THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
07/29/11 -- Vol. 30, No. 5, Whole Number 1660
Frick: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Frack: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
All material is copyrighted by author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe, send mail to mtvoid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, send mail to mtvoid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
The latest issue is at http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm.
An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at
http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm.
Topics:
Impressions
Appropriate (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (Part 2) (retrospective
by Mark R. Leeper)
TEST PILOT PIRX (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)
3D Printers (letter of comment by Richie Bielak)
Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day (letter of comment
by Jo Paltin)
A Culinary Wasteland (letters of comment by Pete Brady
and Kip Williams)
BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR (letters of comment by Kip Williams,
Paul Dormer, Kevin J. Maroney, Tim McDaniel, and
Keith F. Lynch)
COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (letters of comment
by Philip Chee and Kip Williams)
This Week's Reading (DOOMSDAY BOOK and THE RIDDLE OF THE
COMPASS) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Impressions
Rob Mitchell sends the following link of Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage,
and Gollum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9eriClHWLw
And Evelyn recommends impressions of celebrities doing Shakespeare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8PGBnNmPgk
==================================================================
TOPIC: Appropriate (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The other day Evelyn was watching UN CHIEN ANDALOU. She had not
remembered ever seeing it. I was also in the den and watching it
with half an eye, which afterward it occurred to me was
appropriate. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (Part 2) (retrospective by Mark
R. Leeper)
[This is not a review, but a retrospective. I will make no attempt
to avoid spoilers.]
Last week I was writing about the 1969 film COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN
PROJECT.
My observation of COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT is that science
fiction fans seem to think it is a good science fiction film, but
people listing the noteworthy SF films mention COLOSSUS. At the
RottenTomatoes website it rates an 88% meaning most people think
that it is worth seeing. But I have never seen it listed among the
best science fiction films of its decade, and nobody I know would
go out on a limb and claim it was great. Perhaps part of the
reason is that it was released in 1969, a year after 2001: A SPACE
ODYSSEY and a year before THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Each of those
films has strong advocates and COLOSSUS is lost in the valley
between them. Incidentally the film is known variously as COLOSSUS
and THE FORBIN PROJECT as well as COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT. It
did not get a very good release from Universal Studios and most
people who saw the film saw it on television. But the film's style
was low-key and it still works well on the small screen.
The casting of this film is particularly good with a lot of
familiar faces doing well in dramatic roles. Eric Braeden was
already a familiar face on the screen when he made COLOSSUS; though
it was the first time he had used that name. Earlier he had used
his real name, Hans Gudegast. He had played the German foe in the
TV series "The Rat Patrol." However for this film Universal did
not want to make a film in which the leading role was played by
someone named "Gudegast". From that point on he always used the
name Eric Braeden. He was in several other films including ESCAPE
FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES. He continues his career, mostly
appearing on TV soap operas, on which he is quite a familiar face.
Gordon Pinsent, who plays the President of the United States, is a
popular Canadian actor particularly familiar on Canadian
television. Braeden is a good choice to play Forbin. He strikes
the viewer as intelligent, as if there is a lot going on behind his
eyes even as he speaks.
The villain of the piece, if that is what he is, was played by
about five million dollars worth of Control Data Corporation
computer equipment, supplied to the filmmakers free of charge for
some obvious product placement. The voice is created in 1969 by
what we thought a computer voice would sound like. It is credited
to Paul Frees using what sounds like a mechanical larynx. He
voices the computer totally without emotion. Perhaps what is
irritating about Colossus is that it is do emotional. Its attitude
seems to be that Forbin plotted against Colossus. That got a lot
of people killed. That is all in the past. Now here is the next
step. The computer voice is totally cold and logical without a
hint of emotion. Frees had a voice that showed up in a lot of
films. He is the narrator of the opening of WAR OF THE WORLDS
(1953) which also had Robert Cornthwaite. They were previously
together in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) and they were
together once more in COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT. Another face
in this film familiar from 1950s science fiction is William
Schallert. The screenplay was written by James Bridges (who wrote
and directed THE PAPER CHASE). It was based on the first book of a
three-book trilogy by D. F. Jones.
COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT is not a film with a lot of fancy
special effects, even for its time. What the viewer sees is
basically a real computer running. What does make the visuals look
futuristic is that many of the exteriors were shot at the recently
opened Lawrence Hall of Science on the campus of the University of
California at Berkeley. The filmmakers got a futuristic look
without creating it themselves. Overall the film probably looks
like a much more expensive film. The film maintains a low-key tone
that lends it a certain authenticity.
