THE MT VOID
08/12/22 -- Vol. 41, No. 7, Whole Number 2236
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
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Topics:
Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's Novel (Part 4) (film comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE (book review by Joe Karpierz)
THE LOST WORLD (1998) (letter of comment by Gary McGath)
The MT VOID (letter of comment by Guy Lillian III)
This Week's Reading (OLIVE ODYSSEY, THE STRANGE CASE
OF THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's Novel (Part 4) (film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
[continued from last week]
THE LOST WORLD (1999)
a.k.a. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD
Richard Franklin directed the 1999 version of THE LOST WORLD as a
two-hour (minus commercials) pilot for the Canadian TV series of
the same name. In fact the series sold and apparently ran in
Canada and the United States. I was less than pleased with the
pilot, which was very much of a television quality.
The setup is only vaguely correct and the people never do get off
the plateau because then we would not have a continuing television
series, would we? The focus is not even on the characters that
Doyle created. They are lessened in importance compared to new
strong (female) characters.
After an action prolog in which we see a man attacked by something
big in a jungle, presumably a dinosaur. He finds tall, handsome
explorer Challenger (Peter McCauley, very unlike Doyle's version).
He dies in his camp, but not before he leaves Challenger his
journal and photo negatives of pterodactyls. Challenger returns to
London with tales of this lost world that he has not visited. He
tells the geographic society of his discovery. They are skeptical,
but suggest a special expedition. There are the usual three
volunteers: Ned Malone (William deVry), Lord John Roxton (William
Snow, a Pierce Brosnan look-alike), and Dr. Summerlee (Michael
Sinelnikoff). Michael Sinelnikoff, as I said, also played
Summerlee in the American version the previous year. In that he
was a major character. Here, though he plays the same role, he has
a lot less acting to do.
In one more variance from the book, Challenger seems to have no
enmity toward Malone. When the question of who will fund the
expedition arises a mysterious and beautiful woman steps forward,
Marguerite Krux (played by Rachel Blakely) and volunteers on the
proviso that she can come on the expedition. Krux irritatingly has
attitudes of 1999 and not at all of 1912. She complains about
museums of "dead things." She wears brief outfits in the jungle.
They nicely show off her cleavage but would be roughly the
equivalent of ringing a flying insect dinner bell. She also seems
to like skinny-dipping. The Victorian Doyle would probably have
been scandalized by this adaptation of his book.
The group travels to the rain forest. Along the way they survive
an attack by headhunters. They also survive the crash landing of
the balloon they brought for their ascent onto the plateau. The
landing of the balloon is never shown, probably as an economy
measure. (The credit sequence shows the splintered piece of
plateau that is the way the explorers in the book get onto the main
plateau. The film never actually uses that entrance, choosing a
perhaps more visual balloon ascent.)
On the plateau the explorers find Veronica, a Sheena-like jungle
girl clad in a brief leather two-piece. She also is an abundant
source of cleavage and is the last survivor of a previous
expedition that included her parents. She has grown up on the
plateau, and she lives in a fantastic tree house beyond anything
Tarzan imagined. It even has an elevator.
The characters are not well developed. Roxton proves to be a
likable bounder. The other males are bland and uninteresting.
Krux would be a character of some interest if she were a little
less 1999 and more 1912.
The special effects are generally indifferently executed and there
is not much real interaction between humans and dinosaurs. The
large beasts are seen most frequently from distance. The
prehistoric animals are an audience attraction, but they are a
background detail that rarely fits into the plot. In fact, before
the dinosaurs are first seen by the expedition, nobody even thinks
to ask Veronica if there are dinosaurs on the plateau or not. The
actual purpose of the expedition just never comes up. Now that is
really relegates the dinosaurs to the background and concentrates
more on the ape-men. Of course, Doyle did much the same. The
effects might have been good if seen in Willis O'Brien's day but
are really not up to 1990s standards. The images of the beasts are
just never really integrated into scenes with people and frequently
there are bad matte lines. When a pterodactyl grabs Roxton and
carries him off the lizard undulates in air with the wing-beats,
but Roxton remains rigid.
This version is more just a castaway story than a serious
adaptation of Doyle's book. It is reminiscent of the old
children's program "The Land of the Lost." The pilot is less
interested in telling Doyle's story as in setting up the television
series.
This brings us to the television series. Episodes I have seen have
not been very interesting and not very faithful to the Doyle. They
seem to freely move into the area of fantasy and have a lot of
female flesh. Some of the writing is painfully bad. While
searching for a way off the plateau the trapped explorers find what
Challenger calls an "ocean"--on the plateau. He wants to find a
sea route off the plateau. How exactly does he think that would
work? How do you have an ocean lapping at the top of a plateau?
But even while this "sci-fi" series was being produced techniques
for creating animal images on film improved. And Doyle's story
was, as always, the perfect showcase for the new effects. So two
years later the story was filmed a sixth time.
THE LOST WORLD (2001)
It is not like previous decade had not had several adaptations of
Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD. But after the BBC finished
their "Walking with Dinosaurs" with very realistic-looking effects,
I suspected that the next natural thing to do with this technology
for creating lifelike dinosaurs was to juxtapose them with humans.
