Aucbvax.1750
fa.sf-lovers
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI
Mon Jun 15 05:16:06 1981
SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #151
SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 15 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 151
Today's Topics:
SF Books - Dream Park, SF Movies - Clash of the Titans,
SF Topics - Computer Animation & Compu-fiction & Children's TV
(Here's the Plot,What's the Title and Space Angles and Colonel Bleep)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 1981 16:29 PDT
From: Ayers at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #147
The 11 June edition of SF-Lovers carried two separated articles that
are well-related: a review of Niven's "Dream Park" and an editorial
"No Science in Science Fiction?"
Larry Niven is considered a "hard" sf writer. "Dream Park" is set in
the near future. It uses computer-generated "holograms" for its
wonderful effects. Did you ask yourself how those holograms work?
Answer: they don't. If you're in Dream Park and, between you and an
opaque object, some computer-generated hologram appears, then there
has to be something other than air in that line-of-sight. [Or the
system is using the non-linear transmissive properties of air, which
become useful only at power densities you wouldn't want to be near.]
Did you notice this difficulty with the story? Does the fact that
Niven's use of "hologram" is akin to the use of "hyperdrive" -- that
is as a noise word, implying the existence of science that the author
isn't going to explain -- even though "hologram" is currently defined,
and thus you initially accept it as being Science, bother you?
Attempted moral (because otherwise this msg isn't going anywhere at
all): "E.jeffc at Berkeley" is correct: its science FICTION.
Bob
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1981 at 0036-CDT
From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TITANS? "ClotT" is apt! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The review in a recent SF-L by Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times
(Field News Service) leaves a great deal to be desired.
Accuracy, for one thing.
Maybe he was just using 'slobbering' to convey the \feel/ of the
scene, in--
Andromeda is "chained to the rock and Kraken is slobbering
all over her"
and 'ravish' rather than the more accurate 'ravage' for its greater
impact in--
"Kraken, who is unchained from his cage on the ocean floor
so that he can ravish Joppa in general and Andromeda in
particular"
For it wasn't that the Kraken was going to ravage Joppa AND Andromeda,
but that the choice had been Andromeda OR Joppa... the old 'it is
needful that one man die to spare the nation' decision. And as for
'unchained', I saw none-- only a grille.
Maybe we could partly blame the special effects for--
"Medusa, who turns men to stone with one glance"
but the dialog made it clear it was not Medusa's glance, but a glance
AT her that stoned folks.
For a whole nest of bobbles, tho, consider--
Danae is "cast into the sea, after she has angered the
gods. But Zeus ... takes pity and sees that the coffin
washes ashore on a deserted island..."
It wasn't the gods she angered, but her father. 'Pity' is pretty
dubious way to describe a capricious sense of paternity, and if the
island was deserted, who were those people in the background when the
baby was being fed? (Maybe Mr. E. was too absorbed in ogling Danae's
mammaries to see anything else?)
How could--
"Perseus ... mission in life [be] ... to return to Joppa"
when he'd never BEEN there?
As for--
"gigantic, scrawny bird " ... "gigantic prehistoric bird"
it wasn't scrawny, it was a vulture and they're SUPPOSED to look like
that. And even tho the related California condor is on its last legs,
a drive thru ranch country would convincingly show that ordinary
vultures are far from extinct, let alone "prehistoric".
He's mixed up about--
"a riddle posed by Cassiopeia, Andromeda's mother."
Cassiopeia neither originated the riddle (Calibos did) nor spoke it
(Andromeda did THAT).
Another desiderata for Mr. E. would be critical acumen. To claim--
"...its visual wonderments are astonishing."
is something \I/ find astonishing. This was my first Harryhausen
film, and with only STAR WARS and TESB among contemporary movies to
compare it to, I was singularly unimpressed. ..........
One little touch did intrigue me pleasingly, tho-- the abundance of
rosy-colored costumes on the populace in the final Kraken scenes--
because Joppa would have been in the area famous in antiquity for the
production of the 'Tyrian purple' (a rich magenta shade) dye.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 1981 2148-PDT
From: Jim McGrath <JPM SU-AI AT>
Subject: Clash of the Titans
By RICHARD FREEDMAN
Newhouse News Service
(UNDATED) Although ''Clash of the Titans'' purports to be about
Greek mythology, like most movies today it's really about special
effects.
