The Magic of Science . . . Or, Elysium Review

I saw Elysium last week.  It's taken me a while to comment on Neil Blomkamp's newest sci-fi effort for the simple reason that almost as soon as I left the theater I'd forgotten the movie.  Built around the story of Max (played by Matt Damon), it's a purposeless effort that degenerates into rambling, plotless meandering about halfway through.  Basically, after an industrial accident leaves Max with only five days to live, he sets off on a journey that will take him to Elysium, which possesses technology which can cure him. 

Visually it's a standout, if your baseline for special effects is sometime around 2001.  Everything is as gritty and solid as what you'd expect from Black Hawk Down.  I suppose that's impressive, because in this case nothing is actually real.  Green screen and computer effects abound, and are never intrusive.  This is a good thing.  The world definitely feels real, but there's no real awe in the movie.

And as far as science fiction is concerned, I'm not entirely convinced that this is movie belongs in that genre.  Though it takes place in the future, has some pretty cool tech, there's not a lot of science involved.

Let me explain.  The technology is good, and has a solid, believable feel.  But the science is entirely absent.  The physics of the Elysium hub are wonky, at best, and the medical technology is simply magic.  Apparently in this future, disease is completely eradicated and all it takes to cure even advanced cancer is to wave some sort of "healing light" over the patient's body.

This makes the movie less science fiction and more fantasy. 

It's an ongoing problem as Americans' knowledge of science becomes increasingly divorced from their technological prowess.  A two year-old can manipulate an iPad and operate the Blu-Ray player better than many adults.  Cell phones deliver constant streams of information without the operator needing to know how.  Indeed, the complex ballet of satellites, cell towers, internet trunks, operating systems, computer coding, software, hardware, etc., are totally opaque to most operators.  This makes them inexplicable.

As I've often said, we live in a magical age.  The dictum that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic applies.  The ineffable cause which lies behind the effect of your iPhone making calls and surfing the web means that you experience a sense of powerlessness.  You no longer control your own world, even as you manipulate it.

And we fear what we don't understand.

It's not surprising that conservative Republicans in the United States are pushing back against educational reforms that might actually work.  Comprised largely of the undereducated, they sense their powerlessness and inaccurately attribute it to government interference and shadowy liberal conspiracies.  Certainly, government intrusion is on the rise, and I'm certain PRISM and the NSA are getting a kick out of my ongoing ramblings.  But the real solution isn't withdrawal but increased participation in government and education.

What Elysium suggests is that the merger between corporations and governments (the two are largely indistinguishable in the movie) create uncrossable gaps between rich and power.  That gap is regularly bridged in the movie, however, so I'm not sure just what the moral of the story is supposed to be.  Even more worrying, the director fails to explain how the very limited resources of Elysium can be leveraged to cure the entire planet of its (incomprehensibly many) woes.  Every other person seems to have cerebral palsy, polio, or some other malady and the level of welfare would certainly have exhausted resources a long time ago.  (Which is probably why a very few fled Earth.  It wasn't selfishness but enlightened self-preservation.)

So as far as political statements go, it's milquetoast, and draping a science-fiction action adventure with that pale velvet means the whole movie suffers.  While it didn't suck, and I didn't feel cheated of the price of admission, it was nevertheless kind of blah.  

Wait till it comes out on Netflix.

(But, if you're in the mood for compelling science fiction that happens to also star Sharlto Copley in a supporting role, go see Europa Report.)

(And for a fun read on the actual science behind this movie, take a look at the Stanford torus.)

Attempt No Landing Here . . . Or, Europa Report Movie Review

Don't let the title of this blog fool you.  Europa Report, which was initially released to video on demand (in my case, Amazon Direct) lacks much of the daring that would have made it great, but it's still a far better science fiction than anything else on the market right now.

And as the title alludes to, Europa Report basically picks up 2010 if there hadn't been any monolith.  The central conceit isn't that humanity is trying to figure out some giant slab in space, but exploring for the simple joy of exploration.  Yeah, that's it: Space is just cool, and expanding the bounds of human understanding is worth a little risk.  It's the kind of moral the more science fiction needs to take, and makes the ending both inevitable and unforeseen.

The plot is pretty simple.  An international corporation (since the nations of the world no longer seem to care) has been assembled to explore some interesting heat signatures discovered on the surface of Europa.  Cue giant space ship (which actually looks like something we'd send to another planet).

