Michael Lauck's Blog, page 3

ROBOTECH: Transforming Japanimation into Anime

On June 28, 1985 the 85th and final episode of Robotech premiered. The long story of Earth’s three Robotech Wars was over. Robotech was not the first anime to get translated into English and air in the United States but it was, in my opinion, the series that really pushed anime, or Japanimation as it was called at the time, and manga into prominence among science fiction and comic book fans. Voltron had come out the year before, you may counter, or you may champion the Transformers, who had appeared as toys in the US in 1984 and as an after-school cartoon in 1985. You might even advocate the cause of Speed Racer, who had been a regular feature in before and after-school cartoon line ups since the late 1960s.

All true, I admit. But it was Robotech that truly opened up a generation to anime… and I will tell you why.

The Japanimation Pioneers

Robotech was far from the first animated or even live action program from Japan to get widespread attention in the United States. Japanese media broke out of the art house circuit in the 1950s with Godzilla, the translated and Raymond Burr enhanced American edit of Gojira. More kaiju (giant monster) and tokusatsu (special effects) films followed, including a host of Godzilla sequels and imitators. This showed US distribution companies there was money to be made licensing and translating Japanese productions. A full two decades before Robotech premiered Japanese animation started to air in the United States when NBC licensed Astro Boy and began showing it nationally in 1963. Tobor the Eighth Man, about a cyborg police detective who recharged by smoking cigarettes (I swear it is true; check it out here) followed in 1965, Gigantor (probably the first mecha to hit US airwaves) came in 1966 and soon after came Speed Racer, arguably the the most successful animated Japanese import for at least the next twenty years or so. It is worth noting some of the same people who translated Speed Racer also translated and distributed Ultraman to American viewers (as well as a less successful series called Space Giants). The 1970s saw repeats of all of these shows continuing to run on American television stations and brought a few new entries, including Battle of the Planets (a translation of Gatchaman) and StarBlazers (Space Battleship Yamato).

Most of these shows were heavily edited in addition to being translated. Battle of the Planets, for example, apparently lost enough content in most episodes that a new segment, featuring a robot who communicated missions to the team, had to be created. Up to this point, all of the shows brought to the US were also aimed at children. This continued into the 1980s with 1984’s Voltron, a translation of Beast King Go-Lion (and later Armored Fleet Dairugger XV) and the American produced cartoon versions of the Transformers and Go-Bots toy lines. The truth was in the 1980s, even though you could still find Speed Racer, Tom and Jerry, Popeye and Bugs Bunny, the before and after school cartoon blocks featured on many independent (ie not network affiliated) television stations were dominated by cartoons tied to toy lines such as Rainbow Brite, He-Man, Jem and the Holograms and, of course, GI Joe.

The Birth of Robotech

Robotech, although it did have an associated toy line, was a little different. Carl Macek discovered anime in, of all places, Japan. He became convinced the more serious storylines of the 1970s mecha (robot) dominated anime, such as Macross and Gundam, could be successful in the United States. After all, the 1970s had brought US audiences an animated version of Star Trek, the experimental French/Czech Fantastic Planet and Ralph Bakshi had produced both Lord of the Rings and Wizards. The trend seemed to be continuing into the 1980s with the science fiction/fantasy anthology film Heavy Metal, Rock & Rule (1983) and Bakshi’s fantasy film Fire and Ice (1983). Convinced American audiences were ready for serious Japanese animated science fiction, Macek secured the rights to Superdimensional Fortress Macross.

Although US audiences may have been ready for Japanese animation, US television was not quite convinced. Besides, TV buyers insisted that daily syndicated programs have a certain number of episodes… and Macross  came up short. Instead of giving up, though, Macek famously secured the rights to an additional pair of programs (Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA) which featured similar mecha designs. The three series were, however, completely unrelated. Macek kept the three series’ basic stories intact but added elements to the translated scripts to form a single overall story depicting three successive wars fought by generations of Earth humans against aliens seeking the secrets of a powerful (mystical?) energy known as protoculture.

By combining the three distinct series into a single narrative, Robotech was ready for US daily syndication. Although not actually generated to sell toys, like GI Joe and Transformers, there were toys in Japan related to the original series. Revell had secured rights to model sets for a series they were calling Robotech Defenders, which was also tied to a (very) short lived DC comic book. They also acquired the rights to some robot and vehicle combining toy sets which they marketed as Robotech Changers. Some of these designs were included in the new pastiche show Macek was creating but instead of fighting with Revell he joined forces with them and adopted “Robotech” as the title of his project.

Robotech Hits The Air

I was in junior high when Robotech premiered. In St. Louis, where I lived, it was carried on KPLR TV 11 which was the flagship television station for the group which also owned World Events Productions… the company who had created Voltron: Defender of the Universe. There were instantly, though, vast differences apparent between Robotech and Voltron. It is in these differences where I see Robotech as the vehicle to usher in an age of manga and animation.

Voltron seemed familiar in many ways. There were a force of five, including a big guy and a girl, much like Battle of the Planets. And also like the members of G-Force the Voltron Force were pretty much the only defense against the evil aliens. Most of the the dangerous alien plots in Voltron were hinged on giant monsters, kind of like Ultraman. There was a certain familiarity with Robotech, too. Aliens were invading and a stand had to be made, much like the members of GI Joe had to fight against Cobra or how Battle of the Planets’ G Force had to confront the plots of invaders from Spectra or how SHADO had to protect the Earth in the live action series UFO. There was a huge difference between Voltron and Robotech, though. Voltron tended to face monsters sent by an evil space witch! Cool as the robot was, it still seemed like a kids show. But on Robotech people died.

From the very beginning, it was obvious Robotech was not the average after-school cartoon. Aliens invaded, people died, a single ship found itself at the far end of the Solar System cut off from Earth. The main characters had problems, like surviving and adapting to being essentially drafted. Rick Hunter, a young fighter pilot at the center of the show, struggles with his on again off again girlfriend becoming a wartime celebrity and, later, a love triangle. He also has serious doubts about becoming a soldier. His adopted big brother Roy Fokker, an experienced pilot and war hero, has a very serious girlfriend in bridge officer Claudia Grant. They are an inter-racial couple, by the way, in an 1980s after-school cartoon. And, although this is a major spoiler for the first story arc in Robotech it is necessary to reveal because it is the best illustration of how serious the show was at times, Roy Fokker dies rather slowly, poignantly and on camera (here is a censored version of his death). Roy was not the only major character killed in the first of the Robotech wars and, remember, all of this is simply in the first third of the series. You have to keep watching through to the Third Robotech War before you get to the freedom fighting drag queen…

Japanimation!

Robotech undeniably hit at the right time. It was part of a wave of Japanese comics and cartoons, not always translated, flooding comic, video and book stores. At the time it was common for both anime and manga to be referred to as Japanimation. Although Robotech was arguably not a technically Japanese product its in release form, it very much became a symbol of this new collective genre in science fiction and fantasy. I remember at the time it was popular for shops to have signs with some type of logo or symbol for various sections. The local video store had SPORTS with a black football outline in one section, ROMANCE with a heart and WAR with a star in circle. And over in SCIENCE FICTION (with a black outline of a flying saucer) was JAPANIMATION with the black silhouette of a robot from Robotech (okay, technically it was a Valkyrie fighter from Macross but in America it was a Veritech fighter). A book store I frequented had a very similar sign with a Veritech in outline on one side. On the other side, by the way, was Lum, the tiger striped bikini wearing alien from Urusei Yatsura (the first hit show based on the work of Rumiko Takahashi who went on to create Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha)… she was also a pretty common symbol of the Japanimation comedy back in the day. Conventions marked the rooms showing 24 hour non-stop Japanimation with the logo of the Robotech Defense Force or, perhaps, one of those ubiquitous silhouettes of a Veritech/Valkyrie mecha. (Remember, there was no streaming back then and 24 hour viewing rooms of genre programming were huge at the old cons!)

Because Robotech had not shied away from some of the more grown up content in the three storylines it presented a whole generation was introduced to the idea an animated series could be serious. From there many of us went on to Mobile Suit Gundam or Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express and saw things that would still have been extremely difficult to credibility present in live action productions. Although Robotech disappeared from television after its original run in many markets (rumors in St. Louis comic shops were that the television stations aligned with World Events had all dropped it before completing its run… and there were evidently issues created in some areas when Roy Fokker died and in others when Roy kissed Claudia), it found new life with many fans in a few ways.

First, videos of the original source series started to appear in the US, particularly of Macross related series and shows while Comico continued to put out a comic book based on Robotech. Second, in late 1986 Robotech appeared as a role-playing game from Palladium Books (the folks who made the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Other Strangeness role playing game). In 1987 Del Rey began publishing novelizations of the series written by Jack McKinney (a pseudonym used by James Luceno and Brian Daley, who wrote the Star Wars radio dramas). Video games started appearing in the 1990s and are still coming out (at least if you have a Nintendo Switch and live in Australia). Although there were attempts to create a sequel series, now have ever come to fruition, nor has the long rumored live action version. However, there have been a few straight to video movies over the years including Robotech II: The Sentinels, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles and Robotech: Long Live Alive.

