License Denied

This blog post is supplemental to a series of blog posts examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

Of the ten top-grossing film franchises of all time, nine of them have had at least one movie earn a Hugo nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation.

The remaining franchise is clearly science fiction, having featured at various times a spaceship that eats other space ships, a device that can alter the user’s DNA, an invisible car, and a city at the bottom of the ocean.

The Spy Who Loved Me features sets that are
totally science fiction.
(Image via IMDB)

We are, of course, talking about Bond … James Bond.

It’s an aging and sometimes cringe-worthy cinematic espionage adventure institution that has spawned 27 “official” films as well as three James Bond movies made by other studios who claimed the right to do so based on nebulous questions about who authored one of the original novels.

Not a single James Bond movie has even appeared on the long-list of works that barely missed the cut for the Hugos.

The character James Bond is as old as the Hugo Awards themselves. He first appeared in the novel Casino Royale, published in mid-April, 1953 — just weeks before the Philcon committee announced they would hold an awards ceremony honouring works of science fiction.

There was a mostly-forgotten James Bond TV movie in 1954, but the first big-screen depiction was eight years later when Sean Connery starred in Dr. No. That was 1962, a year in which the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation was awarded to … nothing at all. Dr. No was the seventh-highest-grossing movie of the year and was instantly part of the cultural zeitgeist — it’s difficult to suggest that Hugo Award voters were unaware of the first James Bond movie, with its radioactive pool, space race sabotage, and cyborg villain with robot hands. An enormously popular science fiction movie, ignored by Hugo voters.

James Bond made his public debut in the same
month that the first Hugo Awards were announced.
(Image via Sotherby's)

One of the most popular Bond movies ever was released two years later. Goldfinger — which famously includes the first on-screen depiction of a deadly laser weapon — was the third-highest grossing movie of the year, and was a cultural landmark. The franchise had begun to introduce the high-technology gadgets that would quickly become synonymous with James Bond, and would cement its place in the science fiction canon. Given that there were only two Hugo finalists for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1965 — and that one of them was the execrably racist Seven Faces of Dr. Lao — it seems odd that Goldfinger didn’t make the cut.

Bond was a massive part of the cultural zeitgeist in the 1960s and 1970s, inspiring numerous parodies and imitators (ironically including Hugo finalist The Prisoner). Neither the success of James Bond — nor its sciencefictionality — seem to have escaped contemporaneous fandom; almost every edition of Yandro released in the 1960s has some reference to Ian Flemming’s spy; Australian Science Fiction Review has positive discussion of the space scenes in You Only Live Twice.

Over the next few decades, the exploits of James Bond became increasingly connected to SFF, as the super-spy would don jet packs, deploy laser wristwatches, and drive cars that transform into submarines. By 1979 — in the wake of the enormous success of Star Wars — the franchise would fully embrace its genre identity by sending James Bond into outer space in Moonraker.

A full quarter of all James Bond movies (seven of the 27 movies) involve nuclear terrorism. Two of the movies involve fictional space vehicles (the Vostok 16 in You Only Live Twice, the Drax Industry Shuttle in Moonraker). There have been genetically-engineered bioweapons (No Time To Die), and underwater bases (The Spy Who Loved Me). This is not to mention the plethora of fantastical gadgets proffered by Bond ally Major Boothroyd — AKA “Q.” A close reading of James Bond offers insights into the evolving relationship between power and technology, between authority and gender, between the human side of intelligence and that wielded by machines.

Bond production designer Ken Adams brought
The Drax Space Station to life in Moonraker.
(Image via Reddit) 

So why is it then that James Bond has never been on a Hugo Award ballot? We have some theories.

James Bond may have all the trappings of science fiction, but it has always been marketed to mainstream and non-nerd audiences. Long before science fiction gained acceptance with the masses, Bond movies were taking genre ideas and marketing them to the very people who were scorning science fiction. In the early days of the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Worldcon members seemed to be drawn to movies that wore their science fiction roots on their sleeve. To be fair, one can understand why George McFly wouldn’t want to give an award to something marketed to Biff Tannen.

The superspy is a rich, good-looking dude who always got the girl. He represented the prom king, the star quarterback, the boss at work. He was never the underdog, he was never the outcast, he was never picked last in gym class. Nerd culture in the 1960s did not want to celebrate that.

