates the myth of a monster in the woods is more believable than the myth of an honest politician.

As this country lurches towards its federal election next month, an article in yesterday’s Vancouver Sun highlighted a new poll done for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that asked whether it was more likely that scientists would prove the existence of Bigfoot (the mythical creature said to inhabit the forests of BC) or that politicians would keep their election promises.

58% of those surveyed believe it’s more likely the Sasquatch will be proven to be real.

Just 27% of respondents bought into the notion of a politician keeping his word.

Not surprising given the state of political affairs right now with our choice between the tyrannical Tories, the lame-duck Liberals, the not-a-clue NDP, the get-a-grip Greens, and the gaggle of independents and fringe parties, never mind the b.s. Bloc in Quebec. The real myth is that any one of them could inspire voter confidence right about now. This isn’t a poll that shows Canadian voters are gullible or stupid – far from it, it shows that we see through to the heart of the matter, and that we see politicians to be insubstantial and thus of less value than an entertaining story to tell around a campfire. Culture over bluster.

But I think the real question with this poll is what did the other 15% of respondents believe? Were they simply undecided? (which still speaks volumes)

Or is that too simple? Maybe they believe that Bigfoot would keep his election promises if he were a politician! Imagine a Monster Party victory in Parliament! They could rename the Prime Minister’s official residence from "24 Sussex Drive" to “24 Sasquatch Drive”!

Why Geeks Are Great

In my last post, I got to ranting about some of the ways that SF fandom can go terribly wrong – misaligned priorities and unwillingness to deal with life’s realities to name couple. But after getting all of that off my chest, I thought it was just as important to argue, just as passionately, about the greatness of geeks – and not in a “we’re smarter than mainstreamers” petulant, little sort of way either. No, I’m talking about our humanity; our ability to care for and reach out to one another and our communities. For contrary to popular belief, we geeks do rise beyond our SF passions and eccentricities quite frequently and focus our considerable energies on making connections and being there for others. In so doing, we show, if only to ourselves, that geeks are great.

It’s always impressive when the geek community comes out in force to support a cause. Take the San Diego Comicon, for example. For about 30-odd years now, they’re held a big blood drive at the event. 30 years of geeks volunteering to get freshly squeezed like oranges adds up to a helluva lot of lives saved.

And this isn’t an isolated example either. Geeks all over the world do their part to help local and regional charities. One of the first examples I personally encountered was back in the mid 90’s when I was attending the University of Manitoba and working and volunteering with the United Way of Winnipeg. One of the UWW’s big annual fundraisers was an event called “the World’s Biggest Garage Sale” (no, I can’t verify whether it was, in fact, the biggest craphound fest the planet has ever seen, but it was pretty damn big), where, for weeks, people from around the city donated their cast-offs of all types. The UWW secured the city’s convention centre as a venue and filled its cavernous rooms with row upon row of tables covered in, well, pretty much everything you can possibly imagine. On the special Saturday when the event was held, people would come from all over the place to root through this immense trove of white elephants in hopes of finding their personal notion of treasure. The problem is, for a garage sale of this magnitude, you need a hell of a lot of volunteers to man the tables, haggle with the public and manage the sales. All kinds of service clubs, social groups and businesses sent groups to help out, but there was one corps that stood out above all the others, and that was the geeks. A very special group of geeks. Squeezed in between the Shriners and the Kinsmen and the contingent from the local Airforce base and a gaggle of car dealers and a host of who knows how many others, was a brigade of Star Trek fans – specifically, Klingons. Yep, the Klingons were there in full forehead makeup and battle garb, armed with boisterous good nature instead of bat’leths. What a sight to see! The hearty squad of warrior wannabes driving bargains a Ferengi would be proud of and sealing the deal with lusty cries of “Kaplah”, all in the name of charity. Chances are, Joe and Sally Sixpack straggling up and down the aisles with their 3 squalling kids would probably forget most of the faces they saw that day, but no-one forgets a black-maned Klingon warrior nickel-and-diming you over a chipped antique lamp shade. Now that’s geek pride for a good cause!

