Raptured.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

Jesus Christ, Matthew 24:36

(Although this is a marginal entry in terms of blog suitability, I consider the end of the world to be one of the standard science fiction topics, and as such I'm willing to extend my mandate a bit for the purposes of discussion.)

As probably everyone knows, the Rapture was scheduled for this weekend, May 21st, and the popular media has been full of commentary regarding the failure of Harold Camping's predication regarding the start of the End Days, with the end of the world coming five months later on October 21st.

In the wake of his apparent mistake, Camping has gone back to the drawing board and announced that the day of Judgement will coincide with the end of the world in October as per the original schedule.

But what if he was right in the first place?  There's another interpretation here, and it's possible that we've all been guilty of overlooking the obvious.  As I understand the concept, the Rapture is the moment when God takes the righteous to Heaven still in their own bodies - ergo the common* bumper sticker, "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED."

The righteous...the righteous...okay, let's define our terms.  What if the strictures applied by the Lord are so stern that no one, not one person on the planet, can be considered to be righteous?  What if the reason that no one is missing is because no one qualified - because even the slightest deviation from the code of conduct laid down in the Bible gets you crossed off the list?

By extension, it's possible that no one has ever met the standard.  Imagine the forlorn streets of the Heavenly City, unmarked by the passage of even a single soul.  And, worse, imagine a Hell which contains the tortured souls of every human being ever born, a Hell in which, ironically, eternal torment has to take place in shifts as overworked hordes of demons attempt to keep up with the demand.

Actually, come to think of it, this isn't a bad idea for a fantasy story - maybe this was a suitable blog topic after all.

- Sid

* Common in the more fundamentalist regions of the United States, anyway, I doubt that you would see a lot of them in British Columbia.

And a bottle of rum.

Yo ho ho - or does nobody actually say that...?

Doctor Who, The Curse of the Black Spot

About a year ago I was in small claims court regarding a dispute over a transfer of intellectual property.  No payment was to be involved unless the other party decided to proceed with the web site proposal that I had helped create, but when they did proceed, there was some difficulty obtaining a cheque for the agreed upon amount (or any amount at all).

Part of the defendant's unsuccessful argument was that it wasn't the same site that had been created, and as such there was no obligation to follow through with the agreement.  In addition to detailing the various similarities and correspondences with the original proposal, I pointed out to the presiding judge that if it was so completely different, shouldn't they have at least have given it a different name?

Similarly, I'm a bit suspicious of the new Walt Disney film, On Stranger Tides.  If you look up this latest installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise on the Internet Movie Database site, you'll find the following writing credit:

Tim Powers (novel On Stranger Tides) (suggestion). 

For those of you unfamiliar with Tim Powers, this 59-year-old science fiction and fantasy author has based much of his award-winning fantasy around actual historical events and characters, such as his 1979 novel The Drawing of the Dark, which takes place during the 1529 siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks, or his 1987 pirate novel On Stranger Tides, which takes place in the 18th Century in the Caribbean.

The novel deals with a Caribbean equally rife with piracy and the supernatural, where the protagonist, Jack Chandagnac, unwillingly joins the ranks of pirates after the ship he is travelling on is captured by buccaneers.  One of the pivotal events in the book is the search for and discovery of the fabled Fountain of Youth in Florida, a trip that Jack makes in the company of the most famous pirate of all, Blackbeard.   

Now for me, a suggestion is about as simple and basic a contribution that you can make to something.  As an example, if someone was building a house, saying "Hey, maybe you should paint the kitchen green" would qualify as a suggestion.  In contrast, using Power's novel to develop a movie script dealing with a Caribbean pirate named Jack who discovers the Fountain of Youth with Blackbeard the Pirate - I'm sorry, that's not a suggestion, that's almost a full blueprint. As with my legal encounter, if it was just a suggestion, shouldn't they at least have given it a different name?

I realize that there's not a complete correspondence between the book and the movie.  Captain Jack Sparrow is a long way from Jack the reluctant swashbuckler in the novel, and from what I've read online there are other substantial differences in the plot structure.  However, I think that it would be appropriate for Disney to acknowledge Powers as having made a larger contribution than a "suggestion" - as it is, it looks like they've relied heavily on the book for inspiration but are reluctant to acknowledge just how much they've hijacked from the text.

Gosh, I guess that means that it really is a pirate movie.

- Sid

To Avoid Repeated Doctor Internet Sharing.

If you're in North America and you were pleased to be able to watch The Impossible Astronaut, the premier episode of the new season of Doctor Who, on the same date as its British debut this weekend, do you know who you should thank?

Me.

Yes, me. And thousands of other people like me, people who were unimpressed by the artificial gap between the BBC broadcasts of Doctor Who episodes and their arrival on this side of the Atlantic.  Admittedly, downloading bootleg copies of the episodes might not be the best response to the situation, but where letter writing campaigns had no effect, spikes in online piracy following the broadcast of each of last year's episodes caught the attention of the show's producers.

That's the specific reason cited by the BBC for the changed schedule this year - illegal file sharing - and apparently this simple solution actually works. The 2010 Doctor Who Christmas special was broadcast in North America on Christmas Day, the same as in Great Britain, and the result was a 10% increase in viewership.  Presumably this percentage was at least partially made up of impatient North American fans who for once didn't have to chose between waiting a few weeks or downloading an unlicensed copy. 

So - you're welcome.

- Sid

P.S. I would be remiss were I not to mention the untimely departure of Elisabeth Sladen, who passed away last week at the age of 63 due to cancer. Elisabeth Sladen played the role of Sarah Jane Smith, who was a companion to both the third and fourth Doctors from 1973 to 1976.  Following her departure from the show, she went into semi-retirement, but returned for Doctor Who specials in 1981 and 1983, as well as voicing Sarah Jane in several BBC Radio productions of Doctor Who stories.

Sladen's 2006 appearance in School Reunion with David Tennant signalled her full time return to the universe of the Doctor, with the popularity of that episode resulting in a spinoff series called The Sarah Jane Adventures. The show, aimed at a more youthful audience than Doctor Who, proved to be a remarkable success and had been approved for a fifth season at the time of Sladen's death.

I think that her appearance in School Reunion provided one of the best and most poignant insights into the realities of being a companion to the Doctor.  At one point in the episode, the Doctor says:

You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on, alone. That's the curse of the Timelords. 

In reality, it's more of a curse for the companions like Sarah Jane, who is both saddened and angered by her reunion with the Doctor, and her meeting with a younger companion who is a reminder of her own lost youth.  For her, an entire lifetime has gone by, abandoned and all but forgotten by the Doctor, but unable to forget her experiences at his side or to stop waiting for him to return.

At the end of the episode, offered the opportunity to travel in the TARDIS again, she refuses in favour of finally leading her own life, and demands that the Doctor say the goodbye that had gone unspoken at their last parting, a final goodbye which we all say now.

Goodbye, my Sarah Jane...