The Godfather of Anime in America

Something that falls somewhere between breaking my heart and pissing me off is when I hear modern anime fans badmouth Robotech. They often complain that it mangled the original shows. There are proclamations it ignorantly mixed up separate series. But let me tell you something:

You weren’t there.

I vividly remember Robotech during its original run. It would be another couple of years before Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered. V: The Series was probably the most serious science fiction on mainstream television. Cable was not yet widespread in American homes. Satellite dishes were still the size of backyard trampolines. Robotech was a pretty major science fiction television event and it was the first Japanese anime presented widely in the US which was not squarely aimed at children (even if it was pretty much featured as an after school series in most markets). I remember KPLR running Robotech late at night on Saturdays (technically early Sunday morning) and then trying some other experimental series: Captain Harlock, an early translation of Dragonball and maybe one or two other projects from Harmony Gold (the producers of Robotech) as well as the first couple episodes featuring the second incarnation of Voltron. 

Times were very different; options were limited. Most of your freedom to search out content came in the form of the video rental store and those could be a real adventure. Depending on where you were the closest video rental store might be a chain like Movies To Go, a couple shelves of random tapes at the local gas station, a weird indie with a curtained off closet full of porn like RST Video in Clerks or if you were really lucky maybe there was a Chinese or Indian grocery store who rented movies you could never have gotten access to a year or two earlier!

Carl Macek and Harmony Gold got Robotech on to syndicated television across the country and not just in a couple of cities with large Asian-American populations with stations running foreign language imports (such as Sonny Chiba’s live action Shadow Warriors). Depending on how you interpret the times, Robotech either fanned the embers of existing demand or simply straight out built a fan base for Japanimation. Dirty Pair, Macross, Urusei Yatsura, Fist of the North Star, Mobile Suit Gundam, AT Votoms, Project AKO, Fight Iczer One, Galaxy Express… Soon, all of that great anime was dripping into the US through interested video stores and comic shops (I remember when we got the first copy of an unedited version of Gatchaman in the comic shop where I worked circa 1989… we were floored!) but it was Robotech that first made it on to television across the country. It was Robotech that showed animation could be more than GI Joe, Transformers, Speed Racer and Voltron. Robotech is why people today, even non-fans, know what anime means.

C-3PO, R2-D2 and AM/FM

May is a big month for Star Wars fans and I wanted to find a way to celebrate the series for this month’s Swords and Rayguns newsletter. The problem, as some of you may know, is I don’t particularly like Star Wars. You’ll notice when I have to provide some kind of introduction as a writer I often state I prefer “Star Trek to Star Wars and DC to Marvel.” I haven’t sat through any of the new films except for Rogue One (which several people said I might like but, honestly, I did not) and even though I have a Disney+ subscription I have not watched any of the new Star Wars related series. I seriously considered tackling one of those but, honestly, I kind of feel like they have been covered plenty by others. When I came across a cassette copy of Star Wars: The Radio Drama and Return of the Jedi on CD at a used book store a few weeks ago, though, my course seemed clear! All I had to do was track down a used copy of Empire (it is probably still available new but I am cheap).

Before we jump into the background of the two radio dramas (Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back were produced for NPR Playhouse radio series but Return of the Jedi was not aired on the radio) it seems like I should probably address the bantha in the room: I really am not a Star Wars fan.

When you find out someone does not like something you like, especially something you love, it is a common and understandable reaction to try to convince them they are wrong. We have all done it. So when people find out I am not a fan, it is pretty common for them to try explain Star Wars to me. This always strikes me as funny; I mean, I have seen it! It is especially crazy when someone half my age tries to explain the cultural phenomenon and impact of Star Wars. I get it. I was there. My brother and I had Star Wars sheets and curtains (thanks, Mom).

I was almost five when Star Wars came out in 1977 and back then, frankly, I loved it. Who didn’t? We saw it at the movie theater (the Esquire just outside of the St. Louis city limits, a theater where I would one day work as a manager for AMC Theatres and I met my wife, another manager, while there). I really don’t remember going to see it but I can tell you this: we did not stand in line for it. The only long movie line I ever remember standing in a long line to see as a kid was Superman in 1978 (we showed up an hour early for the time we wanted, waited almost three hours… that was also at the Esquire). Anyway, my little brother was all in on Star Wars too and pretty much all we wanted for Christmas or birthdays for a good long bit was Star Wars toys. There were some incredible Star Wars toys. The X-Wing with wings that went into X configuration when you pushed down on R2’s head with sounds and a red laser light? Awesome. The Landspeeder with retractable wheels that looked like it was really gliding? Sweet. I never had one, but Han Solo’s blaster was so cool. The Death Star play set with the elevator and cannon and trash compactor with a pop open door? Seriously, one of the greatest toys ever made. Honestly, though, there were a couple crappy ones too. The Cantina Playset (which may have been a Sears exclusive) was pretty lame. 

The real weakness of Star Wars toys was the action figures themselves. Sure they looked like the characters (by and large) and the slide out lightsaber arm was pretty awesome. But you were like five so those tiny guns were destined to get lost about 11 minutes after you opened the package. From 1977 to 1979 missing Stormtrooper guns required a thorough dissection of the every vacuum cleaner bag before it could be thrown out. The biggest problem of all was the fact the action figures with their permanently straight arms and legs were basically Fisher Price Adventure People. The only improvement was to hole in the heel of each foot to allow you to push them onto the pegs found scattered around the play sets to keep your Stormtroopers standing up (until the Rebels wiped them out). The vinyl capes on the original set of figures were awful and started to tear the moment they were touched by any light. GI Joe action figures, frankly, came along and kicked the living crap out of the Kenner Star Wars toys. But the inherent coolness of GI Joe is a whole other discussion… The point is I do have some fond memories of Star Wars. I remember Mom made popcorn when we watched the Holiday Special. It was a big night. 

I am not sure exactly how Star Wars lost me. I looked forward to Empire Strikes Back when I was eight (back in 1980) and really liked it. But by the time Return of the Jedi came out in 1983 my mother had to make me go see it with my little brother. It is probable I was aware of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress by then, the then controversy over its influence on Lucas and I may have even already seen the movie. Yes, I was not quite 11 but my uncle was a film critic who had managed an art house theater (which, you guessed it, I later managed too) and if Blockbuster had it, I rented it (I still carry a Blockbuster card in my pocket as a kind of good luck charm). I was also a voracious and advanced reader, commonly knocking through a paperback a day. I had read the novelizations of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and the Rock Hill Public Library’s copies of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and Han Solo At Star’s End by the time Jedi came out as well as every Star Trek, Space: 1999 and Battlestar Galactica novel the library had. I am pretty sure I had already read all of the Lord of the Ring books and probably was tackling Dune in anticipation of the upcoming movie. Thanks to the library, I read all the movie and science fiction magazines, too! 

When I was in fourth grade I read at an advanced high school level, by fifth grade it was even higher. It was a real problem in a way because I my reading comprehension was more advanced than many adults but I was still just a nine or ten year old kid. Finding books that were written at a level that did not bore me without content unsuitable for an elementary school kid was a problem until a librarian asked me if I liked Star Trek or Star Wars. I liked both, of course, so she pointed out the rack of science fiction paperbacks. Her thought was even though the novelizations were written for adults they were still based on a TV show suitable for network prime time and a movie which was barely rated PG. That is what really drew me into science fiction and fantasy… and that rack held paperback gold like The Hobbit, Asimov’s  robot novels, Smith’s Lensman series along with novelizations of Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and The Black Hole.

So it is possible my tastes had simply outgrown Star Wars by the time Jedi rolled around. Books probably fueled my preference for Star Trek and, honestly, Wrath of Khan was out by then… it is an amazing film. As an adult, though, I can say one strike Star Wars had against it was the whole “kid with a humble background destined to be a hero” thing. It is a plot point I have always disliked because it often seems to be a lazy shortcut for both the writers and the character. Give me a hero who has to work hard for it, like San Te in Thirty Six Chambers of Shaolin. 

The huge amount of hype which developed around Star Wars over the years did not help, either. I can not count how many movies, books and TV shows I have really looked forward to only to skip because of over-promotion. Sometimes I go back later and sometimes I never do… I still have not seen Ready Player One or Avatar. Virulent uber-fans are even worse than marketing departments when it comes hype and when all the hype leads to revisionist history, fallacious claims about innovation, importance or legacy and the like then I am really done. Star Wars definitely has some of that! (For example, how it completely resurrected the science fiction genre in film despite the steady stream of science fiction films throughout the 1970s or how it was the first successful science fiction franchise). The bottom line is, for reasons I can not exactly explain, Star Wars as a franchise is not something I have been interested the last forty years. I get why some people love it, I really do. But it simply hasn’t been for me.

