John Dule 5,332nd Post AMA Extravaganza!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

You eff with Dune?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

You eff with either Bladerunner?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

You eff with Dune?

Oh boy. If I recall correctly, you are a fan, so it gives me no pleasure to say this... but I had my problems with Dune. The sheer onslaught of technical terms and proper nouns in the beginning made my head spin, and prevented me from becoming as immersed in the story as I'd have liked. Like Lord of the Rings, it's a book that I respect and understand why people like it, and I periodically revisit it to give it another shot, but I've never been able to overcome my reflexively negative reaction to its writing.

That said though, I love a lot of the concepts in that book. I think its blending of medieval institutions with a sci-fi setting is very clever, and the spice (and the reason why it's used) is a lightning-in-a-bottle sci-fi idea that impressed me to no end. I have no complaints with Herbert's conceptual creativity; the writing, however, just comes across as clunky to me sometimes. I will say that the David Lynch movie probably played a part in poisoning me against it. I normally like Lynch, but I honestly had to turn that film off halfway through. However, I think the new Villeneuve adaptation has serious potential, so I'm looking forward to that as a possible way to rekindle my fascination with that world. Like I said, the ideas at work in that book are among the best I've ever encountered in sci-fi; it's just the prose that I find lacking.

So my claim to being a "fan" is rather shallow. I'd had my brother and two friends independently either recommend or talk to me about Dune. Given my love for Bladerunner 2049, the hype for Villeneuve directing the 2020 iteration of the Dune film finally drove me to order and read the book. I was in love. I'll admit there are features I still do not really understand, even after finally getting around to the appendix, but something about that book grabbed ahold of me. I agree, I also love the aristocracy + space travel, and, probably owing to my upbringing, I also was very drawn to the intense use of religious terminology/messianism. Beyond that, it's very hard to articulate my love of the book, but as I described it to my Boomer aunt and uncle over the weekend--it's politics, it's religion, it's ecology, it's science fiction, it's revenge. The Lynch adaptation is probably only palatable after having read the book; for, while it fails in a lot of aspects--including what IMO is bad special effects even for the time and ridiculously sped-up second and third sections--it helps bring to life scenes that fans could otherwise only dream of and the Baron Harkonnen performance I thought was hysterical.

You eff with either Bladerunner?

I love both of the movies, and also enjoyed the book on which the first one was based. The original Blade Runner is a visual masterpiece, and provided that you watch the version without Harrison Ford's bored narration, it's a wonderful and mysterious film. I will say, however, that although I don't like 2049 as much as the original, it does have more richly developed characters in a number of ways. Gosling's character's arc has fascinated me since that movie came out. How many movies have actually had the guts to

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set up a protagonist as the "chosen one," only to reveal in the end that he really wasn't? And then to top it off, it affirms that Gosling's character's life still has meaning even though he's not as special as he thought he was.

It's really great how the story misleads us with that plotline. I loved it, and it still makes me think to this day-- about narrative tropes in fiction and about life in general.

As for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I have fond memories of it because I chose it for a project in my AP Literature class and wrote a good essay for it. There were a lot of elements in that book that I wish had been in the movie, though I understand why they were cut. I had a few issues with the sci-fi jargon in the beginning, but ultimately it was very immersive and engaging.

I'll admit to two things here: 1) having never read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; 2) Liking 2049 better than the original. As for the latter point, I'd like to think there's more to it than just better special effects--the production feels all-around tighter, the music feels far more appropriate when compared to the relatively... happy(?) soundtrack style of Vangelis, and there are less inexplicably weird--probably better stated as "goofy"--things about it (probably part of the original's charm for many others, but I digress). Blade Runner 2049, for whatever reason, hit me like a brick wall and, after seeing it Saturday afternoon, it was all I wanted to think about the entire weekend with a midterm coming up on that Tuesday (everything worked out in the end). Beyond the plot itself, which was fantastic, the intensity of the music and visual motifs, and how well they worked in conjunction with one another, was a major part of the appeal for me. I also enjoyed the ongoing "debate" of how to treat what was essentially a captive slave population--let them breed, so they can be of more use, or keep them confined for the sake of social control?--a debate that somehow miraculously overlooks the actual position of the replicants in question. The movie's other charms were its characters--the oblivious way in which K accidentally brushes off the interest of up to three women, the magnetic innocence of "Joy", Robin Wright playing a tough SoB in female form, Love calling down space missiles to save our plucky protagonist, and all the rest. Additionally, the way it adjusted the universe to what we know of our own--ecological collapse, constant stormy weather, etc.--in helping to craft a futuristic and effectively post-apocalyptic universe was wonderful. I try to avoid watching 2049 too regularly so that it doesn't lose the awe it inspired at first viewing; the only people I watch it with anyway tend to be my younger brother and a particular friend of mine. After my first time watching it, it became firmly lodged as perhaps my favorite movie.

Philosophically, I feel like the most notable moment is when K asks of Deckard's dog, "Is he real?" and Deckard almost disregards the question in its entirety--"Ask him."

For me I guess the original suffers from a couple particular issues, some of which have been discussed above--the odd soundtrack, which might have worked well in a more upbeat movie; the goofy-to-creepy qualities of certain features, such as the geneticist's home and Rachael's hair; and the apparent flimsiness of set pieces--like seeing the plastic(?) exteriors of cars rattle at any bump. I think the sequel far more matched my aesthetic expectations, both in terms of color palette and soundtrack, but also in terms of how people looked, which perhaps says more about me than either movie. But I appreciate its role in helping kick off the cyberpunk genre, and how it introduced us to the "futuristic detective story". I think the brightest spot in the film has to be Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, especially in his conversation with Mr. Tyrell.

Both films are great for quoting at the appropriate moments--"Computer, enhance!", "Time to die!", "Cells within cells, interlinked...", "You have 48 hours to get back to baseline!", "Because you've never seen a miracle," and so on.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Comments on the BR49 plot agreed--I didn't discuss them much since I felt you perfectly described what was happening. Real gut punch on that one, m'boy.

Do you generally enjoy sci-fi, Cath? What other stuff in the genre have you been reading/watching?

***Forewarning: I began writing the below thinking that I had very little to say; turns out I'd read more than I thought. For that, I apologize.***

If you took the entire volume of what I read, fiction would be a minority compared to non-fiction (history and political science in particular). What I do read in fiction tends to be fantasy, but if I were going to choose two genres to spend the rest of my life reading it'd be fantasy and science fiction. Dune was my most recent conquest in that area and I may order the sequels. I'm hoping to read Neuromancer at some point. I did pick up a used copy of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, but I did not stick with it. Perhaps someday.

Within the past few years I've read Brave New World and Farenheit 451, both of which I appreciated. In high school and/or early college I also read 1984, This Perfect Day, and A Canticle for Leibowitz. The second of those three books is one of your classic stories that starts out in a dystopian, authoritarian future and has the character attempt at escape. In case you ever get around to reading it, I won't spoil it for you. The latter is a very Catholic story--Nathan is a good guy on the forum to talk to about it--that depicts the cyclical rise and fall of civilization from the perspective of a monastery in what used to be the SW United States in the centuries following a nuclear war, and chronicles the re-discovery of the material sciences. I love Canticle, though I have yet to fully reread it.

In terms of films, I'm a fan of both Alien and Terminator (important note: while Terminator II is also awesome, I haven't seen the entirety of either franchise, which is fine). The former is by far a much better film than Ridley Scott's later science-fiction classic, the aforementioned Blade Runner and is, I think, an objectively good film. There is apparently a majority consensus that Alien's immediate sequel is better. This, in my opinion, is hogwash. Alien is a true horror story, filmed perfectly in terms of its use of light and, more importantly, darkness. Aliens, on the other hand, demystifies the xenomorphs. What once took an entire starship crew of people and a substantial amount of luck to kill can now be downed with a few gunbursts--a narrative necessity because there are so many of them this time! Another classic is Planet of the Apes, a franchise I also have yet to fully explore. It's also the source of one of my favorite television lines.

Outside of conventional mediums, I do watch some anime (emphasis on "some") and read comic books--both American and, more recently, some Japanese. I enjoy the cyberpunk environments of films like Ghost in the Shell (I didn't even mind the live-action version) and Akira, even though the stories themselves don't really have a hold on me. I'd be interested in reading the comics for either, though I hear that the GITS manga really degenerates in later issues and for that reason I nixed a possible plan to just buy the boxed set. Right now I'm reading the boxed set of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which I guess could count as science fiction--it is set far in the future, following a cataclysmic event called the "Seven Days of Fire", and chronicles warring human tribes as they fight over the last scraps of arable land even as a sea of toxin-exhaling fungus threatens humanity's very existence. There was a movie of the same name put out, but well before the comics' conclusion. The movie and comic merge anti-war and environmentalist messages in a way that is classically Miyazaki. Cowboy Bebop is a late 1990s manga cartoon series that follows a starship crew of bounty hunters in the ~2070s as the negotiate situations riddled with terrorists and criminals. I overall am not too keen on the plots themselves, but visually and musically the episodes are masterpieces. I guess kind of in the mangasphere, but also very much in American comics was Frank Miller's Ronin, which, pioneer of weebdom that he was, he consciously made in a manga-esque style. Whether intentional or not it very much anticipates the Samurai Jack cartoon, with both telling the story of a time-displaced samurai fighting a demon in the future. Ronin suffers from both Frank Miller's sloppy drawing and from a story that seems like it gets out of hand, but is enjoyable. It also is firmly within "science fiction", as the story is mostly told in a futuristic New York that is in effect run by a cybernetics and weapons corporation. As long as we're talking eighties comics, Watchmen, which, again, technically sci-fi, is a long-standing favorite of mine (proof I'm not unique and special), and posed to teenage me a very significant moral conundrum.

Overall, I've definitely got an appetite for some more science fiction, particularly if it involves plots centered around cyberpunk, crime-fighting, and authoritarianism. I'm somewhat attracted to comics and animation as mediums in this context in that they can deliver visually and can also do so in a way that is not dependent on what time period they were produced in. As a former comics geek they definitely hit a soft spot for me as well (a major downside of anime is that it's almost entirely in black-and-white, if you're into color).

BTW, if you'll tolerate adult animation, the tenth and most recent season of Archer (assuming that S11, due any day now, has yet to come out as of this writing) is set in space and is full of every space-based science fiction trope imaginable, including what I believe are multiple Alien references.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I want you to know that I didn't stop our convo... I had an effortpost that evaporated, and I haven't been browsing the Forum via laptop recently.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Aight Dule, I feel I owe you some sort of fuller reply:

Neuromancer: Considered one of the foundational pieces of media for cyberpunk, it centers as I recall around a hacker who joins up with a criminal group in order to fund some sort of medical procedure or enhancement.

Cyberpunk: I don't know that I could consider it fully distinct from science fiction--casting the latter as a broader genre in which cyberpunk is nested as a sub-genre. I view it as a form of sci-fi that places emphasis on (a) potentially growing or incipient present-day social problems; (b) visually-speaking, a lot of darkness juxtaposed with neon lights; (c) urban environments with seedy underbellies; (d) body enhancements and virtual reality; and (e) often some form of detective story, or a plot that in some other way involves crime, the state, big business, and so on.

Archer: I tend to treat Archer as having three eras thus far. What I consider the "golden age" of seasons 1-4, and then two subsequent periods of declining quality in seasons 5-7 and then seasons 8-10. 10, while still in the "dream sequence" series of seasons, experienced what I considered a notable uptick in quality, with consistent humor throughout and references I could appreciate. I think S11 may be coming out by now so I should find a way to watch it.

Bone: This is a fortunate coincidence. I reread Bone over the summer, the first time I'd touched it since I finished(?) the series years ago. So far as I was aware until recently, my brother was the only other person I knew who'd heard of Bone.

Newspaper Comics: I haven't regularly read newspaper comics in ages, but late 1980s Bloom County was hysterical. I picked up a compilation of ~1987 Bloom County from an antique store when I was in high school and it was a riot--heavy metal hearings, shady trades with the Russians, and so on. Doonesbury is I feel possibly up there, though I couldn't tell you for sure given my perceptions of it during the late Bush era were tinged by my own politics. That said, I enjoyed the style in which Bush was presented in his final years--a battered, damaged Roman helmet. Calvin & Hobbes is of course a classic, and back in the day my brother and I pooled our resources and bought the complete set. One too many readings of it while eating cereal damaged the books as I recall. Might be something worth investing in repurchasing...

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

What is your best "S019, you are the kind of person who..." comment ever, in your opinion?

Maybe the one about bikes and crosswalks? I dunno, I feel like he and I have developed a nice double act these days. He's just much more subtle about his trolling than I am (which I have to give him credit for).

He believes in his views, back when he was a “conservative”, he had a town hall in Atlasia and it was gold

Wow, that thread is an absolute goldmine of blind obedient authoritarian gibberish.

Supporting warrantless strip searches of schoolchildren...oof. Talk about an authoritarian NUT position.

Holy Hell, I don't know if I've every loved Mr. Reactionary so much.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Did you concentrate or lean towards any particular sub-discipline of political science while at UCB? Based on what you post, I'm guessing it was political theory, though maybe dabbling in comparative politics/political economy.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Did you concentrate or lean towards any particular sub-discipline of political science while at UCB? Based on what you post, I'm guessing it was political theory, though maybe dabbling in comparative politics/political economy.

Dang, I forgot this thread was here. Anyways, you're spot-on; I focused in political theory but also took classes in PoliEcon and statistics. I also took a number of international politics classes, though mostly because I was interested in specific regions/countries, not because I wanted to focus on IP as a major. Hardest class I took in the Poli Sci department was easily Data Analysis and Quantitative Methods; that shit is bananas.

Haha, I'd say you should consider yourself lucky to have been challenged in undergrad. Most of what I know is from my own recognizance; part of the reason I want to go into higher education.