Reflections on STRIKE TEAM ALPHA, 30-Odd Years Later

Staying over at my grandparents' house when I was a child in the early 1990s, I found my uncle's trove of 1970s and 1980s geekdom. We're talking Doctor Who novels (I specifically remember Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion), Dragon magazine, etc. And in particular a lot of tabletop war games, including Strike Team Alpha from 1978. That one was my personal favorite, largely because they had a dinosaur-like antagonist race called the T'Rana. Uncle John eventually let me take it home, but I misplaced it somewhere in my parents' house.

Well, after years of sporadically looking for a new copy (including finding and calling up the original creator, who sent me some pictures of game-manual artwork), I found one on eBay and ordered it (as part of a two-pack with Full Thrust, a British space-fleet tabletop game that's still in production today). Although I don't really like playing tabletop wargames, I do really enjoy the lore and I do remember liking Strike Team Alpha's storyline.

So on this merry Thanksgiving, I got the manual out of the plastic sleeve they sent it in and re-read it for the first time in close to 30 years. How did it hold up? Well here goes...

*The backstory predates Warhammer 40,000's "every faction is evil" darkness by nine years. Earth demands a 95% tax rate from asteroid colonists due to the massive self-importance of the people, or at least their leadership ("Earth being the self-acknowledged center of the Universe decided that its asteroid colonies were not paying the proper respect to the birthplace of humanity"). Colonies that cannot or will not pay are wiped out, prompting the surviving colonists to convert their habitats into generation ships and bug out for another solar system. Earth's population, rather than realizing their own greed and tyranny provoked this and failing to acknowledge the sheer courage this took, call this "the Exodus of Cowards." And when the belters foolishly reveal where they've set up their new homes, the result is the founding of a united Earth government that launches an incredibly destructive war of conquest. Like seriously, three-quarters of the colonists on Tau Ceti are killed in the opening nuclear attack and the subsequent "War of Reclamation" is specifically described in the manual as "a war of terror." One gaming scenario involves miners being used for forced labor rebelling and offering the metals they'd mined to mercenaries to help them re-establish self-government. And that's before the wars with the cat-like Sha'anthra (who wage wars almost for fun with other species or with each other) and the T'Rana (who are genocidal Explosive Breeders) kick off. And the outlying colonists, though they're clearly higher on the moral food chain than the Terran Federation, will often fight each other.

(The more I think about it, the more this sounds like Joss Whedon's space Western Firefly and its film adaptation Serenity.)

*Per the above, although the back-story isn't preachy and annoying, you can tell the politics involved. Not only is the initial exodus from Sol driven by a greedy centralized government that taxes people literally to death, but the Terran colonial occupation regime explicitly forbids ownership of energy weapons by private citizens or even local governments. As a result, colonial militias are equipped with broadly late 20th or early 21st Century assault rifles, machine guns, etc. despite the presence of literally predatory alien races, human pirates, etc. And many of the scenarios the game-book provides include colonial rebels and their hired mercenaries fighting collaborators and the Terran Federation years afterward. Live free or die, indeed. The game came out not long before Ronald Reagan became the U.S. President and reflects some of the zeitgeist of that era.

*There's an apocryphal quote out there that says amateurs talk about tactics and dilettantes talk about strategy, but professionals talk about logistics. And the logistics make sense. The game emphasizes small-unit combat because supporting a large army across interstellar space would be a nightmare. The frontier colonies are underdeveloped (likely intentionally, to keep them from rebelling) and the core industrial worlds are so far away. The supplies and gear for super-advanced weaponry used by the Terran Federation's Marines would have be carried across light-years. So campaigns would need to be short and sharp.

*Speaking as someone who is now vastly more knowledgeable about history than when he was eight, the war with the T'Rana looks a lot like WWII, particularly the last madness of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We're talking an overly-aggressive enemy that fights to the death, literally eats their enemies, picks unnecessary fights that ultimately doom them, will destroy conquered territory rather than allow it to be liberated, etc. The end of the war looks like what would have happened if the U.S. had rejected both the atomic bomb and invading the Home Islands and decided to continue the conventional bombing/blockade...something that wouldn't work against something as large and self-sufficient as an entire star system. The T'Rana are (mostly) contained, but there are still raids.

*The game features tactical nuclear weapons, not just small nukes delivered by missile or aircraft that one might expect, but nuclear weapons deployed by individual soldiers. We're not just talking something like the infantry-operated Davy Crockett recoilless rifle that seems like something that would actually be useable (albeit unbelievably risky to due the fact a single infantryman or combat team could start a nuclear war), but nuclear hand grenades. The game was clearly devised in a time before precision-guided weapons that would allow more-accurate conventional weapons to be used in place of battlefield nukes. There are also fusion-beam weapons called "sunguns" that are sort of like flamethrowers, except one needs to wear anti-radiation protective gear.

*However, the game does feature something called a "battlerob," which is essentially a semiautonomous robotic light tank. Groups like Amnesty International have already spoken out against "killer robots," so this is something that's going to be a political issue in the future.

*The game also features rocket-propelled explosive ammunition, much like Warhammer 40,000's bolters.

*One of the play-testers was George Alec Effinger, a noted science fiction writer and winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards.

*There are quite a number of typos in the manual.

Verdict: Still a fun world to blow things up in (and it was interesting that many concepts were used in later, more successful games), but finding a copy (and especially finding the Ral Partha figures designed for the game) is going to be a real pain. It'd be nice if there was licensed fiction set in this world (that's one reason I reached out to the original creator), but that seems a bit...unlikely at this point.

Guest Post: "SDI-Punk" Literature and Film

(This post is the second part of an earlier blog post introducing the concept of "SDI-Punk" as a retrofuturist genre in the vein of steampunk and dieselpunk. Now we continue with existing works of fiction and non-fiction that would actually fit in this genre.)

RESOURCES

The core era of this genre is the 1983-1988 era, but antecedents could be found in the 1970s. Below is a partial list of works I would consider to be in or relevant to the genre.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION

SDI never really made its way to the big screen--or the small one. So, in addition to one piece of actual SDI-punkness, I offer other relevant movies and TV shows set in that era.

The Americans: This series focuses on the lives of Soviet illegals operating in the US during the 1980s. Sometimes, the plot deals with technology theft (which was a recurring theme throughout this period).

