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— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
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any new DVDs advertise that their extras include "deleted scenes." I am still waiting for someone (are you listening, Star Wars and Harry Potter studios?) to pull a Peter Jackson—Lord of the Rings with their deleted scenes and integrate them into the DVD release.
In fact, given the conflicts that sometimes arise between directors and studios over final cut, perhaps they could compromise: The studio gets the theatrical cut, and the
director gets the DVD cut. Reviewers and audiences could then vote on which they liked better. And everyone might learn something. Just a thought.
Jessica S. Lucens
lucens(at)earthlink.net
s revelations go, the revelation that George Takei is gay is as much a revelation as that of Avery Brooks being black or Kate Mulgrew being a woman; i.e., not much of one.
I'm sure someone is still holding his or her hand to their mouth thinking, "Did he just write that Avery Brooks is black?" That is the point, really.
Who cares?
Yes, it is very brave of Mr. Takei to "come out of the closet" in this closed-minded, so-called culture infesting the United States, and I'm sure there was a statement being presented by his coming out, but in and of itself it scarcely caused a ripple in the great sea of the entertainment kingdom.
I'm sure he is happy, and that's what counts. As a culture we need to stop looking at people who are "black," "Asian," "gay," "lesbian" or whatever label you want to place upon them and start looking at people as "people."
In science fiction, authors and screenwriters have been trying for years to present us with a future, whether distant or near, where people get along, no matter their color, creed or sexual orientation, yet the best place to start is now.
We need to start, right now, looking at our neighbors as our neighbors and stop looking at them as our gay neighbors or our black neighbors, or even as our white neighbors.
To some of you, this may sound unusually naive, but great things start small, and something so small as treating your neighbor well is the beginning of everyone treating everyone well.
Also, the idea that just because Mr. Takei is gay means that his Star Trek character, Hikaru Sulu, is also gay is a rather large stretch of the imagination.
Of course, again, who cares?
Keith Kitchen
boyoklaatu1(at)aol.com
've just read Mr. Edelman's editorial ("I Love the '70s—So Why Doesn't Everyone?") about the bell-bottomed, swingin', rose-tinted '70s with great interest because, apparently, I sort of share Peter Bogdanovich's idea regarding cinema going to hell in a handbasket during that decade.
My reasons, though, are a bit different ... but I also blame Star Wars, so of course I'm talking about the special effects. Or, more to the point, the obsession with special effects, and their slow-but-steady transformation to becoming the destination instead of tools for the journey.
Please don't take this the wrong way; I work in computer animation, and I'm a Star Wars fan (though my enthusiasm cooled off quite a bit after those soulless pieces of techno-porn called "the prequels"), and I like me some cool SFX (Jeebus help me, I had a good time watching Stealth), but the '70s were the time when movie executives looked at the weekly grosses and said: "Groovy, man! Camera tricks are the way to go!"
And so, almost 30 years later, we get style-over-substance junk like I, Robot, The Island (otherwise known as The Clonus Horror II)
and, well, Stealth.
So, for sci-fi fans (and not special-effects fans) it comes down to tracking down independent or foreign fare to satisfy our need for actually good science-fiction flicks. But, unfortunately, films like Primer and Pi are very few and far between.
Yeah, the '70s gave us great movies, and they didn't kill the deep, personal films of yore. But they definitely helped bring the blockbuster glut of today. Also, they brought porn to the mainstream, but that's a whole 'nother editorial, I guess.
Pablo del Moral
delmoral(at)yahoo.com
erenity shouldn't be considered a flop ("Serenity Should Get Back to TV"). Certainly not a blockbuster by any means, but a modest return was had. [Director] Joss [Whedon] himself was happy with the take. He has stated that Serenity's success really can't be evaluated until the DVD receipts are in. He figures that Serenity will be a DVD hit that could spawn another few films, much as happened with Austin Powers.
As for Firefly returning to TV, sorry to say that it is very unlikely on three counts.
1) Joss is on to Wonder Woman now, and I think he will put as much effort into that release as he did in Serenity—99.9 percent. The other 0.1 percent dealing with the constant questions about the next Buffyverse project.
