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— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
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he complaint about Peter Jackson leaving out Saruman's final scene and the Scouring of the Shire scenes in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King ("Saruman Not In King") should remind us once again that it's a movie. That means that we should not judge PJ by how closely he follows Tolkien, but by how well the movie works as a movie.
On leaving out Saruman: His final destruction is a great scene, but not necessary to the story, although I'm happy that it will be on the DVD. But justice was served on him in The Two Towers when his army was defeated at Helm's Deep and then Isengard was destroyed by Ents and hobbits.
As for the "Scouring of the Shire," while those chapters work in the novel, they are also a kind of addendum. Let's be honest. When Sauron is defeated (This is not a spoiler. Surely no one thought he'd win!) and the king is crowned, that's the logical end of the trilogy and a logical end for the movie. The rest should be a quick tying up of loose ends and the final departure from the Gray Havens. It's a little disconcerting in the novel that so much time and space is spent on the Shire. However, I love Tolkien and love the Shire so it's OK in the novel but it simply would not work in a movie.
Always remember, a book and a movie are two different forms.
Marian Powell
mepowell(at)intergate.com
n reading your recent letters column online and seeing praise for the Showtime series Carnivàle ("Carnivàle Offers Big-Top Fun"), I wonder how many viewers (I haven't seen the show, just read about it) have read Robert McCammon's novel Mystery Walk and are wondering why this TV show seems so familiar.
When I read the description of Carnivàle before the series started, I was immediately reminded of the McCammon novel, but it had been quite a few years since I had read it. So I found a Robert McCammon Web site and posted my concern on its discussion board. I directed fans to go to Showtime's Web site and read the description, then commented if they have recently read Mystery Walk, and all seemed to be in agreement that this series seems too close for comfort.
Not having Showtime myself, I can only hope that if the Carnivàle truly does parallel Mystery Walk, that one day McCammon will be thanked in the credits, much the same way Harlan Ellison is in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Ed Gosney
edgos2(at)msn.com
propos M. Jambier's gentle and very French—in manner and content—criticism of John Clute's writings in Science Fiction Weekly ("Clute's Candour Is Found 'Excessive'"). I don't think Clute needs me to sally forth in his defence—he's done it well enough himself with such Olympian dignity that I can't but see that there's far more to the man than his substantial—and, yes, sometimes intimidating—erudition. But I will defend him nonetheless, if only because M. Jambier's letter, and the lit crit (Clute's pieces are not just book reviews) that sparked it off
impacts so closely on what I think the best of science fiction, and therefore the best of SF critiques, is, has been, and will always be.
I'm personally nymphomaniacal in my ingestion of SF, and perhaps because of that I realize that the best of SF writing is multilayered: like with Eliot's poetry, I can choose to skim over just the skin and lose little in the shallowness of my expedition; or I can go subdermal and hit the nerves; or I can cut deeper, and deeper, and deeper, as deep as the writer can seduce me to follow. Every layer shows me more, as much as the writer can work her talent into showing. Also, since many, if not most, of the significant SF authors are lifelong mavericks intent on bucking everyone's favorite authorial stereotype, the best SF lends itself to, and gains much from, illumination through deconstruction. And deconstruction, for any critic worth her salt, is an inescapable and intellectually rigorous exercise. Or it should be. (Online SF journals are, of course, contaminated with critics who ought to attend lit school before embarking on what is one of the most intellectually demanding of vocations today: Each of us knows of instances where an unthinking word or two has sent promising SF writing into an early grave.).
Clute can be read with various degrees of involvement. Often, one is directed, by Clute's deliberate hand, to read a sentence or tract twice, even thrice, over. I've never had occasion to mind this manipulation. There are words he uses that lead me to scurry to online dictionaries, and I am always the richer for the journey.
I'm a journalist, so it's almost an article of faith—rather, of editorial armtwisting—that working vocabulary must be limited to 3,000 words. The editorial argument is that my target audience, the undifferentiated proletarian mind, has no reason to accommodate any more than that. Patronizing and politically incorrect though it may sound, the intellectual simplicity of the great unwashed—the proles! the proles!—is a fallacy that is accepted as a truism in stylesheets in newspapers across the globe. Since the same cretinous philosophy doesn't have to apply to literature, there's no reason for Clute not to pull out the stops when he critiques the most experimental and defiant of literary genres.
Furthermore, there is something to the fundamental lit crit that says that the English language is expanding with such multilingual rapacity for only one reason—so that it can be so written, and so read. Lit crit could hardly do justice to itself if it were found wanting, in form and content, in comparison to the writings it critiques.
Here's to more arbiters like John Clute. Despite often having to wade with effort through his density, I read him with the same attention and pleasure that I read the novels he critiques.
