One flew over the Alphane moon

Clans of the Alphane Moon is a very Dickian novel; someone who knows his work could read a paragraph or two from anywhere in the book and immediately know who wrote it.

The set-up is ingenious. A small, habitable moon was once the site of a Terran psychiatric hospital, but the hospital—and its patients—were abandoned years ago. They have survived, and formed clans, which the author introduces first only by abbreviations. The deps—depressives; the manses—manics; the pares—paranoids, and etc.

The Terrans want the moon back; it is part of a territory squabble between Earth and their former enemies, the Alphanes. They send a psychiatrist to evaluate the situation, with the idea that the former patients—now living on their own—will be re-hospitalized and treated, whether they like it or not.

The alien Jeff Bridges

I just watched this movie - Starman - again last week and found it as enjoyable as the first time around. It originally came out in 1984, and stars a delightfully young (weren't we all?) Karen Allen and Jeff Bridges, the latter of whom received an Oscar nomination for his performance.

The movie does not rely on special effects, one of the reasons it may have held up so well. It is, in essence, a road trip movie, with Allen as Jenny Hayden, a young widow who wakes up one night to find an alien in her house.

An alien who looks (thanks to the mysteries of advanced-civilization cloning) exactly like her late husband, Scott.

For reasons involving the big, bad paranoid US government, the alien/Scott needs to get the hell off planet Earth within three days, hence the road trip from Jenny's house in Wisconsin to the prescribed rendevous point, Meteor Crater in Arizona.

One quibble: Much as I loved Starman, which is alternately funny, romantic, touching, and thrilling, I would like to see -- just once - a science fiction movie in which the designated agents of the US government don't act like a pack of gun-happy, testosterone-crazed morons.

On the other hand, we do have one government agent - the wonderful Charles Martin Smith - who becomes our hero. He's been tapped for alien duty because he works for SETI, and is the one person who is truly awed to be in the presence of a real visitor from another planet.

Watching Smith light up a cigar at the end of the movie, with a big smile on his face - he's saved the alien's life, and knows he's about to get fired - is one of moviedom's little pleasures.

Jeff Bridges does a wonderful and hilarious job of existing in Jeff Bridge's body without knowing exactly what to do with it. Karen Allen is beautiful and vulnerable as the widow - but not too vulnerable, which is a great touch. She knows her way around a diner--and a gun. When the moment comes when she needs to use one, she does so with authority.

The scene where the alien brings Jenny back to life is pure magic. It is a lovely movie, with an ending that is happy and sad at the same time. Highly recommended.

The bat and the cat

Back to the angst.

Awhile ago I compared Star Trek to the Batman and Spiderman series, and afterwards I began thinking about, specifically, the second Batman movie. The one with Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Danny DeVito as the Penguin, and Christopher Walken as another bad guy whose name I can’t remember.

I thought this movie suffered from one too many bad guys, by the way. Christopher Walken was born to play the villain in a Batman movie; they should have stuck with him and left the Penguin for another time. Preferably never. I can still remember the scene where DeVito – blackened teeth oozing – eats a raw fish.

Who wants to see that? Who wants to pay to see that?

Although this movie is far from a favorite (I never got over the fish) it does have one scene that remains indelibly in memory: Michelle Pfeiffer -- mysteriously returned to life after been thrown out a window by Walken – goes medieval on her apartment, and trashes the girl right out of it.

I experienced this scene viscerally. In fact, it is one of only two movie scenes that I have ever had that kind of gut-deep reaction to (the other one being the first Russian roulette scene in The Deer Hunter).

I’m not sure men had the same reaction to that scene. I’m not sure a younger woman would have that reaction. I’m not even sure I’d experience it the same way today. But at the time it was the entire feminist movement rolled up and made concrete. I could almost feel Michelle Pfeiffer tearing up her bedroom under my own fingertips.

At the end – she’s made herself a skin-tight cat-suit in the middle of all the demolition – she stands in the window and says (to her cat?) “I don’t know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier.”

Now, that’s sexual revolution. And worth the whole movie.

Unfortunately, angst takes over from there. Of course, Catwoman and Batman fall in love. Of course they can’t be together, what with him being rich and her being beautiful and . . . yeah, I don’t know either.

At the end Batman reveals himself to her as Bruce Wayne. And she says:

“Bruce...I would..I would love, to live with you in your castle...forever just like in a fairytale . . . I just couldn't live with myself. So don’t pretend this is a happy ending.”

Nice line. But why the hell not have a happy ending? Geez, people, lighten up.

