Ted Chiang – Diabolical Plots

Hugo Review: Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form Finalists

written by David Steffen

Another category in the Hugo Award review series for this year, this is for the Dramatic Presentation Long Form category which covers dramatic presentations (most often movies, but it could be dramatic stageplays or video games).

Not reviewed here are Deadpool, because it had cycled back out of Redbox by the time I looked for it, and Stranger Things, which I haven’t gotten my hands on either.

1. Hidden Figures, screenplay by Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, directed by Theodore Melfi (Fox 2000 Pictures/Chernin Entertainment/Levantine Films/TSG Entertainment)

Hidden Figures is a drama based on the true story of three Black women who played pivotal roles in the space race, making John Glenn the first American to orbit the earth in 1962. All three women worked for NASA in the segregated “colored” group : Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) worked as a computer (“computer” at the time was an occupation of people who did calculations, rather than the modern use of being a machine), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) as an aspiring engineer, and Dorothy Vaughan as an unofficial supervisor. After the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite, the USA pushes to catch up in the space race and many people at NASA push back against prejudice to give these women the chance they deserve.

This is an incredible movie, with incredible actors, and tells a story of the space race that I had never heard before, with the focus usually on the astronauts on the front lines. They fought for what they wanted to do, and in a place and society that was always holding them down they fought for their place and they succeeded, playing an integral part in American history (the tragedy being that their role had not reached much of the public awareness until this movie). This movie does a great job not only portraying the conflict between the US and the USSR at that tense time, but also the race conflict in America in a time when segregation had officially been ended but was still in effect in many regions. Great film, and I can see why it has been so acclaimed.

2. Arrival, screenplay by Eric Heisserer based on a short story by Ted Chiang, directed by Denis Villeneuve (21 Laps Entertainment/FilmNation Entertainment/Lava Bear Films)

I reviewed this movie here on Diabolical Plots in December, and for the Ray Bradbury Finalists review.

Arrival is a science fiction first contact story starring Amy Adams as Louise Banks, one of the linguists recruited by the US government to learn how to communicate with the aliens dwelling inside one of the twelve giant ships that have suddenly appeared all over the world–this one in Montana. Why are the aliens here? What do they want? The world trembles on the brink of war from the tension of not knowing, and it is up to Louise and her team to find out the truth.

This movie is tense and compelling with compelling characters and cool SFnal ideas based around the classic challenge of first contact. It is based on a story written by Ted Chiang, one of my favorite short fiction authors, and is well worth seeing.

3. Ghostbusters, screenplay by Katie Dippold & Paul Feig, directed by Paul Feig (Columbia Pictures/LStar Capital/Village Roadshow Pictures/Pascal Pictures/Feigco Entertainment/Ghostcorps/The Montecito Picture Company)

Ghostbusters is a comedy/action reboot of the original Ghostbusters franchise which consisted of films in 1984 and 1989, about a quartet of ghost-hunters who use high-tech gadgets to trap and contain hostile spirits loose in the world. The film takes place in a world where the original Ghostbusters film never happened, and the public as a whole is skeptical of the existence of ghosts, but major hauntings have suddenly started happening all over New York and four women come together to investigate and stop this from escalating. Dr. Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) and Dr. Erin Gilbert (Kristin Wiig) are physicists who wrote a book about paranormal phenomena. Gilbert has disowned the book in the pursuit of what she views as a more legitimate academic career, but she discovers that Yates has self-published it without her knowledge. Yates has been working with Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), an eccentric engineer who has been building the equipment for new experiments in the paranormal. Together they found the Ghostbusters, and soon after they hire Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), a subway worker who knows pretty much everything about New York.