2) Mutant Enemy, his TV production company, has been shut down. I think he came to the same realization that Stephen Cannell came to—he will be pitching to a competitor who produces their own product now, and the TV stations own a lot of the rights, including reruns and DVD sales, now.
3) A lot of the behind-the-scenes staff are now working on other shows.
Alas, Firefly's trip was short, but may it continue on in movies—be they theatrical releases, TV movies (a SCI FI channel option? Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars was a success, after all) or direct-to-DVD.
Dan Kay
dmk42(at)shaw.ca
ith all respect, I must say, I think Ben Elsbernd ("Serenity Should Get Back to TV") is full of it.
Serenity was a fantastic, powerful film in all aspects and only "flopped" at the box office due to extremely poor publicity. Everyone I know who's seen the movie was an instant fan, and most of us proceeded to hunt down the one partial season of Firefly on DVD and watch that over and over until the Serenity DVD release.
A TV movie or miniseries would not have had anywhere near this kind of impact. It would have aired a few nights, on one station, to a limited audience of die-hard Firefly fans and a few "accidentals" who happened to turn it on or see the promos. In the cinema, Serenity was able to be viewed by more people, in more places, with infinitely more flexible timing. Consequently, more people saw it, and more non-fans have been exposed and "converted," broadening the fan base considerably.
I think a proper comparison would be the Dune miniseries/movie that ran on the SCI FI Channel several years ago. How many people actually watched the whole series on air? I can name one. I've only seen it once, on borrowed video, about a year later. How many people saw Serenity in theaters and fell in love? At least seven that I know of. Three of us went back and paid to see it again! None of us had even heard of Firefly before seeing Serenity. I think the math speaks for itself.
I believe it is unrealistic to hope that Firefly will return as a regular television series, although I'd be in heaven if it did. However, a second movie, two or three years down the line, is entirely possible, even probable.
Serenity may not have sold out cinemas in its first weekend, but I know it will close its theater run with very respectable numbers, both financially and in respect to its fandom.
D. James
BakoPayload(at)hotmail.com
n response to Joe Schembrie ("Paper Has Become Too Precious"), who believes that paper books will soon disappear, I have to agree.
Look at the iPod, how it's struck a blow against CDs and the way that music is marketed. I see the convergence of the iPod, the cell phone and the notebook computer into one small device that uses a paper-thin rollout screen, much like the model that was used in the movie Red Planet of a few years back. I believe that the Internet will be transformed to handle all information, your cell phone call will take place over it, you will be a able to access the Internet, "buy" subscriptions to magazines and newspapers that will be updated constantly. If the latest Weber or Turtledove novel is ready, your "wonder" machine will be notified, and if you want it will be downloaded or instantly accessed. You can change the font to a size that is easier to read, make notes on the side, scan back and forth, then take a call and probably see the person you're talking to. If you happen to have a couple hours to "kill" then you can access current movies, old movies or television shows when you desire. Everyone will love this, and a "new" age of information will take place, but it comes as a double-edged sword. Someone will know what you read, what you see, what you like and don't like. They'll know who you talked to, when and where you talked to them. Not that they can't figure all this out now, but you never really own anything this way. You buy access to the information, but you can never print it out. They'll say, why would you want to waste precious resources when you can access it whenever you want? Of course, that means that everything can be edited by the powers that be.
If that sounds a little too 1984 for you, well, surprise, that information is already being gathered. Every time you use a credit card, someone somewhere knows what and where you're buying. The phone company knows who each and everyone is that calls you. If you use a saver card at the local grocery, they track your purchases. Remember that scene where Tom Cruise is walking through the mall and advertisements are changed to personally offer merchandise that might interest him? Our lives will be like that. Personalized billboards, no checkouts as you walk into the store, bag up what you buy and walk out—the items you've bought have a passive read chip that will tell the checkout what you have in the bag. The amount will be deducted from your bank account as you leave. I'm sure it will be even better than what I envision and perhaps in some respects worse.
Gary Roelli
gjwr(at)mhtc.net
oe laments that e-book readers cost $300 ("Paper Has Become Too Precious"). That may have been true once, but now you can get a really great e-book reader at www.ebookwise.com for $129, and that includes a slew of books of your choice! Check it out if you like science fiction. Most e-books are available for $5 or less.
