Jim Baen’s Universe

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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 68

by Edited by Eric Flint


  After a few do­zen pitch ses­si­ons in fas­hi­onab­le ‘40s-style bun­ga­lows, I be­gan to no­ti­ce that ne­arly all of the­se Exec. Prods. and Pro­duc­ti­on Ma­na­gers and Per­so­nal As­sis­tants we­re un­der 30,. Most of them ca­me from bac­k­g­ro­unds in Film Stu­di­es or Jo­ur­na­lism, and se­emed the types who sit at the very back of the­ir sci­en­ce clas­ses. So­me hid be­hind dark glas­ses, style vic­tims of hi­pi­tu­de.

  I had sold the pro­duc­ti­on te­am of pro­du­cer Jon De­bont on my no­vel, Cosm, by brin­ging along pic­tu­res of par­tic­le ac­ce­le­ra­tors. High tech, the big­ger the bet­ter, helps vi­su­al pe­op­le see the mo­vie. They even li­ked the idea of sho­oting the film at UC Ir­vi­ne, whe­re the no­vel is set. Sho­oting in the lar­ger LA area ke­eps costs down. Wit­hin a ra­di­us that ba­rely in­c­lu­ded UC Ir­vi­ne, ac­tors and crew must get them­sel­ves to the si­te every day on the­ir own. Ex­cept for the stars, of co­ur­se.

  For Cosm De­bont li­ned up pre­li­mi­nary ag­re­ements to star from Dus­tin Hof­fman and An­ge­la Bas­sett; Ti­me ma­ga­zi­ne car­ri­ed this news, to my ama­ze­ment. I li­ke Hof­fman as an ac­tor, and he wo­uld play the Ein­s­te­in-li­ke fi­gu­re of Max from the no­vel. The co­re of the no­vel was the ve­xed black wo­man le­ad, and I tho­ught Bas­sett se­emed right. Of co­ur­se, I had no say in any of this, be­ing a me­re wri­ter, tho­ugh I had vo­lun­te­ered tho­se two na­mes in the pitch ses­si­on.

  But then De­bont’s big pro­j­ect, a film com­bi­ning sf and wes­terns Gods and Mon­s­ters in Hol­lywo­odd Ghost Ri­ders in the Sky got axed by Fox be­ca­use it ran a pre­lim $115,000,000 sho­oting bud­get. They can­cel­led it me­re we­eks be­fo­re the ca­me­ras rol­led on spe­ci­al ef­fects. De­bont had to earn his ke­ep by sho­oting a hor­ror film ba­sed on The Ha­un­ting of Hill Ho­use, a re­ma­ke. It did not fa­re well in cri­ti­cal opi­ni­on, tho­ugh it ma­de so­me mo­ney.

  This set him down a notch in the Fa­me Lad­der of H’wo­od, so even tho­ugh he had ma­de Twis­ter and Spe­ed he co­uld not get the $90 mil­li­on ne­eded to go with Cosm. And an­y­way, the first script, writ­ten for a che­apo $150,000, was cle­arly ina­de­qu­ate. I of­fe­red to do one that ac­tu­al­ly used di­alog from the no­vel, in­s­te­ad of la­me tec­h­nos­pe­ak, as the H’wo­od wri­ter had do­ne, but no, that was im­pos­sib­le-no­ve­lists sel­dom get a shot at the * craft of scre­en­w­ri­ting. “I’m af­ra­id that puppy’s de­ad, for now,” my ma­na­ger sa­id.

  So Cosm is stal­led, awa­iting cash to­fi­nan­ce anot­her scre­en­p­lay. So is a TV clo­sed-end se­ri­es I pro­po­sed to the Sci­Fi Chan­nel, which to­ok cha­rac­ters cle­ar to the end of the uni­ver­se and then sa­ved them-too big a bud­get, so­me sa­id at se­ve­ral net­works. They had a po­int; sho­wing all of spa­ce and ti­me do­es run up tho­se costs.

  ****

  I got a go­od ag­re­ement with Man­da­lay Pro­duc­ti­ons to do The Mar­ti­an Ra­ce as a mi­ni­se­ri­es, af­ter only one pitch to the CEO. We had tri­ed it on se­ve­ral ot­her com­pa­ni­es with va­ri­o­us abor­ted starts, but this lo­oked re­al. I pit­c­hed it with Mic­ha­el Cas­sutt, an old TV hand who knows sf and has writ­ten a fa­ir amo­unt for ma­ga­zi­nes and even no­vels. We ba­sed our out­li­ne on a story I had writ­ten with the bi­olo­gist Eli­sa­beth Ma­lar­t­re, who was to be the tec­h­ni­cal ad­vi­sor.

