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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 05/29/98 -- Vol. 16, No. 48
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://www.locusmag.com. On-line edition of
LOCUS, the leading newszine in the science fiction field. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. Hold on to your seats, this may be going to be one of my more
controversial pieces. I could get a lot of people angry with me on
this one. This would be particularly true if I leave just a tiny
hole open to be misinterpreted. So let me just ease up on it.
There is a story about a mathematics professor who is giving a
particularly abstract lecture. One of his students stops him and
asks for some justification for the last step of a proof. "What do
you mean? It's obvious." The student is just as puzzled. "Is it
obvious?" The professor stares at the board for a minute. Then he
sits at his desk, never taking his eyes off the board. He turns
around and starts violently writing on paper. After a few minutes
he crosses out everything he has written and moves on to a second
piece of paper. Suddenly he jumps up and runs out of the room.
Ten minutes later he comes running back into the room. "Yup, it's
obvious."
The student in the story was perhaps not so convinced. The thing
is that it is one of the weakest forms of argument to simply
declare victory. Nobody is going to find you very convincing on
some controversial issue if you say simply, "My beliefs are self-
evident and so do not need any sort of defending." This is
particularly true if there is controversy and there are people who
sincerely disagree with the point of view. Basically instead of a
convincing argument it belittles the other side saying they are too
stupid to see the most obvious. Now this may be intentional, but
it is also high-handed. One is effectively calling anyone who
disagrees an idiot. It is like saying one holds truth in the palm
of ones hand. If there is any basis for disagreement, people will
jump on it and ride the original speaker into the ground. It is a
strategy that infuriates ones enemies and even alienates ones
allies. Hopefully all this is obvious.
Now, what kind of country takes some of the most controversial
issues not only of its time but of all time and starts out by
saying its point of view is obvious? And I mean literally starts
out. The very first official words of the country are a pompous
"We hold these truths to be self-evident." And then what are these
so- called truths? "That all men are created equal." That was
slaveholder Thomas Jefferson saying that. "Equal" really is a very
strong word. It goes beyond what government has the power to
mandate. Even identical twins are not created equal. There are
discernible differences. Equal means precisely the same, a promise
that no government could ever deliver or would want to. What he
really meant was, first of all, that all people that count are
created equal. But does he actually mean even that? What he is
really saying is that the laws should apply equally to all people
who count. They should all have equal rights. But that was not
what he said. Even in 1776 politicians were not saying what they
meant and not meaning what they said.
It continues saying that they-men--are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights. This presupposes that they have a
Creator. Now Jefferson may well be right that there is a Creator
but is it self-evident? That among these are Life, Liberty, and
the Pursuit of Happiness. No government and certainly not ours
treats Life and Liberty to be inalienable. On the other hand no
government that has ever existed has ever been able to prevent the
Pursuit of Happiness in anybody. It is not clear even what that
would mean. Nobody has unrestricted right to pursue happiness, but
nobody can prevent anyone from at least trying to be happy. The
person may be a miserable failure at it, but nobody can stop him
from trying to be happy. Nobody I have asked has ever been able to
give a very good explanation of what a right to the pursuit of
happiness is.
Well, you get the point. The Declaration of Independence has a
reputation for being a superbly well-written document. But that is
mostly because it is interpreted as verbalizing some high ideals.
But it may be the ideals that are high and fine and not the way
they are expressed. Luckily the Supreme Court does not have to
interpret the words of the Declaration of Independence nearly as
closely as they do the Constitution. The Constitution is
considerably drier, and not nearly so elegant and concise, but it
is a much better written document. At least it works. I think
that the Declaration of Independence still needs work. Luckily
there is still time since I take it that it never actually got sent
to King George. I know we still have it here in the National
Archives. I seriously doubt that King George read it and returned
it. I can only conclude that something went wrong and it never got
sent. I think that Jefferson decided he liked it so much that he
couldn't part with it. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. GODZILLA (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: This film has little to do with the
Japanese monster Godzilla. A mutated iguana
grown to giant proportions gets loose in New
York City. Most of the thrills are really
warmed-over JURASSIC PARK. Matthew Broderick
is wasted, but Jean Reno has some nice moments.
The comic approach too often falls flat and
does little for the story. Rating: 4 (0 to
10), low 0 (-4 to +4)
In 1954 there was an anti-American uproar in Japan. A Japanese
fishing boat had unknowingly caught fish contaminated by an
American nuclear test. The fishermen had been sickened but not in
time to stop the fish from going to market. Japanese newspapers
called the incident another American atomic attack on Japan. The
Toho film company took outrage from this incident as inspiration.
