The date on this is 1991, the year Zsa Zsa died, two days after her 99th birthday. But, defense shields? Duh?
Indeed, ’tis a mystery. But TBH it’s not actually any worse than some of the ST:TOS season 3 plots…
She died in 2016, not 1991.
Maybe a reference to when she slapped a cop for pulling her over?
I’m not sure why this is a CIDU, unless it’s because of the missing caption, which originally read “The crew of the Enterprise meets the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor“, but the post’s title indicates that Bill was aware of that.
There really isn’t anything to not understand here, but hat doesn’t mean that there is anything understandable about it. This panel is simply weird: or in other words, classic “The Far Side”.
P.S. Ooops. Forgot to refresh the page before posting.
P.P.S. Despite my use of the adjective “classic”, I think Larsen’s weakest comics were those in which he made references to topical subjects or celebrities. His original “anonymous” characters were much funnier than anything he cribbed from real life (news, etc.).
I’m pretty sure that IF the crew of the Enterprise encountered the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor, defensive shields would be an appropriate response. Then again, I’m often confused as to why defensive shields up isn’t the default position.
@James Pollock – “shields up” means you can’t do anything fun, like beam somewhere or shoot at things.
Remember, the crew of the Enterprise met floating heads, floating hands, Greek gods, space amoebas, and any number of other improbable things floating in space. The head of Zsa Zsa Gabor just pushes that trope into slightly more ridiculous territory.
” ‘shields up’ means you can’t do anything fun, like beam somewhere or shoot at things.”
Neither of these is actually true, as it turns out
As much as I hate to support an undocumented statement presented in a terse and unfriendly manner, I think JP is right about the shields in Star Trek. The Enterprise did a lot of fighting with her shields up, and I don’t remember a story in which they had to lower shields to beam somebody up (or down), although I may be wrong about the latter condition. This is in contrast to the “cloaking device”, which did have to be deactivated to get off a shot.
Presumably, the reason Federation ships don’t always use the shields is to conserve power, although that was never explicitly mentioned.
P.S. Once the Federation knew that the “cloaking device” existed, one wonders why they never bothered to equip their own starships with such a thing. I believe that the Enterprise even stole one for at least a short while. Copying the design should not have been a problem.
@Kilby – I remember occasions in which they couldn’t beam someone up because they had the shields up and had to keep them up. On the cloaking device, I think they said in the Patrick Stewart days that the peace treaty with the Romulans specified that they wouldn’t put cloaking on their ships.
I think this refers to her movie, “The Queen of Outer Space”.
Just a thought.
@ Kilby
I think most would agree that Larson was at his weakest when referencing real people or events in living memory, though the Jane Goodall strip was certainly well-received. Personally, I do have a soft spot for the “Charlie Parker’s private hell” strip (it’s a well-constructed slam of new age music) and, to a lesser extent, the strip where the parents watch their son playing video games while imagining a newspaper classifieds section full of job offers for video game players. The latter strip is largely funny because one of the ads reads “Do you laugh in the face of killer goombas?”
The Federation did not have cloaking devices because of the Treaty of Algeron which was signed at the end of the war between the Federation and the Romulan empire. It formally established the Neutral Zone and included a prohibition on cloaking devices in Federation star ships.
Transporters usually cannot beam through the shields unless the script contains sufficient technobabble to allow it.
” and I don’t remember a story in which they had to lower shields to beam somebody up (or down)”
Think back to the episode where Kirk is on a prison planet to check up on a convict. Once he’s down, it turns out that the dangerous convict can shape-shift himself to look like anyone… even a prison warden. They can’t just beam him back up because the prison’s shields are up.
Until, of course, Spock figures out how to beam through the shields.
” This is in contrast to the “cloaking device”, which did have to be deactivated to get off a shot.”
Nope. Watch ST VI: The Undiscovered Country, again. If you’d rather not, a major plot point is the cloaked ship that can shoot while remaining cloaked.
” I believe that the Enterprise even stole one for at least a short while.”
“The Enterprise Incident”. In which the prop department came up with a slick workaround for the fact that they only had one Romulan ship model, and the storyline called for three Romulan ships in the same shot.
“one wonders why they never bothered to equip their own starships with such a thing”
Because they don’t work reliably. In “Balance of Terror”, the Enterprise follows a cloaked Romulan vessel., eventually destroying it.
The Federation has a long history of obtaining fabulous new capability, and then never using it or even mentioning it again. Prime example: The Genesis effect is a failure at creating new habitable planets, but remains a devastating weapon, ending the threat of Khan Noonian Singh permanently. But when faced with existential threats like energy-eating space-whales, Klingon aggression in violation of the Organian Treaty, or the Borg incursion, they don’t even think of using a Genesis-Wave weapon in self-defense.
They also meet powerful, advanced alien civilizations… and then never call on them for help. The First Federation has a powerful ship design that is far more powerful than the Enterprise. But Federation ships of 80 years later still don’t include any First Federation tech. On one occasion, they encounter an alien being so powerful that it exterminated an entire race for being too aggressive and warlike, but not smart enough to make a cannon out of bamboo and locally-sourced gunpowder. Maybe mention to those guys that the Borg are coming? Nah. 80 years later, they meet and entirely different alien being so powerful that it exterminated an entire race for being too aggressive and warlike. Mention the Borg to that guy? Nah.
And then there’s me, who can’t tell the diff between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’. Wasn’t there one with ‘Danger, danger, Dr. Robinson!’ in it, too?
Kilby, I never saw that caption — but it was kind of superfluous, I think.
“I’m often confused as to why defensive shields up isn’t the default position”
I don’t remember them ever addressing this, but I figured it was probably a power thing, the equivalent of keeping your wi-fi turned on for the entirety of a five-year mission.
(Of course the real-world reason is, it’s more dramatic having to put up the shields each time)
“And then there’s me, who can’t tell the diff between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’. ”
One was ruined by JJ Abrams, and the other one was ruined by JJ Abrams. Hope this helps.
Kilby: “The Enterprise did a lot of fighting with her shields up, and I don’t remember a story in which they had to lower shields to beam somebody up (or down), although I may be wrong about the latter condition.”
This was a pretty common plot point. There were lots of episodes where the Enterprise was involved in fighting, some officers would be in grave danger on a planet, and the people on the ship would say “we can’t beam you out, our shields are up.” Dramatic tension ensued. There were also lots of episodes where someone figured out some clever technological trick to circumvent that rule (which, this being Star Trek, they promptly forgot the next episode). I believe there were also episodes where the writers seemed to flat-out forget that rule.
