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The following essay was a paper I wrote for a class I took called “Science Fiction and American Culture.” It compares Harry Bates’ short story “Farewell to the Master” to the movie based on it, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

“Farewell to the Master” first appeared in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Stories. You can find a copy of it online at The Nostalgia League’s website.

The Day the Earth Stood Still was directed by Robert Wise and released in 1951, starring Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal. You can find more information at IMDB. If you would like to purchase a copy of this movie on DVD, click here to go to Amazon.com.

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Translating the printed word into a visual medium is not always easy. Oftentimes, films based on short stories or novels turn out pretty bad, especially in comparison to the original work (Clan of the Cave Bear and Dune are two that come to mind.) Often what can be written down and be exciting to read becomes boring and dull when placed on the silver screen. Changes have to be made for the story to be entertaining visually. I think The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) was a succesful translation of Harry Bates short story, “Farewell to the Master.” What follows is my reasoning.For me the key points in both the movie and the film were: the robot, the spaceship, and Washington, DC.

The Robot

The robot played a much more important role in the short story than it did in the film. In both the short story and the film it was a symbol of raw, unadulterated, and incomprehensible power. In an effort to render Gnut harmless, the scientists in the short story “sent electrical currents of tremendous voltages and amperages through him. They applied terrific heat to all parts of his metal shell. They immersed him for days in gases and acids and strongly corroding solutions, and they … bombarded him with every known kind of ray.” In the movie this wasn’t done, but in both, the robot was encased in a clear block of solid plastic or glass-like material. And in both the short story and the film, the robot broke free of this prison.

The robot’s name changed from story to film, I think, was a good move. When I read the word “Gnut” I get a different image than if I just heard it. In the movie, “Gnut” would have sounded more like “newt,” which doesn’t imply the same sense of the unknown. “Gort” was appropriate because there is not a common word, “gort,” that means something in English. It sounds alien.

The Spaceship

The spaceship in the film was much how I imagined it when I read the story. It was smooth and sleek. It looked like flying saucers are purported to look. “No slightest break or crack marred the perfect smoothness of the ship’s curving ovoid surface,” wrote Bates. The spaceship in the movie was similar, as Sobchack (1987) describes, “treated as a thing of beauty, the … flying saucer … is so pure in line, so ascetically designed … that it concretizes the Platonic virtues of clarity, sanity, reason — virtues sadly lacking in the Washington, D.C., mise en scene in which the saucer comes to rest.” (p. 77.)

Washington, D.C.

The mise en scene, so to speak, for the short story was more the Smithsonian museum than Washington, D.C. However, in both versions, the importance of the place is not necessarily as important as what those places represent. Washington, D.C. is a place where the primary government of a major world power rests. It is a town that is relatively easy to get around in, it has a lair where the primary government of a major world power rests. It seems a logical place for an alien to land. It also has a large press population, and can be considered the seat of American patriotism.

In the story, these aspects of locale took more of a back seat than in the film. In the film, Arlington Cemetery was an important symbol of humankind’s petty wars. The “great words” of Lincoln served as a catalyst to spur Klaatu on to his next contact, Dr. Bernhardt. It would be difficult to find such commonly known symbols in any other town.

What the Printed Word Can Do that Film Can’t

“Bates’ story is a hoary piece of work when read today and Edmund H. North’s screenplay was a great improvement on it.” (Brosnan, 1978, p. 85.) I disagree with this statement. I found the story to be quite riveting and tense. I wanted to keep reading. I felt the fear that Cliff felt, as well as his curiosity. However, I also agree that the screenplay was an improvement for the screen. Bates’ story, as written, would have been a boring movie. The tension was more psychological than visual. It would have been very difficult to get the same emotional impact on screen as there was in the written story.

What Film Can Do that the Printed Word Can’t

I also disagree with Brosnan’s comment about the interior of the ship: “though its interior was a disappointment and showing it destroyed the essential mystery of the craft.” (p. 84.) I thought the use of lighting (compounded by the moody music by Bernard Herman) was quite effective. It adequately gave the impression of sterile science, of the frightening unknown, and of mysterious, alien origin.

Sound is an added effect available to film that the printed work cannot imitate. The music track for this movie was very effective — if not a bit too loud at times. It set the mood of the movie as a whole, as well as for each scene. It made benign images seem terrifying.

