Those are the words of the old, out-of-print science fiction author Kilgore Trout, right at the end of the ten year rerun that is the basis for the book Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut.
The premise of Timequake is that the Universe got bored with expanding all the time. “What is the point?” It asked itself. So it stopped expanding, and contracted for a while. On Earth, everyone is flashed back to a point 10 years earlier, and are forced to relive the previous 10 years of their lives. They make the same bad decisions, they do all the exact same things, and can’t help it. They have all their memories of the last 10 years, so they know what is coming. This results in everyone going on what Trout calls “autopilot,” since everyone knows what is coming next, they don’t have to think about it.
For me, this would be a combination of a great time and torture. Like everyone else (I’m sure), I’ve done a lot of things that I’m embarrassed about, but the last 10 years for me include college, high school and seventh and eighth grade. Some good times and some bad; I won’t get into it here.
Early on in the book, Vonnegut writes a little bit about his opinion on TV. He says that it was ok a long time ago, when there were very few shows and people would get out and discuss them, but it expanded to the point where nobody is watching the same thing and nobody talks to other people.
I didn’t catch this while reading the book, but after I read it (and the more I thought about it), Vonnegut uses the timequake as an allegory for TV. The previous 10 years of everyone’s life is like a bad TV show they are re-watching. People realize that they can’t do anything about it, so they all just stop thinking. Studies have shown that there is less brain activity in someone who is watching TV than someone who is sleeping, and Vonnegut shows people forgot how to think during the timequake. As soon as the rerun ends (the Universe expands back to where it was), everyone who was standing on one leg when the timequake hit falls over. This is pretty common because many people were mid-stride while walking around. He even gives an example of a man who was driving a truck, and when the rerun ended, he crashed into a building because he didn’t realize he had to think about what he was doing.
This book gives me chills because of how reflective of our society it actually is. I have a pretty extreme example, but I think it’s exactly what Vonnegut was getting at. I lived with a guy whose drivers license said he weighed 290 pounds, but he had to have weighed closer to 350 or maybe even more than that. The reason for his weight was that he sat on the couch for thirteen (I wrote it out so you’d know it’s not a typo) thirteen hours every day. He set his alarm for 9:30 AM, so he could waddle over to the living room and channel surf all day long. He did leave the apartment to go to class, work, and broomball; but those are the only reasons he left. Occasionally, my other roommates and I would use the living room while he was in class, and when he got back and found the TV in use, he had no idea what to do with himself. He had become dependent on TV.
This of course is an extreme example, but it is not uncommon for people not to know what to do without TV’s or computers. When I went to my grandparent’s cabin last weekend, I brought a few good books to read in case it rained, and I spent the entire time outside exploring the woods, swimming, or having a fire; not being anti-social in front of a screen the entire time.
This book is similar to Fahrenheit 451 in that it is heavily critical of TV, and it shows how people are thinking less because the TV is doing it for them. People don't know how to entertain themselves, they don't know how to interact, because there's no need: We have TV instead.
Timequake on Amazon.com
ISBN # 0425164349
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury is the second incarnation of HG Wells. Most of Wells’ books were a social commentary of some kind (I don’t like British imperialism, so how would they like it if Martians imperialized them? What would happen to our current class structure over 800,000 years? Etc.). Fahrenheit 451 is a commentary on censorship and the amount of reading people do these days.
The book is the story of Guy Montag, who is a fireman. It is his job to start fires. He starts books on fire, because books are banned. The reason for banning books is that the smart people made the dumb people feel dumb, so they banned the books, burned as many as they could, and now they have firemen whose job it is to burn down the houses of people who are hiding books. The result is a world where people essentially watch TV all day every day. Montag’s wife Mildred spends most of her time in their parlor, where TV’s fill up three of the four walls. On these TV’s are her “families,” it sounds like they are just soap operas that she watches all day that she can interact with in really small ways (they had a chip installed that makes the characters say “Mrs. Montag” instead of “Paying customer” whenever they are talking to her. It makes her even more involved with it). These parlors with TV’s covering the walls are very common in this world. One woman, when discusses having children says that “having children is like doing laundry! You just throw them in the parlor and give them some clean clothes every now and then!” This may not sound realistic, but I believe it does happen on occasion in our society. I lived with a guy who weighed over 300 pounds, and the reason was that he sat on the couch for thirteen hours every day watching TV. He also had the personality of a little kid, which is another characteristic of the people living in Fahrenheit 451: they don’t really get what is real and what is not. They don’t thing the characters in books could be real because they can’t see them, but the people on their walls are real because they see and “interact” with them.
