Alejandro Jodorowsky on spaceships in sci-fi

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-09-26 03:50am

Jodorowsky wrote: I do not want that the man conquers space
In the ships of NASA
These concentration camps of the spirit
These gigantic freezers vomiting the imperialism
These slaughters of plundering and plunder
This arrogance of bronze and thirst
This eunuchoid science
Not the dribble of transistorised and riveted hulks
The divine one
The delirious one
The superb one
CHAOS
UNIVERSAL
I want magical entities, vibrating vehicles
To prolong to be to it abyss
Like fish of a timeless ocean. I want
Jewels, mechanics as perfect as the heart
Womb-ships anterooms
Rebirth into other dimensions
I want whore-ships driven
By the sperm of passionate ejaculations
In an engine of flesh
I want rockets complex and secret,
Humming-bird ornithopters,
Sipping the thousand-year-old nectar of dwarf stars...

I personally don't know what to say about this. One part of me sees this as the marijuana-induced rants of a astronautically ignorant hippie, but another part of me wants to see a misguided but well-intended insight into how aestethics reflect worldviews. (or something about that)

Perhaps both notions are right, but I can't avoid the fact that Alejandro Jodorowsky's poem about starships probably will strike the majority of sci-fi fans as unintentionally hilarious.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-09-26 04:11am

It sounds like he wants to travel across space inside a vagina.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-09-26 04:19am

Who doesn't?

Metrion Cascade · Post by **Metrion Cascade** » 2004-09-26 06:17am

lmao @ "travel across space inside a vagina"

Anyway...I fail to see how his description can't be more a matter of look and feel than of actual tech. A ship doesn't have to be organic to feel organic and be run like a community of hippies. You could probably redesign half the non-military ships in sci-fi and depict them that way. Honesty the poem reminds me of a few Niven shorts.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-09-26 06:23am

...He wants to travel across space in a ship that looks like a vagina?

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2004-09-26 07:51am

A vagina-ship? Hmmm...how about a vagina space station which accomodates penis starships?

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2004-09-26 12:49pm

This is why poets don't build spacecraft. Maybe we should direct this guy to the part of this site that addresses organic technology.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-09-26 01:13pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:A vagina-ship? Hmmm...how about a vagina space station which accomodates penis starships?

Ah yes, "docking prodecures".

Pilot: I'm taking him in, control.
Dock Control: Take it in slow, commander.
Pilot: The bow has cleared the entrance.
Control: Slowly, slowly...
Pilot: Oo, this is a tight fit.
Control: It's like the ship and the dock were made for each other.
Pilot: I'm all the way in... manuevering...
Control: Right there... that's the spot.
Pilot: Preapring to unload cargo...

Crom · Post by **Crom** » 2004-09-26 02:11pm

I've read some of his comic books. Weird shit man.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-09-26 02:51pm

CDiehl wrote:This is why poets don't build spacecraft. Maybe we should direct this guy to the part of this site that addresses organic technology.

I think he wanted spacecraft which looked like giant insects, not spacecraft of flesh and blood. Jodorowsky later said that his idea of beautiful spacecraft were remarkably close to the work of sci-fi illustrator Chris Foss. (most of Foss' spacecraft don't strike me as that odd, aside from their unusual colour schemes)

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2004-09-26 03:02pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:Jodorowsky later said that his idea of beautiful spacecraft were remarkably close to the work of sci-fi illustrator Chris Foss. )

And here I thought all this time spacecraft were designed to be functional, not beautiful; glad we got that straightened out. Damn you NASA, don't you understand, they don't have to work, just make them pretty, pretty like vaginas you fools!

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-26 04:50pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:I think he wanted spacecraft which looked like giant insects,

Has he seen Lexx perchance?

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-09-26 05:10pm

Jodo's a fantasist and a mystic; it's not surprising he'd have this slant on the idea of space travel.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-09-26 05:47pm

It takes a great deal more than just pot to induce these sorts of fantasies...

This is coming from the guy who wanted his Dune film project to have the Harkonnens manipulating black magic and end with the sentient planet Arrakis traveling off into the universe as the slavation of mankind.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2004-09-26 08:03pm

Frank Hipper wrote:It takes a great deal more than just pot to induce these sorts of fantasies...

This is coming from the guy who wanted his Dune film project to have the Harkonnens manipulating black magic and end with the sentient planet Arrakis traveling off into the universe as the slavation of mankind.

Don't forget having Shaddam IV played by Dali, and having a robot double. Then there's the Imperial Palace being built on a planet made of gold and held together by the laws of anti-logic.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-09-26 11:32pm

Jodorowsky's an arrogant self-absorbed fuck.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-09-27 01:09am

Jadeite wrote:Don't forget having Shaddam IV played by Dali, and having a robot double. Then there's the Imperial Palace being built on a planet made of gold and held together by the laws of anti-logic.

I personally think Dali as Shaddam IV would have been brilliant, so would Pink Floyd on the soundtrack have been, but that's about all I can give him. I like some of the Sardaukar uniform designs, too.

Interesting note; in the Lynch film, there's a shot of Barony from the outside, it's closely based on H.R. Gieger's fat open mouthed human original design.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-09-27 10:59am

Jadeite wrote:
Frank Hipper wrote:It takes a great deal more than just pot to induce these sorts of fantasies...

This is coming from the guy who wanted his Dune film project to have the Harkonnens manipulating black magic and end with the sentient planet Arrakis traveling off into the universe as the slavation of mankind.
Don't forget having Shaddam IV played by Dali, and having a robot double. Then there's the Imperial Palace being built on a planet made of gold and held together by the laws of anti-logic.

And that's before we get to Feyd-Rautha and "The Beast" Rabban in drag...

Frank Hipper wrote:Interesting note; in the Lynch film, there's a shot of Barony from the outside, it's closely based on H.R. Gieger's fat open mouthed human original design.

It's also interesting to note that the Eldar ships in Battlefleet Gothic bear a striking resemblance to one of the ships designed for Jodorowsky's Dune.