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.
-- Editor
Starring Cookie Monster As Gandalf
fter reading about Sean Bean playing Boromir, I'm beginning to wonder just how badly they've hashed up The Lord of the Rings adaptation to screen. Bean is quoted as saying that things are confusing for him because filming the three films back-to-back is a challenge.
Boromir dies in the first part of the story! Bean shouldn't have to worry about the other two films! We all knew that no story ever survives the transition to the big screen intact, but if Boromir is now living through the whole story, then I'm worrying whether we'll even recognize the rest of the book.
Phil Edwards
pedwards@jaj.com
The Brits Show Their Fangs
t's rare for any review to cause me to raise my eyebrows and wonder whether the reviewer and I are even on the same planet, but Cory Herndon's comments on Ultraviolet certainly succeeded. Maybe it's the eternal U.S. vs. Brit viewpoint thing that causes such diversity of thought, and subtle understatement has been lost in the transatlantic journey. The great pity is, as the reviewer says, there is still no sign of a follow-up to the first stylish, dark, dramatic and highly memorable series. That I still care, after two years, speaks for itself.
Derek Paterson
DerekPaterson@CompuServe.com
X-Men--Best Thing Since Sliced Toad
his is in response to Josh Hadley's Issue No. 170 letter "Another X-Customer Heard From," about how X-Men was terrible. First of all, they had to pick a character and stick with it. Wolverine is more often than not the person the comics focuses on. So, the producers made the (correct) decision to focus on Wolverine instead of killing the movie by trying to focus on 10 people at once and ending up focusing on nobody. And yes, they were trying to set up a sequel. No, I don't blame them, and I can't wait to see it.
I'll agree that the villains were inadequately developed. That's about the only thing I agree with. Still, they only had 95 minutes to play with, and a full-sized plot that was written with two-hours-plus in mind. It's excusable. As for Toad and Mystique going off on the X-Men: Look at their powers! Toad's powers were changed from the comics, and he was made a real powerhouse. Mystique was also. They only had slots for a few villains, and they had to keep the X-Men at bay. I enjoyed it.
Sean Williams
Dragon1166@aol.com
SCIFI.COM Reveals Secret N.J. Base
hile Josh Hadley's comments in his Issue No. 170 letter "Another X-Customer Heard From" about the X-Men movie were quite passionate and sincere, I must disagree. I found the movie to be extremely entertaining, and was glad an opening was left for a sequel. Having never read any of the X-Men comics, I have no basis to compare the movie to the comics, but compared to other movies released, X-Men was at the top. I'll bet good money it was closer to the storyline than the Battlefield Earth movie was to its source.
Hadley's comment about the improbability of building a secret X-Men base is way offline. Recall NORAD in the Rocky Mts. The public didn't know of it until years after its construction. And what about the underground facilities built for the President and Congress? Those weren't revealed until after the Cold War ended ... so yes, there is factual historic precedence for building billion-dollar bases in secrecy.
Finally, it is just a movie; and a well-done movie. It's entertaining without having totally mindless violence and gore. It had decent effects that didn't detract from the story. And as far as the mutant machine goes ... the same things were said about Doctor McCoy's laser scalpel and bio-bed back in the '60s.
Kelly Jernigan
kell553@hotmail.com
The Silver Surfer Has Fans, Too
ow that the X-Men appears to be a success, I would imagine that the floodgates will be open for further comic adaptations. I know that a Spider-Man movie is already in the works and have heard rumors of other projects, such as a Daredevil adaptation.
If I may make a humble suggestion, I think that the time is right for a movie about one of Marvel's more interesting and enduring characters: the Silver Surfer. The story is classical (practically archetypal) and I think that the effects technology has reached a point where it can handle the demands of such a story.
Andrew Lias
anrwlias@hotmail.com
The X-Jet Is Only A Toy
n response to Crystal Bryan's Issue No. 170 letter "It's A Bird? It's A Plane?" clearing up the naming of the famous
Blackbird X-Men jet, I would just like to point out that nowhere in the
movie is the thing referred to as anything but "the jet."
Only on the toys is it called "X-Jet." And the toys are barely canonical to
the film. Just have a look at them and you'll see.
So for the purposes of this argument, the jet could well have been the
well-known Blackbird from the comics. Don't let the toy marketers ruin it
for you.
