KA-BOOM!

... and just like that the heavens tore open and unleashed an incredible 50 SciFi and Fantasy citations for the day of August 30th!

Longtime readers of SciFiHistory.Net know full well that I've always tried to build each and every possible day into an unbelievable reservoir of trivia; and my long-stated goal has always been to achieve minimally 50 different citations between birthday mentions, film releases, TV airdates, etc.  I got up early today and tinkered on today's date -- August 30 -- and managed to squeak in a few more in order to reach that magical, mystical benchmark.  And that's always a cause for celebration around these parts, so please surf on over to the day and delight in the facts.

As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!

-- EZ

1995’s Screamers is one of those flicks that circumstances just never aligned for me to see it in theaters back when it was originally released.  A few years later, I caught part of it on pay cable; and what I did just never piqued my interest enough to seek it out without delay.  Yes, it stayed on my (bucket) list of things to see; but I was in no particular rush.
 
Flashforward to 2021: I earned some Amazon.com bucks via my credit card, and when I realized I had more than enough to spring for the latest Shout Factory release (why are these things so bloody expensive for a twenty+ year old film?) I figured it was a sign from God, the Universe, or whoever still sends signs.  I ordered one up.  It sat for a few weeks – secretly biding its time, secretly waiting and wanting for me to put it in the player – and I finally got around to it last night.
 
Going into the whole affair, I was aware that the feature was an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story (novella?).  As a SciFi/Fantasy junkie – and one who’s read a good handful of Dick’s short stuff (his novels just haven’t quite tickled my fancy) – I yearned to finally come to grips with this incarnation.  And I knew that it was headlined by none other than the original RoboCop himself – Peter Weller – perhaps very near the peak of his critical and commercial acclaim.  Given these bona fides, I’d often wondered why Screamers failed to achieve wider success.
 
After a single view, I think I can answer that question.
 
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
 
From the product packaging:
“The year is 2078. The man is rebel Alliance Commander Col. Joseph Hendricksson, assigned to project the Sirius 6B outpost from ravage and plunder at the hands of the New Economic Bloc.  His state-of-the-art weaponry are known as Screamers: manmade killing devices programmed to eliminate all enemy life forms.  Screamers travel underground, their intent to kill announced by piercing shrieks.  They dissect their victims with precision, then eradicate all traces of the carnage.  They are lethal.  Effective.  Tidy.  And somehow, they are mutating … self-replicating into human form … and slaughtering every beating heart on the planet.”

​Ahem.
 
I’ve long harped about films requiring so much set-up that producers or screenwriters are inclined to write an opening scroll.  In short, I hate them.  To me, they represent a qualifier that almost promises what to follow is bound to be an inferior product.  And the longer they are?  Well, that means the more inferior the product is going to be.  I’d rather learn my facts organically and not have them spoon-fed in black-and-white.  Now, I realize that some projects – especially ones in Science Fiction and Fantasy – might require a bit of set-up as part of the foundation.  World-building is no easy task, and when you have a lot of facts required so that the storyteller and the audience can begin on common ground then I can imagine that the adage “more is less” aptly applies to eliminating any confusion before our story begins.
 
Still, Screamers opens with quite a lot of information, and I question just how much of this data dump was truly necessary in order to establish an effective jumping off point.
 
Some of it appears absolutely necessary.  I think it’s good to go into this story knowing where it takes place (not on Earth) with maybe even a cursory explanation of who these folks are (i.e. the good guys vs. the bad guys).  Still, the downside here is that neither side is strongly identified as good or bad; and as it’s a Philip K. Dick world that does matter to a degree.  His stories tend to involve a relatable central character caught up in a dark, dark world; and, sadly, all of that text was a bit … erm … meaty.
 
Any story worth its weight in ink has a protagonist and an antagonist: that is, truly, the Golden Rule to any good yarn.  These two sides will meet and clash (to a degree) over a central conflict; yet the one hinted at in Screamers’ opening crawl gets dismissed pretty early in the effort when ‘the good guys’ choose to never fire on ‘the bad guy.’  (An adversary happens across an enemy’s bunker: though the soldiers squabble over who’s going to claim the kill, no one does.)  Some of their hesitancy is owed to the circumstances that arise, but it’s handled so poorly here – the audience truly doesn’t find out about a proposed cease-fire until several minutes later – that I wondered whether or not these were good soldiers, bad soldiers, lazy soldiers, scared soldiers, etc.  This mental preoccupation only served to pull my attention away from the experience, and that’s never a good opening for any picture.
 
Suffice it to say, I think it needed to be clearer from the beginning which side with which I identified.  Once Peter Weller enters the fray – our presumed hero – I’m finally assured that he’ll be the one I’m taking this journey with; but the miss of these first few minutes had me questioning whether or not he was an effective leader.  Sure, he sounds like the battle-hardened commander who’s grown a bit cynical as the war dragged on; yet I think a stronger set-up would’ve underscored his ongoing commitment to the mission.
 