That covers me, so let’s talk about Star Wars on the radio. Radio plays had a bit of a US resurgence in the late 1970s and early 1980s, thanks in no small part to the original Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Although NPR had a radio play anthology series throughout the 1970s (Earplay) it launched a new series called NPR Playhouse in 1981 beginning with Star Wars. George Lucas had basically given the radio rights of the series to his university’s public radio affiliated station and allowed use of the film’s music and sound effects in their production. 

Both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back were adapted for NPR Playhouse (in 1981 and 1983) but Return of the Jedi was not (probably due to a cut in NPR’s federal funding). It was finally produced in 1996 by Highbridge Audio, the company who released the first two productions commercially on cassettes and CD. As a result, the first two series are ten episodes each while Jedi is only six. 

I realize many fans will immediately question if the radio show will “feel” like the movies. I can almost hear so of you muttering to yourself. All three shows use music and sound effects from the original movies and Lucasfilm was involved with the productions. Unfortunately, though, they do not feature much of the original cast. Mark Hamill is Luke Skywalker in the first two but was replaced by Joshua Fardon in Jedi. Anthony Daniels plays C-3PO in all three series and Billy Dee Williams appears as Lando Calrissian in Empire but not Jedi. In all three productions Perry King, best known for Riptide, plays Han Solo, Ann Sachs, who really does not have many other credits, plays Leia and accomplished character actor Bernard Behrens performs Obi-Wan Kenobi. They all do creditable jobs. Yes, I know right now many of you are saying you can’t imagine anyone but James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. I admit, it is iconic. Brock Peters, probably best known as Admiral Cartwright in a couple Star Trek films and as Ben Cisco’s father in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was the actor to take up the challenge. He is not quite the movie Vader but he has a deep, distinctive voice which I felt worked. There are more than a couple recognizable actors in the three productions, including David Alan Grier, Meshach Taylor, Ed Begley Jr and Yeardley Smith. By and large the cast is good enough to keep you in the story and not really worrying over the fact it is not the movie cast.

Oh? You caught that “by and large,” huh? There are two pretty big exceptions. Actually, I do have to admit I have no real memory of Boba Fett’s voice so Ed Begley Jr might throw off some fans. I was okay with it. It did bother me, though, when Arye Gross (Ellen) took over as Lando in Jedi. Arye Gross is a good actor but he simply is not Billy Dee Williams! The absolute worst bit of acting, though, was John Lithgow as Yoda. He did a poor imitation of Grover with more than a little bit of his Emilio Lizardo character from Buckaroo Banzai thrown in. It was jarring. To be fair, I was also a bit disappointed Mark Hamill was not in Return of the Jedi but Joshua Fardon did well enough I really did not give it a thought after the first episode. In fact, had I not just finished Empire moments earlier I may not have even noticed.

Brian Daley wrote all three productions. He was also the writer of the Han Solo Adventures, the trilogy which made up (with the exception of Splinter) the first non-movie adaptation novels in the Star Wars universe, so he was no stranger to Star Wars. I did not realize it, but I am a Brian Daley fan. He wrote on the cult classic cartoon The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers and, along with writing partner Tom Lucero under the combined pen name of Jack McKinney, wrote the Robotech novelizations (don’t get me started on how great Robotech is). He did an excellent job, for the most part, expanding the action of the films and providing new background material. Although the first episode of Star Wars was a little rough for me because Luke and the gang at Anchorhead came off like a bad, old fashioned portrayal of juvenile delinquents, the second episode, which covered Leia’s involvement with the Rebel Alliance, hooked me. It was Star Wars with a little extra, taking advantage of the expanded running time to fill in details the movie could not. It should be noted much of those details were erased by Rogue One and Disney no longer considers any of the radio dramas canon. 

So what did I think of the the Star Wars Radio Drama Trilogy as someone who is not a Star Wars fan? I really, thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a couple long drives to make and my plan was to force myself to listen to at least an episode each leg of the journey before returning to my preferred listening (you know, punk rock and other books). Instead, I listened more or less straight through… although I would turn it off after an episode if I was not going to be able to listen to the next in its entirety. To be completely honest, I forgot Jedi was shorter than the first two and was a little mad when it went by so quickly. Keeping the spirit of absolute honesty, with its shorter run time and cast changes I feel Return of the Jedi is the weakest link in the radio drama trilogy. It also does not help that Ewoks lose about 98% of their charm when you can’t see them! Still, it is worth the listen.

I wholeheartedly recommend all three radio dramas to everyone, whether you are hardcore into Star Wars with yin-yang tattoo made of the Rebel Alliance and Imperial logos or just a casual fan. Maybe even if you are not a fan but just are looking for something to listen to during your commutes. Did it change my mind about Star Wars? That is kind of a hard question to answer.

As I write this article (a couple of days after finishing my listen) I have to say probably not. I really might have said yes right after I listened. It was really nice reintroducing myself to the original trilogy in a new way. It definitely stirred some nostalgic feelings. But the truth is I have the original trilogy on DVD somewhere and I haven’t bothered to dig it out or even look up any of the Star Wars stuff on Disney+. On the other hand, if there were audio adaptations of the other movies I probably would have jumped right in. I might look for some audiobooks next time I am downloading from the library or even try reading a novel if one comes my way, but when it all comes down I think it is pretty safe to say I still prefer Star Trek to Star Wars.

Batman: Beyond The Comics

In late March of 1939, Batman premiered in the pages of National Allied Publications’ Detective Comics #27. Almost exactly a year earlier National had created a sensation with the debut of Superman (Action Comics #1). Batman quickly took his place beside the Man of Steel as a cornerstone of not only National’s comic book catalog but in the relatively new genre of superhero stories. Over eighty years later both Superman and Batman are literally iconic. They are recognized all over the world, even by people who have never read comic books. Even people who do not particularly like superhero stories know Superman and Batman. Most probably even know their origin stories.

Simply put, today Batman is everywhere. Gotham Knights, a new Batman related live action series (spoiler alert: it starts with the death of Bruce Wayne) premiered on US broadcast television earlier this month, a new animated series is on the way from Amazon Prime and Batman will be returning to the silver screen later this year in The Flash. It is difficult to make your daily commute without seeing at least one person in a Batman t-shirt or car with the familiar oval Batman logo on its windshield or bumper. 

About sixty years ago, not quite thirty years after Batman’s premiere, National Allied Publications had transformed into DC Comics (named after the Detective Comics series) and Batman was poised to make the jump to the small screen. The 1966 television series led to an explosion of Batman merchandise and media appearances, firmly establishing the series as a pop culture touchstone. Today, Batman has appeared in multiple television shows, feature films and straight to video movies as well as starring in books, audio plays, podcasts and video games. Batman merchandise sometimes takes up entire aisles of toy stores. While Superman jumped straight from the pages of Action Comics to a variety of multi-media projects, including a newspaper comic strip in early 1939 which ran continuously for over twenty-five years, a radio show in 1940, a series of animated shorts starting in 1941 and a novel in 1942. However, as surprising as it may seem today, Batman was not a huge presence outside of comics until the 1966 television series.

Batman transitioned from comic books to a syndicated self titled newspaper comic strip in 1943, just as Superman had a few years earlier. The daily strip only ran until 1946, with a Sunday feature for a good part of the run. Batman and Robin, written by the prolific pulp author Walter B Gibson, returned the dynamic duo to newspapers briefly in 1953. With the television series came a new strip which would last until 1973 (making it the most successful of the Batman newspaper comics). Batman would go on to appear in the World’s Greatest Superheroes strip (which featured a revolving cast of DC characters, including Superman) periodically between 1978 and 1985 and would return to newspapers in 1989 for a couple of years after the Tim Burton directed feature film. 

Hollywood came for Batman before even Superman, though, at least in live action form. Superman first appeared in theaters in 1941, thanks to a series of rotoscoped animated shorts, but he would not appear in live action form until the 1948 serial Superman starring Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill. Batman, however, had his own self-titled Columbia serial in 1943. For fifteen chapters during the height of World War II, Batman and Robin, portrayed by Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft, fought a Japanese mad scientist/spy trying to acquire the radium needed to power his newly invented rayguns. It is very much a stereotypical movie serial with sped up fist fights, radium powered rayguns and even a pit full of alligators. Unfortunately, it is also crammed full of WWII anti-Japanese hysteria. It is probably best left to the most hardcore Batman fans. Lewis Wilson, only about 23 years old during filming, is the youngest actor ever to play Batman. In the serial Batman and Robin are special government agents described as “American youth who love their country.” The dynamic duo seem to treat their crime fighting and anti-espionage with the same spirit found in period football movies.

For all its faults, The Batman serial did add the Batcave to the Batman mythos, although it was called the Bat’s Cave and was basically a large executive desk and a couple chairs in a cave with (mainly offscreen) bats flying around. Still, it featured a secret entrance through the grandfather clock in Bruce Wayne’s mansion. Also Batman uses the cave and its winged occupants to intimidate captured criminals into cooperation, which at least is a brief foreshadowing of future incarnations of the character. Still, you could not really call this version of Batman “the Dark Knight.” Batman would return to the screen in 1949 with a second serial, Batman and Robin. This time Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan portrayed the heroes as they faced the Wizard, a masked villain who used electronic remote controls to wreak havoc. The original Batman serial was re-released in 1965 and was wildly popular. It may have had an influence on the 1966 series with its early episode opening narration style, sped up movie serial fight scenes and Batcave entrance. 

