The Letters to the Editor department is intended to be a forum for our readers to express their own opinions and ideas. While we appreciate the many complimentary letters we receive each day, you won't find them on this page. Instead, you will find letters that go beyond or even contradict what we have written, letters that offer a different perspective and provide a different view of science fiction. If you would like to submit a letter, please use our feedback form or send a message to scifiweekly@scifi.com.
-- Brooks Peck, Editor
Wonder Woman Isn't June Cleaver
illiam J. Gallant is way off the mark in his Issue No. 150 letter "Madonna Makes An Unwholesome Wonder Woman." Wonder Woman pre-dates Alien's Ripley by several years, but the
archetypes are very similar: strong, capable women who are perfectly
capable of solving their problems without the help of men. Trying to
re-fashion Wonder Woman in a June Cleaver mold is preposterous. The
Amazons are pretty well known for not liking men and not being willing
to put up with them. The Amazons from the Wonder Woman comic book were
beautiful women who were not above using their female charms to
influence men. Later stories are fairly suggestive, and there's little
doubt that they use their sexuality much as Madonna does: to dominate
weak-minded (or weak-kneed) men. They are the modern antithesis of Queen
Elizabeth, who used her image of virginity to avoid the possibility of
domination by a husband (whom she would have had to call King and Lord).
But both then and now, control of their sexuality gave those women power
and allowed them to resist being forced into submissive roles.
The fact that these themes weren't dealt with continually in the comic
probably says more about the comfort level of its mostly male,
relatively immature audience than it does about the Amazons' sexuality
and submission to traditional women's roles in a patriarchal society
(that is why they live on an island away from men, remember?). So, take
your wholesomeness and your purity and go watch Nick at Night or TV
Land, but don't try and force them on an obviously feminist icon.
Naturally, Madonna's role as agent provocateur of the nation's sexuality
over the last two decades puts her squarely in front for consideration
for this role. Whether she takes it or not, or even wishes to continue
exploring her sexual side after her recent focus on spiritual issues is
a different question.
Vance Pitman
vpitman@dreamland.dicksonstreet.com
Make Bruce Campbell Superman
have been trying to follow the fan ideas for leads of some upcoming
films of comic book heroes. I have heard that Nicholas Cage is going to
play Superman. Now I agree that Nicholas Cage is a great actor. However, I do
not believe that he has the proper physique or look to be able to pull off
playing Supes (like what Michael Keaton did for Batman. Val Kilmer and
George Clooney both are great actors but Michael was a bit more
convincing).
Now if Nicholas Cage does play Superman I will support the film for what
it is. Someone who I think would be the best actor to play the Man of
Steel is Bruce Campbell. Take a look at his work: Evil Dead, Maniac Cop,
and Brisco County, Jr. He has a great acting range that is rarely seen
today. He could easily play the mild mannered Clark Kent and then raise
his stature to be Superman like Christopher Reeve did.
As for Madonna as Wonder Woman, Madonna is a good actress but she just
doesn't have the build for the Amazon Princess. Lucy Lawless is the most
logical choice to play Wonder Woman.
Robert Reed
ReedFX@Hotmail.com
Mission Stays True to SF
hile I agree that Mission to Mars had a number of thematic flaws, I don't really think that it deserved the D+ rating that you gave it. [See the review.]
If nothing else, Mission to Mars made a conscientious attempt to be actual, honest to goodness science fiction, unlike such movies as Armageddon which only had the SF label slapped on it by producers who clearly wouldn't know science fiction if it burst out of their own chests.
Was MtM a great movie? Hell no. Much of the dialogue was weak and the ending sequence was, in fact, a bit on the cheesy and derivative side but, for crying out loud, it wasn't a bad movie either. The characters did have character, the plot was internally consistent, attention was paid to detail and, most critically for a science fiction movie, a lot of attention was paid to scientific plausibility while, at the same time, never failing to remember that it's intended to be a work of entertainment.
While it's unlikely that this film will find its way into any reputable archive of classic science fiction, it is a step in the right direction away from the fluff-driven dreck that's been smeared on the screens so consistently over the years, and it deserves to be recognized as such.
I'll guarantee that if films like this one bomb, the studio heads won't be thinking that there were problems with the plot, they'll be thinking that there's problems with the hard SF format, which will send us spiraling right back into productions where the science is conspicuously absent from the fiction.
Andrew Lias
anrwlias@hotmail.com
Mission Makes Mars Unappealing
just this minute returned home from seeing Mission to Mars. Ugh!
The excellent cast, (potential) subject material and director drew me to
spend hard-earned money in prime time to brave the crowds and view this
movie. Big Mistake.
I just kept waiting for it to get good but was sorely disappointed.
I'm a huge SF fan and don't miss anything! This movie was a huge
disappointment. Nothing original here...just more drivel. I
have sent out numerous emails to my friends to wait 'till it comes on
TV...the commercials might make it more suspenseful and exciting. Hollywood
has fallen behind again. It was enough to make me want to run home and
(oh-my-God!) punch Independence Day into the DVD player. If this movie is supposed to be anything like a real mission, then puh-leez, somebody pull
the plug on funding! It's got to be better than this on the moon.
