The Matrix?

The Matrix is considered one of the best science fiction films of all time and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically and aesthetically significant. It was written by the directors, the Wachowski sisters, specifically for film. But I want to take the term Science Fiction and give my top ten of actual books made into films.

10 Soylent Green. Based on a 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. It starred Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young and Edward G. Robinson and was directed by Richard Fleischer. It tells the story of New York in the year 2022, when the population has swollen to 80 million, and people live in the streets and line up for their rations of water and Soylent Green which is plankton. Maybe.

9 Minority Report. Based on a story by Philip K. Dick and directed by Stephen Spielberg the film follows a police officer (Tom Cruise) in the year 2054 working in the PreCrime department, which arrests people before they commit crimes foreseen by psychic "precogs."

still from Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris

8 Solaris. I’ve read that the author of this film, Stanislaw Lem, is the best science fiction writer ever, and Solaris is his most famous book. I much prefer the 1972 version of the film which was co-written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The plot centres on a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris, where a scientific mission has stalled because the three scientists have fallen into emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the station to evaluate the situation, only to encounter the same mysterious phenomena as the others.

7 Frankenstein. Written by Mary Shelley in 1818. There’s no point in going over the story as it has developed a life of its own. But I would urge you to read the actual book it is fantastic. However, I would point you to the spoof version ‘Young Frankenstein’ directed by Mel Brooks. The screenplay was co-written by Brooks and Gene Wilder. Wilder also starred in the lead role as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Walk this way.

6 Arrival. Based on Ted Chiang's novella, Story of Your Life and directed by Denis Villeneuve, this story follows linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) when she is tasked with communicating with aliens that have arrived on Earth in a massive, black spacecraft. But it’s more than that.

5 Dune. The first in the series of novels entitled the Dune saga written by Frank Herbert. I remember being absorbed by this back in the 60s. I wonder if I still would be. The story is based around a future thousands of years away and concerns various empires feuding. Sort of. The current film has received rave reviews. I haven’t seen it yet. Previous ones have been turkeys.

still from Sir Ridley Scott's Blade Runner

4 Blade Runner. Based on Philip K. Dick's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. The film is set in a Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty ( Rutger Hauer, ) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down. It’s the atmosphere of it all and Batty’s amazing speech at the end ‘I've seen things you people wouldn't believe....’

3 Alien. Daniel Thomas O'Bann wrote the screenplay for the 1979 film, adapted from a story he wrote with Ronald Shusett and it was directed by Ridley Scott. And it stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley (gulp). I presume that you will know the plot but just think on that scene with John Hurt. In 2002, Alien was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

2 The Martian. The book was written by Andy Weir and published in 2014. ‘A book I just couldn’t put down! It has the very rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters and fascinating technical accuracy’ so says Astronaut Chris Hadfield, Commander of the International Space Station’. I’d go further and say it’s the best science fiction book I’ve read. It is nail bitingly thrilling. I stayed up until 2 am to finish it and my heart was thumping. The trouble is that it is so good I don’t want to see the film although it has great reviews.

still from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey

1 2001: A Space Odyssey. Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick wrote this together although it was based on Clarke’s 1951 short story The Sentinel. I saw the film in 1968 on probably a Friday night in Birmingham and went back on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It was the Ultimate Trip. I don’t know how many times I have watched it. Everything about the film is perfect. I say no more. Except Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.

That’s my list and I’m sure people would disagree. And here’s a poem on the very subject:

Science Fiction

Once upon a time
density span and speed
L = (1/2) ρ v2 s CL

as beautiful as a 747
departing the fact
of Terminal 3

guided past Control Towers
into that crumpled paperback
Asimov or Clarke
where this is a game
played in a maze
by something beyond
Tuesday Manchester

only rain makes sense
blurring binoculars
on the airport car park
spotters casually scribbling
the number of Flight 6122
reaching for coffee
as wheels leave the ground

to a single gasp
lost in the roar

of elegant lines
where L is the force
that lifted wings
in text book problems
that now and then
came to the same conclusion
as answers in the back
where total disbelief
that I’d got it right
equals eight thousand hundredweight
turning south over Wilmslow.

(First published in The Journal, 2019)

eight thousand hundredweight getting airborne

Thanks for reading, Terry.

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Science Fiction - May the Life Force be with you.

All right - I know this is later than I usually post but life is pretty hectic at the moment. My family and other alien specimens have travelled form all corners of the known universe to celebrate what my 96 year old Mum has assured us will be her 'Last Birthday.' Now far be it from me to suggest that this is a bit of misnomer but Mum has been telling me this since I was 16 - so if I am inclined to scoff, it is not without prior experience in such matters.

Since she informed me of her impending termination of Life on Earth, I have been scouring shops and on-line suppliers for an appropriate 'For your Last Birthday' card. Well I thought it might be nice for my siblings, their life partners, children and grandchildren to know that, at last she is making arrangements to go back to her home planet. It seems fitting somehow that Moonpig.com were more than happy to supply the card. I am just waiting for her to tell me her departure date so that I can start planning my own future.

