So, the toy company Funko has released a series of action figures based on Ridley Scott's Alien. This in itself is not anything special. Alien is a classic and there are now many collectibles based on it and the other movies in the series. What's awesome about the Funko line is that it is based on the cancelled Kenner action figure line from the late 1970's.
When Alien was released, the toy company Kenner briefly entertained the idea of creating an figure line to accompany it. After all, Star Wars had just been released and the toy makers at Kenner were making a fortune on the 3 3/4" line of action figures and vehicles. So they designed some action figures based on Ridley Scott's space movie as well but the problem was the R-Rated Alien was not as toyetic as Star Wars and the action figure line never got past the prototype stage. There was only only one Alien toy released and it was the rather...imposing 18" Alien action figure.
Now, Funko has released a small line of action figures based on what the Kenner line would have been. These are simple 1970's style action figures that would look right at home with your vintage Star Wars collection complete with five points of articulation, soft sculpts, and vague likeness to the characters on which they are based. They are packaged in old-school blister cards which (mostly) feature illustrations of the characters on which they are based.
Normally, I don't go in for toys which rely so heavily on nostalgia appeal but there is something clever and witty about the intense R-Rated body horror of Ridley Scott's moviebeing distilled into these simple 1970's-styled child's playthings. Take for example the multiple figures of Kane, who not only comes in the toy-friendly astronaut version but the facehugger and bloody chestburster versions, complete with placid "closed eyes" like he's taking a nap. I am an opener but with these, I feel a lot of the appeal in in the very spot-on 70's packaging. And, to be honest, the action figures themselves are pretty simple and are not necessarily great in and of themselves.
So far the line has included two waves of Alien figures (although the entire ReAction line has encompassed a lot of other retro properties) including a couple of versions of the Alien and Ripley as well as Dallas and Ash. I hope for another couple of waives with versions of Lambert and Parker. Maybe a Brett figure with a gaping headwound. It would also be great to get a dedicated egg and version of Jones the cat.
The idea that people actually considered a children's toy line based on Alien is hilarious. I mean, I would have gone crazy for them but these toys might have traumatized a generation of kids. Now, they serve as a neat and clever throwback to a classic movie and a series of unique and fun collectibles.
As I've written before, Sony's handling of Spider-Man is a colossal mess. They made three successful films with director Sam Raimi, two of which are beloved by fans and all of which made a lot of money. After the creatively-fatigued and poorly-received Spider-Man 3, Sony quickly rebooted the series so as to retain the rights to the character. Although the two Amazing Spider-Man movies were well-acted, they are generally considered less-satisfying and certainly less financially successful than the Raimi movies. They were bogged down in rehashing the Spider-Man origin, adding a lot of complicated backstory, and featured uninspired villains. Sony was clearly intending to produce a lot of spin-offs from their franchise but with the box office underperformance of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony panicked and now will be c- producing a new series of Spider-Man movies with Marvel.
While this will be good from a creative perspective-Marvel certainly knows how to make superhero movies and Spider-Man will now join the Marvel Cinematic Universe-it also means that we are in for yet another reboot of Spider-Man. This will be the third movie incarnation of the characters in fifteen years. One of the failures of The Amazing Spider-Man was that it felt too soon and too samey. This will be an even bigger problem with this new Spider-Man.
Certainly, this version of the character will have to start as an existing hero already active as Spider-Man. There is no way audiences are going to want to sit through another origin story for Peter Parker, especially after it was such an inordinately large part of the last two movies. But really, the new Spider-Man needs to boldly differentiate itself from previous versions of the character. The way to do this is to move away from Peter Parker.
Like most superheroes, there have been a few different characters to call himself Spider Man over the years (or Spider-Woman for that matter). Peter Parker is certainly the most iconic and we can say that he has been well-represented on screen at this point. Recently, the character Miles Morales was created, in part as a response to African American actor Donald Glover's social media lobbying for the role. Miles Morales is a black/Latino teen who took over the mantle of Spider-Man after the death of Peter Parker in the comics. He's become a popular version of the character (he's even been voiced by Glover on one of the animated shows).
If Marvel and Sony are smart (and we know Marvel is) then this is the version of the Spider-Man they will put up on the screen. With Mile Morales, you avoid a lot of the samey-ness that you get by having another Peter Parker onscreen with one of the predictable wan white kids playing him. Miles Morales is Spider-Man but he's a different character and differentiates himself from previous versions of the character.
I think that the best way to do this also involves a role for Peter Parker. In a nod to the comics, the new Spider-Man movie should feature a torch-passing cameo from Peter Parker. As good as Andrew Garfield was, I would love to see Toby Maguire reprise his role one last time as an middle aged Spider-Man. This would be a great nod to Sam Raimi's movies with which a whole generation of movie goers grew up. It also un-reboots Spider-Man, acknowledging the fundamental mistake of the Amazing Spider-Man movies. Again, having Toby Maguire return to pass the torch would build excitement for the movie and make this a true event.
More importantly, the world of superhero movies is notoriously lily-white and this is a real opportunity to put a major hero onscreen who also speaks to a more diverse generation of Americans. It would be a bold and remarkable choice that, most importantly, would build interest and excitement around the character which is something that Spider-Man has been sorely lacking for a long time and ultimately what doomed the most recent movies.
Pluto coming into view as New Horizons approaches.
In early 2015, the world will achieve a major milestone but it will be one which will fall under the radar for most people. By July of this year, mankind will have completed its initial reconnaissance of the major worlds of our Solar System. Let that sink in for a moment. In the last fifty years or so, we have flown-by, orbited, landed-on, and roved seven planets and scores of moons, asteroids, and comets. Our robotic envoys have traveled billions of miles on our behalf exploring this collection of exotic alien worlds we call the Sol System.
Next month, NASA's remarkable DAWN probe will orbit Ceres, the largest and most massive asteroid and one of the few relatively large Solar System objects yet unexplored. This is after the intrepid robot had already orbited Vesta, another large body in the asteroid belt. In July, the New Horizons craft will fly-by Pluto, formerly our ninth planet and a representative of possibly hundreds of similar icy bodies on outskirts of our Solar System.
I grew up in the 1980's and while it was a time in which space exploration had stalled a bit, there was a wealth of information from the amazing missions of the 1970's. I devoured anything I could read about the historic missions to our family of worlds. I poured over space probe photographs published in magazines like National Geographic, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, and the wonderful children's astronomy magazine Odyssey. In these magazines I saw the desolate beauty of Mars, the glorious churning clouds of Jupiter, and the majestic rings of Saturn. These images captured my imagination and started a life-long obsession with space exploration. In the 1990's and 2000's the pace picked up with a number of ambitious missions that deepened our understanding of this wonderful Solar System of ours.
It's fitting that our initial survey of the Solar System ends with Pluto, which at the time the New Horizons probe was launched was considered the ninth and final planet of the Sol System. After this Pluto encounter, missions will focus on deepening our understanding rather than revealing unseen worlds and while it will always provide exciting discoveries, the reconnaissance of Pluto offers the last chance to reveal a back a well-known but unexplored Solar System body.
To celebrate this milestone, let's look back at what I consider the ten of the most significant missions in the unmanned exploration of our Solar System.
10. NEAR (l. 1996)
NEAR was a true trailblazer. It was the first spacecraft to orbit and provide an extended look at an asteroid. In this case, the Near Earth orbiting and potato-shaped Eros. Not only did it orbit Eros but it successfully touched down on the surface of the asteroid despite not being designed as a lander. NEAR paved the way to the subsequent missions to asteroids and other small Solar System bodies which will no doubt continue in the the coming decades as we try to better understand these objects and their dangers and benefits to mankind. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Eros is visited by astronauts in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps they can pick up NEAR and bring it back home.
9. Magellan (l. 1989)
Magellan was important for many reasons, perhaps most importantly because it signaled the return of the U.S. to space exploration. Launched from the Space Shuttle, it had been the first interplanetary mission launched in eleven years. A mission to Venus, Magellan not only successfully tested aero-braking techniques but used radar to peer below the Venusian clouds in unprecedented detail increasing our understanding of our closest planetary neighbor and the bizarre features that lie beneath its brutal atmosphere.
8. Mariner 2 (l. 1962)
Another Venusian mission, Mariner 2 was the first successful mission to another planet. Mariner 2 flew-by Venus in 1962 and effective kicked off our survey of the Solar System. Mariner 2 proved the techniques on which the entire Mariner and Voyager programs relied.
7. Mariner 9 (l. 1971)
The culmination of the fantastic Mariner program, Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, arriving at Mars in 1971. While previous missions had provided glimpses of Martian regions, Mariner 9 gave us our first global picture of the planet in all its bleak beauty and complexity. In fact, arguably the most dramatic geological feature on Mars, Mariner Valley, is named for this remarkable robot explorer.
6. Curiosity (l. 2012)
While not the first rover on Mars, Curiosity was larger and better equipped than its predecessors to explore the Maritan surface. Not only was it more independent and mobile thanks to its nuclear power source, Curiosity captured the attention of the entire world in a way that even the adorable Sojourner rover did not thanks to it's dramatic sky-crane assisted descent on to Mars-all of which was captured in Internet-friendly video. This technology alone will pay dividends in how we deliver payloads onto the surface of other planets in the future.
5. Viking (l. 1975)
While there had been a briefly successful Soviet attempts to land a spacecraft on Mars, the Viking program included the first Mars lander that was an unequivocal success. And they did it twice. Man has always imagined the surface of Mars and for the first time we could actually see it for ourselves. In what would become a common occurrence for American space probes, the Viking probes vastly outlived their projected life-spans and returned data for years to come.
4. Pioneer 11 (l. 1973)
Is there a more aptly named spacecraft? By the 1970's America had completed its survey of the worlds of the inner Solar System. Pioneer 10 and 11 began our survey of the outer Solar System both taking advantage of trajectories that would allow fly-bys of Jupiter and Saturn. Pioneer 11 flew by Jupiter and was the first probe to explore Saturn and exponentially increased our understanding of these worlds and laid the groundwork for Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons.
3. Cassini & Galileo (l. 1989, 1997)
While these are two distinct probes, sent to two distinct planets Galileo and Cassini both followed up on the discoveries of the Pioneer and Voyager probes. Galileo was the first probe to orbit an outer planet and spent years exploring Jupiter and it's moons and delivered the first atmosphere probe to any of the outer gas giant planets. Cassini continues its wildly successful mission to Saturn and deployed the first successful lander on a satellite of another world, Saturn's mysterious and cloud covered moon, Titan.
2. Venera 9 (1975)
Despite their many achievements in human spaceflight, the Russians and Soviets have have terrible luck with their interplanetary missions. While their Mars campaign, in particular, was unsuccessful, they had better luck with their Venus probes. With the Venera lander they achieved the first successful landing on another planet. What's even more impressive is that it was on the hellish surface of Venus. The probe sent data for about forty minutes before literally melting under the heat and pressure of Venus's runaway greenhouse effect.
1. Voyager 2 (l. 1977)
In the 1960's, NASA envisioned a "Grand Tour" of the solar system. The planets had literally aligned so that one could sent four probes on trajectories that would allow them to visit all five of the (then) outer planets. While the project was scaled back to only two probes, with Voyager 1 sacrificing a Pluto fly-by to get a better look at Saturn's moon Titan, Voyager 2's journey took it to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and finally Neptune. Not only did Voyager expand our understanding of Jupiter and Saturn but pulled back the curtain on two remote worlds about which we knew little. Voyager 2 is now technically in interstellar space and still sending back data after thirty years in deep space. The Voyager mission is without exaggeration, one of the greatest achievements in human history.
