critical-constructive

4 ½ months ago my favorite series of the 2000s celebrated its 10th anniversary: "Life on Mars" from the UK, named the same as the title track song from the great and unfortunately already deceased David Bowie.

"Life on Mars" has got a successor: The BBC-series "Ashes to Ashes", produced from 2008 to 2010 – and also with an epononymous Bowie-song with the same name.
And after it had been aired in German pay-TV-station „FOX“ 2013, now it finally is also aired in German free-TV.

"Ashes to Ashes" is about the police psychologist Alex Drake, who has investigated the death of Sam Tyler, the main-protagonist in the predecessor-serie „Life on Mars“ and the events, that happened to him.
And very similar to Sam after a nearly fatal accident (rather attempted murder) also she falls into a coma and finds herself in the same (apparent-)universe in the year 1981 again with the same people as Tyler.
And also she obviously has to do something specific there, connected to her parents death, which occured at that time.

Concretely „Ashes to Ashes“ is aired since 24th of May 2016, every Tuesday and Saturday at 22.25h and 00.05h on the fledgling station eoTV.
„eo“ stands for „european originals“. And the Station isn't just being called so, it exclusively aires European movies and TV-series.
And anyone who isn't able or doesn't want to watch the episodes live, for example has the option to re-watch them in the media-library on demand for a couple of weeks.

True to the Motto "better late than never" to me it's a great thing that this – probably also great – European series is now also available here in the „German-speaking world“. And for certain I'm going to watch it with pleasure!

April-Fool-Jokes have a centuries old tradition, the term as such already exists since the 19th century. And of course I know this tradition since my childhood – and in recent years I have also regularly fallen into it. But no more so around the last 20 years.

Also earlier on April-Fools have been made not only in personal contact but also in newspapers and magazines. But that was a completely different quality as if they are made in the online-sphere.

Why?
Because April-Fools in the print-area and even more of course personally are made in a timely manner and then disappear into the vastness of personal memories or in a media-archive.
In the online-space, however these articles mostly remain indefinitely available.
And worst of all, even available by search-engines.

This actually were still not really bad - if the joke-makers would do something, that they so far do almost never: Distinctly labelling the joke as such after 1st of April

This labelling would help, identifying these special articles as jokes, even if you don't watch the date of an article's publication like a hawk. That way also online-media could continue their April-Fool-Jokes and users would no more very unfunny mislead far after 1st of April with misinformation.

Dear online-media:
Get your act together and make it so! We need fun as well as we need serious information!

Who doesn't know Star Wars? It will not be more than a few people, solely the currently ongoing almost unbelievable public campaign makes it almost impossible, to miss at least some information about it.

I'm more a Star-Trek and Babylon-5 fan, however completely undogmatic. I like watching almost everything, that is good.
And I have to mention, that the Star-Wars-series is really good and deserves praise. I however find the hysteria around it totally excessive.

I am politically active, anti-ideological and really sceptical about all kinds of things. And within the politically-sceptical scene there are several fundamentalists, who reject sports and all kinds of entertainment. In their eyes these kinds of activities keep people off dealing with the serious and important issues.
On the other hand, there are the hedonistic hardcore-fans, totally keen for all kinds of consumption - in this case then of course of the Star-Wars universe. They watch every screen-material shot and buy every product offered. Finally they – at least partially – escape from real-life into this fictional-universes fantasy-world.

I strictly reject both extremes - as I almost always do this with extremes. But before I tell you how exactly I personally deal with star wars, I would like to go a bit further back to the story's deeper meaning and it's links to our real world.

What characterises Star-Wars

As in almost all epics the fight of "Good vs. Evil" is in the centre of the action. And Star-Wars-creator George Lucas frankly said that he uses also items of great historical literature, as almost all great exponents of the fictional & fantasy-genre did: John R. R. Tolkien with "Lord of the Rings", Frank Herbert in "Dune" or whether in the recent past J. Michael Straczynski in "Babylon 5" and Joanne K. Rowling at "Harry Potter".

Characters in the medium-trilogy (episodes IV, V, and VI), created in the 1970s and 1980s, yet have been drawn quite bromidic: There "Good versus Evil" is largely black and white. However there are also laudable exceptions in the grey-area:
While the character Lando Calrissian has changed from dark-grey (rather evil) to white (good), especially the personality-profile of Darth Vader / Annakin Skywalker is excellent. The bright knight, that has fallen for the dark side of the force, helps it to rise, but finally destroys the evil, in the form of the Emperor.

