botias | (no subject)

Reading Material:	H.G. Wells In Love by H.G. Wells (his son picked the title though)
	+ asst. romance novels and children's books

Free babysitting yay! Dinner AND a movie, well most of one anyway. The Time Machine which was perfectly entertaining. We were 20 minutes late, meaning we skipped the character development and arrived just as the good stuff was starting. Inveterate late arrivers that we are, we've found that most adventure type flicks are this way. Show up 20 minutes into Aladdin and he's just met up with the genie, show up 20 minutes into Harry Potter and he's just met up with Hagrid, etc. It was really kind of interesting to have recently read the book and then ol' H.G.'s autobiography (and posthumous sexography) and then this. I don't think he would have been pleased with their treatment, but, like his many lovers, he's beyond such earthly concerns.

The whole point of the book was one fanciful answer to the social questions of the time. The Eloi were the decendents of the upper class, made soft, pretty and stupid by generations of indolence, the Morloks came from the "have not's" long accustomed and finally adapted to toil, darkness and cramped conditions, two populations seperated culturally and finally genetically. The oppressed working class finally gets their, ah, pound of flesh. Not only did the movie totally bypass this issue so dear to his heart, they did the typical Hollywood evolution=bad stuff. To someone who had the profound good fortune to have studied biology with T.H. Huxley, I don't think it would have gone over well. The movie did touch on the one question is still being popularly addressed, will modern technology ultimately be used to destroy the civilization that created it? Well, golly gee willikers, it's that or disease now isn't it? Hmm, I really wonder. (Sorry, little cranky there, it's just a show, must relax.) For a few decades, we shifted that other question overseas where we didn't have to bother about it (though it seems recently to have boarded a plane. Eeeek! Tighten airport security!). So, I guess the movie makers must be forgiven then, it's really more of an international issue than a local one today. The Morloks would have to dig some pretty long tunnels.