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yeah this is a great thread…oh yeah hi I’m back…
1) Lynches Baron Harkonen – for once a nasty baddy, complex, humourous, and just plain horrid….”put the pick in there Pete..and turn it round …real neat” genius makes old Vader look cuddly
2)Roy Batty – The fallen angel…more human than human…
3) Frankenstein’s creature ….”did I request thee maker from thy clay to mould me man?…nor did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me”…. missunderstood, unloved, outside but just wants in…he speaks for us all doesn’t he?
4) lol Lilu the Fifth Element….”Multipass!” love Mila in this …
5) Altaira – Forbidden planet – she looks fantastic! Is sooo sexy and she has great clothes
but I can think of five others…..
Hollydays wrote:.
Teaching your child to kill honerably is looked down upon by child welfare.
Surely that should be ..”Teaching your child to honerably kill welfare officials”
nice touch..I thought…was when in the midst of all the 70’s sounds – Lou Reed – Bowie – they played the Who..the song they use in CSI NY (I think) and suddenly you’re sorta warped back into the 21st century…then it dawns on ya …ha old record…clever…fun… 😀
spooookie wrote:Well I watched the Christmas Episode on sunday and thought he was Superb!
!Yeah so did I…
I’d never have expected this thread to still be going…s’funny because immediately after I posted it I couldn’t log on..so I guess that was as good as being dead I’ve been in limbo…well hanging out on the goldfrapp site which is cool. Good to be back here though 😀
lets hope the cybermen updating is as good as the dalek updating
Me …well …Patrick TroughtonGood to see the site working properly again!
Hi guys I’m back..!
I really like Goldfrapp’s Ooh La La video – a pretty slick bit of 70’s retro.. I’ll be damned but I’ll say it: it’s better than Bolan did himself!
Really liked the Kraftwerk video backdrops from the live shows too
Yeah I totally agree with you Sidhi! The Wraith are the only reason I watch the show..we’re just getting it now in the UK.. but I did identify and empathise the species and particulalrywith Ms Redhaired Wraith.
I know the look I’m going with when I start to look really old! Stuff L’Oreal think Wraith..’because I’m worth it’!
Logan! Good to have you back and indeed to be back myself…been a little absent …trying to get Lyekka my little sailing boat up and running before the winds. At least she’s back in the water ….well now penis’s and paganism do go hand in hand… no onanistic punning intended… so it’s not suprising you’ve all those emails waiting.
You’ve obviously invoked something there…it’s not at all like Charmed or Buffy..it’s all a little more subtle..but there’s really something to it. If you ever get to Europe and the UK let me know I’d love to take you to the places that aren’t ‘on the map’ and therefore haven’t been ‘tourissted’ to oblivion. Hey I can even show you the solictors office in Queens Gate that’s The Prisoners London house!
Lets hope that the USA will now reconsider it’s position regarding the Kyoto summitt business on the old Global warming huh?
I’ve only seen the first episode, but I did think it had promise. It was hyped as being sorta Twin Peakish … must remember to watch it. Thanks for reminding me.
”kai” wrote:Stargate Atlantis has a whole new gate effect
I liked the old mechanical ‘clunkiness’ a lot more, it seems more ‘alien’ and less 21st century Earth. A common fault in a lot of scifi – look at the bridge of Enterprise TNG … looks so much of it’s time. Not many shows get the tech right.
Loved the technology in Lynch’s Dune ….
[quote=”thefrey
Could be worse. You could have the Bush Monarcy. Bleh!Yeah OK! But I needed the sentiment to come from an American first… thanks theFrey …I wouldn’t want to be seen to be anti- American. However: I’m quite happy to throw any amount of caca at the Bush admin, who, lets face it are the original sin behind all the shit. How the hell Tony fell for it all is beyond me,,,whats the pay-off for him? what did he get from being bush’s poodle?
As for monarchy I came across this recent quote in the Guardian TV guide..”say what you like about the French, they know how to treat royalty” – Brilliant!