Kajal Basu
kajalbasu(at)yahoo.com
'm having trouble with the course of Smallville: It seems to be getting too dark—Batman dark. Maybe I'm stuck in old stereotypes that were upheld as recently as the wonderful Warner Brother Batman and later Superman cartoons in the '90s, but for me, Superman is about light, wholesomeness and hope, while Batman deals with dark, the underbelly of things and despair (e.g., both Batman and Mr. Freeze's origins). Look at the differences in the colors used in the two cartoons. The contrast was perfectly shown in my
favorite episode where Superman poses as Batman and has to be coached by little Robin. Seeing "Batman" smile was creepy.
The rerun of last season's Smallville finale aired again this week; it showed how they were less dark then, but on the way. It's fine for Lex's story line, and all the more reason for contrast with Clark—a contrast that's currently far less stark than previous seasons, when it should be increasingly glaring; it would show their evolution to different paths. But instead, Clark seems mired in almost as much darkness, starting with his criminal summer. (Think of how many more night scenes there have been and how much less Clark smiles.) I understand they want to show the trials and extra tribulations of a teen with super powers, but you can have teen angst without dark, e.g., Dawson's Creek.
The 2001-02 season of Charmed made the same error of getting too dark, and the show only regained it's original "charm" when they consciously moved back to their original tack. Heck, even Angel admitted it had gotten overly dark and has joyfully lightened up. I'm not sure I want to go back to the kryptonite-infected "monster" of the week, but Smallville needs to get Clark's storyline to regain more hope and light.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll(at)comcast.net
ome people can never be happy! In the last letters [column], a complaint was raised about how Star Trek: Enterprise was "promoted." ("New Trek is Still Not On Track") Who cares! It's a promotion! ST:E has been consistently the most improved sci-fi on the air this season.
Finally, a captain who can kill alien foes without worrying about demeaning their culture. Archer is no Janeway, who had to have tea with all her enemies. He is Kirk without the halting prose.
T'pol gave up her career for her captain and became his "caregiver-lover?" Didn't Spock abandon his people for his mission and friends.
Spock never showed emotions! Wait, that's wrong!
It's true some plot devices can be worn thin but complaining about "temporal rifts" being used in this particular season is a little odd since that is the basis of the story arc.
ST:E is the first of the franchise to come close to capturing the the spirit of the original Star Trek. I hope that those who have previously given up on it can find their way back and that it can stay with us for some time.
It seems that these critics want us to go backward to politically correct and nauseating dreck that was Voyager. If that happens the whole franchise will disappear into on of those temporal rifts.
Doug Dale
ddale(at)coda-continuum.com
'd like to talk about the Battlestar Galactica miniseries, its good points and bad. Sort of my own critique of the show.
First, the good points.
I liked the new way the story was told. It kept the spirit of the original and yet put a more mature spin on it. Admittedly, I didn't like Starbuck and Boomer being changed to women, but I got used to that early on. The new Cylons, at least the robotic-looking ones, were certainly interesting. I thought the fact that they didn't speak sort of added to the personality, making them more ominous, almost scary to be around. They just stood there and looked at you. [Warning: Spoiler follows.] The plot twist which suggested that Boomer just might be a Cylon spy was totally unexpected and was a most excellent, well-written ending. The fact that they left the ending wide open definitely leaves open the possibility for other movies, or even a new series which I like. The new vipers are way cool, too.
Now, the bad points.
To begin with, I hated Starbuck. Not because of the woman thing, but the fact that she had a chip on her shoulder the size of the Galactica herself, and a bad attitude to match. I think the writers were trying to compensate for her being a woman and went way overboard. If there are to be any new episodes or movies, that, in my opinion, is going to have to be the first thing the writers should change. In fact, many of the characters were more stiff and less emotional than even the cylons were. In the original series, when the colonies were being destroyed, you could see the crew, the tears falling as they watched their people being killed, and, I confess, I cried, too. I felt the pain because it was presented so well on the show. I felt nothing from this one. Except for a few bombs, you didn't see much else. The crew got word of the destruction and there wasn't nearly the emotional trip the originals had. Not even Adama seemed to be reacting that much. It was just like, "OK, the colonies are attacked, we are at war, whatever." No emotion at all. Oh, and that idea of the chip in Baltar's head? Can you say Farscape? Not the most original idea, and we don't need to be showing live sex with anyone over public airwaves, android or otherwise.