  Then Man­da­lay star­ted stal­ling, over and over, go­ing thro­ugh three drafts of the con­t­rac­ts-was­ting ni­ne months whi­le Cas­sutt and I po­lis­hed our out­li­nes for the script. They we­re af­ra­id of the co­ming big Mars mo­vi­es, tho­ugh we co­uld sho­ot the TV se­ri­es and ha­ve it out be­fo­re an­y­t­hing re­ac­hed the the­at­res. But then so­me­body ca­me out of left fi­eld at us, as well-a small pro­duc­ti­on com­pany that had tri­ed to buy the right the ye­ar be­fo­re.

  There it was in the TV sche­du­le: Es­ca­pe From Mars on UPN. It was the ori­gi­nal Ma­lar­t­re-Ben­ford story, wren­c­hed aro­und and with eye-wi­de­ning tec­h­ni­cal er­rors. *(They used cen­t­ri­fu­gal gra­vity on the way to Mars, as any ex­pe­di­ti­on must, but had the we­ights on the out­si­de, so the ship was the axis, and wo­uld fe­el no cen­t­ri­fu­gal ef­fect. It su­re lo­oked pretty, tho­ugh…) Dre­ad­ful ac­ting, lo­usy sci­en­ce-in­c­lu­ding the ob­li­ga­tory me­te­ori­te storm, with pel­lets smac­king in­to the Mar­ti­an so­il every few me­ters, li­ke a red ha­il storm. Suc­king the ju­ice from bad as­t­ro­nomy…

  So we su­ed. They ac­ted out­ra­ged. Law­yers tra­ded sho­uting pho­ne calls and do­cu­ments for ni­ne months. Got now­he­re. So we told our law­yer to fi­le-and wit­hin an ho­ur the Es­ca­pe From Mars mo­ney of­fi­ce ga­ve in. We got a lot mo­re than I wo­uld’ve ex­pec­ted for the TV rights to the no­vel­la.

  At le­ast it was over…or so I tho­ught.

  ****

  So the­re I was, ha­ving din­ner with James Ca­me­ron to dis­cuss his TV se­ri­es, and the pa­ral­lels bet­we­en it and my no­vel, The Mar­ti­an Ra­ce.

  Cameron is un­li­ke H’wo­od types-his le­ad fa­ce con­veys that he is ear­nest and prac­ti­cal and fo­cu­sed. He sho­wed me and Bob Zub­rin (the Mars ad­vo­ca­te) his study, whe­re for many months he edi­ted Ti­ta­nic when the world out­si­de was ba­ying for him to re­le­ase the film. He had plenty of Ti­ta­nic bo­oks aro­und, and told us abo­ut how ac­cu­ra­te he had tri­ed to ma­ke the film. The­re re­al­ly had be­en a cle­ver pas­sen­ger who sto­od on the ta­il as it sub­mer­ged. He sur­vi­ved, swept up­ward to the sur­fa­ce by the churn, then fin­ding in the se­conds of con­s­ci­o­us­ness re­ma­ining a flo­ating tab­le to crawl up on­to.

  Cameron’s spraw­ling vil­la in Ma­li­bu is chock full of bo­oks, mostly sf, and he to­ok us to his fa­vo­ri­te Ita­li­an res­ta­urant in his Hum­vee, splas­hing thro­ugh stre­ams down an oak-stud­ded can­yon; not the usu­al H’wo­od type, no.

  Like many in H’wo­od, Ca­me­ron sub­s­c­ri­bes to the neo-aute­ur the­ory of film: all must spring from his brow. So he swer­ved aro­und the hu­ge si­mi­la­ri­ti­es bet­we­en his ide­as and my no­vel (alre­ady in print), tho­ugh he co­uldn’t re­sist tal­king abo­ut sce­nes that we had in com­mon. “When she ma­kes the run from the col­lap­sed gre­en­ho­use, ac­ross open gro­und, wit­ho­ut a hel­met-wow!”

  “Ummm… You’ve got a sce­ne li­ke that?” I as­ked.

  “Well, no.” Sud­den ca­uti­on. “But may­be so­met­hing si­mi­lar. I ne­ed to suck the ju­ice from a mo­ment that’s, uh, kin­da li­ke that.”

