Aliens We've Known and Loved
George Acton
In article <1997081012...@access1.digex.net>,
hus...@access.digex.net wrote:
>
> In article <33ED5B...@softdisk.com> gac...@softdisk.com writes:
> } It's interesting, however, that in
> }the current media climate, aliens inspire the emotions of awe and
> }wonder that emissaries from the Divinity once did.
>
> Aliens are more plausible.
>
Aliens are more interesting, too. Angels are predictably Good and
representatives of Satan predictably bad, so they don't allow much
dramatic possiblities. One way to read Hamlet is that the Ghost
might be Hamlet's father or he might be a phony tempting Hamlet to
commit a sin.
> } This goes
> }back to at least the Fifties with that wonderful movie where the
> }alien dude was a kind of Gandhi/Montgomery Clift guy with
> }myesthenia trying to call intergalactic 911.
>
> I'm having difficulty coming up with the title of your movie.
>
> However, _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ certainly comes to mind.
> Screenwriter Edmund H. North was quite aware of the Christ symbolism, even
> to his choice for Klaatu's alias (Mr. Carpenter).
>
Yes, that's it. Klaatu was the Jungian archtype of a man-of-sorrows/
sacrificial-victim.
The flicks where the alien is evil have a plot based on _The
Tempest_,
with an elderly, obsessed scientist, his nubile assistant or daughter
and a dashing young military type. The scientist wants to keep the
incredibly dangerous Caliban type creature around to study it.
> } Generally the
> }smart aliens are portayed as natural but so much closer to God
> }in their wisdom that they inspire religious feelings of veneration
> }and submission.
>
> The aliens in _2001_ would seem to be indistinguishable from gods.
But they're not proper omnipresent gods, since they're too busy to hang
around and have to leave the monolith, like a smoke detector or
mall security camera.
> } It would be interesting to know the history of ideas on this.
> }I suppose in Medieval times all non-human visitors were angels or
> }representatives of Satan. Or souls who died in a state of sin like
> }Hamlet's daddy. Swift put his exotica unexplored parts of the planet.
>
> Swift did allow Gulliver to visit one real place: Japan. Of course, since
> Japan was a hermit nation at the time, it was as fantastic as any of the
> fictional places.
And come to think of it he's writing out of a canon that includes the
Odessey, which has several intelligent non-human species (siren,
Cyclops).
> }By H.G. Well's time they were colonialists planning to grab our
> }resources
> }and ship us off to their sugar plantations. And during the Cold War
> }they were going to keep us from vaporizing ourselves.
>
> Klaatu's concern was that our development of both rocketry and nuclear
> weaponry might lead to our exporting warfare from our own planet. Of
> course, Gort and his fellows would have raised their visors at that (with
> theremin accompaniment, one would hope).
One certainly would. It's not a Richard Strauss kind of movie. Way too
innocent, for one thing. Klaatu was the projection of a certain
American
post-war niceness, the GI handing out candy to the starving children,
the
Marshall plan, etc.
> -- Herb Huston
> -- hus...@access.digex.net
> -- http://www.access.digex.net/~huston
> .
It appears that people get the aliens they want, and therefore deserve.
I haven't seen _Contact_ so I'm a little out of touch with the
Zeitgeist.
But judging by the abduction stories, they're a horny lot.
Since this thread is barely tethered to evolution/Creationism any
more,
I want to point out the decadence of going from a watch to a mousetrap.
The watch is expensive, elegant, a worthy subject of art (Gerold
Murphy's
great piece of analytic cubism) and impressive to even technologically
jaded people as a symbol of design. Some people have felt the samw
aesthetic inspiration at the DNA molecule. The chromatography columns
and other gear for protein separations are quite lovely. I thought it
was kind of oafish of Behe to compare the clotting mechanis with a Rube
Goldberg machine, and to complain in the middle of the clotting
exposition
that it was all so tiresome and geeky. It seems highly resrespectful
and
insolent to the Designer, given that it derives from a tradition of
reverence for the products of Creation and in that case a supposedly
related impulse to relieve suffering.
--George Acton
Jonathan Stone
In article <33EEAB...@softdisk.com>, George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com> writes:
> The flicks where the alien is evil have a plot based on _The
> Tempest_,
> with an elderly, obsessed scientist, his nubile assistant or daughter
> and a dashing young military type. The scientist wants to keep the
> incredibly dangerous Caliban type creature around to study it.
