My Alien Friends

I was recently delighted to rediscover, at my folks' house, my old UFO reports book. I'm a sceptic, I know it's all rubbish, but I find UFO's a fascinating psycho social reflection of their times.

Plus the fact that it gives illustrators a chance to let their imaginations run, run into deep space.

This book contains some nicely atmospheric pastels of UFOs, such as these;

UFO from the Valentich disappearance

UFOs buzz cars

But, it is with the aliens that they really get a chance to shine. Or not, as the case may be.

Armless aliens and their blue blob spaceship

Happy smiling spaceship holding hands

Lobster handed floating monsters

"I come in peace and fetishwear!"

"It could be you!"

Tony Benn pipesmoking dude

Rejected cyberman design

Vilas Boas space babe

"Don't fuck with my garden!"

Errrrr

"And I saw, mushroom head"

Me, the Teenage Designer of Worlds

I was no artist, but the asperger side of me was always designing things, constructing navies, spacecraft, maps of resettled other worlds...these all date back to about 1987, a lot of scrawling during class and at home.

I have learned (in "An Anthropologist on Mars") that this sort of thing is a typical Aspergic trait...whether it is a Tourette's type behaviour as well I have no idea.

I still do this sort of thing, but it's more or less an entirely internalised process. Indeed my navy is being overhauled as I write.

Cruiser classes in the internal navy

An interstellar "Starsip" (Doh!)

These designs owed an awful lot to Project Daedalus

A UFO sighting designed by me. Alien looks like a bad attempt to draw Bowie

Map of terraformed Mars

CIA World factbook for a planet that doesn't exist

Colonised Venus

The Decadent Future - The Hunger Games, and The Fifth Element

It struck me, just before a lampost nearly did, as I cycled to work this morning, how much the capital city sequences of the "The Hunger Games" reminded me of the fabulous Besson and Gaulthier (oh yeah, and Moebius I think) created world of The Fifth Element...

I rewatched The Hunger Games over the weekend, and got stuck into the reasonably generous DVD extras, a rare thing on a plain old DVD these days. The powers that be want us to shell out for our extras on all The Blu Rays no-one seems to be buying. For all its origins as a piece of (horror word) "Young Adult" fiction , the film does end up being highly watchable yarn, thanks to a strong performance by Jennifer Lawrence.

And yes, I know it's a rip off of Battle Royale. Matters not.

So yes, at first that Effie Whatever person appears, and she's got fantastic shoes on, and a wig, and look, she keeps re-appearing in differently coloured wigs, and now Katniss and her drippy pal are in the big city, and everyone is dressed in these Regency inspired futuristic outfits or whatever, and it's all contrasted with the homey peasantness of the naieve kids, and also the gleaming holographic technology.

And yes, it reminds me of the Fifth Element, where the opression is more corporate than fascistic, yet the folks still live in super high rise squalor in apartments so cramped the shower occupies the same space as the fridge; yet folk dress in highly stylised parodies of fashions of many periods, and the entire aesthetically glorious world seems to be entirely populated by models.

There's a story to tell here I think, the comparison just begs to be made. Unfortunately, it isn't me to tell it. I love the idea of writing about film, but I just don't have the language. I want to write about the style and look of the film, but when trying to describe the wigs as I did above, I couldn't think of the right word. Restoration? Georgian? Ah, just go with Regency. That's probably close enough. I could use the word dystopia but it would probably just cause me dyspepsia as I tried to explain properly why it was a dystopia.

And then, actually trying to criticise one above the other, how can I do that without really knowing what the respective directors and designers were trying to state with their visions of the decadent future, and whether they achieved their goals or not. I haven't got any notes either, if I'd known I was going to be seized with the desire to write properly, I should have sat assiduously with notebook and biro making all the oh so logical and pertinent points I was going to make about both films.

I didn't. I was just taken heavily with the notion of writing about this idea as my hands cracked and dripped blood as I wandered upset amongst the endless racks and boxes, seeing the pen as the means of escape, but not knowing quite how to go about it...I love the Fifth Element more, and it looks far better, but why? *shrugs* I can't really explain it.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 28/01/2013