Never mind that such class acts have been assembled on Mount
Olympus as Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom, Maggie Smith and Ursula
Andress to play the Greek gods and goddesses Zeus, Hera, Thetis and
Aphrodite.
They're only on screen for about 10 minutes (Andress has just one
line to speak) for advertising purposes, before the monsters take over
the show.
But what monsters they are! The brainchildren of veteran
stop-action, three-dimensional animator Ray Harryhausen (''The Seventh
Voyage of Sinbad,'' ''Jason and the Argonauts''), they give ''Clash of
the Titans'' whatever life it has, making it far superior in the
sword-and-sorcery genre to the gloomily pretentious, yet inexplicably
popular ''Excalibur.''
Beginning with a superb, Zeus-ordained tidal wave that sends
pillars and statues crashing about the engulfed city of Argos, ''Clash
of the Titans'' details the adventures of Zeus' son Perseus (Harry
Hamlin) and Andromeda (Judi Bowker).
The mythical lovers remain American teen-agers throughout, but in
the course of their difficult courtship they encounter such delightful
creations of Harryhausen's skill and imagination as Pegasus,
Dioskilos, Bubo, the Medusa and the Kraken.
Pegasus is Perseus' winged white horse, not on the Lone Ranger's
Silver, especially in traffic jams. Less pleasant is Dioskilos, a
two-headed wolf-dog out of ''The Howling'' whose heads have to be
lopped off separately before Perseus can have the pleasure of meeting
the Medusa, whose hairdo of writhing snakes turns a man to stone just
by glancing at it.
Bubo, a computerized golden owl fashioned by Hephaestus, is
Athena's gift to Perseus, and serves the same comic-relief function as
Artoo Detoo in ''Star Wars.''
Bubo is unknown to Greek mythology - as is the Kraken, a sea
monster that swims down from Norse mythology just to give Perseus a
hard time, although the townsfolk standing on the shore when the
Kraken looms from the sea seem totally and notably unimpressed. Like
present-day New Yorkers, they've seen it all.
In addition, Harryhausen has devised an awesome Charon, the
skeleton ferryman of the River Styx; the three Stygian witches like
the Weird Sisters in ''Macbeth,'' but with only one eye among them;
and a horde of giant sand scorpions that should keep us all off the
beaches this summer.
It's all good, clean fun, though, with Zeus emanating neon rays of
electric blue from his noble brow, a talking statue of Thetis, and a
giant vulture who bears Andromeda skyward in a gilded cage.
''Clash of the Titans'' may not turn youngsters on to Greek
mythology, but it certainly represents the advanced state of the art
in movie special effects.
FILM CLIP: ''Clash of the Titans.'' A comic strip of Greek
mythology through special effects, with Perseus and Andromeda
encountering all manner of mechanized beasties, cute and horrific,
devised by wizard Ray Harryhausen. Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom and
Maggie Smith are also aboard, but you hardly notice them. Rated
''PG.'' Three stars.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 1981 1806-PDT
From: Craig W. Reynolds from III via Rand <REYNOLDS AT RAND-AI>
Subject: Cindy's body data
Okay, okay - I'll talk.
We thought about various schemes for getting 3D coordinate data to
define the shape of Cindy's body, several were too hard or too
expensive, some were too messy (slice her up and encode the flat
sections), some sounded like a lot of fun - but ...
We ended up using a basic photogrammetric technique - we placed
reference marks on her body, took photographs from several points of
view, digitized the marks from the photos and correlated the data from
several views into the 3D data.
Of course, the fun part was making the marks ... Two of our
hardworking arts staffers did the honors.
Interestingly, this all happened last summer, during the actors
strike. Being a good union person, Ms. Dey couldn't pose for us until
after the strike was over, and we needed to get started. The studio
sent us a stand-in. Either they didn't understand what we were doing,
or even the real stand-in was on strike but the woman they sent us was
completely the wrong shape! She was easily 1.5 times Dey's weight!
The synthetic "head" of Cindy was actually taken from Ms. Dey and
looks a good deal like her (modulo the lack of hair on the computer
model). The body was mathematically "tweaked" to fit her proportions
better, but it is only close - no cigar.
