Within the Palace of Mirrors there were splendid chambers and halls for every purpose and sort, each more magnificent and sumptuous than the next, for all the surviving wealth and all the surviving glory of Earth were represented here. And even so, within the Palace of Mirrors, there was none to compare even remotely, in dazzling magnificence, with the Grand Ballroom.
In the novelization of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (originally credited to the pen name Addison E Steele), Science Fiction and Mystery writer Richard A Lupoff goes on to describe this most heralded and prestigious chamber, set in the most heralded and prestigious building, and in the most heralded and prestigious area of New Chicago, or the Inner City. The ceiling in this regal chamber gives one the impression of a glowing jewel through which colors, spectrums, and intensities of light vary, and never cease to delight the eye. The walls are mirrored, and the floors likewise reflective.
The effect of being in the room was thus one of being wholly surrounded by, bathed in, permeated, and all but absorbed by a supernatural solution of pure light and tone.
Richard A Lupoff spends several pages explaining how the Grand Ballroom is hung with regal banners and displays. Trumpets sound. Prestigious government personnel of all sorts, both from Earth and Draconia, enter amid much pomp and circumstance. I have no idea how much of this rich description was included in the screenplay written by Glen A Larson and Leslie Stevens, and how much was invented by Richard A Lupoff. In any case, Lupoff paints a picture of a grand affair of state, in which the Earth government pulls out all the stops, and only invites the most important people, to attend this ceremony intended to cement relations between Earth and the Draconian Empire.
Obviously, a 1970s production crew was never going to pull all this off on a TV budget. I doubt even the movie studios of the time could have reproduced Lupoff's description faithfully. All of which goes to show that, when it comes to exciting our imaginations, books wield far superior power to movies and TV shows. Or at least they did, before computer generated digital effects were available.
Here's what the TV production pulled off in 1978.
In a way, Richard A Lupoff's novelization serves as journey through time just as startling as Buck's. For Lupoff's novelization of the screenplay written by Glen A Larson and Leslie Stevens could not have been filmed in all its glory when he wrote it back in 1977. But forty years later, in 2017, with the aid of modern techniques (including computer-generated special effects), and with the backing of a powerful movie studio, a new film version of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" could be made that would faithfully reproduce the words Lupoff originally put to paper with a plunking, ringing, clickety-clack typewriter. It'd be nice if someone in Hollywood would do that, don't you think?
Dragon Dave
In the last post, I posed the question: in the movie version of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," why would Buck refuse to accompany Wilma and her rescue party back to New Chicago? Remember, he's seen the ruins of old Chicago. He's found his family's grave. It must be obvious to him by now that everyone he knew and loved was gone. As he's just been attacked, why should he remain?
Remember, in the original screenplay, upon which Richard A Lupoff (writing as Addison E Steele) based his novelization, Buck is grateful for her timely rescue, and willingly accompanies her back to New Chicago.
One possible answer is simple bravado, but that doesn't feel right to me. Buck usually did things for logical reasons. He didn't usually refuse to act in his best interests, or the interests of others, when one's personal safety, or one's existence, was threatened.
Late in the first season, Buck and Twiki see a woman in a shopping mall in New Chicago. She looks familiar to Buck, like a ghost from his past. Eventually he tracks her down. She is the spitting image of Jennifer, a woman he loved in 20th Century Earth. Nor was she just a fling. He had planned on marrying her when he returned from his deep space mission. Only his ship experienced a freak accident, and he returned 500 years later. Of course, she's not the woman he loved back in the 20th Century, but as he discovers, she is someone he might possibly learn to love, given the right circumstances.
Does it make sense that Buck would refuse to accompany Wilma back to New Chicago, even at the potential cost of his life, to find Jennifer's grave? That's the only answer that makes sense to me. I'd like to think there's a better reason behind the script writers decision to change Buck's response to Wilma's rescue than simple bravado.
What do you think?
Dragon Dave
In the film version of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," Buck is not exiled to the devastated lands outside. Instead, after his discussion with Wilma Deering, he voluntarily leaves New Chicago to search the ruins of Old Chicago. He is accompanied in his quest by Dr. Theopolis, the A.I. Overlord (although they are never called that in the film), and the drone Twiki. In a cemetery, Buck discovers a grave listing the names of his immediate family members. Then he and his new friends are attacked by a pack of savage humans who live in the ruins of the once great city.
Earlier in the film, Buck had declared his intentions to venture unaccompanied, wherever he wished, in order to learn more about his past. Colonel Wilma Deering threatened to shoot him, but then decided to let him go. Now, in the film, she and a party of soldiers arrive to save him. No explanation is given for how they discovered he had left the Inner City, or why they chose to follow him.
In addition to this reordering of events (in the book, he is exiled after the trial; in the film, he ventures out before the hidden transmitter is found on his ship), there is another crucial difference. In Richard A Lupoff's novelization (credited to the pen name of Addison E. Steele), Buck Rogers is grateful for Wilma's timely rescue, and willingly accompanies her back to New Chicago. In the film, he defiantly states that he's not through searching for answers. When Wilma insists they return, he declares for a second time that she will have to shoot him to stop him for continuing his quest. This time, she refuses to back down, and has one of her soldiers shoot him. (Only after they return, in the film, do Dr. Huer and Wilma learn of the hidden transmitter, which necessitates Buck's trial).
The ordering of events in Lupoff's novelization, based on an earlier version of the script, makes sense. Buck's venturing out of the highly defended Inner City, in the film, can be explained away, as can Wilma discovering his decision and sending out a search party. (A sad consequence of this reversal is we lose Dr. Huer's heroic fight to save Buck in the film). But what about Buck's defiance when he and his electronic friends have just been rescued from certain death? How can we understand Buck's insistence upon remaining in Old Chicago, now that he knows his family has died, and the world he loved really has been destroyed? Is it simple defiance, a willing rejection of the truth? Or is he still searching for something? And if so, what?
It's a question that has vexed me, so I thought I would share it with you. (Hey, I'm considerate like that).
Dragon Dave
In Richard A. Lupoff's novelization of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (written under the pen name of Addison E. Steele), it falls on Dr. Huer to petition the Council to reverse or suspend their decision. One can only imagine what is going on in Dr. Huer's mind as he steps into that august chamber. Up until now, he has believed that Earth needs the treaty with the Draconian Empire. Now he is about to argue that the Council should reverse its judgment of a capital crime, and allow him, Wilma, and Buck to endanger the treaty with the Draconian Empire.
As you can imagine, Prosecutor Apol is against him. The very fabric of our society," Council Apol lectures Dr. Huer, "is threatened when a ruling of the Council is reversed, or even suspended."
"If by some horrible error of judgment the Draconians are admitted to Earth, and they come to us not as friends but as traitors and enemies in our very midst, then all will be lost," Doctor Huer argues. Then we will suffer an absolute defeat!"
Despite Apol's opposition, the Council votes to suspend Buck's sentence and proceed with Doctor Huer's plan. When Wilma congratulates Doctor Huer, he urges her to quickly gather as many people as she can. They must go heavily armed, and they must find him quickly. If the scavengers and other rabble find him first, all their efforts on Buck's part will have been in vain.
One can only imagine what was going on in Doctor Huer's mind when he decided to side with Wilma and appeal to the Computer Council. The Council banished Doctor Theopolis for daring to defend Buck, and quickly elevated another of their own to replace him. Where did he get his inner strength to challenge the Council, his earlier faith in the Draconians, and perhaps his future in New Chicago, to save the life of another person?
Humanity has lost nearly all of its heritage, and gradually been weaned back into a semblance of maturity by the Computer Council. But not all of its history, culture, and beliefs have been lost. Take for example, this curious artifact placed prominently on Doctor Huer's desk.
Perhaps that ancient tome, not mentioned in Richard A. Lupoff's novelization, holds a clue as to the source of Doctor Huer's strength.
Dragon Dave
In Richard A. Lupoff's novelization of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," the Computer Council of New Chicago has ruled in favor of Prosecutor Apol. For his acts of espionage and treason against the state, Captain William Buck Rogers, along with his representative Doctor Theopolis, are banished to the devastated lands outside.
Doctor Huer, the sage of the Inner Cities, and Colonel Wilma Deering quietly leave the chamber, while the other Human spectators shake hands and slap each other on the back to celebrate the verdict.
Later, Doctor Huer is still rueing the verdict when Colonel Deering bursts into his office. "Doctor, I need your help desperately!"
"What is it?" Huer asks, startled.
"It's Buck Rogers." Wilma was nearly in tears. "We must get him back, Dr. Huer. We must!"
Initially, when Doctor Huer and Doctor Theopolis chose to believe Buck's story, Wilma refused to accept their assessment. She claimed he might possibly endanger Earth's treaty with the Draconian Empire. But now she begs Doctor Huer to petition the Computer Council. If the Council will allow Buck to return, she could fly him out to Princess Ardala's flagship, and use his allegations, based only on supposition and logic, as an excuse to search the ship for weapons.
It's a strange argument for her to make. There's no logical reason why Dr. Huer should agree. All the facts, as they know them, suggest that Buck Rogers is guilty of espionage. Furthermore, Wilma's plan will endanger the treaty with Draconia, and therefore Earth's future. Nonetheless, Dr. Huer agrees to help her save Buck.
Logically, you have to wonder why "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" continues to be popular. People still love watching this old 1970s TV series. It's not because the show offered gripping drama. It's not because the shows were smart in a scientific sense. But it offered one quality that is difficult to manufacture, one that so many fail to find. Simply put, the show had charm.
At the heart of the series was Buck, an All-American Hero displaced in time. He was an underdog in the sense that he had lost everything and everyone that he ever cared about. Yet he quickly chose to settle in New Chicago, and was always willing to help everyone he found in need, whether they came from Earth or some other planet. That's why all the good people, and even most of the antiheroes he met in the series, usually befriended Buck by the end of their adventures together. And that's why, even after knowing Buck for so little time, Wilma and Dr. Huer would risk their lives, and the future of Earth, to save him.
As Dr. Theopolis, the Computer Council member who was exiled from New Chicago for steadfastly defending him, told Wilma, "He's a wwwwuuuunnnderful man." Now that's the kind of person you will risk everything for.
Dragon Dave
She lowered the laser, dumbly returned it to its holster, and stood watching the scene before her. She saw guards rushing from remote entrances of the hanger toward the man she had shot.
In the novelization of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", written by Richard A. Lupoff (under his pen name of Addison E. Steele), Buck declared his intention to leave New Chicago and see the surrounding devastation. It seemed the only way for him to connect to the Earth he had left behind. But Wilma Deering, the dedicated military officer, could not let him leave. After all, the authorities were still verifying his story about being from the 20th Century, and awakening aboard Princess Ardala's Draconian flagship. So when Buck tells her that she'll have to shoot him to make him stay, Wilma represses her feelings and shoots him.
When the investigators discover a hidden transmitter aboard Buck's ship, she feels vindicated in shooting him. He must be an agent of the space pirates that are cutting off Earth's food supplies. That transmitter would have relayed the safe route through Earth's defensive shield to whoever sent him. This is a capital crime against the state, far more heinous than eating and drinking more than one's allotted portions of food and drink. Buck has just handed Earth's enemies the means of directly attacking the planet! The Computer council quickly convenes a hearing. Despite the most persuasive arguments of Dr. Theopolis, the Artificial Intelligence overlords of New Chicago agree with A.I. prosecutor Apol: Buck Rogers must indeed be a spy.
While summing up his defense arguments, Dr. Theopolis had told the Computer Council, "If you find Buck Rogers guilty, then you must find me guilty as well. I cannot continue to serve a society that doubts the core of my being." So when the Council rules against Buck, he and Twiki choose exile with Buck over further life in the Inner City.
In the ruins of old Chicago, destroyed shortly after he left Earth, Buck tries to connect with the Earth he left behind. But when night falls, the outcasts in this devastated land pursue them. Dr. Theopolis tells Buck that he's not the target: the scavengers are really after himself and Twiki. Despite the technological wonders they represent, Theo and Twiki's only value to the outcasts is the food and supplies that their computer components and rare materials will provide.
Buck is just another Human outcast now.
It's hard to imagine one of the computer overlords voluntarily leaving the Inner City, knowing the certainty of his fate outside. It's equally hard to imagine the other computer overlords allowing Dr. Theopolis to leave. In the subsequent TV series, the emphasis shifted away from the A.I. rulers of New Chicago, and we rarely saw Dr. Theopolis. It would have been interesting to learn more about the Computer Overlords, not only how they interacted with each other, but also how they served, and occasionally even risked their continued existence, for the Humans under their care.
Dragon Dave
In the movie "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," Colonel Wilma Deering escorts Buck throughout New Chicago. Surrounded by the fabulous architecture of the future, she tells him a little about the apocalypse that nearly destroyed the Earth. Eventually, they end up in a restaurant, or at least a seating area where people might gather and enjoy drinks. But we don't see them eating or drinking in the movie.
In fact, eating and drinking seem to be activities largely confined to the past. People in New Chicago, also called the Inner City, seem to largely get by on food disks. These food disks are produced by food grown off-planet. Recently, pirates have attacked food shipments. Thus, Earth hopes to forge a treaty with the Draconian Empire to police space shipping lanes.
In the novelization written by Richard Lupoff (writing as Addison E Steele), Wilma leads him to a table in the mall. When a waiter appears, she orders two glasses of Vinol, a synthetic wine. "Okay," Buck replies. "Then let's make it two or three. I'd like to get nice and drunk."
"We're a culture of moderation," Wilma responds. "Everything is carefully balanced. If somebody ruins a serving of food, or greedily consumes two when he's only entitled to one, then somebody else goes without a meal that day. What you would call immoderation, just a petty foible in your world--is a crime in mine. And criminals are invited to leave the Inner City."
So in the original conception of the story, New Chicago appears far less a utopia than in the film. Life there is hand-to-mouth, and drunkenness and overeating is a crime. Sin against society too much, and you get exiled into the radiation-ruined wasteland.
In the subsequent TV series, Buck continually tries to breathe a little life into a largely sterile society. One way he does this is by attempting to grow and making his own food and wine. Doctor Huer and Wilma view this as an eccentric quirk to be accommodated and politely overlooked. Had the characters and stories stuck more closely to the original screenplay (upon which Lupoff based his novelization), perhaps these leaders of New Chicago would have applauded his efforts, or even hailed them as a hope for making Earth truly self-sustaining.
But then, who wants to watch "Buck Rogers: Hydroponics and Wine-Making in the 25th Century?"
Dragon Dave
At first, Commander Kane believes that Buck Rogers has been preserved for 500 years. Then another idea occurs to his suspicious mind: what if Buck is part of an elaborate ruse to investigate Princess Ardala and himself, before they reach Earth and negotiate a treaty with the Draconian Empire? Nonetheless, Kane and Ardala allow him to return to Earth, and wait to see what happens.
Once Buck arrives on Earth, he waits in a room for hours, while investigators study his ship. Then Doctor Huer comes in, accompanied by the drone Twikki. Hanging from Twikki's neck is Doctor Theopolis, one member of a super race of computers that exists apart from Humanity. They have evolved into a separate life form, and program their descendants without the aid or interference of Humans. These computers run the Inner City, and even as important a man as Dr. Huer must still bow to their dictates.
Dr. Huer is a kindly man who attempts to ease Buck's arrival in the 25th Century by telling him that he has arrived at the coordinates originally programmed into his space shuttle. The Inner City is also called New Chicago, and is built upon the ruins of the old city. Whatever dangers the U.S. President in the 1980s foresaw (remember, Buck Rogers was developed and filmed in the late seventies, during the Carter presidency, before Reagan took the reins, and long before he proposed his Star Wars defense plan), wars devastated the globe after Buck left Earth. These wars left civilization in ruins, and nearly drove Humans to extinction. But at least Buck has returned to the land of his youth, even if it is drastically changed from when he lived there.
Through the process of reading the novel, and then watching the movie again, these questions struck me powerfully. Why should the space shuttle have been programmed to land in Chicago? Chicago seems a bizarre choice for a 20th Century space shuttle landing site. In the real world, in the 1980s and beyond, the shuttle returned to Earth in Florida, with the occasional landing in New Mexico or California. So I have to wonder what made the writers think that 20th Century Chicago could host a space shuttle landing. (And why it should land there, when it would then need to be transported back to Florida anyway?) Further, what makes 20th Century Chicago so unique in people's minds that it should serve as Buck Rogers' home, as well as the seed from which New Chicago, the home of civilization on 25th Century Earth, should sprout.
I guess one day I'll have to visit Chicago. Perhaps that will help me understand why the space shuttles should have landed there, and the unique importance of the city that inspired the writers of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century." Then, along with Buck, I can sing, "Chicago, Chicago, you're my kind of town."