Conclusion

What impressed me the most about both the story and the movie was the concept of the robot. In the short story, Gnut was another race. He was another form of life incomprehensible to people with carbon-based biases. He was the “master” in the sense that he was more technologically, and maybe even emotionally, evolved than Klaatu. The story implied, for me, that Klaatu was like a beloved pet. Gnut’s efforts to bring Klaatu back were reminiscent of those many times when I rushed my pet rat to the veterinarian because she was ill. My pet was a life dependent on me and I felt responsible for her. I imagine that Gnut felt the same way about Klaatu, that Gnut felt guilty of putting Klaatu in a situation where he was unable to protect him.

I disagree that this story, and the film as well, was pessimistic; that it portrayed a “brave new world run by robots,” as Healy and McComas (1945) suggested. Brosnan (1978) said that “the idea of placing our basic human rights in the custody of a machine, or any ’superior force’, is not only an admission of defeat but also one which smacks of totalitarianism.” (p. 84.) I think they missed the point. In the story, Gnut was another form of life. Nowhere in the story does Klaatu say that Gnut was manufactured. However, in the movie, Klaatu does say that Gort was made — but to free them. To say that relegating police authority to robots is like acquiescing to totalitarianism is like saying the mechanization of production is also that. Humanity has always sought for easier and faster ways to do things, thus freeing up more time for leisure. Since crime threatens leisure time, as well as other things, it makes sense to mechanize a method for preventing it as well.

This essay was written for a class I took called “Science Fiction and American Culture.” It was in response to reading several stories in Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling, as well as assigned readings from Storming the Reality Studio, edited by Larry McCaffery.

If you would like to read Mirrorshades, still considered an excellent introduction to the cyberpunk sub-genre, or Storming the Reality Studio, you should be able to find it at your local library. If not, you can purchase both Mirrorshades and Storming the Reality Studio from Amazon.com.

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I drove all over Hollywood
looking at the stars
first I ate my Milky Way
and then I ate my Mars
but sucking on a Galaxy
I noticed something pretty bizarre
there’s not a lot of people there, just an awful lot of cars.

“Pulp Culture,” Thomas Dolby
from the album Aliens Ate My Buick
1988, Lost Toy People, Inc. (ASCAP)

I had no idea what “postmodernism” was when I came to this class — I’m still not sure that I do now. The readings for this week have given me an idea — if postmodernism and cyberpunk are similar.

Before this week, I thought cyberpunk was science fiction dealing with human-computer interface. But it seems to be more than that. It is a dissociation of reality, a shattering of what is often taken for granted and a confusion of boundaries between the self and the other. Reading cyberpunk feels like reading James Joyce on drugs (James Joyce being the one on drugs — not the reader).

The stream of consciousness is warped by an LSD mentality. Seemingly trivial details take on great import, if only for a moment. The vulgar, the horrific, the exotic and the intense are forced at the reader in bits and pieces like ice cream thrown in a blender with the lid open, spattering what was going to be a milkshake all over the ceiling.

I felt lost most of the time while reading the stories assigned from Mirrorshades. Of course, I felt the same way reading James Joyce — I never did finish A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. There was a difference, though. The referents in cyberpunk are at least remotely familiar — 1950’s futuristic visions (”The Gernsback Continuum”), rock clubs with the drug scene swelling around it (”Freezone”), Mozart and Marie Antoinette (”Mozart in Mirrorshades”).

I guess being a native Californian, I also understood the scattered, eclectic reality that makes up Californian life. Thomas Pynchon describes a “typical” Calfornia city: “Like many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts — census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway.” I grew up in a county that blended Yuppies, country hicks and hippies without blinking. One town is really nothing but a business park, while another is a county tourist stop.

This all leads me to my opening quote from Thomas Dolby. The readings this week kept reminding me of lyrics from the songs on Aliens Ate My Buick. The album is sort of a commentary on L.A. life. One song (”The Key To Her Ferrari”) tells the story of a man who only wants to date a woman so he can drive her car: “I don’t want your love / I don’t want your money/ I just want he key to your Ferrari.” The album is a postmodern — if I’m using the term correctly — mix of music from salsa, techno, new wave and swing.

Another thing I noticed about the cyberpunk we read was the raw language. Even the essays used profanity. The sexuality comes at you hard — “And when I get you alone I’m going to batter you cervix into jelly” (”Freezone”), “and Case’s psychological motives center on his desire to seek revenge against the forces who fucked him over” (”Introduction: The Desert of the Real,” Storming the Reality Studio) and the sadomasochism of Videodrome.^* Such raw language and imagery stop my reading. I’m not expecting it, so when it comes up, my mind jumps the track of my reading.

