These are things that I think we've lost, Prime Minister. That Britain has lost. And ever since Space Fleet and the UN fell apart, and the very idea of international cooperation went under, that's exactly what our nation has done: lost.

I first encountered the British space comic icon Dan Dare briefly and late in its Eagle incarnation, the 1967 and 68 Eagle Annuals to be exact, when the stories were atypically short and both the writing and artwork poor quality (the 1968 Annual has one of the worst storylines ever committed to paper: space microbes destroy Earth's entire space fleet with invisible ships. They're invisible because they're so tiny! buttheyhavefullsizelaserbeamsohnevermind.) I never read either the 1950s Frank Hampton version, with the long storylines and the Mekon, or the 1977 2000AD version, or the 1980s Eagle version, or the 1990 Grant Morrison political spoof or ...

(Warning: spoilers for the Garth Ennis 2008 Dan Dare graphic novel)

But I was always fascinated with the character because of those brief glimpses, so when I saw the trade paperback for the 2008 Garth Ennis reboot of the series, I figured I had to get it just to see how they pulled off the update. I'm already reading the Dynamite Comics Buck Rogers and loving it; Dan Dare seemed like a logical companion.

And it turns out I'm glad I did. I'm not generally a fan of Ennis' other work - like most of the rest of the Gen-X comic writers now running the big studios, there's a bleakness and ultraviolence that I just can't get into. But it seems he does have a human side and shows it in this story.

The 1950s Dan Dare was a fairly generic British 'space hero', an Air Force-ish pilot (sort of Biggles in space), leading exploration teams for the 'Interplanet Space Fleet' answerable to the United Nations, and generally doing whatever needed done to save the day. The Ennis Dare is a retired war hero in a Navy story somewhere between Conrad, Kipling, and WW2. It's a very different genre of space opera, but for what it is, it works brilliantly.

Ennis has a brilliant touch for natural dialogue, and almost all of the supporting characters are human and likeable (he even gives Digby dignity, possibly a first ever for Dan Dare). It's complimented with Gary Erskine's wonderfully nuanced and emotive line drawings of characters usually showing multiple conflicted emotions: the beautiful Professor Jocelyn Peabody, now Home Secretary to a world-dominating Britain, but privately anguished and torn by the amoral Prime Minister she serves; the PM himself radiating an inner horror at the secrets and lies he conceals; a young ship's sub-lieutenant abruptly promoted to acting Captain, uncertain of herself and forced to make lightning ethical decisions that could doom a whole fleet unless she disobeys orders; the Mekon, by turns proud, emotionless and full of rage; and Dare himself, calm and focused in the heat of battle yet quietly grieving a lost age; only losing his composure when he suffers a terrible personal loss. It's all there on the page and works like a novel.

It's clear that to Ennis, Dan Dare represents the lost heroic spirit of Britain (coming reverently at the 1950s material by way of Morrison's bleak dystopian punk take) - almost an Arthur figure, the exiled warrior waiting to return when called upon. The whole book is a hymn to militaries everywhere. We cheer when the heroes stand firm against impossible odds, and boo at the sneering civilians who have no faith in their military and keep undercutting and betraying them in every way. Dare shrugs at the military hierarchy, jumps into the first place in combat, stares down Admirals and gives on-the-spot promotions to junior officers who he's seen 'at the sharp end' and trusts. These are not just people we like - these are people we want to be like.

And yet. Turn the picture sideways, and suddenly things get a bit scarier. Because what Ennis has written is also, if you look at it again, pretty much entirely a piece of propaganda in a rather nasty vein - and one that doesn't even actually make sense when you put it into today's political context, in which it's very clearly meant to be read.

The Prime Minister, as all high-ranking civilians must be in this kind of epic war-poem, is evil. Of course he's evil, he's a civilian who does not trust the military. He's sold out the world to the Mekon, out of sheer fear and cowardice (mixed with the reasonable logic that the world could be saved much bloodshed if we just went along with the invasion rather than uselessly fighting it.) He literally sends the fleet to their doom and plans to rule Earth as an alien subordinate. He's simultaneously a Quisling, a Chamberlain, and on the other side of the WW2 propaganda line, he embodies the German Dolchstoss legend - the civilian who 'stabs the military in the back' even as they are victorious. Three in one! Ticking all the boxes.

