Exposition - The $500,000,000 Man

Have you ever wondered what half a billion dollars looks like? If recent (unofficial) estimates are to be believed, that's exactly what you'll see if you buy a ticket to Avatar. Throw fourteen-odd years of development into the mix, an unprecedented level of hype, and a promise to revolutionise cinema as we know it, and you have quite a lot invested in a three hour experience. With the fifteen dollar cost of admission seemingly very paltry by comparison, I did my best to put any reservations aside and see whether the much prophesied 'second coming of James Cameron' could bring about a cinematic equivalent of the rapture promised by that other individual whose initials he shares. Indeed, the risk of being branded a heretic seems just as likely to result from criticising one as the other, but criticism must be made nevertheless. And although it runs against my natural instincts to pre-empt an examination with points from the conclusion, I find myself given little option in this instance. In short, the reason I have not and shall never dedicate a review to Avatar is that it runs contrary to the professed purpose of this blog, which is to delve deeper and analyse the cultural subtext. Whatever it cost to add a third dimension to the film visually, the real expense has been the loss of its cerebral equivalent. As such, it is all I can do to offer a shallow reflection upon some of the foremost points that presented themselves to me personally.

The Third Dimension, Mk.II

Various assertions have been made to the affect that Avatar will herald in a new age of 3-D cinema, eliminating the pitfalls of earlier technology, providing a greater level of audience immersion, and thus affording an overall better experience. Whether in theory or in practice, none of this is true. To its credit, Avatar avoids the in-your-face projectile obsession that relegates the majority of 3-D films to gimmick status. At its best the technology is barely perceptible, but if the measure of its success is the extent to which you don't notice it, one obviously has to question the benefit. The presence of a few bewitchingly subtle instances where it really does evoke a sense of magic was not, however, enough to offset the number of times when I found myself struggling against it, which unfortunately seemed to occur in the scenes I was most interested in. Perhaps I am something of an anomaly in the manner in which I view films, but time and again I found that if I was not watching a specific area in the frame the illusion completely fell apart. For those who don't naturally focus on the object or depth of field chosen by the director, it almost feels as though you're being unfairly punished for not surrendering to his authorial vision, to the extent that I found myself resenting the implication that I was somehow wrong to be looking at this, rather than that. Again, perhaps I am something of an oddity, but even with perfect 20 / 20 vision I frequently encountered scenes where the depth of field actually inverted itself on me, causing annoyance rather than immersion (and a left eye that has remained painful since I woke up this morning). I can only assume that those who believe this to be the next evolution in cinema also maintain the superiority of pop-up books over the traditional kind.

The Best Things in Film Are Free

Adding to my frustration with the 3-D technology was the apprehension that, while I was grappling with it, I was missing out on some of the major points in the story. This frustration rapidly gave way to disappointment, however, when I realised that I wasn't missing out on anything at all. There is a plot, in the sense that it recounts a series of linear events, but unlike the visuals it never approaches even an illusion of depth. Essentially, those who have seen Fern Gully and Pocahontas have already seen Avatar, and no attempt is made to hide its derivative nature, with the protagonist even sharing initials with John Smith. Proclaiming this a bad story makes about as much sense as accusing flat-bread of being a bad loaf, but with so much time and money invested in other aspects of the production it is incredible that no effort seems to have been invested in forming an interesting narrative. This is all the more confounding when you consider that, with a proven writer/director at the reigns, the story development is effectively free. Perhaps more disappointing are the number of potentially interesting story directions that are never even explored. At a point in time where human interaction is increasingly transacted through various electronic media – be it online games, social networking sites, or even your mobile phone to some extent – a film with the word 'avatar' as its very title should have a lot to say about the affect this has had on current society (bear in mind that what you're reading right now is also presented under the guise of an avatar). It could have dealt with the psychological implications of splitting your life between two distinct bodies/realities – whether this might alienate yourself from the idea of being synonymous with a body at all – but this is given only cursory and simplistic treatment. If stripping down the potential subtexts in favour of a single, straightforward narrative was a calculated attempt to drive-home the didactic element, then Avatar must be considered an outright failure. The heroes and villains are propelled so far into the rarefied poles of noble savage and exploitative conqueror as to loose any realistic credibility, while the story may be even be interpreted as imparting a message that seems to contradict its own moralistic stance. Presenting the choice between an unpleasant reality or the prospect of escape into a fantasy world, Avatar seems to advocate the latter. At a time when increasing numbers of people seem to be inclined to withdraw from the difficulties of society altogether, preferring to immerse themselves in an idealised virtual world, the propriety of this message seems rather dubious.

Unbridled Imagination 

James Cameron had such a creative vision for Avatar that only recent technological advances would allow him to see it realised on the screen, if internet folklore is to be believed. Why then, I found myself pondering in the cinema, is everything so very, very familiar? Most of the plants are green and look just like terrestrial plants; evolution seems to have favoured six-limbed locomotion on this planet, but that still looks very much like a monkey, a rhino, a panther, a jackal, a horse, and a pterodactyl; the people are big and blue, but similar enough in sensory input that the human mind can easily interpret and control a body crafted in their image. Now, I understand the theory behind convergent evolution of this kind, but this is not a documentary, so does everything really have to be that intuitively familiar? Personally, I would be somewhat disappointed if I were to travel five years into outer space and find myself on a planet effectively the same as earth, albeit where everything seems to have run afoul of a serial fluoro-bomber. Avatar was supposed to be an act of unbridled imagination, but it turns out that the presentation is as uninspired and derivative as the story element. Walking out of the cinema I was convinced that I'd seen all this before, but when I tried to think of specific films I couldn't. That was when I realised that it wasn't film that Avatar was borrowing from, but video games. I'd been watching Halo vs Warcraft for the past three hours. As I think back on the audience, however, I had to give credit to the sleight of hand being played there, because the majority were clearly not people who would be at all familiar with the gaming medium. For them, Avatar would be unlike anything they had ever seen before, just as it was promised. Film aficionados would find a few other things a little too familiar though, such as some iconic creature noises lifted from Jurassic Park, and at least three musical cues in common with Cameron's own Aliens. It is a common misapprehension that the imagination has no limits, but even with that admission it is common sense that you shouldn't borrow elements from other high-profile films and leave them undisguised when being unique and incomparable is one of your main selling-points.