That combined with the recent successes of the film THE BEAST FROM
20,000 FATHOMS and the re-release of KING KONG inspired them to
make their own monster movie. This was the bleak and very angry
film GOJIRA. In the story Gojira was a mythical beast identified
with a 200-foot radioactive dinosaur who comes out of the Pacific.
Made on a very small post-war budget, it very ingeniously stretched
some inexpensive special effects to massive effect. Some of the
sets initially used wax miniatures of large structures to save
money. Under harsh studio lights these props wilted and melted.
As an inspiration an aerosol spray was added to the hand puppet
that was Gojira's head together with the wilt effect combined so
Gojira had breath that would fry chicken.
American film entrepreneur Joseph E. Levine saw GOJIRA and seemed
oblivious to the anti-American tenor of the film. He crudely added
additional footage with American actor Raymond Burr. The name
"GOJIRA" probably sounded too Japanese for a country that had so
recently been fought a vicious war with Japan, so the name of the
monster was slightly modified to be less Japanese sounding but to
still fit the same lip movements. The resulting film was redubbed
GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS. The Americans turned this little
anti-American film into a big international success, the first such
success that there had ever been in the Japanese film industry.
Godzilla has remained an enduring character in Japanese film, even
as the character has been repeatedly modified. Two series of
monster films have been built around him. Finally it was decided
little more could be milked from the character, and Toho killed him
off and licensed the copyright to be used by other studios. Roland
Emmerich who made the films STARGATE and INDEPENDENCE DAY
apparently wanted to do his own giant monster film. No name they
could give their creature would have the marquee value of calling
their beast Godzilla.
While the new Godzilla may indeed have been inspired by Toho's
monster, the thing that they have ended up with has more
differences than similarities. The new Godzilla is a mutant marine
iguana owing its unusual genetics to French nuclear testing in
French Polynesia. (Incidentally, there are no marine lizards in
French Polynesia. The only marine lizard in the world is the
marine iguana, and it is found only in the Galapagos Islands.) The
creature, who would appear to be about a hundred feet high, with
powerful enough hind legs that it walks bipedally, though bent
over. The massive creature destroys a number of boats on its way
from Polynesia to New York City, fulfilling a mission of his own.
Called in to investigate is Dr. Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew
Broderick), an expert in atomic mutation called from a three-year
study of earthworm mutation at Chernobyl. Nick follows in the wake
of destruction left by the never-seen titanic beast destroying
ships. Also following in the wake seems to be a sort of French
secret agent, Philippe Roche played Jean Reno of LEON (in the US:
THE PROFESSIONAL) and of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE.
A full scale Godzilla movie with the sort of quality special
effects that the Japanese could not afford to lavish on the film
was, at least for me, an exciting idea. Unfortunately, this was
not the film I was hoping for. The approach of GODZILLA is
intended to be in large part comic, but only Jean Reno manages to
make the humor really funny. Michael Lerner plays New York City
Mayor Ebert and is made up to look like Roger Ebert. His assistant
is Gene and looks just enough like Gene Siskel for us to realize
that that is the point of the joke. But the joke just falls flat
as often as it is used. As with INDEPENDENCE DAY there are several
scenes that are homage to previous films, also just not very
amusing. The film painfully lacks logic. People do some totally
unmotivated actions to keep the plot going, though it often slows
to a snail's pace. Or the plot will move forward by contrivance.
Nico suddenly get the urge to do a very specialized chemical test
on Godzilla's blood. It turns out he is looking for a result he
apparently had no reason to suspect and which on the face of it
seems impossible. But of course it turns out to be just the key
chemical test to move the plot forward. Many of the effects and
the thrill scenes are borrowed directly from JURASSIC PARK. The
love story awkwardly thrown into the mix is totally superfluous.
The empty plotting and failed humor attempts are certainly not new
to Godzilla films, but it was hoped that they would be left behind
with the low-budget special effects flaws.
The Japanese I have talked to have been anxious to see what
GODZILLA was to be like with good effects and a serious plot. I am
sorry to say that I expect that they will be disappointed. I rate
this one a disappointing 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low 0 on the
-4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Television is a medium of entertainment which permits
millions of people to listen to the same joke at the
same time, and yet remain lonesome.
-- T. S. Eliot
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