Category: Science Fiction

Just got back from seeing Episode III.

It’s clearly the best of the prequel trilogy–by a longshot.

What surprised me most about it is that, despite its listed running time of 146 minutes, the movie itself is only 26 minutes long, after you sit through two hours of previews. Doesn’t take Annakin harly any time to fall at all. Hope they don’t put all the previews on the DVD to fill up space.

Okay, I’m kidding about that of course. They won’t put the previews on the DVD.

And the movie also is really 146 minutes long, it just feels like you sit through two hours of previews first.

Episode III is, as I said, the best of the prequel trilogy. It succeeds in the chief tasks it sets for itself, which are considerable.

First and foremost, it has to find a convincing way to make Annakin turn to the Dark Side–something a lot more convincing than the "temptation" Luke gets put through in Episode VI. Ranting about the "true nature" and "power" of the Dark Side ain’t gonna do it. There has to be something more than that to make a convincing turn from good to evil.

The trick is harder than you’d think because of the extreme nature of the turn that has to be made. It’s not like getting somebody to cheat on his taxes. They’ve got to take Annakin Skywalker from being a little resentful to being a full-blown, black-wearin’, helmet-sportin’, Jedi-killin’, voice-raspin’ Supervillain.

What makes that so hard?

Well, people who are supervillains generally don’t believe that. Like everybody else, they like to think of themselves and what they are doing as good, and it’s hard to make Darth Vader-level evil look good.

The film thus has the challenge of taking us far enough into Annakin’s perspective to make what he’s doing seem intelligible, but not so far into it that we end up believing that the Jedi are evil and need to be wiped out.

The movie succeeds far, far better than I thought.

In fact, in some ways it succeeds a little too well, though there’ll be time to talk about that on another occasion, once folks have had a chance to see the movie.

I think there are flaws, though. Up to the point that Annakin actually turns to the Dark Side the movie is firing on all cylinders. Just after this, though, there is a scene in which Annakin formalizes his commitment to the Dark Side that I don’t think works as well. And then Annakin goes and does something so evil that, frankly, I could have done without it. It exceeds the bounds of what is believable in terms of sane human motivation and one can only be explained upon some kind of Dark Side mental compulsion that ain’t spelled out explicitly in the movie.

I would have handled things a little differently. Lucas has Annakin’s initial conversion to the Dark Side (which is quite intelligible) occur earlier than his final descent into total, irrational supervillainry, and I would have had the descent bridging the two be more even and gradual than what the film gives us.

Despite this, the movie does achieve its primary goal: Getting Annakin to break with the Light Side and embrace the Dark Side believably.

The movie also achieves its secondary objective, which is tying up the significant loose ends: How do Luke and Leia get born? How are they separated? How do the Jedi fall? What’s the sequence of events leading Yoda an Obi-Wan to go into exile? Why does the Emperor look so icky in the original trilogy? What’s with the "becoming one with the Force" bit? What is the confusing prophecy of "Bringing balance to the Force" supposed to mean in practical terms? Why doesn’t C-3P0 remember any of this? And most importantly: How Does Darth Get Physically Transformed Into A Half-Machine Icon Of Darkness And Why Doesn’t He Know About Luke And Leia?

The answers to some of these are obvious, but we still need to see them happen. Others are things fans have speculated on for years. The film manages to achieve these quite well, though at the price of introducing one notable departure from established continuity (something mentioned in a scene in Episode VI).

I’m prepared to accept the departure from continuity, though, as I think it serves the overall plot and makes the story of Episode III more believable. If Lucas hadn’t departed from continuity on this one point, it would have been harder to pull off the ending of the film.

The film’s third goal–like always–is to dazzle us with action, and it does that, though I’m probably not the best person to describe action scenes as my focus is more on plot and character.

It’s final major goal–also as always–is to be visually stunning, and it certainly is that. People are right when they say that this movie is more visually stunning than any previous Star Wars film. Not in every scene, mind you, but overall, it is. We get a raft of new visually dymanic worlds to look at–some (unfortunately) seen only in passing during the fall of the Jedi.

A favorite of mine are some scenes in which Obi-Wan is mounted on a Giant Battle Iguana-Chicken What Goes "Awp! Awp!" (It’s better than it sounds.)

