Game of Thrones.

Writing about the TV series Game of Thrones and its fantasy book series and source material A Song of Ice and Fire, has been on my ‘to do list’ for a few weeks now. During the controversy of the last few episodes of the recently broadcast season 5, I held back commenting via this blog, preferring instead to post the odd tweet and share online articles on my Facebook newsfeed, whilst waiting for the season to finish, so I can then write about it with knowledge of any any organic resolutions to those controversial moments.

But as always is the way of a writer, both published and non-published, other stuff got in the way. Work on a novel took importance, whilst a pause from that has led me to a short story.

However, having received the last edition of ‘Interzone’, and started by reading the regular feature ‘Time Pieces’ by the excellent Nina Allan (check out her story ‘Marielena’ in Interzone #254 for a wonderful example of her writing), now seems as good a time as any.

Unfortunately I have no link, so you will need to read the feature yourself - and if you love diverse and interesting science fiction and fantasy, yet don’t regularly read Interzone, why not?

She admits that she hasn’t read any of A Song of Ice and Fire, saying, quite honestly, that she can’t justify the time commitment. I myself, have gotten four books in - well three books as the third is a two volume set. Her reasoning is the same I used up until last summer when I decided to give it a go, having been an avid watcher of Game of Thrones since it first begun. It is a series that at times drags, and I made the conscious decision to dip in and out of it, so I didn’t miss out on other genre novels that caught my eye. Nina also admits to only being halfway through season 2, so skipped ahead to see what the fuss was all about in regards those controversial season 5 episodes and in particular the scene involving the rape of Sansa Stark by Ramsay Bolton (whilst Theon/Reek was forced to look on).

Some would argue, that she perhaps needed to invest in the entire series before commenting on it. This though would be a weak argument but I am sure she did her research via the many online spoilers for all series before writing her piece.

The main criticism of that scene is the violence towards women. In fact it is in some ways the straw that broke the proverbial camel as this isn’t the first rape scene in the show and in the books. It is a very difficult scene to watch, less because of what you see, and more that we, as the audience, are viewing it through the eyes of Theon/Reek (I assume anybody reading this will have knowledge of why I use both names). Which is why, I believe Nina is missing the point when she argues that “Sansa is currency.” Theon/Reek is also being used as currency. Having watched the past three seasons, where Theon goes from arrogant, misogynistic lord to quivering wreck; tortured and belittled, manipulated and having the symbol of his sexuality removed from him. It was just an organic step to see him so frightened, yet so submissive to sit there in fear watching it happen, not having a single ounce of strength, both mentally and physically, to help her. This whole process of turning Theon into Reek has hardly been mentioned at all by critics of the show - dare I say it, but would the reaction have been more angry, if Theon has have been a woman and not a man being tortured by another man?

But of course, it is also difficult to defend the rape of Sansa, any rape is difficult to defend in a form of entertainment. The whole purpose of Ninas’s article was due to the writer of A Song of Fire and Ice, George R R Martin defending the use of rape in his series and subsequently the TV series. He argues that this was what life was like in the medieval world, and he has chosen to create a fantasy world based on that same medieval world, so he feels it would be dishonest not to include rape. Its an argument that on the face of it, makes perfect sense. However, there is a feeling that with the Sansa rape scene, it wasn’t particularly organic. Yes, Ramsay is a monster, and he’s hardly going to be all lovey-dovey with his new wife on their wedding night - so the rape made sense. However, its seems to me, Nina may very well be onto something, when she refers to Sansa as “currency”. There was no real logical and organic reason why she was sent to marry Ramsay in the first place? Was she a pawn of master manipulator Littlefinger? Or as I suspect, was it a device to get her into a situation, where Theon/Reek finally finds the strength to rise up against his tormentor (see final episode of Season 5). If this is the case, then the criticism is justified.

My main issue at the time, and still is an issue was the reaction. What made this particular scene so wrong in the eyes of many watching it, yet other equally shocking scenes didn’t register on the moral compass? One must remember that as early as the first two episodes in Season 1, Daenerys, a young bride is raped by her new husband on their wedding night. And who can forget ‘The Red Wedding’, where a number of important characters are slaughtered in a brutal and violent fashion, including the pregnant wife of one major character being stabbed in the belly - try watching this scene with a heavily pregnant wife, understandably upset.

