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Subject: Science Fiction Interpretations

Posted by: brm50diboll
Date: Jan 02 17

I have debated with myself starting a Virtual Blog for months. I have so little free time nowadays that I may not be able to keep it up, but I think I'll at least try. This is intended to be wide-ranging, so it wouldn't fit in the Television, Movies, or Literature boards categories and I don't want to clog up General with just my observations but here I can rant if I choose and people can choose to ignore me or engage my flawed analysis if they wish.

469 replies. On page 22 of 24 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

terraorca

I haven't seen "Ghost Story," however, I do remember Alice Krige from "Chariots of Fire" as Sybil, the love interest of Harold Abrahams.

Reply #421. Aug 28 20, 11:26 PM

brm50diboll

Ghost Story is definitely worth seeing if only for the late career performances of the "old men" actors in it. I like the old school trailers that convey the creepiness of the movie without giving away the plot. Even though Alice Krige isn't top-billed, it is evident from the promo that she is at the very center of the movie.

The girl.

Reply #422. Aug 29 20, 3:46 AM

MiraJane

To me, she is the only Borg Queen that matters.

Reply #423. Aug 29 20, 4:00 AM

brm50diboll

Finally found something I've been looking for for a long time. Had to go off YouTube to get it though. It is a skit from Saturday Night Live in 1986 that was hosted by William Shatner. The famous "Get a Life!" skit.

https://tinyurl.com/y5fu8opt

As a purist, they have the episode numbers wrong in the skit. "The Enemy Within", which featured the "evil Kirk" was actually a very early Star Trek episode, #5 according to Wikipedia, first aired October 6, 1966. And "the spores episode" was actually "This Side Of Paradise" which was also a first season episode, #24 by Wikipedia, first aired March 2, 1967.

I love it how Shatner asks Jon Lovitz (wearing "Spock ears") if he had ever kissed a girl and Lovitz hangs his head down.

Reply #424. Oct 18 20, 5:20 PM

brm50diboll

Only a few days left to go now.

https://tinyurl.com/y33c68ss

Love those daemons. Let's see what Mrs. Coulter will be up to this year. Talk to y'all later, people.

Reply #425. Nov 10 20, 5:42 PM

brm50diboll

It may take awhile to make all the points I want to in this post, but here goes anyway:

There is no doubt that Rod Serling was the very heart of the original Twilight Zone. He was, of course, the creator, chief writer, and narrator for the show. Even episodes he was not involved in the writing of had to pass his inspection before they appeared on his show. Much of Serling's writing was completely original screenplays. Some of it was adapted screenplays of stories by other writers. In the first season, for example, about two-thirds of the episodes bore Serling's writing stamp in one form or another. Nevertheless, he did have other writers for the show, and they were very talented. Most of them were science fiction writers who were accomplished in their field in their own rights independent of their contributions to The Twilight Zone. Serling actively solicited contributions from other writers for his show. Sometimes he would adapt their writings, and sometimes he would invite them to write screenplays directly for the show. Sometimes these were guest writers who may have contributed one or two episodes for the whole series. Most famously in that category was Ray Bradbury of "Fahrenheit 451" fame who wrote the TZ episode "I Sing The Body Electric". But Serling had a small cadre of more regular writers for him, who contributed many of the 156 original episodes. A list of his "regulars" would include Charles Beaumont, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, and, in the later years of the show, Earl Hamner Jr.

It is Richard Matheson I want to look at primarily today. Matheson was an accomplished science fiction writer both before and after his association with The Twilight Zone (where he contributed writing credits on episodes in all five of the seasons). Matheson is probably best known for "I am Legend", which was adapted into movies several times, including with Charlton Heston in "The Omega Man" and with Will Smith in "I am Legend" many years later. Matheson had a long life, unlike Serling (he died in 2013 at age 87). Matheson even wrote one episode of Star Trek TOS : "The Enemy Within", a famous early (#5) episode where a transporter accident splits Captain Kirk into a "good Kirk" and an "evil Kirk".

But I want to look at how small revisions of science fiction stories can lead to big differences down the road, and for today I am choosing one particular story of Richard Matheson to illustrate that point: "Button, Button".