Much more – because it's significantly more complex - I like the prequel-trilogy published from 1999 to 2005 (episodes I, II and III). The saga's 1st part is still less in my favour, in my opinion this is a typical introduction to the matter.
However in episode II and even more in part III a fascinating as well as a realistic-shocking image is drawn: The described transformation of a Democratic Republic into a dictatorial Empire has tremendous big similarities to the real world's development of today.

Already in the 2nd part, it comes to a national crisis, because the democratic Parliament is too divided to master a - artificially staged - crisis. For this reason dictatorial powers are transferred to the Chancellor. And as many people do in times of crisis, so also Annakin Skywalker sympathizes with the "strong man".

In the 3rd part the development to the dark side then continues in macrocosm as well as microcosm: The chancellors intelligent-vicious wire-pulling works out, he manages to destroy democracy and to make himself the ruler of a dictatorial Empire. By personal weaknesses and unfortunate circumstances the Jedi Knight Annakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, the dictatorial Emperor right-hand-man.

The historical Inspiration of George Lucas for Star Wars was Germany's transition from the “Weimar Republic” to the Nazi-regime. But that falls far too short in my eyes:
For me, it only takes little imagination, drawing parallels to ISIS (Islamic State), that at least has been connived by the West, it's terrorist-attacks and the associated, more and more anti-democratic course of our countries governments. Not only by me, but by more and more people the suspension of human-rights in France after the Paris terrorist-attacks is seen as the 1st step to the same kind of dark Empire as in star wars.

How I deal with Star-Wars

In general I'm a pragmatist as well as a movie-friend. I like the Star-Wars epics. Although mass and class often do contradict each other, the big, productions for the mass-market are mostly good. This is also true for the Star-Wars-series.
Good vs. evil will always remain interesting to mankind. Moreover, if it is visually so well staged, such as in the works of George Lucas.

So how to deal with Star Wars?
People have to participate in democracy and have to fight for their participation-right – and even more than for their right to party (considering to the "Beastie Boys" :-).
But of course you also need breaks from this struggle – and spending the breaks with this is smart kind of entertainment to me is fundamentally positive. But of course it must not degenerate into a fan-fanaticism and to escape reality.

The great schizophrenia of the hardcore-Star-Wars-fans is that they have fallen prey to a compulsive desire to shop respectively escaping into an illusory-world. An illusory-world, which has been turned from a Republic into a dictatorship.
To me it's not only important, but decisive putting up a partitioning-wall between reality and fiction.

The only thing which personally bothers me about Star-Wars most of all is the massive commercialization. If we bring to our mind that the previous 6 movies have earned a combined gross of 4.38 billion $ and the entire franchise 30.7 billion $ then the rightsholders business-desire is – politely said – commercially understandable. But I do absolutely not want to take part in this.

Since the point of culmination in 2002, when in the same year one of each episodes of Star-Wars, "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" premiered, I have a "movie-hype-trauma". And that has led me to an unconditional, short-term denial of consumption.
Therefore, I am not going to watch the current Star-Wars-trilogy in cinema and instead wait until it's aired in TV. In the meantime next to the 6 older franchise's movies there are also many other interesting films and television-series.

But when Star-Wars episodes VII, VIII and IX are broadcasted in TV, then I will be delighted watching them!
And I am persistently going to continue taking a stand for a positive, democratic world, and especially for a cooperation of people from all different political directions.

Appreciations for important science-fiction series have something of a tradition for me.
After the two Star Trek series "Next Generation" (TNG) and "Deep Space Nine" (DS9), as well as "Babylon 5" and its spin-off "Crusade" it's "Voyager" (VOY) to celebrate a big anniversary now:
Exactly 20 years ago on January 16th 1995 it has flown on television screens for the first time in the United States.
 

In contrast to "Deep Space Nine" or "Babylon 5" I was really keen to see more of Star Trek and to get known with the much anticipated successor of the new Enterprise, that from 1994 on only continued to fly in the cinema.
 

Voyager for certain does not belong to the very best but for certain belongs to the really good science-fiction series.
It co-initiated Star Treks peak of success in 1996, but also the strong downturn of Star Trek from around the year 2000 on.
 

Voyager takes place in the same universe and at the same time as TNG & DS9. But not at the same location, the ship together with a Maquis fighter is carried to the delta-quadrant by the "Caretaker", a very powerful being. There the Voyager is dependent on its self and even at top-speed is around 75 years away from home.
 

