Comments on: Barry Morse, 1918 – 2008

By: CR

CR — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:14:20 +0000

By the way, in my last post, I was trying to point out the obvious. Or what I thought should be obvious. I didn’t mean to sound too critical, but I realize I may have come across as a bit heavy-handed. Sorry for that, if that’s how it seemed.
Anyway, this has been an interesting thread, and it’s neat to see that a small, 30 year old part of Barry Morse’s vast amount work has stimulated so much conversation.

By: CR

CR — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:39:05 +0000

It’s ironic how a few years difference in birth makes people either a Star Trek fan or a Space: 1999 fan. I find it ironic that so many Star Trek fans can’t get past S99’s scientific inaccuracies, but will bend over backwards to explain ST’s problems away, all while missing the point of just watching a good story unfold.

No, not all S99 episodes were good, but there were several which were not only good, but ahead of their time as far as tv sci-fi is concerned. Just like Star Trek was in its day. A little lightening up (and a bit more of the IDIC ideal–in other words, acceptance) might help. Both ways. (Enough ST versus S99, in other words.)

Oh, and the similarity between S99 and 2001: A Space Odyssey goes beyond just the title and the SFX man… it was a conscious decision to make the show sort of a ‘2001 for tv.’ Maybe they were a little TOO successful at that, hence the much-derided ‘wooden’ quality of the characters. (Even that has been blown out of proportion by critics, though. And it changed so much in Year 2 that the characters almost became parodies of themselves; they got too humanized.)

By: blizno

blizno — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:14:43 +0000

“# The Bad Astronomeron 06 Feb 2008 at 10:06 am
bliznos, the difference between Bergman and Spock is that Bergman was human, and in many ways was the best representative of humanity in space. Spock, for all his protestations, only wanted to be human, and we cheered him when we got even a glimpse of it.”

I don’t agree. Spock wanted to be Vulcan and was deeply ashamed of his human ancestry. Spock rigidly suppressed his human half all of the time unless he was overpowered by space-spores or was the helpless victim of the entirely Vulcan Pon-farr and had just killed his captain.
Spock couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in wry amusement now and then but, after all, he’s only Vulcan/human.

Spock often grounded Kirk-McCoy-Scotty when the hot-blooded humans were slathering to rampage against an undefeatable enemy.
Spock’s cool, accurate assessment of the situation usually brought the frenzied humans back to reason and to a peaceful solution to their problem-of-the-week.

It’s Mr. Data who wanted to be human.

By: K

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:42:36 +0000

NO! Oh, that’s sad. I just got the whole Space: 1999 dvd collection for xmas and have been reliving my childhood and forcing my 12 year old to watch them with me. He’s a victim of Star Wars so the old timey graphics and actual plots ain’t doing it for him. They make him actually think and he’s kicking and screaming to avoid it because Star Wars is so easy. Plus it doesn’t help that we just went to a con and met Darth Maul and Anakin. Of course, I was looking for a model of an Eagle or Main Mission.
And here I was, not even a week ago, looking at the cast online and marveling that he was still alive after all this time. NO!

By: Adela

Adela — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:01:54 +0000

I still have nightmares about that freaky one eye tentacle doplar sound flashing light monster that live in the wreckage field hypnotizing folks into walking forward for mummification. I so cheered on post trauma stress guy and his fire axe.
No it was not high end art and was cheesy and bad science but it also brought up hints of concepts that other scifi shows would not dare to go near for a few more years and in first season had some chilling moments like when useless political guy woke up out of stasis early on his trip back to earth in the alien ship and they are listening to his transmission back at base and know he’s soon to be toast. So very Poe.

By: Inertially Guided

Inertially Guided — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:35:29 +0000

“They’re Hawks, John! They’re Mark Nine Hawks!”

John Powell, thanks for the links. The shot of the aircraft carrier is especially funny for me as MY ship (USNS Arctic) is currently deployed with USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in the Middle East. Now I can sleep easy knowing that Alan Carter and friends stand ready to defend us from alien Jihadists…

Regards;

Tom E.
Persian Gulf

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:40:40 +0000

I don’t have much to add to this conversation other than put me in the “couldn’t buy the premise” camp. I also saw much of the hardware (especially the Eagles) as being very derivative of 2001 (and, in fact, so is the title!). I found out later that’s because Brian Johnson (Derik Meddings chief assistant model-maker) was “loaned” to Kubrick to work on the movie. I mention this in the background section of the “Thunderbirds” chapter of Spaceship Handbook. (No entry specifically on Eagles in that, but one is planned for Volume 2).

SuperCorgi says: “…although I like some of his other work, Martin Landau wasn’t much better.”

I thought he was very wooden in all his roles until much later. OTOH, his role as Preston Tucker’s associate (I forget the name) in “Tucker” and, of course, his Oscar winning role as Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood” were both marvelous.

- Jack