The Flux Capacitor 5.09.08: Week 33 - Holograms, Ghosts and... Oh Boy

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 05.09.2008

The past, present and future of science fiction - this week we look at bodyswapping. Plus, all the latest from the world of SF.

Welcome to "The Flux Capacitor", the column that examines the past, present and future of the science fiction genre. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and each week I'll be taking a look at films, TV shows and a whole lot more that exemplify a particular theme within SF. We'll see how the sci-fi of yesteryear influenced what we see on our screens today, and take a look ahead to see what may be in store in the months and years to come. Later on I'll also discuss some of the latest SF news and see how it impacts on the genre. For now though, let's get the DeLorean on the road - this week's theme is:

BODYSWAP

It's really quite an obvious science fiction conceit, isn't it? Two people swapping bodies - with hilarious/dramatic consequences. Quite aside from all the philosophical ramifications (and as a philosophy graduate, let me tell you there are a LOT of ramifications as far as mind/body dualism goes), it's a compelling idea because a) it's so damn simple a monkey could understand it, and 2) it's relatively easy for the writer to take the story down several different routes, playing up either the comic or dramatic overtones, or going for a mish-mash of the two, as in the frequently film-ized Freaky Friday [mmm, alliteration]. Ask any budding eighth-grade literary class to write themselves an original story, and the likelihood is that at least one student will come up with a bodyswap-oriented tale. I could probably give the statistical probability of this if I even knew how old eighth grade kids were, but being British I'm going to have to assume they'd be attending middle school and thus give you a ballpark figure of 1 in every 24 children employing such a narrative device. And yet, it's a device that's used with startling scarcity in science fiction today. I'll give you twenty seconds to name as many sci-fi movies, TV series and novels that have used it as the main focus of their storyline. And no, Face/Off doesn't count. Ready?

...

And you're done. I'll give odds of 3/1 that the only thing you managed to come up with was Quantum Leap. Hey, there's no shame in that, it's a great show and by far the most prominent example of a bodyswap conceit available to sci-fi fans. Following the travails of Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist from 1999 who follows the idea of time travel within an individual's own lifeline but ends up jumping from place to place and time to time, inhabiting the bodies of various individuals and righting their wrongs, the show ran for almost a hundred episodes before cutting off with one of the more hotly debated series finales in TV history. It's interesting, looking back, to note quite how many sci-fi movies and shows used 1999 as a temporal setting. Anyway, the show is intriguing, among other reasons, for the fact that although it employs a high-concept sci-fi plot device as its backbone, little focus is given to the actual bodyswap elements on display. Quantum Leap always tended to spotlight the human drama at play as Sam sought to fix mistakes in the timeline of history in order to make the final leap home. Although the sci-fi elements are often brought in, such as the holographic projection of Sam's companion Al Calavicci and the supercomputer Ziggy that operates the whole Quantum Leap project from the future, they're invariably playing second fiddle to whatever Sam's mission is to achieve in a given episode. There's some confusion, too, about whether Sam's mind actually leaps into the host body or whether his entire persona switches places with the leapee - in some episodes that's they way it seems to be going, but in others it seems that Sam's entire body changes places but projects some sort of aura that maintains his host's external appearance. Of course, it's entirely understandable that the technology or conceit behind it all is never explained, particularly when you see the series gradually swings towards a more supernatural conception explaining Sam's succession of leaps.

It's no real surprise that this is the most frequent means by which bodyswapping is depicted in contemporary SF - with no real explanation given to the mechanism behind the swap, and the scenario itself played out. Given that the idea of a feasible bodyswap technology is further away from current reality than a number of other sci-fi concepts, you can't really blame the writers. Instead, let's look at a show that used the concept to another extreme, Red Dwarf. Season four of the show features an episode dedicated to the concept. Red Dwarf's storyworld, incidentally, had already established that sufficient technology existed for individual minds to be downloaded to hard storage, and the re-encrypted into whatever hologrammatic form was desired (invariably the bodily appearance of the person themselves), but this was the first time the show introduced the concept of a person's mind being capable of injection into another physical body.

Anyway, the concept is introduced via the mechanism of needing to place one of the ship's dead senior crew members in Lister's head in order to thwart the self-destruct mechanism (inadvertently set off when Lister orders a milkshake from a vending machine). For some reason, the swapping of minds causes Lister to speak with the female officer's voice, and when Rimmer then convinces Lister that the two should swap bodies for a while, the voices change too. Practically speaking, it's a wonder why they had the voices change at all - the dub is poorly implemented, everything had to be filmed twice, and you're robbing the world of Chris Barrie's wonderful Craig Charles impression. But this, of course, is probably besides the point as the bodyswap is played entirely for laughs, much in contrast to Quantum Leap. Thus, we get to watch Rimmer play merry havoc with Lister's body, indulging in mashed potato orgies and boozing sessions, while Lister is consigned to the pitiable life of a hologram. Although there's little serious sci-fi material to be found in the episode (well, there really wasn't a lot in the show as a whole to be honest - the Holly Hop drive from season two pretty much summed up Red Dwarf's ethos), it's still interesting to note that the concept as a whole seems just as viable here as it did in the hands of Sam Beckett.

I was all set to consider Robert Heinlein's old novel I Will Fear No Evil as a prime candidate for bringing bodyswapping to the fore in televised SF, but then I remembered the 2005 Nintendo GameCube title Geist. If you've never played it (and few have, in my experience), the game is a first-person action adventure in the style of Metroid Prime and Second Sight, relying on the primary gameplay mechanic of possessing other characters' bodies. It's a decent game rather than a great one, but the plot is perfectly worthy of a sci-fi movie. The story goes that a scientist named John Raimi is sent as part of a special forces group to investigate a sinister corporation (okay, is there any other kind of corporation?) that has apparently built a machine capable of tearing rifts into another dimension. Of course, messing with the space-time continuum tends to have drastic consequences, and all sorts of ghosts and monsters start leaking through. Raimi is killed when one of these monsters runs amok, but manages to survive in ethereal form thanks to an encounter with the mysterious Alex Volks. And thus he sets out to recapture his old body, and beat the hell out of demons and stuff. Cool, no?

Any movie made from this source material would retain the genre's healthy disrespect for the treatment of bodyswapping as a legitimate science, although it would at least provide a quasi-supernatural explanation for the process. It also has the potential for a nice dichotomy between good old fashioned monster-battlin' and the intellectual consequences of the number of different bodies Raimi is forced to inhabit (in one glorious bit of originality in the game he gets the chance to possess an inanimate bowl, although one can't help but think that wouldn't make for much of an exciting movie scene). For some reason I can see this potential movie being the "first good film" preserve of a director like Christophe Gans or Kurt Wimmer - it doesn't have to make total sense (few sources utilizing the concept do), but could prove to be damn enjoyable nonetheless. And with that, I'm off to swap bodies with the hot girl next door. Just because, y'know.


Reactions and interactions

Someone else remembers BraveStarr!

Posted by: Jay

" Bravestarr was one of the best forgotten cartoons of the 80s (C.O.P.S is another one). That "heroin" episode is still memorable to me but I think a new animated rendition of the show would be better than a live-action. For now at least..."

You know, C.O.P.S. itself would make a pretty decent movie. Maybe a BraveStarr movie could go the quasi-CGI route that the ThunderCats remake will probably take?


The Infosphere

Iron Man debuted #1 at the box office this weekend, earning $100.7 million. The opening stands as the 10th biggest opening weekend ever.

Impressive figures for a franchise whose commercial appeal was underestimated by some (myself included). If Hulk can manage similar numbers, Marvel will be laughing in their diamond-encrusted bathtubs.

Following Iron Man's huge weekend box office gross, Marvel announced its movie release schedule through 2011 today:

* June 13th, 2008 - The Incredible Hulk
* April 30th, 2010 - Iron Man 2
* June 4th, 2010 - Thor
* May 6th, 2011 - First Avenger: Captain America
* July 2011 - The Avengers

Ant-Man is also in development but no release date is known yet.

Pretty sweet lineup, no? Much as I don't care for either Thor or Captain America, it's certainly pleasing to see an Avengers movie as a relative certainty.

Director Matthew Vaughn is no longer going to direct Thor for Marvel. Marvel Studios is now looking for a new director for the film. Screenwriter Mark Protosevich is currently polishing up the script.

A shame, given that Vaughn's recent excursion into SF/fantasy (Stardust) showed surprising potential for the director in similar genre works. On the other hand, not a whole lot has been finalized about the movie yet so this shouldn't prove much trouble.

Both Jonah Hill and model Teresa Palmer are no longer going to be in Transformers 2. Talks with Hill have broken down and Michael Bay has confirmed that they aren't interested in Palmer.

Good riddance, really.

Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins is aiming to land a PG-13 rating and be more "kid-friendly." The first three Terminator films were some of the most successful R-rated films ever, but the now producers want to broaden the audience. The hope is that they can maintain film's gritty vision under a PG-13 rating.

Disappointing, but almost inevitable given McG's involvement. I doubt this will impact too greatly on the vision the director had for the movie. And, continuing on that theme...

Rap star Common has joined the cast of Terminator Salvation. He is set to play a freedom fighter and close confidante of John Connor (Christian Bale) in the human resistance against the machines.

Hmmm. Having praised the movie's casting in recent weeks, it looks to have turned slightly sour. I may rethink my opinion if anyone can provide me with an example of a rap star without a real name (Mos Def excluded) giving a decent performance.

Brandon Routh recently spoke about the rumored Superman Returns sequel, saying he will return and that he begins to start shooting in early 2009. Bryan Singer is expected to return as the director.

This has caused all manner of debate, but personally I think it's a good thing. There would have been little sense in all the investment in Returns if they were just going to scrap it all and start again. Now bring on Darkseid!


And finally…

As always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome, I respond to everything so just drop me a line or leave a comment. You can also check out my column "The Wonder Years" over at 411 Games. Next week in "The Flux Capacitor" - things are taking a turn for the G-rated. Until then - keep watching the skies.