Came By Post Today

 

On a whim a few days ago I ordered this book – First Lensman, © 1950, by E. E. “Doc” Smith. It’s been two months since I’ve read some good ol’ SF, and for some reason this book popped into my mind. Now, it’s not exactly a classic, in the sense that Asimov’s Foundation, Clarke’s Childhood’s End, or Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is. Indeed, Smith is not of that Holy Trinity of Science Fiction, that Pantheon of the Gods. But if Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein (and also Bradbury and Silverberg, I would argue) are the Olympians of Science Fiction, E. E. “Doc” Smith was a member of the Titans, their predecessors.

First Lensman is actually the second of seven interrelated novels, which in turn evolved from stories Smith published in the pulps in the ‘’40s. The first novel, I am told, is not essential to the story, but the others should be read in sequence.

Unfortunately, I first came across Smith fourteen years ago when I picked up – again on a whim, always on a whim – the seventh and final book in the series, Children of the Lens. I liked it, sorta, but was kinda lost, and I’m thinking it was because, well, I’m reading the final book of the series and there’s a whole galaxy of stuff referenced in it that I’m quite unaware of. So it was always in the back of my mind to start at the beginning, or close to it, at some undefined future point in time.

That time is now. I think.

 

 

In a nutshell, Smith is the quintessential “space opera” guy. The writer whose books George Lucas and Steven Spielberg devoured when they were wee lads. Children of the Lens struck me as very Flash Gordon-esque. I have a neat little memory of my father getting all excited introducing Flash Gordon to my brother and I one afternoon when he caught it on the black and white TV. I enjoyed it, as much as one could who was in the thrall of Star Wars, before Star Wars was known as Episode IV: A New Hope.

So that’s what I envisioned when I read Children of the Lens a decade-and-a-half ago, piecing together the plot and the setting as best I could while fighting my employer, raising a three year old and dealing with a pregnant wife, and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Soon after I had all my heart issues and the basement flooded – the one and only time it did because the sleep-deprived Mrs. forgot to shut off a water valve – a flood which resulted in the destruction of numerous books, Children of the Lens included.

One of my aunts somehow learned of this and bought me a replacement copy. Which, to this day, sits in the On Deck circle on the shelf behind me. (Well, until it got packed away a few weeks ago as we prepare for The Move.) I’d like to revisit it, this time prepared. Hence, First Lensman now in my hands.

A review to follow in the next couple of weeks …

Don't Like This World Right Now

 

In 2013, I watched my first Mets game in three decades, got hooked, spent the entire season rooting for them and going to Citi Field and buying all sorts of merch, and enjoyed every heartbreaking minute of it.

In 2014, I spent some time reading through about ninety-nine percent of the published works of horror forerunner H. P. Lovecraft, and enjoyed every creepy minute of it.

In 2015, I got my middle-aged buttock in gear and walked a two or three hundred miles and lifted a couple tons of iron, and enjoyed every sweaty, strenuous minute of it.

In 2016, I began studying for my tax certification to begin a part-time gig preparing taxes for the masses for some extra coin, and enjoyed every overly complicated minute of it.

In 2017, I jammed for hours and hours on the Gibson Epiphone guitar the Mrs. got me for my fiftieth birthday, and enjoyed every calloused finger and off-key minute of it.

In 2018, I marched with Napoleon throughout 18th-century Europe and studied side-by-side with this complex god-emperor, and enjoyed every harshly fascinating minute of it.

In 2019, I dove deep into the Beatles oeuvre, read up on Custer and his eponymous massacre, delved into the mirror-sports world of Bundesliga soccer, marathoned through seasons of Under the Dome and 24 with the girls after work, reread a half-dozen classic – to me – novels, and even nursed an ankle sprain that nearly separated my metatarsals from my tibias and fibulas, and enjoyed every glorious minute of it.

Why can’t we have good things anymore?

 

Saturn 3

 

Amidst all the busyness of getting the house in order to sell, getting Little One ready for her SATs, getting Patch to her various soccer practices, games, and workouts, and celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary with the Mrs., I ran into a spell of insomnia in the wee early morning hours of Saturday.

I woke around 2:30 am, tossed and turned, visited the bathroom and the medicine cabinet, went back to bed, got up to switch the fan on, turned and tossed some more. Thirty minutes later I realized there was no more sleep for me this day. So I got up, trudged down two flights of stairs to my writing desk, flipped on the laptop and set to my favorite timewaster of late, Youtube.

However, this time was different.

In my feed was a review of the little-remembered, sparsely-accoladed science fiction flick, 1980’s Saturn 3. That instantly brought back memories. Well, memories of memories. Because while I recall the movie existing (I was 12 years old the summer of 1980), I don’t think I ever saw more than a few scenes here and there.