Firefox: The one truly SDI-punk movie entry. Underrated Clint Eastwood movie based on a novel by Craig Thomas. An American pilot, haunted by the demons of his time in Vietnam, must infiltrate a Soviet flight test facility and steal the ultimate warplane--and then get past Soviet defenses to get it to the West. An atmospheric score by Maurice Jarre, a decent adaption of the source novel into film (not an easy task at all), excellent flight sequences, and one of Clint Eastwood's more complex performances make this a worthwhile movie.

Robocop Trilogy: SDI plays a background role in the news updates, and some of the punk themes play out into the movies' "Delta City" arc.

The Hunt For Red October: Tom Clancy's debut novel made its way to the screen in 1990, and the results were outstanding. Excellent performances by Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery, excellent use of Navy support, and a storyline that conveyed the tension of the setting (1984) make it well worth watching.

No Way Out: Possibly the best spy movie of the 1980s. Paranoia you can cut with a knife, and multiple surprise-but-perfectly-logical twists keep you guessing beginning to end.

The Soldier: A fun romp that ends up with rogue agents (East AND West) conducting a nuclear standoff, with tons of action throughout. The soundtrack is by Tangerine Dream; it's a time capsule of the early 1980s. (Pay attention during the opening credits; you will see that material again.)

Stranger Things: 1980s period drama with government conspiracies meeting Middle America. (I haven't actually seen this show, but I've heard good things about it from various people I know.)

NOVELS

The pickings are MUCH better here. Below is a mere sampling of the riches to be found.

Dale Brown

Flight of the Old Dog: High-technology weapons, including a B-52 refitted with stealth technology(!), SDI plays a role.

Silver Tower: This one is another core SDI-Punk entry. The American Armstrong Space Station, armed with various weapons including a hyper-powerful laser, may be the only thing that can stop a Soviet invasion of Iran.

Tom Clancy

Cardinal of the Kremlin: Jack Ryan is at the focus of the race between the Americans and the Soviets to develop high-energy lasers for strategic defense, with espionage playing a core role. Ends with what would be an absolutely LEGENDARY covert operation. Definitely core SDI-Punk material.

Jim DeFelice

Coyote Bird: Published right at the end of the Cold War, it posited a US-Japan rivalry and hypersonic superplanes. Technology, pilots, and the interaction between them are the central themes of this novel.

David Drake

Skyripper: Former NSA agent Tom Kelly is called back in to service to manage the defection of a Soviet scientist who has the secret to powering space-based lasers. The kicker: The Soviet scientist is defecting because little voices are telling him that aliens are about to invade Earth. The protagonist isn't a very nice guy, but he has a definite sense of right and wrong, and he is brutally competent at his job.

Fortress: In an alternate history, JFK survived and put into motion Fortress--a space station armed with thousands of nuclear bombs. Problem: Nazis in flying saucers have hijacked it. (No, really.) Tom Kelly (yes, the same guy from Skyripper, different universe) to the rescue! (Oh, dear, the body count is going to be spectacular.)

Payne Harrison

Storming Intrepid: A Soviet agent hijacks a space shuttle carrying the first SDI satellite. America wants it back. Hilarity Ensues.

Donald Kingsbury

The Moon Goddess and the Son: Expanded version of the Analog serial from the late 1970s. The Soviets go into space in a big way in the late 1980s, and the US launches a crash program to beat them. SDI plays a core role. The punk elements revolve more around what happens when one man can become his own military-industrial complex, and how that could interact with strategic forces. In some ways, it hasn't aged well; in others, it's aged so well it's moved from "that's an interesting idea" to downright disturbing.

William Lovejoy

Black Sky: A joint US/Soviet suborbital stealth aircraft program goes up against their Japanese counterparts.

Delta Blue: An elite USAF spaceplane squadron must take on a resurgent Germany before their geothermal power project causes a global calamity.

Delta Green: Renegade Soviet hardliners steal a USAF spaceplane. Sequel to Delta Blue.

Janet Morris 

Warlord: Someone is killing former operatives of a CIA black project aimed at colonizing Mars. The two remaining survivors must navigate a covert war between the US and the USSR for control of space and flush out the killers. 

MEDUSA (With Chris Morris): Pure SDI-Punk. A CIA operative and a hotshot Air Force test pilot must stop a Soviet provocation aimed at American orbital defenses. Superplanes, lasers, and old-school spying and mayhem all play a part.

Active Measures (with David Drake): More SDI-Punk. The American President is a  Soviet mole, and things are cheerfully going to hell at home and abroad--and in space. Multiple spy plots crash into each other. First description I ever saw of a self-forging projectile charge (published in 1985).

M. E. Morris

Alpha Bug: A new Soviet space weapon threatens America's nuclear arsenal. A medically retired astronaut may be the only guy who can stop it. Action ranges from infiltrating Baikonur Cosmodrome to a dogfight over the Black Sea, with a final confrontation in orbit. SDI-Punk core material.

Ralph Peters

The War in 2020: Published in 1990, as the Cold War was waning, and America was fearing Japanese economic warfare. The US 7th Cavalry Regiment, equipped with the latest high-tech tilt-rotor gunships, is fighting a Japanese-backed Islamic invasion of Soviet Central Asia. The author described it as a novel of nightmares, and the description fits. SDI is in the background, as space-based defenses make central nuclear war impossible--and all manner of mayhem inevitable.

Gary Allen Ruse

A Game of Titans: Published in 1976. The USA and the USSR are squaring off in a remote corner of the Pacific for high stakes. The Soviet Navy sends their (then-new) V/STOL carrier Kiev; the United States Air Force sends a nuclear-powered airship(!), the Grand Eagle. The airship carries drones (then called "remote-piloted vehicles," or RPVs), a laser weapon(!), and Harrier jump-jets. Ruse takes an incredible premise and sells it well.

D. J. Savage

The Glass Lady: A prototype American orbital laser has malfunctioned and destroyed a Soviet research satellite. A joint US/Soviet space shuttle mission is the only chance to deactivate the weapon; if the mission fails, the shuttle crew will be "terminated with extreme prejudice."

Craig Thomas

Firefox: As mentioned above, American pilot Mitchell Gant must steal the ultimate warplane from a test facility deep inside the Soviet Union--and make it back out.

Firefox Down: Takes up right where Firefox ended. Forced to land on a frozen lake in Finland due to battle damage, Gant must escape Soviet capture while the British seek to recover the aircraft itself.

Winter Hawk: Gant is back, flying a stolen Hind helicopter gunship into the Soviet Union to rescue a CIA agent with information on Soviet space-based lasers, vitally needed to close a loophole in a soon-to-be-implemented arms treaty. But there is far more at stake. Complex plot and characterization, shifting alliances, and the stifling environment of Baikonur Cosmodrome make this one of Thomas' best novels.