Well, sort of, except the Krell were _extinct_, and it was the
scientist/father's own Id-monster that was dangerous. Robbie/Caliban
merely provided drinks for, uhhh, the ship's cook?
Mind you, I always got confused as to whether Robbie was Caliban, or
Ariel, or both, mostly since the monster from the Id is more powerful
even than Prospero.
Kenneth Fair
>In article <1997081012...@access1.digex.net>,
> hus...@access.digex.net wrote:
>>
>> In article <33ED5B...@softdisk.com> gac...@softdisk.com writes:
>> } It's interesting, however, that in
>> }the current media climate, aliens inspire the emotions of awe and
>> }wonder that emissaries from the Divinity once did.
>>
>> Aliens are more plausible.
>>
>Aliens are more interesting, too. Angels are predictably Good and
>representatives of Satan predictably bad, so they don't allow much
>dramatic possiblities. One way to read Hamlet is that the Ghost
>might be Hamlet's father or he might be a phony tempting Hamlet to
>commit a sin.
Perhaps. IMHO, the reason aliens have become the mode d'emploi of Hollywood
these days has to do with the collapse of the Soviet threat. Filmmakers
need a good generic villain that they can depersonalize so as to give the
audience the warm fuzzies when the good guys trounce them. Slime-dripping
aliens with sharp pointy teeth are that in spades.
--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law | <http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/kjfair>
Of Counsel, U. of Ediacara | Power Mac! | CABAL(tm) | I'm w/in McQ - R U?
"Our Mother Goose who art in the henhouse, hallowed be thy name. Thy roast-
ing come. Thy meat be done in earth as it is in heaven." - Riley Sinder
George Acton
In article <5smbo0$ls2$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
>
> In article <33EEAB...@softdisk.com>, George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com>
> > The flicks where the alien is evil have a plot based on _The
> > Tempest_,
> > with an elderly, obsessed scientist, his nubile assistant or daughter
> > and a dashing young military type. The scientist wants to keep the
> > incredibly dangerous Caliban type creature around to study it.
>
> Well, sort of, except the Krell were _extinct_, and it was the
> scientist/father's own Id-monster that was dangerous. Robbie/Caliban
> merely provided drinks for, uhhh, the ship's cook?
>
> Mind you, I always got confused as to whether Robbie was Caliban, or
> Ariel, or both, mostly since the monster from the Id is more powerful
> even than Prospero.
I think you're thinking of something more psychological and deeper,
where a human is partly Caliban, like Jack Nicholson in _The Shining_,
in which he kind of um overacts to signal that he's in non-human
mode. I was thinking of grade B plot structure, where it's all reduced
to something like kabuki. But the resemblance to _The Tempest_ may be
convergent evolution. Your basic biohazard plot can get fairly boring
while the suspense is building up, so a little love interest spices up
the proceedings. _The Thing_ was like that. OTOH, Signourey Weaver she
be no Miranda.
The basic dramatic problem with aliens is motivation. I mean, why
should they be interested in us? At the thriller level, for food and at
the tabloid level for sex, which by definition is fairly kinky. But
beyond that they're sometimes policemen (_The Day the Earth Stood
Still_) or bringers of mystical astral wisdom (_2001_), which only goes
down with dynamite special effects. Nothing is more controversial
than true wisdom.
--George Acton
Rev. Chuck
George Acton wrote:
>
> In article <1997081012...@access1.digex.net>,
> hus...@access.digex.net wrote:
> >
> > Klaatu's concern was that our development of both rocketry and nuclear
> > weaponry might lead to our exporting warfare from our own planet. Of
> > course, Gort and his fellows would have raised their visors at that (with
> > theremin accompaniment, one would hope).
>
> One certainly would. It's not a Richard Strauss kind of movie. Way too
> innocent, for one thing. Klaatu was the projection of a certain
> American
> post-war niceness, the GI handing out candy to the starving children,
> the
> Marshall plan, etc.
>
What of _Plan Nine from Outer Space_? The aliens were justly concerned that our weapons
evolution -- from the firecracker to the bomb to the hydrogen bomb -- which "exploded
the very air itself!" -- was accelerating faster than our wisdom. The next step would
have been solarmite, which "exploded particles of light themselves!". Had the "stupid,
stupid, stupid, STUPID human race in all its pettiness mastered the "solarmite bomb",
THE UNIVERSE ITSELF WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. Hence, Plan Nine, for the previous eight
had failed to sway fickle humanity from creating an epidemic of self-destruction. Hence
the raising of the dead everywhere! Familiar theme? Based on sworn testimony!
