No Knees Gort: Robot Peace-Keepers on the PR Gig

Gort has apparently been making quite a few promotional appearances of late, appearing in Paris Hilton’s show and in a variety of other places (supermarket openings coming up soon…).

I thought it was important for whomever his handler’s are to be reminded of the fact that GORT HAS NO KNEES; so it would probably be best to avoid PR gigs that involve a lot of moving around…

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Have You Watched The Orignal Movie Yet? – or – GORT Has No Knees

 

Yesterday’s comments revealed that ‘nother-old-fart’ (NOF) has taken matters into his own hands and is distributing copies of the original The Day The Earth Stood Still to co-workers well in advance of TDTESSTWTOMD.

So far, he reports that reception has been good, with only two critiques: first, that the film is B&W. Well, sorry.  Learn to appreciate the use of light and shadow – something rarely if ever seen in modern film and an awe-inspiring technique when used by the right hands.

The second criticism concerns Gort’s knees and the fact that they aren’t articulated.

In light of that, I’d like to remind modern viewers of a little blockbuster film called Terminator: Judgement Day (T2).  You know, the one that featured not one but two Terminators? The OLD, OBSOLETE model portrayed by Ahhhnold and the second new-fangled one made of “poly-mimetic liquid metal”.

Liquid metal that formed all kinds of moving, unarticulated parts.  No seams. No joints. Just like skin. Except made of metal.

How is it that people have forgotten that science fiction portrays the worlds of the possible?  Where has the willing suspension of disbelief gone?  Why isn’t the audience playing along?  I mean, that’s the idea, so long as the show doesn’t do something SO jarring that it bumps you out of your head.

Oh, I get it.  It’s ok for new-fangled films to portray future ‘things’ that aren’t completely believable and certainly don’t exist in the real world (like unarticulated, no-seam metal joints that perform complex motions), but not ok for OLD, DATED, OBSOLETE, NON-RELEVANT, BLACK & WHITE films to do the same thing.

Clearly a case of ‘ageism’; knee-jerk criticism instead of thoughtful consideration.

Really makes me wonder what the reception would be if you could somehow market a (good) B&W movie as a new release, touting the artistic use of B&W and drowning the kiddies in advertising that proclaimed NEW, SHINY, NEW!, SHINY!

Idiots would probably turn it into the next Hollywood blockbuster while damning the original at the same time.

***

Take a tip from NOF and distribute some copies of the original to your friends. Make sure you tell them that Gort is made out of the same stuff that the T1000 was made out of.

And then remind them that the OLD HAS-BEEN Terminator was the one that saved the day.  Looks like age and experience beats youth and ignorance even in the future world of Skynet.  (The old ‘guy’ had to come back from the future to save the young guy’s bacon. And teach him a thing or two about life, the universe and everything. If you think about it, the Terminator movies are a pretty good metaphor for this whole discussion.)

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100 DAYS

Only 100 days left to watch the original version of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL before you will forevermore be tainted with the CGI brush applied to the new version.

I have no idea if the new version is going to be a good one or not.  And I don’t really care, because my focus is on making sure that, at least in this one small case, the ‘next’ generation knows and is familiar with the ORIGINAL before watching the RE-MAKE.

Maybe they will like the new version better.  Maybe they’ll discover 50s SF cinema.  But at least I won’t have to listen to them talking about what a great NEW movie just came out.  At least they won’t be ignorant of the film’s origins, and we’ll have a basis – a solid, honest basis – for discussing and comparing the two versions, rather than comments delivered in a whiney, nasal tone like ‘but it’s in black and white – wah’, ‘they don’t have any CGI – wah’, ‘the music isn’t rap – wah’.

But probably not. They’ll whine anyway and then go to great lengths to demonstrate to me how Reeves is such a better actor than Rennie, and how it was so  much cooler to see a ship come up out of the water than it was to land from space, and how they just can’t relate to a world living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.  (Which statement will go a LONG way towards illustrating just how unconnected they really are.)  And – wah – it was in black and white.

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Pulp Comic Fairy Tale Chapter 9

Chapter 9 opens with this provocative shot from Galaxy.  You can see the whole thing, minus the final chapter (should be done today or tomorrow – just in time for weekend fun), here.

