SF on the big screen...and TV

What is Science Fiction? Here’s my take on the Literature of Change – nicely edited into a vividly animated clip-vid by Trekspertise.

So now Yahoo is creating original sic fi content? "Other Space" is a comedy by Paul Feig …. another garbage scow headed into the galaxy? (Does anyone get that reference?) 

Wow, the SyFy Channel has really veered back into realstuff scifi!  Here is the Childhood's End teaser (based on the classic by Arthur C. Clarke) -- to premiere on SyFy in December.  

Another series....based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel, and executive produced by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), The Man in the High Castle explores what it would be like if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States.  Watch the first episode -- free on Amazon.  

We've just started watching Person of Interest, a Sci Fi crime series directed by Jonathan Nolan. A mysterious billionaire designs a computer to predict terrorist events; it also generates social security numbers of people who are to be involved in a murder in the next few days... I hear season three gets even more sf'nal.

Today we watched a play downtown: "The Uncanny Valley," a two actor riff on artificial intelligence that was moving and well-written and provocative  and plausible... much more so than "Ex Machina." Keep your eye open for it.

Vintage Sci Fi: And here's a lovely rumination about the old "X-minus-one" radio show from the 1950's, with stories from Bradbury, Heinlein, Sheckley and Pohl, available in podcast. "At its worst, “X Minus One” is dated drama told well, but its better episodes have matured into half-hour exercises in a peculiar and intoxicating form of temporal eavesdropping. They let us watch, with great ease and clarity, people who are straining much harder to see us. Usually they’re looking just slightly off to the side. Sometimes they’re looking the wrong way entirely. But occasionally, in the show’s most thrillingly prescient moments, it’s as if they were staring straight at us."

== On the Big Screen ==

Watch this gorgeous new short/proof of concept by Irish filmmaker Ruairí Robinson: The Leviathan takes place in the early 22nd century, after humans have colonized multiple worlds, and are now on "the hunt" for a whale-like species that naturally collects the dark matter needed by space drives.  Kewl! How much better is set in the Startide Rising universe, though? And now, spurred by this trailer...Twentieth Century Fox has just optioned The Leviathan, with Neill Blomkamp producing.

Getting back to Alex Garland's Ex Machina...The dialog contained some moments of intellectual heft and there’s genuine acting. Best of all, the film proved that a small team can do inexpensive thought-provoking science fiction. Alas, the macro story arc -- and the bizarrely over-the-top villain were banal caricatures of a yawningly predictable Frankenstein remake, including Mary Shelley’s fundamental lesson: the creator is not punished for hubristically picking up god’s tools, he is punished for being a horrible dad. I am saddened most by works that have so very much going for them, yet fail tragically on maybe just one dismal fundamental. 

Garland's next project is an adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer's novel -- Annihiliation. Way to go, Jeff.

Disney's Tomorrowland stars George Clooney, directed by Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof. This could turn out to be worth watching ... at least it seems vivid.  Even if it also appears to be another damned “chosen one” story. Watch the trailer.

In sharp contrast, we watched “Big Hero Six” at home. Yes… I lag a bit! But it is just intensely good!  With a delight in tech and nerdiness and optimism that we badly need. About characters who aren't "fated" or destined "chosen ones," or mutant demigods... but merely way above average.  Like some kid you might have, some day.  Oh, and hilarious!

== Back in Print ==

Back in print! My first short story collection - The River of Time, winner of the Locus Award for best SF collection, in its year, and containing the Hugo winning tale “The Crystal Spheres” -- has been re-released in both e-book and paperback. And...

Just released: an excellent audio version of The River of Time, beautifully narrated by my friend, actor Stephen Mendel! 

Newly re-issued by IDW, my epic graphic novel – The Life Eaters – with spectacular hand-painted art by the great Scott Hampton. This tale starts off from the premise of “Thor Meets Captain America” (found in The River of Time) -- my runner up for a Hugo in the novella category ... taking you on an adventure that confronts the darkest parts of the human soul, with our dauntless potential for courage and freedom.

Sample the stirring video trailer for The Life Eaters! Movieable?

DC printed very few copies. So this improved re-issue will turn heads! The Life Eaters was nominated for one of the “bande dessinee” prizes in France, where the graphic novel is king.

== Sci Fi: A World of Ideas ==

Uri Aviv runs the Utopia series of science fiction festivals in Israel. (see below)  Here he makes some very interesting connections between SF and the history of the eventful 20th Century: 

“Over the years science fiction has inspired the exploration of space and cyberspace and was first to imagine the robot, cyborg, clone and technological singularity. All of these are "mere byproducts" to the real focus of science fiction -- society -- communities, relationships, individuals -- how we transform, mutate and evolve through science and how we use and abuse technology. Science fiction creators imagine the un-imaginable and explore the impossible, they perform huge scale gedankenexperiments and by doing so they give birth to our future, for giving shape to the impossible today, gives shape to the every-day of tomorrow.”

For more about the the Utopia Festival: ‪http://www.utopiatlv.org

==Other Sci Fi ==

Alas, farewell to good old Terry Pratchett.  He was a delight.  And had fun.  And gave the rest of us so much fun. And stayed vibrant and busy till some character with a scythe and bad diction hauled him off.  To Discworld, I hope!  (See him in one of his more humorous roles - in the photo on this site - creating satires of pompous religious and political leaders who take themselves too seriously....)

Cracked has a pretty good stab at laying down a bill of indictments in "6 Reasons The Jedi Would Be The Villain In Any Sane Movie." Ah, but six becomes FIFTY in my fun take-down of this silly-betrayal of sanity -- STAR WARS ON TRIAL. More detail and more laughs, by far!   Still, Cracked does crib from the best ;-)

Oh and Star Wars on Trial will soon be re-issued, in a new Jedi-Mouse edition!  

Check out Living Tomorrow, a new anthology of science fiction stories exploring futures shaped by environmental and biological science and technology, from ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination.

This lovely manga about two gal-roomies-dealing-with-life is utterly sweet and fun. A mutual fan also alerted me that one of the strips refers to me and my work. As a must-purchase to be weighed against buying food! Well now, there’s a tradeoff I hope none of you ever face! Still, if you ever do, I hope you’ll choose wisely. ;-)  ‪

Okay…. This is fun:  Kung Fury

The great web artist Patrick Farley has created a new video book trailer for Cecil Castellucci's new science fiction novel, Stone in the Sky. Patrick’s art is terrific and you should all be following his work at Electric Sheep Comix.

Stefan Jones reminds us of this cool-minimal but evocative animation: Rendezvous: The Murf.

== A few memorable words ==

"Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected, in this case I would think interesting would suffice.” — Spock

"That is the exploration that awaits you! Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence." — Leonard Nimoy

A Renaissance in Science Fiction Cinema & Television

Where's this Golden Age of Science Fiction cinema we keep hearing about?  Oh, certainly most of the ingredients are here!  Never before have so many studios, cable channels, download services and amateurs been creating so much content, and SF is almost as pervasive as cop dramas.

Effects keep getting better, along with production values. It's now possible to storyboard a project -- from beginning to end -- with such detail -- that the storyboard itself ought to be a high art form, with millions of followers.  Indeed, the animated storyboard, complete with audible dialogue and music, would be a spectacular way to generate writer-centered and story-centered content, requiring only a small team of half a dozen to create a full, 90 minute dramatic experience every bit as compelling as a full-featured film... but that's a topic for another day.

Elsewhere I have spoken of the Hollywood Idiot Plot, in which cinema has been lobotomized -- channeled into endless remakes and red-dos and sequels... but also into relentlessly repeating the same dullard plot cliches of "chosen ones" and utter hopelessness of there ever being anything like "civilization." Sure, you have to keep a couple of heroes in pulse pounding jeopardy for 90 minutes!  That's a given. What is not necessary is to poison all our confidence by creating that jeopardy in the laziest way possible.  See the article, if you haven't already.  It will open your eyes.

(Oh, how I wish James Cameron would. He came SO close to achieving what he wanted to achieve, with Avatar... only to create a gorgeous mythology that poisons the very heart of our confidence that we can become better people.  So sad.)

Still, there are glimmers of light.  I have written elsewhere that I much admire Interstellar, by Christopher Nolan. (Though I'd deeply love to insert three sentences, near the end, that would have fixed an ambiguously unsatisfying ending.)  Cuaron's GRAVITY was artful and enthralling.  

Charlie Brooker's British television anthology BLACK MIRROR is bold and imaginative and provocative... a modern update on the Twilight Zone, each episode a rather dark reflection on the future of technology and society, often with disturbing twists...though most stories would do fine in forty minutes, not sixty.

We enjoyed the Halle Berry TV series Extant, far more than we expected to. There's some mystical chosen-one mumbo.  But for the most part it is real science fiction with some class. It was unafraid to break cliches and show an actual human institution being heroic and helpful and just -- a refeshing change from the modern-hackneyed reflex.  And the notion of making AI by raising it as a human child is Something I've written about many times, especially in Existence.  It's the only method that has ever worked, in the past.  Here, it was even rather moving.

Elsewhere, I described my mixed (largely positive) feelings about a TV project I helped to advise... SyFy's "Ascension." While the sex stuff got a bit tedious, there were no betrayals of the root scifi concept, which - if nothing else - was damned original! Perhaps the focus will be better, if it's renewed... and if they heed good advice.  Certainly have a look!

Aw heck... I'll go ahead and append, below, more about "Ascension" and "Interstellar"!

But first, let's finish the good news roundup. For example, see this cool preview to SyFy's new series THE EXPANSE,  based on the "James Corey" series of rollicking space operas - starting with Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War.

Why don't I mention Predestination, the movie based on Robert Heinlein's utter-classic short story "All You Zombies"? My hopes are high! Looking forward to seeing it.

Just released: A pilot based upon Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle"?  Coming: (wow) a dramatized series based on Asimov's Foundation universe? (Do it!  All the way to my own culminating novel!) Plus a miniseries of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End?

Oh, let it be so.  Ending what has mostly been a wasteland of sheap fantasies, cheaper teen-sploitation dystopias and remakes and tedious sequels.

 Let it finally be so.

== Sci Fi and Film ==

Take a look at The Derelict: A 12 minute indie sci fi item on YouTube, with quite worthy effects.

“Plug” is  a pretty good recent bit of indie sci fi… post apocalyptic and clearly meant to be the first part of a series.  We may be in for a new era of creativity.

Children of the Machine is an upcoming web series led by Igby Goes Down producer Marco Weber that is set in a near-future dystopia where androids have taken over. Scheduled for a Fall 2015 release, the show will be BitTorrent‘s first-ever original series. 

Interesting and moving - this is a tour-review of Star Trek's philosophy of humanism. There are those among us who will find these messages objectionable, and that's sad. The core notion of Trek is that we can become better than we are - and that ambition has always been within us. (It's even deeply rooted in scripture.) All we need is the confident ambition to make it so.

Why James Cameron's Aliens is the best movie about technology: An interesting ode to a very good film.  Too bad Cameron's excellent "Aliens" was followed by the stunningly wretched betrayal Aliens III -- probably the very worst betrayal-of-faith with the audience in the history of cinema. But that was an era, lasting 25+ years, when every sci fi franchise followed the same pattern.  

Movie number two in any series was spectacularly good... followed by a third work that reversed every moral point,  stabbing the viewer with a spew of illogic and noxious messages and reversals of every single moral point. It happened in Star Trek and Star Wars and Terminator and so on... but the betrayal in the Aliens series was the most deliberately dreadful, ever.  So much so that I am convinced the whole thing is what Ripley dreamt! While asleep on her way home to live a long and happy life. With Newt.

 == Storytelling in Hollywood ==

Okay, let me come back and offer those quibbles on Christoper Nolan's film, INTERSTELLAR!

 Alas, it seems that today’s generation cannot even grasp the notion of working together toward an optimistic ambition.  Only Star Trek (pre-J.J. Abrams) and Spiderman ever show average citizens being sensible. So viewers always identify with the small group that defies the mob. In this case, the mob is willing to roll over and die, while a small group wants to strive ahead. I critique this tendency in modern storytelling in my article: Our Favorite Cliche: A World Filled with Idiots.

Though pause... Nolan in this case wants us all to join the camp of the strivers and the dreamers.  So the "typical cliche" in this case has its heart in the right place.

Some of you sneered at the “love in 5 dimensions" theme in INTERSTELLAR.  Come on guys, will you please learn to chill out enough to enjoy a great flick!  Ponder that “love in 5 dimensions" is NOT a physical causative in this film! If you thought that, you weren’t paying attention, guys.  The “love” thing is self-motivating for the characters. They use it as a focus-incantation and it wholly fits, at that level. It keeps the astronaut going.

 But the “reach” magical intervention is not  “love in 5 dimensions."  It is reverse causation by future beings and the sci-blather in the flick was solid enough for this physicist to just shrug and grin and keep enjoying the show.

Far worse, none of you pointed out that the planet that is NEAR the black hole has years-to-hours time dilation, yet he plunges into the Black Hole later, and experiences almost none.  Also… WTF is this solar system?  The planets orbit a star and a black hole?  Aw heck.  I set all that aside and didn't let it bug me.  (Learn to do that!)

Anyway, my friend, the epic and epochal physicist Kip Thorne, wrote The Science of Interstellar.  I look forward to reading it, when I come up for air!

My biggest -- in fact only real complaint -- comes in the morally ambiguous situation at the very end. Did Murph's breakthrough save most of humanity? I also wanted to hear that the evacuation would (they think) give Earth herself a chance to (with tender care) recover.  How to telegraph that, with just maybe four sentences of dialogue and a couple of panoramas?

How about glimpsing thousands of those cylinder colonies! While being told some volunteers would stay to take care of and heal the Earth. They were successfully saving Earth’s population ... but no one yet had the guts yet to go through the wormhole.

"Guts," says our hero. "I may be obsolete... but guts I got."

And he goes. 

== Reprise on… ASCENSION! ==

After serving as a science consultant during some planning phases, I came away from watching the three-night miniseries ASCENSION mostly impressed. We had a viewing party here at our place with Sheldon Brown and Richard Dreyfuss and his wife Svetlana.

Everyone saw the main plot twist coming. But the two extra-twists at the end were real surprises and tasty.

Sure, one can see why the “stewardess” thing got inflated in order to have a sexy ambiance to attract audience numbers for renewal.  Must have helped sell it to executives as “Mad Men in Space.”  Another sore point? It did disappoint me how much the people aboard seemed more like ocean liner passengers than crew. (I recommended the “upper-lower-decks” problem be more nuanced; maybe they can do that in the second season.)

In the final crisis scene, a well-drilled crew should have all rushed to emergency stations. The fact that they weren't well-drilled suggests this Captain may not be right for the job, after all.

But the overall look and feel were terrific and the notion of science fiction in the background was tempting.  One can easily imagine such things getting greater emphasis, as a real series develops.  I hope that if the show is renewed,, some of its potential for real sci fi can be developed. A little more EUREKA and a bit less MAD MEN or FIRESTARTER... though those aspects were fun! 

In this clip, I talk about the series... Author David Brin Explains The Real Science Behind the new show Ascension.

Now... anyone care to develop that animated storyboard thing?  Oh the stories we could tell!

Ascension and Interstellar - is boldness back in style?

A mission launched to save civilization…in 1963? See the trailer for Syfy's bold new miniseries -- Ascension -- due to air on December 15.  I consulted this show about an Orion-style colony-escape vessel launched toward the stars in 1963. I cannot predict or vouch for the final result, yet. But the concepts are excellent and the vibe is simply exquisite.  See a writeup here: Ascension: Could Mankind Really Survive 100 Years in Space... plus a video interview where I discuss the science behind the show.  Well, in fact, they seem to have edited a real whiz-bang intro out of my comments on the endeavor. Enjoy! Ascension debuts in 6 episodes over three nights, starting December 15. == Going Interstellar == We saw INTERSTELLAR in an IMAX theater.  It was worth paying extra! I could concoct a hundred quibbles.  Maybe I will, someday.  But it is simply awful that so many of us nerdy types deny ourselves the pleasure of a vivid flick, by going in with prickly eagerness to carp and nitpick! Do what I do.  Set aside that part of your personality to take notes "for later"... then tell that part to "shut the F#*! up and let me enjoy this!" To receive this gift the way the creator of it intended. The way I might appreciate a late Monet, despite the blurriness caused by his cataracts. Having done that, I sat back and wallowed in what is simply the best movie I have seen in this century.  Don't get me wrong... I still have both scientific and storytelling critical faculties. There are serious nits to pick, and I have a list.  Indeed, there are one or two that might be serious enough to ask Mr. Nolan to insert 30 seconds into a director's cut (moral implications).   But I am determined to wait a bit, to let the initial glow settle....  I am simply way too happy with 4.95 stars. And knowing Mr. Nolan can continue to do whatever he wants to do. We need stories about confident daring and belief in ourselves. Oh, for a look at the science behind the movie, take a look at Caltech physicist Kip Thorne's book, The Science of Interstellar. For another point of view, take a look at Futurist John Smart’s appraisal: Saving Interstellar: A Mental Rewrite of Chris Nolan's Latest Masterpiece. == Another Nolan... another great Sci Fi Epic? == Exciting news... Christopher Nolan's brother and partner Jonathan has announced that his own next project will be to craft -- for HBO -- Isaac Asimov's epochal Foundation Trilogy! Naturally, I am excited, since I wrote the final book in Isaac's magnum opus, tying together all the loose ends in Foundation's Triumph.  But here's more... Starting with a pair of iO9 essays about Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Robots universe that has inspired writers from Douglas Adams to George Lucas, and public figures as varied as Paul Krugman and Newt Gingrich. In 1966, the Foundation Trilogy received the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series, beating out the Lord of the Rings. And also – apparently -- Interstellar's Jonathan Nolan, who announced he would be writing and producing the adaptation of Isaac’s grand and sweeping science fictional epic. Part of both reader fascination and dissatisfaction with Isaac's series arose from what I have long thought was the series's greatest hallmark - though seldom mentioned -- the fact that Isaac was constantly arguing with his earlier selves!  First, in the 1940s, he asserted we can model human behavior as gas molecules are modeled purely with statistics.  But then, a later Isaac objected that there are perturbations! So he solves it with a Second Foundation that guides human events in ways that nudge the Seldon Plan's momentum back on track.  "But --" a still later Isaac complains "--now you get an inherent ruling caste!" So he over-rules the Second Foundation's human master race with... robots!  The perfect court eunuchs, loyal and incorruptible...  ...only then he realizes: "Robots and humans have reversed roles!  The servants are few and all-powerful and controlling and the "masters" are numerous as grains on a million beaches, helpless and too silly to be trusted." Can't have that. So he comes up with Gaia/Galaxia, in which humanity rises up higher than the robots in a single leap to a unified mega-mind, as in Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End... ... till still-later-Isaac realizes that humanity now will be squashed into sameness, one mind, thinking one thought. Indeed, he started pondering how to resolve this quandary.  In fact, there were some pretty clear hints where Isaac intended to go next! In a wonderful head-fake that would take his whole cosmos full-circle! Alas, he was unable to finish the series. We "Killer Bees"  - Gregory Benford, Greg Bear and myself -- were asked by Janet and Robin Asimov to do the "Second Foundation Trilogy"  though each of our novels aimed to accomplish different things.  While my own capstone novel (Foundation's Triumph) tied loose ends and followed Isaac's hints toward a final resolution of the tales of both Seldon and R. Daneel Olivaw, Greg Bear's book - Foundation and Chaos - closely scrutinized the implications of running a galactic empire and Benford's Foundation's Fear... well... Gregory had a lot of fun.  You will too. As did I, reading Mark Strauss's rambling exploration-insightful decryption of one of the greatest of all sci fi future histories.   Here's hoping the Nolan boys will (again) make us proud.