Although there were at least two known attempts to create a Batman radio series during the golden age of radio shows, it never happened. Batman, portrayed by multiple actors over the years, started making guest appearances on The Adventures of Superman starting in 1945 (usually to allow Superman star Bud Collyer to take time off from the popular show). It should be noted several other comic book characters made the jump to radio including Blackhawk, Blue Beetle, Hop Harrigan and the comic book version of real life magician Harry Blackstone. Batman would not star in his own radio series until 1989 when, in the wake the of the Tim Burton movie, BBC Radio 4 produced Batman: The Lazarus Syndrome. In 1994 BBC Radio 1 produced a second radio series titled Batman: Knightfall. 

Batman and Robin did appear in several audio stories released on record, including a series of Power Records book and record sets. However, all of these were released after the 1966 television show. Batman has also recently been featured on several podcasts, including Batman the Audio Adventures and Spotify’s Batman Unburied.

Perhaps most surprising of all, Batman was not even widely marketed as a toy before the television series. The earliest Batman toys, pot metal or lead figures, were produced during the early to mid 1940s and distributed as carnival and midway prizes. Although there are occasional references to Batman puppets and cloth dolls, and there may have been some unauthorized toys of this nature over the years, Batman toys really do not widely appear until the mid 1960s and this mainly seems to be thanks to the television series. 

I am not sure why it took so long for Batman to expand beyond the pages of comic books in a meaningful way. It is occasionally suggested Batman was not as heavily commercialized as Superman because of Frederic Wertham’s assertions Batman (and comics in general) were a negative influence on children. According to this line of thought, it was only after the campy and comedic 1966 television series revamped Batman’s image and reputation that the character became marketable. While Batman was definitely a target of Wertham in his book The Seduction of the Innocent and heavily discussed in the congressional hearings the book inspired Estes Kefauver to hold, I do not believe this popular comic shop gossip holds much water. After all, there were 16 years between Detective Comics #27 introduced Batman and the release of Seduction of the Innocent!

Brackett and Hamilton: Sci-Fi Power Couple

In my imagination it goes down like this: George Lucas is surrounded by movie execs and yes-men anxious to hear about the sequel to Star Wars. He has passed out an outline of his ideas… but no script. “I’m not a script writer,” Lucas explains. “I am a director, a producer… an idea man!”

“Yeah, George, of course. But then who is going to write it?” asked a nervous exec, glancing over the outline to see if Bea Arthur figured in it.

“I have an idea about that,” Lucas grins. “What about Leigh Brackett?”

“I hear she is working in TV now,” said one yes man with an interest in detective films.

“But she wrote Hatari! and The Big Sleep,” countered another yes man with a little knowledge of Hollywood history.

“She wrote The Big Sleep AND Rio Bravo,” confirmed yes man number three. Then he threw down his trump card to prove his film knowledge superior to the other yes men. “Rio Lobo too. But, George, does she know anything about science fiction? Can she handle it?”

At this point George Lucas, in my imagined version, shakes his head in disbelief. “Don’t you guys know anything? She was in the LASFS.” Nothing. “She is married to Edmond Hamilton!” Blank stares. “Ray Bradbury was at their wedding!” 

“Maybe Ray Bradbury could write it!” piped in yes man four.

“Listen to me you nerf herders,” Lucas said in frustration. “Before The Big Sleep, before Rio Bravo or Lobo Leigh Brackett was the Queen of Space Opera!”

I have no idea how things actually happened, but it is known when George Lucas was developing the as-of-yet-unnamed sequel to Star Wars he reached out to Leigh Brackett. She most definitely did work on an early version of the script, which she finished shortly before her death in 1978. It is up to the Star Wars scholars to argue over how many of Brackett’s ideas made it into, or at least influenced, the final film or if she would have continued to work with Lucas had she not died from cancer so early in Empire’s development (and they do). However, it is undeniable the queen of space opera was involved in the film’s development. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Fully Illustrated Script lists both Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan as the scriptwriters. What was presented (and is generally accepted) as Leigh Brackett’s original script was leaked online over a decade ago so fans can read it and draw their own conclusions.

While not a hugely prolific script writer, it is certainly reasonable to assume Hollywood yes men might know her name. IMDB credits Leigh Brackett with nine film scripts (other than Empire and related properties), a few TV scripts (including an episode of The Rockford Files and a pair of Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and as the author of three novels which were the basis of movies. While nine film scripts may not seem very significant, they are memorable films. She wrote her first screenplay in 1945 (The Vampire’s Ghost) and the very next year she was teamed with William Faulkner to adapt Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep into a big budget Humphrey Bogart feature directed by Howard Hawks. She went on to work with director Howard Hawks and John Wayne four times (Rio Bravo, Hatari!, El Dorado and Rio Lobo) and returned to adapting Chandler in 1973 for Robert Altman’s satirical neo-noir version of The Long Goodbye. 

Howard Hawks supposedly requested Brackett to adapt The Big Sleep because of her 1944 crime novel No Good From A Corpse. The detective story was her first published novel but she had been consistently publishing science fiction in pulp magazines such as Planet Stories since 1942. In fact, after No Good From A Corpse she combined the detective genre with science fiction for her novel length story Shadow Over Mars. Work on The Big Sleep interfered with a science fiction story she was already committed to write so Brackett turned her half-finished story over to long time friend Ray Bradbury to finish. Lorelei of the Red Mist was credited to both authors when it appeared in the summer 1946 issue of Planet Stories.

In 1949 Leigh Brackett introduced her best known, and arguably best loved, character in The Queen of the Martian Catacombs. Eric John Stark, an unrepentant outlaw pressed to interrupt a potential Martian revolution by the Planet Police, was a throwback to the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels which drew her to science fiction as a young woman. Stark was human but had been raised among the harsh, savage tribes of Mercury’s Twilight Belt. Eventually captured by miners from Earth, who kept the wild boy in a cage, Stark was finally freed by the police officer who would draw him into the events of Queen of the Martian Catacombs. Stark is like Burroughs’ Tarzan: a modern man raised by a primitive culture and still loyal to their values after his return to civilization. He is also, though, like Burroughs’ John Carter in that he inhabits a strange sword and planet Solar System which sees him moving from planet to planet on rockets while fighting with swords and knives. Unlike Tarzan or John Carter, though, Eric John Stark is decidedly a fixture in the underworld. He would return in stories which continued to mix swords, sorcery and science such as The Enchantress of Venus (Planet Stories, September 1949) and The Black Amazon of Mars (Planet Stories, March 1953). 

Stark would be resurrected in the 1970s. After Queen of the Martian Catacombs was adapted into a novel called The Secret of Sinharat and The Black Amazon of Mars was adapted into People of the Talisman, Brackett would pen the original novels The Ginger Star (1974), Hounds of Skaith (1974) and Reavers of Skaith (1976). The 1970s books move Eric John Stark from his early sword and planet style solar system, which had since been proven by NASA to be completely impossible, out into a more “modern” style science fiction universe.

I Call It “Dirty Space”

I just finished watching Space Sweepers, a 2021 South Korean movie on Netflix which is apparently considered by some to be the first South Korean blockbuster science fiction movie. That is kind of disappointing, in a way, because I really enjoyed the hell out of it and was hoping there was a whole treasure trove of slick Korean language science fiction out there waiting for me… I guess there isn’t. I am not very familiar with Korean cinema or TV, to be honest. Japanese stuff, in my lifetime at least, has always been way more accessible and since I studied Mandarin in college I tend to gravitate toward Chinese language film and TV, especially if features martial arts (because studying Chinese martial arts is what led me to take up Mandarin in college and screw up my GPA).

Up until now, my experience with Korean TV and film can be pretty much summed up with a handful of ‘70s Korean period martial arts films masquerading as “kung fu movies,” a couple South Korean takes on kaiju (War of the God Monsters springs to mind… which the Internet says wasn’t available in the US until fairly recently but I am pretty damn sure I rented it on VHS in the late ’80s), Old Boy and the science fiction series The Silent Sea (which is also on Netflix). I skipped Squid Games, because I am quickly prejudiced against things which get as over-hyped as it was, but I really liked The Silent Sea. I am not sure how I missed Space Sweepers until now; it has been out for over a year and I looked for other Korean language science fiction after finishing The Silent Sea.

