I just heard that they are remaking another SF film, this time around the classic Outland, which starred Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, and Frances Sternhagen, and got a killer review in the 1981 NY Times the day it hit the big screen. The original film had just enough sex and violence to catch the attention of the high school date crowd and make them care about the characters and real human drama that had the adult members of the audience already riveted on the screen. The remake could go either way; throw out the drama for straight mindless shoot-em-up, and grab those adrenalin and testosterone driven date-night dollars on one hand. On the other, they might develop the Space Frontier concept the original held to, with all the life-or-death concerns, struggles, and decisions people are prone to when in large groups in dangerous environments like space. But I have to wonder, was Hollywood paying attention this past weekend, when District 9 beat out everyone else at the box office? An original movie with unknown actors and director, telling a story that was brand new and deeply compelling! Or if that wasn’t spacey enough for you, how about Duncan Jones Moon from earlier this year and off this planet, built on an even tinier budget? District 9 and Moon are both the Outland equivalents for this year; telling a tale never known before, that makes you uncomfortable, makes you aware, and finally makes you care to the point where you choose sides. There aren’t many movies that can do that, and almost none of them are remakes. More Originals, Please!
Tonight was the series premiere of Defying Gravity on ABC, and it shows a lot of promise. Three actors I really like were part of the crew, the spaceship and FX were excellent, and the character development compacted an amazing amount of set up and backstory into a ninety minute presentation. There were a few holes in the actual science of how objects behave in zero-G, and once in the way a highly trained astronaut would react to a specific emergency situation, but even so, the program achieved the primary goal of any movie or TV show; it made me care about the people, and invest some emotional coin in wanting to see how it all works out. I’m giving this one 4 stars out of 5; we’ll see if they can keep up the momentum, and build on it.
This is a heartbreaker in IYA2009.
We lost Walter Cronkite tonight… or maybe last night, depending on which time zone you live in…
The trusted voice for America in the 60s and 70s, the voice of reason who looked liked everyone’s father, and later everyone’s Grandfather…
The man who narrated a Moon Landing for a nation and a generation, telling it so it all made sense to the man in the street… when the man in the street concentrated hard on the science of how to get his car working…
As a media person myself in those days, he was one of my Heroes, and I didn’t have many. Cronkite and Murrow were about it, with Huntley and Brinkley (the brightly feathered Peacock Team) as an amusement-valued backup when the big guys wern’t available. Perhaps even then I may have needed a life, but not as much as the world needed, and still needs, Cronkite or one of his disciples, or trainees, or ANYONE who knows how to do the same job in the modern-day info-storm!
The Universe agrees! Murrow and Cronkite are amongst a very rare breed; Obviously they both understand what is going on in the world… but more important, they can communicate those concepts to the rest of us, in real time, while the recorders/cameras are rolling.
I need to rewatch the Lunar landings now, and his reaction to them. He captured our hearts, our minds, and maybe just the edge of our souls…
And He will be missed!!!
Tor has a nice list of genre related giveaways you can enter, some ending tonight. Copies of the DVDs for Blood Ties and Coraline, audio books, regular books, and even a ride into space are all linked from that excellent article by Megan Messinger. Meanwhile, in honor of the new Torchwood special, BBC America has posted a virtual Hub tour of the Cardiff facilities that’s a lot of fun.
I have already posted multiple times about Moon, the new hard sci-fi movie by Duncan Jones, but this time we are talking the actual orbital object over our heads. I have also recently posted about the LROC and Kaguya lunar missions, and the excellent images they returned to Earth. A team on the surface of this world has created a Lunar picture just as impressive; the Lunar World Record image, now acknowledged by Guinness. The project was put together as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 celebration, honoring and hosted by Sir Patric Moore. If you don’t know who he is, he mapped the Moon in the 50’s, creating the information used by both the Russian and American space program into the 60s and beyond. He also got his own Guinness Certificate for being the longest running television presenter of the BBC Sky at Night program, from 1957 until last year. IYA2009 also has The Moon for All Mankind going on, with Malta being the latest entry. And then the one that may end up being my favorite; you can relive the first manned Moon landing in real time, in every detail, including some that were not broadcast when it first happened! We Choose The Moon will take you through the entire event, but just like the first time it happened you only get one shot at experiencing it. The Retro-Launch takes off in 51 hours as I am writing this, and will unspool sequentially exactly as the original did until splashdown. I recommend using modern reminders like Twitter to make sure you don’t miss it. Discover Magazine also has a nice retrospective of the landing event freshly posted to honor the anniversary. I threw in the peek at the 1930’s version of the John Carter movie that almost was because I couldn’t resist, not because it fit with the rest of this post…
In just a few hours the ISS (International Space Station) will be sweeping overhead where I am, and I have clear skies tonight. For others inclined to do naked-eye viewing of manned orbital craft (or unmanned, or perhaps planets are your chosen targets to watch), there are a few resources you might find useful. First off, there is NASA’s Human Space Flight App, updated with the latest orbital tracking data, not only for the ISS, but also the Shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope, and a number of others. You can reverse that as well, using their Realtime ISS Photos page to see an image of what is below the ISS right this moment. Note that the ISS location is in realtime, but the pictures are from an archive, possibly even the EarthKam; and the European version is the EuroKam variant. In Europe or the rest of the world you might want to use the ESA ISS Seeker applet. Which interestingly enough is built on the next tool I wanted to mention…
Heavens Above isn’t just for multinationals or government agencies; you can create your own account there, and customize your interface for your own interests. It is an extremely powerful database and toolset, so much so that even NASA links to them, and this site makes the wonders of the skies available for everyone to know and observe. They did a killer job on the setup parameters and the graphic output, making it both very easy to select your location and objects of interest, and even easier to understand the results it gives you.
There are a number of other online satellite/planet tracker software packages I use on a regular basis, the next most frequently visited being Night Skies, the Sky and Telescope interactive extension of their This Weeks Sky At A Glance page.