COMM STATION

With Darren Maxwell

Are you a Buffy fan? If so, have you noticed your hip pocket hurting recently? I went into a store a little while ago and was astounded at the amount of recently released Buffy merchandise. It seems that Buffy is The X Files of the “naughties” where huge amounts of merchandise suddenly appeared from nowhere. An obvious example of this new cash-in is at the Warner Bros Studio store, they too sell Buffy merchandise even though Buffy is a 20^th Century Fox production. Go figure!

Do you love seeing movies in widescreen and think it’s the only way to see a film? I checked out the widescreen video choices at Minotaur books in Melbourne recently and was very impressed with the selection - but the butterflies living in my wallet had a bit of a gasp at the prices. The average widescreen film will sting you about $70 + which is a bit steep considering the low price of DVD disks these days (the videos are English imports which explains the cost). The one that had my tongue dragging on the ground was a box set of all five Planet of the Apes movies in widescreen, but at a price of $145! I had better start writing my “Dear Santa…..” letter now.

Remember a few months ago when the Academy Awards were on? Did you realise that it was the first time a Star Wars film has not won any award – even for Best Visual Effects. That award went to The Matrix, and to be fair, I think it was a good call. Star Wars The Phantom Menace used a lot of CGI – as good as it was - whereas The Matrix introduced more original concepts and ideas. So for innovation alone it deserved the Oscar. Still, being a Star Wars fan at heart, deep down I was rootin’ for the Lucasfilm guys to win.

Star Wars The Phantom Menace might have fared badly at the Oscars, but the Golden Raspberry Awards – which took place a day before the Academy Awards - were another matter altogether (these are awarded to the worst films of a particular year). In all, Star Wars received eight nominations, and I guess to no one’s surprise Jar Jar Binks won the Raspberry for the worst actor of 1999.

A few months ago I went to a preview screening of Galaxy Quest, the film which is a send up of Star Trek and science fiction fans. Now I’ve been around the science fiction convention circuit since 1985, and I have to say that I saw heaps of images of myself in that film. I remember watching the movie thinking “who would perceive an actor in a sci-fi show as a god?” Then I recall being blown away when I saw my hero David Prowse (Darth Vader) at the Galactic Tours convention in 1986 – OK, so I was a little awestruck (and still a teenager). As far as Galaxy Quest is concerned, the funniest scene for me was when Tim Allen went into the toilets and there were a number of costumed fans all in a line. It was such a crack up because that’s what it’s really like!

It always seems to be the small obscure shows that feature actors who eventually turn into mega movie stars (look at David Hasselhoff in Star Crash). A couple of months ago I was watching some TV episodes of Logan’s Run (if you remember THAT show, you’re doing well), and guess who was in the pilot episode? Hicks from Aliens/Rhys from The Terminator! Yep Michael Biehn was there, in what was quite possibly his sci-fi acting debut. Logan’s Run was made in the 70s and I didn’t even recognise Michael when he appeared, but I did spot the guy who briefly played Julie Parish’s stockbroking boyfriend in V The Mini Series.

Don’t you hate it when you hear about special events AFTER they have happened! I was when I learnt that the great stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen was in Melbourne a month or so ago for a brief tour, and appeared at Comics ‘R’ Us. Ray’s impressive credits include: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Jason and the Argonauts, and Clash of the Titans just to name a few. In fact one of Ray’s greatest quotes refers to the special effects whizzos of the last 15 years “it now takes a 100 people to do the work that I used to do all by myself.” See the article in this issue for more on Mr Harryhausen.

I’ve got sci-fi car number plates popping up everywhere at the moment, check out these absolute beauties: I saw a red car with the number plate STR WRS drive past me on the day of a Star Wars fan club meeting. Another plate I saw was CRUSHR which I instantly read as Beverley Crusher from Star Trek TNG. (OK it was for a company called Crusher - but I thought of the character first!). Another VERY subtle sci-fi plate that I saw was WOLFI 1 (in Terminator 2, John Connor’s dog was called Max, but the Terminator uses the name Wolfi to identify the T-1000 on the other end of the phone). The last two plates are Star Wars related, the first one is CHEWIE which I instantly read as Chewbacca. And the second plate impressed me no end when I saw it, SITH which of course is the dark “religious” order that the Emperor and Darth Vader belong too.