Movie Review: Project Moonbase on DVD (MST3K Experiment #109)

Where does the time go? Consider: as I finish out my 37th year on this wacky globe, it seems all too brief a span, yet 37 years was long enough to turn a cutting edge science fiction film of 1953 into the Mystery Science Theater 3000 mockery fodder of 1990. I'm speaking, of course, of Project Moonbase.

I watched several DVDs this weekend while my wife was on holiday before starting her new job. This was one of them! Yes, dear followers, in the distant future year of 1970, women have jobs too! Yet as America's brave men reach out for the moon, so do they also reach out to spank any gals who might imagine themselves beyond their station! Space station, that is!

Outer Space is treacherous, unknown territory, so everyone should don Head Condoms and summer shorts for protection. Please, no walking on the walls. In case of Foreign Spies, be advised that they may be spotted by their ignorance of rudimentary baseball trivia and feeble combat skills.

And when it comes to ladies, they may be colonels in the space force, pilot risky and expensive vehicles, and even be addressed as 'Madame President'- but woe betide us all if they should carry higher rank, engage in sex without marriage, or dare to bravely dream beyond their limits.

The screenplay is partly credited to Robert A. Heinlein, so I partly know who to blame for the lecturing and condescension. And the sense of adventure! This is hilariously outdated but it's still fun on a bun. Not least from the quips of Joel & the Bots.

It was a mildly interesting confluence of events in that I am reading all of Heinlein's novels (3 and a half to go!) and watching DVDs hoping to reduce my collection in my regularly scheduled bookstore trading event with my pal Bookmonkey. Perhaps a form of recycling... in that you can have my copy of this movie if Wee Book Inn chooses to take it off my hands.

Even if they don't, it's good news for everyone- America hasn't got a woman president or a base on the moon but we've all learned so much about... uh... I forget where I was going with this. Gender Equality? Science? Anyway, good news for me- my wife has a job again.

The Hugos: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

I took a pretty long break from Hugo-winning novel reviews, but like a dog with a bone or a Holmes IV neuristic computer with self-awareness I've returned to my obsession and I'm sharin' it with you!

So, first off, I like Robert Heinlein's books a lot. The 1967 Hugo award winner 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress' is no exception.  Therefore, if you want me to tell you it's a flawed depiction of revolution from the mind of a kooky patriot who glorified war and despised all governments just a smidgen, then, I won't.  It is really very thoroughly enjoyable and amazing.  

You can keep handing your Vernor Vinge with his big concepts and his awful, listless characters these Hugos, but I'll never quite believe he isn't sleeping with someone on the committee.  Or maybe offering to NOT sleep with them.  One of those things.

Because I LOVE Heinlein's characters!  Yes, they expound a lot and they're stock characters (here we have Manny the Comptent Man, Professor Bernardo the Wise Old Mentor, Wyoming the Gorgeous Woman, and Mike the lovable young AI troublemaker who runs the joint (Mike is short for Mycroft Holmes; the HOLMES IV computer).  And they're very awesome.  

They live in the moon in 2076, a frontier colony descended primarily from convicts Australia-style.  The Loonies are troubled by increasingly greedy demands from Earth for more hydroponic foodstuffs that the moonfolk can ill afford to lose: Mike predicts cannibalism before the decade is out.  A plot to throw off the shackles of Good Ol' Earth's despotism is hatched, involving dropping BIG FRICKIN' ROCKS on those jerks with all their OXYGEN and their outdated COUPLE marriages!

 (Pictured here: Mr. Heinlein and Ginny the Gorgeous Redhead to whom he was married.  They're on the moon, but not involved in a polyamorous or mixed-race marriage like all those moonfolk.)

The Professor in particular has a lot to say on the subject of 'rational anarchism', a philosophy that a appears to boil down to doing whatever the heck you want and staying out of other people's Bid-ness.  If other people don't like it, DROP A FRICKIN' ROCK ON THEM.  Repeat as needed.

But nothing is ever that simple, as the phase made famous by this book implies: TANSTAAFL... 'There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch'.  True freedom and independence are not easily forthcoming and sacrifices must be made.

It's an action-filled, funny, and moving tale and I gave it 4 moon rocks out of 4.  Suck on that, Flowers For Algernon!

