bard@mit-heineken (07/22/85)
From: bard@mit-heineken (Bard Bloom)
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SF-LOVERS Digest Tuesday, 9 Jul 1985 Volume 10 : Issue 253
Today's Topics:
Books - Blish & Chalker &
The Oz Canon (5 msgs),
Films - Red Sonja,
Television - Star Trek
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 5 Jul 85 10:27:46 GMT
From: kdale @ MINET-VHN-EM
Subject: Spindizzies
A few issues ago somebody asked something to the effect of, "By the
way, what are spindizzies, anyway?" It's obvious that you have a
good read ahead of you - _Cities_in_Flight_ by James Blish. 'Nuff
said.
Keith M. Dale
(kdale@minet-vhn-em.arpa)
BBN Comm Corp
Stuttgart, W. Germany
------------------------------
From: crash!bnw@SDCSVAX.ARPA
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 85 15:32:03 PDT
Subject: Another quote from Jack Chalker
Regarding the recent discussion about sequels, consider this
from Jack Chalker's _The_River_of_Dancing_Gods_:
"The Books of Rules, Volume 16, page 103, section 12(d). . .'All
epics must be at least trilogies,'. . ."
Bruce N. Wheelock
arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd
uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnw
------------------------------
From: shark!hutch@topaz.arpa (Stephen Hutchison)
Subject: Re: The Oz canon and the film
Date: 3 Jul 85 01:29:42 GMT
>From: Jerry Sweet <jsweet@uci-icsa>
>Book 41: a few months ago, I saw a book named "A Barnstormer In
>Oz", by Philip Jose Farmer (I think--it sounds right, since he's
>the self-appointed chronicler/perpetuator of a number of
>"mythologies"). Anyone read it?
Yes, I read the thing. This is a spoiler, in case anyone cares.
Farmer presents the story of a barnstormer (test pilot?) who
disappears through a "dimensional gate" which is a few hundred feet
above ground, open when certain weird electrical conditions are met.
His pilot has no particular personal charm. This individual
discovers that Oz is a besieged place ruled by the iron hand of a
sex-witch (Glinda) who uses her powers to hold off the influx of the
energy creatures from the desert regions which surround the oasis of
Oz. Every once in a while one of the less malevolent energy
creatures inhabits some mechanism, like the tin statue, or the
Barnstormer's airplane.
Dorothy is postulated to be a young girl who was accidentally thrown
into Oz by a tornado, and that Baum was a neighbor who got the story
from her when she returned later, and adapted it into a series of
children's fairy tales. The majority of the story concerns the
interaction between the other-dimensional Oz and the American
military.
As usual, Farmer completely destroys the character of the stories,
making something cheap, tawdry, and mildly pornographic out of the
mileu of Oz.
Hutch
------------------------------
Date: Thursday, 4 Jul 1985 03:25:33-PDT
From: boyajian%akov68.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (JERRY BOYAJIAN)
Subject: re: Oz books
I won't repeat the wealth of Oz information that others have so
eloquently given, but one point remains to be questioned:
> From: mccullough.pa@Xerox.ARPA
> Another little known fact, visible if you go to a B. Dalton
> bookstore and look at the recent republishing of Oz books...most
> were not written by L. Frank Baum, but by another author, and
> published under Baum's name.
I assume that you refer to the recent Del Rey trade paper reprints
of some of the Ruth Plumly Thompson Oz books. If so, your "little
known fact" is dead wrong. They were *not* published "under Baum's
name" --- the by-line is very clearly Ruth Plumly Thompson. There
*is* a line referring to the books as "continuing the famous stories
of L. Frank Baum" or somesuch (I can't quote it directly) and
granted, it's in type as big as the title or by-line, but that's
another matter entirely.
--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA)
UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}
!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian
ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA
<"Bibliography is my business">
------------------------------
From: dcl-cs!jam@topaz.arpa (John A. Mariani)
Subject: Re: The Oz canon and PJF's "Barnstormer in OZ"
Date: 5 Jul 85 18:16:17 GMT
hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) writes:
>>From: Jerry Sweet <jsweet@uci-icsa>
>>Book 41: a few months ago, I saw a book named "A Barnstormer In
>>Oz", by Philip Jose Farmer
>
>As usual, Farmer completely destroys the character of the stories,
>making something cheap, tawdry, and mildly pornographic out of the
>mileau of Oz.
As usual?
Disclaimer : I haven't read any of Baum's books but I have seen the
Judy Garland film.
What Farmer does is to look at a fictional place/situation as if it
was *real*! This implies an adult, rational view of fantastic
situations i.e. how *does* the strawman *exist*? I can appreciate
Baum's readers would be offended, as Hutch above ... but, I found
the book quite entertaining. I guess, as always, its up to you, but
if you want to take a different view of a well-known place, this is
worth a read.
