Is There Anybody Out There?

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"The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space. Right?"

Ellie (Jodie Foster)

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I am not a science fiction fan. That is something I have said frequently — but I do like good stories, which is something I also say frequently, and I feel that, if you're going to make a science fiction movie, make it plausible.

In my mind, implausible science fiction is something like "Sharknado" or some similar monster wreaking havoc on civilization. Such sci–fi stories are entertaining but not once will you think that it is something that could really happen.

I like science fiction that makes a clear connection to the actual human experience. Violence and destruction need not be part of the equation, particularly if they originate with a make–believe monster. In fact, I prefer it if they do not.

See, I don't believe that a good story needs splashy special effects. And a science fiction story doesn't need to promote the worst kind of fear. The best science fiction stories explore ideas.

Film critic Roger Ebert made an interesting observation after he watched "Contact" again many years after seeing it for the first time. "'Contact' is a film that takes place at the intersection of science, politics and faith," he wrote. "Those are three subjects that don't always fit easily together."

No, they don't, and especially not today when we are so sharply divided along those very lines.

For that reason, I tend to think that "Contact" could not be made today. Too many groups would be offended by something that was said or done — or both — in the story. Any director who took on such a cinematic challenge would almost certainly end up with something that, at best, faintly resembled his/her original vision.

I have always felt that movies were a special kind of free speech, of self–expression. To be intimidated into not doing or saying something in a movie is a denial of one's free speech. As always, of course, there are limits to free speech. One cannot, after all, do the theatrical version of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded public place.

But as long as that line is not crossed, filmmakers should be permitted freedom of expression.

I agreed with Ebert; the movie was a lot bolder than I first thought.

The main character was Foster, who played a scientist searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Foster's character was an atheist who pursued an interest she had cultivated since childhood, inspired by her father who reasoned that, in the vastness of space, it would be a waste if the only intelligent life to be found existed on our planet. Beyond science she had no apparent faith in anything.

Representing faith was Matthew McConaughey, a Christian philosopher and member of a panel charged with selecting someone to travel in a space transport, the schematics for which had been provided to the Earth by aliens many light–years away. He was looking for much the same thing Foster was, but he readily admitted that whoever was sent to explore the heavens had to have faith in God — and that, as far as he was concerned, disqualified Foster.

The political part was represented by Tom Skerritt, the president's science adviser who wanted to halt the funding for the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program for which Foster's character worked because he believed the objective was pointless.

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Ebert described Skerritt's character and his ilk as "see[ing] aliens, God and messages from space all in cynical political terms. They justify their politics with the catch–all motive of 'national defense.'"

There was a time — not really so long ago — when discussions of religion or politics simply weren't done in public settings and comparatively rarely in private — at least not in the sense of whether one was good or evil for holding certain beliefs. But that time had gone long before "Contact" was made, and whereas, as Ebert wrote, "Hollywood treat[ed] movies like a polite dinner party: Don't bring up religion or politics," the subjects had been raised routinely in the movies for years before "Contact." If anything, the animosity between religion and politics has grown more intense in the intervening years.

In short, "Contact" is a movie that still has relevance to new audiences. And, in the tradition of the best science fiction movies I have seen, it raised questions as it entertained. It retains its ability to challenge once deeply held convictions.

In the movie, Skerritt was originally chosen to pilot the space vehicle, but a terrorist leveled it. A second vehicle, about which the public had known nothing, was revealed, and Foster's character was given an opportunity to operate it in space.

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Then, after Foster experienced what seemed to be a remarkably revealing journey but may only have been an hallucination, she was forced to concede that, contrary to her earlier public remarks, maybe she did have some kind of faith in something after all.

An incredulous panel member said to her, "You come to us with no evidence, no record, no artifacts. Only a story that to put it mildly strains credibility. Over half a trillion dollars was spent, dozens of lives were lost. Are you really going to sit there and tell us we should just take this all on faith?"

Foster replied, "Is it possible that it didn't happen? Yes. As a scientist, I must concede that, I must volunteer that."

Under questioning from a panel member (James Woods), Foster admitted that she had no evidence to support her story, that she might have hallucinated the whole thing and that, if she had been on the panel, she too would be skeptical.

"Why don't you simply withdraw your testimony," Woods demanded, "and concede that this 'journey to the center of the galaxy' in fact never took place?"

"Because I can't," Foster replied. "I had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever, a vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not, that none of us are alone! I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe and humility and hope. That continues to be my wish."

In other words, science and faith are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps they have been explaining the same things in different ways.

A word or two must be said about the movie's director, Robert Zemeckis — although those thoughts have mostly been expressed by Ebert, who wrote that Zemeckis' work "often employs daring technical methods."

