Steven Lyle Jordan's Blog

Review of Wild Cards: House Rules

I just finished House Rules : A Novel in Stories, book 34 in the Wild Cards series. My conclusion is:

Slowest. Burn. Ever.

To be honest, this barely felt like a Wild Cards novel (of which I believe I've read them all), considering the setting of the story, Loveday House, was so unlike any of the mostly realistic settings featured in any of the rest of the series. And yes, I say that, even though some of the stories took place on other planets, but there you go.

Besides all that, it seems like it took getting through 70% of the book before I felt like things were really happening; the story was composed of very low-key mystery vignettes before then. And I felt like the overriding mystery--Loveday House itself--was never answered to my satisfaction, or at least in a way that seemed to fit within the Wild Cards universe.

For fans of the Wild Cards series, there are the obligatory connections to past characters and events from throughout the Wild Cards history, and a nice but subtle non-Wild Cards twist presented at the end. There wasn't much of the trademark humor usually found in the series, but plenty of the violence, brutality and outright weirdness familiar to readers. Still it felt like a slog getting through this one. Though the ending was fairly typical of Wild Cards stories, I kept expecting an in-universe conclusion that I feel like I did not get.

But maybe, after 34+ books, this series is beginning to feel jaded... maybe this series is reaching too far outside of its wheelhouse to entertain me at this point. Maybe it just didn't feel like Wild Cards.

Finding My Way Back.

Yes, it's been a while since I poked my head up around here. The reason: Life. Which happens. And I haven't had the time or incentive to do any writing for the last few years.

But now, I'm getting closer to retirement, and life is lightening up on me a bit... and I find that I not only have more time to read, I hope to have time to write again. So, I'll also be spending more time around here, and tending to some old business with the new.

By old business, I mean re-releasing some of my books (maybe all of them, the jury's still out). Poor sales prompted me to take them all out of circulation, as I just didn't have the time or resources to give to promoting them. But I hope to be able to put them back into circulation, one or a few at a time, and see if I can better promote them the next time around.

And then? I'm already taking notes for a new book, which I hope to start writing soon, if the Gods agree and the stars align favorably.

But at the very least, I expect to spend more time around here, which will hopefully give me more incentive to get back into writing. In the meantime, it's nice to be back!

Loki: Time Travel Shenanigans

The Marvel series Loki has come and gone… almost. Most of us didn’t know that this short series was actually a short season; there will be more Loki coming… uh… someday.

But we can still talk about what we did get from Loki‘s season 1, which unfortunately boils down to one word: Shenanigans. Because only one thing of any consequence actually happened in Loki season 1. Instead, Loki’s first season will be remembered for the universe it set up for viewers.

The series begins with Loki, Asgardian God of Mischief, being captured by an organization called the Time Variance Authority. He is forced to work with an associate of the TVA to find a version of himself (known as a “variant” from another timeline) who is committing crimes that will alter the “proper” timeline of the universe, which the TVA works to keep running along a set course. Loki finds his variant, named Sylvie, and soon discovers that not everything he’s been told is true. And at the end, they are introduced to the real head of the TVA.

But honestly, none of the details of the story are important. The only thing of consequence in the season is what it sets up: A world of multiple parallel universes, with versions of the same individuals in each multiverse; a way to traverse from one universe to another, forwards and backwards in time; and many possible realities.

This is (supposedly) the direction that the next phase of Marvel movies and series are going, with the main villain being Kang, a time-travelling conqueror capable of traversing these multiverses in his quest to rule them all, and who has appeared at multiple times and in multiple guises throughout the Marvel comics world. And for Marvel, it makes some sense; after the first phases of movies being dominated by an alien capable of wiping out half the populace of the universe, you’d have to follow that up with a character than can move through time and change reality itself. Wouldn’t you?

Once the last Avengers movie, Endgame, introduced audiences to the story vehicle of time travel, we were primed for future time travel superhero stories (see what I did there?). Most audiences probably think of time travel as the science-fictiony part of the unique science fiction/fantasy/power fantasy/morality tale combo that is the superhero genre. That’s probably because time travel is a well-known science fiction trope, going all the way back to H.G.Wells’ The Time Machine, and regularly attempted by some of the greatest SF writers of every age.

In fact, time travel is more fantasy than science fiction, considering scientists have only developed so-far-unproven theories that might allow some individual sub-atomic particles to move forwards or backwards in time. Of course, some ideas once thought to be fantasy have come true over time. But extending our time travel theories to practically include the galaxy of particles that make up the human body is akin to trying to get to the other end of the galaxy by foot. Heck, even Endgame‘s characters made fun of the typical time travel tropes, then tried to filter them through the “quantum realm” (something they’d earlier lampooned in Ant Man and the Wasp) to create a superhero-worthy time voyage.

In fact, the time travel method used in Endgame was almost a carbon copy of the method used in Michael Crichton’s novel Timeline: Shrinking humans down to the size of quantum particles in order to shift their position in time and enlarge them again. It was probably a good choice for a method to emulate, as Crichton is renowned for his ability to derive incredible SF concepts from modern science. But compared to most of his stories, which are based around realistic and practical extrapolations of existing science and engineering, Timeline reached for the edges of raw theory and outright fantasy to create its premise.

AND THEN Loki further diverges from basic time travel theory into the concept of multiple universes… by some theories, a new universe created every time something in the universe has a decision-point, one universe that goes right, and a brand new universe that goes left… creating an infinite diversity of universes, a reality where Hitler won WWII… a reality with man living with dinosaurs… a reality with a communist USA… a steampunk world, a dieselpunk world, a solarpunk world… a reality where Kennedy and King hadn’t been assassinated, etc, etc… hence, the multiverse. An idea that has absolutely no basis in reality, which violates the laws of conservation of energy (where does the energy to create brand new universes every instant come from?), which would single-handedly shatter the very laws of physics… that’s probably even more impossible than time travel itself.

Obviously, I consider all time travel stories to be the unicorns of sci-fi, patent fantasy, outright impossible, never ever to happen… and why I’ve never wanted to write a time travel story myself. But does that mean I can’t enjoy a movie or series about time travel? Of course not; time travel stories can contain incredibly clever and intricate plots based around their unique laws and processes, and so can be fascinating to watch and critique their ability to follow their own rules. Time travel stories can be great fun entertainment. And besides, I know the wise words given to us years ago by Mystery Science Theater 3000:

“Just repeat to yourself, it’s just a show, you should really just relax.”

