Watching Star Wars When it First Came Out

I want to talk to you about Star Wars, and not just any Star Wars. The very first Star Wars that ever got made and played in the Theaters. When I was a kid I was able to watch the movie when the excitement level was unbelievable, and before any of the other movies came out. Here is my remembered experience of watching it:

Yes, this channel only has the one video and my book advertisement. My hope is to find the time to produce more and better material. Its a work in progress and experiment. Introducing My Sci-Fi Self found HERE

My literary Channel NDM English

New Youtube Video for the Novel

It has been about 8 years since the "Icarus Falling" book was first independently published. I made a small Youtube video to advertise it, and I put in a lot of work. Even from the time it was put up there was a dated feel. Recently I spent a day gathering video clips for a brand new one. Some of the clips I got from generic videos and others from the Pixabay public domain site.

Here is the NEW video advertisement I did just to have fun:

Compare that to the original (a little too long at the end):

A slight SPOILER ALERT:
This is the first of an intended video for converting my science fiction blogging into vlogging.
For more info and to keep up with what is going on, click here: https://tinyurl.com/yyayq478

First Man Flag Controversy in Context

A movie “First Man” about Niel Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the Moon, has created controversy on how the planting of the United States flag is kept out. When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 16, 1969, the American astronauts stuck a flag next to where they had landed. Five other U.S. flags representing Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 were also erected. The Apollo mission 13 famously failed to land because of malfunctions. For some not adding the flag planting seems to be an anti-American pass. Regardless how a person feels about Hollywood, love them or hate them, the history is more nuanced than patriotism.

That is not to say that patriotism doesn’t play a role. Landing on the Moon was considered the ultimate prize in what is called the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both considered it bragging rights on their way to winning the world’s respect. Two ideologies had fought for influence over twenty years before the landing and would do the same over twenty years after. The race started in 1945 soon after WWII and the defeat of Germany. The Americans and the Russians wanted Nazi cooperating scientists as prizes to contribute to their own scientific advances.

Among the German Nazi specialties was rocket science with the deadly V2 ballistic missile near the end of the war causing havoc in England. At the end of the war the United States and the Soviet Union raced to find rocket plans and experts to capture for further development. The Americans won the prize of capturing leading scientist Wernher von Braun who it is said specifically sought them out. The Russians didn’t leave empty handed, although capturing lesser named individuals. The Russians had their own fellow Soviet patriot Sergei Korolev, knowing covertly as “The Chief Designer,” to lead the race to space. From the beginning going to space could be considered a German-American and German-Russian (after the scientists rejected the Nazi party affiliation) collaboration.

It must be noted that the Soviet Union had no intention of proclaiming they went into space or would be going to the Moon as a “all mankind” achievement. They did it for the ideals of Communism and on behalf of the Soviet Union. The American’s themselves, to also be fair, at first did it for the ideals of Capitalism on behalf of the United States. Causing Americans great concern, the Soviet Union launched the first successful satellite to orbit the Earth Oct. 4, 1957 with Sputnik 1 and the first man to orbit Earth April 12, 1961 with Yuri Gagarin. In response after each Soviet success the United States did the same, with Allan Shepard the first American in Space.

What "Twin Peaks" Did and Didn't Do

Twin Peaks: Collection [Blu-ray]
Describing the classic television series "Twin Peaks" is a challenge. There is no one way to explain what it was about, sometimes because it didn't know itself. Half way through the series there was a dramatic reveal that many consider a disastrous decision. The network pushed the show's writers and creators to disclose a major plot. By resolving a major plot point, the purpose for the series' existence was destroyed.  Loyal fans continued to watch by grasping hold of other underlying elements. The remaining viewers jumped ship and it couldn't recover enough. Even if the show gave into the network demands, the opportunities for a creative reinvention existed; but were squandered. What worked kept it forever in pop-culture consciousness. What they missed developing could have saved it from ignoble failure.

The show starts out with the discovery of a murdered girl. The whole town grieves because she was well known and loved. An eccentric FBI agent named Cooper arrives to try and solve the case.  He discovers, along with the audience, the peculiarities of residence in this sleepy Washington lumber town. Each character has quirks and flaws that set them apart from the normal cast of television programming. To put it another way, the whole town is a psychological mess even without the discovery of Laura Palmer's body. And it works brilliantly to create both tragic and comic moments at the same time. The viewer is left to decide if they want to laugh or cry. And it only got better from there until it didn't.

