Author Archives: Bob Evans

Themed Review: Flash Gordon

The trouble with a review of Flash Gordon is which one do you examine? There is the original comic strip, created to rival the very successful Buck Rogers, perhaps the radio serials, or do you look at the film serial from the 1940 where the hero appears ‘silver underwear’ but also established many of the tropes that live on to this day? Of course staying with the cinema there was the campy 1980 film, a guilty pleasure for many people. Television has also gotten in on the act, there were repurposed serials, animated shows, and even a recent attempt at a dramatic live action program. I think looking at the wealth of material I will focus on the one best known to me; the feature film from 1980.

It surprises some people that I truly like this movie. Mostly my tastes in SF movies runs to the serious and films that don’t even try to hadwave their scientific discretions rarely work for this author, but Flash Gordon with its tongue in cheek campiness strikes just the right tone.

The entire concept, a sportsman from Earth (the original was a polo player by the 80’s be had become a football player and if made today perhaps he’d be into basketball) is the saviour of an entire people because he can teach them teamwork and fairplay, is fairly silly. Dictators are tougher to topple than that, but if you take that premise and run with it in a bright colorful and campy manner then it can work. There are several truly good actors in the cast and one that towers over the rest, Max Von Sydow. That man can take any line and make you believe the truth behind it. I own the blu-ray and I tell you half the reason I re-watch the movie is because of Max.

This is not deep and meaningful cinema, but it is fun and it knows when to wink at the audience.

For me, in a film of this nature, that is enough

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First in a Series of Themed Reviews: The Day The Earth Stood Still

I am starting a new series of classic film reviews. There is a pattern to which films are reviewed and their order, but I am not going to reveal that pattern until someone outs it.

The Day The Earth Stood Still is one of my favorite SF films. Directed by the incomparable Robert Wise it is the story of alien Klaatu, his very tall robot Gort, and the mysterious message he brings for the entire world. Of course upon arrival Klaatu is shot by the army, though giving credit where credit is due, they didn’t come out blazing and it was more a product of poor training than murderous intent.

Soon Klaatu takes to his heels, gives the army the slip, and investigates humanity directly.

In the end he presents his message, and this is a message movie thought it is a good one because you can enjoy the film without having accept it’s soapbox.

One of the interesting behind the scenes stories i have heard about this production is that Spencer Tracy got his hands on the script and lobbied very hard to be cast as Klaatu. Robert Wise hated the idea, feeling that the part needed to be played by an actor that the American public was unfamiliar with and he ended up casting Michael Rennie a tall English actor with a regal manner. Wise made the right call. These days it is hard to envision anyone else in that part.

The recent remake was, in my opinion, crap. Substituting an environmental message for an nuclear war one simply failed on multiple levels.

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Research Can be Surprising

One of the ways to avoid doing the actual work of writing it is do research. Of course your story needs research but it is also an easy out, after all there is always another article to read, another book to check out, another paper to scan. I am no more immune to this than any other writer.

For y next SF military novel I am doing research into PTSD. The question I have is if the bio-chemical and neurotransmitter links of PTSD can be undone and restored by physical treatment what does that do to issues such as survivor’s guilt?

While doing the research I followed some breadcrumbs down a rabbit hole of information and ended up reading about children and PTSD. Not at all germane to my novel as none of the characters are children and certainly not the character for whom I needed these answers, but the research turned surprising in a personal matter.

My father died when I was ten years old and it was quite a blow emotionally. Reading the symptoms and expressions of PTSD in children I was struck just how much of it lined up with my memories if myself during the years following his passing.

Now this was the early 70’s, hardly a time when people would have considered such a diagnosis for a boy, but the tremors of familiarity resonate strongly for me. Today, there are now symptoms of expressions and I am quite satisfied with life.

Writing can be a profession that transforms the writer and not just their readers. I have already had an adjustment t some political thought as a results of fiction heads I have crawled into for their POV and now I have a new take on my own childhood.

 

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A Day Off

Lately I have been working 50-54 hours weeks at my day job as the Medicare application flood in during the Annual Enrollment Period. This week my body informed me that it no longer approved of the extra money I was making and allowed the Psoriatic Arthritis to flare up.

