Just in Case the Starship Lifts Off...

I want to confess that I was a science fiction fan before I came to Dr. Clemente's Science Fiction Literature and Film class and I am coming out of the class more enlightened than before.

I must express how much I enjoy the genre; I loved the Animorphs books by K.A. Applegate, I loved Dune by Frank Herbert, I loved the Star Wars movies, I loved the Alien and Predator movies, I crave futuristic shoot 'em ups such as DOOM, Half-Life, Halo, and Resident Evil, and I enjoy science fiction manga and anime such as Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, and Akira, to name a few.

The end is very near for me; I am about to graduate at the end of this week and my class will watch Blade Runner on the last night of our class. I have not seen Blade Runner, but I have read its source material, which is Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Quite a mouthful of a name, isn't it? Not as sleek and stylish as Blade Runner but it is a good novel nonetheless. I will definately be comparing the movie and the book to each other, since I am always purist about enjoying the source material before any adaptation.

A classmate of mine listed her favorite movies and stories, and I might do the same, just for the sake of a (Possible?) fitting ending to this blog...

Favorite Stories from Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (And any stories outside of the anthology)

First Place: "The People of the Sand and Slag"
Second Place: "The End of the Whole Mess"
Third Place: "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels"

Out of all the stories I enjoyed out of Wastelands, I will have to say I liked "The People of the Sand and Slag." The story possesses a macabre and stylistic approach to apocalyptic science fiction. What is morbid about this story is that the main characters are powered by nanomachine-like mechanisms called "Weeviltech," which allows the users to heal from the most grievous wounds.

The humans in this story become like the polluted earth they thrive on. There is an interesting question on humanity posed as the "humans" decide on what to do with a stray dog they happened to find in blasted Montana. The story was a focus on my first paper I wrote for the class; I wrote how the characters' humanity degenerated as they adapted to the hostil surface. All humanity gains power to cheat death but much like they destroyed their world, they destroyed their humanity with power gained.

The stories that earned second and third place will also be examined. "The End of the Whole Mess" presented what I like the most about Stephen King; his humor, his themes of degradation, and his way of playing the macabre in a world that is easy to believe. I would say this is the least science-fiction oriented story as there is a heavy concentration on the brothers using the Calmative, a substance that is supposed to curb aggression. I like King but details are scant about the actual consequences, save for the end of the story. Still, it was a good read. The third place contestant, "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels," was a suspenceful study of two versions of humanity meeting each other but it did not have the solid "punch" on humanity degenerating as "The People of the Sand and Slag" and "The End of the Whole Mess" did.

Favorite Movies Presented in Class So Far

First Place: The Day the Earth Stood Still
Second Place: Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Bomb
Third Place: Testament

There were quite a slew of good, solid films worthy of cultural reverence in the class (Let's not speak of Liquid Sky); The Day the Earth Stood Still stands resolute after all these years with its theme of aliens destroying Earth is the humans did not get along. Of all the 1950s movies I have seen, The Day the Earth Stood Still affected me tremendously because of its theme, its production, its characterization of Klaatu and Gort, and its solid acting.

Before I saw this movie, I had a fixed notion that a lot of films from the 1950s, especially science fiction films, would have a strong, puritanical, McCarthyesque overtone that would have ruined the movie. There were heavy anti-communist fears and feelings that filled most of these films and I had the idea the theme would be preachy in the movies we watched. I was mistaken with It Came from Outer Space, which was good but will remain my least favorite, and the other '50s movies because the themes are very subtle and remain fresh because of humanity banding together against a common threat. The Day the Earth Stood Still was a different beast entirely because the movie was not about repelling outsiders but rather accepting the outside world and facts or face harsh consequences of embracing xenophobia, or the fear of foreigners.

Dr. Strangelove was my second favorite movie in our repetoire of apocalypse-themed movies. The film is an excellent satire; nuclear weapons back in the 1960s were not talked about and this movie blew the subject up in everyone's face. I would rank it in second place because although it was funny and thought-provoking in its own right, it did not concentrate too much on any of the major characters in any given order. I would have even wanted more out of the notorious nuclear physics expert Dr. Strangelove, whose desire for the apocalypse was darkly funny and intriguing.

The third film that affected me profoundly was Testament; man, that movie not only ripped out my heart but it tore about whatever hope I had of humanity surviving a nuclear holocaust. The true horror is not on the sight of the bomb itself but the characters suffering through the effects of the bomb. I got attached to all the characters involved, and this made viewing Testament all the more heart-wrenching. I would rank this movie in third place because although it was a good movie that should be viewed once, anyone would be hard pressed to watch it again.

Favorite Stories out of The New Space Opera So Far (And any stories outside of the anthology)

First Place: "The Cold Equations"
Second Place: "Maelstrom"
Third Place: "Muse of Fire"

I am sad to admit that The New Space Opera is not one of the most engaging sci-fi anthologies I have read up to this point. So it makes sense that "The Cold Equations" is the first spot on the list. Technical details are given about the pilot's ship and why the little stowaway needs to be ejected outside of it, but they are not severely overblown. The theme is built up with the technology to build up the suspense in a universe where the galaxies beyond Earth are uncertain frontiers being colonized. I like how the story places with the five stages of death; the young girl who stows away on the pilot's ship to see her brother knows the horror of her fate but she understands there is no way to escape from the inevitable. Death is inevitable and death cannot be avoided in space.

