A ramble about Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Alien.

I'm a big Star Wars fan. I remember queuing at the Chelmsford Cinema on a wet day in 1977 to see the first one. I wanted to see it because it had Peter Cushing in it and also because I love science-fiction. As a young lad with an over-active imagination the film was a trans-formative experience.

Up until that point there wasn't that much science-fiction available to watch. There was Doctor Who, repeats of Star Trek (the original series), a few films like 2001 and Forbidden Planet but not much else. This was before videos so you had to rely on repeats on the television. They didn't repeat Doctor Who so if you missed an episode or two it stayed missed.

Of the four mentioned 2001 had the best effects (and the most realistic). Forbidden Planet was well-done for it's time. I think it still stands up today. Doctor Who and Star Trek suffered from small budgets and limited time. Captain Kirk would often beam to planets with obvious polystyrene rocks and purple skies. The Doctor would often materialise in a quarry near Guildford which doubled as an alien world. None of this detracted from the adventure and fun of watching these programmes.

Then Star Wars came out and changed the whole landscape of science-fiction. The science-fiction universe suddenly became bigger, by which I mean the universe that particular film felt like it was set in a large universe filled with life. Doctor Who and Star Trek also inhabit large universes full of friends and foes, yet the episodes themselves felt almost claustrophobic in comparison. This isn't a complaint by the way and it doesn't detract from those programmes but maybe says more about the real-world limits they worked under.

Then in 1979 Alien came out and the science-fiction cinema world changed again. It was an old-fashioned claustrophobic horror trope only set on a spaceship. It wasn't unique in the setting. Doctor Who had been doing that for years, especially under the aegis of producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes when Tom Baker's Doctor faced more Gothic horror elements, and there had certainly been plenty of B-movies in the past that had combined horror and science-fiction, and in Britain there had been Quatermass.

The Alien franchise has seen eight movies set in that universe (including the two Alien/Predator crossovers) with another two being planned.

We had to wait three years for the next Star Wars film and when it came out it was better than the first. Then three year after The Empire Strikes Back the third and final film was released. It was okay. Not as good as the first two and the final part with the Ewoks was just dreadful. From what I've read Lucas was sick and tired of Star Wars by that stage so that may explain a few creative decisions.

Buoyed by the success of Star Wars the decision to make a new Star Trek was made. At first it was going to be a new TV series but then for whatever reason it was decided to make it as a film. It wasn't a very good film, to be honest. Interesting concepts but dull in execution. But there was sufficient interest in the franchise to continue. It also allowed the creation of a new TV series set decades after the original.

As for Star Wars it was done and finished with. Lucas had said everything he wanted to to say about that universe. When looking at the three films with older (and more cynical) eyes you can see that there not very good. The special effects are good, for their day, but the dialogue is awful and most of the characters are 2-dimensional in the first movie especially. Alec Guinness is famous for hating the movies and finding the script rubbish. Peter Cushing, on the other hand, thought they were fun and he regretted being killed off in the first movie. The story is generic but they are fun to watch and you can lose yourself for a couple of hours in their universe and ignore the weak elements.

In 1989 Doctor Who finished its twenty-six year run on the BBC. In 1996 a TV movie came out with Paul McGann which I didn't think was as bad as some thought but it was merely okay, not great. We'd have to wait another nine years for the TV series to come back. I think the long break was a good thing as the programme had been going downhill for several years with sub-par scripts and an obvious lack of interest from the BBC. Ironically the last season with Sylvester McCoy started to pick up with stronger scripts and interesting concepts underlying that season.

Between 1989 and 2005 Doctor Who continued in book form, first from Virgin Publishing and later BBC Books, and in 1999 Big Finish started producing their audio range with the original cast.

In 1999 Star Wars returned with the prequel trilogy released over six years. I shan't bother going into the whole controversy about them as it is well exercised throughout the Internet. All I will say is I thought they were alright. Nothing special but I did enjoy the worlds Lucas created more than the stories. They do look dated now though and the dialogue was as stilted and awful as ever. There was also the two animated TV series which ran for several years.

Fast forward to the end of 2017 and Doctor Who has been on air for twelve years, Star Trek has been rebooted in the movies and a new TV series has started. Star Wars has started again with two movies so far and one a year promised for the next three years with another trilogy mooted for a later date plus the new live action TV series promised.

