Rebels of Mars

Star Trek Captain's chair

Star Trek ~ the titles

Retro Star Trek 11 ~ with original Cast and Crew

Star Trek 11 Trailer

Stargate Universe trailer "Philosophical"

Battle For Terra trailer

Caprica Commercial - Retro Battlestar Galactica?

Alien Trespass Trailer

And we are back.

Changes are in the works for this little old blog - opening ROM back up because there is sooo much info at the retro desk we neeed a place to sort it ... 

Stargate SG-1, TV's Burroughs' Tradition mega-hit is on sale Today Only!

The Burroughs' Tradition Sci-Fi television series Star Gate Sg-1 is on sale today at Amazon as their Deal of the Day. Let's see ... 54 remastered DVD episodes for 99 bucks featuring Space Babe Amanda Tapping?  Usually this thing is about 300 bucks. Well, uh, gosh ... OK.

Wow, what a gift idea for the Retro Sci Fi Enthusiast! So much of Stargate is straight from Edgar Rice Burroughs that he must be up there on Barsoom smiling at the success of the franchise.

posted by Tom Novak, who says ... yes, this is a subtle hint for all you happy shoppers out there. :)

Science Fiction/Fantasy Composition 101

Posted by Tom Novak, who say's "Ah Ha! That's how they do this stuff."

Happy birthday, Edgar Rice Burroughs!

Born on this day in 1875.

Posted by Wally Conger, who's been reading Burroughs for about 40 years.

Jet Screamer!

posted by Tom Novak, who just couldn't resist yelling "Zoom, Dad, Zoom" as he posted it .

Hellboy and the Burroughs' Portal

Hellboy II is almost Now Playing and to get in the mood here's a Retro post about the Burroughs' influence on the original Hellboy flick

If you like science fiction in the Burroughs' Tradition (and we sure do) then you will dig watching Hellboy,  The best movie of the year '04 thus far, and it is now available on DVD.  And yes, we've ordered a copy and are getting the popcorn microwaved for its imminent arrival  and yes, yes,  this editor waited to see Spiderman 2 before making that "best movie thus far" claim -  so there.  Yeah, uh-huh ... you just keep on whining like your not-hero, Peter Parker, there Marvel fans.

Now, back to the better film, Hellboy,  if y'all missed it in the theaters that's no surprise considering that it was released in the middle of all the hoopla over Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ* and the only notice Hellboy received was from some fundamentalist /conservative christian twits who were comparing gate receipts of the two films to make a claim of moral victory for their religious views - but never mind that lunacy.  Hellboy was also out in theaters in April right before tax time,  can you say, "really bad timing for good PR?" Sheesh... talk about hell - boy!  Who's idea was that?

UPDATE - Hellboy has arrived at TSC's underground parking and publishing stage door via official, gone-postal, state-sanctioned media-mail ~ YAY!  More updates to follow ...

In the abscence of light, darkness prevails.

 

* Supreme Uber Junker's note ~ we won't be reviewing Mel Gibson's The Passion because, A.  - it's not the sort of movie we review, and B. - we are not really smart, scholarly or worthy enough to be criticizing the birth /life /crucifixion /resurrection of Christ.  Unlike some people out there.

"There ARE things that go bump in the night ... make no mistake about that.
And we are the people who bump back!"

When watching Hellboy the movie's strong ties to the Lovecraftian Tradition are obvious.  In fact, Hellboy  is the classiest on-screen depiction of the Cthulhu Mythos ever, so what's the Burroughs part?  Well, it's the portal itself. As opened by Grigory Rasputin and his NAZI allies using a combination of post-industrial age technology and Victorian mysticism to bridge the galaxy and create a doorway to another ... something or other.

All this "portaling" around that goes on nowadays is the result of fledgling serialist Ed Burroughs way back in 1911 having to figure out how to get John Carter forty-eight million miles to Mars in Dejah Thoris, Martian Princess.  And his solution was to portal him there using a mystic Arizonian indian cave location and Carter's own warrior spirit to portal Captain John Carter to Mars ( the planetary body that represents the god of his vocation).  But Burroughs wasn't  H.G. Wells so he didn't give a fig about trying to make sense of exactly how and why it happened enough to satisfy a whole society of Fabian critics... so who cares?  Ever since, Sci-fi- writers have gone to some great lengths to explain the variable combinations of science, magic, technology, witchcraft, cosmic hypnotism, energy, spoken incantations, will of god(s) or devil(s), spaceships, mysticism, cracks on the 'noggin, hallucinatoric drug use and just plain dumb luck that they've used in pulp fiction to get their heros to places extra-earth in time, space and dimension to where all the fun is.