A Science-Fiction Renaissance 

Apparently I missed the obituary proclaiming the death of science-fiction film, but it doesn't matter because I was told that Avatar was about to bring it back to life, bigger and better than before. What we ended up with was certainly bigger, but I'm hesitant to even suggest that it was the same creature that was put to death, let alone entertain the idea that it's necessarily better for it. Perhaps I have too pedantic a criteria regarding what falls within the bounds of science-fiction, but to me Avatar had no more science in it than something like The Lord of the Rings (which, you'll note, is more or less faithful to Newton's laws of physics). Spaceships and aliens do not a science-fiction film make, nor does the act of simply setting something in the future. For me, the defining quality of science-fiction is the presence of plausible, scientific speculation that contributes to the story in a meaningful capacity. This does not mean that every facet of the technology need be explained or even explicable based on current scientific understanding, but it does require a certain respect for plausibility. Inventing a fictitious mineral, making it the entire motivation for the narrative, and then calling attention to the very implausibility of that element with a name like 'unobtanium' crosses the boundary between genre convention and parody. Fantasy makes allowance for the presence of the inexplicable, as does science-fiction; the crucial difference is that science-fiction must at least make a pretence toward explaining it. Any legitimate speculation in the film, which is primarily restricted to the human side, is simply things we've seen before (drawing particularly on Cameron's Aliens), and hardly the catalyst for a science-fiction renaissance. Without spoiling the conclusion, Avatar puts the final nail in its coffin by relying on the most literal form of deus ex machina.

Avatar is by no means a terrible, nor even a bad film. Perhaps its only real transgression is promising something unique and revolutionary, when it ultimately delivers only mediocrity. Issues with the 3-D technology aside, James Cameron has achieved one of the most flawless visual presentations of an imaginary world in the history of cinema. The problem is that so much time and resource should be given to material that proves unworthy of such treatment. It is unique only insofar as it combines elements that have never been put together in such a way before, but for each of those elements a better, fuller treatment can be found elsewhere. It is the epitome of perfect execution, unfortunately dedicated to the realisation of a pointless enterprise.

Exposé - Ravenous

Woeful misrepresentation of a movie by the marketing division has been touched upon in some of my previous reviews, but only rarely have I seen a case as flagrant as that of Ravenous. Transgressions of this kind are usually reserved for the back cover, but here it extends to the front as well, with David Arquette given first-billing alongside Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle. This is not to say that I have any criticism of Arquette's performance in the film, indeed so few and far between are the scenes in which he features that it scarcely seems possible to form an opinion one way or another. To put it into perspective, one of the characters whose name we never even learn has roughly the same amount of dialogue. What raises my ire so much about this is the fact that it denies proper acknowledgement of a worthy performance on the part of Jeffrey Jones, for no reason other than a vague potential hook for adherents of the Scream franchise. Turn to the back and you'll find these charges justified, with Arquette billing dead last in the usual credit wrap-up. As for the rest of the back cover information, not only does it misconstrue the genre orientation, but so too the actual plot, providing an outline that is barely applicable to the film in question when it isn't outright erroneous. I voice this frustration because there is a surprisingly competent film being maligned by this farcical exterior. And while it may not be for everyone, I am certain that many will find it much easier to appreciate this film without labouring against the burden of misleading preconceptions. If nothing else, Ravenous is a film that demands to be taken on its own terms.

Colqhoun - Captain Boyd

Compounding the utter failure of the cover designers is the fact that the film manages to perfectly encapsulate itself only seconds from opening. "He that fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster", counsels the frontispiece in a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, to be rebutted a few moments later with the addition of "Eat me", ascribed to 'Anonymous'. This is Ravenous in a nutshell – a film about cannibalism that is equally serious and darkly humorous by turns, offers moments of wisdom only to pierce them with a razor-sharp wit, and is consistent only in the sense that it is abidingly clever. Overall, it is an experience which defies ready classification, presenting a horrifying subject without ever resorting to the clichéd horror formula, while at the same time maintaining a sense of irreverence that never crosses into the realm of pure comedy. No doubt this all sounds terribly chaotic – and for the first-time viewer this is likely to be the case – but at the same time, Ravenous is also an exercise in restraint. The most readily appreciable evidence of this lies in its brevity, with the film running in at under the hundred minute mark. At a time when even the most vacuous premise is routinely dragged out over two hours or beyond, it is refreshing to find a director who acknowledges the natural limits of an idea. With its relatively simple topic always firmly in sight, Ravenous manages to throw a enough sufficiently interesting angles into the mix to keep things engaging before putting itself to bed. Always on the move, often a step or two ahead of the viewer, Antonia Bird resists the urge to let her creation gorge itself, despite the proclivity of its central characters to the contrary.

Fort Spencer - An inglorious post

Opening in the midst of the Mexican-American war, Ravenous introduces Captain John Boyd during his commendation for a dubious – albeit fortuitous – course of action during a skirmish, the result of which is his immediate reassignment to Fort Spencer, an inglorious post guarding the mountain pass into California. Upon arrival he is greeted by the amiable Colonel Hart, who attempts to make the best of his position as commander of a small contingent, each member of which possesses some trait that has resulted in their being deemed defective. Major Knox passes for the resident medico when he isn't rendered unconscious through drink; Private Toffler suffers from a debilitating mix of intense religious belief and severe lack of social skills; Private Reich represents the opposite extreme, with such zealous devotion to the martial side of soldiering that he is a danger to his comrades; and finally Private Cleaves, whose acceptance of the two native American siblings that also inhabit the fort includes far too liberal amounts of their potent weed than his meagre span of years can handle. The rag-tag formula is familiar enough, and to its credit Ravenous opts to make use of this wheel rather than attempt to reinvent it.

The mild-mannered Colonel Hart

When a half-frozen stranger calling himself Colqhuon turns up one night, claiming to have escaped from a party of ice-bound travellers lost in the mountains, the main thrust of the story commences. Having been tended to and revived by the concerned soldiers, Colqhuon offers a tale of terror: how the desperate party fell to cannibalism as a final resort, and how their demeanour changed after that first irreversible foray into the realms beyond the bounds of social sanction. It is at this point that the mild supernatural element of the film is also introduced, involving the Native American folklore concerning the wendigo. While they remain ostensibly human, the wendigo enjoys an increase in physical strength, agility, and resilience after each cannibalistic feast. The inevitable price comes in the form of an increasingly insatiable hunger, compounded by the fact that the benefits they enjoy begin to wane after only a short time. The parallels with drug use, rampant consumerism, and other addictive behaviours which inevitably escalate in order to deliver the same rewards are obvious, but the director wisely opts to leave them as latent issues in the background rather than attempt to drive home an overtly didactic message. The result is an ongoing exchange between the depiction on the screen and its wider implications, from which both ultimately benefit; equating cannibalism with the more mundane transgressions we are used to offers a level of insight which is otherwise difficult to attain with such an extreme behaviour, while at the same time our shock and revulsion at the latter reflects a critical light back on our willingness to accept behaviour driven by a similar dynamic.