No respectable non-fiction presentation could do that. One would
have to do a story in which humans interface closely with the
dinosaurs. There is only one classic, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE
LOST WORLD. (Note: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH does have
humans in viewing distance of an ichthyosaur fighting a plesiosaur,
but these are not really dinosaurs and it is only one sequence.)
So once again the Doyle was adapted.
The BBC, in cooperation with the A&E cable network, brought us a
new version about 165 minutes long. The special effects combine
CGI and full-scale models to give us state of the art visuals and
dinosaur images that look realistic and fit our current
paleontological knowledge.
This was, at least to my taste, the best version of the story we
are likely to get for a while. Willis O'Brien who created the
effects for the 1925 THE LOST WORLD and then was heartbroken when
lizards were used in the 1960 version of the film would have been
very pleased to see this version. Doyle might have been a little
less pleased with the liberties taken with the plot. But still it
was done on a relatively intelligent level.
Bob Hoskins takes a turn playing Challenger, a scientist with the
reputation for being a crackpot. He outdoes himself when he claims
that on his last expedition to South America he found a remote
place where dinosaurs still live. The Royal Society is skeptical
but fits out an expedition of four led by Challenger and the bland intellectual Summerlee (Edward Fox this time), a skeptic who has no
patience for Challenger's claims or eccentricities. There is also
game hunter Lord Roxton (Tom Ward) and news reporter Edward Malone
(Matthew Rhys). The expedition finds the plateau where Challenger
saw the dinosaurs all right, but their means of exit is destroyed
in a way closer than usual to the Doyle, though still somewhat
revisionist. They have to face the now all-too-real dinosaurs that
Challenger reported seeing.
None of the cinematic versions of the novel have been really
faithful. The newest version only roughly follows the Doyle and
creates two new major characters. Agnes Clooney, raised in the
jungle near the site of the plateau has lived in the jungle all her
life and will act as a guide at the plateau. Theo Kerr (Peter
Falk) is her uncle, a Bible-thumping missionary at odds with
Summerlee over the issue of Creationism and Evolution. This is a
more intelligent revision than in previous versions, but one
wonders why it is always found necessary to revise the Doyle plot.
While the triangle of Challenger, Summerlee, and Kerr contest
science, a romantic triangle of Clooney, Roxton, and Malone
sprouts. The novel is "revised" throughout. In the novel,
Challenger is the most irascible character with a reputation for
violence against newspaper reporters like Malone. Hoskins loses
this dimension and seems to be the most pleasant and amiable of the
expedition members. The story starts as great fun, though in the
last hour the writing is disappointingly pedestrian.
Among the modifications from the Doyle is the effort to humanize
the sub-human ape men on the plateau. In the book they were cruel
killers who entertained themselves dropping their enemies over
cliffs. That aspect was considerably toned down for this
television version. This is the longest version yet made so there
is more emphasis on South American color than there was even in the
novel.
The special effects are certainly what sets this version apart from
previous cinematic adaptations of the novel. Still, the dinosaurs,
while more real-looking than previous version, are not quite
integrated with the people. When we see an entire dinosaur,
requiring CGI, it cannot quite interact with the people
superimposed in the scene. It was much like early Ray Harryhausen
rarely had the creatures he created interacting directly with
people. When need be, he could have cowboys lasso a dinosaur, but
such effects were used sparingly and it showed. In this LOST WORLD
we see even less such interaction. People will be chased by a
dinosaur that looks realistic, but on a different plane from the
people. What does that mean? It is hard to describe.
Admittedly, in the 1950s it was very easy to describe what was
wrong with the special effects of a film. In the 21st century
complaints with the special effects are more abstract and harder to
explain. But some limitations are still obvious to the eye.
This is probably the best version of THE LOST WORLD since the 1925
version. It will probably be a while until a better version of THE
LOST WORLD is made.
[concluded next week]
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE by Arkady Martine (copyright 2021,
Tor, $26.99, 494pp ISBN 978-1-250-18646-1) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is the spectacular sequel to Arkady
Martine's Hugo-Award-winning novel A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE. It's
tough act to follow when your debut novel is as successful as A
MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE, but Martine manages to write not only a novel
that is as good as her first, but one that is quite possibly even
better.
Diplomat Mahit Dzmare is back on Lsel Station along with her two
imago lines of Yskander Aghavn planted firmly in her head. At the
end of MEMORY, Dzmare had alerted both Lsel and the Teixcalaan
Empire of an impending alien invasion on the outside of Teixcalaani
Space. Nine Hibiscus, and her second it command, Twenty Cicada,
are out at the forefront of the impending war with the aliens.
Things are complicated, though. She and a small fleet--small
because it just isn't big enough to deal with the impending
invasion--have been sent out by a faction that may not want her to
survive. Political forces on Lsel Station want the impending war
to drag on forever, depleting the Empire forces so it doesn't have
enough resources to eventually absorb Lsel. To make matters worse,
there apparently is no way of communicating with the enemy.
