When Worlds Collide

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

dir Rudolph Maté, 1951, US, 83m

cast Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Larry Keating, Peter Hansen

cin W. Howard Greene, John F. Seitz m Leith Stevens

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Astronomers predict that a world (or rather a sun) will collide with Earth, destroying everything – effectively wiping out the human race. This world/sun is Bellus, but before that happens, another planet, Zyra, will pass close by earth. This near-collision will result in earthquakes and tsunamis.

Dave Randall (Richard Derr), a rogue and pilot, is paid to take the secret information of earth’s doom to London, to scientists that are going to varify the terrible information. The information turns out to be correct and the scientists start to plan their escape from earth. They hope that it is possible to fly into space and land on Zyra, which will (hopefully) be suitable for humans.

Randall suddenly finds himself in the middle of this whole affair, in love with the daughter of one of the scientists. This may also be his ticket aboard the ship to Zyra. However, Randall may be a rogue, but he also has a conscience. When it is time to choose which 40 people will make the journey, Randall gives up his seat. He does not feel that he has earned the right, that there are other more worthy people to take the seat.

This might be so, but when the time comes to leave earth, Randall finds an unlikely ally that may help him out in the hour of need…

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When Worlds Collide is an old movie. It certainly has a story that it wish to explore, but with today’s knowledge, the thought of a planet (or maybe even two) crashing into earth seems… ludicrous. Sure, a comet, astroid or even a meteor would have been fine, but two planets passing through earth’s orbit within a month… I don’t think so. Of course, I am not a scientist nor an astronomer.

I know this movie was made in a different time, but I can’t help but wonder about the reactions of the people when they hear that earth is doomed. I would have thought that people would panic, but they don’t, only in the very last second when Bellus is within a stone’s throw. Sure, they might not believe in the information, but they must when the big red thing gets closer. To destroy earth is a pretty reckless thing, I don’t think a little emotion is too much to ask.

Another thing that really annoyed me. The ending. I don’t mind the people reaching Zyra, nor that the planet is suitable for humans. What really annoys me was the use of a painted landscape. This might not have looked fake back in 1951 (although I think it did, unless the movie was in black and white originally), but it does today and when the landscape looks distinctly like earth, I can’t help but wonder if they couldn’t have found a real location somewhere, like in Asia? I won’t even comment on the strange climate zones on Zyra (heavy snow and then 50 ft. away… a beautiful green meadow).

Was there nothing that I liked in this movie? There certainly was. The character of Dave Randall, for one. He feels real and seems disturbed by the thought of dying in so young age. He acts cool, but also human when disaster strikes. I also liked  the pace of the movie. Strangely enough, the movie does keep you entertained, maybe for the wrong reasons (the movie is quite funny), but still.

As far as references go, there is a scene where New York is flooded, which reminded me of The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004), but also of 2012 (Roland Emmerich, 2009), where the humans built an ark of their own, only this one isn’t supposed to leave earth. Of course the last is a biblical reference.

Lastly, I just saw that they are working on a new When Worlds Collide movie which is supposed to hit the cinemas in 2012. I can only hope that it is better than the original.

When Worlds Collide won’t make it into my canon. The story is just too unbelievable and the scenery looks like something from a set. Sure this movie might have inspired other movies (like Armageddon and Deep Impact), but I doubt it. These movies would have been made even without this one.

The Rough Canon…

This is not my canon, but the canon from the rough guide to sci-fi movies. I thought it would be a good idea to see which of the movies that I had already seen (these are in bold), and which I need to see if I am going to make my own canon. The movies are presented alphabetically.

