Tag: sci-fi

Giant Ant Suspension of Disbelief

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War Pig mentioned the rumor that there is a studio remaking “THEM!.”  My reaction is an unqualified, Yeah!  But I immediately thought to myself, “Hey wait a minute.  This isn’t 1954, it’s 2026!  What about the illogic of an insect fifteen feet long weighing thousands of pounds, breathing by passive diffusion of oxygen through spiracles?  And how about the other unscalable aspects of its anatomy and physiology like weight and strength of exoskeleton vs. the thick bones found in large land animals like rhinos and elephants.”

Sure, I’m being a spoil sport.  If we want giant ants living in the sewers of Los Angles we should get them.  And look how timely it would be.  Imagine a nighttime forage of giant ants finding it’s way to a homeless encampment just by smell alone.  Now, there is the danger that this could be considered cruelty to animals.  And most homeless could be considered poisoned bait.  After all, if an ant ate one of these denizens of the City of Angels might it not die from a fentanyl overdose?  I mean, that’s not really fair, is it?  The ant is just doing what millions of years of evolution (plus a century of radioactive fallout) has taught him.  It’s not his fault that Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom have put these temptations in his way.  To him they’re just appetizers.

So, maybe there should be some hand-waving and exposition to provide an infodump to explain how rapid evolution adapted the giant ants so that they now have an internal skeleton and an efficient circulatory system but somehow have preserved the external appearance of an ant.  And here’s where AI can come in handy.  In order to have the necessary gravitas to sell the audience on this cockamamie science of giant ant biology we will need Santa Claus.  We will need an electronic avatar of Edmund Gwenn to play Dr. Harold Medford.  He alone can walk us through super 8 film clips of ants.  However, we can recast the part of Dr. Patricia Medford.  For this part I would recommend Sydney Sweeney as she possesses unique personal assets which will not lend her scientific gravitas but which will boost the movie’s financial bottom line significantly.

All in all, I think a remake of ‘Them!” could be an enormous hit.  I think to make it more topical; it would make sense to recruit Donald Trump to play himself as the President who employs all the massive resources of the US military to combat these deadly and terrifying creatures.  Perhaps we can shift the anti-nuclear message of the movie if we show how nuclear weapons can be used for good.  Perhaps the outbreak in Los Angeles proves too far advanced and a decision must be made by Trump to nuke LA.  It can be stressed that almost all of the human population escapes (maybe only Bass and Newsom are being held hostage by the ants).  And so nuclear weapons become not only the cause of the problem but also the solution!  Then we can have Santa Claus and the hot chick give that speech where they talk about opening a door into a new world where anything is possible, even giant crickets in the inevitable sequel.

Long, Long Ago in a Studio Far, Far Away

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As the tent-pole summer movies of July fade into August obscurity and dinosaurs, Superman and lesser Marvel superheroes get rated and dissected by the movie critics I think it has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt that the failure of Hollywood to replicate the billion-dollar paydays from earlier versions of Star Wars and the Avengers franchises can now be definitively explained.  They forgot that a superhero movie (or even just a plain hero movie) requires a hero.  And the requirements of a hero (whether in book or on a screen) include that we like the hero.

And that seems to be where Hollywood has gone off the rails.  They’ve managed to make a bunch of movies where the heroes are unlikeable.  For the most part these unlikeable heroes have tended to be of the type currently known as the “girl-boss.”  The prime example of this category is Rey, played by Daisy Ridley in the Star Wars movies.  The type includes the following traits:

  • Although small and thin she is completely capable of defeating men many times her size.
  • She hectors male characters about their obvious shortcomings compared to her.
  • Completely humorless.
  • Has no flaws.
  • Has no setbacks.

Now, this sort of character fits perfectly into the social messaging of all modern Hollywood films.  It allows older franchises with male protagonists to be replaced with the girl-boss.  Examples include Rey in Star Wars replacing Luke Skywalker, Helena Shaw replacing Indiana Jones and Captain Marvel basically replacing all the Avengers.