The second and third place participants were unique among a mish-mash of technological talk and space babble because each explored the humanities still thriving in the space opera realm. Imagine going up into space and not taking any work by William Shakespeare or any Broadway musical scripts. People on a ship without art would be soulless, heartless, and homicidal as a group of Klingons on fire.

Well, this list is my wrap up of what I enjoyed and what I gained from all the media I experienced. I wish everyone else on their remaining class work, their remaining blogs, and their love to indulge in science fiction.

Till then, this is the starship signing off...

- Kristopher

Liquid Sky Equals Pure Absurity (In a Bad Way)

After Liquid Sky ended, I laughed hysterically.

More accurately, I laughed like a madman as I was walking out of the theater. I had to get some sweet abbreviation soda (Dr. Pepper as it is called in most circles) and a bag of baked Dorito's chips just to make sure I was not losing my marbles. I came to see Liquid Sky with an open mind and no expectations. I had no idea what I was expecting.

Well, this lack of expectation really, really screwed with my head.

And no, I actually did laugh out loud (Explaining it to some people was no easy task), get a soda and some chips after seeing this movie, because not only was this movie bad, it was BAD. It was bad because of its acting, it was bad because of its writing, it was bad because of its special effects, it was bad because of its nonsensical plot. I love art house films and films with unconventional thoughts but Liquid Sky was just, well BAD!

Yes, this movie is a cult favorite, but to me, it was BAD to the point where I felt I was in a drug-induced nightclub. It is an experience I do not want to take again. Liquid Sky was a softcore porno, art house flick gone awry, low budget alien movie, low budget movie overall, and an exercise of how not to make an art film. I find the ideas of punk culture, free love and drug abuse on film facinating but I would easily appreciate the ideas the movie was playing around with had it not been for its aimless execution.

Still, I need to concentrate on the themes of the movie is addressing. The aliens in the movie are addicted to people addicted to heroine. Thanks to Margaret, the aliens become addicted to orgasms and heroine altogether. This results in the funniest lines, intentionally or otherwise, ever to be uttered ("I kill with my c*$t.). You also have the lonely woman and the German scientist looking out the window with the telescope. Both are voyeurs, with the scientist explaining what is really going on. The focus is no longer on the aliens anymore, it is on Margaret screwing anyone she finds and vaporizes them upon orgasm! So if Liquid Sky is not really a science fiction movie, then it is a skin flick masquerading as a science-fiction flick and an art film.

Then you have Margaret constantly painting and dressing herself, especially after she has lethal sex. Could her actions represent the danger of sex with sexually trasmitted diseases? Margaret vaporizing people with sex alone can represent someone infecting other people with AIDS or any other condition imaginable. If you take out the aliens, you could have Margaret as the "alien" and she would vaporize people with her libido alone!

Still, Liquid Sky deserves the "High Caffeine Award."

- Kristopher

Akira!

Akira is the most epic anime that I have ever seen with my two eyes. Period.

The above sentence is not enough to summarize how awesome this anime is, and not enough to summarize why mention of it is being made on Aboard the Starship. Akira is based on a series of graphic novels by Katsuhiro Otomo, the same creator who wrote and directed the film. This anime is given high praise because it is a landmark title. Before Akira, anime was infamous for having stilted animation and lip synching that was off with the words. Akira got rid of the medium's annoyances by recording the actors' voices before making the lip synching animations, cranked up the cel animations, inserted a memorable soundtrack, and using a story that blends cyberpunk fiction and a story of political corruption and resistance against an oppressive government wanting to use power-both governmental and psychic-to their own ends. To top it off, the movie is chock full of cool motorcyle sequences.

The back story is that in 1988, a large explosion destroys most of old Tokyo. Fast forwarding to 2019, the story focuses on a biker gang who through a series of events get involved with a group of terrorists trying to take down Neo-Tokyo's dystopian, third-world government. One of the bikers, Tetsuo Shima, is horribly injured after almost running over a child psychic who makes his bike explode. Tetsuo is taken in by the military government to be a test subject in enhancing his psychic capabilities. Kaneda, Tetsuo's best friend, is determined to save him, but can he face against his friend whose powers are growing at a frightening rate?

Akira goes with the old wisdom of science fiction; science fiction is not used to tell the future, but to prevent the future from happening. The military in Akira rounded up children in Japan and performed experiments to enhance their psychic potential. Not to spoil the story, but one of the children, the title character in the story who does not fully appear until the end, is responsible for blowing up Neo Tokyo. Given Japan's history of being bombed by two atomic weapons, there is a message of using and exploiting technology. Moreso, there is a message of exploiting and abusing people with that technology. There is only concern for power, and power is used by the corrupt and turns people like Tetsuo, who is in a rivalry with his friend Kaneda, into power-hungry maniacs.

