32 Things Star Trek Taught Me

1. "There are a million things in this universe you can have and a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are." ("Charlie X")

2. "Morals are for men, not Gods." ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

3. "We all have our darker side. We need it! It's half of what we are. It's not ugly...it's human." ("The Enemy Within")

4. "The sound of male ego. You travel half way across the galaxy and it's still the same song." ("Mudd's Women")

5. "Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a woman always remains a woman." ("The Conscience of the King")

6. "War is never imperative." ("Balance of Terror")

7. "The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." ("Shore Leave")

8."Life and death are seldom logical." ("The Galileo Seven")

9. "Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But, it may have a goal." ("The Alternative Factor")

10. "Freedom is never a gift: it has to be earned." ("Return of the Archons")

11."If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. ("This Side of Paradise")

12. "A lie is a poor way to say hello." ("City on the Edge of Forever")

13. "You may find that having is not nearly so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." ("Amok Time")

14. "In every revolution there's one man with a vision." ("Mirror, Mirror")

15. "Vulcans never bluff." ("The Doomsday Machine")

16. "Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad..." ("I, Mudd")

17. "The idea of male and female are universal constants..." ("Metamorphosis")

18. "There's an old, old saying on earth, Mr. Sulu: "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." ("Friday's Child")

19. "Everyone feeds on death, even vegetarians." ("Wolf in the Fold")

20. "Too much of anything -- even love -- is not necessarily a good thing." ("The Trouble with Tribbles"")

21. "They used to say if mankind could fly, he'd have wings, but he did fly. He discovered he had to." ("Return to Tomorrow")

22. "Without followers, evil cannot spread." ("And the Children Shall Lead")

23. "Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality." ("Spectre of the Gun")

24. "Only a fool fights in a burning house." ("Day of the Dove")

25. "The release of emotion is what keeps us healthy. Emotionally healthy." ("Plato's Stepchildren")

26. "We must acknowledge – once and for all – that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis." ("Mark of Gideon")

27. "Herbert was a minor official, notorious for his rigid and limited patterns of thought." ("The Way to Eden")

28. "We all create God in our own image." ("The Motion Picture")

29. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one." ("The Wrath of Khan")

30. "The needs of the one... outweigh the needs of the many." ("The Search for Spock")

31. "Maybe he's [God] not out there, Bones. Maybe he's right here. The human heart." ("The Final Frontier")

32. "Logic is the beginning of wisdom...not the end." ("The Undiscovered Country")

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun, and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man... where no one has gone before."

-Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) passes the torch, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

CULT TV FLASHBACK #73: Space:1999: "Dragon's Domain" (1975)

In my "Space Vampire" post from Sunday, I noted how that 1980 episode of Buck Rogers featuring a "Vorvon" was likely one of the scariest things I saw on prime-time TV in my youth.

Well, I ruminated on that thought for a while after re-reading the post and realized there was at least one other notable contender for that particular title: the eerie episode of Space:1999 (1975-1977) entitled "Dragon's Domain." So today, I wanted to highlight here on the blog that other memorable (and scarring...) space "horror" from my childhood.

In so many ways, this remarkable episode of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson sci-fi spectacular (written by Christopher Penfold) is a direct precursor to 1979's Alien (and some shots even foreshadow the opening moments of Aliens [1986] with the Narcissus shuttle). The important thing, however, is that the installment remains incredibly horrific even today. I guarantee you, if you watch it in the dark you'll be creeped out.

Although "Dragon's Domain" was the penultimate episode produced for Space:1999's Year One, by some quirk of syndication, my local station -- WPIX in New York -- actually aired it as the second episode of twenty-four. In some senses that's how I'll always remember it: I tuned in to Space:1999 the second time it was ever broadcast in my area and got the shit scared out of me. I was five years old.

"Dragon's Domain" is an episode recounted by Moonbase Alpha's chief medical officer, Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain). She reports in voice-over narration (a storytelling device that would become a regular feature in Year Two...) that her tale occurs on the errant moon's "877th" day wandering in deep space, when the lost natural satellite is "between galaxies" and "three months eagle's flight time from the nearest solar system." It was during this span that one astronaut, Tony Cellini (Gianno Garko) began to feel convinced that "he was closing for a second time" on his "mortal enemy."

