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