(1) THEATER OF BOOM. Not just the popcorn, but the whole theater — “One Plus Partnership’s cinema interior resembles the aftermath of an explosion”.
One Plus Partnership‘s Exploded cinema in Wuhan, China, won the Civic, Culture and Transport category at Inside Festival 2015.
The Hong Kong-based interior design firm arranged angular blocks in different sizes and materials to create the impression that a huge explosion had taken place in the space.
…Lung says that the idea was to create a space that feels like it could be from a science-fiction film.
(2) THE BOMBS OF OTHER DAYS. The “10 Least Successful Science Fiction TV Spinoffs” at ScreenRant. Number 10 is one I’ve never even heard of before –
The sci-fi series Total Recall 2070 was Canadian-German co-production that, in theory, sounded wildly ambitious. It drew inspiration from not just one, but two of the most successful Philip K. Dick movie adaptations. Similar to Paul Verhoeven’s darkly humorous blockbuster Total Recall, the story revolved around modified memories and took place on a futuristic version of Earth as well as the newly-colonized Mars. But Total Recall 2070 also followed policemen hunting renegade androids in a neo-noir megalopolis akin to the one in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Philip K. Dick wasn’t mentioned in the show’s credits though, as the series barely resembled original stories these movies were based on.
Total Recall 2070 premiered on Canadian TV channel CHCH in January of 1999. It also aired on Showtime, where network executives toned down show’s violence, nudity and strong language considerably for an American audience. Total Recall 2070 aired for one 22-episode season before being canceled.
Unlike most of these other bombs, both characters in the #1 worst show have rebounded from failure and are currently quite popular.
(3) RELEASE THE PRISONER MOVIE! Ridley Scott is in negotiations to direct The Prisoner reports Deadline Hollywood.
I hear that Scott is in early negotiations on a deal to come aboard and direct The Prisoner, the screen version of the 1968 Patrick McGoohan British TV series. This has been a plum project at Universal for some time with numerous A-list scribes including Christopher McQuarrie writing drafts. The most recent version was by The Departed scribe William Monahan. The film is being produced by Bluegrass Films Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark. Scott’s Scott Free team will likely become part of it as they get the script that makes the director happy.
(4) BBC HAS A CLUE. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency has been ordered to series at BBC America. The Hollywood Reporter has the news.
BBC America is getting its graphic novel on.
Drama Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency has been picked up straight to series with an eight-episode order, the cable network announced Friday ahead of its time at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour.
Based on Douglas Adams’ graphic novels first published in 1987, the story centers on the titular holistic detective who investigates cases involving the supernatural. Chronicle‘s Max Landis will pen the series, which is a co-production between AMC Studios, Ideate Media and comics powerhouse IDW Entertainment as well as Circle of Confusion (The Walking Dead).
(5) BRUCE SHIPPED TO MUSEUM. The shark from Jaws has a date with destiny as a museum exhibit.
Bruce the shark, the famous seafaring predator from Jaws, has found a new home at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ museum.
The Academy announced Thursday that a full-scale model of the shark, the last surviving one from the 1975 movie, has been donated to the museum by Nathan Adlen. During filming of Jaws, director Steven Spielberg nicknamed the shark Bruce after his lawyer Bruce Ramer.
The Fiberglas model is the fourth and final version made from the original mold. Created for display at the Universal Studios Hollywood at the time of the film’s release, the prop remained a popular backdrop for photos until 1990, when it was moved to the yard of Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking, a firm in Sun Valley, Calif., that regularly bought or hauled used vehicles from Universal Studios. With the business slated to close this month, owner Nathan Adlen is giving the historic prop to the Academy Museum, which is set to open in 2018.
(6) IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR. Jo Lindsay Walton’s “My favorite looks back at 2015 of 2015” is a compilation of links to around 30 different writers’ year-end posts.
Come home 2015, you’re drunk. Please come home. We need you. We need you.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born January 8, 1926 — Kerwin Mathews. James H. Burns paid tribute to the actor, who passed away in 2007, in a File 770 post.