Another possible factor is that there seems to be an inverse correlation between the quality of a James Bond movie and how science fictional it is. Moonraker, Die Another Day, and View To A Kill are among the most science fiction-forward James Bond movies, but they’re also generally considered some of the worst. Arguably the best James Bond movie — From Russia With Love — is virtually bereft of any genre elements.

The final reason that James Bond might have been ignored by Worldcon voters in recent years is that modern perceptions of the franchise are shaped by the overt sexism and racism of several early Bond movies. Some of the early Bond films are appalling. It’s for the best that You Only Live Twice — with its Sinophobia — got snubbed, and that the homophobia of Diamonds Are Forever was not rewarded. Although for the most part these movies are no more sexist or racist than some contemporary movies that did get Hugo nominations, they are more well-remembered for that racism and sexism, and consequently these skeezy and unacceptable aspects of the franchise have become a defining feature of James Bond in the public imagination. To many Hugo voters, we suspect that nominating the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall — no matter how good a movie it might be — would seem like an implicit endorsement of the racism and sexism of the character’s 1960s origins.

Today, Bond has become a shadow of its former glory, a franchise that exists out of momentum and brand synergy rather than being a relevant part of the cultural zeitgeist. James Bond has transformed from a science fiction character into a lifestyle brand. For the past two decades, movies in the franchise are rarely about who Bond is, and more about what brand of vodka he drinks and what model of car you should drive if you want to be suave like him.

Given the weight of the character’s sordid history — and given the way the franchise has been veering away from overtly futuristic adventures — it seems unlikely that any James Bond work will be shortlisted for a Hugo Award. Whether or not any of the previous movies of the franchise deserved consideration is another matter.

1.21 Gigawatts of Pure Entertainment (Hugo Cinema 1986)

This blog post is the twenty-ninth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

If we had a Delorean, a flux capacitor, and 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, we wouldn’t change anything about which movie won the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Back To The Future — which hit cinemas 40 years ago today — was a cultural juggernaut. It was the top-grossing movie of the year, completely blowing away the competition. It made stars out of Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox. It spawned sequels, tie-ins, spin-offs, a Broadway musical and eventually a Lego set.

Singer Huey Lewis (left) and star Michael J. Fox
on the set of Back To The Future. How the heck
did The Power Of Love lose an Academy Award
to a Lionel Ritchie song from White Nights?
(Image via Entertainment Weekly)

Moreover, it’s one heck of a movie.

But a science fiction movie achieving mainstream success does not guarantee a Hugo trophy — only a couple of years previously E.T. The Extra Terrestrial had earned a bazillion inflation-adjusted dollars, but failed to take home a Hugo award.

The Back to the Future script — which was also nominated for an Academy Award — works with clockwork precision that speaks to careful editing. Almost every plot point is expertly foreshadowed, all characters are believably developed, and every joke feels timed to the nanosecond. The viewers in our movie club felt that their time and attention was well spent, and that every frame was relevant to the story.

Some have suggested that modern science fiction cinema started with Star Wars, but we’d like to suggest that due to its tight pacing, quippy dialogue, and breezy writing, Back To The Future might be the first truly modern science fiction movie.

Our one disappointment isn’t about the actual film. Despite scriptwriter Bob Gale being a University of California classmate and acquaintance of Worldcon stalwart Mike Glyer, there was nobody from the Back To The Future team on-hand to accept the Hugo Award at the 44th World Science Fiction Convention in Atlanta.

Although the post-Star Wars boom was starting to fade, it had still been a good but eccentric year for science fiction and fantasy at the cineplexes. The Quiet Earth, hauntingly filmed in New Zealand, provided a tale of a world after people. Martha Coolidge’s Real Genius kept audiences rapt with Cold-War superweapon antics. George Miller made his third — and weirdest — Mad Max movie. George A. Romero cranked up the zombie mayhem in Day of the Dead. And Larry Cohen’s The Stuff remains possibly the greatest film ever made about cursed, evil frozen yogurt.

Certainly the most eccentric and polarizing of all was Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. In the run-off balloting, it had received almost as many first-place votes as Back To The Future, but earned few second-, third-, or fourth-place votes. According to one con report, it had placed below “no award” on the most ballots that year. According to a contemporaneous account from Evelyn C. Leeper, “Almost everyone who didn’t vote for it ranked it last.”