The movie is also a critique on the old fashioned Japanese type of honor. The Colonel, the figure responsible for the program that performed experiments on the children, is a figure who believes the miiltary should be the sole authority of a city that is ridden in gangs and corruption. He can be compared to an anachronistic shogun who believes the samurai code should continue to thrive in the light of new developments in civil rights and technology.

Below is a parody by Harry Partridge of the American production of Akira that will be coming in 2011. Yes, that's right. An American production of Akira. In 2011. Wonder how that will turn out...I sorely apologize that the screen is rather squished on the blog.



- Kristopher

The Brother - More Human than Human?

The Brother from Another Planet, an indie film classic we watched in Science Fiction Literature and Film class, shows us that we might not be as human as we think. The Brother (Portrayed by Joe Morton), is not native to planet Earth. He would have no bias about how corrupt, insane, or how beautiful and interesting our world can truly be.

I would believe it is fairly ironic that even though the Brother is an alien from another world, he ends up being the most sympathetic and most human character in the movie. He acts like a good scientist (Or a good alien scientist) would; the Brother observes human behavior, interacts with humans in an indirect way and experiences the pains that humans have to deal with. Yes, he has strange feet that would stand out from the rest of the public in Harlem but the Brother is a lot like us.

It would be easy to assume that The Brother from Another Planet would be a blaxploitation flick, but that's not the case at all. The problems associated with problem are explored with the black populace but other people are looked at closer. You have the Southern woman trying to adjust to life in New York, the kid in the subway who enjoys telling stories and playing card tricks at the same time, the Hispanic repairman who warms up to the Brother and other characters the Brother meets along the way.

The Brother has antagonists; he has to evade a pair of white alien bounty hunters who screech like cats and have synchronized actions with one another. They are funny but they are also omnimous of why they are after the Brother. My best guess is that the white aliens represent the oppressive part of society dominated by people who are Caucasian. Even their mannerisms are bureaucratic in nature, as they ask the man in the arcade about his Green Card.

The Brother from Another Planet was funny, intriguing, and truly introspective. The main character, despite being from another world, was easy to relate to and fun to watch as he tries to find his place in a new world.

- Kristopher

Dr. Strangelove - Strange and In Love with Destruction, Influences Included

Dr. Strangelove, being the title character of Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Bomb, is charismatic, ruthless, possibly a Nazi and just downright bizarre. Would you be comfortable with your dentist having a mechanical arm, wearing dark sunglasses, and shouting "SEIG HEIL!" at the wrong moment at the wrong time? I would be yanking myself out of the dentist's chair and checking out with the receptionist knowing none the wiser. Dr. Strangelove is a nuclear physicist whose creation background and character portrayal is inspired by several key historical figures.

According to this site, the German version of Strangelove is "merkwuerdigichliebe," which translates to "cherished fate." The name is significant because given to Dr. Strangelove's demented character, the idea of the whole world going up in nuclear flames would sound immensely appealing. The site also analyzed that director Stanley Kubrick would have chosen historical figures involved in nuclear weaponry and nuclear deterrence to help influence Dr. Strangelove's creation.

The first would be Henry Kissinger; he was born in Germany, his accent is in synth with Strangelove's and Kissenger's psychology appears to be linked up with a serial killer. Kissenger wrote about nuclear war in terms of nuclear deterrance and a limited nuclear war. It is an irony that a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize would be convicted of war crimes against humanity.

The second person to possibly influence Strangelove's creation is Werner Von Braun, a rocket scientist who worked for the Nazi Party in Germany until the end of World War II. Although Von Braun, according to the same site, was not too concerned with human morals and ethics, he was taken in by the U.S. government to help develop rockets despite the crimes against humanity he may have partaken in while in the Nazi Party. Can a man be easily pardoned becauses he pioneered rocketry for space exploration? Maybe he escaped the death penalty by engineering the surrender of himself other rocket scienitsts.

The third person up Dr. Strangelove's creation alley would have to be Edward Teller. This Hungarian scientist is infamous to helping to revoke J. Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance to Los Alamos base, the same base where the first atomic bomb was developed. Teller was a pro-nuclear weapons enthusiast and helped develop the more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The last person to be analyzed would be Herman Kahn. His development for nuclear weapons were more linguistic than most. An example of his linguistic skills would be saying that "only" two million were killed by nuclear weapons. Kahn worked with the RAND corporation, a corporation that was the creation of the Air Force. Kahn's corporate

background is similiar to Dr. Strangelove's partnership with the BLAND corporation.

Looking at these four men related to nuclear warfare and nuclear weapons production, I would have to say these men would be the "Four Scientists of the Apocalypse." You have the strategist, the technologist, the manipulator, and the double-speaker. They were lauded for achievements such as space exploration and diplomacy but they are loathed for supporting genocidal regimes and engineering weapons of mass destruction.