The wendigo of Native American folklore

In addition to this universal applicability, it is worth bearing in mind that the film does nevertheless opt for a specific historical context, and one that significantly expands the potential interpretation of its subject matter. The storyline is, after all, loosely based on real-life accounts such as that of the ill-fated Donner party. Indeed, the nineteenth century was something of a boom for stories involving cannibalism, due in no small part to the rapid expansion of Westerners into remote and unfamiliar territories across the globe. All too often woefully unprepared and generally too arrogant to adapt to local conditions, much less accept that aid of natives, proud explorers and foolhardy settlers set off to the frontiers in their droves. Whether it was the Americas, the isolated expanse of Australia, or in the depths of Africa, these colonists often brought with them murky accounts of savage cannibals living beyond the pall of civilised society, only to find themselves resorting to the same behaviours. Some indigenous cultures did proscribe sanctioned forms of homophagy, to be sure, but the savage delinquent so firmly entrenched in the nineteenth century imagination often turned out to be a mere farmer or society man. Indeed, one can only wonder whether these situations would have occurred anywhere near as frequently had the expedition members not held the fear of such a threat from outsiders so firmly in their minds.

Lair and larder...

Belying the danger posed by the ubiquitous savage – whether real or imagined – was a far deeper, more essential anxiety regarding his possible relationship to civilised man and the links between human and animal kind in general. The nineteenth century was, after all, to see the inception of Darwinism, the various elements of which had been fomenting and steadily coalescing for decades before Darwin himself was even born. Rather than merely citing this historical milieu, Ravenous goes one step further and combines it with the nascent ideology of the post-revolutionary United States, which was still very much in the throes of forging a unique national identity. Direct quotes from some of the founding fathers are imbued with a subversive, and yet disturbingly astute significance when uttered by the antagonist. The rhetoric used to justify his ambition to create a cannibal utopia is also telling in that it uses much of the same material as the burgeoning national ideology, with a particularly chilling approximation of the call for the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses. With such brazen implications as these, Ravenous could have easily devolved into mere sensationalism, but once again it shows enough restraint to pull back just shy of the precipice. Robert Carlyle puts in a delightfully extravagant performance, without ever resorting to scenery chewing, while Guy Pearce maintains an aura of despondency in his bleak Everyman without succumbing to the pitfalls of melodrama.

A coward's ploy

A final testament of the measured nature of this film is its sense of lingering ambiguity. It would be too much to ask for genuine empathy, given the subject matter, but even our ability to sympathise is denied a straightforward target. The amusingly devilish antics of the antagonist form one side of the equation, while on the other is a protagonist who remains stubbornly averse to any form of heroism. Boyd is a man so utterly defined by cowardice that he must ask permission of a dead man before he will take action to preserve his own life, and can only end another's when the man himself begs to be dispatched. Indeed, it is only after being taunted with the idea that true courage would be to embrace the perverted ideology of his nemesis – leaving behind the protective cover of social sanction – that our 'hero' is able to muster the resolution necessary to dispatch the villain, rendering even this an act of cowardice. The subversive elements of the film are thus sealed with an epitaph than splits human nature into two equally despicable groups – the consumers and the consumed.

A vast expanse in which to lose touch with humanity

SPRINGBOARD

Screen -

Van Diemen's Land

Jonathan auf der Heide

A recent Australian production based on the notorious exploits of Alexander Pearce: one of a small party of convicts who resorted to cannibalism after escaping from a penal colony on the west coast of Tasmania in the early nineteenth century. When his sensational account was met with disbelief, Pearce was sent back to the site of his imprisonment, only to escape once more. His accomplice was devoured within ten days of absconding this time, and with plentiful sources of nourishment in the immediate area. Historical incidents of this nature undoubtedly leant much apocryphal weight to the pervasive idea that the act of cannibalism results in some kind of pathological alteration. The steady degeneration of the social dynamics within the party is in good contrast to the plunge in Ravenous.

Supernatural

Eric Kripke

A television series based on the premise that a pair of brothers confront all manner of creatures out of folklore and urban legend. The second episode of the first season is the only one to feature a true wendigo, but entities with similar tendencies are encountered with relative frequency. With at least half of season five still to come at this point, chances are there will be a few more entries of this nature. Constantly playing off the most well known horror films, Supernatural often manages to deliver more atmosphere and genuine scares than the material which inspires it. An ever-expanding menagerie of nasty creatures and figures from urban legend makes for a compelling modern take on traditional folklore.

Script -

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Edgar Alan Poe

As verbose and convoluted as its title suggests, the only novel-length work by the legendary Edgar Alan Poe is a true oddity. From humble beginnings as a rather simple adventure story, The Narrative undergoes a series of increasingly jarring redirections in terms of both subject and tone, including a sensational tale of mutiny and survival, a decidedly dry account of south-sea exploration, and most bewildering of all, a final Antarctic voyage that focuses on seemingly impenetrable philosophical symbolism, leading to one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying conclusions in all of literature. Purveyed under the guise of a 'true account', Poe cobbled together whole sections plagiarised from legitimate sources with others of the most fantastic invention to perpetrate one of the most infamous literary hoaxes of his day. And while it may not be entirely successful as a whole, each clearly delineated section in this sprawling tale represents a masterful treatment of various individual genres. Among these is a tale of high-seas survival and cannibalism that epitomises the nineteenth century approach to the subject, both in terms of literary convention and the anxieties it evokes.

The Histories

Herodotus

Accusations of cannibalistic behaviour as a means of asserting racial superiority may have been a particular vogue during the nineteenth century, but Herodotus proves that the practice is literally as old as history itself. Considered a milestone in the formation of the discipline, The Histories is part social chronicle, part ethnographic study, part rationalisation of one the most defining conflicts of the ancient world. What truly sets it apart from the work of his predecessors is its dedication to autopsy, and the process of bringing sceptical consideration to what is generally known and accepted. That said, the work is still a long way from what modern historians would deem an objective treatment. With a bias not only toward Greece, but toward specific city-states as well, The Histories provides a fascinating insight toward the various ethnic prejudices of its day. From the furthest reaches of Africa to the northern steppes, and as far east as India, cannibalistic behaviour is one of many behaviours frequently used to cast aspersions upon other, often mythical peoples.

Still -

The Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault

The scandal surrounding the wreck of the naval frigate Méduse would be just another in a long line of similar tragedies were it not for this painting, which has ultimately transcended its topical origins to become an enduring emblem for the phenomenon of survival cannibalism as a whole. Defying the Neoclassical movement in vogue during his day, Géricault imbued his painting with a horror that the familiar tropes of Greek and Roman myth and Christian theology could never truly approach – the uncomfortable appreciation that his subject was real. As such, while its style is neither as grotesque or exaggerated as other depictions of cannibalism – such as Michelangelo's The Last Judgement or Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son – there is a far more disturbing immediacy to this painting than its archetypical fellows.