[quote=”thefrey
Could be worse. You could have the Bush Monarcy. Bleh!Yeah OK! But I needed the sentiment to come from an American first… thanks theFrey …I wouldn’t want to be seen to be anti- American. However: I’m quite happy to throw any amount of caca at the Bush admin, who, lets face it are the original sin behind all the shit. How the hell Tony fell for it all is beyond me,,,whats the pay-off for him? what did he get from being bush’s poodle?
As for monarchy I came across this recent quote in the Guardian TV guide..”say what you like about the French, they know how to treat royalty” – Brilliant!
[quote=”thefrey
Could be worse. You could have the Bush Monarcy. Bleh!Yeah OK! But I needed the sentiment to come from an American first… thanks theFrey …I wouldn’t want to be seen to be anti- American. However: I’m quite happy to through any amount of caca at the Bush admin, who, lets face it are the original sin behind all the shit. How the hell Tony fell for it all is beyond me,,,whats the pay-off for him? what did he get from being bush’s poodle?
As for monarchy I came across this recent quote in the Guardian TV guide..”say what you like about the French, they know how to treat royalty” – Brilliant!
Logan: wrote:Fall Out [/i]The Prisoner returns to his house in London the door opens with the familiar electronic whirr, as his flat in the Village did and the last shows ends exactly as the first episode begins…
lets face it “No one gets out of here alive”.
Sidhecafe wrote:So no SO for me….I was just had a tarot reading done last weekend…apparently next spring is when I meet the next big love of my life…. 😯 😆
Hi Sidhecafe!
Off on a tangent – How accurate was the Tarot reading?
I’d like to like Stargate Atlantis but like the other series there are too many army types blasting at everything that moves with machine guns – (“Oh you homosapiens and your guns – Magneto).
Somehow can’t see superior beings/cultures/technologies being put in their ‘rightful’ places by a load of yankee gun toting squadies!
Loved the Wraiths though!
oh yeah I forgot…The Devils another of Ken Russells romps! Brilliant sets designed by a young Derek Jarman – who’s films The Tempest (Forbidden Planet again), Jubilee all betray his fascination with Alchemy and Magick. Never seen the Devils, but I have driven past Loudon in France where the events are alledged to have taken place…odd place even from a 1/2 mile away it felt like the sort of place I’d not like to go..but then thats just me being irrational…
Hi Logan well… what I found fascinating about the Battersea Park/power station connection was that Lexx Midsummers Nightmare was partly set there – well the Festival of Mograth at any rate. Now the scene was probably greenscreened later but I like the fact that Kai, Xev and Stan may have set foot within a stones throw of my crow feeding grounds and…at the same time (I worked there from 97 – 2001).
But I digress…the Wicker Man is essentially pagan, it deals with pagan beliefs and a pagan world view, which, in turn is essentially based on humanities transition from hunter/gathereing to agriculture. Our entire civilisation is a product of an agrarian way of life. The theme turns up in classical greek tragedy – Euripides play ‘The Bacchae’ is a similar story. Then of course the Orestia by Aeschylus is really gothic, I mean the Furies are magnificent – sort think of the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis and you get the idea!
I’ve always had a strong leaning towards pagan views but have never embraced modern paganism/wicca etc etc. It all seems, like modern goths, to be a little too contrived. Its a shame because in essence there is a very powerful aesthetic thread running through many wiccan rituals – like the casting of the circle. I picked up on this with my art, but had to walk away from it because of ‘new age’ associations which inevitably drag what truly is sublime into the ridiculous! This is a real shame. I’ve yet to address this artistically although I’m working on it.
I would recommend (if you haven’t read it already) ‘The Triumph of the Moon’ by Prof Ronald Hutton – which really does justice to all the positive aspects and acheivements of ancient and modern pagans. This is a heavy weight but very sympathetic open minded history.
Our present culture is permeated by pagan echoes, Xmas and easter being obviously christianised pagan festivals. Then there’s the intresting thread of the scarecrow which has nothing to do with frightening my favourite birds, but, occurred to me to be a remant of the pagan custom of returning some of the corn harvested to the field from which it was taken, in the form of a human figure, thus symbolically planting the seed of the next cycle – paganism is all about circles…and so we come full circle to the Wicker Man…
The Time Prophet’s beliefs from Lexx are identical to the pagan view of eternal reoccurence….. the ‘wheel it turns around and round it makes an ancient rumbling sound’
Thats enough before I bore you all….
