Sci-Fi Malady

Terminator. It is a classic. It is maybe a perfect action science fiction film. Well written, well acted, well produced. Stolen. 

Yes, stolen. You'd have to watch two Outer Limits shows, Demon With a Glass Hand and Solder written by Harlan Ellison, who also wrote Star Trek's City on The Edge of Forever and about 1700 other things, as well as read an Ellison novel I Have No Mouth and Must Scream, to see it, but once you do, you can't not see. 

Demon With a Glass Hand tells the tale of a time traveling cyborg, who looks human, sent back in time to defend the last hope of humanity from invading aliens who have defeated humanity in the future and can seal that victory by winning this last battle in the past. Soldier tells the story of two infantry men from the future who travel back in time to the then present day and end up killing each other. I Have No Mouth And Must Scream tells of a supercomputer that becomes sentient, envelops the other supercomputers and kills nearly all of humanity. 

These things sounds familiar yet. I thought so. Add to this a report of Cameron admitting he drew from Ellison's Outer Limits works and stories and well, you see why Ellison got awarded $65,000 outside of court. 

But here is the real question - does it matter?

Ellison's stories never told the exact tale Terminator does. Each told a separate aspect. Cameron took those disparate aspects and combined then into a mostly, somewhat, unique tale. Is it plagiarism? No. Is it borrowing? Yes. Is Terminator somewhat original? Maybe. 

Is it stolen - you betcha. 

So lets see, we have a child like engineer, an anti-hero gunslinger trying to take whatever odd job he can to make ends meet and preferably get into space and keep flying, a super powerful female character that arrives unconscious in a case after being broken out of government captivity. Our hero is going to protect said superwoman while the galactic government of the many systems tries to hunt her down.

Nope, its not Firefly - its an anime called Outlaw Star.  Did Joss Whedon steal Firefly from this?

No! Not a chance. But that doesn't stop people from seeing the similarities and saying he did. 

But stop, lets say he did get the idea for River Tam from this, and the basic setting of a used future, space western where humanity has colonized many systems and everything is a mix of English and Chinese culture and language...would that make Firefly any less amazing?

To me no. To some maybe and that is at the center of this months topic, Copy Cat August. 

Joss Whedon did not steal Firefly from this terrible anime. Sorry Ragemaster, it is horrible and largely unwatchable. Sorry Anime fans, maybe I (Scott) just don't like Anime. (Sacrilege!!! Fake Science Fiction Fan!!! Fake Nerd!!!!!)

This month we delve into a touchy topic among science fiction fans - borrowing from a past work. If Terminator was inspired by two Harlan Ellison scripts from the Outer Limits does that invalidate the movie? If Joss Whedon ripped off River Tam from a bad anime does that reduce Firefly to garbage or make Whedon a no talent hack? Did these things even actually occur? That's what we discuss this month in Copy Cat August. 

We took a week off to recharge and get ready for next month - Copy Cat August, where we will discuss similarities between sci-fi franchises. For this week, here is a repost of my review of Star Trek V. I also think that soon I will continue reviewing these movies. That could mean August or August 2020, I struggle with the definition of soon. 

We finish off July with a review of the Back to Future series as a whole. We discuss the time machine as a character, the character arcs - or lack of them, some of the gasp, flaws, in the movies, and where it ranks among sci-fi trilogies. 

Back to Future 3 - I hate Clara. I mean, Marty defeats a bear with his shoes, I mean, when did dogs learn to read, or, just Back to The Future 3. 

We discuss why Doc can't remember the other DMC has a full tank of gas, how hover boards move faster than trains and on a more serious note, why two of us hated this movie as kids but love it as adults. Back to Future 3 again becomes a story about people instead of a visually great action romp like 2 was. 

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Back to The Future 2 - the movie that go so much right about the future, but got one important thing wrong (hover boards) and well, other things, like flying cars, but seriously, I want a real hover board. 

This is part two of one of the greatest trilogies of all time...and since Star Wars has become a nine part, well 8 part going on 9 with two spinoff movies and more on the way, maybe the greatest trilogy of all time, but is part two better than part one? It is fun, it is funny, it is an action romp, but it also lacks the human element present in the first movie. Does that make it worse? We kick that idea around and more as we relieve our childhood with Back to The Future 2. 

Back to The Future is a perfect movie. I said perfect. Whatever you think is wrong with it, I don't care, it is perfect. Nope, that doesn't matter, nope, I don't know what you said to your computer or phone or tablet. Don't care. It is a perfect movie. It works as a comedy, science fiction film and has elements of action and drama and at its core is a story about interpersonal relationships between people. The plot drives the story, is free of any movie breaking holes or oversights and has a rewatchability that most films don't approach. It is a fun and engaging film on its first watch and its 100th watch. It gave us five iconic characters, if you count the time machine, and you better if you count the Millennium Falcon as a character in Star Wars.

Are there elements of this film that don't age well or scenes that would be written differently if the movie were made today? Yep, but they don't ruin the movie. All films are products of the cultural and social morals of their time and you can't judge a film by the morality of today. We discuss these, as well as some of our favorite scenes and little background bits you may not have noticed. We also introduce a new segment for this month during the mid show break - Biff's Bits, in which you get advice from the one and only Biff Tannen. 

For July the theme is - Back to The Future. This is one of my all time favorite movie franchises. It is also a favorite among the crew. Rarely do we all agree something is amazing, but we do on this.   For the first three weeks of this months we will review the Back to The Future series. Because we need a fourth week, we found another time travel movie - Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  

I promised a bonus episode and here it is. I could not conclude Sci-Fi Saturday Morning month without discussing Star Trek The Animated Series. It has its flaws, (flat voice acting, Filmation and all that implies) but there is some good Trek in here, dealing with issues of the human condition and how we can be the best society we possibly can. This bonus edition discussing the series in general, is it canon and reviews two episodes - Yesteryear and The Magics of Megas-Tu. Yep, Kirk meets the devil, and he's cool.