So why do we care about Montag so much? Early on in the book, he meets a girl named Clarisse, who basically introduces him to the world. She asks all the silly questions, and just observes people. Eventually she dies, or something. I don’t really know. I wish Bradbury had explained what happened to her or had her come back at the end. In Montag’s hero’s journey, she serves as the mentor, which is the character that sends our hero on (in this case) his quest. Montag’s quest is to stop “killing” authors by burning their works. After he burns down a house, he realizes that every time he burns a book, he is killing the author in a small way. He makes that connection when he burns down a house that has a woman still inside it. It horrifies him so much that he begins to wonder what is in the books that is worth dying for. Long story short, he finds that books are wonderful, except when they are banned and get his house burned down.
Montag’s discovery of books leads him to betray his fireman friends, and he is eventually exiled from society because of his bookish ways. Lucky for him, right after he leaves the city, there is a huge (and short) war that annihilates the city he just lived in. The hobo’s he ends up with are all book nerds, and they have developed a way to recollect any book they have read at least once. They are Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dostoevsky, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They preserved all the books between all the hobo’s in the country. Montag is the book of Ecclesiastes and Revelation.
Bradbury probably chose the book of Ecclesiastes to be ironic, because the book is about how work is meaningless, although having wisdom is the best way to live. For example, chapter 1 verse 2 states:
This ties in with the end of Fahrenheit 451 when the literature nerds were saying that humans will always go through repeated Dark Ages and Renaissance’s, and their job is to preserve the wisdom that the books have. Also in chapter 1, (verse 18):
This is passage is true for Montag and the other nerds because they are sorrowful for the civilization that is lost at the end of the book, whereas all the people living in it were indifferent because they had lost touch with what was real and what was just on their TV. Next week I’ll be discussing Kurt Vonnegut’s opinions of TV in a review of Timequake.
Fahrenheit 451 on Amazon.com
ISBN # 0345342968
Ray Bradbury is the second incarnation of HG Wells. Most of Wells’ books were a social commentary of some kind (I don’t like British imperialism, so how would they like it if Martians imperialized them? What would happen to our current class structure over 800,000 years? Etc.). Fahrenheit 451 is a commentary on censorship and the amount of reading people do these days.
The book is the story of Guy Montag, who is a fireman. It is his job to start fires. He starts books on fire, because books are banned. The reason for banning books is that the smart people made the dumb people feel dumb, so they banned the books, burned as many as they could, and now they have firemen whose job it is to burn down the houses of people who are hiding books. The result is a world where people essentially watch TV all day every day. Montag’s wife Mildred spends most of her time in their parlor, where TV’s fill up three of the four walls. On these TV’s are her “families,” it sounds like they are just soap operas that she watches all day that she can interact with in really small ways (they had a chip installed that makes the characters say “Mrs. Montag” instead of “Paying customer” whenever they are talking to her. It makes her even more involved with it). These parlors with TV’s covering the walls are very common in this world. One woman, when discusses having children says that “having children is like doing laundry! You just throw them in the parlor and give them some clean clothes every now and then!” This may not sound realistic, but I believe it does happen on occasion in our society. I lived with a guy who weighed over 300 pounds, and the reason was that he sat on the couch for thirteen hours every day watching TV. He also had the personality of a little kid, which is another characteristic of the people living in Fahrenheit 451: they don’t really get what is real and what is not. They don’t thing the characters in books could be real because they can’t see them, but the people on their walls are real because they see and “interact” with them.
So why do we care about Montag so much? Early on in the book, he meets a girl named Clarisse, who basically introduces him to the world. She asks all the silly questions, and just observes people. Eventually she dies, or something. I don’t really know. I wish Bradbury had explained what happened to her or had her come back at the end. In Montag’s hero’s journey, she serves as the mentor, which is the character that sends our hero on (in this case) his quest. Montag’s quest is to stop “killing” authors by burning their works. After he burns down a house, he realizes that every time he burns a book, he is killing the author in a small way. He makes that connection when he burns down a house that has a woman still inside it. It horrifies him so much that he begins to wonder what is in the books that is worth dying for. Long story short, he finds that books are wonderful, except when they are banned and get his house burned down.
