What is science fiction? For some, it calls up images of the black and white movie serials like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers portrayed by Buster Crabbe. Later generations remember the genre from the classic 1950’s films like Earth VS the Flying Saucers and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Then there were shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and the culture changing effect of Star Trek in the sixties. That decade also brought us the ground breaking 2001: A space Odyssey. Science fiction was entrenched in the global pop-culture. The seventies were replete with sci-fi films and television programs, from cult hits like Space 1999 to the widely popular Six Million Dollar Man. Then there were lesser known and short lived programs like The Star Lost and The Phoenix. Battlestar Galactica’s short and troubled time on television left and enduring warm spot in the hearts a millions of fans. And, of course, there was Star Wars that came to us in 1977 to rival Star Trek for its saturation of popular culture. In 1979, Ridley Scotts Alien blurred the line between science fiction and horror. Science fiction series came and went but the genre was enduring. In the eighties we saw the return of Buck Rogers to the small science with Gill Gerard in the namesake role. Flash Gordon came back the theaters in a film that paid considerable homage to the old serials. Tron made us question the way a science fiction film should look. Films like Highlander and Krull tested the boundaries between sci-fi and fantasy. Star Trek returned to television (The Next generation) and was followed by an interrelated series (Deep Space Nine) which ran congruently for a short time. Both Star Trek and Star Wars continued to produce popular theatrical films. Critics and prominent literary figures, with few exceptions, derided and dismissed the science fiction genre as intellectual and literary flotsam and jetsam. Yet science fiction not only continued to attract fans; it attracted fans that were more dedicated and enthusiastic than those of any other entertainment genre. Not only did sci-fi fans love science fiction they wanted everyone to know it, and share their passion. In the nineties Star Trek: Voyager succeeded Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 found a somewhat small but incredibly devoted fan base. The X-files brought contemporary politics and intrigue to science fiction and drew viewers that had never before appreciated science fiction. The Running Man gave us wonderfully dark view of what the entertainment media might look like in the future (an exaggeration of today’s reality TV) and Gattaca made us wonder of the mapping of the human genome was actually a good idea. The nineties got a bit darker for sci-fi. The twenty first century bought us more Star Trek in the form of Star Trek: Enterprise. Debuting in 1999, the first of the Star Wars ‘prequels’ gave the franchise a boost into the new century, but like Enterprise, left fans a bit disappointed. But a ‘reimagining’ of Star Trek breathed new life into the franchise and the Star Wars continuation The Force Awakens had two generations of Star Wars fans all tingly with anticipation. Battlestar Galactica rose again minus the original series’ campiness. Science fiction’s most notable and enduring franchises are still alive and well. I have concentrated thus far on the visual media. This is because it is that medium which shapes the general concept of science fiction for the non-science fiction initiated public. The perception of the works of great science fiction authors like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, Arthur Clarke, Aldus Huxley have and George Orwell, for the most part, have been distorted by film and television. But even when comparing works by these giants of science fiction and their peers, it is still hard to answer the question: what is science fiction? Merriam-Webster on-line defines science fiction as: ‘fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component’. That is a pretty broad net to throw over such an expansive a genre. In an attempt to narrow things down sci-fi enthusiasts broke science fiction into a multitude of sub-genres. But, in a way, that only made things worse. I myself do not think that you can define science fiction for what it is. You can define it by what it does or, at least, intends to do. Science fiction creators by and large want their work to one of two things; show a bright, positive goal for humanity to aspire to, or warn humanity about some dire folly that might befall us. In Star Trek’s many incarnations we see a human race that has not only unified itself, but has joined with other non-human races in a technologically dependant utopia. In Orwell’s 1984 we see technology used to perpetuate war and keep a destitute proletariat in a state of slavery. Star Wars gave us a simplistic, wonder filled vision of the future where evil and good were clearly defined, while The X-files showed us a present day with dark foreboding and fear of a mostly unseen, ephemeral threat that consisted largely of fellow human beings in league with otherworldly powers. All of these offerings are considered science fiction and all of them were vastly different in both tone and message. What they had in common was that that they wanted to make people think in different ways; to place ideas and philosophies in different contexts. Science Fiction works with ideas in a way that is different than any other genre. I dare say it may be superior to other genres in that regard. Sci-fi frees ideas and concepts from the confines of the ordinary. It provides a comfortable mental cushion between a person’s steadfast beliefs and ideas that challenge those beliefs. It provides a buffer between troubling issues of today by providing the distance of an imaginary tomorrow. Science fiction allows us to think about the unthinkable without guilt or shame. It, like its cousin genre fantasy, is a genre that frees us from our own egos and cultural programming and lets us ponder other cultural paradigms. The ‘science’ in science fiction is only a backdrop for the fiction. So, science fiction at its best is simply fiction with science used as a setting for telling tales that are catalysts for examining society and the ‘human condition’. That is where sci-fi triumphs over the other forms of fiction. Science fiction can look into the future and see what might be, while other fiction genres are limited by what is. Science fiction can serve as warning about the future, or can be a guide to great things to come. It, more than any other type of fiction, can inspire people to look to the future with hope, while still guarding against evil. It can bring out our best, or show us our worst. It helps us not to be defined by our own limitations. It may even allow us to act proactively to make a future rather that simply react to the present.
