My Kind of Sci-Fi

So what have I learned from being exposed to popular culture for the roughly 4 decades that I have been on this planet?

Most specifically, what have I been impacted by from all of the Sci-Fi and fantasy culture that I happily exposed mself to?

To start, I believe that any form of popular culture should always have some sort of impact. Doesnt matter if it's music, the written word, even television and film can and have provided examples of impactful content. Throughout human history, the most classic examples of popular culture stood out from everything else by being able to say something or prove itself relevant to the human condition in some way.

As I stated in an earlier blog, I am a product of 70s and 80s film and televsion culture. My stepfather took us to the movies in the 70s when movies were actually inovative and sincere. They were also widely varied. You could have chosen a film from any genre back then and could have come across something that was wildly original and unlike the flash over substance films of today, actually managed to stay with you.

I can still remember watching the original Star Wars film in a jam packed theatre in downtown Brooklyn NY, I fondly recalled the restless days and nights for me afterward, as although i was rudely instructed to return to reality, the days immediately following that viewing were still jammed with those images of fantastic characters, far away worlds (that were so amazingly rendered) and climatic personal struggles.

It took me a good month or so for me to even get over the fact that it was a damn movie, as if though my mind had taken just that long to absorb all of the utter awesomeness that my little 7 year old mind had been exposed to.

After that, (and this never took place on a consicious level) I knew that i wanted to somehow, someway contribute to that genre. I just didnt know how. (actually at that age I didnt have to know how, not yet, I still had comic books to read, and little girls to bother and tons of running around the school yard with my friends before I even geared my little mind toward such significant thinking)

As my school and formative years shot by, my mind began to (dare i say it..) mature. I was learning the ins and outs about true writing and again, whether it was a pre meditated thing or not, I was practicing and honing my craft. Character creation, dramatic conflict and resolution, the intricacies of dialogue, all of these things made their way into my brain box in one way or another.

I began to look back at the films of my so often fondly remembered youth with something I had not used before or didnt even know i had..a critical eye. It wasnt even something I realized I was doing. I just did it. I was now looking at faults, and wears and seams within the works that my youth had originally regarded as so perfect.

Have you ever sat down to watch a movie you absolutely loved in your youth as an adult and it turned out to be a peice of crap? (that is what happened to me)

I recently purchased a collectors edition dvd of Escape from New York
I sat in front of the 46 inch Samsung Flatscreen in the living room, rustled up some junk food, and prepared to drink in the nectar that John Carpenter had offered me and i eagerly drank in the early 1980s (in a semi darkened theater somewhere in Brooklyn)

and I sat there for 90 mins watching this film which had yes, made a contribution to my Sci-fi up bringing, sat through the deleted scenes that were included on the disc and when I turned it off I said to myself what a peice of crap!!

I was sitting there for about 15 minutes, arguing with my brain and asking it exactly what did i see in this film in the first place that made me cherish it so, and where the hell was it now?

And i suppose that is the problem and we have all gone through it at one time or another. the mind matures. It seeks meaning now and is better trained to cut through the flash to seek that substance. This is true whether you are thumbing through a book you once read so many years back or listening to an album you enjoyed in your youth or etc.

When I began writing A Distant Battlefield, I began to craft it in a way that appealed to both sides of my brain. I wanted the slam bang action that I enjoyed as a child but also wanted to put some brain matter into it. I need it, I like seeing it in other forms of popular culture and I want others to have that brain matter as well.

A Distant Battlefield then, is a concotion comprised of many elements that I enjoyed from books and films; the intelligence and imagining of Larry Niven's Dreampark as well as the character structure and set up of Niven's Lucifer's Hammer, (both of which are excellent novels in regards to how they present set up, concept and characters.)

I was also influenced by a pair of my all time favorite cheesy disaster films from the 70s namely Earthquake and The Towering Inferno. Again the presentation and buildup of the concept as well as the introduction of the varied characters made an indelible impression on me.

I will close by talking briefly about two present day examples. I recently saw both Avatar and District 9 on cable recently.

I never bothered going to see Avatar in the theaters. I know James Cameron is an excellent visionary, and with all of the CGI technology available that i knew he would use to bring the concept to life, maybe that was the problem. I saw the trailer as well as the extended trailers for the film and although the concept and story was excellent, it was drowned out by the absolute CGI orgy that took away from the film's thinly veiled environmental message. I was more comfortable with the scenes of the military characters within their base than i was with the Skittles rainbow forest world of Pandora. (it was just too damn obvious that it was all fabricated and I guess that just took the enjoyment away from me.)

I am absolutely planning on getting the Distant Battlefield franchise into a theater near you one day..and I am hoping that i have crafted an intelligent story that relies more on people than on green screens to convey itself...and that is why I enjoyed District 9 more than I did Avatar.

District 9 told a gritty sci fi story, and it was more my taste. The aliens are practically sequestered in a Warsaw Ghetto like environment on the outskirts of Johannesberg South Africa. They are dirty, gritty and more believable and in my opinion had more of a personality than James Cameron's blue people. The story was impactful and could be easily understood and although CGI was obviously involved it was more of a compliment to the story than a distraction.

I suppose I'm just not the type of person who likes to drown his french fries with ketchup. I believe that the ketchup should compliment the fries and not overshadow them. (does that make any sense?)