And this is my problem. Too much too soon. I know all these shows and films are cash cows and the companies that make them are obviously going to milk them for all their worth but the franchises themselves suffer for it. They're trading on the good names of those franchises to the detriment of those names.

The quality of the franchise always seems to suffer. Alien and Aliens were good movies, different from each other which worked well. But the following films were not good. I know Alien 3 suffered from interference from the studios so the film released wasn't the film the director made. Prometheus was roundly bashed but I actually enjoyed it. It wasn't as good as Alien and had its problems but I thought it was okay. I haven't seen the second one yet.

The original run of Star Trek films went downhill. The Wrath of Khan was a good film I thought and The Search for Spock was good. But after that they became tired pretty quickly. The Next Generation films I always found dull. When it was rebooted by JJ Abrams I thought "give them a chance". The first one was fun and there seemed to be a chemistry between the cast members that worked, for me. The second one was fine. The third one was weaker, I thought, even though Simon Pegg co-wrote it. Still fun but not as good.

When Doctor Who came back in 2005 it was a fun ride. But since the Moffat era it's been steadily declining in the quality of the scripts and audience figures. I must admit to being hard pressed to remember ninety percent of the programmes in the last seven or eight years. One of the problems is they try packing too much into a short run time and they often feel muddled and unresolved. Also Moffat tries desperately to prove he's a clever writer at the expense of the story. At the moment Doctor Who is having it's 1980s moment again. I may write a separate blog about this.

And then we have Star Wars. A bunch of us went to watch The Force Awakens at the cinema in Haverhill. Afterwards the general consensus was "meh". It was well made. The special effects were good. But it didn't feel particularly satisfying. And no, I didn't go in with preconceived notions about what to expect. We didn't find it that good a movie. Not bad but just not good.

We watched Rogue One and actually enjoyed it. Which surprised us. Maybe because it was a stand alone film helped. Maybe it was the ending. I don't know. Perhaps it wasn't trying to be anything other than what it is: a romp.

I've seen stuff about the next stand alone film, Solo, and I must admit I'm not interested. I just don't care about a young Han Solo. I watched a trailer for The Last Jedi and thought, who cares? I've lost my enthusiasm for them. I think it maybe because there's just been a glut of Star Wars stuff over the last few years that I've grown tired of the visual representations of them.

I am reading a Star Wars book at the moment. Set not long after the destruction of the first Death Star following Han Solo and Chewbacca on a mission. It's not a bad book. It's odd that I'm enjoying the literary version of the Star Wars universe more than the film versions.

I'm wondering to myself if I'm just being an old dinosaur, preferring the older versions of these franchises over the newer. Possibly. They all had a massive impact on me when I was young. But I also wonder if there's something missing from the newer ones.

The original Star Trek used to have some interesting philosophical concepts it explored in a subtle way. The Next Generation was a bit more ham-fisted about it but still mostly enjoyable and well done. Voyager was just awful. I didn't like Voyager and think the stories are just not very good. Captain Janeway could have been a far more interesting character. It was too preachy. I prefer subtle. Preachy doesn't make a good story.

Classic Doctor Who would often be about political or real-world issues yet was also subtle about how it did it. Malcolm Hulke, for instance, who wrote for the second and third Doctors, was a Communist for a while and very left-wing. He was also a good enough writer that the messages he wanted to convey also made for an exciting story which worked on many levels. Modern Doctor Who is about a subtle as a sledghammer and the political and social messages the writers want to tell seem to be at the expense of the story.

Alien doesn't seem to have any obvious subtext apart from wanting to tell a good horror story and Dan O'Bannon achieved this, although some commentators have stated that it's about rape. Maybe it is, maybe it's not.

Star Wars is obvious. Good versus bad. There may be subtexts to it which were relevant to the US when it was made but not being an American I'm not seeing them. It always felt like what you see is what you get. They were fun and exciting and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want an enjoyable experience without having to think about things. Watch 2001 for that.

I do wonder what the future holds for these franchises. I think that they need a good long break before starting them again. I know this is unlikely to happen because there's too much money to be made from them at the moment but I think it would be better to finish them whilst they still have the goodwill of the audience (the Alien franchise doesn't seem to have the goodwill of the audience though that's not stopping them).