In space no one can hear you scream (or retch, or sigh, or…)

THE CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION HORROR MOVIE TAGLINE: “In space no one can hear you scream.”        The memorable marketing slogan used for the 1979 movie Alien         This famous tagline and the image of the alien egg used for posters and ads promoting Alien were created by Steve Frankfurt and Philip Gips, partners of the graphic design firm Frankfurt Gips Balkind (now In Sync Bemis Balkind). It has been repurposed, copied and parodied countless times ever since.

THE SPACE STALKER MOVIE APPLICATION: “In space, no one can hear you retch.”        Barry Hertz        Film critic for the UK Globe and Mail        This is the pointed headline of his review of the 2016 science fiction movie Passengers, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, published in the Globe and Mail, December 20, 2016.        “It’s Stockholm Syndrome masked as true love, and it is sickening,” Hertz said of the film’s plot. Most critics and women’s rights activists agreed. The film was widely-criticized as being cluelessly sexist. Why? In a nutshell, Pratt’s character finds himself to be the only crew member who’s awakened from cryogenic sleep on a spaceship taking a long voyage. He gets lonely, fixates Lawrence’s still-hibernating body and wakes her up. He lies to her by saying her revival was a pod malfunction, then woos her. In the minds of the spaced-out producers who greenlit Passengers, this was supposed to be a romantic storyline.

THE SPACE MOVIE CLONE APPLICATION: “Don’t let the very good cast fool you, this outer space adventure is just another Alien clone...In space, no one can hear you sigh with resignation.”        Adam Graham        Film critic at the Detroit News        In his review of the science fiction movie Life, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds, published in the Detroit News, March 23, 2017.

THE SPACE ALIEN SEQUEL APPLICATION: “In space, no-one can hear you scream...except whatever it is that’s about to rip your chest apart.”        Susan Arendt        US Executive Editor for GamesRadar and Co-founder of TakeThis.org        In her article on the GamesRadar site previewing the sixth movie in the Alien series, Alien Covenant (2017).

THE SPACE MARINES VERSION: “In space, no one can hear you scream – unless it is the battle cry of the United States Marines!”        Line yelled at a group of rookie marines by Drill Sergeant Frank Bougus (played by actor R. Lee Ermey) in the boot camp scene in the first episode of the TV series Space: Above and Beyond, first aired on September 24, 1995. (One of my favorite science fiction TV shows, gone too soon after only one season.)

THE CYBERSPACE POLITICAL HORROR VARIATION: “in space, no one can hear your political views”        Danny Charnley         American writer and comedian In a Twitter tweet about the overabundance of idiotic political posts on sites like Twitter and Facebook. (A modern phenomenon that is scarier than most science fiction horror movies.)

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“With great power comes great responsibility.”

THE EVOLUTION OF THE PITHY PROVERB: “With great power comes great responsibility.”        Catchphrase popularized by Spider-Man comics and movies        This now well-known line was first used in Marvel comic books featuring Spider-Man, the web-slingin’ superhero created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962. It was more widely popularized by director Sam Raimi’s hugely-popular 2002 Spider-Man film, which made it familiar to millions of people who never read a Spider-Man comic.        The line evolved from narrative text written by Stan Lee for the original Spider-Man origin story published in August 1962 in Vol. 1, #15 of the Marvel comic Amazing Fantasy.        In that story, after student Peter Parker accidentally gets his Spider-Man superpowers from the bite of a radioactive spider, he initially uses them to make money by performing in local wrestling matches and other public shows. One night, as he’s leaving a show, he sees a cop chasing a burglar. The cop wants him to help stop the criminal, but Peter refuses. Shortly thereafter, his beloved Uncle Ben Parker is murdered and Peter finds out the killer was the burglar he had refused to capture.        The final panel in the story shows a small figure of Peter in his Spider-Man costume, dejectedly walking down a city street in the dark. Lee’s text in that panel provided the inspiration for the saying that would become famous. It says:        “AND A LEAN. SILENT FIGURE SLOWLY FADES INTO THE GATHERING DARKNESS, AWARE AT LAST THAT IN THIS WORLD, WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME --  GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.”         Spider-Man fan sites like Spiderfan.org say the quote “With great power comes great responsibility” was first used in a comic book in 1987, in Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1. It’s mentioned as a saying of Uncle Ben’s in that issue, though not spoken by him. The first time Ben said it in a comic was in February 2002, in Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 2, #38.        A few months later, in May 2002, Raimi’s Spider-Man film was released. The line was used twice in the movie and launched it into pop culture meme status. It’s first spoken by actor Cliff Robertson, as Uncle Ben, and repeated at the end by Tobey Maguire, who plays Peter Parker/Spider-Man.          There are similar quotes linking power and responsibility that predate the Spider-Man catchphrase.        For example, as noted by veteran comic and television writer Mark Evanier on his great NewsFromMe.com site, Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a 1908 letter that “responsibility should go with power.” And, in 1945, Teddy's relative Franklin D. Roosevelt said “great power involves great responsibility.”        There’s also a famous historical quip about irresponsible power-wielders: “Power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.” That zinger was used in 1931 by UK politician Stanley Baldwin, in a speech attacking the media barons who owned British newspapers (the forerunners of Rupert Murdoch).

