Knights Of Sidonia S1 E7: Resolve

"I wanted to draw things that don't exist in the real world."

-Tsutomu Nikei, Anime News Network (2016)-





For large, visually immersive and expansive worlds Tsutomu Nikei never fails to create something special whenever his imagination is put to pen and pencil. Knights Of Sidonia was the next elevation into the mind of Nikei.

The next phase in his evolution as an artist and world builder was Knights Of Sidonia. For the confinement that is Sidonia it is at once a world that is vast, complex and seemingly unending in itself.



As an animation Knights Of Sidonia is at once unique and unusual and yet there is a kind of accessibility to the series that seemed elusive in Tsutomu Nihei's' disconnected, isolated, unending world of Blame!.

Blame! involved the story of an interminable city world, but there was a kind of obtuse, impenetrability to the seemingly wordless manga as well as the adapted Netflix film. Personally the manga is jaw-dropping and essential.



The Blame! manga was truly a glorious masterpiece to this writer though maybe not for everyone. The artwork is a truly stunning exercise in artistic vision that seemed an endless labyrinth into an artist's mind. Nihei brilliantly executes idea and concept to paper to create a fresh unseen universe to the human eye.

Knights Of Sidonia on the other hand captures the beauty and the essence of that endless world within its self-contained Sidonia seed ship universe. Though finite the ship seemingly goes on forever inside and once again Nihei staggers the eyes of a reader's imagination.



Both series are explorations in isolation, but there is a humanity to Knights Of Sidonia that gives it an accessibility perhaps absent from his masterpiece. Nevertheless all of Nihei's creations are intertwined. Blame!, Knights Of Sidonia, Biomega, NOiSE, Abara and APOSIMZ all live comfortably inside of Nihei's master plan. There are linking elements to all of his world-building. This is mythology and world-building at its finest.

The creators of this series, Knights Of Sidonia, have done the manga justice much more so than Netflix did with its more humanist interpretation of the Blame! manga. Everything that was wrong about the Netflix film created from the lengthy Blame! manga series is right about this more faithfully adapted series from the Knights Of Sidonia books.



So we continue with our own personal resolve to explore the remarkable, inspired world of Sidonia with Knights Of Sidonia, Season One, Episode 7, Resolve.

The series continues its seamless movement between cel-like animation and computer-generated creations. Perhaps the bulk of it is created on computers, but the look of the animation is gritty and detailed and nearly as good as some of the finest animation ever created in anime.



As a science fiction it's easily as exhilarating as a thrill ride as Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009) and just as emotional. As exciting as the visuals are Nihei has a a lot on his mind in creating the world of Knights Of Sidonia and it is a fascinating excursion and escape into that place. Just as impressive as its world is Nihei's surprising attention to character which translates wonderfully to screen.

Resolve opens with a thrilling effort by the garde to take out an alien gauna. It ends with criticism of pilot Nagate Tanikaze's failure to dismember the gauna resulting in the death of Shizuka Hoshijiro. But is she?



Tanikaze discovers the outcome of that assault in flashback. Further, it's not just told to us or talked to us (as some anime will often expound about events) but it is visualized.

The beautiful thing about Knights Of Sidonia is how as a science fiction it weaves elements of horror and dramatic subtext into its story so effortlessly. It's at once gritty and disturbing with nearly equal parts heart wrenching character moments. But the story never backs down from its own unique identity as an anime and that is in large part due to Nihei's intelligent ambitions as a writer. The animators here, too, deserve a lot of credit for bringing his vision to life whereby Blame! has yet to be fully realized as it should. Instead of a single film that manga must be a series. Knights Of Sidonia is given a chance to alternate between place and character to its pacing success.



Nihei's world involves a labyrinthine structure compounded by interpersonal human relationships, politics, and public opinion all within the mighty seed ship Sidonia. Activists are anti-military and naively believe the guana will leave them alone if they disarm. They would also like to leave Sidonia---why aren't these people shown the airlock already?

Further Nihei's creation, Knights Of Sidonia, is a self-sustaining work and self-contained science fiction work within a larger and even more complex multiverse of manga and literature as noted earlier. Nihei continues to astound this writer as a lover of science fiction himself.