ANTHOLOGIES

Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War: Ten volumes published from 1982 to 1990. Many stories and nonfiction essays about SDI and its potential impact on the world.

Dean Ing

Firefight 2000: Fiction and technology essays. Some interesting technology notions that are related to SDI.

NON-FICTION

Dean Ing & Leik Myrabo

The Future of Flight: A 1985 book on potential future aerospace technologies, most of which revolve around using high-energy lasers to beam energy to aerospace craft. Some math, but the authors do their best to keep it accessible to the layman.

David Pahl

Space Warfare and Strategic Defense: Large-format hardcover with gorgeous full-color art and photographs examining SDI from multiple angles; the author examines both the promise and the perils of orbital warfare and ballistic missile defenses.

Curtis Peebles

Battle for Space: Published in 1985. Examines the history and prospects for development of military space programs, including anti-satellite weapons and the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Jerry Pournelle & Dean Ing

Mutual Assured Survival: A 1984 book discussing (and advocating) ballistic missile defenses. Discusses technologies, project management, and places the argument in a larger context of renewing American space exploration.

TABLETOP GAMES

Steve Jackson Games

Orbit War: Originally published in 1984 in the SJG magazine, The Space Gamer. Interesting game of orbital warfare; the game gives a somewhat realistic model for orbital movement and even the Earth's rotation, creating a very dynamic battlefield. Units include space shuttles, space stations, killer satellites, nuclear weapons, mines, etc. Somewhat complex, but worthy of study. (The time I used orbital mechanics to slingshot a nuke into my opponent's space station was a thing of beauty.)

About the author: Ken Prescott is a Marine Corps veteran. He has worked as a management analyst, medical coder, and human resources specialist. His novel Not By Sight is available as a Kindle ebook from Amazon. He lives with his wife in San Diego, California.

Crossing Over THE CARE BEARS...With RIFTS

About six weeks ago, I spotted some discussion on the We Hate Movies Facebook group about unlikely fictional crossovers. It looked like a fun discussion, so I contributed a crossover between the rather violent role-playing game Rifts and the cheerful 1980s children's cartoon The Care Bears.

It's not as ridiculous as it sounds...the world of Rifts includes a lot of extradimensional beings. The Care Bears are clearly not from our world, while Dark Heart, the villain of Care Bears II: A New Generation, clearly is some kind of demon.

So here goes...

The Care Bears are beings of goodwill who have been observing Earth for some time from the pocket dimension of the Kingdom of Caring and can see the apocalypse coming. Being well-intentioned but not particularly powerful, they generally intervene in relatively small ways--befriending lonely children, getting people to talk about their feelings rather than lashing out, curing a town of unnatural depression, teaching lessons about the virtues of hard work, etc.--and hoping that like a falling pebble triggering an avalanche, the coming darkness can be averted.

And for a time it actually works. In Care Bears II, for example, the monstrous shape-shifting Dark Heart is not only defeated in his schemes to spur children at a summer camp into violence and destruction, but renounces his wickedness and becomes a real boy. Through the power of kindness, not only is a powerful supernatural force for evil neutralized, but it actually becomes a mortal force for good.

(Maybe the redeemed Dark Heart and Christy went on to found a food bank or something. Who knows?)

However, that's only a Hope Spot before the darkness falls--a nuclear war kills so many people that it reignites the dormant ley lines, tearing open holes in the fabric of reality and bringing in all sorts of aliens, monsters, and supernatural beings into the devastated Earth.

But somewhere in a ruined Magitek world, there are still several small bear-like creatures doing their best to make things better...

Fan Novelizations of STAR CONTROL II Online

Back when I was a wee lad, my parents bought a personal computer that ran Windows 3.1 and one of the early games I had was Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters. The game had a more explicitly "fun" starship-combat simulator I remember playing with my cousins and a prolonged story-based game that I never actually finished--I just kind of wandered around in the spaceship harvesting minerals from planets to buy ships and occasionally fighting the bad aliens. Eventually, as what often happens with childhood toys, I lost interest and the original disks, if they're even still around, are buried in my parents' house somewhere.

(I eventually learned how the game ended sometime in college or post-college. I won't bore you with the details, but there is an actual storyline and sequence of events.)

Well over the last couple days I got curious about good old Star Control and did some digging online. There's actually a dedicated Wiki for Star Control and quite a bit on the almighty TVTropes. It turns out that there's actually a novelization of the game's storyline written by uber-fan Tommi Salminen. Two 400-page novels, one covering the beginning of the game where you arrive at Earth and find it under an Ur-Quan slave shield and the other covering the later part of the story, once alliances with different alien races have been made and the truth about the Ur-Quan's motivations is revealed.

Here's the first one, Groombridge Log. The second one is Eternal Doctrine. Although I'd have preferred more description of the technology, characters, etc.--that's a problem with fan-fiction, the writer assumes everybody knows what everything looks like--they're still pretty entertaining.

Enjoy!

Blast from the Past Movie Review: Tomb Raider (2001)

I never played the Tomb Raider video game series, but back when I was something of a gamer I do remember thinking the original game looked pretty cool. When the film adaptation starring Angelina Jolie came out in 2001 when I was a junior in high school, I remember going to see it and finding it at least somewhat enjoyable.

Well, as the podcast Myopia: Defend Your Childhood is wont to do, we re-watch childhood (or in this case, later adolescent) pleasures to see if they're still good. Here's the podcast. And now for the review...

The Plot

Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), a British aristocrat served by butler Hilary (Chris Barrie) and technician Bryce Turing (Noah Wallace), uses the freedom her wealth provides to go adventuring, in particular exploring ancient ruins and tombs for treasures. However, she's haunted by the death of her father Lord Richard Croft (Jon Voight). But when a clock she doesn't know exist starts ticking, she's thrust into an adventure featuring rival "tomb raider" (and possible former love interest) Alex West (Daniel Craig) and sinister Illuminatus Manfred Powell (Iain Glen).

At stake? The Illuminati seizing an ancient artifact that would allow them to control time!

The Good

*The movie starts out quick and entertaining and is never dull. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed it as a high-schooler. To re-watch it for the podcast I "rented" it off Amazon for $4, downloaded it to my Kindle, and watched the second hour of it on the elliptical. It made the workout go by pretty quickly, which is always a plus.

