- Mar 14, 2012
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Like it or not, this series of threads continues!
OF FICTION AND SCIENCE
I was 5 when Star Wars hit theaters. I fell asleep during it around the same time Alderaan exploded. I didn’t actually get to watch the whole movie until I was 7 or 8, but you wouldn’t have known it by what I knew of it. Thus began my attraction to the Sci-Fi genre.
Search any list, and the obvious will pop up: Empire Strikes Back, 2001, Alien. Older films like Metropolis, War of the Worlds, or even Planet of the Apes will pop up too. The commonality tends to be how much they wind up influencing everything that follows. The films I’m highlighting feature fully realized worlds that hold up no matter how many times you view them. Some are influential to this day, others have been brushed aside. If you want to talk sci-fi with me though, you’d have better seen these.
Blade Runner – 1982
Of my entire list of movies, this is the only one I would fully expect to see on multiple lists. It’s obvious as all get out, but I’ll break my rule for this one film. I’ll put it to you this way; when most top whatever lists come out, Citizen Kane comes out on top more often than not. Film school sheep will parrot from their professors and other film historians all the reasons why it is the greatest movie ever made, and blah, blah, blah. I’ll put Blade Runner toe to toe with that film any day of the week. And I don’t even think it’s the greatest film ever.
This was a box office bomb that got savaged by critics, and then went on to influence virtually every science fiction movie that followed. It is a marvel of production design, cinematography, and atmosphere. It is one of those films that you sit down in a coffee shop after and talk about for hours. It also barely has an actual story.
It took me 4 or 5 times having seen it before I realized, there’s not much actually going on in the story. Detective has to find some androids, he tracks them down one by one, meets their creator, and sees all of them die. Oh, and he might be one too. The end.
Everything else about the movie though is so densely filled, your mind just kind of swims in it and the story becomes purely secondary. Books and books have been written about Blade Runner, so a few sentences on my part aren’t going to do scratch the surface. For me it was the first sci-fi film that didn’t hand everything over to me on a platter. It rewarded deep thinking, pushed ideas with only a few moments of screen time, and has its DNA in the other 4 movies I’m gonna talk about.
12 Monkeys – 1995
Time travel is perhaps one of my favorite subjects in science fiction. It is also prone to paradoxes most scripts can’t handle. What Terry Gilliam does with this movie is introduces the idea that perhaps the time traveler is really just insane and living in his own fantasy. It also becomes a chicken or the egg story; which came first, the time traveler or the event the traveler needs to change?
For those that aren’t familiar, in the future a virus wipes out most of mankind, allowing nature to rule the world once more. Bruce Willis is sent back in time to stop the virus from being released, but upon arrival is put into a mental institution and starts questioning his own sanity. While there he meets Brad Pitt, who may very well be the individual who releases the virus, and who might have gotten the idea from the questionably insane Bruce. Good times, right?
The movie loops back upon itself, and forces you to question what is real and what might not be. It is also one of those films that after you see the end, you want to go back and watch from the beginning to view it from a whole new perspective. Amazingly it is just as rewarding that second time. It is a master thesis on how to tell a time travel story, yet I doubt most twenty somethings have even heard of it.
Gattaca – 1997
The most low tech sci-fi film you probably could come across. It has a look straight out of the Forties, features next to no science fiction gadgetry, and not an action scene to be found. The ideas it puts forth however, are science fiction at its best.
In the future, people select the genetic traits they want their child to have. Illnesses, flaws, weaknesses, are all weeded out before the child is even conceived. From a simple strand of hair, someone’s entire probability of genetic attributes can be looked at. The hero of the story was a natural birth though. He has asthma, a heart defect, needs glasses. Because of this, he can’t even try for his dream of entering the space program of the time. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t had a problem with his heart yet, it’s that there is too great of a percentage chance that he will.
This creates a society where there’s no need to try for greatness, you either are bred for it or you aren’t. He winds up working with and assuming the identity of someone who got in an accident and became paralyzed. His greatness is now completely useless, so why not profit from selling it to someone lesser?
Plenty of films in the sci-fi genre play with the idea of at what point does a cyber enhanced person cease to be a human. This is at what point does genetic manipulation become a defect unto itself. It’s powerful stuff and a must watch.
