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Mark and Gerry's Sci-Fi Reviews continued...
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Things Go Crunch in the Night
Pitch Black movie, directed by David Twohy, screenplay by David
Twohy and Jim and Ken Wheat
Nightfall short story by Isaac Asimov (1941)
Nightfall novel by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg (1990)
Double Full Moon Night novel by Gentry Lee (1999)
Pitch Black, Nightfall, and Double Full Moon NIght each take place on a
distant planet, where bad things happen when rare astronomical conjuctions occur. In
this review, some of the details which these stories have in common will be highlighted
first. Then, each story will be evaluated on its own merits. Ultimately, they are three
very different stories.
In the movie Pitch Black, a transport ship carrying a variety of passengers and
cargo is damaged and forced to make a crash landing on a nearby planet. It is a hot
dry planet with three suns, no night, and no immediately visible living creatures. Upon
exploring, they find the remants of a human colony and learn that darkness descends
once every 22 years as a nearby planet causes an eclipse. They also learn that the
next eclipse is rapidly approaching, and that in the darkness, large hungry flying
creatures, similar to pterodactyls but with really nasty teeth, will come out to eat. Then
it's crunchtime.
Nightfall takes place on an Earth-like planet, Kalgash, in a different part of the
universe. Kalgash has people, animals, vegetation, commmunities, etc. just like those
on Earth. The main difference is that Kalgash has six suns; the people have never
experienced night, and they are afraid of the dark. It turns out that once every 2049
years, when only one of the smaller suns is in the sky, it is eclipsed by another
planetary body (Kalgash Two), causing Kalgash to be plunged into darkness for
several hours. There are no strange creatures on Kalgash; the humans do a good job
of destroying themselves and their civilization every 2049 years without help from
others. The short story ends as the eclipse begins; to get all the gory details of what
happens during and after the eclipse, you need to read the novel (crunch time).
Double Full Moon Night has also been reviewed by Mark, along with its prequel
story Bright Messengers. The story includes some Very Superior Aliens (my term for
them; not the authors), which I'll refer to as the VSA for short in this review. The VSA
have taken a group of humans to distant parts of the universe on a large space ship,
with a simulated planet-like environment. A little more than half way through the story,
the VSA transfer the humans from the ship to a planet with two moons. The planet
has some Earth-like features, but also has a wide variety of other alien creatures living
on it. Once every 3 1/2 years, a double full moon night occurs. Unfortunately for the
humans, on double full moon nights swarms of brankers emerge, intent on eating every
creature in sight. The brankers are enormous black flying creature, with sharp talons,
wings like a mega fruit fly, one large black eye, and lots of very sharp teeth. Two
brankers working together can carry a large human. They can rip the human to
shreds, but prefer to carry them to their nest area to show off prior to meal time. The
humans have to try to cope with multiple full moon nights before the VSA decide its
time for them to move on.
Now let's look at the main features of each tale, starting with Pitch Black. Pitch
Black works well as a movie; it is very suspenseful and has some excellent special
effects. Some of the best effects are in the opening crash scene and later as the
eclipse arrrives; the interactions with the pterodactyl-like creatures are also convincing.
One impressive but mystifying effect took place when large numbers of the creatures
initially emerged from rock pillars, and the pillars and the creatures glow. But what
was the glow? Maybe the novelization of the movie will answer that. There did seem
to be a range of life forms living underground in the dark. Other nice touches included
changing the lighting depending on which suns were in the sky, and creature-eye
views of their prey. Both a strength and a weakness was the minimal use of dialogue;
there was no unnecessary chatter, but little was learned about the characters. The
movement from scene to scene was often deliberately abrupt to keep up the quick
pace and suspense. The main character is clearly Riddick (Vin Diesel), an escaped
killer with special eyes. His dark sense of humor adds to the movie, and a lot of the
suspense revolves around whether he will help the survivors, or kill them. A minor
character who also adds to the humor and steal some scenes is a kid named Jack, a
Riddick wanna-be. The other major characters are Fry (Radha Mitchell) the pilot, and
Johns (Cole Hauser) a lawman chasing Riddick. Other notable characters are
Shazza, Paris, and the Imam. Shazza (Farscape's Claudia Black) is a very helpful
member of the group with a let's-get-things-done personality, and you have to hope the
creatures won't notice her. Now Paris (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) on the other hand is an
annoying self-centered businessman, and the creatures can't find him too soon. An
Imam (Keith David) leads a Muslim group, and seems to have unshakeable faith
despite all the bad things happening around him. As the movie progresses, the
characters have not only Riddick and the creatures to worry about but also their own
secrets and each other. It's also a movie about redemption, but the movie keeps you
guessing as to which characters want redemption, and if they'll find it. It is not a
landmark movie like Matrix, but on the whole, it is good and well worth going to see.
On to Nightfall. The original short story is a science fiction classsic. It poses
plenty of "what if" type questions. The key ones are if people had never known
darkness, how would they react to darkness and stars? A group of religious zealots,
the Apostles of the Flame, have predicted the exact date of the eclipse and darkness,
and have couched the event in terms of punishment for sinners. The Apostles have
also predicted that the stars will appear, and rain fire down on the people.
Astronomers have independently discovered that there will be an eclipse on that date
due to the motion of a heretofore unknown planet, and they have also tried to warn the
public. The scientists and zealots ridicule each other, and a popular journalist
ridicules both groups. The general public ignores the warnings. The novel by Asimov
and Silverberg expands the same story to include three sections: Twilight, Nightfall,
and Daybreak. Twilight goes into greater detail on how archeologists discover the
periodic destruction of civilization, and how astronomers discover the planet which will
cause the eclipse. It also follow the journalist's progression from friend of the
scientists to being their critic. The middle section Nightfall mostly mirrors the events
in the original short story. The final section, Daybreak, chronicles what happens to
individual characters and also to society as a whole after the eclipse. The Twilight
section is interesting (insight into scientific research process), however the Daybreak
section is depressing. Many people go insane, and even many of the ones who regain
their sanity become capable of great cruelty. You'll find the "crunch" time details in
the Daybreak section. The novel ends on a somewhat more positive and contrived
note as former enemies get together. On the whole, I preferred the short story to the
novel, but would recommend reading both. The short story asks what if; the novel tries
to answer, but not all the answers are believeable.
Finally, on to Double Full Moon Night. This is also a story about human
weaknesses and strengths, with emphasis on the weaknesses. All of the creatures
on the planet are aware of the dangers of double full moon night, and even ones with
the intelligence of racoons seem better able to prepare than the humans. Many in the
small human group have trouble focusing on the danger, due to laziness, pettiness,
distrust, over-confidence, and similar problems. Not surprisingly, the small group of
humans becomes smaller. Eventually, the Very Superior Aliens take a few off the
planet and back to a spaceship. It's hard to develop much sympathy for most of the
characters. Also the role of the VSA is not satisfying. They watch over events and can
rescue the humans at anytime, but do so only occasionally throughout the story and
not always at the most logical times. As Mark said in his review, the story is OK for
light reading, but not at all thought provoking.
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