Mathews, of course, was the star of two Ray Harryhausen fantasy movies,The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Gulliver’s Travels, as well as the similarly-themed Jack the Giant Killer (the latter, one of my all-time favorite fantasy films, in fact!).
Mathews was a classic leading man, who had the unusual ability — still too easily overlooked when contemplating actors — to be believable in the wildest of celluloid special effects situations.
- Born January 8, 1941 – Terry Brooks, whose books the new Shannara Chronicles is based on.
- Born January 8, 1942 – Stephen Hawking
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY REPLICANT
- Activated January 8, 2016 — Roy Batty, Nexus-6 class replicant from Blade Runner. The Sydney Morning Herald celebrates –
It’s a boy! It’s a Roy! For Blade Runner fans, 8 January 2016 is a date of major significance. It’s the “day of activation” for Roy Batty, one of the most charismatic and significant characters in this landmark movie. He’s a replicant, or android – and, although he might not be flesh and blood, he certainly makes us think about what it is to be human. He’s arguably the heart and soul of the movie, even more than its putative hero, played by Harrison Ford
Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, is one of the most influential films of the 1980s, a philosophical science fiction-action work set in the near future that’s steeped in a sense of the past, a reflection on memory, identity, emotion, creation and invention that takes place in a dazzling yet downbeat neo-noir urban landscape. Loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, its events begin to unfold in November 2019, in a world in which highly realistic androids, known as replicants, have been built by a company called the Tyrell Corporation.
Batty (brilliantly played by Rutger Hauer) is a replicant from the Nexus-6 class, and he’s looking for answers to questions about his own past and future: how he was made, and how he can prolong his life and that of his Nexus-6 comrades. Ford plays a character called Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter. His job is to hunt down and kill replicants, who are illegal on Earth.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BLOGS
- Born January 8, 2007 – The Book Smugglers. And they know how to celebrate – by publishing a book!
…And a brand new anthology: Tales of First Contact collects the five short stories from our First Contact series and is available now from your retailer of choice. Or you know, via a review copy – all you have to do is ask. We are also happy to offer giveaway copies – just let us know.
- Born January 8, 2015 — The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. They’re celebrating with a list of their 15 most-trafficked posts from their first year.
(10) A REVIEW FOR MILLENNIALS. Austin Walker at Giant Bomb interprets The Force Awakens for his particular generation — “Off the Clock: Space Opera Millennials and Their Grand Narratives”. BEWARE SPOILERS.
Like most of us in our own lives, each of these characters has a limited understanding of the universe, and especially of the past. What do other worlds look like? What was “the Galactic Empire” really? Is the Force real, and if so how does it work? Nowhere is this difference in understanding illustrated better than in how these characters view Han Solo: For Ren, he’s an uncaring father, for Finn, he’s a brilliant war hero, and for Rey he’s a legendary smuggler. Each finds their understanding challenged by a more complicated truth: Han was an absent dad because he cared so much; the great Rebellion war hero is a scoundrel without a plan…
(11) DS9 +1. Maxistentialism makes the argument in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine In 82.5 Hours” that it is the best series in the franchise.
But some time between fifth grade and now, I’ve come to recognize that while Star Trek: The Next Generation holds a special place in my heart, it is not the best incarnation of Star Trek. That title belongs to what writer Ronald D. Moore called Next Generation’s “bastard stepchild,” Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Deep Space Nine is a remarkable show. It is unfairly overlooked as one of the foundational programs (like Buffy, The Sopranos, and Hill Street Blues) of our current golden age of television. DS9 introduced long, serialized stories about morally ambiguous characters to network television ten years before Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones.
(12) DEL TORO. Guillermo del Toro is in talks to take over the Fantastic Voyage remake.
John King Tarpinian has little to say about the remake, but he remembers the year the original version came out:
When the original movie was in theaters my parents decided that summer vacation would be on Catalina Island. Being parents they decided the best place for a kid to be on the island was inland at a resort with a pool so he could go swimming…but I digress. One of the guests at the hotel was a Mr. Goff, who was some sort of designer of the sets. The thing I remember that impressed my parent was he also worked on an old black and white movie, Casablanca.
