Sci-Fi Film Fiesat: The Swingin' 60s - Volume 5: Mind Blowing Ris of the Machines by Chris Christopoulos - HTML preview

Obviously nothing gets past him.

Who else should roll up or should I say “putt-putt” up just when everyone is about to head off? Our local reporter of course who on what has turned out to be “quite a night” clearly has something to write about.” As everyone departs, I swear that the reporter’s little car seems to be itching to drag off the hot rod being driven by Rick.

It’s sputtering lawn-mower engin, however says otherwise.

Later on from his house, Zella phones Sharon who is at the lab. It turns out that the sheriff has stationed two men at the lab on suspicion that all the trouble has something to do with a project being conducted at the lab. The Sheriff had also questioned Zella and has come to the conclusion that enemy agents have been after military secrets and that he and Sharon know something about it. Nothing like Cold-War paranoia!

Suddenly, Sharon catches sight of the radio telepathy equipment and leaves poor Zella hanging on the other end of the line while she makes her way toward it and dons the head-set. She almost immediately establishes contact with Garth’s mind.

He indicates that he must elude the remaining tracer and that his mission must be accomplished. Sharon needs Garth to give her an indication of where he is at present. His thoughts continue along the lines of the necessity of Professor Marx not revealing his secrets before indicating that he will wait until the tracer departs and then proceed to Old Town.

“The radio telepathy demonstration just cannot take place today”

With Zella having been relegated to something less than a footnote in her memory, Sharon makes ready to depart the lab but not before removing the project files and placing them in a briefcase. While she slips into the adjoining room, the professor unexpectedly enters the lab and startles her. She explains her presence at such a late hour as being due to her inability to sleep because of all the excitement in the town hat night.

It isn’t long before the professor discovers that the project files are missing and Sharon can only confess that she took the notes and diagrams pertaining to the project and has placed them in the briefcase she is carrying. Sharon tries to explain that she needs to take the material to a “friend” who is “here on an urgent mission’

and that the professor should come with her.

Sahron even resorts to pointing a gun at the professor but despite her plea to him not to make her use it, it is obvious that she would not and could not do such a thing. In the end, it is the degree of trust and regard they have for each other that convinces the professor to agree to accompany Sharon even if her friend’s mission proves to be at the expense of all that they have worked so hard for.

“My mission depends on how you use the knowledge you gain of my time”

As we near the conclusion, we now find the characters returning to the place where the events of this time period began: Ole Town. Sharon and the professor are the first to arrive and Shaon begins frantically searching for Garth while the still sceptical professor looks on.

Zwlla turns up a short time later only to discover that the rtacer has captured Sharton and is holding her tied and suspended like a human pendulum in one of the old buildings. It isn’t long before Garth makes his presence known, He knows full well that the tracer’s intention is to use Sharon in order to lure him, Zella and the professor closer, Zella can’t bring himself to just doing nothing while Sharon runs the risk of being killed. His desire to take action is spurred on by Sharon’s prodigious lung capacity as she screams whenever she is nudged by the tracer and like a pendulum she swings from side-to-side marking out the time left to her and the future freedom of the world.

This is a moment of truth for Garth as he has the prospect of finally fulfilling his mission. Should he as a cyborg ignore human feelings and simply leave Sharon to her fate by rationalising such a course of action on the basis that “Dr Mason knew the risk she was taking” and that her life would be “a small sacrifice to make if it will free tomorrow's world of such monsters” as represented by the tracers? However, as garth had forced his will on Sharon by means of the process he seeks to suppress, then how is he any different to those he is fighting to oppose?

In a very ‘human’ act of bravery and self-sacrifice, Zella is paralysed and rendered unconscious by a blast from the Tracer’s gun. The professor then points out that Garth could kill him right then and there thereby ensuring the success of his mission. In response, Garth says to him, “the success of my mission depends on how you use the knowledge you gain of my time.”

