Total Eclipse of Futurism

Over at Making Light, the Nielsen Haydens stumbled upon a video of the Hurra Torpedo version of the Bonnie Tyler/ Jim Steinman kitsch masterpiece “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which absolutely boggles the mind. Of course, the weird thing is that their re-invention isn’t actually any weirder than the original video, which Teresa also attempts to explain. All this together inspired Matt McIrvin to one of the best post titles ever.

But the really fascinating thing about this is the “explore more videos” feature on YouTube. From the original video, you can find links to several live versions of the original, which isn’t too surprising. You can also find an amazing number of homemade videos of the song, edited out of footage of an astonishing variety of cartoon and videogame characters, and also River Phoenix movies. And beyond that, you can also find the song being sung by a school choir, drunken idiots of both genders, and lip-synched by shirtless frat boys, two guys in a living room from the 70’s, and, broadening the search to include Google Video (via a link in comments at Making Light), upside-down mouths with faces painted on the chins. And that barely scratches the surface– Google Video has a whole slew of other versions to offer.

Ultimately, this is the answer to Charlie Stross’s query about why nobody writes near-future SF any more: because this is what you have to compete with. Presented with revolutionary, world-spanning communications technology, and the ability to instantly retrieve information from an astonishing array of sources, and send it to any of a truly mind-boggling number of people, this is what we use it for.

Futurism never stood a chance.

(Incidentally, I’m not saying this is a Bad Thing. This kind of inspired lunacy is the glory of the Internet. But, really, find me the science-fiction writer who predicted this…)

10 comments

  1. Also recall the awesome cover of the song in Old School. “I fuckin’ need you more than ever!”

    Apologiese if in all those links I missed it.

  2. As I said a few days ago, sometimes clicking around YouTube is like it’s 1981 and you’re discovering MTV for the first time, only it’s under the control of some crazy guy from the cable access channel.

  3. …though, actually, I’d argue that the 1986 “Max Headroom” series had an inkling of this. (Mostly, they were parodying contemporary cyberpunk SF, even though nobody outside the SF ghetto could have gotten those jokes until about eight years later.)

  4. I haven’t seen Old School, so I don’t know the reference, but I’m a little surprised it wasn’t there. Maybe it’s on Google Video– I didn’t search that deeply over there.

    I didn’t watch all of those all the way through, either– the drunken idiot ones are really pretty painful, and I don’t recognize most of the cartoons, so the significance is lost on me. The frat boys are sort of amusing, especially when they start dancing like the guy in the Red Stripe commercial. I’m kind of impressed that the living-room dudes made it through the whole song.

    And that’s only one overwrought 80’s ballad. I wonder how many horrific versions of “I Will Survive” are out there?

  5. At first I was afraid, I was petrified….

    Anyways, this appears to be an mp3 of the Old School version.

    This is a clip from the movie.

  6. It’s a really funny flick, as long as the particular plot conventions don’t make your teeth itch.

  7. And that’s only one overwrought 80’s ballad. I wonder how many horrific versions of “I Will Survive” are out there?

    Or, Every Rose Has Its Thorns, or Don’t Stop Beleiving, and the late-comer to the field, Meatloaf’s Anything For Love.

    I shudder.

  9. I knew someone in the seventies who liked to say that in the future, everything with a switch would have a microprocessor. That might be the last time I felt someone knew what he was talking about regarding the future. Where are those flying cars anyway?

    I think the future is much more likely to announce itself by hitting us in the face, like so many internet phenomena, than be predicted as fiction or nonfiction. The only exception is demographics based on who has already been born. I like those projections. Now just tell me what people are really going to do once they know everything there is to know about all 25,000 genes we have.

  10. The upside-down-on-the-chin thing is a recurring YouTube trope. Watching new tropes accrete there is almost scary. For instance, there’s the “misheard lyrics” AMV. I think the first one, or at least an early one, was for “Wishmaster”. More followed. I expect that’ll keep spreading.

    Y’know, if Commodore hadn’t screwed up the Amiga, this stuff could have started happening a decade ago.

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