Tess Cox
tesstalk@msn.com
Farscape's Actors Appear Stoned
just saw my first episode of Farscape a couple of days ago on the USA Network and my reaction to the acting was "Good lord, where did they get these people from?" Ben Browder is quite possibly one of the worst working actors in America today. It would be charitable to describe his method of delivering a line as wooden. I'm not sure who played the lady with gray skin and hair [Gigi Edgley plays Chiana], but she kept reminding me of Stevie Nicks. If she was trying to come across as a stoned early '80s pop star then I would say she succeeded. If she was hoping to come across as mysterious or alien, then I would suggest she return to the drawing board. It is difficult to critique the puppets in the show, although they seemed to be largely useless to the story line. Too bad Mystery Science Theater 3000 is no longer on the air, this show would make an excellent target.
Brian Patterson
bd1969az@aol.com
Farscape Makes Trek Look Silly
efore all of the letters flood in saying how good, bad or indifferent the
season opener is, I would like to say that my first encounter with Farscape
left me wanting more. I don't have the SCI FI Channel yet, so I missed
the whole first season and will miss most of the second. However, the
episode that aired on USA on Tuesday was the best science fiction I have
ever seen on the small screen. It's so refreshing to see aliens who look,
act and are alien. It was also refreshing to see character development
instead of techno babble and deus ex machina endings. In my opinion this
is the first TV show that makes Star Trek look dated and silly.
Tim Huck
timhuck@netmagic.net
Won't Watch An Imperfect Wheel
've been reading the letters lately about the possibility of turning Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series into a TV or movie enterprise. While I agree with those who think that the series cannot be captured adequately in a single movie, I have even more serious reservations about a television show. It is all too easy to imagine it turning into another Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, with scantily-clad Aes Sedai prancing around, balefiring the heck out of bad guys, and WWF-esque Whitecloaks staging bloody, pointless skirmishes at every turn. Can you imagine Lucy Lawless as Nynaeve or Kevin Sorbo as Perrin (never mind Leonardo DiCaprio as Rand).
It seems implausible to me that any attempt to turn the Wheel of Time into a television series would be able to capture the subtleties, complexities, and broad story arcs that keep us reading the books. I suspect it may be possible to please some people by going the way of the WoT video game and setting a television series in the WoT universe, but with different characters, and perhaps in a different time. That being the case, I still wouldn't be a regular viewer. I'd rather bide my time waiting for the next book some other way.
Mike Reid
ap109@torfree.net
Wheel Would Outlive Its Actors
must agree with some of Richard Lajaala's sentiments in his Issue No. 149 letter "Wheel Deserves More Than A Miniseries." I have read in more than one interview with Robert Jordan that he himself believes it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-20 hours of film to convert just one of the novels in the series to a movie format. He's also said that he would
never sell the rights for such a film!
Should the remarkable happen and NBC actually does a decent job, WoT
fans would be to praying that the ratings are good enough to warrant
subsequent mini-series. Consider then that there are now eight books in
the series plus a short novel (New Spring, from the New Legends anthology), with at least two more books to come, assuming Jordan doesn't write another drag-it-out book like The Path of Daggers. NBC or whoever would
hypothetically finish the series would never be able to use the same actors
throughout, because they would have aged too much by the time they got
around to the last book.
The Eye of the World has one of the most straightforward plotlines of
the series, too. They could probably get away with minimal special effects
until the skirmish at the end. But how high would the budget have to go
when we start seeing battles with tens of thousands of Seanchan soldiers or
hundreds of thousands of Aiel or Trollocs? Characters like Loial and
Shaidar Haran would probably have to be computer generated, as would battles that involved someone using the Power. Bill Gates or Ted Turner would have to
be funding this project.
We may see the beginning of the series, but you can be certain we'll
never see the end of it in a live action mini-series. The Wheel of Time
would be much better suited to a series of animated features, that in a
perfect world would have the production quality of Akira. In all
likelihood,
Jordan saw dollar signs when approached by NBC that would enable him to
take
a few years off before writing the final installment. So, I guess you
could
say that we won't be watching The Eye of the World, we'll be watching The Eye on the Money.
Sean D. Gardner
thefuppy@aol.com
Planet Wasn't Nichols' First SF
quick nitpick. In your review of What Planet Are You From? you
stated that this was
director Mike Nichols' first SF film. He directed the 1973 film The Day of
the Dolphin. As far as I know that's his only other SF film.
Phil Baringer
baringer@sunflower.com
Diesel Puts Tough Guys To Shame
think that SF flicks are too influenced by the Alien series,
Pitch Black had a lot of elements and scenes that looked really familiar.
Space creatures are very inspiring and movies about them should always have
something new to look for and have the writer's imagination running wild.
Movie studios should look for people who have not seen any of the Alien
movies, that way they would not try to imitate, copy or have them in mind
while creating a story and come out with something truly original.
However I found Pitch Black unexpected, it had something that had
my eyes glued to the screen. I enjoyed it like no other SF movie in a long
time. It's the kind of movie that you can see again and again and always
finding something new. The photography was amazing, the eclipse scene was
mesmerizing as were many of the fantastic special effects. The cast was great, Vin Diesel made Arnold, Sylvester and Jean Claude look like boy scouts. I mean,
he didn't have to do a lot to make his presence noticed, and the rest of the
cast did their part. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and I'm sure the rest of the audience enjoyed it a lot.
Cesar Galindo
GALINC@ch.etn.com