Ebert observed that Zemeckis mixed animation and live action in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" years before computer–generated imagery progressed from short to feature–length films and seamlessly inserted Forrest Gump into historic footage (something Woody Allen did in "Zelig" more than a decade earlier).

In "Contact," Zemeckis did something similar, inserting actual news anchors from CNN into the movie, reporting on this development in space travel. Zemeckis even inserted footage of then–President Bill Clinton into the story. Clinton's part was real. He wasn't performing in the movie; his words weren't about what the audience had just seen, but what he said certainly made sense within the context of the story.

Consequently it seemed real — until you remembered that you had seen nothing of this in the news.

Zemeckis didn't just break the fabled "fourth wall." He knocked it down.

"Contact" received only one Academy Award nomination (Best Sound), but, in keeping with the rest of the evening, lost to "Titanic."

Power to the Little People

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"All right, my little friends, comes now the new age, the age of — the age of Peter Craig. Let us begin to build the statue again. Let us commence to begin."

Peter Craig (Joe Maross)

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Whether one believes in God or not, I suppose we have all wondered at some time in our lives, however fleetingly, what we might have done differently if we had been the Creator. Such musing is rooted in a desire for power. Ultimate power.

Perhaps we don't go quite that far in our musing. Perhaps we fantasize about being the one giving the orders instead of the one taking the orders. While it may be more muted in that scenario, it's still about power, though, isn't it?

Peter Craig (Joe Maross) didn't like being bossed around and not–so–secretly wished to be the boss. In the episode of Twilight Zone that premiered on this night in 1962, "The Little People," he was the No. 2 man in a two–astronaut crew in a spaceship exploring the heavens. As the No. 2 guy, clearly, he took his orders from the No. 1 guy, played by Claude Akins.

And he didn't like it.

When the episode began, the astronauts were stranded on some planet that viewers were told was millions of miles from Earth. They were in what appeared to be a canyon with no vegetation in sight. But the planet had oxygen, and it was quite warm with two suns blazing during the day.

The ship needed some repairs, and Akins set about the task. Craig, meanwhile, went on hikes that kept him away all day.

Akins became suspicious when he never saw Craig drinking from his canteen.

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When pressed about it, Craig confessed. He had found a source of water, a little stream; as Akins pursued the matter, he learned that Craig had discovered a race of tiny people. They had built a tiny city on the banks of that "stream," which was a river to them.

Craig said he had been communicating with the little people. He didn't know their language, and they didn't know his, but they had managed to communicate through a form of language that appeared to be primarily mathematical.

The little people had been quite accommodating — mostly out of fear. Whenever angered Craig stomped on something in the little people's world, causing considerable carnage while devoting no more effort to it than one would give to stepping on an ant hill.

The little people were terrified, and they did everything they could to appease this "giant." They built a huge (in their estimation) statue of Craig overnight. He was becoming a god — their god through whose benevolence their destinies were determined.

And he didn't want to leave this planet where he was revered as a god — even though Akins had repaired the spaceship and was preparing to leave.

Craig told Akins to go — but, as far as he was concerned, Craig had no intention of leaving. Probably an ordinary–sized man on Earth, Craig was so big he could blot out the sun for the little people. He could cast them into eternal darkness with only his shadow.

The power was entirely his.

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Until two space travelers arrived. They were as big compared to Craig as Craig had been to the little people. One reached down to pick up a ranting Craig and crushed him to death. Then the travelers left.

The little people, liberated by Craig's death, immediately tore down the statue they had built to Craig.

The ending always makes me think of something Florence Eldridge said to Fredric March in "Inherit the Wind" when he told her that a victory in that court case would be "a monument to God that would last a thousand years."

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"Every man has to build his own monument. You can't do it for them. If you do, it becomes your monument. Not theirs. And they'll topple it the minute they find a flaw in it."

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Up, Up and Away

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On this night in 1967 the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a great space race. Their international competition to see who could get to the moon first was constantly in the news, and both countries were inclined to jealously guard their information about everything anyway, not just space exploration, although that was high on the list.

Well, that is what I have heard. My memories of the space race are not as clear as they would be if I had been older so I was unaware of any cloak–and–dagger stuff that might have been going on. It really wouldn't surprise me, though, given the atmosphere of fear and suspicion in those Cold War days. Even at my tender age, I was aware of that much. The race was with the Russians, and it had implications that went far beyond space and the moon. The Russians couldn't be permitted to know any of our secrets, even if those secrets meant nothing to national security in the long run.

I guess I always assumed that the Russian people were subjected to the same kind of propaganda that the Americans were. Considering the nature of the Soviet government, it was probably likely.