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As I write, it is June 6th, 2019. 75 years ago today a multinational force of free men threw themselves onto heavily defended beaches in the Normandy region of France. The Nazi forces defending those beaches had had years to prepare their defenses and had used that time well. Artillery had already been ranged on potential landing areas, machine guns had been placed to sweep every inch of the beaches with interlocking fields of fire, and landmines had been positioned to channel allied troops into the machine gun fire. The beaches of Normandy had been turned into vast killing zones. The American, British, Free French and Canadian troops in the landing craft knew this and so did the troops from the many other nations in the landing force. They attacked anyway. Granted, many of them had been drafted into military service, but many had volunteered. Of those that had been pressed into service very few had refused to answer the call, fewer still actually tried to avoid that service. Draftees or volunteers, they did what rightness and morality demanded. They fought evil on behalf of those who could not fight it themselves. Free men took up arms and to liberate others and were willing to die for that cause. For most men of that generation, to do anything else was unthinkable. Men were expected to be the protectors of those weaker that themselves. They were expected to be competent defenders of themselves and their families. It times of trouble, they banded together to protect their communities. Such men respected themselves and others and demanded the same consideration from those around them. Such men raised their sons to 'men', not just 'males.' By this I mean that one can have the necessary mechanics of nature to be a male of the species, but cannot rightly be called a man in the sense of having traditionally masculine virtues such as courage, honor, personal responsibility, self discipline, respect for others, and strength not only of body, but also of mind and spirit. Without those attributes one is a male but he is not, in any real sense, a man. There are still such men today. You'll find them in military service as well as in fire and police departments. But you'll also find such men mowing the lawn of and infirmed, elderly neighbor for free. You can see them opening doors for ladies. You may find such a man allowing a mother with several young children in tow to go ahead of him in a supermarket checkout line. In more extreme case you'll see true manhood in a young high school student tackling a gunman who is attacking classmates. This breed of man is becoming rare but it does still exist. However, in this age of moral decay the virtues of manliness are increasingly being redefined as vices. Some women are now offended if a man shows them the simple courtesy of opening a door for them or pulling their chair at a dinner table. Worse, some young males have never been taught these simple courtesies. Boys are no longer taught to defend themselves and their families with any degree of skill. Instead, when natural male aggressiveness asserts itself, it is random and pointless instead of being channeled into self-defense or the defense of others. Instead of being proud of themselves and their accomplishments boys are taught to act like girls or simply retreat into themselves and suppress their natural male assertiveness. This prevents boys from becoming men. It produces angry, confused and violent adult males who manifest what is called 'toxic masculinity.' Where would civilization be if it not for traditionally masculine men? Would slavery still be a legal institution in the United States? Would Europe be under the control a Nazi empire while Asia lived under a Japanese imperial boot? Masculinity cannot be toxic any more than femininity can. Both can be corrupted and misdirected but they cannot be toxic in and of themselves. When a male of the species beats his helpless wife it is not a masculine act. It is an, criminal, immoral, and cowardly act that is fundamentally unmanly. When a boy is bullying other children he is not showing inherent masculinity. He is manifesting primal male drives that he must be taught to process and control within a framework provided by traditional masculine virtues. If he does not receive this instruction he will almost certainly remain a bully and never become a man. The men who assaulted the beaches on D-day were not toxic males. They were men in the truest, purest sense and they fought to drag a rouge 'male' named Adolf Hitler out of his seat of power along with the other evil males of the species he had surrounded himself with. I think that we, the citizens of all of the nations whose sons killed and died on those Normandy beach three quarters of a century ago must ask ourselves: if an evil on the level of Nazi Germany arose again, would me have enough actual men to effectively oppose it? Looking at the current geopolitical state of the world today the answer to that question might determine our fate as free people. Are you a victim? Would you like to be? For many people today the answer to those questions is: 'yes.' Today being victimized is not seen as a negative. It is a path to fame, notoriety and even prestige. A generation of Americans, perhaps even two generations, have been taught to be victims. Worse, they have been taught to seek self-definition through being perceived as victims. The victimization does not have to occur through physical force. It can take place via bullying on social media, or the display of ideas or beliefs that the would-be victims disagree with. Confronting a person with facts that make him uncomfortable can provide victimhood credentials as well. A false equality between offense and victimization has been created in the minds of a spiritually and mentally addled segment of society who's only true victimization has been inflicted by a media complex and an educational system that both profit by weakening peoples' sense of individuality and self-reliance. This weakening is deliberate. Not only does being identified as a victim bring a person sympathy and prestige, it also wins you allies who, despite the social status being a victim bestows, attempt to protect the multitudes of willing victims from whatever real or imagined threat they may perceive. Often this protection is in the form of ever expanding governmental power. The effort to protect everyone from any form of offense that might qualify as victimization causes governmental power to expand and individual liberties, particularly the rights of free speech and self-expression to suffer. So, as this 'victim culture' grows, society as a whole is harmed. (Do I dare I say victimized?) If being a victim is desirable, then being weak must also be desirable. Mental and spiritual weakness then becomes pervasive until a society loses its will to innovate, create and even to survive. While being a victim has become prestigious, it is still socially stigmatizing to be a victimizer. This means that no