When Nine Hibiscus calls back home to get a diplomat trained in
first contact communication, Three Seagrass, by virtue of her
position in the government, assigns herself to the mission and
eventually finds and drags along Mahit with her; after all, she's
been wanting to see Mahit again and Dzmare may have just the right
kind of training to help her with this mission.
Back at the end of MEMORY, the Empire was in a state of upheaval.
There's a new emperor on the throne, and a new heir--an
eleven-year-old boy, a clone who is genetically 90% of the previous emperor--who gets involved in the political fray back home. He
assigned to be the "little spy" of the emperor, Nineteen Adze, as
she tries to figure out what is going on within her own government
and the various ministries that run it. That curious and
intelligent eleven year old, Eight Antidote, takes a lot of
initiative and goes off exploring avenues that he probably wasn't
supposed to, and he learns the ins and outs of how the ministries
work and how they're manipulating the conflict out at the edge of
the empire.
There's a lot going on here. Political intrigue both in the Empire
and at Lsel station; a conflict with an overpowering and
uncommunicative enemy; a potential plant within the fleet that may
be there to ruin the effort to resolve the conflict with the enemy;
a diplomat with two extra sets of memories running around in her
head; a pair of lovers whose conflict may derail the effort of
dealing with the enemy; and a young boy who is growing up faster
than most his age and who may just hold the key to the entire
situation.
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is the Space Opera that was promised at
the end of A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE. But it's more than just that.
It's got weight and heft. Sure, it's got frightening aliens that
the protagonists are struggling to understand. It's got space
ships shooting at each other. It's got believable characters with
real problems. It's got puzzles to solve. It's got
Empires--because after all, Space Operas have Empires. But mostly
what it has is a terrifically written story that, when combined
with its predecessor, is a good a science fiction tale as we've
seen in a very very long time. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE LOST WORLD (1998) (letter of comment by Gary McGath)
In response to Mark's comments on THE LOST WORLD (1998) in the
08/05/22 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
[Mark writes,] "Six years after the Canadian production of THE
LOST WORLD, the story was again adapted in the United States with
some unusual variations. Even the title was modified. Following
the films BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA and MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, it
became popular to include the original author's name in the title
of films based on classics. It somehow promised that the content
fidelity to the original work. BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA added a love
interest for Dracula that Bram Stoker would not have recognized,
and MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN had Victor bringing his bride back
from the dead in precisely the way that the character in the book
did not. Still, it was popular for a while to put the author's
name in the title. Hence in two years we have two different films
titled SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD." [-mrl]
Some people were so annoyed with the changes Peter Jackson made to
LORD OF THE RINGS that they said it should be called "J.R.R.
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings." [-gmg]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The MT VOID (letter of comment by Guy Lillian III)
In response primarily to the 08/05/22 issue of the MT VOID, Guy
Lillian III writes in THE ZINE DUMP #55:
Each week a new MT VOID appears in my e-mail. In it the witty
fannish duo Mark and Evelyn Leeper, plus the occasional guest,
comment on science fiction--books, films, TV--and do so with
intelligence and energy. No talk of fandom here; the subject is
the genre. In recent months, we’ve seen the team discuss and
review various interpretations, almost all awful, of Doyle’s THE
LOST WORLD, GOOD OMENS, great samurai films (including the
unforgettable DUEL ON GANRYU ISLAND), Hal Clement’s classic NEEDLE,
the re-told World War II story of Operation Mincemeat, and an
interesting look at racist robots in antique SF and how they
reflect the general social tenor of the times. Consistent,
intriguing, quality work. I must also thank Mark for his support
in my new struggle with Parkinson’s. [-gl]
Evelyn notes:
The racist robots were actually real current AIs, alas, rather than
those in antique SF. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
OLIVE ODYSSEY by Julie Angus (Greystone, ISBN 978-1-553-65514-5) is
half about the history, biology, and uses of olives and olive
trees, and half a travelogue involving a sailboat and a
ten-month-old baby. For what I was interested in, there was too
little of the former, and too much of the latter. My attitude was
not improved when Angus talked about how her baby screamed through
the entire flight from the United States to France; she expressed
no remorse about subjecting her fellow passengers to this. The
details of their difficulties in buying a sailboat had nothing to
do with olives either. (And she told someone that she had thought
that light olive oil had fewer calories than regular olive oil.)
Ultimately, I somewhat gave up, flipping through what was left of
the book to read about olives in the sections that talked about
them.
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER by Theodora Goss
(Gallery/Saga, ISBN 978-1-481-46651-6) is a mash-up of
FRANKENSTEIN, THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, and a
few other classic horror and detective tales, but with primarily
female characters. It was enjoyable enough, but at times a bit
heavy-handed, and I found it hard to suspend my disbelief that
these characters could all end up meeting each other. (I'm
interested in comparing it to THE DAUGHTER OF DOCTOR MOREAU by
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, especially as I liked her MEXICAN GOTHIC.)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest
of men, for the nastiest of motives, will somehow work
for the benefit of us all.
--John Maynard Keynes
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