The problem with these replacements is that the producers think that just saying that their new characters are just as good as the originals (if not better) is enough.  For some reason they didn’t think it would be necessary to hire good writers and directors to make the movies exciting and entertaining.  But as it turns out they are extremely important if you don’t want your movies to be unwatchable crap.  And that is the thing that all these movies share.  They’re awful.  And unfortunately for Disney they’ve been making these “better” movies and television series in the Star Wars and Marvel series for about ten years and they’ve completely dissipated the enthusiasm and good will of their legacy audiences that paid billions of dollars to see the older movies that actually were well written, exciting and entertaining.

Over the last six months it has finally dawned on Disney (and the other studios) that they’ve killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.  They’ve alienated about 70% of their audience and destroyed a machine that printed cash.  From what I’ve read, the most recent Marvel movie “Fantastic Four” went to lengths to not go down the girl-boss lane and even had a decent script that could be enjoyed as an adventure movie.  The problem is that most of their old audience didn’t bother to give it a try and so the movie while not a complete bomb is struggling to become profitable.

Regardless of whether “Fantastic Four” makes money I think we may be at a turning point in the fantasy-adventure genre.  It has finally dawned on the studios that social messaging for the woke agenda is box office poison that has a tiny audience.  As the recent purchase of Paramount by Skydance Media demonstrates, entertainment that doesn’t make money ends up on the auction block and then the chopping block where the unentertaining and unprofitable components get sliced off and thrown in the garbage.  And similar things are happening all over the media and entertainment world.  CNN, MSNBC and CBS are all finding out that woke ideology doesn’t equal profitability and if they can’t adapt to a world that isn’t amused by it, they’ll be out of work.  I guess I’m an eternal optimist but maybe, just maybe, in a year or two decent fantasy adventure may be produced in Hollywood again.  At least it could happen!

2025 Summer Movies

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I’ve been listening to some of the movie reviewers about the crop of summer movies.  I guess the first “tentpole” film is whatever they’re calling the latest sequel to Jurassic Park.  I think the consensus is that it’s a tired derivative rehash of the original concept.  It’s also making a ton of money.  So, from the studio’s point of view, a success!  From an actual sentient movie watcher’s point of view not so much.  But as a grandfather of a dinosaur super-enthusiast, it does check a lot of the boxes as a way to bond with said enthusiast.  So not a total loss.

Then there are the latest comic book superhero movies.  So, they’ve given the Avengers the summer off and instead they’re taking another crack at “The Fantastic Four.”  Now this has always been a sort of oddball franchise.  They’re superpowers are “odd.”  One is a guy who can stretch his body.  Huh?  Then there’s a guy who can fly and shoot fire at stuff; well, pretty good, I guess.  Then there’s a girl who can become invisible and also has a force field.  This is actually the most powerful superpower amongst them.  And then there’s a guy who looks like he’s made of rock and is somewhat strong.  None of these “heroes” is going to compete with Superman or even Thor.  They’re powers kind of suck and they’re relegated to protecting Manhattan from intergalactic troublemakers like Dr. Doom, Galactus or Annihilus.  So, if you have a villain that can devour planetary system how does a stretchy guy and a rock stop you?  Even forcefield girl and “flame on” boy aren’t that much use.  On top of all that apparently the powers that be have decided that forcefield girl will be the girl boss of the movie and there will be much female empowerment on display.  Yay?  Well, I guess I can skip that one for my grandsons.

And then there’s another reboot of Superman coming out.  Initial reviews hint at the importance of Superman’s “immigrant” status.  Also, there’s been a lot of talk about “inclusion.”  Well, that doesn’t bode well in my book.  Worst case Superman is protecting cartel gangbangers against Trump’s ICE agents.  Best case Superman will be propagandizing the kids about how great it is to be an illegal alien from Krypton.  I could be wrong but I’m not seeing a Superman movie in my summer lineup.

