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
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n the response to the academy's snub of sci-fi movies, I'd like to take the opposing view of Mr. Frey ("Hollywood Continues to Snub SF"). I was amazed that Lord of the Rings was nominated—it was surprising, but well deserved. The academy has always been insular and fickle in their tastes. I thought A Beautiful Mind was an excellent movie, and that picture almost fell under the barrage of Hollywood back-biting. I think the judges drift with the tides of the time, mostly PC nowadays, and sci-fi hasn't yet reached a wide enough appeal. I think
it will if the studios start mining a lot of the great SF that's gone untouched over the past decades. I thought Minority Report was a good start.
As sci-fi is rapidly becoming reality in our world, I think great SF concepts will start taking root in the movies. Being the turn of the century, I think we'll see a number of incredible changes just happening around us. The studios and fans may be just as guilty for sticking with the sci-fi-as-action-movie premise a little too much. I'm not saying that there aren't some great movies in that vein, but until the producers start hitting on concepts versus action, I don't think we'll be seeing too many Academy awards for a fantasy or sci-fi movie. One good thing—when the time comes, the fans will finally be able to show others what they've been missing.
Brett B.
Brettb@aol.com
am writing in regards to Reign of Fire: It was a great concept gone bad. [Warning: Spoilers ahead.] I found it slow and utterly disappointing. It looked to offer a lot of action and suspense, but all it offered was drawn-out suspense that never actually confirmed if they were able to stop the dragons, or just that one male. Isn't it possible that there was another male dragon in America or
Australia?
Point blank: This movie stunk! [The producers] should have gotten Stephen King or [James] Cameron to write the script—maybe even Anne McCaffery would have done better.
Tony Wallace
scribals_75@yahoo.com
aking full advantage of the Universal library "to create new television experiences for a contemporary audience" is SCI-FI Channel's Opportunity One. So instead of churning out retreads, why not put a brandnew spin on this unique treasure trove?
What if ... all the Universal sci-fi/horror movies of the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s had really happened! What would you see when you turned on the evening news?
Welcome to Weird News Tonight—a half hour series reporting "live" with "on location" film clips and expert commentary—the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mole People, the Incredible Shrinking Man! In-depth stories on Frankenstein's monster, the first living Mummy and the Wolfman. Alien invasions, ancient curses, vampires and voodoo! Stories brought to life in the new millennium we secretly wished had been true all along.
Famous monsters of filmland meet World News Tonight! Now, that's SCI FI!
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
am another disgruntled fan of the Dark Angel who feels that I have been cheated out of over 40 hours of my life over the past two years. I am not saying that I did not enjoy watching each and every episode of the series since day one, because I have. In fact, with the ending of each episode, I couldn't wait until the next one. However with my viewing of what I thought was the finale episode of the second season, "The Freak Nation" (which was a dynamite episode), I was looking forward to season three with the many outstanding storylines that were left dangling, and then seeing Jessica Alba on the Rosie and Letterman shows, who also seemed to be looking forward to the new season.
Then we get an announcement that the series has been renewed, and then two days later these despicable people at Fox literally kicked me in the stomach and canceled the best series in their schedule. The storylines that were left outstanding without conclusions are as follows:
Does Max find a cure for the Virus which would allow Max and Logan to develop their relationship? Why did the Manticore director Renfro kill the lab technician who brought her the results of the tests on Max's DNA? Who was she talking to on the phone when she said that Max was the one and she would bring Max to them, and why did she throw herself in front of the bullet that was meant for Max? Who was Sandeman and what was the meaning of the hieroglyphics that appeared on Max's skin, and what was Sandeman connection to White and the rest of his weirdoes? Is Max able to overcome White and to expose the covert government conspiracy of which White is a part? What happens with the standoff at Terminal City with Max and her friends?