Exposition - A Take on Alternatives

There was a time when the feature film conveyed a sense of permanence, as if the story you were watching had been set in stone. Indeed, of the mere hundred years or so during which the medium has existed, this has been the case for all but the last third of that period. As a child of the eighties, I have only a very small recollection of this time, and yet it is an era which remains powerfully vivid in my mind. Oftentimes the only inkling you had of an upcoming film would be the preview shown before another feature. Occasionally there would be a poster or cardboard diorama set up in the cinema three or four months in advance. On rare occasions there might be a brief article in one of the larger newspapers suggesting that filming had commenced on a sequel to one of the successful films from two or three years ago. Whatever the case, when you did eventually settle down in that mildew-scented cinema and waited for the red curtains to draw aside in their jerky fashion, it never once entered my mind that I would be seeing anything but a perfect vision. Hollywood was just like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The inner workings of the industry remained largely unknown and mysterious, clouding popular perception to a point where it seemed inconceivable that a film could have ended up in any state other than the way we saw it on the screen. Without any knowledge of the politics, disputes, and outright failures going on behind the scenes, films always seemed to emerge with an unearthly, somewhat eerie sense of immaculate completion.

"We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"

Looking back over the past twenty years, it is startling how much the situation has changed within such a short period. And the most appreciable influence behind this shift is, of course, the advent of the internet. While there has always been a subculture, made up of enthusiasts, which have made it their business to appraise themselves of all the news and inner-workings of the film industry that their circumstances would allow, the mass transferral of information afforded by the internet has seen an unprecedented increase in the amount of available material and the number of people with access to it. Time was when it actually meant something to say that you had an interest in film, the hallmarks of which were a basement or attic crammed to the brim with film cases and projection equipment. Cut to the present day, where saying that you like film is akin to expressing your interest in food or simple respiration. What was once the sole province of a dedicated subculture has become a staple of culture at large, to the point where virtually everyone these days would classify themselves as some species of film enthusiast. In fact, one might say that very little is left of the original audience, that great horde which used to include the cinema as part of their weekly or monthly entertainment, to be consumed, enjoyed, and then largely forgotten. When a film screens these days it is not met by the humble consumer, but ruthlessly dissected by a throng of self-proclaimed, self-righteous critics and technical experts – yours truly included.

No longer perceived as a kind of immaculate vision, the general attitude toward film has shifted toward a 'work-in-progress' mentality: the seamless white sheet now exposed as the patch-work conglomeration it really was all along. Indeed, with the proliferation of insider-information now blazoned on the web, the attitude toward modern films is very often determined before production even begins – the seams picked apart before the industry even has a chance to lay out the template. Increasingly, the result of this pressure seems to be a frantic attempt on the part of film-makers and studios to placate vocal consumers rather than maintain their original vision. More often than not, however, the result is a bastardised hybrid of creative concept and reactionary marketing that fails to satisfy either party. But even if we rightly identify the internet as playing a significant role in this shift, is it really the only, or indeed the original cause? By the same token, can we really blame the millions of film enthusiasts – whose curiosity perhaps outstrips their tact and diligence – for the increasing number of creatively compromised films, or does the fault really lie on the industry side?

To an extent, I think that film-makers have actually brought this situation upon themselves. On the studio side, nothing but greed can account for the recent trend toward approving sequels before an original instalment has even been tested in the market. The considerable upsurge in remakes has also led to a climate wherein films are leant to direct comparisons, and the inevitable conclusion that one or the other must necessarily be bad if the other is deemed to be good. Over-saturation is perhaps the best way to describe the current phenomenon, and its origins can be traced all the way back to the era of my idealised childhood. You see, with the advent of (relatively) affordable home-viewer technology, such as Laserdisc and VHS tapes, the general populace began to see tangible proof of an element of film-making which had always existed but, until then, generally remained within the realm of urban legend: the extended cut. The famously absent spider pit sequence in the original King Kong is one of the best known examples, but it wasn't until the early eighties that extended cuts began to be widely disseminated, triggering a fundamental shift in the attitude toward film. The infamous Caligula – released in 1979 – is a tempting candidate upon whom to pin the role of popularising alternative versions. The controversy surrounding its content certainly propelled it to a level of intense public scrutiny, but the details of its troubled production disqualifies it to some extent on a technicality. After all, it wasn't that director Tinto Brass was issuing multiple versions of his own volition, more that his Caligula was competing with a version augmented by Giancarlo Lui and Bob Guccione, as if they were entirely separate films.
 

It wasn't until the mid eighties, when cable TV stations began to show an extended version of Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, that the public was really exposed to the idea that a director could favour a version of the film which was substantially different from the cinema release. It was this particular example which also brought the term Director's Cut out of its original context as part of the film-making process and introduced it to the consumer vocabulary. Even so, for the most part the eighties continued under the auspice that what you saw on the screen was what you were ideally meant to get, at least until two of the biggest names in modern film-making unwittingly pioneered what has since grown into a staple of the industry. As fate would have it, 1992 saw two of the most influential science-fiction films reissued to audiences, with Ridley Scott releasing a Director's Cut of Blade Runner, and James Cameron offering a Special Edition of Aliens. The ramifications for the home-viewer were nothing short of revolutionary. Suddenly it wasn't simply a matter of whether you liked the movie or not, but which version you regarded as being superior. Films could now be comparable to themselves, creating a schism which – regardless of where you fell on the issue – denied any concept of an immaculate, definitive version. With the cinema complex still top-dog in the market, however, the issue was still largely relegated to the home-viewing enthusiast.

While these examples certainly acted as harbingers on the horizon of future possibility, they were destined to remain something of an oddity through to the late nineties. As pillars of the industry, Scott and Cameron had opened minds to the possibility that great films could exist in an alternate form which was even arguably superior. However, each had come about through a set of particular circumstances, with neither director exhibiting any desire to make it a staple in their creative repertoire. It took another pillar of the science-fiction catalogue to really set-off the boom industry in alternate versions, a dubious honour that fell to George Lucas and his 1997 theatrical release of the Star Wars trilogy in a revised Special Edition. This time there was no escaping the schism, and to complicate the issue further, this divide would have generational implications. Where Scott and Cameron had been content to allow their alternate version to stand on their own merits, Lucas took the contentious step of weighing in heavily, even overbearingly, on the issue. His intent with these re-releases was to establish a definitive version, taking advantage of technology which was not available to him at the time.
 

For those that had embraced the original Star Wars trilogy it was simply too bad – it was being put out to pasture, with the openly professed intent that they might be forgotten as a new generation grew up in the shadow of these revised iterations. The older generation had, unfortunately, fallen for an incomplete, blemished version, but now it was time to upgrade to something certifiably superior. Needless to say, many resented the implicit suggestion that they had been duped into embracing a flawed vision, and doubly so now that the unconditional love they had shown for this cash cow had put enough money in the farmer's coffer that he was at liberty to take it out the back and shoot it. A precedent had been set and a means of increasing revenue simultaneously proven, and it was not long before others took the idea and ran with it, including the unimaginatively titled release of The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen. With the subsequent advent the DVD format and its ability to convey data in a non-linear fashion, the market in alternate versions expanded rapidly from this point on, delivering a bastard child in the form of endless reissues and repackages.

