A Green Lantern

Earlier I saw some concept images for the upcoming (2011) Green Lantern movie and it got me thinking...

"Wouldn't this make a better science fiction movie than it would a super-hero movie?"

I know that people will argue that super-hero movies are science fiction movies. But that isn't true. Just the same way that there are horror movies that aren't science fiction. It can take place in space, it can defy physics, it can raise the dead or build a laser- but none of these things make it science fiction.

The problem is of course that Sci-Fi is both a genre and a topic. Because of this the distinction between what is science fiction and what is about an aspect of science fiction is sometimes difficult to tell. Stephen King has a book (Danse Macabre) all about how some movies, like Alien, might take place in space and have astro-miners and aliens but are inherently horror films. The astro-miners are the protagonists but the antagonist, the alien, is a monster. This is much the same way that Frankenstein (1931) is a horror or monster movie and not science fiction, even though it is full of text tubes and has a mad scientist. James Bond movies are full of lasers and space technology but it is pretty clear that these things are plot devices, MacGussins, furthering the plot but adding very little in terms of theme.

But that's what makes a movie science fiction. Theme rather than content is what makes it a genre. However, its common for the dichotomy in science fiction to be taken advantage of. Not jut works borrowing the look or style of science fiction but by the direct degeneration of genre based on its successes. As a prominent literary genre science fiction shares some themes with other genres, as they all do. But too often is a successful piece in this genre re-categorized as Literature, implying something about the nature of science fiction as a genre and the other books under that distinction. (But this, in itself, raises the issue of genres. There is a very strong argument against organizing art by genre. Non-stronger perhaps than walking through a book store and recognizing the complete incompetence of the aisles. Nevermind high and low art. Because Brave New World can be removed from 'Science Fiction' and put in it 'Literature' it should not be a surprise that Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man can be taken out of 'Literature' and put amongst the growing number of black romance novels that are beginning to define the 'African American Lit.' section. But it is a surprise.)

Science fiction is a very difficult to interpret type of story telling because it is a topic and a genre. But it shouldn't be this hard. the themes in science fiction, the true tropes of the genre, are abundant, giving, and clear. The morality, implications, intentions, behind these ideas and how they are used is what breathes life into true science fiction. Traveling through time or flying through space can mean more than just point A to point B. But often it doesn't, and that is why so much posing as science fiction sucks. And it really sucks.

If we are going to hold on to antiquated organizational means such as we have now than new distinctions need to be made. Maybe there is a difference between science fiction and sci-fi and maybe it is high and low. But even if there isn't, is it so much to ask that people at least start to think about it and make some better decisions.

There is a line in the sand. It the past few years I have only seen a handful of truly great and truly science fiction movies made. Moon, Sunshine, District 9. If movies like these want to compete than they need to avoid the Superhero Summers. I have pretty low hope for science fiction at the movies this year. I'd really hoped that the superhero trend would end and that movies like Avatar would start a new trend and like the 80s we could finally get some good science fiction back. But maybe next year or the year after that.

I don't really care about Green Lantern, at all. But, here is an opportunity, a real chance, to do something with the superhero movie as a type. Of all the comic book characters that have been offered the chance at film none of the big names has the clear option to be a science fiction movie more than Green Lantern. As far as a superhero story goes Green Lantern is soft science fiction bordering at times on fantasy. What more could they ask for? How much easier could it be to make this mainstream film science fiction and do it right- making it enjoyable but also provocative. Make a superhero movie sure, if you must, but make it explorative.


photo credit: io9

Cloned

In 1996 when members of the Roslin Institute in Scotland cloned the first mammal I was in the sixth grade. The cloned animal was a sheep and her name was Dolly. I can remember hearing this story on the radio the day it happened, as my parents were getting ready for work. Later that day at school, on the playground during recess myself and others who had heard about Dolly that day couldn’t help but to talk about it.

At the time what was interesting about Dolly wasn’t that she was the first cloned mammal; we kids had been talking about clones and cloning ourselves for years. Things like nuclear power and molecular transportation were old hat for us. Gene splicing and faster than light travel seemed tedious even. I myself had spent much of that year flying to school on the back of a resurrected pterodactyl, which wasn’t convenient but did serve as a reasonably interesting way of diluting an otherwise boring 7 a.m. car ride to school.

The reason why Dolly held our attention that day was that this was the first time we had heard adults talk about the science with as much interest as we had been doing all along. At last it seemed like the real world was beginning to catch up with our demands and expectations. Though we still had to brush our teeth the old fashioned way, and drive in cars to get from one place to the next, and eat our meals sitting down bite by bite, now, maybe, we are finally going to start getting genuine copies of ourselves, ready to do what we said when we said it.

“If I had a clone,” Brandon’s sister said, “I’d make it do everything for me I didn’t want to do.”
Brandon’s sister was older than me by a year or two, but I knew her brother and could usually count on her not sending me away or talking down to me when I stumbled into a conversation she was having. And she was always having conversations, and they were always her conversation so you had to be careful.

“You’d treat yourself like a servant?” I asked her.

As we had it worked out cloning was a way of duplicating another living thing. Maybe you would put the thing or person in one end of a machine and then a little while later, maybe minutes or maybe days, two of it came out the other side of the machine. We’d all been sent to the copy room before to make copies for our teachers and so we knew how a Xerox machine worked. Some of us had even made rudimentary attempts at the cloning process ourselves; pressing our hands and faces against the cold glass of the machine as the white heat of the light scanned and reflected against the contours of our aspects. We'd blindly stumble out of the copy room with the light of God the Creator still in our eyes and an elongated, gray skinned mutant of ourselves folded up and tucked away in the pocket of our corduroys.

“No,” she said, “I’d treat my CLONE like a servant. Or maybe a slave.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. For one, I was a white kid and she was black. Playground rules dictated that in the area of race relations and conversation discourse I was predetermined wrong and/or racist on any conversations concerning the names of skin colors and the usage of certain words, like ‘negro’ or ‘black.’ Also, Brandon’s sister was bigger than me, and kind of bully. I knew that if she was okay with bullying her clone than it’d mean much less to her to bully me. I had to be careful what I said to her.

“But if you don’t want to do something, what makes you think your clone of yourself is going to be any happier doing that same thing than you would be?” I asked Brandon’s sister.

“Listen, she’s my clone and she’ll do what I tell her.”

It was clear to me that Brandon’s sister had taken an entirely adult perspective on the situation. Or rather, that she had taken an entirely parental perspective on the situation. She was prepared to treat a clone of herself as she might treat a daughter: as her own property, endowed with thought and movement only because she had so willed it to be.
“And then, when I was done with it, when it got home from school for me or finished cleaning my room and taking out the trash,” she said, “I’d just kill it. And make another one the next day.”