The point of this letter is we need a third and possibly fourth season to answer these storylines. Cameron and Eglee have to step forward and tell the fans of the Dark Angel why the series was canceled, and don't tell us that it was because of the ratings in the second season because we know better. It was because the so-called intelligentsia at Fox, namely Gail Berman, who moved the series to the demographic graveyard of Friday night at 8:00 p.m. If the series had remained on Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m., they would have maintained the ratings from the first season, in which they averaged 7.08 per episode and a market share of 11.1, which converts to a total of 11,100,000 households in the United States. I dare anyone to name another Fox series that comes close to those numbers. We need Cameron and Eglee to come up with a solution that will see that the series goes back into production. The masses have spoken and we will not stop our petitions and letter-writing campaigns.
Further, I have perused the three previous letters that you posted from Elizabeth Mizdail ("Fox Disses Dark Angel"), Ginny Finn ("Fox's Angel Decision Not Heavenly"), and Aaron Eller "Dark Angel Tackled Relevant Issues" and I fully agree with their sentiments and I think all four of us would be delighted if the series was renewed for a third season without further delay.
Gordon M. O'Neill
Address withheld by request
s a newbie to Enterprise, each episode I watch during the latter half of the season is the first time I see the episode; it is all new to me. Frankly, even when I disagree with the storyline, I have to admit that it spins a superb story. This letter does not complain about
the craft of [Rick] Berman and [Brannon] Braga which can cut to the quick; but about the conclusion of the most recent episode I watched.
I disagree with this week's episode. I wish I had been motivated to remember the title, but I didn't realize how profoundly affected I would be by Archer's wrong choice, and Phlox's bad advice. The story, in short, is about the Enterprise encountering a couple of sick aliens out in space.
Backtracking them to their home of origin (the aliens are from a pre-warp civilization) it turns out that they have a burgeoning civilization every bit as full of marvels as our present, and no indication of the same evils that mar our own. Two sentient races coexist side-by-side. One, the more advanced, is dying of a genetic illness. The other, less advanced, but obviously on its way up the evolutionary ladder, has no such problem. Both races seem to live in harmony, albeit the less advanced race as a kind of pet.
The moral dilemma posed is: Should Archer provide a cure, or should he let nature take its course? If no cure is provided, the advanced race will be dead in three generations. The great debate between doctor and captain is whether they had the right to defy evolution; to save a race that could not
save itself. In the end, they decided that they had no right, responsibility or duty to help this race, save providing a drug that would make the sufferers feel better. Nay, what was worse, they decided they had the duty not to interfere; to let nature take its course. Archer infers that someday they will figure out a "directive" (quite certain that the authors are referring to the Prime Directive) that will make such questions easy (though we know from future episodes that it will never be easy).
Enterprise has taken a step—no, several steps backward. Let me spice up the debate, and place it in familiar terms that we all can understand: Some say that those afflicted with AIDS deserve no help; what they suffer is from a punitive deity smiting them for their sins. (To make sure no one
misunderstands; this is not my position—I am trying to make a point.) It is only a small step from that position to "we should do nothing because it is evolution at work." I'll tell you, if the Prime Directive says that we should not help anyone below a certain arbitrary level of technology
because we fear we may mess with evolution's process (as opposed to honest fear of cultural contamination), then I say its time to throw the Prime Directive out on its ear! I had always understood the PD to mean non-interference with culture. The episode made it abundantly clear that
this was not an issue here. All Phlox was worried about was that one race was dying out at the behest of evolution, and one race was surging forward at the behest of that same force; who were they to interfere?
They were sentient beings who have moral/ethical principles that supercede a mere random force of the universe, that's who! In my not so humble opinion, they had an obligation to at least hand over the cure to the dying race. Yes, there are some other issues that would have to be faced over time, such as helping the older race to succor the younger rather than pat it on the head and feed it doggie bones. But what Archer and Phlox did instead amounted to cold-blooded genocide.
This takes Enterprise in an ambiguous new direction; one I definitely do not like. Archer's decision was terribly wrong. Phlox's advice was horribly wrong. In withholding the cure from the world they visited, they caused billions of deaths, and stained their souls and marred the embryonic development of the Federation with perfidy. In this episode, Berman and Braga encouraged genocide through inaction. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I am saddened, and can only hope that future episodes of this very fine program will redeem this one sad storyline.
