Media I Consumed This Weekend

1.) Childhood’s End

I’m on a roll with books this year. I’ve been going through an average of 1 a week for the past, erm, week. So that’s a roll. Anyway, Childhood’s End was recommended to me (and the entire internet community, I’m not special) by one of my favorite writers, Peter David, after Arthur C. Clark died a few weeks ago. He said it was the book that influenced him the most as a child, so I picked it up. The basic premise is kick-ass: humans are not alone in the universe, and are, in fact, a lesser species. Aliens arrive one day in big ships and basically say “we own you.” They’re not evil, just bigger and better. They actually set us on the right track: no war, no famine, world peace, etc. Then, you’re left to wonder if the so-called Overlord’s interests will always mean the best for humanity.

It interested me because the concept was actually an idea I had for a story once (sigh). My premise was that God was a member of this cosmic race of higher beings, and he was the owner of this region of space, and his mythology has been passed down in our society as the creator. And for the past thousand years or so he’s been relatively quiet. Then, a new alien shows up and says that God sold us to him and he’s not like the quiet and gentle God, but something else and he’s going to use the planet for something other than human life, and, well, it’s a story about humanity’s survival at the hands of the aliens, which is nothing new, which is why it’s not written. That, and I’m lazy.

Anyway, Childhood’s End is not really like that, but it’s still a decent story. It’s divided into three shorter “stories” and I thought it would have been great if it had been just the first and third stories. It’s a short book as is, but still seemed to drag. It’s that classic 50’s style sci-fi, which is retro-cool but still hard to read sometimes, with a multitude of interchangeable characters and dated dialog.

So, the story ends up being about (spoiler warning!) the Overlords, who look exactly like the Devil, and are here to guide us in our evolution into higher beings. The story briefly touches on the “Golden Age,” after their arrival and before the evolution, during the time when because of their presense, there was world peace. It implies that because of world peace and Utopia, humanity gets bored and things like art aren’t really around any more.

2.) Confederate States of America

TiVo’d this bad boy from earlier in the week.  It’s a faux-documentary made in 2004 that centers around the idea, “what would have happened if the south won the Civil War?”

Basically, slavery would have not been abolished and therefore still legal and accepted all over the country, and the entire country would have taken on a… well, cowboy attitude.

Some parts were genuinely disturbing, such as the fake commercials throughout the show for places like “Coon Chicken Inn!” and “NiggerHair Cigarettes.” Then there was the electronic shackle that tracked your slave via wireless signals, and the fact that America allied with Hitler and Nazi Germany during WWII, because we liked the idea of establishing a superior race once and for all. Left me with a sour feeling in my stomach, because that kind of stuff could very well have happened.

The rest, I’m unsure about, mainly because I don’t know enough about actual history to comment.  I am a shame.

3.) Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

I wonder if the creators of movies like this every really think they are creating something worthwhile. The only reason I wanted to see this is because I never get enough of the Alien imagry, but even that was kind of dull in this movie. Some scenes, in fact, reminded me exactly of previous Alien movies, specifically Aliens (2) when the marines take on a swarm of them, and Alien 3 when Ripley is pressed against the cabinet, her head turned away as the alien is right there in her face, staring her down.

The movie was bad, and even played with what’s been established about the Alien’s biology. Specifically, it takes at least hours for the egg to hatch after it’s implanted in someone’s chest, if not a few days. This time around, about 30 second after the “face-hugger” lays one in you, it pops right out of you. “Hey ya’ll. I’mma eat’cha.” And then, 30 minutes later, it’s full size. I’m okay with taking liberties, but this felt like exploitation.

Then again, I’m a nerd.

But! One aspect they didn’t play with was the alien’s method of evolving, which I always found really cool. Basically, the alien needs a host to grow in because it analyzes the DNA of the host, taking on certain survival attributes to be better equipped to handle it’s environment. For example: those who hatch from humans have two legs and two arms. Those that hatch from dogs run on four legs, etc. So when it hatched from a Predator, it took on certain attributes of the Predator.  Neat-o.

Also, the entire movie was too dark, and even with the TV’s brightness all the way up, I barely saw half the movie. I wonder if they did this because it was scary. I was not scared.

The only cool scene was at the end (spoiler warning!). This movie took place in an American city, and because of how contagious the alien infestation is, the government decided to just nuke the whole city. So they drop the bomb, and that’s it.

The ironic thing is that seeing the alien and predator get nuked was kind of sad.

But it also explained why “The Company” in the alien films wanted to get their hands on an alien. They had footage of what they’re capable of, and wanted one for their bio-weapons division. And, like in the last film how we met Weyland, we meet Yutani at the end of this one. Weyland-Yutani: “The Fucking Company.”