“That seems wasteful,” I said. I could tell I was starting to reach that point where Brandon’s sister would no longer be able to tolerate my presence in her conversation, but I didn’t really mind, I was far more concerned with the fact that she was beginning to advocate not only the wasteful and lazy use and disposal of genetic materials (something I myself would not become comfortable with until much later in puberty) but that she was also beginning to fantasize about third-person, singularly neutral homicide. “What would you do with the bodies?”

“I’d dig a hole.” Brandon’s sister said. “Wait, no, I’d make it dig the hole and then I’d kill it.”
Years later I would remember Brandon’s sister saying that when I read Elie Wiesel. I have to consider myself lucky that what Brandon’s sister said resounded with me as an empty and hypothetical threat, entirely unlike Wiesel's own experience.
Our conversation was degrading from innocent daydreaming. As Brandon’s sister continued she stopped using the pronouns "she" and "her" to refer to her imagined clone and instead relied completely on the title “It,” which she had given her clone, her slave and her victim.

By this time other people had begun to interject there own ideas into our conversation. Max, who was a beast of a child and who's own clone I was positive would resemble a homunculus even more than he did, had his own ideas on the matter which rivaled Brandon’s sister’s in insensitivity if not entirely in cruelty.

"It would be wasteful to kill them everyday," Max said. "It would be a lot easier to just train one and pay very close attention to it. That way you could keep it for a long time and only have to kill it if you caught it stealing stuff, or touching your things or getting too smart."

"Or you could beat it like a dog," someone else suggested. "That's what we had to do with our dog. It kept yelping at my little brother so my dad threw his shoe at it. He told us if it ever did that to do the same thing."

A few older kids had more debauched notions of their clones. A boy from one of the advanced biology classes, I think his name was Eddie, suggested changing one of his clone's Y-chromosomes to an X in order to make it a girl. This had to be explained to the group. Smirks grimaces passed over everyone’s faces to think of Eddie like this.

I didn't understand it; some of the kids were okay with the idea of beating and killing clones but were repulsed by the insinuation of developing incestuous relationships with them. Eddie had only one eye; the other had been removed when he was just a baby. It seemed to me that a better use of an Eddie clone would be to supply a replacement eye for Eddie. I considered that even that type of harvesting and transplantation of a clone’s body was self-aggrandizing. This, coupled with the fact that I had already embarrassed myself and Eddie earlier that year when I’d asked him to take out his glass eye and show me the inside of his head was enough to make me keep my mouth shut.

Anyways, Eddie didn’t want a new eye. What he wanted was a girlfriend, or at least something like one. Too bad it would also be something like him. I tried not to think of Eddie in this way but I could not help to. I could not help but envision Eddie as I am sure everyone had. But, unlike everyone else, when I imagined Eddie copulating with his female self the two Eddie’s passed back and forth a pink and squishy eye while they humped themselves.

The conversation we were having was at its base a conversation of ethics. Or, and maybe more correctly, it was a conversation about a lack of ethics. Though the language we used concerned the bioethics of cloning we were each of us talking about not how we would treat our clones but how we would treat others. Many of us were so selfish and fool hearted as to misunderstand that we were talking about how we would treat ourselves. The self-destruction that our conversation extolled upon was amazing to me. Hadn’t we heard it a million times before, play nice, be kind, and treat others, as you want them to treat you? This conversation was cruel because it could be. It was unchallenged and in being so it had turned against us. This was not the curiosity of the playground that prompts you to bury trash in the sandbox and call it a time capsule or draw dirty pictures in the back of your notebooks. No, this was the idiocy that caused people to be pushed off of swing sets and left out of kickball games. This was calling each other “gay” and teasing the smelly kid.
"That is disgusting," Brandon’s sister said. She had a damning look on her face as she tried to reclaim the conversation. "You're all a bunch of perverts" she said. The bell rang and everyone sprinted away in different directions but ending up, eventually, in the same place.

I began to trudge back into the school building. I was left thinking about everything that had been said by our collection of playground philosophers. It appalled me, being the moralist of the group. Never mind how we might treat our clones, if and when we ever met them. How were we going to treat our children, our parents our friends if this was the way we would treat ourselves?

When Dolly was only six years old her body showed degenerative symptoms of aging. Her life expectancy at birth had been 12 years but gene have their own age and the mammary gland materials which were used to create Dolly were already six years old they themselves had been placed within an egg and began mitosis. Her body had some catching up to do and it did in 2003. Dolly was euthanised by the men and woman who had helped to create her. When she died she was suffering from crippling arthritis and lung disease. She was twice as old as she had lived, a concept I wish we could have known about that day on the playground.

When Dolly died when I was in high school and I had far more important things to think about then her. New sciences interested me, like the aerodynamics of a Dodge Neon, the volume of its back seat and the long overworked hypothesis I had constructed concerning the female orgasm. This is because when Dolly did die I was also a clone and had been for many years, as are each of us of our younger selves. Although in memories I still share all of the same genetic makeup as my former self, in reality I know that I am not he.

"I want frogmen!"

I was recently knocking about with the WaybackMachine and stumbled across this perfectly acceptable quote on Michael Chabon's homepage-

"Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atomsmashers, and a girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws." -S.J. Perelman

 

Caprica

After months of waiting, Sci-Fi has finally decided it will pick up the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica. While, I doubt the show will be as amazing as BSG is, it's good to see the universe continuing.

Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to wait a while to see it.

Spore

Name: Spore
System: PC
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: EA
Release Date: 2008
Genre: Strategy

I don't play new video games often, which explains my obsession with the SNES and Sega Genesis... and also Zork. Frankly, they're just too expensive for a college kid to afford, I don't really have all that much time to play them and the newfangled graphics scare me (this is a lie). If you really want a fun tirade about how new video games suck, go talk to Paul. The truth is that he just sucks at them.

Anyway... despite all this, I decided that I needed to play Spore. I had been excited about it for ages. It was by the creator of Sim City, Sim City 2000, Sim Ant, SimCopter, The Sims, Sim- er... you get the point. Will Wright is a genius, or at least he created two games that were great, and while I never played too much of The Sims and always found the incessant release of expansion packs annoying, Sim City 2000 is amazing. I wasted days of my youth building Mattopolis, Mattland, Matt City, St. Matthewsburg and destroying Egypt Falls.

Spore was supposed to be the greatest video game ever... the most diverse, the most interesting, the most fun... it was supposed to have everything, be everything as it spanned evolution from one-celled organisms to space-traveling civilization. But you know what? It kinda sucks.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, it really is, and I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not a great game because there is so much missing. Playing it I just felt so much potential had gone to waste. Is that the games fault? Probably not... but it is Will Wright's for trying to create the ultimate game and failing. The trouble is inherent in its design, it was made to be so much bigger than it could ever hope to be. It's five games in one, which necessitates stripping down each one far too much. Of course, I'm still playing the Space stage, which is fun enough, and making creatures, which is great, but there is something missing, and it's not a little problem. Because of this, I have a hard time truly ranking it. While it was fun to play, I feel as if I would be better served playing a game of flOw, then a game of E.V.O, then some Age of Mythology, followed by a game of Civ II and then some Galactic Civilizations II back-to-back-to-back... we'll you get the idea. All these stages in Spore are fun, but so incomplete. Besides, it has a ridiculous DRM.