As always, however, it only takes a few glorious triumphs for us to forgive a trying campaign of misadventure, and in the realm of alternate versions there have certainly been a few films that seem to justify the phenomenon. The 2003 release of an Alien 3 in Assembly Cut form, for instance, offers an approximation of the film we may have seen had a young David Fincher not been encumbered with a terminally ill production from the outset. As a mark of dedication to the original source material, Peter Jackson put considerable effort into an Extended Edition of each instalment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, providing an affirmative example of how to successfully negotiate the rift between the casual and dedicated audience. Deserving the most praise of all, however, is Ridley Scott, who has recently returned to place his indelible mark on the phenomenon which he ostensibly created with a truly transformative Director's Cut of the otherwise deeply flawed Kingdom of Heaven. Since then he has delved into the depths of his back-catalogue to reissue Blade Runner in a deluxe set, delivering not only a revised Final Cut, but a staggering four other versions in a definitive sign of support for the dedicated enthusiast. As such, while we may lament the advent of alternative cuts for unleashing a marketing farce in recent years, it is certain that we would never have experienced some truly spectacular film evolutions had the phenomenon never taken root.

Ridley Scott finishes what he started with Blade Runner

Mechanoid Daze - A Guide to Artificial Entities

Reflect on the current vogue in zombie material and you find ample demonstration of the extent to which film and television favour a certain number of recurrent elements or motifs. Vampires are another prominent example, which makes two before we even leave the shambling hordes of the un-dead. Broaden those horizons to the world of the living and one cannot but acknowledge the important contributions made by the ever-dependable mob organisation, international terrorist cell, or simple garden-variety psychopath. Entire genres have been built up around archetypes such as these, while for others it must be said that only specific genres afford the conditions necessary for them to function successfully. Zombies, for instance, are unlikely to ever transcend their origins as fodder in B-grade horror fare. Indeed, it is significant that those films which have managed to lead the zombie astray successfully – such as Shaun of the Dead – have been able to do so only through spoofing their typical treatment, rather than truly departing from it. In other words, it's unusual that we find a movie or television show which makes use of zombies as a bit-part. There are no sitcoms – that I'm familiar with, at least – which feature a bunch of hip twenty-somethings and their quirky zombie neighbour. When something features zombies, it's generally going to be en masse, and very much the central concern.

Such is not the case with all of film and television's favourite recurrent staples. Aliens, for instance, have managed to ingratiate themselves into virtually every genre, and with great success. Otherworldly life-forms can be found in anything from horror and action/thriller, sitcoms and drama, all the way through to comedy and children's programs. Those not convinced need only look to the box-office records for the month of June 1982, which saw the feel-good alien capers of Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial rubbing intergalactic  shoulders with the tentacled horror of John Carpenter's The Thing. Very few staples of the industry show such versatility. As fate would have it, that same month in 1982 saw one of the few exceptions represented in the form of Blade Runner, a pivotal moment in the cinematic exploration of robots. Like aliens, robots have transcended their original role as a staple of the science-fiction genre to become a popular element in film and television at large. There is no doubt, in either case, that the key to this success lies in their versatility. Just as aliens can look and behave in almost any way conceivable, there is virtually no limit to the possible forms or functions that might dictate the role played by some mechanical creation, not merely in a practical sense, but in terms of tone and narrative role as well. Compare Fritz Lang's Metropolis with the likes of The Jetsons, or again with Transformers and already you see the wide range of potential uses.

Where these two phenomena differ, however, is in the proliferation of sub-types and techno-jargon. For unlike an alien organism, which is a fairly simple and all-encompassing concept, the technical nature of robotics has come to be reflected in a highly nuanced field of nomenclature. How does an android differ to a cyborg? Does a powered exoskeleton qualify as a robot? Where do the boundaries occur between something engineered mechanically and an organic equivalent? This article hopes to shed some light on these issues, offering a compromise between pragmatic definitions and practical ones.

. : Mechanoid : .

[from “mechanical” – bearing the qualities of a machine, and “-id” – of or pertaining to] 

An umbrella term, under which any of the following may be categorised in some capacity. The only qualifying element is that a mechanoid must resemble a machine in either function or design. This permits the inclusion of borderline examples such as puppets, clockwork pieces, and others which bear a semblance of mechanical automation without functioning as an autonomous unit, or that do so with the aid of mystical, spiritual, or other non-scientific forces. Beyond these examples, the vague definition of something being machine-like without, in fact, being a machine renders the term too broad for the interests of discerning one type from another. A classification of last resort.

. : Exempla

Pinocchio – Pinocchio

Daleks – Doctor Who

Talos – Argonautica

. : Mech / Mecha : .
[an abbreviated form of “mechanoid”] 

While there is no reason to differentiate the term from 'mechanoid' on an etymological basis, this abbreviated form has come to denote a specific class of robotic entity which falls outside the definition of a robot proper. In brief, the defining characteristic of a mech is the presence of a pilot or operator, without whom the unit loses much, if not all, of its functionality. As a staple of the Japanese anime culture, mecha are usually portrayed as an extension of modern military vehicles, such as tanks and aircraft, or construction equipment, such as loaders and excavators. Due to the necessity of physically enclosing the pilot, mecha have a reputation for being extremely large, and often resemble a greatly exaggerated anthropomorphic form. Neither of these characteristics have a defining role, however, as the operator is not necessarily human, nor is it requisite that the mech must resemble the operator's actual physiology.

. : Exempla
Tripods – War of the Worlds
Rosenburg – Men in Black

Gladiators – Robot Jox

. : Exosuit : .
[from “exo-” – outer or external, and “suit” – something worn, conforming to the wearer]

 While it is a point of some contention, the exosuit is perhaps best understood as a sub-class of mech, all of whose defining characteristics it shares, in addition to some more stringent ones. As with mecha, an exosuit is primarily defined by the need for an independent operator. What distinguishes one from the other is the nature of the interface between operator and unit. A mech may be controlled in a variety of ways, ranging from the traditional mode of piloting, through to virtual or direct neural connection, or even remote control. An exosuit, on the other hand, is controlled via a system of direct physical interaction, as the unit both mimics and enhances the operator's natural motion. For this reason exosuits are necessarily closer in shape, scale, and proportion to their operators, giving the sense that they are 'worn' rather than piloted. As with mecha, the application of this technology tends to be directed toward military use, as powered armour, or manual labour and construction.

. : Exempla
APUs – The Matrix: Revolutions
Marauder – Starship Troopers
Powerloader – Aliens

. : Robot : .

