Comm Station

With Darren Maxwell

 

Everyone loves picking up a bargain, and a few months ago I saw one that nearly had me scrambling for my cheque book. One of the most expensive books I’ve ever seen was being sold at a Collins Bookseller, drastically reduced –they were practically chucking them away! Yep, The Star Wars Chronicles - which was originally priced at $350 was now available for the paltry sum of $195! Then the dreaded GST kicked in and the price rocketed back up to around $215. Guess who’s spewin’ he didn’t get one before July 1?

 

Just as I was typing that last paragraph, someone’s mobile phone went off in the office here and the ring was The Thunderbirds tune. Unfortunately because the office is so crowded, I don’t know who’s phone it was. Hmmm, I’ll have to wait and see which staff member here has a tendency to walk like a “super” marionette.

 

Everyone has a dream, and for some of us that dream does come true. Melbourne Star Wars identity Justin Dix, famous for creating the award winning amateur Star Wars inspired film Bounty Trail, was blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime some months back – working on Star Wars Episode II in Sydney. His role was the controller of R2-D2, however it wouldn’t surprise me if Justin branched off into different areas within Lucasfilm during his four month “tour of duty”. In any case, it was a well-deserved award to a very talented person.

 

Looks like the video people are starting to see the real threat of DVD. I noticed that the latest release of Alien comes complete with new behind-the-scenes footage and extra bits. I wonder how long it will be before a film on video has the DVD-inspired “director’s commentary” version available?

 

Speaking of DVD, I see that the great DVD revolution isn’t without its drawbacks. Friends of mine who were serious video tape collectors used to buy their tapes from England or the US because the variety and quality was better than on Australian tapes. Now with DVD they’re buying their disks from the US for around $A50-$60. Now if DVD is supposed to be so good, why would they need to import disks instead of buying the cheaper local ones? Well consider this example for an answer: The Australian DVD release of The Matrix is available in widescreen format, but did you know the US DVD of The Matrix widescreen is even wider! And then there's the complication of the zoning system - unless your DVD player has been "modified", you are restricted to the selection of DVDs available in your region only. Most people I know with DVD players have either bought a US-zoned one and buy their DVDs only from the US (usually via the Internet), or else have their player modified so they're not limited to the Australian releases, and buy whatever region they want.

 

So have you been going ape over the latest “cult TV show” video releases yet? Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica - isn’t it wonderful! But it's a shame that they're only releasing one or two episodes of each show.

 

Seems like a science fiction movie is not really successful until someone makes a Chess set out of it. A while ago I saw a Star Wars The Phantom Menace computer chess game. As is often the case with character pieces, they don’t match up evenly against each other. In this version Artoo units/Destroyer Droids make up the pawns and Jar Jar Binks/Battle Droids make up the Rooks (gee I wonder who’d win those fights). Queen Amidalaand Yoda make up the white Queen and King, with Darth Maul and Darth Sidious on the black side – which is an understandable match up. All in all, this is a good looking set with nicely sculptured pieces.

 

Who says videos don’t appreciate with time? I recently went into a musty old video collector’s store in Melbourne and found the Classic Star Wars trilogy, pre-special edition, THX release videos for $160 the lot. HOW MUCH! Now these may have been the last release of the films before The Speccy Eddys came out, but paying over $50 for one video tape is a bit much.

 

Remember the film Galaxy Quest? A lot of people loved it because the film showed science fiction fans at loose in their “natural habitat” of science fiction conventions. Well, Galaxy Quest isn’t the only picture on this theme worth checking out. If you’re a serious science fiction enthusiast, check out the film Free Enterprise featuring William Shatner as himself. All things considered it’s a pretty dumb film, but it’s priceless for its portrayal of sci-fi fans, especially when everyone keeps quoting lines from sci-fi movies. Also, the scene in Toys ‘R’ Us when the guy is shocked to learn that the little kid is about to open his collectable toy figure is just priceless. When I saw that scene I thought “hey there’s me”!

 

Quoting lines from movies reminds me of the time I attended a bucks day for a FRONTIER’s own Jeremy Sadler, who decided to spend it go-kart racing on an outdoor track. It was a great day, but there was one small problem, it rained… hard. At one point we were all in our karts parked on the wet grass with the engines switched off waiting for some other racers to finish. It was cold, wet, and we had nothing to do while waiting to get going. So what do you think we did to pass the time? Yep we started quoting lines from the film Aliens. Considering we all had our helmets on and couldn’t see the faces of the people around us, the voices just seemed to be coming from everywhere. It really was a priceless moment of insanity.

 

I see that Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar from the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation) has been involved in a film called Trekkies - which should technically be called Trekkers, but I digress - which is a documentary about the lives and habits of Star Trek fans. From what I understand it’s a reasonably objective film considering how derogatory it could potentially be, however it does focus on a few who have taken their interest in Star Trek to the extreme. To be fair, I think everyone knows someone who has “tipped over the edge” a bit, a person who perhaps find it difficult to separate reality from fantasy. And  then there’s football fans…

 

The sci-fi number plate business seems to be running hotter than ever. Aside from the big list in the last issue of Comm Station, here are a couple more that were spotted recently: I guess it’s no surprise that someone is cruising the streets with the number plate BUFFY – they must have bought this plate super early considering  there are no incremented numbers attached. I saw BMEUP (beam me up) not too long ago, which is a nice little homage to the original Star Trek series. I also saw a subtle number plate for the Babylon 5 fans, PPG, which are the hand held guns used by Earthforce.

 

 

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