Holiday

If only. I know I've been a little quite on the blogging front lately, and for that I apologise. I am working on reviews for Triangle and Zombieland, as well as a piece on Star Trek novels.

However... November is almost upon us and I have decided to take the plunge and take part ion this years NaNoWriMo - which for those of you not au fait with it is an attempt by a great many people to write a novel of at least 50000 words in a month, essentially from the 1st November to the 30th. Insane, perhaps, but it only boils down to a minimum of 1667 words a day, which, if I'm properly motivated, is about an hour and a half's work for me, and I'm on holiday for the last week in November, so hopefully if I have fallen behind by then I can catch up.

So what am I writing? Well, I toyed with a great many ideas, even going so far as to consider Bridge End, and a post apocalyptic novel structurally based on American Idiot by Green Day. But in the end, after thinking how cool it would be to write a Star Trek novel, I have gone for finally writing Leviathan, the first (although not chronologically) tale in the Richard Swan saga. It's not the most complicated novel, but I do know the universe already, which helps when writing sf. So, I may be insane, but I have to give this a go.

All of which is a very roundabout way of saying that if I don't pop up here with any great frequency, it's because I'm plugging away at my novel. I'll keep you apprised of my progress, if you're interested :)

Peace out.

Pandorum

A long time ago (thirty years to be precise) when the universe was less than half its present size, ITV was on strike so Doctor Who was managing to get ratings near twenty million and disco was all the rage, there came two films which - however directly or indirectly, would come to shape who I became, despite the fact I would not be born for another two years. The first of these, was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was made partially as a result to Star Wars and in many ways, paved the way for big budget SF on the big screen, ultimately proving there was still an audience for Star Trek and thusly, paving the way for Star Trek: The Next Generation and the 90's TV SF boom that followed. Yes, we have The Motion Picture to blame for Time Trax. Anyone remember that little gem?

The second of these was the far more 'adult' (although I use that word in a certain context, realting to 'coarse' language and nudity and gooshy bits - the actual plot isn't really any more sophisticated than something you would see on Doctor Who. In fact, The Ark In Space, a story from that shows 1974/75 season bears a great many similarities to this film). I am of course talking about Ridley Scott's first masterpiece, Alien. Up until this point, most SF films were aimed at kids and socially awkward teenagers. But with Alien, a film which merged an SF film with a horror movie, people started to understand that there was an audience out there for adult SF. Of course, it was not exactly a new thing, the B movie culture of the fifties and sixties birthed a great many 'creature features' like The Blob and Them! and The Thing From Another World but Ridley Scott's film took upon the post-Star Wars world and grabbed it by the collar. And then bit its head off. And we're still feeling the aftershocks today. While James Cameron's sequel took the franchise in an entirely new direction (one from which it arguably never recovered - witness the slew of merchandise, including tie in novels and comics which use the Aliens tag, symbolising their allegiance to Cameron's admittedly brilliant sequel), David Fincher's third entry tried to take the franchise back to where it came from and remains one of the greatest and most interesting misfires in cinematic history (see also Blade Runner's original cut and Orson Welles' butchered potential masterwork The Magnificent Ambersons) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's fourth film essentially represented a mixtape of the previous three films with particular emphasis on the second and the two Alien Versus Predator movies are, respectively, a fun monster movie and possibly the worst movie ever made. But Alien still remains influential today, perhaps due to its timelessness (even the effects stand up well now) and the fact that many of the writers and directors working now were of 'that age' when they first saw it. It's the same principle which saw a slew of Spielberg imitators come out of the woodwork in the decade or so following his success with Jaws and Close Encounters.

The most recent evidence of Alien has been Pandorum, a film by German director Christian Alvart, starring the mighty Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, furthering his career as quirky character actor when he could have so easily gone down the romcom/twentysomething route following Kirsten Dunst vehicle Get Over It and Twilight eye candy Cam Gigandet. Eye candy for girls that is, not the boys. But then, isn't everything about Twilight aimed at girls? It's essentially Mills & Boon.

