In honor of 2024...

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Figured I'd get nostalgic and stream it on FreeVee.
Remembered thinking it was a pretty good film and wow have my tastes changed and wow, was I wrong.

[lapfog_1]

1. Harlan Ellison was a misogynistic prick

these days we would call him an incel.

On the other hand, if rumor is true, he was present when Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard had this argument in a bar as to how gullible the American public was about religion / political cults. Heinlein had just published a fanciful short story called the 5th column about a group of scientists in a remote research facility coming up with a revolutionary energy weapon right when the USA was invaded by Communists from China... and the new Chinese overlords decided that they would control everything but religions... so the scientist made a fake religion based on a bunch of mumble jumble and the miracles that the technology they invented could produce... and thus began a counter-insurgency to take back the USA by having thousands of survivors join their cult and they would produce these miracle weapons to win the war.

According to Ellison, Heinlein postulated that the entire premise was ridiculous. L. Ron said it wasn't and that HE would write a book that would demonstrate just how gullible people could be... with tales about aliens living in volcanos on earth, etc.

Harlan held the money ( claims it was $100 ) for the bar bet.

Scientology was the result.

I have no personal knowledge that any of this it true...

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. A little more to consider on Ellison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison

/snip/

Ellison also sold scripts to many television shows: The Loretta Young Show (using the name Harlan Ellis),The Flying Nun, Burke's Law, Route 66, The Outer Limits,[18] Star Trek, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Cimarron Strip, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Ellison's screenplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" has been considered the best of the 79 episodes in the series.[19]

In 1965, he participated in the second and third Selma to Montgomery marches, led by Martin Luther King Jr. /snip/

[lapfog_1]

3. yes, he wrote some very good stuff.

30 years old when he was writing some of his best stuff.

he went to a lot of writers workshops and publisher conventions... and was considered a "kid" by the greats of the era ( Asimov, Heinlein, etc)

[hunter]

4. Fortunately we elected Obama...

... so it didn't come to pass.

[bif]

5. I saw it when it came out and enjoyed it.

I'll have to rewatch it one of these days.