Fire and Ice

I’d been planning to write about Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy today, but I happened to see the movie Sunshine last night, and as this movie is sci-fi to the max, I thought I’d write about it while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Be forewarned: spoilers below.

The movie is set in the near future. The sun, for reasons that the audience does not (and does not need to) know, has grown dimmer; not enough to kill everyone on the planet as yet, but enough that this will be the near-time outcome. Our heroes are eight astronauts aboard the spaceship Icarus 2 (Icarus 1 having mysteriously disappeared), which is carrying the biggest, baddest nuclear bomb that humanity could put together, with the idea that sending it into the sun will goose our star back into its old output.

It’s a desperate attempt, but it just might work, and our heroes might make it home safely—until they receive a faint distress signal from the missing Icarus 1, and decide on a short diversion to check it out.

The decision to divert is bitterly resisted by at least one member of the crew, the engineer Mace, who states the obvious; that the choice is between rescuing ALL of humanity vs. a few stranded astronauts (besides, how could they still be alive?), and that they should stick strictly to their mission.

But another crewmember points out that Icarus 1 also carried a bomb; and two bombs, two last chances, are better than one. They do divert, which is a mistake; a series of accidents results, compounded with sabotage, and although they manage to launch the bomb, everyone dies.

Well, except for the people back on earth. One of the interesting things about this movie is that even when the audience discovers, at the end, that the mission has been a success – Earth is saved! woo hoo! – it doesn’t matter. The only people we really care about are dead. All politics is local, I’ve heard: all emotion seems to be as well. The salvation of humanity is not enough to make Sunshine a happy film.

One of the two women on board--Cassie—makes this point when she votes against killing a crewmember, even though unless they reduce oxygen consumption by one person’s worth they will not be able to complete their mission. One individual's life against billions?

“I know the argument,” Cassie says. “I know the logic. You're saying you need my vote. I'm saying you can't have it.”

I was also struck by the contrasting themes of fire and ice in the movie; the sun is dimmer, yes, but not that dim: as they approach the orbit of Mercury the astronauts are in constant danger of dying if the ship’s shielding is not aimed just right. The sun becomes a character in this movie; purveyor of annihilation as well as life, and several characters do, indeed, burn to death.

On the other hand, the cold of space is also a danger, and one character dies, frozen, outside the ship.

Another crewmember ends up with a choice of ways to die; he chooses fire.

It’s a haunting movie. I can’t say I enjoyed it, really, but it sticks with you. I have only one criticism, which relates to an unanticipated character who shows up near the end; the insane captain of Icarus 1, who sneaks on board Icarus 2 after the rendezvous.

Our heroes think all the crewmembers of the first ship are dead. They aren’t, and the attacks and sabotage committed by Captain 'totally bonkers' Pinbacker are shot in such a way to suggest something paranormal. He’s crazy, sure – no problem – but why is he filmed so strangely, as if he was some kind of ghost/creature/thing?

Up to that point (and this is late in the film) Sunshine has been the hardest of hard sci-fi. Now it’s -- what? A creepy supernatural horror movie? Huh? Other reviewers have also commented that this sudden side trip into slasher territory was not successful.

I still recommend it. You won’t feel quite the same way about our closest star again.

Is The Phantom Menace really such a bad movie?

Well, I was tempted to make this the shortest blog ever.

"Yes."

But critics are the cheap tricks of the movie world. George Lucas went to the trouble of making the damn thing, and all we do is complain. And I think the director's response might be something on the order of "Fine, if you don't like my movie, go make one yourself."

Good luck with that. Plus, I'm categorically annoyed with any critic who declares a movie good or bad, when what they really mean is I liked it, or I didn't like it.

OK. I didn't like the movie. So sue me.

Too much CGI, for one thing. Sure, the first Star Wars had special effects--they were extraordinary for its time--but our interest was also directed to the major characters. These characters included C-3PO and R2-D2, neither of whom was CGI.

They all felt real. Unlike the very much not real flying junk shop dealer (Anakin Skywalker's boss) - or the announcer at the race -- and don't even get me started on Jar-Jar Binks.

A second problem was with the character of Anakin Skywalker himself. The child actor playing Anakin was not good, as anyone who's seen the movie knows. But he was a child. I blame the director. Too much time spent on the CGI, George. Help the kid out.

Anakin's character presented another problem, which wasn't quite as obvious until the next movie came out and Anakin and Queen Amidala become lovers. She looked like she was an adult when she met Anakin as a young child. Eeuuww. (According to Wikipedia, Queen Amidala was supposed to be 14 in The Phantom Menace. That definitely didn't come across.)

Lucas has answered his critics by saying that the movie was for children. Which would have been a point, except - yeah, no, it's not. Way too dark and violent -- the make up on Darth Maul alone would give some kids nightmares. And has he forgotten that Anakin kills an entire group of children in one of the later movies? You might not see it on screen, but what are you going to tell little Susie and little Johnny about what happened to them?