Mulder's Many Fathers

In anticipation of the upcoming revival of The X-Files starting soon, an article I wrote years ago will be reprinted here. During the height of the show, when the Internet was still mostly a work in progress, I participated on an early message board,   One of my lengthy comments garnered some interest from an amateur fan magazine. They asked if they could publish my thoughts and I gave them permission. The only pay was receiving a copy of the magazine, where I was happy to just see my words in print. The Canadian  fan magazine Jigsaw stopped publishing many years ago. Here is the first of two articles of mine they published. A few clarifying  and updated changes have been made.

From the beginning, Fox Mulder has had an informant helping him. Deep Throat was first introduced in the second episode (which is named after him). The role of informant has been filled by someone ever since.  All of them have one thing in common; They seem to represent a commanding force that shapes who Mulder becomes as an investigator. Other informants are shades of what Deep Throat started out as.  At least one of these characters actually transforms into Fox's real father. It is because of this role of influence that I consider them fathers to Mulder.

Deep Throat was a reasonably friendly gentleman to Mulder who directed him to follow on information quests. He was a favorite informant among many X-Files fans. His approach to Mulder was not rushed like most of the other informants. When he was rushed, it was only to keep the truth from disappearing, and not for his own safety. His clues to Mulder -- and the viewer --  became an incentive for him to continue on his investigations. When Mulder was on the  brink of giving up on a case, Deep Throat showed up to usher him to continue.

My Obsession with X-Files Described

The X-Files: Complete Series Collector's Set + The Event Bundle [Blu-ray]
Next year is an exciting time for X-Files fans, because a short special season will be broadcast. Believe it or not the last movie, much less episode, was released seven years ago. The series ended six years before that with a successful theatrical movie stuck in the middle of the long running phenomenon. You might think that someone who is as obsessed by the show as myself was hooked by the premier of the first episode, but that would be a wrong impression. It was a long and eventful set of roads I traveled before becoming fully emerged in the strange, exciting, and sometimes gruesome spectacle. The first few episodes I did see weren't even enough to make me more than curious. I will set out to describe the formation of my passion in anticipation of the upcoming mini-series. This blog post will be context for my interest and a way to perhaps get to know a little more about me.

Like I said, when the first episode of the X-Files premiered it didn't drag me into the series. As a matter of fact I didn't even see the show when it first aired. What I did see were two advertisements for new Fox Television productions that included a western comedy The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. staring Bruce Campbell. That one I did watch the first episode and was slightly amused. I remember it as getting billed as the next big thing. That little paranormal show was a curious filler. One of the reasons for not turning on the tube was because my college days had just started and other things were much more important. Unlike my teenage years, television was not a priority with all the new experiences and responsibilities. My major television obsession at the time was Star Trek in all its versions, even though that was not a constant.

Before I became a huge fan, I caught three episodes late at night in syndication on other channels. The first was Excelsis Dei about an old folks home haunted by a mysterious ghost attacker. For some reason I was all alone at my home when I saw it at midnight. By the end I had made sure that the doors were locked and windows extra tightly covered. The next one at another time was The Host about a monster in the sewers that I thought was silly and perhaps turned me off a bit from wanting more. Yet another night was the Anasazi, the first of a three part episode that finally piqued my interests, but made me confused enough not to pursue any others.

Godzilla and Other Monsters

Modern giant monster movies are difficult to make because they have to be both believable and show a spectacle. They are expensive to produce and therefore require blockbuster status at the theaters. It isn't like the golden age where special effects were not expected to look real to enjoy. Some masters of the art didn't need more than clay, lots of time, and patience.

Even when the golden age of monsters in the 50s and 60s was long over, television for a short time gave new life to old celluloid. Late at night or noon after cartoons the giant terrors once again lived. The best of them included insects like a giant tarantula, a flying mantis, and them ants. Forget that no exoskeletal creatures could physically exist. There they were in the theater or on television larger than life and haunting a young kid's imagination. Two of the biggest stars were King Kong and Godzilla. Only once were they together, and that was a disastrous Japanese B movie with more laughs than wonder; no matter what age the viewer.

In later years the giant monsters fell out of favor to be replaced by dinosaurs. The same problems of production values and unbelievability hung on them, but without the supportive audience. It was fine that giant monsters or even insects didn't look real on the screen because they never did exist. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, had proof of their reality. It didn't matter how extinct, they were not lizards with plastered on prosthetics or actors in suites. A few movies with them were made and then died out just as quick.

Late 70s and mid 80s tried to bring back the Great King Kong with limited success. The stories were updated, but movie magic remained questionable. Actors in monster suites had become a joke and stop motion picture animatronics didn't change much either. It seemed that the giant monsters had finally died off in Hollywood.