Z-Spaces: An Animorphs Psychochronography #3

[poparena.livejournal.com]

#3 - There's an elephant stomping over the convertibles! (#3 The Encounter)

It's August 1996. At this point, Animorphs was being printed every other month, hence the two-month gap. Tupac and Toni Braxton danced around the top of the billboard charts in July before giving way to a monstrous blight on popular music known simply as "Macarena." Oh my god, this annoying prattle of a song was everywhere! It took the top of the charts from August all the way to the end of October, partly due to it becoming the official song of the 1996 Democratic Convention. The music video was awful, two middle-aged Spanish guys sing into a mic while a bunch of girls in disturbing cotton-candy colors go on about how you can't have them. At this same time, the Spice Girls were building up steam in the United Kingdom, and it's no wonder why kids like me threw themselves into the arms of Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails and Korn. Yes, I'm blaming the Macarena for my horrible taste in music when I was in junior high.

In real news, the 1996 Summer Olympics begin and end in Atlanta, Georgia, which was interrupted halfway through by a terrorist bombing that resulted in one death. Security guard Richard Jewell, who had saved dozens of lives by discovering the bomb and moving people away from the blast area, is falsely accused by the media for the bombing. Boris Yeltsin is reelected as President of Russia, Prince Charles and Princess Diana are divorced, and Bob Dole is nominated for President of the United States. In science-fiction inspiring news, the Galileo space probe indicates there may be water on one of Jupiter's moons, NASA announces that a Mars-originating meteorite contains evidence of primitive life-forms, and the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, is born.

In personal news, August 15th was my birthday, in which two major interconnected things happened: I went and saw Independence Day, and I got the first Animorphs book as a present.

Independence Day, which became the highest grossing film of that year, is pretty much the antithesis of Animorphs. Giant spaceships hover down and just blast the shit out of American monuments, to which the President responds by getting in a fighter jet and personally shooting the mofos down. It's a huge, crass in-your-face affair, delivering destruction porn in a way that only a pre-9/11 film could, with no sense of weight or casualty despite entire cities getting wiped from the map. The aliens have no sense of strategy, they nuke cities while mostly ignoring military bases, then wait around like they have nothing to do. Even Visser Three would question these methods. In many ways, this film feels like wish fulfillment for the uber-patriotic, World War II-loving American citizen who wants another righteous war to make them feel good about themselves after Korea and Vietnam tarnished that image and the 90s left them feeling as though America was limp and ineffective.

Because there's no way to read Independence Day as anything but an AMERICA-FUCK-YA kind of film, even if it had another title. The alien invasion is said to be global, but we get only the quickest of glances of how the rest of the planet is handling the situation. All we see the aliens attack are the White House, the Empire State Building and U.S. Bank Tower, symbols of the three most prominent American cities. When we fade into New York City, the Statue of Liberty toppled to one side. This is not an attack on the human race, but an attack on American iconography. In the end, the President teams up with a bunch of grizzled American citizens, Jewish scientists and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air at Area 51 to launch a counterattack on the Fourth of July.

In July, the film was promoted on the cover of Time Magazine with the line "Sci-Fi Makes a Comeback." Was science fiction ever gone? One could turn on the TV and find Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, The X-Files, Mystery Science Theater 3000, seaQuest DSV, Sliders, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Dexter's Laboratory, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Biker Mice from Mars and the very brief return of Doctor Who. One could go to the movie theaters and see 12 Monkeys, Escape from LA, Phenomenon, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Star Trek: First Contact and Mars Attacks! There was an entire cable station called "The Sci-Fi Channel." And in the Young Adult section of the local libraries and book stores, a book series called Animorphs was becoming very popular very fast.

So of course science fiction wasn't making a comeback, it was still ever present. What Time Magazine meant by "Sci-Fi" was a return to bigger and louder B-movies from the 50s and 60s, a time when robots fought Aztec mummies, green slime monsters attack space bases and a giant preying mantis goes on a rampage. Films of which Independence Day is basically a modern update of. Science fiction didn't return, big ugly monsters breaking things returned. Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, which came out the same year, is a tribute to these kind of films while always winking at the camera. Independence Day plays it straight.

Animorphs draws inspiration from old school science fiction like this as well, among many other sources. It's clear that at least Michael Grant is a big science fiction fan, and the series is constantly making sci-fi references. The thing is, though, Animorphs draws from the intellectual side of this era, not the "things go boom" side. While Independence Day seeks inspiration from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and... ok, well, War of the Worlds, but all the wrong parts from it... Animorphs draws from The Day the Earth Stood Still (an alien arrives to Earth to give its people a warning), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (aliens take over peoples bodies), and The Thing From Another World (an isolated group deal with an alien threat). Much like the Animorphs is a part of its time, these films were a part of theirs, playing on people's Cold War fears and their paranoia that anyone could be a damn dirty communist. They were also far more subtle and intelligent than any of the B-grade schlock that was coming out. Animorphs and Independence Day may have come from a common ancestry, but their family trees split very far apart.

Case in point, in the third Animorphs book, there is a giant spaceship not too dissimilar from the ones seen in Independence Day. However, instead of positioning itself over a major landmark and blowing it to hell, it was merely a cargo vessel shipping things from point A to point B. Instead of letting the populace gawk at it for hours, it kept itself cloaked and hidden. A giant fortress in the sky, and the people below didn't even know it was there. And despite the grandeur of this, it was not the focus of the book, instead focusing almost entirely on the inner torments of Tobias and developing his character and giving it dimension. While things did end in a huge explosion, this was not the conclusion to a story, but a mere step in a larger story.

It was still a fun birthday.

Comments

[blue_rampion]

Oh god, the Macarena. That came out at the same time as #3? Now I'm having flashbacks...

Also, looking at the tags I've been putting on for this, the discussion: general tag doesn't really do it justice. I'm thinking it needs something more specific, like perhaps discussion: history, or maybe even it's own z-spaces tag. Anyone have any suggestions on this?

[acts_of_tekla]

Since he's planing to do all of the books, or at least a good chunk of them (not sure what there is to say about the Alternamorphs), a separate tag would seem appropriate in addition to the general discussion tag.

[blue_rampion]

Yes, that's pretty much what I'm thinking. It's just a question of whether I use something exclusive, or something which other posts could potentially use (like 'history'). Although admittedly I don't think we've really had to many posts that talk about the same topics in the past.

[acts_of_tekla]

Considering your title, it occurs to me that even Rachel's "Woohoo, attack things!" tendency was pretty subdued compared to the B-movie, Independence Day style of defeating aliens. Especially because, IIRC, after this book, she doesn't really do stuff like that (or at least not alone -- I suppose you could sort of count the turning into mice with Cassie thing) (or at least not in morph -- the crocodile thing wasn't exactly subtle).

[starz4598.livejournal.com]

I love that most of this was actually about Independence Day.

I'm not even going to pretend that there is a small, intellectual part of me that dislikes this movie.

[box-life.livejournal.com]

You know, if Independence Day came out now I'd probably hate it. The US-centrism, the non-sensical behavior of the aliens, the fact that that's not really how computer viruses work, guys. I might enjoy it initially, but then I'd read people complaining about it on the internet and realize: "Whoa, that movie was kind of stupid, wasn't it?" I don't know if that's more because I've gotten older or because the world has changed. Both, I guess. Action hero Will Smith is pretty much always a good thing, though. Reminds me of this Thought Catalog article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/10-things-90s-kids-will-have-to-explain-to-their-children/

Seems like there was so much more sci-fi in the 90s.

[zedille.livejournal.com]

You make a nice comparison between Animorphs and the sci-fi of the era. And reading about the 90s was fun too :D

[aubergine-pilot.livejournal.com]

I continue to be incoherently squeeful about these posts. I wish I had constructive things to add but my brain just keeps going EEEEEEEE NINETIES AMERICAN CULTURE BEING PUT UNDER A MAGNIFYING GLASS EEEEEEEEEEEEE.