Scattershot

[bobquasit]

Just a quick post while I'm waiting for the ramen to cool down. I tried to do it as a voice post from my landline, but got the fast busy again - same as always. Tried the cell, and got "This number is forbidden".

Annoying.

Anyway, I was going to do a post about "The Last Mimzy", which is an upcoming movie which I bet will be a standard Hollywood torture-murder of the classic science fiction short story "Mimsey Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett (the pen name of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore).

Needless to say, I won't be seeing it. God, I hate Hollywood. Is there ANYTHING they can't ruin?

Comments

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Well, huh. I looked at the official site and it looks like some screenwriter or whatever read the story and decided to use it as something of a starting point for whatever it is he or she or it wanted to write. The original story would have made a really good ep of The Twilight Zone, basically comedic. This looks like, hmmm, ever see the Roger Corman film The Raven? A good movie IMHO (I happen to like the Corman films featuring Vincent Price) but for all that it claims to be based on Poe's poem it really just takes the title and has a raven in it. That's what "The Last Mimzy" looks like; they're taking a little of the original and making their own story. Mind you, it could easily be a pretty good movie, but most likely will end up being full of Heartwarming and Meaningfulness and with kind of an opposite message from the original story.

Re. HEARTWARMING & MEANINGFULNESS

[stairflight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like that commercial right now for the Astronaut Farmer or whatever where Billy Bob intones as the tagline: If we don't have our dreams, we have nothing! Wow - makes me want to rush out & see it....

Re: Re. HEARTWARMING & MEANINGFULNESS

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Ya know, that film was kinda sorta done already, on TV. You remember "Salvage" ("Salvage 1" was the pilot movie) in which Andy Griffith builds a spaceship to pick up stuff in space? At least in that he had a reason for doing this. Near as I can tell the guy in "The Astronaut Farmer" is trying to go into space just to do it, and there's not a remotely realistic explanation of just how he can build a space rocket. An SF geek like me would rather see something like maybe a successful private effort to get humanity out into the solar system. Heck, we've already had the private space trip in real life with Spaceship One; why should this film be of any worth.

But then again, there is the whole idea of the Average Joe doing an extraordinary thing, even if in a way it's a pointless extraordinary thing. I'm not totally against the film then, I suppose....

Re: Re. HEARTWARMING & MEANINGFULNESS

[stairflight.livejournal.com]

Near as I can tell the guy in "The Astronaut Farmer" is trying to go into space just to do it

But he has a dream - a dreeeaaaaaaaammm!

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Comedic? I've always thought of it as a horror story, of sorts; after all, the children become completely alien to the parents, and the parents lose their children - presumably forever.

Which makes it all the stranger that it's supposedly going to be made into light family fare. I think C.L. Moore is still alive; I wonder what she thinks of all this?

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Took a quick look at Wikipedia; C. L. Moore died back in 1987.

Hmm, been a while and yeah, there is certainly a horror aspect. (Klyfix digs up "The Road To Science Fiction #3: From Heinlein To Here" which has the story)

Okay, yeah, while it starts out like it's going to be comedic it certainly becomes as the story goes on something Lovecraft could love. An accurate rendering of the story onto the screen would, yeah, it would be a horror tale and probably something not really for children. Heck, the story specifically has the adults getting an understanding that children are somewhat alien to start with, really.

Which, hmm, makes one wonder just how they make it Heartwarming And Meaningful as they've surely intended to do.