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.
— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
Send us your letters!
Got a gripe about something going on in the science fiction world? Want to call attention to an overlooked genre gem? Do you disagree with one of our reviews? Would you like to tell the editor of Science Fiction Weekly what a great job he does? Write a letter to the editor and send it in! You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your letter will be read by thousands of SF fans. Doubtless, fame and fortune will follow (fame and fortune not guaranteed). If you would like to submit a letter, please use our feedback form or send a message to scifiweekly@scifi.com.
n a recent letter ("Fellowship Is Fantastic Fantasy") concerning Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, Michael Kroll comments, "Our gang of heroes is floating down the river and see two huge statues that represent the kings of Man, or something like that. Er ... are the statues giving a Nazi salute?" Um, no. They aren't. The Nazi salute is given with the right arm extended upward at about a 45 degree angle. The statues look more like traffic cops, if they look like anything at all. A warning of dangers ahead, no doubt. I'm assuming the scene was intended at least partially as an homage to symbolist painter Arnold Bocklin's famous painting, "Isle of the Dead." An image of the painting can be found at the following link.
One more comment regarding Mr. Kroll's letter. " ... is Peter Jackson letting his white supremacist views leak out a little?" I wasn't aware that Peter Jackson held any white supremacist views in the first place, let alone letting them "leak out." If your only evidence for these alleged views is
this single scene in one of his movies ... well, the phrase "leaping to conclusions" springs to mind. Based on that evidential standard, we may as well condemn Edward Norton as a Nazi; he was in American History X after all.
Stewart Tame
sbt@ans.net
n response to Michael Kroll's letter ("Fellowship Is Fantastic Fantasy") from the April 25, 2002, issue:
No, the two statues on the river are not giving a Nazi salute. No, Tolkien wasn't a Nazi. No, the director doesn't have white supremacist leanings. The two statues are giving a warning: "Stop! Beyond lies danger!" Not "Seig Heil!"
You might try reading The Silmarillion, Michael. It's light years beyond The Lord of the Rings, and gives a fascinating history of the world before LOTR. There's also a history of the Kings of Numenor (the Ringwraiths). Great, great book.
I'm looking forward to The Two Towers eagerly, since The Fellowship of the Ring was so well-done. See you there!
Rachel Maley
rmaley@cox.net
lease reassure Michael Kroll ("Fellowship Is Fantastic Fantasy") that J.R.R. Tolkien was
not a fascist, and that [Peter] Jackson made a relatively accurate depiction of the two First Kings of Gondor (I believe they are Isildur and Anarion, but I am not completely sure). Please also ask him to review what a Nazi salute looks like: The arm was extended outward and upward at a 45 degree angle,
palm in line with the arm. The two stone kings are stretching outward, palms facing outward at a 90 degree angle from the arms, the arms level with the ground.
Sheesh! Kroll's comments are as idiotic as those suggesting that the Star Wars Trade Federation had Japanese accents! People, grow up!
John A.M. Darnell
John.Darnell@walsworth.com
n response to Michael Kroll's uninformed comparison of the outstretched
arms of the Argonath to Nazi salutes ("Fellowship Is Fantastic Fantasy"), here is Tolkien's own description from The Fellowship of the Ring (which Kroll himself admits to not having read):
Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone... The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning...."
Someone lacking the patience to read a book upon which a movie is based should be wary of making public criticisms of said adaptation—in my humble opinion.
Michael Strickland
FrodoStillLives@hotmail.com
ichael Kroll's concern that the pose of the Argonath suggests a Nazi salute in Fellowship of the Ring ("Fellowship Is Fantastic Fantasy") deserves a response on two levels.
(1) Is the pose depicted in the movie an accurate rendition of a Nazi salute? Well, the statues have their left arms extended, not their right arms. In addition, the angle at which the arms are raised is lower than that of the right arm raised in a "Sieg Heil!" They are extended in a manner more like that of a policeman gesturing someone to stop.
(2) What were Tolkien's attitudes regarding the Nazis? When asked by the Nazi government in 1938 to provide evidence of "arisch" (Aryan) parentage before a German translation of The Hobbit was published, Tolkien responded: "Personally, I should be inclined to refuse ... and let a German
translation go hang. ... [I] should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine." And later, in a direct letter to the Nazi government: "If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people ... if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name [like Tolkien] will no longer be a source of pride."
I think that both counts should do much to allay Michael Kroll's fears of fascist imagery in the movie, which, in this matter, is an accurate depiction of Tolkien's book.