Montag’s discovery of books leads him to betray his fireman friends, and he is eventually exiled from society because of his bookish ways. Lucky for him, right after he leaves the city, there is a huge (and short) war that annihilates the city he just lived in. The hobo’s he ends up with are all book nerds, and they have developed a way to recollect any book they have read at least once. They are Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dostoevsky, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They preserved all the books between all the hobo’s in the country. Montag is the book of Ecclesiastes and Revelation.
Bradbury probably chose the book of Ecclesiastes to be ironic, because the book is about how work is meaningless, although having wisdom is the best way to live. For example, chapter 1 verse 2 states:
2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
This ties in with the end of Fahrenheit 451 when the literature nerds were saying that humans will always go through repeated Dark Ages and Renaissance’s, and their job is to preserve the wisdom that the books have. Also in chapter 1, (verse 18):
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.
This is passage is true for Montag and the other nerds because they are sorrowful for the civilization that is lost at the end of the book, whereas all the people living in it were indifferent because they had lost touch with what was real and what was just on their TV. Next week I’ll be discussing Kurt Vonnegut’s opinions of TV in a review of Timequake.
Fahrenheit 451 on Amazon.com
ISBN # 0345342968
Friday, July 16, 2010
Childhood’s End: Biggest Letdown in History
Few books leave me disgusted and angry after reading them. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke did both of those. The back cover of the book makes some lofty claims:
Ok, this sounds pretty good. Granted, I was hoping it would be like V since the cover does feature a ship almost exactly like the ones seen in V hovering above what is obviously New York. Also, it promises the end of mankind on Earth. Maybe through destruction? Let’s find out!
The reason this book is so disappointing is because it stretches reality until it breaks. It sounds like the massive ships showed up above fifty cities on Earth, started giving orders, and humanity bent over and obeyed the orders. Humans wouldn’t do that. Humans need incentives to do things, and it sounds like the overlords don’t give them any, not right away anyway. After a while they do (at a bullfight in Spain, the entire crowd feels the pain of the bull as it is killed in the Overlords effort to end animal cruelty). Eventually, the Earth is a perfect utopia: there is no crime, everyone goes to college, and there are no problems. Clarke admits that some people think it’s boring (I agree that it would be), but says that most people really like it.
Then comes the nefarious and sinister plot that ends mankind, right? When we’re defenseless because we lost the need for guns and armies, the overlords enslave us and start eating us, right? Then a resistance forms and there’s action and it’s great. Nope. The last generation of mankind that the back cover talks about? It’s the last generation because their children evolve into something else. They develop mental powers and stop communicating verbally. One human remains on earth to observe them, and he describes how they start turning the moon around with their mental powers. Eventually the Earth disappears. That’s how it ends. I just saved you 218 pages of disappointment.
Another problem I have with this book is that Clarke wastes a lot of time. The book seems to be going nowhere, and Clarke must have realized that, because it abruptly shifts directions and starts describing an island called “New Athens.” Humans have lost the drive to create any new forms of art, since there are no problems and no frustration to inspire art. So a group of people form a new city in the Mediterranean Sea where they can have theater troupes and create art and all that fun stuff. What does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t. Clarke just wanted to waste 30 pages describing it. All that is pertinent to the story is that the character ‘s the book is following at that point lived near the sea, and their child is almost killed by a giant wave but the Overlords save him so that evolution can still happen. It’s not clear why that specific child is needed, since after he evolves, the rest of them do.
Another problem I have with the book is that it doesn’t focus on a single main character the whole time. Granted I did read this book about a month ago, but I don’t remember any of the characters names (I read Slaughterhouse-Five at least eight months ago, and I remember Billy Pilgrim’s name quite easily. That book is focused). I had to look up the main Overlord’s name because all I remember about it is that it had a K in it, I think (it is Karellen, but I had to look that up). Because of the lack of focus, it is impossible to care about any of the characters, since the book spends little to no time effectively showing who they are, and when it does show a little bit about their likes and dislikes, it made me dislike them more (I found the guy who moved his family to New Athens very unlikeable because he just up and moved his family there. It didn’t sound like he gave them much choice, so they had to uproot and go there just for him). Overall, there are Zero likeable characters, there is Zero action. This book makes some exciting promises, and delivers on them, just in a really boring and stupid way.