So bring on the time travel shenanigans. I got time.

Time to retire the myth…

For the record: NO, the Star Trek kiss between Kirk and Uhura was not the “first interracial kiss” on television. Not by a long shot.

Yes, Star Trek was ahead of the curve and very progressive (in some areas). But contrary to popular opinion, this wasn’t one of them. The interracial kiss between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols was not American television’s first.

In fact, there have been a number of “interracial kiss” moments, in American and British TV. Even William Shatner himself, central to this myth, could set you straight, because he was involved in a similar incident a decade before Star Trek. And even that wasn’t the first.

Have a taste of truth, from Wikipedia:

I Love Lucy

The 1950s American television programme I Love Lucy broadcast multiple instances of real-life husband and wife Desi Arnaz, a Hispanic male, and Lucille Ball, a woman of North European ancestry, kissing. However, despite Arnaz and Ball being frequently described as an “interracial couple”, “Hispanic” is generally understood to be a catchall indicating persons of a Latin American, Spanish, or Filipino cultural background, as opposed to a race. Arnaz was usually considered to be a white male of Cuban ancestry.

The Ed Sullivan Show

In a 1958 episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, France Nuyen (French-Vietnamese) and William Shatner kissed during a scene from the then current Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong. (They later re-enacted that moment in the Star Trek episode “Elaan of Troyius,” aired in December 1968— Trekipidian Steve.)

Sea Hunt

In the Sea Hunt episode “Proof of Guilt” aired 16 August 1959, Lloyd Bridges and Nobu McCarthy (nee Atsumi, Japanese-Canadian) shared a kiss near the end of the episode which Bridges’ character described as “the best testimonial I’ll ever get in my life”.

Adventures in Paradise

An episode of Adventures in Paradise titled “The Big Surf,” broadcast in 1960, featured two scripted kisses: One between actress Pilar Seurat (Phillippine-American) and actor Robert Sampson, and another with Seurat and Gardner McKay.

I Spy

An episode of I Spy titled “The Tiger” broadcast on January 5, 1966, featured a scripted interracial kiss between Eurasian actress France Nuyen (the only other actor mentioned more often on this list, just behind William Shatner) and Robert Culp.

Movin’ with Nancy

A December 1967 TV special, Movin’ with Nancy, featured a kiss between Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. Although this was technically the first time a Caucasian kissed an African American on television in the United States, it differed from “Star Trek” in that Sinatra only kissed Davis on the cheek instead of lip-to-lip.

Star Trek

The episode “Mirror, Mirror“, which originally aired on October 6, 1967, featured a scripted interracial kiss between Eurasian actress Barbara Luna and William Shatner (pictured at right).

In November 1968, the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” presented what was often referred to as the first interracial kiss on American television, between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols (African-American). This claim is disputed by some who contend that in the scene in question, full lip contact between the actors did not occur, as they turned their heads away from the camera at the last moment to present the illusion of a kiss, meaning that this scene was not a true kiss. The latter point has been disputed, with Shatner claiming that he and Nichols’ lips never fully touched and Nichols asserting that the kiss was real.

And just for the record, an even earlier TV kiss by Lloyd Reckord (Jamaican), with Andrée Melly, in the ITV Armchair Theatre adaptation of Ted Willis’s play Hot Summer Night, broadcast on British TV in February 1959.

None of which means a damned thing, since we’re ALL of the same race—the HUMAN race—and making distinctions like this are every kind of pointless and stupid.

But, y’know, as long as we’re on the subject…

One thing you may have noticed about these references: They tend to be framed between a European man and a woman of some non-European race (I Love Lucy, Hot Summer Night and Movin’ with Nancy being the exceptions). Most of these kisses have involved an Asian, Eurasian or Hispanic actor; and in these cases, no big deal was made about the interactions. In fact, it’s apparent from the heritages of many of the women cited above that they are products of mixed marriages, adding an additional “all right” to the idea of their kissing a European man.

But the one everyone talks about is the Star Trek kiss, specifically, because it involved a European male and an African female kissing on the lips.

Fetch the smelling salts, Junior, your Aunt Bea just fainted.

Except she probably didn’t… because southern American TV markets generally refused to show the episode Plato’s Stepchildren, in prime time or in later years of airing the syndicated episodes, so Aunt Bea probably never saw it. (But they showed Mirror, Mirror.)

Because this myth was never an interracial thing, as the lack of concern over earlier incidents clearly demonstrated; it was always specifically a Black vs White thing, that particular combination that (ahem) trumps concerns over every other racial combination in America. That makes it an issue, much more than kissing any Asian or Hispanic cutie. As such manufactured “miscegenation” between Blacks and Whites was always considered so taboo in American culture (despite the fact that, hey, it happened all the time), it amounted to blasphemy to even suggest a physical attraction between Whites and Blacks on American television.

Thus, the Shatner-Nichols kiss was controversial specifically for being an affront to the great American taboo of mixing between European and African races (not to mention being a moment of violation, not affection). It stands as a prime example of how far we wanted to believe we’d evolved socially in 1968… a particularly laughable attitude, when you consider the state of American race relations of the 2020s. But then, you already knew that.

Didn’t you?

So let’s dispel this 50-plus-year-old myth once and for all: Star Trek was a great series, progressive, ground-breaking and ahead of its time. And it included no less than three interracial kisses (four, if you count Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”— Seriously Nerdy Steve). But the first? Not even.

I wish science fiction had a different name

Sometimes it amazes me how many online discussions I see, essentially debating what Science Fiction is and is not. These discussions are carried on by noted SF writers and producers, and by consumers of SF content from every background of life, and the discussions can last for days or weeks, easy. And at times, you have to wonder if these people are even talking about the same content at all.

As just a few examples, one person who runs a Facebook forum insists that Fantasy is a subset of Science Fiction (because some SF is so far-fetched—warp drives, transporters, etc—that it’s really fantasy). In another forum, an author insists that a story about cavemen is science fiction (because the story is speculation based on archeology, which is a science, and any story based on any science is SF).

