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Site Updates
Friday, March 27, 2009
As you may or may not have noticed, the site's going through a flurry of change. This is likely to continue for the next week or so, as I figure out how best to have the site look; for now (as of this post), it looks pretty rough, but it should get much better looking in the coming week.
Bear with me - it'll settle down soon.
Shall we watch some Star Trek?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
This is the enviable question I was asked the other day by my fiancé. From previous experience, I know it's very hard to convert the 'non-believers', but she is eating up the Trek like no tomorrow.
Now I know the stereotype of us all being cellar-dwelling fat losers, who'd rather play World of Warcraft than interact with the real world, but I also know that's false. So for those of you with partners, here's how I got my girlfriend to “want to WANT to watch Star Trek”.
First off, you need a plan. Don't do anything until you have a plan. It will likely change during execution, but that's where the fun is. Look at it like a game of Chess. I knew from the outset that she had relatively good taste in TV and Film (High School Musical notwithstanding...), but Amy (for that is her name) simply wasn't interested in Trek, so I needed to find an 'in'. A way to make her see Trek differently. This was provided by Babylon 5.
Here are my tips for sharing the SF passion:
- Be prepared for it to take some time before you get to where you want to be. Also, be prepared to watch a lot of 'America's Next Top Model' in return for your partner submitting to boring old SF.
- If they are totally against the idea of Trek, or whichever show you really would like to share with them – I mean if they absolutely hate it – start somewhere else. Hammering away at them to watch your show will only annoy them, and make your job harder.
- Pay attention to the shows he or she likes. If your fella likes watching Football on a Sunday afternoon, make a mental list of 'sporty' episodes – come on, you've got every episode memorised anyway, haven't you?
- If your significant other is a fan of a particular actor, that's a great way to start. Most SF shows have guest appearances, and whilst it may mean they see episodes out of order, who cares? At least they're watching, right?
- Make it easy. If you have the DVDs, keep them as close to the TV as you can, so that when there's a free 45 minutes, you can suggest “Hey – you wanna watch that one with (insert actor name) in?” The best way is to have a media-centre setup, so that you don't even need to get the DVDs out – if it's always on tap, they're much more likely to have a bash.
- Don't be offended if they develop the hots for one of the actors. My girlfriend is going through her 'Riker phase' right now, after enjoying an 18 month relationship with Sheridan, Sinclair and Garibaldi, a brief fling with Fox Mulder, and a one-night-stand with young Obi Wan Kenobi. As I write this, she yells “More Riker! More beardless Riker!!” from the next room. Honestly.
I'd love to hear about your successes (and failures – call it morbid fascination), so drop me a line in the comments below.
Coming Soon: How to indoctrinate your two year old into Science Fiction!
XERO ERROR - Sci Fi in Dubai
On my usual travels around the Internet, I happened across the Xero Error website for a CG animated short film in the early stages of development. The site's already up and running, and looking very nice too, and pre-production looks to be well under way, as you can see from the character designs. Given how early on in production the Xpanse CGI team are, I thought it would be fascinating to get a bit of inside info. They're making what looks to be quite an ambitious film, and X-E's creator Ashraf Ghori was on hand to talk about some of the issues they face creating a new vision of a futuristic world:
SR
Hi Ashraf - firstly, thanks for taking time out to talk to us. Could you tell us about how you and your team came together on this project, and what you feel has influenced you to produce a Sci-Fi short?
AG
It is my pleasure. I practically grew up with superheroes. My love for comic books and all things Sci-Fi influenced me to become a comic book creator in Houston, Texas. I branched off into 3D animation and set up a small animation studio called Xpanse in Dubai two years ago. For several years I've wanted to break free from doing the daily commercial work to create something truly artistic and original. Xero Error originated from this lack of a creative outlet.
The team mostly comprises of professionals I work with regularly at Xpanse, as well as some talented and experienced individuals from outside the UAE, we've sought out for the Film.
SR
What's the story about - who's our hero, and what kind of journey does he/she/it face?
