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My favourite movie is called "The Man From Earth", about a man who was born 14,000 years ago and hasn't died. He doesn't know why, but he just keeps living. W
by bgroat 4y ago
My favourite movie is called "The Man From Earth", about a man who was born 14,000 years ago and hasn't died.
He doesn't know why, but he just keeps living.
What I think about every time I think of this movie is, "Okay, so he was 12,000 years old at the time of Christ". He lived then - now 6 times, and then then-now again.
He was 8,000 years old in Mesopotamia..
Now I can imagine this beloved character in this new, very old, civilization
- rapind 4y agoHe was a Neanderthal which was supposed to be why he didn’t age (not that that makes sense). I really enjoyed that movie too.
- bgroat 4y agoHe was a Magdalenian (so a homo sapien), no reason was ever given for his agelessness. And his tribe (who presumably were all related to him) lived natural lives
- diggernet 4y agoThat is really a great movie. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth A couple interesting details I learned while looking up that link: - They released a sequel 10 years later. - The author also wrote the Star Trek episode "Requiem for Methuselah", which has a similar theme.
- uranium 4y agoI hadn't known about the sequel; thanks for mentioning it!
- x3n0ph3n3 4y agoHonestly, you're better off skipping it.
- mrtksn 4y agoPeople say these things for almost all sequels, is it that bad really? The sequel of 2021 Space Odyssey for example, is nowhere near as good as the original but it gives a closure so I like it. The Matrix 4, definitely not in the same league as the first ones but it’s still good to have IMHO. It’s a nice wrap up. Is the sequel of this movie really bad? Like ruining the first one bad?
- 8ytecoder 4y agoThis particular sequel is really bad. Plenty of issues with the script and cast but to me the disconnect between a character that doesn’t age and the actor that does made it really hard to watch
- dflock 4y agoIMDb: The Man from Earth: Holocene https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5770864/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5770864/
- bgroat 4y agoIt's very different. The first movie takes place in a single room as the character confides in a group of professors about who/what he is. The sequels is much more conventional (multiple scenes, multiple sets), and features a group of students who independently discover who/what he is.
- jiggawatts 4y agoIf you’re into this kind of thing, The Hydrogen Sonata by Ian M Banks also has a main character that is very long lived.
- hcrisp 4y agoThere is also a character, a wanderer possibly called Lazarus, who appears across the three ages of the book A Canticle for Liebowitz.
- lostlogin 4y agoI took way too long to find this book. If you like Sci-fi and haven’t read it, it’s well worth a try. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz
- tshaddox 4y agoI like that movie too. You might be interested in Heinlein’s novel Time Enough For Love. It’s set a couple thousand years in the future and centers on a guy who was born in the early 1900s and is still alive, due to rejuvenation technology and perhaps other reasons :). Other people in the story live long lives as well, but the main character is by far the oldest known in the world. It’s a bit sprawling and weird (even off putting) in some parts, but I found it to be excellently written and very easy to fly through the pages.
- carlisle_ 4y agoI also often think of this movie. It was really quite excellent at being through provoking in interesting ways like this.
- internetvin 4y agoThis looks awesome, ty for sharing <3
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago>What I think about every time I think of this movie is, "Okay, so he was 12,000 years old at the time of Christ". He lived then - now 6 times, and then then-now again. In the movie he claimed to have been Christ, which that experience put him off trying to do anything really public to try to help people. By the way it was written by Jerome Bixby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bixby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bixby who also wrote the Star Trek episode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_Methuselah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_Methuselah which had to some extent the same premise (although a much younger immortal) on edit: oops, I see diggernet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31454792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31454792 already mentioned the Requiem for Methuselah.
- bgroat 4y agoI wanted to avoid spoiling that
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoOk I didn't think that was a spoiler, pretty common for the genre, the immortal guy has been someone important in the past. I think there would be only one real spoiler plot wise that you don't see coming.
- sonnyg 4y agoDefinitely a spoiler for most people. Even though many will start to guess where it is going.
- seer 4y agoI remember having similar thoughts of awe about how _old_ are things in this region of the earth, when I was listening to one of the famous Dan Carlin hardcore history series. There he mentioned how when the romans were conquering Babylon, it had already had a 3000 year history. So its like similar time from us to the romans, as the relative starts of those two civilizations. Babylon was _old_ and they knew it - who was this young upstart trying to recklessly mess with the natural order? I can’t even process things like 12-14 _thousand_ years of human civilization…
- kqr 4y agoWhat's even nuttier is that them invading something with a 3000 year history would be a little like us stumbling over ancient Rome today it having been a thing for that long. On the other hand, one could argue the cultures around the North Atlantic are close enough to Roman culture and jurisprudence that we are to ancient Rome what later Babylon was to earlier Babylon?
- vishnugupta 4y agoI've done a few re-watch of The Man From Earth. Very well made. What's more; it's on YT for free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAX2RuZm-Fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAX2RuZm-Fk
- trashtester 4y agoFun fact: If you believe in the Everett interpretation of QM (Also called Many World), there may be one "world" for each of us where we become thousands of years old.
- bgroat 4y agoI choose to believe I'm in that one. But if not, no biggie
- davedx 4y agoAnother great book along the same lines is SUM VII: https://www.amazon.com/Sum-VII-novel-T-Hard/dp/0060117028 https://www.amazon.com/Sum-VII-novel-T-Hard/dp/0060117028 "The doctor working on the mummy suggests trying to see if the man could be revived..."