Alright, let’s review.  Stupid dinosaur sequel is my best bet.  Check.  You know what?  I think I’ll assemble a sci-fi and fantasy film festival of my own.  That’s what I’ll do.  I’ll arrange a schedule and invite the grandkids over.

Let’s see; Them, Destination: Moon, The Thing from Another World, Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, Terminator, Blade Runner, Independence Day and The Martian.  I’ll have to split it up to allow for the ages of the viewers.  And then we’ll end on a fantasy note; original Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings.  Okay, that’s a starting point.  And think of the money I’ll save on tickets and popcorn!  photog, you’re a bloody genius!

Tom’s World – 31MAY2025 – More About Movies

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TomD

Of the book based Sci-Fi movies of which I’m aware, the one that was most true to the book was the original 2001. Both Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and the latest version of Dune at least try but both are handicapped by intricate and massive substrates that are almost impossible to set up and capture in the context of 2 hour +/- videos.

Although Blade Runner was barely related to it’s source material, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, by Phillip K Dick, it succeeds on it’s own as a brilliant piece of work.

Though the Star Trek movies will never be mistaken for serious or brilliant work, I still remember my disappointment when the 1st episode without the Shatner/Nimoy cast or the Picard group, offered a close to continuous series of chase scenes in lieu of a plot.

The 1st several Star Wars movies sucked as Sci-Fi but succeeded as entertainment. A decrepit and distorted Hollywood morphed the extension of that series into something bizarre.

I’m almost terrified that Hollywood will take my all time #1 favorite movie, Master and Commander and remake it as a multicultural, multi racial, LGBTQ+ crew fighting for racial equity.

But Which Story?

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The previous post (“Have I Got a Story for You”) produced some stimulating comments and feedback (below in bold print):

I think it just proves there’s a ready market for good science fiction out there.  Larry Niven’s Known Space; David Weber’s Honor Harrington stories; Niven and Pournelle with “Footfall” “The Mote in God’s Eye” and “Lucifer’s Hammer.”  The stories are already there.  But apparently the powers that be want a different kind of story but for an audience that doesn’t like science fiction!

For adults all of the below comments give ideas that should easily be translatable to cinema or television series productions.  The technical problems have long ago been conquered with computer generated imagery.  The only problems are lack of imagination and ideological blindness.

And the people who want the good stories are both young and old.  I’d love to be able to bring my grandkids to see age-appropriate science fiction that isn’t just poorly disguised gender and racial grievance propaganda but actually tells a good story about people they can relate to.

In the spirit of selecting something I could bring my grandchildren to (and enjoy myself!) I figure I’ll throw out a couple of safe but entertaining choices.

My first choice has some problems.  The story premise has become dated based on the current state of the art in computing and thinking machines.  It’s Heinlein’s “Starman Jones.”  Max Jones’s unusual rise through the ranks from stable boy to astrogator was predicated on his “eidetic” memory and abilities as a lightning calculator.  Well, that would seem to be a kind of silly plotline today.  Even the most phenomenal human mind cannot hope to compare with the speed and precision of a modern computer.  So, some other skill will be needed to distinguish the young hero.  The FTL process could be changed so that sensing the space warp is an individualistic skill that he happens to possess to an extreme degree.  Or some other skill, whatever.

But the rest of the storyline works fine for a book or a movie concept.  Max and his mentor Sam can show their qualities on some lost planet in a star system far, far away.  I think it would make a billion bucks.

And even more apt Heinlein juvenile would be “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.”  The protagonist Kip Russell goes through a collection of adventures that are ready made for the big screen.  He’s accidentally drawn into an interstellar police action between a galaxy-spanning civilization and a race of evil predators that have invaded our solar system with the intent of conquering humanity and using them as food.

It’s got FTL space travel, time travel and high adventure.  It even has humanity put on trial in front of a galactic court to determine whether they deserve to exist.  What’s not to love.