There are subtleties to this, of course; Britain is actually the sole world hyperpower (China and America having destroyed themselves) and the dream of a united world is long past. So the Prime Minister betrays from a position of strength, not weakness. But his treachery is still primarily against the military. It's the Navy - and Dare - who he has to destroy to pave the way for the Mekon. He's a pacifist at heart because he does not dare to fight, seeks a negotiated solution which is always and only weakness and failure of nerve - ultimately, negotiation in this type of story (unless you're using it as a trick to smuggle a weapon aboard the enemy's ship) is always a moral evil.

This is where I get that weird tingle of propaganda deja vu: the evil pacifist caricature, verging on blood libel (pacifists literally want to kill people - yes, it makes no sense, but that's how the meme goes) which surfaces again and again in right-wing literature. This is what Ennis is doing. Never trust anyone who talks peace, because they want to betray you to the enemy.

This is a hoary old rip-roaring war-propaganda-story cliche, and in a story which is about celebrating cliches from the past, perhaps it's not surprising. But Ennis is too good a writer for this to be accidental. So why is he doing this?

The weirder thing is, Ennis is a staunchly left wing writer, not shy about his political views, and he goes out of his way - in the script - to blame Dan Dare's absence in the world of future Britain on the rise of the modern political hard right - the National Front. By name.

Oh, they were appalling, nasty, piggy little men. They contacted him under false pretenses. It was at the decommissioning of the Anastasia, we were still together at this stage. They wanted Dan to be a figurehead for their movement into mainstream politics. Keeping Britain British, that sort of thing, although you knew immediately that what they meant was white.... But it wasn't that these thugs would think he'd want anything to do with them, that wasn't what was so awful for him. It was what the rise of such monsters meant. Because once they began identifying their cause with men like Dan, they'd taint the very notion of being British. They'd wrap themselves in the flag, and an entire generation of immigrant people would look at the Union Jack -- and see a swastika.

Two pages are devoted to this methinks-she-protests-too-much scene. It serves nicely to give a plausible reason for why a former war hero would choose to exile himself rather than save his country from moral disaster, yet jump at the chance to fight for it... but when you think about it a little closer, not only does it not make any sense at all, it's weird that a story notionally about the need to confront fascism would use the Dolchstoss - fascism's founding myth - as its own moral backbone.

We could have won. We did win, but politics - civilians - took our country away from us. Only the military has the true right to power. Only those who've served in battle should be promoted to rule. Combat is the true test of a man's (or woman's) honour. Villainy must be confronted and destroyed - physically - and that villainy often wears a civilian face. Confidence comes from an inner trust in one's own gut instinct, and decisions should be made on the spot. Never trust a politician. Never trust a peacemaker. Never trust a negotiator.

This is the moral DNA of fascism. This is what a story about anti-fascism also believes.

So far so weird. We fight fascism with the myths and tools of fascism. But here's the twist:

The evil Prime Minister (evil, remember, because he seeks to avoid a devastating war he sees as a no-win situation; evil because of his moral cowardice, lack of daring and faith in the military) is clearly modelled on Tony Blair, in appearance and personality. The in-script references rub it in:

Dare: You've been having trouble resigning, haven't you? You're on your -- what, third or fourth attempt, is that right? You keep promising, but you just can't seem to pull it off.

PM: Well, I mean -- we've -- we've begun that conversation, we're looking at --

Dare: Having a debate, no doubt. So long as we're using phrases that have almost lost all meaning, let me work closely with you to reach a conclusion: your problem's the Mekon. Isn't it?

So here's the kicker: The Prime Minister, who is to be seen as a future Tony Blair, is evil because he doesn't want to start a war, doesn't trust the military to get the job done. He'd rather sacrifice the entire military to aliens to avoid a war - and does. He's the classic 'appeaser'.

But the real Tony Blair - the one in our universe - the one on which this guy is based - remember him?

He's the guy who was all gung-ho about sending the military in to start a war when we didn't need to! He's the guy who said we had to face down tyrants and not be an appeaser! He's the guy who lied, who sweated, who manipulated, who was the lapdog of a more powerful nation -- not to avoid a war, but to START one under false pretenses! To send in the Space Marines to kill the Mekon. He's the guy who's squirming in an official enquiry about his lies right now!

