Well, well, well. Mars plans scuttled, with new attention instead directed to the moon by Musk, or so I hear. Another failed prediction, and waste of a perfectly abominable T-shirt he wore the day when leaving DOGE in the dust.
Mars-related thoughts, though, were mostly triggered by a Japanese mini series currently on Prime, Queen of Mars. It provided the appropriate level of distraction for a head-cold addled brain and a body that did not leave the house for days. I don’t know how they pull it off every single time, but Japanese Sci-Fi productions just have me cheering.
Beautiful people, serious method acting; broken families, families reunited! Good guys, bad guys, in-between guys shifting allegiances. Bad guys clearly labeled by looks – the military alone composed of star troopers, German Nazi lieutenants, an officer inexplicably looking like Ursula the sea witch in The Little Mermaid. Good guys win – yeah. Happy Ends rule! Mysterious objects appearing and disappearing, supernatural phenomena backed by some crafty AI visuals. Science rules!
The plot is perfectly commensurate with brain fog (spoiler alert!)
100 years from now, Mars has been colonized for 40 years, to extract valuable minerals. Profit rules! Now holding some 100.000 inhabitants, economically presented in the film by some 45 extras in changing costumes, the planet is governed by the Interplanetary Space Agency.
Plucky group of early settlers resists the organization’s attempts to repatriate them to Earth – Mars is their home! They also refuse requirements of machine-human interphases, not having surveillance tags implanted in hands and communication devices in foreheads. Young blind heroine gets kidnapped by profusely apologetic settlers to stop repatriation, then joins their cause.
Evil head of Space Agency, accepting bribes of mining companies and other extraction forces, has more than repatriation plans. Power rules! She wants to explode the planet to create an environment with atmosphere and water in 1000 years (Long-termism rules!), doomed remaining settlers be damned.
Feisty combo of two aging scientists and two young lovers separated by 140 million miles use mysterious objects to expose the rot at the core of the agency. Along the way we are advised we should take risks for science, not be afraid of the unknown and listen to the calls from the Universe. Curiosity rules!
The series was adapted from an original novel commissioned from sci-fi writer Satoshi Ogawa and created by Japan’s Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in commemoration of its 100th anniversary. The narrative core, then, rests on communication, radio waves, and celebrates the underground neighborhood radio station that helps our protesting settlers topple the surveillance state. Radio rules!
They play with interesting concepts associated with communication – everyone in the movie speaks a different language, simultaneously translated by either embedded or clipped-on devices, a veritable cave of Babel, given the subterranean Martian accommodations. Subtitles rule!
Communication between Earth and Mars has a 10 minute time lag in 2125, originally. So how do you converse if it’s never “with” each other? The blind heroine has acute hearing to compensate for visual deprivation, important to the plot. And eventually we discover the value of interplanetary exploration by some means of echolocation….. A paean to auditory power.
Truth be told, these were three hours of my life well spent – there was something endearing, amusing, and at times thought provoking to this series. It makes a clear case for what is ethically and morally right – oh, do we need those reminders in our time – without being patronizing. The cinematography is beautiful in its own right. The film never yields to the temptation to speed up to move the plot along, but allows lingering. Very much recommend.
***
The broadcast I am really longing for, however, does not yet exist: a full recording of Jennifer Walshes new opera about the take-over of Mars by toxic tech bros, as experienced by an all female astronaut team on a mission to Mars. Here is the trailer. The themes cover some of the same ground as the Japanese mini series. As the composer declares: “when we talk about Mars we are talking about ourselves – about our ideas of the future, and about the operations of power in the present.” She refers back to the likes of Peter Thiel who told the New York Times: “Mars is supposed to be more than a science project. It’s … a political project.” Consequently the opera explores the reaction of these 4 women astronauts to “isolation, sinister ideologies, the prospect of alien life and a vibe shift toward corporate authoritarianism,” when the tech bros take over (Ref.)
Apparently the women are able to overcome a bleak future with hopeful, defiant and, importantly, collective resistance. Although it would have been easier if they had not mistakenly taken with them the wrong on-board entertainment compilation. For nine long months all they have is Shrek the Third and a few seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills…
Who needs Mars when I was able to hike in New Mexico? Photographs today from Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Park. As close to Mars as I’ll ever come.
Music a nod to sensitive listening skills and subsequent translations into different auditory configurations; a wonderful new album by the Vision String Quartet, which really should be named the Listening String Quartet. In the Fields is inspired by Bela Bartok’s Fourth String Quartet, but adds experimentation on Ravel and Dvorak, among others.
