Or, turning golden stories into leaden trash.
As a faithful SF teenager I read lots of Asimov (in fact, I recently added his secular bible guide to my wishlist). His Robot novels were a subtle blend of whodunnit and intelligent SF. It was with extreme cinematic disappointment then, that the Big-Willy-style movie trailer for I, Robot splashed dismally across my retinas like a watery Nike-sponsored jizzglob. My only comfort was this hilarious combined review/photoshopping exercise.
As a faithful SF teenager I also read the ass out of Ray Bradbury. Of his approximately 1.5×1035 short stories, one that sticks in the mind is the prescient time-travel gem A Sound of Thunder. Predictably this morsel has been dropped into the mainstream grinder to emerge as the crappy monster bash A Sound of Thunder [trailer]. Oh well, at least they kept the titl- oh christ I can’t go on.
*silence*
No, wait. There may be something decent to watch. At least in most respects, the renewed Star Wars DVDs have been treated with respect and love. Evidence and screengrabs (and more). Also I can’t wait to hear the commentary from George [pictured, left] where he reveals his essential paedophilia by consistently ignoring the adult audience on aesthetic decisions. “What would the kids [pictured, right] think?”, his beard whines.
02-Oct-04 at 12:46 am | Permalink
I, Robot looks horrid. As a greater ‘mind’ than I (Conroy) pointed out, the robots look like big spurts of semen. And I can see big spurts of semen for free, quite frankly (although it does cost me a lot of soul points).
Has anyone on here read any Michael Moorcock? I hear he is big influence to Alan Moore, Grant Morrison etc, but all my library has are his Elric books, and I’m not sure I can be arsed with them, as they remind me of White Dwarf circa 1985 (yes, I own back issues. I particularly like the issue that gives you details of adding gnomes to your Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campgains).
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is going to break my heart. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this film, and all I’ve heard are bad reports. I’m contemplating not going to see it, as it will make me cry and lose what little faith I have left in anything.
I can’t play my guitar because bluebottles are in the way. Nano-chuff.
04-Oct-04 at 1:03 pm | Permalink
Jude Law said that Sky Captain is fun, sassy and beautiful. Then he did a parp. I’ve had Michael Moorcock recommended to me by respectable folk, and he himself had nice things to say about Robert Holdstock, a personal favourite, but I never read any because his books look like Jackson/Liviingstone “Crown of Kings” without the picters.
04-Oct-04 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
Haven’t read much Moorcock outside of the albino series. They’re worth a go for their frenzied pace and anti-mainstream (Tolkien-hating) attitude. A bit, er, psychedelic in places though.
> back issues
Oddly enough I was thumbing through an old ‘dwarf in the bath last night. The one with the Horus/Emperor battle in it, lightning claws and snapping spines and typos and everything.
04-Oct-04 at 4:41 pm | Permalink
> Sky Captain
Hold on, did I read this right?
“The role of the villain, Dr. Totenkopf, is “played” by Sir Laurence Olivier, who died in 1989; archive footage of him from the 1940s was manipulated by computer to allow him to make this posthumous film appearance.”
Didn’t we already establish this idea is rubbish with Ollie “deid” Reed in Gladiator?
21-Oct-04 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Have you ever heard of the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)?
Apparently George Lucas “said that if he had his way, he would destroy every copy.”
Must… see… special…
21-Oct-04 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
I’ve seen stills of it. It looks fucking badass. It’d send all of our irony engines into overdrive, and make us explode so much that we actually imploded. It’d also make us ready for the Supercontext. Let’s all get some not-self material in us.
06-Sep-07 at 4:26 pm | Permalink
I do like this post, especially for the review.