*When Lara finds a letter from her father, we get a voice-over/flashback sequence to him writing the letter rather than her just reading it out loud. That's more interesting, especially since it allows the filmmakers to work in the origins of various artifacts with Lord Croft providing the explanation.

*It's interesting to see the different actors playing against type. Daniel Craig, who would later play none other than James Bond, plays an American "tomb raider" rival to (and possible ex of?) Lara who came off to me as a dork. Glen, whom I've only seen as the lovelorn Ser Jorah Mormont from Game of Thrones, plays an ambitious and backstabbing member of a dangerous cult.

*Lara's fighting style is predicated heavily on speed and skill, which makes a lot of sense for a woman who isn't big and burly like Brienne of Tarth. This would allow her to take on larger, stronger male opponents without difficulty. And when faced with a male opponent who's just as skilled and quick (not going to say whom for reasons for spoilers), it's a lot tougher.

The Bad

*The Illuminati's plan operates on a very tight timetable and all Lara would need to do to foil the Illuminati for the next 5,000 years would be to cause delays, refuse to cooperate, etc. Instead, she often assists them. She even puts herself in a position where they no longer need her and, if so inclined, could kill her. West states that she's in it for the glory while he's in it for the money--she'll help them retrieve the artifact so she can take it from them, rather than simply prevent them from getting the artifact in the first place.

*When Lara mocks West for his business-like attitude toward tomb raiding, there's a missed opportunity for character development--West can point out that unlike her, a British aristocrat with a landed estate who goes on adventures and robs tombs for fun, he has to work for a living. This would develop his character further and reveal Lara's disdain for his greed owes much to her privileged wealthy status, but it would also make Lara look kind of bad, so no wonder it didn't go into the film.

*The way Lara acts about her father, it's like he hasn't been (presumably) dead long and she is still mourning him. However, he's been missing since 1985 and assuming the movie takes place in 2001 and she was in later elementary school in the flashbacks (age 9-11 or so) before he went away, he's probably been gone for half her life. If Lara were younger and this movie was her origin story, this movie could be about a young woman taking up her father's sword to fight a sinister world-domination cult, but given the allusions to past adventures and the amount of time it would require to develop her sheer physical skill, instead she kind of comes off as emotionally stunted and even obsessive.

*Complaining about sexual objectification/fanservice in a movie based on a game known for following an attractive female character around from behind the whole time (aka a continuous butt-shot) may seem like a waste of time, but the way it's done in the film is kind of lame. The beginning battle features her moaning in exertion while pinned beneath a hostile robot, there's a completely gratuitous shower scene soon afterward, and she annoys her traditional-minded butler who wants to make her a proper lady by walking around naked in front of him. The latter seems to me to be a character moment at least (see the bit below about how him being traditional and her being rebellious might be a dynamic that's been going on so long it's a ritual or a game), but the first two were kind of annoying.

*Hilary, who is Lara's butler or personal assistant or something, lectures her about the need to be ladylike, but rather than being an Old Retainer, he looks to be around her age or only somewhat older.  The actor is only 15 years older than Jolie. I could imagine she might put up with that from somebody who was a surrogate parent (and at this point it might be an inside joke more than anything else), but not someone reasonably close to her age who works for her. His hair could have been dyed gray to make him look older or, since a widowed British aristocrat with only a daughter would probably remarry to have more children to ensure the name is passed down, it would've been more interesting if the character were instead Lara's more traditionally-inclined stepmother who has been trying to "manage" her tomboyish stepdaughter for the last decade or more.

(Lara's father being missing and not yet legally dead could be a reason why she's still there, or perhaps Lara has much younger half-siblings who have just as much right to live in the house as she does. In the latter case, Lara's adventuring might be in part to gather money for herself if she has a younger half-brother who upon reaching a certain age or if her father is declared legally dead will take control of the property. A bit too much Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice for a video-game action film, but perhaps it can be done subtly.)

Of course a more traditionalist British aristocratic wife isn't going to arm up when mercenaries barge into the house, but you could still have Hilary in a more reduced role for that purpose.

*It's never made particularly clear why the Illuminati getting hold of the artifact would be such a bad thing. Obviously nobody should be trusted with that type of power, but it's never discussed over-much.

*The CGI hasn't aged well.

The Verdict

Entertaining, but kind of stupid. See it once, preferably by renting and not buying. 6.0 out of 10.

ENDER'S GAME, Hive Civilizations, and STARSHIP TROOPERS

A few days ago, I hosted a guest post by my fellow writer Matthew Stienberg about how Robert Heinlein's science fiction novel Starship Troopers would make an excellent television series, which would allow for a greater exploration of the characters and world than a feature film would. I followed it up with a post of my own on how the novel's depiction of a conflict between the Merchant Marine (whose personnel don't earn the franchise for service) and the military (which does) could allow for a nuanced critique of the Federation without descending into Verhoeven-level idiocy and provide for complex storylines.

Well, here's my third post, on how we could explore the civilization of the Pseudo-Arachnids, the "Bugs" that the Federation fights against. In the novel it's never really described, although the warrior and worker bugs are depicted as being non-sentient and under the direction of senior bugs never depicted on-page. The 1997 film gives us the Brain Bug, whose appearance I didn't really like. The role-playing game book The Arachnid Empire apparently has some description of the Bugs' history and culture, such as it is, but it's not in the free-to-read material and I don't like this stuff enough to buy it to find out.

However, if that back-story proves lacking, Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game, which was adapted into a movie I enjoyed, has an interesting explanation for how a "Bug" civilization might function. Here there be spoilers...

Among the Formics or "Buggers" of Ender's Game and its spin-offs, the only truly sentient beings are the queens, with the majority of the species being non-sentient workers and drones. In the vein of Earth's insects, queens would be born in existing colonies and would leave to start a new colony. Each new colony would battle the others until one day a queen managed to persuade a daughter to work with her rather than attacking her (and only leaving to establish a new hive if she failed to topple her mother but survived). The mother-daughter pair spawned new queens that they kept as allies, pattern leading to a Formic civilization consisting of a coalition of sentient queens commanding billions of drones that defeated all single-queen nests and united the species.

The Arachnid caste system in the novel is a bit more complicated, with the Brain Bugs being the overall commanding intelligence of an Arachnid hive, to the point if a Brain Bug is killed, the colony will die with it (novel) or the subordinate Bugs will run mad without them in control (the Roughnecks animated series). However, there are queen bugs whose purpose is breeding that warrior-bugs will kill queens to keep them from being captured, which could imply the queens have some degree of sentience, or at least there's something about them while alive that makes it too risky (for the Bugs) for humans to capture them. Either way, the "ordinarily-singular sentients with masses of non-sentient slaves learn to cooperate" theory could apply, only with Brain Bugs instead of the queens.