(13) LEVERAGING YOUR WORK. Luna Lindsey at the SFWA Blog has an impressive, multilayered strategy for “Tackling the Dreaded Bio” – a writing chore that’s not as simple as it looks.
What a Bio Accomplishes
Bios seem like such a chore, perhaps because we think of them as an obnoxious necessity rather than an opportunity. As writers, we also tend to dislike telling our own stories. And that’s exactly what a bio does.
When a reader bothers to check the bio, it’s because your story (or blog post, or appearance on a panel) has captured their interest. They want to know more and that’s awesome! A catchy bio will help them remember you, and they may even be inspired to seek out your other creations. That’s exactly what you want. Your bio will propel them into your other worlds. So make it good!
(14) AGAIN AND AGAIN. A Radio Times video identifies “18 actors who have travelled between the universes of Harry Potter and Doctor Who.”(This was posted a year ago. Have there been any more crossovers since then?)
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Alan Baumler, James H. Burns, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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Jeez, Stevie, I’m sorry. That would shake anyone badly.
Stevie, I am deeply sorry for your losses.
@Kip W
They don’t expect a hole-in-one every time.
The what now? O.o
I was a little put out when Voyager became the ‘new’ Trek series. At the time, I’d been hoping someone would consider my can’t-miss spinoff concept: (smarmy announcer voice) “Star Base… LOVE.”
Peace Is My Middle Name:
After the first attempt at an American Red Dwarf didn’t do well, they tried to retool the idea. (They made Terry Farrell the cat!) Instead of a full pilot, they did up a 15-minute promotional reel.
You can find it on YouTube, but I don’t recommend that you do so. It starts out with a discussion of the Flintstones.
There’s a nice documentary about the pilot also.
Stevie, you have my sympathies for having to endure those terrible experiences (I don’t know how I’d cope).
I guess I am of a young enough generation that I will query a doctor’s diagnosis or seek a second opinion if I’m not happy with it. But it’s still hard to second guess an expert, as my natural inclination is to trust their judgement over mine.
Kathodus, yes reading for the Hugos is homework which brings added pressures because I want to do it right. It does impinge on reading for pleasure and takes more effort and I suspect it is one reason why some Worldcon members don’t nominate.
B5 vs DS9: Count me as a B5 partisan but even I concede DS9 started first with the long arcs and IIRC ran for more seasons. But that also meant more opportunities for saggy episodes; I drifted in and out of the middle seasons. But the Fifth season of B5 wasn’t great either.
These two shows weren’t uniformly great but there’s no denying they were both groundbreaking.
(4) BBC HAS A CLUE.
The Hollywood Reporter, less so.
@Soon Lee: I’m a B5 partisan too, but I refuse to accept that DS9 started first with the long arcs. B5 had been pitched to Hollywood (including Paramount) for years before DS9 was greenlighted, and production on B5 started before DS9, it just took longer for it to complete postprocessing, which caused it to air later.
Iphinome ,
I mentioned in another thread that Roy Batty has a Twitter account and his linkedin profile says:
In job interviews a standard question is “Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?” I wonder how he would reply.
He probably doesn’t get by, “You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand…”
@Bruce,
DS9 began airing first & so was the first the general public got to see. That counts more IMO.
B5 vs. DS9: DS9 did start airing first, but it was purely episodic. It switched over to story arcs after B5 had been on for a couple years.
Because DS9 got to air first, certain elements of the B5 pilot had to be changed so that it looked less like a copy of DS9. (For instance, the guy in the “chameleon suit” was originally an actual shapeshifter, but DS9 had a shapeshifter.)
Speaking of booms, I just posted How special effects each characterization. TLDR: “more explodey” is driven by the need to justify budgets, and by the individual interests of the people who have to do it.
First of all, sorry to hear about your family, Stevie.