The Hugos: Stranger in a Strange Land

Hello, and welcome to my 100th post! Aww, yeah, Titans!
Kids, you may recall that I like the novels of Robert Heinlein, and the 1961 Hugo winner is no exception. 'Stranger in a Strange Land' has the distinction of being the first Hugo winner I ever read, long before Bookmonkey inspired my Hugo-reading project.
In fact, I read it at 17, which was, roughly, 3 million years ago.
It's philosophical, innovative, disturbing, and amazing. As a seventeen year old I was only prepared to call it blasphemous, and I guess it still is. Among its ideas is that everyone and everything that exists- is God.
It's the story of Michael Smith, a man raised by Martians who more or less inspires a religious movement when he returns to Earth for the first time with his outsiders' view of humanity.
The book was beloved by hippies for its thoughts on free love, even prompting a real-world church in California. I know, I know, a new brand of sandwich spread would inspire a church in California. Just joshing, California!
Also from Heinlein, (the man who invented the waterbed) comes the term 'grok', the Martian word meaning a bunch of things, but roughly 'a complete love and understanding of something up to and including eating the item or person in question'.
In this Martian culture, there is so little to live on that the community eats their elders when they pass on, out of necessity. But the process is ritualized for added meaning. They make that person a part of themselves by understanding who he was and what he meant to them, and the dead guy expresses his love for his family and loved ones by sharing ALL that he was with them.
Maybe there's something or someone YOU love that much.
I personally will stick to chicken nuggets, myself, but I'm not the sort of person to stand in the way of true love in any form.
I grok you, humankind.
Thou art God.
And party on, dudes.

Book Review: The Green Hills of Earth

I have 142 unread books on my shelves. And that doesn't include comics.

I am not proud of this, I only mention it because with only one Hugo novel left on my agenda I'm now tucking in to what I estimate at three years to read my own modest library. Faster if TV continues to be its usual monotonous drivel. Thundercats, indeed!

What happened to the nearsighted, antisocial boy I was who devoured books like it was going out of style?

It's books for me from here on out, yessir!
(Don't mind me, TV, nothing to see here.)

First up from a favorite author of mine, was 'The Green Hills of Earth', copyright 1951, by Robert Heinlein, a collection of some of his short stories. It's a swell book, and in no danger of leaving my library for trade value or donation.

Heinlein drew up a timeline to keep all his sci-fi stories straight, and it's included with most of his works. Good old uncle Robert postulated the half century between 1950 & 2000 as interplanetary expansionist, with thriving human colonies on the moon, Mars, & Venus, pioneering the mighty void of space with courage despite many grave accidents and disasters.

His future world is one of personal helicopters for all, and women dressed in six ounces of fabric! All very well, but those two elements alone seem designed for trouble:
(helicopter engine): wuwbwuwbwuwb...
Jones: Zowie, Harriman, how 'bout the propellant tanks on her?
Harriman: Hoo, hoo! I bet a dame like that would... LOOK OUT!
(helicopter collides with 3 other helicopters, explodes): KRAKABOOM.

Speaking of women turning heads, the first story in the collection; 'Delilah and the Space Rigger' takes a light-headed look at sexism in the space workplace. I maintain that although space stations aren't as commonplace as Heinlein hoped, he knew a metric crapload about how people behaved and still behave today. He saw the sexual revolution coming a mile off, and either regarded it as a change in everyone's best interests or knew womenfolk are impossible to hold back. If our kind goes out there, it'll be two by two, or at least shoulder to shoulder.

In 'The Long Watch' and 'The Green Hills of Earth' brave spacemen die horrible and heroic deaths by radiation to save their fellows. So far, there hasn't been much of this outside sci-fi, either. No atomic-powered spaceships means no blind accordion playing space jockeys. Knock on wood. Also commercial space travel is 60 years behind Heinlein's projections and is still little more than a novelty for the ultra-rich. But on the bright side, we don't have indentured slaves dying of fungal infections in the swamps of Venus, either. Well, maybe NEXT century. As long as we engineer the fungus ourselves, and also bring the swamps and slaves with us.

'We Also Walk Dogs' featured a global interconnected telephonic company called General Services whose multitudinous employees offer nearly anything, at tremendous speed, for a price. It may not be organized and driven enough to provoke reclusive scientists into spontaneously generating anti-gravity (as in this tale), but we've got that very connective technology these days. And, who knows? Link enough blogs together, sift through the gibberish and the porn, and, just imagine what all of us might think of... together!
Just keep your eyes on the skies when you're flying your cars, brothers.

