Starshipsofa stories vol.., p.11
StarShipSofa Stories: Volume 3, page 11
-------------------------------------------
X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes
(1963)
I am very surprised, in this era of remakes, that no-one has thought to update this film. Directed by Roger Corman and starring Ray Milland as Dr James Xavier; this was one of my favourite films as a child. We have naked people (unfortunately only seen from the back) and a man ripping his own eyes out; what more could a young boy want! The story follows the good Dr X as he experiments upon his own eyes. At first he can see through clothes, then into patient’s bodies to diagnose what really ails them, finally he gets to see deeper than he would ever want… Classic quote: “I’ve come to tell you what I see. There are great darknesses. Farther than time itself. And beyond the darkness... a light that glows, changes... and in the centre of the universe... the eye that sees us all.”
-------------------------------------------
Fahrenheit 451
(1966)
Directed by François Truffaut (who notably played Claude Lacombe in 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The story of Guy Montag (played by Oskar Werner) a ‘fireman’ whose job it is to burn books. As one might expect from a French director in the 1960s, a critique of the bourgeoisie is also slipped into Ray Bradbury’s powerful tale of a world where books (and independent thought) are banned. In places the movie is slow moving, but that just seems to emphasise the weight pressing down upon those who will not allow literature to die. However, at times, that weight is lightened by the odd touch of (black) humour. Classic quote: “Well, it’s a job just like any other. Good work with lots of variety. Monday, we burn Miller; Tuesday, Tolstoy; Wednesday, Walt Whitman; Friday, Faulkner; and Saturday and Sunday, Schopenhauer and Sartre. We burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes. That’s our official motto.”
-------------------------------------------
Barbarella
(1968)
Another movie that brings back fond youthful memories… Described by Penthouse as “the kinkiest film of the year”; it is the year 40,000 and Barbarella (a futuristic Bond Girl that has taken on the secret agent mantle herself) is given a mission to find the scientist Durand Durand who is threatening the ancient universal peace. Along the way, Barbarella meets many strange people and finds many opportunities to lose her clothing. OK, this is not a serious film by any stretch of the imagination (but it’s my list) and I do believe that the crazy psychedelic design and over-the-top dialogue makes this a kitsch must-see. Classic Quote: “De-crucify the angel!” “What?” “De-crucify him or I’ll melt your face!”
-------------------------------------------
Slaughterhouse-Five
(1972)
An interesting, if not completely successful, adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel. In it we learn, from the Tralfamadorians, that it is only on Earth that the concept of free will exists. Our hero, Billy Pilgrim, gets to understand this through experiencing his life (and death) out of synch. The central conceit, of a character who has become ‘unstuck in time’, unfortunately leads to the film being a bit too jumpy for many traditional moviegoers; however, it is definitely worth the effort. Apparently, Vonnegut was very happy with the adaptation, and you can’t say fairer than that! For some reason the scene where a young Billy is thrown into the pool to sink or swim has always stuck with me. Classic Quote: “It’s time for me to be dead for a little while. And then live again. I give you the Tralfamadorian greeting: Hello. Farewell. Hello. Farewell. Eternally connected, eternally embracing. Hello. Farewell.”
-------------------------------------------
Westworld
(1973)
Written and directed by Michael Crichton and starring Yul Brynner as the ultimate creepy killer robot (although, disturbingly, I know two people who find him supremely sexy in this role…). The basic premise is of theme parks (there is also a Romanworld and Medievalworld) where robots offer sex and the opportunity to kill an ersatz human; what could go wrong? (Hey Michael, I have an idea, how about another theme park movie, but this time, instead of robots, how about DINOSAURS!… uhm…). This movie combines plenty of action with serious(ish) ideas and some black comedy. There is supposed to be a remake due for release late in 2012, bet the gunslinger is nowhere near as creepy as Yul Brynner! Classic Quote: “We aren’t dealing with ordinary machines here. These are highly complicated pieces of equipment. Almost as complicated as living organisms. In some cases, they have been designed by other computers. We don’t know exactly how they work.”
-------------------------------------------
Zardoz
(1974)
Described as The Wizard Of Oz with sex and murder (by me, just now) this movie stars Sean Connery in a red nappy and Puss In Boots’ thigh high boots, as Zed, an exterminator, culling the inhabitants of the Outlands for his god (the giant floating stone head – Zardoz). Zed learns that Zardoz is just a tool of the immortal and sexless inhabitants of the Vortex and sets out to bring them down. Written and directed by John Boorman, the movie is a psychedelic melange of weirdness that has been accused of being pretentious; maybe it is, but it’s also very cool! Classic Quote: “Penic erection was one of the many unsolved evolutionary mysteries surrounding sexuality.
