Day 294: Evil Tread 2

It’s late in the year, you’ll have to excuse the reuse of old gags…

Okay, okay, I’ve done the Evil Tread gag before, and today’s image is from the inferior* remake, so it’s a bit of lame entry for Sole Of Sci-Fi, but come on. It’s a busy week for me, it’s the end of the year, I’m running out of ideas, and my attempts to create an Exorcist-themed image failed miserably. The Superga trainers are blood red, so the image needed to be horror related (though they would have fitted in well with the Tread Wedding, too). Anyway, enough of the excuses. On with the general rambling…

(*So I’m told.)

You know how some unanswerable things bug you more than they have any right to? No? Just me then. Well, I was watching the daytime quiz show Perfection yesterday while eating lunch. I don’t normally, and no that’s not pretending I don’t watch it every day. Usually I eat lunch a lot earlier, while watching Bargain Hunt, which is clearly a far superior programme and not embarrassing to admit watching at all.

Anyway, Perfection features a series of True or False questions, and one woman was given the poser: “James Cameron directed The Terminator.” To which she responded, “No, false, he directed the other robot movie.”

What? What? What?

Apart from being wrong, does her response imply that she thinks there have only ever been two robot movies of note in the history of cinema?

And if The Terminator was one of them, which was the other one she was thinking of? RoboCop? Tobor The Great? Short Circuit? WALL-E? I need to know!

At least she didn’t say, “That’s not really my area of expertise…” or, “That’s before my time…” two phrases that should be banned from all quiz shows, along with men who think that “Sports Round” means “Football Round” and moan, “Rugby/cricket/tennis/golf/bog snorkelling isn’t really my sport”.

There won’t be much time for TV today, though, as I’m prepping for an interview with Highlander director Russell Mulcahy later, and being a freelancer, that one interview is going to lead to three separate commissions in three separate magazines, one of which you probably wouldn’t be expecting my name to turn up in – but more on that later in the year, when it’s published. But yeah, SFX gets its cut of the pie too.

One expression fits all

I watched the first two episodes of Gotham last night, and I’m glad I didn’t have to review it based on the pilot alone, which was fairly dull and ploddingly predictable. The second episode showed more signs of life and a lot more promise. But the main thing that kept going through my mind through both episodes was that old cliché about actors enjoying playing villains more than heroes. Because the main fun of the show comes entirely from seeing embryonic versions of future Batman villains; the show’s heroes, meanwhile, are a tedious bunch indeed. When Fish tells James Gordon, “I see anger in your eyes,” Jada Pinkett Smith has to muster up all her meagre acting skills to sell the line, because all I could see in Ben McKenzie’s eyes was a massive, expressionless void. He truly is one of the most vacuous leading men ever required to carry a show.

See you tomorrow.

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• Current total: £1,220 

• Remember this is all for charity, so any pennies or pounds you can spare PLEASE DONATE BY CLICKING HERE.

• Follow me on Twitter to make sure you see what trainers I’m wearing each day.

• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything  from 8 to 10) contact me at davegolderSFX@gmail.com so I can arrange collection.

• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!

Day 282: Back To The Very Near Future Shoes

Okay, I’m not wearing the right trainers, I know…

The Nikes in the film

In an ideal world I would, of course, be wearing a pair of self-lacing Nike high tops as featured in Back To The Future II for this pic. The problem is, the official Nike replicas cost an absolute fortune: the company made a limited edition run of  1,500 “Nike Air Mags” to raise money for Parkinson’s disease through The Michael J Fox Foundation which were auctioned on eBay for more many thousands of dollars each.

Cheap knock-offs – if you can call $180 cheap

And while some cheaper replicas have made it onto the market, they are, frankly, a bit crap. And they still cost $180! That’s blimmin’ expensive for cheap knock-offs.

Apparently, Nike will be rereleasing some “official” Nike Air Mags in 2015 (the year in which Back To The Future II is set, so some studio better hurry up an release 15 more Jaws films in the next 15 months) that will be more “affordable”, but you can bet there will still be at least three digits on the price tag, even in the UK.

And you know what? I’ve always thought they extremely naff anyway. But then, longterm readers of this column will already know I have a problem with any high tops that require you to tuck your jeans inside the shoes. Then again, if you’ve spent thousands on some trainers, I suppose you’d want other people to see as much of them as possible. But you’re probably keeping them in a glass cabinet anyway.

See you tomorrow.

 Sign-Off

• Current total: £1,215 

• Remember this is all for charity, so any pennies or pounds you can spare PLEASE DONATE BY CLICKING HERE.