I remember Profit. My then best friend and I were huge fans of the show and disappointed when it was cancelled. But then, Profit was very much ahead of its time and would have done much better in the Sopranos/Breaking Bad/morally ambiguous white male protagonist era. I’m glad someone else has heard about it, since most people just give me bland looks when I mention it.
I vaguely remember Totall Recall 2070, but not enough to even tell whether it was good or not.
Meanwhile, here in the year 1904, none of those shows have aired yet. In fact, we don’t even have television yet, and while we do have science fiction, we still call it scientific romance. In fact, Mr. H.G. Wells, one of the masters of the genre, will publish The Food of the Gods later this year.
@Soon Lee:
@Petréa Mitchell:
Guys. We settled this.
Doris Sutherland’s posted a second installment in her series comparing the 2015 Puppy lists against the 2014 Hugo ballot.
I found the previous part fascinating; it seems to me a particularly valuable comparison to consider. The new installment tackles the Novella category, and goes pretty much as I’d expect it to:
http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2016/01/05/2014-hugos-versus-2015-sad-puppies-novelettes/#comment-52111
Green!
Purple!
DS9: I’ve been slowly (slowly…) rewatching DS9, ever since stumbling across Abigail Nussbaum’s very excellent Back Through The Wormhole essays. I love love love this series.
It’s one of the few I feel successfully takes on issues of adulthood, maturity, responsibility. So many fiction favors the rebels and the firebrands; DS9 takes on actually making an establishment work. Look, I understand you’re used to sympathising with the underdog, Sisko tells Kira in Season One, You’ve spent your life fighting to overcome impossible odds just like he’s doing. But you have to realize something, Major. You’re on the other side now.
I don’t know; that just feels so much more important and relevant to my life than the Chosen One or the Lone Rebel who has a conveniently straightforward enemy to bring down.
It leans on Trek’s huge established setting to create nuanced societies full of conflicting factions and endless shades of gray. And at the same time, the shades of gray and the sympathetic characters on every side don’t reduce the series to despair and inaction.
(DS9 also has an oh-so-rare respect and interest in faith. It’s so rare to see a character portrayed as having any kind of spiritual, faithful life, much less portrayed with respect for that way of life. With the gradual development of Bajoran society, and Kira’s devoutness as one aspect of a rich and terrific character, DS9 managed to walk that line admirably well. Just an hour ago I reached the opening to “Accession,” where Kira takes a couple to Sisko, as Emissary, to get a blessing on their marriage. The joy she takes just in helping out in a three-minute ritual is just lovely.)
My take on DS9 is much the same as Kip’s. Back then, without DVRs, OnDemand, or webstes like Hulu available to me, it was sometimes problematic to keep caught up for a show that had long plot and/or character arcs. I missed enough episodes to finally just stop watching altogether.
(Favorite Trek is TNG, but I’m just a lee-e-e-e-tle prejudiced in that show’s favor.)
Soon Lee:
Why this 4chan-eruption!?
Kip W on January 9, 2016 at 10:49 am said: I was a little put out when Voyager became the ‘new’ Trek series. At the time, I’d been hoping someone would consider my can’t-miss spinoff concept: (smarmy announcer voice) “Star Base… LOVE.”
Love, at Warp Factor Two
Beam aboard, we’re expecting you
Love, it’s a captain’s reward
Make it so, it warps back to you
The Love Base
Soon we’ll be plotting a different course
The Love Base
You’ll learn a new way to use the Force
Love
Won’t stun anyone
It’s fruity drinks ‘neath the double suns
It’s the Love
It’s the Love
It’s the Love
It’s the Love Base
@Hampus,
This is my reference, with a nod & a wink to the somewhat frivolous DS9 vs B5 discussion we are having.
If there is a 4chan reference, could you enlighten me? (I’d rather not go looking there for myself)
ETA: I prefer B5 (am a Team B5 supporter) but have also enjoyed DS9.
@standback – Thanks for the link. She and I agree more in part two than part one, and the juxtaposition of the previous year’s nominees, most of which I’d read but forgotten about, really does lay bare the dearth of decent puppy nominees.