I always thought there would be another movie where Catwoman and Batman get together; it never happened, and life moved on.

Earth girls, alien boys

Earth Girls are Easy (1988). Well, what can you say? I think one of the reviews on amazon.com sums it up nicely: "I recommend this movie for anyone who enjoys turning their mind off for an hour and a half."

That's a major positive, in my book. Another two-word positive: Jeff Goldblum. I actually watched an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent last week (normally avoided like the plague), just to see him.

(He was great, by the way. The plot and writing not so much, but after a gazillion episodes I guess that was to be expected.)

Both Goldblum and Geena Davis were in their thirties during the filming; both of them look young and lovely and impossibly gorgeous, and their chemistry together (they were either married or about to get married at that point) is obvious. Goldblum is one of a trio of aliens who have landed in Davis' backyard pool. The other two aliens are played by by Damon Wayans and a very young Jim Carrey; you could watch this movie for no other reason than to see those two comic actors at work before they were uber-famous.

I shouldn't ignore Julie Brown; I didn't know much about her before the movie, and still don't, but she wrote and performed at least two of the movie's songs (yes, there are songs) - and one of them ("I like them big and stupid" - you kind of had to be there) is an all-time personal favorite.

Brown co-wrote as well as acted in Earth Girls, and she gets some of the best lines: (Looking closely at one of the trio of aliens, who in their original form are hairy all over): "Well I see split ends are universal."

Davis and Brown play cosmetologists, by the way. Brown's character decides that the aliens need a complete makeover and Carrey, Wayans and Goldblum each re-appear after a full-body depilatory, looking very human.

Wow. A serious eye-candy-for-girls moment.

Anyway. Also not to miss:

Geena Davis trashing her fiance's house (Football in the microwave! Bowling ball rolled into the computer screen!) while wearing a blond wig and singing Steinberg and Kelly's 'The Ground You Walk On'.

Jim Carrey as a blond.

Anything Goldblum does or says. Remember watching Three Men and a Baby, and Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson were both great and really cute, but then Tom Selleck walks on screen and it was - whoa - different? That's what Goldblum is in this film.

I can't say it any better than the amazon reviewer did. Need a mental margarita? Watch Earth Girls are Easy.

I've been on vacation . . .

But we'll be back on schedule shortly. Stay tuned!

Fire and Ice

I’d been planning to write about Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy today, but I happened to see the movie Sunshine last night, and as this movie is sci-fi to the max, I thought I’d write about it while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Be forewarned: spoilers below.

The movie is set in the near future. The sun, for reasons that the audience does not (and does not need to) know, has grown dimmer; not enough to kill everyone on the planet as yet, but enough that this will be the near-time outcome. Our heroes are eight astronauts aboard the spaceship Icarus 2 (Icarus 1 having mysteriously disappeared), which is carrying the biggest, baddest nuclear bomb that humanity could put together, with the idea that sending it into the sun will goose our star back into its old output.

It’s a desperate attempt, but it just might work, and our heroes might make it home safely—until they receive a faint distress signal from the missing Icarus 1, and decide on a short diversion to check it out.

The decision to divert is bitterly resisted by at least one member of the crew, the engineer Mace, who states the obvious; that the choice is between rescuing ALL of humanity vs. a few stranded astronauts (besides, how could they still be alive?), and that they should stick strictly to their mission.

But another crewmember points out that Icarus 1 also carried a bomb; and two bombs, two last chances, are better than one. They do divert, which is a mistake; a series of accidents results, compounded with sabotage, and although they manage to launch the bomb, everyone dies.

Well, except for the people back on earth. One of the interesting things about this movie is that even when the audience discovers, at the end, that the mission has been a success – Earth is saved! woo hoo! – it doesn’t matter. The only people we really care about are dead. All politics is local, I’ve heard: all emotion seems to be as well. The salvation of humanity is not enough to make Sunshine a happy film.

One of the two women on board--Cassie—makes this point when she votes against killing a crewmember, even though unless they reduce oxygen consumption by one person’s worth they will not be able to complete their mission. One individual's life against billions?

“I know the argument,” Cassie says. “I know the logic. You're saying you need my vote. I'm saying you can't have it.”

I was also struck by the contrasting themes of fire and ice in the movie; the sun is dimmer, yes, but not that dim: as they approach the orbit of Mercury the astronauts are in constant danger of dying if the ship’s shielding is not aimed just right. The sun becomes a character in this movie; purveyor of annihilation as well as life, and several characters do, indeed, burn to death.

On the other hand, the cold of space is also a danger, and one character dies, frozen, outside the ship.