I have not read the second and third books, but I think Jones's
point to all this is quite clear. The story is then a lot like
some of Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot" stories. Forbin wanted to create
a benevolent dictator. It is a lot easier to define exactly what
a dictator is than to define what benevolence is. Forbin got what
he defined, but that was not what he wanted. Perhaps it is better
to have no dictator at all. (Perhaps?) [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: TEST PILOT PIRX (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Stanislaw Lem's space pilot Pirx is given a double task.
He is to orbit two satellites in Saturn's rings and at the same
time see if he can detect which of his crew is actually a humanoid
robot. This Eastern European co-production has engaging ideas
floating around, but feels off-balance through the entire story.
Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Stanislaw Lem's character Pilot Pirx came to the screen in a 1978
film. Though the film was a Polish-Russian-Estonian coproduction
the first half of the film is set in the United States. It seems
to be a Soviet film with an American hero. Human-looking robots
have been invented and given the unexplained name "non-linears" as
if they are expected to be out of line. Unfortunately for the
corporation selling non-linears, the public is suspicious of the
robots. A decision is made to have a demonstration proving that
non-linears are indistinguishable from real people on the job.
Pilot Pirx is given a mission to Saturn's rings and given a crew of
five, or rather four humans and one non-linear. Pirx will not be
told which of his crewmembers is the robot. Instead he must decide
for himself which of the five crewmen is not a human. It will not
be easy because even the human crewmembers seem mechanical. TEST
PILOT PIRX was produced four years before BLADERUNNER, and the
theme of a test to distinguish robots from humans appeared in film
here first.
What Pirx does not know is that another group of robots does not
want the space pilot performing this test and is trying to kill him
even before he leaves for space. Like many films of these years--
apparently even Eastern European ones--there is an effort to
shoehorn in a theme of Cold War intrigue probably inspired by the
then popular James Bond films.
Once Pirx is in space the tone changes from action thriller to
cerebral mystery. One crewmember claims to be human, another to be
the robot, but Pirx does not know if he can believe either of them.
He must proceed with his task of putting two satellites in orbit
within the rings of Saturn. Incongruously, after a while in space
the focus shifts to a courtroom inquest into Pirx's actions. As
with the film THE CAINE MUTINY, the courtroom becomes a mechanism,
albeit an awkward one here, to explain Pirx's actions earlier in
the film. The special effects are kept to a minimum and not
particularly convincing, but they are sufficient enough to tell the
story.
Stanislaw Lem is well known in his native Poland but very little
known in the United States by anyone but long-time science fiction
fans. Lem (1921-2006) was the premier science fiction author of
Eastern Europe. He is the author of THE SILENT STAR, TALES OF PIRX
THE PILOT, SOLARIS, THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS, CYBERIAD, THE
INVINCIBLE, and A PERFECT VACUUM, but his best-known work is
probably SOLARIS, which has been adapted to film twice. TEST PILOT
PIRX is of course based on one of his stories: "The Inquest" from
TALES OF PIRX THE PILOT. The film was made in 1978 and the story
was published in the United States in 1982 in his short story
collection MORE TALES OF PIRX THE PILOT. This film won the "Golden
Asteroid" at the 18th International Cinema Festival at Trieste in
1979.
For fans of the small collection of Eastern European science
fiction films--and there are just a handful of these films--TEST
PILOT PIRX is something of a find. Two other such films, based on
Lem stories, are the Soviet SOLARIS (directed by cult director
Andrey Tarkovskiy) and THE SILENT STAR (a.k.a. FIRST SPACESHIP ON
VENUS). The IMDB suggests Lem also contributed to IKARIE XB 1
(a.k.a. VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE). I rate TEST PILOT PIRX
a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080010/
At the time of this writing TEST PILOT PIRX can be streamed free of
charge at http://stagevu.com/video/zugcqarivgjx or
http://tinyurl.com/leeper-pirx.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: 3D Printers (letter of comment by Richie Bielak)
In response to Mark's comments on 3D printers in the 07/22/11 issue
of the MT VOID, Richie Bielak writes:
Here is a solar-powered one:
http://tinyurl.com/void-solar-3d-printer
[-rb]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day (letter of comment by Jo
Paltin)
In response to the comments on pi and tau in the 07/22/11 issue of
the MT VOID, Jo Paltin writes (on 07/22):
I am sure you know about Pi Approximation Day [celebrated today],
but still I could not resist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day
Mark responds:
And you have the people who celebrate March 14 as Pi Day. And they
will probably always disagree. I guess it is sort of a religious
issue. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: A Culinary Wasteland (letters of comment by Pete Brady and
Kip Williams)
In response to Evelyn's comments on Worcester (MA) in the 07/22/11
issue of the MT VOID, Pete Brady writes:
Regarding your article on Worcester, a culinary wasteland, this
reminds me of something that happened to us around 12 years ago.
