Saturday, May 5, 2007
The Sci-Fi 25
Here's Entertainment Weekly's list of the best sci-fi movies and television from the past 25 years. I think a bunch of the stuff they're listing are really fantasy or action movies adorned with sci-fi trappings, but it's an interesting list and a great jumping point for discussion. If there's any real blasphemy in the article it's calling Christopher Eccleston a better Doctor than Tom Baker. Is nothing sacred?
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26 comments:
Speaking of Dr. Who, there's a bunch of great Doctor content on the BBC website, including (all new since you've last seen the show) e-books, strips, and flash cartoons.
I'll look it up and make a full post of it later, when I'm feeling a little more ambitious. If you want to look yourself, the BBC has a great cult page as part of their website (also great HHG stuff there, too).
No Fifth Element? Lost?
I guess someone besides Gus thinks that the new Battlestar Galactica is good, but putting it above Blade Runner (which I am watching tonight)?
For those of you who don't already know, I watch The Fifth Element every year.
On Christmas. It's the best. Christmas. Movie. Evar.
As much as I like the Fifth Element, it's pretty much just a live action Heavy Metal (Bilal, Manara, etc) comic. Fun, sexy and goofy, but not entirely legendary.
Fifth Element is still a better movie than five of those on the list.
Additionally, despite the ewoks, Return of the Jedi was still one of 25 best sci-fi movies of the past 25 years.
I agree on The Return of the Jedi. I think I'm doubly harsh on The Fifth Element, because the Luc Besson's other films were so much more coherent.
Gus. The answer is love.
"fantasy or action movies adorned with sci-fi trappings"
Umm, I think that is kind of the whole definition of sci-fi. Throw in a lazerpistol and it becomes sci-fi. Set in in the future, have it be aliens, and the message you are sending about today's race relations or whatever slips down unnoticed where it can slowly reveal itself.
Of course, there are other genre where you can disguise the current political atmosphere to allow your point to be made without people automatically slapping up their walls of preconceptions. For example "Inherit the Wind" is about the scopes trials, evolution and all that...but really, it is abouth McCarthy and the communist scare in America.
Of course, sometimes it is done blatantly obviously, like in Quantum Leap, which even though it is hitting you over the head with it by throwing a white guy in the body of a black woman in the 1950s or whatever, was still a great show that deserved to be higher up on the list
I don't find the ewoks nearly as detracting as Chewbacca's wierd moustache-combjob in "Jedi." I mean, is he supposed to have picked that up from hanging out with Lando?
I disagree Andy, I think you could easily make a drama set in the future and have so little science fiction in it that it would undiscernable as a science fiction film. I think the key trait of serious science fiction is the way it asks questions about how technology changes the way we live. If all the movie or film is saying that the guns will shoot red beams rather than lead slugs, it's not really doing sci-fi. It's just cosplay.
I am such a sucker for these lists. I was actually, literally spluttering when I saw Lost on it.
Yeah, Lost is the big WTF on there. That's another one I hardly consider sci-fi. It's like calling Twin Peaks sci-fi.
so gus, Inherit the Wind = cosplay?
while it isn't sci-fi it is using one item to stand in for another.
Original Startrek, was just cowboys who threw off their hats and guns, kissed their horses goodbye, grabbed phasers and rode into the sunset on a spaceship.
I think sci-fi is more about 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'
Even the whole angle of 'I think the key trait of serious science fiction is the way it asks questions about how technology changes the way we live' doesn't sit right with me. If it really is about technology we are actually reaching, then it isn't sci-fi, it is reality. If it is taking a few well educated guesses ahead, then it can't really address how we will live with it, when it does arrive.
Take for instance 'The Kiln People' by David Brin, he introduces a technology that totally revamps how society works, greater than even the internet, I am talking to the level of wheels, domestication of animals, etc.
Yet when you get down to it, he is really dealing with 'I think, therefore I am?'
I think the roll of science fiction is to allow us to ask questions or look at a problem from an angle we wouldn't otherwise be able to address
hell, Kirk and Spock = Gilgamesh and Enkidu (except that they don't ressurect Enkidu for a sequel)
Even casting Enkidu as a half-wild man in some ways totally alien to Gilgamesh dovetails nicely with Spock being half-man, but in the opposite direction, an emotionless logic kirk cannot follow, rather than an animalistic nature Gilgamesh can never fully comprehend
Using your example: yes, Star Trek is essentially a pioneers story set in space, but it also uses the setting to explore themes only possible within the realm of science fiction. City on the Edge of Forever, for example uses time travel to explore basic themes of morality, causality and choice. It's not a story you could tell in any other setting, because the time travel is inherent and a require part of the story. Aliens, on the other hand, could be told in the setting of the Vietnam war and lose very little of its core meaning.