AG
The story centers on XE7, a cyborg on a spiritual journey who discovers the unknown. He begins to realize that things in recorded history contradict with facts he has observed in real life and begins to open up his mind to the supernatural. He finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, at a major crime scene, leading him to a Cyber-terrorism scandal and trouble with FACET - The First Authority in Cyber Espionage & Terrorism.
SR
On the business side of things, how hard was it to gather all of the creative talent together to produce the film, and how long has it taken you to get this far? Has your location in Dubai given you any problems or benefits?
AG
Dubai is in its infancy in film making. There is little or no support for this industry yet, but organizations like Dubai International Film Festival and Dubai Studio City are promoting it. To get the required creative talent here is an ongoing struggle. To my knowledge, being the first time a computer generated Sci-Fi film is being produced in the UAE, it makes it all the more challenging to get funding and sponsors for the Film. On the brighter side, people do take a lot of interest when they hear of a Sci-Fi CG Film being produced in Dubai. To reach this point, it has taken us just over a year. I started writing the film in January 2008 with Co-writer, Mohammad Mondal. We are currently very early into production.
SR
Personally, what kinds of TV/Films do you like, and what do you think of the state of current Sci-Fi blockbusters like Iron Man, City of Ember and The Day The Earth Stood Still?
AG
Recent Sci-Fi blockbusters like Iron Man and Dark Knight stood out from the others both in terms of storytelling and visual effects. Some of my favourite Sci-Fi movies are the early Star Wars, Tron & most notably Minority Report. I look forward to seeing the Watchmen. I don't get to watch much TV though.
SR
I imagine you have plans for more features after Xero Error - do you plan to stick with SF, or will you be branching out into other genres?
AG
We hope Xero Error will receive a warm response and we intend to follow it up with a sequel or a feature length film. Along with developing more Sci-Fi shorts, we also have plans of making FOBcity, a light-hearted cartoon based on Dubai's melting pot mix of cultures.
SR
And finally - when and where can we look forward to seeing your film?
AG
We aim to complete production late 2009 and feature it at International Film Festivals. Subsequently it will find distribution for TV channels world-wide. All the latest updates and news can be found at our website [www.xero-error.com]. In the near future you can expect to see movie clips & trailers on the site.
SR
Thanks again for your time – it's great to see that Science Fiction is still alive and well worldwide! I'm sure Xero Error will be only the first of your successes, and look forward to hearing more from you and the Xpanse team.
AG
Thank you,
Ashraf Ghori
Cool, huh? I love that something so fresh is coming from such an unusual place. The city development in Dubai continues at an astonishing rate (the new buildings are straight out of a Sci Fi flick – rotating floors, 'Death-Star' designs and all sorts of craziness), and if the early production designs for Xero Error are anything to go by, there'll be a flourishing film/FX industry there soon as-well. For now, we can only check out the film site and Xpanse CGI's website, www.x-panse.com, but I can't wait to see a trailer for the film. Ashraf's going to keep us posted on how development continues – as soon as I know something, you will too.
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Sam Jackson signed for NINE picture Marvel deal
Given the controversy surrounding Marvel Studios' hiring and firing of actors, this might be a bit of a sweetener to fans. Variety reports that Samuel L Jackson has been given a nine film option with Marvel – that basically means that any time a future Marvel film features Nick Fury, Jackson will be doing it.
It also means something else: Crossovers. It was obvious that crossovers would become a part of the Marvel 'Movie Universe', in much the same way as they have been a part of the Comic Universe – yet they were not unique in that field. This is something very new for film and the industry in general.
I have one problem with all of this:
One of the biggest reasons for Marvel's losses in the late Nineties was because of ALL OF THE DAMNED CROSSOVERS. I was happy reading X-Men, X-Force and X-Factor – then, all of a sudden, I had to buy and read Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, and any number of other books that weren't my cup of tea at the time. They expected the fans to do this for months on end, while they played out their epic, multi-book sagas. That's when I stopped reading comics.
Let's hope Marvel Studios remember the fan exodus (should I say 'X-odus'?), and that although it's great to see a bit of continuity, you can't use it as a blunt tool to make more money or massage flagging sales.
On the plus side, it means we'll get to see Sam Jackson in at least the following films:
Iron Man 2
Captain America
Thor
The Avengers
The Shield
... so that's five. Do you think the remaining four will just be sequels, or might there be more superheroes on the way?
