At least the triffid part is off the table.

 

Make plans now to stay up late or set the alarm early next week to see a cosmic display of “shooting stars” light up the night sky. Known for its fast and bright meteors, the annual Perseid meteor shower is anticipated to be one of the best potential meteor viewing opportunities this year.

The Perseids show up every year in August when Earth ventures through trails of debris left behind by an ancient comet. This year, Earth may be in for a closer encounter than usual with the comet trails that result in meteor shower, setting the stage for a spectacular display.

- nasa.gov

The Day of the Triffids is a combination post-apocalyptic/monster menace novel, written in 1951 by British author John Wyndham. The story starts with Bill Masen, who awakes in a London hospital on the day that the bandages will be removed from his eyes following treatment for a workplace accident.* 

However, even without sight Masen can tell that something is wrong.  The usual roar of City traffic is absent, the nurse fails to respond to the buzzer, and the hospital is full of moans and complaints.

Stripping the bandages from his eyes, Masen leaves his room, only to discover that the world has literally changed overnight.  Radiation from a worldwide meteor shower has blinded everyone who watched it, leaving the vast majority of humanity without sight.  The impact of the disaster is worsened by the presence of the triffids, ambulatory carnivorous plants which are cultivated for a variety of purposes.  Without human supervision, the triffids have gotten loose from their pens and are stalking the helpless humans.

Last night was the second night of the annual Perseid meteor shower, which was predicted to be far brighter and more impressive than usual. Through an odd coincidence, I had a bad headache last night, and when I reached home I simply collapsed fully clothed into bed, and slept through until about 5:00 this morning, without any thought at all of watching the fall of the meteors.

It's pretty quiet at five in the morning ... but is it too quiet?

- Sid

* If the idea of someone awakening in a hospital to find out that a mysterious catastrophe has taken place sounds familiar, that's because it is.  Both 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead use exactly the same narrative device.

And the award goes to...

"I've had it with them, I've had it with you, I've had it with ALL THIS - I want ROOM SERVICE! I want the club sandwich, I want the cold Mexican beer, I want a $10,000-a-night hooker! I want my shirts laundered... like they do... at the Imperial Hotel... in Tokyo."

Johnny, Johnny Mnemonic

We recently had dinner with Karli's friend Tara and her new boyfriend Gary.  As sometimes happens in the ebb and flow of first meetings and the associated who-when-where-what-why process, it came out that I was a science fiction fan. Gary, who works in the film industry, immediately asked, "Ah - what's your favourite science fiction movie?"

I realize that this is a standard conversational gambit, but whenever someone asks me about my favourite anything, I always feels a bit challenged, as if I'm going to be judged on my response* - it's not always a comfortable experience.

I was thinking about it afterwards, and I have an alternative that I'd like to propose to the general population.  Going forward, let's no longer ask people about their favourite book, movie, TV show or YouTube™ channel - science fiction or not. Let's ask people about their least favourite.

It's a thought provoking question, if perhaps a bit negative, and I think that in some odd way people are more likely to commiserate than disagree (as can be the case with favourites). There may well be a story as well, because generally people don't go out of their way to watch or read something that they won't enjoy.

I've done this a couple of times on a trial basis, and it's been quite interesting, perhaps more so than the question of favourites. For example, Karli cited Cool World, a movie I haven't thought about for literally decades.  Her sister Stefanie said, "The Wicker Man!" without a moment's hesitation. (Which she instantly followed with Mad Max - apparently Stefanie has already given this question some thought.)

My least favourite science fiction film?  Hmmmm...a little part of me wants to list classically bad SF movies that I haven't seen, like Battlefield Earth or the Sharknado series** (or any one of a legion of terrible low-budget SF movies from the 70s and 80s), but that's not the purpose of the exercise.

A slightly larger part wonders if Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back*** would count as SF - there's certainly a fanboy element to the film, and that movie represents two incredibly tedious hours of my life that are gone, gone forever.

