Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 01:09:59 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at keithlynch.net> To: WSFAList at keithlynch.net Subject: [WSFA] Re: The Time Machine (2002) Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> > The Moonfall disaster was just bad science intended to justify the > evolution of Eloi and Morlocks. Keith's comments are well taken. > I would prefer to justify the genetic divergence by reference to > 21st Century genetic engineering. Why 21st century? The problem with setting something in the 8028th rather than the 22nd or 23rd century is it's so distant. Their story would probably have little to do with anything we know. It's like skipping ahead hundreds of volumes when reading an interminable "trilogy". You're reading the sequel of something you haven't read. The events of the 803rd millennium are no more likely to be the direct result of anything that happens in this century than to be the direct result of the fall of the Roman Empire, which was, after all, just two more millennia back. > H.G. Wells thought that "ordinary" evolution would accomplish the > changes. Actually, his novel is most noteworthy for what it *doesn't* say. It never says what the cause of the split is, though the (unnamed) time traveler speculates. It's realistic in that someone visiting a non-literate culture for just a few days is unlikely to get a very good idea of what's going on, much less of how things got into that state. His novel is in the public domain, and can be read online at ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext92/timem11.txt It's only about 32,000 words, which means that by the Hugo rules it's a novella, not a full novel. Unlike much of what he wrote, it's still a good read. > Once alternate time tracks are introduced, we really have a separate > concept from Wells' original and I would like to see a separate > movie explore this concept more fully. The three _Back to The Future_ movies did so, though not very consistently or realistically. Still, they're fun to watch. _It's A Wonderful Life_ is another example, in which a man gets to visit a version of his home town in which he had never been born. > Anyone notice that Luke Skywalker, Commander Adama, Princess > Antillia and the Klingon High Council et alia speak good English > even if some of their written languages are non-English? And so do Germans in WWII movies, and Hobbits in LoTR. It's understood that they're supposed to really be speaking their own language. Of course that doesn't work when it's necessary to portrary their interaction with someone who really is speaking English, and where there's no plausible way they could have learned English, or the English-speaker could have learned their language. Some Germans know English, and some Hobbits know Elvish, but no Americans speak Eloi, and it's completely unbelievable to me that any Eloi would speak English, even if they could read it, which is almost as unbelievable. > Regarding the activity cycle of the Morlocks, in this version, > they're not nocturnal. The uber-Morlock said they were. And the Eloi certainly made sure they were off the ground and the ladders pulled up before sunset, while taking no precautions at all during daylight hours. > Regarding the ability of the Morlocks to burglarize the Eloi > village, the Eloi defensive techniques are ineffective against > Morlock spies. What's the point in living on cliffs and pulling up the ladders at sunset, then? Why not live somewhere more convenient, if it would be no less safe from Morlocks? The best part of the movie was the previews. And the best preview was for something called "Clockstoppers," about a gadget which can stop (or at least greatly slow) time, so one can walk through a landscape that's like a still picture. It opens in two weeks. Of course H.G. Wells wrote one of *those* stories too. (He wrote the first example of almost everything.) It's online at http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.172/ -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.