Then there’s VCon, the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming Convention I’ve been attending for the past couple of years. Something that caught my eye last year (which was probably there the year before, just something I failed to notice then) was the art room raffle. A genre artist had donated a painting (of a dragon, I seem to recall), and for a twonie you could enter the draw. The proceeds (if I remember correctly) went to the SHARE Society, out of Coquitlam, which among many worthy programs, operates a food bank and a crisis line. And you know, whether they actually wanted the painting or not, I saw a fair number of fanboys and fangirls dropping in a polar bear coin or two to help out.

And speaking of cons, many of these events collect money dedicated to bringing in fans from other parts of their respective countries, or even from around the world to come and join in the fun. These fan funds are a hugely important part of community-building, not just among geeks, but across regions.

Beyond the charity drives or big causes, geeks are exemplary on a personal level too.

We’ve probably all heard those stories from distant corners of the internet about a bunch of online buddies coming to the rescue of a fellow forum-dweller who suddenly goes offline due to a medical or emotional crisis – how they compare notes from personal conversations and backtrack through IP addresses, etc to figure out where the person lives and then call local emergency services.

And speaking of emergencies (of a different kind, mind you), it wasn’t too long ago that Hurricane Ike beat-up on the Texas coast. When the guys over at SF Signal announced that their site could experience infrequent content updates because all three of them were battening down for the storm, many of the regulars wasted no time in wishing the boys good luck. Watching coverage of the storm on the nightly news took on a whole new meaning when you thought about how a fellow geek might have to deal with that kind of situation.

And then there are the small, personal moments that you catch a hint of every now and again. Another VCon example for ya: A couple of years ago I was standing in line waiting to register at the con, when I overheard a conversation off to the side. A guy who looked like the stereotypical refugee from his mom’s basement (late 20’s/early 30’s, overweight, coke-bottle-lense glasses, unkempt hair and beard, ill-fitting and unwashed clothes, disputable hygiene and voice at a decided mumble) was shooting the breeze with a heavyset transvestite goth. Impressive that members from two seemingly different camps of geekdom would mix, but what was more impressive was what happened when their conversation concluded and the refugee-from-his-mom’s-basement ambled away. At that point, an average-looking woman came up to the transvestite goth and they began to talk about the fellow who’d just left. They enthused about how much he’d come out of his shell in the past couple of years, how he was now looking people in the eye and carrying on conversations. You see, a lot of people would look at this scene and wouldn’t be able to get past the stereotypes. But none of this was funny at all. I personally don’t give a shit about what any of these people look like or what their sub-culture leanings are. This was an important moment illustrating what geeks are really all about beyond the books and comics and TV shows and movies and games and collectables and costumes. It showed how geeks reach out to each other. It was inspiring and touching because it showed how much these people from seemingly diverse backgrounds cared for each other.

This is what makes geeks great.

And I bet you can think of a million other examples too. I’d love to hear about them. We need to be sharing our stories more often.

So after reading this piece from the soapbox today, you may ask, “Bloginhood, isn’t all of this rambling just belabouring the obvious?” Maybe. That’s certainly a fair comment. But I think it’s worth while, and in fact, necessary for geeks every now and again to stand up and remind ourselves what makes us great.

Too often mainstream culture mocks geeks for pursuits that it doesn’t care to give the time to try to understand. It’s too easy dismiss people who like science fiction or fantasy or whatever else you want to cram under the SF banner because they don’t get our shows, have never bothered to read our literature, don’t have the patience for a game, can’t simply enjoy a movie or, horror of horrors, don’t want to be made-fun-of by their mainstream buddies for admitting maybe they do like geeky stuff. It’s too easy for snide observers to point to the fringe elements that maybe do take their passions too far and display a warped sense of reality or distorted priorities (and granted, sometimes things do go horribly wrong, which makes us all the more human). It’s too simple to get distracted by the obvious and corny divides in our community like high fantasy vs. hard science fiction, Golden Age vs New Wave, or Enterprise vs Star Destroyer.

What’s important is that we, as geeks, come together to form communities that, for all our eccentricities, are generally supportive and caring. We must continue to support worthy charities and, most of all, support each other. We need to take pride in who we are. We need to remember why geeks are great.