There's a fundamental disconnect from reality here so powerful, it creates its own event horizon and sucks everything in around it. It's like the Dolchstosslegende underlying every good war story - heroic strong honourable fighter, evil weak betraying civilian master - is so deeply engraved into our consciousness that when it's patently obvious that the EXACT OPPOSITE happened in reality - that the liars and schemers were PRO war rather than fearful of fighting - that the myth still chugs happily along under its own steam, bending space and truth around it. So Tony 'Saddam has weapons of mass destruction!' Blair becomes 'I'd sell my soul to the Mekons to avoid a war!' Prime Minister without raising a beat.

And this is a left-wing writer, who presumably opposes Blair's part in creating the Iraq war - or at least opposes Tony Blair's Labour for being insufficiently left. But at some point, probably around 1917, 'left-wing' stopped meaning 'opposed to war' and started becoming... what?

Certainly not 'opposed to fascism', though Ennis obviously is opposed to the symbols and some specific platforms (like racism) of historical fascism. He'll spit that bone out. But the whole rest of the fish - salvation through glorious violence, the military as the model of all good citizenship, pacifism as the index of a society's depravity - swallow it whole.

There's something very scary here, and it bugs me, because Ennis isn't by any means alone in these views; they're uncomfortably mainstream, on left and right both. Ennis, only a year older than me, is a child of the punks; not one of the first late-70s wave of punk writers, he describes growing up reading 2000AD. (2nd generation punk?) In any case, punk sensibilities - which politically generally mean a left-anarchist slant, distrust of authority, combined with a sort of desparing, nihilist embrace of violence - inform most of my generation of comic writers (who are now running the asylum at DC and Marvel). There's a lot more too them, of course, than just the anger and the despair and the glib ultraviolence; and I think 'Dan Dare' shows Ennis at his best. But the fascist love of hardcore violence as an aesthetic is there, as it's been all the way since punk. And it scares me.

The punks self-described as fighting fascism, usually seen as the right wing and corporate privatisation - but in spirit, they embodied it. Or did they fight it because they loved it, because it scared them? The image of the street fight, the revolutionary, the burning cars. All posturing, but still the artistic ideal. Take Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" as an example. The spirit, the dream, is still the war against the state, the collapse of oppressive order, the glorious riot. The anarchist logo of the raised fist. The leather and boots. Why does this still inspire us?

I missed punk the first time - I missed the zines and the music, the flurry of all-media do-it-yourself, though I caught part of that flame in the microcomputer revolution. I don't mind that part. There was an honest outburst of creativity there, it seems.

Then we had the 1990s; X-Files and Seattle grunge was in, but it was also a sort of slick corporate neo-punk fetish, more sheen than substance. The Web saved the 90s; rebooted the microchip dreams of 1982. Now we're in the age of Google Earth and the iPad and the lockdown is upon us again. Punk's fears of a world-striding electronic machine of total control, total despair are closer now than ever before. Google and Apple in 2010 have made possible what was laughable in 1996, but seemed inevitable in 1969: an Internet with one central hub and non-user-serviceable terminals. IBM and Ma Bell reborn. The new age of the mainframe is upon us. We are going to need new creative heroes to rise to break the system again.

But when the next revolution in underground literature comes - and it has to - where will it point? When will we stop being inspired by dreams of violence and destruction, and start doing something creative about creativity?

It turns out the answer is: with a great deal of hard work, a fair bit of brute-force copying, much misguided fannish enthusiasm, heaping helpings of pure luck, and above all it really helps if you have a circle of friends who can complement your weaknesses and add their own colour to the mix. Also, that there really aren't that many in the way of rules for making art except perhaps 'don't let your vision get in the way of your friendships.'

The original Star Wars, it seems, is proof that the best art really can emerge from a committee, and the prequels are proof that sometimes 'seeing a story in your head' can actually be a barrier to telling it.

Edit: Huh, I really didn't realise it's actually Star Wars Day today. Neat.

I first watched Star Wars in my twenties, and it had much the same impact on me then that others of my generation report it having on them as children of six or so. The story was so simple, fairy-tale like, and yet it managed to sum up visually almost all of the themes of a late 20th century suburban adolescence: a longing to escape a small-town existence, desire for a bigger life somewhere out there, an urban dreamscape fashioned from half-remembered chunks of media: cowboys and samurais, black knights and princesses, World War 2 movies, cars and air travel, personal computers, the twin shadows of the Apollo moon landing and nuclear weapons, technology as both a friend and enemy, machines and human spirituality combined. Somehow all rolled up into one. The ultimate Lego playset. An indefinable magic which still hasn't really been equalled.