This scenario, where the story takes place secluded from home and largely without the rest of the Federation distinguishes Voyager from all other Star Trek series.
And dealing with this new, difficult situation, where things taken for granted are no longer available and you have to struggle for survival, especially makes season-1 very interesting for me.
 

Despite the stand-alone scenario, it is a proper Star Trek series which offers not only excitement, fun and action, but also attaches great importance on values like tolerance and moral integrity.

The Voyager is also much brighter than Deep Space Nine, is visually reminiscent of the Enterprise-D.
The character composition is very well made – independently from the question whether you'd have to shape it as politically highly correct as it has been shaped.
Janeway, the first female Star Trek Captain, the native-American Ex-Maquis-Insurgent and first officer Chakotay, the Vulcan security-chief Tuvok, the half-Klingon Ex-Maquis-Chief-Engineer Torres, the holographic doctor, later also the ex-Borg "Seven of Nine" and all the others provide a blend with a lot of tension, humour and variety.

However there are also several points of criticism:

• The character of Captain Janeway has very large discrepancies, particularly in referring to her own values. On many occasions she has hyped up the values and ideals of the Federation into the sky and vehemently has demanded compliance by the crew to these. At the same time it was herself making decisions which were morally questionable (e.g. the back-splitting of Tuvix, the hybrid-creature of Tuvok and Neelix) or even contradicted the federation-laws (such as her personal hunt on the USS Equinox).
• In contrast to its 2 predecessors the quality did not improve from the 3rd season on, but it droped sharply in the 2nd season and then was again considerably better, but fluctuating.
• The character of deputy chief-engineer Joe Carey, who always participated in exiting episodes of the 1st season, later is almost irrelevant. That displeases me, because potential excitement had been given away and even some absurd situations arised (E.g. "Seven of Nine" substituted Torres as chief-engineer, although Carey still were on the ship).
• In contrast to TNG & DS9 there was a strong discrepancy between the beginning and the end of the series, which makes VOY inhomogeneous. While the Caretaker and his partner play a key-part at the beginning of the show, the Borg play the decisive role at the end of the series. The Borg were introduced in the serie's third season for quota reasons.

But it very clearly has to be said that the character "Seven of Nine", introduced with the Borg story-arc, has much more to offer than large and clearly visible bosoms. It's one of the best developed characters in the entire Star Trek universe. The "becoming-a-man" of this Borg can easily measure even with Data's "seeking-for-humanity".
 

Conclusion:

Voyager is a really good science-fiction series that I have really liked at it's first appearance and I still really like today. Despite significant weaknesses, I would not want to be without it and even today see the show as enriching to me.
If it hadn't to measure with it's 2 outstanding predecessors "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine" VOY would even be a remarkable piece of television.
In this sense once again congratulations on this anniversary!

Update 27.01.2020:

On 16th January 2020 Star Trek: Voyager now turned 25 years. The series is still good an my blog-entry to the 20th is still up to date. However I have made a new 25th-anniversary-tribute to the series with interesting content and personal addendum, which I very much want to entrust you!

Around 10 months ago I stumbled over a video clip on YouTube, thereby met a great, young, British music-duo and wrote a blog entry about them. By the way this entry 2013 has become my blogs big hit.

Last week, Jonathan and Charlotte have announced that they in the future will go separate ways.

The mix of great voices (in the Opera-field Jonathan's more than Charlotte's), (partly innovative) cover-versions of popular classic pop-songs and 2 nice teenagers have a great appeal to the audience - even across the UK.

Also me liked the both and I even bought their 1st CD last year. Apropos a small CD review will follow in my blog.

2 Young artists in future will go separate ways in the music-sector, what does not come unexpectedly for those who have seen "Britain's got talent" and the documentary film about the two:

Jonathan is the classic operatic tenor, Charlotte as singer has her roots in the musical-field. And both want to remain faithful to their roots.

Both Jonathan Antoine and Charlotte Jaconelli want to publish solo albums even in 2014.

As finalisation to their common music-career they are going to sing the - perfectly fitting - cover-version "Time to say goodbye" on mother's day 2014.

Update 23rd April 2017:

It took my very long time, but now I have made my promised CD-review of Jonthans's and Charlotte's 1st album "Together" and published it few day ago her on this blog.
Have fun reading this blog-post and listening to the CD!