In the Starship Troopers universe, human prisoners are discovered when the Federation invades Arachnid-controlled Planet P, which in Matt's chronology would be Season Three. That would be a good time for the viewer to learn about this, since these humans would have the most interaction with the Bugs, possibly including the leadership caste if the Arachnid leadership is interrogating them or studying them. Alternatively, if the viewers are getting impatient, this is something the Federation could learn from the Skinnies, since Matt suggested Season Two would consist of an attempt to forcibly detach the Skinnies from their alliance with the Bugs in which the Federation learns of the Brain Bugs. The Bugs might've been more forthcoming about their history with their allies than with their enemies, or the Skinnies might have found this out on their own. After all, they might be concerned that they could be next if the Arachnids triumph over the Federation.

Some Ideas on a Small-Screen STARSHIP TROOPERS From Me

A few days ago, Matthew Stienberg wrote a post on my blog about how he'd do STARSHIP TROOPERS as a TV series. Although there's already been one ST television show (the 1990s animated series Roughnecks I watched in middle school) and there's talk going around of a remake of the 1997 film, I think we're in agreement that a television show would be a better way to tell the story. Think Game of Thrones or The Expanse in which each book is a season. Although Starship Troopers is a relatively short novel, it covers what's probably multiple years of war and has enough incidents that can be fleshed out. As Matt's post lays out, basic training to the botched Federation assault on Klendathu is Season One, the rebuilding after Klendathu and Johnny earning his officer's commission is Season Two, the planning and execution of the assault on Planet P is Season 3, etc. Although Johnny apparently dies during another attack on Klendathu, he could always be Spared By The Adaptation or the second assault on Klendathu and Johnny's death could be Season 4.

Now here's where Matt's ideas and mine differ. The Starship Troopers novel references "incidents," "patrols," and "police actions" that occurred before the Bug War, which is also considered a "third" or "fourth" space war but the first truly "interstellar" war. Matt thinks this indicates there are other human societies besides the Federation. However, large-scale space colonization seems to happen only after WWIII, the collapse of most of society, and the reorganization and rebuilding by a trans-national alliance of veterans. There's a Starship Troopers role-playing game that explores the timeline and how the Federation functions day-to-day, but it's been so long since I flipped through the manuals at DragonCon that until I dug up the manuals on Amazon I couldn't remember much about it beyond telepaths not being legally allowed to gamble or trade stocks and how the veterans who founded the Federation decided that the years of war and collapse were so violent that every adult who lived through it should be considered a veteran and allowed to vote.

(That would make the Federation's system of earning the right to vote through either military or sufficiently-strenuous civilian service a much easier pill for the surviving populations to swallow, since nobody is actually losing the franchise--it's just their children and grandchildren will need to earn it later. This RPG manual here has the entire history of the Federation, which also suggests that at least one of these "incidents" might've been a pirate raid on a new colony by the Skinnies and that off-world space colonization was something the Federation started after the unification of Earth.)

Therefore, with the possible exception of people who dislike the Federation's limited franchise fleeing and establishing colonies elsewhere (more on that later), it seems more likely that there aren't human societies outside the Federation. Who then, is the Federation fighting? If these incidents were with aliens other than the Arachnids or the Skinnies, I would think there might be some mention of that.

And that leads us to a possible darker side of the Federation. I don't buy the hysterical claims that the Federation's system is fascist or militarist--if it were, it would be more overtly authoritarian with a Gestapo, a Fuhrer, etc. and Johnny wouldn't talk about "the poor bloody infantry" who protect home from "war's desolation." Real fascists and militarists would think war is a positive good and not a necessary evil and there are always personality cults, suppression of dissent, etc. That's one reason I'm not a fan of Verhoeven's bastardization, which you can see in my review of the movie. If the Federation were fascist, Johnny's father would be dead or in a work camp for complaining about Johnny's classes at school. Hell, Johnny might even be so brainwashed that he'd turn his own father in. That's what real totalitarianism looks like.

That said, the fact only veterans can vote hearkens back to another historical evil. During the lead-up to the American Revolution, the British claimed the Colonies, even though they lacked representation in Parliament, had "virtual representation" because Parliament would represent their interests regardless. The Patriots didn't buy that then, and we know that politicians generally only care about their immediate constituents, not the national good. That's why gerrymandering is such a problem. Even if the Federation's citizens represent a cross-section of race, class, creed, etc. (in the book Johnny is Filipino and comes from a wealthy family), they could still put their own interests above that of the "civilian" population that still greatly outnumbers them--there are colonies where half the population are citizens, but I don't think the figure of citizens on Earth itself is that high. Imagine, for example, lavish funding for programs that only benefit citizens but civilians aren't eligible for. There's a reason our forebears pushed for "no taxation without representation."

Furthermore, in the books it's made clear that the Merchant Marine wants its members granted citizenship after service like the military and (presumably at least some of) the civil service, but they don't get it. That explains the hostility between the Merchant Marine, which makes an interplanetary/interstellar peacetime economy possible, and the armed services, that occurs in the book. Johnny and some other military recruits on liberty get into a fight with some (surface) Merchant Marine sailors in a bar in Seattle, and apparently it's not an isolated incident. The same rules might apply to civilian shippers in space, although one would think that would be so dangerous it should guarantee citizenship in the same vein military service does.

So it could be that some of these "incidents" involving the Mobile Infantry weren't conflicts with external powers, pirates, etc. but something like suppression of a Merchant Marine strike or if you want to be even more extreme, wars of conquest against non-Federation human polities. For example, if we don't use the RPG timeline for our hypothetical television show, there might have been colonies within the solar system founded before WWIII that didn't collapse like their parent societies did Earthside and might have been conquered by the early Federation (hence multiple space wars but only one truly interstellar war). Once the Federation has control of the solar system, then you start seeing the massive united effort needed for establishing colonies around other stars. The Federation conquest of the solar system would be so distant in the past it would be like the Indian Wars to the modern U.S., but the Merchant Marine issues are in the book itself.