We flew into Kansas City, Mo., to attend a week-long conference
held at Rockhurst University, which is on the southern end of
Kansas City. We arrived by taxi around 5PM on a warm June evening.
We could register for the conference, but the dining room was
closed and we had to walk to any restaurant we could find.
This is a nice college, but in a somewhat bleak neighborhood, and
it seemed void of restaurants. Finally, someone recommended "Go,
Chicken, Go" which I guess is a chain, which was about a half mile
away. So, we trudged over to it.
It was a plain building on a busy highway, kind of run-down
(resembling a White Castle restaurant), which served fast food,
specializing in fried chicken. It was about half full of people,
and we were the only whites, which didn't bother us, except that we
were uncertain what kind of food we would get.
We then had the *very best* fried chicken dinner we have *ever* had.
You just don't know! [-ptb]
Mark responds:
I'm sorry. To be polite I should be feigning some sort of
surprise. The fact is that same experience happens so often it no
longer surprises Evelyn or me. And where a different ethnicity is
involved it is ever more likely to happen. We went to a Somali
restaurant. The place looked like two amateurs were running it.
Except for smaller tables all of the glasses and plates looked like
someone would have in their home. They served us out of Tupperware.
It just did not look like a restaurant. I think we were the only
people who were not immigrants from Somalia. And what the heck is
Somalian food? Answer: I don't remember but it was great.
Kip Williams writes:
Did you go to the Armory in Worcester? I think it's the Higgins.
Lots of great stuff--suits of armor, of course, in a hall made to
look all stony and medieval. Pretty neat trick for a building with
steel plates bolted on its outside!
I never tried to eat in Worcester that I can remember. I hear the
sauce is good. [-kw]
Evelyn responds:
No, we didn't go to the Higgins Armory. I'm not sure we even knew
about it. We were looking for something to do while we were in
western Massachusetts visiting family, and we had never seen the
art museum there, so we picked that. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR (letters of comment by Kip Williams,
Paul Dormer, Kevin J. Maroney, and Tim McDaniel)
In response to Joe Karpierz's review of ALL CLEAR in the 07/22/11
issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
I hear from reliable sources that the book contains a number of
mistakes that ruin it for those to whom they matter a lot. (I
remember when a movie was filmed in my home town, and people would
step into a door at the university gym and come out in the student
center. What a howler!) The complaint is also made about its
length, but to me, the sheer amount of time spent in unresolved
limbo is a way of invoking the unresolved limbo of those who were
really in the war, not knowing how it would come out or when. I'm
not sure I want it shorter. [-kw]
Paul Dormer responds:
Although some of the mistakes have been corrected in Blackout for
the paperback edition I read last month. The anachronistic tube
lines have been removed, pillar boxes are no longer used for
telephone calls. Still have people using tokens on the
underground, though. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
A new series has started on the BBC called "The Hour". It's being
called the British "Mad Men", although it's set in the Fifties, not
the Sixties, and in television news, not advertising. This sparked
an article in the paper last week on historical accuracy in TV
shows: http://tinyurl.com/void-hour
I liked that in "Mad Men", "A sharp-eared (and eyed) fan of the
show noticed that a record played at a Christmas party was the
right era (1964) but in a 1970-issue sleeve." [-pd]
Kevin Maroney replies:
This could spiral into the new Ridiculous Movie Geography, but: In the
1987 film THE LOST BOYS, Corey Haim's character lectures the comic
shop employees (the Frog Brothers) on mis-filing their old Superman
comics, making learned (and reasonably accurate) reference to issue
numbers 77, 98, and 300 as he moves comics around on the shelf. The
problem is that the issue under discussion are all 20- to 40-year-old
back issues, and the comics in the frame are contemporary and
displayed as such. Just weird what sneaks through. [-kjm]
Kip Williams responds:
Sneaks, or just doesn't matter to whoever makes the decisions. In
the animation apa I was in for years, someone in the business
reported on catching awful mistakes in the animation and asking for
a do-over, and being told it wasn't necessary because (totally flat
inflection here) "kids blink."
