Skiffy.ca

A lot of people like to add “traditional” super hero comic books to the category of science fiction.  On its face, that seems reasonable, since there’s a strong speculative science aspect to much of comics heritage: Superman is an alien, Spider-man is a teen genius scientist, etc.

I tend not to conflate the two.  The science fiction in comic books is often a convenient storytelling trope that is not essential to the narrative.  Thus, by my definition, it does not qualify as true SF.

However, today I will suspend my strictness and write a bit about comic books.  This is mostly because I’ve spent the last month inhaling a score of Ultimate X-Men comic books.  And I’m a longtime Avengers geek.

So this post is all about who I consider to be the best villains in the mainstream comic book universe.  I say “mainstream” because, frankly, the comic book world is a deep and complex labyrinth with many nooks of extreme and arcane nerdliness.  If I were to include some of the less well known titles, like Spawn and Hellboy, then the devil himself would qualify as a villain, and we can’t be having that.

What do I consider to be a good villain?  I think there’s something to be said for a classical approach, wherein a villain is a tragic figure, someone who could have been a hero if it were not for a tragic flaw or an unfortunate circumstance.  Indeed, one of the truly terrifying aspects of a villain is how much he (or she) dwells within in each of us.  A hero is often an unattainable ideal, but a villain is Everyman pushed a little too far.

I particularly like villains who, if viewed a tad askew, are in fact the heroes.  The demise of a great villain should be a reason for both celebration and a touch of sadness and regret, for appreciation for what could have been.

With that, let’s get to my list.

3. Lex Luthor

When the hero (Superman) is essentially a god, indestructible, perfectly honourable and virtuous, who shall his foil be?  A mad man intent on world domination?  A super-powered miscreant?  A dumb brute focused on destruction?  Or, more subtly, a businessman with a complicated agenda?

Most depictions of Luthor are of course the latter.  What I like about Luthor is, firstly, that he has no special powers.  He is just a man, though a brilliant one, unencumbered by the burden of morality.  More importantly, at a certain level, Luthor is right.

Superman, as much as we love him, is a fascistic figure.  He could crush us or rule us at his pleasure.  To his credit, he chooses instead to enforce our own laws on our behalf.  But the prospect and potential for his tyranny is real.  In the real world, we would each pray for the rise of a Lex Luthor, a mere mortal who holds the key to keeping the unfettered godling at bay.

2. The Joker

Where to begin?  Joker’s motivations are mysterious.  He doesn’t care about money or power or any of the traditional factors that compel a villain.  We don’t understand him.  He seems to seek only chaos.  He has no super powers, no advanced technology, just a bizarre personality, an unimpeachable will and a frustrating incomprehensibility.  To heroes, all of whom are seated in order and understanding, the prospect of chaos truly is horrifying.

To me, the scene in The Dark Knight Returns, in which Joker breaks his own neck to frame Batman, is emblematic of the character.   Unpredictable, violent, remorseless, without ego or emotional vulnerability, Joker is the ultimate untouchable terror.

1. Magneto

And here is the king.  Since earliest childhood, Magneto has been my favourite comic character, heroic or villainous.  A survivor of the Nazi holocaust, a troubled soul seeking only justice for “his people”, Magneto is a misguided yet charismatic man of both great power and great honour.  His anger and villainy arise from righteous pain.

We cannot hate him outright, for the injustices he has endured, and for the truth of his campaign.  His foes, the heroes, the X-men, are the naive ones who blindly try to forge a peace between we meek humans and the undeniably superior mutant race.  The thoughtful reader knows, at a certain level, that Magneto is correct, that men and mutants must eventually come into conflict.

Yet he is the villain, for he opposes us.

His tragic history, his awesome power, his cult of personality, and the manner in which we must hesitatingly admit to the righteousness of his campaign, all make Magneto the greatest and best of the comic book villains.

My original intent with this article was to list the top science fiction events of the year. But a few problems quickly arose:

1. I didn’t read any science fiction novels or stories that were published in 2010; still going old school for the moment.

2. I refuse to consider fantasy or the superhero genres to be part of the hallowed skiffy universe –which really reduces the number of eligible products to review this year.  On the other hand, this exclusion releases me from having to be exposed to the flood of vampire nonsense that the dumb kids are all about these days.

3. I can’t think of a single skiffy feature film from 2010 that wasn’t disappointing.  The best mainstream film I saw all year was part 1 of Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows.  But, according to my rule of excluding fantasy offerings, I can’t really consider it.  That leaves Inception as, frankly, the most enjoyable and mature skiffy film of the year.  And, to be blunt, I thought Inception was kinda stupid.  So where does that leave me?

4. It leaves me with TV shows, that’s where.

So what were the top skiffy TV moments of 2010?  Let’s start from the bottom and move on upward, shall we?

5. Season 2 of Stargate: Universe.  Sadly, SGU has now been cancelled, so there will not be a season 3.  The show has been a hard sell to us hardcore Stargate fans; and, to be honest, it doesn’t really fill me with much anticipatory joy the way that both Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis did.  But complex, mature characters like Dr Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle) are hard to find on TV these days.  So when they do show up, I tend to cherish them.

4. The continuing quality of The Sarah Jane Adventures.  The Dr Who spin-off is ostensibly meant for kids, but resembles more the classic Dr Who of the 1970s and 80s —in a good way!  The SJA stories are well written, internally consistent, never rely on the deus ex machina endings in which the new Who seems to revel, and, most surprisingly, features excellent acting from its youthful cast.  In particular, the character of Clyde Langer continues to grow from the convenient sidekick of the supposedly more interesting alien son of the titular star, to a truly believable and heroic figure for whom I cannot help but cheer in every episode.  It’s nice to see that excellent young adult skiffy programming exists somewhere in the Anglosphere.

3. The successful transition from David Tennant to Matt Smith as the new Doctor Who.  Count me among those who rank Tennant as the best ever Doctor, even better than the legendary Tom Baker.  I was none too pleased to hear of his departure.  The brilliance of the BBC approach was to reduce his final episodes into a series of extended specials, culminating with The End of Time, which, while not particularly spectacular in the narrative department, nonetheless allowed Tenant to give us a marvelous performance as a dying hero who really doesn’t want to die.