“Once the Federation knew that the ‘cloaking device’ existed, one wonders why they never bothered to equip their own starships with such a thing.”
As Brian R said, the treaty with the Romulans forbade it. In “The Pegasus” (TNG), Picard discovers an early attempt by Starfleet officers to install a cloaking device on a Federation ship, and Picard, appalled at the treaty violation, reveals it to the Romulans. In DS9, the Romulans give special dispensation for one Federation ship (the Defiant) to install cloaking ability.
Kilby: See for example, this clip, where Picard dramatically announces to an opposing Romulan warbird that he will lower his shields to beam up injured officers (one human, one Romulan), despite the fact that it will give the warbird an opportunity to blow up the Enterprise.
AFAIK, because of the way this page now embeds Youtube clips, I can’t make the link at the appropriate time mark, but the relevant dialogue is at 1:50.
Star Wars was ruined by George Lucas:
Ewoks
Greedo shot first
Special editions
Jar Jar Binks
Trade negotiations
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
Racist caricatures
Stupid names
Sold to Disney
QED
In Trek lore, they sometimes refer to “navigation shields”, which are the default for travelling on impulse power. These shields, working with the deflector array, stop space rocks from smashing into the ship.
“There were also lots of episodes where someone figured out some clever technological trick to circumvent that rule (which, this being Star Trek, they promptly forgot the next episode).”
There was a short story that impressed me because the whole point of the story was how important just knowing that something is possible is, even if you haven’t worked out how to do it yourself yet — everything changes from that point on, as opposed to the stupid Star Trek cliché of everything is back to the way it was by next week.
I can’t remember the story, and as so often is the case, it’s almost impossible to find on Google based on vague recollections of plot points. The story was basically: a planetary culture works hard, but cannot come up with any way to exceed the speed of light c; they do, however, discover a weird effect described as going off at right angles to c while researching. Anyway, they set up a generation style space ship to travel to the stars, since they determine faster than light must be impossible. A few months into the voyage, the generation ship comes into contact with an alien ship. It is hostile. It also is clearly able to go faster than light. A fight ensues, and thanks to their clever weird right angles to c trick that they’ve incorporated into their shields, they manage to win, destroying their foe. And now is where the crucial bit, the whole point of the story happens: the generation ship immediately turns around to head back home, because they’ve just seen that FTL is possible. This changes everything, there is no point wasting generations to get to the next star, they just need to finally figure out how to go faster than light (and now they know it’s possible), and they can travel to the next star minus development time, but still much less than the generations they previously thought it would require.
I remember it being funny at the time…. (I think redundant captions actually help).
I *really* hate to say this but I think the Far Side doesn’t stand up to time the way I assumed it would.
“There was a short story that impressed me because the whole point of the story was how important just knowing that something is possible is, even if you haven’t worked out how to do it yourself yet”
I’m not familiar with a story exactly as described, but it sounds vaguely similar to some of the early fiction in the Man-Kzin Wars era of Known Space. Humans are using slower-than-light craft because they don’t have the quantum 1 hyperdrive yet, and they encounter a Kzinti ship. They fight (because kzinti ALWAYS fight) and the humans win.
But the plotline of the exact story I’m thinking of is that the kzinti telepath scans the humans’ mind and finds that the humans are thinking that they don’t have any weapons. Turns out, they don’t have anything that was INTENDED as a weapon, but they do have powerful lasers for messaging, and a thermonuclear drive exhaust, which they adapt into weapons when attacked.
Not, I think, the same story. But it’s possible that one of the “shared universe” Man-Kzin Wars stories might be the one you’re looking for.
On a tangent, is nobody going to complain that Mr. Larson had apparently not recently seen a Star Trek episode recently when he drew the Enterprise’s bridge?
“One was ruined by JJ Abrams, and the other one was ruined by JJ Abrams. Hope this helps.”
So, tell us how you REALLY feel ‘-)
A tangent, but maybe someone can help me find this short story – about an empath (to the point of ‘hearing’ grass screaming as it was being mowed). I thought it was by Harlan Ellison, but not been able to find it. Anyone?
The first three-ish seasons of Lost were gripping and compelling, until it became obvious that they didn’t actually have a plan, and were just inserting random details to make it confusing. But the characters and their interleaving stories worked, until they didn’t.
Continuity is not one of Mr. Abrams’ strong suits. This is why, when they handed him the Star Trek franchise, the first thing that happened was to toss aside all the existing continuity, and when they handed him the Star Wars franchise, the first thing that happened was to toss aside all the existing continuity. OK, as previously mentioned, Star Trek wasn’t big on continuity, either, before Mr. Abrams popped into the picture. A handoff between creators can be tricky, but it can be done well. See, for example, the transition from Ridley Scott’s “Alien” to James Cameron’s “Aliens”. Each creator made the kind of movie they’re good at, but the flow between the two pretty good. The Alien franchise didn’t get broken until the NEXT movie. Or, for one closer to the topic I started this post with, consider Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars shorts. HIGHLY stylized, in Tartakovsky’s style, but Star Wars, nonetheless. Or, consider the best transition of all time, from Tim Burton’s Batman to the animated series.
25% of this is because Bill wanted to know what Larson thought was funny about the Enterprise encountering Zsa Zsa Gabor’s head.
75% of this was because he wanted to use the subject line.
larK: I remember when I was a math major, homework problems that asked “determine whether X is true, and provide a proof” always were much, much harder than “prove X is true” or “prove X is false,” even though logically it seemed like they should be no more than twice as hard.
@larK: “There was a short story that impressed me because the whole point of the story was how important just knowing that something is possible is, even if you haven’t worked out how to do it yourself yet ”
When you said that, I thought you meant Noise Level by Raymond F Jones, from 1952. I will SPOIL it in a moment, after I mention that John W Campbell had the idea in detail and tried to get Heinlein to write it, but he demurred,and Raymond F Jones took it on. The spoilery bit now… top scientists are shown convincing footage of a small working anti-gravity device, made by a paranoid recluse who kept no notes of how he did it, and then his machine was destroyed beyond analysis and reconstruction in a crash. The scientists are then assigned the task of finding the principles of anti-grav and build a new one. They know it is possible. One eventually makes a huge but definitely working antigrav device. Then the scientists are told that the original footage was fake – the whole operation was to “show” the scientists that something was possible, so they would lower their sceptical filters and get to work.
Continuity was constantly reset in ST:TOS, but that was standard in most shows made in the 60’s and 70’s (how many girlfriends did the bachelors of Bonanza go through with nary a mention the next episode?) The later ST shows were relatively good with continuity and even trying to explain continuity errors in the original series. (I attribute this as much to the ST fanbase obsessive devotion to details as much as changes in television storytelling.)
