Interstellar vs The Martian

In recent years we’ve had the good luck to see a number of high quality hard SF films released across the country; today I want to talk about two of them and why I like one over the other.

1-interstellarInterstellar is from Christopher Nolan the brilliant filmmaker behind movies such as Memento, The Batman Trilogy, and Inception. Billed as a hard SF story Interstellar depicts a dying Earth where blights are devastating crops around the world and humanity is struggling to grow enough food. The official stance of the U.S. government is that the moon landings were forged to force the USSR to bankrupt itself in a useless space race. Now with the world on the brink of collapse a last ditch effort to find a new home is underway thanks to a wormhole opened by friendly, off screen, aliens. Our characters are part of an expedition through the wormhole and encounter the bizarre and counter-intuitive effects of highly warped space/time. There are betrayals by people who have lost all hope but in the end, and with an expression of the twins paradox displayed for the audience, humanity is saved.

1-martian-9The Martian is from Ridley Scott and is a much more restricted in scope, dealing one man stranded on mars, alone and without the supplies required to stay alive until rescue can arrive. The story follows our hero as his brilliantly solves one problem after another and with his crew mates and people on Earth who devote tremendous resources, skill, and personal risk to save him. It is a man vs nature tale that focuses on a single man but also shows humanity as a whole fighting against an uncaring universe to save a single life.

Now both films have flaws in the science. The Martian storm that strands our astronaut simply can’t exist and that was a known fact my the novelist who penned the original book and the people who adapted it. In Interstellar the smaller craft used to go between their main ship and the surface of the various planets they explore flies by PFM, pure flippin’ magic. In neither case do I really fault the films for the scientific failures, you always have to give something and grading movies on a curve these examples are tiny error.

I do favor The Martian over Interstellar because the story is so free of unrequired cynicism. I do not object to a cynical take or tone in a story. I love noir and that genre requires a cynical worldview, but not all stories benefit from a heavy dose of the cynical. I look at Interstellar, particularly with its ‘love conquers all; subtext and find that the cynicism is at odds with the rest of the film. It is tonally uneven and discordant, where The Martian never breaks from the tone it aims for. It is always a story about fighting for survival and the common humanity in such struggles.

SF can be cynical, 1984 and the movie Blade Runner are both examples of fine SF stories that have and require a cynical heartbeat, Interstellar did not need it and its inclusion damaged the movie execution.

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Roddenberry’s Forgotten Dreams

If someone knows the name Gene Roddenberry it is almost certainly due to the 60’s television series Star Trek and it’s sequel series Star Trek: The Next Generation. During the 1970s Roddenberry attempted to launch a few other series before Paramount green-lit a Star Trek film and the whole cascade that followed in the wake of the titanic success of Star Wars. At my suggestion Loscon43 this year has a panel discussion, which I will be participating in, on these failed pilots.

In order the prep for the convention panel I have tried to hunt down the pilots and re-watch all of them. I succeeded in all of them except The Questor Tapes. If you are in Los Angeles do consider coming to the convention this weekend, but if you can’t make it here are some of my brief thoughts about these pilots.

Genesis II: NASA scientist Dylan Hunt is undergoing an experimental suspended animation technique when an unexpected rock-fall collapses the cavern where the experiment takes place and Dylan isn’t revived until well into the 22 century. The Earth is fragmented with some locales in post-apocalyptic barbarism while other areas have retained advanced technologies. Dylan ends up recruited by a group called Pax who are dedicated to rebuilding humanity but this time without its warlike nature. The pilot is dreadfully dull with most of the scenes tiresome exposition as everyone explains things to the poor Dylan and the audience. The most action packed parts of the pilot, Dylan rigging a nuclear device to foil evil-minded mutants, takes place off screen.

Planet Earth: Same set up as Genesis II, again our main hero is Dylan Hunt, a scientist from the 20th century who due to a suspended animation accident is transport to a post-apocalyptic Earth and works with a group called Pax rebuilding society. This pilot skips the origin story and drops us into an adventure as Dylan and a science team are forced to infiltrate a society where women enslave men in hope of finding a missing doctor needed to save the life of a leader of Pax. This pilot worked better, a lot less exposition but the dialog is stilted and the moralizing is heavy-handed.

The Questor Tapes: An eccentric scientist that few have ever met tricks the government into building an android. When the officials try to decipher the robot’s programming they damage the files. The android, Questor, awakens and escapes. The damaged programming has left him without emotions or knowing his purpose. With the help of a human friend, he tracks down his mysterious creator and learns that humanity has been guided through the centuries by androids keeping mankind for destroying itself. His creator is an android but is damaged and was unable to create his replacement, Questor. Questor is supposed to be the last in the line and if humanity survives Questor’s lifespan it will have matured.