Years ago in the 80’s I actually bought the original Axel F theme – Harold Faltermyer – produced Donna Summer/Georgio Moroeder conection here – good tune…but the Crazy Frog overdubs sort of warp it into naff land….
Hi Guys
Yes I liked Interview with a Vampire too, I think Anne Rice did a lot to put new ‘energy’ into the vampire myths, and she also came up with a workable retrofitted ‘history’ which I liked a lot.
Another fave has to be ‘The Crow’. Now I thought the Brendan Lee film was excellent, but I also thought the TV series shown on scifi, (which was a departure from the graphic novel and the original film) initially seemed infuriatingly cheesy but was just venturing into interesting territory when the show was axed…a familiar pattern of events…
I worked with crows for three years in Battersea Park London while I was doing my fine arts BA and MA’s at Chelsea. I got drawn into a very weird shamanistic/occult worldview which I simply would never have given the slightest creedence to if not for experiences brought about through my daily interactions with a large ‘murder’ (yes it really is a collective noun for carrion crows) of them on a daily basis. I didn’t want this stuff nor did I believe in it but it happened all the same. Since then I’ve tended to have had more time for ‘the gothic’.
Besides the gothic creeps into a lot of scifi – ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner’ have strong gothic elements, and lets face it Lexx is pretty gothic too!
I’ve just got back from France – St Jean de Losne – last night while we ate our dinner in a river bank cafe this sad f****r in a white van cruised over the bridge at least three times blasting out the wretched Crazy Frog Axel F remix! No kidding this guy had a wall of speakers behind him and obviously thought he was sooo cool….
obviously the irony of actually being a crazy Frog escaped him : 😕
I didn’t make that connection either – but a long time ago he was Billy in ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ –
also strange was the twist that in Dune Sean Young’s (Chani) father, Ecologist Keynes ( a relationship not made apparent in the film) is played by Max VonSydhow… interesting then that in the remake of A Kiss before Dying Max starring Sean Young and Von Sydhow he again plays Sean’s father…
anyone think of other links/trivia?
Yep Ms Miller’s blurb brings an old Talking Heads song to mind
“…you’re talking a lot, but you not saying anything…..”
Our government and it’s army has spent the last year kicking the shit out of Bagdad – plenty of innocents suffering appallingly as a result – who cared? – so we had this coming to us.
As Asimov once said “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent”
If humans are to survive we need to grow up and grow together.
However: your heartfelt concern is most touching…..
He looked ok from the glimpse we got on the last episode! Agree with you Kai about keeping Captain Jack – liked the kiss there cap’n – the show was actually really good and I miss it already. Saturday nights here in the UK were cool for a while…Dr Who then the Dr Who Confidential thing filled in the gap before Farscape..hell there was even Enterprise (which I, not being a trekky really rated) the next day on channel 4.
Shame Dr Who has to be pitched at a ‘family’ viewing slot because imagine it if it was to slide down the Lexxian greasy pole into the Dark Zone (which it seems to be longing to do) — I’d like to see the Doc develop his quirks/perversions- hey maybe they should line up Dieter Laser for a Patrick Troughtian type next generation!.
I never thought I’d say this but thank god the BBC brought it back.
Never cared for booze that much but I had some ‘Stella’ in Egypt once – obviously a local product – strange for a Muslim country thought the stuff was taboo – still the really good thing about the ‘Stella’ was that it always came in what ever bottle the brewers could get their hands and your money would indescriminately buy ‘Stella’ in 500ml or 750ml or whatever size bottles.
In the heat anything cold was nice so I couldn’t comment on the beer at all…now the totally illegal product first synthesised by a nice Swiss chap called Hoffman I dropped in Luxor… well. Nice place Egypt, nice people…
Yes it was a very good show, Much Much better than I expected it to be.
Fingers crossed for the next series!