And, given that Paul WS Anderson is listed as a producer in the credits, it's a surprisingly good film. It's certainly much better than the last major Alien spawn, Anderson's own Event Horizon, which has some spectacular set design going for it and little else.

It begins with Ben Foster's character, Bower, waking up from cryogenic sleep, amnesiac and very disorientated. It quickly becomes clear that something has gone wrong and with the help of his commanding officer, played by the effortlessly commanding Dennis Quaid, he sets off on a journey through the ship to disocver what has gone wrong. It soon becomes clear that he's been in suspension a lot long than the eight years he originally thought and a strange anaimalistic race have apparently taken over the ship and are preying on the crew. He meets the prerequisite female member of the cast and reluctantly, they join forces to try and restart the ship's engines.

To say any more about the plot would spoil it. Needless to say, this is one of those films that people should go to blind if possible (not literally blind, although it wouldn't make much difference as Pandorum is a very dark film, both in tone and lighting). The less information you have, the more you will enjoy yourself. If, like me, you spend a lot of time watching films that you know to have a twist (cue Robot Chicken: What a twist!) you'll try and work out what said twist is. I got halfway through The Sixth Sense before I'd done it (it was the fact that Bruce Willis doesn't move his chair when he sits down at dinner with his wife that gave it away). I didn't get the twist with Pandorum though. I was right in a way, but in others I was so completely off beam it was wonderful. It was a great feeling to be so completely wrong-footed by a movie, but to have it all make perfect sense in the end.

4/5

Deathray & Filmstar

Some sad news today, both titles published by Black Fish, Deathray and Filmstar, have ceased to be. It's a sad scenario where in the credit crunch good quality magazines struggle to survive (bet you a hundred dollars US that Heat never gets the heave-ho). It's a similar scenario to good quality TV shows that just never get the attention they deserve (c.f. Firefly, The Sarah Connor Chronicles) while dross like Andromeda go on forever seemingly.

Both Deathray and Filmstar tried to be a little bit different. Filmstar in particular filled in the void left by the demise of Neon and Hotdog. Matt Bielby, Guy Haley and all at Black Fish, I salute you, sirs. You'll be missed.

Farscape: Exodus From Genesis (Archive Feature - 2000)

There’s always a great deal of joy that comes from discovering a gem tucked away in the TV schedules. I was innocently channel hopping last August and came across ‘The Weakest Link’, which made me feel very proud. Of course, after your discovery of the programme there are two things that can happen. The first is what happened with ‘The Weakest Link’, it’s become absorbed into the subconscious almost. Or, the show can continue to be broadcast with little bravado in it’s usual (or different every week if it’s on ITV) slot. Most of the shows that continue like this are on BBC 2 and Channel 5. Well, it may just be because not very many people can get Channel 5 that they remain undiscovered, but that’s another matter entirely.

So it is to the intense shame of a dedicated listings hawk like myself that I completely missed Farscape passing over my radar. Not totally unnoticed I must stress, I’d seen the review in SFX (three stars) and that dodgy picture of Pilot and it wasn’t until a little way into the second season that I started watching it. And realised what a mistake I’d made. So, on my meagre student loan, I went out and bought the DVDs of Season 1.

Exodus From Genesis was originally the third episode broadcast, but in one of those peculiar things that happen to SF shows, it is now the fifth episode. But still, we have a lot of stuff about Crichton adjusting to his new environment, it’s as if he’s had a delayed reaction (well, he could have been suffering from shock I suppose) to his new surroundings and just realised it takes him ten minutes to open the door every morning and that he hasn’t brushed his teeth since that fateful morning when he took off in Farscape 1.

The plot, I must admit, is nothing to write home about. Since this episode is two seasons past, I’ll assume you’ve all seen it and aren’t worried about spoilers. If you are, avert your eyes now.

