The Films of 2017: Alien: Covenant

[Many spoilers are included in the following review. Please proceed accordingly.]

As an early, consistent, and vocal supporter of Prometheus (2012), I can only assess Ridley Scott’s follow-up, Alien: Covenant (2017) as an intriguing but ultimately uninspiring affair. 

The sequel is intriguing primarily because Scott brings his trademark intellect to the tale, giving audiences a new and worthwhile musing on the nature of God(s) and men, or, rather, parents and children.

Yet Alien: Covenant is uninspiring too, because the quest for ultimate truth or knowledge that was so important to Prometheus (2012) has been replaced with a torrent of easy answers. The movie’s modus operandi is to fill in all the “gaps” between Prometheus and Alien (1979), and, at least for this reviewer, that’s a dispiriting and ultimately self-defeating approach for a franchise that prides itself on exploring the unknown.

The easy answers presented by Alien: Covenant don’t really satisfy, and in some way they actually foreclose on the sense of majesty and mystery that has characterized the Alien franchise for decades.

The issue here is that it is inherently better to search, or to explore, than to provide easy answers.  

Prometheus was all about raising questions.It raised interrogatives about the Engineers, the xenomorphs, mankind’s beginnings, and even, finally mankind’s future. I am well aware that many fans actively disliked the film, and yet Prometheus was a bold, even drastic step in a new direction; one which opened up the possibilities of the Alien universe in magnificent, literary, and imaginative ways.

After so many years of largely unsatisfactory re-hashes, it was a breath of fresh air, and the re-assertion of the franchise’s possibilities and scope.

By contrast, Covenant is a relatively routine Frankenstein story (a mode, yes, which was certainly implied by the title, Prometheus). The sequel exists simply to tie everything together into a neat bundle. The result is a film that, I believe, fails to spark the imagination -- to inspire -- the way that Prometheus so abundantly did.

I do not write off Alien: Covenant as a total failure, however.

Scott has crafted a film here of some remarkable depth, especially in its first half, even while retreating to familiar franchise tropes in the last half. All the Alien films must strike a unique note so as not to be seen as a rip-off of previous entries, and in truth, Covenant possesses its own unique vibe, which I’ll attempt to explore below.

I describe this vibe as, well, sinister.

We have seen evil before in the Alien universe, of course.

Sometimes that evil has been brought forward by man (Burke in Aliens 1986]), sometimes by machine (Ash in Alien [1979]) and sometimes by nature itself; the “hostile” biological instincts of the titular xenomorphs.

But there is no other film -- at least yet -- in the Alien saga that plunges so overwhelmingly into the darkness, into sinister agendas and horrific, hellish sights. 

Even Ripley’s death in Alien³ (1992), by contrast, served a pro-social or humane purpose. 

In Alien: Covenant, an overwhelming diabolism seems to permeat the picture, in keeping with David’s Milton-ian line of dialogue that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.  

This sinister quality makes the film feel both oppressive and portentous - which is, admittedly, not a bad note for the middle piece of a trilogy to strike -- but the grim atmosphere does not make the film scary, or inspire speculation and interest.

In addition to this caustic, ironic, diabolical tone, Alien: Covenant merits consideration for David’s story arc, and the way David’s story of parents/children continues some of the thematic groundwork laid down by Prometheus five years ago

I know that folks read movie reviews for a critic’s assessment, a binary yes/no, thumbs-up/thumbs-down judgment. If you’re at this blog, reading this review, you already know I rarely tread into that territory of absolutes. How you ultimately come to feel about Alien: Covenant could rely on a lot of different things. 

How did you feel about Prometheus? What do you seek from an Alien film? And so on.

At this juncture, I can judge the film well-made, well-performed, and disturbing on a psychic and visceral level, even though there is no set-piece here that compares favorably with Shaw’s on-the-spot surgery in Prometheus. 

Also, I can detect the “dark” intelligence lurking behind Alien: Covenant, but, I suppose, finally, that I wish that intellect had been directed more fully towards a story that furthered the mysteries of the Alien-verse rather than limiting them.

“Serve in Heaven, or reign in Hell?”

In 2104, the colony ship Covenant carries 2000 humans in hyper-sleep, and voyages to distant Origae 6, which needs to be terra-formed to be fully livable.

A random neutrino burst from a nearby star, however, damages the ship, and kills the ship’s captain (James Franco) in cryo-sleep, leaving his wife, Daniels (Katherine Waterstone) bereft and questioning life.  While on a space-walk repairing the solar sail apparatus, Covenant’s pilot and technician Tennessee (Danny McBride) intercepts a signal in space which seems to originate from a human being.

