blacksundae

or, Journey to the Center of Eden

JESUS CHRIST, IT’S A JESUS LIZARD! GET IN THE CAR!

According to Walden Media’s Wikipedia entry, they deny that they are an overtly Christian production company. They have had to make this denial as they are owned by Philip Anschutz (noted conservative Christian and funder of the Discovery Institute), not to mention they produced the film adaptation of your favorite Feline Christ narrative and mine, The Chronicles of Narnia.

I’m actually inclined to go along with them. As I look at their filmography, it’s all family oriented stuff, but very few of their films have overtly Christian themes. Some of their output has been absolutely atrocious, but only Narnia is clearly Christian propaganda.

At least I thought so. That brings us to Eric Brevig’s 3-D Brendan Frasier vehicle, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Wait a minute, I can hear you asking, How can an adaptation of a Jules Verne novel be seen as Christian propaganda? Well, that’s the thing: it’s not an adaptation.

The premise of this theme park ride film is that Verne’s account in Journey to the Center of the Earth is literally true. Frasier’s older brother was a geologist with some kookie ideas about lava tubes thousands of miles deep, who went off to Iceland to investigate his theories and vanished. Ten years later, Frasier comes across an old, dog-eared copy of his brother’s favorite book (guess) that’s cryptically annotated¹ in ways that suggest what he was up to.

Frasier, being the sort of grossly irresponsible adult that keeps these types of movies clipping along, scoots off to Iceland with his annoyingly-surly-cum-annoyingly-eager teenage nephew (the lava-tube-kook’s son, of course). Yadda, yadda, yadda… Strained comedy happens. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

In short time, they find out from the leggy, blonde, Icelandic love interest that their brother/father was a “Vernian:” someone who believes that Jules Verne’s account of the lost world at the center of the Earth is literally true. Whether Vernians extend this to his other works is never addressed, although I’m rooting for Mysterious Island.

Through a series of unlikely events (lightning, mine cars), Frasier, the kid & the hottie end up falling down a lava tube and landing in Verne’s weird subterranean world. “He was right!” Frasier says of his dearly departed brother, “People ridiculed him for what he believed but he was right!”

This is the point in this post when I get a bit nervous, wondering if I’m reading way too much into what is otherwise simple escapist fare. “Overthinking a plate of beans,” as they say at MetaFilter. OK… is this aspect of the story speaking directly to the Creationists in the audience?

This guy takes a clearly fictional and ridiculous story and interprets it as true, all evidence to the contrary, and is ridiculed by the scientific establishment. But, get this: it turns out he was right!

I could have left this alone as a plot device, but that line of dialogue quoted above just won’t let me. In context, it seems shoehorned in, and it seems specially designed to cater to the persecution complex that most conservative Christians share these days. Especially Creationists.

Once that one line planted the seed in my mind, something else started bothering me. Despite the movie’s assertion that Verne’s novel is complete non-fiction, the reality of the underground world differs from the novel in a key way. From Wikipedia:

The living organisms they meet reflects the geological time; just as the rock layers become older and older the deeper one gets, the animals get more and more ancient the closer the characters come to the center. From a scientific point of view, this story has not aged quite as well as other Verne stories, since most of his ideas about what the interior of the Earth contains have since been proven wrong. However, a redeeming point to the story is Verne’s own belief, told within the novel from the viewpoint of a character, that the inside of the Earth does indeed differ from that which the characters encounter. One of Verne’s main ideas with his stories was also to educate the readers, and by placing the different extinct creatures the characters meet in their correct geological era, he is able to show how the world looked like millions of years ago, stretching from the ice age to the dinosaurs.

This is an element of the story that is completely thrown out the window, in favor of a smattering of “prehistoric” creatures that pop in here and there, such as bioluminescent birds, predatory plants, and a giant carnosaur that appears to be twice as large as the biggest T. rex.² I find it surprising that this blatantly educational aspect of the story was thrown out, considering Walden’s emphasis on education. Wikipedia again, because I’m feeling lazy:

Walden Media is unique among film production companies in that it works with teachers, museums, and national organizations to develop supplemental educational programs and materials associated with its films and the original events and/or novels that inspire the films.

But you eliminate this one element, you also eliminate two Creationist pet peeves: discussion of an ancient earth and a narrative that also functions as metaphor. There’s no room for metaphor in this literal view of Verne.

Again, I realize that I may be reading way to much into this, but keep in mind that it kept me entertained when the movie did not. I had absolutely nothing else to think about! The movie is a chore to watch, in a way that has nothing to do with religion or politics. The writing is flat when it’s not sappy, the action scenes are dull and few in number³ and, as an advocate of digital filmmaking, I’m going to pretend this movie was never made. By that, I mean it displays all the staginess of a movie that was shot in a small green screen studio by someone who doesn’t know how to make that not matter. The characters always seem confined to small areas as their epic surroundings swirl around them. I didn’t see this in 3-D, mind you, but I doubt it would have helped too much. Poor Frasier… I usually enjoy him!

¹ Why bother with encoding your notes if you’re going to half-ass it? Frasier and the kid crack it during a plane ride.

² Seeing as how we never see any prey animals of any size, I have to wonder how this environment supports an alpha predator this big. /DORK

³ “The food here is terrible!” “I know! And such small portions!”

This is not a scam. This is for real. This is the exciting reality of today’s time-travel pills. If you still have doubts, just look at our mailing address:

Online Time Travel Pharmacy
Dakota Territory Box #4
Western American Frontier
00015

We pick up our mail in the 1800s.
NOW THAT SPELLS “PROOF” IN ANY ERA OF TIME!

Link! Via Futurismic.

The Gary Owens / Eric Boardman dinosaur documentaries that aired on the Disney Channel during the 80s were a big part of my childhood. When I recently found them on YouTube (via Laelaps) I discovered that I could almost recite them from heart. These things are wonderful. Enjoy them in their entirety after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

Reuters:

Palaeontologists digging in a brickyard in southern Poland have discovered the fossilised remains of a dinosaur that they say is a previously unknown ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The predator dinosaur, given the working name “Dragon”, lived around 200 million years ago, team member Dr Tomasz Sulej of the Polish Science Academy told Reuters.

Read on.

UPDATE: According to the posters in the VRTPALEO mailing list,

“An ancestor of _Tyrannosaurus rex_” is popular media shorthand for “an unbeaked pre-Maastrichtian non-avialan theropod”.

The age of 200 million years should have tipped me off.

Mark Witton/PA Wire

Interesting article on azhdarchids. By the way, it’s gratifying (?) to see that America doesn’t have a monopoly on shitty science journalism. Pterosaurs are not, in fact, dinosaurs. That’s something I’ll bet a lot of school-kids know.

I was thinking about putting together a photo retrospective of Stan Winston’s work, but the folks over at io9 beat me to it. Bathe in the geeky goodness.

Here’s to ya, Mr. Winston

Don’t believe? See for yourself.

Laelaps has an interesting interview with paleontologist Robert Bakker. I literally wore out my copy of The Dinosaur Heresies as a kid (I patched it back together with packing tape), and got to meet him at an orientation meeting when I was a volunteer for Dinamation.* Cool guy. Interesting interview. I don’t agree with his last answer, but he’s a religious fellow. Whatcha gonna do?

*According to Wikipedia, it no longer exists! Well, that sucks!

In case anybody’s wondering, my birthday’s November 11. *cough* [via Laelaps]