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Life Luminescent – Short Story

Life Luminescent is a short story, originally an entry submission to the XPRIZE competition, exploring a unique vision of the not too distant future.

While en route from Tokyo to San Francisco on board ANA Flight 008, Kaira Winters is woken by a strange sensation.  From her window she catches a glimpse of a shadow veiling the stars.  Unaware that anything has changed, she will soon discover her world is no longer the same.

You can read the story here: Life Luminescent

Utopian Tide – Poetry

Utopian Tide is a little poem I wrote a long time ago when I was younger, and felt that this world was a forbidding place with little empathy.  Well not much has changed, but for the fact the world is how you perceive it and what you do with your life.

So, even though the poem was about escaping to find Utopia in some other life, I prefer to see it now as a metaphor to finding truth and strength in your mind.  You are your world, and the world is what you make of it.  You can read it by clicking here.

Blade Runner – A Timeless Classic

Back in 1982 I sat in a musky, antiquated cinema that no longer exists, watching the opening credits to Blade Runner. The credits ended with a scrolling introduction to the Replicants that finished in pitch black. Out of the darkness, the endless night of the dystopian cityscape of Los Angeles materialized, smeared in smog and toxic rain. Performing to this surreal futuristic film noir was a combination of classical arrangements and synthesizers—the melancholic, yet beautifully haunting music of Vangelis. I was looking at a prophetic November in 2019.

As the rumble of massive flames exploded from towering industrial funnels, I was struck by a frightful question, could this be the future? By the time the film’s final scene ‘Tears in Rain’ ended, I think I was in tears as well. I left the cinema emotionally shaken by the experience.

Over the following days I was saddened to read in the newspapers of the time, the generally negative consensus. Critics and public alike seemed to have missed the point somewhere. The negative criticism, in particular from the United States, impacted the film’s success, stigmatizing for years the film’s true influence. Over the course of time, however, it became a cult classic and was eventually accepted as a science fiction masterpiece, the definitive sci-noir.

The film underwent seven iterations.  In 2007, on the 25th anniversary, the digitally remastered Final Cut was released.  Scott had complete artistic freedom over it and it became the decisive version to watch on Blue-ray. 

I’ll be re-watching Blade Runner: The Final Cut, before I go and see the sequel, Blade Runner 2049.   If you’re planning to see the new sequel and you haven’t seen the original, do yourself a favor and watch the Final Cut.  It’s definitely my favorite version and the one that Scott considers his final true vision of the film.

Come October, I’ll have the opportunity to watch Blade Runner 2049, and hopefully post my views on it afterwards. 

A Seasonal Endeavor – Short Story

A Seasonal Endeavor is a fictional account concerning the unknown author of the mysterious Voynich manuscript.

The story takes place in the rural countryside of 15th Century Northern Italy, during the Italian Renaissance.  The tale begins when a stranger arrives, out of the blue, at an isolated farmstead to offer his services to the poor owner and his family.  During his sojourn, he continuous to work on his manuscript, unaware of the fate it will play on all of them.

You can read the story here:  A Seasonal Endeavor

Alien: Covenant – The search for answers

In Alien: Prometheus we have one human character still alive, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), whose uncertain fate rests with the next film—or so we thought.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

In Covenant, her role inconsequentially vanishes in a dialogue towards the end, which left me irritated with the protagonist’s character as unfulfilled… ‘What! That’s it? She’s dead!?’  Alas, it would seem humans are destined to be pawns on the celestial stage.  But if that’s the case, who then is the true protagonist?

The first thing Covenant hints at is that people are no longer the core of this story, being merely inefficient and good at making poor decisions, with resulting deadly consequences.  Take for example the way the crew blundered about on the Engineer’s planet, like irresponsible children, sniffing this, touching that, without any concern for their actions… who was leading them?  Even that seemed uncertain.

This is an issue that might trouble the audience, which needs to relate to a hero of sorts.  We are apparently offered one in the form of Daniels (Katherine Waterston), but she is not the protagonist, nor was Elizabeth Shaw for that matter; that title I feel goes to David, who has become more than human, created by the humans, who in turn were created by the Engineers—he serves to outdo them all.  In Covenant, it comes full circle and is revealed in the prologue as David arrives on the Engineers’ planet.  We see him standing perched from the alien ship looking down at the Engineers, who have amassed in an immense square in the heart of their city, rejoicing the return of their ship, and blissfully unaware of the doom about to befall them.  David triumphantly quotes Shelly’s sonnet “Ozymandias”: “Look on my works ye mighty and despair.” And then proceeds to release pods of black goo on them, (which he most likely has been studying & tampering with, while on the way to their planet), wiping them out and giving rise to the xenomorphs.