The original story dates from 1970 (years after the original Twilight Zone had ended). It was actually first published in the June 1970 issue of "Playboy" magazine. (See, another reason for reading that publication). The story has been adapted into various media several times over the years, with some alterations that have had significant effects. The original story itself is easily downloaded for free off the internet from such links as as the highlighted PBWorks link "Button, Button" on the following page, and it is only nine pages long:

https://www.google.com/search?q=button+button+by+richard+matheson+1970&oq=button+button+1970&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.11373j0j7&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

In this original version, the person who dies turns out to be Norma's husband Arthur, with the explanation "My dear lady, do you really think you knew your husband?"

In the second, 1980s, incarnation of The Twilight Zone, this story was adapted into an episode of that series starting Mare Winningham as Norma. Here it is:

https://tinyurl.com/y3w2yg8q

The ending of the TV episode is quite different from the original story. In it, the person who dies really is unknown to Norma, but the ending line as to where the button will next go is: "I can assure you it will be offered to someone whom you don't know."

Now I liked this ending better. Much creepier. You could see the scared look on Mare Winningham's face when she realized what that meant. But Richard Matheson hated the change. In fact, he wanted no writing credit for the episode, so he used his pseudonym Logan Swanson for the teleplay. But I'm sorry to disagree with the writer himself, but the new ending is more intellectually honest than saying a wife doesn't know her own husband and gets more pointedly to the central moral dilemma of the story which is how readily people might be willing to kill someone they don't know by imposing a "karma" consequence, which is typical of the majority of Twilight Zone episodes anyway. Not all TZ episodes follow this formula, but most do, which, in my opinion accounts for the staying power of this show, and why it is now in its fourth series incarnation. There is something schadenfreude about: main character has a personality flaw, main character gets magic power, main character abuses magic power because of personality flaw, main character "gets it in the end" with an ironic karma twist. Beautiful format! Timeless! They'll be teaching Rod Serling courses in universities centuries from now primarily because of the strength of that format.

But it doesn't end there. The story was then adapted into a full-length Hollywood movie called "The Box" (which started Cameron Diaz) in 2009.

https://tinyurl.com/y5aeac7u

I am disappointed that this movie didn't do well at the box office because I liked it, but I think I understand why. The original story is just too short for a movie, so they had to add a whole "detective chase down of the mysterious Mr Steward" to do it, but that makes the story more of a conventional thriller rather than what it originally was designed to be. Nevertheless, I loved Frank Langella with his deformed face as Mr. Steward in this movie. Frank Langella is a great actor, period. The Mr. Steward character, by his very name, is intended to be representative of a "type", rather than a specific individual, a sort of demonic Deus ex machina in action. The dark side of "Pay it forward" in action. Mahatma Gandhi said "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind". The murder of a person unknown and unconnected to the person who sets it in action for money will kill thousands over time. And how do you stop such a vicious cycle? A theme well worth exploring. Maybe it will be done better in the next incarnation, whenever that may be.

See y'all around later.

Reply #426. Nov 30 20, 4:17 PM

brm50diboll

I was pleasantly surprised to see Terence Stamp appear in this week's episode of "His Dark Materials", as they finally introduce the subtle knife. Stamp is a magnificent actor. I've liked him ever since he played General Zod in Superman II. And, of course, he was Chancellor Valorum in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

https://tinyurl.com/y3v9axdm

Reply #427. Dec 10 20, 7:30 PM

MiraJane

"oh, God"
No, Zod.

That's pretty much all I remember from the Superman movie. But it was the best part.

Reply #428. Dec 11 20, 6:00 AM

brm50diboll

"2020 showing 2021 the neighborhood"

https://www.google.com/search?q=joker+and+pennywise+meme&oq=joker+and+penny&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i457j0i20i263j0l2.8085j0j7&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=bLkMyBRlxpWzgM

Happy New Year, everyone!

Reply #429. Jan 06 21, 6:35 PM

brm50diboll

I haven't posted here in quite awhile because there isn't a lot going on. I have been waiting (it seems like forever) for season 7 of "The Flash" to finally begin, but they keep pushing back the debut date, so it will be March before it returns. But I don't really want to wait until March to post something, so I'll do a brief retrospective on HBO's "Westworld" which I've commented extensively on previously. The first season really was the best, and the presence of the great Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford, the mysterious creator of the park, is what made the difference. But the series has great theme music as well, so I thought I'd put in a couple of passages from the season 1 soundtrack to illustrate. The first selection is called "Sweetwater (Train)" and it played every time a train full of guests entered the town of Sweetwater, which is the sort of "capital" of Westworld at the very center of the park. Dr. Ford had commented that the most tame of Westworld tours never left Sweetwater, the most controlled and predictable part of the park, but the further away a guest got from Sweetwater, the wilder their experience would be.