The problems pile up within the first few minutes.  Communications are knocked out by a solar storm, but the crew is unharmed and decides to continue without any word from Earth.  (Though I'm forced to wonder what else they really thought they could do.  It's not like you can just turn around in space.  But I digress, it's not a big deal.)

Director Sebastián Cordero gives us three distinct story-lines.  Using "found footage" is less of a trope here, since it makes perfect sense that everything would be filmed, and getting hold of that footage is adequately explained in the film so the fourth wall remains intact (a problem Apollo 18 had).  The first story line is pure documentary, and interviews the directors of the Europa corp as well as chief engineers to help give context to the story--they're basically exposition.  

The second story line is a bit of a mystery.  We're quickly informed that shortly after losing contact with Earth, something bad happened.  A quick count of characters reveals that someone is missing but we're not told how that person went missing.  Instead, we're left to dwell on the loss and gradually immerse ourselves along with the astronauts in the vast emptiness of space.  It's a compelling emotional appeal which is unfortunately cut short.  Nonetheless, it remains a gripping second act.

The final story line (and most of the third act) is landing on Europa, drilling into the ice and in the words of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, waiting to see what licks the camera lens.  The film could have easily devolved into horror farce, but instead of cultivating worn out horror tropes it expands on the central theme of sacrifice in the face of human understanding.  And the final shot, while completely inevitable remains unexpected and the ultimate sacrifice is rendered triumphal.  

Should you see this movie?  Do you like good science fiction in a form that is intelligent without being oblique?  If yes, then definitely.  If you love action and 'splosions and not much else, then go see Pacific Rim instead. 

***

Update (15 Aug, 2013): The Mary Sue has an intelligent review out now. 

Ring of Fire . . . Or, Pacific Rim Review

So, caveat emptor.  Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro's newest and most commercial foray into the summer blockbuster is big, loud, dumb, and fun.  It was everything (literally) I expected, and not much else.  Suspend your disbelief walking in, otherwise it's just going to be irritating.  But once you realize that you're not really there to see something that makes logical sense, it's much more entertaining.  And since your brain has already been partially deactivated, it makes it that much easier to overlook the many plot holes, the abominable acting, the inept plotting, and utter lack of character.

This is a movie about big robots and bigger monsters.  It's a movie about destruction wholesale and not an ounce of emotion, pathos or humor.  Sure, there's some slap-stick, but it's so tied to overworn stereotypes and racial prejudice that it's simply banal.

But it's monsters.  And robots.  But while I enjoyed the fights -- which truly felt visceral -- I was never engaged in the characters, nor did I truly ever feel a sense of danger.  No one I cared about was ever truly in danger; cities, after years of assault by massive kaiju (Japanese for "really big monster") had gotten good at evacuating with little warning -- as a result, human populations were miraculously spared.  And our heroes (such as they are) were so two-dimensional -- no.  Strike that.  It wasn't that they simply lacked depth.  There was no there there.  They were dots on the screen that lacked arc, growth, or any conceivable motivation.  The only character with a hint of story was so maudlin that at times I wondered if she was just really good CG.

But the CG was amazing.  I never felt anything other than belief in the existence of these giant, incomprehensibly walking, fighting robots.  So normally I'd advise against seeing this type of movie, but the spectacle is so extraordinary that it has to be seen in the theater, if it has to be seen at all.  If you like the genre, I'm sure you'll enjoy this celluloidal romp.  If you don't like the genre, you'll probably still enjoy the wanton carnage.  It is the perfect amalgamation of Independence Day and Real Steel, that only demands you watch without a shred of intelligence or reflection.

While this movie has sometimes been advertised as science fiction, and del Toro announced that he wanted to make it a kind of Gothic sci-fi, it is neither Gothic nor science-fiction.  The technological mind-meld that del Toro asserts gives the movie its moral conflict is boring and utterly underutilized as a moral conflict.  Characters jump in and out of one another's minds with such ease that I wondered why it was even a big deal or even part of the story.  In fact, it's so easy to do that a human being can "drift" with a kaiju, demoting this particular McGuffin to irrelevancy.  But the whole movie is a McGuffin -- something which is explained with so much hand-waving that it devolves into farce, or the worst kind of fantasy.  Technology and science are so poorly understood that even a middle-schooler should be offended.  It was the worst kind of pandering.  (My favorite line [After a new Kaiju emerges bearing its own EMP and the functioning robots have been fried because of their digital systems our hero says of his robot]: "It's nuclear.  Analog."  Though, it's not quite as bad as this gem: "Let's do this!  Together!")

