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I’ve seen a number of critics compare Christopher Nolan to the works of Stanley Kubrick. When one surveys the current state of big name directors, Nolan is perhaps on the surface the most appropriate modern analogue to Kubrick, but only insofar as they both began in noir and their films show an unusual attention to detail. In terms of subject matter, style, and character, they have very little in common. But the comparison seems valid, and after musing on it for a bit, I’ve developed a theory about why. This theory also examines why some people have felt disconnected from Inception (a film that I suspect I may end up considering Nolan’s best).

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The biggest problem I had with Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land was that it felt very much like two novels slammed together in a desperate attempt to form a singular work. There is a very definite shift in the last quarter of the novel, where the consequences of characters’ actions begin to vary wildly from expectations. None of this would be problematic if the first three quarters of the novel had not been spent criticizing what the final quarter ends up promoting.

Specifically, the shift in portrayals of religion in the novel is sloppy and poorly executed. Heinlein attempts to justify his sudden promotion of institutionalized religious dogma by explaining that he does not consider Valentine Michael Smith’s church to be a true religion as much as it is a spiritual movement. Yet he goes to great pains throughout the novel to draw explicit parallels between Mike’s church and that of the Fosterites, as well as to paint Foster himself as a huckster, only to suddenly reverse himself on both counts at the end of his story.

Worse, Heinlein’s shifts his writing style in the latter sections of the novel and commits the greatest sin a writer can commit: he starts telling us what is happening, rather than showing us. We hear a lot about Mike’s church and its impact on society and the way people react to it, but we don’t actually see any of this until the end, at which point it lacks the necessary emotional context to have a great impact. In addition, he begins to introduce new characters while downplaying established ones, to the determent of the story as a whole. The character of Jill, for instance, ultimately is a non-entity by the end of the story, despite being crucially important for the first three quarters. Did he stop liking her? Did he just not want to write her anymore? Why does he forget her so quickly?

Additionally, Heinlein’s theme has shifted profoundly by the end of the story. Initially promoting scientific reason, skepticism, and the foolishness of human culture, law, and institutions, he changes his tune and instead chooses to promote vague spiritualism and a survival-of-the-fittest mentality the belies not only previously developed ideas, but also the hitherto established Martian social structures which Mike’s character values. In the end, Heinlein tells us his message, but the way that it clashes with the themes developed throughout the story uncut its effectiveness.

I am being critical, I know, and I would recommend the book to anyone with an interest in science fiction. In the end, though, I couldn’t enjoy it on the same level I could some other sci-fi classics. It is guilty of too many of the things that it criticizes, and by its end, Heinlein has done what I considered impossible for him: he has stopped writing to the best of his abilities. That alone makes this novel a tragedy.

I had a long post a few months back ranting against the idea of Hulu going to a pay model. Now I’ve got a little bit of hat-eating to do. The reason is that the new service called Hulu Plus, which costs $9.99 a month and was announced today, does not replace the old service. Hulu.com remains free, with the same content system in place as ever (last 5 episodes are free). It does, however, stay confined to your desktop.

The monthly Hulu Plus fee unlocks back catalogs, meaning that you could theoretically stream any episode of any Hulu series anywhere. I like that arrangement quite a bit, especially since the cornerstone of the system is a new app released for the iPhone and iPad, in addition to upcoming applications for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

The only hitch, I think, is that a lot of people aren’t going to see why they should pay for Hulu Plus. This goes back to web entitlement issues – because everything has been free up until this point, people think they will always be free. I’m not sure how the service will fare, and the potential for a public backlash is there, but I’m more optimistic about it as its being implemented than I was a few months ago.

I’m ready to cancel my cable. Release this thing and let me justify it!

I’ve virtually abandoned Facebook in favor of Twitter. I’ve been thinking about it a little bit lately, and I think there are two things that have caused that, one of which is technological and one of which is philosophical. Neither has anything to do with privacy. I’ve more or less accepted that I live in an age where traditional notions of privacy have been thrown away as part of an agreement with web companies: they give us spectacular online services, and in exchange we give them the information they need to market virtually anything to us. I don’t have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is that as the Facebook platform has grown, it and I have grown apart.

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