Craig
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 1981 (Thursday) 2110-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Computer selected fiction
I think that we have all missed the obvious resource that is right
before our eyes. It should be possible to write our own SFL story by
some Delphi means. Consider the following scenario: One of us is
called "editor" and he writes the first "section" (paragraph, page,
some logically complete concept). Then whoever would like to do so
simply send in the next section of the story to the editor as they
would like to see it continued. Now, we don't want to leave the
selection of the "best" next section to him (her) alons so the editor
sends out copies of the storylines to 20 randomly selected sfl members
and they vote on the continuation that will be used. This, then, is
added to the story (and printed in SFL) and the process loops. I think
that this would be really neat and a lot of fun and, who knows, maybe
we can get it published. In order to even out both work load and
stylistic considerations, editor will have a tenure of, say, 10
sections and then will nominate a new editor and collect ballots.
That person becomes editor and the process goes on. The editor may
have to do some minor rewriting in order to match the style of the
story thus far.
Anyone game?
-- Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jun 1981 0827-PDT
Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3
Subject: Cartoons
From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin)
For the cartoon lovers out there, keep an eye on your local PBS
station (or maybe even bug them about it) and watch for a rerun of a
series I recall from only a few years back, featuring award-winning
animation from all over the world (Lauren or somebody remember the
exact title of this? It was hosted by Jean Marsh of "Upstairs,
Downstairs" fame.)
This featured lots of European animation, many really excellent and
some grotesque and eerie, totally unlike the funny cartoons we are
used to here. There was also a WB wartime one of "Boogie-Woogie Bugle
Boy", which probably wouldn't get aired otherwise, due to racial
stereotypes (it's about a black army training detachment), for those
of you who want to see at least one of those fabled 40's WB pieces.
Walter Lanz did those, right? (Or at least a lot of them?)
Will Martin
------------------------------
Date: 8 June 1981 2259-EDT (Monday)
From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A
Subject: Space Angles
One cartoon that I am surprised hasn't been mentioned yet and has
above average SF connections is "Space Angles". It was done in the
same wooden style as "Clutch Cargo". I can't remember it too well but
it did have a handsome hero/pilot with a heavy, eye-patched assistant.
I recall that they took off through the spokes of one of your standard
donut space stations. I also remember an episode in which they had a
gladiator ring with giant robots. They robots were controled by
humans inside. (reminds me of the old "rock-em sock-em robots" game)
(did YOU ever own a "Big Lou"?) (or have a lunch box w/ space
scenes?) There was also some planet with a woman enchanter.
I used to watch this cartoon (along with one about Norse Gods and one
about Hercules) on the Capt. Tug show which was broadcast by the
Metro-media affiliate in Washington D.C. Anybody else remeber things
with more clarity?
Lee Moore
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jun 1981 09:41 PDT
From: Weissman at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: ZERO ZERO ISLAND
I remember ZERO ZERO ISLAND as the home of Colonel Bleep, too. This
is not to say that random other cartoons didn't use it also. ("Dodo,
the Kid from Outer Space"??!! You are kidding, right?!)
Zero-zero longitude-latitude is indeed water, off the coast of Africa
(inside the "elbow" of its west coast), and the only maps I can scare
up at the moment show nothing there besides water. But WE KNOW that
exploration will show a tiny island there containing the remains of a
spaceman, a marionette, and a caveman ...sniff...
In any case, I hereby suggest that Colonel Bleep is the earliest
cartoon show that used elements of (precursors to?) SF. Anybody care
to refute this?
-- Bob
------------------------------
Date: 14 June 1981 1822-EDT (Sunday)
From: David.Dill at CMU-10A (L170DD60)
Subject: Science in Science Fiction
As I'm sure everyone has heard too often, the term "science fiction"
is frequently inappropriate since much of the literature in the genre
doesn't deal with science or technology at all, or the future, for
that matter (I'm perfectly happy with the name as an arbitrary label,
though).
However, a substantial body of science fiction DOES deal with issues
of science and technology. The appeal of this literature to me not
the ability to supply convincing explanations for hypothetical science
or technology, but to explore the effects of scientific and
technological developments on people. Thus, science fiction is
frequently fiction about the IMPACT of scientific discoveries, not the
pursuit or act of scientific discovery.
A major reason that science and technology are prominently featured in
so much "speculative fiction" (or whatever) is that they are major
factors determining the nature of a society -- if you change them, you
have a new social system (or civilization) to speculate about.
------------------------------
End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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