This is a moment, I suppose, to reflect on the dumbing down of our entertainment.  There's no reason this movie couldn't have had monsters, robots, plot and a decent character arc with a mediocre plot.  It would have required a director committed to making something other than schlock.  It would have required a half-way decent writer.  It would have required producers and a studio willing to take a risk.  But if The Lone Ranger and John Carter taught us anything, it's that studios are pretty willing to take risks.  So why don't they take the right risks?  Why don't they invest in something that isn't malto-meal for my eyes?

Just a few thoughts.

Bottom line, while I was entertained, it was cheap, mindless entertainment that I can't in good conscious recommend.  But hey, that's what summer movies are for, right? 

For comparison, here's a fan-girl review from Mary Sue that makes me wonder if we were watching the same movie.

The Gift . . . Or, More Awesome Sci-Fi

Movies this good make me wonder just what writers and producers in Hollywood spend all their time up to.  It's so rich and spare and well-developed that I can't believe I don't see this on my TV every night.

I'd Watch This . . . Or, Star Wars That's Cool

So, it's not often that I get excited about Star Wars anymore.  I'm interested to see what Disney has to offer, but I'm not excited.  This short anime by a fan makes me feel the same visceral pleasure that I experienced during my teens for all things Star Wars.  If Disney could reproduce this, I'd watch it.

What Sunshine Got Wrong And So So Right . . . Or, Why I Like Boring Sci-Fi

I like boring sci-fi.  I like the science fiction where not a lot happens.  I like exploring derelict space ships, the limits of human understanding, and the void between our aspirations and our accomplishments.  In short, I'm okay if a gun never goes off, nothing ever blows up, and no one dies in my science fiction. 

That means that I really enjoy movies like 2001 and 2010 (although there is violence of a kind, it definitely drives the plot), Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Contact, Moon, and Sunshine.  The highlight, of course, is Contact, Robert Zemeckis's adaptation of Carl Sagan's book of the same name.  It's a beautiful soliloquy on faith, belief, and love.  It also doesn't have a lot of action.  Sure, the first time/space machine gets blown up by fundamentalists, but even that was understated and served to advance the plot.

Sunshine, Danny Boyle's film about humanity imperiled by a dying sun, is predicated on an explosion.  When I think about it, I tend to group it with other 'splosion-will-save-us-all movies like Armageddon, Deep Impact and The Core.  Ostensibly, they're all sort of science fiction.  At least, if you took the science-y bits out, it wouldn't work.  Two of them have space ships; the world is imperiled in all of them; and some sort of techno-babble is needed to save the world (which at this point is about all we can expect from our science fiction--woe to our science illiterate public).  In the end though, the world is saved when the asteroid is exploded, or when a series of nukes are able to restart the spin of the Earth's core, jumpstarting its stalled magnetic field.

I have a feeling these were all funded in part by nuclear apologists, or written by people who saw nuclear weapons as more than just humanity-killers.  These movies, in my mind, all have the subtitle: "Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

In that respect, Sunshine isn't much different.  In the movie, the sun is dying.  We're not really told why, but if you listen to the director's commentary, you get a really nifty, scientific explanation.  Basically, a chunk of dark matter fell in and disrupted nuclear fusion.  The only way to save the sun is to dislodge that chunk so fusion can resume.  Here's where the Bomb comes in.

In order to save themselves, humanity mined half of all the fissile material on the planet, shoved it on a ship and shot it into the sun, and planned to detonate it to knock that chunk of sun-killer back into interstellar space.

Of course it failed.

Fortunately, humanity had just enough fissile material left over for one more go.  And this is where our story picks up.  The Icarus II (you know, because no one reads anything other than Greek mythology) is heading to the sun to deliver its cargo when it picks up the distress signal from the Icarus I.  They have a choice: stay on mission, or divert to see what happened, and maybe salvage the boom-juice from the first mission in case their's isn't enough.

In this movie, either option would have satisfied me.  Watching the ship recede behind them, listening to the distress signal, wondering, letting their curiosity drive them mad, would have made for an intriguing movie.  Perhaps they would have received some sort of indication that someone was still alive on the ship; oh, the complications that would have inspired. 

Instead, the decision is made to go ahead and see what happened and as you can imagine, things go badly.  Some miscalculated by a fraction of a percent, but this close to the sun, that means a lot.  And people die.  And the ship is nearly debilitated.  And they don't find out what happened on the Icarus I.  That miscalculation--that decision--not only meant they nearly lost their lives, but also imperiled the continued existence of humanity.  Heady stuff.