Every society had an elaborate subculture devoted to erotic stimulation. But nobody could quite determine how this...” [Consuella points to a diagram of a flaccid male penis and scrotum] “...becomes this.” [Consuella points to a diagram of an erect penis and scrotum]
-------------------------------------------
One could look at the list above and conclude that movies of the 1950s were obsessed with the Cold War, the 1960s with sex, drugs and the police state, and the 1970s with what it means to be human. But then, I didn’t mention Forbidden Planet (1956), Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959), The Day of the Triffids (1962), First Men in the Moon (1964), Dark Star (1974) or Logan’s Run (1976); so don’t read too much into a very small sample. See this list as just a toe in the water; and I do hope that it spurs you to dive right in! Go on, search out more of these unregarded gems; they may be dated, they may be naïve; they may make no sense to our sophisticated twenty-first century brains, but, maybe, just maybe, they might make you think…
In the Harsh Glow
of Its Incandescent Beauty
Mercurio D. Rivera
I sprinted through narrow, zigzagging pathways inside the pine-green glacier. I could make out Rossi’s black bomber jacket far behind me, appearing and disappearing with each bend. The air-pulses struck the sides of the walls, sending chunks of ice flying.
I dropped, hugged the frozen ground, and waited.
-------------------------------------------
We landed at the Lassel Airstrip near Axelis Colony where I was sure my wife, Miranda, had arrived a month ago with Rossi. Joriander and Hexa hauled my bags down our seedship’s ramp while I hugged my hooded fur coat tight. Neptune hovered high in the pale viridian sky. Even with the Wergen force field doming this airstrip, Triton’s tenuous atmosphere still mustered a bitter breeze that stung my face like razors.
The three of us trudged across the empty tarmac toward the terminal entranceway. To our left, the towering, cathedral-like glaciers of Triton’s North Pole glittered blue-green, capturing Neptune’s luminescence.
“Here, Maxwell,” Hexa said, removing a leathery scarf and exposing her white-scaled face to the elements. She threw it around my shoulders and pressed close to me – too close, I thought – for a few seconds longer than necessary.
Joriander followed suit, removing his temp-mitts and offering them to me.
I resisted the urge to slap the gloves to the ground. “Knock it off. I’m fine.”
The Wergens hunched their shoulders at my curtness, and I felt a pang of guilt. They continued their steady gait at my side. The ground rumbled and a geyser exploded on the horizon, spewing ice-lava miles into the sky.
Oh, the distances you’ve travelled, Miranda. He’s taken you so far from home. But don’t worry, my love. I’m here now.
After a few paces, Hexa placed her four-fingered hand on my shoulder, letting it linger there. “I wish my people could have produced a more effective field over this area, one that could generate more comfortable temperatures for humans. I apologize.”
“No need,” I said, shrugging off her hand. “After all, where would we be without you?” Probably relegated to digging caves on equatorial Mars, I thought. Wergen fieldtech had opened up every planetesimal in the solar system to human colonization, the limitations of temperature, radiation, gravity and atmosphere all conquered in one fell swoop. Without their help I would never have obtained transport from Earth to Triton to track down Miranda and bring her home.
Joriander removed a jewel-encrusted sphere from his inside robe pocket and tapped several of the gemstones. In response, the terminal’s circular doorway irised open and we entered a cavernous holding area. As soon as the door rumbled shut, a dozen bots, mantis-like devices the size of terriers, skittered towards us. They herded us into an enormous decontamination pen where they scanned our retinas, removed and sterilized our clothes, and ran us through a battery of tests to screen for contagious diseases.
I caught the Wergens staring at me with rapt attention, their large mooning eyes probing my body. I cupped my hands over my crotch. Despite the Wergens’ notorious reticence to discuss their sexual practices, they showed no bashfulness at their own nakedness. They were squat, husky, with reptilian scales speckling their bleached-white skin, and no visible genitalia. Hexa, the female, matched my height, while Joriander, the male, stood a foot shorter. Rumour had it that their sexual organs lay hidden within their flat-topped craniums, which they kept covered at all times, even now, with a leafy headdress. I shuddered. For all of the Wergens’ courtesies, I still felt an instinctive aversion toward them.
But they offered us so much. And I had to do whatever necessary to save Miranda.
One of the bots injected a tracker into my earlobe. Local officials carefully monitored all new arrivals, a practice I was counting on to find Miranda among the hundreds of thousands of Axelis’s inhabitants. The bots then sprayed our naked bodies with a microfilament that produced an electrical field evident only by the faintest of blue tinges.
“This will maintain your body temperature at a more comfortable level,” Joriander said. “We won’t need the heavier protective clothing any more.”
I turned away and donned the standard two-piece blue uniform provided to us, feeling the Wergens’ eyes on my back. The bots then guided us to a raised monorail where the three of us boarded a private railcar headed to Axelis.
We sped above smooth, dark-green ice plains formed over millions of years by a slurry of water and ammonia. And as the minutes turned to hours, the topography below us shifted to a landscape of what I’d heard described as “cantaloupe skin,” an endless expanse of circular depressions separated by deep, rounded ridges. Ahead of us, Neptune crawled across the skyline, growing smaller as it moved to the west but still filling a quarter of the sky. The Great Dark Spot, a massive storm system, stained its southern hemisphere behind half-formed rings.
“A spectacular sight, isn’t it?” Hexa said, leaning toward me.
