Tom Charman

“Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they’re looking to make.”
“Cigarettes in space?”
“It’s the final frontier, Nick.”
“But wouldn’t they blow up in an all oxygen environment?”
“Probably. But it’s an easy fix. One line of dialogue. ‘Thank God we invented the… you know, whatever device.'”

— Thank You For Smoking

Ah, technobabble. Also known as ‘phlebotonin’ if you’re a writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m sure that to the casual viewer, all technobabble is equal. I know that when I watch House, I have no idea what they’re talking about half of the time, and it doesn’t bother me at all. As long as they don’t go on too long about it.

A big discussion blew up about technobabble, and Samantha Carter’s propensity for it, earlier in the year when we saw Stargate SG-1‘s wannabe epic, ‘Ripple Effect’. Interviews such as this one with Claudia Black have revealed that the SG-1 creative team are more focused on making sure that the plot is well-established than putting character moments into stories; not a bad thing in itself, but sometimes it feels like the show has become hyper-focussed on trying to make ultimately nonsensical science make complete, unassailable sense. Why bother?

‘Ripple Effect’ is a good case in point. For a parallel-universe episode to spend a quarter of its length on making sure that their universe jumping plan was explained to the letter seems peculiar for a show clearly targeted at regular science fiction viewers. On occasions, like in this season’s ‘Insiders’, it almost feels like background characters are there to say what the writers think internet fans are going to pick holes in. “But what about that device in season four that did this?” “Doesn’t that contradict season six, episode twelve?” If the characters are going to have mind-numbing debates on the internal continuity of the show on screen, what does that leave the fans to do?

Compare this to Doctor Who, which cops a lot of flak amongst its fans for doing exactly the opposite. In ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’, an alien intelligence went about through televisions, sucking the faces off people. The Doctor’s plan involves taping the consciousness on a videotape, but because it isn’t divulged until later, the climactic scenes become rather confusing. Oh no! Random thing has gone wrong! Oh yay! Random thing has been fixed! Phew!

This sort of thing would probably be over the head of Joe Normal regardless, just like the big, dramatic arguments about potential cures in House are only exciting to me because everyone’s acting like they should be, rather than because I understand what causes which symptoms. But for a sci-fi audience, just a little touch of technobabble can make them feel a lot more involved.

Technobabble has its place. Economically used, to smooth the discrepancies between the real world and the fictional world, and to ease the objections of people who actually know something about the science you’re fudging. If you’re Douglas Adams, not that anyone is these days, it can even be almost poetic. I don’t think it’s offensive to non-geeky viewers, but by the same tack, I think in many cases, especially Stargate‘s, large swathes of it become about satisfying Stargate nerds as opposed to science nerds. That’s when it becomes a mess — because let’s face it, the only people who give a crap are probably going to find a hole in it anyway.

The upcoming Halo movie got itself a new director recently, but lost a script. My hit-sensing senses are still wavering. There’s no reason why a Halo film shouldn’t rock to high heaven but people screw things up all the time. Let’s look at the history of the project.

Way back in June last year, Microsoft sent out scripts to studios, carried by men in Master Chief outfits. Classy, huh? Many folk were not keen on the script, but Universal picked it up anyway. It’s unclear whether there were giant spiders in it but you can probably find the script online. I mean, I could have, but I found a bunch of links already. What do you want from me? The Wikipedia page on all this is way more informative than this post. Why do I even bother?

Ahem. Sorry. Sometimes it just gets to me, y’know?

Anyhow, things got way way way cooler when it was announched that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh would be producing. I’ve gone on record against their insatiable addiction to slow motion and unhealthy Warg obsession. But hey, a bit of slow mo would suit Halo to the ground. Also, Weta will be doing the effects. Say “From the Makers of The Lord of the Rings,” push the adventure aspects and some cool shots from Weta and you’ve got a hit.

But then they go and change the script, in the sense that they drop the old one and get someone to write a new one. This could be an improvement, but I get nervous when scripts get switched and sorted on big films. Before you know it you’ve got seven people writing it and touch-ups from Joss Whedon and Tom Stoppard. Where’s your artistic vision then? Hmmmm?

