"Keep looking up."

"How cool is that!?"

Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society

I've been a member of the Planetary Society for almost five years now.  I make a modest monthly contribution, I own a couple of themed t-shirts, and I receive the weekly Downlink update in my IN box every Friday, but to be honest, I haven't really felt connected.  To be fair, that's my fault - there are occasionally local activities that I could attend, but I'm a bit too introverted to feel comfortable with that sort of thing. 

However, in one of those odd silver-lining pandemic moments, tonight I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Planetary Society 2020 Impact Report meeting.  Under normal circumstances, that would have required a plane ticket and a hotel stay, but, as with the Game of Thrones FX session that I attended last March, this time it was bare feet and a comfortable chair in my spare bedroom.

In attendance at the e-meeting were Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Vaughn, Chief Advocate Casey Dreier, Chief Scientist Bruce Betts, Planetary Radio podcast host Mat Kaplan, Chief Executive Officer Bill Nye, and newly elected* Society President and Professor of Planetary Science at Caltech, Bethany Ehlmann. 

As always, Bill Nye was an exuberant and energetic presence, but the new President was impressively excited and pasionate as well, and her position at Caltech gives her an unexpected sort of Big Bang Theory street cred - it's not hard to imagine her doing a cameo if the show was still in production.

The session had a sort of cheerfully casual feeling to it - the new president seemed to have set up her laptop in the corner of her living room. and dogs barked in the background while Chief Scientist Bruce Betts discussed some of the Society's accomplishments in 2020. 

I'm impressed by the manner in which the Planetary Society is spending my modest monthly contribution (and the contributions of over 50,000 other members around the world).  

The mission of the Planetary Society is to "empower the world’s citizens to advance space science and exploration".  This goal is accomplished through a combination of education, advocacy, collaboration and invention.  The Society's crowdfunded Lightsail 2 spacecraft is a primary example:  as its name suggests, it's a proof of concept orbiter that relies on photonic energy for propulsion - more poetically, it flies on the wind from the Sun.  Lightsail 2 successfully celebrated a year in orbit in June, and is now on an extended mission to provide more data on the practical aspects of solar sailing technology.   

The Society also provided seed money for projects like the PlanetVac, an elegantly simple low-cost sampling technology designed to be mounted on exploratory spacecraft.  The system uses a blast of compressed gas to blow material from the surface into a collecting cylinder mounted on the ship's landing leg.

Other projects funded by the Society are the "100 Planets" exoplanet search, and the Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grant, which funds advanced amateur astronomers* in searching for previously undiscovered asteroids and plotting their courses to determine if there's a possibility of an impact with Earth.

The Society also advanced its overall goal of being influential, of speaking on behalf of science and space exploration in the areas of government advocacy and policy, conducting more than 300 phone and web meetings with NASA, Congress, the Pentagon, and international space agencies over the course of 2020.  On the public front, it expanded its mission of inspiring and informing through an expanded website offering, the weekly Downlink newsletter, and virtual events like this one.

I'm pleased to be a member of the Planetary Society - as Bill Nye commented, we have to keep looking up, and it's obvious that the Society is dedicated to advancing and supporting the exploration of space in a way that would make founder Carl Sagan proud.

However, I have one critical comment - not necessarily a complaint, let's say a question of suitable accessories.  Bill, seriously, you need a more appropriate coffee cup for on-screen appearances - based on the logo on the bottom, it was a London Underground souvenir, and really, something more, I don't know, cosmic would seem to be in order.  My NASA mug was a birthday gift from the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York, but you're much much better connected than I am - I bet NASA would just give you one.

- Sid

* The new president wryly observed that the Society had "witnessed a peaceful transition of power with a free and fair election."  Yes, she's looking at you, Donald.

**It's made clear that the people involved are "amateurs" in the same sense that Olympic competitors are. 

Victorious II: Big Finish.

"No no, not JUST the Doctor, I'm entirely the Doctor, there's no 'just' about it, I am exceptionally the Doctor!"

The Doctor, Genetics of the Daleks

For Christmas this year, shipping issues resulted in my friend Colin sending me an Indigo gift certificate and the suggestion that he had wanted to buy me some Doctor Who books from the Time Lord Victorious series.  Intrigued by the idea of looking at some Doctor Who content from outside the series, I placed an order with Indigo, but was then faced with the inevitable shipping delay - the wheels grind slowly but presumably exceeding fine, as the proverb goes.

However, the Time Lord Victorious story is not just about the printed word:  the event takes place across a wide range of media, including audio books.