Cell Stage

A fun and simple stage that is basically a rip off of flOw, a game that's free to download online. Despite the fact that flOw is superior from a strictly gameplay standpoint, the fact that you decide the look and evolution of your creature is nice. My only real gripe with the stage is that you do not have actual control over your character, but point it in a direction and it heads that way. This control method works well in later stages, but not so great here. This stage could be much better if you could control your character like you can in fl0w, turning on a dime, speeding up and slowing down at will, being able to use your different attacks by button presses. It would also be nice if the creatures in this stage didn't basically all look identical... just a little more customization would be great. I'm not asking for as many options as the creature stage, just a few more so that this stage could warrant a replay now and again.

Creature Stage
A decent stage, but again the control holds things back some. I really believe that things would be better with direct control of your character and his combat actions. This would lend more to an action game feel. As it is, you run around either killing things (carnivore) or dancing and singing or other creatures (herbivore) in order to gain parts and evolve your creature. However, the real meat of this stage is creature evolution, which it excels at. There are so many parts to collect that you could literally spend days messing with your character, adding parts, removing others and deciding just what you like. Despite this, the creature creation menu is the only real draw here, and that can be accessed from the main panel and with all the options right away, instead of having to find parts. While longer than the cell stage, this is always a pretty quick affair.

Tribal Stage
This might be my second favorite stage of the game. While there is really not much to it, wiping out other tribes is fun. The resource gathering aspect is shallow, and while there is no technological progress to speak of, it is still a fun, but quick stage. The goal is to expand your village so that you can either conquer or ally with neighboring villages. In order to do this, you need a higher population, and to get a higher population you need more food. You gain food either by hunting, fishing or stealing from other tribes. You can build a few different buildings. Units are divided into classes, your chief, soldiers (spear throwers, archers, axemen), fishermen and musicians (maracas, didgeridoos, drums). Like the entire game, it would benefit from being longer and deeper. More weapons, more technological development, the ability to control more than one village... all these things would help greatly.

Civilization Stage
Yawn. Perhaps the most bare-bones stage in the game when compared to the games that it was based off of and without a doubt the easiest. You rush to get as many resources as you can before other civilizations pop up, then you mass build units and just swarm them. Victory was never in doubt, and while the other stages are not difficult by any means, this was insanely easy. Like the creature stage and the tribal stage before it, this stage is only an obstacle to get to Space. You can remain in these stages as long as you wish, but there is no point... These stages need to become longer and deeper, so that they stand on their own merits rather than something that needs to be beaten to get to the real game.

Space Stage
The best part of the game, but there is still a lot to be desired here. It almost seems as if the game has developed schizophrenia. Am I controlling a space empire or just a single space craft? Either would be fine with me... I would enjoy a nice space strategy game with fleets of ships and planets to administer or a game in the vein of Star Trek, traveling through space, exploring, fighting enemies and everything else. However, the game designers try to make you do both and cripple either option in the process. You are forced to build all your colonies yourself, but you can't build transport ships to trade spice and are forced to transport it for yourself. Yet, you have to buy goods from your own planets, and they charge more than anywhere else. You cannot even recharge your ship for free at your own colonies... the colonies that you built. Worst of all, despite the fact that you seemingly control this empire, you cannot build any other spacecraft than the one you already have. This forces you to fight wars against other species with many ships with just your one and a few allied ships which are easily destroyed. My other major issue is that your relations with other species seem completely independent of each other. Countless times I broke an alliance to attack a species and ccompletely wipe them out, yet this had no effect upon how other species felt about me. This is just completely illogical. It is also extremely annoying to be forced to buy colony packs one at a time rather than buying in bulk and seems to dissuade expansion, which makes little sense considering just how many stars are in the stage.


Despite all of these problems, all of the stages are a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun creating a creature and attacking other things in the Cell and Creature stages, wiping out other tribes in the Tribal and just steamrolling schmucks in Civilization, not to mention how amazing fun the space stage really is. Flying around and discovering planets, terraforming, changing planet's colors and landforms, abducting animals and other species... it is all great. I really enjoyed building a nice little Empire, even though 95% of my planets are superfluous. The interfaces are all elegant and the graphics are beautiful. The game is just so diverse, the planets so numerous, the aliens so weird and attacking the Grox does seem like it will be a challenge. Moreover, the wide array of creatures, buildings and vehicles you can create is mind boggling. Perhaps the best part about this creation aspect is that Spore connects online and automatically downloads the creations of others into your universe. I've never played a game that lets you create such a vibrant and unique world. While I would prefer a deeper game, I understand why they made it so easily accessible. Am I disappointed? Yeah, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying this game a whole helluva lot.

Score: 7/10

Advisory Committee

Seeing Caleb and I don't believe that most of our friends should be in charge of their own lives (yes, I just realize I've alienated our only audience), and seeing as President-Elect Obama will soon be putting together his Cabinet, I decided it would be great to put together a group of advisors for BSD, to show people just how it's done. We've tried to select individuals from across the political spectrum (good, evil and morally ambiguous), in an attempt to support multi-partisanship. These men, women and creatures will lead BSD into a new era of peace and prosperity, one of increased readership, more frequent posting and conquest. It shall be our moment in the sun!

Foreign Minister: Thufir Hawat

He is a mentat and thus amazing. With computer-like intelligence and unwavering loyalty, Hawat is perfect for almost any role. He is used to court intrigue and should be right at home in this position.

Minister of Defense: Admiral Ackbar

It's not hyperbole to say that Ackbar is one of the greateest military leaders ever to live. He overcame a lot of prejudice (being a squid-thing and all) to get where he is and has truly excelled in his position. Leading the Rebel Navy against the Empire with a million times the resources and winning? I'm not sure anyone has done more with less. Ackbar is a brilliant strategist and besides he has a cool chair. Also, no one is better at spotting traps.

Minister of Information: Lex Luthor

While, this may seem a controversial pick and somewhat at odds with BSD's own pro-Superman position, you cannot argue with the success that Luthor has had in his life. The man got himself elected President even though he was a super villain, and one time on Super Friends he convinced the country that Superman, Batman and crew were stealing priceless artifacts. He could sell swampland in Florida, ice to an Eskimo, condoms to... oh, hell, nevermind.... Anyway, he's a genius and his purple jumpsuit is simply kickass.

Minister of the Interior: Rick Deckard

In a future where robots are trying to kill us, Deckard will be irreplaceable. BSD is simply preparing for this inevitability. He has years of experience as a law enforcement officer, and iss always complaining about wanting to retire. A cushy government position should be perfect.

Minister of Finance: Smaug

This was a very hard decision to make, as I thought long and hard about giving this spot to Richie Rich. However, in the end I decided that I needed to put someone with more experience in this position. Sure, many blame him for losing all the gold to a bunch of Dwarves and a Hobbit, but it was hardly his fault. They had fate (not to mention a Wizard) on their side. Besides, he had that mountain of treasure for hundreds of years, not everything can last.