John A.M. Darnell
John.Darnell@walsworth.com
am a Star Trek fan—not of every series and movie, yet I am an original series, Deep Space Nine and Voyager fan. I enjoy Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Wrath of Kahn, Search for Spock, Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country. (I admit I couldn't stand Final Frontier.) Yet Next Generation left me cold (the only episodes I enjoyed were the couple of episodes with the original series character as guests) and out of the three current Next Generation movies, I only enjoyed Insurrection. But I don't think I am going to enjoy Nemesis.
Why is this, you ask? Because from what I have heard (and no, I haven't read the script online) it is going to yet another Romulan plot to destroy the Federation. Now, I wonder where I have heard that before. To me, Deep Space Nine was the pinnacle of Star Trek—it being a series which combined the adventure of the original series with stories arcs that continued from the very first episode, "Emissary" (where the comment was made that to Sisko that "It was only the beginning of your journey, Commander ... ") to the end, where Sisko's final selfless act, thus emphasizing Star Trek's credo—"To boldly go where no one has gone before." Please Paramount, do the right thing and make the one remaining show, Enterprise, something to remember. And please don't make it another Next Generation.
David Brookes
davidbrookes@wn.com.au
s I sit down to write this letter, I'm not sure whether I should be responding to Mr. James Ellis or thanking him for the way his letter, "Buffy Criticism Is Baffling", illustrates the point I have to make. [Warning: Spoilers ahead.]
When Mr. Ellis writes, "Someone needs to grow a thicker skin if the death of a TV character causes 'outrage' and 'betrayal,'" he provides an example of just how much we who are members of the country's heterosexual majority take seeing ourselves on TV for granted. It's something that happens so routinely that many of us don't even feel like it's important. That's not the way things are for the people who are marginalized in our society, though.
I wonder if Mr. Ellis could imagine a world where the situation was reversed—where being gay was considered normal and straight people were marginalized. How would he feel if almost all the characters he saw on TV were gay, and the only straight people he ever saw either were killed quickly, turned out to be evil or were constantly alone? How would he feel if a TV show finally put a man and a woman together in a long-lasting heterosexual relationship, and just when he finally thought he could have someone on TV to relate to, one of the people in that relationship was killed and the other was turned evil. Would Mr. Ellis' reply still be "Tough. Deal"? How would he react if someone said that to him?
TV is more than "just entertainment." The images and stories we see shape and reinforce our society's common perception of what is "normal." If any group in our society is constantly denigrated or rendered invisible on our TV screens, you can bet that the people who belong to that group will be
denigrated or rendered invisible in the real world as well.
There's a famous story from the days of the original Star Trek series, when Nichelle Nichols was thinking of leaving her role as Lt. Uhura because she wasn't being given enough to do. She was persuaded to stay on the show by none other than Martin Luther King Jr., who told her that even if she did absolutely nothing but sit there on the bridge, the simple fact that Star Trek was showing a black person working side-by-side as an equal with people of other races was an important message all by itself. The African-American community needed characters like Uhura back then. Today, the gay community needs a relationship like the one Willow and Tara had. Joss Whedon had the chance to be a visionary on the same level as Gene Roddenberry, but he snatched it away at the last minute, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.
That's why there are so many people feeling outrage and betrayal over Tara's death. If Mr. Ellis doesn't like it, I can only say this—Tough. Deal.
Robert A. Black
bbovenguy@yahoo.com
am disheartened [warning: spoilers ahead] by the recent letters about Tara's death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Buffy Deaths Are Inevitable" and "Buffy Criticism Is Baffling"). Of course, Joss Whedon can write out any character at any time—it doesn't mean the fans have to like it or keep watching. Over the years, Willow and Tara's relationship has gotten a tremendous reaction. Hundreds of gay high-school and college-aged youth have written in to the actors and producers to tell them how this television couple has helped them to accept themselves and come out to their friends and family. Are these the people you are telling to deal with it? The straight population has thousands of working examples of straight relationships in the media to relate to, the gay community does not. Having examples of your type of relationship in the media may not seem important to you, but it is not your place to say whether or not it is important to others. People were affected by Willow and Tara, and they were hurt when it was ended violently.