Another crewmember ends up with a choice of ways to die; he chooses fire.

It’s a haunting movie. I can’t say I enjoyed it, really, but it sticks with you. I have only one criticism, which relates to an unanticipated character who shows up near the end; the insane captain of Icarus 1, who sneaks on board Icarus 2 after the rendezvous.

Our heroes think all the crewmembers of the first ship are dead. They aren’t, and the attacks and sabotage committed by Captain 'totally bonkers' Pinbacker are shot in such a way to suggest something paranormal. He’s crazy, sure – no problem – but why is he filmed so strangely, as if he was some kind of ghost/creature/thing?

Up to that point (and this is late in the film) Sunshine has been the hardest of hard sci-fi. Now it’s -- what? A creepy supernatural horror movie? Huh? Other reviewers have also commented that this sudden side trip into slasher territory was not successful.

I still recommend it. You won’t feel quite the same way about our closest star again.

Is The Phantom Menace really such a bad movie?

Well, I was tempted to make this the shortest blog ever.

"Yes."

But critics are the cheap tricks of the movie world. George Lucas went to the trouble of making the damn thing, and all we do is complain. And I think the director's response might be something on the order of "Fine, if you don't like my movie, go make one yourself."

Good luck with that. Plus, I'm categorically annoyed with any critic who declares a movie good or bad, when what they really mean is I liked it, or I didn't like it.

OK. I didn't like the movie. So sue me.

Too much CGI, for one thing. Sure, the first Star Wars had special effects--they were extraordinary for its time--but our interest was also directed to the major characters. These characters included C-3PO and R2-D2, neither of whom was CGI.

They all felt real. Unlike the very much not real flying junk shop dealer (Anakin Skywalker's boss) - or the announcer at the race -- and don't even get me started on Jar-Jar Binks.

A second problem was with the character of Anakin Skywalker himself. The child actor playing Anakin was not good, as anyone who's seen the movie knows. But he was a child. I blame the director. Too much time spent on the CGI, George. Help the kid out.

Anakin's character presented another problem, which wasn't quite as obvious until the next movie came out and Anakin and Queen Amidala become lovers. She looked like she was an adult when she met Anakin as a young child. Eeuuww. (According to Wikipedia, Queen Amidala was supposed to be 14 in The Phantom Menace. That definitely didn't come across.)

Lucas has answered his critics by saying that the movie was for children. Which would have been a point, except - yeah, no, it's not. Way too dark and violent -- the make up on Darth Maul alone would give some kids nightmares. And has he forgotten that Anakin kills an entire group of children in one of the later movies? You might not see it on screen, but what are you going to tell little Susie and little Johnny about what happened to them?

I'll end with something I liked: the final light saber duel between Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul. Cool. And of course it was nice to see Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson in the first place. I wish they would have had more to do.

I was channel surfing a couple days ago, and happened on one of the I, II, III trilogy. I watched for a few minutes. I couldn't remember which one it was. I had no idea what was happening. If it had been one of the IV, V, VI trilogy, I could have told you everything.

Science, religion, euthanasia

The first part of Canticle (Fiat Homo - Let there be man) is set in a post-nuclear apocalypse 'dark ages.' The second section (Fiat Lux - Let there be light) follows six hundred years later, at the time of a scientific renaissance.

The pre-apocalypse 'memorabilia' that the monks of the order of St. Leibowitz have been keeping safe for all those centuries are finally of interest again. And one scientist- the brilliant, difficult Thon Thaddeo - comes to the abbey to study them.

Canticle has been studied in college courses for its discussion of 'the relationship between science and religion' (a phrase which, as a biologist, I have come to truly hate). I'm not sure what Miller really has to say about that relationship, however. The monks are mostly saintly, true. But Thon Thaddeo is far from a bad person; proud and bad-tempered, yes, but basically honest.

The bad guys in Canticle are neither the monks nor the scientists, even though science will eventually (in the third section of the book, Fiat Voluntas Tua - Let thy will be done) make another nuclear holocaust possible. The bad guys are the politicians, the people who want power.

The humor - still much present in part two - is less evident toward the end of the book, but then impending nuclear war tends to make life seem less funny. And Miller spends a fair amount of time on the question of euthanasia.

The first bombs have fallen. The government has set up 'relief stations' (read: euthanasia) for those individuals who have received such a high dose of radiation that death is inevitable. The doctors (playing the scientist role, here) are in favor of the idea; the monks resist.

