A WotW Scenario

The motives of the aliens in WotW don't make much sense.  However, they aren't outside space and time, like the diuternal entities that populate the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, whose mere dreams cause catastophe and dissolution.  Spielberg's aliens are (just as H.G. Wells' were) quite physical, and subject to the laws that govern flesh, those of gravity, of time and space, and last but not least, of Murphy. 

Why?  Aye, there's the rub.  Must they be simply evil?  Or does humanity's presence in the universe pose some sort of implicit threat?  Obviously, life does--they are (as in H.G. Wells) susceptible to microorganisms.  They catch cold and die.  I'm not spoiling here--this is exactly the same ending as in Wells' novel and the 1953 version.  But what if, what if the Aliens were being damaged by television?  No, wait, before you scoff, what if radio waves, going out into space, were lethal to the aliens?  Reruns of Three's Company actually killed them?  They have to destroy humanity in order to preserve their own species?  Or at least, destroy television?

Another thing about the film vs. the novel.  When H.G. Wells published WotW, Louis Pasteur had only recently revolutionized science and the world with his discovery of microorganisms.  A remake of this story should find something, anything, that is as recent as Pasteur's science was to Wells.  I would think that nanotechnology would have been a likely choice.  There is something wonderful about Wells' ending, anticlimactic though it is--human beings have the right to be here.  But it is better to put more science into science fiction. 

If movies are feeling the pinch, and they are, box office is extremely poor these days, it's because Television is catching up.  Shows like Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Nip/Tuck, The Shield/Rescue Me, Oz all succeed because they place character at a higher premium than spectacle.  As spectacle comes more and more from the palatte of a software program, the days of justifying $20 million to sign a movie star are numbered.

The entertainment industry is on the cusp of vast change, due in part to satellite, cable, HD TV and DVD.  We no longer have to go to a cineplex in order to see something thrilling.  For too long movies have been spectacular but devoid of heart and soul.  That's going to change.

War of the Worlds

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is similar to many dreams I've had, of running away, ducking and hiding from vague, barely glimpsed but still terrifying, gargantuan shapes.  As an anxiety dream, WotW is a slam-dunk success.  As science fiction it fails, just as all of Spielberg's SF since Close Encounters has failed, and as a blockbuster it succeeds.  Two out of three ain't bad, and is good enough, in this instance, to justify the ticket price. 

But pierce the veil, and WotW is a lot more.  It is a universal conflict played out as a domestic drama, and it is also a 9/11 passion play.  No famous, familiar landmarks are lovingly destroyed as in Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow; rather, the action is kept to a tight focus--viewed only through the experiences of the main characters.  This gives the film a claustrophic feeling and keeps the anxiety at a fever pitch throughout.  There are times when it almost becomes unbearable, and the desire to flee one's seat for the safety of the lobby is seriously entertained.  Of course, the competing desire to see how it comes out wins.  H.G. Wells is present in this film in spirit.  These are his tripods and his moments of destruction.  Spielberg, in an attempt to justify the innate instability of the tripods shows us the aliens who drive them, three toed, three fingered, three legged (should have been three-eyed).  They have created machines that look like themselves.

Scenes of people running from explosions and collapsing buildings, of dust covering Tom Cruise, of the impotent anger felt in the wake of a surprise attack, all bring to mind the zeitgeist of 9/11.  This is intentional, and one is not surprised to see SF return to the state it was in in 1953, when the George Pal WotW was released, a state of national anxiety caused by an outside threat.

The alien's motivations seem pointless--what do they want?  Why didn't they plan their invasion better--have they never encountered a microorganism?  But that itself, plays well into the whole 9/11 theme--and the nonsensical motivations of the terrorists and their ill-conceived and pointless attack. 

Gothic

The best, most concise definition of "Gothic" I've read was written by Roger Ebert, in his review of The Piano:

[Campion's] original screenplay for "The Piano" has elements of the Gothic in it, of that Victorian sensibility that masks eroticism with fear, mystery and exotic places. It also gives us a heroine who is a genuine piece of work; Ada is not a victim here, but a woman who reads a situation and responds to it.

