This Sleeping Satellite.

 

Did we fly to the moon too soon?

Did we squander the chance?
In the rush of the race
the reason we chase is lost in romance
and still we try
to justify the waste
for a taste of Man's greatest adventure.
Tasmin Archer, Sleeping Satellite

I found myself feeling a slightly bitter sense of irony while watching this evening's rerun of the Mythbusters Moon Hoax episode, given the changes to NASA's direction under Obama's new budget. "Hey, look, we really did go to the Moon before!" has become "Hey look, we really can't afford to go back!"

Now, this is not an entirely fair analysis of the new budget, and there are parts of it that make a lot of sense.  I've previously commented on the shortcomings of NASA's plans for future trips to the Moon and Mars, and the new plan does address some of those issues.*

The cumbersome "Apollo on steroids" Constellation program would be scrapped, essentially throwing away four years of work and nine billion dollars and leading to an indefinite delay in further plans to travel to the Moon or Mars, but perhaps allowing for a new direction in how the future of space exploration will develop.  The proposed new focus would be on funding for private sector development, and a shift toward more international collaboration on future exploration programs.  A portion of the budget would be aimed at developing new technologies to support that future exploration, although exactly when future missions would actually take place is still up in the air, so to speak.

This could either mark the beginning of a rational move toward the sort of global involvement in space exploration which has long been a staple of science fiction, or the beginning of the end as the private sector turns its back on extraterrestrial development for opportunities closer to home and the rest of the world turns it back on joint missions due to political conflicts.

Either way, I feel a bit like a child who has been told that there's no trip to Disneyland this year, what with Dad's recent unemployment and all - the family is just going to work on things around the house, and maybe when I'm a teenager we'll go to Europe with the neighbours. 

Is this sensible? Oh, quite probably it is. But would we remember how great it was the year we didn't go to Disneyland?  And will future generations look back with awe and respect at the year when we decided not to go to the Moon by 2020?

- Sid

* Although probably not because of my blog posting from 2007.

"One Ring to rule them all."

But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and have always done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Foreword to the Second Edition, The Lord of the Rings

I first read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings so long ago that I can't easily pin the date down in my head. I'm fairly certain it was in my first year high of school, when I would have been 13 or 14*. Oddly enough, my mother didn't own a copy, and I remember that for my first reading I signed the books out of the school library. I recall being mesmerized as I read it on the bus home, but fortunately the bus stopped to let people off without being prompted, so I wasn't in peril of missing my stop.

Apparently some people find it a daunting read, but I don't remember any difficulty getting into it. The irony is that I find it hard to read now due to sheer familiarity - I'm on my third set of copies, an honour which is shared only with Dune and Ringworld out of my library.**  I do sometimes advise less seasoned readers to take the same approach that the travellers do in the first book - when they stop for the night, so should you. (Even favourable critics admit that there's an awful lot of just walking in the first book.)

For the fantasy community at large, The Lord of the Rings is the elephant in the living room: you can't ignore it, and sooner or later you're going to have to talk about it. Tolkien's Ring has "ruled them all" for over 55 years. It has had an enormous influence, both good and bad, on authors in the genre; it's been subjected to intense analysis in a search for allegorical significance and original sources; it's been criticized for ruining the genre of Fantasy; and it has polarized its readership: people seem to either love it unreservedly or just can't stand it.

The discussion isn't helped by the fact that in some ways, discussing The Lord of the Rings is a bit like discussing the Bible. There's a certain gravitas associated with the text that demands respect whether you agree with it or not, although in this case The Silmarillion is probably closer to being the Old Testament for Middle Earth, complete with creation myth and the expulsion of a defeated "angel".

By comparison, The Hobbit reads more like a children's book in terms of tone and environment, as it was certainly intended to be. Many of the elements of Middle Earth that we see in The Lord of the Rings aren't mentioned at all, but as with its successor, the sense of monumental events observed through the eyes of humble participants is strong. And all the seeds for The Lord of the Rings are planted: the races of Dwarves, Elves, Orcs and Men; Gandalf the enigmatic and powerful wizard; Gollum and the Ring; and the threat of a distant evil. And hobbits, of course, who proceed to steal the scene from "the great and the wise" for the next three volumes.

The Lord of the Rings would be a very different story without the hobbits and the humanizing - so to speak - role that they play. The hobbits provide the emotional content of the story - is Gandalf ever hungry? Does Legolas become frightened? There are certainly cases where the more heroic characters fall prey to fear or despair, or feel pleasure or excitement, but for the most part the hobbits are the touchstones of basic feelings and sensations for the reader. It's not an accident that at least one hobbit ends up in each of the major plotlines as the tale unfolds: Merry with the Rohirrim, Pippin at Minas Tirith, and of course Sam and Frodo with the Ring.

