In theaters. Pixar Films in coordination with Disney June 2008

STATS: WALL-E is the only surviving, Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class robot on Earth in the year 2805. His objective; to clean up an Earth left uninhabitable by the humans who abandoned it. WALL-E’s main function is to gather garbage compressing it into a cube, then stacking it into enormous piles. While alone for over 700 years, he develops a personality, learning about emotions from a Hello Dolly video. He grows a small surviving plant in a boot. With those growing emotions, he also grows lonely, since the inhabitants of the planet fled the pollution.

THE LOOK:  WALL-E is short, square, with claw like hands, and big adorable eyes, one can not resist.

LEADING LADY: EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) was sent from the planet Axiom, to find plant life on Earth. WALL-E observes EVE at first, out of uncertainty. Soon he finds he’s curious about her. His curiosity soon turns into love. EVE is sleek, fast and deadly. But WALL-E can’t resist her, nor her him. After numerous misunderstandings, they hold hands, (something he learned from the video) he also shows her his plant in a boot. She stores the plant inside her compartment area, and shuts down.  WALL-E goes into chivalry mode, ready to protect her at any cost. Eventually EVE’s spaceship returns to get her, at which time WALL-E stows-away on the ship to follow EVE.

BOTTOM LINE: This story is not only a love story between robots, but it is a story about what can happen to humans who insist on living in gluttony and excess. The humans of the story, have spent so much time in artificial gravity, they have grown lazy and morbidly obese. They literately rely on robots for everything.  As much as this is an animated feature, (and a brilliant one) it tells a lot of truths about the direction mankind is headed. The planet earth is essentially dead from pollution, and the human race has escaped into space, where they’ve continued their abuse of the themselves, and everything around them, eliminating almost the very need to exist.

Question of the Day:  Do you think we’re headed in that direction? Or do you have faith we’ll see the light before it’s too late?

Dr. Daniel Jackson.

Stargate, SG-1

(Professor, Warrior, Best Friend, Lost Soul)

First episode premiered on US TV: July, 1997 

Ran 10 Years Last episode shown on US TV: June 2007

The Look:  6’, lean, muscular, sky blue eyes, glasses.Portrayed by actor Michael Shanks, who has a talent for voice characterization, languages and accents; which is a good thing because Daniel supposedly speaks 23 Earth languages and 4 alien ones.Mr. Shanks was cast as Daniel for the TV show as a result of his spot-on imitation of and sometimes uncanny resemblance to the Daniel Jackson created by James Spader for the original Stargate movie.

The Layers:

Professor: Holder of  PhD’s in Archeology, Anthropology and Linguistics, this archeologist is not a Swashbuckler.  A thirst for knowledge is his raison d’etre, not a thirst for adventure.

Warrior: Forced into this role at first to save his wife and later to save himself, his teammates, the planet and the galaxy.  He has evolved into a competent soldier able to hold his own in a fire fight although hand-to-hand is not a strength and the military attitude of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ is never his first choice.

Best Friend: Trustworthy, he is a compassionate, caring and peaceful man. He is often the diplomat, brokering alliances between Earth and alien races. He will do anything for the sake and safety of his teammates, planet and galaxy…including self-sacrifice.

Lost Soul: The only child of American archeologists living and working in Egypt, he is a misfit to American society almost from the day he is born.  A child prodigy of languages; he speaks three by the time he is age five  Orphaned at the age of eight by a freak archeological accident, he witnessed, that killed both parents.  He is put into foster care because his only relative, his maternal grandfather will not adopt him.  He bounces through the foster care system, isolated, unwanted and unadopted until he is able to on his own at 16 when he enters college at least two years younger than his classmates. This early life creates a man reticent, and self-protective. Very few people are allowed inside his personal space.  Yet because he lacked positive adult approval as he grew up he has no real sense of self-worth as evidenced by his all-too willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good.  

Leading Lady(ies):

“Stargate”, the original movie ended with Daniel(James Spader) staying on the planet that most of the movie took place on because he found himself married to the village princess who was offered to him as thanks for his role in destroying the parasitic creature that terrorized the planet.

In the first episode of the TV series, Daniel(Michael Shanks) returns to Earth having lost his wife, whom he had fallen deeply in love with, to another of the same parasitic race of creatures.  His background goal for the first 3 seasons is to save her.  During one episode during this time he must help her deliver a child the parasite’s mate had impregnated her with.  During the third season one of his teammates must kill her before she kills Daniel. For the next four seasons he remains in deep mourning for her.

Halfway thru season 8, the Earth space-battlecruiser he is aboard is commandeered by a seemingly dangerous enemy.  He manages to escape the en masse removal of the rest of the crew; in effect making himself a hostage.  He is stunned when the enemy is revealed to be a beautiful, smart, tough, sexy space pirate by the name of Vala (Claudia Black). In her past she was also a victim of the same race of parasites as his wife, but managed to survive, although she had to resort to a life of crime to do so.  Vala’s surface persona of seductress, thief and con artist is Daniel’s complete antithesis.  In their first encounter she physically beats him up, lies to him, tries to seduce him and almost gets him killed.  In their second encounter she again takes him hostage to help her find treasure, by means of an alien device that it turns out will kill them both should they get too far apart or one of them die.  The necessity to stay in close proximity to each other to keep themselves alive creates a bond that is strengthened when another alien device puts the two of them in a life threatening situation where they must depend solely on each other. The first device is eventually removed but the bond created has penetrated their myriad self-defense mechanisms.  Time and circumstances inevitably bring them back together. By the end of the final season(Season 10) they have forged a friendship that allows them to work together, trusting each other with their lives and may lead to them accepting that what they are to each other is more than friends.

