chris_gerrib (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chris_gerrib) wrote2015-02-17 04:38 pm
chris_gerrib) wrote2015-02-17 04:38 pm
Jupiter Ascending and Taking Back Science Fiction
John Scalzi waxes wisely and at length about how one can't "take back" science fiction. the tl;dr version is that science fiction is and always has been a very big tent. For example, as pointed out to me in comments, 1938's Out of the Silent Planet was, if not the first, a very early "anti-imperialist" SF novel.
Apropos of Scazli's thoughts, last night I went to see Jupiter Ascending in a near-empty theater. The plot had more than a few holes, but the main gist was that Earth was being used as a farm for humans, and at some point soon the Big Baddies were going to harvest humans to make another batch of immortality serum. Humanity's only hope was a Russian cleaning lady (Mila Kunis) who could, via a quirk of law, become Queen of Earth.
On the one hand, Jupiter Ascending is clearly communist. The Big Baddie says (verbatim) "humans exist to be converted into capital!" On the other hand, the idea that humanity is about to get harvested by some alien for some nefarious scheme is as old as science fiction. But, to nobody's surprise, the "take back" crowd are upset about the movie.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Apropos of Scazli's thoughts, last night I went to see Jupiter Ascending in a near-empty theater. The plot had more than a few holes, but the main gist was that Earth was being used as a farm for humans, and at some point soon the Big Baddies were going to harvest humans to make another batch of immortality serum. Humanity's only hope was a Russian cleaning lady (Mila Kunis) who could, via a quirk of law, become Queen of Earth.
On the one hand, Jupiter Ascending is clearly communist. The Big Baddie says (verbatim) "humans exist to be converted into capital!" On the other hand, the idea that humanity is about to get harvested by some alien for some nefarious scheme is as old as science fiction. But, to nobody's surprise, the "take back" crowd are upset about the movie.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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I hope the other parts will later be recovered, well preserved by the cement.