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olitical and financial realities notwithstanding, I truly believe the SCI FI Channel has shot itself in the foot with its recent cancellation of Farscape, an utterly inane decision. Farscape was a brilliant, innovative series, taking genre cliches and reworking them into something wonderful.
SFC has nothing in the works that could replace Farscape; TV series based upon Tremors and Firestarter: Rekindled would have limited appeal
and an even shorter lifespan. And I have little faith in the potential for Taken; if Dark Angel, First Wave and SeaQuest taught me anything, it is axiomatic that whenever a "name" producer associates himself with a TV project, his involvement is always trivial and the results are invariably mediocre to dreadful. Frank Herbert's Dune was a brilliant, wondrous production, but the lack of involvement of director John Harrison and all of the recastings have left me terribly skeptical about the quality
of Children of Dune.
With this decision to pluck out Farscape, the one undeniable feather in its cap, the SCI FI Channel has totally alienated its fan base, and with its mounting financial worries may have just committed suicide. How ironic that the current issue of the SCI FI Channel magazine pats the Channel on the back for its 10th anniversary. Somehow I doubt there will be an 11th.
Thomas Brush
brush@cerritos.edu
was extremely troubled by the "political" release on the cancellation of Farscape. Perhaps the core fanbase would have grown had [the SCI FI Channel] not relegated them to the position of "ugly stepsister" by hijacking its 9 p.m. slot for SG-1. I like SG-1 fine. Just not as nearly as much as Farscape. And I really dislike Dead Zone. You can spend money on that, yet let Farscape go?
I just wonder at the reasoning and lack of logic in that decision.
I am canceling my subscription to the SCI FI Channel with my cable company. Bring back Farscape, please.
And just a side note. I am active in the U.C. Davis student community. There are a lot of students who gathered together in the dorms every Friday night to watch the show. The group shrank a bit when you scheduled it at 10 p.m., due to cutting into their "party time." After all, they are students and it is a Friday night. I have been told by many that they will not watch the SCI FI
Channel if Farscape is not brought back. Not even Steven Spielberg's Taken.
Please reconsider. Thank you very much.
Nora N. Hogan
nnhogan@ucdavis.edu
aving read this week's Letters, I find myself in complete agreement with both John von Oesen ("Sci-Fi Fan Signs Off of SCI FI") regarding the quality of the "sci-fi" (I use the term loosely) on the SCI FI Channel, and with Robert Marino regarding the scheduling system. Of course, I'm sure Mr. Marino ("Farscape Fans Wait Forever") is just as disappointed and angry as I am that Farscape will end after season four, but not due to ratings!
First, Mr. Marino's letter—I have no idea why there are these huge blocks of time between new episodes. I agree it sucks. It's amazing that any show survives these kinds of hiatuses.
Now my rant—what is with show producers these days?! First TNT cancels Witchblade, which had a 2.0 rating for season two, and now SCI FI is
canceling Farscape, which had the best rating for its time slot this summer. Is this God's way of telling me I watch too much TV? I am very disappointed with the SCI FI Channel's management and their seeming lack of spine when it comes to good programming. I don't think SCI FI will ever again achieve the wonder of its early days (anybody else remember FTL News? I used to watch the SCI FI Channel just to catch that!) Now it's degenerating into old re-runs of Twilight Zone and crap shows like Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction and Crossing Over.
Now for Mr. von Oesen's letter: You are so right!! With the cancellation of Farscape, the SCI FI Channel's lineup is 98 percent crap—and boring crap, at that. I enjoy good horror as much as anyone, but certainly not as a steady diet. I enjoy Dead Zone a lot—but I catch it on USA on Sunday Night (Sunday being a "dead zone" for quality programming). What happened to the days of Babylon 5, FTL News and Sci-Fi Buzz? I sometimes find myself watching SCI FI
Channel only because it's the least crappy thing on at the time.
So I think I may follow your lead, Mr. von Oesen, and just stop watching the SCI FI Channel after the end of Farscape. There's just nothing on anymore that I care to watch on any kind of regular basis on that channel anymore.
What a pity ... it had so much potential before the bean counters got involved...