Fans of the original series who hate the prequels and only half-enjoy Return of the Jedi already have a sense that George Lucas didn't really understand what was going on in that first movie that made it so insanely great, much less Empire Strikes Back. And this book sort of describes why: yes, Lucas didn't trust Irving Kershner's vision for Empire and took back more control over Jedi and total control of the prequels. Yes, the dialogue in the prequels is that bad because Lucas can't write dialogue (and is aware of that, but the talky bits were never really part of his vision anyway; it's the action and monsters that he wanted). This book vindicates all those judgements, yet I actually came out feeling a little more sympathetic towards him, even though I consider the huge sprawling expanded Star Wars empire mostly a failure artistically. There are so many amateur fans whose writing and film projects turn out to be better than the creator of the universe they half-jokingly write in. Why is that?

Because it's actually really, really hard to write well, that's why. And if you have a quirky vision that's only half come together in your head and you can't find anyone else to complete it for you... what do you do? Apart from learning how to trust others' judgement, that is, and gracefully step aside and let them give you advice. Except for the times when you need to *not* trust other people's judgement, and go by your own inner instinct. And after all that, the initial critics and the marketplace won't judge your work the way history will, and you have to decide whether you want to be an artist or to make money.

And when all's said and done, even if you make a hundred million dollars and everyone loves your work and you get to realise your life's ambition - even then, you can still lose your marriage if you take it all too seriously. Or not seriously enough.

Life is hard work, it seems, and art is harder. The line between the two is vague and blurred. And we don't often recognise the important bits as they're happening.

For me, artistically speaking, some of the main lessons to draw from the behind-the-scenes Star Wars saga would be:

Don't repeat yourself.
Don't recycle old scripts and story notes and hope people won't notice.
Stay open to spontaneous on-the-set tweaks, but don't go changing major story points in post-production.
If you do rewrite large chunks of your script, be aware that the seams will show.
If you change your whole theme between drafts, check to see if you've just removed a load-bearing plot point.
If you write an entire sequence 'just to fill in space', it will be obvious that it doesn't flow.
Leave yourself room to change your mind.
Don't get wedded to ideas you love but that don't fit.
Do keep track of all those great ideas that don't fit, just make sure you fit them where they belong.
Don't repeat yourself.
The bits you cut out of the first draft are not a substitute for a new story.
An encyclopediac knowledge of cinema and genre and a good photocopier is not a substitute for a dramatic arc.
The best dramatic arc in the world is not a substitute for dialogue.
Don't underestimate the intelligence of your audience: you will make more money by doing so, but later they'll hate you forever.
You can create new characters easily by splitting an old one into different aspects, or combining two into one, but in each case you can get yourself into big trouble later.
You can use someone else's art as a skeleton for your own - everyone does - but make sure you replace it all before you're done.
If you find yourself doing that to your own work, you're in trouble.
Pick names you like first and then find characters for them later.
The weirdest names are the real ones.
Don't repeat yourself.
Don't skimp on the props and visual designs.
Don't think you can go cheap with just using mattes and talking heads instead of models and expect it to look as good.
CGI is never as real-looking as practical effects, even if you get cooler shots.
If your CGI action showpiece looks like a videogame, that's NOT actually a good thing.
Sometimes less action really is a whole lot more.
Use found objects and sounds wherever possible, then mangle them.
Dirty up your props and sets - a used universe is much more fun than a shiny one.
There's just something really cool about old-school, clunky 1970s computer control panels with dumb flashing lights. They beat flashy LCD touchscreens every time.
Go vertical. Have people clambering up and down through your set to make it look more solid.
Any given North African dwelling practically screams 'outer space homestead'.
Californian redwood forests are NOT outer space, unless you overcrank the film.
Don't repeat yourself.
Don't show your entire universe at once, leave room for it to breathe.
A good story has legs. A great story builds a franchise. An overextended franchise can make cinema gold stink for a generation.
A good manager brings a job in on time and under budget and keeps the crew happy. A great artist is obsessive-compulsively driven. A living legend is both. That's why there are very few living legends still alive.
Whatever your dream is, it's not always worth it. Step back and breathe.
George Lucas made The Phantom Menace. Irving Kershner made Robocop 2. Sometimes lightning just can't be made to strike twice, and it's not your fault.
Sometimes making art is pure pain. Sometimes it's pure joy. Neither is a good indication of success, but if it's fun and fast to write the odds are slightly higher it will be fun to watch.
Sometimes you need to listen to your fans, because they understand what you created better than you do.
Except when they ask for more explosions, because fans are dumb.
If in doubt, just add some midgets in suits. Seriously, that really does work.
Don't repeat yourself.

