December 2006 – Nicolas Demers

The Star Wars Holiday Special

I’d only heard about it, in hushed and disbelieving whispers over the Net. I knew it had aired exactly once around Thanksgiving of 1978 and was apparently made with minimal input from George Lucas—who some say hated it so much he tried to destroy every existing copy, although that seems to be an urban legend. It sounded so horrifyingly bad that I figured I was safer not looking for it.

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My mind is still blown. I think the question to ask here is, “What the fuck?” No, seriously. What the fucking fuck? Why am I watching a dumbass variety show? Why are the Star Wars characters reduced to cameos in their own universe? Did the producers not get what Star Wars was all about, or did they just not care? (I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the people involved really didn’t know what to do with the genre. Legends of the Superheroes—also done in the late 70’s, maybe coincidentally—is another fine example of a geeky concept fucked up all to hell.) We’re stuck with is this cheesy “Life Day” story where the Empire is reduced to a lame plot device, stupid and unscary Stormtroopers, Wookiees howling at each other for an entire scene that went on forever, nauseating schmaltz, and Princess Leia singing. Bleagh.

So, okay, it fails as a Star Wars adventure. What about as a variety show? Well, the extent of my experience in that area is from watching The Muppet Show, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge. But it seems to me the acts should be… oh, what’s the word?… entertaining. Those little holographic acrobats? Meh. Harvey Korman as a 4-armed TV cook, then as a robot who keeps powering down? Not even funny for a second. Diahann Carroll in a virtual reality softcore porno? Well, she’s pretty and all, and a good singer, but the song was kind of boring and the whole scene was frankly creepy as hell. Nobody needs to see Chewie’s father Itchy getting off to Carroll being all sexy and seductive before she starts singing. Jefferson Starship in another holographic show? An unexceptional song with silly special effects. Pass. Bea Arthur? Actually, her bit was the best. She’s got a nice voice; the song was quiet and low-key, with no distracting special effects, horny Wookiees or attempts at cheap laughs.

The most horrifying moment came near the end when Chewie was reunited with his family, and he and his wife… almost kissed. I froze like a deer in headlights, only one thought screaming through my brain: EW EW EW EW WOOKIEE SEX EW! But then they just hugged. Thank God.

In conclusion: Wow, this was really very bad. And not even entertainingly bad (like, e.g., those old Gerry Anderson marionation shows, the Super-Friends, or all the movies on MST3K), but just confusingly, irritatingly, boringly bad. I can’t even laugh at it; part of me thinks I should, but I’m enough of a geek to be offended at the watering down of a sci-fi epic by people who just used the sci-fi elements (alien names, guys in funny rubber masks, advanced tech) as props for dumb jokes. Still, I don’t regret watching it, even if it’s just to understand what all the hype was about, and to appreciate just how wrong things can go. I could say that this abysmal TV special should never have seen the light of day, but then my life (and that of many Star Wars fans) would have been much poorer as a result.

Happy Life Day, everyone!

The Long Night

Hey, the power’s back on.

So as you may have heard, there were massive windstorms in my neck of the woods, causing about 250,000 people (according to BC Hydro) to go without power. I was one of those people. Starting some time Thursday night to around noonish Friday, my appartment building (and indeed, my entire neighbourhood) had zero electricity. Then we had partial power in the building. The lights kind of worked—noticeably dimmer than usual, but good enough to read by—and we had some heat. But no elevators, no hot water, no major appliances and no cable. It could have been worse. As of last night there were still chunks of my neighborhood without any power at all.

It’s been an interesting day and a half. I walked to the mall yesterday, partly to shop and partly to soak in as much sunlight as I could. It was sunny but cold, and the wind was still really strong—what my forebears might call «un vent à écorner les bœufs.» Still, I was grateful for the sun, since I knew it’d get dark very soon. And man, without streetlights it really gets dark.

In hindsight, I really wasn’t prepared for a longer power failure. I had very little food that I could eat without a microwave (thank gawd the nearby Quizno’s had power by Friday evening—mmm, Teriyaki barbecue sub), not enough blankets, and no flashlight. On the plus side, without the TV and computer to distract me (they weren’t getting enough juice), I was free to get most of the way through Foucault’s Pendulum.

In Praise of Stargate SG-1‘s 200^th Episode

Oh my Lord, that was just about the funniest hour of sci-fi I’ve ever seen. I may get the Season 10 set just for this one episode. The in-jokes were flying, the actors seemed to have a great time, it was all meta and silly and over-the-top and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

The plot is that Wormhole X-Treme!, a campy sci-fi show inspired by the real Stargate program, is inexplicably being picked up for a movie. (What studio does that, when only 3 episodes were ever made? asks Jackson. “It allegedly performed well on DVD,” replies Teal’c. Tee hee. Are Joss Whedon’s ears burning?) So SG-1 has to sit through a brainstorming session, shoot down Martin Lloyd’s goofy lowest-common-denominator ideas (Teal’c: “I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode.”) while pitching their own.

Mitchell fighting zombies! Lloyd in love with Carter’s technobabble! A younger, “edgier” SG-1! (“Dude, that hot chick was so totally a Goa’uld.”) O’Neill and Carter getting married! By Thor! (Uh, I think. All Asgard kind of look alike, don’t they?) Cheyenne Mountain exploding! Teal’c P.I.! Completely ridiculous cliffhangers!

SCENE:

SG-1 is on an alien planet, running from about a zillion Replicators. “We’ve got ten seconds before the time dilation field is activated. If we don’t make it through the Gate we’ll be stuck here forever!” yells Carter, just as they come upon the Stargate surrounded by Jaffa, with loads of bombers and gliders. “Okay, this could be a problem,” says Mitchell.

CUT TO:

Stargate Command. SG-1 is emerging from the Gate, safe and sound. “That was close, huh?” asks Mitchell.

I laughed so freaking hard at that. It’s right up there with Princess Bunhead’s “I escaped somehow!” from Thumb Wars for sheer unapologetic silliness.

And the homages: The Wizard of Oz, with Vala as Dorothy, and Gen. Landry as the big floating head of the Wizard Ascended Being. Her wish was first to go home, “But now I’ve decided I’d quite like to be a part of something. A regular part, if you catch my drift.” Farscape, with the characters rattling off that show’s made-up swear words (and props to Amanda Tapping for doing a kickass Chiana, complete with the weird posture and head twitches). Star Trek, with Mitchell as the intrepid commander of the Daedalus battlecruiser, facing an exploding singularity with weapons at maximum. And marionation… although that bit dragged a little, and most of the good jokes were already done in Team America. But really, everything else was gold.

Props to the SG-1 people for poking fun at themselves, and letting us laugh along.

The Stone Snake

This is pretty neat.

Of course, there’s a lot of speculation as to what this stone snake was actually for. Was it indeed the site of religious rituals? What kind of religion did humans have 70,000 years ago? What did they believe, and how did they express it? How much of a language did they have, to tell each other stories? Maybe language didn’t play a big part; still, the collective art of a giant snake is pretty good evidence of abstract thinking (because you have to imagine a snake before you carve it out of the rock)—as is the sacrifice of the spear points, which seem to have been deliberately burned or blunted, because you wouldn’t make a ritual out of it unless you expected something in return: good weather, good hunting, lots of children, or just the Snake God generally smiling upon you.

Actually, that reminded me of similar happenings in the bogs of Northern Europe. I saw an exhibit on them at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa a few years ago, including a bit on how precious objects were ritually “killed” (e.g.: a pot would have a hole punched through it) before being placed in the bogs.

And I’ll tell you something else: I’ll never look at money thrown in fountains the same way again.