I have memories of this pilot but I have not seen in it decades. Of course the moment Data was introduced in 1988 during the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation I felt very strongly he was Questor 2.0.

Spectre: The only non-SF pilot Roddenberry produced after Star Trek. Will Sebastian and his physician friend Dr ‘Ham’ Hailton are the occult’s answer to Holmes and Watson. Sebastian and Ham travel to London investigating an English Lord who is either a hedonist or a Satanist. Of Roddenberry’s post Star Trek pilots I liked this one the best, but when the credits flashed I noticed that on the screenplay he shared credit with Samuel A Peeples so it is clear he worked better with a partner than writing alone.

It should be fun discussing these project on the panel at the convention.

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Movie Review: Arrival 2016

Friday night after me sweetie-wife and friends finished our evening of board and card game I took the opportunity to visit a movie theater in y area and catch the new SF film Arrival before this weekend science-fiction convention, LosCon.

The theater is one I have been to a few time but generally is on the ‘do not go’ list because it had older and uncomfortable seating, but I had been told that the auditorium were now renovated with big recliners.

I arrived and true enough the seats were large, well stuffed, and quite comfortable. However the A/C had been set too high and I was quite cold foe the first third of the movie. I hope that is not indicative of their usual settings as this chain has the best prices and could well win my patronage.

1-arrival_ver11Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life, is a first contact tale with the emphasis on contact. A dozen alien vessels appear at locations around the world. No one can make out any pattern to the ‘landing’ sites and the aliens unannounced arrival is a mystery. The protagonist of the story Dr Louise Banks, played quite well by Amy Adams, a linguist the United States bring into the project with hope of forging a common means of communication with aliens.

The film is a steady, measured story about that trouble, learning to communicate with something that doesn’t think or perceive in the same manner as you. There is not ‘we learned your language from your broadcasts’ short cuts and the film covers a period of months as we struggle to understand. Jeremy Renner plays Ian Donnelly a physicist and co-equal to Dr Banks in the communications project which for the United States is being commanded by Col. Weber player by the always spot on Forrest Whitaker.

There are the usual tensions between civilian and military mindsets, but the script avoid clichés for the most part. The film is not an action movie in SF drag. This is a film about ideas and the deeper implications of contact. It is difficult to fully discuss this movie without venturing seriously into spoiler space. It is at heart a mystery and how much you like the film will depend on how well that mystery’s resolution work for you.

It worked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but your mileage may vary.

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LosCon Next Weekend

Next weekend is Thanksgiving Weekend here in the United States and for me that mean the Los Angeles Area Science Fiction Convention, otherwise known as LosCon. I think I may have attended every LosCon from 1997 until now. It is one of my favorite conventions.

My very first turn at being on a panel and not simply in the audience was at a Loscon when I was drafted for an on the spot Firefly panel. (That was a blast.)

Now for the last several years I have been a panelist for local San Diego Conventions Condor and Conjecture. This year I will be on several panels for Loscon as well.

I do not yet have the rooms, date, or times for these panels but here is where you can find me at LosCon

 

Redshirts and Bodycount

Description: Star Trek, with its many generations and recent reboot, gives us the opportunity to consider the way stakes and violence have been portrayed in media from the 60s until today. Is it possible to have high stakes without violence? Is the threat of death always necessary? How does an exceptionally nonviolent movie like Star Trek IV hold up today? Is sanitized violence in fact more offensive than ‘honest’ violence? And is there actually any reason to strive for nonviolence, if the audience is enjoying it?

 

Science, Fiction, and Politics: Shaping Reality

Description: Come join our panel of people working in science and science fiction for a discussion of how science, and science fiction affects politics – and vice versa.

 

The Politics and Socioeconomics of Space Exploration

Description: How do politics, economics, culture, and space exploration affect each other?

 

Roddenberry’s Forgotten Dreams

Description: From the TOS episode “Assignment: Earth” until Star Trek: The Motion Picture Gene Roddenberry attempted to launch a number of SF television programs that never progressed beyond an aired pilot. Join us as our panel discusses the shows that might have been

 

In addition to the panel discussions I will also be leading a critiquing session either Friday or Saturday evening.

 

Rogue Read & Critique

Description: Bring 1200-1500 words of a work in progress. In a supportive environment we’ll listen and give feedback.

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Wish Me Luck

This weekend, instead of working half a day on Saturday, I will host the lunch for the local beta readers. (To those of you dispersed across the country I wish you could be here and you have my deepest thanks.)

The Beta Reader Lunch is a tradition of mine going back to the first novel I completed as an adult. (We shall not speak of the novel written in high school.) It’s my way of giving a little back to the people who endured the rough first draft of my novel.