I wasn't entirely convinced by their argument that we should suffer through to the end, but I'm not sure that Miller intends for us to be. You cannot read this section, now, without remembering that Miller himself suffered from serious depression for much of his life, and that 12 years ago, in 1996 - he committed suicide.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

I haven't read every science fiction novel ever published, so I can't say that A Canticle for Leibowitz --by Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960 - is unique.

But it's pretty darn unique. The setting, for one thing: in a monastery. And the protagonists? Monks. Not your standard sci-fi for sure.

I can remember getting a few pages into it and thinking - this is funny. The idea that you could write a serious novel and make it witty and fun was a revelation. (These were my early teen years; I hadn't yet read Pride and Prejudice.) Perhaps this explains, in part, my life-long prejudice against works with I AM A PIECE OF SERIOUS LITERATURE written all over them.

A prejudice, by the way, which extends to movies. Ingmar Bergman? ZZZZZZZ.

The main character of the first part (Fiat Homo, "Let there be man") is Brother Francis, a young novice at an abbey in the post-apocalyptic southwestern United States. Brother Francis - charming, naive, trusting - is another revelation. He wants to be monk (memo from the teenaged me: say what?).

Occasionally you will find a reviewer who rants about Miller's supposed pro-Roman Catholic bias; that Canticle promotes 'blind faith' and an unquestioning subservience to authority. These reviewers have apparently not read beyond the first few pages. Brother Francis - despite his devotion to the abbey, despite his trust in his superiors and his desperate longing to be allowed to profess his vows - refuses (in the face of considerable pressure from the abbot) to recant his story that he saw someone who might have been 'the blessed Leibowitz' out in the desert.

He refuses, in other words, to bend to authority, to change what he believes to be the truth even the tiniest bit. The reader admires him, even as we are also invited to understand the reasoning of the very human and politically astute abbot.

Fiat Homo ends with Brother Francis' death from an arrow to the head. He is buried by the same old man who might have been - but in the end, was not - the blessed Leibowitz.

Space Marines

In some ways I liked the sequel to Alien even better than the original. Sigourney Weaver was back, of course, along with a squad of marines. The marines were a bunch of seriously-armed-to-the-teeth dudes - and one equally armed-to-the-teeth woman. Which leads to the best line of dialogue in either film:

Male marine to female marine: "Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

Vasquez: "No. Have you?"

The theme of corporate stupidity and greed - hinted at in Alien - plays out here in full as Ripley, the marines, a good android (wonderfully played by Lance Henricksen), and a Company shill (the usually amiable Paul Reiser) return to the planet visited by the Nostromo.

The marines are brave and (mostly) smart, but they are in over their heads: the enemy is something they don't understand, and modern weapons won't save them. Ripley understands, but she is also hampered - at least temporarily - by her own prejudice against androids. The Company shill is just that.

And did I mention there's a little girl ('Newt') to rescue?

In the end, Ripley and the little girl survive, along with (sort of) the android and one of the marines, Hicks. Hicks is the exceedingly cute one, the calm one, a leader - he's our hero to match our heroine. We see them off into hypersleep and go home reasonably happy . . . . .

Except then they die. The third movie in the franchise (Alien3, released in 1992, six years after Aliens) begins with the crash of an escape pod, and the death of Newt and Hicks.

What?

How annoying is that? Apparently James Cameron (the director of Aliens) was annoyed as well. You cannot have your audience emotionally invest in your characters, see them through perilous times, have them barely escape with their lives--

--and then kill them off in the first few minutes of the next movie. That just bites.

I decided not to see the third movie when I found out about this bit of plot. In my mind Ripley, Hicks, Newt and even Bishop the android are happy somewhere, in hypersleep or out, and alive.

In space, nobody can hear you scream

One of the all-time great movie tag lines, by the way.

I'm not a fan of scary movies. The whole 'horror' genre leaves me cold, both in books and on film. Not to mention the latest torture-porn stuff, ala Saw and Hostel. Pathetic.

But there are scary movies, and then there are scary movies. Alien combined a great science fiction look with a monster to really sink your teeth into. Or vice versa.

I found out later that there was a person inside the alien suit: one Bolaji Badejo, 7 ' 2 " and thin enough to fit inside and play convincingly non-human. Yes, the alien was not some mechanism like the shark in Jaws. Or all CG.

And I agree with those who've argued that the monster was a lot more frightening in the first movie, when you barely saw it, than it was in the sequels. You didn't know what was going after the crew; that was the genius of the thing.

So we have an unknown planet, with atmosphere so thick you can barely see through it, a bunch of strange eggs, and another alien, but this one with his chest ripped open. Setting us up for the (arguably) most famous scene in the movie: John Hurt not quite getting through his spaghetti dinner.