I said earlier I liked the new Vipers. In truth, I meant the older Mark II models. The Mark X models were old and gray looking, and the spiny-looking wings weren't that nice, either. The Mark II's were nice, white and very sleek-looking, far superior in appearance than the so-called new vipers. And what's with the steel-rail look to the outer skin of the Galactica. It looked like what the old battlestar might look like if you peeled off the outer skin layer. Sorry, but, to me, the original battlestar looked better in my opinion. I do admit, though, that the retractable landing struts was a cool addition. All in all, I give it 3 out of 5 stars.
So, here's my recommendations in a nutshell: Keep the storyline as is, but improve the quality of the characters. They need to be just little more human than their cylon counterparts. And someone take Starbuck's attitude and her cigars and pitch them out an airlock. They both don't work well at all.
Eric E. Anchor
DragonRider64(at)aol.com
fter watching the second part of Battlestar Galactica, I'm sorry to say that it was a complete failure. Mr. Moore did a great job of screwing up a wonderful TV series. I just can't understand how a writer who has done mediocre work can become a producer. Mr. Moore's work on Star Trek was boring and it reflects in the movie Star Trek: Generations, which tanked at the box office. Is Hollywood hurting so bad for writers that they will take anyone? I know this sounds mean, but this is the truth. If Mr. Moore came to me for a job and I looked at the body of work he has done, I would not hire him. I guess good writers are hard to come by. They are dying of old age and there's no one to replace them.
I was also wondering, how come [we] didn't see any other battlestars being destroyed? Did they want to save some money? That must be the answer. The SCI FI Channel had a chance to do a great show and they blew it. It was badly written and directed. I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did. And as far as the director goes: He is also to blame for the lousy job done. Mr. Rymer's Queen of the Dammed was a box-office flop and he brought that to the small screen with him. I love good science fiction and this was not it.
Tyrone Norwood
norwoodtp(at)hotmail.com
f we can get past some of the fanboy bickering and nitpicking about the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, I would like to hand it to the SCI FI Channel for producing a pretty good show.
I was doubtful, like many, about making such drastic changes, but in the end, I found the differences to be refreshing in many cases.
I think they answered the question about the LORAN system pretty well ("Battlestar's Tech Is Untenable"), having to use old technology to get past the Cylon's new weapon system.
The female Starbuck works, but the female Boomer was a little too much. Why not have made that character Apollo's sister?
All in all, I enjoyed the storyline, which created the plot much better than the original series, in my opinion. I was a fan of the original series, but now I have trouble seeing past its faults and over the top acting, with the exception of Richard Hatch, who I think was the best part of the show.
Edward James Olmos may have seem wooden to some, but I think his portrayal of an old commander, who really just wants to retire, was well done.
The development for several of the characters will need some fleshing out, but if this is truly a set up for a series, I think the foundations have been well laid.
The writers and producers created a lot of realism that was missing from the original series, which tried to hard to make it look like a "futuristic, alien society," and for that I'm appreciative.
Cheers!
Dan Ware
djpw1(at)yahoo.com
ell, after seeing the first night of the Battlestar Galactica event, I'd have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I couldn't give a flying fig about the changes made from the original—let's face it, the original series was really dumb. I'm a major SF fan, but when BG was first on, I only watched it because there was not much else in the way of SF on TV, and even then it was bordering on not worth the effort. I tuned in last night just to see how the beginning went, and found myself drawn in. While the situations were far from original, the writing and acting were both good enough to get me interested in the characters. There are still a bunch of scientific implausibilities, but not really any more than in Star Trek. I found the darker, more sinister tone to be quite gripping, and the characters seemed to act mostly like real people. I especially liked the way that time was invested in giving personalities to characters who ended up dead by the end of part one.
One little plot flaw does bother me a bit. Right at the beginning, when the human ambassador goes to the armistice station to meet the Cylons, fully expecting them to not show, what purpose did their arrival serve? The station was destroyed, taking the human ambassador, the humanoid Cylon (one of only 12), and at least two robots with it. This seems a senseless waste that logical machines would not engage in. If they were going to blow up the station anyway, why waste any resources on scaring the ambassador first? And since there are only 12 fembots, they are a scarce resource, probably expensive to produce, and destroying one frivolously is highly illogical.
Jon Davis
jon.davis(at)ticketmaster.com
have watched the initial showing of [SCI FI's] Battlestar Galactica miniseries. It was a large failure in my eyes. I loved the original.
But, my reason for writing this letter is to complain about women officers being called "sir" in sci-fi. This ticks me off. I am a 10-year veteran of the US Marines. Any Marine calling a woman officer "sir" would be written up immediately. This blatant error shows me that [SCI FI] is sloppy when it comes to military protocol. [SCI FI] should put a committee together containing former E-9's from all branches of the service to keep problems like this from happening in the future.
Earl Weeks
eweeks(at)tradenet.net
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