As the picture unfolded, however, what I assumed the mission to be from the film’s set-up started shifting.  (On the battlefield, they call phenomenon this ‘mission creep.’)  Therein, I think I discovered why Screamers failed to find a huge audience when it enjoyed its initial theatrical run: the audience doesn’t learn what the true story is until about a third in not halfway into the picture!  In the span of about 50 minutes, the goal changes from ‘war’ to ‘peace,’ then from ‘peace’ to ‘survival,’ and then from ‘survival against each other’ to ‘survival against our own creation.’  It felt like a script in search of a story – a target with an ever-shifting center – and I was befuddled by its listless narrative.
 
Well …
​

As it turns out, Screamers isn’t about these dreaded creatures so much as it is about how a flawed mankind is to think that it can play God in a universe ruled by Mother Nature.  In no small way, that sentiment is near-and-dear to, perhaps, anything and everything Dick wrote: life will likely always be governed by the imperfect choices we’ve made (individually or as a society), and we’ll all spend our days in a constant attempt to avoid the unintended circumstances our own shortsightedness creates.  The Screamers – be they Versions 1, 2, or 3 (it’ll make sense when you watch the film) – are merely distractions from the theme: they’re visual eye candy meant to demonstrate the futility of our own efforts, our own flawed grasp of existence, and our own omniscient whimsy.
 
All of this is packaged in a script by Dan O’Bannon and Miguel Tejada-Flores as a war story.  It’s presented both as a man-vs-man tale as well as a man-vs-machine, making it as equally ‘apocalyptic’ as it is ‘tech noir.’  But that, too, is misdirection as it becomes obvious once you grasp that the film is essential about man-vs-himself: as Screamers unspools, it’s easy to see very early on that there’s no war here.  The war was fought.  The war was won or it was lost (depending upon one’s perspective), and civilization (it would seem) has moved on.  Screamers is more about what remains after war than it ever is about good vs. evil, and those remnants are far more interesting to examine aesthetically than typically is the war … and it’s been done masterly before by Francis Ford Coppola’s award-winning Apocalypse Now (1979).
 
In Apocalypse Now, Capt. Williard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with hunting down a renegade Colonel Kurtz solely to assassinate him before he can do any greater damage to United States’ reputation in the Vietnam War.  The script is considered a contemporary adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness, a novel wherein the lead Marlow slowly comes to the realization that Kurtz has turned to evil yet allows the man to die of natural causes rather than (debatably) lose his own humanity by killing him.  As is the case with art, we could perhaps argue all day long about the meaning of each of these works; but the sum total of their respective parts will likely always remain that Kurtz represents evil that must be vanquished – by man or by nature – in order for there ever be an honest attempt for society to right itself.  Is there no justice in the universe?  Well, maybe there is, but only if Kurtz dies by hook or by crook.
 
Eventually, Screamers’ Hendricksson finds himself in similar straits: though his war has ended, there’s another one brewing on the horizon.  Yet, this soldier needs to cleanse his hands of this whole affair in order to have a chance at personal peace in a galaxy destroyed by the continuing industrialization of mankind.
 
The significant difference between Apocalypse Now’s Willard and Screamers’ Hendricksson – as characters – is that Willard is doing what he’s been ordered to do while Hendricksson is doing it by choice.  This is no small distinction, and I’d suggest it might explain why Weller isn’t more well renowned across fandom for his work in this film as opposed to the crowd-pleasing genre entry RoboCop (1987).  His Alex Murphy is a victim of crime who’s given a second chance to serve and protect by means of some serious cybernetic advancements; but the man underneath remains morally intact, requiring him to remain true to the letter of the law even through the film’s final sequence.  Today’s audiences might call that pollyannish (if they know the word!), but I call it damn fine and effective storytelling.
 
By comparison?
​

Well, like it or not, Hendricksson is abandoning his post – or whatever is left of it.  He’s never been ordered to leave Sirius 6B.  (Yes, I’ll concede I’m splitting hairs given the fact that the script suggests no order the base has received has been quite legitimate but stick with me and you’ll see where I’m going with this.)  Also, he’s never been ordered to wipe out the Screamers.  (In fact, the Alliance has given him an admittedly on-again-off-again tool – the “tabs” they wear on their wrists – to keep him and his soldiers safe from them.)  The classic movie soldier would face not only a court martial but also a dishonorable discharge once he returns to civilization.  Turning Hendricksson from hero to anti-hero isn’t all that much a stretch here as the audience had already come to know him via the man’s increasingly pessimistic observations; but it’s still one worthy of note because audiences rarely identify with, nor are sympathetic to a soldier who so openly disobeys orders.
 
In the absence of authority – which is truly the world as drawn here – regular folks expect leaders to lead.  While a case could be made that Hendricksson’s choice to abandon ship was forced on him, I’d argue that I never saw him much care for anything on Sirius 6B.  (Keep in mind that all of this is a screenwriter’s invention anyway, so that argument doesn’t hold much merit to begin with.)  In fact, the first time we’re shown that he develops feelings for anything – Jessica (the lovely Jennifer Rubin) – it’s only after he’s confirmed that the planet no longer has anything to offer him.  Not only that but it also comes to life in the last reel that a strong legal case could be made that he’s – ahem – consorting with the enemy as she turns out to be yet one more iteration of those dreaded Screamers we’re heard so much about.  Is this the type of example audiences reward?  A man who ignores his mission, abandons his post, and collaborates with an enemy?
 