So it wasn't hard for audiences to accept the national security angle to the episode of Gilligan's Island that first aired 50 years ago tonight, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane." They were conditioned to it.

When the episode began, an experimental jet pack had fallen overboard from a naval ship and drifted to the island, where Gilligan (Bob Denver) discovered it in the lagoon.

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Gilligan recognized the resemblance to a pack worn by fictional space traveler Buck Rogers. The Professor (Russell Johnson) recognized the potential the pack had to be their long–sought rescue.

The mere fact that the jet pack was missing was enough for the frantic folks back on the mainland to launch a massive search of the area. This had happened before during the series' three–year run. Amazingly no one ever came across Gilligan's little island during one of those searches when — presumably — no stone (metaphorically speaking) would be left unturned.

Initially the idea on the island was that someone would strap on the jet pack and fly to Hawaii, but the Professor wanted to evaluate the matter first. While he was doing that, both the Howells (Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer) and the girls (Dawn Wells, Tina Louise) tried to trick Gilligan into strapping on the jet pack and taking off.

The efforts were thwarted, though. The Professor had come up with a plan that wasn't as dangerous as having one of the castaways fly over the ocean to Hawaii. They would construct a dummy to precise height and weight specifications, strap on the jet pack and aim it at the right trajectory to fly to Hawaii with a note attached to it alerting the authorities to their location.

But Gilligan accidentally wound up riding the dummy through the jungle and burning up most of the fuel. There was enough left for maybe a 15–minute flight.

And then the castaways were given a reason to use it for that purpose.

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The search ships would be in their area the next day — according to the radio (which, remarkably, always started reporting on precisely whatever the castaways wanted to hear about the minute they switched on the radio). It was decided that someone would take that 15–minute flight to draw the ships' attention.

What remained was to choose who would take the flight. They needed to undergo a test to see who was least likely to become dizzy and light–headed.

So all four men climbed into a cylindrical contraption that could be made to spin when someone rode a stationary bicycle to generate power. When they emerged, Gilligan was the only one who wasn't dizzy or light–headed so he was chosen to fly when the search party was in the area.

The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) had an explanation for that. Gilligan, he said, was "dizzy and light–headed all the time — he's just used to it."

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So Gilligan piloted the jet pack — with the radio hanging around his neck so he could hear news reports. And he did hear one — the sighting of a UFO from one of the search ships. Not realizing that the report was actually the sighting of Gilligan, he ducked into a cloud — and created an unexpected shower. The Navy called off the search.

Once again, Gilligan had thwarted a rescue.

A Capsule Full of Castaways

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On this night in 1967, the world was a little over two years from man's first walk on the surface of the moon.

Space travel was a hot subject on television in those days and a fertile topic for episodes of TV series, especially sitcoms like Gilligan's Island, which aired an intriguing space travel–related episode on this night 50 years ago.

The episode was called "Splashdown," and it was really two stories in one — featuring two space capsules, one carrying a two–man crew and the other unmanned. The mission called for the two to rendezvous in space. Pretty inventive, considering the kinds of space–related episodes that tended to be shown on TV in those days.

It was a grim time for America's space program; idled by the recent deaths of the Apollo 1 crew, it would not resume manned space flights for more than a year.

Incidentally, though, while the name of the episode may be an obscure term to modern viewers, anyone who was alive at the time would instantly recognize a splashdown as the final phase of any space mission.

The emphasis in the first half of the episode was on the manned space flight. The Professor (Russell Johnson) had concluded that the capsule would be directly over the island a few times as it orbited the planet, and he was determined to establish some kind of contact.

Gilligan (Bob Denver), in his usual knee–jerk way, ran off to inform the other castaways that they were going to be rescued — but they all got the idea that the astronauts had splashed down in the lagoon.

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The Professor had to explain to them that he had an idea for contacting the capsule. He would use the radio to send a signal when the capsule would be closest to the island. Since he could only transmit a weak signal, he wanted to build a directional cone to improve the strength. To operate it, Gilligan, the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.), Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise) would ride bicycle–like contraptions to generate energy. That attempt failed.

Then the castaways recalled that, in an earlier mission, one of the U.S. astronauts had reported seeing the lights of Houston as his capsule passed over. That gave the Professor the idea of cutting down some logs and fashioning a large SOS that would be set on fire when the astronauts were almost directly above them during their next orbit. That was a plan that might have worked — if not for Gilligan, who backed into a torch while he and the Skipper were lighting the logs and knocked some of the logs out of place as he made a beeline for a tub of water.

The astronauts saw the message — but now it read SOL, not SOS, and the astronauts thought it was a greeting. You see, one of the astronauts was named Sol.