In terms of bad SF that I have seen, Johnny Mnemonic is the first thing that comes to mind, mostly due to its wasted potential.  The source material was an excellent short story by William Gibson that contained the DNA for his breakout 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, but the brevity and style that made it so good was completely lost in translation.

There are a few others that required a little more thought.  Prometheus disappointed me: I felt that it was an ambitious failure, but a failure none the less.  Ridley Scott did all the things he's good at, lighting, composition and set design, but the script lets him down.  The Planet of the Apes reboot with Mark Wahlberg - the original was an extraordinary concept for the 1960s, and the re-reboots have cast a whole new light on the concept, but the 2001 version never made sense right from the very start.  I suspect I could come up with more, but as with Karli's sister, I feel that the initial instinctive responses are the ones that really count.

Oh, my favourite SF movie?  As previously discussed and explained, Star Wars, the original one.  Gary's choice was 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I found a bit surprising - sadly, it appears that this judgement thing is a two-way street.

- Sid

* And let's face it, I probably will be.

** Sorry, Laurie.

***  For the trivia fans in the audience, as far as I know this is the only movie other than the Star Wars series that features both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher - albeit not in shared screen time.

Friendship.

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

Mark Twain

I consider myself to have been blessed in my friendships. One of the things that I have always been grateful for in those friendships is an appreciation (and tolerance) of my various interests by otherwise sensible people who cannot for a moment understand why I would care about such nonsense.

On that basis, I'd like to thank my good friend Joe for picking up a brilliant TARDIS t-shirt for me while looking for a replacement shirt for himself (following a mishap involving french fries).  Thank you, Joe - it takes a very special person to think of others when they're wearing ketchup.

- Sid

UPDATE:  Upon reading this post, Joe sent me the following e-mail:

Very nice.  Seeing as it’s a bit late to become an internet porn star, this will do nicely!
J

It seems very much in keeping with the spirit of this post to support Joe in HIS interests - should any porn producers be reading this, please leave a comment and I will be more than happy to put you in touch with him.

Pizza run.

Last Friday, I lived the dream:  I took the day off to have pizza.

Okay, let's not rush into this.  First, my sights for "the dream" are actually set a bit higher than pizza in lieu of work; and second,  it was a bit more complicated than dedicating a day off to eating pizza.

Karli and I had recently received our NEXUS cards, and as such we wanted to give them a test at the border under circumstances where we weren't on the clock for anything time-sensitive. Her sister had recommended that we try a Fairhaven restaurant called Fat Pie Pizza the next time we were in Washington state, so we decided to do a day trip down for lunch and shopping.  Work has been pleasantly normal recently, so we were able to combine some time from my lieu bank with one of Karli's regular Friday flex days.

However, it seemed a bit much to cross the border just for pizza, dream or no dream, so we did a little research to see what else we might do while visiting Fairhaven. Fortuitously, there turned out to be an independent book store called Village Books located in the same block as Fat Pie, so we added that to our agenda.

 

I liked Village Books - it's an excellent example of a well done - and well run - indie book store.  It's in a classic vintage building, with a wide selection of books spread over three floors. They follow the popular trend of having an associated coffee shop - the Colophon Cafe, which we did not visit - and share space with Paper Dreams, a home decor/gift shop.

The Village Books science fiction/fantasy section is fairly good, although I don't really approve of mixing new and used books - I've visited a few book stores that do this, and it's always a bit irritating to pick up a book expecting to see a used price and find out that it's full cost.

I bought three books on sale  - two hardcover and one trade paperback - for essentially the same price as standard paperbacks in Canada (even after conversion from USD).  My choices were Three Moments of an Explosion, a collection of China Miéville short stories (which I am long overdue to read); Paolo Bacigalupi's 2015 novel The Water Knife; and another short story collection, My Experiences in the Third World War, by Michael Moorcock. This was an unexpected treasure: Moorcock is a long time favourite of mine, and everything in this collection is new to me, I'm quite looking forward to it.

