Fear Is the Mind-Killer. It's Also the People-Killer, in Florida.

Trayvon Martin is dead. Apparently he was walking while black, with a hoodie no less. He was shot by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman. We can talk about race, and many people have, and the consequences of racism in our society today, and how it factored into this shooting. But I'm not going to talk about that.

I'd rather talk about the law that is the reason, apparently, the shooter hasn't been arrested yet. Florida has an "shoot first ask questions later" law, basically. Called the "stand your ground" law, it authorizes you to use lethal force if you have a reasonable suspicion they are going to assault you or that you will need to defend yourself. It's pre-emptive strikes.

There are many things that are wrong about this. Though I agree that self-defense should be a viable option, and that determining when a situation becomes self-defense are tricky, this law gives immunity to people because they can claim that they were "standing their ground," even if they're lying through their teeth. The actual law itself says: He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. But proving that state of mind (or rather, disproving it) is so problematic that "in case after case during the past six years, Floridians who shot and killed unarmed opponents have not been prosecuted." Even though the main sponsor of the bill believes it was not applicable in the Trayvon case, it appears the law is still making it far too easy to get away with killing somebody. Why? Well, it's simple really.

My inner Sith Lord is laughing. All you have to do is be afraid and you're justified in shooting somebody?

I'm still afraid of the dark, for crying out loud. When I turn off the lights and head to bed I, to this very day, have to actually attempt to slow down my racing heartbeat and calm my breathing if I've even thought of something scary, which of course I always do when I turn off the lights. Thanks Marble Hornets.

You'll forgive me if I don't think your irrational fear (and let's face it, fear is rarely rational) is worth somebody's life. This article from the WaPo does a great job of discussing fear and its relevance (or non-relevance) to the Trayvon Martin case. It's worth reading.

I don't trust the rest of humanity to not be fearful. It's hard-wired into our brain from the days in our ancient history when lightning and predators at night were real threats. It exists in all of us. It shouldn't alone be justification for killing. What we need are less animals, and more humans, as per Dune.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

When we have more people who abide by that, and less "Fear. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering," then we should have such fast and loose self-defense laws. But not until. Because there's plenty of suffering in Florida right now among Trayvon's family and friends, and it was because someone couldn't control his fear.

Review: John Carter

Most of my prayer was answered. My inner child isn’t fully resurrected. He’s back on life support, but keep in mind that’s improvement over being completely dead.

Let’s talk about a few things, before we get into the review itself.

First, if you can’t understand the appeal of sword fighting and such action, go home. Roger Ebert, I’m talking to you.

Second, if you want reality, don’t go see a movie where Mars is depicted as a planet with sentient beings on it. If you are incapable of suspending your disbelief for the sake of a story or a good time at the movies, go watch the Discovery Channel.

Third, it’s annoying that a movie can make $100 million internationally its first weekend and be called a flop. What? I admit that the numbers were lower than perhaps many had hoped, but, geez, put things in perspective.

I really enjoyed John Carter, as I hoped I would. I’ve seen it twice already, one midnight showing (Susan is so great, she came with me) and once Saturday with some friends of mine. The friends of mine who were not able to see it yesterday will be going with me again to see it next weekend. Doing my best to make sure this gets sequels.

So everybody reading this—go see it. :)

The story is actually pretty cliché, but remember that the serials started coming out 100 years ago, before all this stuff was cliché. (Actually, he wrote it about 20 years after the word “cliché” was first used, according to Merriam-Webster.com. Ha!) A dispirited U.S. civil war veteran, John Carter, finds himself suddenly transported to Mars (”Barsoom,” to its inhabitants), where he meets strange creatures, gets caught up in a war there and falls in love with the hot princess. Since Mars has lower gravity, he’s quicker, stronger, more agile, and can jump incredible distances, and so becomes the linchpin in turning the tide of the war despite the machinations of those orchestrating it.

Things I really liked about it:

Dejah Thoris-I had my doubts about Lynn Collins as the Princess of Mars. I’d like to publicly apologize to her for having them. The character is a strong-willed woman who is very much capable of holding her own on a warring planet. But, circumstances make it impossible for her, even a very competent, capable person, to save herself from those circumstances. So while she’s no damsel in distress, John Carter still gets to save the day. The balance worked well, and there’s no denying that Collins and Taylor Kitsch (Carter) had chemistry.