So, what about Dr. Strangelove's mechanical arm? The character's arm may be inspired by Dr. C. A. Rotwang, the mad scientist featured in Fritz Lang's Metropolis who wrecked havoc for everyone in sight. Many critics have made comparisons between Rotwang and Dr. Strangelove, but Kubrick has denied any similiarities. Both are mad scientists, though Rotwang is the guy responsible for the "mad scientist character." Dr. Strangelove can be called a "mad scientist" but he appears to be more of a crook skilled in manipulation, nuclear theory and weirdness.

Dr. Strangelove is a highly memorable character from Kubrick's excellent dark comedy. He is cold, calculating, and is bad news to anyone's war room.

- Kristopher

Invaders from Cards

The movie we saw last week, Mars Attacks, was based on a series of trading cards that beared some resemblances to the movie. The cards themselves are less satirical than the movie's story but they are twice as violent and packing more sexual innuedoes than the movie ever dared to venture to.

So yes, I could not help but make comparisons to the movie and the original trading card source. Yet there are so many simliarities and differences when you consider the Martians vaporizing hapless humans into multicolored skeletons, shrinking soldiers into pint-sized victims and Maritians in giant robots running amok! There is also another gruesome weapon the Martians employ in the cards; giant bugs that are enlarged thanks to their gruesome experiments. And yes, there is a ton of nasty stuff like that...

You can find more information about the cards here.

- Kristopher

Cowboy Bebop - Anime Space Opera or "Space Jazz?"

It just occurred to me lately that as I delve into the space opera realm, I think of my favorite Japanese anime that takes place in the space opera realm. Enter Cowboy Bebop, an anime set in the 2070s after Earth became bombarded from an "interstellar disaster." The anime features three main bounty hunters-ex-Mafioso Spike Spiegel, ex-cop Jet Black and gambler Faye Valentine-and the self-proclaimed Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, A.K.A. Edward who is usually accompanied with Ein, a dog with unusually high intelligence who travel in the ship, the Bebop.

The bounty hunters embark on adventures--or misadventures--across the solar system looking for criminals whom the police cannot capture on their own. There's action, comedy, philosophy, tragedy and animation that's better than most of the current anime lineup coming out. For those unfamiliar with anime, Cowboy Bebop is a great place to start because the series is chock full of Western pop culture references from movies to music.

How is this anime related to space opera? Aside from taking place mostly in space, the crew of the Bebop travel to the ruins of Earth, cities on Mars, and other far off places. Cowboy Bebop can be accurately classified as a "space western." The primary weapon shown in most of the episodes is the handgun, a type of firearm featured heavily in Westerns. The theme of bounty hunters catching their bounty heads in space can also be applied for bounty hunters stalking their quarry across the desert in a Western. Space, according to "The Cold Equations," is a dangerous frontier and this theme is highly apparent in the Cowboy Bebop series.

Below is the trailer for Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, a full length motion picture that features a story set within the main Cowboy Bebop storyline. The movie was the reason I got into the series in the first place. I read a few reviews of people who have never seen the twenty-six episode series but loved the movie with a passion.



- Kristopher

Dark Star Equals "Dork Star?"

When do you get when you have a pre-Thing and Escape from New York John Carpenter, intentionally(?) low production values, a bunch of hippies in space suits, a beach ball that's actually an alien and a bomb that can get philisophical? Ladies and gentlemen, you get Dark Star. This movie is so ridiculously corny that even the name of the movie is painted on the hull of the ship!

Part of me could not decide whether this movie was mildly funny or completely stupid but when the movie ended, I could not end up shaking my head in disbelief of well, the crazy things that happened in a movie where the crew is distressed because their entire supply of toilet paper went with a bomb they used to blow up a planet with.

The whole "blowing up planets" concept baffled me at first; why would a ship blow up random worlds? The movie could be a satire of how countries can casually bomb each other, and the people responsible for the bombs aren't highly trained professionals. They are clueless followers of the Beatles, or clueless impersonaters of the Beatles, whatever the viewer wanted to make out. Dark Star is, clearly enough, a spoof of the space opera because its crew is not valiant; all they want to do is sit around, read romance magazines, play target practice with laser guns and not have to deal with the "beach ball" alien who loves to bash the crew with a broom back and strand them in an elevator shaft (One of the crew members, Pinback, is one of the more disgruntled of the crewmembers that has to contend with a diary system that edits "obscene" words and gestures.).

Possibly the most interesting and funniest scenes involves one of the crew members, Doolittle, trying to talk to a bomb about not exploding. Doolittle tries to talk to the bomb about not exploding using existential philosophy; why should the bomb explode? Why should it not explode? The bomb is "spaced out" as it contemplates why it should exist and why it should not detonate. Could the same philosophy be applied to today's nuclear weaponry? I know we are a long way's off from the "apocalyptic scenario" discussed earlier in class but the space bomb may be a satire of the nuclear bomb. Humans do not usually "talk" to bombs but rather take them for granted and used them to blow up for pleasure and practicality.