Dark City – 1998
I can’t even begin to describe the joy this movie made me feel. It has one of the best trailers I had ever seen, selling the movie purely on visuals and not giving a thing away. Going into it fresh like that, trusting it was my kind of movie, paid off in spades. It pushes all my favorite buttons in sci-fi, has a superb story to tell, and such a satisfying ending that for me was pure perfection.
It also came out less than a year before The Matrix. Guess which movie everyone puts on their list, and which one is all but forgotten? Visually it has a lot in common with City of Lost Children, like Blade Runner it has a fully realized world, and like let’s just say it beat The Matrix to the punch on certain thematic elements.
Just writing about it makes me want to watch it right now! There is a longer director’s cut available, but it’s not needed. It’s no better a version, merely fleshes out a few things that do no harm being included but also aren’t necessary. If you’ve seen this, do yourself a favor and watch it again. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor, watch the trailer, and then seek no other info about it. I almost included this title in another grouping of movies that I feel require this same spoiler free approach, but ultimately it fits this category better. I’m only promising you won’t be disappointed.
The Fifth Element – 1997
If ever there was a successor to Blade Runner in terms of influencing sci-fi, this is it for me. It also is one of those movies you either love or hate. There is no middle ground. Director Luc Beson makes a return to my list with this one, and essential viewing it is.
Where Blade Runner depicted a muted color, rainy Los Angeles, Fifth Element presents a hyper colored New York. Similarly, production design, atmosphere, and soundtrack make this film. And that’s where they stop being alike. Comedic, action packed, over the top, and huge in scope, Fifth Element is a sci-fi bonanza. It’s also just straight up weird. There are so many WTF moments, and the granddaddy of them all comes in the shape of an opera. It was this moment I fell wildly in love with it, and at the same time I’d never seen more people walk out of a movie en masse as if that scene was the final straw.
I don’t know that a movie like this could get studio approval to be made today. I think the Wachowskis come close, but original hard core science fiction just seems scary today. Marketing has no idea how to sell it, so they don’t. The marketing for this was simply taking out 2 page full color ads in the newspaper showing a floating cab being blocked by a bunch of floating police cars. It might have mentioned Bruce Willis was in it, I can’t remember. All I know is it is damn good film making and one that deserves a place of more prominence.
Next time, a look at films that put hair on your chest.
OF FICTION AND SCIENCE
I was 5 when Star Wars hit theaters. I fell asleep during it around the same time Alderaan exploded. I didn’t actually get to watch the whole movie until I was 7 or 8, but you wouldn’t have known it by what I knew of it. Thus began my attraction to the Sci-Fi genre.
Search any list, and the obvious will pop up: Empire Strikes Back, 2001, Alien. Older films like Metropolis, War of the Worlds, or even Planet of the Apes will pop up too. The commonality tends to be how much they wind up influencing everything that follows. The films I’m highlighting feature fully realized worlds that hold up no matter how many times you view them. Some are influential to this day, others have been brushed aside. If you want to talk sci-fi with me though, you’d have better seen these.
Blade Runner – 1982
Of my entire list of movies, this is the only one I would fully expect to see on multiple lists. It’s obvious as all get out, but I’ll break my rule for this one film. I’ll put it to you this way; when most top whatever lists come out, Citizen Kane comes out on top more often than not. Film school sheep will parrot from their professors and other film historians all the reasons why it is the greatest movie ever made, and blah, blah, blah. I’ll put Blade Runner toe to toe with that film any day of the week. And I don’t even think it’s the greatest film ever.
This was a box office bomb that got savaged by critics, and then went on to influence virtually every science fiction movie that followed. It is a marvel of production design, cinematography, and atmosphere. It is one of those films that you sit down in a coffee shop after and talk about for hours. It also barely has an actual story.
It took me 4 or 5 times having seen it before I realized, there’s not much actually going on in the story. Detective has to find some androids, he tracks them down one by one, meets their creator, and sees all of them die. Oh, and he might be one too. The end.
Everything else about the movie though is so densely filled, your mind just kind of swims in it and the story becomes purely secondary. Books and books have been written about Blade Runner, so a few sentences on my part aren’t going to do scratch the surface. For me it was the first sci-fi film that didn’t hand everything over to me on a platter. It rewarded deep thinking, pushed ideas with only a few moments of screen time, and has its DNA in the other 4 movies I’m gonna talk about.
