Please report on the progress you have made on the SF Slide Show Update Project since your last report (September 26). Again, identify the "job" you are doing, and tell about some of the specific information you have gathered. If you want to strive for an "advanced" level, you could also give some of your reactions to what you have found: What did you think of the book or story you read, or the author information you found? Please post your report by midnight Wednesday, October 17, 2007.
11 comments:
I have watched a couple movies including Stargate (1994) and Jurassic Park from Steven Spielburg (1993), as well as reading Michael Chrichton(1990).
Stargate is a movie about an strange arch object that opens up a portal into another part of the universe. The main character with a group of special forces military men enter the "Stargate," and find a lost civilization that resembles that of the Egyptians whose relegion is founded upon an alien presence that has enslaved them and forced them to beleive that they are gods. They do so with alien weaponry, supernatural powers, and intimidating masks resembling those of the gods anubis, rah, and others. These aliens have had trifelings with Earth in the past which is a reason a Stargate was found and an Egyptian civilization. In the end though the enslaved people and soldiers overthrow the aliens freeing the people and the hero of the story decides to stay in this new world as he has finally found acceptance. Cast includes James Spader, Kurt Russell, Mili Avital, Jaye Davidson.
Stargate
Saturn for best SF film, and was nominated for a Hugo for best dramatic presentation. It has become a Cult classic and kicked of multiple TV series.
Michael Chrichton's Jurassic Park is a thriller novel about the balance of nature and philosophizes the ideas of Chaos Theory and Genetic Recreation. The book is greatly different from the movie it takes place on a Island of the coast of Costa Rica (Isla Nublar), the basic premise is that Paleontologist Alan Grant (main character), Paleobotonist Grad. Student Ellie Sattler, and Chaos Theory mathmetician Ian Malcom visit Ingen's amusement park created by John Hammond featuring dinosaurs as the main attraction. Also along for the ride are the grandchildren of Hammond Tim and Alexis, where in the book Tim is the older of the two and the hacker and Alexis is a younger sister rather than an older sibling as seen in the movie. In the end Ian Malcom's theory that the Park will collapse in a state of disorder and the dinosaurs will run wild comes true. The dinosaurs begin to lay eggs, and the situation spirals out of controll from there. Dennis Nedry attempts to steal embryos for Ingen's rival company Biosyn but his plan goes arry he is eaten by a Dilophosaur and the parks security systems fail. Many of the characters who die in the movie don't die in the book and some who die in the book don't die in the movie. The deaths are also different. The lawyer is eaten by a Juvenile Tyrannosaur rather than the Mature Tyrannosaur. Jhon Hammond also dies in the book as he is eaten by a swarm of small but pesky dinosaurs known as Comsognathus, the chief geneticist Henry Wu is killed by the very creatures he created as if being punished for playing god. Jhon Arnold is killed in both the book and the film, by a group of Velociraptor's. The Warden of the park Robert Muldoon isn't killed in the book as he does in the movie, he narrowly escapes with his life by hiding in a concrete pipe with a shotgun where the Raptors can't reach him. The ending of the book is also different from the movie, there is a return trip by Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler to study the eggs the dinosaurs had layed without any troubles after the others had been evacuated. Finally the Costa Rican Airforce bombs the Island obliterating what is left, a second extinction. The film ends instead with a final confrontation between the solo Tyrannosaur and the Raptor's, before the people escape the island in a hellicopter and ride into the sunset. The birds flying by the windows is also an idea that depicts the modern view of Paleontologists that dinosaurs are related to birds.
The book became a best selling novel and was made into one of the greatest box office hits of all time Jurassic Park from Steven Spielburg and Michael Chrichton which one an oscar for best visual effects, sound effects, and sound effect editing, a Saturn award for best SF movie, director, special effects, and script writing (Chrichton). It also won a Hugo for best Dramatic Presentation.
Job-read the stories
But I've also done some other work for the project too. One, I got all the Hugo and Nebula awards presented during our time period.
I read a story by Charles Stross called Tourist. It's about a kid who mugs a guy that works for a sales company, he's one of the best guys. But this kid takes his glasses and almost ruins his life. In this futuristic world, people's brains are backed up files on computers and their glasses contain their current memory and objectives and knowledge. So losing his is big. In the end, the kid gets caught and he gets his glasses back, and there's some stuff in between but it didn't make sense.
"the Cookie Monster" by Vernor Vinge is about people on a simulation system of some sort. They think they're in real life until an offensive email to one leads to clues about the truth of themselves and how this whole process has been a repeat of before. I didn't like it.
I read another story which I can't remember the title of, about two guys from Earth who go to a party on a different planet. They're not really supposed to be there, but one of them is good with girls and gets them in fine. You find out that the people there are what we would think of as interns. But they're different things like, poems, love, air but they have substance and can speak. It's weird. But anyway, the guy who gets them in, ends up with the hottest girl and they go into her room. Well, he ends up flying down the stairs and grabbing his friend and bolting from the house. Then he throws up down the street and we find out the girl he was with is a universe. -it was another weird one.
Last, I have 33 movies that I have seen and can provide info on for the project and 15 movies I'm going to see for it.