The same philosophy used on the bomb could be used on the people responsible for pressing the red button for a nuclear weapon, a set of cluster bombs or a "bunker buster." Why do we explode? Why do we blow stuff up? The movie implies we just do to see something burst into a watercolor painting of napalm and charred chunks flying (or floating) all over the place.

Coming to think of it, people usually say violence in real life is not a good idea but then we enjoy movies like The Terminator, anime and manga like Hellsing that glorifies itself in dark humor and bloodshed and video games like Devil May Cry that congratulates the player on killing monsters in a fantastic fashion. Is Dark Star a satire of destruction, or does it just poke fun as "space opera" elements without regarding to deeper meanings?

Considering how "spaced out" the movie is (According to the poster at the beginning of this post), I would say we should not care what the movie is trying to tell us. Beach ball aliens and talking bombs just do not make any sense. Till then, surf's up!

- Kristopher

The Hugo Award

The Hugo Award can be described as a science fiction Oscar of sorts. The group responsible for presenting the Hugo Award is the World Science Fiction Society. The earliest Hugos were awarded in 1953. Among the winners of the Hugo Award, one of the most famous is the graphic novel Watchmen, which was recently made into a motion picture not too long ago.

The categories that get rewarded are Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Related Book, Dramatic Presentation (Long Form), Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), Professional Editor, (Short Form), Professional Editor, (Long Form), Professional Artist, Semiprozine, Fanzine, Fan Writer, and Fan Artist. For a list of the 2008 winners, click on this link.

- Kristopher

2001: A Well Made Albeit Trippy Odyssey

Let me tell you, it was quite an odyssey.

I was one of those naive viewers who never glimpsed Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey in its trippy, deeply philisophical grandeur. I took in the amazing special effects, still impressive after 1968! Despite the minimal dialogue, I could feel the tensity and grandeur of spacecraft traveling in the moon, the hopelessness on an AI controlled ship and the twisted horror of the final sequence that involves eighteenth century decor. "What?" I asked myself. "Eighteenth century decor? What is this movie anyway?"

Actually, that's how I was throughout the whole movie: I kept asking "What's going on? What's with the apes and the monolith?" I knew the "past" was shown first to show evolution of humankind but it was pretty ambigious nonetheless. It was the same for the mission on the moon, where another monolith was found. Then the trip to Jupiter...I will die knowing that there is a movie that will make me reflect on these twisted images for years to come. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie that will haunt me to a point where I need to see it again. So Kubrick's science fiction adventure was, well, almost near impossible to comprehend with the mysterious mode of direction that was used. And yet, perhaps the movie was not made to stand by itself. Enter Arthur C. Clarke, the man who helped write the screenplay with Kubrick and wrote the novel version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The novel, according to this review by Steven Silver, the novel helps explain the events going on in the movie even though it may only be 90% compatible with the movie. For one thing, the novel version depicts Dr. David Bowman and his crew traveling to Saturn as opposed to Jupiter. I have not read the novel but I will certainly have to pick up it sometime soon.

I usually have some interpretive commentary about what I have seen or read. My best guess about the movie (and other comments I read on the Internet) is that the primary theme is evolution. We see humanity as just a bunch of savage apes eating, growling and fighting amongst one another. Then a giant black stone slab comes down to earth and truly sends the apes into a frenzy. Thousands of years later, humanity goes into space and even a major airline company that exists in the real world gets its own space ship line up. On the moon, where no one would expect nothing but a pitted surface made of chalk, another monolith appears. The "evolution" of this action has us focus a few years later on David and his crew, watched over by a highly intelligent and articulate AI complex named HAL.

HAL may think higher than a human being but may be an antagonist towards human evolution; technology benefits us in many ways but it can destroy us in many ways as well. Why would the atomic bomb be glorified? The device is one technological achievement of humans that would ultimately destroy us. HAL, designed to benefit humankind, turns against its human crew. David succeeds in dismantling HAL and proceeds onto the next stage of evolution; a transcension beyond, time, space and even body!

2001: A Space Odyssey will haunt my psyche for years to come. I'll imagine that I will watch it seventy times and still not get the full picture! Kubrick was awesome for A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove but his props for weirdness in the sci-fi realm tops off all the films he created during his lifetime.

- Kristopher

What is Space Opera?

My class will be veering away from the apocalyptic landscape and into the realm of space with movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. We will be exploring space opera, a field that brings to mind interstellar adventures, ray guns, alien creatures and space ships, lots and lots of spaceships.

When people do look up the term "space opera" and are not science fiction enthusiasts, the usual remarks are "Is it something Star Wars related?" or "I'm sorry, I don't speak Klingon."

"Space opera" was first developed by E.E. "Doc" Smith, one of the originators of the modern science fiction tale. The space opera continued to thrive through the "Golden Age of Science Fiction" that was featured from the 1930s to the early 1940s. The more sophisticated type of space opera emerged with Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Frank Herbert came along for the ride with Dune, a novel that although for the most part was set on the desert planet of Arrakis, it carried many space operatic traits such as battles and events taking place on a large scale. TV featured Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, George Lucas had Star Wars for the big screen, and more media for space opera kept coming with shows like Babylon 5, and role playing games like Travler. The realm of video games is chock full of space opera, with Bioware's Mass Effect, Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft and Bungie's Halo as prime examples. They all feature characters or a group of characters who traverse a planet or a set of planets (or just across the void of space) while battling enemies in form of corrupt empires, parasitic life forms and other antagonistic elements.