Quite a few of these will probably find themselves on my list as well…

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A Clockwork Orange

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Akira

Alien

Aliens

Alphaville

Back to the Future

Blade Runner

Brazil

Bride of Frankenstein

The Brother From Another Planet

Close Encounters of The Third Kind

Contact

The Damned

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Delicatessen

Destination Moon

Escape From New York

E.T. The Extraterrestrial

Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers

The Fly

Forbidden Planet

Ghost in The Shell

Gojira (aka Godzilla)

The Incredibles

Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956)

Jurassic Park

Mad Max 2 (aka the Road Warrior)

The Matrix

Metropolis (1927)

On The Beach

Planet of The Apes (1968)

Robocop

Sleeper

Solaris (1972)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of the Khan

Star Wars IV: A New Hope

Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back

The Stepford Wives (1975)

Superman

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

The Thing From Another World

Things To Come

Tron (1982)

12 Monkeys

28 Days Later…

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

2001: A Space Odyssey

Le voyage dans la lune

War of The Worlds (1953)

Children of Men

CHILDREN OF MEN (official site)

dir Alfonso Cuaròn, 2006, US/UK, 109m

cast Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine, Clare-Hope Ashitey

cin Emmanuel Lubezki m John Tavener

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In 2027, humans have lost the ability to procreate. It has been 18 years since the last child came into the world and no one understands why. Earth faces extinction if a miracle doesn’t arrive soon.

The world is in complete chaos. The rich have everything and the poor sit in cages waiting for some unknown fate. Our protagonist is a man called Theo (Clive Owen), who finds himself working for an anti-government organization called the Fishes. He is paid to transport a young woman (Kee) out of England, to something called the Human Project.

As it turns out, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) is pregnant. Is the human race finally saved or will Kee be killed before reaching safety? Theo sets out on a journey to save Kee and possibly… the world.

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Children of Men is what I would call an intelligent and philosophical science fiction movie. It doesn’t waste time on the technology of the future (except perhaps in a couple of scenes) instead it focuses all its time on its story. In this movie, the future is bleak and there is little (if any) hope. Most have given up and give little thought on tomorrow. What is important is now… today. For them the world is about surviving. Kee is different. She represents hope and perhaps… a future. To emphasize this, at the end of the movie, the boat that comes to get her is called… Tomorrow. A little cheesy, but since it is the only cheesy part of this movie, I can easily accept it.

While it is tempting to compare the baby with Jesus, the film makes no such claim. In fact, when Theo asks who the father is, Kee makes a joke that she is a virgin. She is not a virgin and her child is no Jesus. The big question is, what will happen when the world learns that a baby has been born?

The setting is very believable. It is grey and dirty, a strange mix of plasma screens (ads and warnings), grafitti, filth and brokendown buildings. The colours are certainly meant to enforce the bleakness of the world. We know that something has happened because old newspaper articles proclaim that a nuclear war had broken out, but other than that, it isn’t a part of the story. Perhaps the cause of the childless world is radiation, perhaps it is just the way of nature. A curse on mankind, because animals certainly don’t have that problem.

The movie is all its own and I find it hard (if not impossible) to find any other movie that has directly influenced it. Most science fiction stories are about characters surviving, but in Children of Men, it is not just a story about Theo and Kee, it is a story about all mankind.

(small personal note: I can’t mention this movie without also mentioning Michael Caine. He is a very cool actor and his role in this movie (Jaspar), while small, is one of his absolute best. He is one of the few hopefully people of the world and makes sure that you will laugh at least once during this movie.)

Children of Men must go on my science fiction canon, for its courage and heart. Hopefully this movie will mark the science fiction movies of tomorrow – movies that wish to tells us something about ourselves and the world that we live in and not just… entertain.

Cargo

CARGO (official site)

dir Ivan Engler, Ralph Etter, 2009, German, 112m

cast Anna Katharina Schwabroh, Martin Rapold, Regula Grauwiller

cin Ralph Baetschmann m Fredrik Strömberg

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The year is 2267 and the ecosystem of earth has been completely destroyed, forcing the human race to live in orbit. It is a harsh life for most humans, however, there is another planet called RHEA, but only the wealthy can go there. RHEA is the paradise that everyone strives to visit. Laura Portmann (Anna Katharina Schwabroh) is no different. She also wants to move to RHEA, to live with her sister, but in order to get the money, Laura needs to make one last journey into space.