Yes! But I thought I’d let you say it! Star Trek – this show when aired in the UK was the pivotal point in a battlefield between myself and my cousins’ girlfriend – She’d want to watch Dr Who on BBC and I wanted to watch the ‘new show’ Star Trek which was on the other channel! Back then Star Trek seemed so esoteric..I’m talking of the original series – some brilliant episodes. Never really graduated to TNG, Patrick Stewart was good but the show somehow didn’t tackle the same philosophical issues – don’t get me wrong it was good but….Now believe it or not I actually think ‘Enterprise’ is very good show, but it seems to be singularly unliked. Ah well…I’ll tackle this in a later post…
Ah Fireball What can I say as a little kid I loved Fireball XL5 – by far my favourite Gerry Anderson series… that Steve Zodiac! mmmmm! I fell in love with a puppet!
In terms of influential shows I think Lexx has been very influential – I think that Russell T Davies has watched the show a lot because much of the new Dr Who seems to have come from there. Farscape too – seems to be based on the Lexx format – same type of dysfunctional crew – even the characters seem to be (albiet less extreme) composite ‘analogues’ of Lexxian character traits.
Must dash the last episode of Dr Who is on in a few minutes…forty years on…not much has changed, although I suppose I am a prodigal daughter. I just don’t have to haggle with family members over the TV channel these days!
you’re right about The Lawnmower Man – predated the Matrix by a long time…aweful follow up though!
Then there was Tron which somehow stands the test of time – sort of slots in alongside films like (dare I say it) Logans Run, which seem to become far better the older they get! Logan you’re right . This kind of film sort of fits into 50’s B movie genre – pulpy yes, but often excellent scifi all the same.
B movies have to include films like Westworld (Yul Bryner’s Cowboy cyborg was brilliant) and Rollerball kind of belong here. Films like this never had the gloss/finance of the big things like 2001 but are influential nevertheless. Rollerball prefigures films like Strange Days and The Running Man — ah yes Arnie Movies – The Terminator – sorry the mind was just running away there…
How about influential TV series/shows?
Yes Akira!
Farenheit 451?
Brilliant but not very influential…throuble is a lot of the really good stuff is below the mainstream appeal threshold..
yep! no escaping Blade Runner. It’s at the heart of a whole mythic cycle.
Faust…ah yes ” all theory is grey, but the tree of real life springs ever green” or something like that.
Incidentally Faust were an excellent German music ‘group’ from the early 70’s “Its a rainy day, sunshine girl” 😀
Actually its very hard to follow Metropolis…because in terms of visual imagery its a very hard film to beat….maybe Forbidden Planet should be in here though …those shots of the Krell Machine are fantastic. Thing is, after having seen the film again on TV recently, Forbidden Planet looks amazing given it’s 50’s birthdate. The ‘bits and pieces’ – like the astrogater’s setup on the ship – are well made too and overall the film looks a long way away from other fifties offerings and indeed 60’s offerings. Looks like a lot of care went into it and scifi didn’t look this good again until 2001 came along.
Of course Forbidden Planet boasts a story line based (loosely) on the Tempest- thens there’s the twist that the ‘Alien’ is actually the human subconscience – ‘Monsters from the Id’ – is brilliant given the fifties context and subverts the whole ‘Reds under the bed’ paranoia. How influential the film has been I’m not so sure of…
I’ll leave Sidhecafe to wax lyrical about Blade Runner but in terms of influence it has to be right in there..it’s taken a long while for scifi films to escape the visual look of Blade Runner.
Then again there’s Tarkovsky’s Stalker…..the cup moving across the table… brilliant!
I am always moved by the bit in Frankenstein where the creature befriends and helps the old blind man from the cottage. This is the only time in the book (film – De Niro as the Creature) the creature is accepted by humanity because in this scenario his visual appearence is unimportant. Oh the frustration and heartbreak when the old mans family return!
Frankenstein is a brilliant multifaceted story, at last it is beginning to shake off it’s Hammer Horror debasement – so much of the book is from the Creatures perspective and this rarely comes out in the film adaptations.
I think I’ve mentioned this in an old post but, the DeNiro creature seems very Roy Batty-ish and the scene where Victor Frankenstein confronts him in the Glacier is very Blade Runner. This may be because both Frankenstein and BR are drawn from the imagery of Miltons ‘Paradise Lost’, but….I think there’s definate Blade Runner-ish retrofitting of the Frankenstein story..which is a nice twist..