And today the director was announced. His name is Neill Blomkamp and he hasn’t actually made a motion picture before, BUT amongst other things he made a short sci-fi film called Alive in Joburg, which you can download here (77mb). It’s pretty cute and has quite a Halo-ish sensibility about how it treats its aliens. He also made that cool Citroen commercial with the dancing transforming car. So this is probably good news too. For one thing, he’s not Uwe Boll.

The way I see it, this film has the chance to be the best sci-fi action film in the history of everything. No pressure.

Oh, and Denzel might be the Chief.

Oooooh. Ooooh er. Oh my.

Boy, am I glad I didn’t stay up for that. Boring! Where’s the iMiniProBookMacChat? WHERE? What have you done with it? And don’t even get me started on the ONE TRUE VIDEO IPOD. I still believe, and it says in the Book of iPod that those who believe shall receive an OTVI on the day of reckoning.

I should probably start making sense — Apple had its WWDC last night. Rumours abounded as they always do but aside from introducing the chunkiest Mac ever not a lot happened. I was hoping for some new Finder goodness in their new OS, Leopard, but nothing. They’re probably just holding back, the teases. There’s still half a year until it comes out. Whether it beats Vista remains to be seen.

What I loved was Time Machine, the new backup application. Specify specific folders for backing up, and then you can browse them like this:

Just drag to and fro and travel back and forwards in time. Awesome. Just be sure you don’t cross your own time stream. Jobs was unclear as to the specifics but it seems that if you meet yourself browsing your backup from the future then it have catastrophic implications for the fabric of space-time, or at the very least cause a kernel panic. Disappointingly, you can’t change your computer’s history — unless you were meant to, in which case, for god’s sake, don’t not change it.

Having attempted to switch to iChat the other day, the awesome improvements to that app were a little more exciting than they otherwise would have been. Screen sharing, presentations, tabs, all the IM networks…

Huh. That makes all the work I just did connecting Gtalk to ICQ, MSN and AIM seem a bit useless. But you kids at home can do it, and talk to all your contacts even in the little gmail sidebar. All you need to do is to give your password to any one of hundreds of obscure jabber servers. It’s unclear as yet whether iChat can voice chat to PC users using Gtalk but I’m hopeful.

If you want more detail on Steve Jobs’ keynote, then go to the people you know you can trust.

Two seasons of the new Doctor Who down. Both far better than I could have dreamed. Season two proved contentious in fan circles, but more acclaimed by the general public, it would seem — judging from improved ratings and audience appreciation figures.

In Britain. Yes, I’m well aware no one gives two hoots in Australia. That’s just the kind of genre-scorning boring people we are. Except for Lost of course. I still don’t get why that does so well.

Anyhow, I thought I’d share three of my favourite moments of the past season, and my three top hopes for season three. Actually, let’s say four. I’ve got too many. I’d be very interested to know other peoples’ opinions too. The best moments:

• The Doctor proves what an over-curious psychopath he really is when he lets himself drop into the darkness in The Satan Pit.
• The Doctor rides a horse through a magic window in The Girl in the Fireplace. This moment stands in representation of all the awesome moments of that story.
• Rose kills the Devil in The Satan Pit. Girls are so hot when they’re annihilating evil forces from before time began.
• Sarah and the Doctor say goodbye in School Reunion. For a sad fan like me this was fantastic.

Oh, there’s heaps more, but I should get onto hopes before this becomes too soppy.

• More of the Army of Ghosts manipulative, quiet Doctor, and less of the Idiot’s Lantern shouty, bombastic Doctor. I didn’t find the shouting as off-putting as some, but it must be said, I really don’t think the “Nothing in the World” moment worked in that story.
• A story set on Earth in a country that is not Great Britain, in a location that is not an underground bunker. We kind of had this in The Girl in the Fireplace but I want more.
• The relationship between the new companion and the Doctor to be very different to Rose’s hero-worship. I liked Rose’s “I want to be the Doctor” arc this year, but I wouldn’t like to go there again. It got just a little too mushy by the end.
• An awesome, brand-new, monster/race/evil thing.

That’ll do. The gods of television seem to be doing their best to keep me occupied with TV. Who finished the week before Stargate returned, Stargate will run until Battlestar Galactica and Torchwood start, and there’s christmas specials and more Stargate to fill in the gaps between then and season three. What an age we live in.