Dragon Dave
In the opening prologue of the movie "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,' we learn that Buck blasts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and experiences freak conditions in space that preserve his body, while his ship floats aimlessly through space for 500 years. Richard Lupoff, writing the novelization as Addison Steele, elaborates on this prologue sequence beautifully. He describes a passing swarm of meteors that surround the spaceship, and how the impact of these small pieces of space debris release a mix of gases inside the hull.
I suppose I should take a moment to discuss the role of cryogenics here, as I mentioned it in a post last month. But I already discussed the topic at length in a post last month, so I'll just reiterate that the movie prologue, and Lupoff's writing, do their job. We're sold on the idea that Buck Rogers could awaken after five hundred years without any negative aftereffects. (I was sold far more effectively, in both instances, than H. G. Wells manages in The Sleeper Awakes, a 1910 rewrite of his earlier novel, When The Sleeper Wakes). We don't really even think about it, because we're anxious to get on with the story. So I'll shut up on cryogenics, and get on with the next topic.
Five hundred years later, Princess Ardala and Commander Kane bring the space shuttle aboard their flagship, and wake him up. This is our first impression of Buck: he's out-of-it, physically and mentally. He's in no fit state to fathom his presence on a spaceship from another planet. Nor is he aware of how much time has passed. So he asks for an aspirin to clear his head. Instead, the Draconian doctors inject him with a tranquilizer that leaves him punch drunk, and even less able to perceive his present reality from his centuries of dreams.
For some reason, this scene has always been especially memorable to me. Buck is clearly dopey, and is incapable of answering Kane's questions. Nor does he seem to notice the strange appearance of Ardala's bodyguard, the mutant Tigerman. All he can focus on is Princess Ardala's beauty. It's an interesting beginning in Buck and Ardala's relationship, one that made Ardala think less of him initially, as women tend to despise men who get overwhelmed and tongue-tied by their beauty.
Of course, Ardala changes her opinion of him later, after he has demonstrated his bravery, tenacity, and he singles her out at the Ball...
Dragon Dave
It's been decades since I read the novelization of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". For all that time it has taken up space in my bookshelves. When a friend helped me move to my current house, he continually marveled at all the boxes labeled "Books" he carried to and from the moving truck. So was it the book worth keeping (and carrying) around? Was it worth reading again? Did it offer a uniquely different experience from the movie?
I decided it was about time to find out.
In the prologue of the novelization of the Glen Larson and Leslie Stevens' script, credited to Addison E. Steele (a pen name for Science Fiction writer Richard A. Lupoff), we learn there is some need perceived, at the highest levels of the United States government, for a deep space mission. The President gathers senators in the Pentagon, and tells them that this must happen. Then instead of chipping away at the budget, or going on TV to state why they will (or will not) support this program, they return to the Senate and vote to fully fund a five month mission to chart the planets of our solar system.
Perhaps on the President's mind is the network of satellites that circle Earth. These satellites eavesdrop on all Earth communications, and occasionally destroy satellites from rival countries with powerful laser beams. Perhaps the "bald truth" the President tells the Senators is a swarm of meteorites heading toward Earth. Perhaps it is both the threat of the constant state of "musical chairs" played by armed satellites and the threat of annihilation similar to that which drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Let's face it: in 1979, when the script and book were written, those fears were as valid as they still are today.
When the space ship is finished, it blasts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. In so doing, it brings the dreams of H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and other Science Fiction writers Lupoff admired, such as Edmund Hamilton, Jack Williamson, Hugo Gernsback, John W. Campbell, and Hamilton's wife Leigh Brackett. Surprisingly, Lupoff doesn't mention Edgar Rice Burroughs in this list. In Science Fiction circles, Lupoff is acknowledged as an expert on the creator of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. But then, Burroughs did not send John Carter to Mars aboard a rocketship, let alone a space shuttle.
What will happen to Earth after Buck Rogers leaves is not apparent, or even hinted at, in the movie. But in the book, we perceive a worried world leader who mobilizes Congress in a way that has not happened since Kennedy's Moon missions. This, along with the constant tussle of the satellites orbiting the Earth, gives us some indication of what will occur after Buck leaves Earth, which adds a different dimension to my understanding of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century."
Dragon Dave