Space opera is not deemed "space opera" for nothing because there is usually a large adventure involved with two or more forces clashing with one another. Classic space opera was usually pretty straightforward, taking place in the future with humanity colonizing other worlds outside their galaxy. There are ships that can go faster than the speed of light and alien races that almost always resemble humans and are usually at the same level in terms of technology and even language. The different planets of space opera resemble different countries, with different races resembling different nationalities. Space opera is less about the future and more about the past and present, with intergalatic wars resembling the real worlds Earth has had during the past two centuries, especially World War II.

Here is a link that outlines the history of space opera, because space opera can only fit so much into one post. There are different genres of science fiction that are encompassed with space opera, such as military science fiction, planetary romance and even space westerns. The Internet is a big universe in itself and sometimes the best way to analyze information is to read through all of it. That in itself is a big adventure!

- Kristopher

Invasion of Conformity

The film that we watched for this week, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, had a heavy theme of conformity about it. You have the hero and heroine fleeing for their lives against alien beings who "replaced" normal, everyday folks and loading seed pods onto trucks.

Like most 1950s science fiction films, Invasion of the Body Snatchers has a heavy theme of paranoia; the film may reflect on the "Red Scare" but would also represent "McCarthyism," when Joseph McCarthy began a campaign that resulted in people accused as communists, with individuals such as Arthur Miller facing up to communist charges. The 1950s era was one of conformity with its emphasis on acting in the same manner. This case was-and is-especially apparent in small towns where you could have a narrow-minded community being judgemental to a flamboyant outsider. My instructor, Dr. Clemente, brought in a funny quote from pop artist Andy Warhol, "There is only one good thing about small towns: leaving!" I suppose anyone would agree after witnessing the public loading up seed pods!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers takes place in a small town, where a physician is puzzled by people claiming that someone is not like who they were. He is skeptical until he sees a "clone" of a man working at his personal bar. The aliens who take control have no passion or need for love. In a sense, they would be the proverbial wolves in sheep's clothing; your friendly accountant might be a conniving alien being and you might not know about it. In the science fiction movies we saw, the use of teamwork was used in The Thing from Another World to illustrate that humanity needed to stand united against a common foe. In Invasion, standing united meant standing amongst like-minded individuals bent on taking control of the world and molding it into their similiar liking. As a self-proclaimed nonconformist, this would scare me and others who do not want to be controlled by alien beings in pods!

The movie's theme of paranoia and fear of conformity has aged fairly well. It has aged so well that it was remade three times. The latest version is The Invasion with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

- Kristopher

A Boy, a Dog, a Nuke, and What They Influenced

Watching A Boy and His Dog brought up several things to mind: the fact that people in the future would look for women for carnal and culinary reasons, people underground would fake happiness with clown makeup and dogs would be smarter than humans by not pressing the red button. I also could not help but make comparisons to a comic and a video game series that features a man and man's best friend.

Post Nuke - Set in a land where nuclear winter has befallen Earth, the comic follows the adventures of survivor Christopher Manic and his (non-talking) dog Aries as they survive post-nuke raiders, zombies and a dystopian empire's control on Earth. The artwork by Andreas Duller is simply incredible, with a heavy amount of details going into textures in vivid black and white. Duller's style is both enthralling and harrowing and the story of Chris' journey and its plot will keep readers interested.

Post Nuke was originally to be a film project, but because of budget constraints, comic creater Duller decided to make an online graphic novel instead. You can look at the blog and artwork for Post Nuke and other creations here.

Fallout - In my graphic novel class, we read comics that depicted the creation and the atrocious consequences of using a nuclear weapon. The comic was Fallout, a scientific graphic nonfiction book I covered on my comics blog, The Graphic Maelstrom. Coincidentially, there is a game series called Fallout (Which I have not played yet) that depicts a man and his dog. The game is a role playing game where players walk around a post nuclear landscape in an alternate timeline. Below is the trailer for the latest entry of the series, Fallout 3. The trailer has a 1950s "nuclear war" spoof (Which serves as part of the backstory for the game). This is an Mature Rated game, so expect post nuclear carnage in form of hot lead, energy and missles to take place.

So what's with the "male human and his dog" complex? Did Duller borrow the concept from A Boy and His Dog? Duller commented that he had never played the Fallout games, so the possibility of him playing the game and borrowing the game's influences can be ruled out as a possibility. I have no idea if he ever saw A Boy and His Dog, but if he didn't, then it can be said the "boy and his dog" concept in a post-nuclear adventure would be as iconic as the warrior with his sword fighting ogres and dragons in swords and sorcery fantasy or spaceships being iconic with the realm of science fiction.