The Hugos: Starship Troopers

Today I learned the meaning of the word 'polemic'. Let me share it with you: it's a reasoned argument presented in attack/defense of a concept or doctrine. Neat-o, right? It's good to learn new things!
The 1959 Robert A. Heinlein novel 'Starship Troopers' was called a polemic in a UK Sci-Fi mag I happened to skim through today, and once my friend Ron read me the definition you see above, I agreed.
The book wasn't a screed: that's the one-sided rants you'll often see here at Mike's Best Blog Ever, the kind that offer no room for argument; i.e. She-Hulk is the best Marvel Comics Super-hero. Full stop!
The doctrine in question in the novel 'Starship Troopers' is militarism. Robert Heinlein, (normally one of my favorite writers) in this novel reminds me of the televised exchange between 'Futurama's evil alien newscaster Morbo and Richard Nixon's thousand-year-old head:

"Morbo! How's the wife and kids?"

"Belligerent and numerous!"

"Good. 'Cause Nixon's pro-war and pro-family."

Heinlein, to be charitable, was not really pro-war. (When would Lazarus Long find time enough for love if he was always face-down in the mud of the battlefield?) But RAH sure as heck was pro-military.
Hence my ambivalence toward this Hugo winner: I have a personal philosophy of total pacifism honed in the fires of being a tremendously privileged doughy white coward who rarely had to fight for anything. Heinlein had buds who died at Pearl Harbor. So who am I to judge?

Starship Troopers tells the tale through long (but interesting) dialogues and classroom scenes, (without much in the way of actual combat sequences) of Juan Rico, Filipino soldier in the Terran Federation fighting in the war against the arachnids of Klendathu. The bugs in question are soulless commie drones, and the Rico in question is a brave and mighty democratic human individual who has earned the right to vote along with his willingness to die and kill to defend the Earth in kick-ass power suits dropped on enemy planets from orbit.

By the way, that dying seems to begin with about a 50/50 chance of dying IN TRAINING. Just in case you wanted to join up for the co-ed shower scenes like in the Verhoeven movie. 

It's not like that movie. 

Among other things, in the book 'Dizzy' Flores is a dude. And, no, Johnny and Dizzy probably don't bunk together in the book either, in case THAT got you interested! This is not a book of sex or romance, except maybe Heinlein's romantic feelings about his country and his military service. Pacifist and Dutch pervert Paul Verhoeven's awesome movie satirizes what Heinlein takes VERY seriously. Yet both book and movie were criticized for 'glorifying fascism'.

Controversial? Yeah. And RAH would have liked that. He was one smart guy. He loved his country and he was too sick to fight in maybe the only war the 20th century NEEDED to fight. I know that bugged him. Doughy, know-nothing socialists like me sitting on our butts out-gassing on topics our public schools and TVs barely prepared us to blather about on blogs all over the 21st Century probably would've bugged him, too. Canadians aren't commies, per se, but, well... I still would have liked to meet him. Don't know what we would have talked about.
He was seemingly fascinated by Mormons.
And until I reached the age of reason I was one of those... ah, it's not important now.
Maybe we'll meet in the waiting room in Mormon hell. I can tell him about the Verhoeven movie.

I gave this book 3 stars out of 4. Low for a Heinlein, but the thing is 'Forever War' and 'Ender's Game' prefer to show war in something of a different light. A nasty one. And I liked them better. They seemed more honest.

(Canada should be thankful I do not literally stand on guard for it. The bugs would probably roll right over me while I apologized and tried to see their point of view.)

The Hugos: Double Star

I like having a regular review to do, it means I don't have to rack my brains for something to write: I just write about the next Hugo winner! 1956's 'Double Star' by Robert. A. Heinlein is aces with me, by jingo! Regular readers of my blog know that I cannot name a Robert Heinlein book I didn't like. He won several of these little spaceship-shaped awards and he deserved every one of them. I checked Wikipedia and discovered that James Blish, Hugo winner, Futurian, and New Jersian apparently considered THIS the only Heinlein book to that point with a well-written protagonist. Frankly, the man who wrote 'Spock Must Die!' has problems of his own, and may be discredited thereby.
-PHOOEY ON YOU, JAMES BLISH!
Wait, who said that? Captain Complainy!?
-YES, IT IS I! THE NAYSAYER RETURNS!
But... but this is MY blog. Mine! Gushy McFanboy.
-SCREW YOU, HIPPIE! I'M SICK OF THIS RUN OF POSITIVE REVIEWS! DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO HATE ANYMORE? GO BUY THE LATEST DC SUPERHERO MOVIE, PUKE ALL OVER IT LIKE THE OTHERS, AND THROW IT AWAY! THEN DO THE SAME WITH STAR TREK ONLINE!!! YOU KNOW DEEP DOWN IT'LL SUCK! MOO-HOO-HA-HA-HAAAA!
(Sound of Gushy McFanboy, forcing mental doorways to the Dark Dimension closed)
Whew, sorry, folks. I guess some people aren't satisfied by constantly upbeat critiques of classic science fiction! And speaking of people who look just like you but share none of your values, back to 'Double Star'.
It's basically Kevin Kline's 'Dave' in space.
Or at least I like Kevin and Sigourney Weaver for the leads. There's mistaken identity, actors pretending to be presidents, dastardly ruffins, equal rights for Martians, and what have you.
Look, what do you want? It's a Heinlein. You know I'm giving it 4 out of 4 stars.
Or perhaps that should be 2 Double Stars!