We also get to (briefly) see the Wookies in action in their home environment, which can only call-up regrets about what Episode VI should have shown us. (Lucas originally planned for the forrest moon of Endor to be inhabited by Wookiees, but changed his mind, cut them in half, made them more teddy-bear like, and called them Ewoks–Wook-iee —-> Eee-wok, Get It?)

The acting has also improved, though it’s still poor. Ewan McGregor kicks butt as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda is okay. Samuel L. Jackson still comes off as flat to me, but Hayden Christiansen’s acting has literally doubled in quality since Episode II. Unfortunately, since his acting score last time was only 2.0 out of 10.0 possible, he’s still only up to 4.0 out of 10.0.

There are other things about the film that I’d nitpick, but there will be time for that later after folks have seen it, and these don’t fundamentally distract from the fact that this is without a doubt the best of the prequel trilogy.

I need to see it a second time before I try to compare it to the films of the first trilogy (though I strongly suspect I’ll conclude that it’s better than Episode VI, which is infested with teddy bears and lame attempts at conversion to the Dark Side, among other things).

NOTE: I know folks are likely to want to talk about this film, but since many have not seen it yet, please keep the combox for this post a SPOILER FREE ZONE. Comments with spoilers will be DELETED. I’ll create another post with a combox for spoiler-laden discussion for those who have already seen the film.

Just got back from seeing Episode III.

It’s clearly the best of the prequel trilogy–by a longshot.

What surprised me most about it is that, despite its listed running time of 146 minutes, the movie itself is only 26 minutes long, after you sit through two hours of previews. Doesn’t take Annakin harly any time to fall at all. Hope they don’t put all the previews on the DVD to fill up space.

Okay, I’m kidding about that of course. They won’t put the previews on the DVD.

And the movie also is really 146 minutes long, it just feels like you sit through two hours of previews first.

Episode III is, as I said, the best of the prequel trilogy. It succeeds in the chief tasks it sets for itself, which are considerable.

First and foremost, it has to find a convincing way to make Annakin turn to the Dark Side–something a lot more convincing than the "temptation" Luke gets put through in Episode VI. Ranting about the "true nature" and "power" of the Dark Side ain’t gonna do it. There has to be something more than that to make a convincing turn from good to evil.

The trick is harder than you’d think because of the extreme nature of the turn that has to be made. It’s not like getting somebody to cheat on his taxes. They’ve got to take Annakin Skywalker from being a little resentful to being a full-blown, black-wearin’, helmet-sportin’, Jedi-killin’, voice-raspin’ Supervillain.

What makes that so hard?

Well, people who are supervillains generally don’t believe that. Like everybody else, they like to think of themselves and what they are doing as good, and it’s hard to make Darth Vader-level evil look good.

The film thus has the challenge of taking us far enough into Annakin’s perspective to make what he’s doing seem intelligible, but not so far into it that we end up believing that the Jedi are evil and need to be wiped out.

The movie succeeds far, far better than I thought.

In fact, in some ways it succeeds a little too well, though there’ll be time to talk about that on another occasion, once folks have had a chance to see the movie.

I think there are flaws, though. Up to the point that Annakin actually turns to the Dark Side the movie is firing on all cylinders. Just after this, though, there is a scene in which Annakin formalizes his commitment to the Dark Side that I don’t think works as well. And then Annakin goes and does something so evil that, frankly, I could have done without it. It exceeds the bounds of what is believable in terms of sane human motivation and one can only be explained upon some kind of Dark Side mental compulsion that ain’t spelled out explicitly in the movie.

I would have handled things a little differently. Lucas has Annakin’s initial conversion to the Dark Side (which is quite intelligible) occur earlier than his final descent into total, irrational supervillainry, and I would have had the descent bridging the two be more even and gradual than what the film gives us.

Despite this, the movie does achieve its primary goal: Getting Annakin to break with the Light Side and embrace the Dark Side believably.

The movie also achieves its secondary objective, which is tying up the significant loose ends: How do Luke and Leia get born? How are they separated? How do the Jedi fall? What’s the sequence of events leading Yoda an Obi-Wan to go into exile? Why does the Emperor look so icky in the original trilogy? What’s with the "becoming one with the Force" bit? What is the confusing prophecy of "Bringing balance to the Force" supposed to mean in practical terms? Why doesn’t C-3P0 remember any of this? And most importantly: How Does Darth Get Physically Transformed Into A Half-Machine Icon Of Darkness And Why Doesn’t He Know About Luke And Leia?

