Win a copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Xbox 360!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is released on 19 September, and to celebrate we’ve teamed up with LucasArts and Hasbro to give you the chance to win an Xbox 360 copy of the game plus an electronic Star Wars lightsaber from Hasbro, http://www.hasbro.com/starwars.

The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a videogame developed by LucasArts, which casts players as Darth Vader’s “Secret Apprentice” and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The expansive story is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In it, players will assist the iconic villain in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi – and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be available September 19, 2008 on Xbox 360™, Nintendo Wii™, PS2™, PS3™, PSP™, and Nintendo DS™.

Two lucky winners will receive an Xbox 360 copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed plus an electronic Star Wars lightsaber.

For your chance to win simply answer the following question:

What is a Jedi information storage device called?

a) Holocron
b) Holostick
c) Holodrive

Answers to scifinow@imagine-publishing.co.uk. The two winners will be chosen at random from those who select the right answer at a later date.
For more information on the game click here: http://www.theforceunleashed.co.uk.

LucasArts and the LucasArts logo are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. © 2008 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM as indicated. All rights reserved. ‘2’, ‘PLAYSTATION’, ‘PlayStation’ and PSP are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox
logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. NINTENDO DS, Wii AND THE Wii LOGO ARE TRADEMARKS OF NINTENDO. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

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Released: Out now
Certificate: 12A
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Screenwriter: Eric Besnard, Mathieu Kassovitz, Joseph Simas
Cast: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Mélanie Thierry, Gérard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Running Time: 90 mins

In the early Nineties, a young, first-time feature director by the name of David Fincher set about shooting the third movie in the Alien franchise, Alien 3. Following from the genre-defining instalments by Messrs Cameron and Scott, he was determined his movie would do the blossoming franchise proud. Before the film could be completed, though, he had abandoned the movie, the set, the whole production. Why? The studio had him hamstrung at every turn, undermining his decisions and rewriting the script as it went along. The studio in question was Fox, and with Babylon A.D. comes clear proof that it’s not concerned with changing its methods, with French director Kassovitz this time feeling the wrath of a studio unaccustomed to not getting its own way.
There is a decent movie buried somewhere in Babylon A.D., admittedly very, very, deep within, but the actual film here is a rambling, befuddled mess of bad acting, bad writing and well, just bad execution full stop.
Vin Diesel, who for the most part appears unsure of whether he is coming or going – understandably such was the film’s prickly shoot – delivers a mumbling, bumbling performance here as Toorop, a gruff mercenary in a gritty dystopia who’s tasked with transporting a precious cargo, a young lady (Thierry), from the depths of Russia to New York. It is a dystopia defined by deprivation, overcrowding and omnipresent advertising and, as such, is a fairly well realised backdrop, but the events that unfold are not so much a film with a beginning, a middle and an end, but more just a ramshackle collection of action scenes that appear to have been somewhat randomly knitted together. And to make things worse, they’re poor action scenes, too.
A story that is unsatisfactorily, and lazily, explained away in the final act; villains, portrayed by Rampling and Depardieu, that are underused; wasted support, most prominently Yeoh; an aimless narrative that wanders to and fro with little to no purpose, and which is loaded with crass dialogue; this film is scuppered at every conceivable turn. Kassovitz has openly distanced himself from the whole thing in the media, chastising Fox for having no guts and for refusing to allow him to work to deliver the film he intended. It’s not hard to see why he’s so peeved.

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Released: 15 August ’08
Certificate: TBC
Director: Dave Filoni
Screenwriter: Henry Gilroy, Steve Melching, Scott Murphy
Cast: Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, Tom Kane, Ian Abercrombie, Ashley Eckstein, Catherine Taber, Anthony Daniels, Christopher Lee, Samuel L Jackson
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Running Time: 97 mins

Do you remember playing with your Star Wars figures? Do you recall if the plots of those play moments matched anything resembling the movies you loved? Chances are they probably didn’t. More than likely they revolved around continual dust-ups between stormtroopers and Jedi. It’s clearly something that the makers of the new Star Wars movie, Clone Wars, remember only too well, yet unlike the rest of us, they decided to make a movie of their figurine playtime.

