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- Welcome to the Archive for February, 2007
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- February 1
Teal'c is a fictional character on the TV series Stargate SG-1 and is played by Christopher Judge. Teal'c is a Jaffa warrior from the planet Chulak, and was once the First Prime of Apophis.
History
Teal'c begins to believe that his god, Apophis, may not be all he claims to be. In the show's premiere, "Children of the Gods," Colonel Jack O'Neill and his team are captured and imprisoned on Chulak. Teal'c and his fellow Jaffa are ordered to execute them along with a large number of other prisoners. Even though Teal'c is the enemy, Jack sees something in him that makes him encourage Teal'c to help them escape and save the prisoners. In turn, Teal'c sees for the first time someone who may be able to deliver on his promise. He turns against his fellow Jaffa, and helps Jack and his team escape. Having betrayed his god, Teal'c is forced to leave his homeworld and finds a safe haven on Earth and a means to stage an opposition against the Goa'uld, with the hopes of eventually freeing his fellow Jaffa from their unknowing enslavement by the Goa'uld.
Despite saving Jack's team, Teal'c is not immediately accepted on Earth. He is interrogated and held prisoner, and experiments are done on the Goa'uld symbiote he carries. He proves his loyalty by . . .
- February 2
Planet of the Vampires (1965) is the only outright SF film directed by Italy’s maestro of horror, Mario Bava. The original Italian version was entitled Terrore Nello Spazio (Terror in Outer Space), adapted from Renato Pestriniero’s “One Night of Twenty-One Hours” by Bava and a quartet of credited scenarists: Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Román, and Rafael J. Salvia.
Bevilacqua had worked with Bava on his memorable anthology horror film I Tre Volti della Paura (The Three Faces of Fear, aka Black Sabbath; 1963). Like much of Bava’s work, both were released by American International Pictures in the United States, where Ib Melchior and AIP producer Louis M. Heyward were credited on Planet of the Vampires, possibly for the English-language version only.
As is often the case, a B-level American star was cast in the lead to help sell the film in the U.S. market. Veteran character actor Barry Sullivan . . .
- February 3
Back to the Future is a 1985 movie from director Robert Zemeckis. The Film starred Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. The movie was a great success, grossing over $11 million in its opening weekend and to date over $380 million worldwide. Steven Spielberg was one of the film's executive producers alongside Frank Marshall and Steve Starkey. Back to the Future's success resulted in two sequels, Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III.
Summary
In 1985, Dr. Emmet Brown invents a time machine in the form of a DeLorean. High school student, Marty McFly tests the device and is sent back to the 1950s where he tries to ensure that his parents fall in love and he is born.
Trivia
The official site for DeLorean car enthusiasts has a fun Easter Egg. In the main Search bar at the top of the page (labeled "Search for Parts"), enter 18851985 or . . .
- February 4
Anne Rice, born Howard Allen O'Brien on October 4, 1941, is a popular American writer born in New Orleans, Louisiana in an Irish Catholic family. She currently lives in Southern California. She is best known for her book series about vampires, known As "The Vampire Chronicles". She has also written a series of books about a family of witches and under the names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure she wrote a small erotic fiction series taking the sleeping beauty fairy tale and giving it a twist.
Her first novel was Interview with the Vampire, written in 1973 and published in 1976. During the writing of the novel she experimented with LSD in an exploration of after-death experiences. The novel was written shortly after losing her daughter, Michelle, to leukemia. The character, Claudia, was based on her daughter.
Rice is known for he exploration of homoeroticism and sexual ambiguity in her novels. She has also . . .
- February 5
Shapeshifters have the ability to change from one form into another.
The first thing that would occur to most people as a shapeshifter is a werewolf. The werewolf (both in legend and literature) changes shape from a human to a wolf, and back again
However, there are many others as well. Literary and cinematic vampires are usually shapeshifters. Most audiences think of Dracula changing into a bat, but he could take other forms as well in the Bram Stoker book.
Most cultures have legends of humans transforming into other shapes (with animals appropriate to the zoography) and vice versa. Some monsters legendarily change into other tempting shapes (such as humans or horses) to trap the unwary.
Even superheros can be shapeshifters: Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk, or Billy Batson transforms into Captain Marvel.
The change may happen in a magical flash, or be a painful rearrangement (An American Werewolf in London had a particularly memorable transformation scene that . . .