I can't say too much about that scene; I've seen the movie several times, but always have my eyes covered at that point.

But the alien is only one of the scary things that the people of the Nostromo are faced with. They are, in fact, dupes. They've been set up by the Company, which has sent an android along with the crew, presumably (some of this was a little hazy before the Aliens sequel) to discover potential alien weaponry, biological or otherwise, and return it to human civilization.

This being the part where human beings stupidly get way in over their heads, and possibly a commentary on messing with weaponry that could kill us all.

At the end, only our kick-ass heroine (Sigourney Weaver, on her way to becoming a major star) and the cat survive. She had argued against bringing the alien into the Nostromo in the first place, she had discovered the androids machinations - and now she's in hypersleep, heading back to Earth.

A Billion Days of -- say what?

Today's blog is about the sci-fi novel A Billion Days of Earth by Doris Piserchia, first published in 1976. I read it sometime in the 1980s, lost the book in a move from Florida to Washington state, and only recently re-read it.

I love the book. I just don't understand it. At all. Usually I don't enjoy books - or movies - that I find totally confusing. I don't like anything that feels like deliberate obscurity on the part of an author. And, as a rule--OK, Twin Peaks excepted--I don't like excessive weirdness.

Here we have a seriously weird, confusing--and often depressing--book. Which I totally enjoyed. Go figure.

The 'billion days' of the title refers to the time period of the story--3 million years from today, more or less. Human beings - the real Homo sapiens - have evolved into - gods? - who have extraordinary powers. I guess. Anyway, they can float on clouds.

Our protagonist is Rik - he's human, more or less, except he's descended from rats. The rat-people are the humans of the story. There are also lengs - dog-people, also sentient. And did I mention the zizzies, who are a combination sparrow/cat/bee, flying furred creatures with a three-foot wingspan and a stinger?

Yeah. Anyway, the story begins with the entrance--creation?--of Sheen, a lifeform (I'm echoing Data, here) made of silver. Sheen absorbs sentient beings, who then lose their independent will--and turn silver themselves.

What I find interesting about the book are the changes in tone. Sheen's actions, at first, seem almost good-natured. He absorbs a creature here and there, and has funny, almost friendly conversations with Rik, who resists him. We even have time to visit other sub-plots, including one about a family of uber-ultra-rich rat-humans, the Fillys. But somewhere around the middle of the book, things start downhill in a big way. Sheen has absorbed so many people by this time that society collapses, and the result is just as ugly as you might expect. After the initial low-key tone of the story, you feel things tip and crash down; there is a truly horrifying scene where the rat-humans are herded into a slaughterhouse and forced to choose between violent death and absorption by Sheen.

What is the author trying to say here? That society is fragile? I'm not sure.

At any rate, the end of the story brings a second shift. One of Sheen's first victims 'escapes' back to real life, and it turns out that anyone can do the same. They only have to want to. Rik gets his wife back (another sub-plot). Sheen decides he doesn't have the heart for total destruction.

And the gods (Homo sapiens) decide to leave the earth on rocket ships.

No, I don't understand the book at all. But it kept me interested, beginning to end. And if there is anyone out there who does understand it, drop me a line, heh?

The future begins again

Wow.

They brought the awesome.

Star Trek (2009) may not be a ‘great’ movie. ‘Great’ tends to get used for Serious Films in black and white, or with subtitles. American action-adventure films seen by gazillions of people need not apply.

So maybe it isn’t a great movie. But it’s sure one hell of a ride.

A joyous, funny, thrilling re-visit to the lives of people we already know very, very well. And now we get to grow up with them all over again.

Zachary Quinto has gotten a fair amount of press for being the new Spock—deservedly—but this Star Trek rides on the back of its captain, and actor Chris Pine takes it all on, and more.

I do kendo (Japanese sword fighting) and in kendo there is the idea that when you attack someone your attack is totally committed, with full spirit. In your mind you do not consider the possibility of defeat.

That’s our James T. Kirk. I’ve lost track of the number of times Kirk gets in a hand-to-hand fight in this movie – OK, there was the bar, and the fight on the drill platform, and Spock attacking him on the bridge, and we should probably count those two seriously vicious animals on Delta Vega, and a then a couple more fights inside the bad guy’s ship – and he gets his ass handed to him every single time. He is saved by (pick one) – Captain Pike. Sulu. Spock. Spock’s father. Only at the last does he manage to save himself (in the middle of another butt-kicking) by getting a hold of bad guy minion’s gun.