Unwilling to Give Up the Ghost - or the Stargate, as the Case May Be

You know you’re truly a hardcore fanboy/fangirl when you stage a protest rally when your favourite SF TV show gets creamed by the network execs. Not sullenly mutter to yourself. Not bitch to your friends. Not piss and moan to your fellow blogoids online (as many geeks, yours truly most especially, are wont to do on occasion). Not even furiously put pen to paper in a retro-Trek campaign or lobbying of network sponsors. No, the ultimate uber-geeks are the ones to whom a cancellation is just so totally unacceptable that they’re willing to hit the streets, glasses pushed resolutely up the bridge of the nose, placard in hand, and, after some initial confusion caused by the sudden exposure to the outside world and the recovery from injuries sustained during the assembly of the afore-mentioned signage, stage a rally in front of the offending studio.

According to an article in today’s Vancouver Sun, that’s just what a group of Stargate Atlantis enthusiasts planned on doing today, with a protest scheduled to take place outside of the Bridge Studios in Burnaby, where the show has been filmed. Apparently, they’re steamed that “Stargate Atlantis” has been sunk and they’re insisting the Sci Fi Channel change its mind. Allegedly there are rumours of other, similar protests planned for LA and New York and possibly overseas.

I’m not sure whether Burnaby protest actually took place, and if so, how many people bothered to show.

Now some of you may be wondering why I wouldn’t know this, especially when my office is within spitting distance of the studio. Why, having read the story this morning about a planned SF-related protest that was going to take place nearby, why, with my background as a reporter, didn’t I nip over at lunch or spin by after work to check it out? Admittedly, my old journalistic spider senses were tingling – an SF-related news story unfolding and me with this geeky blog and all, but I didn’t indulge them. And there were a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, I’m not a fan of the Stargate franchise. I don’t dislike it; it merely doesn’t interest me. Then there’s the fact that the paper didn’t list the time of the planned protest – hard to convince the boss to let me duck out of work every hour just to check. Then there’s the fact that I was just too busy to pull myself away from the office, even at lunch, and after work I had to get home right away so my wife could use the car to get to her personal trainer. In short, there were other, more important things on the go. I have a life.

And therein lies the root of my puzzlement about this whole protest (assuming it went ahead).

How do these people find the time to stage a protest about a cancelled TV show during a weekday? How could they possibly get off work? What kind of boss would allow that? Would the conversation go something like:
Boss: “So you want the afternoon off to take part in a protest?”
Fanboy: “Yessir.”
Boss: “A protest over a TV show getting cancelled?”
Fanboy: “Yessir.”
Boss: “One of those nerdy sci-fi TV shows?”
Fanboy: “Yessir. ‘Stargate Atlantis’, sir. And, respectfully, sir, it’s not nerdy.”
Boss: “So this isn’t a ‘Star Trek’ thing?”
Fanboy: “Nossir. It’s a ‘Stargate Atlantis’ thing.”
Boss: “’Cause if it’s a Star Trek thing, I’d say ‘no’.”
Fanboy: “Nossir. I mean, yessir. I mean, nossir. Uh….”
Boss: “’Cause you remember what happened with the last Star Trek thing?...”
Fanboy: “Yessir. Won’t happen again, sir. Not the same thing at all, sir.”
Boss: “Good. ‘Cause if I hear about you betting any ‘kwatloos on the newcomer’ or anything…”
Fanboy: “Nossir.”
Boss: “Alrighty then. You can have the afternoon off.”

Not gonna happen, is it? Did these people stage a quicky over their lunch break? Did they cash-in some OT or holiday time or call in sick? Are they doing shift-work and just happened to not be on the schedule that day? Are they self-employed? Unemployed? Shouldn’t these people be earning a living? What about families or kids or friends? (okay, well, fine, their friends were probably picketing with them)

More to the point, WHY would you go to the effort (and expense – signs aren’t free and gas ain’t cheap) of staging a protest over a cancelled TV show?!? It’s just a TV show, people!!! I mean, as a fan, I’ve had feelings ranging from disappointment to being mighty pissed from time to time when a favourite show was cancelled – no one who’s passionate about a story is happy when it finally has to end (one way or the other) – but I sure wouldn’t stage a protest over it! A strongly-worded letter/email to the network might be in order, or a scathing online editorial, maybe even an online campaign to convince the network to change its mind – all of these can be cathartic if nothing else, and can let the network know how you feel without taking much of your time or effort. But protesting requires more time, expense and an actual physical effort. Too much effort, I say, when the network probably won’t pay attention - especially when MGM’s already announced it will continue the franchise with a new series. And it’s too much effort to expend fighting the end of a TV show. A TV show! If this was a hospital or a community school for disabled kids or an animal shelter or even a heritage building, I could understand how a protest could be worthwhile. If it was a rally for more money for cancer research or to put an end to bullying, you bet! But a TV show? Sure, everybody’s got their own priorities in life, but waving placards over a cancelled show indicates a fairly significant reality check is needed. I’m a fan of good SF, but there’s a point where you’ve gotta step back and ask what’s really important in life, and there are probably a lot of things in your community that rank a lot higher than some weekly flick on the boob tube. For starters, pick a charity you believe in and use your talents and energy helping it.