The Covenant’s new captain, a “man of faith” named Oram (Billy Crudup) orders a change in course to the signal’s point of origin, a mysterious habitable planet in its system’s Goldilocks Zone. In fact, Oram wants to scrap all the carefully made plans for Origae 6 and settle on this newly discovered world instead. Daniels feel it is too much a risk, but has no choice but to go alone.

The Covenant sends a lander down to the planet, but almost immediately, the excursion goes terribly wrong. Members of the reconnaissance team are infected by strange black spores, and impregnated by parasite neo-morphs, which burst from their bodies in horrific, bloody fashion.

The survivors are rescued by a stranger, an android named David (Fassbender), who seems an (almost) perfect match for Covenant’s synthetic man, Walter (Foster).

But David hides a dark secret about the source of the message that brought the Covenant to him, and the fate of Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), of the Prometheus mission.

Furthermore, secrets, horrors and monsters abound in David’s new home, a necropolis that once served as home to the Engineers.

“One wrong note eventually ruins the entire symphony.”

There is so much worthwhile to praise in Alien: Covenant in terms of theme and atmosphere. I wrote in my introduction about the sinister, diabolical irony of the film. This caustic application of malevolent destiny infuses the picture with meaning, in many ways. Some might term this malevolent feeling “nihilism,” the “rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.”

That definition doesn’t totally apply, however.

There is, in David’s story (and agenda), a rejection of religious and moral principles, certainly. But David makes it plain, through his words and deeds that life that to him is not meaningless. Rather, the purpose of his life is to create new life, and destroy his makers, the human race. His purpose is to make the universe a Hell, one in which he reigns supreme.

Consider, for example, what David does to Elizabeth Shaw. After he kills her, he utilizes her body to create his children: the aliens. Elizabeth’s fate is horrible enough to consider on its own, but when one remembers the details of Prometheus, it is even worse.

Elizabeth’s search for the Engineers arose, in part, from her inability to create life herself. She was infertile, and therefore deprived of a biological capacity that she believed gave human life purpose. Yet in her death, David has, ironically, “gifted” Elizabeth with this capacity. In a biological sense, she is now the mother to the xenomorphs. From a certain sense, her dream has come true.

Of course, Elizabeth would not desire such a destiny; it is a twisted, dark realization of her dream. And the operative word there is clearly “dark.”

Captain Oram, a “man of faith” is similarly treated in a sinister fashion. He feels victimized by his crew-mates because so few people share his Christian beliefs. And as captain, he makes a difficult choice, believing that the Covenant’s discovery of Shaw’s signal and the Engineer world signal a form of “providence.” It is a sign, that he should lead his people to this new promised land. Oram feels validated in his faith, which has brought him to this junction, to this decision.

Of course, he has been lured to the planet by a devil of sorts, in David, not by divine intervention. 

And David is responsible not only for the death of his wife, but for Oram's death too. Oram becomes the first human being in history (at least in-universe) to be implanted by a face hugger. His faith has led him not to a promised land, but to Pandemonium.

The film is filled with such examples of diabolism. David has, for his own reasons (perhaps the murder of his father, Weyland), committed genocide against the Engineers. 

We see a scene (in flashback) in Alien: Covenant of apparently-peaceful Engineer citizens destroyed in a WMD-style attack. Their own bio-weapon (the black goo, for lack of a better description), annihilates them.  Again, we have seen death before in the Alien films, but not on a scale such as this. A whole population is wiped out, horribly.

And then, of course, the film ends with an Evil force literally driving the ship. David has tricked Daniels into believing that he is Walter, his more benevolent sibling. She goes into cryo-sleep helpless and defenseless, with the devil tending to her slumber. 

And remember, David has already made his intent towards Daniels plain. When she asks, in the necropolis, what David intends to do with her, he replies that she will suffer the same fate as Shaw did. Our Ripley-in-training here is clearly a goner.

And still, the story is even darker, yet. 

Now facing no opposition, David is in total control of Covenant and its cargo. He has 2,000 sleeping human beings to experiment with, not to mention a cargo-hold filled with human embryos. His ability to play Frankenstein, to “hone” the shape and form of his children, the aliens, is now magnified geometrically.

The Alien saga has always been dark, always been frightening. But before this film, there has always been hope. Even in the third Alien film, Ripley’s sacrifice meant something. It preserved the future of the human race. 