UUCP: ...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!icdoc!dcl-cs!jam
DARPA: jam%lancs.comp@ucl-cs
JANET: jam@uk.ac.lancs.comp
Phone: +44 524 65201 ext 4467
Post: University of Lancaster,
Department of Computing,
Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YR, UK.
------------------------------
From: orstcs!richardt@topaz.arpa (richardt)
Subject: Re: Re: Aux armes, Citoyens!
Date: 2 Jul 85 02:55:00 GMT
>...as well as the several Oz books written after Baum's death I
>don't remember the author's name.)
there were more Oz books written after Baum died than he himself
wrote. The author was female(!) and wrote about 18 books, for a
total of abou t 35 books before 1954.
orstcs/richardt
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 85 09:41:42 EDT (Monday)
From: foltman.Henr@Xerox.ARPA
Subject: Re: Oz Books - Ruth Plumly Thompson
Ruth Plumly Thompson was the niece of Lyman Frank Baum. She used to
listen to many of the stories that Baum used to tell as she was
growing up, so she was familiar with the characters. More
information on the topic of Baum, Thompson, and Oz can be found in
The Annotated Wizard of Oz by Michael Patrick Hearn, or from the
International Wizard of Oz Club, c/o Fred Meyer, Secretary, Box 95,
Kinderhook, IL 62345. The Baum Bugle presents some interesting
little known facts on many different subjects.
Mary Ann Foltman (foltman.henr)
------------------------------
From: ucla-cs!reiher@topaz.arpa
Subject: "Red Sonja"
Date: 5 Jul 85 06:56:00 GMT
"Red Sonja" could be worse, so I can't complain too much about
it. Basically, it's a sword and sorcery potboiler, just as I
expected. It has some unexpectedly good points and some
unnecessarily bad ones. If one likes this sort of thing, the bad
points won't entirely ruin it. Oddly, though, some the good points
won't make too much difference to fans of this sort of film.
Red Sonja (having very little relation to the character in one
of Robert Howard's Conan stories) is a woman warrior who seeks to
avenge the death of her family. An evil queen slaughtered them all
when Sonja refused to be her lover. After the massacre, Sonja meets
up with something suspiciously reminiscent of Glinda the Good.
Whatever this special effect is supposed to be, it somehow gives her
strength to become a powerful swordswoman. While she's off training,
her sister, who must have missed out on the massacre, is helping
neutralize a powerful green globe which, unless kept in darkness,
will shortly destroy the world. The evil queen bursts in at the
appropriate moment, slaughters all the priestesses, and steals the
globe for her predictably nefarious purposes. Sonja's sister
escapes, fatally wounded, to the arms of someone who isn't Conan but
is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who takes her to Sonja, who
swears to recover the globe, and we're off to the races. Silly plot
complications, in the form of a child prince and his loyal protector
and a romantic subplot between Sonja and Arnie (hindered by Sonja's
hatred for men and her oath to give herself only to a man who can
beat her in a fair fight) serve only to pad the film to a sellable
length, 88 minutes, in this case.
Bad points first. Most important is Brigitte Neilsen, who
plays Red Sonja. She is beautiful and well trained in the martial
arts. Unfortunately, she makes Tanya Roberts look like Katherine
Hepburn. Boy, is she bad! Most unfortunately, laughable as her
line readings are, she isn't the worst performer in the film. That
honor goes to Ernie Reyes, Jr., who plays the young prince. By the
end of the film, I was almost praying that his character would be
killed so that I wouldn't have to listen to him mangling any more
lines or watch another of his excruciating expressions. His only
apparent qualification for the part is a proficiency in martial
arts, but even in his fight scenes his grating personality comes
through like fingernails scraped on a blackboard. The greatest
disappointment of "Red Sonja", though, has to be the performance of
Sandahl Bergman. Ms. Bergman was so good in "Conan the Barbarian"
that it is saddening to see her give such a bad performance as the
wicked queen. I find it hard to convince myself that she is the
same actress.
Getting back to Master Reyes, who receives my coveted Clint
Howard Award for worst new child actor of 1985, even without seeing
the rest of the year's films, his inclusion points out another flaw
in "Red Sonja". I have no doubt that all connected with the film
found him just as annoying as I did, but I suspect they had no
choice. Why? Because screenwriters Clive Exton and George McDonald
Fraser wrote a vital part for a kid who could do martial arts, and I
doubt if any other boy actor was capable of handling this
requirement. This is a fundamental error in the script, one of
many. Budding screenwriters take note: never write a part that is
too hard to cast, or you may see your picture ruined by the likes of
Ernie Reyes, Jr., or, for that matter, by Brigitte Neilsen. Other
flaws with the script are lack of inventiveness, poor to mediocre
dialog, muddled logic, and some outright continuity gaps. As an
example of the latter, Sonja is told by the prince's henchman that
she can get to the wicked queen's domain by a long safe route or a
short dangerous one. Naturally, she takes the latter, survives it
(whoops, a spoiler), and moves on, only to find ahead of her ...
the prince, who was taking the long route. I am particularly
disappointed in Fraser, who writes a fine adventure novel (I
recommend his Flashman series) and wrote the screenplay for "The
Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers" some years back. I
expected a lighter touch and a bit more imagination from him.
