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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fter the miniseries and three episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica, I have to say that it has vastly exceeded my expectations. It's complex, exciting, humorous in places and a bit dark. It has done more with characterization in a few episodes than most SF shows manage in an entire first season. (Yes, I loved the original show as a kid. This is BG for grownups, and I like it that way.)
Now, however, I'm writing about an annoying trend that I first noticed when the SCI FI Channel aired the Frank Herbert's Children of Dune miniseries, and which has continued with Battlestar Galactica: The showing of spoiler scenes from the episode-in-progress during commercial breaks. (I note that UPN has been doing this with Enterprise as well.)
We're a science fiction audience. We're intelligent, and we have attention spans that exceed the three-to-five-minute commercial breaks. If the SCI FI Channel wants us not to change the channel during breaks, all it has to do is produce a good show.
Actually, by showing these spoilers, the SCI FI Channel runs the risk of making me want to change the channel to avoid the spoilers. The only alternative I see is to tape the show and then forward through the spoilers, but this is difficult since I can't always tell whether I'm zooming past the spoilers or the episode itself, and I invariably see something I don't want to see.
I want to watch an episode unfold. I don't want all the key scenes revealed in advance. This is a show for grownups; please treat us that way.
Amy Sisson
amysisson(at)prodigy.net
've really tried to like the new Battlestar Galactica—I've seen the original three times and all the episodes—but I can't. And it seems to be mostly for reasons not so far stated.
[Warning: Spoilers follow.]
I don't like any of the characters except the Boomer on the Galactica as she comes to the realization she's a Cylon. Her evolution of awareness has been fascinating. Of course I hope her loyalties stay with the humans, and if I keep watching, it will be for that storyline.
Then I figured out why I don't care for the rest of the characters: They don't seem to like or care about each other, and as a previous letter pointed out, the original BSG had a feeling of "family," that out-group hostility creates in-group solidarity factor. It was a backdrop that didn't preclude in-house conflict. Now, there's no sense that anyone's bonded to anyone other than Baltar and his Cylon sexpot. And there's zero chemistry between Apollo and Starbuck.
Finally, they're developing their science fiction too slowly for my tastes. Speed up the viewer's understanding the Cylons, how they became sentient in the first place (which I'm sure has something to do with their god)—even if it's clues the characters haven't yet added up. Just human drama set in outer space is not science fiction.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll(at)comcast.net
K, so I'm reading the letters and I'm wondering, "What is the matter with these people?" If [Battlestar Galactica] isn't to your liking then don't watch it. They're behaving like a bunch of prisoners forced to watch. You do have a choice.
Now, all of this ridiculous talk about BG and not being of quality is just that ridiculous. Any true sci-fi fan would adore the twist and plots of having an enemy that resembles you. It's absolutely ingenious. A storyline like that could be played for all it's worth and be super.
[Warning: Spoiler follows.]
Personally, I look forward to the Cylon-looking-human twist. I was practically hopping out of my chair at the revelation of the Boomer-Cylon event and can't wait to see how it plays out.
Battlestar has made SCI FI Fridays fun again, because it really was losing it for a while there.
Cass Nick
egotripx5(at)hotmail.com
may be an old curmudgeon. Hell, I am old. Old enough to remember the original Battlestar Galactica and to remember it as the worst science fiction TV show ever. (OK, maybe Lost in Space was tied with it.) So I have absolutely no idea why anybody would be the least bit excited about a remake or reimagining or whatever they're calling it. You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
And why all the faked excitement for Elektra, a movie my paper just gave one and a half stars to? You guys keep backing bad shows like these and canceling good shows like Crusade, The Invisible Man and Farscape, and you're going to be in trouble. And, by the way, Earthsea sucked. I've rarely seen such bad acting, writing, emoting and scenery-chewing all crammed together in one film. Well, maybe Reefer Madness.
Bill Swenson
roadtoad(at)famvid.com
cience fiction has usually been an appropriate genre for some characters who start out as villains and then somehow find redemption and the ultimate goodness within (near the movie's finale or in a sequel). Examples have included 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL, Blade Runner's Roy Batty, Batman & Robin's Mr. Freeze, The Cell's Carl Stargher, Dracula (Gary Oldman's incarnation) and The Terminator. The first to extend my awareness was Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. In Revenge of the Sith, we will finally see Anakin Skywalker be overwhelmed and seduced by the powers of evil. Even though we know that Anakin finds his true self in the first trilogy's finale (and the DVD's incorporation of Hayden Christensen alongside the spirits of Yoda and Alec Guinness is fitting, with no disregard to the actor, Sebastian Shaw, originally used in that scene), Anakin's metamorphosis into Vader will be sure to have a strong impact on fans.
