After Earth

After Earth Cover (UK)** The review contains some mild spoilers, but not the major twists or ending **

Humanity damages Earth so much it isn’t habitable for humans, so they leave for a new world. This is attacked by aliens who track humans by their fear pheromones. But the aliens are beaten back after the emergence of Cypher (Will Smith) – a solider able to feel no fear, so he’s invisible to them.

As the film begins, Cypher is close to retirement, and has a strained relationship with his son Kitai (Jaden Smith). In an attempt to patch things up, he takes Kitai on his last mission, but the ship is damaged and crashes on Earth. With Cypher badly injured, it’s up to Kitai to travel through the wilderness and send a distress call. In the process, father and son have to face their differences.

 

General Thoughts

After Earth got very bad reviews, but the premise interested me enough to watch it anyway. I really enjoyed it. It’s not the action-adventure the marketing suggests, but a story about a father and son working through their issues (with some action backdrop).

There’s a lot of attention to detail in this. All the characters speak an invented futuristic accent, showing how language has continued to develop. The design of the colony avoids the excess and waste of the modern world, and their energy comes from turbines, as might be expected from a species trying to avoid making the same mistake twice. The changes in colour and texture of Kitai’s suit is also a nice touch.

Add in that this is a rare science fiction film where non-white/people of colour get the starring roles, and there’s a lot to like. This is not one of those futures where anyone brown mysteriously disappears, possibly because the aliens think they’re extra tasty.

 

Ecology

Earth is initially abandoned because humans made it uninhabitable (for humans). It’s placed under a harsh quarantine, which states that everything on Earth is out to get humans. I was worried when that was announced that it’d be like the King Kong remake, where animals attack humans in a single-minded way. But the quarantine is an exaggeration.

Given my interest in animal behaviour in films, I liked the different animal reactions. The spider Kitai first meets has no interest in him and doesn’t bite him. The first larger animal is checking to see if Kitai is a threat. Each animal has its own reactions, rather than being generic meatbags who want to kill all humans at any cost.

Reading Moby Dick, and the themes of hunting it contains, is used to overlay this. In the absence of humans, Earth is thriving, and species driven to near-extinction are abundant. The implication is the quarantine isn’t really to protect people. It’s to protect Earth.

As a criticism, I’d note that the timescale isn’t long enough for some of the adaptations shown to have evolved. Mimosa-like plant movement wouldn’t be a quick thing, for example. But it’s probably better not to overthink how the climate and ecology is really working.

 

Women

There are also scenes with Faia (Sophie Okonedo) the mother and Senshi (Zoë Kravitz) the daughter, but the primary focus isn’t on those relationships. In mild spoilers, because you find it out shortly after the opening, it’s clear something happened to Senshi. I felt the family reaction to this was good, rather than it being a throw-away tragedy to activate the plot. What I mean by this is the plot isn’t tragedy occurs so let’s kill aliens and never mention it again (looking at you, Starship Troopers film). It’s tragedy occurs and family has to deal with the emotional fallout.

That said, I wish we’d seen more of the Faia’s reaction to this. There’s hints she’s struggling to deal with it, but it’s not fully shown.

One common Hollywood trope is most side characters are men. There were women and girls in the crowds, but they didn’t get lines. This may seem a small thing, but it does detract from the realism.

If there’s a sequel, I hope they deal more with the family as a whole. And mix up the side characters a bit.

 

Disability

There’s a point when a solider who lost a leg in a previous battle thanks Cypher for saving him. This has good and bad sides. The good side is it shows the man is enjoying his life after becoming disabled. He’s genuine happy that he got to go home to his family. Life after disability shouldn’t be a rare protrayal, but it is. It’s often shown as a fate worse than death (and therefore death as a mercy).

However, the thing about wanting to stand to salute Cypher was rather over-hammed. He should have been able to stand with crutches, but he didn’t have any. I see how they wanted to link it in thematically to Cypher’s later injuries, but still… he could have had crutches.