So why wasn’t there such uproar after those scenes? Why didn’t viewers switch off in disgust two episodes in when Daenerys was raped? Was the real issue, less with rape, and more simply that Sansa is a popular character (I believe Nina has at least made her argument with no bias towards the character - unlike others)?

Which is one of the main points and reasons for my liking of the seried. No one is safe. There are no ‘main characters’ to cheer on. No Frodo to overcome great odds. No Luke Skywalker to realise his destiny. In all honesty, apart from Daenerys, it is quite difficult to pinpoint who will win the Game of Thrones at the end, and even then she isn’t far from reaching a grizzly end. It may be, that the final resolution will be, that the Boltons, the brutal and sadistic family win.

That is the beauty of the show. Its unpredictable. It has its flaws, nothing is perfect after all. Nina, could do with watching season three and the development of Brienne as a woman knight in a world dominated by males, when she attacks Martin for “suggesting that the number of intelligent, freethinking women in any given society is mainly dependent on the extent to which men are prepared to allow and encourage their wives and daughters to be those things.” Brienne is a knight, because she wants to be one, and she will fight with every ounce of strength to be one and carry on being one. Here is a a strong woman and perhaps a role model for young women, and equally me, who wish to see some equality in their genre fiction. Like all characters in the series, she has moments of weakness and moments of strength, much like any other strong male character, and it could be argued, in a world with a lot of male characters dying, her survival is a small victory.

Before I finish, I will go back quickly to the Sansa rape scene. What was lost in a swirl of controversy and anger, was the superb acting from the three actors in the scene. The anguish and torture on the face of Theon/Reek or the fearful duty of Sansa, or the sadistic brutality of Ramsay, all three deserve plaudits, not to be mere currency in a different game of thrones - that of the anger from those opposed to it going up against the writers trying to justify a potentially unjustifiable scene.

TFI Friday and my era - the 90's

Having been born in 1980, the 80’s nostalgia fad that seemingly comes around every couple of years, always never felt right for me. I was just too young to have truly lived it. Yes, I can click “Like” on those many Facebook posts that go around proclaiming how wonderful your childhood was if you were born before 1985 (or whatever 1980s year the creator of said post goes with), but the naivety of childhood meant I was only aware through my mum, and my grandparents, of more grownup things the 80s was remembered for. And at that age, I didn’t have any choice in what 80s fashion to dress in - my mum decided.

So the 90s were more my era, having lived my entire teenage years in that decade, had greater understanding and appreciation of the music, popular culture and fashion (although I failed there too). As I write this, the funny thing I keep thinking, is that until last night, I always thought I missed out on being part of an “era”. As mentioned earlier, I was too young for any of the many 80’s eras, I was born after everything from punk to disco to rock n roll. The 90’s always felt not so great or memorable.

Yet it was. Certainly more so than the decade that followed, where I was in my twenties, and saw the explosion in tech from MP3 players to mobile phones to the beginnings of reality based TV and talent contests giving potential pop singers a jumping of the queue to success (but only if the producer of the show wanted them to win).

I now realise, I had a great era. The time of cool Britannia, a pre war criminal Tony Blair, Britpop and the explosion in 60s influenced indie music. A premiership football league on the cusp of an explosion in high money and foreign imports, yet still with the feel of a game for the working class person.

It was also a time when TV was at least entertaining. No reality shows, no talent contests with people desperate for a nano-second of fame. And non typified this more than TFI Friday. So it was a pleasure to sit down and watch last nights anniversary show, or as host Chris Evans described it, a chance to have a final show.

If the Internet broke due to Jeremy Clarkson and his dinosaur ways, it would have regressed back to its pre 1995 state, if TFI Friday was a regular series now. It was loud, brash, sometimes sexist - okay nearly always sexist. It typified the lad and laddette culture of the 90’s. It was dangerously close to the edge, with risque guests swearing three hours before the watershed - it would never be broadcast live at 6pm nowadays.

Of course, I’m not selling it very well. This was unashamedly anti-PC at a time when political correctness was just starting to develop. However, it was clever and of the times. Host Chris Evans was at his very best, almost ready to tip over the edge and go too far (the show ended abruptly, when in his words ‘went a bit mad’).