"City on the Edge of Forever, for example uses time travel to explore basic themes of morality, causality and choice. It's not a story you could tell in any other setting,"
Right, but the episode isn't really ABOUT timetravel, it just USES timetravel to tell it's core story about morality, causality, and choice.
I went through the list again, and as far as I can tell, none of them are asking questions about how technology will change the way we live, at least not in a serious way. Quantum Leap is not some show about how we will all deal with timetravel once we get it, nor is The Matrix really a show about the dangers of too much internet porn
I think maybe I'm splitting hairs, but there is a distinction between hard sci-fi and stuff that is merely sci-fi flavored. Sure City on the Edge of forever is about morality and choice, but it hinges hugely on the causality aspect of time travel. I think Dr. Who, Star Trek, BSG, Blade Runner, The Matrix, The X-Files, Children of Men, Eternal Sunshine and Futurama all, in their own way, take that extra step beyond flavoring and really delve into deeper ideas and themes.
okay, in my exposure, the term hard science fiction has no connection to how key science is to the storyline, rather it involves how correct the science is. Lazer swords and spaceships that make zooming noises in the vaccuum of space = NOT hard science fiction. But let's set that definition aside for a moment.
Now, honestly, I don't remember much of the details of City on the Edge of Forever. However, while that specific story is using time travel and time paradox, that is just one of many ways such a story can be told. Take the movie 'Sliding Glass Door' with Gwenneth Paltro. It follows her life, then about half way though the movie, it goes into fast speed reverse, and rewinds back to where a sliding glass door closes in front of her. This time she puts her hand out, stops the door, gets on the subway...and then we see another set of life events. Same issues sans timetravel machine.
Again, take David Brin's 'The Kiln People' revolves around how people interact with a society altering shift in technology. His specific question of 'I think, theirfore I am?' hinges entirely on that sci-fi technology, it is key to the story in a way much different than a gun shooting bullets vs laserbeams. Yet it is only key to his very specific story, the underlying concepts of 'I think, therefore I am.' can be approached from a thousand angles.
Maybe one of the best examples is Asimov's I robot, and his followups with the R. Daniel (caves of steel, naked sun) His I robot short story collection totally revolves around his new techology, robots, and the laws that he invisions for them to be programed with. Yet even in his later short stories, one dwells on a robot that can read minds, and how it takes Rule 1, A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Where the robot lies to avoid hurting people's feelings, which once people hearing different lies confront eachother, worse damage is done. This story isn't about robotics, but about truth and the human condition, but it is told through the use of a sci-fi device.
And finally, in his later branch with R. Daniel, while Asimov still has his 3 laws, he is actually seeing if he can write a mystery where technology of the future has no impact. Someone had told him a true sci-fi mystery is impossible, because it is too easy for the author to overcome any improbably situation with some fancy gadget (the old man found shot dead inside a locked windowless room lockable only from the inside but no gun is found...easy transporters!)or even if the author doesn't use such technologies, the reader cannot know he will avoid this trick until the bitter end, hence are always questioning what made up technology may apply.
These three stories by the same author steeped im the same amount of science use it in 3 different ways: New technology intrinsic to the story, new technology used in telling this specific tail of a universally applicable and repeatable tale, and totally irrelevant.
I feel the entire concept of breaking down fiction into 'regular, sci-fi, fantasy, western' or any other catagory, simply based on the prop being a 9mm Glock, 40 watt lazpistol, Orcslayer the broadsword, or a Colt .45 peacemaker is irrelevant, however, that is how they are divided up. It's like prefering redheads over blondes, or basketball over soccer, a hot woman is still a hot woman, a seat of your chair game is still a seat of your chair game.
But no, I disagree that there must be a minimum of future tech, spacey prop stuff for a movie or book to deserve the catagorization science fiction, and I totally reject the notion that to be sci-fi it must deal in questions about how technology changes the way we live
You raise interesting points. I was thinking of Shakespeare. We know, thanks to school that he wrote comedies and dramas. These comedies and dramas all had different trappings, some were about Rome, others about Venice. Some were about kings others about businessmen. I fear the route you're going totally denies science-fiction as a so-called "important" field. If, as you suggest, that all the important human issues or questions that many great science fiction stories explore can be told in other ways, then the bulk of science fiction is simply pulp, universal stories dressed up with doodads to make them see difference. I believe that good, true, hard or whatever-we're-going-to-call-it science fiction builds a unique and irreproducible line of thought between the doodads and the universal. If no science fiction did that it simply wouldn't be worth our time.
every single story can be told in a myrid of ways. Romeo and Juliet, be it the West Side Story version or a more standard tale, or one set in space, is still all the same. Being that shakespeare choose to set Julius Ceasar in Rome during the hight of empire really is meaningless, he could have chosen a thousand different settings. Julius Ceasar isn't important because of what it says about the Roman Empire, it is important because of what it says about leadership, betrayal, peer pressure, etc. Moby Dick isn't about a whale, it is about vengance destroying a man, he could be chasing whales or black holes (or if you are Khan, chasing James T. Kirk)
One setting is not better than the other. Some authors are more able to think and work in one genre than another but this has no real impact on how great or poor a genre is, it is simply how that author chooses to think or is most comfortable, or most successful.
there are NO important fields, just important stories.