Childhood's End on Amazon.com
ISBN# 0-345-24937-2-150
THE LAST GENERATION ON MANKIND ON EARTH
Without warning, giant silver ships from deep space appear in the skies above every major city on Earth.
They are manned by the Overlords…mysterious creatures from an alien race who soon take over control of the world.
Within fifty years, these brilliant masters have all but eliminated ignorance, disease, poverty and fear.
Then suddenly this golden age ends…and the end of Mankind begins!
Ok, this sounds pretty good. Granted, I was hoping it would be like V since the cover does feature a ship almost exactly like the ones seen in V hovering above what is obviously New York. Also, it promises the end of mankind on Earth. Maybe through destruction? Let’s find out!
The reason this book is so disappointing is because it stretches reality until it breaks. It sounds like the massive ships showed up above fifty cities on Earth, started giving orders, and humanity bent over and obeyed the orders. Humans wouldn’t do that. Humans need incentives to do things, and it sounds like the overlords don’t give them any, not right away anyway. After a while they do (at a bullfight in Spain, the entire crowd feels the pain of the bull as it is killed in the Overlords effort to end animal cruelty). Eventually, the Earth is a perfect utopia: there is no crime, everyone goes to college, and there are no problems. Clarke admits that some people think it’s boring (I agree that it would be), but says that most people really like it.
Then comes the nefarious and sinister plot that ends mankind, right? When we’re defenseless because we lost the need for guns and armies, the overlords enslave us and start eating us, right? Then a resistance forms and there’s action and it’s great. Nope. The last generation of mankind that the back cover talks about? It’s the last generation because their children evolve into something else. They develop mental powers and stop communicating verbally. One human remains on earth to observe them, and he describes how they start turning the moon around with their mental powers. Eventually the Earth disappears. That’s how it ends. I just saved you 218 pages of disappointment.
Another problem I have with this book is that Clarke wastes a lot of time. The book seems to be going nowhere, and Clarke must have realized that, because it abruptly shifts directions and starts describing an island called “New Athens.” Humans have lost the drive to create any new forms of art, since there are no problems and no frustration to inspire art. So a group of people form a new city in the Mediterranean Sea where they can have theater troupes and create art and all that fun stuff. What does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t. Clarke just wanted to waste 30 pages describing it. All that is pertinent to the story is that the character ‘s the book is following at that point lived near the sea, and their child is almost killed by a giant wave but the Overlords save him so that evolution can still happen. It’s not clear why that specific child is needed, since after he evolves, the rest of them do.
Another problem I have with the book is that it doesn’t focus on a single main character the whole time. Granted I did read this book about a month ago, but I don’t remember any of the characters names (I read Slaughterhouse-Five at least eight months ago, and I remember Billy Pilgrim’s name quite easily. That book is focused). I had to look up the main Overlord’s name because all I remember about it is that it had a K in it, I think (it is Karellen, but I had to look that up). Because of the lack of focus, it is impossible to care about any of the characters, since the book spends little to no time effectively showing who they are, and when it does show a little bit about their likes and dislikes, it made me dislike them more (I found the guy who moved his family to New Athens very unlikeable because he just up and moved his family there. It didn’t sound like he gave them much choice, so they had to uproot and go there just for him). Overall, there are Zero likeable characters, there is Zero action. This book makes some exciting promises, and delivers on them, just in a really boring and stupid way.
Childhood's End on Amazon.com
ISBN# 0-345-24937-2-150
Friday, July 9, 2010
Five out of Five for Slaughterhouse-Five
I have a harsh grading scale for books that I read. I give every book a number between one and five, where one means the book was stupid, unenjoyable and I can’t believe I wasted a weekend reading it. Five means it was life-changing because it was so good and thought provoking. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut easily earned the five that I gave it.
This was the first Kurt Vonnegut book I read, and it was the springboard from which I jumped when I started my reading binge (that I am currently on). Since reading Slaughterhouse-Five, I have been addicted to Vonnegut, reading everything I can about his life and reading several more of his books (after SH5 I read Timequake,Jailbird,Cat’s Cradle and plan on reading the rest of his works).