Moya has been invaded by the Drax, a small life-form that lives in the vacuum of space, but who need warmth to breed. So they take up residence in Moya and crank the heat up to aid their procreation. Unfortunately for Aeryn however, she is a Sebacean, and they are cold blooded and aren’t particularly good with heat, as it shuts down their nervous system irrevocably. John finds one of these Drax, looking quite like a particularly nasty bug, and kills it. Kills it so much in fact that goo starts to ooze from it. This, as far as the Drax are concerned is an act of war so they begin producing replicants of the crew, but it isn’t long before they use Zhaan as a megaphone and talk to them and they agree to a compromise. They lower the heat enough so that Aeryn doesn’t deteriorate any further and they get on with breeding. Then of course, as if the writer has just realised there’s another fifteen minutes of screen time to fill and that wasn’t a very good ending anyway, some of Crais’ Peacekeeper commandos board the ship, forcing John to increase the heat to stop them.

Unlike many first seasons, where it take the main characters an inordinate amount of episodes to settle down into their characters, here, everyone is pretty consistent. Aeryn, everybody’s favourite ex-fascist is still trying to keep herself emotionally detached from the crew. Over the course of the episode however, a bond starts to develop between her and Pilot (something that will grow over the next two seasons) and at the end, perhaps she realises that some attachments must be made in order for them to survive out here in the Uncharted Territories.

I’m not a scientist but I do know enough to spot a few scientific howlers in this episode. The main one is the fact that they replicants produced by the Drax are complete with clothes and in D’Argo’s case, a Qualta Blade. I know enough about cloning to know that if you take someone’s hair or a blood sample you get their DNA, not their clothes and weapons. So either there’s an infinite number of outfits and Qualta Blades on board Moya or the producers didn’t think they could get away with a naked crew walking around. It would have been a completely different show then, wouldn’t it?

The main problem I have with the episode is the Peacekeepers. They’re just a bog-standard bunch of Nazi stormtroopers. Fair enough, Crais initially seemed that way too, but then they allowed him to become this wonderfully complex character, while the commandos in this episode with their very odd eyeshadow (what is with that?) come in and shoot stuff. It makes for a very uneven episode.

All in all then, a good solid episode, nothing to jump up and down about, but a solid adventure  with some nice comedy (even Star Trek never really considered how they’ll brush their teeth in the future), and, for the third produced episode, a marvellous achievement, and one the producers look set to build and build upon. And any episode which has Aeryn having a cold shower has got my vote.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

For people of a certain age, Star Wars isn't just a movie trilogy; it's a way of life. And as much as we older fans piss and moan about the 'new ones' especially Jar Jar Binks, that trilogy has a great following as well. But I'm of the generation who grew up with the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia. One of my earliest lusty stirrings was probably about Carrie Fisher in that outfit.

Like the James Bond movies and the Kirk-era Trek features, Star Wars was a regular fixture of Bank Holiday TV. Or it seems like it. When the digitally remastered editions came out in 1994, I bought the first film on VHS (one of many times I would purchase the trilogy - I think I'm up to four now, mainly because I bought the Special Edition DVD's and refused to shell out again for the original editions) and I got it home and watched it and I couldn't remember it. Sure, I could remember Empire and Jedi. Even back then I knew them like the back of my hand, but the original film was completely new to me.

But we're here to talk about The Empire Strikes Back. Released in 1980, bolstered by the massive success of the original film, it's a bigger, bolder film that practically invented the cliche that sequels need to be 'darker'. It's also helped by its positioning as the second part of a trilogy. Like The Two Towers (also incidentally my favourite Lord of the Rings movie) it is freed from the responsibility of set up and resolution. We already know the universe and the characters enough for the film to hit the ground running and with the climax occuring three years down the line (although allegedly not in the manner that Lucas originally envisioned) and it functions as the second of three acts beautifully.

The opening is a highpoint; the Hoth battle is unlike anything else posited in either trilogy and the AT-AT's are a uniquely Lucasian creation, the bastard sons of Japanese Mecha and his own twisted imagination. This is the man who, after all, invented a ship with the obviously ridiculous name 'Millennium Falcon' and made it the coolest thing in the universe. Like all good sequels, the Hoth opening offers a dramatic counterpoint to the opening of the first film on Tattooine; fire and ice (and the third installment flings it back again by returning to Tattooine) and then takes off into worlds unimagined. The first film is remarkably contained. We see Tattooine, the Death Star and (briefly) Yavin 4. There's no real sense of the universe outside of the frame beyond what the characters say (and there is some fantastic dialogue which paints the picture of galactic civilisation better than a hundred expensive model shots that Lucas could not afford on the restricted budget for the first film). But in Empire, the universe expands before our eyes and, unlike The Chronicles Of Riddick, which takes a film (in this case Pitch Black) and forges a universe so drastically divergent in feel and tone that it barely makes sense, it all seems to grow organically out of what has gone before.