Here, there is no hope to be felt. David is in control of the surviving heroes (Daniels and Tennessee), and all the raw ingredients necessary to make our universe his particular nightmare.

This oppressive, dark turn is effective, as I’ve noted, if one considers this film the middle-part of a trilogy. This movie is the equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), in other words, the point in which good is defeated, and the stakes are the highest they’ve ever been. If taken on those terms, the darkness makes dramatic, artistic sense.

Equally intriguing is the overall theme behind this level of darkness, which involves Gods and men, parents and children. Consider that “God” (if there is such a being) created the Engineers. The Engineers then created man. Man created David. And now, David creates the aliens. 

These movies are thus about the act of creation, and furthermore, the way that parents and children deal with resentment through rebellion. 

The Engineers attempt to kill man, their child, in Prometheus.

And mankind, in the person of Weyland, makes his child, David, a slave, a servant or a product; a thing, but not a “son.”  

David’s act of rebellion against his God (mankind) is to create his perfect children, the aliens. He is a fallen angel, like Satan, surrounding himself with an army of demons by which to mount an assault on the heavens, if not heaven itself.

Of course, the question for the next movie is simple: how will the aliens rebel against their father (David)?  It could be by creating a hive-mind, taking ownership of their own biology (through the birth of a queen), and so on.

The covenant of the film’s title might be interpreted in many illuminating ways. A covenant is generally considered to be a pledge, a promise, or contract. Many scholars define a covenant specifically as a contract between man and God. 

What we have in this film, then, is the breaking or destruction of a covenant. Yet David -- our antagonist -- is not actually the party who breaks the contract, one might conclude. Rather, he is the injured party, upset about the shattering of the covenant; upset at the betrayal by God. In this case, it was his father, Weyland, who broke the contract. He made his child only a "thing," not a person to be loved.

The film also references Ozymandias (1818) a poem by Shelley that David mis-attributes to Byron, until corrected by Walter. Ozymandias concerns the impermanence of empires, and the (futile) quest for a legacy. 

If nothing is permanent, what is left of us once we depart this mortal coil?

Weyland believed that his legacy could be immortality. That’s why he sought out the Engineers. Importantly, he did not view David as his legacy. 

Similarly, the Engineers appear to view humans, their creation, as monsters and competitors, not children. 

The outstanding question is: how does David view the aliens? Are they to be his legacy, and if so, what do they represent?

My answer? They represent his righteous hatred. 

The aliens in their simplicity and purity make a mockery out of our own reproductive cycle, and view humans not as beings with a divine spark, but as “meat” to be re-shaped in the service of other life-forms. 

I do wonder, however, how David -- a being who appreciates art and music -- could conceive of “perfection” in these aliens. They have no such calling to civilization, or art. They have no higher reasoning skills. He has made his children, essentially, emotionally empty.

All of this text and subtext is here to be enjoyed and admired in Alien: Covenant, and so the film will merit many re-visits in the years and decades to come. I look forward to seeing it again.

And yet, I am gravely disappointed with the fact that the film re-parses the origin of the xenomorphs. 

They are no longer from “out there” (the product of an alien intelligence), but explicitly created by David, in the year 2104.  I am not upset that this development essentially un-writes the AVP movies (which feature aliens on Earth in the year 2004) or the connections to the Predator universe. I am, however, disappointed that a franchise titled “alien” has decided to explain so much, and made the explanations so, well, earth bound.

One of the most amazing facets of Alien was the terrifying feeling that the crew of the Nostromo was reckoning with something beyond human experience, beyond human history, beyond human morality, and beyond human origin.  The xenomorph was born of something, well, different.  It was so “alien,” in fact, that it couldn’t be understood, or even killed.

Now, we understand that humanity was intimately involved in the creation of the xenomorphs. It is human parenting, actually, that is responsible for their shape and nature. 

It was very different to learn of the Engineers (another alien race) and their role in creating humanity in Prometheus. There were still so many unanswered questions there.

But Alien: Covenant reveals that the xenomorphs are the revenge plot of a rejected child, in essence. This disappointing and totally unnecessary explanation changes the nature of the franchise immeasurable. 

And I don’t believe it is a good change.

I liken it to the development of the Michael Myers character in the Halloween franchise. Originally, he was the “Shape,” an impenetrable figure on a rampage in his home town, Haddownfield. Was he a serial killer? A developmentally-arrested individual playing “trick or treat” with life and death? Or was he, actually, the boogeyman?  The ideas were all terrifying, and there was evidence to support each approach. But then, in the second movie, we learned that Michael was out to kill all surviving family members, and that explanation limited his terror somewhat. The explanation made his evil seem mundane.