One of the opening lines of chapter two sets up the premise of the book: “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” The rest of the book is written non-sequentially, to reflect the Billy Pilgrims random shifts through time. What I loved about the constant time shifts was that it made the whole book seem like a compare/contrast essay. Pilgrim shifts the most between his time in World War II and his life shortly after, however it is clear that he shifts all over his life and sometimes sees parts of his life several times. With a little help from the Tralfamadorans (aliens from the planet Tralfamadore), Pilgrim learns to just accept what is happening to him and essentially enjoy it. The Tralfamadorans view time differently than humans do. Humans see time as linear: you are born, you live your life, and you die. The Tralfamadorans can move back and forth in time and live all the different parts whenever they want to. They have seen the end of the universe many times, and they never attempt to change it; it always happens the same way. By being able to see what comes next and having hindsight, Pilgrim learns that life isn’t so bad after all.
Several Vonnegut motifs are in this book: it has something to do with World War II, and Kilgore Trout makes an appearance. Pilgrim spends some time in a hospital in the book, and meets a fan of Kilgore Trout. Trout is an old, out of print science fiction writer, and Pilgrim looks him up and meets him later on. One thing that really struck me was a Kilgore Trout story that was in the book called The Gospel From Outer Space. It is printed in its entirety, probably because Vonnegut thought it was pretty important. I’ll reprint it here for you:
It doesn’t exactly tie in with the rest of the story in the book, but I thought it was really profound. In the real Gospels, Jesus always asks people not to tell others about the miracles he performs, and I never understood why. That is, until I read this, and this reasoning makes sense. Since Jesus taught about loving our neighbors and turning the other cheek (and all the other lovely and puzzling things he said), Christianity has done a lot of terrible things to people who were “the right person to lynch.” Christianity has done many, many good things, too, but Jesus probably saw what overzealous religious people were capable of (he is the son of the most powerful being in the universe, after all). The Purpose of this quote is probably to describe Vonnegut’s view of what Christianity was trying to get at but in his opinion failed to do. He saw Jesus’ teachings as centered on “punishing horribly anybody who torments the bum with no connections” instead of “punishing the bum with no connections.”
The back cover of SH5 describes it as an anti-war book, but I really didn’t see that as the focus of the story. If you want a good Kurt Vonnegut anti-war book, go read Cat’s Cradle (which I will also be reviewing). I see this more as a description of a new philosophy of time book. You need not fear death or mourn for the people who have died, because they are always alive at different times. They are just in a bad state at the moment, but if you were able to go back in time, there they would be: alive and well.
Overall, Slaughterhouse-Five is an amazing piece of literature, with many new and interesting ideas. I found it to be very profound and just awesome. It inspired what could be a lifetime love not just of this author but also of reading in general.
Slaughterhouse-Five on Amazon.com
ISBN# 0-440-18029-5
This was the first Kurt Vonnegut book I read, and it was the springboard from which I jumped when I started my reading binge (that I am currently on). Since reading Slaughterhouse-Five, I have been addicted to Vonnegut, reading everything I can about his life and reading several more of his books (after SH5 I read Timequake,Jailbird,Cat’s Cradle and plan on reading the rest of his works).
One of the opening lines of chapter two sets up the premise of the book: “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” The rest of the book is written non-sequentially, to reflect the Billy Pilgrims random shifts through time. What I loved about the constant time shifts was that it made the whole book seem like a compare/contrast essay. Pilgrim shifts the most between his time in World War II and his life shortly after, however it is clear that he shifts all over his life and sometimes sees parts of his life several times. With a little help from the Tralfamadorans (aliens from the planet Tralfamadore), Pilgrim learns to just accept what is happening to him and essentially enjoy it. The Tralfamadorans view time differently than humans do. Humans see time as linear: you are born, you live your life, and you die. The Tralfamadorans can move back and forth in time and live all the different parts whenever they want to. They have seen the end of the universe many times, and they never attempt to change it; it always happens the same way. By being able to see what comes next and having hindsight, Pilgrim learns that life isn’t so bad after all.
Several Vonnegut motifs are in this book: it has something to do with World War II, and Kilgore Trout makes an appearance. Pilgrim spends some time in a hospital in the book, and meets a fan of Kilgore Trout. Trout is an old, out of print science fiction writer, and Pilgrim looks him up and meets him later on. One thing that really struck me was a Kilgore Trout story that was in the book called The Gospel From Outer Space. It is printed in its entirety, probably because Vonnegut thought it was pretty important. I’ll reprint it here for you:
"The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh boy – they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes.
