Babylon 5: The Lost Tales revisits everyone's favourite space station for yet more peacekeeping intrigues, and unabashed quasi-mystical bullshit. Despite some telling moments of strong character-isation (from Tracy Scoggins as Colonel Lockley; Bruce Boxleitner's President Sheridan) this is a desultory revival attempt that's riding home on nostalgic liking for the 1994-8 series, before the dreary Crusade (1999) rubbished most fans’ stubborn appreciation of J. Michael Straczynski's earlier SF achievement. Perhaps they should have changed this galactic outpost into an interspecies hospital (citing James White's popular Sector General books?), instead of exploring political conspiracies and failing military treaties or much busyness with religious campaigns. Weird medical drama could have thrown up a few genuinely interesting SF puzzlers. Instead of eclecticism and fresh ideas, all we draw from B5 now is a meandering plot, and once-likeable characters in directionless continuity beyond their use-by dates.
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Babylon 5: The Lost Tales
Though it borrows from Aliens (1986), Doom (2005) hardly fits the basic criteria for a space opera. It's more in keeping with the shoot ‘em up sci-fi and slasher horror-show antics previously enjoyed, to varying degrees, in Alien Vs. Predator (2004), futuristic horror farce Jason X (2002), and John Carpenter's gruesome Ghosts Of Mars (2001). Phil Tippett's sequel, Starship Troopers 2: Hero Of The Federation (2004), in which a besieged outpost is kept waiting too long for reinforcements, is not a patch on Paul Verhoeven's 1997 movie of Robert Heinlein's fascistic novel. Darren Aronofsky's epic about immortality, The Fountain (2006), is weighed down by its pretensions and not helped by a blathering performance from Hugh Jackman (fast becoming the kiss of death to genre cinema?), to attain the escape velocity required for consideration as proper space opera. This is a muddled fantasy from a highly acclaimed dir-ector, and not even the breathtaking presence of Rachel Weisz can save it. Could you believe its sappy Adam and Eve metaphor?
SPACIOUS OR MERELY SPACED?
Clint Eastwood's effects-burdened Space Cowboys (2000) trades up-on interest in the romanticised heroism of Philip Kaufman's classic drama The Right Stuff (1984), and Ron Howard's compelling Apollo 13 (1995). TV movie Challenger (1990) was another curiously upbeat docudrama in similar vein, focused on media coverage and tech-nical problems that resulted in January 1986's shuttle disaster which has impeded NASA's progress in particular, and international space programmes in general, until recently. The Astronaut Farmer (2006) struggled to perpetuate libertarian myths of American competency and pioneering human spirit. In the end, we don't care whether Billy Bob Thornton's DIY spaceman achieves his rocket scientist aims, and blasts off the planet, or not. Wouldn't a movie about building a space elevator have been more intriguing?
Joe Ahearne's ambitious Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets (2004) was a BBC pseudo-documentary celebrating the manned exploration of neighbouring worlds. It prompted a couple of un-manned exploratory 3D animated dioramas: Channel Four's Alien Worlds and Discovery's Alien Planet (both 2005). Danny Boyle's appealing Sunshine (2007) combined Dark Star (1974) with Thunderbirds episode Sun Probe (1965). Comparatively, Sunshine re-flects a somewhat gritty, essentially realistic, view of space travel—like those memorably depicted in Peter Hyams’ Outland (1981), and 2010 (1984); a cycle of near-future interplanetary space opera belatedly followed by Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars and Antony Hoffman's Red Planet (both 2000). Yet, while earlier space age flicks depicted space pioneers as competent professionals, the ‘Icarus II’ crew of Sunshine revert to unsociable/outsider stereotypes, especi-ally in the rampaging psycho climax, and the result is deeply flawed and wholly imitative, but certainly an improvement upon the likes of Walter Hill's abandoned Supernova (2000). However, a few half-decent recent space movies films are out there. The Cold Equations (2003) is a worthwhile adaptation of Tom Godwin's 1954 classic, and Robi Michael's short, A Can Of Paint (2004), based on A.E. van Vogt's 1944 story, is a fine updating of pulp SF traditions.