- February 6
Geminon Traveler (BSG 2003)
- Name: Geminon Traveler
- Type: Freighter/Transport
- Registration: Geminon Registry
- Specifications: L: 197' W: 58' H: 71'
Description
The Geminon Traveler is a compact roll-on/roll-off transport vessel that can haul anything that can fit inside it. People, cargo, other small craft . . . you name it, this beast of burden will move it anywhere in the Twelve Colonies. After the Cylon attack, President Roslin ordered tons of commercial cargo jettisoned from the ship to make room for hundreds of Colonial refugees. Compact transports such as the Geminon Traveler were designed for short-range hyperlight jumps . . .
- February 7
Alien (1979) is the first of four movies which pit Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) against a deadly extraterrestrial creature discovered on the moon LV-426. Ripley and the crew of the towing ship Nostromo are diverted to the moon by their employer, the Weyland-Yutani Company, where they find a derelict spaceship; inside are what turn out to be eggs. An alien embryo hatches, attaching itself to the face of one of the crewmen, Kane, and infecting him with a parasitic future version of itself. Kane, played by John Hurt, soon becomes the first human actor to suffer the terrible fate of an alien-infected host: when the creature reaches the next stage of its growth, it kills him by forcing its way out through his chest.
Ripley and the crew fight the creature, hindered in their efforts by the ship's android science officer, Ash. As an additional complication, the creature's blood is acidic, so the humans cannot shoot it without the risk of . . .
- February 8
Men in Black is a 1997 comedic scifi film directed by Barry Sonnenfield and written by Ed Solomon based on the comic by Lowell Cunningham. The film was produced by Steven Spielberg, Laurie macDonald and Walter F. Parkes with music by Danny Elfman. Men in Black opened in theaters on July 2, 1997 and was a blockbuster hit grossing over $50 million in its opening weekend and going on to earn over $250 million domestically and over $589 million world-wide. The film spawned a sequel Men in Black II as well as a TV series, Men in Black: The Series. Universal Studios Florida also launched an attraction known as Men in Black Alien Attack.
Tommy Lee Jones starred as Agent K, a member of the mysterious Men in Black (MIB). Kay recruits Detective James Edwards (Will Smith from the NYPD to become a new agent for a top secret organization that polices and monitors alien activity . . .
- February 9
The Devil's Sea or Dragons Triangle is a region of the Pacific around Miyake Island, about 100 km south of Tokyo. Although the name is used by Japanese fishermen, it does not appear on nautical maps.
In popular culture, especially in the United States, the Devil's Sea is widely believed to be, together with the Bermuda Triangle, an area where ships and planes are said to disappear under mysterious circumstances. The Japanese, on the other hand, do not consider the Devil's Sea to be more mysterious or dangerous than other coastal waters of Japan.
Contrary to several claims, neither the Devil's Sea nor the Bermuda Triangle is located on the agonic line, where the magnetic north equals the geographic north. The magnetic declination in this area is about 6°.
The tale of Urashima Taro, a fisherman who is kept out of the normal time course, is seen by some as . . .
- February 10
Although creator J. Michael Straczynski infused his space adventure series, Babylon 5 (1994 to 1998), with mysticism and sometimes questionable science, this television program had a large following among science fiction fans during its run. Straczynski had a single overall story line that was supposed to cover five seasons and then end, but that plot came to a premature end when the show was threatened with cancellation during its fourth season. Efforts to extend the story when it was unexpectedly renewed were not consistently successful.
The setting is Babylon 5, a space station catering to humans and various alien races, designed to be a clearing house for debate, trade, and cultural interchanges. The previous four efforts to build a station failed, three because of sabotage, one lost in a time warp. Originally the commander was Jeffrey Sinclair, played by Michael O'Hare, but he was replaced during the second season by Bruce Boxleitner as John Sheridan, a hero of the recent war against the Minbari, an older and more technologically advanced race that inexplicably . . .
- February 11
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) was the first film version of Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers, which appeared in magazine form in 1954 and as a paperback in 1955. His story of alien invaders who duplicate and replace humans, complete with their memories, is a thinly disguised allegory for the Red Scare of that period, the conviction that communist sleepers were hidden among us. The movie, a classic black-and-white thriller starring Kevin McCarthy and Carolyn Jones, appeared the following year, released as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which title has been applied to the novel in most subsequent reprintings.
Directed by Don Siegel, the story unfolds slowly but inexorably, with McCarthy eventually becoming aware of what is happening but unable to convince others. There are variant versions of the film . . .
