dobster

Right, I call this my Michael Crichton Theory.

I can’t remember when I first thought of this, or what exactly prompted it, but I’ve got it in my head that Michael Crichton doesn’t actually exist. I’ve no evidence, just theory.

It goes like this: Michael Crichton is a device invented by the American government to assist them in covering up for their major errors and to conceal politically destabilising situations.

The method is this: A man is chosen to be the face of a specialist government department. He is a very well paid puppet who will act on behalf of the governement and maintain an artificial front. Then, at a highly secret location a team of writers produce a lot of excellent scientifically based stories supposedly by one recognised figure, most of which are outlandish and too fantastic to be considered reality, then, when the government makes a huge error in judgement, or does something that would be politically destabilising for the USA itself, or a discovery is made that they want to conceal, they produce another story from “the pen of Michael Crichton”. This story will, in great detail, describe actual events in a way that we are used to in Crichton books. Thus, when somebody discovers the possibilty that the American Government has messed up and attempts to reveal this information, they will meet with apathy. Ie: “check out what I’ve discovered! (insert conspiracy theory). What do you think?” response: “You idiot!, that’s just the plot of that Crichton book!” “Oh Sh*t, yeah…”

A couple of examples:

Possiby based on actual events:

PREY: explores the emerging realms of distributed processing, biogenetics and nanotechnology.

ANDROMEDA STRAIN: A Scoop VII satellite falls to the earth and crashes near a small town in Arizona. Two army officers are sent to retrieve whatever is left of the satellite. The satellite contains a disease form outer space

COMA: (Based on the novel by Robin Cook) after her best friend falls into a coma during routine surgery, Dr. Susan Wheeler discovers similar cases at her prestigious Boston hospital.

RISING SUN: A beautiful paid "escort," whose clients include the rich and famous, is found raped and strangled to death on a conference table in the 46th floor executive offices of Nakamoto Industries' new American headquarters in Los Angeles.

AIRFRAME: In the early hours on Monday morning, TransPacific Airlines Flight 545, enroute from Hong Kong to Denver, experiences a horrifying event. Three people are killed and countless others are injured as their plane ascends and descends in a terrifying roller-coaster ride reportedly due to turbulence.

Ideas that are obviously fiction

JURASSIC PARK: Reports that a lizard-like reptile is attacking infants and infirm people in coastal towns on the island of Costa Rica are attributed by the natives to the "hubia, " or "raptor," are ignored by the authorities.

RUNAWAY: A tough cop investigates a series of killings by a madman who converts consumer robots into ruthless assassins.

TIMELINE: Set at the threshold of the twenty-first century in a world of exploding advances on the frontiers of technology. Information moves instantly between two points, without wires or networks. Computers are built from single molecules. Any moment of the past can be actualized -- and a group of historians can enter, literally, life in fourteenth-century feudal France.

Don’t forget, it’s the unlikely stories that are most important, as they are the ones that remove any credibility from the ones based on true events.

(This theory is copywrited!)

Willravel

I suppose it's within the realm of possibility. I'm not sure how probable it is. It's definatally ineteresting. It'd make a good book.
I'm surprised that Prey and Jurrasic Park are in different catagories. They struck me as being of the same likelyhood. The little monsters in Prey actually required more scientific explaination than the dinosaur cloning in Jurassic Park. I'd reccomend both books, though. I hope you'll go into more specific details about your theory, until then it might be difficult for some to take your theory seriously. Best of luck.

warrrreagl

I've wondered something similar about one of his books in particular, and it's the second "Jurassic Park," or "Lost World." My impression of "Lost World" is that the REAL plot of the story was about the self-organizing behavior characterisitcs of human society, and that all of this discussion was merely set against the backdrop of roaming dinosaurs.

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Dane Bramage

I have heard a simlar theory about alien movies. ET and Close Encounters are great examples.

Basically it goes something like this... the aliens have had contact with our government ever since the Rosewell incident. But these aliens are actually bent on domination of the Earth and our governments are in on it. So, in order to prepare us for the introduction, the government uses movies that paint these evil aliens in a positive way as a method to desensize us to the fact that they are among us. Part of the theroy comes from the hysteria that followed the "War of the Worlds" broadcast by Orson Wells. Supposedly, there was a rash of suicides the night of that program (could be urban legend), and ever since then, the government has been using movies to make us less afraid of the "Alien Menace".

Oh yeah... and I belived the Matrix

DB.

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MageB420666

Well if the theory is true, then all the better I say. If the gov is making money from books they wrote to desensitize us to conspiracies then that is just that much less money they need to tax from us, although I don't think they really care, they'll just tax us however much they want to.

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shakran

Good book (warning, btw, spoilers ahead). So tell me, since the book said that the "roller coaster ride" was caused by pilot error - specifically a pilot that was not type-certified in the aircraft flying it because his dad let him, exactly what "government major error or politically destabilizing situation" was this book trying to cover up?

Johnny Rotten

I think a compelling conspiracy theory revolves around him not being classified as a sci-fi author.

Mephisto2

Prey is most definitely, absolutely and categorically fiction.

I can dig up the scientific papers or articles it spawned (if you'll pardon the expression) if you want.

Crichton writes (sometimes) interesting "Hollywood novels".

You don't really think he's a government creation? [reaches for prozac]

Mr Mephisto

StickODynomite

This is true.

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dy156

Not a trekkie, by any means, but...
Anyone remember the Star trek next generation episode where they go to a planet that's just flirting with space travel to the planet's nearest moon, are contacted by the enterprise, and the planet's government says our people aren't ready for the discovery of alien races, we'll focus on fixing problems here on the planet, come back in fifty years, or something like that?

That episode had frasier's girlfriend from Cheers in it.
Anyway, it made me ponder whether Kennedy could have done something like this, and now maybe the government was testing the story through a "leak" in a star trek episode. Kind of a similar idea, but I didn't think all that hard about it. Nice theory about Crichton, though. Just wondering if you thought of it late at night after a few beers. Sounds like something I might think about in that situation.

Redjake

excellent episode

The Enterprise was trying to make First Contact with that planet so they could convince the planet to initiate their Warp program to develop warp engines. The "king" or whatever of the planet said that their race or species wasn't ready for it yet, and basically to fuck off and come back after a long time You basically summed it up well.

The only thing I could keep thinking about during that episode is: If this is a planet that's never been contacted by another before, why do they speak English?

But yeah, it'd be interesting if something like that actually happened. Maybe the Roswell cases in Area 51 or something was a First Contact for us, and we told them to fuck off and come back later!

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dobster

I'm not sure when i thought of it. I'm just suspicious for reasons i can't explain.

Redlemon

Hey, they just announced his new book, and it seems like a perfect example for dobster's theory.
Sounds like Government propaganda to me.

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Charlatan

The enterprise is equipped with a universal translator... duh!

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Hanabal

That last one confirms it.

14 page bibliography on papers that dont agree with global warming

according to this article in science magazinehere there are no peer reviewed articles that deny cglobal warming. so how he got 14 pages is beyond me.

also as far as im aware the US govt is the only group trying so hard to deny global warming

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dobster

There are loads of ways this idea works.
Hey, if I was the American Government, I'd make a film about me and my theory. That way my theory could be denied very easily.

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beofotch5

this is obscure bs

Redlemon

No, this is Tilted Paranoia.

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Redlemon

Oh, I just wanted to add; if his next book is a justification of Intelligent Design over Evolution, there will be no doubt in my mind that dobster is entirely correct.

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cyrnel

So was Congo (book and film) merely an attempt to make the fictional author seem really, really bad, and therefore more believable? Guess I could forgive him that bomb if it was a ploy. (tic)

vox_rox

So government fact as fiction? Hmm... Since the government is involved, that would at least patrtially explain why those novels are SO FUCKING BADLY WRITTEN!

Whew, that feels better. But really, the one common thread is that all his books feel like they're written by grade 10 students just learning creative writing. Why do people buy these things?

Oh wait! I know, beacuse there are subliminal messages during all news broadcasts telling us to buy and read them. Right?

What do I win?

Peace,

Pierre

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Redlemon

Not to derail the thread, vox_rox, but you are correct. My impression has always been that he writes movie screenplays in book form, rather than writing books. I like to reread books, because I get more out of them the second time through. This is not true with a Crichton book.

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vox_rox

Gawd, that's it exactly! Yes, he doesn't books at all, just poorly written screenplays badly adapted to novel format.

And it's true, I read The English Patient, then saw the movie which was so different than the book, then re-read the book and it was great.

With Crichton, even just finishing a first pass makes my brain bleed!

Thanks for clearing that up for me, in now makes perfect sense. Regardless, I'll still never read another Crichton novel, life's just too short...

Peace,

Pierre

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jorgelito

Hmmmm.....I don't know, I mean, there's something just...you know...fun about them darn novels. I like Tom Clancey and John Grisham novels too. Can't always read the Iliad or Anna Karenina. I guess it's just like pop.

I find those novels are perfect for plane trip or rainy days when you want to rest the old brain. *chuckle*

Same with music. I listen to mostly opera, classical, and jazz. but now and then, I listen to pop to "dumb things" down or zone out.

Like junk food?

Think Crichton maybe a "conspiracy"? I have the same thoughts about Tom Clancy. His stuff hits a little too close too home sometimes. I wonder if "bad guy" are reading his novels like manuals sometimes.

I don't think we'll ever know (about either of them).

dobster

It's a perfect conspiracy, that's what it are.

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Zeraph

A good theory, though I don't believe it. Don't get me wrong, if I was in charge of public relations I would certaintly initiate a program like this, however, I don't have that much faith in our government.

zerosk8

this is wierd!!

dobster

Not wanting to induce a political discussion, but Michael Crichton has just passed away. Has the department been shut down? Is this anything at all to do with the change in Presidency? Does Obama want to rid the government of lies?

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Bill O'Rights

Loose ends are being tied up. I predict heavy, 24 hour a day, truck traffic around Groom Lake Nevada, for the next couple of months.

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Who is this guy?

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biznatch

Yeah, I actually picked this up in the airport a couple years ago, because I liked the Andromeda Strain, and especially Jurassic Park, so I figured, what the hell.
Here, have some spoiler tags, if you honestly care about reading this book. (hint: don't).
Spoiler:
it was a completely ridiculous book. About a third of the reading done, you realize it's propa-bullshit, but you're on a plane with nothing else to do. So I read it. God.

The "action hero" type in the book is not the main character. The main character is kind of geeky, lacks self confidence and is not cool like the action-hero character. The action hero character knows how to manipulate weapons, knows several languages, is a genius in science, can beat people up, and gets everyone out of every situation(I suspect Chrichton sees himself as this dude when he dreams). And he convinces the main character that Global Warming is a myth.
In the book, they have to stop this group that supposedly "fights" global warming and raises awareness about it. The group had stolen heavy, very expensive machines that send strong vibrations through the ground; seismic-type vibrations.
Their goal is to line these machines up on some island in the Pacific, cause the undersea ground to "break" and shift and cause a tsunami, which would hit California just in time for their highly-publicized global warming conference, so they could blame it on Global warming.
There were also parts where this group causes lightnings to strike near the good guys in an attempt to kill them..
Anyway, there you have it, a clusterfuck of bullshit with cool scientist action heroes, who save the day, and my mind is just thinking *sigh* each time I think of this book. Not literature, just pure propaganda. Also, I remember Chrichton's note after the book: "Everyone has an agenda, except for me".. He deserves a punch in the face for that one, I was just superpissed after wasting my time with this.

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vanblah

But is it copyrighted? Technically it already is.

MSD

I had the same theory about X-Files when I was in high school.