Deeper Meanings for Aniara
Early on in this essay, I wrote an introductory section on the meaning of the name Aniara. I did this not only for the most obvious reason – it is the name of both the film and the spaceship where the story takes place – but also because the word is not a familiar one for English speakers. It also turns out that Aniara does not have either a simple origin or a single reason for being the word chosen to represent this tale.
As I stated in that earlier section, the poet Harry Martinson said that “the name Aniara doesn’t signify anything. I made it up. I wanted to have a beautiful name.”
I believe that Martinson said this in part to let the reader find their own interpretation of the word. In a 2019 article from The New York Review of Books on the poem, opera, and film versions of Aniara, the author Geoffrey O’Brien had this to offer on the subject:
A glossary to the MacDiarmid Schubert translation [from 1963] describes it as a combination of letters, rich in vowels, which represents the space in which the atoms move. The adjective aniaros (fem. aniara) in ancient Greek means sorrowful. Thus, Aniara = the ship of sorrow. When sung by a chorus in Blomdahl’s opera, “Aniara” becomes a wail of lamentation.
An excellent piece from the International Planetarium Society (IPS) published in 1988 and authored by Aadu Ott and Lars Broman which focused on an interpretation of Aniara created for planetariums went into more detail on the topic:
The name Aniara has been interpreted in several different ways. In his earlier poetry Harry Martinson sought a word which could name the strange space in an atom where the electrons moved around. This word later became the space through which planets and stars move. Aniara has also been interpreted from the chemical symbols for argon, one of the elements in air, and nickel, an element in the ground. As the letter a implies a negation, the word Aniara can be imagined to mean not in air and not on Earth; i.e. in empty space. Another interpretation is that the word contains several letters a, as in the word mama. This could be a sign of his lifelong longing for his mother who deserted him.
Finnish literary historian Johan Wrede (born 1935) further explained in a 1997 Swedish edition of Aniara that Martinson was inspired by reading a work from English astronomer Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) regarding the idea that Aniara means the “name for the space in which the atoms move.”
Further evidence of Martinson being strongly influenced by Eddington and the scientific discoveries of his era are found in his 1938 essay titled “The Star Song” – which also contains the first time the poet mentions the word Aniara in his writings!
The New York Review of Science Fiction Issue 353 translated Martinson’s earlier work into English in 2020, which may be read here:
https://www.nyrsf.com/2020/06/harry-martinson-the-star-song.html
The translator Daniel Helsing had this to say about the meaning of the word in his introduction:
“The Star Song” also contains the first known use of the word “aniara.” In a discussion of the inability of ordinary language to capture atomic processes, Martinson refers to a passage in Arthur Eddington’s popular science book The Nature of the Physical World (1929), where Eddington quotes two lines from Lewis Carroll’s [1832-1898] poem “Jabberwocky,” included in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871): “The slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”
Eddington suggests that this grammatical sounding yet nonsensical language parallels our understanding of the atomic world; we can describe what is going on to some extent using the language of mathematics, but we lack concepts for truly imagining it.
Martinson follows Eddington in this line of thought, but instead of translating Carroll’s lines directly, Martinson formulates his own version: “de löjande glomenarerna / gölja och vanja genom aniara,” which I have translated as: “the loging clomenares / gole and veineer through aniara.”
While Martinson scholars have argued that Martinson constructed the word from a Greek word that means “sad” or “despairing,” the first appearance of “aniara” is thus as a nonsense word illustrating the difficulty of understanding the worldview of modern science – which, as it happens, also parallels the confusion aboard Aniara.
Martinson may also have chosen Aniara due to the fact it is a Sanskrit word meaning “Precious Gift of God”. Apparently Aniara is also a Danish word and baby name which supposedly means “With Eight Number People Must Learn How Money Can Be Used for The Greater Good. They Are a Symbol of Infinity, Which Leads to the Next Life.”
The Spiritual Predecessors and Descendants of Aniara
Early on in this essay, I introduced my new term for a particular subgenre of science fiction, which I call Angst Science Fiction, or Angst SF. As I described it, these are stories which are light on the science and technology while leaning heavily towards the social commentary to make a strong contemporary message to their audiences.
Aniara in all its forms is certainly a stalwart member of this class. In terms of film history, the first serious heights for Angst SF cinema in terms of numbers was during the 1960s and 1970s.
This unsurprisingly coincides with the rise of the counterculture revolution, where youth and other like-minded folks across the planet made a concerted effort to throw off certain traditional values and rituals in the face of a society they saw as heading towards a metaphorical cliff: If an autocratic government backed by misappropriated technologies didn’t strip us of our humanity, then an environment destroyed by pollution and overpopulation might end us outright. Surely the growing possibility for a global thermonuclear war was reason enough to act upon the phrase “Stop the insanity!”
This first Angst SF renaissance fell precipitously with the arrival of Star Wars in 1977. In the blink of an eye, science fiction cinema went from presenting serious social messages to simplistic symbols of good and evil encased in flashy space battles enhanced by technically advanced and increasingly expensive special effects.
The general public craved what would soon become a new fictional world saga they could immerse themselves in. After all, the cinema has always been at heart a form of escapism from both the banal and harsher aspects of real life, and the film industry naturally gravitates towards whatever trend will make the most money.
COMMENT 1 of 2: It is most ironic to note that before Star Wars premiered, few in the industry thought the film would be a success in any form. Holders of this sentiment included its very creator, George Lucas (born 1944). Even toy manufacturers were unprepared for what would become one of their biggest and most lucrative markets in history. It seems dumbfounding in long hindsight but take this as a lesson in how different generational perspectives can be, even those separated by the span of just a few decades.
COMMENT 2 of 2: It has been pointed out that Star Wars did contribute to elevating science fiction into the higher public conscience: I thought 2001: A Space Odyssey had accomplished this feat nine years earlier, but then again Kubrick’s creation lacked space battles, the aliens never showed themselves, there were multiple unanswered questions, and he failed to market any related action figures. Film and television studios also bankrolled and greenlighted members of the genre which might have otherwise languished for years or remained shelved indefinitely without the attention path made by that world from “a long time ago… in a galaxy far, far away.” This may be so, but I also feel in certain respects it came at a cost that derailed and cheapened the more meaningful works for decades.
Although Angst SF films never died out even during the initial heights of this new franchise, their numbers – which were never large to begin with, but stood out as the standard route for science fiction for a while – dwindled to a relative handful but quite memorable keepers of the flame for the next few decades. Blade Runner from 1982 is one of the better-known Angst SF films which pushed aside the Hollywood trend of the era for big space battles and straightforward – read simple – stories.
Even though the Star Wars franchise is still going strong to this day, thanks to being owned by the Walt Disney Company, and the onslaught of superhero films and television series which blend pop science and the supernatural as each entry sees fit (guess who also owns a huge chunk of that market), there has been another surge in Angst SF – Aniara being a prime example. They may not often garner nearly as much in terms of ratings and box office numbers as their far more public-friendly counterparts, but there is a definite resurgence despite the odds.
I have already mentioned several films which fall into this category, such as Interstellar, where you can find a link to my essay on that work. I will also be entreating you with in-depth looks into several other Angst SF offerings, a few which I only realized were members of this subgenre after the fact!
This section provides insights into a selection of representative works which are most certainly Angst Science Fiction: The majority take place in outer space and definitely have that existentialist factor. These particular films, television series, and novels have something important to say beyond mere entertainment. Even though many have their flaws, they are worthy of being noticed and examined. Science fiction has been wrongly ghettoized and juvenilized by the literati for too long: I intend to do my part to amend this intellectual travesty here and now.
The First Men in the Moon
It recently struck me that the classic work by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), The First Men in the Moon, published in 1901, was an early member of the Angst SF club. Here are the key details to expand upon my notion…
- The main characters are Bedford, a pragmatic English businessman, and Cavor, a scientist of the absent-minded trope type. Their purpose is to represent the two prominent reasons why humanity would want to go to the Moon: To gain riches and resources on the one hand (Bedford) and scientific knowledge for the betterment of all (Cavor).