I suspect that every human character in Cocoon
 would have voted for Trump, even Steve Guttenberg.
(Image via IMDB)

As Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times said: “Watching Brazil, the exploding cigar in the face of the future, is like watching the contents of Terry Gilliam's head erupt in public.”

Although it is often compared to a satirical version of George Orwell’s 1984, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil presents a far more politically conservative view of dystopia. This is a world oppressed by regulation and by bureaucracy, rather than a dictator. The rebellious freedom fighters are those who flout labour union contract terms and fix things without paperwork. The movie is visually incredible, and meticulously crafted from every technical perspective, but is laden with a script that careens from one half-baked idea to the next. While some of those in our viewing group still harbour nostalgic fondness for Brazil, it was hard to argue with the decision to recognize Back To The Future ahead of it.

The rest of the shortlist is even more flawed.

Cocoon was popular with the mainstream media. Beloved by the New York Times, praised in the New Yorker, lauded by the Winnipeg Free Press. Somehow, it won the Oscar for best Special Effects ahead of Back To The Future … a decision that makes us suspect that Hugo voters have more discerning tastes than members of the Academy.

Vacillating between saccharine and crass, Cocoon is a cringeworthy wish-fulfillment fantasy about septuagenarians who receive a miraculous dose of alien Viagra. Most of the acting is either listless (Brian Dennehy) or campy (Steve Guttenberg). Don Ameche — who earned an Academy Award for his performance — is just about the only actor giving the movie any gravitas.

While much has been made of the fact that Wilford Brimley was only 49 years old when filming Cocoon, we found it more unbelievable that Ron Howard was only 31 when writing and directing it.

The Chicago Tribune described Louis Gossett Jr.’s
performance as “dressing up like a
toad and giving birth.”
(Image via Rottentomatoes)

Many of our viewing club had a lot of residual fondness for Ladyhawke, Richard Donner’s fantasy about a cursed knight set in 1300s France. Starring science fiction all-stars Matthew Broderick and Rutger Hauer, as well as a very young Michelle Pfeiffer, it’s the story of a woman who is cursed to turn into a hawk every time the sun is up, while her soulmate turns into a wolf whenever the sun has set. It’s an interesting concept, and one that provides some very good moments, and Rutger Hauer provides a first-rate performance. Unfortunately, the pacing is odd, the plot meanders all over the place, and the villain seems sort of generic. The movie was a lot … less than we had remembered.

The worst film on the shortlist — the only one that certainly didn’t warrant a Hugo nod — was Enemy Mine. Based on a very fine Hugo-winning novella by Barry B. Longyear, the movie follows human fighter pilot Willis (Dennis Quaid) stranded on a wild planet alongside one of humanity’s enemies, a Drac soldier named Jariba (Louis Gossett Jr.). Naturally, the two end up having to cooperate to survive. It’s a bad sign when Battlestar Galactica 1980 not only produced an episode with the exact same plot (“The Return of Starbuck”) five years earlier, but somehow did so with more verve and emotional depth.

Despite being made on a lavish budget by Oscar-nominated director Wolfgang Peterson, Enemy Mine looks incredibly shabby. Janet Maslin of the New York Times described it as costly, awful-looking, and derivative. “Perhaps such things are more fun to read about than they are to watch,” she quipped, noting that the original story had won awards.

Overall, the 1986 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation is an exemplar for the continued relevance of the awards. This was one of the years in which Worldcon attendees' choices not only reflected the state of science fiction and fantasy cinema at the time, but they honoured what was almost unquestionably the best movie of the year.

Send Noodles

Automatic For The People.
(Image via Goodreads)

There’s a moment about a third of the way into Automatic Noodle — Annalee Newitz’ forthcoming novella — in which android protagonists complain about how the law prohibits robots from joining labour unions. It’s just a passing reference, but it’s an interesting implied criticism of contractualist approaches to labour relations. When unions are created by legal structures, the ability of labour to organize is constrained by adherence to government regulation. (By contrast, a solidarity-based union like the Industrial Workers of the World cannot be compelled to exclude anyone.)

The book — which hits store shelves on August 5 — is a small-scale story about four robots who open up a biangbiang noodle shop in San Francisco. It’s a quick, breezy read that details the trials of setting up a quasi-legal business while facing backlash from internet trolls.

