Wednesday 4 January 2023

Films And Books

We saw Avatar: The Way of Water and I could not help wishing that I could see The People Of The Wind. Human-Ythrian battle scenes would be not only spectacular but also comprehensible and even plausible as long as the dramatization was able to convey Poul Anderson's explanations. After all its action, Avatar... ends with its main protagonist and his main antagonist still alive and able to fight another round. Anderson usually used continuing characters more sparingly. 

I would like to see the Technic History filmed in chronological order of fictitious events from "The Saturn Game" to "Starfog," whether or not that would make current commercial sense. Some prequels are not only written later but also meant to be read later - which they have to be anyway if we are reading a series as it is published. Readers like to learn what had happened earlier, which can include how an already established character began his career. Thus, Young Flandry after Captain Flandry. John Watson began by telling us how he met Sherlock Holmes but later recounted, in two stages, how Holmes had become a consulting detective.

 Although Mirkheim was written as a continuation of "Lodestar," it made sense, in the original order of book publication, to read Hloch's account of how van Rijn had come to the planet called Mirkheim after we had read the novel of that name but maybe that would make less sense on screen? - unless it really was made clear that, after the Terran War, Hloch gathers the material for the Earth Book which will include some extended flashbacks.

In the books, before The Technic Civilization Saga, there was a Polesotechnic League Tetralogy followed by an Ythrian diptych with an entire second Polesotechnic League series enclosed in an Ythrian sandwich in the second volume of the diptych but I have enthused about this before.

17 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

I thought the first "Avatar" film visually great and plot-wise, deplorable. We've seen that "forest-dwellers-with-bows-against-guns" things a lot of times in real life, and let's face it, it always ends one way.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

Paul: Considering how many stories there are in the Technic series, 43, I have my doubts about the practicality of filming them all. But I would love to see some ACCURATE filmed versions of stories about Nicholas van Rijn and Dominic Flandry.

Mr. Stirling: After the horrible, infuriating botch Peter Jackson made of his filmed versions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT, I feel very jaundiced about recent "SF" and fantasy movies.

Did you mean that what "ends" when archers fight men armed with gunpowder weapons is that the latter eventually wins? Because it's so costly, in time and effort, to put archers in the field while it's cheaper to train musketeers and riflemen? Are musketeers cheaper to train and replace while archers are not?

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: in that particular case, it's neolithics or hunter-gatherers against post-medieval types. They lose not only because of the weapons, but because of a generalized disadvantage.

Also, I'm impatient with all forms of noble-savagism. Primitives aren't better, they're just primitive -- otherwise, standard-issue human beings.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Of course 19th and 20th century would have an overwhelming generalized advantage against primitives.

I agree with the contempt you have for PC bull twaddle about "noble savages"!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Are noble savages PC - or has "PC" just become a general term of contempt?

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: and the "natural ecologist" sub-twaddle.

In the 1720's, a trading post was opened in central Ohio... and within three months, it had bought 14,000 raw deerskins from the locals.

(For guns, shot, powder, metal tools, cloth and whiskey, mostly.)

Guess how many of those deer were skinned and left to rot? You betcha.

Hunters didn't take "more than they needed" because hunting was -work-.

The minute, the -instant- they could get valuable goods for the hides, they went out and slaughtered like berserkers high on hash.

Another example:

Indians used to hunt bison by driving herds over cliffs, mostly before they got horses.

Examination of the pile of bones below such shows that the top layer of carcasses was butchered thoroughly... and the next layer less so... and then down to ones where only the tongue and hump-meat were taken.

And then multiple layers that were just left to rot.

Only scarce resources get conserved.

If it's abundant, or perceived to be, people are profligate.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

Paul: Both. I despise the PC and woke lunacies of our times. And Stirling's comments shows how absurd fantasies about Noble Savages and "natural ecologists" were and are.

Mr. Stirling: I'm not in the least surprised hunter gatherers were WASTEFULLY profligate whenever it was possible to be! Noble savages? Don't make me laugh, Jean Jacques Rousseau!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I do not despise people that I disagree with. I find that feeling entirely negative. And maybe some respect is appropriate.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

respectfully, I disagree. Many ideas/beliefs common in our times are absurd and contemptible. That is not the same as believing we should treat people who believe in nonsense with scorn. I agree that would be bad, however hard it so often is to be patient with them.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Well, as long as we disagree respectfully...

Can there be truth without dialogue? Can there be dialogue without respect? Truth is to be discovered between us. It is not the exclusive preserve of any individual or group. There are many who regard all religious beliefs as absurd. A losing patience with B because of a disagreement is surely a problem for A alone.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

To name a very simple example, it is absurd to believe in a Flat Earth. And if, no matter how carefully you demonstrate its erroneousness, the Flat Earther stubbornly refuses to admit being wrong, it can be hard not to lose patience wit him!

No dialogue is possible, if at least sometimes, one party or another in a dispute can't sometimes admit being wrong.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But Flat Earthers are vanishingly rare. Beliefs that are held by large numbers of people cannot be dismissed in the same way.

Dialogue is impossible with Evangelicals who simply speak on the assumption that their belief is true, irrespective of the fact that they are speaking to someone who sees no reason to accept that belief.

Nearly everyone on Earth has very great difficulty in admitting to being wrong!

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

So far on this blog, you have never admitted to being wrong on anything important because you are convinced that you are right but the same applies to anyone else that you are disagreeing with. I think that the most that we can open for in the short to medium term is greater clarity on what the points of disagreement are.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

Humans are programmed by their evolution to react negatively -- to put it mildly -- towards those they perceive as enemies/threats.

Remember, throughout most of our history as a species, the most significant and immediate lethal threat to any adult human being was -other adult human beings-.

Investigations of human remains from pre-State societies show a consistent pattern of adult males mostly dying by violence, and a smaller but very substantial share of adult females.

It's fairly useless to say that people shouldn't have this emotional programming: they do.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

Paul: I used the Flat Earthers, few as they are, merely as a simple, clear example of the point I had in mind.

I agree with Evangelical Protestants on some things, after all. Such as Christ being God Incarnate as well as Savior and Lord. Points I will not yield on--but I hope to differ from them on matters like being patient with people who think as you do. I disagree on other matters, such as socialism vs. free enterprise economics, because I believe the overwhelming preponderance of empirical evidence supports the latter, not the former. And so on and on.

I agree on the need for greater clarity over points of disagreement and patience with those we disagree with.

Mr. Stirling: And the way too many in the US Democrat Party (including "Josip") keeps flouting that basic and necessary human wariness for strangers is causing fury! It's becoming impossible for even that aged bungler to continue ignoring the chaos on the southern borders.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: "No stranger on my tribe's land" is a basic human reflex; as always, ignoring it is very dangerous.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Absolutely! And some of the dolts around "Josip" seem to be belatedly realizing that. But I doubt "Josip" does!

And I have repeatedly protested the chaos at the borders to my House rep, for whatever good that does, considering how she's a Democrat.

Ad astra! Sean