Stephen LaFevers
stevelafevers(at)centurytel.net
here is one huge benefit to the advent of the electronic book over the paper versions: Besides today's bestsellers, numerous books that haven't been printed in years are available for sale at some e-book retail Web sites. Robert Silverberg's The Mountains of Majipoor and Harry
Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! are two books I, personally, found at ereader.com that would never be found at a major book retailer today; if you were lucky, a used-book seller might have an old dog-eared copy lying around. ...
E-book retailers have the huge advantage over bookstores and even Web-based booksellers of virtually unlimited shelf space and an infinite number of copies in stock 24/7, available for immediate download—and most books are small enough data files that even a slow dial-up
connection can have them on your computer in a matter of a few minutes and not hours!
There are still issues regarding price and readability, but ereader.com (formerly Palm Digital Media, and formerly Peanut Press) makes their books in a format that's readable on four computing platforms, both portable and less so (Palm OS, Pocket PC, Windows and Mac) for maximum flexibility, and the portable formats are improving, with higher-resolution screens and scalable fonts making them more feasible for reading. Not to mention there's nothing quite like having a few dozen books available in my shirt pocket, weighing in at a few ounces instead of several pounds, and more within fast reach of my smartphone's data connection ... erudite entertainment, rather than simple-minded video games and other time-burning distractions, and packing in more reading pleasure per ounce and square inch than even the smallest paperback books. The last time a quick trip to the doctor's office turned into an enforced five-day stay in a hospital's isolation ward, I truly learned the value of the electronic, portable library!
The one irksome tradeoff is the digital rights management built into almost every electronic book—they're rendered yours for life, never to be transferred, resold or loaned. As a way of recognizing this tradeoff, some e-book retailers are finally taking advantage of the efficiencies of the "digital printing press" and making the electronic versions they sell cheaper than the printed counterparts—as well they should, since they don't have anywhere near the overhead of a paper-book publisher, distributor or retailer.
I'm a fan of the printed page myself, but I for one truly recognize the value of the digital document as well. Paper books will never die and never leave my bookshelves, but when looking for "disposable" or "paperback" entertainment, ebooks are a highly viable alternative to the
formerly cheap paperback book.
Don Boyer
scifi(at)tatooine.org
was intrigued by Phillip Harris' response ("Unfortunately, Race Does Matter") to my letter ("Developers' Races Don't Matter") from the October 31st issue of Science Fiction Weekly.
I'd like a chance to respond, since he seems to blame me for doing something that SFW did first.
Statistics and raw facts are one thing. Selectively highlighting them to make an unspoken point is quite another. Again, as noted in my original letter, nobody writes "news" items focusing on the statistical fact that a great majority of professional basketball players are African-American.
If Mr. Harris is upset that the topic of race has invaded his otherwise pristine science-fiction landscape, he ought to be asking himself why SFW published their original news item in the first place. What was the point of that news item, if not to introduce a racially based or gender-based discussion?
The only guilt I feel comes from knowing that my racially mixed daughter is in for a very confusing ride. Our so-called "progressive" society is going to be endlessly obsessed with her racial and sexual identity, when it ought to care only about her character, work ethic, talent and intelligence. Everyone will be busy trying to cram her into a category. She'll spend her time at home learning how it's what's on the inside that matters, then go out into the world and be assaulted by the racially hyper-aware Affirmative Action onslaught, which screams "WHAT are you?!" when it ought to be asking, "WHO are you?"
As I stated previously, sad.
We've collectively pawned Dr. King's idyllic dream for a politicized trash can full of insipid, bean-counting hysteria.
Brad R. Torgersen
roadwarrior(at)w-link.net
n response to Mr. Jason Moon's "Potter Dodged Witchcraft Ruckus", I feel compelled to point out that it was the alteration of the British title from Philosopher's Stone to Sorceror's Stone that triggered the reactions of conservative religious groups. The word "sorceror" is a key word in witchcraft and would thus be a monitored word, while the British "philosopher" probably would have come in under the radar.
Hence, when Scholastic altered the title, it caused the controversy to start much sooner than it otherwise might have, as "philosopher" would not have sent up the red flags that "sorceror" did, and thus the controversy would have commenced much later and maybe never have reached the peak that it has.
Leima Vlima
fan_fiction_rules(at)yahoo.com
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