 

Conclusions

I suspect some of the negative response was it not being as actiony as suggested. Someone expecting a kill-all-the-aliens war film will be disappointed. But I’m suspicious some criticism comes from the invented accent. People could think, “This accent is new to me. It’ll take some time until I’m fully able to get the tone of the speaker’s voice and notice small differences.” Or they could think, “This accent is weird. They must be terrible actors.” The latter is unfortunately the one people go for a lot of the time.

This isn’t hypothetical, given that people with composite accents in the real world tend to get those sorts of criticisms. Like the situation where Amal El-Mohtar’s accent was described as feigned and false.

However, if you like family tales with science fiction settings, an attention to detail, and Will Smith, you may well enjoy this film.

Mathematical Verse: Saloua Raouda Choucair

A wooden sculpture by Choucair

This is a small section of my art coursework, reviewing my visit to the Choucair exhibition at the Tate Modern. The overall coursework topic is “The Human Condition”, which is why the focus of the review is relating it to people. I figured it might be of interest to some of my blog readers.

Saloua Raouda Choucair (born 1916) is a Lebanese artist, known for her abstract art. I visited an exhibition at the Tate Modern, which covered her work throughout her career.

The first room displayed her earlier work, including pictures she’d produced whilst studying in France. Les Peintres Célèbres 1 has clear inspirations from Fernand Léger’s work (she studied at his studio), though the tone of the piece is different. Cubism and related styles are often violent to the subject, pulling them apart and reconstructing them. There is an overtone of hostility to the subjects. In contrast, Choucair’s women are organic and the scene is restful. That feel of domestic comfort acts as a critique of the work that inspired it.

Stepping away from her early work, her skill as an abstract artist is clear. Pieces such as Fractional Module show geometric shapes in bold colours, repeating and overlapping. There’s an influence from Islamic design, both in the patterns and the technique of starting with abstraction (rather than building up to it with figurative works first, as is commonly taught in Western art). Mathematical theory and poetry are common themes, giving the pieces a rhythmic tone. It’s a different approach to showing human experience than other artists I’ve looked at*, as she deals with the abstract aspects directly, rather than using the body as a focus.

Her wooden sculptures particularly interested me. Some are towers made of multiple pieces, but it wasn’t clear at first glance whether this was the case or how many pieces had been used. By forming the wood into complex interlocking shapes, each tower forms a new combined shape.

The later sculptures move away from the colour of traditional Islamic art, with the use of wire, metal and other plain surfaces. The wire structures still have a repetition of line and curve, but it’s coupled with a focus on tension and energy.

The exhibition as a whole was well presented, with a good balance of sculptures, paintings and descriptions placing them in context. I find exhibits that are too heavy in one sort of work harder to get around, as all the work requires the same kind of attention. (This is something I’ll keep in mind when it comes to presentation of my own work.)

Choucair’s exhibit was popular enough to be extended for a few more weeks, which is very rare at the Tate Modern. Yet her work** has rarely been shown outside of the Middle East. It’s a reminder of how slanted art history has been, where the contributions of European artists are celebrated, whilst the work of others is often dismissed and forgotten. Hopefully this exhibition will help ensure Choucair is remembered.

* The ‘other artists I’ve looked at’ refers to the ones in my coursework, rather than all artists I’ve ever seen.

** Her page at the Tate’s website has the pieces they own: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/saloua-raouda-choucair-14735

The Tate Modern has a section about the exhibition I visited, with photographs and details of the work: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/saloua-raouda-choucair

# The picture is one of the wooden towers. It’s copyright to the Saloua Raouda Choucair Foundation, and is used for the purposes of review.

Diving Belles – Lucy Wood

Diving Belles Cover - Mermaid and ocean illustration

First Published: 19th January, 2012
Genre: Fantasy / Short Stories
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Lucy Wood’s debut collection is a series of stories set in Cornwall. The central problems are average ones, such as dealing with moving away from a childhood home, losing a husband, or growing up, with some added folkloric complications. For example, a woman helps out her ex-boyfriend, who needs a lift to see a new house he might be buying, but she’s on a deadline as she’s turning into stone. A boy with a giant father isn’t growing, and frets about it while hanging out with a friend in a giant’s boneyard.

The feel of the stories is generally melancholy or wistful. They build slowly and fade out, rather than ending with a firm conclusion. Recommended for fans of literary fantasy and magical realism.