Set awkwardly between not only Episodes 2 and 3, but also between the two halves of the Cartoon Network animated mini-series that spawned it, Clone Wars continues the story of the campaign between the Separatists and the Republic, with the Sith manipulating everything in a massively convoluted power play that will pay off in Revenge Of The Sith.
The opening story revolves around the kidnap of Jabba the Hutt’s previously unmentioned son by Count Dooku, in a bid to destabilise the outer rim systems and stir up a second warfront for the Republic. Anakin Skywalker now with his own “sassy”, valley girl Padawan, must venture off to locate the “Huttling” before Jabba decides to side with the Separatists, turning the tide of the war in the process.
After the initial establishing of the plot and the stakes involved, director Dave Filoni hunkers down and sets about giving you 97 minutes of the CGI equivalent of those figurine dust-ups from yesteryear. The action, which initially starts off in spectacular fashion, quickly becomes dull and numbing, with swathes of droids and clones falling beneath a hail of laser fire and lightsaber hack-‘n’-slash combat that has you yearning for something, anything, in the way of meaningful dialogue to give you some respite.
When the dialogue does eventually arrive, it quickly slips into two very distinct categories: the first, childish action dialogue mostly cribbed wholesale from the original films; the second, huge lumps of leaden exposition, bringing those who may have dozed off during the 15th clone/droid stand-off in the past 5 minutes up to speed with exactly who is fighting who, where and why. The script by Henry Gilroy, Steve Melching and Scott Murphy removes Anakin’s whining and petulance, transforming the character in to a dull straight man to his hip young Padawan, but the effect is one that removes the series from the films that bookend it both in tone and content. Other characters fare little better: Padmé, 3P0 and Yoda get little more than cameos, while Obi-Wan is effete, consigned to being little more than Anakin’s backup where the story demands.

The action is certainly eye-popping in places, most notably a vertical assault up a cliff face by Anakin and his clones, yet it’s very hard to engage with. Partly this is due to the fact that the clones and the droids, who make up the majority of the cannon fodder, are utterly faceless and wiped out with monotonous regularity; partly it’s to do with the visual overload of what amounts to 90 minutes of the 97 being a constant fight. But ultimately the real problem comes with the innate knowledge that nothing that takes place on screen is going to have any impact at all.

The original animated Clone Wars series consisted of two volumes; the first took place directly after Attack Of The Clones, the second preceded Revenge Of The Sith, ending on the very opening shot of that movie, and so both halves felt relevant to the overall story. Unlike these, though, the new Clone Wars series feels redundant from the outset. It’s a feeling that increases as the film, an amalgam of multiple parts of a forthcoming TV series, moves forward. Only Anakin’s new Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, stands any chance of being interesting due to her introduction to the saga here, but even so, given her master’s actions in Revenge Of The Sith and her lack of appearance outside of this new series, her future isn’t exactly looking rosy.

Beyond the story, such as it is, the production of the film adds a lacklustre feel to everything; from the frankly dire score by Kevin Kiner  – who re-enforces the majesty of John Williams’s original work by turning in a rendition of the epic opening theme that’s so abysmal, that it sounds like a demo preset on a cheap electric organ – to the majority of the voice acting, which wavers between competent impressions to decidedly dodgier representations of characters and races. The one exception to this being Christopher Lee’s booming presence as Dooku.
The visuals fare little better. By turns striking and certainly iconic in places, the animation at times gives too clear an idea what the galaxy far, far away would look like had it been handed to Gerry Anderson in the Sixties. At times it’s dramatic and interesting but for the majority of the time the characters are lifeless, lacking in weight, pacing and empathy. In these CGI/DVD-extra savvy times, audiences will find very little to wow them, especially when the latest DreamWorks or Pixar beautifully-animated extravaganza plays in the theatre next door.

The overall result is one of profound apathy for all but the most hardcore (or undemanding) Star Wars fans who need to know the minute surrounding events between Volumes 1 and 2 of Genndy Tartakovsky’s original stylish series. For the rest of the audience, it will be hard to shake an overwhelming sense of cynicism that this is simply product to keep balance sheets looking healthy.

Lee Medcalf

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No doubt intended to combat the negative web chatter that followed the unveiling of the first look at The Spirit, Frank Miller’s big-screen take on Will Eisner’s iconic comic book, a new trailer has been released. It is longer, full of lots more stuff about who’s in it, features loadsa ladies, and has some guns that fire really, really loudly. Shame then that it is unlikely to quell the swarm that is quickly enveloping this film as one of the potential stinkers of the year.

