Honest Trailers: Prometheus

My hate-on for Prometheus continues with this hilarious Honest Trailer from Screen Junkies. It's not new or anything but it's making me laugh this morning so I figured why not share? Also it's nice to finally be able to laugh about how bad Prometheus was instead of being sent into an angry hate-spiral. Maybe someday I'll be able to watch it again without experiencing the cinephile equivalent of a post-traumatic acid flashback. Not that I'm eager to test the waters, mind you. Anyway, enough stalling/passive-aggressive griping, enjoy the video below:

Looper

Swoon

After months of silence and an embittered post about the quality of summer movies in 2012, along came Looper to answer all my cinephile woes. One disappointing film after the next had me positively exhausted with film criticism, but Rian Johnson's latest has me back on the wagon. Looper isn't perfect, but it's an original, intelligent, and engaging science-fiction/time travel movie that's also accessible and affective (which is more than I can say for some other flicks in the genre).

I liked Looper a lot, that's the short version of this review. What follows will be a more in-depth discussion that will include spoilers. Steer clear if you haven't seen Looper yet, as there are some legitimate surprises in store for you.

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Ok, let's just get the big negative elephant in the corner out of the way: the time-travel mechanics of Looper only kinda sorta work at best. This movie is not a scientific examination of multiple timelines (ala Primer) or conversely a postulation on cyclical inevitability (ala 12 Monkeys). Rather, Looper is an adventure film about agency that uses the concept of time-travel to underpin its thematic structure. This is never so clear as in the film two weakest moments, namely the cheeky, fourth-wall-cracking "I don't want to talk about time travel" diner conversation, and the sepia-toned "I saw how it would happen" montage during the climax. These moments demonstrate that Looper puts its heart before its brain and desperately wants the audience to follow suit. Unfortunately in doing so they lead the viewer by the hand to the "point" of the film, and are the most inelegant moments in Rian Johnson's career to date.

Nevertheless, Looper is an incredible and worthwhile experience. It melds aspects of the Terminator franchise (only in reverse) with Akira of all things, and kept me guessing for most of the movie. Although it might be intellectually-light on time-travel as a whole, that torture sequence is burned in my memory as one of the most original and visceral takes on the concept that I've ever seen. It showed us everything but all the while adhered to the old horror-film adage that the scariest monster is the one we don't see.

Additionally, the film's defiant moral ambiguity in refusing to have a real villain is a convention-busting turn that we don't see very often. I know, I know, Bruce Willis kills children in cold blood, but the fact that he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are the same character complicates the matter. We literally can't just write-off Willis as the bad guy because he's the same character as Levitt. The character is a profoundly selfish one but that's not the same thing as being evil. By all traditional measures Willis is actually better than Levitt: he's reformed from the murder business, off the drugs, and has suffered a sympathetically tragic loss. We can't entirely root for one over the other because they both frustrate our moral instincts and yet are fundamentally two sides of the same coin. That's part of what makes Levitt's choice at the end so effective, both for the character and as a sci-fi conceit.

The definition of sci-fi is a contentious subject, but I subscribe to the idea that the genre presents strange worlds to encourage reflection on our own. The ways in which sci-fi settings differ from reality are precisely what create this interrogative reflex, as their strangeness forces us to consider the ways the real world is different and (more importantly) why. In the case of Looper, the qualities that set its world apart let us consider the meaning of choice and repercussions (apt for a time-travel movie).

Besides the time-travel and telekinetic powers that distinguish Looper's future from our own world, the movie's setting is generally familiar. Those two elements allow us to examine two characters in unusual ways: one at two separate points in his life, both as a youth trying to make his own way and as an old man who's lost everything; the other character is the boy with an incredible gift who doesn't yet have enough control of his life to determine what he'll become. Over the course of the film we're made increasingly aware of the pain and violence that both characters inflict on others as a result of their selfish choices. Ultimately we discover that each character's actions are precisely what inspire the other to lash out against them in an endlessly repeating pattern of revenge (in theory it's a two-timeline tiered cycle of violence, but again don't worry about the mechanics too much). The sci-fi aspects of the movie are what let us see the whole self-replicating "loop" (ugh) of selfishly-motivated choices and their repercussions. When Levitt joins us in seeing these puppet-strings he does the only thing that's needed to stop the cycle: he makes an unselfish choice.

Looper's central focus is understanding the consequences of our actions, and the time travel and telekinetic powers are simply the tools Rian Johnson uses to explore that concept. The moral ambiguity serves the same purpose as the sci-fi elements in that these narrative qualities flesh out the nature of each character's decisions. In the end there's no villain or hero, just people making choices that spiral out of their control into a self-perpetuating cycle. The fantastical differences between our world and Looper's are what allow Levitt to share the audience's perspective, to see the big picture and the role(s) he can play in it. Conceptual mechanics and plot holes aside, it's the stuff of classic sci-fi by my definition.

I had tons of nitpicky problems with Looper, ranging from the mundane (JGL's makeup may have been well done but damn was it ever distracting) to the fundamental (if they didn't make loopers close their own contracts then this whole mess could have been avoided). Overall though the film was greater than the sum of its parts, as the plot (holes and all) served to reemphasize the narrative's central theme. Looper is a fantastic sci-fi movie that showed me things I'd never seen before via a unique perspective. I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi or any of the talented people involved with the film.

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Side note: If you're intrigued by my brief discussion of the definition of sci-fi, then I highly recommend you check out the works of Darko Suvin and Adam Roberts. My own take draws very heavily from Suvin's ideas of cognitive estrangement. They're both very interesting and definitely worth a read if you're so inclined.

Reviews I Wish I Had Written: Adam Quigley's Hit Piece on Prometheus

Adam Quigley over at /Film has written a great review of Prometheus. You should avoid it like the plague if you have yet to see the film, but it says just about everything I felt coming out of Ridley Scott's latest... thing... 

I don't completely agree with Adam's read of the "big reveal" at the end of the movie, nor did I feel that the android David was the most interesting character in the film, but that said his overall take on the movie is 1:1 with my sentiments. As such, I'm ripping a few of his larger and more on-point quotes to help give my take on Prometheus. Spoilers and unbridled negativity abound from here on out.

Prometheus may seem like more sophisticated fare, with a promise of greater significance deeply entrenched in the oft-mentioned subject matter (i.e., uncovering the origin of human life), but the movie utterly fails at tying its ideas and its monstrous happenings together. Despite feigning interest in probing life’s most pertinent mysteries, the film has nothing to say. It asks — literally asks, aloud — weighty questions without any interest in exploring the answers. The film expects you to do the heavy lifting, as though it should be rewarded for even daring to ask the questions to begin with. 

...

Oh, what, you have a problem with the lack of meaningful plot resolution? You’ve completely missed the point! It’s about the desire to find answers, not the answers themselves! Why try to satisfy you with answers when life doesn’t have any satisfying answers to give? Check mate, motherfuckers!

Is this seriously the point of Prometheus? We’ve waited this long to have our questions about the Alien mythology answered, only to be told that expecting satisfying answers to those questions is actually reflective of the folly of mankind? That’s it? 

How profound. Nevermind that I only sought the answers to those questions to begin with because Ridley Scott chose to make a movie that asks those questions.

This might be the thing that bugged me the most about Prometheus: the movie pretends to ask big philosophical questions about life and creation and faith, etc. ad naseum, but then says literally nothing substantive about anything. Seriously, there's a line right at the end of the movie where David asks Noomi Rapace basically "Why do you want to know the answer to [insert big question here]?" and her response is, verbatim, "I can understand because I'm human but you can't because you're a robot."

For fucking real?!

The movie's big point is that we should be curious about the big questions or else we're just robots, and that's ostensibly bad now? Never mind that this message is thematically and literally incoherent since the entire movie has poised David as the most "human" character of the bunch in terms of his (flirtatiously hinted at) desires to be loved/accepted/not treated like part of the decore. He has one of Prometheus' rare great moment earlier in the film when he confronts a human scientist who's frustrated about not being able to meet and speak with his creator (it makes sense in context). When the man tells David that humanity made androids "Because we could," David retorts by asking "Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same answer from your creators?” It's a moment of sheer brilliance and seems to point towards a thematic structure that interrogates both the reasons for human existence and our vain desires for lofty rationales BUT NOPE. We get nothing of the sort and none of that matters by the movie's end! Instead the big conclusion is that it's bad and inhuman that David doesn't have a higher level dissatisfaction with unanswered questions about existence, which is ironically my major takeaway from Prometheus!

But I digress. My apologies, Prometheus is an all-over-the-place kind of affair and so I'm sure this review must read that way too. Back to Adam:

Stripped from its Alien roots, Prometheus barely has a story to call its own. A lot happens in it, but the events play out with so little thought or urgency that almost nothing seems to happen at all. By the time it hits its third act, the film has completely devolved into generic sci-fi drivel, rushing through each incongrous payoff without bothering to properly root them in any sort of intellectually or emotionally substantiated context. Scene after scene, the film subjects its expert team of stock horror dummies to inactivity and death, completely devaluing the inherent thoughtfulness of the themes at hand, and in doing so removing any trace of intelligent design in a story that’s all about tracing back the roots of intelligent design. But then, maybe that irony is not lost on the writers, who treat the film’s actual gods like dummies, too.

And finally, the don't-call-it-a-money-shot summation:

To call Prometheus inconsequential would be a severe understatement. This movie is a trifling blip of narrative disarray, so lacking in anything resembling an intelligible throughline or purpose that I can’t help but wonder why there was any incentive to tell this story at all. Prometheus isn’t just bad; it actively detracts from the very mythology it’s trying to enhance, reducing the Alien legacy to little more than an accidental byproduct of a mind-numbingly stupid expedition.

Yep. That's pretty much the gist of it. When asked what I thought of the movie, I've summed up my thoughts as "What the fuck did I just watch?" and "I'm frustrated." Because really that's how Prometheus left me: frustrated that a movie with so much going for it (strong cast, strong crew, strong franchise roots, a legitimately interesting premise) does so little and purports to say so much. It's thematically scattered, it's plot is nigh incoherent, it expressly refuses to address its most interesting facets, and worst of all it has a self-righteous attitude about the whole thing. It's very tone poises Prometheus as a critic-proof endeavour along the lines of Tree of Life, though even mentioning the two films in the same breath has me mentally gagging. 

People often ask me why I'm so down on so many movies here on this blog, and I think it's a fair question. I'm critical of movies because I love them, and I expect a lot from them. I don't want everything to be high art, but when I sit down to give a film a few hours of my life I expect more than just a way to pass the time. I expect it to give me something interesting, something thoughtful, something that knows what it wants to do/say and does so competently.

I expected Prometheus to do what every piece of its advertising promised it would: tell me an interesting, intelligent, high-brow sci-fi horror story about the origins of mankind and somehow tie it into the Alien franchise. The movie we got wasn't intelligent or high-brow, and I'd barely call it interesting. The first words that come to mind are "stupefying," "infuriating," "insulting" (although that might be the Alien fanboy in me lashing out), and above all else "frustrating." After all the hype, all the "it shares some DNA with Alien" nonsense, all the spoiler-filled trailers and incredible viral marketing, and all the sublime mystique that fans have enjoyed since 1979, Prometheus is mess of a film that's less than the sum of its parts.

I expected more. Silly me.