• Follow me on Twitter to make sure you see what trainers I’m wearing each day.

• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything  from 8 to 10) contact me at davegolderSFX@gmail.com so I can arrange collection.

• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!

Day 194: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Feet?

Is Sole Of Sci-Fi set for an early retirement?

A vertiginous vista for you today from one the greatest SF films ever made. I love Blade Runner, for two main reasons. The first is the reason why most SF fans love it; it creates a totally authentic, immersive, meticulously crafted future world that as much a star of the movie as Harrison Ford. More so, probably.

But the other main reason I love it is because it’s great argument against the tyranny of plot holers.

Y’see, I hate the way some people seem to judge films and TV purely on the basis of plot holes. Except, in 99% of cases, they aren’t really the problem.They merely become the whipping boys for other problems. Or to put it another way, if you like a film, then you tend not to mind (or even notice) plot holes; if you hate a film, the plot holes suddenly represent everything you hate about that film.

If you look at Blade Runner closely, it’s chock full of plot holes and really clunky plotting. Deckard’s investigation proceeds through a series of lucky guesses, outrageous coincidences and barely-explained leaps of logic. How come nobody  seems to know what the six escaped Replicants look like despite Holden nor Deckard both having access to video files of them. Deckard is supposed to be a top “Blade Runner” but is pretty much a blundering idiot throughout. The way the Voight Kampff machine works is never explained. The replicants can breath (you can see their breath in some scenes). Graff only helps Deckard when it’s dramatically useful. Famously, out of the six escaped Replicants only five are ever accounted for…

The list goes on. Admittedly, there are arguments to be made that can plug most of these plot holes; the internet is not short of possible explanations. For example: sixth replicant? It’s Deckard, of course, you fool. Except… clever though that theory may be, if you accept it, it opens up a whole new can of plot holey worms.

I’ll also admit there are different levels of plot holes. The most heinous show a flagrant disregard for the internal logic of a story. Such as the explanation about how time travel works in Back To The Future 2, which the film itself then totally ignores.

However, the vast majority of plot holes are the next level down: unexplained logic. How about: why doesn’t all the air get sucked out of the spaceship in The Black Hole when the hull is pierced by a meteorite the size the Westminster Abbey? Well, yeah, it should have been, but maybe the USS Cygnus had really good emergency force fields.

Another great example of this was the Doctor Who episode “42”. A lot of fans were very critical about an action scene involving the Doctor needing to reach an emergency release switch on the outside of a spaceship. “Why the hell was the switch on the outside of the ship… that’s stoooooopid!” they wailed, ignoring the fact it as a great action scene. And, anyway, the answer was, “Because it was!” Chris Chibnall could have wasted valuable lines in a fast-paced episode giving some gobbledygook reason why the switch was outside the ship, but would that actually have made any difference to the quality of the episode?

So, yeah, all those plot holes in listed in Blade Runner could be explained away. But that rather proves my point. Most plot holes in most films or TV shows can be explained away if you can be bothered to do so. And why would you be bothered to do so. Because you like the film, or you like the episode. Conversely, if you don’t like a film or episode, the plot holes are probably not the reason, though they will be a symptom. I can’t tell you that you actually like Doctor Who “42” if you didn’t, but I suspect plot holes involving release switches are not the real reason.

And just in case I haven’t made this clear, I love Blade Runner, plot holes and all.

Quick note on today’s trainers. They’re a pair of Superga, an Italian brand launched in 1911, which tried to make a big push into the British market a couple of years ago with the ad tagline, “Your new favourite plimsolls”. This proved only to be the case if you worked in marketing, advertising or fashion; they were all over the “Trending” pages of the broadsheets as the cool plimsolls to wear for the smart casual crowd, but they never really broke out in a big way on the high street. I actually quite like them, but have a problem with a brand that I can’t help mispronouncing as, “Supergran”.

See you tomorrow.

Usual Sign-Off

• Current total: £1,045 

• Remember this is all for charity, so any pennies or pounds you can spare PLEASE DONATE BY CLICKING HERE.

• Follow me on Twitter to make sure you see what trainers I’m wearing each day.

• If you have any trainers you could donate (either on loan or old pairs you’re getting rid of) which are size 9 (ish – I can do anything  from 8 to 10) contact me at davegolderSFX@gmail.com so I can arrange collection.

• Please, please, please leave comments below! I’m after ideas for mini-challenges, future photoshoots and how I can find enough pairs of trainers!