Legacy

Today I watched a long-delayed legacy materialise. At the end of it, I could only think that this was what some other franchise lacked. Ah, the constant recurrence of Hamlet in our cinematic experiences, like some subtle watery undertow aimed at poor dead Ophelia!

Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death —
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns — puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Gods, mortals, puny or not; playing or not; fantastic or not — I find the rich legacy of old William everywhere, and I realise that I wish the lost treasures of Cathay had been preserved as much.

Theogony

I'm not the first, certainly not the last, to say this: for a long time, people have had superheroes, subdivinities or divinities — the principalities and powers of the world, or the worlds.

What is always interesting is the kind of world that our choice of principalities and powers reflects. In a world where Newton is the Prophet, we look towards determinism in the physical and mystery in the metaphysical, but with one reflecting the other — for Sir Isaac was an alchemical theologian as well as a natural scientist. In a world where the Hulk can pound a Norse god into immobility on the floor of a penthouse in the sky, we bridge the two and conflate power with power, bia with kratos.

I watched The Avengers, Joss Whedon's masterpiece of modern kinematography, on the cusp of Saturday night and Sunday morning. There were gods of all kinds invoked and evoked, with even Death making an appearance (in a way) towards the very end. They create an uneasy balance throughout, although the movie is so much fun that you forget this. But my focus was almost completely on Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans.

Captain America highlights one problem of his eponymous state: he looks at the Norse gods as they bicker and fight, and his thought is that his own God is not like that. Then that thought too is gone, as he has to become the umpiring principality in a battle between Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark as technotitan of electronic wizardry, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as legend of thunder and lightning. Somewhere in the background, Loki (played to the backstabbing hilt by Tom Hiddleston) wearily ponders the kindergarten-style brawling (of the don't-take-my-stuff variety).

Principalities and powers, indeed. If my foreground eye was focussed on the good Captain, my dark-adapted background eye was focussed on those psychologically warped children of the Cold War, the Black Widow (Ms Scarlet, haha) and Hawkeye. They, like Steve Rogers, don't feel as if they were ever trained for theomachy — but where Captain America sucks it up and goes to war, they grit their teeth and make the little things count. After all, 'twas an apple that started the Trojan War, and an arrow that effectively forced it to its end.

I enjoyed myself. But I couldn't help thinking such thoughts as I wandered home in the night before dawn.

Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles

Two trailers later, I have been transported back to an earlier, more innocent time. It was a time before Indiana Jones, and yet one which partook of the very same mystique. The same agonised expressions. The same kinds of enemies. And yet, a much less toxic atmosphere.

What is the secret of the Unicorn? We will find out soon.

Thu Thu Thu

I can't actually think of Thursdays these days without thinking of the upcoming Kenneth Branagh movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Rene Russo. Oh yes, and also Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman.

See? I am biased by age. I can recall certain names more easily than others; it must shock some of you that I can recall Rene Russo's name and face much more easily than Natalie Portman's.

Thursday is a day not dedicated to war, as some of you might think. It's a day dedicated to noise, shock, and other alarming phenomena. I think today might well heave up some of this.

It's all too much for this old man.

Iron Man

Today was a good day. Met up with Tony Stark. We discussed wayward self-described father figures. He began a sentence with, "You know, those men who think they're your father, or who say 'father' when they mean 'master', and who therefore assume the right to..."

He noticed I was smirking. So I completed the sentence for him, "...treat you like a slave while calling you 'son'."

You should have seen his face. So I continued, "Yeah, I too have my own Obadiah Stane. Uses your technology behind your back as if it is his own, goes to the press, goes to the board, goes overboard... it's the same story, Tony."

That's how we became friends. Now all I have to do is get him to sign up with the Avenger Initiative. My name is Nicholas Fury, and I am Director of SHIELD.

Ha, got you there. You should always wait around for the end of the credits. You might learn something.

