Steamboy

[gfish]

I went to go see Steamboy last night. And while it isn't a perfect movie, it is quite good. And OMG PRETTY STEAMPUNK LUST. The tech was amazing, and only bent the rules when it absolutely had to. It even bothered to provide a high density energy source for the crazy steam-based contraptions, though still not as plausible or as well explained as the one in Anti-Ice.

Its only real flaw was the prominent inclusion of Tower Bridge in the London of 1866. Maybe that was just meant to be an alternate history kind of thing. Oh well. Their application of Boyle's Law was also... interesting.

Nothing triggers my romantic tendencies like steampunk. Technology as it should have been -- powerful, gorgeous and human-scale. The last time a single individual could seriously advance the state of the art, while it was still an art. When one could still honestly assume all advances were going to improve the world. I'm still a dedicated technophile, but even I will admit it's more like holding a tiger by the tail these days than a proud march of progress into the future. I wish I could have felt that. To view the future without any tinge of fear, just once.

Comments

[rollick.livejournal.com]

That seems kind of ironic, since it seems to me that the entire theme of that movie is the uncertainity over whether technology is good, is helpful, is going to be in the right hands, and is going to be used for the common good.

[adularia.livejournal.com]

Cool. And here I didn't think there was anything good out.

When is the actual date for Hitchhiker's? I've heard conflicting things.

[triskadekaphile.livejournal.com]

I've never met a human being who viewed the future without a single tinge of fear. I don't think that's unique to our generation.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Have you read any China Mieville?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Well, that was the message the modern creators of the movie put into it, certainly. But I'm completely willing to accept that my view of that era is highly romanticized. Certainly Ned Ludd and sabotage put a lie to the idea that everyone welcomed progress back then.

[shadowblue.livejournal.com]

I didn't think there was anything good out recently, either. I'll have to see it.

[mdlbear]

There are still a few fields where one person can make a significant contribution, computer science being the one I'm most familiar with.

[mdlbear]

And I expect the stone axe was pretty scary, back in its day.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

Nothing triggers my romantic tendencies like steampunk. Technology as it should have been -- powerful, gorgeous and human-scale. The last time a single individual could seriously advance the state of the art, while it was still an art.

I am in complete agreement with this sentiment. I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about how each science and/or technology goes through what I call the "hobbyist phase," where the standard working unit in the field is the interested individual in his/her garage, barn, basement, what-have-you, before things get so big and so complex that they pass beyond the reach of the dedicated hobbyist and into the realm of the industrial firm, the research lab, and the deep-pocketed monomaniac.

[samildanach.livejournal.com]

The trailer in front of "Sin City" said 29 April, the last Friday of this month.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

you must rent/buy Castle In The Sky (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092067/) by Hayao Miyazaki, if you haven't already. Full of zeppelins and flying beasties and steaming stuff.