I've never been a big fan of audio books as a genre, but I have enjoyed a few audio dramas in the past - coincidentally, the Torchwood Golden Age BBC Audio performance from 2009 - so I decided to took a look, or more accurately give a listen, to Genetics of the Daleks, one of the Time Lord Victorious audio plays available from Big Finish Productions.

Big Finish produces a wide selection of audio books primarily based on science-fiction television series such as Space: 1999, Blake's 7, The Prisoner, Terrahawks, Captain Scarlet, Star Trek, and, of course, Doctor Who.  The Doctor Who catalog also includes stories featuring noteworthy characters from the Doctor's universe, such as River Song, The Master (and Missy), the 10th Doctor's daughter/clone Jenny, Lady Christina de Souza, the cat burglar from the 2009 Easter episode, as well as Torchwood and UNIT stories.

In the case of Genetics of the Daleks, the story itself was very much conventional Doctor Who fare: a starship with a small crew isolated in space, a Dalek assumed to be harmless who is anything but, and an unexpected appearance of a blue police box, but I quite enjoyed it.  I had expected an audio book, but Genetics of the Daleks is what I would consider to be an audio drama - a radio play, in the parlance of my youth, very well produced, and broken down into convenient seven to ten minute episodes.  I was also charmed to discover that Tom Baker, one of the best loved and most popular of the Doctors from the series, provided the voice of the Doctor for the audio production. 

Baker is not the only retired Doctor to return as a voice for Big Finish:  classic Doctors such as Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann are also involved, along with companions such as Nicola Bryant, Sarah Sutton, Bonnie Langford, and Sophie Aldred.  Most recently, the 9th Doctor, Christoper Eccleston, has joined the group, which is welcome news to those of us who felt that one season of Mr. Eccleston's performance as the Doctor really wasn't enough. Overall, I think this is a brilliant idea - time may have its way with our bodies, but I would need to do an actual real-time comparison to see whether or not Tom Baker's distinctive tones have changed that much over time. To my ear, it's very much the Doctor I remember from the episodes.

Individual audio books range from about $3.00 to $20 CAD - Genetics of the Daleks costs $7.99, with a run time of 66 minutes - and there are collections that cost up to $30.   Considering that Amazon's Audible™ audio books cost as much as actual hardcovers, Big Finish's pricing seems reasonable.  To be fair, you're not getting the same duration, but where else are you going to hear Tom Baker introduce himself as the Doctor one more time?

- Sid

 

P. S. I almost forgot what brought us here: the story's connection to Time Lord Victorious was quite brief, a passing mention as to the Doctor's future in a dark place, made by the damaged Dalek who is picked up by the ship's crew.  However, as when the series features a theme that runs through an entire season, sometimes the hints are quite subtle - remember all the background Bad Wolf graffiti from 2005?

Victorious I: Surprise!

Saw some Doctor Who books here that I thought you might like including the Time Lord Victorious. They also have a second release in January. Unfortunately I couldn't buy the items then have them shipped to you so we'll have to do it this way. Enjoy!

- Colin

Dear Colin:

Thank you for the Chapters/Indigo Christmas gift certificate!  (Are there still Chapters, or are they all Indigos?)  How odd that they would be unable to deliver to an alternate address, no offense to Indigo but I can't help but think that the last 10 months would have created some flexibility on the shipping front.

Regardless, I’m happy to make my own selections based on your suggestion about the Time Lord Victorious event. 

Like so many other franchises, the Doctor Who series is enhanced and extended by a wide selection of  additional content in other media such as novels or comic books.  It’s an interesting area for me to explore –  by and large, I don't own a lot of novelizations or adaptations, with a few exceptions like the Star Trek story collections that I purchased in 29 Palms last year.

I’ve been casually aware of Time Lord Victorious, a wide-ranging Doctor Who story set in the Dark Times at the start of the universe.  The storyline is taking place in every media format except on the actual series itself:*  books, computer games, graphic novels, short stories, comics, audio plays, T-shirts, YouTube™ videos, escape rooms, and including the immersive Time Fracture event that's been rescheduled to start next spring.  (Hopefully the delay won't cause narrative gaps.)

Some searching on the internet revealed that the primary Time Lord Victorious story line concentrates on the popular 10th Doctor, but also involves the 8th and 9th Doctors, and features appearances by the 13th and 4th Doctors.  Rather like the reboot tradition of having a plot thread that carries through an entire season and then finds resolution in the final episode, the various media will address different aspects of the story, with a culminating novel that wraps things up.

