DYSON SPHERES

DYSON SPHERES:

THE STUFF OF DELUSION AND NIGHTMARES.

This essay was spurned after I kept seeing this weird Japanese Utopian writer competition floating around the internet waves. 

They wanted sci-fi writers to submit stories on how great Dyson Spheres are. This is basically a bio-sphere built around a star. 

They even had a promo video of families living the high life,  like in the movie Avatar - with exotic jungles, waterfalls and creatures, all defying physics, in a utopia built within said Dyson Sphere.

Initially this all sounded like great fun. But then I started doing the research. And it blew my mind. Then I thought about the implications and the delusions of actually taking such a concept seriously.  

So let’s just lay it out. 

Contrary to common belief, a Dyson sphere is not a giant hard-shell bio-sphere built around a star. But ask any dumb-ass on the street (myself included) and they will quote something they saw in Star Trek and tell you how fucking cool a Dyson Sphere would be. 

The Japanese website makes it all sound so cozy and achievable. But such an monumental accomplishment would be impossible by our primitive standards. And even in some far-flung Roger Ramjet future, to mine the materials alone would require cannibalising not only our own planets resources but that of every planetoid in our solar system. 

We would have to be pretty desperate to want to do that. 

Nor would it be possible to harness the suns radiation, light and heat by any feasible means, without opening up a whole can of veritable worms. 

Thus such a thing would be the stuff of nightmares. A bit like the Death Star.  

So its the ultimate con, so to speak. The idea might sound great on a dumbed-down kiddy slide-show but in reality, building a spherical shell around a star? This presents way too many headaches. As we shall see.  

A QUESTION OF PHYSICS 

I mean, we’re talking about building a giant fucking metal ball wrapped around a star? Our own Sun by the way,  is moving around The Milky Way Galaxy at a rate of 450,000 miles an hour. That’s like trying to envelope a speeding bullet with a balloon on a Merry Go Round. Probably.  

And that balloon is just that. A huge fragile sphere hanging in the void, just waiting to be punctured by passing meteors and other space debris. We forget how lucky we are. Our solar system has Jupiter hoovering up most of the random asteroids that enter our back yard. But without it, it’s open season for any celestial body to take a shot at us. So building a Dyson Sphere is just dumbass. In every sense of the word. 

MESSING WITH THE ECO-SYSTEM

But what if you could? Well, then not only have you mined all your planets for materials but you’d probably need to mine passing comets of their water as well. After all, you want vast oceans right? You need an self-sustaining eco-system to grow things. So you're gonna need clouds. How else is it going to rain? 

So yeah, you would need to hijack comets and other bodies of water. And that in itself might fuck things up for the interstellar eco-system that might also require comets to deliver water. 

Messing with our galactic eco-system might be as bad as Monsanto cornering the market on one generation seeds. We would reduce the likelihood of comets delivering water to potential planetoids that would others wise create life.  

It could be that the soul reason why our universe is so quiet is that Type 2 civilisations have built Dyson spheres, that have created deserts of solar systems. Denying others of the right to life. It could also be a reality that such spheres are dead husks, resulting from war or solar radiation. 

TOO DARK TO SEE...

Plus they would be invisible to our telescopes. At present, our only way to detect advanced civilisations on other planets is under the assumption that they have created the light bulb and need to light their houses at night time. This we might see from our telescopes. But unless a Dyson sphere was illuminated from the outside, we would likely mistake it for a black hole or not see it at all. 

Type III civilisations might encompass their entire galaxies in them. So unless there is some interstellar governing body insisting on hazard lights to avoid collisions, it could be that huge Dyson Spheres just float around out there, that make our Milky Way look tiny by comparison. 

Come to think of it, maybe at the centre of our Galaxy is such a monster, and we're all spinning around it oblivious. 

Fuck it, let’s just say that the whole universe is inside one giant mother-fucking Dyson Sphere and be done with it. But the mind boggles at such a concept. 

WALMART SYNDROME

So let’s just keep to our local solar system for now. 

Even if humans could achieve it, (or any intelligent organic life for that matter) it would only lead to a sort of Walmart Syndrome . 

We've mined everything to build it.  But how? Same way we get anything done.  

We’re talking about a privileged few reaping the rewards, using a massive gobbling entity. A monster that is created, by conning the untold masses of workers into slavery. 

Like how big business conned hundreds of Irish workers into a piece of the good life, to build our infrastructure of motorways, scaring the surface of mother Earth. Like the con of communism under Stalins boot. Or the Nazis building an entire new Germany based on a lie. 

Like the 1950s American dream that technology would have us all in flying cars by now, just like the Jetsons.  These are all cons to build an empire based on lies. 

In a way, the Dyson sphere would be the ultimate folly of mankind. The impossible dream it could never reach. An inverted world with its star at its centre, shining light onto its many continents, spaced apart by various idyllic oceans.  Kids playing on beaches, parents enjoying lazy sunny afternoons. 

Weird anti–gravity creatures. Shit like that. 

Even if it were possible, such entities would be literal cluster-fucks. The equivalent of said Walmart landing in your backyard and putting everyone out of business, until there’s nothing left. 

The theory goes that such impossible spheres would make the universe a hell of a lot darker. I mean, basically you are encasing a light bulb in a black ball. It’s really gonna fuck up those lesser planets still using constellation maps. 