Quantic Dream's Incredible "Kara" Tech Demo from GDC

In case you missed it, below is the amazing "Kara" tech demo that Quantic Dream's David Cage (of Heavy Rain fame) showed off at last week's Game Developers Conference 2012. It's an outstanding display of the PS3's power and a short but interesting exploration of the nature of artificial intelligence. But don't take my word for it, check out the video below:

What an incredible video. In a scant seven minutes the "Kara" figure manages to raise complex ideas about the manufacturing of artificial intelligence and the responsibilities of their creators; by extension those same concepts trouble conventional notions about the origins and value of sentient life. These are common science fiction tropes that I for one would be excited to see explored in a video game, and especially one by the likes of David Cage. 

Longtime readers (ha) will recall that I was more than a little excited for Heavy Rain.  Although the game didn't necessarily live up to my expectations, it was nevertheless an interesting and unique experiment for the medium. I'm excited to try out David Cage's next game, whatever it ends up being, and this tech demo has increased my curiosity about what that project will explore. If nothing else it shows that he is building upon the foundations he laid in Heavy Rain, both in terms of continuing that game's technological/graphical developments and also improving on its shortcomings. 

One of the most resounding criticisms of Heavy Rain was the fact that it was set in America but voiced (poorly) by French actors, thereby completely breaking any senses of immersion or tension. This demo clearly shows that Cage has heard those critiques and (hopefully) won't make the same mistake twice. The acting on display in the "Kara" demo is profoundly moving, and the mere idea of a game exactly likeHeavy Rain with that caliber of performance is buzz worthy. And I don't believe for a second that Cage would settle for simply Heavy Rain 2. 

Whatever's coming will be as unique and exciting as Cage's previous game was, and will clearly be building upon its strengths and weaknesses alike. It almost feels stupid to get my hopes up all over again, but this demo has me excited despite myself. Fingers crossed whatever we get from this lives up to its potential.

R.I.P. Anne McCaffrey

I just learned from Topless Robot that Anne McCaffrey has passed away. The author of over a hundred books, McCaffrey will be sorely missed by fans of science-fiction and fantasy.

Anne McCaffrey, 1926-2011

McCaffrey leaves a wonderful legacy behind and hopefully her works will continue to be enjoyed for years to come. The Dragonriders of Pern series was particularly important to me when I was growing up and so I was sad to hear the news. If you're at all interest in sci-fi/fantasy then I strongly recommend picking up either Dragonflight or Dragonsong and letting yourself get lost in Pern.








PS: It might be wrong/insensitive to say this right now, but I don't see myself getting another opportunity: the photo of Anne McCaffrey on her Wikipedia page is the worst photo I have ever seen of a person, ever. Like, wow. So unfortunate.

Max's Epic, Long Overdue Review of Inception

This past summer I saw Christopher Nolan's Inception. Much like with Red Dead Redemption, I started writing a review but got bogged down by laziness, life, etc. Now I have finally returned to the subject to put in my two cents on one of the most popular films of 2010. Have faith in the title of this post: it is the very definition of epic. I don't use that word lightly. Consider this the authoritative take on Inception. Scroll down below the epic poster to see what I thought.

And the verdict is...




Inception = Total Recall meets Ocean's 11.




Seriously, that's it. That brief comparison pretty much covers Inception. No more, no less. Contrary to popular belief, the movie was just... mediocre. It wasn't the incredible, mind-bending, high-brow science fiction masterpiece I hoped it would be, but it also wasn't terrible. It was just sort of ok. If anything it was underwhelming, except for the awesome fight sequence featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (although even that doesn't really hold up with multiple viewings). It wasn't worth all the confusion, frustration, and exasperation so many people felt, but it also wasn't a "best picture" by any means. It wasn't even worth this long a post, it was just ok. Although it did give the internet an endless well of ammunition for hilarious memes, mostly due to its (meagre) soundtrack.

There, done. I wanted to finally put up my thoughts for the sake of posterity, now I can move on. If you want to read something epic about intelligent subject matter I suggest you go back and read my rant about Watchmen. Lets all just shut up about Inception, watch Primer again for our sci-fi glory fix, and hope The Dark Knight Rises ends up being awesome. All signs so far point to yes.