[from the Czech “robota” – compulsory labour, or “robotnik” – indentured labourer]

 

More restricted in the scope of application than 'mechanoid', the term 'robot' is nevertheless the most widely disseminated of any on this list, and thus the most difficult to accurately define. Indeed, the all-encompassing nature of the term has contributed much to the dilemma, largely by popularising a tradition of misapplication. Foremost among these is the practise of labelling things 'robots' when they are in fact merely robotic, meaning robot-like. The key to resolving this hinges on the issue of autonomy, of which there are two crucial factors. First of all, in order to qualify as 'a robot', the unit in question must be able to perform its designated function in isolation. This is not to say that it must be either physically disconnected and/or mobile, simply that it comprises a single complete unit, capable of fulfilling its intended function without external assistance. The welding arm on a production line is thus robotic, rather than a robot, because it is merely part of a much larger functioning machine. On the other hand, an automatic gun-turret mounted on a ship may be considered a robot if it is able to fulfil the demands of target acquisition, calibration, firing and reloading entirely on its own, for in so doing in completes an entire function. This brings us to the second factor, which is autonomy not in a mere physical sense, but in terms of self-maintenance. To put it simply, a robot must be able to perform to its maximum capacity without constant external direction. This may range from the most basic on-board programming all the way through to possessing a fully artificial intelligence: from simple self-propulsion through to sentience and actual self-determination. For this reason a mech is deemed to be robotic rather than a true robot. Beyond these characteristics there is no effective limit on how a robot may be manifested, either in size, shape, materials, or configuration.

. : Exempla
The Iron Giant – The Iron Giant
Johnny Five – Short Circuit
R2-D2 – Star Wars

. : Android : .
[from the Ancient Greek “andros” – man, and “-id” – of or pertaining to]

A sub-class of robot, defined by their emulation of the human form. While the Ancient Greek word from which it derives is masculine, the term 'android' is used to encompass humankind as a whole, irrespective of gender. The roles and functions of androids are many and varied, although the added trouble of making the unit resemble the human form is generally attributed to the necessity of being emotionally engaging to the humans around them. As such, they tend not to be designed for manual labour or other functions where brute force may be better served by another, abstract form. It is also important to remember that the imprecise nature of the term – designating something man-like – is open to some degree of interpretation. Any semblance of the human form is quite often little more than a matter of the proportion and arrangement of limbs and sensory inputs, while other features, such as materials, external finish, and facial details are either stylised or ignored completely. There is also a grey area concerning the point at which an anthropomorphically proportioned robot is no longer considered an android simply on the matter of scale.

. : Exempla
C-3PO – Star Wars
Astro – Astro Boy
Data – Star Trek

. : Synthetic : .
[from the Ancient Greek “sunthetos” – combined, or “sunthetikos” – one who combines]

A sub-class of android, defined by their emulation of not only the human form, but also the organic and mechanical operations of human biology. Essentially, synthetics represent analogues of the human body constructed of non-biological materials. While this necessarily results in them bearing a far closer resemblance to human beings than some of the general android class, it is important to bear in mind that synthetics are not typically designed to masquerade as humans, although they can sometimes be put to this use. Instead, their resemblance to biological organisms seems to be based on the design philosophy that the human body is itself one of the most functional of all machines, and is therefore a proven template from which to copy. For this reason, synthetics possess the artificial equivalent of internal organs, circulatory and metabolic systems, and tissues of a similar texture to those of humans as necessary parts of their inherent operation. Other rudimentary details, such as the colour of circulatory fluid, generally exhibit no attempt to pass the units off as human.

. : Exempla
Proto – Ghost in the Shell: SAC
SID 6.7 – Virtuosity
Ash – Alien

. : Replicant : .

[from "replica" – a copy or reproduction, "-ant"– in the capacity of]

A sub-class of android, defined by their emulation not only of the human form, but of molecular human biology, rendering them effectively indistinguishable from natural human beings. While the term 'replicant' itself is rarely used outside of its original context in the film Blade Runner, there are sufficient examples shown in other material to warrant their place as a parallel class to that of synthetics. Rather than being an artificial analogue of human biology, replicants are consciously intended to mimic human beings all the way down to a microscopic level. What physical engineering their creation entails is performed on a genetic level, with the subsequent manufacturing process being virtually identical to organic growth. As such, replicants occupy a grey area that verges onto other technology, most notably cloning. The crucial distinction between the two typically hinges on a combination of psychological inadequacy – with replicants lacking some basic elements of the human empathic response – and an inability to procreate. Like some clones, however, replicants often show greatly enhanced physical abilities, and are often unaware of their own artificial status.

. : Exempla
The Thirteen – Battlestar Galactica
Roy Batty – Blade Runner
Bioroids – Appleseed

. : Gynoid : .
[from the Ancient Greek “gyne” – woman, and “-id” – of or pertaining to]
 

  Strictly speaking, nothing more than the female equivalent of an android. As the term 'android' has moved away from its gender-specific notion, however, and shifted toward a definition of 'man' as in 'mankind', the term 'gynoid' has accrued its own alternative meaning, namely as a byword for an android whose primary function is to operate as a sexual surrogate. Given the disproportionate representation of female robots intended for this function, as opposed to male ones, it is easy to understand how this etymological shift could have occurred. While this casts a dubious light over the attitudes toward gender which allowed such a shift to occur, the designation is nevertheless useful in itself, so long as we match the inclusive nature of the word android and include male sexual surrogates within the sub-class of gynoids too. It is significant, however, that I cannot think of a single example of a male android whose sole or primary function was to be a sexual surrogate, let alone for use by a female.

. : Exempla
Prototypes – Ghost in the Shell: Innocence
Buffybot – Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
Zhora – Blade Runner

. : Cyborg : .
[contraction of “cybernetic” – possessing systematic control, and “organism” – a life-form]

Generally accepted as something which displays aspects of both organic and artificial systems. The vague nature of this definition, however, lends itself to three distinct interpretations, each of which can be placed within the categories of mechanoid, robot, and android respectively:

. : Type I - An organism bearing some degree of artificial augmentation. This is the most common definition, and is generally based on the projection of prosthetic technology to a point where it is equal or superior to natural human abilities. The proportion of cybernetic to organic material can range from something as simple as a replacement arm all the way through to an entire body housing an organic brain. Indeed, the only qualification is that the defining characteristic of the individual must be maintained, the core of which is the elusive component commonly known as the psyche.

. : Exempla
Alex Murphy – RoboCop.

. : Type II - A robotic species that bears all the hallmarks of organic life. This variation is perhaps the least common, and derives from a liberal interpretation of the term 'organism'. This requires that the unit in question not only present mechanical analogues for the organic processes of consuming matter or energy in order to maintain their autonomy, but also be able to perpetuate their own kind through some form of inherent procreation. This does not include the ability to simply produce a copy by making use of a typical production line. As such, this variety of cyborg occupies a grey area between robots and an alien species which just happens to be composed of what we recognise as machinery.