- February 12
Rebecca Romijn (born November 6, 1972, in Berkeley, California), also credited as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, is an American actress and former model. She is well known for her many guest appearances on TV series and her appearance in the X-Men film series as the shapeshifter Mystique. Romijn was born in Berkeley, California, to a Dutch-born furniture maker, Jaap Romijn, and Elizabeth Kuzienga, a schoolteacher, also of Dutch ancestry. Romijn attended Berkeley High School before moving on to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she majored in music (vocal performance). She left school to become a model, eventually moving to France for over two years. She has appeared in Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret.
Romijn's early acting roles included guest appearances on friends and a recurring role on Just Shoot Me. She also appeared in the films Rollerball, Femme Fatale, The Punisher, and S1m0ne. Her appearance in the 2003 hit X2 garnered much attention. There was some mild controversy concerning her costume in the film, which consisted of blue makeup and minor prosthetics on her nude body. She also . . .
- February 13
seaQuest DSV was a 1993 TV series created by Rockne S. O'Bannon. It was produced by Amblin Entertainment and Universal TV and was largely filmed in Florida at Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. It originally aired on NBC and was executive produced by Steven Spielberg whose interest helped the show make it to the screen. The series underwent several changes including a change in name to seaQuest 2032 in the third season. In the second season there were several cast changes and additions and the show took on a new direction. The third season, seaQuest 2032, brought about even more changes but was cancelled after thirteen episodes.
First Season Narration: "The 21st century: mankind has colonized the last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians. For beneath the surface . . .
- February 14
Chulak is a fictional planet in the Milky Way in the series Stargate SG-1. The planet orbits a binary system and is home to many Jaffa. Like most Goa'uld-dominated worlds, the planet does not appear to be highly developed. The main city is a short distance from the Stargate and is also called Chulak.
Chulak was once ruled by the System Lord Apophis until he fell victim to Sokar. Former First Prime of Apophis, Teal'c returned to his homeworld during this time, hoping to bring freedom to his fellow Jaffa. When Apophis returned to power, he attacked Chulak, killing many of its people in revenge for . . .
- February 15
Two thousand years ago, twelve of the thirteen tribes of Kobol left the planet due to an issue involving their gods, settling on twelve worlds some distance away. Their names and icons originally corresponded to the twelve signs of the ancient tribes, although these names drifted over time.
While Commander William Adama and President Laura Roslin mention leaving the solar system, it is unclear whether all twelve colonies are in this solar system or what the name of this star might be. However, Caprica, Virgon, and Ragnar, a gas giant, may be within the same star system (according to the miniseries).
The Colonies had approximately 20 billion inhabitants prior to the Cylon attack ("Resistance") . . .
- February 16
The Master is a recurring character on the long-running British series Doctor Who. Easily the most oft-appearing single character on the series other than the Doctor and his companions, the Master became a cunning adversary, ruthlessly exploiting anyone and anything he could in order to advance his plans. He is known to have attempted the destruction of whole planets for his personal gain on at least two occasions and seems to enjoy the sheer chaos he can create simply by killing people.
A Time Lord who is reputed to be a former schoolmate of the Doctor himself, the Master first appeared at the start of the program's eighth season. Early 70s Doctor Who producer Barry Letts had been thinking of the Doctor as somewhat of a cross between a latter day Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. But, he thought, every Holmes needed a Moriarty and every Bond needed a similarly melodramatic villain. In fact, Letts
was so in love with the idea that the Doctor needed such a nemesis that he decided to . . .
- February 17
Sailor Moon aka Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn or Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is a Japanese anime series created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. The series focuses on a team of magical girls known as Sailor Senshi/Sailor Scouts, who use their powers to defend against evil. The team, led by Sailor Moon, are actually the reincarnated defenders of a long-lost kingdom on the moon sent to Earth to save them from the evil that destroyed the Moon kingdom. In addition to the manga series, Sailor Moon has been divided into five anime television series, making it the longest running of the magical girl anime series. The franchise also sparked a vast merchandising campaign and expanded . . .
- February 18
Stories featuring dream worlds explore the concept that dreams represent a world as real as the waking world.
- Once Chang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chang Chou in the dream. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakably, Chang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chang Chou.
- —Chang Chou Tze
When Sci Fi works enter dream worlds, it often isn't just the dreamer who is affected. The other characters in the story may (or may not) be part of the dreamer's dream. As the dreamer becomes aware of the dichotomy between the dream and "reality", this may put the other people the dreamer knows at risk. What if, when the dreamer wakes . . .