H2O: Just Add Water (Season Three)

H2O: Just Add Water (Australian Season 3 DVD Cover, with Bella in foreground)

H2O: Just Add Water is a mermaid series for teens and tweens, which ran for three seasons between 2006 and 2010. Part 1 (over here) considers the series in the context of other mermaid media and reviews season one. Part 2 (over here) reviews season two. Part 3 (this section) deals with season three, wider themes/issues and the upcoming spinoff series, Secret of Mako Island.

(Due to covering three seasons, there are some inevitable spoilers and a few stand-alone episodes are discussed in more detail. However, I’ve avoided discussing the season finales and there will still be a lot of surprises.)

Review: Season Three

Plot Overview

Emma is off travelling with her family, so Cleo and Rikki are left alone. The Juicenet Cafe has closed, and Zane buys it, so that he can run it with Rikki. On the night of the opening, a water tentacle attacks the girls. New girl in town, Bella (Indiana Evans), jumps in the water to help, revealing she’s a mermaid.

The girls travel to the Moon Pool, where they find freediver Will (Luke Mitchell). He’d swum in through the sea entrance and was knocked unconscious by the tentacle as it appeared. They tell him it was all a hallucination, but Will is uncertain.

Now the girls have the mystery of the tentacle to solve, along with trying to get through their last year at school.

Antagonists

The main antagonist is Sophie, Will’s sister. She’s ruthless in the pursuit of profit, so it’s not that she has a personal issue with the girls. Unlike previous antagonists, she has no interest in mermaids. It’s simply that she has no qualms about what happens to anyone who gets in the way of making money.

Despite this, there are signs she does genuinely care about Will. It’s just that she loses sight of it sometimes when money is at stake.

Allies

Lewis is still around at the start of the season, but heads off part way through. Taking up the slack is Will, a talented freediver who’s being pushed to go professional by his sister.

Mermaid stories usually de-emphasise human aquatic abilities. Mermaid allies may well be poor swimmers. If they’re comfortable in the water, it’ll be related to a surface water sport. Having an ally who can hold his breath and swim to reasonable depths is unusual. It also works well, because it gives Will an understanding of the mermaids that other allies have lacked (and it’s not as though freedivers will ever be mermaid replacements… even a talented human can’t swim as fast, or hold their breath for as long, as the mermaids).

It does mean he has an initial mermaid squee reaction to finding out mermaids are real, but he settles down soon enough, and comes to see the girls as friends he can share his love of the ocean with.

Overall Views

My criticism of the second season is it took a long time for the plot to get going. This wasn’t the case in season three, where the plot of the water tentacle is introduced in the first episode and builds towards much higher stakes finale than the previous seasons.

Emma was absent as the actress had another job. Lewis was also gone for part of the series for the same reason. Which meant the new characters of Bella and Will were introduced. This did have some advantages, as both Bella and Will have lived very sheltered lives, with a lot of travelling and little time to socialise. The result is they’re still navigating things others might deal with as younger teens, giving space for Cleo and Rikki to face older challenges.

More specifically, Rikki is dealing with running a business with Zane. Cleo is dealing with disruptions at home (her dad meets someone new and her sister is now a teenager), and a new job as a dolphin trainer (which presumably could be her future career).

The pacing of the season was pretty good, with a mix of the main plot and the sub-plots. I liked that the girls were facing more adult concerns. The eventual stakes in the finale got an eyebrow raise from me, but they do make sense in terms of the worldbuilding done for the mermaids in the series. This was a better conclusion than the previous season, and not a bad place to end the story.

Series Overview

Mermaid Design

Turning into mermaids on contact with water and mermaid powers are fairly standard in modern mermaid stories (though I haven’t seen Bella’s water-to-jelly power before). Shapeshifting with all worn items is a little more unusual. Most mermaids transform naked and have to find clothes. But given the short episodes, it’s a lot easier for filming to have them shapeshift complete with clothes (and they do use the idea in fun ways, such as Emma dying her hair red as a mermaid, but it staying her original colour as a human).

