For the heck of it, I took a random episode of Space: 1999 and watched it again; I’ve included the link above. That’s what I love about YouTube; it’s such a marvelous way to visit the past’s recollections about the future. All sorts of great offerings are posted there and I’ve spent many an hour lingering over its pages.
As it turns out, the Dorcons are digging around in Maya’s brain. She has what they don’t. Or, rather, she has the last of what those pesky Dorcons need. See? Here we are with the brain again. As I had mentioned in a previous post, those mind matters sure come up often, because people desperately need to control what they can’t have. I’m figuring they couldn’t come up with their own supply of artificial intelligence, provided from their own biological source that they grew in some distant lab, harvesting other’s brains to reconstruct and contort for their own wicked purposes. If a society has to rely on one person to keep them ticking, when that person dies (which was inevitable), what next?
So here I sit, in 2014, looking back at the future in 1999. Odd. I find myself wondering if this is what I have to look forward to? I ask that question every time I check out the future. Not mine, of course, that’s kind of nebulous at the moment (whose isn’t?). There’s just so many options.
Take, for instance, a simple object like computers. I love the computer in Cloud Atlas. How about District 9? Even Iron Man. Notice how fluid and oddly shaped the displays are, how one can pluck from the air directives and commands, or plain information?
I’m kind of a fan of the computer in Max Headroom (the TV show) when floppy disks were those 3.25″ and that was considered the cat’s pajamas. Well, that was kind of a deconstructionist future, so I think it’s kind of valid today as back in the 1980s when it first broadcast. Brilliant show.
If you happen to watch the above episode of Space: 1999, you’ll see a more practical, button-pushing kind of keyboard/monitor setup. Similar TV shows also relied on the same technology, and if you dare to watch early episodes of Star Trek, you’ll see the most crude of crude. Still, those systems got them where they wanted to go, so they couldn’t have been all that bad.
Once in a while, there is some crossover. If one compares the hand mechanics to operate the computer/typing in Michael Palin’s office from the Terry Gilliam masterpiece Brazil to the hand mechanics in the scene in Children of Men where Clive Owen sees his nephew play a computer came as he asks his brother for a favor, they’re pretty similar.
Anyway, it’s fun to see what’s going on out there in the future. Gives us something all to remember.
Source: TC/ATV Space 1999 Publicity Book (1975), promotional photo distributed in the press kit for the series Space 1999
I might be a little behind the 8-ball, but one can’t keep up with everything, especially with two teenagers running around my house. Now, they’ll be the first to tell me that I know nothing – NOTHING! – but yet, I’ve been more ahead in trends than my 16-year-old daughter. Hey, I’m the one who tells her that my favorite bands don’t play on regular stations, and I fork out $$ for satellite radio just so I can hear some decent music.
So I was trolling the sci-fi web the other night, picking through my favorite sites and lo and behold, I tripped upon a website regarding Space 2099. Space 2099! Really? Eagerly I rifle through the pages, hoping a tiny tidbit of info would pop out and get me stoked.
I remember the old series, “Space: 1999” back in the seventies when I watched it with my mother. Ma got me hooked on sci-fi as a tiny tot; I can say that I remember watching the original “Star Trek” on its first run, and then on its multitude of reruns, as well as Dr. Who with Tom Baker (on PBS at the time, who also had the foresight to air “Monty Python”).
Look at their outfits: they were so 1970s, and yet had a practical sensibility about them. Designed for comfort and ease of movement, their stylish togs nodded to the fashion of the day (Bell bottoms? Why not!). And this is what impressed me: those costumes were unisex. No deep cleavage cuts and short hemlines for the ladies, no sir. How else can one chase around evil in dystopian universes when one has to spend a portion of one’s concentration on whether or not one’s secrets might be revealed? Besides, if a character’s outfit didn’t fit, he or she could exchange it with anyone, male or female. How practical is that? Certainly the folks back at WANDER looked to economize even then.
Barbara Bain and Martin Landau (who would go on to be an even greater character, Bela Lugosi) ran Moon City with a combination of authority, grace and structure. They didn’t even give a second thought to the fact that now the moon was its own ship steering through the stars and its (unlikely) departure from Earth’s influence might wreak final havoc on tides, coastlines and general principles of physics. They were busy folks, and who has time to worry about such things when there’s Dorcons to chase?
Regrettably, there were only two seasons and 48 action-packed episodes to enjoy. One might catch it in repeats here and there, but it generally disappeared from view. So when I caught the news that it was announced (back in 2012 – how did I miss that?!?!?) that there’d be a 2099, naturally I was intrigued. I’m certain that this incarnation’s going to have a lot more bells and whistles than the decidedly low-budget tactics that made the original so charming. But the sucker that I am, I’m sure I’ll be pulled into its vortex and grab all the episodes I can.
Moon, Stars and Beyond 