And just for fun, I also picked up a War of the Worlds* T-shirt from the Miles To Go literary T-shirt collection. 

Photo by KT

 Oh, and in case you were wondering, Fat Pie Pizza completely lived up to their positive reviews - and their name.

Photo also by KT

- Sid

* I wore my new T-shirt to a social gathering the next day, and I was surprised to learn that a lot of people are more aware of the 1938 Orson Welles radio hoax than the 1897 H.G. Wells novel.  Tom Cruise (or Gene Barry) didn't come up at all.

As opposed to, say, "Fairy puke". *

Is it just me, or does this sound like an extremely negative term for fantasy fiction?

- Sid

* Just for the record, "fairy puke" is actually the colloquial name for Icmadophila ericetorus, a variety of crustose lichen.

No, seriously, it's on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icmadophila.

Ghostbusters 2: "Break the barriers".

 

I'd like to thank Karli for an excellent guest posting on the new Ghostbusters, and, based on her input, I wanted to enlarge on my position regarding the remake.

For me, movie remakes are a little bit like cover versions of songs. If you're not going to make it your own, if you're not going to bring something new to the table, why bother? *

For whatever reason, genre films seem to be targeted for remakes and reboots more than the mainstream: Robocop, Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man, Total Recall, The Time Machine, Batman, Superman, and so on, with the Ghostbusters remake as the latest entry on the list.  Some of them refresh and revive the base concept, some don't - how does Ghostbusters score?

I agree with Karli that Ghostbusters was fun, and that the main cast has fabulous chemistry.  Kate McKinnon is obviously the next Jim Carrey - let's hope that Hollywood has the good sense to find her a script, hand her the ball, and just let her run with it.

It's also a funny movie, and the selection of cameos from the 1984 cast were a nice nod to the first version.**  I completely agree with Karli that Chris Hemsworth's Kevin failed to impress - a little more depth there would have helped to broaden the film.

All that being said, it's not a very different movie than the original version.  Do I think that it was worth remaking this movie just to replace the originals with female leads?  I would say no - in my mind, that doesn't matter.  A movie should be judged on its own merits, regardless of whether the cast is male or female.

However, I think I'm wrong.

Ghostbusters is a noteworthy cultural phenomenon in that there's such a sharp division between the film as such and its position as a feminist milestone. As Karli points out in her posting, it's important that women be shown taking the lead, both as actors and characters - and THAT'S why we needed to see "bitches busting ghosts".

- Sid

* The Alien Ant Farm version of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal is a prime example of this.

** But where was Rick Moranis? I know he retired from acting in order to raise his children, but surely he could have gotten a babysitter and done a quick hit-and-run appearance at the studio.

Ghostbusters 1: "Safety lights are for dudes!"

(Contributed by Karli Thomas)

 

"No one should have to encounter that kind of evil. Except you girls, I think you can handle it."

Theatre Manager, Ghostbusters

Last weekend, on opening night no less, Sid, and I went to see Ghostbusters. I had been looking forward to it since the first teaser trailer had come out. Maybe even before then. I remember seeing the first image released from the set – the four women wearing the jumpsuits, proton packs strapped to their backs. I poured over the photo and anticipated seeing these very funny women take charge of these very iconic roles. That Paul Feig was directing was the icing on the cake.

In broad terms, I liked the movie. The main cast had great chemistry and were very funny. Kate McKinnon owned every scene she was in. Melissa McCarthy was pleasantly un-Tammy-like. Leslie Jones and Kristen Wiig did exactly what you`d expect of them and they were fun to watch. Chris Hemsworth’s character was problematic for me*. The big fight sequence in the second half dragged, but I am guilty of thinking that pretty much every big fight scene in the history of movies drags – you could all learn something from Game of Thrones Battle of the Bastards, filmmakers!