Tolkien’s final master touch in this (and the only omission in the movie that I regret) is the Scouring of the Shire. This final capstone on Tokien’s intricate edifice allows us to see the hobbits in perspective, in their own environment and amongst their peers. This is Tolkien's chance to shows us how the four companions have been changed by their experiences: Merry and Pippin, now warriors and leaders; Sam, matured and his own man; and of course, Frodo, whose trials have left him with nothing but compassion for Sharkey/Saruman and his servants.

 

Frodo’s acceptance of a burden which will mean his doom, coupled with his transcendent end, his trip to the Western Lands with Gandalf and the last of the elves, may be what leads some people toward comparisons to Christ when discussing his character. For myself, I can’t see Frodo as Jesus because I find that Frodo’s tragedy is of a completely different nature than that of Christ. Frodo’s unspoken sin is that in the final trial, he fails: he succumbs to the Ring. (One has to wonder if this gnaws at him as he is publicly celebrated and showered with honours.)  Frodo never recovers from his journey - for the rest of the book Frodo is almost a spectator, no longer really involved in the events that take place.

Tolkien claims that his intent in the story is not allegorical, but people persist in attempting to uncover the "meaning" behind The Lord of the Rings. The situation isn't helped by the historical milieu in which the books originate - it is difficult to ignore the potential associations for a book written during WWII that deals with an epic struggle between good and evil.  Tolkien directly rebuts this view in the foreword to the second edition by describing how the story would have unfolded if it were based on the events of the war, and chillingly concludes, "In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt:  they would not long have survived even as slaves."

If you only have the movies by which to judge Tolkien's magnum opus, I think it's fair to say that Peter Jackson does a good job of conveying the feel and tone of the books, regardless of minor alterations and omissions in the plot. It couldn't have been an easy task - for example, the Balrog, the creature that pulls Gandalf into the abyss, is described only in flashes of detail:  a sword and flaming whip, darkness and shadows, and a streaming mane that kindles into flame.

Did Mr. Jackson get it completely right? Perhaps not, but if I had to summarize my reaction to the entire trilogy of movies, I would say that they accurate portray the scale of the books, the feeling of witnessing events taking place on a stage of epic proportions, balanced out by the involvement of the hobbits and their humble viewpoint. He was obviously hampered by his reliance on humans for casting purposes, although, as the character of Gollum demonstrates, it's only a matter of time...

- Sid

* My birthday is at the end of September, so it could be either one.

** Although probably not for long, there are a lot of potential candidates that are on their second copies. Sad how a paperback just doesn't hold up after 30 years or so.

Ten Plot Twists Looking for a Movie.

It appears that I'm not the only person who has found the plot line and character development of Avatar to be lacking - innumerable critics have praised the movie for its visual brilliance while decrying its elementary plotline and character development, and many have commented on the resemblance of its storyline to that of Dances With Wolves.

Personally, I have always felt that non-participant criticism is inappropriate, so I decided that it was unfair to take cheap shots at Avatar's shortcomings in the areas of plot and character without at least offering a few ideas of my own. So, in the great tradition of science-fiction in Hollywood, I present the following sequel to my original posting:

10 Things That James Cameron Could Have Done in Avatar.

1. "The thing about aliens is, they're alien."

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if in some way (any way!) the Na’vi are not as closely based on Terran tribal cultures – or possibly based on less mainstream cultural concepts?   Let’s see...what if they eat each other? Cannibalism is certainly a known factor in a variety of tribal cultures here, why not there? This was one of the key elements in Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, the idea of a human adopted by aliens (Martians in this case) and ending up with a completely different set of morals and beliefs, including a full acceptance of the idea of eating the dead as a form of reverence.

For that matter, what if they eat humans? After all, at that point it’s not cannibalism, although I’m not sure what it would be called - so far we haven’t had to define a term that dealt with eating aliens – but it would have that “gain-the-manna-of-your-enemy-by-eating-them” flavour*.

Perhaps they practise ritualized incest? Or ritualized sex with their horses? What if eating fresh dragon guano was part of their digestive cycle?  Suppose they’d demanded that Sully chop off his extra fingers to match their cultural norm?  Would it be as tempting for him if the Na'vi reproductive process involved him fertilizing the eggs that Neytiri left in the mating pond two days previously?

The idea that I’m chasing with all of these examples is something that would distance the Na’vi from humanity. As it is, other than some gung-ho graduation ceremonies involving dragon wrestling, and things like getting down from two hundred foot tall trees by jumping off the nearest branch and bouncing off leaves on the way down, there’s nothing in the Na’vi cultural matrix that comes across as unappealing. I would have been more impressed if Sully had been forced to overcome any kind of personal taboo - if there had been anything, well, alien about the aliens.