Cyberpunk seems to take reality and turn it upside-down and inside-out, using hallucination, drugs or direct link up to a computer as the tool to do so. The narrative is internal. The omniscient narrator does not exist in the cyberpunk world. Everything is subjective. Where reality ends and something else begins becomes a fuzzy line, and, in the course of the story, may never become clear.

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* Even Dolby’s song “The Key To Her Ferrari” assaults you with surprise, raw imagery: “And then I saw her … she was a bright red ‘64 GTO with fins and gills like some giant piranha fish, some obscene phallic symbol on wheels … little rivers of anticipation ran down my inseam as I kicked those five hundred Italian horses into life and left reality behind me: fifty, sixty, seventy miles and hour … my hand slipped inside the belt of my trousers as we passed eighty, ninety miles and hour … and as we hit the magic 100 my love exploded all over her bright pink leather interior…. And at that moment, I thought of my mother.” (sic.)

This essay was written for a class I took called “Science Fiction and American Culture.” It was in response to three short stories and one novel:

• “Thunder and Roses” by Theodore Sturgeon,
• “The Roads Must Roll” by Robert Heinlein,
• “Coming Attraction” by Fritz Leiber, and
• The Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth.

You should be able to find a copy of The Space Merchants in your local library. Or you can purchase one from Amazon.com.

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In the introductory essay (”The Social Side”) to the short story “Coming Attraction” by Fritz Leiber, James Gunn discusses the four stages of science fiction as mentioned by Isaac Asimov’s 1953 essay “Social Science Fiction.” Asimov said that science fiction written since around 1945 have had a more sociological bent. He defined social science fiction “as stories about ‘the impact of scientific advance upon human beings.” (Gunn, pg.166.) The three short stories and a novel that we read for this week were all published between 1945 and 1955 and had a more sociological, rather than technological, bend to them. This is most strikingly noticeable in the development of the central male figure in the stories.”Thunder and Roses” by Theodore Sturgeon was published in 1947. The central male figure, Pete Mawser, is still reminiscent of earlier, pre-1945, characters — for example, from Robert Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll.” Mr. Gaines is a cool, collected, man’s man. He doesn’t let his wife get in his way, and he gets his job done without letting emotions curve his path. Mawser, is also something of a man’s man. He is in the military. He gets things done (like when he helps Sonny get rid of the razor blade). However, in him you begin to see the social aspects of science fiction coming into form.”Thunder and Roses” has a social statement to make. It suggests that it is better to let your enemies live, even if they have attacked you first, if the price of retaliation is the obliteration of all life. It also says something about self-sacrifice, that it is sometimes better to be altruistic, in the long run, than selfish. Pete Mawser learns this lesson in the story. Through listening to Star Anthim’s song, and then being with her as she dies, he realizes that the sanctity of life is more important that revenge.

At the beginning of the story, Mawser is full of hate. The reader gets the impression that he’d retaliate if he had the means. “Hate was first. Hate was ubiquitous….” But, at the end of the story, he destroys the means of retaliation so that no one can retaliate.

“Coming Attraction” by Fritz Leiber was published in 1950. The central male figure, Wystern Turner, furthers this trend towards the socializing and warming of male characters. Turner, although a proper — and stereotypical — Englishman, has feelings. You can also say that he wears them on his shirtsleeve, for he cares about Theda before he knows anything about her. He’s willing to help her escape to England even before he knows her name. Turner is like a chimera. He is emotional and caring while being cool and aloof. It depends on his situation.

The Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth, was first published in 1952. Mitchell Courtenay, the central male figure of this tale, goes through an evolution of character while still remaining the same. He starts out as a firm believer of marketing. He changes through various life-threatening, as well as world-view threatening, situations into a person who may not always bow down to “the god of Sales,” but who will use marketing to further the aims of the “Consies” (the Conservationists) if they, in turn, further his own personal aims.

“The First Canticle” by Walter M. Miller, Jr. was first published in 1955. Brother Francis Gerard of Utah, the main character of this story, is the ultimate “human” man. He is humble, modest and honest. He is a “simpleton” who is a devout follower of his (soon-to-be) Saint Leibowitz. His dreams are simple, as well as his life. It is very hard to find the “man’s man” in Brother Francis.

The story is also the most sociological of the three short stories. The culture in which Brother Francis lives is richly described and alluded to. What probably makes this world so vivid is its familiarity. It is history repeating itself in a slightly different form. The Space Merchants also develops a complex social structure. But, because of its complexity and unfamiliarity, it takes longer to build.

The stories we read for this week exemplify the trend Asimov wrote about. They illustrate how characters, and the society they live in became more important than the society they live in, became more important that technological gadgets in science fiction stories after 1945.

