Archive-name: sf-movies-faqăăCopies of this article may be obtained by anonymous ftp to rtfm.mit.eduă(18.172.1.27) under /pub/usenet/news.answers/sf-movies-faq.Z. Or, sendăemail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the subject line "sendăusenet/news.answers/sf-movies-faq", leaving the body of the messageăempty.ăăLast change:ăTue Jan 5 09:45:46 EST 1993ăăContents:ă 1. Star Trek.ă 2. The animated LORD OF THE RINGS by Ralph Bakshi covers only theă first half of the trilogy. Bakshi did not make the second half.ă 3. Frequent subjects.ă 4. Abbreviations commonly used in this group:ă 5. BLADE RUNNER: the sixth replicant, why voice-overs, and Deckard aă replicant?ă 6. "Can the X beat the Y?" where X and Y are mighty ships or alienă races from different space opera movies/series.ă 7. Is the movie HEAVY METAL out on video?ă 8. Why is there an acknowledgment to Harlan Ellison in the credits ofă THE TERMINATOR? or Doesn't THE TERMINATOR have the same plot as aă TWILIGHT ZONE episode?ă 9. What about the relationship between HAL (the computer in 2001: Aă Space Odyssey) and IBM? (If you add 1 to each letter in HAL you getă IBM.)ă 10. Who was the voice of the seductive Jessica Rabbit in the filmă "WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT"?ă 11. What are all of the "cute" gimmicks in the film BACK TO THEă FUTURE?ă 12. What role did Jamie Lee Curtis play in THE ADVENTURES OFă BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION?ă 13. When is George Lucas going to make more STAR WARS films? Whată will they be about??ă 14. In OUTLAND and TOTAL RECALL, astronauts exposed to vacuumă promptly explode. In 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, a few seconds'ă exposure to vacuum doesn't bother one at all. Which is right?ă 15. What does "FTL" mean?ă 16. I was told that the director's cut of DUNE was seven hours long,ă and did a much better job of portraying the novel. Where can Iă find it?ă 17. What are the two minutes of new footage on the STAR TREK VI: THEă UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY videocassette?ăă---------------------------------------------------------------------ărec.arts.sf.movies is a newsgroup devoted to discussions of scienceăfiction, horror, and fantasy movies. It is a high-volume newsgroup andăthis article is intended to help reduce the number of unnecessaryăpostings, thereby making it more useful and enjoyable to everyone.ăăIf you have not already done so, please read the articles inănews.announce.newusers. They contain a great deal of useful informationăabout network etiquette and convention.ăăBefore we begin, two pieces of net.etiquette. Both of these areămentioned in news.announce.newusers, but since they are so frequentlyăviolated, and at least one of them is particularly relevant to thisăgroup, we mention them here:ăăSPOILER WARNINGS: Many people feel that much of the enjoyment of a filmăis ruined if they know certain things about it, especially when thoseăthings are surprise endings or mysteries. On the other hand, they alsoăwant to know whether or not a film is worth seeing, or they may beăfollowing a particular thread of conversation where such information mayăbe revealed. The solution to this is to put the words SPOILER in yourăheader, or in the text of your posting. You can also put a ctl-Lăcharacter in the *first* column if you are using rn. Some people thinkăthat spoiler warnings are not necessary. We don't understand why, and doănot want to discuss it. Use your best judgment.ăăREPLIES TO REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS: When you think that many people willăknow an answer to a question, or will have an answer to a request,ăRESPOND VIA E-MAIL!!! And if you don't know the answer, but want toăknow, DON'T POST TO THE NET asking for the answer, ask VIA E-MAIL! Ifăyou think a lot of people will want the same information, you mightăsuggest that the person summarize to the net.ăăEven if you don't see an answer posted, and you have the answer, pleaseăsend it e-mail. The thirty other people who answered may have alreadyăsent it, and your site just hasn't gotten it yet. It clogs the net andăgets very tedious to see 30 people answer the same question, and anotheră30 people asking for the answer to be posted. All of that should beădone via mail. The net is a highly asynchronous medium. It can takeăseveral days for an article to make it to all sites. It is also quiteăcommon for followups to messages to reach a site before the original.