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— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
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hanks for the thorough and thoughtful review of the Literature of SF film series now available on DVDs (and your earlier review of Eric [Solstein's] John Campbell DVD, which Eric developed around my "Lunch with John Campbell" film that was the 11th film in the series). I'm glad these are still appreciated and available once more.
You are right: I approached the project in 1968 as a way of recording some of the greats talking about the areas of their greatness while they were still available (and many of them agreed to do it, and for a nominal fee). There were many others I would have liked to film (Heinlein, Bradbury, Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore and dozens more) that time, resources, or their own reluctance made impossible. I originally planned a 20-film series (and might have gone on from there), but the director of Extramural Independent Studies, whose vision financed the series, moved on to another position, Continuing Education dropped its film-rental service and the entire editing process got too labor intensive. I had filmed other materials, including an interview with George Pal and another with Rod Serling that we never finished because of the crying need for film clips that we could never acquire, and a completed film with Ted Sturgeon—a first-rate piece about a writer whose talent has never been equaled—that was filmed by a student in one of my summer Institutes, as her final project, that we couldn't get released for this use.
Eric Solstein's Web site www.thepossiblefuture.com seems not to be responding right now, but an e-mail inquirer informed me that he found them available on the Borderlands Web site.
Jim Gunn
jgunn@ukans.edu
Assistant Editor Brian Murphy notes:
For more information on the DVDs listed above, go to Eric Solstein's Digital Media Zone.
ny review of the marvelous Russian Ark probably should at least mention
that the real star of the movie is the Hermitage ... now a museum, once a palace and theatre. At least one scene makes that explicit, in which the real current director is found in (a physically impossible without time travel) conversation with the two previous directors, both of whom look exactly correct (although with a full beard, this is not exactly difficult).
All friends of the Hermitage will have something to disagree with in the visual choices being made, but those of us who remember her squalor in past decades can only rejoice at how beautifully she now crests the waves of time.
Alan Kornheiser
akornhisnospam@optonline.net
ohn Bollen ("Jihad Offers Easier Read Than Dune") should pay attention more before he writes something so many will read. His continuity problem is no problem whatsoever, as it is very clearly stated in the book that Vor Atreides father Agamemnon does trace his lineage back to the Agamemnon of Greek legend. How he knows this, I can't say, but Bollen should check his facts.
As far as the quality of the books go, I found The Butlerian Jihad to be good, the house books to be pitiful, and everything else Kevin J. Anderson has ever touched to be not worth the time it takes to write a review.
Benjamin Skott
bskott@intersett.com
his is in response to the new Dune prequels. I read The [Butlerian] Jihad the first week it came out and thought it was very thought provoking. The nit-picky person that I am started looking at the Dune timeline and its inconstancies ("Jihad Offers Easier Read Than Dune"). What I remember, at least, I think there is a line in the book about it, concerning the Atreides line going back to Agamemnon in Greece as well as Agamemnon the Titan machine. That was why he took the name Agamemnon because of his family history. I don't think Vorian was necessarily in that scene in the book. I think it was more in the background of when the Titans were made into Meks. It's also easy to miss.
I think that [the authors] have done fairly well at keeping the timelines intact and not creating conflicting info. I have always loved the Dune world and think it's great that we have someone who can give us more from that realm where I am already vested in the story and characters. Though, I really want Book 7!
Marilyn Burgess
burgesssabmcb@worldnet.att.net
he letter from Matthew Hawes ("New Galactica Isn't Family Fare") alerted me to the reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, which brought on the same queasy feeling as when I heard that Andromeda had been picked up for another series. Catching me on the ropes, Matthew went on to call for "a decent show that the whole family can watch." For a moment I thought I'd suffered a time slip.