The short review of Space Sweepers is: I loved it; it got me excited the way the first episode of Firefly did back in the day. I am ready for a sequel and I think everyone should watch it. But that isn’t really what I want to talk about… I want to talk about the genre (really, probably sub-genre or even aesthetic) I place Space Sweepers in and I call that ”dirty space.” Wait, what? Dirty space? Why do we need a new sub-genre in science fiction? And it sounds like porn. We need many new sub-genres and sub-brands in science fiction and fantasy because there is just so much out there. Science fiction puts stories of daring young pilots flying spaceships that turn into giant robots and morality tales pondering the morality of genetically engineering your baby under the same tent. It gets even worse when, as was done for so many years, fantasy and science fiction are lumped together. The explosion of content cries out for organization, categorization and labeling. It has already happened to other prolific genres… witness romance where there are literally authors who specialize in Christian, bad boy, other man’s baby romances with happy endings.

Granted dirty space sounds, well, kind of like a porn flick but I don’t mean dirty as in R rated, I mean dirty as in full of dirt. Dirty space is not about spaceships like the USS Enterprise, especially the newer incarnations, where everything is bright, shiny and well lit. I am talking about science fiction where the spacestations and starships look like a cross between Das Boot and 1985 F150 with a camper shell your crazy uncle has been collecting scrap metal in since he won it in a poker game back in the ’90s. Often, as in the case of Firefly and Space Sweepers, this type of science fiction is dubbed space western. I kind of get that, especially since the granddaddy of big budget, mainstream dirty space is probably 1981’s Outland, with Sean Connery (remember that?) and Outland was basically High Noon set on a mining colony on Io. Dirty space pedants (which, given the nature of science fiction fandom probably have already sprung into existence even though, as far as I know, I literally just introduced the term to the universe a mere paragraph ago) will no doubt argue there were earlier films, 1974’s Dark Star springs to mind, which explored the concept. I will leave those arguments for the conventions and chatrooms.

If Outland, Firefly and Space Sweepers all fit the space western theme, why do we need a term like dirty space? Good question. Plenty of other things have the dirty space aesthetic without really being space westerns. The Expanse, which is more detective story than western (at least in the beginning), springs to mind. Science fiction horror movies, certainly some of the Alien franchise, overlap with the dirty space aesthetic, too.

Basically, dirty space is a vision of the future where new technologies and the conquest of space (or at least our solar system, as many things I think of as dirty space seem to keep humankind firmly below the speed of light and relatively close the Earth) have not really solved our problems. In fact, it often seems they have basically made them worse with mining colonies, spacestations and the ships shuttling between them all reflecting the very worst aspects of the third world instead of portraying the future as a technological eden which has elevated all humans into a new Eden. Space is not so great. It probably wants to kill you, or at least make you life really suck.

The reason I think of dirty space as more of a genre than a visual aesthetic is because while dirty space seems almost a visual shorthand for saying ”hey, turns out we are going to screw up space just as bad as we are screwing up Earth, maybe worse” or at the very least ”life in space is pretty crappy” it is more. It has a definite attitude; there seems little room for blind optimism in dirty space because everyone seems to really need a shower. The huddled masses are almost always oppressed and impoverished. People in a dirty space story are not going to be faced with conflict such as ”do they have the right to make a judgement on the long waging computerized war being fought with perfect civility by this newly met alien civilization?” People in a dirty space story are probably going to see problems more along of the lines of ”how can they improve their lives without ending up in space prison or being cut up to provide spare body parts for the upper class?” I also feel as though dirty space can also be found in non-visual science fiction storytelling. Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress has never, to my knowledge, been adapted for the screen but it exudes dirty space feel.

Whether dirty space is a sub-genre title which catches on… well, I will leave that to the conventions and chat rooms for discussion. But I will close my impromptu argument for the term by saying if you read this description and at any time thought something along the lines of ”he didn’t mention this movie, that show or book…” then there is probably a space in the science fiction family tree for dirty space.

The Strange Tale of The Eleventh Son

Gu Long (June 7, 1938 to September 21, 1985) is commonly referred to as one of the three legs of the modern Wuxia tripod (along with Jin Yong, aka Louis Cha, and Liang Yusheng). Although many of his works are familiar to many Western fans through film and television adaptations (such as the Sentimental Swordsman series, Handsome Siblings, Clan of Amazons and Heroes Shed No Tears) there has only been one of his novels officially translated* into English: The Eleventh Son.

I am not sure why Homa and Sekey Books chose to translate The Eleventh Son into English as opposed to other works. Because there is not a well known film adaptation of it, this particular book is not a well known story in the West. It is not a standalone work, like most of his novels, and its sequel has not been translated. Personally, I have never heard of it being held up either as his masterpiece or even as an especially good example of his works. For whatever reason, though, Homa and Sekey chose to translate and release it back in 2005. New paperback copies are still sold on Amazon. I am proud it sits on my bookshelf between the handful of Jin Yong translations and an English copy of Blades From The Willows by Huanzhulouzhu (the sole work by that author to be translated officially into English).

Rebecca S. Tai translated The Eleventh Son for Homa and Sekey and, as far as my brief research into it could tell, she has not translated any other novel. This is too bad because I quite enjoyed her prose. The novel flows well. If a reader was unaware this was a translated work I doubt they would suspect they were not reading the author’s original words.

That being said, I can’t speak to how well she captured Gu Long’s tone or style; if my Chinese was good enough to read Gu Long in the original I wouldn’t need the translation! I also do not have a copy of the novel in the original Chinese. If I did I would at least struggle through the first page or two in an attempt to evaluate the translation.

Because there have been very few adaptations (possibly only two TV series) of The Eleventh Son, I was not familiar with the story before reading the book. In fact, I knew damn near nothing about the book’s plot before reading it. In some ways, it was what I expected from a wuxia novel: there was a great emphasis placed on relationships and standing in the wulin (martial society or the martial arts brotherhood, also called the jianghu) and the action was vague, concentrating more on fanciful names of techniques than actual descriptions of action. The former was not as complicated as other wuxia novels, which I found refreshing. The main character Xiao Shiyi Liang (which basically translates to ”the eleventh son”) is also known as the Great Bandit. He has a reputation as a very strong fighter and a thief so there are no great cultural differences keeping the reader from understanding he is feared by many but thought of as a dishonest, even vicious, person.

Action in the wuxia genre is a pet peeve of mine. Despite novels being nominally centered on martial arts, most wuxia authors seem to duck describing martial arts in realistic, concrete ways. While Gu Long seems to have kept the tradition of tossing out fanciful names and allowing readers to do the work of deciding what said techniques might actually entail, he does describe the physical effects these moves have on their targets. He also tries to quantify how effective the various fighters are at using their styles. This evaluation is translated as the ”maturity” of the martial artists’ technique. I personally found this made the fights a bit more interesting than those in other wuxia novels. It also struck me the lightness skill (a common ability in wuxia novels which allows characters to use their energy to lighten their bodies) was described literally as flying at times. I am not sure if this was Gu Long or the translator, but it is certainly a trope found more in wuxia film adaptations which seems fitting to me as Gu Long actually started a film studio to bring his books to the screen.

However, in many ways, The Eleventh Son was nothing like what I expected. There was much less conflict among the wulin than many other famous wuxia stories which often feature grand conspiracies. It is basically a love story, as many wuxia stories claim to be, but it is actually primarily a love story. It starts out promising to be an exciting heist story as various unsavory elements among the wulin conspire to acquire a fine sword called the Deer Carver (the deer is a symbol of the emperor in China, much like we may use an eagle to refer to the US president). In fact, when the book starts it does not even appear Xiao Shiyi Liang is going to be the main character! The Eleventh Son is also much raunchier than many other classic wuxia stories. It is hard to imagine any character in a Jin Yong novel being as obsessed with breasts or feet as the men and women who populate the pages of The Eleventh Son!

The Eleventh Son is grittier than the works of Jin Yong, the wuxia author who has been most widely translated into English, without actually being more violent. Reading The Eleventh Son reminded me of watching vintage film noir in that those early gumshoe and gangster movies managed to walk in a world of sex, violence and depravity without the graphic depictions seen in more modern films. The drinking the book was rampant and celebrated (and sad, considering Gu Long basically did not live to fifty due to his alcoholism); all that was missing was cigarettes and fedoras! The flaws of characters, be it vanity, prized but undeserved reputations or other personal failings created a much grayer world than other wuxia stories. This also means Gu Long dwells more on emotion and inner conflict instead of gaining power or cultivating inner energy and technique. This is perhaps the strength of this book, which is not exactly the story it seems to promise in the first chapter.

*A quick postscript to this review: Yes, I said officially. Many, if not all, of the works of Gu Long are available on the Internet in the form of fan translations. These are unauthorized, most often communal efforts. By and large they are labors of love created by teams of bilingual fans. Many readers use these services and because they are the only way to read most wuxia novels in English. There are other groups translating Asian comic books, movies and television shows, too.

I avoid these fan translations. I understand many fans feel they are good for the works as they promote them to new audiences. Often there is no material gain for either the fan translators or the websites involved (although this is not always the case). Still, they are technically stealing someone else’s intellectual property. Even though authors like Gu Long and Jin Yong are no longer with us, their books are not public domain. Some may feel the fan translations are working to show publishers how popular English translations are but you can just as easily argue every download of a fan translation represents a lost sale of an officially translated work. Either way, ultimately fan translations are intellectual property theft (even if the fan translators are not profiting in any way and are solely motivated by a love of the genre) and I personally choose not to read them.