” The scientists are then assigned the task of finding the principles of anti-grav and build a new one.”
That, in turn, reminds me of the miniseries “Ascension”, currently available on Netflix.
Blinky: I disagree, at least as far as the technological advances go. The basic pattern where amazing technological advances are made, and then forgotten in the next episode, strikes me as fairly constant across all the series. It’s to some degree required by the fact that the writers want to have the crew to come up with miraculous solutions that show how clever the crew is, but don’t want the crew to have accumulated god-like powers by the end of the first season.
Heck, in “ST Into Darkness” they can transport between planets, and cure death! You’d think this would have totally changed the Star Trek universe. Why do they even have spaceships anymore? Instead, there was no mention of these advances in “ST Beyond.”
In the original series alone, just under 80 episodes, they discovered at least three independent methods of giving human beings telekinetic abilities. But they still made Scotty climb down the manhole with a clipboard to adjust the warp drive flux, and there aren’t any telekinetic humans in the Next Generation. There are three different methods of time-travel (gravity warp, alien library, and the Guardian of Forever). The number of super-advanced species they encountered, but then never consulted about any other problem…Transporter systems can push you into a different universe, split you into two beings each with half a psyche, or cure aging… no wonder they look different with each incarnation of ST.
In Next Gen, they discover that travelling at high warp causes distress, even death, to certain subspace entities who are intelligent and beg the Enterprise crew to stop doing it. (They stop travelling at high warp… for the rest of the episode. Next week, they’re travelling at high warp speeds again.)
” about an empath (to the point of ‘hearing’ grass screaming as it was being mowed).”
That was a Roald Dahl short story about a machine that could hear higher frequencies and the inventor discovered *everything* felt and screamed in pain. … And wasn’t this a side-line of Stranger in A Strange Land?
“On a tangent, is nobody going to complain that Mr. Larson had apparently not recently seen a Star Trek episode recently when he drew the Enterprise’s bridge?”
I thought that. But figured there was no point.
@woozy: The Dahl short story is “The Sound Machine.” I don’t believe there’s anything there about grass screaming while being mowed, but it did involve roses screaming while being pruned, and a tree screaming when cut with an axe.
The “screaming grass” detail sounds vaguely familiar to me also, though. I vaguely associate it with a Charles Beaumont or Richard Matheson short story, but I think it’s 90+% likely I’m wrong about that.
“wasn’t this a side-line of Stranger in A Strange Land?”
Doesn’t sound familiar to me, though it’s been a while since I last read it.
” . . . I vaguely associate it with a Charles Beaumont . . .”
So I looked up Beaumont, and his 1957 book is ‘Hunger and Other Stories’, WHICH I HAVE . . . (it has a wonderful Hieronymous Bosch cover) . . . and I’ve read the first few paragraphs of each story, but not found the Empath. Dang!
“wasn’t this a side-line of Stranger in A Strange Land?”
The recently-arrived Michael learns to enjoy walking on grass, even though the grass is complaining about being stepped on. It was a real grass “carpet” in an apartment.
(Why yes, we are a bunch of geeks.)
“Richard Matheson”
He wrote ‘I Am Legend’, which I have, but not his short stories, so I’ll check those out.
“It was a real grass “carpet” in an apartment.”
And I have a fake grass ‘carpet’ in my dogs’ potty pen. Go figure . . .
(Why yes, I am a dogfanatic, and would be proud to be called a geek.)
Thanks to all for the corrections about transporter vs. shields. I never watched more than a few “TNG” episodes, especially after they started using the holodeck to turn the whole series into Fantasy Island.
P.S. Larson may have known that Spock never sat up front, but it would have been impossible to compose the drawing showing Kirk, Spock, and the viewscreen in their respective (correct) positions.
P.S. @ Bill – I would never have been able to identify the face on the screen without the caption (or alternatively, your title). I dug up the original text by searching for “far side star trek zsa zsa gabor”.
P.S. @ Arthur – Michael was initially revolted by the idea of walking on living beings, and had to be encouraged to try it, but when he extended his empathy, he discovered that those beings did not complain, because it was the grass’s “purpose” to be walked upon.
@ billytheskink – Thanks for reminding me about Jane Goodall. That comic was not just one of Larson’s best “celebrity” digs, but one of the best Far Side comics ever drawn.
’60s-’70s TV shows do tend to have Reset buttons, which I’d think make syndication broadcast simpler, without the pesky continuity. Brings up a question…when did audiences begin to keep notes of plot devices and characters? Some time after the TOS wrapped up?
It’s interesting to note in anime forums the debates regarding serial vs episodic series. I don’t mind the shorter serial anime shows, but I watched the full run of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and decided I wasn’t going to go through that again.
“P.S. Larson may have known that Spock never sat up front, but it would have been impossible to compose the drawing showing Kirk, Spock, and the viewscreen in their respective (correct) positions.”
I don’t know if Larson knew it, but Spock did occasionally operate the navigation console. However, he wore a blue shirt.
Though curious, I’ve been afraid to re-read “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
I’ve found it’s rarely a good idea to re-read something you really enjoyed when you were twelve.
Kilby, I think you’re right about the grass. It’s been a while since I last read it.
@LarK and @narmitaj – there’s also a short story (which I have found and refound several times, but don’t currently know what it is) in which there is peaceful-ish first contact with aliens, and they agree to a contest. The aliens will give the humans a piece of tech and if they can duplicate it, the humans will give the aliens a piece of tech and see if they can duplicate that. The aliens hand the humans a perpetual motion machine. The engineers give a collective WTF! and then set to work – and six months later, when the aliens come back, the engineers proudly show off their perpetual motion machine. The head engineer says “We figured out everything except this black box, we couldn’t see what it did but we worked around it.” The alien says “…uh. That’s…the battery. It would have run out in another six months…” Long pause. The leader of the humans (not the engineer, the politician or whatever) says “Right! So we’ll give you our FTL drive to figure out…”
@Grawlix It may even have been ToS that started it – after all, that was the show that was resurrected…twice, I think…because the fans demanded it with a major write-in campaign. That kind of fan is also the kind that remembers/notes down all the details, I think.
The recently-arrived Michael learns to enjoy walking on grass, even though the grass is complaining about being stepped on. It was a real grass “carpet” in an apartment.
Actually the grass did not complain:
Smith wiggled his toes in the grass, then said timidly, “But these live?”
“Sure, it’s alive, it’s real grass. Ben paid a lot to have it that way. Why, the special lighting circuits alone cost more than I make in a month. So walk around and let your feet enjoy it.”