  There I le­ar­ned that the usu­al prac­ti­ce of ma­king pe­op­le see sce­nes when pit­c­hing a pro­j­ect had a re­al po­int. Ma­king a film is re­al­ly abo­ut ma­king sce­nes, shot so­me­ti­mes months or even ye­ars apart, that get squ­e­ezed aga­inst each ot­her, chop­ped, and pu­re­ed in the fi­nal film. Each must fra­me aga­inst the ot­her, and the tran­si­ti­ons in mo­od must be ac­com­p­lis­hed in col­la­bo­ra­ti­on bet­we­en the mo­ment of sho­oting and the mo­ment of truth in the cut­ting ro­om. No­ve­lists don’t co­me un­der such pres­su­res, es­pe­ci­al­ly not with Exec. Prods. fid­ge­ting da­ily abo­ut the mo­un­ting costs.

  “I think of myself as a wri­ter, re­al­ly,” he sa­id, well in­to our se­cond bot­tle of Bo­ro­lo, a gre­at Tus­can red.

  “So do I,” I sa­id ble­arily.

  “Huh? But you are.”

  “Actually, I ha­ve a day job, pro­fes­sor of physics.”

  “My God, you me­an the physics in tho­se no­vels-” and he­re he qu­ickly na­med fo­ur, to my ama­ze­ment-“is true?”

  “All physics is me­tap­hor,” I sa­id.

  ****

  Will Ca­me­ron’s se­ri­es use much of The Mar­ti­an Ra­ce? I’ll ha­ve to wa­it a
nd see, tho­ugh as they say in H’wo­od, his pe­op­le are tal­king to my pe­op­le (actu­al­ly, I only ha­ve one-a ma­na­ger, not an agent). “I think that puppy’s de­ad,” my ma­na­ger says, “but I’ll try.”

  What ha­ve I le­ar­ned? Ne­ver ex­pect much, be­ca­use this is a col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve biz. Even tho­ugh the who­le thing gets star­ted by a wri­ter ha­ving an idea (or, in many ca­ses, pur­lo­ining one), wri­ters are not se­en as pri­mary.

  I re­mem­ber that in the co­mic strip Pe­anuts, Sno­opy we­ars a T-shirt sa­ying WHAT I RE­AL­LY WANT TO DO IS DI­RECT, and the ma­in re­ason is that’s whe­re all the po­wer li­es (other than with the mo­ney boys, but that’s anot­her story). As John Gre­gory Dun­ne sa­id, “Wan­ting to be a scre­en­w­ri­ter is li­ke wan­ting to be a co-pi­lot.”

  In the ‘90s, the biz evol­ved un­til style has be­co­me con­tent and any schmuck with a vi­ew­fin­der is an aute­ur. A few di­rec­tors ha­ve fi­nal cut, and so so­me ar­tis­tic auto­nomy, but less than one wo­uld think, so they co­un­ter by get­ting in­to the early cre­ati­ve track, ac­tu­al­ly wri­ting the script (or may­be just an out­li­ne; go­od di­alog is hard). No wri­ter has ever had fi­nal draft, un­less he was the di­rec­tor, as well-a mo­re pre­va­lent pat­tern, as the qu­est for po­wer bro­adens. The di­rec­tor of Bo­ogie Nights wro­te the script for his next, Mag­no­lia, with di­sas­t­ro­us re­sults. Ca­me­ron both wri­tes and di­rects.

  Making go­od, big mo­vi­es de­pends of­ten on one strong, cre­ati­ve per­son big eno­ugh to defy the grin­ding me­dia lo­co­mo­ti­ve that wants to run on old, fa­mi­li­ar ra­ils. That may be a star, a di­rec­tor or even a pro­du­cer, but it’s damn su­re ne­ver a wri­ter.

  Then the­re are the “new” cre­ati­ve for­ces, es­pe­ci­al­ly the spe­ci­al ef­fects wi­zards. When I saw the big fe­atu­re film Mis­si­on to Mars, an ex­c­ru­ci­ating ex­pe­ri­en­ce, I co­uld tell whe­re the di­rec­tor had tho­ught that the Big Ef­fect Sce­ne was go­ing to sa­ve the ot­her­wi­se clunky script - which re­por­tedly cost two mil­li­on. It was li­ke a film ma­de by chil­d­ren with mo­ney, who co­uld va­gu­ely re­call be­ing, li­ke, re­al­ly tur­ned on by Kub­rick and Clar­ke’s 2001. Spe­ci­al ef­fects are of­ten used to co­ver script prob­lems, by dis­t­rac­ting the audi­en­ce with spec­tac­le. Ye­ats cal­led this “asking the will to do the work of the ima­gi­na­ti­on.” But then, he ne­ver got a script in­to pro­duc­ti­on, right?