The movie starts fresh, but it doesn’t forget its roots–there are cameos from the original Ghostbusters cast, which is a fun nod to the original. And as a whole, the feel of the movie fits in nicely with the other two films. The action has large scale stakes and there is plenty of action, but always with an edge of comedy. McKinnon was the highlight of the film for me, being the new-movie analog to the Egon character played by Harold Ramis in the original, her look, her attitude, her gadgets, she is a very fun mad scientist character. McCarthy and Jones are up to their usual form, though I would’ve liked if the movie hadn’t been set up so that the only black Ghostbuster was also the only one without higher education. Wiig is one of my favorite comedy actors, but I didn’t feel like the film did much with her comedically, for reasons I don’t understand–she has very few funny lines, and as a whole her character felt like she was trying to be in a more straightforward action film while all the the rest were in a comedy. Perhaps in the tradition of playing the foil against the other oddball characters, but perhaps I’m so used to Wiig playing the oddball characters herself that it just seemed out of place. I also loved Chris Hemsworth as their doofy secretary.

And… this probably only annoys because I work in self-publishing, I feel like the self-publishing element of the plot was a super weak way for the characters to meet. If someone you haven’t talked to for years ruins your chance at tenure by self-publishing the old book you co-wrote without bothering to ask your permission, I wouldn’t respond by seeking them out and talking to them, I’d file a Copyright Takedown Notice with Amazon immediately, and might consider seeing if they want to publish the book without my name AFTER negotiating something in terms of the existing and future royalties. I would probably not become buddies with my copyright-infringing estranged school buddy. But… I’m sure most of the moviegoing public doesn’t feel as strongly about that as I do, so…

But as a whole this was a lot of fun, funny and action-packed. It’s gotten a fair amount of the pushback that you would expect, “it ruined my childhood” sort of nonsense, but I thought it was fun to take a new angle, let new actors take on a familiar franchise. I look forward to seeing the sequel that I expect will arise from it.

4. Rogue One, screenplay by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, directed by Gareth Edwards (Lucasfilm/Allison Shearmur Productions/Black Hangar Studios/Stereo D/Walt Disney Pictures)

I reviewed this movie in the Ray Bradbury Finalists Review in April.

The newest in the Star Wars movies, albeit not one of the main numbered sequence. This story takes place just before Star Wars: New Hope (the original movie). Galen Orso (Mads Mikkelsen), former scientists for the Galactic Empire, has been living in seclusion for some time, but he is abducted and brought back to work on his grandest project yet–the weapon that will come to be known as the Death Star. When he is taken, his young daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones) escapes and is taken in by extremist rebel Saw Gerrera (Forrest Whitaker). Fifteen years later, the Death Star is nearly complete and Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) has defected from the Empire with plans for the weapons to give to the rebels, but the pilot falls into the hands of Gerrera, who is just as violent against other rebels as against the Empire. Jyn is captured and recruited to communicate with Gerrera to try to recover the plans.

It was exciting and fun to get to see this important piece of Star Wars lore that we only heard about the results of in passing. The main complaint I heard about the movie before it came out was that the cast was so large that you never really got to know anyone, and I think there’s some truth to that, although I did have a great deal of affection for the protagonist Jyn, and also for spiritual warrior Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and the mercenary Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) who were weird and quirky. Unfortunately because of the nature of the movie, and the fact that none of these characters were in the original trilogy, you can probably guess how they end up, and you also know that they succeeded since that’s what made the ending of A New Hope possible. But it’s still a fun movie worth watching, even if the characters aren’t as well developed and the ending is already known.

Ray Bradbury Award Review 2016

written by David Steffen

The Ray Bradbury Award is given out every year with the Nebula Awards but is not a Nebula Award in itself. Like the Nebula Awards, the final ballot and the eventual winner are decided by votes from members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (which despite the name has an international membership).

I like to use the award every year as a sampler of well-loved science fiction and fantasy movies from the previous year. I have been very happy with this tactic, and this year is no exception.

Not included in this list, because I don’t usually seek out individual episodes of TV shows that are nominated is the episode of WestWorld titled “The Bicameral Mind”.

1. Arrival, Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Screenplay by Eric Heisserer, 21 Laps Entertainment/FilmNation Entertainment/Lava Bear Films/Xenolinguistics

I reviewed this movie here on Diabolical Plots in December.