The more I think about it, the more a suppression of a Merchant Marine strike or strikes would be something to include in a hypothetical TV series before the beginning of the Bug War. If the entire Merchant Marine went on strike until their personnel got citizenship rights, the Federation's peacetime economy would collapse and the strikers could win without violence, but if only some of them did, there's a lot more potential for mayhem. Striking (armed) Merchant Marine ships could attack non-striking or "scab" ships, while on the other end, the Federation might be more willing to physically attack striking Merchant Marine vessels if they know that most of the Merchant Marine will stay loyal. The survivors of a Federation attack on strikers or a defeated attack on "scabs" by strikers could even go full-blown pirate, requiring a prolonged campaign to defeat.

Furthermore, widespread civil unrest within the Federation could be what tempts the Arachnids and their Skinny allies to attack the Federation--Saddam Hussein invaded Iran to take advantage of the chaos of the Iranian Revolution, after all. If the Arachnids and humans are competing for a relatively small number of habitable planets, a pre-emptive strike on humans could be a matter of species survival, especially if the Arachnids are fast-breeding and need to expand rapidly to avoid overpopulation and collapse.

And if you want to generate lots of discussion on the Internet, it could be hinted that the Federation's leadership provoked the Bugs as a "short, victorious war" to end internal strife within the Federation. It would provide an outside enemy to unite the people against (much like how opponents of the Argentine junta publicly embraced them after the conquest of the Falklands) and a prolonged war could generate a lot more veterans who can vote, reducing social pressures within the Federation. Only 400,000 Americans died in WWII, but 16 million or so served in some capacity; only 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam but 2.5 million served in the war itself and many more than that were in the military at the time.

Furthermore, the old show Space: Above and Beyond featured a human polity at war with the alien Chigs that had internal problems--there were cloned humans who had been mistreated, rebelled against said mistreatment, and now had to serve alongside their former tormentors in a war, while exiled artificial intelligences who'd rebelled against what was essentially slavery are allied to the Chigs. Having recent problems between the military and Merchant Marine could provide for some really interesting episodes--say after Klendathu the military requisitions some civilian ships for raids on the Arachnids and the civilian crew hates having to work with soldiers, some Merchant Marine extremists collaborate with the Arachnids, blocked by fraternization rules from romance with Dizzy or Carmen Johnny gets involved with a Merchant Marine sailor and both of them get trouble from their friends, etc.

If a TV show followed my or the other Matt's ideas, it would be more faithful adaptation of Heinlein's work AND would provide a more realistic, subtle critique of Heinlein's Federation than Verhoeven's straw-manning.

Movie Review: Warcraft (2016)

When I was in middle school, my friend David and I greatly enjoyed playing the fantasy war game Warcraft. Although I never got the sequel Warcraft 2 myself, the day I went off to college I bought Warcraft III and that Christmas I got the Frozen Throne expansion pack. The latter games in particular I felt had better storylines than many movies and I would have liked to see it on the big screen.

Well, to have a Warcraft III movie you have to have a Warcraft movie, and that’s what we got with this film. Was it everything a lifelong Warcraft fan could want? Let’s see…

The Plot

The world of Azeroth has been at peace for a long time, but that peace is shattered when the Orc Horde under the command of the sorcerer Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) invades, seeking a new homeland now that their world has been poisoned by evil fel magic. Human warrior Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel), whose sister Taria (Ruth Negga) is married to King Llane of Stormwind, faces the invasion head-on. Fighting alongside him are the half-trained mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), his son Collan (Burkely Duffield), and the POW-turned ally Garona (Paula Patton), who is half-Orc and half-human. Advising Llane is the sorcerer Medivh (Ben Foster), who may be more than he seems, while the Orc chieftain Durotan (Toby Kebbell) and his friend Orgrim Doomhammer (Robert Kazinsky) grow more skeptical of Guldan’s destructive ways…

The Good

*The movie is a faithful adaptation of the games in terms of plot, locations, etc.  Although the first game was much lighter in storyline than the later installments, there’s enough here to have a functioning movie.

*Like the second game and the later installments, the story averts the trope of Fantasy Gun Control. In fact, they do it really awesomely in one key scene.

*Like Warcraft III, the movie does a great job humanizing the Orcs. They’re depicted as fierce warriors with a strong honor culture instead of a horde of homicidal savage demon-worshipers. This represents an improvement over the first game, which in addition to the homicidal demon-worshiping bit also depicts the Orcs as generally being idiots. It goes so far as to attribute Garona’s intelligence to her mixed Orc and human lineage. This improved depiction of the Orcs ties nicely in with the third game.

*We meet the future Orc war-chief Thrall as a baby, a nice tie-in with the third game.

*Other than some draggy bits toward the middle, the movie is rarely boring. It’s quite entertaining, which is why we see movies after all. J

*There are a lot of fun little nods to the game, including the Polymorph spell one can use to transform dangerous enemies into helpless sheep, the Orcish phrase “zug-zug,” and how a golem animated by fel magic bears a strong resemblance to the Infernals used by the demonic Burning Legion in Warcraft III. My old stalwart TVTropes has a whole bunch listed under Mythology Gag.

*Of particular note is the half-Orc Garona. The movie plays her as torn between two worlds, disdained by her own kind but yet strongly devoted to the honor and martial traditions the Orcs practiced before Gul'dan rose to power. Half-Orcs are often depicted as the product of rape of human women by savage Orcs, but the film hints at a more complicated back-story connected to Medivh. Her role in the climax of the film ties in with the game, but at the same time is very different, in a very clever way.

*Although the Orc chieftain Blackhand is underused in the film (I’ll explain more later), there is a really cool explanation for his name.

*There’s an explanation for why some Orcs are green and others aren’t.

The Bad

*A character is revealed to be a traitor, but their motivation is never really explained. One could hand-wave this by saying that he’d discovered fel magic and it had warped him, but some more details would have been nice.

*Although the movie is generally a good mix of CGI and normal actors, the dwarves look very video-game-like. Snow White and the Huntsman, Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit did a good job depicting dwarves—I don’t see why this movie, with a comparable budget and less well-known actors to pay, couldn’t have done the same.

*We see elves in one scene, but they don’t do anything. You can tell they're elves from their ears, but they aren't even described as elves.

*Garona’s relationship with Gul'dan could be elaborated on a bit more. She seems to be his Morality Pet to an extent—he apparently saved her life when her mother was executed and even gave her one of her mother's tusks to remember her by, but at the same time he drags her around on a chain and treats her rather shabbily until she proves her worth to the Orcs.

