From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!sf-lovers Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers Title: SF-LOVEVDigest V6 #105 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.340 Posted: Wed Dec 15 04:31:53 1982 Received: Fri Dec 17 01:12:34 1982 >From SFL@SRI-CSL Mon Dec 13 02:27:04 1982 Reply-To: SF-LOVERS at SRI-CSL To: SF-LOVERS@SRI-CSL SF-LOVERS Digest Wednesday, 15 Dec 1982 Volume 6 : Issue 105 Today's Topics: Books - Cherryh's WAVE WITHOUT A SHORE, Robinson's STARDANCE Adams' LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING T.V. - Star Trek The City on the Edge of Forever Movies - Fantastic Voyage, Star Trek, SW/TESB/ROTJ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 9 Dec 1982 23:12-PST Subject: reality as perception From: Tim Mann Another book about reality as the perception of the observer is "Wave Without a Shore," by C. J. Cherryh, which I believe was mentioned here some months ago. --Tim Mann ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1982 10:56 PST From: GMeredith.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest V6 #100 Regarding Stewart Rubenstein's comment on "Stardance". I thought the novel was excellent, with real insight as to the feelings and so-forth of characters involved in such a situation. However, I thought the whole thing became very contrived, pat and simple from the point where the aliens make their entrance. Just too many coincidences for good story--too much like the sort of happen-stance I gripe about in Heinlein in his recent senile stages. The last was a real let-down as I thought the rest of the novel was among the best I have ever read. I am a Robinson addict as well, and would expect something more consistent. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 82 16:25:42-PST (Fri) From: decvax!utzoo!watmath!bstempleton at Ucb-C70 Subject: Re: Fantastic Voyage Well, one thing that Fantastic Voyage never dealt with was that they injected a shrunken 60 gallon drum of water into the guy with the double shrunk submarine. I'm not sure what would happen, but when that water expanded, boy would he have to go to the bathroom something fierce! Brad |-) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1982 11:05:28-EST From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX Subject: re THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER Ellison's original script for this can be found in SIX SCIENCE FICTION PLAYS, one of the few worthwhile anthologies by Roger Elwood. It \is/ a good deal better than what finally came out; it may be too long (though I would think Ellison had enough experience by then that he wouldn't have made that mistake) and definitely would have run way over budget (e.g. a long valley full of huge talking statues). ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 11 December 1982 13:20-EST From: Vince Fuller Subject: STWOK and inconsistancies Date: Thursday, 9 December 1982 16:11-EST From: Alan R. Katz To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-MC Re: STWOK and inconsistancies In catching up on old messages, I came across a message about an inconsistancy in Star Trek II. The message stated that the date on the bottle of Ale said 2283, yet the start of the movie clearly says "In the 23rd century." I suprised no one caught this, but 2283 IS IN the 23rd Century, just as it is now 1982, but the 20th century! No problem here... It's just that if the ale is dated 2283, it can't be all that old if it is still the 23rd century. ------------------------------ Date: 10-Dec-82 15:58:20 PST (Friday) From: Pettit at PARC-MAXC Subject: Star Date 2283 To Alan Katz: it was clear from the original message that the submitter knew that 2283 is in the 23rd century. The message said something about Kirk's expression/comments being indicative of appreciating a RARE OLD bottle of Brandy (or some other kind of aged spirit), not a product aged less than 17 years. This can be explained either by the relativistic effects, by Romulan Brandy (or whatever it was) being fast-aging, or as an inconsequential bug in a movie which can't be expected to be totally consistent. It is NOT due to someone thinking that 2283 was in the 22nd century. --Teri ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1982 0241-EST From: Hobbit Subject: Whew! I just slogged through about a month and a half of back SFL, so please bear with any out-of-date comments. The following is very random: I was surprised to notice, back in the big SF rock discussion, that no one mentioned Judas Priest. Okay, so some of us *don't* listen to high-decibel heavy metal all the time. Anyhow, some of their titles include ''Invader'', something about attacking aliens; ''Metal Gods'', about a time when machines run everything including the human race, and ''Solar Angels''. I could probably dig up more if I pawed through my collection at home. ~=''The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi''? *Which* Skywalker? Okay, so here's another idea: Life was often boring on Luke's home planet, so the inhabitants might have sought out each other for entertainment. A couple of days before the Empire shows up, Luke could have been at a helluva party. So the ''Other'' may indeed be *his* son?? The Force seems to have some hereditary aspects..... I submit that the @= symbol, besides indicating nuclear topics, could indicate a very *large* candle, or megaflame. Gee, if Lucasflicks got their vax on some network or other, think what would we would see on SFL. ''From: spielberg.dagobah@udel-relay''? _H* ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1982 01:32:51-EST From: Ed-Tecot-H at CMU-EE-AMPERE at CMU-10A Subject: SW : Rampid Speculation 1) Assuming that every Jedi has a light sabre, all Darth Vader would have to do was to kill one in order to replace the one he lost to his good side 2) The names in SW seem to be a bit symbolic: Sky Walker Solo Darth Vader (Dark Father?) Maybe some of the others can be interpreted also: Princess Leia Boba Fett Tarkin Also--does Jedi translate? 