George Acton
In article <kjfair-1108...@adial1-86.shsu.edu>,
kjf...@midway.uchicago.edu.REMOVEME (Kenneth Fair) wrote:
>
> IMHO, the reason aliens have become the mode d'emploi of Hollywood
> these days has to do with the collapse of the Soviet threat. Filmmakers
> need a good generic villain that they can depersonalize so as to give the
> audience the warm fuzzies when the good guys trounce them. Slime-dripping
> aliens with sharp pointy teeth are that in spades.
>
is
the last time you saw some aliens picketing a movie or announcing a
boycott
of Disney or somebody for dissing alien valies? Ancient Romans are
pretty
spineless too.
But the worst are scientists. I nearly didn't see _Jurassic Park_
because the book was so anti-intellectual. All the villains were
educated
in some kind of science. More insulting, they had bad hair and smoked.
Even the turncoat who spilled the secrets was an effete dude who got
eaten like the real villains. And the gibberish he spounted about chaos
theory made no sense at all. Crichton is perfectly willing to pander to
disrespect for education for a few extra ticket sales. One of the good
things you can say about David Lynch is that the nerdy, awkward people
are
nice and the smooth, glossy types are secret pervs. Which is a little
more
like real life.
--George Acton
Kenneth Fair
In article <33F136...@softdisk.com>, George Acton
<gac...@softdisk.com> wrote:
[re: aliens & Hollywood]
> But the worst are scientists. I nearly didn't see _Jurassic Park_
>because the book was so anti-intellectual. All the villains were educated
>in some kind of science. More insulting, they had bad hair and smoked.
>Even the turncoat who spilled the secrets was an effete dude who got
>eaten like the real villains. And the gibberish he spounted about chaos
>theory made no sense at all. Crichton is perfectly willing to pander to
>disrespect for education for a few extra ticket sales. One of the good
>things you can say about David Lynch is that the nerdy, awkward people are
>nice and the smooth, glossy types are secret pervs. Which is a little
>more like real life.
That's why in general I liked _Contact_. Yeah, it had flaws, but it was
the most sympathetic and at least semi-realistic portrayal of scientists
I've seen come out of Hollywood since . . . I can't remember when.
--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law | <http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/kjfair>
Of Counsel, U. of Ediacara | Power Mac! | CABAL(tm) | I'm w/in McQ - R U?
"My vulva is wide opened, a cave of darkness where the people . . . hang out
at night . . . . There is music playing in my Womb." - Doctress Neutopia
David L Evens
Jonathan Stone (jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: In article <33EEAB...@softdisk.com>, George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com> writes:
: > Tempest_,
: > with an elderly, obsessed scientist, his nubile assistant or daughter
: > and a dashing young military type. The scientist wants to keep the
: > incredibly dangerous Caliban type creature around to study it.
: Well, sort of, except the Krell were _extinct_, and it was the
: scientist/father's own Id-monster that was dangerous. Robbie/Caliban
: merely provided drinks for, uhhh, the ship's cook?
It was amusing when Robbie came back in so many other places (although it
appears that there is yet another robot, with yet AGAIN the same voice,
in the _Lost In Soace_ movie).
: Mind you, I always got confused as to whether Robbie was Caliban, or
: Ariel, or both, mostly since the monster from the Id is more powerful
: even than Prospero.
I think you're overparralelling them. In this instance, there isn't
really a distinction between Prospero and Caliban, if you take the
Monster as Caliban.
Robbie is supposed to be Ariel, as I understand it.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
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A pocket full of positrons,| But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion, +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down! | "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
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"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
down all the laws?"
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George Acton
In article <33EE95...@erols.com>,
"Rev. Chuck" <c....@erols.com> wrote:
>
> What of _Plan Nine from Outer Space_? The aliens were justly concerned that our weapons
> evolution -- from the firecracker to the bomb to the hydrogen bomb -- which "exploded
> the very air itself!" -- was accelerating faster than our wisdom. The next step would
> have been solarmite, which "exploded particles of light themselves!". Had the "stupid,
> stupid, stupid, STUPID human race in all its pettiness mastered the "solarmite bomb",
> THE UNIVERSE ITSELF WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. Hence, Plan Nine, for the previous eight
> had failed to sway fickle humanity from creating an epidemic of self-destruction. Hence
> the raising of the dead everywhere! Familiar theme? Based on sworn testimony!