 

 

Armed with the results of my research (and your gift certificate), I went to the Indigo web site and searched for “Doctor Who”.  After being momentarily distracted by the unexpected red herring of Doctors Who Kill, I was presented with the full range of Doctor Who purchasing options. 

 

As per your e-mail, Time Lord Victorious is a work in progress.  The Defender of the Daleks graphic novel was available, as was The Knight, The Fool and The Dead novel, but the sequel, All Flesh is Grass, wasn't going to be available until the new year.  Regardless, I couldn't think of any reason not to pre-order it - the first time I've ever pre-ordered a book.  And, to fill out the budget and continue my research into the extended Doctor Who universe, I ordered a pair of unrelated Doctor Who novels: Engines of War, featuring the War Doctor, and Combat Magicks, the 13th Doctor story that caught my attention (albeit not in a good way) during a walk through Indigo last fall.

 

And now we wait...
 

Thank you again, and merry Christmas!

- Sid

*At least, not part of the actual series as far as I know.  I have no idea what’s queued up for this year’s holiday special or the upcoming 13th season.

"He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice!"

"Nice" seems like the smart option here.

- Sid

Geekmas 2020: Back to Basics.

It's been a long year.

There have been a lot of challenges over the last twelve months, and it's been a difficult time for a lot of people.  As such, everyone seems to be looking forward to holiday cheer, and I've noticed that Christmas decorating has started much earlier than usual.

Although it feels like a better time to give than receive, I was asked to provide some guidance to people who wanted to do exactly that - give - so I sat down at the computer screen to see what I could do for prospective gift-givers.

It's a simpler list than usual - the results of my research weren't entirely helpful.  For example, I was a bit outraged to see that a Doctor Who TARDIS umbrella was $78 on Amazon.ca - it's an umbrella, for heaven's sake, how could it be worth almost $80, I really don't care if it's licensed by the BBC or not. Similarly, how can three pairs of Doctor Who socks possibly cost $83 CAD? (Plus $22 in shipping from the US.) Fifth Doctor action figure and the TARDIS for $197??  Okay, that's it, time to move on.

Finally, I decided that when in doubt, you should go with your strengths - so here's a list of books that I'm interested in:

Network Effect. by Martha Wells - the fifth Murderbot novel. Sadly, only in hardcover, although the March 31st release of the paperback doesn't really bring the price down that much. 

Nophek Gloss, by Essa Hansen.  Just on spec - I read an excerpt chapter on the Orbit Books site, and it seemed interesting.

A Little Hatred: Book 1 of The Age of Madness,  by Joe Abercrombie, or The Trouble With Peace: Book 2 of The Age of Madness, by (you guessed it ) Joe Abercrombie.  The Age of Madness is the sequel to The First Law Trilogy* - there's undoubtedly a Book 3 on the way if anyone wants to wait a year or so and just spend the money on a boxed trade paperback set. 

Left over from last year are Sharps, by K. J. Parker, along with the first volume of Parker's The Two of Swords.  Let's add How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, which may or may not be a sequel to 16 Ways To Defend A Walled City, which I received last year. 

And, just for some variety, a couple of graphic novels:

Joker, written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Lee Bermejo.  As far as I know, Joker is one of the few comic book adaptations based on Heath Ledger's unforgettable interpretation of Batman's nemesis, telling a story that takes the reader deep into the twisted psyche of the Clown Prince of Crime.

Batman: Three Jokers, by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok - as with Nophek Gloss, just looks interesting.

And, last but certainly not least, Maus, the groundbreaking 1980 graphic novel by Art Speigelman which in many ways elevated the graphic novel as a storytelling medium - it's not just about superheroes in spandex.

Everything is available from Amazon, which, under the current pandemic conditions, seems like the route to take, although I dare say that most of the books listed would probably be available at chain bookstores if you were comfortable with that.

- Sid

*  And, sort of, Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country - Abercrombie is now on the second generation of the characters featured in the first five six books of his epic grimdark fantasy series, which is as gritty as A Song of Fire and Ice (AKA the Game of Thrones books), but perhaps less likely to kill off the main characters.  Perhaps.

Somebody get the horse a microphone.

When I originally posted about Time Fracture, the upcoming Doctor Who immersive experience taking place in London in the spring of 2021, the outlook was grim - not just for the universe and the Doctor, but for my odds of attending.  The planet was in the middle of a pandemic travel lockdown, and it seemed like only a miracle would let me visit England in the coming year.

