Bat-a-palooza: Sci Tech # 5: Batman Edition

"Fishing in the backwaters of popular culture, it [TV] has achieved its first indigenous artistic triumph - it has upgraded the comics.  Historians of culture in the future may well say that television's early attempts at art were smaller-than-life dramas of Chayefsky, Nash, Mosel and Foote, but that the medium attained full stature as an art form with the larger-than-life comic, Batman."

- Robert Lewis Shayon. Saturday Review: "All the Way to the Bank." Saturday Review, February 12, 1966, page 46.

Today, many comic-book and Batman fans casually dismiss the 1966 - 1968 TV series starring Adam West as a "camp" atrocity, but the quotation above from Saturday Review reminds us that the series wasn't always considered in such a negative light.  

On the contrary, many critics and audiences of the mid-1960s considered the series a legitimate and even audacious form of avant-garde "pop art."   

No one had ever seen anything like it.  

For better or worse, Batman might even be considered television's first legitimately post-modern effort: a reversal and rejection of well-established modernism in terms of narrative point of view and attack.

True, our cultural taste in terms of superheroes has changed radically in 2012, as proven by Christopher Nolan's opposite -- but immensely popular -- smaller-than-life approach to the Caped Crusader and his universe.   Before someone gets angry with me for writing that Nolan's approach is smaller than life, consider for a moment his meticulous aesthetic.  Everything in Nolan's universe could be real, whether it is the "Nomex" Bat Suit or the experimental military vehicle that becomes the Batmobile.  

In short, Nolan makes the Batman universe intrinsically believable by skewing all the superhero tech to contemporary reality as we understand and perceive it.  This is Nolan's modus operandi.

The 1960s series adopted precisely the opposite approach, exaggerating Batman's world -- in terms of color, scope and believability -- to such a degree that humor became inevitable (and desirable).

Whether subjectively you prefer the Nolan approach or the Dozier TV approach, it's nonetheless difficult to deny that the Batman TV series boasted  its own...unique vision.  We might not like or approve of that vision (just as we might not like or approve of Nolan's or Tim Burton's vision), but it's there for the appreciation...or denigration.  As with all works of art, it's incumbent on us to at least consider it on its own terms.

Regarding Bat-Tech, the Batman series deliberately developed two running gags of the visual variety.  

In the first instance, the creators of the series made certain that every single item in the Batcave was assiduously labeled.  Of course, on the surface, this labeling fetish doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  We don't label our computers, laptops, microwave ovens, TV sets or other every day tools.  Yet every item in Batman, no matter how obscure, gets (obsessively-compulsively) labeled.  

Thus, in the Batcave, one may find a "Lighted Lucite Map" of Gotham City, a "Bat Analyzer," "Bat Poles," a "Bat Tape Reader" or other strange devices.  Again, surely Batman and Robin would know and remember which device is which inside their own headquarters and even we, as viewers, quickly come to recognize the Bat Poles and other tech.

But the gag makes us laugh.  The ubiquitous labels grab the attention, and reveal to us something important about this hero.  He's not just square-jawed, he's a very straight-forward thinker.  Everything goes in its proper place, and is obsessively organized.  He's a "rules" guy after all, as we see in his constant lessons to Robin.  In "Ring of Wax," he told Robin he "never gambles" and in The Riddler's False Notion," Batman opined that Robin owed his life to "good dental hygiene."   The labels thus fit into Batman's "character" and represent an example of form reflecting content.

Even funnier, every device in Batman's arsenal gets a "Bat" prefix.  Why not just call Batman's computer a computer, instead of a Bat Computer?  On and on, this joke grows funnier on Batman as the writers really pushed the envelope in terms of Bat-centric imagery.  

Bat Tweezers?  Bat Fly Swatters? Anti-Thermal Bat T-Shirts? Anti-Mesmerizing Bat Reflectors? Bat Springs in Bat Shoes?  These items are mentioned and played absolutely straight, and yet we giggle at them.

The second visual joke featured on the series involves a logo, if you will: the bat.  Every tool, it seems, is shaped like one.  Bat Binoculars. The Batphone in the Batmobile.  The Batarang.  

