A couple of articles that have caught my eye here in the gloaming of a Friday afternoon:
Dec152006
Monthly Archives: December 2006
Dec152006
Geek Wars: The Twelve Colonies vs. The Empire Edition
You know, when I was a kid and my friends and I would debate over which side would win in a cross-universe match-up of apocalyptic proportions — the most common of which was, of course, the Starship Enterprise against an Imperial Star Destroyer — we had to imagine what it would look like. Maybe we were lucky enough to know a kid with some drawing skills who would doodle something in the margins of his Mead spiral-bound that he felt worthy of sharing with us, but mostly it all happened in our heads.
Not these days. Now the wonders of CGI and YouTube enable us to actually see all the action. Curiously, I don’t find it nearly as satisfying as seeing it all in my mind’s eye, but then I’m old fashioned that way. Your mileage may vary, of course. And on that note, here’s the latest example of the genre, in which a fleet of Colonial battlestars goes up against a fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers:
Dec142006
I’m Done with Michael Crichton
There was a time — roughly 15 years ago, if you’re keeping track — when I would’ve called Michael Crichton one of my heroes. He was even somebody I aspired to be like, a popular storyteller who sold novels by the truckload, occasionally dabbled in Hollywood, ate dinner with Sean Connery, and routinely confounded the literary snobs who resented his success. I loved the movies Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, and Runaway, which he wrote and directed; I was fascinated by his personal journeys as recounted in the autobiography Travels; and I thought (and still do) that the original Jurassic Park novel was a terrific thriller. In my unsophisticated youth, I even prophesied that Crichton would someday earn the respect of those aforementioned snobs through dint of his popularity, that his books, loved by millions, would endure long after the “literary fiction” beloved of the ivory-tower-types had passed from memory.
Then I grew up.
Dec132006
Truly Awful Star Wars Collectibles
On a somewhat less curmudgeonly note (and just in case I needed a reminder that not everything from the years of my youth was all that cool), check out this list of really lame vintage Star Wars doo-dads. You gotta wonder what some of these designers were thinking. Did they really think they had a hit on their hands? Or did they just want five o’clock to hurry the hell up so they could get down to the local dive?
For the record, I own only one of these items, a copy of the infamous Wookiee Christmas tune. It’s never been played, at least not by me…
Dec132006
Streets of Fire: The Glamourous ’80s
I watched a movie on DVD last night that I’ve heard about for years but somehow never gotten around to seeing, an odd little flick directed by Walter Hill called Streets of Fire.
Subtitled “A Rock & Roll Fable,” Streets of Fire seems to have been deliberately designed to become a cult classic. The plot is basic and more than a little silly: an evil motorcycle gang kidnaps a beautiful young singer; her former boyfriend and miscellaneous sidekicks venture into hostile territory to rescue her; and then they all fight their way back out and prepare for a big confrontation with the gang’s leader. The dialogue is utilitarian at best and the performances so uniformly stiff that I can only assume everyone was directed to act as woodenly as possible. (I blame the direction because we have plenty of evidence from other films that this cast — which includes a very young Willem Dafoe, Amy Madigan, and the ultra-yummy Diane Lane — really can, you know, act.) What makes Streets of Fire at all noteworthy is the film’s look: it’s set in some weird parallel-universe urban environment where women wear shoulder pads and fingerless gloves like all the girIs I remember seeing from high school, but the men all look like they just stepped out of Rebel Without a Cause. Well, all except for the bad guys, who look less like the hard-ass outlaw bikers they’re supposed to be than leatherboys from San Francisco’s Castro District. The streets of this city-without-a-name are always dark and wet, smeared with reflected colors from the neon overhead, and all the cars are vintage. And of course, as the title promises, there are lots of pretty flames flickering behind the action. In short, the movie represents a total triumph of style over substance.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; as harsh as all of the above sounds, I really did enjoy the movie. It even helped me put my finger on something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and that’s got to say something for its merits.
Dec122006
Still in the Future
Today’s temporal coordinates, according to the whacked-out clock over the platform where I board my morning train: 12:45 PM, January 1, 2094.
So now time is running in reverse. (Remember, yesterday was January 2.) On the positive side, maybe my hair will start to grow back.
Dec112006
The Origins of Frasier, and WKRP is Coming!
There aren’t many television spin-offs that even manage to stay on the air, let alone surpass their source material in quality. Frasier is the exception that proves the rule. I enjoyed Cheers, but I loved Frasier. You may recall that I gushed at length about this series when the show wrapped production; briefly, however, I thought it was a near-perfect mixture of sophisticated wit, lowbrow farce, and genuine human emotion (as opposed to the ersatz variety displayed by the sarcasm-bots on most sitcoms), specifically the complex emotions that exist between grown men and their fathers. In the end, it was a very different series from its parent show, and that was a big part of what made it great.
Dec112006
Relativity
When I left the house this morning, it was about 8:15 AM on December 11, 2006. Twenty minutes later — at least according to my subjective experiences — the digital clock on the train platform informed me that it was now 10:05 AM, January 2, 2094. I can only assume that my car somehow approached the speed of light as I drove from my house to the park-n-ride lot.
I always thought the future would be much shinier than this. How disappointing.
Dec082006
Thundaar
I know what you’re thinking: “My god, another entry? What is this, five or six today? Doesn’t this guy have anything better to do?” Well, actually, I probably do, but I don’t feel like doing it. It’s a pretty dull afternoon here in the Comma Mines. Much more fun to post silly blog entries about silly things… like, say, one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid, a bizarre and violent mash-up of Star Wars, post-apocalyptic scenarios, and Alex Raymond-style background art called Thundaar the Barbarian. Author Chris Roberson (who credits this show as the [subconscious] inspiration for his excellent novel Paragaea: A Planetary Romance) reminded me of Thundaar this afternoon by posting a video clip of the opening credits. Here it is:
A shattered moon hanging in the sky over the ruins of our world? A hot babe with magical powers? A giant cat-man sidekick? A hero who wields a lightsaber rip-off? Tell me how a ten- or twelve-year-old boy could not be enthralled with this stuff. I understand the show is on DVD now. I might have to throw it into my ever-lengthening Netflix queue…
Dec082006
Quote of the Day
I love space exploration because it takes energy that could be spent destroying the planet or hurting people, and uses it to expand what we understand and what we can see in our lifetimes.
–Wil Wheaton
For various reasons that I won’t get into right now, I’ve been trying lately to articulate exactly why I find “space stuff” so interesting and exciting. I’m not sure Wil’s thinking on the matter exactly matches my own, but it’s probably a big component. And it’s nicely stated. The rest of his entry from which that line comes is worth a click, too…