And of course, the Heinlein juveniles include at least a half dozen more stories that are highly qualified to be considered for the big screen.  All it would take would be a director with a decent ear for dialog and a script writer who isn’t totally woke.

So, any of you guys aware of any recent science fiction that would be appropriate for adolescents and young adults?  It’s a bit more of a specialist niche but I’m sure it exists out there.  All that has to be done is look.

 

Ed Brault

I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.

The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!

 

Abraham

David Weber’s Honor Harrington series would work well, even with a woman hero.

 

Tregonsee314

I think Ringworld has been in development a couple times, most recently with Amazon/MGM. It is Tough to get a large audience for it (especially as you move into Ringworld Engineers and later) as it wanders into hard R territory though one COULD limit that somewhat. It also would probably push limits of even current special effects for Kzin and Puppeteers. I love Protector it has the advantage that it sticks with a couple characters across its story. It probably would want to be a limited miniseries as it is a smidge too long (at 218 PG) to make a single two-hour movie, though you could perhaps time compress some parts and maybe get there. My own favorite for a series (or maybe 2 movie pair like the recent Dune) would be Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall, if for no other reason than the final battle using Project Archangel.

 

TomD

Reply to  Tregonsee314

It’s been decades since I read Footfall, I really would like to reread that. Niven alone

Niven and Pournelle put out so much. I still think Lucifer’s Hammer was the absolute best of the type.

Ahhh, but Ringworld made “real” and the Mote in Gods Eye—–

 

Ed Brault

Lucifer’s Hammer: The surfer dude riding the tidal wave would be worth the price of admission!

 

Tregonsee314

So many attempts and so little success. Looking for successes I think the latest incarnation of Dune, although flawed in some aspects, was probably the most successful of the 3 (4 if you count the aborted Jodorowsky attempt). I think the Jackson Lord of the Rings was very good even without certain sections (sorry Tom Bombadil, you just aren’t central to the plot). The Expanse did middling well, though I lost track of it mid-2nd season.

The failures are more plentiful. Jacksons Hobbit was a mess with unnecessary additional characters and subplots, even though the acting (Bilbo and Thorin especially) was superb. The Foundation series by Apple mangles the timeline (mostly because with the longer timeline there is no character continuity but for the shade of Hari Seldon) and adds wokish subplots all over the place. Effects were nice and Asimov having ONLY humans in Foundation/ Robots universe simplifies that. All in all, it was a disappointment and I bailed after 3-4 episodes. I think it fell flat for the public because many of its ideas seemed like retreads (E.g. Trantor as a planet covered with civilization feels like warmed over Coruscant even though Trantor predates Coruscant by 20+ years and likely inspired Lucas). And Rings of Power? Mauling the lore of Tolkien to pander to a variety of subgroups combined with puerile 4th-grade fanboy scripts produced an utter catastrophe.

Almost anything Sci-fi that Hollywood has done without a sci-fi novel or story at the heart is a mess. Hollywood seems to want to revert to the pre–Star Wars Sci-fi where all is Dystopia and nuclear hellscape. That things might work out is anathema. Even the vaunted Federation of Star Trek has been being mauled with its hidden perfidy in Discovery and Picard. Not to say dark is bad. Babylon 5 was amazing (especially given the limitations of cost and mid 1990’s special effects).

What seems to matter most is that the primary vision for converting the Sci Fi to the screen needs to LOVE the material. JMS wrote much of B5 and was its director, Peter Jackson Adored Lord of The Rings and co-wrote the script, Denis Villeneuve is a Dune/Herbert fanboi. Each loved the story in its original form and tried very hard to leave the original plot beats and characterizations in place, not bend them to tell their own story like Rings of Power or Foundation did.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 28MAY2025 – Science Fiction Movies

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So many attempts and so little success.  Looking for successes I think the latest incarnation of Dune, although flawed in some aspects, was probably the most successful of the 3 (4 if you count the aborted Jodorowsky attempt). I think the Jackson Lord of the Rings was very good even without certain sections (sorry Tom Bombadil, you just aren’t central to the plot). The Expanse did middling well, though I lost track of it mid 2nd season.