Since the last posting, research I have done for the project is the viewing of the early 80's movie Robocop. This movie was recommended to me by my father as a great science fiction story that was very populer during our asigned time era of 75 to 85. My dad reminded me of the title and quickly as I began watching the movie I remembered and realized why myself, along with many movie critics loved the movie now and when it first came out. Robocop is a movie about a man or cop who at first is a regular human regulating crime until he comes in confrontation with a gang who he is brutally beaten by and put in a very bad state. With his mangled body he is then turned into an anti crime cyborg who is nearly indestructable, and is ready to again fight crime. He still has memories of the gang beating he took and seaks revenge. My reaction to this movie was that the action was outstanding and keeps a viewer like myself very intrigued which is why I believe the series was continued into two sequels, a televison show and comic book my dad said. The movie is of course fiction in that we do not have cyborgs like in the movie but did a great job of giving a real depicting of what it'd be like. I give it two thumbs up!
I have researched an author named Joe Haldeman. You may not have heard of him but he is a very famous author. He has been president twice for Science Fiction Writers of America. He has won 7 Hugo Awards and 7 Nebula Awards as well as many others for his great writing. Believe it or not but he has written two Star Trek books as well. They include Planet of Judgement in 1977 and World Without End in 1979. He has a wide variety of series books including Forever War, Attar and Merman and Worlds. His is a famous science fiction writer of his time.
I have begun reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I'm not sure if this will qualify as for my decade, because it was originally published in 1962, but published again in 1976. The story is set in the future (as a twisted idea of what will happen when teen gangs rule the city) is about a young man, by the name of Alex, who goes around with his friends, whom he calls droogs, vandalizing, beating, attacking, fighting and raping. they do this on a nightly basis until Alex gets caught by the police. He goes to prison and cannot stand being there, so he asks the church priest if there is a way that he could get his sentence shortend. the priest tells him of a disturbing expeirimental brainwashing treatment. Alex decides to take the treatment and get out of prison years before his sentence is up. He transfers to the institue, where they torture him, and force him to watch disturbing images and movie clips, while listening to classical music, in a futuristic manner. after he is released he tries to go back to his old life, but cannot. he discoveres that every time he tries to fight or rape again he is overcome with pain.
The book is very good. an intense and disturbing book, but good none the less.
This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing 30 Days of Night. It is a well thought out movie that keeps you always on the egde of your seat begging for more. It keeps you scared through out the movie and makes you scared after the movie as well. It's about a small town in alaska. For 30 days in the winter time the sun does not reach this area. Most of the people in this town head south for this time. Everyone is familiar with vampires obviously but not like this. These vampires violently attack this town during these 30 days and don't give mercy. These are by far the scariest vampires I have ever seen. And the idea of them attacking a town that is dark for 30 days is genius. I recommend this movie to anyone who likes a mixture of horror and science fiction.
-Tyler Fahlstedt
After the first post, I have watched the movie, Krull, starring Ken Marshall. The movie was about a prince and his companions who set out to rescue his bride from alien invaders who came to the prince's home planet and kidnapped her. I found this movie to be very funny and entertaining. The producer made up great aliens and the cinematography was pretty good for a 1983 film. The prince has to slay many aliens and creatures keeping his bride from him. The movie held my attention and kept me at the edge of my seat. The movies focus was to show how people will do anything to find love and will put their life on the line to save someone. This film also was a great symbol for the fear of an alien invasion/kidnapping in the 1980's. This film deserves five stars!
time period: 19990 - today
impact on video games on science fiction. Video games are becoming more and more popular, there presence in science fiction started in the 80's but never really has had a strong impact untill today. Top selling video games like HAlo has opend up a new median to science fiction and story telling. I have researched the impact technology has on science fiction, like more powerful CPU to make more realistic visions of the future. Increase in special effects in movies help progress and have impacted todays science fiction.
I have watched the movie RoboCop which was released in 1987. It is about a crime fighting robot that fights gang members and has many different science fiction elements throughout. Jurrasic Park also was a movie that i watched that was released in the time frame that my group has to work with. The movie is about dinosaurs that have been bread and givin back life in a large park closed off to the public for research but is planned to be opened as an amusemnet park. The dinosaurs go haywire and turn to violence against a group of researchers including 2 children. There have been a few sequals that i also have seen previously that i will include in research for the sfssup project.
Before beginning I would like to apologize for completing this so late. For our project I have done some extensive research on famous Science Fiction author Stephen Edwin King. He was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine son of Donald and Ruth King. When Stephen was about two years old he, his mother, and his adopted brother, David, were deserted by their alcoholic father, Donald. You could say Stephen King had a slightly rough childhood being witness to one of his best friends dying tragically by way of getting hit by a train. Many say this was a huge inspiration for his dark and gruesome literature. King was also an avid reader of horror comic book and even liked to make up his own short stories which were often too graphic for school. When Stephen was older he attended the University of Maine receiving a bachelor of arts in English, shortly after this he wrote the famous novel and movie The Shinning much of this story was inspired by his alcoholic father that left him. During this time period King became addicted to all sorts of drugs such as cocaine, pot, cough syrup as well as others and alcohol. In the summer of 1999 King was hit by a Dodge Caravan when he was on the side of the rode jogging, although Stephen was saved by the paramedics he was pretty critically injured. He used this incident in his novel The Dreamcatcher where one of the characters suffers the same exact faith. One Fact that I found quite interesting was that Stephen King was a Boston Red Sox fanatic which could of possible be one of the worst aspects of his life.
My job was to read novels. For this update i was able to find a list of what is considered to be the top 100 SF books ever written. I compiled a list of those in my decade 1975-1985 and i am now going to read Ender's Game and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I am sorry that this blog was done late.
Post a Comment