The outcome of these feedback sessions has been highly variable. Sometimes massive restructuring and rewriting happens. Like splitting one book into two or dropping three chapters of meetings. Sometimes there are very small changes, just a point of clarification here and there. And sometimes a book does not survive the beta read process. After the feedback I declare the manuscript dead and file it away as an experiment that failed.

What will be the outcome Saturday? I haven’t a clue. One of the books that died during a luncheon was one that as I wrote I adored ad thought it was one of my best. That’s the point of the beta readers, an observation with some distance, the writer is too damned close.

This is also why all the readers, those at the lunch and those who can only submit responses to my surveys are so vital to the process.

If you did a test read of Phaeton’s Phoenix; thank you.

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Just a Few Words

I had thought that I might speak a little on the election, now that a week has gone by but I find the subject too painful. The election of our first carnival barker president – and that’s gravely close to insulting carnival barkers – is a low point for the Republic. However I also believe that the Republic will survive and that the long arc of history still bends towards justice, even if we have to fight backsliding from time to time.

It will be okay, but only if we fight to make it okay.

So there a few words on the election’s outcome. I wish I had more to say but today has been a rather difficult day.

I awoke at 2;30 am, my sinuses over-pressurized and a migraine exploding behind my eye. The slight motion of the head set of waves of agony and needless to say I did not go to work.

I am feeling somewhat better. The migraine and sinus meds are doing their thing and I believe I will return to work tomorrow.

So there you have it. I have nothing much to say, I remain slightly depressed only now I have added pain to the experience.

 

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Space Zombies? Really?

So veering onto an entirely new track here s a quick post about making sure that your world-building and the your metaphors work and play together.

There’s an instance where it really falls down and that occurs in the fan favorite and short lived SF TV show Firefly.

(Yes I am taking my life in my hands by pointing a glaring flaw in the beloved series.)

The show is a hybrid SF/Western set in a terraformed solar system where dozen of worlds and hundreds of moons have shirt-sleeve environments. (never mind the science issues here – Joss and Science have never been a particularly strong match.) Inspired by the U.S. Civil war our heroes are plucky rebels who stood up to the central powers and lost. They now live on the frontier moons, scraping out a living running cargos and doing odd jobs, often of questionable legality, while trying to remain a few steps ahead of the suffocating core worlds. This is all and good. The set up allows an interesting exploration go the clash of cultures that happened with the U.S. Civil war without the overpowering evil of slavery hanging over everything. The transformed frontier moons allow a wild west feel without the native aliens so he side steps the American Native issues as well. Right from the pilot a threat is revealed in the form of ‘Reavers.’ Humans who it is said had gone mad at the vast emptiness of space and now travels from moon to moon, killing, raping, and wearing the skins of their victims, should they be so lucky as to have it occur in that order.

The show ran a few episodes before Fox killed it, but gathered enough of a fan base that Universal bankrolled a modest feature film that allowed Joss to resolve some incomplete plot lines.

On the Blu-ray bonus materials Joss explains that the Reavers, who play a central plot point, are in fact supposed to be basically ‘Space Zombies.’ (Because there is no escaping the zombie genre – anywhere.) The reavers are unbridled and uncontrolled expression of human anger and aggression, incapable of expressing anything other than violence and destruction. A metaphor for what goes wrong when you try to meddle with human nature, but within the world-building there utterly ludicrous.

Reavers when they appeared display no thought, no planning, nothing but naked savagery. They run and chase down their victims, tearing into them, tearing them appart, and then chasing after the next. Okay – that’s pretty zombish, but how the hell do they fly spaceships?

Seriously I would love to have Joss write me a scene that takes place aboard a ship piloted and controlled by reavers. How do they manage to make it go from place to place, piloting and landing safely while unable to think?

It is an aspect of the show that one has to ignore and if you are unable to ignore the issue the entire story falls apart.

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Movie Review: The Eagle Huntress 2016

Something a little different with today’s review as this film is a documentary. The Eagle Huntress is about a young girl, 13, who is following in her father’s footsteps as a Eagle Hunter in the mountains of Mongolia. Hunting with eagles is an ancient tradition that supplies the families with fur and meat during the cold, hard, Mongolian winters and it is a tradition that usually passes from Father to Son.

1-eagle-huntress_0The film, narrated by Daisy Ridley of The Force Awakes, introduces us to Aisholpan who has been fascinated by her father’s eagle hunting her entire life. Believing that girls and boys are equal, her father defies tradition and takes her under wing to teach her the ways of eagle hunting.

We watch as she learns the basic of the craft and even as she scales the side of a cliff in an attempt to get an eaglet of her own to raise. Aisholpan is a fearless girl, besting others with her courage and commitment.