one dares criticize any other person for fear of being labeled as a victimizer while, at the same time, the accused victimizer is seeking someone to accuse of victimizing them. This results in an endless web of ongoing conflict that can be physical, mental or spiritual in nature. Instead of taking steps to end their victimization the slaves of the victim culture cope by finding others that they can victimize themselves. Laws and governmental regulation cannot stop one individual from victimizing another. As individuals we, each of us, are responsible for our own physical, mental and spiritual well being and safety. If we do not accept that responsibility then we doom ourselves and everyone else to a lifetime of despair, distrust, and recriminations. When you allow someone to make you feel like a victim you are, in fact, victimizing yourself. If someone wants to victimize you make them earn it. Don't simply accept victimization in hopes of gaining sympathy that you can use to manipulate others for your benefit. The pain of those who have actually been victimized (that is physically harmed or having suffered a truly traumatizing event) is being trivialized by people who claimed to have been victimized simply by being exposed to opinions they disagree with or by being criticized in any way. Someone seeing a sign for a political candidate they despise is not equivalent of being attacked and beaten. A person being confronted by the fact that they are male when they self-identify as female is not the same as being raped. Being 'triggered' by facts and frothing with unjustified indignation does not make anyone a victim because they have not been harmed; they have been offended. Being offended does not mean you have been harmed; it only means you have been upset or perturbed. Being perturbed does not entitle anyone to greater social status or special rights. This is especially true for those who are constantly looking for something new to be perturbed about and lack the discipline or will to develop the mental toughness and strength of will to cope with even slightest challenge to their ego. A condition now exists that rewards victimization with adulation while anyone who asserts sovereignty over themselves and is capable of governing their passions is derided and shunned. When strength, be it physical, metal or spiritual is no longer considered a virtue and weakness in any form is exulted a society will rot. The victim mentality is virulent and incredibly destructive. Not only does it weaken a society it places an undue burden on those who have retained their personal strength and creative drive. It is this breed of person whose efforts move society forward even when saddled with the weaker hangers-on who claimed to be victimized by the stronger individuals on whom they depend upon to maintain civilization. In the end, the segment of humanity claiming victim status when they have not actually been harmed are simply a multitude of like-minded weaklings who define themselves by what they hate and not by what they love. By seeing themselves as victims of forces outside themselves they can project the blame for their own shortcomings and failures. They will inevitably destroy themselves of course. I wonder, however, how much damage they will have already done. A persistent rumor has immerged on the internet. It postulates the demise of the Marvel Comics as a publisher of traditional, printed comic books. There is probably some truth to this rumor as sales of comic books from all publishers have been in steady decline for years. This decline is occurring despite the huge success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which is based on characters that first appeared in traditional Marvel comic books. If Marvel falls DC comics, the other major comic book publisher, will almost certainly follow. The prospect of a world without the traditional comic book saddens me even though I gave up reading and collecting comic books more than twenty years ago. Until the early nineties I was an avid comic book fan. The weekly trip to my local comic book shop (which has now been closed for years) was almost always the highpoint of any given week. My reasons for abandoning comic books were partially financial and partially related to changing content as comic book creators moved to catering to younger readers and let the previous decades of story continuity fall by the wayside and take older fans like me with it. But I took comfort in the fact that, somewhere in the world, there was a child curled up under a dining room table or in that little space between the back of the sofa and living room wall with a stack of comic books getting lost in tales of heroism and world-saving. But, very soon, there may not be any such children because there may not be any of the old-style comic books. Even if the traditional, printed comic book goes away the medium will likely still survive in the form of graphic novels. However, graphic novels are not intended for younger readers and are usually quite expensive for younger people to afford. The subject matter is usually intended for people in their late teens and early twenties and is sometimes too graphic for younger ages. Older teens and people in their twenties were always the target audience for comic books but until relatively recently the content was not violent or sexually explicit enough as to be inappropriate for young children. Graphic novels today are usually not safe for those under the age of twelve years. So, while graphic novels may preserve a remnant of the comic book medium, it will only be a remnant. Another possible reprieve for the traditional comic book may be the farming out the franchise rights of individual characters to small sub-contracting publishers. This may preserve the characters to a degree but I doubt that those sub-contractors will show the love that the old comic book creators like San Lee, Jack Kirby, Marv Wolfman, Bob Cane and other giants of the industry showed. If the rumored demise of the traditional comic book turns out to be true the end of a spectacular era is near at hand. I honestly believe that I would be functionally illiterate were it not for comic books. When public schools attempted to teach me to read they did so with State approved reading material that was a boring as it was insulting to my intelligence. One particular piece of approved reading I recall involved a boy rowing a boat across a pond. The story (if you could call it that) never said why he was rowing across the pond and he didn't do anything when he got to the other side. Even in the first grade I remember finishing that reading assignment and asking myself: 'what was the point?' I then went home and reveled in the heroic and well written (yes I said 'well written' while referring to comic books) tales of the Avengers as they battle the likes of Count Nefaria and Kang the Conqueror. Comic books were not the only reading material I had at home. My mother and a beloved