Aside from this, however, there are extenuating circumstances which have caused people to be even more upset about the ending than they would have been otherwise. Joss Whedon and the writers, in online interviews and magazine articles, went out of their way to lead people to believe that this was a safe relationship to invest in, even when they knew how it was going to end. Joss Whedon may not have had an obligation to keep the relationship going, but he didn't have to lie about it. The writer may not have had an obligation to avoid the cliche, but he didn't have to poke fun at the lesbian community for being upset. Much of this has been handled badly, and people have a right to be angry. It is Joss Whedon's right to do whatever he wants with the show and say whatever he wants to the fans, just as it is my right to stop watching.
Hilary Clay
hclay@u.washington.edu
would definitely have to agree with Ahmad Zaki Zakaria who wrote "Anime Is the Answer to Live Action". He said that movie producers should consider using anime to make sci-fi movies because it's so much easier to convey what a sci-fi author had in mind. I'm actually writing a sci-fi book right now, and there are quite a few of my ideas that if they were to make a movie of it would be damn near impossible using live action. The way my story goes is kind of a superhero type of story, and would definitely need anime to do pretty well all of the action sequences, because it would just be nearly impossible to do it any justice using live actors. Which brings me to another point I have to make. Most of the superhero stories that you know of are pretty well all comic books or "anime standing still," as I like to refer to it. They simply do it that way because [in order] to perform the moves and abilities that superheroes tend to have would be too hard and too dangerous
for stuntmen and actors. Plus, anime usually looks so much better for superheroes than live actors. You can usually get a near perfect remake of comic books using anime, because they are essentially the same thing, it's just that one is moving and the other is still. Although I really enjoyed movies like
Spider-Man and X-Men that have come out in the past few years. But of course, you know what they used to do all of the action sequences and how they showed their powers? It was computer animation. The best version of anime out there today in my opinion.
Do you know what I would love to see come out in movies some day? Computer animation versions a la A Bug's Life or Shrek or Monsters Inc., of the top comic books out there. Maybe something like The Punisher or The Incredible Hulk or Spider-Man. If they were done with as good animation as the movie Final Fantasy that would be absolutely spectacular in my opinion. I thought that movie had the best animation I've ever seen in a movie.
Mike Vodnoski
michaelaaron@shaw.ca
have to say, it is a sad, sad day and age for science fiction and fantasy. The crap written for television today has all been said or done before and anything with any promise of taking an old storyline and pushing the envelope with it is watered down or immediately swept under the carpet.
It seems to me that all anyone in charge of television programming wants are quick ratings. Quality entertainment has been replaced by shock TV and the belief that something big or flashy is enough. I know it is hard to believe but some people do actually want to watch creative, well-written television
shows.
For a long time, Fox held their ground as the front runner for quality and edgy science fiction fantasy with shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and they gave their viewers the undeniable heavy weight of sci-fi its self, The X-Files, which changed the way science fiction fantasy was written and viewed. Many viewers thought that their next big break-out hit, Dark Angel would slowly but surely follow in the footsteps of her predecessors and quite frankly she could have if given the opportunity. Instead, the network gave the show a "sink or swim"
mentality and unfortunately after only one season of nurturing, they left what could have been their front runner to fend for herself in the dead zone that is Friday night. (UPN managed to do something similar after picking up the WB's Roswell and CBS's Wolf Lake then dropping them.) I have heard time and time again that much of the public has a short attention span. It does not help if a network does as well. After all, it is their job to catch and keep our attention.
My advice to those in charge of programming—do something different, try taking the time and making the effort to bring forth quality shows. You might be surprised, people may actually watch. In my opinion, and it is only that, my opinion, many of us would rather see one or two well-thought-out,
creative, and nurtured shows than a new one every couple of seasons. Maybe they should get in touch with [SCI FI], after all look at what they have done for Farscape, John Edward and First Wave.
Kizzy Davis
Kdd1040@aol.com
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