Here Comes The Sun

[viktor_haag]

James Wallis says that Boyle's new Sunshine is "the best science-fiction movie since The Matrix".

Hm.

Using The Matrix as some sort of benchmark point of comparison with regard to SF movies bothers me considerably.

Here are movies that have been released since The Matrix which I consider better movies, and also better exemplars of science-fiction than The Matrix:

• Solaris (Soderbergh's remake, admittedly)
• Code 46
• Minority Report
• 2046 (admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch as SF, but better movie certainly)
• Primer (not necessarily a flashier movie, but certainly a better example of SF)
• A Scanner Darkly
• The Fountain
• The Prestige (the science doesn't have to be up-front to be SF)

And those are just the ones that fairly leapt to mind like keener kids in the front row.

I suppose you could also want to include Vanilla Sky on the list, but it's a pale remake of Abre los ojos, which came out two years before Keanu's resuscitation vehicle. And by including that, let's chalk up three writer credits for Philip K. Dick on that list (five, if you are brave enough to include Impostor and Paycheck, which are neither better films than The Matrix, and arguably not quite as good SF either, but that last point is certainly arguable -- it's really hard to completely obscure and butcher Dick's ideas, but Georgaris' woeful adaptation of "Paycheck" certainly comes close).

Comparing Sunshine to The Matrix, and not, say, Solaris leads me to have serious doubts about whether I want to see Sunshine. And that's not good. Frankly, I want more films like Solaris or Code 46 or Scanner Darkly as exemplars of the SF genre: a genre that, primarily, seeks to invoke wonder and thoughtfulness in the audience.

What I don't want is more films like The Matrix and Serenity which, frankly, are to SF as the entire modern James Bond movie franchise is to the espionage genre.

I really hope that Sunshine isn't just another big-guns, big-explosions, big-nothing movie. I had hopes for so much more.

Comments

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Seen the trailer for "Next"? Apparently it's based on a PKD's short too.

If you haven't seen it, don't bother.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I saw the trailer. I slotted it into the same category as Paycheck.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

It's kind of telling that they're adapting the basic premises of his early short stories, without touching even, say, Martian Time-Slip.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've read that one -- I shall have to seek it out.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

It's pretty good.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Plus, Lee Tamahori, how far hast thou fallen? So sad...

[thebitterguy]

Man, it's a good thing you're already dead to me.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Ha! We just have different tastes, man, that's all! We're both still cool 'n all!

[yojimbouk.livejournal.com]

Code 46? Man, you must have hated the Matrix. Did Hugo Weaving once spit in your cornflakes or something?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Nope, although I did find Weaving's performance in Matrix a bit mannered, but overall I thought he was positive.

My big disappointment with Matrix was essentially rooted in two complaints: I thought their use of violence showed a lack of imagination, and I thought it was really a 75 minute film that was in desparate need of a serious edit.

I understand that all the gun and melee porn might be attractive to some, but frankly I looked at the choreography and saw the Wachowskis as low-rent (albeit with a big budget) Woo or Ping wannebes. Plus, once you've seen Hard Boiled and a handful of others, you get the overwhelming feeling that all that violence has been done, and done better, with more interest and character.

Matrix was just so puffed up with its own earnestness, and yet to me there was no points of connection with the characters. I almost found the machines more interesting than the folks we were supposed to care about. And as for the sequels, pfff, don't get me started... 8)

Code 46 by contrast had a visual flair that was in accord with the setting and did not seek to impress on its own. It had characters struggling with emotional conflict that I actually cared about. And it was a sufficiently cautionary tale that provoked thought about the inter-relationship of health, wealth, and class.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

All that means that the Animatrix was an improvement on the original movie. It's like the Bizarro World Star Wars Holiday Special.

I was sorely disappointed that the sequels didn't take that track in exploring the universe...

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I waited until the big boxed set was on sale until I bought any of the Matrix movies. I bought the boxed set really for a short handful of reasons:

- The Animatrix (which, by itself, I hadn't found for cheaper than 15 bucks less than the boxed set with all the stuff).