As a teenager on a eager quest to find new and exciting bands, ones who were at their best in the live arena, TFI Friday was the show to watch with all the cool bands of the 90s playing live on the show. I remember Faith No More appearing, a band I only knew by name, yet the next day I went out and brought their latest single that had been performed on the show.

Its also easy to pin the success on Chris Evans who by being host on this show could play to his strengths. Yet its also easy to forget one of the greats of TV Danny Baker was the writer on the show.

This was more than a talk show, or a music show, it also had its silliness. From Freak or Unique, to Its your letters, to the constant cooing of ‘Wiiiiiillllll’ to its producer Will MacDonald, who was in some ways more than just a sidekick to Chris Evans, he was very much a man who should be knighted for always remaining calm during the hurricane effect of Chris Evans. By the way, whatever anti-ageing cream Will is using, should be the biggest seller of that kind.

The issue with comebacks like this, are that watching it again with the same people twenty years on, sometimes ruins the memory. We’re all grown up now with families, jobs and the show could have seemed almost embarrassing now. Yet it wasn’t. It is what TV light entertainment should be, entertaining. As a friend put on Facebook after five minutes, ‘TFI Friday is already better than 99.9% of whats usually on TV’. Yes, it may struggle to fit in to a culture where you can’t say anything in case you offend someone, but maybe that is needed.

A run in the park.

The word phenomenon is one that can be overused. Innovation is another word often overused when it really isn’t warranted. However, when it comes to Parkrun, they are most certainly not overused. Put simply, Parkrun is the biggest phenomenon in running today and its biggest innovation for decades, if not of all time.

Parkrun is simple. At 9am, each Saturday, in parks across the country (330 and counting and many more dotted around the globe), runners turn up and run a 5k run with other runners for free. Yes, for free. All they have to do is is register at www.parkrun.org.uk and print off a barcode which they bring with them. This gets scanned, along with a finish token, at the end of the event and later that day they find out what time they did, and what position they came, via a text and email. Simple process really.

The beauty of this event is that it can be whatever the individual running it, wants it to be. From the fast club runner looking to race to the person running their very first 5k, everyone is catered for, and no one is looked down upon for being slow or for walking. Runners run with friends, family, their children or just on their own to clear their head - I once read a lovely story where a man who was dealing with mental health problems sighted Parkrun as a big help for him.

I also once read someone describe Parkrun as the perfect example of socialism and a fairer society, with every runner applauding each other and socialising with friends in this little community that will inevitably grow as each parkrun grows organically. I would go one better and say its an example of a community that carries the best from both the left and the right, as Parkrun also rewards its runners for hard work and loyalty, by issuing T-Shirts to any runner who runs 50, 100, 250 and if you are a junior runner, 10 runs. There are now going to be T-Shirts for those who volunteer 25 times - a reward for helping to put on the event.

I myself attend the Kingsbury Water Parkrun and have done so on a regular basis since it started in July 2013. Well it is only 10 minutes from my house! I have run there often and I also volunteer a fair bit, so my wife can also run it (I have our son). We have made a lot of good friends and look forward to it each and every Saturday.

Of course, as we anything in life, there will be detractors, which in the case of Parkrun are the very rare breed that is the snobby club runner, that feels clubs should be the hub of the running community and paid up races should be the event they come to race. Luckily, most in clubs don’t think like that, and see the bigger picture - thousands more are running who may not have without the accessibility of Parkrun, and these people may go on to look at the local club scene and have the confidence to run longer and harder events thanks to Parkrun.

Not bad for an event started in London, by a runner who was out injured and wanted to keep being involved in a sport he loved, so organised a small time trial that anybody could take part in.

Now, if only my son could hurry up and grow up so we can take him to Parkrun to run it.

My reaction to the UK General Election 2015

The dust has settled, and the fallout has been loud and split. Somehow, the Tories managed to defy seemingly large odds, and get enough seats to win a majority. Social media isn’t the best indicator, but is probably just as good a snapshot of what the voting public are thinking as the traditional polls are, and based on my own Facebook feed and the various re-tweets and tweets from people I follow, the Tories were almost seen as the party of the devil in the lead up to the vote.

As I joked this morning on Facebook, it is clear Tories don’t use social media! This was said in jest as of course its difficult to truly get a snapshot of society via social media - much like in real life I will choose who I am friends with and who I follow on twitter. This will mean they follow the same politic idealism as I do.