As we walked out into the fresh summer air, Sid proposed a question for this new version of Ghostbusters:  “Did it need to be made?” Specifically, is changing the cast to all female enough of a reason to remake this movie? Sid thinks maybe not and I think maybe yes.

At some point in our future a generation of girls will grow up seeing movies starring more women in a wider variety of roles and that is a very good thing. Young girls (and boys for that matter) will get a broader spectrum of female role models and a more expansive view of what women can do and what they look like in those roles.

Ghostbusters was fun to watch and it was a pleasure to see these women take the reins and do such a great job of leading the movie. Did Ghostbusters need to be remade?  Maybe not remade exactly, no, they could have done a sequel rather than a reboot. But since Hollywood is going to reboot movies regardless of whether or not they need to – why not let women finally take the lead and have some fun?

- Karli

* My complaint about Kevin is nearly complete – he was poorly written, poorly acted and poorly directed. He should have been a dumb, good looking klutz, not a complete idiot.

Warped starlight.

 Wash: Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science-fiction.
Zoë: We live in a spaceship, dear.
Wash: So?  

Objects in Space, Firefly

I've just finished reading City at World's End, a 1951 short novel by Edmond Hamilton.  Hamilton is one of the lost treasures of science fiction - a contemporary of the better known E.E. "Doc" Smith, his prolific work from the first half of the 20th century helped to establish the "thundering planets" style that typifies the early science fiction of the pulp era.

Over time his writing developed a more humanistic, insightful approach, as demonstrated in short stories such as What's It Like Out There?, The Pro, and Requiem.  Other strongly recommended reading would be 1966's Doomstar and his Starwolf trilogy from the late 1960s  - The Weapon from Beyond, The Closed Worlds, and World of the Starwolves. These four books beautifully combine Hamilton's epic view of the future with a more personal, character-driven narrative.*

City at the World's End shows glimpses of Hamilton's mature style, although it's still strongly reminiscent of his early work. In this story, the detonation of an experimental superbomb hurls a small American town millions of years into the future, to an uninhabited - and uninhabitable - Earth.  Scientists from a research centre concealed in the town manage to activate a distress beacon in an abandoned city, attracting the attention of a ship from the galaxy-wide Federation**.

Upon their arrival, the Federation's representatives offer the townspeople a double-edged salvation - they can save the inhabitants of the town, but only by removing them from Earth and transferring them to a different world.

However, a dissident crew member offers another option - requesting a dangerous experimental process which might re-ignite the fires at the Earth's core, thereby providing enough warmth for the castaways from the past to continue to live on Earth.  One of the scientists is taken by starship to the Vega star system to plead the town's case before the galactic Board of Governors: 

He would not show fear. They expected him to do so, they were watching him with sidelong glances of interest and amused expectation. But Kenniston clenched his fists inside his jacket pockets, and resolved fiercely to disappoint them.

He was afraid, yes. It was one thing to read and talk and speculate on flying space. It was another and much more frightening thing to do it, to step off the solid Earth, to rush and plunge and fall through the worldless emptiness.

He stood there with Gorr Holl*** and Piers Eglin in the bridge of the Thanis, looking ahead through the curving view windows, and a cold sickness clutched at his vitals.

"It isn't the way I expected it to be," he said unsteadily. "Only those stars ahead--"

He fought against the impulse to clutch for support. He wouldn't do that, while the bronzed star-men behind him were curiously watching him. 

Directly ahead, Kenniston looked at a depthless black in which fierce stars flared like lamps. The blue-hot beacon of Vega centered that vista, and up from it blazed the stars of the time-distorted Lyre and Aquila, crossed on the upper left by the glittering sun-drift of the Milky Way.

Only that section of sky ahead was clear. The rest of the firmament, extending back from it, was an increasingly blurred vista of warped starlight whose rays seemed to twitch, jerk and dance. 

