IGMS Issue 44 (19 page)

Jafartha walked up to the cage and stuck both left hands into the trapdoor as casually as if he were grabbing a loaf of bread from the kitchen counter. Gripping the creature behind its blind eyes, he drew it from its cage, saying, "You're not afraid of this little thing, are you?"

Kitja took a step forward. "Of course not."

"Good; you hold him then, while I get the knife ready for you."

Sidling closer to his father, however, Kitja seemed unsure of which hand to put where.

"Come on, boy," Jafartha snapped. He reached a free hand out and grabbed his son's wrist, pulling him closer. He placed one of Kitja's hands, "Here -- " he placed the other, " -- and here. My father wasn't half so gentle when he showed me how to hold a cayalla larva."

As if sensing Kitja's agitation, the larva jerked and twisted, biting the air, snapping and writhing.

Kitja extended his arms away from his body, saying, "Don't force me to do this. Please. It doesn't have to be this way."

Jafartha shook his head. "Of course it does. When the Mythographers wrote the twelve HammerSongs, the first eight were about the Procession of Kings. They could have chosen anything to be first. The fact that they chose the Procession should tell you how important this ceremony is."

"But all you ever want to sing are the first eight HammerSongs. Grandfather Boonhe says the rest of them are just as -- "

"Enough whys. And enough of your grandfather's prattling. The first eight teach us everything we need to know. Everything!"

Kitja threw the larvae emphatically down on the rooftop. It made a whump like someone beating a drum with all four hands when it hit.

Immediately the larva began wriggling across the flat surface and toward the edge.

If it tumbled over the side and fell to the beach below, it would burrow into the wet sand, emerging seconds later as an enormous and deadly cayalla beetle. That was the only thing that might render losing the sacrifice insignificant by comparison.

Without hesitation, Jafartha threw himself forward, wharkbone knife in hand. He stabbed at the larva even as he crashed down onto the wooden rooftop.

Jafartha's first blow missed, and the blade stuck in the roof.

The larva wriggled closer to the edge. Jafartha struggled to free the blade. Yanking, pulling, heaving, finally wrenching it up and out.

One last chance. He raised the blade again . . .

And pierced the creature's body.

Blood ran down the side of their home. It would make a permanent stain; there was no washing away cayalla blood.

Jafartha climbed to his feet. "The Mythographers say that it's a bad omen to spill cayalla blood on your house."

Kitja replied, "It's an omen of your own making. I wouldn't have dropped the creature if you hadn't made me."

Jafartha glanced to the sky, scanning, looking from Tynus to the other two kings. Then at his son. The final moon was almost to its place in the Procession.

"We'll discuss your cowardice later; right now we have precious little time to finish this."

Wordlessly, the two of them climbed back around to the kitchen trapdoor, entering the shack from below. They found Yonhe where they had left her, still deep in the grip of her herbal tea.

For the final time, Jafartha offered the knife to Kitja. Just as the boy was about to take it, Jafartha snatched his arm back, lifting the knife high in the air.

"Are you sure you have what it takes to finish this?"

"Depends on what you're talking about."

"Excuse me?"

Kitja began counting points off on his fingers. "Water sacrifice. The blade was in my hand, but whose hand was it that did the deed?"

Jafartha's eyes twitched; something about his son's tone was troubling. He said, "Mine."

"And the air and land sacrifice? Whose hand spilled cayalla blood on our house?"

"Mine . . ."

Kitja nodded slowly. "That's right. Yours."

"Your point?"

"Grandfather Boonhe taught me about another tradition -- the
Succession
of Kings. It's the last HammerSong, one of the ones you never want to sing. Grandfather taught me that song -- and that there's more than one way to become a man. You were so eager to cut off mother's arm that you never realized I was making you do all the work. The last HammerSong says that if I can get you to perform all of the sacrifices for me, as well as spreading cayalla blood on your own home, then I get to invoke The Succession of Kings."

Wrapping his fingers around the knife's handle, Kitja stripped the weapon away from his father with ease.

Jafartha was too stunned to put up a fight.

Kitja said with regret, "I
knew
you'd never be able to resist killing that simka fish . . ."

Realizing the ramifications of what Kitja had done, Jafartha's pale-green eyes turned yellow with fear. The Succession. Kitja was actually going to invoke --

No. It couldn't be. No one had invoked the Succession in a dozen generations. It was archaic. It was . . . pointless.

All Jafartha could think to say was: "Why?"

Kitja raised the wharkbone knife high in the air, replying, "Because right now Mother doesn't need a good new arm nearly so much as this family needs a good new
head
."

Bring out your dead

From 'Alien' to 'X-Files,' franchises continue to fight the future as they try to rejuvenate tired icons

Out of nostalgia came a wave of enthusiasm over the last few weeks, as the continuation of a beloved but [mostly*] dormant franchise quickly became a reality. Well, to be clear, it began as a lark, morphed into an Internet discussion and then suddenly turned
into
a reality. And so it was that, 18 years after
Alien: Resurrection
, the series itself became resurrected with the official confirmation of a forthcoming fifth chapter.

* No, I'm not counting
Prometheus 
or the
AvP
series.

The story is well known by now - District 9 director Neill Blomkamp posted concept art for a hypothetical Alien film that would bring back not only Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley, but Michael Biehn's Cpl. Hicks - who appeared in
Aliens
before being killed off in the opening sequence of the franchise's third installment - as well. The artwork made the rounds quickly, followed by Blomkamp revealing that 20
^th
Century Fox was ready to actually greenlight the movie (but that he personally wasn't), followed almost immediately afterward that he had, in the intervening days, apparently become ready after all and that
Alien 5
was really happening.

While much of what I've heard (at least from people I read and listen to) has demonstrated a healthy level of skepticism - particularly given Blomkamp's consecutive misfires in
Elysium
and
Chappie
- there remains a great deal of enthusiasm as well. For every piece knocking the idea, or Blomkamp in general - or both - there's another that's positively giddy about the prospect of seeing Ripley one more time* on the big screen. Surely some of the excitement, at least, stems from the enduring disappointment of both
Alien 3
and
Resurrection.
Even Weaver herself - who is all but officially on board - has publicly advocated for the new sequel, arguing that the character deserves a "proper sendoff" that the later entries didn't provide.

* Of course, "one more time" is nonsense, as Blomkamp has said he envisioned "at least" one film, and we all know that if it's a hit they'll keep the sequels coming.

What won many fans over was the (short-lived) understanding that
Alien 5
would essentially ignore the third and fourth films and simply pick up basically where
Aliens
 left off, presumably set a couple of decades later. (Cue the obligatory
Superman Returns
reference that every single person online has already made.) Blomkamp intimated as much in his remarks, saying he wanted his movie to be a "genetic sibling" to the first two films and that his would fall in line right afterward. "So it's
Alien
,
Aliens
, and then this movie."

He walked back those statements shortly thereafter - insisting he wasn't planning on messing with the continuity of the franchise - but the larger issue, for me at least, is the persistent idea that we need to bring back the character or continue the franchise in the first place. Look, Ellen Ripley is one of my favorite characters ever, and I love those first two films as much as anyone. But the purpose of going back to the well after nearly two decades and two failed sequels eludes me, and seems almost entirely fueled by fan nostalgia rather than any expectation that the next movie will be any good. It's that same nostalgia that brought back our favorite archaeologist for
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
, and John McClane for
Live Free or Die Hard
and
A Good Day to Die Hard
.

At a certain point, even a great character or a great franchise needs to either be put to bed or completely re-tooled. Just because a filmmaker with one good movie under his belt has a new idea doesn't necessarily mean it's a good one. Perhaps the most telling thing about it is his insistence that he's going back to the series' roots and making a film with the same DNA as Ridley Scott and James Cameron's iconic early entries. First of all, that sentiment seems to ignore the fact that
Alien
and
Aliens
are drastically different movies, stylistically and otherwise. For that matter, the reason why the franchise is such a unique model overall is that each sequel dramatically reinvented the series. Each movie is a left turn. That Blomkamp essentially wants to just go repeat what the films used to be is kind of antithetical to what the franchise represents, and the kind of creative risks it has taken. (I touched on some similar territory in
a piece I wrote for Issue 39
last year.)
Alien 3
and
Alien: Resurrection
certainly don't work, but both are
fascinating
failures, and I'll take a fascinating failure over an ordinary success any day.

In his interviews on the subject, Blomkamp's motivation seems to boil down to, "I love those first two movies. I want to make a movie just like them." Just as Bryan Singer's motivation was, "I love those early Superman movies, so I want to make a movie just like them."

There's a lot of that kind of nostalgia these days - that desire to bring back something from the past with the expectation that the same formula will recreate the same magic. Pretty much every canceled TV series with a passionate following is the subject of rumblings from people clamoring to get it back on the air (
Save it, Netflix, save it!
) or, failing that, get a movie made. Speaking as a Firefly fan, I don't think there will ever be an end to fan calls for the series' return, even after 12 years have passed, and a full decade after
Serenity
killed off two of the main characters.

And even
The X-Files
- which is pretty much Exhibit A for what happens when a show hangs on for way too long - is reportedly getting rebooted. And by "rebooted," I mean "brought back with the same characters and the same actors."

It seems odd that we can't simply let things
end
. And so characters and concepts and whole franchises are getting caught in an endless cycle of reiteration and sameness. Case in point: The new retconned take on the
Terminator
franchise, which is set for release this summer and is probably the best comparison point for
Alien
. (Both iconic sci-fi franchises from the same era, largely defined by James Cameron.) Instead of simply rebooting or taking the concept in a new direction, the studio is insisting on making it all part of the same continuing saga - a saga whose qualities dried up years ago. The obvious reason is to keep Schwarzenegger as the selling point (although just how much cache he has with the modern target audience for a sci-fi blockbuster is debatable), and I'm as big a Schwarzenegger fan as anyone. But the fact that they're rewriting the entire narrative of the series is just a cheap and transparent way to remake the original films while pretending they're not. (Kinda like the way the 2011 version of
The Thing
pretended it was a "prequel" when it was basically just an inferior copy* of the 1982 film.) In fairness, if
Terminator: Stupidly Misspelled Subtitle
turns out to use its time travel-based retconning in a really interesting way, I'll be happy to eat my words.

*
And yes, I realize the 1982 version was a remake as well. But Carpenter's version was not only an improvement on
The Thing from Another World
but had an entirely different aesthetic.

I understand this type of retconning is common in various forms of storytelling, notably comics and soap operas. But it generally strikes me as pointless. Why do multiple versions of the same story have to coexist in the same thread? Why can't we simply get multiple interpretations of the same characters or the same stories instead of forcing them to fit together? Can you imagine if the Bond movies strained to make sure that all the Bonds existed in the same universe, in the same liner timeline, every time it changed actors?