Bert Katz
Bert.Katz@noaa.gov
egarding the two letters in last week's Science Fiction Weekly—"Clockstoppers Goes Back In Time" and "Originality Has Run Out Of Time"—Clockstoppers was not a remake of The Girl, The Gold Watch, & Everything. They covered some similar ground in the concept of a watch that could stop time (sort of), but the execution was radically different. The first movie starred both Robert Hayes and Pam Dawber, as well as Maurice Evans (Samantha's father on Bewitched). Robert Hayes received the watch as a bequest from his uncle, it was the only one of its kind, there were no greedy corporations or secret government agencies involved, and the character played by Robert Hayes was certainly no teenager!
Whatever tenuous similarities there may be between Clockstoppers and The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything, Clockstoppers is not even close to being a remake. It's just a flawed attempt to use a similar concept to start a new teen franchise for Nickelodeon.
If you can find it, watch The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything to see how the concept can be executed successfully. Or read the original novel by John D. MacDonald, the author who created Travis McGee. You'll have to make an effort to find either one, but both are worth more of your time than sitting through Clockstopppers again.
Randa Wright
randagirl@hotmail.com
am not sure I agree with Adrian Haythorne ("SF Has Become Too Safe"). Why should science fiction try to shock or frighten the world? Challenge and confound the world? Yes! Or at least challenge an individual's thinking. Would anyone call Heinlein's juvenile books great? I never hear anyone citing them as examples. However, in those and all of his other novels, Robert Heinlein presented his readers with examples of sexism and chauvinism before those concepts had their own buzz-words. The points weren't hammered home "Rambo" style, rather
they were presented in a very fundamental way as both something very natural to the reader and equally natural for the reader to question.
In The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, John MacDonald's most intelligent character was the girl, I.Q. notwithstanding ("Clockstoppers Goes Back In Time" and "Originality Has Run Out Of Time"). (Read the story, she wasn't a teenager.)
In almost everything she's ever written Anne McCaffrey has presented the reader with strong, intelligent female characters. And, she was doing this when people like Gene Roddenberry had to fight to attempt to present a woman in a command position, wearing a uniform that didn't emphasize her physical assets to the world over her intelligence and fitness to command ("The Cage").
You will rarely find an author who freely admits he writes pure escapism. What is wrong with that? Even in escapism, we find the seeds of ideas that do challenge our thinking and our perceptions of the world. Even in escapism, we find the caricatures that let us see our world through eyes
that become willing to change things, one attitude at a time.
In John Wyndham's "After Worlds Collide," a character that has a key role is portrayed as a bimbo because she does not have a technical degree. All the "so enlightened" men on this new world cannot see beyond their own noses, and yet the reader can. Pity they never made this sequel into a movie, or maybe it's not, they might have missed the point as badly as the first movie did.
Science fiction and speculative fiction present alternatives. There is nothing wrong with those alternatives being safe and reasonable. If anything, the more reasonable and safe the alternative is, the more likely it is to gain a following.
Save shocking and frightening for the horror genre, (and don't get me started on how frustrating it is to hunt for real science fiction through all the horror stuff that the SCI FI Channel airs). Shock value has its place. That place simply doesn't happen to be everywhere. Escapism has its place, too. But, the next time you think you are escaping, check a little closer, you might find an original idea or two that snuck up on you when you weren't expecting one.
Diane Catanzaro
catanz@mail.com
hy is that that characters (besides Worf) from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are always left out of the Star Trek movies? I see that Star Trek: Nemesis will feature Janeway from Voyager—which is clearly the weakest of all the ST series. Why? Deep Space Nine was the best of all ST shows (Voyager looked positively anemic next to DS9 in plot, character development and imagination), yet DS9 continually gets the shaft from critics, fans. and worse yet, the creators of Star Trek's continuing movies. What gives? (And please—don't get me started on Wesley Crusher showing up, too.)
Jason A. Greenwood
pr_man@swbell.net
t seems to me that people have been debating the morality of sci-fi a lot lately. Now, don't get me wrong here, but ...
Don't.
Now, I'm not trying to tell you what to do here, but:
Isn't that what sci-fi was started for? Morality and antimorality? (Or whatever you call it.) That's what makes sci-fi great! The moral people can read it, the people who don't care can read it ... it's perfect. You can have a wonderful story like Lord of the Rings that debates good and evil and has good win in the end. Or, you can have an equally great book like Dune (and its sequels) that toys with the idea of playing God. (Which while nothing to some people, it can, believe you me, be very offensive to others.) Sci-fi can be anything you want it to be.
So leave it alone and don't try to make it fit a specific framework. Just let it be. That's what makes it great.