The more centralized plot script. One of the things that’s fun, but a bit annoying about the original Edgar Rice Burroughs book A Princess of Mars is that it was written as a serial. Practically every chapter ends with cliffhangers, and there isn’t a central villain or theme, really. It’s just a Virginan fighting man running around on Mars having adventures. Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo) and Michael Chabon (winner of the Pulitzer prize) have done a good job of incorporating elements from ERB’s first three novels so that there’s more to sink your teeth into. The evil Therns, in particular, are changed quite a bit, but in ways that serve the story. I’ve never been one to say that movies have to religiously follow the books, and in this case, the changes definitely helped the story. Some reviews I read complained that there was too much going on. I’m sorry that Stanton and Chabon assumed you could follow something more complicated than “Hulk Smash!” I admit, it’s a little dense and some exposition here or there might have helped a bit more, but, really, it’s fine, and I thought the whole thing worked quite well.

The jumping. John Carter is a prototype superhero, the precursor to Superman leaping tall buildings in a single bound because of earth’s lower gravity. I read one review that discussed how cheesy the jumping was, but I thought the scene where he discovers the gravity is lower was quite delightful. But he figures it out and within 48 hours is leaping from airship to airship in one of the action sequences. This more than anything is what helped my inner child resuscitate. Being able to jump like that would be pretty awesome, and yes, I've fantasized about it since seeing the movie. That action sequence stuck with me, and the music from it is still stuck in my head. Speaking of which . . .

The score. Fantastic job by Michael Giacchino. It feels very vintage John Williams, actually, with very clear and memorable themes that weave together in the various sequences in ways that subtly aid the movie.

What it lacked:

A good marketing campaign. Disney, you suck. If you loose money on this, it your own fault. But I bet between the international box office, not to mention DVD sales, etc. that it will do okay.

A good title. John Carter of Mars was a much better name than just John Carter. This might be a subset objection to the point about Disney’s marketing. (Put simply, if your audience is put off by "Of Mars," they’re not going to be hugely interested in a movie called "John Carter" either.) Clearly people hate movies that take place on other planets, since Avatar only made $2.7 billion, so let’s remove “of Mars” from the title so it sounds like a movie about some generic lawyer, that way more people will go see it! … What?

Swashbuckle. There’s some pretty good action sequences here. Great ones, even. But there weren’t any duels of any kind despite several opportunities. If sequels get made, I hope there’s a tad more focus on that kind of action. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with the Barsoom books in the first place. There’s a happy medium between nothing but action and nothing but story, but I think this one was just slighty tilted too much towards the story. The scene where John Carter goes all Achilles on a horde of martians chasing the princess wasn’t an action scene. Having seen it twice, you can barely tell that the bodies are piling up around him.

John Carter as a gentleman or a boy scout. He really is a precursor to Superman. One of the things I enjoyed about the character in the books is that he’s just . . . good. Now we have him more as a broken man who wants to do nothing but get rich and then avoid humans until he sees the evil of what is going on with the Martian war and has a change of heart. I hope, again SciFi and Fantasy Gods willing, that in the sequels there’s less of this and more just John Carter running around saving the day because he can and because the day needs to be saved.

I’ll be going to see it at least one more time, and will get the DVD when it comes out. Also, having recently reread the first three of the Barsoom novels, I definitely will be reading those to my kids someday. It’s glad to see John Carter of Mars finally get his just due treatment. He’s 100 years old as of last month, and now that he’s finally made the leap to the big screen, he’s never looked better, in my mind.

Overall score: 95. This one definitely gets an A.

Edit: Of my friends I convinced to see it this weekend (who all liked it, I add) David, in particular, really enjoyed it-here's his review.

Re: The Garden of Eden in Missouri. You Read It Here First.

The LDS church just put out a Mormonism 101 Q&A. I particularly liked this one:

Q. Do Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden is in Missouri?

A. We do not know exactly where the original site of the Garden of Eden is. While not an important or foundational doctrine, Joseph Smith established a settlement in Daviess County, Missouri, and taught that the Garden of Eden was somewhere in that area. Like knowing the precise number of animals on Noah’s ark, knowing the precise location of the Garden of Eden is far less important to one’s salvation than believing in the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Just remember, you read it here first.

Also, if you'd like to read my really big mondo post on creation, the garden of eden, evolution, etc. here it is.

A Prayer to the Gods of Science Fiction and Fantasy On Behalf of John Carter

Oh Ye Gods of Science Fiction and Fantasy!

