A speculative mind

So this is a continuation of the list of my favorite science fiction films. Here are three more for the list: The Andromeda Strain . It was based on the novel by Michael Chrichton, and was his first work to be turned into a film. Michael was very, very good to Hollywood. Besides the Andromeda Strain he penned the novels that were turned into many movies including, The Terrminal Man. Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere, Rising Sun. He also created Westworld, Looker, and the TV show ER, among others. Andromeda Strain came out in 1971 and is set in a top secret underground facility set up to deal with biohazards. A satellite falls into a small town and some kind of organism on the satellite kills everyone in the town. We follow the scientist as they try to figure out what kind of organism it is and how to neutralize it. They approach the problem, dare I say, scientifically. They don’t just push a button on a computer and the answer pops out. They have to run tests and procedures that a...

What are the best science fiction films of all time? A rather pointless question as the word “best” is entirely subjective. My best is not going to be your best. We may agree on some things, we may not. So what is the point of me posting a list of my favorite Science fiction movies? For that matter, what is the point of anyone posting their list of their favorite anything? I suppose it gives people some insight into the mind of the person doing the posting. It could serve as a list of suggestions in case there was one you hadn’t seen.   If nothing else, it is something to argue about. People like to argue. So what the heck; here is a list of some of my most favorite science fiction films in no particular order. Ah . . .   Yes . . . as I started writing this it became apparent that this is way too much for one blog post. So consider this part one of a larger list that will play out over the next couple of weeks. 2001: A Space Odyssey . It is now revered as a masterpie...

Betrayal. Witches. Magic. Dark prophesy. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most intriguing plays. Many people are surprised to learn that the play is based, at least in part, on actual historical events. Macbeth, his wife, Duncan and Malcom were real people. Macbeth really did become king of Scotland. Shakespeare’s source for the play was “The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland” by Raphael Holinshed. This is the same book that he used as his major source for his history plays as well as “King Lear” and “Cymbeline”. Shakespeare was not entirely faithful to his source. In the play we see Duncan as a wise and virtuous king. Macbeth plots to kill the king who is staying at Macbeth’s castle. Having second thoughts, Macbeth is goaded on to action by his overly ambitious wife who helps him cover up his crime. In truth Duncan by many accounts was a weak and inefficient king whose reign was filled with rebellions. By contrast, Macbeth’s was a good king, at least fo...

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. That is not a terribly unique thing. A lot of kids my age wanted to be astronauts. The Space Race was in its infancy. The president had declared we would get a man to the moon by the end of the 1960’s (a target which sent the experts into a mad scramble to figure out how they were going to do that). America went Astronaut crazy and it was reflected in our popular culture.   I Dream of Jeannie was one of the most popular shows of its time. I watched it not because it had a beautiful genie that could do magic, but because the two main non-magical characters were astronauts (okay, maybe part of it was because of the beautiful genie). Another TV show It’s About Time features two astronauts who go through a time warp and get stuck in the stone age. Even Gilligan’s Island had episodes featuring astronauts and cosmonauts.   I was into model building when I was a kid so of course I had models of Mercury, Gemini, an...

Willing suspension of disbelief is a phrase that refers to what we all do as readers. For example: we know there are no such things as werewolves, but we are willing to go with it in a story. That being said, that willingness to suspend our disbelief can be stretched to the breaking point. I have read novels (I won’t mention any names) that were so over the top as to be unbelievable. At that point I either must decide if I can enjoy it as camp or simply not worth my time. Back when I was in college in my first phase of attempting to be a writer of science fiction, I was given some good advice. I was told that you were allowed one “wonder”: one thing that wows the reader even though it may not be quite scientifically plausible. Wrapped around that wonder though, everything has to make sense. Things need to be consistent as they relate to the wonder. For example, you could have time travel in a story. It is pretty much universally accepted in the real scientific community th...

Ever remember seeing something on television or a movie that was kind of terrible, but kind of intriguing at the same time. Sometimes it can be chalked up to youth. Shows that I thought were great when I was nine or ten, somehow didn’t hold up very well once I reached adulthood. One example of this is the Time Tunnel, an Irwin Allen production. In fact, you can pretty much lump all of Irwin Allen’s 1960’s TV shows into this category. But the Time Tunnel looked awesome to my eight or nine year old eyes. I even learned a bit of history along the way. The show left fond reminiscences in my memories. I probably had not seen an episode in thirty years when I rewatched the pilot a couple of years ago. I made some observations: the show really did look good. One thing I will say for Irwin Allen, he pulled out all the stops to make the special effects realistic and the sets were a thing of beauty. Just look at the design of the tunnel itself. It’s fantastic. The other observation is that the...

How important is a name? If the name is the title of a book, or play, a song, a story, or even a non-fiction article, one would tend to think that it is pretty important. After all, the title is likely the first thing an audience will see about the story. In some cases, all the reader knows about the story is the name until they read it. You could argue that the name or title is the first piece of marketing. Shakespeare had Juliet say, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, if instead of calling it a rose, you called it a skunkflower, it would still look and smell like a rose. The name does not change it. Did Shakespeare believe names were unimportant? Further, Shakespeare gave seemingly trivial names to three of his better comedies: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like it, and What you Will. These names do not say anything about what the plays are about. They almost sound like he is saying, “these plays of mine are ...