But he does it all, every time, with full spirit. In his mind, he’s already won.

This Star Trek is angst-free. Nobody wears a bat/spider suit and whines about how unhappy they are. Even Spock is angst-free, or at least he seems like it when he’s kissing Uhura. Repeatedly.

And I haven’t even mentioned Karl Urban's Dr. McCoy - nice job - or the happy wonder that is Simon Pegg’s Scotty.

If you liked any of the previous Star Trek incarnations at all, if you like sci-fi, if you just like feeling like life can be good and worthwhile and your friends can fight at your side and you can all be something special – well, then, see this movie.

To boldly go back

This is the most light-hearted of all the Star Trek movies; the one with the most jokes, and with the actors clearly having a good time.

At the same time, it's also a movie about the threatened end of planet Earth as we know it.

You know the plot: the Star Trek-era future Earth is visited by an Enormously Powerful Alien Spaceship that wants to talk to the humpback whales. Chew some fat. See how they're doing.

Well, the species is extinct. The EPAS gets torqued off, starts to tear up Earth's oceans, and our heroes need to go back in time to pick up a humpback and then deliver it to future Earth before the planet goes phft.

A question arises here. One humpback? Oh, wait, I forgot. The whale they picked up was pregnant. And did they take two? At any rate, the possibility of re-populating future Earth with humpbacks exists.

The joke is that when the crew goes back in time (not in the Enterprise - in a Klingon bird-of-prey - see Star Trek 3) they arrive at a very recognizable twentieth-century San Francisco, where everybody is so weird anyway that our back-from-the-future space heroes fit right in. Spock needs to cover up his ears, but that's about it.

A few pieces of dialogue will give you a feel for the tone of the movie:

Kirk to crew: (as they leave the bird-of-prey, which is sitting--cloaked--in a SF city park): "Everybody remember where we parked."

Spock, being ejected from a city bus: "What does it mean, exact change?"

Lady whale doctor (disbelieving): "You're from outer space."
Kirk: "No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space."

There are some wonderful set pieces in the movie, of which the rescue of Chekov from a 20th century hospital is my favorite, followed by a nice piece of comic/straight man dialogue between Kirk and Spock in lady whale doctor's pick up truck.

Lady whale doctor: "Do you guys like Italian?"
Kirk: "Yes."
Spock: "No."
Kirk: "Yes."
Spock: "No."
Kirk: "I love Italian." [looks at Spock] "And so do you."
Spock: "Yes."

Nimoy (who directed) has described his vision for the film as " . . .no dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy."

It was a joy to watch The Voyage Home. If you're feeling depressed about (pick one): nuclear proliferation, economic meltdown, global warming, or all of the above - give it a try.

To boldly go

Ah, yes. Star Trek. So easy to make fun of, especially for fans of the trendy comic book movies, those lovers of angst.

Star Trek is probably the most successful entertainment franchise ever, and not just for science fiction. In addition to the original TV series, we have 5 spin-off series (1 animated), 10 movies (an 11th to be released next month), books, conventions, and at least one completely invented language (Klingon).

Wikipedia has a page on which the cumulative running times for all science fiction franchises are compared. Star Trek comes in first, at 22 days, 16 hours, and 56 minutes. (Second place belongs to Doctor Who, at something around 15 days. Nothing else comes close.)

Although I intended to write about the movies, I must issue a disclaimer: I haven't seen the last one (Nemesis.) I lost interest somewhere along the way, even though I loved the Next Generation series on TV. My memory of individual movies starts to get fuzzy at about number 7 (Generations).

My personal favorites among the first six movies - which starred the original cast - reflect popular opinion, with the second (Wrath of Khan) and the fourth (Voyage Home) being the top picks.

Wrath of Khan is standard melodrama, with Ricardo Montalban as the worthy adversary. What a lovely man, and may he rest in peace. I can still hear him as Khan, dying, the last words of Captain Ahab in his mouth:

To the last, I will grapple with thee… from Hell’s
heart, I stab at thee! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at
thee!

The movie ends, of course, with the death of Spock. I have only one quibble with this movie. (OK, two quibbles. The first: the close-up shot of the icky beasties entering into an ear looks unusually fake for a major movie.) But my major quibble is with the ending. When Kirk stands on the bridge with his old girlfriend (whoever she was) in the last minutes, watching the birth of the new Genesis planet and happily saying something like - "I feel young." - all I could think was - What's wrong with you? YOUR BEST FRIEND JUST DIED.