In addition to being a massive misalignment of priorities, this behaviour also points to something else wrong – it seems to be an inability to accept and deal with a fundamental part of storytelling and the story listening/reading/watching experience: one way or another, all stories come to an end. We, as readers/listeners/viewers have to accept that. We may not like it, we may not agree with it, but it happens. And when it happens, you do what someone who truly appreciates good SF does, you remember the old series fondly, rewatch it in reruns and on DVD on occasion, but most importantly you move on and find other quality SF shows to watch. To insist that one show continue to go on and on and on just because it’s your favourite is to risk condemning it to degrade in quality from sheer weariness until it becomes a mockery of itself, a shambling zombie of a show… a soap opera that keeps twisting its plot, not to better the story, but merely to keep adding another episode onto the pile. Case in point: “Gundam” What the hell is that show about after all these years? I don’t think the writers even know. The refusal to accept that a show is ending points to a denial of the fact that life is full of endings. It points to a desperate need to seize control of something and keep it going just to prove that one actually has the power to stave-off the inevitable. But that’s an artificial sense, it’s unrealistic, and it doesn’t allow a person to move on to new and possibly better things.

Now, you may argue that I’m a cynic. You may point out that an outcry by fans gave the original “Star Trek” a new lease on life, that it aided “Babylon 5” in reaching the end of its magnificent 5-year story arc, and that it enabled the wonderful “Firefly” to get another shot, this time on the big screen, with the immensely smart and entertaining “Serenity”. You may say that it’s not just fannish delusions of self-empowerment, that taking the networks to task actually works. But let’s face facts: Trek was limping in its last season and was eventually yanked well before it’s famous “5-year mission” could be fully presented; B5, for all of the fact that it did finish its story, saw its successor series Crusade and the various attempted successor series blown away; and Firefly, despite the movie, won’t be coming back to network television. Sooner or later, studios get their way and series end. It may be a crime that “Firefly” was never given a chance, or that B5 wasn’t given the budget or understanding to continue with new stories, but that’s the TV business. Series end. New ones come along. Parading around in front of the studio, especially in small numbers, isn’t going to make much, if any difference.

Let’s not forget either that SGA had a pretty good run. 5 years is very good for an SF show. There’s nothing wrong with it coming to a close after that kind of track record, especially when some of its elements might be preserved in the new addition to the franchise that’s currently in development or in other media formats like books and computer games.

I know some Stargate fans might read this editorial and dismiss me as a jaded son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t appreciate the power of the people and the effectiveness of a passionate and well-organized protest rally. I know there are some who will say I just don’t understand because I don’t follow the show and thus don’t appreciate what, in their view, is genius. That’s their opinion and that’s okay. But as an SF fan, I have seen favourite shows, like B5, Firefly, and soon Battlestar, fall by the wayside. And with each I’ve bought the DVD collection and learned to move on and look for the next worthwhile show to flicker across my screen. I haven’t hit the picket line. I don’t have the time.

A New Season Begins on the Boob Tube

Our track record’s been pretty poor this year in our household at the start of the new TV season. So far we’ve missed the new episodes of the new season of “Eureka” and Monday’s premier of season 2 of “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”.

It’s a pity because my wife’s become quite the fan of “Eureka” (I enjoy it myself, from time to time, but not consistently enough to follow it closely).