Sharon is eventually released after a lengthy tussle between Garth and the tracer. It appears that Garth’s decision to return and rescue Sharon has been motivated by some very human emotions which he can no longer suppress.

One can only imagine the state of Zella’s feelings when Sharon dashes off and leaves him hanging only to run after Garth declaring that she wants to be with him and that she needs him. She wants Garth to take her with into the future.

Garth tries to dissuade Sharon by pointing out that her actions have not been the result of her own desire but were due to his forcing his will on her which is evil. He tells her that once she is free of his will she will no longer care for him. Sharon will hear none of it and declares to Garth, “I will! I love you and you love me! You know that's true because you came back to save me.”

Gently adamant, Garth tells Sharon that she must remain here in her own own time.

When he returns to his own time with the professor the world of the future will change. “The professor will not reveal his scientific breakthrough at nine o'clock.

from that moment on every event in the future will be altered. Some things will change just a little, others will not occur at all.”

If Garth’s mission succeeds he will not exist in the world of the future after nine o'clock. Sharon and the others will have no memory of him and all that has happened since he arrived will not take place.

“After nine o'clock you’ll have no memory of me and

everything that happened since I arrived cannot take place “

After Garth and the professor’s departure we find Zella and Sharon in the lab with a group of political and militate officials awaiting the arrival of the proessor on this, “the most important day of his life” - “ his Moment of Truth.”

Sharon is excited at the prospect of having the whole operation moved to New York.

For obvious reasons, a somewhat sceptical Zella wonders if she’ll find her answers in the city.

At last the professor makes his appearance but he appears to be disturbed and preoccupied by something. However, he assures Sharon that he feels better than he ever has in his whole life. The reason why becomes obvious when he approaches the small group of officials who are assembled to witness the experiment demonstrating his revolutionary communication system: Radio Telepathy.

The Professor tells the gathering that there will be no demonstration on the grounds that he became aware that “the improper application of such a system could result in a scientific and social disaster” despite the time and effort that had already been devoted to the “new kind of defense strategy based entirely upon the success of this new system.”

The profssor goes on to add that as a scientist who is concerned for his fellow man, he could onl come to the conclusion that “knowledge of radio telepathy at this time would not be used for the peaceful purposes I had intended” and that “the military temptation is too great, the consequences far-reaching possibly far beyond our present understanding.” With that the meeting concludes and the clearly mortified and disgruntled group of officials exit the lab each no doubt formulating ways and means of grinding the professor’s career and reputation into the dust!

None of this matters to the professor who is only concerned for how much Sharon has counted on him. But he has peeked into the future and “it had to be this way. Of more significance to him is the fact that Sharon is proud of him and she and Zella embark on a future together that he has gone some way to ensuring that it will be a positive on. Zella and Sharon begin their journey on a date at his house for a swim in the pool which they’ll have all to themselves.

“”Nothing ever happens around here”

With the future changed and the present reset, we see reporter JC playing cards with deputy Dan. The Sheriff amplifies the sense of boredom and inactivity with a bout of nostalgia for the good old days of 80 years ago when a lawman like him could feel alive. Yes, those were the days “when things really happened” unlike the present where nothing ever seems to happen in their quiet peaceful little town…….

Aslo unknown to the citizens of Desert Town and the world of 1966 is that 20 years later a strange artefact will be discovered indicating a level of technology well in advance of what will be available in the 1980s. It will be robotic in appearance and will obviously constitute sn appendage from some humanoid artificial machine. No-one will know where it came from or how it got there but reverse engineering will give rise to the development of a powerful computer system ( "Skynet") tasked with controlling all defence systems. It will initiate a nuclear war leading to a future in which machines will dominate the world. But the humans will fight back and Skynet in desperation, will send a cyborg - a Terminator - back through time to 1984 to murder the mother of the future resistance leader thus eliminating his existence.

This cyborg Terminator can't be reasoned with or bargained with. It will not feel pity or remorse or fear and it will not stop until it completes it’s mission. It seems that in way or another fate just will not let go!