Sin City saw all kinds of misogyny accusations levelled at Miller and his co-director Rodriguez. ‘All the women are just sexualised objects of male lust’; ‘they’re all just hookers in skimpy clothing,’ so the clamouring went, quite understandably. Well wait until they get a load of this latest Miller fantasy.

The initial posters should have sent alarm bells ringing. ‘Keep the mask on’; ‘On your knees then,’ they implored, over pics of the movie’s main female characters. Now backed up by this new trailer, which focuses on the Spirit’s obsession over women with particular attention paid to each of the four primary characters one by one, the film appears to be little more than a big budget filming of Miller’s own fantasies, complete with Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson. It is also, so it appears, tragically cheesy, and played straight in a manner that has not quite come off, same for the efforts in the visual department. The main goal, surely, when shooting a film on sparse sets using green screen to layer in the background must be to make it look like it wasn’t actually shot on an empty soundstage using green screen. Spirit’s appearance, though, looks bland and empty, with primary colours seemingly chosen to substitute for any kind of convincing, or even interesting, ‘locations’.

And then there’s Sam Jackson. Quite what he’s trying to do remains entirely unknown, although he does seem to be labouring under the impression that what is required of him is another shouty, Pulp Fiction-esque performance. Only with glittery eyeliner.
While we’re not one to judge a book by its cover, we are quite happy to spill forth with conjecture based on a trailer, and in this respect The Spirit looks like an unmitigated mess. Batman and Robin’s illustrious throne could be under threat…

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Released: Out now
Certificate: 15
Director: Chris Carter
Screenwriter: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Cast: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Running Time: 104 mins

There is a point towards the start of Mulder and Scully’s comeback flick where they’re waiting outside a door in a faceless corridor in the FBI offices. On one side of the door is a picture of President George W Bush and as our two believers look at it, then at each other, the show’s signature note refrain rings out. Is the commander in chief an alien? For one horrible moment it looks like we’re headed down the same history-debasing route as Jones and his Crystal Skullage… Thankfully, this is the only throwaway moment director and writer Chris Carter indulges in and the rest of the film adheres strictly to the X Files casebook. The problem is that it adheres a little too strictly to it.

Opting for an enclosed story that eschews the convoluted conspiracies of before is a wise move, it has been six years since the X Files were officially closed, but the case that Carter and co-writer Spotnitz have come up with is surprisingly rudimentary. There’s a kidnapped FBI agent and a slapdash of psychic prophesising from Billy Connolly’s paedophile priest, but the resultant investigation struggles to fill the feature-length running time. Indeed, it all feels too much like a prolonged episode, something the limited 30 million budget fails to disguise, which is closer in tone to a police procedural and which bears surprisingly little of the supernatural at all.

There are nods to the past, especially in the Mulder and Scully relationship, but the film appears confused as to how much fidelity it should demonstrate. There are too few links to the series’ previous goings on for the diehards, but newcomers will be lost in places, and it is hard to see who it is really aimed at – fans or non-fans. As a result of this confusion, the film mistakenly retreads too much familiar territory – do we need to be told that Mulder wants to believe because he wants to save his sister?

In casting itself adrift of the series’ convolutions too, the film is stripped of some of the show’s potency. With the real world stymied by a lack of faith in the government and the powers that be, you’d think there would be an appetite for a spot of conspiracy theorising. Carter, though, thinks otherwise and as a result, this new X File feels wholly irrelevant and disappointingly unnecessary. Time has moved on, and it is hard to find a reason to believe in what is presented here.

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Released: 25 July
Certificate: 12A
Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenwriter: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart
Distributor: Warner Bros
Running Time: 152 mins