. : Exempla
Autobots/Decepticons – Transformers

. : Type III - An android whose physical construction incorporates some percentage of organic componentry. This is not an entirely satisfactory definition in most cases, but is worth addressing for the number of sources where it is openly avouched. The most prominent example is encountered in The Terminator, where Kyle Reese refers to the T-800 unit as a cyborg, based on the fact that its metallic endoskeleton is housed within organic tissues in order to aid infiltration. The problem with this interpretation is that, while the flesh is undeniably alive in a molecular sense, the same cannot be said for the unit as a whole. Unlike Type I cyborgs there is no continuity from an original organic state, and unlike Type II it fits none of the necessary criteria to be considered a living organism. The issue is effectively sealed later in the film when we see the T-800 able to function perfectly well, albeit without the ability to infiltrate, once all the organic material has been burnt off. As such, it is actually nothing more than a robot encased in a living sheath, the properties of which are advantageous to, but not essential to its functionality.

. : Exempla
T-800 – The Terminator

______________________

So there you have it, a hierarchical guide to the complex and fascinating world of artificial entities. And while I have touched on a number of particularly illustrative examples, there are many more popular and imaginative examples out there. So what are some of your favourites, and how would you categorise them according to this hierarchy? Have your say in the comment section below.

Exposé - Frankenstein

After much ado involving my attempts to secure a copy, we come at last to the final member of the classic monster film triumvirate in the form of Frankenstein, a 2004 television miniseries starring Alec Newman and Luke Goss in the titular roles. I say roles both because it may be deduced from a close reading of the original text, for reasons which shall be examined in due course, and because it offers a concise reflection of just how confused the popular image of this enduring story has become, to a point where protagonist and antagonist have become, appropriately, conjoined. Like the towering figure at the heart of the story, the legacy of Mary Shelley's seminal novel has been cobbled together from the scraps and pieces of countless adaptations and reinventions, gradually coalescing in the form of a corpus so bloated and misshapen that none of its myriad contributors would claim the finished product. It is a legacy full of burning windmills and atavistic criminal brains, galvanic batteries and maniacal doctors, a fable concerning the advance of science or an argument against genetic engineering and a thousand other things that have little or no basis in the novel published two centuries ago. As such, any production attempting to breath life into this body of material is forced to navigate a path between the blessing of immediate audience recognition and the threat of being lost among of a veritable ice-field of rival interpretations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is a challenge which this particular adaptation attempts to forgo whenever possible, opting instead to remain on a course of strict fidelity, some might argue to a fault.

Victor Frankenstein face-to-face with his creation

If one element from the original novel can be said to have suffered the most in film adaptations, it must be the sophisticated narrative structure it presents. Perhaps it is a testament to the power of the story itself, but the subtle ways in which it shifts perspective and repeatedly turns back upon itself are easily forgotten even after multiple readings, leaving a predominantly linear reconstruction in its wake. To its credit, Frankenstein abandons some of these conventions in favour of ones more suited to the live medium, and does so without any substantial alteration or subtraction in terms of content. The first appreciable instance of this is the restoration of a frame narrative concerning an Arctic exploration team, lead by the ambitious Captain Walton, who retrieve the aged Victor Frankenstein as they wait for a break in the pack ice that traps their ship. Whilst perhaps seeming incidental to the primary storyline, this sub-plot provides an important counterpoint in the moral implications of the work as a whole; will the cautionary tale embodied by the desperate and ruined Frankenstein be enough to curb the determination of another man fuelled by the same reckless determination, or does our innate human inquisitiveness mean that we are destined to repeat his fatal mistakes? It is only unfortunate that the casting of Donald Sutherland in the role of Walton substantially lessens its impact, simply by being four decades too old for a character explicitly stated as being twenty eight in the novel. The resulting inversion of the age difference between the two characters completely negates the implication that Frankenstein sees an opportunity to intervene in the life of a younger version of himself at a critical moment, and thereby renders Walton's eventual decision to relent largely unconvincing.

Captain Walton, of the Prometheus

It is fitting, for a story that explores so many of the fundamental issues involving human nature, that we should follow the protagonist through most of the traditional 'ages of man', ranging from childhood to adolescence, adulthood, and as far into old age as his untimely death will permit. Bringing that transition to the screen is no mean feat, but Alec Newman manages this considerable challenge with dependable aplomb. Striking an appropriate balance between innocence and uncharacteristic seriousness as a child, this is the Victor Frankenstein of the novel in every respect: a man of innate self-contradictions, whose fierce passion is held in check by equally intense rationality. Whether he teeters on the brink of obsession during a theoretical tirade at the family table, or exhibits inhuman serenity in the middle of a charnel house, this is a man whose reactions strike us as mad not in their magnitude, but for being always out of place. While this makes it difficult for an audience to fully empathise with the protagonist, the fact that he never progresses into abject insanity precludes any temptation to summarily write off his actions, no matter how misguided they may seem. As in the novel, this Frankenstein is a complex and nuanced character, which has ramifications not only for the emotional dimension of the story, but the moral implications as well. Most important of all, the time and effort invested in recounting his studies belies the common assumption that Frankenstein is a tale that cautions against the pursuit of scientific advancement.

Frankenstein about his grisly work

As a stoical William Hurt expounds in his first scene as Professor Waldman, the ancient philosophers promised much but delivered nothing, where the modern scientist promises little and delivers great miracles. For the headstrong Frankenstein, this revelation is a devastating one, having devoted much of his adolescent studies to medieval alchemists and debunked metaphysicians. Driven as much by shame as enthusiasm, he throws himself into the meticulous study of chemistry, biology, and all the cutting-edge fields of natural philosophy, stunning fellow students and teachers alike with his ability to devour and retain such vast amounts of knowledge. As time goes on, however, he begins to chafe under the prosaic methodology of gradual advances and aimless experimentation, until the ambitions he held as a youth return with a vengeance. Forming a doctrine as mismatched and bastardised as the creation it ultimately leads to, Frankenstein grafts the promise of the former onto the methodology of the latter. The enduring message of caution is thus aimed at those who would recklessly bend the paths of rational thought toward irrational ends, so intent upon a distant point of gratification that the ethical dimensions of each step in between are passed too swiftly for any real consideration. As both perpetrator and accomplice, it is the innocent dreams of a young Victor who wished to undo the loss of a beloved family pet and his dear mother that press the prodigal Frankenstein of science into their service. Science, when practised according to impartial scientific principles, is no more culpable than any tool subject to misuse. Significantly, the only scene to present a material divergence from this idea – consisting of an eleventh-hour encounter with Professor Waldman – is one that does not occur in the novel.