Anyway, post Burroughs portaling in science fiction, fantasy and horror is something that never really has to be explained, it just happens - forget it and move along. Somewhat contemporaneously, in the Lovecraftian Tradition, that portal is expanded into the doorway that allows monstrous evil gods and giants travel to earth from different galaxies and dimensions to cause us b-i-g trouble. These things do have basis in bible stories and Renaissance Fantastic Literature - but nevermind about that stuff now. 

Hellboy himself, as a baby demon, gets portaled to a castle in Scotland from another universe in 1944 because of the action of secret paranormal NAZI scientist goons under the direction of Adolph Hitler who then fall under the attack of a squad of American dog-faces under the secret direction of Franklin Roosevelt.  And, surprisingly, this all makes perfect sense as it is presented in the movie.  Of course, the headlong battling between good and evil and evil and good and evil and evil help too.
And that's the great thing about Hellboy. It doesn't drag anywhere and does an adequate enough job of palming off an explanation of just what the heck is going on here, and moves quickly along enough that you won't have to listen to some braying, sofa-jockey demanding to know why,

"If that Gandalf The Great fellow is such a great wizard how come he doesn't just conjure up a bazooka and shoot that flying thing out of the sky?"

  Yes, we all know THAT person  ...  Hellboy  shuts 'em up, but good.

originally Posted by Tom Novak on August 3, 2004 - over at The Sudden Curve when Rebels of Mars was a category there.

Space Babe :: Dana Gillespie

So I was cleaning some stuff off the DVR late last night and decided to give some time to The People That Time Forgot (1977), based oh-so-very-loosely on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. Turner Classics ran it a couple of weeks back, and I knew I'd seen it probably 30 years ago, but what the hey, I'd recorded it, so I switched it on.

Not great. Hell, what starring Doug McClure could be considered great? But it did star Sarah Douglas, who I recall fondly as a Phantom Zone criminal from the Superman movies, and there were dinosaurs. Not particularly good dinosaurs, but I'm not fussy at midnight.

Then "cavegirl" Ajar appeared. My jaw dropped into my lap. How had I forgotten this actress?

Funny thing, I looked up a bio on actress Dana Gillespie (born Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie in 1949), and she's a blues singer! In the early 1970s, she did background vocals for David Bowie! (In fact, Bowie produced her first solo LP in 1973!) She also played Mary Magdalene in the first-ever London production of Jesus Christ Superstar! Whatta gal!

And to think that she had enough time to play a very hot prehistoric cavegirl in The People That Time Forgot!

Posted by Wally Conger, who thinks Dana Gillespie has animal magnetism.

Space Babe :: Caroline Munro Redux

Posted by Wally Conger, who has had a thing for Carline Munro for almost 35 years.

Blasting off with SPACE VULTURE

By the time I started reading science fiction seriously as a kid, Dangerous Visions was rocking the genre and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was tucked into every teenager’s backpack. The so-called New Wave had taken hold. But even so, an early visit to Barsoom, my discovery of Edmond Hamilton’s creaky Captain Future stories, and Channel 9’s Saturday morning broadcasts of the old Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe and — gasp! — Carol Hughes got me hooked on old-fashioned space opera. I read “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen books in between rounds with John Brunner and Roger Zelazny. I even began collecting those tattered copies of DC’s Showcase that featured spaceman-hero Adam Strange.

So I had a grand time with Space Vulture, a new “retro” space opera novel by Gary K. Wolf, the man who created Roger Rabbit, and John J. Myers, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey. This odd pairing of two lifelong chums has produced a slam-bang homage specifically to Anthony Gilmore’s 1952 sci-fi adventure novel Space Hawk. Writes Wolf in his preface to Space Vulture, “I’m not exaggerating when I say Space Hawk changed my life. I grew to love science fiction so much that in later years, I wrote and published science fiction stories and novels of my own. Without Space Hawk, I would never have created Roger Rabbit. One led directly to the other.”