Set in the aftermath of a Californian war of independence, Automatic Noodle is based in a new nation that has declared emancipation for artificial intelligences — including robots. Because this declaration was a controversial decision, the few rights granted to robots are always at risk.

Within this future California, robots have the right to earn a living, and the right to bodily autonomy … but are subject to restrictions around property ownership, where they can live, and what political activities they can engage in. They are not full citizens, and there are political forces (particularly the alt-right ideologues in charge of what’s left of the United States) seeking to undermine what rights the robots do have.

The four protagonist robots — octopus-like Cayenne, human-mimicking android Sweetie, former robot soldier Staybehind, and industrial kitchen robot Hands — find themselves abandoned by a low-rent employer and, thus, set about building a life for themselves.

This is all obviously a metaphor for the struggles of a wide variety of real-world equity-deserving groups. There’s a subplot about Cayenne and Hands having an ace-romance, and another about Sweetie having body dysmorphia, and yet another about Staybehind’s trauma from conflict. In the hands of another writer, this might have come across as heavy handed and confusing, but here it feels natural because the four protagonists are well developed and generally likeable. If anything, these plot lines might have deserved more time to play out in a larger work.

Annalee Newitz' novella is a love letter to a
version of San Francisco that has space for
working class people and is safe for people
of varying backgrounds.
(Image via SFTravel.com)

The titular noodle shop in the novella is a worker-owned collective both owned and managed by its employees. Far from the standard individualistic perspective on entrepreneurship, the employees embrace democratic decision-making and a system of shared rewards. This setup is an important driver impacting how workers are able to assert their rights.

One highlight of the book is the depiction of internet trolls who engage in conspiracy-fueled campaigns against the restaurant. Even though it is made clear in the text that those behind the review-bombing are bigoted and misinformed, it’s a portrayal that includes some empathy around how loneliness and a lack of community can drive people to feel connection in toxic online forums. 

Authentic Noodle has been described by its publisher as “cozy” science fiction and although it will appeal to fans of that subgenre, we’d suggest that its treatment of regressive bigots on the internet is decidedly ‘uncozy.’ There’s something timely about a novella in which the major plot line is a campaign of “coordinated inauthentic activity” against members of marginalized communities who have the temerity to eke out a modicum of success.

In a genre that often presents conflicts at a planetary (or galactic) scale, it’s sometimes a pleasure to read a work whose scope is very human-scale and relatable. Automatic Noodle is a gem of a novella that we highly endorse.

A Bee-lief in the Common Good

“It is truly amazing how many flavours of dumb an apocalypse can spawn.” 

— Ada Risa (Bee Speaker.)

Bee Speaker — the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War trilogy — is the capstone to an emotionally rich and intellectually satisfying hard science fiction series that deserves to be recognized with a nomination for the best series Hugo Award.

Bee Speaker's cover art
is by Pablo Hurtado
de Mendoza
(Image via Head of Zeus)

When the first Dogs of War novel was published in 2017, no North American publisher was willing to take it on. Children of Time had garnered Tchaikovsky some fans among science fiction readers, but he was still primarily seen as an author of multi-book epic fantasies.

Dogs of War was well received in the United Kingdom — earning a BSFA nod — but for years, it remained largely unknown in the United States and Canada.

That initial book introduced the audience to Rex, one of the first genetically-altered dogs bred and built as a loyal, obedient, and fearsome soldier. Along with his teammates — a hyperinteligent bear named Honey, a chamelon/lizard named Dragon, and a hive-mind swarm of Bees — Rex is dropped into the middle of a brutal war in near-future Mexico. If this were simply a war novel with a compelling protagonist, it would have still been a good piece of fiction … but Tchaikovsky shifts gears no fewer than four times through the story. With each pivot, the book becomes something more; a courtroom drama, a moral philosophy exercise, a political thriller. Tchaikovsky engages the reader with questions about moral culpability of those within a hierarchy, about the rights of animals, and more fundamentally, about what it means to be a person. It is a book that is complete unto itself, needed no sequel, and Tchaikovsky had no plans to write one.

Over the years, Dogs of War’s reputation grew by word of mouth. It resonated profoundly with some, and eventually found its readers. By 2021, it had earned a devoted following — and improbably, a sequel titled, Bear Head.