The failures are more plentiful. Jacksons Hobbit was a mess with unnecessary additional characters and subplots, even though the acting (Bilbo and Thorin especially) was superb. The Foundation series by Apple mangles the timeline (mostly because with the longer timeline there is no character continuity but for the shade of Hari Seldon) and adds wokish subplots all over the place. Effects were nice and Asimov having ONLY humans in Foundation/ Robots universe simplifies that. All in all it was a disappointment and I bailed after 3-4 episodes. I think it fell flat for the public because many of its ideas seemed like retreads (E.g. Trantor as a planet covered with civilization feels like warmed over Coruscant even though Trantor predates Coruscant by 20+ years and likely inspired Lucas). And Rings of Power? Mauling the lore of Tolkien to pander to a variety of subgroups combined with puerile 4th-grade fanboy scripts produced an utter catastrophe.

Almost anything Sci-fi that Hollywood has done without a sci-fi novel or story at the heart is a mess. Hollywood seems to want to revert to the pre Star Wars Sci-fi where all is Dystopia and nuclear hellscape. That things might work out is anathema. Even the vaunted Federation of Star Trek has been being mauled with its hidden perfidy in Discovery and Picard. Not to say dark is bad. Babylon 5 was amazing (especially given the limitations of cost and mid 1990;s special effects).
What seems to matter most is that the primary vision for converting the Sci Fi to the screen needs to LOVE the material. JMS wrote much of B5 and was its director, Peter Jackson Adored Lord of The Rings and co-wrote the script, Denis Villeneuve is a Dune/Herbert fanboi. Each loved the story in its original form and tried very hard to leave the original plot beats and characterizations in place, not bend them to tell their own story like Rings of Power or Foundation did.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 27MAY2025 – Niven’s “Known Space” on Screen

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I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.
The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!

Have I Got a Story for You

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I’ve been so busy lately with a lot of annoying stuff so it’s been hard to concentrate on what to write my posts about.  I don’t feel like talking about current events today.  Let’s talk about the movies.  I feel I’m unqualified to discuss the state of cinema because in the last five years I’ve gone to so few movies.

But I do think I can talk about what direction science fiction and fantasy movies should go in.  I guess I’ll start with where it shouldn’t go.  And that would be the way it’s currently proceeding.  What we see for the most part are movies that provide a science fiction setting (interstellar civilization, advanced technology, humanoid robots) but uses it as a backdrop to play out sociological scenarios of interest to the film makers, specifically, wish fulfillment about various sexual and race grievance issues.  A good example is Disney’s decision to turn their various Star Wars productions into propaganda films for why women and blacks are the only acceptable heroes in the galaxy far, far away.

This is a really dumb strategy.  They took a wildly popular and lucrative franchise and tanked it in the name of race and gender equity.  And this with a franchise whose primary market were white boys.  Let us say this was ill-advised.  So, there is the counterexample; what not to do.  Now what would be popular and lucrative?

Well, it probably doesn’t take a genius to say write a story that plays to the people who like science fiction (boys and men) and make it imaginative and exciting.  Look at the original Star Wars movie for a simplistic and not highly original plot that allowed the audience to get lost in the likeable characters and impressive special effects and smile along to the space opera that followed.  And there are hundreds of old pulp stories from Barsoom to Dune that do exactly that.  Whether it’s weird aliens or human galactic empire or some combination of the two we want to see the same story dynamic that’s been around since the Odyssey.  We want to see the hero on his quest to:

  1. Find his way home.
  2. Or, save the princess.
  3. Or, defeat the evil sorcerer.
  4. Or, invent the FTL drive.
  5. Or, whatever! As long as it’s not boring and doesn’t involve girl bosses and racial grievances.

And it’s about time that someone put together another science fiction (or fantasy) franchise to replace the tired ones that are currently limping along.  Star Wars is tapped out.  The Republic, the Empire and the Rebellion have become stale and boring.  Nobody cares.