However, this isn’t entirely true. I know some of my friends are people I went to school with, a time when our political views haven’t quite been shaped. Others will be, in my case, people I have met in the running and triathlon scene, and again political opinions aren’t important. Add to that people I have worked with and family members and again, political opinions aren’t important. Personally, I have no problem with someone who has different political views - I just draw the line on the extreme left or right, which would have been very blatant when that person first entered my life.

Looking at my friends list and those I follow, its a mixed bag of political opinions and I like that. Yet I can only think of one, maybe two people who were very pro Tory in their posts in recent weeks. So does this mean, the traditional Tory simply stays quiet, or is even slightly ashamed to vote due to the big vocal left representation that may attack them from every angle?

Its very interesting and has felt almost bizarre. At best I felt that whoever gained the most votes would not win enough for a majority and it would be very close. At first I felt another coalition would be the only option. However, it was clear, the Tories had no support from other parties so would struggle to form a coalition this time around, and Ed Miliband would commit career and political suicide if he formed a coalition, especially with the SNP after making it perfectly clear he wouldn’t do so. This meant at best I thought the winning party would attempt to form a government even without the majority.

But this has not been the case at all and somehow the Tories have won with a majority. Now this is where things get interesting. They won the most seats and reached the number of seats needed to get the majority. But the share of the vote was 36.8% - hardly what you call a majority. It means just over a third of those who voted did so for the winning party. 12.1% voted UKIP who somehow got only 1 seat - not a bad thing I might add. 4.7% voted SNP who got 56 seats and understandably UKIP are probably feeling this is unfair. I can not stand their politics and firmly believe they have a far right agenda that they are pushing behind the scenes, but they should have won or lost fairly.

This is our own fault. We had the chance to change the voting system and voted to keep the standard “fast past the post” system. A proportionate representation voting system would have meant 80 plus seats for UKIP, 24 for Greens and the Tories would have won by only a few votes. http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-parliament-proportional-representation/20893 shows this. However I must be quick to add, that page is based on the current votes, some of which would have been the tactical kind often seen in FPTP voting. Its also worth noting that FPTP is not going away - why would the new Tory government change a system that puts them at an advantage?

As people who read my last blog a week ago will know, I changed from being a Tory to a green voter this year. I can say, hand on heart, I am pleased I made that decision. I am proud to have joined the one million plus who voted for them (a 400% increase from 2010) and my conscious feels clear today. I have no regret and will be supporting the Green Party for the foreseeable future.

One thing that has irritated me today are labour voters complaining that the Tories will now privatise and destroy the NHS. This may very well be the truth, however the Tories are only doing what Labour started when they were in power. Labour are basically the Twin Tory Party but in red. They are now as right wing as the Tories and can thank Tony Blair and his legacy. New Labour pandered to the right to get votes from the Tories. For Labour to truly be an alternative they will need to have a change in ideology and become a real alternative to the Tories. Maybe a return to their socialist past? Maybe a very clear centre left agenda?

As for the Lib Dems, well they took a right kicking, and probably paid for forming a coalition government and bending over to take a shafting on issues they were very much against in the build up to the election in 2010. Which is a shame as Nick Clegg in particular is a very likable politician in a world of backstabbers and sharks. As a Green voter the time is right for them to take off where the Lib Dems were and be the liberal voice of the UK.

Whatever happens next, it will be an interesting five years and one I hope will see further rise in support for the Greens, a good strong Labour with good leadership to be a good opposition, one that will push the Tories on everything, and a UKIP that will slowly die off.

Why I'm voting Green

I’ll be honest from the start; I am traditionally a Tory voter. I was brought up a Tory, and remember going to visit the Houses of Parliament as a child and being somewhat disappointed that Maggie Thatcher wasn’t there, leading to a friend of her private secretary arranging for a signed photograph from the PM to be sent to me.

I did go through the “New Labour” phase that so many in my generation did regardless of their usual political opinions (I’m pretty sure Tony Blair utilized the same tactic as The Master, as played by John Simm, in Dr Who).

Yet, I still came back to the Tories and have voted for them in the last two general elections, believing that they were the right party to form a government. I believe in good conservative values of hard work being rewarded. Of people striving to make a go of it, and not relying on others.