Now, this is not disabling and many people, some close friends, suffer far worse health issues, but the outbreaks, the joint pain, and the lack of sleep do take their toll. This was a result of physical stress and in order to de-stress I took today off.

Surprisingly I slept for 9 hours, which means I really and truly needed it. I operate, happily, on 6 1/2 hours each night and even n the weekends rarely go beyond 7.

This morning has been a lazy morning of burritos, British WWII documentaries, and thinking about my current SF short story.

It had been stuck for an ending but now I have it. I knew the story, and that pointed to the character change, what I did not have was the plot that got me there. Now I think I have that plot. When I awoke this morning I even was struck by an experiment style to pull off the ending. It’s wacky and may not work but I will attempt it. You should write outside your comfort zone.

 

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Fasten You Safety Belts

So here is another political – sorry I gotta say a couple words about the recent kerfuffle concerning Trump, Taiwan, and The People’s Republic Of China.

Trump accepted a congratulatory telephone call from the recently elected pro-independence president of Taiwan Tsai Ign-wen. This is provoking a diplomatic mess with the PRC. China considers Taiwan a wayward and disobedient province, Taiwan considers themselves the Real China and the communist government on the mainland as illegal and illegitimate. The official US position since 1979 has been to publicly agree with the PRC, give Taiwan the diplomatic cold shoulder, but simultaneously provided the island with arms and an implicit assurance that we are really their allies and will come to their aid if they need it. Everyone involved knew about the fictions and how everyone really felt. When he accepted that phone call Trump upset more than 30 years of diplomatic deals.

Two narratives have emerged ‘explaining’ the incident and both are quite troubling.

Explanation 1 is fairly straight forward; the Taiwanese president called Trump, trump accepted out of ignorance, and now we have a potential crisis. This is troubling because it has the subtext that Trump is too ignorant to be aware that as Presidents your words really matter and as his ego will not allow him to refuse any form of congratulations he accepted the call. It also implies that if you accept that President Tsai Ing-wen is not as foolish as Trump, then she used his ignorance to further her own political goals. It is not good that other world leaders may already be considering how to play our president for the fool that he is.

Explanation 2 is a bit more Machiavellian. The Washington Post is reporting that elements within Trump’s team that are pro-Taiwan and hardliners against the PRC have been working for sometime to make that particular phone call happen, but that this was not something Trump was aware of and in fact that they played him for their own ends. This has the subtext that the people in Trump’s administration will be plotting and playing the President for their own ends. That implies not only chaos but political war within the administration of the United States and president too ignorant to be aware of the war and its ramifications.

Of course these two scenarios are not mutually exclusive and both may be true to various extents. Narrative 1, narrative 2, or both, it doesn’t matter, it all portends badly for the United States, her people, her economy, and the world for the next four years.

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A Brief Political Post

People who have read this blog for sometimes know that I will post about politics and may have noticed that I have been mostly quiet these last three weeks. It is not from a decision to retreat from political writing or advocating positions but I will confess to still being in a state of shellshock from the results of the election.

However I may feel we had the election and the results as distasteful as they are are looking to remain.

I do believe that we are in for a particularly bad administration. In my opinion we are likely to see worst level of corruption in the Federal government since the 19th century and it will take a great deal of action and vigilance to protect the gains and right of all Americans from the right’s reactionary forces.

That said I have seen quite a few comments comparing our current political trouble with the rise of Nazism in the Weimar Republic. These comparisons I believe are wrong.

One must remember that the Weimar Republic was quite young, born in 1919 from the cataclysm of WWI that government’s institutions were weak and had no long standing traditions to rely upon when challenged. It is also important to understand just how violent and unstable Weimar really was. Not only did they suffer attempts to be violently overly thrown there were nearly 400 assassinations in just three years. (1919-1922) That makes for a well plowed field to grown a dictatorship.

The United States is not in the same conditions. Our institutions are well established and our social scene is quite stable.

Again that does not mean do not be vigilant, That does not mean that this is business as normal. Trump is not a normal president and these are not normal times but do not like hyperbole sway you into despair.

I believe that the man is a racist and has empowered racists.

I believe that the man is corrupt and will continue to be so.

I believe that extreme forces on the right will attempt to undo tremendously important gains.

