All Things in Moderation

And thus, to attempt to live up to my title as master of pop culture, it is my duty to inform you that Bond 23 now has a name: Skyfall.

Apparently, the evil environmentalist, Dominic Greene, and Quantum won’t be back as a plot element in Daniel Craig’s 3rd outing as Bond.

Speaking of evil environmentalists, Michael Crichton wrote a rip-roaring action-adventure novel about evil environmentalists in State of Fear. It would make a great movie but, alas, is not likely to ever be a movie, because the bad guys aren’t just a few guys posing as environmentalism, but environmentalists, environmental lawyers, Hollywood environmentalists, etc. These environmentalists are willing to destroy the planet (or big chunks of it) in order to save it, in Crichton’s novel, and the famous environmentalist actor (probably a stand in for Martin Sheen) ends up getting eaten by cannibals. There are a few dry bits where characters become mouthpieces for Crichton’s concerns regarding climate science, but for the most part, it’s good versus evil versus nature in techno-thriller set piece after set piece.

It’s unfortunate that the heavies are clearly environmentalists, and not just poseurs, and that the point is made on multiple occasions that Crichton sees the current state of global warming science as incomplete in some place, and flat out wrong or false in others (with footnotes). Because with the credible passes at weather control, and the use of subsonic deep-cavitation devices to carve off part of an island and create a monsoon to destroy the west coast, cell phones that can attract lightning, and a jeep stuck in a flash flood (not to mention some straight-up hand-to-hand fighting), this movie would surpass Jurassic Park in it’s techno-thrilliness. But it’s never going to happen.

Oddly, another very exciting novel he wrote, Prey, also doesn’t seem destined for the big screen, even though the only bad guys in this case are big corporations and short-sighted scientists taking short cuts to achieve results-for-profit.

Next, his last novel published before his death, may actually make it to the big screen. It’s not bad, but is not nearly as exciting as Prey, or State of Fear.

Mitt Romney makes it clear that he will not stand for Winnona Ryder pissing off people with a guitar, and that he wants a cookie:

Good evening, all. — KW