TV shows are having a hard enough time contending with politically correct madness, and the writers/directors don't need people gleefully asking for more. It's like holding out a begging bowl for mediocrity! Matthew went on to say, "The new Galactica instead sends us a wrong message." Well, speaking purely for myself, I don't want to be sent any messages. Science fiction in the 21st century should not be Sesame Street in space! I want to be entertained, educated to a degree and intellectually stimulated by what I watch. The original Battlestar Galactica never managed the last two, but it was entertaining. Any new version, reimagined or not, must take the time between then and now into account. The whole world has changed, and we're not going back.
One of the best current shows is Odyssey 5. Because the characters evolve,
the story is involving, and everyone behaves like a real person. The swearing, violence and sex, when it occurs, is not at all gratuitous, it's genuine, and always within the boundaries of common decency. At least in the U.K. I understand that U.S. broadcast TV is the most protected in the "free" world. The last thing I want to see is a wholesome, mom, the flag and apple pie show, featuring cardboard characters who never get angry enough to swear, don't hurt themselves when they're violent and would not at any time entertain lewd thoughts. Shows like that belong on the Ashcroft Broadcasting Corporation, and viewers who favor them should be supplied with an a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil kit. As Roger Daltrey sang, "You know where to stick the cork."
Nathan Brazil
nathanbrazil@freeuk.com
midst all this rather shallow hoo-haa about Solaris' place in the SF "entertainment index," most people—viewers and commentators alike—seem to be ignoring, for no good reason, the current movie's awesome, and inimitable, mentor, the Andrei Tarkovski original of the same name. A lot is to be served just by juxtaposing the student with the master (for, despite the big and self-serving Hollywood ignore, they are that): It's evident
enough that the current Solaris is not a patch on the original—it is nothing more than a Hollywoodized version of Tarkovski's ethereal, if gloomy, take on Stanislaw Lem's transcendental novel. At least the Russian Tarkovski and Lem the Pole shared a cultural sensibility, a far European vision of mortality and mnemonics as being matters of epic bleakness and moral probity. Tarkovski's Solaris is a long, often fitful and entirely surreal take on the immanence of grief, the embedding of memory and personal experience outside the self and in the collective environment, the nature of forgiveness, the universe's abreaction to anthropocentrism, the reality of maya. ...
The Solaris of Lem and Tarkovski is science fiction only in the clothes it wears to present itself to the public. Inside, its preoccupations are both intensely personal and epic and best seen with eyes unglazed with SFX and smart sets and pyrogimmickry. This is not to say that the current Solaris has much of them, but it is, nevertheless, a Hollywoodization of a vastly different and more evolved aesthetic sensibility. And that, as past experience shows, is never a good thing. Furthermore, isn't there a hallowed SF tradition of acknowledging thematic and intellectual debts? Or maybe I'm just being old-fashioned: Any critique of The Lord of the Rings and The Two Towers can't but hark back to Tolkien—but does anyone care to recall Ralph Bakshi?
Kajal Basu
kajalbasu@yahoo.com
n your Science Fiction Weekly article, the Cool Stuff section on the re-release of the Micronauts—unless the "history" has been changed on them, Acroyear was not the enemy of the Micronauts. His brother Prince Shaitan was against them, but Acroyear was one of their main supporters.
Just passing on a comment from an old time fan.
Dave Clark
darkwingdave@attbi.com
Reviewer Sean Huxter responds:
You may be confusing the toys with the comic books. The Marvel comic books indeed had this particular renegade Acroyear as a supporter of the Micronauts, but my review is of the toys, not the comics. Though I loved the comics when I was younger, I have not read the entire series for quite some time. I do have some back issues, and yes, the renegade Acroyear is not an enemy of the Micronauts. In issue #12, Baron Karza has been overthrown and the Acroyear Warriors are no longer under his rule.
However, I was not reviewing the comic books. I was reviewing the toy line. Marvel took some license with the original concept.