- Monica Bellucci, which explains why I thought it might be a good idea to get the second and third films, and I was not disappointed; I thought the scenes with her and The Merovingian were the best things about Reloaded and Revolutions.

- I thought the music in the first film was well chosen and interesting; the second and third film were a bit more of the same for my tastes.

- I kind of wanted to see more of the machines, and was disappointed at what they did with the machines in Reloaded and Revolutions, on balance. Again, lack of imagination.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

The Programs were a really fascinating addition (on, uh, multiple levels) to the whole matrix thing.

The bastards faked me out with their attempts at actual sf thinking, and I got tricked into seeing the third movie.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I agree: The Programs were interesting, and seemed to be headed somewhere, and then with Revolutions it all seemed to fizzle out into stitched-together action sequences.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

That's it right there. The Animatrix side stories were more what I wanted to see -- an exploration of how their universe worked and why.

[yojimbouk.livejournal.com]

The Wachowskis are Ping wannabes? As in Yuen Woo-Ping, the guy who did the fight choreography for, uh, The Matrix?

I can't believe that you're describing the Matrix as "puffed up with its own earnestness" and in the next paragraph saying that Code 46 "did not seek to impress on its own". Code 46 was unbelievably po-faced and stuffed with its own self-importance. The Matrix had all the importance of a roller-coaster ride, and knew it. But it propelled you to the edge of your seat and kept you there, and that's exactly what Sunshine does.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Ping wannabes

Yep. But I thought his choreography was used to better effect in films he had more of a direct hand in like Tai Chi Master and Iron Monkey.

puffed up
Yes, you make a good point, and it was my point that was poorly worded. I was thinking primarily in terms of the production design when I said what I did. I thought the Matrix's visual style was essentially based on an attempt to "look cool" to the point that it chewed it's own self. By contrast, I thought Code 46's production design was more subtle and well integrated into the movie. As for it being "po-faced and stuffed with its own self-importance", I did think it took itself seriously, but didn't think it was stuffed with its own self-importance. I guess we just differ in opinion.

As for the Matrix knowing that it had all the importance of a roller-coaster ride, perhaps that's part of the problem? To me it seemed like one long exercise in stitching together cool visual gun/fist-fights with nothing to back it up. It didn't propel me to the edge of my seat and keep me there: it got me interested with the opening sequence in the apartment building with Trinity, and then progressively bored me more and more as each fight got bigger, longer, and blander.

I guess what I object to is the seemingly automatic corellation between "SF" and "rollercoaster". I'm not really interested in rollercoaster much anymore, and I don't think that rollercoaster was ever a characterstic that had much to do with "SF".

Was the Matrix a decent action movie? I suppose so, although, in retrospect, I didn't care for it all that much. Was it a good SF movie? I don't think it was. Was it a good movie, just as a movie? Again, I don't think it was.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

I have the same problem with "The Matrix" sequels that I did with all the "Star Wars" movies barring the first three. The idea was far better than the execution.

In "Matrix"'s case, the idea was incredibly ambitious but the execution seemed to be a lot of work for very little payoff. "SW" Ep 1-3 had the opposite problem: the execution was terrifically ambitious, but the actual story being told was pathetic.

Both franchises suffered from one problem in common, though: they kept trying to top themselves in all the wrong ways.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

For someone who literally grew up with Phil K. Dick -- as in, I credit his writing with helping me mature and become a better person -- it's more than a little sad to see how many of his stories are being turned into Multiplex Mystery Meat.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I haven't read enough of Dick's work. I keep thinking I should, and then I look at the stack of stuff that I already own that I haven't yet got to, and I despair a bit. Easily two thirds of the PKD I have consumed has been through adaptation in movie: I have read Man In The High Castle and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, plus a few of the short stories (We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, plus a few others).