And then there’s the whole of Star Wars, chock full of just about every non-science trope there is, making it an entire category of fantasy in itself… but the industry and its fans still consider it science fiction. I happen to disagree with these particular points of view, and there are many others out there that I could debate—and sometimes have.

The problem is that everyone has their own personal definition of science fiction, ignoring the established definitions. Britannica defines Science Fiction as “a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals.” A few other sources mirror this, some with the addition that its stories “frequently portray space or time travel and life on other planets.” (Oxford Dictionary) But that “actual or imagined” bit essentially allows the individual to drop almost literally anything into SF with the justification that “I can imagine anything, and it’s valid.” The definition is that loose, and so content is all over the place.

Britannica reports that the term science fiction was popularized, if not invented, in the 1920s by one of the genre’s principal advocates, the American publisher Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback was primarily looking for an easy label to use to promote the magazines he sold; and science fiction rolled off the tongue. But not all of the stories Gernsback, and other publishers of the quick-buck-inspired genre, sold were as tightly bound to the established laws of science as they usually suggested; and in no time, the public got used to the idea that SF could include all kinds of content, from the barely prescient to the outright fantastic. And today, science fiction still includes elements firmly grounded in widely accepted science and physics… alongside elements and characters of impossible physics and certain fantasy… and it’s all good. In today’s SF, almost literally anything goes, because that’s the way it started out in American publishing.

But all things grow up… and after almost 100 years since its coining, science fiction should be more than ready to graduate into adulthood. And to do that, first and foremost, it needs to be a genre that actually stands for something, not just anything. And one thing that would help it along would be a label that better describes what it is. And science fiction is clearly not that label.

Some in recent years have tried to swap out science fiction with speculative fiction, “a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements.” (Oxford) The problem with this label is that it’s intentionally all-encompassing, clearly including fantasy elements alongside scientific elements… essentially providing a back door to any type of content desired. Again, if science fiction is supposed to be based on actual or even imagined science, that definition won’t do.

(And No: I don’t consider “imagined science” to be fantasy, as some others perhaps might. Imagined science is technically an extrapolation of known scientific concepts, supposed to be based on the established rules of physics and where those rules allow for future scientific development and potential new concepts that theoretically fit within that framework. That extrapolation may be loose or even far-fetched, but it’s still based in science and physics. Fantasy ignores science and physics altogether; it doesn’t extrapolate it or bend the rules, they’re just not even part of the equation. This, by the way, is the essential separator between science fiction and fantasy, the thing that makes them two completely inalienable genres in themselves.)

So… back to the subject at hand, a better name for science fiction, a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals. As some have pointed out, trying to single out the “technology” part of science does encompass the vast majority of science fiction; but it excludes some firmly established fantasy elements in SF, like humanoid aliens (a staple of SF TV and movies), mind-power characters like telepaths (based in anthropological extrapolation), etc. Do we just say, from now on, that all humanoid aliens, telepaths, etc, etc, are now no longer part of SF? That’s a hard call. But if SF is supposed to be taking itself seriously, maybe it’s time to put those fantasy elements away, once and for all, and let them exist only in fantasy fiction.

And maybe that type of SF needs its own name to delineate it from more serious SF; something like “early science fiction” or “juvenile science fiction,” to indicate its fun roots and loose interpretation of scientific principles. Mind you, I’m not trying to be dismissive or denigrating, just pointing out that early SF tends to be more inclined to adventures and allegorical tales than serious science.

Similarly, coining “future fiction” ignores the many stories that take place in the present, or in the past when set in its present day. So that doesn’t work, either. No, the new label should reflect the actual definition, dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals. Maybe the crucial word we should be looking at here is “impact.” Stories in which science extrapolation impacts characters or societies.

“Science extrapolation fiction” is a pretty accurate description of what SF is supposed to be; but as labels go, it’s not great. Maybe shortening it to “science extra fiction” might work… or something similar, like “science-hypothetical fiction,” “science-speculative fiction” or “science-abstract fiction.”

On the other hand, there’s no reason we need to keep “fiction” at the end of a new label. Romance, fantasy, adventure, those labels stand without the word “fiction.” So maybe something like “science extrapolation,” “science extra,” “science speculation,” “science abstract,” “science hypothetical,” “science prediction,” “science cast,” etc.

Anyway, there’s choices. I could chose any one of these… personally, I kind of like “science speculation”… but who am I kidding? I’m sure there will be a groundswell following this article (among the 4 or 5 people who read it, anyway), telling me that science fiction, its name and its content is already perfect, and how dare me suggest otherwise! But maybe others—producers, publishers, fans, marketers, what have you—will give some thought to a better, more modern, more accurate, more adult labels for what we very loosely call science fiction. Maybe a better label would better define what is considered appropriate for the genre and help push other elements into the right genres for them. And maybe removing those elements will help towards making science speculation a more serious, and seriously-taken, genre; one not defined by non-science elements like humans in alien makeups, mind-reading and force-choking.

Or, if you insist on keeping those things, just call it all “semi-believable fantasy” and be done with it.

The SF templates

Just one of the things science fiction movies and TV shows are known for are their visual style, that look that immediately identifies them to audiences as SF. But even though these shows are generally set in the future, not everyone is aware of how much the look of SF programs is usually taken from already-developed movies from the past, sometimes out of literal whole cloth, to save creators the trouble of reinventing the wheel.

In fact, most science fiction productions have been designed around the visual elements of past science fiction movies that are considered original and unique in their visual style, and popular enough to have become the templates that inspired the movies and TV shows after them. And since some of these influences go back almost a full century, there’s a good chance you may not know much about some of them.

And so, let’s talk about the science fiction movies that have served as the visual inspirations of later SF movies and TV shows. (Disclaimer: This list mostly deals with SF movies and shows exposed to American audiences.)

Metropolis

Arguably the first serious science fiction movie—and unquestionably the first SF blockbuster—this 1926 movie essentially defined the science fiction movie genre. Created by Fritz Lang at the tail end of the German Impressionist movement, Metropolis featured overstated designs, modern fashions, massive and unusual art-deco-inspired architecture and design, cutting-edge industrial elements, and overly-kinetic laboratories.