In flashbacks, the episode further reveals the details of Tony's first encounter with this unusual nemesis. In years past, he led a (doomed...) space mission to a newly discovered planet named Ultra, on the fringes of the solar system. Upon nearing the planet, Tony and his crew pinpointed several unexpected metallic contacts at one orbital reference point. These turned out to be ancient but highly advanced derelict and alien spaceships trapped in a cosmic graveyard. After docking with one vessel, Tony and his crew opened an airlock and encountered a flurry of "wind, noise," and "light."

Then something much, much worse appeared aboard their vessel: a cyclopean, tentacled alien creature; one which didn't register at all on their instruments. This monstrous, screeching thing materialized on the Ultra Probe and killed Tony's three crew members, first by hypnotizing them and then by dragging them into its grotesque, orange-hued gullet and rapidly devouring them. After eating the astronauts alive, the monster then quickly regurgitated their steaming, dessicated skeletons. This macabre image -- of steaming, skeletal astronaut corpses sliding across a pristine spaceship floor -- is one that I have never in all my years forgotten.

Back in the present, Tony is convinced the monster of Ultra is again nearby, and when that Sargasso Sea in Space re-appears, he steals an Eagle to face the dragon. Koenig pursues Cellini, but Tony suffers the same gruesome fate as his shipmates. Koenig ends the nightmare by planting a hatchet in the alien's glowing white eye. The thing just fades away to nothingness, the light in its eye dimming ever so slowly. Afterwards, a stunned Helena remains concerned: "According to our criteria, it was never really alive," she notes in her voice-over, "...so how could we be sure it was dead?"

On a recent re-watching of this episode, I found that "Dragon's Domain" holds up remarkable well. My friend, the late Johnny Byrne served as script consultant for Year One and once told me that viewers should consider Space:1999 not in terms of a tale necessarily concerning the technological future (like for example, Star Trek), but rather as an ancient "origin myth" for a displaced people, the Alphans, replete with inexplicable happenings, divine intervention, and strange lore. You can clearly detect that conceit playing out in "Dragon's Domain."

In the episode's coda, for instance, Helena notes that if the Alphans are to find a new home on another world, they'll require a "new mythology," and that the story of Tony Cellini and the monster will ultimately become part of that foundation. Helena furthermore compares the events of "Dragon's Domain" explicitly to the mythological (and religious) story of St. George and the Dragon.

Given this leitmotif, much of "Dragon's Domain" involves disparate elements found in our collective mythology and literature. Tony Cellini is the man obsessed with a monster, not entirely unlike Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851). Like Ahab, Cellini has faced the monster before, been injured by it, and is itching to face it again. The second encounter -- also like Ahab's final encounter with the white whale -- is one that neither character survives.

Cellini's long battle for survival on the command module of the Ultra Probe after escaping his original battle with the monster, also seems reflective of Moby Dick, in an Ishmael-ish "And I alone survived to tell thee..." sort of way. There are resonances of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea here as well, with the "monster" serving the same function as the giant squid in that classic. In both cases, heroes battle the tentacled beast with a hatchet. Why, there's even a little touch of Robinson Crusoe (1719) here, in Cellini's long, lonely trip home (to Earth)!

The creature itself could be a beast straight out of H.P. Lovecraft by way of Homer's The Odyssey (which also featured a cyclops...). The monster of "Dragon's Domain" is a mysterious, hideous thing, an ancient killer -- an Old One -- that ensnares aliens of all races in a trap that resembles a "spider's web" (in Victor Bergman's words). It can't be quantified by our science, and it seems to breach our reality by transporting in and out of it by will. The creepy thing about it is indeed the very thing upon which Helena hinges in the finale: we don't know where it originated, what it is, or anything about it's life-cycle...