"Who doesn't want to be debased every now and again?" - Watching Splice

I wrote previously that I was looking forward to seeing Vincenzo Natali's Splice, but had some significant apprehensions about the film. I really enjoyed Natali's Cube and I'm curious about his upcoming adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer, but the marketing for Splice made me concerned it would take a frustratingly conservative stance on scientific experimentation. Having seen the movie I'm happy to report that those fears were completely unfounded, Splice was not a terrible, anti-science propaganda piece.

Instead it was just an astoundingly stupid and uncomfortable mess of a horror film.

Spoilers ahead.

Splice is ostensibly a sci-fi film, but I'm hesitant to call it that since the scientific aspects of the plot peter out about a third of the way through. The story is about two hot-shot geneticists (Adrien Brody's Clive and Sarah Polley's Elsa) who use a mixture of human and animal DNA to create a new life form they name Dren. Throughout the initial stages of their experiment the relative morality of human cloning is discussed, or at least mentioned in passing. One could argue that Splice effectively represents multiple sides on the issue by having Clive and Elsa debate it amongst themselves and with an evil corporate big-wig. Honestly though, the science and politics just aren't a real focus beyond their immediate roles in the plot. The movie is more about parenthood, if anything, and once Dren is born the focus becomes Clive and Elsa's relationship with it rather than cloning. That and creeping the fuck out of the audience.

Splice pointedly eschews rhyme or reason in a sustained effort to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible. There are numerous bizarre plot points with flimsy justifications at best. For example, Clive lets Dren curiously watch as he and Elsa have terrible, awkward sex. Apparently he's attracted to the creature because it's made using Elsa's DNA, or something? There’s also nothing in the way of character development or consistency. Elsa actually does a complete 180 personality-wise, changing from a strong, independent woman to a possessive crazy-mommy cliché. All of this results in an amorphous narrative in which the filmmakers depict weird, horrible things just to make the audience squirm. Clive decides he doesn't want to murder Dren anymore and sleeps with it instead. Sequences like this are ridiculous and don't make much sense but are extremely uncomfortable to watch, and that seems to be their primary goal.

So much of what happens in Splice is infuriatingly stupid and illogical, but it might actually be funny if the movie didn't take itself so damn seriously most of the time. The atmosphere is generally dour and tense but every now and again there are sudden winks at the camera that underscore how ludicrous the plot actually is. For example, after Clive gets caught having sex with Dren there's a priceless deadpan shot of Elsa running away from her deranged boyfriend. Such moments are clearly meant to amuse, but Splice is so generally insane that these sequences aren't always immediately discernible from ones that are just inherently ridiculous. It becomes hard to tell whether you're laughing with Splice or at it. The movie feels indecisively split between being truly horrific and comically absurd, and the result is a disconcerting viewing experience that invites far too much eye rolling.

Speaking of things that are irritating, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Splice's convoluted and misogynistic gender politics. As I mentioned earlier, Elsa is introduced as a highly-intelligent, well-balanced person who is unapologetic in her resistance to conform to gender stereotypes. But as soon as she sees Dren she becomes an increasingly unhinged control-freak, and the switch is so sudden and all-encompassing that it completely undermines her initial characterization. Splice portrays the maternal instinct like it's an inevitable mental disorder that uniformly overrides personality and logic. No matter how brilliant and ambitious they might be, each and every woman is a baby-making time-bomb just waiting to go off.  

Additionally you may have noticed that I keep referring to Dren as an 'it' instead of identifying the creature's sex. This is because one of the film's major plot points is that cloned animals are apparently prone to sudden gender reversing rebirths (wow). While this premise opens the door for a progressive depiction of fluid gender subjectivity, Splice instead resorts to traditional differentiators in its polarized portrayal(s) of Dren. As a female the creature is seductively demure but vaguely threatening, and looks like it'll kill Clive praying-mantis style at the climax of their intercourse until Elsa interrupts. After its transformation into a male Dren becomes a predictably aggressive monster, killing everything in sight and raping Elsa. Yeesh. Splice's treatment of gender stands as its greatest failure, as the promising concept is wasted on cliché depictions of a male-female binary.

