Science Fiction Interpretations

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Subject: Science Fiction Interpretations

Posted by: brm50diboll
Date: Jan 02 17

I have debated with myself starting a Virtual Blog for months. I have so little free time nowadays that I may not be able to keep it up, but I think I'll at least try. This is intended to be wide-ranging, so it wouldn't fit in the Television, Movies, or Literature boards categories and I don't want to clog up General with just my observations but here I can rant if I choose and people can choose to ignore me or engage my flawed analysis if they wish.

469 replies. On page 4 of 24 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Mixamatosis

True. That's even true of fun trivia in that I remember the terms and conditions said they own the information you post on the site - certainly any quizzes and questions.

Reply #61. Feb 28 17, 3:25 PM

C30

Changing of tack...................whilst at the best improbable, and at the worst downright impossible, one SF theme has always grabbed me, and that is Time Travel. I freely admit that I would far sooner travel in time, than space, given the option.

Very few films exist that I have enjoyed............maybe "The Final Countdown" probably the best. Books though, I loved the Simon Hawke "Time Wars" series, G.C.Edmondson's "The Ship that sailed the Time Stream" and Phillip E. High "The Time Mercenary's".

Another series I loved, though not strictly Time Travel, was Phillip Jose Farmer's "River World".........just a shame the movie was utter rubbish!

Reply #62. Feb 28 17, 4:06 PM

brm50diboll

I googled Brian Aldiss and "Hothouse". The morel creature that can "possess" humans (for lack of a better word) seems intriguing. I will discuss works where sentient beings take over the minds of others at some later date. Time travel is a very frequently recurring motif in science fiction and I will come back to it again later, I'm sure, but it's a motif I've already discussed fairly recently and there's some different areas I want to look at next time (whenever that may be) before I return back to time travel. I wish I did have time to actually read the works commenters have mentioned, but I can barely get in my basic FT gameplay some days.

Reply #63. Feb 28 17, 10:29 PM

Mixamatosis

It is hard to find time to read. I don't tend to do it during the day now. I find the best time to read is just before I intend to go to sleep. It often helps me get to sleep too.

Reply #64. Mar 01 17, 1:31 AM

brm50diboll

A few words about the Twilight Zone episode: "A Penny For Your Thoughts", which starred Dick York (best known for playing the first Darrin Stephens in Bewitched.) The episode is about mind reading, another interesting recurrent science fiction motif.

Most Twilight Zones follow a similar plot format something like this: An opening scene which introduces us to the central character of the episode, particularly focusing on one very obvious and serious personality flaw that character has. Then Rod Serling gives his narration introduction. The central character then somehow acquires some sort of "magic power". He then proceeds to abuse his magic power consequent to his personality flaw. Then at the end, his abuse of his magic power leads to a sort of "cosmic karma", where he gets some sort of comeuppance that he strangely deserves for his character flaw. This comeuppance becomes the famous "twisted ending" that the Twilight Zone was famous for. Then Rod Serling closes with his moral lesson for the episode.

So Dick York's Poole character, a banker, is a meek sort of milquetoast who everyone seems to ignore or take advantage of who flips a quarter which lands on its edge, an unbelievably rare event which gives him the power to read people's minds. But this magic power only (at first) manages to get him fired, as he finds out that what people think is not necessarily what they intend to do. But, unlike most Twilight Zones, since Poole was not actually evil, there is a rare happy ending: He gets his job back, with a promotion, he gets the girl, and, at the end, he knocks over the quarter that had been standing on its edge all day and discovers his power to read minds was gone, and he is delighted by this disappearance of something that was more a curse than a blessing.

Reading minds, or telepathy - what a wonderful power that would be to have. Not. It would take quite a bit of time and effort focusing on people's minds to determine if their thoughts represented serious intent or just transient wishes, no matter how intense the emotions of the moment. In the Star Trek episode "Is There In Truth No Beauty?", Spock meets a natural telepath who went to live on a planet of telepaths. Spock asks the woman, "You went there to learn how to read minds?", but she interestingly replies:"No. How NOT to read them. How to protect your own mind from the constant intrusive barrage of others' thoughts." In the Jim Carrey comedy "Bruce Almighty" as he is made (by Morgan Freeman as God) the stand-in for God for awhile, Bruce too discovers the problem of being overwhelmed by other people's thoughts. How do I control this? How can I screen it to the point I can focus?

Even for non-mind readers, there is the well-documented problem of caregiver fatigue and burnout. Well intentioned altruistic people get overwhelmed trying to do good for others and finding the pain of others' sufferings stresses them out to the point that they become emotionally callused to protect themselves. A quick example: oncologists have a hard job. A large percentage of their patients are going to die in fairly short order despite all their best efforts. When at the bedside of a patient who dies, the oncologist is confronted with the problems of another patient, they must find a way to make a quick graceful exit and move on to the next problem. They can't dwell on what has just happened for very long, or they will be unable to function. They end up memorizing "routines" to deal with the inevitable deaths that, over time, patients and family members see as forced and superficial. Does that mean they don't care about their patients and their patients' families? No. It means they bottle up their own emotions, Vulcan-like, to deal with the exigencies of their occupation, which is more focused on the therapeutic than the pastoral. Gallows humor (not in front of patients or their families, but among physicians' own families, friends, and peers) is often a defense mechanism.

There is "The House of God", which explains the psychological toll on interns in the 70s in a way many would consider cruel: Rule One: Gomers go to ground. Or even M*A*S*H. I, unfortunately, have a taste for "black comedies". But I digress even more. I think I'll stop here before I dig my metaphorical hole any deeper.

Reply #65. Mar 11 17, 11:31 PM

brm50diboll

Correction: Gomers go to ground is the second (not the first) law (or rule) of the House of God. The first law (there are thirteen, I think) was Gomers don't die.

Reply #66. Mar 11 17, 11:47 PM

brm50diboll

Logan's Run had an interesting premise, although the actual movie version of it had serious flaws. In the book, the cutoff age was 21, but in the movie, it was changed to 30. As I think about it, (and not just because I happen to be 53), either case is way too young to be eliminating the "elderly". Not that I am an advocate of gerontocracies, either. But I think the US Founding Fathers were on to something when, in the Constitution, they required a minimum age of 25 to serve in the House of Representatives, a minimum age of 30 to serve in the Senate, and a minimum age of 35 to serve as President. I don't think a society run by people in their 20s (as energetic as they are) could hold together.

So along those lines in "Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace" we see that the planet Naboo is governed by an elected teenage queen (in this case, Padme Amidala, played by Natalie Portman), it doesn't make any sense. Who possibly would think a planet, or a country for that matter, would be best governed by a teenager?

Can you imagine? Consider President Beavis. Heh. Heh-heh. Uhhh.... Fire! Fire! Heh-heh.

So in any science fiction story, there is the problem of "suspension of disbelief". What possible advantage would accrue to a society where no one was allowed to live past the age of 30? Yet that is exactly the premise in Logan's Run we are asked to accept.

But I tried anyway despite the cheesiness of the special effects. And it was kind of interesting in spite of itself. Humans, unlike lower animals, mature slowly. The prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is needed to properly process future consequences of present actions, does not mature until about age 25, which may explain the immaturity and impulsiveness of otherwise intelligent teenagers. Most lower animals do not experience a phenomenon akin to "menopause" found in humans. That is, healthy older females remain able to reproduce in most mammalian species. So, from an evolutionary perspective, what is the advantage to the human species of having a relatively large percentage of non reproductive older females? The answer, I believe, is grandparents. Humans are more dependent on learned knowledge than any lower species, which rely mostly on instinct. It has been established statistically that older parents are better at raising children than younger ones, because of acquired "wisdom", as contrasted with just knowledge. Grandparents are particularly useful in that regard, as they have learned from experiencing the trials of parenting, and are in a position to teach their children when they become parents, a situation not seen in most lower animal species (although the matriarchs of elephant clans could serve as a counterexample.)

Youth-obsessed cultures are therefore dysfunctional by nature and most modern Western societies are youth-obsessed. Perhaps we could learn from the traditional Chinese and Japanese cultures, which place a higher level of respect for elders than in the West. But I was a debater in my high school days, and was taught to be prepared to argue both sides of almost any issue, regardless of what your personal beliefs may actually be, so maybe on another day I could find a science fiction example (and there are many) of the problems associated with gerontocracies.

Reply #67. Mar 17 17, 12:20 AM

samak

"...maybe on another day I could find a science fiction example (and there are many) of the problems associated with gerontocracies."
You don't need science fiction - look at your own country. One example:
"the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office...report estimated that the House Republican bill would increase the number of people without insurance by 14 million next year and by 21 million in 2020. “In just three years,” said Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, “the entire gains under the Affordable Care Act will be wiped out.”

Reply #68. Mar 17 17, 5:21 AM

brm50diboll

I want this virtual blog to be primarily about science fiction, not specific political issues. Science fiction does touch on politics, but obliquely. And obliquely is the way I want to go.

Reply #69. Mar 17 17, 12:41 PM

Litecruzer

You've mentioned Star Trek in this before. It is a good fit, for the original series(tos) quite effectively touched on some of the topics of the day of the late 1960's, which were turbulent times. How could they do that then? Well, one important way was by not overtly singling out any one country or establishment in the real world. But also, because it was and is science fiction, a sort of "safer passage" for outside of the box ideas of living beings struggles and how to cope and/or overcome them.

Reply #70. Mar 17 17, 1:50 PM

brm50diboll

You are spot on! Exactly! And the same can be said for the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling himself said as much in numerous interviews. Science Fiction is a creative way to broach issues without being polemic or pushing a particular agenda. I'm not interested in pushing any particular idea, but if anything I write gets someone to think about the complexities of the universe we live in, then I see that as a good thing. People can definitely read into science fiction stories points of view that perhaps the writers actually intended, or they can also choose to enjoy wild stories about aliens and futuristic devices if they wish, also. Both Gene Roddenberry (the creator of Star Trek) and Rod Serling sometimes got into trouble when they got a little too close to the "invisible line" in science fiction and attracted censor's attention. An example would be the Twilight Zone episode "The Encounter" (which coincidentally costarred George Takei (Mr. Sulu of Star Trek fame)). Without giving away details (interested readers can google it for themselves), the episode was "banned" after its one original airing in May of 1964 and never shown in reruns in the US again. It was specifically deleted from all syndication packages, including the SciFi channel (now SyFy), although it was included in foreign airings and in DVD sets, so I own the mysterious "banned" episode in my own Twilight Zone DVD collection.

Reply #71. Mar 17 17, 2:48 PM

brm50diboll

Once again, I'll bend the rules of science fiction slightly and include something that could be classified in another category. I do it for the same reason I did it for "The Picture of Dorian Gray"; namely, the story plays out strikingly like a Twilight Zone episode. The topic this time is the 1998 movie "Pleasantville", which starred Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, and, in one of his last acting roles, Don Knotts as a mysterious TV repairman.

The central conceit is that the characters played by Maguire and Witherspoon are sent into an old black-and-white TV show similar to Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best; called Pleasantville, a perfect 1950s world where the basketball team is not only undefeated, but makes every shot they attempt, even in practice. A place where firemen have no fires to fight, they just rescue cats out of trees, and where the mayor (JT Walsh, in his final role) always bowls 300 every game. Then Maguire and Witherspoon begin violating the "rules" of this 1950s utopia, and color enters the picture. The CGI of having half black-and-white and half color in the scenes is remarkable. Don Knotts is furious that the kids have screwed up his idyllic TV utopia. There are all sorts of political and religious allegorical interpretations associated with this, including the Fall of Man, complete with taking a bite out of a red apple and bringing color into an entire scene. I would go on, but if you haven't seen it, I wouldn't want to totally spoil it. It's definitely worth viewing. Even the change in the background music as the movie proceeds is significant.

Reply #72. Mar 23 17, 7:30 PM

brm50diboll

It has been in the news recently (Texas Senate), but today I am going to discuss "The Handmaid's Tale", by Margaret Atwood. Atwood refers to her book as speculative fiction rather than science fiction, but it is definitely a dystopia.

First was the 1985 book, then the troubled 1990 movie with the late Natasha Richardson in the lead role as Offred and Robert Duvall as The Commander and Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy. Now, Hulu is bringing back "The Handmaid's Tale" as a miniseries. Looks interesting.

A colleague of mine at the private school where I taught a few years ago (the AP English teacher - I'm science, by the way), chose to offer "The Handmaid's Tale" as an elective novel to read when he had a senior class with a number of highly intelligent girls from progressive families in it, thinking they would enjoy it, and he was right. But he did not have it on his reading list the following year. I asked him about it, and he said that that year's group had a lot of students from much more conservative families and it was not worth the risk of bringing up "The Handmaid's Tale" with that group.

Now, personally, I don't think there's any way the US is moving towards becoming "The Republic of Gilead", but it is interesting to think about, even if I don't think it will happen. One interesting statement there was that society turned into Gilead because there was too much freedom and too many choices, causing chaos. Is that actually possible? Can there be too much freedom? And where is the line between freedom and license? Plato believed democracies were inherently unstable and tended to degenerate into mob rule followed by anarchy. But Plato did not live in our enlightened age, so he couldn't have known what he was writing about, could he?

No, I'm not going to actually discuss the plot. If you're unfamiliar with it and the least bit intrigued, read the book or see the movie or the upcoming miniseries.

Reply #73. Mar 30 17, 9:42 AM

daver852

That's a rather strange idea; I don't think conservative students would get upset with "The Handmaid's Tale." I wonder if your friend would have considered assigning the "progressive" students Robert A. Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." That would have probably sparked some interesting discussions!

Reply #74. Mar 30 17, 10:12 AM

brm50diboll

Well, the issue wasn't so much "political". Conservative parents would object to the rather - how shall I put this? - explicit nature of the text. And the more "progressive" girls got a kick out of imagining themselves as "The Resistance" against the emerging Gilead state they think we are in the process of becoming. In fact, from what I've seen of the trailers for the upcoming Hulu miniseries, "The Resistance" appears to be the audience they're going for.

Reply #75. Mar 30 17, 11:49 AM

brm50diboll

So now let's examine "The Matrix". The basic idea is that what we perceive to be reality is actually a computer program. How certain are we really of what reality is? Another, far less successful movie of around the same time delved into similar territory: "The Thirteenth Floor". Again the idea was that what the central characters perceived to be reality was actually a virtual reality simulation. Only this movie had a twist: it contained a virtual reality simulation inside a virtual reality simulation. Now, we can create our own little pixelated worlds in "The Sims" series of video games, but no one would mistake a Sim for a sentient creature. But "The Thirteenth Floor" contained sentient beings in virtual reality simulations that had the ability to transfer their consciousness to another level. In the Matrix, I guess that would be "choosing the red pill". A somewhat similar idea is explored in Leonardo DiCaprio's movie "Inception", although the "levels of reality" there are not computer programs or virtual reality, but dreams within dreams. The idea of multiple levels of reality nested inside each other does appeal to me. But these "realities" had flaws that allowed characters to see that they were not actually real. The black cat in "The Matrix", the wire form buildings in "The Thirteenth Floor", and the creepy spinning top in "Inception". Even in the original Star Trek Pilot "The Cage", the idea that reality could be copied and fool people was explored. In "The Cage", Captain Pike and crew are lured to Talos IV by a race of telepathic aliens able to project illusions into people's minds so well that they were almost unable to tell what was real from what was illusion. The weakness of the Talosians which Captain Pike discovered was they had trouble reading through "primitive thoughts", particularly anger and hate. Pike filled his mind with these "primitive thoughts" and was able to escape when he convinced the Talosians that humanity's hatred of captivity was so extreme that they would destroy themselves rather than submit to it. The Talosians concluded "you are too violent a species for our needs" and released Pike and the Enterprise. After their release, Talos IV became a "forbidden planet" and for anyone to try to go there became the only death penalty offense in 23rd century Star Trek canon, as mentioned in "The Menagerie", which reused most of the footage in the unaired (at that time) pilot, but built a secondary story around it using the regular Star Trek cast with a court martial of Spock as the central device. Spock had seized control of the Enterprise and kidnapped the now severely disabled Captain Pike in an effort to return him to Talos IV. Spock had his reasons. In was only in the Talosian illusions could Pike's mind escape the imprisonment of his disabled body. Pike's disability was even worse than Stephen Hawking's. Pike could only communicate with "yes" or "no". But Hawking's fantastic mind would be totally unknown to us without extremely sophisticated technology which was just emerging as Hawking's ALS progressed. If Stephen Hawking had been born, say, twenty years earlier, his brilliant mind would have been trapped in a disabled body with no effective way of interacting with the outside world, and much science would have been lost to the world. This was Pike's level of disability. But Spock knew (perhaps because Spock himself was telepathic), that Pike's mind was still as vibrant as ever despite his disability, which is why Spock risked the death penalty to try to take Pike back to Talos IV - to free his mind. As Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."

Reply #76. Apr 08 17, 9:50 PM

MCMiller1987

Very interesting. I enjoyed reading this bro.

Reply #77. Apr 14 17, 1:26 AM

MCMiller1987

Very interesting. I enjoyed reading this bro.
MCMiller1987

Reply #78. Apr 14 17, 1:28 AM

brm50diboll

Glad you found it, Carolyn. Anyone else reading this scatterbrained blog of mine, MCMiller1987 is my sister.

Reply #79. Apr 14 17, 3:35 PM

brm50diboll

Now, "Groundhog Day" is obviously a Bill Murray comedy, but if repeating the same day over and over again isn't a science fiction premise, then I don't know what is. The movie was hilarious, but what we see as Murray keeps repeating the day to get Andie MacDowall to fall in love with him is a genuine improvement in his personality. I have often felt that the human lifespan is too short to learn the things we ought to know. Murray didn't have any control over which day he was forced to repeat over and over, but I think which particular day it was could definitely matter. There are obviously some days in my life that would be great to repeat numerous times (although I think you can definitely get too much of almost anything) and others that would be positive nightmares to keep repeating. I note that whenever Murray's character "died", he would just wake up again at the alarm clock of the same day again.

The repeating premise is treated much more seriously in the Tom Cruise movie "Edge of Tomorrow" (also known as "Live, Die, Repeat.") That was a flawed movie but was clearly science fiction from start to finish, so it examined how tiny changes of position changed the outcome of a battle that was essentially unwinnable in real time.

Suppose there were individuals that were repeating the same day (or more generally, period of time), over and over. For the rest of us that weren't, how could we recognize them? And, if they just flat came out and told us they were, would we believe them? I think not, because we all consider such an event a physical impossibility. But considering impossibilities is something I do frequently for the mental thrill of it, so such individuals (if they existed), would certainly seem to have superhuman abilities to the rest of us.

Reply #80. Apr 18 17, 12:27 PM

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