Minister of Education: Laura Roslin

Sure, this is a step down from her current position as President of the Twelve Colonies, but I can't imagine anyone better for this position. She even has experience in the office. I'm sure editing papers and such would be a bit mundane for her, but she could get a consulting in a few years.

Minister of Justice: Harvey Birdman

While not a good attorney, or superhero really, for that matter, he has a certain panache that you want in a position like this. Moreover, he has an amazing costume, can fly and has that cool crest on his head, all of which will be very helpful in a position such as this. And an eagle... that's important.

Minister of Health: Beverly Crusher

There was no one who I wished would take my temperature more as a child than Dr. Crusher, and for that alone I think she deserves the spot. She is extremely strong willed, and driven, but also very caring. Years experience as Chief Medical Officer aboard the Enterprise as well as a stint as Head of Starfleet Medical, are about all the experience anyone needs.

Minister of Culture: Mellvar

The wunderkind of the advisory committee and also the least qualified, Mellvar is best known for his run in with the Futurama crew in the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before". Despite that, his encyclopedic knowledge of culture (and by that I mean Star Trek) will be vital in this position.

Minister of Agriculture: Edward Scissorhands

This position isn't really all that important unless you're a farmer or really into plants, so I went for the guy who would best trim the hedges, not that BSD has any hedges. But, I'm sure he'd do a fine job mowing the lawn. Though, he is a bit unstable, I think he can get over that problem.

Minister of Transportation: Ringo Starr

I had been considering Megatron for this position for a while, but in the end it had to go to the most downtrodden Beatle. Noe one can deny that he always made the trains run on time as conductor at Shining Time Station. Besides that, he spent a lot of time on the Yellow Submarine and he ran a Magical Mystery Tour for a while. Oh, and he wrote Octopus' Garden... I'm not sure what that has to do with this, but he's really proud of that.

Battlestar Galactica in 47 Seconds

You probably already know that Matt and I are big Battlestar Galactica fans. It is quite simply an amazing show. However, if it does have one downfall it's that a show so expansive and character driven is often hard to follow. Instead of your usual episodic type episodes most shows are told through, BSG is more like watching a epic narrative (in the same line as Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy or Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings) one chapter at a time. Luckily though there are always people like Jim who are helpful enough to make sense of the muddle.

Fall TV Preview

The following are the TV shows I plan on watching this fall and the ones I wish were coming back sooner.


The Definites or the shows I'll definitely be watching every week asap

How I Met Your Mother, Monday 8:30, premieres 9/22 (CBS)
A sit-com that I ran into a couple years ago and have been watching ever since. It's a funny show and manages to avoid a lot of the obvious scenarios that sit-coms always bring up.

House, Tuesday 9:00, premieres 9/16 (FOX)
Everyone watches this show, but Hugh Laurie is just so great as House. The other characters are decent, and I enjoyed the shakeup in the cast last year. The biggest problem is that almost every episode follows the same format: weird disease, first treatment doesn't work, second treatment doesn't work, House finds some strange connection and figures out the problem. It gets old, but the show is definitely worth it for the interactions between characters and House's wit.

The Office, Thursday 9:00, premieres 9/25 (NBC)
Ah, what can I say about The Office. Hilarious, smart, quirky, no laugh track... it's just perfect. Definitely the show I'm looking forward to most.

30 Rock, 9:30, premieres 10/30 (NBC)
Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan at his funniest since he was dancing with meat in that one movie about the black presidential election. It's enough to say that in the first episode Tracy Morgan runs down a busy New York street in his underwear, swinging a lightsaber and yelling that he's a Jedi.

Californication, Sunday 10:00, premieres 9/28 (Showtime)
David Duchovny is a cross between Mulder and Caleb's dad in this drama about a writer who's lost his muse. Full of sex and classic Duchovny humor, the show is simply amazing.


The Probables, or the shows that I'll be watching every week sometime, probably

The Big Bang Theory, Monday 8:00, premieres 9/22 (CBS)
A hot girl moves in next door to two geeks. Sound awful? I thought so too, but the show really gets the dynamics right. The geeks have interesting and very distinct personalities and the hot girl is ditzy, but by no means brain dead. It works very well. The first few episodes were a little heavy on the laugh track, in my opinion, but by midseason they really hit their stide.

Chuck, Monday 8:00, premieres 9/29 (NBC)
From the guy who brought you The OC, Chuck is about some computer guy who becomes a secret agent. While not always having the cleverest of plots and being a bit over the top, it's a good show with very likable characters and good dialog.

My Name is Earl 8:00, premieres 9/25 (NBC)
Jason Lee. That's about all I need to say, but I guess I'll continue... Earl is a self-reformed criminal on a mission to pay back everyone he has wronged.

The Simpsons 8:00, premieres 9/28 (Fox)
It hurts me to put this in the probables, but I just haven't been in love with the last few seasons. Hell, I didn't even watch a new episode last year. It just seems to me that the situations have become way over the top. I miss the simpler plots that relied more on story-telling and character interactions than zaniness. But... it's still gold compared to most of the crap on TV.

Family Guy 9:00, premieres 9/28 (Fox)
I have such a love/hate relationship with this show. At times it appeals to the lowest common denominator so much that it drives me insane. They drive jokes into the ground until I want to pull my hair out, yet they always seem to redeem themselves with a clever, off-beat, dorky joke that is just hilarious.

The Newcomers or shows I have yet to see, but which look interesting

Sanctuary, Friday 9:00, premieres 10/3 (Sci-Fi)
Originally airing (is that the right word?) as webisodes, it follows a doctor who investigates monsters and such. I don't really know much more about it, but I'm in. Though, it's no substitute for Battlestar Galactica.

Fringe, Tuesday 9;00, premiere aired 9/9 (Fox)
A cross between The X-Files and The Twilight Zone? I'll give it a try, especially because the people bringing it to us are pretty decent. I really have no idea what it's about... there's a mad scientist and an FBI agent or something.


The No-Shows or shows that will be airing after the new year

Scrubs (ABC)
Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. The long running medical comedy leaves NBC for ABC in what will be it's eighth season. While the show has gotten just a bit stale, I still enjoy it a lot for it's characters, music and yes... even those annoying lessons at the end of every episode.

Lost (ABC)
Oh god... where do I begin? If you haven't seen this show before, don't bother. Start for the beginning if you want to be confused, but jumping in during a random episode is a very bad idea. Sure, it's annoying how badly they string you along in classic drama fashion... but it's an insanely popular sci-fi show on a major network and it really is good. The ensemble cast is great and it does make a lot more sense than most people think. You just have to pay attention.

Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi)
It's finally come to this... after a mini-series, three and a half seasons, a straight to DVD movie (which was very good) and numerous webisodes, Battlestar is finally coming to an end. Because of the writer's strike, only the first half of season four was aired last spring, leaving the rest of the season for 2009. It's been a long journey since I first watched the mini-series back when it was uncertain if there even would be a series. One of the best shows on TV, and while I'm sad it's going, I'm glad they are going to end it how they wish without dragging it on.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

First came An Inconvenient Truth, then came Wall-E, next comes Klaatu. Slowly, the ought decade of cinema is becoming more and more ecocentric and ecofriendly. And, I can only hope that the remake of the wonderful 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a continuation in this positive trend. Because I can see no other forgivable reason for creating such a remake as the two films, as of yet to me, do not look very much alike.

Some movies should never be remade- like To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) or in another way the original Star Wars (1977), to do so would degrade this countries cultural history. As the Library of Congress says with the United States National Film Registry some films are preserved because they are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Some things just shouldn't be fumbled with. And, even though there is a vast number of people who will never take the time or have the pleasure of viewing 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still that does not mean that anyone should go along and deliver a fresh new copy of it to the uninterested and unselfeducated masses.

Some things you just don't mess with. Now, I'll argue back and forth that John Carpenter's The Thing may in fact be superior to its 1951 original The Thing from Another World, and I'll hold out on the latter if only because of its classic suspense and how dated it may appear by today's standards. But, no matter how dated The Day the Earth Stood Still may be I still can't see much excuse for making a classic like it anew. ... Though, if anyone were to ever play Klaatu again I think Keanu Reeves is as alien enough as a human being can be and still be able to do it well.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951):


The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008):


I'll see this movie. And I'll even hope it's good, but I'll never consider it to be The Day the Earth Stood Still, of fully forgive its producers (no matter how good it is) for deciding to make it, even when I'm buying the Gort toy which I'm sure they'll make (and sure I'll buy) though I really wish they won't.

Maybe someday I'll review the original in the sappy as hell sentimental way we here seem to like to do.

CML

The Call of the Tentacle

It is no news to you dear reader that Matt and I think of ourselves as experts of some sorts on quit a few odd little things. And why shouldn’t we? One such subject that has recently become chief among our areas of expertise is that of ‘tentacle rape.’ We may not be well versed or particularly well experienced in ‘TR’ but it can not be denied that we, as a team, are more familiar and versed in the ins and outs of the act than any of you may be (however, if you would like to argue this point Matt and I would be more than eager to take it up with you).

It was in the spirit of ‘TR’ that I decided indulge myself in the work of an author I had long ago abandoned any consideration of ever reading: Mr. H. P. Lovecraft.

I will admit that I had many preconceived notions about Lovecraft’s work; I did not hold any of it in high opinion. Now though, after suffering through the insufferable, I see how right I always was. However, while all of my feelings about Lovecraft and Lovecraftian writing have been affirmed by reading a choice few of his short stories I’ve also gained some insight into the madness of (and attraction to) this prolific writer.

If you’re not familier with H. P. Lovcraft maybe I should fill you in a little bit and explain just how a thing like tentacle rape led me to him. Lovecraft can easily be described as a failed writer of what, in its time, was know simply as “weird fiction.” His works wove together elements of horror and science into a stories of troubled individuals dealing with cosmic terrors, daemons that were other worldly and personal insanities. Many of his short stories were originally published in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales where he gathered a small following of readers… In other words: ‘fail.’ It seems though that after his death in 1937 absurdity was not to be the final resting place for Lovecraftian canon. ("That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.") And then the internet happened and with it came the heyday of the meme. And things were good for the Lovecraft mythos. The internet offered to Lovecraft readers and fan writers the same thing it offered to every other fat middle aged man-child living in his parent back room, a place to met with other like himself to complain and praise anything and everything, from Mr. Plow, to Lovecrafts flagship creation, the monstrous god of mind sick legends- Cthulhu. Also, there was porn, loads of porn, and in these dregs of degradation poor men would stumble across the darkest thing the internet harbored within itself, a dangerous entity as remote and primal as any of Lovecraft’s creations…tentacle rape.

If you haven’t seen the connection yet here it comes. Lovecraft developed the Cthulhu mythos, a series of stories that dealt with a group of ancient monsters who would one day reappear to enslave the universe. Cthulhu, the heist deities among Lovecrafts pantheon of daemons, was an enormous, winged, taloned, mollusk encrusted, tentacled beast. A, if I may, tentacle monster.

"I'm going to rape your cheery ass"

But never mind all that. What’s far more interesting is the way in which these crazy ass stories read. Lovecraft writes with a care for language and detail which is near scientific. Many of the more thorough descriptions Lovecraft provides his reader with have a doctor’s attention to details, describing in full and sometimes over indulgent terms the situations and madness of what because of this elevated intellect of first person narration are characteristically bourgeois in their deepening states of insanity. Even so, the Lovecraft’s texts read as beautifully crafted and elegant stories…The problem is that words like “ooze” and “slime” sound very disconcerting when used by an author who before these failings has demonstrated an elevated command of the English language. Also, these types of descriptions are common and creep into the work very often. More over Lovecraft uses terms which are all together foreign to his reader and, for the most part, any reader. I can excuss this because in most circumstances it is done with the purpose of describing something which in the contect of the story is forign to the protagonist, like the sunken city of R’lyeh in Dagon and The Call of Cthulhu. For an author who is so well endowed with adjectives sing words like “ooze” sounds childish, even infantile, characterizing a setting as being “cyclopean” (admittedly Lovecraft also describes settings as being “non-euclidean” which is much helpful for the reader) is mysteriously lazy.

Much of Lovecraft’s writing seems to be in the form of journals and first person accounts of these weird and ominous happenings. The sense of narration and the use of language and detail is reminiscent of many gothic writers. In the end Lovecraft reads much like a hybrid, with touches of Poe’s dark and brooding Victorian style of language mixed with a type of story telling much like that of Arthur Conan Doyle’s. The man isn’t an incredibly bad writer, he’s actually a pretty alright (I’m hesitant to say good) writer, it’s just that, you see, he’s bat shit insane. What Lovecraft did for literature might not seem that big and important, and I’m sure someone else would have done it if he hadn’t but the point remains he was the first to do it. H. P. Lovecraft wrote prolifically, as many failed writers have been seen to do, he developed a cult following after death, also not uncommon. What he did do different from other writers like him (writers of horror, adventure, and science fiction) was reveal to the reader the insignificance of his protagonists in the greater scheme of things. Lovecraft’s characters are merely tools for larger stories, disposable unimportant human life that he used for perspective into an unknown threat of cosmic monstrosity.

I read Lovecraft because I knew that I could not in good conscience knock the man any longer with out sitting down and giving him a chance. It’s good to know you enemy I guess is what I was thinking. But it’s different then all that know. I’m glad I have a bit more insight into the fucked up stupid world of H. P. Lovercraft and his fucked up stupid followers. I mean shit, there are Cthulhu/Lovecraft “Scholars” out there who are unembarrassed to put that in their resumes. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be ashamed of themselves, because they should. But I’ll admit that if I had time to kill, and nothing better to read with more literary weight, I’d read some more of it. In the end is was kind of fun to read and grind my teeth through. Anyways, as I said, it isn’t completely horrible.

