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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've seen the letters ("'Jack' and 'Bobby' Are Off Limits", "Jack & Bobby Is Engrossing") from other readers about how calling the show Jack & Bobby is an insult to the Kennedy brothers and how un-scifi the show is.
I disagree with the former but not with the latter. The show is not science fiction in any way. As a genre, science fiction encompasses shows whose premise is scientifically based. Even if the science is made up. One could perhaps argue that the show is fantasy, but that's a stretch also.
However, my issue with the show is that they ruined it in the pilot by revealing the answer to the big question. They set up the show with the idea that here are two boys, one of whom will be the president in the future. They implied that we would never know which of them it was so we would constantly be trying to find clues to the riddle. I could forgive the corny VH-1 narration interviews, or even that the family drama with the single mother with unconventional views about the world isn't really that great. But they gave away the answer right in the pilot. You might as well put "Bruce Willis is dead" in big letters on the cover of all the copies of The Sixth Sense.
Jay Rives
jaynerives(at)comcast.net
he Battle of Corrin gets an [A-]? Brian [Herbert] and Kevin [Anderson] get kudos for ripping a scene from a Bruce Willis movie? And some idiot is gonna tell me that until I write something better I should keep my mouth shut? Picture, if you will, a Vulcan Salute. Now, read between the lines. Quentin Butler is trapped amongst multiple Cymeks on some jihad-nuked planet, he ignites the fuel of his dead ship as the machines come to devour his Hrethgir ass and then, as they explode, he hits the eject button. The following scene is well known to any wannabe juvenile Heinlein. And how many times does Vor cross his arms in defiance? In the House of Dune books, how many people give each other the handshake of the Empire or whatever silly name the "authors" give it? (It reminded me of Rimmer's silly salute from Red Dwarf).
Rumor has it that these guys are going to stop writing the long-lost prequels and are going on to the long awaited sequels. I can only hope that they can grow out of the shadows and into the shoes. ...
Paul A. Resico
spookedhorse(at)webtv.net
lizabeth Jewell did not go far enough in her comments on the conflict between Lost and Smallville ("Sci-Fi Scheduling Is No Conflict").
Network programmers not only seem to be clueless when it comes to scheduling science fiction, they don't learn from previous mistakes. For one, UPN didn't learn from Enterprise ending up against Smallville; their next choice was to decide to put it up against Stargate SG-1. Real bright! Oh, sure, they pulled it back to 8. But sooner or later the SCI FI Channel will run something first run in that spot, and UPN will be back where it started. A wise programmer would have put Enterprise on Mondays or Tuesdays at 8 up against nothing else in the genre.
And ABC—which for science fiction is usually "Airs Briefly/Cancelled": Why wasn't their programmer savvy enough to figure out not to place Lost opposite Smallville in the first place? Why couldn't he or she see that it was setting their own show for failure? Yes, you can tape or TiVo—but only the one you watch would count for ratings, not only if you're a Nielsen family, but also for the ratings cable companies compile.
But now, this dementia-like condition has spread to SCI FI Channel's programmer. Last year SCI FI channel picked Thursday for their second night of original programming—albeit conflicting with Tru Calling—but in someone's total lack of infinite wisdom, this year they picked—you got it—Wednesdays. Why would SCI FI Channel put its relatively rare first-run programming in a spot contested by two major network shows in the sci-fi genre?
So I have to wonder whether television programmer is the job given nepotistically to deadbeat relatives of network bigwigs—or whether the networks have an outreach to high-school dropouts. Either way, programmers don't seem to have any learning curve when it comes to scheduling science fiction.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll(at)comcast.net
f there is one good thing that I can say about the new sci-fi thriller, The Forgotten, it is that good ultimately triumphs over evil within this story in one of the most realistic ways. Julianne Moore's strength in defeating the otherworldly enemy who fails in trying to deprive her of her son, memories and existence makes her in my vote one of the most agreeably sci-fi thriller heroines of this decade. The Forgotten may not be quite as successful as such movies like The Sixth Sense and Donnie Darko. But it succeeds as a classic fiction demonstrating the willpower of a special human being to win back her son and her rightful place in the universe. This film deserves at least three and a half stars.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil(at)sympatico.ca
his letter is in reference to the "Ten Top Fantasy Movies" feature in the December 2004 issue of your print magazine SCI FI: The Official Magazine of the SCI FI Channel, and specifically to the quip accompanying the entry for Conan the Barbarian: "If Robert E. Howard knew how good it would turn out, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself."
How tasteless.
Howard's suicide—committed under intense stress in the throes of the Great Depression—devastated not only his family and friends but the legions of fans who valued his work. The many touching elegies written by Howard's admirers in the wake of his death are heartbreaking to read even 70 years later. Treating one of the most tragic episodes in the annals of fantasy literature as a joke is outrageous.
