COMM. STATION

With Darren Maxwell

 

I was driving home from work a little while ago when I stopped behind an orange VW Kombi wagon. And there written on the back was the word “Clockwork”, which I thought was a pretty cute and subtle reference to the film. Even though I personally don’t class A Clockwork Orange as a sci-fi movie, most sci-fi encyclopaedias and compendiums do so I thought it worth mentioning.

 

Have you ever had a situation when you’ve bought something rather expensive only to find it selling for next to nix not much later? Someone I know was proud of the fact that he had a video of Starship Troopers in widescreen,  whichhe’d imported from England. At a cost of $75, this was definitely a video only a collector would pay that much for. Sure enough, imagine his annoyance when K-Mart started selling them for $20 (oops sorry, $19.95)! I think the worst part of this story is that the “widescreen” element of this film is very disappointing considering how “non-widescreen” it appears (letterbox style ala Star Wars it ain’t).

 

If someone says to you “I’m going to buy myself an X-Wing to cruise around on,” do you immediately think they’re either talking about a very large Star Wars toy or that they’ve gone around the twist? We all know an X-Wing is a fictitious space ship from Star Wars, right? Wrong! An X-Wing is now also a super-duper motorcycle made by Honda. It actually premiered at the Tokyo Motor Show a few months ago and was featured in the cars guide in the Melbourne Herald/Sun newspaper. For a motorcycle it was pretty spunky looking, though don’t ask me where the Artoo unit is supposed to sit.

 

Sometimes the Internet can be the ultimate sci-fi life saver. Thanks to two of my Internet ICQ chat friends, I have received on videotape two sci-fi equivalents of the casino jackpot. The first was the widescreen copy of the film Dune (with a special thanks to Bobbi)- even the serious widescreen video collectors I know don’t have this. And the second, and even more rare video, I received was… wait for it… the extended “Alan Smithee” version of Dune which has NEVER been released on video tape in any country - it was always one of those “I know a friend, who knows a friend, who knows a friend who’s seen it” stories. Fortunately I found out on a Dune web site that the film was being screened on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US and was able to ask my ICQ contacts to record it for me (a special thanks to Gretta for that one - who flew the tape over to Oz especially by air mail). So now I’M the a friend of a friend of a friend who’s GOT it.

 

What did everyone think of the favourite sci-fi films listing in the last issue of FRONTIER? Wasn’t it fantastic! If you were like me, it spurred on a whole lot of special memories from your own favourite sci-fi films and television shows. My poignant moments were: seeing Superman in flight for the first time in the 1979 Superman The Movie - I really DID believe a man could fly; being seriously spooked over the invisible “monster from the ID” in Forbidden Planet; Darth Vader’s unforgettable entrance in Star Wars in 1977 when I was 10 years old; the brilliant opening sequence of Contact, when I saw that I knew the film was going to be something special; remembering that I was so scared after the dogs chewed the arm off the “thing” in the original The Thing that I went to bed; attending a special preview screening of Return of the Jedi three months before the public saw it in 1983 - and we were seated right in the front row!; plus numerous moments in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 (too many to mention here) which always served to remind me why I love science fiction.

 

Sometimes it must really suck being a Star Wars collector. I discovered recently that amongst all the large and expensive action figures which have been created, they’ve now released the Cantina Band characters from Star Wars (Bith for all you purists - “Figrin ’Dan and the Modal Nodes” for the even more pure). A large costs around $40+, but guess what - they’ve released them each as an individual band member, which means that collectors have to buy FIVE of these guys, and the only difference between them is the instrument you get and the name of the character on the packaging (which is unpronounceable at the best of times) - otherwise the figures themselves are identical! Even the miniatures versions of the Bith figure came with all five instruments in one hit (I’m convinced that a whole lot of Star Wars collectors will be filing for bankruptcy before too long).

 

Speaking of Star Wars, I noticed that there’s a new chess set available. As always, it’s the choice of characters for pieces that will interest people the most, and this set has chosen its pieces well. This is a pre-Phantom Menace set so it pits the Imperial Empire against the Rebel Alliance. Of particular note is that the white King is Ben Kenobi and Leia is naturally the Queen. On the Imperial side, The Emperor is the King and Darth Vader is the Queen, which makes a lot of sense as far as the power of the pieces go (I’ve seen sets which have had The Emperor as Queen and Vader as the King, which is technically a no-no). I did think it was unusual having Stormtroopers as the Bishops considering in the Star Wars universe they are pretty powerless figures. Also having the Royal Guards as Knights will confuse a lot of players who will confuse them with the Stormtroopers. The only other quibble I have is Artoo and Threepio being the Rooks on the white side and Boba Fett as the Rook on the black side - the problem being that they are not equal characters in strength. Like the recent Star Trek Chess set, the spaceships make up the pawns: in this case it’s the X-Wing Fighters versus the TIE Fighters, which makes for a good “traditional” choice. A lot of work has been spent making the characters look correct with extra detail and for that alone it gets my big thumbs up.

 

It’s been a while since we’ve had a sci-fi related car registration number plate to report, however our FRONTIER editor spotted EWOKS (the small bear things from Return of the Jedi which most older fans dislike) on a UStelevision show. Now park this car next to one which has a number plate of Jar Jar Binks, and you’ll have everyone throwing stones at them!

 

Until next time, stay galactic.

 

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