The last 50 years have provided the general population with an extensive education regarding life in the future: androids, starships, energy weapons, warp drives, a plethora of advanced technology.  Anyone who has seen a Star Wars movie, any one of the iterations of the Star Trek franchise, or one of a hundred other visual stories set in space would be completely familiar with the view that fills Kenniston with such dread (although I'm willing to admit that the actual experience might well be more daunting than watching it on a movie screen, even in IMAX 3D).  And at this point, who hasn't seen one of those examples? 

How ironic that, with all the things that science fiction has predicted for the future, it would fail to predict its own success and popularity.

- Sid

* And I have to add that they're fun.  Hamilton knows what he's doing - he paints his interstellar future with a big brush, but he also uses a lot of bright colours on a huge canvas, and the result is dramatic, tense, and entertaining.

** It's not the U.S.S. Enterprise, and it's not that Federation. I don't think Gene Roddenberry was guilty of plagiarizing this idea - let's face it, there are only so many words you can use to describe a democratic political organization.

*** A hint for new readers of vintage science fiction:  if there is a character with a name like Gorr Holl, there's a really good chance that the story you are reading was written before 1960, if not 1950.

Not only that, but it's in Canadian dollars.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) recently launched its fourth astronaut recruitment campaign.

At the end of this recruitment campaign, two new Canadian astronauts will begin their training in the 2017 NASA astronaut class in Houston, Texas.

Do you have a university degree in science, engineering or medicine? Do you have at least three years of relevant professional experience, or are you licenced to practise medicine in Canada? Are you resourceful, determined, and cool, calm and collected? If so, you may be what the CSA is looking for!

- Canadian Space Agency astronaut recruitment site

Given that today is the anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first step onto the surface of the Moon, it seems appropriate to announce that Canada is looking to hire a couple of astronauts.

Be an Astronaut! Apply by 15 Aug or miss your chance to boldly go! https://t.co/0r43aIxv2n@WilliamShatner @csa_aschttps://t.co/spgOYxTn1D

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) July 20, 2016

(My apologies, apparently they've been looking for applicants since June, and I missed Commander Hadfield's first Tweet on the subject.)

The Canadian Space Agency web site contains all the basic information that you might want before deciding to apply: qualifications, duties of an astronaut, selection process (it takes about a year to complete all the stages of recruitment) and, of course, the online application form.

Surprisingly, it's not the highest paying job in the world.  Novice cosmonauts start at $91K, with a potential  boost to $178K* after successfully completing a mission in space.  Considering the list of prerequisites and qualifications - and the fact that there's a certain amount of risk involved -  this doesn't seem like a lot of money.  On the other hand, there are some perks that come with the job:  just look at the view from your office...

I have to give the CSA full points for putting together a clever and well-thought-out promotional campaign.  This is just another reason that I think Canada is such a great country - it's difficult to imagine the United States government doing anything quite as casually smart and funny.

It's also a bit surprising to me that it's such an open invitation.  Admittedly, most people wouldn't match the list of qualifications, but that list isn't ridiculous or undoable. As pointed out in the introductory quotation, this is only the fourth time that the CSA has gone looking for astronauts, but it won't be the last.  If you're reading this in the same year it was posted, you've probably got about ten years to get ready for the next time - good luck!

- Sid

* To be completely accurate, $178,400.  I suspect this is a governmental pay grade thing - if it was up to me I would round it up to at least the nearest six figure digit.

But not too much bigger, because gravity.

There's a phrase I hear almost every day.

I always have the same reaction when I hear it.

I heard it again just now, from my office roommate Bill, and it's time to put my response in writing.

The phrase is:

It's a small world, isn't it?

Yes, yes it is.  And that's why the exploration of space is so important:

BIGGER WORLDS.

- Sid

"A cat has no food. A man must feed a cat."