Sean Huxter
sean@turbinegames.com
Rely On Fans For The Straight Dope
n Crystal Bryan's No. 170 letter "It's A Bird? It's A Plane?" the
writer comments that the X-Jet could not be a "highly modified
SR-71 Blackbird ... as they don't have vertical takeoff and landing
capability." In fact, this was the major modification done in the
comic book! The X-Men's SR-71 Blackbird was rebuilt
"Shi'ar" alien technology which included VTOL capability. I suspect
the major reason for any change was marketing based, to avoid confusion
with the real SR-71 when producing any toys or models based on it.
David L. Pulver
dlpulver@sympatico.ca
Love It, Hate It, Talk About It
would like to take issue with Wes Herrin's stance on SF films ("Focus On Innovation In SF Films," Issue No. 170). He seems to continue to miss the issue--one person's trash is another person's treasure. Call me crazy, I thought The Fifth Element was a brilliant SF film, and widely misunderstood.
Which brings me back to the original point: Film is entertainment, and, as such, is subjective. I would agree that films like Armageddon and ID4 were utter drivel, but they made ridiculous amounts of money, so obviously someone enjoyed them.
Art (or entertainment) exists at the sufferance of the masses; we are its patrons. It's the same in any medium. Much as many of us hard SF fans might despise the Star Wars and Star Trek serializations on our local bookshelves, they sell enough that most bookstores devote a significant amount of shelf space to them.
Ultimately the only way to bring what you consider quality to the movie theater is to chastise not the directors, or the nebulous "industry," but the audience. Short of educating the general public to your specific taste in films, there's no way you're going to bring what you think of as better films to the market. What's lacking here is an educated audience. Alas that the public at large is not a fan of [insert favorite author/director/interpretation of quality here], but if you've got an idea, I'll help you convince them--if your favorites match mine.
Brian Guthrie
Radagast4@home.com
Hard Science Louses Up More Films
n response to Wes Herrin's letters, and in response to all the responses, I have to ask: what is your gripe with Star Wars? I read the original letter over and over, and I still cannot understand exactly what you think is wrong with this franchise.
Maybe the real problem here is what people define as "science fiction," and what they think sci-fi should be. Perhaps this is an uneducated thing to say, but Star Wars was one of the pioneers of sci-fi films. It tells a good story (with the exception of the latest one) and is entertaining.
I think perhaps Herrin wants all sci-fi to be like Pi, which, although I did like it, did not have a very coherent storyline. This seems to be what most independent sci-fi is like, however, from what I have seen on the show Exposure. Maybe this means I'm not a true sci-fi fan, but I would much rather watch a film whose scientific qualities may be slightly lacking than one with a weak plot.
Alex K. Rich
Skamp44@aol.com
Stop Paying For Crap
have to disagree with Jesse Kleitman's Issue No. 170 letter "Look To Books For New Thrills" about books being the only place for new ideas. Giving up on popular media is in effect issuing Hollywood a license to treat people like morons. True, print allows great creativity with little cost, but film and television can deliver intelligent content and popularize new ideas to set trends.
I use Farscape as an example, a show that subtly teaches about cross-cultural value recognition. This is a fairly sophisticated concept and Farscape transmits it painlessly and interestingly just about every show. One of the best things about Farscape is the divergent and parallel motivations between John Crichton and his alien shipmates. The aliens are not so alien that they are truly inscrutable, but their values and virtues are different enough that a viewer occasionally has to think for a moment as to why a character's actions seem logical to them. It stretches the mind and allows for a perspective that is pretty much ignored even in a lot of written SF. Perhaps the problem is one of our own perspective.
I suppose it's like the difference between being intelligent and being an intellectual. To be an intellectual, one concentrates on the life of the mind, but many very intelligent people concentrate their efforts on financial success. Those not interested in literature, philosophy or history are not necessarily stupid, they just have different motivations and interests. In parallel, literature may be a more an intellectual pursuit, but that does not mean that other media need be mindless.
The danger I see is that by attending stupid, awful movies, we are giving media executives a blank check. Their only measure of success is financial. If we want more intellectually satisfying film and felevision, we've got to make noise when something good comes along, and a different (perhaps ruder) noise when studio execs try to palm off something bad. If crap stops paying, we'll get less crap.
Alan Katerinsky
poppabunny@yahoo.com
Who Is Controlling Transmission?
was glad to see an article on the original The Outer Limits TV series. I watched that show growing up and still love it today. I have some of the series on tape; I wish I could get the rest of them.
The question I have is why is it never on TV anymore? We see the Twilight Zone all
the time. I enjoy the Twilight Zone but I loved The Outer Limits and the new series is just not the same. I hope
that someone can convince TNT that it needs to air the
series again in some form but not so late that no one
can watch it.
Janet Kirshner
drago1magi@aol.com