It’s very unlikely we’ll ever give a six out of five, but had The Dark Knight lived up to the hype we may well have had to. The truth is Heath Ledger’s Joker is an admirable creation but not mystically brilliant. Equally, the bank heist doesn’t come close to Heat’s; the drama is not on a par with Godfather Part II; the action is smart but within boundaries already set; and the debate for best superhero movie is still open. But that’s not to say The Dark Knight isn’t excellent – it is.
With David Goyer given less involvement this time around, the brothers Nolan have been set free to construct a tale that’s clearly a separate beast from every other superhero movie that’s gone before it, even, to a degree, 2005’s Batman Begins. This is an ambitious crime thriller in the vein of Michael Mann that intermittently features a man dressed up as a Bat. This isn’t simply a comic book adaptation, it’s a tale of corruption, justice, heroism and terrorism, a story where a maniacal criminal affects a city’s change so much that progress is reversed and those who watch over it become lost. And it is unrelenting. From beginning to end, the pace never lets up, the narrative chasing one pulse-racing scene after the next. There are moments that widen the eyes and ones that will have you covering them, there are sequences that will leave you surprised and some that will leave you sad. It is a film without a singular high point but instead with many, each equally as impressive and technically assured as the one before it.
The Dark Knight is a universe away from Superman catching a helicopter and Spider-Man stopping a train, it is a serious film about serious things with serious performances. Whenever a tongue threatens toward the cheek, it’s unceremoniously stomped on with razor-tipped shoes. As a result, it hinges a great deal on the performances and they are uniformly excellent. Bale is a comfortable Batman and an entertaining Bruce Wayne; Ledger is terrific as the darkest of anarchists; Oldman typically superb as the tired Gordon; and with what is arguably the hardest job in this undoubted ensemble piece, Eckhart excels as the DA-turned-madman Harvey Dent, giving the film the emotional centre is so clearly relies on.
This is not a superhero movie that will have you cheering and neither is it one that will leave you with that feeling of awe precious few others do, it is a superhero movie you observe, consider and say well done to. Well done indeed.

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Remakes are part of the culture in which we live, we just have to accept it and take it for granted. It is just one of those things in life we have to get used to. Having said that, though, the idea that a big budget Hollywood remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still was in the works was a hard pill to swallow. The original is a bona-fide sci-fi classic – a timeless piece of cinema. The remake stars Keanu Reeves.

We have had time to digest that frightful bit of news. Or, as is perhaps more to the point, push that particular casting decision to the back of our minds and pretend that it didn’t happen. Now, though, all attempts at pretending this remake (or re-imagining, or whatever PR-coined term is now employed to distract us from this abhorrent lack of originality) is not afoot have been scuppered by the arrival of the first trailer for the movie. It is here, it is really happening, but, if truth be told, it really doesn’t look like the abomination we had all feared.

Reeves looks hopelessly miscast. That doe-eyed monosyllabic delivery that he likes so much, on paper, makes him an ideal choice for an alien. In practice, though, it just comes across as tired and uninspiring. That aside, however, the film itself shows signs of promise. Orchestrating an Emmerich-esque sense of scale and disaster while maintaining a more sombre and pensive tone was always going to be a tough task – how do you appease the fans of the original while staying true to the story’s message and delivering enough wanton carnage for the multiplex masses? Director Scott Derrickson – yes he of The Exorcism Of Emily Rose ‘fame’ – seems to have found a suitable balance in the execution of the CGI set pieces and the muted emotions of the film’s human players.

The problem, perhaps, lies less with the film’s tone and more with the film’s story. “If the Earth dies, you die; if you die, the Earth survives,” Reeves states in the trailer, at his laconic deadpan best, of course. Updating the atomic warning of the original for a contemporary ‘environmental’ theme is a risky game to play, though. Sure it is more current, it is something we can all relate to, and it is an issue with which we do need to engage pretty darn quick, but films with such a clearly defined message rarely make riveting cinema. Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow stands as a clear example of exactly where Derrickson could come unstuck. There is potential for a decent and thought-provoking film it seems, despite our anxieties over Reeves and the molestation of a beloved classic, but the last thing we need is a bigger budget sequel to Shyamalan’s The Happening.

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Well it’s finally over, and after the build-up and hype surrounding the mega final episode of Doctor Who, did it live up to this expectation?It’s not really an easy answer, and I’d need to put on two hats to fully answer this question. As a ‘ahem’ forty-something sci-fi fan, I’d have to ultimately say that I did really enjoy it, but it has to be classed as a ‘guilty pleasure’. Doctor Who is great Saturday entertainment, which is massively popular, and for science fiction I label this as a ‘good thing’, but is it great sci-fi? I’d have to unfortunately say no.

The build-up and promise at the end of arguably one of the finer episodes from new-Who’s season four, ‘The Stolen Earth’, was excellent. The effects first off were top-notch (for the BBC) and the spectacle of Davros (in new Star Wars Emperor guise), a supreme cloned Dalek war fleet, and the huge cliffhanger of the Doctor’s regeneration left all viewers (enthusiastic and usually cynical) with sweaty palms and a hunger for the conclusion seven days later.