Watching "Dragon's Domain" this time, around with Johnny's description of the series as a futuristic "origin tale" and Penfold's idea of a "new mythology" in mind, I detected how the episode stresses the classical nature of its hero, Cellini. He is described in the teleplay as a "poet," "a renaissance man" and an "all-rounder" at various points, and his quarters on Alpha are a testament to Cellini's appreciation of the past and man's heroic endeavors. He keeps ceremonial axes on his walls, for example, along with an artistic illustration of an elephant herd on a grassy plain.

These images create the impression of a man who is a throwback in the antiseptic world imagined by Space:1999, but also an authentic hero, the equivalent of a modern knight (an astronaut) who could conceivably slay a dragon. I love the final image of the episode's teaser: an ancient ceremonial tomahawk blade buried deep in the controls of one of Alpha's ubiquitous comm-posts. This is a purposeful conjunction of the more "colorful" (literary and mythic) past with the futuristic, minimalist, ultra-realistic world of the moon base.

The battle between the real and the mythic repeats again and again in this episode. Commissioner Dixon, Cellini's superior on Earth, is grounded in the former, lamenting the failure of the Ultra Probe mission. "The reality of space adventuring is that it's terribly expensive," he says, deciding to cast blame on Tony to avoid a PR disaster.

By contrast, Cellini argues the side of belief, of lore. "I want all of you to throw out the criteria by which you judge what's real. You have to abandon reason. You must believe that I...have stood face-to-face with the dragon." As man goes into space, the episode seems to tell us, we must be prepared to open our mind to extreme possibilities, to crib a phrase from The X-Files. Here -- in space...there be dragons.

If you remember the specifics of the story of St. George and the Dragon, St. George saved an imperiled town from the monster, but in doing so, made the citizens promise to convert to Christianity (which they ultimately did). In "Dragon's Domain," Cellini also makes "true believers" or converts out of the skeptical Helena, uncertain Victor and Koenig himself. No, he doesn't make them explicitly Christians...but he makes them all believe in "belief" itself, in a world of monsters and dragons and myth. That's the subject of Koenig and Helena's final dialogue.

I remember reading The New York Times review of "Dragon's Domain" and Space:1999. The paper's TV critic, John Leonard. wrote the following: "It [1999] has what no other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had - good stories and good special effects. The test of good science fiction is its ability to imagine alien life...A recent Space:1999 ["Dragon's Domain"] not only presented a persuasive alien-like form, but played with it lightly...Nice stuff."

Nice stuff? Or the very stuff nightmares are made of, in this case.

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 72: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: "Space Vampire" (1980)

When I was eleven years old, the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 - 1981) episode about a monster called a "Vorvon," was probably the scariest thing I had yet seen on network television.

That episode, titled simply "Space Vampire," aired on January 3, 1980 on NBC, and the Kathleen Barnes and David Wise teleplay concerned Captain Buck Rogers' (Gil Gerard) chilling encounter on Theta Space Station with a cosmic Nosferatu or Un-Dead, a soul stealer known as a "Vorvon."

Although Buck Rogers might rightly be accused of exploiting the popularity of Dracula in the pop culture in 1979 -- a year which saw the release of John Badham's Dracula, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu and even Love at First Bite -- the "Space Vampire" episode of the first season nonetheless remains one of the series highlights: unnervingly creepy, uncharacteristically somber, and wholly dread-filled. This is true even if by adult standards we today judge the program to border on camp.

However, I watched the episode again recently with a friend's ten year old son and it thoroughly freaked him out. So there's definitely something frightening there; at least to impressionable young minds.

In "Space Vampire" a "space age vampire stalks a lonely space station," according to the teaser, and that summary pretty much nails the whole story. Buck and Wilma drop off Twiki for repairs at Theta Station but instead of getting away for their vacation on Genesia, they witness a starship (the Gemonese Freighter from Battlestar Galactica actually...) plunge through Stargate Nine and collide with the station.

The inner atmosphere of Theta is contaminated, and the logs of the derelict -- the I.S. Demeter -- suggest the crew and passengers were suffering from hallucinations and "mental deterioration" brought on by the Denebian virus EL7.