I understand that they needed to do a set up for the third movie; and nobody was happier than me to see Spock back again. Still, the upbeat ending clashed with what had happened just minutes earlier; the moving and powerful scene where Kirk, separated from Spock by a glass (transparent aluminum?) wall, watches his friend die.

I'm aware that this death scene now plays as corny for all the angst-lovers out there. Gene Roddenberry first pitched Star Trek as a TV series in 1960. So this franchise is, in some ways, a child of the 1950s. Like me. Maybe we're just in tune.

I'll talk about the whales next time . . .

The Uplift War, by David Brin

I re-read this book a few weeks ago and realized that it is one of my favorite books ever. The Uplift War is part of a series of sorts - or at least that's how it is currently marketed, with Sundiver and Startide Rising being the first two books of a 'trilogy'. I think somebody decided that a trilogy sells, but at any rate this book can easily be read as a stand-alone; you will miss very little besides a few references to the starship Streaker.

The Uplift War is planet-based fiction; it is also (like, say, Downbelow Station) a book with a large cast of characters, and we switch back and forth between them, following the larger story from various points of view.

The human race has been given a lease on an ecologically-devastated planet, Garth. Along with chimpanzees--newly uplifted to sentience--they are working to bring Garth back to full health. Another galactic race--the bird-like Gubru--attacks the planet in a bid to gain it for themselves, and most of the book takes place as the humans, chimps, a couple members of an allied alien race, the Tymbrimi--and gorillas--attempt to fight back against the attackers.

Guerilla warfare, you might say; because the humans have little besides their wits and their better knowledge of Garth, and the Gubru came equipped for the fight with an armada of technologically-superior weapons.

Our heroes include Fiben, a chimpanzee with a wonderful sense of humor, Robert Oneagle, human -- and his partner in arms Athaclena, a Tymbrimi female. One of the strengths of the book is how much we end up liking and caring for these characters.

Anytime you have an alien race as part of your story you have issues of how they differ, both physically and psychologically, from human beings. Brin succeeds with both the Gubru and the Tymbrimi, making them both very alien/different and still understandable/believable.

The Tymbrimi have a 'corona' of tendrils which partly frame their face; with this corona they are able to craft 'glyphs' - half-seen expressions of their feelings and the situation. It's impossible to explain, fascinating to read about.

The Gubru are the bad guys, of course; we don't identify with them, although by the end we have some sympathy for individuals. I have to admit--I ended up imagining the Gubru as looking like Big Bird. It was impossible to shake, they'll be Big Bird in my mind forever.

Incidentally, the current paperback version of The Uplift War sports a really hideous drawing of Athaclena. That's not what she looks like. Seriously. My edition (scanned above) is what she really looks like. My edition is falling apart; I've been planning on buying the new edition and replacing the cover with mine.

Captives of the Flame

I remember C.S. Lewis commenting once--I think this was the gist--on how wonderful it was to be young and to read books for the pure enjoyment of reading; not to worry about the literary value of a work, or its sophistication, or the reputation of the author in academic circles, or whether the subject matter was in vogue.

That's how I read science fiction as a child. I read everything, and I pretty much enjoyed it all. And so I stumbled onto books that these days, as a much pickier adult, I would never choose to pick up.

To my loss, I should say. Captives of the Flame, by Samuel R. Delany (first published in 1963, or thereabouts) is one of those books that the grown-up me might not take a chance on. It is unusual for 1960s sci-fi; very moody, with poetic imagery; a little sad at the end. A young man is jailed for a crime that he did commit; he escapes and (with the help of telepathic beings from another world) tries to save his country/society from a disastrous war.

A war that the government has decided to enter into for dubious reasons; a war against something that they don't even understand.

Sound at all familiar? But we're talking the early 60s, here.

I wondered about the politics of this novel. If any. Was Delany commenting on American Cold War policies? I'm not certain, although he certainly skewers (his fictional) military bureaucracy in several scenes.

The characters made the book, for me. They are described with empathy and touches of humor. In addition to the escaped prisoner - Jon Koshar - we have his sister, Clea (a mathematician), a red-haired duchess, three teens (one a girl acrobat with white hair and blue eyes), and the seven-foot tall Arkor.

Not to forget King Uske, a young idiot manipulated by his handlers into declaring war for no particular reason.

(Yeah, OK, so what are the chances of that happening?)

And just to mix things up - Clea's fiance, Tomar - who is in the military, and who is intelligent and caring.

There is a set piece near the end of the book; Jon Koshar, the duchess, and Arkor inhabit the bodies of beings on several different worlds; they exist, in turn, on an asteroid; as creatures with 'slitherers' and eye-stalks, who drink liquid methane; as sentient crystals; as "an advanced species of moss"; as numbers inside a star. I can remember being blown away by the scene, which was far removed from the sci-fi story-telling that I'd known up till then.

