The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Did you know that the word ‘satan’ appears 27 times in the Old Testament, but never as a name? It’s just a general noun in Hebrew. Satan does not appear as a character until 500 years later, when the New Testament was written, at a time when Christians were being persecuted by the Romans. Indeed, in the city of Pergamon (‘where Satan ha[d] his throne’), the Christian bishop was boiled in his own skin within a hollowed out metal statue of a bull. Yikes.

So, chapter 1 (of 4) of the new book now complete. Oof. Hard work, this shizzle. Gotta have it finished by Xmas. Still, chapter two will be quicker, cos I can borrow from ‘The Sub-Genres of British Fantasy Literature’, ain’t it. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

In other news, I’ve applied for the position of Lecturer in Fantasy at Glasgow University. Who would have thought such a job existed? Onwards!

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Another bite of the Santa Clarita Diet

The second season of this American comedy-horror show has just landed on Netflix. It’s another ten half-hour episodes: the tempo is just as helter-skelter, the plot is just as madcap and the jokes are just as rapid-fire as the first season. In this new season, our zombie-mum is still trying to keep her ‘condition’ a secret from friends and others, while still ‘procuring’ dead bodies to eat – this time round, Sheila (played excellently by Drew Barrymore) decides that it’s ethically okay to eat a group of local nazis (although she’s not so sure about the one in a wheelchair). As before, she is aided by her emotionally-wraught but loving husband (the inspired Timothy Olyphant – who knew he could do comedy too?) and her vaguely-disgusted but strangely-fascinated daughter.

Yet what’s so good about this show is that the second season isn’t just a retread of the first. It builds the characters even more, there are revelations aplenty and the ‘format’ is thrown all up in the air.

None of it is brainless (no pun intended) or throwaway stuff either. There is an abundance of social comment (often about the ironies, tragedies and hypocrisies of life in modern suburbia) and thought-provoking (while still hilarious) subversions of institutions like the police and religion.

This show has teeth… and legs. Most body parts in fact. Although they are sometimes put together differently from the norm. Like a zombie that’s had its limbs fall off and reattached imperfectly. It is scary, funny and very very dark. I love it. It’s a 9 out of 10 from me!

Jessica Jones, The Return!

As a massive fan of the first season of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, I’d really been looking forward to the second season. JJ2 was always going to struggle to be as refreshingly adult and ground-breaking as JJ1, I knew that. What I hadn’t been prepared for, however, was just how far short JJ2 would fall of the high standards set by JJ1. The second season is disappointingly brattish and so, so tired.

There are a whole host of problems with JJ2. Where to begin? At the beginning, I guess. Okay, we are immediately hit with a lack of continuity, with plot inconsistencies and with massive plot holes. A nerdy and nervous superhero (called The Whizzer) comes to Jessica saying someone is trying to kill him. It’s not clear why anyone would want to kill him. He ends up dead anyway. Jessica tracks down someone who might be the killer (I won’t spoil it for you), but it’s never actually explained and the show promptly gives up on that entire plotline. Then a rival private detective turns up, accuses Jessica of stealing his clients (although we’ve just been told in the previous scene that Jessica has no proper clients to speak of) and tries to buy her out. She tells him to get lost and – apart from a later break-in – he pretty much does. Then Jessica’s side-kick Malcolm is emotionally blackmailed by Trish to ‘fall off the wagon’ and start taking drugs again – he does, freaks out, runs into the night saying he never wants to see her again – and then appears with her in the next episode as if nothing’s happened. It’s all really random, frustrating and, basically put, rubbish.

Unlike in JJ1, there’s no major baddie in JJ2. This means JJ2 lacks a consistent focus, is often aimless and is frequently pointless. There is a lack of true moral dilemma, a lack of mystery, a lack of consequences to actions and a complete lack of moral compass. Many episodes are simple soap operas, full of angst and whining. Where is the sass and humour of the first season? We eventually get some wit in a couple of later episodes because David Tennant turns up as the ghost of Kilgrave from season one. It was as if the writers of season two suddenly realised/accepted things just weren’t working and decided to reboot… except Jessica then declares to Kilgrave that she is stronger than him… and he promptly disappears (as if Tennant suddenly decided he was really needed on far better productions than this one). And that’s that. We return to the self-indulgent flip-flopping of Jessica’s dull origin story. Argggh!