The answers to some of these are obvious, but we still need to see them happen. Others are things fans have speculated on for years. The film manages to achieve these quite well, though at the price of introducing one notable departure from established continuity (something mentioned in a scene in Episode VI).

I’m prepared to accept the departure from continuity, though, as I think it serves the overall plot and makes the story of Episode III more believable. If Lucas hadn’t departed from continuity on this one point, it would have been harder to pull off the ending of the film.

The film’s third goal–like always–is to dazzle us with action, and it does that, though I’m probably not the best person to describe action scenes as my focus is more on plot and character.

It’s final major goal–also as always–is to be visually stunning, and it certainly is that. People are right when they say that this movie is more visually stunning than any previous Star Wars film. Not in every scene, mind you, but overall, it is. We get a raft of new visually dymanic worlds to look at–some (unfortunately) seen only in passing during the fall of the Jedi.

A favorite of mine are some scenes in which Obi-Wan is mounted on a Giant Battle Iguana-Chicken What Goes "Awp! Awp!" (It’s better than it sounds.)

We also get to (briefly) see the Wookies in action in their home environment, which can only call-up regrets about what Episode VI should have shown us. (Lucas originally planned for the forrest moon of Endor to be inhabited by Wookiees, but changed his mind, cut them in half, made them more teddy-bear like, and called them Ewoks–Wook-iee —-> Eee-wok, Get It?)

The acting has also improved, though it’s still poor. Ewan McGregor kicks butt as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda is okay. Samuel L. Jackson still comes off as flat to me, but Hayden Christiansen’s acting has literally doubled in quality since Episode II. Unfortunately, since his acting score last time was only 2.0 out of 10.0 possible, he’s still only up to 4.0 out of 10.0.

There are other things about the film that I’d nitpick, but there will be time for that later after folks have seen it, and these don’t fundamentally distract from the fact that this is without a doubt the best of the prequel trilogy.

I need to see it a second time before I try to compare it to the films of the first trilogy (though I strongly suspect I’ll conclude that it’s better than Episode VI, which is infested with teddy bears and lame attempts at conversion to the Dark Side, among other things).

NOTE: I know folks are likely to want to talk about this film, but since many have not seen it yet, please keep the combox for this post a SPOILER FREE ZONE. Comments with spoilers will be DELETED. I’ll create another post with a combox for spoiler-laden discussion for those who have already seen the film.

In a recent editorial in the L.A. Times, Card is found dancing on the grave of Star Trek. He writes (EXCERPTS):

So they’ve gone and killed "Star Trek." And it’s about time.

The original "Star Trek," created by Gene Roddenberry, was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science fiction television show could be bad.

This was in the days before series characters were allowed to grow and change, before episodic television was allowed to have a through line. So it didn’t matter which episode you might be watching, from which year — the characters were exactly the same.

As science fiction, the series was trapped in the 1930s — a throwback to spaceship adventure stories with little regard for science or deeper ideas. It was sci-fi as seen by Hollywood: all spectacle, no substance.

Which was a shame, because science fiction writing was incredibly fertile at the time, with writers like Harlan Ellison and Ursula LeGuin, Robert Silverberg and Larry Niven, Brian W. Aldiss and Michael Moorcock, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke creating so many different kinds of excellent science fiction that no one reader could keep track of it all.

Little of this seeped into the original "Star Trek." The later spinoffs were much better performed, but the content continued to be stuck in Roddenberry’s rut. So why did the Trekkies throw themselves into this poorly imagined, weakly written, badly acted television series with such commitment and dedication? Why did it last so long?

Here’s what I think: Most people weren’t reading all that brilliant science fiction. Most people weren’t reading at all. So when they saw "Star Trek," primitive as it was, it was their first glimpse of science fiction. It was grade school for those who had let the whole science fiction revolution pass them by.

Now we finally have first-rate science fiction film and television that are every bit as good as anything going on in print.

Charlie Kaufman created the two finest science fiction films of all time so far: "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof have created "Lost," the finest television science fiction series of all time … so far.

Through-line series like Joss Whedon’s "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Alfred Gough’s and Miles Millar’s "Smallville" have raised our expectations of what episodic sci-fi and fantasy ought to be. Whedon’s "Firefly" showed us that even 1930s sci-fi can be well acted and tell a compelling long-term story.