It’s also too bad we missed the season opener of TSCC because we both enjoy the Terminator show (sounds like the title of a 1950’s TV sketch comedy: “It’s The Terminator Show, starring some former vaudeville guy, brought to you by Big Oil – Big Oil’s always there for you!” But I digress…). Not only is the story half-decent, and not only does it have the raw entertainment value of watching little Summer Glau kick some serious butt, but we’ve also turned it into a game to try to guess whether Lena Headey will end every scene prior to a commercial break by pursing her lips and staring off into the middle distance with a combination of unease and self-conscious attempt to conceal a need to look sexy without trying to look like she’s trying to conceal her need to look sexy. And it’s not just before the commercial breaks either – she’ll bust that move in the middle of any given scene, apparently just ‘cause. I can just hear the director off camera: “Dammit, we need to create more pathos! Hmmmmmm. Okay, Lena, how about you just do that staring thing again while the other guy’s talking. That’ll help. Do you need someone to help purse those lips? No? Okay. Hold that pose for another couple of minutes while we change the lighting. Now somebody go get me a pretzel!” Trying to predict when she’ll roll out that melodramatic reaction/meditation look is almost teetering on the brink of becoming a drinking game around these parts. Except, of course, it happens so often you’d never make it to the end of an episode. Anyway, we’ll probably make a more concerted effort to watch this season.

What I have managed to catch is the premier of “Fringe”. Uh-huh. Is anyone else getting a “Torchwood” kind of a feeling? I mean, really, there aren’t any pterodactyls cruising around in the rafters (yet), so maybe they’ve taken a bit of a cue from the “X-Files” school of subdued conspiracy agency shows, but still, that whole scene in the lab where they found the cure for the dude with the disease? I half expected Captain Jack Harkness to come sauntering in grinning ear to ear and regaling the gang with some tale of his sexual exploits with the Triple-breasted Whore of Eroticon Six (no, wait, that’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” now, but you get my drift). Maybe the bald recruiting guy is supposed to be this show’s Captain Jack – he wears a long coat anyway. Suffice to say, I’m waiting to be impressed. I’ll give it one more episode to prove its worth.

Now if only it was January so the last half-season of Battlestar could finally get under way!

Belated Happy Birthday to Bradbury

It’s been a little over a week since Ray Bradbury’s birthday, and since he’s one of my favourite authors (SF or otherwise), I figured I should do a little tip of the hat to the old Grandmaster here on the old soapbox.

I’ve raved many times before (in fact, he was the subject of my first posting on this blog back on a cold November night in 2005) about why I like Bradbury’s stories, so I won’t go into that again. Instead, I thought I’d offer a few thoughts on some of my favourites from his body of work.

My absolute favourite is “The Halloween Tree”. It’s not his most profound or most grown-up work, but this tale of a group of kids chasing through Hallowe’ens across time to save the soul of their friend has some truly beautiful descriptions that bring back a lot of memories from All Hallows Eve when I was a kid. That’s not, to say, that my friends and I spent the night in the company of a sinister old fellow named Moundshroud, rather, it’s his descriptions of the feeling of that evening, and what it’s like to be in a small town out in the middle of the woods and fields when the pumpkin carving season rolls around. Check this out:

“There wasn’t so much wilderness around you couldn’t see the town. But on the other hand, there wasn’t so much town you couldn’t see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here.”

That could have been the little subdivision I lived in, tucked way out in the woods in North Dumfries Township. And the night itself? This about sums it up:

“Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows’ Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked. …Shrieking, wailing, full of banshee mirth they ran, on everything except sidewalks, going up into the air over bushes and down almost upon yipping dogs.”

Ah, those were the days! And all I have to do is open “The Halloween Tree” and the sights and smells and tastes in my memory are that much closer.