Mostly, I didn't read any PKD until after seeing BladeRunner, and it got me interested enough to want to read DADOES, and that plus some essays by Le Guin prompted me to read MITHC, and then I sort of tried to make it a practice to read the short stories after seeing the adaptations (i.e. Total Recall, and Paycheck).

I'm not nearly as taken with PKD as I know some folks are: he's a very good writer, but I don't connect with him as viscerally as I do with other writers, and the way I know some others do.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

You can stick to the novels after Man in High Castle. His SF novels before that were more quasi-parodic feeling 50s SF, with interesting ideas and slapdash cardboard people. He was looser and more interesting in the short stories, but some of them are a little boring to read. Apparently he wrote a lot of them in just a few days. It shows.

(some of them would be excellent sources of RPG plots though, or occasionally fucked up NPCs).

Starting with Man in High Castle, he combined his 'mainstream' characterisations with the crazy short story ideas. Many of his novels are expanded version of short stories, revisiting ideas he thought cool. He gets better as he goes on, gaining confidence and abandoned genreness or conventionality (at least in plotting) that he doesn't find useful.

What do you own?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I don't own any of it. All that I read was either borrowed from the library, or from friends. I did at one time own DADOES, but it didn't make the cut one year and got sent in a box to the used book store. Which I don't mind. I read it, I'm not sure I'd really want to re-read it, and if I do, then library or friend is cool. Funny that my bookcases are more cluttered with stuff I haven't yet read than stuff I have read and really desperately want to keep.

Mostly, when I have read stuff, if I think I'll really want to re-read it, it stays. Otherwise, it gets taken to the used bookstore to subsidize future book purchases. It's a silly way to operate, I know... 8/

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

That actually sounds like the way I work. I am a terrible book-buyer -- I'll pick up anything that looks remotely interesting and then have it sit for two years while I get caught up on all the stuff I bought two years ago or more.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

The earlier stuff is still very interesting in its own right -- more obviously a product of its time, but with enough flourishes that are distinctly "his". The biggest flaw is that a lot of them were written in extreme haste and it shows.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

That's the thing. The first time I read his stuff, I thought, "This is the first person I've ever read who understands how I feel about my place in the universe, and I've never met the guy." And never would, as he had been dead for some time by then.

"High Castle" and "Sheep" are staples. "Valis" and "Divine Invasion" are to be read dead last as they are extremely obscurantist, but rewarding in their own way. "Scanner Darkly" is also essential, "Ubik" too. His "straight" fiction like "Confessions of a Crap Artist" is also interesting, although somewhat uneven, and like many authors with a big back catalog he suffers from having many of his books being out of print for years or decades at a time. (Maybe publish-on-demand will help with that.)

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's really got anything to do with PKD's stories themselves. It's just that Total Recall did well (did it?), and his short stories got branded as 'excuses to do effects-heavy action movies.'

Same thing with Alan Moore.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Would you consider films like "V for Vendetta" or "Twenty-Eight Days After" to be SF?

::B::

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That's a good question: I'm not really sure that I'd put superheroes into an SF category, and I think V is, essentially, a "super-powers" kind of tale. I would call that more an example of the fantastic than the speculative.

As for the second, do you mean 28 Days Later? If so, again, I didn't really think of it as an SF tale, but more of a horror tale with vaguely scientific window dressing. Again, more fantastic than speculative.

But I can see the argument that both films are grounded in science questions: what if bio-researchers developed a virus that totally liberated our aggression, or what if bio-researchers developed a course of medical treatments that accidentally created a man with superhuman strength, endurance, and senses? But I don't really think that either film worked out these premises in a particularly speculative manner.

To ask back, do you consider "1984" SF? What about "Brave New World" or "Clockwork Orange"?

I would say that the latter have many speculative qualities that 1984 lacks, but setting any story in "the future" seems to be a key point of speculation -- in this regard I think both "V" and "28 Days Later" qualify as SF to some degree.

I wish had more time doing genre studies work: I have a nebulous grasp on it, as my comments on this page have amply demontsrated... 8)