ăăThere is also a FAQ list posted to rec.arts.movies which covers moreăgeneral topics and includes the location of many useful databases. Andăfinally, there is a group, rec.arts.movies.reviews, that carries reviewsăof both SF and non-SF movies.ăăPlease keep in mind two points:ăă 1. Always remember that there is a live human being at theă other end of the wires. In other words, please write youră replies with the same courtesy you would use in talking toă someone face-to-face.ăă 2. Try to recognize humor and irony in postings. Tone ofă voice does not carry in ASCII print, and postings are oftenă snapped off quickly, so that humorous intent may not beă obvious. More destructive and vicious arguments have beenă caused by this one fact of net existence than any other. Ită will help if satiric/ironic/humorous comments are marked withă the "smiley face," :-)ăăăBelow is a summary of questions and subjects which appear frequently inăthis group. Please read it before posting anything to rec.arts.sf.movies.ăăă1. Star Trek.ăăThere is a hierarchy for Star Trek, rec.arts.startrek. If you haveăaccess to netnews, use it for discussions about any Star Trek subjectă(old series, new series, movies, novels, etc.). If you are absolutelyăsure you cannot access the startrek newsgroups, and you *must* post toărec.arts.sf.movies, include the phrase "Star Trek" in the subject line.ăăDo not post flames about people violating this guideline. Use e-mailăto request they follow it. It's likely that this person is readingărec.arts.sf.movies via a gateway and has no access to netnews orărec.arts.startrek.ăăă2. The animated LORD OF THE RINGS by Ralph Bakshi covers only theă first half of the trilogy. Bakshi did not make the second half.ăăThere was a completely independently produced animation of THE RETURNăOF THE KING by Rankin/Bass who also did an animation of THE HOBBIT.ăă(Someone notes that Tolkien deplored the fact that the "Lord of theăRings" is considered a trilogy. That's as may be, but I'm afraidăwe're stuck with the terminology.)ăăă3. Frequent subjects.ăăSome subjects have been discussed numerous times in this group. Pleaseăconsider carefully before starting discussions on these topics.ăă 1. Casting your favorite book as a movie.ă 2. The Ten Best SF Moviesă 3. What SF books would make good movies and, conversely,ă why sf movies from books are usually not very good.ăăă4. Abbreviations commonly used in this group:ă BTW -- "By the way"ă FYI -- "For your information"ă IMAO -- "In my arrogant opinion"ă IMHO -- "In my humble (honest) opinion"ă ROTF -- "Rolling on the floor"ă ROFL -- "Rolling on the floor, laughing"ă RPG -- "Role playing games", like D&D (Dungeons and Dragons)ă wrt -- "with respect to"ăăă5. BLADE RUNNER: the sixth replicant, why voice-overs, and Deckard aă replicant?ăăThis, and lots of other BLADE RUNNER questions, are hashed out in aăseparate BLADE RUNNER FAQ posted monthly to rec.arts.movies,ăalt.cult-movies, alt.cyberpunk, and rec.arts.sf.movies byămuzzle@cs.uq.oz.auăăă6. "Can the X beat the Y?" where X and Y are mighty ships or alienă races from different space opera movies/series.ăăThese kind of discussions are fairly pointless. Please keep them off theănet.ăăă7. Is the movie HEAVY METAL out on video?ăăNo and yes. Due to legal problems, it has not been officially released.ăThere are a number of bootleg copies in circulation, though.ăăă8. Why is there an acknowledgment to Harlan Ellison in the credits ofă THE TERMINATOR? or Doesn't THE TERMINATOR have the same plot as aă TWILIGHT ZONE episode?ăă(The following answer is taken from a posting by Jerry Boyajian.)ăăEllison filed suit against the studio claiming that THE TERMINATORăwas plagiarized from his two teleplays for THE OUTER LIMITS. One wasă"Soldier" (based on a short story he written years before), in whichăa soldier is zapped from a future war zone into the present and causesăall sorts of problems. In addition to basic plot similarities, theăscenes of the future in THE TERMINATOR are very similar in look andăfeel to those in "Soldier".ăăThe other teleplay was "Demon With a Glass Hand", in which a lone manăwith a glass-and-computer-chips hand and a woman he meets up with areăon the run from some unknown enemy. He has amnesia and doesn't know aăthing about who he is, or why he's in his current situation. Eventually,ăhe finds out that he's from the future and was sent to the present onăa mission to save the human race.