Screen sci-fi has finally caught up with written science fiction. We’re in college now. High school is over. There’s just no need for "Star Trek" anymore.

In dismissing Star Trek in this fashion, Card is wrong.

First, it is out of place to fault a series for not having changing characters if "[t]his was in the days before series characters were allowed to grow and change."

One can fault more recent Star Trek series if they follow this rule too closely since it no longer applies on television–and so I do fault it–but much of TV is still significantly encumbered by this rule. There is still, even today, not enough room for character development on most shows, though mercifully there is more room than when TOS was on the air.

His remark

As science fiction, the series was trapped in the 1930s — a throwback to spaceship adventure stories with little regard for science or deeper ideas.

is simple chronological snobbery.

It doens’t matter that Star Trek resembled the print sci-fi of 30 years earlier. You couldn’t get away with cutting-edge contemporary sci-fi on television in 1967. No network was going to plunk down the change to do a serious episodic sci-fi series. They insisted on imposing contemporary television standards on the series they produced. Just say the word "Starlost" around Harlan Ellison and see the reaction you get. You therefore can’t hold a 1960s TV series up to standards that it was impossible for such a series to meet at time.

Further, what’s with being so utterly dismissive of 1930s sci-fi? It’s true that there was a mountainous load of junk published in the ’30s, but there was also good stuff being done. H. P. Lovecraft did his best work in the ’30s.

The factors that Card mentions about ’30s sci-fi–that the stories were set on space-ships, that they had little regard for science or "deeper ideas" (presumably moral/social ones)–may be true, but how much of an intrinsic aesthetic problem is this?

Space-ships take people to new places, but that increases story potential rather than decreasing it. I don’t see anything intrinsically inaesthetic about basing a story cycle on a ship that takes the characters new places. Homer seems to have gotten rather a lot of mileage out of that concept (pun intended). He used it for, oh, one of the most prestigious works of literature of all time.

As to having little regard for science, this can have to meanings: (1) The show doesn’t deliberately develop a focus on matters of known science, or (2) it violates what seem to be rules established by known science.

If Card means (1) then he is simply expressing a preference for "hard" science fiction that focuses on issues of whether the specific gravity or average wind velocity of a particular planet creates the potential for a specific plot situation. Nothing about general human aesthetics requires a focus of science-oriented stories (rather than plot- or character- or atmosphere-oriented stories). Therefore, it would be parochial at best to mandate a preference for stories of this type.

If Card means (2) then a different problem is created. It’s true that Star Trek violates a bunch of scientific laws, but so what? A very large amount of sci-fi (and other forms of speculative fiction) does this, and as long as it’s in the service of the story, it’s not a problem. It only becomes a problem when it starts to infringe on the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

The Lord of the Rings is the greatest piece of literature the 20th century produced, but it is not a work of hard SF.

One may have a personal preference for hard sci-fi where no or few laws get broken, but that’s a personal aesthetic and not an objective judgement about literature. To apply that ethic thorouhly would push one back into realistic fiction and out of speculative fiction altogether.

Further, among of the primordial creations of the human race was mythology and folklore, in which natural law is broken right and left. Unless you want to say that these are intrinsically unworthy enterprises–forming as they do the primordial ground of and constant inspiration for the corpus of human literature–then you’re going to have to allow the existence of varying degrees of departure from science as permissible in fiction.

The selection of any particular degree of departure (e.g., alternate history, hard SF, science fantasy, pure fantasy) is simply a matter of personal taste.

As to the original Star Trek not having an interest in "deeper issues," this is just false. Card apparently hasn’t watched Star Trek in so long that he’s forgotten all the episodes.

Not every episode may have had a deep issue at its core, but the series regularly explored concepts like the existence and nature of God, the necessity of human freedom, war and peace, racial discrimination, and numerous others. I might not like all of the answers Roddenberry and his colleagues proposed for these questions, but you can’t say that they weren’t interested in them.

The most preposterous claim Card makes, though, is right at the end. Having griped about the failings of The Original Series exclusively in his article, he then lumps all the subsequent series in with it as if they all were of similar quality. (They ain’t.) Having tarred all incarnations of Star Trek with the same brush, he then says:

Screen sci-fi has finally caught up with written science fiction. We’re in college now. High school is over. There’s just no need for "Star Trek" anymore.