I'll end with something I liked: the final light saber duel between Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul. Cool. And of course it was nice to see Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson in the first place. I wish they would have had more to do.

I was channel surfing a couple days ago, and happened on one of the I, II, III trilogy. I watched for a few minutes. I couldn't remember which one it was. I had no idea what was happening. If it had been one of the IV, V, VI trilogy, I could have told you everything.

Science, religion, euthanasia

The first part of Canticle (Fiat Homo - Let there be man) is set in a post-nuclear apocalypse 'dark ages.' The second section (Fiat Lux - Let there be light) follows six hundred years later, at the time of a scientific renaissance.

The pre-apocalypse 'memorabilia' that the monks of the order of St. Leibowitz have been keeping safe for all those centuries are finally of interest again. And one scientist- the brilliant, difficult Thon Thaddeo - comes to the abbey to study them.

Canticle has been studied in college courses for its discussion of 'the relationship between science and religion' (a phrase which, as a biologist, I have come to truly hate). I'm not sure what Miller really has to say about that relationship, however. The monks are mostly saintly, true. But Thon Thaddeo is far from a bad person; proud and bad-tempered, yes, but basically honest.

The bad guys in Canticle are neither the monks nor the scientists, even though science will eventually (in the third section of the book, Fiat Voluntas Tua - Let thy will be done) make another nuclear holocaust possible. The bad guys are the politicians, the people who want power.

The humor - still much present in part two - is less evident toward the end of the book, but then impending nuclear war tends to make life seem less funny. And Miller spends a fair amount of time on the question of euthanasia.

The first bombs have fallen. The government has set up 'relief stations' (read: euthanasia) for those individuals who have received such a high dose of radiation that death is inevitable. The doctors (playing the scientist role, here) are in favor of the idea; the monks resist.

I wasn't entirely convinced by their argument that we should suffer through to the end, but I'm not sure that Miller intends for us to be. You cannot read this section, now, without remembering that Miller himself suffered from serious depression for much of his life, and that 12 years ago, in 1996 - he committed suicide.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

I haven't read every science fiction novel ever published, so I can't say that A Canticle for Leibowitz --by Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960 - is unique.

But it's pretty darn unique. The setting, for one thing: in a monastery. And the protagonists? Monks. Not your standard sci-fi for sure.

I can remember getting a few pages into it and thinking - this is funny. The idea that you could write a serious novel and make it witty and fun was a revelation. (These were my early teen years; I hadn't yet read Pride and Prejudice.) Perhaps this explains, in part, my life-long prejudice against works with I AM A PIECE OF SERIOUS LITERATURE written all over them.

A prejudice, by the way, which extends to movies. Ingmar Bergman? ZZZZZZZ.

The main character of the first part (Fiat Homo, "Let there be man") is Brother Francis, a young novice at an abbey in the post-apocalyptic southwestern United States. Brother Francis - charming, naive, trusting - is another revelation. He wants to be monk (memo from the teenaged me: say what?).

Occasionally you will find a reviewer who rants about Miller's supposed pro-Roman Catholic bias; that Canticle promotes 'blind faith' and an unquestioning subservience to authority. These reviewers have apparently not read beyond the first few pages. Brother Francis - despite his devotion to the abbey, despite his trust in his superiors and his desperate longing to be allowed to profess his vows - refuses (in the face of considerable pressure from the abbot) to recant his story that he saw someone who might have been 'the blessed Leibowitz' out in the desert.

He refuses, in other words, to bend to authority, to change what he believes to be the truth even the tiniest bit. The reader admires him, even as we are also invited to understand the reasoning of the very human and politically astute abbot.

Fiat Homo ends with Brother Francis' death from an arrow to the head. He is buried by the same old man who might have been - but in the end, was not - the blessed Leibowitz.

Space Marines

In some ways I liked the sequel to Alien even better than the original. Sigourney Weaver was back, of course, along with a squad of marines. The marines were a bunch of seriously-armed-to-the-teeth dudes - and one equally armed-to-the-teeth woman. Which leads to the best line of dialogue in either film:

Male marine to female marine: "Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

Vasquez: "No. Have you?"

The theme of corporate stupidity and greed - hinted at in Alien - plays out here in full as Ripley, the marines, a good android (wonderfully played by Lance Henricksen), and a Company shill (the usually amiable Paul Reiser) return to the planet visited by the Nostromo.

The marines are brave and (mostly) smart, but they are in over their heads: the enemy is something they don't understand, and modern weapons won't save them. Ripley understands, but she is also hampered - at least temporarily - by her own prejudice against androids. The Company shill is just that.

And did I mention there's a little girl ('Newt') to rescue?

In the end, Ripley and the little girl survive, along with (sort of) the android and one of the marines, Hicks. Hicks is the exceedingly cute one, the calm one, a leader - he's our hero to match our heroine. We see them off into hypersleep and go home reasonably happy . . . . .