This is from the back of the Palisades packaging:
This mechanical villain was one of the earliest and most popular of the Micronauts. His heavy die-cast body, brightly colored chrome and imposing fan-wings has made him a collector favorite for decades. The thoughts of this "Enemy of the Micronauts" are obscured behind his knight-like helmet, but his sword makes his threat to the Microverse sharply apparent.
I've done quite a bit of research, and it is quite clear that Acroyear was originally the enemy of the Micronauts, even if the comic book did not portray the renegade Acroyear that way.
Best,
Sean
hile not surprised, I was gravely disappointed at the news bite in the column of Issue 298 regarding the most famous science-fiction characters of all time ("Top SF Characters Ranked"). While speculative fiction in the pop genre has utterly blurred any distinction between science and fantasy, that aspect was secondary. What bothers me most is that not a single character listed was from literature, but from TV pop and film adaptation. For actual science-fiction characters, how about Lazarus Long, a.k.a. Woodrow Wilson Smith, or Valentine Michael Smith (heh heh, no actual relation) both Robert Heinlein characters, or Slippery Jim DeGriz, a.k.a. the Stainless Steel Rat, one of Harry Harrison's? For more recent characters, how about Miles Vorkosigan? If films are de rigeur, why not Paul Atreides of Dune, at least using actual sci-fi characters rather than calling fantasy science fiction. I am appalled that the same tropes of sword and sorcery, and the Very
Important Quest are being marketed as science fiction while stories based at least on reasonable speculation of present day technology are relegated to the cutout racks. If Buffy is science fiction, then I am the Queen of France.
Oh, well, I guess the pulp publishers knew it best. They put absurd but sexy, scantily clad women being ravished by even more absurd aliens on the covers of their magazines, and those of us who were then treated to the likes of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Cordwainer Smith were merely lucky. Same with SFX and their awards. Lowest common denominator wins. Kids can't
read or do arithmetic but they are the arbiters of science fiction. Yikes.
Robert Volk
bobnros@juno.com
n response to the letter written by John Darnell entitled "SFX's Fave List Lacks Character"—I read your letter to Science Fiction Weekly. I agree with your assessment. But I was wondering:
Is it elitist to denigrate a publication and its readers for lacking depth of experience? Are we becoming sci-fi snobs by criticizing the so-called teenyboppers and publications that they are interested in? After all, when we were but youths ourselves how vast was our realm of experience? Were we not just as naive and unsophisticated?
Perhaps a more constructive tact would have been to make your point about the names missing from the list and encourage SFX to conduct a more thorough poll. We must encourage the people who are coming up behind us learning about the classic characters and created universes that seem so familiar to us. If they like some science fiction they may explore the genre more thoroughly and discover the rich literary and film heritage that existed before they did. But if we look down our noses at them and scoff their affections we will succeed in closing some of the minds who wouldn't want to have anything to do with a community of people who are so full of themselves, thus giving them cause to turn
their attentions to something else that will give them pleasure but never challenge them to think as deeply or question as boldly as science fiction would.
I just get so disappointed to see other science fiction fans maligning those who either disagree or enjoy that which we as a community have deemed "shallow." It is a blight to our whole.
Janessa Moore
trynity7@bellsouth.net
his is in regards to the "Top SF Characters Ranked" news bit, posted in the Jan. 6, 2003 edition of Science Fiction Weekly:
Was there an age limit on this poll? Was everyone over the age of 25 specifically asked to not participate? Was the poll restricted simply to the big and little screens, without mention of short stories, novels and novellas?
Any poll of the "Top 10 greatest SF characters" that includes even one member of the Buffy cast—to say nothing of four members!—is completely
ridiculous. The only three off that list that I myself would consider to be even vaguely valid are Darth Vader, Han Solo and of course, The Doctor. Everyone else, even dear old Gandalf, is not a science-fiction character. And as stated above, characters from Buffy ought to not even be allowed, both because of their recent nature and because Buffy isn't SF either.