And the movie at this point could have continued to make deep insights, tell compelling story, and build on the stresses of fallible human beings engaged in a last ditched effort to save everything.  Instead, (and trying to keep it pretty spoiler-free) someone starts killing people.  The crew has to hunt down the bad guy (whoever he might be) and continue the mission, which suddenly seems all the more imperiled.  

The movie is visually beautiful, the sound work is stunning, and the acting understated and believable.  So it's a tragedy that it had to take such a sudden and dramatic turn in the second act.  What began as good science fiction devolved rather quickly into pure action for no reason than that it would probably sell tickets. 

The premise is great; the science is great; the decisions are real and believable and delightful.  So while the movie isn't perfect, it still ranks in my top 10 favorite science fiction movies.  Give it a shot.
 

Populating the Multiverse . . . Or, Science-Fictiony People

Here's what I don't get: People.  In science fiction and fantasy.  The central conceit in all (or so near to all that the rest just sort of define the rule) speculative fiction is that people exist.  Now, in a lot of science fiction this isn't very problematic, since sci-fi tends to extrapolate from this moment and consider "what if?"  Where it gets kind of interesting in in fantasy.

Let's ponder.  Is Westeros Earth?  Nope.

Is  Randland Earth?  Maybe.

Is Middle-Earth our own Earth?  Probably not.

And on and on and on.  Which led me to wonder, where are the people coming from?  Are they following an evolutionary track that dictates that on any vaguely Earth-like planet there will be (mostly Anglo-Saxon looking) bipeds wandering around, mostly speaking English?  Mostly adhering to some vaguely Anglo-Saxon tradition? 

Probably not.

The first response is that it doesn't matter.  And it probably doesn't.  But these characters are our characters.  They represent people as we understand them, with many of the same cultural assumptions built into their own culture.  Major departures (I'm looking at you Neil Stephenson) include a rich cultural milieu that is difficult to get into, and characters who are difficult to empathize with.  So most fantasy includes people pretty much the same as you, or me, or our neighbors.

It sort of makes me wonder if all fantasy is just science fiction within the multiverse.  Remember those Ewok adventures?  The ones with the family that crash-lands on Endor and have to fight off rancor and evil witches?  They're pretty campy, but I remember them fondly.  What I remember most clearly is that though we're expected to understand these movies were set in a science-fictiony universe, there were witches, castles, and monsters.  But by slapping "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . " we come to accept everything as falling under the umbrella of infinite universe = infinite variety.

So maybe, this is how it happened!

First, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . " the first human beings evolved in a rich milieu of diverse cultures, species and deeply steeped in a mystical energy field that allowed them experience the universe in a much more empathetic way.  In time, they developed space-flight, left their own galaxy, and spread throughout the universe.

In time they reached a medium aged, medium bodied spiral galaxy that looks suspiciously like spilled milk from the inside.  There, they settled a world and called it Earth.  (SPOILERS!)  But on that planet, they developed a race of cybernetic beings that eventually rebelled; nuclear war ensued and our intrepid human beings were forced to flee and colonize twelve planets where human civilization was rebuilt.  In time, they built cybernetic beings that eventually rebelled, nuked all the planets of humankind, and forced a rag-tag band of human beings out into the stars, where eventually they joined forces with their cybernetic creations to repopulate a planet they re-named Earth.  But they'd already developed faster-than-light travel, and though their main ship was pretty trashed, they were able to use smaller craft to spread throughout the universe.

Where eventually they created a system of stargates!  They spread throughout the galaxy, embedded the myths of the Twelve Colonies everywhere they went, and eventually returned to Earth, but because of whatever, decided this galaxy was pretty blase, and left for parts unknown.

But in all those other galaxies, they spread their culture (including Anglo-Saxonness, and the English language), but because of cultural degradation and environmental upheavals, some were lost and devolved to medieval technology.  And in a few really interesting cases, the transhumans even traveled to other universes, where the laws of physics are kind of wonky.  Or, since we know that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, maybe there are remnants of transhuman technology floating around that allow certain individuals to manipulate time and space in ways that mimic magic!

