From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!sf-lovers Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers Title: SF-LOVERS Digest V6 #3 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.7903 Posted: Sun Jul 4 00:58:56 1982 Received: Sun Jul 4 05:19:34 1982 >From JPM@Mit-Ai Sun Jul 4 00:58:30 1982 SF-LOVERS Digest Sunday, 4 Jul 1982 Volume 6 : Issue 3 Today's Topics: SF Books - Stand on Zanzibar & Puppet Masters & Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep & Dream Park & Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan & Rite of Passage & Software & The World of Null-A, SF Movies - Blade Runner & Time After Time & Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Random Topics - Violence in Movies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Jun 1982 1:19:47 EDT (Thursday) From: Ben LittauerSubject: book reviews I've had a chance to read a fair bit of science fiction these past few weeks, so I thought I'd submit some mini-reviews of some of what I've read in the hope that it might inspire others to do the same (I always like to see pointers to stuff which might interest me), or even spark some discussion. Ratings are on a scale of four stars. Brunner -- Stand on Zanzibar **** I tried to read this about three time through college, and I never got more than about fifty pages into it before quitting. This book starts up rather slowly, and unless you have a large block of vacant time you shouldn't begin. This is one LONG book. It repays the startup investment with much interest, however, so I would heartily recommand it. Basically an overpopulation book, but that is an understatement of gross proportions. Brunner really does paint a vivid picture of his world through his somewhat unconventional style. There is an absolutely wonderful character named Chad C. Mulligan, a social anthropologist, who writes marvelous tirades on the stupidity of the human race. The book is worth it just for Mulligan's writings, but the plot of the main story line is also very good. Dick -- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep *** This one has the cover BLADE RUNNER. This is a very odd book, and if the movie is really representative of the book, I'll be very surprised. This edition has a caveat at the beginning stating that the book only inspired the movie, so I'd expect the movie to take DADoES only at a superficial level and leave all the hard questions posed in the book out. The plot is the adventures of a bounty hunter out to get illegal androids. One of the important questions is whether these androids deserve to live. I predict that the movie will take the first and leave the second. Worth reading. Heinlein -- Puppet Masters *** I read this when I saw it mentioned in all the FRIDAY reviews on SFL. I enjoyed it, but I found (as I often do with Heinlein) that the anti-communist propaganda was a little overbearing (and yes, I do know that it is not a recent book). Plot deals with parasitic ETs which are trying to take over the Earth by taking over people's bodies. McIntyre -- Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan ** Much discussion of this has preceded me. I liked it, but I can't get very excited about novelizations of movies. Probably would have gotten three stars if not for this. Niven/Barnes -- Dream Park *** This is a good one for those of us who aren't D&Ders. Gives some feeling for what D&D might be all about (I can't say for sure since I've never played). A decent mystery, too. But I do miss the heyday of Known Space (there is at least on passing reference to KS in DP). Panshin -- Rite of Passage *** Another oldie but goodie. I have mixed feeling about this one. On the one hand, I did like it a lot, but on the other I felt that it was somewhat "thin" and unchallenging. Is this a juvenile do you suppose? Rucker -- Software ** "preserve your software ... all the rest is meat!" I like that. A decent adventure story about robot intelligence and human intelligence. Two stars because I felt a little dissatisfied with the ending, and not enough feeling of what the world is like. I've seen that Rucker has a non-fiction book out along the lines of Godel, Escher, Bach (which is my nominee for book of the decade). Ruckers is called something like . Anyone can tell me about it? Van Vogt -- The World of Null-A ** I read the revised edition with special preface by the author extolling the virtues of the philosophy of General Semantics (also known as Null-A). Reading the book did not give me any real idea what Null-A is all about. A friend of mine explained to me that Null-A is a plot device used by Van Vogt to motivate his characters. This is about the same conclusion I had come to. I tend to be suspicious when an author has to tell you that his book will introduce you to concepts that are the very basis of sanity, etc., etc. I might have enjoyed this more without the preface. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jul 1982 1417-CDT From: CS.EMERSON at UTEXAS-20 Subject: Bladerunner Comments (Not a Spoiler) I saw Bladerunner the other night. I thought it was fairly good but I did not enjoy it as much as STTWOK or ET. Somehow the transition between scenes was poor. I also found it a little too violent and gory. It was fairly suspenseful in parts and the influence of Ridley Scott was evident: everything was dark, gloomy, seedy, and decrepit just as in Alien. The special effects showing the future Los Angeles were very impressive in my estimation. (With all of the commercialism and blaring advertisements the setting reminds me a little of Pohl and Kornbluth's Space Merchants.) However, the movie was set in 2019 which strikes me as a little soon for having interstellar travel as implied by the references to "Offworld". ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 82 12:18-PDT From: mclure at SRI-UNIX Subject: violence in movies BLADE RUNNER By Glenn Collins c. 1982 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The film is called ''Blade Runner,'' a detective story set in the year 2019, and it has won praise for its lavish and detailed depiction of the Los Angeles of the future. The movie also contains scenes of grisly sadism that are perhaps unequalled in recent popular entertainment: -Roy Batty, a ''replicant,'' or artificial human, slowly crushes the skull of his human creator, to the accompaniment of Dolby sound effects. -The detective character played by Harrison Ford shoots a ''replicant'' woman in the back several times. She crashes through five large windows, and the audience is treated to clinical views of her bloody wounds and her corpse's staring eyes. -Batty breaks two fingers of the character played by Ford. -The finale of the film depicts the terrorizing of one or another protagonist, including the shooting of a ''replicant'' woman in the torso. We see her violently writhing and dying, and the film then cuts back again and again to the sight of her bloody corpse. Then Batty is shown putting his finger in the wound and licking her blood. Although the debate about violence in films and on television has continued for years, new concern has arisen from the release last month of the federal government's update of the 1972 surgeon general's report on the adverse effects of televised violence on the young, and from the attention given in recent weeks to the trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., whom prosecutors charged modeled his behavior on the film ''Taxi Driver.'' ''Blade Runner'' contains many rough-'em-up scenes that might be expected in any classic private-eye vehicle. But the vivid depiction of gore, and the plot emphasis on aggressive behavior, seems to raise to a new level a trend evident in many recent mass-audience science-fiction or fantasy movies that attract large youthful followings. These films are not billed as horror movies or shock epics like ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre,'' in which bloody scenes are often expected by the audiences attracted to them. Many of these movies were seen by children, brought to theaters by their parents despite a PG rating. ''Blade Runner'' is rated R, but is expected to draw a youthful following because of its science-fiction theme, the presence of Harrison Ford, its score by Vangelis, who composed the ''Chariots of Fire'' theme, and the direction by Ridley Scott, whose last effort was the popular ''Alien.'' Several film makers, when asked about gratuitous violence, deplored it while trying to rationalize the gore in their own films. Psychologists interviewed emphasized the harmful effects of vividly depicted aggression. ''Gratuitous bloodshed and violence is dangerous.'' said Scott. ''I think it does inspire violence. Children must be affected by it . It's inevitable.'' Scott agreed that moviemakers are currently obliged to show bloody scenes. ''I think the average thriller these days enters a gratuitous area, for increasing box office sales,'' he said. Commenting about excessive violence, he said: ''That kind of thing, I think it denigrates the whole industry.'' How, then, did he defend the bloodiness of ''Blade Runner''? ''Well I don't think the film is gratuitous in terms of being a detective story,'' he said. ''If you have that kind of story, violence is going to occur.'' But why did the film go in a such a gory direction? Other detective films have found alernative ways to suggest violence. ''It was to show the power of the replicants,'' he said. ''The violence involved in each instance was to show how hard it was to stop them.'' Scott expressed dismay that his film might be viewed as excessively violent. ''We kept it restricted,'' he said. ''This was the cut version. The demonstration of violence in the scenes was cut back.'' What about the sadistic breaking of fingers? ''Oh,'' he answered, ''the breaking of the fingers - we went wide on that one. People think you are seeing these things, but all you really hear is the sound of the fingers breaking.'' Why was it necessary to keep returning to the bloody torso of the murdered replicant woman, and