The most unusual thing with the mermaid design was the reactions to the full moon. Seeing the moon or its reflection can cause them to act like they’re intoxicated and possibly give them temporary abilities. As the girls spend more time as mermaids, this lessens, but the moon cycles remain significant.

The girls themselves joke about it being werewolf time, but it does make more sense for mermaids than werewolves. The moon has a big impact on the oceans, so the idea that mermaids would be sensitive to it isn’t that far-fetched. As the series progresses, it becomes clear it’s more complicated than that. The position of the planets and other heavenly bodies also has an impact. And there’s a suggestion about why this might have come about in the first place.

Continuity

There are issues with continuity in the story. Some are likely budget concerns, as actors aren’t rehired after their part of the story is done. It would’ve been interesting to see what Charlotte was up to in season three or to see Miriam from season one develop as a character. Perhaps to have the girls go to Miss Chatham or Max for advice sometime. These people wouldn’t have all vanished mysteriously in real life.

Others are clearly mistakes. Ronnie turns from a wild rescue dolphin to a captive bred one. Rikki forgets that Cleo has painful singing.

Generally though, the continuity isn’t too bad. There are some fun things that carry over, such as Lewis using his spiral lure anytime he fishes.

Racial Diversity

When I first saw the cover photo, I did wonder about Phoebe Tonkin’s (Cleo’s) race* (and judging from my internet searches, other people have too). However, she seems to identify as white and she’s portrayed as white in the series**. And she’s as dark and non-Northern European as any main characters get.

There are some side characters of other races, so if anyone’s about to argue that everyone in Australia is white… no, they’re not, and clearly they had no issues finding non-white actors for background parts.

Given that the series ran for three seasons, with eight different mermaids plus assorted love interests, they could have widened the net for their main character casting choices. As well as general issues of diversity, it reinforces the trope of non-white people never getting to be the cool non-humans (and thus never the centre of supernatural stories).

Romantic Relationships

All of the relationships are between a boy and a girl. This may not be something the writers can control, as the networks often insist on that for child and young teen shows. But it’s still something that needs mentioning, because somewhere along the line, someone’s deciding that only heterosexual children and teens get to see themselves and their issues.

On a positive note for the show, it doesn’t glorify abusive stalker relationships. When the boys act in ways that are controlling, this is shown as a bad thing. The girls also aren’t vilified for handling relationships their own way. They can break up with boyfriends, have different boyfriends or not date (they’re not all actively dating when the series ends). However, it did bother me that all the boys had controlling moments. Even though the narrative tended to slap the boys when they tried, it would have been nice if at least one of them didn’t feel the need to try.

Cleo and Lewis’s relationship was good to see after a few too many books. Young adult novels are a little prone to partners who are fated to be together, like it or not. This predestined bond gets used as an excuse for all sorts of abuse. So seeing a one-true-love setup where there’s no predestination, only two people who’ve grown up together and are close friends, is nice.

Women in Science

The handling of women in science wasn’t ideal in the first season. Though Doctor Denman is portrayed as being a talented scientist, she’s also the target of appearance-based criticisms (that she can’t be a real scientist due to being pretty). The girls generally avoid science, leaving it to Lewis.

The second season has Cleo fail biology and need to retake it, because she can’t cope with science. Though her student mentor is Charlotte, and Cleo does pass after her extra study, there’s still a vibe of science not being for girls.

This turns around in the third season. Cleo and Lewis work together on analysing the tentacle and Moon Pool. When Lewis leaves, Cleo continues the study, and is also shown working hard at science at school. A new science teacher character is a woman, who’s shown as competent, without any of the overtones aimed at Doctor Denman. (Though an eye-roll is directed at the fact Cleo starts wearing glasses in this season.)

Taken as a whole, this creates a character arc where Cleo starts out avoiding science because she doesn’t think it’s for girls, slowly realises she can do it if she studies, and starts to become enthusiastic about it by the end. I don’t believe this was the plan from the start (season three wasn’t in the original plan), but it was a reasonable way to redirect problematic elements of season one.

Final Summary

There are issues with the series. Season two flounders, and the way side characters vanish is a sign of budget considerations. There’s also a big lack of diversity among the main cast. This is an issue in mermaid shows and films in general, but H2O didn’t exactly decide to break the trend.

