chani | Thoughts leading to thoughts leading to (Reply)

I felt better enough to see The Libertine starring Johnny Depp and John Malkovich (yes I went see it because of the cast...), a movie I didn't like. I found the film boring and pretty pointless. Where was the scenario? I hope the play was better...

Some films, nowadays, seem to be made only to give actors a certain position.

The other day, I watched a programm about Hollywood saying that tv has become better than movies because the good writers were on tv, where they were also producers, which meant they had more freedom and power, while movies were mostly ruled by famous actors, majors and directors. Tv would provide quality, daring and originality while movies would provide formulaic entertainment without real writing but with loads of special effects. I'd tend to agree.

So yes Serenity (this link leads to an old entry of mine, reviewing the film) was an anomaly because its director was a good writer and writing was essential in it.

Speaking of the devil, I thought of Joss' film when I read Paul McAuley White Devils lately. It is a techno-thriller taking place in a near-future and in the black continent, a ruined Africa that unfortunately sounds so likely. I'm too lazy to summarize it but if you want to know the plot, I found that review...Even though I don't think it's such a great novel, and that McAuley indulged in a few easy ways, it raises interesting points about the world and humanity not being black & white, it does have good moments and works on several levels (geopolitical, scientifical, philosophical), with an abyssal writing of metaphors within metaphors. And it seems to share a few things with Joss Whedon' scenario.

The theme of freaks, of monsters is a connection. Even the main character turned out to be a monster since he's a clone. His surname is not really Hyde (one of of McAuley's quite numerous jokes!) but that name speaks the theme of doubles and inner monster. He is the clone of his dead older brother, whose life he has no capacity, or wish, to replicate. But there's more than a wink at Stevenson's story.

The deadly and cannibalistic White Devils (that could be seen as the metaphor of Europeans and Americans using up the black continent through transnationals like Obligate that simply are recolonizing the place) are monsters that called to my mind the Reavers of Serenity, not only because of their ferocity and eating habits but also because of their origins and the fact they actually have doubles.

The scientist Matthew Faber whose work is connected to the making of the White Devils, also helped in making the Gentle People who are recreated examples of Australopithecus afarensis and the white devils' shadows, their counterpart. Matthew who had been deeply involved in the theory of engrams, thinks he has isolated the one engram—cd2—that causes extra-species aggression. The Gentle People have no cd2 engrams. Matthew himself, unfortunately, has had his own psyche buggered up, probably by his old colleague Doctor Lovegrave (another punny name!), and a cd2-run inner Hyde intermittently surfaces, "something terrible and dark at the dawn of consciousness," which turns him into a kind of ...White Devil!

It's kinda like the PAX in Serenity, meant to make "gentle people" on Miranda but who actually made the Reavers. The PAX as well as genetic engineering experiments are Pandora's box.

And there's even an obvious hint at The Tempest. Matthew Faber is kinda exiled, and lives on an isolated island with the Gentle People. When his daughter comes to visit him, a character (on a mission to kill Faber and his monsters) even recalls that he read once a story about a sorcerer who lived on an island with a monster and who had a daughter...But this Prospero is killed, and this Miranda (Elspeth) felt for a monster (Nicholas Hyde).

It isn't a black & white world, and neither was Serenity. As Elspeth Faber says eventually "we're the white devils, the Gentle People ..."

Also watched the end of Battlestar Galactica season 1 and then found out that I've got Sci-Fi on the cable now, and they've just started showing season 2, 2 episodes on every sunday evening, so I won't have to download it anymore!

I'm almost respectable again...