Look, it could be that the writers of JJ2 were trying to do something brave with the traditional superhero format. In refusing to have a big threatening male as baddie, and in populating the show with strong female characters, perhaps they were trying to pull off something very advanced and experimental. Unfortunately, in devoting so much of their energy to this new style of things, they neglected to put enough into getting the basics right.  Like a basic plot. Like basic character development (rather than the repetition and restating of things we already know). There is a lot of posing and pouting attempted by Jessica, but without any decent dialogue or depth to things, she just looks like a sulky child. In one episode, she says, ‘When you have dreams, but they don’t come true, they become nightmares.’ Eh? Does that make sense? Not really, cos she’s simply having a car ride with her mum. And Trish’s constant tantrums make her seem like nothing more than a spoilt child. Sheesh. The whole thing is a mess from start to finish.

It’s such a shame. Such a wasted opportunity. And to think I’ll never get those thirteen hours back. A score out of 10? Probably a 5 is fair.

A PhD in fantasy – a Doctor of Dragons and Fairies!

Phew. Finally had the PhD awarded. At last. With great thanks to @LunaPressGlobal for publishing ‘The Sub-genres of British Fantasy Literature’!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sub-genres-British-Fantasy-Literature-ebook/dp/B01MY7VCSO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1520170157&sr=1-1&keywords=british+fantasy+dalton

 

Black Lightning rejects the American Dream #BlackLightning

A high school principal asks his students to reject violence in favour of reason and obeying social and moral codes. But waiting beyond the school gates are gangs with weapons, forcing youngsters into whore houses and using drugs. The police seem powerless to protect the students, because they are underfunded and probably corrupt anyway. The students have little choice but to pick up weapons to defend themselves, some getting themselves killed in the process, and some becoming as bad as the actual gangs. All hell starts to break loose. The principal feels forced to resurrect his secret superhero identity (Black Lightning) in order to keep the streets ‘safe’. He has deep misgivings because he is thereby becoming a hypocritical vigilante. He feels (and very much looks) uncomfortable in his skin – in his lumbering, cheesy superhero disguise. It is an augmented suit too, one that takes a personal toll on him physically and mentally – he starts to become a monster at home, driving away all those he loves and wants to keep close. It is a physical symbol and enactment of his moral and spiritual conflict. It represents the damage done to the psyche and a person’s sense of identity (particularly a black person in an underprivileged area) in today’s (Trumpian) America.

This Netflix tv show (an adaptation of the DC character) will at first seem cliched and naff to viewers. But stick with it and you’ll find that your (genre) expectations are defeated time and again. A mother grieving for her son seeks to confront and shame the gang members who killed her boy. Our innate sense of justice expects her to win out where the cops have failed, or expects Black Lightning to turn up and save her when the gang members turn on her. But the gang members kill her. Outraged, we expect the community to rise up against the gangs, or expect Black Lightning to finally deliver justice. But most people shrug and look to carrying on with their lives. Black Lightning tracks down the killers, only to have a suit malfunction, get a proper kicking and become a laughing stock.

Wow. This is a dark series. It’s not bleak, as it keeps looking for a new way out or solution. Hope and humanity drive it on. One episode, we turn to the Church for answers, and the Church organises a peace march, only to have it shot up by the gangs. In another episode, we hark back to better times, when the local newspaper could name and shame, and hold people to account. But the old editor is now too terrified for his life to print anything too critical of anyone. A different solution is tried in every episode, with Black Lightning muddling through as best as he can, trying to keep faith in himself and justice. Is he a deluded fool? We root for him, but we find it harder and harder (with each set-back) to believe he can ultimately win out. We admire him, sympathise with him, but ultimately fear for him.

This is real life, then. It’s not some escapist superhero caper. The goodies don’t win. The baddies always seem to win. Welcome to the world, boys and girls. And Black Panther… you have no idea.

Black Panther’s plot is pretty incidental, but that doesn’t actually matter #BlackPanther

Believe it or not, it’s an actual ‘step forward’ that Black Panther, with a largely black cast, a black director and black screenwriter, has been a proper financial success at the box office (it’s made all its money back in its first weekend on release). If only Halle Berry in 2004’s Catwoman could have achieved something like that! Okay, there’s a disconcerting moment in Black Panther when the white creator (Stan Lee) has a cameo and says something like ‘I’ll take the money and keep it over here’, but this movie is an overdue Hollywood celebration of black talent in popularist, superhero, big-budget movies. It has to be Marvel’s most ‘woke’ movie to date.

Other than Stan’s cameo, there are only really two white supporting actors in the film – the wonderful Andy Serkis as the baddie and the inevitable Martin Freeman as the goodie CIA guy. In truth, we don’t really need Freeman at all, but I guess we need to show that white people aren’t always that bad, don’t we? There are numerous female roles with well-rounded characters and plenty of attitude and dialogue (the film nearly passes the Bechdel test, of all things!), albeit that they ultimately serve kings and male tribal leaders. The ‘vision’ of the advanced society of Wakanda is an impressive and sometimes persuasive one (thanks to stunning visuals), prompting us to wonder how different the world might be today if African nations had not been plundered of their wealth by colonialist powers. There are provocative and compelling statements about the power politics of our world today (the film’s final line from the Austrian Prime Minister is a killer) and there is entertaining humour in abundance.

In fact, Black Panther’s positive, self-aware, smart and generous tone throughout means that it’s almost impossible to dislike it as a movie. It also means we tend to forgive it for its shortcomings. No movie is perfect, of course, but with Black Panther it feels wrong or mean-spirited to dwell overly long on the plot being a bit incidental (repetitive and symbolically inconsistent too), on the surprisingly thin characterisation of the Panther himself (meaning it’s hard to care about him too much in his fight scenes), on the fairly routine fight scenes or on some pretty clumsy/cliched depictions of ‘Africa’. At the end of the day, a movie that gives me armoured rhinos, car surfing, kickass female warriors and laugh-out-loud jokes aplenty is always going to be recommended by this movie-goer.

Black Panther is definitely recommended. It’s some sort of cultural moment that it isn’t easy to quantify. Certainly, it has a particular resonance in this Trumpian era. Go see it. Be a part of it.

The terrifying running time of Blade Runner 2049 #BladeRunner2049

The running time of the Blade Runner 2049 movie is 2hrs37mins. Arguably, it’s a daunting commitment for any potential viewer. You might go thinking: ‘Ah, that means the tempo’s slow and it’s overly-long or self-indulgent.’ Rest assured, however, that when you are occupied watching awe-inspiring visuals and listening to an intriguing soundscape, you simply don’t notice the time passing. And there’s a decent detective story with tantalising clues, a multi-layered plot and exciting conflicts thrown in as well. This film truly has the lot.

The director is Denis Villeneuve, who also made the award-winning SF flick Arrival. He recaptures the vision of the future we see in the original Blade Runner and then builds upon it, with fine world-building (enough for a third movie, without doubt) and his own original ideas. He is also a skilled, light-touch story-teller. There is nothing clumsy or clunky in Blade Runner 2049. It is all subtlety, allusion and some playful confusion. Such an approach would make for a frustrating watch with certain directors, but Villeneuve makes sure to deliver on revelations and to resolve every aspect of what is going on. It’s masterfully done.

The story? Well, the cyborgs/androids of the first movie have been replaced by a new series of much-more-obedient AIs. These AIs each has an artificial ‘childhood memory’ implanted into them so that they can react in a more human way to day-to-day life, and so that they can react with a certain personality. We follow one AI detective (played skillfully by Ryan Gosling) who comes to suspect that his memory is real and holds clues to the mystery with which he has been tasked by his boss (the ever-wonderful Robin Wright). Chuck in an evil tech corporation (with a sick boss and terrifying henchwoman) and we have everything we need for a dark and glorious tale. And it’s no secret that Harrison Ford is in the movie: he’s not wasted either; his ‘own’ story is really moved on by 2049… In fact, 2049 sorts out all the plot holes of the original film, which I would never have thought possible.

And here’s the kicker. I was never the biggest fan of the original Blade Runner, either when I saw it as a 15yrold at the cinema, or as a 40-year-old who assumed that all the ‘fuss’ about this ‘cult’ movie meant his youthful self must have missed something. I just thought of the original as a fairly predictable, clumsy and derivative SF flop (it wasn’t any Star Wars!).  Yet Blade Runner 2049 has stood everything on its head. It’s almost as if my childhood memory is an artificial one, one that had been implanted to give me character. It’s as if my program has now been rewritten and I am born again. And that’s my last point about the movie: it has an eerie familiarity to it that makes it truly prescient and uncanny. It is a vision of what is most assuredly going to happen to our species. It has the power of prophecy. And so… I can only score this movie 10 out of 10 (a first for me).