After the station's Dr Ecbar (Lincoln Kilpatrick) reveals to Buck that the crew of Demeter is not dead, but rather drained of "spirit," Buck suspects a being, not a disease, is the culprit.

He's right: The evil Vorvon (Nicholas Hormann) creates undead minions out of the station crew (who appear replete with two discolorations on their neck...). He then prepares to make the uncharacteristically terrified Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) his immortal bride.

One aspect of "Space Vampire" I rather enjoy is the deliberate homage to the epistolary nature of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. As you'll recall, the literary Dracula was crafted in the form of various collected letters and communiques. The whole story was conjured through the filter of newspaper clippings, Mina's Diary, Seward's phonograph recordings, and Jonathan Harker's journal.

For all its disco-decade glitz, cheap sets and callow characterization, Buck Rogers actually pinpoints a decent "space age" corollary to Stoker's literary approach, permitting the stalwart Buck to assemble the story (and history) of the Vorvon from various 25th century media sources, though all visual in nature: the captain's log from the Demeter, the servo drone recordings of a Demeter passenger (and bounty hunter) from "New London" named Helson (Van Helsing), and even helpful communiques from Dr. Huer and Dr. Theopolis on Earth.

The other parallels to Dracula are much more obvious. The only thing to ward off the Vorvon is called an "ancient power lock," the "25th century equivalent of a cross," in Buck's own words.

What's funny (and silly...) about this "ancient power lock" is that it is really just Commander Adama's collar medallion from Battlestar Galactica. And ironically, Adama was played by Lorne Greene, a man who had recently portrayed Dracula himself in an episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries in 1977! Yep, it's Six Degrees of Dracula...

The Vorvon can also mesmerize his victims and change forms at will, another recognizable trait. Just as Dracula could turn to mist, wolf, bat or other form, the Vorvon here often takes the shape of a red, pulsating energy blob that hovers overhead. This non-corporeal form gives the makers of the episode license to provide some examples of crimson-hued, P.O.V. shots. Call it "Vorvon Vision," all rendered from dramatic and doom-laden high-angles as Wilma is stalked by the Monster.

Obviously, the name of the derelict ship, the Demeter, itself originates from Stoker's novel and serves the same purpose in both texts: carrying the "disease" (Dracula or Vorvon) to civilization.

Even the uni-browed, long-fingered physical appearance of the Vorvon is similar to Stoker's written description of the vampire.

From almost a cinema of vampire cinema, the episode appropriates the idea that the Vorvon cannot survive in sunlight, and in an interesting final twist, Buck destroys the soul sucker by flying it into a star itself.

There are actually some pretty solid horror compositions in this episode too...to my surprise. A slow pan marks the Vorvon's first appearance as a humanoid. We pan across the Theta Station Lounge (where an arcade video game unit, circa 1979 is plainly visible...) and see Buck ordering drinks at the bar. When the camera pans back (all in one shot), the Vorvon is suddenly seated at a previously empty table...staring at Wilma with malevolent eyes.

There's also a great shot (pictured above), in which the undead Dr. Ecbar is struck down and collapses directly in front of a flashlight, his ghoulish pallor suddenly illuminated in the relative darkness. Together, a few clever compositions like these examples economically enhance Wilma's stated fear of "death as a tangible presence."

And finally, you haven't truly lived until you've seen Erin Gray -- in a skin-tight spandex cat-suit -- playing the soulless, avaricious, seductive bride of the Vorvon. But seriously, what makes "Space Vampire" resonate, I think, is Wilma's pervasive fear of the Vorvon, and the fact that nobody seems to believe that it is hunting her. Wilma just knows she can't escape it...and she almost doesn't. There's a feeling of powerless here; and a sweeping inevitability in the narrative. It may not be Shakespeare -- or Stoker -- but it works.

"Space Vampire" may not be the best episode of Buck Rogers (I'm rather fond of the two-parter called "The Plot to Kill a City"), but it is certainly the single installment that most people of my generation seem to remember most fondly.