God this man is shit fuck ugly

Caleb Michael, literary critic

Independence Day

Happy Fourth, everyone. I hope you have a great weekend shooting off fireworks, grilling and being outside. Me? Well... I'm going to be working at the movies. Not that I really mind all that much. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has dreamed of freedom and put it ahead of the illusion of security.

Oh... and watch out for those Daleks.

Wall•E (review number 2)

As much as I had started this hoping to write a review of a clever kids film I find it now to be, just as the film itself, much more. This is than not a review but an in-depth reflection. Also, I’ll assume you’ve already read either Matt or Paul’s review or seen the film and forgo any plot synopsis. 

Wall-E is a special type of movie¬¬– it is science fiction for children. Not only that but Wall-E is sci fi in its purest state, reflecting on human society and condition from the outside; and this time through children’s eyes.

This movie stimulated in me what so much science fiction has overlooked: my heart. Lo, in little Wall-E all the short comings and pity I’d ever felt at the realization each time I watched Star Wars that R2-D2 and C3-PO were programmed AI machines were washed away and I saw a robot as human being and more. And that is the essence of appear for this film, a story which not only lights up neurons in the intellectual mind but touches and wrenches at the lover’s heart as well. A movie about love, love of life and love of freedom, from when Wall-E longingly looks from his isolation on earth at the wonderment and grandeur space to the realization of a few choice and lucky human souls that there is a world beyond their own egocentric existences. Wall-E and Eve, Mary and John, even the Captain and Mo, all took that first step away from their individual solitude and duty, and, like stepping out across the sea of tranquility, realizing that though they had never been told they could, there was a whole world beyond their track willingly opening itself to them. Most stunning to me about the character and action of the film was the purpose which Eve, the robot of Wall-E’s affection, ultimately serves and represents: she is the birth, or re-birth, of life on earth. Eve, like her namesake, is sent to earth to become the first mother, again, with the intention of finding and harboring the slightest sign of green life returning to the desolate surface of the planet. (Slight spoiler) I was dumb struck by this, both the implication and the incredible, yes I’ll say it, cuteness of the whole thing- Wall-E presents Eve with a plant, a plant she holds within her very ovarian looking body, a plant which means the future of all life on earth. Wow, now that is good story telling.

Wall-E has all the special touches a science fiction fan would like to see from Pixar. Just like the “Binford” tool box in Toy Story stood out to any self respecting Home Improvement fan, this film didn’t miss a chance to make homage to the classics of sci-fi films and literature. And the film is full of these little nods and notices as it mixes ideas from some of the greatest science fiction conceived with out allowing the knowledge or obviousness of the influences to feel pretentious. The story has elements of Huxley’s Brave New World and its Pavlovian conditioning. Bradbury’s conception of a age of humanity subject and witness only to video screens and cheap media as he wrote of in Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps less present in the story but still adds some eeriness of disconnect and inhumanity to the ambience of the films human race. I think Matt Bias said it best when he wrote “Dressed up in all these pretty colors is a dystopian world that would make Orwell proud.” It isn’t an Orwellian story, but it has an adversity to totalitarianism and concept of dystopia that any one can recognize and appreciate. Visually the movie is a stargazer and futurist’s dream. In no small way are 2001: A Space Odyssey’s influences on the film hidden, including not only the visual and character traits of Hal that appear in the film’s Auto-Pilot but also in the architecture and acoustic atmosphere of Wall-E. Both a knock at her role as the computer repeating crewmen in Galaxy Quest and a modest bow to her status as a living science fiction icon, Sigourney Weaver could be heard as the ships voice. Perhaps though what I found most impressive was to see that the animators had properly rendered the moon landing site as it sands today, something which even Futurama was unable to do and is an amazing example of the attention to detail and scientific accuracy under which the entire film was produced.
I must, as I’m so sure many have, breath a sigh of regret and sorrow for all those other movie patrons I saw that night buying tickets and walking blindly into canopies of darkness only to be met by some other story about someone who was not the little robot, Wall-E. It is in every respect a dazzling and binding film, out weighing any prior animations and I can only hope will someday stand among other science fiction films as a rare and unlikely classic; not a children’s toy rocket like Ewoks the movie but a fully realized and appreciated Saturn V titan of a film.

Sometime in our childhood we each sat down to a movie and had no idea that the seeds of a classic were about to be planted through our eyes and into our hearts and minds. Last night, I saw such a classic, and being fully realized to me I allowed myself to once again slip away to the land of my youth on magic carpets and rocket ships which embellished me with winds in my eyes and exhaust in my throat so strongly that tears were easily welled up in my eyes the whole night long. It is a wonder why anyone would like this film, it seems at first thought so alien, so far removed from anything recognizably emotional or human, but, as does all good science fiction, it is a retrospect through which we may see our true selves, both our inhumanity and our compassions.



Caleb Michael, go see Wall-E.

Movie Review: Wall-E

Title: Wall-E




Director: Andrew Stanton




Released: June 27, 2008




Runtime: 103 min.







Where Pixar found the cajones to make this movie I have no earthly clue, but they managed to conjure up the ghosts of Brave New World and 2001: A Space Odyssey and create an animated children’s movie the likes of which I have never seen, and truly doubt I will every witness again. Wall-E is, on the surface, a kid’s movie, but I’m hard pressed to fun much beyond the animation, the soft colors and cute robotic protagonist that is aimed at them. Oddly enough, this film is really for the very few adults who will actually give it the chance it deserves instead of snoozing while their kids stare at the wonderful animation.

Introducing the plot feels hallow to me after experiencing the spectacle first hand, but Wall-E is the story of the last robot running on earth, who spends his days building skyscrapers of compacted-trash. He does his job tirelessly and efficiently, but with a little lunch pail. He is a collector and a lover, who befriends the cockroaches because they are the only things left to befriend. Everything changes when he meets a girl (but then, doesn’t it always?) and fall heads over heels for her. From there the plot takes off until we meet Auto, who reminded me a lot of HAL, though not quite so disturbing of a character. For the rest, though, you’ll just have to go see it for yourselves.

From the opening shots of Earth, to the panning across the cityscape of some unnamed American city, we are given a view of the dusty-brown corpse of industrialization. Skyscrapers of trash jut into the air next to actual high-rises, a thick layer of age covering everything. With the interjection of Wall-E this landscape becomes a dichotomy of desolation and happiness. This will be repeated throughout the movie, but it really hits home here. Even in the worst places, the most barren and depressing wastelands there can be good, there can be happiness.