Matthew Johnson: Incredible parody!
@Matthew Johnson
I reach.
Jim,
Geek arguments are never settled, as I am sure you in your heart know.
Soon Lee:
The 4chan-reference has a bit of gamergate perspective on it, so it has a trigger warning. 🙁
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3037941/the-secret-meaning-behind-gamergates-branding
Soon Lee
They are the colours Gamergate use to represent themselves.
Doh! Ninjaed with a better response by Hampus
My spin-off concept, based on the fact that every time I turned on the TV one or the other of these shows were playing: Star Trek: CSI.
GG never fails to Aristotle.
@ Mike Glyer: Thanks! Apologies to all for the earworm.
Still waiting for a resolution to Odyssey 5.
I remember being very fond of the Planet of the Apes show. My dad loves the movies; it’s one of the few fandoms we share.
Rewatching along with Mark Watches Star Trek, I’ve noticed: Starfleet had male miniskirt uniforms in the early seasons of TNG, TNG had a worse good::weak episode ratio than I remembered, and DS9 had stronger storytelling. I remember refusing to watch DS9 as it aired for the first few seasons, because it wasn’t space exploration, which I felt ST should be. Luckily, I got over it. Picard will always be my favorite captain, but DS9 has my favorite characters.
(2) THE BOMBS OF OTHER DAYS. I haven’t even heard of some of these. My memory bites, though. I didn’t remember the original “Battlestar Galactica” was only one season. I remember most or all of those episodes, but I guess I’d deluded myself into thinking they were just the most memorable ones, instead of being the only ones at all! I may have enjoyed “Galactica 1980” back in the day, though. (blush) Hey, I was young. . . . Regarding “Stargate,” I liked the first two series a lot, but “Universe” not nearly as much (still haven’t finished it).
(6) IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR. Hey, Walton links to Emma Newman’s “Pseudo end of year post”, where Newman mentions:
Why wasn’t I told about this sooner??? 😉 Cool! I’d love to read more SF by Newman.
(14) AGAIN AND AGAIN. Hahaha, great. I’ve sent this to my other half, who (like me) enjoyes both “Potter” and “Who.”
@Matthew Johnson: LOL, and thanks for the earworm. “Set a course for a wormhole, your mind on a new bromance. Trek won’t hurt anymore, it’s an open port near a friendly star.” 🙂
ETA: Ugh, stupid paste routine from that site. Sorry for the inadvertent spam link that was on this line.
@Viverrine: Wait, someone besides me even knows “Odyssey 5” exists?! 😉
@Kathodus & @Soon Lee: Aw, “reading for the Hugos” should be a subset of “reading for pleasure.” There’s no way to do it wrong, Soon Lee, except slating. 😉
IMHO the Worldcon masses don’t have an excuse. The problem for some who don’t vote is mistakenly believing they have to read everything (impossible) or at least some large nebulous amount, like a minimum threshold, in order to vote.
So I say, mix old books, new books, rereads, whatever – keep it fun for you. ‘Cuz pressure’s no fun, and if it’s not fun, what’s the point?
If I’m coming on too strong, my apologies. I just get bummed reading about pressure and concern about doing it right. There are many paths. Good luck finding the one that works best for you!
Not actually about DS9 as content, but it was responsible for one of my geekiest moments. As it happened, summer of ’96 I had a friend who had the writer’s internship on the show who I’d loaned a copy of my Thomas Bros. map book from when I’d lived in LA. And, as it happened, the admin for my group from when I was working in LA was now a production coordinator for DS9. So when I was out for LACon, I of course had to stop by and reclaim my map book for my own use. : -)
They were kind enough to get me a guided tour of the sets. Oddly enough, my first sighting of an actor was Avery Brooks riding a bicycle…wearing a classic Trek uniform. So I found out a bit about Tribbles and Tribulations ahead of time.
But the geekiest moment was when I was being shown the Ops set, which had a stage crew member doing some work on it. Realizing I was a guest, he told me to count to three and then do a certain thing.