The last time I wrote Science Fiction Weekly several years ago ("Robert E. Howard Was Only Human" Letters, Issue 218) it was to join the chorus of fans decrying your own John Clute, who in the course of favorably reviewing Howard's Conan stories dismissed Howard the man as a "a terribly unhappy, racist, mother-obsessed, fattish bodybuilder." While no one is claiming that Howard is beyond criticism, it's sad that the founder of sword and sorcery continually fails to get accorded the same basic level of respect and decency due any other author. SCI FI's pithy giggle at Howard's suicide is but the latest example of this shameful pattern.
People at SCI FI and Science Fiction Weekly who assume that Howard is a pathetic, long-forgotten figure who can be safely derided with impunity may be surprised to learn that the most recent re-release of Howard's 70-year-old Conan stories in trade paperback (Del Rey's The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, December 2003) promptly hit #3 on Locus' bestsellers list, bested only by two movie-fueled Tolkien books. Many other Howard editions have been released from various publishers in the past year, with more on the way, and there are numerous fan magazines dedicated to his life and work. The house in Cross Plains, Texas, where Howard invented Conan is now a fascinating museum listed on the United States' National Register of Historic Places, and draws hundreds of visitors annually. Most recently, the brand-new Conan comic has quickly built up sales in excess of 50,000 copies per issue, with each one including biographical vignettes about Howard.
My point is this: Seventy years after his stories first saw print, Robert E. Howard clearly remains one of the most beloved and influential voices in fantasy. Believe it or not, many of us, thousands of us, like the guy. And we're sick and tired of thoughtless genre scribblers mocking Howard's laudable life and tragic death in an effort to sound hip.
Just for the record, there are still several people alive who were present on that hot Texas day of June 11, 1936, and who sat with Howard's stricken father through the death vigil as his son lay dying on a cot in the back of their house. Howard's father was a doctor, but his son's wound was beyond the assistance of him or anyone else. For eight hours they waited while Robert clung to life, towels swathed around his head to cover the gunshot wound. Howard died at 4 p.m. that afternoon, his mother (on her death bed from tuberculosis) dying herself the next day. The resulting funeral still stands as the largest in the town's history, and the following week Dr. Howard gave thanks to his friends and neighbors via a letter in the town paper which began:
"To you my many dear friends who came to my home last week and who helped to minister to my loved ones in the last hours of their lives and who stood by me with your words of comfort and love; brave, strong words that came only from loving hearts enabled me to live through the darkest day of my life. ..."
The darkest day of his life.
"If Robert E. Howard knew how good it would turn out, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself."
Shame on you, SCI FI.
Leo Grin
editor(at)thecimmerian.com
fter reading several mainstream media reviews and watching the first episode of Lost, I am surprised by what is missing in the commentaries. So I ask [Science Fiction Weekly] readers—does anyone else see the connection between this new show and the classic movie Forbidden Planet? I know lots of reviewers are comparing it to Mysterious Island, Land of the Lost and Lord of the Flies but I think the invisible creature is the missing key to the show.
Also, on the subject of Lucas' changes ("Lucas Should Leave Star Wars Alone", "Rewrites Aren't Always Regrettable", "Lucas' Changes Are Acceptable", "Director's Editions Are Special", "Lucas Has Filmmaker's Rights") ... I have seen the new DVDs and enjoyed the sharp clear images and especially the comments from Lucas and others about the making of the films.
As for changes to the films, well, the Great Bird of the Universe said he planned to make all the Klingons appear as those in the movies and The Next Generation, but in 1966 he did not have the budget for that make-up, so he compromised. Somehow, I think if Gene [Roddenberry] had had the chance, he would do what Lucas is doing and make the changes he originally planned as part of the series.
May the Force be with all of us!
Gloria Hoffner
Gloriah311(at)aol.com
hane Stephenson wrote: "So who cares if Han Solo or Greedo shot first, or at the same time... It doesn't matter one teeny, tiny iota, because it's still the same tale you loved when you first saw it, just given a bit of a polish" ("Lucas' Changes Are Acceptable").
However, Mr. Stephenson then goes on to say, "Now, if George Lucas had digitally replaced the blasters with walkie-talkies, then I might take offense." I don't understand the difference. It seems to me that both changes were motivated by political correctness, and by the idea that audiences need to be treated like children because they aren't mature enough to handle the "bad" stuff.
I like gray areas. I don't want all my heroes, in books or movies, to be squeaky clean. Han Solo was a smuggler (of drugs, most likely). He turned over a new leaf. But you'd better believe that if a bounty hunter was sitting there with a gun pointed at him, clearly intending to kill him, Han wouldn't wait to see if the bounty hunter would shoot (and miss?!) at point-blank range.
Am I freaking out about this? No. It's not worth any more of my time and energy than it's taking to write this e-mail. But I do resent having the story changed—and not with mere "polish"—for my "own good." (And then, I've heard, changed again so that they shoot at the
same time. Why bother?)