  An old saw: You can te­ach tec­h­ni­que, but you can’t te­ach ta­lent. Its un­se­en co­rol­lary: Lo­gic and facts don’t mat­ter if you can ke­ep the vi­ewer’s eyes mo­ving. The Law of Ther­mod­ra­ma­tics dic­ta­tes that plot mo­men­tum trumps all ot­her su­its.

  Too many pro­du­cers and story edi­tors think the lar­ger pub­lic ca­res only for sen­sa­ti­on, spec­tac­le, fi­ery ex­p­lo­si­ons and cre­epy mon­s­ters ga­lo­re. Plot lo­gic gets tram­p­led along with physi­cal re­ality. Not that this wasn’t of­ten true in old Hol­lywo­od. The stu­dio system just pla­in didn’t get the tec­h­ni­cal ac­cu­racy and hard-ed­ged gran­de­ur of 2001. The­ir idea of a ne­ar imi­ta­ti­on was Si­lent Run­ning, a ma­ud­lin, sen­ti­men­tal, for­get­tab­le epic, which hin­ged upon no­body’s re­ali­zing that a spa­ce-bor­ne gre­en­ho­use wo­uld get less sun­light as it cru­ised out to Sa­turn.

  Hollywood vi­ews sci­en­ce fic­ti­on as a gen­re of de­tac­hab­le ide­as. That is why so many sf works ha­ve the­ir con­cepts and story struc­tu­res shop­lif­ted, the se­ri­al num­bers fi­led off. Be­hind this lurks the mo­re in­si­di­o­us no­ti­on that wri­ters of short sto­ri­es and no­vels don’t ha­ve scre­en­w­ri­ting savvy or skills. De­fe­ating the­se as­sum­p­ti­ons will ta­ke a lot of ef­fort and so­me co­un­te­re­xam­p­les, such as the tight col­la­bo­ra­ti­on bet­we­en Ar­t­hur C. Clar­ke and Stan­ley Kub­rick for 2001: A Spa­ce Od­y­s­sey.

  I re­mem­ber my last con­ver­sa­ti­on with Phil­lip K. Dick, when he had just re­tur­ned from se­e­ing the rus­hes for Bla­de Run­ner. He sa­id pla­in­ti­vely, only a few we­eks be­fo­re his de­ath, “I su­re wish they’d let me work on so­me of the di­alog.”

  ****

  Perhaps, as tec­h­ni­cal met­hods get che­aper, and en­ter­ta­in­ment mo­re fle­xib­le, we can get sto­ri­es that pay true at­ten­ti­on to sci­en­ce. Ma­king ab­s­t­rac­ti­ons lo­om lar­ge and re­al is the es­sen­ti­al art of an ad­van­ced ci­ne­ma. This me­ans not just shop­lif­ting ide­as, as in The Day Af­ter To­mor­row’s mud­dled mess of glo­bal cli­ma­te chan­ge.

  At le­ast so­me of us wo­uld go see ac­tu­al thin­king on the scre­en. This is far from cer­ta­in - wit­ness the res­pec­tab­le but not lar­ge audi­en­ce that li­ked Gat­ti­ca. May­be, just may­be, a scru­pu­lo­us ef­fort to not ac­tu­al­ly lie to the audi­en­ce co­uld catch on.

  On the ot­her hand, I ref­lec­ted on that first con­ver­sa­ti­on at Fox Stu­di­os. May­be I sho­uld’ve just nod­ded, sa­ying, “Su­re, ma­ke her a ro­bot. When can you cut a check?” And with a de­ad­pan lo­ok, “I’d li­ke to suck the ju­ice out of this puppy.”

  ****

  Back to the Moon!

  Travis S. Taylor

  History Re­pe­ats It­self?

  "As I ta­ke the­se last steps from the sur­fa­ce for so­me ti­me in the fu­tu­re to co­me, I'd just li­ke to re­cord that Ame­ri­ca's chal­len­ge of to­day has for­ged man's des­tiny of to­mor­row. And as we le­ave the mo­on and Ta­urus-Lit­trow, we le­ave as we ca­me, and, God wil­ling, we shall re­turn, with pe­ace and ho­pe for man­kind." The­se are the words sa­id by as­t­ro­na­ut Ge­ne Cer­nan, the com­man­der of Apol­lo 17, as he step­ped from the mo­on in pre­pa­ra­ti­on to re­turn to Earth.

