David-J-Aronson-H@CMU-EE-AMPERE@CMU-10A (01/10/83)
1) A friend of mine recalls a book that was made into a movie (starring Robert Culp, I believe) in which a robot is created shortly before the sun goes nova. The purpose of the robot is to store the personalities of all the people on Earth. He winds up looking for his left little finger, which is the crucial part. In his quest, he is chased through time by some apparently evil types. (Obviously through time; he couldn't very well roam Earth after Sol novas...) Anyhow, he wants to know the title, and I just plain forget. Any answers? 2) Believe it or not, I just saw ET for the first time. Now: Any guesses as to why he revives after his "death"? Answers given so far include the cold temperature they subjected the "corpse" to, whatever gas it was they used to lower the temperature (perhaps they used cold CO2 and he was lacking the breathing reflex due to lack of CO2), and (wierdest of all), the proximity of the "others" of his race (no SW-TESB reference intended). Support for latter is the funny red light in his chest which glows when 1) he is with the others in the beginning, and 2) he revives. (Proximity meaning they are on their way, possibly near Earth already.) 3) As for Dark Crystal: I thought it might be worth seeing, a serious Muppet movie. Alas, I was disappointed. True, it was a good children's story (and thus might qualify for the earlier discussion on kids' sf), but for anyone over 10 I would not recommend it. Someone earlier complained about Jen and Kira's almost total lack of facial expression. This was quite a letdown, when one expects the same genius from he who put such expression on Kermit's face. The least he could have done was give them an occasional twitch, as he did with the Skexies (sp?). 4) As for the critic who thought Ogra (sp?) was male: a) Huge sagging breasts, as pointed out before. Is he blind? b) The voice seemed female (though not necessarily feminine) to me. Maybe not to everybody, but... c) The name sounds female to me. Again, maybe not to everybody, but a critic who misses all three? d) I don't recall, but is she ever referred to as "she" or "her" at any point? Perhaps someone going to see it should listen for it. Perhaps I am picking nits with the critic, but he seems to have a wit-ful of them... 5) This is not really SF, but what the hell... I am attempting to create a new role-playing game, with systems stolen mostly from Runequest and In the Labyrinth. If you have any particularly good ideas that you'd like to see incorporated into a game, or any general flames about extant games (they help too...), please send me mail (preferably net-mail, not U.S. Snail). If I use anything you send me, it will be noted in the book (which I may eventually publish, in a few decades). Any help at all will earn a place in the "thanks" section. (This includes help on what I have to do to make it all legal, which it probably isn't right now.) Happy Randomizing, -Dave Aronson dja@ee-ampere@cmu-10a
crp (03/01/83)
I am short a few details about the ending of the ephisode, but ... The android (Bob Culp) didn't know that he was an android and had fallen in love with the woman trapped in the building with him and the alien baddies who came back in time with him (and had his final finger???) The "glass hand" was a computer (or so he thought) and he was going to "be able to save the human race" by finding the final component to enable the computer completely. When he gets the final finger and it tells him that he is an android and has the entire human race in recorded form to keep the woman (who seems to like him) freaks and runs away. The scene is very tense where he is waiting to see what she will do since she has heard that he is an android. He has to wait for some long period of time to reconstitute the human race though I don't remember the logic behind that part of the story.