So, when you see something stupid or otherwise inexplicable on the
screen, it just doesn't matter. Kids blink. [-kw]
And Tim McDaniel adds:
I got an introduction into the My Little Pony craze that's apparently
sweeping the Web, via a posting about the political economy of
Ponyville or whatever it's called. ("a Marxist analysis" ... "I can't
believe I just typed that".) They mentioned that one fan favorite
pony, becoming a new character, was due to an animation error. There
were some background ponies in a scene, they readjusted some, one's
face was revealed, and the eyes were pointed in different directions.
Fans dubbed her "Derpy". The animators have since run with it. [-tmd]
And Keith F. Lynch adds:
The earliest versions of Dilbert's boss didn't have pointy hair.
It's not clear whether he was intended to be the same guy or not.
One could build a whole theology on animator errors: Maybe the
universe wasn't originally intended to contain intelligent life,
but God goofed, and decided to "run with it." [-kfl]
And Evelyn notes:
On her web site (http://www.sftv.org/cw/), Connie Willis says,
"All I know is that as soon as I heard about time travel, I fell in
love with the idea. I loved the possibility that we could go back
to the past and change mistakes we made--which I am always wishing
I could do--and that we could go see the St. Louis World's Fair or
the Colossus of Rhodes or Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address.
And that we could change history--shooting Hitler in Berlin in 1934
or knocking the gun out of John Wilkes Booth's hand."
So it seems fitting, if annoying to bibliographers, that the
paperback editions of her books correct the mistakes in the
hardback versions. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (letters of comment by Philip
Chee and Kip Williams)
In response to Mark's comments on COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT in
the 07/22/11 issue of the MT VOID, Philip Chee wrote:
Someone will send a T800 [Terminator] back in time to destroy the
special chips that go into the making of Colossus of course. [-pc]
To which Kip Williams responds:
On January 1, 2000, the problem solves itself. [-kw]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis (ISBN 978-0-553-56273-6) was the
science fiction discussion group's choice for this month. This
book is 445 pages long and is usually described as being about a
time traveling historian going back to the time of the Black Death.
However, a third of the way through, while the time traveler has
traveled back, she has spent all her time sick with a fever (not
the Plague), unable to communicate and unsure of where or when she
is. (The communication was supposed to be aided by a translator
which seems to be magic compared to all the other technology, even
the time gate, since it somehow not only translates incoming sounds
into modern English, but takes the wearer's brain waves and
translates them into Middle English.) Two-thirds of the way
through, not much has progressed in the past, but we have read a
lot about the influenza in the time from which she was sent and how
it is disrupting all sorts of things--including trying to get
information about the time traveler, or to contact anyone in
authority. After three hundred pages, this seems incredibly
contrived. It is not helped by the fact that Willis wrote this
almost twenty years ago, before mobile phones became ubiquitous, so
now this seems even more artificial. Indeed, in BLACKOUT/ALL
CLEAR, set in the same universe, apparently mobile phones (or
email) still don't work in the future Oxford, because if they did,
solving the communications problems of the plot would be too easy.
THE RIDDLE OF THE COMPASS: THE INVENTION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by
Amir D. Aczel (ISBN 978-0-15-600753-3) is a bit lighter than his
earlier books (FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM, THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEPH,
PROBABILITY I, and GOD'S EQUATION). Aczel starts in Amalfi, home
of Flavio Gioia, cited by the Amalfis as the inventor of the
compass. But since the compass seems to have been invented by the
Chinese several centuries earlier, and since Flavio Gioia seems not
even to have existed, the amount of time Aczel spends on this seems
excessive. He also talks about Marco Polo, but barely mentions the
current controversy about whether Polo actually made the trip
himself. Given that I think there is considerable support for the
view that Marco Polo got most of his information about Asia from
other travelers and did very little traveling himself, this is odd.
There is also a lot about navigation before the compass in this
book and surprisingly little about the compass itself. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
If people do not believe that mathematics is simple,
it is only because they do not realize how complicated
life is.
- John von Neumann