When my lovely partner Karli moved in with me just over a year ago, she brought with her Cooper the cat, an elderly white Persian whose grim visage belied his warm and affectionate nature.  I was quite pleased to have Cooper as part of our little family - I had been without a feline roommate for several years, and Cooper and I bonded quickly and easily.  

Sadly, Time has its way with everyone, and about six weeks ago Cooper made his final visit to the veterinarian. It was a heartbreaking time for both Karli and I;  Karli in particular feeling more than a little depressed by the loss of her confidant and companion for over 18 years.

Because of Cooper's importance to both of us, we quickly became aware of the cat-shaped hole in our lives. Karli began looking at cats online, and we paid a couple of visits to the Vancouver SPCA Catfé, but we just weren't finding the right cat for us.  We knew we couldn't replace anyone as special and unique as Cooper, but we hoped to find a cat who would make his own place in our hearts.

Karli persevered in her online search, which led us to the Richmond SPCA at the end of June to meet a congenial six-year-old orange and white tabby.*  He had been brought in as a stray, and then taken by a family who had just returned him to the SPCA after a year of ownership, citing litter tray usage problems. In spite of this dubious entry on his resume, we decided that we would adopt the little guy, and returned to pick him up two days later (two days rather than one due to the branch's Canada Day closure.)

He was introduced to us as Oliver, and his previous name was Pumpkin, but somehow we didn't find either of those names to be a fit.  We made a list of possible names, debated them at length, but nothing really seemed to be working for us.

During one of our discussions, I referred to "the cat without a name".  Karli gave me a significant sideways look and quietly said, "A cat has no name."

 

Thanks to this well-timed misquotation from George R. R. Martin, I'm happy to introduce our new cat, known to the world as Jack, but whose full name is actually Jaqen H'ghar, named after the enigmatic face-changing third-person Braavosi assassin from Game of Thrones. In the books, Jaqen disappears after aiding Arya Stark, but the HBO adaptation offers him a larger role as a servant of the Many-Faced God in the House of Black and White.**

Jack (or Jaq) is a friendly, affectionate fellow who is well on his way to settling in with us (and hopefully getting used to his new name, not that cats care very much about that sort of thing.)

"If a girl should need a cat, a girl should roll this across a hardwood floor.
A cat will come if such a thing is done."

And his name - his full name, that is - makes perfect sense.  Cats are solidly behind the Braavosi philosophy of valar dohaeris: all men must serve.***

- Sid

* Looking for a cat?  Kittens are very cute, but consider getting an adult cat who has already learned the ins and outs of kitty litter and food dishes. Adult cats are also more likely to sleep on the bed with you rather than maniacally wrestle their own tail on your pillow at 3:00 AM.  (At least with any luck they are.)

** You may follow the theory that the man at the temple in Braavos is only wearing the face of Jaqen H'ghar. Personally, I prefer the way in which it streamlines the narrative if it's the same person, but to each their own.

*** Women too.  Cats are completely without sexism when it comes to service.

Or Amazing.

I was looking at the picture of Karli in the Borg regeneration alcove from our visit to the Star Trek exhibition at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, and something about it reminded me of a classic pulp science fiction magazine cover...

 

I may do up an alternate version that's a little more distressed, I've never seen one of these covers without a few creases or scratches.

- Sid

"They like to get the landmarks."

For whatever reason, Canada is very rarely the victim of apocalyptic destruction in movies, television or novels. Granted, anything that wipes out the entire world will destroy Canada as well, but depending on the nature of the catastrophe, Canada is far more likely to be someplace where people seek refuge from the disaster rather than ground zero for it.*

As previously mentioned, I'm very aware of this gap in our cultural framework, so I was actually a bit pleased to see a transit shelter poster for Independence Day: Resurgence that featured a gigantic space ship hovering over a crumbling CN Tower.

"Perfect," I thought.  "I'm all set for a Canada Day posting, I'll just go home and find a good copy of that online."