Except then they die. The third movie in the franchise (Alien3, released in 1992, six years after Aliens) begins with the crash of an escape pod, and the death of Newt and Hicks.

What?

How annoying is that? Apparently James Cameron (the director of Aliens) was annoyed as well. You cannot have your audience emotionally invest in your characters, see them through perilous times, have them barely escape with their lives--

--and then kill them off in the first few minutes of the next movie. That just bites.

I decided not to see the third movie when I found out about this bit of plot. In my mind Ripley, Hicks, Newt and even Bishop the android are happy somewhere, in hypersleep or out, and alive.

In space, nobody can hear you scream

One of the all-time great movie tag lines, by the way.

I'm not a fan of scary movies. The whole 'horror' genre leaves me cold, both in books and on film. Not to mention the latest torture-porn stuff, ala Saw and Hostel. Pathetic.

But there are scary movies, and then there are scary movies. Alien combined a great science fiction look with a monster to really sink your teeth into. Or vice versa.

I found out later that there was a person inside the alien suit: one Bolaji Badejo, 7 ' 2 " and thin enough to fit inside and play convincingly non-human. Yes, the alien was not some mechanism like the shark in Jaws. Or all CG.

And I agree with those who've argued that the monster was a lot more frightening in the first movie, when you barely saw it, than it was in the sequels. You didn't know what was going after the crew; that was the genius of the thing.

So we have an unknown planet, with atmosphere so thick you can barely see through it, a bunch of strange eggs, and another alien, but this one with his chest ripped open. Setting us up for the (arguably) most famous scene in the movie: John Hurt not quite getting through his spaghetti dinner.

I can't say too much about that scene; I've seen the movie several times, but always have my eyes covered at that point.

But the alien is only one of the scary things that the people of the Nostromo are faced with. They are, in fact, dupes. They've been set up by the Company, which has sent an android along with the crew, presumably (some of this was a little hazy before the Aliens sequel) to discover potential alien weaponry, biological or otherwise, and return it to human civilization.

This being the part where human beings stupidly get way in over their heads, and possibly a commentary on messing with weaponry that could kill us all.

At the end, only our kick-ass heroine (Sigourney Weaver, on her way to becoming a major star) and the cat survive. She had argued against bringing the alien into the Nostromo in the first place, she had discovered the androids machinations - and now she's in hypersleep, heading back to Earth.

A Billion Days of -- say what?

Today's blog is about the sci-fi novel A Billion Days of Earth by Doris Piserchia, first published in 1976. I read it sometime in the 1980s, lost the book in a move from Florida to Washington state, and only recently re-read it.

I love the book. I just don't understand it. At all. Usually I don't enjoy books - or movies - that I find totally confusing. I don't like anything that feels like deliberate obscurity on the part of an author. And, as a rule--OK, Twin Peaks excepted--I don't like excessive weirdness.

Here we have a seriously weird, confusing--and often depressing--book. Which I totally enjoyed. Go figure.

The 'billion days' of the title refers to the time period of the story--3 million years from today, more or less. Human beings - the real Homo sapiens - have evolved into - gods? - who have extraordinary powers. I guess. Anyway, they can float on clouds.

Our protagonist is Rik - he's human, more or less, except he's descended from rats. The rat-people are the humans of the story. There are also lengs - dog-people, also sentient. And did I mention the zizzies, who are a combination sparrow/cat/bee, flying furred creatures with a three-foot wingspan and a stinger?

Yeah. Anyway, the story begins with the entrance--creation?--of Sheen, a lifeform (I'm echoing Data, here) made of silver. Sheen absorbs sentient beings, who then lose their independent will--and turn silver themselves.

What I find interesting about the book are the changes in tone. Sheen's actions, at first, seem almost good-natured. He absorbs a creature here and there, and has funny, almost friendly conversations with Rik, who resists him. We even have time to visit other sub-plots, including one about a family of uber-ultra-rich rat-humans, the Fillys. But somewhere around the middle of the book, things start downhill in a big way. Sheen has absorbed so many people by this time that society collapses, and the result is just as ugly as you might expect. After the initial low-key tone of the story, you feel things tip and crash down; there is a truly horrifying scene where the rat-humans are herded into a slaughterhouse and forced to choose between violent death and absorption by Sheen.

What is the author trying to say here? That society is fragile? I'm not sure.

At any rate, the end of the story brings a second shift. One of Sheen's first victims 'escapes' back to real life, and it turns out that anyone can do the same. They only have to want to. Rik gets his wife back (another sub-plot). Sheen decides he doesn't have the heart for total destruction.

And the gods (Homo sapiens) decide to leave the earth on rocket ships.

No, I don't understand the book at all. But it kept me interested, beginning to end. And if there is anyone out there who does understand it, drop me a line, heh?