Yes, A Boy and His Dog was science fiction, and so is Post Nuke and Fallout. So where are the spaceships? Where are the aliens? Where are the ray guns? Well, it depends on what kind of science fiction you are looking into.

- Kristopher

Waiting for the Zephyr...And Wind Power

In the twenty-first century, one would expect to ponder about energy alternatives to fossil fuels. "Waiting for the Zephyr" by Tobias Buckell answers this question by taking a familiar theme of a kid wanting to leave her parents' farm to work in a flourishing city. The city may not offer any better alternatives to life but it could be better than nothing with the farms dying out in a world that has officially run out of conventional fuel.

So would "Waiting for the Zephyr" be based on possibilities for wind power, that we should stop using fossil fuels and start searching for alternatives? I would believe that would be the case. You already have examples of wind power through wind mills. Wind power is considered to be "renewable" because wind will continue to blow as long as the sun shines on Earth's surface. The ancient Egyptians and other cultures used sails to power their vessels with wind. The wind mills were constructed to grind wheat and other crops, not to mention pumping water. In the 1970s, due to concern of oil shortages, wind power was explored as an energy alternative. The 1990s also saw exploration of wind power for concerns of the environment. Today, wind power and other sources of energy, such as biofuel, are being explored as possible replacements for fossil fuels. Most wind programs are based on the United States and Europe, where governments place most support in wind production. The United States is rated as number six in terms of wind power in the world. Holland, of course, is best known for its windmills.

There are even projects related to wind generators, with websites like this one here that details research and construction of wind power devices. People can gather some materials to make their own wind powered instruments! It goes so far that people are responsible for the world around them and that they should do their best to make it as less polluted as possible.

The Chinese proverb "May you live in interesting times" has never been so revelant. Humanity is threatened by nuclear weaponry, biological armaments and the possibility of its resources being used up. "Waiting for the Zephyr" offers a future where there is doom, but not so much gloom that there are wind-powered devices moving around. Perhaps one day we will rely on not only alternate fuels, but alternate vehicles that take advantage of the sky's versatility and grandeur.

- Kristopher

Guide to the Apocalypse

After reading "Still Life With Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey, I thought of a television program on the History Channel that asked people what they would do before the world ended. There were quite a few responses and varied answers, so I decided to make a post that reflected these fears and worries.

I read this article from The Guardian, a United Kingdom-based news site that had a reporter visit a man preparing the apocalypse. Here is what she laid out in the article provided if anyone survived the apocalypse:

• "Pop into the National Gallery and take Jan Van Eyck's Portrait of a Man off the wall. (If you have no taste, take a Renoir.) The Van Eyck is hanging in the Sainsbury Wing. If you want to preserve it properly, Thomas Almeroth-Williams of the National Gallery suggests you store it in a slate mine, where the temperature and humidity levels are perfect for its conservation."

• "Go to the British Library and help yourself to one of its two copies of Shakespeare's First Folio. One is in a box in a strong room under the library floor; the other is in a glass case in the Treasure Room. If you want to preserve it properly, Helen Shenton of the British Library suggests you store it in a cool, dark place, and watch it carefully for infestations by animals or fungi. Dust regularly."

• "Steal the crown jewels. If you can. "There are contingency plans in place in event of a power failure," says a Royal Palaces spokesperson, "so the crown jewels should remain safe." Really? To preserve them properly, do nothing. A diamond is for ever."

• "Invade the News of the World - it's in Wapping - and read all its secret files. Then break into M15. It's on Millbank. Read all its secret files too. Oh, no! She was murdered! I knew it!"

• "Go and stand on the stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Skip over the bodies of the dead actors. Re-enact the whole of Oliver!"

To be honest, I might interpret her guide to being satirical. Would money and jewels be worth anything after all the governments fail on this planet due to a planetary catastrophe? Who cares? The world would be over and people would be ransacking everything all over the place. People could raid the CIA database and see if the crackpots concocting JFK conspiracies were off their rocker or not. People could see if American astronauts landed on the news or not (They did according to history, you naysayers!). Whatever happens, new revelations and new ways of biding time would be provided with the apocalypse. Not that the apocalypse should not be openly embraced but anything's better than cowering in a fallout shelter, right?

- Kristopher

The Arthurian Legend and the Apocalypse

"Artie's Angels" by Catherine Wells was nothing like I expected from the book we are using in class, titled Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. It was a biography of a flawed but heroic figure named Artie who was accompanied by a girl named Faye (Similiar to Moran LeFey) as he starts a bicycle business on post-apocalyptic Earth. It was a fictionaly biography inspired by another life's story which is truly legendary: the life of King Arthur who started his famous Round Table of Knights. I have looked up King Arthur's history, though a lot does not mirror too much of Artie's life. Still, there are tones from the Arthurian legend that make it to the short story.

Like Arthur in legend, Artie was pragmatic, clever, and resourceful. He was also good moral support for Faye, who was told no one could hurt her because she was "magic." Artie began amassing several followers and even instated a code where thieving was necessary but that no one could steal from anyone poorer than his group was. Artie's gang rides on bicycles. Because of this, Faye (Who renames herself Morgan) dubbed her group as the "Knights of the Wheel Round." There is certainly a reference to the "Knights of the Round Table," where Arthur and his knights had their meetings.