So why watch a review of it online when I can, possibly, find the movie in its entirety? And sure enough, I did, all 88 minutes of it, right on that there Youtube.

I knew that the movie had a bad reputation, and that knowledge was epistemologically confirmed.

But I enjoyed it.

Saturn 3’s a bad movie, suffering always from bad-movie syndrome typically found in Hollywood: a visionary first-time director who shouldn’t be directing; an established Hollywood icon whose ego runs amuck; a sex symbol who can’t act her way out of a paper bag; a moody villain portrayed by a moody actor who hates the film; a producer who has no experience with making SF films; film execs who slash the budget mid-way through production.

I’ve read that the original script was good and was what got the film greenlit. And then all the above kicked it, forcing re-writes, edits, 180-degree turns and more chefs in the kitchen. The result is blah bland but not terrible. There is a shell of a movie here (perhaps on a cutting-room floor and stored in some long-forgotten vault), but what struck me is that it was made by people who had no idea what SF fans want. And since it’s also billed as a “horror” flick, it’s not particularly horrifying.

So what is Saturn 3, exactly?

In 1979 and 1980 I was enraptured fully and completely with absolutely one movie: Alien. My parents bought me the picture book and an uncle bought me the novelization. That alien egg commercial relentlessly aired on TV haunted and fascinated me (much like the commercial for Magic with that psychotic ventriloquist dummy). But I wasn’t allowed to see it since I was only 12. My imagination though more than made up for it. In this weird stage where I was no longer a kid but not yet a teen, I played out versions of the alien-killing-everyone-on-a-spaceship plotline with the action figures and SF toys I still had not yet phased out of my life.

Saturn 3 is kind of like Alien with a robot. The robot, “Hector” in the movie, is a headless eight foot cross between an arthritic Xenomorph and an automobile radiator. Here, see:

Hector basically turns evil when plugged into evil Captain Benson’s brain for programming, and spends the next hour chasing Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett around a space station that looks strangely like the set design of the Engineer’s ship from Alien. Hmm. That sentence I just wrote is more suspenseful and terrifying than anything in the entire movie. There’s long sequences of an oddly overdubbed Harvey Keitel pontificating about God-knows-what and scantily clad Kirk Douglas romping around with scantily clad Farrah Fawcett, thirty-year age difference be damned. The denouement is routine and unexciting, neither clever nor original.

But the atmosphere! While the model work was slightly above workmanlike,  the interior of the Saturn 3 station is worthy of praise. Not a surprise since the original story – and the film’s first director – was John Barry, an interior designer who worked on such films as A Clockwork Orange, Superman, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Plus there’s a real sinister element to Hector the robot that’s there on the surface, if not exactly fleshed out, no pun intended since the future Frankenstein’s monsters winds up wearing his creator’s head.

I guess ultimately the movie falls into that catch-all called childhood nostalgia. I remember pal’ing around with a bunch of guys in summer art school, reading those SF magazines, talking about the latest Star Wars and James Bond, Alien and The Incredible Melting Man, horror flicks like Phantasm and Prophecy, among countless forgotten and partially-remembered others. Saturn 3 fits snugly in there, and feels quite at home.

Grade: C

Tolkien Redux

 

Last week I finished my fifth cycle through Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. What struck me most was the fact that each time I read the 1,100 page novel, I take away something different.

The first time, as a lad entering high school in the fall of 1981, I entered a truly mystical world that astounded me. I spent the next year reading through Tolkien encyclopedias and the appendices, discussing the book with friends, trying to piece this and that out of the histories of Middle-earth. It elevated me out of the sea of difficulties I swam in during that age.

Nearly thirty years passed before I braved my first rereading. That time, Christmas of 2010, I finally read it as an adult and was amazed at the coherency and technical depth of the tale.

Two years passed and I read it through it again – this time while listened the audio CDs of The Lord of the Rings. I gained appreciation as the narrator actually sung the songs Tolkien wrote. What started off cringey I grew to respect and doubtless enjoy. Those poems and songs could actually be quite touching, and the talented narrator sung them in melodies far beyond that which my run of the mill mental ears heard on their own.

I travelled Middle-earth again in 2016, the summer starting my current job. What amazed me with this reading was Frodo’s spiritual journey, or Tolkien’s meta-metaphors for it. When Frodo at last strips himself of his orc shield and Bilbo’s Sting as he treads the stairs up to Mount Orodruin, a pilgrim clad only in rags to dispose of the One Ring (a metaphor for … sin), I found myself emotionally overwhelmed.

This last read-through I had another realization: Gimli, the dwarf, is fiercely proud of the accomplishments and identity of his “race,” the Dwarves. Legolas, the elf, is fiercely proud of the accomplishments and identity of his “race,” the Elves. Eomer, of the Rohan, a Man, is fiercely proud of the accomplishments and identity of his people. As is Aragon, a descendent of the Kings of Númenor, fiercely proud of the accomplishments and identity of his people, mistakes such as Isildur not destroying the Ring notwithstanding.