- February 19
Night of the Comet was a campy 1984 science fiction horror movie made by writer/director Thom Eberhart.
The original working title of the film was Teenage Mutant Horror Comet Zombies, a nod to both its plot and its tongue-in-cheek attitude.
The story concerns two Los Angeles high school Valley girls, Regina (played by Catherine Mary Stewart) and Samantha (played by Kelli Maroney). They are apparently the only survivors after Earth passes through the tail of a comet.
Anyone who wasn't encased in a steel box during the pass-through was . . .
- February 20
Evelyn Renée O'Connor (b. February 15, 1971) is an American actress born in Katy, Texas, to Walter and Sandra O'Connor. She is best known for role as Gabrielle on the series Xena: Warrior Princess.
Career
O'Connor began acting at a young age and studied at Houston's Alley Theatre and briefly attended the Houston High school of visual and performing arts before graduating from Taylor High School with her friends. Early professional acting roles include commercials for McDonalds and Exxon and a stint on the New Mickey Mouse Club. She began guest starring on television in the late eighties on such series as Teen Angel, Tales from the Crypt, and the television movies Changes, and Sworn to Vengeance. She also appeared in the films Night Game, Stone Cold and The Adventures of Huck Finn.
In 1994, she made her first appearance in the Hercules TV franchise, appearing as Deianara . . .
- February 21
Chiana is a fictional chracter on the TV Series Farscape played by Gigi Edgley. Her character is young, adventurous, rebellious, and full of energy. She is also incredibly agile, able to fit herself into tight spaces. She presents tough, self-sufficient image to cover her emotional vulnerability.
Chiana is a Nebari female brought aboard in "Durka Returns" when the ship she was being transported on collided with Moya. Chiana was a prisoner slated to be reprogrammed as her penchant for independent thought and rebellion ran counter to Nebari Society controlled by a government known as The Establishment. When her controller was killed, Chiana was free to join Moya's crew of fugitives.
Chiana has one brother, an older brother Nerri. They both escaped Nebari Prime when they were very young and traveled together for a few years. When Nerri joined the resistance movement opposing The Establishment, he and Chiana separated so she would not be endangered . . .
- February 22
The Bride with White Hair, a 1993 visually rich fantasy of swordplay, kung-fu clans, cult magic, love, and betrayal was directed by Ronny Yu. Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin star as Cho Yi-hang, a young swordsman bound, reluctantly, to inherit the Wu Tang clan leadership, and Lien Ni-chang, the wolf-girl, an orphan raised to be a deadly assassin by the evil joined twins who lead the Supreme Cult. With lovers as star-crossed and tangled in family rivalries and loyalties as ever Romeo and Juliet were, The Bride with White Hair is Shakespeare meets Hong Kong cinema at its finest. It’s based on a 1954 wuxia novel by Leung Yu-sang and the theme song was written and performed by Leslie Cheung at the request of one of the producers, Raymond Wong.
The film opens atop a snowy mountain where Cho waits, and has been waiting for ten years, for the once-every-twenty-year blooming of a flower fabled to cure all illness. Defending it from others leads Cho to tell his tale and the film moves into flashback. His clan is involved in a war with foreign tribes and an evil cult. One day Cho escapes . . .
- February 23
Always leave them wanting more.
That's the old theatrical adage. When a movie or book is very successful, the audience has had an experience they would like to have again in some way.
There are a number of ways to revisit a successful story.
Probably the most common method is to continue the same story. Sequels typically pick up at close to the same point that the previous story ended, and reference it. THe same characters (or most of them) are dealing with the events the audience already knows. This may have been intended from the beginning of production on the first story (Return of the Jedi was clearly intended to follow The Empire Strikes Back in order to complete the story) or may follow, but not be necessary for completion (Ghostbusters II deals with independent events, although it extensively references the first film).
A special type of sequel is the use of heritage characters. Heritage characters are the descendants of the original characters. They may be aware of this heritage from the beginning of the story, or become aware of their relationship as it progresses
In a movie or book series, each story . . .
- February 24
Zenna Henderson was born Zenna Chlarson on November 1, 1917, in Tucson, Arizona, and died in 1983. She attended Arizona State University, receiving a BA in 1940 and an MA in 1954, and undertook a career in education. During World War II, she taught in a Japanese-American internment camp, marrying Richard Harry Henderson in 1943. Most of her career was spent teaching in schools throughout Arizona.