Andrew Bellware's cheesy Millennium Crisis (2007) is partly inspired by The Fifth Element (1997) but, lacking a sufficient bud-get for depicting its galactic warfare plot, the film evinces a camp skiffy affect akin to the pragmatic anything-goes weirdness of Lexx (1997-2002). It is a delirious throwback to memorably suspect productions like Galaxina (1980), or Starcrash (1978), and its un-official sequel, Escape From Galaxy 3 (1981). Spandex costumes and nylon wigs, a topless swordfighter, charming 1970s’ styled special effects, and Ted Raimi wearing a bowtie are welcome distractions from yawning, sucking, pit-of-gloom explicatory dialogue which constitutes a plot delivery mechanism. Never mind the fate of the universe, admire the curtained set décor, and chuckle at the abrupt scene changes that should at least prevent you from dozing off.
On DVD now uncut, Howard The Duck (1986) introduced cinemagoers to Marvel comics’ bizarre visitor from a parallel uni-verse who's mysteriously stranded on Earth, in Cleveland. It's not strictly a space opera, but could fit into the adjacent subgenre or alien-flipside sub-set of ‘planetary romance', much like Nicolas Roeg's Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), John Carpenter's Starman, and John Sayles’ Brother From Another Planet (both 1984), or—and perhaps it's a more accurate comparison?—Spielberg's E.T. (1982). A unique blockbuster fantasy about Steve Gerber's cigar-chomp-ing beer-guzzling alien with a sarcastic attitude, Willard Huyck's movie was a memorable box-office failure, but has since acquired a strong cult following. (Pledge allegiance to your new feathered-friend now!) Prudes may have balked at the latent bestiality (does our heroine really fuck a fowl?), while arty purists discriminated against gross absurdity masquerading as surrealism but, in it's own way, this offbeat ‘first contact’ adventure belongs in the same myth-riddled category as Superman (1978). No, only joking! It's not only Hollywood that's reviving ‘awkward’ movies for home entertainment discs. Japan has a vast back catalogue of both animated and live-action pictures. Despite its irritating product placements, a turgidly-paced didactic narrative (about discovering a runaway black hole threatening the Solar system, and a human science-hero effort to destroy Jupiter), and terribly wooden actors (not helped by truly dreadfulEnglishdubbing)alldeliveringgravelyhackneyeddialogue, writer-director Sakyo Komatsu's keenly dialectic sci-fi spectacular Sayonara Jupiter (1984) appears just the sort of vaguely serious genre movie that Gerry Anderson might well have championed, in the wake of Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun (aka: Doppelgänger, 1969), if he'd been able to avoid simply producing more telly stuff. Interestingly, the giant planet's fate in Komatsu's film mirrors a similar ‘catastrophe’ in 2010, and Komatsu's book appeared in 1982, same year as Clarke's novel Odyssey Two. With the Japanese film tarred and feathered with its 22nd century's hippie sentimentality, there's clearly no accounting for disparate cultural tastes.
Now, Family Guy: Blue Harvest spoofs Star Wars: A New Hope. Are the makers of this TV programme daring and brilliant? No. Tiresomely unimaginative and crude farce is quite passé. MelBrooks’ Spaceballs (1987) had a better assortment of jokes! When a budget-free digest of the whole Star Wars’ movies saga that was performed on stage at 2005's Worldcon boasted more entertainingly throwaway sketches than this, well ... there's really no point in offering any constructive criticism. This is not a proper animated sci-fi comedy; it is simply another depressingly cheap and cheerless cartoon rip-off of a 30-year-old film. Several snidely non-PC gags at the expense of gays, disabled people, and ethnic minorities are particularly tired, and/or deplorably condescending, and so it delivers no legitimate fun whatsoever. Like their version of Chewbacca, it's a dog.
Contrary to all of the above, I do believe that bad SF is certainly healthier than none. But,if the crux of space opera concerns escapism (from gravity, in every meaning of the word), such movies and TV series need to look ahead, not backward. The very last thing we need today is another reversionary plod through Star Trek lore, or the Sci-Fi Channel insolently re-doing Flash Gordon. Where are the screen adaptations of Larry Niven's Ringworld, o
r Bob Shaw's Orbitsville? What about David Brin's great Uplift series, C.J. Cherryh's shelf-load of ‘Union-Alliance’ titles, and Vernor Vinge's superb A Fire Upon The Deep? (To mention just a handful of un-filmed favourites.) With the current vogue for CGI enabling anything ‘imaginable’ to be presented realistically on screen, why does the movie industry continue to neglect the tantalising possibilities for some ultimate-fun space opera based on Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels?
Copyright © 2008 Tony Lee
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Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #215 Page 19