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Thus the manned capsule exited the story, but the unmanned capsule was about to enter, and it actually did splash down in the lagoon.

The castaways heard on the radio that the capsule had been on the radar of naval ships in the area which would be looking for it because it contained sensitive space data it had gathered. It was decided that the capsule would be set adrift with two people on board who would direct the ships to the island to rescue the other castaways. The Professor insisted that Gilligan and the Skipper should be on the capsule — but the other castaways also wanted to be on board, and they plotted to stow away. Before daylight the next morning, first the Howells (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) and then Mary Ann and Ginger crept to the lagoon to be in the capsule before Gilligan and the Skipper came to board it at the crack of dawn.

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Not realizing that four other people were hidden in the capsule, the Skipper and Gilligan found the capsule too heavy to launch and started throwing overboard anything that wasn't nailed down.

That was when the four stowaways were discovered, and everyone got off the capsule. Gilligan kept an eye on it while the Professor lectured the four, warning them of the consequences of pulling such a stunt, then said there was still time to get the capsule out to sea where it could be spotted by the search vessels. Gilligan had been trying to get their attention, but he was ignored until the Professor was finished.

Then he was given the chance to speak, and he reported that the capsule had broken loose and drifted over to the other side of the lagoon. It appeared to be one more instance of Gilligan's incompetence. After all, the assumption was that he had permitted the capsule to do what it did — and because of that one more chance to be rescued had been fouled up.

What the castaways didn't know — and the viewers did know — was that the folks back at mission control had decided to call off the search and were going to detonate the capsule by remote control rather than take the chance of allowing sensitive information to fall into the wrong hands.

As the castaways looked forlornly at the capsule — which, to them, might as well have been on the moon — it blew up, scattering debris everywhere. The castaways, too, scattered.

For one of the few times they were on the island, Gilligan's incompetence did not cost the castaways their long–desired rescue. It saved their lives.

The Space Race Comes to Gilligan's Island

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"There's space up there, there's space down here, and there's space between your ears!"

The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.)

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I hear people speak of "the '60s" as if the entire decade could be defined by a single word or a single movement — like Vietnam or civil rights. I suppose most previous decades were one–dimensional that way. Must have made things a whole lot simpler.

The '60s were about a lot of things — not the least of which was the space race, which had no obvious connection to Vietnam and could hardly be tied to civil rights. Perhaps not coincidentally, none of the decades since could be narrowed to a single word or phrase, either.

For American sitcoms in the 1960s, it took truly creative writing to make war or race relations into subjects for comedy. That was the kind of thing that TV's comedy writers did in the '70s with shows like All in the Family.

But the space race was different. It tapped into that American desire to explore the next frontier and pride in the courage of the first pioneers — which is why you really don't have to look far to find episodes of TV series from those days, sitcom or not, that focused on space. By its very nature, it was inspirational. It brought people together in a common cause. It wasn't a polarizing topic, like war and race.

As the episode of Gilligan's Island opened on this night in 1965, Gilligan (Bob Denver) had been hired by Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) to gather feathers to stuff a pillow for Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer), but it was strictly hush–hush. So when the Professor (Russell Johnson) and the Skipper (Alan Hale) came too close to Gilligan's hiding place for the feathers, he felt compelled to distract them so his stash wouldn't be discovered.

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Well, that's what was happening on Gilligan's Island. It was the same kind of rather innocuous existence that most humans probably led the world over. Gilligan's existence, of course, was dictated by his circumstances. He and his fellow castaways occupied a part of the world that was, apparently, unexplored, but as a frontier it couldn't possibly compare to space. So I suppose that contrast, unspoken though it was, was there for the viewers to see.

Back at Mission Control, a space probe had been sent to Mars and was about to land. The folks back at Mission Control were eager to see if there was any proof of life on Mars. When I first saw this episode, it didn't occur to me that it would take many months at least for a space vehicle, even an unmanned probe, to travel from Earth to Mars. The characters at Mission Control acted almost as if they had been following this mission for a few days, as they would for a trip to the much closer moon. I guess that time discrepancy didn't occur to the adults who wrote the episode or most of the adults who watched it, either.

Somehow the probe had been diverted from its course and had landed on Gilligan's Island instead; Gilligan stumbled onto it — literally — while looking for some feathers.

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The castaways, who had been keeping up with the news reports on the probe on their radio, knew when NASA would activate the camera so they were going to use that to get a message out to the world.

