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Thursday, April 11, 2013

Blakes 7 and Other Little Green Men

I am a fan of 1970s and 1980s BBC and UK science fiction. I loved them. I still do - Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Star Cops, The Prisoner The Avengers(I know it was 60s), Sapphire and Steele.  Yes, it was clunky. Yes, they had a non-existent budget. But, as is often the BBC's want, they made up for this in original, interesting storylines. At the time, this was all new and unseen! They did the best they could do with no CGI, handmade models and the ubiquitous BBC Doctor Who quarry. Ignore the cardboard walls and man-in-the-monster-suit alien. We used our imagination to fill in the blanks and create a high tech wonderment. 

It was the same with the original Star Wars movie. We look back it now and, with the benefit of large screen HD televisions and the pause button, we can see the lines where the Tie Fighters were matted in. Did those of us who lined up in 1977, for seven viewings of the movie, really care? No! We were excited to see something new and original (yes, I know that Star Wars was based on classic hero myths and stories) movies! While the 'remastered' copies do look more slick on HD, I still remember sitting in a small seaside town cinema, in awe of such things. 

I admit, I still prefer to watch the original cut  of Bladerunner (it may be unfashionable, but I like the Film Noir style voiceover and the atmostphere it created) and of Star Wars: The New Hope (Han short FIRST!) and, yes,  it is possibly out of nostalgia more than anything else. These were the movies and television shows that I grew up with, they fostered my love for science fiction (I was already a sucker for fantasy, having read Lord of the Rings umpteen times). They enabled me to create images, ideas and feelings that have remained with me all of my adult life and influenced my art and writing (including that SF novel I wrote in grade 12... )

Over the decades, the amount of science fiction on our screens, seems to wax and wane, depending on whether the television/movie industry thinks it is popular and they can make money. Fair enough. It is their money and it is a business for them. However, many great SF shows have been cancelled due to this (my husband still hopes Firefly will return some day). 

Babylon 5 was the first television show to really make use of CGI, to great advantage. However, they still relied heavily on great, and sometimes wonderfully thought provoking stories. Alien Nation was another of the 90s SF television shows that used the science fiction format to tackle sometimes quite emotionally charged and ethically questionable story lines, using aliens to question the ongoing apartheid and racism. Great writing and better special effects equals great science fiction. Even the less 'serious' SF shows and B grade SF movies were great fun. I still have a soft spot for Space Rangers (with Linda Hunt). 

Then we hit the past decade, when Hollywood and television discovered that making CGI blockbusters was easier than writing good storylines - to the detriment of many movies, in my humble opinion.  It is just a roller coaster ride from beginning to end. If we see more than a basic plotline, we are extremely fortunate. 

Now is the time of remakes. I guess, the movie Powers That Be have realised that their audience is wanting storylines again. Movies such as War of the World, The Day the Earth Earth Stood Still and Total Recall are just rehashes of previous movies. No original storylines here. This falls under the guise of we need to update the movie/story so it is relevant to the current generation. By this reasoning, we will have a new Total Recall every 10-15 years! Heaven forbid! This is just lazy programming.

We also have a deluge of movies based on previous work, such as comic books and novels. Hollywood has been using novels for movies since it's inception. This, at least, allows for some (hopefully well choosen) well thought out storylines. Lord of the Rings is the most obvious example here. I actually loved the movies. Khazad Dum looked exactly as I imagined it. In as similar vein, we have the many Marvel comic movies. The danger is that literary fans may not like the movie if it does not live up to their expectations, as can often happen. The advantages are that the story is open to a new audience and hopefully the original writers will receive a decent sized benefit  from it. Let's face it, at least it is not a rehash of an existing movie. 

Now were are in the time of the Reboot; which is probably a fancy marketing word to sound a lot less like remake or copying an old storyline, isn't it? Moviewise, we have had the Dark Shadows reboot, and from televeisoin, we have Battlestar Galactica and V, as examples. Personally, I was dissapointed by both.  I think they were hoping the current generation have never seen the original and others would have forgotten it. Maybe they don't care about those of us that saw the 'original' and prefer it. Why didn't they just change the character names and call it something else?   

This has even gone to the extremes of the relatively new Spiderman movies have now had a reboot to update them. This is not all creative suicide though (I hope).  Star Trek reboot (which I enjoyed, I must admit). The premise is that the reality line has been altered as consequence of events in the first movie. This allows for familiar characters, that we love, to have new updated stories. While still a bit of a cop out, at least it is not a clone of the other movies or television show. 

I just read an article on i09.com today (which was the impetus for this post), that the Sy Fy channel is finally investing (or at least planning to) in a swag of  new science fiction series. I guess, it became less trendy again. Hopefully, they will concentrate less on dubious reality tv shows, cooking shows and wrestling! Having heard there was to be a reboot of Blakes 7, I have now read it is Sy Fy that has engineered it. The pilot is to be written by Joe Pokaski (Heroes) and directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale). Let us hope that is it a well thought out and written version of one of my favourite shows, and not a rehash that will destroy the whole experience. 

Finally, my real hope is that television and the silver screen will  give writers a chance to show their originality and not just look at the statistics as to what is most likely to get bums on seat. 

As 'Number 6' said, "I am not a number!" 

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