Michael Crichton
November 29th, 2002
Patrick Nielsen Hayden has posted a tantalising excerpt from an article by Oliver Morton in the New Yorker's book review section about why Michael Crichton isn't a science fiction writer, no matter how often he writes about genetic engineering, chaos theory, dinosaurs and robots:
[Chrichton is] forever describing things that could change the world–but don't. The Andromeda strain of space germs mutates into harmlessness and goes away; the lost city of the Congo is wiped from the map by lava; in Sphere, the discoverers of the extraterrestrial artifact of untold power use that power to wish it into retroactive nonexistence. The fact that Crichton has no interest in showing what might have happened is what makes him a writer of suspense fiction, rather than of science fiction. A science-fiction writer would naturally want to see what would happen if the technologies stayed out of control (as most do), and might even want to ask whether the consequences would be all bad (as they often aren't). Might not free-range dinosaurs make Costa Rica an even more interesting place than it is today?
Unfortunately the full article isn't available online, so I'll have to see if I can lay my hands on a copy of the magazine before I can decide whether I agree with the writer's argument.
The segment quoted above is true as far as it goes, to be sure, but I'd like to see if the full article tackles another facet of the question, namely whether anyone who could mangle chaos theory as badly as Crichton did could possibly be considered a science fiction writer?
(OK, that's a little over the top. Scientific accuracy isn't an essential requirement for a science fiction writer, provided that they make it clear that they're not trying to predict the future but to use the standard props of the genre to tell an interesting story – see, for example, Iain M Banks' Culture novels. But it would be good to see Morton spell out how addle-brained the thinking of Ian Malcolm, the mathematician played by Jeff Goldblum in the film of Jurassic Park, was.)
November 30th, 2002 at 01:59
On the face of it, Morton's argument sounds garbage. To put it in a nutshell, he's saying that 'zero sum' plots don't count as SF. But many works generally classified as SF have a similar format, where some threat or innovation appears and is ultimately disposed of, leaving the world much the same as before.
November 30th, 2002 at 02:22
(continued) … although, as you say, this hinges on interpretation. The Electrolite posting summarises that Morton is saying Crichton's work "isn't, in a significant sense, SF". This could interpret merely as a value judgement that it isn't significant SF. But if so, I still disagree. Like HG Wells' "War of the Worlds" isn't significant because the Martians were wiped out by germs and Wells didn't show what would happen if, for instance, the world adopted cannibalised Martian technology?
November 30th, 2002 at 09:06
I think the problem is that when Crichton strays into SF territory he does nothing but zero-sum stories. If he also wrote SF stories where he explored the long-term ramifications of change in a present-day setting, or where he started and finished in a futuristic setting and spent some time showing us the ramifications of some change or other in technology or whatever it would be a different matter.
I'd say that there's a difference between deciding whether a particular story is SF and identifying a writer as an SF author. Sometimes a writer like Greg Bear will find one of his stories marketed as a technothriller (e.g. 'Darwin's Radio' a couple of years ago) but that doesn't alter Bear's status as an SF writer. The nearest Crichton has come to mainstream SF is probably 'Westworld', but that was written as a screenplay rather than adapted from a pre-existing novel.
On balance, I think Michael Crichton is no more an SF writer than Tom Clancy or Ian Fleming or Margaret Atwood or Walter Mosley.
November 30th, 2002 at 14:40
John: I don't disagree with you about Crichton; Morton's criterion just seems weak as a general identifier of SF (or significant SF). As to what an SF author is, I guess it gets into the perennial problem of classification. I prefer to judge by a book-by-book basis: many writers who'd normally be categorised as 'literary novelists' produce occasional works that would be classed by most standards as SF. Examples; Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale", Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker", Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange", Huxley's "Brave New World", Ronald Wright's "A Scientific Romance", various Angela Carter works, and so on (not forgetting Doris "I don't write SF" Lessing).
November 30th, 2002 at 15:16
Fair enough. I'm not sure a single workable definition of the genre exists, unless it's Damon Knight's "Science Fiction is what we point at when we say it."