Matt Smith has disappointed many Tennant fans, but not me.  I find his version of the most important character in TV skiffy history to be refreshingly vulnerable and hesitant.  More importantly, the stories in which he has found himself are darker, more textured and foreboding than any since the re-birth of Dr Who five years ago.

2. The redemption of Sanctuary.  I keep meaning to write a review of this very Canadian show, but haven’t got around to it yet.  In short, the first season was disappointing and puerile. The second season picked up steam and started to develop a fascinating new mythology and back story, despite some annoying casting choices.  The third season, which began in the Fall of 2010, has been nothing short of fantastic.  The beauty of Sanctuary is its unabashed camp, its love for classic figures of literature (Jekyll & Hyde, Sherlock Holmes, the Invisible Man) and history (Nicola Tesla, Jack the Ripper), its free exploration of an evolving interior universe, and a sense of visual style that is refreshingly fantastical.

1. By far the best TV science fiction show this year has been Fringe.  As with Sanctuary, I keep meaning to write a review for this site, but haven’t yet got around to it.  Where do I start?  Fringe is more than just an updated X-Files.  It has feature film quality acting in the form of John Noble and Joshua Jackson, a different kind of compelling and vulnerable heroine in Anna Torv, crazy cross-marketing stunts with characters inexplicably showing up at real life sporting events and such, and a bloody exciting story arc that continues to grow in depth and complexity with every sign of a rational and well planned conclusion to come.  My only fear, of course, is that declining ratings may spell the cancellation of Fringe before it can fulfill its promise.

I must admit, when contemplating the year in science fiction, my thoughts keep returning to 2009.  The 3rd season of Torchwood, told as a five part miniseries called “Children of Earth“, remains, for me, the most awe-inspiring televised skffy experience of the last few years.  Here’s hoping 2011 can bring a product of comparable value.

(This article was originally a blog post.)

The nominees for the 2010 Hugo Awards were announced this week. If you don’t know, the Hugos are the premier science fiction awards, the Pulitzer for the nerd set, if you will. I won’t mention the novels or short stories, since few of you have heard of them. Rather, let’s look at the dramatic entries, bot long and short form.

Nominees for the long form (i.e., movies) include Avatar, Moon, District 9, Star Trek and Up.

I reviewed Star Trek here. It’s a fine action movie. But it’s neither science fiction nor clever. If it wins, I am through with the Hugos.

I reviewed Avatar here. It’s genuine science fiction, though heavily derivative and hardly worthy of an award that celebrates originality. If it wins, I won’t be through with the Hugos, but I will lose a hefty amount of respect for them.

Up is an excellent, moving and entertaining little film. But is it science fiction? I really don’t think so.

That leaves Moon and District 9. I must admit to not having seen Moon. I hear it’s quite good. But from what little I know of its plot, I question whether it’s actually science fiction. An astronaut on the moon is not particularly far-fetched. That leaves the sole option for winner being District 9.

Now, on to the short form, The nominees are an episode of Dollhouse, and episode of FlashForward and three episodes of Doctor Who. All are very good choices, though we can all wonder how Lost or Fringe didn’t make the list.

More baffling, however, is how this past year’s true masterpiece of TV science fiction failed to make the Hugo short list. I’m talking about Torchwood: Children of Earth, which I reviewed here.

I don’t use the word “masterpiece” lightly. It’s a difficult accomplishment to manage in a general public prime-time TV format, especially within the confines of an existing TV show with existing characters and relationships. But Children of Earth is that good, it really is. Not only is it pure science fiction –something the actual nominees dance around– but it’s poignant, heartbreaking, terrifying and exhilirating.

A big raspberry to the Hugo people for omitting Children of Earth. As compensation, let’s inaugurate the first annual Skiffy.ca TV award for the best science fiction dramatic short form. I hereby award it, without hesitation, to Russell Davies for his –wait for it– masterpiece in Torchwood: Children of Earth.

First, let’s get this out of the way.  Yes, Avatar was an unbelievable visual spectacle.  That’s what everyone will be talking about, I’m sure.  In fact, the quality of the 3-D effects, the richness of the visual world that James Cameron has created, and the thickness and believability of the visual characters are, without question, marvels to behold.  Is that enough to warrant the price of admission?  Actually, yes, I think it is.  In fact, 3-D might be Hollywood’s salvation against online piracy: you just can’t duplicate Avatar’s big screen, three dimensional effect on your computer screen.

In their day, Star Wars, Jaws, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, Lord of the Rings and even the original King Kong were equally heralded as unbelievable, game-changing visual spectacles.  When viewed today, all of them –even Lord of the Rings, which was released just a few years ago– appear quite pedestrian.  Visual technology in the multimillion dollar, cut-throat film-making industry is as temporal as it comes.  The reason that most of the aforementioned films are still watched and talked about today is that their underlying stories were actually quite good and, frankly, timeless.  The exception in that list is Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, whose story was so cliched and forgettable that I’m sure many readers of this article have never even heard of the film.

The lesson here is that great special effects are certainly capable of creating a spectacle and, indeed, generating a great deal of box office revenue.  But for those of us who care about the quality of film and the long term film-going experience, it’s not so much flash and revenue that we worry about, but rather the substance of the story.  So let us leave aside the spectacle of Avatar, as I’m sure others will gleefully discuss that aspect of the film well into numbness.  Let us instead worry about the nature of the story.  And this is where I get a bit concerned.

It’s a passably acted, well directed, comfortably paced and very entertaining action-based science fiction film.  Should you spend money to see it in a theatre?  Absolutely, I say.  But once more I am disappointed by Hollywood’s inability –or unwillingness– to deviate from, frankly, an offensive and cliched storytelling trope: once again, the American White Man saves the natives.

Now, I am not the first to make this observation.  Annalee Newitz over at i09.com has a tight little essay called, “When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?” and a Google search of the words “Avatar” and “racist” results in hundreds of hits.  For each article that explores this idea, there’s unavoidably at least one apologist/commenter who offers something to the extent of, “It’s just a movie. Stop over-analyzing it.”   So, if you’re one of those people, and you’re over the age of 15, I will disrespectfully suggest that you fuck off and get yourself a better education. All right?