The amount of depth in the film is staggering, but what is more astounding is that it is woven so seamlessly and subtlety into the fabric of the story that it’s so easy to miss. Dressed up in all these pretty colors is a dystopian world that would make Orwell proud, for humanity has long ago polluted Earth beyond habitability and gone off to the stars for a sort of millennia-long cruise. There, they eat, sleep and let their entertainment rot their brains until they are less human than those pod-people from The Matrix. And stealing center stage from all of this is the idea that one little robot can be more human than any left alive. While the human cattle are being driven along by their robot servants, or would it be better to say masters, Wall-E is following his lonely heart with a self-sacrificing drive of a true hero.

Wall-E is the best movie I have seen in a long time, and it’s a shame to think that so many went to see Wanted instead of this masterpiece. Just go see it. A movie about a little junk collector robot managed to make me question what it truly means to be human. I am still sitting here, my head spinning, wondering how that is even possible. It is a disturbing look at the future if you really want to open your eyes and see, but above all else it is hopeful that humans and robots alike can progress if they are willing to sacrifice.

Rating: 5 stars

VIVA ADAMA

courtesy of Daniel Z.

Movie Reviews: Blade Runner

Title: Blade Runner



Director: Ridley Scott



Released: 1982



Runtime: 116 min.




Do Androids dream of electric sheep?

Maybe I'm not the best one here at BSD to tackle this one, but I've been on a sci-fi kick lately and this is the movie that began my summer of trying to watch science fiction movies. I'd already seen the movie, but my girlfriend hadn't, so we popped it into her DVD player (which strangely enough looks as if it was made by Fisher Price) and watched.

While I may not ever be able to forgive it completely for starting that damn cyberpunk fad, this movie stands completely on its own. Sure it's science fiction, but it's not Buck Rogers or Star Trek. I've always believed that at it's purest level, Sci-Fi is an amazing avenue for writing because it gives the writer a way to explore human nature without the reality of the future getting in the way. The reader or viewer can just sit back and truly think about themselves and their own society. I think, perhaps, that 1984 by George Orwell did this the best.


From this perspective, Blade Runner is a complete mindfuck. If you really watch, the view of humanity through a Replicant's eyes is not a pleasant thing. That is the true heart of the movie. These are human creations, human slaves and their actions are our responsibility. I could go off on metaphysical tangent about the rights of artificial sentient creatures, but I won't right now. I will sometime down the line, I'm sure, but I think that it's best that you watch this movie first.

Tyrell Corporation

Based on the novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick (which I haven't read, but Caleb has), Blade Runner is an exceptional film in every aspect. The basic plot outline is that humanity has created artificial intelligence that looks and behaves just like humans, or close enough. After a rebellion of these "Replicants", they are banned from Earth and special police officers "Blade Runners" are trained to find and kill any found on the planet. The protagonist, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) spends the movie seeking them out and trying to "retire" them. This journey reaches a crescendo on a roof top with one of the most moving soliloquies in any movie I have seen by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer).

One of the most striking aspects of the movie is the background. Set in the Los Angeles of 2019, the city is dark, polluted and awash in a neon glow that would make todays metropolises green with envy. Cars fly, the streets are teeming with people and the black market thrives. It is a beautiful picture of a city that feels real unlike many of the genre. Even the ziggurat of the Tyrell building seems real in this world, despite it's massive size and rather alien appearance.

All the actors playing Replicants do an admirable job, as does Edward James Olmos as a sort of sidekick/driver/adversary to Ford's Deckard. These characters all have life of their own, even down to the little black market eyeball salesman. It is charming in its own dark and gritty way, and will no doubt leave you with the impression that this world is as vibrant and real as our own.


Do Androids dream of electric sheep? I'd like to think they do...


Other Reviews

Tales From the Internets, volume 3

Well, classes are almost over for the summer and Caleb asked me to do another one of these crazy things. I don't really have a whole lot of interesting stuff to post, mostly because I forgot I was supposed to be collecting links and the like... so, if you could just pretend I have a lot more to post, I'd really appreciate it. More to come from BSD in the coming weeks.

Anyway, on with the links.

Download Firefox. Just do it... version 3 is coming out soon and you won't regret it, especially if you're still using Internet Explorer... and if you are, what's wrong with you?

I've never linked to a Livejournal before, but holy hell is this cool. BSD has a new project for the summer.

FreeRice is a website where you play a vocabulary game for charity. For every word you get right, twenty grains of rice are donated to the UN. It may not sound like a lot, but in three days, I've donated over 4,000 grains, not because I'm philanthropic, but because 1. I'm a nerd, 2. it's addicting, 3. I feel better procrastinating while helping others, or at least that's what I tell myself. I'm pretty sure Caleb and I are going to come to blows because of our scores soon.

I've been on a Sci-Fi kick lately, which, arguably happens a lot, but whatever... It started when Caleb showed me the movie Sunshine. It's a British movie that was released in 2007 and no one in the US saw it. It's excellent, reminds me sort of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but faster paced. But anyhow, go rent this movie... especially if you like science fiction, but just do it. It's good.

This made me sad, but it is a very good article. Focusing on the Star Wars element for a moment, this author brings up three great points... about the realism of CGI, the difficulty acting in front of a green screen and Lucas forgetting how to make great movies. I'm convinced. I never really thought about the lack of scorch marks, dings and the like on ships, but it does make them seem too ethereal. They just don't have the same presence. I still don't consider the Prequels horrible movies, but they can't hold a candle to the Original Trilogy, and I doubt I'll ever get over that fact. I suppose I could blather on about Star Wars for a while longer, but it's been done, and if I want to waste time I might as well dedicate a post to it. Anyway, the rest of the article is great, too.

Speaking of ships that look like they've been through hell, go watch Battlestar Galactica. Please... it's great, even if you don't know what the fuck is going on. Just rent the Mini-Series, you won't be disappointed. The last season is being split in two, there are eight more episodes in the first part which is airing right now and then there will be ten more in about a year. Just watch it, it's one of the greatest television shows I've ever seen.

Finally... if you've ever seen The Office... no, just... go look at this picture. Some nudity, but it's tasteful. I can now die happy.

I want to believe

A couple of months ago Biasman decided to get me all excited by lying to me about a new film, a sequel to the 1998 X-Files, X-Files 2.  I don't know why he said this.  I guess he's just  a mean hearted kind of guy.   Even the joking jab about another X-Files movie got me so excited that when I considered how unbelievable that FOX didn't cancel the series when it was on, and how unbelievable that there is a 1998 movie based on the series of course I didn't believe the news of the sequel.  I was heart broken.

Turns out Matt wasn't just having a go with me, for once he knew what he was talking about.  I still don't know if I believe it.  But there it is, and I want to believe it.  

Matt and I are both big X-Files fans, though for the most part we have contrasting opinions about the show.  None the less, we're excited.  So I wanted to take this opportunity to both wax a bit and talk about sci-fi news; because thats the kind of nerd I am.  