When Good Adaptations Happen

It must happen sometimes, right?! Bookmonkey had a cool post today praising three fine films that did justice to their source material. I racked my brains for three more in my sci-fi baliwick. You know, it was not that easy? Either my standards are too high or this is a very tall order. I guess what a book or comic can achieve inside the reader's imagination will always remain beyond the limits of film. But they can get close!
My buddy Ron says L.A. Confidential is tops as an adaptation.
I have my suspicions that 'Enemy Mine' is a good one, but I've yet to read Barry Longyear's original story. Likewise, I can't be sure about 'Bicentennial Man', but I sure liked that.
'Millenium' is great but the budget required to really do justice to John Varley's novel with the Titanic's rusting hulk, Roman legions, mid-air collisions, cyborgs and a vast time machine just wasn't there. Nobody's fault really. Gotta try again someday. So I choose...

3. DUNE- the David Lynch one, weird as it is, is still pretty good. The John Harrison epic version comes closer in terms of scope and detail, but damned if I didn't wish Lynch's cast had starred in it. Maybe some technical genius can make that happen for me someday, smushing the two together in a computer somehow and enhancing them both. A miniseries is probably the MINIMUM requirement to do justice to most books, and certainly to Dune.

2. WATCHMEN- I can name a guy who disagrees, and if the author isn't on your side, well... that hurts my case. A lot. Alan Moore went on record that he'd never go to see it. Seems like a shame, 'cause it was pretty much what I saw in the comic brought to life. No pirate comic, no squid, but otherwise... pretty frickin' sweet.

1. STARSHIP TROOPERS- I wonder if the ones I like are the ones the authors wouldn't? He's not around to ask, but I have a sneaking suspicion Heinlein might not have approved, either. But, then again, I know he liked nudity! And since Heinlein's Dizzy was male, I prefer Verhoven's version of her. For that matter, I prefered Verhoven's cynical view of war, soldiering, and patriotism to Heinlein's entirely sincere take on those subjects... as a lover, not a fighter I'm pretty glad I have the right to vote even though I'm not willing to kill to defend abstractions like my 'rights'. Contrariwise, I'm willing to kill bugs... because the only good bug is a dead bug.

The Hugos: Farmer In The Sky

Sometimes I think Robert A. Heinlein's work is the greatest justification for the entire genre of science fiction. The second retro Hugo award winning novel, written 1950, awarded 2001, was 'Farmer In the Sky'.
I give it an unabashed 4 stars out of 4. I never met a mid-20th century boys' space adventure by this guy I didn't love as much as a cuddly Martian flatcat.
The protagonist, Bill Lermer, is a boy scout helping colonize and terraform Ganymede with his family. BOY, HOWDY, DOES ADVENTURE ENSUE!
While I found it difficult to like the characters in most Asimov books (except his robots, I loves me some robots!!!) I have loved RAH's characters since I myself was a boy scout, grinding up rocks and futzing about with composting on an airless moon of planet Jupiter back in the distant future (probably the 1980's)
Bill's character is no exception. He's tenacious and willing to work hard to achieve his dreams. Maybe I was like that once. Nowadays I feel more like the lazy, bitter, entitled Mr. Saunders, blaming his failures on everything under the Big Red Spot.
Heinlein was gung ho for the pioneer spirit. It's partly due to his influence that I find myself inspired by it as well. Exploration, discovery, intrepidity... other... names of spaceships.
If I'm lucky, I could live to see a human on Ganymede. MAYBE. Here it is 2010 and nobody even bothers with the Moon anymore, let alone Mars. Maybe we could all stop blowing each other to bits for a while and look up. Get out. Pioneer.
Of course, the dark side of pioneering, historically, would be the indigenous people who get crushed. While I agree with RAH that, long term, the only hope for our species is to spread out to more than one solar system, I hope we don't plan to wreck up the place when we get there.