‘Hey dude!’ Where the fuck has Alpha Centuri gone? Where the fuck is the Great Space Plough?’ 

‘The universe is going dark!’ 

‘The end is nigh!’ 

HOW FUCKING BIG? 

I’m no scientist but. Imagine it if you can. Using our planet as a reference, Earth is currently orbiting our sun at a distance of 93 Million miles, right? And at that distance the sun is hot enough to evaporate liquid water and create the eco system that we have. 

Now take that 93 million miles and double it and make that your sphere diameter.

That’s a whopping 186 Million fucking miles. As a sphere. Not to mention all the land masses within it and vast rolling oceans. Ok so now we got our Dyson Sphere. Great. But uh-oh. We’ve built all our land masses on the inside, with a light source we can’t seem to turn off. 

That’s like being under the UV lamp indefinitely. Like leaving the roast and veg under the deli lights for weeks, years, centuries. Yep that’s right. All the waters gonna evaporate. All the land-based foliage is going to shrivel up and die. In fact there won’t be anything. Just a burnt to a crisp shell encompassing a sun. Great. Who fucked that up? 

BLACK SUNS

The only hope then, would be an orbiting planet within, or artificial sun blocker that essentially creates the same conditions of day and night. In as much as the heat from your host star is not roasting its occupants on a daily basis. Such a device would probably be essentially another sphere, that encompasses the sun between the outer shell. 

This inner sphere would be a Black Sun. In as much as it would be a huge black sphere blocking out the heat and light of the sun itself. The only difference being that it would have a huge slit in it and this slit would allow heat and light to escape. This black sphere would rotate slowly, (say every 24 hours) providing light across the land masses. There may even be two slits or more. But essentially this device would act like a light house, beaming out light and heat upon the land, just enough to create the feeling of day and night and possibly even seasons. 

Of course this is all pie in the sky bullshit. Because to build it would mean cannibalising an entire solar system, perhaps even several, just to pull it off. 

So yeah, any notion of an actual physical sphere would be a no-go. 

DYSON SPHERES BUILT BY MACHINES

So only a society that has essentially destroyed its planets eco-system with war, pollution and an abundance of car parks would even consider it. We’re talking proper Borg territory here. 

Thus the only possible recourse to this, would be the eventual evolution of AI. Or AGI. And that would only be after they’ve already wiped humanity from existence. It could be that such ruthless, artificial intelligences already exist somewhere in the cold voids of space. 

Such creatures would show no mercy to organic life. Particularly if such machines required the absolute energy they could harness from its sun. So in such a scenario, machines would likely cannibalise planets, asteroids and comets in order to pull off such a venture. Because no human in their right mind would do it, considering the implications. 

A machine future could only lead to a possible Matrioshka Brain. A huge Dyson Sphere Computer. Programmed by organics dumb enough to allow it independent thought. Imagine Star Treks Doomsday Machine. Basically the Death Star with a mind of its own.

LEGACY

The Dyson sphere, even if it was (somehow) pulled off, wouldn’t make life any better for the poor souls that would have to physically build it. 

We are talking about the ultimate legacy of our race, build by the collective death of infinite slaves, duped into it, just like the slaves who were duped into building the Pyramids. (the crap ones, the others were built by aliens. Everyone knows that). 

And anyway, we wouldn’t have learned a fucking thing from our past. It would still be a fool’s paradise. Like a huge interplanetary resort. We’re talking about the ultimate bachelors planet: Hookers, cocaine. No Father Christmas, that’s for fucking sure.

DEVOLUTION 

And it wouldn’t last either. Sooner or later it would devolve. Either by war or other. Until the inhabitants had receded back to cave men. You might get the odd renaissance. Somebody might even re-invent electricity. A pre-industrial society might re-emerge. But all would be oblivious to their origins. Much like how we speculate on our own origins. 

Dyson Bibles would be knocked up, speculating all sorts of mystic nonsense:  

Oh yay and the Great Lord Dyson, did say “let there be light” and then he creatith the heavens and the world in six days and rested on the seventh…

Amen. 

Shit like that.  So we would have all the hallmarks of a tragic comedy on a universal scale. The remnants of a once great Type Two civilisation, who can no longer add two and two together and have no fucking clue about the reality around them. Sound familiar? 

DYSON SWARM

So a more accurate and real description wouldn’t be a Dyson Swarm,  which is essentially a loose collection of artificial satellites (such as small space craft or other machines) that encompass a star. 

In a way, our planet is already surrounded by such satellites, creating its own Dyson swarm. Our atmosphere is a veritable hornets nest of space junk. Now envision a plethora of space-faring folk constructing various types of solar arrays around our Sun. All different kinds of celestial bodies would then be orbiting our star, as diverse to each other as a VW Beetle is to a Cadillac. Each a solar collector, made by a different space company, agency or whatever.  

FREEMAN DYSON

Ultimately this was the vision that was explored by the physicist Freeman Dyson in his 1960 paper "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation". But somewhere along the way, his vision was perverted into the realms of sci-fi, to the point that he had disowned the notion and regretted ever being named after it. 

