Courtesy of TFN, Kevin Smith has some entertaining commentary on Attack of the Clones in FilmComment magazine. It’s nice to know that there are apparently seven people alive who bought the love story in Clones….
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Over on AICN, there is some consternation over the choice of writer/director that has been attached to the project ALIEN vs. PREDATOR. Now, I haven’t seen any of Paul Anderson‘s films, so I can’t comment on his status as a “hack” (or as an “auteur” or anything else); what is baffling me is just why anyone thinks that Alien vs. Predator is a good idea for a movie in the first place. Perhaps my heart just isn’t in the right place, but I can’t see how even a director of, say, John McTiernan’s or James Cameron’s caliber working from a script penned by, oh, William Goldman could make anything interesting out of a crossover between these two franchises. When people are clamoring for a project like this, and bemoaning the director who has “won” the assignment, it clears up a lot of the mystery as to why a lot of fanboys don’t like Star Wars any more.
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Six proposals for redeveloping the World Trade Center site were unveiled today. I prefer the “Memorial Promenade” version, with its two towers of equal height surrounded by a ring of smaller buildings and plenty of land set aside for memorial space (and I’m pretty sure this design is one of those that does not actually build on the two spots where the original Towers stood). From the Hudson River, it would look like this:
Click on the link for more information on this plan, and the other six that have been submitted for public comment.
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I saw the trailer for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions yesterday as well (there is one trailer for both films, viewable here). I hope this was just a teaser trailer, because it did little to really whet the appetite for these two films. As far as I could tell, it consisted solely of Morpheus saying something mystical-sounding followed by a series of effects shots that look like extensions of the fight scenes from the original film. There was no hint of story at all, except to refer to a “war”. These films aren’t due for another year, so presumably this isn’t the last of the trailers for them.
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I went to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones again yesterday, for the first time since seeing it three times during its opening weekend. Once again I was struck by the film’s level of visual invention, noticing this time things like how in the opening scenes, on cloudy Coruscant, you can faintly see the lines of air traffic moving through the haze. I still find the acting quite acceptable and the dialogue mostly fine (although I still think Obi Wan says “my very young Padawan learner” way too much). I did, though, spot a couple of things that I think would have improved upon the proceedings:
:: George Lucas is such a visually oriented storyteller that sometimes his subtleties are lost in the midst of so much other stuff going on, but he missed an opportunity with regard to Anakin’s dreams about his mother’s peril: he should have actually shown one of the dreams. It would have worked better if, say, just after the scene where Palpatine suggests that Obi Wan and Anakin be assigned to Amidala’s protection, we cut to the shot of Anakin awakening from his nightmare and then being summoned by Obi Wan for a new assignment. Then, later on Naboo, as the dreams grow in intensity, Lucas could have actually inserted a few of Anakin’s visions into the film — maybe showing her being roughly taken by someone (he wouldn’t have known it was the Tuskens), or showing her agony — or perhaps a less literal vision, but still harrowing nonetheless. Show, don’t tell is a cardinal rule amongst storytellers. Here Lucas could have helped his cause by showing a bit, thus drawing us in more to Anakin’s turmoil.
:: I also think the Anakin-and-Padme section of the film would have worked better if there had actually been another attempt on Padme’s life on Naboo. Perhaps Anakin would not have told her about the dreams of his mother, and then used an attempt on her life — which he would have foiled — as his excuse to disobey Obi Wan, leave Naboo, and take her with him. Thus he would be indulging most of his more dangerous instincts and being deceitful — even if well meaning — to boot.
I also noticed a nifty parallel to the classic trilogy: during Shmi’s burial, R2D2 comes rolling up, beeping away, and Threepio says: “He has a message from an Obi Wan Kenobi.” Owen Lars is standing there, so he hears this. Later on, in A New Hope, Luke informs Uncle Owen that the R2 unit they’ve bought “says he belongs to an Obi Wan Kenobi”. Owen’s “Uh oh” glance at Beru is now much more understandable.
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Speaking of Millennium, the lead role of Frank Black was played by Lance Henriksen, who in my view is one of the more underutilized actors working today. He is also a man of some surprising talents: he makes and sells pottery on the side.
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I’ve never gotten into Buffy the Vampire Slayer or its sequel series, Angel, mostly because both series have generally been opposite a show that I still watch and enjoy regularly, and by now both series appear to have a sufficiently established mytharc that I fear I would be at sea if I tried to come aboard now. When I’ve watched both shows, though — I’ve caught an episode here and there — I’ve found them to be intelligent and entertaining. Joss Whedon seems to know what he is doing with these shows.
And now, this fall he has a new one on Fox: a space opera series called Firefly. Apparently Whedon’s concept is “Stagecoach in space”, which sounds a lot like an early Gene Roddenberry description of Star Trek: “Wagon Train to the stars”. Anyway, here’s hoping that this new show finally gives something to look forward to on television on Friday nights, which has not been the case since the brilliant (in its first two seasons, anyway) but ratings-challenged Millennium went off the air.
(The Firefly official site can be found here, while a fan site [should a show that doesn’t exist yet even have a fan site?] can be explored here.)