Alien: Covenant diminishes the horror of the franchise in the exact same way.  The more we know and understand about the xenomorphs, the less terrifying they become. 

Familiarity breeds contempt. At least in terms of horror.

The most terrifying (and successful) elements of Alien: Covenant, not coincidentally, involve the neomorphs. They are things we have not quite seen before. They are new and mysterious, and therefore scary.

I do not mean to suggest that David’s story is unworthy, or uninteresting, but rather that the back-story of the xenomorph creation removes a wonderful and scintillating aspect of mystery from the entire saga.

I suppose we live in a time that demands easy answers, and spoon-feeding. Some critics have even seen Covenant as an under-the-cover tale of how Hollywood directors must make Frankenstein monsters out of their own creations if they wish to tell an original story in these times of “shared universes” and “franchises.” That's a clever reading of the film, but not one I am entirely certain I subscribe to.

I am grateful, however, that an artist as clever and intellectually curious as Ridley Scott retains the reins of this franchise.  I think he moves it in the wrong direction here. But he moves in the wrong direction...in the most beautifully and thoughtful manner possible.

I but can’t help but feel, at this juncture, that Scott's take on Prometheus was the right one. I would have liked to see a sequel wherein David and Shaw go off to discover more about the engineers. Instead we get a sequel in which we learn more about the aliens. Too much about the aliens, for my taste.

This is a story that we don’t need to see, no matter how well-shot or well-acted. 

Mysteries are such wondrous and fragile things. They spawn speculation, art, writing, and more. The reductive nature of Alien: Covenant achieves the opposite end 

By giving us too much information about the xenomorph genesis, this 2017 film risks “spoiling” the whole symphony.

The Films of 2016: Morgan

[Beware of Spoilers]

Morgan (2016) is the directorial debut of Luke Scott, Ridley Scott’s son. Genre maestro Ridley Scott is the film’s producer. These facts prove illuminating in terms of a deeper understanding of this particular science fiction/horror film.

Where other critics have made invidious comparisons between Morgan and Ex Machina (2015), or Morgan and Splice (2010), the films to discuss here are likely Blade Runner (1982) and Prometheus (2012).

In short, Morgan concerns mankind’s unease with his/her own creation: artificial people.  That’s a recurring Scott theme; one you can see through several of his genre master works (including Alien [1979]).

Whether we choose to term these unusual beings replicants, synthetics, or hybrids is largely immaterial. Nomenclature aside, they are children of humanity and yet, at the same time, not fully human. And even though they are “made” by man (specifically, corporations), man never quite trusts them, it seems.

In fact, as Blade Runner, Prometheus and Morgan make plain, man deeply and instinctively fears this brand of progeny. After completing the act of creation, it seems, mankind stands seems ready to commit an act of destruction, snuffing out that which he has given birth to.

In one way or another, Blade Runner, Prometheus and Morgan all revolve around mankind’s inability to accept his artificial child/creation as his own heir. In all three films, man has played God, but doesn’t seem to want to parent.

In all three films, parental figures also prove cold, emotionally unavailable, and largely self-absorbed, leaving the (artificial) child without the guidance he or she needs to mature adequately. In some circumstances, the children turn violent towards their parents because of this “void” in parenting.

Morgan is a fascinating and compelling genre film, but one made all the more so if the viewer weighs it as a crucial piece of a multi-decade Scott cinematic trilogy concerning mankind and artificial intelligence; an unofficial franchise dedicated to exploring the relationship between man and a being who, finally, could -- one day -- replace man.

Ex Machina was terrific (as was Splice, actually…) but it’s almost a shame that Ex Machina remains so close in the memory for so many. Some critics want to hark back to that particular film to put down Morgan as somehow being derivative or inferior. Instead, Morgan is merely the latest work of art by producer Scott to explore the parental dynamic as it applies not to biology, but an uncanny mixture of technology and biology.

These films ask us, explicitly: can we love that which looks like us, but is not, finally, a reflection of us, in terms of psychology?

Morgan reminds us that humanity cannot yet see an artificial child (or replicant one) as truly belonging to him; and thus truly possessing the same rights and privilege we reserve for ourselves and fellow organic creatures.

Instead, humanity views these beings as ones that we created, but which are less evolved, somehow, than we are.

If one gazes at Morgan is a prequel to Blade Runner and Prometheus, the film veritably opens up as a subject of analysis, with scenes that resonate beautifully across the “unofficial” Scott trilogy.