No Matter Where You Go…

I have trouble passing up a bookstore… especially a used bookstore. My day job keeps me constantly traveling so I get to check out independent shops and Half Price Books across the country. There are so many incredible books out there! You are likely to find me in non-fiction thumbing through martial arts guides or Mandarin text books but there is always a good chance I will be over in the old science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. Not that long ago I found myself staring at a complete set of Ron Goulart’s Vampirella paperbacks and they were calling to me. Calling to me! They telling me they would set me back about $300, though, and I really could not think of $300 of explanations to give my wife! So they stayed where they were.

But this week in Sacramento, after a thorough search of the paperback shelves (and a very intense period of thought trying to remember exactly which Robotech: The Sentinels paperbacks survived a sewer back up in my old house) I stumbled across a new, hardback copy of Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League, Et Al: A Compendium, which was released by Dark Horse Books last year. Somehow, the book division of Dark Horse Comics managed to sneak it out without me knowing. Recognizing the title as the sequel promised, but never delivered, at the end of 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension I immediately bought it. I was ridiculously, indescribably happy to find it… and it was well over a $280 savings compared to those Vampirella books!

According to Wikipedia (so you know it has to be true), back in ’84 when Gene Siskel reviewed Buckaroo Banzai (it is a long-ass title so if I write Buckaroo Banzai assume I mean the film and Buckaroo Banzai will mean the character and I’ll call the new book …Against the World Crime League) he predicted it would become a cult film. He was right, but unfortunately it was not a great success at the time so the sequel never materialized. Neither, by the way, did an attempt just a couple of years ago to revive the franchise as a TV series. Buckaroo Banzai, sadly, has been confined to that original film, its novelization, a pair of Marvel special comics covering the film’s plot back in ’84, a Moonstone Comics series and, now, …Against the World Crime League.

Back in 1984 when Buckaroo Banzai came out, I was 12, armed with the reading comprehension level of a college student and obsessed with science fiction, fantasy and pulp stories. I lurked through the spinning paperback racks at the library searching for something new or revisiting old favorites such as Star Trek and Doc Savage. I also had an uncle who was a movie critic. That is important because before Buckaroo Banzai hit the theaters he left a copy of the movie novelization, probably from a press kit, laying around where I could find it. And I did. And I read it. And I loved it!

I was already well steeped in the adventures of Doc Savage, The Avenger and The Shadow, as well is a few more modern characters cut from the same cloth, such as Lin Carter’s Prince Zarkon. Buckaroo Banzai, the guitar playing, band leading, neurosurgeon, experimental physicist and adventurer was a brand new version of everything I loved. The film novelization was incredible. It covered the plot of the film, of course, with more backstory and plenty of footnotes. Yes, footnotes! Much like comic books and those old pulp novels I loved, it made constant references to an entire (and entirely non-existent) library of novels detailing the many adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and his Hong Kong Cavaliers. I read it twice in a weekend and a few more times over the years…

So the funny thing is I really don’t remember when I actually saw Buckaroo Banzai. I definitely did and I have seen it many, many times over the past four decades. I have it on blu-ray. I watched it again on a plane after grabbing …Against the World Crime League thanks to an Amazon Prime download. I think my uncle probably slipped us preview passes to see it (he was always flush with movie passes) but I might have begged a ride out of someone and caught it during its first run or at the dollar show. It is even possible, I admit, I did not see the film until it came out of VHS or hit cable… but I doubt I managed to wait that long!

Obviously, I am an unapologetic fan. My most recent viewing of Buckaroo Banzai did nothing to change that, either! Here is a fun fact: I gave a character in my Black Sky Ranger books the nickname Banzai because I love this movie so much. Unfortunately, the movie has dropped out of the Amazon Prime library since I watched it… When it was there it was the original version without the deleted scenes available on most home video releases. Since I have basically written a love letter to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension up until this point, any attempt at a ‘serious’ review of the movie is pretty much out the window. Let me just sum it up by saying Buckaroo Banzai is a tongue in cheek, nostalgic, PG rated romp with an incredibly catchy theme song hitting some of your favorite pulp magazine and B-movie tropes. Instead of talking about the film’s merits, let me just go over the cast and then cut you loose to go find your own copy to watch!

Because Buckaroo Banzai emulates Doc Savage, it features a whole posse of scientist/musician/adventurers who accompany Buckaroo and the cast makes the film. An old medical school friend of Buckaroo’s, played by Jeff Goldblum, is new to the group. Lewis Smith, star of The Heavenly Kid and known for his appearances in Southern Comfort and the North and South mini-series, is a scene stealer as bleach blonde Perfect Tommy and Clancy Brown (Starship Troopers, Highlander and Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series) is, as always, a highlight. He is one of the great character actors of our time. Opposing our heroes are a group of aliens from the eighth dimension played by Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya, Vincent Schiavelli and led by John Lithgow. Robert Ito, Carl Lumbly, Rosalind Cash and Ellen Barkin round out the cast.

But the man who makes the movie is Peter Weller as Buckaroo Banzai. Weller is an under-appreciated giant in science fiction. Everyone immediately connects him to RoboCop (which is natural, but did not come out for another three years). He also played parts in Star Trek, Odyssey 5, The Strain and voiced Bruce Wayne in the animated Dark Knight Returns. As Buckaroo Banzai, he is definitely channeling then-current 1980s New Romantic singers (like Adam Ant) with a good dose of Buddy Holly thrown in. I personally think Buckaroo Banzai’s influence can be seen in the lead character of Six String Samurai. But when you take that rock n roll style and add Banzai’s expertise in science and the fact he is always one step ahead of everyone with his mind going 120 mph… well, he is basically a prototype of David Tennant’s version of Doctor Who. Seriously, watch it and adjust for the New Wave fashion sensibilities and the lack of an accent…. then tell me I am wrong.

I honestly don’t know what I am trying to accomplish with this blog post except to say there is finally a sequel to Buckaroo Banzai, written by the original screenwriter, and I can not wait until I have time to sit down and read it! But more importantly, it is the latest thing to remind me how very, very cool The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension is. If you haven’t seen it, or haven’t seen it lately, go find it. It is not on Amazon Prime (at time of writing) but you should be able to find it on Pluto and Paramount+.

Seriously, watch it. You will thank me later.

Elves, Mermaids, Fans and Racism

In a recent appearance on the Dreadloc Blerd podcast Kendrick Grey and I discussed adaptations of stories into different media. I am pretty sure we were really talking about turning anime into live action and I posited different visions of source material had room to co-exist and fans didn’t need to go crazy over it. I am sure I referenced the Japanese comic writer and artist Leiji Matsumoto. He delights in taking the same core character, space pirate Captain Harlock, and placing him in stories set essentially in different realities with Harlock, while remaining constant in terms of personality, having different backstories and positions in the reality. I think I also mentioned there are about a million versions of Batman and that is okay. Basically, I stated there was room for different interpretations of the characters and stories we love. For the record, Kevin Conroy is my Batman of choice. I also am pretty sure I mentioned my personal bone of contention was when something was stated to be in the same continuity (ie “share canon”) with other properties but then did not seem to respect or acknowledge the canon. Yes, I was talking about you Star Trek: Discovery and Strange New Worlds.

On the heels of that appearance the fantasy community entered a huge uproar (or so I am told by the media) because the new Amazon Prime Rings of Power series featured black elves. Not black elves like the Drow in old school Dungeons and Dragons (I am old and I am nerdy) but elves portrayed by actors of African descent. Although Rings of Power is a newly written, original series it is based on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books. Apparently, based on Tolkien’s works, many fans have decided there are no black elves or hobbits. And then, perhaps a little bit more tangential to the science fiction and fantasy realm, came news Princess Ariel the mermaid would be played by a black actress in the upcoming Disney live action movie… and, according to the media, it was causing an uproar.

This is not a phenomenon restricted solely to fantasy; it wasn’t that long ago certain groups of science fiction fans were in an uproar over whether or not there could be black stormtroopers… The Disney hating part of me, which I fully admit exists, feels compelled to point out that this was a Disney controversy, too. But there was also a reported backlash to Anna Diop portraying the alien superhero Starfire in the live adaptation of DC Comics’ Titans. And I remember some reported grumblings about Zendaya being the traditionally white and red headed Mary Jane in the latest Spider-Man films. Dammit, that is Disney too. And that whole thing got weirder when her MJ Watson turns out not to be Mary Jane but more on that in a second.

Let me just say something straight out that is going to be very unpopular with some people, maybe even anger some and might even make some people decide I am a horrible person and they should avoid all my books: 

You can be upset, even against, a black actress playing Ariel in a live action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid for reasons other than racism.