Splice is not a good movie. It's got an interesting concept and is at times amusing, but more often than not it's frustrating and uncomfortable to watch. If you insist on seeing it then don't go in expecting any sort of intelligent thought on gender or scientific advancement. This film is campy horror, and not even good campy horror at that. You're better off seeing Drag Me To Hell. Or Alien. Or Species. Or anything. 


For further evidence check out some great reviews over at The Daily Protagitron or Danny Isn't Here, Mrs. Torrence. 

Vincenzo Natali Adapting Neuromancer

/Film reported the news a while back, but there's now official confirmation that Splice director Vincenzo Natali will direct a film adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer.

I have a serious affinity for Neuromancer, and to be honest the fact that Natali will be directing it accounts for like half of my excitement for Splice. I'm still excited to see Splice on its own merits (though with some significant apprehensions), but I'll be unusually suspicious of the directorial talents on display. If someone is going to make a film adaptation of Neuromancer they better be on their fucking game, and Natali still has everything to prove as far as I'm concerned.

A while back I asked whether or not a cultural product can be so influential as to render itself irrelevant for adaptation; I used Neuromancer as an example of a book that has not been adapted into a major film but has nevertheless made a serious impact on contemporary cinema by inspiring more popular movies, particularly The Matrix. In a recent interview with /Film's David Chen, Natali specifically addressed how his adaptation will negotiate the significant cultural weight of The Matrix in adapting Neuromancer. I'm including the relevant section of the interview here, but you should really check out /Film for the full piece, there's both video and text available and it's a great interview. Natali clearly has a lot of passion, time will tell whether or not he has the competence to match it.

On making Neuromancer in a post-Matrix world, he says:

“For me, it’s a story of redemption, if you want to get down to the core element of it. I think in terms of how you approach Neuromancer now, post-Matrix, post-all the other films that have poached from it, in the 21st century (because the book was written in 1984), I think you have to take those things and use them to your advantage, because what they give you, what The Matrix, for instance, gives you is the opportunity to make Neuromancer in a culture that is already aware of what The Matrix is. I mean, the very word “matrix” is in Neuromancer. It was borrowed by the Wachowski brothers for their film. I think that’s a good thing, because I don’t even know how someone would have been able to make that film 10 years ago or 15 years ago, because it’s so abstract. I don’t even know how people understood the book when it first came out. I think I read it in the late 1980s, but in 1984, how would people even understand it, because it was just so far ahead of the curve?

I think when you read it now, it still feels very relevant, maybe in some ways more relevant, because so much of what it predicted has come to pass. And therefore, my approach to it would be to be very realistic. I think The Matrix is a wonderful film, but it absolutely takes place in a comic book universe…everything about it, in the best possible way mind you, but really I think it’s a very heightened reality..."

Splice: Expectation and Apprehension

Splice opened in theatres last Friday and I'm going to see it later today. I first heard about the movie back in January when the /Film.com guys were covering the Sundance film festival. I was immediately intrigued since the movie got great reviews and was essentially billed as a contemporary re-envisioning of Frankenstein, one of my favourite novels. Since then I've been patiently waiting for Splice's release, but in the last few months the marketing push for the film has started to worry me:

The trailer above shows that Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley use human DNA to create a new life form that eventually gets out of control. All that is fine and dandy and sounds like it could make for a solid horror film, but I'm concerned about the angle the film seems to be taking on this type of experiment. The trailer openly discusses contemporary legislation and debate about the use of human DNA, and shows that the scientific protagonists are blazing a trail regardless of whether or not the powers that be allow it. Despite that setup Brody's character appears to be a mouthpiece for the conservative right who tries to kill the new creature and melodramatically calls it "a mistake." When things take a turn for the horrible the trailer seems to vindicate this perspective and broadcast the "moral" to the audience that "science is bad!"