Yep, it definitely made an impression. For me, this 1980 Buck Rogers episode played a crucial role in my youthful education. It was shortly after seeing "Space Vampire" that I sought out Bram Stoker's novel and read it (with shivers...) for the very first time; not to mention the time period in which I first discovered the Marvel Dracula comic, Tomb of Dracula...

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Jaws (1975)

"Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks. And that's all. Now, why don't you take a long, close look at this sign...those proportions are correct."

-Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) describes the nature of the enemy to a wavering politician in Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975).

I was in kindergarten in 1975, and I'll never forget that one of my best friends came to school that Halloween costumed as the great white shark from Jaws (1975). I don't remember what I was wearing for the holiday, but I remember that shark costume plain as day.

Jaws was also a subject of discussion at Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house in Verona, N.J., that year, especially with my aunt Vivian (a horror movie devotee...). I even owned a goofy little Jaws-themed paperback joke book (dopey shark joke after dopey shark joke...) and a Jaws game from Ideal (in which you could fish the blue plastic contents out of the great white shark's stomach before his fanged jaws snapped shut on your hand.)

As someone who lived through that time and soaked it all up, I can tell you with certainty that the Steven Spielberg film represented an absolute national sensation from the movie theaters to book stores, to toy shelves, to playgrounds. My parents didn't let me see the movie at that point (a good thing, I estimate...), but many of my friends in kindergarten did see it (and heck, it was rated PG!).

Jaws was a blockbuster in 1975, all right (actually, it supplanted The Exorcist as the highest grossing film of all time...), but it's also a movie that has survived the test of time. Today, you can find Jaws on AFI's list of the greatest American films in history, for instance. It has been termed "culturally significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress and preserved in the National Film Registry. Spielberg's horror epic even swims in the waters of the top 250 movies at the IMDB. In terms of the pop culture, Jaws has inspired sequels, rip-offs, amusement park rides, video games, and heavily influenced the public's perception of sharks.

Amazingly, Jaws remains as potent and frightening a film today -- some thirty-four years after its theatrical release -- and accordingly, I want to look at some of the reasons why the film remains so scary and so effective. But first, a brief refresher on the film's narrative.

Based on the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, Jaws depicts the story of a small island community, a "summer town" called Amity, as it is bedeviled by the arrival of a rogue great white shark in its silver waters. Under pressure from the concerned town elders because the lucrative July 4th weekend is imperiled, Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) covers-up the first shark attack and allows Amity's beaches to remain open.

After a second shark attack claims the life of a child, Alex Kintner, Brody faces the animosity of the very citizens he is sworn to protect. Eventually, Brody, a young marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and a colorful local fisherman, Quint (Robert Shaw) team up aboard the ship Orca to battle the shark at sea. Unfortunately for these heroic men, the great white shark proves resourceful, powerful, smart...and committed to their destruction.

And What Did you Say The Name of This Shark Is?

Jaws derives much of its terror from what you might half-jokingly term "information overload." Although the great white shark remains hidden beneath the waves for most of the film -- unseen but imagined -- Steven Spielberg fills in that visual gap (and the viewer's imagination) with a plethora of facts and figures about this ancient, deadly predator.

Legendarily, the life-size mechanical model of the shark (named Bruce) malfunctioned repeatedly during production of the film, a reality which forced Spielberg to hide the creature from the camera for much of the time. Yet this problem actually worked out in the film's best interest. Because for much of the first two acts, unrelenting tension builds as a stream of data about the "monster" washes over us. It's the education of Martin Brody, and the education of Jaws' audience.

After a close-up shot of a typewriter clacking out the words "SHARK ATTACK (all caps), images, illustrations and descriptions of the shark start to hurtle across the screen in ever increasing numbers. Chief Brody reads from a book that shows a mythological-style rendering of a shark as a boat-destroying, ferocious sea monster.

Another schematic in the same scene reveals a graph of shark "radar," the fashion by which the shark senses a "distressed" fish (the prey...) far away in the water.