Nihei's ability to weave and interlock these wildly interconnected and beautiful worlds through character and mythology or haunting structures from his own limitless personal imagination is staggering and something to behold. This writer continues to be lured into his unique, original storytelling gifts for science fiction. Nihei indeed shows a personal resolve creatively that is uniquely his own.

Resolve propels the story forward and is dramatically as quick as a propelling garde unit with a mission through space.

Though it's Nihei's passion, it's not just about the sights in Sidonia.

There is much more than meets the eye.

 

Alan Brennert, Anne Collins And John Gaynor: On Writing Buck Rogers In The 25th Century For Gil Gerard

"To me Vegas In Space was the model of what the series should have been: funny, fast moving, adventurous, but with one or two of those serious, poignant moments. After Vegas In Space, Gil suddenly had no interest in doing the funny stuff. I don't know what happened. I don't know what went on in his mind. But he clearly decided he didn't want to do the jokes anymore. He started taking the character more seriously than the character should have been taken.



There was also a communications problem; I don't think we were ever able to quite communicate on the level that we should have. Gil didn't understand that jokes can exist comfortably in the same script as more serious stuff. He was always throwing jokes out on the set. Without that kind of light-hearted spin to our scripts, we just had shows that were essentially melodrama. And to my way of thinking, many of them just sat there. The resulting shows were not anything that I had seen in my head when I was writing them.



Gil was a very good comedic actor. That's not to say he's incapable of doing more serious moments. But I thought his best skills were in that kind of snappy banter with Wilma and the others, when he had that twinkle in his eye. At some point he decided he was above that, or at least that's my interpretation. It was a shame, because he ignored a facet of his abilities that really set him apart, and as a result, I don't think Buck Rogers was nearly as interesting as he could have been. The way we envisioned the character fit him like a glove, but he decided he didn't want the glove to fit.

It has been my experience that writers are paid vast sums of money in this business only partly for their writing talents, but largely to take vast amounts of shit from people."

-Alan Brennert, Starlog Magazine #232 (p.67, 69)- 

"We tried to be faithful to Glen Larson's vision [established in the two-hour pilot], but Gil had his own ideas. Gil became more and more difficult to work with. We didn't trust each other. He thought we were out to sabotage his character, and we didn't know how to deal with that."

-Anne Collins, Starlog Magazine #232 (p68)-



"Gil was getting insecure about the whole situation. Gil could be a very charming man, but somehow he got this insecurity into his head. Gil felt the scripts were being written for women, and not for him. Maybe he felt this way about Wilma, too. He caused a lot of problems.

I just thought he should stop worrying about all this other crap he was concerned about and play Buck Rogers the way he was supposed to be played. Gil was charming and likeable on screen, and I thought it was going splendidly. I don't know why he was getting so upset about it all.

I think Gil felt we were against him. He seemed to be getting a little paranoid about it. He went on about the fact that it was his face up there and we didn't care, which was not true at all---of course we cared! Our reputations were involved as well. It was not a pleasant time."

-Producer John Gaynor, Starlog Magazine #232 (p68-70)-



So Buck Rogers In The 25th Century presents a wonderful example of the writers at odds with a performer. Jonathan Harris had often injected his own dialogue and re-writes into Lost In Space as Gil Gerard did here.

While the two parties in these situations prove there was a significant degree of daylight between them, one could argue there was a certain degree of conflict in the aforementioned applications that made those shows better.

These above excerpts from Starlog Magazine really put into perspective what was in play behind the scenes in the beginning for Buck Rogers In The 25th Century way back in the 20th Century.

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century S1 E5: Vegas In Space

"We were still under the Charlie's Angels influence. I can't remember if it came from the network or the studio, but there was definitely pressure to get lots of women in strange, semi-revealing costumes."
-Anne Collins, Starlog Magazine #231 (p.71)-

"Biddy biddy biddy, what a guy."
-Twiki (voice of Mel Blanc)-





We've all heard of Pigs In Space, a recurring sketch on The Muppet Show (1976-1981), and maybe this is a poor analogy, but Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (1979-1981) sometimes plays like Babes In Space or Babes In The 25th Century. The female quotient feels even more amplified for Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Season One, Episode 5, Vegas In Space (produced before S1, E3/4 Planet Of The Slave Girls but airing after that installment). And there is no shortage of the kind of skin that seems often absent in today's science fiction. There are legs, arms and cleavage galore in every few minutes of the latest installment. Personally, happy as a pig in shit with an entry like this now and again, but like pigs this episode would unlikely never fly today. Some of the science fiction from the 1960s and 1970s were particularly pleasant on the eyes. This is no exception.