Right.

This is why there are no Star Trek fans anymore. They have all become devotees of Being John Malkovitch and Eternal Sunshine. Instead of calling themselves "Trekkers" they’re now calling themselves "John Malkovitches" and holding conventions with "This Space For Rent" written on their foreheads and filling the Internet with countless fanfic stories about Eternal Sunshine.

Not!

Now don’t get me wrong. I agree with Philip J. Fry’s assessment of the original Star Trek: "Made 78 episodes–about a third of them good." There was a lot of stupid, stupid stuff in those shows, and a number of episodes are simply painful to watch.

But to be as dismissive of the whole corpus of Star Trek as Card is reveals a writer who, now that he has graduated from "high school" is in the process of proving how mature he is in "college" and so takes himself waaaay too seriously and has a restricted scope of aesthetic appreciation. He’s afraid to let himself enjoy sophomoric things anymore lest it take away from the gravitas he wants himself to have as a college man.

But y’know what? After college you start having kids. And then you have the fun of reading them bedtime stories and watching cartoons with them. And you realize: "Y’know, these are better than I thought." And you start to enjoy "childish" things all over again.

Because you no longer have to prove how grown up you are.

Orson Scott Card ought to know this because, in reality, he is an adult with several children of his own, but then he’s also a sci-fi author and they don’t get no respect from literary types, so it’s understandable if he wants to prove how "serious" a field sci-fi can be.

But he goes too far in this case.

For all its numerous flaws, Star Trek in its various incarnations really spoke to folks. It wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did without that happening. I find it as annoying as anybody else when I’m watching a Star Trek episode and hit something that painfully takes me out of the story because it’s so implausible. But the idea that Star Trek as a whole is worthless is just wrong. Many episodes of Next Gen and DS9 and even the original series were worthwhile entertainment, however unscientific or "unconcerned" with deeper issues they were.

Orson, lemme know when you’re out of "college" and aren’t trying to prove yourself anymore.

I’ve got some cartoon and childrens’ book recommendations that might come in handy.

In his book How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (a Writers’ Digest book), Card analyzes Star Trek and says (EXCERPTS):

The original series creator [Gene Roddenberry] wanted characters with the power to make decisions, and centered on the captain and executive officer of a military starship. Unfortunately, however, as anyone who knows anything about the miltary will tell you, the comanders of ships and armies don’t have many interesting adventures. They’re almost always at headquaters, making the big decisions and sending out the orders to the people who do the physically dangerous work.

In any real starfleet there would be teams of trained explorers, diplomats, and scientists ready to venture forth at the commander’s orders. If Star Trek had been about one such team, the stories would have been inherently more plausible–and there would have been room for tension between the ship’s officers and the exploration teams, a rich vein of story possibilities that was virtually untapped.

Instead, Star Trek centered around the characters with the highest prestige who, in a realistic world, would have the least freedom.

Any captain of a ship or commander of an army who behaved like Captain Kirk would be stripped of command for life. But the series would not have worked otherwise.

At this point you might be saing to yourself, "I should be so lucky as to make mistakes like Star Trek–I could use a few bestsellers." But the point I’m making is that Star Trek could not possibly have succeeded if the captain had actually behaved like a captiain. Centering the series around a commanding officer was such a bad mistake that the show immediately corrected for the error by never, for one moment, having Kirk behave like a captain [p. 68].

In saying this, Card is right (except that–in a few individual minutes–Kirk did behave like a captain). Kirk, and the captains that followed (even on other series, like Capt. John Sheridan of Babylon 5) did not behave like captains when it came to leading missions themselves.

Star Trek thus violated a real-world law.

So what. Sci-fi does that all the time.

And in this case there may well be a reson: When Star Trek started, in 1967, would the networks have bought a show that focused on an exploratory team instead of a commanding officer? I don’t know that at all. A network today would buy that (think: Stargate SG-1), but in 1967 the networks had such a limited undrstanding of science fiction that they barely bought it to begin with (thinking Star Trek "too cerebral" and rejecting the idea of Mr. Spock utterly in the first pass), so it is quite plausible to suppose that the network would have simply passed on the idea if it focused on ordinary soldiers.

Having set the mold for TV space opera with Kirk (who is not, incidentally, without precedents like action hero Capt. Rocky Jones), other captains followed in his stead.

