August 2012

Another movie joins the list of remakes that have, of late, come pouring out of Hollywood. Total Recall has been reimagined for the CGI era, much changed now but sharing just enough plot and details to justify the shared appellation. As I recall, the first Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, was an entertaining bit of science fiction with some action and a satisfying twist or two thrown in. The recent version does not reach the same level, falling short mainly because it invests less in the human element, although it does surpass its predecessor in some areas.

The main characters return with the same names. Colin Farrell plays Douglas Quaid, a blue-collar worker with an itch he does not know how to scratch, a vague sense that something is not right with his life. His wife Lori is played this time by Kate Beckinsale, while the rebel Melina is Jessica Biel. When Quaid goes to Rekall, a company that can insert memories of better times into a client’s brain, they discover that the fake memories of espionage and danger that he is asking for are already in his brain, except that they are real.

Quaid has just a few seconds to process this shock before police burst into the facility and try to arrest him. To his own surprise, instincts and muscle memory kick in and he takes out the squad of cops. The chase is on. When he rushes home and tells his wife, she springs a bombshell on him that catapults the plot forward.

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Before the third of the Batman trilogy hit theaters, I had heard that The Dark Knight Rises was a film without hope, with a long and dreary narrative that never loosens its grip. It leaves the viewer without a sense of answers.

I saw it and left confused. It saw it again, and left confused again. All the while, I kept wondering if this interpretive effort would pay off. Maybe it’s just another movie and lacks the ideological significance of the previous two.

I too had read several reviews that had condemned the film from a left-wing point view, arguing that it took a cheap shot at the Occupy Wall Street movement, suggesting that it consists mainly of brainless menaces who are easily manipulated by a strongman leader. The filmmakers deny this.

Regardless, this was probably the best political feature of the film.

However, the merit of its warning about left-wing populism was seriously compromised by the portrayal of the Gotham cops as saintly guardians of the social order. Neoconservatives loved this part of the film, made all the better to them because the prisons are full and Gotham is ruled by a civilian-led authoritarian regime of tight law and surveillance — the neocon dream come true.

What’s going on here? Why is the movie so full of mixed messages and, in the end, so unsatisfying?

Finally, it hit me. And this will be perfectly obvious once you hear it.

The problem is that the film gives Gotham (and us) a choice between two forms of despotism, one “left wing” and one “right wing,” and asks us to choose the lesser of two evils. We can have one of two systems: bureaucratic/authoritarian or revolutionary/dictatorial. The idea of a self-managing society is just out of the question. The film biases that choice by showing one as offered by the evil villain and the other by a corrupt, yet stable status quo.

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This review is part of a series covering each installment of the serialized novel Higher Cause, written by John Hunt and published by Laissez Faire Books. To catch up, start with the announcement, the book’s link-rich table of contents, and the first review.

The latest installment consists of three chapters. The story continues to introduce some new characters, but now, separated characters are slowly being brought together.

In the first chapter, we revisit Jeff, one of the characters introduced earlier, as he meets someone whose patronymic suggests a familial connection with another character. There is also an important bit of information at the end of the chapter, something that a reader will probably be expecting. It gives a little jolt of electricity to the story and hints at suspense to come.

The next chapter is the first one that I would offer serious criticism to. It begins by introducing a new character, and I would say that there are too many unimportant details, or details that can come out in another way. This in itself is not a big issue, but midway through the chapter this new character, a recently laid-off or perhaps fired professor comes home to find someone waiting for him there. Suddenly, the narrative jumps out of the head of the professor and into the head of the newcomer, and then we are treated to a few paragraphs explaining who this person is and what he is like. The chapter is near to 2,500 words, and most of it is exposition with a jolting point-of-view change in the middle. It does serve a plot point, but I would have preferred to see it achieve this with more economy.

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Reason.com has had some interesting posts recently.

One is on the subject of fan fiction vs. copyright. Does fan fiction count as a copyright violation? What should authors think or do about it? My response to the first question is: Who cares? Copyright is an illegitimate government grant of monopoly privilege that gives people legal ownership over that which cannot really be property, ideas, and which cannot be enforced without infringing on the prior real property rights (in one’s body and physical objects) of others. My response to the second question is: Authors should embrace fan fiction as community-building and free advertising. Fighting fan fiction only makes you a dick, a criminal (in my view) dick if you sue.

Anyway, now that I’ve worked that rant out of my system, check out the post Fan Fiction vs. Copyright – Q&A with Rebecca Tushnet and watch the interview below. Tushnet is “a member of the Organization for Transformative Works, Tushnet works to defend fan fiction creators caught in the legal debate between protected intellectual property and fair use.” I’ve previously discussed how Angry Robot Books is embracing fan fiction, if not as much as we libertarians and fiction fans would like.

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For the month of August we are reading and discussing Wĭthûr Wē, a science fiction novel influenced by anarcho-capitalism and Austrian School economics, written by our own Matthew Alexander.

Centuries hence, Man, seemingly alone in the universe, slowly spreads his civilizations across his corner of the galaxy. Tyrants vie for power, and in their fierce grip the colonies of the Milky Way are suffocating. In this society of many billions, a young marine, a highly trained war hero, returns home from his tour of duty. Physically powerful yet shy, awkward and unable to sway the masses with pretty speeches, Alistair Ashley 3nn makes a decision to strike at the hierarchy the only way he can. His decision starts him on a grand adventure, and as he is carried along by forces beyond his control, he comes to confront an ancient secret, one which may reveal humanity’s future.

You can get a free PDF copy at the author’s website. The book can be purchased for Kindle or in trade paperback at Amazon.com. Your purchase via our affiliate links will help support both Matthew’s writing and our work here at Prometheus Unbound.

Join us as we read and discuss Wĭthûr Wē.

You need not have voted on this month’s selection to join in the discussion, but you do need to be registered and logged in on this site to access the book club’s dedicated forums.

Book Giveaway / Newsletter Signup Results

Last month we gave away free Kindle (mobi) copies of Wĭthûr Wē in exchange for signing up for our email newsletter. We think the campaign was a big success. We attracted more than 80 new subscribers, more than quintupling our mailing list, and gave away at least that many copies of Matthew’s novel.

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As part of a move toward more consistent branding, I have moved Prometheus Unbound to a new domain and changed the Feedburner url for our main posts rss feed.

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