Again, the audience brushes up against this idea of a hero who is, perhaps unhealthily, obsessed with one image.  Is it really necessary to use a boomerang or telephone shaped like a flying rodent?  

Is this "branding" or self-marketing run amok?

I realize the purists absolutely can't stand these humorous touches, but in a very real sense, Batman the TV series mirrors the Batman comic as it existed in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It's not fair to say that the series isn't faithful to that period in the franchise, only to say that the producers and writers detected a source of humor in how the Caped Crusader was portrayed in the comics, and ruthlessly and effectively capitalized upon it.  

The beauty of the TV approach, as I have always maintained is that children see the program one way (as a straight-forward adventure with great gadgets and colorful heroes, villains and sets) while adults view it on another level all together (as a post-modern, tongue-in-cheek commentary on the superhero/comic-book milieu.)   There's an artistry and maturity to this successful two-track approach, and it accounts for the continued appeal of the series.  But some people will never approve of it because they see the series as making fun of Batman, and thus, by extension, making fun of their affection for the character and his universe.  

Whether labeled or unlabeled, I continue to find the Bat-tech of Batman fascinating as an example of 1960s era "retro future" design.   Computers were huge, colossal things, and visual read-outs never included text you could read...only blinking, winking, gaudy lights that characters could somehow magically interpret.

Once upon a time, we indeed  thought this was indeed how the future might look, and Batman shares this "retro" futuristic approach in common with Lost in Space and certainly Star Trek.  The revolution in miniaturization had not yet occurred, and so these programs evidenced the belief that bigger was always better and more high tech.

It's a shame that Batman is not yet available on DVD or Blu Ray, so we can get a much better and longer  look at the (Not) Dark Knight's array of (carefully labeled...) technical gadgetry.

Sci-Tech #5: Batman Edition

"Fishing in the backwaters of popular culture, it [TV] has achieved its first indigenous artistic triumph - it has upgraded the comics.  Historians of culture in the future may well say that television's early attempts at art were smaller-than-life dramas of Chayefsky, Nash, Mosel and Foote, but that the medium attained full stature as an art form with the larger-than-life comic, Batman."

- Robert Lewis Shayon. Saturday Review: "All the Way to the Bank." Saturday Review, February 12, 1966, page 46.

Today, many comic-book and Batman fans casually dismiss the 1966 - 1968 TV series starring Adam West as a "camp" atrocity, but the quotation above from Saturday Review reminds us that the series wasn't always considered in such a negative light.  

On the contrary, many critics and audiences of the mid-1960s considered the series a legitimate and even audacious form of avant-garde "pop art."   

No one had ever seen anything like it.  

For better or worse, Batman might even be considered television's first legitimately post-modern effort: a reversal and rejection of well-established modernism in terms of narrative point of view and attack.

True, our cultural taste in terms of superheroes has changed radically in 2012, as proven by Christopher Nolan's opposite -- but immensely popular -- smaller-than-life approach to the Caped Crusader and his universe.   Before someone gets angry with me for writing that Nolan's approach is smaller than life, consider for a moment his meticulous aesthetic.  Everything in Nolan's universe could be real, whether it is the "Nomex" Bat Suit or the experimental military vehicle that becomes the Batmobile.  

In short, Nolan makes the Batman universe intrinsically believable by skewing all the superhero tech to contemporary reality as we understand and perceive it.  This is Nolan's modus operandi.

The 1960s series adopted precisely the opposite approach, exaggerating Batman's world -- in terms of color, scope and believability -- to such a degree that humor became inevitable (and desirable).

Whether subjectively you prefer the Nolan approach or the Dozier TV approach, it's nonetheless difficult to deny that the Batman TV series boasted  its own...unique vision.  We might not like or approve of that vision (just as we might not like or approve of Nolan's or Tim Burton's vision), but it's there for the appreciation...or denigration.  As with all works of art, it's incumbent on us to at least consider it on its own terms.

Regarding Bat-Tech, the Batman series deliberately developed two running gags of the visual variety.  

In the first instance, the creators of the series made certain that every single item in the Batcave was assiduously labeled.  Of course, on the surface, this labeling fetish doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  We don't label our computers, laptops, microwave ovens, TV sets or other every day tools.  Yet every item in Batman, no matter how obscure, gets (obsessively-compulsively) labeled.  