The thing most people don't realise about the trilogy is that it's not really science fiction. It's not sci-fi either (the distinction being that sci-fi tends to be softer and more comic-booky, although describing something as comic-booky sounds like an insult and it's really not). It is in fact, despite all the spaceships and intergalactic intrigue, a pure fantasy. Like Iain M Banks' novel Against A Dark Background, it takes what are generic fantasy tropes and plays them out in an alien (literally in this case) setting. And it works perfectly. It might have seemed somewhat out of place had Lucas presented us with a human future, but by placing it 'a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away' (an almost as traditional opening to a fairy tale as 'once upon a time...') we accept the juxtaposition of fantasy onto sf because this isn't our future we're seeing. It's not even our past. (Supergirl will try something much similar a few years later, retconning the remains of Krypton into a lake in America, making Kara Zor-El a thematic sibling to Wonder Woman and the Lady in the Lake, while her cousin Kal-El gets a much more hard sf origin as the Ultimate American Immigrant - more on the Super-films later...).

So Darth Vader's revelation of Luke's parentage comes direct from the long and illustrious history of evil Kings having hidden offspring and is not just a hokey twist. It's one of those great cinematic moments, up there with "Rosebud!", to the point where it's surpassed its own origin and has become almost public domain.

Why is The Empire Strikes Back one of my favourite films? It's a difficult question to answer, living as long with the film as I have where critical judgement almost goes out of the window. In much the same way when it comes to the Roger Moore and Sean Connery Bond films, they have been part of my life for so long that critiquing them is almost like kicking a puppy. But it is a good film, it's certainly the best directed of anything in the Star Wars canon and it's the most human. Han Solo's "I know," in reply to Leia's declaration of love is so real that it still brings a lump to my throat. Han might be about to die but he's still trying to impress the girl he's so obviously head over heels in love with. It's this element of humanism that is almost completely lacking in the new trilogy (it only surfaces in Revenge Of The Sith, which takes many of its dramatic beats from Empire) and indeed, lacking in Jedi as well, which is more concerned with blowing things up than the lives of its heroes.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Khan - A Journey Through Memory

What follows is a slightly revised version of a review originally written for the Timelord website to celebrate the release of JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot.

“Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor.”

Okay. Here’s the thing. I grew up with what euphemistically has become known as ‘The Khan Trilogy’. The three films which compose it are as close as Star Trek ever got to serialisation before Deep Space Nine caught the ball. But, as with many things from my childhood, I can’t remember what order I first saw them in. Just like I can never recall if I was ever shocked by the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke’s father in The Empire Strikes Back, I can’t remember if I ever saw The Wrath Of Khan without the foreknowledge that by the time the credits rolled, Spock would be gone.

Of course, he’s not the Spock from the TV series. He, like the rest of the crew is a little older, wiser, more cynical and a little rougher round the edges than the crew we all remember from the TV series. But, it’s the middle of the eighties. The TV series is a foggy memory to most. It won’t get repeated until the early nineties when The Next Generation sparks a resurgence of interest and we have the glorious spectacle of Star Trek on BBC2 for three nights of the weeks at six o’clock. I don’t know who the hell these people are apart from from my association with the movies. He’s ‘Admiral’ Kirk to me, not ‘Captain’. This is my era; the Star Trek that I feel belongs to me, the one that tugs at my heartstrings in a primal manner. So forgive me if this slides out of the ‘review’ frame of mind and into a freefall appreciation of what it does.