SciTech - The Future is NOW!
As a kid, one of my biggest dreams for the future was to have Star Trek sliding doors – imagine hearing that 'whoosh' as you went into the kitchen to get some toast. It seems that, not only do we have BETTER Trek doors, but we also managed to do a couple of other things on the way. Take a look at some of the most amazing things happening right now:
TELEPORTATION
So they've only managed to tangle up some elementary particles, but it's a good start, and they think they know where to go next. It involves lots of Quantum Physics insanity, where merely observing the state of a particle can fix or change it, and when that particle is 'entangled' with another (more crazy Physics), the two are inextricably linked, no matter their distance from one-another; changes to one are replicated in the other. Hopefully it won't end up like poor Seth Brundle's Telepods did.
LASERS (the shooting kind, not the optical disc kind)
“Boeing conducted a series of tests at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama with a 1-kw laser mounted on the back of a converted anti-aircraft Humvee. Shooting an invisible beam just a few centimetres in diameter and 20 times hotter than an electric stovetop, the laser burned a hole through the casing of artillery and mortar rounds, detonating them more or less instantly.” (from Popular Mechanics)
Yes folks. We now have weaponised Lasers, capable of shooting drone planes out of the sky. It'll be a while before we can carry one on our hip though, as the current Laser Gun is so big it needs to be mounted on the top of a massive Humvee Jeep, but rest-assured; your kids will one day be able to re-enact the Greedo/Solo Mos Eisley bar scene with complete authenticity...
FTL TRAVEL or WARP SPEED
Yeah – this one's a bit dubious, as it's only a proposed idea for a Warp style propulsion system. Still, the will's there. Using more energy than all of humanity produces in a millennia, they think that it should be possible to 'Travel Without Moving' (to quote Dune). The trick is to make space-time expand behind you, and contract in-front of you... and viola: Space just re-arranges itself around you to get you to those hot chicks on Risa that much quicker.
ALIEN LIFE
It's pretty much a given now, but if you'd have asked me in 1985 whether I thought we would find extra-terrestrial life before 2010, I'd have laughed my backside off. There's the rock (a potato sized lump of the Igneous variety, also known as ALH84001) that scientists think holds fossilised remains of microbes 4 Billion years old, and then there's the unexplained Methane on Mars which, it's been hypothesised, could well be a sign of life there as we speak. Now if we could only catalogue all the life on our own planet...
CRYO-STASIS
This was the big new thing in the Seventies and Eighties, but interest seems to have died off a bit, as the realisation that cures for old-age and deadly illnesses are not exactly coming thick and fast... but if it's good enough for Buck Rogers, it's good enough for me.
Truly, I jest. The scaremongering efforts of what appear to be ex-used car salesmen sicken me to my very core. Here's the tagline:
"Your Last Best Chance For Life--and Your Family's."
Nice, huh? Use our service, or die like everybody else. Thanks, but I'll take my chances – and my cash.
THOUGHT CONTROLLED COMPUTERS
And you thought that mind-controlled computers would just be for the Army? This is a kids' toy to control a white ball... simple in theory, but the unit uses EEG technology like that used in hospitals, to monitor your brainwaves and translate those thoughts into motion.
The [Star Wars] Force Trainer (expected to be priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower, analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker's abilities in the Star Wars films.
And finally:
STAR TREK DOORS V2.0!
Forget your swooshing v1.0 doors – these 'modern' updates are near silent – and go one better than the classic sliders: They only open enough for you to pass through! Made up of slats with IR sensors, they can detect the width of the object trying to pass through, and open accordingly... check the video on the other side of the link, you'll see what I mean.
We're still missing a couple of things; Artificial Intelligence is still a 'Work In Progress', although online 'chatbots' are getting better every year – see http://www.elbot.com to chat to the most successful A.I. so far. Cloning's getting there, and surgery keeps plodding on. I'm sure I even read somewhere that there were serious plans to get a Space-Elevator underway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator)...