3) Not only does SW cross with Alice in Wonderland, but also consider C.S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia". The "other" could be the Lion, with Luke, Han, Luke, and Chewie comprising the party of four. -emt ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 82 14:21:08-PST (Wed) From: teklabs!tektronix!rich at Ucb-C70 Subject: Vader death count Here's a question for you SW/SW-TESB/ROTJ fans... how many people in either of the first two movies did Darth Vader actually kill by his own hand? Recall that it was Tarken, not Vader who wasted the planet. I recall only seeing him choke the commander of Leia's ship plus laser blasting a couple x-wings in the trench of Death Star, not to mention alleviating Obi-wan of his material body. Did we see him kill anyone in TESB? Couple of his own commanders? Maybe he isn't as bad as we think? Hell, after all, Luke killed *everybody* in the battle station (death star) by *his own hand*, so he really isn't as good as we want him to be. ------------------------------ Date: 10-Dec-82 00:11-PST From: DAUL at OFFICE Subject: RotJ RFI I have a request for information. Does anyone know roughly when they (the un-specific "they") will start selling tickets for the first day's showing of RotJ? I realize that the readership is from all over the country, but I just want general information (if anyone knew about the SF bay area in particular I would be mighty beholden!) Thanks, --Bi<<< ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 82 8:51:12-PST (Thu) From: harpo!seismo!rocheste!heliotis at Ucb-C70 Subject: Re: No, there is another. I disagree with some of Alexis Layton's opinions. (1) When Luke decided to jump off the ... thing, I think he felt that Vader was getting the best of him, and if he didn't get away from that guy soon, he would be sucked into the dark side of the force; if he had regained his composure, perhaps he would not have had to jump (althought perhaps Vader would have killed him). Also, I think that Luke often cried out Ben's name to keep from thinking about "Poppa Darth", and again, being sucked into the dark side . (Oops! I should have said "(2)" there!) Jim@Ra-cha-cha ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 10 Dec 1982 09:50-PST Subject: More Jedi Stuff From: urban at RAND-UNIX I recently attended the LucasFilms RotJ dog-and-pony show at LosCon, which was by all accounts nearly identical to the presentation at ChiCon (which I managed to miss). Some of the stuff hasn't been mentioned in SFL and might affect people's speculations. The studio has been really good about NOT generating serious spoilers, though. There is at least one other planetfall besides Tatooine and Dagobah, which is the moon of Endor (a very Tolkien name!); this was shot in the redwood country of northern California. Luke is seen (dressed in black) fighting Darth Vader in an as-yet- unenhanced light-sabre duel. "Where did Luke get his light-sabre?" "He makes it". Luke is seen in an elevator with Darth Vader. The elevator is flanked by Royal Shakespeare Company actors in red robes (very striking against the usual imperial black-and-white sets). We are told that these are the Emperor's guards. "Do we see the Emperor in this film?" "Yes." There are indeed new characters in this film, including Admiral Ackbar (available as a bonus from Kenner Toys just like Boba Fett was "pre-released" as a toy before Empire came out). One of these is a woman, named (spelling wrong?) Mom Montha. To show you how the fan mind works, there was a Mom Montha in the ChiCon Masquerade. That's FAST work! "Do we find out who the 'other' is?" "Yes." (strongly implies that "another" is indeed a 'who' and not a 'what'). At Westercon, the following non-answer was given: "Is Darth Vader Luke's father?" "At LucasFilms, we almost always tell the truth." At every presentation, the LucasFilms rep was VERY careful to point out that Obi-Wan will look translucent in the finished film, regardless of how the principal photography looks. "He's still dead, or in heaven or wherever Jedi go when they die". DISCLAIMER: All these quotes are from memory. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1982 2303-EST From: Stephen R Balzac Subject: Light Sabers and caves The object falling past Luke was indeed his hand still holding the light saber (at least so far as I remember). Since the force is a property of all things, not just life, I don't think Luke's mechanical hand will have any effect. As for the cave, I suspect that Luke was supposed to go in there unarmed, and defeat the apparitions that came against him through the use of his own inner strength, not by gross physical means. Thus, his use of a light-saber would indicate a failure on his part because it would show that he lacks confidence in his own inner power. Remember, the cave seems to show each person his own secret fears, which can only be beaten by one's own strength of will, not by outside means. As Salvor Hardin once said, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." Certainly, the Jedi Knights seem to feel the same way. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 82 11:47:44-PST (Fri) From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!orion!lime!we13!otuxa!nwuxc!inuxc!inuxd From: !arlan at Ucb-C70 Subject: Re: Vader death count Looks like the Vader/Tarkin partnership is only slightly ahead in the mass- murder standings, with Mao Tse-Tung socialism next, then Stalin/socialism, followed by Nazi/Socialism, then Alfred Nobel... arlan andrews, abi/btl,indy ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 82 12:50:23-PST (Fri) From: decvax!utzoo!laura at Ucb-C70 Subject: Leia as the other? I never liked the pretentious, vain, haughty princess who seems to toss her brain out the window whenever the going gets tough. I dont care how loyal to the cause and brave she is --- i think that she is also obnoxious. Granted, Luke and Han can act like jerks at times, but at least they appear to be thinking and trying things -- not complaining, criticising and acting like a piece of delicate dresden china. Leia the other?? Oh i hope not! My money is on Chewbacca... Laura Creighton decvax!utzoo!laura (after all, what's a little inter-species prejudice compared with rank xenophobia? How come all the big shots are human?) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 82 3:48-PST From: mclure at SRI-UNIX Subject: Adams book n559 0315 12 Dec 82 BC-ADAMS-12-12 A BOOK REVIEW By Christina Robb (c) 1982 Boston Globe (Field News Service) LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING, by Douglas Adams. Harmony. 227 pp. $9.95. (Christina Robb is Boston Globe staff writer.) I hope somebody figures out a way to make movies out of Douglas Adams' three funny books about Arthur Dent loose in the unvierse. It will be hard, because an awful lot of what's funny is Adams' impeccable narrative sense of when to pun and when to run. There's a scene between a mattress and a robot in ''Life, the Universe and Everything,'' the third and, we are told, final novel about Adams' mild-mannered English hero and his mind-boggling adventures in space, time and restaurants. The mattress-robot scene, which is set in a swamp on the far side of a far galaxy, contains a digression about intergalactic dictionaries and the dialects of mattresses that would never make it into a screen adaption. The 30-year-old Englishman is such a word wizard that you've probably just got to read his books to get it all, but it sure is embarrassing to be riding along to work in the morning on the train or in your car pool, holding this little blue book in your lap and laughing your head off. At least in a movie theater everybody would be laughing with you instead of staring at you. Arthur Dent was minding his own business, trying to prevent a bulldozer from knocking his house down one morning in England's green and pleasant land sometime during the '80s, when a casual acquaintance informed him that the world was about to come to an end and he would help him off. Dent and this acquaintance, a humanoid mongrel from Betelgeuse called Ford Prefect, got off the planet, out of the century and into even more trouble through the entire universe and across a span of approximately 10 billion years. With their two-headed friend, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and his Earthling friend, Trillian, they laughed, cried, drank, ate and very often, startled themselves through the action of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' and ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,'' the first two novels in this trilogy. Now, in ''Life, the Universe and Everything,'' they are joined by Slartibartfast, the Merlin of their company. With cameo appearances in swamps and elsewhere by Marvin, the paranoid robot, they manage to wrest the fate of the universe out of the hands of the gentle people of Krikkit, who believe in ''peace, justice, mortality, culture, sport, family life and the obliteration of all other life forms.'' The Krikkiters really are a lovely lot. They sing carefree, tuneful songs that could make a former Beatle even richer. Their only drawback is that they are obsessed with destroying the universe, which their foggy atmosphere prevented them from knowing was there for the first several million years of their development. Yes, there is an ironic echo of their dire obsession in the English Earthlings' ridiculous game of cricket, and the final act of Krikkit's plot against the universe is played out at Lord's, the London cricket ground. Adams is not just funny. I don't think it's an accident that while I was reading, I thought of the 1936 Olympics, and the South African Springboks trying to play rugby around the world in 1982 while they practice apartheid at home. But he is always funny, never preachy, very smart, and even if he never adds another Arthur Dent book to this universe, science fiction will never be the same. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************