2. Zootopia, Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, & Jared Bush, Screenplay by Jared Bush & Phil Johnston; Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios

Zootopia is an animated buddy-cop movie that takes place in the city of Zootopia where predators and prey have learned to live peacefully side by side. Or is it so peacefully? Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) has fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming the first rabbit on the Zootopia police force, but no one respects her because rabbits have a reputation for being timid and stupid. She sets out to prove herself and she ends up being assigned to look into a case of a missing otter, one of twelve predators that has disappeared without a trace in recent days, and she has an ultimatum to resign if she doesn’t solve the case. She recruits fox con man Nick (Jason Bateman) to help her.

Zootopia is one of those children’s movies that works well for all ages. Looking past the childish elements, it is quite a good buddy-cop movie at its core with interesting puzzles to solve that are unique to the predator-prey-living-in-harmony situation. Highly recommended, fun and interesting with lots of celebrity voices.

3. Doctor Strange, Directed by Scott Derrickson, Screenplay by Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill, Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures

Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a world-renowned surgeon, the best of his profession. Arrogant and aloof, he wants nothing more than to immortalize his name forever in the field of medical science. After a violent car accident that damages his hands, he desperately seeks out any way to heal his broken hands–starting with every available experimental medical procedure and eventually moving on to the mystical healing arts. Following the trail from a man who had fully recovered from a paralyzing spinal injury, he finds Kamar-Taj, a temple of the mystic arts led by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). There he is mentored by the sorceror Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to begin his training. Strange takes to the training quickly, and soon needs every ounce of skill he has acquired to fight against Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former sorceror of Kamar-Taj who left the temple after refusing to accept the limits on their studies placed by the Ancient One.

I was surprised at how much I liked this movie–it seemed like it was a character and story that would be hard to make it feel modern without it being corny but they pulled it off reasonably well. My favorite parts were the depictions of the Mirror World, a reflection of the real world that is infinitely malleable to manipulation, and is often used as dueling grounds for sorcerors since the destruction there does not touch the real world–they turn ordinary surroundings into treacherous fighting arenas filled with traps made of everyday things. Dr. Strange had a quite decent character arc throughout the story, so arrogant at the beginning and finally finding some humility as he fights on. I thought the method Strange used for the final boss was particularly clever, not one I expected.

4. Kubo and the Two Strings, Directed by Travis Knight, Screenplay by Mark Haimes & Chris Butler; Laika Entertainment

Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a young boy who makes his money begging in the town during the day while his mother suffers from a strange affliction where she is in a trance from sunrise to sunset, and she demands that he always keep his monkey charm near him and never go out at night for his own safety, so that his aunts and grandfather the Moon King will not come and steal Kubo’s one remaining eye. He tells stories of the warrior Hanzo, who is Kubo’s missing father, and plays out the performances with origami which he animates magically with a musical stringed instrument of his mother’s. One day he hears of a festival where the townspeople are once a year allowed to speak to the souls of their dead loved ones and Kubo breaks his mother’s rule in the hopes that he will be able to speak to his missing father. But he soon learns that his mother’s rule is not just fantasy, when his aunts do come and find him and he flees and is only saved at the last moment by his mother rushing to his rescue, magically sending him far far away. His monkey charm has come to life (Charlize Theron) and they set out to escape the Moon King’s pursuit and continue Hanzo’s quest to defeat the Moon King.

Action packed, fun, and more than a little scary in parts–this story has a lot of fun and a lot of emotional moments. The aunts in particular are super super creepy, especially when they first arrive as floating masked apparitions who always speak in unison in a creepy singsong voice. Each step of their journey is a major trial that Kubo’s father had failed before him, and the odds are against him but he has some of his powers inherited from his mother as well as the help of his animated monkey charm.

5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Directed by Gareth Edwards, Written by Chris Weitz & Tony Gilroy; Lucusfilm/ Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW: Arrival

written by David Steffen

Arrival is a science fiction first contact movie released in November 2016, which is based on the short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. The movie stars Amy Adams, with Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner.