What? No, you have to be racist if you are against black actors getting roles… I can almost hear the cries now. And, yes, if you are against black actors getting roles solely because they are black then you qualify as a racist. If you take to social media spouting racist terms, well, you are obviously a racist. But that is not what this is about. This whole post already has me thinking about the opening of Chasing Amy, perhaps the greatest film commentary on comic books and comic book fans ever. If you haven’t seen it go find a copy now. But I digress. Seriously, give me a minute and hear me out. 

First, let me say that ultimately, I don’t care who plays Ariel in the live action movie. Until I have grandchildren, if I have grandchildren, I have absolutely zero intention of watching any version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I can not say with any degree of certainty I have ever actually sat down and watched the film all the way through. I am of a certain age so, to me, Princess Ariel is no mermaid. She rolls with my man Thundarr the barbarian and Ookla the Mok. If you are not of that same certain age then look it up… Yup, that is what Saturday morning looked like for my generation. Even our cartoons were post-apocalyptic hellscapes; I’m surprised they didn’t make an after school cartoon out of Mad Max. I totally would have watched it.

Second, let me also say that I am going to discuss these things basically as a group even though you could make a case they are separate issues. I completely see how The Little Mermaid could be a seen in a different light than Rings of Power and Star Wars but maybe not so different than Starfire in Titans. Ultimately, though, I think a great deal of this backlash comes from the same primary reason and I do not believe it is racism.

Third, let me also state for the record I really, truly understand how important it is for people, especially children, to see heroes they can relate to in media. It isn’t enough to just have characters there on the screen… People assume I am an old white guy. Basically, I am but I grew up very aware of my American Indian heritage as well as my European roots. Who did I have to look up to? Tonto. But was that the only indigenous character on television? Of course not. Lots of movies were full of savage redskins (often played by actors of seemingly random ethnicity or stuntmen in brown face) being conveniently mowed down by clean cut cowboys. And lets not forget the Hekawi Tribe on F-Troop or Geoduck and Crowbar in the Ma and Pa Kettle films… hardly positive and I do not believe any of them were played by indigenous actors. Hell, I think Don Rickles played an American Indian on F-Troop! Eventually it was a positive portrayal of a mixed blood American Indian hero (actually portrayed by a white actor) in Billy Jack which literally set the course of my life by causing a very young me to become determined to study traditional martial arts.

Okay, with all of that said, let’s get back to my assertion someone can have a negative reaction to a black actress playing Ariel in The Little Mermaid and not be racist. I am sure there are racists out there and I am sure they are convinced there are no black mermaids or black heroes or positive black characters in general (you know, because they are racists) but just because some people are against this casting call solely for racist reasons does not mean all people against it are racist or even that the majority of them are racist. 

Let’s explore Disney’s animated The Little Mermaid for a moment. If you ask Americans what a mermaid looks like it is reasonable to assume a huge percentage of them instantly think of Princess Ariel from the Disney animated film The Little Mermaid. There is good reason for that, too: Disney worked hard making that happen. A few, probably a little older, might go to a blonde mermaid inspired by Darryl Hannah in the live action comedy Splash which, I believe, was also made by a Disney subsidiary. I will even posit you will get a handful, probably younger and mainly of Chinese descent, who go to a mental image of Jelly Lin Yun, the actress who starred in Steven Chow’s The Mermaid, which was also inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale (albeit it is very different than Disney’s animated film). All in all, though, I think it is a safe bet to say most Americans will default to a pale, red headed, green tailed sea princess with a tasteful clam shell bra and a lovely signing voice because Disney has pushed that image down our throats since 1989.

Want to know a not-so-secret secret? Disney has a problem with many of its properties: they don’t actually own the stories. They are drawing from familiar fairy tales for their films (Get it? Drawing from…). These stories are in many cases public domain. As soon as they release them, sometimes even before, cheap copies quickly animated and rushed to market are out to capitalize on the excitement around Disney’s product. In some cases, such as that Stephen Chow movie Mermaid I mentioned before, there are other films which really aren’t meant to compete with Disney’s products but are taken from the same source materials. I mean, before Disney’s animated Hunchback of Notre Dame there were at least half a dozen live action film versions going back to the silent era and even another animated version which was released about a decade earlier.

So what can Disney do given their tremendous investment in their animated features? They can not keep other groups from making their own versions of public domain novels, fairy tales, legends or historic characters. But what about the actual design of the characters and the songs used? Those are definitely Disney’s intellectual property which they jealously guard with teams of lawyers and maybe even assassins. Seriously, you don’t mess with Disney. There are stories of them trying to collect royalties from people with Disney character tattoos!

So they carefully designed Princess Ariel to be something they could market and protect. She has red hair because it goes well with her tail and was easier to animate in the land and sea environments, but also (according to Treasures Untold: the Making of the Little Mermaid) to differentiate her from the mermaid seen in Splash. Disney does not simply design characters. They set out to design distinctive characters and they expect them to become iconic bits of pop culture. And then they carpet bomb children with them by throwing out tons of commercials, toys, clothes, backpacks, books, albums, etc. to make that happen while they turn a tidy profit. 

Disney’s The Little Mermaid was a huge success which spawned two direct to video sequels, an animated series, a musical, toys, albums, clothes and more. If you were a little girl in the early 1990s Princess Ariel was burned into your consciousness, probably even more so than Barbie. Even if you were not a little girl you got a huge dose of Ariel. What does a mermaid look like? Princess Ariel from The Little Mermaid. What does a mermaid sound like (not such a strange question given the story)? Mermaids sound like Jodi Benson, who provided not only Ariel’s speaking voice but her singing voice. For over two decades now Princess Ariel has been part of American pop culture.

And that is the problem now. I won’t question Disney’s choice of casting Halle Bailey as Princess Ariel. I am sure she is immensely talented and I certainly wish her the best. Maybe they have a bold vision and the purest motives with this casting move. Perhaps they only desire to give a whole new generation of girls a sense of inclusion (something they have been delinquent at over the years). I certainly hope that is the case. No matter what their motivations, though, this is definitely a bold move. The problem with it is they are working against themselves and the literally iconic image of Princess Ariel… An image they created and then made a part of millions of people’s childhood. 

Disney is not putting out a new version of The Little Mermaid; they are remaking Disney’s The Little Mermaid. By doing this, no matter how they cast it, they are messing with people’s childhood memories. If you see Halle Bailey and your knee jerk reaction is “That isn’t Princess Ariel,” I don’t think you automatically must be racist. It may just mean you have a really strong and important personal bond with a piece of your childhood.

I am old enough to remember when it was announced Tim Burton would be making a live action Batman film which, by the way, came out in 1989 just like Disney’s The Little Mermaid. For the record, Batman made way more money… but I digress. People were upset, articles were written and statements were made on television and the radio (as these were primordial times when we languished with primitive personal computers and had no Internet) stating “No one could ever be Batman but Adam West.” Believe me, I worked in a comic store back then. I saw some heated arguments over whether there could be a live action Batman without Adam West… if you haven’t ever seen two middle aged nerds (and I say that with love) about to throw hands over a movie neither has even seen yet you really haven’t lived a full life.

Was this racist? Adam West was white and his movie replacement, Michael Keaton, was… oh yeah, he was white too. So it wasn’t racist. What was it? Michael Keaton was a bona fide movie star. Although his background was in comedy he had gotten good reviews for his recent drama Clean and Sober (although I do not believe it was a particularly successful film). I would also argue anyone pining for Adam West’s portrayal of Batman was not holding out for a gritty drama anyway. It wasn’t racism making people upset about Michael Keaton replacing Adam West, it was nostalgia. It was personal reverence and allegiance to childhood memories. It was a strong connection to the character and its history. In short, it was fandom! By and large, though, it turned out people really liked 1989’s live action Batman and because of that we have enjoyed several other actors portraying the Dark Knight without the same initial backlash… even though some of them probably should not have ever been Batman!

When it was announced Star Trek would be returning to television in the form of a new series with a new crew many fans were livid because Star Trek couldn’t be Star Trek without Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy and so forth. That wasn’t racism at all. It was fans being really connected and protective of a television series which was very important to them. By the time it was announced Star Trek would be rebooted in a series of films, fans were pretty comfortable with there being multiple captains inhabiting our Star Trek fan universe but there were still cries “Only Shatner can be Kirk!” Why? Because… Shatner… is an… icon. (I truly hope you read that in your best Shatner voice.) When Blade: The Series came out a major strike against it was the lack of Wesley Snipes. Wesley Snipes was many, many people’s first introduction to the character of Blade. For many, Wesley Snipes is Blade and the original movie still remains one of the best, if not the best, comic book films ever made. When Disney reboots and reimagines it, as they are planning to do, they will undoubtedly receive some push back from many fans!

Now, Lord of the Rings and Teen Titans might not be as ingrained into the childhoods of as large a part of the American population as Disney’s The Little Mermaid but for some people these series are just as tightly woven into their psyche. Fans of both have probably read the series for years, decades even, and they have created a definite mental image of the worlds and characters portrayed. Honestly, I haven’t read Tolkien in years (I find him boring; sue me) and I have no real opinion of what elves and hobbits should look like! However, for many people Tolkien was their introduction to the serious fantasy genre and occupies a very special place in their heart. As an aside, I have a vague recollection of reading Tolkien was against adaptations of his works even to the point of not liking illustrations being done. As I recall, he felt the words were there and the readers should create the imagery in their minds. Anything else would affect, possibly spoil, that writer/reader connection. If that is the case, by the way, maybe the real discussion should not be if there are black elves but if The Rings of Power should have been made at all! 