Add to that a full orchestral score, a rarity in films at the time (this was done in the silent era, when musicians from full orchestras in some cases to single piano players in others, would play the movie’s music from a space under or beside the screen), and the latest in special effects, including models, projected backgrounds, stop-motion photography and elaborate props and lighting, and you have elements that inspired movies from Flash Gordon to Star Wars, and series like Star Trek. Other elements, like the frenetic lab, found its way into horror films like Frankenstein and any others that featured mad scientists.

The movie’s robot character, Maria/Futura, directly inspired the droid C-3PO of Star Wars, so much that they look like they were designed by the same team.

Frau Im Mond

Unlike Metropolis, which was designed around impressionistic grand spectacle, Frau Im Mond was set in its present-day (1929), and the only futuristic elements in it were the featured rocket that took the crew to the Moon. This style of a normal-looking world with just a few notable technological exceptions was a popular one in the 50s and sixties, especially as it kept budgets down; and it was less visually extreme to viewers, making it easier to suspend their disbelief. This more grounded style was also popular with more serious SF productions, especially those that ran on television, and can be found most recently to shows like Person of Interest and Orphan Black.

On the other hand, Frau Im Mond also featured characters walking around in minimal protective gear on the Moon, and meeting hostile natives, inspiring many productions about planetary visits and threatening aliens that thrill (or amuse) audiences to this day.

Things to Come

Things to Come was H.G. Wells’ rebuttal to the more fanciful Metropolis. The story started in its present-day (1936), presented audiences with civilization being bombed into ruins, then uses time-jumps to show us the world’s slow recovery from that collapse to a shining new civilization that, in some ways, has the same old human problems. Most notable are the futuristic vehicles, similar to the vehicles of the era but highly stylized, and the city-building montage that reveals a very futuristic city built into the side of a mountain.

The pristine white “perfect future” sets became a SF staple, off and on, for a century. The kind-of-ridiculous costumes, with huge wings and Greek-influenced wraps and bare legs, would contribute to the look of the next movies in our series…

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon, and its later copycat serial Buck Rogers, both starring Buster Crabbe, were presented as episodic shorts before movie main features. These shorts, based on comic book content, featured bargain-basement effects, regularly-reused sets, and elaborate costumes loosely based around those of the comics characters; a lot of epaulets, curved shoulder wings, short skirts, elaborate boots, helmets and tights. Sets and props were garish, and were often parked next to paper-mache rocks and painted plywood walls. And we were introduced to alien races that were always humans in elaborate garb, often portrayed by a single race, like Asians, or with makeup applied to make them resemble some caricatured nationality or group.

These were low-budget series, topped off by swelling Germanic music no-doubt inspired by Metropolis‘ original orchestral score. But the comic-book-like “space opera” elements would be seen in TV shows like The Adventures of Superman (Kryptonian casual wear), The Twilight Zone and many other low-budget productions of the 40s and 50s. Star Trek would put the use of makeup-covered humanoid “aliens” in monostylistic clothing to heavy use in its original series, and most SF TV followed suit for decades.

Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet was one of the early SF blockbusters, and it showed: Color, wide screen, quality special effects, its own aesthetic in sets and costumes, a fairly well-written script, and a well-designed robot, elements that came together for an exciting production. Though SF books had often featured space-going military groups, this was the most prominent early SF to depict a military spaceship manned by uniformed marines of a sort, with a clear parallel to the small teams on navy cruisers patrolling territories and outposts. The uniforms were utilitarian, with minimal decoration but a few tools included (like a belt-mounted transceiver). There is no doubt the basic structure of the crews of Star Trek and most other military-in-space tropes came directly from this model.

Many of the effects also directly inspired effects featured in Star Trek, such as the majestically-cruising starship, the hand-animated rays and beams, the flashing and colorful sets and machinery,

and the generally intimate scale. The incredible miniature work would find its way into many other movies, notably Star Wars, and its groundbreaking electronic score inspired productions like Tron, and often turn up when the budget for an orchestral score was not available.

And Robby the Robot gets his own shout-out, reappearing itself in other SF productions and as non-SF guest appearances, and inspiring countless other robots in movies and productions like Lost In Space, The Terminator, Saturn V and Star Wars.

THX 1138

THX 1138 may not be the first SF production to show us a dehumanized, compartmentalized, love-less future of drudgery and fear, all on a shoestring budget, but this movie by a film student named George Lucas has become iconic of that SF style. This dystopian, 1984-ish future, where people live in underground cities, wearing white pajamas, taking drugs or speaking to barely- automated recordings and being directed either by faceless monitors or equally-faceless robot policemen, is the very model of crappy future to come.

Some of its bleak elements came from TV shows like The Twilight Zone, or from other movies of the 60s like Fahrenheit 451 and ZPG (Zero Population Growth). Unlike those movies, however, THX 1138 was arguably more about presenting us with a bad future than telling a good story within it. And many other SF movies followed this guideline, worrying more about style than substance, and giving us a movie that was mostly eye-candy.

2001: A Space Odyssey

The seminal movie, 2001, A Space Odyssey, was intended by director Stanley Kubrick to be “the proverbial serious science fiction movie.” To be sure, there have been other serious SF movies before 2001, but few that were so stylistically iconic and influential.

2001 put a lot of work into its special effects, to the extent that its space effects, space craft and revolving sets became the benchmark for other movies to hit for decades afterward. The modern and minimalist set styles, full of display screens, mod furniture and blocky fonts, would inform 70s movies and TV shows, especially a lot of the British SF TV like UFO and Space:1999, for the next 20 years. Its psychedelic journey through the stars would also inspire movies and shows trying to create mind-blowing light shows to impress their viewers.

Kubrick’s choice of classical music brought full orchestration back, replacing many bare-bones orchestras and electronic tonalities popular in movies (though orchestral scores were doing well on television at the time). 2001 also tried to dispense with the idea of “sound in space,” the typical sounds of ship’s engines and energy beams typically heard in SF space movies and programs, and replacing them with music or the sounds of astronauts breathing in their space suits. Though many appreciated the effort, this was an idea that didn’t gain much traction, as producers felt space was “too quiet,” and wanted more sound to keep the audience’s attention.

Silent Running

Like THX-1138, Silent Running wasn’t the first SF movie whose theme was the environmental impact of global industrialization, but it became iconic of the genre.