*The first game depicts Garona as an intellectual (she’s the one narrating the story of the Orcs in the instruction manual), but the movie depicts her as this Klingon-like noble savage who at first speaks English very poorly. Some hints of her scholarly potential could have been included—perhaps she could have been Gul'dan's apprentice and he mistreated her with the idea it’d motivate her to grow more powerful and someday challenge him? Think Star Wars and the Sith.

*Orgrim Doomhammer engages in some behavior that should provoke Gul'dan’s wrath, but the sorcerer stays his hand. It’s never explained why.

*Blackhand, the Orc chief who led the initial invasion of Azeroth, is underused in the film. They could have elaborated on his character a lot more.

*The movie does drag in a few places, especially toward the middle. It’s not an overpowering problem, but still.

*We see a lot of Llane and his wife, but their children are never mentioned and not even seen until Llane rides out for the final battle. It wouldn’t be that difficult to see them earlier—perhaps Llane’s son Varian greatly admires his older cousin Collan and we see them sparring or something?

*During the final human assault on the Orc bridgehead, either Stormwind warriors lose their discipline or their tactical training always sucked. They seem to forget how to form a shield-wall and swarm against the Orcs, whose tactics are generally not much better, even though we see some soldiers forming a testudo formation to deal with an Orc cavalryman in one scene.

The Verdict

A fun movie, but not worth the $13.70 I paid to see it in the evening. Save it for a matinee. 8.0 out of 10.

Hopefully the next one — and consideringhow much the movie has grossed overseas, I’m pretty sure there will be a nextone — will have all of this one’s strengths but none of its weaknesses.

Movie Review: Turok Son of Stone (2008)

The other night I was fooling around on TVTropes rather than revising Battle for the Wastelands like I was supposed to and found that the comic series Gen 13, which I remember being aware of but not reading when I was a kid, had been made into an animated movie. I saw that someone had posted the movie (which was never officially released in the U.S.) on YouTube and also recommended was an animated film called Turok Son of Stone. I remembered playing the Turok video game when I was a kid, so I decided to give it a watch.

And now for the review...

The Plot

Native American warrior Turok is exiled from his tribe after killing several men from an enemy tribe and accidentally wounding his brother. Sixteen years later his nephew Andar comes to seek his help fighting said enemy tribe, which he refuses to provide. It turns out the enemy is armed with guns and makes short work of Turok and Andar's kin. The villainous leader Chichak even kidnaps Andar's mother Catori. Turok and Andar pursue them through caves into the mysterious Lost Land, where dinosaurs, extinct giant mammals (like this one), homicidal Neanderthals, and some people who are apparently distant kindred to Turok's people live. Turok and his family befriend them, but Chichak has made himself king of the Neanderthals and seeks to continue his vendetta...

The Good

*The Turok series has a whole lot of Rule of Cool going for it. There're dinosaurs and various other prehistoric monsters, lots and lots of action, terror-bird cavalry (terror-birds are underused as movie monsters, which is unfortunate), and more. It's great.

*Animation in the United States is usually considered kiddie fare, but this is most assuredly not. The movie starts out with the young Turok killing a whole bunch of enemies with an axe, with blood and limbs flying. And that's just the beginning. Turok's people's foes obliterate them with muzzle-loading rifles, there's neck-snapping and spearings aplenty, etc. It's an action movie that just happens to be animated.

*I like the animation style generally. Turok looks very much like his comic-book and video-game counterpart.

*Turok in one sequence performs some awesome physical feats, but due to a previous injury loses so much blood that he passes out. Although he's able to get up and move around within hours, it's several days before he performs similar athletic feats. That's rather more realistic than a lot of action movies.

*The movie is fairly creative in its choice of predatory antagonists. Instead of the usual Tyrannosaurus Rex, the major animal predator is a Carnotaurus. The Disney film Dinosaur and the novel The Lost World have those as enemies, but that's about it.

*The cave people are ruled by a female warrior chief, but there's no attempt to shoehorn in a romantic plot between her and Turok even though I suspected there'd be one.

The Bad

*The movie is a little on the short side. It's maybe an hour and fifteen minutes tops. Perhaps it was originally intended for television broadcasting? Its extreme violence would make it unlikely to be shown anywhere except perhaps Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network.

*It's fun, but it's not really that entertaining. There are much more fun movies out there.

The Verdict

It's fun to see once. Six out of 10.

Blast from the Past Movie Review: The Last Starfighter (1984)

For Myopia: Defend Your Childhood, the first movie I've sat in the defendant's chair for in a long time was 1980s cult science fiction classic The Last Starfighter.This one I remember my grandmother taping for me off the Disney Channel (at least I think it was the Disney Channel--there's some surprisingly adult content in the full film) back when it was new. You can listen to our podcast here. And now for the review...

The Plot

Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a young man living in a trailer park somewhere in the Southwest, wants more out of life than going to community college with his friends. His main outlet besides spending time with his awesome girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) is playing a video game called The Last Starfighter, in which he has to defend the outer-space Frontier against the villainous Ko-Dan Armada. He earns a record high score with the game, only to learn that he didn't get a loan he needs to go to college elsewhere. He goes back to play the game, only to encounter the mysterious Centauri (Robert Preston), a man who claims to be the game's inventor. It turns out he's an alien and the game was his unorthodox method of finding pilots for the Star League, which is faced with an invasion by a very real Ko-Dan Armada. Alex now must go into battle aboard a prototype Gunstar alongside the alien navigator Grig (Dan O' Herlihy).

The Good

*The concept and world of The Last Starfighter is really interesting. I like the idea of this spacefaring civilization under threat from some interstellar warlord and they're so hard-up for personnel to fight it (according to TVTropes, the novelization depicts the Star League culture as being so ridiculously pacifistic that they can only find a few dozen functional warriors) they've got to resort to unorthodox tactics like the whole video-game thing. The confrontation between the traitor Xur and his father indicates some potentially interesting back-story, especially the references to a cult that has apparently been scattered.

*Writer Jonathan R. Betuel (who was canny enough to hang onto many of the rights associated with the film, unlike many writers) does a good job of showing and not telling just how helpful Alex is to the other residents of the trailer park. Even if that's his actual job (as opposed to him just helping his neighbors out of community spirit), there's a sort of "auditory montage" of everybody thanking him for helping them with various tasks after he has to abandon a trip to the lake with some friends. That's a good bit of characterization (he's helpful) and exposition of his situation (he doesn't get a lot of time to himself).