The movie begins shortly after 12 gigantic alien aircraft suddenly appear over various places around the globe, including one in the United States in an isolated spot in Montana. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), struggling with memories of a lost daughter, is recruited by Army Colonel Weber (Whitaker) to find out why the aliens have come and what they want. Louise leads the team alongside Ian Donnelly, a theoretical physicist aiming to use science as the medium of communication. It’s a race against time, because the other 11 eleven alien vessels are communicating with the governments and militaries of other countries. Do they mean us harm? Are they willing to share their technology? Will they share weapons? What if they share weapons with all those they are in contact with? What if they share weapons with only some of them? What if the aliens support one country against another. The Army has set up protocols for the meetings, about what exact topics may be spoken of, and exactly how the aliens can be approached, but Louise is willing to take big risks to try to make a breakthrough happen. Meanwhile, as Louise becomes more and more fatigued from overworking, she struggles with memories of the loss of her daughter, coming to mind at odd moments.

This movie was very good and had me captivated throughout. The casting was great, and Amy Adams in particular did a solid job. The scenes in the aliens were the highlight of the movie for me, as one is watching their every movement and the team’s translations for signs of their intent, and the different concepts of the alien language were very interesting. I appreciated that the trailers for the movie were very low-key–they didn’t give me a particular feeling about whether the aliens were hostile or not, so I honestly had no idea whatsoever what to expect. For a movie like that, that’s what I really want, is to just find out as it happens with no advertising preconceptions.

I quite liked the special effects in the movie. They are not the most flashy, but I thought they did well to add to the aura of mystery around the aliens–these days I find flashy special effects rather boring, because they’re a dime a dozen, it’s nice to see some other effect wrought from them.

The only minor quibble that I had is that it uses the Sapir-Worf Hypothesis of linguistics to justify some parts of the movie, and by what I understand (as someone who is not a linguist) the hypothesis has been largely discredited based on lack of data support. But, it feels plausible to me, and works to me as a storytelling element, even if I was picking at that edge a little bit.

I haven’t read the short story that it’s based on, but I’ve heard that the movie did it justice reasonably well, and that it is one of Ted Chiang’s best. Saying that it’s “one of Ted Chiang’s best” is no minor feat–he is not prolific, but every story of his that I’ve read has been incredibly well done. You can read it as part of his collection Story of Your Life and Other Stories. I definitely need to read that.

I highly recommend the movie.

Hugo Novelette Review 2014

written by David Steffen

Now that the Hugo packet is finally out, I can finish my reading of the Hugo nominees.

1. “The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam)
This is told as two seemingly separate stories, taking place in a world that will be familiar to her fans, as she has told stories from this world before. One story is about Lan Nhen and her sister Cuc as they go to rescue a damaged mindship that contains the mind of a relative. They come from the Dai Viet culture where ships are controlled by human minds, birthed as mechanical objects from human wombs. The other story follows Catherine, who has been “rescued” from Dai Viet culture by the empire which has tried to give her a new life in the imperial way.

Aliette’s stories have a great deal to say about how cultures interact with each other, not in the war that is often the subject of SF stories, but more in regards to cultural assimilation, imperialism, and the motivations of individuals who are just trying to survive in the boundaries where wildly disparate cultures intersect. She has a real gift for exploring this topic. This is a very good story. It did take me most of the story to guess how the two tales are related to each other, but it was done well.

2. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013)
A very interesting story on the subject of memory. The main part of the story is written from the POV of a journalist documenting his trial of the new memory enhancement product called Remem. Lifelogs that record everything that you see and hear have been available for quite some time, but the process of finding a particular memory in the huge set of data that any person builds up is time consuming enough that it’s generally only used for special occasions or for court cases where a team can be paid to look through the evidence. But that has all changed now with the Remem product that can find any memory in just a moment, by only giving it a vague explanation. Our protagonist is very concerned about what this will do to the way people think and remember when they no longer need to do the remembering for themselves. And in particular that it will lead people to constantly recall each other’s faults instead of letting them fall into the vagueness of memory.

There is a parallel story about a man named Jijingi who is a member of a tribe that has not developed a written language, and their visit from missionaries. A missionary named Moseby offers to teach Jijingi to write and Jijingi accepts, but is soon alarmed to find how much he is changed by the process–writing is a technology like any other, and one can’t use it without being changed by it.