Awakening (S1 E1-2) introduced us to two stunning females that would grace the world of Buck Rogers in Erin Gray and Pamela Hensley.

Vegas In Space continues what promises to be Buck as a kind of Captain James T. Kirk on steroids for 1979. Gil Gerard is indeed surrounded by them as the titular hero in white spandex Buck Rogers.



Actresses for the installment here include Juanin Clay (The Legend Of The Lone Ranger, War Games; take note as Clay was originally cast to play Wilma Deering before Erin Gray decided to take the role), Pamela Susan Shoop (Halloween II, Galactica 1980, The Incredible Hulk) and Ana Alicia (Halloween II, Falcon Crest, Romero, Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980). The list of TV credits for the aforementioned ladies is long.

Cesar Romero (The Joker in the original Batman TV series) makes an appearance too.



Vegas In Space is nothing overly substantial but there is a kind of aw shucks likeability and charm about the episode. Gerard also continues to settle into the character nicely as a kind of common sense, street smart American hero less interested in leaning on 25th Century technology and falling back on good old fashion American ingenuity, know how and elbow grease.

Writer John Kenneth Muir accurately dubs Buck, a symbol of "American exceptionalism in space" (John Kenneth Muir's Reflections On Cult Movies And Classic TV).



The general concept for Buck Rogers and company is a rescue mission with 25th Century Buck unabashedly infusing his hero with a good deal of humor making the series, despite its shortcomings, wholly accessible fun. There was a good degree of formula to the series as much as there was for The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982) or The Love Boat (1977-1986). Hey formulas work. And it worked well as a crime series in future space, but not unlike the expensive Battlestar Galactica by Glen A. Larson as well, the series was as ephemeral as Space:1999 (1975-1977), landing itself with a mere two year run.



The escape from the Vegas-like city in space is meant to be a manual thriller as Buck uses his wits to outfly a new brand of fighter called the hatchet fighter, but they aren't that impressive or fast and it is less than thrilling to watch. Biddy Biddy Biddy not exciting Buck.

This was often a problem for the series. Battlestar Galactica's effects may not have excelled by today's standards, but the space battles almost seem superior by comparison to the shortchanged mess of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (despite attempts at recycling some of the effects work from Battlestar Galactica). These were simply not memorable sequences and are often the least effective aspects of the series. It was definitely about the characters.



Irwin Allen was notorious for recycling material in his series. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson had to take their own liberties as well. Larson does it here borrowing from Battlestar Galactica, but Buck Rogers In The 25th Century may be the greatest casualty of such an application and given Allen's wholesale reuse that's saying something. But what Buck Rogers lacks it more than makes up for in its casting and story fun. The characters and enthusiasm of the show often save the day.

It illustrates how this portion of the series, outer space itself, was less than important in comparison to the story of life in the 25th Century. Fortunately, the bulk of the series is all the better for the character missions and interactions. They are far better and above and beyond the space dogfights. These issues were remedied for fans of these two Larson productions for Ronald D. Moore's reimagined Battlestar Galactica whereby some of the most dynamic screen action in science fiction was created to complement the respective character studies.



As for the writing, not unlike Jonathan Harris on Allen's Lost In Space, Gil Gerard was often inserting his own dialogue throughout the series. Like Dr. Zachary Smith before him the character of Buck Rogers shines as a result of his concern for the role.

You won't feel lucky watching Vegas In Space, but with this cast of stunning women any red blooded male might wish he was, so better luck next time. Great eye candy for a visit forward in time with this step back in time to old school science fiction adventure done fairly well with an eye toward fun over perfection.



Director: Sigmund Neufeld Jr..
Writer: Anne Collins (Wonder Woman).