Binary Stars in Fiction - Film and Television

Film and Television

• "Pyramids of Mars" (1975) et alii, serial written by Robert Holmes and Lewis Greifer, and directed by Paddy Russell for the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This episode contains the first reference to Gallifrey, the home world of Doctor Who, the last of the Time Lords, which orbits a tightly bound binary star system of two yellow-white stars—one similar to the Sun and the other a white dwarf (see graphic: The double system is somewhat obscured by the citadel itself, but can be seen as refracted pairs of highlights on the spherical surface of the fastness' defensive force field). Gallifrey is quite remote from the Earth: In the 1996 television movie Doctor Who, the Doctor shows his two human associates Chang Lee and Grace Holloway a view of the universe: Look over there ... That's home. / Gallifrey! / 250 million light years away. / Whoo. This would place it far outside our own galaxy, which is about a hundred thousand light years in diameter, and indeed outside the Local Group and even the Virgo Supercluster; however, at this distance it would still be within the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex.
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), film written and directed by George Lucas, as part of the six-installment Star Wars saga of feature films. The planet Tatooine is the setting for many key events in the Star Wars series, appearing in every franchise film except The Empire Strikes Back. Since it is the home world of both Anakin and Luke Skywalker, it holds great importance in the Star Wars universe. Tatooine's G-type and K-type twin stars (Tatoo I and Tatoo II—see graphic below) overheat its surface, making water and shade hard to come by. The planet's indigenous lifeforms are well-adapted to its arid climate, but human settlers often become moisture farmers and live in subterranean dwellings to survive.
• The Dark Crystal (1982), animatronic film written by Jim Henson and David Odell, and directed by muppeteer Henson and Frank Oz. On another world, in another time (a thousand years gone) the evil Skeksis rule a dwindling, ruined planet, while the gentle wizardly Mystics raise Jen, the last—but for one other—of the Gelflings. The world Thra was once green and bountiful, spinning in a triple star system ruled by the blue dwarf Dying Sun, the red Rose Sun, and the white giant Great Sun, until the Crystal of Truth shattered and in so doing loosed strife and destruction on the land. The elfin Gelfling boy, taken in by the Mystics after his clan was killed, is told by his Mystic master that he must find and restore the crystal shard. If he fails to do so before the Great Conjunction of the three suns (see graphic below), the Skeksis will rule forever: When single shines the triple sun / What was sundered and undone / Shall be whole, the two made one / By gelfling hand or else by none. Thus begins Jen's quest.

• "Night Terrors" (1991), episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation written by Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor, and directed by Les Landau as part of the film, television, and print franchise originated by Gene Roddenberry. Searching for a disabled scientific expedition in the vicinity of a binary star, the USS Enterprise becomes ensnared in a topological singularity—the same Tyken's Rift that has trapped the earlier vessel. The only way to escape is to detonate a huge explosion, but how? ...Meanwhile the human members of the crew begin to suffer an induced mass psychosis thanks to a mysterious influence that is keeping them from dreaming. Only half-betazoid Troi can still dream, and she dreams of the double sun (see graphic above) —no wait, it's a hydrogen atom, with one electron orbiting one proton!—a telepathic cry for help being broadcast by a likewise trapped alien race, with dream deprivation an unintended consequence. When Troi realizes their need, the Enterprise releases a flood of hydrogen gas into the Rift, which the aliens engineer into a great blast, and everyone wins free.
• Alien3 (1992), film written by Vincent Ward et al and directed (and subsequently disavowed) by David Fincher. Series heroine Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) together with several crewmates (and also, unknown to them, one alien) eject from a disabled spaceship and crash-land on Fiona 161, a penal foundry facility orbiting in a binary star system. The prison world, nicknamed "Fury," houses a population of male inmates with histories of physical and sexual violence. Mayhem ensues.
• Starship Troopers (1997), film written by Edward Neumeier and directed by Paul Verhoeven, based on the military themed 1959 novel by Robert Heinlein, a work replete with allusions to World War II and to Japanese tactics in the Pacific war. Porteño high schooler John Rico and his friends resolve to enlist in the military to earn their Federation citizenship. Boot camp goes poorly however, and Rico is contemplating resigning from the force when the arachnid Bugs, archrivals of humanity, launch a meteor bombardment from their system that destroys his home town, Buenos Aires. The Pearl-Harborlike attack, the Federation's Doolittle-esque counterstrike against the Bugs' capital planet Klendathu, and the subsequent planet-by-planet naval campaign provide the means for Rico to redeem himself, perform multiple acts of heroism, and get the girl. The picture begins with a "newscast" on the, a sly send-up of the government's crude propaganda machine: Klendathu, source of the bug meteor attacks, orbits a twin star system where brutal gravitational forces produce an unlimited supply of meteorites (sic) in the form of this asteroid belt. To ensure the safety of our Solar System, Klendathu must be eliminated.
• "My Three Suns" (1999), episode of the animated situation comedy Futurama written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Jeffrey Lynch and Kevin O'Brien (created by Matt Groening). Philip Fry, delivery boy for Planet Express, is assigned the task of conveying a royal consignment across the desert of Trisol under the blazing heat of the planet's three suns. Arriving at the Trisolian palace, he is so thirsty that he drinks a beaker of liquid that he finds sitting on the throne. All too late he discovers that the Trisolians are liquid-based life forms, and that he has consumed their emperor. The Trisolians are not happy.
• Pitch Black (2000), film written by Jim and Ken Wheat, and directed by David Twohy. A space transport crash-lands on a desert planet illuminated by three suns: yellow, white, and blue, which bathe it in constant daylight; the colors cast by the triple suns are effectively represented with tinted camera work by cinematographer David Eggby. The light is extinguished in a month-long eclipse that recurs every 22 years—and, coincidentally, shortly after the castaways' planetfall—when flapping swarms of ravenous creatures emerge into the pitch dark to feed. The shipwreck survivors comprise the usual assortment of conflicted and conflicting characters, including Vin Diesel as the tough thug with a well-hidden heart of gold, who manages to bring at least a few of the others unscathed through the harrowing night.
• "Singularity" (2002), episode of Star Trek: Enterprise written by Chris Black and directed by Patrick Norris as part of the film, television, and print franchise originated by Gene Roddenberry. The USS Enterprise is exploring a triple star system, one of whose components is a Class IV black hole that emits a peculiar type of radiation: It causes the human members of the crew to concentrate so obsessively on certain trivial tasks that they can no longer effectively control the starship. Vulcan science officer T'Pol is unaffected; with faltering assistance from the semiconscious Captain Archer, she must navigate the vessel through a chaotic debris belt orbiting closely around the hole to a sheltered eddy of space time. Here the singularity's influence does not extend and the crew is able to recover.
• Simoun (2006), anime television series written by Hayase Hashiba and directed by Junji Nishimura. Simoun takes place on the planet Daikūriku, an Earthlike planet in a binary star system populated by a humanoid race that are all born female and develop as girls until age 17, when they choose a permanent sex. At some point in this world's past, a more technologically advanced culture flourished, but it has since crumbled, and much of its technology has been lost.
• "The Captain's Hand" (2006), episode of Battlestar Galactica written by Jeff Vlaming and directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan. Two Raptors go missing during a training mission near a binary star that causes DRADIS (space radar) and communications interference. Shortly after contact with the Raptors is lost, new Pegasus commander Barry Garner challenges Admiral Adama's orders by sending his battlestar directly into the rescue zone—and a trap.