War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination

Franklin, H. Bruce. War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Illus.

The weapon-obsession aspect of "America as Science Fiction." See under Literary Criticism, HBF on "The Vietnam War as American Science Fiction and Fantasy." Chapter 17 of War Stars, "The Age of the Automatons," deals explicitly with the themes of clockwork worlds and the mechanical—or electronic and cybernetic—god: "We lead our everyday lives in an environment of multiplying beeps and flashes, synthesized voices and cathode-ray displays, the sounds and sights of miraculous machines that promise to do all kinds of labor and provide all kinds of excitement. The machines make us feel omnipotent and helpless, supremely important and wholly insignificant, masters of our destiny and slaves of our own creation. Amid this confused interplay of power and alienation, a new generation of superweapons appears to be supremely attractive: autonomous machines in the heavens ["SDI" or "Star Wars" weapons] guaranteed to save us from the all-destroying machines we created to make us safe" (204). "When we give control of these weapons [of planet-wide destruction] to automatons designed to decide our destiny, our alienated human essence confronts us as the mechanical destroyer to which we have sacrificed all other human purposes and relations. In this most perverted and alienating act of idolatry, our weapons become our gods" (209). Twenty-two pp. of very useful illustrations, esp. on eroticizing heavy bombers. See this Category, J. W. Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam.[1]

Backmatter includes a list of "Films Discussed." HBF puts into the context of the dream of the superweapon and associated real-world fantasies such SF films as A BOY AND HIS DOG, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, DESTINATION MOON, DR. STRANGELOVE, LOGAN'S RUN, ON THE BEACH, PLANET OF THE APES,[2] STAR WARS, SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, THEM!, WARGAMES, and THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL.[3] Such contextualizing is very important for S. Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB.

RDE, 05/10/05, 6Jan15), RDE, Title, 28Aug19