A PITHY REVIEW OF THE NEW SPIDER-MAN MOVIE: “With great power comes great responzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzz…”        Marty Beckerman        Author, journalist and self-described “nice, semi-demented Jewish boy” from Alaska        In his review of the recently-released Amazing Spider-Man movie on Salon.com, July 3, 2012, which ponders the question: “Is there an original idea left in Hollywood?”

THE U CAN HAS FREE CHEEZBURGER VERSION: “We know that with great burgers comes great responsibility. So, we are doing our part to celebrate America’s birthday, Spider-Man’s birthday and the release of The Amazing Spider-Man film by giving anyone dressed as Spider-Man a free Amazing Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger on the Fourth of July.”        Brad Haley         Chief marketing officer for CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s        In a press release issued on June 25, 2012

DR. HOUSE’S OBSERVATION: “With great power comes great micromanaging.”         Hugh Laurie, as the character Dr. Gregory House         In the “Better Half” episode of the TV show House M.D. (Season 8, Ep. 9 , first aired Jan. 23, 2012).

THE KICK-ASS VARIATION: “With no power, comes no responsibility.”         Aaron Johnson, playing the unconventional superhero named Kick-Ass         In the movie Kick-Ass (2010)

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The blind leading the blind…

THE FAMOUS ORIGINAL BIBLE VERSE: “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”        Jesus (c. 5 B.C. - c. 30 A.D.)          As quoted in the Bible’s Book of Matthew, 15:14 (King James Version)        Chapter 15 of the Book of Matthew, which includes the famous story of the loaves and fishes, is also the source of the well-known metaphor “the blind leading the blind.” The meaning is simple. Blind men can’t see anything, so following them is foolish and risky. People typically use this metaphor — and variations of it — to poke fun at someone they view as ignorant, stupid or misguided.        Jesus used “blind leaders of the blind” to refer to the “scribes and Pharisees,” the dominant group of Jewish rabbis at the time. They favored strict adherence to traditional Jewish religious laws and traditions. In Chapter 15 of Matthew, a group of scribes and Pharisees comes to Jesus and complains that his followers were violating the tradition of the Jewish elders that required people to wash their hands before eating. Jesus tells them cleanliness of the hands is unimportant; cleanliness of the heart is the important thing. Jesus’ point was that a slavish following of religious rules was less important than following the basic moral concepts he taught. When his disciples warned him he had offended the Pharisees, Jesus replied (as given in the King James Version of the Bible):       “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”         Jesus then went to Galilee, where he miraculously turned seven loaves of bread and “a few little fishes” into a feast that fed “four thousand men, beside women and children.” The Bible doesn’t mention whether any of them washed their hands before eating.

THE FATHER KNOWS BEST VERSION: “The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; ‘they will both fall into the ditch.’ The only sure guide is he who has often gone the road which you want to go. Let me be that guide; who have gone all roads, and who can consequently point out to you the best.”        Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield; 1694–1773)        In one of his many didactic letters to his son, Philip Stanhope, dated November 24, 1747

THE LOVE IS BLIND VERSION: “When the blind lead the blind, no wonder they both fall into matrimony.”         George Farquhar (1678-1707)        Irish playwright        In his play Love and a Bottle (1698), Act 5, Sc. 1

HENRY MILLER’S VARIATION: “We have been educated to such a fine — or dull — point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it’s all about. We don’t trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It’s the democratic way.”         Henry Miller (1891-1980)        American writer and painter        In his essay “With Edgar Varese in the Gobi Desert” (1944)

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH’S VARIATION: “These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the scriptural parable, the bland lead the bland.”        John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)        Canadian-born American economist and social critic        In his classic socio-economic book The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 1

THE TOM CRUISE & CAMERON CROWE BASHING VARIATION: “Vanilla Sky is a case of the vain leading the bland. The vanity is provided by Tom Cruise, convincing in the role of a man in a passionate love affair with his own face, and the blandness comes from the overrated writer-director Cameron Crowe, who never met a story he couldn't explain to death at length.”        Stephen Hunter        Washington Post movie critic        In his review of the movie Vanilla Sky (2001)

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