2. Rule 34, anyone? 
"I thought Jim did a really good job of putting Neytiri together. I thanked him for making her look hot. I mean, Neytiri is very sexy and lean with a really cute bod. I'm in pretty good shape, but I don't look that buff."

- Zoe Saldana

And while we're at it, let's make them a lot less physically attractive, shall we?  No one ever questions Sully's desire to join the Na'vi, and based on the quote from Ms. Saldana, why would they?  But what if the Na'vi look like toads, or praying mantises, or the spawn of Great C'thulhu?  The scene where Sully and his alien love actually meet in person and prove that their love transcends their physical bodies would have been far more impressive if Neytiri looked like a cross between road kill and a lobster.


3. Sully is a junky - discuss.
If you had a friend or co-worker who stopped shaving, bathing and eating regular meals, you'd wonder about his urine test results. In this case, Sully is an avatar addict - and what do his fellow humans do?  Urge him on in the interests of science!  What if they'd pulled the plug instead, on the basis that Sully is slowly killing himself by spending all of his time hooked up to his blue alter ego?

4. Avatars:  twelve for ten cents, or a dime a dozen.
After Colonel Quaritch's comment about the Na'vi being hard to kill, it's sort of surprising that they are so willing to adopt Sully, isn't it?  But if avatars were cheap and easy to produce, Sully could have had his throat slit a few times (with accompanying trauma) before managing to figure out a way to make an impression on the natives.  Think of it as a sort of weird homage to Groundhog Day.


5. Zombies are very popular these days.
Or, let's not have the avatars be clones at all.  Let's just say that's what they are, for PR purposes.  But instead, heck, why not just grab a few natives, dig out their brains, and put in an interface system?  That would have to be cheaper than building the goddamn things from scratch, wouldn't it?  But imagine the horror at finding out that small pink aliens have taken over the body of your brother, or your sister, or your friend, or your lover...

No, wait, that's already been done for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, never mind.  Except this time, we'd be the hideous body snatching invaders.


6. "Nobody goes home." **
For that matter, why put in an interface system?  If we can posit a technology that allows for a one-to-one experiential and sensory interface with another brain, why not just pull the human brains and drop them into the Na'vi?  Make all the controllers crippled volunteers like Sully, who are willing to give up their humanity for a chance to dig their toes in the dirt.

Or maybe don't tell the controllers that it's a one way trip...after all, the corporation running things is apparently unconcerned by issues of ethics.


7. The Ghost in the Machine.
What if Sully's avatar starts acting on its own? The avatars appear to be comatose when not linked to the human operator, but what if Sully logs in to find that he's already running down a jungle trail? What if his repeated addict-level usage creates a ghost mind in the avatar? This way Sully ends up on both sides, and the final mano-a-mano battle can be between Sully the committed gung ho marine with his new legs, and Sully the newest member of the Omaticaya tribe. 


8. Picture if you will...
Okay, I'm sorry, this is really a Twilight Zone plot, but what if one of the Na'vi is actually an avatar being controlled by ANOTHER alien species?  Or what if one of the humans is an avatar controlled by aliens studying us?
 

9. "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."
There's a very brief scene in the movie that shows Parker Selfridge, the base administrator, as played with scenery-chewing gusto by Giovanni Ribisi, sitting in his office staring at a piece of the ore that's responsible for everything.  Behind him, there on the shelf, is a model of the lunar lander, and there's a Na'vi bow hanging over his head and hunting spears in the case behind him.

Selfridge is portrayed as a complete corporate profit whore, without concern for the ecology or the people of Pandora.  But is this the office of such a man?  This could be the office of a man who has idealized the concept of space exploration for his entire life, who sees himself following in the footsteps of pioneers like Armstrong, a man who is fascinated by the idea of an alien race and an alien planet - but who is also forced to brutalize that race and that planet with strip mining, bulldozers, and explosives.  Wouldn't it have been interesting to find out that he hates everything that he's been forced to do in the name of Earth? 


10. "I wish I knew how to quit you."
Finally, let's break completely with tradition.  Let's have Neytiri the love interest get killed saving Sully, and let's have Sully seek physical comfort from her original fiance, Tsu'tey the warrior. Or perhaps not - after all, if people don't like the resemblance that Avatar has to Dances With Wolves, they're probably not interested in borrowing from Brokeback Mountain, either.

- Sid

* Sorry, "flavour" may be in bad taste here. In fact, "bad taste" may be in bad taste here.

** The astute fan will recognize this line from another James Cameron movie - there's a lot more of that sort of reference in these postings than most of you realize.