Milt Stevens, Simi Valley California USA
As Mike Resnick says in Challenger #20, science fiction movies have many imperfections. However, my negative sentiments are somewhat softened by remembering how bad they used to be. I grew up in the era of fifty foot turkey movies. People may have thought I was strange for liking science fiction, but they thought I was really strange if I liked that sort of thing. I recall commenting shortly before 2001 was released that I liked science fiction, and I liked movies, but the combination of the two was generally the outrage of both.
Movies have always done better with fantasy than with science fiction. Even today, vampires outnumber space ships by a considerable margin. The Germans made some silent fantasy films which are still watchable. Hollywood did many quite good fantasies in the thirties. Forbidden Planet was almost an aberration. Hollywood made an outstanding science fiction film, and then didn’t remember how to do it again for another twenty years. (You might regard it as the first episode of Star Trek.)
One of the essential things about movies is that they have to move. When people adapt stage plays to film the lack of movement usually makes it obvious where the adaptation came from. In Road Warrior, we have a biker gang. To make it obvious to the movie viewer that they are a biker gang, you have to show them riding around on motorcycles. Of course, bikers do things other than ride aimlessly around on motorcycles. Aside from stomping people, they also drink beer and shoot pool. I think you can see it wouldn’t be very interesting to show a bunch of hairy louts drinking beer and shooting pool.
In both print and movies, there are sometimes things that look like science fiction but aren’t really science fiction. This was the case with the Matrix series. If you regard Matrix as surrealism, it makes more sense. Or at least, it makes sense that it doesn’t make sense.
There’s one thing that really bothers me about Morrie the critic in Alexis Gilliland’s article. He puts salt in his beer. Even in these tolerant times, I regard putting salt in your beer as a perversion. It’s even worse than putting catsup on a steak. They used to say that using a feather was kinky, but using the whole chicken was perverted. I’d say it’s better to use the whole chicken than put salt in your beer.
As you observe in "Dope Court," the people who get snagged by the narcs aren’t usually mental giants. That doesn’t mean they can’t be dangerous. I’ve seen a couple of narc videos where the narcs got robbed. People who buy dope make perfect robbery victims. What are they going to do, go to the police? Some actually do. West Los Angeles honkies down in The Jungle at 3 AM "visiting friends." A likely story.
Movies have always done better with fantasy than with science fiction. Even today, vampires outnumber space ships by a considerable margin. The Germans made some silent fantasy films which are still watchable. Hollywood did many quite good fantasies in the thirties. Forbidden Planet was almost an aberration. Hollywood made an outstanding science fiction film, and then didn’t remember how to do it again for another twenty years. (You might regard it as the first episode of Star Trek.)
Oh no – much better than that.
Sometimes, you may be expecting the wrong thing from a film. Star Wars is a cross between a fairy tale and Planet Stories. Monarchy was the common form of government in both of those venues. You never found anyone establishing a galactic consumer co-op in Planet Stories. Of course, future monarchies show up in quite a bit of other printed science fiction as well. I think future monarchies are a heck of lot more likely than future Trotskyite states. There have been a fair number of successful monarchies in human history.
Sometimes, you may be expecting the wrong thing from a film. Star Wars is a cross between a fairy tale and Planet Stories. Monarchy was the common form of government in both of those venues. You never found anyone establishing a galactic consumer co-op in Planet Stories. Of course, future monarchies show up in quite a bit of other printed science fiction as well. I think future monarchies are a heck of lot more likely than future Trotskyite states. There have been a fair number of successful monarchies in human history.
One of the essential things about movies is that they have to move. When people adapt stage plays to film the lack of movement usually makes it obvious where the adaptation came from. In Road Warrior, we have a biker gang. To make it obvious to the movie viewer that they are a biker gang, you have to show them riding around on motorcycles. Of course, bikers do things other than ride aimlessly around on motorcycles. Aside from stomping people, they also drink beer and shoot pool. I think you can see it wouldn’t be very interesting to show a bunch of hairy louts drinking beer and shooting pool.
In both print and movies, there are sometimes things that look like science fiction but aren’t really science fiction. This was the case with the Matrix series. If you regard Matrix as surrealism, it makes more sense. Or at least, it makes sense that it doesn’t make sense.
There’s one thing that really bothers me about Morrie the critic in Alexis Gilliland’s article. He puts salt in his beer. Even in these tolerant times, I regard putting salt in your beer as a perversion. It’s even worse than putting catsup on a steak. They used to say that using a feather was kinky, but using the whole chicken was perverted. I’d say it’s better to use the whole chicken than put salt in your beer.
As you observe in "Dope Court," the people who get snagged by the narcs aren’t usually mental giants. That doesn’t mean they can’t be dangerous. I’ve seen a couple of narc videos where the narcs got robbed. People who buy dope make perfect robbery victims. What are they going to do, go to the police? Some actually do. West Los Angeles honkies down in The Jungle at 3 AM "visiting friends." A likely story.
posted by ;-p at 11:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home