Where I come from, I call that a traitor.  Thank God this is only a movie!
 
I suspect O’Bannon and Tejada-Flores figured the audience would be okay with Hendricksson’s going AWOL given the fact that much of Sirius 6B is little more than hollowed-out industrial carcass.  That added to the fact that both sides of this conflict have been savaged by a weapon that continues to evolve and appears unstoppable.  (Alas, it isn’t unstoppable, as we see the commander present for every occasion where a Screamer – ahem – meets its maker.  Granted, it ain’t easy, but it is possible.)  Wherein other cinema heroes “find a way” to achieve the ridiculous, Hendricksson surrenders to his own pronounced cynicism, choosing to abandon the world for the safety and comfort of home … and ultimately that may be a pill too large for some viewers to swallow.
 
Screamers (1995) is produced by Triumph Films (a division of Sony, I believe).  DVD distribution (for this particular release) is handled by Shout Factory.  As for the technical specifications?  The film looks and sounds fabulous; though the effects are a bit low budget and dated (yes, even for its time), they work just fine for the purposes of this story – a bunch of backwater locals on a distant planet who are largely cut off from the latest technological developments.  As for the special features?  Shout Factory ponies up a handful of interviews – director Christian Duguay, producer Tom Berry, co-star Jennifer Rubin, and co-screenwriter Miguel Tejada-Flores.  They’re good – nothing spectacular, with Rubin’s being perhaps the least relevant – and I suppose interested parties will gobble them up.
 
Recommended.  Screamers (1995) will not be for everyone.  While it has perhaps the right amount of Philip K. Dick paranoia and skepticism, I felt the script (from Dan O’Bannon and Miguel Tejada-Flores) meandered a bit too much from point-to-point instead of presenting a very clear-cut progression from start-to-finish.  I’d agree that it’s a lean, mean, fighting machine … but I guess I just expected a bit more external conflict when this one seemed overtly pre-occupied with the unstated internal ones.  It does offer a solid, hard-boiled performance from Peter Weller (its lead), and that’s definitely worth a thumbs up seven days a week.

​Though I’m generally no big fan of traditional Fantasy properties exploring the worlds of witches, devils, and the like, I’ve always had a lot of respect for the way storytellers infuse these tales with the deeds of such gifted and troubled subjects.  Often times, they’re given tasks (or curses) that serve as their central motivations; and then much of the narrative revolves around the steps they take to either accomplish a mission or undo the damage they’ve unintentional inflicted on others.  They might be centrally depicted as just regular folk, but underneath they’re far from ordinary, and the tales they populate often tend to be instructive but dark fairy tales centered on “don’t do this” or “don’t do that” unless you’re willing to suffer the consequences.  They’re personal journeys, and viewers are invited to join them on a purpose-driven vacation for the duration.
 
Television has embraced these characters throughout the decades.  TV’s long-running Bewitched (1964-1972) gave us the suburban witch Samantha who used her powers to essentially solve the problems of everyday life.  A few decades later, Charmed (1998-2006) took a decidedly darker spin by exploring the doings of three sisters – all witches – who used their talents to battle the greater forces of evil in the modern world.  Furthermore, programs like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Penny Dreadful, The Magicians, and even Supernatural may not have put witches front-and-center but certainly never skirted their existence, giving audiences even more looks at the good and the bad of using witchcraft as a means to an end in good times and in bad.
 
Still, I don’t know that TV’s witches have ever been given the kind of highbrow seriousness afforded them in A Discovery Of Witches.  Based on a series of novels by Deborah Harkness, the show follows the adventures of Yale University professor Diana Bishop, the academic who discovers her unnatural talents and then puts them to use to protect herself and her equally extraordinary friends from the forces of evil who also exist in secret.  The program recently concluded its second season – with a third on the way – and I was recently provided a screener copy of Season 2 for review.
 
So let’s see if we can unbox our own magic with a look at where the mystical Bishop is at this point in her development …
​

​(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last three paragraphs for the final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
 
From the product packaging: “After narrowly escaping the Congregation of vampires, witches, and daemons, Diana and Matthew are hiding in time in the fascinating and treacherous world of Elizabethan London.  Here, they must find a powerful witch teacher to help Diana control her magic and search for the elusive Book of Life …”
 
There’s a bit more, and all it really amounts to is giving readers a bit of ‘up to speed’ notice on when and where the show is (second season).  Suffice it to say that essentially audiences are delivered to the learning stage in the life of Diana Bishop (played by Terea Palmer).  She’s joined in her efforts by her loving Matthew (Matthew Goode); and the bulk of this season sees the two of them squaring off against supposed friends and enemies while Diana’s true skills are revealed: she’s not just a witch but also a ‘timewalker’ as well as a ‘spellweaver,’ amping up her value in this world where magic exists for those who have been born into it.
 