Amy Sisson
amysisson(at)prodigy.net
n partial answer to Rachel Maley's question ("Lucas Should Leave Star Wars Alone"): "Instead of 'improving' (I use the term loosely) already completed works, why aren't you out there creating new works (and I ain't talking about the prequels), so we can see how you've grown and matured as a filmmaker?..." I would submit the recent body of Lucas' work.
I don't think there's any evidence lurking in there that he has "grown and matured." The dark thought hovering at the back of my mind is he Got Lucky, and doesn't have anything else worth seeing left in him, or we'd have seen it by now. The three prequels have been fairly tame projects, very little of anything new (that's the problem with prequels, by definition you know how it all winds up, so there's not a whole lot of ways for you to play with the audience).
I can understand being typecast as a director; if there's a project that has the kind of effect Star Wars had it's bound to cast a shadow over subsequent work. Some actors are forever locked into roles, but the good ones find a way to escape (Harrison Ford, for example, has
successfully escaped the shadows of both Han Solo and Indiana Jones). If there are new stories for Lucas to tell, I would have expected we would have seen them by now. All we get, though, are detail fill-ins of backstory, and new improved flash-bangs. It's hard for me to understand why a creative person would settle for that, unless, like the nostalgia bands, he doesn't have anything left to offer except familiar riffs on even more familiar material.
I would love to be wrong about this, but I'm becoming convinced that the well is dry, and it's time for the familiar patrolman's cry, "Move along, folks, there's nothing to see here."
Arlen Walker
[email witheld by request]
n response to John W. Kennedy's letter ("Rewrites Aren't Always Regrettable"), he states that Shakespeare did rewrite Hamlet and Tolkien made "revisions" to Lord of the Rings. Well, then they did a better job than Lucas, in that those changes didn't change the "feel" of their work. Unfortunately, there is nothing left by Shakespeare which explains why he did those changes (was it to achieve "his vision," or maybe just make the play more successful?). I confess that my copy of Lord of the Rings was purchased for me in 1973, so I am unfamiliar with the "authorial revisions" of the '60s. Does anybody know if Tolkien came out with a big interview saying, "Oh, I made these changes to achieve my vision, and if people don't like it, too bad?"
That's my biggest gripe with the whole Lucas fiasco. Not that he made the changes per se (although I still think he should have included the original films on the DVD so we would have the opportunity to compare them with the special editions), but that his attitude towards us, his fans, the people who loved his original work so much that we forked over millions of our hard-earned dollars so he was able to buy Skywalker Ranch and found ILM, is just plain rude and egotistical. Those films are his? Excuse me, but once they hit the theaters, those films became ours, the people who are paying to see them, as well as his. And to essentially make it impossible for us to enjoy the originals as they were, to be able to see how he has grown and matured as a filmmaker, certainly makes it appear that he is ashamed of the films as they were originally made.
Shane Stephenson ("Lucas' Changes Are Acceptable") said that Lucas wasn't changing anything that mattered. But it does matter. Han shooting first gives him a bad-guy edge, giving us a visual that maybe Han can't be trusted so that there's some suspense as to how Luke will survive the Death Star, whereas Greedo shooting first makes him the bad guy (Han is only defending himself). Putting Hayden Christiansen at the end of Return of the Jedi shows a young, innocent Anakin, as opposed to Sebastian Shaw showing the older, mature Anakin redeemed from evil. Yeah, it's important. It's not the same movie with a "little polish." It's the same movie that's had a power sander taken to it. It's like shoveling fertilizer onto a blooming rose bush to make it more beautiful—soon, all you can see is the crap.
(pant, pant)
Sorry. Rant over. Obviously, I feel very strongly about this. I just wish he had put the originals on the DVD along with the films with his changes. Then, everybody would be happy.
Rachel Maley
rmaley(at)unmc.edu
don't like the updated versions of the original Star Wars movies. Digitally adding characters, to me, muddles the verisimilitude of the film (that is, I am too aware of the artificiality of the scene). I also don't think that adding digital effects really improves a film, as films usually stand or fall on characters and plots, not effects. Having said all this, I don't have a problem with George Lucas remaking his films as he sees fit. They are, after all, his films; he has the artistic right to change them. I might not enjoy those changes, but at least it is the artist making those changes.
Compare this situation to the one encountered by fans of Andrei Tarkovsky's two science-fiction films, Stalker and Solaris. Each of these films were originally released on DVD (by RUSCICO) with new stereo soundtracks that added all sorts of audio changes to the original versions (adding background sounds, new music, and so on). Since Tarkovsky died in 1986, he obviously had no say in these changes: They were made by studios trying to "improve" the films. This situation is unacceptable, as the artist did not authorize the changes. Luckily, RUSCICO has since added the original mono soundtrack to the DVDs.
In short, an artist has a right to change his or her work; a studio does not. Lucas has a right to improve, enhance, or even ruin his films any way he sees fit. I might not like the finished product, but I respect his right to make that choice.
Michael Heumann
mheumann(at)earthlink.net
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