Watchmen

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who indeed watches the watchmen? This question is most relevant in today's world, especially in societies ruled over by the elite, the intellectuals, the wealthy, the power-brokers, technocrats, or self-constructed meritocrats. For this Hugo Award-winning novel, the only graphic novel to be on Time magazine's 100 Best Novels since 1923 list (and ranked FOURTH!), is all about that kind of thing, and the decisions that the mighty among us might make.

It looks like the movie is on track! I cannot wait to watch it. But I have to. Sigh. Who can wait for the Watchmen?

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Note: There are many annotations of Watchmen. Many of them are useful. Here's one.

His Grey Materials

Recently I read about the furore surrounding Philip Pullman's book, The Golden Compass, and its movie adaptation. Essentially, some people claim the movie (and/or the book and the trilogy of which it is the first part) promotes atheism. By this, I can only assume they mean one or both of two things: 1) that it promotes atheistic ideas in such a way as to make them more obvious and more attractive, as compared to other ideas in the film and in other films; and 2) that the money made from the film will go to benefit atheist causes more than other causes. The reason I assume this is that if the case was that atheism was promoted in such a way that it seemed less attractive or benefited atheist causes less so than other causes, it would not be an issue to the complainants.

My personal stand on this has three legs; it is a Tripos if you like, of sorts.

Firstly, the converse of atheism is theism, not Christianity. The Bible says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Hence, it clearly thinks of atheism as human foolishness. However, Christianity teaches that while all things (excepting those clearly labelled as evil) are lawful, not all things edify. It is thus left to the Christian's Spirit-informed conscience to decide, based on how much it offends others or acts as a stumbling-block to other Christians. The principle of charity must be observed; that is, to allow the widest latitude that is not immorality. Christians are also told to make it their ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind their own business, and to work with their hands, so that their daily lives will win the respect of others and that they will not be dependent on anybody else. The first leg of this argument therefore points to a fight over grey-area movies not being worth the Christian's time.

But is the His Dark Materials trilogy really in a grey area concerning the existence of God? Well, frankly, having read the series, I am not convinced it is meant to be some sort of anti-Lewisian tract. It is presented as fantasy, and despite involving gnostic ideas and such, it has nothing about it which denies the existence of God. Rather, it postulates a world in which the presence or absence of the vital spark can be measured quantitatively – hence, applied theology would be something like high-energy physics in our world. This is not a unique fantasy trope. Consider Frankenstein, for example. The use of this trope is in keeping with Pullman's preference for Victorian literary ideas. If anything, the world he describes is one in which a churchlike hierarchy conspires to hide the truth as they know it, and in which the apprehension of God is both easier and yet more confusing than it would seem to be in ours. It is a sort of agnostic theist perspective, I suppose. The second leg of this argument therefore points to the material as not being inherently atheist as compared to other SF or fantasy literature. (Actually, Agatha Christie detective novels are probably more atheist.)

Lastly, after reading Pullman's earlier children's novels and comparing them with His Dark Materials, I have begun to think that the latter constitutes Swiftean satire rather than true fantasy. The episodic nature of the text and the deliberate parodying of church, state, quantification of human traits, education and other societal structures lead me to believe that the books are misclassified as Children's Fantasy. Rather, like Rabelais's Gargantua & Pantagruel or the original Gulliver's Travels, they are not fantasy but social satire. And the nature of satire is to lead us to recognise the more unsavoury aspects of society, to mock them, and hopefully salvage the good that is left. The third leg of this argument therefore suggests that the material is not atheist in nature, but a satire on dogmatism in every area of human society.

None of these three legs stands alone. Pullman's work remains controversial to many simply because it is classified as a children's fantasy which presents an alternative and non-benign view of deity. However, seen from another perspective, it is not a very good target; not a children's fantasy, really a satire, and presenting a Victorian science-fictional view of human personality and intelligence. In that light, it is about as good as being atheist as Jules Verne or H G Wells, and maybe not even that good.

In closing, I would like to return to my earlier assumptions. Do you think that the movie actually promotes atheism as a philosophy more than theism? Do you think that by paying to watch the movie you will be promoting atheist causes financially more than other kinds of causes? I think modern life as a whole is more dangerous in such respects.