Anna Dockery
pbrcrazy788@hotmail.com
erry Gilliam's rant ("Gilliam Berates Tomb Raider") on the "video-ization" of event films, calling them "technically brilliant," but lacking "content" defines Hollywood in the New Millennium. Filmmaking has become more about marketing and deal making than storytelling. Who needs a story if you've got a great trailer and a snazzy poster? Why bother writing a decent screenplay when you've got a kick-ass babe?
Tomb Raider, Time Machine, Planet of the Apes, Hollow Man and Starship Troopers all came from "name" sources (if not "classics"), were attached to a "name" director or a "name" star, and a host of highly skilled craftspeople who toiled at great length and even greater expense to produce "crap." It's not that these films were bad stories, but were inept in telling stories told better before. (The Marines in Aliens were Heinlein's Starship Troopers.) Sophisticated F/X, make-up, music and T & A were left to carry an old idea or a non-idea all dressed up with no place to go.
Yet another is on its way: Revelations Entertainment plans to make Arthur C. Clarke's "classic SF novel" Rendezvous With Rama starring its founder, Morgan Freeman. David Fincher (Fight Club) has signed on to direct humanity's exploration of "A mysterious, massive alien spacecraft hurtling through the solar system. The result is [will be?] a breathtakingly taut and intelligent film that will push the boundaries of cinema and imagination, exploring the outermost in our solar system in order to discover the innermost in ourselves."
Hello! While Rama is a "classic" which spawned two lesser sequels, its bones have been picked over for more than 30 years. Moreover, the novel was written in the spirit of one of Verne's fantastic voyages rather than a character-driven epic. Rama, yes. Drama, no. For all the wonders within the
spacecraft, we never meet the Ramans who, we insignificant humans discover, like to do things in threes. That's a movie?
Of course, a committee of screenwriters will eventually create conflict and motivation in an eclectic team who will explore and maybe resolve their own inner turmoil. Gee, we haven't seen anything like that before! And the benign alien ship? They'll make it a "space ark" out to save the galaxy or a
"super bomb" about to blow up the universe. Drama, yes. Rama, no.
I can just imagine the poster and can't wait for the trailer. I wonder who'll do the score. Will Ashley Judd team up with Freeman again or could this be Mariah Carey's comeback?
Mr. Gilliam, if you're reading this, save me a seat next to you in the front row and I'll spring for the popcorn.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
just found out about the SCI FI Channel's new schedule, and I'm very upset that Legend of the Rangers was not included. I'm getting the impression from other things I have read that SCI FI wants to move away from SF. Wait a minute—this isn't the Fantasy Channel, or the Horror Channel—it's the SCI FI Channel! Babylon 5 was one of the best SF series ever produced,
and Rangers belongs on SCI FI. If [the Channel] cares about the future of B5, please
write to SCI FI and tell them they are making a huge mistake. B5 deserves better than this. But even if you don't like B5, you should be concerned. SF TV is in a sorry state, and it is now time for SF fans to join forces and do something about it. Being apathetic will only make things worse. Please let SCI FI know how you feel.
Tammy Smith
gkarfan@webtv.net
have to comment on "Lexx Loses Viewer's Loyalty"—I think not. Please don't get me wrong, I agree this season has not been one of the betters ones and there are only fleeting glances of what once was a wonderfully funny and weird show. I and several others have stuck it out through this season and even though I personally may shake my head and groan, I will be loyal until the very end. I was one of the people to made the trek to Halifax, Nova Scotia, last summer and even if the writing, directors and the producers suck, they are wonderful people and they (the actors) have my greatest
respect.
And yes, I do also agree that it's sad to see a great show go out like this and I still can't figure out why they wrote this season like they did. It's almost like they wanted to see how far they could push the limits and get away with it. It's too bad, because I think the fans deserved much more. There are only three more episodes left, and I still don't know how it will all end, but I'll find out soon.
So no, Lexx has not lost the loyalty of the viewers. We will continue to watch it until the very end, no matter how painful it is.
Maritas
Maritas4@attbi.com
see from the latest announcement ("SCI FI Slate Announced") that the SCI FI Channel is once again slapping the Battlestar's fans in the face. "This four-hour miniseries re-imagines the classic '70s SF TV series." How do you "re-imagine" it? The fans—well, 99 percent of them—imagine it as a continuation of the original story with the original actors in their original roles.
We understand and accept that new faces need to be in place to continue the story for future generations. We do not want to have a few-second cameo of some original stars, never to be seen again. Also, rumors
abound of the Galactica not even being in the series. If true, how do you have a Battlestar-named series, without a Battlestar? I wait to hear more info on the series, but as it stands now, don't hold much hope they will get it right. Here is a hint guys, talk to Richard "Apollo" Hatch, and the fans.
Brian Chapell
squad51@inteliport.com
Back to the top.
