I am my father’s daughter! We share a lot of the same qualities and one of them is the love of ideas! Included in that is the love of the Sci Fi genre. Our bonding times were spent watching Star Trek and debating the philosophical conundrums that Captain Jean-Luc and Janeway (Not Kirk, but this is a bitching session for another time) found themselves in. It was the ultimate and it was one of the things that made me want to be an astronomer! It is the reason I chose Philosophy instead to explore all the possible ideological premises there was to life and its goings on.
I am a trekkie, yes I am, I believe my dad is one as well. We love (present tense) Star Trek and other Sci Fi movies Spielberg came up with. I remember when I was young, other than Star Trek, I had a VHS copy taped off Mnet version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it was, I think, one of my most valued possession. Don’t really know what happened to it. I never had ET on tape, although I did watch it with dad and it always gets me a little emotional simply because of the time it takes me back to.
Tonight Mnet is screening one of the movies that my family watched together and had the crap scared out of us. My dad, I think having lived through the time when HG Wells produced the story for radio and had the UK believe that they were under attack from aliens, was the only one in the family who did not have the crap scared out of him. I think that was one of the first Sci Fi series we watched together.
Whenever I remember moments with my dad I always remember the great movies we watched together. I remember Back to the Future and how we debated the laws of time travel, I remember Star Trek and why I always liked the Borg even though they were the arch enemies of the Star Ship enterprise and, which ever captain was heading it at the time; I remember Star Gate and the Outer limits. I remember reading the Time Machine and thinking how incredible it was. Most recently though, I remember Contact. Now this is my ultimate Sci Fi thriller and I have not found another movie that brought up the emotions this movie brought out in me. So when I feel a little home sick I stick in the Contact DVD and feel sorry for myself (hey, it could be worse…)
War of the Worlds takes me back to my (anything is possible) childhood and Steven Spielberg manages to take me back there. Now, as it is being screened on Mnet tonight, even though I do not have a decoder, and that I am in Cape Town and my Dad is in Soweto, I feel close to him, I am sitting opposite him and enjoying the genius that was HG Wells with him. What got me, out of the whole movie, was how the the simplest solution tends to be the best one. It made total sense that the aliens would be killed off by bacteria which humans had adapted to over the couple of thousand of years we have inhabited earth. Ahhh! Occam's razor. It rules.
Any, live long and prosper
Brokensword
8 comments:
i'm not a sci-fi fan... but the moments with ur dad sound precious!!! :)
you guys forced sci-fi down my throught!
I did enjoy all of them. IT took me a while to catch on star trek - still you guys were obsessed. I didn't get it.
You forgot the X-files in your list. You guys were obsessed with that too.
War of the Worlds - I'm so mad that I don't remember the earlier shows. But I know when the movie came out I was so excited - so it must have been good.
... this might not be the right space+time to say this... but I think, 'war of the worlds' sucked.
... the movie anyway... I think, the fact that the 'aliens' died because of a simple truth, 'that humans have earned the right to survive on earth', through natural selection and this is a fantastic story, I don't think in my years of Sci-Fi, especially Alien Invasion type movies, has covered that idea, in most cases aliens come in, the kill, the takeover, and will smith saves the day. Nobody has ever touched on the idea, that just because you are smarter means you can survive the flu virus.
Now what pissed me off, about War of the Worlds, is that drama with the kids, dam it. When the movie starts, as Morgan Freeman narrates, he touches on interesting ideas, but then you get slapped with this, white America family drama,,,
I think, there is a story there, that H.G Wells put down,,, but whom ever did the screenplay sucked!
... anyway... sorry to jack ya spot.
"... number 2 you have the bridge"
I agree with you Lebogang.
I also thought that the end was just pothetic (the family drama I could stand - they wanted to appeal to a wider audience...I think). It just seemed a bit too much that this magnificent creatures from outta space could die so easily.
But then sometimes I wonder if any ending satisfies me.
The movies should never end...
Lebogang you really touched a nerve here and I have to go back and re-examine my liking of the movie. Heartwarmer, I think Lebogang meant that the ending was clever but the warm and fussy ending with the family getting back together with everyone intact was too American. Please correct me if I am wrong!
Forgive me but I think, no matter where you are and what you do (save the world or just lounge on you couch), family and the string that binds us, the string we have to stretch as far as possible and ultimately, it is the string which makes us who we are. This is what I liked most about the movie Lebogang, and I do not think it is American, although I concede, it is a dambed Hollywood ending and fussy and warm and stuff. But I think the whole thing with the boy wanting to be a man and wanting to do something to contribute to the survival of mankind was identifiable in all of us. We all grow up and find things that take us a little bit away from our families and to have this boy choose not to listen to his father and find his own path was touching. As difficult as it was, we knew that there is no other way of defining yourself as an adult and finding your own person, it made sense for me. What made even more sense was that he did actually survive and came back to the family fold and, I think, his experience brought him even closer to his father. They could now look at each other as men and not father and son. This is the thing about being a parent and letting go.
I still think it was great and love to hear what you have to say further. I do not like warm and fuzzy American endings but I think if that boy had not survived it would have broken me in two.
Sharp, Brokensword
PS: The brige is yours captain!
... I hear you broken/sword.
But (yes, the proverbial but), what am trying to say, if you took the 'storyline' of the father, son, daughter out of the movie about Alien Invasion, you probably have only 30mins of a story left.
So, the storyline of the family-yadi-yada is nothing special, lots of movies have done it before.
But, the story of a Being of Higher Intelligence trying to annihilate all life of earth, but fails because of bacteria and virus, that we (humans) have mastered and evolved to overcome (barring others of course), has not been done before, and it begs the question of all other movies/ideas that have tried this plot before, coz this something nobody has ever thought about it,,, and that fascinated me.
So, every time the movie focused on that family drama, I felt I was getting robbed, my mind was denied the chance to think about new ideas, new ish.... I know they have no obligation, but I think, they chose the wrong plot to build the story on,,,
... engage, warp 2.
But even Independence Day had the aliens killed off (had is as the key to their demise) by a simple computer virus. There is nothing to explore about the what killed them off. The simplicity of it all was enough for me and I did enjoy the action as well. There was far more to it than just the aliens being killed by a simple bug (which was clever), it was more the family drama (which was touching), the whole actionb sequences were amazing. That whole scene with the lightening and the sound was amazing! The suspense in the basement with Tim Robbins, and the total devastation during the movie was just amazing for me. It had the whole package for me. And it will stay as one of my 2006 favourites! Or was it 2005.
Brikensword
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