Notice the ticker at the top?  Skiffy Tube’s lineup is still a day late and an SF or two short, while TDTESSTWTOMD is one day closer…

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A. Bertram Chandler

*Above you will see the first incarnation of my ‘Nightline-esque’ reminder that we are STILL being held hostage by the eldritch horrors commonly referred to as Network Programmers.  Of the cable television variety.  Next to that, you’ll notice the countdown to TDTESSTWTOMD. For those coming late or not paying attention, that is the acronym for The Day The Earth Stood Still To Watch The Original Movie Day – which is December 10th, 2008.  I want everyone and anyone who might walk into the theater to see the remake to have already seen the original so that we can all form an unbiased opinion of the two as they relate to each other.  Clicking the link will take you to the page for that activity – where you can watch the original (over and over and over and over again – like I do).*

I had occassion yesterday to update some of the pages on the Rimworlds website, the personal page that started out as a home for my Rim Worlds/A. Bertram Chandler concordance project and has since grown to include The Classic Science Fiction Channel, Pulp magazine checklist and anything else I can cram in there.

I’ve obviously been paying attention to the ‘graying of fandom’/'old sf vs new sf’/similarly themed discussions floating around and as I was adding a couple of new items to the ‘Buy A. Bertram Chandler’ section I was struck by a couple of thoughts.

First, Chandler resides in the ‘old SF category; he unfortunately passed away in 1984, his 100th birthday is fast approaching (2012) and his works are becoming scarcer, although by no means are they completely absent.

Why he has faded remains a mystery to me, one that is probably equal parts fanboy blindness and publishing peculiarity; neither he nor any critic ever claimed literary pretensions for his works, but on the other hand he was a staple at DAW books and regularly appeared in the top magazines of the day.

His stories are what that they are: quaint adventures of an archetypical science fiction hero (John Grimes) – the man who always managed to get himself into deep yogurt, and always managed to come up smelling of roses and clutching the Shaara Crown jewels.

With HUGE tomes and ENDLESS series being all the rage these days in SF publishing, it’s a wonder that someone doesn’t do a little creative editing, retitle some of his works and bring out the Grimes series again.  The hype would be fun:

An Epic Space Opera Series!

Three Decades in the Making!

THREE MASSIVE DOORSTOP VOLUMES!

Featuring Science Fiction’s ORIGINAL Horatio Hornblower of Space!

When you consider that:

Chandler wrote some 20 novels (albeit 60′s/70′s/80′s 140 pagers) and 32 shorts dealing with John Grimes, 9 other novels and 30 other shorts dealing with alternate characters, other history or parallel universe versions of the Rim Worlds – you’ve got quite a canon!

In many respects, it seems like Chandler was writing for our time, rather than his own (not surprising if you consider how much he played around with time travel, alternate realities and world-as-myth). He’d fit right in: an on-going series that could count on a steady readership, long pieces for the book trade, short pieces for the e-zines and self-promotion, stories that play around in other parts of the universe…

I’ll note that SFBC did a series of omnibi editions which are mostly still available in the used book trade and that Baen Books offers all of the Grimes stories (with two exceptions that I can see – the recently published Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo – Dreaming Again – Jack Dann and Doggy in the Window, a short that appeared in Amazing Stories) in three e-book packages, compiled in a manner that reflects the three phases of Grimes’ career – officer in the Federation Survey Service, wandering, self-employed ship captain and citizen of the Rim Worlds Confederacy.  All of the current sources for Chandler’s material can be found here. 

Baen Books might want to think about offering a donwload pack of the rest of the Rim Worlds stories – there’s the Derek Calver tales (2 novels), the Empress Irene stories (3 novels – and they tie in to a Grimes novel), several other novels including The Deep Reaches of Space, Bring Back Yesterday, Frontier of the Dark – the novel based on a short story that Harlan Ellison called one of the best things he’s ever read – and a whole mess of shorts, including a Retro Hugo nominee – Giant Killer and one of the most anthologized short stories ever written – The Cage.

Me, I’d hype the space opera and continuing series aspects, hire some rabid fanboy (like me) to write a page or two of connecting material, combine three or four of the existing novels into one big tome, give them all new cover art, stick a new penname on the cover, maybe Whitley Dunstan (Chandler used both) and stick them out on the shelves.  Devoid of any connection to ‘old science fiction’, I bet they’d sell just dandy, thank you.

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THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY

 

On December 12th, 2008, 20th Century Fox will be releasing their remake of the 1951 classic SF film The Day The Earth Stood Still. (Click the pic to go to the TDTESSTWTOMD webpage.)

The new version stars Keeanu Reeves and will benefit(?) from 57 years of film-making advances.