If you haven’t seen the film, it’s about humans going to a rainforest-type world called Pandora to negotiate for rights to mine a mineral. When negotiations fail, they turn to military means.  To enable these means, the humans have developed organic bodies that resemble the natives, who are called the Na’vi (because nothing says foreign like a superfluous apostrophe), and download their consciousnesses into those bodies to allow them to interact with the natives.  These are the titular “avatars”.  For those of you unfamiliar with Hindu mythology, an avatar is the walking, human incarnation of a god.  With the name, you begin to see how the various races are being subtly presented, with the human “gods” being referred to by the natives as “Sky People”.

The hero, Jake Sully, eventually changes sides and ends up falling in love with a native girl –a sort of princess, of course– and leads the Na’vi to resist the militaristic humans.

On its face, the idea of introducing the alien society to the audience through the eyes of a human avatar is a clever storytelling device.  The problem is that the device reinforces the dichotomy of Us and Them, rather than striving to portray both groups as equal, as is the script’s nominal intent.  As the i09.com article accurately points out, this is another case of “Dances With Wolves” syndrome, wherein the non-White society is validated by the arrival of the White man.

And it’s always a White man.  In fact, it’s always an American… White… Man.  He is always fearless but naive.  He is always charming, though, in the way he magnanimously accepts the berating for his naivete, because he’s so comfortable with his powers and his non-fragile ego.  He always manages to get a native woman to fall in love with him, because somehow his courage and qualities are more attactive than those of the native men.  He always manages to use his knowledge of his original land to garner him power in his adopted land, always rising to the position of tribal leader.  And despite original friction with the masculine forces among the natives, he always manages to win over the warriors by showing his own innate strengths and courage.

Dances With Wolves is only the most famous of these stories.  Pretty much every episode of the original Star Trek, in which Kirk must blend in with the native population, followed the same formula.  Future versions of Star Trek dumbed it down even further.  The classic novels of early American space opera and adventure pulp fiction –Tarzan, or Jon Carter of Mars, or Last of the Mohicans– pretty much invented the formula.  In every case, a courageous White Man (because he’s always white and he’s always a man) visits a less technologically avdanced society, manages to not only be accepted by them, but also wins the love of the local alpha female and ascends to the rank of tribal leader, essentially “doing it” better than any savage could.

How does he manage to do this?  Often it is by solving the fundamental (though blatantly obvious) mystery of the tribe.  That mystery usually has something to do with the quality of tribal life lost in modern North American life, something that is part religion, part environmentalism and part social duty.  In Dances With Wolves, Kevin Costner’s revelation occurs when he finds himself fighting to defend the women and children of his tribe, rather than fighting in a nameless war for a President he has never met.  In his case, the solvable mystery is one of tribal or familial connection, reinforced by an ecological dependence that was depicted through his tribe’s search for buffalo.  In Avatar the solvable mystery is profoundly offensive to anyone who’s ever studied a scratch of anthropology: the New Age interconnectedness of all things, exemplified in the film by a “scientific”, quantifiable measurement of “energies” flowing between all poles of the forest.

Which brings me to another point of annoyance with this film.  The way it sings paeans longingly to what I call “white guy spirituality”, is saddening more than it is infuriating.  In our increasingly secular society, devoid of traditional spiritualism with which to draw a personal connection, Westerners seek to co-opt the spiritualism of other cultures.  I feel sorry for those who do this.  From Madonna’s superficial embracing of kabbalah, to the throngs of white pilgrims on India’s shores, literally seeking “enlightenment” as if it were a product to be purchased in Walmart’s aisle 73, generations of Westerners have been unconsciously following the template of Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, wherein a white man goes to Asia and masters the exotic spiritual arts that have been depleted from his own civilization.  I’ve lost count of how many white friends have returned from their first trips to India, disappointed that they didn’t find instant spiritual awakening in their package tour of the Taj Mahal.

Avatar sickeningly features empty phrases about “energies” and “life forces” and “interconnectedness”, as if the screenwriter were cobbing notes from any 3rd grade class on Native North American culture.  It betrays a basic conflict within the filmmaker: on the one hand there is a profound ignorance of both religion and science, and on the other hand there is a grugding appreciation of the value of both.  The result: an embarrassing inability to rationalize their duality, not just in life, but within the simpler confines of a movie script. As one internet commenter so aptly put it, “this is the first one-dimensional 3D movie I’ve ever seen.”

As one who has traveled to five rainforests around the globe, and who has done scholarly work with Aboriginal peoples living in rainforest regions in Guyana and Thailand, I could not help but feel insulted on behalf of the people with whom I’ve worked.  Avatar, so much like Dances With Wolves, Tarzan, Last of the Mohicans and Jon Carter of Mars, portrays tribal forest-based societies as caricatures and stereotypes, though I’m sure that was not the filmmakers’ intent; they just don’t know any better.  Much like so many episodes of all the various Star Trek series, in which the know-it-all (mostly white, male and American) Federation heroes deposit themselves on an alien planet, then quickly summarize a culture according to a simplistic formula or description (eg, Vulcans are logical, Klingons are warriors, Ferengi are greedy), allowing them to influence and control that population, the main humans of Avatar –all white American men, with the exception of Sigourney Weaver– have quickly summed up the natives as environmentally conscious warrior types.  The White American Males are allowed to be complicated, with conflicting motivations and moral dilemmas.  The natives are simplistic, unchanging, easily misled and conveniently quick to forgive.

On more than one occasion, a well meaning white American, in all seriousness and gravity, has turned to me and asked, “And what are the beliefs of your people?” or words to that effect, as if “my people” could be presented in a single bulleted PowerPoint slide.  Imagine if an alien were to ask a typical North American Westerner the same question.  Can any society be summarized so simply?  No group of people is homogeneous and monolithic.  To suggest that one is serves to infantalize that population.  This is the true legacy of European colonialism, reinforced for generations through our adventure literature and now our science fiction TV and movies.  I think there is a reason that science fiction finds resonance among so many young White Western men, in particular. It is because the genre, when written poorly, harnesses the racial fantasies of this demographic, turning every lonely White teen into Jon Carter, Hawkeye or James T. Kirk, fearless White warriors who can find respect, love and sex by solving the mystery of a foreign, tribal people and easily winning dominance over them, like the domestication of a herd of wild, hierarchical animals.