All in all, the Dyson sphere proposal was only ever a thought experiment, much like Schrodinger’s Cat.  A mere hypothesis. The consequences of which are akin to Oppenheimer regretting his decision to dreaming up the atomic bomb. 

And we all know how that is turning out... 

TITAN SUB TRAGEDY

TITAN SUB TRAGEDY :

A DEATH TRAP WAITING TO HAPPEN

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

YET AGAIN

So the bad news finally came this morning, that the ill-fated crew of the submersible Titan were tragically lost when their sub imploded. And yet all this could have been avoided. It just seems to me that the advancements in submarine technology took a huge step backwards in order to allow this needless disaster. Like the Titanic itself you might say. Massive shortcuts in safety were made. In fact, no regulatory body was involved in this subs design at all. And those who did raise concerns were simply ignored or fired.  

Ultimately this type of design should never have been allowed in the first place. But then the up and coming youth would argue that innovation is being gagged in the name of archaic dinosaurs hellbent on (yawn) health and safety. Much like Elon Musk is trying to re-invent the wheel with his Space X program, by making re-usable rockets. But at the same time, Musk has made no attempt to approach NASA because they’re like sooooo old. 

TOO KOOL FOR SKOOL 

So all this, smells of ageism. Rather like the old proverb: You Can’t Put An Old Head On Young Shoulders.  I'm not a submarine expert BUT come on! Only one button? And a games controller to pilot with? Let me repeat that:  A FRIKEN GAMES CONTROLLER (!)  

This all reminds me of that dude who went para-gliding on his sofa and a Tv, with only a packet of crisps. But he knew what he was doing and it was kool.  Whereas these assholes built a submarine with zero thought into the repercussions. They just thought yeah fuck it, whatever. Let’s just tear up the rule book and make a our own dam sub. Coz we’re like super-awsum. Yay! 

BOLTED INSIDE

And get this. The sub crew had to be bolted inside, with something like 27 bolts. Hmm.  At what point did anyone stop to think that this was really shitty idea guys? Plus, this piece of crap literally looks like a beer can, using essentially fibre glass and air pressure to keep its shape. So it’s no wonder it imploded. 

JAMES CAMERON 

A huge proponent of this mess, was that OceanGate, (the subs owners), seemed to think they knew it all and made no attempt to reach out to more experienced Titanic submariners, such as film director James Cameron. To achieve his vision, Cameron used the Russian MIR subs in order to dive to the Titanic wreck. Plus these subs were built out of STEEL. They also employed the pressure sphere principle, which is essentially a 3-dimensional arch, where all exerting forces are equal. Mr Cameron dived to the titanic in these subs 33 TIMES without incident. 

A DEATH TRAP WAITING TO HAPPEN. 

When Cameron heard about the Titan design, he knew it was a death trap and just wished he had sounded the alarm sooner. 

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN 

The clue is in the title. These schmucks made a prototype submarine out of carbon fibre, supposedly stronger than steel. But unlike steel, carbon fibre has no elasticity or 'give'. Where as steel might buckle or dent and given its crew some inkling of danger. Carbon fibre simply snaps without warning. 

Thus when Titan became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of water pressure upon its hull, a sudden crack likely occurred, which proved fatal. Before they knew it, the submarine imploded. The equivalent of popping a balloon. 

UNTESTED FOR FLAWS

Such a submarine should have been tested for pressures way beyond its design limits, to work out the flaws and make adjustments. 

If they had tested it in the first dam place,  any cracks would have shown up. Of course, this would have meant destroying the actual sub. But better that than destroying five human beans. 

But oh yeah. OceanGate didn't bother with all that flap coz, yeah we're like totally awsum and the laws of physics don't apply to us.  This is why we have (yawn) all those boring (and expensive) health and safety tests, kids. 

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF 

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all, was that these poor people hopped aboard an unseaworthy vessel to visit the wreck of another unseaworthy vessel and died for exactly the same reasons. Money and ignorance, over safety. At least it was quick, I guess. 

But oh well, its back to the drawing board, kids. 

My mate down the pub said he can probably build us another submarine for a pack of stella. 

By this time next year we'll be millionaires. 

Speaking of which,  got any spare millionaire guinea-pigs we can test it on? 

No? Damn. 

EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS

HE HAD A WIFE & KIDS GODDAMIT :

EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS

or 

WHY UFO’s HATE PHOTO-SHOOTS 

Yep, those pesky UFO’s sure do hate photo-shoots. One blurry photo after another. Even today, in our digital age of swipey-wipey paraphernalia, we still can’t get a decent money-shot of an UFO.

From my own experience, I know how hard it is to achieve a good UFO pic. One night, we saw strange lights floating above our back garden. I ran into the house and grabbed the camera. I tried to shoot them from my bedroom window but it was extremely hard to get them in focus. 

Turned out to be a couple of Chinese Lanterns and our own vivid imaginations. 

All that said, there was another incident that I couldn't explain. I saw what I presumed was the navigation light of an air plane, passing at high-altitude, over the night sky. But then it did a vertical lift on a 90 degree angle and flew straight up into space.

I'm no expert but I doubt planes or choppers can do such a manoeuvre.  It was also way too high up to be a drone.  Too bad I didn't have my video camera.  So yeah, you only have my word. 

Note to self: must carry 8k Video camera and 2000 mm telephoto lens at all times.  