ăăSeparately, I feel that THE TERMINATOR is a legitimate variation on theăideas presented in Ellison's stories. However, taken together, it wouldăseem as if James Cameron got the idea from Ellison's stories, in whichăcase, Ellison is owed something. At any rate, as the story goes, theăstudio was going to fight the suit, but in preparing their defense, theyăfound out from someone in the production crew that Cameron had quippedăon the set about how he'd "ripped off a couple of OUTER LIMITS episodes".ăAt that point, they decided to settle out of court, giving Ellison someăundisclosed amount of money and inserting the credit.ăă(Thomas Pluck (pluck@andromeda.rutgers.edu) adds the following:)ăăYou left out one important thing with the Ellison/Cameron suit; theăconcept of Skynet, the military supercomputer that sees all humanity asăthe enemy, was taken from Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth and IăMust Scream," collected in the book of the same name and various otherăSF anthologies. Ellison's computer called itself AM, and it kept fiveăpeople alive to torture for all eternity because it hated its creatorsăso much. The two OUTER LIMITS scripts plus that short story are half orămore of the TERMINATOR plot.ăăă9. What about the relationship between HAL (the computer in 2001: Aă Space Odyssey) and IBM? (If you add 1 to each letter in HAL you getă IBM.)ăăAccording to Clarke, this relationship is entirely accidental. Inăfact, he claims that if he had been aware of it, he would have chosen aădifferent name for his computer. (HAL stands for Heuristic ALgorithmic.)ăă10. Who was the voice of the seductive Jessica Rabbit in the filmă "WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT"?ăăThis is sort of a trick question, because there are TWO voices.ăKathleen Turner provided the speaking voice, and Amy Irving did theăsinging.ăăă11. What are all of the "cute" gimmicks in the film BACK TO THEă FUTURE?ăăApparently, the makers of this film (Stephen Spielberg & RobertăZemeckis) did all kinds of cute things, playing with the names of someăof the characters and with issues of time travel. Some of these are:ăăa) The mall where Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) meets Dr. Brownă(Christopher Lloyd) for their time travel experiment is called theăTwin Pines Mall. Dr. Brown comments that ol' farmer Peabody usedăto own all of the land, and he grew pines there. When Marty goesăback in time, he runs over and knocks down a pine tree. When heăcomes back to the mall at the end of the film (BACK TO THE FUTURE)ăthe sign at the mall now identifies the mall as the Lone Pine Mall,ăreflecting the fact that Marty had changed the present (1985) byăhis trip to the past (1955).ăăb) Farmer Peabody's son is named Sherman. Sherman was the name ofăthe little boy time traveler in one segment of Jay Ward's cartoonăshow, "The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show." The dog who owned his timeămachine was named (surprise) Mr. Peabody.ăăă12. What role did Jamie Lee Curtis play in THE ADVENTURES OFă BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION?ăăShe played Buckaroo's mother in a flashback sequence. The sequenceăwas cut, and so does not appear in the final, release version.ăă13. When is George Lucas going to make more STAR WARS films? What will theyă be about??ăăThere had been a rumor that another STAR WARS film would come out soon ...ămaybe in 1992 for the 15th anniversary of the first film. Presumably,ăthis would have been the first of a trilogy which will depict the yearsăbefore the three films that have been made. (Therefore they have beenăknown as Chapters 1, 2, & 3. This is consistent with the labeling of theăfilms that have come out as 4, 5, & 6. Of course, at least some of theseălabels were added post-release). Lucas has, in the past, claimed thatăthere will someday maybe be a series of three trilogies: The threeăalready made, the three preceding these events (see above) and threeăthat take place after the three films that are already made.ăăHowever, all of the information about new films coming out does not goămuch beyond the rumor stage--as the fact that 1992 is here and the nextăfilm is not. We'll believe it when we see it.ăă[The latest is that "Entertainment Tonight" and some Los Angeles localănews stations announced Lucas will be releasing the next trilogy onceăa year starting in 1997. Again, we'll believe it when we see it.]ăăLots of books, comics and other stories that have been released areăsupposedly *not* directly related to the planned films. These wereăadditional merchandising items.