Since then, two of the miracles from that posting have come to pass, plus an unexpected third miracle that may make it possible to see Time Fracture after all.

The first miracle: vaccines. There are at least three vaccines on the verge of distribution, and news reports indicate that the Canadian government has set up purchasing agreements that will allow for inoculations to begin in the spring of 2021.

The second miracle: Donald J. Trump lost the presidential election.  True, nothing to do with Doctor Who (probably nothing, but what a fun idea for a script!) but certainly a sign of changing times, an indication that the dark cloud hanging over 2020 might be starting to show a glimpse of blue sky.

The third miracle? On November 24th, Immersive Everywhere, the production company behind Time Fracture, regretfully announced their decision to delay the opening of the show by nine weeks.  Not only that, but the web site shows ticket sales extended into March of 2022, which seems insane, but that's what it says.

So, depending on the speed of vaccine approval, vaccination, and ticket availability, if the planets align, it's not impossible that we could be in London for my 60th birthday (or thereabouts).  Fingers crossed - the horse isn't singing quite yet, but I feel like an intern is showing it into the Green Room and asking if it wants anything.

- Sid

"So...what's in the box, mister?"

 It's always gratifying when one of your friends show an interest in your hobbies.

- Sid

Chekov's Volcano.

Bitter experience tells me that if there's a volcano in a first person adventure/shooter/action game (like The Outer Worlds), with an inconvenient (and probably dangerous if not outright fatal) river of lava nearby, at some point someone is going to ask you to cross that river of lava and risk your life doing something at that volcano - just sayin'.

- Sid

I'd probably drop my colander, too.

 Just as a change from all the attention on November 5th.

- Sid

Bigger on the outside, too.

I paid one of my infrequent visits to work last week, and to my surprise there was a box on my desk with a prominently placed Post-It™note that said FOR SID.  I wasn't expecting any deliveries - in fact, we had been requested to avoid personal deliveries to the workplace for the duration - and closer examination revealed that the box was originally addressed to one of my co-workers, Damon, but that address had been crossed out.

Curious, I opened the box, and voilà - one gigantic Doctor Who mug.  GIGANTIC.  6.5 inches/16cm in height - for some perspective, here it is beside my usual work mug*.

Understandably curious, I trotted around the building until I found Damon.  Apparently one of his daughters had ordered a large joke mug for a friend, and when it arrived, it was packaged with the Doctor Who mug, at no additional charge.  What with one thing and another, the Doctor Who mug never made its way back to Amazon™, and Damon finally decided that it should go to a good home.

I warmly thanked him for his consideration, and brought the mug home.  Since then, I've actually used it during a number of online meetings, and you know, so far I haven't received a single comment - so if you've been wondering if people are noticing whether or not you've vacuumed during Zoom™ sessions, good news, it looks like they're not paying that much attention.

- Sid

 

* Astonishingly, at some point I accidentally forgot the mug on the left in a meeting room, and when I realized my mistake, I finally found it mixed in with the other public use mugs in our kitchenette.  Seriously, could they not figure out who it belonged to?

"Whoa, oh, living on a prayer!"

(With apologies to Jon Bon Jovi.)

I'm constantly impressed by NASA's efforts to engage the world in the exploration of space.   Not only do they set up a system where people can have their names on a Mars probe, not only do they let you make a boarding pass for the mission, but they set up a site where you can track the probe's progress on its way to Mars with an active counter for every kilometer or mile that the probe has covered, its speed, the percentage of the trip completed, and the countdown to its landing date.

Today, they announced on Twitter that Perseverance had reached the half-way mark on its journey to Mars - 146 million miles or 235 million kilometers, 98,411 kph, all is going smoothly, and counting down to February 18th.

If you're interested in following Perseverance's progress, you can keep track at:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

- Sid

The Outer Worlds.

As I mentioned in the previous posting, my wife Karli purchased The Outer Worlds as one of my birthday gifts this year.  The download and installation process are complete - thank heaven we upgraded our internet access when we moved - and I've started in on the game.

Created by Obsidian Games and marketed by Epic Games, The Outer Worlds is a story-driven role playing game/first person shooter, although so far, it looks like more problems will be solved through negotiation than gunfire. (I admit to biasing my stats toward persuasion in the character setup.  This is not my first rodeo, and experience says that there's always someone with more firepower - not a bad thing if you can talk them out of using it.)