Smith missed most of this but did understand that grass was living beings and that he was being invited to walk on them. “Walk on living things?” He asked with incredulous horror.
“Huh? Why not? It doesn’t hurt this grass; it was specially developed for house rugs.”
Smith was forced to remind himself that a water brother could not lead him into wrongful action. He let himself be encouraged to walk around—and found that he did enjoy it and the living creatures did not protest. He set his sensitivity for such as high as possible; his brother was right, this was their proper being—to be walked on.
Bill, if you do want to reread it, I suggest the version as originally published. The editors that Heinlein hated were his friends. The expanded version isn’t actually bad, but I don’t think it’s as good.
@ Bill – I’ll second Arthur’s opinion about the “original” versus the “complete” editions of Heinlein’s “Stranger…” I’ve read both, and while there were a few brief passages in the “uncut” edition that were interesting and worth reading, the absolute lack of editorial restraint, along with the undifferentiated typesetting more than offset any of the advantages that the additional text might have added.
I actually have a copy of the newer version that I’m about to get rid of. I would mail it to you, but it’s in German, and just as with every science fiction book I’ve ever read in German, the translation is defective (about pulp magazine quality).
@James Pollock-
ST:TNG did make several passing references in later episodes to seeking permission to exceed the “warp speed limit”- usually for humanitarian or other plot-device purposes. Since the original episode talked about Federation scientists working on solutions to the problem, I’ve assumed that a solution was found and implemented in later years.
As regard to Into Darkness and Beyond… we do not talk about those dark days.
“as with every science fiction book I’ve ever read in German, the translation is defective (about pulp magazine quality)”
Back in the very late 80s, I was travelling around Germany by train, and reading the newest additions to Asimov’s Foundation series. I distinctly remember reading the newest one in German translation, distinctly because in later recollection, I could not remember which I’d read in German, and which in English, only that I knew for certain I had read at least one in German. (Looking it up, this was almost certainly Prelude to Foundation.)
So for me, anyway, the translation was good enough that in later recall I could not distinguish it from the others I’d read in English.
Now, two caveats: 1) This was an A list best seller, so the translation was probably better than the run of the mill forgotten SF you might be referring to; 2) This book was not one of Asimov’s better efforts, seeming to be nothing but anguishing whining by Seldon that someday, when he’s invented psychohistory, he will know what to do! (Then just get busy inventing it already!) This one, and the sequel to Fantastic Voyage (so Fantastic Voyage II) were the two worst ever Asimov books in my opinion — the Fantastic Voyage sequel was neigh unreadable…
” This one, and the sequel to Fantastic Voyage (so Fantastic Voyage II) were the two worst ever Asimov books in my opinion”
I did not care for the 4th Foundation novel, or anything after he decided that the robot novels and the Foundation novels were set in the same universe. YMMV. Nor do I enjoy Heinlein’s later works, when he got powerful enough to ignore his editors. But my aversion to later works reaches its peak with Frank Herbert… it’s a shame he never wrote a sequel to Dune. (The younger Mr. Herbert extended the Dune universe quite well, with some co-authors.)
Tying together the Robot stories and the Foundation stories always felt like an exercise in sloppy fan fiction — the fact that the original author was doing it notwithstanding.
@jjmcgaffey : I cou;dn’t remember the author and title either but I asked on another of my groups, where two people identified it as “Double Dare” by Robert Silverberg, originally in the November 1956 GALAXY; reprinted in the anthology THE FIFTH GALAXY READER (where I would have read it more than fifty years ago) and in several Silverberg collections.
Another thread/CIDU had a video from The Frantics, which lead me into this . . .
@ Andréa – That one hit a little too close to home for me, my wife (who doesn’t like science fiction at all) has never been able to understand the 4,5,6,1,2,3,7,8,9 numbering scheme.
P.S. Then there’s “Back to the Future 3”, most of which takes place 100 years before parts 1 and 2.
P.P.S. I really think that the producers of “Ocean’s Eleven” missed an opportunity: the first sequel should have been a prequel: “Ocean’s Ten” could have explained how Danny lost his wife and landed in jail.
Remember that the episode number and title were not present in the original release of the first movie.
I’m not a Star Wars fan, but I imagine at this point they want people to forget the order the films were released and just think of them as Chapter 1 (The Phantom Menace) through Chapter 9 (Whatever).
There are only six Star Wars films, and there will always be only six Star Wars films. And also, Lucas didn’t go back and tweak the originals with CGI, either. And Frank Herbert never wrote any sequels to “Dune”.
Some of the most successful films in history have prequels. The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings, Alien (how did that one get in here). Harry Potter (well, they made a lot of money.)
James, the list of successful films that have had prequels is much, much longer than that. The question is, how many SHOULD HAVE had prequels.
I really wouldn’t call Hobbit a prequel to the LOTR films, by the way, since the book predated the films by decades.
And Godfather II was really half a prequel, of course, with the prequel and sequel parts fitting together as a logical whole.
“James, the list of successful films that have had prequels is much, much longer than that.”
I didn’t mean to suggest an exhaustive list. Although I did cheat, because Godfather has only part of a prequel rather than prequels, as you noted, but I didn’t want just SF/fantasy, although I think the list would be fairly SF/fantasy heavy (or maybe that’s just the movies I tend to see).
I don’t know what you’d call the Hobbit films if they AREN’T prequels to the LOTR films. Tolkien wrote the Hobbit first, then LOTR, but Jackson made LOTR first, then the Hobbit trilogy.
There’s two kinds of prequels… one is set far in advance of the previous works, using characters that are different. The other covers events immediately preceding the earlier work, with the prequel ending where the original begins. This is hard to do, because there’s no dramatic tension… the consumer knows who goes on from the beginning, and who isn’t in the original work. So, if you wanted to tell a Star Wars story about the creation of the Jedi Order, you can probably make a strong prequel. But if you wanted to tell the story of how Uncle Owen got his moisture farm, probably not.
Back when there were still only 3 SW films, I worked out a pretty good story workup of a prequel centered on Han Solo (surprisingly, not anything like the one we finally got. It had no Jedi in it, no Imperial politics, but lots of cool spaceships whizzing about and laser blasters going pew! pew! pew! That would have been better received than “Phantom Menace”, I think, even though you know it ends up with Han in a cantina on some nowhere desert planet about as far from galactic civilization as you can get…
Comics I Don't Understand 
Huh?
The date on this is 1991, the year Zsa Zsa died, two days after her 99th birthday. But, defense shields? Duh?
Indeed, ’tis a mystery. But TBH it’s not actually any worse than some of the ST:TOS season 3 plots…
She died in 2016, not 1991.