I also believe that the rights of all Americans are terribly important.

I believe that these forces can be thwarted.

I believe that we are enduring a painful period as the worst forces on the right as die off. (It may be important foe some to remember that ten years I ago I considered myself a Republican. They drove me from the party and I know I was not alone.)

By a real margin the population did not want Trump the wisdom of the American people is still strong and while fighting, while being vigilant, it is important to remain hopeful as we..

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What I Miss In Science-Fiction

I’ll admit that what I am gripping about here is mostly in the areas of film and television, thought the prose area is sparse just not as bare as the visual media.

There used to be a time when SF movies and shows were about professional explorers. Perhaps the best known and best overall example of this is the classic television series Star Trek. Every episode opened with a prolog telling you in no uncertain terms that this show was about explorers and their now famous five year mission.

But before Star Trek this was a well plowed field, most movies about going to the moon were about the competent professional crew, and the dangers they face. Forbidden Planet, for all of its lifting of themes and ideas from the Bard’s The Tempest, abandoned the concept of the shipwrecked visitors for the intelligent and hyper-competitive crew of the United Planets Cruiser C-75-D. (And yes Joss I spotted that reference in your film Serenity.)

I will admit that the idea of the explorers over time and misuse got beaten into a trope. A trope that met its end when in the wake of Star Wars 20th Century Fox release Alien.

The blue-collar truck drivers of space took their big rig Nostromo and turned the profession explorers into road-kill. Yeah I get the trope had been way over used, but now we have turned too far away from what is a very useful and interesting sub-genre of science-fiction.

I think cynicism is one of the reasons why this style of story has fallen out of favor. To have a serious story, without eye rolling irony, about professional explorers you need to accept that people, human people, can be intelligent ad ethical while exploring ad that is a thing few people are willing to admit that they can believe in. It is easier and cooler to play the cynic to substitute that cynicism for wisdom and optimism.

As a culture and as a language we elevate the cynic, the very term sounds of gravitas but we have no comparable word to act as its antonym.

I really hope that the new Trek series gets back to exploration, but that universe is so mapped that my hope is a fool’s hope.

Still, I hold on to my hope and refuse to give in.

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Well, This Was Kind of Cool

Recently I posted an essay where I broke down the classic film Alien into a five-act structure. Now I am sure that Dan O’Bannon likely thought in three acts, but acts of artificial anyway. The common audience member isn’t looking at the story as it unfolds and trying to work out a structure, ideally they are swept away by the characters and events, forgetting that it is even fiction. However as a writer I am always taking plots apart to see how they work or did not work. (I think you can learn a lot from a failed story if you can work out why it failed.) So the essay was just me sharing my thoughts on act structures and using Alien as an example to illustrate my ideas.

Now, I am also a member of the local chapter of the Horror Writers Association. We have productive meetings each month and I have met some rather cool people there. One of the members has asked that I give a presentation on using an act structure in novel writing. I’m excited by the prospect. I already use both three and five act structure when I plot out a novel and sometimes ever for short stories. Putting it down in a formal presentation would be helpful to me and hopefully helpful to whoever is present when I give it.

Time to get proficient at PowerPoint

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What Do You Call this Creature?

This is a topic I have visited before and for those who have experienced the earlier ranting you can skip this post.

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

I saw the film Alien on its initial theatrical release. It is a movie of stunning power and with a tremendous legacy. To this day people are still copying the plot and making rip-off version more than 30 years later, Consider this, since Alien, the crew of trained and experienced explorers has been abandoned as a trope for SF films.

Of course central to the movie was the monster itself, a terrifying parasite that gestated inside its victims and possessed seemingly unstoppable agency. The story, images, and themes resonated so well that sequels and prequels continue to this very day.

But what do you call the monster at the heat of this experience?

For years the term of I heard most was simply The Alien, you could practically hear the capital letters in a person voice when the subject was discussed. Slowly though that fell out of favor for the generic sounding Xenomorph.

I have issues with that name. First, it sounds generic, and it is generic. The word itself simply means ‘other-shaped.’ The character Lt. Gorman uses the term when briefing the squad saying, “…A xenomorph may be involved.” He can’t be referring to this particular type of creature as at this point in the story no one, except Burke, believes Ripley. He’s using the word to say in a fancy way that an alien of some type is involved. However fans have latched onto this word as a proper name for the monster.