Unexpectedly, the internet was not forthcoming.  This was a bit surprising, given that I could have easily downloaded a JPEG showing a similar view of Big Ben being destroyed, or the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty**, the Eiffel Tower, the Marina Sands Hotel in Singapore, Grant's Tomb  - even the Petronas Twin Towers from Kuala Lumpur - but not the CN Tower.  (Just for the record, the studio deliberately skipped the Gate of India in Mumbai.) If the poster didn't exist at all, I might have been less surprised, but given that it did exist, why would it not be posted online with the other versions?

Disappointed, I decided that I would just hop off the bus on the way home from work and take as good a picture of the ad as possible.

I was disappointed once again: within 36 hours of my original pass by the poster location, it was gone.  Feeling a bit frustrated, I continued home to broaden my search online in hopes that someone else had at least been able to get a snapshot of the Canadian marketing for Resurgence.

Now, just for the record, I'd like to say that I have pretty strong Google-fu.  I can often find things for people who have had absolutely no luck looking for something online.  Nonetheless, after an extensive search I was only able to find two pictures (and a half) of the alien destruction of Toronto's most visible tourist attraction.

I know that Resurgence isn't doing particularly well at the box office, and given the poor reviews I've read I was probably going to skip it, but now I feel a bit tempted to see the movie just to see if there actually is a scene showing the invaders tearing up the CN Tower by the roots, or if it was just a poorly supported blip in the movie's marketing plan.

If that scene is in the movie, 20th Century Fox's marketing people have obviously dropped the ball by not promoting it more widely in Vancouver.  After all, there are more than a few people in British Columbia who would be happy to see any movie with a scene, no matter how brief, showing Toronto being destroyed by aliens.

- Sid

* It's not difficult to imagine a future where climate change has boosted global temperatures to the point where the vast, almost uninhabited areas that make up the better part of our country become usable - in fact, perhaps even desirable - real estate.  Imagine sailing on the tropical blue waters of Hudson Bay as the palm trees lining the beaches near Churchill nod in the warm breeze...

** And a somewhat wistful poster showing a Unicorn Gundam in the same position, but with a defiantly upraised fist rather than a torch.

The couple that regenerates together, assimilates together.

Borg regeneration alcove at Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds - one size fits all.

- Sid

"Look at me...look at me...I'm the captain now."

Reproduction of Kirk's command chair at Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds.  As I said, I see my fictional alter ego as being a starship captain...

- Sid

"Star Trek is a language nearly everyone speaks."

 

For 50 years, Star Trek and its themes of optimism, equality and heroism have inspired people worldwide. 

Star Trek presents a positive future - a utopia without poverty or war. In that future, all of humanity has set aside their differences and joined together in an extraordinary task: to explore the stars, meeting every challenge with bravery and thoughtfulness. 

What began as a low-budget science fiction television show with modest ratings expanded into a franchise spanning seven television series, thirteen movies, and thousands of novels, comics and games. Star Trek has made a profound impact on our society.  Star Trek's ideas and memes are now so deeply embedded in the fabric of our popular culture that even people who have never seen it can name key characters and recite its catch phrases. Star Trek inspires art, science, architecture, music and literature. Star Trek is a language nearly everyone speaks.  

Brooks Peck, Curator - Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds

I recently discovered that, in honour of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle is hosting a retrospective exhibition on the Star Trek phenomenon, and its impact on the world. Accompanied (and chauffeured) by my tolerant* girlfriend Karli, we headed down to Washington state last weekend to take a look.

After checking into our hotel, we made our way to Frank Gehry’s multi-coloured architectural masterpiece, and forked over thirty bucks US each for admission to the museum in general and the Star Trek portion specifically.  Once inside, we passed on the opportunity for a $60 autograph from Brent Spiner** (or a $30 selfie) and made our way directly into the exhibition.