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Stephen Den Beste has written this article on the plausibility of the new movie Reign of Fire. I haven’t seen the film (and I’m not sure I plan to), but his critique puts me in mind of that awful Godzilla movie from a few years back, which not only forced me to watch the fascinating Jean Reno playing second fiddle to Matthew Broderick (whose only decent role was WarGames, when he was thirteen or something like that) but also asked me to believe that if I had two vehicles to choose from in order to escape a gargantuan lizard-dragon-dinosaur beastie that is on the loose in NYC, I should choose the yellow taxicab over the Apache attack helicopter.
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A while back I wrote about the bizarre theories of human history proposed by author Graham Hancock. In that post I hinted that I would sometime post some recommendations for books on skepticism, something which is in short supply these days as belief in UFOs, alien abductions, ghosts, contact with the dead, and other such ideas abound while basic scientific knowledge generally atrophies. Here are some of the better books and other sources for skepticism and the scientific outlook that I have found. (I should note that I am not talking about “Skepticism” in the epistemological sense, but rather skepticism as an outlook.)
:: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan. Sagan was known as a critic of pseudoscience and anti-rationalism all his life, and this book is his crowning achievement in those areas. The book, written in 1995, creates a sense of alarm that in an age where so many facets of American life — entertainment, business, medicine, national defense — are dependent on science, scientific ignorance is on the rise rather than on the decline. It seems to Sagan as if the country has made a conscious decision to turn away from science: for instance, at the time of his writing Congress had just eliminated its Office of Technology Assessment, the only organization specifically charged with providing scientific and technological information to the members of the House and Senate. Throughout the book Sagan decries the rise of fuzzy thinking that has accompanied the decline of science and questions the priorities at the heart of our society that have led this way. Sagan’s tone in The Demon-Haunted World is grumpier than in his other works; he employs grumpier language than the flights of near poetry that appear in such books as Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot. The tone is real, and warranted.
:: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer. The title of this book is something of a misnomer; the issue of just why people do believe weird things is not actually addressed until the book’s last chapter. That said, the book is a decent primer on skepticism and critical thinking. Shermer illustrates the difference between science and pseudoscience, and in one particularly useful chapter he illuminates a series of errors and fallacies that can creep into our thinking, polluting it, as it were. Much of the book directly addresses specific pseudoscientific claims, such as alien abductions, near-death experiences, and the like; he also devotes a substantial amount of space to defending evolution in the face of creationism and to addressing historical revisionism, particularly with respect to the Holocaust. Sagan’s book is better, but Shermer’s is also valuable.
:: Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud by Robert Park. This is another survey of pseudoscientific claims and investigations into why scientific thought is so often derailed by wishful thinking and poor reasoning. He concentrates in particular on perpetual motion, cold fusion, and homeopathy. The best parts of the book involve his disappointment in the news media; many news outlets continue reporting on people whose pseudoscientific claims have been long-since debunked, ignoring the debunking completely and justifying the continued coverage of outrageous claims under the rubric of “human interest stories”.
:: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. This book is only tangentially about skepticism and critical thinking, but it is illustrative about how accurate knowledge and a systematic approach to that knowledge can be derailed by political concerns. Loewen describes many ways in which history texts are promulgating blatant errors, but more pernicious is the fact that many textbooks deliberately omit events and trends in history that do not promote a popular view of America. The aim, according to Loewen, is to produce pupils who view America as the protagonist in world history; for good or ill, this aim on the part of educators and textbook producers — Loewen casts aspersions on both — has had the effect of dulling historical knowledge and convincing legions of students that history is at best boring and at worst irrelevant.
Here are some sources on skepticism from the Web:
:: The James Randi Educational Foundation. Former magician James Randi is a professional debunker of odd claims, and as such he is a treasure. If you want to win a million dollars and you don’t want to risk losing to one of fifteen other people on Survivor, Randi is your man: all you have to do is demonstrate a paranormal power. Easy, eh?
:: The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. CSICOP is a well-known organization that applies scientific investigation into putative events of paranormal activity. Their website is loaded with resources, and they also produce a periodical journal, The Skeptical Inquirer. (They are also based in Amherst, NY — a suburb of Buffalo. They get high marks on that basis alone.)
:: The Skeptics Society. To quote from the mission statement: The Skeptics Society is a scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, extraordinary claims, revolutionary ideas and the promotion of science. Our mission is to serve as an educational tool for those seeking clarification and viewpoints on those controversial ideas and claims. The Skeptics Society also produces Skeptic Magazine.
:: The Critical Thinking Consortium. An organization devoted to promoting critical thinking.
:: Snopes.com: The Urban Legends Reference Pages. If you’re wondering if there is any truth to such claims as a suicide caught on camera in the background of The Wizard of Oz, or Phil Collins writing the song In The Air Tonight as a response to witnessing a drowning (and then performing the song for some guy who had been in a position to stop the drowning and did nothing), or that Nostradamus predicted the attacks of 11 September 2001, go to this site. It is one of the most comprehensive such sites on the Web. (None of these claims is true, by the way.)