Rachel Maley
rmaley@cox.net
h, Day of the Triffids ... this film Rachel mentioned ("Water Wasn't the Answer to Signs"), much like Forbidden Planet and Colossus: The Forbin Project, often flies under the radar of most people. I would love to see all three of these movies remade with modern settings and high-tech special effects.
War of the Worlds was recently made into Independence Day, complete with virus and all, and I thought it an excellent modern take on the subject. There was an awful remake of Village of the Damned, a shameful movie.
So I would be wary of any remake of Forbidden Plant, as it would have to be a labor of love to capture the original spirit of that incredible movie (it was the Star Wars of its decade).
Randy Richards
imrandy@aol.com
usually don't write about reviews (and I bet everyone says this), but I couldn't let Kathie Huddleston's review of A&E's Lathe of Heaven go unanswered. I am not sure if she saw the same movie as I did, but it seems to me that the basic resemblance between the movie and the book is the title. I found this to be a major disappointment on many levels. And, if one would
argue that it should be viewed as a "stand-alone" movie, it doesn't even fulfill that requirement.
There were far too many loose ends, and the powerful message was lost. I will say that the acting was good, but they should have been given better material.
Kaethe Wheeler
kmw111255@aol.com
n regard to the dispute over Ewan McGregor's age compared to Alec Guinness' and their portrayals of Obi-wan Kenobi ("Obi-Wan Kenobi Deserves Some Slack" and "Actors' Ages Are Mostly Irrelevant"), let's do the math. Guinness was born in 1914 and was filmed as Obi-wan in 1976. Therefore, assuming Obi-wan was supposed to be the same age as Guinness, he would have been 62 at the time of Episode IV. According to Lucasfilms, Episode I takes place 32 years before Episode IV. Subtract 32 from Guinness' age and you'll find that Obi-wan would have been approximately 30 at the time of Episode I. Now, McGregor was born in 1971 and was filmed as Obi-wan for Episode I in 1998, when he was 27.
As can be seen, there is only a three-year difference between McGregor's age and the age the character should be. That's hardly a remarkable discrepancy! For comparison, Natalie Portman plays a 24 year-old in Episode II, despite the fact that she was only 20 at the time of filming. And yes, I know all this analysis probably seems terribly geeky, but look at it this way: at least this letter isn't about Farscape!
Stephen Rynerson
Srynerson@hotmail.com
rian Patterson's contention in his letter, "SF Has No Space for Small Minds", is that Star Trek has not a single trace of left-wing bias, and he challenges anyone to provide him with examples. I would like to pick up that gauntlet.
The issue, my friends, is Star Trek and patriotism.
Consider the good ship U.S.S Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The captain was once the chief spokesperson for the Borg. The first officer has a transporter duplicate—identical in every way to the original—who joined the terrorist Maquis and hijacked a Federation starship. The engineering officer was brainwashed by Romulans into the attempted assassination of a Klingon ally. Another-high ranking officer (Cmdr. Data) once hijacked the Enterprise itself to go visit his dad.
Now, let's "transport" this situation to the present day. Aboard the present-day U.S.S. Enterprise, the aircraft carrier, let's suppose the captain was once a spokesperson for the Soviet Union. The first officer has a twin brother working with al Qaeda. The engineering officer was brainwashed by the Communist Chinese into an assassination attempt against a British diplomat. The next highest ranking officer once hijacked the aircraft carrier and took it halfway across the Pacific on personal business.
Let's face it, if such were the case aboard the present-day Enterprise, even the most limp-wristed liberals in government and media would recognize that we have a serious national security risk problem, and the entire officer complement would be immediately removed from command, at the very least.
Yet on Star Trek: TNG, when a Star Fleet investigator announced that a crewmember aboard the Enterprise had lied on his Star Fleet application, covering up the fact that his parents were of Romulan descent, Capt. Picard was outraged ... at the investigator!
I submit that Star Trek is so far to the left of the political spectrum that even the most prudent steps to protect national security would be branded by Jean-Luc Picard as fascism.
Star Trek is just a TV show, and that's why the Federation survives its silly political positioning, week after week. My experience, however, is that liberalism is nowhere near as effective in real life as it is in TV and movies.
