Fellow sci-fi lovers, ALERT!!! According to one apparently high-brow writer, Bill Gibron, we don’t really love sci-fi- we love actioners, dramas, thrillers merely posing as science fiction. True, intellectually stimulating, speculative science fiction is all but extinct, according to Gibron. I quote:
“There are several villains in this creative cabal, elements and individuals that want to see the motion picture category cater to fanboys, geeks, and the easily entertained. But it seems a real shame that the one literary ideal best suited for the most visual of all mediums is constantly countermanded by issues that have nothing to do with either artforms’ visionary nature… Instead of reaching for intelligence and stretching the boundaries of imagination, it [sci-fi film] decides to take hoary old clichés, lots of narrative formula, and one man’s [George Lucas’] F/X laced legacy, and completely rewrite the rules of acceptability. Where once the speculative spectacle questioned the existence of man within the cosmos, today it’s all Westerns with robots.”
Gibron defines “serious” science fiction thus: “Serious science fiction questions and speculates…” (for his full text, click here)
Which causes me to ask, “Are our current science fiction pictures void of that questioning, speculative spirit? Are they all robots, mutants, spaceships, and big guns with no scientific backbone?” I would state that speculation and questioning have never been more present in sci-fi films than they are now. Despite the obvious pulp posers, sci-fi films have not ceased to explore, to envision, and to question our world. In any great science fiction work, going back to H.G Wells and Jules Verne, speculation has never taken precedence over story and character. Regardless of genre, story and character drive any great film, not mere visionary ideas. Moreover, spectacle is the instrument of speculation in science fiction- it always has been, from Metropolis to The Matrix.
I take some great examples of this from Gibron’s list of the last surviving sci-fi movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey, perhaps the film paragon of science fiction, was a wonderful display of mind-blowing ideas. However, the engine that kept that story moving was essentially a thriller template. That engine allowed the audience to stick around long enough to enjoy the meatier speculation taking place. Did this diminish 2001’s “serious” sci-fi status? No, it propelled it to the upper echelons of both film and sci-fi. Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a story of a midlife crisis and discovery; one might even label it escapist. Was it lacking in spectacle, just OMG moments of pure awe? Certainly not. The Mothership (as long as we’re discrediting F/X) blew every young child’s mind and had us watching the skies for years to come, questioning and wondering. As in 2001, the story, characters, and the spectacle drove us forward to those visionary moments.
Without spectacle and human characters and stories, the audience is alienated. And it’s not because we are afflicted by some mass plague of ADHD. It’s because we demand a human connection with our films; we want our sci-fi to show us something un-thought of, unseen. Think, for instance, of the beginning sequence of 2001, with the ape-men and the flying bones. Even to this day, as a mature appreciator of film, I have a hard time digesting that scene. It’s not until we get to that core conflict of Dave and HAL that I become invested enough in the movie to care about the other ideas. The Matrix, on the other hand, has me by the throat from the get-go because it hits us right away with a critical human conflict, a lone female freedom fighter running from the Man. Kung-fu, F/X, and some of the biggest shootouts we’ve ever seen don’t detract us from its incredibly transcending themes- they illuminate and enhance them.
I believe that these same principles live in other films and TV shows that did not make Gibron’s list. I believe that true sci-fi is not dead. Serenity’s premise of the origin of the Reapers was as speculative and searching as any great sci-fi. Minority Report’s questions regarding intrusion of justice into privacy (as well as its myriad of tiny speculations on marketing, identity issues, and manufacturing) are the stuff of the best sci-fi. Terminator 2 raised important questions regarding artificial intelligence and artificial ethics. And let us not forget that subtly sci-fi treat which is Lost, especially with its recent launch into space-time issues created by the Island’s unique magnetic properties. Even the recent flood of zombie films and literature are speculative science fiction at heart.
Yes, true science fiction lives. As in any time, we have our films that are merely gratuitous (I’ll be the first to denounce Aliens vs. Predator as true sci-fi). The genre will continue to evolve, to absorb properties of other genres, and to produce its winners and losers. But that quality will always be present in a great many of them either explicitly or implicitly. Long live science fiction!
I recommend reading Gibron’s article and then tell us what you think. Do you side with Gibron? Is science fiction on its deathbed? Or does it continue to thrive? What movies or TV shows (if any) carry on the sci-fi legacy?
“There are several villains in this creative cabal, elements and individuals that want to see the motion picture category cater to fanboys, geeks, and the easily entertained. But it seems a real shame that the one literary ideal best suited for the most visual of all mediums is constantly countermanded by issues that have nothing to do with either artforms’ visionary nature… Instead of reaching for intelligence and stretching the boundaries of imagination, it [sci-fi film] decides to take hoary old clichés, lots of narrative formula, and one man’s [George Lucas’] F/X laced legacy, and completely rewrite the rules of acceptability. Where once the speculative spectacle questioned the existence of man within the cosmos, today it’s all Westerns with robots.”
Gibron defines “serious” science fiction thus: “Serious science fiction questions and speculates…” (for his full text, click here)
Which causes me to ask, “Are our current science fiction pictures void of that questioning, speculative spirit? Are they all robots, mutants, spaceships, and big guns with no scientific backbone?” I would state that speculation and questioning have never been more present in sci-fi films than they are now. Despite the obvious pulp posers, sci-fi films have not ceased to explore, to envision, and to question our world. In any great science fiction work, going back to H.G Wells and Jules Verne, speculation has never taken precedence over story and character. Regardless of genre, story and character drive any great film, not mere visionary ideas. Moreover, spectacle is the instrument of speculation in science fiction- it always has been, from Metropolis to The Matrix.
I take some great examples of this from Gibron’s list of the last surviving sci-fi movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey, perhaps the film paragon of science fiction, was a wonderful display of mind-blowing ideas. However, the engine that kept that story moving was essentially a thriller template. That engine allowed the audience to stick around long enough to enjoy the meatier speculation taking place. Did this diminish 2001’s “serious” sci-fi status? No, it propelled it to the upper echelons of both film and sci-fi. Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a story of a midlife crisis and discovery; one might even label it escapist. Was it lacking in spectacle, just OMG moments of pure awe? Certainly not. The Mothership (as long as we’re discrediting F/X) blew every young child’s mind and had us watching the skies for years to come, questioning and wondering. As in 2001, the story, characters, and the spectacle drove us forward to those visionary moments.
Without spectacle and human characters and stories, the audience is alienated. And it’s not because we are afflicted by some mass plague of ADHD. It’s because we demand a human connection with our films; we want our sci-fi to show us something un-thought of, unseen. Think, for instance, of the beginning sequence of 2001, with the ape-men and the flying bones. Even to this day, as a mature appreciator of film, I have a hard time digesting that scene. It’s not until we get to that core conflict of Dave and HAL that I become invested enough in the movie to care about the other ideas. The Matrix, on the other hand, has me by the throat from the get-go because it hits us right away with a critical human conflict, a lone female freedom fighter running from the Man. Kung-fu, F/X, and some of the biggest shootouts we’ve ever seen don’t detract us from its incredibly transcending themes- they illuminate and enhance them.
I believe that these same principles live in other films and TV shows that did not make Gibron’s list. I believe that true sci-fi is not dead. Serenity’s premise of the origin of the Reapers was as speculative and searching as any great sci-fi. Minority Report’s questions regarding intrusion of justice into privacy (as well as its myriad of tiny speculations on marketing, identity issues, and manufacturing) are the stuff of the best sci-fi. Terminator 2 raised important questions regarding artificial intelligence and artificial ethics. And let us not forget that subtly sci-fi treat which is Lost, especially with its recent launch into space-time issues created by the Island’s unique magnetic properties. Even the recent flood of zombie films and literature are speculative science fiction at heart.
Yes, true science fiction lives. As in any time, we have our films that are merely gratuitous (I’ll be the first to denounce Aliens vs. Predator as true sci-fi). The genre will continue to evolve, to absorb properties of other genres, and to produce its winners and losers. But that quality will always be present in a great many of them either explicitly or implicitly. Long live science fiction!
I recommend reading Gibron’s article and then tell us what you think. Do you side with Gibron? Is science fiction on its deathbed? Or does it continue to thrive? What movies or TV shows (if any) carry on the sci-fi legacy?