Unfortunately, the lens appeared to have been jostled loose when the probe landed or when Gilligan accidentally stumbled over it. Now it was missing, and the castaways had to find it before Mission Control activated the camera, which they did, but then the lens got broken — by guess who? — and had to be repaired. The castaways gathered the ingredients, and Gilligan cooked up some glue to repair the lens, and it worked — but, when he was summoned to join the others in front of the camera, he put a lid on the boiling pot of glue, and the pressure caused a glue explosion. The castaways, now covered with glue, chased Gilligan into the hut where he had been storing the feathers, and they all became unrecognizable with feathers covering their bodies.

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The folks at Mission Control thought they had proven that there was life on Mars — chicken people, half man and half bird. As they watched, the Skipper chastised Gilligan and pushed him down. The observers at Mission Control tried to evaluate what they had seen.

"What's that big bird man doing to that little bird man?" one of the Mission Control people asked the other.

"I can't be sure, but I think he's trying to get him to lay an egg," came the reply.

The buzzing of the camera alerted the castaways and they looked for the signs they had prepared for the occasion, but they were behind the camera. Gilligan went to get the signs, then tripped over the camera, knocking it to the ground — and out of commission. Another opportunity for rescue had been ruined by — who else? — Gilligan.

A Trip to the Moon on Gossamer Wings

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"If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it."

Mrs. Lovell (Jean Speegle Howard)

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The day that I saw "Apollo 13" (which premiered on this day in 1995) at a movie theater is crystal clear in my memory. Not much else from that time is vivid in my memory — except for the fact that my mother died in a flash flood two months earlier. I spent that summer with my father. He had been injured in the flood and needed someone's assistance every day.

That summer is a blur to me now. I guess it was the routine nature of most days. I didn't take Dad to physical therapy every day, but I took him often enough that it took on a routine quality. Cooking his meals were daily events for me. I did the laundry and the housework — not every day but most days. Cutting the grass was once a week. A very routine quality.

But I remember the day I saw Ron Howard's "Apollo 13." Some friends of my parents called us up and asked if we wanted to go see it. We jumped at the offer.

There are always a few movie directors whose work I want to see — regardless of the topic. Ron Howard is one of them. And there are a handful of actors whose work I always want to see — regardless of the topic. Tom Hanks is one of them. A movie directed by Howard and starring Hanks was made to order.

I wasn't much on the space theme when I was a child — and I was a child during the space race. I got caught up in it when most people did, like when Apollo 11 went to the moon, but I really didn't pay much attention to it a lot of the time. I don't know why. It seemed to be a pretty big thing with most of the kids I knew.

But I do remember Apollo 13 and how the world seemed to hold its breath during the effort to bring that crippled spacecraft back to earth.

Ron Howard reminds me of Steven Spielberg in so many ways. They both love technology that gives them new options for special effects, and they love using that technology to get the kind of response from their audiences that they desire. Camera angles are important, but those computer–enhanced special effects are hard to beat — and almost impossible to resist if you're making a movie about America's space program.

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Even the actual footage of blastoffs couldn't provide the kind of angles viewers could see in "Apollo 13." After watching that movie, I, for one, had a much greater appreciation for the risks those astronauts took, strapping themselves into the nose of a rocket that went hurtling into the sky at hundreds of miles an hour and out into the unknown realm of space.

There were no guarantees of anyone's safety — yet the only astronaut fatalities in the first 25 years or so of NASA space travel were the three fire–related deaths on the ground in 1967.

That event provided one of the best moments in the movie, in my opinion. Hanks' character got moved up from backup crew to primary crew when the assignments were changed for medical reasons, and Apollo 13 was scheduled to lift off slightly more than three years after those other astronauts died in the fire.

Hanks' son in the movie — Jim Lovell's real son was only about 4 when Apollo 13 made its aborted moon flight — expressed his concerns about his father going into space (even though Lovell had been on a Gemini mission the year before the boy was born), and Hanks tried to explain to him about the lessons that had been learned from that fire and the improvements that had been made to spaceships because of it.

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Hanks explained to his son that a problem during the fire had been the hatch — the "door," he told his son. The astronauts were unable to open it when the fire broke out. NASA, he explained, had fixed that problem. "It's not a problem anymore," he assured his son.

Later in the movie, when the astronaut's wife (Kathleen Quinlan) told the boy that "something broke on your daddy's spaceship," the boy asked in a hushed tone, "Was it the door?"

Most of the time, Hollywood can't resist adding drama to a story that really doesn't need it, and "Apollo 13" didn't need it.

"Ron Howard's film of this mission is directed with a single–mindedness and attention to detail that makes it riveting," film critic Roger Ebert wrote. "He doesn't make the mistake of adding cornball little subplots to popularize the material; he knows he has a great story, and he tells it in a docudrama that feels like it was filmed on location in outer space."

