Idle thoughts on an obsession
I’ve been a big SF fan since way back. I remember in elementary school going to the school library and looking for books about spaceships and exploring strange worlds. Anderson, Silverberg, Bradbury, Asimov – these were my idols. I once read a book called Virgin Planet about a civilization of women who didn’t need men. I got in trouble for giving a book report on the book. I guess virgin is a word eighth graders weren’t supposed to use.
In video media my first love was Star Trek. I’m old enough to have seen some of TOS on their first run. I think it was Tuesday nights. I didn’t see many, though. I didn’t control what shows we watched. I mostly picked them up when it went into syndication and showed up after school on weekdays. It came on after Dark Shadows, a different guilty pleasure for a different time.
Unfortunately, none of the Star Trek spinoffs captured my heart like the original. And the newer stuff is showing up on different streaming platforms that I don’t subscribe to so I can’t keep up. I have enjoyed the recent movies, though. I can see Chris Pine as a Kirk wannabe. I love Nimoy’s comedic take on himself vis a vis Quinto’s stick up his ass Spock. All the other characters are wrong, but enjoyable just the same.
When I walked out of Star Wars back in 1977 all I could think was that I wanted one of those little flying machines. I stuck with the franchise through all 9 of the original cycle, although only the first three (IV-VI) were any good. They’ve also gone off on so many tangents that I got lost. From what I could tell, Rogue One was just a retelling of IV from a PC perspective. A coming of age story of a young girl instead of a boy, and a black sidekick instead of a white one. Same story line. Aside from that one, diversity was pretty non-existent in that particular galaxy. There were plenty of gray, green, red and purple people, but hardly any black ones. Except one of the best ever – Lando Calrissian. One of the best Star Wars characters ever. Equal parts ally and enemy, lovable rogue and deadly foe. I definitely would want him on my team, but never turn my back to him.
I’ve also been taken with Marvel’s MCU movies. Great myth-making, but as with the others, too much clutter on too many platforms. I’ll just wait for the blockbusters.
In the meantime, I’ve been reliving my youth streaming old SF thrillers on YouTube. I just recently watched (for the umpteenth time) Earth vs The Flying Saucers (colorized, no less). They’re fun, campy and require little to no thought. And they invariably have women doing stupid things or generally getting in the way. The writers seemed to truly have a grudge against women. I guess they were all nerds in school and were taking their revenge. Usually the woman is in some place she shouldn’t because she didn’t listen to the mansplaining she got. And they always try to run somewhere in high heels. And they always fall. The other night I watched a guy with a bullet in his shoulder and an old guy basically carry a woman up metal stairs because she couldn’t manage them in high heels and kept falling. And there’s always a scream.
SF movies from the 50s and 60s can’t be blamed for the science they didn’t know. I’ll grant them that. But I enjoy watching for the just plain stupid things they say and do. In Twelve to the Moon (1959) the spaceship inexplicably had gravity all the way there. And craters were emitting mist. And guess what? There’s breathable atmosphere on the moon! And one of the characters was carrying a reel to reel tape recorder on a moonwalk to record the trip. As he turned it on and off, he wasn’t wearing gloves. On the surface of the moon. I do give that movie credit for one thing. It was 1959 and they had a black character who was not a caricature. He was the pilot of the ship, held a doctorate in something and spoke intelligently and as an equal with the rest of the crew. Very forward thinking for 1959.
More than one movie involved pistols, and not the laser kind. I may not know all the science on this, but my guess is that firearms won’t work in the vacuum of space. No atmosphere for the explosion that propels the bullet. Still somehow, people got shot.
Many of the movies referenced Mars or Venus. Red Planet Mars had a lot of gibberish about the Martian canals. And Venus could easily support humans. And speaking of Venus, there was a truly stupid comment in Visitor from Venus (1954). The unnamed alien said he was from Venus. At some point, an otherwise intelligent person said the visitor travelled millions of light years to deliver the message. Millions of light years? At most Venus is never more than a dozen or so light minutes from earth. There’s no excuse for a line that stupid.
Another stupid comment, one of the stupidest in my estimation, is from Vena on the Star Trek episode The Menagerie. She pleads with Pike not to harm the Talosian. “They don’t mean to be evil.” Does anyone really MEAN to be evil? Does anyone wake up and say “Today I’ll be evil.”?
Comments seem to be what I remember most about movies that I liked or hated. They just seem to stick. It was in a Spider Man movie, I think it was Far From Home, that I heard what has become my favorite comment of all time. It was a bad guy saying it, although at the time, we didn’t know he was a bad guy. Mysterio was explaining that he came from Earth in an alternate dimension. Spider Man (basically Spider Boy) grabbed his comment and started geeking out on the implications of it and the multiverse. Everyone stopped talking and stared at him. He muttered, “Sorry,” looking guilty. Mysterio said, “Never apologize for being the smartest person in the room.” As a person who grew up frequently being the smartest person in the room and had to hide it, that line held special resonance for me. So thanks, Mysterio, for a line I’ll always love.
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