With Bear Head, Tchaikovsky took the story decades further into the future, centering the narrative around Rex’s teammate Honey. The sequel tackled the colonization of Mars by ruthless corporations using genetically modified humans to create a hierarchical civilization on the Red Planet. Like the previous book, Bear Head is about ways in which freedom can be subverted, but is more explicit in advancing an argument that if the rights of any sapient being are eroded then the rights of all sapient beings are at risk. Like the first book, it is complete unto itself and needed no sequel.

Which brings us to Bee Speaker, a novel that expands upon, refines, and also subverts thematic elements of the previous two novels in the trilogy. We may never have expected this sequel to exist, but are very glad it does.

Picking up centuries after the events of the previous book, Bee Speaker is set after a major technological collapse. On Earth — where much of the action takes place — the remnants of corporate feudalism have become warrior enclaves led by superannuated former billionaires and their descendant tribes, while subsistence farmers pay tribute from their meagre harvests, and a Bee-themed religion preserves what addled knowledge they can of the past. Mars — partially terraformed during the events of Book 2 and populated by genetically engineered humans, dogs, and other bioforms — fared slightly better than the Earth, having been forced by circumstances to maintain their technology for survival reasons.

Dogs of War has gained readership
over time, eventually being translated
into a variety of languages such as
French, Latvian, German, Catalan,
and of course Polish. 
(Image via Goodreads)

The book follows the exploits of modified human Ada, canine Wells, and lizard Irae — Martian engineers who are lured to Earth by a cryptic distress signal. Their expedition is the first contact that the two planets have had since the fall of Earthbound civilization and they stumble into unexpected situations and a clash of cultures, unintentionally upending local power structures.

The Martian characters operate under a misapprehension that the people of Earth will share their ideas about acting in the common good; while members of the feudal warrior culture make rash and impulsive decisions based on macho notions of honour. The book could be read as a parable about the impossibility of human progress, or as a comment on turning your back on the care and feeding of a working democracy.

While the previous books explored the pitfalls of hierarchies of high-technology and of corporate dominance, Bee Speaker posits that when democratic governance fails and technology crumbles, the worst sorts of low-tech hierarchies will reassert themselves. It also shows how even those who enjoy being at the top of the pyramid will eventually be brought low by the very hierarchies they believe in.

The cyclical nature of dark ages and renaissances will remind some readers of Walter Miller Jr.’s Canticle for Leibowicz, as will the role of religion in preserving knowledge. In Tchaikovsky’s book, however, the religion is based on the worship of Bees — the hyperinteligent hive mind who is the one character tying all three books together. One of our favourite characters in Bee Speaker is Cricket, a pious, easily influenced, and intellectually vulnerable young monk of the Apiary (the name for the church of Bees).

Uplifted animals have been a staple of science fiction for decades, but are often depicted either as just normal people, or as somehow … lesser. Informed by his passion for ethology (the study of animal behaviours), Tchaikovsky’s depiction of uplifted animals avoids these pitfalls; he seems to grok the canine soul, and offers us non-human characters who are not lesser, but inescapably other. We suspect that those who have had a dog in their life will appreciate this aspect of his speculative writing.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ability to create stories infused with abiding empathy for all creatures great and small has helped solidify his following. This trilogy puts these insights front-and-centre. Although they may not be his best-known novels, the Dogs of War books might be his strongest and most emotionally interesting.

Bee Speaker is not in any way a sequel we expected, but it is one we are very glad exists.

A Hugo For The Best Fan Spreadsheet

For more than a decade, one of science fiction and fantasy fandom’s top influencers has been an online crowdsourced spreadsheet. That spreadsheet — and its creators — deserve a Hugo nomination for Best Related Work.

Every year, Renay and the team over at the blog Lady Business create, maintain, curate and edit a Google spreadsheet of eligible works and creators across all Hugo Award categories. As new works are published, the list grows, usually ending up with hundreds of listed works for any given voting year. Because of its massive list of recommendations, the spreadsheet has gained a tongue-in-cheek nickname of The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.

It turns out to be difficult to find images to illustrate
a blog post about a spreadsheet. Here's a screenshot
of the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.

“The spreadsheet was born out of a shared, friends-only collection of recs from Hugo Award newbies,” spreadsheet creator and editor Renay told us last week. “It wasn't hard to remember novels, but everything else was a huge question mark every time nominations rolled around. The down-ballot categories don't lend themselves to a modern interpretation, either, which makes it hard for new folks to parse their meanings without some hand holding.”