 

To be honest, I feel that if you’ve seen one display of artifacts from a franchise, you’ve pretty much seen all of them – I guess I’ve become jaded in my old age. It’s also a relatively small exhibition, considering the long history of the show and its spinoffs.

 

That being said, the exhibits are comprehensive, well arranged and well explained. There’s a good mix of photo ops and interactivity: a full range of starship filming models, a duplicate of Kirk’s command chair (and the original), an excellent touch-screen starship database, props and costumes from all parts of the franchise, a Borg regeneration alcove, a horizontal duplicate of a Jefferies Tube***, and a transporter set where visitors can act out a scene. (Sadly, we were stumped by the “KHAAAAAAAAN!” simulator - as were a lot of other people, as far as we could tell.)

There are some odd little surprises. The Borg cube, which I always thought was computer generated, turned out to be an astonishingly detailed model, and the signs of forcible disassembly with a blunt object are quite obvious in the seams of the bridge set pieces from the original series. (Although it was interesting to see the navigation console from the captain's perspective.)  

There also is a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humour to the exhibition. The display booths are set against a background of fake orange rocks, very much in the style of those made famous by the original series, and random solitary tribbles punctuate the displays: perched on top of a divider, or nestled underneath the navigation console. 

Karli was completely taken aback by the unexpected prospect of Data’s severed head looking up at her through a sheet of plexiglass from a pit in the floor – I wonder how Brent Spiner felt about that particular nod to the Next Generation episode Time's Arrow?

The real key to the exhibition lies in the display on the upper level, which examines Star Trek's effect on society in general. The most impressive thing about Star Trek is its legacy - no other piece of popular entertainment has had the same kind of a sustained cultural impact that Star Trek has.

The mezzanine displays focus on that impact: artistic, scientific, architectural, and musical, and includes a multi-screen video presentation that examines the real-life influence that Star Trek had upon the world.  Scientists, astronauts, writers and actors discuss the manner in which the goals and ideals presented by Star Trek made a difference in people's lives.

As with all good science fiction, Star Trek shows us the future but comments on the present. The original series in particular offered the world a future in which many of the problems that plagued the Sixties no longer existed. Sequels and spinoffs have continued to look at contemporary problems to a greater or lesser extent, and Gene Roddenberry's original vision of a better world has show remarkable longevity.

(Although, let's be honest, it's difficult to place the Picardigan on the same level as Martin Luther King's request to Nichelle Nichols that she stay on the show in order to continue as a role model for black people.)

For me, the most interesting thing about Exploring New Worlds was not the exhibition itself, but the people attending it. There were fans taking pinup photos in the Jefferies tube, and people snapping pictures of a baby **** in the reproduction of Kirk's command chair - presumably the Next Generation of fan.

There were fans in costumes, fans in uniforms, fans in pointed ears, and one fan wearing a steampunk Star Trek gown. They posed as regenerating Borg, stood in line to stand in as actors in a transporter scene, and I saw one woman literally bounce up and down with joy when she saw the bridge set from the original series.

To quote a certain half-Vulcan science officer: "Fascinating."

- Sid

* And lovely.

** Denise Crosby was also on site for photo ops, but I 'm just more of a Data fan.  It was an interesting combination, though, considering that their characters were “intimate” in The Naked Now, an appropriately titled first season episode of The Next Generation.

*** I honestly had no idea that Jefferies Tubes were a mystery to the population at large, but apparently this is where we cross the line from well-known information - like phasers and transporters - into esoterica. Jefferies Tubes were the little tunnels used by engineering crewmembers to access various bits of the Enterprise’s infrastructure. If you ever saw Scotty lying in a cramped little space working desperately to fix something (usually the transporter) while smoke and sparks filled the foreground, he was in a Jefferies Tube. They’re named after Matt Jefferies, who designed the original U.S.S. Enterprise.

**** And then rushing to save him as he began to slowly topple over to one side.  Did Shatner ever do that?