If we're going to talk real SF characters that belong in any "top" ranking, our short list ought to at least include A.C. Clarke's HAL computer, Verne's Capt. Nemo, Orson Scott Card's Ender Wiggin, Niven's Luis Wu, etc., etc.
Honestly, one could easily exhaust a Top 10 list before ever getting out of the Golden Age; and there have been countless other, great characters that have appeared since then. In print, on the screen, even in radio play or audio format. So perhaps it is impossible to create a truly definitive top list of SF characters, simply because the field is so vast and so deep.
But dear Lord, let's not kid ourselves: Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Shame on the SFX editors for not sending that poll data straight where it belongs: into the recycler.
Brad R. Torgersen
sub-odeon@attbi.com
igns has got to be the worst movie I have seen in 20 years! That movie really has nothing in it. It is perhaps the most boring production I have had the misfortune to see. To put it plainly: It is fragmented, incoherent and more like a bad dream than a movie. I kept
hoping Mel Gibson or someone would wake up!
I like Mel Gibson movies, but this high-school play is ridiculous! Come on, people—you can do better than that!
Steve
testitagain2000@yahoo.com
t's bad! No, it's good! It's old and tired! No, it's fresher than ever! Has Star Trek had it or is it poised to lead science fiction boldly into the 21st century? Every week I see the argument continue ("Nemesis Needed Better Timing", "Star Trek Is a Failing Franchise" and "Nemesis Treks to Perfection").
I had planned to write a praise of the release of Babylon 5: The Entire First Season on DVD. However; it's time to take another shot at this
argument.
I have yet to see Nemesis. Unfortunately, I will likely have to wait until its release on DVD. This is side effect of having a family—some things are more important than movies and this may be a major factor in Nemesis doing as "poorly" as it has done. For those of you who missed the point, our economy is struggling through a recession and many people have to choose which movie they are going to spend their money on—if they can afford to see a movie at all! There have been almost too many major movies released over the past 10 weeks for most middle-income Americans to afford to see them all.
Also, in some areas, theaters are acquiring movies with "exclusivity" for certain areas. This may not be new, but in areas like the one I live in, this can result in the movie you want to see being 20 to 30 miles farther away than you really want to drive with a van full of kids who'd rather see Harry Potter than anything having to do with Star Trek.
As for Enterprise, I must disagree with a majority of people who are
writing about it. I think the show is gaining momentum and getting better with each episode. At least one person complained about the "Klingon" episode earlier in the season and about how "dumb" they were for being warriors. Well, in case you didn't notice, these Klingons were from a freighter, and most Star Trek lore agrees that only the lowest and most inept of Klingons ended up on freighters and such. Therefore, this episode actually matched Trek lore.
Instead of watching Enterprise or Nemesis with your mind already made up that it's going to be awful, just try to relax (however hard that may be for you) and enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it anymore, switch out!
Me? I'm going to keep watching Enterprise.
Oh! And my Babylon 5 DVD's. ...
Keith Kitchen
BoyoKlaatu1@aol.com
liked Star Trek Nemesis. I would have liked it more if the writers didn't seem to be contriving to get the crew reunited in time for yet another adventure. Do they only have exciting adventures when they are all together?
The Star Trek universe is a fascinating place full of interesting characters (a fact that only the Deep Space Nine writers ever seemed to realize). It seems that the Trek writers feel that the only good Trek film is a full-blown, effects-laden, TV script with the original cast on hand. For Trek to succeed with the fans and the general non-Trek public, producers and writers need to step outside the TV box—to boldly go where other Trek films have never gone before, as it were.
Item 1: It's a big universe. There are interesting stories that don't necessarily involve the U.S.S. Enterprise having all the fun.
Item 2: Things change. People get promoted, move on, leave Starfleet, etc. It's entirely possible that Belana Torres, Geordi Laforge and Miles O'Brien meet at Sisko's in New Orleans to discuss engineering advances.