As Annalee Newitz put it, “Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode.”  I can’t help but think of the scores of Western students I know who have traveled to the developing world and come back with proud tales of “going native” and “immersing themselves in culture”, while never mentioning Mommy’s credit card tucked safely into their money belts.  But the fantasy of “understanding” persists, as a way of keeping the privileges of Western lifestyle while pretending to access the supposed wisdom of the tribal society.

This is not to say that James Cameron has deliberately made a white supremacist film.  Quite the contrary, his unveiled intent is to portray the White American masculine ethic as one of hamfisted ignorance, intolerance and profound inner weakness.  He does this by showing all the bad guys as cartoonishly evil and unidimensional.  The film is, after all, a none-too-subtle metaphor for Western imperial intrusions into Aboriginal lands for the purposes of mineral extraction, a practice that is current and serious.  In this sense, I applaud Mr Cameron.

But I so sorely wish he had not indulged his puerile fantasies about Aboriginal cultures.   As Annalee Newitz so perfectly phrased it, Avatar is at its core a racial fantasy.  And thus the cycle of miseducation continues anew.

The new "Spock" and the new "Kirk".

Well y’all knew this was coming.  Star Trek was a huge influence on my life.  I know whenever someone says something like that, the common response is one of pitious disdain.  But people need to remember that science fiction was a rarity in the early 70s, and smart entertainment accessible by children rarer still.  Even more obscure were role models in such a milieu that were appreciable by ethnicities other than the White North American mainstream.

Star Trek gave us those things, and more.  Mr Spock was an immigrant who could not be invisible, living amongst hatred, but valued for his intellect.  Captain Kirk was a natural leader who solved problems with his head, heart, fists and penis: an admirable template for the real man, so lacking in the earlyy 21st century.

So you just knew I’d be taking a hard look at the newest incarnation of Trek, this “re-imagined” (I’m so sick of this term) version of the early adventures of Kirk and Spock, this time helmed by TV wunderkind J.J. Abrams.

Be warned: spoilers abound in this review.

I never watched Felicity or Alias.  I didn’t much care for Mission Impossible III.  I’m really enjoying Lost and Fringe, however.  All of these are the products of Abrams’ vaunted creative genius. But given the banality of the new movie (annoyingly simply titled, Star Trek instead of what we all know it to be: Star Trek XI), I fear for the culmination of the storyline for Lost, a show I have long hailed as the finest product of broadcast TV currently available.

I’m not sure where to begin with this review, so forgive me as I jump about rather randomly.  Let’s start with the basic declaration: it’s a well produced, adequately acted, fantastic looking and entertaining piece of cinema that will keep you interested throughout it’s 126 minute duration.

Okay? Happy?  I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s not bad.  It’s actually a good movie. But it ain’t Star Trek.  And that has nothing to do with the re-casting of our beloved iconic characters.  It has everything to do with the movie not having a point.

In Star Trek I: The Motion Picture, we had an awesome display of science fiction, as the Enterprise must confront a planet-engulfing cloud that turns out to be an evolved version of a NASA probe.  There is a subtext of aging, of Kirk unwilling to let go of his command, and of the moral repercussions of scattering probes willy nilly.

The true Trek masterpiece, The Wrath of Khan, was about Kirk’s inability to come to terms with his failing youth and virility, and about the “no win scenario”.  A magnificent villain, a smarmy son and a sacrificing best friend are all foils against which Kirk explores this personal dilemma.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was about sacrifice.  What are you willing to give up to save something you love?  For Kirk to save Spock, he sacrificed his career, his son and his ship.  And in the end, the Spock that was returned to him was a shadow of his former self.  It was darkly hopeful yet bittersweet.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the one most of the general public seems to enjoy.  I think it’s one of the weakest.  It’s about taking responsibility for environmental damage.  Hamfistedly done, I say.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier…. um, let’s not talk about this one.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was the swan song of the original crew.  A simple tale about the assassination of the Klingon chancellor is really an opportunity for Kirk to be examined for his lifetime of transgressions and rule bending.  It even, for the first time, made Kirk accountable for his racism against the Klingon people.  Shatner, a man of unending energy, played this brilliantly, with a very sad look of fatigue and guilt plastered on his face the entire time.

Star Trek VII: Generations is actually one of my favourite films of the franchise, though it’s roundly hated by most.  A low budget tale, hastily thrown together, that is supposed to be the “passing of the torch” from the Kirk gang to the Picard gang, this movie is truly about choices and –again– sacrifices.  Picard sacrifices a life with family for a life of adventure, losing the former most horribly and completely.  Kirk sacrifices his life to save a ship.  Then again he must sacrifice his perfect afterlife to save some more people.  Both captains are shown to be lonely men who must always do the right thing, forever denied a touch of the human happiness to which the rest of us can at least aspire.  This movie is historic, of course, for Kirk’s death which, while angering at first, sits better with me at each reviewing.  This is because Kirk’s death should be pointless and lonely, much like pretty much everyone’s death.  And thats what we get: a great man who always embraced the philsophy that there does not exist a “no win scenario” nonetheless loses in the end, rather anticlimactically.  It’s poetic and, if viewed with all sensors at full sensitivity, has a lasting effect.

Star TrekVIII, IX and X were all flaccid outings by the Next Generation crew.  (Well, VIII was pretty good).  So we won’t talk about those.  But I hope you see what the undercurrent has been throughout all the films: an exploration of priorities, sacrifice and the personal journey of heroism.

That brings us to Star Trek XI, which will no doubt re-ignite the franchise, bringing a whole new generation into the fold, including millions of people who care little for the history and philosophy of the original Trek.