https://tinyurl.com/yjc7n8uu

Whenever Dr. Ford appeared on the show, it seemed his own personal theme accompanied him. Just hearing the music meant something significant in the plot was about to happen. The next selection is "Dr. Ford". Personally, I like the second half of this piece, beginning about 2:15 into it, when the synthesizer contribution really takes over. To me it represents Dr. Ford's mastery of the artificiality of the park.

https://tinyurl.com/hahrjfkf

And I think I have to include my favorite scene from the entire series. A little background, first. The board of directors wants to force Dr. Ford to retire, but Dr. Ford doesn't want to. The board sends Theresa to try to "muscle him". It doesn't work. Theresa finds out just how scary Dr. Ford can be (echoes of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter) when he wants to be.

https://tinyurl.com/1vbagddh

The mysterious and powerful Dr. Ford reminds me of Mr. Roarke from the old TV show "Fantasy Island" expertly played by the great Ricardo Montalban. This was a show I never missed as a kid. Roarke would show up unexpectedly in the middle of episodes to straighten out fantasies that had gone awry. Yes, I am aware of the remake that had started Malcolm McDowell, and also the recent movie version which was sort of a horror reboot. I wouldn't say they were bad. They had their moments, but nothing compared to the original. Here's a clip (with the great Roddy McDowall as Mephistopheles):

https://tinyurl.com/sbnzie7u

Still waiting for "The Flash". It better be good.

Reply #430. Feb 01 21, 6:33 PM

brm50diboll

A small tribute to Christopher Plummer, who passed away today at age 91:

https://tinyurl.com/1azekijz

or this one from the 1987 Dragnet movie with Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks:

https://tinyurl.com/3m147mrc

What? No clip of Captain Von Trapp?

Too obvious.

Reply #431. Feb 05 21, 12:50 PM

brm50diboll

So yeah, The Flash is finally back. Two episodes into the much delayed seventh season and it is looking like it will be worth the wait. The season premiere did not include the central characters of Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, and it killed off the season 6 incarnation of Harrison Wells, Nash Wells. But in the second episode they bring in Cisco and Caitlin, have Barry Allen turn into an emotionless supercomputer, and then resurrect the original Earth-1 Harrison Wells from the past where he was killed by Eobard Thawne (The Reverse Flash, the Flash's archenemy). Tom Cavanagh is too good an actor to stay off The Flash for very long. He is central to the long term plot development. Having Earth-1 Wells alive will undoubtedly draw the attention of Reverse Flash, so we can expect Cavanagh to play both characters.

https://tinyurl.com/pxadn58t

In the meantime, Flash and company must still deal with Eva McCullough (Mirror Mistress) and save the other two still trapped in her mirrorverse. Looks like this season will be a lot of fun.

Reply #432. Mar 11 21, 9:58 PM

brm50diboll

Happy 90th birthday to William Shatner, Captain Kirk himself.

Despite criticism for sexism, the next clip includes the finest example of Shatner's patented overacting in existence:

https://tinyurl.com/62jsmpsj

True Trekkies will recognize that scene from "Turnabout Intruder" as the very last scene of Star Trek TOS. This final episode first aired June 3, 1969, months after the show had been officially cancelled and months after the second-to-last episode had aired. It had been originally scheduled to air in March of 1969, but was rescheduled due to the death of former President Dwight Eisenhower. In it, Shatner vamps it up throughout.

Live long and prosper, Bill Shatner. (I guess you already have.)

Reply #433. Mar 22 21, 2:40 AM

bernie73

An interesting episode, if cringeworthy because of the sexism. I've gotten the sense that many of the cast and crew were somewhat embarrassed by this episode in later years. I wonder how much of the sexism is do to Gene Roddenberry's own very sexist attitudes (progressive in all ways the man was not).

Interestingly, from what I've heard Sandra Smith (who portrayed Janice Lester) generally received pretty positive reviews for her portrayal of Capt. Kirk.