ăă(And by the way, the first STAR WARS film was originally released asăjust "STAR WARS"; it was only in re-release that it was entitled "STARăWARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE." The other two were always labeledă"EPISODE V" and "EPISODE VI.")ăă14. In OUTLAND and TOTAL RECALL, astronauts exposed to vacuumă promptly explode. In 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, a few seconds' exposureă to vacuum doesn't bother one at all. Which is right?ăăThis hasn't occurred in real life, but there have been experiments whereăanimals, or parts of a person's body, were exposed to vacuum; theseăexperiments happened before any of these films were made. 2001 was right;ăOUTLAND and TOTAL RECALL ignored the known facts. A full discussion ofăthis can be found in the sci.space FAQL. (Discussions of whether TOTALăRECALL is a dream or not are not pertinent to the question of vacuum, butăsince the film is often mentioned in this context, it is included here.)ăă15. What does "FTL" mean?ăă"FTL" means "faster than light."ăă16. I was told that the director's cut of DUNE was seven hours long,ă and did a much better job of portraying the novel. Where can Iă find it?ăăAs Jerry Boyajian explains (hopefully for the last time [but of courseăit wasn't]):ăăThere is *no* "director's cut" of DUNE of *any* length. The existenceăof one is a complete myth. Perhaps when Lynch was cutting the filmăoriginally, there existed such a cut, but if it isn't long gone by now,ăit's most likely an untimed work print and not in any sort of releasableăform.ăă*IF* David Lynch were inclined, and *IF* Dino DeLaurentiis were inclinedă(and *IF* his organization wasn't bankrupt), and *IF* the scrap footageăis sitting in a vault somewhere, Lynch could probably reconstruct hisăoriginal cut, but all three (or four) of those are mighty big "ifs".ăăNo such cut exists on video, no such cut exists in any final film print.ă[There is also no truth to the rumor that there was a European versionăthat was 4 hours long.]ăăThere exists only one version of the film that's longer than theăoriginal theatrical release, and that was the expanded version made forătelevision syndication, and it's maybe 50 minutes longer than theăoriginal. But it certainly can't be claimed to be a "director's cut"ăbecause not only did Lynch not get involved in cutting it, heădisapproved of it so thoroughly that he had his name removed as bothăwriter and director.ăăI have a large number of film reference books, both genre-specific andăgeneral. I follow a number of film and video magazines, and so forth.ăI've heard and read detailed descriptions of different cuts of variousăfilms including BLADE RUNNER, BRAZIL, LEGEND, HIGHLANDER, et alia. I'veăread and heard first-hand descriptions by people I know of such longerăversions, or I've seen listings for them as import laserdiscs. But I'veănever heard nor read of any definite, substantiated, unquestionableăexistence of a version of DUNE, either in commercial release or floatingăaround in collectors' hands, that is longer than the 190-minute TVăversion.ăăAs a matter of fact, the *only* place I've even heard *rumors* of such aăcut of DUNE has been here on Usenet. [One says his rumor is of aă4-hour cut.] I've heard other rumors (via people asking about it, asădid the person who started this thread) of 5-hour versions, 7-hourăversions, 9-hour versions, and in one case, someone reported hearingăabout a 15-hour version!ăăThey are mythical. And until their existence is documented, and not justăa rumor that's floating around the net, I will stand by that statement. [-jmb]ăăă17. What are the two minutes of new footage on the STAR TREK VI: THEăUNDISCOVERED COUNTRY videocassette?ăăAccording to Jerry Boyajian:ăăThere are a couple of very minor bits, but the two significant (andărelated) additions are:ăă --The details of the proposed operation to rescue Kirk and McCoy fromă the Klingons, presented by Col. West (played by Rene Auberjenois) in theă President's office. In the theatrical release, this is completely missing,ă though the easel with the plan diagrams on it seems to mysteriously appeară out of nowhere.ăăThe second is a spoiler, so...ăă --The revelation that the Klingon assassin at Khitomer was actuallyă West in disguise.ăăEvelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com <========ăNote new address: ecl@mtgzy.att.com will work only until April 30.ăă