The following essay was a paper I wrote for a class I took called “Science Fiction and American Culture.” It discusses issues brought up in Isaac Asimov’s novella Bicentennial Man, which can be found in Robot Visions. You should be able to find a copy of it at your local library, or you can purchase one from Amazon.com.

This essay was written several years before the movie version starring Robin Williams produced.

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sentience n.	1. The quality or condition of being sentient: CONSCIOUSNESS. 2. Emotion as opposed to perception or thought.
consciousness n.	1. The state of being conscious. 2. The totality of attitudes, opinions, and sensitivities held or thought to be held by an individual or group…. 4. a. A critical awareness of one’s own situation and identity. b. Awareness: concern.
Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary

Can humankind create life? Can we, through our technology, our intelligence, and the raw materials we have available create an artificial life that is capable of thinking, coping with its environment and feeling? This has been an underlying theme in many works of science fiction. It is the underlying question in most of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories and continues to be asked to today in stories and television.

“The Bicentennial Man” by Asimov reminded me quite a bit of several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation ( STTNG). Data, the android, can be thought of as an extension of the ideas Asimov worked with in his stories and novels of robots. His uniqueness sets him apart, but at the same time he can be remarkably “human.”

The arguments that say a machine — a computer — no matter how complex can never be considered alive (that I’ve noticed) are:

1. A machine cannot think, it can only simulate thought.
2. Humans can experience emotions, machines cannot.
3. If the Three Laws of Robotics are taken into consideration, then a robot can never have free will. A human can.

Using examples from the readings for this week, from episodes of STTNG, and bits and pieces of an argument I have been developing for years, I plan to show that a robot can be capable of sentience — in all its meanings. Since there are no robots of this caliber in existence yet, I will not be able to prove my point, but I hope to at least cast doubt on the idea that it is an impossibility.

Argument 1. A machine cannot think, it can only simulate thought.

What is thought anyway? Is it a function of the brain or the mind? Is there a difference?

Some scientists believe that the sum of the brain cells in your head equals the sum of your mind, that the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts. To them, everything you feel, everything you think, everything you remember can be explained by the electrical impulses and chemical markers of your brain. They believe that, in theory, it is possible to extract everything that you experience as your mind from the gray matter in your head.

Other scientists do not believe this. They believe that when your brain cells work together they create something that is bigger than the sum each cell added together. They believe that it is impossible to extract from the physical stuff in your brain everything that you experience as your mind. If you separate the brain cells, you loose the ability to understand the mind.

Because these debates still goes on today, with evidence accumulating on both sides, how can we say what thought is? If we can’t understand our own thought, how can we say that a machine is not thinking? If the first group of scientists are correct, then we are nothing more than carbon based computers. The only difference between us and a thinking machine is the materials we use to create the thoughts. Both a computer brain and a human brain use electricity.

Until we fully understand the basis of human thought, argument one is moot. It raises a philosophical discussion that can only be backed by faith, belief and opinion. It cannot, at the present time be used as an argument against artificial intelligence.

Argument 2. Humans can experience emotions, machines cannot.

The key idea, which runs through most episodes of STTNG that concern Data, which is thought to set him apart from humanity is his lack of emotions. I disagree. I am absolutely convinced that he has emotions. They may not be passionate emotions that clog his thinking or cause him to behave irrationally, but they are there.

In “The Bicentennial Man,” Andrew describes how he experiences something akin to emotion. “Andrew was fond of them…. At least, the effect they had upon his actions were those which in a human being would have been called the result of fondness, for he did not any other word for it.”

A little later he goes on:

“I enjoy doing them, Sir.”

“Enjoy?”

“It makes the circuits of my brain somehow flow more easily. I have heard you use the word ‘enjoy’ and the way you use it fits the way I feel. I enjoy doing them, sir.”

Data says the same thing in the episode where the Enterprise visits Tasha Yar’s home planet and meets her sister Ishara. Data says that he has a memory loop, that he keeps thinking about Ishara and misses her.

What are these experiences if they are not emotions? When we are enjoying something, can we not say that what we are experiencing is an easier flow of our thoughts? When we miss someone, do we not experience a memory loop? Is there really that much difference between a “simulated thought” and a real one?

When an actor acts are they experiencing a “simulated emotion”? If so what makes it simulated? I would say it is simulated because the actor knows that it is not his emotion but that ofthe character he is portraying. So I ask this. If a robot experiences a “simulated emotion,” why is it simulated and not real? The emotion is its. It is not pretending to be someone else. Is it only simulated because someone programmed the possibility of its existence into the computer? Then I ask, how do we know that we are not “programmed” in some way — by our genetics, evolution or God?