Next is “There Will Come Soft Rains” – the second last tale in “The Martian Chronicles”. The Chronicles as a whole are a masterwork, Bradbury’s meditation on humanity set against the backdrop of a Mars that never was and an Earth in its last throes. It’s a book that throws many different thoughts and feelings at you as you trek through it. But among its stories, the most emotionally powerful, the one that haunts and scars the memory forever, in my opinion, is “There Will Come Soft Rains”. In and of itself, not much happens in this story: amidst a ruined nuclear wasteland on Earth, a family dog crawls home to die, the automated systems of the house clean up, and the house itself is destroyed by fire. If you’ve ever had a family pet, the death of the dog alone is enough to bring you to tears – it sure did for me. But aside from the scene being one of merely a single cruel, lonely and sad death, it is one that evokes an image of planet-wide suffering of innocent lives – of the price paid by every living thing for the thoughtless violence of mankind. Even the destruction of the house shows that our mighty technology is incapable of withstanding our lack of self control. In fact, the story is most pointed in not telling us directly about the deaths of the Earth’s human population – we don’t get to indulge in even this level of selfish ego. One tends to sympathize more with the innocent bystanders than those who cause an accident, and so humanity is dismissed. In leaving us out of this story, the lesson about the consequences of our actions is more powerful. And yet, having learned this lesson, there is a second chance, for after the devastation of the fires on Earth, we are told in “The Million-Year Picnic” that there is a seed of humanity left on Mars, a story ending with a different element – water - and thus a chance to wash clean and hopefully not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Finally, I’d have to round-out my list of absolute Bradbury favourites with “Last Rites”. Originally appearing in the December ’94 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I first encountered this story in Bradbury’s collection “Quicker than the Eye”. This is hands-down the most original time travel story ever. Most examples of this sub-genre see heroes traipsing across time to change the past or future, or prevent someone else from doing so. Not so with Bradbury’s character Harrison Cooper. Rather than attempt to rewrite history or explore ancient or far-future mysteries, Cooper launches himself across the sea of years to bring comfort to the giants of literature. As they lie alone facing death, Cooper appears with copies of their novels or poems or plays to reassure them that they will live on because their work had intellectual and emotional worth. He is a kind of polar opposite of Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Future, showing the men before him not visions of doom, but proof that the fruits of their creativity had meaning. For one with the seeming god-like power to travel through time and affect history and lives, Cooper takes a path that is so subdued it can’t be anything but intrinsically human. This is a gentle tale that in taking a totally sideways view of what one could do with this kind of power, asks us to rethink what we ought to do with our abilities and opportunities – it reminds us that human connections are what’s most important.

For me, these are the finest of Bradbury’s works. There are many others that I enjoy immensely, but these are the ones that spring to mind first when someone mentions him.

I’m always interested to hear what Bradbury stories grab other people the most. For my wife, it’s “Tete-a-Tete” from “One More for the Road”.

What’s your favourite Bradbury story?

Colour Blind Concert

We went to the Weird Al Yankovic concert in Coquitlam this past weekend, and while the show itself was a blast, something was definitely wrong with the audience.

Oh sure, everyone in the house was into Al’s schtick – we all waved our cellphones in the air during the cellphone song, and everyone joined together to help him belt out “Yoda” – but there was something significant missing from the crowd.

That something was colour – colourful Hawaiian shirts, to be precise.

Counting myself and my wife, there were perhaps two dozen – no more – of us in the crowd garbed in Hawaiian shirts of varying degrees of tackiness and loud colour. Traditionally, this attire is a must for any Weird Al concert. But not anymore. 24 of us, in a crowd of a couple of hundred packed into the Red Robinson Show Theatre. What happened?

Time was, the Hawaiian shirt, while not mandatory, made up the bulk of what the audience was wearing at one of Al’s shows. I can remember going to see him at the Orpheum in Winnipeg, back in the 90’s when I was at the University of Manitoba, and nearly everyone there was sporting something with too-loud colours and flower and fish and hula patterns. Heck, there was one guy sitting a couple of rows in front of me who’d gone to the trouble of having his yarmulke made from the same bright fabric as his shirt. Now that’s a fan! No so this time around. Just a small group of us die-hards.

It’s not even like being a fan demanded something truly bizarre like wolfing down a twinkie dog with spray-on cheese-like product (I had a buddy who actually did that after watching “UHF” – not something I’d care to do). If that was the case, I could understand concert-goers, saying “Dude, that’s a little extreme.” But it’s not. No, the wearing of the Hawaiian shirt is just a way of sharing the utterly shameless indulgence in daring to be stupid and have fun in being a Weird Al fan amidst other fans. Part of the fun was trying to pick out the wackiest shirt pattern near you in the crowd.

Sure, Al himself isn’t as heavy into the Hawaiian shirts when he’s on-stage as he used to be, but he still wears a couple in the act. Shouldn’t that make it okay for the audience to keep with its traditions?

And yet, it was by and large a pretty drab audience that assembled Saturday night. When did fandom get so grey?

Do NOT see "Star Wars - The Clone Wars"!

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”.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?