57 years is enough time for two generations to have passed since Michael Renne starred in the original.

That’s more than enough time to guarantee that the audience going to see this remake is unlikely to even be aware that it is a remake, and certainly more than enough time for anyone who has seen the original to forget how utterly fantastic and spot on it was.  Not just for its own time, but for all time.

That is why it is so very important for those of us who have seen and do remember the original to make sure that anyone who goes to see the remake will have seen the original BEFORE they do.

Nivair Gabriel, writing on IO9, explains some of the many reasons why:

There is no reason to remake something that is absolutely perfect.

Remakes insinuate that there was something deficient about the original movie, that it’s somehow necessary to update the film for today’s audiences. The vast majority of the cinema-going crowd will watch the version with the actors they know in an instant, and never bother to rent the first one.

We might be afraid of terrorists now instead of communists, but we still haven’t managed to end nuclear proliferation and create lasting worldwide peace. I think there’s still quite a lot to The Day the Earth Stood Still’s message that we might pose a threat to the rest of the universe if we can’t get a grip on our violent tendencies; and I think Klaatu’s non-destructive way of shocking humanity into action is even more brilliant today.

Michael Rennie’s alien, by the way, is an example of a truly flawless and understated performance; anyone who thinks that Keanu Reeves can show that up should stop reading now to go smack their head against a wall a few times. I don’t want to see any current child actor try to replace Bobby Benson; Billy Gray’s adorable portrayal of The Most Fifties Boy Ever will warm my heart for all time.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a treasure; it’s one of the best films we humans have ever managed to produce. It was fabulous in 1951 and it’s only matured with age, like the finest sci-fi-themed wine in all the world. The movie packs a huge amount of vision about human identity and aspirations — in fact, it’s almost impossible to believe it was made eighteen years before we Earthlings reached the moon. So why in the name of everything beautiful would a person want to taint those waters with a totally unnecessary rehash?

The viewing public has a right to be exposed to the original before they see the remake; they have a right to judge the two side by side – BEFORE the computer-generated dazzle has a chance to influence them. They have a right to view these films in their historical order, to be free from hype and marketing blitz before they are asked to choose which one they prefer.

The only fair and decent way to give the original the credit it is due is for everyone who has ever seen it to pledge that they will get at least one other person to watch the film before December 12th, 2008.

That is why I have declared December 10th, 2008 to be THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY day.

I have added a page to my website that provides all of the necessary links – no need to rent or purchase a DVD, no need to schedule a special viewing.  Just grab your friends, siblings and significant others, sit them down in front of the ‘puter and watch. 

I’ve also added links to the original story Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates, the original soundtrack, movie posters and even model kits based on the original film.

If you would like to keep track of how many people you’ve gotten to watch the film, post a message in the comments of this post.

I’ve already done my bit – I got Karen, my wife, to sit still through the whole thing.  She likes super hero movies better than SF ones, but she enjoyed every minute of it. Her comment – why are they bothering to remake it?

Visit the webpage, stick 12.10.08 on your calendar and get others to watch!

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Skiffy Tube: Weekly Update

Just to make things perfectly clear -

 

For the week of August 15 thru August 21, Skiffy Tube’s Science Fiction Purity Percentage is -

31.8%

This represents a drop in science fiction content from the previous week.

Notably, this coming Tuesday’s line up manages to achieve more than 50% SF Purity (15 hours for a single day) – 62.5% to be precise – but the SICs make up for it on Wednesday by dropping that back down to 16.7% (4 hours).

Remember, if you want to see 100% Science Fiction Purity in Programming, visit The Classic Science Fiction Channel!  Included in our line up are these two fine SF films – one for old fogies and one for young snots -

 

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Batman, Batman, Batman

…may be all the rage, but right now I’m all a-twitter watching Frank Gorshen (a very young Gorshen) in one of his earliest appearances.

He plays a ‘grown-up’ in Invasion of the Saucermen, a B-movie drive-in flick I haven’t seen in 30+ years.

I just sourced some 18 ‘new’ Classic SF movies for The Classic Science Fiction Channel - they’ll be up on the site in about an hour or so (gotta finish watching Frank) – its now 10:30 am est or thereabouts.

Other oldies but real goodies – The Day the Earth Stood Still, baddies – Plan 9 From Outerspace and many just plain historically sig nif a gunt films – Them! (Leonard Nimoy) have also been added.

 The Batman reference?  Gorshen was a hit as the Riddler on the 60s TV show.

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