November 30th, 2002 at 15:57
For more on strange criteria, see Ansible #151 (www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a151.html). The regular As Others See Us slot mentions "BBC Radio 4's A Good Read … Frederick Raphael and others struggled to define Ronald Wright's 'A Scientific Romance' as non-sf. No matter that its protagonist uses the Wellsian time machine to seek a future remedy for incurable disease, encountering long-term effects of global warming: the panel decreed that this couldn't be SF, because they liked the book and – Raphael's clincher – it wasn't written in the future tense".
November 30th, 2002 at 16:22
Yes, it's amazing the lengths people will go to in order to avoid applying the SF label to the work of someone from outside the ghetto.
December 2nd, 2002 at 14:19
Um… I'm no expert in this but — isn't Crichton's stuff horror??? I mean, futuristic horror, probably – but horror…
I don't see many people standing around arguing about whether or not Stephen King is Sci-Fi, when certainly some of his stories have futuristic themes or technology in them.
And I have to object to Crichton's stuff being grouped in with Tom Clancy… isn't Tom Clancy's stuff the male version of the women's romance novel? Like a "crime/war drama suspense action written for men"?
I mean, I'm not knocking the fine movies of Sean Connery & Harrison Ford. haha. I even happen to like some romance written for women.
But I'm thinking there's a vast difference between a movie like "Patriot Games" or "The Hunt for Red October" or "Clear & Present Danger" – and movies like "Videodrome", "Westworld", and "The Andromeda Strain" – 3 films which are among my favourites of all time. (Though at a local film festival event I recently saw Anne McGuire's "Strain Andromeda The" & I think I liked it even better. heh-heh.)
December 2nd, 2002 at 21:38
Identifying genre boundaries is such fun, isn't it? I'd say that Crichton certainly hammers away at the "there are things Man was not meant to tamper with/Man cannot adequately comprehend the consequences of his actions" themes in 'Jurassic Park', but I don't think that the story crosses the line into outright horror.
Stephen King has certainly written SF novels, but the genre forms a relatively small part of his output and wasn't what he first became known for: the most overtly SF of his early novels – 'The Running Man' – was published under his 'Richard Bachman' pseudonym. It's true that 'The Stand' used many of the trappings of post-apocalyptic SF, but it also featured an agent of Satan walking the Earth and a divine intervention at the climax. Not, in short, your traditional SF novel. I understand that the 'Gunslinger' novels are much closer to SF than the usual King fare nowadays, but I haven't read them so I can't vouch for that judgement myself.
I agree that 'Videodrome' is streets ahead of any Clancy adaptation, but I'd place the two Crichton adaptations on a par with 'The Hunt for Red October,' with the other Clancy adaptations well behind.
I think that Crichton's huge success in the late 80s and beyond has made him lazy. (I doubt that the 90s Crichton would have written a novel like 'Eaters of the Dead.') It's that basic predictability that makes me want to bracket him with Clancy, as much as anything else.
Incidentally, I hadn't heard of McGuire's film until now. Having googled a bit to find out more, I can't quite decide whether it's a brilliant idea or a gimmick which will become awfully tiring after ten minutes or so. I'd love to see someone pull the same trick with '2001: A Space Odyssey.'
December 3rd, 2002 at 05:28
Well, to be honest… see, I can't agree with considering Clancy very good at all… but that MIGHT be my perspective, as a woman, really feeling that they're "guy" movies "meant for men" in some kind of way that I just can't get past.
Not that I can't get past that sometimes… Hard to describe, but it's kind of like me & my friend (female) watched that "A Knight's Tale" – it was recommended to me by a man… Anyway, we really enjoyed it, entertainment wise – but through most of it we kept laughing about how it was so male-viewpoint skewed. But then, that was okay, because it was meant as a silly movie. When it's a serious movie, it's harder to get past maybe?
About Crichton & laziness… My friend says the same thing about Soderberg (spelling?) who did the new Solaris.