uncle kept me constantly supplied with science fiction novels and 'How and Why Wonder Books' (a science magazine for young people.) But it was comic books that kept me reading. They taught me new words and exposed me to ideas that I might not have otherwise encountered. Life (and reading) would have been far less interesting without comic books. Today most young people are familiar with great characters like Captain America and Superman only from movies, video games and television. Many are only vaguely aware that those characters have existed in the pages of comic books for many decades. This is sad because the prose and artwork in comic books engage the imagination in ways that neither the big or small screens can. The reader's imagination has to fill in the space between panels, and between issues. The artwork inspires a visceral response on a different level than a CGI created images on film. The CGI created images and spoon-fed plots of films has made the collective imagination of humanity flabby and atrophied. Comic book inspired video games have replaced dreams of fantastic, heroic deeds and villainous plots. Imaging is done for our children and human imagination is no longer being as thoroughly exercised as it once was. This is doing great harm to our society. Imagination is the foundation of innovation. Innovation is the foundation of progress. If the active use of imagination becomes the province of only a select few (such as movie makers and video game designers) the civilization dies. The death of traditional comic books, if it occurs, would be a symptom of deeper cultural rot. Not only are comics not being read as much as they once were, but reading in general is decline as the new entertainment media deliver faster gratification with less effort. Reading, any reading, sparks imagination at in profound way that film and digital media cannot rival. As the love of reading diminishes in society so too does the use of imagination. As imagination dwindles creativity dwindles with it. Without creativity society inevitably decays. Comic book publishing is a business and businesses must earn a profit. Most times a business must earn a substantial profit if it is to survive in today's corporate environment. Given today's corporate environment it's unlikely that comic books will survive in the traditional form. But an effort must be made to save them. This effort must be made for those children whose imagination has not yet been crushed by the materialistic, group-think driven culture that has taken root in the 'developed' countries. If we can save comic books perhaps we can revive the industry. From there, the flame of imagination may yet be rekindled. On February 22, 2019 ten men broke in to the North Korean embassy in Spain, tied up the staff and beat them. One of the staff members managed to free herself and summon help. However, when police arrived to investigate, they were greeted by a Korean man who told them that all was well. Since the alleged crime was occurring on the grounds of a foreign embassy, the responding police could do nothing but leave and file a report. The embassy assaulters then fled after holding and interrogating the staff members for four hours or more. Spanish officials are investigating the possibility that the American Central Intelligence Agency was involved in this violation of the sovereignty of two nations, one of which is a United States ally. The American media covered the ongoing and comparatively unimportant Paul Manafort controversy in extraneous detail while paying no attention whatsoever to what could, on a bad day, be construed as an act of war. Over the last few weeks India has launched airstrikes on Pakistan in retaliation for a suicide bomb attack and Pakistan retaliated by shooting down an Indian Air Force fighter. Both countries (which are both nuclear powers by-the-way) are still on high alert. So we have two counties with nukes that are just one harsh look away from a real, honest-to-God shooting war. The American media, is still spending hour upon endless hour speculating about possible (and increasing unlikely) collusion by President Trump with Russia during his presidential election campaign. This continues rather any new, actual information is revealed or not. Let's face it folks, unless Trump is actually indicted or subject to a legally viable impeachment, the endless droning on about what might, maybe, possibly could happen is a stupid distraction. Massive unrest in France in the form of the 'Yellow Vest' movement has been going on for months and its populist message is spreading throughout Europe and straining the already tenuous cohesion of the European Union itself. Venezuela continues its descent into barbarism while its despotic leaders deny safe passage to humanitarian aid shipments of food and medicine and willfully allow their people to starve and die of disease. After having to force themselves to cover any thing not directly related to Trump destruction the masters of teleprompter reading chose to cover the story of a bunch of rich people bribing officials from various prestigious universities to get their children admitted into those institutions. Is anyone really shocked by this? Rich people would never use their wealth to achieve their personal goals in an unethical fashion, right? Seriously? Much has been said about 'fake' news over the last two years. I submit that rather news is fake or not isn't the real problem. At least, it isn't the whole problem. The old media establishment is the most prominent entity pointing the accusing finger of fake news at the less institutionalized 'new media.' I submit that the problem with old school media isn't that they purvey fake news (although they clearly sometimes do.) I say that the problem is that main-stream media often chooses present only irrelevant and superfluous news. If it bleeds, it leads. If it's salacious it sells and attracts advertisers. 