I remember as a child at school one day some gypsy kids came and were baited by the others kids mercilessly. I knew this was wrong but never had the guts to raise above it – hell I was only 11 years old and was desparate to fit in myself, to stand up for these kids would have meant exposing myself – well thats what it felt like – and I didn’t have the guts. They stopped coming soon after though. This was my first brush with the mindlessness that humans often present in the face of someone who is different. It’s never left me though….
I think you guys are right who ever’s behind the new Dr Who must have watched Lexx – a lot! – remember the spider things in one of the early episodes (2 – I think) they sounded just like the ol’ bad carrots – and they had a plant woman! (not a patch on Lyekka though!).
Gripes aside the show has been really good , far far better than the old Dr Who’s. Its a shame that both Piper and Eccleston are quitting….because I can’t quite see them finding anyone else as good….
Suprised there’s not more interest in the show post wise.
I got the lot through Amazon but series 2 and 4 were shipped in from the States – From ,DVDlegacy and Cayman both through Amazon Market Place. Both companies delivered the goods in good time. Despite what the Amazon site says the Acorn editions I got are uncoded for region – i.e they play on region 2 player no problem!
Otherness – now there’s a major theme: Good point you make is that humans response to otherness usually is confrontation:I guess there are those that embrace otherness and find it intriguing, a source of inspiration, and wonder, and, those that fear it finding it a threat. Needless to point out the fear usally ends up in nasty regimes like the Third Reich and our present (UK) Governments attitude of military aggression – and that’s just towards other humans!
Can’t do much typing today – savaged my righthand index finger – now glued and stitched back together by our local A & E bless ’em,
Back soon
Sidhecafe..hi
There are many strands for and against Deckard being a replicant: the unicorn ‘dream’ sequence and Gaffs silver paper unicorn left in Deckards apartment would indicate that Gaff knew Deckards true origins – had read his file – along with his statement “…you’ve done a mans job sir”. Then again Deckard seems to be no match for either, Zhora or Leon both of whom appear physically stronger than he is. Roy Batty seems to be not only stronger but more ‘cunning’. (I think I read that Ridley Scott always wanted Deckards status to be open to question – since he is our ‘eyes’ into the action of the film it should leave our own status open too). Anyway…
What seems to unite Roy and Deckard and indeed Rachael is their compassion – Roy for Deckard (although ultimately Roy I believe learns to love all life), Deckard for Rachael, and I think Rachael really does care for Deckard.
In away for me it doesn’t matter what Deckards origins are. Deckard, Roy and Rachael, are all killers – Deckard by profession (although he clearly has doubts about his profession). Roy out of the need too live (although he murders Eldon Tyrell needlessly one suspects that Tyrell would not have treated Roy any better. Roy however seems worried by his actions or at least this is the impression one gets as he descends in the elevator (‘the fall’ from heaven …the Milton ‘Paradise Lost’ connection). Rachael kills Leon to save Deckards life, because, I think she loves him.
All these killings are complex in terms of the motivations behind them. However: through the course of events in the film Deckard Roy and Rachael all learn remorse. Roy and Rachael attain an empathy for other living beings which they did not have because they are replicants and Deckard either: asuming he is a replicant attains this empathy too or; assuming he is human, regains what he had previously lost – Deckard doesn’t only feel pity for Rachael he loves her and he deliberately doesn’t look at her file – doesn’t want to know her longevity and incept dates.
Regardless of their origins these characters all ‘grow’ as human beings. Roy, Rachael and Rick Deckard all undergo a process of ‘becoming’.
I do agree with you about the music for ‘Ghost in the Shell’ it is very haunting I still have it in my head two days after watching the film…and like you I am very drawn to Kusinagi one feels for her. That’s the good thing about a lot of scifi there are good female characters, characters who break stereotypical female moulds. In fact this seems to happen more in scifi than in any other genre.
Having said that and bearing in mind that this thread is supposed to be about cross genre influences a long time favourite has been the character of Janne La Pucelle – Joan of Arc – more on her later!
