Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site ahutb.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!houxm!ahuta!ahutb!leeper
From: leeper@ahutb.UUCP (m.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (super-s
Message-ID: <515@ahutb.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Mar-85 23:27:09 EST
Article-I.D.: ahutb.515
Posted: Sun Mar  3 23:27:09 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Mar-85 02:45:52 EST
References: <491@ahuta.UUCP>, <24700005@siemens.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 80

REFERENCES:  <491@ahuta.UUCP>, <24700005@siemens.UUCP>

 >Five Million Years to Earth is a HORRIBLE film!!  It's one
 >of those schlock things where the scientist sees something
 >inexplicable, dreams up a  ridiculous (i.e.  almost totally
 >unsupported by evidence) explanation for it, and this
 >explanation is taken as fact for the rest of the movie.
 >Movies like this spread more wrong ideas about science than
 >creationism!  (well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little...)  If
 >it were about the occult it would be a pseudo-science
 >fiction film.  Perhaps it should be called an anti-science
 >fiction film?  In fact, the more I think about this, the
 >more I like the connection with creationism.  The 'science'
 >in a movie like this is very much like the 'science' in
 >creationism -- based on nonunderstanding of what science is
 >really about, based on jumping to conclusions, etc.

Got that out of your system?  Good!  I do hope you are feeling better.

I agree that what goes on in this film is not like what real scientists
do.  But why is that?  Roney and Quatermass approach their observations
and draw the most likely conclusions.  This is very much what
scientists do or should do.  The reason what they do is in character
very different than what your run-of-the-mill scientist is that they
are encountering a very different chain of evidence than probably
occurs in the real world.  You expect that, this is science fiction.
And as far as science fiction goes, the chain of evidence is not all
that improbable, given the premise.  Kneale has only one assumtion
in the 1960 TV play on which the film was based.  That is basically the
same premise of 2001.  The premise is that the reason apes evolved into
humans was through alien intervention.  (The difference with 2001 was
in how the idea was handled.  Clarke took the idea and said "It's going
to happen again."  Kneale took the premise and said "How are we
different than we would be had we evolved ourselves?  What evidence
might still be around in the ground and in the human mind that we had
been intentionally altered?") 

Given the evidence I cannot think of any time in the film when
Quatermass or Roney jump to a wild conclusion when there is another
that is simpler AND more convincing.  Faced with the evidence that the
only five million year old skeletons found intact were inside a
constructed craft there are not a whole lot of simple conclusions to
draw.  That fact alone is inconsistant with our current understanding
of the origins of intelligence.  I know the script quite well and I
never found a conclusion they drew to seem wild to me.  Perhaps you can
give an example or too where the reasoning of the characters is wild
IN THE LIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED.

You do well to compare the premise of this film with creationism.  This
is a science fiction film whose premise concerns the origin of the
species human.  Creationism and evolution do also.  This film simply
plays with a third origin theory.  That is what good science fiction
does, play with theories.  In that way it is like creationism.  Where
it differs is that it admits to being fiction.  It tells the viewer to
play with the idea in his/her own mind for the sake of playing with the
idea.  It does not tell the viewer to believe the idea.  I am sure that
Nigel Kneale would have nothing but dismay if some cult were to be
formed believing the origin theory in FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH.

I am a little dismayed by your use of the phrase "If [the film] were
about the occult..."  Among other things this film certainly is about
the occult.  It is about a good deal more than that, but one of the
things this film concerns is the occult.  The occult occurences are (in
the context of the film) exaggerated explanations of phenomena caused
by the alien ships in their functioning to control the descendents of
the altered apes.  It is actually a clever idea since there appears to
be a lot of reported occurences of occult phenomean over the ages to
tie it in with Kneale's premise.  That doesn't mean that Kneale really
believes in occult phenomena but it nicely unifies two apparently
disassociated fields and makes the idea that much more engaging.

Oh, and as to whether scientist really do what Quatermass and Roney do,
on top of what I have previously said, let me ask you to perform a
little experiment for me.  Go to the yellow pages, find a private
investigator, call him and ask him how similar his work is to what goes
on in "Hound of the Baskervilles."  Or do you consider this to be
another HORRIBLE work of fiction?

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!ahutb!leeper