As astonishing as the re–creation of the event in space was, it was hard pressed at times to match the scenes from earth. That is one of the things I remember from that time — how the newscasts focused on the astronauts' families and how they were coping with the situation. At the time, I felt torn between wanting to know everything I could possibly know — and wishing people would respect the families' privacy.

The nice thing about a movie, though, is that somewhere deep down you realize that the families' privacy really isn't being invaded, that these are actors. But the dramatization of Hanks' on–screen family watching the news coverage of Apollo 13's attempt to re–enter earth's atmosphere was as intense as if the viewer was watching the real thing.

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I'll grant you, it's hard to draw a distinction sometimes.

Howard's movie would have been incomplete if it focused only on what the astronauts — Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton — were facing. Much of the drama occurred on the ground — and not just on the home front. NASA's technicians, including Gary Sinise (whose character would have been on board if not for apparently needless worries that he might be sick with the German measles during the flight), performed heroically under pressure to come up with an ingenious device made from things on board the ship that would resolve problems with a damaged oxygen tank.

Television news did report that at the time, but my memory is that, when the astronauts were safely back on earth, the spotlight fell entirely on them. That probably suited the ground crew just fine. It was, after all, a team effort.

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Ed Harris played Gene Kranz, the captain of the team. In the movie, he was credited with saying, "Failure is not an option," although I have heard that Kranz did not actually say it, that it was created by screen writers.

That doesn't take anything away from what NASA achieved 45 years ago, and it took nothing from Ebert's admiration.

"The space program was a really extraordinary thing, something to be proud of," he wrote, "and those who went into space were not just 'heroes,' which is a cliché, but brave and resourceful."

Revealing How Darth Vader Became Darth Vader

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Padmé (Natalie Portman): So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.

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What I will always remember most about "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," which made its debut 10 years ago today, is something that almost no one else will remember.

It is the only Star Wars movie I have seen at the theater with my father — and, even though Episode VII apparently will be showing on America's movie screens sometime next year, Episode III likely will be the only Star Wars movie I ever see with him. (And, unless my brother went with him to see another of the Star Wars movies, it may be what he remembers as well.)

My brother and I took Dad to see it on Father's Day 2005. He saw Episode IV, which was the first Star Wars movie, way back in 1977, but I didn't see it with him. He might not have seen it at the theater at all. He may have waited to see it on TV, whenever it was first shown.

Dad doesn't go to the theater alone; typically, he went with my mother when she was alive. When the first Star Wars movie was showing in theaters, though, I saw it with Mom, who loved movies and often watched a movie multiple times and might very well have gone to the theater with him to see it a second time. So that may have been when he saw it, but I don't know that for certain. All I know is he didn't see it with me.

And then I saw the next two installments in the Star Wars franchise with friends — on both occasions in theaters that were far from where Dad was living at the time. That wasn't really unusual for me, though. I have rarely seen a movie in a theater with my father since I was a small child. In those days, I imagine he took me to movies that I wanted to see and were appropriate for my age group. I doubt that he wanted to see them.

Dad wanted to see this one, though. He has never said why, but my guess would be that it would answer a lot of questions for him, just as it answered a lot of questions the Star Wars fans had about how Darth Vader came to be. He just didn't care to sit through the first two episodes.

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Might have been a good idea if he had, though, since his mental image of Obi–Wan Kenobi was Alec Guinness, not Ewan McGregor. And Hayden Christensen surely was not his idea of Darth Vader. If, along with the rest of the audience, he had been familiar with the actors playing the younger versions of those characters, he wouldn't have had to ask me who they were.

Anyway, the movie answered all the questions about how Anakin Skywalker gravitated to the Dark Side — although, in hindsight, I suppose it wasn't too hard to guess. For all the buildup the movie received for how it would answer all the lingering questions about Darth Vader and his relationship to Luke and Leia, the Star Wars trilogies have been pretty transparent, haven't they? There clearly are biblical parallels in the battle between good and evil, the conflict between the Force for good and the Dark Side.

I guess that was what intrigued my father. He was a religion professor when I was growing up — like his father before him. I also remember that he enjoyed science fiction — the Star Trek TV series, for example, and "2001: A Space Odyssey." Maybe he liked the mix of biblical morality stories played out against a futuristic backdrop. The light saber duels — and there were many in "Revenge of the Sith" — provided an obvious example.

Looking back on it, I am inclined to wonder if "Revenge of the Sith" might have been a metaphor for something more sinister, like the rise of radical Islam.

Natalie Portman's character may have held the key to that — and perhaps it may have given us a clue of what to expect in the third Star Wars trilogy. Her strong female character seemed to be eliminated faster in "Revenge of the Sith" than it probably would be even in a radical Islamic environment.