The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.
So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.
And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!"
It doesn’t exactly tie in with the rest of the story in the book, but I thought it was really profound. In the real Gospels, Jesus always asks people not to tell others about the miracles he performs, and I never understood why. That is, until I read this, and this reasoning makes sense. Since Jesus taught about loving our neighbors and turning the other cheek (and all the other lovely and puzzling things he said), Christianity has done a lot of terrible things to people who were “the right person to lynch.” Christianity has done many, many good things, too, but Jesus probably saw what overzealous religious people were capable of (he is the son of the most powerful being in the universe, after all). The Purpose of this quote is probably to describe Vonnegut’s view of what Christianity was trying to get at but in his opinion failed to do. He saw Jesus’ teachings as centered on “punishing horribly anybody who torments the bum with no connections” instead of “punishing the bum with no connections.”
The back cover of SH5 describes it as an anti-war book, but I really didn’t see that as the focus of the story. If you want a good Kurt Vonnegut anti-war book, go read Cat’s Cradle (which I will also be reviewing). I see this more as a description of a new philosophy of time book. You need not fear death or mourn for the people who have died, because they are always alive at different times. They are just in a bad state at the moment, but if you were able to go back in time, there they would be: alive and well.
Overall, Slaughterhouse-Five is an amazing piece of literature, with many new and interesting ideas. I found it to be very profound and just awesome. It inspired what could be a lifetime love not just of this author but also of reading in general.
Slaughterhouse-Five on Amazon.com
ISBN# 0-440-18029-5
Friday, July 2, 2010
Independence Day
Independence Day is one of Roland Emmerich’s “disaster movies,” it’s a series of non-connected films he made that all focus on one huge disaster. He’s the guy that made Independence Day (alien attack), The Day After Tomorrow (global warming), Eight Legged Freaks (giant spiders!), 10,000 BC (ok it’s not a disaster movie but it was still bad) and 2012 (the end of the world). The Day After Tomorrow was terrible, and I didn’t even bother seeing 2012, since it looked bad and I despise anything that makes people believe the world might end in 2012 (as an amateur Astronomer, I cringe whenever someone brings up galactic center alignments or near-Earth asteroids that are coming our way). Independence Day stands out from those, because it is a much, much better movie. What makes it so great is that Emmerich can take any guess he wants about the human reaction to aliens visiting Earth, and I believe he makes the correct guess when he shows hundreds of people gathered in the streets welcoming the aliens (I know I would be out there with a big welcome sign). He also guesses correctly that we would fight back when we are attacked, or when the aliens try and force us to do things; unlike Arthur C. Clarke, who assumes humans have no willpower and will just obey some alien they can’t see (I have a review of Childhood’s End coming up in two weeks, you’ll hear all about this).
The best thing about Independence Day is that it’s just a fun movie you don’t have to think much about. Some of the best sci-fi plots are the simplest: robot from the future wants to kill Sarah Connor, so it shows how she survives; alien monster is running amok on the ship, so let’s see how Ripley and the cat survive, giant alien spaceship attacking Earth, how do we fight back? etc. Some movies with more complex plots that develop their own lore can be really good (i.e.: Star Wars), but if they over-think it, the movie/series suffers or even loses some of its depth (i.e.: 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Watch for a post about that in January).
Overall, Independence Day delivers on the action, aliens and Will Smith. I might find time this Fourth of July to re-watch it, even though I’ll be in the Middle of Nowhere Wisconsin at the fiancée’s cabin.
Independence Day at bestbuy.com
The best thing about Independence Day is that it’s just a fun movie you don’t have to think much about. Some of the best sci-fi plots are the simplest: robot from the future wants to kill Sarah Connor, so it shows how she survives; alien monster is running amok on the ship, so let’s see how Ripley and the cat survive, giant alien spaceship attacking Earth, how do we fight back? etc. Some movies with more complex plots that develop their own lore can be really good (i.e.: Star Wars), but if they over-think it, the movie/series suffers or even loses some of its depth (i.e.: 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Watch for a post about that in January).
Overall, Independence Day delivers on the action, aliens and Will Smith. I might find time this Fourth of July to re-watch it, even though I’ll be in the Middle of Nowhere Wisconsin at the fiancée’s cabin.
Independence Day at bestbuy.com
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