too much sometimes IS enough

[adelaidesean]

Two reviews of Danny Boyle's new movie "Sunshine" (by Grant Watson and Marcus Chown) and Lucius Shepard's recent rant have convinced me to commit to something I've been inching up on for a while now.

From this moment henceforth, I refuse to see a serious science fiction movie (i.e. one we're supposed to take seriously, rather than, say, Fantastic Four) in which scientific knowledge and the people employed in the pursuit thereof are needlessly treated badly.

In other words, I'm boycotting science fiction movies that contain overtly crap science unless there's some kind of pay-off for putting up with it.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Is it so wrong to want movie-physics (say) to bear at least a passing resemblance to the physics surrounding us in our everyday lives? Or to wish that scientists were rounded characters, with the same depth of being that other characters in the movie enjoy? Failing both of these, could we at least have something else in exchange? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explored powerful and thought-provoking themes through extraordinary direction and performances. Armageddon (like so many others in its league) did not.

I'm amazed that we settle for anything else. No one would watch a thriller that wasn't thrilling or a romantic comedy with unlikeable leads. A movie set in post-war Italy wouldn't include the Grand Canyon and icebergs just because the director felt like it. Why should the relationship between science and science fiction be any different? There's enough sense-of-wonder to be had out there without getting things so terribly, terribly wrong--and good special effects are the standard now, not the major drawcard they used to be.

Movies that let me down this way drive me mad. Since I don't want to be mad, I'm going to stop supporting the Big Dumb SF Blockbuster industry. No one in Hollywood will notice, I'm sure, but I'll feel better for it.

Comments

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

"unless there's some kind of pay-off for putting up with it"

See, here lies the flaw in your plan: how are you going to know whether or not there's a payoff unless you see the film?

I love good, real science-based SF. But sometimes a bunch of big dumbarse explosions, flaming space ship exhausts and nasty bug eyed aliens are precisely what I'm in the mood for.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

how are you going to know whether or not there's a payoff unless you see the film?

I guess that's what reviews are for, and paying attention to the opinions of friends, or at the very least making sure I'm in the right mood before sitting down to watch anything that might be really stoopid. Sometimes, yes, stoopid is good, but it often masquerades as serious stuff (like Sunshine) and I'm really tired of being disappointed.

I'm mainly talking about movies, otherwise that would mean giving up Doctor Who and a host of other fun shows. I expect more from the big screen, if only because it costs so damned much. The cinema is capable of delivering so much more than it does, and I really wish it would try more often.

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Ha! We're complete opposites on the tv/movie thing. I expect very little of films and am always plesantly thrilled when I watch one that turns out to be excellent, or even good. All the high end quality in my viewing these days comes from television.

I rarely seek out film reviews before I see a film because so many reviewers are clueless and have little knowledge of the history preceeding a film, especially if its in the SF genre. If I have to read one more review comment about how 300 was crap because it wasn't historically accurate, I'm gonna puke. I haven't actually seen the movie yet, but I think its safe to assume that any movie featuring a guy with crab claws for arms did not have historical accuracy high on its list of intentions.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

The guy with the crab claws was the least of 300's reality issues (he was hardly in it, anyway, much to Seb's disappointment), but my mind was so utterly blown with the testosteroniness of it all that it took me days to start thinking again.

When I think of how much good TV they could make with the money they spend on dumb blockbusters, I want to weep. Which is why I'm so cranky about them at the moment. More Cube's and Primers, please, and less War of the Worlds (unless it's the musical version, of course!).

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

I liked War of the Worlds! [ducks and covers]

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Don't remind me. Sometimes I'm amazed that we're still friends. :-)

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

God yes! especially after the punch up we nearly had over *that book* last year. When it comes to the bit in the wedding ceremony next weekend where the celebrant asks if there's any reason this couple shouldn't be married, etc, I'm gonna scream out from the back of the room "don't marry him, pet, his taste is in his bum!!!"

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Or you could just lob a copy of *that book* at us. Amanda's bound to run screaming.

Viva la difference, anyway. I love that we can disagree and still be buddies. That's partly because you haven't wasted $30 million on a giant turd and forced me to pay you to see it (it might be different, otherwise) but mainly because all those arguments we have are just bitchin' fun. Life would be really dull if everyone agreed.

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Agreed! And believe me, if I had $30 million I wouldn't be wasting it on a film of any kind. I'd be extremely responsible with it and buy myself an island. Then I'd have Ken Adam design me a secret underwater laboratory...and they'd be henchmen running round in matching designer wetsuits with the catsparx logo on their butts...

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

I want to be a henchperson! What do I have to do to prove myself logoworthy?

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Um... look good in tight black lycra?

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

You'd better believe, especially now I've stacked on a few extra kilos!

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

You're hired!

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Hurrah!

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

If I had The Island, I wouldn't be bumping off either MacGregor or Johansson, I reckon. :) Buttattoos is extreme corporate branding! :)

The intarweb will certainly give you a fair idea of crapness, with forums and rotten tomatoes etc., not just one given source's person.

and speaking of not paying attention to movies (or much of the media at all), what is Sunshine?

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Sunshine is the new movie by Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. A great talent, and I was really looking forward to this one. Check out the reviews I linked to and you'll see why I was put off.

I will wear my buttattoo with pride!

[robinpen.livejournal.com]

28 Days Later was derivative to the point of plagerism. You should have known better.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but a movie being derivative doesn't irk me as badly as one containing dumb science (I still like "The Cell", for instance). And in every other respect, I thought "28 Days" was pretty cool. I'm looking forward to the sequel...

[robinpen.livejournal.com]

Well, you indeed should look forward to it. It is getting very positive reviews, esp regarding its sociopolitical intellegence, and generally considered notably superior to the original (even though that took the excellent storyline for Day of the Triffids and reshot the best moments from the Living Dead Trilogy). This one has been witten and directed by the guy who did Intacto, regarded as one of the recent intellegent low budget SF films like Cube, Primer and Open Your Eyes.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Seb and I are keen. I was basing my enthusiasm solely on the presence of the cool dude from Ultraviolet, so it's nice to know that it's meant actually to be good.

I haven't seen Intacto, but am curious now. Thanks for the tip. I haven't seen Open Your Eyes either. Maybe I should, um, open mine.

[talmor.livejournal.com]

Have a look at the 'Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics' site - it goes into all the cliched physics mistakes in detail, and rates lots of movies (including mentioning where the rest of the movie makes up for bad physics). The ratings are:

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

GP = Good physics in general


PGP = Pretty good physics (just enough flaws to be fun)


PGP-13 = Children under 13 might be tricked into thinking the physics were pretty good; parental guidance is suggested


RP = Retch


XP = Obviously physics from an unknown universe


NR = Unrated. When a movie is obviously a parody, fantasy, cartoon or is clearly based on a comic book it can't be rated but may still have some interesting physics worth discussing.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

That's a great site. Thanks!

How sad (and not entirely unexpected) that they can only recommend six movies with good physics, and only two of these are science fiction (2001 and Bladerunner). How many thousands of SF movies are there that don't make the list? One's mind can only begin to boggle.

Sigh.

[talmor.livejournal.com]

On a similar theme (specifically space travel, but in all fiction, not just movies), check out:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

(you get a favourable mention in the interstellar non-FTL concepts section :-)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

I love this site and spent many hours just yesterday reading through several of the pages. But I didn't reach that reference to myself, so thanks for that! It's wonderful to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Greg Egan. :-)

[accy.livejournal.com]

Ahh but what are you going to do when Hollywood option one of your novels to make it into a Big Dumb SF Blockbuster?

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Take the money and expect the worst. :-)

(If only they would!)

[gloripebbles.livejournal.com]

I avoid reviewers like the plague, I'm always being misguided or hugely disappointed if I do read them. So, now I rely on people I actually know to get their opinions.

That site is cool - can see me wasting hours on that one.

So, would you go and see your film once it's been maimed, mangled and turned into something you have no idea you had given someone else the impetus to resculpt to another medium (even if it were a BDSFB)?

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be honour-bound to see it, and I might even applaud if I was sitting in range of the producer/director/stars (which would be unlikely--I'm only the author), but I would keep my expectations low. That's the only way, I think, to survive something like this.

And that's part of the problem. If our expectations are so low, I shouldn't really blame the movie machine for delivering. In spades.

(Love your icon, by the way. Lolcats rule!)

[gumnut.livejournal.com]

Armageddon. ::glares at it:: I have never seen such a waste of celluloid in my life.

But having said that I think you probably divide sci-fi movies into at least two groups - sci-fi and sci-fantasy.