Her first short story, "Come on, Wagon!," was published in 1951 in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. One of a small number of women who published science fiction during the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Henderson concentrated on short stories, although some of the stories were later linked to form fix-up novels.
These novels, Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961) and The People: No Different Flesh (1966), concern a group of extra-terrestrials who fled to Earth when their homeworld was destroyed. Most of them have psychic gifts . . .
- February 25
Wil McCarthy, born September 16, 1966, in Princeton, New Jersey, has heard all the "you don't have to be a rocket scientist" jokes and then some. Formerly at the Lockheed Martin Corporation in Denver, Colorado, where he contributed to three interplanetary spacecraft and designed satellite orbits for flight systems, McCarthy is both a full-time science fiction writer and co-owner and Chief Technology Officer of aerospace corporation Galileo Shipyards LLC.
McCarthy's first published novel is Aggressor Six, a thrill-packed space adventure released as an original paperback by Roc/Penguin in 1994. A sequel, called The Fall of Sirius, was published in 1996.
The Collapsium (2000), The Wellstone (2003), Lost in Transmission (2004), and To Crush the Moon (2005) comprise The Queendom of Sol saga, which deals with immortality and its unexpected and perhaps sometimes unpleasant consequences. His other novels include Bloom (1998), about the destruction of Earth and the inner solar system by a deadly, self-replicating organism; space adventure Flies from the Amber (1995); and Murder in the Solid State (1996), which combines hard science fiction with murder mystery.
McCarthy writes a science column, Lab Notes, for The SCI FI Channel's online magazine, Science Fiction Weekly. His articles and short fiction have . . .
- February 26
Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in 1991, following up on the unexpected box-office hit The Terminator from 1984. James Cameron once again directs, and both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger reprise their roles.
Edward Furlong joins the cast as John Connor, the boy who will grow up to be the leader of the human resistance against Skynet. As the movie opens, he is a pre-teen, but with a worldly attitude beyond his years. He's spent his life on the run, while his mother provided him with tutelage in warfare from wherever she could find it. Sarah Connor has dedicated her life to the war she knows is coming, but few people believe that she could have such foreknowledge. In fact, she's been incarcerated in a mental institution.
John Connor is about to be convinced of his mother's sanity. He encounters, in quick succession, a pair of Terminators. The Model 101 800 Series Terminator (Schwarzenegger), familiar from the first movie, has been sent back in time from 2029 to be the young John's protector. Who does he need protecting from? That would be the Advanced Prototype Terminator Infiltrator Series 1 Model 1A Type 1000, or T-1000, played by Robert Patrick. This advanced Terminator model . . .
- February 27
The Magic: The Gathering Trading Card Game is the game that in 1993 launched the Trading Card Game (TCG) craze. Invented by Richard Garfield, a mathematics instructor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, it was Wizards of the Coast founder Peter Adkison who saw the potential to create an entirely new genre of games.
The game is played with trading cards that represent aspects of a fantasy world, with cards for magic spells, terrain, and fantastic creatures and characters. Each player assembles a deck of 60 cards from his or her collection of cards. The cards are sold in packs of 15 random cards, known as booster packs, bringing an element of luck to bear on each purchase. Cards are also available in premade decks, ready for play, but this bypasses some of the pleasures of the experience, which include selecting the best cards from a limited pool, or trading with other players for . . .
- February 28
The War of the Worlds (1953) was produced by George Pal, directed by Byron Haskin, starred Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, and Les Tremayne with a screenplay by Barré Lyndon.
Although based on the 1898 novel by H. G. Wells, this film shares little in common with the book. Still, it is a classic in its own right. The setting is updated to contemporary (1950s) California, and substitutes a love story in place of the hero’s search for his wife. Most notably, the Martian tripod walking machines are replaced by sleek hovering craft with long necks and a kind of camera eye that shoots the signature death ray. This version of the war machine, designed by the film’s art director Al Nozaki, has become an icon of science fiction film. Late in the film, the final attack on Los Angeles by the war machines is another classic moment—compare it to the L. A. attack in 1996’s Independence Day. The special effects (created by a team led by Gordon Jennings) are what make this film, and cost $1,400,000 of the film’s $2,000,000 total budget. Note the series of planetary images in the beginning by legendary space artist Chesley Bonestell.
The film actually languished in production limbo for almost 30 years. Director Cecil B. DeMille first purchased the rights to the novel for Paramount in 1925. Over the years, five . . .
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