What, tell me, is wrong in being proud of the accomplishments and identity of one’s own people? It is such a revolutionary concept from today’s venomous, bitter hatred of anything and everything. It’s almost so refreshing that I wonder how long until Tolkien is canceled? (Note: there are attempts to “cancel” him right now, and have been going on for quite some time, some nonsense claiming Tolkien uses Orcs to denigrate people of African descent.) Would the movies be made in today’s acidic environment?

That realization hit me so hard I actually put the book down. I think it came to me during the Fellowship’s interlude in Lothlorien.

Anyway, just a remark on a personal observation.

Looking forward to new revelations with another re-reading, though that’s not scheduled for quite a few years.

However, I am thinking of binge-watching all three Peter Jackson movies in one day – ten or twelve hours of Tolkien, unfortunately mixed with modern day tropes, but Tolkien nonetheless.

Maybe that’ll happen before the end of the year, maybe on a hot summer day when all the ladies are at the beach and I’m chilling home alone.

Godzilla vs Kong

All right, indulge me for a moment. Or rather, the child in me.

King Kong vs. Godzilla was one of my favorite movies growing up in the 70s. I must have watched it a dozen times, and this was the era before VHS tapes, DVDs, DVRs, and Netflix. You had to wait for it to come on one of the dozen or so TV channels we had, and been lucky enough to catch it. But catch it I did. This 1963 extravaganza, along with some Harryhausen films like Jason and the Argonauts and classic 50s sci fi flicks like The Thing and The Day the Earth Stood Still made my childhood magical.

Over the years I’ve been disappointed with the remakes, to say the least. First was that awful flick in the late 90s, then was fat Godzilla in 2014. Terrible. But I got wind a few years ago that Kong was now going to be in the picture and, I have to confess, I got a little excited.

This would be a perfect movie to bond with my youngest daughter, I remember thinking. Alas, too many years passed and now, firmly ensconced at the fulcrum between tween and teen, she decided to take a hard pass on it when my friend invited me over this past weekend to watch it.

Now, this is the guy I go to movies with – or used to, pre-Wu Flu – to catch the horror and SF flicks the wife showed no interest in. (And, corollary-wise, she’d go see chick flicks and Rom-Coms with my friend’s wife – it’s a win-win all around!) We’d make our movie-going an adventure, usually hitting up a bar for a few beers and shooting the breeze before going in. But since the theaters are still locked down, something was missing.

But he more than made up for it. Somehow he came across six authentic movie theater chairs. Modern ones. You know, the ones that recline and have the food tray swivel across your lap and the hole for your 64-ounce soda. He installed them in two rows of three in his den, with the row behind raised a foot on a carpeted wooded dais. Then he installed a massive flat screen with all the acoustical trappings – bass, overhead speakers, side speakers, you name it. It is as close to being in a movie theater that one can get.

So he wanted to know if I wanted to watch it with him last Friday night. Now, I still apologize to him for dragging him to Godzilla 2014 all those years ago. But a quick google of Godzilla vs. Kong showed that it was actually getting positive reviews. I agreed and drove over, stopping at Liquorland for a six-pack of Yuengling to split.

What did I think of Godzilla vs Kong?

I really, really enjoyed it. I knew what I was signing up for, and it wasn’t going to be Citizen Kane, or even a more modern classic like John Carpenter’s The Thing or James Cameron’s Aliens. But for what it was, two giant monsters slugging it out Sumo-style (with Kong hurling a right cross that could fell Tyson), it was pretty darn good.

Yeah, all the human characters are cardboard.

Yeah, the plot is completely unhinged from reality ( – Hollow Earth? Really?)

Yeah, you get the feeling entire subplots had been edited into oblivion, so the resulting story makes little sense if thought about too hard.

Yeah, the dialogue is LOL goofy at times.

Yeah, twists can be seen a continent away.

But the CGI was phenomenal. There were futuristic hovercrafts and a world where gravity worked in weird ways. I bought into the special effects completely, wholly, and in totality. That is the secret of this big loud dumb fun flick.

Was it the fact I saw it on a giant TV screen? Sure. Was it the fact that every Kong or Godzilla roar or stomp thudded my heart a couple millimeters to the side without fail? Yep. Was it the fact I was enjoying a film with my friend and some delicious beers in the Covid Apocalypse? You know it.

I won’t rehash the plot, such as it was, here. But the bottom line is based on the brawling of the behemoth beasts –

   Godzilla > Kong

   Kong > Mecha-Godzilla

   Mecha-Godzilla > Godzilla

My favorite scene? When Mecha-Godzilla attains sentience in the background behind moustache-twirling bad guy’s final monologue.

Grade: solid A for pure childhood entertainment.