The internet speculation was wild and got more outrageous every day. From initial thoughts that the new Dalek race were genetically altered from the ‘missing bees’ by Davros due the hive mentality of our avian honey makers, through to Donna being the Master (her ring is the Master’s), The Doctor regenerating into Sylvester McCoy/Paul McGann/a woman/River Song and more! In fact, the speculation of the happenings in ‘Journey’s End’ ended up being far more exciting than the actual event!

Settling down to watch on a Saturday evening, the event itself far outweighing any piffiling Wimbledon final, the opening credits rolled and I drank in every moment of the regeneration expecting something amazing. What I didn’t ever imagine was the Doctor just sort of ‘belching’ and shoving the regeneration energy into his manky hand! What a cop-out. First up, why is it that now the Beeb has its hands on CGI does the regeneration process have to become a massive explosion of energy? Regeneration is usually a very quiet affair, and certainly not one of ‘Highlander’ proportions. But this aside, the whole cliffhanger aspect of the regeneration was treated in such an ‘off hand’ (sorry about the pun) manner as to cheat the viewer. But then, part of me likens this to the old Flash Gordon series cliffhangers where actually nothing really ever happens.

As the finale continued, every one of the companions in peril was scooped up into relative safety in the first five minutes, nullifying all build-up of tension from ‘The Stolen Earth’. I found this disappointing, but still hoped for more ‘cleverness’ as the episode unfolded. After all, this was the finale.

I found the banter with Davros fun, and occasionally there was even the philosophical debating Davros of old. Particularly interesting was the message that the Doctor, although he carries no guns, is the forger of human weapons, and the destroyer of worlds. Pretty powerful stuff and insightful for Who. As the episode unfolded, I grimaced at the Doctor/Donna appearance, that ‘chav speak’, the offhand way of destroying the Dalek armada (not to mention the fix for the Chameleon circuit) and I’d pretty much given up on it delivering anything truly ground-breaking, and so waited for the ‘Bad Wolf Bay’ payoff where the Doctor would finally profess his love for Rose. In effect what we got was the shell of the Doctor (notice how little the one heart Doctor actually said), whispering to Rose only what I can assume is ‘I love you’ (something nearly every person on the planet would say to Billie Piper, wouldn’t they?).

This episode left a lot of unanswered questions, but it did leave interesting implications for events to unfold later. For example, River Song recognises the Tenth Doctor from ‘Quiet In The Library’ but her Doctor is older, so one has to assume her relationship is with the ‘one heart Doctor’, as he can age. Yet he has no sonic screwdriver or TARDIS, leaving you to believe that ’something’ happens in the parallel world to give ‘one heart’ Doctor access to these things. Plus, what happens to Rose and his relationship there, then?

Overall, I did enjoy this episode as a Saturday night, takeaway chomping entertainment romp, but as a slice of great sci-fi it was found lacking. It ‘copped’ out many times, was far too drawn out at the end, and left me on a downer for the end of the season. There was no crescendo, no happy feeling. Nothing.

Then I saw that the Cybermen would be back on Christmas Day and my guiilty pleasure emotion chip clicked in again.

Here we go again.

Love/Hate/Love/Hate…  

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Hero.com and Villain.net are the first two instalments in a fiendishly clever new novel series from author Andy Briggs. Published simultaneously within one set of covers, the series and anti-series standalone but, thanks to their cunning plotting, also overlap to give added enjoyment to ultra-observant readers.
Hero.com: Rise Of The Heroes tells the story of a group of friends who discover a website that turns them into superheroes. While surfing the net during a lighting storm they find out that superpowers can be theirs at the click of a mouse button. Their newfound powers, though, come with great responsibilities, which they are forced to face up to when a weather-controlling super villain arrives on the scene.
Villain.net: Council Of Evil tells the story of Jake Hunter, a school bully who receives a mysterious email inviting him to join a scheme for world domination, and serves as the perfect antidote to Hero.com.
To celebrate the launch of Andy Briggs’s new series, we have a signed set of the books up for grabs for the lucky winner, as well as seven more sets of the books for runners up.
To be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is answer the following question correctly.

Villain.net: Council Of Evil tells the story of which school-age bully?

1)    Jake Hunter
2)    Jack Coulter
3)    John Winter

Answers to scifinow@imagine-publishing.co.uk

Competition closes on 7 August.

