Picked up a copy of the new Serenity one-shot comic focusing on the late character of Wash. I’m a big Firefly/Serenity fan and have read all the other comics that the series spawned, but this one left me pretty much cold (except for a feel-good moment at the end). Hopefully the next one focusing on Shepherd’s past will be better.
There’s a preview at Serenity: Float Out :: Profile :: Dark Horse Comics
The other week I was looking for this sort of thing for a homework project one of my children was doing so I’ll bookmark it for future referencing.
Could also be a useful set of materials for next year’s ethics class - looking at how ethical issues around stem cells are framed in educative settings.
Then recently over at the Guardian, Catherine Shoard posted a couple of pieces (an article and a blog post) wondering about faith films and how they might function outside of the US. See:
Faith films perform a marketing miracle | Catherine Shoard | Film | The Guardian
“There is something emerging,” says Gaydos, “of which faith films are only a part. Inspirational stories are the real market. The definition of faith movies will morph a bit – they’ll become edgier and darker and more complex. They’ll succeed because the market of people who consider themselves to be ’spiritual’ makes the Christian market even bigger.” A message based around self-help is woolly enough not to scare away the unconvinced, and it also introduces surprising notes of genuine inquiry: “I wish everyone would stop telling me to pray,” says the mother in Letters. “It’s not saving my son.”
Might be worth pursuing this in class (or tutorials) later this semester.
Anyway, the article Until Cryonics Do Us Part - NYTimes.com comments on how the partners of cryonics proponents are not always as keen on the idea as the proponents. In the article, one of the interviewees comments:
“Cryonics,” Robin says, “has the problem of looking like you’re buying a one-way ticket to a foreign land.” To spend a family fortune in the quest to defeat cancer is not taken, in the American context, to be an act of selfishness. But to plan to be rocketed into the future — a future your family either has no interest in seeing, or believes we’ll never see anyway — is to begin to plot a life in which your current relationships have little meaning. Those who seek immortality are plotting an act of leaving, an act, as Robin puts it, “of betrayal and abandonment.”
One of the things I look at in my research is how the stories of technological salvation parallel those of religious salvation, and that comment above could equally applied to families of those who have a member ‘convert’ to a religion or ideology.
Related link: Greenflame · Death as an engineering problem - which has a number of links to documentaries on super-longevity.
Echoes of past thoughts from both Steve Taylor (sustain:if:able kiwi » mobile theology) and Pete Ward ("Liquid Church").
Of course, if you have time and access to the DVD, a good robot baby movies can be found in Robot Stories. Trailer below
I think the authors are on to something here. The best theological science fiction - which takes the opportunity to use the freedom found in the speculative nature of the genre - doesn’t seem to be published by ‘Christian’ publishers. I can think of some counter-examples, but I’d definitely be more likely to find something at the local Whitcoulls or Borders which connected religion and science fiction in an intelligent manner.
On a related note, a number of bookshops I’ve been into recently have decimated their science fiction sections (and to a certain degree their fantasy sections too) and replaced them with sections headed up ‘Vampires’. I’m hoping the fad passes soon and we get back to having a broader scifi/fantasy selection to pick from in stores. (Not that I’m averse to a good vampire novel - or even a trashy one when I’m tired and reading on the train - but it’s all a little overwhelming when looking for something else)
Related links: Greenflame · Books from blogs; Greenflame · A Case of Consilience; Greenflame · A bunch of religion and popular culture links
And Andrew Jones ‘tongue-in-cheek’ guides relate to the types of materials stocked in local Christian bookshops. See Tall Skinny Kiwi: How To Survive a Christian Bookstore: #1 EMBRACING THE FEAR and Tall Skinny Kiwi: How to Survive a Christian Bookstore: #2 FINDING YOUR HAPPY PLACE.
Updated: See additional comments over at TheoFantastique | A meeting place for myth, imagination, and mystery in pop culture..