But... it worked! Maybe the movie confused people, or something, but
they never got
around to making solarmite. Look around. We're here. Oh dood.
George Acton
----------------
"design theory" = intellectal Laetrile
Jonathan Stone
In article <5t0car$c...@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>, dev...@uoguelph.ca (David L Evens) writes:
> Jonathan Stone (jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
> : In article <33EEAB...@softdisk.com>, George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com> writes:
>
> It was amusing when Robbie came back in so many other places (although it
> appears that there is yet another robot, with yet AGAIN the same voice,
> in the _Lost In Soace_ movie).
Uh, Robbie the Robot (per se) did *not* appear in many other places.
Most especially not in Lost In Space (the TV series). Similar robots,
with similar voices, did. There are differences in the ``heads''
(both cross-ssectional shape and side view, specifically slope of the
bottom of the `head' in side view, and the contents inside the glass
dome), in the in the method of locomotion, and in the profile below
the `waist'.
I grant you the overall similarity and the concertina arms, but look
at the `fingers' sometime. I could tell you whether this resemblance
is design or evolution, but the Ambassador from Zeta Reticula will
have to shoot me :).
> : Mind you, I always got confused as to whether Robbie was Caliban, or
> : Ariel, or both, mostly since the monster from the Id is more powerful
> : even than Prospero.
>
> I think you're overparralelling them. In this instance, there isn't
> really a distinction between Prospero and Caliban, if you take the
> Monster as Caliban.
Sure. But Ariel wasn't an inhabitant of the island, and Caliban and
Robbie were. So many other elements are *so* close to the Tempest
that the discrepancies from the introduction of pure B-grade melodrama
(monster from the Id) leave the parallel a bit unclear.
Now, a Krell version of Prospero's Books would be challenge...
David L Evens
Jonathan Stone (jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: In article <5t0car$c...@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>, dev...@uoguelph.ca (David L Evens) writes:
: > Jonathan Stone (jona...@DSG.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: > : In article <33EEAB...@softdisk.com>, George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com> writes:
: >
: > It was amusing when Robbie came back in so many other places (although it
: > appears that there is yet another robot, with yet AGAIN the same voice,
: > in the _Lost In Soace_ movie).
: Uh, Robbie the Robot (per se) did *not* appear in many other places.
: Most especially not in Lost In Space (the TV series). Similar robots,
: with similar voices, did. There are differences in the ``heads''
Actually, the robot in _Lost In Space_ looked nothing like Robbie, but it
did have the same voice.
: (both cross-ssectional shape and side view, specifically slope of the
: bottom of the `head' in side view, and the contents inside the glass
: dome), in the in the method of locomotion, and in the profile below
: the `waist'.
: I grant you the overall similarity and the concertina arms, but look
: at the `fingers' sometime. I could tell you whether this resemblance
: is design or evolution, but the Ambassador from Zeta Reticula will
: have to shoot me :).
There has been development of Robbie over the years, but you can see a
definite lineage (not to mention the fact that they usually keep the name
the same) through a lot of poorly-made SF for quite a while.
: > : Mind you, I always got confused as to whether Robbie was Caliban, or
: > : Ariel, or both, mostly since the monster from the Id is more powerful
: > : even than Prospero.
: >
: > I think you're overparralelling them. In this instance, there isn't
: > really a distinction between Prospero and Caliban, if you take the
: > Monster as Caliban.
: Sure. But Ariel wasn't an inhabitant of the island, and Caliban and
: Robbie were. So many other elements are *so* close to the Tempest
: that the discrepancies from the introduction of pure B-grade melodrama
: (monster from the Id) leave the parallel a bit unclear.
: Now, a Krell version of Prospero's Books would be challenge...
Who are the Krell again?
cz...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
David L Evens (dev...@uoguelph.ca) wrote:
: Who are the Krell again?
They're the wee crustaceans that whales eat.
--
***********************************************************
I saw weird stuff in that place last night -- weird,
strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, *evil* stuff!
And I want in!
Homer J. Simpson
***********************************************************