To find out more about Briggs’s novel series go to:

www.whichsideareyouon.co.uk

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“Hollywood faces the threat of a second, crippling strike as the contract runs out between the biggest actors’ union and studio chiefs,” screams The Telegraph’s website at me this morning, while the news inevitably spreads like wildfire along the veins and conduits of the internet. “Actors strike to ruin Comic-Con!” “It’s happening again!” “Strike Two!”, the headlines ripple across cyberspace and print magazines everywhere, the worst part of it being that the last one was written by me last month. While many are discussing the immediate issues of a potential work stoppage, few are considering exactly what this will do to the tenuous and fractious relationship that already exists between actor, studio and production.

But is there going to be a strike? The AMPTP claims, without detailing exactly how they arrived at the figure, that any industrial action by the SAG would cost Hollywood approximately $23 million (£11.5m) a day. That’s right, more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes, down the gaping maw of financial bleed should a table of grown men fail to let go of their pride and hubris, and work out a fair deal. Because that’s what it essentially comes down to, and understanding the history of the current situation is just as important as analysing the subtext in press releases and labour-management banter.

The WGA strikes may have garnered the most media attention so far due to the sensational images of red-boarded picket lines and the cessation of television show production, that opium of the masses that will guarantee even the most ardently a-political non-pundit will eventually have an opinion on the situation. However, the palpable sense of fear that surrounds this current round of sabre-rattling and bad mouthing was absent the last time. The SAG is easily the most powerful union in Hollywood, representing over 120,000 actors in television and motion pictures and the annual gross income of its members exceeds $4 billion. The producers knew this going into the next round of negotiations, and from the reports that are starting to trickle out, they had strategies in place to deal with the labour organisations that were finally beginning to gain confidence after being so thoroughly browbeaten into place during the Eighties. What they needed, it seemed, was a chink in the armour through which they could push their collective swords.

That opening came in the form of AFTRA and Roberta Reardon. After bandying about practically baseless (and most likely premeditated) accusations of member-poaching, the far smaller union, which represents 70,000 members (44,000 of which hold dual membership with the SAG) historically and very publicly split with the SAG and decided to bargain separately. Now, considering the amount of time that it took the WGA to hammer out a deal, and is taking the SAG now, AFTRA was in and out faster than you can say the word “shill”. Let’s not kid around, their contract deal is abysmal. It makes no significant gains in terms of the dreaded New Media residuals, nor does it adequately protect their members against negative industry practices later in the future. I won’t go into specifics, due to the fact that this column is rapidly turning into a dissertation (or rant, if you will) as it is, but the fact is that AFTRA sold out their members, body and soul, on goodness only knows what incentive.

SAG then started their ill-advised campaign of attempting to influence AFTRA members not to ratify the contract in eight days time. The schism between the two unions has now rapidly grown to a vast crevasse that may not be fully healed for decades, and certainly not without a great deal of tears and reconciliation. Meanwhile, the studio moguls and their labour lawyers have been laughing all the way to the bank. SAG now has the dubious distinction of being the only major union without a deal, without a negotiating partner, and isolated in the way that they’ve approached these setbacks.

What this does, now I’m finally back to my original point, is create an air of bitter, bitter animosity between actor and actor, union and union and, of course, between organised labour and management. If anybody trusts the AMPTP after the cunning way they’ve conducted themselves over these labour negotiations, they’re either ill informed or barking mad. Or the head of Disney. Either way, whether there’s a strike or not, the soured relationships will last for years to come. It’s not just bad for Hollywood as a whole, but also for unionism. Strike breaking, going over picket lines, dividing and conquering all leads to one thing that is literally taking place right before our eyes, which is union breaking and the loss of worker protection. New actors won’t be able to rely on their representative organisations as much as was possible before, and will end up being more and more exploited by an increasingly cynical industry.

My views may seem overly pro-union (which to be fair, as a union member myself, they are), but I have a personal stake in it as well. My sister is currently about to begin her theatrical training at one of the best institutions in the world, and undoubtedly afterwards she’ll work on American productions. I want her to have the best kind of labour protection that she can have, and I’m not the only one. Behind actors there are families, and dependents, and children aspiring to be the next big thing. Union breaking, which is what’s happening now, can only have serious and far-reaching consequences that extend beyond whether or not Transformers 2 will be released in May or December, ones that can have a very real effect on how hundreds of thousands of people live their lives. We should be far more concerned about that, rather than actors appearing at a convention at the end of July.

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