{"id":507,"date":"2012-01-06T08:35:54","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T13:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/?p=507"},"modified":"2012-01-04T09:52:09","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T14:52:09","slug":"why-science-fiction-actors-are-so-special-and-unique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/why-science-fiction-actors-are-so-special-and-unique\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Science Fiction Actors Are So Special and Unique"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It takes a special actor to star in science fiction films and television shows.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s no accident that if an actor has starred in one sci fi show, they show up in others. For example, the actor who played <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phlox_(Star_Trek)\" target=\"_blank\">Dr. Phlox<\/a> on <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Star_Trek:_Enterprise\" target=\"_blank\">Star Trek: Enterprise<\/a><\/em> showed up in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stargate_Atlantis\" target=\"_blank\">Stargate Atlantis<\/a><\/em> (the actor, <a title=\"John Billingsley\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Billingsley\">John Billingsley<\/a>\u00a0was also the undead vice-president&#8217;s brother in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prison_Break\" target=\"_blank\">Prison Break<\/a><\/em>, so some sci fi actors are able to break into other genres).<\/p>\n<p>Just over the weekend, I watched the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=campy\" target=\"_blank\">campy<\/a> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Starship_Troopers_(film)\" target=\"_blank\">Starship Troopers<\/a><\/em>. In it, the actors who played the generals both starred in the film <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Total_Recall\" target=\"_blank\">Total Recall<\/a><\/em>. I had seen both movies many times and only made the connection over the weekend.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Ironside\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Ironside<\/a> was a hard nosed general in <em>Starship Troopers<\/em> and was the corrupt cop\u00a0who chased Arnold Schwarnegger&#8217;s character in <em>Total Recall<\/em> from Earth to Mars.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marshall_Bell\" target=\"_blank\">Marshall Bell<\/a>, who played the weak and scared general in <em>Starship Troopers, <\/em>was the mutant resistance leader, Kuato in\u00a0<em>Total Recall<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I asked myself with the sci fi genre being so small compared to others, why do these actors show up again and again in sci fi flicks? The answer is threefold:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>You have to have a wild imagination<\/strong>.You have to be quite imaginative to see aliens that don&#8217;t really exist.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You have to wear itchy makeup<\/strong>. Just ask <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andrea_Martin#Career\" target=\"_blank\">Andrea Martin why she didn&#8217;t reprise her role of Quark&#8217;s mom<\/a> in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)<\/li>\n<li><strong>You have to memorize techie, scientific language about things that simply don&#8217;t exist or only exist in a research paper<\/strong>. And talk about things that could twist your tongue several times.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div>This makes me think about the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Caucus\" target=\"_blank\">caucuses<\/a> taking place in the United States leading up to the Republican nomination convention where they&#8217;ll announce their nomination for presidency. At each caucus, one person is designated to speak on behalf of the candidates. Choose the wrong person and the candidate&#8217;s story will get all mangled up.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Take note of the teller when deciding who should tell your story. If you choose the wrong person, it may come out all wrong.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It takes a special actor to star in science fiction films and television shows. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s no accident that if an actor has starred in one sci fi show, they show up in others. For example, the actor who played Dr. Phlox on Star Trek: Enterprise showed up in Stargate Atlantis (the actor, John [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[211,221,219,220,208,209,210,217,213,212,215,216,214,218],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-narrative","tag-andrea-martin","tag-arnold-schwarnegger","tag-john-billingsley","tag-michael-ironside","tag-quark","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","tag-sga","tag-stds9","tag-star-trek-deep-space-nine","tag-star-trek-enterprise","tag-stargate-atlantis","tag-starship-troopers","tag-total-recall","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}