- Cavorite is the fictional substance which allows these two men to become the first human beings to reach Earth’s natural satellite. In true Angst SF form, cavorite can “negate the force of gravity,” yet the author purposely avoids explaining how this is done. The two men build a large spherical vessel with panels made of this anti-gravity material, whose very nature alone whisks them into space – neither rockets nor massive cannons required. In this venue, cavorite is about as scientifically plausible as a magic carpet.
- Once on the Moon, Bedford and Cavor discover a large and advanced native civilization living in vast underground caverns. These beings, called Selenites, have a society structured like terrestrial hive insects such as ants and bees. Each member is part of a caste which specializes in different specific tasks for the benefit of all.
- The men discover that the primary metal the Selenites use is gold. Naturally Bedford wants to exploit this find.
- While the explorers are on the run from the lunar inhabitants and attempting to find their ship to get home, Bedford has an existential crisis from everything that has happened to them so far. I quote his most interesting and relevant ruminations after this list.
- Eventually Bedford escapes the Moon in their cavorite-powered sphere, while Cavor is injured and recaptured by the Selenites. Bedford is able to return to Earth alone and survives a splashdown off the coast of England. Unfortunately, a curious boy wandering the seashore later finds the sphere unattended and accidentally flies off inside it into space, presumably lost forever.
- Bedford makes a personal fortune selling some of the lunar gold he was able to bring back with him. The businessman also writes about his adventures, which are subsequently published in a magazine. This publicity captures the attention of a Dutch electrician, who informs Bedford that he has developed an apparatus which has picked up messages being sent from the Moon via wireless telegraphy.
- These messages have been coming from Cavor, who is alive among the Selenites and learning about their society. The scientist is allowed by his hosts to radio this knowledge to Earth for anyone who can listen.
- At one point, when Cavor is given an audience with the Selenite leader called the Grand Lunar and describes humanity to him, the physicist reveals our penchant for war. Understandably, this greatly concerns the Grand Lunar and his subjects, who fear such dangerous humans may follow Bedford and Cavor from Earth to the Moon and cause havoc with their society. The Selenites permanently stop Cavor’s transmissions as he attempts to explain how to make cavorite.
- We never learn what became of Cavor after this. Bedford, who has been narrating this whole adventure, can only be certain that “we shall never… receive another message from the moon.”
As I mentioned in the list above, there are several chapters in Wells’ novel where the narrator Bedford becomes quite reflective upon his most unusual situation, one not generally encountered by a typical Englishman of the late Nineteenth Century.
Separated not only from his immediate companion but also the whole of his species and their home world in a truly alien place, Bedford almost instinctively becomes inward-looking and self-reflective, questioning the meaning and purpose of his entire life and those of his culture.
The following first extensive quote comes from Chapter 19: “Mr. Bedford Alone” when Bedford is attempting to find Cavor and their spaceship, both of which the man has been separated from while escaping the Selenites:
“Why had we come to the moon?
“The thing presented itself to me as a perplexing problem. What is this spirit in man that urges him for ever to depart from happiness and security, to toil, to place himself in danger, to risk even a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me up there in the moon as a thing I ought always to have known, that man is not made simply to go about being safe and comfortable and well fed and amused. Almost any man, if you put the thing to him, not in words, but in the shape of opportunities, will show that he knows as much. Against his interest, against his happiness, he is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not himself impels him, and go he must. But why? Why?
“Sitting there in the midst of that useless moon gold, amidst the things of another world, I took count of all my life. Assuming I was to die a castaway upon the moon, I failed altogether to see what purpose I had served. I got no light on that point, but at any rate it was clearer to me than it had ever been in my life before that I was not serving my own purpose, that all my life I had in truth never served the purposes of my private life. Whose purposes, what purposes, was I serving? … I ceased to speculate on why we had come to the moon, and took a wider sweep. Why had I come to the earth? Why had I a private life at all? … I lost myself at last in bottomless speculations….”
In Chapter 20, “Mr. Bedford in Infinite Space”, our narrator is on his way back to Earth. Alone in his sphere in the immense and indifferent void, Bedford has a series of existential crises where he has doubts about who he is and beyond…
“I can’t profess to explain the things that happened in my mind. No doubt they could all be traced directly or indirectly to the curious physical conditions under which I was living. I set them down here just for what they are worth, and without any comment. The most prominent quality of it was a pervading doubt of my own identity… the doubts within me could still argue: ‘It is not you that is reading, it is Bedford—but you are not Bedford, you know. That’s just where the mistake comes in.’
“’Confound it!’ I cried, ‘and if I am not Bedford, what am I?’
“But in that direction no light was forthcoming, though the strangest fancies came drifting into my brain, queer remote suspicions, like shadows seem from away. Do you know I had a sort of idea that really I was something quite outside not only the world, but all worlds, and out of space and time, and that this poor Bedford was just a peephole through which I looked at life?
“Bedford! However I disavowed him, there I was most certainly bound up with him, and I knew that wherever or whatever I might be, I must needs feel the stress of his desires, and sympathise with all his joys and sorrows until his life should end. And with the dying of Bedford – what then?
“Enough of this remarkable phase of my experiences! I tell it here simply to show how one’s isolation and departure from this planet touched not only the functions and feeling of every organ of the body, but indeed also the very fabric of the mind, with strange and unanticipated disturbances.
“All through the major portion of that vast space journey I hung thinking of such immaterial things as these, hung dissociated and apathetic, a cloudy megalomaniac, as it were, amidst the stars and planets in the void of space; and not only the world to which I was returning, but the blue-lit caverns of the Selenites, their helmet faces, their gigantic and wonderful machines, and the fate of Cavor, dragged helpless into that world, seemed infinitely minute and altogether trivial things to me.
“Until at last I began to feel the pull of the earth upon my being, drawing me back again to the life that is real for men. And then, indeed, it grew clearer and clearer to me that I was quite certainly Bedford after all, and returning after amazing adventures to this world of ours, and with a life that I was very likely to lose in this return. I set myself to puzzle out the conditions under which I must fall to earth.”
I am happy to report that the 1964 film version of The First Men in the Moon is easily the best of the few other attempts I have been able to witness at transcribing Wells’ writings into other mediums.
COMMENT: To be fair, there was an even earlier British adaption of Wells’ novel released in 1919 that has since been sadly lost, like many early silent films stored on their fragile medium. It was the first film fully devoted to the story, as opposed to the classic 1902 French science fiction film titled A Trip to the Moon, which combines elements from both Wells’ story and Jules Verne’s novels From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and its sequel Around the Moon (1870).
Only some promotional materials and one still image are known to exist of this film. According to the plot synopsis, this time Bedford is an outright cad, purposely abandoning Cavor on the Moon to steal the formula for cavorite and make himself rich from it. His plans are thwarted when an engineer named Hannibal Hogben picks up radio messages from Cavor, who denounces his former exploring companion for his treacherous actions and announces he has been accepted by the Grand Lunar as a welcome guest of the Selenites. As a final bit of justice, Cavor’s niece, Susan, whom her uncle had originally wished would marry Bedford, rejects the man and marries Hogben instead.
For more information on this pioneering cinematic work, see here:
The changes that were made from the novel for the 1964 film version work without taking too much away from or otherwise derailing the original story. The plot is framed around a contemporary first manned mission to the Moon supported by the United Nations (UN). Perhaps this was a comment by the film on the real-life Cold War version of the era: The United States and the Soviet Union were competing with each other to place the first human on that distant world before the end of the 1960s, rather than work together and become less threatened by the other in the process.
