Shades of Green

Following a comment Alexandra made on my last blog entry (Eco is such a dirty word), I’ve discovered there are more aspects of the natural world Sci Fi loves to hate, specifically : plants and trees. It doesn’t seem to make sense to hate the basics we need to live, and I floundered until I read a chapter of The Poison Principle by Gail Bell, called The Lethal Greens. Many herbs growing in our gardens are poisonous, and many were used by ‘witches’ or wise women in the Middle Ages to make medicines.

Some poisonous plants growing in our gardens are belladonna, buttercup, catoniasta, foxglove, heliotrope, hellebore, lantana, mistletoe, morning glory, opium poppies, rhubarb, and verbena. Other poisonous plants we’re familiar with are cannabis, hemlock, henbane and wormwood – even if we wouldn’t recognize them growing. So a large number of plants are associated with witches, magic and being burned at the stake. Fairies are also associated with the colour green, perhaps because people saw fairies when they ingested poisonous plants, giving them hallucinations.

In addition to these associations there is the branding of nasties with the word ‘green’. For instance the drink absinthe used to contain aconite, making it a slow poison. It was labeled with a green fairy. And Green Dragon is a mixture of marihuana and datura which is normally fatal.

So we need trees to breath and we must eat our greens, but we must also avoid poisons that come from green plants. The odd thing is that these plants don’t usually feature in Sci fi. It’s carnivorous plants that dominate the bad plant scenario, with gardens full of them. Trees get bad press as well. Only flowers are free of the bad plant stigma, which given their poisonous potential is really weird.

This information also shows strong links between science fiction and fantasy, with a group of similar dangers present in each genre.

There are quite a few web sites which list carnivorous plants in movies and on television. They don’t necessarily discriminate between science fiction and other genres, and they often pick up on the use of carnivorous plants in the background of a film or episode which might be too trivial to notice, or not. There is also disagreement about whether fungus is a plant or not (what else is it?).

Characters and Weapons

There aren’t a lot of characters with names relating to plants, and they balance between good and evil. Commonly used flower names for girls are Holly, Lily, May, Myrtle, Rose, Viola, Violet. Buttercup and Daisy are used for animals. These names are usually benign in line with the mostly benevolent use of flowers, and they tend to be old-fashioned. But there are others:

Plantman (Megaman series/ Rockman EXE Axess ) and Poison Ivy (Batman and Robin/ The Adventures of Batman) are both evil.

Flower Child is a good character Dr Who The Greatest Show in the Galaxy and the alien flower in Earth 2: Flower Child which starts out badly, eventually has a positive effect on the whole planet while

Bluegrass is a member of the silverhawks, the smell of applegrass in Doctor Who: Gridlock is a positive, but grass generally doesn’t count.

Death Blossom (Last Starfighter) is a weapon and in Babylon 5 The Parliament of Dreams it is a black flower left by the Assassins Guild as a warning. Both meanings are negative and there are no positive blossoms (there must be one in a cartoon somewhere!)

Carnivorous Plants

There are real carnivorous plants in the world, but we don’t see them very often. Names you’ll see in web lists are Nepenthes and Sarracenia, also called pitcher plants. Real carnivorous plants aren’t very big and eat insects. There are bladderworts and butterworts which catch their prey on sticky leaves. And they don’t have to be villains: we all enjoyed Cleopatra, the African Strangler Plant in The Addams Family, vainly trying to eat visitors and being given yak meatballs and zebra burgers instead.

Sci fi has taken the evil intent of plants a lot further in films:

• Attack of the Killer Tomatoes/ Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! and Killer Tomatoes Eat France! Plus a series. Mutant tomatoes eat humans.

• Day of the Triffids - humanity is threatened by a huge, malevolent breed of plant.

• La Isla de la Muerta – Another insane scientist breeds carnivorous plants which consume humans blood. Aka Man Eater of Hydra.

• Land Unknown, The – An Antaractic expedition finds dinosaurs along with carnivorous plants.

• Little Shop of Horrors- the display plant Audrey Junior eats the customers. (Farscape kept the name Audrey for a plant that tried to eat Moya.)

• Lost World, The 1960 Plants surviving with the dinosaurs appear to be carnivorous.

• Minority Report Carnivorous plants Nepenthes and Sarracenia flourish in a hothouse.

• · Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens Van Helsing describes a Venus fly trap as the ‘vampire of the plant kingdom’.

Television series plants

Andromeda: Fear and Loathing in the Milky Way Sarracenia hybrids are said to be ‘tundra plants’.

Battlestar Galactica: Downloaded Features a Sarracenia in Sharon’s quarters.

Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom The Krynoids are plants which absorb human knowledge from their victims.

seaQuest DSV portrayed a whole garden of carnivorous plants on Calimar Colony (By Any Other Name ).

Lexx: Garden The character Lyekka is re-grown with all her carnivorous appetites by Daffodil, Tulip, Lilly who she rewards by eating.

Lost World: the Guardian A jungle tribe feeds a carnivorous plant they can’t kill.

Star Trek Voyager: Initiations/Prototype Sarracenia Leucophylla is briefly seen.

Gardens

You wouldn’t think gardens would be evil, but in sci fi they can contain carnivorous plants or they can be the setting for dirty deeds.

Carnivorous gardens include the ones in Lexx: Garden and in seaQuest DSV: By Any Other Name

Gardens used for plotting and betrayal include US Botanic Gardens in X-files Anasazi and the Valley Forge Gardens in Andromeda : A Heart for Falsehood Framed. Crystherium Utilia in Farscape: We’re So Screwed: Hot to Katrazi was a Scarran garden on Katrazi used to show the Charrids and Kaleesh as incompetent. Babylon 5 had a garden where people meditated as well as discussing politics.

Some ‘gardens’ are cemeteries as in X-files Paperclip Garden of Remembrance, or memorials to the dead as in Red Dwarf Back to Earth : The Garden of Reflection

In The Adventures of Pluto Nash : The Garden of Eden and The Garden of Paradise are both hotels.

Trees

Trees also get bad press in Sci Fi. It appears the Ents in Lord of the Rings haven’t made a big impression on anyone, or perhaps Old Man Willow in The Hobbit is more memorable.

Trees are negative in Doctor Who: Mark of the Rani and in Lexx: A Midsummer’s Nightmare . In Blackstar There is a Tree of Evil versus the good Sagar Tree and in Power Rangers: Dino thunder the Tree of Life becomes bad Deadwood.

Only in Ewoks is the Tree of light positive.

Interestingly not a lot of specific tree names are used in sci fi : Pine is incorporated into town names and Maples is one character.

Flowers

Flowers have special significance in real life and in Sci Fi. There are alien flowers and funny flowers (Think of Lexx: Kai wearing flowers while singing to skulls!) but flowers in Sci fi are used to show love, magic and happiness. The only flowers that are consistently bad are blue flowers, and they are not natural.

Anstellian Tundra Flowers (Andromeda: The Fair Unknown); ,Ardosian orchids (Deep Space 9: Broken Link); Arum Lily (Lexx: Twilight );

Bluebell (Stardust);Blue Flower (A Wrinkle in Time/Batman Begins/Scanner Darkly); Bouquet (Torchwood: Adam);

Chrysanthemums, yellow (Doctor Who: Rise of the Cybermen); Crystillia (Star Trek: The Next Generation: In Theory );

Daisy (Farscape: John Quixote/ Deep Space 9: Past Tense/ The Invaders: The Possessed/seaQuest DSV When We Dead Awaken); Dandelion Clock (Journey to the Centre of the Earth 2009);

Gardenia (white) (Stargate SG1: Memento Mori) ;

Irises (Smallville: Reaper ); Iris, yellow (Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp );

Lilac (Deep Space 9: Trials and Tribble-ations); Lilies, pink (Earth Final Conflict: In Memory);

Muktok (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ménage a Troi); Mustard Plant (Beware! The Blob);

Orchid (Earth Final Conflict: Truth);

Paper roses (SQDSV alone ); Pericules (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ménage a Troi);

Rose (Jericho: Condor ); Rose, white (Smallville: Reaper / Doctor Who: Daleks in Manhattan/ Stargate SG1 Memento Mori/ Star Trek: The Next Generation :The Host);

Snowdrop(Stardust);

Tulips (Smallville: Pilot/ Shimmer);

Zainias (Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Nth Degree ); Zan Pericula (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ménage a Troi)

And wherever you are in a TV series, film, game , novel or graphic novel: DON’T GO NEAR THE VINES! They’re always out to get you!

Eco is Such a Dirty Word

Eco is such a dirty word

And now for a diversion! These things happen when you read language columns in the Herald on Saturday. Specifically I read a column by Susan Butler, a Dictionary writer, called Do you hear an eco? It’s the language of a green revolution. (November 28-29, 2009). And of course she’s telling us about the new terminology that’s helping us to cope with new green technologies. Words like biochar, carbon sequestration, ecological sustainability, ecotherapy, ecowarrior, green footprint, peak oil and so on. These are the easy words in her list. No wonder we’re all having trouble grasping the concepts when the vocabulary is so difficult. I’m currently working out my carbon footprint and sunpower credits, but the language use just makes me want to give up. The words put you off doing anything positive.


Why haven’t I been hearing these words anywhere else? Or words like them? Being a sci fi fan I went to McKenzie’s Dictionary for some answers. Here are the entries for ‘eco’:


Eco Jak II The dark form of this substance was used to experiment on Jak by Baron Praxis.

Eco Accelerator Red Dwarf: Rimmerworld Rockets used to accelerate the terraforming of a world.

Ecoban Wonderful Days City which powered itself on pollution in the Earth’s future.

Ecologarium The Star Pit A glass enclosure created by the procreation group for the children to observe life natural to Sigma.

Ecomancer PoDW People with a variety of magical
abilities including: ability to make plants grow faster, control the weather, wind or water, communicate with animals and send psychic messages. Originally from Andorus, where they protected the land and animals.

Eco Phantoms Game, 1990. Published by Electronic Zoo. DOS. Player returns to Earth to find Eco Phantoms draining life from the planet. Objective is to steal an alien craft, fight through their three domes, freeing prisoners and learn how their technology works. Player then invades the mother ship to reprogram the computers to return the life to Earth.

Ecos, The Invasion Earth Group of friendly aliens who warned Earth about invasion.

Ecotopia SQ2032 Place. Ideal underwater city, which was actually a fraud. [< ecology + utopia.]

Pardon me? Eight entries? And dark eco is a disappointing use of the prefix, sticking in your mind like mud.

What about Gaia?


Gaia 1. Greek name for Earth, representing her as our mother.
2. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within The spirit of Earth.
3. Appleseed Self propagating network of computers forming a supercomputer running Olympus, combined wisdom and intention. Discussed issues with the Elders to work out solutions to problems, tricked by them into causing trouble between the Army and Athena.
4. Deep Space Nine Children of Time Name the descendents of the DS9 runabout gave their home planet.


FOUR entries!


When I looked up green it got worse – there were lots of entries , but most of them were for bad forms of green. Remember the bright green goo in the old Doctor Who? You could never touch it without drastic consequences. Green is usually bad, even green thumb who you would think would be all about growth, is evil. Bio is about the same, with lots of entries with scientific meanings, plus bio hazards and biogenic weapons. And the latest biodome in Doctor Who The Waters of Mars produces bad carrots which turn the crew into alien monsters.
Hydroponics doesn’t do any better, even though it is more mainstream than biodomes with two entries:

Hydroponic dome B7 Power Structure under which food was grown by the Cesca.

Hydroponics Chamber SQDSV Vapors Area of seaQuest developed by Captain Bridger as a sanctuary. Climate controlled, tropical, with jasmine and bird song.



Where are the movies and TV Series?


After coming to such a bad end with green words I wondered just how many ‘ecological’ type films there are around.

Sci fi is good at disaster movies, with lots of post nuclear holocaust films, none of which have positive endings, so they don’t count. Possibly The Day After Tomorrow has more positive spin, but in that scenario we have gone into a nasty ice age and we know we can survive that.

Dune and its sequels demonstrates how to survive on a dry planet, and the risks of terraforming the planet into something greener or bluer. You should never feel the same about water again after reading the book or seeing the Television movies.

Final Fantasy the Spirits Within argues that life is within us all, but it works together not individually. But it’s theme is shadowy and difficult, not really inspiring you to go out and take plant cuttings. It gets worse in Final Fantasy: Unlimited. Princess Herba uses her powers to create chaos rather than growth.

Silent Running posited that we could save ourselves by sending biospheres into space with all the vegetation needed to feed us. Of course the military wanted to put a stop to that idea.

Um, are there any more?

In children’s TV there was The Girl from Tomorrow where teenagers from three different time zones defeated evil men who wanted profit at the expense of the environment.
Fern Gully stopped the bulldozers razing the rainforest (we wish).

Star Trek Insurrection showsedthe Ba’ku living an idyllic rural life where no-one got a bad back or hammered their thumb. There are other scenes like this in Star Trek, but when you get to Farscape any idyllic scenario is sure to have Peacekeepers behind it for profit.
As for more nitty gritty items, Star Trek Next Generation: Transfigurations had an arboretum, Jupiter Moon had a dome over a greenhouse on the Ilea, there were agro or agron ships in the old Battlestar Galactica fleet, and there is an arboretum on Stargate Atlantis. At least some programs acknowledge humans have to eat ( and breath).

What About Non-Sci Fi Land?


Ordinary films and TV programs are no better really. We had Erin Brokovitch saving a community already poisoned and sick and Medicine Man finding cures for diseases in the rainforest.


The English TV program The Good Life presented an environmentally aware couple, although you can pick holes in it now. (How do the lights work at night when the power has been cut off? Did they have cold baths?)


Modern Designs and other architectural programs have had shows on environmentally sensitive houses, with the definition of sensitive varying a lot from minimising the use of concrete to just having dual flush toilets.


For kids, Round the Twist had environmental concerns at its heart, sending up developers and focussing on the spirits of place as saviours of the environment.

What Can We Use for Inspiration?


There are no movies based on Greenpeace, the Rainbow Warrior, the Franklin Dam protests, Paul Ehrlich’s early predictions, eco-warriors etc. At best there have been some documentaries on the results of oil spills like the one from the Exxon-Valdez. But there’s a lot of real life stuff out there to turn into film, documentary or otherwise.

And buried in libraries out there, there are stories waiting to be turned into modern media. Like LeGuin’s The Word for World is Forest.

And as for kids – there’s got to be someone writing stories about eco-warriors, hasn’t there? We get a lot of silly superhero stuff for kids, its time for something better.

Who’s to Blame?

It would be easy to say that sci fi writers and other film writers have been negligent, and yes they have in some ways. But I noticed in Gardening Australia recently that people are concerned that the phrase ‘ common garden variety’ is used in a negative way, to show how ordinary and not-special things are. Where gardeners believe all ‘garden varieties’ are special in their own way. Ordinary people have to adopt a different philosophy to the planet and its ecology. When respect for the environment percolates through all society, then writers will do better by it. It's pity they're not leading the way.