It’s a film about death, ultimately. The Search For Spock, which follows (and which really points to the fact that if the unofficial trilogy has a designation it should be The Spock Trilogy, dealing as they do with the death, rebirth and re-education of Vulcan’s finest) is about life, but it bungles it badly. This is a film about pain and loss on both sides. Khan has lost his chance of building his own Empire as well as his wife. Kirk has lost his youth and his command. Over the course of the film, Scotty loses a nephew (and, if the novelisation counts as canon, Saavik loses a very close personal friend) in Peter Preston, the young engineer who dies in Khan’s sneak attack. But it’s not a film about grief; it’s a film about facing up to the inevitable.

We are introduced to Saavik (a wonderful Kirstie Alley, who would never be in anything like this good again) who Spock is grooming to replace him. Spock, ever the logical being, knows that his time, and the time of his crew, is over. Kirk has retired to a teaching post, Chekov has moved on to a new post as executive officer of the Reliant and, just to rub things in just that little bit more, Kirk’s son, David, turns up. 

The Kirk we meet at the beginning of the film is despondent and visibly depressed. It’s his birthday and he’s not happy. It’s never stated which birthday it is, but given Kirk’s unhappiness, it’s quite likely that it’s the big 50. He’s lost his way. It’s only when a training cruise goes disastrously wrong, thanks to Khan’s hijacking of the Reliant and a surprise attack which cripples the Enterprise, that Kirk finds his footing.

But let’s be honest here. The Wrath Of Khan is barely a Star Trek film. Like First Contact, which is essentially an action movie, Die Hard on a spaceship, The Wrath Of Khan is a naval war movie. The fact that the main characters wear Starfleet uniforms in completely coincidental. In spite of this, of perhaps even because of it, it embodies all the best ideals of Roddenberry’s universe – the optimism, the equality, damn it, even the humanism (although it is possibly worthwhile pointing out the fact that this is the most human-centric Trek movie, aside from Spock and Saavik, there aren’t any other aliens in the cast and Khan himself is the most human enemy, driven by the purest of human motives, revenge) - which is sometimes forgotten, especially in the sanitised universe of The Next Generation. This is a movie about the future which features a man vacuuming the carpet. It strips away everything about Star Trek that was superfluous and presents us with a submarine movie, akin to Balance Of Terror, one of the classic episodes of the series, without becoming bogged down in techno babble. It’s a movie which anyone can enjoy, unlike The Search For Spock, which plays like a half-finished B-side to this film, replacing Khan’s vengeful Captain Ahab-esque quest with a comic-book villain (and when I say that I mean in the worst possible manner; Kruge is like Bully Beef or Dennis the Menace – his performance is paper thin and his motivations obscure at best) and inverting Spock’s logic, wherein the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few to a platitude that I suppose is meant to ring true as ‘human’ (as opposed to Vulcan) but which reverberates hollowly so that, somehow, in Kirk’s eyes, killing a whole bunch of Klingons, getting his son killed, blowing the Enterprise to hell and throwing his career – and the careers of his trusted friends – away is  a worthwhile sacrifice to make to get Spock back. 

It is not only disrespectful to the nature of Spock’s death, in which he subjects himself to a fatal dose of radiation to get the Enterprise’s warp engines functioning in order to escape the shockwave of the Genesis device, but brings an unwanted level of what Han Solo referred to as ‘hokey religions’ to what was transpiring to be a hard science fiction space opera.

What all this means I have no idea. The above is just a random grab bag of thoughts and stream of consciousness concerning a film I love. And ultimately I suppose that’s what it’s all about. Love isn’t a rational emotion (I’m sure Spock would argue that no emotions are rational) but this film touches me in a way that I can barely even begin to articulate. Perhaps it’s the age at which I saw it (it’s true that very few films I’ve seen since allegedly becoming an adult have affected me in such a profound way), but there you have it. It’s my favourite Star Trek film It has been for as long as I can remember. It’s not like Star Wars, where I used to love Return Of The Jedi but after puberty I turned to The Empire Strikes Back. Despite the themes of age and the necessity for change, The Wrath Of Khan is essentially timeless.

“Let me show you something that will make you feel young as when the world was new.”