And even if someone did get a great shot of a real 100% genuine flying saucer, people would say it’s fake or just a trick of the light. 

In fact, its crazy how many fake UFO shots are out there now. Anyone with a Frisbee (and a good aim) can dupe their friends and family or even a whole nation.  So called Alien Abductee George Adamski, became famous for it. 

Regardless, each year, dozens of UFO chasers still camp out in the Nevada desert, surrounding Area 51: determined to snap a shot of what they believe could be secret alien space crafts, being tested by the U.S. military. 

It may sound crazy, but at the time of this blog, whistleblowers are now coming forward and Government deep state is finally having to admit that it is in possession of technology not of this world. 

WASHINGTON FLAP 

Of course, the UFO phenomena is not a new thing. Its been in vogue (on and off) for centuries, going back as far as the Egyptians. 

But in more recent times, no more so publicly, as the infamous incidents of 1952, known collectively as the ‘Washington Flap’. Whereby, a series of UFO sightings were reported across Washington DC, over a two-week period, culminating with reports of UFOs flying over The Capital Building and The White House itself.  

It is because of all this fuss, that Hollywood movie producers of the time saw an opportunity to cash in on this wave of UFO hysteria. Inspired mainly by the events over Washington, producer Charles Schneer of Columbia Pictures, contacted his buddy (animator extraordinaire Ray HarryHausen) for their next B-movie exploitation. 

 Film legend: Ray HarryHausen

It would essentially be a rip-off of George Pals War of the Worlds (1953) but using flying saucers instead of Martian War Machines and called (“imaginatively”) : Earth Vs The Flying Saucers (1956). 

Starring Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor as a newly-wed couple. Being scientists, they soon become embroiled in all things other worldly, when the flying saucers come a callin’. 

Initially the aliens seem only pre-occupied in sabotaging the U.S. space program, knocking out space satellites and such before widening their campaign, hovering around military installations. 

No proof of their sabotage is required of course, just the ‘gut feeling’ of our plucky square jawed scientist hero. As a result, when the landing aliens say hello, they receive very little of the red-carpet treatment and one of them is immediately shot dead on sight by trigger-happy soldiers. 

HE HAD A WIFE AND KIDS GODAMIT 

Watching that scene, I really felt sorry for that dead alien. Like in Austin Powers. I mean, what if he had a family? A wife and kids? Imagine them all back home,  waiting for daddy to join them for dinner. 

‘Mom?’  Ask the kids. ‘When’s Daddy coming home?’ 

Then the phone rings. The news is bad.  

‘Daddies had an accident at work dear...’ Says the distraught wife. ‘But he’s gone to a better place now...’

‘But we want daddy!’ Squeal the kids in tears. ‘We want daddy! WE WANT DADDY!!’ 

‘I know my little sweet-hearts!’ Sobs the wife. ‘I miss him too!’ 

And this seems to be the gist of how things will pan out for the rest of this movie. It’s a simple tale of  Us vs Them. Good and Evil, black and white etc with no grey areas. No attempt is made to really communicate or make peace with the aliens, it’s just blast ‘em all to hell and ask questions later. With nowhere else to go,  naturally the illegal aliens step it up a gear and begin a full-on invasion of planet Earth, (well, mainly Washington DC anyway), until they are finally foiled by our plucky scientists anti-UFO sonic weapons and the sore invaders leave with their alien asses, well and truly kicked. 

ANTI-COMMUNIST SUBTEXT  

The simplicity of this narrative only lends itself to mass-interpretation. You could argue that this film is nothing more than just a propaganda show reel, showing off the might of the Gun-Ho American military against all adversity. The sub-textual differences between this movie and say Pals War of the Worlds(1953) are the split of a hair. Whereas in that film, America is (more realistically) utterly defeated and without hope, requiring divine intervention (in the form of the common cold), to kill off the seemingly unstoppable Martian invaders. But in Earth Vs The Flying Saucers, the USA fairs a lot better, matching the aggressors with (unlikely) technology that inevitably defeats them, due to the heroism and genius of our square-jawed hero. 

It all makes for a simpler story, whereby America comes up tops but is somehow all the less believable. Thus if there is a subtext in Earth Vs The Flying Saucers at all, it could easily be interpreted as an anti-communist flick, designed to drum up fear and hate for the Soviet Union and any other foreign power. 

After all, there was already a plethora of anti-communist dogmas in 50’s America and a movie dealing with ‘invaders’ that are explicitly defeatable  (using our conventional weapons), could only add fuel to the fire. 

For impressionable young American boys, who’s to say this film didn’t play a hand in nudging their thoughts towards joining the U.S. military, just to shoot some goddam Commies? Who knows. On the other hand, maybe it’s just a silly movie having fun and blowing up stuff, I’ll let you decide.  

And speaking of bad photo-shoots. Being shot in black and white really didn’t help this movie at all. While its superior counterpart War of the Worlds was shot in lavish Technicolor, Earth Vs The Flying Saucers struggles to live up to the hype, due to the lack of any colour, making it look cheap and forgettable. 

NOW IN COLOR ! 