The first iteration of the spreadsheet was launched in time for the 2014 Hugo Awards in London. The subsequent year, when alt-right activists tried to hijack the Hugo process, there was a groundswell of progressive science fiction and fantasy fans getting involved in Worldcon for the first time. The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom was well-placed to help orient those looking to get involved in Worldcon.

“A good chunk of the motivation for the public project was to make the short lists less male, less white, and try to tempt more diverse voices into contributing to the history of the award,” Renay explains. “I thought helping the winners be more diverse was probably not in my sphere of influence, but we could, as a collective, make the history of the award show a more diverse field in the finalists and long list options.”

The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom is open for public editing. Suggestions are usually entered by creators promoting their own works or fans who are enthusiastic about a specific story or novella. Through community sourcing, the spreadsheet helps identify overlooked gems, and supports an informed nomination process. As bloggers who write primarily about the Hugo Awards, we browse the list on a regular basis to round out our own list of potential nominees. The Spreadsheet of Doom helps inform our reading across all categories, but especially the fan categories. While many professional publications have publicists trying to influence the public about what might be considered for awards, there is usually no commercial backer aiding the discoverability for fan works and non-professional creators. The Spreadsheet of Doom helps reduce these barriers.

A strength of The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom is that it’s about as neutral as you can get; the editors assess eligibility but pass no judgement about the Hugo-worthiness of what people contribute. Consequently, the list doesn’t hew to any particular subgenre, style, or set of tastes. Rather, each year provides a broad overview of the state of genre output. Although the editors might deem a work ineligible, this is done in a transparent process with explanations about the WSFS rules.

Around Hugo nominating time, anyone logging into the Google document will see dozens — sometimes hundreds — of anonymous accounts reading over the entries. This snowballing of interest has no doubt brought new Hugo voters into the process. Another important project that has likely benefitted from this exposure is Archive of Our Own (AO3).

“I realized that it had grown beyond my circle in 2017,” Renay says. “I was told that actively campaigning for AO3 was unethical because of my access to the spreadsheet (protip: everyone has access to the spreadsheet because I don't add anything until each sheet is live and promoted). That's when I realized we had made it! “

The spreadsheet encourages community involvement and curation, helps identify overlooked gems, and supports an informed nomination process. Organized by category, it may include notes on format or availability. This shared resource celebrates the genre’s diversity, encourages participation in fandom, and highlights excellence in speculative fiction ahead of the Hugo Awards each year.

The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom’s simplicity belies the many hours of volunteer labour that goes into assessing the eligibility of works, sorting out which category works belong in, and general quality assurance tasks. This is a project that has enduring value for the community, and should be honoured with a Hugo nomination of its own.

To that end we’ve added “Renay’s Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom” to the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.

Guest Post: Four Decades Of Bustin' Makes Us Feel Good

This guest post by blogger and podcaster Dan Gibbins is part of our series on the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. An introductory blog post is here.

By friend of the blog Dan Gibbins

It’s June, 1984. The Reagan administration is barrelling towards a second term of shredding economic safeguards, dragging the US to the right, and ignoring an epidemic because if it mostly affects a marginalized community, why bother. Canada has just gotten around to writing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Brian Mulroney is about to be the first Conservative party leader to ride “Hey he’s not Trudeau” until he crashes and burns. But you don’t care about any of that, you are eight years old and you’re watching Ghostbusters, and everything is right with the world.

Why does Ghostbusters continue to have a
dedicated cadre of fans? Because it's structurally
sound, often clever, and features comedians
at the top of their games.
(Image via Screenrant)

Four decades, three sequels, two animated series, one reboot, and a very brief animated revival of the Filmation series that wanted it known they had the name first, Ghostbusters is still with us. It remains a beloved classic despite the fact that its leading man is a creep, and that it came out at a point in time when the Environmental Protection Agency could be played as villainous bureaucrats. How is that possible? Why is Ghostbusters the best sci-fi/fantasy series of 1984, over Inception-precursor Dreamscape, creature feature C.H.U.D., Helen Hunt’s breakout role in time travel epic Trancers, or that other time travel movie from 1984 that can’t decide if the past can be changed or not? (Seriously, we are six movies in, are Skynet and the resistance sinking incalculable energy and effort into a prophecy trap or aren’t they, pick a side.)