On the lunar surface, the international team of explorers find a hand-written letter and a small, tattered flag, the Union Jack of Great Britain. To everyone’s astonishment, the first men to walk on the Moon were not these UN-sanctioned astronauts, but rather two English fellows from the year 1899, a time when humans had not yet flown in heavier-than-air craft, let alone via rocketships!
The authorities soon discover that one of the men who made this incredible trip, a fellow named Bedford, is still alive, so they visit him to get the full story. From here on the film plot is framed around Bedford’s flashback to what took place.
One change from the novel was the addition of a third member of the lunar expedition: Beford’s fiancé, one Katherine Callender. An accidental astronaut, Katherine has to stay inside the sphere when they land on the Moon, as Cavor had only prepared two deep sea diving suits to allow Bedford and himself to walk on the lunar surface (the suits lacked gloves, however!). Katherine is not completely left out of the adventure, though, as the Selenites later capture her while she is still inside the spaceship and bring them both to their underground civilization for further examination.
Rather than Cavor reporting on his findings of the Selenite society and their leader via wireless telegraph after Bedford had returned to Earth, the scientist’s encounter with the Grand Lunar occurs while all three humans are still on the Moon, in a very effectively eerie scene. Bedford and Katherine eventually escape back to their home world, but Cavor is left trapped on the Moon.
Back to the more recent UN lunar expedition, the astronauts further confirm Bedford’s tales when they discover the remains of the Selenites’ world. The subsurface city is completely abandoned and eventually begins to collapse in their presence, forcing the explorers to retreat to the surface. Bedford adds that Cavor had a cold at the time: This virus subsequently infected and wiped out the Selenites, who would have had no natural immunity against even a common terrestrial disease.
COMMENT 1 of 2: Script writer Thomas Nigel Kneale (1922-2006) said he took the idea of an Earthly germ exterminating the Selenites directly from another famous Wells novel, The War of the Worlds (1897), where invading Martians were defeated by native microorganisms which their alien bodies had no defense against. Kneale did this because in just a few years from his time, real astronauts would land on the Moon and (presumably) prove that our celestial neighbor had no native intelligences. However – alive, dead, or non-existent – the story still left in the physical evidence that the Selenites did exist and not all that long ago from their time perspective.
COMMENT 2 of 2: When the first three sets of Apollo astronauts landed upon and explored the Moon between 1969 and 1971, they were placed into quarantine right after their splashdowns to guard against the chance they accidentally brought with them some lunar microscopic creatures, which terrestrial life would be defenseless against if they turned out to be volatile. Thankfully – unless you were an astrobiologist – none were found in any capacity, neither benign nor malignant. Even more stringent biological quarantine parameters will be required when the first surface samples and astronauts return from the planet Mars and some of the moons of the Jovian planets – worlds with much higher probabilities for active life forms.
In an early and classic presentation displaying the differences between hard science fiction and Angst SF, Jules Verne made it publicly known he was displeased with how Wells used a method for space propulsion that went against the laws of known physics, namely antigravity.
Granted, Verne’s own design for lofting people to the Moon – a giant cannon buried 900 feet (274 meters) deep in Florida soil with 134.4 US tons (122 metric tons) of guncotton for propellant – turned out to be quite the wrong way to go: The occupants of the projectile named Columbiad would have been crushed flat from the extreme forces of liftoff. As further insult to injury, the vehicle they were riding in would have only gotten a few hundred yards into the air, assuming it survived the explosive force at all.
Nevertheless, Verne based his ideas on his best calculations, utilizing the physics and technologies of his day. To be fair, few in his time saw the rocket as a practical means of sending vessels into space, for they were mainly used as short-distance low-yield weapons and creating fireworks displays for celebrations.
The point is, Verne focused on being scientifically accurate as possible in his stories, excusing the parts where dramatic license was called for. Wells, while keeping his stories grounded in the realm of the possible, was more interested in telling stories with sociological themes than explaining in dense technical detail how two men could reach the Moon, or how a time machine might actually place one in another era, or how a flotilla of Martian war machines crossed the interplanetary gulf to Earth.
INTERESTING SIDE FACT: In the 1936 British science fiction film Things to Come, based on a story by Wells and who was heavily involved in making this classic bit of cinema, the device for launching two humans to the Moon in the year 2036 was a giant cannon, which was referred to in the film as a space gun and built above ground. It is also surmised that the Martian invasion fleet in The War of the Worlds was sent to Earth by a method very similar to Verne’s subterranean cannon.
And thus was born a Two Cultures-style chasm in science fiction, with one side focusing on the science and the concepts spawned from it, while the other half is essentially Angst SF, where the science and technology is there primarily to launch, carry, and sometimes shield the heart of these stories, which is promoting a contemporary social agenda. Of course, the two side can and do intermix, but how well and how often depends on those involved in the stories.
There is also the category of space fantasy, where the science is so vague that the plots and their envisioned worlds barely qualify as science fiction and any messages are almost literally black and white in their simplicity. Star Wars is among the most popular examples of this type of story, which in turn was inspired by the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon multi-format serials which came to popular prominence in the 1930s.
For those of you who are interested in the details of Verne’s manned lunar venture – many aspects of which became practically prescient one century later in large part because the man did his homework – see this page:
http://www.astronautix.com/j/julesvernemoongun.html
Woman in the Moon
The early Twentieth Century had two standout genre films which also contrast in their approach to space science: The German Woman in the Moon from 1929 and the British Things to Come, released in 1936.
Woman in the Moon is a fairly realistic tale of a crewed adventure to the Moon, which as you may have guessed included a woman among its passengers. This film is famous for introducing the countdown during the rocket launch, meant to add tension to the scene and adopted for announcing real rocket liftoffs ever since.
Woman does have its share of technical flaws, such as the explorers being able to walk on the lunar surface without spacesuits because there is apparently enough air on the Moon for humans to breath (they did bring deep sea diving suits, though, just in case). However, many other parts of this story anticipated real aspects of space travel and the film delights in highlighting them. It helped that Woman had a real rocket expert as a technical advisor, Hermann Oberth (1894-1989).
As with Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, the possibility for large quantities of the element gold existing on our neighbor in space was a high motivating factor to construct and send a mission there. The Apollo missions would later determine that the Moon does possess gold, at least in the traces found from the surface samples returned to Earth. Whether there is enough to warrant the expense and extra hazards of mining the element on the Moon is another matter yet to be determined.
There are some parts of Woman that include Angst SF aspects: The commentary on why humans should explore the Moon (for science or exploitation) and the two main characters who decide to stay on the lunar surface to ensure that their surviving comrades make it back home alive.
Things to Come
Things to Come does not deal with space travel until the final acts of the film, which takes place in the year 2036 in the fictional future English city of Everytown. It is definitely a member of the Angst SF family, as the science and technology of sending a crewed ship to the Moon is shown but not discussed in any serious detail: At least it and the other sets are all put together in very stylish retro futuristic art deco.
The characters debate the merits of space exploration and progress overall, with one side declaring that humanity needs a collective rest after all it has been through: The first parts of Things to Come involve a second World War beginning in 1940 that lasts for over twenty years, devastates the planet, and requires decades to recover from at every level.
Here is some revealing film dialogue from the anti-progress side by a resident artist who is in the middle of creating a large classical-form sculpture:
The Sculptor Theotocopulos: “Is it a better world than it used to be? I rebel against this progress. What has this progress, this world civilization, done for us? Machines and marvels. They built this great city of theirs, yes. They prolonged life, yes. They’ve conquered nature, they say, and made a great white world. Is it any jollier than the world used to be in the good old days? When life was hot and short and merry and the devil took the hindmost?”
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING NOT COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Any non-casual fan of the legendary British comedy group Monty Python’s Flying Circus will be reminded by these words from Theotocopulos of the famous scene in their 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where the People’s Front of Judea – certainly not to be confused with the Judean People’s Front – ask themselves what good the conquering Roman Empire of the early First Century CE has ever done for their society.
To quote:
Reg: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
PFJ Member: “Brought peace?”
Reg: “Oh, peace? SHUT UP!”
For the full scene, see here:
Continuing our original dialogue…
Lackey: “All the same, what can we do about it?”
The Sculptor Theotocopulos: “Rebel. And rebel now. Now, now is the time.”
Lackey: “Why now in particular?”
Theotocopulos: “Why, because of this space gun business. Because of this project to shoot human beings at the stars. People don’t like it, shooting humans away into the hard frozen darkness. They’re murmuring.”
Lackey: “They’ve murmured before and nothing came of it.”
Theotocopulos: “Because they have no leader. But now, suppose someone cried, ‘Halt! Stop this progress.’ Suppose I shout it to the world: ‘Make an end to this progress.’ I could talk. Talk. Radio is everywhere. This modern world is full of voices. I’m a master craftsman. I have the right to talk.”
Lackey: “Yes, but will they listen to you?”
Theotocopulos: “They’ll listen, trust them. If I shout, ‘Arise, awake, stop this progress before it’s too late!’”
Later, Theotocopulos does form and lead a mob of anti-progress supporters to the space gun to destroy it and halt all this awful progress, which nevertheless made their collective lives far better than those of their ancestors. When they are told by the pro-progress faction defending the space gun and the lunar mission that they “want to make the world safe for men,” the sculptor has this response…
“How can we do that when your science and inventions are perpetually changing life for us – when you are everlastingly rebuilding and contriving strange things about us? When you make what we think great, seem small. When you make what we think strong, seem feeble. We don’t want you in the same world with us. We don’t want this expedition. We don’t want mankind to go out to the Moon and the planets. We shall hate you more if you succeed than if you fail. Destroy the gun!”
COMMENT: At this juncture, I am reminded of a popular phrase modified from a much older quote: “The meek shall inherit the Earth – the rest of us are going to the stars.”
Earlier in the film, when Everytown was still a post-war barbaric mess, there was a small-time dictator running the place, a warlord named Rudolf. Better known to his minions as The Boss or Chief, he blurted out these particular thoughts regarding progress on different occasions:
“They don’t print books any more. Who wants books to muddle their thoughts and ideas?”
“Why was all this science ever allowed? Why was it ever let begin? Science? It’s an enemy of everything that’s natural in life!”
The other side of the equation in Things to Come says we must progress as an intelligent species or we will stagnate and die, even if we do not destroy ourselves via warfare. The following quotes are taken from a treatment Wells wrote for the film; it nearly matches with the film’s finale scenes, which I do recommend watching, here:
PART XVI
Finale
An observatory at a high point above Everytown. A telescopic mirror of the night sky showing the cylinder as a very small speck against a starry background. [Raymond] Cabal and [Oswald] Passworthy stand before this mirror.
Cabal: “There! There they go! That faint gleam of light.”
Pause.
Passworthy: “I feel – what we have done is – monstrous.”
Cabal: “What they have done is magnificent.”
Passworthy: “Will they return?”
Cabal: “Yes. And go again. And again – until the landing can be made and the moon is conquered. This is only a beginning.”
Passworthy: “And if they don’t return – my son, and your daughter? What of that, Cabal?”
Cabal (with a catch in his voice but resolute): “Then presently – others will go.”
Passworthy: “My God! Is there never to be an age of happiness? Is there never to be rest?”
Cabal: “Rest enough for the individual man. Too much of it and too soon, and we call it death. But for MAN no rest and no ending. He must go on – conquest beyond conquest. This little planet and its winds and ways, and all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him, and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time – still he will be beginning.”
Passworthy: “But we are such little creatures. Poor humanity. So fragile – so weak.”
Cabal: “Little animals, eh?”
Passworthy: “Little animals.”
Cabal: “If we are no more than animals – we must snatch at our little scraps of happiness and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more – than all the other animals do – or have done.” (He points out at the stars.) “It is that – or this? All the universe – or nothingness…. Which shall it be, Passworthy?”
The two men fade out against the starry background until only the stars remain. The musical finale becomes dominant.
Cabal’s voice is heard repeating through the music: “Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?”
A louder stronger voice reverberates through the auditorium: “WHICH SHALL IT BE?”
If you want to peruse the full film treatment Wells wrote for Things to Come, please go here:
http://leonscripts.users5.50megs.com/scripts/THINGSTOCOME.htm
It should be no surprise that Wells is pro-progress in this film. The anti-progress factions seem to be far more interested in resting on their inherited laurels than planning for and protecting the future of the human race.
As Theotocopulos shouted at Cabal during their confrontation at the space gun, he and his mob are intimidated by what progress has done for civilization: They feel both insecure and inferior in its shadow, while having no issues with reaping its many benefits. This includes the high social status it has brought them, the unbridled access to knowledge, and the freedom to publicly speak their minds. Now that they have what they want to feel safe and comfortable, the needs of future generations can wait so far as they are concerned.
If you would like to watch the full film version of Things to Come, seek it here:
Or, if you can live with, or do not otherwise mind, a colorized version, look here:
https://archive.org/details/hgwells_things_to_come_colourised
Wells made similar commentaries via his 1895 novel The Time Machine, showing a very distant future humanity that had split into two distinct species due to generations of physical separation by social class based on what Wells had personally witnessed in Victorian England: Neither species contributed to progress due to their overriding basic traits and a lack of both awareness and desire to move beyond their current statuses.
Even his story The War of the Worlds had something to say regarding progress if it lacked an ethical and moral core. The Martians were highly intelligent and technologically superior, with “minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic.…”
However, the Martians’ drive to survive as their world began to dry up led them to attempt the brutal extermination of humanity to possess Earth. Even when they were ultimately defeated on our world, the Martians of the novel decided upon the conquest and colonization of Venus: They presumed the native life on that planet, if such existed, would be even less evolved than Earth’s organisms and therefore give them relatively little trouble.
For a more in-depth look at Wells’ complex takes on societal and technological progress, see this essay:
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/h-g-wells-and-the-uncertainties-of-progress/
The Risks of Geocentricism
We came from Earth, from Dorisland, the gem in our solar system.
The only orb where life could grow, a land of milk and honey.
Aniara, Canto 79, Harry Martinson
Things to Come showcases one of my higher concerns regarding the motivations of many Angst SF films and stories. While most of these stories seek social justice for all, especially those who have been traditionally repressed and oppressed, and call for a return of humanity to its more natural origins, I have often wondered if they intend for our species and our civilization to ever do anything more, if they even seriously contemplate our future past a certain point? Do they merely hope and assume some distant, ambiguous generation will pick up the gauntlet when humanity is “ready” to move forward – whenever, whatever, and however that may be.
Regarding the film version of Aniara, their solution for humanity is to remain on Earth and clean it up and our selves in the process. A noble goal to be sure, but then what? Do they feel that staying only on the home world will keep us safe? Just ask the dinosaurs how having neither astronomical knowledge nor a space program in their 160-million-year history worked for them on the day when they eventually crossed paths with the planetoid that impacted Earth 65 million years ago, in what is now termed the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
COMMENT: Yes, I am well aware of the Star Trek Voyager episode from 1997 titled “Distant Origin”. Until and unless science proves otherwise, the Voth and the premise of dinosaurs having evolved to achieve a highly advanced technological civilization and interstellar spaceflight will remain a work of fiction and speculation. See here for the details of this well-done standalone episode: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Distant_Origin_(episode)
The characters certainly are of the mindset that the rest of the Universe, with its distant myriads of stars against all that ominous and utter blackness, is a frightening and potentially dangerous place: If not from any marauding aliens, then from a majority host of environments that are almost instantly fatal to terrestrial life.
Even if one can avoid all that, there is still the ever-looming presence of existential horror in the form of a Cosmos vast and ancient beyond mere human comprehension and experience; a reality whose very parameters make one realize how terribly small and insignificant you are in the much, much grander scheme of things. That even the deities one might either imagine or have inherited are no match for the reality discovered oh so recently by science. More terrifying still is the likely possibility that even the revelations of science are but a glimpse of what may be out there.
Perhaps the hardest things for those of a certain mindset need to grasp is that Earth and all the life upon it are integral parts of that magnificent wider reality: That our world was formed by and in space, that the Cosmos contributed to our being here, that we are neither the physical nor cultural center of it all, but just one of many and varied places.
Our relatively brief time on a singular planet has not allowed us to comprehend the Universe as part of our biological evolutionary development, but our intellects have made us aware of just how big and how numerous the realms beyond Earth are. The issue is that not everyone has been properly educated enough, or taught to care about, these hard-earned facts.
Therefore, the makers of Angst SF such as the ones who made Aniara often give Earth as the answer to our salvation and leave the rest up to a vague future at best. These filmmakers also strongly suggest that humanity go back to a simpler lifestyle, but again the details are vague. They also often fail to explain how this can be done while at the same time maintaining the aspects of civilized society that benefit us, such as modern medicine.
They also tend to skip over the harsh reality that there are many people on Earth who already live in conditions they would consider simple; however, these folks often do so because of poverty and all the negative connotations brought about by being poor. As we saw in Aniara, the particular batch of people being rescued from a catastrophic Earth appeared to be rather well-off: Was this because they could afford to escape into space, or did we just happen not to witness the salvation efforts we should hope and presume were taking place elsewhere across the planet?
As a rule, nothing comes easy without hard work and certain sacrifices along the way. A simpler lifestyle is often idealized by those who are already reaping the benefits of modern technology while having to take its negative aspects at the same time. However, living simply often means more work and less security than modern folks often imagine.
Note how the anti-progressives in Things to Come want major progress to stop, but do not want to give up their comfortable lifestyles made possible by the very thing they despise and reject. This is a way of thinking and behaving that is often widespread across the board of modern society.
OBSERVATION: I was amused at these lines spoken by Theotocopulos: “Is [modern life in 2036 Everytown] any jollier than the world used to be in the good old days? When life was hot and short and merry and the devil took the hindmost?”
The artist must have been aware, at least through studying history if not personally, of how truly awful and dangerous existence was for humanity just a matter of decades before his time. Theotocopulos has taken a rather idealized view of life in his reality’s version of the post-World War 2 era.
This is quite similar to the way that certain modern people imagine life in medieval Europe: They tend to focus on the perceived glamor and adventure of the nobility and knights of the era, while conveniently skipping over the more common and mundane realities of medieval culture, such as a lack of indoor plumbing, poor diets, incurable diseases, religious intolerance, and – worst of all – no Internet and not a single cell phone anywhere to be found.
There can and has to be a balance between our technological civilization and the natural world we come from. It is possible: The problem is that we have only relatively recently begun to truly recognize both the damage we have done and how nature responds to our follies.
COMMENT: One irony is that much of humanity only began to tangibly grasp our situation and place in the Universe when we first flew to the Moon and looked back upon Earth from that distant vantage point in the late 1960s. This was an ability we could not have accomplished without scientific and technological progress.
Even more difficult in our efforts for a better world is the fact that many either do not recognize these issues out of a limiting education or ignore them outright to pursue quick and fleeting gain. It is not the depths of indifferent space that is our problem, it is the need for the ability to conquer our baser selves and to work beyond the tribal mentality. Our intellects know we live on a finite planet in a vast cosmic sea of countless other bodies; now we need to make this part of all our cultural mindsets and act accordingly.
For one possible solution to the above situation, see this book titled The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World by Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack (2011, Yale University Press), which you may read my review of here:
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2012/07/09/revealing-the-new-universe-and-a-shared-cosmology/
There is also a very informative video of the authors sharing their philosophy in detail, which you may view either here:
Or here:
A relevant quote from The New Universe and the Human Future:
“We need to feel in our bones that something much bigger is going on than our petty quarrels and our obsession with getting and spending, and that the role we each play in this very big something is what really defines the meaning and purpose of our lives.”
If the whole Universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: Just as, if there were no light in the Universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
– C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
When Worlds Collide
Needles in a heavenly haystack. There are more stars in the heavens than there are human beings on Earth. Through telescopes, men of science constantly search the infinitesimal corners of our solar system seeking new discoveries, hoping to better understand the laws of the Universe. Observatories dedicated to the study of astronomy are set in high and remote places, but there is none more remote than Mt. Kenna Observatory in this part of South Africa.
– The opening narration of When Worlds Collide.
Hollywood Producer George Pal (1908-1980) hit cinematic gold with his 1950 film Destination Moon. This work of motion picture art, pioneering and well-crafted as it is, is however not an example of Angst SF: It depicts a manned mission to Earth’s nearest cosmic neighbor in the most scientifically accurate way possible for its time. The astronauts who braved the heavens in this film remained optimistic even in moments of peril.
Destination Moon also gives a pragmatic answer as to what it sees as the main reason for Americans reaching our lone natural satellite: To counter the United States’ main geopolitical rival (never mentioned by name, but you know it is the Soviet Union and its Iron Curtain allies, this being the Cold War and all) from establishing a military foothold there ahead of them.
There are of course dramatic moments where the astronauts and their nuclear-powered spaceship are in danger, including the threat of there not being enough fuel to get them back to Earth from the lunar surface. All problems emerging in Destination Moon are solved with real, solid physics – no aliens or supernatural deities ever come to the rescue of our brave heroes.
While these explorers did not existentially fear the depths of space – well, except maybe for Joe Sweeney, the stereotypical Brooklynite who serves as both the Everyman and the comic relief of the film – they seldom forgot how quickly the indifferent Universe beyond their home planet could turn on them in an instant without constant vigilance.
Although Destination Moon would not be considered an Angst SF story as defined here, for there is little which could be considered truly esoteric or existential about it, the film’s primarily serious and even daring nature did help establish science fiction cinema as a genre to be taken more seriously as well. It also opened the door for other films to be created and expand upon the field, including those works that followed which do fit well into the Angst SF camp such as the focus of this essay section, When Worlds Collide.
Based on the 1933 science fiction novel of the same title and co-written by Edwin Balmer (1883-1959) and Philip Wylie (1902-1971), When Worlds Collide is a tale about the end of Earth and its inhabitants when a rogue star and a single exoplanet accompanying it, which astronomers call Bellus and Zyra, respectively, enter the Sol system.
Scientists soon discover that these interstellar interlopers will cause first widespread destruction across Earth when Zyra passes close by our world eight months in their future, followed by the outright destruction of our planet just nineteen days later when Bellus directly collides with Earth.
While no nation or organization of the film’s era (circa 1951) have developed the kind of space program that could save at least some people and other terrestrial life by landing on Zyra – which we and they discover just happens to be close to Earth in both composition and mass, and will even more conveniently go into orbit about our yellow dwarf star in its habitable zone – several institutions across the globe begin building large rocket arks in a desperate attempt to reach the alien world with a small group of humans.
There are of course moments both large and small where we see the reactions and actions of various people when they realize that the world truly is coming to an end, taking their lives and all they care about in the process. Sometimes it feels authentic, while at other times a modern viewer might be wondering why more of these folks stuck in this dire situation are not panicking en masse (a French term meaning “in a large body”) and attempting to take over the rescue ark – or arks, as the case may be, although the film only focuses on the American one. In fact, such an event does happen, but only towards the very end as the ark is preparing to depart Earth.
Earlier in When Worlds Collide, there is a dialogue between astronomer Dr. Cole Hendron and business magnate Sydney Stanton where they discuss human nature in times of crisis. As both men hail from very different backgrounds, their perspectives on their fellow humans are equally as opposing…
Sydney Stanton: “What provisions have you made to protect us when the panic starts?”
Dr. Cole Hendron, Astronomer at Cosmos Observatory: “I haven’t thought about it.”
Stanton: “I have. I don’t deal in theories. I deal in realities. Ferris… Ferris!”
Harold Ferris: “Yes, sir.”
Stanton: “Bring in those boxes. I’ve brought enough rifles to stop a small army.”
Dr. Hendron: “There won’t be any panic in this camp.”
Stanton: “Oh, stop theorizing! Once the havoc is over, every mother’s son remaining alive will try to get here and climb aboard our ship!”
Dr. Hendron: “People are more civilized than that. They know only a handful can make the flight.”
Stanton: “You’ve spent too much time in the stars. You don’t know anything about living. The law of the jungle… the human jungle. I do… I’ve spent my life at it! You don’t know what your civilized people will do to cling to life. I do because I know I’d cling if I had to kill to do it. And so will you. We’re the lucky ones… the handful with the chance to reach another world. And we’ll use those guns… YOU’LL use them, Doctor, to keep your only chance to stay alive!”
One character stereotype the cinema has never quite gotten away from is how scientists and science types are portrayed: The usual traits have them completely focused on their work, which is of course some prominent field of science, at the expense of themselves, those around them, and sometimes even all of humanity.
A prime example of this cinematic characterization of scientists may be found in another science fiction film also released in the same year, just seven months before When Worlds Collide, to be more precise: The Thing from Another World.
In this story, involving yet another standard trope of the genre – the malevolent alien bent on destroying all humans to take over their home world – the lead human scientist is so determined to obtain what he believes is superior knowledge and wisdom from The Thing (this being reached Earth via a starship, after all) that he is willing to risk just about anything, including his own species.
As a result, this main scientist in The Thing is regarded almost as villainous as the alien by the preordained real hero characters, members of the United States Air Force (USAF), until nearly the end of the film when said scientist makes his own style of rather daring sacrifice.
To read these themes in detail and more on The Thing, please see my essay here:
In comparison, Dr. Hendron can only be accused of an optimistic and even naïve faith in human beings under duress. When Bellus is about to strike Earth and the panicked and desperate mobs do attempt to storm the security gates and get themselves aboard the space ark as Stanton predicted, the astronomer agrees with the businessman that he is a better judge of human nature than himself. Dr. Hendron then heroically gives up his place on the ark, along with an unwilling Stanton, to ensure the vessel will be light enough to make it into space and eventually land on Zyra.
COMMENT 1 of 2: If this situation were happening in our reality, I have to wonder if civilized society would hold together even a fraction as long as it appeared to do so in the film, with chaos ensuing such that an ark could not even be built safely unless extreme measures were taken to protect the ship and crew. Nevertheless, a happy ending, even if only a mere slice of the 2.5 billion humans who existed on Earth in 1951 survive, must be had: Otherwise, the typical mass market audience will feel they just spent 83 minutes of their lives investing their emotions in the characters and story for naught. Of course, based on Swedish reactions to Aniara, this response and demand for upbeat plot endings may be more expected from American audiences.
COMMENT 2 of 2: In my research for this essay, I noticed a similar question brought up by various reviewers regarding the denizens of the Aniara, who kept themselves both relatively civil and civilized despite also facing oblivion and even less hope of survival with each passing year of their unplanned journey. Aside from the fact that having everyone onboard break down into barbarism and wipe themselves out, especially early on, would not make for much of a story – as well as contradict the original epic poem – Aniara does present the human desire to exhibit hope even in the face of certain oblivion. In one sense, hope may simply be a basic survival trait masquerading as nobility; then again, hope may be the key to an intelligent species to move and live beyond mere animalistic survival.
In addition to the prominent existential theme of human mortality in an indifferent Universe – if a roaming alien star and planet randomly targeting Earth for obliteration isn’t an act of a cold Cosmos, then I am not sure what else is – When Worlds Collide also carries much when it comes to the Angst SF trait of vague and even wrong science and physics.
We are given and shown just enough in the film adaptation to make events appear and sound plausible, but certainly, unlike Destination Moon, these aspects are there primarily to prop up the human stories and elements.
Even the primary story catalyst contains fundamental holes: The mass of the approaching alien sun alone, relatively small for a star as it is, would have distorted Earth to complete destruction well before the star had gotten near our planet.
REAL SCIENCE TIME: In the film, the astronomers claim that the rogue star Bellus is “a dozen times the size of Earth.” This means that Bellus would not be massive enough to generate nuclear fusion: This would make Bellus a brown dwarf, a stellar class that was not even theorized until the 1960s and only confirmed to exist three decades later. As such, the views we do see of Bellus do not match the probable appearance of a brown dwarf. In addition, such a dim, cool star would not be capable of supporting life on Zyra, which we see at the end of the film once had sophisticated beings and other multicellular life on its surface.
The site TV Tropes gives some wonderful details on When Worlds Collide, include a number of its nontrivial scientific gaffes:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/WhenWorldsCollide
OIL AND WATER: As a further irony to the above, in the original novel, author Wylie was noted for rigorously checking on the science of the story, while co-author Balmer did not make it as much of a priority. Wylie was said to be quite displeased when his cohort made a number of changes without his prior review. From the sound of it, the pair was the equivalent of matching up Jules Verne with H. G. Wells, respectively.
Producer Pal had sought to make a follow-up film to When Worlds Collide based on the sequel novel titled After Worlds Collide, written by the same authors and published in 1934. However, Pal’s string of cinematic successes ran afoul in 1955 when he produced and released the film Conquest of Space.
The failure of Conquest of Space at both the box office and with critics kept Pal and any interested audiences from having a cinematic take on what took place after the remnants of humanity settled on their new home planet. However, what did emerge from this tale turned out to be perhaps more interesting and even revolutionary than anyone at the time – or even decades later – quite realized, until now.
Conquest of Space
When I began delving into this essay about Aniara, I made an amazing realization: The previous film I had written about, Conquest of Space, was an early cinematic work of Angst Science Fiction! It was a bit hard to see at first due to its predominantly pedestrian and clunky nature: A B-grade film with A-grade intentions. I also had my doubts that the film’s producer was consciously aiming for a story more in line with Aniara and its brethren.
Nevertheless, Conquest of Space does contain many of the elements found in Angst SF, especially once our characters are on their way to Mars. I was impressed enough with my findings that I wrote an entire essay section devoted to the film: Cleverly titled Conquest of Aniara, it includes a link to my complete essay on Conquest of Space.
Conquest of Aniara
When I wrote my essay on the 1955 film Conquest of Space, produced by the legendary George Pal (1908-1980), I had yet to see Aniara and knew relatively little about that Swedish creation. I also had yet to give a proper name to that subgenre of science fiction I am now calling Angst SF.
Thinking about Aniara after my initial viewing of that film and its particular genre had me re-examining Conquest of Space. I soon realized that what many considered to be Pal’s rare failure may have in fact been ahead of its time. I wondered whether even the famous producer fully realized what he had accomplished or not: An early if not completely ideal example of Angst SF for the cinema.
As a reminder of what this specific genre is about, here is a refresher quote from what writer-director Michael Kuciak in his 2019 review on Aniara:
“Script-wise, Aniara tangentially fits a sub-sub-sub-genre of sci-fi scripts that might be called the long trip spec. Most of them go a little something like this: The characters are on a ship that’s on a long mission in space. An inciting incident occurs; it’s either an accident (usually something to do with an asteroid), or the ship happens upon an anomaly (usually leading to an alien). In a large percentage of these scripts, one of the characters goes insane and gives everyone a hard time. That character is almost always either the captain, or an android/robot.”
Conquest checks off most of these boxes: The main characters have been posted on a space station in Earth orbit for over one year before going on an even longer voyage to the planet Mars. During their mission, a large (and orange) rogue planetoid almost smashes into their spaceship; its trailing debris strikes and kills one of the astronauts in the process. The interplanetary ship’s commander goes insane and becomes a religious fanatic, believing that humanity does not belong anywhere but on its home world because he thinks God says so via the Bible. The commander attempts to sabotage the vessel several times, which would have resulted in the murder of the entire crew in the process, one of them being his very own son.
The 1955 film Conquest of Space, an early example of Angst Science Fiction. Here we see an astronaut named Andre Fodor, a victim of cosmic fate and indifference, being buried in space: His body floats off into the seemingly endless void against a brilliant Sol.[/caption]
There are even more elements which place Conquest into the Angst SF category:
Throughout the film, most of the crew do not want to be in space, especially on a trip to either the Moon or Mars. Outside of a few goofy moments from the film’s resident Comic Relief, the characters are rather serious to the point most of them are outright dour as the story wears on. It is this attitude – and the genre that Conquest doesn’t even quite realize it is in – which largely explains why the attempts at humor often seem forced, juvenile, or just fall flat.
Angst SF is often quite serious, with a few very notable exceptions. After all, these characters are trapped in an existential realm which the field’s most famous proponent, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), once said that “Hell is other people.”
This was so true for Conquest. One character in particular, the Irish stereotype Sergeant Mahoney, was particularly volatile due to a combination of his rough personality and an over-devotion to his friend, Samuel T. Merritt – the man who would command both the space station and later the spacecraft he would attempt to doom on the Red Planet.
Mahoney antagonized most of the crew for various reasons, all of which led back to his decades-long military life and an unwavering support of Sam Merritt. He became especially hostile to Sam’s son, Barney, when the younger man accidentally killed his father while trying to stop Sam from wrecking the spaceship and stranding the crew to certain death on Mars. Mahoney accused Barney of deliberately murdering his father, never once letting up on his belief and tormenting Barney with it for months, until they were finally able to escape the planet.
The scenes on Mars and other moments throughout led me to initially never want to see Conquest again after my first serious viewing of the film: This was much in the same way that certain scenes and other factors in Aniara made me never want to see that cinematic work ever again after my first exposure to it.
In addition to Mahoney’s belligerency towards Barney Merritt, the whole crew had to suffer through their time on Mars while they waited for the planet to align with Earth so they would have enough rocket fuel to reach home. Their limited water supply – thanks to the actions of Sam Merritt, who opened the spaceship’s water tank valves to let most of their precious liquid pour away onto the reddish Martian surface – only exacerbated their grim situation.
Then there is the scene where the crew attempted to celebrate Christmas as best they could: However, their privations, the endless threat of raw death from a harsh alien world, and their personal hostilities only reminded them (and us, the audience) just how much this ostensibly joyous holiday was a hollow sham for them being so far from Earth and the rest of the human race. These explorers of Mars may not have been stranded indefinitely in deep space as the people on the Aniara were, but there were more than a few tense moments that could have become their fate as well.
Another distinctive parallel between Conquest and Aniara is the depiction of the characters in a future society: Although both sets of characters reside in time decades and centuries ahead of their contemporary audiences, respectively, in virtually every other aspect they are essentially identical to men and women of 1955 and 2018, also respectively.
Among the reasons for this particular lack of futurism is the desire of the filmmakers to make their characters relatable to their initial viewers both for box office appeal and to make any inherent messages acceptable. In Aniara’s case, there is not even an attempt to have the cast wear clothing that would stand out if they were walking the streets of Sweden or just about anywhere else in the Western hemisphere in the early Twenty-First Century – Martian pressure suits aside.
Regarding the science and technology of Conquest, these are aspects that keeps the film in the Angst SF category. This is especially ironic for Conquest, as the film was touted as a realistic vision of then near future space exploration, inspired by a famous book of nearly the same title.
Conquest did attempt to be realistic throughout, but the film also took some unexpected detours I would normally associate more with B-grade and lower genre films of the day. Among the more outstanding ones was having the main spaceship, originally meant to take men to the Moon, suddenly reassigned to go all the way to Mars and to be prepared for this new mission in just a matter of days, as if this were merely hopping from a domestic jetliner flight to an international one. Worse, Sam Merritt, the commanding officer himself, seemed utterly surprised by this, even though he helped build the spaceship – which sports a huge set of wings meant for landing on a world with an appreciable atmosphere.
As for the spaceship itself – rather unimaginatively called Spaceship One – a limited film budget was probably the main culprit which kept this vessel’s interiors from being better designed.
Not only did the main spacecraft not seem terribly roomy for a ship which had to carry and support five adult men for over two years in deep space, the walls and various control/monitoring stations were ergonomically unappealing. We also never saw where the crew slept, ate, went to the bathroom, or what they had and did for leisure. These are all critical factors in sustaining a group of human beings for several years straight.
Speaking of eating, Conquest dropped another ball they had made quite a big deal about in the first half of its story: As part of their preparations, the deep space mission crew had to consume all their meals in pill form – the leading food style of the retrofuture. Yet once the voyage is underway, we never see these astronauts eating, not even so much as a snack. Even more contradictory, Sergeant Mahoney keeps offering to make coffee and tea in their traditional liquid states for the men, even though we witnessed them having coffee back on the station in pill form, garnished with cream and sugar condiments.
One could make yet another parallel between the two films regarding food, as the Aniara crew were forced into a restricted diet of processed algae out of necessity. The astronauts in Conquest were confined to meals in pill form, as their mission planners considered this the most efficient way to store enough food for the years-long cruise to Mars and back. Unlike the members of the Aniara, however, the men of Spaceship One had a consistent and wide variety of meals and drinks to choose from, regardless of their packaging.
There are other features of Conquest of Space, however, which do fall more in line with scientific realism and even parallel Aniara’s underlying theme to a degree.
For Conquest, which takes place in the year 1980, Earth’s resources are already beginning to run low, threatening the very technological civilization that is using them up. The authorities look to the planet Mars for salvation. As character Dr. George Fenton declared: “Man’s very survival on Earth depends upon the success of this or some future search for a new source of raw materials.”
Aniara also looks to the fourth world from Sol for its salvation, by making it a new home for the species that has already ruined their original one. While Conquest is exploring Mars for scientific knowledge – they have a very capable geologist onboard Spaceship One named Sergeant Imoto, who at one point said that “Japan’s yesterday will be the world’s tomorrow. Too many people and too little land. That is why I say… there is urgent need for us to reach Mars: To provide the resources the human race will need if they are to survive” – their ultimate mission goal is no less different or practical than those who are on the Aniara.
The other item of interest in Conquest is how realistic the planet Mars was depicted for 1955, two years before a single artificial satellite would achieve Earth orbit, let alone reach another celestial body.
Most scientists of the 1950s would have told you that while Mars was no longer taken very seriously as an abode for any highly intelligent and civilized beings, such as the ones imagined by astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916) over half a century earlier, the odds were good that at least some forms of native organisms could exist there: Plants certainly and maybe even some relatively simple hardy animals.
Mars was also thought to be covered by a network of canals, based on what they thought they saw through their terrestrial-bound telescopes of the day: Lowell and others believed they were purposefully made by those advanced minds he first envisioned in the late Nineteenth Century. Others considered them to be natural waterways, or perhaps giant cracks or canyons along the surface, created by flowing water, seismic disruptions, and even active volcanoes.
The Mars we find in Conquest comes far closer to matching what we now know about the Red Planet, sometimes even better than how this world was often presented two decades into the Space Age.
From orbit, we see this Mars with craters, volcanoes, dry channels, and lake beds. Many astronomers were surprised one decade after Conquest was released into theaters when the American space probe Mariner 4 flew by the Red Planet in July of 1965 and sent back the first close-up images of the surface of that world, if somewhat grainy and limited in number.
Most of Mariner 4’s black-and-white photographs showed numerous impact craters of various dimensions, enough so that scientists began to declare Mars as a much less hospitable place than they had imagined. Just six years later, another robot explorer, the orbiter Mariner 9, would reveal the presence of giant Martian volcanoes, huge canyons, and many long and winding channels across the landscape, with the latter likely carved by flowing liquid water eons ago.
The canals were present in the high-altitude perspectives of Mars in Conquest, but these surface denizens were obviously of natural origin and not in the sharp relief other cinematic versions and even contemporary scientific illustrations displayed them as. In reality, it turned out that the Canals of Mars were optical illusions and otherwise natural features mistaken for large, long straight lines across the planet’s surface.
In the film, the Martian daytime sky, as observed from the ground, was shown as a dark blue green in color due to the thin surface atmosphere, but that standard would remain until the twin Viking landers returned the first color surface images in 1976. There we would discover that the daylight skies of Mars are actually a salmon pink tone due to all the wind-borne dust floating about.
The other fascinating things about Mars as portrayed in Conquest were the planet’s life forms and water – or lack thereof, for neither existed, at least where Spaceship One had touched down. This was in sharp contrast not only to many real astronomers’ views on these subjects during that era, but especially just about every contemporary fictional version of the Red Planet as well, cinematic ones included. After all, don’t our heroes need to interact with some strange alien creatures to spice up the plot? Or was the alienness of Mars enough?
Not in the case of Conquest of Space. These astronauts find not so much as either a single Martian microbe or a drop of water, let alone any living intelligent natives or alien seas. Even the trope of the dead remains of an ancient civilization were left out of this story.
This was done for two main reasons: To depict Mars in a more realistic fashion than had been done before and to justify this humanity’s right to utilize the planet’s resources and settle there, as it appears the Red Planet has never been occupied until now. The latter feature ties in with the Manifest Destiny attitude Barney displays when he states that “the Universe was put here for Man to conquer.”
Regarding the issue of life on Mars, there is another interesting parallel between Conquest and Aniara: Both involve flowers brought from Earth and transplanted on the Martian surface. In Conquest’s case, Sergeant Imoto introduced some generic flower seeds that bloomed on the planet’s surface with just a little help. In Aniara, MR mentions a kind of small tulip that appears to have been genetically modified to exist in the rather harsh conditions of Mars.
The flower parallel ends with these plants in terms of their significance: For Conquest, it is a physical sign of hope that the Red Planet can be turned into a new resource and eventually home for humanity. For Aniara, the tulip described by the Mimarobe is meant to indicate that Mars is just barely useable for her species, one that has already wrecked their home world with no guarantees they may not cause it to happen again elsewhere.
COMMENT: I must wonder if the makers of Aniara were trying to slip in a hint of hope despite the outward message, as tulips are considered not only symbols of love, purity, forgiveness, and enlightenment, among other things, but also represent rebirth and new beginnings. Tulips are also perennials, which means they can survive through difficult climate conditions such as winter and come back again and again.
Returning to the story of Conquest, it fascinates me to see how much this film was more like these later forms of drama found in Angst SF than I had initially realized. Had George Pal been allowed to fully produce his film as he wanted, without meddling Hollywood studio interference, would we have witnessed a cinematic work more like Aniara?
My guess is that the answer would be an overall yes, but only to a certain point. An ending mirroring the one in Aniara would not have been palatable to contemporary audiences, unless the story came from some truly classical and therefore expected source like William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, first published in a quarto version in 1597, where the two main characters die by their own hands at the end of the production.
I also doubt even Pal would have gone for such a dark lesson: In his 1951 film When Worlds Collide, the utter destruction of Earth and all life upon it was tempered by the self-made rescue of a handful of humans and livestock (and some puppies) who settle upon a hospitable alien planet which conveniently accompanied the rogue star that smashed into their home world.
Pal was also quite religious and infused this theme throughout his films, including Conquest. When things seem to be at a nadir for the crew of Spaceship One, a miracle appears in the form of snow on Mars – and on Christmas Day to boot. The scene is accompanied by the instrumental version of a traditional holiday tune, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.
The far more cynical Aniara would never have had such a scene, except in the most ironic sense and even then, it would have likely come in the form of yet another false hope for the passengers, as with the Spear/Probe.
Nevertheless, there were definitely enough elements in Conquest of Space which sidestepped the expected plot points and character actions of its genre and day, enough for me to declare this film one of the first to qualify for being cinematic Angst Science Fiction.
These nouveau cinematic characteristics are probably among the larger reasons why Conquest did not do well both at the box office and with the average fan in its initial run and for several decades after. Only in recent years has this Pal production begun a slow rise in the science fiction cinema pantheon among its much more famous and popular contemporaries.
To read a full account of Conquest of Space to explore these elements and more in detail, see my essay on the film here:
A delayed recognition is among the prices one often must pay when being a pioneer in any field, especially one with inherent flaws. Aniara also falls into this category, although it may have a much longer haul to achieve wider recognition beyond a certain type of cinephile due to its existential elements and source material.
On the Beach
On the Beach, a science fiction film released in 1959 and based on a 1957 novel of the same title by English novelist and aeronautical engineer Nevil Shute Norway (1899-1960), while not taking place in space – unless you count Earth being in space – does share some very similar themes and plot points with Aniara.
In the then-future year of 1964, a nuclear war has devastated Earth’s northern hemisphere, releasing huge clouds of deadly radiation that are drifting into the planet’s southern hemisphere.
One of the last places left on Earth untouched by the war is Australia. We meet the residents of the city of Melbourne, who attempt to go about their lives as they did before the global conflict, despite knowing there is no escape from their ultimate fate.
Eventually the radioactive fallout finally reaches them: The remaining residents decide to commit suicide in various ways of their choosing, rather than succumb to a slow and painful death by radiation poisoning. The end of the film implies there are no humans left alive on Earth, though a Salvation Army street banner is seen waving in the wind with the words “There is still time.. Brother” – a clear message for the film’s audience.
As with the spaceship passengers and crew in Aniara, most of the citizens in Melbourne try to carry on with their daily routines as they did before the Cold War conflict became deadly hot, signing all their death warrants with no escape. There is a brief hope that the radiation levels from the war might drop to safer levels before reaching Australia, or at least Antarctica; it is soon found, however, that is not the case.
Just as with the probe/spear in Aniara, the detection of random Morse code signals coming from somewhere in California give the citizens hope that if at least some people survived in the northern hemisphere, they may be able to make it in Australia.
Unfortunately, one of the last operating United States Navy (USN) submarines sent to investigate the mystery discovers that the signals were happening by chance: A combination of a telegraph key snared in the pull cord of a nearby window shade and a tipped half-empty soda bottle on top of it. Ocean breezes coming through the open window moved the shade, which in turn moved the glass bottle and the key.
COMMENT 1 of 2: Interesting that Antarctica is mentioned in On the Beach as a potential refuge. The southernmost continent has often been considered as the closest terrestrial analog to the planet Mars, the original destination of the Aniara. Had the characters in On the Beach decided to go to Antarctica and managed to survive there, they would have had to live in confined artificial conditions just as those who settled on Mars would have.
There is also a brief mention that any intelligent natives on Mars might be watching Earth and eventually come here to take over the planet, once the radiation levels die down enough
COMMENT 2 of 2: Ever since I first saw On the Beach decades ago, I wondered why the Australians didn’t consider moving at least some of their population under the surface, perhaps in already existing mine shafts or in deep natural caves, where the radiation clouds could not reach them while they had a chance. Even underwater enclaves would work. Perhaps there just was not enough time between the war and the fallout’s arrival to build appropriate survival shelters; or some groups such as the military or survivalists did go underground and we simply were not told about i
“There is hope. There has to be hope. There’s always hope.” – Mary Holmes, played by Donna Anderson (born 1939).