Captain Eo comes to mind, and then I quickly work to suppress it.

Lucky you. Trust me.

Man, that sounds like a plan.

Catching up on describing my month.

After Serenity (best space opera of all time), I watched the first two prequels. Perhaps for the first time since theatres. They were pretty terrible. It's hard to say which one was worse. The worst bits of Episode II were worse and the best bits were better. I think they even out.

The only redeeming feature of either film is the light saber battles. Qui-Gon vs Darth Maul, Obi-Wan vs. Jango Fett, Yoda vs. Dooku.

The worst thing about Episode I is probably the utter lack of story. The first 90 minutes can be summarized as "Qui-Gon needs to find a phone". They have a lot of misadventures along the way, of varying degrees of interest. But all they want to do is contact the Senate.

The worst thing about Episode II is certainly the romance. Probably the worst on-screen combination of bad dialogue and poor chemistry I have ever seen.The lines read as a parody of themselves.

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I also watched Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, originally titled Doppelganger. This was a decent sci/fi film, definitely worth watching. It had its flaws. There were two bits to the film. The brunt of it was an attempt to give a plausible depiction of far space travel, including the political, financial, and publicity problems involved, and how the astronauts train. While an admirable attempt, it pales in comparison to the works it seemed to imitate, films like 2001 or Destination Moon. The shorter portion of the film deals with the secret truth the astronauts discover on the hidden world on the far side of the sun. The premise is absurd but intriguing. I think there were opportunities to do more with it than the filmmakers did. They seemed satisfied with the premise-as-revelation style that was common amongst old sci/fi shorts.

Involving as it does only 2 worlds and at most 3 spaceships, this film is the edge of what I would call space opera. I decided to count it, but I usually associate the term with films set in a universe where space travel is commonplace and serves as a backdrop to adventure. This was a largely grounded film about funding an expedition to space.

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I watched Black Hole. I appreciate the ambition and attempt to continue the genre recently popularized by Star Trek. And I quite liked the designs of the robots. But the characters and concepts all fell too flat.


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I had meant to continue with Episode III, but I didn't get to it before leaving on Christmas travels and it is not readily available to me at the moment. So I watched the original Star Wars with my family. It was better than I recall. Or perhaps I judge things less harshly than I once did. A lot of the action still feels dated and didn't hold my attention. But I have gained a bit more appreciation for the characters of Han, Luke, Leia and their interactions.

What is great about the film is great. R2D2 and C3PO are charming and just wonderful characters. I think Darth Vader is perhaps the best villain to ever grace the big screen. He's the standard I hold all the recent superhero films to, and even their best fall short. The Death Star is awesome in terms of concept, design and associated melodrama. And, of course, the music.

The number of truly excellent things about it, combined with its importance and influence, made me decide to raise the 4-star rating I had once given it to 4.5 stars.

I still don't subscribe to the obsessive fan culture that surrounds the film and surrounding franchise, and am in no particular hurry to see the new film. Because while this was a fine film, it's no Star Trek.

I will note I ended my month with This Island Earth and the 1980 Flash Gordon. The 1980 Flash Gordon was very similar in story to the 1936 one. In many ways, a stupid film, but it has such good costuming and such a good soundtrack that it was hard not to like.

This Island Earth was a quite good sci/fi film. Perhaps the earliest to try to deal seriously with humans visiting an alien world. A morally complex tale, with some good adventure.

Both are on the edge of what I think of as space opera, which I associate with movies with a lot of spaceships and worlds and where space travel is common and easy. Flash Gordon has two worlds and a single space ship. This Island Earth also is set on two worlds and one spaceship, but at least features other spaceships and aliens from 3 different worlds. So much closer.