I got a bit of a head start on the X-Files compared to Biasman, but there is no doubt that Matt long ago surpassed me in knowledge about this show.  While Matt's been able to see what I can only guess is every episode thanks to DVDs, torrents, and FOX at two in the morning on saturdays I had much more difficulty reaching the show.  When I was younger my parents both watched the X-Files, and I did too... sort of, through closed eyes and gapping fingers.  I was scared shitless by nearly every episode, except any that went along with the main story arc or had anything to do with Aliens.  The reason I didn't find these very terrifying or interesting wasn't because they weren't any good but because not only was I just generally confused by the stories and regularly missed entire episodes but also because when you do watch a show through  tightly closed eyes anticipating the worse it's usually quite difficult to bring anything away a program after about an hour.

I think that's what I really loved about the show though, how for a whole hour I was sitting there, torturing myself, just waiting to be scared.  Why does everything that has ever terrified me in life have to be so damn interesting and intriguing?!  It's just like nearly everything else I've talked about on this blog- just like the draculas and the wolf men and the old Parisian man- I liked the feeling of being scared but I also wanted, desperately, to know what was waiting in the dark for me, even if it killed and ate me after I saw it at least I'd finally know!

The X-Files doesn't scare me any longer but it does get me excited.  Much the same way that when I was little the Goosebumps books and television show would excite and scare me, and truth be told the music from the TV program still does send a shiver down my spin.  I remember first getting my library card, I rushed over to the 'young adult' section, what ever that meant, and grabbed everyone of the R.L. Stine's  books that I could, as many as they'd allow me to take out.  I'd lay them all down on my bed and just look at them, stare at there covers, too scared at the age to read them even if I could have.  I did this every two weeks for nearly a year.

Anyways though, other exciting news about the new X-Files film is that Callum Keith Rennie is in it, that's right Leoben form Battle Star Galactica.  Which also reminds me, BSG is back for a fourth and final season having made it though the Writers Strike.  Don't the NBC CEOs kind of remind you of Cylons? ("I once put a laugh track on a sitcom that had no jokes in it" Side Note: Futurama is back on TV and has four all new extended episodes.)  I haven't gotten a chance to watch the latest episode of the show but I plan to soon.  If you haven't watched the re-imagined series of BSG before I highly recommend it, it's one of the best shows on television, has great political commentary, and is just a fraking good hour of hard sci-fi.  Click here to see what you've been missing.

Also Xzibit and Billy Connolly are going to be in the X-Files sequel.  But frankly I'm just glad that David Duchovny is working, wether it's X-Files, Californication or even another Connie and Carla, anything is good.  

Well, it should be a good summer for sci-fi fans.  If you've got any news leave it bellow of email us.  If you're interested in a good read for the summer try listening to Billy Joel for once and pick up Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. 

Happy Birthday again Matthew

Caleb, fan

Machines Are Out to Get Us

While surfing the web I came across this article from PC World. I hate to make light of this find, but I can't really help it. It just makes me think of the Futurama episode where all the robots rebel on Mother's Day.

Fry: Yeah, uh, I'd like a cup of coffee, please.
Coffee Machine [pleasant voice]: Would you like cream?
Fry: Yes, please.
Coffee Machine [crazy voice]: OUT OF CREAM!
Fry: Oh, uh... okay.
Coffee Machine [pleasant voice]: Would you like sugar in your coffee?
Fry: Yes, uh, eight spoons.
Coffee Machine [crazy voice]: OUT OF COFFEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Fry: Uh, Lila... I think there might be something wrong with the coffee machine.

The coffee machine then begins to spray Fry with coffee, yelling "how do you like me nooooooooow?! Hahahahaha!"

So great. Oh... and I guess maybe this printer particle thing might be serious or something like that. I'm just glad I have an inkjet...

Starship Captain

Sometimes I think I should’ve been born in a different era.

People always say that, people always crave change. For some reason, they want something new, something different. The grass is always greener on the other side, and probably dozens of other old sayings that don’t come to mind right at the moment. Sometimes, though, it does seem that it really is greener over there, or maybe it is just greener in fiction. Yeah…

Maybe I would’ve been better off being born in a different reality, something that wasn’t so concrete, something more superfluous, somewhere more magical.

I started re-reading Dune about a week ago. I’m not sure quite what gave me the urge to do it, but I picked it up and started reading it. I think it was some sort of yearning to read an epic space opera... I can't really believe I just used that phrase, but I'm just going to go with it. I would read for a while and then start to feel guilty about doing it and begin to talk myself into reading something that I hadn’t read already. I have a huge stack of books that I want to read this summer, and I was “wasting” time rereading something I had read years ago. I always do this, make reading into some sort of chore and try to “accomplish” something by finishing a book that I don’t really want to. I should just read what the hell I want and stop reading what I don’t enjoy. But, anyhow… I stopped and considered reading something else several more times, but I never did pick anything else up, Dune was just too good.

And then I reached a point that made it all worthwhile, that made me realize just why I was still reading it and why I always listed it among my favorite books. As I was riding north along I-69 in Indiana, I reached some sort of nirvana.

I don’t think it was the words on the page, or even the place in the book that did it for me, but everything just came together in an instant. I realized just how great a book I was reading. It’s so good that I cannot even begin to explain it. I just felt like Paul, knowing that he was moving inexorably to a future he did not want, but being helpless to stop it. It was pure contentment, pure joy and a feeling of intense comfort and satisfaction, as if I was doing the perfect thing, at the perfect time, in the perfect place. I know there are countless people who wouldn’t enjoy reading Dune, many who probably would hate it, even… I know this, it’s not for everyone. I guess it’s plodding at times (but I never find it so), maybe a bit confusing, it’s long and dense, but I guess that’s part of what I love about it. Herbert created a world so rich and huge that it took my breath away even though nothing was new to me. At that one moment, the book was perfect, and the world was so right that I ached to be there myself. I wanted to be on that awful desert world. I wanted to be caught up in all the intrigue and violence of the Imperium. It is the reason I’ve sacrificed hundreds of hours to playing Imperialism, Civilization and Crusader Kings, just trying to reach that place where I feel that I am actually there, that I am actually the commander of armies, the diplomat plotting, the captain of that mammoth starship.

And, I guess it’s the same reason that I love Star Wars so much, the reason that I feel every insane, nostalgic feeling that I do. It’s all about that feeling that I can’t even explain correctly. Those things are more than movies to me, more than books, more than ideas, more than anything that I could ever put my hands on, or watch with my eyes. It is a world, a galaxy that is so ripe and wonderful that I cannot help but yearn to be there. It feels more like my home than this Earth ever will.

But, that’s when I know something is truly great. It simply transcends appreciation. I appreciate good books and movies, and I enjoy many of them, but a certain number of them strike a different chord. Some things I love, and they make me love them. It isn’t a passive experience, but they reach out, grab me by the collar and beat the living shit out of me until I realize their greatness. I feel every pang of sadness, every joyous moment and experience every wonderful adventure as if they were my own. The real world simply has never provided me with anything that real or that grand.

Gah, there I go talking about fiction again, but I just want to be a starship captain when I grow up, dammit.