The game begins in an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek tone: after being rescued by rogue scientist Phineas Welles from an accidentally extended suspended animation on the Hope, an abandoned colony ship, you're deposited into a landing pod and dispatched to the surface of Terra 2 to meet with Captain Alex Hawthorne, a  smuggler who will help you to find the chemical resources required to rescue the other frozen colonists.  Hawthorne is a "dashing gunslinger, one of a kind ship, that sort of thing.  You'll like him, I'm sure," Welles announces confidently.

Which might well have been the case had the landing pod not crushed the good captain on impact, rather like Dorothy's initial meeting with the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.  It seems that Hawthorne set up the homing beacon and waited beside it rather than moving to a safe distance from the landing site.  As Welles observes, "Shame about the whole 'squashing' thing, nasty way to go."

You then fight your way through some random marauders to Hawthorne's now captainless ship, the Unreliable, which immediately threatens to blow its airlocks and expose you to the fatal vacuum of space. Fortunately, ADA, the ship's AI, is bluffing with no cards - the ship is sitting on solid ground in a field full of rocks on the surface of a planet.

 
After establishing an understanding with ADA, you discover that she's stranded without a power converter for her engines. You leave the Unreliable in hopes of finding one, and members of the local constabulary direct you to Edgewater, the nearest population centre - such as it is.

Edgewater is a classic company town, where everything is part of the Spacer's Choice brand and the contracted workers don't even own their gravesites - they only rent them. The player is immediately thrust into a conflict between Reed Tobson, the town's bowler-hatted manager, and a group of workers who have broken away from the community under the leadership of Adelaide McDevitt.

The stakes are high: both sides have power converters that would restore the Unreliable to flight, but regardless of whether you support Tobson or the rebels, someone ends up starving in the dark.

This introductory plotline illustrates the manner in which the player's moral compass, rather than their quick draw, directs the flow of the game. Nothing is black and white, and both sides argue their case.

The initial portion of the game feels like a bit of a sandbox, in that it's clearly letting me get comfortable with the interface before sending me into the main storyline.  After all, I've got a spaceship - once I solve the question of Tobson versus Adelaide, the rest of the Halcyon System awaits! 

The look of the game is distinctive in terms of both the alien landscape and the vaguely 50’s pulp aesthetic of the ships, buildings and interiors, mixed with the early 20th century industrial feeling of Edgewater – factory town meets Astounding SF magazine cover, if you will.   

I’m enjoying The Outer Worlds so far, although it doesn’t break any new ground in terms of the action/adventure open-world model as established by games like the Fallout franchise: main quests, side quests, dialogue choices that dictate the direction of the story, picking up items for sale or use, buying better equipment, adding companions with different skills, gaining points to level up and improve attributes and abilities, and so on.

But those are just the standard tools from the gaming toolbox.  As with any good narrative, the game's real strength lies in the plot and the character interactions that move it forward, and so far I'm quite pleased with the manner in which The Outer Worlds is telling its tale. Given the number of games where you shoot first and ask questions later, it's a pleasant change to do things in the opposite order.

- Sid

"Fresh from the warp core!"

It’s strange to be having my birthday at home this year without any kind of travel planned in the immediate future.  As previous birthday posts indicate, I often celebrate my birthdays in other countries, or take a major trip shortly thereafter (depending on the circumstances and the flexibility of Karli's workplace) but as you would expect, circumstances have grounded us this year. 

Regardless, it's been a good day.  We had a socially distanced lunch at Harvey's (a favourite since my Ryerson college days, sadly the last outlet in the Lower Mainland is shutting down next month) and barbecue ribs for dinner in memory of my last birthday in New York.

On the gift front, my friend Colin weighed in this year with a great selection of vintage Star Trek collectibles (perhaps inspired by my Star Trek convention program purchases during my last visit to Toronto): movie memorabilia, which included promotional one sheets and programs for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV, and a membership kit for Star Trek: The Next Generation, complete with cast photo* and sew-on patch.  (There’s a membership card as well, but without a Membership Number, I don’t feel that I can legitimately make use of it.)

Thank you for the additions to my little collection, Colin!

In addition to continuing the Star Trek theme with a tin of Pink Peppermint Dilithium Crystals, Karli added to my gaming library by funding the purchase of The Outer Worlds, a plot-driven single-person science fiction RPG game from Obsidian Entertainment, the developers of Fallout: New Vegas. The Outer Worlds was originally released by Epic Games in October of 2019, but I’ve been waiting for it to arrive on the Steam™ gaming platform before making a purchase. 