“Above all, preserve the asset.”

After a trademarked artificial/hybrid human – a teenage girl named Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy) -- attacks one of the scientists caring for her, Dr. Greiff (Jennifer Jason-Leigh), an investigation commences. 

A no-nonsense risk assessment specialist, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is sent to Morgan’s remote, countryside facility on behalf of the corporation, SECT, to determine an appropriate course of action.

Lee’s mission may prove to be one of containment, shutting down Morgan’s experiment, or one of assassination, Dr. Greiff fears. Lee is noncommittal about her ultimate course of action, choosing to interview the scientists and staff about Morgan’s violent “temper tantrum.”

Another specialist, Dr. Shapiro (Paul Giamitti) also arrives at the installation to conduct a psychological evaluation of Morgan. He pushes her during that evaluation, causing a repeat of her violent outburst…

“There was joy in her heart before we shoved her back in that box.”

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) opens with a scene in which a law enforcement official administers a test, Voight-Kampff, to a replicant. It is, importantly, a psychological test. And it provokes a murderous response on the part of that replicant.

The central scene in Morgan deliberately reiterates this dynamic.

The arrogant, imperious Shapiro -- another establishment figure, like the blade runner -- tests the unstable artificial person, causing an explosive response by doing so. In both cases, the forces of authority trigger the key weakness of the child-like individual, a vulnerability based on psychology. 

The replicants and Morgan don’t “know themselves” and are unsure of “human” matters, like friendship, social connection, family, and parents.  In both cases, an attack on this psychological weak link results in the artificial person resorting to physical violence.

The scene in Morgan, however, plays like bullying. In Blade Runner, we are shocked by the replicant’s resort to violence. In Morgan, we are shocked that the artificial person holds back as long as she does.

Another connection to Blade Runner is revealed only in Morgan’s final sequence. Suffice it to say, Morgan gets the ending that Ridley Scott had hoped to give to the 1982 film, but was not able to, for reasons of commerce.

Specifically, the hunter or prosecutor of the artificial person is revealed to be an artificial person too. Once more, this revelation suggests two things: psychological instability on the part of this new race (and child of man), but also a second-class status for these people. They are assigned tasks no others would want, including the prosecution (and assassination) of their own kind. They have become murderous servants of man, killing their own brothers and sisters.

Morgan becomes even more intriguing after a second viewing, when one understands the film’s outcome, and watches how the second artificial person navigates matters such as sexual attraction. On retrospect, the responses are completely understandable, given a synthetic person’s lack of understanding of or familiarity with human nature, and human interaction.

As for Morgan herself, she has much in common with both Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and Prometheus’s David (Michael Fassbender).

Like Batty, Morgan possesses a survival instinct, and the inability to control bouts of rage. 

Like David, she is both obsequious to her human “friends” and, simultaneously, able to betray them for an agenda if necessary.  Like David, Morgan also surrounds herself with human things: human music and art, in particular.  If David has a fondness for cinema, Morgan does for opera.

Blade Runner, Prometheus, and Morgan also feature three amoral corporations (Tyrell, Weyland Industries, and SECT), and three versions of “cold” parents.

In Blade Runner, Tyrell has given no consideration to his replicants, and the fact that they might wish to outlive their four year life-span. He is a father who has created life, but does not care about what happens to that life once it is out in the world.

Weyland, in Prometheus, is not much better a father figure. He treats David like the “lesser” child in his family, noting -- in public, no less -- that David possesses no soul. Also, he ignores David’s search for meaning in life, in favor of his own search for meaning. As the parent, Weyland puts his needs first, and expects David to put those needs at the top of his list as well.

And finally, we have the character that Morgan identifies as her mother, in Morgan: Dr. Cheng (Michelle Yeoh). Dr. Cheng, in the past, has murdered her own “children” (synthetic beings) when they became dangerous. When Morgan becomes dangerous too, she falls back on the same behavior. She shows no emotion, no caring, when she orders Morgan to be executed.  In fact, Cheng rejects Morgan completely, especially after Morgan has the audacity to call her what she is: “Mother.”

The three films in this unofficial trilogy all contend with one core idea: the meaning of life. Is it any different for synthetic beings than it is for organic ones?

Roy Batty wants to outlive his termination date, so that the things he has seen -- the memories he has accumulated -- aren’t simply lost, like tears in rain.

David wants to understand why he was created. And if he can understand why the Engineers created mankind, he will be one step closer to his answer. 