'Real' news is boring. Real news requires thoughtfulness, knowledge, and an understanding of history and geo-politics to fully grasp. The media-government complex does not want the public to have any of these traits. They want the few people who actually make an effort to be informed to view the news as they would a soap opera: an entertaining narrative that can be processed on an emotional level but not necessarily on a rational one. The media and their governmental contacts count on the public having the attentions span of gnats. Mark Twain once said 'If you don't read the news papers you are uninformed. If you read the news papers you are misinformed.' This is essentially still correct. I would say however, that if you don't consume any modern corporate media you're uniformed. If you get your news from modern corporate media you are informed about largely transient and trivial distractions disguised as news. Not being controlled by mega corporations, small alternative outlets such as We Are Change.org and Tim Pool are free to circumvent the trap of covering only those stories that are commercially attractive to advertisers, simply meaningless, or oversimplified. I think it’s a good rule-of-thumb is to spend maybe fifteen minutes a day with CNN, Fox News and the like and see what the incestuously related government and corporate establishments want you to see and then go online to alternative media and find out about the important stuff. Genre': as an author, I’ve come to hate that word. In theory categorizing fiction according to a specific type of content is a good idea. Readers can go into a bookstore, library, or an online book seller and quickly find what the subject matter they like to read without slogging through a lot of books they have no interest in. But the first groups of relatively broad genres weren’t enough. Soon there were sub-genre’s by the dozen and it became unclear what fictional stories belonged in what genre'. Were the ‘Harry Potter’ books young adult or urban fantasy? Are works like ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Martian’ science thrillers or are they Science Fiction. Would you call Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ‘John Carter: Warlord of Mars’ fantasy or science fiction? Would Alistair MacLean’s ‘The Guns of Navarone’ be called a thriller or historical fiction? In trying to make the water in the literary pond clear have we, in fact, churned up the bottom of the pond and made the water almost totally opaque? In most libraries the fantasy books are in the same section as works of science fiction are. The works of the late spy novelist Robert Ludlum can be found alongside the crime novels of the late crime fiction master Robert B. Parker. In my mind, the works of these two highly successful authors bear little resemblance to each other. Yet, despite the fact that they are supposedly of two different genres, they are lumped together on the shelves anyway. Ludlum wrote “thrillers”. Parker Wrote “Mystery/detective” books. These two genres have many similar elements and therefore overlap in terms of readership demographics. Just as the science fiction genre and fantasy overlap in the demographics of their readers. This forces us to ask: does pigeonholing fiction in vaguely defined genres accomplish anything? When it came to list my first novel ‘The Fate of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha Book One’ on Amazon picking a genre’ and, at Amazon’s insistence, sub-genres for the book was daunting. “Is it science fiction?” I asked myself. “Yes,” I responded, “but it has elements of dystopian fiction and military thriller as well.” I discussed this with myself for about an hour as I went through Amazon’s list of genre’s (or sales nodes as I’m told Amazon calls them) before I finally sent my suggestions off to the publisher. I was still not entirely certain about my final choices. Later, when the sequel to Fate of Nations: Blood and Treasure was released the agonizing genre’ selection process was repeated; resulting in a book set in the same fictional universe and about the same characters being listed in different set of genre’s and sub genres. It turns out that not only are genre’s not well defined, but there is also no definitive list of existing genres; they can be willed into and out of existence at the whim of pretty much anyone. (I’m still not sure if urban fantasy and modern fantasy are the same genre or separate genres). Add Amazons subdivided and compartmentalized genre’/node system and you get books buried under layers of ill-fitting constraints as potential readers dismiss or just don't see excellent stories because they didn’t happen on the right genre or the author or publisher didn’t choose the genre that was trending the week of the book’s release. We humans tend to want to categorize everything. In the case of literature we do ourselves a disservice, I think. I'm an old comic book fan. I remember paying twenty-five cents for comic books at PJ's Market in Delroy, Ohio. I remained an avid fan and collector of comic books well into the 90s. I stayed with comics until Marvel decided to abandoned the old-time fans like me and scrap decades of continuity and characterization in favor of younger readers. I was a comic book fan before it was trendy and my favorite comic book was the Uncanny X-Men. I became an X-Men fan when the book was at its creative peak with Chris Claremont as its writer and the great John Byrne doing the art. I loved the X-Men for the great characterizations and character interactions. In the pages of X-Men I discovered that comic books could be more that 'villain of the month' stories. I waited for each issue not just to see Magneto be defeated or if the Hellfire club would get away with their nefarious plans. I wanted to know what was going on in the day-to-day lives of the X-Men. Would Scott and Jean find happiness? Would the team eventually come to understand Wolverine's personal code of honor? Would Storm ever really adjust to life in the United States? The pesky super villains were sometimes a mere side-note. The X-Men became friends of mine. I cared about them. When Marvel made that huge shift away from the continuity of old I lost interest in comics, (even though I still read some DC and independent comic books.) It seemed like my old friends from Marvel had been replaced by imposters, though. I tried to like the reinvented versions of my Marvel friends but I never developed any emotional investment in them. So I read and re-read my old comics books as though they were family journals. When I heard about the first X-Men film my interest was piqued but I was skeptical. Although the casting of Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier as brilliant as it was obvious, the rest of the cast seemed problematic. I remember seeing some pre-release publicity stills and being underwhelmed with the costuming. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by the film. Budgetary constraints and cosmetic concerns aside, the film at least made an attempt at capturing the X-Men as characters. I could, at least, see shades of my old fiends from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The first X-Men movie was not a great movie, but it was a good film and it tried to capture the essence of what made the X-Men great while making necessary changes for the feature film medium and keeping to a fairly modest production budget. The second X-Men film X2: X-Men United was, in reality, the first Wolverine movie, but it too made an effort to preserve the spirit of the classic X-Men comic books. It had a bigger budget than the first film but didn't use that to pack the screen with over-the-top CGI and gratuitous action scenes. I still rank it in my top twenty favorite movies of all time. I could see the X-Men from my childhood in the second film like I had in the first because the story revolved around characters. I was, to my surprise, happy with the first two X-Men movies. Then it happened: X-Men: The Last