However, the Steam release has been delayed (for whatever reason), and the game was conveniently on sale at half price from Epic during the week of my birthday, which just seemed too fortuitous to pass up. 

The game has a sort of retro-futuristic 1950s art direction, and relies on a reputation-based system similar to the one from New Vegas, where the player’s actions result in better or worse relations with the local factions. I’m looking forward to playing it - it appears to be somewhat less of an open world than Fallout, but reviews indicate that the storyline has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting.  

Thank you very much, Karli, and thanks to everyone for their best wishes!  Let's hope for next year in England!

- Sid

*Wil Wheaton looks so painfully young, doesn't he?

Dune: who's who.

"Do you often dream things that happen just as you dreamed them?"

Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dune

The key to many of the successful transitions from print to screen in recent years has been casting.

Harry Potter began the run with the selection of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in 2000 - three actors who became indistinguishable from their characters for the next decade. The Marvel Comics Universe had the good fortune to cast actors who seemed born to play their superhero roles, and the producers of Game of Thrones must still be thanking their lucky stars for the availability of actors like Peter Dinklage, Gwendoline Christie, and Maisie Williams for their distinctive roles (although I was never completely onboard for Kit Harrington as Jon Snow, he was just a little too pouty for me compared to the character in the books). 

And that's where an adaptation can succeed or fail. If you just can't accept Elijah Wood as Frodo, the Lord of the Rings movies are ruined for you.

The release of the trailer for French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's take on Dune, Frank Herbert's classic science fiction epic, offers a first chance to evaluate Villeneuve's vision for the story and his choices for the characters.

Visually speaking, the trailer holds promise.  The exterior shots echo the sense of monumental scale that Villeneuve utilized so effectively in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, broad vistas combined with intimate close ups. It's comforting to see that the sandworm, one of the major failures from David Lynch's 1984 adaptation, is an epic abstraction, majestic and alien.  I found some of the images surprisingly reminiscent of the angular concept artwork produced for the failed attempt by Alejandro Jodorowsky* to adapt Dune to film in 1975, but not alarmingly so. 

For the most part, the casting looks good - literally, in that for the most part, I can see those people as the characters I know from the book. No one is explicitly identified, but if you're familiar with the story, it's easy to tag names to actors. 

Timotheé Chalamet shows well as the introspective man-child Paul Atreides, who is 15 in the original story and matures into manhood over the course of the novel. Zendaya is perfectly cast for the role of Chani, Paul's Fremen love interest, and David Bautista is an excellent choice for the brutish, brutal Glossu "Beast" Rabban of House Harkonnen,  Jason Momoa is an unexpected choice for swordmaster, strategist and womanizer Duncan Idaho, but not a bad one, based on what we see in the trailer - he brings an intriguing combination of exuberance and earnestness to the character. 

However, I have some trouble with Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, the warrior-musician weaponmaster of House Atreides, it's just not how I see that person.  I shrugged at a bearded Oscar Isaac in the role of Paul's father, the ill-fated Duke Leto Atreides - mostly because of the beard, which I felt was out of keeping with the paramilitary feel of the Houses - and whereas I can see what they were trying to do with the casting of Rebecca Ferguson as his wife, she doesn't match my picture of the Lady Jessica. In the only alternative casting that I'm going to suggest, Gal Gadot would have been a perfect choice in terms of the dark and elegant beauty that I pictured for the character.

There's a brief glimpse of Stellan Skarsgård as the calculatingly villainous Baron Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, a glimpse which tells us next to nothing. I don't have a problem with Skarsgård in the role, although they must have done some substantial prosthetics work to turn him into the obese sensualist of the book - I'm hoping that they didn't go down the overdone route that Lynch chose for the character.

Oddly, there's no obvious sign of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the Baron's heir and Paul's nemesis, but given that Villeneuve has split the story into two parts, it's possible that he doesn't make an appearance in the first film.

Part 1 is scheduled for release on December 18th. Given that any number of release dates have been pushed back during the pandemic, we'll see what Warner Brothers decides to do as we edge up on the end of the year. If they do release it, Ill have to do some serious soul searching - I'd love to see it on the big screen, but it may just be one of those things where it's better to be safe than sorry.

- Sid

* After seeing the new trailer, Jodorowsky, now 91 years old, commented that in his opinion, it is “very well done” but feels that, as an example of "industrial cinema", the director is forced to follow the standard studio template: "There [are] no surprises. The form is identical to what is done everywhere. The lighting, the acting, everything is predictable.”