For decades I have been a gamer and gamers steal from books, TV, and movies for  monsters to throw at their players, including the terrifying creature from Alien. I have been no exception and I needed a name, between the films Alien and Aliens, I landed on what works for me.

In Alien when they crew awakens early they discover that instead of being home, at Earth, that they are in fact just short of Zeta Two Reticuli. one half of a binary pair about 39 light years from Earth. Now I saw the film in theaters, before VHS and DVDs and Blu-Rays and misheard the name. For years I called it Beta Reticuli, but eventually I learned the local stellar neighborhood and the proper name for the star. My name for the creature is the Zeta Reticulian Parasite. Yes it is long but I think it has a ring to it and it sounds like a real bit of nomenclature.

I know I will change no one’s mind on this. I am the lost voice in the wilderness screaming at the horrid tag ‘xenomorph,’ and everyone will ignore me, but hey, your mileage may vary.

For me it is The Zeta Reticulian Parasite.

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An Analysis of ‘Alien’ Using the Five Act Structure

I am the sort of writer who plots his projects out ahead of time and when I do that plotting I like to have a structure for the story. Most of the time I use a three-Act system of Establishment, Conflict, Resolution, but lately I have been experimenting with five acts. One way to digest and understand an act structure, particularly if you intend to use it for your own work, is to look at something already in existence and see how the structure fits on that. This is not to say that the screenplay writers for Alien used a 5 act system, they most likely used a 3 act method, but nearly any story can be broken down by either method.

ACT I Establishment

In the first act of a 5 act story not only are characters and conflicts established in the first act, but themes and the nature of the world is laid out for the audience/reader. In Alien I would suggest that the first act goes from the film start, naturally, and concludes with the decision to land on the planet/moon about Zeta-2 Reticuli. Quite a bit is covered in this passage. We learn our heroes are working class people, not space explorers as in other films of the genre, we learn that they don’t get along, and that they are deeply concerned with money. The ‘Company’ unnamed in the original, is a source of threat and power that exists in almost omnipotent state off screen.

ACT II Complications

Here things go wrong and the characters are tested with a series of setbacks. The setbacks are dangerous and threatening to the order of the world, but not yet irreversible.

The Landing goes badly, damaging the ship. The trip to the source of the signal that they have been forced to investigate – at this point the nature of ‘force’ appears to be solely the threat of money being withheld, is difficult and the first translation hint that the signal is not a distress call but a warning. Cain is ridden by the creature and interpersonal tensions flare. While attempts to remove the creature from Cain fail, the ship is repaired and the crew leaves the planet for home.

ACT III Crisis

In Act three, classically called the Climax though today we tend to use that for resolution, there is a fundamental change that is irreversible, MacBeth has Banquo murder for example. There is a clear turning point in the plot that takes place in Act 3 from which the character become trapped in their choices and must face the consequences that their fates hold.

Cain appears to recovery from the alien parasite but shortly dies in a horrific manner. Now the crew find themselves trapped on a ship with a deadly creature and increasingly dangerous attempts to deal with it result in further loss of life.

ACT IV Resolution

With a 3 act structure it is usual to think of resolution as the ending, how everything turned out in the end, but with a five act structure this also includes the final reveals and plot twists that lead to the Hero’s victory or failure in their plot. Act 4 for Alien is Ripley’s act, it is where she is revealed to be the actual hero of the story and takes charge to deal with the creature. Act 4 also reveals Ash to be the turncoat and company man working against their interests. With all the important elements in place and revealed the hero, Ripley, drive to the solution, here destroying the ship with the creature aboard.

ACT V Denouement

In my opinion Act V for Alien is everything on the shuttle after Ripley launches from the ship. It is the final confrontation between the hero and villain, this case a monster, but nothing new is added. All the elements, including the plan to ‘blow it out the airlock’ have already been established and are in place. The final obstacle is faced and the hero either overcomes and grows from the experience or fails due to their tragic flaw, Of course in Alien Ripley overcomes and earns her ‘happy ending.’

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