Richard Fleischer's direction is neither a plus nor a minus.
He does a competent hack job. I would have hoped that the son of
one of the Fleischer Brothers, crazed animators of the 1930s, would
have had a bit more imagination. The vacuity of the project seems
to have sapped out of him whatever ideas he might have had, as it
did on "Conan the Destroyer". On the other hand, Fleischer is a
very old hand on sword epics, going back to "The Vikings" in 1958
(one of the beloved films of my mispent youth), and the experience
shows when it comes time to draw the weapons and start hacking
about. Moreover, Fleischer deserves a break on the basis of age,
being nearly 70. Few directors have the stamina left to do even a
polite, low key drawingroom comedy at that age, much less a big
special effects/action film. Ennio Morricone's score is another
neutral item, but a disappointment, as it proves that Morricone,
too, is a mere mortal and cannot be counted on to always come up
with a great score.
On the plus side, Arnold Schwarzenegger is really developing a
flair for this sort of thing. He starts off a bit shakily, but
eventually gets on track, giving a convincing enough performance as
the brawny hero. He's given less opportunities for humor, a talent
he began to show in "The Terminator" and "Conan the Destroyer",
which is a pity. Paul Smith is fairly good as the young prince's
bearlike servitor. Ronald Lacey is superb as the evil queen's
henchman, giving a nicely calculated performance with just enough
camp and just enough menace. It's a pity the picture doesn't use
him more effectively.
The swordfights are quite well staged. They result in
precisely the maximum amount of blood, severed limbs, and disgusting
sounds of weapons entering flesh to avoid an R rating. The effects
are fair to good, with some shaky matte work, some good, etc. The
production design is excellent, really strange and creepy. Most
fans of this sort of film will barely notice, but Danilo Donati
(Fellini's favorite designer) has really done a splendid job in
created a very foreign environment. Cinematographer Giuseppe
Rotunno, another Fellini alumnus, contributes good photography.
Sometimes I like to speculate about unlikely directors and
projects. The presence of Donati and Rotunno makes me wonder what
"Red Sonja" would have been like if, somehow, producer Dino de
Laurentiis had persuaded Fellini, his old colleague, to direct it.
Now that's a movie I'd like to see. Or how about if George Lucas
talked Ingmar Bergman out of retirement to make the next Star Wars
movie? I consider it a minor tragedy that it is too late to see a
Luis Bunuel James Bond movie, or a Sergei Eisenstein Friday the 13th
sequel. And what, I wonder, would Orson Welles do with "Third
Blood"? Alas, producers aren't gamblers and most amateurs don't
have the sense of humor required to get involved with this kind of
project, but it's fun to speculate. Fassbinder could have done some
very strange things with Indiana Jones, I'm sure.
But, getting back to the subject at hand, taken as a whole,
"Red Sonja" is a slightly better than average adventure picture,
marred largely by dreadful performances in key roles. Fans of the
genre will probably like it, non-fans will be unsurprised to hear
that they might as well skip it.
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher
------------------------------
From: orstcs!richardt@topaz.arpa (richardt)
Subject: Re: "Where no man has gone before"
Date: 3 Jul 85 06:56:00 GMT
>How likely is it that anyone would send so expensive a ship off
>into nowhere for 5 years?
Very. As a general rule, exploration ships fall into two classes:
unarmed and armed. Unarmed exploration ships are usually designed
so that they are so pathetic as to not be a threat to anyone. Marco
Polo did this and it worked fairly well, albeit with a few backfires
along the way. Armed explorers tend to be armed with the most
powerful weapons that the society can hand to a non-military ship.
When you already know of several hostile races in your neck of the
galaxy, it is far better to assume that the natives will shoot first
and ask questions later than to lose crews in the nether regions of
the universe. For one thing, the appearance of an alien ship is
usually a dead give-away as to its origin. Besides this, the
Enterprise was travelling in regions which were known to have
Klingon ships running around in them. In a situation where a nation
is exploring out from a multinational border, esp. when one of the
nations is hostile, the explorers had better be armed. Besides,
human ships are always armed. Haven't you read any space opera?
As for naming, I believe most of the visible stars have been named.
I see no reason to assume that this trend will stop anytime in the
future. Man, as a race, is arrogant. As long as StarFleet sticks
to names of the form Starname-Planet_#, they're on well established
ground.
orstcs/richardt
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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