Over time, though, TV and movie sci-fi would have the chance to evolve away from this formula, and that’s something we can all be glad about.

Unfortunately, not all of Card’s analysis of Star Trek is so on the money.

More in a bit.

This year Star Trek: Enterprise this year gave us an explanation of why Klingons look different in different series and thus cleared up a minor mystery.

It’s also cleared up something else: What a Tholian looks like.

In The Original Series, the Tholians appeared in just one episode ("The Tholian Web") and we never saw more than a weird-lookin’ face (?) on a viewscreen.

Folks naturally wonderd what the whole critter looked like, but until now we’ve never got to see.

Some even wondered whether the crystalline-lookin’ Tholian "face" we saw might be a helmet of some kind or if the critters were really crystalline.

The Tholians were almost totally ignored by later Star Trek series, though they were mentioned a number of times on Deep Space 9. A Tholian ambassador visited the station, though we never saw him. Capt. Sisko also had a conversation about (rare and much prized) Tholian "silk." And the Tholians signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion before the war broke out. But for all the talk, we never got to see.

Now we have. In the two-part Mirror Universe episode "In A Mirror, Darkly," we finally get to see a Tholian.

Since both parts have now aired in all markets (and since this isn’t a matter of the plot and thus not a plot spoiler), I’ll go a head and show you a pic. Here ’tis:

As you can see, the ugly bugs are indeed crystalline. They also have six legs and two arms, which makes them arachnids.

There’s also a suggestion of motion under their crystalline carapace, which I s’ppose accounts for the weird color variations we saw on The Original Series’ viewscreen.

They live in a super-hot Venus-like environment.

So they’re blazingly hot crystal spiders.

Cool!

Only don’t say that to a Tholian. Probably won’t have the same resonance.

If you cool ’em off too much they start to crack. Need heat to live.

Tholian silk must be woven with asbestos or somethin.’

LEARN MORE ABOUT THOLIANS FROM MEMORY ALPHA (SPOILERS).

J. Michael Straczynski has been hinting for some time that there was a Babylon 5 movie in the offing, titled Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows.

Rumors emerged earlier this year that he was having problems with Warner Brothers over the casting of the movie. Some roles (such as Technomage Galen) were apparently under pressure to be cast with different (and more popular) actors.

Now JMS tells us that the movie deal is off . . . for now. And that he can’t use the script he wrote for it should a movie deal be revived with someone else. (Makes me glad that he, apparently, didn’t tell the story of the Telepath Crisis–as I was hoping–in this script).

JMS writes:

The rule of thumb in Hollywood is that for every thousand scripts that get written, only a few dozen get into development, and out of those, only one will ever get made…if that.

A little over a year ago, I was approached by a company that wanted to make a Babylon 5 movie. They optioned the rights, and commissioned a script. (It’s worth mentioning that I, not WB, own the rights to a B5 movie. When we were negotiating the original B5 deal — by whose terms I will never see a dime in profit — the one thing they did let me have were the movie rights, figuring they’d never be worth anything in the long run.)

Anyway…on December 27th of 2003, the script for "The Memory of Shadows" was turned in, and the process began of trying to make the deal work with all the various forces involved. It is, to say the least, a very difficult process on any movie where the studio does not directly take the financial reins. In terms of B5, Warner’s position was esssentially, "We only do big-budget movies with big names, so you’re on your own." If there were big-name movie actors in the film, they’d get behind it; without that, things become very problematic, especially as far as the financing was concerned. You much have to put together a consortium of international interests and business plans rivaled in complexity only by the Allied invasion of Normandy Beach.

Nonetheless, every attempt was made by the people involved to get this deal in place. This was not being done by Doug or myself, but rather by the company/individuals who approached us and optioned the rights. At times, it seemed we were inches away from a deal…stages were reserved at Elstree, actors were contacted, a director was in place, the script went through many revisions, a few key staff were hired, again not by me…it was really a year-long roller coaster ride. During that time, the people involved, with every good intention, tried very hard to pull the necessary pieces together on the deal. The option expired in late December 2004, but I renewed it without cost, to give those involved more time to try and make things work.

In the end, however, the deal could be put together, and it did not look as if that was going to change at any point in the foreseeable future. So the option has reverted, and to all intents and purposes, the project has dead ended. Nor do I think this particular incarnation will arise again at any point in the future, though prognostication has always been a tricky art, especially if you have to do it without the benefit of hindsight.

