Nothing But Words

Kosh Lives!

Topic: TV, Movies, and Music
Tags: Sci Fi

One of the few pages left on my site that I hadn’t incorporated into WordPress (until now) was Ask Kosh. It dates back to about 1997 and is one of just a few pages that remains from my original site. It used to be its own self contained mini-site, with half a dozen pages of ancillary nonsense attached to it. I’ve stripped it down to just a single page, which I think will be enough to satisfy whatever interest remains in cryptic ol’ Kosh. Ask Kosh was a big hit back when Babylon 5 was still running new episodes - it even made a top 10 list in Total TV magazine.

To Serve All My Days

Topic: TV, Movies, and Music
Tags: Sci Fi

I’m a few years late to the party, but last night, while searching for something totally unrelated, I accidentally discovered (and then watched) To Serve All My Days. It’s an episode in the fan produced series Star Trek - Phase II. It continues the original series, with fans playing the roles of the original cast. I have to say it was actually not bad. The fact that longtime Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana penned the script and that Walter Koenig reprised his role as a Chekov probably didn’t hurt. In this episode Chekov undergoes rapid aging, which is a convenient solution to Koening being 40 years older now than when he first played Chekov (but he’s not as old as he looks in the picture here! That’s all makeup). I was particularly impressed with how they ended the episode - it was a touching and unexpected conclusion.

The acting overall was amateurish, but not cringe inducing - no worse than some other sci-fi series that have been on TV (I’m thinking of shows like Andromeda and the 1st year of Babylon 5). I enjoyed James Calwey who played Kirk - he often seemed barely able to contain his glee, hamming up Kirk just like Shatner did. There were only two cast members I found distracting: Ben Tolpin Jeff Quinn as Spock, not because of his acting, but because of the horrific makeup/headgear he was wearing, and Charles Root as Scotty, also not because of his acting, but because he looks almost exactly like Dan Akroyd (I kept expecting him to break out into a Blues Brothers routine at any moment).

The sets for the ship were particularly impressive - they were indistinguishable from the original 1960s sets. In terms of special effects, a big thing the show has going for it is the natural point of comparison is the original series, so the bar is set low. Like the original series, they have folks leaping onto their faces and things falling from the ceiling to provide the impression of a space battle. Unlike the original series, they use cheesy CGI instead of cheesy models for the space scenes. One advantage this gives the new series, however, is the ability to do some sophisticated maneuvering of ships during the battle scenes, so that was fun to watch.

I’m writing this because I know there are at least a few Trek fans lurking around my site. This is the article I stumbled across about the show, which has some interesting background information (like why they aren’t in trouble with Paramount for making the series, and that J.J. Abrams dropped in one time to give them some tips). You can download episodes from the Star Trek: Phase II site.

Robot Stories / Philip K. Dick

Topic: TV, Movies, and Music
Tags: Movies, Sci Fi

The other day I heard an interview with the director of the new low-budget sci-fi film Robot Stories. Here’s the web site: http://www.robotstories.net/ - unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s going to make it to Philly. The film consists of 4 short stories. I’m most keen to see the last of the four “Clay”. It’s about an aging sculptor, trying to finish his final work, but his body is falling apart on him. In this story, people can have their consciousness scanned and uploaded, and that’s what old folks and the dying do, so they can live on. Once uploaded, they can merge with all the knowledge and experience of others who have been uploaded, and they live in a sort of digital nirvana. So his kids and his already-dead-and-scanned wife are gently telling him, “Dad, it’s time to upload.” I gather the story focuses on his internal struggle between fulfilling his families wishes, the innate desire to live on, and trying to retain an important aspect of his humanity: his mortality.

To me this is what good science fiction is all about. It’s not about big budgets and battles in space. It’s about understanding our own humanity, and providing some kind of moral framework for understanding where we, as a society, may be headed. Through the use of plot devices not available in other kinds of story telling (e.g. another one of the stories in the film is about a couple that’s required to adopt a robot baby before they will be given a real baby), science fiction can offer a fresh perspective on what it means to be human.

This is why I’ve been a fan of Philip K. Dick for so long (the movies Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report were based on his stories). He was writing these kinds of stories in the 50s, long before anyone else was. (And long before we were hit over the head with Data in Star Trek). If you’re looking for a good read, I’d recommend his novels VALIS and and Time Out of Joint . BTW, the short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” is what they based “Total Recall” on. I like the short story title better, but I suppose that’s too many words for the title of a Hollywood movie