"builds a unique and irreproducible line of thought between the doodads and the universal."
So can you name one science fiction work that does that? Can you name one Western? One 'Contemporary', Historical, Fantasy?
These settings are ALL just trappings, trappings we must have, like the stock base of a soup, to allow the elements, the ingredients, to hold together to create the whole.
"If no science fiction did that it simply wouldn't be worth our time"
Again, backwards. Can a truely universal human condition story be told with science fiction? Yes. Absolutely yes. Can that same story be told in another way? Absolutely yes. Does this lessen science fiction? No. The genre is no more relevant or irrelevant than any othe genre.
We would be doing ourselves a huge disservice if we dismissed all sciene fiction just because it doesn't have a monopoly human truth, because no form of literature, and no subsection, genre, or whatever, holds such a monopoly
"If, as you suggest, that all the important human issues or questions that many great science fiction stories explore can be told in other ways,"
Yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting. That is exactly what Joseph Cambell is saying in his book 'A hero with 1000 faces' and yet, while science fiction does not hold the monoploy on the hero tale, Cambell raves about the greatness of star wars, which is a movie, not a book, nor a play, nor a poem, and which is science fiction, not a western, not a conteporary, etc.
Yes, the majority of science fiction is pulp, but then, the majority of everything is pulp.
bah couldn't figure out how to edit like I wanted.
anyways, yes, most science fiction is pulp, most of most genre is pulp. "Art may be essential and deeply human, but it ain't rare. What's rare is honesty. A willingness to look past all the fancy things we want to believe, peering instead at what may actually be true." -Brin
Does Sci-fi bring us something totally new and unique? Well, yes and no. Even some of the greats that are labeled sci-fi, such as The Matrix and Star Wars are really cosplay. You can throw in just a sprinkle of futuretech stuff, or a ton.
One area where 'good' or a subbranch of sci-fi is revolutionary in (although not exclusively sci-fi, you can find it in conteporary and westerns as well, but much more often in science fiction...but only some of it) is 'down with the demi-gods'
Because that is what a lot of science fiction found in movies is about, demigods.
Let me repost a handful of snippets of Brin as he handles this much better than I
[what does star wars teach us?]"an ideal society ought to be ruled by secretive-mystical elites, unaccountable and self-chosen based on inherent qualities of blood. The only good knowledge is old knowledge. (No wonder it all happened "long ago, in a galaxy far away.")
the oppressed "rebels" in "Star Wars" have no recourse in law or markets or science or democracy. They can only choose sides in a civil war between two wings of the same genetically superior royal family. They may not meddle or criticize. As Homeric spear-carriers, it's not their job.
In teaching us how to distinguish good from evil, Lucas prescribes judging by looks: Villains wear Nazi helmets.
It is essential to understand the radical departure taken by genuine science fiction, which comes from a diametrically opposite literary tradition -- a new kind of storytelling that often rebels against those very same archetypes Campbell venerated. An upstart belief in progress, egalitarianism, positive-sum games -- and the slim but real possibility of decent human institutions.
[what does star trec teach us]
Education is a great emancipator of the humble (e.g. Starfleet Academy). Futuristic institutions are basically good-natured (the Federation), though of course one must fight outbreaks of incompetence and corruption. Professionalism is respected, lesser characters make a difference and henchmen often become brave whistle-blowers -- as they do in America today.
In "Star Trek," when authorities are defied, it is in order to overcome their mistakes or expose particular villains, not to portray all institutions as inherently hopeless. Good cops sometimes come when you call for help. Ironically, this image fosters useful criticism of authority, because it suggests that any of us can gain access to our flawed institutions, if we are determined enough -- and perhaps even fix them with fierce tools of citizenship.
Now I sat down and thought about what other areas are putting out the same message. A lot of westerns too revolve around some demigod (born good with a gun) taking on a corrupt town leadership....but there are a growning number about bands of decent normal folk working together and accomplishing something great, be it a cattle drive, or the underground railroad.
Even the movie 'The Untouchables' has some of these themes. Al Capone is NOT a demigod, and neither is Ness, and while Ness leads the charge, gives the group backbone, what ultimately brings down Capone, the little glasses wearing geeky everyman who relies on the power of a government institution....Tax Law.