This was not the first time someone’s taken a run at a B5 feature film, and it will not be the last. Eventually it will happen, because such things are simply inevitable. If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody’s going to do a B5 movie. The only thing I can say without equivocation is that when that day comes, as the rights-holder, I will make darned sure that it’s done right, because I’d rather have no B5 movie than one that doesn’t live up to what fans and I myself would want to see.

To that end…I can wait.

Anyway, just thought you should know the story.

jms

[SOURCE.]

. . . Or at least all of us who want to know.

Here’s the explanation for why Klingons in the 23rd century were human-appearing, while those before and after are forehead-ridgers.

The episode of Star Trek: Enterprise that establishes the on-screen explanation should have aired in everyone’s town by now, but lest anyone not want to know, I’ll put the spoilers in white-on-white, so you have to select the text (by swiping it or hitting Ctrl-A) to see it.

Here goes:

• In the late 20th century, a group of scientists created a "master race" of genetically altered humans, among them Kahn Noonien Singh. This led to the Eugenics Wars on Earth in the 1990s.
• In the 22nd century, scientific genius Arik Soong (played by Brent Spiner) incubated and birthed a number of embryos from this time. These embryos, because of their augmented DNA, were known as "augments." They had the increased intelligence and aggression of the key players in the Eugenics Wars.
• When Arik Soong unleashed several augments in the 22nd century, the Klingons perceived it as a threat.
• Subseuquently, when several augmented embryos fell into their hands, they exploited their DNA to create Klingon augments to compete with human augments.
• One Klingon augment had a virus that combined with the human augment DNA.
• This virus spread to other Klingons, making them not only have augmented abilities but also to appear more human.
• By the 23rd century (the time of Star Trek: The Original Series), this virus had spread throughout the Klingon race.
• By the 24th century (the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation), this virus had been cured, making Klingons of that era profoundly uncomfortable in discussing why their appearance had temporarily temporarily lurched human-ward a over hundred years before.

So there!

That explains:

1. Why the difference existed.
2. Why characters in Enterprise’s time had the forehead-ridge appearance.
3. Why characters in the TOS period had the human-looking appearance.
4. Why characters from the beginning of the movies onward were back to the forehead-ridge appearance.
5. Why characters introduced as human-looking in TOS were forehead-ridgers later on.
6. Why it seemed to affect the whole race.
7. Why Klingons were embarrassed to talk about all this with outsiders, and:
8. Why the human-lookers were so . . . human . . . looking.

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for this week’s episode, which spells it out in more detail.

. . . the answer to why Klingons looked different in The Original Series (TOS) than they did both before and after this, that is.

Last night’s episode of Enterprise revealed the reason.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil the answer in this post. If you haven’t seen the episode, it may be re-run on Saturday or Sunday night on your station.

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I will, however, talk a little bit about the problem.

First, the offscreen explanation for the change is clear: When TOS was being filmed, they had miniscule makeup budgets, so they couldn’t make the original Klingons look that different from humans given that they were a major race that would be appearing often.

They tried to have a little more elaborate makeup for the Klingon leaders (other starship commanders equivalent to James Kirk), but the Klingons in the background were often just black guys in Klingon uniforms.

Notably absent were the forehead ridges that got introduced . . . in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Offscreen, when Star Trek went from the small screen to the big screen they went from a small budget to a big budget that could be used on all kinds of things . . . including makeup. So the alien race of Klingons became more . . . alien.

When the change was made, fan theories about it prospered, but onscreen there remained no explanation for the change, the producers of the show hoping that the fans would recognize the makeup change for what it was (the outworking of a budget change) and would just "go with them" on this one.

Fan theories about the change included:

1. The "human-looking" and "forehead-ridged" Klingons were two different races within the Klingon Empire.
2. The human-lookings were hybrids with humanity, while the forehead-ridgers were purebloods.
3. The difference was the result of a virus.
4. The difference was due to Klingons wanting to appear more human in a particular phase of their history (e.g., we know that one character in the TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" was deliberately disguised as a human for covert ops purposes).

When ST:TNG kicked in, a Klingon (Lt. Worf) joined the main cast, and in keeping with larger TV budgets (and better makeup techniques), the Klingons on TNG were forehead-ridgers.

