After the introduction of a clip from Planet of the Apes, John Clute looks at the invention of the atomic bomb by "science fiction scientists", Robert Oppenheimer for one. Professor Dinah Birch CBE talks to us about the threat of annihilation of mankind. We hear words from Arthur C Clarke's 2001, A Space Odyssey. I did like it when we see clips from films with the author's words spoken over the pictures. Dinah says that it's hard to identify a precise starting point for science fiction, but we are asked if Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1818 is the first in literature.
John Clute tells about Jules Verne and his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A dark prophesy for the future. It was Walt Disney who saw the potential for a film. E M Forster's short story called The Machine Stops came in 1908 and has been adapted for TV and radio. Dinah Birch then talks to us about H G Wells and how he was so influential and made so many predictions for the future. It's Brian Sibley this time Who discusses The Shape of Things to Come from 1933 that was adapted for a movie three years later. Another book by Wells was The War of the Worlds published at the end of the nineteenth century and made into a film in 1953. The narrator speaks those famous opening lines:
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable.
Two more of books by H G Wells are mentioned: The Rights of Man and Desired Epitaph. The author of Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut had been in prison in Dresden and we hear an extract from the book. I was not impressed with the story. J G Ballard's book Crash was highly controversial when it was published. I only know the film. I'm not sure why, after all these books we are suddenly pitched into the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy, space travel and fear of nuclear catastrophe. Professor Adams is here talking about Neville Shute's On the Beach. On the theme of nuclear disaster, we see extended clips from Dr Strangelove (1964) and then from the same year Fail Safe, Threads (1984) and The Day After (1983). We hear that the BBC's The War Game (1966) was banned from being shown. And finally Dinah Birch is recalled to talk about Isaac Asimov's novel Pebble in the Sky (1950), all about a radiated planet.
The series is written, directed and produced by Adrian Munsey. He also narrates alongside Anna Wilson-Jane. And even composed the music. I did find it all a bit incoherent and messy. A mix of literature and film. Presenters are all over the place. There are some interesting facts, but it could have done with another producer. We will see what the next episode is like.
No comments:
Post a Comment