Item 3: Interesting stories need not involve a threat to Earth and civilization as we know it.
Item 4: Dear Trek writer—write the story first. Then see where familiar characters would fit in realistically. (Odo is not coming back and neither is Neelix). Make the story drive the characters not vice-versa.
OK. Now I'm ready for Star Trek XI.
Jim James
jimjames2001@hotmail.com
used to be an avid fan of the SCI FI Channel. Now I am ashamed to see it on my basic cable service.
The SCI FI Channel really should be made to change [their] name. If [they] are no longer interested in showing science fiction, then perhaps [they] should consider an honest renaming.
I was once looking forward to [the SCI FI Channel's] second Dune miniseries. The sad truth is, since I no longer have any reason to watch the SCI FI Channel, I will probably miss this miniseries. It is hard to see ads on a station that you are not tuning into.
At one point in time I thought that [SCI FI was] trying to attract educated women to [their] channel. I can see that [they] are no longer trying to do this. I am very sorry that [their] programming choices have forced me to tune [their] station out. I had such high hopes for a channel that called itself the science-fiction network.
It is likely that I will never watch another show on [the SCI FI Channel] again.
Barbara Krueger
kruegerb@cochise.edu
think I've finally figured out the purpose to all these lame "original" movies that the SCI FI Channel has been cranking out.
They're creating a whole new collection of movies to start up Mystery Science Theater 3000 again! It would instantly improve the viewing experience of movies like Dragon Fighter and Sabretooth having Tom Servo, Crow and Mike making their witty observations.
As for Dragon Fighter, I have a few pieces of advice—find some new locations! Wasn't the open sequence shot in the same cavern as Python 2? And I'm pretty sure we've seen that underground base before, either underwater or in space, or both. There we many continuity and technical
issues—just sloppy filmmaking.
And although Dean Cain does a good job of keeping the intensity up throughout the movie, the writing and acting for much of the rest of the cast was flat and cliche. Especially the final scene in the helicopter with Cain and the good doctor yucking it up and making date plans to go flying. Come on! At least 10 people are dead! That was pathetic. Still, it was much better than Sabretooth as I didn't feel the need to fast forward through it.
So when is MST3K coming back?
Tom
tloveman@earthlink.net
hough I'm more of a lurker then a participant when it comes to the letters page, I did have a couple of
comments in response to the letters section in Issue #297 ("Tower Structure Difficult to Accept" and "Jackson Destroys Tolkien's Tale").
[Warning: Spoilers follow.]
A comment was made that The Two Towers was a crashing bore lacking human drama ("Rings Sequel Was a Towering Bore"). This is after all a personal response to the film and as such the writer is certainly entitled to hold such an opinion. I personally tend to disagree. The interaction of Frodo, Sam and the terribly conflicted Smeagol made for a fascinating bit of drama. The ill-fated relationship of Aragorn and Eowyn was handled nicely. The battle scenes were extensive but not all that was happening and, after all, this was the War of the Ring. Matters which were covered briefly in the books require more extensive efforts in a movie. The Battle for Helms Deep conveyed the desperate situation faced by the Rohanese and their allies in a way that a short fight and rescue could not have managed.
I agree that some changes were less then inspired. I also thought Merry and Pippin should have looked a bit more scared. Taking Frodo to Osgiliath did seem a diversion and yet it set up Gollum's turn back to the dark side and emphasized the corrupting power of the ring very well, with even
Faramir the wise needing to see the danger he was in. Postponing the breaking of Saruman's staff and the encounter with Shelob eliminates the need to rehash these points in the third movie. I think we need to also remember that this is really the middle part of a nine or more hour movie not truly an independent film in its own right.
As for the elves playing no role in the War of the Ring, this is not correct. While only Legolas
represented them at Helms Deep, the elves were engaged in several major battles at the time. The
The Third Age signaled mens rise, with the War of The Ring being the last time that the Eldar Races
played a role in the matters of Middle-earth. The Fourth Age that follows will be the Age of Men. The addition of the elves to the battle merely emphasizes that men did not stand alone in resisting the forces of darkness.