Speaking of Portman, she wasn't exactly a newcomer when she made "Revenge of the Sith," even though she was not quite 24 when it premiered. She was a big–screen veteran, having had several minor roles and a few major ones in the previous decade. By the time I saw "Revenge of the Sith," I had already seen Portman in Episodes I and II, as well as "Cold Mountain," so I knew she had some talent.

But, even though there were times when "Revenge of the Sith" was a swashbuckling romp of which Errol Flynn would have been proud — and the dialogue could have been better — Portman never gave in to the temptation to camp it up.

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And that probably wouldn't have been too hard to do with all the technological bells and whistles that George Lucas used in the sixth (but, apparently, not final) installation in the Star Wars franchise.

I can only wonder what is in store in Episode VII.

Responding to an Invitation to Come and Visit Sometime

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Starman (Jeff Bridges): Dutch apple pie with whipped cream. It's wonderful.

Jenny (Karen Allen): For a primitive species we have our points.

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Voyager 2 was a space probe that was launched in 1977 to explore the solar system. It was actually launched before Voyager 1, but Voyager 2 moves slower and was passed by Voyager 1.

It is an extended mission that has been going on now for more than 37 years.

Each Voyager carried with it a gold–plated audio–visual disc. The idea was that, if the probe was found by an intelligent life form somewhere, that life form could see images and hear voice recordings and music from earth on that disc.

That, essentially, was the starting point of John Carpenter's "Starman," a movie starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen that made its debut 30 years ago today.

Unfortunately, "Starman" was largely overlooked when it was showing on the big screen. It cost $24 million to make and took in less than $29 million at the box office, which wasn't really in the same ballpark with the top–grossing films of 1985. That really is too bad because I thought it was a literate, clever and thoroughly plausible story.

Bridges was Starman, one of those intelligent life forms I was talking about. Someone from his civilization came across the probe, found the disc and heard a clear invitation for visitors to come to earth in peace. Apparently, it was decided to send a probe to earth, on which Starman (in whatever form he took — initially, he just appeared to be a blue ball) was riding, acting as some kind of advance scout.

"He, or it, has traveled to Earth in response to the invitation from Voyager," film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "but of course the Air Force treats the spacecraft as a possible invader and shoots missiles at it." Starman's vessel crashed in Wisconsin, near the home of Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen), a young widow.

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He made his way to her home, where she had been drinking and reminiscing about her late husband before passing out. While she slept, Starman the blue ball entered the home and found all the mementos she had spread out in the living room, including a lock of her husband's hair.

Starman used the hair to clone a body for himself, then he used one of several smaller balls he carried with him (each of which seemed to have the power to do remarkable things) to contact his people. He informed them that his vessel had crashed and the terrain was hostile. He arranged to rendezvous with his people at a landing site in Arizona in three days' time.

Jenny had been awakened, and she witnessed him transmitting his message.

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Starman managed to coerce Jenny into taking him to Arizona. At first, she tried to figure out ways to be stopped — or to get away from the Starman. But, at the same time, she was mesmerized. He looked so much like Scott — and he sounded like Scott.

She was torn.

After Jenny saw him revive a dead deer with another of his small balls, the movie became something of a bonding experience between the two. Starman had a rudimentary knowledge of English from the disc, and he learned how to communicate more effectively in the language.

Jenny taught him that humans weren't as uniformly primitive as he first believed.

However, one of humanity's more savage elements, the U.S. Army, was pursuing them with the intention of having a vivisectionist slice up the alien. A scientist from SETI (Charles Martin Smith) was with them, and he played an important role in allowing Starman and Jenny to escape.

Before he did so, he had some questions for Starman.

"Have people from your world been here before?" he wanted to know.

"Before, yes," Starman replied. "We are interested in your species."

"You mean you're some kind of anthropologist?" the scientist asked. "Is that what you're doing here? Just checking us out?"

"You are a strange species," Starman said. "Not like any other. And you'd be surprised how many there are. Intelligent but savage. Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you?"

The scientist nodded, and then Starman delivered perhaps the best line of the movie.

"You are at your very best when things are worst."

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I thought Bridges had another great line when, as he and Jenny were riding in a railroad boxcar, she asked him to describe the planet from which he came.

"It is beautiful," he replied. "Not like this, but it is beautiful. There is only one language, one law, one people. There is no war, no hunger. The strong do not victimize the helpless. We are very civilized, but we have lost something, I think. You are all so much alive, all so different."

And that really is humanity's great conundrum, isn't it? Well, it's one of them. We like to say that we value diversity, but humans are naturally suspicious of those who are different from themselves in some way. I guess it is a defense mechanism, honed by centuries of evolution.