Once she has embarked on her journey to the stars, I may re-engage with the George Lucas productions that I enjoyed in an earlier version of myself. Perhaps I'll go 'Back to the Future' and attend a Star Wars convention - but I don't want to queue round the block to get in.  Queuing was so Seventies! I may dust off my son's collection of boxed figures and sell them on EBay while he's in The Canarias experiencing the Tatooine landscape for himself.

After more than five decades on this crazy planet, I think I am qualified to confide that there are more wierdos living here that any science fiction writer could possibly imagine. A short walk along Blackpool promenade on any Saturday night will prove my point. There is no broader cross-section of the supposed human condition to be found anywhere else on earth. Oh and we are soon to host a Star Wars Exhibition - so it seems likely that the costume crew will soon be gracing our streets with their homemade (or virtually purchased) light-sabres. I look forward to the day that a fully grown idiot dressed as Jar Jar Binks is arrested for being drunk and disorderly and has to be rescued by Han Solo in a pedal driven Millennium Falcon.

And there it is. In two small simple words. The reason for my return to Star Wars as a fan after 30 odd years. Han Solo - AKA - Harrison Ford. He is the unrequited love of my life. I want him to take me beyond our solar system, to an enchanted place inhabited by Ewoks. Europe is no longer an attractive option and most of the rest of the world seems to be at war. Whichever star Harry would like to take me to will be perfect. I have decided to forgive him for taking up with that skinny bird.  We all make mistakes. Do you know - I think that I can already feel a convergence in The Force. Better go and get my costume ready... there's the sun, the moon and Harry...

Seriously though folks.  Most science-fiction leaves me cold. When it comes to science, I would rather have the facts. Now there is this man called Professor Brian Cox - he has away of explaining stuff that is just - well you know...

Heliocentricity 

I’m speeding round the sun today at 30K per sec,

No wonder it’s so hard for me to write.

I’m lapping Mars in retrograde.

He’s slow and I don’t see him every night.

There are many slower planets sitting in the outside lanes,

I see them in the darkness,

I even know their names.

I marvel at them every time I pass.

Travelling in celestial clockwork,

how they seem belies their mass.

 

I am pillion on a planet that’s designed to such specifics,

It keeps me fed and watered and in comfort for the ride,

tilted at the perfect pitch towards a mighty power,

that seasonally warms me and then warms the other side.

For eons, man believed the Earth was central to it all,

a theory that served the purpose of religion, after all.

But when he saw Mars charge the sky,

then loop into reverse,

Copernicus declared us heliocentric.

The Papal frock was hoisted.

They said he was eccentric

but science was born to lead them into light.

And so we race around the sun,

As other planets do.
That’s why we’re here.
That’s why we are.
The Earth.
And me.
And you.

Thanks for reading. Hope to see you all soon. Adele

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Science Fiction

by Christopher James Heyworth

I've been thinking and reading about how Orson Welles hoaxed millions with a radio broadcast on October 30th. 1938.

Listeners were told in a mock news broadcast that a cylindrical Martian spaceship had landed in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The Martian ship began incinerating onlookers with an alien death ray, an event that was covered by the Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations, and that caused widespread alarm and mass hysteria.

For the sake of imitating reality, news of the attack interrupted a program of live dance music, the reports growing more frequent and ominous as time passed, until the New Jersey state militia had been wiped out, and three Martian tripod battle machines began ravaging the landscape.

Of course, the broadcast was a hoax, a cleverly crafted Hallowe'en prank composed of simulated on-the-spot news bulletins based on the H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds.

Before the broadcast there had been an announcement that what would follow was a dramatic presentation by Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air, but many listeners missed the introduction and panic ensued.

Residents in New Jersey fled the area convinced they could smell poison gas and see fiery flashes from the tripods in the distance.

It has been estimated that of the 6 million people who heard the original broadcast (the Twenties and Thirties were very much the Age of Radio), more than 1.5 million believed it to be true, and more than a million others were genuinely terrified - contemporary accounts tell of police stations swamped with calls.

Within a month there were more than 12,000 newspaper articles on the broadcast and its impact, and as far away as Germany, Adolf Hitler is said to have cited it as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."

Many listeners sued the network for mental anguish, claims that virtually all failed, save one for a pair of size nine black shoes, by a man from Massachusetts who complained he'd had to spend what he'd saved for new shoes to escape the invading Martians. Welles insisted that that claim be reimbursed.

Welles and the Mercury Theatre were censured, but the broadcast secured Welles an instant, notorious fame.

In 1988, Grover's Mills, New Jersey, celebrated its hour of fame by installing a Martian Landing Site monument near Grover's Mill Pond, not far from the remains of a water tower shot to pieces by its frightened residents 50 years earlier.

So now you can answer the Science Fiction quiz question "What is the connection between New Jersey and size nine black shoes?"

We really do like to believe that there is Something Out There even if the thought of it scares us to death.

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