The same inevitably replicated on the sequel to TNG, Star Trek: Deep Space 9. But DS9 added new wrinkles to the puzzle.

First, DS9 established Klingon characters who had originally been introduced in TOS. All those old Klingon ship captains who squared off against Kirk–Kang, Kor, Koloth? They were all back now–as old men–and played by the same actors. But they were in new makeup. Thus here’s a comparison of how Koloth looked in the two series:

Okay. Big diff.

It also ruled out one of the popular fan theories: that the diff was due to there being more than one race of Klingons.

A theory that could have explained the difference (but that I don’t know was ever posed by fans) was that the forehead-ridge appearance developed with age, so that all the Klingons seen on TOS were younger, while those seen later were . . . older. The change might even strike different Klingons at different times of life the way . . . baldness . . . strikes different human men at different times.

We have our own forehead changes, see.

Well, events continued to overtake speculation, and in the 30th anniversary episode, "More Tribble, More TroublesTrials and Tribble-ations," Lt. Cmdr. Worf establishe a new onscreen fact about the difference: Klingons are embarrassed about it. Specifically, Whorf looked uncomfortable and said: "We do not discuss it with outsiders."

When Enterprise initially hit the airwaves four years ago, it had the forehead-ridgers that we were familiar with from TNG onward.

So this left the writers of Enterprise, now that it finally got good and got cancelled, an interesting puzzle once they decided to finally do an onscreen explanation of the difference. Specifically, they needed to explain:

1. Why the difference existed.
2. Why characters in Enterprise’s time had the forehead-ridge appearance.
3. Why characters in the TOS period had the human-looking appearance.
4. Why characters from the beginning of the movies onward were back to the forehead-ridge appearance.
5. Why characters introduced as human-looking in TOS were forehead-ridgers later on.
6. Why it seemed to affect the whole race.
7. Why Klingons were embarrassed to talk about all this with outsiders, and:
8. Why the human-lookers were so . . . human . . . looking.

To my mind, the answer eventually provided last night by ST:ENT to this long-standing Star Trek mystery was a good one.

Don’t spoil it in the comments box.

I’ll reveal it before next week’s episode.

Crichton has already written about the nebulous, non-scientific values ascribe the the variables in the Drake Equation.

Despite not having a whit more evidence, a group of scientists who aren’t going to be listened-to seriously, have decided tha the chance of a nearby extraterrestrial civilization is much higher than most think.

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Conspiracy-oriented minds might wonder if this the beginning of the "disclosure" that precedes The Facade.

The UFO community will certainly wonder about that.

Okay, it’s mid-January now, so the new shows are starting up again after the Christmas re-run season.

Last night Star Trek Enterprise fired up its warp engines again and delivered an interesting episode.

Unlike the three-episode mini-arcs that it’s been working this season–arcs that allow it to tell bigger, more ambitious stories–this one was a standalone episode, but it will have a significant place in the Star Trek mythos.

The reason is that, even though it wasn’t a multi-episode story like others this season, it did do something that seems to be part of the mission of Enterprise’s season four: Fill in missing pieces of the Star Trek mythos.

The previous story had dealt with a civil war on Vulcan that led to the evolution of the Vulcans we know and love from The Original Series. In this week’s episode, we see the broader social revolution starting to spread.
That’s not the hole in the mythos that this episode fills, though. It’s something else.

Star Trek has always had a number of pieces of magical technology, the two chief ones being warp drive and the transporter. Over time, we met, learned about, and got to know the creator of warp drive, Zephram Cochrane. We’ve never had the pleasure with the creator of the transporter, though.

Until now.

This week’s Enterprise episode features a guest appearance by Dr. Emory Erickson, the heretofore-unnamed father of the transporter.

Like Zephram Cochrane, he is a flawed genius. He arrives on the ship with plans for a transporter so powerful that it could make starships obsolete (something that we know from previous Star Trek series was a technology that at least one alien civilization had). But he’s also carrying with him a secret.

That secret has to do with his son, and it’s no coincidence that this episode is titled Daedalus.

In the end, the episode turns in a poignant story of a father and his loss.

It’s not a planet-shaking story, but it’s touching nonetheless.

And it’s another piece of the puzzle.

If you missed it, it’ll be on this Sunday night on UPN.

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