Where No Man, Rover, Nor Impactor Has Gone Before Options

[MiniTES]

How many of you here are Star Trek fans? I've loved watching the original for as long as I can remember.

[edstrick]

Since radio SF depended on words, not visuals, it was nearly as immune to hollywood's "IF IT LOOKS KEWL, DO IT" mentality, which ultimately results in such farces as Bruce Willis in "Armagodawful"

"Mission to Mars" was lame, bad, corny SciFi, but "Armagodawful" was far worse: it was "Skiffy".

That said, it had 3 things <sort of> going for it.

1.) The plot made sense. Sort of. In a testosterone overdosed 13 year old kid's level. I've seen movies that made a LOT less sense.

2.) No matter how meaningless they were, the special effects never looked cheap and cheesy.

3.) The impact on Paris was actually done *RIGHT*... with a view of the ejecta curtain rushing toward the observer on a cathedral's roof <I think> as was the aerial view of the crater superimposed on a blasted cityscape.

[dvandorn]

I grew up as a science fiction fan -- the town library in Normal, IL had a "young people's" section, and I had devoured its science fiction shelves by the time I was eight. I got an adult library card at age 10 and had read Welles and Verne, as well as Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke, by the time I was 11. I had read and enjoyed everything from space opera to cutting-edge speculative fiction by such writers as Ellison and Dick.

I had watched all of the awful sci-fi on TV (and some of the better stuff available at the movies) since I was a small child. I remember Fireball XL-5 (although I was a bigger fan of "Supercar"). My favorite science fiction TV show when I was little was a syndicated piece called "Men Into Space." It was hard sf, following the adventures of one Colonel McCauley as he spearheaded America's first forays into space. I believe it was produced in the late 1950s.

And then, when I was a month and a half short of my 11th birthday, Star Trek premiered. I remember watching the very first episode aired, "The Man Trap," and thinking that this show had some real potential. It was good, entertaining space opera from the get-go, and it had a structure that allowed for the exploration of some fairly intelligent science fiction themes. I was hopeful.

While there were some really poorly-written episodes, there were also some real gems, and I looked forward to seeing Star Trek every week as I grew up. Even the third season, when Roddenberry had abandoned the project and it sank to some new lows, it was still a fun and entertaining show.

And then, just a couple of months after the final original episode of Star Trek was aired, men first walked on the Moon. It seemed appropriate -- we had graduated from the fantasy of space exploration to the reality of men exploring other planets.

We didn't need Star Trek any more -- from now on, we'd be doing it for real.

Yeah, right.

Pardon me while I hunt through my 377 channels for an old Star Trek re-run... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

[Bob Shaw]

I think we're all demonstrating the old adage that the Golden Age of Science-Fiction is...

...twelve!

For my sins, I have been and remain a card-carrying SF Fan, and will be attending WorldCon in Glasgow in August (as I live in Glasgow, it's not exactly hard work getting there, though I confess that I loathe the venue with a passion!). Is anyone else from this august assemblage liable to attend, and - if so - fancy a bheer?

Oh, and before anyone asks, I'm *not* the much-loved SF author of the same name, but am merely the Evil Fake Bob Shaw (don't ask).

My e-mail address is: shaw_bob@hotmail.com