Set in space aboard a freighter carrying the last of Earth’s forests, Silent Running argued for the ecology, and gave us contrasting views of forests set inside domed enclosures, looking out into the void. The main character, Freeman Lowell, struggled to get his crewmates to appreciate the natural treasures they carried, and had to fight with them when they were ordered to abandon and destroy the forests.

One trademark of this movie was its being filmed on an actual aircraft carrier, creating a great mix of cramped crew spaces crammed with grimy machinery and cavernous storage areas filled with geodetic crates with familiar logos emblazoned on them. The other were the drones, ingeniously designed around paraplegics who walked on their hands, and affectionately named Huey, Dewey and Louie. While the environmental theme informed many movie and TV SF productions, the drones directly inspired the droids, like R2-D2, in Star Wars.

Star Wars

Any such list would be remiss if it didn’t mention Star Wars… not so much for being inventive in many ways, but for taking the iconic imagery of so many other movies from the past and combining them as they hadn’t been combined before or as effectively. Wide vistas, space battles, effects, alien races, orchestral scores, all had been done before… in separate movies and TV shows. Star Wars brought them together in one film, as an homage to the Flash Gordon serials of old.

To be sure, there was a significant upgrading of its effects, especially the space effects, thanks to John Dykstra taking what he’d learned on 2001, adding computer motion control on 3 axes, and creating the most dynamic space effects seen on film. Dykstra’s Industrial Light and Magic studio would become THE effects studio for effects for years.

Star Wars also gave us a wider variety of aliens, using combinations of masks and makeup, small people, robotics and puppetry, ever seen on film. And the droids, like C-3PO and R2-D2, re-inspired movie and TV shows into using men, boys, midgets and even monkeys in metal suits to be their robots.

Alien

While most SF movies set in space gave us adventurous soldiers, brilliant scientists or expert astronauts, Alien was one of the few that showed us a blue-collar future in space: Dirty, gritty, retrofitted and jury-rigged as needed. Alien‘s refinery-towing spaceship, the Nostromo, suggested the inside of an oil rig, appropriate for its hard-working, plain-talking crew. The crews’ struggles against a highly-efficient and dangerous alien, juxtaposed against dark and claustrophobic industrial spaces, coincidentally made it easier for the alien to hide, often in plain sight.

The only thing more memorable than the atmospheric nightmare of that ship was the Warrant Officer, Ellen Ripley, who would become the template for strong female heroes in SF movies, a genre that was previously known for gun-toting heroes always saving damsels in distress.

Blade Runner

Blade Runner gave us the dystopic future city, full of old next to new buildings, garish neon and distracting searchlights, mixes of seeming every culture stepping each other, advertisements on every surface and on dirigibles floating above the city, artificial beings indistinguishable from the real thing, flying cars, and a detective trying to chase down four fugitive replicants from space.

This was future noir, the seedy underbelly of the future, and the struggling former-cop-turned-detective pressed into service, that is still a popular look in SF TV, starting with Max Headroom and branching out to many of today’s SF series.

1984

1984 lived up to its reputation as a movie that scared everybody about the future by giving us a world much bleaker than Blade Runner: Tortured, tired, paranoid people living in tiny, oppressive, unpainted granite spaces; doing mind-numbing, demeaning work; always watched by cameras (you know they’re watching because they occasionally address you by name) and by human agents of the government. Citizens either look blasted or terrified at all times. The ever-present cameras and screens rob citizens of privacy. The main character tries to find love to give his life some meaning, and ends up being tortured.

The iconic dystopian story became the iconic dystopian movie; whenever a series wants to show us a horribly ruined future, it pulls out the themes (and often the look) of 1984, sometimes incredibly blatantly (looking at you, Babylon 5) and sometimes sarcastically (now looking at you, Brazil).

The Matrix

The Matrix was Hollywood’s next significant foray into virtual realities since Tron; but this time, the virtual reality turned out to be what the audience thought was reality, while a small band of soldiers fighting the oppressive machines lived in the real reality of futuristic flying craft and hidden enclaves of survivors, the reality beneath “reality.”

The Matrix brought extreme slo-mo back to theaters, becoming a standard in SF and adventure movies, and coined a new phrase: Bullet-time. And while it used a lot of the grunge made famous by Alien in its real reality, it also introduced tinted atmospheres in the Matrix, a slight green filter that represented its digital reality. And it forced audiences to question what their reality was, and how they would know the difference.

Contact

Robert Zemekis’ Contact, also set in its present day (1997), featured an attempt to make contact with another space-faring civilization after detecting a signal from space. The signal described the creation of a huge device that allowed Ellie Arroway to take a trip across the cosmos and back, despite earthbound politics and terrorists blocking her way.

Contact gave us realistic, even mundane, scenes of life on Earth juxtaposed against almost unimaginable uber-technology, a combination used effectively in movies like Inception, Interstellar and Arrival, creating hyper-believable scenarios that make it easier to suspend disbelief and go with the fantastic elements of the story.

If you think I missed one, feel free to chime in in the comments.

We don’t know what will be the next science fiction movie with such an original look and style that it will inform the look and style of SF movies to come. Will it be a story in space, or on Earth? In the near future, or thousands of years from now? In a spacecraft, or another planet? Or some combination of all of those possibilities? By an A-list director, or a new and unknown talent? There’s no telling. We might not even immediately recognize their work as something that will be the next Iconic Movie.

Or maybe we will. And the wait for the next movie that embraces that new iconic SF style could be unbearable.

Superheroes, racism and refugees

Following in the footsteps of WandaVision, Marvel has taken on two of its minor heroes (both of them started out in Marvel’s movies as sidekicks for the original Captain America, Steve Rogers), put them in an adventurous buddy adventure, and then pivoted on a dime in order to tackle some serious and very human issues through their more-than-human characters. And they put their necks on the line to attack these issues, especially in the charged era we find ourselves in right now; things could have gone south very quickly with this one. But Marvel pulled it off… barely. Bravo.

There are no shortages of reviews for this series, so I’m just going to comment on the things that struck me; the first being Isaiah Bradley. Most people who don’t read comics knew nothing about Isaiah, but his story is only a few years old, having been written into the Captain America mythos with a deliberate reference to the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment that involved doctors lying to local Africans. Considering there are many Africans in America today who use that bit of history to avoid getting vaccinated in the middle of a dread pandemic, referencing that story at this time in history is just plain ballsy.