Additional photos in the book -- and shown full-screen by Spielberg -- depict the damage a shark can inflict: victims of shark bites both living and dead. These are not photos made up for the film, incidentally, but authentic photographs of real-life shark attack victims.

Why, there's even a "gallows" humor drawing of a shark (with a human inside its giant maw...) drawn by Quint at one point, a "cartoon" version of our learning.

Taken together, these various images cover all aspects of shark-dom: from reputation and lore to ability, to their impact on soft human flesh, to the macabre and ghastly.

The information about sharks also comes to Brody (the audience surrogate) in other ways, through both complementary pieces of his heroic triumvirate, Hooper and Quint, respectively. The young, enthusiastic, secular Hooper first becomes conveyor of data in his capacity as a scientist.

Hooper arrives in Amity and promptly performs an autopsy on shark attack victim Chrissie Watkins. He records the examination aloud, into a tape recorder mic (while Brody listens). Hooper's vocal survey of the extensive wounds on the corpse permits the audience to learn precisely what occurred when this girl was attacked and partially devoured by a great white shark. Hooper speaks in clinical, scientific terms of something utterly grotesque: "The torso has been severed in mid-thorax; there are no major organs remaining...right arm has been severed above the elbow with massive tissue loss in the upper musculature... partially denuded bone remaining..."

As Brody's science teacher of sorts, Hooper later leads the chief through a disgusting (and wet...) dissection of a dead tiger shark (one captured and thought to be the Amity offender). Again, Hooper educates not just Brody; he educates the audience about a shark's eating habits and patterns. All these facts -- like those presented by illustrations in books -- register powerfully with the viewer and we begin to understand what kind of "monster" these men face.

Later, aboard the Orca, Quint completes Brody's learning curve about sharks with the final piece of the equation: first-hand experience. Quint recounts, in a captivating sequence, how he served aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis in 1945. How the ship was sunk (after delivering the Hiroshima bomb), and how 1100 American sailors found themselves in shark-infested water for days on end.

Over a thousand sailors went into the water and only approximately three-hundred came out.

As Quint relates: "the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces."

This testimony about an eyewitness account is not the only "history" lesson for Brody, either. Brief reference is also made in the film to the real-life "Jersey man-eater" incident of July 1 - July 12, 1916, in which four summer swimmers were attacked by a shark on the New Jersey coast.

This "information overload" concerning sharks -- from mythology and scientific facts to history and nightmarish first-person testimony -- builds up the threat of the film's villain to an extreme level, while the actual beast remains silent, unseen. When the shark does wage its final attack, the audience has been rigorously prepared and it feels frightened almost reflexively. Spielberg's greatest asset here is that he has created, from scratch, an educated audience; one who fully appreciates the threat of the great white shark. A smart audience is a prepared audience. And a prepared audience is a worried one. We also become invested in Brody as our lead because we learn, alongside him, all these things. When he beats the shark, we feel as if we've been a part of the victory.

Another clever bit here: after all the "education" and "knowledge" and "information," Spielberg harks back to the mythological aspect of sea monsters, hinting that this is no ordinary shark, but a real survivor -- a monster -- and possibly even supernatural in nature (like Michael Myers from Halloween).

Consider that this sea dragon arrives in Amity (and comes for Quint?) thirty years to the day of the Indianapolis incident (which occurred June 30, 1945). Given this anniversary, one must consider the idea that the shark could be more than mere animal. It could, in fact, be some kind of supernatural angel of death.

Thematically, the shark could also serve as a Freudian symptom of guilt repressed in the American psyche. The shark attack on Indianapolis occurred thirty years earlier, at the end of World War II, when a devastating weapon was deployed by the United states.

Now, in 1975, this shark arrives on the home front just scant months after the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam War (April 30, 1975) -- think of the images of American helicopters dropped off aircraft carriers into the sea. This shark nearly kills a young man, Hooper, who would have likely been the same age as Quint when he served in the navy during World War II.