From its faux-pulp dust jacket, featuring the smirking visage of interstellar villain Space Vulture, to its naïve, cornball hero, Galactic Marshal Captain Victor Corsaire, to its two preadolescent protagonists and their gorgeous mom, Space Vulture is a joyful ride through every SF cliché imaginable and, surprisingly enough, a few clever ideas that might never have occurred to the likes of Anthony Gilmore, Edmond Hamilton, or “Doc” Smith. The book is a 1950s space opera with a 21st century sensibility. I grinned the whole time I was reading it. I’ve stuck my copy of Space Vulture on the shelf right alongside my old Lensmen books.

Posted by Wally Conger, whose only problem with Space Vulture is that it features just one real Space Babe.

BLAKE'S 7 lives again!

About ten years ago, my good friend Bob Lautz introduced me to the late 1970s British sci-fi TV series Blake’s 7. Bob had VHS copies of all four seasons, I think it was — some 52 episodes. The show was created by Terry Nation, the guy who brought the Daleks to the Doctor Who universe. The special effects were terrible. Most of the acting was over the top. But I liked the show’s premise — a small band of intergalactic freedom fighters doing whup-ass on an evil Federation — and watching it was addictive. Despite the awful production standards, I was obsessed with moving beyond each clumsy cliffhanger. I knew there was a Blake’s 7 fan base somewhere, but I never pursued it, so after returning the videotapes to Bob, I pretty much forgot about the series.

Well, thanks to Jesse Willis at SFF Audio, I learned a few weeks ago that Blake’s 7 has been reimagined recently as an audio drama. A group called B7 Media has released Blake’s 7: The Audio Adventures, and just as Willis reported, it improves on the original series in the same way today’s Battlestar Galactica does its predecessor. The first “season” consists of three consecutive stories — Rebel, Traitor, and Liberator — each broken into 12 chapters of five or six minutes apiece. And that season is now available in a four-CD box set that includes a CD-ROM of special features (three videos, three MP3s, and a computer wallpaper).

The set ain’t cheap, and it seems to be available only from B7 Media itself in the UK. But mine arrived in the mail just a few days ago, and it’s absolute dynamite. The cast is perfect. The effects that make up the series’ “soundscape” are fantastic. And the stories are riveting — easy enough to follow (not an uncommon challenge for audio dramas) but exciting, fast-paced, and fully drawn enough to bear up to repeated visits; in fact, I’ve listened through the series twice already. And I’m ready to jump onboard again.

Blake’s 7’s story of mismatched and often uncooperative rebels fighting a despotic regime isn’t, of course, new to sci-fi. But this redo of the old TV series is surprisingly thoughtful, filled with complex characters struggling through knotty circumstances. Nothing’s simple and straightforward, the show says, especially not the fight for liberty. Not when the people you plan to liberate are more disposed to suffer than shrug off the masters who oppress them. And not when your allies all have conflicting loyalties and agendas. This new, improved, audio Blake’s 7 is a “must” for libertarian science fiction fans. These first three adventures are not just thrillrides of empire-bashing fun; they’re a surprisingly sophisticated initial launch in what promises to become a classic libertarian space saga. More adventures, I’m told, are on the way! So until then…up the rebels!

Space Babe :: Patricia Tallman

I've been recently working my way again through all five seasons of Babylon 5, this time on DVD, and I'm reminded what a hot number Patricia Tallman is. Old B5 viewers may recall that Patricia played telepath and Vorlon groupie Lyta Alexander on the series in 35 episodes between 1995 and 1998. Plus she starred in the series pilot and Thirdspace, a B5 movie made for TNT in 1998. Tallman's Space Babe credentials, though, extend beyond Babylon 5; she appeared with some frequency on most of the Star Trek franchises, including Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Now 50 years old, Patricia Tallman remains cute, perky, and a redhead. Very nice.

Posted by Wally Conger, who says telepath Lyta Alexander can spend as much time in his head as she wants.

Paradise in the 1970s

Logan's Run may have been an anti-Utopia (or dystopian), but heck, it still had Jenny Agutter livin' in it!