19.3.08

The "Sci" in Sci-Fi




Visionary science fiction writer, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, died yesterday. He was 90 years old.

Clarke, if you're not aware, was the man behind the novel (and of course, the movie) 2001: A Space Odyssey, and more than 100 other books.

What made Clarke a great author wasn't necessarily his style (it's extremely dry), but it was his dedication to the science part of science fiction. Clarke was a born techie, and as a member of a secret division of the Royal Air Force, was played an integral role in the development of radar. Later, he would earn degrees in math and physics.

Though his creations and imaginary visions of the future and the future's technology were just as far fetched as Gene Roddenberry (who was directly inspired by Clarke) or George Lucas, ACC was a modern version of Jules Verne in that so many of his fantasies were so rooted in good science that they eventually ceased being science fiction and became pure, legitimate science. As one obituary put it, he wrote practical science fiction.

Who would have thought that a mere novelist would come up with the idea of launching man-made satellites into geosynchronous orbit, the geodesic dome as an ideal zero gravity structure (without ACC, there would be no EPCOT dome). He also came up with the concept of a reusable space shuttle, supercomputers, and was predicting as early as 1940 that man would, indeed, make it to moon. It's especially telling that he made all these predictions more than 15 years before the Soviets launched the world's first man-make object into space.

Now that I stop and think about it, I'm grateful to the late Mr. Clarke for two, no make that three things.


Just ignore the Hebrew subtitles

1) What little street cred I can muster as a film snob is due to A) the fact that I have actually seen Citizen Kane more than once and B) that I really, really enjoy and was not for one moment confused by 2001, the movie. (Dr. Keas butchered it in NatSci.)

It can be debated how much of the movie's style is Kubrick and how much is Clarke, especially since ACC wrote the novel as he and Kubrick wrote the screen play. But, having read a half dozen or so of Clarke's books and seen several of Kubrick's films, I'm going to have to say movie bears ACC's fingerprint.

You can tell just how good a scientific mind Clarke is, in that this movie, made a year before we actually landed on the moon, looks realistic today and is not dated beyond the silly looking video phone, which, ironically, is one technological prediction that failed. Holy cow, that's six commas in one sentence. The space ships and effects look as good or better than modern computer-generated special effects.

I love how quiet the movie is. Star Wars exists in a universe where space is not a vacuum, and the twangs and zips of lasers and explosions ripple through the supposed nothingness. In 2001, space isn't just a quiet vacuum, it's an infinite beautiful and terrifying chasm of everything and nothing. One would probably be reminded of a cruise on the Danube ask you lazily floated to a central space station, but that internal overture is later deafened by the silent truth that in space, no can hear you scream. Space is not glamorous and fun, but is cold, tedious and fraught with peril. Clarke understood that long before mankind threw that proverbial bone and launched one of our own kind into orbit.

Most movies rely on the soundtrack or quick camera cuts to create suspense. 2001 does the precise opposite. (Sure, you might point to the bombastic Also Sprach Zarathrustra as the antithesis to what I've just argued, but that fanfare takes place on prehistoric Earth.) The musical direction, no doubt we can attribute to Kubrick, but it's silence and lack of dialog (no human speaks or is even seen until a good 22 minutes into the film), that really stand out and are the result of ACC's imagination.

The creepy non-emotion of the homicidal supercomputer HAL is also purely Clarke. If the eery silence of watching a dead man float away into the abyss doesn't give you chills, listening to HAL emotionlessly (is that a word?) beg for his life and singing Daisy as he "dies" will. Hearing HAL confess that he is afraid is just as moving and terrifying when you read it. I rarely have nightmares, but when I do, HAL, or at least his voice, is usually makes an appearance. WHY WON'T HE OPEN THE POD BAY DOOR? I'm sorry, Brian. I'm afraid I can't do that.

The ending, I'll give you IS a little trippy. But, to quote Roger Ebert, Clarke was making "a philosophical statement about man's place in the universe, using images as those before him had used words, music or prayer. And he had made it in a way that invited us to contemplate it -- not to experience it vicariously as entertainment, as we might in a good conventional science fiction film, but to stand outside it as a philosopher might, and think about it." I've got agree. Clarke was a "devout" atheist and I whole hearted disagreed with his cosmology, but dang it if the Star Child and Dave in that bedroom didn't make me think and feel like philosopher, if only for a short time. If nothing else, it teaches us that history repeats itself.


2)
I'm not sure why he left the UK and spent the last 52 years on the island off the coast of India, but ACC called Sri Lanka home and his introductions always were always signed "AC, Sri Lanka, 19XX." While most people were inspired by his imagination and fantasies of the technology and society of the future, I was inspired to fantasize about sitting on a beach in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but pin (or pen, I guess) down a great work of writing.

3) Thanks to an 11th grade research paper, I will forever remember that "odyssey" has only one D. This has served me very well in life. Thanks, Art.

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