We see this event before we even see the film, in the Alien: Covenant Prologue: The Crossing.  With more cultural references when we finally do get to see the movie.

I’ve noted the more prominent ones below:

  • Early in the film, the Covenant, a colonization ship ferrying thousands of sleeping colonists to the new world Origae-6, is damaged in a neutrino burst, the crew is woken to make repairs.  During this time, they receive an unknown static transmission, with John Denver singing, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

  • Also, if you look carefully, the ancient citadel in the Engineers City uncannily resembles the painting from Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead, pines and all.  Is this a premonition that death resides in the city?

  • More meaningful to the plot, I suspect is Milton’s Paradise Lost, a poetic work that concerns the fall of man in Genesis.  With Satan as the tragic hero and central character.  We see this at the beginning of Alien: Covenant, in a prelude scene even before Prometheus, with David and his creator Dr. Weyland (Guy Pearce), with a hint in pride and mindful of Weyland’s inspiration, “You seek your creator. I am looking at mine. You will die. I will not.” And his prideful reference to the fallen angel, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”

  • With further references accompanied by the soundtrack’s music to Wagner’s “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla” from Das Rheingold with Gods, Giants, Nibelungs and the Rhinedaughters, a cosmic story of unfolding events. The Engineers at the height of their glory, with their creation—not the cursed Ring of the Nibelung—but the cursed Black Goo of the Engineers, which literally rained death on the unfortunate Engineers.

All these cultural fragments help to wedge some mythological personality into Scott’s Alien horror saga, which no doubt is substantial.  Unfortunately, it can feel muddled and unclear, an obvious issue when you are constrained to formulate such complex themes into a story inside two hours, while trying to accommodate a heritage of horror.

Eventually, we are led to the finale of Alien: Covenant, in a showdown between the Alien and Daniels, but instead of originality, Scott retreads familiar territory reminiscent of Aliens finale with Ripley, with Daniels facing the alien’s jaws, (maybe a gesture to his Alien horror fans).  With a final twist, which unfortunately proved all too predictable.

Ending, we are left with David again, who has a mission, what that mission is will be revealed in the sequels Scott is preparing.  For now, however, we are once more left without answers to a lot of questions, and a mystery that spans our own history as a species and that of our creators.

American Gods – You Are What You Worship

Certain books have not been written for adaptation, Neil Gaiman’s, American Gods is one of them. It is, however, a book I thoroughly enjoyed, a story that clashes the old gods with the new gods of technology, media and consumerism.

The ancient gods are desperately in need of devotion from the lesser minions of mankind, or else they will disappear forever into obscurity, which for them is their own personal hell. A state of no longer being remembered via the age-old ritual of worship. The new gods find the old gods irrelevant and late to extinction. That’s why having people think about them is decisively important. “This isn’t about what is . . . it’s about what people think is. It’s all imaginary anyway. That’s why it’s important. People only fight over imaginary things.” And it would seem the gods do too.

The story is also a great road trip through the US, not so much to places we expect to see, but more so on hidden roads and to secret places we are surprised to learn even exist. And they do!

So, it comes as a surprise that Starz’s new TV series, based on the book, (remember, I did say the book was not written for adaptation), is so damn good. Having viewed half of season one, it seems to have succeeded in capturing the visual imagination of the book, as well as the extravagant ambition of the story telling.

But to be honest, American Gods’ proposal is a unique and daring risk for television, one that should pay off if you take your time and watch it from the beginning. Confusion seems to be part of the show’s rhythm, but holding closely to the characters you meet, each with their own bizarre personality, created from humanities desire to believe in deities, will reward your patience.

Let’s hope we see more risks like this in the future.

Re-watching Prometheus before Covenant premier

I loved Prometheus, as a quasi-prequel to Alien it was great. Leaving me with tingling questions unanswered. Its visual scope blends a vast, haunting canvas with metaphors left to interpretation, hinting on our beginning and end. So, this week I’ll be re-watching it again, with an added alternative beginning and ending, and just in time for Alien: Covenant.

Hopefully Ridley Scott won’t disappoint. But more on that later…