And finally:

The story you have in your head is ALWAYS cooler than the one you get to tell with the media you're using and the time and money constraints you have. That's a given. But sometimes, the story you actually tell ends up being a much better one than the one you set out to tell. Be open to having your work hijacked by chance and taken in new directions.

But those are only rules of thumb, and they all seem to be breakable.

And because everything's better with Youtube, a selection of the finest Star Wars related material on the interweb:
Darth Vader Feels Blue
Darth Vader Being A...
R2 Messes With Jabba
Behind Blue Eyes
Ewoks Gospel

Oh, what the heck. Let's go for broke:

STAR WARS: THE MUSICAL.

And once more, with pictures.

I've listened to a fair bit of post-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd (and Roger Waters after he split), but other than hearing the radio single for Eye In The Sky, I've never really heard any Alan Parsons Project, despite knowing that Parsons was a sound engineer for DSotM and that they'd done a whole bunch of concept albums with vaguely science fiction/fantasy themes. So when I found a retrospective double CD with 34 tracks in the bargain bin for $15, it seemed like a good deal.

Listening to APP is like vicariously reliving chunks of the 1980s, and I mean that in a good way. I have a thing for treacly synth-pop with lush vocals and spacey orchestral arrangements. I will put this alongside my Vangelis and Electric Light Orchestra.

Favourite songs so far: Some Other Time, Old And Wise, Ammonia Avenue, La Sagrada Familia.

The first two acts were lit by simple coloured strobes, and then Crowded House got the works: searchlights scanning the crowd, a multilayered backdrop/set that slowly erected itself piece by piece between songs, projected colours and logos over curtains over scultures. And Neil doing a perfectly calibrated mix of his new stuff and the old standards which have dominated NZ airwaves for the last twenty years or more. Ending in the big crowd-pleasing finales of not 'Don't Dream It's Over' and 'You'd Better Be Home Soon'. Words everyone knows and can sing along to, in a wall of sound like sticking your head inside a jet engine for four hours that puts you in your own private universe. (A universe of pain, for me, but I could at least appreciate the thought).

It got me thinking, though. Here's a stadium-sized rock concert, one of the defining acts of the Australian/NZ scene, as big as they get in this city. An arena full of people who are all delighted to be there. Huge amounts of talent, creativity and money thrown at the task of translating inspiration to art, art to performance, performance to technology, technology to emotion. Pretty much a peak of the state of the art of the defining art form of our era; an art form that only became possible fifty or so years ago, after electrical amplification techniques invented for or first applied to political rallies became used for entertainment. And I had a flash of how it must have felt in the early days of rock: this new thing, an electrified guitar; a military-specification sonic crowd control weapon wrested from the hands of authoritarianism and war, and repurposed for individualism, for the search for personal happiness and even love.

How it must have felt in those post-war years, the hopes, the fears about technology and for the new baby-boom generation in their cradles, and the silent generation who had been too young to go to war but were old enough now to see a new way to fight. How magical, spiritual the miracle of electrical amplification and the music it created must have seen, at least to some: almost a new form of worship. The Amp, counterpart to the Bomb. The tool for mental revolution.

How much intelligence, how much sincerity, how much dedication, how much time and money was thrown at rock music, and still is! And how powerful a force it was. And I marvelled, with my head in the jet engine, my ears in pain, thinking: how is it that with all this creative power focused on a point - on creativity, art rather than destruction - how is it that the world is still not saved?

The Beats and the sixties generation experimented, did their best to throw their best and brightest minds against the iron cages of the psychic prison that promised only nuclear war; how they randomised their thoughts with drugs and sex and music only to come up short, fail, burn out, defeated by their own hubris, their own darkness, or the sheer impossibility of the task.

