Yes, I Remember the Sixties, Is That Bad?

Ah, television. Back when I was young, TV was a special pleasure. For years we had a black and white TV. On Sunday night, several of us younger kids went to the end of the street to the one neighbor who had a color set. We’d watch Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. And it was wonderful. Magic.

Fast forward to 1966. Star Trek began and we even had a color TV to watch it on. I became an immediate fan, and looked forward to every episode. My mom worried I’d have nightmares, but I was actually more likely to dream of being on the Enterprise and rushing toward new adventures. When the novelizations of the show came out, I sucked them down. A friend suggested I try some real science fiction, and suggested several books. Books by people like Bradbury, Asimov, Clark. I fell hard. I wanted to write SF. But my muse didn’t like the hard SF I loved to read. My muse leaned toward human drama.

In 1969, the show Medical Center debuted. OK, I’ll admit I had a big time crush on Chad Everett (who’s aged quite well, I must point out). When he had a love scene I just kind of melted. In fact, most intense love scenes (not sex in those days, just holding and kissing and stuff) had my stomach tingling. It took me a while to figure out romance and SF didn’t go together. But oh, if they just could.

Many years later, I heard Catherine Asaro speak. Before SF or paranormal romance was even a subgenre, she talked about combining the two in her work. At that time, the way to do this was to write straight SF and downplay the romance so the predominately-male audience wouldn’t be turned off. Seeing this beautiful, highly educated woman speak was life altering for me. I wanted to combine SF and romance. My muse, however, was still resisting the SF idea, even with romance attached. For years I wrote straight romance, and though I got compliments on my work, I wasn’t getting any contracts.

My muse, however, would let me take altered reality a bit further to fantasy/paranormal. And even let me add romance. By this time, the market was changing. Paranormal romance was a real sub-genre. But I only wrote short fiction. Finally I gave in and wrote a haunted house romance novel. This book got more interest than any other, and eventually got me my first contract. So, I guess I owe my publishing career to Star Trek, Chad Everett, and Catherine Asaro. Thanks, guys!

Have a great week!

Cheryel
www.cheryelhutton.com

Turn on, Tune in, Drop by: From Guilty Pleasures to Classic Genre Television

“Classic” television is our topic du jour. I ought to talk about what makes television great. But I’m not. I’m going to talk about what television I loved when I watched television, back in the days when you actually had to get up off your arse, walk across the room, and change the channel manually. Man, was I excited when we got a snazzy push-button television!

Characters I Love

When I saw Star Wars at the age of nine in the theater (or maybe it was The Empire Strikes Back), I had a HUGE crush on Luke Skywalker. Dashing, attractive, daring, he was everything I wanted my hero to be.

Remember the scene in the first part of Star Wars, where they show the two ships fighting the lasers go whizzing past with lots of loud noise?

I hid in my dad’s shirt when that happened.

I also hid when Darth Vader and Luke fought the first time, and when Luke lost his hand. How I hated Darth Vader! That breathing!

I remember a few years back that modern audiences don’t find Darth Vader scary at all, but that the new set of Star Wars movies had Darth Maul as the new big-bad.

Say what?? How could you not find that breathing scary?

Then I saw Space Balls (somehow I missed it when it first came out). Not at all scary, and I tried to tell myself I agreed – Darth Vader isn’t scary.

But I still shiver when I think of him, and that awful breathing.

I didn’t have imaginary friends growing up. Instead, I told myself stories, and others too. I wrote the first one when I was nine; an embarrassing-to-me-now piece about a cat named Marge.

Hey, we all gotta start somewhere, right?

Then I discovered Star Trek on re-runs. I used to watch it on my parents’ old black-and-white TV in their bedroom while my mom was in some other part of the house, sewing or cleaning or what-all. The shows captivated me. I wanted Captain Kirk to be my dad. Or at least an uncle.

Then came the alien probe episode.

I’m sure, if I watched it now, I would find it quite unscary. After all, we’ve progressed light-years from the olden days of special effects. But that probe episode sticks with me, for the sheer dread I felt while watching it. There were a couple others that I found equally riveting, and that had characters that scared me. But the idea of a machine attacking people, to me at the time, inexorable.

Somehow, the Terminator must have gotten my brain scans, because they couldn’t have conceived of a scarier redux on that idea! I mean, it’s a machine, shaped like a man! It could be anyone! Schwarzenegger’s gotten a lot of bad press lately, much of it self-inflicted, but he will forever have my admiration for the portrayal of that heartless, soulless machine in the first movie. Not to mention, he was unstoppable! I know everyone remembers the “Ah’ll be bahk” quotes. But to me, the seminal moment is when the terminator is crushed in the machine and STILL keeps coming, even without his legs working.

Yikes!

I remember reading a quote attributed to Lois McMaster Bujold relative to her character, Miles Vorkosigan. She said something along the lines that she simply imagines what horrible tortures she can do to Miles, and then figures out a way for him to surmount them, and that’s how she comes up with her stories. In the process, she’s created one of the most amazing characters of science fiction. Here is a man who is crippled, maimed, and some might say, deformed. Yet he manages through sheer force of personality to abscond with a mercenary army and then return to take command of that army – despite not being of legal age to drink.

For me, what makes characters, good or bad, memorable is how they handle the consequences of their actions or the actions around them. It isn’t enough to just do “stuff” to a person. What’s interesting is how that person responds to it. I remember my father ranting about the movie The Perfect Storm, because the men upon whom the story is based were drunk and stupid. He felt that was no way to tell a story, since the people involved had no redeeming characteristics. I didn’t quite know what he meant until I saw the remake of The War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise’s character was awful! The portrayal wasn’t bad, as Mr. Cruise is a skilled professional. But the man he portrayed was, to put it bluntly, a waste of time. He didn’t stay with his wife, was a neglectful father, and a coward. Yet the entire movie revolved around him as though he was some sort of reflection of everyman, a modern-day hero.