In some ways, this crystallizes an issue I have with televised (and movie) Fantasy: many storytellers choose the path wherein characters have to be ‘born’ with a particular skillset and then they spend the bulk of their screentime figuring out how to put them to best use.  In reality (well, let’s just say the world we live in), folks can research witchcraft (if it’s indeed a legitimate ‘thing’) and learn how to put a hex on a coworker or cast a spell to make that girl in accounting fall deeply in love with you.  But this Discovery Of Witches doesn’t allow for such diversity as it would appear that it’s either in your blood or it isn’t: maybe there are those who can acquire some tricks by trade, but they’re rarely given the kind of exposure Diana and her ‘sisters’ get.
 
When the world only explores that level of exclusivity, I’ve always found it hard to relate.  It separates the commoners from those blessed with the right genes – always a risky proposition as it enforces a kind of genetic elitism (whether intended or not) – and I suspect that perhaps this is why the tales of witches, warlocks, and the like have never touched me.  Harry Potter was essentially “born with it,” and even George Lucas twisted his own universe’s Jedi powers to be something folks were “born with” (in the prequels), a development I honestly never cared for.  I guess it’s that I prefer stories wherein the classical ‘everyman’ has the potential to rise up, learn a craft, and save the world, not just those who are gifted with the right bloodline.
 
Still, A Discovery Of Witches has a nice feel to it.  Though framed with many treacherous elements, it’s the tale of a beautiful young man uncovering who she is and what she can do; and Season 2 gives actress Palmer some nifty little sequences that show her blossoming into … erm … witchhood, for lack of a better word.  It’s in these scenes that I thought the program excelled … and, sadly, there are just far too few of them to make it any more interesting than it was.  (Hint: it wasn’t … at least not to me.)
 
As an example, say you’re making a superhero film.  In the course of two hours, you’re typically given a small(ish) origins story as well as a series of events wherein the audience gets to marvel at the superpowers, what potential they have, and even a hint at limitations.  Usually (if not formulaically), our hero employs whatever semblance of magic he has three times – the discovery, the educational, and the mastery – and this unfolds at a pace that makes it all palatable.  But Diana Bishop is given so little time to show us her powers here and so little emphasis was put on what she could actually do with spells, I was seriously at a loss to understand what all of the fuss was about.  There’s very little of it on display, and the cycles of her tutelage – while interesting – were structured more as visual filler than anything else.  And, technically, I hate filler.
 
Don’t get me wrong: I suspect the people who love this kind of thing will take to it faithfully and will definitely tune in next season to see where all of this goes.  But the casual observer?  Someone like myself who is prone to decide fairly quickly whether or not a program is truly interesting as an investment?  Honesty, I struggled with the slow, slow, slow pacing of this one; and the actors and actresses all seemed to be shackled with scenes that never quite developed any tension or conflict (what little there was).  Much like a soap opera, the real struggle seemed to always be just around the corner instead of right up in my face.  When the protagonist seems in no real danger, what’s the impetus to hang around?  Because Diana is gifted and pretty?
 
Meh.  At my age, I need a bit more motivation than that.
​

A Discovery Of Witches: Season 02 (2021) is produced by Bad Wolf.  DVD distribution (for this particular release) is being handled via RLJE Entertainment.  As for the technical specifications?  The product looks and sounds spectacular; while I had some minor quibbles with a few of the special effects shots, they certainly did not distract from the presentation.  As for special features?  The disk boasts a few short behind-the-scenes documentaries to keep audiences interested in the story’s transition from the print to the screen, and I imagine diehard fans will lap them up right after finishing the season … as well they should.
 
RECOMMENDED, but I also have to be honest: I found an awful lot of A Discovery Of Witches: Season 2 to be more than a bit overly melodramatic to the point of near-campiness.  I’ll admit that – like other recent televised Fantasies – I’m just not the target demographic, so feel free to give this one a watch and decide on your own.  Production values are good – a bit undercooked in some obvious scenes of CGI – and performances are a tad predictable; but it’s likeable enough if this sort of romance-fueled soap opera is in your wheelhouse.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with it …)
 
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Acorn Media Group provided me with a Blu-ray of A Discovery Of Witches: Season 2 by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

​-- EZ

​Hollywood loves to pay homage to itself.  While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with such shameless shared promotion, those uninvolved with it – namely, the rest of us – feel cheated if the flattery fails to live up to the hype or the promise.
 
In other words, consider a film like Steven Spielberg’s E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial.

​Made in the early 1980’s, the Science Fiction flick is classic Spielberg: set in suburban America, a group of precocious, wide-eyed, and curiously good-looking kids find themselves their own ‘fish out of water’ in the shape of an alien botanist innocently abandoned by its own kind.  All E.T. wants to do is to be re-united with its people, so it joins up with these children not only to fill the void left in his ‘heartlight’ but also find a means to ‘phone home’ for help.
 
Arguably, E.T. remains one of Spielberg’s best films for a whole lot of reasons.