I come before you a broken man. Years ago I had an inner child. This inner child made my parents despair because I would write fantasy novels instead of papers for my English class in high school. It aggravated my teachers in elementary school because I would pretend my pencil was a rocket ship, complete with sound effects. It annoyed my soccer coach because I’d rather sit down on the field and fantasize about flying than participate in the game. I can still remember organizing the entire family together in our front room, arrayed like the bridge on the Enterprise-D.

But my inner child is dead now. I can point to the exact moment it died, long after it should have. I held on to that childlike wonder until 2004, the childlike wonder of being transported to another place or another time or another universe not my own. Your fallen prophet, George Lucas, killed my inner child. But I have not abandoned the faith. I still read from your sacred texts, O Gods of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Since that horrible moment in 2004 I have discovered many wonderful new shows and books and graphic novels and video games and movies. But none of them held the same amazement and escapism that I was once capable of.

But I come to you with hope. For this year one of your earliest sacred texts is finally making the leap to the big screen. I speak, of course, of A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs being adapted into Disney's John Carter. The character turns 100 this very year! And yet Burroughs’ Barsoom series is far too much forgotten these days, even if it has been explicitly acknowledged by those who have used its ideas for their own movies.

Despite the prayers of many of the faithful, it has languished in movie development hell since the 1930s, when it was almost the first animated film, by the Looney Toons guy no less. (Oh how different would cinematic history have been if John Carter of Mars had been made instead of Snow White!)

Though that is a longer exile to development hell than any movie I’m aware of, it was worth the wait. I acknowledge your mercy in deciding whose hands the granddaddy of all science fiction adventure would fall into.

Thank you, for granting the rights to Disney and Pixar! Thank you that your servant, Andrew Stanton, has written and directed it, the man who took a movie about a fish and a movie that was half silent movie about a small robot who cannot talk, and won two Academy Awards! He’s a big fan of the Barsoom books, too, so at least in your graciousness we have that going for the project. (You Gods were merciful when the project was NOT granted to Tom Cruise and John McTiernan back in 1992.) The music is being scored by Michael Giacchino. Initial reviews of the movie have been positive. I have much reason to hope, but for me hope itself is painful.

Because, as you know, so many other good science fiction and fantasy projects have not seen the light of day, or have been cancelled before their time-just this very day I was saddened by the loss of Terra Nova (Fox is obviously another of the devils sent to thwart your plans, as evidenced by their cancelling Firefly 10 years ago.) I worry for the general future of science fiction and fantasy in movies and on TV. Disney’s marketing of this adaptation of your early sacred text has been lacking, prompting criticisms from many sources.
At least there are those true believers among us who make good fan trailers for it.


But please. Please. It’s been so long since I’ve wanted to pretend I’m flying, or that I’m sword fighting with someone with the fate of many people in the balance, or rescuing the princess, or anything, really, like that. It’s been so long since I’ve experience the wonder of escapism, despite the fact that I still play Dungeons and Dragons.

Many of my favorite shows simply don’t hold the same delight to me I used to have. I genuinely wonder if the fact that I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica and Stargate: Universe so much was because I was in a darker place with regard to the kinds of stories I liked to watch. A few days ago, I even had to look up the subtitle for Star Wars Episode II, because I had so dismissed the movie in my own mind, apparently.

But this Friday, at midnight, all that might go away. So I implore you, I beseech you, I beg of you, Oh Gods of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I call upon all the wondrous creations you have given my imagination. I call upon the Weirding Ways of the Bene Gesserit Witches, I call upon the Deep Magic of Narnia, I call upon the mysterious technologies of the Tycho Monolith and its brothers, the Ansible, the Magic of the Istari Wizards of Middle-Earth, the collected wisdom of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Three Laws of Robotics, the Stargate, the Jedi Council, the ancient rites of the Necronomicon, anything, everything, to Beam my inner child back from what feels so far away to me it might as well be The Phantom Zone.

I just want to feel like a child again. The second trailer for John Carter already gave my dead inner child a small, yet temporary, lease on life. But I don't want it to just be temporary. I want my inner child to fully resurrect. I know this is possible. One reviewer said "I didn’t know I still had an inner 12 year old in me, but there he was at the JOHN CARTER screening, hepped up on crack."

So I implore you, as one of your most devout adherents, but as one who has lost his way. In your reality spanning-power, bless that when I see it this Friday morning at midnight, that my inner child may be returned to me.

And also bless that enough other people will go see it that Andrew Stanton will be able to finish the rest of the John Carter Trilogy. [Those of you listening in on my prayer, this would be you.]

In the name of the “big three” science fiction writers, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke (and of course invoking the name of J.R.R. Tolkien) . . .

Amen.