More recently, this movie has had a new make-over and is now available in a fantastic colorized version. And wow! What a difference a splash of colour actually makes, as it really helps bring this film to life, enhancing the viewing enjoyment and aligning it just a tad closer, to the spectacle of George Pals War of the Worlds. Of course it doesn’t help save the wooden acting or enhance the bland script, but the colorized version really makes every scene in this film suddenly pop. 

Another reason to watch this film, is to catch the unmistakable voice of the aliens, as recited by actor Paul Frees, who you may remember (again from Pals War of the Worlds), portraying the roaming reporter, recording for  "for future history ... if any." 

RAY HARRYHAUSEN 

But above all, the main reason to watch Earth Vs The Flying Saucers, is to sample the genius of Ray Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion effects. Whereas Pals expensive War of the Worlds movie could blow up Los Angeles with spectacular slow-motion camera trickery, Earth Vs The Flying Saucers was on a somewhat smaller budget. Unable to afford the slow-motion cameras required to film miniature buildings, (exploding in a realistic manor), Harryhausen had to resort to animating individual chunks of falling miniature masonry, one piece at a time!  Jeez. What a chore that must have been. 

Anyways, as part of his homework,  Harryhausen read the book: Flying Saucers from Outer Space, by leading ufologist Donald Keyhoe,  who had previously published an article in True Magazine titled Flying Saucers are Real.  Keyhoe made extensive research into the matter, utilising his contacts within The Pentagon and presented a convincing argument for the existence of extra-terrestrial vehicles, stating that the American Government was withholding vital information.  

Harryhausen even went as far as to actually interview (now-debunked) alien abductee George Adamski, quizzing him on the details of how flying saucers should look. He later said of Adamski, that he found him a rather sketchy fellow, probably because his UFO ‘scout ship’ photos were actually based on an lamp shade from an old Sears Kerosene lantern! But as a result, Harryhausen’s research made for spectacular animated saucers. 

Yet in the age of CGI (all now done on our mobile phones), today’s kids might not be all that wowed by the special effects in Earth Vs The Flying Saucers. They certainly won’t blow you away by any means, but considering that they were done using stop-frame photography, one cannot be nonetheless awed by the impressive results they still yielded.  

It’s just a shame that the rest of the film didn’t get as much attention to the details as this aspect, as overall the movie was let down by a half-baked script, that would tax the attention span of any goldfish. 

But despite its shortcomings, the importance of Earth Vs The Flying Saucers should not be overlooked, for (due to Harryhausen’s involvement), the film was a big hit in 1956 and spurned an entire genre of flying saucer movies, while securing itself as a cult classic and essential required reading at the Geek Academy, for all aspiring sci-fi nerds. 

DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

 

RETURNING TO

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

AND HOW GORT TAUGHT US TO HATE THE BOMB.

Every once in a while, a film comes along that sums up the Zeitgeist of our times and no more so than this movie. So picture the scene kids: its 1951. The United States of America is teaching its citizens to Love The Bomb, while they sweat it out in a Mexican Standoff with the Soviet Union. Nuclear annihilation could come at any given moment, but the world was about to be thrown into doubt, as a little Hollywood film suddenly landed in Washington DC.

A film that largely challenged the need for mutually assured destruction and stated (in no uncertain terms) that it was ok to just Hate The Bomb and all that it stood for. That film was 20th Century Fox’s: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). 

BASED ON A BOOK

Based on the 1940 novel Farewell to the Master, by Harry Bates, the original story told of an alien space craft landing in Washington DC, who’s pilot (Klaatu) is shot dead by a lunatic, leaving his henchman Robot (Gnut) motionless outside the ship. Eventually Gnut retrieves ‘voice recordings’ from Klaatu’s corpse, (to make a clone), before returning to outer space, revealing to the narrator, that he is "The Master" of the human race.   

The essence of the novel later became the movie, with scriptwriter Edmund H. North, making changes, that included changing Gnuts name to Gort and giving Klaatu a much larger part to play in world-peace and warning us of the dangers of nuclear conflict. 

With that in mind, there were very few who spoke out against the ensuing Arms Race for fear of losing their jobs. As a result, The Day The Earth Stood Still addressed these issues head on:  speaking out for the millions of people who had no voice of their own, to stand up to McCarthyism and the insanity of nuclear holocaust. 

REAL INFANTRY WERE USED. 

Production wise, the film required a reluctant military involvement, as a flying saucer lands on the grassy lawns near the Washington Monument: surrounded by tanks, anti-aircraft guns, missiles and so on. However, The American Department Of Defence actually hated the script and wanted nothing to do with it but ultimately The 3rd Armoured Cavalry At Fort Meade, Maryland (nicknamed The Brave Rifles) finally agreed to participate, supplying the necessary hardware to pull off these fantastic scenes.

 

But it was with all likelihood, that they were not fully aware of the facts. You can just imagine that the producers probably told their bosses, that it was just for a ‘training exercise’, or a publicity stunt or some such. 

COLD WAR HEATING UP 

For its time, The Day The Earth Stood Still was a brave film, in a period of extreme prejudice, social anxiety and paranoia. And its easy to understand why.  At this point in our precarious history, there was no such thing as the internet. Tv & Radio dominated the flow of information. A veritable Iron Curtain of mistrust had descended upon Europe and there were more nukes pointed at each other, than a post apocalypse caveman could shake a stick at. Propaganda was the name of the game. 

Public information films such as Duck & Cover (1952) were being churned out to the masses, showing us how Burt the Turtle and little Jimmy can survive the initial three minutes of a nuclear strike by simply ducking behind a bush! But don’t worry kids, you’ll be fine. If the blast wave doesn’t kill you first, then the subsequent fallout (and ten years of nuclear winter) probably will. 

Better Dead than Red was a household mantra and the worlds scientific and military resources were basically held ransom to a monumental game of global poker, known as The Cold War.  Indeed, the stakes were high, fuelled by paranoid delusion. Trigger happy Generals in The Pentagon, wielded atomic weapons like so many kids with water bombs. It was like a scene from Dr Strange Glove:  

We gotta nuke them goddamn commies! Nuke em all! 

But... no wait! That doesn’t work! It’s a no-win scenario. Like playing chess with live hand grenades.  

or better still:  Two sworn enemies standing in a lake of gasoline, one holds three matches. 

The other holds five. (Carl Sagan) 

But its the 1950's, so we can’t talk about that. Doubt in the campaign weakens the defence, right? 

Meanwhile, (to make sure the public was sufficiently traumatised further), The McCarthy Witch Hunts were in full swing, holding endless congressional hearings to weed out communist sympathisers. 

Have you ever been a member of, or in any way associated with (either directly or indirectly) the Communist Party? 

Hollywood was in a state of siege, black-listing actors, filmmakers, writers and musicians who just happen to like the idea of a better world. 

What? I hear you say. A better world? Sounds like goddamn commie talk to me! Shoot that basterd! 

And its not just Hollywood, but the entire USA is under the thumb. Trust was a hard thing to come by in these paranoid times. Fear of the other, fear of the unknown. Russian Spies were everywhere, apparently. Curtains twitched frantically, as strangers moved in next door, ready to invade our homes, in the guise of pleasant speaking Englishmen (probably) and no one was safe from the threat of those goddamnn commies! And only the Russians knew what they thought of us. 

FEAR OF THE OTHER 

Speaking of pleasant speaking Englishmen, the pinnacle themes of this film (mainly fear of The Other) are no more so aptly portrayed when the alien Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie) pays a visit to Mrs Crockett’s boarding house: Already in a state of anxiety (from various news bulletins of the aliens escape) Mrs Crockett’s guests leap from their seats, at the sudden appearance of the mild-mannered and well-groomed stranger, who politely asks to rent a room. 

Klaatu’s charm quickly wins them over and it’s clear that his co-lodger Mrs Benson (Patricia Neal) has the hots for this weird English-speaking (not to mention) COMPLETE STRANGER. So much so, she even allows him to take her ten-year old kid off to go see the flying saucer (!) 

Wow, now if that aint trust I don’t know what is.  Let total strangers take your kids to see flying saucers. Not so much as a criminal records check. 

All you gotta do is be white and smile, I guess. 

Michael Rennie as the charm-smooch alien Klaatu

Only Mrs Bensons jealous boyfriend (played by Hugh Marlowe) is immune to Klaatu’s charms and sets out to expose him for all his worth.

 

And these are just some of the most poignant and dramatic scenes of the movie because it shows us everything we need to know about 1950s American social anxieties. And not only did white-collar Southern Americans fear the communists, we’re also in the midst of racial segregation too. 

Jeez, imagine if Sydney Poitier had rolled up at Mrs Crockett’s boarding house? 

Hey kid! Wanna go see a flyin’ saucer?? 

We might have entered some fucked-up Klu Klux Klan territory here. Plus it would still be another three years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus and fan the flames of race equality.

But 1950's Hollywood could only stand so much. 

What ? A  film that challenges the Cold War, McCarthyism, Racism and stars a black guy too? 

Get outta here! 

All joking aside, I would of loved to have seen that version. Sydney Poitier as Klaatu? How awsum would that have been? 

In the age of Deep Fakery, somebody's gotta make that film. 

 

But for now, we just have to settle for Michael Rennie, who’s quaint English ways were about as radical as it got, for 1950s American audiences. And lets not even go there with any homo-related or gender identity connotations. For the sake of simplicity, he’s just a straight-white-guy from outer space! Capeesh?  

A MESSAGE FOR PEACE 

But I digress.  This was the state of play in those impossible times. 

This might be an old scratchy black and white movie, with lumbering killer-robots etc but the themes of paranoia and self destruction are as relevant today, as they were back then.  

We are still on the brink of nuclear war. We still fear the other. But its often films like this, that remind us, that it doesn't have to be that way. 

Hey Brother, why cant we all just ...get along? 

When The Day The Earth Stood Still premiered in 1951, it (surprisingly) received generally positive reviews.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association even gave it a Golden Global Award for promoting World Peace.

LEGACY 

Henceforth, the characters of the Christ-like Klaatu (and his indestructible killer police robot Gort), where indelibly etched into the public psyche, spurning an entire genre of science fiction movies: some bad, some just plain terrible but nearly all dealing with the idea of the communist threat in the guise of alien invasion. In most cases, the invaders were hostile and in others, pacifists and victims of misunderstanding, such was the legacy that The Day The Earth Stood Still had left us. 

Nobody can deny this films power to make one stop and think about the tightrope we precariously walk upon and without this movie, there wouldn’t be Tv serials such as Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, which essentially touched upon similar themes. With that in mind, Captain Kirk could quite easily be Klaatu: seeking out new life and civilisations etc, bringing them under the wing of a United Federation. And really that is what this film is about: the promotion of a stronger United Nations.

In plainer words, The Day The Earth Stood Still stuck a big middle finger up to McCarthyism and the Nuclear Arms race. It could be argued that this one film influenced an entire generation to work towards world peace, culminating in subsequent anti-nuke films such as, The War Game (1966), The Day After (1983) and Threads (1984), leading to the final days of the Iron Curtain and the end of The Cold War. 

Director Robert Wise would go on to direct Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), spawning a franchise that is still going strong today. With the advent of the internet, we are now more informed about the complexities of our world but we still gotta long way to go towards world peace. So if anything, The Day The Earth Stood Still has ingrained itself into our subconscious, to the point that perhaps it has made an indelible impression on where our priorities really lie. 

It may not seem like we live in a better world right now but it’s a far sight better than it used to be. 

So just remember kids, the next time you play with Nukes, watch out for Gort. Or you’ll be playing your next game of war, with sticks and stones! 

Klaatu Barada Nikto !

SILENT RUNNING

 Returning to 

1972: Just three years after 2001: A space Odyssey and five years before Star Wars, Universal Pictures produced one of the most renowned sci-fi films of all time.

In fact , critic Mark Kermode cited it as one of the best movies ever made. 

A film that highlighted environmental issues, a future where the temperature of Earth is 75 degrees and unsustainable for plant life. 

Arc ships are sent into space, carrying the last vestiges of flora and fauna taken from around our dying planet and housed within the crafts array of giant bio-domes.

But even this is subject to Nixen like budget cuts and what plays out is a film that deals with the last forest in existence. 

That film was Silent Running. 

Featuring Bruce Dern in one of his finest performances, Silent Running has all the hallmarks of a sci-fi classic. Cute robots, awsum space ships and songs by Joan Baez. Who could ask for more?  Yet at the time Derns performance was lauded by critics as over the top and Baez's musical interludes deemed annoying. 

BRUCE DERN 

Is he over acting? Not really. His character Freeman Lowell is passionate about sustainability, which was often a point of ridicule by industrialists, hell bent on making the world into one giant car park and charging the very air we breath.

Dern was fully aware of this and enthused these aspects within Lowells personality, resulting in a character driven to the point of being necrotic and comical. Especially when cooped up in a space ship for twelve years, planting trees, while his ship mates act like yocal redneck rejects from any given trucker movie. 

They drink beer, play poker, shoot pool and race dune buggies around the space forest, much to the annoyance of Lowell, as they run over his plants. Jesus. it really shows just how apathetic the mindset of this universe has become. 

Basically these guys are assholes. They don't give a flying fuck about saving the ecology of the Earth. This is highlighted in several group scenes, where Lowell grows continually tired of their ignorance. 

It all comes to a head when the company recall them to Earth and order the destruction of the biodomes. The red necks cheer. Lowell is devastated. 

Eventually he explodes into a rant about a child never knowing what its like to sleep in tall green grass on a lazy summer afternoon. To which his redneck buddies burst into giggles like three year olds. 

Fuck. These guys really need to die right now.  And so they do. But even after Lowell kills them all off, he still shows remorse for what he has done. 

It could be said that Derns little rants on ecology are akin to Woke before there was even a name for it. Before Woke became tiresome and unpopular due to its pronoun dictatorships. It could also be argued that the three hicks are just as equally Counter-Woke in their own brainwashing. 

But whatever. This was a time when Science Fiction highlighted real issues before it became pew-pew Space Opera. 

At any rate, for an actor best known for playing villian's and character parts Bruce Dern is fantastic. Nobody could have pulled this performance off better. NOBODY. His plea to his nonchalant compatriots, not to destroy the last forests, is a plea to us all. 

No CGI here folks, that's real tears welling in Derns eyes, as he gives Jordan Peterson a run for his money. 

JOAN BAEZ

Besides being a rock star, Joan Baez was best known at the time for her political activism.  She was part of the waning flower power Zeitgeist of the time, which also included protests against Vietnam, the Cold War and deforestation.  So her material dealt with matters of ecology and a better world. 

Baez contributed two songs to the movie. The first being 'Rejoice in the Sun' and  the second (also called Silent Running) . 

Both feature in the two montages that appear at the beginning and towards the latter part of the film.

Although her lyrics suit the themes in Silent Running, I must admit it was a little jarring when her first song ('Rejoice in the Sun') pops up. Baez alto-style of singing wasn't everyone's cup of tea. So its easy to understand why critics would pan her.  

In her defense, the second montage (featuring her song 'Silent Running') is a delight to watch and is one of the best sequences in the whole movie. This is  attributed to the comedic set up before the second montage appears. 

COMEDIC SET UPS

Having now gone awol, Bruce Derns character attempts to teach his new found droid pals Huey and Dewey, how to plant plants with great comical effect. 

'Pitiful!' He sighs, as the two droids haphazardly make a hash of digging a hole and sticking a plant in it. 

Its a great scene which lightens up the mood, particularly after Dern has killed off his annoying-as-fuck ship mates (trust me, they had it coming) and lost one of the three droids (Louie)  in a space storm. Thus the following Baez led montage works effortlessly and really chugs the film along quite nicely. 

Plus being a film that predominantly features zero women in it, this makes Baez's input even more relevant. She could be considered as the Mother Nature motif, that encompasses the narrative. 

ORIGINATOR OF THE CUTE ROBOT TROPE 

Of course, no 70s' sci-fi movie was complete without a couple of cute robots. And this movie started it all. True, robots had featured before in sci fi, such as Forbidden Planet and Lost in Space but these were more of the lumbering Frankenstein types.

Enter Huey and Dewey: the ships two surviving maintenance drones. This was a time before R2D2 and other astro-mech droids had become a stalwart of all space opera. In fact, George Lucas asked Silent Runnings director Douglas Trumbull,  if he could borrow the idea for his droids in Star Wars.

The three drones featured in Silent Running, were played by four bilateral amputees, Mark Persons as Drone 1 (Dewey), Cheryl Sparks and Steven Brown as Drone 2 (Huey) and Larry Whisenhunt as Drone 3 (Louie). They used their hands as the robots feet and are thoroughly convincing as bi-pedal robots. 

What makes them even more endearing, is the little quirks these robots have. They cheat at poker and hiss and bleep when Lowell reprimands them. 

Over the course of the movie, its hard not to have a soft spot for them and when one of them is damaged in a collision with a dune buggy, its almost heartbreaking.

This leads into one for the most poignant scenes, where said robot is in the sick bay, while Lowell tries his best to save the little guy. I was in fucking tears. 

LEGACY 

All in all, Silent Running might not compete with the later marvels of the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises or the giddy heights of Battle Star Galactica. 

But it was the first.

The first to combine the ideas of cute robots and ecological themes, that later proliferated into the latter. Just look at the film WALL-E and you can see echoes of Silent Running. 

Silent Running is a slow movie for sure. There are no pew-pew space battles and big showdowns with evil dark lords. 

But where it might lack in action and adventure, it more than makes up for with endearing characters and uncomfortable truths. 

BOOKS VS MOVIES

 

BOOKS VS MOVIES 

It’s the age old debate. Books are way better than films! I hear people say. Period! Cite me any movie that was better than the book! 

Oh yeah? Well what about any James Bond movie?  They are likely to be far more entertaining than a JB novel. Some movies do actually live up to their book expectations. I have even talked to fans of "The Lord of the Rings" books: one said the movie 'Battle of Helms Deep' was pretty much how he imagined it from the book. He even got up in the cinema and cheered! 

Then again, its all down to personal taste and that’s because books are a far more intimate medium than a movie but both have their own merits. Books create a close link between a writer and a reader, and it can be frustrating when films don't live up to one's individual expectations of a novel. But to state a book is better than a movie is just dismissive of the thousands of people who risk their lives making these movies, who were inspired to make them because of books. Plus nobody ever died writing a novel, unless they slipped on spilt coffee and got impaled on a pencil.

But I digress, it is true, books tend to have more longevity than a movie might because they only require the imagination of the reader. Where as a movie has to provide all that but will date quickly due to changing fashions and technology. But then again some books tend to drag also, due to the 'Show Not Tell' ethos, which in my opinion should be used wisely, as too much of it can really slow the pace of a chapter to a grinding halt and thus bore the reader. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is considerably laborious to read and its only twist fails miserably, when (in hindsight) you know that they are one and the same person.

Transposing a book to film also requires budgetary considerations. Thus they tend to have more action and entertainment and drop scenes from a book that might kill the pacing of the narrative. Coming back to the James Bond Books for a moment, they are totally different from the movies, due to the contractual agreements. But even so, fans of bond films such as The Spy Who Loved Me or Moon Raker, might find the novel versions somewhat of a disappointment. There are no megalomaniacs in the "The Spy Who Loved Me" novella for example, nor does it have a swish submarine car or any underwater citadel lairs, submarine eating tankers or indestructible henchmen with metal teeth. It doesn't even have James Bond in it! And is more of a 'Dear Diary' affair from a Bond Girls point of view. 

Speaking of henchmen with metal teeth, the movie version of "Jaws" is another example, whereby its book counterpart is slow and laborious, with Chief Brody's wife having an affair (and no exploding shark!). "The Life of Pi"novel covers the back story in more detail than the movie does and gives a fantastic insight into Indian Culture but at the same time wonders too far from the basic plot of a kid stuck on a life-boat with a Bengal tiger. "Moby Dick" takes forever to get to the whale and the Frankenstein novel never had a spectacular resurrection scene either. The book of "Dracula" is essentially a series of correspondence letters between the characters. 

On the other hand, I have yet to see an authentic movie version of "The War of the Worlds", bar the Jeff Wayne musical version but it was because of those films (and particularly the musical), that spurred me to read the HG Wells novel in the first place and now I cant help reading it, without hearing Richard Burtons voice. 

If anything, films invariably wet the appetite of the reader and vice versa. Leaving the cinema, one might hear someone say The book was better. Another person will muddle thru the novel and think the opposite. 

All in all, each has its own respected battle trenches, that the will keep folks engaged in debate, long after the original writers and filmmakers have passed on...