Melodrama

In his review of The Weight of Water, Roger Ebert has this to say:

Another problem is that psychological conflicts get upstaged by old-fashioned melodrama. The storm at the end, which I will not describe in detail, involves violence and action which would be right at home in a seafaring thriller, but seems hauled into this material only to provide an exciting action climax. It is not necessary to the material. And the revelations in the historical story would have more depth and resonance if we'd spent more time with the characters--if all of their scenes were not essentially part of the set-up.

This is something I needed to hear.  With After the Fire, I kept trying to force a gun-fight, car chase, abduction and/or lying in wait--none of it was necessary to the material, which my critique group kept telling me, Kate Sykes in particular.  It is gratifying to hear Ebert say the same thing.  A book as psychological as mine does not need the trappings of melodrama.  The material and the story must mesh--when they don't--you get a mish-mash of distractions, like The Weight of Water.

Nobody Walks in L.A.

Just back from my trip to Hollywood.  Many interesting sights were seen.  I saw two houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright--the Barnsdall house and the Ennis-Brown house.  Of the two, Ennis Brown is by far the more famous, having been the site of numerous film locations, including The House on Haunted Hill and Disney's The Rocketeer.  I am sad to report that Ennis Brown was catastrophically damaged by the Northridge earthquake (photos 1-2).  Steps are being taken to shore up the hillside and protect the house from further damage, but restoration has not yet begun on the southern facade.  The Barnsdall house, by contrast, was beautifully preserved (3-12).  The kind curator who happened to be there, waiting for someone else, unexpectedly and amazingly invited me inside and I was able to take several pictures of the interior.  She was quite proud of the restoration, and her personal contribution was restoring the carpet with Frank Lloyd Wright's original design.

In addition, with my friend Jeff Goode, the creator of Disney's animated series American Dragon, we got as close as one can possibly get by road to the Hollywood Sign.  We also visited a park in Hollywood that overlooks the reservoir, and is another famous filming location.  (14-17).

Picture #18 is of Universal City at dusk.  I took in Batman Begins at the Universal City Cinema.  I could have seen an IMAX showing, but I worried that I would get sick.

I found a couple of interesting locations which were uncannily similar to settings from my novel.  One, the cafe with the yellow awning is identical to the Paradise Cafe, on Melrose Avenue, where Mark sees Andy Lord (23).  Second, the house Wolf's Lair is a dead-ringer for my concept of Raptor's Roost, Samson Day's gothic mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where Mark and Mondre attend the tragic Halloween party (24-25).  Other photos include the famous Observatory (13)--which is used in hundreds of films, (the observatory was off limits due to construction), the courtyard of the Kodak Theater, where they now have the Academy Awards--constructed like the Babylon set from D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, (19-20) and the famous Capital Records tower, which is destroyed in Earthquake as well as The Day After Tomorrow.  (21)  I finished off with a visit to the famous Santa Monica Pier, and looked at the happy people enjoying the beach (22, 26).  It was a great trip and I saw a lot in 2.5 days.  However, there were too many people, and I had a low-grade headache the entire time I was there.  I'm glad to be back under gray Pacific Northwest sky.

Dotson Convicted

Carlton Dotson, ex-Baylor University basketball player, was today sentenced to 35 years in prison for shooting his teammate and roommate Patrick Dennehy to death.  In a courtroom surprise, Dotson changed his plea to guilty without any sentencing deal with the prosecution, clearly a self-destructive act, which I presume was motivated by the guilt that surfaced once Dotson's psychosis was brought under control by anti-psychotic medication and he came to understand the full weight of his behavior.  It is clear that Dotson was in a delusional state when he killed his team-mate, and while 35 years seems like a very long sentence, it may in fact, be a lighter sentence than 25 years to life.  With a set upper limit, parole is much more easily had, and Dotson is clearly remorseful over his conduct, unintentional though it was.  I sympathize with his mental illness.  It is unfortunate that he now has to pay the social price of an untreated and unrecognized serious illness, for which he is no more responsible than if he had cancer. 

Jackson Acquitted

Having not been on that jury and heard all the evidence they heard, only highlights of the testimony, I suspect that the jury, in the absence of physical evidence, and weighing the credibility of the witnesses for both sides, were confused by the accuser's inconsistent statements; inconsistencies which raised reasonable doubts.  Furthermore, they were convinced by Macauley Culkin's strong support.  In fact, I strongly suspect that Culkin and Debbie Rowe are directly responsible for today's verdict.