NOT using
the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The
First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention; to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I WOULD
jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION
given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is
reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing
books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used
to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…
The
movie was made to be a movie. It wasn’t written like normal science fiction by
regular science fiction authors. In fact, as far as I can tell, James Gray and Ethan
Gross have never written – nor since then written – a single word of science fiction.
On the IMDb site, both gas on about films and the importance of film and (in
Gray’s case, the unfairness of it all). According to the Internet Speculative
Fiction Database, someone named James Gray wrote two short stories in the 1980s,
one in a horror anthology, the other in something called Potboiler #10. Ethan
Gross is not recorded as writing any speculative fiction under that name.
So,
here we have two writers using the science fiction tropes of solar expansion,
antimatter fuel, travel in microgravity, and the SETI making a bold and
negative statement that “there’s no one out there”.
According
to the review below, the writers “refuted the rules of sci-fi”.
I
would suggest that rather being sci-fi, it’s another attempt to excuse Humanity
from ever becoming more that what it is. Rather than seeking to connect with
what is “more” than ourselves, it’s an encouragement to remain selfish and self-centered.
It’s this navel-gazing focus that has given us our current existential polarity – not just
in the US during the Election Year – but from pole to pole and Prime Meridian
back to Prime Meridian.
We’ve
become a people whose deepest cry is, “Me! Me! Me!” The Greatest Generation is
gone; sacrifice is a filthy word and banished from film the same way four-letter words once were – and are now celebrated as personal expression and cries
of “censorship!” should anyone suggest they be removed or curtailed in the slightest.
In
fact, sacrifice is a word most people wouldn’t recognize except when it’s in
the context of “how much we’ve sacrificed for…” or “I gave up EVERYTHING for…”
Sacrifice is no longer for any kind of greater good, but rather centered on how
much “you” owe “me”.
“Ad
Astra” iterates that to a point of a sledgehammer pounding reinforced concrete.
Reviewer
Richard Newly neatly summarizes our descent into self-centeredness rather than
self-sacrifice when he opines, “Ad Astra deserves a place within our science
fiction canon not because it dares us to head into the unknown. Rather, it
dares us to look at the truth inside of ourselves, to recognize the destructive
nature of our own alienation, and to take the time to heal. These are things we
as humans know, but have so often put off in our search for finding what comes
next, and what comes after that.”
“Me!
Me! Me!” should be the title of the movie. The motivation of every character
has devolved from the pioneer spirit that led African, Chinese, Maori, and
European civilizations to give everything not only in the pursuit of things to
sell; but also to see what was over the horizon. Curiosity was once permitted
and even encouraged – not so much now. With “all of our horizons” conquered, it’s
my experience as a science teacher for the past 40 years, that we’re less
interested in “what’s over there?” than “what do I want to buy?”.
For
example, the entire reason Roy McBride leaves Earth is to reconcile with his
dad; to fix the pain in his own soul. The reason H. Clifford McBride left he
family behind was to prove that he was RIGHT – that there is “life out there”;
that there was something “more”. The Martian base commander, Helen Lantos is
solely interested in revenge because Roy’s dad murdered her parents and helps Roy
get aboard the ship to Neptune.
NASA is solely
interested in stopping the “pulses” because “Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a
mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his
missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens
the universe.”
I’m just wondering…oops!
I guess it fits. I don’t have to wonder: threatening communication on Earth is “threatening
the universe”. There’s no difference between threatening Humans
and threatening THE ENTIRE FREAKING UNIVERSE!!!!
*sigh*
I was reflecting yesterday
that the great people of faith like Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr, Billy
Graham, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and few others – are mostly gone. There
are few who encourage us to self-sacrifice.
This movie,
written by people outside of science fiction, really does refute the rules of
science fiction. While SF is replete with tales warning us from certain conceivable
technological futures like “The Matrix” or “I Am Legend” or even “The Expanse”,
it also offers futures like Rodenberry’s STAR TREK, “The Martian”, Nnedi
Okorafor’s BINTI, Niven’s RINGWORLD, and Julie Czerneda’s WEB SHIFTERS, CLAN
CHRONICLES, and my favorite series, SPECIES IMPERATIVE universes.
“Ad Astra” is
little more than an adolescent mind…oh, never mind. While I enjoyed it on some
level, mostly for the scenery and the concept of easy interplanetary travel; I
continue to puzzle over why Norwegians had baboons on a space station. Anyone
who knows anything about the beasts – aka anyone who lives in sub-Saharan Africa
and seen or dealt with them – would likely have cautioned the Norwegians from
breeding baboons? Experimenting on baboons? Whatever…no explanation is given
and the incident serves only to get the CEPHEUS (The king of Ethiopia with his
queen, Cassiopeia) captain killed so Roy can prove that the mission pilot is a
coward and he can take over the ship and land on Mars easy-peasy.
Having worked with
teenagers my entire professional life, I find myself wondering what kinds of
issue the writers were trying to work out. While I’ll certainly grab this one
for our DVD collection eventually, it’s self-centered message of the
self-serving exploration of the Solar System is pretty grim and holds out
little hope that Humans will ever be more than a species of self-centered
brats. It is for me, ultimately, a downer but absolutely in line with YA
speculative fiction we’ve been devouring lately in MAZE RUNNER and THE HUNGER
GAMES…
Resources: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/meaning-behind-ad-astra-1242644,
https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/01/23/10-pieces-of-evidence-that-prove-black-people-sailed-to-the-americas-long-before-columbus/4/,
https://atlantablackstar.com/2016/09/09/10-pieces-evidence-prove-black-people-sailed-americas-long-columbus/
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