First, the director fashions his tale with glorious-looking shots which serve to capture the innocence of youth, framing our world for this space traveler with a decidedly ‘alien’ perspective.  Second, everyone involved with the picture works to ground the feature with an emotional, relatable core; when a character feels pain, then the audience shares in that pain, giving greater dimension to even the simplest moments in the tale.  Lastly, the script moves efficiently and realistically (well, as much as possible, given its circumstances) through its own stages of grief to the euphoria of achievement, reminding the audience that no journey is without its own reward.
 
To be honest, moviegoers love this formula.  They’ve repaid visions like E.T. and others of its era by continuing to support them in the guise of repeated ticket purchases throughout the decades since their initial release.  What’s not to love?  When a flick can harken back to simpler days with such beauty and grace, the film is more of a personal experience than it is merely ninety minutes of shadows and fog up on the silver screen.  It’s easy to see why today’s filmmakers have little interest in building a new wheel when they can merely reshape a contemporary script into something that looks like E.T. and film that, hoping for success.
 
Alas, when you fail to follow the formula, you get beautiful cotton candy like The Water Man: it might look good, smell divine, and taste delicious … but it’ll still rot your teeth if you don’t brush it off soon after.
​

(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for my final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
 
From the product packaging:
“Gunner sets out on a quest to save his ill mother by searching for a mythic figure who possesses the secret to immortality, the Water Man.  After enlisting the help of a mysterious local girl, Jo, they journey together into the remote Wild Horse Forest – but the deeper they venture, the stranger and more dangerous the forest becomes.  Their only hope for rescue is Gunner’s father, who will stop at nothing to find them.”
 
In many respects, The Water Man isn’t so much a film about the hidden magic of uncovering a local urban legend as it is an honest coming-of-age experience for a young man whose mother is dying from an all-too-worldly affliction, leukemia.  Gunner (played with solid conviction by young Lonnie Chavis) strives to ‘do the right thing’ when he learns that there may be some secret cure out there that modern science has missed.  Like so many young protagonists before him when the adults of the picture fail, he commits to finding this so-called Water Man, stealing the cure by hook or by crook, and saving his mom’s life in the process.
 
While director-and-star David Oyelowo’s film tries hard to wring a sense of wonder out of such dire circumstances, the chief problem as I see it is that – unlike those films of the 80’s he harkens back to – there’s absolutely no magic here.

​Sadly, The Water Man is just that – a local legend – so he exists only in the minds of those who’ve kept the legend alive.  Gunner’s quest – as a consequence of that reality – ends up only putting himself, his accomplice Jo (Amiah Miller), and his father in mortal jeopardy: a raging wildfire is slowly consuming Wild Horse Forest, and they very nearly perish in the last reel except for a screenwriting convention that requires ‘feel good’ movies to end on a high note (meaning that they escape).  While father and son are drawn closer together – and Jo, one of cinema’s youngest con artists, is rewarded with a new foster family – mom (Rosario Dawson) never escapes her cruel fate.
 
Where’s the wonder in that?
 
Because screenwriter Emma Needell’s story stays anchored to reality, what purpose did all those magical moments ultimately serve?  Their moments of childhood depicted in a tale that ends with a very adult message: there is no magic … except what you can imagine.  Sure, much of the film is a nice call back to the days when youthful exuberance offered youngsters an escape from the sometimes grim existence that is the real world, but The Water Man’s sleight-of-hand here is utterly meaningless as no Holy Grail awaits Gunner and Jo in the final reel.  While their mission isn’t entirely without reward (i.e. Gunner and dad grow closer, Jo is afforded a way out of her own tragic circumstances), what about mom?  Wasn’t this all done to rescue her?  Why is her prize simply a good family meal in the last scene?
 
Well, that’s because reality wins out in the end.
 
The magic we find remains only what we put into a life lived.  Perhaps something this depressing – the inevitable loss of childhood – probably should’ve dialed back all of the Fantasy elements here and the heart-tugging moments there while instead focusing on Gunner’s acceptance that life is short, mom’s condition is (largely) incurable, and sometimes you just have to make the best with what life gives you in the time that you are given.  He’s becoming an adult in an adult’s world, and grief – however world-changing – is part of that journey.  Alas, Needell’s script gives the boy no moment of such realization; as a result, I found all of it empty.
​

The Water Man (2020) is produced by Harpo Films.  DVD distribution (for this particular release) is being handled by the reliable RLJE Films.  As for the technical specifications?  The film looks and sounds extremely solid from start-to-finish.  As for the special features?  The disc boasts a few making-of shorts, a festival Q&A, and the filmmaker’s commentary.
 
Meh.  Mildly recommended.  Honestly, I find it very hard to get excited about anything related to The Water Man.  It isn’t as if the feature doesn’t have some merits; rather, it’s that the merits are too small and too far between to truly warrant calling them out for recognition.  No matter how one tries to ratchet up interest in such a bland yet well-made affair, I find it hard to dismiss the fact that it’s an entirely passable affair.  Calling up nostalgia for 80’s era filmmaking (which appears to be the goal) works only for so long; at some point, Water Man needed to rise up and tell its own story … and it never does.  Nice work by the young’uns, but they deserved a better script.
 
