http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id904

AICN reports that a Hollywood studio is developing a version of
Mobile Suit Gundam, from a 'scoop'(which may or may not be accurate)
sent in by an Italian script advisor.

If this movie goes ahead, it most likely will feature O'Neill
habitats, as that will be what sets it apart from other 'giant
robot' movies-to-be Evangelion and Transformers, so what do people
here think of the possibility of the portrayal of a space colony in
this movie capturing the imagination of audiences and moviemakers,
leading to the creation of more screen stories based in and around
habitats?

It would be nice, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Any movie will
probably pay as little attention to the space habitat backdrop as does
the cartoon. The focus of the series has always been on the characters
and the politics, and the habitats are hardly ever shown.

Some of us had the same kind of high hopes when Babylon 5 was first
announced. But here, too, we were disappointed to see that most of the
action took place in small metal rooms under artificial illumination,
which did little to change anyone's perceptions of what life in a truly
large structure in space could be like. The large, cylindrical, green
area was scarcely ever seen.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: danj_caslaw [mailto:danj_caslaw@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 10:22 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Has Hollywood 'discovered' O'Neill Habitats?

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18904

AICN reports that a Hollywood studio is developing a version of Mobile
Suit Gundam, from a 'scoop'(which may or may not be accurate) sent in by
an Italian script advisor.

If this movie goes ahead, it most likely will feature O'Neill habitats,
as that will be what sets it apart from other 'giant robot' movies-to-be
Evangelion and Transformers, so what do people here think of the
possibility of the portrayal of a space colony in this movie capturing
the imagination of audiences and moviemakers, leading to the creation of
more screen stories based in and around habitats?

How could a movie/TV series make the best use of, and do justice to,
an O'Neillian habitat setting? What would the movie/program makers
need to do to portray space colony life as it would be?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Combs, Mike"
> It would be nice, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Any movie
will
> probably pay as little attention to the space habitat backdrop as
does
> the cartoon. The focus of the series has always been on the
characters
> and the politics, and the habitats are hardly ever shown.
>
> Some of us had the same kind of high hopes when Babylon 5 was first
> announced. But here, too, we were disappointed to see that most
of the
> action took place in small metal rooms under artificial
illumination,
> which did little to change anyone's perceptions of what life in a
truly
> large structure in space could be like. The large, cylindrical,
green

From: danj_caslaw [mailto:danj_caslaw@....uk]

> How could a movie/TV series make the best use of,
> and do justice to, an O'Neillian habitat setting?
> What would the movie/program makers need to do to
> portray space colony life as it would be?

The biggest problem as I see it is that O'Neill habitats are about
settling in a new frontier, and Hollywood has gotten far too PC to
present any positive image of frontier settlement. The settlement of
the New World can only be referenced in the context of the harm done to
indigenous people, and never in terms of the many extraordinary positive
things that came out of it.

Stop and think about it. When was the last time you saw a science
fiction movie or TV show which depicted the drama inherent in a small
group attempting to pioneer in space (or on Earth, for that matter)?
For the most part, modern cinematic science fiction only deals in areas
already settled and developed, and the drama comes from political
conflict (space wars).

"Seaquest" at the very start seemed to be placed in a setting where
pioneers were developing the ocean floor, but then very quickly steered
in a different direction. Instead we had a UN-type organization with
total authority over use of all the ocean's resources, and evil
capitalists were kept in check by this presumably-benign body.

"Earth II" by all rights should have been about a small group pioneering
on an undeveloped planetary frontier. But it very quickly came to be
about the diabolical conspiracy of the corporation that for some reason
wanted the human race to fail (and what would that do to quarterly
profits?).

There was an excellent pilot called "Plymouth" about pioneers on a moon
colony, but that never got picked up.

Regards,

Mike Combs

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Combs, Mike"

> There was an excellent pilot called "Plymouth" about pioneers on a
> moon colony, but that never got picked up.

Darn, you beat me to it. This was a good movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102681/

However, if there the capitalists were the evildoers for causing a
toxic spill in the Earth town of Plymouth and then offering the town
the opportunity to move to the moon. So they're evil capitalists and
pretty stupid too, for what kind of selection mechanism for a lunar
colony is that?