Stand. Last Stand was aptly named. It was the last stand for good X-Men movies. This movie proceeded to undo all the good the first two movies had done. When I heard that Kelsey Grammer had been cast as Beast I was hopeful. But, although Grammer nailed the role, he could not save a truly terrible script. It still baffles me as to why director Brett Ratner and writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn felt the need to kill off Cyclops and Professor X. The story was devoid of any kind of narrative flow and there was virtually no characterization. I left the theater shaking my head and wanting urgently to immerse myself in my X-Men back issues. Seeming to have realized their mistake with Last Stand, Fox Studios did a kind of soft reboot of the X-men with X-Men: First Class, which took us back to the founding of the X-Men in the 1960s. I found this movie to be decently entertaining, but it never felt like the X-men to me. The only really interesting moments in the film involved the strained friendship between Professor X and Magneto. The rest of the characters had no life in them. They were just there. I had given up hope on the X-men movie franchise. But I still had my back issues. I still haven't seen X-Men: Days of Future Past because I wanted to remember the comic book story arch without the taint of I'm fairly certain is a botched screen adaptation. I endured X-Men: Apocalypse about a year ago while recuperating from an immobilizing injury and was stunned but not surprised at just how horrible that film is. There was no attempt at characterization and the plot, if it can rightly be called that, was thread-bare. I still wonder why they even bothered including the Psylocke character in the movie. I believe that the only reason the character was included was to add a well-love character name from the comic books to the film's publicity campaign. It seems that, after Brian Singer left the franchise, no one cared about doing the X-Men well anymore and counted on the X-Men brand to sell itself. If the rumors about the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix are even remotely true that trend will continue and worsen. Yet, there is hope. It's already too late for Dark Phoenix, but with the coming merger of Disney (and therefore, Marvel) with Fox studios the X-Men will likely be rebooted by Marvel Studios. While not perfect, Marvel Studios has given us the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The films of that line have, for the most part, done a very good job at mixing the continuity that old codgers like me love while updating the characters and stories to appeal to those who have to yet completed two decades of life. Let's hope that they can do the same thing for the X-Men (and, for that matter, the Fantastic Four.) I have an unrealistic hope that we will see some of the stories from the Claremont/Byrne era brought to life with the (judicious I hope) use of modern CGI effects. I would go totally and utterly fanboy if they took three or four films to tell the Dark Phoenix saga in a way that was remotely similar to what was written by Chris Claremont. A well done depiction of the epic, climactic struggle between the Shi'ar Imperial Guard and the X-Men on the Blue Area of the moon as depicted in X-Men 137 would send me into cheering, euphoric glee! So I hope the X-Men reboot will be done by people who love the characters and actually want to tell good stories. The X-Men can be great again because they have always been great. The problem has been that the people behind most of the films could not live up to that greatness. But, with my favorite mutants coming home to Marvel, I have reason for optimism. The people behind the MCU have a pretty good track record so far. Anyone reading this blog might disagree with it. Since I always place links to my blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Minds and a few other social media platforms some readers might hit the little 'thumb down' button to express their dislike for what I've written. While I'd certainly prefer them to click the 'thumb up' button, they are free to click the thumb down button. This blog, after all, is about my opinions and the exchanging of opinions. Any feedback I receive is, therefore, useful and appreciated (by me at least.) It would seem, however, that there are those that do not want people to be able to express their negative opinions about any online content. It seems that YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms want to remove the thumb down button or the various equivalents thereof. The huge and easily predictable backlash against the Gillette 'toxic masculinity' ad produced a great many clicks of YouTube's thumbs down button. So, of course, Gillette and YouTube naturally concluded that a conspiracy of (probably white) toxic males formed a 'dislike mob' to produce thousands upon thousands of thumb down clicks. The avalanche of 'dislike' votes couldn't possibly have been because the ad insulted and stereotyped millions of their customers while at the same time questioning their integrity and slandering their character, after all. If a pseudo-intellectual progressive idea is expressed by socially detached elitist public relations/propaganda specialists from K-Street, Silicon Valley, or Madison Avenue then the peasants that live between the coasts had damn well better accept that ideological message as gospel! However, since massed media backed social engineering hasn't quite turned the entire American population into brain-dead zombies that accept whatever the mind-control engineers want to jam between their ears and a part of that population even has audacity to express their unfavorable opinions of the never ending flow far-left ideology that streams forth from the media-academic complex, the propaganda purveyors have come up with a way of stifling such unenlightened expressions of discontent. They could have presented a reasoned, logical argument in defense of the Gillette ad's content. They could have issued a genuine apology to those the ad offended. Even offering a cogent explanation as to why they thought it would be a good idea to alienate their customers would have made a degree of sense. Gillette and YouTube did none of these things. Their brilliant and enlightened solution for a progressive idea being thumbed-down on social media is to remove the thumb down button from social media platforms. That way the great unwashed masses in fly-over country cannot disturb the progressive elite's calm with their stone-aged opinions. Yes, just deny people the means of expressing their dislike and the reasons for that dislike will just go away. There is actually serious discussion going on at the major social media companies about removing the dislike/thumb down feature from the platforms so that content cannot receive too (as in any) negative votes. Many online news sites have already removed their comment sections in order to prevent the views being expressed in