Panel Vision - 2001: A Space Odyssey

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Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the pinnacles of weird speculative sci-fi films of the late ‘60s alongside the likes of Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green.  The film actually wasn’t a huge success immediately upon release but slowly became a cult classic, allegedly because audiences of stoners would enjoy tripping out to the psychedelic images on display.  

The film proved popular enough to warrant getting a comic book adaptation by the king of comics himself: Jack Kirby.  Kirby liked doing the comic so much and it did so well for Marvel that this led into a new ongoing comic by Kirby exploring his own interpretation of the Monolith and the attendant 2001: A Space Odyssey mythos, which is what I’ll be looking at today. 

Week of Review - In Defense of Star Trek The Animated Series

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Edited by Robert Beach

For day two of my celebration of Star Trek, I thought I’d focus on an obscure and somewhat forgotten chapter in Trek’s history. In 1969, Star Trek concluded its three-season run after budgetary restrictions and dwindling audience interest forced it off the air. Even though the show was a prestigious series in its time, garnering a lot of admiration from doctors and scientist, the ‘60s just wasn’t the age of genre shows on TV. That all changed in the ‘70s when TV took over as the outlet for disposable, high-concept viewing. 

While movies spent the ‘70s getting more challenging and more adult, TV doubled down on the stranger genre elements, giving us major series like Wonder Woman, 6 Million Dollar Man, and The Incredible Hulk as well as forgotten gems like Logan’s Run and the Planet of the Apes series. Seeking to capitalize on this trend, Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry pushed for a new series, yet was met with some resistance due to the cost of creating sets and costumes. Given how much of this new genre television was aimed at younger audience, Rodenberry went to one of the biggest names in cheap, younger entertainment: Hanna-Barbera. Thus, Star Trek: the Animated Series was born. 

Static Thoughts - Logan's Run 1977

So Logan’s Run was briefly in the news over the weekend when a forgotten planned reboot of the film got new life with the announcement of an actual director attached to the project.  For the most part it isn’t that surprising the Logan’s Run reboot has languished in movie limbo for as long as it has.  The ‘80s work as farm for reboots and remakes because of the unmitigated amount of creativity and cash in the blockbuster scene and the corporate dominated consciousness of animation at the time.  Conversely viable ‘90s reboot properties may be more limited but they’re also more lucrative due to the growing trend of ‘90s nostalgia.

 The ‘70s is much more of a fallow period for rebootable material.  A lot of the stand out pieces of ‘70s cultural were incredibly driven by the auteurship of their maker like The Godfather, Taxi Driver, or The French Connection.  Alternatively projects like Jaws, The Exorcist, or Dirty Harry have become so engrained as classics of their genre a remake would come off as tired and uninspired like 2013’s ill-advised Carrie rehash.  There are some exceptions to this like the upcoming Creed film that looks to reboot/continue the Rocky story and I think Logan’s Run could be such an exception, not because of the film though, but because of the TV show.