1 December 2013

 Birthdays
Zoe Kravitz b. 1988 (X-Men: First Class, After Earth)
Dean O’Gorman b. 1976 (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena, The Legend of the Seeker, The Hobbit)
Nestor Carbonell b. 1967 (The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Lost, The Tick)
Andrew Adamson b. 1966 (director, Shrek, Shrek II, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Jo Walton b. 1964 (won 2012 Hugo and Nebula for Among Others)
Jeremy Northam b. 1961 (The Invasion, Mimic, The Net)
Treat Williams b. 1951 (Eve of Destruction, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Deep Rising, The Empire Strikes Back)
Richard Pryor b. 1940 died 10 December 2005 (Superman III)
Woody Allen b. 1935 (director, Sleeper)
Malachi Throne b. 1928 died 13 March 2013 (Babylon 5, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, Land of the Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Batman, The Outer Limits)

Nice mix of actors, writers and directors on the list today. I feel a little bad adding Richard Pryor, remembering such a huge talent for such a terrible movie. I don't feel bad adding Woody Allen, because Sleeper is a great parody of science fiction.

The Picture Slot goes to Malachi Throne, a very busy character actor who died earlier this year before I decided to start the Never to be Forgotten thread. He's one of the handful of actors that was on the original Star Trek and on the later show. He was also on Babylon 5. But his 1960s sci-fi resume is even more impressive, as he was on every big budget sci-fi show in the 1960s except Twilight Zone, which means Batman, The Outer Limits, all Four Irwin Allen shows and as previously mentioned Star Trek.

Besides my wishes for many happy returns to all the living on the list, I send out my best wishes to the family and friends of Malachi Throne, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.

Prediction: At 0150 GMT on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world began to ring.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in the short story Dial ‘F’ for Frankenstein, 1965

Reality: The story is about an interconnected system of telephones taking over the world by causing a worldwide financial panic. He's not the only writer afraid of machines taking over back in the 1960s. The novel Colossus was written in 1966 by Dennis Feltham Jones and is the basis for the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project. ACC overstates how quickly computers will become as powerful as they are today and as a writer of fiction, he needs to have a protagonist and the soon to be omnipotent machines are as good a choice as any. The story didn't become true and has not become true to this day, so the only points I can give Old Art because he saw that computers were going to change significantly, a real world trend that many science fiction writers did not touch on, or if so they tended to gloss over.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A prediction from earlier this year can now be tested. Was it right or wrong?

You'll know if you join us then... IN THE FUTURE!