Both stories were compelling and heartfelt. The journalist’s more so than Jijingi because I share some of his concerns about how modern technology is affecting people’s mental abilities, and I felt for the trials that he went through–who hasn’t thought they remember something completely different from another person, but in real life there’s generally no way to prove it.

3. “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013)
An aging woman astronaut is offered another chance to go into space, to visit an extrasolar planet, but her husband Nathaniel is nearing the end of his life and he might not last the three years the mission will take. She has yearned for another opportunity to relive the missions of her younger days. Should she stay or should she go?

This story and the people in it felt exceptionally real. This story is an apt metaphor for the kind of difficult life decision that we may come across from time to time, and by using the speculative element to reinforce it, it only becomes stronger, more understandable. How could you not relate to that?

My only qualm with the story was that it had an obvious reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz right in the first paragraph, referring to Dorothy who was raised by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in Kansas. While Dorothy played an important role in the story, as far as I could tell the story had nothing to do with L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. This left me disappointed at the namedrop that apparently went nowhere.

4. “The Exchange Officers”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jan-Feb 2013)
This is the story of Chopper and Chesty, both members of the Orbital Defense Initiative Station, run by the United States military forces to protect the USA’s interests in space. It flashes back and forth between the past as Chopper and Chesty begin their training for the ODIS, and the present as Chopper and Chesty are the only remaining defenders of the ODIS against an attack by Chinese agents. Chopper and Chesty are Operating their robotic avatars remotely.

This story was okay. Kind of a Golden Age SF, the kind that has action but not a lot of deep thought, and you can enjoy it if you just watch the stuff happening but don’t expect much else out of it. The codename Chesty for the protagonist’s female colleague just made me cringe whenever I heard it–even though it was apparently a reference to Marine Chesty Puller and very fitting as the character is rare Marine in the organization. I had no idea who it was referencing while I read the story and it just seemed like a needless sexual reference of the only major female character–just a bit more explanation of where the nickname would’ve gone a long way toward reducing the cringe factor. Overall, not a bad story, but it doesn’t fit my idea of award-nominated material. I need something more than this.

5. “Opera Vita Aeterna”, Vox Day (The Last Witchking, Marcher Lord Hinterlands)
This is the story of an elf that asks to stay in a monastery, offering to make illuminated manuscripts during his long stay in exchange for answers on the subject of religion from the abbot. A demon follows in the elf’s footsteps, demanding the elf leaves with it.

I just found this story dull from start to finish. I didn’t care what happened, or about the fate of any of the characters.

I feel that I should mention that this story has been involved in some of this year’s drama (there’s always SOME drama during award season). Vox Day is the pseudonym of Theodore Beale, who blogs about various topics such as the supposed unsustainability of feminism. He has publicly posted this last year that he aimed to get himself on the ballot and implied that he would be willing to bankroll WorldCon memberships of people who support his views. All this to piss people off and prove a point that he’ll get voted off because the Hugo voting population is voting based on what they think of author’s personal views rather than story quality. I won’t link to his blog. You can find it easily enough with a websearch if you feel inclined.

If you feel that you should vote against Vox Day because of his personal views, I have no problem with that. You should make whatever vote you know you won’t regret and I certainly understand wanting to automatically vote against someone whose views you see as poisonous.

My heart tells me that I should vote based entirely on story quality. The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is not meant to be a contest of the popularity or rationality of the author. It’s meant to be about the quality of the story. If Vox Day wrote an amazing story that topped all the others, then I would vote for it. And if someone buys their way onto the ballot, I figure that quality will out itself.

I had heard about the controversy of someone buying their way onto the ballot before I knew which author it was that was at the center of it, but to avoid biasing my views I intentionally avoided finding out which author until I’d read all the stories in that category. I ranked all of the stories after I’d read them, and without taking into account his personal views, I still voted him at the bottom, under where I will vote for No Award, meaning that I would rather no one at all walk home with the trophy than for this story to win it.

Assuming he did buy his way onto the ballot, the real shame is that some other story, some worthy story actually chosen by the Hugo voters as a whole, was bumped from the ballot for this. We don’t know whose story that was at this stage, though we will be able to determine that later after the Hugo awards release their voting numbers.