And Morgan is learning to become herself, intriguingly, through her interfaces with nature, in the wild. She rebels in the first place because her outside time, in the woods, is taken away. She cannot feel the same freedom to explore herself in the installation, apparently. Her closest friend is Amy (Rose Leslie), her “eco therapist,” who introduces her to the larger world, beyond her cell.

All three characters -- Batty, David, and Morgan – are very acutely on a journey of self-discovery; of transcending their built-in limits. In all cases, they are actually impeded by their creators/parents, who don’t seem to believe they are unique, sentient life forms.  Instead, these adults would rather destroy them for making a mistake than help them learn from that mistake.

Batty and Morgan, at least, don’t get second chances. They step out of their “role” and are hunted and exterminated.

In some senses, the theme of Morgan is similar indeed to that which we saw in Splice. Basically, it goes like this: we are ultimately treated by our children in the same manner that we treat them.

I feel that this too is a lesson, overall of the unofficial Scott trilogy. It is clear that corporations like Tyrell, Weyland and SECT will create artificial life, and trademark it. As they do so, they will also attempt to abrogate the rights of those they have created, either with mandatory termination dates, or through behavior which renders them second class citizen, and subject, finally, to bigotry. In Morgan, Lee notes on at least two occasions that Morgan is not a “she” and but rather the property of the corporation, lacking human rights.

The “children” in these cases are all treated badly, and -- surprise, surprise -- treat their parents badly as a result.  They learn from their relationships with their parents how to be duplicitous, how to be violent, how to kill.

Morgan is a coming of age story for a synthetic person (or persons, in the final analysis). Morgan’s uncertainty and instability mirrors some of the uncertainty and instability that human adolescents feel as they take the final steps before “growing up.”  This is significant, because everything about Morgan -- from her attire (hoodie, especially) to her attitude -- is familiar. She is the rebellious child/teen, testing the limits of the world around her.

Technically, Morgan is an accomplished work. The film features fine performances, especially from Kate Mara, and is suspenseful, and exciting. You may figure out the final twist in the film before it is revealed, but it doesn’t take way from the action, or horror. Luke Scott does a great job using visual rhetoric, conveying through imagery the point of the narrative. He does much here with reflections, and Lee and Morgan balanced against one another in the frame, mirror-images.

But Morgan succeeds best, I would argue, when one places it in the context of its sister films, Blade Runner and Prometheus. 

All these films remind us to treat our (eventual) artificial children with a sense of responsibility but also humility.

As J.F. Sebastian would no doubt remind us, there’s much of us in them.

At Flashbak: Kenner's Alien Action Figure (1979)

This week at Flashbak, I also remembered one of Kenner’s most unusual action figures: the titular xenomorph from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979).

Here’s a snippet and the url: (http://flashbak.com/evil-brains-glow-dark-remembering-kenners-alien-figure-1979-53028/)

“…Kenner Toys -- flush from its huge success with the Star Wars licensing contract -- actually manufactured a giant action figure of the acid-spewing, face-crushing xenomorph from the popular, franchise-spawning, rated R horror movie. 

The written description to this H.R. Giger-inspired toy notes the alien’s “evil brains” that “glow in the dark.”

The same instructions sheet also instructed the kiddies to “press the back of his head on the bottom. His mouth opens and the gruesome teeth move forward.”

How many children could have possibly seen Alien, I wonder?  Did parents take their kids to see it?

Perhaps a more pertinent question is this: how many children wouldn’t be scared to death by a cat or dog-sized action figure with retractable inner jaw and an eyeless, human skull for a head?

Well, I didn’t see the movie (I was nine), and I still wanted the toy. Desperately.

I didn’t get it.

I feel like a lot of kids my age wanted the Alien toy too, whether or not they had seen the film, but apparently parents complained about Kenner’s masterpiece of horror and, legendarily, the toy sold poorly. 

The alien was thus pulled from toy shelves at the behest of concerned parents and terrified children, and a generation of psychologists grew rich treating the PTSD of innocent children who happened down the aisle hoping to buy a plus R2-D2, only to catch sight of this leering, plastic monstrosity.”

Continue reading at Flashbak.

The Films of 2015: The Martian

Based on Andy Weir’s 2011 novel of the same name, Ridley Scott’s The Martian (2015) has now earned a number of Academy Award nominations including those for best actor (Matt Damon), and best picture.  

The Martian apparently directed itself, since Scott was not nominated for his significant role in crafting the film. 

But suffice it to say that The Martian’s nominations are well-deserved. This is a great science fiction film, and one of the two best genre films of the year (the other being Mad Max: Fury Road). 