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at RLJE Films provided me with a Blu-ray screener of The Water Man (2020) by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

​-- EZ

​Because science is always evolving, Science Fiction today hardly resembles what Science Fiction was from twenty years ago and even less from twenty years before that.  In fact, I’ve often argued that most folks who claim to best know what SciFi is have lost touch with where it came from; and while the self-proclaimed purists might continue to debate the good, the bad, and the ugly of the genre, the sad truth is that no single person can ever be the definitive expert for any given era of it.  Instead, there are experts of key areas within the wider study of it; and the value we attach to any of their opinions should equate entirely to their demonstrated knowledge of it as much as it does their ability to talk intelligently about it.
 
In other words?  I didn’t grow up in the 1930’s.
 
I was born in the mid-1960’s.  I became a consumer of media in the early 1970’s.  Much of my world view – my take on film, books, and televised SciFi – is tied almost exclusively to my experiences with products of that era.  As someone who has read a lot of history – both film stuff and beyond – I can speak (to a limited degree) of projects outside my own timeline.  Sure, it requires a certain amount of research to do so, but I love history enough that said reading becomes a joyful occasion, one I’m almost always willing to undertake in my role as editor for SciFiHistory.Net.
 
So while I was aware of F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer (1932), I’d never seen it.  I had seen some snippets from it – a few of the film’s special effects sequences.  But that was it.  When I heard it was heading for release from Kino Lorber this year, I was excited, reached out to them for a screener copy to review, and viola: this article/review was born.
 
Because I tend to prefer older Science Fiction films (a fact I often share with readers of this blog), I trusted I was in for a special experience.  I’m thrilled to say that the film did not disappoint: F.P.1 is the kind of feature I love discovering.  While it clearly won’t be for everyone, I encourage fans who love genre projects as much as I do – especially old gems like Metropolis (1927), Flash Gordon (1936), and Island Of Lost Souls (1932) – because I think you’ll be rewarded.  Granted, the film relies more on melodrama than it does drama, but its errors are negligible; and the time is well spent.
 
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for my final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
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From the product packaging:
“… F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer dramatizes the creation of a massive floating airport serving as a way station between four continents.  Hans Albert stars as Ellissen, a dashing pilot who helps persuade an heiress to fund the visionary project.  When communication with Floating Platform 1 is mysterious interrupted, Ellissen risks his life to investigate its disappearance …”
 
Frankly, F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer offers the audience a lot of things – a Science Fiction premise well before the age of the true SciFi genius of the 1950’s; some fabulous though all-too-sparse use of practical special effects (miniatures) at the dawn of the special effects industry; a rare international flare emerging from German cinema in the days when Germany itself was on the brink of shutting down collaboration in favor of Fascism – but I think what it offers best is a story grounded in an effective parallel: there’s more than one way for man to serve society.  Today’s social justice warriors may take offense with my position, and that’s okay: F.P.1 was conceived, written, and produced in a different era, one where ‘toxic masculinity’ wasn’t considered so controversial.  In fact, one could argue that ‘toxic masculinity’ of the past wasn’t the cultural province of the male, as names like Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earheart, Susan B. Anthony, and Carry A. Nation were female movers and shakers who’ve been somewhat sidelined from today’s history classes.  That’s a real shame.
 
This parallel is the tale of two men: Ellissen (played by Hans Albers) and Droste (Paul Hartmann).
 
Ellissen is the consummate explorer.  He lives a life of grand adventure – both on the ground and in the air as a dashing pilot who travels the world – and he spins yarns bigger than life for anyone within earshot who will listen to him.  He refuses to be tied down to any single idea or person, and the world is his for the taking when and if his next mission comes calling.
 
By contrast, Droste is the film’s brilliant scientist who has committed his life to solving the problems plaguing mankind.  A lack of capital and attention has stalled him and the implementation of his ideas, but once the wealthy Lennartz family ‘invests’ in his vision he is resolute in his pledge to see F.P.1 brought to fruition even at the risk of his own life via charlatans and saboteurs.  Other men may back away in fear of losing their livelihoods, but Droste is steadfast in his resolve and will stop at nothing to achieve a dream that serves us all.
 
An audience couldn’t ask for two stronger opposites.  True, they’re united in friendship – Walter Reisch and Curt Siodmak’s script ably demonstrates that men of differing opinions, ways, and means have no qualms about working together – but the way these two see the world and their roles in it couldn’t be further apart.  Both will risk their lives for F.P.1, but these risks will ultimately rely on their respective viewpoint to be logically substantiated.  In the beginning, Droste needs Ellissen’s cunning to put his ocean platform on the drawing board; in the film’s conclusion, Ellissen requires Droste’s willingness to risk life and limb to find his own selflessness deep within.  With the way this story evolves, director Karl Hartl easily proves that not only can love make the world go ‘round but also just how differences of opinion might achieve the same mobility.  After all, yin needs yang as much as yang needs yin; one is incomplete without the other.
 