I've mentioned recently that I'm getting really sick of primitivism and conservatism in my mainstream movies. Yes they're popcorn flicks but dammit I want to empathize with the characters and feel that my upper-middle class perspective is represented! I want my popular entertainment to promote a culture of liberalism and open-mindedness, not regressive conservative doctrine. Admittedly a contemporary Frankenstein isn't exactly the best site for progressive politics (modern Prometheus much?), but it's possible for movies to show experiments going horrifically awry without implying that it's intrinsically wrong to explore new scientific territory.

I don't know that Splice berates the use of cloning technologies or experimentation with human DNA, but judging by the trailers it certainly looks that way. I'm still going to see the film because it looks like an interesting cross between Alien and Species, but I'm going in with my guard up. I'll do a follow-up post saying whether or not Splice is more intelligent than it looks, but right now I'm not hopeful. Fingers crossed that I'm wrong.

Primitivism in Contemporary Science Ficiton

I've been noticing a growing tendency in popular science fiction to express an ideology of romantic primitivism. As Wikipedia summarizes, the concept holds that "life was better or more moral during the early stages of mankind or among primitive peoples (or children) and has deteriorated with the growth of civilization." Unless you're one of the two people on the planet who didn't see Avatar you should easily be able to see the relevance of primitivism in popular culture. Furthermore a few other major sci-fi properties express similar philosophical leanings: the TV show Battlestar Galactica concluded last year with (spoiler warning) a futuristic human society abandoning all of their technology and knowledge to colonize a primitive Earth; now Steven Spielberg's upcoming show, Terra Nova, will apparently show a family from the year 2149 who go back to the time of the dinosaurs to alter history and save humanity from its "devotion to science."

Ok, so what the fuck?

Where is this sudden regressive impulse coming from? The philosophy certainly isn't new but its prevalence in science fiction lately is noteworthy and unnerving. Science fiction has always existed as a vehicle through which to consider and critique human society by imagining a different one. The genre allows us to question aspects of human life such as political structures or belief systems, and in that way to really question ourselves. Now the most popular sci-fi stories are placing the blame for humanity's woes squarely on the shoulders of technology and the individuals who propagate it... Huh?

This type of reductive thinking produces no room for analysis or discussion but instead encourages a moralistic mob mentality and a "get rid of the bad guys / things" type response, as seen at the end of Avatar. BSG started out as a liberal and critically minded examination of contemporary politics through the lens of a space opera, promoting new ways of thinking about concepts like race, religion, and war. When the show ended it suddenly devolved into an imperialistic treatise about faith, cyclical patterns, and the evils of technology. This ran completely counter to many of show's focal points, including the idea that the "evil" Cylons were for all intents and purposes people, a reflection of their human creators. The show's conclusion didn't make sense thematically, and fans of the show reacted accordingly.

Tellingly the endings of BSG and Avatar were essentially the same: 

the main characters integrated with alien noble savages by fucking them

What is the deal with all this romantic primitivism? The root of all human problems is always the humans themselves, and sci-fi has traditionally been a medium for exploring this issue in all its complexities. Now some of the most prominent examples of the genre are spouting off some ridiculous ideology about how technology is to blame and we should all abandon it to be more in touch with nature? I say again, what the fuck? I'm all for environmentalism but don't try to sell me some two-bit theory that shirks our responsibility and ignores the vast amounts of good that has come as a result of technological advancement. The solution's not as simple as that, and frankly it's not as stupid either. We need better answers and we deserve better stories.

The Weekly Quandry: Irrelevance Through Influence?