Captives of the Flame was revised later, and re-named Out of the Dead City; it was combined with two later works to make the Fall of the Towers trilogy. I haven't read the rest of the trilogy; for me it was the kind of book that I wanted to keep as I first knew it, a single jewel in place.

The government in question

I would like to see -- just once - a science fiction movie in which the designated agents of the US government don't act like a pack of gun-happy, testosterone-crazed morons.

After I wrote that last week, I started thinking. Was I being fair? Was it true? Do science fiction movies actually portray the US government in such a negative light?

Well, two movies I’d recently seen certainly did: Starman and The Day the Earth Stood Still. And then we have Alien/Aliens; the government in question may not be specifically identified with the United States, but it’s close—and whoever they are, they’re the bad guys.

On the other hand, the US military in Independence Day is definitely testosterone-crazed and gun happy, but in that movie it’s a good thing.

(A digression: I turned to the internet to refresh my memory with the titles of other science fiction movies. Wikipedia proved a great resource; one article has all the science movies since forever, by year. It’s an endless, fascinating list, what with Santa Clause Conquers the Martians (1964) and Beware! The Blob (1972). Then there were all those great movies that I hadn’t thought about in a while: Silent Running, Twelve Monkeys, The Fifth Element (an all-time favorite). Our Netflix queue is about to get a serious makeover.)

At any rate, returning to our topic—

Perhaps I was too harsh. After all, when you are watching a movie, you know it’s a movie. An alien spaceship has landed in Central Park, 18-wheelers are dissolving in front of your eyes, and none of it is going to affect you at all.

But what if it was real? What if you were in charge of the defense of your country and a spaceship lands? What do you know about it? Nothing, probably, except that the owners of the spaceship have vastly superior technology than you do. Are they friendly? You don’t know. Maybe striking at them immediately is your one chance to save your country, your species, your planet, etc., etc.

We know that neither Keanu Reeves nor Jeff Bridges is really going to hurt us. But reality doesn’t come equipped with alien movie stars.

I think what bothered me more than the violent response – in Starman and The Day the Earth Stood Still – is the lack of reasoned discussion. It was as if government officials were, as a group, incapable of hearing an opposing point of view, incapable of questioning their own judgment. That’s the worst place to be, as even we moviegoers have, in the recent past, every reason to know.

I'll continue thinking about this topic, and I'm certainly going to be more aware, as I watch any sci-fi film from now on, of its point of view re the government and the military. We shall see . . .

Starbuck and Cylons

As usual - what with having the cheapest cable TV package possible, the one they don't tell you about and you have to ask for specifically - we didn't see this series when it started its run on the Sci-fi channel, in 2003. So we've been renting one season after another from Netflix.

(I'm talking about the 're-imagined' Battlestar Galactica, by the way - not the original 1978 TV series, which I can vaguely remember watching on an old black and white set.)

Reviewers on amazon seem to be split about the re-imagined 'Battlestar'. A minority are outraged that the original series - apparently bright and positive and full of manly men and good morals - was tampered with to make the much darker and difficult 2003 version. The majority love the new stuff, and consider the older version to be, you know, so last century.

Apparently one of the causes of outrage was changing our rules-breaking, kickass hero Starbuck - into a woman. I have to question if the people complaining about this have actually seen the new series, since Katee Sackhoff - who plays Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace - is the compleat rules-breaking, kickass heroine. She is of course an attractive woman, but I love that they don't try to make her gussied-up and pretty like a fashion model.

So I'm going with the majority on this one. I wonder if seeing the series in compressed time - sometimes two or three episodes a night, with no commercial breaks - might have a different impact on viewers than the original idea of once a week. At any rate, I've been hooked from the first 5 minutes.

We have Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell - two actors of a certain age, both of them wonderful - playing Commander Adama of the Galactica and the President of the Colonies, respectively (the 40 or so people ahead of McDonnell's character in the line of succession all having been killed in the main Cylon attack). We have Michael Hogan as Saul Tigh (the eXO with a drinking problem and a wife with a very interesting history). And we have a group of younger characters, including the rather remarkable Cylon 'Six.'

One of the great additions to the re-imagined series is the idea that some Cylons are 'skin-jobs' - that is, they look and can act exactly like humans. This leads to consequences, which are just now - in the last weeks of the last season of the series - being played out.

Now if I can only figure out how to get a hold of the final episodes . . .