That report [that the Forbidden Planet script JMS is writing is going to be a) a sequel, and b) stylistically retro] is totally incorrect. It’s not going to be retro, and it’s not going to be a continuation. When Altair 4 blows up, it blows up.
Archive | November, 2008
Ere Your Pulse Twice Beat
JMS is slated to write the screenplay for a remake – or maybe a sequel (I mean, another sequel, in addition to the original sequel) to the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. The original film is famous for a) being based on Shakespeare’s Tempest with a dash of Freud added; b) inspiring the look and some of the plots of Star Trek; c) introducing the later oft-cameoed Robby the Robot; and d) featuring Leslie Nielsen back when he played it straight. (Plus leading lady Anne Francis is not uncute.)
JMS reportedly plans to keep the retro look of the original film. (Hopefully he won’t keep the retro dialogue in the romantic scenes; why do male-female interactions from 1950s movies seem so much more antiquated and, well, alien than those from 1930s movies?)
Incidentally, JMS is a longtime Planet fan (as might be suggested by the pics below) and says he’s been “chasing this one assignment for over a decade.”
Special Comment
I have a certain fondness for Keith Olbermann, but I have to say, this SNL parody is dead-on.
Class Struggle, Libertarian Style
Here at last (in PDF format – HTML versions to follow in futuro) are two broadly left-libertarian articles I wrote in the 90s that I’ve been promising for some time to post here. (The second one is broken into two parts because I can’t upload files greater than 5 MB.)
1. Immanent Liberalism: The Politics of Mutual Consent
2. Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class, Parts One and Two
[Originally published in Social Philosophy & Policy 12.2 (Summer 1995) and 15.1 (Summer 1998), respectively; © 1995 and 1998, Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation; posted by permission of the Foundation.]
The first article critiques mainstream liberalism for privileging indirect and hypothetical forms of consent over direct, actual consent; the second explores the relation between big government and big business and argues that the malign power of the latter depends mostly though not entirely on that of the former. Both articles attempt to overcome the dichotomy between “capitalist” and “socialist” versions of antistatist radicalism.
R.I.P. Sechrest and Fritz
We’ve lost two worthy champions of liberty this week:
They will be greatly missed.
Obama Beats Ruwart, Barr, and NOTA! Oh Yeah, and That McCain Guy Too
I’m more pleased than not with the results of yesterday’s election (meaning pleased that Obama won out over McCain, not pleased that we got ourselves yet another president). Sure, Obama is a corporate liberal whose policies are not really any less fascistic or imperialistic than McCain’s, but a) he at least seems less trigger-happy than McCain; b) culturally, his election is a satisfying slap in the face to racism and parochialism (it’s great to see a black person at last in the nation’s highest-profile and most influential job – I just wish the nation’s highest-profile and most influential job weren’t the goddamn presidency); and c) hell, if I have to listen to some guy’s speeches for the next four to eight years, just from an aesthetic standpoint it’ll be a relief to have them coming from someone who’s charismatic and articulate rather than from an irritating doofus. (Mind you, the argument could be made that from an anarchist standpoint it’s better to have an irritating doofus in the White House rather than someone charismatic and articulate – but I’m skeptical; we’ve had plenty of irritating doofuses in the White House over the last two centuries without any noticeable positive effect.)
To be sure, I also favour Obama’s immediate impeachment – but that’s nothing personal, it’s just business.
I did my civic doody and voted yesterday; I wrote in Ruwart for the top slot (the first time in 20 years that I haven’t voted for the LP nominee) and “none of the above” for all the other offices. (There was a Boston Tea Party write-in candidate for Senate in Alabama, but his platform did not persuade me.) I also voted against an amendment authorising the Alabama state government to dig itself deeper into its current financial mess by borrowing more rather than cutting spending. (It passed anyway.)
It looks like Barr ended up with about 485,000 votes. That’s better than any LP candidate has done recently – but it’s not way better, and it’s about the same as what Browne got in 1996 with less name recognition and a far more radical campaign. So although they’ll probably try to spin it as a vindication, the reformists’ adapt-to-win policy looks like a failure – and deservedly so. Sell your soul, get a crackerjack prize.