So I counted to three and yelled “Red alert!” to which all the various lights and noises associated with one went off.
Kendall: So I say, mix old books, new books, rereads, whatever – keep it fun for you. ‘Cuz pressure’s no fun, and if it’s not fun, what’s the point?
Seconding Kendall’s point here — I’ve been reading and wincing at the comments that compared reading sff to homework because, wow, what a bummer. I’ve been reading more of recently published works than usual (but loving it), even checking out more shorter works than usual (I’m not a big fan of shorter genres) but following recs and such from Filers has been great–I’m not making any huge effort to see new shows or films that I don’t want to see because, yeah, I have enough trouble balancing fun reading with the fact that I write essays about and teach sff (OTOH, it’s FUN writing essays about sff, and mostly fun teaching courses with sff in the reading–I don’t teach SFF as an official course which would NOT be fun). I cannot imagine how miserable I’d be if I had to meet some standard of “read X amount of stuff.” Now, if I was on an official prize jury, that would be different (but in most cases, juried awards don’t read ALL the stuff–there are nomination methods which weed out quite a bit).
I’m going to read the sort of stuff I always read, supplementing with recs (not only from here but from Scalzi’s Big Idea and Book Smugglers and a few other bloggers), and when it comes time to nominate (thanks MUCHLY to the person–sorry I cannot remember your name who pointed out the nominations don’t have to be ranked), I’ll nominate those I believe are the best that I have read. The whole point of having a larger group is to get the group intelligence/synergy working.
And sometimes I stumble across stuff in the most serendipitous way–saw a link on Facebook the other day, followed it, and found:
Sarah Gailey’s Star Wars Twitter review
https://storify.com/gaileyfrey/sarah-sees-a-star-war
She’d never watched the original three films, and did live tweets of them (I read the first one in full–haven’t gotten to the others yet–but the first one was so incredible I’m seriously considering nominating her for Best Fan Writer (was kidding my friends on FB that I might nominate the review for best related work). I want to check out what else she’s written.
But this was BEAUTIFUL.
@robinareid
Oh dear Dogge, that’s hilarious.
“Space Indiana Jones.” *choke*
I thought it was a reference to The Joker.
@robinareid: Holy cats, Sarah Sees a Star War is hilarious.
My favorite sci-fi bomb that nobody has ever heard of is “Quark”, the adventures of the captain and crew of a garbage collection ship in space.
I can still bring scenes to mind, and I haven’t seen it since it was broadcast.
I think my favorite fantasy bomb might be “When Things Were Rotten”, Mel Brooks’ first attempt at Robin Hood. It wasn’t great, but I enjoyed it.
I loved Quark. It was just loads of fun.
For Sarah Sees Empire: https://storify.com/gaileyfrey/capes-vs-cloaks
For Sara Sees Return of the Jedi: https://storify.com/gaileyfrey/space-voldemort-vs-whiny-space-criminals-6-luke-is
Peace: I remember When Things were Rotten. I loved it as a kid.
Those Sarah Sees… are just awesome. THE single best one:
“Luke has this shitty habit of being the last person people see before they die and they all just look SO DISAPPOINTED”
I too loved Quark and When Things Were Rotten.
The whole family watched original BSG and when 1980 came on, we watched one episode and concluded we would watch no more. Although we did watch the one which was entirely flashback to an original cast member. Which is the only ep anybody remembers nowadays, even vaguely.
People forget how much really dire stuff was in the first couple of seasons of TNG. I think the ensemble on DS9 was much better.
It’s an alternate theme song for the “Love Boat: The Next Generation”, as seen on SNL back in the day!
I loved Quark too. Tip: don’t rewatch it. The suck fairy’s been at it in a major way. Stick to memory.
They may be used by gamergate, but weren’t those the two colors of the rival religious sects on Babylon 5 when Ivanova had to resolve the conflict between them? So that pretty much predates any of the gamergate stuff.
Soon Lee, is B5 what you were referring to? Or am I the only one who remembers this episode?