their articles from being challenged. It may soon be that even expressing general dislike for content will be impossible. Welcome to the information age dear reader! I'm sure such suppression of ideas has been perpetrated by the political right in some cases, but removing the means of ideological expression has become the default response of the progressive left when confronted with ideological challenges to its agenda. The deplatforming of Alex Jones and the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson are only two examples such a response. If the removal of the thumb down button becomes reality the social media giants will effectively be unplatforming just about everyone. This especially true if you consider the crackdown by social media companies on whatever they arbitrarily deem to be 'fake news' or 'conspiracy theories.' Who makes those determinations and how are such determinations made? Who (or indeed what) are the gatekeepers? For the every-man outsider looking in there is no way to decide for themselves what is genuine or not and, if the thumb down button is removed, the average person won't even be able to express even the slightest indication of dissatisfaction. Perhaps YouTube should change its name to 'NOTYouTube and Facebook should rebrand itself as 'Falsebook.' With the possible (I say again, possible) exceptions of Minds, Gab, and Snippy, YouTube and the other social media giants can no longer rightly call themselves social media. They are propaganda platforms. Any freedom of expression that remains on these platforms remains only because the progressive forces that control them have not yet found any legal and/or financially tenable way of removing it. I'm sure they're working very hard on getting rid that pesky little modicum of intellectuall integrity, though. In a recent interview in Digital Spy Sonequa Martin-Green of Star Trek: Discovery came to the defense of Jodie Whittaker's portrayal of Doctor Who saying that she was not surprised at the fan backlash against Whittaker as the first female Doctor Who. She also talked about the 'vitriol' directed at her character when she was cast in the lead role in Discovery, sighting her race and gender as the reason for such vitriol. I however, think that she is misinterpreting the fan reactions to both Whittaker's casting and her own. Science fiction fans, particularly Star Trek fans, have always been very receptive to all races, colors, creeds and genders as characters. Sexism and/or racism were not the cause of the chilly reception given to Discovery's first season by long-time Trek fans, nor was it the source of the adverse reaction by fans of Doctor Who to Whittaker. I can't speak to the quality of Whittaker's Doctor Who performance as, not being a 'Whovian' myself, I have never followed the show. However being a dedicated Star Trek for as long as can remember (the first TV show I clearly remember watching as a child was the original Star Trek) I can say my intense dislike for Star Trek: Discovery in general and the Michael Burnham character in particular had nothing to do with her sex or race. The problem was that show as whole was badly written and the worse writing was reserved for the Burnham character. I think this view is shared by a great many life-long Star Trek fans. However there was, and is, another source of fan discontent that is indirectly related race, gender, and individual social identity. What many fans resented was being told that they had to like the Michael Burnham character simply because she is an African American woman. The message was that disliking or criticizing the character or the actress who pays that character made them racist, sexist, and/or 'toxic' fans. The technical term for this line of reasoning is 'bullshit.' An entire book could (and probably will) be written about Discovery season one's gaping plot-holes, directionless narrative, and complete disrespect for and disregarding of the Star Trek continuity established over five decades, but those factors were only part of why the show was rejected by core Trek fans liked myself. Having social justice virtue signaling jammed down our throats pissed us off because it is not only completely unnecessary it is also insulting. Long-time Star Trek fans didn't to be sold on the idea of social diversity. We have been sold on that idea since 1966. Actually, most science fiction fans were likely sold on the idea before that. But the makers of Discovery decided that having an African American female lead and a gay couple on the show would insulate them from any and all criticism because anyone criticizing the show would instantly labeled as racist, sexist or homophobic and intimidated into silence. To make these accusations against Star Trek fans (with the exception of the small, unenlightened segment of the fandom which can be found in any group of people) is ridiculous. Aside from Nichelle Nichols' and George Tekei's prejudice-challenging rolls of Lts. Uhura and Sulu on the original Star Trek, we also saw Kate Mulgrew as Captain Katherine Janeway: a decidedly female starship captain. Star Trek gave us Avery Brookes as Captain Ben Sisko, the African-American commander of Deep Space Nine. Rolls for non-Caucasians portraying accomplished people in positions of power and influence were so common in the Star Trek franchise they became accepted as matter-of-fact. Fans accepted such characters easily cheerfully. From the brilliant but mentally ill computer genius Richard Daystrom (Richard Marshall) in TOS' The Ultimate Computer to Commodore Stone (Percy Rodriquez) in the TOS episode Court Martial, to Admiral Cartwright (Brock Peters) in the Star Trek Films, these characters were simply accepted by Star trek fans because there were, for the most part, well written, believable and played by talented performers. The Star Trek franchise also gave us the Trill: a race of symbiotic beings that are placed inside consenting humanoid hosts. Much longer lived that their hosts, the symbiotes would be placed into one body after another as host bodies aged and died. Those hosts could either be male or female; meaning that the symbiote could live one humanoid lifespan in a male body and then be transferred into a female body as part of an ongoing series of transplants into bodies of either sex. This is clearly a sc-fi twist on trans-genderism. The beloved Deep Space Nine character of Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) portrayed a symbiote-carrying Trill as one of the show's main characters. I hate to burst Mrs. Martin-Greene's bubble but her role as the African American woman Michael Burnham isn't exactly groundbreaking. If you think about it it's not even noteworthy. Let me be clear: I'm discussing the Michael Burnham character here, not Martin-Greene herself. She seems to be a fairly competent actress. The character she portrays, however, is poorly written, implausible, and unrelatable. The fact that Martin-Greene is female and African American