Seems reasonable to me.  Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Me, Myself and H.P. Lovecraft . . . Or, The Eldrtich World of Lovecraft Tributes

H.P. Lovecraft might be the most influential American author of the twentieth century that you've never heard of.  Chances are you know people he's influenced, from Stephen King to Mike Mignola.  But chances are equally great that if pressed, you might not really know Lovecraft from either of those two.  Lovecraft is a strange case of fame come too late.  In this case, his fame is almost entirely posthumous and due in large part to the efforts of friends after his early death to preserve his writing.

The most obvious reason you've never heard of Lovecraft--or if you have heard of him, never read him--is the dense, archaic prose in which he embeds his horrifying tales of the strange and eldritch.  Indeed, that prose is difficult for the uninitiated to fathom, and the threshold accordingly high.  Yet those who do plumb the depths of Lovecraft come away better for it; or at the very least, with a new perspective of humanity's role in the universe.

Because Lovecraft is the first author of the twentieth century.  What I mean by that is the H.P. Lovecraft was the first author to fully understand the anomie of the twentieth century as science removed humanity from its lofty position in the heavens.  The culture dissonance that would occur after the First and Second World Wars was preluded by H.P. Lovecraft.  His fiction divorces human beings of universal importance; to Lovecraft the universe is cold, and inhabited by beings so vast and powerful that their actions cannot even be described as malicious or aggressive.  They simply are, and to confront them is to beard madness.

For all of these reasons (and probably more) Lovecraft has made something of a comeback in the last few decades.  He's always enjoyed cult status, but the fall of the Soviet Union made him much more salient.  The rise of international terrorism and the absurd turn we've made in light of 9/11 makes him all the more relevant.  The mortgage crisis of 2008.  The Occupy Movement.  All are Lovecraftian.  Because he's all about forces beyond our understanding, and he knows that to confront them is to fall victim to madness.

Writers have paid tribute to Lovecraft for decades, but much of the earlier work focused on expanding the mythos Lovecraft had created.  August Derleth, who did the most to rescue Lovecraft from obscurity, also traded on the name and expanded the world that Lovecraft created, embedding his own moral and theological beliefs into a universe that Lovecraft understood to be largely amoral. 

Recently, I have had the pleasure to read two different takes on Lovecraft, and the idea of an uncaring, hostile universe.  The first was given to me as a gift, and features Lovecraft in historical settings.  Historical Lovecraft, published by Innsmouth Free Press, features 26 tales divided into roughly three historical epochs: Ancient history, the Middle Ages, and Modern Times.  Very much in the vein of stories initiated by Derleth, each story varies in how closely it hews to Lovecraft.  Some are deeply disturbing, and remind us that the universe is cold and dark; others feel like modern horror.  While you could make the argument that the modern zombie fascination is very Lovecraftian, the menace and the malevolence are simply lacking.  Nevertheless, disentangling Lovecraft from the early twentieth century New England in which he wrote allows us to see the broader implications of his mythos. 

The second collection of short stories is a collection of Lovecraftian science fiction.  The transition from Lovecraftian horror to science fiction is an easy one to make.  Alien seems so much like it came from Lovecraft's own imagination that one has to wonder if HR Giger and the writers (Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett) weren't channeling his spirit.  Initially considered a horror movie, Alien has come to be regarded as seminal in a new style of science fiction in the universe is--you guessed it--cold and amoral; daring to look it in the eye may reduce to you a gibbering mass.

Space Eldritch, published as an ebook (with a print version on the way) by Cold Fusion Media, takes a somewhat different approach.  Narrower in scope than Historical Lovecraft, the stories themselves are more intimate and less disturbing.  Science fiction owes a debt of gratitude to Lovecraft, and it shows in the writing of these pieces.  Often paying tribute to pulp sensibilities as much as to Lovecraft, except for a few touchstone Lovecraftian images, few of the pieces seem to disentangle themselves from the science fiction tropes we've become familiar with.  Both Mission to Mars (the godawful travesty featuring Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins) and Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall make appearances when we encounter something menacing lurking beneath the Martian soil (to be fair, however, Philip K. Dick's influence is just as ubiquitous in science fiction as Lovecraft is in horror.) 

Ultimately, this collection of stories simply lacks the menace of Lovecraft.  Maybe that's a product of our times.  We've become used to the idea that science has all the answers.  Or at the very least, that answers exist.  Lovecraft was less interested in that than in examining a universe beyond human ken.  And I think the authors of Space Eldritch have failed that test.  They're fully a part of the modern zeitgeist.  Maybe we can't go back, but I like to think that Lovecraft is still viable and an important perspective in these uncertain times.