Maybe a reference to when she slapped a cop for pulling her over?
I’m not sure why this is a CIDU, unless it’s because of the missing caption, which originally read “The crew of the Enterprise meets the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor“, but the post’s title indicates that Bill was aware of that.
There really isn’t anything to not understand here, but hat doesn’t mean that there is anything understandable about it. This panel is simply weird: or in other words, classic “The Far Side”.
P.S. Ooops. Forgot to refresh the page before posting.
P.P.S. Despite my use of the adjective “classic”, I think Larsen’s weakest comics were those in which he made references to topical subjects or celebrities. His original “anonymous” characters were much funnier than anything he cribbed from real life (news, etc.).
I’m pretty sure that IF the crew of the Enterprise encountered the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor, defensive shields would be an appropriate response. Then again, I’m often confused as to why defensive shields up isn’t the default position.
@James Pollock – “shields up” means you can’t do anything fun, like beam somewhere or shoot at things.
Remember, the crew of the Enterprise met floating heads, floating hands, Greek gods, space amoebas, and any number of other improbable things floating in space. The head of Zsa Zsa Gabor just pushes that trope into slightly more ridiculous territory.
” ‘shields up’ means you can’t do anything fun, like beam somewhere or shoot at things.”
Neither of these is actually true, as it turns out
As much as I hate to support an undocumented statement presented in a terse and unfriendly manner, I think JP is right about the shields in Star Trek. The Enterprise did a lot of fighting with her shields up, and I don’t remember a story in which they had to lower shields to beam somebody up (or down), although I may be wrong about the latter condition. This is in contrast to the “cloaking device”, which did have to be deactivated to get off a shot.
Presumably, the reason Federation ships don’t always use the shields is to conserve power, although that was never explicitly mentioned.
P.S. Once the Federation knew that the “cloaking device” existed, one wonders why they never bothered to equip their own starships with such a thing. I believe that the Enterprise even stole one for at least a short while. Copying the design should not have been a problem.
@Kilby – I remember occasions in which they couldn’t beam someone up because they had the shields up and had to keep them up. On the cloaking device, I think they said in the Patrick Stewart days that the peace treaty with the Romulans specified that they wouldn’t put cloaking on their ships.
I think this refers to her movie, “The Queen of Outer Space”.
Just a thought.
@ Kilby
I think most would agree that Larson was at his weakest when referencing real people or events in living memory, though the Jane Goodall strip was certainly well-received. Personally, I do have a soft spot for the “Charlie Parker’s private hell” strip (it’s a well-constructed slam of new age music) and, to a lesser extent, the strip where the parents watch their son playing video games while imagining a newspaper classifieds section full of job offers for video game players. The latter strip is largely funny because one of the ads reads “Do you laugh in the face of killer goombas?”
The Federation did not have cloaking devices because of the Treaty of Algeron which was signed at the end of the war between the Federation and the Romulan empire. It formally established the Neutral Zone and included a prohibition on cloaking devices in Federation star ships.
Transporters usually cannot beam through the shields unless the script contains sufficient technobabble to allow it.
” and I don’t remember a story in which they had to lower shields to beam somebody up (or down)”
Think back to the episode where Kirk is on a prison planet to check up on a convict. Once he’s down, it turns out that the dangerous convict can shape-shift himself to look like anyone… even a prison warden. They can’t just beam him back up because the prison’s shields are up.
Until, of course, Spock figures out how to beam through the shields.
” This is in contrast to the “cloaking device”, which did have to be deactivated to get off a shot.”
Nope. Watch ST VI: The Undiscovered Country, again. If you’d rather not, a major plot point is the cloaked ship that can shoot while remaining cloaked.
” I believe that the Enterprise even stole one for at least a short while.”
“The Enterprise Incident”. In which the prop department came up with a slick workaround for the fact that they only had one Romulan ship model, and the storyline called for three Romulan ships in the same shot.
“one wonders why they never bothered to equip their own starships with such a thing”
Because they don’t work reliably. In “Balance of Terror”, the Enterprise follows a cloaked Romulan vessel., eventually destroying it.
The Federation has a long history of obtaining fabulous new capability, and then never using it or even mentioning it again. Prime example: The Genesis effect is a failure at creating new habitable planets, but remains a devastating weapon, ending the threat of Khan Noonian Singh permanently. But when faced with existential threats like energy-eating space-whales, Klingon aggression in violation of the Organian Treaty, or the Borg incursion, they don’t even think of using a Genesis-Wave weapon in self-defense.
They also meet powerful, advanced alien civilizations… and then never call on them for help. The First Federation has a powerful ship design that is far more powerful than the Enterprise. But Federation ships of 80 years later still don’t include any First Federation tech. On one occasion, they encounter an alien being so powerful that it exterminated an entire race for being too aggressive and warlike, but not smart enough to make a cannon out of bamboo and locally-sourced gunpowder. Maybe mention to those guys that the Borg are coming? Nah. 80 years later, they meet and entirely different alien being so powerful that it exterminated an entire race for being too aggressive and warlike. Mention the Borg to that guy? Nah.
And then there’s me, who can’t tell the diff between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’. Wasn’t there one with ‘Danger, danger, Dr. Robinson!’ in it, too?
Kilby, I never saw that caption — but it was kind of superfluous, I think.
“I’m often confused as to why defensive shields up isn’t the default position”
I don’t remember them ever addressing this, but I figured it was probably a power thing, the equivalent of keeping your wi-fi turned on for the entirety of a five-year mission.
(Of course the real-world reason is, it’s more dramatic having to put up the shields each time)
“And then there’s me, who can’t tell the diff between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’. ”
One was ruined by JJ Abrams, and the other one was ruined by JJ Abrams. Hope this helps.
Kilby: “The Enterprise did a lot of fighting with her shields up, and I don’t remember a story in which they had to lower shields to beam somebody up (or down), although I may be wrong about the latter condition.”
This was a pretty common plot point. There were lots of episodes where the Enterprise was involved in fighting, some officers would be in grave danger on a planet, and the people on the ship would say “we can’t beam you out, our shields are up.” Dramatic tension ensued. There were also lots of episodes where someone figured out some clever technological trick to circumvent that rule (which, this being Star Trek, they promptly forgot the next episode). I believe there were also episodes where the writers seemed to flat-out forget that rule.
“Once the Federation knew that the ‘cloaking device’ existed, one wonders why they never bothered to equip their own starships with such a thing.”