Have you seen something better? Does your school Physics teacher have an inexplicable supply of hot Earl Grey Tea? Has your Dad been sending your Mom out late at night for coal and ice-cream? Let us know with a comment – and a link if you have one.
Johnny Rico wants YOU to help in the war on Child Abuse!
Monday, March 16, 2009
As you will come to learn, I'm a big Paul Verhoeven fan. Huge. Massive. So it'll come as no surprise that when I saw Johnny Rico, the Roughneck from Starship Troopers, spreading the message of real life US organisation ChildHelp, I had to look into it further.
I'd like to think that everybody knows exactly how awesome Starship Troopers is, but we all have to start somewhere, right? So for those of you in the cheap seats:
Earth is under attack from afar by 'The Bugs'. A group of friends join the Mobile Infantry, and ass-kicking/romantic entanglements ensue -
or for the more cerebral:
A wry look at the state of world media, politics and warfare, using the device of an interplanetary battle to highlight and satirise the insanity of modern military institutions...
Yes – it can be read on a couple of different levels. I wanted to know how this all came about - Derrek Hofrichter from ChildHelp and Casper Van Dien himself were on hand to talk to us about how the videos came into being, and who came up with the inspired idea:
SR
Who initially came up with the idea of using the Johnny Rico character to voice the ChildHelp message?
DH
The idea came about as part of a few group brainstorming meetings we had here at ChildHelp when we were trying to think up new ways to raise awareness of child abuse, especially to demographics that we historically didn't have much, if any, outreach to. I am a huge Starship Troopers fan and Casper has been a very active ChildHelp Celebrity Ambassador for a number of years, so the idea of using Casper as Johnny Rico had been in my head for awhile. The timing was also right in that Starship Troopers 3 had just released and was doing quite well in DVD sales. After that, it was a matter of talking to Casper about it and he immediately jumped on board. Besides being a recognizable character with a cult-like following, there are a number of other reasons why it works. The Rico character is someone who has seen the worst of what the universe has to offer, and here he is saying that the most horrible thing he has encountered is child abusers. While the PSA's are cool and it is fun to see Casper reprise that role, they also have a very serious message that there is a war that our children are fighting every day…one with a lot of casualties. Here in the states, four children die every day because of abuse and neglect.
SR
Casper, when you made the first Starship Troopers, did you have any idea that twelve years later, it would be so much of a phenomenon that it could be used to promote causes like ChildHelp?
CVD
My wife Catherine Oxenberg and I have been involved with Childhelp for over 5 years. I never would have even thought of linking the two. When they asked me to do a PSA as Johnny Rico for ChildHelp, I said… "But it is an 'R' film?" They said… "No offence Casper, but child abuse is a much harder rating". They made me look at it differently. Our goal with these PSA's is to hopefully get the enthusiastic Sci-Fi fans to put their support and passion into fighting for the children out there who need a voice. Four children die every day in the US from abuse and neglect. Three million reports of child abuse are made every year in the United States. Enough is enough. Everyone needs to do their part. Call the Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD [the equivalent in the UK is ChildLine on 0800 1111 or the NSPCC on 0808 800500] or go to the Website: http://www.childhelp.org/home
SR
Derrek, your last PSAs were by Texas Senator Carlos Uresti - What made you decide to use something so different to promote ChildHelp in 2009? Were you looking for the highest profile property you could work with, or were you intentionally aiming for a different demographic?
DH
It was an intentional aim at a different demographic. The advantage of using the internet to raise awareness is you can come up with different strategies for different groups, as opposed to running more traditional PSA's on TV or radio that need to be more mainstream. With the tens of thousands of new videos uploaded to the internet every day, it is more than likely that your video will just get lost in the mix. So you really have to think differently and come up with something unique, which of course won't appeal to everyone. When targeting a specific demographic, it's possible to have a much deeper impact and conversation than with a broader but shallower PSA – we need both, but this has the advantage of making longer-lasting impressions and bringing in new supporters. Casper's PSA's are the first of a few different ones we have in the works, each of which will appeal to different audiences. For example, we just recently filmed a PSA with NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal which should be released sometime in the spring, and Casper actually directed that PSA for us. 2009 is the 50th Anniversary for our organization, and we view it as a great opportunity to raise as much awareness to child abuse as possible… especially through the use of more 'outside the box' means. When you have celebrities like Casper who are so passionate about the issue and so eager to be involved and to make a difference, it makes raising awareness much more possible.