12 Monkeys – 1995
Time travel is perhaps one of my favorite subjects in science fiction. It is also prone to paradoxes most scripts can’t handle. What Terry Gilliam does with this movie is introduces the idea that perhaps the time traveler is really just insane and living in his own fantasy. It also becomes a chicken or the egg story; which came first, the time traveler or the event the traveler needs to change?
For those that aren’t familiar, in the future a virus wipes out most of mankind, allowing nature to rule the world once more. Bruce Willis is sent back in time to stop the virus from being released, but upon arrival is put into a mental institution and starts questioning his own sanity. While there he meets Brad Pitt, who may very well be the individual who releases the virus, and who might have gotten the idea from the questionably insane Bruce. Good times, right?
The movie loops back upon itself, and forces you to question what is real and what might not be. It is also one of those films that after you see the end, you want to go back and watch from the beginning to view it from a whole new perspective. Amazingly it is just as rewarding that second time. It is a master thesis on how to tell a time travel story, yet I doubt most twenty somethings have even heard of it.
Gattaca – 1997
The most low tech sci-fi film you probably could come across. It has a look straight out of the Forties, features next to no science fiction gadgetry, and not an action scene to be found. The ideas it puts forth however, are science fiction at its best.
In the future, people select the genetic traits they want their child to have. Illnesses, flaws, weaknesses, are all weeded out before the child is even conceived. From a simple strand of hair, someone’s entire probability of genetic attributes can be looked at. The hero of the story was a natural birth though. He has asthma, a heart defect, needs glasses. Because of this, he can’t even try for his dream of entering the space program of the time. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t had a problem with his heart yet, it’s that there is too great of a percentage chance that he will.
This creates a society where there’s no need to try for greatness, you either are bred for it or you aren’t. He winds up working with and assuming the identity of someone who got in an accident and became paralyzed. His greatness is now completely useless, so why not profit from selling it to someone lesser?
Plenty of films in the sci-fi genre play with the idea of at what point does a cyber enhanced person cease to be a human. This is at what point does genetic manipulation become a defect unto itself. It’s powerful stuff and a must watch.
Dark City – 1998
I can’t even begin to describe the joy this movie made me feel. It has one of the best trailers I had ever seen, selling the movie purely on visuals and not giving a thing away. Going into it fresh like that, trusting it was my kind of movie, paid off in spades. It pushes all my favorite buttons in sci-fi, has a superb story to tell, and such a satisfying ending that for me was pure perfection.
It also came out less than a year before The Matrix. Guess which movie everyone puts on their list, and which one is all but forgotten? Visually it has a lot in common with City of Lost Children, like Blade Runner it has a fully realized world, and like let’s just say it beat The Matrix to the punch on certain thematic elements.
Just writing about it makes me want to watch it right now! There is a longer director’s cut available, but it’s not needed. It’s no better a version, merely fleshes out a few things that do no harm being included but also aren’t necessary. If you’ve seen this, do yourself a favor and watch it again. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor, watch the trailer, and then seek no other info about it. I almost included this title in another grouping of movies that I feel require this same spoiler free approach, but ultimately it fits this category better. I’m only promising you won’t be disappointed.
The Fifth Element – 1997
If ever there was a successor to Blade Runner in terms of influencing sci-fi, this is it for me. It also is one of those movies you either love or hate. There is no middle ground. Director Luc Beson makes a return to my list with this one, and essential viewing it is.
Where Blade Runner depicted a muted color, rainy Los Angeles, Fifth Element presents a hyper colored New York. Similarly, production design, atmosphere, and soundtrack make this film. And that’s where they stop being alike. Comedic, action packed, over the top, and huge in scope, Fifth Element is a sci-fi bonanza. It’s also just straight up weird. There are so many WTF moments, and the granddaddy of them all comes in the shape of an opera. It was this moment I fell wildly in love with it, and at the same time I’d never seen more people walk out of a movie en masse as if that scene was the final straw.
I don’t know that a movie like this could get studio approval to be made today. I think the Wachowskis come close, but original hard core science fiction just seems scary today. Marketing has no idea how to sell it, so they don’t. The marketing for this was simply taking out 2 page full color ads in the newspaper showing a floating cab being blocked by a bunch of floating police cars. It might have mentioned Bruce Willis was in it, I can’t remember. All I know is it is damn good film making and one that deserves a place of more prominence.
Next time, a look at films that put hair on your chest.