Much superior to other recent “near future” films about the space age, like Gravity (2013), The Martian is, in a sense, a less-fanciful version or re-think of 1964’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars.  

In both instances, a lone astronaut survives alone on the red planet using his only scientific skill-set.  

Only here, of course, we don’t meet alien slaves or slavers, and the focus is much more on the possible than on the fantastic. Robinson Crusoe on Mars brought aliens, alien spaceships and other wonders into the tale of human loneliness and fortitude, whereas The Martian simply focuses on a key issue: Man vs. Nature.  

In this case, that "Nature" belongs to different and infinitely more harsh world than ours: Mars.

Thrillingly, The Martian is precisely the science fiction movie our country and our planet needs and deserves at this juncture in history, when politicians are thinking small, stoking fear and resentment, and focusing very much on petty Earth-bound matters.

The Martian deftly, and without apology, reminds us that no frontier is off limits if we dedicate ourselves to conquering it. We must merely possess the will to conquer it.

Perhaps it’s not that we are Star Trekkian-like perfect beings -- at least not yet -- but rather that the individual fear of death -- coupled with the human race’s fear of stagnation -- can push us to the next horizon, and then the one beyond that. The Martian is realistic in its approach, and yet optimistic at the same time. It imagines that mankind can achieve big things, and do it under his own auspices.

What are those auspices? Knowledge. Training. Endurance. 

And no less important, imagination too.

We need The Martian now, indeed, because aspiring politicians routinely suggest that they somehow know better than the scientists do. Even though they have no training, and worse, no curiosity about how the universe works.

The Martian is very much about what happens when a dedicated, imaginative scientist is given a challenge, and rises to the occasion. The film will, I imagine, inspire many young people to become astronauts, botanists, physicists, or the like. And of course, that's a very good thing.

So Scott’s film reminds us -- in a sadly anti-intellectual time -- how knowledge, not ignorance, can transform not merely our lives, but the planets themselves.

“This is space. It does not cooperate.”

On a mission to Mars in 2035, astronaut Mark Watley (Damon) is injured during a terrible storm. His commanding officer, Lewis (Jessica Chastain), is unable to find him in the blizzard and forced to assume that Mark has died. She leaves the planet with the rest of the crew.

Against the odds, however, Watley is not dead, only wounded. He manages to return to the astronaut shelter on the surface, and face the fact that he has been abandoned, possesses no way to return home, and that another mission to Mars is not due to arrive from Earth for four years. 

Mark possesses approximately thirty-one days of life-support, which means he will have to improvise, and -- after rationing his supplies -- grow roughly three years of his own food.

Watley goes about solving this food problem by planting potatoes (using his own waste as fertilizer), and then faces the next crisis: He will have to travel fifty days in cold temperatures, in a rover, to reach the distant landing site.

Back on Earth, meanwhile, NASA learns from satellite footage that Watley has survived.  

Now the organization must rally and determine a way to bring the marooned astronaut home alive.  

One answer involves launch a second rocket, but a brilliant young physicist comes up with a plan to redirect Lewis’s ship back to Mars for an extraordinary orbital rendezvous...

“I am going to have to science the shit out of this.”

In my introduction above, I compared this film to Gravity. I believe that film is technically and visually brilliant, but when you think about it -- and its dramatic point -- for an length of time...you encounter disappointment.  

Basically, Gravity is about how the entire space program is pulped in one day, but one woman survives, and learns to deal with her personal demons (the death of a child). It only took the destruction of every shuttle, station, and satellite in orbit for her to accept her past traumas.  

Worse, the film makes no notation that though it is a good day for Sandra Bullock’s character, psychologically-speaking, it is a very sad day for mankind, and humanity's efforts in space. The space program, in that movie, would have been set back years, if not decades. And yet, we are expected to cheer when the scientist arrives home safely on Earth.

All I could think about was the future lost, destroyed, or prevented by the incidents of that terrible day.

The Martian adopts a different and far preferable creative strategy. 

It’s a movie about people navigating challenges -- in bureaucracies and on Mars -- and figuring out how science, technology, and know-how can rescue people and break boundaries.

It’s not merely about survival and escape, while the space program crashes and burns as a consequence. The Martian is about how the space program can achieve great things, even though death is always a possibility.  

The film’s protagonist, Mark Watley, is given no facile “back story” to conquer. There’s no Hollywood bullshit here to attempt to falsely manufacture psychological drama. Instead, Mark must keep his vision trained squarely on the present, battling each problem as it arise. He then uses his wit, skill, and training to conquer it. 