Thus, in the Batcave, one may find a "Lighted Lucite Map" of Gotham City, a "Bat Analyzer," "Bat Poles," a "Bat Tape Reader" or other strange devices.  Again, surely Batman and Robin would know and remember which device is which inside their own headquarters and even we, as viewers, quickly come to recognize the Bat Poles and other tech.

But the gag makes us laugh.  The ubiquitous labels grab the attention, and reveal to us something important about this hero.  He's not just square-jawed, he's a very straight-forward thinker.  Everything goes in its proper place, and is obsessively organized.  He's a "rules" guy after all, as we see in his constant lessons to Robin.  In "Ring of Wax," he told Robin he "never gambles" and in The Riddler's False Notion," Batman opined that Robin owed his life to "good dental hygiene."   The labels thus fit into Batman's "character" and represent an example of form reflecting content.

Even funnier, every device in Batman's arsenal gets a "Bat" prefix.  Why not just call Batman's computer a computer, instead of a Bat Computer?  On and on, this joke grows funnier on Batman as the writers really pushed the envelope in terms of Bat-centric imagery.  

Bat Tweezers?  Bat Fly Swatters? Anti-Thermal Bat T-Shirts? Anti-Mesmerizing Bat Reflectors? Bat Springs in Bat Shoes?  These items are mentioned and played absolutely straight, and yet we giggle at them.

The second visual joke featured on the series involves a logo, if you will: the bat.  Every tool, it seems, is shaped like one.  Bat Binoculars. The Batphone in the Batmobile.  The Batarang.  

Again, the audience brushes up against this idea of a hero who is, perhaps unhealthily, obsessed with one image.  Is it really necessary to use a boomerang or telephone shaped like a flying rodent?  

Is this "branding" or self-marketing run amok?

I realize the purists absolutely can't stand these humorous touches, but in a very real sense, Batman the TV series mirrors the Batman comic as it existed in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It's not fair to say that the series isn't faithful to that period in the franchise, only to say that the producers and writers detected a source of humor in how the Caped Crusader was portrayed in the comics, and ruthlessly and effectively capitalized upon it.  

The beauty of the TV approach, as I have always maintained is that children see the program one way (as a straight-forward adventure with great gadgets and colorful heroes, villains and sets) while adults view it on another level all together (as a post-modern, tongue-in-cheek commentary on the superhero/comic-book milieu.)   There's an artistry and maturity to this successful two-track approach, and it accounts for the continued appeal of the series.  But some people will never approve of it because they see the series as making fun of Batman, and thus, by extension, making fun of their affection for the character and his universe.  

Whether labeled or unlabeled, I continue to find the Bat-tech of Batman fascinating as an example of 1960s era "retro future" design.   Computers were huge, colossal things, and visual read-outs never included text you could read...only blinking, winking, gaudy lights that characters could somehow magically interpret.

Once upon a time, we indeed  thought this was indeed how the future might look, and Batman shares this "retro" futuristic approach in common with Lost in Space and certainly Star Trek.  The revolution in miniaturization had not yet occurred, and so these programs evidenced the belief that bigger was always better and more high tech.

It's a shame that Batman is not yet available on DVD or Blu Ray, so we can get a much better and longer  look at the (Not) Dark Knight's array of (carefully labeled...) technical gadgetry.

Sci-Tech #4: Colonial Marines Edition

Sleek.  Utilitarian.  Streamlined.  And absolutely bad ass.

Those are the words that leap immediately to mind as I describe the technology and hardware  of the Colonial Marines as featured in the 1986 James Cameron film, Aliens. 

As you gaze at some of the images I selected below, you'll detect precisely what I mean. 

Colonial Marine technology is hard-edged, sharp, and blunt, designed for some very "tough hombres."  The technology primarily is colored in shades of gray, blue and black, evoking a very strong "no nonsense" vibe.  This technology isn't about being pretty.  It's about delivering death from above (and anywhere else).

And, of course, this was intentional. 

The Alien (1979) universe showed us civilian space truckers, but Aliens (1986) calls in the cavalry, Earth's greatest military fighting unit, to battle the titular xenomorphs.  At least some of this movie technology has become the stuff of fan obsession in the decades since the film's premiere in the gun-ho age of Reagan and the invasion of Grenada, particularly the impressive M41A pulse rifle, which features a pump-action grenade-launcher on the undercarriage.  I'd love to get my hands on a recreation of this weapon, but they generally cost hundreds of dollars, last time I checked.

The great thing about the Colonial Marine tech of Aliens is that it is both futuristic and recognizable as an extension of today's weaponry and vehicles.  We recognize everything, but it's been tweaked a bit and even improved upon.   From drop ships to pulse rifles, from proximity scanners to remote-control perimeter "sentry" guns, Aliens reveals that man's capacity to wage war remains at the vanguard of his evolution as a species.

But, of course, here -- on LV426 -- man has met his match, and that's a critical part of the film's equation.  The Marines represent America in space: proud, resourceful, and bristling with state-of-the-art military capacity.  But like the soldiers who went into Vietnam and found themselves waging a losing battle against an intractable foe, the Marines here find that even all their weaponry and high tech gear hasn't prepared them to face this particular enemy.

I'm a strong and firm defender of Fincher's Alien 3 (1992), but one reason I suspect it never found the widespread appreciation of Aliens is that it eschewed futuristic technology to such a tremendous degree.  It was a bold idea: land Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in a terrain with no weapons and no ready allies, and then -- when she has nothing else to fall back on but her wits -- examine her courage.  That's an audacious approach, but probably not a crowd-pleasing one.

I think people really missed that pulse rifle...

The Narcissus Sulaco: a transport ship bristling with pointed outcroppings that resemble spears...or turrets.



In the director's cut, these sentry guns blasted aliens by the dozens.



A marine's best friend: the M41A Pulse rifle with pump-action grenade launcher.  Handy for close encounters.



The "freezers." Note how, in contrast to Alien (1979), these cryo-units ae big and bulky, like the soldiers they house.  Also, instead of being set-up  in a blossom formation (around a hearth, as it were), they are constructed a line...in military formation.

In the Narcissus bay: the drop ship, for "flying the friendly skies." Not.

From the Archive: Sci-Tech #3: Alpha Moonbase Edition

 *
"Space: 1999" had a style, a feel, a look of its own." - Martin Landau (Lee Goldberg. Starlog: "Martin Landau Space-Age Hero." July 1986, page 45).

"...Space:1999 is like Star Trek shot full of methedrine.  It is the most flashy, gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV.  Watching it each week is very close to being under the influence of a consciousness altering drug. - Benjamin Stein. The Wall Street Journal: "Sailing Along on a Moon-Base Way."

Though TV reviewers were often quick to criticize the storylines on Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Space: 1999, most nonetheless agreed that the visualizations of this classic series were unimpeachable. 

For example, TV/Radio columnist Charlie Hanna termed the sci-fi program a "visual feast," and The New York Times critic John J. O'Connor noted that the "visual lavishness is apparent from the dazzling array of electronic gadgets and hardware to the "moon city" costumes designed by Rudi Gerneich."

I can add my own testimony to this effusive praise.  When I initially watched Space:1999 back in 1975, I was certain that this was indeed what the future would look like.  It just seemed right and appropriate that by the year 1999 we'd all be able to communicate across mini-tv screens thanks to devices such as the useful commlock.  And, of course, furniture and interior decoration would be immaculate, minimalist, and stream-lined by the eve of the 21st century, right?

Okay.  It didn't quite turn out that way, but you can't convince me that it shouldn't have turned out that way.  I wonder how the recently announced Space: 2099 will countenance the near future. 

So for today, and my third installment of Sci-Tech, I want to present some of my favorite imagery of Moonbase Alpha from Space:1999.  . The sets  for Space: 1999 were created by production designer Keith Wilson, and the exterior miniatures by special effects director Brian Johnson.   In both cases, these gentlemen did extraordinary work.  In short, they accomplished three critical things: 

First, they created believable technology with one foot in the future and one in the present. 

In Space:1999, for instance, you'll see control rooms, nuclear generating plants, and high-tech medical units, but at the same time, you can note characters reading books, adjusting thermostats in their crew quarters, and even tanning themselves in a solarium ("Force of Life.") 

In practice, this is quite an extraordinary combination.  Despite the clean, minimal lines of Moonbase Alpha construction, crew quarters boast a sense of individuality and recognizable humanity ("Matter of Life and Death."), Areas of heavy use such as laboratories, as seen in "Breakaway" and "Voyager's Return," are cluttered and over-crowded.  In other words -- despite the immaculate white conception of Moonbase Alpha -- man will be man, even in the future.  He will use the "space" on the Moon in just the way he does here on Earth; and that way isn't always clean and austere...or even neat.  Victor Bergman's laboratory is another example of this design approach.

Secondly, the designers of Space:1999 didn't skimp on a sense of scope, meaning that the vistas and views of Moonbase Alpha appeared more legitimately cinematic and impressive than virtually any other sci-fi series sets in history up to 1978 including Star Trek, wherein the Enterprise bridge famously did not include a ceiling.  

The control center of Moonbase Alpha, Main Mission, is a perfect example of this aesthetic.  It is a vast, two-story affair replete with a ledge and observation area, as well as a kind of mission control pit where analysts toil on a regular basis.  Attached to Main Mission -- with a wall as a huge sliding door -- is the Commander's office.  For privacy, Commander Koenig can shut the door to Main Mission.  In cases of emergency, he can open the door, and his desk overlooks the Big Screen and his workers.    What must be noted about this is that both Main Mission and the Commander's office are vast.   The two (joined) sets present the appearance of a real life, sprawling complex.

Scope is sometimes achieved other ways on the series as well.  Miniatures do the trick to convey passage on the useful Travel Tube, and in rare instances, Space:1999 joins live-action footage with rear-projection footage of Eagles and their hangar bay.  Again, there's a powerful aura of a fully-operational Moonbase here.

Third, and equally important, the amazing technology and design of Alpha and the Eagles were merely the starting point of this adventure.  Week after week, our impressive views of Earth's high-tech turn-of-the-century moonbase were one-upped, essentially, by mind-blowing alien landscapes and worlds,  as featured in episodes such as "Guardian of Piri," "Missing Link," "War Games," "The Last Enemy" and so on. 

After many of those trippy adventures, the high-tech environs of Moonbase Alpha felt not like a dazzling vision of a future age, but rather like "home," even fostering a sense of security. By creating alien worlds of such blazing distinction and originality, the makers of Space:1999 actually made their "future" Earth technology seem all the more believable (and desirable).

It would be impossible to write this post without commenting just a little on the Eagle, one of the most beloved spaceship designs of cult-televisions.  These craft are perfectly in keeping with Moonbase Alpha: as remarkable embodiments of "near future" technology.    No flying saucers or stream-lined nacelles in this world.  Rather, the utilitarian Eagles consist of interconnected modules, retro-rockets, landing pads and nose-cones.  All these facets are recognizable as dramatic extrapolations from the then-current Apollo program.  Again, Space:1999 had one foot in the future, and one in the present.

This is how Brian Johnson described the creation of the Eagles, in an interview with me almost a decade ago (on the advent of Space:1999's release on DVD):

"I was in my "modular" design mode in those days. I reasoned that it made sense to make Pods that were interchangeable. The command pod could serve as a lifeboat, Eagles could be "chained" together, etc...My basic ideas came from looking at dragonflies and insects of all sorts. I copied nature to some degree - I think it made the Eagle believable."

Believability, scope, and then imagination. These are the sturdy foundations of Space:1999's set and model designs.   Below is a brief gallery showcasing Moonbase Alpha as it appeared in Year One.  Finally, I should add that these sets, models and designs look even more remarkable on Blu Ray.

Looking up to the Commander's office.

Gazing at Main Mission's "Big Screen."



Minimalism meets clutter: a fully functioning machine laboratory.



A Room with a view.  Note the globe of Earth cast in gray and black to match the rest of the set.



Clock, communicator and more: The comm-post.




Against a backdrop of stars: a repair-man with a tool kit.



Remote control flying an Eagle.

The well-lit travel tube interior track.

A nuclear power plant of the future.

The Solarium

Behind our heroes, a hanger bay filled with Eagles.