As Brian R said, the treaty with the Romulans forbade it. In “The Pegasus” (TNG), Picard discovers an early attempt by Starfleet officers to install a cloaking device on a Federation ship, and Picard, appalled at the treaty violation, reveals it to the Romulans. In DS9, the Romulans give special dispensation for one Federation ship (the Defiant) to install cloaking ability.
Kilby: See for example, this clip, where Picard dramatically announces to an opposing Romulan warbird that he will lower his shields to beam up injured officers (one human, one Romulan), despite the fact that it will give the warbird an opportunity to blow up the Enterprise.
https://youtu.be/x5e1_vVy1KU?t=106
AFAIK, because of the way this page now embeds Youtube clips, I can’t make the link at the appropriate time mark, but the relevant dialogue is at 1:50.
Star Wars was ruined by George Lucas:
Ewoks
Greedo shot first
Special editions
Jar Jar Binks
Trade negotiations
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
Racist caricatures
Stupid names
Sold to Disney
QED
In Trek lore, they sometimes refer to “navigation shields”, which are the default for travelling on impulse power. These shields, working with the deflector array, stop space rocks from smashing into the ship.
“There were also lots of episodes where someone figured out some clever technological trick to circumvent that rule (which, this being Star Trek, they promptly forgot the next episode).”
There was a short story that impressed me because the whole point of the story was how important just knowing that something is possible is, even if you haven’t worked out how to do it yourself yet — everything changes from that point on, as opposed to the stupid Star Trek cliché of everything is back to the way it was by next week.
I can’t remember the story, and as so often is the case, it’s almost impossible to find on Google based on vague recollections of plot points. The story was basically: a planetary culture works hard, but cannot come up with any way to exceed the speed of light c; they do, however, discover a weird effect described as going off at right angles to c while researching. Anyway, they set up a generation style space ship to travel to the stars, since they determine faster than light must be impossible. A few months into the voyage, the generation ship comes into contact with an alien ship. It is hostile. It also is clearly able to go faster than light. A fight ensues, and thanks to their clever weird right angles to c trick that they’ve incorporated into their shields, they manage to win, destroying their foe. And now is where the crucial bit, the whole point of the story happens: the generation ship immediately turns around to head back home, because they’ve just seen that FTL is possible. This changes everything, there is no point wasting generations to get to the next star, they just need to finally figure out how to go faster than light (and now they know it’s possible), and they can travel to the next star minus development time, but still much less than the generations they previously thought it would require.
I remember it being funny at the time…. (I think redundant captions actually help).
I *really* hate to say this but I think the Far Side doesn’t stand up to time the way I assumed it would.
“There was a short story that impressed me because the whole point of the story was how important just knowing that something is possible is, even if you haven’t worked out how to do it yourself yet”
I’m not familiar with a story exactly as described, but it sounds vaguely similar to some of the early fiction in the Man-Kzin Wars era of Known Space. Humans are using slower-than-light craft because they don’t have the quantum 1 hyperdrive yet, and they encounter a Kzinti ship. They fight (because kzinti ALWAYS fight) and the humans win.
But the plotline of the exact story I’m thinking of is that the kzinti telepath scans the humans’ mind and finds that the humans are thinking that they don’t have any weapons. Turns out, they don’t have anything that was INTENDED as a weapon, but they do have powerful lasers for messaging, and a thermonuclear drive exhaust, which they adapt into weapons when attacked.
Not, I think, the same story. But it’s possible that one of the “shared universe” Man-Kzin Wars stories might be the one you’re looking for.
On a tangent, is nobody going to complain that Mr. Larson had apparently not recently seen a Star Trek episode recently when he drew the Enterprise’s bridge?
“One was ruined by JJ Abrams, and the other one was ruined by JJ Abrams. Hope this helps.”
So, tell us how you REALLY feel ‘-)
A tangent, but maybe someone can help me find this short story – about an empath (to the point of ‘hearing’ grass screaming as it was being mowed). I thought it was by Harlan Ellison, but not been able to find it. Anyone?
The first three-ish seasons of Lost were gripping and compelling, until it became obvious that they didn’t actually have a plan, and were just inserting random details to make it confusing. But the characters and their interleaving stories worked, until they didn’t.
Continuity is not one of Mr. Abrams’ strong suits. This is why, when they handed him the Star Trek franchise, the first thing that happened was to toss aside all the existing continuity, and when they handed him the Star Wars franchise, the first thing that happened was to toss aside all the existing continuity. OK, as previously mentioned, Star Trek wasn’t big on continuity, either, before Mr. Abrams popped into the picture. A handoff between creators can be tricky, but it can be done well. See, for example, the transition from Ridley Scott’s “Alien” to James Cameron’s “Aliens”. Each creator made the kind of movie they’re good at, but the flow between the two pretty good. The Alien franchise didn’t get broken until the NEXT movie. Or, for one closer to the topic I started this post with, consider Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars shorts. HIGHLY stylized, in Tartakovsky’s style, but Star Wars, nonetheless. Or, consider the best transition of all time, from Tim Burton’s Batman to the animated series.
25% of this is because Bill wanted to know what Larson thought was funny about the Enterprise encountering Zsa Zsa Gabor’s head.
75% of this was because he wanted to use the subject line.
larK: I remember when I was a math major, homework problems that asked “determine whether X is true, and provide a proof” always were much, much harder than “prove X is true” or “prove X is false,” even though logically it seemed like they should be no more than twice as hard.
@larK: “There was a short story that impressed me because the whole point of the story was how important just knowing that something is possible is, even if you haven’t worked out how to do it yourself yet ”
When you said that, I thought you meant Noise Level by Raymond F Jones, from 1952. I will SPOIL it in a moment, after I mention that John W Campbell had the idea in detail and tried to get Heinlein to write it, but he demurred,and Raymond F Jones took it on. The spoilery bit now… top scientists are shown convincing footage of a small working anti-gravity device, made by a paranoid recluse who kept no notes of how he did it, and then his machine was destroyed beyond analysis and reconstruction in a crash. The scientists are then assigned the task of finding the principles of anti-grav and build a new one. They know it is possible. One eventually makes a huge but definitely working antigrav device. Then the scientists are told that the original footage was fake – the whole operation was to “show” the scientists that something was possible, so they would lower their sceptical filters and get to work.
https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/astounding-stories-18-noise-level/ is a piece about that story by Alec Nevala-Lee, the author of a new book about Astounding. Which I have but haven’t opened yet.
Continuity was constantly reset in ST:TOS, but that was standard in most shows made in the 60’s and 70’s (how many girlfriends did the bachelors of Bonanza go through with nary a mention the next episode?) The later ST shows were relatively good with continuity and even trying to explain continuity errors in the original series. (I attribute this as much to the ST fanbase obsessive devotion to details as much as changes in television storytelling.)