Joe Schembrie
joeschem@hotmail.com
aving read Chad Castagna's comments on "PC" ("SF Has No Space for PC"), and the backlash they generated ("SF Has No Space for Small Minds", "Sci-Fi Is Not Politically Controlled", "Simple Equations Call for Comment"), I wanted to offer my own comments, as someone who has loved SF all his life but who also swings to the right in his political opinions.
Dismiss Chad's arguments however you want. Yes, they do read as being somewhat on the paranoid side. But considering that Hollywood sometimes functions as a house organ of the Democratic Party, I can sympathize with Chad's ire. Too often these days, I feel like television and movies are preaching at me, and preaching hard. Where once they preached to the right, now it seems they preach entirely to the left. Where is the middle ground? Where is the "balance" that television often claims to present, and yet sorely lacks?
If Chad's opinions and their "paranoid simplicity" grate, it is only because they are a backlash against the current trends in television and film that worship the so-called Progressive Social Project. A project that very often places itself at odds with the values and morals that many Americans consider integral to their daily lives.
By all means, let television, film and especially televised SF "push" our "boundaries." But as capital-L Liberals enlist television actors and producers into their ranks, we conservatives maintain the right to stop watching when it becomes obvious that we are being delivered a leftist sermon in the guise of entertainment.
Brad R. Torgersen
sub-odeon@attbi.com
aving just seen the trailer for the film Clockstoppers, I was instantly struck by how similar this idea was to the short story "The Six Fingers of Time" by R.A. Lafferty. In fact, the idea of the main character living in accelerated time is identical to Lafferty's.
Do you know if the film's
writers have made any comment on this being an inspiration for the film? I hope so, as Lafferty was a much-underrated writer and publicity of this nature may help to get some of his material back in print.
Paul Crofts
pauljohncrofts@aol.com
n the history of sci-fi cinema (films that contain elements of science fiction, horror or fantasy), there was a league of extraordinary gentlemen whose names on the theater marquee guaranteed a unique magic: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney and his son, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John
Carridine and Vincent Price.
They made more than a thousand movies. A few were masterpieces. (Grapes of Wrath, Stage Coach, Laura, High Noon, Frankenstein, Star Wars, Fellowship of the Ring). The rest were somewhat lesser efforts.
In the new millennium, let us add another name to that legendary list: Bruce Campbell. Unlike his immortal brethren, Campbell wears little make-up and comes with no inner sense of dread or foreboding. Instead, he combines his leading-man good looks with a cheery glint in his eye, plus a polished pizzazz and an uncanny talent to turn a seemingly ordinary line ("Lady, I'm
afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store.") into a classic zinger and to become everybody's everyman in movies anybody who's somebody would never admit to enjoying. "Gimme some sugar, baby!"
In his must-read book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor, Campbell lays out his Hollywood career in an intimate, engaging style, sharing his life as he might a picnic lunch and a six-pack. Finally in paperback, it's not to be missed at any price.
As you read this, I will already have seen Terminal Invasion, a SCI FI original movie about "a crash landing at an alien airport." In Pitch Black meets Alien, Campbell plays "a rough, mean mama-jama," a cross between a poor man's Riddick and a PG Ice Cube. Was Terminal Invasion a great movie and a breakthrough sci-fi experience? Probably neither and it doesn't matter. It's a Bruce Campbell flick and I wouldn't miss it for the world!
Therein lies the Campbell conundrum: a "cult favorite," his fans only want to see playing himself. Will Bruce Campbell forever be stuck being Bruce Campbell?
Half a century ago, a handsome, square-jawed actor faced a similar identity crisis. After bit parts in two American classics (Gone With the Wind and From Here to Eternity), George Reeves took a TV gig while he waited for imminent Hollywood stardom. As Superman, Reeves became instantly famous, but indelibly typecast, killing any chance of ever being recognized as the serious actor he had always believed he was. A prisoner of his own success, the distraught Reeves committed suicide. Or did he?
An equally baffling mystery is why Hollywood is still searching for a leading man to play TV's Superman in the biopic Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Does it take X-ray vision to see the definitive star? Have the studios execs been taking Kryptonite in their coffee? The story of an
ordinary man who became a superhero to everyone except himself is the role Bruce Campbell was born to play.
Casting anyone else would be a lie, an injustice and un-American.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
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