The movies breaks out into three major sections, much like acts in a fiction work. The first part deals with he home life and her training to become an eagle hunter. In the next block we follow her and her father to the Eagle Festival where Eagle Hunters compete in Olympic-like games and Aisholpan is the first girl ever to compete. The final element of the film is following Aisholpan and her father as winter has hit and they voyage into the mountain to discover if she has truly become The Eagle Huntress.

Except for Ridley’s narration the film in subtitled and appears to present the people it documents fairly. (Not always the case with documentaries.) I thoroughly enjoyed the two hours I watched this film in the theaters. And as a comment you are to hear quite rarely from me – I love that jacket she is sporting the photo.

For people local to San Diego – we saw this movie at the Landmark Theaters on 5th ave and they have been seriously renovating the place. The seating is now over-stuffed recliners allowing you to watch the movies in great comfort. It creates a very limited audience, by my count the theater only seats 26.

This was a fun, moving, and heartwarming story of traditions kept and broken.

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Veterans’ Day’s Thoughts

Today is Veterans’ Day, originally Armistice Day to celebrate the end of The Great War, World War I, the war that to tis day still greatly shapes out world. First let me salute those men and women who have served and are serving in our nation’s armed forces. Even in peacetime it is a tough job and our states of constant war makes it even more so.

Some of you may know that I briefly served in the United States Navy; from 1979 until early 1982. If you know anything about naval enlistments you’ll see that my term of service is odd.

I was not a good sailor. I had not yet achieved a level of responsibility that would allow me to succeed in the military. Like I have already said it is a tough job, even during a period of peace and quiet, and I was not at all ready for that. So in early 1982 the Navy instituted ‘Operation Upgrade’ to allow less that stellar sailor to leave before the end of enlistment and that offer was extended to me.

I do not regret my service. I made good friends, I saw a chunk of the world, and I got a first hand look at people, both my fellow sailors and civilians around the world, that opened my eyes of the incredible diversity of the human race.

The novel that landed an offer of representation in y email box is a military SF adventure and certainly my military background, however scant it is, informed that piece. I have a lot more military SF to write. I have friends that did the full twenty years and achieved retirement and though it was a career path that did not work out for me, I have the utmost respect for those who solider on and carry the weight I could not.

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Missed Opportunities in Marvel’s Doctor Strange

First off since I am writing about missteps in the latest MCU film clearly there will be mild spoilers about the story and how it unfolds. I will try avoid any if the major wow moments of the movie but I will be discussing the villain, his motivations, and ways that might have been handled by the writers. So, if you want to go into the film unspoiled skip this post.

 

Still here? Okay let’s get into it.

 

1-mads-jpg-crop-promo-xlarge2Mads Mikkelsen plays the film’s central villain, Kaecilius a man obsessed with avoiding death. For Kaecilius even the heat death of the universe is too soon, unlike Voldemort Kawcilius truly wants to live forever. Given the macguffins of the movie and such this is a perfectly adequate motivation, in fact the missed elements that I keep thinking about all revolve around this powerful motivation.

We are introduced to Kaecilius in a rather standard scene where he and his band of zealots murder a librarian to gain access to the spells that they believe can give them a shot of truly infinite life. The murder itself is typical bad guy behavior and right there is a missed illumination of Kaecilius’ character. They didn’t have to kill him, They overpowered him easily enough that they could have taken what they wanted without murder and Kaecilus could have left with a vague pronouncement that the librarian would die soon enough. At this point we the audience would interpret that as a villain’s threat about the coming nastiness, but later once Kaecilius’ real motivation were unveiled his words would become about character and not plot.

Second missed chance: Kawcilius’ zealots. His has a few followers, all expecting the same eternal life, and we are never given a chance to see who they are as characters. They end up being just nameless thugs for the heroes to overcome. Even a few lines of dialog would have gone a long way to revealing that these are sad desperate people propelled by their utter fear of dying. We could have that these were dangerous men and women who still were objects of pity.

Third Missed shot: Strange kills one of the Zealots and we get no reaction from Kawcilius. This was a man he was leading to eternal life. This was a man who trusted him to avoid this exact fate. This was someone who trusted him and now the up-start has killed him. I would have loved to have seen a scene where the villain of the piece lectures/berates the hero for his killing; for the villain to remind Strange of his oath to do no harm. Then we could have Mordo later try to convince Strange that he did the right thing and that would have set up a stronger conflict between Strange and Mordo and helped establish Mordo eventual fall.

I think these small changes would have opened up a deeper more character driven view of Kaecilius. But all this is more in the vein of ‘go write your own story, Bob’ than a just critique.

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