If there was a science-fiction villain that I would like to have seen redeemed and absolved in a classic film's resolution, it would be Gollum in The Return of the King. Perhaps that would have been too simplistic, which is probably why Mr. Tolkien decided against it. But Mr. Lucas' resolution for the original Star Wars was a grand ending for the epitomized science-fiction movie villain. Revenge of the Sith should not overshadow the fans' view of the peaceful destiny that we all know will await Luke's and Leia's tragic father. I almost wish I could have seen Natalie Portman as the spirit of Padme also incorporated alongside young Anakin in Return of the Jedi DVD. I think it would be appropriate for fans to be assured that the bond between Anakin and Padme is secured in the great beyond.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil(at)sympatico.ca
his is a follow-up to the letter I wrote a few years back ("Anime Is the Answer to Live Action"). First of all, I apologize about my opinions regarding anime. I do understand there are gems out there like Akira and Ghost in the Shell, but so far, to me, they are quite rare. Still the potential for an animated science fiction should still be considered.
I feel right now is a good time to start thinking about animation having a pivotal role in bringing science fiction into motion and life. The past few years since my last letter have witnessed an ascendance of a new force that is slowly but surely shaking the foundations of animation history.
I'm talking about Makoto Shinkai's self-made, self-financed creation of Hoshi no Koe, aka Voices of a Distant Star.
I'm talking about animation software that can readily be bought from the shelves by typical consumers instead of industry professionals.
I'm talking about the love and dedication by these aspiring people, who cannot wait for the Spielbergs, Miyazakis and Lasseters in the movie biz to do one, and decide to make their own with what they've got.
I'm talking about just having to do these movies, be it one person or a team of a few.
I'm talking about independent animation.
Let me repeat this one part of the above. Animation software is readily available for anyone, and not just for experts or professionals, for less than a grand, and almost anyone willing enough to make their own animated movie. Add to that, the available art classes, the computers they have at home, the usefulness of the Internet and other items these ordinary people can take full advantage of, mix in a bit of passion, dedication and hard work, and you get yourself these fine animated features.
Google for words "Understanding Chaos," "D7 Peacemaker" and Makoto Shinkai. From there, Google for more independent animators that follows. Read articles about these aspiring people, and judge for yourself. Fine, sure, the stories told in their features lack something, and the acting needs more work, but the potential is there. You just have to realize that we do not need big studios, big celebrities and big budgets to make a movie, just you. And it's only between you and and the audience that matters.
And what will this mean for science fiction? Besides adapting from books, these animators can come up with their own works of science fiction free from the leash of the studios that make movies, unashamed and unafraid of putting out more personal pieces. It's just an animator trying to explore every aspect of science and fantasy that big studios, as well as censors, wouldn't dare to touch upon.
Of course, the road ahead for these aspiring, if not young, animators is bumpy and rough, so we should give support to these movers and shakers. The future of science fiction lies within them.
Still related to animation, but it deserves another letter: I still can't understand why the people posting to Science Fiction Weekly would rather have a live-action feature than an animated one. Just what is the allure of live-action fiction of the fantastic?
Anyway, this is where I end. I do hope to get some responses. If I am wrong on certain things, please feel free to educate me.
Ahmad Zaki Zakaria
madzack898(at)yahoo.com
t was dishonorable to keep the title from the [Earthsea] books. This travesty was the biggest committee-created pail of garbage ever made out of one of the great banquets of fantasy literature. Every single important part of the books; plots, characterizations, cultures, technology, mythologies, was completely trashed. Most insulting: Instead of the tall, black-haired, red-brown skinned, hawk-nosed young man named Ged, we have a pug-nosed blond hobbit boy. There is romance where there should be none. Sword fights where there were none. New characters modeled on boring TV stereotypes and, cluttered throughout the script, there is nothing but cast-off bits from a hundred fourth-rate forgotten movies. Even the special effects made no sense.
The people who made this wretched bird poop should be barred from ever making another film of any kind.
Anne [last name withheld]
anne(at)metaverse2.com
lthough I understand cost issues, I must agree with Alain Avakian's letter
"SCI FI Should Broadcast in HD." The SCI FI channel caters to the "geek" crowd, who are the most likely to purchase high-end technology such as HDTVs. What is the point of recording programs in HD if they are not going to be broadcast in HD? By recording in a 16:9 format and then broadcasting in 4:3, we are actually losing resolution compared to standard TV—definitely not what the producers intended.
Seeing Walter Cronkite in color versus black and white does not enhance the experience much (you can get the same news on the radio or from a newspaper), but seeing a special-effects-intensive action show such as Battlestar Galactica in high def is very cool. The point that not everyone can afford an HDTV is irrelevant. The channel could be broadcast in both formats. There are many channels that do this already (HBO, Cinemax, ESPN, TNT and most local network stations).
Although it will ultimately come down to the bottom line, I want [Science Fiction Weekly] to have another letter on the HD pile. While I will continue to watch SCI FI (as long as there nothing good on one of the HD channels), I would definitely watch it a lot more if it were in HD.
Kyle White
kylemwhite(at)hotmail.com
ne of the major failings of Star Trek: Enterprise is that it doesn't present us with new worlds like the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation. For instance—the last episode had Trip and Hoshi contracting a deadly silicon virus from a crater on a planet we only briefly saw from above. We never saw the surface of the planet. Instead, the show was all about philosophical issues of observing versus interacting in a situation—meaty stuff but hardly exciting. The original Star Trek episodes visited new worlds most every week, and TNG did the same thing. Oh yes, not to mention the humor between Spock and Bones (or Kirk and Scotty) in the original, or the humor of Data with nearly anyone on TNG. Humor is really missing on Star Trek: Enterprise.
If Rick Berman really wants Enterprise to go another year, he needs to beam the crew down to new worlds, and give us some much-needed levity in the process.
Dennis Money
dionysusdm(at)yahoo.com
n the foreword of a 1978 SF encyclopedia, Isaac Asimov wrote that "the richness of ... science fiction [is] that no two of its practitioners are liable to agree on even something as fundamental as its definition—or on the boundaries that encompass it, and on where one draws the dividing line between itself and realistic fiction, or between itself and fantasy."
Then came "sci-fi." Are sci-fi and science fiction (SF) synonymous? Is SF strictly books and sci-fi TV and movies? Is SF the good stuff and sci-fi the rest? None are the case, but there is a "dividing line."
HG Wells' 1898 War of the Worlds is considered the prototype SF novel, while the earlier Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde were not. Let the "practitioners" argue about that, but none was ever labeled sci-fi in its original form. Then along came the marketeers. Their mission was to make SF palatable, to sell SF to the masses. They created sci-fi.
Who was the first? Irwin Allen? Rod Serling? George Pal? No, the title of "Father of Sci-Fi" belongs to none other than Orson Welles, whose 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, rewritten to begin in present-day New Jersey and destroy (and panic) much of America, ushered in what we now call "sci-fi."
The later film, also tailored for American audiences, was sci-fi as will be the Spielberg/Cruise mega-production. The English are having none of that and will bring Wells' novel to the screen word by word. British science fiction vs. American sci-fi—talk about war of the worlds.
Science fiction can be called "The Mother of Sci-Fi" because all sci-fi comes from ideas and concepts first introduced in science fiction. But the two can sometimes be inseparable. Boulle's short novel Monkey Planet was written as "a joke." Hollywood took the author seriously for Planet of the Apes. If you interpreted the stunning conclusion as simply that Taylor ("You maniacs! You blew it up!") had been on Earth all along, then the film was sci-fi. If you looked deeper, to the more profound truth: that for all their flaws, fears and foibles, the apes were more human than we ever were ... that's science fiction.
It isn't the science that has made great SF, but the fiction imaginative science creates—the human experience that only SF can deliver. Frankenstein, 2001, I, Robot, the original Star Wars trilogy and the classic Star Trek have one vital component in common: the very last character you would suspect of having any humanity becomes the most human of all. Star Wars from Luke's point of view is sci-fi. So is Trek through the eyes of Kirk. Hook up with Vader and Spock (the "monster," not the doctor; HAL, not the astronaut/star child; and "Sonny," not Will Smith) if you want science fiction.
What do the readers of this Web site want? Have the marketeers succeeded beyond Wells' and Welles' wildest dreams? In column after column and in letter after letter, longtime professionals and loyal fans illuminate, discuss and debate sci-fi in ... Science Fiction Weekly? To quote the poet: "They rocked on their hobby horse and called it Pegasus."
There is one last difference between sci-fi and science fiction all too few may be aware of. From the sale of tens of millions of DVDs, sci-fi can be owned. Selling is the very core of sci-fi. (Buy the "unrated" version of the SCI FI Channel's Species III and freeze-frame the topless babe!) But if you are of that certain mindset, becoming rarer with each passing day, science fiction owns you. From the moment you experienced SF, you bought into it with a piece of your soul and spirit that cannot be marketed at any price.
As Klaatu said so eloquently, "The decision is yours."
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA(at)aol.com
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