First of all, Band-Aid off, elephant in the room… it is so funny. It is unbelievably funny. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, these are comedy legends at the height of their powers, with Sigourney Weaver doing some Margaret Dumont-level straight-woman work to keep the hijinks grounded. The only movies as endlessly and iconically quotable as this movie are fellow immortal classic Casablanca and ’90s western Tombstone, but in the case of Ghostbusters the dozen lines anyone can quote are all banger laugh lines, from “If somebody asks you if you’re a god, you say yes!” to “Yes it’s true, this man has no dick” down to less famous but loved by connoisseurs “I looked at the trap, Ray” and the perfect deadpan of “That ought to do it, thanks very much, Ray.”

But there’s more to it. This is a story of underdogs, dreamers that the system gave up on. Ray, the enthusiast, determined to dig into every aspect of the supernatural for nothing but the love. Egon, the academic, seeing the greater dangers society ignores and devoting himself to find the solutions no matter the cost. Winston, the everyman, proof that heroes can arise from anywhere when the call is made. And Peter, who… okay look, somebody here had to care about monetization, so if that means you need an opportunistic huckster with a heart of gold on the team, so be it.

Nobody wants to believe in the Ghostbusters. The university kicks them out, the government bureaucrat shuts them down, then refuses to accept that the ensuing chaos is his own fault for disrupting a vital agency just because he himself doesn’t believe in it. But they believe in themselves, their science, their mission, and become the only people who can stop the apocalypse and save New York from a giant marshmallow man.

The third-act reveal of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow
Man hadn't been undermined by studio marketing.
(Image via Screenrant)

Oh my god, we haven’t even talked about the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Such an iconic third-act reveal, so perfect a generation of kids were slightly stunned to find out Stay-Puft Marshmallows weren’t actually a thing, that someone on the production team just said “Pillsbury Doughboy but gooier.” And that was not in the trailers. That was kept as a surprise reveal. Modern Hollywood could never hide this — today, the third-act reveal is getting spoiled no matter what because the studio wants to sell an extra Funko Pop, so just put Red Hulk in every trailer, who cares. No. That giant candy monster was kept secret, and what an entrance he makes.

And there are no Chosen Ones like fellow 1984 releases Dune or The Last Starfighter or Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. Anyone can bust ghosts. Sure Egon is a unique genius, but Ray just needs passion, Winston has drive, Venkman belief in his ability to profit. You can be this kind of hero. We learn that nightmares, bad dreams, can be beaten. It only takes a brave man to stand in defeat. Yes, you must be the bravest, the bravest and most… you must be able to say I ain’t ’fraid of no ghosts. If you can find that strength within, then you, too, can be dusting off ghosts like true ghost dusters.

Many an ’80s comedy has aged badly, from Animal House being so loose and sketch-like it ends up kinda mid, to Revenge of the Nerds being a comedic celebration of truly unforgivable sex crimes. Not so Ghostbusters, Ray will never not be funny. Many an ’80s sci-fi flick struggles with outdated effects; Gen-Z cannot understand the appeal of the original Tron, because they cannot pretend those basic prototype attempts at computer effects look anything but cheesy. Not so Ghostbusters, the effects barely needed an upgrade 38 years later for Afterlife.

It’s one of those lightning-in-a-bottle masterpieces, like 2001’s Ocean’s 11, so singularly great that the exact same cast and creators struggled to recapture the magic. But one thing remains true these many, many years later: if you need two hours of near-constant good times… then there’s just one question.

Who you gonna call?

All These Films Are Bores ... Except Ghostbusters, Attempt No Panning There (Hugo Cinema 1985)

This blog post is the twenty-eighth  in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

In 1985, for the first time at a Hugo Award ceremony, trailers for each of the five finalists for Best Dramatic Presentation were screened. This technical achievement was slightly undermined, however, by a missed cue and the trailers suddenly being started in the middle of emcee Marc Ortleib’s introduction of the shortlist. But the presentation was greeted with cheers and good humour.