What I'd love to see is an ordinary drama, let's say, Kramer vs.
Kramer, or The Insider, or whatever, take place in a Habitat. The
Habitat shouldn't be the key to the story but serve as a backdrop to
show the normality of life and perhaps the unique personal and
behavioral adaptations that inhabitants have adopted for living in a
Habitat. Make it seem ordinary, rather than sci-fiie. I suppose it
could be something like Blade Runner, where the whole mileau is
present but not center stage, though it comes close by setting the
atmosphere of the time and place.

No lingering shots on the cylinder but have the upward sweep of the
Habitat structure always in the background.

I liked the treatment Kubrick gave in 2001, where the space
infrastructure just was part of the backdrop and the drame took place
normally.

TangoMan

> From: danj_caslaw [mailto:danj_caslaw@...]
>
> > How could a movie/TV series make the best use of,
> > and do justice to, an O'Neillian habitat setting?
> > What would the movie/program makers need to do to
> > portray space colony life as it would be?
>
> The biggest problem as I see it is that O'Neill habitats are about
> settling in a new frontier, and Hollywood has gotten far too PC to
> present any positive image of frontier settlement. The settlement of
> the New World can only be referenced in the context of the harm done to
> indigenous people, and never in terms of the many extraordinary positive
> things that came out of it.
>
> Stop and think about it. When was the last time you saw a science
> fiction movie or TV show which depicted the drama inherent in a small
> group attempting to pioneer in space (or on Earth, for that matter)?
> For the most part, modern cinematic science fiction only deals in areas
> already settled and developed, and the drama comes from political
> conflict (space wars).
Snip!
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Combs

Firefly. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/) - a western in Space, by
Joss Whedon. (Of Buffy fame) not very PC, could be why the studio knocked
it on the head. Although there is a movie (Serenity -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/)coming out next year.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Combs, Mike"
> From: danj_caslaw [mailto:danj_caslaw@y...]
>
> > How could a movie/TV series make the best use of,
> > and do justice to, an O'Neillian habitat setting?
> > What would the movie/program makers need to do to
> > portray space colony life as it would be?
>
> The biggest problem as I see it is that O'Neill habitats are about
> settling in a new frontier, and Hollywood has gotten far too PC to
> present any positive image of frontier settlement. The settlement
of
> the New World can only be referenced in the context of the harm
done to
> indigenous people, and never in terms of the many extraordinary
positive
> things that came out of it.

I think perhaps an O'Neill habitat mileau lends itself more
to 'space politics' than it does to 'settling the frontier', as the
point of building a habitat is to create an environment that's as
Earthlike as possible. This is not what most people would think of
as 'frontier settling', and it's probably going to be difficult to
get an audience to accept it as such, unless you tie in lunar
colonies and such. In fact:-

Let's say there was a show in which a billionaire space entrepeneur,
who had made his fortune from mining asteroids, sets about
constructing a Stanford Torus from his latest find(he's that rich).
The US government 'requests' that he collaborate with scientists who
live and work in a lunar colony. As the show progresses, the
structure of the Torus takes shape, until it's fully airtight and
the time comes to fill it with air. We're good for one season, as
far as a show exclusively devoted to 'settling the space frontier'
goes.

The second season sees the operation focus on the inside, as
botanists and landscape architects come in to make the inside look
Earthlike. They clash with the real estate developers, who are
there to build homes for the colonists who've booked their place
aboard the Torus. The season concludes with the first of these
colonists coming aboard to begin their new life in space.

It's at this point that it effectively ceases to be a
pure 'colonization of the frontier' show, because we've seen how it
proceeds and it might be difficult to make the construction of
another habitat seem engaging (I think that a show based around the
building of the first Martian colony would face the same issues).
The third season sees it becoming more of a 'space politics' show,
perhaps concerned with exploring how the colonists adapt to colony
life(as VictoriaTangoman suggested), which would be a natural
progression and not a complete change of emphasis. No need to bring
in aliens, weird space anomolies, totalitarian Earth governments, or
massive environmental disasters to sustain seasons four, five, and
six - I hope ;)