Most successful film adaptations require changes to make them work. The books are not lessened by the changes in the films and the films need not be slavish adaptations of the books to be worthy. The
characters are much as they are in the books and the spirit of the story is still there. Enjoyment of
neither requires that the reader/viewer be illiterate or mentally challenged. I quote my Lady Friend whose statement was that she disliked battle scenes and was almost inevitably bored with them. She then said "I loved this one."
Craig G.
l10csg1@wpo.cso.niu.edu
uch of the "criticism" of Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers strikes me as premature, hyperbolic or invalid ("Rings Sequel Was a Towering Bore", "Tower Structure Difficult to Accept", "Jackson Destroys Tolkien's Tale", "Tolkien Was Betrayed by Jackson").
Case in point: the idea expressed in a recent letter that the elves played no part in the War of the Ring, or that the Elven brigade at Helm's Deep greatly altered the story. This view ignores the contribution of Legolas and Elrond's sons, Elladan and Elrohir; it also ignores Tolkien's appendix, in which he explains that Lorien and Mirkwood were under attack during the war, and that the war was carried out on several fronts (appendix B, page 1069). It appears that, for purposes of clarity, [Peter] Jackson won't cover those fronts in his film; to leave the elves out of the battles depicted thus would give an inaccurate rendering of an entire race in Tolkien's book. It's ironic that "literalists" who cry foul about alleged deviations from the text are so often guilty of the very charges they raise.
Robert Burg
robwbur@netscape.net
fter reading several letters lambasting Peter Jackson for betraying the Tolkien legacy ("Rings Sequel Was a Towering Bore", "Tower Structure Difficult to Accept", "Jackson Destroys Tolkien's Tale", "Tolkien Was Betrayed by Jackson"), I felt I had to weigh in with my insignificant opinion.
As someone who has read Tolkien and seen both movies, I ask, why are Tolkien readers convinced Peter Jackson has destroyed their beloved books? To suggest that people who enjoyed these movies either lack intelligence or have not read the books is ridiculous and smacks of the snobbishness. So you've read and memorized all three books and find that things got changed around or left out. What else is new? Name me one book that has been faithfully recreated by any movie? And ask yourself why anyone would want to do something like that in the first place?
I respectfully submit that Tolkien was no filmmaker and Peter Jackson is no novelist. What Tolkien did well, Peter Jackson cannot, and vice versa. As a filmmaker, I would think the most important task anyone could set themselves is to make a good movie that captures the spirit of the original work while
entertaining the audience.
Opinions may differ, but I found that Jackson captured the heart of the story magnificently. The danger, sacrifice, love, adventure, loss, pain, hope and of course, battles, are all there. To quibble over whether someone got taken to Gondor, or whether the elves belonged in Helms Deep is a waste of time. What would the movie have been like to sit through if the Ents arguments were presented the way they were in the book? I personally found myself cheering for both battle scenes. And best of all, everything that got left out or changed I can go back and read in the book. And isn't that the best thing a good movie can do? Encourage you to read the book?
I honestly believe that too many make the mistake of reading up on books just before they see the movie. You're setting yourself up for disappointment. If I haven't read a book before I see the movie, I will wait and enjoy the film before I read the book. After all, few movies are better than the books, but imagine the joy of discovering a better book because of a good movie.
The best thing any devoted reader can do is distance themselves from a work that is about to be portrayed in film. Do not go there expecting to see everything you read. The man has not been born that can reproduce the images and feelings millions of people had while reading one novel. The movie has not been invented that could hold all the events that happen in three books. Look instead for the heart of the story and judge the movie based on whether you find it or not.
To do anything else would be just unintelligent.
Rhonda S. Garcia
rgarcia@agostini-mktg.com
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