(And even that mythology is a lie; the weapons industrial-science complex spawned creativity like the Internet; the entertainment industry was bleak and dirty and controlling, the more so as obscene amounts of money flowed in; teen rebellion was inspired by middle-aged teachers and slickly marketed as a commercial product from the beginning. There was no golden generation, just a bulge in the demographic curve and devastated international rivals and a trade surplus; there was no clash of cultures, just a change in tastes and marketing strategies.)

But still I thought: here I am, in arguably one of the best rock concerts, the best popular art our culture can create; and I feel nothing, or close to it. I feel a wall of sound, I feel a huge display of raw physics; I see beams of physical light shining out from the tiny distant stage; but somehow I expect more. I expect to see beams of spiritual light, feel a wall of spiritual empathy and emotion. I'm gathered in this place with thousands of my fellow citizens and fans; it is an iconic moment; I expect to feel something in the way of unity, somehow touch the vast oversoul that binds us; but I do not. I feel more alone here in my stadium seat in a crowd than at home typing on the Internet.

Why do I expect a spiritual experience from a rock concert? I don't know. A part of me just does.

And I think about fragments I've read in various prophecies and channelled writings: visions of Heaven, visions of a maybe future: thousands of people gathering in stadium-like enclosures, generating that kind of spiritual power that a rock concert does in raw decibels. Prayer concerts. Maybe without a stage even; maybe without a focal point. Maybe everyone comes in as they are, lift their hearts to the heavens, and invisible pyrotechnics begin.

I think maybe there's a time coming when we won't have the energy or infrastructure to run the huge audio amplification systems that power rock as a genre. But maybe this other kind of concert wouldn't even need that. I picture something like an event running for days, weeks even: people come in, people leave; the stadium remains packed. It's quiet. There's no infrastructure to speak of, no organisation; maybe some kind of skeleton organising committee, but without a huge sound and light rig, what actually is there to organise? Food, medical care maybe (and with a shiver, maybe in that possible tomorrow that's no small thing). Maybe things run themselves, anarcho-syndicalist collective style, like the Seattle '99 spokescouncils. There are no performers; the audience are the show. Everyone comes, brings themselves, their hopes, their fears, their visions, their inner stillness; the hush comes; something settles on the crowd. It's like the opening notes of a familiar guitar solo; but it's silent. Or at least, it's silent out there, in the air, but everyone feels it in here.

And the song begins, the song we heard a million years ago and all forgot until only just now. And maybe it doesn't ever stop.

And the house truly gets rocked.

I finally caught Amazing Grace, and it's just as brilliant as so many people have been reporting. I think in terms of movies that make me walk out of the theatre feeling like I just witnessed something unexpectedly wonderful, the last one that did that to me was Batman Begins. Yes, I really am comparing them.

Amazing Grace is one of those movies which is not only heavily and deeply Worthy in subject matter (dicey at best) but is also being actively marketed as a Political Event Movie by a number of Causes (mostly the Fair Trade people). Worse still, it's got a religious subtext, and is also being actively marketed as a religious movie. The combination can be awkward at best and heavy-handedly dismal at worst. I've seen, eg, Human Rights Festival documentaries and been challenged, terrified, inspired, manipulated etc, as expected. I saw Syriana, Goodnight And Good Luck, The Good German, and nodded wisely at Politically Worthy History As Story even as they hammered their (left-wing) point home so hard they dented the pile-driver. What is different about Amazing Grace - and why it's like Batman Begins - is that it works as a pure rip-roaring story, while at the same time having multiple subtle and beautifully balanced themes about the interplay of politics, religion, revolutionary idealism versus moral cowardice versus pragmatic caution. And it's a love story, and a historical epic. And somehow all put together it works.

What Batman Begins did - and did brilliantly - was to take a stable of standard superhero characters and subvert our lack-of-expectations about what sort of story could be told using these well-worn pieces. It played with themes of justice, vengeance, terrorism, and fear, and the delicate line between righteous anger and ruthless hate. It told a story gently critiquing the '00s War on Terror from the viewpoint of a character created in 1939. It wasn't perfect but by the standards of the filmed superhero genre, it was light-years above what had been done before and was well into the realms of the best of print superhero graphic novels such as Watchmen.