To that I say, poo. I want heroes like Luke Skywalker. Men and women who take what is given to them and turn it into something grand. Villains who intimidate by a look or a gesture.

Characters, in short, who make me believe, even for only a short while, that they are real, that they live and breathe, and that I could one day meet them.

~A. Catherine Noon

Everything Old is New Again

Star Trek was the number one movie in the country this weekend, raking in 76.5 million domestically, according to box office mojo. I think that warrents yet one more weigh-in on the subject. :)

In the new film, J. J. Abrams breathes new life into the long standing Trek Universe, taking us back to glimpses of Kirk and Spock as children and the paths that led them to Starfleet Academy. The reimagining efforts of Abrams balances making the franchise fresh and exhilarating while still remaining true to the characters and kind of stories that Star Trek has always tried to tell.

Like Batman Begins, Superman Returns and The Incredible Hulk before it, the setting and players in Star Trek are familiar yet wholly updated and relevant to the moment, engaging the audience completely, introducing the new viewer in a roller coaster of action, drama, comedy and emotion, while still being a comfortable fit and enduring new legacy for the avid trekker.

Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk, lived up to the name without becoming the caricature of the original, but the show clearly belonged to Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban as Commander Spock and Chief Medical Officer “Bones” McCoy respectively. Where Pine in part had to make Kirk his own in order to shed the shadow of Shatner, both Quinto and Urban needed to remain faithful to the delicate balance of personalities that made up Spock and Bones both in the original series and the big screen excursions of the original cast. The stepped up to the challenge beautifully!

Zachary Quinto was a fearless combination of logical, almost smug, Vulcan, and vulnerable yet extremely confident and competent human, while Karl Urban was a flawless blend of the ever grumbling, yet loveable curmudgeon and still grumbling fiercely loyal friend. There was not a single misstep from first line to last, and for every second I believed it.

But this is more than an uber-positive (yet non-spoiler-y) review for the new Star Trek, it’s a celebration of the possibilities to come.

In the last decade nearly everything from my childhood and young adulthood has been placed on the storyboard to come to the big or small screen again, much of it in the next three years alone. G.I. Joe will be out soon, so will V, (you all remember V right?), and Wonderwoman is still greenlit but without a title character confirmed last I heard. After that, everything from Misfits of Science to Manimal has been pitched and had someone say, “let me think about it”.

Will we see everything again? Surely not, (I’m still in denial that a few shows ever existed), but we will see a great deal. What favorite are you hoping will come to screen soon and what do you hope forever rest-in-peace?

P.S. I did not overlook the performance of Zoe Saldana as Lt. Uhura. She was strong, brilliant and genuinely likeable in a way that I hope made Nichelle Nichols proud. John Cho was an enduring and crush-worthy Sulu, while Anton Yelchin was an adorable and instantly likeable Chekov. As for Simon Pegg's Scotty...I smiled from the first moment he was on screen to the last. I simply can’t say everything I’d like about their performances without throwing in spoilery bits on character interaction, and I wouldn’t do that to you guys. *grin*

"Star Trek is Full of WIN Ramble" Done

~X

The Final Frontier - Star Trek...Is it worth the hype?

First star to the right...

Or maybe not. This isn't your mother's or grandmother's Star Trek. No, it's the Star Trek for the technological generation. No, I'm not going to talk about the plot because I don't want to spoil it for everyone who plans to see it tonight. But...

Remember those old favorites with the cheesy one-liners? They're still there...younger, more innocent...but every bit as dynamic with the characteristics those of us who watched the original Captain Kirk loved.

The acting is OMG!! The sheer scope of taking original Star Trek characters and bringing them to life while being true to the essence of them is daunting, but they managed it. Oh yes, they did. Of course, I could be biased. I've had Chris Pines as the face of one of my heroes for years and always told my friends he was under-estimated. He certainly pulled out all the stops on this one!!

Anyway, how do you top the original? Simply put, you don't...and the writers here knew that. You can't improve upon an iconic show, but you can remake it for another age. Transformers, Terminator, Witch Mountain...and countless others. It seems to be the thing for Hollywood these days. But this time, I think they really did it right.

Now is the time to impart a little tiny bit of advice. Yes, grab that popcorn and soda - but don't guzzle it down lest you find yourself waiting for that inevitable lull in the middle where you can excuse yourself without missing anything pertinent for a quick potty break. Simply put, it isn't there.

The movie starts out with heroic action and keeps right on rolling.

I will admit to a few misgivings. I bought my ticket in advance on the net and squeezed time out of the day to stop by the theater to pick it up using the WILL CALL option on the theater kiosk. I just knew the show would be sold out and there would be utter chaos trying to get in.

Well, I arrived 30 minutes early to an empty parking lot. Walked straight in, grabbed my popcorn and soda (and no, I didn't guzzle it) and strolled into the theatre to have my choice of seating. There were a few people already there, but not very many. In fact, when the show started, the theater was about 1/3 full.

All I have to say is this...If you're a Star Trek fan, go see this movie. If you're NOT a Star Trek fan, go see it anyway. It's a SciFi film written to an action film template.

You will not be disappointed.

And...if this is what you like, Samhain has posted a new Call for Submissions that might be right up your alley.