Just seen ‘Ghost in the Shell’. Brilliant – I forgot just how brilliant!
I liked Kusinagi’s statement that we are continually changing beings, that while we think of ourselves as solid and fixed we are not. This is a kind of Zen perception of being – the harder we look for ourselves the more fleeting self becomes – a receding desert mirage always one step ahead!.
Yet something persits – we perceive ourselves as a continuum – perhaps this is a sense of soul?
Phil Dick’s attitude towards the replicants in Do Androids dream..is different to the portrayal of them in Blade Runner. In Do Androids Dream.. Dick conjures the replicants as cold ‘machines’ the replicants in BR are far from this. we intervene in the story just as they cross an ontological threshold.
We must be careful: for although the replicants are not human in the accepted sense, certainly with Rachael, mabe a little less with Roy Batty, one gets the feeling that it becomes meaningless to define what is human when such a definition is based in part upon origins. Particularly when it becomes harder and harder to test for the real thing …Deckard “…and if the machine doesn’t work?”…
Hi Sidhecafe
Thanks for the recommendations I’m off to Amazon! …And also to my Lazerertte (store room behind the engine room!) to dig out my old video of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Which I remember I bought when I was working on a college thesis.
I pick up an ’empathy’ for Blade Runner. Have you read ‘Retrofitting Blade Runner’ it’s a complilation of essays edited by Judith B Kerman? – 1991 Bowling Green State Univ. Press – it’s a wonderful collection of work!
Sidhecafe wrote:Struggles to be individual I think can be associated with alienation/marginalization since to be an individual is to recognize what makes one different form the surrounding community which then in intensifying degrees can lead to marginalization and then alienation.
Yes I think you’re right. It’s a potentially obvious process and outcome! Unless one learns to accept oneself fully during the process then the act of ‘becoming’ ultimately leads, not only to a sense of difference, but possibly alienation. If one does not learn to love oneself as part of the process of individuation – perhaps love is too strong a word, tolerate maybe! – then trouble lies in store because the sense of ‘self’, if fragile will be knocked about by self doubt. One must allow one’s self to be less than perfect.
This is what happened with T E Lawrence (see my last post) who ends his chapter on himself with the cryptic sentence ” Indeed, the truth was I did not like the ‘myself’ I could see and hear.” He spent the rest of his life hating himself because he had not lived up to the standards he had set himself. (OK there are other psychological factors – like family origins and his illigitimacy – at work here but his sense of his betraying the arabic peoples whose fight for freedom he belived in so much ultimately led to his breakdown).
There is of course a connection in this thread with religion, which used to take care of these matters. We seem to be heading into the ‘Mind / /Body problem’: and what I ask myself is whether ones sense of self has an inate, or immanent, facet – a soul – mmm
I’ll think more on this!
Excellent posts! Now I have something sensible to think about for today! And I will get back to you on GITS!
Logan wrote:Have you seen Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence?
I have a long time ago. But I remember thinking at the time how brilliantly close Bowie was to the personality of another real life Lawrence – T E Lawrence (i.e. Of Arabia). So much so that I thought he could have done justice to the role far better than Peter O’Toole ever did.
T E Lawrence was a fascinating personality His account of himself in ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ describing his taking stock of himself on his 30th birthday is a truly extraordinary piece of writing…” I was not modest, but ashamed of my awkwardness, of my physical envelope, and of my solitary unlikeness which made me no companion, but an acqquaintance, complete, angular, uncomfortable, as a crystal”…(Chapter CIII).
Lawrence was famous for his love of speed and fast motorcycles , indeed he died after crashing his. ..” In speed we hurl ourselves beyond the body” he had written.. quite ironic since he did just that. Lawrence hated being human.
Sidhecafe! the replicants…yes and I always felt for Rachael….her reaction to learning she’s a replicant is one of the most beautiful and moving parts of the film. Her reaction – to cry and breakdown – I always thought so movingly defines her as human (perhaps ” more human than human?”) certainly more human than Tyrell.
Let me get back to you on ‘Ghost In the Shell’ – excellent movie!
mmmm good posts guys!