  On De­cem­ber 14, 1972, as­t­ro­na­uts Har­ri­son Schmitt and Euge­ne Cer­nan clim­bed abo­ard the­ir Lu­nar Ex­cur­si­on Mo­du­le (LEM) and hu­ma­nity left the mo­on not to re­turn for at le­ast forty ye­ars. Due to the Cold War, lin­ge­ring as­pects of the Vi­et Nam era, po­li­ti­cal, so­ci­o­eco­no­mi­cal and pub­lic opi­ni­on is­su­es, the ge­ne­ral pub­lic in Ame­ri­ca se­emed to lo­se in­te­rest in any re­turn to our clo­sest ce­les­ti­al ne­ig­h­bor, the mo­on. The three de­ca­des that fol­lo­wed the Apol­lo prog­ram saw a flo­un­de­ring and al­most dying Ame­ri­can spa­ce prog­ram. The days of “Bet­ter, Fas­ter, Che­aper” re­mo­ved the ho­pe of man­kind ever re­tur­ning to al­ti­tu­des much hig­her than Low Earth Or­bit (LEO).

  Atop the fa­iling spa­ce prog­ram, ini­ti­ati­ves we­re al­so the fa­iling NA­SA bud­get and the fa­ilu­re of its le­ader­s­hip. Po­or le­ader­s­hip led to the hor­rib­le tra­ge­di­es of both the Chal­len­ger and Co­lum­bia ac­ci­dents. The­se tra­ge­di­es all but de­vas­ta­ted the al­re­ady lac­k­lus­ter Ame­ri­can spa­ce ef­forts.

  But as Apol­lo 17 as­t­ro­na­ut Har­ri­son Schmitt is wont to say, “We do things in fits and starts.” And that is exactly whe­re hu­ma­nity is to­day-at the be­gin­ning of an all new fit… an all new start.

  On Janu­ary 14, 2004 Pre­si­dent Ge­or­ge W. Bush ma­de the fol­lo­wing sta­te­ment:

  “Our… go­al is to de­ve­lop and test a new spa­cec­raft, the Crew Ex­p­lo­ra­ti­on Ve­hic­le, by 2008, and to con­duct the first man­ned mis­si­on no la­ter than 2014. The Crew Ex­p­lo­ra­ti­on Ve­hic­le will be ca­pab­le of fer­rying as­t­ro­na­uts and sci­en­tists to the Spa­ce Sta­ti­on af­ter the shut­tle is re­ti­red. But the ma­in pur­po­se of this spa­cec­raft will be to carry as­t­ro­na­uts be­yond our or­bit to ot­her worlds. This will be the first spa­cec­raft of its kind sin­ce the Apol­lo Com­mand Mo­du­le.”

  The fol­lo­wing is a sta­te­ment ma­de by the newly ap­po­in­ted NA­SA Ad­mi­nis­t­ra­tor Mic­ha­el G
rif­fin on the se­cond an­ni­ver­sary of Pre­si­dent Bush's an­no­un­ce­ment of the plan to re­turn to the mo­on, tra­vel to Mars and des­ti­na­ti­ons be­yond-a Vi­si­on for Spa­ce Ex­p­lo­ra­ti­on:

  "Two ye­ars ago this we­ek, Pre­si­dent Bush com­mit­ted our na­ti­on to the Vi­si­on for Spa­ce Ex­p­lo­ra­ti­on. This Vi­si­on com­mits Ame­ri­ca to a jo­ur­ney of dis­co­very and ex­p­lo­ra­ti­on with new and ex­ci­ting plans to re­turn as­t­ro­na­uts to the mo­on. From the­re, to vo­ya­ge to Mars and be­yond, whi­le con­ti­nu­ing to en­ga­ge in gro­un­d­b­re­aking spa­ce sci­en­ce and pi­one­ering ad­van­ces in in­no­va­ti­on, cre­ati­vity and tec­h­no­logy. To­get­her with the par­t­ner­s­hips we ha­ve in the In­ter­na­ti­onal Spa­ce Sta­ti­on prog­ram, our na­ti­on has the tre­men­do­us op­por­tu­nity and so­lemn res­pon­si­bi­lity to le­ad the way to­ward the dawn of a new spa­ce age."

  There is a who­le lot mo­re his­tory that to­ok pla­ce over the next co­up­le of ye­ars bet­we­en con­t­rac­tors, in­ter­nal NA­SA is­su­es, and con­t­rac­tor se­lec­ti­on. The pro­j­ect ori­gi­nal­ly star­ted un­der NA­SA Ad­mi­nis­t­ra­tor O’Ke­efe. He had his way of do­ing thin­gs-a way that was most ap­pa­rently the sta­tus quo.

 

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