I was perusing io9 this morning and found a post by Marc Bernardin on the idea of a Starship Troopers TV show. For the uninitiated, Starship Troopers is Robert Heinlein's 1960 Hugo Award-winning novel about a boy named Juan Rico who joins the military in his futuristic society. The text depicts his entrance into and ascension through the ranks of the armed forces, who are at war with an alien species known as the Klendathu. Bernardin's piece pointed me towards another post on io9 in which Josh Wimmer gives a fantastic breakdown of the novel for anyone who hasn't read it. You can also check out Wikipedia, or just read the book. I strongly encourage the latter because it is an incredible text and nothing like Paul Verhoeven's 1997 "adaptation" (which for the record was also completely awesome in its own way).

Bernardin asks why there has never been a faithful adaptation of Heinlein's novel, particularly as a high-budget television series like the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot. He mentions the fact that the novel has been hugely influential as a major selling point for a new adaptation, arguing that because its products have been so successful (ie Avatar, or just about anything sci-fi that James Cameron has ever done) therefore the progenitor should be a sure thing. I found myself disagreeing with his logic, and thinking that the core elements of Troopers might actually be over saturated in a market so heavily influenced by it. If we've seen aspects of Heinlein's work in everything from Aliens to anime then have we reached the point at which Starship Troopers ceases to be able to bring new ideas to the table?

Which bring me to this week's quandry: is it possible for a text to be so influential as to render itself irrelevant? I don't mean to say that Starship Troopers or texts like it are not worth reading, far from it. But in terms of new cultural products, is there anything else that these kinds of classic texts have left to offer? What is there left to say that hasn't already been addressed in a whole spectrum of mediums?  I use Starship Troopers as my primary example, but there are other texts/films/etc that this question could be asked of, such as I Am Legend (each new adaptation of which continues to further drive this point home) or Neuromancer (which was pretty much done in forever by The Matrix). Is there a point to returning to these classics for their own sake, or have they been rendered irrelevant by their intellectual offspring?

Sound off and let me know.

Thoughts on Avatar Part 2: The Issue of Race

Alright, time for another piece on James Cameron's Avatar. My first post focused on the use and potential of the 3D technology used in the film. This time I want to talk about the racial politics of the film, specifically the problematic depiction of the Other and the purported critique of colonialism.

Cool Video: Tarantino on Boyle's Sunshine

I don't mean to be such a Tarantino fanboy by posting this right after my post praising Inglourious Basterds, but I found this video on /Film this morning and it's an amazing critique of Boyle's Sunshine.

I saw the movie when it hit theatres back in 2007 and felt that it was an interesting but deeply flawed movie. Beyond its laughable third act twist, I felt that the film borrowed too heavily and obviously from the heavies of the sci-fi genre, both thematicaly nd aesthetically. Tarantino is more forgiving of Sunshine's clear references to its influences, and praises it for exploring new territories.

The reason I'm posting the video is because I think it's interesting to see a director exhibiting this kind of geeky reverence for film making and in-depth critique of a director-screenwriter team. Regardless of my feelings about the majority of his films, this is the reason I like Tarantino: he is a geek. It's great to see this kind of excitement and energy from someone in his position, especially considering how long he's been in the business.

Anyways, that's it for today. This past week has seen me return to the city, so hopefully I can return to a regular posting schedule fairly soon.

Moon: A landing befitting of Apollo 13

So I just got back from seeing Duncan Jones's Moon, staring Sam Rockwell, Sam Rockwell, and Kevin Spacey. The movie had been pegged as a throwback to classic, 70s era science fiction, and I expected to see Rockwell going batshit insane at a mining facility on the far side of the moon. Working as the sole operator there at the end of a three year contract, his only companion is a Hal-esque AI named "Gertty," voiced by the ever chillingly cool Spacey. All of that sounds great right? The best part is that that promising description doesn't even hint at the true premise of the film, which further grounds the film in traditional sci-fi lore and gives it a unique spin with loads of potential.

Despite all that, though, Jones and co. managed to make one of the most formulaic and disappointing sci-fi films I've ever seen.