Here’s my problem with the new film: it doesn’t need to be Star Trek.  It could be anhy unnamed, generic space opera.  Good looking people get into shiny ships and blow the frakk out of each other.  Some one-liners pop up, as do some perky boobs, and there you have your MTV generation readily sold.  Why co-opt the legendary name of Trek to make this pablum?

J.J. Abrams was famously never a Star Trek fan.  He has always admitted to being a Star Wars man, and by golly does it show.

In 6 Things That Suck About The New Star Trek Movie, Michael Dance puts it this way:

“In this Star Trek movie, Kirk is basically Luke Skywalker with the charm of Han Solo.  He’s a troubled young farm boy who leaves home at the urging of a wise older man who claims he knew the farm boy’s father.  Sound familiar? How about the early cantina scene featuring a wacky-looking alien and a bar fight?  Or the scene near the end when one character announces the humorously low odds of a plan’s success?  Or the scene where the bad guys blow a planet up? C’mon now.”

Star Wars, while fun, is mindless fantasy.  Trek has always been mindful science fiction.  As Roger Ebert puts it in his review of the film, “..the movie raises its yo-yo finger to the science, while embracing the fiction.”  The only wonder and awe are courtesy of the neato-whiz-bang CGI effects, and not of any interesting plot twists, character moments or profound revelations.  (Compare that to Star Trek I, where there is awe aplenty: at Spock’s turmoil, at the majesty of the innards of V’Ger, at V’Ger’s origins and at Persis Khambatta’s shiny skull.)  I for one would happily give up all of the impressive space battles for a storyline that both intrigued and touched me.  Clearly, though, I’m in the minority of movie-goers.

Plot holes abound.  But that’s okay; it’s to be expected.  But about that plot….

The plot is… well… it’s a plot.  Here it is.  (Remember, spoilers abound).  The old Spock, the one we know and love, is trying to save Romulus in the future.  He fails and ends up going through a black hole into the past, followed by an angry Romulan miner who wants to kill him.  Said miner arrives just in time to kill James Kirk’s father as Kirk himself is being born.  This sets in place a series of time-altering events, which include: Kirk being a bad boy who joins the Federation reluctantly; Spock being Uhura’s teacher and lover; the planet Vulcan being destroyed and its race rendered all but extinct; Kirk promoted from stowaway to first officer, then from cadet to Captain (seriously, WTF?); etc.

So, this is –and never will be– the Trek the rest of us know and love.  It’s an alternate timeline.  The timeline of the original Trek, the Next Generation, Voyager, DS9 and all the movies that have come before have been erased.  They will never happen.  This is not the same as an alternate universe, which coexists with the prime universe and that we can access.  The positing of an altered timeline is that the other stuff never happened and never will happen.  So if any attempt were ever made to access that original timeline in, say, a new TV show or movie, it would feel really quite stupid.

Yes, it’s just a movie.  Yes, it’s a clever plot twist to allow the franchise to be rebooted without having to adhere to any pre-existing canon.  But is this not offensive?  For those of us who loved the legacy of this franchise, who found meaning in some of the stories and who appreciated that an entire expanded universe of 10 movies, six TV series (including the animated one) and a quadrillion books were cleverly folded into a set of established events and canon, this is a bit of a slap in the face.

It also means that the only TV show that still fits into the established canon is the atrocious Star Trek: Enterprise, the crappiest of the lot, and probably J.J. Abrams’s favourite.

So given that the new brash, modern and seemingly anti-cerebral James Kirk will not become the brilliant and smarmy tactician we came to love; and given that Spock will not become the tortured but dignified soul struggling to find a place between his two homes; and given that none of the other characters will become those things we love them for…. why bother having those characters in the first place?  Why not re-boot the franchise with a fresh set of characters unencumbered by history and expectations?

The answer obviously is that these characters have name brand recognition and can sell movie seats.

This seems like a piss poor reason to ass rape one of the Western world’s popular culture treasures.  I do not approve.

It’s 10pm Dec 31st, 2008, and I’m a little tipsy on a shot of whiskey, but stuck in bed, sick with a tummy ache.  Since I’m not able to attend any New Years Eve parties, why not invest a moment in reflecting on the past year in science fiction?

The following list of events is not exhaustive and is based only on what’s at the forefront of my thoughts at this particular moment.  If you have any additions to make to my list, please feel free to add them in the comments section.

Books

The single biggest news in the world of science fiction books was death of the final old school Grand Master of SF, Sir Arthur C. Clarke.  Along with Asimov and Heinlein, Clarke was one of the pioneers of skiffy in the so-called golden age of the 1950s.  Clarke was not just a leader in this genre, but also a societal thought leader.  He is credited by many as the philosophical inventor of the communications satellite, and certainly was a driving inspiration in the development of Project Spaceguard, a programme for the detection of near-Earth asteroids that could prove possibly dangerous to our planet.

Clarke’s biggest contribution to popular culture was, of course, his penning of the screenplay for the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was in turn based on his short story, “The Sentinel.”

Clarke’s additional masterpieces included Rendezvous With Rama and the various sequels to 2001.  I was particularly pleased that Clarke was able to give us a trilogy of so-called “orthoquels” to 2001 before he died: Time’s Eye, Sunstorm and Firstborn, all part of a series he called “A Time Odyssey.”

Sunstorm in particular was a fitting conclusion to Clarke’s career, as it told a very exciting and believable –and inspirational– tale of mankind preparing itself for a storm of Apocalyptic solar flares.

My personal Clarke favourite remains Songs of Distant Earth.  I recommend that all true skiffy fans find a moment to peruse it spages.

Movies

It was not a particularly exciting year for skiffy in movies.  No, I do not include The Dark Knight as a science fiction title, though the audiences for both comic books and science fiction products often overlap. Thus, Ironman also does not qualify.

Possibly the best skiffy title this year was Hellboy II: The Golden Army.  I’m hesitant to include it, since it’s more fantasy than science fiction

While I hated the movie, I must admit that the latest M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening, presented an interesting science fiction premise: that plants could be made so “upset” by ecological degradation that they would emit a substance that reduces animals’ inhibition against self-harm.