Favourite Quotes:

First encounter, mid season 8: she has just punched him, after a moments hesitation he punches her back

Vala(indignant, holding her nose in pain) “You hit me.”

Daniel(exasperated): “You hit me!”

Vala: “You know we could just have sex instead.”

Second encounter, beginning of season 9: in the base infirmary after it has been discovered what the true effects of the alien bracelets are

Daniel(in an aside to one of his teammates): “Just to clarify. When I kill her…I die too?” 

Mid season 10: after circumstances have brought them back together, she has settled on Earth and is working on his team; she is abducted. When the team finally finds her, she has no memory of herself or of them.  Terrified and trying to escape she threatens to shoot Daniel.

Vala: “Now get out of my way or I will shoot you.”

Daniel: “If I let you go, you’ll just disappear.  You’ve been running so long it’s almost second nature to you. You don’t remember, but I do.  You made a decision to stop running. It’s over. It’s time to come home.”

Bottom Line:   A complicated, wounded man who deserves a “happily ever after”.

Guest Columnist June Collins: 

I am a not-yet-seeking-publication novice writer.  I began writing as a teenage…the usual teenage stuff.  Thankfully most of it has been lost to the mists of time.  I put pen to paper again in the late 90s, once it was no longer necessary for me to use all my brain for the care of my children. 

I have two or three original WIPs in various stages, but have become distracted by the complex, complicated relationship between the hero I’ve just described and his leading lady.  I’m now playing in the genre of  “fan fiction”.  Here you will  find the postings of the ‘opus’ that I’m currently working on, plus two other pieces I have written in this ‘fandom’. The other multi-chapter one has been nominated for two separate ‘fan’ awards. 

Perhaps when I’ve completed  the WIP I have in this ‘fandom’ I’ll go back to my original pieces….if I can create characters that capture my imagination like these two do. 

If any of the writers here that are way more accomplished than I, actually read any of my work I’d love to hear privately anything you’d like to say – good and bad. 

Sullivan’s Miracle by Lindsay Longford (SIL IM, October 1993)

STATS:

At the beginning of the book, Sullivan Barnett is a reporter in love with a woman who is sick of body and sick of heart, resigned to the fact that she won’t be able to stay with him and regretting that a part of her had always been too afraid to trust their love. Her refusal to lean on him makes him furious and grief-stricken—as he says to her “When you turn away…I don’t exist anymore….It’s never been like this for me. I never knew I could be so lonely until you came into my life. When you’re not with me…there’s nothing.” But Mary Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) asks something terrible of the man who loves her—to leave her—because she thinks it’s what is best for them. Sullivan refuses, telling her he’ll settle for the time they have left. When he has to leave for work, he’s sure he can convince her to let him stay, but he never gets the chance.

THE LOOK:

Shaggy hair, angular face, cantankerous reporter too thin for his height, “unnerving emptiness in his blue eyes.”

LEADING LADY:

As different from his “Lizzie” as two women can be, cop Maggie Webster pushes Sullivan over the edge. He fights his attraction to her but it’s too strong to ignore for long. When he realizes that Maggie might be Lizzie reincarnated, he must struggle with his conscience—does he want her simply because of who she was, or who she is? And what will he do when she’s shot and would rather stay in a coma than come back to a man who wants a woman she can never be?

BOTTOM LINE:

This is a super-charged emotional book that is beautifully written and with characters that come alive. Sullivan is the classic lost soul, a tortured hero who Longford expertly manages to make likable and redeemable.  To tell you how good it is, I tore my library apart when I couldn’t find my copy and immediately went online to buy another one.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Sullivan calls Maggie “honeybuns” even though he knows it drives her crazy. Secretly, she likes it. Do you have a “secret” pleasure you indulge on the sly?

Star Wars.  It’s the quintessential Hero’s Journey movie. 

Luke Skywalker.  He’s the quintessential reluctant hero and basically a Lost Soul.  His character speaks to the questioning, yearning nature we all have deep inside of us.  How simple life would be if everyone good wore white like Obi-wan Kenobi and if all villains wore black like Darth Vader.

Stats:

He lives a life he hates.  He’s immature and whiny.  He feels as if he’s suffocating and feels frustrated, bitter, reckless, naïve, and has a romanticized view of war. 

The Look:

He’s got the innocent look: blond hair, blue eyes, skinny frame.  Not necessarily the hero physique of, say, Han Solo.  But Luke has his own charm as he grows in his own self-awareness and in his maturity.

The Lowdown:

Luke’s journey is a typical hero’s journey.  He get the call to action, crosses the threshold to face an unknown danger, he meets his mentors, enters the abyss and undergoes transformation of character, and after facing death, Luke fully changes.  The movie Star Wars is full of metaphors.  When the walls of the trash compactor begin to close it, it mimicks the reality of life closing in on us when we go into avoidance.  But Luke manages to overcome his typical reaction and controls his emotions, consequently saving his friends. 

Luke was never my favorite character in Star Wars (hard to compete with the raw sex appeal of Han Solo), but he is a great character study and a true hero.
Question of the Day:

Are you able to embrace the unknown, thereby allowing yourself to be open to whatever the future may hold?