Reply #434. Mar 23 21, 12:53 PM

brm50diboll

Gene Roddenberry admitted the sexism in his later years. It was most obvious in this episode, but was in fact present throughout the series. I mean, the female cast members wore miniskirts and most female guest stars on the show acted as love interests for Captain Kirk. Roddenberry was actually politically quite progressive. He made sure the cast was multiracial and even had the character of Chekov (a Russian) during the middle of the Cold War. I refuse to judge people of past eras by the standards of the present time, but by the standards of the times they lived in. It was a 60s show, and for 60s shows, it was very forward thinking. Nichelle Nichols had wanted to quit Star Trek after the first season because she thought the Uhura character didn't do very much, but was talked into continuing by none other than Martin Luther King Jr. himself, who saw the character as a good role model for young African American women. Who'd have thought MLK was a Trekkie? But he was. Now the thing about "Turnabout Intruder" that got much of the sexism attention was the statement that women weren't allowed to be starship captains. Subsequent Star Trek series in later years showed that (even in the 23rd century timeframe of TOS), that "rule" wasn't followed. I'm more annoyed by the constantly changing appearances of the Klingons over the years than by this inconsistency. For a franchise that has been in existence for over 50 years in multiple diverse incarnations, Star Trek cannot avoid many such timeline inconsistencies.

"Turnabout Intruder" has consistently ranked at or very near the top of various lists of "Worst Star Trek episodes". I disagree. I can think of many episodes I hate more than this one, which I honestly kind of like because of its "body switching" machine. That was a brilliant idea, and I had fun seeing William Shatner be hysterical and file his nails. Even though the cancellation of Star Trek had been abrupt and so there was no planned official "finale", this episode does make reference to events in several previous episodes, so I think it serves well as the finale.

By the way, my vote for Worst Star Trek TOS episode goes to "The Apple". Star Trek had already beat the idea of civilizations being controlled by computers to death long before that episode. And "Spock's Brain" and "And The Children Shall Lead" were also awful. There are several others I would consider worse than "Turnabout Intruder" as well. Most of the candidates for "worst episodes" came from the third season, and it should be remembered that Gene Roddenberry had largely stepped down from day-to-day operations in the show during the third season.

As for Sandra Smith's performance, I liked it. I think it is sexism *not* to allow females to be villains. I hate Mary Sues. Her Dr. Lester was a brilliant scientist and Star Trek, to its credit as a 60s show, had lots of brilliant female scientists in it. The "no female starship captains" rule was stupid, I'll admit, but the idea that Lester and Kirk had a bad breakup and that she plotted revenge on him for that is totally believable. Kirk was a serial womanizer. It is surprising we didn't see several other of his "exes" out to get him much earlier in the show, and she just used the fascinating technology she had discovered on Camus II to that end.

We could have roamed the stars together.

We'd have killed each other.

Definitely true. Smith's performance as Kirk trapped in Lester's body unable to convince anyone other than Spock (because of the mind meld) of what had happened was excellent. And I liked Scotty's line to McCoy when they "conspire mutiny": "If Spock believes it, then it must be logical." Hilarious!

Reply #435. Mar 23 21, 3:04 PM

bernie73

I believe the "no female Captains in Starfleet" rule has been explained as Dr. Lester was told "You're not qualified to be a Starfleet Captain" and her mind altered that to "No woman can be a Starfleet Captain".

While it is true that many of the female guest stars were part of romances on the show, I thought I saw somewhere once that Kirk was the other partner less often than you would think (something like 51% of the time). As I recall, Spock and McCoy had several romantic encounters. Even Scotty and Chekov had a few. I think Sulu had one or two although I can't remember for certain. Did Uhura have any?

If romantic relationships were going to be a part of the series (and they are part of the human condition also), female guest stars were going to play a large part of it since the regular cast had a large majority of males. (Janice Rand with something like 10 episodes was the third most commonly seen female character on the series.) I don't think any of the other choices I can think of would have worked at that time. US TV was still decades away from being comfortable with comfortably presenting a romantic relationship that was one man and one woman.

The other choice would have been relationships between member's of the ships crew. I think there was one episode were we saw the beginning of a wedding between two crew members that was interrupted by an attack on the ship. The male crew member was killed and the episode ended with Kirk trying to comfort (no innuendo intended) the surviving crew member. I would have assumed that Starfleet (as presented in the 1960s) would have at least discouraged romantic relationships starting among crew members. (They may have been more tolerant of relationships of existing relationships that continued when the two crew members transferred to a new ship.) I have not served in the military so perhaps someone who has could tell us how this situation would play out in modern navies. However, the Enterprise, while big, is only so big and its crew of 450 or so is a smallish community that you are going to be part of for weeks or months at a time. If a relationship goes sour (especially badly), its going to be hard to completely avoid your ex (particularly if he/she works in the same department as you).

