Why It Kicks Ass: the Life of Pi!

Tiger eat Pi or Tiger eat Fish; it's one of the deeper
questions in life!

(No spoilers ahead; it's a guy in a lifeboat with a tiger. Which spoilers are you looking for?)

Okay, about to kick in one of my famous open doors, but Life of Pi truly kicks ass. I went to see it the other day and although I wasn't quite as blown away as I expected to be, I slowly discovered it was just the kind of story I would like to write! And therefore, it kicks ass.

For the ones who have lived in a cellar for the past few months: Life of Pi is the story of a young man (Pi) who leaves India with his family and the animals of his father's zoo to settle in Canada. Around the Mariana Trench (the deepest point on Earth) the ship sinks in a major storm and Pi finds himself in a life boat alone BUT for a dangerous tiger, hilariously called Richard Parker (after the hunter who caught him).

Throughout the next two hours, Pi needs to find a way to co-exist with the tiger. Of course, at first they try to kill each other, but slowly a sort of symbiotic relationship starts to develop between the two. In the meantime all the stuff happens to them that happens to anyone stuck on a raft in the Pacific. Sunburn, hunger, thirst, hopelessness, hallucinations. But also wonderful moments of hope and wonder (the scene with the jellyfish is be-eau-ti-ful!)

Now, I've never read the book before I heard of the movie. I'm not very attuned to all the contemporary, fashionable writers out there. Hell, I just bought two books, published first in 1972. So, you could say, I'm pretty late adaptor. The book is from 2001, written by Canadian writer, Yann Martel and received numerous accolades.

The movie was done by Ang Lee. So we're expecting some pretty amazing pictures and we're not disappointed. The photography is wonderful, the CGI spectacular. Simply amazing.

The actors are devoted and it shows. Suraj Sharma's Pi is wonderful and intense with the sort of boy-ish charm you'd expect from a role like this. Please get this guy an Oscar, really. If only because he was acting in nothingness for two hours (the tiger is CGI).

But what makes the story so great is the fact that carefully interwoven is a deep understanding of religion and why we believe (God, Allah, the numerous gods of Hindoeism).

Cool thing about this movie is, it deals with religion in the beginning of the movie. But then the whole religion-thing drops from view. It is only slightly touched upon at the end and then comes the wonderful conclusion! In one sentence! It's so subtle and elegant, if feels like a slight tap on the shoulder. This makes Little House on the Prairie feel like a run-in with the business end of a sledge hammer!

And one other things I was pleasantly surprised about: this is NOT Old Yeller all over again! The relationship between tiger and man evolves into a natural symbiotic relation, but never a friendship! There's also no overly emotional ending to their relationship. It's all very adult and low-key. Kudos for that! Last thing we want is blubbering 40-year old women all around us, do we?
 
Even if you don't like religion and are just into a good movie, go see it because of the photography, the CGI and the excellent acting. Believe me, I choose an indie horror flick over a mainstream big budget block buster any day, but this was one that blew me away!

Highly recommended.

Marcel

Emergency Post: Cyberdyne Systems created HAL?

"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't let you do that."

Okay, so maybe I went a little overboard with my sci-fi emersion lately, but I came across this and it just freaked me out so much! Have a look...

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/

I've went over this every which way, but I just don't understand it. Maybe the CEO is a sci-fi buff or something, but even then... to name your company after one of sci-fi's most evil icons of the last four decades is... a bit out there. And I'm sure there are stock holders who 'just don't get it'. What are gonna say when your intranet is trying to take over the world?
"We never saw it coming," is definitely not going to work!

And then the suit. The suit will actually be used to clean up Japan's contaminated areas after the meltdown of the nuclear reactor near Fukushima, so THAT'S alright. But to name it HAL? Isn't that cutting it a bit too close? Especially since your company name is already Cyberdyne.

To use one of the English language's most giggle-inducing descriptions, I was flabbergasted. And I'm sure I could spend hours trying to explain to you exactly how it made me feel, but I'll just leave with these two excerpts and be done with it.

BTW, check out the bottom of the page, where it says Domestic Rental. I guess you can rent this suit as a private person as well. You know, for heavy lifting around the house.

Marcel

What We Found in the News: Honey Bee Brains in Robot?

Plans are already in motion!

Somewhere last year I bought Asimov's The Complete Robot; a collection of his short robot stories. I took it with me on vacation this year and was completely hooked. I've never been much of a sci-fi fan, but lately the genre has been calling me more and more.

I had just finished reading '...that Thou art Mindful of Him' in which George 10, a sentient robot, tries to wrap his positronic brain around the conundrum of how to make humans like robots. For those of you not familiar with the works of Asimov: in most of his stories robots are not allowed on Earth, but just work on industrial sites on the Moon or other planets. Something Asimov calls the Frankenstein-effect. This story is about negating that effect (i.e. making people accept robots as a valuable assett in their daily lives (for the sake of big bucks, I might add)).

Now, here a spoiler!

The answer George 10 comes up with is to make the robots less human-looking so people will not feel so threatened. Of course, people would also will be threatened by a talking robot dog, George 10 goes on to dumb the intelligence of the robots down. The idea being that once people have accepted dumb, animalistic robots, they will later on also accept human-shaped, smart robots. Well, as it turns out the animal robots will so dumb they cannot comprehend the Three Laws of Robotics anymore (where it states that a robot cannot harm a human being) with obvious disastrous results.
 Now, I come to my point. The first dumb robots they're going to make are small birds and insects like bees.

Please keep in mind, this story was written in 1974.

Last week, I read this article: http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/honey-bee-brains-can-help-make-robots-smarter_803471.html

I'll give you a moment to read it....
....
....
....

Freaky? I think so.

Since long I've been fascinated with the concept of art imitating life imitating art, etcetera. There are numerous examples, from philosophical tractates inspiring revolutionaries to early 1950's sci-fi stories inspiring later generations of scientists. But this was a little too literal for me. Although in this case there is no direct link to the research and the Asimov story, Asimov has been credited as being the inspiration for numerous scientific discoveries. Not in the least the story that the US company Unimation Inc. who supply assembly robots to automobile factories around the globe. The founder of the company admitted that he was so inspired during his time as a student at Columbia University by Asimov's stories that he founded the robot company.

And why not? Asimov was a great writer with also a great insight into the human psyche. I read the book back to back in one week and I totally get why this guy is credited as one of the best sci-fi writers ever. Young scientists will definitely be inspired by this.

But this confirms that, to some extend, the future will be shaped by the visions of speculative writers and well-shaped stories. This inspires me no end to keep writing, but it also has a dark side.

Numerous stories tell us of a dark and dystopian future. And some of those are just far-fetched, but some of them could serve as warnings. Maybe in 300 years we will regard one story or another as being especially visionary. Or maybe we will shape the world wittingly or unwittingly towards one of these stories.

The only problem is we will not know if this is true until years (centuries) later. So it's all pretty much a non-issue.

All I want to say to all young writers is, KEEP WRITING! Your visions could be more than gold!

Oh, and read some Asimov...

Wanna know more about this issue: iO9!

Sample Time: My new audio story 'The Art of Bullying'

Ah.. we all remember this,
don't we? Either one way
or the other...

'The Art of Bullying' is a short story dealing with Eddy the Slayer. He's a high school bully who never really got out of his evil ways. When one night he's stabbed on his way home, he's transported up to Purgatory where he learns exactly what his life of picking on the little guy has earned him...

The story itself earned me an honourable mention in the Lucid Hills Spring Contest. Not too long ago I recorded it with stand-up comedian David Popper one Saturday afternoon. And soon it will be up on Floating Robes in it's entirety for all to enjoy!