And the film doesn’t stop there in its examination of disparities as there’s a love triangle thrown into the mix involving both men and Claire Lennartz (Sybille Schmitz).  As one-third stakeholder in the Lennartz family shipping empire (her two brothers have negligible parts in the tale), she finds herself drawn at different times to both men: first the adventurer and then the engineer.  Alas, the script eventually shoehorns the lady a bit too conveniently in the second half into the role of master manipulator (she tricks Ellissen into aiding her more than once by concealing a love for Droste), and I found it hard to sympathize with her in the last reel; the damsel-in-emotional-distress never feels authentic, and God only knows if her feelings were more than a writer’s creation as we just never learn enough about her to know for certain.
 
I’d be a fool if I failed to mention that F.P.1 also features the performance of a young Peter Lorre well before he came to America and found stardom more as a caricature than he ever did an individual character.  His ‘Foto-Johnny’ is the early prototype of the media-hungry paparazzi, but the script also toys with notions of him serving as Ellissen’s sidekick: their scenes together give viewers an insight into the aviator’s consciousness.  They share an amazing tete de tete, though others might see their exchanges as a roadblock to the action: the film excels when the focus in on high adventure … such is the nature of drama as opposed to melodrama, and the picture continually walks that fine line between lean and excess.  The fact that flight is only achieved with optimal weight is a rule I think director Hartl forgets from time-to-time, and a tighter cut may’ve elevated the picture’s status from cult to mainstream.
 
Something learned that I’d been completely unaware of was that the studio (Universum Film) produced multiple versions of F.P.1.  Talking motion pictures were on-the-rise; and in order to maintain the profitability of international releases, production companies would invest in foreign-speaking casts to shoot multiple versions simultaneously.  (For clarity’s sake, F.P.1 is a German language production; Secrets Of F.P.1 is their English-language release – it’s included on the disk – and it stars Conrad Veidt as Ellissen.)  I won’t trouble readers with a complete review of the second picture: suffice it to say that it’s considerably shorter, considerably stronger, but it lacks some the nuance of small moments distributed throughout the original (German) production.  I think I liked Veidt better in the lead (Albers is much more the braggart, so much so that I wondered how much of the web he spun was truth versus fiction), but the rest of the English cast are unsubstantial.
 
All said, F.P.1 is a pretty grand affair.  Yes, it’s big.  Yes, it’s bold.  Yes, it’s ahead of its time; but it’s still weighted and heavy in a few places.  It may not be remembered as fondly as other projects from its time, but I had an awful lot of fun with it when the formula worked.
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F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer (1932) was produced by Universum Film (UFA).  DVD distribution for this particular release is being handled by Kino Classics.  As for the technical specifications?  This Blu-ray transfer looks and sounds very solid, though there were a few volume dips which appear fairly common to films of this era.  As for the special features?  The disc includes both the original German-language version as well as the English-language one and an audio commentary by Eddy von Mueller.  It’s a fabulous package … but let me add this: the von Mueller track ends up being one of the worst experiences I’ve had with commentaries not because it’s poorly done.  Rather, it’s poorly delivered: this professor/historian rarely connects in a relatable manner, and I found his speaking cadence to lull me to sleep after about an hour.  Honestly, I ended up having to get up off the couch and walk about the room dusting and the like to keep from falling asleep.  He’s far too much the academician here, and his track ends up feeling like two hours of mostly useless history trivia instead of bringing the film to life, which is what a good commentary does.  (Sorry, folks: just being honest.)
 
RECOMMENDED.  As I’ve always said, I do prefer discovered (or re-discovered) older Science Fiction films of bygone eras largely because I find them vastly more inventive in ways they told their stories; and I’d read enough about F.P.1. Doesn’t Answer to know it was probably right up my alley.  (For the most part, it is, though I’m no fan of melodrama.)  Far from perfect, its script meanders its way through perhaps too many subplots for its own good but still manages to come together when achievements (not feelings) matter most.  Performances are good, production details are better, and I wish it well, though I suspect others might take issue with its protracted pacing and its (gasp!) highbrow emphasis on exaggeration, an attribute of features from the era.  (Interested in an exercise?  Watch the English-language version after the German-language version to compare: I suspect there exists a near-perfect film somewhere between the two cuts.)
 
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Kino Lorber provided me with a Blu-ray copy of F.P.1. Doesn’t Answer (1932) by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

​-- EZ

One of the traits I find so endearing about Science Fiction and Fantasy is that it’s forever a’changing.
 
As those involved with the “science” of COVID today will tell us, Science evolves; and as these fresh discoveries come to light we adapt to what might inevitably be a whole new set of circumstances.  As the Science grows and we learn what we didn’t know before, so does the storyteller find an alternative set of dynamics from which to spin his or her webs of adventure and intrigue.  Likewise, the technological advances that go hand-in-hand with mechanical evolution typically mean there are new ways to tell such stories, and these developments push storytellers in even bolder, perhaps crazier, perhaps more inventive directions.
 
Such was the predicament of SciFi in the early 1950’s.
 