Television

It was in television that the skiffy genre really flew this year.  I am a fan of Heroes, but its science is laughable.  Lost, the finest show on network American television, finally revealed itself to be a pure science fiction show with the addition of time travel.  And the champion of the space operas continued to be Battlestar Galactica, whose climax this coming year will be the reveal of the so-called “final cylon.”  I’m willing to put money on that cylon being Felix Gaeta.

Other big news included the cancellation of Stargate: Atlantis and the successful transfer of Stargate:SG1 from TV to dvd movies.  But the big triumph in TV skiffy this year was the further maturation of the modern incarnation of Britain’s Doctor Who.

David Tennant is, for my money, the finest Doctor ever.  Yes, the show is still cheesy at times, and doesn’t engender the same gravitas as American offerings of the same genre.  But remember that the Doctor saves the galaxy every week without ever wielding a weapon or uttering a foul word; he’s a timeless hero.

The brilliance of the Who writing this year was in the realization that the show is called Doctor WHO.  Who is this man?  Why do we care?  Transforming the decades old vehicle from a campy kids show into a character drama was brilliance.

I don’t know what to expect from 2009, but I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of skiffy for us all.

The Andromeda Strain (2008)

Released as a miniseries by A&E in the spring of 2008, The Andromeda Strain is based on Michael Crichton’s classic 1969 science fiction novel of the same name.  TAS-08 is written by Robert Schenkken (who played David Deaver in the 1990 film Pump up the Volume), and is directed by Denmark’s Mikael Salomon, more famously known as the cinematographer on several Oscar winning films (Far and Away, Back Draft, Arachnophobia).

The narrative opens with a botched recovery of a NASA satellite that has unexpectedly fallen from orbit and crashed to earth near Piedmont, Utah in the present day United States.  Curious Piedmontians discover the satellite before the arrival of a US Army recovery team and decide to look inside; releasing a toxin of unknown origin on unsuspecting townsfolk.   While moving quickly to quarantine Piedmont, the Department of BioDefence scrambles Wildfire – an elite team of scientists providing the evidence in The President’s evidence-based decisions on biological crises  (talk about your science fiction…).  Operating under the indirect supervision of General George W. Mancheck (Andre Braugher); Dr. Jeremy Stone (Benjamin Bratt), Dr. Angela Noyce (Christa Miller), Dr. Tsi Chou (Daniel Dae Kim), Dr. Charlene Barton (Viola Davis) and Major Bill Keane MD (Rick Schroder) retrieve data from the contaminated area and are seconded to a top secret, underground government laboratory.  On the outside, all this secret/not-so-secret activity draws the attention of journalist Jack Nash (Eric McCormack) who tries to figure out what is really going on.

As the first of a two disk release, disk one is almost completely context; introducing characters, new technology, and describing the cultural and political environment the plot unfolds in.  The story is portrayed using five different perspectives – the scientific team sequestered in the underground lab, the decision-maker president and his white house staff who while being decisive have to run everything through the “how-will-this-play-out-in-the-election” filter, the US Army, the ultra-secretive National Security Agency (NSA), and (of course) the media.

Schenkken taps into real world events and popular culture by drawing repeatedly from the endless list of individual and institutional failures that lead to the war in Iraq – primarily the dysfunction surrounding the US Military, intelligence agencies and the Oval Office – with a sideways reference to rogue nations, economic greed, the environment and “Area-51.”  All of this is presented through the use of short vignettes that introduce characters, outline personal relationships and establish institutional dynamics; effectively creating a patchwork of information that may or may not allow the viewer to grasp what is going on.

Some of the reviews I have read have been critical of the cast, the story and the interpretation of the novel.  As I am reviewing this in a bubble so to speak – having not seen the first theatrical release, nor having read the book – I’m inclined to disagree with this criticism in a state of blissful ignorance.  The cast comes across as reasonably real – I found the performances to be authentic.  No one steals the show, and at no point did any of the actors’ performances remind me of a previous role.

The story has a very current feel to it – contentious ideologies, hot-button issues, public cynicism for those in charge.  At its heart is the portrayal of competing bureaucratic entities in the face of a serious crisis – can these bodies be trusted to set aside their partisan nature when decisions need to be made; or will they be constantly distracted from the real issues while playing an obtuse game of perception manipulation?

Technically, the special effects are well done and used relatively sparingly.  I did find the medical computer in the Wildfire lab to be a little far-fetched for a story that is supposed to be contemporary.  I’m all for voice-directed, diagnostic tools that can provide real-time patient data (right down to hematology results) in addition to performing all kinds of medical tests at the verbal request of a doctor – I’m just not sure if it exists yet!

One thing I wished the writers had done is explain the animosity between some of the main characters.  This history is referred to abstractly in dialogue, but has an impact on the plot development.  Perhaps more will be revealed in part 2.

Taking part one of The Andromeda Strain at face value, and not comparing it to the original or other interpretations – I recommend it.  Nothing exists in a vacuum however, so once having seen part 2, reading Crichton’s original and checking out the 1971 movie this opinion could change.

The following is a review of the direct-to-dvd movie, Stargate: Continuum.  Beware that spoilers abound!

I am an unabashed fan of all things Stargate.  This site has in the past featured reviews of the final Sg-1 episode, Unending , and of the first Sg-1 direct-to-dvd movie, The Ark of Truth.   Stargate was the true succesor to the Star Trek crown, a beloved and long-lived franchise embodying the best of (North) American science fiction.  It was thus with love and anticipation that I viewed the latest, and perhaps final, SG-1 movie, Continuum.

Whereas The Ark of Truth was mean to provide closure for the loose ends of plot left unaddressed due the unforseen cancellation of Stargate SG-1, Continuum was unburdened with such responsibilties, and thus was able to be a stand-alone, self-contained motion picture.  Featuring the talents of now seasoned big- and small-screen veterans, like Christopher Judge, Ben Browder, Beau Bridges and Richard Dean Anderson, and benefitting from a budget large enough to pay for such talent and some state-of-the-art special effects, as well, Continuum unsurprisingly has a big screen feel to it.  Unfortunately, the writing is still very much small-screen, with profound character explorations pushed aside in favour of cute TV-style moments.