She is hired as a doctor aboard the spaceship Kassandra, an old ship that is going on a long journey to the faraway Proxima system. The ship carries materials that will allow the human race to explore and perhaps colonize foreign planets, perhaps finding a new and better home. The journey takes four years to the spacestation and four years to get back. It is a lonely journey, where the crewmembers take turn watching the ship while the rest have entered some sort of cryosleep.

After 3 years, the shift is Laura’s. It is lonely to be the only waking member of the crew and every day looks much the same; she eats, trains and watch the spaceship. She is confined to a small area and is not allowed to enter the big cargo area. One night she hears something in the corridors, even sees shadows of something moving. She follows the shadows and soon finds herself down by the cargo…

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Cargo is slow and intimate. Too slow for some, without a doubt, but I kinda like this sort of pace. It is a stunning visual movie with a soundscape that keeps the viewer in suspense. From the very first glance at the orbit world (a strange pipe that constantly moves around and with buildings on the inside), we know that something is wrong with the world. People look like fugitives and this is in fact precisely what they are. Fugitives from Earth. Laura Portmann is one of them. She seems to be constantly watching the world around her, never truly interacting with it. She has a camara that she uses to record her thoughts, thoughts that are being sent to her sister on RHEA. However, being aboard Kassandra forces her to take part and perhaps even alter the world of the humans.

If I had to describe this movie using other movies as points of reference, I would say that in Cargo, Alien meets Matrix. The environments are dark and gloomy, containing flickering lights and cold steel. The visual side reminds me a lot about Alien and seems believable. The outside is a different matter, though. The spaceship is a little nondescript and does not really match the inside. We dont get a lot of images from the outside, and when we do, we are seeing the ship from behind as it moves further into space. I wont explain the Matrix reference, as you may not have seen the movie. If you have seen the movie, you might know where I am going with this.

Cargo is a classic science fiction movie. It explores themes as humanity, desolation, and isolation. (edit: removed space exploration as a theme, because honestly, there isn’t much of this) The movie isn’t focused on new technology, but does presents new views on old ideas (like cryosleep and the classic space yetpack). I especielly liked the interior of the Cargo area. It is vast, unpredictable and very dangerous. In a way, this area becomes one of the characters in the movie.

Don’t watch this movie with the expectation of seeing great acting. The only complex character here is Laura, and she isn’t all that complex when you give it some thought. The rest are just along for the ride and a little archetypical (but in a bad way). Watch this movie if you like to explore space and love a good science fiction horror movie in the vein of Alien and Event Horizon. Cargo is not bloody, but it does try to keep the viewer on the edge of his seat. It succeeds fairly well at that, but the ending is a little muddy. When I say muddy, what I really want to say is; the ending is a little forced and there is too much going on, too many threads to connect.

Cargo won’t make it into my science fiction canon, but it still comes recommended. It’s definitely not a bad movie, and if for nothing else, watch it for its aestethic qualities.

An old blog with a new purpose

Unknown Stars never made it anywhere. I had all the intentions of creating a new and cool science fiction setting (for no particular RPG system), but other projects just seemed to… catch my attention. Does this mean that I will never make a science fiction/cyberpunk setting? No. I have every intention of creating at least one of these before I pass on to the next world. But only time will tell when the chance presents itself.

Unknown Stars has been dormant for years, but I think I might have found a new purpose for the blog. I recently acquired a small book called the rough guide to Sci-Fi movies. It is just that… a rough guide to science fiction movies. The book even go as far as presenting a canon of the 50 most important science fiction movies. This got me wondering. I certainly agree with a lot of their canon choices, and most of their movies I haven’t even seen (which makes them hard to comment on), however… the canon is mostly concerned with english and american movies. I think this is sad since I’ve seen a lot of really awesome science fiction movies from other countries. It may just be that the author didn’t think they had enough of an impact on the world of sci-fi movies or maybe they just slipped under the radar.

So this is the new purpose: to present my own personal science fiction movie canon. As the rough guide to Sci-Fi movies, I too will limit myself to 50 movies. I will try and explore movies outside the english-speaking world and I will also look to the most recent movies. The rough guide was written in 2005, which also limits their choices.