doesn't alter those facts and isn't an automatic shield from criticism. I wanted to like Discovery. I tried to like Discovery. It was supposed to be Star Trek and I love Star Trek. Discovery isn't Star Trek and I don't think it ever can be. The disregard for the tried and true Star Trek 'canon' is the main reason for perennial Trek fans abandoning the series, but the bad writing, lack-luster directing, and overreliance of CGI fueled action sequences are also contributing factors to the show's lack of traction with fans. Even a cursory look at the history of the fandom will tell you that the negative fan reaction to Discovery has little or nothing to do with any kind of prejudice. The fact is that CBS told us we were getting a new Star Trek show, but what they gave wasn't Star Trek. CBS needs to find a creative team that knows Star Trek, loves Star Trek, and actually wants to do Star Trek. The current creative forces behind Discovery meet none of those criterion. To the makers of Discovery I say this: admit the problems, fix the problems, (if they can be fixed) and stop making excuses. Most of all stop denying the problems while insulting and slandering the loyal fans that have allowed Star Trek to endure for fifty years. Over the weekend I watched the classic Clint Eastwood western Hang 'Em High. The film is about Deputy Marshal Jed Cooper tracking down the men who attempted to lynch him. I've seen this film dozens of times but this time a few scenes brought forth a train of thought that's been lingering at the back of my mind. The scenes involve the character of Judge Parker. (Masterfully played by Pat Hingle.) These scenes were fairly typical depictions of courts in the old west and showed people standing when the judge entered and left the courtroom and being addressed as 'your Honor.' I asked myself: why we do show judges and other legal officials such personal deference? Why don't we just call judges Sir, Mister, Ma'am or other more common honorifics. This led me to another question: are we honoring the law and the constitutional principles on which it is based or we honoring the individual that is interpreting that law? Are we a nation of laws or a nation of men? Does the United States have the rule of law or the rule of lawyers? These questions have been an intellectual itch that I've been scratching on-and-off for years. I think it is very hard to reasonably argue that our legal system in the United States does not favor the wealthy. The amount of justice one gets is almost directly proportionate to the amount of money one can spend on lawyers. The letter of the law can be made flexible when enough money is applied to pay lawyers who are skilled enough at manipulating the increasingly complex language used in writing laws. Without years of study the laws that common citizens are bound by cannot be clearly understood by those citizens. There are so many laws that it is very easy to violate one or more of them without realizing it. The average citizen is then dependant on an elite class of people to guard them, not only from the laws that were allegedly passed to protect them, but from other lawyers who have been set against them. Society, it seems, is at the mercy of lawyers. Are our laws made by lawyers for lawyers? Have our laws been written in deliberately technical and commonly incomprehensible language in order to justify the exorbitant fees lawyers charge for their services? Is the almost sacred reverence fostered by the State for the 'rule of law' intended to hide the fact that the American people are not governed by laws but are instead ruled by lawyers? I think that as a people we need to ask and answer those questions. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, 167 member of the house and 55 senators in the 115th congress have law degrees. That's 37.8 percent of the house and 55% of the senate respectively. That’s a lot of lawyers influencing laws that they may one day be paid to support or oppose. If they don't become career politicians, that is. Add this to the fact that many of their staff members are lawyers and lawyers-to-be and the law drifts even further away from the common man. At the federal level the law becomes so voluminous and intricate as to be incomprehensible. The federal government has become so huge itself that it has made many, many citizen almost totally dependent on it for subsistence. Its tendrils reach every level of society and grow ever larger and more penetrating. Government is, in real day-to-day reality, godlike in its power and influence over individual lives. Lawyers are its well paid priesthood who, for a price, will intercede for the plebian with prayers of litigation when the god-State becomes angry. The number of federal laws is so high that it, literally, cannot be counted. Yet, we the people are expected to abide by all of them. If we run afoul of any of them in the fog of legality we must offer a sacrifice to the god-State through the lawyer/priests and hope that our sacrifice is enough to allow our priest-of-the-law to out pray/litigate the lawyer/priests of the god-State itself. Is anyone safe if the law is so complex, expansive and dare I say, esoteric that it cannot be understood clearly by anyone save a small class of people that has formed an elitist, insular culture of its own? If the measure of justice an ordinary citizen can received under the law depends on his financial means and social status does the law really provide justice or is the system merely selling religious dispensations on behalf of a State that is at the head of a de-facto religion? Indeed the very term 'rule of law' implies we are being ruled and not governed by consent as our founding fathers intended. Evil can be legalized. The Jewish Holocaust was legal under Nazi law at the time. The much-reviled and oppressive system of apartheid was, at the time, legal under South African Law. It is legal for the United States government (as well as state and local governments) to take cash and property from American citizens on the mere suspicion of narcotics trafficking. Given enough time and incentive lawyers can make anything legal if it suits their needs or the needs of the State. Is this governance or tyranny? I have no answers that can be quantified but the questions I ask here are none the less valid. I fear that few will ask these questions because that would mean recognizing the problem and recognition would mean taking action to solve it. That would mean a fundamental shift in the status-quo and an approach to governance based on morality and ethics and not easily changed and largely arbitrary legality. Ask the questions, I say, and then demand the answers. Congressional Research Service report link https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44762.pdf How many lawyers in Congress: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/frequent-reference-question-how-many-federal-laws-are-there/ |
AuthorSome weekly musing and occassion rants. |