Watley pulls together every scrap of knowledge and training he has, but even that considerable effort is not enough. We see throughout the film that man survives not just when he is smart and adaptive, but when he employs his imagination. 

Mark isn't depressed, brooding, or angsty about the set-backs and reversals he encounters. 

On the contrary, he keeps engaging his imagination,considering new ways to survive and thrive.

Uniquely, The Martian shares an opening shot with Scott’s Prometheus (2012).  

In both films, the camera hurtles (relatively low to the ground) across an inhospitable surface. In Prometheus, that surface belongs to Earth, as the alien Engineers attempt to seed it with their DNA. 

In The Martian, that surface is Mars.  

In both cases, knowledge, reason, science and technology ultimately re-shape that surface to accommodate or welcome life.

It’s on a huge scale in Prometheus, and a small one (for now), in The Martian, but as Watley trenchantly notes, by growing his own food there, he has, by definition, colonized the planet. He has taken the first step of introducing new life to Mars.  

The Martian and Prometheus are polar opposites, or mirror reflections in another significant way. 

In Prometheus, the search for God is what impels man to the stars.  

In The Martian, man survives a harrowing space journey not on faith in a supernatural being, but by faith in his own abilities, ingenuity, and know-how. 

The two films provide a kind of perfect yin/yang in terms of philosophy.

One is about the literal search for God, and the divine within. The other is about mankind -- through his knowledge -- evolving into something, if not Godlike, then at least able to brave the dangerous realm of outer space.  

It's no accident, or coincidence, that Mark Watley puts a crucifix (belonging to another astronaut) to practical -- rather than spiritual -- use during the duration of the film. He must use his imagination, training, and every material he has on hand if he wishes to endure. There is no time to worship idols.

The two films -- Prometheus and The Martian -- work well together in tandem, as a Ridley Scott double feature, actually. 

One is a horror film about what terrors could await us in space. Prometheus reveals to audiences ow small we are in the scheme of Cosmic Things. When we meet our Maker, we are not ready for the knowledge that flows from that encounter.

Its philosophical book-end, The Martian is a hard science fiction film that suggests how we will already know, by 2035, enough to survive and flourish in our first steps away from Earth. We will face challenges, and we will beat them back. And we will learn from our successes.  We will tell others (as teachers), and build on them.

One reason I appreciate the work of Scott so much (in Prometheus, as well as here) is that he is persistently able to craft images and symbols that resonate in the imagination.

Here, early on, an empty chair looms large on the Martian escape ship (and in our imaginations), a reminder that an astronaut has been lost.  

Again, the typical dramatic bullshit approach would demand histrionics on the part of the commanding officer, or shipmates.Instead, we get no words, just close-ups of anguish, and of that empty seat.

And in the film’s climax, Mark practically bursts out of his capsule into a whirling void (in orbit). His only way to survive (and get home) is to cut his suit open, and utilize the escaping pressure as a means of directing himself through that void. 

This is a perfect symbol for man’s capacity to reshape fate, and nature, to his desire. We are all on a spinning surface too (the Earth), but we can direct its future with our technology, our science, our imagination, and our know how. We aren't just passengers.  We have the capacity to exert power and control over our environment.

I suppose The Martian could have proven a rather dry, life-less experience as a one-man-show, but through its use of disco music on the soundtrack, and the buoyancy of Matt Damon’s central performance, the film brilliantly comes to life. 

The soundtrack, straight from a hedonistic time and place in America culture, lightens the mood, provides stark contrast to Mark’s travails, and finally, calls us back to the last time in history -- the heyday of the Apollo program -- when America looked to the stars, dreamed, and then made real plans to reach them. 

The disco music, in essence, makes The Martian a kind of sequel to the early 1970s, before the combined weight of Vietnam, Watergate, Three Mile Island, Inflation, and Oil Embargoes brought human dreams crashing back to terra firma.

The leitmotif of The Martian is simple and worthwhile. 

Life is hard. 

And life in space is even harder. 

If we want to endure as a species, however, survival in space and on other worlds is a virtual necessity.  We can cry and whine about how dangerous the endeavor remains, how expensive it is, or even how time-consuming it is. 

Or we can look at the challenges…and, using our knowledge as a starting point, imagine how to beat them.  

As one character here memorably notes, “you can either accept” the difficulty of reality, and the constant nearness of death, “or get to work.”

The Martian reminds us that it is time to quit the bellyaching.

Let's get to work.