Argument 3. If the Three Laws of Robotics are taken into consideration, then a robot can never have free will. A human can.

This argument, in effect says that because Asimov’s robots are programmed with the Three Laws of Robotics, they have no free will. This implies that humans do. But do they?

Psychology often uses the premise that adult behaviorcan be explained by — and is often dictated by — events that happen in childhood. In other words, if X happens when someone is 3 years old, then Y is mostly to be manifested in adulthood. The person in question does not even need to consciously remember X in order for Y to happen. And even when the person is aware of the root of their behavior, it does not mean that they are able to change it easily. Is this not like a program? Does this not limit a person’s free will?

Then there are rules imposed by society. Some are never even explicitly stated. People just “know” that Z is wrong — they don’t know why necessarily. Is this not like a robot “knowing” not to harm a human and to follow a human’s orders?

What is the difference? A human programs a robot and humans weren’t programmed? How do we know this? We have no proof that we are not programmed. For all we know, genetics and evolution have programmed each an every one of us quite precisely — just as precisely as the roboticists programmed Andrew.

George argues with his father “When you talk to him [Andrew] you’ll find he reacts to the various abstractions as you and I do, and what else counts? If someone else’s reactions are like your own, what more can you ask for?” What, indeed. Artificial Intelligence researchers ask this same question of their critics. I ask this same question. If a computer or a robot can show me that it is self aware, then I’m willing to accept it as “alive.”

The following essay was a paper I wrote for a class I took called “Science Fiction and American Culture.” It compares Philip K. Dick’s novel Blader Runner, originally titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to the movie based on it, Blade Runner.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was first published in 1968. You should be able to find a copy of it at your local library, or you can purchase one from Amazon.com.

Blade Runner was directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1982, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young. You can find more information at IMDB. If you would like to purchase a copy of this movie on DVD, click here to go to Amazon.com.

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Blade Runner, the book, and Blade Runner, the movie seemed like alternate realities of the same story. They were completely different except where they overlapped.

Some of the names were the same (Deckard, Pris, Roy and Rachel) and some of the ideas were similar (in book John Isadore is a chickenhead who helps Pris, in the movie J. F. Sebastian is a rapidly aging person who helps Pris). But, although the names were the same, sometimes the personalities weren’t. Rachel in the movie was very different from Rachel in the book.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies. I like the macabre feel of its mise-en-scene. I like the 1930’s-1940’s detective flick feel. Everything about the film adds to the dream-like surreal mood — the lighting, the camera angles, the music, even the voice over.

The book doesn’t have quite the same feel. The mood is less macabre and more apathetic. Iran, Deckard’s wife, programs their Penfield mood organ to give her a feeling of despair twice a month. People “plug in” to empathy boxes to “become one” with Wilbur Mercer who walks up a hill as unseen tormentors hurl rocks at him. At the end of the book Deckard attempts suicide.

Life in the book’s world is pathetic and depressing. Life in the movie’s world is cluttered, dark and moody.

The movie is more straightforward than the book. The movie follows a relatively linear story where things seem to be, at least mostly, what they appear to be. Almost halfway through the book, however, Blade Runner enters the twilight zone — and stays there for a long time before the reader realizes what is really going on. The whole sequence at the replicated police station run by replicants threw me for a loop. It was very disorienting.

The endings are quite different in mood, as well. The book ends with a hopeless sense of things-are-as-they-are-and-there-is-no-way-to-change-them. The movie ends with a sense that although things are as they are, you can always make the best of what you’ve got and enjoy it while it lasts.

Both the book and the movie approach replicants in a similar manner as well — a way that is different from most imaginings of androids. Replicants are made of flesh — in the book you have to do a special bone marrow assay to tell the difference between real people and replicants. This gives new meaning to the phrase “artificial life.” They are artificial and they are made of the stuff of life — unlike the typical robot, which is made of metal and plastic.

This raises the questions, ìDo we have the right to call replicants less than human? Do we have the right to “retire” them? It almost seems like God destroying its own creation. If something that we create can live a life of its own, do we have the right to take away that life? Instinctively, I’d say no. But that probably stems from my basic reverence for life in general. I don’t condone unnecessary vivisection either.

The book, in a way, looks at these questions. Deckard decides that he can’t retire replicants anymore. He empathizes with them now. The Deckard from the movie ends up falling in love and running away with a replicant. He, too, decides that he can no longer kill replicants.

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