And would the 10-year-ago Soderberg come so close to ripping off "2001: A space Odyssey"? My friend wonders what made him start having "stars" like Clooney in his movies… I say yeah – maybe laziness – maybe money?
I look forward to seeing the original Solaris, now that I was disappointed in the new one. It really could've been good… but failed in a few ways for me.
And to be honest, I have only actually watched one Clancy movie all the way through – and I really haven't seen a lot of post-1990 Crichton movies.
For example, I've only seen about half of Jurassic Park, and none of the sequel.
Having seen "Strain Andromeda The"… I can honestly say that the same thing could NOT be done with every movie. Like there's no way it would work with "2001", in my opinion.
And actually, "The Andromeda Strain" was possibly the best movie she could've picked to do that with. Unless of course, she got the idea with "The Andromeda Strain" already in mind… which would really make sense.
I actually thought it was actually good. It got a little frustrating at times. I didn't remember the movie being that long – yet I knew what was coming next, of course, because I'd seen it, albeit years ago.
Overall, I'd have to say though that it was worth seeing.
December 3rd, 2002 at 22:39
I think you're quite right about Clancy's books being prime "guy movie" material. One element which makes 'The Hunt for Red October' a cut above the others is that it doesn't focus so much on the Jack Ryan character and has Sean Connery as the other main star.
I think Soderbergh has a couple of good reasons for making movies with big stars, but the biggest one is that by doing a highly professional job of directing more commercial films he can maintain enough credit with the studios to get the chance to make more offbeat projects. A decade ago he was between 'Kafka' and 'King of the Hill', and was about to spend five years going nowhere in particular until 'Out of Sight' put him back in the limelight. I can't criticise Soderbergh for grabbing the chance the latter film gave him. Back in the early 90s nobody would have thought of Soderbergh for a film like 'Solaris'.
'Solaris' is hardly the first SF film your average director would choose to remake, let alone ask George Clooney to star in. If it's possible to do so without spoilers, could you say why you found it unsatisfactory?
'Strain Andromeda The' definitely sounds like something I'll have to watch out for. It's a crazy idea, but it might just work…
December 6th, 2002 at 05:09
Without spoiling anything…
fter speaking to a friend of mine who's seen the original, we discussed both movies (I haven't seen the original). And we came to the conclusion that most of the problems I had with the new one aren't present in the old one.
The acting was not a problem. The visuals were not a problem.
Visually the movie was pretty darn good. And as for the actors… I thought they were all quite good. Particularly the 2 people (a man and a woman) who work on the space station, who are there when Clooney arrives.
The problem either lied in the script or possibly the editing.
I'm willing to give Soderbergh the benefit of the doubt and say he was forced into making poor editing choices.
My guess is that important pieces were cut, which would've been the cohesion for the film.
If the film wasn't cut, it definitely would've been too long. (I heard the original is actually longer than it had to be… maybe. But this one could've been a lot shorter, I think.)
However, if they cut a lot of the long drawn-out sappy scenes, (which did really drag on) and kept whatever might've been there to pull things together better… it may have worked.
That said… a lot of the long drawn-out sappy scenes are the ones that had a lot of Clooney-butt. Which is probably why they weren't cut down.
Having said that… I don't believe the movie would've been any more popular than the original had it been as I would've thought it was better. That is, I think I may have liked it, but I'll admit it wouldn't have made it any more appealing to the general audience.
But as it was, it didn't appeal to the general public ANYWAY.
So, in short, I believe that the problem was probably that they tried to take a movie that would never be generally popular, and tried to make it into one that would.
In trying to please everyone, I think they wound up pleasing NO ONE.
At least that's the impression I got from people I overheard talking after the movie ended, and while walking out of the cinema.
Apparently EVEN the people who went specifically to see Clooney's butt, didn't think it was worth it. haha.
December 8th, 2002 at 22:57
Thanks for the mini-review.
I'm pretty sure I'll head to the cinema to see Solaris when it shows up over here. Since 2002: A Space Odyssey is pretty much my favourite film of all time, I feel obliged to check out the competition.