What did you think, Miranda, when you saw these alien vistas? Did you snuggle in Rossi’s arms? To what extent had the neuromone warped your thinking?
The railcar wound around a bend between two icy mountain peaks and, all at once, Axelis came into view. The settlement sat in the thousand-mile Great Gulch, a valley of endless rows of low, neon-lit hills beneath a silver web of monorail tracks. The wisp of blue from the Wergen force field stretched from one peak to another. Below us, more than five hundred thousand colonists from Earth, Mars and Werg populated Axelis.
Joriander locked eyes with me in an intense manner that made me uncomfortable. “Did you leave it on the ship?” he asked.
I reached down and unzipped the side pocket of my bag, revealing the airpulser. “No, I’ll be needing this.”
Joriander averted his eyes.
-------------------------------------------
An air-pulse whooshed past me and the ground to my left exploded. Another shot rang out and I darted into a crevice in the green ice-wall.
My teeth chattered. I was headed in a dangerous direction, away from Lassel, where the Wergen force field would become more and more tenuous. After a few seconds, I stopped running. Eventually nothing would protect me from the moon’s deadly natural environment. There was no trace of Rossi. No, the sensible thing for him to do would have been to forget about me. But I suppose he was no more sensible than I was when it came to Miranda.
At that moment, he came around a bend, firing.
-------------------------------------------
The slim, seven-foot administrator sported a platinum-blond crew cut and hunched over a com terminal. Her height pegged her as Mars-born. “Yes, they do reside in Axelis.”
“Do you have an address?” I said.
It turned out that Miranda and Rossi had temporarily settled in the Pretori District in southern Axelis. They were on the long waiting list for the Human/Wergen expedition to Langalana, an unexplored but potentially habitable planet hundreds of light years away.
“Thank you for your help,” I said.
“My pleasure to serve, sir.” She bowed dramatically. “Welcome to Triton.”
Joriander, Hexa and I retreated to the rotunda of the Visitors’ Centre. From within this hollowed-out hill, it resembled the lobby of any office building on Earth or Mars except that every human that bustled past us was accompanied by one or two Wergens.
We boarded the jam-packed public monorail to Pretori. A smaller contingent of Wergens wedged in among the Earthers and Martians, their bleached-white faces frozen in ecstasy. Joriander and Hexa also seemed dazed into paralysis by the human crowd while I felt relieved by the brief respite from their constant attentions.
The complex where Miranda and Rossi resided, like all the habitations in Axelis, consisted of a green, rocky knoll drilled with scores of catacombs and caverns. I disembarked from the tram and walked a paved path that snaked up the rocky terrain. Hexa and Joriander, eager to please, as always, lugged my two bags up the side of the hill.
Row upon row of windows pocked the entire hillside, standing out like grids on an emerald anthill. Faces stared from behind them, surveying our arrival. I searched for Miranda’s visage among them, to no avail.
Making our way through criss-crossing catacombs, I asked for directions from passersby until I reached the cavern where Miranda lived. I pounded on the door. When no one answered, I lowered my shoulder into it, but the door held firm.
“Can I help you, sir?” A Martian neighbour poked his long neck out into the corridor at the sound of the commotion.
“I’m looking for the man and woman who live here.”
“Who are you?”
“Miranda’s husband.”
“Her husb- Oh. I see.” The man tilted his head and scrunched his nose in an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“Do you know where they are?” I said.
“They left last week to attend basic training for the Langalanan expedition. They’re due back any day.”
On my adrenaline-high, I had to resist the urge to break down the door anyway. Joriander thanked him for the information and gently pressed his hand against the middle of my back, moving me away. Hexa mentioned that the ships to Langalana departed from the Cipango Planum Plateau in the western hemisphere of Triton, which is where training would take place. Our Joint Venture Agreement with the Wergens required humans to work side-by-side with them on Triton or Europa or one of the other spaceports for at least six months to qualify for these colonization missions. The Wergens provided their tech to humanity: wormhole-generating seedships for intergalactic travel, force field devices, low-level AI bots that performed the physical labour. In return, we gave them our art, our ingenuity, and – what they desired most of all – our companionship.
A trip to distant Cipango Planum risked delaying my reunion with Miranda for weeks if she were already on her way back and I missed her, so, despite my frustration, we were left with no alternative but to settle into the closest available cavern to wait. The Wergens shared the single sleeping room while I camped out on the stone green bench in the living area, staring out a window overlooking the pathway approaching the complex. The cavern smelled musky with a trace of burnt rubber – a sure sign of recently lasered rock. Stoked on stims, which I sniffed at a steady pace, I spent two days observing every approaching individual, hoping to see Miranda’s sweet face, a familiar streak of red hair, her pale, soft skin. Water geysers exploded sporadically on the horizon.
The Wergens prepared meals for me and supplied the stims. When they weren’t engaging me in annoying small talk, they would sit in two chairs and study me silently, a half-smile on their flat faces.
“You’re very diligent,” Hexa said. “Very devoted to your mission. That’s an admirable trait, Maxwell.”