The staid Professor Waldman

While the circumstances surrounding his creation may be considered monstrous, the creature itself is anything but. Once again placing faith in its source material, Frankenstein depicts the antagonist in the closest possible manner to the way Shelley describes him: tall and lean, with a mane of black hair and physical abilities far exceeding those of ordinary men. This necessarily reduces the degree of visceral aversion many are doubtless accustomed to from other film incarnations, but the human semblance is imperfect enough to maintain an unnerving aura about the character. The sequences in which Frankenstein labours over his creation depict suitably exaggerated proportions – given that he is forced to use normal bodies to build another that is abnormally large – and prove the validity of the 'uncanny valley' approach. Credit is also due to Luke Goss, who augments the design aspects with a thoroughly engrossed performance, conveying an appropriate level of sympathy to offset the latent sense of menace. Far from the lumbering half-idiot of popular imagination, this is a creature whose gaunt skin seems barely able to contain the seething mass of emotion that it harbours within, and which it vents whenever possible in eloquent and persuasive speech. The result is a palpable sense of inversion between creator and creation during their various confrontations, with the former using a veil of reasoned indifference to suppress any claim upon his emotions, and the latter thrown at the mercy of a passion whose fervour exceeds his ability to offer reasonable justification. Each is thus portrayed as an excess of one quality or the other: rational thought or irrational emotion.

A noble creature, spurned

One of the more important, and certainly one of the most interesting areas in which Frankenstein can be seen to either benefit or suffer from its degree of fidelity is its underlying tone. As always, whether you happen to react one way or the other depends greatly on individual expectation. For although we often find Mary Shelley and her literary creation placed together with the likes of Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson, we are to some extent remiss in doing so. All three represent pinnacles in the Gothic genre, to be sure, but the latter belong to a Victorian revival characterised by gaslight, dark alleyways, and a murky world of black-cloaked horrors. Frankenstein belongs to an earlier phase in the genre, with ties to the Romantic poets in whose company the tale was literally formed. Like the poems of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Byron, this story takes place in a picturesque natural landscapes, from the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt, to the vast amphitheatre of the Alps, and the bright expanse of the Arctic waste. It is a horror of implication, not of visceral slaughter; like a troubling dream rather than a bloody nightmare. In this respect, Frankenstein perhaps even manages to surpass its source material, for on film the discrepancy between brief moments in which all is dark and surreal, and long stretches in which all is light and familiar is particularly jarring. It is almost possible to join the protagonist in his wishful belief that the menace surrounding him is no more than a haunting fantasy, whereas in the novel the threat remains all-pervading. Our separation from the innermost thoughts of the protagonist also throws a light on the central drama that no reading of the novel would be likely to yield, being how mundane the underlying conflict actually is. Exclude the supernatural elements of death and resurrection and all we are left with is the common scenario of a young man who leaves home to pursue his studies and commits in an act of indiscretion, only to find himself confronted with the task of admitting that error to his family in the form of an illegitimate child. In the end, it is shame alone that Victor cannot reconcile himself with, to the ruin of all those around him; all his bastard progeny seeks is acknowledgement of his right to the name Frankenstein.

A drama a human failings before the spectacle of nature

SPRINGBOARD

Screen -

Frankenstein: True Horror

Julien Benoiton

The last in a three-part series, this documentary relates the real-life experiments that would inform much of the story in Frankenstein. Through a combination of dramatic recreation and commentary from experts and historians, the story of Professor Giovanni Aldini and his quest to understand the powers which imbue animal life are recreated with lavish flair. Culminating with the attempted revivification of an executed man, these historical events may have played as much a part in inspiring some of the divergent film adaptations of Frankenstein as the original work itself, and are certainly a tale worth exploring in their own right. The truth, as they say, is sometimes stranger than the fiction.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott

Ostensibly based on the novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner might also be described as a Frankenstein for the twentieth century, dealing with many of the same fundamental issues. In a near-future world of vast urban sprawl, corporations exert a level of influence far exceeding that of national governments, exploiting advanced technologies in order to maintain their position. Specialising in genetic engineering, the Tyrell Corporation manufactures advanced humanoid creations called Replicants, who are virtually indistinguishable from ordinary human beings. When five of these units escape their assigned duties and return to earth, seeking answers from their creator, retired officer Rick Deckard is assigned the task of hunting down and eliminating them. Taking the same existential questions posed by the creature in Frankenstein, the film projects them to a point where they implicate society as a whole.

Script -

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

First published in 1818, when Mary Shelley was a mere nineteen years old, this seminal tale of Gothic revivification has exerted considerable influence in popular culture over the two centuries since. The mythology surrounding its invention is almost as widely disseminated as the novel itself, involving a challenge to construct the most chilling ghost story, and the likes of Percy Shelley, John Polidori, and the infamous Lord Byron himself. Unlike its competitors, only one of which even saw completion and publication, Frankenstein diverged greatly from the predictable ghost story formula, to the extent that it is often held up as one of the earliest examples of the science fiction genre. This is despite the fact that Shelley maintains a strict aversion to revealing the actual science involved, for reasons of both character motivation and simple narrative convenience. With such an enduring legacy and an indelible place in the canon of world literature, it is no surprise that any of the myriad genres in spans should wish to lay claim to it.

Prometheus Bound

Aeschylus

As its subtitle The Modern Prometheus attests, Mary Shelley consciously drew upon Ancient Greek Mythology as a leitmotif in Frankenstein. The most detailed treatment of the story of Prometheus to have survived through to modern times is this, the only extant instalment in a trilogy first performed in the 5th Century BC. Beginning with the eponymous Titan being chained and impaled upon a mountain peak, Prometheus Bound relates the cruel treatment meted out by Zeus when it is found that Prometheus stole fire from the gods in order to raise humankind out of primitive savagery. The parable seems to have held special poignancy for poets in the Romantic movement, many of whom Mary Shelley was personally familiar with. Indeed, Percy Bysshe Shelley would go on to publish a poem entitled Prometheus Unbound, having initially been presumed as the author of Frankenstein when it was first published anonymously. No doubt the combination of a benevolent, suffering god coupled with the symbolic power of fire as a representation of intelligence, passion, and hope lay at the heart of this appeal.

Paradise Lost

John Milton

Though quoted in this version of Frankenstein, it is not explicitly stated that one of the books used by the creature to improve his grasp on language is a copy of the English epic poem, Paradise Lost. This unlikely twist of fate sees it leave a mark not only in terms of his eloquent expression, but on the very fundamental way in which he views the world and his own circumstances. In a bewildering carousel of alternating roles, Frankenstein too identifies with various characters in the poem, casting himself both as God, insofar as he is the progenitor of a new species, and Adam, in light of the fact that he is still a man, despite his ambitions. In either case, his identification of the creature as Satan remains unflinching, while the creature itself alternates his sympathy between Satan and humanity after the fall. One interpretation that neither ultimately entertains is the possibility that Adam, in the form of Frankenstein, has actually given rise to a new God, represented by his superhuman creation.