True Demi-got style would have had Capone bribe the judge at the end, be about to be free, when Ness and his team wrestle him to the ground in anger at the miscarage of justice (yet really committing assualt) Ness would contemplate shooting Capone while Capone says 'Ill use my demigod powers of bribery to get the next judge' But Ness would hold his fire. Then as guards led Capone away, Capone would grab for a guards gun and as he swung it up, we'd here a bang, cutscene to a smoking gun, widen out to see it was Ness who was the shooter.
Sometimes stories can be good and only take place in a technologically speculative setting, but good science fiction says interesting things about how the technology itself alters people and the environment they live in.
I just watched Enemy Mine, which is essentially a remake of Hell in the Pacific where Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune find themselves marooned on the same planet during WWII. Both the new and old Battlestar Galactica series riffed on the same story as well.
Anyway, Enemy Mine brings the unique biology of the Dracs to the table, making possible an exploration of themes related to sex roles that would have been impossible in the World War II movie.
"Sometimes stories can be good and only take place in a technologically speculative setting"
I don't buy it. I bolded only because that is the part I disagree with.
What I see happening is a story is told, and because it is a unique approach, we suddenly assume that it is the ONLY way in which it can be told
Moby Dick, the great white whale, upon your first exposure to that story, could it be told from some other setting? I bet your initial reaction upon setting the book down would be no. Yet eventually we do find an author who can, and then more than one.
"but good science fiction says interesting things about how the technology itself alters people and the environment they live in."
I partly agree, and partly disagree. In science fiction you don't have technology just sitting there, it is altering people, and the environment they live it. It's part of the reason people pick up even the worst science fiction novel, with a plot full of holes and one dimensional characters...because they get to read about spaceships etc.
But I don't think that is what makes good scifi good, or any genre good. In theory, a good mystery novel with an excellent plot, colorful characters, etc, could be about missing housekeys, it need not be about the assasination of the president. In the same way, science fiction need not have a ton of novel new technologies in it constantly interacting with people causing them to live differently.
In fact, I think science fiction can be most revolutionary when it throws back in our faces that people are still people, same basic wants and drives that ahve been with cavemen, especially when it is the sugar that makes the medicine go down, when unaddorned, that same message would be rejected.
Any time an author creates something it is unique, and to a universal concept he brings in things previous versions have not, or even could not bring in, but really, that is just fluff.
For example, West Side Story, the specifics of the culture at the time, and the setting, or even that it was a musical, brought in elements not in the original, but the story is still the same. It is the strenght of the underlying story, not the musical numbers, not the costumes, not the influence of 50's-60's gang styles that would make West Side Story become a classic, if for some reason, every copy of romeo and juliet was lost...and shakespeare was well know to base his plays on existing works, there is probably a Bob and Jane version lost to the sands of time shakespeare based R&G on.
" Enemy Mine brings the unique biology of the Dracs to the table, making possible an exploration of themes related to sex roles that would have been impossible in the World War II movie."
Each Genre brings it's own opportunities and difficulties. It would be difficult to tell the basic Huck Finn tale in an era without slavery...but my mind is already spinning with exploitive situations that for a while a culture deemed wrong that could stand in for slavery...really, wasn't Transamerica kicking around in the same sand?
Even Gus's comment on "Enemy Mine" I made that same comment regarding 'Kiln People' the new technology introduced there allows a person to ask Descarte's I think therefor I am in a way no other genre could...yet it is still at it's heart Cogito Ergo Sum, and if it hadn't asked that question/addressed that issue, it would jsut be an empty novel about some flashy new 'wouldn't it be cool' technology.
Being unfamiliar with Enemy Mine, I wikipediaed it, the sex role themes didn't rate important enough to warrant mention. Imdb revealed it to be draco is pregnant. Is that really only tellable from the angle of science-fiction? Would it be impossible to tell it from the angle of a Greek Hoplite and an Amazon? Or what about a US grunt in vietnam stranded somehow with a Viet Cong...who is a woman...and pregnant. Or for science fiction, a warrior stranded with a dragon, when they finally communicate, he learns it is a she, not a he, carrying a clutch of eggs? Those would deal with interesting things as well, but yet it would be the core concepts of isolation, learning the enemy is not what the propaganda said he/she was, learning that in fact he/she has the same basic drives, desires, wants, and fears as all of us. Seeing the enemy as human too. Otherwise it would be
'hey guys abot time you showed up I shot a pregnant alien and then I talked to this soccer ball'
Andy, I'm not sure what you're arguing about anymore.
You disagree with my first statement, that in some stories the science fiction trappings have no bearing upon the story. Let's think, for example, about how Shakespeare is often presented. You might choose any period for the costumes, and the script remains the same. You might have all the combatants armed with lasers, and it would have no bearing on the story told.
On the other hand, you have Foundation, where all the action flows from one idea: What if you could calculate with reasonable certainty what would happen in the future? Without the fictional science of psychohistory, there is no Foundation.
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