Now, I have that out on the table, you are probably wondering why I would go from the right to the left? Why would I vote Green?

Truth be told, I can’t really pinpoint a moment when I started to look at them as a viable option. I can’t really recall when I became, what can only be described, as a disgruntled Tory.

Was it their push for the high speed rail link that will destroy local countryside, including a lovely waterpark I use on a daily basis, and benefit no one but those that will be able to afford the high ticket prices - and in the 21st century, business people need high speed broadband to make conference video calls, not fast travel to get to meetings?

Could it be, the mismanaging of the public spending cuts? As someone vehemently against striking I have found myself supporting the fire service strikes. Cuts to the frontline are not good. Changes in pensions are not good. When a company goes through a cost cutting exercise, it does so using marginal cuts and by stopping wastage. If cuts were needed, then look at the wasteful bureaucracy of middle-management in the various public departments.

Having friends in teaching has meant I've seen first hand what happens to good teachers driven almost crazy by changes in education in the last five years. As a parent of a child who will be school during the next term of government, I want him to be taught but happy teachers, not teachers under constant pressure. I also want him to develop at his own pace - the zero tolerance the Tories are proposing for children not meeting certain levels in maths and English by certain ages is disgraceful.

If there was one certainty on my switch to Green, it is simply because when you become a parent, that what is important to you changes and you start to think in terms of what the world will be like for your child when he or she is your age. Yes, I am better off under the Tories, but will my boy be better off living in a world they want? I think the answer is a big no.

Do I want him growing up in a world where we as a nation we spend billions on a nuclear weapon system that belongs in a time where the nuclear threat came from other nations, but groups with no fixed abode? No, I don’t.

Do I want him growing up in a world, where the divide between rich and poor gets bigger year by year? Where food banks become the norm for more and more people year by year? Where corporations cheat the tax system? Where people who are rich lose sight of their basic humanity?

Do I want him growing up in a world where non-renewable energy sources are not replaced with cleaner, renewable energy sources?

Do I want him growing up in a world where the science and research budget is cut, leading us to slow down development of new technologies that could progress us as a culture?

Do I want him growing up in a world, where humans are treated differently, just because they come from another nation, or because they were plain unlucky to be born in one with extreme poverty and war as norm? A world where we don’t want to help our fellow human being?

No to all the above.

Am I wasting my vote, especially when I live in a constituency that swings from Labour to Tory (Tories won by 50 odd votes last time)? I don’t believe a vote is ever a wasted vote. People throughout history have fought and died for the simple right to vote in elections, so we should all vote in my humble view. However if anybody reading this is considering voting for someone not expected to win, do so. If we all do this, that so called safe seat may not be so safe after all.

So, with all the above, it is clear Green is the party for me. They won’t win. They won’t get enough to help form a coalition, but if they can add to the one seat they have, it will be a massive victory and will help them grow in the coming years.

Society needs to change for the better. We’ve swung between Tory and Labour for decades now, one messing up the country, with the other promising to sort it out, before messing it up again to restart the viscous circle. Russell Brand has his detractors (as well as a very big thesaurus), but he is spot on when he asks for a change in the way our politicians are elected. He is wrong to not vote, but he has that right. Voting green will help that change get implemented.

For my son and for all our sons and daughters futures, I will vote Green. 

Consistent Writing and latest history of SF TV series.

Its safe to say that I have had my most productive week to date, which on Sunday morning saw me write 1400 words to complete the first draft to a short story I had been working on last week.

Most writing manuals will advise writers to write every day and to read every day. Now I have had no issue with the reading every day. I get an hour lunch at work which is always spent reading. Writing though, thats a different ball game. I know this is very wrong of me, especially if I want to be serious about my writing and be taken seriously about my writing. Not making excuses, but fitting in my running, work, family time and writing can be tricky. But when I comes to my writing, I need to treat it like my running. Don’t put myself under pressure to do large amounts every day. Just be consistent.

I read an excellent blog by a guy who simply aimed to write 500 words a day. He may have the odd day where he didn’t make that target or even start it. But he knew there would be days where he would do much more than that target. So I followed suit and have found it works. My average is more than 500 words and I’m enjoying it.

This of course is also helped by the support I get by my wife. We are both spiritualists. Not trying to sell it as a religion/faith - its simply our belief. She went to a medium we go to who told her, my late dad said I need to have a kick up my ass and get writing. I’m good at it but have become lazy! So even the spirits are telling me off! My wife said, she will tell me every day to get writing. This gave me a huge lift.

The draft I completed is basically rubbish. Now to non writers this would seem a very pessimistic comment to make about one’s writing. But every writer creates a rubbish first draft. Its in every writing manual worth its salt. The good writing comes with the countless re-writes and editing that follows. I have a story, it even has some logical structure and I am optimistic there will be a very satisfactory story at the end of the process.

Although, whether it passes my late dad’s critique is another thing!  

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Over the weekend I watched the first part to a brand new BBC TV series called ‘Tomorrows Worlds - The Unearthly History of Science Fiction’.  Its a five part series with each episode a different part of the genre.  Episode one covered space and science fictions relationship with it. 

I was very wary of it, wondering if it would be just the usual popular culture bullshit  that is viewed as SF.  And by starting with Star Wars and Star Trek, my worries were confirmed.  Nothing wrong with either, but to a non SF fan, this is what they believe the genre to be.

However during the episode, it started looking at the high concept of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the non gender specific aliens of ‘Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin’ and the sociological politics of ‘The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson’. 

This is a series of great promise, that realises the genre is so vast and every fan has their own view of it, that you simply can’t cover it all.  So recognise the popular culture side of it but also pass tribute to the deeper more meaningful commentary of real life found in the genre.

Next week is all about alien invasion in SF.

Interstellar - epic science fiction at its grandest level.

It may just be a coincidence, or planned, but it is interesting that the release of Interstellar came only a few days before the landing of a robot on a comet. Both show humanity's thirst for exploration, to find our position in the Universe, with Interstellar using the medium of film and the ESA using the very real world of science.

I’ll get this out of the way straight away, I loved Interstellar and the only reason I am not calling it my favourite movie of all time, is simply that I want to see it again.

There I said it.

It is the science fiction movie I have been waiting for since I first started reading hard science fiction novels and short stories. This is a high concept movie, full of ideas, themes and very real scientific theories. It is not science fiction for someone who simply wants to be entertained by big fighting robots or huge space battles (nothing wrong with this form of escapism, I hasten to add). You need to be prepared to become emotionally tied to the movie, and think a lot more. Luckily you don’t need to have a degree in physics to understand the theories involved, but equally, you can’t let your mind wonder.

I won’t go over the plot and the premise of the movie, due simply to the assumption you are reading this having watched the movie. Its not a critical review. I love the movie too much to be objective, so its more of a tribute. Any quotes from the movie will be very much a case of paraphrasing.

I first became aware of Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker with Batman Begins. I was blown over by his gritty realistic take on one of my personal favourite comic book characters. The sequels helped create, in my mind, the finest movie trilogy. After Batman Begins, I discovered his skill for creating huge and interesting visuals in Inception - the bending of the city is a shot that will stick in my mind for a very long time.

So, when I read he was going to try his hand at science fiction, I was very pleased. When I heard he was planning to use real theoretical physics (by Kip Thorne), I became very interested. When I heard this involved wormholes and a huge journey across time and space, I became very excited. Add in a black hole and a story using the time dilation effects of interstellar travel and I was completely sold.

Already it was sounding like a film version of a novel by Alastair Reynolds (he uses real physics theories, issues with time dilation and in Revelation Space, a Neutron Star).

It turned out, I wasn’t far wrong in my prediction. It also contains a far more plausible Dystopian future than The Hunger Games, shown both frighteningly, and in an eerily possible way, in the teacher-parent scene, when we discover the children are being taught that the Apollo moon landings were faked for propaganda purposes so as to bankrupt the USSR into a space race they could never afford.

The movie is an emotional journey of sacrifices and survival. As humans we have always looked to expand, from leaving the valley in caveman times, to Christopher Columbus sailing to prove the world was round to sending probes out into the solar system. Whilst other life on Earth evolved due to their surroundings, we have changed those same surroundings to meet out needs. Much like the dinosaurs, we will reach our end one day on this planet, and be but a fossil, a minor memory in the vast history of this planet. Interstellar explores this as we look to other worlds to colonise and stop our inevitable extinction. “Mankind wasn’t meant to die on this planet,” one character muses.

The future, as depicted in the movie, is one of backwards thinking, of returning back to our hunter/gatherer past. We no longer worry about technical leaps, or engineering skill, only basic survival and not running out of food. I’ve never been a huge fan of how a dystopian future is depicted in a lot of movies and books, it always seems too over the top and too out of line with todays society to have a believable and logical link between the two. Hence my earlier comment on The Hunger Games. Last years Elysium did it wonderfully by having the rich and powerful living in a huge Iain M Banks style orbital habitat with the poor living on Earth. Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, examined this style of a future society in both The Long Walk and The Running Man (a far better story than the movie). Interstellar may not have the large rich/poor divide, traditionally found in Dystopian fiction, but it is a bleak future with no optimism. One big reveal admits that the whole plan is to populate another world with fertilised eggs and leave humans on Earth to die out within a couple of generations. Luckily, as with all dystopian futures, there are a few who won’t give up and will find a way to understand the physics needed to save mankind.

This is lead by Murph, the daughter of Cooper, the pilot on board the ship travelling to far away worlds. As a parent myself, the movie does a very good job of dealing with the relationship and bond between a parent and their offspring. I simply couldn’t imagine having to leave my son at home, to go off and explore new worlds, knowing that he will have aged a lot faster than I will have when I hopefully return. But Cooper has to do this for the good of humanity, and for himself, a man born to explore, “born forty years to soon or too late” as his father in law puts it. He has to make that sacrifice.

One criticism I have read on more than one online post, is that Cooper uses love as a mystical force to resolve matters. The reason for the criticism is simply that this is a hippy way to resolve the issues in the movie, and that trying to make out love can be explained in scientific terms is incorrect. It is almost as if these posters have not even seen the movie. Yes, love is a huge theme. Yes, love is the motivating factor to keep Cooper going. But it isn’t love that allows him to move books, or hands on the watch from inside the Tesseract. It is gravity. These posters must have nodded off when Brand was describing how time could appear to a “higher being” - going back in time would be no more different than us climbing down a mountain. They must have also been asleep when we discover that it isn’t some alien civilisation that have been trying to help us, but a future version of us that transcends both time and space, who created the Tesseract as a time portal and a way to move backwards in time, among other things.

Interstellar is on hell of an emotional roller-coaster ride. Due to the time dilation effects of being on a planet too close to a black hole, what feels like a couple of hours for Cooper and his team, is actually twenty three years on Earth. It is very hard to grasp how that must feel for a parent, knowing your children have lived almost a quarter of a century in a blink of an eye. This sequence is shown via videos sent from Earth via the wormhole and we see as Cooper does what any father would in this situation - he breaks down in tears.

Of course the movie allows Cooper to answer the one question, asked of parents with more than one kid, who is your favourite? Cooper blatantly decides who his favourite is! But joking aside, his almost blase approach to his son, is simply that he knows and trusts his son is now a man and that he can let him go to make a life of his own. His daughter though is younger and in need of a fatherly figure. She also doesn’t understand that he is leaving. One moment, via the video, she pleads with him to return due to now being the same age as he was when he left, a promise he gave her. Of course, they do eventually meet again, when at the end of the movie, Cooper returns to find his daughter is an elderly woman on her death bed. When asked how she knew he would return, she simply replies, “my daddy promised me.” Again, as a daddy myself, the promise made to your son or daughter is legally binding. It is also another case of love, keeping both Cooper and Murph alive, feeding the basic survival instinct we all have. As Dr Mann says, “the final thing you see before you die is your children.”

As a movie, Interstellar is as near perfect as possible. It is probably the best chance, we as genre fans have, for a science fiction movie to win best picture at the Oscars. In fact it could quite conceivably clear up with acting awards going to Matthew McConaughey as Cooper & Ann Hathaway as Brand, both exceptional performances.

Finally, nothing is perfect, and my one gripe was the very end. When Cooper launches from the new home of Earth, Nolan missed a great opportunity for a “money shot”. He could have mirrored the ending to Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds, when we realise just how immense the structure the humans are in. But Nolan does like to leave some things to the imagination of the audience, especially at the end of a movie, so I can see why he resisted. This though is minor. The exploration of what makes us human is handled beautifully.

Survival, love and the need to explore and further ourselves are big parts of what makes us human.