Reply #436. Mar 25 21, 6:29 AM

C30

Being ex-Navy, one of the things that always "grabbed" me about Star Trek.............the original series at least............was the fact it was based loosely (sometimes VERY loosely) on 1960's Navy.

Now, in those far off days, ships did not have the "pleasure" of crews of both sexes, and any form of homosexual relationship resulted in instant dismissal in most cases. So............equating Star Trek with the navies of the times not an exact science.
I reverted to civilian life before women at sea became the norm.........but...........on Shore Bases both sexes served together. Relationships doubtless got formed, but I never experienced one myself (my loss?), not did I ever hear of anything "Prejudice to good order and naval discipline" coming to light. I suspect that provided persons concerned did their day to day jobs efficiently, then the powers that be turned a blind eye.

In the RN at least, ships commissioned for 18 months - 2 years at a time. After which crews were broken up and drafted elsewhere, so though you met the occasional person you had served with previous, it didnt happen often.

On a "Big Ship", Cruiser size and above, you seldom met, or got to know, many from outside your own department............sure you knew a few, but as rough rule of thumb, you only "knew" the 100 or so, in your department........doubtless same would apply in Star Trek when you had a crew of 450+. Relationships would be easier to maintain, than on a "small ship" (crew 10 - 250) where everyone knew everybody else.

To sum up, I would imagine Star Trek authorities sensible enough to realise crews were human (or Vulcan, or Andorian.......whatever)) and as such relationships were inevitable..........these would be accepted and tolerated unless they caused friction and any deterioration in operational efficiency. I appreciate a "Pierhead Jump" (as we called it......rapid and unexpected draft) difficult in far reaches of space, but I would expect such to happen ASAP.

Reply #437. Mar 25 21, 9:11 AM

brm50diboll

Uhura had a very brief "attraction" to a black crewman in the first aired episode "The Man Trap". The crewman was actually the shape-shifting salt vampire at the center of the episode. She also pretended to be interested in the scarfaced alternate Sulu in the famous episode "Mirror, Mirror" (yeah, the one where Spock has a beard.) She kissed Kirk in "Plato's Stepchildren", a famous scene, but of course, that was "forced" by the mind-controlling Platonians. There was no episode where Uhura had an episode-long relationship with anyone, main cast or guest star, as far as I can remember. Uhura was absent entirely from "Turnabout Intruder" (replaced by a white female communications officer) because (so I read) Nichelle Nichols was at a singing engagement at the time that episode was filmed (late December '68 - early January '69). On the other hand, Nurse Christine Chapel had a long-running "crush" on Spock through multiple episodes, most obviously in the opening scene of "Amok Time". (Her interest was recognized by Spock, though unrequited.) Nurse Chapel, who had blonde hair in most of the episodes she appeared in, had auburn hair in "Turnabout Intruder". Lots of small weird things about that episode. Of course, the actress who played Nurse Chapel, Majel Barrett, eventually married and divorced Gene Roddenberry and had been in the pilot "The Cage" as "Number 1" with long brunette hair. She was Lwaxana Troi in TNG and the voice of the computer in Star Trek as well. The story is that CBS executives had rejected "The Cage" (which had been filmed in 1964, a full two years before Star Trek debuted on NBC) for several reasons, one of them being that audiences would not accept a female second-in-command. In "The Cage", Number 1 is portrayed as unemotional, whereas Spock (the only character from the pilot to make it into the actual show, though his appearance was changed somewhat), smiled frequently in the episode. When Roddenberry made changes for his second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", he transferred the unemotional nature of Number 1 to Spock, who was now second-in-command. I guess Majel Barrett's consolation prize for having her character eliminated was to be a recurring character.

Reply #438. Mar 25 21, 11:17 AM

brm50diboll

Correction: I don't know where I got the idea Majel Barrett had divorced Gene Roddenberry. She did not. She remained his wife up to his death in 1991. The nature of the relationship between Barrett and Roddenberry reads as quite the soap opera in both Wikipedia and Star Trek's Memory Alpha Wiki.

Reply #439. Mar 25 21, 2:47 PM

bernie73

If you are looking for a future topic for your blog, I would be interested in reading your opinion on John Christopher's "Tripods" series.

Reply #440. Apr 06 21, 12:40 PM

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