The major hurdle to be overcome there is the producer, who's liable
to think that he's wasting money on CGI, sets, and special effects
on telling a story that in his eyes, could be told just as well on
Earth. So the trick would be to make the space habitat setting
essential to the 'ordinary drama' premise, without overshadowing it.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
>
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Combs, Mike"

> wrote:
>
> > There was an excellent pilot called "Plymouth" about pioneers on
a
> > moon colony, but that never got picked up.
>
> Darn, you beat me to it. This was a good movie.
>
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102681/
>
> However, if there the capitalists were the evildoers for causing a
> toxic spill in the Earth town of Plymouth and then offering the
town
> the opportunity to move to the moon. So they're evil capitalists
and
> pretty stupid too, for what kind of selection mechanism for a lunar
> colony is that?
>
> What I'd love to see is an ordinary drama, let's say, Kramer vs.
> Kramer, or The Insider, or whatever, take place in a Habitat. The
> Habitat shouldn't be the key to the story but serve as a backdrop
to
> show the normality of life and perhaps the unique personal and
> behavioral adaptations that inhabitants have adopted for living in
a
> Habitat. Make it seem ordinary, rather than sci-fiie. I suppose it
> could be something like Blade Runner, where the whole mileau is
> present but not center stage, though it comes close by setting the
> atmosphere of the time and place.
>
> No lingering shots on the cylinder but have the upward sweep of the
> Habitat structure always in the background.
>
> I liked the treatment Kubrick gave in 2001, where the space
> infrastructure just was part of the backdrop and the drame took
place

"victoriatangoman" wrote:

>What I'd love to see is an ordinary drama, let's say, Kramer vs.
Kramer, or The Insider, or whatever, take place in a Habitat. The
Habitat shouldn't be the key to the story but serve as a backdrop to
show the normality of life and perhaps the unique personal and
behavioral adaptations that inhabitants have adopted for living in a
Habitat. Make it seem ordinary, rather than sci-fiie. I suppose it
could be something like Blade Runner, where the whole mileau is
present but not center stage, though it comes close by setting the
atmosphere of the time and place.
No lingering shots on the cylinder but have the upward sweep of the
Habitat structure always in the background. <

I had a similar idea once: a detective movie/series like Inspector Morse,
but in an O'Neil habitat or hollowed-out asteroid.

Fat chance of it happening.

> >What I'd love to see is an ordinary drama, let's say, Kramer vs.
>Kramer, or The Insider, or whatever, take place in a Habitat. The
>Habitat shouldn't be the key to the story but serve as a backdrop to
>show the normality of life and perhaps the unique personal and
>behavioral adaptations that inhabitants have adopted for living in a
>Habitat. I suppose it could be something like Blade Runner, where the whole
>mileau is
>present but not center stage, though it comes close by setting the
>atmosphere of the time and place.
>
>I had a similar idea once: a detective movie/series like Inspector Morse,
>but in an O'Neil habitat or hollowed-out asteroid.

Right, one of the great scifi authors once said that a good story can't be
primarily about the gee-whiz technology, it has to have a universal theme,
about people, society, growing up, etc., to be worthwhile and lasting. My
idea was about a generation ship fleet, Earth's first, heading toward a
promising star system. But it would be about the families--rebellious teens
and where can they run away to, ambitions running into the glass ceiling
(literally), population control issues, free will vs. mission imperatives,
why-am-I-here kinds of questions, the fragility of what we consider the good
life, and how it will survive not just their century, with its technological
changes, but our own century as well.

Another direction to go might be expanding on O'Neill's diary entries in
High Frontier about a family moving out to prospect the asteroid belt.
Remember the nursery in the radiation shield room? Tenuous connections to a
few other mining families, the optomistic economics of pioneering, and no
inhabitants there to feel bad about disposessing?

I heard somewhere that Morgan Freeman has a pet script he wants to do, about
a huge cylindrical (Island 3-size) space ship that arrives, unoccupied
except by plants, into orbit around the sun. An earth team is sent out to
investigate, and discovers that the thing is turning itself on in
preparation for the arrival of who knows what to take up residence there. I
hope he finds the money to fund it, I'm dying to know how it ends. I saw a
website with some concept art, darkened Island 3 with exotic plants and a
human explorer dwarfed by it all.

BradW

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Walsh" wrote:

I believe that Morgan actually wants to make 'Rendezvous With Rama',
possibly with David Fincher directing.

