Science fiction film

Science fiction has been a film genre since the earliest days of cinema. Science fiction films have explored a great range of subjects and themes, including many that can not be readily presented in other genre. Science fiction films have been used to explore sensitive social and political issues, while often providing an entertaining story for the more casual viewer. Today, science fiction films are in the forefront of new special effects technology, and the audience has become accustomed to displays of realistic alien life forms, spectacular space battles, energy weapons, faster than light travel, and distant worlds.

Themes

A science fiction film will be speculative in nature, and often includes key supporting elements of science and technology. However, as often as not the "science" in a Hollywood sci-fi movie can be considered pseudo-science, relying primarily on atmosphere and quasi-scientific artistic fancy than facts and conventional scientific theory. The definition can also vary depending on the viewpoint of the observer. What may seem a science fiction film to one viewer can be considered fantasy to another.

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Many science fiction films include elements of mysticism, occult, magic, or the supernatural, considered by some to be more properly elements of fantasy or the occult (or religious) film. This transform the movie genre into a science fantasy with

Related Topics:
Occult - Magic - Supernatural

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a religious or quasi-religious philosophy serving as the driving

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motivation. The movie Forbidden Planet employs many common

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science fiction elements, but the nemesis is a powerful creature

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with a resemblance to an occult demonic spirit. The Star Wars

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series employed a magic-like philosophy and ability known as the

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"Force". Chronicles of Riddick (2004) included quasi-magical elements resembling necromancy and elementalism.

Related Topics:
Chronicles of Riddick - 2004 - Necromancy - Elemental

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Some films blur the line between the genres, such as movies where the protagonist gains the extraordinary powers of the superhero. These films usually employ a quasi-plausible reason for the hero gaining these powers. Yet in many respects the film more closely resembles fantasy than sci-fi.

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Not all science fiction themes are equally suitable for movies. In addition to science fiction horror, space opera is most common. Often enough, these films could just as well pass as westerns or WWII movies if the science fiction props were removed. Common themes also include voyages and expeditions to other planets, and dystopias, while utopias are rare.

Related Topics:
Science fiction themes - Space opera - Westerns - WWII - Dystopia - Utopia

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Special effects in science fiction movies range from laughable to ground-breaking. Milestones in this respect include Stanley Kubrick's ', Star Wars and, more recently, The Matrix.

Related Topics:
Stanley Kubrick - Star Wars - The Matrix

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Imagery

As was illustrated by Vivian Sobchack, one sense in which the science fiction film differs from the fantasy film is that the former seeks to achieve our belief in the images we are viewing while fantasy instead attempts to suspend our belief. The science fiction film displays the unfamiliar and alien in the context of the familiar, thereby making the images appear almost ordinary and even commonplace.

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Despite the alien nature of the scenes and science fictional elements of the setting, the imagery of the film is related back to mankind and how we relate to our surroundings. While the sf film strives to push the boundaries of the human experience, they remain bound to the conditions and understanding of the audience and thereby contain prosaic aspects, rather than being completely alien or abstract.

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Genre films such as westerns or war movies are bound to a particular area or time period. This is not true of the science fiction film. However there are several common visual elements that are evocative of the genre. These include the spacecraft or space station, alien worlds or creatures, robots, and futuristic gadgets. More subtle visual clues can appear with changes the human form through modifications in appearance, size, or behavior, or by means a known environment turned eerily alien, such as an empty city.

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Scientific elements

While science is a major element of this genre, many movie studios take significant liberties with what is considered conventional scientific knowledge. Such liberties can be most readily observed in films that show spacecraft maneuvering in outer space. The vacuum should preclude the transmission of sound or maneuvers employing wings, yet the sound track is filled with inappropriate flying noises and changes in flight path resembling an aircraft banking. The film makers assume that the audience will be unfamiliar with the specifics of space travel, and focus is instead placed on providing acoustical atmosphere and the more familiar maneuvers of the aircraft.

Related Topics:
Science - Vacuum - Sound - Atmosphere

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Similar instances of ignoring science in favor of art can be seen when movies present environmental effects. Entire planets are destroyed in titanic explosions requiring mere seconds, whereas an actual event of this nature would likely take many hours. A star rises over the horizon of a comet or a Mercury-like world and the temperature suddenly soars many hundreds of degrees, causing the entire surface to turn into a furnace. In reality the energy is initially reaching the ground at a very oblique angle, and the temperature is likely to rise more gradually.

Related Topics:
Comet - Mercury - Temperature - Energy

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The role of the scientist has varied considerably in the science fiction film genre, depending on the public perception of science and advanced technology. Starting with Dr. Frankenstein, the mad scientist became a stock character who posed a dire threat to society

Related Topics:
Scientist - Frankenstein - Mad scientist - Stock character

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and perhaps even civilization. In the monster movies of the 1950s, the scientist often played a heroic role as the only person who could provide a technological fix for some impending doom. Reflecting the distrust of government that began in the 1960s in the US, the brilliant but rebellious scientist became a common theme, often serving a Cassandra-like role during an impending disaster.

Related Topics:
1950s - Government - 1960s - US - Cassandra

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Alien life forms

:{{main|Extraterrestrial life in popular culture}}

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Disaster films

:{{main|Disaster movie}}

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A frequent theme among sci-fi films is that of impending or actual disaster on an epic scale. These often address a particular concern of the writer by serving as a vehicle of warning against a type of activity, including technological research. In the case of alien invasion films, the creatures can provide as a stand-in for a feared foreign power.

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Disaster films typically fall into the following general categories:

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• Alien invasion — hostile extraterrestrials arrive and seek to supplant humanity. They are either overwhelmingly powerful or very insidious.
• Environmental disaster — such a major climate change, or an asteroid or comet strike.
• Man supplanted by technology — typically in the form of an all-powerful computer, advanced robots or cyborgs, or else genetically-modified humans or animals.
• Nuclear war — usually in the form of a dystopic, post-holocaust tale of grim survival.
• Pandemic — a highly lethal disease, often one created by man, wipes out most of humanity in a massive plague.

Time travel movies can also exploit the potential for disaster as a motivation for the plot, or they can be the root cause of a disaster by wiping out recorded history and creating a new future.

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Mind and identity

The core mental aspects of what makes us human has been a staple of science fiction films, particularly since the 1980s. Blade Runner examined what made a organic-creation a human, while the RoboCop series saw a android mechanism fitted with the brain and reprogrammed mind of a human. The idea of brain transfer was not entirely new to science fiction film, as the concept of the "mad scientist" transfering the human mind to another body is as old as Frankenstein.

Related Topics:
Mental aspects - Blade Runner - RoboCop - Android - Mad scientist - Frankenstein

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In the 1990s, Total Recall began a thread of films that explored the concept of reprogramming the human mind. This was reminiscient of the brainwashing fears of the 1950s that appeared in such films as A Clockwork Orange. The cyberpunk film Johnny Mnemonic used the reprogramming concept for a commercial purpose as the human became a data transfer vessel. Voluntary erasure of memory is further explored as themes of the films Paycheck and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In Dark City, human memory and the fabric of reality itself is reprogrammed wholesale.

Related Topics:
Total Recall - Brainwashing - A Clockwork Orange - Cyberpunk - Johnny Mnemonic - Paycheck - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Dark City

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The idea that a human could be entirely represented as a program in a computer was a core element of the film Tron. This would be further explored in The Lawnmower Man, and the idea reversed in Virtuosity as a computer program sought to become a real person. In the Matrix series, the virtual reality world became a real world prison for humanity, managed by intelligent machines. In eXistenZ, the nature of reality and virtual reality become intermixed with no clear distinguishing boundary. Likewise The Cell intermixed dreams and virtual reality, creating a fantasy realm with no boundaries.

Related Topics:
Tron - The Lawnmower Man - Virtuosity - Matrix - Virtual reality - EXistenZ - The Cell

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Time travel

:{{main|Time travel in fiction}}

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The concept of time travel, or travelling backwards and forwards through time, has always been a popular staple of science fiction film, as well as in various sci-fi television series. This usually involves the use of some type of advanced technology, such as H. G. Wells' classic The Time Machine, or the Back to the Future trilogy. Other movies have employed Special Relativity to explain travel far into the future, including the Planet of the Apes series.

Related Topics:
Time travel - The Time Machine - Back to the Future - Special Relativity - Planet of the Apes

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More conventional time travel movies use technology to bring the past to life in the present (or a present that lies in our future). The movie Iceman (1984) dealt with the reanimation of a frozen Neanderthal (smiliair to the 1950 Christopher Lee film Horror Express), a concept later spoofed in the comedy Encino Man (1992). The Jurassic Park series portrayed cloned life forms grown from DNA ingested by insects that were frozen in amber. The movie Freejack (1992) has victims of horrible deaths being pulled forward in time just a split-second before their demise, and then used for spare body parts.

Related Topics:
Iceman - 1984 - Neanderthal - Christopher Lee - Horror Express - Comedy - Encino Man - 1992 - Jurassic Park - DNA - Amber - Freejack

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A common theme in time travel movies is dealing with the paradoxical nature of travelling to the past. The movie 12 Monkeys (1995) has a self-fulfilling quality as the main character as a child witnesses the death of his future self. In Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) the main character jumps backwards and forwards across his life, and ultimately accepts the inevitability of his final fate.

Related Topics:
12 Monkeys - 1995 - Slaughterhouse-Five - 1969

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The Back to the Future series goes one step further and explores the result of altering the past, while in ' (1996) the crew must rescue the Earth from having its past altered by time-travelling aliens. The Terminator series employs self-aware machines instead of aliens, which travel to the past in order to gain victory in a future war.

Related Topics:
Back to the Future - 1996 - The Terminator

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