But it worked; mainly through the effective work of the writers and actors, especially Carl Lumbly. Lumbly, who has a long and impressive history of roles, knocked it out of the park portraying Isaiah Bradley, the bitter soldier who was unknowingly experimented on with many other African soldiers, served his country as a patriotic super-soldier, was rewarded by being thrown in jail and experimented on, and who didn’t gain freedom until after he was declared dead. That’s a deep story to tell, but Lumbly told it and made you feel his intense pain and anger over his treatment by the American government.

Bradley’s story was meant to inform Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, that America had never been good to African-Americans (which, duh, it hasn’t), and that no self-respecting Black man would want to represent such a country. But Sam’s final decision is that Isaiah’s sacrifice would be wasted if Sam doesn’t stand up and prove he can be Captain America; in fact he has every right to be Cap, and no one has the right to tell him he can’t do it. And he does a great job as Captain America, as only an MCU superhero can.

At this point, I’ll say that the production itself was worthy of a Marvel property. Marvel puts the work in to make sure its productions look good, and know where to cut corners without losing that quality. Though most of the city sets look like… well, sets… the surroundings and effects are top-notch. And they know how to get the most out of their actors, with very few exceptions. From start to finish, the series was a joy to watch.

As great and powerful as all this is, it’s a disappointment that the primary villain of the series is a group of morons; specifically, the Flag Smashers extremist group. Here was an organization of people who wanted to protect the multitudes of the planet who returned after Avengers: Endgame‘s un-snap, and who found themselves displaced, homeless, jobless refugees in the recovering world; but the Flag Smashers’ strategy to help those refugees was to become callous terrorists, basically poisoning the message they wanted to sell by destroying property and killing innocents. And the plan to create super-soldiers to aid them in their mission was a plot-point quickly lost in the shuffle.

To make matters worse, the Flag Smashers motto was “One World, One People,” maybe the most globally-needed credo there exists today. This group was doing all the worst things for plot reasons, talking about saving refugees and acting like all they wanted was to burn the world. I hated the idea that a group of people who clearly wanted to help the world were acting like B-movie bad guys, and dragging such a prescient slogan down with them. I blame the showrunner, and in conjunction, the show’s writers, for taking such a noble cause and mishandling their characters so sloppily.

I’d also like to blame whoever decided that this series should have been only six episodes, because frankly it wasn’t enough to really do all the show’s stories justice. I thought it was enough for Isaiah Bradley’s story, but seeing more of the indignities perpetrated on him would’ve been better. The backstory of the Flag Smashers; the rise, fall and fate of John Walker as the new Captain America-cum-US Agent; Bucky Barnes’ journey to find some closure and peace after years of being a brainwashed assassin; and significantly, the struggles of a world trying to find places for the half of the global population who were thought lost forever; all of those themes could have should have been worth another 10-15 episodes to properly deal with. But I suppose the showrunners figured the series was already to political and preachy (exactly what the fanboyz are bitching about in its aftermath).

So: Overall, brave in concept, excellent as usual in production, but mostly lacking in story execution. I’m glad they were brave enough to tackle such a serious set of issues; they should have been given enough time to tackle them well. But at least we got out of it great performances, particularly from Anthony Mackie and Carl Lumbly, and a message that anyone from any background can be Captain America… as long as they are Good People.

Automate the police

A recent editorial by Mike Bebernes asks a very timely question: Is it time to take the police out of traffic stops? And unless you’ve been living under that proverbial rock, you know full well what Mike’s talking about.

Not only do police spend a lot of time on petty incidents like minor moving violations, but they too often do a bad job of handling them, unfairly profiling drivers based on racial attributes and preconceptions, and allowing tensions (mostly caused by anxiety over bad cops and unfair treatment) to escalate into violent altercations and death. And despite years of attention on profiling, unfair treatment and the disproportionate death toll on minorities, the problem continues to escalate.

The fact is, the police have better things to do than engage in risky car chases and wrestle with drivers over rushed red lights and missing tags. And they need a buffer between them and the public that is more impartial and capable of putting itself in harm’s way in minor situations, to keep things from getting out of hand. In an era when we need to re-examine how we deploy and prioritize our law enforcement fraternities, currently spending their time and effort on any minor issues that can be handled more safely and effectively, should be clear areas to address.

Fortunately, we have just the thing to address this issue, and it’s called—say it with me—technology. In fact, we already use a lot of tech to aid and mitigate the role of law enforcement on our roads. And we can do so much more, with a more thorough application of more and smarter technology.

An easy example is expanding camera use. Combining high-quality cameras with smart technology, including radar and weight sensors, cameras should be our first line of defense on the streets. Cameras can detect speeders and light runners, and track vehicles on toll roads, easily. Many of these cameras are strategically located because of their relatively small numbers; but if we built these devices in mass production numbers, they could be deployed, not just at one area of a roadway, but all along the roadway. Enough of them can even do the job of tracking a vehicle until an owner can be notified of a problem, or the vehicle can be intercepted if necessary.

In another example: Decades ago, auto manufacturers started embedding Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) in prominent and not-so-prominent places on our vehicles. This served a purpose of making it easier to identify a model type for service and repair purposes, but it also made it easier to identify individual vehicles for theft and ownership purposes. These VIN numbers would be even more valuable if they could be read by remote sensors; imagine an RFID chip (or nine) embedded in secure or hidden places in a vehicle, which could be read by a receiver.

Today many high-crime areas are known for the frequency of plate-stealing and illegal usage on other (often stolen) vehicles. If a network of cameras could capture a plate (or lack of one), and RFID readers could identify the car, illegally-used plates could be identified, and vehicles could be more easily targeted for law enforcement.

Then there’s the next step in surveillance: Drones. Camera- or sensor-equipped drones can be deployed to monitor individual sites or track suspect vehicles, reducing or removing the need for high-speed chases and even close-up confrontations. Drones can be networked to hand-off tracking regimens to other drones, all in touch with human-monitored networks using smart technology to cover their jurisdictions.