Every time I watch a science fiction movie, I will try and make an in-depth review of it here. I am no student of science fiction movies, so this will be the work of an amateur, a science fiction loving amateur. I will also try an place the movie in the big scope of things and comment on certain references that I’ve caught while watching.

Feel free to comment on my reviews as I make them, perhaps you can even help me create the canon.

Sci-fi or cyberpunk?

I’ve always wondered about the difference between sci-fi and cyberpunk, but never gotten around to actually check up on the matter.

Sci-fi to me, is a genre of spaceships, aliens and plausible technology of the future. It’s about Man travelling into Space, finding new planets, exploring new alien cultures. Earth is often involved, but not always. We need to believe that this could come to happen, and yet, more often than not, the future displayed is a bleak one. Man is dying, earth is dying. This is basically how I’ve always viewed the Sci-fi genre. Star Trek, the Gap and the Mote in God’s Eye (one of my favorite stories) are all part of this genre.

Cyberpunk, on the other hand, is not based on spacetravel. The stories are set in the future, and there’s often lots of technology involved, maybe even a few alien races, but rarely does the main characters spend weeks on end exploring the vast space surrounding the planet. Instead, the characters in a cyberpunk story explore things such as the Net and are quite often lowly and in conflict with the government. Neuromancer, Johnny Mnemonic, Blade Runner and the Matrix are all excellent examples of the Cyberpunk genre.

To me, both genres have equal strengths, but which of the two would fit my current project best?

Since I’m looking to create a single urban setting, I would have to say… cyberpunk. However, I won’t say that the PCs can’t enter space and travel towards the distant stars. They could, if they so desired, but it will not be the focus of this setting.

I like the idea of a Net or Web, that allows people to travel across vast distances in a matter of seconds, visiting far away places, leaving their bodies safely behind. This Net is not necessarily a safe structure, there can be as many dangers here as outside the Net. Think…Tron! The net, or at least entities within it are sentient, alien. If you are extremely unlucky, you might even be trapped within the Net. However, I dont want this Net to be dominant to the setting. It’s there and it can be used, but it’s not absolutely necessary to the plot and themes of the setting.

I also like the idea of lowly characters in conflict with the government. They are survivors, people with guns, who are willing to risk everything in a matter of seconds. Of course, to limit gameplay to these characters only would be foolish, the players would be able to play a government or army character, but the overall themes should evolve around the lowly caste system, the outcasts.

For more information concerning these two genres, follow the links below;

Science Fiction and Cyberpunk (both links leads towards Wikipedia)

Next up; Location of the setting… under the sea, in the cold north or maybe a apocalyptic metropolis?

Unknown Stars

Welcome to Unknown Stars, a new Design Blog under Headless Hydra Games. This is basically my first venture into the Sci-fi/cyberpunk genre. With this blog, I hope to create the foundation for a new futuristic urban setting.

I’ve not always been a great fan of science fiction. Most of the time, the genre seems too fixated on technology and strange terms that the reader hardly understand. I constantly find myself rereading certain phrases to understand what is happening and that slows down the story considerably. Of course, not all sci-fi/cyberpunk books are like this. The first time I realized this, I was reading Stephen Donaldson’s first two books in the Gap Series. These stories are very character-driven, something that I really appreciate. There is lots of technology, of course, but its not constantly the center of attention. I was captivated.

The next book I read that inspired me was Deborah Christian’s Mainline. The strange story of a female assassin named Reva who could travel through various realities. I had to read the beginning a few times, to fully understand it, but after that, I was truly hooked. This book serves sci-fi in a very different package, and that package really intrigued me.

Since then, I’ve read many great stories by such master as Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Lester Del Rey, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Holdstock, George R R Martin and many others. I still find myself bogged down by the technology aspect, but not as much as in the beginning.

To return to the beginning.

With this blog, I hope to create the foundation for a new futuristic urban setting. I have a few ideas already, but they are just scattered thoughts so far, not really anything to build on. In the coming days and weeks, I’ll return to the Unknown Stars blog, and explain some of my ideas a bit further.

Next up; Sci-fi or cyberpunk? Whats the difference, if any?