1985 [PDF] - Yosemite

Merced River UpdateOn Tuesday, April 30, the Merced Irrigation District announcedthat plans have been cancelled for the proposed damand hydroelectric facilities on the South Fork of the MercedRiver. Plans were droppe(~ as the District decided the plan wastoo costly and environmentally damaging.This is good news, but efforts continue to obtain permanentprotection for both the South Fork and the main stem of theMerced in the Wild and Scenic River system. YP&C continues towork with the Merced Canyon Committee on this project. To jointhe MCC and help protect the river send $10 to MCC, P,O. Box152, El Portal, CA 95318.Above: Design for Bay To Breakers T-Shirt. Available forYosemite participants, Inquire with Bill Germany for infortion.\Movie Review2010: The Odyssey ContinuesBy Chris Becker2010 is the long-awaited sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s masterpieceof cinematic art 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is difficult to discuss2010 without comparing it to 2001.2001 began by whisking us back to the primordal jungle fromwhich we sprang, and then sling-shot forward into our very nearHAL, and an encounter with the elusive black monolith, not tomention an encounter with Dave Bowman who was believedkilled in the last mission.Overall, the special effects are, for a change, quite special.Unlike the Star Wars films and their many clones, meticulous attentionfuture, perhaps to see how much and how little was paid to accurate physics and science, and for thiswe had changedover the millenia. The original film was a more poetic, mysticalexperience than it was science-fiction and although there weremany who could not fathom the deep underside of the film, it isgenerally agreed upon by film critics to be one of the top ten filmsever made.Making a sequel to such a film would seem a dangerous undertaking,and yet Arthur Clarke and Peter Hyams (best knownfor Outland and Star.Chamber) have done just that, and what thefilm lacks in mystical experiences it makes up in its relenting portrayalof future life in space.We meet Heywood Floyd in the beginning of 2010, the manresponsible for sending the first ship, Discovery, to Jupiter in2001. With the ship damaged and crew believed lost, he retiredin scandal. Roy Scheider plays Floyd, and this may be the biggestmistake of the film. Scheider, a capable actor, appears to beplaying the role all too casually. The facial expressions and evenhis dialogue are of vintage ’Uaws" and his flat performance trulymars an otherwise excellent film.Due to numerous and complicated reasons, Americans are allowedreason alone the film is worth the price of admission.This is not to say there are no flaws, because there are, butmost of the flaws are in the acting and the screenplay. Besidesdirecting and producing, Hyams also wrote the screenplay andwas the director of photography, and it shows in the film. The plotmoves along at a snail’s pace, paying no attention to the fact thatmuch of the material that they aretalking about is of no interest tothe audience.There are some shining moments in the film, however, and theone scene that I most enjoyed was towards the end of the movieand involved an existensial discussion between Balaban and hiscomputer HAL. The underlying statements about what is life andwhat We define as alive are very engrossing, if not nostalgic.Certainly 2010 has little of the lyrical poetic style of its predecessor,but t hen 2010 is a different film from 2001, and some of itsdifferences are as refreshing as they were in 2001.I don’t believe anyone should recommend NOT seeing a film,since we all derive different entertainment, but I can recommendthis film to anyone who enjoys good solid "hard sci-fi."to "hitch" a ride back to Jupiter with a Soviet ship. Thetypical stereotyped Russian-U.S. paranoia is evidenced Becker’s Score Card: Direction: Cthroughout most of the film, and even though it gets trying atPhotography: B +times, I feel a certain sense of accuracy. Along with Floyd are twoScreenplay: C +other Americans -- an engineer played by the always dynamicActing: B-John Lighgow, and a computer specialist (the man who createdVisual Effects: A +the HAL 9000 computer) played by Bob Balaban (the interpreterin Close Encounters) who steals the film.Suffice it to say that once they arrive at Jupiter there are manyadventures; attempting to re-board the Discovery, reactivatingOverall: B +