Considering the sheer number of accidents caused by many of these violations, that alone will be a good thing. But it should also mean that the administration of law enforcement policies on the roads should be much more fair and balanced, since a computer isn’t likely to pull a man over just because he’s black, or foreign, or “suspicious-looking,” the very human attitudes that are getting police in trouble all over the country.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest the science-fictiony possibility that AI might develop its own idea of profiling, based strictly around statistical analyses; it will be up to human programmers to make sure AI programs are designed well enough to minimize statistics-based profiling, or develop new monitoring or procedural practices designed to better evaluate a situation and negate profiling. It would be a never-ending process of testing and evaluating programs to ensure an accurate and effective system of identifying crimes and taking proper action.

Coupling that with automated systems that establish the penalty of a crime and send the decision or penalty to the perpetrator without direct confrontations makes for a method of enforcing the law without directly endangering police or civilians. A system of allowing challenges to a ticket or penalty to be addressed and possibly escalated also needs to be established, preferably with the automated system being the first stop to effectively and efficiently solve issues without increasing tempers.

What does all this mean? Automated smart moving violation systems sending you notices and fines through the paper or electronic mail means it’ll be harder to get away with most vehicle violations, yes. It will de-escalate moving violation issues, since notices and fines will happen after the fact and not involve nerve-wracking and possibly dangerous stops by police. It will free up law enforcement to deal with more serious issues and better use their time. And it will reduce unfair profiling, hazardous traffic stops and escalating situations caused by overly-adrenalized police and civilians.

If those aren’t enough reasons to automate the police, I don’t know what is.

You can read Mike’s editorial on Yahoo.

Babylon 5: Alone in the dark

One downside to all the streaming services popping up is that content on basic and pay cable services is being thinned out; a quick glance at the many channels I have show fewer TV shows, or the same shows being run over and over. The upside to that is that I’m watching more of the DVDs and DVD collections I already own. Right now, my wife and I are rewatching Babylon 5, for the first time since its original run on TV.

Babylon 5 is now 28 years old since its first appearance on American television. It came out when there was a dearth of science fiction television that didn’t have Star Trek in the title, and the Trek franchise had a distinct influence on the series, as well as being a barometer against which the new series would be forced to stand. And in some ways, the initial comparison didn’t look good.

Babylon 5‘s production was noticeably inferior to Paramount’s Trek productions; Warner Brothers Domestic Television, the show supporters, were stingy when it came to financing the series (which, considering how tight Paramount really was in financing Trek productions, is saying something). Special effects were most notable in inequality, as they were infamously created using off-the-shelf Amiga computers, and in a different filming format than the live action content, which Warner refused to equalize in post-production. The series was given an electronic score which sounded cheap and thin compared to the orchestral sound given to Star Trek and other high-budget SF movies. Sets were small, cramped and dimly-lit, belying the supposed scale of the titular station.

And it probably didn’t help that Babylon 5‘s first season suffered from the same issues that Star Trek: The Next Generation had, namely, overcoming its own novelty. Those stories featured a lot of awkward personal infodumps and character setups that were cringeworthy at best, many given by unseasoned actors still trying to figure out the whole space-show-with-aliens-and-telepaths-and-what-am-I-wearing? thing. Certain acting and directing gags were repeated so much in the first season that you could have made drinking games around them. And dialogue quality throughout the series was all over the place.

But with all that said, Babylon 5 had qualities seen in few science fiction series, before or even since. The series creator, , had had a long-term vision for the series, a coherent multi-season arc based around the main characters discovering they were being used as pawns in a galactic war between more powerful alien races that they had barely a clue about, and having to take a stand for themselves in that war. The series, in fact, started in the middle of this epic, and gives us an ending decades after the epic is essentially over. Straczynski once described the show as doing “what Hill Street Blues had done for police dramas:” Rarely seen in SF television, characters evolved and stories didn’t just “reset” the universe at the end of each episode. The premise was highly evolved SF (as much as stories with scores of intelligent aliens can be, at any rate), more intelligent overall than most content rolled out by Star Trek or any other space-based series. The series was solely responsible for the trend of overarching story arcs enjoyed by the remake of Battlestar Galactica and other SF shows since.

That arc included major sub-arcs of various alien races and individuals in those races, particularly the Ambassadors G’Kar, Londo Mollari, Delenn and their aides. Early on, the Ambassadors and aides almost seemed to be good only for comic relief; but over the seasons, the conflict between G’Kar’s Narn race and Londo’s Centauri race, which evolved into a deeply intimate war between the G’kar and Londo, became the predominent B-plot to the series and created the most increasingly energetic and compelling moments of the series. And Delenn’s transformation at the end of season one, when added to her apparent, almost prescient knowledge of their role in the greater story arc, gave her a gravitas that added to her magnetic personality.

They put a lot of work into their aliens, too, going much further than Star Trek‘s fabled “nose prosthetics” to create their less-prominent humanoid aliens. Entire head prosthetics were regularly used, combined with contacts and even dentures, with costuming that made even B5’s minor alien races look like they hadn’t robbed a backlot wardrobe room before arriving on stage. Considering their budget, this couldn’t have been easy, and there are many occasions when aliens in a scene are noticeably mute… because someone just pulled a simple rubber mask over their head to do a scene.

Couple this with the fact that the series featured more aliens, visible crowds of aliens and non-humanoid aliens than any series, and the feat of production is incredible. The only show that put more work and creativity into non-humanoid aliens was Farscape (created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop), but they didn’t come close to B5 in sheer quantity.

Yes, Babylon 5 was incredibly ambitious for a show that many doubted would get past two seasons, much less finish up their unique long-term arc. It started out so rough that it was hard to take the series seriously, even as the first mysteries started to appear around the Star Trek-lite episodes. But those brave (or desperate) enough to stay on the ride found themselves witnessing memorable and quotable television moments: G’Kar warning a freighter pilot about beings in space as far above us as we are to ants; Delenn’s version of Carl Sagan’s “starstuff” quote delivered to Sheridan; Vir’s “goodbye” to Mr. Morden; Lenier’s shocking betrayal of Sheridan; and G’Kar’s proclamation that, no matter how long it takes, the Narn would be free. Not to mention Zathras saying absolutely anything. Poor Zathras.