Capitalizing on the success of Stanley Kubrick's
enigmatic and mysterious 2001, Peter Hyram's
sequel offered tepid explanations and answers.
(Image via MGM)

Gone were the years when as few as four nominating ballots were required to get a movie on the shortlist. Even the least-nominated finalist in 1985 had received 40 nominating votes. While Worldcon voters were showing the category some much needed respect, the nominees were less enthused. As per usual — and as is still largely the norm — not a single one of the finalists in the category were on hand to witness the award’s presentation.

It had been a banner year for science fiction and fantasy movies. One of the most successful filmmakers of all time — James Cameron — burst onto the scene with Terminator. Beloved Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki had his breakout hit with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The BBC changed the shape of the Cold War with its harrowing and unforgettable depiction of nuclear war in Threads. John Sayles tackled racial alienation in his weird parable Brother From Another Planet. Somehow none of these films made the cut for the Hugo Award. Even beyond this lineup, there were credible works omitted from the ballot. Neverending Story has fantastical charm. Joe Dante’s Gremlins remains iconic. Repo Man and Buckaroo Banzai are cult classics.

Which all makes that year’s Hugo Award shortlist the more befuddling. Most of the movies honoured with a Hugo nod that year are … little more than fine.

The Last Starfighter eked onto the ballot with about half as many nominating votes of anything else on the shortlist. It’s a surprisingly pedestrian outing about Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a young man from a small trailer park in California, whose prowess with video games leads to his recruitment as a pilot in an intergalactic war. Although portions of the film are charming — especially the comedic storyline involving a replicant android acting as Alex’s stand-in on Earth — the movie is stilted and filled to the brim with leaden performances. The New York Times put it bluntly: it is less inspired than derived.

The Search for Spock is rarely listed as anyone’s all-time-favourite Star Trek movie. It’s an oddly paced script with some clunky concepts. The whole “resurrection” storyline may have been preordained by the ending of the previous movie, but it mostly doesn’t work. That being said, the core cast offer a few endearing performances, and individual character moments are handled well. One notable aspect of the movie is Christopher Lloyd’s performance as Klingon captain Kruge, which would shape how all future iterations of the franchise depict the race.

Brother From Another Planet
is a masterclass in "show, don't
tell." Joe Morton is simply superb.
(Image via IMDB)

David Lynch’s lush, sweeping adaptation of Dune is unfondly remembered by many fans of Frank Herbert’s classic novel, but it has its merits. The cast is first-rate; often providing better performances than the more critically lauded remake. Leading in with an extremely long monologue, and pausing for a lot of exposition, the movie does feel ponderous. However, this set-up was appreciated by those who had watched the recent movies and had found them opaque. Some visual effects scenes were campy, but they were effective. Fundamentally though, the movie has too much story to tell over a relatively short runtime. In a one-star review, Roger Ebert panned the movie as an “incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.”

Of the movies on the shortlist, we’d suggest that Ghostbusters aged the best, despite at least one character’s overt sexism. The continuing series of inferior sequels makes it easy to forget just how much the original was lightning in a bottle. The movie offers viewers three top-tier comedians at the height of their game playing with a high-concept script. The amount of planning required for special effects is often at odds with the improvisational comedy that remains in the final cut, but somehow many of the lines still feel fresh. Conversely, the character of Peter Venckman (played by Bill Murray), who habitually harasses women, was seen as dated when the film was released and fast-forward worthy when rewatching today. Even the filmakers themselves chose to portray this as less than an admirable quality. This begs the question of why it was included at all.

Ghostbusters is a remarkably well-made movie,
one that remains enough appeal today that
a friend of the blog has authored a guest post
grappling with the movie's enduring appeal.
(Image via IMDB)

The winning movie that year was 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001. Languidly paced and cerebral, it’s enriched by several excellent performances including from Helen Mirren and John Lithgow. However, director Peter Hyrams (Timecop, End of Days) is no Stanley Kubrick and the sequel relies too much on exposition and lacks the beauty or the artfulness of the original. Looming nuclear conflict on Earth rarely has the emotional impact it deserves — it’s a strikingly cold movie.

It would be difficult to call the Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation winner the best science fiction movie of the year, but we had little consensus about what should have won. Some in our group thought Ghostbusters deserved the nod, others opted for the grittiness of Terminator, some liked the exuberant weirdness of David Lynch’s Dune, one person even thought the empathy of Brother From Another Planet made it more worthy of the award than any of the nominees.

In 1985, Hugo voters had incredible movies to choose from. They could have done better than 2010.