An Eagle spacecraft, with special module (from "Breakaway.")

Moonbase Alpha

From the Archive: Sci-Tech #2 Altrusian Edition

In Sci-Tech 2, I turn the attention to Land of the Lost (1974 - 1976), an inventive Saturday morning program set in "Altrusia," an artificial (?) planet positioned inside a closed pocket universe. 

According to the mythology of the program created by celebrated science fiction author David Gerrold, advanced humanoid Altrusians once lived peaceably in this strange habitat, and boasted a great science and high sense of technology. 

But the Altrusians ultimately de-volved into barbarian Sleestaks, and their technology -- in the time of the stranded Marshall family --  has been largely left untended and in disrepair.  To the Sleestaks, their repository of  race knowledge -- the Library of Skulls -- might as well be magical.

Interestingly, there are Star Trek connections here beyond the presence of story editor Gerrold. Walter Koenig (Chekov) wrote one of the earliest and best episodes -- "The Stranger" -- which introduced Enik (Walker Edmiston), the Altrusian.  He was a time traveler from the land's more civilized  past; a character shocked by how primitive (and superstitious) his people had become.

Also, Herman Zimmerman -- who went on to design several Star Trek TV series and films -- served as the art director of Land of the Lost.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Zimmerman some years back, and he told me: "I built the opening miniature of the series: the rapids.; The show began with a group of young people, their father, and their raft, in Colorado, and I created this a large miniature, probably 25 to 35 feet long. I shot it on videotape with miniature figures and a life raft. And the letters that arose out of the mist and announced the title Land of the Lost? I carved those personally."

Zimmerman designed and created many of the mechanisms and strange devices of "Altrusia," which seemed based on a crystalline-technology.    "Saturday morning TV was not blessed with much money, so we built all the Sleestak caves out of heavy-duty tin foil," he also reported.  "A good bit of my time was spent repairing holes in the foil when someone leaned against it and tore it open."

And yet despite the grievously low budget, there remains great visual consistency to the world of Altrusia, as you will hopefully detect from the selection of photos below.  From the miniatures to the live action sets, from matte painting to the props, Altrusia seemed like a real living place...a place you could reach out to touch and explore.  It's amazing how far that "tin foil" goes when creative minds are at work; creative minds determined not to talk down to children.

I've always maintained that at its heart, Land of the Lost offers a powerful environmental message.  Frequently, the various races inhabiting Altrusia (Human, Sleestak and Pakuni) must work together to maintain the balance of the environment so that life there is beneficial for all the species.  The series goes to great lengths to depict how in a single eco-system, all life-forms are intimately interconnected. 

For instance, in one episode, Sleestak attempt to modify Altrusia to exist in perpetual night, so they can hunt for the nocturnal Altrusian moths which fertilize their eggs.  The Sleestak neglect to remember that in the coldness of perpetual night, the moths will die from the low temperatures.

Several episodes of Land of the Lost deal with the "natural" mechanisms of Altrusia that cause an environmental imbalance.  The land seems to get an "irregular heart beat" in "One of Our Pylons is Missing."  Devices called "Skylons" warn of weather anomalies in "Skylons" and "Hurricane."  And so on. 

If only on Earth, it were as easy to correct such problems of environmental imbalance.  If only a re-shuffling of a planetary "matrix table" that could set everything right...

Anyway, here are some photos that reveal the lost world of Altrusia, one of sci-fi television's most unique but memorable destinations.



The Lost City of Altrusia, after the fall of civilization.



An Altrusian "maghetti," a kind of divining rod for locating time doors.

From "Album," a time-door.  Lots of mist in Altrusia.

An Altrusian Pylon catches the attention of Grumpy, The T-Rex.

Skylons.

The beating heart of the Land of the Lost/Altrusia.

A more advanced Altrusian matrix table? Mysterious tech from "The Musician."

More Altrusian architecture; from "After Shock."

Altrusia's repository of Knowlwedge: The Library of the Skulls.

An Altrusian Matrix-table (interior Pylon).

An "ancient" Altrusian guardian.

An Altrusian spirit dwells inside a Pylon ("The Possession").

The Altrusian city before the fall of civilization.