Does the shark represent some form of natural blow back against American foreign policy overseas? I would say this is over-reach, a far-fetched notion if not for the fact that the shark's assault on the white-picket fences of Amity strikes us right where it hurts: in the wallet; devastating the economy. It isn't just a few people who are made to suffer, but everyone in the community. And that leads us directly to an understanding of the context behind Jaws.

It Was Only Local Jurisdiction

President Nixon resigned from the White House on August 9, 1974...scarcely a year before the release of Jaws.

He did so because he faced Impeachment and removal from office in the Watergate scandal, a benign-sounding umbrella for a plethora of crimes that included breaking-and-entering, political espionage, illegal wire-tapping, and money laundering.

It was clear to the American people, who had watched the Watergate hearings and investigations on television for years, that Nixon and his lackeys had broken the law, to the detriment of the public covenant. It was a breach of the sacred trust, and a collapse of one pillar of American nationalism: faith in government.

In the small town of Amity in Jaws, the Watergate scandal is played out in microcosm. Chief Brody conspires with the town medical examiner, at the behest of Larry Vaughn, the mayor, to "hide" the truth about the shark attack that claimed the life of young Chrissie. Another child dies because of this lie. We are thus treated to scenes of Brody and the town officials hounded by the press (represented by Peter Benchley...), much as Nixon felt hounded by Woodward and Bernstein and the rest. We are thus treating to a town council meeting which plays like a congressional Watergate hearing writ small, with a row of politicians at a long time before an angry crowd, the man in charge banging the gavel helplessly.

These were images that had immediate and powerful resonance at the time of Jaws.

If you combine the "keep the beaches open" conspiracy with the Indianapolis story (a story, essentially, of an impotent, abandoned military) what you get in Jaws is a story about America's 1970s "crisis of confidence," to adopt a phrase from ex-president Jimmy Carter.

Following Watergate, following Vietnam, there was no faith in elected leaders, and Jaws mirrors that reality with an unforgiving depiction of craven politicians and bureaucrats. The cure is also provided, however: the heroism of the individual; the old legend of the cowboy who rides into town and seeks justice. Brody is clearly that figure here: an outsider in the corrupt town of Amity (he's from the NYPD); and the man who rides out onto the sea to face Amity's enemy head on, despite his own fear of the sea and "drowning." Yes Brody was involved in the cover-up, but Americans don't like their heroes too neat. Brody must have a little blood on his hands so that his story of heroism is also one of redemption.

Why is Jaws so enduring and appealing? Simple answer: it's positively archetypal in its presentation of both the monster -- a sea-going dragon ascribed supernatural power -- and it's hero: an everyman who challenges city hall and saves the townsfolk. This hero is ably supported by energetic youth and up-to-date science (Hooper), and also wisdom and experience in the form of the veteran Quint. Not coincidentally, many of the political problems that Jaws deals with (a lost war; a presidential scandal) are things we still see on our landscape today. A president who broke the Geneva Conventions. Another foreign war botched. An economy seemingly hanging on by a thread. In fact, Jaws seems pretty much of the moment, if you take out the 1970s fashions.

You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

You can't truly have an adequate discussion of Jaws without some mention of film technique. The film's first scene exemplifies Spielberg's intelligent, visual approach to the thrilling material.

This introduction to the world of Jaws -- which features a teenager going out for a swim in the ocean and getting the surprise of her life - proves pitch perfect both in orchestration and effect. Hyperbole aside, can you think of a better (or more famous) horror movie prologue than the one featured here?

The film begins under the sea as Spielberg's camera adopts the P.O.V. of the shark itself. We cling to the bottom of the ocean, just skirting it as we move inland. Then, we cut to the beach, and a long, lackadaisical establishing pan across a typical teenage party. Young people are smoking weed, drinking, canoodling...doing what young people do on summer nights, and Spielberg's choice of shot captures that vibe.

When one of the group -- the blond-haired seventies goddess named Chrissie -- gets up to leave the bunch, Spielberg cuts abruptly to a high angle (from a few feet away); a view that we understand signifies doom and danger, and which serves to distance us just a little from the individuals on-screen.

With a horny (but drunk...) companion in tow, Chrissie rapidly disrobes for a night-time dip in the sea, and Spielberg cuts to an angle far below her, from the bottom of the ocean looking up. We see Chrissie's beautiful nude form cutting the surface above, and the first thing you might think of is another monster movie, Jack Arnold's Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954). Remember how the creature there spied lovely Julie Adams in the water...even stopping to dance with her (without her knowledge) in the murky lagoon?

Well, that was an image, perhaps, out of a more romantic age. In this case, the swimmer is nude, not garbed, and contact with the monster is quick and fatal, not the beginning of any sort of "relationship." In a horrifying close-shot, we see Chrissie break the surface, as something unseen but immensely powerful tugs at her from below. Once. Then again. After an instant, you realize the shark is actually eating her...ripping through her legs and torso. She begs God for help, but as you might expect in the secular 1970s, there is no help for her.

The extremely unnerving aspect of Spielberg's execution is that recognition of the shark's attack dawns on the audience as the same time it dawns on Chrissie. She doesn't even realize a leg is gone, at first. It's horrifying, but -- in the best tradition of the genre -- this scene is also oddly beautiful. The gorgeous sea; the lovely human form. The night-time lighting.

Everything about this moment should be romantic and wonderful, but isn't. Again, you can detect how Spielberg is taking the malaise days mood of the nation to generate his aura of terror; his overturning of the traditional order. Just as our belief in ourselves as a "good" and powerful nation was overturned by Vietnam and Watergate.

The more puritanical or conservative among us will also recognize this inaugural scene of Jaws as being an early corollary of the "vice precedes slice and dice" dynamic of many a slasher or Friday the 13th film. A young couple, eager to have pre-marital sex (after smoking weed, no less...) faces a surprise "monster" in a foreign realm. Here not in the woods of Crystal Lake, but in a sea of secrets and monsters. It's also no coincidence, I believe, that the first victim in the film is a gorgeous, athletic blond with a perfect figure. Chrissie is the American Ideal of Beauty...torn asunder and devoured before the movie proper has even begun. If that image doesn't unsettle you, nothing will.

I wrote in my book, Horror Films of the 1970s (McFarland; 2002), that, ultimately the characteristics that make a film great go far beyond any rudimentary combination of acting, photography, editing and music. It's a magic equation that some films get right and some don't. Jaws is a classic, I believe, because it educates the viewer about the central diabolical threat and then surprises the viewer by going a step further and hinting that the great white shark is no mere animal, but actually an ancient, malovelent force. The film also brilliantly reflects the issues of the age in which it was created. And finally, Jaws updates the archetypes of good and evil that generations of Americans have grown up recounting, even though it does so with a distinctly disco decade twist. The Hooper-Brody-Quint troika is iconic too, and I love the male-bonding aspects of the film, with "modern" men like Brody and Hooper learning, eventually, to fall in love, after a fashion, with the inappropriate, Quint...warts and all.

Finally, you should never underestimate that Jaws depends on imagination and mystery. It is set on the sea, a murky realm of the unknown where the shark boasts the home field davantage. Meanwhile, man is awkward and endangered there. We can't see the shark...but he can see us. With those black, devil eyes. When you suddenly realize that all that's standing between Brody and those black eyes and jaws is a thin layer of wood (the Orca); when you think about all the information we've been given about great whites and their deadly qualities, you'll agree reflexively - instinctively -- with the good chief's prognosis.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

Think or Be Eaten: Millennium Season 2

The second part of my four part interview with Vyzygoth at Think or Be Beaten regarding the brilliant 1990s Chris Carter series Millennium, is now posted online.

This time, Vyz and I talk specifically about the changes in the series' second season, including the opening up of the stories, the additions to the Group's mythology, and the changes in characters from the first season. We look at some 1990s contexts informing episodes, specific episodes such as "Somehow Satan Got Me," and more. Take a listen here. Hope you enjoy it!