rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe) (05/05/84)
How can I be pro-space and still have enjoyed "Capricorn One"? Easy--I take space seriously and the movie not at all seriously. It seemed to me that the movie was not an indictment of NASA but of mad scientist at NASA who's trying to save his own skin. Remember, the astronauts trained for a real mission but were yanked out and kidnapped. They come off as heroes in the end. I think NASA itself looked at the film as the most unrealistic scenario that could be dreamed up and assumed that it would not (COULD not) be taken seriously by anyone but the bizarre folks who already believed that none of the moon landings had taken place anywhere but in a TV studio. The same way that pot smokers (or anyone aquainted with the reality of the effects of cannabis) can laugh at "Reefer Madness". In my opinion, it couldn't (and didn't) hurt the space effort, so no harm was done. As far as "2010" goes, it would be hard for Hyams to really screw it up given Clarke has already put so much good science in it. Give Hyams credit for being a pretty good director, at least. He seems to know how to direct actors. Without him directing Sean Connery, "Outland" would have been complete trash, which it wasn't (for all its faults). I know he's playing around with the story a bit, but I think that's to increase the human interest, which is not Clarke's forte. As long as Hyams keeps decent science in it, it'll be OK. And I can't imagine Clarke letting ANYONE take as much liberties with one of his stories as Kubrick got away with. It's not going to be just the sequel to "2001", it'll be a whole different movie, and I think that's fine. Putting it another way, if you had seen "Clockwork Orange" [just assume it predates "2001", I don't remember for sure one way or the other] would you want Kubrick to cowrite and direct "2001"? Not me, yet he did a fine job of it. It doesn't even compare to the book, but that's OK. They're separate pieces of art. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe