Avatar and prose SF
Al
from:
(1) Harry Harrison’s DeathWorld series.
(2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
(3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
(4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
(5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
Others?
Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
Jacey Bedford
<c912f7ba-c261-4949...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, Al
<aajac...@gmail.com> writes
and we all thought it was great at the time.
I enjoyed Avatar and will likely go see it a second time for a closer
scrutiny - possibly the 2-D one next time. (I'm not a lover of 3-D
cinema, though Avatar certainly didn't make me dizzy and nauseous with
visual tricks like Beowulf and Journey to the Centre of the Earth.)
Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
Nicholas Waller
One bit of tele-presence SF I remember was only a short in Interzone
153 so probably didn't appear on Avatar's radar: Fly by Susan
Beetlestone. In it, agents who have been bonded with their animal
avatars too long start going a bit whacko and need the intervention of
a psychiatrist.
I haven't seen Avatar yet, but I did see a trailer on TV and the
bonding between the blue people and their flying creatures reminded me
of McAffrey's Dragonflight.
Nick
Lee K. Gleason
:
>(1) Harry Harrison�s DeathWorld series.
>(2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
>(3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
>(4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
>(5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>Others?
>Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
I don't know if anything from it wound up in "Avatar", but the ultimate
telepresence SF story in my opinion is "Gottlos" by Colin Kapp, in Analog,
circa 1969.
--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.g...@comcast.net
JRStern
<narm...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>I haven't seen Avatar yet, but I did see a trailer on TV and the
>bonding between the blue people and their flying creatures reminded me
>of McAffrey's Dragonflight.
Definitely.
Also Blish, "A Case of Conscience", alien lizard planet centered
around a giant tree, story ends when we blow up the planet
accidentally, or perhaps it is exorcised, I presume Cameron finds a
different ending here.
Telepresence - who cares, very 1950s, Zelazny did some, Michael
Swanwick did some, everyone did some. Machines versus biologicals, oh
come on now.
J.
JRStern
wrote:
And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
Brin, Startide Rising.
J.
Butch Malahide
> Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> from:
> (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
Niven.
> Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
Edmond Hamilton's 1947 "Proxy Planeteers":
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?80001
Operators on Earth conduct mining operations on the sunward side of
Mercury. In case you think the author overlooked the time lag, it's a
plot point: that's why the proxies can't defend themselves against the
hostile natives.
Al
Wow! You know being 69 thought I had read everything from 1940 to
1960....
Looks as if every SF idea , except for a few, were used up by about
1960 (by 1970 or 1980 , maybe for sure).
How little recognition prose SF gets in other media.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
>Brin, Startide Rising.
Or possibly from the same place Brin got it - fans have been using it
for ages.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Paul
Heavens - did not anyone mention J.P Hogan's "Giants" series?
The Thuriens have the ultimate telepresence system in place,
with just about everywhere being wired. :)
Paul Ciszek
In article <q3vni5da0eh5bto5o...@4ax.com>,
JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>
>And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
>Brin, Startide Rising.
Huh? I read _Startide Rising_ a long time ago, but as I recall the
human/dolphin crew were hiding out on a water planet after finding
something that Sentients Were Not Meant to Know or whatever, but I
don't recall them mining for anything. Now, where were creatures
that lived in the lower crust or mantle that mined for a living like
the Horta on Star Trek, but that's not the same thing.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
JRStern
Ciszek) wrote:
>>And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
>>Brin, Startide Rising.
>
>Huh? I read _Startide Rising_ a long time ago, but as I recall the
>human/dolphin crew were hiding out on a water planet after finding
>something that Sentients Were Not Meant to Know or whatever, but I
>don't recall them mining for anything. Now, where were creatures
>that lived in the lower crust or mantle that mined for a living like
>the Horta on Star Trek, but that's not the same thing.
I'd have to check the book, but one of the alien races was setting up
on a moon that had a 3% unobtanium core so that they could attack
another of the alien races, but the target (Soro?) figured out what
was coming and counterattacked. Minor plot point.
J.
Robert Sneddon
>from:
>
>(1) Harry Harrison’s DeathWorld series.
>(2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
>(3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
>(4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
>(5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
>Others?
Alan Dean Foster's Midworld (I've only seen the trailers though, not
the entire movie though).
--
To reply, my gmail address is nojay1 Robert Sneddon
Girish
Good grief! Has this community become so blind that *I*, (who knows
next to nothing) need to point out the obvious?
'http://io9.com/5390226/did-james-cameron-rip-off-poul-andersons-
novella
Girish
Jacey Bedford
<JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes
>And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
>Brin, Startide Rising.
I laughed at that one. Thought it was probably an in-joke.
Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
James Nicoll
a constructed proxy to interact with the savages is
SPOILER
Poul Anderson's AVATAR. It's not a What These People Need is a
Honky book, though.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
JRStern
Nicoll) wrote:
> You know, another book that has an advanced civilization using
>a constructed proxy to interact with the savages is
Greg Bear's "The Forge of God"
Of course, they are using it on us.
J.
Nyrath the nearly wise
> Alan Dean Foster's Midworld (I've only seen the trailers though, not
> the entire movie though).
I haven't seen the movie either, but the mention of the natives
using a tree to store ancestral memories does remind one of Midworld.
Michael Grosberg
Wasn't there an Asimov story about robots being used for negotiation
with aliens on Jupiter or one of the Jovian moons? I remember the
aliens were impressed-to-terrified by the indestructible "human"
ambassador (which was the whole point - Earth needed to make them
think humans were not to be messed with). I forget how the robots were
controlled.
Also, if you're just looking for telepresence, there was a neat
telepresence rig in Phil Dick's _Solar Lottery_. The rig - a sort of
cocoon with, I think, neural link - controlled a superpowered humanoid
robot assassin. I think people took turns at controlling it. But the
similarity to Avatar is small.
Why Integral Trees, by the way? because of the large trees? those are
everywhere in SF and fantasy. Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green Sky
trilogy had a low-gravity forest planet with giant (one mile?) trees
with villages and cities built on the trees. And the society that
lives there was even more peaceful and in tune with nature than the
Na'vi - if you just ignore the secret cabal, indoctrination, child
drugging, abductions and forced exile that makes the society tick,
that is.
James Nicoll
Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Dec 18, 6:02�pm, Al <aajackso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
>> from:
>>
>> (1) Harry Harrison�s DeathWorld series.
>> (2) Poul Anderson's �Call Me Joe
>> (3) Fred Pohl's � � � � Man Plus
>> (4) Algis Budrys's � �Rogue Moon
>> (5) Larry Nivin's � � �Integral Trees
>>
>> Others?
>> Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
>
>Wasn't there an Asimov story about robots being used for negotiation
>with aliens on Jupiter or one of the Jovian moons? I remember the
>aliens were impressed-to-terrified by the indestructible "human"
>ambassador (which was the whole point - Earth needed to make them
>think humans were not to be messed with). I forget how the robots were
>controlled.
"Victory Unintentional" and they were all AIs. They also were
so aware they were not humans that they forgot to mention this fact to
the Jovians.
Butch Malahide
wrote:
>
> Wasn't there an Asimov story about robots being used for negotiation
> with aliens on Jupiter or one of the Jovian moons? I remember the
> aliens were impressed-to-terrified by the indestructible "human"
> ambassador (which was the whole point - Earth needed to make them
> think humans were not to be messed with). I forget how the robots were
> controlled.
You're thinking of Asimov's "Victory Unintentional":
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44199
No telepresence involved, the robots were on their own. And, as the
title indicates, the Earthlings hadn't *planned* on fooling the
Jovians into thinking the robots were human.
Quadibloc
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:05:12 -0800, JRStern <JRSt...@foobar.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> >And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
> >Brin, Startide Rising.
>
> Or possibly from the same place Brin got it - fans have been using it
> for ages.
My understanding is that "unobtainium" used to be a slang term among
engineers for titanium, because its main source was in Russia.
However, I am somewhat puzzled by this. According to an old book on
world metal supplies I picked up at a thrift shop, the United States
is able to mine one titanium-bearing mineral which is used to make
titanium oxide for paints. The Russians have a different titanium-
bearing mineral, which is the one usually used to make titanium metal.
So far, this makes sense; it would perhaps be uneconomic to separate
the titanium metal from the oxide. But the other mineral also contains
the oxide, rather than containing titanium in another chemical form.
So I am quite mystified as to why the Americans cannot mine all the
titanium they want.
But then, beryllium is even better, and the Americans are able to use
*that* in their space ships and, presumably, their missiles.
John Savard
Robert Carnegie
Spider-Man's arch-enemy J. Jonah Jameson has been funding remote-
controlled robot "Spider-Slayers" since 1965. The thing's head is
usually a TV screen that shows the person driving it.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spider-Slayers#Mark_I>
Robert Carnegie
> Why Integral Trees, by the way? because of the large trees? those are
> everywhere in SF and fantasy. Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green Sky
> trilogy had a low-gravity forest planet with giant (one mile?) trees
> with villages and cities built on the trees. And the society that
> lives there was even more peaceful and in tune with nature than the
> Na'vi - if you just ignore the secret cabal, indoctrination, child
> drugging, abductions and forced exile that makes the society tick,
> that is.
I assume we aren't talking here about sky-floating trees that look
like the mathematical extruded-letter-S "integral" symbol. (Let's
skip Wikipedia for once, <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Integral.html>
has a forest of 'em.)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hothouse_%28novel%29>,
<http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ll/quangle.html> (by proxy),
<http://discoverykids.blogspot.com/2004/07/oglaroon.html>, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faraway_Tree>
are other fantastic inhabited trees, as of course is
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil>
After all, mundane trees have lots of little critters in 'em. This
stuff is just the same writ large. There are also real precedents for
tree houses, and one of the sources I already referred to also
discussed the opinion that our evolutionary ancestors made a mistake
coming down from the trees themselves.
William December Starr
JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> said:
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> You know, another book that has an advanced civilization using a
>> constructed proxy to interact with the savages is
>
> Greg Bear's "The Forge of God"
>
> Of course, they are using it on us.
As far as I can tell from the ads and the reviews the proxies in
"Avatar" are, at least as far as the native's can tell at their
tech level, physically identical to the natives' species. That
wasn't the case in _The Forge of God_; the Earth-killers didn't try
to deceive us, or ingratiate themselves to us, with faux-human forms.
(What the point of any attempt by them to deceive us was, I never
could figure out. I had to write it off to "This is how they always
do it, whether it makes any sense or not.")
-- wds
Gerry Quinn
I took it as an attempt to gain information by psychological
experimention on the biological species while it's still there. For
example it could be used to enhance their skills at deception or
generating ethical qualms if a biological species should threaten them
(as happened in the sequel).
- Gerry Quinn
Peter Knutsen
> Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> from:
>
> (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
> Others?
"The Forver War", sort of? I haven't seen the "Avatar" movie yet, so
can't be sure, but essentially bribing people in need into becoming
soldiers. No, on second thought probably not similar enough.
> Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
I think tele-presence is sometimes used in the setting of "The
Algebraist" by M. Banks, but the protagonist has to go down to visit the
gas giant-dwellers in person for some reason.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Al
>
> Why Integral Trees, by the way? because of the large trees? those are
> everywhere in SF and fantasy. Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green Sky
> trilogy had a low-gravity forest planet with giant (one mile?) trees
> with villages and cities built on the trees. And the society that
> lives there was even more peaceful and in tune with nature than the
> Na'vi - if you just ignore the secret cabal, indoctrination, child
> drugging, abductions and forced exile that makes the society tick,
> that is.
Integral Trees is a stretch, guess some of the film design reminded me
of Michael Whelan's work.
Cameron is not the only one , other director's are familiar with
modern prose SF* , why go to lengths to create a new story when such
things as Niven's Ring World is sitting out there?
Plenty of others.
Can't tell me Cameron didn't have resources to buy it!
But it's an old story and a bit of a puzzle that source material from
classic mystery , detective and western's get used while SF prose
classics are ignored ...not completely...(continuing threads here
about , about that).
(Tho a competent director can turn a prose SF silk purse into a sow's
ear, to wit, Star Ship Troopers.)
I guess prose SF is the genre that makes Hollywood nervous!
Michael Grosberg
> Cameron is not the only one , other director's are familiar with
> modern prose SF* , why go to lengths to create a new story when such
> things as Niven's Ring World is sitting out there?
Ringworld works best in the mind's eye. You can't really grasp the
size of the ringworld from a camera's point of view - It's just too
big. The catch: you need to be far enough from it to see a sizeable
enough chunk of it, but then you're too far to see any detail that
will give you a visual clue of how large it is. There are interesting
things *on* the ringworld... but you can put them on any old planet.
Then there's the problem of the background story - you need to know
about slavers and pak protectors and all that... and the fact that
there's no real conflict in Ringworld. We may have a film set on *a*
ringworld at some point (Halo? a Culture film?), but it won't be
Ringworld: the movie.
I'd like to see Karl Schroeder's Virga novels as films though. They
would be perfect for the big screen. aerial combat, swashbuckling,,
steampunk, zero-G wheel cities, transhuman technology - all in the
same place. Who could want more?
Gene Wirchenko
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
[snip]
>However, I am somewhat puzzled by this. According to an old book on
>world metal supplies I picked up at a thrift shop, the United States
>is able to mine one titanium-bearing mineral which is used to make
>titanium oxide for paints. The Russians have a different titanium-
>bearing mineral, which is the one usually used to make titanium metal.
>
>So far, this makes sense; it would perhaps be uneconomic to separate
>the titanium metal from the oxide. But the other mineral also contains
I did a bit of Web searching on this. wikipedia states:
"Because the metal reacts with oxygen at high temperatures it cannot
be produced by reduction of its dioxide." and "Titanium burns in air
when heated to 1,200 �C (2,190 �F) and in pure oxygen when heated to
610 �C (1,130 �F) or higher, forming titanium dioxide.[7] As a result,
the metal cannot be melted in open air as it burns before the melting
point is reached, so melting is only possible in an inert atmosphere
or in a vacuum."
>the oxide, rather than containing titanium in another chemical form.
>So I am quite mystified as to why the Americans cannot mine all the
>titanium they want.
The extraction process is somewhat involved. Maybe, it depends
on the specific compound?
[snip]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Thomas Womack
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Dec 18, 6:28=A0pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:05:12 -0800, JRStern <JRSt...@foobar.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is a direct lift from David
>> >Brin, Startide Rising.
>>
>> Or possibly from the same place Brin got it - fans have been using it
>> for ages.
>
>My understanding is that "unobtainium" used to be a slang term among
>engineers for titanium, because its main source was in Russia.
>
>However, I am somewhat puzzled by this. According to an old book on
>world metal supplies I picked up at a thrift shop, the United States
>is able to mine one titanium-bearing mineral which is used to make
>titanium oxide for paints. The Russians have a different titanium-
>bearing mineral, which is the one usually used to make titanium metal.
The two major titanium ores are rutile and ilmenite; rutile is
titanium dioxide and ilmenite is iron (II) titanate, FeTiO3.
I _think_ that the American deposits were mostly rutile and the
deposits elsewhere more ilmenite; getting titanium out of FeTiO3 is
slightly expensive - add lots of sulphuric acid in a potentially
annoyingly exothermic reaction, then turn the Ti(SO4)2 into anhydrous
TiCl4 and reduce with magnesium, using about the weight of magnesium
and three times the weight in chlorine of the titanium you get out.
At the moment the big titanium-ore producers are Australia and South
Africa; there's a bit of ilmenite mined in Ukraine, and the former
Soviet Union is still the place to go if you want expertise in
machining and welding the stuff.
Titanium is described as 'highest strength-to-weight ratio for any
pure element', but there are an awful lot more alloys than there are
pure elements.
Tom
Al
wrote:
> On Dec 20, 7:47 pm, Al <aajackso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Cameron is not the only one , other director's are familiar with
> > modern prose SF* , why go to lengths to create a new story when such
> > things as Niven's Ring World is sitting out there?
>
> Ringworld works best in the mind's eye. You can't really grasp the
> size of the ringworld from a camera's point of view - It's just too
> big. The catch: you need to be far enough from it to see a sizeable
> enough chunk of it, but then you're too far to see any detail that
> will give you a visual clue of how large it is. There are interesting
> things *on* the ringworld... but you can put them on any old planet.
> Then there's the problem of the background story - you need to know
> about slavers and pak protectors and all that... and the fact that
> there's no real conflict in Ringworld. We may have a film set on *a*
> ringworld at some point (Halo? a Culture film?), but it won't be
> Ringworld: the movie.
>
Good points, but that is the film maker's challenge is it not?
Adaptation of prose to film form is , to me an almost impossible
undertaking.... but I have seen it done.
Not better example than John Huston, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure
of the Sierra Madre , The African Queen, Moby Dick (yeah I am one of
those who think this an unjustly overlooked masterpiece, and I think
Ray Bradbury contributed more to the screenplay than Huston), what a
gem is The Man Who Would Be King with Huston even improving and
expanding on Rudyard Kipling!, and who in their right mind would have
tackled Flannery O'Connor! by making Wise Blood.
There is a long list of great adaptions and bad adaptations, why has
Richard Matheson's outstanding classic I AM Legend been sized upon , 3
times, with such indifference!?
Two high art directors have good films (Tarkovsky edging out
Soderbergh) out of Solaris, but my view Solaris is un-filmable. I love
the novel , but consider it not cinematic.
Figuring out what prose SF would make good cinema is a problem , ....
Left Hand of Darkness seemingly would take an other worldly genius to
make, ... but a 'doctored' Stars My Destination seems to lend itself
to a sophisticated baroque space opera such as no one has ever seen.
One could go on and on ... however be careful .... it is up to the
writer and director to master the spirit of modern SF prose, maybe
only Kubrick has done this.
Lee K. Gleason
"Quadibloc" <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:065f3108-c958-4fd4-aa8b-> >And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is
a direct lift from David
> > >Brin, Startide Rising.
>
> > Or possibly from the same place Brin got it - fans have been using it
> > for ages.
> My understanding is that "unobtainium" used to be a slang term among
> engineers for titanium, because its main source was in Russia.
I frist saw "unobtainium" being used to describe exotic parts for
motorcycles and sports cars, not necessarily made of titanium, just hard to
get in the States, circa 1957.
--
Lee K. Gleason
N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.g...@comcast.net
zam fir
> Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> from:
>
> (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
> Others?
Integral Trees hits the nail on the head,and he drew a lot from a
specific artist, roger dean.
the flying islands and arch-things are from two Yes album covers.
cameron hired a team of killer artists,
and plagarized/trubutized from dean in the same manner as he did with
Niven.
i think this story is from A Case of Conscience (James Blish) and
Deathworld mostly. the other influences are
less central to the story.
the technology is from Call Me Joe. also: the last samurai (a huston/
kurasawa homage), braveheart (ver batim with blue paint too) and
obviously Dances with Wolves.
and the technology from The Forever War (Joe Haldeman, Jr.) plus the
Colonel channeling Haldeman's Sgt Cortez.
of course that novel is derivative of Starship Troopers.
Digital Publius
> Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> from:
>
> (1) Harry Harrison’s DeathWorld series.
> (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
> Others?
> Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
The Integral Trees especially and a helping of Timothy Zahn's Manta's
Gift
JRStern
Starr) wrote:
>(What the point of any attempt by them to deceive us was, I never
>could figure out. I had to write it off to "This is how they always
>do it, whether it makes any sense or not.")
In the sequel "Anvil of Stars" this was addressed as necessary
camouflage and information gathering in a very tough galaxy.
Though it was never entirely explained just why the bad guys were
going about smashing planets in the first place. Like I said, tough
galaxy.
J.
JRStern
<lee.g...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Quadibloc" <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
>news:065f3108-c958-4fd4-aa8b-> >And they're mining for "unobtanium" that is
>a direct lift from David
>> > >Brin, Startide Rising.
>>
>> > Or possibly from the same place Brin got it - fans have been using it
>> > for ages.
>
>> My understanding is that "unobtainium" used to be a slang term among
>> engineers for titanium, because its main source was in Russia.
>
> I frist saw "unobtainium" being used to describe exotic parts for
>motorcycles and sports cars, not necessarily made of titanium, just hard to
>get in the States, circa 1957.
OK alright now someone tell me the latin equivalent was used by
Asterix and Obelix for those excellent bronze-like swords from
Lemuria, there really is nothing new under the sun.
J.
JRStern
wrote:
>Cameron is not the only one , other director's are familiar with
>modern prose SF* , why go to lengths to create a new story when such
>things as Niven's Ring World is sitting out there?
>Plenty of others.
Amen, brother, that's the top of my list, too.
J.
MajorOz
> On Dec 18, 11:02 am, Al <aajackso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> > from:
>
> > (1) Harry Harrison’s DeathWorld series.
> > (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> > (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> > (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> > (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
> > Others?
> > Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
>
> Integral Trees hits the nail on the head,and he drew a lot from a
> specific artist, roger dean.
> the flying islands and arch-things are from two Yes album covers.
> cameron hired a team of killer artists,
> and plagarized/trubutized from dean in the same manner as he did with
> Niven.
Anybody ever been diving in the Rock Islands of Palau ? Visions of
floating islands..........
Pass the sugar cube.....
cheers
oz
John F. Eldredge
Islands that float in mid-air have been a common fantasy art motif for
quite a few years. I don't know who first came up with the concept, but
would not be surprised if it were pre-twentieth-century.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Ethan Merritt
>
> Islands that float in mid-air have been a common fantasy art motif for
> quite a few years. I don't know who first came up with the concept,
> but would not be surprised if it were pre-twentieth-century.
You might start with Laputa, the island in the sky from
Jonathan Swift _Gulliver's Travels_
John F. Eldredge
I read _Gulliver's Travels_ years ago, but had forgotten that Laputa was
a flying island. So, that pushes the concept at least as far back as
1726. Looking up "flying islands" in Wikipedia, I see that Homer
mentioned a floating island in the _Odyssey_, but it wasn't clear whether
he meant that the island floated in water or in mid-air.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>>So far, this makes sense; it would perhaps be uneconomic to separate
>>the titanium metal from the oxide. But the other mineral also contains
>
> I did a bit of Web searching on this. wikipedia states:
>"Because the metal reacts with oxygen at high temperatures it cannot
>be produced by reduction of its dioxide." and "Titanium burns in air
>when heated to 1,200 �C (2,190 �F) and in pure oxygen when heated to
>610 �C (1,130 �F) or higher, forming titanium dioxide.[7] As a result,
>the metal cannot be melted in open air as it burns before the melting
>point is reached, so melting is only possible in an inert atmosphere
>or in a vacuum."
At one time, pure aluminum was very, very expensive to create.
Chemists used to give each other gifts of that hard to create metal.
Then technology advanced.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
David DeLaney
>Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:
>>>So far, this makes sense; it would perhaps be uneconomic to separate
>>>the titanium metal from the oxide. But the other mineral also contains
>>
>> I did a bit of Web searching on this. wikipedia states:
>>"Because the metal reacts with oxygen at high temperatures it cannot
>>be produced by reduction of its dioxide." and "Titanium burns in air
>>when heated to 1,200 �C (2,190 �F) and in pure oxygen when heated to
>>610 �C (1,130 �F) or higher, forming titanium dioxide.[7] As a result,
>>the metal cannot be melted in open air as it burns before the melting
>>point is reached, so melting is only possible in an inert atmosphere
>>or in a vacuum."
>
>At one time, pure aluminum was very, very expensive to create.
>Chemists used to give each other gifts of that hard to create metal.
And in fact the tip of the Washington Monument is made of aluminum. Installed
just two years before Hall and H\'eroult invented their Process... and then
aluminum was suddenly no longer a dollar an ounce.
>Then technology advanced.
Dave "insert wacky boing, as usual" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Bill Snyder
<jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:37:30 -0800, Ethan Merritt wrote:
>
>> John F. Eldredge wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Islands that float in mid-air have been a common fantasy art motif for
>>> quite a few years. I don't know who first came up with the concept,
>>> but would not be surprised if it were pre-twentieth-century.
>>
>> You might start with Laputa, the island in the sky from Jonathan Swift
>> _Gulliver's Travels_
>
>I read _Gulliver's Travels_ years ago, but had forgotten that Laputa was
>a flying island. So, that pushes the concept at least as far back as
>1726. Looking up "flying islands" in Wikipedia, I see that Homer
>mentioned a floating island in the _Odyssey_, but it wasn't clear whether
>he meant that the island floated in water or in mid-air.
Would Aristophanes qualify?
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Robert Carnegie
> But it's an old story and a bit of a puzzle that source material from
> classic mystery , detective and western's get used while SF prose
> classics are ignored ...not completely...(continuing threads here
> about , about that).
Size of the SF audience, cost of filming it, and the risk that SF
stories, unlike the other categories, may contain someone's new
patented invention, come to mind.
There is a big heap of money in AVATAR. More than you'd put into a
Tom Swift show.
Robert Carnegie
> On 18/12/2009 17:02, Al wrote:
> > Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> > from:
> >
> > (1) Harry Harrison�s DeathWorld series.
> > (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> > (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> > (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> > (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
> >
> > Others?
>
> "The Forver War", sort of? I haven't seen the "Avatar" movie yet, so
> can't be sure, but essentially bribing people in need into becoming
> soldiers. No, on second thought probably not similar enough.
Is that a shorter edition of _The Forever War_ by Joe Haldeman? You
may have the wrong work, I'm not sure. In that book, the hero and his
peers initially were university material conscripted, drafted, i.e.
not given a choice. Subsequently, and this could depend on edition,
there's something about re-enlisting which maybe was tied up with
needing to support Mandella's mother's health care, specifically
oxygen, which an Obama death panel evidently has decided she doesn't
deserve any more. Well, something like that.
Michael Grosberg
> Good points, but that is the film maker's challenge is it not?
> Adaptation of prose to film form is , to me an almost impossible
> undertaking.... but I have seen it done.
If ever the right script treatment comes along, it can happen. But
there are many more novels, better suited to the big screen, and with
better brand recognition, that are yet to be filmed. Ender's Game. The
Chronicles of Amber. Neuromancer. The list goes on and on. I know that
Ender's Game is on indefinite hold because of script problems, so I
assume the same goes for the rest of them.
John F. Eldredge
Was the location of Cloud-Cuckoo Land ever stated?
Bill Snyder
<jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:35:47 -0600, Bill Snyder wrote:
>
>> On 22 Dec 2009 01:48:15 GMT, "John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:37:30 -0800, Ethan Merritt wrote:
>>>
>>>> John F. Eldredge wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Islands that float in mid-air have been a common fantasy art motif
>>>>> for quite a few years. I don't know who first came up with the
>>>>> concept, but would not be surprised if it were pre-twentieth-century.
>>>>
>>>> You might start with Laputa, the island in the sky from Jonathan Swift
>>>> _Gulliver's Travels_
>>>
>>>I read _Gulliver's Travels_ years ago, but had forgotten that Laputa was
>>>a flying island. So, that pushes the concept at least as far back as
>>>1726. Looking up "flying islands" in Wikipedia, I see that Homer
>>>mentioned a floating island in the _Odyssey_, but it wasn't clear
>>>whether he meant that the island floated in water or in mid-air.
>>
>> Would Aristophanes qualify?
>
>Was the location of Cloud-Cuckoo Land ever stated?
Just "between earth & heaven" is all I remember. [1]
1. "Heaven" in the sense of the abode of the gods, and not the
afterlife.
Dave Hansen
> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
[...]
> >Then technology advanced.
>
> Dave "insert wacky boing, as usual" DeLaney
Scientific Progress goes "Boink"
-=Dave
hughes
<0e88b07b-f784-4207...@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> Peter Knutsen wrote:
> > On 18/12/2009 17:02, Al wrote:
> > > Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> > > from:
> > >
> > > (1) Harry Harrison�s DeathWorld series.
> > > (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> > > (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> > > (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> > > (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
> > >
> > > Others?
> >
> > "The Forver War", sort of? I haven't seen the "Avatar" movie yet, so
> > can't be sure, but essentially bribing people in need into becoming
> > soldiers. No, on second thought probably not similar enough.
>
> Is that a shorter edition of _The Forever War_ by Joe Haldeman? You
> may have the wrong work, I'm not sure. In that book, the hero and his
> peers initially were university material conscripted, drafted, i.e.
> not given a choice. Subsequently, and this could depend on edition,
> there's something about re-enlisting which maybe was tied up with
> needing to support Mandella's mother's health care, specifically
> oxygen, which an Obama death panel evidently has decided she doesn't
> deserve any more. Well, something like that.
Probably meant Scalzi's "Old Man's War".
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Dec 20, 12:19�pm, Michael Grosberg <grosberg.mich...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>> On Dec 20, 7:47�pm, Al <aajackso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Cameron is not the only one , other director's are familiar with
>> > modern prose SF* , why go to lengths to create a new story when such
>> > things as Niven's Ring World is sitting out there?
>>
>> Ringworld works best in the mind's eye. You can't really grasp the
>> size of the ringworld from a camera's point of view - It's just too
>> big. The catch: you need to be far enough from it to see a sizeable
>> enough chunk of it, but then you're too far to see any detail that
>> will give you a visual clue of how large it is. There are interesting
>> things *on* the ringworld... but you can put them on any old planet.
>> Then there's the problem of the background story - you need to know
>> about slavers and pak protectors and all that... and the fact that
>> there's no real conflict in Ringworld. We may have a film set on *a*
>> ringworld at some point (Halo? a Culture film?), but it won't be
>> Ringworld: the movie.
>>
>
>Good points, but that is the film maker's challenge is it not?
>Adaptation of prose to film form is , to me an almost impossible
>undertaking.... but I have seen it done.
>Not better example than John Huston, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure
>of the Sierra Madre , The African Queen, Moby Dick (yeah I am one of
>those who think this an unjustly overlooked masterpiece, and I think
All of those contain eminently filmable conflict.
Robert Carnegie
> On 22 Dec 2009 14:40:49 GMT, "John F. Eldredge"
> <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:35:47 -0600, Bill Snyder wrote:
> >
> >> On 22 Dec 2009 01:48:15 GMT, "John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:37:30 -0800, Ethan Merritt wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> John F. Eldredge wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Islands that float in mid-air have been a common fantasy art motif
> >>>>> for quite a few years. I don't know who first came up with the
> >>>>> concept, but would not be surprised if it were pre-twentieth-century.
> >>>>
> >>>> You might start with Laputa, the island in the sky from Jonathan Swift
> >>>> _Gulliver's Travels_
> >>>
> >>>I read _Gulliver's Travels_ years ago, but had forgotten that Laputa was
> >>>a flying island. So, that pushes the concept at least as far back as
> >>>1726. Looking up "flying islands" in Wikipedia, I see that Homer
> >>>mentioned a floating island in the _Odyssey_, but it wasn't clear
> >>>whether he meant that the island floated in water or in mid-air.
> >>
> >> Would Aristophanes qualify?
> >
> >Was the location of Cloud-Cuckoo Land ever stated?
>
> Just "between earth & heaven" is all I remember. [1]
>
>
> 1. "Heaven" in the sense of the abode of the gods, and not the
> afterlife.
I seem to recall comment that the bird nation has the amoral high
ground in conflict with ground-based humans. (I'm not sure what the
gods of Olympus can do about it, either.) It may refer specifically
to bodily wastes.
Bill Snyder
That would imply really impressive antiquity for the phrase "being
shat on from a great height."
Quadibloc
> I seem to recall comment that the bird nation has the amoral high
> ground in conflict with ground-based humans. (I'm not sure what the
> gods of Olympus can do about it, either.) It may refer specifically
> to bodily wastes.
Anacortes Telescope and Wild Bird is apparently expanding its line of
products, as I learned in a thread in another news group, just to
address this sort of thing.