Inasmuch as The Ark Of Truth was meant to close out the Ori storyline that dominated the final two seasons of SG-1, Continuum brings closure to the story of the Goa’uld, the original villains of the Stargate universe.  The final Goa’uld system lord, Ba’al, is to be executed.  But Ba’al has a final plan to salvage his life and empire: he goes back in time to prevent the humans from developing a Stargate programme, and uses his knowledge of the future to build an impregnable galactic Goa’uld empire.  Of course, the core of SG-1 –Mitchell (Ben Browder), Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Jackson (Michael Shanks)– manage to avoid being affected by the changed timeline and must convince the leaders of the modified Earth to help them re-set the timeline to its proper continuity.

The science fiction aspects of this story are old hat.  The idea of repairing an altered time continuity has been plumbed in pretty much every SF series of note, and by Stargate itself on more than one occasion.  What’s new here are three things: (1) Continuum’s movie length allows it to explore the premise with a tad more depth than a mere TV show could; (2) in this version, someone finally mentions the ethical problem with resetting the timeline, specifically that it means affecting the lives –and sometimes preventing the lives– of billions of people who have only known the new timeline; and (3) at one point, the government of the new timeline forced Mitchell, Carter and Jackson to assimilate into the new world, which they do for a whole year.  I wish this last bit was more fully fleshed out.  Ultimately, watching these beloved characters function in such an emotionally and trying environment is more rewarding and interesting than watching them save the universe –yet again– with guns and space planes.

As alluded to earlier, the writing gets jerky at times.  Stargate spent 10 years alluding to a complicated, and possibly romantic, relationship between Jack O’Neill and Sam Cater.  But in a scene in which Jack is shot, Carter shouts, “Sir!” instead of “Jack!”, which is what the other team members shout.  It seemed odd and cold.  In general, emotional depth was missing, and I’m not sure whether to blame the actors, the Director or the writing.  The saving graces in this respect were Richard Dean Anderson, Claudia Black and Willian Devane.  In a fantastic moment, Anderson effectively conveyed the wounded father beneath his smirking, joking facade; Black was warm and nervous as Vala, yet cold and scary as the Goa’uld Kitesh; and DeVane always steals the scene with his simultaneous gravity and charm.

Continuum feels like yet another love letter to the fans, with cameos aplenty.  It features the return of a really aged Richard Dean Anderson (whose rapidly maturing features are in contrast to Ben Browder’s remarkable timelessness), the final performance of the late Don S. Davis (General Hammond), and the return of many of SG-1’s greatest Goa’uld villains: Camulus, Nirrthi, Yu and even Apophis.  There is a feeling that this will be the final SG-1 movie, which makes it all the more bittersweet.

As an extended tv show, Continuum is really quite good.  As a standalone movie, it falls short of an exciting, epic feel.  The most memorable part, for me, is watching Ben Browder hold a gun.  He’s the only actor I’ve ever seen on TV or in the movies who seems to know how to cradle a shotgun or assault rifle.  It’s actually so noticeable that it’s distracting.

Die-hard fans will love Continuum.  Casual fans with some knowledge of the series and its characters will find it mildly entertaining.  Newbies will be completely lost.  Here’s hoping there’s a third Stargate SG-1 movie.  This die-hard fan sure enjoys them.

Buy the DVD

Official Movie Poster

Fan-made movies/installments/episodes of any show are the ultimate expression of both love and hardcore geekery.  And no franchise in the history of science fiction has inspired more such productions than Star Trek; not just any version of Star Trek, either, but the mothership– James Kirk’s original vehicle.  There’s something about that pioneering show that continues to inspire enormous dedication and passion from thousands of fans, nearly five decades later.

Prime among such fan efforts is the New Voyages series, which in many ways was a philosophical precursor to the upcoming new “official” Star Trek movie, in that both visions have re-imagined the original iconic characters with new actors, something unthinkable a few years ago.  But New Voyages, despite its admirable efforts, good stories and impressive special effects, was always an amateurish fan production.  Simply put, the acting sucks and the dialogue and direction are highschoolish.  I still heartily recommend all the New Voyages episodes to anyone who adores the orginal Shatner/Nimoy series, but beware that this is just well funded fan fiction.

Enter something called Star Trek: Of Gods and Men.  It’s a genuine fan-made full-length Star Trek motion picture, supported by the New Voyages cast and crew, but driven by hardened industry professionals, including actors from all four official Trek series: Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.  It’s even directed by Tim Russ, who played the Vulcan Tuvok in Star Trek: Voyager.

My understanding of the legalities of such production is limited.  But I believe that Paramount lets fans get away with making these video love letters so long as no one tries to disrespect the core material or, more importantly, make any money off of the effort.  Therefore, both the New Voyages episodes and this epic Of Gods and Men movie are completely free of charge.  To view the latter, just visit the production’s official website, download a bittorrent, or watch the streaming content on Youtube.  I recommend the latter.  You can begin here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wEl0vq0CCLU

Now, I am very pleased to report that the movie is good.  In fact, I found it more enjoyable that the last couple of official Paramount Star Trek movies (Nemesis and Insurrection)… That is, if you keep reminding yourself that this is a free production put out by mostly amateurs in their free time.  Be prepared to forgive some sloppy writing, cheap special effects, sometimes problematic acting and odd pacing and you will be presently surprised by the quality of your overall viewing experience.

The story is set 12 years after Captain Kirk has presumably been killed on the Enterprise B (see Star Trek: Generations), even though we all know he was actually sucked into the Nexus, and would not be killed until Malcolm Mcdowell gets his hands on him 80 years into the future.  Suddenly there arrives a mysterious man from the past, a man with strange godlike powers, who is looking menacingly for Kirk.  It’s not too much of a spoiler to reveal that this man is the now sexagenarian Charlie Evans from the original series episode Charlie X, in a role played by William Wellman, Jr., who looks eerily like a grown-up Robert Walker, Jr, the original actor who filled Charlie’s shoes.

Charlie lures Uhura, Chekhov and Captain John Harriman (Allan Ruck from Star Trek: Generations) to the planet where still stands the Guardian on the Edge of Forever, that weird time-travelling structure that first wowed us in the best ever Star Trek episode, City on the Edge of Forever.  There, Charlie goes back 70 years into the past and murders James Kirk’s pregnant mother, thus preventing the birth of our hero.