Batty tasting her blood? ''But he has lost his mate,'' responded Scott. ''The blood is a trigger point for him. He touches the blood and uses the blood as a warrior might use war paint. The Indians used to do that, you know.'' Nicholas Meyer, who directed ''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,'' and the 1979 film ''Time After Time,'' agrees that many movies are too gory. ''Lots of movies are gratuitously violent,'' he said. ''They pander to audiences - certainly, it's a form of pornography.'' Why, then, did he include the scene in the new ''Star Trek'' in which creatures crawl bloodily out of a crewman's ear? ''It wasn't as violent as it could have been,'' he said. ''It was a moment of going 'boo.''' Wouldn't the point have been made in a less gory way only a few years ago? ''I can't answer that question,'' he said. ''I have no explanation for the blood. More would have been too much, and less wouldn't have been enough. We got off the blood pretty quick.'' Was he concerned that children would be disturbed by the scorpion scene, or by the sight of the bloody corpses in the space station? ''It's a PG movie,'' he said. ''I never thought that either 'Star Trek' or 'Time After Time' should be seen by young children.'' When asked whether he was aware that many children were seeing the new ''Star Trek,'' he said, ''You can't blame the film maker for the parents who don't heed the rating system.'' Indeed, most of the movies in question are rated PG. However, many parents complain that they do not have the time or the financial resources to preview all movies seen by their children, and that peer-group pressure exerts a powerful force on youngsters to see movies parents may not approve of. ''People prefer to blame movies for the discretion that parents fail to exercise with their own children,'' commented Meyer. ''There is a rating system, and is it the fault of the film makers that parents don't honor it?'' He added: ''Look, blood has been a theatrical staple for hundreds of years. Read 'Titus Andronicus' - it's far more violent than anything we've seen on the screen. Talk of violence, what about 'Lear'?'' ''The people who make movies justify violence by saying that Shakespeare did it, or that it's somehow socially beneficial,'' said Dr. Leonard Berkowitz, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, who has done many studies on violence and aggression. Berkowitz said, however, that the adverse effects of the graphic depiction of violence on audiences is well documented. The recent report prepared by the National Institute of Mental Health concluded that there was ''overwhelming'' scientific evidence that ''excessive'' violence on television leads directly to aggression and violent behavior among children and teen-agers. Berkowitz said that the effects of violence on audiences were threefold. ''First,'' he said, ''it makes audiences in general less horrified by, and more indifferent to, violence. Secondly, audiences may learn the lesson that violence is approved behavior. Third, some can become stimulated by it.'' Why do film makers choose the gory option? ''It's done because there is action involved,'' he said, ''and it's done because there are people who enjoy the sight of violence, and producers are catering to those tastes to get more people into the theater.'' Moviemakers, Berkowitz said, ''feel they have to be ever more extreme to give a charge to audiences.'' He continued: ''As people become more and more inured to violence, producers feel they have to supply more and more of it. So, 'Rocky III' is more violent than 'Rocky I.' Only awhile ago, people were deploring the gratuitous violence in 'Bonnie and Clyde,' and yet one thinks of the film differently now in comparison to recent movies.'' Isaac Asimov, the longtime science-fiction author, believes that the presence of gratuitous violence in recent science-fiction movies, and in any movie, is a moral issue: ''Seeing these things, we get inured to violence, and that's not good for our society. A callous population is a dangerous population.'' He added: ''The Greek or Shakespearean portrayal of violence was not for the sake of violence; violence illuminated human motivation. But now in these violent movies there is no attempt to understand the causes, consequences and implications of violence. There is no higher art in these films than seeing a hanging, or an auto da fe.'' As a science-fiction pioneer, Asimov said he was disturbed that blood and gore had so frequenly been injected into movies about the future. ''It's not so much a betrayal, but a trivialization,'' he said. ''When you're trying to deal with something as important as the future of humanity,'' he said, ''and you simply use the future as the background for a freak show animated by a bunch of carnival tricks, that's a disappointment. I would like to see a movie about serious people in the future facing the kind of reasonable problems that real human people must face.'' ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************