As have the superhero movies.  We’ve used up everybody’s interest in Marvel’s and DC’s stables of 1940’s to 1960’s spandex wearing heroes.  It’s enough.  Nobody is clamoring for more Captain America or black Captain America or Gay Hispanic Spiderman or She-Hulk or any of this.  It’s now a bore.

And it doesn’t have to be legacy space opera.  Although I wouldn’t mind a Doc Smith or a Heinlein storyline.  It could be anything as long as it appeals to the male audience that enjoys this genre.  It needs action, adventure and maybe a pretty girl that needs saving from some fate worse than death (like middle-management cubicle captivity).  Add in some lively music and lots of cutting-edge special effects and you’ve got a billion-dollar hit.

Hey Elon Musk, if you want a trip to Mars make a movie about a trip to Mars that gets people excited about it.  You’ll even make a pot of gold while doing it.

Critical Drinker Discovers Firefly

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It’s been over twenty years since Firefly was even a distant memory of a television show.  That excellent sci-fi series that struck a decidedly anti-elitist, pro-freedom, anti-“surveillance state” chord with its rag tag crew of space smugglers and other nonconformists in their chronically malfunctioning space ship Serenity.

I’m glad to see that the next generation is coming to recognize what a great show it was and just how much better it was than the current crop of fantasy and science fiction shows that have not a hundredth of its creativity and heart.  Kudos to the Crtical Drinker for saying so.

Long, Long Ago, In a Franchise Far, Far Away

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In the late 1970s a movie studio green lit a modest science fiction/fantasy film called Star Wars that made so much money that the studio and the creative team that owned the rights to it made billions of dollars from sequels, toys and every other monetizing scheme imaginable.

And why did all this happen?  Well, accidentally or on purpose the makers of that original movie tapped into the primal desire of young men (and it was almost exclusively boys and young men) to watch an exciting updating of the young apprentice’s journey to becoming a hero.  Whether it’s young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone or the Marine recruit proving himself on the battlefield of Iwo Jima or the hot shot pilot in a Top Gun movie, every boy (and man) enjoys the visceral experience of seeing the hero prove himself in combat and if he’s lucky enough win the heart of the princess (or in less monarchical times, some pretty girl in general).

And 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm rode that male archetypal fantasy to fame and fortune for almost forty years.  But in 2015 Lucasfilm (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney) launched the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise, “The Force Awakens” and drove a stake right through the heart of that golden goose.  With Kathleen Kennedy producing and J. J. Abrams directing all of that male-oriented story-telling was jettisoned and replaced with “girl-power.”  Kathleen Kennedy gleefully proclaimed that “The Force is estrogen.”  Well, “The Force Awakens” made billions.  Of course, it would have made billions even if it was just an empty screen for two hours.  That’s how much good will had been built up over the course of decades for the franchise.  But the following two films and the various spin-offs like the recent television series “The Acolyte” have completely dried up those wells of enthusiasm that had been produced previously.  The last couple of movies have lost money, in fact hundreds of millions of dollars.  And now the folks at Disney have cancelled a number of Star Wars productions and they’re trying to figure out how to fix their dying franchise.

Well Bob Iger, I’ve got an idea.  First off fire Kathleen Kennedy and all the people who decided to create the monstrosities that caused all this damage.  In fact, don’t just fire them but publicly abuse them verbally and force them to apologize for their heinous sins.  Then make a short trailer video for the next film.

It will consist of all the most egregious scenes from all of the horrible movies you released since 2015 in short snippets in a nightmare montage.  Then we switch to Han Solo in bed waking up from a nightmare and expressing relief that the whole thing was a bad dream.  He then gets up and joins his son, wife and brother-in-law at breakfast and he tells them some of the details of his nightmare and they all have a big laugh at how ridiculous it all sounds.

Then you get some good writers to reread the Arthurian legends and the pulp science fiction stories from the 1930s and you start making money again.