*I liked Maggie's character. She actively desires Alex--much to his alien robot double's shock--rather than being some blushing shrinking violet. When she learns that Alex has been replaced by an alien robot double while he's fighting a war in space, rather than freak out, she immediately jumps in to help said alien double prevent an alien assassin from warning the Ko-Dan that Alex, the last surviving Star League fighter pilot, isn't actually on Earth. She's honest enough to admit she's scared of leaving the familiar trailer park, responsible enough to want to stay and look after her aging grandmother, and brave enough to go for the gusto when her grandmother tells her to "write or whatever it is they do up there."

(And when the reptilian Grig reveals himself to the townsfolk at the end of the film, it's her grandmother who confronts him with a shotgun. I guess we know where she gets it from.)

*Robert Preston is clearly having a lot of fun playing Centauri, as is O' Herlihy playing Grig. Preston in particular is clearly channeling his part in the 1957 production of The Music Manand is doing a good job. And O' Herlihy puts in the best performance in the movie. Stewart's Maggie rounds out the top three, but she has one misstep (that I'll get to later) that keeps her from rising higher.

*I liked the concept of the Gunstar, which is more like a frigate than a fighter-jet. It's able to take far more damage than the Ko-Dan space fighters and keep on fighting. And the tactic Alex uses to ambush the Ko-Dan carrier is pretty clever--power down and wait for them to pass, then pop up and destroy the carrier's communication array to keep the commander from coordinating his fighters.

*Although the sub-plot involving "beta Alex" (the alien robot double) was generally not that interesting, it had some really good parts. The one I'm thinking of is the robot taking off his head and setting it on the table and the head continuing to talk to and interact with Alex's little brother Louis.

*The Ko-Dan tolerate the obnoxious traitor Xur because they need him to break through the defenses of the Frontier. They don't particularly like him and they get rid of him as soon as possible because they're sick of his arrogance and meddling.

The Bad

*The movie was really rather boring. The whole "beta Alex" story was rather dull--and his social awkwardness was downright painful to watch--until he revealed to Maggie that he was an alien robot and being hunted by Ko-Dan assassins. Then things got more interesting. And the whole "stop the alien assassin" thing was more interesting than most of the space-battle plot, probably because the whole thing looks like, as Nick put it, the first Descent game.

*And speaking of that, the special effects have not aged well. I vaguely remember the effects looking a lot more realistic, possibly involving models and practical effects rather than CGI. After all, this was the mid-1980s. Wrong. The film uses CGI and it's crappy. It looks like something out of a mediocre Playstation One game. I say "mediocre" because my first PS-1 game (Warhawk) had full-motion video. According to the Wikipedia article and TVTropes, this was the biggest deployment of CGI at the time, but it was all done on the equivalent of an 800 MHz Pentium III. I can't really fault them for this the way I did the people who made the film Spawn because they did the best they could, but it still doesn't look good.

*The dominant race of the Star League is ridiculous-looking. They're basically humans with shaved lumpy heads and what one of my fellow reviewers called "Martin Van Buren hair." I mean seriously, look at Xur here:

I get a major Babylon 5 vibe off these people. I'm reminded simultaneously of the Centauri (see Londo Mollari and his hair) and the Minbari, although the latter's appearance is due to a difference bone structure rather than funny haircuts.

*I vaguely remember seeing the Star League fighters getting ravaged by explosions and the like as they line up to launch against the Ko-Dan carrier, but that's not in the movie at all. We see what looks like one fighter preparing to launch as the Ko-Dan throw rocks at their base. Either there's another cut of the film out there somewhere (the 1985 ABC TV broadcast of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khanincluded a scene revealing cadet Peter Preston is Scotty's nephew when the theatrical and most DVD releases didn't) or my imagination is embellishing things. That would have made the whole situation more scary and urgent if we see most of the Starfighters massacred in their hangars, the one or two that manage to launch getting shot down before they can engage the Ko-Dan, etc. Make this Pearl Harbor IN SPAAACE...

*Louis seems strangely precociously sexual. He looks like he's around seven or eight and he's got his own hidden collection of Playboy magazines. The actor would have actually been around 10 years old when the movie was shot, but based on my own experience, I would not have been interested in sex or girls at that age. I could imagine reading a Playboy if I found it out of curiosity, but not collecting them or treasuring particular centerfolds. It seems more realistic that Alex, being 18-ish, would have them, although I doubt the assertive, rather sexual Maggie would want to share him...

*Many of the actors needed to work on their craft. Guest really doesn't seem to emote too terribly much, even when being kidnapped by a stranger who turns out to be an alien, being taken to a faraway planet, seeing somebody get gut-shot by an alien assassin, etc. He seems half-asleep during the flight to Rylos in particular. And although I liked Stewart's portrayal of Maggie, her "I love you Alex Rogan" to the empty sky was delivered very poorly. And when the assembled alien fighter pilots chant "Victory or Death," it's the most unenthusiastic war-chant I have ever seen. Given how (almost) everybody seems to be doing poorly, I'm inclined to think it's the director who's the problem.

*Also, when the Gunstar lands in the trailer park and the townsfolk turn out to see it, nobody seems frightened, shocked, etc. Only the reaction of Maggie's shotgun-wielding grandmother seems remotely realistic. Again, this might be more a judgement on the director than the actors, since it wouldn't be that hard to be more alarmed than the people seem to be--more than likely it seems they just weren't told to act frightened.

*And I would expect the townsfolk to be more leery of Grig no matter how polite he is or how much Alex vouches for him, at least at first. Heck, some of the older women in the trailer park seem awfully friendly toward him, if you get my drift. :)

*In one scene, Grig references how the only power they've got is the life-support power, but then he manages to re-power the Gunstar at a crucial time--without any unpleasant side effects like their air getting bad. That's something that should have happened, to build suspense.

*The reason for Xur's treason should have had more elaboration. From the way it's depicted it seems like a combination of greed for power and Daddy issues. Building on this a little bit would have been possible in the scene where Xur's hologram confronts his father, before the Ko-Dan actually attack--just give him some lines about how weak and decadent the Star League has become (he can point out how few volunteers they've got to become Starfighters, frex).

*When Alex breaks the record, pretty much the entire population of the trailer park turns out to cheer him on. Old men even abandon their checkers game. Even though Alex is apparently quite popular with the residents and it seems like there's not a whole lot going on, it's very difficult to imagine people caring that much about an arcade game.

The Verdict

See it once if you're feeling nostalgic. 6.75 out of 10. It would be much better if it were remade with modern special effects and better actors, although that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. If you want to see how I would have done the movie, see this post here.