Reverend Joe
08-02-2009, 01:09
I was just watching Blade Runner and musing over the issue of "good" science fiction movies, and I happened to remember the "District 9" thread here, and it inspired me to think about the staleness that I see as an inherent problem in Science Fiction movies. If this rambles a bit or becomes incoherent, I apologize; I'm writing it as I go.
What bothers me about 95% of Science Fiction franchises or movies/television series/etc. is that they are overly stuck in a single continuum: you always seem to get a combination of the grandiose Star Trek movies-style sci-fi, and the pure-hero-centric Star Wars style. As a reference, look to Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (admittedly, the original series had a hint of originality to it, but not much) and every crappy 80's space movie, ever (yes, including "The Last Starfighter"; it might have been a revolution in CGI, but the actual plot still sucked big sweaty donkey balls.) There are very few examples of anything outside of this narrow field of writing that, itself, basically has sucked itself dry, and most of those examples also suck (like every cyberpunk movie, ever.) It all boils down to a single basic plot: a big, omnipotent bad guy is gonna destroy us all unless a lone dashing hero can stop him. It's like an Errol Flynn movie on crack.
I guess the crux of the problem is that the heyday of Scifi came after what was arguably the heyday of good movies, the 50's, 60's and 70's. This period was marked by more movies that focused on the individual and unique characters, who themselves drove the plot, as opposed to movies where the characters fit a stereotype who moves with the plot machine. In other words, you got people like "Cool Hand" Luke, the titular character of the (his) movie, or Harry Caul, the main character in "The Conversation." In Genre-driven movies, on the other hand, you end up with a stock character, who MUST do certain things, and MUST act in a certain form. Note, though, that I don't deny that both types of movies still exist; I would just argue that, at least in the 80's and 90's, there were less of the former and more of the latter. I will reserve the present decade for future judgment, as it is too recent to judge, especially by someone who's experience with movies is limited to a six-pack and a rental from Blockbuster. (BTW, thank god for Netflix... I haven't had a selection of movies this good since Blockbuster put my local crappy VHS rental place out of business. It may have smelled like old people, but at least it had a good selection.)
This, then, is the problem with SciFi movies; they emerged en masse in the 80's, after the best Studio-driven movies in the 50's and early 60's, and the director-centric movies of the late 60's and 70's. They saw their heyday in an era that was excessively driven by commercial appeal, and thus 95% of the movies were ripoffs of what had worked: Star Wars and, to a lesser extent, Star Trek. Nobody bothered to try to push the medium in any other direction for the most part.
It's not a problem unique to Scifi; it's endemic of basically every movie with a non-contemporary setting, and it's a problem that killed the historical genre: when every movie that takes place more than 200 years previous is a grandiose, Cecil B. Demille-style sweeping epic, it gets a little wearisome. Just as Punk killed Progressive Rock, so the over-saturation of non-contemporary movies with an over-the-top style has killed their appeal in the mass market. Nobody wants to see another giant fight between Greeks/Romans and barbarians, and similarly nobody wants to see another Star Wars, with a bunch of spunky rebels who, without any military experience or modern equipment, mysteriously manage to defeat a giant Evil Empire with the top-of-the-line equipment and well-trained personnel.
But, to get somewhere with all of this, that's why I like movies like "Blade Runner" and "Alien." Unlike most Scifi movies, the fact that they take place in the future is not an overwhelming fact, but rather a plot device, and just one of many. In "Blade Runner," it is used to predict a neo-Noir future; ; in "Alien: it transports truckers to the future and challenges them with this new setting -- in particular, with a mysterious alien. This, in my opinion, is the crux of good Scifi. It does not rely on "OMG FUTURE!" but instead uses the future as leverage, as a tool to transport the ordinary into the realm of the estraordinary; once there, we see things that are familiar, but juxtaposed against the unfamiliar, with fantastic results. No intrepid rednecks who can mysteriously defy the laws of physics, no stale, constricting Canon laws that force the plotline along an overly trodden path, just creative freedom taken to a whole new level.
As for "District 9": it looks interesting. It doesn't look to me like "Pure Win," as Lemur put it, but that's only because my favorite movies are noir movies, movies with antiheroes, movies like Spaghetti Westerns. Compared with the average Scifi movie, it does indeed look like "pure win": it takes a familiar story, that of the intrepid journalist, and places it into a Scifi setting that is, itself, quite creative. It does strike me as being a bit stuck in the times, what with the overbearing evil corporation, but otherwise it feels like a refreshing change in the sterile Scifi formula. But most importantly, to go back to an earlier point, I feel like this could be a real character-driven story, as opposed to the usual plot formula.
What bothers me about 95% of Science Fiction franchises or movies/television series/etc. is that they are overly stuck in a single continuum: you always seem to get a combination of the grandiose Star Trek movies-style sci-fi, and the pure-hero-centric Star Wars style. As a reference, look to Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (admittedly, the original series had a hint of originality to it, but not much) and every crappy 80's space movie, ever (yes, including "The Last Starfighter"; it might have been a revolution in CGI, but the actual plot still sucked big sweaty donkey balls.) There are very few examples of anything outside of this narrow field of writing that, itself, basically has sucked itself dry, and most of those examples also suck (like every cyberpunk movie, ever.) It all boils down to a single basic plot: a big, omnipotent bad guy is gonna destroy us all unless a lone dashing hero can stop him. It's like an Errol Flynn movie on crack.
I guess the crux of the problem is that the heyday of Scifi came after what was arguably the heyday of good movies, the 50's, 60's and 70's. This period was marked by more movies that focused on the individual and unique characters, who themselves drove the plot, as opposed to movies where the characters fit a stereotype who moves with the plot machine. In other words, you got people like "Cool Hand" Luke, the titular character of the (his) movie, or Harry Caul, the main character in "The Conversation." In Genre-driven movies, on the other hand, you end up with a stock character, who MUST do certain things, and MUST act in a certain form. Note, though, that I don't deny that both types of movies still exist; I would just argue that, at least in the 80's and 90's, there were less of the former and more of the latter. I will reserve the present decade for future judgment, as it is too recent to judge, especially by someone who's experience with movies is limited to a six-pack and a rental from Blockbuster. (BTW, thank god for Netflix... I haven't had a selection of movies this good since Blockbuster put my local crappy VHS rental place out of business. It may have smelled like old people, but at least it had a good selection.)
This, then, is the problem with SciFi movies; they emerged en masse in the 80's, after the best Studio-driven movies in the 50's and early 60's, and the director-centric movies of the late 60's and 70's. They saw their heyday in an era that was excessively driven by commercial appeal, and thus 95% of the movies were ripoffs of what had worked: Star Wars and, to a lesser extent, Star Trek. Nobody bothered to try to push the medium in any other direction for the most part.
It's not a problem unique to Scifi; it's endemic of basically every movie with a non-contemporary setting, and it's a problem that killed the historical genre: when every movie that takes place more than 200 years previous is a grandiose, Cecil B. Demille-style sweeping epic, it gets a little wearisome. Just as Punk killed Progressive Rock, so the over-saturation of non-contemporary movies with an over-the-top style has killed their appeal in the mass market. Nobody wants to see another giant fight between Greeks/Romans and barbarians, and similarly nobody wants to see another Star Wars, with a bunch of spunky rebels who, without any military experience or modern equipment, mysteriously manage to defeat a giant Evil Empire with the top-of-the-line equipment and well-trained personnel.
But, to get somewhere with all of this, that's why I like movies like "Blade Runner" and "Alien." Unlike most Scifi movies, the fact that they take place in the future is not an overwhelming fact, but rather a plot device, and just one of many. In "Blade Runner," it is used to predict a neo-Noir future; ; in "Alien: it transports truckers to the future and challenges them with this new setting -- in particular, with a mysterious alien. This, in my opinion, is the crux of good Scifi. It does not rely on "OMG FUTURE!" but instead uses the future as leverage, as a tool to transport the ordinary into the realm of the estraordinary; once there, we see things that are familiar, but juxtaposed against the unfamiliar, with fantastic results. No intrepid rednecks who can mysteriously defy the laws of physics, no stale, constricting Canon laws that force the plotline along an overly trodden path, just creative freedom taken to a whole new level.
As for "District 9": it looks interesting. It doesn't look to me like "Pure Win," as Lemur put it, but that's only because my favorite movies are noir movies, movies with antiheroes, movies like Spaghetti Westerns. Compared with the average Scifi movie, it does indeed look like "pure win": it takes a familiar story, that of the intrepid journalist, and places it into a Scifi setting that is, itself, quite creative. It does strike me as being a bit stuck in the times, what with the overbearing evil corporation, but otherwise it feels like a refreshing change in the sterile Scifi formula. But most importantly, to go back to an earlier point, I feel like this could be a real character-driven story, as opposed to the usual plot formula.