However, I enjoyed it overall. The mermaid lore went to some interesting places, and I liked that the personal issues the girls face age with them. The visuals are nice, the characters are relatable for the intended audience, and it’s generally strong on its depiction of women and girls (and where it’s not, it’s a talking point***). If you’re looking for something generally fluffy and fun, plus mermaids, H2O is one to watch.

The Secret of Mako Island

It is good to show that boys can be merpeople too (or fairies or riders of sparklie pink unicorns), but it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t backslide to the old male-centric focus, where girls and women were just the accessories in the stories of the men.

This test is coming up for the makers of H2O with their next series, The Secret of Mako Island. In this, Zac falls into the Moon Pool and gains merpowers (early sources disagreed on whether he gets a fish tail or finned feet… but the promotional photos show a tail). This causes problems for three mermaids guarding the pool, who grow legs and head onto land to find him.

Potentially, this could go very wrong, becoming a story where Zac’s needs are the core of the story at all times. However, if they create a friendship group much like the mermaids and Lewis in the previous series, it could work. A boy as part of the group is different from a boy dominating the group.

The series does address one of the H2O issues. Zac’s actor – Chai Roumune – is mixed raced Thai/White Australian, which is a first for the merpeople (or any of the main characters) in the franchise. How well they handle this will be one of the areas I’ll be looking for when the series is available.

On a story level, they need to find new places to go. It does look set to continue developing the mermaid lore, with sea-dwelling mermaid pods (something hinted as possible in season three, but not actually shown). There have been promotional shots of an older mermaid instructing the three girls, so there’s potential for showing pod politics and family.

For now, I’ll remain cautiously optimistic.

* Based on the cover image for this post, you might wonder what I mean about Phoebe Tonkin. She looked more obviously different in the season one cover photo, and appears to have been lightening on the covers as the seasons have gone on.

** The distinction between character and actor is important. It’s not unusual for lighter non-white actors to be paled down and given Northern European family members, in order to portray them as white characters. It’s also not unusual for mixed race characters to be played by white people.

*** I grew up chatting about the things I watched with my parents. And later with my friends. I learnt a lot about social issues that way. So I look for the potential for being a conversation opener in series for younger viewers. You’re never too young to start analysing what you watch.

The Memory Eater – Matthew Hance (editor)

Memory Eater Cover - Cartoon head with pink bird eating the exposed brain

First Published: 19th June, 2012
Genre: Science Fiction / Short Story Anthology
Authors: Myra R. Taylor; John W. Otte; Ken Liu; Matthew Hance; Joe DiBuduo; Kate Robinson; Mike Kozlowski; j l mo; Lisa Martinez; Nicholas Conley; Wesley Gray; Bob Simms; Lisamarie Lamb; Lauren Kocher; Nina Pelletier; Kim Charles Younkin; Holly Day; Alex Shvartsman; Cassie Davies; Chad Jones; Justin Swapp; DL Thurston; Vivian Davenport; Lauren C. Teffeau; Kathie Huddleston
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

The anthology is based on the premise that unwanted memories can be erased by a machine. Themed anthologies can suffer from the stories being too samey, and that was a big problem here. I read the first couple of stories, but after that, I skipped and picked a few at random from the rest. I’d hoped to see more of a range of situations, but the ones I chose all read as though they were set in near-future America, and focused on a heterosexual relationship problem. One story had a gay man being murdered for getting in the way of a different sex relationship, which is a negative trope I’d rather not ever see again, especially in an anthology with a heterosexual focus.

It’s possible there are some standouts in the ones I didn’t read, but I had no motivation to give the rest of the stories a chance.

When I first reviewed this, I said the stories were anonymous. Author names and bios are in a list at the back, but who wrote which story isn’t identified in the bios or on the stories. This was unfortunate as a reader (as I do like to know who authored a story, for better or worse) and bad for the authors themselves. I later realised there was a table of contents, but the book didn’t open to that page and it wasn’t the built-in table of contents Kindle recognises. All round, not a good way to format an anthology.

On the plus side, I didn’t see any issues in the editing and each story was illustrated. If you’re a fan of the themes I’ve mentioned, this might be for you.