What Amazing Grace does is quietly startle us with the realities of a historical period where the world was swimming in revolution and either a new, more perfect social order, or the end of all things in blood and anarchy - or both - seemed to be breaking in everywhere. And a time where the religious and political battle lines were drawn differently than they are today. I walked out of the theatre with my head spinning. Was that really true? Could there have ever been a twentysomething Prime Minister of England and young political activists successfully fighting the system - and that in a time of war, revolution, insurgency, the rising power of capitalism, an insane king? The feel of the movie is of the English counterpart to the American Revolution: coffee-houses, Quakers, pamphleteering and sedition everywhere. And the dialog sizzles, with a Jane Austen kind of wit. If nothing else, I want to look up the real history of the late 1700s, of Pitt and Wilberforce, and find out just how liberal the scriptwriters were with the facts, and how much they embellished, because surely it can't have been like that. It has a graphic-novel kind of visual craftmanship to it: the swirl of capes, the clash of sabers in the glint of an eye.

And there aren't many historical movies I can make that claim about.

Afterwards, I heard The Ragamuffin Children doing, erm, 'tea-folk', which probably sums them up about as well as songs about werecats, pirates and the moon, performed with breathy vocals and keyboard in a teahouse, can be summed. This is the kind of music that Shelley Winters should be listening to or performing or both. (Though I am bitterly disappointed that neither 'My Alienfriend' nor 'If I Were A Werecat' are on the 'Werecat Lullabies' album. For shame!)

There are a number of pop-culture artifacts that to me pop out of the background and make me go 'wow, I'm living in the future'. Little perfect iconic capsules of future-shock. They feel as if they belong in science fiction and give me a strange little shiver - did the world just take a wrong turn and I walked into a movie?

1. Microwave ovens. Radar! Cooks food! From the inside out! And doesn't kill people!
2. Compact disc technology. Silver discs! That reflect the light! And so cheap you could literally tile your walls with them if you wanted.
3. The first time I saw a URL advertised on a bus. At that moment I knew the Web had arrived. A globe-spanning data network and it's being used to sell stuff.
4. The Palm Pilot, circa 1997. A real computer, in your pocket. Star Trek's PADD made real. Now they're just 'phones'.
5. Secure Digital Cards. You've seen them everywhere in bad cyberpunk movies, tiny 'data chips', size of a postage stamp, store more info than a CD. Now they're real, too.

and now add another one: Jeff Wayne conducting his 1978 War of the Worlds album live in a huge arena, as a musical, with a movie backdrop, a Martian Tripod that lowers from the gods, while the giant floating head of Richard Burton narrates.

I think it's the giant floating Richard Burton head that sold it to me. The show itself is one of those parallel-universe blips - it's been a 'musical that wasn't' for so long, everyone asks 'so what was the show of this like?' and the answer is always 'there wasn't one! it's not a cast recording! it's a concept album!' Now the universe has walked quietly into another room and there is a show of the show that wasn't. So far, so groovy.

But reanimating a dead actor, and glueing his face to a ten-foot high sculpted floating plastic head... that's magic. Or at least another step toward the Sci-Fi Future, where virtual actors make Hollywood obsolete and suddenly we have stars leading the anti-robot union.

Another of those little shivers of recognition that I hadn't realised, is the link between Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and Space Invaders. I didn't realise that both came out in 1978. I don't know the release dates down to the month, but the game's creator Tomohiro Nishikado is on record that the concept of the Invaders is definitely based on at least the novel of War of the Worlds. Wells' aliens (tentacles, aggressive, advanced technology, death-rays) are of course the prototype for just every 'alien invasion' scenario ever, but I hadn't put Jeff Wayne's piece together until hearing the concert DVD and realising how similar the soundscape - moody synths, an alien 'heartbeat' while the first pod unscrews - is to that whole dawn era of videogames.

Of course, it was 1978 and in 1977 the pop-culture world was already looking toward the skies: Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had been blockbusters, Battlestar Galactica was launching on TV, Skylab was struggling to stay in orbit (it would crash in Western Australia in 1979). Star Trek Phase II, then to become The Motion Picture (and then the Next Generation), was in production. Space was cool again.

But was Nishikado inspired to think about H G Wells by Jeff Wayne's album, or it just one of those cases of interesting synchronicity? I'm not sure which idea I find cooler, but the two pop-culture properties do seem to just go together.