Fans of science fiction know what happens next.  One pivotal individual, if removed from the soup of factors that establishes causality, can be the difference between the Utopia of the Federation and the nightmare tyranny of the so-called “Galactic Order”, an evil empire led by a mysterious, godlike being whose identity will please and thrill hardcore fans of the original series.

Garret Wang as a tough guy

The movie is driven by a handful of main characters: All Ruck (Harriman), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Walter Koenig (Chekhov), Gary Graham (from Enterprise) and to a lesser extent Tim Russ.  Also contributing important scenes are Garret Wang (Harry Kim from Star Trek: Voyager), the babe-tastic Chase Masterson (Leeta from Deep Space Nine) and J.G. Hertzler (also from DS9). For the dedicated fanboy, there is literally an armada of cameos from other Trek actors, and part of the fun of this movie is trying to identify the various random aged faces.

Nichols and Koenig are famous not only for their iconic roles, but also for never having been given starring vehicles.  Nichols’s timing is a bit off in some of the dialogue, but she does an admirable job nonetheless, and it’s great to see a strong, older, black woman be given something meaty to do on screen, as well as a complete back story.  But the real standouts are Koenig and Ruck.  These two could, in my opinion, carry their own big budget, cerebral action movie.  As Of Gods and Men shows us, you don’t need to be young and spry to be an action star.  Both Nichols and Koenig are in their 70s, while Ruck is just under 60.  Their dynamic is believable and sometimes even touching.

It’s difficult to put a finger on exactly why I found this admittedly cheap and sloppy production so engaging.  Maybe because it was cheap and sloppy?  You can only do so much with volunteer labour and private funding, with no expectation of profit or even of recouping your investment.  I think that a big part of the movie’s appeal is that it’s not trying to steal our cash; it doesn’t care about attracting viewers or sponsors.  There will be no one trying to hock models of the spaceships designed for the film.  There is no Burger King tie-in or on-screen product placement.  There are no superfluous characters who have been added in the background only because they “look cool” and thus can be marketed as an action figure.  There is no focus-group casting or test audience re-editing.  This is a pure, though flawed, artistic effort with a singular intent: to express love for the core material and to share that love with the fans.

If you need to see $10 million on the screen, you will not enjoy this film.  If you need your acting and dialogue to have been workshopped and test marketed, you will not enjoy this film.  If you’ve only seen a couple of the original Star Trek episodes, you will not enjoy this film.  But if you are over 25 years old (preferably over 40!) and have spent a goodly chunk of your life watching and re-watching the various incarnations of Roddenberry’s greatest brainchild, then I strongly suspect that Star Trek: Of Gods and Men will be an enjoyable experience for you, and may even bring you some closure for the lesser characters on whom the major motion pictures could not afford to waste valuable screen time.

I, for one, hope there’s a sequel.

This article was originally a blog post.

The following contains spoilers for the movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull…

About four years ago I was horrified when my girlfriend at the time mentioned casually how she did not care for any of the Indiana Jones movies. Instead, she preferred the piece of steaming crap we had just finished seeing: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I knew then that the relationship was doomed to failure.

For a generation of sofa-bound adventure types, the Jones movies are the pinnacle of laddish delights. Through them, we travel to a time and place where intellect and two-fisted bravado can coexist, where the good guys are really good, and the bad guys are the worst of the worst. It’s a place where clues are solved with both your brain and your testicles, and where mind, heart and spirit conjoin to produce heroism in its most profound form.

Thus, the twenty year wait between the 3rd movie (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and this fourth one promised a return to the purity of that form. In the interim, some of us inspired by Indy have ourselves become adventuring professors who trek through jungles, savannahs and mountaintops in search of strangeness, romance and exotic infections.

Well, I’m here to report that the new movie is very enjoyable. But it’s also a great disappointment.

Where to start? Yes, Ford (and thus Indy) are now 66 years old. That’s okay. The film even makes a few aging jokes. But given that he’s 66, maybe it’s not so convincing that he’s beating up tough Red Army soldiers half his age? I would have much preferred to have seen an emeritus adventurer directing his little young proteges about.

Karen Allen, while ten years younger than Ford, has aged well for an average woman, but poorly for a Hollywood starlet. Sharing a screen with 39 year old Cate Blanchett, who looks fan-freaking-tastic, doesn’t help her much either. But Allen’s role doesn’t call for her to be the hot young thing anymore; it calls for her to be spunky and worthy of Indy’s heroics to save her. Sadly, their supposed re-budding romance just looked more like an episode of the Love Boat. Eww.

Then there’s Shia LaBoeuf as Indy’s son. Yes, his son. Why does Indy need a son? Why does Superman need a son? What is with Hollywood and its recent celebration of the absentee father? It’s too cute, too convenient, too trite.

The action was way over the top. This was more a video game than an Indy movie. The old Indy crawled under moving vehicles and was bruised and beaten for his efforts. The modern Indy –and his son– straddle speeding jeeps while rapier-dueling, and neither emerges with a bruise. All too convenient.

See, there’s a line between campy and stupid, and this movie crosses that line often. Here are three examples: Indy survives a nuclear explosion by hiding in a refrigerator. Read that again. Then his son swings from tree vines like Tarzan, leading his own army of monkeys. Seriously. And –get this– Indy gets pulled out of a sandpit, using a live python as a rope. Stupidity abounds.

And lastly….. aliens? Haven’t Lucas and Spielberg given us enough aliens already? Indy has always been about ancient cultures and their connections to indefinable deities. By defining the deities as space aliens, the movie is dragged from mysterious to hokey. Me not like. And don’t get me started on how ridiculously fake that crystal skull looked. Geez Louise.

Anyway, colour me disappointed. This could have been a tremendous film, an opportunity to really show how an aging adventurer could hold his own mentally instead of physically, in a changing world that no longer appreciates his style. But no. Instead, we get the Love Boat.

At least I still have the terrific TV series, Young Indiana Jones. No aliens show up in that one.