Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Having just watched Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars on Channel 5, I have to say that I am really none the wiser as to why the programme was considered so favourably by so many.

It was passable escapist Sci-Fi entertainment, but no better than most and not as good as some. Admittedly I didn't invest five years of my life tracking the progress of the muppet crew, so some of the nuances might have been lost on me.

Still, it's watched now and the names of the characters are already fading from memory.

Where was the odd bald blue woman? We had the monochrome Toyah, but not baldy blue.

Tonight, DT sans LJ and I took advantage of Orange Wednesday again and disappeared off to the Vue cinema in North Finchley to watch the latest Tom Cruise vehicle, War of the Worlds.

Interestingly, DT thought it could have been longer, whilst I thought it could have done with tighter editing and brought back closer to the 100 minute mark. In many ways, it's a reasonable update of the story, and the plot is there, easily seen underneath the Spielberg schmaltz. The special effects were impeccable, and Dakota Fanning acted the arse off of Tom Cruise. I guess it's the invisible aliens sucking at his aura that loses it for him, strange little Scientologist jaffa that he is.

I think, however, that I have deduced the problem with the movie, and I am now going to commit science fiction heresy.

As original and forward thinking as it may have been when it was published in 1898, War of the Worlds is essentially a boring and old-fashioned plot line. The pacing is of the Victorian drawing room, and the central premise assumes that an advanced alien culture knows nothing about bacteria. This may have been clever new stuff to a traditional Victorian society, but in the 21st century, any one who has watched a bleach advert knows what the little blighters are like. The story works as a period piece, but really it hasn't aged at all well. This is not to denigrate Wells; standing on the shoulders of giants and all that, but let's be honest, he has been outstripped by the later SF writers such as Asimov and Clarke. And even the earlier parts of their work is beginning to show their age a little now.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi indeed.