Many people do not want to be like that and honestly despise that trait in themselves, but it remains a part of human nature — an ugly part, yes, but a part, nonetheless.

In his preparation to play Starman, I've heard that Bridges studied birds and their movements. His reasoning was that an alien would not have human characteristics and, finding himself in a human body, would act with animal instincts. I thought it was effective — and explained many things I did not know before I saw the movie.

It was effective enough that Bridges received an Oscar nomination, but he lost to F. Murray Abraham ("Amadeus"). It was the movie's only Oscar nomination.

Existential Angst Aboard the Starship Enterprise

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James Kirk (William Shatner): Spock, did we just see the beginning of a new life form?

Spock (Leonard Nimoy): Yes, Captain. We witnessed a birth. Possibly a next step in our evolution.

Kirk: I wonder.

Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley): Well, it's been a long time since I delivered a baby. And I hope we got this one off to a good start.

Kirk: I hope so, too. I think we gave it the ability to create its own sense of purpose ... out of our own human weaknesses ... and the drive that compels us to overcome them.

McCoy: And a lot of foolish human emotions. Right, Mr. Spock?

Spock: Quite true, Doctor. Unfortunately, it will have to deal with them as well.

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If you're under 40, you need to understand the status of the Star Trek franchise on this day in 1979.

Up to that time, there had been only one primetime Star Trek TV series — the original one that aired for three seasons in the 1960s and starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. There was an animated series that ran on Saturday mornings for a couple of years; otherwise, Star Trek's fan base had to content itself with reruns of the original primetime series, which were plentiful.

"Trekkies" — if that is what they were called — spent tons of money on the Star Trek promotional materials that were marketed in those days. Hard–core Trekkies could purchase a set of blueprints for the fictional Starship Enterprise. In hindsight, all the signs were there that Star Trek was about ready to take off — and it did. It became a cultural phenomenon.

There were also signs that many Trekkies suffered from undiagnosed mental disorders.

When "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" premiered 35 years ago today, it launched a movement. I've never been a Star Trek fan, but, by my count, there have been at least four TV series and five additional movies to date since the first movie's debut. Not all of the movies were good, but the first one, as even non–Trekkies such as myself had to admit, was pretty good.

The movie that premiered on this date in 1979 reunited the original cast and touched on all the running themes from the original series. It must have been everything that every Trekkie had dreamed about. It earned three times as much as it cost to make.

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Interestingly, film critic Roger Ebert saw the reunion of the original cast as a negative.

"Epic science–fiction stories, with their cosmic themes and fast truths about the nature of mankind, somehow work best when the actors are unknown to us," Ebert wrote. "The presence of the Star Trek characters and actors who have become so familiar to us on television tends in a strange way to undermine this movie. The audience walks in with a possessive, even patronizing attitude toward Kirk and Spock and Bones, and that interferes with the creation of the 'sense of wonder' that science fiction is all about."

Maybe so. As I say, I was never a Trekkie, and I always have had a little trouble getting into Star Trek plotlines, whether they were on TV or the big screen. That was particularly true of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry produced the movie, and I think he felt liberated by the big screen because special effects were splashier than anything I had seen on TV. I think, to a certain extent, I was dazzled by that.

Consider, for a moment, what an achievement that was. The late '70s and early '80s probably produced more blockbuster sci–fi movies than at any other time in film history. Coming in the wake of such recent releases as "Star Wars," "Alien" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the special effects had to be impressive — and the special effects in "Star Trek" really were quite extraordinary.

Anyway, the plotline of the movie bewildered me just as the plotlines of the TV episodes bewildered me. My mind is not oriented toward science fiction.

But then at the end it all came together for me — just as it often did with the episodes in the TV series — in a kind of cosmic metaphysical twist.

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Spock: Each of us ... at some time in our lives, turns to someone — a father, a brother, a god — and asks,"Why am I here? What was I meant to be?"

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I'm not sure I ever really bought the movie's conclusion at the time — and if you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil it for you.

But if you have seen any of the original Star Trek TV episodes, you can probably guess.

"The Star Trek movie is fairly predictable in its plot," Ebert wrote. "We more or less expected that two of the frequent ingredients in the television episodes would be here, and they are: a confrontation between Starship Enterprise and some sort of alien entity, and a conclusion in which basic human values are affirmed in a hostile universe."

Nevertheless, Ebert wrote, "There is, I suspect, a sense in which you can be too sophisticated for your own good when you see a movie like this. ... My inclination, as I slid down in my seat and the stereo sound surrounded me, was to relax and let the movie give me a good time. I did and it did."

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was nominated for three Oscars and lost all three.