SR
News of the new PSAs is all over the internet, especially high profile Film & TV sites like AintItCoolNews and Yahoo! (and now SciFi.co.uk) - were you expecting such a massive buzz?
DH
Of course the hope is always for that kind of response and with the elements involved you know there is a potential for it, but the downside to launching an internet awareness campaign is that you really don't know for sure what will happen. Combined with the uncertainty of wondering if it will catch on or not, as a charity we do not have an advertising budget to promote it other than to send out a press release with links to the videos. Casper and the production crew involved were generous enough to donate all their time and resources into making the videos, so we were going to be happy with whatever attention it received. The fact that it has generated so much buzz and awareness is absolutely wonderful and our Web traffic has sky-rocketed with first time visitors.
SR
Obviously, eliminating child abuse is something most people around the world feel very strongly about. It must be incredibly gratifying to be able to make such a big contribution to the campaign - do you think that more could be done by others such as yourself, Casper, who have high profile jobs?
CVD
ChildHelp has some wonderful "Celebrity Ambassadors" Cheryl Ladd, Jane Seymour and most recently I directed Shaq in another PSA for ChildHelp. He is HUGE and his heart is in the right place. He is the perfect symbol in the fight to stop child abuse. It is a Battle. And we will win. Hopefully more will Join Up and do their part.
SR
Derrek - How much input did ChildHelp have into the content of the PSAs - or to put it a different way - did you have to make any trade-offs between 'artistic' merits and your core message?
DH
In addition to Casper, we were really blessed to have such an all star cast work on this project, including Dennis and Robert Skotak who have won Oscars for their visual effects work on Terminator 2, Aliens and The Abyss; John Murlowski, who filmed Starship Troopers 3; and Kevin VanHook, who has worked on many blockbusters including I, Robot and Daredevil. Everyone involved is very passionate about the subject matter and it was always a question of how can we use the Starship Troopers theme to best spread awareness of the issue and the collaboration between all the entities involved really made it unnecessary to consider trade-offs. There was never any question of watering down the core message or trading it off in any way. Even though we were working with some of the top production experts in the industry, they listened to everything ChildHelp had to say and made it happen as it was the core message that was most important. We are also very thankful to Sony for giving us license to use the character and movie for this purpose.
SR
Having performed in many genre films Casper, do you feel that 'crossover' projects like the ChildHelp PSAs signal a new acceptance of Sci-Fi/Horror, as both an art-form, and a valid outlet for serious expression?
CVD
I think for some it is a touchy subject. Child abuse is serious. We need to do EVERYTHING we can to educate and spread the word so that we can save a child today, tomorrow and put and end to the Horrifying statistics that plague our society. I believe that every art form is an expression that helps us to broaden our vision and open us up to becoming more compassionate and aware.
SR
Personally, I think the new PSAs are a fantastic idea, not only because I love any excuse to see characters from Starship Troopers, but because using such popular characters and settings helps immensely to reduce the stigma of child abuse - in effect, removing any taboo, and helping victims of abuse feel more confident seeking help. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the response would be to a similar campaign in the UK. Do you think the current campaign might be considered 'U.S. Only', or do you think the sensibilities of other countries simply haven't been tested yet?
DH
Unfortunately, the problem of child abuse is global and found in every economic and social level. It has definitely been a taboo subject in the U.S. up until pretty recently, and is even more so in some other countries. Using popular characters and settings can go along way towards reducing stigmas and reaching larger audiences than would normally tune into the message. I don't think the PSA's need to be considered U.S. only, insofar as the Starship Trooper franchise has done quite well around the world and has many fans, especially in the UK. Our organization used to be named Childhelp USA, but dropped the "USA" part a few years ago because we wanted to reach out and help prevent and treat child abuse around the world, and if this PSA can be impactful outside the U.S., then we would welcome the chance to share it.
SR
Finally (and on a less serious note), Casper - are there any plans for Starship Troopers 4 yet - if so, would you be interested in reprising the role of Johnny Rico?