” The scientists are then assigned the task of finding the principles of anti-grav and build a new one.”
That, in turn, reminds me of the miniseries “Ascension”, currently available on Netflix.
Blinky: I disagree, at least as far as the technological advances go. The basic pattern where amazing technological advances are made, and then forgotten in the next episode, strikes me as fairly constant across all the series. It’s to some degree required by the fact that the writers want to have the crew to come up with miraculous solutions that show how clever the crew is, but don’t want the crew to have accumulated god-like powers by the end of the first season.
Heck, in “ST Into Darkness” they can transport between planets, and cure death! You’d think this would have totally changed the Star Trek universe. Why do they even have spaceships anymore? Instead, there was no mention of these advances in “ST Beyond.”
In the original series alone, just under 80 episodes, they discovered at least three independent methods of giving human beings telekinetic abilities. But they still made Scotty climb down the manhole with a clipboard to adjust the warp drive flux, and there aren’t any telekinetic humans in the Next Generation. There are three different methods of time-travel (gravity warp, alien library, and the Guardian of Forever). The number of super-advanced species they encountered, but then never consulted about any other problem…Transporter systems can push you into a different universe, split you into two beings each with half a psyche, or cure aging… no wonder they look different with each incarnation of ST.
In Next Gen, they discover that travelling at high warp causes distress, even death, to certain subspace entities who are intelligent and beg the Enterprise crew to stop doing it. (They stop travelling at high warp… for the rest of the episode. Next week, they’re travelling at high warp speeds again.)
” about an empath (to the point of ‘hearing’ grass screaming as it was being mowed).”
That was a Roald Dahl short story about a machine that could hear higher frequencies and the inventor discovered *everything* felt and screamed in pain. … And wasn’t this a side-line of Stranger in A Strange Land?
“On a tangent, is nobody going to complain that Mr. Larson had apparently not recently seen a Star Trek episode recently when he drew the Enterprise’s bridge?”
I thought that. But figured there was no point.
@woozy: The Dahl short story is “The Sound Machine.” I don’t believe there’s anything there about grass screaming while being mowed, but it did involve roses screaming while being pruned, and a tree screaming when cut with an axe.
The “screaming grass” detail sounds vaguely familiar to me also, though. I vaguely associate it with a Charles Beaumont or Richard Matheson short story, but I think it’s 90+% likely I’m wrong about that.
“The Sound Machine”. But that’s not it. The protagonist is an actual empath; no machinery involved.
https://www.roalddahlfans.com/dahls-work/short-stories/the-sound-machine/
“wasn’t this a side-line of Stranger in A Strange Land?”
Doesn’t sound familiar to me, though it’s been a while since I last read it.
” . . . I vaguely associate it with a Charles Beaumont . . .”
So I looked up Beaumont, and his 1957 book is ‘Hunger and Other Stories’, WHICH I HAVE . . . (it has a wonderful Hieronymous Bosch cover) . . . and I’ve read the first few paragraphs of each story, but not found the Empath. Dang!
“wasn’t this a side-line of Stranger in A Strange Land?”
The recently-arrived Michael learns to enjoy walking on grass, even though the grass is complaining about being stepped on. It was a real grass “carpet” in an apartment.
(Why yes, we are a bunch of geeks.)
“Richard Matheson”
He wrote ‘I Am Legend’, which I have, but not his short stories, so I’ll check those out.
“It was a real grass “carpet” in an apartment.”
And I have a fake grass ‘carpet’ in my dogs’ potty pen. Go figure . . .
(Why yes, I am a dogfanatic, and would be proud to be called a geek.)
Thanks to all for the corrections about transporter vs. shields. I never watched more than a few “TNG” episodes, especially after they started using the holodeck to turn the whole series into Fantasy Island.
P.S. Larson may have known that Spock never sat up front, but it would have been impossible to compose the drawing showing Kirk, Spock, and the viewscreen in their respective (correct) positions.
P.S. @ Bill – I would never have been able to identify the face on the screen without the caption (or alternatively, your title). I dug up the original text by searching for “far side star trek zsa zsa gabor”.
P.S. @ Arthur – Michael was initially revolted by the idea of walking on living beings, and had to be encouraged to try it, but when he extended his empathy, he discovered that those beings did not complain, because it was the grass’s “purpose” to be walked upon.
@ billytheskink – Thanks for reminding me about Jane Goodall. That comic was not just one of Larson’s best “celebrity” digs, but one of the best Far Side comics ever drawn.
’60s-’70s TV shows do tend to have Reset buttons, which I’d think make syndication broadcast simpler, without the pesky continuity. Brings up a question…when did audiences begin to keep notes of plot devices and characters? Some time after the TOS wrapped up?
It’s interesting to note in anime forums the debates regarding serial vs episodic series. I don’t mind the shorter serial anime shows, but I watched the full run of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and decided I wasn’t going to go through that again.
“P.S. Larson may have known that Spock never sat up front, but it would have been impossible to compose the drawing showing Kirk, Spock, and the viewscreen in their respective (correct) positions.”
I don’t know if Larson knew it, but Spock did occasionally operate the navigation console. However, he wore a blue shirt.
Though curious, I’ve been afraid to re-read “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
I’ve found it’s rarely a good idea to re-read something you really enjoyed when you were twelve.
Kilby, I think you’re right about the grass. It’s been a while since I last read it.
@LarK and @narmitaj – there’s also a short story (which I have found and refound several times, but don’t currently know what it is) in which there is peaceful-ish first contact with aliens, and they agree to a contest. The aliens will give the humans a piece of tech and if they can duplicate it, the humans will give the aliens a piece of tech and see if they can duplicate that. The aliens hand the humans a perpetual motion machine. The engineers give a collective WTF! and then set to work – and six months later, when the aliens come back, the engineers proudly show off their perpetual motion machine. The head engineer says “We figured out everything except this black box, we couldn’t see what it did but we worked around it.” The alien says “…uh. That’s…the battery. It would have run out in another six months…” Long pause. The leader of the humans (not the engineer, the politician or whatever) says “Right! So we’ll give you our FTL drive to figure out…”
@Grawlix It may even have been ToS that started it – after all, that was the show that was resurrected…twice, I think…because the fans demanded it with a major write-in campaign. That kind of fan is also the kind that remembers/notes down all the details, I think.
The recently-arrived Michael learns to enjoy walking on grass, even though the grass is complaining about being stepped on. It was a real grass “carpet” in an apartment.
Actually the grass did not complain:
Smith wiggled his toes in the grass, then said timidly, “But these live?”