Teen Titans is not as old as Tolkien’s works, of course, but it does come with a wealth of imagery from years of comics and a beloved animated series. It is natural, I think, for some fans to want a live action adaptation to look as similar to the comics, or the cartoon, as possible. It seems to me this is probably why Zendaya’s character in the recent Spider-Man live action films is not Mary Jane Watson (who is a major and popular part of the comic’s mythos and a red head) but a different MJ Watson. This gives the filmmakers a work around when it comes to fan expectations, kind of like those Star Trek reboot films being set in a different reality.

So, can stormtroopers be black? Apparently, they are all clones or something. I don’t really know, I don’t really care because I am not a Star Wars fan. Again, sue me… it was great when I was five. Anyway, this poses a bit of a different problem which may upset some fans, although still not because of their inherent racism. Apparently, from what I am told by Star Wars fans, stormtroopers are all clones of a specific person. That person was not black so how can an actor like John Boyega be a stormtrooper? If this is truly the case in the Star Wars canon then I understand why his casting would piss off fans. Over on the Star Trek side of things I am very upset with the new shows such as Strange New Worlds for similar reasons. 

On the surface Strange New Worlds is a really good, entertaining show. But (spoilers) there are a few problems with it since it is supposed to be in the same timeline as the other television series of the franchise. Christine Chapel and Nyota Uhura both serve with Captain Pike, which was never mentioned in the original show. Worse yet, both are aware of Spock’s arranged marriage… Chapel even meets his intended bride. But in the original series episode Amok Time everyone, including Chapel, is shocked he has a fiancé. The crew of Strange New Worlds has faced the Gorn, although no one knows what the Gorn look like a short time later in the original series. This annoys the hell out of me. All of the new shows ignoring the canon and continuity of the established series, although supposedly in the same reality, bothers me off to the point I am almost done with them. Don’t even get me started on the Klingons in Discovery! 

My problems with the new shows have nothing to do with racism. Race has nothing to do with it. The problems have to do with me being enough of the fan to know the history and canon of the series and not understanding why the current writers and producers seem to completely disregard it. I am a fan, a loyal fan. Star Trek is important to me! Ignoring Star Trek canon feels in many ways like an insult to my devotion to the show over the years. If John Boyega’s presence in Star Wars creates an unexplained and ignored challenge to the series’ canon then I can imagine a fan could be very angry about his character being black without any racist motivations. Lots of fans were confused and upset forty fears ago when Klingons appeared in Star Trek The Motion Picture sporting cranial ridges. The obvious, and real, reason for the change in their appearance was modern techniques and Hollywood money meant the producers could make Klingons look way cooler than they could back on 1960s television. It was still a sore point with fans for years, though, until finally explained. And if you spend enough time at a Star Trek convention today, well, I guarantee you will still hear fans bitching about it!

I am not arguing there are not representation problems in science fiction, fantasy or in Hollywood in general (both in the past and to this day). Somebody recently told me in the Walker, Texas Ranger reboot Cordell Walker is no longer part Indian (as the character was in the original series and as Chuck Norris is in real life) and my head almost exploded. Then they told me he does know martial arts either and I am sure I was on the verge of a stroke. Believe me, I am not endorsing the idea that mermaids and elves can’t be black or that stormtroopers have to be white (I still really have no idea about that one and can’t really be bothered to force myself to research it). I am not saying that actors of various ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc do not face disgusting and unfair prejudices. I am certainly not endorsing any behaviors of that type; in fact, I condemn them. I am also not maintaining it was right of Disney (or any other media firm) to have neglected positive non-white main characters for so long, especially in the realm of children’s programming. What I am advocating is that everyone shuts up for a minute, calms down and considers that if someone holds a different opinion than you their reasoning may not drawn from the most shameful aspects of humanity. I honestly believe people can hold different opinions on most topics and not be bad or somehow morally deficient. And when these opinions happen to relate to very dear and beloved parts of their lives, especially parts which stretch back to childhood, there are also some strong emotions at play.

Someone who does not agree with your views is not automatically bad… they might just really feel in their heart of hearts only Adam West can be Batman. 

Prey, Or The Uncomfortable Truth About Predator

Let me start by promising you this will be a 100% spoiler free review of the latest Predator installment Prey. I am not going to reveal anything about Prey that you can’t figure out watching the trailer.

Having said that, let’s cut to the bottom line: some critics say Prey is the best installment of the series since Predator. I disagree; Prey is the best Predator movie bar none. Yes, Prey is better than the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

I will grant you Prey has the tremendous advantage of having a wealth of lore to draw on. It is not only the seventh film in the series but there have been at least ten novels, not including film novelizations, dozens of ”pure Predator” comic books and a whole fistful of crossovers where everyone from Batman to Judge Dredd has squared off against the galaxy’s most fearsome hunters. Predator had the heavy burden of introducing the Predator and making audiences fear him. From Predator 2 on, though, we already knew how damn scary and damn near invincible a predator (or worse yet, a group of them) truly was. When it comes to establishing the premise, Arnold Schwarzenegger did all the heavy lifting.

And Predator did all the heavy lifting required. Not only was it very successful at the box office, it had enough meat in the story to spawn a half a dozen sequels, at least ten novels, etc. So I don’t want to take anything away from the original or diminish it in any way when I say Predator has a major weakness as a film: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, he is the star of the movie. He was a huge part of why it was a success. His star power, in terms of popularity and established screen persona, was crucial to getting the film noticed by audiences and driving forward the plot. But he was still the problem.

Why? It is pretty simple, really, and it has nothing to do with Schwarzenegger’s acting. The problem was from the very first frame of Predator it was obvious Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to be walking out of that jungle at the end of the movie. That is not a problem unique to Predator, by the way, or even to Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is a recurring feature of blockbuster action films centered on a big time action star. Whether it is Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, The Rock or any other bankable action star you can be sure once the shells all hit the ground, the fires are extinguished and the smoke clears that A-list action star is going to be standing there ready for the next round of glory, possibly in the sequel.

But Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t come back for the sequel. Instead, Predator 2 boasted an ensemble cast with Danny Glover, Maria Chonchito Alonso, Gary Busey, Ruben Blades and Bill Paxton. Some of their careers were on the rise, others on the decline but it was very hard to point to any one actor in Predator 2 and declare they were the box office draw. The result? You had no idea who was going to survive and that made for a much less predictable movie. In a way, this was a reverse of Alien and its sequels. Sure, now you might watch Alien with full knowledge Sigourney Weaver comes back for a fistful of follow ups but back in 1979 she only had about four credits to her name, about half from TV. Most of the rest of the cast had more name recognition than her so audiences did not go into Alien knowing she was the star and Ripley was the guaranteed hero.

Wait a minute, you might be asking yourself, does that mean you are saying Predator 2 is a better movie than Predator? Well, yes. Yes I am, at least in some ways. Predator has many advantages over the sequel or maybe Predator 2 just has some inherent issues of its own. I certainly understand why pretty much everyone likes Predator more than Predator 2 and I would never waste much time or energy trying to convince anyone they are wrong for liking Predator more. Sometimes it is fun to watch a single bona fide big time action star kick the living crap out of all comers. I mean, I love martial arts movies way more than the next guy and those films thrive on the ”hero vanquishes all comers” formula. But sometimes it is fun to not really know who is going to walk out of the woods at the end of the film and there are a million slasher films built on that formula.

The strength of Prey for me was I really was not sure exactly which I was watching. Sure, the main character in Prey, a young Commanche woman in the very early 18th century who is determined to prove her value as a hunter to her village, is obviously the singular hero of the film. At the same time, if a predator is a damn near unstoppable killing machine against well armed 20th century soldiers and street gangs what can Plains Indians do against one using bows and axes?

In Prey are we watching someone who can destroy the monster, like Arnold in the original, or someone who can merely survive the onslaught like Amy Steel in Friday the 13th Part 2? For me, this made Prey a much more interesting movie. Add to that a likable, compelling heroine played by Amber Midthunder, a well crafted story with several takes on what it means to be hunter and hunted and the odd Easter egg nod to the larger body of Predator lore and you have a film worth watching. For my money it is a better film than the original.

Dreadloc Blerd Podcast Interview

I was thrilled to sit down for a (long) conversation with Kendrick Grey on his Dreadloc Blerd podcast to talk about my new book Vanguard Scout Force 138: We Are 138, portraying martial arts and violence in media, science fiction and fantasy fan communities and more. You can listen to the audio version or check it out over on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe!

You can pick up my new tokusatsu inspired novel Vanguard Scout Force 138: We Are 138 now at your favorite ebook retailer or request it at your local library. Thanks for reading!