Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!SJohnson.es@PARC-Maxc.ARPA From: SJohnson.es@PARC-Maxc.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: A Movie Message-ID: <16231@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 31-Jan-84 19:57:31 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.16231 Posted: Tue Jan 31 19:57:31 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Feb-84 12:40:05 EST Lines: 36 From: Swen JohnsonThe movie you are thinking of is "The Questor Tapes", a made-for-TV film by Gene Roddenberry (sp?). The protagonists are Robert Foxworth (Questor), and Mike Farrell (I don't remember the name of his character). I was also impressed by that scene. This was an obvious set up for a series which didn't make it. Too bad. I have seen a paperback novelization, I believe by Dorothy (D. C.) Fontana. Some other details (Spoiler!): Questor is an android created by Farrell and others using mag tapes left by a missing scientist named Vaslovic. Vaslovic is some kind of political outcast (you know, his name sounds Russian...), and no one fully understands his work, so the project is controversial. The Vaslovic tapes are incomplete, and the first attempt to bring Questor to life/conciousness fails (or at least appears to). My favorite scene occurs when everyone has left the half-completed android alone in a lab at night, and the featureless manequin begins to stir. It applies several nasty-looking tools to itself, gradually adding human features to its blank, smoothed-over face. Chilling. Questor and Farrell then begin a search for Vaslovic, running into various adventures (including some attempts at humor). They finally find him in the cave, which is located in Mount Ararat! Lying on one of the slabs, Vaslovic (Lew Ayres) explains that the other bodies are his "predecessors", androids which have secretly guided human history for centuries (or longer?). When each android is ready to "die", he creates his successor, and then goes to his final resting place in the cave. -- Swen