“Sure, it’s alive, it’s real grass. Ben paid a lot to have it that way. Why, the special lighting circuits alone cost more than I make in a month. So walk around and let your feet enjoy it.”
Smith missed most of this but did understand that grass was living beings and that he was being invited to walk on them. “Walk on living things?” He asked with incredulous horror.
“Huh? Why not? It doesn’t hurt this grass; it was specially developed for house rugs.”
Smith was forced to remind himself that a water brother could not lead him into wrongful action. He let himself be encouraged to walk around—and found that he did enjoy it and the living creatures did not protest. He set his sensitivity for such as high as possible; his brother was right, this was their proper being—to be walked on.
Bill, if you do want to reread it, I suggest the version as originally published. The editors that Heinlein hated were his friends. The expanded version isn’t actually bad, but I don’t think it’s as good.
@ Bill – I’ll second Arthur’s opinion about the “original” versus the “complete” editions of Heinlein’s “Stranger…” I’ve read both, and while there were a few brief passages in the “uncut” edition that were interesting and worth reading, the absolute lack of editorial restraint, along with the undifferentiated typesetting more than offset any of the advantages that the additional text might have added.
I actually have a copy of the newer version that I’m about to get rid of. I would mail it to you, but it’s in German, and just as with every science fiction book I’ve ever read in German, the translation is defective (about pulp magazine quality).
@James Pollock-
ST:TNG did make several passing references in later episodes to seeking permission to exceed the “warp speed limit”- usually for humanitarian or other plot-device purposes. Since the original episode talked about Federation scientists working on solutions to the problem, I’ve assumed that a solution was found and implemented in later years.
As regard to Into Darkness and Beyond… we do not talk about those dark days.
“as with every science fiction book I’ve ever read in German, the translation is defective (about pulp magazine quality)”
Back in the very late 80s, I was travelling around Germany by train, and reading the newest additions to Asimov’s Foundation series. I distinctly remember reading the newest one in German translation, distinctly because in later recollection, I could not remember which I’d read in German, and which in English, only that I knew for certain I had read at least one in German. (Looking it up, this was almost certainly Prelude to Foundation.)
So for me, anyway, the translation was good enough that in later recall I could not distinguish it from the others I’d read in English.
Now, two caveats: 1) This was an A list best seller, so the translation was probably better than the run of the mill forgotten SF you might be referring to; 2) This book was not one of Asimov’s better efforts, seeming to be nothing but anguishing whining by Seldon that someday, when he’s invented psychohistory, he will know what to do! (Then just get busy inventing it already!) This one, and the sequel to Fantastic Voyage (so Fantastic Voyage II) were the two worst ever Asimov books in my opinion — the Fantastic Voyage sequel was neigh unreadable…
” This one, and the sequel to Fantastic Voyage (so Fantastic Voyage II) were the two worst ever Asimov books in my opinion”
I did not care for the 4th Foundation novel, or anything after he decided that the robot novels and the Foundation novels were set in the same universe. YMMV. Nor do I enjoy Heinlein’s later works, when he got powerful enough to ignore his editors. But my aversion to later works reaches its peak with Frank Herbert… it’s a shame he never wrote a sequel to Dune. (The younger Mr. Herbert extended the Dune universe quite well, with some co-authors.)
Tying together the Robot stories and the Foundation stories always felt like an exercise in sloppy fan fiction — the fact that the original author was doing it notwithstanding.
@jjmcgaffey : I cou;dn’t remember the author and title either but I asked on another of my groups, where two people identified it as “Double Dare” by Robert Silverberg, originally in the November 1956 GALAXY; reprinted in the anthology THE FIFTH GALAXY READER (where I would have read it more than fifty years ago) and in several Silverberg collections.
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?45934
Another thread/CIDU had a video from The Frantics, which lead me into this . . .
@ Andréa – That one hit a little too close to home for me, my wife (who doesn’t like science fiction at all) has never been able to understand the 4,5,6,1,2,3,7,8,9 numbering scheme.
P.S. Then there’s “Back to the Future 3”, most of which takes place 100 years before parts 1 and 2.
P.P.S. I really think that the producers of “Ocean’s Eleven” missed an opportunity: the first sequel should have been a prequel: “Ocean’s Ten” could have explained how Danny lost his wife and landed in jail.
Remember that the episode number and title were not present in the original release of the first movie.
I’m not a Star Wars fan, but I imagine at this point they want people to forget the order the films were released and just think of them as Chapter 1 (The Phantom Menace) through Chapter 9 (Whatever).
There are only six Star Wars films, and there will always be only six Star Wars films. And also, Lucas didn’t go back and tweak the originals with CGI, either. And Frank Herbert never wrote any sequels to “Dune”.
Some of the most successful films in history have prequels. The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings, Alien (how did that one get in here). Harry Potter (well, they made a lot of money.)
James, the list of successful films that have had prequels is much, much longer than that. The question is, how many SHOULD HAVE had prequels.
I really wouldn’t call Hobbit a prequel to the LOTR films, by the way, since the book predated the films by decades.
And Godfather II was really half a prequel, of course, with the prequel and sequel parts fitting together as a logical whole.
“James, the list of successful films that have had prequels is much, much longer than that.”
I didn’t mean to suggest an exhaustive list. Although I did cheat, because Godfather has only part of a prequel rather than prequels, as you noted, but I didn’t want just SF/fantasy, although I think the list would be fairly SF/fantasy heavy (or maybe that’s just the movies I tend to see).
I don’t know what you’d call the Hobbit films if they AREN’T prequels to the LOTR films. Tolkien wrote the Hobbit first, then LOTR, but Jackson made LOTR first, then the Hobbit trilogy.
There’s two kinds of prequels… one is set far in advance of the previous works, using characters that are different. The other covers events immediately preceding the earlier work, with the prequel ending where the original begins. This is hard to do, because there’s no dramatic tension… the consumer knows who goes on from the beginning, and who isn’t in the original work. So, if you wanted to tell a Star Wars story about the creation of the Jedi Order, you can probably make a strong prequel. But if you wanted to tell the story of how Uncle Owen got his moisture farm, probably not.
Back when there were still only 3 SW films, I worked out a pretty good story workup of a prequel centered on Han Solo (surprisingly, not anything like the one we finally got. It had no Jedi in it, no Imperial politics, but lots of cool spaceships whizzing about and laser blasters going pew! pew! pew! That would have been better received than “Phantom Menace”, I think, even though you know it ends up with Han in a cantina on some nowhere desert planet about as far from galactic civilization as you can get…
And then there’s the Canine Version . . .