> I heard somewhere that Morgan Freeman has a pet script he wants to
do, about
> a huge cylindrical (Island 3-size) space ship that arrives, unoccupied
> except by plants, into orbit around the sun. An earth team is sent
out to
> investigate, and discovers that the thing is turning itself on in
> preparation for the arrival of who knows what to take up residence
there. I
> hope he finds the money to fund it, I'm dying to know how it ends.
I saw a
> website with some concept art, darkened Island 3 with exotic plants
and a

--- In spacesettlers, "Combs, Mike" wrote:

> It would be nice, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Any movie
> will probably pay as little attention to the space habitat backdrop
> as does the cartoon.

::nitpick::

The anime. Yes, only an otaku would care, but I'm an otaku, so I
care.

> The focus of the series has always been on the characters and the
> politics, and the habitats are hardly ever shown.

Also, it might give some people watching the show the idea that "this
giant habitat stuff is as silly as the giant robot stuff!"

Still, the truth is that everybody in Japan over the age of 15 knows
what a habitat is, while few in the US do.

> Some of us had the same kind of high hopes when Babylon 5 was first
> announced. But here, too, we were disappointed to see that most of
> the action took place in small metal rooms under artificial
> illumination, which did little to change anyone's perceptions of
> what life in a truly large structure in space could be like. The
> large, cylindrical, green area was scarcely ever seen.

And in both the case of Gundum and Babalon, space is still a place
where brave warriors/diplomats/politicos do great deends of daring-
doo. I like great deeds of daring-doo, but I like some of the ideas
about "regular life."

Xenophile (thinking maybe it's time he put up some of his unfinished
work... some of which even has great deeds of daring-doo)

--- In spacesettlers, "victoriatangoman" wrote:

> What I'd love to see is an ordinary drama, let's say, Kramer vs.
> Kramer, or The Insider, or whatever, take place in a Habitat. The
> Habitat shouldn't be the key to the story but serve as a backdrop to
> show the normality of life and perhaps the unique personal and
> behavioral adaptations that inhabitants have adopted for living in a
> Habitat. Make it seem ordinary, rather than sci-fiie. I suppose it
> could be something like Blade Runner, where the whole mileau is
> present but not center stage, though it comes close by setting the
> atmosphere of the time and place.

Why not a family sitcom? The year is 2040, and the
family is adjusting to life in the first of the habitats. There have
been hotels and work camps for a while, but six year old La Toya, her
fifteen year old brother Ly, his girlfriend Michelle, and assorted
parents deal with the joys and travails of family life, with the
Stanford Torus as the setting.

Tango, you write:

> No lingering shots on the cylinder but have the upward sweep of the
> Habitat structure always in the background.

Not a bad idea at all. But you follow it with:

> I liked the treatment Kubrick gave in 2001, where the space
> infrastructure just was part of the backdrop and the drame took
> place normally.

Which had lots of lingering shots of the space stations and such.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"

> Tango, you write:

> > No lingering shots on the cylinder but have the upward sweep of the
> > Habitat structure always in the background.

> Not a bad idea at all. But you follow it with:

> > I liked the treatment Kubrick gave in 2001, where the space
> > infrastructure just was part of the backdrop and the drame took
> > place normally.

> Which had lots of lingering shots of the space stations and such.

Yeah, contradiction acknowledged. However, 2001 stands head and
shoulders above other films that try to be serious about space (I'm
having trouble thinking of some titles though) and I compare to other
films (not necessarily sci-fi) where the director wastes film on
something that doesn't advance the story.

Anyways, it's obvious I'm cutting some slack for 2001. :)

TangoMan

From: Xenophile [mailto:xenophile2002@...]

> ::nitpick::
>
> The anime. Yes, only an otaku would care, but I'm an
> otaku, so I care.

Yeah, I never even got into the habit of saying "Japanimation" before
that fell out of favor.

> Still, the truth is that everybody in Japan over the age
> of 15 knows what a habitat is, while few in the US do.

I know many in the States don't know what a habitat is when I bring up
the subject and they make some remark indicating that they're
visualizing something like what they saw on "Deep Space Nine".

Regards,

Mike Combs