CVD
Sci-Fi Channel needs to be involved in either a Starship Troopers 4 or a TV series and then I would sign up in a heart beat. That would breathe life into it. It would have to be a darker world than Battlestar Galactica or Stargate... but it would be a blast. Maybe you can put in a good word. Maybe the fans can get behind that too!
"COME ON ALL YOU APES........ YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!"
Now before I thank Derrek and Casper for their time, and give some thoughts on the validity of the PSAs, I'd just like to touch upon that last part of the interview...
Yes. You read correctly. Get that petition started now, guys and gals! A Starship Troopers TV series would rock my world – and yours – AND CASPER VAN DIEN WANTS TO DO IT! Holy god, we need this to go somewhere!
Battlestar Galactica +
Space: Above & Beyond +
The Colonial Marines from Aliens =
100 different kinds of Starship Troopers flavoured awesomeness!
... but back to the point.
I think it's great that SciFi fans are now being considered as a demographic, rather than a blip - our opinions count for something, and our spending power matters. Kudos to ChildHelp and Casper Van Dien for recognising this. I'm still not sure that UK audiences would accept anything similar, although the Dr Who spots for Children in Need and Comic Relief worked out quite well...
Having trawled through lots of other sites covering the new PSAs, I found many not taking them seriously, laughing it off as some kind of everyday promotional guff. To those guys, I say “What the hell?” Whether you liked Casper Van Dien's performance or not, whether you recognise the brilliance of the original film, or whether you like the sequels or not – is it really such a bad thing that a property most of us love can be used to promote a serious message? I think not. Sure, the first film was a very subversive piece of movie-making, but it's out there now, in the public domain, and it can be taken so many different ways it defies explanation – trust me, I tried to write an essay on it and failed. I wish ChildHelp, Casper, and his wife Catherine the very best of luck -
and HERE'S TO STARSHIP TROOPERS THE SERIES!
Bill Gates iz in ur Computerz, stealin ur filez
Way back when I was a kid, at the height of my comic collecting phase, I wanted to be a comic book creator. Not just artist, or writer, but Creator. I'd seen that Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee and their partners could do it, when they created Image Comics in 1992. I had ideas – great ones – that I truly believed were equal to any of the popular offerings of the time. One idea in particular was to be the first of my home-grown titles: ShadowHawk.
I know what you're thinking - “Are you Jim Valentino, creator of the relatively successful ShadowHawk comic?”. No. I'm not. I had devised a character on my computer so utterly similar to Valentino's ShadowHawk it was spooky. He looked exactly the same, down to the arm-brace-grapple gadget.
I thought nothing of it, until a couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend told me a similar story about something she'd written, later to appear as a big screen blockbuster. Her theory was that Microsoft were stealing her ideas...
So I know that's not happening, but I find it interesting that ideas can happen in different places at the same time – synchronicity, you might call it. Have any of you guys ever had this experience, and if so, what did Bill Gates steal from your computer?
The Oscars, Heath Ledger & an Alternate Opinion
It's over for another year, Slumdog Millionaire cleaned up and everybody got what they wanted; Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor.
FOR WHAT?
The Dark Knight was alright. Honestly, just alright. It carried through with the same problems from Batman Begins:
Too dark
Terrible editing/action direction
Grumpy Christian Bale
Meandering, needlessly convoluted plot
- and although Ledger as the Joker was a fine idea, which worked relatively well, was it truly, honestly Oscar-worthy? I don't know if I've said this here before, but I've certainly said it elsewhere - imagine:
You're in the local with some mates and that chick who should be too hot to hang out with you, but it's the only place she can let her inner geek fall out in the wind for all to see. This is an alternate time-line, so it's okay to do impressions of Heath Ledger's Joker. You think you can do it pretty well, so you give it a shot, and everybody has a laugh. The next night, your bestest-best-bud stabs you in the back and does his own impression – it's pretty good too. Everybody laughs. You think 'Hm. Maybe it's not such a hard impression to do...'.
You're working the next night, but when you check Facebook, there's a video of the chick doing your impression. You are mortified that a girl might be stealing the geek crown in your absence, but more terrifying is the fact that she nails it as well as both you and your mate. Is it really that easy? Can everybody do facial ticks and lick their lips like a madman?
Yes. Yes they can. Sure, it works in the film, and perhaps Nolan had to work hard to elicit the performance, but better than Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road, or Josh Brolin in Milk? Downey Jr was never going to win, but it kept me hoping for... well, artistic justice.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for SF films getting as many Oscars as they can, but this really proves that if you've got enough good (or bad, or morbid) PR you can get away with anything in Hollywood.
If it weren't for Hugh Jackman's amazing hosting, I would not be watching next year...
And while we're on the subject of Jackman – isn't it telling that he can sing & dance like a dervish genius, yet Beyonce Knowles has to mime. Watch the re-runs, it's pretty apparent.
“I AM WOLVERIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!”
Neuromancer in 2009 - H4XX0R L33T or Epic Fail?
Good. Okay, now hands up who doesn't like The Matrix, but can still admit that it's a milestone in film history?
Excellent. Now I'm guessing that nearly everybody will fall into one of those two groups. I know I do. Even if you feel let down by the cod-philosophy and abrupt change of focus in the sequels, it's hard to deny that The Matrixshook things up.
What I want to know is: Where are the rest?
Lethal Weapon drops in 1987, and we have a decade of buddy/cop movies. The Blair Witch Project sneaks into theatres, and we're besieged with the low budget nerve-shredders that re-invigorated the horror genre, and opened the door for Saw V... Yeah, so it's not all caviar and roses, but you see where I'm going with this. Not to condone plagiarism, but what happened to all of the films that should have been green-lit when the Wachowski's baby hit big? Where are the SFX (really I mean VFX, but that's a bug-bind for another article) extravaganzas that could've hit the ground running, taking up the torch of Cyberpunk? And most of all, what happened to Neuromancer?
For those not familiar with author William Gibson's seminal book, here's what you need to know:
-
The Internet
-
Space Stations
-
Hackers
-
Body Modification/Cyborgs
-
Hot chick with razors underneath her fingernails
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Artificial Intelligence
-
Virtual Reality
Sounds pretty cool, right? It is. In much the same way as Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, it's more about the 'ambience' than the plot (although opinions vary), painting a dirty, sprawling dystopian near-future that's eerily similar to... well – tomorrow afternoon. Written in 1984, it pre-empted the Internet's future role in society, and pretty much defined a genre - suffice to say: It sold a couple of copies.
As you might expect, this has been on it's way to the big screen for some time now. It's seen its way through computer games (now available for free at abandonwaredos.com if you don't mind getting your hands dirty with a DOS emulator), comics (also available to view online at antonraubenweiss.com)and plenty of RPGs, Fan-Art and semi-erotic depictions of the heroine. Several directors have been attached to the project, most notably Chris Cunningham, who worked on Nightbreed, Alien3 and AI: Artificial Intelligence, as-well as music videos for Madonna and Björk. Gibson has reportedly said that Cunningham is the only one who could bring his vision to the screen... Strange, then, that Cunningham is no longer attached, and now we have Joseph Kahn. Kahn has also worked on music videos, although his were for such artistic luminaries as Britney Spears and Blink182. Oh dear. But such is the way of the film industry.
Whether Kahn is competent or not (remember, David Fincher started with music videos and TV adverts), there's a bigger obstacle.
Will Cyberpunk still sell? Have we already seen too many clichéd 'visions' of what the future of the Web will look like (hello Hackers, I'm talking to you)? Worse still – can it beat comparisons to The Matrix? We all now live in an online world – we know what computer hackers are (or think we do), and the whole thing is just... not sexy any more. Before Keanu Reeves took on the role of Neo, he was in a much maligned film called Johnny Mnemonic – also penned by William Gibson – that pretty much fell flat on its face. I hope Neuromancer gets better treatment...
The rumour mill tells me that Hayden Christensen (of Star Wars prequel infamy) is to play the lead role of computer cowboy 'Case'. Who might you cast as überhacker Case, sexy cyborg Molly and slightly insane ex-forces guy Armitage?