Better Angels

Better Angels is a science fiction novel by Howard V. Hendrix first published in 1999.

Plot introduction

Better Angels is a prequel to Hendrix's earlier novels Lightpath and Standing Wave, filling in history about how the characters in those novels came to be who they are.

Explanation of the novel's title

"Better angels" is a phrase used by agents of organization Tetragrammatron to describe what they hope to make humanity into. Tetragrammatron is concerned with ensuring humanity's survival by creating a machine/human transcendences, turning humans into "better angels".

Release details

Sources, references, external links, quotations

Better Angels (FlashForward)

Better Angels is the fourteenth episode of the American television series, FlashForward. The episode's teleplay was written by Scott M. Gimple & Ian Goldberg and was directed by Constantine Makris. This marks Constantine Makris to be the first director to make more than two episodes of FlashForward. Originally aired in the United States on ABC on April 1, 2010.

Plot

Ganwar Region, Somalia: 1991

The young Somali boy with a cut across his face from 137 Sekunden walks back into his village to find every civilian on the ground, not moving, possibly because of the five towers surrounding the perimeter of the village. The boy runs to his mother lying on the ground, wearing a necklace with two red stones and one yellow stone, but she doesn't wake up. The boy sees a black camel kneeling down at him. "The Black Camel" is considered as an omen for death in Somalia. The boy runs away, and when the war comes to Somalia, the boy goes to join an army camp. When he returns to his village, he finds the bodies of his people gone, and only one of the towers remains standing. The boy is led to believe that his people driven off by the war.

Agent Carter (season 2)

The second season of the American television series Agent Carter, which is inspired by the films Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the Marvel One-Shot short film of the same name, features the Marvel Comics character Peggy Carter as she moves to Los Angeles to deal with the threats of the new atomic age in the wake of World War II, gaining new friends, a new home, and potential new love. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. The season, which began airing on ABC on January 19, 2016, and is expected to end on March 1, 2016, after 10 episodes, is produced by ABC Studios, Marvel Television, and F&B Fazekas & Butters, with Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, and Chris Dingess serving as showrunners.

In May 2015, a second season of Agent Carter was ordered, with Hayley Atwell, who reprises her role from the film series and One-Shot as Carter, returning to star. Alongside her, James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, and Enver Gjokaj also return from the first season. Filming took place in Los Angeles in late 2015. Other characters from previous MCU media, including the films and One-Shots, also appear. The season shares elements with the film Doctor Strange and the television series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Better Angels

The Better Angels is a 1979 thriller novel by Charles McCarry. It was poorly received at the time of its release, citing the premise of terrorists using passenger planes as instruments of destruction too implausible to suspend one's disbelief. It was the basis of the comedic 1982 Richard Brooks film Wrong Is Right starring Sean Connery, which was similarly poorly received. In 2008, the book, along with other McCarry thrillers, was released by Overlook Duckworth Press, labeled "the prophetic thriller." It is now believed to have predicted the attacks of September 11, 2001, and its aftermath. The title is a reference to Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, a quote from which is the novel's epigraph, and the term is said to refer to Patrick Graham's conception of President Lockwood and Julian Hubbard.

Structure

The novel is set in 1992, during an election campaign between former president Franklin Mallory and current president Bedford Forrest "Frosty" Lockwood. It opens and closes with the Midsummer and Midwinter parties held by Patrick Graham, a news anchor famous for his progressive politics, and his wife, Charlotte, and in between those isolated chapters, it is divided into four parts. Franklin Mallory wants to be the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms. During his first term, he had attempted a hostile takeover of Canada, incarcerated people for having criminal tendencies on psychological tests, and hired hundreds of thousands of out of work college graduates to work on the spaceship, Humanity, which sent a crew to Ganymede. All of these programs were undone by Lockwood, and Mallory wishes to do the same to his.

The Better Angels (film)

The Better Angels is a 2014 American biographical drama-historical film about United States President Abraham Lincoln's formative years. It was written and directed by A. J. Edwards.

The film had its premiere at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014. It was subsequently screened in the Panorama program at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2014.

In March 2014, Amplify acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released on November 7, 2014.

Plot

The story of Abraham Lincoln's childhood, his upbringing in Indiana, and the hardships and tragedies that made him the man he was.

Cast

Reception

The Better Angels received mixed reviews from critics. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, saying it's "a beautiful, arty, very Malick-influenced evocation of Abraham Lincoln’s childhood." Katie Hasty of HitFix praised the film by saying it is "a lushly conceived, exhaustively realized debut feature that'd be pretty formidable stuff coming from a more practised filmmaker — and derided in some quarters as a self-impressed knock-off." Rodrigo Perez in his Indiewire review said the movie focuses "on mood, nature, divinity and celestial atmosphere" rather than story.