Mankind was just entering its Atomic Age, and this burgeoning Science was at one time thought to be the harbinger of serious space exploration.  Consequently, Hollywood rushed to deliver films that tapped this fertile ground, picking man up off his Big Blue Marble and throwing him out amongst the stars.  Features like Forbidden Planet (1956), Destination Moon (1950), and Rocketship X-M (1950) showed audiences what hope the future could hold (or even what catastrophes waited in the wings); while It Came From Outer Space (1953), The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), and The Thing From Another World (1951) reminded us to keep our guards up because not all that was green was good when it came to terrestrial and extraterrestrial encounters.
 
Flight To Mars (1951) found itself smack dab in the middle of these a’changing times.
 
Clearly, it’s simple story – five travelers on a trip to the Red Planet – was something screenwriters had already explored.  Without anything to distinguish itself visually or scientifically, the film could easily be lost in the shuffle between what was and what was becoming the wide, wide world of cinematic Science Fiction.  Thankfully, it turns seventy years young this year and is still around, at least so much so in this 4K restoration from The Film Detective so those of us who appreciate from whence we came can go back and take another look at a genre just becoming the entertainment juggernaut it was destined to be.
 
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to my last few paragraphs for the final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
 
From the product packaging:
“Five Earthlings land on Mars and are greeted by a team of friendly Martians.  Fearing they have depleted the key mineral used to power their life-support systems, these Martians are determined to get off the red planet by any means necessary – including stealing the Earthlings’ ship and invading Earth!  Can this group of Earthling space travelers outsmart these diabolical Martians?”
 
As stories go, you really can’t get more basic than boy-meets-girl; and that’s mostly what Flight To Mars is at its core … a two-fer boy-meets-girl – one Earthling and one Martian – with astronaut Cameron Mitchell falling for brainy ‘Earther’ Virginia Huston just as U.S. scientist Arthur Franz is falling for Martian lovely Marguerite Chapman.  (My two cents?  Both ladies are definitely keepers!)  On the face of it, Flight is little more than a space-age road trip with a pair of romances thrown in to keep viewers invested, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  While other Science Fiction and Fantasy films of this era were trying to up-the-ante on the seriousness of boldly going where no one had gone before, this Flight pretty much coasts on screenwriter Arthur Strawn’s color-by-numbers approach, something Monogram Pictures’ releases were known for.
 
Alas, what truly grounds so very much of the film is the fact that it lacks any central conflict: though the trip to Mars gets depicted with some treachery, far too much of the journey is a stoic affair.  There’s more talk about risk than there is any true risk depicted, and it isn’t until the film’s second half when the dastardly Martians’ plot to steal the rocket and invade our planet that the pace quickens (just a tick).  Even then, director Lesley Selander does so little with building the tension that one wonders if anyone involved with the picture seriously wanted it to be seen outside the studio.  All too much of it remains formulaic: no new ground is broken, no marquee performances are heightened, and our heroes predictably win the day come the flick’s closing scenes … just as you thought they would.
 
Still, I’m a SciFi purist, and I’d argue that films like Flight To Mars – while a mostly benign and mediocre experience – still offer entertainment in the form of escapism.  The Martian city is visually exciting, and its clear that production designer Ted Haworth saw more than a thing or two about 1936’s tempting Things To Come that he liked and incorporated into his Martian landscape.  (If you’re gonna steal, then steal from the best.)  While not particularly exciting, there’s no performance that comes off as painful or downright out-of-sorts.  The completed feature clocks in at an unalarming seventy-two minutes, so it’s over almost before you know it.
 
Plus, there’s the added benefit of truly watching where we were as storytellers at a time when the genre was just blossoming into something greater.  As I said, there are moments when Flight reaches for the stars; it just misses connecting with any singular issue the way so many earlier trips to the heavens did.
 
Flight To Mars (1951) was produced by Monogram Pictures.  DVD distribution for this particular release is being handled by The Film Detective.  As for the technical specifications?  This 4K restoration is reportedly sourced from the original 35mm Cinecolor separation negatives, and it all looks and sounds very good.  As for special features?  The disc contains a colorful and informative commentary from film historian Justin Humphreys (one of the better hosts for this type of track); a pair of mini-documentaries (they relate more to the studio and the production personnel than they do this specific film); and a collector’s booklet that features a solid essay regarding Hollywood’s continuing fascination with Mars.  All-in-all, it’s a solid package.
 
Mildly Recommended.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong in admitting to a passing guilty pleasure in exploring a forgotten feature like Flight To Mars, but I’ll admit that there’s very little to make the trip memorable (aside from some pretty spiffy production details on the Red Planet itself).  It boasts no big performances, no cutting commentary, and no winning performances.  It only toys with big ideas – and even does so fleetingly – and builds to a pretty big ‘thud’ of an ending, all-too-rushed, all-too-convenient.  Still, it’s probably worth a single view if for no other reason than it was produced when Science Fiction was starting to change, creeping onto society’s radar toward respectability, and the film might just represent a format that Hollywood was slowing leaving behind in search of greater meaning and deeper consequence.
 
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at The Film Detective provided me with a Blu-ray of Flight To Mars (1951) by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

​-- EZ