This company provides supplies to birdwatchers such as books about
recognizing different kinds of bird, and binoculars. They also sell
various kinds of telescope, including the famous Questar, and so they
also targeted amateur astronomers as potential customers.
But apparently they're not opposed to people going out and engaged in
recreational hunting of birds either. And, it seems that the conflict
between birds and humans has escalated somewhat since the days when
one used a 12-gauge to shoot ducks or geese flying overhead...
http://www.buytelescopes.com/Category/454-ar-assault-rifles.aspx
John Savard
erilar
<5f9798de-0e91-4f78...@c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
Furthermore, any sf movie is going to have more in common with sf
generally than one outstanding sf novel usually with. Avatar--which I
have now seen and enjoyed HUGELY--uses a variety of sf tropes. So what?
How well it's done is what counts, and Pandora is stunning! I liked the
story, too.
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist
erilar
<2576eafd-7f8b-4198...@v30g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> I seem to recall comment that the bird nation has the amoral high
> ground in conflict with ground-based humans. (I'm not sure what the
> gods of Olympus can do about it, either.) It may refer specifically
> to bodily wastes.
One would expect the latter in one of Aristophanes' plays.
William December Starr
JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> said:
> wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
[ re THE FORGE OF GOD, Greg Bear ]
>> (What the point of any attempt by them to deceive us was, I never
>> could figure out. I had to write it off to "This is how they
>> always do it, whether it makes any sense or not.")
>
> In the sequel "Anvil of Stars" this was addressed as necessary
> camouflage and information gathering in a very tough galaxy.
Camouflage is hardly necessary when the natives' tech level is
effectively zero compared to the weapon you're using to wipe them
out<1>, which they should have been able to tell long before they
had to do anything to alert us to their presence in our solar
system. Both (a) gathering data on how aliens think, even
technologically retarded ones, and (b) probing to see if the natives
have any super-concealed higher tech that they might reveal if we
interact with them trickily do make sense though.
*1: "Weapon," singular, because the "and also, build hydrogen bombs
on the ocean floor and detonate them to score the crust to make
the planet easier to blow up" bit still seems like just plain
silly writing to me. It's like wrapping putting a casing of
ball bearings around your H-bomb to make it more effective
because this way it'll throw off shrapnel when it blows up.
> Though it was never entirely explained just why the bad guys were
> going about smashing planets in the first place. Like I said,
> tough galaxy.
Presumably the folks who started it were Cheney-like "pragmatists"
-- "There *might* exist a threat to us out there, so we'd better
kill everything just to be safe." And once that got rolling, some
species may have sent out defenders/avengers who themselves degraded
down to "These guys look like they *might* be guilty of being the
genocide-starters, so let's convince ourselves that they are and
then wipe 'em out," and thereby became almost as great a threat to
innocent life as the original killers. Which I still think is what
happened to the viewpoint humans in ANVIL.
-- wds
William December Starr
Al <aajac...@gmail.com> said:
> Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw
> borrowings from:
>
> (1) Harry Harrison's DeathWorld series.
> (2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> (3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> (4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> (5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
> Others?
It's far from an accusation of plaigerism, but in a short essay "The
Common Threads of Avatar,"
<http://tinyurl.com/yhfjfrc>
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/the-common-threads-of-iav_b_400583.html>
(which is mostly about commonalities with James Cameron's other
works), William Bradley notes:
Actually, it's more like Frank Herbert's Dune, which in any
event predated Dances With Wolves. (Who says there are no new
ideas?)
A hero of heretofore undiscovered grandeur; a planet linked
beneath surface appearance in a profound web of ecology; an
alien woman, fierce and seductive, who challenges and inspires
the hero to great heights; an indigenous civilization of far
greater depth than was apparent; a rotting outsider
civilization determined to strip mine a planet of its most
vital resource.
Of course, he immediately adds:
With differences, to be sure. Jake Sully is no Paul Atreides,
no spacefaring son of a duke but a wheelchair-bound recon
Marine disabled in one of Earth's many wars.
...but still, I was amused.
-- wds
erilar
wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
The Dune parallels are better than the Dances With Wolves stretching.
Quadibloc
> The Dune parallels are better than the Dances With Wolves stretching.
I remember an attempt made to claim that Star Wars was a ripoff of
Dune. It would have been funny, except Frank Herbert was responsible
for it.
Avatar may not be a ripoff of Dances With Wolves, but it uses the same
trope.
John Savard
Robert Carnegie
Can't tell one of the bloody things from another when they keep moving
around.
When Larry Niven mentioned hunting laser-rifles in a story, either he
or his character was disapproving: if the thing wasn't limited
artificially to split-second shots, it'd be like (before this was
invented) a lightsaber miles long. I think his character, possibly
Gil the ARM, was in the sights of one when the issue came up, also.
Anne McCaffrey seems to like hunting, but not necessarily done that
way. Being telepathic seems like cheating, for hunting; I think I
prefer my telepaths vegetarian (Vulcans).
Butch Malahide
And Clarke's "The Last Command" is a ripoff of Robert Lloyd's "Way
Out", and his "Wall of Darkness" is a ripoff of "The Long Wall" by R.
A. W. Lowndes writing as Wilfred Owen Morley.
David V. Loewe, Jr
wrote:
>Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
>from:
>
>(1) Harry Harrison�s DeathWorld series.
>(2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
>(3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
>(4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
>(5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
>
>Others?
>Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
The Winds Of Altair by Ben Bova.
The spacefarers implant control devices in a native species and run them
from a remote site. Not quite the same in execution, but a similar
concept.
--
"...you know, it seems to me you suffer from the problem of
wanting a tailored fit in an off the rack world."
Dennis Juds
erilar
<ecd7b1e0-02f5-41cc...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> Avatar may not be a ripoff of Dances With Wolves, but it uses the same
> trope.
How much sf have you read? There are plenty of examples of human
protagonist switching sides to join aliens against other humans in sf.
DwW was just a non-sf use of the idea.
JRStern
Starr) wrote:
>In article <b510j5hkju99bacsf...@4ax.com>,
>JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> said:
>
>> wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
>
>[ re THE FORGE OF GOD, Greg Bear ]
>
>>> (What the point of any attempt by them to deceive us was, I never
>>> could figure out. I had to write it off to "This is how they
>>> always do it, whether it makes any sense or not.")
>>
>> In the sequel "Anvil of Stars" this was addressed as necessary
>> camouflage and information gathering in a very tough galaxy.
>
>Camouflage is hardly necessary when the natives' tech level is
>effectively zero compared to the weapon you're using to wipe them
>out<1>, which they should have been able to tell long before they
>had to do anything to alert us to their presence in our solar
>system. Both (a) gathering data on how aliens think, even
>technologically retarded ones, and (b) probing to see if the natives
>have any super-concealed higher tech that they might reveal if we
>interact with them trickily do make sense though.
Sure, I belief there was at least one TOS episode like that, ...
"Errand of Mercy", the Organians are not the primitives they appeared
and indeed impose a truce on the Klingons and Federation.
> *1: "Weapon," singular, because the "and also, build hydrogen bombs
> on the ocean floor and detonate them to score the crust to make
> the planet easier to blow up" bit still seems like just plain
> silly writing to me. It's like wrapping putting a casing of
> ball bearings around your H-bomb to make it more effective
> because this way it'll throw off shrapnel when it blows up.
Well, the book is actually pretty reasonable about the true amounts of
energy it takes to blow up a planet. They are perhaps a little vague
about where they get the energy to make effective thermonuclear bombs
out of light hydrogen, that same technology would seem to be capable
of more direct action, as you suggest. Perhaps even in destruction
they don't want to show their hands and fake a little low tech.
MY technobabble complaint is with the time periods of this, and many,
stories. This one stretches over a few thousand years. Vernor Vinge
aside, I think periods ten or ten thousand times longer might be
needed to account for these extreme levels of technology.
>> Though it was never entirely explained just why the bad guys were
>> going about smashing planets in the first place. Like I said,
>> tough galaxy.
>
>Presumably the folks who started it were Cheney-like "pragmatists"
>-- "There *might* exist a threat to us out there, so we'd better
>kill everything just to be safe." And once that got rolling, some
>species may have sent out defenders/avengers who themselves degraded
>down to "These guys look like they *might* be guilty of being the
>genocide-starters, so let's convince ourselves that they are and
>then wipe 'em out," and thereby became almost as great a threat to
>innocent life as the original killers. Which I still think is what
>happened to the viewpoint humans in ANVIL.
It's hinted at, without great degrees of resolution.
It's just as easy to see the The Benefactors as great and good as they
seem and yet still scared of *something* even bigger and badder out
there somewhere.
Larry Niven has written about the difficulties writing about
super-duper technologies ... but it's fun trying, anyway.
J.
Robert Carnegie
David V. Loewe, Jr wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:02:22 -0800 (PST), Al <aajac...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Didn't notice anything to bring a law suit about but saw borrowings
> >from:
> >
> >(1) Harry Harrison�s DeathWorld series.
> >(2) Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe
> >(3) Fred Pohl's Man Plus
> >(4) Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon
> >(5) Larry Nivin's Integral Trees
> >
> >Others?
> >Must be other tele-presence SF out there?
>
> The Winds Of Altair by Ben Bova.
>
> The spacefarers implant control devices in a native species and run them
> from a remote site. Not quite the same in execution, but a similar
> concept.
Isn't there a real-life experiment with remote control of cockroaches?
Robert Carnegie
> In article
> <ecd7b1e0-02f5-41cc...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> > Avatar may not be a ripoff of Dances With Wolves, but it uses the same
> > trope.
>
> How much sf have you read? There are plenty of examples of human
> protagonist switching sides to join aliens against other humans in sf.
> DwW was just a non-sf use of the idea.
It's a spoiler to name "gur inyyrl bs perngvba ol rqzbaq unzvygba" or
any other such story.... that's one that impressed me at the time
because I thought - at the time - that it became apparent rather
subtly that the hero was initially on the wrong side. I think there
was a girl for him, too - on the wrong side - and maybe another,
human, on the right side too. Oh, and it wasn't aliens...
Quadibloc
> In article
> <ecd7b1e0-02f5-41cc-b059-3f68b1e6f...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > Avatar may not be a ripoff of Dances With Wolves, but it uses the same
> > trope.
>
> How much sf have you read? There are plenty of examples of human
> protagonist switching sides to join aliens against other humans in sf.
> DwW was just a non-sf use of the idea.
I've read "The Man Who Loved Mars"; I didn't realize that using an old
tired plot device, used by many in and out of science fiction,
disqualified a movie from being science fiction, and I made no such
claim. In fact, in this, or a related thread, I've disputed the claim
of others that it should be taken as a fantasy movie instead.
John Savard