Category: Science Fiction

  • Y, El Último Hombre

    UltimohombreThis week's episode of Lost – '316' – features a gratuitously self-referential shot of Hurley reading Y, El Último Hombre, the Spanish language edition of Y: The Last Man, written in 2004 by one of Lost's current principal writers, Brian K. Vaughn

    Nothing's ever a coincidence in the Lostiverse. Hurley is reading the fourth volume, One Small Step, a story with a very Planet of the Apes ending…what does that mean?!

    Y: The Last Man is currently being adapted into a movie trilogy, but I've always thought it'd make for a great Abrams-esque TV quest 🙂

  • Star Trek

    SpockkirkI should be depressed. I should be indignant. I should be angry.

    Alongside Bruce Wayne, James Tiberius Kirk was my fictional childhood hero, how can anyone, anyone but The Shat play Kirk?? Oddly, though Batman has been played by countless brilliant, middling and appalling actors, my fanboy-ity for Batman has remained undiminished. But Kirk is Shatner and can only be played by someone with a suitably monstrous ego!

    And yet, I feel no Kirk Anxiety watching the trailer for JJ Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek. I just want to squee with fanboy excitement when I see the shiny-shiny production design, the billion-fireflies transporter FX and Michael Giacanno‘s screechy Lost-esque strings – so, in the opening desert chase, what’re the huge buildings in the distance and what’s with the giant quarry?

    Regardless, seeing the new Kirk and Spock together, as above, fills me with excitement and perhaps shows that the iconic Kirk can be inhabited by a new actor…let’s just hope he can still do this, this, that, this and this 😉

       
  • Colonel Saul Tigh

    Grantgoboomsaultigh Complicit in fixing an election, organising a campaign of suicide-bombing in response to a military occupation, the extra-judicial execution of collaborators and the imposition of martial law following a military coup, Saul Tigh is one of the most badass, unlikeable and yet tragically, deeply and heroically flawed characters on television today.

    In spite of this, Tigh – perfectly written and wonderfully played by Michael Hogan – commands our sympathy through a haze of alcoholism. Revelations of his experiences as a teenage soldier in a brutal war, his gentle execution of his wife Ellen as a collaborator and the damning revelation of his Cylon heritage enable us to him to be seen as man with a broken soul...

    “You know, sometimes I think that you’ve got ice water in those
    veins, and other times I think you’re just a naive little
    schoolteacher. I’ve sent men on suicide missions in two wars now, and
    let me tell you something. It don’t make a Godsdamn bit of difference
    whether they’re riding in a Viper or walking out onto a parade ground,
    in the end they’re just as dead. So take your piety and your moralizing
    and your high-minded principles and stick ’em someplace safe until
    you’re off this rock and you’re sitting in your nice cushy chair on
    Colonial One again. I’ve got a war to fight.”
    Precipice

    "My name is Saul Tigh, I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever
    else I am, whatever else it means, that’s the man I want to be. And if
    I die today, that’s the man I’ll be."
    Crossroads: Part II

    { Artwork courtesy of Grant Gould }

  • He That Believeth In Me

    Hethatbelievethinme
    John 11:25-26 –  "I am the resurrection, and the life:
    he that believeth in me,
    though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and
    believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

    Battlestar Galactica‘s story arcs have always drawn dark and uncomfortable parallels with the War on Terror – themes of occupation, apocalypse, suicide bombing, resistance, extra-judicial justice, abortion, monotheism vs. polytheism, prophecy and civilian vs. military governance. This ‘dark mirror’ has made BSG one of the most potently sophisticated political storytelling vehicles on television – more so even than The West Wing.

    The opening episode of season four, He That Believeth In Me, deep-dives into the painfully isolating nature of prophecy. As showrunner Ronald D. Moore points outWhen somebody really is a
    prophet or a seer or a visionary…they’re
    shunned, rejected, ignored…people who have a genuine foreknowledge or greater awareness generally don’t have a good
    life…’

     

    I can’t help see the show as anything other than the story of a withering Machine Jihad that seeks to replace humanity as the children of God. Yet in the process of euthanising its parent culture, belatedly realises that it seeks human acceptance and wonders – to paraphrase Moore  –  ‘What if they’re like us and we’ve been doing all these terrible things this whole time…if they could have created us so
    easily, what does that say about how special we are…maybe we’re not touched by God
    either…maybe we’re some sort of fairly easy technological accident.’
    Indeed, this introspection gives rise to machine atheism!

    My interpretation is an inversion of Moore’s story which is essentially oriented around humanity and it’s struggle to comprehend that their greatest fear isn’t that their offspring aren’t human – but that they are and that turning inwards against each one other is a more potent existential threat than the Cylons.

    In reading Wired’s piece today on Ray Kurzweil’ notion of the Singularity, I can’t help but wonder that in seeking to create machine consciousness, modeled on our own understanding of human consciousness, that we sow the seeds for inevitable spirituality arising amongst machines. Perhaps Battlestar Galactica is actually the most sophisticated piece of Singularity fiction since Blade Runner, raising not only provocative parallels to current events, but forcing viewers to consider what it means to be human.

  • Best Two Minutes Of TV This Week…

    Wow, just when it looked like BSG’s Razor minisodes were gonna be as dull as last year’s Resistance ‘webisodes’, we get a cracking dogfight…

    Best part? The chilling radio-borne screams of the Columbia‘s dying crew…

    { The soundtrack for season three was released today – Violence & Variations  is my standout piece }

  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars | Tales Of The New Republic

    Yoda I should like it, but I don’t want to 🙁

    Lucasfilm previewed the new Clone Wars TV series at this weekend’s 30th anniversary of Star Wars. It looks great, but why remake Genndy Tartovsky‘s sublimely dark and kinetic better-than-the-movies interpretation? We’ll find out in Summer 2008 🙂

    In the meantime, here’s a newly minted fan-made CGI trailer for Tales of the New Republic.

  • Musharrafadama – Separated At Birth?

    MusharrafadamaIt’s not just the moustache and glasses, President Pervez Musharraf and Admiral William Adama have quite a few things in common…

    • Both led coup attempts against their civilian governments.
    • Both men arrested and imprisoned their presidents, later granting them amnesty.
    • Each has an uneasy alliance with an perceived enemy.
    • Both are sceptical of religious leaders.
    • Both have led daring military raids.
    • Both have been the subject of assasination attempts, from within their inner circle.
    • Both have been involved in nuclear proliferation.
    • Both exist in societies where the military holds the keys to power.
    • One was created by a man called Ronald, the other fought in a war created by a man called Ronald.

    And of course, both have great dialogue, written by talented American speechwriters 😉

  • Battlestar Craptacular

    Battlestar Yesterday, SciFi channel debuted Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance, a series of ten ‘webisodes’ due to run twice weekly throughout September, prior to the premiere of BSG’s third season in October.

    I’m a huge fan of this show – the only SF show qualitatively on a par with the likes of The Sopranos and Six Feet Under – yet upon trying to watch the first webisode I was confronted with the message – We’re sorry but the clip you selected isn’t available from your location. Frak.

    Needless to say, YouTube, newsgroups and torrents are distributing the first two segments, despite region restrictions, but unfortunately without the consent of the producers….so much for digital rights/regions management.

    This is another short-sighted old media example of Imprisoning TV In Territories. SciFi Channel and the producers of BSG have learned nothing from the rabid piracy of this excellent show over the last two years. The Resistance should be helping to build buzz for the third season of BSG; why prevent non-US fans from seeing these webisodes when they could be marketing the show from their own blogs using services like YouTube!

    So on an anti-DRM tip, here’s webisode 2, due to debut tonight: