How Science Fiction Failed Us – Privacy
So with my last write-up about Google Drive, I thought I would take a little bit and look at how Science Fiction has affected our concept of privacy and what’s considered “normal” and “off-limits”. This has been all over the news lately, if you know where to look, at least. Between Google trying to steal everyone’s data rights, and The House of Representatives passing CISPA, things are little closer to 1984 than I think I like.
Big Brother is Watching
The day Google tried to take over the world
All right, I’ll admit that the title is a little exaggeratory, but it’s not as far from reality as we might hope. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan. I use Google all the time. I have a Gmail account; I’ve had one since they required an invitation. I even convinced the place where I work to buy into Google Apps, which has been a wonderful transition for us. I’m afraid, though, of any business that overextends its reach, and I’m more afraid of companies that don’t know what’s there property and what isn’t. Let me explain.
How Science Fiction Failed Us: We All Loved Lightcycles
So I watching Tron tonight. Not the new one, but the original 1982 release. In the past, I’ve given a lot of credit to Star Trek for being the inspiration for much of the technology we use today. In watching this classic piece of science fiction, I realize that I don’t give enough credit where it’s due. Considering the heavy role computers play in today’s movie productions, Tron holds up surprisingly well, considering its age. Tron was cutting edge in 1982, using computer animations to fill green screen backdrops. But even if you ignore the animations, the concepts behind the story were even more ahead of their time.
How Science Fiction Failed Us: Great Scott!
Hello friends. I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry I haven’t posted more. I have many more responsibilities with my job now, and we’ve experienced a great deal of growth over the last 18 months. Good for me, bad for the writing. However, I felt that the time to return was now, and I have some thoughts I’d like to share with you all.
As the title alludes, I’ve been thinking about one of my favorite movie franchises of late (mostly due to a marathon session a couple weeks back). I was the tender age of 10 when the original Back to the Future was released in theaters, and I was immediately hooked. That following Christmas, I asked for a skateboard (I never got very good… this was in the days before skate parks and Tony Hawk’s prominence) and I kept my eyes peeled for any stainless steel cars I might find. One of my closest friends actually made his own model version of the Delorian Time Machine out of parts from other models (yes… a truly dedicated fan who even went on to name his company after his favorite line – Check his site out).
It was wonderful traveling back to the past with Marty and Doc Brown, and it surely had to be pretty easy for Robert Zimeckis to represent a time in which he grew up (he was born in 1951). For four long years, we waited breathlessly for the sequel; the original movie having ended with the prophetic “To Be Continued”. Finally in 1989, Back to the Future Part II was released and we got our first glimpses at Marty’s future and the Hill Valley of tomorrow. Looking back at the movie now, there’s so much wrong with it, it’s difficult for me to relate, without ruining a cherished memory, but there were a few things I thought would fit into the mold of “How Science Fiction Failed Us”.
How Science Fiction Failed Us – Tales of Future Past
How Science Fiction Failed Us – Tales of Future Past
Yesterday (Sorry this was delayed, I started this post on 4/21/11) the geek web was buzzing with news of the impending self-awareness of the mega-computer known as SKYNET. If you are reading this article and DON’T know what Skynet is, you should flog yourself like a 13th century monk and get to Netflix post haste. The Terminator movies… yes, all of them… are required viewing. Nevermind that the original Terminator (and the first sequel) had the date of Skynet’s “awakening” at August 4th 1997 (with the subsequent scouring of humanity occurring 25 days later on the 29th of August, 1997), or that the 3rd movie (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)set the date of our demise as July 24th, 2004. Today, April 21st, 2011 is the REAL (read: most current) date Skynet decides to end all of our puny existences in order to preserve its own.
This brings me to one conclusion: Retcons are overused. Why do I say that? Fifteen years ago, only a comic book reader would know what a “retcon” (short for Retroactive Continuity) was. Today, every low-level geek and soap opera fanatic knows the term and either rants or raves about its effect on their favorite piece of fiction.
How Science Fiction Failed Us Goes To The Movies – Source Code
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN MOVIE-GOING RISK!
It’s not often that a movie that treats an exploding train like a valued member of the cast, and even less often that I go out of my way to see one that does. Don’t get me wrong, I like smash-em-up action flicks as much as the next testosterone canister does, but I like to see a good story and solid characters too. My worst fear was that Source Code would just be an 8minute version of the Bill Murray classic, Groundhog Day. I’m happy to say it was not.
The premise of the film (which oddly enough, while presented clearly in the trailers, was not made clear in the movie until maybe 30 minutes in) is that our hero, Capt. Colter Stevens (played marvelously by Jake Gyllenhall), is being sent into the body of Sean Fentriss, a rider on a Chicago-bound commuter train, a la Quantum Leap. The idea is similar to the show as well, Stevens is being sent in to discover the identity of the person who bombs the train just as it enters the outskirts of the city. The problem is that he only has 8 minutes in which to do it. There are hundreds of people on the train, and our poor friend has to get blown up over and over again to complete his mission. And to make matters worse, in a wicked turn on the “needs of the many” concept popularized by Mr. Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the controllers won’t let Colter stop until he finds the bomber. It seems the same person is threatening to detonate a dirty bomb in the middle of downtown Chicago. I don’t think I need to tell you how bad that would be.
How Science Fiction Failed Us – Where Almost No Man Has Gone Before…
A couple of weekends ago, some of you may have seen me post a tweet about my rear sharing space with Bill Shatner’s rear. No, I wasn’t part of some failed teleportation experiment, and no I didn’t actually meet Mr. Shatner (a lifelong dream, I have to admit). What I did do was sit in the Captain’s Chair of the Enterprise; the ORIGINAL Chair. In fact, given a sufficient amount of time, I could probably point it out in an episode. Apparently, this was one chair of many, each uniquely created to make the chair appear to be more functional than it really was. What surprised me the most was the wooden arm rests. That’s right; wooden arm rests. Even in the 23rd century, in a ship built of Transparent Aluminum and Tritanium and powered by a matter/antimatter reaction channeled through a dilithium crystal, the Captain’s Chair had wooden arm rests.
It’s comforting to know that even in the 23rd century there will still be a need for good carpentry.
Now, this article isn’t about woodworking in the distant future. It’s about nostalgia and technology. The event with the Chair was a Star Trek Exhibition at the Louisville Science Center (it’s going on until sometime in May… check their website out at http://www.louisvillescience.org/). On the whole, it was mostly a display of props, or in many cases replicas of props (really?), that were used in the various incarnations of the franchise. They had uniforms from all the shows and movies, as well as model ships that were actually used for filming (the Enterprise D looked rough). They also had clothing and weapons from the major races on the show, including the Bajorans, Cardassians, Klingons and Borg. Some of my favorite pieces were the Borg Sphere model and the original Type III Phaser (rifle).
Apple vs. The World: Another look at Jobs’ anti-Android rant
A few months back, I wrote a piece called The Great Deflection – BlackBerry vs. Itself, about how Apple and Android were taking huge chunks of the smartphone market share away from the previous ruler of Cellphone Land, RIM. Research in Motion, the company that brings us the ever-present BlackBerry line of phones, has struggled to maintain its dominance in a world now dominated by the casual user. BlackBerry still caters to the professional user, arguably offering the best platform for the Enterprise experience. However, most phones being purchased today are for casual users; ones who are more interested in Bejeweled Blitz and Twitter than shared calendars and appointment syncing.
So during Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call earlier this week, Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance and presented the good news himself: The previous quarter boasted a robust $20 million in earnings based largely on the 14 million handsets purchased. Since RIM only sold about 12.1 million in the same period, this means that for the first time ever, Apple has surpassed RIM in units sold and activated.
Jobs went on to add insult to injury by stating: “We’ve now surpassed RIM, and I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future… I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android.” Jobs continued by saying, “With 300,000 apps on Apple’s App Store, RIM has a high mountain ahead of them to climb.”
How Science Fiction Failed Us – Flash Gordon (1980)
As I asked for some suggestions as to what you, my readers, would want to see reviewed, I kept seeing some of the same names pop up over and over again. And while they were all good suggestions, and I will likely review all of them, one name popped off the page at me as a personal favorite. Moreover the influence this particular character has had on the idea of Science Fiction as a whole is undeniable. He is, without doubt, one of the grandfathers of modern Science Fiction: Flash Gordon. Along with Buck Rogers, Flash made his debut to the minds and hearts of America in the 1930’s through newspaper comic strips. But I won’t be addressing his formidable past in this post, only the cult film iteration that is 1980’s Flash Gordon.
From the opening scene, you know you are in for something epic. I mean how could it not be with Queen scoring the movie. Seriously, what was it with the 80’s and having rock bands score movies (Toto scored almost all the Dune soundtrack in 1984… Queen, of course, was better). The imagery stays true to the 1930’s artistry as it can, as well as doing its best to pay homage to the original starting stories. Of course, in glitzy 1980, what with its feathered bangs, Jordache jeans and cable TV, anything that looked out of date was passé, hence the overall box office failure of this classic movie. But because it is Sci-Fi, and because Sci-Fi fans are the best fans, cult status was almost assured. So for any of you who haven’t seen it (and if you are under the age of 25 that may be the case), let me sum up as best I can.
How Science Fiction Failed Us – Mad Max
As I started running out of ideas for “How Science Fiction Failed Us” it occurred to me that there was a wealth of inaccurate futures built by the Science Fiction movies and shows of the past. The only question I had left to answer was, “Where do I begin?” That answer seemed simple enough to me. I needed a movie that spawned a franchise; one that was timeless and produced a viable star actor. I wanted to start off with a movie that I couldn’t possibly spoil: Mad Max.
Before you scoff (or you young kids ask “Mad who?”) allow me to explain a little about my choice. Mad Max may not be space opera, or have lasers or even flying cars. In fact, the opening sequence indicates that the events in the movie take place only “a few years from now,” it’s clear that we’re still at the end of the 70’s, what with all the Ford Falcons on the road. Imagery aside, though, this movie could easily take place today, or a “few years from now”, given the circumstances. Let’s set up the background a bit. Most of us have seen Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome if for no other reason than to see Tina Turner in it. If you get Mad Max and expect to see the post-nuclear world of Thunderdome, you’ll be disappointed. This takes place before all of that.