As I rewatch the series, I find myself mentally baring my teeth to get past the cringeworthy moments, the inadequate sets and effects… because I know that, when you dig deep enough, occasional pearls are revealed; and their incredible shining beauty more than make up for the time spent in the mud. For all its rough edges, Babylon 5 was a historic series worthy of more than the accolades it gets.

I want a new Solaris

Now, let me preface by acknowledging that I’m not really a fan of reboots; reboots are a lazy way of producing media, bypassing the need to come up with new story concepts, usually giving most development to individual, eye-catching scenes while largely ignoring the rest, and ultimately creating a lackluster (or outright sad) version of an old film or series. That said…

Stanislaw Lem, the author of the novel Solaris, has said on more than one occasion that he was not happy with the two movie versions of his book, the 1972 version by Andrei Tarkovsky, or the 2002 version by Steven Soderbergh. There was also a 1968 made-for-Soviet-TV version of the story, which, unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to see. Lem’s reason for being unhappy was because all three versions virtually ignored the real point of the novel, to instead focus on the central character, Kris Kelvin, trying to reconcile with a seemingly resurrected version of his wife Hari/Rheya, who had committed suicide years before.

The romantic tragedy was what Tartovsky and Soderbergh wanted to center their movies on. But Lem’s novel was primarily about the mysteries of alien intelligence. In the novel, the planet Solaris was a single gigantic life form, and the scientists in the planet-studying space station in comparison were as microbes on the surface of a human brain. This conceit is central to the observations of the planet, as it seemed to create spontaneous surface constructions somehow inspired by the scientists and other human visitors… then created creatures clearly drawn from the scientists’ specific memories about people in their pasts. The underlying premise was that it would be virtually impossible to interpret the actual thoughts and intents of Solaris, that the living planet was too different from human intelligence to ever be understood.

This premise was apparently considered too much for modern audiences to understand, and was abandoned by Tarkovsky and Soderbergh. (I understand the Soviet teleplay did just a bit better.) But despite the perception of the dimness of the modern audience, I think we should have a Solaris that centers on that premise. Perhaps the idea that there might be intelligences out there that we’ll never understand might be humbling enough to make an impact.

The earlier Solaris movies avoided much coverage of the human-inspired shapes extruded on the ocean-like surface of the planet. Perhaps the cost of creating those shapes with special effects forced their lack of appearance; but that should not be an obstacle today, especially as it is the second-best indication that the planet is functioning so far beyond human understanding. Some of the shapes emulate human shapes, and some emulate their technology, such as their flying vehicles; clearly an indication that Solaris is somehow aware on some level of the humans above it, even if the humans don’t know how. And others seem like wild abstractions, their possible meanings a mystery.

The first-best indication of Solaris’ tapping into human thoughts are the creatures appearing on the science station, simulacrums of human beings known to the scientists on the station. The simulacrums look and act like the real thing, but simple examination reveals that they are not exact copies, and deeper examination reveals that they’re not made of the atoms humans are made of. They are not easily killed, and if they are ejected from the station (as most of the scientists attempt by forcing them into escape pods and jettisoning them), they simply reappear the next day.

Unfortunately, both movies barely touched on how the humanoid creations (simulacrums , I’ll call them) impacted the scientists other than Kelvin. It was clear that the scientists didn’t want others to see their simulacrums… but not why. Of the two movies, actor Viola Davis’ depiction of Gordon in the 2002 movie was certainly the most traumatized and angered by the existence of her simulacrum, but the audience never found out why.

The reality, as depicted in the novel, was that these simulacrums were all based on personal traumas of some kind. Besides Kelvin’s wife, the other characters reflected losses or significant embarrassments to the other scientists, and the simulacrums were constant reminders of the scientists’ past mistakes, failures or shames. Kelvin, therefore, wasn’t the only one being mentally tortured on the station. In Lem’s novel, one scientist committed suicide when confronted by his personal simulacrum, a mute “giant negress.” The other simulacrums are not seen by Kelvin (and the reader) in the novel, though we are aware that they’re there. The first movie portrays one simulacrum as a vaguely glimpsed dwarf; in the other, the dead son of one scientist, which at least hints at a personal pain similar to Kelvin’s pain at being reunited with a copy of his suicidal wife.

And the fact that they could not figure out if the planet was doing this consciously or unconsciously, to help or to torture them, if it had a reason to test them or if it even knew they were there, was conveniently glossed over, replaced instead with Kelvin’s temptation to keep his simulacrum and ease his pain, versus the desires of the other scientists to make it stop and end their personal nightmares.

In the end of both movies, the remaining scientists evacuate, the station is destroyed by falling into the planet, and Kelvin gets a happily-ever-after ending, though his final state is left ambiguous. Again, the state of Solaris itself is short-changed, the mystery of the planet-sized intelligence and Man’s ability to know it discarded behind an emotional salve.

In an episode of the first season of Babylon 5, a semi-recurring character encounters an alien creature as far beyond us as humans are to ants, as later described to the character by the Narn Ambassador G’Kar. That episode remains one of the most significant episodes of that series, the first hint in a series that taught us there were aliens on another level more advanced than humans will ever hope to be. Episodes in various of the many Star Trek series also showed us more advanced aliens, though they were usually still similar enough for American audiences to understand them. Many of them were clearly inspired by stories like Solaris, which postulated a galaxy far beyond our ability to fully understand.

And of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey showed us alien intelligences so far beyond us as to be almost incomprehensible, communicating to us only through their tools, the monoliths. Director Kubrick wanted to create “the proverbial intelligent science fiction movie,” and he proved such a movie could succeed.

But from the original Solaris, we’ve been short-changed, given a heady and mind-blowing science fiction concept about alien intelligence and our place in the cosmos and rendering it down to, as Lem himself once put it, “Love in outer space.”

Hopefully someday, a director on the level of a Nolan or a Scott will be brave enough to take on Solaris and tell Lem’s real story, not the minor romance that previous directors have been so obsessed about. Maybe we’ll see the roiling activity on the surface of the planet, inspiring us to imagine the mysterious activity in that planet-sized organism. Maybe we’ll get to see the other simulacrums, and get a much deeper window into the fears, foibles and traumas of humans. And maybe, when it’s all over, we’ll have a better understanding of Solaris, and of our place beside it.