Reel Life Superheroism

Even when we were much younger, we used to make fun of comicbook heroes. After all, to a large extent, the world before 1990 (or at least, before 1986-7's Watchmen) was full of colourful jokers who had largely optimistic worldviews. Even the death of Jean Grey changed little in terms of perky colours. That's not to say that pre-Watchmen superheroism was all goodness and light; there has always been some darkness in the derring-do, even the deepest derring-do contained some... do.

But the irritating thing about the last few days of my personal space-time continuum is that I can't get a few things out of my head with respect (or regard) to superheroes and the media. For one thing, I keep dreaming of a really bleak superhero movie called...

Fantastic Fear: The Rise of the Civil Service, in which four rather ordinary humans have been irradiated by some sort of cosmic radiation and are now fearsomely powerful and out-of-control administrative officers. They have to deal with a faceless entity who keeps reflecting every form of question, interrogation, probe or investigation back at the originators. This entity might destroy their world – which might not be such a bad thing.

Urgh. And that's not all...

The Leak of Extraordinary Scholars, Officers and Gentlemen, in which a shadowy figure recruits a dark cabal of unusual and semi-fictional characters to examine the strange disappearance of local talent in recent years from an institution of the utmost quality and prestige. Plenty of back-stabbing and betrayal from invisible sources, a few explosions, and tantalising sequelae involving monstrous abominations and gold medals (or is that Tiger Beer advertising?)

Help. My dream-life is being invaded by unhealthy cynicism. Not good.

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Note: No confusion should arise from cross-dimensional leakage between this post and movie exhibits A and B, which you may examine at your leisure.

Stardust

Everyone has to watch Stardust. Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter O'Toole and Robert De Niro. For any one of them, I'd think of watching it. Especially for Robert 'Godfather' De Niro. But this one's based on the novel by Neil Gaiman (illustrated by Charles Vess). That, in my book, makes it compulsory viewing.

Will you join me? It's out August 10th! A very special day!

Belief

It has always struck me that the Easter week fills the role of 'pagan fertility rite' very well. It is uncannily resonant (if not downright consonant in parts) with Robert Burns's version of the old British folksong, John Barleycorn, for example.

I have seen many movies of the crucifixion before, some compassionate, some agonized (or agonizing), some artistic, and some all of the above. To me, the best representations are those that don't highlight the gore and bloodshed. They cut to the essence of it; the sacrifice of the holy for the unhallowed.

I have good historical reasons for feeling this way. If we were to be historically accurate (for example) about pre-industrial England, we'd have to put more horseshit on the ground than can be found in any film. You wouldn't be able to see Sherlock and Watson in the London fog. And Arthur's brave defence of Celtic Britain would be bogged down by poor equine breeding stock. The story of the Christ doesn't need historical accuracy because no matter how much gore we put in (yes, we know about Roman crucifixions) the blood on-screen cannot sanctify the story any more than it is already sanctified.

John's gospel puts in succinctly. At the end of John's account of the latter part of Easter week, he says that what has been written is 'that you might believe.' That is all there is; the crucifixion and burial occupy a scant, terse 26 verses or so. Read the account yourself to see the difference between Bible and Hollywood.

Hence I am going to go out on the limb of a tree and say this: the accounts given are terse for a reason. They do not sensationalise because of two reasons: 1) it is not necessary to do so - the story speaks for itself; 2) it is not possible to deliver the true impact of Jesus' death and its aftermath, no matter how hard you try. Emotional impact, yes. Spiritual impact, no. The problem is that the former can act as a counterfeit for the latter, and it often does.

So away with all these gloomy meditations on the death of Jesus of Nazareth. "He is not here; He is risen!" says the Good Book. It is a time of joy. With the brethren of the Eastern Churches, we should greet each other thus:

"Χριστος ἀνεστη !"
Christ is risen!

And the response is "Ἀληθως ἀνεστη !"
In truth, (He is) risen.