Science fiction used to look like the Vasquez rocks
I’ve been working a lot for the Syfy channel recently, enjoying a ton of science fiction. The combination of brain-battering in both places fused together to make me wonder about something that would not bother most. At least I hope not, or humanity really needs to focus.
What I noticed was that alien planets in the fictional future of my childhood look different from alien planets in the fictional future of today.
Science fiction used to be all deserts – and the Vasquez rocks.
In my youth, alien planets were desert, but today they are forests. To be specific, in my youth, they looked like the Vasquez rocks outside LA, and now they look like a Canadian forest. The former strikes me as more realistic, as most extra-terrestrial planets (not the gas giants obviously) are desert-like in appearance. Look at Mars. Or Venus. I should stress that this probably won’t bother most people but it does me and this is my site. If you do care and you want proof, here goes.
In a classic episode of the old Trek called Arena, James T. Kirk is beamed down to a planet and made to fight a green lizard thing that is the captain of another ship.
Spoilers: They are placed there by an alien intelligence to see which species should be allowed to survive. It’s a fight to the death and Kirk manages to make gunpowder and shoots a diamond at the alien with a piece of bamboo.
Which is exactly what I’d have done. He refuses to finish the alien off and humans turn out to be er, humane and we’re let off.
Notice the background?
In the highly under-rated Futurama, cartoon Vasquez rocks:
Buck Rogers went there in the 25th Century:
There’s a great bit in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey where they watch the Arena episode and then a few minutes later get thrown off the very same rocks. I couldn’t find a photo of this but here they are in preparation:
Ok so it is all to do with budgets and nearness to the studio. It’s just that my youth has been filled with images of the Vasquez rocks. The Flinstones movie has these rocks behind Bedrock. A godawful movie called Shockwave features them. In Friends, Joey is going to be in a low budget Sci Fi film that is set here.
Here’s Airwolf episode 1:
Now, alien planets look like a Canadian forest
So, there I am watching old Science Fiction juxtaposed with new Sci Fi. The difference is glaring. New Sci Fi looks like this:
As stated, it is obviously about budgets and this entry is making no point whatsoever. Except maybe don’t go to Amsterdam and then watch the SyFy channel for three 12-hour shifts in a row. Especially if you’re a bored pedant.
Hopefully, soon, some big-budget movie will come along and return to the planets of my youth with its Vasquez-like rocks. Actually… that’s happened. Guess what movie? In a joke that would appeal to sad Trekkies, JJ Abrams’ brilliant new Star Trek film featured a picture of Vulcan.
It looks familiar and god bless him:
