 | | George Etheredge for The New York Times |
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On Godzilla, King Kong and Other Monsters |
It's fair to say that the premises of both Godzilla and King Kong — much less "Godzilla vs. Kong" — are scientifically absurd. |
On the one hand a colossal, amphibious, radioactive T. rex. On the other, and only slightly more plausibly, a colossal ape on a small island in the middle of nowhere, with no progenitors or potential mates in sight. Godzilla at least has the atomic-bomb tests of the 1950s for an origin; King Kong somehow arose de novo, with zero help from natural selection. |
Both began, like all good monsters, as walking parables. Godzilla, a synthetic creature at heart, is what we humans get when we tinker with the fundamental forces — a supersize Frankenstein with nuclear breath. (Blue Oyster Cult said it best: "History shows again and again / How nature points out the folly of men.") Kong is all unadulterated nature, fated to be roadkill on humanity's rapacious drive across Earth. Together, they are two visions of our relationship to nature writ very, very large. |
So what happens when these two morality tales collide? Which would prevail: the product of plunder or the byproduct of invention? That's what I found myself asking, not very hopefully, a couple of nights ago as I watched "Godzilla vs. Kong" on HBO Max. The winner was, well, neither the viewer nor the bystanders. The face-off involved yet a third human-relationship-to-nature trope in a plot so convoluted that I couldn't explain it to my teenage son when he showed up near the end. The one takeaway came from my other teenage son, who gleaned it from a year of remote learning on the sofa: "Dad, why were special effects better 30 years ago?" |
If cinematography is what you want, why not watch one of the many nature documentaries now sprouting up like weeds: David Attenborough's "Life in Color," "My Octopus Teacher," "Tiny World." (Here's a whole list.) Except that these serve up a different fiction, insofar as they mostly leave humans off screen. "By consistently presenting nature as an untouched wilderness," Emma Marris noted recently in The Atlantic, "many nature documentaries mislead viewers into thinking that there are lots of untouched wildernesses left." |
What Hollywood monsters offer is the fantasy of a physical force vastly more powerful than us that might keep our own in check. But aside from natural disasters and perhaps microbes, that luxury is unavailable; it's just us versus us. The only true, living monsters out there are we humans: both of nature and lonely in our impression that we alone are above it. I thought about all that as I turned off the TV, said good night to my kids and crawled into bed beside my wife on our little island in the middle of the dark. |
| MONSTERS OF EARTH AND SEA | | | | | | |
 | | A satellite image of the Soufrière volcano on St. Vincent in the Caribbean on April 9.NASA Earth Observatory, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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- "Stranded," a stunning short film by the French cinematographer Stéphane Ridard about the Geldingadalsgos volcano in Iceland, which continues to erupt.
- James Gleick on the Stephen Hawking rarely seen beneath all the hype.
- "Return the National Parks to the Tribes," by David Treuer in The Atlantic.
- The case for biodiversity in your backyard garden.
- "We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We're Going to Say So," an open letter signed by more than 13,000 scientists.
- An upcoming board game about climate change, by the creator of Pandemic.
- And two recent books from our reporters — "The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness," by Emily Anthes, and "Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive," by Carl Zimmer.
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| WHAT'S UP (OR NOT) IN SPACE | | | | |
Science in The Times: 100 years ago today |
 | | The front page of April 16, 1921. |
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"Professor Albert Einstein lectured on his theory of relativity yesterday for the first time since his arrival in this country before members of science faculties of Columbia University and students, in the auditorium of Horace Mann School. He spoke in German, but those anxious to see and hear the man who has contributed a new theory of space and time and motion to scientific conceptions of the universe, filled every seat and stood in the aisles. …" |
"Professor Einstein showed himself possessed of a sense of humor, for he several times brought chuckles and laughs from his audience by his references to the 'idiotic' behavior of certain bodies in accelerated systems. Also he caused much amusement when he wished to erase some diagrams he had drawn on the blackboard and made futile motions in the air with his hand until Professor Pupin came to his rescue." |
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