Artie also had another hobby that can be attributed to most famous male figures: woman chasing. Artie had several girlfriends and even fooled around with some while another woman was waiting for him. But the only one he takes for granted is Faye, who had ill confidence of being with him. Artie also kept refusing to focus on working with building bigger machines than bicycles. There was technology developed to save humankind from doomsday but Artie wanted to continue helping those who could not help themselves. Artie, though a womanizer, had immense credibility. Rather than looking out for himself and pursuing means that could advance his life in a time of apocalyptic crisis, Artie ignored greater risks imposed on himself.

Like Arthur, Artie's presence became larger after he died from a gang's shotgun blast. Faye put it this way, "The stories of Artie's exploits grow richer with each telling; and in them he succeeds, in ways he could only dram of, in protecting the helpless and improving the lives of those he left behind." The stories of King Arthur was very popular today in literature, movies, comic books and any other media you can think of. Artie was placed in a cryogenic chamber by Faye after his demise much like King Arthur was placed Avalon by Morgan LeFey.

Even in the apocalype, some old stories would carry on to create new ones. "Artie's Angels" is an example of this case, where themes from a previous source would still be prevalent in a new one.

- Kristopher

Dark, Dark Is Human Degeneration

I finished reading George R. R. Martin's "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels" with a feeling of dreadful revelation. The story began in an ambigious fashion with the main character, Greel, hunting with his pet rat H'ssig in the dark tunnels. Meanwhile, you have two explorers from the moon who descended into a post-apocalyptic Earth to look for "fresh genetic stock." Needless to say, as the reader gets deeper into the story, he or she will find humanity "degenerated" both ways: one from radiation and adaptation to a hostile world and another from being too comfortable in an environment where the greatest risk was inbreeding.

Greel was afraid of the "fire," or the bright lights that the explorers for toting. The reason was that Greel was adjusted to dark situations after keeping away from the surface for so many centuries. Greel would be the "ignorant" half of humanity, the cave man who has been in the cave for so long. I thought of my World Literature class that I took while I was in Highland Community College when my instructor had us read Plato's "Allegory of a Cave." Plato stated that humanity would live in a state of ignorance, which would be personified as a cave. Greel woudl be among the people who would only be aware of his ancestors' past only through oral traditions of the elders who did not know much about their ancestry either. Greel can be a forgotten creature among a forgotten people.

Greel's description as a hunched, humanoid being with milky white skin and large eyes reminded me of the blind, humanoid monsters featured in The Descent, a movie where a group of six women descend for a spelunking trip gone horribly wrong. The picture I inserted probably looks nothing like Greel, who is described having very large eyes and is able to see. But this creature has pale white skin, so it is a good enough match. He is guided by a rat companion named H'ssig who serves as a type of "hunting dog."

I guess another comparison to the "big eyed human rodent" would be Gollum from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga. I find it coincidential that Martin is a fantasy writer, just like Tolkien was a fantasy writer. And that Gollum and Martin's "rat man" share strong resemblances. Then again, maybe I am overanalyzing. Then again, Gollum detested light and had a connection with the One Ring. Greel hated light and had a connection with his rat companion. The biggest difference was that Greel would not be a jewlery addict that gets a couple of naive hobbits into trouble. He would just throw a spear at some prick from the moon who shot his pet rodent dead.

The connection between the both of them can be likened that they are "brothers." Both are very rat-like and live underground away from a hot, ugly surface. They "sense" each other because they are one and the same lurking though the tunnels. Dogs would have been "man's best friend" but centuries later, we have "humankind" on Earth befriending what they sought to destroy for many centuries. Martin could be making a point that humandkind had become what it sought to destroy. Centuries later, the near blue-blooded elite who lived on the moon for so long would view the survivors as something as less than they were. They would not befriend the rats, they would smoke out every last one.

Not to ramble too far on a different subject but I would not be surprised that if (Heaven forbid, only if) an nuclear war were to go on, cockroaches would be able to survive. But rats are cunning and resourceful in their own way. Both humans and rats are mammals, so to me, it would not make sense if humans evolved into cockroaches. Besides, eating cockroaches would most likely kill you if you tried to adapt to dining on them. Rats, unlike cockroaches, have their set of behaviors and set of intelligence higher than a cockroach would possess. They would not be the simple minded animals that cockroaches would be.

"Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels" provides an apocalyptic scenario of if we survived the apocalypse. We would face another apocalypse entirely; we would lose our humanity and lose what had made us strong. Sure, we can preserve whatever we can of our culture like the lunar explorers did but then we would lose the strength to survive on earth. Like the lunar people, our muscles would grow weak of floating around in a zero gravity environment for so long. As for the "tunnel people," we could grow strong and adapt to our environment but we would lose our humanity and knowledge of who we were. We would face extinction on a gene-based level.

- Kristopher