In sci-fi, you should expect at least some grounding in science, at least enough to cover up things we don't know and gloss over those we're not sure about. I'm thinking movies like 2001 and its descendants, anything involving Earth and some oncoming cataclysm and anything remotely attempting to have some relationship to science. I'd be tempted to include space programs that include faster than light travel, for example. Even though science currently determines such speeds to be highly unlikely, if a story is structured correctly and assumptions are made discreetly, disbelief can be suspended quite easily. (man, were there a few too many adverbs in that sentence or what?)

What really ticks me off is when you take a sound scientific principle well known and proven and assume that the audience is going to be quite happy when you break it. Even I know you need a runway to land a shuttle and last time I looked there wasn't one on any silly asteroid, heading for Earth or not ::glares at stupid movie::

The other category I'd use for your truly fantasy sci-fi like your superheroes and comic books where some basic prinicples are either extrapolated wildly or ignored completely simply for fun. You know this going into the movie. Afterall who can climb walls after being bitten by a spider, radioactive or genetically engineered (Hell, if it worked, market it, we'll save on stairs). At least then you know what you're in for and not being treated like an idiot.

I swear some of those movie people think their audiences are morons.

Nutty
(who is a real pain in the butt to watch TV with)

/end rant

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

(who is a real pain in the butt to watch TV with)

Me too. :-)

Sci-fantasy is a good term, one I've used plenty of times wrt things like Star Wars (I get to continue this rant at the Sydney Writer's Festival--hurrah!) and I can accept it as a sub-genre. Spider-man, say, wouldn't exist if you couldn't be lax every now and again. What I guess I object to is the *needless* and *wanton* breaking of laws that don't have anything to do with the movie's premise. Some of the problems in Sunshine probably could've been easily fixed or at least pasted over. Why not make the effort, when you're spending millions getting just the right shine on the spaceship's hull? Or whatever. Writers are cheap, and some actually know what they're doing.

Unlike everyone else in the movie business, apparently. :-)

[gumnut.livejournal.com]

Logic. That wonderful little scientific law that makes so many clocks tick and computers compute is so often absent in the land of movie making.

It's when the movie becomes something other than the story. When it becomes a special effect ::lets blow up the White House:: or a computer game ::insert Star Wars one thru three here:: or merchandise ::Jar-Jar must die:: or a target audience ::young Anakin Skywalker with the doofy haircut please step up to the podium:: is when the movie drifts and plotholes are allowed and logic goes out the window.

I'm sorry Lucas is getting chewed on here, but he lines up so nicely to be shot down in this category.

I can see the discussion now...studio execs on one side writers on the other, one saying that the explosion would be just cool, the other screaming that liquid nitrogen doesn't react that way.

Who is going to get the vote? Unfortunately the movie business works just like any other, on dollar signs.

And now I've just trashed Star Wars (only the first three :D) after having babbled about sci-fantasy, but then scientific laws or no, you can't disguise bad writing.

And I am so babbling all over your journal. Apologies. You picked on something that really bugs me about television and movie writing in general. I have been known to yell at the TV.

Hmm, I think I'll shut up now and go and find some dinner. ::wanders off::

Nutty
(who was glad to finally see you in three-dimensions at the meeting tonight. You are definitely an entertaining speaker, young man ::grin::)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks! I was really just directing traffic. :-) Sorry we didn't get to chat. Next time, I'll leave my Chair's hat at home.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Armageddon. ::glares at it:: I have never seen such a waste of celluloid in my life.

Oh yeah. Shane Dix and I laughed our way through that movie, and actually offended people nearby who were busy being moved and excited by it all. Which just goes to show: some people really are, well, not morons, but see the world in *very* different ways.

The art of suspending disbelief seems to be one Hollywood has forgotten. You're absolutely right on that point. Sigh.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Best wishes for the wedding. Have a great time. Remember, love, honour and negotiate. Best advice I ever got.

Unfortunately, I can't make your sessions at the Sydney Writer's Festival. They are all scheduled for when I'm at work or on the way home from work, and I'd miss the first half hour. Have fun in Sydney.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's great advice. We shouldn't have to be told it, in all aspects of life, but we can never hear it often enough.

Sorry I won't see you at Sydney. The Observatory session is going to be particularly good fun. (The audience will have to fight me for control of the telescope!)

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to come to that one. However, with sick step-parents (his), and various other things (did you know the Writer's festival overlaps Library Week by several days?), I haven't got as much wriggle room to arrange things as I would like. Maybe I can send Iain.